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Eleventh Sunday After Pentecost
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Michael Moffitt, August 16, 2020


You Are My Witnesses


Text: Isaiah 43:1–11

When I was a child I sometimes spent weekends with my father's mother, a widow, and she had a real influence on my life. One of the things that I remember about staying with her was that the smell of her house was uniquely hers. Her kitchen was easily identified by the smell of those things that were cooking or had been cooked previously. She was an amazing cook and I always looked forward to meals with her. Even breakfast was more than a bowl of cereal and always had the proper amount of protein and fresh fruit. You could have blindfolded me and taken me to my grandmother's house, and I would know exactly where I was. Even today I occasionally go places where the smells remind me of my grandmother and the wonderful weekends that I spent with her. It’s amazing how intimacy with loved ones stays with us and informs our thinking and understanding.

Teresa and I have been married for 47 years and we have experienced many, many things together, both good and bad. Like my grandmother, I know the smell of our house because she is there. I know what it’s like to hold her and that it’s more wonderful than holding anyone else. I know the smell of her shampoo and perfume. I can read her expressions and glean how she is reacting to something I said or what others have said. I know her mannerisms very, very well and I experience a hollow feeling when she is gone someplace away from our home. We finish one another’s sentences and know when to let the other alone with their thoughts.

If called upon to give testimony about my wife’s personality, actions, or anything else about her, I’m sure that I am the most reliable witness anywhere, even more so than our children. There is an intimacy that I share with her that is different than anyone else. I don’t need other opinions about her, and no one could persuade me to turn my back on her or question her intentions. In the scriptures we often see the writers comparing our intimacy with God by comparing it to the intimacy of a husband and wife.

Last month we considered the relationship that Christians have with their Father in Heaven. Romans 8:14–16,

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God…

Paul was pointing the Christians in Rome to the intimacy that they shared with God through Christ Jesus. We are encouraged to share the same level of relationship with the Father that Jesus enjoys. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus instructs those who were following him how to pray. In Matthew 6:9–13 he told them to address God as he did, “Our Father in Heaven.” The invitation is a level of intimacy that could only be found in family, which is exactly the invitation: to join the family of God. However, it’s followed by, “Hallowed be your name,” which reminds those praying that even though we can address the Father as one of his children, we must always be aware that the Father is Holy and we should be in awe of Him and revere Him as the Lord of the Universe.

Therefore, if we pursue our relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then our level of intimacy should increase as we experience the presence of God through his Holy Word and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

I chose the particular scripture references for today because each gives us an understanding of how is that we should be able to testify as personal witnesses to the glory and power of God. Our main focus this morning will be on our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 43:1–11. Let’s begin with verse one.

But now, thus says the LORD, 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”.

God wasn’t someone who had limited knowledge of Israel but speaks to them as their Creator and therefore he had intimate knowledge of them. This is true of all men/women so when they forget or reject God, they fail to honor God as their Creator. Even though Israel had been guilty of adultery in their worship of other gods, God still encourages them to “Fear Not, for I have redeemed you.”

God gives them a command and then a promise. Given their disobedience to God, the people of Judah had reason to be afraid of Babylon’s army and exile. By turning away from God and embracing the gods of other nations, they gave up on expecting any protection from God. Then God encourages them and points them past the present circumstances to both this command to not fear and the promise of future redemption. He wanted them to remember that their Creator God was also the one who bought them out of literal exile and spiritual slavery.

In the Old Testament the kinsman/redeemer bought an unfortunate relative out of their slavery and debt. He rescued them and paid the slave price or debt they could not pay. When God calls Himself their Redeemer, he wasn’t just encouraging them to remember how he had brought them out of the land of Egypt and would do the same thing in Babylon but God looks forward to the price that must be paid for our salvation. Why in the world would God put up with such an ornery and disobedient people? Well, oddly enough it was/is because he owned them: “I have called you by your name; You are mine.” He has the right of ownership both as Creator and Redeemer. God created them, named them, and when they went astray he pursued them, paid their debt, and said, “You belong to me.” That has always been so hard for me to understand, especially when I had gone through periods in my life where I essentially walked from God and pursed my own desires.

I believe that Psalm 139, that we read this morning, reveals the Psalmist's awareness of the intimacy between him and the sovereign Lord his creator. He testifies that God knows the Psalmist’s words before he speaks them or writes them, and is with him wherever he goes. Actually, he testifies that there is nowhere he can go that God isn’t there and that the number of the Psalmist’s days here on earth had been decided before he was born. This Psalm is a wonderful testimony coming from a servant of God who realizes that he is intimately known and loved. His words reflect his delight and comfort that God is so near and knows him more completely than he knows himself.

Knowing that we belong to the LORD and have been on his heart before we were even created is a wonderful answer to fear.

In Isaiah 43:2–7 we are to understand that if we are the Lord’s then he has named us, owns us, holds us, protects us, guards us, and cares for us. We saw in Romans 8:28–30 that God is always the active force in bringing us to salvation. From beginning to end God works all things according to his will. We can know that He would not have created, redeemed, and called us unless He intended to finish His work in us. How can we be afraid when we know that God is for us, is looking out for our interests as they accomplish his will?

Let’s continue with verses 2–4,

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I gave Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. 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.

In other words, there is no obstacle that God cannot remove and there are no trials that God can’t see us through. Israel had experienced tremendous hardship and found themselves in captivity for many long periods of time. They had many trials, and we do too. God wasn’t promising them that they would not have times where they passed through waters or flames of fire, which are both metaphors for affliction, but that he would always be with them.

