Audio Repenting: Turning Inward to Receive Grace Isaiah 55:1-9
- This morning I want to speak of repentance in terms of turning, turning inward to find the Christ Within who is waiting for us to return. There is a still small voice, a divine tug, that is beckoning us to slow down, stop, turn inward and seeking the divine within.
- Our passage this morning, assumes that we have a great deal of anxiety, worry, doubt, suspicion on the surface of our lives. That we are tired and weary. That we may even be in the middle of an existential crisis. Why am I here? What is this all about? Why even bother?
- The Lord says through Isaiah, Look, over there is where satisfaction, fulfillment and rest lie. There is so much grace abounding and awaiting your turn. So much grace you won’t know what to do with it. Like when I would go to Grandma Corder’s and she would want to keep feeding me and feeding me. So much food. And so God offers abundant grace to ease our existential suffering. Why do we not go there? (1-2a).
- First, we’ve been listening to the wrong voices and searching in the wrong places (2a-5). There are so many distracting and dangerous voices tempting us in directions that are destructive for us and lead us to despair.
- To hear and see properly we must see, forsake and turn around (6-7)
- Ultimately, it is about whether you choose to rely on your isolated, limited perspective or begin to see from the broader, divine perspective
- Second, we don’t know where over there is. How do we find there?
- If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll get somewhere, and it will likely be nowhere
- Over there is actually in here, inside our souls, our being.
- When the Lord says in our reading, come who are thirsty, come and drink, come and eat, come and buy wine and milk, the Lord is calling is inward. Because that is where the divine dwells.
- The life you are looking for is not out there or over there. Jesus said the kingdom of God is in you. It all begins with turning toward and seeking God. And God is here, inside you. He dwells in your being. The Light of Christ is in you waiting to shine forth. So, it is an inward turn. A turn to a deep, interior, spiritual life.
- There is a price to be paid for staying on the course you are now, if you stay on the surface and never go deep, never turn inward.
- Parable of the Fig Tree from Luke 13:6-9. Vineyard owner keeps checking back every year, looking for evidence of fruit. Even says he’ll give it one more year before he returns. Finally, no fruit, is cut down.
- We will find that we never bear any fruit on the surface, if we do not seek and turn to this God who dwells within us. We will lead shallow, surface lives void of power and presence.
- Some people spend their whole lives on the surface. They are always thirsting and hungering for something more, but never find it, because they are afraid to go deep. The good stuff – cool water, wine and milk, bread of life – the good stuff we enjoy when we go deep.
- What do I mean by going deep? Let’s turn to Psalm 63:1-8. We hear the language of someone who has gone deep and found the divine within.
- my lips will glorify you.
- 4 I will praise you as long as I live,
- and in your name I will lift up my hands.
- 5 I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
- with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
- I think of you through the watches of the night.
- 7 Because you are my help,
- I sing in the shadow of your wings.
- 8 I cling to you;
- your right hand upholds me.
- Now there is a man who has gone deep. What he wanted he could not find on the surface. On the surface we wear masks, we play like we’re someone we’re not. We operate in the spirit of pride, endless ambition, jealousy, envy, greed, lust and a sucession of desires met that never fulfill, so we are in this endless cycle of seeking to feel desires that can’t be fulfilled when we play on the surface.
- But the Psalmist has gone deep. If he were a fig tree, we would say he opened up his root system, his branches, hisveins to the living power of God. Divine sap. Holy Spirit.
- And with the divine dancing around in us, life becomes a life of praise. Praise overcome anxiety and fear and worry. Gratitude silences pain. A life of praise bears fruit. There is no time for grudges, fear, worry, hate, jealousy, bitterness, drama. We begin bearing fruit when we affirm life. We say Yes to life! We recognize this is a gift, with all the struggles, challenges, disappointments, yet life is a gift. Life is good.
- It all begins with turning toward and seeking God. And God is here, inside you. He dwells in your being. The Light of Christ is in you waiting to shine forth. So, it is an inward turn. A turn to a deep, interior, spiritual life.
- Are you thirsty? Follow the babbly brook of living water. Are you tired and weary? Move into the shade of the loving God covers you. Are you tired of groping in the dark? Follow the light of the distance candle in the window within you. Are you weary in your travels? Head home. Christ is waiting for you to return inward. It all begins with the turning.
- When we turn inward we begin a dialogue with God. We begin a conversation with the divine voice, the Holy Spirit, who lives in us. We become his student, his child, his friend. He slows us down. He calms us. He comforts us. He walks with me and talks with and tells me I am his own. He imparts wisdom. And all of this grace you find is sufficient. As you pray without ceasing, as Paul called it, you find that that frantic, crazy, worrisome, anxious, temperamental, angry, hectic life that you were living on the surface is not the life you were meant to live. Instead, you find a peace within that is as sweet as honey, as pure as gold. You begin to see your disposition change. A calm cheerfulness comes over you. You become what the book of Hebrews calls, and unshakeable kingdom.
- Listen to these words from Hebrews 12:22-28, and we will close with this. Listen to this description of a life that looks inward and finds the divine there:
- 22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God…You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. 25 See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, how much less will we, if we turn away from him who warns us from heaven? 26 At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.”27 The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken—that is, created things—so that what cannot be shaken may remain.28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.”
- God desires to remove from you what can be shaken, so that what remains is an unshakeable kingdom.
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