# Does It Matter What You Believe In - Bishop Barron's Daily Sermons

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 18 Aug 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/72733582/classic_sunday_sermon_does_it_matter_what_you_believe.mp3



## Transcript

[0:06] Speaker 1: Peace be with you friends.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Our first reading for this weekend is taken from that
[0:10] Speaker 2: wonderful middle section of the prophet Isaiah.
[0:13] Speaker 1: I think I told you before.
[0:14] Speaker 2: Isaiah is divided by the scholars into three sections one
[0:18] Speaker 2: through thirty nine they call it proto or first Isaiah,
[0:21] Speaker 2: and then.
[0:22] Speaker 1: Forty through fifty five.
[0:23] Speaker 2: This middle section sometimes called Doudo or Second Isaiah, and
[0:27] Speaker 2: then some even say from fifty five to sixty six
[0:31] Speaker 2: trite or third Isaiah.
[0:32] Speaker 1: I'll leave that to the Bible scholars. But the point
[0:35] Speaker 1: is that.
[0:35] Speaker 2: Central section is full of some of the richest theology
[0:39] Speaker 2: in the whole Old Testament, and the passage for today
[0:43] Speaker 2: that the Church gives us conveys an extremely important spiritual
[0:47] Speaker 2: point and one that I think we rarely revert to,
[0:51] Speaker 2: but I think it's especially today I'm going to suggest
[0:54] Speaker 2: of tremendous importance. So everyone knows that in the Bible,
[0:59] Speaker 2: Israel is the specially chosen people of God of all
[1:03] Speaker 2: the nations of the world. God chose Israel to be
[1:06] Speaker 2: his special, priestly and prophetic people. Right, But do we
[1:12] Speaker 2: attend sufficiently to the fact that Biblical revelation does not
[1:17] Speaker 2: begin with the formation of the people Israel. You could
[1:20] Speaker 2: say that begins in Genesis chapter twelve with the call
[1:25] Speaker 2: of Abram, right, the call of Abraham, and from the
[1:28] Speaker 2: family of Abraham comes eventually the people Israel. Now, to
[1:33] Speaker 2: be sure, most of the Old Testament is then focused
[1:35] Speaker 2: upon the formation of an adventures of this people Israel. However,
[1:41] Speaker 2: the Bible does not begin with Genesis twelve.
[1:44] Speaker 1: Go back now to Genesis one. What do you find
[1:48] Speaker 1: but God's creation of the whole universe.
[1:54] Speaker 2: Salvation has to do not just with Israel, not just
[1:59] Speaker 2: with humanity.
[2:01] Speaker 1: It has to do with the whole of creation. That's
[2:05] Speaker 1: part of.
[2:05] Speaker 2: God's selvific plan. Now keep pressing it. We don't get
[2:10] Speaker 2: to Israel till Genesis twelve. When we're talking about Adam
[2:14] Speaker 2: and Eve, canaan Abel, the Tower of Babel, Noah and
[2:18] Speaker 2: his family all that period, we're not talking about Israel
[2:21] Speaker 2: yet our weight, We're talking about humanity. So Adam is
[2:25] Speaker 2: the father of the whole human race, and then after
[2:28] Speaker 2: the flood, Noah's a kind of new Adam, a new
[2:31] Speaker 2: father of the entire human race.
[2:34] Speaker 1: Not Israel specifically, but.
[2:37] Speaker 2: All of humanity is God's focus, God's interest, and I
[2:43] Speaker 2: love this.
[2:44] Speaker 1: Some people suggest to a covenant with Adam.
[2:46] Speaker 2: There is a kind of covenant, but I think the
[2:48] Speaker 2: most or the first really explicit covenant is the one
[2:53] Speaker 2: with Noah. So before any covenant with Israel, there's a
[2:58] Speaker 2: covenant with all of humanity. Listen, this is from the
[3:02] Speaker 2: book of Genesis. Then God said to Noah and his
[3:06] Speaker 2: sons with him, As for me, I'm establishing my covenant
[3:12] Speaker 2: with you and your descendants after you.
[3:16] Speaker 1: And with every living creature that.
[3:19] Speaker 2: Is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, as many
[3:22] Speaker 2: as have come out of the arc.
[3:24] Speaker 1: Again.
[3:25] Speaker 2: Notice, please, the covenant with all of humanity and indeed
[3:29] Speaker 2: with all of creation, that's the great.
[3:34] Speaker 1: Setting for God's selvific work.
[3:39] Speaker 2: Now he does, indeed choose the people Israel, beginning with Abraham.
[3:47] Speaker 2: I'll come so that they might be set apart from
[3:50] Speaker 2: everybody else as God's unique focus of attention, so that
[3:54] Speaker 2: they might be singled out of everyone to be safe. Well, no, no, no,
[3:58] Speaker 2: As I explained a couple of weeks ago, he chooses Israel.
[4:02] Speaker 2: Indeed he singles them out, indeed, not for themselves.
