You're listening to audio from Faith Church, located on the north side of Indianapolis. If you'd like to check out more information about our church and ministry, you can find us at faithchurchindy.com. Now, here's the teaching. Well, good morning. Welcome.

I am pastor Jeff, one of the lead pastors here, and, glad that you are here to worship with us today. We are taking a break from our series in Acts for this series of Advent. It's not a season that, the culture around us generally celebrates, but it's the church season that leads up to Christmas. And this year, we're looking at how Christmas is designed to point us towards the ultimate fulfillment of our deepest desires and longings. Why why do we long for Christmas?

Why do we look forward to the holiday every year? Our our longing for Christmas, as we're going to see, is really a longing for someone to bring us home, someone to tell us we belong, someone to tell us that we're welcome and that we have a future. It's that time of year again then, as we head towards Christmas when, we will now be hearing Mariah Carey sing Santa bring my baby back or All I Want for Christmas is You, on repeat, for the next several weeks. Maybe you're sick of hearing Mariah Carey or Elvis. If not, you probably will be.

But there's something about those songs. The reason we keep playing them over and over again and coming back to them, the the movies that define this time of year. There's always this element of longing for home, for connection, for relationship. I'll be home for Christmas. It's a wonderful life.

Why is this idea of home and belonging so central to so many stories? I think it taps into a deep desire of our hearts. Some of you, maybe you came from a really great home, and and so this longing for home really connects with you, and all the great relationships you can look back to. Maybe for some others of us who didn't come from a a great home or really stable home, maybe even more so, it it it speaks to our hearts because we're longing for that sense of connection and rootedness and a loving family. For me, because of my dad's work, we moved around a lot when I was a kid.

I counted up recently, and by the time I was 11, I had lived in 7 different homes in 6 different states. And I always I can still remember, you know, always going into a new school, and all the kids had their friends already, and are there gonna be any people for me, and will there be someone here that, sees something worthwhile in me, or will they just say, new kid. Maybe he's not even gonna be here that long. I I still even have, a bit of envy for people who have childhood friends, people they've known since grade school or even younger. I I longed for that sense of rootedness and connection.

So whether you had a wonderful family growing up and stable relationships, maybe you have a really great marriage, There's a reason that none of us really feel at home in this world. There's a reason that even at their best, all those relationships don't really satisfy what we're looking for. In this world that we live in, if nothing else, there's always something broken, something to repair, something to fix, something to replace, broken relationships, broken bodies, broken feelings. And that's what that longing for home is speaking to. And it taps into one of the most significant themes of the Bible that from the very beginning tells us we were created by God, and we were created for relationship with him.

He made a home for people made in his image, a paradise where everything worked, and where we were at peace with God and and with one another. But our first parents walked away from God, turned their back on relationship with Him, and and left the paradise that He's made. And ever since then, every one of us has been filled with this longing to come home, to find the place that that fits us, where we belong. And what we're going to look at today is God's invitation to come home, to come home to Him, and find what we were made for. If you haven't already, you can turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 55.

If you're using one of the black Bibles in the seats, underneath in front of you, it's on page 731. The context is that in chapter 53, the prophet Isaiah has foreseen the the death and the resurrection of the Messiah 700 years in advance. And then in chapter 54, God has given Isaiah a vision of of some of the amazing blessings that will come to God's people because the Messiah has arrived to solve our problem of guilt and sin and separation. And and that leads us to this great invitation in Isaiah 55. And what we're gonna see is that god invites you to the home that you didn't know you were longing for.

God invites you to the home that you didn't know you were longing for. Let's look at that together as we go through this passage. First of all, what what are what are we being offered? What does that even mean? God's inviting us to a home.

Look in verse 1. Come, everyone who thirsts. Come to the waters. He who has no money, come and buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price.

So, water, milk, wine, it's not so much the the literal things, the literal objects, but what they represent. They correspond to deep longings and desires inside of us. Now, this is not really the time of year where maybe we can connect with the image particularly well, but, think 6 months ago, when you were out in the yard mowing, doing yard work, or or digging up something, and you're hot, and you're tired, and you're sweaty, and the thing you most want is water. Cool, refreshing water to satisfy your thirst. God invites you to receive refreshment, and restoration, and reviving, and and even a a new beginning.

