The Voyage of Belonging
Notes
Transcript
Introduce family. They are mine because the Lord has entrusted them to me.
The reality is every person here belongs to the Lord if they have determined to give Him their everything. Our theme verses look at the idea of a voyage but tonight I want to ask three questions that a person reading this passage might ask to look at the importance of belonging to God.
The Voyage we are on is dependent on who has set the voyage into motion. In this case, it’s the Lord.
Read Isaiah 43:1-3
The first question is simple
How is it that God can call you “mine”?
How is it that God can call you “mine”?
How is it that God can claim the people of Israel in these verses as his own? And how can God claim you and I as His own.
Well I want to give you two reasons. First off, He is the creator of all things. The very beginning of Genesis tells us that God created all things out of absolutely nothing. Then from the dust of the earth He creates man. Verse 1 is a reminder that we have created but also formed. To create is to bring about from nothing while forming is to take a substance and turn it into a different style or shape just as a potter would take clay and form it from a pile into a beautiful jar.
The reason I tell you this is in hopes of reminding you that all human beings means that you have a specific purpose: to bring glory to God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says:
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
And because of that, we can be called “mine” by the Creator means that there is an obligation for you and I to bring Him glory in everything that we do.
The second reason that the Lord can call you “mine” is because He is your redeemer, if you have done what Romans 10:9 clearly states to
because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
But what is a redeemer? The best way that it can be understood from the bible is a redeemer is a person who pays the price for another to free them, oftentimes from slavery. In this case, every human person is bound for hell because of their sin. There is a debt that it would be impossible for you and I to repay, yet God has paid the price of our freedom from sin with the blood of Jesus on the cross. He is our redeemer, having freed us. In the places we see this take place in scripture, it is often a family member who redeems someone from the debt that they owe.
With that information, we can understand that God sees all people as his family and has offered forgiveness of sins for those who confess and believe. Jesus died on the cross in order that we might be redeemed.
What can we learn about God?
What can we learn about God?
I want to point out just what we learn about God based on these two things. A person is known by what it is that they do. David likes to hunt and therefore is a hunter. Mr. Stan keeps bees and is therefore a beekeeper. All of you study, hopefully, and therefore are students. God creates and therefore is the one and only creator. He redeems His people and is therefore the Redeemer!
These are just two reasons why God is able to lay claim to us but I want to next look at verses 2 and 3.
Why would you want to belong to the Lord?
Why would you want to belong to the Lord?
There are two things mentioned in verse 2 that point us to the benefits of belonging to the Lord. First is His presence. In the midst of the waters, it is God who is there with us. He is guiding us and keeping us afloat. His presence is so strong that the waters do not overtake us even though it seems as though they will. The presence of God offers a great deal of potential. Consider the story of Jesus calming the storm in Mark 4. Because He is present on the boat, at first the disciples believe for some reason that he doesn’t have control over the situation even though they question why he’s sleeping as if he doesn’t care. But they fail to remember that the presence of Jesus means that they are cared for. The storm did not have any threat on them that Jesus would not have allowed.
It is his presence that provides the protection that is mentioned regarding the fire. It says that the fire will not consume them. Consider the three Israelite boys in Daniel. They were in the midst of the fiery furnace but weren’t touched by the fire at all.
But I want to make note of the fact that the promise made by the Lord here is not that they will never be in the water or never be in the first. The reality of life is that we will all find ourselves in difficult situations. You might ask the question, “why has God allowed me to be here and not kept me from this?” but the real question we should be asking is “how is the presence of God keeping me safe?”
I also want to point out the idea of safety, which points both to the protection as well as the presence of God that goes beyond verse 2 into verse 3.
There is safety in His name: Exodus 6:6-7, Exodus 12:12. These are promises made to the people of God that they will indeed be protected, cared for, and safe.
For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord.
Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
There is safety in relationship with Him. Your Savior. Not just any savior. It implies a relationship and belonging.
There is safety despite His holiness. We’ll get to this more shortly but God is holy and deserves that His people be the same way. To not align with this expectation would be dangerous for the Christian.
There is safety in His saving ability. He is Savior and therefore it is in his nature to save.
There is safety in the fact that our God has experience in protecting His people.
What can we learn about god?
What can we learn about god?
With our final point this evening I actually want to circle back to verse 1. The Lord says, “do not fear.” Most often in the bible when God’s people are told not to fear, there is a good reason for it. In this case I want to ask the question,
Why Shouldn’t You Fear?
Why Shouldn’t You Fear?
If we look back to the previous chapter, we can understand why it is that the people had reason to be fearful before the reassurance from the Lord. You’ll notice that the chapter begins with, “But now” and anytime there is a transition word like this, it is most helpful to look at what came before.
Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord? He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear. The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious. But this is a people plundered and looted; they are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons; they have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to say, “Restore!” Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come? Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? So he poured on him the heat of his anger and the might of battle; it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand; it burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.
The people of God failed to notice what it was that He was doing among them. (v. 19)
Despite the outpouring of blessing, the people not only didn’t recognize what He was doing but that lack of recognizing leads to a lack of praise (v. 20-22)
They disobeyed by not making the sacrfiecies that they were supposed to (v. 24)
In other words, they didn’t care one bit. This is the sort of attitude that a holy God has every right to punish His people because of. Yet, He has done the opposite. Despite our sinfulness and the fact that we do not care about the things of God, He still says, “you are mine” and continues to be make salvation and forgiveness available to us.
What can we learn about God?
What can we learn about God?
You may be here tonight and there are things you have done this year, this month, this week, or even over the weekend before coming to camp. But I want to remind you that you are not defined by the guilt of your past but instead by the one who calls you “mine”. This means that we can come to the Lord with a request of forgiveness and He grants it. This means that we don’t have to fear the punishment that we are deserving of because He is our redeemer. We belong to Him and He belongs to us.
Can the Lord call you “mine”? Or maybe you’ve been saved and redeemed but haven’t been living the way that you know that you should. Can I encourage you tonight to start camp off the right way
