God’s Grace Abounding to Repentant Sinners

God’s grace abounding to repentant sinners

Isaiah 55:1-12

INTRO: The ‘Servant of Jehovah’ will die in order to redeem elect Gentiles as well as elect Jews. Our chapter begins with where the lost and the backslidden are stuck.

I. How strong is your hunger and thirst (v. 1)?

Content in the world?? Where God is going to give grace, He first gives thirst. His Spirit breaks up the fallow, apathetic ground in the soul in preparation to receive the good seed of the gospel. The immediate question of application in this verse is: how important is God’s favor to you? Are you toiling under a weighty sense of your sin? (Mt 11: Are you truly longing to know where you stand with God? Those being prepared for grace have to know, and those who have tasted God’s grace do know.

Notice in verse one that these ‘spiritual staples of life’ (wine and milk) are bestowed out of God’s own generosity (‘without money, without cost’) (Rev 22:17; 3:17-18). Oh, that is so significant—the living, healing waters are offered on Christ’s terms—they are free—He makes the recipients of these gifts to be objects of mercy, compassion, and pity. (EX. Mike the injured neighbor, tool box on face. ‘Salvation a gift of grace, that means to receive it as a gift is to owe all to God, and thus, in receiving such a priceless gift is to be called to a life of gratitude and obedience.’ Mike, ‘you got that right!’.).

The grace He gives transforms the lives of those who receive it. God made the infinite purchase, paying all the cost through His Son, now He is glorifying His grace in bestowing it freely on whomsoever He will. Those who thirst will find their all and all in Christ—He will outdo their expectations. “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink” ‘He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water’” (Jn 7:37-38).

II. The problem with ‘fake’ bread (v. 2).

A ‘soul food’ analogy. Isaiah’s listeners were living on substitute bread, and not the Lord who is our true bread (Jn 6:32-35, 51). ‘Bogus bread’ is not able to nourish. It’s like a man dreaming he is eating and then he wakes up famished. The world’s ‘marketplace’ has nothing for your soul to eat, not a crumb. And, the problem with fake bread is that is draws upon, or costs your time, talent, resources, and affections— which is why our text says, “why do you spend your wages for what does not satisfy?” You work so hard for the bread that perishes, you need the bread that gives eternal life (Jn 6:27). Don’t hesitate to receive this feast of provision for your souls.

III. The urgent call to receive spiritual nourishment without cost (vv. 4-5).

How we must listen diligently to this offer, pour over its words with patience, for our Savior has said that the words He has spoken are spirit and are life (Jn 6:63). It is unspeakable kindness to your own soul to comply with this offer. For, the Lord is offering covenant mercies that are perfectly suited to your miseries. Christ is the Mediator of the treasures He has purchased—the Mediator of the New Covenant. He dispenses that grace, and there is nothing we can do to merit this gift of God. God is willing to receive us on gospel terms of faith and repentance.

Remember, we saw earlier in the book of Isaiah that the covenant the believer has with God is Christ Himself—Christ is our covenant (Is 42:6; 49:8). It is His perfect obedience and perfect sacrifice on our behalf that is the foundation of our unchanging right-standing with God. We rest on Christ, our ‘continent’ of rock.

And, the ‘faithful mercies’ shown to David are a model of what is promised to the believer. “Just as David also speaks of the blessing on the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: ‘Blessed are those whose lawless deeds have been forgiven, and whose sins have been covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will not take into account” (Rom 4:6-8). Let the proud heart stoop in order to receive freely, why oppose yourself? Your weariness under sin’s heavy yoke is your only ‘qualification’ (Mt 11:28-30).

How amazing that repeated human failure could not destroy the eternal rule of Christ, who would be born a descendent of David, born 1000 years after this famous king (Davidic Covenant, 2 Sam 7). For, Christ covers the failings of His subjects. God’s love for believing sinners is guaranteed by His Son who has full eternal approval.

In speaking of the eternal covenant of redemption made between the Father and the Son, let me paraphrase the words of 17ᵗʰ C. Puritan, John Flavel: the Father to the Son, “the people I am giving to you have undone themselves, and are exposed to my justice which must be satisfied. They will perish forever unless their debt is satisfied.” The Son of God replies: “I will become their surety; I will suffer the wrath that they deserve to suffer; I will assume their debt and pay it all.” “My Son, I will not spare You if You undertake this.” The Son replies, “charge it all to Me, though it make Me poor, I am content to undertake it.” (See Isaiah 53 on substitution.)

