Title: We Matter
Text: Isaiah 43:1-7
Explain the parallelism in the lines of Hebrew Poetry… the first line makes an observation and the second line restates it in slightly different language. It serves as something of a double-whammy by making a point and then reinforcing that point.
It is like the old “There’s a Hole in My Bucket” children’s song.
There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, a hold. (And Liza sings back…)
Then mend it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry,
Then mend it, dear Henry, dear Henry, mend it. (The song goes on and on and on in the same pattern.)
So see if you pick up on the pattern as we make our way through the text.
Read Text…
The message today is about God’s presence in our lives.
This is the 1st Sunday after Epiphany and is generally thought of as the Sunday we are reminded that one of the ways God has made Christ known is through his baptism. When John the Baptist baptized Jesus the Bible says that when Jesus came up out of the water the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove and God spoke from heaven saying, “This is my Son in whom I am pleased.” In our text today we are reminded that when we go through life, God makes himself known to us as we too pass through our own waters of baptism and through the deep waters of life.
The title of my talk today is…
Title: We Matter
Text: Isaiah 43:1-7
Thesis: We matter because we are God’s.
Setting/Background: The book of Isaiah is about Desolation and Consolation.
Desolation – The first 39 chapters of the Book of Isaiah are about God’s harsh judgment of his people. Isaiah 1 begins with a prophetic declaration: “My children I raised and cared for have rebelled against me… Oh what a sinful nation they are – loaded down with a burden of guilt. They are an evil people, corrupt children who have rejected the Lord. They have despised the Holy One of Israel.” And so Israel was punished and God’s people lived in exile from their homeland, Israel. Because of their disobedience they suffered the consequences and had given some time to think about it. In the section immediately preceding out text today God says of them, “Listen you who are deaf! Look and see, you blind! You see and recognize what is right but you refuse to act upon it. You hear with your ears but you do not really listen.” Isaiah 42:18-20 As a result they suffered the consequences for their behavior in Isaiah 42:21-25.
However, 39 chapters later God says they have suffered enough so he sends Isaiah to speak a new word to his Children. Chapter 40 begins, “Comfort, comfort my people. Speak tenderly to them. Tell them their sad days are gone and their sins have been pardoned.”
Consolation – So our text today continues with God reassuring his people of his love for them. It is a new word of consolation, “But now, O Jacob, listen to the Lord who created you…” Isaiah 43:1 The time of desolation is over and a time of consolation has come. God who judged them harshly for their behavior now reassures Israel of his love for them and tells them they matter to him.
Introduction
A couple of weeks ago Will and I had breakfast together at Snooze… a self-described A.M. Eatery on the corner of 7th and Colorado in Denver. I think it is arguably among the best breakfast spots in the metro area… we did go there to eat but we also went there to talk.
I don’t know how we happened to be talking about how we were disciplined as children but Will told about how once after having been disciplined by his father for lying, Will was standing there crying and his dad said, “Now come here and give me a hug.”
That is something of what has happened in our text today. The people of God have experienced discipline for their disobedience and now God is reassuring them of his love. So while God’s people experienced a time of desolation they are now experiencing God’s loving consolation.
So in reflecting on their experience our text today gives us a teaching moment about the character of God and how much God cares about his children…
I. Because we belong to God, we are important to God. We matter! Whose we are, is as important as who we are!
Listen to the Lord who created you. O Israel, the one who formed you says, “Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1
If this were a horse race this morning the bell would have rung, the starting gates flung open and the horses would be bolting out of the gate and onto the track… the first thing God wants us to know is that we matter to him and why we matter to him. He says we matter to him by making a series of statements, each of which reinforces the others. And what God says of his people then… holds true for his people today.
We matter to God because…
A. The Lord created us as in the making of something new.
“God made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating one new people from the two groups.” Isaiah 43:1 and Ephesians 2:15ff
The promise to Abraham in Genesis 12 was that Abraham would be the father of a great nation. It was a promise reiterated time and time again to Abraham and his son Isaac and Isaac’s son, Jacob. A recurring theme throughout the Old Testament is that of Israel being the people of God. But as we learned last week it was always God’s plan to make all people one in Christ. In Ephesians 2:15ff, “God made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating one new people from the two groups.” Ephesians 2:15ff
“We are no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham.” Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11
This creating is not the same as God, out of nothing, creating a giant ball of clay and hurling it out into space and calling it earth. This creating is more like what the United Nations did following World War II. In 1947 the U.N. recommended the adoption and implementation of the United Nations Plan of Mandatory Partition that resulted in the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel.