That's what water is about. Milk is picturing our need for ongoing nourishment. You come in, tired and thirsty from working out in the yard, maybe. You don't want a glass of milk, you want water. But if you have a baby or a child or even a teenager, and you want them to grow healthy and strong, you you probably give them milk.

It's a picture that God is not just for emergencies, God is for our health and our growth. He gives us water to satisfy our thirst. He gives us milk to grow us stable and strong and to nourish us. God is the source of our nourishment. And wine is a picture of delight.

In the Bible, wine is often associated with abundance and happiness. The psalmist says, God gives wine to gladden the hearts of men. No matter how stoic or laid back we may be, how professional we present ourselves, there's still a a spirit inside of us that god has made to run and laugh and, play and sing and shout and dance and rejoice in God's good gifts. God wants to revive us from dryness. He he wants to make us strong and stable and nourish us, and he wants to give us joy and delight.

Look at the end of verse 2 and how god describes these blessings. Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Can you just imagine, you know, having come off of Thanksgiving, maybe many of us can even think back to 3 or 4 days ago, and a table just absolutely overflowing with every wonderful thing to eat. That's a little picture of what god is describing here of rich food in abundance, the very best that god has to offer us. The water, the the milk, the wine are are all the best quality in a never ending supply.

The Bible paints a picture of god giving us joy in his presence, not just now, but forever because it will never run out. In verse 3 tells us what is behind all this imagery. Incline your ear and come to me here that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. So in verse 1, god is saying, come to the waters, come find milk and wine. And in verse 3, he explains, I'm really inviting you to come to me.

Not so much literal wine and milk and water, but god is our living water. God is our nourishing milk. God is our exhilarating wine. He goes on to say in verse 3 that when we come to him, he makes a covenant with us. We'll talk about that, a little bit more, but he says it's like the covenant I made with my servant, David.

I think he's looking back, echoing to this promise that David that God made to David, a commitment to say, I will be your God, and I will surely show you my faithful, loyal love forever. God binds himself through Jesus in an unbreakable commitment to do good to you, to bless you, to save you, to to pursue you with goodness and mercy all the days of your life and eternally. God invites you to come to the home that you didn't know you were longing for. So who is invited? Who is this offer for?

Well, one way to look at this passage is to see 2 kinds of people pictured, and the first is described in verse 1. Everyone who thirst come to the waters, he who has no money, come and buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. The first kind of person that God is inviting to come to Him is thirsty people who can't pay for what they need. Hungry people who have nothing to buy what will satisfy them.

Your heart maybe today feels like the brown plants in our sunroom that my wife and I keep forgetting to water. Dried up, wilted, dreams have died maybe, dead end streets that you've gone down again and again. Empty, dissatisfied, feeling, hoping that there has to be something more to life, but you know that there's nothing in you that's going to produce it. There's nothing that you have. Everything good looks like it's out of reach.

You have no resources, no resume, nothing to recommend you, no power. And god says, you are just the kind of person that I want to come to me. Everyone who thirsts and has no money, everyone who is hungry and has nothing to buy bread, come and buy wine and bread without cost. You have no power, no position, no resources, no resume, no great reputation. God is inviting you to come home and find your life in him.

There's a second kind of person I think that we can say is pictured here. And I'm glad because not everyone necessarily feels like those people in the first verse. Look in verse 2. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? In verse 1, God says, people who are thirsty and have no money come and take water.

People who are hungry and have nothing to buy come and take the bread that I will give to you for free. The that person is bankrupt and knows it. The second person isn't there. They've got money, and they're spending it. They've got labor, and they're exerting it.

But what's the result? It's frustration, a disappointment. The bread doesn't satisfy you. The the the labor doesn't produce anything. You're not like the first category people.

You're still searching and spending and dreaming and laboring and striving and reaching and and grabbing. Maybe a different job, maybe a different city, maybe, maybe a new car, maybe a different house, maybe a different partner, maybe a new computer, a new hobby, a new trip, a new diet, new looks. You see, there's so much looking and searching and striving in this person, but there's still no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. And everything eventually gets old and wears out. And if you pay attention and step back a minute, you'll notice that all of the noise and all of the advertisements and all of the clamor of this season is meant to keep us from being quiet, and recognizing that those things don't satisfy us.

