Resource Detail

Special Lecture

I HAVE CALLED YOU BY NAME; YOU ARE MINE

Isaiah 43:1-5

Key Verse 43:1

1. How does “But now” connect God’s judgment described in Isaiah 42:24–25 (1a)? What might “created,” “formed,” “redeemed,” and “called you by name” have meant to a people who had lost their homeland (1b)?
2. What does God promise his people as they pass through the waters and the fire (2)? What does each of God’s titles reveal about his relationship with his people (3a)?
3. Why does God say he will give people and nations in exchange for his people (3b-4)? How do God’s words reveal the depth of his love for his people (4a)?
4. What command and promise does God repeat, and why might his people need to hear them again (5a)? What would the promise to gather them “from the east” and “from the west” have meant to people living in exile (5b)?

I have called you by name, You Are Mine

Isaiah 43:1-15

KV:1

“But now, this is what the Lord says— he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.

Who are you? What defines who you are?  In 2023, Sarah and I visited Korea for the first time in almost a decade. We each described the streets and alleys from our childhood and where we lived. Now imagine returning to the house where you grew up after many years. You might remember specific aspects of the house but the house looks different. The paint has faded, the furniture is gone, and maybe the neighbourhood you remembered has changed. But in your heart, you say “I feel at home.”

Israel's circumstances were changing, but God was reminding them that their circumstances did not erase their relationship with Him. The book of Isaiah is a message of judgment, hope, and salvation. During this time, Isaiah warns Judah and Jerusalem of their idolatry and trust to other idols instead of God. But to understand the book of Isaiah deeply we must look at the history of God’s people from the beginning.

God created humanity in His image to reflect His glory, values, and character to the world. But sin broke that image, leaving humanity corrupted and separated from God.

So God chose Abraham and his descendants to become a people who would represent Him and show the other nations God’s ways. Abraham became the father of Isaac, Jacob, and eventually the nation of Israel. Israel was enslaved in Egypt after the passing of Joseph, but God raised up Moses to deliver them from slavery. God gave them His laws and led them into the Promised Land through Joshua.

Despite experiencing God’s miracles and provision, Israel demanded a human king. God gave them Saul, David, and Solomon, but eventually poor leadership and rebellion divided the nation into Israel (north) and Judah (south).

The northern kingdom was conquered by Assyria, leaving Judah. But Judah also fell into idolatry and rebellion, turning away from God and approaching judgment. God raises up Isaiah to warn them of their idolatry and the fact that they are far away from God.

Isaiah warns the leaders of their injustice. Their rulers accepted bribes and pursued personal gain while oppressing the poor, widows and orphans, often exploiting them. Israel was outwardly religious with empty sacrifices but inwardly wicked. Yet God offered a path of cleansing, repentance and restoration from their spiritual sickness.

God used the prophet Isaiah to prophecy judgment through Assyria and ultimately Babylon. The prophecy is later fulfilled with destruction of Jerusalem, and God’s people suffer in Babylonian captivity for 70 years. Isaiah 43 is a message of comfort, redemption and restoration for the exile

 1. You are mine

What were God’s words to them? 1a  he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel.” God wanted to restore their identity. Not because they deserved to be saved, but because He created them and God loves them whether they are in rebellion like Jacob, or redeemed like Israel. God reshapes their identity by saying “I formed you, I gave you my teachings to shape an identity in you.”

Then says in Isaiah 43:1b,  “I have called you by name. You are Mine.” God does not begin with what you should do. He begins with who you are. The world trains us to define ourselves by performance, achievements, titles, and possessions or failures. But heaven defines you by relationship and belonging because God says, “You are Mine.”

To be redeemed means you have been purchased, bought back, reclaimed, and restored. It means you are no longer defined by failure, sin, or the things that once held or enslaved you. Fear thrives on insecurity, but redemption establishes security. Fear feeds on the unknown, but redemption reminds you that your future is in God’s hands.

Redemption reminds you, “I belong to God. I have been bought with a price. I am covered by His grace. My unworthiness is swallowed up by His love.” So when you accept your value in who God says you are, fear does not get to control your decisions. Worry does not get to direct your life. You are not owned by anxiety because you belong to the Redeemer. You are directed by His Word because He is the Living God. We can trust Him because,  "The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever".

So, if you allow your activity to determine your identity, you will live in constant instability. When you succeed, you will feel valuable. When you fail, you will feel worthless. When people applaud you, you will think you are important. When they ignore you, you will feel forgotten. But when you begin every day rooted in your identity in God, your activity cannot shake your value. You are not valuable because of what you accomplish in a day. You are valuable because of Who claimed you before the day even began.

Who you are does not come from what you do. But rather what you do flows naturally because of who you are. You do not work to be loved. You work because you are already loved. You do not strive to be accepted. You move because you are already accepted.

And maybe some of us struggle with our spiritual identity.

 Chameleons are colorful lizards that change color based on their mood, changes in light or temperature, or the humidity of their environment.

