Pastor James will post his Sermon Study Questions every Tuesday with the previous Sunday’s sermon. Our hope is for these study questions to promote deeper personal study and further edify our church body.
Sermon Study Questions – October 11, 2026
1. Read Isaiah 55
2. Isaiah 55 continues to revel in the implications of the saving work of the Lord’s Servant in 52:13-53:12. Celebration is thus the theme of this chapter. Isaiah begins with a generous invitation to come and share in what the Servant has accomplished. In doing so, he says, “He who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” There is an obvious paradox here in that he invites all to come and buy food, wine, and milk, but they have no money to buy it with. What is the point of this paradoxical invitation? How does this tie into the work of the Servant?
3. What does Isaiah mean by asking, “Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?” What application can you make from this point?
4. Undergirding this invitation to share in and enjoy what the Servant has accomplished is an unbreakable promise. This unbreakable promise is “an everlasting covenant” (v.3). What is the everlasting covenant he refers to? In pointing to the everlasting covenant the Lord says, “Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live.” Why is this everlasting covenant a matter of life and death?
5. Beginning in v.6 Isaiah demands an urgent response to this invitation, saying, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near.” The implication is there is a time when the Lord can’t be found and He isn’t near in a gracious, saving way. Thus, responding to the Lord’s invitation isn’t something to put off as tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone. There are two senses in which the opportunity to respond may not be available to an individual tomorrow. What are they?
6. In calling for an urgent response, we see that what it means to respond to the invitation is to repent. In v.7 Isaiah says, “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” What is repentance? Why does Isaiah explicitly point to repentance rather than faith? What is the relationship between faith and repentance?
7. In v.8-9 the Lord says, “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.” This points to the Creator/creature distinction. What is that? What is the context in which He makes this statement, and how does this statement apply to the context in which it is spoken?
8. In v.10-11 the Lord points to His unfailing Word that goes out, saying of His Word, “It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” What are some of the things the Scripture tells us the Lord intends for His Word to do? Which of those things are most meaningful to you?
9. In the final two verses the final outcome of the Servant’s work is in view, as all of creation celebrates the freedom and renewal that it will bring in the New Heavens and New Earth. With that end in view, what sort of application can you make from this text/sermon?
10. Pray!
Reading of Law: Hebrews 13:5
Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Prayer of Confession:
Our Father who is in heaven, you are the one and only True and Living God. You are a God who is full of grace and mercy and power, and truly there is none like you. Father, you own a cattle on a thousand hills. Everything in creation is yours, and you are so kind and generous so as to share it with us that we may enjoy the bounty of what belongs to you. And yet Father, though you share so generously with us, we are often discontent with what we have. We confess that we often struggle to keep money in its proper place in our hearts, as we are prone to trust in it and love it more than we should. We confess we struggle to be content, as we yearn for more than what you in your kindness have given to us. Moreover, what we yearn for is often misplaced, as we yearn for material goods and possessions, rather than spiritual growth and maturity. Father, we confess this and ask that you forgive us. We ask that you help us to be content and to not dwell on what we don’t have, but to rejoice in what we have in You, as you are our faithful Father and have promised to never leave us or forsake us. We thank you and we ask these things in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Assurance of Forgiveness: Nehemiah 9:17
But you are a God ready to forgive, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
Westminster Shorter Catechism
Q. 14. What is sin?
A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.
Q. 15. What was the sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created?
A. The sin whereby our first parents fell from the estate wherein they were created, was their eating the forbidden fruit.
NT Reading: Hebrews 4:1-7
Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. 2 For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. 3 For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said, “As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest,'” although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5 And again in this passage he said, “They shall not enter my rest.” 6 Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.”