There is a redeemer

I invite you to turn back again to Isaiah chapter 43.

Isaiah 43 · chapter mention

Several years ago, I was working at a church in Jackson, Mississippi.

And on Wednesday nights, we would go through various series on different topics.

And one time, we announced that the next series would be on the topic of anxiety and fear.

And the first Wednesday that we began that series, the attendance to our Wednesday night services somewhere between doubled and tripled.

And I don't know what single message to draw from that is.

Maybe it's that our society is so desperate for a word about fear and anxiety that they would even go to church to find some resolution to it.

It's about Israelites and the fear that they dealt with at one particular moment in their history, in one particular season.

And what God does is not only tell them not to fear, but he gives them a tool to kill their fears with.

And that's what I want to talk about tonight is I think in this passage, we see this principle that God doesn't just tell us not to fear.

He teaches us how to kill our fears with a word.

And the first thing I'll say about that is I'm making an assumption here, which is that our fears can be killed with a word.

And what I don't want to do and what this passage doesn't do if you read it closely is this passage does not trivialize fear.

It doesn't say that the problem with your fears is that you have silly fears that you just need to to ignore.

And one way that we know this is because.

Verse one, the first two words, did you see what they were?

It says, but now.

So this is words spoken in a context.

And the context is the people of God are going through one of the worst seasons in all of the Old Testament.

This may be the lowest point in the Old Testament where this is a nation.

It's really two nations, Israel and Judah.

In the past 200 years, Israel has been virtually wiped off the face of the earth.

They were conquered by this vicious nation called the Assyrians.

And then maybe 150 years later, Judah, another nation of God's people, is conquered by the Babylonians.

And the place where the temple of God was, where people would go and worship God, that city was brought to its knees.

It was destroyed.

The temple of God, where people would go worship God, was destroyed.

The last king of Judah was taken outside of the city walls.

And he had to watch his own son be executed.

And that was a way, from the perspective of the Babylonians, of completely destroying any hope that God's people had for a future.

So these are people who are not fearing for no reason.

They have reason to be unhappy with the situation that they're in.

They're people who live in exile, who have no hope.

If you look just before the passage that we read, in chapter 43, one way that Isaiah describes how hopeless their situation was, was in verse 22.

He says,

This is a people who have been plundered and looted.

All of them are trapped in pits or hidden away in prisons.

They have become plunder with no one to rescue them.

They have been made loot with no one to say, send them back.

Isaiah is saying, there's not even a person among these people who has the hope to say, send them back.

And if you were to ask God's people in this season, if you were to ask them, what is your problem?

What do you need fixed about your situation?

What they would not say is, our problem is that we're afraid.

Our problem is fear.

What they would say is, our problem is the objects of our fear.

We're afraid because there are things in our world to be afraid of.

We are a conquered people.

We are living in exile.

We have no hope for a future.

We have good reason to be afraid.

And we can all in our lives point to fears that we have that, on our best moments, we would say are not legitimate.

When a child, one of my children, come to me in the middle of the night and they say, I'm scared of the monsters.

One way that I can handle that, one way that I do handle it, is I convince them how silly that fear is.

I convince them that there are no such thing as monsters.

And to even fear them would be a foolish thing to do.

But then there are fears that adults can have.

I'm worried about what happens if I'm late to that meeting tomorrow.

And if you think about it, and if you really think about it, you might convince yourself, well, actually, if I'm late tomorrow, nothing's going to happen.

And I can remember how many times my dad used to tell me, he used to reassure me by giving me this thought experiment.

He would say, Hunter, what's the worst thing that could happen?

You know, this thing that you keep talking about, how afraid you are, being late to school tomorrow, what's the worst thing that could come of it?

And if I really thought about it, not much could happen.

But there are some fears in all of our lives that give us good reason to be afraid.

It could be fears that we have about future suffering, perhaps that we know are coming.

It could be suffering that we're in the midst of right now.

It could be mistakes that we know that we've made in the past.

And we fear how those mistakes will play themselves out in the future.

