Foundations 1: Whose Are We? (Isaiah 51:1-8) - Calvary Baptist Cobourg

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There are three things that we're going to look at:

1. This is a God Who Speaks

1. This is a God Who Moves

1. This is a God Who Never Fails

First, this is a God Who Speaks. In Isaiah 51:1 God says through Isaiah, “Listen to me....”

Right from the beginning of our story with God in the Book of Genesis, God speaks. “In the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless. And void darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water. And God said. Let there be light.” (Genesis 1:1)

And what God said... happened. He said let there be light and the universe listened. With that act of speech, God created something that had not been before. God speaks. Stuff happens. When God speaks the world changes, and here is God—through Isaiah--telling his people, “Listen. To. Me. Something is about to happen.”
God speaks in four different ways in those few verses.

1. In 51:2, God says, “I called him... I called Abraham.” God called and invited Abraham to be part of God's story, to be part of the work that God was doing in the world, and when Abraham accepted that invitation...

2. God says next, “I blessed him...” Blessing is an act of speech. God spoke good things over Abraham. He spoke good things into Abraham's life. He spoke good things through Abraham into the world.

3. In verse four, God talks about instruction: “Instruction will go out from me...” God speaks to teach. He speaks to guide, and not just to the special people like Isaiah, not just to the chosen few and his favourites, but to “my people” to “my nation,” to all of the world, God speaks his instruction.

So God calls, God blesses, God instructs. And...

4. God speaks justice. From our human perspective, our best effort at defining justice is to set up some objective, agreed-upon moral standards that we expect everybody to abide by, and that we will reward or punish depending on how the response to those standards. The best definition of Divine Justice that I was able to find (I really like this one; it’s from a Catholic dictionary) is this: “Divine justice is the constant and unchanging will of God to give everyone what is due.” God doesn't ask trick questions. He doesn't try to entrap us into getting things wrong. He doesn't withhold information so that we can say, “Ohh, I didn't know.” God speaks his justice, and he provides us with a framework within which we can move.

These walls are here not to confine us, to constrict us, to constrain us. These walls are here to give us space in which we can move freely and joyously in the world.

Everything within God's framework of justice is good. Everything in God's framework of justice gives life. In Deuteronomy Chapter 11, God sets that out very clearly. He introduces the idea of his justice to his newly forming nation of Israel through his prophet Moses, and God says, “Today I am setting before you a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, that I am giving you today. Or a curse if you disobey the commandments of the Lord your God and turn aside from the path that I command you today...”
God clearly defines his framework of justice.

This is the God who speaks.    

He provides us with instruction on how to live within that framework, freely and joyously.
He invites us to join him in building for his Kingdom in the world.
He speaks blessing into us over us and through us.

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