We get bombarded with ads, promising this will be the thing. This will be the thing. This will be the thing. This will be the thing. When we're honest, when we quiet ourselves for just a few minutes, we can see there's a need and a longing in us that nothing has been able to satisfy, no matter how self sufficient we look.

And god has you in mind when he says, why are you spending your money for what is not bread and your labor for what does not satisfy you? Two kinds of people invited by the Lord, those who are spiritually broke and they know it, and those who are still thinking that they can pay, and work, and grab, and strive, and achieve to get satisfaction. God invites you to the home that you didn't know you were looking for. Which brings us to a final practical question. How do we find that?

How do we have a home in God? Look back at these first verses. Come come, everyone who thirsts. Come, buy and eat, buy wine and milk without money without price. Listen to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food, incline your ear, and come to me.

Hear that your soul may live. 1st, there are, we could say, commands, encouragements, invitations to listen carefully to what god is saying. Listen, incline your ear, pay attention, don't miss this, God is saying. And I urge you, are you listening? Are you willing to listen to what God is saying to you through his word today?

And if you are, if you are, then come and buy and eat and enjoy, God says, without money and without cost. This is what the Bible means by faith, to come to God believing in his promise and what he provides to lay hold of it and claim it as your own. And the only condition is turning away from what you're currently holding on to. Look in verses 6 and 7. Seek the lord while he may be found.

Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the lord that he may have compassion on him And to our god, for he will abundantly pardon. We're not just people who are lost and wandering. We're people who take good things and make them ultimate things.

We put them in a place in our lives that only God deserves, and and that only God can fulfill. We put our trust in things that not only can't save us or satisfy us, they don't deserve our worship. They don't deserve our allegiance. Everybody in this room, there there's something that makes you happy. Whatever it is, chocolate, family, around you at Thanksgiving, Michigan beating Ohio State.

Oh, too soon. I got a few. Yeah. I got a few thumbs up. Okay.

I wore red in sympathy for you guys today. Everybody has something that that makes us happy. Circumstances, situations, and we all have religious beliefs. Some of them, we believe very strongly in a particular God or particular faith. Some of you, maybe it's more in internal.

Maybe it's not really articulated, but whether you're overtly religious or non religious, in our heart of hearts, for every one of us, there's something that if we just think I have that, then life will be good. If I can have this thing, if if life can look this way, then I will be happy, and I won't need anything else. Or the flip side of it is, as long as that never happens to me, I will be okay. I can do without chocolate, but I have to have that thing or that circumstance, or that situation, or that relationship to be happy. And if I don't have it, I'll I'll never be happy.

And in our heart of hearts, we can see that we have all made a commitment to something that looks like that. It's driving everything in our lives, our heart, our mind, our will, our emotions. Sometimes it's obviously wicked and unrighteous. That's why God says, let the wicked forsake his way. Sometimes it's maybe socially acceptable forms of idolatry.

That's why the unrighteous man has to be transformed also in our thoughts. There's something crooked and bent and in all of us that fall short of what God intends for us. If you're not sure what it is for you, just pay attention to the ads that get served to you on your phone or your laptop. Because now with targeted advertising, the advertisers will tell what you'd long for based on what you've previously bought and purchased or clicked on or paid attention to. God says, to have life, to have the life that you were made for, the life that you long for, the life he wants to give you.

We have to let go of those other things. We have to open our hands up and come. Come to God. Come to Jesus, and take and eat the food that He has provided, and delight in Him because the goal is delight. God's goal is not to take something away from you that's giving you life.

It's to take something away from you that's robbing you of life so that you can have what will satisfy. Verse 8, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my wares, declares the Lord. As high as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways. Now, we if you're familiar with these verses, we commonly think of this in terms of God's wisdom, and and that's appropriate. God is knows everything.

He's all knowing. He's infinitely wiser. He knows everything, and the way he does things is the right way to do things, not like our ways, but that's not really what god is saying here. Think about the context. God is saying my ways of bringing you to life are not your ways.

My thoughts, my understanding of what will bring you satisfaction are different from yours, and are you willing to trust me that what I'm really after is your life and your joy because my ways are not your ways. And when we trust him in that way, we are forgiven. We're restored. We're we're brought home. We're redeemed fully and finally home.