We fear that we've made, we've messed up in such a way that we cannot fix our situation.

All human beings in their best moments have times where we realize the gravity of death.

And that can give us a sense of fear.

And if you think about it, the fear that the Israelites have is a combination of all those things.

Because they're worried about death.

They're worried about suffering.

And what makes it even more painful is they know that the situation that they're in is their own making.

So if you look at the very last verse before the passage that we just read in chapter 43, God has this really terrible message for them.

Verse 24.

Verse 24 says,

Who handed Jacob over to become loot and Israel to the plunderers?

Who did this awful thing to the Israelites?

Was it not the Lord against whom we have sinned?

For they would not follow his ways.

They did not obey his law.

So he, God, poured on them his burning anger, the violence of war.

It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand.

It consumed them, but they did not take it to heart.

One of the most terrible anxieties that a person can probably go through is to know that part of the reason that you're suffering is something that you had to do with.

It was actually a mistake that you made.

So these people have reason to fear, and they're facing the worst kind of fear a person could face.

And in a fear like that, the answer can't be merely something like breathing exercises or going for a walk.

Those things can have short-term help.

But the kind of fear Israel is working with, dealing with, is something that needs something stronger than just forgetting about it.

And the assumption of my premise tonight is that what a fear like this needs, what our deepest fears in life needs, is a word.

Something that we can speak to those fears, that can actually, we can face those fears and how grave they actually are.

But we can put those fears to death.

And if you notice, when you read Isaiah, and when you read all of Scripture, actually,

I spent time trying to actually figure out if this is true, and it is true.

Every single time in Scripture that God tells His people, do not fear, He never just says, do not fear.

He always gives them a reason not to fear.

And even if you just look in the book of Isaiah, God tells His people, or Isaiah, God through Isaiah tells His people,

14 times, either do not fear or do not be afraid.

And every single time, He attaches to it a reason not to fear.

And what that must mean is, the only way for us to conquer our deepest fears is not just by telling ourselves not to fear.

But it's by finding a word that we can bring to our fears that can quiet them.

And I think this is important to hear, because so often we can carry around a fact like this,

a fact that we know that Christians should not fear.

And you can walk in a place like this, and you can say,

I know that because I'm a Christian, I'm not supposed to fear.

But if that's the only thing that we remember,

what we end up doing is, we feel guilty for the fear that we have,

and we never actually think about the resolution that the Gospel offers to it.

So perhaps the worst thing that we can do is only remember that Christians are called not to fear.

Christians are called not to fear, and to not fear because we have a reason not to fear.

God teaches us to kill our fears with a word.

And the word is, redemption.

And you see this in verse 2.

Excuse me, at the end of verse 1.

This is what God tells his people.

At a given point in time, in a certain circumstance.

He says, do not fear, for I have redeemed you.

God says, take that word.

He says, do not fear, I have redeemed you.

And he says, take that word, I have redeemed you.

And Mr. Sladek here could tell you,

I have redeemed you in Hebrew is just one word.

Take that word, I have redeemed you.

And use that as the tool, as the means that I have given you to put to death the fears that you have about your situation, the situation that you're in.

Use this single fact that God has redeemed you to kill your fears.

And there's a lot of reasons why that's actually really hard to do.

One of the reasons is, if you don't actually think about what that word redeemed is, that tool that God has given you becomes blunted.

And part of the problem is that in our society today, we use the word redeemed in a lot of different contexts.

We love movies that are about redemption.

Usually, when we talk about movies that are about redemption, it's usually the story of a man or a woman who has made mistakes in their past.

But somewhere along the lines in their life, they figure out how to do better in life.

And what we say is that it's a story of redemption.

They've figured out how to redeem their past.

Or, you know, you're at a job.

It can be much more simple than that.

You're at a job.

You have a bad day.

And the next day, you do better.

And the boss comes in and says, good job, son.

You redeemed yourself.

What all those kinds of redemption have in common is, it assumes that the bad things in your life are things that you can fix.

And what the Bible is saying, and what the Israelites would have said about their situation is,

there are some situations that you can find yourself in.