[4:09] Speaker 1: But for everybody else.
[4:12] Speaker 2: He chooses Israel for the rest of humanity, and may
[4:15] Speaker 2: I press it.
[4:16] Speaker 1: He chooses Israel.
[4:18] Speaker 2: For the whole world. I'm the Great Temple in Jerusalem,
[4:23] Speaker 2: both outside and inside were decorations that evoked the planets
[4:28] Speaker 2: and the stars, and the animals and the plants, and
[4:31] Speaker 2: all of creation, because somehow in the praise of Israel,
[4:36] Speaker 2: all of creation was giving right praise to God.
[4:40] Speaker 1: In other words, everybody.
[4:41] Speaker 2: There's always a universal background to everything that God does
[4:47] Speaker 2: with and for his people, Israel, the creative universe loves
[4:55] Speaker 2: and cherishes all people and all things. Therefore, you do
[5:01] Speaker 2: not have in the Bible the fussy religious provincialism that
[5:07] Speaker 2: you often find in other religions of the ancient world.
[5:11] Speaker 2: What I mean here is, well, yeah, we have our
[5:14] Speaker 2: God or gods, the gods of our country, and I
[5:18] Speaker 2: know you've got your gods over there take care of you.
[5:21] Speaker 2: Read The Illly and the Odyssey if you want to
[5:24] Speaker 2: see this on display in the ancient world, the gods
[5:27] Speaker 2: of various peoples and nations battling each other. You see
[5:31] Speaker 2: overtones that sometimes as background in the Bible. But what's
[5:34] Speaker 2: interesting is the God who reveals himself is.
[5:39] Speaker 1: Not a god uniquely of.
[5:42] Speaker 2: This place, or this time or this people, but rather
[5:47] Speaker 2: the creator God of the whole universe. Israel's chosen, Yes,
[5:53] Speaker 2: but not in a fussy, provincial way. The God of
[5:58] Speaker 2: Israel is the God of all people and of all things.
[6:04] Speaker 2: That relationship, that dynamic, it's most important not to forget
[6:10] Speaker 2: as we move through the Bible. Now, why am I
[6:13] Speaker 2: talking about this principle. Well, because of this extraordinary passage
[6:17] Speaker 2: we have today. It's from chapter forty five of the
[6:21] Speaker 2: prophet Isaiah. Get your bibles at some point today and
[6:25] Speaker 2: look up Isaiah chapter forty five and you'll find this
[6:28] Speaker 2: passage dealing with a man named Cyrus. Now who is Cyrus?
[6:34] Speaker 2: Cyrus was the king of Persia. Now, let me just
[6:37] Speaker 2: give you a little background. We all know that in
[6:41] Speaker 2: the year five eighty seven BC, the Great Babylonian Exile commences.
[6:48] Speaker 2: So the Babylonians came. They conquer Judea, that's the country
[6:51] Speaker 2: around Jerusalem. They lay siege to the capital of Jerusalem.
[6:55] Speaker 2: Eventually they destroyed the city, they burned down the temple.
[6:59] Speaker 2: They take the the best and brightest of Judea and
[7:02] Speaker 2: they carry them off now into exile. It was probably
[7:05] Speaker 2: the most traumatic event in the history of Israel. Then,
[7:14] Speaker 2: some decades later, the Babylonian empire weakens, and Cyrus, the
[7:21] Speaker 2: King of Persia, conquers Babylon and becomes, in fact, one
[7:26] Speaker 2: of the greatest imperial figures in the ancient world, commanding
[7:31] Speaker 2: a huge territory.
[7:36] Speaker 1: But then Cyrus and Persia does something fascinating. He notices
[7:42] Speaker 1: the Jews.
[7:43] Speaker 2: The Israelites, who have been carried away into exile, and
[7:48] Speaker 2: instead of further exploiting them, he decides that he will
[7:52] Speaker 2: liberate them. He will allow them to return to their
[7:55] Speaker 2: home country. In fact, he will provide funds for the
[7:59] Speaker 2: rebuilding of their tw This foreign potentate, this king who
[8:05] Speaker 2: knows not the God of Israel, and yet he proves
[8:09] Speaker 2: to be one of the greatest benefactors in the history
[8:13] Speaker 2: of Israel.
[8:16] Speaker 1: And something is that, it's almost it's unique.
[8:19] Speaker 2: In the Bible, this foreigner, this non Israelite, is called
[8:26] Speaker 2: by Isaiah, Messiah extraordinary in the Mashiak the Anointed One,
[8:36] Speaker 2: that's a title given to David, the greatest king of Israel.
[8:41] Speaker 2: The Mashiak the new David is the one that Israel
[8:44] Speaker 2: is hoping for, who would definitively restore their glory, whould
[8:49] Speaker 2: be the bearer of God's presence to them. The title Yes,
[8:53] Speaker 2: eventually given to Jesus himself. Yeshua Mashiak Paul calls him, well, Mashiach,
[9:00] Speaker 2: Messiah is now being.
