The Same Love

Integrity Music

Paul Baloche – “The Same Love”

Sermon Outline

THE SAME LOVE

You choose the humble and raise them high

You choose the weak and make them strong

You heal our brokenness inside and give us life

The same love that set the captives free

The same love that opened eyes to see

Is calling us all by name

You are calling us all by name

The same God that spread the heavens wide

The same God that was crucified

Is calling us all by name

You are calling us all by name

You take the faithless one aside

And speak the words “you are mine”

You call the cynic and the proud

Come to me now

You’re calling, you’re calling

You’re calling us to the cross

Sermon Title: The Same Love

Key Scripture text: Isaiah 43:1-7

Introduction

When Christians talk about God, why do we describe him as a God of love? What is it about God that makes him loving?

Look with me at Isaiah 43:1-7. This passage spells out beautifully one of the major ways in which the love of God is expressed in Scripture: through redemption.

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, 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, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.

4 Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.

5 Fear not, 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 up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar 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.” (ESV)

This entire passage is an explanation of what God says in the first verse: “I have redeemed you.” Another way of saying “I have redeemed you” is “I have called you by name” or “you are mine” (verse 1).

There are four questions about this passage I want to ask and answer:

1. If I’m not Jewish, does this passage even apply to me?

2. What does it mean to be redeemed?

3. Who does God redeem and why? (Two questions in one.)

4. How should redeemed people respond?

1. If I’m not Jewish, does this passage even apply to me?

This passage was originally addressed to the nation of Israel, as we see in the first verse: “O Jacob … O Israel.” At the time Isaiah was written, the nation of Israel was the people of God. There were no other nations that he called his own. But with Jesus, things have changed. Through Jesus, the people of God are no longer primarily an ethnic nation but a family of faith. According to Jesus’s words in John 10, his people, his sheep, are those who “hear his voice” and follow him by faith (10:3-4). These are the ones he “calls . . . by name” and who are saved (10:3; 9).

We know that this includes more than Jews now, because Jesus says so just a little later in the chapter:

I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd. (10:16)

The flock of God, those whom he “calls by name” (Isaiah 43:1), whom he redeems, now includes all who follow the one shepherd, Jesus. It doesn’t matter whether they are of the original fold of ethnic Jews or not.

Jesus is calling his sheep by name from every tongue, tribe, and nation; and once they are in the fold he makes true for them all of the good promises that were previously made just to the original Jewish fold. That’s why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:20, “For all the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus].”

So as we look into this passage, know that the truths about redemption that we see in it can be applied to you, if you have heard Jesus’s voice and are following him.

2. What does it mean to be redeemed?

We saw in Isaiah 43:1 that another way of saying that God has redeemed us is that he has “called us by name” or “made us his own.” But how does the truth behind these expressions affect my life?