There are some realities about this world that you can accept.

And if you accept them, you realize you cannot redeem yourself.

You know, for the most obvious example being death.

No matter how much you want to avoid death, you cannot, of your own will, avoid that.

There's no amount of work you can put into it.

Even if you try to be, even if you try it to help, be the healthiest person you can, you cannot redeem yourself from death.

When God says, I have redeemed you, when he says it in the Old Testament, when he says it here in verse 1,

it has a specific meaning.

And you have to know that meaning before you can realize why that would even matter,

why that would be an encouragement to someone.

Redemption in the Old Testament, generally speaking, has this idea that a person can be bought back.

So, for instance, in Leviticus, one of the laws gives an example of a man who becomes impoverished.

And he becomes so impoverished, the way that he tries to sustain himself is he sells his own life into slavery.

And the Jewish laws were such that one of his family members can come along,

and he can pay a price to set his family member free.

It's called the redemption price.

And he's called the redeemer, the one that redeems.

And the very same idea is being pointed to here in this passage.

And you know it because when you look at verses 3 and 4, this is what God says.

He says, excuse me, in verse 3.

He says, I have redeemed you.

And in verse 3 he says,

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

And then this is how he explains himself.

He says, I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead.

And then halfway down the next verse he says,

I will give people in exchange for you, nations in exchange for your life.

So what God is doing is he's saying,

the way that I am going to tell you that you don't need to fear

is by telling you what's about to happen to you,

which is that I have redeemed you.

And what God is saying is, he's saying,

you are so precious to me.

You, my children, are so precious to me

that I am willing to give Egypt and Cush and Seba

in exchange for your life

to free you from the situation that you have found yourselves in.

And there's a historical truth to this

because in 539 B.C.,

the Persians come into power.

And one of the first things that the Persians do

is they allow all the Israelites,

all the people of Judah,

to go back home and to rebuild their temple

and to worship God again.

That's the moment where they find redemption.

And around the same period in history,

the Persians also conquer Cush and Seba in Egypt,

which is, these places are another way of talking about

basically all of known Africa in the time period.

So the Persians come into power

and they set the Israelites free

and they also conquer modern Africa,

excuse me, what was known of Africa at the time.

And one of the themes in the book of Isaiah

that comes up over and over again in lots of different ways

is God keeps trying to show his people

that the circumstances that they find themselves in

in this world are not just by chance

and they can't be explained merely by military power

or by geopolitical power.

Cyrus, who helped the Persians rise to power,

and if you go read Isaiah chapter 45,

Isaiah 45 · chapter mention

one of the things that God says is,

he's not just there by chance.

He is my servant and he's doing what I want for you,

to save you, to redeem you.

And do you see how this kills fear?

How this one word, I have redeemed you,

kills fear for the Israelites?

Because it helps them see that the God of the universe

has come down and he has guaranteed,

you know, in their own language through this idea of redemption.

He says, you are so precious to me that I have purchased you back

and I've given you some of the most rich,

I've given some of the most rich nations in the world

in exchange for you.

That's how precious you are to me.

And this is the kind of idea that if you actually let it sit inside your mind,

if you're an Israelite in 550 BC,

you allow this to sit inside your mind

and you follow the idea to its natural conclusion,

which this passage does.

Why would God redeem a people?

Why would anyone ever redeem someone?

And, you know, if you're a Hebrew

and you redeem your brother from slavery,

maybe you do it out of a sense of obligation.

Maybe you do it because you're wealthy

and if you didn't redeem your brother,

you'd be frowned on in your society.

But that's not the reason that God gives

for why he redeemed his people.

What does he say?

He says,

I redeemed, you are,

verse four,

you are precious and honored in my sight

and because I love you.

That's why I redeemed you.

And what I love about this

is this idea of God's love

and this idea of redemption,

they interpret one another.

So you could say,

what does it mean that God redeemed us?

Why does he redeem us?

It's because he loves us.

And then if you ever were to doubt God's love

if you were an Israelite,

you would say,

well, how do I know that God loves me?

