Isaiah says, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.” Sometimes we imagine God as being far away. We think of God sitting somewhere way up in heaven, looking down at us. But that’s not the picture that the Bible gives us. God says, “Call upon me because I am near.” +When you’re all alone, God is near. +When you’re hurting, God is near. +When you’re frightened, God is near. +When you’re confused, God is near. +When you’re grieving, God is near. That is why God says, “Call upon me.” That’s an amazing invitation. Just think about that. The Creator of heaven and earth invites you to talk to him. You don’t need an appointment. You don’t have to make a reservation. You don’t have to find the right words. You simply call upon him. You freely open up your heart to God. And that’s what prayer is. Prayer is simply God’s children talking to their heavenly Father. Sometimes our prayers are polished. And sometimes they’re not. Sometimes our prayers are long. Sometimes it’s just “Lord, help me!” “Lord, I don’t understand what’s going on.” “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” And God hears all of those prayers. “Call upon him while he is near.” God is not hiding from you. He invites you to come to him. Isaiah says, “Let us return to the Lord. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord.” Notice that word – “return.” This is God’s invitation. The heavenly Father is saying, “Come back! Come back to me. Come on home.” That is the heart of repentance. Repentance means turning around and returning to God. Repentance is confessing we have wandered from God. We have gone our own way. We have trusted in ourselves instead of the Lord. We’ve said things we shouldn’t have said and done things we shouldn’t have done. We’ve been angry and held grudges. We’ve lost our patience. We’ve worried when God told us to trust him. We’ve doubted when God calls for us to believe. Sometimes we make things worse by thinking, “I’ve messed up too badly this time. There is no way that God would ever want me back. I don’t deserve God’s love.” But that is when we hear Isaiah say, “Return to the Lord! Return so that God may have compassion upon you. He will always abundantly pardon.” Truly, that is one of the greatest promises in the Bible: God abundantly pardons lost sinners. God doesn’t forgive us grudgingly or sparingly. But his mercy just overflows. His forgiveness is superabundant. His grace is so much greater than our guilt. This is true because of the cross of Jesus. We stand before the cross, and we look and see Jesus; we see the innocent Son of God hanging upon that cross; we see the One who never sinned, the One who perfectly obeyed his heavenly Father. And yet, our Lord willingly goes to the cross. Why? Because he was carrying our sins. Your sins. My sins. The sins of the whole world. Jesus takes everything that separates us from our heavenly Father and carries it to Calvary. And there, he pays the price. His holy and precious blood is shed. His life is given. Jesus then says, “It is finished.” And it really is finished. The debt is fully paid. Sins are forgiven, and grace is bestowed. For the sake of Christ, God will always abundantly pardon. You don’t have to wonder whether God really means that or not. Just look to the cross. There, God gave his Son for you. There you see how much God loves you! Amen!

Today, we hear Isaiah say, “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Those are beautiful and powerful words. But let’s be honest. Sometimes they are also frustrating words. This is true because there are times when we really want God to explain himself to us. We’d like to sit down with God and say, “Okay, Lord. I have a few questions.” “Why did this happen?” “Why didn’t you answer my prayer the way I wanted?” “Why did my loved one have to suffer this way?” “Why did that relationship fall apart?” I reckon we could all compile quite a list of questions. And if we’re being honest here, we’d probably like for God to tell us what’s going to happen next. We’d like to know everything and how it will all work out for us. But God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” In other words, God says, “Just trust me here.” God says, “You don’t need to know everything. You just need to know me.” And that’s really what Isaiah 55 is about. Our message today is that we need to trust that God’s wisdom is greater than ours. His mercy is greater than we could ever imagine. And his love for us exceeds all comprehension. God’s ways are always the best ways. Isaiah says, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.” Sometimes we imagine God as being far away. We think of God sitting somewhere way up in heaven, looking down at us. But that’s not the picture that the Bible gives us. God says, “Call upon me because I am near.” +When you’re all alone, God is near. +When you’re hurting, God is near. +When you’re frightened, God is near. +When you’re confused, God is near. +When you’re grieving, God is near. That is why God says, “Call upon me.” That’s an amazing invitation. Just think about that. The Creator of heaven and earth invites you to talk to him. You don’t need an appointment. You don’t have to make a reservation. You don’t have to find the right words. You simply call upon him. You freely open up your heart to God. And that’s what prayer is. Prayer is simply God’s children talking to their heavenly Father. Sometimes our prayers are polished. And sometimes they’re not. Sometimes our prayers are long. Sometimes it’s just “Lord, help me!” “Lord, I don’t understand what’s going on.” “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.” And God hears all of those prayers. “Call upon him while he is near.” God is not hiding from you. He invites you to come to him. Isaiah says, “Let us return to the Lord. