Valor Infinito, Marzo 22, 2026

Good morning, church. Good morning, church. Try that again. You can even answer that if you speak English, right? You know what buenos dias means, right? My name is Alfredo Zuniga. And I'm the campus pastor here at Fellowship Espanol. And it's exciting when we get together every Sunday to read the Word of God. Because we know that when God speaks, and his people listen, they can experience the wonderful blessings that only the Word of God can bring. Y seguimos en nuestra serie de El Valor Infinito de Dios en el libro de Isaías. And we're continuing our series on the infinite worth of God in Isaiah. Y hablando de qué es la gloria de Dios. And speaking on what the glory of God is. Hoy vamos a ver lo que la gloria de Dios hace en la vida de una persona. Today we're gonna see what the glory of God does in the life of a person. Específicamente la transformación, la gloriosa transformación de Dios cuando nosotros venimos a él. Specifically God's glorious transformation when we come to him. Y para aquellos que se han perdido el contexto o de qué habla el libro de Isaías. And for those of you that might have missed the context of what the book of Isaiah has been talking about. Creo que vale la pena recordarlo un poquito. I think it's worth going back a little bit. Donde el profeta Isaías es enviado a hablarle a un pueblo que no quiere escuchar. Where the prophet Isaiah is sent to speak to a people that doesn't want to listen. Para decirle que si siguen en sus caminos sin arrepentirse. Dios va a traer un castigo a su pueblo. To tell them that if they continue in their unrepentful ways. That the Lord is going to bring punishment. Y vemos que a pesar de Isaías y los otros profetas. El pueblo decide no escuchar y seguir desobedeciendo.

And we can see that despite Isaiah and the other prophets. The people decide to continue to disobey. Lo cual trae el castigo que efectivamente Dios había dicho que iba a mandar. Which in fact does bring that punishment that God said would come. Y ese castigo iba a ser que ellos iban a ser llevados al exilio por 70 años. And this punishment was that they would be taken out in exile for 70 years. Iban a estar siendo oprimidos y maltratados por el imperio de Babilonia. They would be mistreated, they would be oppressed by the Babylonian empire. Y en el capítulo 40. And in chapter 40. Él hace una transición para decirles que aún en medio del castigo. He makes this transformation to tell them that despite, in the middle of this punishment. Desde el capítulo 40 empieza a hablarles de que un día Dios los va a retornar a su tierra. Starting in chapter 40 he starts to tell them that God will one day return them to their land. Que de él no los va a dejar en el exilio en Babilonia. He's not going to leave them in exile in Babylon. Pero que el pecado debía traer un castigo a su vida. But that sin was going to bring a punishment to their lives. Pero que Dios aún así iba a ser fiel a sus promesas. But God was still going to be faithful to his promises. Y que los iba a restaurar no por lo que ellos iban a hacer. And that he would restore them not by anything that they would do. Pero por la fidelidad de Dios mismo. But by God's faithfulness alone. Y eso nos lleva a una pregunta que empieza a contestar en el capítulo 49. And this brings us to a question that he begins to answer in chapter 49. ¿Cómo Dios iba a salvar? How was God going to save? Porque imagínense ustedes estando 70 años esclavizados a un imperio como el de Babilonia. Just imagine if you were to be enslaved to an empire like Babylon for 70 years.

Donde les han quitado todo. Everything has been taken away. Han perdido su identidad. They've lost their identity. No tienen ningún recurso. They have no resources. No son nadie. They're no one. No tienen poder. No power. ¿Cómo Dios los va a regresar de Babilonia a Jerusalén? How is God going to return them from Babylon to Jerusalem? Todo está destruido. Everything's destroyed. It didn't fit in their minds how God was going to do this. That's why chapters 40 through 48, he begins to tell them, you don't really know who I am. You're comparing me with idols that are made out of wood and silver and bronze. You're comparing me to all of the kings that you see as being powerful. And from chapters 40 to 48, he's saying, don't compare me with anyone, please. What I can do, no one else can do. I am the only one that says that I will save you, and I will save you. Despite that you're not trusting me, instead of trusting me, you're going over to Assyria and Egypt and asking them for help to free you from Babylon. But I will do it. And chapter 49 to 55, which is where we're going today, he's going to explain how he's going to do this. Now as I'm telling you this story, you have to understand that the Old Testament uses these stories to show God's spiritual salvation plan that he's going to accomplish. Many of you here today are in Babylon, and you're asking yourself, how can God free us?

