I realized I was saying a lot
of the same things I said last week, which is, you know, not
uncommon. We end up saying a lot of the
same things every week. But a lot about assured salvation,
a lot about the rest and comfort it can give us now every day. I know I preached on Samson and
his parents and the angel last week, and it ended up giving
us the same lesson, to be assured, to rest in what Christ has done.
And I'm gonna end up with that very same message today. And
what other message is there? But this one is especially comforting
in everything that God tells us through these first seven
verses of Isaiah 43 are so simply laid out to show His power and
His love for his people, and the finality of it, and the amazing
love involved, and that love mixed with power, and how it
can just give us rest, and give us absolute assurance in what
we need to know. So, my favorite part of this
entire seven verses are the three words, you are mine. And I've
talked about this a lot. But you are mine are incredibly
powerful words. It doesn't get any more powerful
than that. And we're going to study those three words in depth
today. So to get started, I'm going to literally break down
each word and what it means, what it, who it's representing,
and the specifics of it. So as we get there, I'm gonna
start at verse one once again. So, but now this is what the
Lord says. He who created you, Jacob, he
who formed you, Israel, do not fear for I have redeemed you.
I have summoned you by name, you are mine. He's speaking directly
to his people. So that's you, the you of you
are mine. Who is he talking to? The simple
answer is his people. But let's look exactly what the
specific scripture says. But now, this is what the Lord
says, he who created you, Jacob. Jacob is one of my favorite words
in the Bible. It is such a perfect representation
of who I am, of who you are. Jacob, as we've heard over the
years, maybe if you are new to this, Jacob is, the definition
of the word Jacob is heel grabber, or scoundrel. There was nothing
good in Jacob. He was a liar. He was a thief. He was the type of person that
if you knew him now, you would not like him. He was untrustworthy. He was, well, he was a scoundrel. That was Jacob. But Jacob is a perfect picture
of God's chosen people because that is exactly what each one
of us are. not even God's chosen people,
all people, all men, scoundrels, heel grabbers, liars, thieves,
as low as it gets. Born into this world as sinners,
but Jacob was loved by God. And it's a perfect picture of
Jacob have I loved is in the scripture and there's absolutely
no reason to love Jacob and it's put that way absolutely on purpose. They gave in the scriptures zero
reason for us to even like Jacob as people, as his peers, we wouldn't
even like Jacob. But God, the creator of all things,
the ruler and the judge loved him. And it says that as simply
as it possibly can. Jacob have I loved. And it goes
to extremes to show us that there's no reason to love Jacob. Zero
reasons. He does nothing good. He lies
to his father. He tricks his brother. He's just an awful, awful person. Yet God loves him. It's a perfect
picture of us. Of God's people. Absolutely not
one singular reason for us to be loved by God, but he has chosen
to do so out of his own will. Beautiful. That is so beautiful. And that's why I love Jacob,
because it is such a great picture of who I am, but yet I'm loved. And then the very next line,
he says, who has created you, Jacob, who has formed you, Israel. And there's the change from regular
man to chosen people of God. God wrestled with Jacob and changed
his name to Israel, and that's a perfect picture of the people
becoming saved, being spiritually made alive. That's the difference
from regular man and the chosen people of God. They are now known
as Israel. They didn't earn it, they did
nothing to deserve it, but they're loved. So that's the who. The who in you are mine is Jacob,
God's people who do not deserve love, but get all of it. Followed by you are mine. Also beautiful. Not you might
be, or you could be. You are, right now, definite,
you are mine. Not you will be mine. You are mine. God has chosen
a people that are his, right now, back then when this was
said, right now, and for the rest of time. Before the world
began, you are mine. Completely certain. Completely
assured. There's no room for doubt in
what is being said here. No room at all. It is absolutely
specific in its definition, in its forcefulness. You are mine. No doubt whatsoever. There's
a period at the end of the sentence. You are mine. The work that was necessary to
make you his is finished. That price is paid. There are
no stipulations on behavior. There are no stipulations on
how often you do certain things, whether it's worldly works or
even church works, whatever you want to come up with. There are
absolutely no stipulations on how you behave, on how you are.
This was before you were born. This is before Christ was born.
You are mine, Jacob. You are mine, Israel. It takes all the responsibility
out of that statement for us. There's none. All the responsibility
for that statement of you are mine belongs to God and he's
already taken care of it. It's exactly where that responsibility
needs to be. So then you get to the third
word, you are mine. It says at the very first line,
who is mine? But now, this is what the Lord
says. As I was thinking about these
words, and how we can best relate to them as people, you are mine. Do we ever say that in a lifetime
as a human being? How often do you say to someone,
you are mine? As a parent. It's about the only time I can
think of that word being used. You are mine. I can say, Oliver
is mine. And it doesn't sound weird. May
is mine. So in a similar sense, I have
love for them in the fact that they are mine and I'll do anything
I can do to make their lives as good as possible. If I had
the power to make their lives absolutely perfect, I would.
