The Satisfied Life :: Isaiah 55:1-9

Have you noticed how dissatisfied the world is around you? Or is it just me? 

Dissatisfaction is swallowing the world whole. It expresses itself prominently in our news feeds. We don’t have enough, the world says. We need a better social network. We need a better environment. We need bigger and better infrastructure. We long for something more satisfying, with more promise, more prosperity, more freedom, more liberty, more justice. 

Politicians have gotten themselves elected by promising to satisfy us. They gave us the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, the War on Poverty. They promise to satisfy our hopes and to make America great. They promise to satisfy your every whim. ... And we are still dissatisfied. Do we ever have enough?

Truth be told, you can’t work hard enough or long enough to achieve the satisfaction the world hungers for. You can’t fly high enough or float on a boat long enough. There is no science, no medicine, no education that will finally satisfy. We can’t get paid enough. We can’t build enough. We hunger ... so we eat. We thirst ... so we drink. We’re constantly seeking satisfaction. 

So brothers and sisters in Christ, what are we to do? 

To whom are we to turn? Where are we to go? How soon can we find satisfaction? 

Well, today, you’ve come to the right place at the right time. Today, you can hear and see the truth. Your quest for satisfaction is underlying all of our readings ... most notably, from Isaiah 55. Today, YHWH, your God, has come to satisfy. Listen!

Hoy, all (who are) thirsty! He declares in Isaiah. Come to the waters! Whoever doesn’t have money: Come, buy grain and eat! Come without silver, and buy wine and milk without price. Why weigh out silver for that which isn’t bread? Why toil for that which doesn’t satiate? Listen carefully to me, and eat the good things; your being will take exquisite delight in abundance. Stretch out your ear, and come to me. Listen, and let your being live (vv. 1-3a). 

This is pure Gospel. So ... pay attention, you who are dying of thirst ... 

IT’S TIME TO SEEK YHWH AND HIS WAYS: HE WILL SATISFY

This invitation through the prophet Isaiah has been falling on deaf ears for too long. I pray that you were listening because what we just learned is ... 

I. First, the best things in life are free: He will satisfy. 

Second, the satisfied life is in Christ’s eternal kingdom. And third, the satisfied life will be the envy of the world. There is nothing ... and I mean absolutely nothing ... that you can do to earn or achieve the best things in life. YHWH has paid the price for you. He is giving you the satisfaction of bearing his fruit, to celebrate at his feast. Our Lord Jesus Christ has drawn near to you, the Word of God in the Flesh, to satisfy all the demands of the law. The result is that you can now find the satisfied life in his eternal kingdom. 

And the world doesn’t like it one bit. The unregenerate and unbelieving world around you will not accept this truth, nor can it. Nothing good is free, your world says. I must satisfy myself. You have to work harder and longer to satisfy your heart’s desire. You have to name it and claim it. You have to dedicate and rededicate yourself. You have to do good works to earn your place in the world. The best always has a price! That’s what the world will tell you. 

But today, Isaiah is here to tell you something different. 

Listen, the prophet says: the world doesn’t know what it’s talking about. We can’t satisfy ourselves. Apart from Christ, we are nothing but wicked, unbelievers who continue to forsake the way of the Lord and who continue to embrace our own self-interests, adulteries, and idolatries in our own quests to satisfy ourselves. But God has made satisfaction for you. On account of this, he has enabled the ungodly (to) abandon his way. And the man of iniquity (to abandon) his thoughts [intents and plans]. He can now return to YHWH. Because when you come, YHWH will have compassion on you, and ... he will cause pardon to multiply (v. 7). 

In other words, brothers and sisters in Christ .... Repent. Stop trying to make yourselves righteous, as if you really could. God longs to give you his satisfaction. He longs to deliver you from your fears and uncertainties, and satisfy you fully with the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. He longs to do this not only today, but every time we meet. He longs for you to hear his word of peace, to hear his word of pardon. He longs for you to be confident, having courage, knowing that through him, Your sins are forgiven (Mt 9:5).

And that he ... makes that ... possible ... here. Now you can come and receive ... 