How can God save us? Many of you have already been freed from that world. And now you have to understand how to live in that freedom that God has now given us. So this story of God bringing us from exile into freedom is the same story that we're bringing as being slaves to our own sin when we bring that to Christ and find that freedom. So hopefully understanding this is going to make it easier to understand today's text. But from 49 to 55, he's going to explain how he was going to accomplish this salvation. Some of you might be a little bothered by the fact that we're not going into chapter 51. 53. It speaks about the death of that suffering servant. Well, I'll tell you, we will speak on that, but that's going to be on Good Friday. That way you won't miss it. But today we're going to skip ahead to 55. But the foundation is 53. That if the work of Christ doesn't happen, if that servant doesn't die in our place, if that servant doesn't gain our justice on our behalf before the Father, then there is no hope for us in chapter 55. But since we do know that that servant did die, because we do know that that servant did rise again, and since we do know that that servant is now seated at the right hand of God interceding for us, so there is hope to feel and experience that transformation from God in our lives. And it begins with an invitation in verses 1 through 5. So help me, let's go to Isaiah 55, verses 1 through 5. But before that, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning, asking that you would help us to understand your word in such a way that it would change us on the inside, so that it would reveal our sin, so that we may call on you, Lord. In the name of your Son, Jesus. And in that name we pray, amen. The first thing we're going to see today, in the first part, what we're going to see is that he invites us to be satisfied, to delight,

and to live in a relationship with the Father. Come everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and he who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in rich food. 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. Behold, I made him a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander for the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you because of the Lord your God, and of the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you. What's God doing in this moment? After understanding everything that God's doing so that the salvation of his people will come to fruition, he invites them. All who are thirsty, all who don't have any money, come and eat. Come and drink. It's an interesting invitation, because even if I think about the idea of walking through the desert, and this idea that I'm going to end up thirsty, I'm going to end up hungry, why should somebody invite me to eat? Why should somebody invite me to drink? And it reflects that we as humans tend to try to satisfy ourselves with things that are not of God. Why is marketing one of the greatest careers whenever it comes time to sell product? Because there may be many great things and many good products, but unfortunately the way that we respond to this marketing is by wanting those things that we're trying to fill our lives with instead of God. Or if only I had the car that this other person Or if my family has what this other family has, I had the job that they have, and we're always looking for satisfaction in places where God is the only one that can satisfy us. And he says, come and buy. So I get a little confused. Because am I buying or is it free? I think the prophet does this intentionally. Because on the one hand he says buy, but on the other hand he says without money. And I think what he's doing is teaching us how the salvation of God works.

That even though it is offered freely to us, it cost God everything. It cost him the life of his son on that cross on Calvary. And it should bring us to take this invitation seriously. Because the fact that it's free doesn't mean that it has no value. It has a price. Price of blood. And that's why in Hebrews it talks about a great rejection for those that trample on the blood of Christ. And it warns to those who do trample on the blood of Christ. Owe to those. Because having such a great price that has been paid for their lives, how can we look at it indifferently? And so this invitation to those who are thirsty, it sounds like what God said to the Pharisees. I came for the sinners, not for the just. And it's an ironic way of saying I know everyone's thirsty. But only those that thirst for this water. I know that everyone's a sinner. But only those that realize just how sinful they are, come to me. I didn't come for those that don't think they need forgiveness. I didn't come for those that are so filled that they don't have a hunger for God. I came for those that know that they need God. And he says come three times. He says incline your ear. And what's going to happen if we do this? He says that our soul will delight abundantly. And you know it's interesting that the things that we satisfy ourselves with don't delight us. Whether that's food, any other kind of sin, we do it in such a sinful way. For some reason we think that if we just keep on going, we will be satisfied. And we begin to be like chapter 42 described, foolish and deaf.

But if we incline our ear, we can experience what it means to delight in our soul. And he makes us a promise. I will make an everlasting covenant. Why this idea of covenant at this point? Because the people had broken their covenant with God. He says I'm going to make a covenant with you. And that covenant is going to be sealed in the blood of my son. And that's why when we take communion, that's why we say this is the new covenant drink. This covenant is unilateral. It's not the same as the one that they broke. The one that they broke was a conditional. If you do this, then this other thing will happen. But in this covenant, if you do this, then this will happen to me. And we see how that happens in Genesis chapter 15 when he makes a covenant with Abraham. What he's saying is this, is that under this covenant, when you sin, my son will be punished. In the Messianic covenant, when you sin, you will be punished. And that's why here it says an everlasting covenant. And thank God that this covenant depends on God and not on me. Because I can assure you that from the moment we wake up, we've all screwed it up. And that covenant is no longer worth it if it depends on us. And it says that I put my servant David as a witness. Why is he raising up David now? Because David was the golden age of Israel. Why? Because he was a good leader. He was a good guide, a good king. And he highlights a characteristic of this king according to King David. And who is this going to be? Jesus Christ.