If I had the power to give them salvation, I would do it in a
second. I love them, but guess what? My love doesn't come with
power. My love, as active as I can make
it, is still passive in the fact that I have no true power over
their lives and certainly no true power over their souls. So if God is saying to us, you
are mine, which is in a similar, best we can grasp is similar
to the way a parent says that to a child. So God says, you
are mine, in the same way that a parent says that to his child,
it's pure love. But the beautiful, beautiful
part of this is that when God says, you are mine, that love
is right next to and part of all the power that has ever existed. So though I love May and I love
Oliver and they are mine and I wish I could do anything I
could do to make sure that their salvation is forever and that
their time on earth even is great. I have no power. God says you
are mine. Accompanied with those words
is all the power in the world. And he'll make sure of it. What
a beautiful assurance. You are mine. I'm gonna love
you and take care of you and I have all the power to do it. His love is not passive like
ours. His love is the most active, powerful love you can imagine.
If he loves you, he loves you in a way that he will take care
of your soul guaranteed, because he has all the power to do it.
So he has the want to, he has the will, and he has the ability.
Nothing can stop him. He will do anything. He is the
creator, the one and only ruler, the I am saying, you are mine. If you are his, nothing can hurt
you. Nothing can take you away from him. Nothing can undo what
Christ has done. You are his, you are saved. It's his power that keeps you.
Is there anything more sure or anything more permanent than
that? So again, God's love is not passive. He doesn't just protect us as
we go through our world, our life here. You hear a lot of
that, you know, God walk next to me, walk by me, you know,
take care of me each day as I go through trials and tribulations.
And you know, you will go through trials, obviously we all do,
all the time. But it's not like God is just
walking next to you, shielding you every time one of these things
comes up. Life is God's. Everything that happens is happening
according to his power. He doesn't walk beside us through
life, he is life. He's above all things. He holds
creation, he holds time in his hand. If we go to verse two,
it says, when you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the
rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the
fire, you will not be burned." Again, he's not just going to
protect you from the rivers and the waters and the fires of this
world. The rivers, the waters, and the fires of this world do
whatever he says. I mean, to put it in a simple
way for me, every molecule, every atom, every animal, every insect,
it's not like they're all just hanging out waiting for God to
tell them what to do. They don't do anything without
his order. From the tiniest thing you can
imagine, from the chemical reactions that happen in a DNA strand,
to a bug flying around, none of these things are just on their
own until God gives them attention. They don't move unless God tells
them to move. They don't do anything, and God
puts everything into action. Another absolute comfort in the
fact that nothing is out of his control. As we go through this
life, it's not God walking with us, protecting us from the dangers.
The dangers are part of his plan. I mean, nothing happens here
without him pulling the strings. So when he says, you know what,
pass through the waters, I'll be with you. Of course, the waters
do what he says. The fire will not set you ablaze. Right, it's not like he's blocking
the fire, he's telling the fire to back off. The waters, the river, the fire,
the entire world, they answer only to Christ. All things belong to him. Everything
that in this world exists in every way according to His Word. So if you are His, could you
be safer? No. Can your salvation be more
assured? No. If you go to verse 3, For I am the Lord your God, the
Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt for your ransom,
Cush and Seba for your stead, since you are precious and honored
in my sight, and because I love you. I will give men in exchange
for you and people in exchange for your life. Do not be afraid,
for I am with you. I will bring your children from
the east. I will gather you from the west. I will say to the north,
give them up. To the south, do not hold them
back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends
of the earth. Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created
for my glory, whom I formed and I made." Just the power in all
of that. I will. give men in exchange
for you. I'll do whatever is necessary.
Matter of fact, I won't give men in exchange for you. I'll
give my own son in exchange for you. I will give people in exchange
for your life. Do not be afraid, I am with you. I will bring my
children from the east and gather you from the west. I will say
to the north, give them up. And to the south, do not hold
them back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the
ends of the earth. There is such power in what he's saying. I
will save my people. Why? Right here. You are precious and honored
in my sight and because I love you. Jacob have I loved. Again, no
reason to love Jacob, but God does love Jacob. Matter of fact,
Jacob is precious and honored in his sight. We are Jacob, God's
people. And because I love you, he just has For the lack of better words,
because I'm not a wordsmith, he has decided to love you. He has decided to love his people.
