Isaiah 55 and the Sower

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0:00 We're working through, we're using the Lexinary as an anchor for us this year. And the Lexinary, I don't, actually I should like find the etymology of that word, I don't really know how it comes about. But what it means for us is there's an order of text that the church has outlined for the whole year that we follow and it falls into seasons and so we're actually walking right up to the season of Lent which will have its own sign text which will start on Ask Wednesday which is like,

0:32 feel like the first week of March, almost into Lent. But the Lexinary signs readings in it and it assigns a song for every week, that's what the same as Sue Red for us is our call to worship, has an Old Testament, a New Testament, a Gospel reading. And where I want to start today is the Old Testament reading. It's in Isaiah chapter 55. Go to Isaiah, anytime somebody assigns a text from Isaiah,

1:05 especially the church, you got to get ready because Isaiah says some really beautiful things. Isaiah is maybe one of the biggest, it's the second largest book in the Bible. Jeremiah is probably the longest book in the Bible. Isaiah is maybe the second longest prophet and he prophesies over a long period of time so he has some really harsh words for Israel, then some really comforting stories from God for Israel under the

1:39 servant songs and a couple of other things. Isaiah chapter 55 is the section that we have today and there's several good little sections in here but we're going to discipline ourselves to look at the one that they gave us which comes from chapter or verse 10 in Isaiah chapter 55. And Isaiah is telling Israel that eventually good things will come, he's saying. He's been spending time saying the judgment of God is coming,

2:11 but he's saying eventually good things will come and here in in verse 10 we can see why he starts to talk about that. He says, for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, I'm at this interesting place with our middle schoolers where they're bringing back things that I learned and

2:43 kind of just forgot, you know. Not that I forgot the water cycle but I forgot how cool it was, the kids came, I can't remember which one came home the other day and said, do you know that all the water that we have is here already and just cycles around over and over again? And I was thinking about how mind-blowing that is, you know. That like that sometimes at some point as God is separating the land from the waters, he made sure there was just enough

3:19 and he closed the system so that that stuff would just keep going through a cycle over and over. I mean that's like mind-blowing so Isaiah I'm sure doesn't have the whole notion of the water cycle in mind but he knows that when the rain comes down or the snow comes down, it doesn't just like come down to the ground and then just go right back up the way that it came. Right? He's saying that when the rains come down or the snow comes down, it comes down for a purpose

3:53 and the rains and the snow come down according to some will we don't know or understand but come according to some prerogative or decision and when they come they come for a purpose and they land and then they go about accomplishing that purpose. Right? And it would be interesting to explain to Isaiah the water cycle and see how much of it he had in his mind. Like you know the prophets, I think sometimes

4:26 that the prophets are speaking in their own words. You can tell that Jeremiah's voice is different from Isaiah's and so part of me wonders like did Isaiah get a dictation of his prophecy? If you have a sense that he's translating into words to us and so I wonder like if we describe the water cycle to him, would Isaiah get it? He'd be like, I asked what I saw, the water cycle. Right? For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth making it bring forth and sprout giving speed to the

4:59 sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. They'll not return to me empty but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the things for which I sentence. This thing that we this concept that we translate as word

5:29 like really dynamic in the story of scripture. God whether it's an image or a dictation or an emotion, he communicates this idea to Isaiah and Isaiah puts it down in words, announces it out into the world and some scribe writes it down and preserves it and brings it forward to us and in it is this notion that God is dispatching

6:03 word like water and snow for a purpose. It's not some boomerang that goes out from God and comes back but the word of God goes out and then seeps in and settles down and moves about unseen and unnoticed often accomplishing purpose. Remember the concept of word God when God in God's infinite wisdom and prerogative decides to create.

