When was the last time someone sent you an invitation? Young couples these days might not send a physical invitation card and choose to send a text or a digital invite. Whatever the case, you’ll put effort in making the invitation look good, have the correct details and you do so because you want people to act. 

An invitation therefore, is a word of promise to get someone to do something. It is a request from someone for you to do something. There is no invitation that you send out for a wedding or work meeting that is merely conceptual. Every invitation, met or unmet, requires some kind of action. And we act because we trust the promise of the one who sends the invite. 

From Isaiah 55, we are to consider what it is that the Lord requires His people do and how He moves His people to do it. Therefore for us, we are to consider why we have come tonight. What does God want us to do? 

(A) Come for grace (Isa 55:1-2a)

In Isaiah 55:1, the invitation was extended to all who thirsts. In a way, it extends in a general way, and speaks of a universal human need. But it is also important for us to read this in context. In Isaiah 52:13-15, we have learnt about God’s Servant. We are in this section from Isaiah 52 onwards, of Isaiah with an extended description of this Servant. His appearance was marred and He is able to sprinkle or startle many nations. If we just read Isaiah, we may not know what it really means, but we can conclude that His disfigurement will do something for the nations. Isaiah 53 also writes extensively about His suffering. 

This is the context that sets the stage for Isaiah 55. The Servant of the Lord will do God’s work in a way that results in people coming to receive something from His work. Isaiah 55:1 speaks about the work of the Servant metaphorically as a free gift. 

But, why do these people have no money? We are to remember the larger context of Isaiah. The people are in exile because they have broken the covenant, the relationship of promise that they have with Him. Deuteronomy 28 listed out the curses — consequences for their disobedience and this is what the people are experiencing here. Isaiah 40 and on is written to God’s people during their exile about what God is going to do after their exile. These people who are hearing these words therefore have no wealth, power and bargaining position. It is to those people that God extends this invitation to. 

What is our view of God? Do we think that when we mess up, God is there ready to zap us and hurt us? We love to hide our sin and guilt as a result. The God of Isaiah 55 is nowhere close to this God that we imagine. How does God respond to His people’s sin? He says, “Come” and this invitation is not given to those who are perfect, but to those who have no ability to earn anything! 

Look at how He says it — He calls them to buy wine and milk without money and price. We try to bargain with God and bring what we have to Him — our quiet time, our efforts to serve Him, to be a good son or daughter — and want Him to lower His expectations. But see how He has already invited us to come! What kind of a God is this who is a God of invitation? Notice also how He calls people to come repeatedly, mentioning it four times in Isaiah 55:1. 

How will you describe this God? Deep down inside, do you believe that when we go to Him, He will scold us? This is the obstacle to our relationship with Him isn’t it? When we don’t believe that He really wants us to be in His presence? 

In Isaiah 55:1-2a, we read of what the invitees receive, and the choices presented to them. The people either spend money and labour for that which does not satisfy or they receive freely that which does (Isa 55:1-2a). This is framed in way that leads to a particular conclusion (c.f. Isaiah 55:2). We might think that this is pointless but it is framed as a question in order to persuade us. If we don’t reason this out and just accept it without thinking it through, it will not spur us to action. This is the language of persuasion that the Bible often frames for us. We are supposed to think on this and trace the reasoning so that we can love the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind and therefore strength. 

What is the reasoning here that you don’t yet internalise? What is in your life now? What are you spending your life on? What does your agenda for every day say? What does your calendar say? Why are you trying to earn these people’s approval? On this day, what have you spending yourself on? Why? Does it satisfy you? Or is what the prophet saying really true — that the most important things in life that give meaning, joy and purpose, even when you’re in exile — must be free. This is the hypothesis. 

Is it true that the most important things in your life are the things you have no earned? We know that this describes the grace of God. But do you realise that it also describes the love of the people that are the most precious to you? If you tried to earn the affection of the people around you — parents, spouse, loved ones — with being better and doing better, you are only setting yourself up for chasing something you can never earn. The love of God is free, and therefore is precious. A love earned is cheaper than that which is free. 

In John 6:27, Jesus says that He is the gift that is spoken of here. As we read these words, we don’t come to religion, but to Jesus Himself. What does it look like to come to Jesus and understand and accept Him as a free gift? What does it mean that we have no control over earning Him? We don’t merit Him and neither do we work to please Him. He must be freely given and we must freely receive Him. Only then will we be satisfied. We must come for grace. We must go to this one who holds out to us which we cannot earn. And since we did not earn it, it cannot be lost! 