Well, you look back at the redemption.

He was willing to give Seba in Africa,

all these places he said,

I was more precious than these nations.

And what an Israelite was called to do

is to look at their fears in that present moment

and put those fears to death,

not because those fears weren't legitimate,

but because God had offered them a hope

that was greater than their fears.

Now, it can be a cheap trick

for a minister preaching through the Old Testament

to look at a word like redemption

and say,

you see, we're all redeemed.

And part of the cheapness of that trick

is that this is talking about

a specific moment in history.

But there's two reasons

why this has something to say to us.

And one of them is passages like this

that talk about a God

who would redeem Israel.

They're telling us about who God is.

God never changes.

And the God of 2,500 years ago

is the same God today

so that we can look at a passage like Isaiah 43

and we can say,

what I know about my God

is that it is in his character

to look at a situation,

to look at a people

who have gone so far away from him

and as far away as they can get,

he can still redeem them

and he can still bring them back to himself.

And he can still look at someone

who goes as far away as they can,

a prodigal son and a prodigal nation,

and God can still say,

they are precious in my eyes

and I will do whatever it takes

to bring them back to myself.

That's one reason why we can look at a passage like this.

But another one is,

moments like this

in the history of God's people

prepared God's people

to see Jesus.

And this is when my imagination

begins to run wild

and I admit that I'm speculating here.

But I imagine those,

you know,

I imagine the disciples

after Jesus had ascended into heaven

and they're sitting around a campfire at nighttime.

They're having dinner together.

And they're trying to think,

how can we communicate

what Jesus has done for us

to our Jewish brothers and sisters?

How can we explain to them

that Jesus Christ has died for their sins?

And you imagine them going,

thinking in their minds,

going Genesis,

Exodus,

Leviticus,

Numbers,

Deuteronomy,

going through all of the Old Testament

and saying,

how does this,

how was this all along

preparing us to see who Jesus was?

And then they get to a passage like

Isaiah 43.

And this had to have been

one of the most obvious passages for them

because

the story of God's people

in this moment in time

is in so many ways

the story of the gospel.

It's a preview of the gospel

because in it

you have a people

who have gone

as far as they can from God,

who have no hope

and who are looking around in fear.

And then

Jesus,

excuse me,

and then God steps in.

Jesus steps in

and he offers

a way out.

He offers them a redemption.

It's even the same word.

The New Testament

over and over again

describes what Jesus did

as redemption.

Jesus goes to the cross

and he redeems his people

from their sins.

Just like God

redeemed

the Israelites

from the consequences

of what they had to go through.

It's like

the whole story

of Jesus Christ

and his redemption

is everything that happens

in Isaiah 43

but greater.

fear.

And because of that

we can look at a passage

like this

and we can say

when God tells us

not to fear

he even gives us

a word

to apply to our fears

to kill them.

And it's the same word

it's redemption.

And what we have to realize

is that

when God gives us

a word

to kill our fears

he hasn't just

changed our psychology.

He hasn't just said

you need to think

more positively.

What he has done

is he's changed

our objective situation.

He's saying

I'm telling you

not to fear

not just because

I want you to be

more positive

but because

your objective situation

has changed.

you were hopeless.

You were living

in your sins

and you had no hope

and the fears

the fears that you

dealt with in life

the same fears

that everyone deals

with in life

about death

and what comes after

these were things

that you had no answer to

and so you were right

to fear.

And then God says

I have given you

an answer

which is that

you have been redeemed

and that you are

precious to me

in your sight

in my sight.

So God teaches us

to kill our fears

with a word

and that word

is redemption

but

in some ways

that's the easy part

isn't it?

Just recognizing

what is true

especially if you're

already a Christian

it's easy to say

I know that God

calls me not to fear

because he has redeemed me

but then the next challenge

is and the challenge

of every day

of our lives

is how do you

take that truth?

How do you take

that one word

that God gives us

and make it a habit?

Make it a habit

of applying the gospel

applying redemption

to our lives

so that every day

we're putting our fears

to death.