God's inviting you to a home that you didn't know you needed, but one that you ultimately want. And look at what happens. In verse 3, back to this covenant with David. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. And you will call a nation that you do not know, a nation that you did not know shall run to you because of the lord your god and the holy one of Israel for he has glorified you.

As we said, God made this covenant promise to David to establish the throne of his kingdom forever, to never remove his loyal love. But David and every one of his descendants failed. They turned away from god. They they tried to grab hold of things other than god to make the center of their lives. They rejected god, and they looked to other things.

So not only could they not be the the rescuer of god's people, they couldn't lead god's people, they couldn't be a witness to the nations around, they needed rescue themselves. So Jesus, who is both David's son and god's son, came and did what David could never do. When Jesus stretched out his arms on the cross, he said this word. The last thing that he said, it is finished. It's this word in Greek that means accomplished, done, paid in full.

Jesus Christ fulfilled all the conditions that God asks of us, so that we can be loved unconditionally. Jesus laid down his life and took it up again, so that he can offer us life. That's why God can say, come and buy without money and without cost because it's free to us, but it costs God the life of his son. And if you know that, if you see him up there on the cross saying, it is finished. I have crossed the infinite distance between a sinful people and a holy god.

There's nothing left for you to do except take and eat and receive it. That's what brings you home. To acknowledge whether you've been walking with Jesus for decades or whether you've never come to the point of trusting him to admit that you're sinful, that you're lost, that you that you tend to put things other than god at the center of your life, and that god loves you anyway. And he's paid the price to reconcile you and bring you into his family. Our pride doesn't want to admit that.

Our pride hates the fact that there's nothing for me to do, that there's nothing I have that makes me worthy of it. That's why god's ways are not our ways. And that's why it's good news that his thoughts are not our thoughts because god's thoughts and offer and message to you is grace. Free life to broken, needy, confused people. So if you were here today and know that you're distant to god, come come come and buy and eat without money and without cost.

Maybe you've come near in recent days, but but you're still holding back. You you need to actually put your trust in Jesus. That's he says, buy. The the offer is there. You have to actually take the gift and receive it.

You must take the water and the milk and the wine and trust and believe that it is yours by faith because of what Jesus has done according to god's promise. And if you know, if you've heard the offer and you know what it is, you still need to eat, to receive it for yourself. God is not a subject to be studied. He is not a thing to know about. He is a person to love and worship and trust.

He is food and life and joy for your soul. And if you have known Jesus in that way, delight, delight yourself in the Lord. And say with the psalmist, you have shown me the path of life. In your presence, there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand, there are pleasures forevermore. And we need that message in this season when we were bombarded by appeals to be dissatisfied and find something else to make us happy and full.

Oh, delight yourselves in the Lord. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. I love this. Anyone can call.

You don't need a degree, you don't need ex experience, you don't need expertise, you don't need training, just call on him. Oh God, if you're really there, show me. Oh, God. I need you. Come and save me.

God, give me the faith to even believe your promises. Make me new. God, I need your guidance. Show me the way to go. Jesus, help me to have the strength and the faith to get through this day, to get through this season.

Christmas is about longing for home. The home that you were made for is what God invites you to find in him. He's inviting you to come to the home that you didn't know you were longing for. Jesus is calling you home, not to politics, not to religion, not to moral performance, but to one simple thing, a relationship with the God who made you and who loves you and who stands ready to forgive you and wants to give you the fullness of joy and life and following Him. Christmas is about coming home, coming home to the God who longs for you to have your longings filled in him.

Will you do that? Will you do that? Let's come to God in prayer. Father, thank you for this word. Thank you for this good news of your willingness, your desire to satisfy what our hearts are made for, what our hearts long for, home.

To belong, to be forgiven no matter how far we've wandered. Lord, some of us are prodigals and and we have stories of chaos and brokenness and sin and wickedness and and you invite us to come. Some of us maybe feel more like the older brothers. We've worked hard. We've been good.

We've played by the rules. And you invite us to stop laboring for what doesn't satisfy and spending money on what does not feed us. Oh, father. Help us to trust you to come, to take, to eat, to find in you the satisfaction for our heart's desires. Thank you that Jesus has made it possible.

Help us to take step of faith to you today. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.