HIS PRIZED POSSESSIONS January 17, 2021
Text: Isaiah 43: 1- 7
Isaiah 43:1-7 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."
A four-year-old boy accompanied his pregnant mother to the gynecologist's office. When mother heaved a sigh and clutched her stomach, her son looked alarmed. "Mommy, what is it?" he asked.
"The baby brother you're going to have is kicking," his mother explained.
"He's probably getting restless," the youngster decided. "Why don't you swallow a toy?" (Lowell D. Streiker. An Encyclopedia Of Humor. Sixth Printing. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003, p. 122). How much are we like that restless that child? God’s people were restless because they were in exile. How often have we kicked, worried, reacted or doubted about things we don’t understand?
Today I want to talk about three things we see in today’s text restlessness, ransom and redemption.
RESTLESSNESS
Doesn’t stand to reason that if there are exiles, then there must be a threatening enemy?
1) Exile defined: If you look up the definition for an exile, then one of the connotations that you run across is that there an enemy whose power forces you to leave your native land.
2) Restlessness: Would being an exile not create some restlessness in us?
Several years ago, I heard the story of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. He went down to the local army surplus store one morning and bought forty-five used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled balloons. He took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.
Walters, who assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off guard when the chair soared more than 11,000 feet into the sky -- smack into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. Too frightened to shoot any of the balloons, he stayed airborne for more than two hours, forcing the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon, causing long delays in flights from across the country.
Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions:
"Where you scared?"
"Yes."
"Would you do it again?"
"No."
"Why did you do it?"
"Because," he said, "you can't just sit there." http://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/r/restless.htm [Leadership, Summer 1993, p. 35.] Is there a part of us that wants a birds-eye perspective for the the solutions to the problems of our world right now? We have to walk by faith and not by sight (II Corinthians 5:7). I know that I struggle with that because of my finite point of view. I believe Lord, but help my unbelief (Mark 9:24). We need to remind ourselves of two things 1) that God is infinite, omniscient and sovereign! 2) The last book in the Bible reminds us that God conquers all evil!!!
Did exile mean the same thing for them as it would for us?
1)Enemies: We have not been taken physically captive, but socially and spiritually we have been taken captive by the design of people both foreign and domestic who want power and control.
2) Bad sources: There might be time that we often feel like strangers in our native country because of all of the rivaling forces to God’s kingdom. So why do we pay attention to bad sources from bad actors instead of God?
3) Our own contributing exile factors: One reason for our exile is based upon how we have contributed to it. As someone (Ed Young) put it “Every decision we make is based on a world view that reflects our understanding of reality”. (Ed Young. Been There. Done That. Now What?. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1994, p. 148). Do we not cause most of our own problems when we have not followed God? In Philippians 1:6 Paul said “I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion by the day of Jesus Christ” (NRSV). Don’t we have to walk with God to get there----to those completed plans? Didn’t the children of Israel have to walk with God to get to the promised land?
4) Prodigal children: A second reason that people live in exile is because they live like prodigal children seeking to find what they hunger for in a “far country”. As someone (G. Campbell Morgan) said, “The trouble is we do not all find out for what we were born and for what purpose we came into the world”. (G. Campbell Morgan. The Westminster Pulpit. 80th Anniversary Edition. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2006, p. 108). God made us to be connected to Himself and to each other. God made us in His image. When we move away from God, it makes us restless. It is those who have gone astray from God who are restless and remain "restless until they find their rest in God" as St. Augustine put it. The world is full of people who are successful by the world’s standards but lost by God’s standards.
RANSOM
Is salvation possible without God’s input?
1) Dysfunctional math: Someone (Rev. Jim Kane) said it well when he said this: Why do you follow Jesus? Patrick Morley has some important things to say about our answer to this question. "The American gospel has evolved into a gospel of addition without subtraction. It is a belief that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin. It is a change in belief without a change in behavior."
Examining our motives is an important spiritual discipline. https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon-illustrations/20144/why-do-you-follow-jesus-patrick-morley-has-some-by-jim-kane So what good is our free will when we abuse it to neglect our relationship with God? Not only does God save us from our sin and our enemies, but God also saves us from ourselves.
2) Humility: How will we learn to examine our motives if we have disobedient hearts? Can pride fatally attractive? Recalling the story of Icarus from Greek mythology, we can see a metaphor of how pride can be fatally attractive.
Summarizing the story of Icarus: “Greek myth the son of Daedalus, with whom he escaped from Crete, flying with wings made of wax and feathers. Heedless of his father's warning he flew too near the sun, causing the wax to melt, and fell into the Aegean and drowned”. www.thefreedictionary.com/Icarus
I have wondered if this mythological story was the meaning behind the expression “Crash and burn”.
Is ransom always about greed? 1) Enemy: In real life and even in the movies, ransom is about someone who is held captive until a desired price has been paid. In the Bible, the understanding about ransom is that through disobedience we sold ourselves into the slavery of sin. 2) Envy: In both the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3) and in the parable of the wheat and weeds (Matthew 13:24 -30) we can draw the conclusion that “an enemy has done these things”! That same enemy is after us today!
3) Ransom: Proverbs 21:18 tells us, “The wicked is a ransom for the righteous, and the faithless for the upright” (NRSV). In Isaiah 43:3 God gives Egypt as a ransom; in Matthew 20:28 we are reminded that the Son of man came to give His life as a ransom for many. John 3:16! Do I need to say more?
As someone (David Powlison) said, “Jesus promises that life is more than your worries”. Only the the truly redeemed will have the faith to say that! That does not mean that I do not wrestle with worry. “Lord I believe but help my unbelief” (Mark 9:24).
REDEMPTION
What does it mean to be redeemed?
1) Price: It means that our redemption comes with a price! I Corinthians 6:20, & 7:23 clarify how we were bought with a price. John 19:30 is where Jesus says to God “It is finished” which translates “paid in full”! If you were to translate that from the original Greek, then it would translate “paid in full”. Galatians 3:13 tells us that Christ has redeemed us for the curse of the law having become a curse for us”.
2) Prized possession: “The Cross was supposed to silence all [H]is claims. Instead, it substantiated them.” (Calvin Miller. Once Upon A Tree. Louisianna: Howard Publishing Co., Inc. 2002, p. 44). Jesus demonstrated how much He values us when He died on the cross for you and for me!
Should the redeemed ever be afraid?
1) Facing our fear with faith: Twice in this passage of scripture we are told not to be afraid. God calls us by name and wants us to remember His name. God will be with us as we face all of those things that threaten to consume us----things in nature, and even those who oppose us (Isaiah 43:2).
2) Remember who we are: Like them, we are exiles and this world is not our home! There are people who might have control over our present circumstances but we are redeemed through Jesus Christ who holds today, tomorrow and our future in eternity.
3) God is faithful: How many of us feel like we are modern day exiles in our own native country? Remember Daniel, Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego were all exiles? God took care of Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego when they face the fiery furnace because they refused to submit to bow and worship a statue of Nebadchadnezzar. They were placed into the fiery furnace and God watched over them. Not only did they not burn, but they came out not even smelling like smoke. God took care of Daniel when and no harm came to him when he was sent into the lion’s den. They walked with God to complete the work that God started in them (Philippians 1:6).
Does any of that sound familiar from our text today? 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, Never forget that God gave His only begotten Son for our Redemption!
What if God is using us as His instruments to reach the lost through our witness as exiles? Maybe someone should write a book about that. Isn’t the Bible that book? God will take care of us as we face these difficult times. Christ wants us to pick up our crosses and follow in His foot steps as we deny ourselves, remember our witness and change the world around us because of His work in us! We are His prized possessions!
In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