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich” (2 Cor 8:9). Our salvation flows from a decision made in eternity past in which Christ was decreed to be Savior. “He promised [the gospel] beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake, among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ” (Rom 1:2-6).

God makes Himself known, discloses Himself within the safety of a covenant. Those who know Him through gospel faith, He meets in fellowship. The gospel reveals God by communicating what God has done with sins of believers: “For I will be merciful to their iniquities and their sins I will remember no more” (Heb 8:12).

Think of it: the work of redemption which the Father appointed Christ to complete has been welded into a covenant—and so much so that the shed blood of Christ forms the very terms of the new covenant. This is why believers are safe and going to heaven. It is because Christ, their covenant Head, is answering for their sins in His own Person. Therefore, this covenant made in Christ’s blood is the rock solid, sure foundation that the believer’s love relation with God cannot be lost

This covenant in Christ’s blood answers the question: how can such imperfect, but forgiven sinners, who still at times commit sins, have full assurance that God’s favor and acceptance will not change? (See 1 John 2:1-2; Romans 8:31-34). (Note the promise in Psalm 110:4 of endless perfect representation.)

In the O.T. Levitical system of worship, the concept of a suffering, dying substitute was continually taught (the practice of which anticipated the coming of the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world—John 1:29.) In the Levitical system, it was the Law identifying specific transgressions, then the worshipper laying his hands on the head of a lamb and confessing his sin, then the slaying and shedding the blood of the lamb, then the granting of forgiveness. This provision of a guilt-transfer was driven into the consciousness of believing Jews: without the shedding of blood there is no remission/forgiveness of sin (Lev 17:11, 14; Heb 9:22).

Are you sick of your ‘poison puddle water’ (cisterns)? Are you ready for the water of life? You may obtain it without money, and without cost. EX. Lance Garay’s story of the RCC ‘store’ and the things I had to earn, versus the purchase of Christ.

In verses 4-5, we see that those who receive this super-abounding grace of God are not ‘end-users’. God will use Israel to call Gentiles (Acts 20:21). They (believers) act as lights, and are appointed to bring the message of God’s free grace to others.

IV. Receiving true bread requires repentance in acting/thinking (vv. 6-10).

A. The command to seek diligently while He is near (v. 6). To seek is to be devoted to it; to stop dawdling. Seeking is a whole-life, realignment to Christ as source Person—He is not distant and not unwilling to receive you, but you must come closer; still nearer—near enough to have your heart searched, your sin identified—knowing what to repent of. You will find a pardoning God.

The gospel calls for an urgent response. In the dinner/banquet parable of Jesus in Luke 14:15-24, all of the middle and upper class guests made excuses for not attending (no sense of need). Go to the poor, the blind, the disabled, and compel them to come in—that my house may be filled! The door is still open wide now, but it will close. Mercy is offered now, but judgment is coming without mercy.

B. The necessity of repentance (v. 7). To repent is to break off from evil practices and thoughts. Leave the broken cisterns of our carnal appetites for living water, for God is a fountain of life (Jer 2:13). Admit we are sinners who have offended a holy God. We are called to reject our self-will, and the treaty we have with sin, which has allowed us to tolerate it. For, we have exalted ourselves and trivialized God.

Therefore, to repent is to say the same thing about our sin as God does— especially what it deserves. We are to repent of powerless, sentimental, Sunday religion that poses no threat to our lusts/sins, or to the powers of darkness. God is calling for a complete overhaul in which we consciously place ourselves under His scrutiny, “Lord examine me” (Ps 139:23-24). That is the very opposite of an unsanctified heart sheltering itself (from the holy light of God’s gaze).

C. The promise of pardoning grace (v. 7). We are to repent with a view to believing the promise that He will not deal with us as our sins deserve. For, He will have mercy/compassion, and will abundantly pardon. He will make us objects of mercy. Though our sins have been very great, and our backslidings frequent, and we are still prone to offend, He will welcome back His children who return to Him in sincerity. We are to leverage all the weight of our souls upon this promise of His gracious invitation.