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord.” Notice that word – “return.” This is God’s invitation. The heavenly Father is saying, “Come back! Come back to me. Come on home.” That is the heart of repentance. Repentance means turning around and returning to God. Repentance is confessing we have wandered from God. We have gone our own way. We have trusted in ourselves instead of the Lord. We’ve said things we shouldn’t have said and done things we shouldn’t have done. We’ve been angry and held grudges. We’ve lost our patience. We’ve worried when God told us to trust him. We’ve doubted when God calls for us to believe. Sometimes we make things worse by thinking, “I’ve messed up too badly this time. There is no way that God would ever want me back. I don’t deserve God’s love.” But that is when we hear Isaiah say, “Return to the Lord! Return so that God may have compassion upon you. He will always abundantly pardon.” Truly, that is one of the greatest promises in the Bible: God abundantly pardons lost sinners. God doesn’t forgive us grudgingly or sparingly. But his mercy just overflows. His forgiveness is superabundant. His grace is so much greater than our guilt. This is true because of the cross of Jesus. We stand before the cross, and we look and see Jesus; we see the innocent Son of God hanging upon that cross; we see the One who never sinned, the One who perfectly obeyed his heavenly Father. And yet, our Lord willingly goes to the cross. Why? Because he was carrying our sins. Your sins. My sins. The sins of the whole world. Jesus takes everything that separates us from our heavenly Father and carries it to Calvary. And there, he pays the price. His holy and precious blood is shed. His life is given. Jesus then says, “It is finished.” And it really is finished. The debt is fully paid. Sins are forgiven and grace is bestowed. For the sake of Christ, God will always abundantly pardon. You don’t have to wonder whether God really means that or not. Just look to the cross. There, God gave his Son for you. There you see how much God loves you! This now leads us to those familiar words: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.” We often quote these verses when we struggle to understand what’s happening. And that’s appropriate, because life can be confusing. There are times when we pray, and things don’t turn out the way we hoped. We pray for healing. We pray for someone we love. We pray for our family, our community, and for our world. And most often the answer isn’t what we expected. That’s when we say, “Why, Lord? Why is this happening?” And God’s answer may well be, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways.” This is not God brushing us off. This is not God saying, “I don’t care about you.” This is not God ignoring our cry for help. But God is reminding us, “You don’t see everything that I see.” +We see today. God sees eternity. +We see one moment. God sees the whole story. +We see the problem. God sees the solution. +We see the storm. God sees where the storm is going. +We see defeat. God sees the final victory. Just think about the disciples on Good Friday. On Good Friday, they thought everything had gone terribly wrong. Jesus had been crucified. He was dead. Their hopes were shattered and their dreams seemed finished. If you had asked them on that afternoon, “Do you think God knows what he’s doing?” they probably would have answered “nope.” But the heavenly Father knew exactly what he was doing. God saw something they couldn’t see. The disciples saw a crucifixion. God saw our salvation. The disciples saw a terrible death. God saw the final payment for our sin. The disciples saw the worst catastrophe they could ever imagine. God saw the greatest triumph in the history of this universe. Three days later, Jesus rose from the grave. What looked like the end was actually the beginning. What looked like a total defeat was actually God’s victory. God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And sometimes that’s exactly what we need to hear. We need to remember we don’t need to understand everything that is happening in our life. It’s okay not to have all the answers. But our problem is that we live in a world that constantly tells us we do need to understand everything. We have information everywhere. We can look up something on our phones in about five seconds. We can get directions with our GPS. We can check the weather on our phone and watch the local radar. We can find out what just happened halfway around the world. We can watch a YouTube video and learn how to fix almost anything. We can Google our questions and get dozens of answers. And sometimes we think God ought to act the same way. But God is not an information dispenser at our beck and call. God doesn’t promise to give us every answer we want. But he gives us something much better. God gives us himself. God says, “Just trust me. I am your heavenly Father. I love you, and I am with you.” And that’s enough. God doesn’t give us all the answers we want, but he gives us himself. We can always find him where he has promised to always be. We find him in his Word and Sacraments. We hear his voice in the Holy Scriptures. We receive his forgiveness in Holy Absolution. We receive his life-giving promises in Holy Baptism. And here at the Lord’s Table, the risen Lord comes to us with his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. God doesn’t say, “Climb up to heaven and try to find me.” But he comes down to us through his Word and Sacraments, and he comes with his saving grace. That is his promise to us today. This promise can help us, especially when we are worried and fearful about the future. Let’s be honest: All of us are worried. There’s plenty in the world today that makes us anxious and afraid. There’s plenty that makes us wonder where all of this is going. But then God says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” I think there’s tremendous comfort in those words. That means God isn’t limited by our limitations. He’s not trapped by the things that trap us. He’s not confused by the things that confuse us. He’s not surprised by tomorrow because he already knows tomorrow. He holds the future of this universe in his hands. So maybe you don’t understand God’s ways. That’s okay. Just pray, “Lord, I don’t understand all of this. But I trust you. I still believe in your promises. I have your Word and Sacraments. I have Jesus, and that’s enough for me.” That’s a simple and strong faith. Faith doesn’t mean we have every answer. It means we trust the One who does. Here’s the bottom line: When you don’t understand what is happening in this world, just remember what you do know. You know that God loves you. You know that God forgives you. You know that Jesus has defeated death. You know that God is with you. You know that God will always abundantly pardon. He has compassion upon his struggling children. And his love for you is greater than you could ever imagine. In Jesus Christ, you are forgiven, you are loved, and you are safe in the hands of heavenly Father. Amen!