The best king. The best prophet. The best prophet. Priest. And if you think that David was a good king, you can't even imagine the one that I'm about to send you. This covenant is going to have a king. The promises are sure. So come to me. And so what should the appropriate response look like? Our second point. The appropriate response to his invitation is to renounce our own thoughts and ways and to embrace his. Look at verses six through nine. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Abandon the unrighteous man and his thoughts. And turn to the Lord, who will have compassion for him. To our God, who is great in forgiving. 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. 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. I think people sometimes get used to living as if they had all the time in the world. And God says, seek the Lord while he may be found. Sometimes young people say, I've still got time. I've got my whole life to live. I'm still young.

Chill, mom, dad. I've still got plenty of time. And I'll ask you, how do you know? How do you know that you have tomorrow guaranteed? How do you know that you're not about to face the throne right now and say, oops, I'm not ready? God says that there must be some urgency in our response. Seek Him while there's still time. And I'm reminded of Pharaoh's response when they're receiving the plague of the frogs. And Pharaoh says, come on, I can't deal with these frogs anymore. Just ask God to take them away. Then Moses asks him a question. When do you want me to tell God to take them away? Tomorrow. The favorite word of not repenting is tomorrow. I'll do that tomorrow. But God says it must be today. Today is the day of salvation. If God is showing you your sin, why would you wait until tomorrow? There's a limited time. And what is He inviting to seek and to find? Look for Him. He says that when we're hungry and recognizing our misery, it should be a natural response to just call out for help. When you realize your condition as a sinner, when you realize just how bad your sin is, or are we still having a friendly relationship with our misery? Are we comfortable in the mud? Abandon and turn to God. And what should the unrighteous man forsake? His thoughts and his ways.

Have you ever noticed that most of the troubles in our life is that we are hard-headed in following our own ways? Because we think we know more. It's a struggle with kids. It's a struggle that they don't want to listen to their parents. Because they think they know more. They know more. Yes? No? But the interesting thing is that we as adults do the same thing with the Lord. We know that we're going in the wrong way. We know we're being led to sin. We know we're being led to bitterness, to anger, to wrath. But I know more. I don't want your thoughts. And that's why it says let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. You're probably sitting here and maybe thinking that your thoughts and your ways have led you to a life far away from God. You're probably seeing how your own ways and your own thoughts have led you to a life of destruction in your relationship. The Lord's saying, abandon them, forsake them, and turn to God. Why? Verse 8. Why? Why? Why? Why? Verse 8. Why? For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

Why? The incredible thing about the lie of our own thoughts and our own sin is the same one that Adam and Eve believed of Satan. But doing what we want is going to end up in better results than doing what God wants. Forsake them. Let us forsake pride. Let's listen to the Word of God. Because if we do this, and we forsake our thoughts, and we turn to God, it says that He will have compassion on us. And He is great to forgive. How beautiful. That this promise depends on Him and not on me. Can you imagine if He said, yes, I'll forgive you, but only if you've sinned only this much. But if you were to sin this much more, then that's outside of my capacity to forgive and that's outside of it. He is great to forgive. He's compassionate. And if we do this, all of this will result in joy, peace, and total transformation to the glory of God. When we turn to God, it's going to result in joy, peace, and transformation. And when you're walking in your own ways, you can't tell me that you live joyfully. When you see the consequences of your sin, don't tell me that you feel peace. When you're letting your sinful attitudes destroy you, don't tell me that you're living in that peace of the Lord. That can only be found in Him. Look at what verses 10 through 13 say. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty. But it shall accomplish that which I propose, and shall succeed in the thing for which it was sent. For you shall go out in joy, and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress, instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle, and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. When someone accepts the invitation of God to be satisfied in Him, and as a result abandons their thoughts and their ways, they experience a transformation that will be evident in everything they do. And it even gives an illustration. Just like the water. Water the rain and the snow, touch the earth, it waters it and it makes it produce. When the Word of God comes in contact with a humble heart, with a repentant heart, it doesn't say that this person is going to know a whole lot more about the Bible. It says that it will produce fruit inside of them. Look at how it relates the thoughts of God with the Word of God. When the Word of God has settled into the heart of humans, it's impossible for them not to experience that godly transformation. It's like if I came in and said, I'm sorry I was late this morning. As I was crossing the road, an 18-wheeler came by, and it undid my hair. It would be the same thing as if someone came in and said, hey, I've had this encounter with the God of the universe, and it didn't even undo your hair. It's easier for me to say that they got hit by a truck than it is for me to say that they've experienced that godly transformation. When someone receives the invitation, they repent from their sins, they will be transformed. If this transformation isn't real in your life, there probably isn't that repentance We probably haven't understood the invitation. Probably we never accepted the invitation.