I read a story a few years ago about a young woman who was in a terrible car accident. She was badly injured, but the rescue workers had to use the “Jaws of Life” to cut away the wreckage before they could get her out. She was terrified and was certain that she would die before they could remove her from the car. A priest walked up and asked the EMT if he could pray with the young woman. He laid hands on her and prayed for God to remove her fear and give her the faith to know that God was with her. He asked for her life to be spared and her wounds be healed. He stayed with her until they were able to set her free and then he walked away. One of the rescue workers turned to thank him and he was gone. The young woman testified that when the priest was praying for her, all the fear left and was replaced with a sense of peace like she had never known before. As she was passing through her affliction, God was with her. She lived to tell the story of God’s kindness and healing; she became a witness to the mercy and power of God. To my knowledge, the priest was never located.

This past week someone told me that they had just watched a movie called, Faith Undefeated, about Corrie Ten Boom. The movie ends with a quote from her,

If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you’ll be at rest.

I think that to be a great exhortation for Christians around the world today, as we watch the presence of evil raising up to new heights never seen before, at least in our experience. The truth is that in the time of Israel’s exile in Assyria and Judah’s captivity in Babylon, evil was as present as it is today. However, when God’s people turned to him crying out for mercy he always eventually came to their rescue. He let them wait long enough to fully realize the effects of their sin.

The mention of the LORD’s presence and protection in the fire reminds me of the story of the three sons of Judah cast into the Babylonian furnace because they would not worship the golden image made by King Nebuchadnezzar. He threw them in a furnace that was made seven times hotter than normal. As he looked into the furnace the king saw a fourth person walking around with them who “appeared like a son of the gods.” The three were preserved in the fire by the presence of God and even their clothes were not burned or smelled like smoke (Daniel 3:19–25).

This passage from Isaiah 43 is also full of images from the Exodus from Egypt. The statement, “I am the Lord, your God,” would remind every Jewish reader of Exodus 20, where the divine description is followed by the words, “who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” God reminds them that he has been faithful in keeping his word, and if they would think back to the stories passed down from their forefathers, they would remember.

Then in Isaiah 43:4 God confesses to them that his motivation for helping them is because He loves them, “Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.” I love this verse and it brings a lot of memories to my mind. I have experienced, as I’m sure that many of you have, the fact that God saw something in me that literally no one else saw. He saw what he was going to do and is still doing in my life. When we read stories of Israel’s response to God, we find that over and over they rejected his love and despised his law. Here we see that God is pointing forward to something he was going to do in them, and it made them precious and honored in his eyes. He confesses his love for them in spite of all they had done.

Let’s read Isaiah 43:5–7,

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.

Wherever God’s children would be found, (including those in the times of exile), all those who will literally come from “the ends of the earth.” God shows they could have hope for the future because they were called by the name of the LORD, and they were created for His glory.

This promise was not only for ancient Israel but applies to those who are called by God’s name and were created for his glory. We recently saw this principle worked out in Romans 8:29–31,

For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

This means that God not only has created us but that He has created us for a purpose. If we have no Creator, then we are purposeless; but God has created us, and He did it for a purpose, creating us for His glory. This means that when we are glorifying God, we are fulfilling the purpose we were created for, and will therefore not only have the joy and peace that comes from God, but will also have access to the power of God and the name of Jesus Christ in order to accomplish what God has intended for his own glory.

Finally, lets read Isaiah 43:8–9,

Bring out the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this, and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, “It is true.”

Basically, God is speaking of a courtroom scene between those in Israel and even other nations who persisted in unbelief. Isaiah is calling for the spiritually blind and deaf Israelites to observe God’s courtroom speech against the nations and their idols in order to learn the futility of their ways and the powerless idols that they worshipped.

God invites both His blind, deaf people and the nations to prove Him wrong or themselves right in their rejection of Him. It is if God is saying, “You have chosen to worship and honor other gods. Come before Me now and justify yourself. Bring plenty of witnesses.”

J. Alec Motyer in his commentary on Isaiah wrote,

We must not miss the pathos: imagine any litigant depending on the blind to testify to what they have seen and the deaf to what they have heard!

Finally, let's conclude with Isaiah 43:10–11,

“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me, no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.”

God’s people had witnessed the greatness of God. If only Israel would remember the great things God had done among them, they would see each wonderful work of His as a witness to the truth that He is the only true God. The idol-worshippers have nothing to say as witnesses because their gods can do nothing. But the people of God are witnesses of His greatness and power. They have seen it and experienced it.

A witness is a passive observer of what someone has done, and Israel had seen the great works of God. But they were more than passive observers; God called Israel to be His servant. That was why they were chosen—not to sit around and glory in their chosenness, but to serve the LORD, and to know the LORD and believe Him in every way.

We often hear quoted the “Great Commission” of Matthew 28:19–20,

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus knew that the disciples would be able to fulfill this command because they were witnesses of the miraculous works of Jesus and had been taught by him for over three years. On the day of Pentecost, they would receive the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit with power. The New Testament begins where the Old Testament left off. Everything that God promised his people was fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have the complete Word of God and if we have come to faith in Jesus Christ we have His Holy Spirit indwelling us. So, what is the hesitation of the people of God to testify to a world that is hopelessly lost, that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation? Could it be that they don’t feel they don’t feel they have anything to testify to as a witness to the Lordship of Christ? As I testified to earlier, I am confident that I could be an effective witness on behalf of my wife because of the intimacy that we share. I know her that well. Each of us who have come to Jesus Christ by faith and in repentance of sin, inviting him to be our savior and Lord should have a testimony to how God has moved in us and through us. If you haven’t experienced that. then perhaps you need to ask the Lord to open your heart to Him, inviting him to begin a testimony of faith and personal relationship with him.

I think that the exhortation that Corrie Ten Boon gave at the end of the movie, is how I will close this morning,

If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you’ll be at rest.

Let’s pray.

©2020 Rev. Mike Moffitt

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