“You are mine”
Please read Isaiah 43: 1-7, Luke 3: 15-18, 21-22 and Acts 8:14-17; then pray; Almighty God, loving Father, may your Holy Word inspire me to always live a life of faithfulness, trust, and joy through the power of the Holy Spirit, for the glory of your Name. Amen.
This week as I have been in preparing for this sermon, I have been thinking about sweets. Not sticky toffee pudding, Angel Delight or Sherry Trifle, but the type of sweets you buy in a sweet shop or as the Americans, put it – a Candy Store. I have been thinking particularly about one brand of sweets. They are called “Sweethearts.” Do you know the sweets I am referring to? These are the little round sherbet sweets with a love heart on them, and inside each love heart is a rather sweet, some would say, sugary message. I remember eating these sweets as a child and passing one or two on to girls I liked. One of the messages I remember on a Sweetheart was this one; You are mine.
And this was the message that came through the great prophet Isaiah to the Israelites who were in exile and struggling in Babylon. To the Israelites in Babylon, who are a long way from home, and feeling terribly dejected, forgotten, helpless and hopeless, the prophet brings this word from the Lord:
Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. (43:1b)
Now this is a great message of comfort and reassurance to a people who may have felt far away from God as well as far away from Jerusalem. Through Isaiah, God goes on to say to them that their days of exile are coming to an end, and God is going to rescue and redeem them once again, and bring them back home to their own land. (Read 43: 4-7)
When God says to these people – “You are mine” – God really means it. They are his very own people. Of all the peoples on the face of the earth, they are God’s chosen people. He is their Father, and they are his adopted children. Notice that they are specifically referred to as “his sons and daughters.” (6b)
When did this special familial relationship begin? Let me answer that question by referring to the topic of pregnancy. The pregnancy began with the call of Abram in Genesis 12 and the covenant which God made with this man. (Genesis 12: 1-5) Through this man and his aged wife, with God’s mighty power, a great nation would emerge and grow, and the entire world would be blessed through this nation. When God called Abram, Israel was conceived. We have the development of a foetus. The nation was then born through the Exodus, when the people were led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses. A nation is truly born and will travel towards a mountain where they will worship God and receive His commands. They were being separated for God. The message Moses is called to take to Pharoah is really very significant.
Then say to Pharoah, “This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, “Let my son go, so that he may worship me.” (Exodus 4:22)
Wow! God has a son (small s). This new-born nation, soon to be in covenant with God, is his son. To go back to what Isaiah would state hundreds of years later;
But now, this is what the Lord says – he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you (from Egypt); I have summoned you by name (Israel); you are mine.
The nation of Israel was and is especially close to God’s heart. God formed and set apart this nation to be His son. Not because they were especially righteous and good (Deuteronomy 9: 4-6) or because they were very great and strong (Deuteronomy 7:6-9), but simply because God chose them out of grace and love, and for His own great and marvellous saving purposes. If you want to know why Israel is hated so much and why there has always been a diabolical history of antisemitism which continues to this very day, – this is the main reason. The devil, who is the god of this broken, evil, and dark world, hates God, and hates who God created and chose to be his people, his son. There are Jews today who jokingly say that they really wish God had not called them, not chosen them to be his people. It has been more bother than it is worth being God’s people. Jews have had nothing but grief and it continues. Jews are the most consistently persecuted ethnic and religious group on the planet.
The apostle Paul (in Romans) when writing at length (chapters 9-11) about His own nation, ethnic Israel, and God’s purpose for Gentiles and the world’s salvation, writes;
For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen. (Romans 9: 3-5)
God says to Israel – “You are mine”
I can now move on to Luke’s gospel and the baptism of Jesus – who as we have just heard – was a Jew descended from Abraham and King David (see Matthew 1) But he was an extraordinary Jew as we see at his baptism. He came to be baptised alongside many of his fellow-Jews by the rough and rugged prophet John the Baptist who was called to prepare the way for the Lord. The baptism of this Jew, Jesus from Nazareth, is different. For as he is baptised by a reluctant John (Matthew 3:13-15) something remarkable, supernaturally divine occurs;
And as he (Jesus) was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased. (Luke 3: 21-22)
“You are my Son”, says the Father. (capital S). You are mine! You are mine!
Now if Israel is the nation that God refers to as his firstborn son, then Jesus is the divine Son, the eternal Son of God, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. This Son, Jesus, is co-equal with the Father and the Spirit. All come to work in harmony at the baptism of Jesus of Nazareth. One God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! Jesus is the Son in a unique sense. Son within the Holy Godhead!
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
This is why the Father declared to His Son at His baptism – “You are mine”
And the One to whom the Father declared “You are my Son,” “You are mine,” is the One who is going to baptise God’s people with the Holy Spirit in the future (Luke 3:16), which enables me to now proceed to speak about what was happening in Acts 8 and the impact of the gospel upon the region of Samaria.
We know from the gospels that there was huge division and hatred between Jews and Samaritans. This can be seen, for example, in the stories of Jesus and the woman of Samaria (John 4) and the parable of the good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25f). But once you move from the Gospels to Acts, and to the reality of Jesus’s resurrection and the promise of Spirit baptism, Samaria is seen to be on God’s road-map for the expansion of the gospel, the Church, and the Kingdom. Very significantly in Acts 1:8 we have this from the pen of Luke concerning the mission of the apostles;
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)
God has a plan to reach all Judea and then Samaria – and then – all nations – all corners of the globe.
This is what we come to in Acts 8. Philip, the exceptionally anointed evangelist, makes a great impact for the gospel in Samaria through his preaching and working of healing miracles. Such is the mighty move of God by His Spirit through Philip that huge numbers “accepted the word of God” in the region of Samaria. Acts 1: 8 was being fulfilled. But was this really God? Was this really His plan? Samaritans?