But you can't tell me that you've been through all of this and have not experienced that transformation from God in your life. And it says that where there were thorns, shall come up the cypress. Where there was nothing in a dead spousal relationship that was dead, now there's life. And someone that's young that was getting satisfied by technology and the pleasures of the world, they now despise all of that and desire God alone. Those that were living out in their own thoughts now want to live according to God's thoughts. For what? To bring glory to ourselves? We can't. Because from beginning to end, salvation belongs to God. If anything good happens to us, it's by His grace and mercy that people might say, if this person changed, it's because something supernatural happened. Because nothing that ever happened in the life of this person could have ever happened without supernatural impact in it. And as the worship team comes up, we're going to watch a video of what God does in the life of a person. And after this video from our sister, we're going to pray together. And I'm going to encourage you to ask the Lord, where are we? Is our heart hardened to God's invitation? Do we think we have all the time in the world? Are we forsaking our own thoughts, or are we embracing them? Let's watch the video. My name is Jessica Hildebrand. I lead our women's ministry on our Maumelle campus, and I also am part of the teaching team in West Little Rock as well. I grew up in a small town in Arkansas and was raised in a loving home. I gave my life to Christ at the age of twelve. In my early teen years I met a young man and decided to start dating him, and he was someone that my parents did not approve of.

I was kind of led to have to make a decision to either continue to see the young man or leave home. I chose to leave home my senior year of high school. I left academic scholarships behind, athletic scholarships behind, and moved to Michigan. Got married early, had a child when I was nineteen. After a year or so of marriage, I realized I had gotten myself into quite the pickle. It was a pretty chaotic marriage. It was full of abuse and financial difficulties, adultery. You name it, we had it. It eventually led, after a couple years of marriage, to divorce. I moved back home with my daughter to Arkansas, met another individual, had a relationship on and off that again was pretty chaotic, and I ended up getting pregnant and having my son. I went to work for my brother-in-law and sister as a bookkeeper, and that was a very trusted position, obviously, dealing with their finances. I decided to make the horrible decision of stealing money, a large sum of money. Eventually that got caught by the federal government, and I was sentenced to two years in federal prison. I was, by all accounts, a liar. I was a thief. I was now a convicted felon. I lost custody of both of my children. A lot of people ask me what the turning point was. You would think prison would have been it, right? What bigger wake-up call would you possibly need? But for me, that wasn't it. I remember very vividly laying in the floor of my closet, just weeping over how I had gotten to this point in life, who I was, who I had become. It was devastating. I recognized that I needed a Savior, and that it wasn't just a label.

Christian wasn't just a label for me. I think if there is a turning point, that was it. Standing up teaching women's Bible study gets a pretty good contrast to my life twenty years ago. I'm not sure this is me. I've got the wrong woman, but in God's grace, He showed me that He actually has designed me as a teacher. He gave me such a love for His Word and a desire to share that with women. I think it's just so obvious, especially people that knew me then and know me now, how it's nothing but the work of God. Christian's prison ministry gives me the opportunity to go in and speak with women about what got us all to the place of being incarcerated. One thing that we all have in common is sin. I think the message of the gospel that we share consistently and faithfully with them obviously has the power to save lives, to transform their lives. They understand that God has created them on purpose, for a purpose, in His image. He has redeemed so much of my life. I have a loving relationship with my father now that if you'd have told me twenty years ago would be possible, I wouldn't have believed it. My daughter, who by all accounts had a very unstable childhood, who did not have Christ presented in the home, is leading women's Bible study as a table leader in my mail. My sister, I have a closer relationship with her now than we had as blood sisters when we were young, because Christ has just created such an intimacy there. It's hard to look in the mirror and go, without Christ, this is who you are. You are a liar. You are a thief. You are a felon. You did steal from your family. You did tear your family apart by disobedience. That's hard to know that without Christ, that's who you are.

But that's the truth of it, and that's also the grace and mercy of it, right? It's beautiful and messy all at the same time, but apparently God loves to use that. So here I am. That's what the power of God can do in our lives. And I can just finish with what the hymn today says, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was lost, but now I see, blind, but now I see. Let's pray, church. Thank you, Father, for your word this morning. Father, if there's anyone today that you're telling them, stop walking in your own ways. Lord, give them the grace to turn back and turn toward you. Lord, if anyone here today has not received that invitation to be satisfied in you, Lord, that they might experience how bitter the world is, that it wouldn't add anything to ourselves. We ask that you would work in our hearts, and in the name of Jesus we pray, amen.