Peter quotes a verse from Hosea that speaks to the creation of a new people. “Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy.” Once you weren’t but now you are. I Peter 2:10
We matter to God because God has established us as his people. We are God’s children. The bible says in I John, “See how much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and we really are.” I John 3:1
The second reason we matter to God is reflected in the way God reinforces his statement about having created us. The reinforcing word is “formed.”
B. The Lord formed us as in the activity of a potter or wood carver.
As clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand. Isaiah 43:1 and Jeremiah 18:6
The art of chainsaw carving is a fast-growing art form that combines the modern technology of the chainsaw with the ancient art of woodcarving. I first noticed chainsaw carvings shortly after moving here from Iowa when I visited the Anderson cabin near Fair Play. One the edge of town there was a small shop with what looked like dozens of bears carved from stumps of wood on display. Since then, I have noticed that chainsaw carving, while popular in Europe for some time, is increasingly popular here and is amazingly and finely detailed.
The word “formed” is the word used in reference to the work of a potter in Jeremiah 18 where the potter working with a piece of pottery on the wheel does not like the way a vessel is turning out so he crushed it into a new lump of clay and began again. The imagery is that God takes us as people, stumps of wood or lumps of clay and he goes to work forming and shaping us into the kind of people he wants us to become.
This imagery is present in the New Testament as well as Scripture speaks of God’s perception of us as his “masterpieces” or his ongoing work in our lives in Philippians 1:6 and Ephesians 3:20 and II Corinthians 3:18.
In the last two verses of Isaiah 43:1 God adds to the imagery of “creating and forming” the images of “ownership or possession.”
C. The Lord ransomed us as in bringing out of slavery or bondage, i.e., saving
To a people who are accustomed to feeling insecurity and alienation God says, “Do not be afraid… (not only did I create you and form you) I have ransomed you…”
This may be understood as a reference to the 400 years the Israelites had lived as slaves in Egypt before the Exodus. We pick that story up in Exodus 3 where God spoke to Moses, “I am the God of your Father – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob… I have seen the oppression of my people in Egypt and I have heard their cries of distress. I am aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile and spacious land.” Exodus 3:6-10
Because God created and formed his people he cared for them and was not willing to let them remain in slavery. So he rescued them from slavery and bondage… saved them and set them free.
It is an image similar to that of “redemption.” The Israelite people would have understood how in their culture, if a family fell on hard times through death or a crop failure or some other crisis or tragedy and lost their land, relatives would redeem the land for them. If a family lost the family farm, so to speak, their extended family would make a way to buy that land back and return it to them.
In our current culture ransoming or redeeming may be likened to what happens in a pawn shop. When you take something to a pawn shop you may be asked, “Do you want to sell it or pawn it?” If you want to sell it there is a transfer of ownership. If you wish to pawn it they loan you money based on the value of your pawn and hold the item until your redeem it or buy it out of pawn.
When God ransomed us, rescued us and saved us by buying us back, so to speak… like property formerly held in pawn.
And once again verse 1 concludes with a reinforcement of that image of buying back.
D. The Lord made us his own… we are his as in possession or ownership.
“Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” Isaiah 43:1
I am probably a less than idea grandfather in that I think I should have input on what our kids name “my” grandchildren. It began 14 years ago with the birth of our first and has continued over the years… our daughter-in-law is about to give us number 8.
I lobbied hard for names like “Max” and I wanted them to name twins “Ruff” and “Ready.” I wanted them to name our granddaughters “Olivia” and “Isabella.” But they would have no part of it. The kiddos were theirs to name, not me. We don’t possess much less own other people’s kids.
God says of each and every one of us as his children, “I created you, I formed you, I ransomed you and I named you and you are mine.”
This really is a word of grace to us. It is a word of grace that tells us we do not need to live in fear.
