Audio Transcript

There are certain Bible texts that are so important to Pastor John’s life and ministry that we need to stop and focus on them. We saw one last time, on the “gutsy guilt” of Micah 7:8–9, looking at what we do when we come face to face with the guilt of our darkest sin. And today we look at another important text, Isaiah 43:6–7. It’s essential to know and study and maybe memorize. It’s so rich, which is why it comes up all the time on this podcast, which you’ll see in the APJ book on pages 87–88.

Isaiah 43:6–7 is on my mind today because we read it today. We read Isaiah 42 and 43 together in our reading plan, alongside three other texts. It’s a lot of reading today. And again, Pastor John, one of my fears with a reading plan like this one, trying to read the whole Bible in one year, is that it just makes it so easy to breeze past important texts, especially ones you draw from all the time. So, I want to hit pause and have you slow us down to meditate on Isaiah 43:6–7 for ten minutes or so to draw out the points we need on this text. It seems like a huge and awesome blessing that the Creator would explain to us why we exist.

It is huge. One of the reasons these verses from Isaiah 43 have been so central to my thinking is that 55 years ago, when I was in seminary, I bought a book by the seminary faculty titled Things Most Surely Believed. In that book, Daniel Fuller, one of the faculty, my most influential teacher, had a chapter titled “Why God Created the World.” And that chapter was an exposition of these verses.

I was drawn into a living discussion of that text and what seemed to me to be just about the most important question in the world. Why do I exist? Why does anything exist? And I’ve never tired of returning to these verses, because when I read them in context over and over, I not only see fresh glimpses of God’s peculiar design for me as a human being, but I also feel welling up in my heart fresh zeal to bring my life into alignment with God’s ultimate purpose and so experience the greatest significance possible in this life and not waste my one single life that I have to live on this earth. And that just has been huge for me. I mean, over and over again, it has kindled in me, “Don’t waste your life. There’s a purpose for your life. God has revealed it. Get in line with it. This will make everything count.” And that’s what I would love for our listeners in this session.

So, hear the words that I’ve returned to over and over — this is Isaiah 43:6–7: “Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Let’s gaze at the wonder of this statement through five different lenses.

1. God’s Purpose for All Peoples

Let’s look at it through the Jewish lens. This is a statement made to Israel. We just have to own that right off. We’re Gentiles reading it, and we take it for ourselves (as we should), but you have to give that a little bit of thought. This is made to Israel. The paragraph — verse 1 — begins, “Now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel.” There are unique ways by which God is glorified in the history of Israel. No doubt about that. And he’s talking about that here.

But it would be a mistake not to see ourselves — as Christians, lovers of Messiah Jesus — in this verse and not to see his purpose for the nations as well in this verse. Because the Bible teaches that not just Israel but all the nations, indeed all humans created in God’s image — to image forth God; that is, to glorify God by virtue of being created in his image — all of us exist for the glory of God. “Every tongue,” Paul says in Philippians 2:11, willingly or unwillingly, will “confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Not just confess Christ, but confess Christ “to the glory of God the Father.”

“People should put their eyes to the lens of our life and see through it the greatness of the glory of God.”

As far as Christians are concerned, the whole New Testament is designed to show that Gentile believers, like me and you, Tony, and most of the people listening, probably — Gentile believers in Jesus — are now included in God’s chosen people, the true Israel. So, if you are in Christ, in the Jewish Messiah, by faith, “you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). Therefore, the fullness of God’s blessing in Isaiah 43 applies not only to Jewish believers but also to Gentile believers. So, we should read this chapter and revel in it as ours — Gentiles, believers in Messiah.

2. God’s Self-Exaltation

Let’s look at it through the lens of God’s self-exaltation. Isaiah 43:7 says, “I created [my sons and daughters] for my glory” — whom I created “for my glory.” This is just inescapably and plainly an instance of God’s self-exaltation. He’s saying, in effect, “The universe is about me, folks. It’s about me. The bigness of the universe is about my bigness. The workings of the universe in their amazing, intricate wisdom are about my wisdom. The weight and greatness of the universe are about my power. The gift of the universe to the human race is about my grace.” God’s purpose in creation is self-exalting. It’s about him. “From him and through him,” Paul said, “are all things” (Romans 11:36). So, that’s the second lens, and we’ll circle back to that to show why that’s good news.

3. God’s Eternal Glory

To say that God created the world and us for his glory does not mean he created us in order to become glorious — that’s really important to clarify — but rather to show, display, communicate, share his glory. God’s sons and daughters do not magnify him like a microscope, which makes small things look bigger than they are, but like a telescope, which makes unimaginably great things look more like what they are. He created us to glorify him like a telescope. People should put their eyes to the lens of our life and see through it the greatness of the glory of God — how satisfying he is to us.

4. God’s Self-Sufficiency

Therefore, we are able to see God in this text through the lens of his self-sufficiency. He did not create out of need. He wasn’t desperate for a friend. If you heard that growing up, like God made you because he needed a friend — not true. He was free and not constrained by any defect or any deficiency. “It is no defect in a fountain,” Edwards said, “that it is prone to overflow” (see God’s Passion for His Glory, 165). God did not create out of the deficiency of need; he created out of the fullness of love.

5. Our Everlasting Joy

This brings us to the most wonderful part of this text that I hadn’t meditated on for a long time. And it really jumped out at me in a most wonderful way in getting ready for this — namely, looking at it through the lens of our own experience of God’s purpose to glorify God in us. If God created us for his glory, what does that imply about our experience of God’s glory? Now, here are the key words from verses 1–5, and if you read them slowly and you count them, they are simply glorious, amazing, wonderful, encouraging. Here they are:

Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
     I have called you by name, you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
     and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
     and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
     the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. . . .
Because you are precious in my eyes,
     and [glorified], and I love you. . . .
Fear not, for I am with you.

To have the Creator of the universe talk to you that way — what could be more glorious? “Loved,” “redeemed,” “called,” “owned,” “protected,” “precious,” “glorified.” God has said everything he can say, has he not? He said everything he can say to make it plain that his own self-exaltation is good for me, is good for us.

We fulfill the destiny of the universe — we fulfill God’s purpose to be glorified in us — when we revel in being loved by him, revel in being redeemed by him, revel in being called by him, revel in being owned by him, revel in being protected by him, revel in being precious to him, revel in being glorified, actually sharing in the glory that he created the world to display. God created us for his glory, and this is spectacularly good news because, as is so plain in this text, God is glorified in us when we are satisfied in him. That’s why he made the world.