D. The thoughts of God are not our thoughts (vv. 8-9). Repentance is not only a change of actions, it is a radical change in our thinking. God’s counsels, or ‘thoughts’ are infinitely above ours. Sinners are prone to reason that if their hearts have been in such a lengthy state of NOT desiring to be reconciled to God, why would He desire our reconciliation? But, our text says, forsake your thoughts—not only your wicked imaginations, but also your doubts that God will pardon, and fully receive you.

Our text bids us to seek and to repent (v. 6), the only believing response to this unending wealth of grace is to: 1) part with the sin and fleshly lusts which oppose your souls (1 Pet 2:11). 2) part with all opinions of our own righteousness which stand in competition with the righteousness of Christ (and thus oppose the grace of God).

Christ is the Mediator of what He has purchased. He will receive sinners, even the worst—but He only receives sinners on gospel terms (through repentance and faith). Christ dispenses the grace that He has purchased and won by His obedience. He outdoes our expectations. He has a disposition to give. And, again, wonder of wonders—He receives the church as His reward. Again a thought of God that is not our thought. “If God is all grace and love, then I am fine.” Don’t make that mistake.

God meets returning sinners with overflowing pardoning mercy. These are not our thoughts, but His thoughts. This is why there is such urgency in repentance. It is because there is such a gap between God’s thoughts and ours. Our intuitions about things are too conditioned by our fears, And, as a result, we have small expectations about God’s grace. The fact that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts is in our highest possible interest. This is because God has made the rescue of sinners the highest possible expression of His glory. The recovery of His own perfect image in man through Christ, His Son, is infinitely dear to His own heart (see Jn 17:22-26).

There are many ways that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts: 1) He quenches His own wrath against sin in the work of Christ, our Substitute. 2) In order to do so, Christ the Judge and Lawgiver, removes His judicial robes, and clothes Himself in human flesh that He might become sacrificing Priest—both offeror and offering. He gives His flesh for the life of the world (Jn 6:48-58). 3) So fully does He substitute Himself for His people that by His work on their behalf, He cleanses them, declares them righteous, clothes them in His own righteousness, reconciles them to God, and adopts them as His own children.

None of those thoughts are our thoughts; we could not have conceived of them on our own. But now, even as believers who have the Word of God, we find these grace truths difficult to comprehend. How can God, who punishes impenitent unbelievers so severely, without mercy in the lake of fire forever—how can He forgive and welcome the repenting sinner/believer so freely? The apostle Paul opens this up in Romans chapter five (v. 11): “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Rom 5:11).

The Son of God took on our sin debt while we were defiled, hostile to God’s holy character, while were immersed in our idolatry. We were in that state when Christ died for us. God made a purchase of infinite cost, and He takes great pleasure in bestowing the wealth of grace that He has purchased upon undeserving sinners. How we need to feed upon these truths every day, for His thoughts are not our thoughts. Is it any wonder that our Isaiah text bids us to incline our ear and come (v. 3)? Pour over the words of Christ diligently—pray for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him (Eph 1:17-18ff.). Christ’s words are ‘spirit and life’ for the sin-weary, for those toiling under the weight of their enslaving lusts, for the dying (Jn 6:63).

This is all counter-intuitive, we don’t tend to reason in this manner that His mercies are perfectly suited to our miseries. But, indeed they are—our Savior meets our ruin with His redemption. He brings cleansing for the polluted; covering for the naked; purity for the impure; reconciliation for the alienated; adoption for those orphaned by their sin. Now, these treasures are not passing feelings or moods, like a wispy clouds which may evaporate. No, these are concrete blessings found in Christ. They are resident in Him and bestowed upon those who are in union with Him. Think of it, not one of these blessings is a free-floating spiritual commodity. They are found in, and flow from, our immutable Savior who is our Fountain of life.

Pardon, righteousness, sonship, and favor are the believer’s promised possessions because they are ‘deeded’ to the believer in an unbreakable covenant. When Christ came to earth, He inaugurated the eternal covenant of grace by signing it in His own blood. That is expressed in the benediction of the book of Hebrews: “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (Heb 13:20-21).

The logic of divine grace does not compute with us, and realizing that really humbles us. God’s sentiments about reconciliation are so different than ours. He invites sinners to return to Him by giving us such lucid and brilliant views of His generous, welcoming heart (Jer 31:20). Jesus reveals this in ways that move us to tears as we read the story of the Prodigal Son. In Isaiah we saw, “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Is 43:25). How can He forget our sins when we do not? Can it be true? Does God forgive the penitent this freely?