And nothing changes what God decides. Jacob did nothing to
earn it, neither did we. But that love is, once it's in
place, it's never going anywhere. So he will do, and has done,
everything that is necessary to make sure every one of his
people will be saved. And then, how did it come that
God's people are his? Because, if you look at it in
a timeline, sin is not accepted by God. So from the beginning
of time, God said, you are mine, but then Adam fell, and there
had to be sin in every single one of us. So there has to have something
that happened to make that work. You are mine, but you can't be
sinful. How was this finalized? How was this made to happen?
We all know, but what was made to happen is where the power
lies. Christ, our Lord and Savior, was brought to this world for
one reason, to die for his people. There was no other way to make
you are mine happen after the fall of Adam. So Christ came to this world
and he felt the physical punishment of what Rome could do, but mostly
he felt the wrath of his own father. The wrath for every sin
that every believer has or will ever do. Which when you think
of just yourself, how many is that? Sins that we could never be punished
for. Not fully. If we were to be punished
for our sins, we'd be punished forever. It would never end. He took them all. Every sin from
the beginning of time through the end of times. From his people. Everyone. And he paid for them.
Until they were gone. Until there was nothing left. He took them all and suffered
the consequences for each of them. This is how you became
his. This is why these words, you
are mine, will never change. They'll never, ever not be true. You are mine. It says, for I am the Lord your
God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt in
your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead. You are precious
and honored in my sight. And because I love you. That
sounds like something my mom would have said to me when I
was a kid, and it would have felt so good, and it did. You're
precious to me. I love you. Now imagine where
this is coming from, and this is specifically for you, if you
were a believer. Think about this. This is hard
to truly let sink in. You are precious and honored
in my sight, and I love you. This is God speaking to you. You're not only his, but you're
precious. You're honored. Do you feel like
you should be honored? I feel like I should not be honored.
Blows my mind. Precious, honored, me? But if we are his, that's exactly
what we are. We're precious, we're honored,
and it's absolutely okay to say that. It's hard for me to even
say that out loud, but you know why it's perfectly okay to say
that? Because Christ died for me. It is not absurd to think
that Christ's death is good enough to make me honored in God's sight. Christ is everything. If he died
for me, making me honored is no problem whatsoever. Making
me precious to God is no problem whatsoever, even though it seems
like an impossible mountain to climb for me. No way should I
be precious or honored by a human, let alone by the creator of the
world. But Christ died for me, and he's worth everything. that absolutely carries more
than enough to make every single one of his people precious and
honored to the point where God can say, because I love you. It immediately strips all doubt
away. It strips us of our shortcomings.
It strips us of our works. It strips us of anything we can
boast in. It gives us one reason we are saved, You are mine because Christ has
done it all. And if Christ has done it, it
is done perfectly and it is finished and you are precious right now. We are honored Christ has done
that for us. The comfort in these words It's hard to truly let those
really sink in, but if they do a little bit, man, the comfort
that that can give you. And if you're anything like me,
you'll go home today and you'll think about something else. But
you'll never stop understanding that if you're one of God's people.
You'll never stop believing that. You'll wander, you'll focus on
worldly things, but that doesn't change anything. That doesn't
change what Christ has done to make you precious, to make you
honored, and to make you loved. So as you go through life, and
these three words I try to think about as often as I can. I think
about the word precious a lot. And it helps me as I go through
this world. As you go through each day, as
you go through tough days, or good days, or any day, any time,
any tough situations, times when you disappoint yourself especially,
those are the hardest ones, just remember, you may have upset someone in
your life, you may have upset yourself in the way that you
asked, acted, or said something, or whatever. But to God, you
are precious. You are loved, and that will
never change. Never. You are his. You are precious
and honored in his sight, and he loves you. Just remember that. And if you're
listening to this online, or if you're thinking, That's all
great, you say this about God's people, how do I know I'm one
of God's people? That was something I struggled
with for a long time when I was younger. And even, you know,
sometimes now, doubt is normal. But the beautiful aspect of that,
as God has said, in very simple terms, that if you realize what
you are and that you need this love, and to be precious in his
sight, because you have no hope without it. All you have to do
is look to him and ask. That's it. Lord Jesus, I have
no hope without you. Please save me. And he will never
turn anyone away that says that from their heart, never once.
Won't happen. And for the rest of you that
already believe, again, you are loved, you are precious, and
you are honored, every day, forever. Let's take out our hymnals. And turn to number 82.