To make it plain and obvious that this was indeed God moving in saving power throughout Samaria, the two great apostles, Peter and John went from Jerusalem to investigate. On arriving, they discovered that these new Samaritan believers had accepted the word with joy (8:8, 14), had repented and been baptised with water (16), but there seems to have been a deliberate withholding of the Spirit until these apostles arrived and prayed and witnessed with their own eyes that God’s kingdom had truly come upon the people of Samaria. All would now be convinced, through the testimony and experiences of the apostles, that God’s Spirit had come, and that Samaritans were now equal partners in the gospel and part of the Church. This was the point in history where God began saying to Samaritans who accepted His Word about His Son Jesus – You are mine.
Not too long after this, the apostle Peter would be used to take the gospel to the Gentile world, beginning at the home of a man named Cornelius. Gentiles began coming into the Kingdom. God said through the gift of His Spirit to the household of Cornelius – You are mine! (Acts 10 and 11: 1-18) So then, God has granted the Gentiles repentance unto life.” (Acts 11:18)
People from all nations would now come into the kingdom of God through the grace of God and by the power and baptism of the Spirit – and become children of God, sons and daughters of the living God. More and more people would hear the divine word of comfort and grace – “You are mine.”
This is because as the NT clearly teaches, all who accept and receive Jesus into their hearts and lives are given power to become children of God. (John 1:12) Christians are those who personally know God as Father, and who hear that personal word of comfort and affirmation: You are mine!
You are precious and honoured in my sight because I love you. (Isaiah 43:4)
The baptism and generous gift of the Holy Spirit was promised by John and Jesus. Jesus baptises his people with the Spirit and this is, as Paul teaches, the Spirit of adoption or the Spirit of sonship (Romans 8:15) Through the gift of the Spirit, God speaks to our hearts with the words – “You are mine.” As Paul writes in Galatians (4:6);
Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts who calls out “Abba Father.”
For the Christian, God truly is Father – personal and precious Father God. The Spirit is the gift given to us to confirm this in our hearts so that we can pray to God as Father and know God as our precious heavenly Father.
(1 John 3:24, 4:13, Romans 8: 16-17)
There are two words of encouragement and important application for us all here – for all who know God as Father, Jesus as Lord, and the Holy Spirit as present witness, helper, and guide.
Hearing “You are mine” again and again through the Spirit confirms that God loves us immensely and has called us personally. He loved Israel as their Father and would never abandon them. We can and should know that God loves us deeply and is committed to our temporal and eternal welfare and blessing because we are his children. We are precious in his sight. Along with all the Church (Jew and Gentile) we are God’s treasured possession, a chosen people, a holy nation, a people who belong to God and know His mercy and grace. (1 Peter 2:9) As John writes in his first letter;
How great is the love that the Father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are! (1 John 3:1)
God lavished his love upon Israel through their redemption in Egypt and restoration from exile in Babylon. He lavished his love upon his Son as His baptism. He poured His Spirit out upon believing Samaritans. And now God lavishes His love upon all who love and follow the Son – you and I. We can rest secure in the knowledge of the Father’s love and care for us.
But we must also remember that the Father’s love can be expressed not just through his ministry of goodness and love to us, but also through the way He may choose to discipline us when we turn our backs on his holiness and His ways and commands. This is what happened to Israel and caused them to be sent into exile for a lengthy period. According to the early chapters of Isaiah (1-5), Israel was exiled, punished, and disciplined, because of their flagrant disobedience to the God who had called them by name to be his children. (Isaiah 1:2, 5;13) Specifically they had failed and rebelled in four main areas;
- They had embraced gross idolatrous practices. They had prostituted themselves to other gods.
- They had subsequently fallen into sexual immorality of which they were proud.
- They had neglected and deliberately oppressed the poor and denied them justice.
- Their religious and civil leaders had become very corrupt and compromised.
Israel lost and forfeited, God’s supply and support. Supply and support were withdrawn by God. (Isaiah 3:1) This is a different way God shows his love for his children – through his discipline and call to repentance. God removes His supply and support. Do not see God the Father’s discipline as a harsh, bad, or negative thing, but as an expression of his unfailing and committed love. He wants the best for his people; He will not accept sinful rebellion; and as Creator God, God knows what is best for us. He wants us to be like His Son and to have Jesus’s beautiful pure image restored in us. He wants us to produce a harvest of true righteousness. He wants us to be happy, but true happiness can only come through holiness. Holiness can never be by-passed or compromised. Hebrews 12 v 4-11 is so relevant to God’s children, to those to whom he says; You are mine. Please read it.
God disciplines and refines us for our own good if we stray away; for his glory, and to achieve that harvest of righteousness and peace spoken of in Hebrews 12. Why do some Christians struggle to know God’s true peace and blessing? Is it because they are being stubborn and rebellious like Israel before her exile? It could be. God disciplines because he loves us immensely, and we should thank him for that discipline as the Psalmist did. Psalm 119 hones in on this very topic;
From the New Living Translation;
I used to wander off until you disciplined me, but now I closely follow your word. (67)
The suffering you sent was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your principles. (71)
I know, O Lord, that your decisions are fair; you disciplined me because I needed it. Now let your unfailing love comfort me, just as you promised me, your servant. Surround me with your tender mercies so I may live, for your law is my delight. (75-77)
May we be children/sons of God who honour and please our heavenly Father in every way, in every area of our lives, and live according to His commands of love; not be enticed and trapped by any other idols and godless ideas and practices which prove to be false, and which cause misery and harm. As the Psalmist proclaims: My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; he is mine for ever. (Psalm 73:26 NLT)
Amen.
(Revd Peter J Clarkson 12.1.25)