II. Because of Whose we are, we are not to live in fear!
“Do not be afraid…” Isaiah 43:1
Verse 2 continues with the poetic parallelism I referred to earlier but now God speaks of water…
A. Do not be afraid in deep waters of difficulty
“When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown.” Isaiah 43:2a
In 2004 a tsunami with a 96 feet high tidal wave hit the coast of Thailand resulting in the deaths of some 230,000 people. The newly released, The Impossible, for which Naomi Watts received an Oscar Nomination for Best Actress, is a depiction of that event. It is said to be astoundingly realistic in capturing the absolute devastation and chaos that took place. As devastating as was Hurricanes Katrina or Sandy, both pale in the face of comparison to that tsunami.
Flood water is often a metaphor for the difficulties, obstacles and challenges of life.
The same thing is true of fire. God speaks of fire and flames in the second half of Isaiah 43:2.
B. Do not be afraid in flames of oppression
“When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.” Isaiah 43:2b
In 2012 in the state of Colorado alone there were 12 devastating wild fires that wreaked chaos and devastation around out state: Little Sands Fire, Treasure Fire, Weber Fire, Waldo Canyon Fire. Flagstaff Fire, Low North Fork Fire, High Park Fire, Springer Fire, Woodland Heights Fire, Last Change Fire (way out in eastern Colorado along Highway 36), Ironing Board Fire, and the Pine Ridge Fire.
Whenever you look at a landscape following a flood or a fire… all you see is chaos and devastation.
God’s promise to us is that when we experience the chaotic and devastating effects of floods and fires in life, he will be with us.
Conclusion:
When God speaks of deep rivers of difficulty and fires of oppression it is not about floods and fires… it is about the devastating and destructive and oppressive things of life that threaten to inundate us and overwhelm us and consume us. God is talking about the very real and personal storms of life that people like us go through.
Notice I said “go through.” God says he will be with us when we “go through deep waters” and when we “walk through the fire of oppression.”
Living is about going through life.
Going through life is often about going through stuff that make us wonder about the presence of God like job loss, academic failure, personal betrayals, disease, depression, personal loss, our compulsions and addictions, our flat-out moral and character failures…
It is important, even imperative that we know God has not lost track of us. It is imperative that we know God has not abandoned us. It is imperative to know that God is slogging through the floods and fighting the fires of life right alongside us. “Do not be afraid, I will be with you through it all.”
On a recent episode of Biggest Losers there was a woman who left the program in defeat. It was so much harder to do and so much more painful than she imagined. She was utterly defeated and felt all alone in her struggle. The only voices she could hear were self-loathing and condemning… despite the fact that she was surrounded by people and coaches who were there to go through the obstacles with her.
We sometimes forget just how precious we are… we forget how much people love us and we forget just how much we matter to God and in some ways, how much we do does not.
I don’t know much you know about Franklin Graham, Billy and Ruth Grahams’ oldest son. Apparently the apple does not fall far from the tree because there are some interesting tales about the youthful Billy Graham as well.
Perhaps you are aware of his book, Rebel with a Cause. It is Franklin’s Graham’s personal unfolding of his life as he grew up in the Graham home. In his case, what they say about preacher’s kids was true.
Among the many stories he tells is one of how he was expelled from a conservative Christian college in Texas after taking a girl off campus for a weekend. He had rented a plane and flew her to Florida and back…
This was not Franklin’s first foray onto the wild side. He had been a heartbreaking disappointment on a number of occasions and now he had to pack his stuff and drive home to face his parents in North Carolina.
When he drove up the drive his mother was standing on the front porch. He was a broken young man. When he climbed the steps of the porch he said he could not even look his mother in the eyes… but his mother stepped forward, wrapped her arms around him and said, “Welcome home, Franklin.”
God is not at all happy when his children go through the stuff of life and it is hurtful when we fall into sin… but his promise is to go through it with us and like the father in the story of the prodigal son and like the mother in Franklin’s story. He speaks words of grace.
In Isaiah 43:13 God says, “From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can snatch anyone out of my hand. No one can undo what I have done.”
And in 43:25 God says, “Yes, I alone will blot out your sins for my own sake and will never think of them again.”
God’s Word says that in Him we are secure and safe both now and evermore.
Never, never, ever forget Whose you are and why you matter… God says in his Word, “I am the Lord, your God. Do not be afraid… you are mine and I will be with you.”