Because isn't it true

that you can worship you

and you can say

I know God calls me

not to fear

I know he's redeemed me

and yet even as you're

sitting in this pew

you could be thinking

about what tomorrow

might bring

that stressful meeting

that you know

you're going to have

all kinds of anxieties

things that keep us

awake at night

things that we can't sleep

and we don't know

how to get over it

and what we have to do

is we have to become

midnight theologians

people who

when we wake up

in the middle of the night

and we find that

we have anxieties

that we don't know

how to deal with

we have to

begin the process

of saying

if I really am

redeemed

as the gospel

tells me that I am

what does

what does my

redemption have

to say to this fear

because my conviction

is

and I hope this is

your conviction

as well

that there is no

fear

in our lives

there's literally

no fear

in our lives

that we can face

that redemption

doesn't touch

if we're in Christ

and

part of the challenge

is realizing

sometimes I think

we fear

and we don't even

stop to think

that the gospel

might have something

to say to this fear

and part of our challenge

is to think of all

the fears that we face

and say

what does the gospel

have to say to this

just to give one

example

of a new challenge

that part of our

society is facing

there's a

New York

University psychologist

named Jonathan Haidt

and he

he studies a lot

of teenage development

and he wrote

in an American

journal called

The Atlantic

last year

an article

that he called

The Dangerous

Experiment

The Dangerous

Experiment

on Teen Girls

The Dangerous

Experiment

on Teen Girls

and what his

article was about

was

as a psychologist

he's noticed

that

when you study

teen girls

and their experiences

of depression

over the past

15 years

teenage girls

are reporting

about a 66%

increase

in

self-identified

depression

sorry let me put

that a little bit

more clearly

if you compare

a teenage girl

15 years ago

to a teenage girl

in 2021

there's 66%

more likely

in 2021

to report

having had

a depressive

episode

in the past

month

and Haidt's

argument

this psychologist

is that

the only reason

that we can give

to explain this

and the only reason

we can give to explain

why this is happening

not just in America

but in UK

and in all western

countries

is the rise of

social media

and so his argument

is

our young women

are facing

depression

at a scale

they've never faced

before

because they're

using social media

more than they

ever have before

and you know

maybe part of the

solution is to think

about how much

we actually use

social media

but there is

there is an issue

there of something

that's happening

to the teenage girls

among us

our daughters

and our granddaughters

and the people

that we know

and love

where because

they're using

social media

more and more

they're having

their sense of

identity challenged

every single day

where they're

looking at pictures

of beautiful people

online

beautiful peers

who are using

technology to make

themselves look

more beautiful

and then they look

at themselves

and they might say

I am nowhere near

as pretty as that

I am worthless

and that kind of fear

when it begins to

settle into a young

mind

that I am

I am not beautiful

I am not

I'm not precious

that fear can expand

into a person's life

I am not lovable

and you can begin

to look to answers

for that fear

in all sorts

of places

and my question

tonight is

is it not possible

that even in

something like that

that has come around

so recently

can we not look

at a problem

like that

and say

even there

the gospel

has something

to say

to that fear

that we can teach

our young women

that the word

redemption

says something

about who they are

and about their identity

and hope

maybe

maybe if we can

if we can tell them

in a thousand different ways

that God looks at them

and he says

that they are precious

so precious

that he has

died for them

that he has sent his son

to die for them

on the cross

maybe when they look

at those images

on the internet

they're not thrown

so off kilter

because they have

this anchor

in their soul

that says

I need not fear

whether I am

beautiful or not

because my God

has told me

that I'm precious

now

that's not my fear

that's

that's a fear

of someone else

but all of us

have the responsibility

to look into our lives

and say

what am I fearing

that I haven't even

put a name on

and say

what does the gospel

have to say to this

what does the fact

that God has redeemed me

have to say to this

and one of

one of the takeaways

from an example

like I just gave

where you talk about

a teenage girl

and the hope that

you know

we can teach

our daughters

and teach our friends

that these are truths

is that

the redemption