II. The satisfied life in Christ’s eternal kingdom. 

Here he is revealing that eternal kingdom to you through his divine service for you. This is where he satisfies you. The unregenerate and unbelieving world does not accept what I am saying from God. They have determined to worship God their way. They want no part of free forgiveness. They would rather be lawless, living life their way, on their terms. 

But you are not the unregenerate and unbelieving, are you? You do, in fact, have faith in Christ, don’t you? Here, through his divine service, you have returned to your baptism ... confessed your sins ... received absolution, and are now longing to receive the feast of forgiveness that awaits. These means of grace ... provided only by our Lord ... satisfy our lives in ways we can’t even begin to understand or comprehend. This is what he means when he says his ways and thoughts are higher than our thoughts and ways (vv. 8-9). They are mysteries beyond comprehension: They make us whole, leading us into Christ’s eternal kingdom, where the inheritance he prepared for us awaits: the satisfied life found only in our relationship with God himself. This is his work. He has provided the means to achieve the goal. 

The water YHWH is offering are the waters flowing from paradise. These are the waters of our baptism, the water mixed with God’s word and command which renews, restores, satisfies. Jesus told us about these waters when he spoke to the woman at the well in Samaria. There, he said, Whoever drinks out of the water that I ... I (alone) ... will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that (he gives) will become ... a spring of water welling up to eternal life (Jn 4:14). That’s because God’s water and word satisfies the soul of the sinner who knows he is unworthy of God’s goodness and every blessing ... whose sins trouble his conscience and lead him to private confession ... where God immediately declares those sins forgiven. 

Why do we try to satisfy ourselves? Instead, Come to the waters of the Gospel ... that good news that satisfies our conscience as God proclaims his promises to us that give us faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, who drew near to us to hunger and thirst for us in ways that the world has never known. He suffered and died for us on a cross so that our sins would be buried with him and never be heard from again. More than that, through the water of the Gospel he raises us into the eternal life that we are beginning to enjoy now, the eternal life in his divine service to us.

The same is true of the wine and the milk that the Lord provides. These gifts represent the best things: pleasant, rich, satisfying food that the Lord provides ... food that never perishes and always nourishes. God isn’t stingy in providing the richness of wine and milk. It is part of a feast of forgiveness, the Lord’s Supper, the marriage feast of the Lamb in his kingdom, which has no end and to which you have been invited. 

Wouldn’t it be awesome to receive this means every time we meet? 

III Here, we discover the satisfied life is the envy of the world.

In baptism, our Lord found you in the street and clothed with the robes of righteousness that make you worthy to dine here. Won’t you now come as often as we can ... heeding to Lord to seek YHWH where he is to be found and to call him when he is near (v. 6). 

That is exactly what is happening now. Your Lord Jesus continues to draw near to you today. He continues to keep his eternal covenant with you. The mercy, the peace, the comfort, the satisfying water, milk, bread, and wine is always available to you ... to satisfy you. 

Sadly, there is no satisfaction for those who don’t desire this meal. Those who think they have no guilt ... those who don’t care what God thinks of their lives ... those who suppose God will overlook their wicked deeds and reward them for their good deeds ... those who think they do well enough to satisfy themselves ... they will all face terrible disappointment and dissatisfaction when they finally realize their own clothes were in fact dirty rags.

The apostle Paul knew this. In his first epistle to Ephesians, Paul wrote: Therefore, look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the most of time because the days are evil. On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is (5:15-17). 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, you know God’s will for you. You have heard it proclaimed over and over. His will is for you to live the satisfied life in his care. All of you who seek YHWH can rest assured that you will find him where he promises to be, in his word and sacraments. In light of YHWH’s advent as Shepherd and his return to Zion, he invites you to seek him where he dwells forever: in Jesus, the Suffering Servant who lived for you, died for you, rose for you, ascended for you and is preparing a place for you. He is present in his enduring and efficacious Word and Sacraments. Those who seek him in scripture, baptism, and the Lord’s supper do find him. And he gives you the satisfied life ... in Jesus’ name.