When you don’t have a sense of identity, you may be uncommitted. You may be acting one way on Sunday and a different way on Wednesday. Whatever is popular you become that, whatever my friends are, you become that, whatever you see on Instagram, you become that. You may become a spiritual chameleon, evolving into someone different wherever you go but never becoming who you were created to be.

When we don’t have a real sense of who we are, we put up with things that are unhealthy, dangerous and even abusive. We settle for things that we wouldn’t settle for. We end up staying in bad places with the wrong crowd and even let others treat us any way they want because we don’t have a sense of identity.

Then what shapes our identity? Things like upbringing, ethnicity, the home you were raised in, your parents and what they taught you or the lack of parents, your environment, and your exposure. Maybe our successes. Some of us our failures. We think we are where we failed, so we label ourselves as failure based on something from our past. Some of us have an identity from difficult seasons or from current struggles.

But perhaps one of the greatest shapers of identity is what you believe about yourself based on two things: what you know and who you belong to.

My life reflects the lives of the Israelites in many ways. I grew up with loving parents who had a mission to serve young Mexican students by preaching the Gospel and helping them know who Christ is. My parents instilled their knowledge and faith in me so that I may know and grow in the image of Jesus.

But growing up in Mexico as an Asian kid was difficult for me. I was surrounded by kids who didn’t appreciate who I was and treated me differently from others because of how I looked. That’s why I became self conscious of myself and was very shy. But the only way I felt like I belonged somewhere was when I played football. I felt accepted by others. It gave me an identity that made me happy because of how I was treated. I just wanted to belong somewhere.

It got to the point where I idolized the sport and would spend hours and hours watching and studying football players and practicing. Everything revolved around my love for the sport because it gave me more happiness than the identity my parents were trying to instill in me.

My father knew how much I loved playing football and tried his best to take me to Sunday practices after service and enrolling in many different clubs but He realized that focusing on God’s mission for him was more important than my love for the sport. So he wisely encouraged me to focus more on who God is and what he has done for me on the cross through bible study and early morning prayers.

I didn’t want to accept this and became rebellious towards him and God. I wanted to become a football player because that’s who I thought I should be. But my father didn’t have time to take me to practices after Sunday or club games because he had to take care of the God’s sheep.

I became angry because he had stripped away my identity and then depressed because I had lost the one identity that made me feel accepted by others. I didn’t want to do anything in life and felt that my existence was useless. From middle school to high school I felt empty in my heart. But God says “You are mine”, He says  “Ive formed you, i have called you by name” . I was a bad student in school but somehow got into college. That’s when Jesus met me in the darkest times of my life and called me by my name, saying “What are you doing Sam? Don’t you see you matter to me? That you belong to me?

For the first time in my life, I felt seen, not by what I did or how I looked but by who I was. The teachings that my parents had given me stayed in my heart and everything came together when I met Jesus. Because God is saying to us, "Whatever your issues were from the past, whatever your insecurities are, whatever you were going through that made you unable to see me or hear me, forget the past. Forget the brokenness in our relationship from the past. Forget the fact that for thousands of years you've been running away from me."

Because He said, "I formed you." That is, I took my teaching to shape an identity in you. He said, "I redeemed you." When you were in slavery, I bought you out of that. The same way Christ delivers us from the darkness of the world, if you're saved, you have been redeemed. You have been purchased back, belonging to God.

And how does our identity help us to handle hardship?

2. God is with you through the waters and fires

God had already told His people, they were going to go through exile and suffer because of their disobedience. The deepest pain of exile and hardship would be the fear that once they started going through hardship, God had abandoned them, forsaken them, or no longer loved them. Isn’t this how we feel all the time? Every time you go through something hard, you start wondering, "Where is God? Why isn't he answering my prayer? Maybe He abandoned me, forsaken me. I made a mistake. He doesn't love me anymore."

So how did the Lord encourage his people not to be paralyzed by fear?  Isaiah 43:2 “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.”

God never promised a challenge-free life, but He promised His presence. And His presence changes everything. Fire without God may destroy, but fire with God can refine and make pure. Rivers may seem overwhelming, but God can carry you through them. Waters may look like chaos, but God can reveal His power in the middle of them.

Some of you are praying to get out of something. You should also be praying for God to change you in it. Some of the things he allows you to suffer are because he's trying to introduce you to a better version of you. He is building you up. He changes you through pressure, circumstances, and troubles.  Romans 5:3-4 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. You're going to be shaped by problems. He changes you through circumstances.

King David once wrote, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me." We don't survive troubles and come out on the other side because of our own strength. Rather, we do because of God's presence. My circumstance doesn't have to change for me to have victory. I only need God's presence to have victory. That's what causes you to triumph, not the change, but God’s presence.

This is why you cannot measure your day by the size of the obstacle, but by the certainty of God’s presence. Waters rise, but He is greater. Fires burn, but He is stronger. Enemies may come against you, but He is with you. “If He is with you, who can stand against you”. You can face them with courage, knowing that the King of glory is with you.