that's talked about

in a passage

like Isaiah 43

is not

merely individualistic

God talks

to the nation

of Israel

and he talks

to the nation

of Jacob

and yes

he talks about

bringing sons

and daughters

individually

from the far

sides of the world

back together

but this is a redemption

that if we really

understand it

we understand

it's a redemption

that we all share

now the sins

that I have been

redeemed from

and the sins

that you have been

redeemed from

may not be the same

but we can look

at each other

and say

we were in the same

spot

and we needed

we needed hope

and we needed

something to kill

our fears

and the same God

died for both of us

and killed our fears

and that gives us

a reason to celebrate

together

I'll give one more

caveat with this

and then

I'll close

with a

with a brief story

the caveat

is this

anytime we talk

about things

like fear

grief

it can be easy

to hear

that God

tells us

not to fear

and that we should

just be happy

all the time

and that we should

never do something

like grieve

that we are not

people who should

ever admit

to suffering

or to sorrow

but if you were

to

if you think

about the Israelites

the day they

received this message

or the day they

realized this message

was about them

what was the difference

between the day

before they heard

this message

and the day

after they heard

this message

the difference

wasn't

their physical

situation

they were still

as oppressed

the day before

they heard this prophecy

as the day after

they heard this prophecy

but the difference

was

they finally knew

there was a hope

and what God

does sometimes

is he comes to us

in the moments

when we are

the most grieved

and when we have

the most reason

to objectively

have fears

and he doesn't say

just ignore

what's going on

around you

what he does

is he says

as grave

as you realize

that these fears

are

know that even here

I have provided

an answer

and I haven't

been in Becli

very often

but just before

I came into

the service

I realized

I read all

those plaques

that are just

by the entrance

and the one

right in the corner

to I think it was

John Simm

I believe

talked about

how he died

on the Sabbath

and at the bottom

one of the passages

that it quotes

about his death

is

well now I've

just challenged

myself

I've embarrassed

myself

it's either

I think it's

1 Thessalonians

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

chapter 4

either 1 or 2

Thessalonians

chapter 4

but it's the passage

where

Paul says

do not grieve

as

we as Christians

do not grieve

as those who are

without hope

and I don't think

he was saying

don't grieve

but he's saying

our grief

looks different

our grief

is the kind of grief

that even though

it is sad

and it recognizes

that this world

is

immensely

not as it should be

we have hope

and we have something

to look forward to

and that allows us

to live

when we are in the pit

and I'll finish

with a story

which may seem

trivial to you

but I've thought

about a lot

over the years

I had a friend

come visit me

once when I was

in Washington D.C.

and I lived

in a small

one bedroom flat

where the kitchen

was right next

to the shower

and so

I was cooking breakfast

and my friend

was in the shower

right next to me

in a manner of speaking

and I could hear him

talking to himself

and he began

talking to himself

very loudly

and when he came

out of the shower

I said

just so you know

I heard you

talking to yourself

in the shower

but I couldn't

make out what he was saying

so I asked

what he was doing

because

if you're going to talk

at least sing

right

and he said

he said

every morning

when I wake up

and I take a shower

I repeat

the whole gospel

to myself

so that every morning

I hear the gospel

and that may seem

trivial to you

but let me tell you

if that's what it takes

that's what it takes

all of us need to

be reminded

that the fears

that we experience

in this life

have an answer

and we need to

tell ourselves

the gospel

as often as we can

let's pray

heavenly father

we praise you

that you have not

left us

without hope

and you've not

just told us

to change our minds

but you've actually

changed our

objective situation

you have redeemed us

from the pit

and even when we

walk through darkness

we know that you're

with us

and we pray

that as we look

to tomorrow

and the fears

that are trivial

and the fears

that are real

and that hurt us

would you give us

hope

in your gospel

not in ourselves

but in what you

can do for us

and what you have

done for us

in Jesus Christ

and we ask this

in his name

amen

if you would join me

our final hymn

this evening

is

there is a redeemer

let's stand

this evening

please

hear me

this evening

oh

you

have a hard

to do

with calling

you

I saw

I