Passage: Isaiah 43:1-7

Speaker: Mitch Kim

Series: Vision Sunday

Vision Sunday: Forming A People To Glorify God Everywhere

            Visible success can be the greatest enemy of real faith. In America the church doesn’t need persecution because we are comfortable and content. Yet the good enough must not inoculate us to the greater purposes for which God is forming us. This Sunday I want to take some time to reflect on how God is forming a people to glorify Him everywhere.  As we see what God is doing, we can celebrate the great work than He is birthing in our midst; only as we see this work can we join this work.

            First God is forming a people through the waters (Isa 43:1–2). God does not choose a people because they measure up to his standards, but He forms a people through the waters and fires of destruction. He takes what looks like it will destroy us and shapes and forms us. Waters of church decline, acrimonious church decision, racial tensions, and misunderstandings can threaten to destroy us. Yet God uses these waters to form us.

            And our God forms a people through the waters to glorify the God who loves (Isa 43:3–4). The basis on which God forms and creates a people is not their own merit but his own name; He is the”Holy One of Israel

[our] Savior” (43:3). Though God’s people are enslaved, defeated, and rejected, they are still precious in His eyes, and He saves them. Our greatest failure does not remove us from His great love. As we recognize this, we glorify Him.

            And we will glorify this God as He brings us back from everywhere (Isa 43:5–7). It does not matter how far we are scattered from God’s presence, God will bring his offspring back from everywhere, those who are called by his name. Whether north, south, east, or west, God Himself will call back his people from the ends of the earth because they are called by his name.

            This is what our God does!  He is the “I am”, and he declares, “I will”! It is HIs power that accomplishes His purposes for His glory. And He will bring glory to Himself.