Sermon for January 19

The other day, I had a really cute moment at my house.  I was home in the late afternoon, and happened to be looking out one of the front windows.  I noticed that the mail truck was coming around our circle.  Now, Rachel really likes to notice cars when they drive up the street.  She was on the other side of the room, and so I turned to her, and invited her to come over to the window to see the car.  It was something so simple.  Rachel, come and see the mail truck.  And she ran over to see the car in the street, and then we went out to the mailbox to pick up our mail once the mail truck had left.

“Come and see.”  A simple, easy phrase.  That’s how simple it is to invite someone.  And it’s a phrase that we come across quite often throughout the Bible.  This past week, I was talking with our Thursday morning Bible study group, and one of the verses in the chapter we were reading started off that way.  Come, O nations, and hear God.  It was an invitation.  Come and hear what God has to say.  Come and hear the word of the God of this world.

And the point I really want to start off with on this topic of invitation today is that God is constantly inviting people to come to Him.  For a moment, pull out your Bibles and turn with me to Isaiah 55.  In the chair bibles, you can find it on page 615.  As God was speaking to His people through Isaiah, He tenderly invites His people.  (Read the verses.)  We see God inviting His people.  Come and receive what you need for life.  Come to me and discover the things that really make life.  Come and discover that which is good for you.  Come to me.

God is an inviting God.  The cry goes out from God over and over again.  Come to me.  Come to me, my people.  Come to me, people of the world.  God speaks to the people of the world, inviting them to come to receive His great gifts.  And there are a couple of things in this statement that I want to look at for a moment.

First, God invites people to come to receive His gifts.  God recognizes the condition of the people of this world.  He sees us all stuck down here in the mud and muck of sin, and He invites us to see Him as the one who can and does rescue us from it.  He sees our feeble efforts to improve this world, only to be defeated by sin again and again.  He sees our internal struggles and battles against the things that we know we shouldn’t  do, but that we do anyway, and He invites us to receive His gifts in freeing us from those things.

God invites us to receive His gifts of grace.  He invites us to see His Son, Jesus, who lived the perfect life we couldn’t live, who died the death on the cross that we all deserved, and who rose to give us the promise of new life.  God invites us to come to Him, inviting us to the places that He has assured us that He pours out His grace and hope.  We call those the sacraments, the washing waters of baptism, where God Himself enters us and makes His home within us, where He brings us the forgiveness of our sin, and where the gift of eternal life springs to life within us.  He invites us to come and receive the body and blood which was broken and spilled for us as Jesus, quite literally, gives Himself to us, and as we receive that great gift, we receive that renewal that God works through the forgiveness of our sin.

The second thing is this statement is simply that God invites.  God doesn’t force, but instead calls out tenderly.  Come and drink waters that bring new life.  Come and eat bread that satisfies for more than this life.  Come, come, come to me.  The gentle invitation rings out again and again as God invites the people of the world to come to Him.

And the people of the world respond.  Turn with me now in your Bibles to Isaiah 2, page 567 in the chair bibles.  Listen to these words which God speaks to us through Isaiah.  (Read 2:2-3, 5)  Did you hear the language of invitation there?  God’s mountain of hope and redemption is set higher than any other mountain in the world.  The people of the world see it and hear about it and are drawn to it.  In other words, God’s invitation goes out, and the people of the world respond.  They are drawn to God’s invitation.  

And then, as they approach God’s holy mountain, what do they do?  They also invite others.  “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD.”  As God’s people hear God’s invitation, and as they receive His gifts, and as they approach the mountain of the LORD, they aren’t content to go there alone.  As they journey to that mountain, they also speak to those that they encounter along the way.  Come with us, come and see what God has done.

In other words, we could say that God’s people respond to God’s invitation by inviting others to join them along the way.  God’s people see what God has in store and in mind for them, and they desperately want others to share in that with them.  So, as they go through this journey of life, as they repeatedly come to the mountain of the LORD, they invite others to join them on the way.  Come with us, come to the mountain of the LORD, come to the house of our God, so that we can see what He does and says.