So, every morning when you pray, remind your soul that no matter what the day brings, you are not walking into it alone. You carry the awareness of God’s presence with you. The same God who parted the Red Sea, the same God who saved Daniel’s friends from the fire, the same God who walked and calmed the storm is the same God who walks with you into every challenge of your life.

His presence is not just comfort; it is strength. His presence is not just company; it is covering. He walks with you. He strengthens you. He carries you through what you cannot handle by yourself. And when you start your morning declaring He is with me, you are not asking God for an easy day. You are reminding yourself that you are walking with the One who cannot be defeated.

And every problem you face in life has an expiration date. The mistake many people make is treating temporary problems as if they are permanent. But Isaiah 43 reminds us that though the waters come and though the fire burns, they do not last forever.

Problems are temporary, but Jesus is eternal. The enemy wants you to believe that there is no hope, but every testimony becomes evidence of God’s faithfulness.

If you are going through the waters or walking through the fire, declare by faith that “The waters will not overwhelm me. The fire will not consume me,” because Jesus, our good shepherd is with us forever. He is worthy of my suffering. He is worthy of my praise and He is worthy to live and die for.

After Accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, my life wasn’t sunshine and rainbows. Not only was I my own enemy, but there were things that I couldn’t control. At the time, I was in Chicago wanting to live for God and help others, yet I felt defeated when I couldn’t help my friend come to Christ from depression. I was still falling into the sin of lust, pride, laziness and lost socially. There was a time where my status as an international student was revoked because of a mistake I made in school and I almost was deported. Yet God used this to build me up to be a more diligent person through a lot of tedious work I had to fill in to the government.

During my life, my mother had been in danger from death a couple times, but during Covid, I truly felt that this time it may become a reality. But God had different plans for her and gave me more time with her. When I failed my nursing class, I was drowning in shame and failure and I almost gave up. But God led me through the fire and refined my faith through 1 Peter 1:7  ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

I recently failed my NCLEX and was disappointed in myself but before taking it I prayed to God your will be done whether I pass or not because you are with me and that brings me joy, not my successes. I went through some hardship but I was never overcome by them. God didn’t take them away but used them to test my faith in Him and built me up to the person I am today. Because maybe it was never about the green pastures or the quiet waters, but about the presence of the Shepherd and his love for us that gives us true peace and rest in life.

3. You are precious, honored and I love you

Verse three: "For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead.God gives his people assurance in the midst of all this trouble.

God was telling them, "If you fully commit yourself to me, I will fully commit myself to you." For God there is no price too great to pay for the rescue of his people. He proved that with the death of his own Son on the cross. God will set you free from bondage. He says “I will go through death to free you. I will send my one and only son to die on the cross for you to free you.” What a beautiful name it is “God didn't want heaven without us so Jesus, You brought heaven down. My sin was great, Your love was greater”

Why would he do such a thing? V4  Because you are precious in my eyes. You are honored, and I love you. God says to his people, "You are precious. You are honored. You are loved."

The Lord says to someone today who needs to hear it in your brokenness and insecurities: you are precious. You are honored and you are loved. That is what God sees in you and what others don't see in you.

During bible study Pastor Juan asked us this question: what is most precious to you? Your job? Stocks? Friends? Family? Spouse? Children? The Creator of the universe looks at you and calls you precious. That means you are valuable. You are treasured.

You are not an accident. You are honored from above and you are so loved. You may not feel loved but you are. Not because you do things for God or because you are a good person but because we are His. When a person that knows you and sees the depths of your heart, your wickedness, darkness and sin and still says “I love you”, that love can be trusted. JEsus you know all the things I love more than you and you still love me?

This revelation has the power to silence the voices of rejection and worthlessness. People may overlook you. People may dismiss you. People may not recognize your value. But the only voice that you need to be concerned with has spoken and He says you are honored.

And when you know who you are and whose you are, it changes how you live, how you pray, how you respond to trouble, and how you see your past, present, and future. Your identity is not determined by the world around you. Your identity is shaped by what you know and who you belong to.

so who are you and what defines you? Move with purpose, live with purpose. Give yourself to God. How? When you pray say “God I give you my hands today. Help me honor you in the way that I work and in the way I care for my family. Lord, I give you my mouth today. Let my words build people up and not tear them down.

Lord, I give you my mind today. Help me to focus on what is good, kind and holy before your eyes. Lord, I give you my money today. Show me what can be accomplished when it is in your hands. God I give you my whole life because it was never mine to begin with.

And I encourage us to believe in Him. Maybe today you feel like youre standing in deep waters, or tired. Maybe you’ve been praying for God to take you out of a season. Maybe you’re carrying something nobody else knows about. But God reminds you today, that he hears you and is and will be with you. For He is the same yesterday today and forever.

So don’t let the size of your storm determine the size of your faith. Remember whose you are because God has called you by name. You are redeemed. You are called by name. You are precious. You are loved. You are His. And because He is with you, you can face whatever today brings.