Sunday 2nd August – Meal Voucher – Pastor Adrian Kitson

2-08-2022, Isaiah 55:1-7, Meal Voucher, pastor adrian kitson

‘Come, all you who are thirsty,
    come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
    come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
    without money and without cost.
²Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labour on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.
³Give ear and come to me;
    listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
    my faithful love promised to David.
⁴See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
    a ruler and commander of the peoples.
⁵Surely you will summon nations you know not,
    and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel,
    for he has endowed you with splendour.’

⁶Seek the Lord while he may be found;
    call on him while he is near.
⁷Let the wicked forsake their ways
    and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

Matthew 14:13-21

¹³When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed those who were ill.

¹⁵As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’

¹⁶Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’

¹⁷‘We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,’ they answered.

¹⁸‘Bring them here to me,’ he said. ¹⁹And he told the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. ²⁰They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. ²¹The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

It is always a delight to enjoy a meal in a fancy restaurant. We get to do that occasionally.

But it is only occasionally because of the one downside of that beautiful food experience – the cost. Even though you have made the choice to cope with the high cost of the experience and to just grin and bear the bill, whatever it will be at the end of the meal, the high cost tends to shape your choices on the menu. We are not going for the lobster!

But there is one thing better than a special meal you pay for. It is one you don’t. like this. How good it is to not have to count the cost and go ahead and order whatever you want because someone else has already paid for the meal in full by means of the gift voucher you have in your jacket pocket – the one you will keenly whip out when that moment of paying up comes! Maybe we will have the lobster!

I think this beautiful invitation Isaiah issues to his people is a gift voucher.

‘Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.

It is an invitation to experience a a superb banquet meal attended by everyone you know and love, and it is free. It has already been paid for by someone else.

We know who paid. That ‘Suffering Servant’. The New Testament writers draw on Isaiah Suffering Sevant words deeply to tell the story of what they saw and heard around Jesus of Nazareth.

He would be led like a lamb to be slaughtered and become the Lamb of God who takes way the sin of all the world. He would host this great free meal and be the satisfying factor in this never-ending meal of life.

I would not be surprised if Matthew had this gift voucher invitation in mind as he reflected and wrote down about the day Jesus put an unending supply of food in the hands of his disciples as they fed that very large crowd sitting on the grassy slope on the shores of the sea.

I am seeing that this large free feed is God doing what he promised back 700 years before through Isaiah. In Jesus the banquet began, and the meal voucher was beginning to be shared with anyone who came.

And this free meal was a pointer to what would happen. Jesus would renew that ancient Jewish meal, the Passover, to be a meal for all people with himself the satisfying gift.

Jesus would go on and pay for everything with everything for everyone. This is the free meal paid for by God for all the thirsty, all the hungry, all the alone, all the ‘sinners’.

It seems, that like those people seeking Jesus that day by the sea, we just need to seek him too. All you need to do is turn up, ‘get up’, ‘come’, grab it, take what he is giving. He has the satisfying stuff for living

Incline your ear, and come to me;

hear, that your soul may live;

and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

my steadfast, sure love for David.” (Isaiah 55:2b, 3)

^[1] Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. and R. Kent Hughes, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 369.

Getting up, coming, taking hold of this gift meal voucher requires listening for it to deliver its full satisfaction. The listening will assure you of the love – the life-long, rock-solid covenant love that accompanied David through thick and thin and gave him life in God’s forever future of love.

But will you take the gift voucher? It seems that there is some doubt about this.

“Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

and your labour for that which does not satisfy?” (Isaiah 55:2a)^[1]

^[1] Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. and R. Kent Hughes, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 368.

Isaiah sees that we might struggle to take this free meal voucher. We might discount is as we spend up big on food that won’t fully deliver these gifts of sustaining life and love and hope.

We might miss it all together as we keep working very, very hard for results we can achieve that are way less filling – a love that is fickle, a life that misses God’s intended mark and a hope that turns into wishful thinking.

Like when you refuse to let a friend pay for your meal when you are standing at that counter out of pride, you want to pay for what we get in life. I guess at least we can say to ourselves and others, we earned this. We are not freeloaders. We can pay our way. We’ve got the goods. We don’t need anyone’s help.….

I heard someone say that

Our world is a vast marketplace of unsatisfying but costly remedies for our God-shaped longings. But we’re not very smart shoppers.^[1]

^[1] Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. and R. Kent Hughes, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 368.

How’s your shopping going? What are you working so hard to get and what are you dreaming of spending your money on and what will it get you?

Isn’t it disturbing to hear that you and I, for some strange reason not only have a hard time simply receiving the free and freeing gifts Jesus always offers and even believe that God is actually working against us – taking from us, trying to control us, making us jump through endless hoops to somehow win his gifts by hard work; by paying him off.

