Precious In God's Sight

Sometimes when I’m wrestling to figure out what is on God’s heart for me to preach on, I’ll take a pictorial directory of our church family, look at the pictures one by one and pray, “Lord, what is on your heart for this person, for that family?”

I did just that this week, thinking about this morning’s sermon. I looked at a picture and asked, “Lord what’s on your heart for this person? How can I pray for them? And the answer came right away, “pray that they will know that they are precious in my sight.” So I did. Another picture caught my eye, somebody that I hadn’t even met yet or learned anything at all about, and the answer came again. “Pray that they will know that they are precious in my sight.”

I can’t claim that I’ve mastered the art of hearing God’s voice. But does that sound like God to you? I know that’s how he wants me to learn to look at each of you, as precious in his sight. I haven’t mastered that, yet either.

Well, that’s what brought me to our scripture for this morning, Isaiah 43:1-7. Would you please all stand as Warren comes to read it for us.

1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob,

he who formed you, O Israel:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mine.

2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

3 For I am the LORD your God,

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom,

Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you.

4 Because you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you,

I give people in return for you,

nations in exchange for your life.

5 Do not fear, for I am with you;

I will bring your offspring from the east,

and from the west I will gather you;

6 I will say to the north, "Give them up,"

and to the south, "Do not withhold;

bring my sons from far away

and my daughters from the end of the earth—

7 everyone who is called by my name,

whom I created for my glory,

whom I formed and made."

It’s easy for us fallen human beings to start to feel like God is distant, uncaring, unreasonably demanding, maybe not even there at all? But this scripture gives us a very different picture. Of course, it is God speaking to the nation of Israel a long time ago and far away from here. But it shows us something in God’s heart that we should expect to experience, too. We are precious in his sight.

Why does God love his people? The first verse gives several huge reasons. “But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob.” The first reason listed is that he loves us because he created us. Those of us who are parents can understand that once you have brought a human being into the world, your child, a part of you, someone who shares some of your most essential traits, there is always going to be a connection there. And especially when they are young, they don’t do anything useful for you. They may smell bad, they mess their diapers, they wake you up in the middle of the night. If you want to go out, you have to pack up all that stuff, diapers, bottles, formula, and stroller. They’re a big pain. But they’re part of us and we love them.

I used to think of parenting as something you do for 20 years or so, then the kids are grown up and your job is done. But is it ever done? No, you are always going to be thinking about them, always connected to them, always vitally concerned about them, aren’t you?

We are God’s creations, we have come from him, his children, and like it or not he will always feel a connection to us, a desire for us. God loves us with a parent’s love, only better than any human parent can do.

He created us, but then, maybe to pin the thought down a little stronger, the thought is repeated with a slightly different spin in the next phrase, “he who formed you, O Israel.” Can you hear a little more care in that? He formed us. He is forming us every day. The Bible tells us over and over again that God is molding us. He teaches us. He disciplines those whom he loves. We like to think that God’s job is to just give us lots of cool stuff, but the Bible talks much more about how he brings tests and adversities into our lives to teach us character and make us strong.