As I say that, I find something very interesting in this little segment from Isaiah.  The people are inviting others as they journey to God’s house and mountain.  Here’s where I’ll say that I am often fascinated by how modern day research in areas like marketing and branding finally catch on to what God has known all along.  What’s the best kind of advertising?  You can have all the flashy commercials on TV, you can have the best website in the world, you can have the prime location for your store or business, but you know what ultimately leads people to places, or back to places?  Word of mouth.  It’s when someone goes there and finds that it’s a place of value, and then they tell others about it.

Wouldn’t you say that’s what is going on in this picture?  The people who have been invited by God then head to His holy mountain and house, and as they go, the words of their mouths invite others to join with them.  God has known this all along.  The very best way for the people of the world to find their way to God’s holy mountain, to receive the best gifts of God, is for His people to be inviting others as they themselves walk along the road on the journey.

Now, I invite you to turn with me to another place where we see this at work.  Let’s go to John 1.  You can find it on page 887 in those chair bibles.  Listen to these words.  (Read John 1:43-46)  Do you see how easy that was for Philip?  He had heard Jesus with his own ears, and then he invited Nathanael to simply “come and see.”  Nathanael didn’t exactly respond as Philip probably had expected, but still, the point is made that he extended the invitation to come and see.  And as an additional point, he even went along with Nathanael as part of the invitation.  Something worth thinking about there, I think.

God’s people are a people of inviting.  We’re a people of inviting because we have received God’s invitation already.  We’ve heard God invite us to come to Him.  We’ve seen God give us His rich gifts of grace, and we’ve seen how valuable they are for us.  So now, as we continue on this journey to God’s mountain, we invite people to “come and see” along with us.  

And as I say that, I know that it can seem somewhat daunting to be extending those invitations.  So here’s what we are going to do as we think about being an inviting people, just as we have been invited by our God.  We’re going to start off by thinking about those different people that we know in life to whom we can extend an invitation.  We’re going to start by listing them on our prayer bookmarks, and then we’re going to commit ourselves to praying for them every day.  You can pick these bookmarks up out there on the welcome desk.  

But I ask you not to stop with that.  I actually want to encourage you to take a second one and to fill out those same names on it.  Then, turn the second one in to me.  I am going to commit to praying for those same names that get turned in to me on a daily basis.  You don’t have to write your name on the bookmark, and in fact, I’d almost rather you didn’t.  Just write their names, and then give me the second bookmark, and I’ll commit to praying for those individuals that you are thinking about inviting.

I also want to remind you that inviting someone to come and see what God is all about in Jesus isn’t something that requires a lot of extra training and the like.  Watch this short little video clip with me, if you would.  (Show “You don’t have to be an expert” clip.)  I hope that you get the point from that.  I don’t have to lead you in a class on how to invite someone to come and see for you to be able to invite them along.

Just a couple of quick things as we close.  First off, what’s more inviting when people actually do come and see than for us to be wearing our name badges, and not forcing them to have to memorize our names?  So keep making your efforts to wear those things.  If you don’t have one, please write your name legibly on a piece of paper and put it in there on Sherry’s desk in the office, and we’ll get you one printed up ASAP.

Also, isn’t it nice to have something to which you can invite someone?  One of the things that was mentioned to me last week was that it would be nice if you could have an idea about the upcoming sermons and series, so that you could let those that you are inviting know what to expect.  So I will also commit myself to getting things prepared well ahead of time, and to make them available, so that you can know what you can invite people to come and see.

Come and see.  God tenderly invites you to come and see, and I rejoice that you have responded to that invitation by receiving His gifts of grace.  I also pray that you will further respond by inviting others to come and see, so that they also can receive those great gifts of grace.  May we be active in doing this for the sake of those whom the Lord is calling to come and see.  Amen.