CS Lewis, in such personal and revealing tones reflects on his grief at losing the love of his life and how it felt like God was against him, not for him…

Her palate for all the joys of sense and intellect and spirit was fresh and unspoiled. Nothing would have been wasted on her. She liked more things and liked them more than anyone I have known. A noble hunger, long unsatisfied, met at last its proper food, and almost instantly the food was snatched away. Fate (or whatever it is) delights to produce a great capacity and then frustrate it. Beethoven went deaf. By our standards a mean joke; the monkey trick of a spiteful imbecile.^[1]

^[1] Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. and R. Kent Hughes, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 368.

I think he means that when bump into big suffering, big loss, big trouble, we especially find it difficult to receive free gifts of grace from our God. We go the other way and seem to automatically believe he is against us; withdrawing all his gifts, breaking all his promises, turning his back, leaving us hung out to dry.

Do you feel like that?

I am sure all those women and men that day by the sea were working hard and spending their hard-earned on many things. And like us, when they bumped into hard things, had a hard time taking this voucher to God’s free forgiveness and acceptance.

Jesus does more than just argue the point. He just does this meal. In all the misplaced effort, misguided trust and sheer hard work in suffering, Jesus just does Isaiah. He begins this vast banquet with endless food that deeply satisfies – and it is free for all there.

²⁰They all ate and were satisfied,

How do you become a much wiser and freer shopper in this shopping mall of a world?

The only way is to simply take and eat. That is where the life and the love and the hope are – whether you feel it or not.

And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” Revelation 22:5

MORE REFLECTION

Opening prayer

Lord Jesus, open our ears to hear your Word and our hearts to receive your wisdom. Help us to trust your patience, grow in your grace, and leave judgment in your hands. Amen.

Read

Matthew 13:24–30, 36–43. Notice the contrast between the servants’ urgency and the master’s patience, and listen for how Jesus explains the parable to his disciples.

Background notes

This parable sits among several kingdom parables in Matthew 13, where Jesus describes the hidden, surprising and growing work of God’s reign.
The field is the world, the good seed are the people of the kingdom, and the weeds represent what belongs to evil.
The servants want to act immediately, but the master warns that pulling up the weeds may damage the wheat.
Jesus points his hearers toward patience, discernment, humility and trust in God’s final judgment.

Discussion questions

What stands out to you in the parable of the weeds and the wheat?
Why do you think the servants are so eager to pull up the weeds?
Where do you see the temptation to judge or “sort out” others too quickly?
How does Jesus’ explanation help us understand evil, patience and judgment?
What comfort is there in knowing that Jesus sees clearly and will make all things right?
How might this parable shape the way we respond to conflict, weakness or wrongdoing in the church?

Application

Name one area where you need to leave judgment with Jesus rather than carry it yourself.
Consider one relationship or situation where patience, truth and mercy may need to be held together.
Pray for the Spirit to help you grow as good seed in Jesus’ field, even while weeds remain around you.

Closing prayer

Lord of the harvest, thank you that you sow good seed and keep your people growing. Give us humble hearts, patient spirits, and courage to speak truth with mercy. Teach us to trust your wisdom, your timing, and your final promise that the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Amen.

… hear, that your soul may live;

and I will make with you an everlasting covenant,

my steadfast, sure love for David.” (Isaiah 55:2b, 3)

^[1] Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. and R. Kent Hughes, Isaiah: God Saves Sinners, Preaching the Word (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2005), 369.

Jesus, the very bread of life, the truth of life the one who offers life to the full for the empty and the full (John 10:10) is not turning his back on your bad shopping habits. He is calling you to turn your trolly to his aisle. That is where sure love is.

He calls across the store to come to his aisle where everything in that aisle is already paid for by him for you. There will be no need to pay him now or when the bill is tallied. Jesus paid it all, once for all.

Grab the voucher. He is the meal and hosts you in his holy meal. He says you will be deeply satisfied.

PERSONAL REFLECTION

Pray. Holy Spirit speak to me as I reflect on this message. Amen.

Listen: Read out loud Isaiah 55:1-7 and Matthew 14:13-21

Reflection questions for listeners

Where in my life am I spending money, energy, or attention on things that do not truly satisfy?
What makes it difficult for me to receive God’s grace as a free gift rather than something I must earn?
When suffering, grief, or disappointment comes, am I tempted to believe God is against me rather than for me?
What would it look like this week to “come,” “listen,” and “take” what Jesus is offering?
Who around me is hungry, thirsty, or weary, and how might Jesus be inviting me to share his generous meal with them?

Closing prayer

Lord Jesus, bread of life and host of the generous banquet, thank you that you call us to come, listen, take and eat without money and without cost. Forgive us for spending ourselves on what cannot satisfy, and for believing that your grace must somehow be earned. Turn our hearts again to your sure love. Feed us with your mercy, strengthen us with your hope, and send us to share your generous welcome with those who are hungry, thirsty, weary or alone. Amen.