Have you come to Him for grace or have you come to Him, trying to earn Him? 

(B) Hear the words of life (Isa 55:2b-3)

After coming to Him, they are also told to listen to Him in such a way that they eat and drink (Isa 55:2b). How are they to listen? They are to listen diligently and delight themselves in rich food. We are to come to Him savouring, delighting in and engaging Him body, mind and emotions. Is this how you engage with God’s Word? 

We come freely to delight in His word, and not to spend money to earn it! We don’t want to waste our time in church if we are going to be there asleep. We want to be there engaged and ready to sing God’s praises in response to His word. 

Isaiah 55:3 also speaks of inclining their ear. It is to tilt your ear to the direction of what’s being said. Christianity is not like temple religion or ancestral worship. In the latter, we approach a sacred space with offerings. But Christianity does not call us to do that. THe primary action is different. What matters is what we do with our ears — incline our ears and come. 

What’s the consequence? That our souls may live. His words of life brings us to life! 

Earlier in Isaiah 50:4-6, the Servant of the Lord is able to teach because He is Himself taught by God. His attitude towards teaching is humility. The one who is taught is best able to teach. What does He teach? He teach words to sustain the weary. Are you battered and broken by sin? Are you tired of your own flesh? The things that we do not want to do, we do and the things that we ought to do, we don’t. Who will deliver us from this body of sin? Do you know the words of Jesus, who calls all who are weary to come to Him? He calls us not to take a nap or develop a culture of self-care, but to put aside the sin that so easily entangles — the burdens and weights of this world that pulls us away from the vision of God. Is there a sin in your life that you need to put down? Friends we can only come to Him if we leave our sins and turn to Him. It may be a relationship that you know is bad for your soul. Or a way of living free from God’s terms — but beware when He grants it to you. Is it a love for this world that is holding you back from God? 

Friends, He has good gospel promises of love for us, only if we turn to Him and receive His word. 

God will act in response. God promises relationship and revival but also notice what else He will do — He promises an everlasting covenant (Isa 55:3), His steadfast, sure love for David (Isa 55:3). What does David have to do with this? In 2 Samuel 7:8-16, we read God’s response to David’s plan to build Him a house. This is the Davidic covenant, God’s promise to establish a permanent dynasty that will never end. In Isaiah 55, God promises to restore the promises of David if they respond to His invitation. And He does it because of His steadfast, sure love for David. 

These are the words that bring life to a nation that has lost all life.

(C) See God’s glorious work (Isa 55:4-5)

But what does this work look like? God makes the Servant of the Lord a witness to the peoples (Isa 55:4). This means that He has a message for them and in bringing them this information, He becomes a leader and commander. He promises to lead them with His teaching, just like what was written in Isaiah 50.

As a result, what will God achieve on Israel’s behalf? Isaiah 55:5 speaks of God’s people bringing the nations to Him. Even in the Old Testament, God desires for His people to be multicultural. His work leads to the nations being called — even the nations they did not know! God was always intending through this Servant to create not just a Davidic kingdom located physically in a particular geography. It was always about the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth, like the waters covering the earth. 

In Ephesians 2:11-13, we read of how Jesus is the true peace that brings people that are different together. We are Christians today only because this verse was present in Isaiah! Somewhere in your history, someone who did not look like you told your family about a Saviour that came from the Middle East who came to die for you and received His grace freely. And over the years, the message also came to you! 

This is the glorious work of God, that the gospel is going out to the nations! And we are also called to bring the good news of Jesus to bring it to people that don’t look like us. We are being disobedient if we are not involved in the work of missions — fund, go to the nations or share the gospel where we are with someone who doesn’t look like us. If you are not doing so, you are wasting your life. This is why we have been grafted in. Don’t waste the opportunities to live out the Great Commission — it is through this that God is working out His means today. 

We will close with the lyrics to the hymn, “How sweet and aweful is the place”, which speaks of God’s invitation to sinners and our response to this grace:

How sweet and aweful is the place
With Christ within the doors
While everlasting love displays
The choicest of her stores


While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast
Each of us cry with thankful tongues
“Lord, why was I a guest?”


“Why was I made to hear Thy voice
And enter while there’s room
When thousands make a wretched choice
And rather starve than come?”


’Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in
Else we had still refused to taste
And perished in our sin


Pity the nations, O our God
Constrain the earth to come
Send Thy victorious Word abroad
And bring the strangers home


We long to see Thy churches full
That all the chosen race
May with one voice and heart and soul
Sing Thy redeeming grace

How would you describe this God of the Gospel invitation? What would it look like for you to receive His invitation?