[9:02] Speaker 1: Used of Cyrus of Persia.
[9:07] Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, listen in our passes for today, God says
[9:13] Speaker 2: to Cyrus, for the sake of Jacob, my servant of Israel,
[9:19] Speaker 2: my chosen one, I've called you by name, giving you
[9:26] Speaker 2: a title. Boy, I tell you, not just a title
[9:29] Speaker 2: like the title though you knew me. Not. One of
[9:35] Speaker 2: the greatest benefactors of Israel is not an ISRAELI. One
[9:40] Speaker 2: of the greatest benefactors of the nation is not someone
[9:42] Speaker 2: who knows the God of Israel. But listen, someone whom
[9:47] Speaker 2: the God of Israel, who always has a universal purpose
[9:52] Speaker 2: in mind, uses for his own purposes. No, that's the
[10:01] Speaker 2: story from it. I derived this principle. There is a
[10:10] Speaker 2: happy medium the Bible wants us to find between what
[10:14] Speaker 2: I would call a bland religious relativism and a dangerous
[10:21] Speaker 2: religious tribalism.
[10:24] Speaker 1: Let me say that again. There's a middle ground the
[10:27] Speaker 1: Bible wants us to find.
[10:28] Speaker 2: It. I think between a bland religious relativism and a
[10:34] Speaker 2: dangerous religious tribalism. What do I mean, Well, go back
[10:41] Speaker 2: to the years I was coming of age in the church,
[10:44] Speaker 2: let's say the nineteen seventies nineteen eighties, there was, i
[10:48] Speaker 2: would say, on vivid display, a bland religious relativism. There
[10:55] Speaker 2: was a tendency to say, well, you know, all religions,
[10:59] Speaker 2: they're based the same, We're all climbing the one holding
[11:03] Speaker 2: mountain by different paths.
[11:06] Speaker 1: You know, you got your religion.
[11:07] Speaker 2: I got my religion, and who am I to be
[11:09] Speaker 2: imposing my views on you? And you know, tolerance and
[11:13] Speaker 2: open mindedness, And that was all the rage when I
[11:16] Speaker 2: was coming of age. Well, it should be clear, I
[11:19] Speaker 2: hope that the Bible has no truck with this kind
[11:23] Speaker 2: of bland indifferentism or relativism. No, no, no, the true
[11:29] Speaker 2: God is being described in the Bible. Israel, in fact
[11:34] Speaker 2: is chosen and the new Israel, the Church is in
[11:37] Speaker 2: fact chosen as God's privileged vehicle for the communication of
[11:42] Speaker 2: the fullness of His.
[11:43] Speaker 1: Truth to the world.
[11:45] Speaker 2: The Bible wouldn't hold by any means that all religions
[11:47] Speaker 2: are the same, or does it matter.
[11:49] Speaker 1: What you believe? No, no.
[11:51] Speaker 2: From the beginning, Christians have been a credle religion. We
[11:55] Speaker 2: clearly articulate our beliefs we don't have truck with a
[12:01] Speaker 2: bland relativism.
[12:05] Speaker 1: On the other hand, there's a danger.
[12:08] Speaker 2: Of falling into what I've called a religious tribalism that
[12:14] Speaker 2: is so insistent upon what's unique and distinctive and my
[12:19] Speaker 2: own in religion that I become antipathetic toward anyone outside
[12:27] Speaker 2: that religious circle. No, we're right, you're wrong. No, God's
[12:33] Speaker 2: revealed it to me. God loves me, not you. No, no, no,
[12:39] Speaker 2: The Bible has no truck with that. Why because prior
[12:43] Speaker 2: to the covenant with Israel, we have the covenant with
[12:48] Speaker 2: all of humanity, indeed.
[12:51] Speaker 1: With all of creation.
[12:53] Speaker 2: Whatever purpose the uniqueness of Israel serves is for them,
[12:58] Speaker 2: for the good of the whole. Whenever you're defining yourself
[13:03] Speaker 2: in this kind of closed way over and against everybody else,
[13:07] Speaker 2: whatever that gives rise to violent attitudes or actions, you
[13:11] Speaker 2: moved outside the biblical space. And see go back to
[13:15] Speaker 2: this passage in Isaiah forty five. Who gets the title Mashiah? Well,
[13:20] Speaker 2: David does, yeah, and eventually Jesus gets it. But also
[13:25] Speaker 2: Cyrus of Persia got the title Mashiak was recognized as.
[13:30] Speaker 1: A great benefactor of Israel. God chooses this nation. Yes,
[13:37] Speaker 1: reveals his distinctive truth.
[13:39] Speaker 2: Yes, indeed, but for the sake of everybody else, for
[13:45] Speaker 2: the sake of all the world. See that's the subtle
[13:50] Speaker 2: middle ground that the Bible is trying to draw us into.
[13:55] Speaker 1: And God bless you.

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