V. God’s Word; a promise of comprehensive life (vv. 11-12).

The promises of mercy and grace in the gospel shall have as real an effect upon the souls of believers, for their sanctification and comfort as the rain on the earth— making it fruitful. The gift of everlasting life fulfills the glorious purpose of God to share His life with His people. His delight in bestowing life makes us more than conquerors. It is through His Word that God will bring His saving purposes to fulfillment. By His promises, He urges us on to run the race set before us with endurance.

In Romans 8:17-22, we discover something remarkable. God has synchronized the public revealing of the sons of God with the renewal of the entire creation. The renewed creation will be enjoyed by a renewed humanity—and over all will be Christ the Lord ruling and reigning. This massive salvation, extending to the cosmos—in which the curse is reversed—displays who God is.

The Word of God is the divine testimony concerning the Son of God. “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (Jn 5:24).

Conclusion:

God ‘wills to be known’. His self-revelation provides a saving knowledge of Himself in the form of a covenant. ‘God wills to be known’ means that He has a particular way of revealing who He is. It is through the satisfaction of His unchanging standard of righteousness through a Substitute He has appointed. There is no other way the favor of our holy God can be known; it is by a covenant He makes with believing sinners through this work of a Substitute.

God’s self-revelation is needed, for we never would had envisioned the biblical plan of salvation on our own. For, it is not inherent in our reasoning to embrace the paradoxes which accompany God’s plan of salvation. In other words, it is a wonderful, paradox that in order to remove the guilt of our transgressions, the eternal Son of God became a man in order to bear the penalty of our sin. This is why the gospel able to fully answer man’s greatest dilemma: how can the unrighteous be right with God’s absolute righteousness? It is through the perfect work of a Substitute. As one theologian declared: “man’s greatest need, is God’s greatest deed.”

God’s grace is not leniency, His grace is poured out because of the satisfaction He has made of His unchanging standard of righteousness, through the work of the perfect Substitute He has appointed. “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? For this reason He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance” (Heb 9:11-15).

So central to the theme of salvation in Scripture is this: the divine remedy refused exposes the reprobate to eternal wrath. Remedy refused is wrath. “For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard” (Heb 2:1-3).

We have a hard time reconciling the unbending justice of God with the lovingkindness and mercy of God. But, the immensity of God’s love is witnessed in His purpose of the ages to send His only begotten Son to pay the debt of all who would ever believe. That doctrinal truth may roll off of our orthodox tongues, but like the apostle Paul, we stand in utter amazement that He died for us while we were yet enemies (Rom 5:10).

Though idolatrous Judah at the time of Jeremiah would suffer God’s crushing vengeance and retribution, there would be remnant by grace. And the Lord held out to His covenant people the offer of His free grace and forgiveness if they would but repent of their idolatry (see Isaiah 30:18; 43:25; 44:22; 55:7).

ADDENDUM on grace-driven living: God is calling us to repentance from sin, through the offer of His grace. But, we tend to hear everything through the filter of be good, try harder. And, in the process, the logic of divine grace can be foreign to us. After all, why would God wish to love on me, pouring out His boundless wealth of grace on me, why sometimes I don’t even like myself? It is so easy to lose a focused sight and grasp of God’s grace abounding to undeserving sinners. For, even the call to repentance tends to be viewed from a vantage point of law and not grace—as if we repent of sin in order to qualify ourselves for God, in reality we repent because, God in Christ qualifies us for His gracious love.

The wonder of God’s grace is that by the work of Christ, removes the sin (and its legal guilt) which has separated us from the experience and power of divine love. We do not repent in order to qualify ourselves for God’s love, we repent because of God’s love. We repent of our life of misplaced treasure—of treating created things as treasure, and of rejecting Christ, the true treasure. What a test this is. For, Christ has said that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Mt 6:21). Thus, we might say, your greatest pleasure is a faithful measure of your actual treasure.

In Luther’s wonderful commentary on the book of Galatians, he speaks of the law and gospel as vying for a place of dominance in the conscience. Luther notes that when the gospel is on the throne of conscience, Christ is on the throne of conscience. But, Luther states that when the Law attempts to crawl back up and sit on the throne of conscience, that is when you must cling to the promises of the gospel.