6:38 Don't know why other than just God wanted to. The vehicle through which God creates is the word of God. God speaks and there's light and separates and there's land and sea, day and night, earth and sky all forth plants and animals. The word of God from the beginning is this generative force of God in the world. One of my favorite sections in the Systematic

7:11 class was when we started talking about in what sense do we understand God as triune or in three persons and what we talked about there is the best way to try and understand who the God of Abraham is, you can take up the God of creation and life, the God of Christ in the church. The best way to try to understand who this God is is to look at what this God does. Rather than abstract our own kind of philosophical categories about what divinity is and read it

7:46 into the story of Scripture, let's look at the story. What God has done throughout the history of the world amongst our people and extrapolate from that a notion of who the God is and what you see when you look at that is that there is God the Father in God's infinite wisdom and prerogative dispatching God the Son, the Word of God and God the Spirit out into the world to accomplish God's purposes. When you look at the story of Scripture consistently this is happening over and over again right from creation through the prophet right through John the Baptist and finally

8:24 in the person of the Christ and it's compelling because it seems like Jesus, John tells us is the endless Word of God the the prerogative and action of God embodied in humanity right divinely conceived and born into the world as human and divine but what I love is the way that these are healed so often. I love that when he when he wants to get Lazarus up out of the grave

8:59 he doesn't push the stone aside walk in and pick him up and stand him up and unwrap the grave closed he stands outside and with his announcement at the Word of the Christ death leaves the body of Lazarus and life re-enters he's animated again gets up walks out on his own then sits down

9:29 and eats with the Christ and his sisters. The Word of God all throughout the story of Scripture is this generative force in the world this fact according to the will and prerogative of God the Father to accomplish the purposes of the God and Isaiah says that the purposes of the God will not be thwarted but the Word of God accomplishes the will of God in the world so shall

10:09 my word be that goes out to my mouth it shall not return to me empty but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it verse 12 for you shall go out in joy and be led forth in the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing and all the trees in the field shall clap their hands that of a thorn shall come up to

10:46 Cyprus and the briars shall come up to Myrtle and it shall make a name for the Lord an everlasting sign that shall not be prophets are beautiful they have an immediate or near term an intermediate term a proleptic term in Christ and an ultimate fulfillment in the end. Those scholars think that when Isaiah gets this image or this picture or this emotion or this dictation from the God about the

11:17 word to speak to his people the first thing he gets in this section is about the nature and the character of the Word of God the way in which it goes out and the force with which it goes and then he says now because the Word of God does this thing you will have this experience and most people think the near term is when Israelites are let loose from Babylon Cyrus but enough and they get to walk across the desert and all of the hard things will be removed from them all of the difficult places will be resolved and that's why he says you shall go forth and be led forth in

11:53 peace. Isaiah sends him out with money and then eat it from the king. I mean, Cyrus does when they're let loose from Babylon and you shall break forth into singing and all the trees in the field shall clap their hands and Isaiah is seeing the image of the Israelites coming out in peace and then of course you can imagine Jesus riding in on a donkey with a symbol of peace instead of the symbol of war and the triumphal entry when they come in and then finally this is where I had the

12:23 image of C.S. Lewis's book of the way that in the end even the trees and nature will cry out in praise to God according to the will of God the Father for you shall go out and enjoy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing and all the trees in the field shall clap their hands and instead of a thorn you shall come up to Cyprus and instead of the Briar you shall come up with the Myrtle and it shall make a name of the Lord

12:56 an everlasting sign that should not be cut off. Does that do like that describes how things are going for you right now? Go forth in peace, the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing and all the trees in the field shall clap their hands. That was fantastic. I am really good and instead of a thorn shall come up to Cyprus trees. Cyprus trees are pretty.

13:32 And instead of the Briar shall come up to Myrtle. I'm not only contacted as a Crete Myrtle, mostly pretty. Take care of it well. I feel like that describes you. This when I started going one that is lovely right? I mean that's lovely and I really do appreciate and I don't know exactly what to take from it. I do but I do appreciate

14:10 that God when he communicates goes through the extra effort of his communication. Beautiful. You know I mean I kind of like run through that idea that it's kind of interesting to imagine like how the prophecy occurs in the mind of Isaiah but it's worth thinking about for just a minute. God how does the unbounded infinite outside of space and time creator God shrink down his ideas

14:41 and concepts small enough to squeeze them into the mind of Isaiah. Like what kind of how sense does God have to go through to get those ideas small enough that Isaiah might be able to comprehend it and then Isaiah communicated it. And in that translation in that interworking and contortion of the will of God is not lost beauty. Are you hitting me? What kind of effort does the

15:14 God go through to communicate ideas to in a way that not only is true but nice to listen to goodness the God of creation loves you. Evidence by the ridiculous beauty of some enigmatic prophecy preserved at pain of death and persecution over generations that you might have a chance

