Look at the people who flocked to Jesus!  People caught in adultery experienced a fresh start.  People who were known for being corrupt were given another chance.  There is no one who is beyond the forgiveness and restoring grace of Jesus.  Seek the Lord while he may be found … let him return that the Lord may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

‘Our world is a vast marketplace of unsatisfying but costly remedies for our God-shaped longings.  But we are not very smart shoppers’ (Ray Ortland).

‘You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you’ (Augustine).

‘I can’t get no satisfaction’ (Mick Jagger).

1. Come and Listen (1-3)

Into our emptiness God invites us: ‘Come, everyone who thirsts.  Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come buy and eat!  Come buy wine and milk without money and without price’ (Isiah 55:1).

What is being offered here?  Wine, bread, rich food and an everlasting covenant. 

What is an everlasting covenant?  It is a solemn promise and commitment made by God.  The covenant God refers to here is the fact that God wants to take us and make us the objects of His infinite Fatherly love.  ‘I will give you all the love I promised David’ (N.L.T. verse 3).  He offers this to everyone!

It is interesting that Jesus takes these themes and uses them for Himself.  He says, ‘I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall not thirst’ (John 6:35).

My friend Georgina recently read a little book called ‘The Heart of Christ’.  It has transformed her life.  She read it twice in one week, and then she told me, ‘in my forty-seven years in this world no-one ever told me that God actually loved me.’

Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls’ (Matthew 11:28).

 2.  Look and Return (4-5)

He talks about the great Old Testament king, King David, and then he says, Behold, you [David] shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that you did not know shall turn to you (5). 

The people that Isaiah was speaking to knew that King David was dead.  But Isaiah is preparing them for a new king like David.  A better king.  We know that this Son of David is Jesus.

Again, notice the wideness of his invitation.  A nation you did not know shall return to you.

The first church I did pastoral ministry in was Dungannon Methodist Church.

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