Don’t get me wrong, obedience to the moral law is the shape of holiness, for it says in Romans chapter 13 that ‘he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law’ (v. 8). But, the law is not how we enjoy the peace, joy, comfort, and hope that the Spirit imparts through the gospel of Christ. The debts of conscience are not settled by the law, they are settled by the blood of Christ (shed for us and set forth in the gospel).

No doubt, countless believers are unaware of this inner battle for the gospel’s rule and reign on the throne of conscience (they just listen to themselves instead of preaching the gospel to themselves). And, as one pastor has described the situation: Christians need to get the gospel, the grace of God into the ‘unredeemed parts of their souls’. Now, I appreciate what he means. He is not saying that Christ does not redeem the whole man. What he is saying is that we stay stuck in a personal prison of conscience so to speak, because we try to manage portions of our inner life by the accusations of the law, and not by the liberating truths of the gospel.

It is no coincidence that the majority of genuine revivals have occurred in connection with the preaching of the message of the book of Galatians, a NT epistle known as the ‘charter of Christian liberty’. My friends, the freeness of God’s grace is scandalous to the natural mind. For, it can look like a license to sin (even though it is the opposite). In terms of the false assumptions people make, here is a graphic example I experienced: EX. I was discipling two men through the Gospel of John. One day we saw two Mormon missionaries doing their proselytizing on a young man on the basketball court. We walked over and joined the conversation. And, by setting up a contrast between law and grace, we were able to expose the Mormon plan of salvation as a thinly disguised ‘works salvation’ scheme.

As we spoke of the freeness of grace purchased by Christ, one of the Mormons said something that shocked us: “If I believed what you believe about the freeness of God’s grace, there would be nothing stopping me from robbing a bank or engaging in any other sins.” Do you see the problem? Because these men were not regenerate, they did not understand the grace of God in the gospel, namely that Christ fulfilled the law perfectly for us, and bore our sins so that we could receive His holy love and be transformed by it. And, thus be liberated from the slavery to sin.

The consistent, reception of Christ’s perfect love casts out the fears which plague us. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us” (1 Jn 4:18-19).

EX. Jason H. a friend whom I have discipled over the years admits that he is a compulsive, somewhat perfectionistic person. He came to me a couple of years ago grieving that when he comes home from work, he often snaps at his wife and kids. He was getting really frustrated with his own behavior, and mentioned that increasing his Bible and prayer time had not helped the situation. As we sat over coffee, I asked him, “Are you seeking to excel at receiving Christ’s love?” His eyes immediately welled up with tears, “No, that is not even on my radar,” he admitted. So, together, we went over 1 John 4:18-19. To excel at receiving Christ’s love is a function of ongoing gospel faith is what enables us to practice ‘reflexive love’. Reflexive love means receiving Gods love which enables us to love God and others (v. 19).

Consenting to keep on receiving the Lord’s overflowing grace and love goes against our instinctive religious reasoning. By nature we are so locked into an equation of performance and achievement, that when the gospel calls us to step off of that treadmill, we have trouble doing so. “I am the sum total of what I do” tends to be how we define ourselves. Whereas the gospel says to believers in its message of justification and adoption, you are becoming as you are graciously regarded, for your

Heavenly Father never stops contemplating you in Christ.

Therefore, ‘consenting’ to be loved by the Lord for no good reason in ourselves is the essence of grace-driven living. I am (in terms of my identity) as I am regarded in Christ (a major theme in Ephesians). Now, if you only listen to yourself, rather than speaking the gospel to yourself, you won’t enjoy the liberty promised in the book of Galatians. This is why a conscious effort is needed in order to have these regular ‘grace awakenings’ which re-calibrate me to the gospel.

EX. my old surfing buddy has done quite well for himself in his career. And, one of his ‘toys’ is a yacht. He spends a few thousand dollars a year just paying scuba divers to clean the barnacles off the hull of his boat. Imagine pulling the throttle back with 5 years of barnacles attached to the hull. The drag on the boat would be substantial (imagine pulling through sea, wall to wall clumps and streamers of sea life).

Our souls need a regular ‘barnacle cleaning’ by means of the gospel. For, inner accusations, recriminations, and legal reasonings build up on our souls, and we are not free to be responsive to Christ’s love. He desires to touch the ‘piano keys’ of our hearts with His love and grace and have a response on our part, of distinctive notes of love and praise in return. But, a conscience distracted by depression, uncertainty, doubt, guilt, despondency, and fear is not a very available musical instrument—doesn’t give clear notes of praise and fellowship.