15:50 hear it again a mural and a

16:20 Jesus in Luke chapter eight verse four and when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him he said in a parable a sewer went out to sow his seed and as he sewed some fell along the path and was trampled underfoot and the birds of the air devoured it and some fell on the rock and as it grew up it withered away because it had no moisture and some fell among

16:55 the thorns and the thorns grew up with it and choked it and some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold and he said these things as he said these things he called out he who has ears to hear let him hear. Then of course the disciples are confused why he launched into a story about a lowly sewer of seed and his disciples asked him what are you talking about and he said to you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God but for others and we can't go

17:29 into that so don't stick on that we don't have time ask me afterwards. Now this verse 11 now the parable is this the seed is the word of God, the word of God, the ones along the path of those who have heard then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts that they may not believe and be saved and the ones on the rock are those who when they hear the word receive it with joy but these have no root they believe for a while in the time of testing fall away and those who fell among the thorns and the soheart but they go away in our chokes but the cares and riches and

18:04 pleasures of life and the fruit is not mature and as for the good soil they are those who are hearing the word hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear every time not every time but almost every time I've heard someone talk about this parable we break down all the aspects of the different soil and I think that's fine but what it drives me to do is to work hard to somehow become good soil and soil is past it I mean soil just is like the good soil didn't work hard

18:46 to become good soil it just is like good soil and I was thinking about like remember when Jesus talked about the judgment and he's going to separate the sheep from the goats and we've talked before about how he's not separating out good sheep from bad sheep he's like clearly he's separating two whole different species apart from each other they're just not the same so I was thinking about this soil I and I think it's worth looking at the little warning he gives about the things that the

19:20 weeds to the tears and the devil I think it's worth noticing that but I don't think the point of this is that we would all strive and try and become something that we're not this is core for me about the gospel the job the work of the gospel of being a follower of Jesus a faithful one under the reign of God the work involved in that is not work to become something you're not it's to believe

19:54 something that you already are you all are good soil how do you know good heavens the God is doing good things in your life stuff is growing you have friendships that brought you into the space today you have relationships that are edifying you have a curiosity about spiritual about what God might be doing what purposes you might set out for your life you have a inkling to serve you have a

20:29 a notion to repent but the God is doing good things in your life you are good soil God is not to become something you're not oh already all

21:02 you may have some it's but that's not who you are you may have some distractions here and there that's not who you are you may have some birds that buzz around and bother you but the define your soil you are good soil things are growing is up to something

21:42 if you can believe might be at work you are good soil one cool little corner of a passage is after the resurrection God dies death can't hold him comes up out of the grave right goes first to the women then to the 12 in the upper room right

22:17 then says he's around for 40 days appears to 500 at the end of the 40 days and you appear into at least 500 of the brethren he calls his 12 best friends says come meet me up on the hill and gallery where we said 5000 didn't serve around the mouth next to the sea where our where our walk on water Peter went out and joined me where we rode several times right next to the beach where we ate breakfast one day in the resurrected by says maybe over there at the and they're walking up 12 closest friends knew him before he died well he was dead after he rose

22:49 from the grave eight meals with the resurrected Jesus they're walking up the hill of Galilee it says some of them believed in out in some believed and some doubted and I love this it started on going Jesus staying on the hill of Galilee right before his ascension gives all of them the great commission doesn't separate out the good disciples from the bad disciples doesn't separate out those who have perfect faith from those who have imperfect faith he says

23:20 perfection and imperfection come all what defines the people of God is not our own concept it is who God calls us and God calls you today good soil children of the god don't care what birds you know what weeds you find what rocks you live among I don't care I don't care your own fears or doubts care about the prerogative of God who calls you

23:53 and with God I say the word of God will be accomplished in your life good things will grow it's his will it does not fail it's me happy so that you and I together will grow in fits and starts perfectly and imperfectly all at the same time until day calls us home and we grow within forever

24:28 you and I are the good soil throw here hey Lord thank you our life and worth our direction and eternity Lord rest in your prerogative good Lord not our fickle emotion or will not not our capacity to execute

25:00 but our lives rest in your prerogative thank you we receive today however imperfectly are your good soil grow things for Jesus sake and in his name