We're looking at chapter 42. You can find the pages printed
for you there of the where you can find that in the red Bibles
and the chairs around you. We have jumped back into our
study of this incredible book of the Bible, Isaiah.
We are in kind of the last section of the book, chapters 40
through 66, and we've talked about how the tone of these
chapters is quite a bit different than the first part of
the book of Isaiah. There's still some comments here
addressing Israel's disobedience, but the focus is
much more on the hope that is to come for God's people as the
Lord sends his Messiah to rescue them and to redeem them.
And we've talked about the fact that in this last section of
Isaiah, Isaiah, through the work of the Holy Spirit is actually
talking and and proclaiming to those that were in exile, even
though that won't fully happen until after Isaiah is dead and
gone, pointing them to the hope that they are to have in the
Messiah. Today's passage we are going to
hear the first of what are usually referred to as the
servant songs, the pointing God's people to this wonderful
servant that is to come, and what that means for us God's
people. So listen as I read to you from
Isaiah chapter 42, beginning in verse one.
Behold my Servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, and whom my
soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him.
He will bring forth justice to the nations.
He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in
the street. A bruised Reed He will not
break, and a faintly burning Wick he will not quench.
He will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has
established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his
law. Thus says God the Lord, who
created the heavens and stretched them out to spread out
the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the
people on it, and spirit to those who walk in it.
I am the Lord. I have called you in
righteousness. I will take you by the hand and
keep you. I will give you as a covenant
for the people, a light for the nations to open the eyes that
are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from
the prison, those who sit in darkness.
I am the Lord, that is my name. My glory I give to no other, nor
my praise to carved idols. Behold, the former things have
come to pass, and new things I now declare.
Before they spring forth, I tell you of them.
Sing to the Lord a new song, His praise from the end of the
earth. You who go down to the sea and
all that fills at the coastlands and their inhabitants, let the
desert and its cities lift up their voice.
The villages that Qatar inhabits, let the inhabitants of
Sayla sing for joy. Let them shout from the top of
the mountains. Let them give glory to the Lord
and declare His praise. In the coastlands.
The Lord goes out like a mighty man, like a man of war.
He stirs up his zeal, He cries out, he shouts aloud, He shows
himself mighty against his foes. For a long time I have held my
peace. I have kept still and restrained
myself. Now I will cry out like a woman
in labor. I will gasp and pant.
I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their
vegetation. I will turn the rivers into
islands and dry up the pools, and I will lead the blind in a
way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known.
I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before
them into light, the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.
They are turned back and utterly put to shame.
Who trust in carved idols, Who say to metal images You are our
gods, hear you deaf and look you blind that you may see?
Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger, whom I
send? Who is blind as my dedicated
one, or blind as the servants of the Lord?
He sees many things but does not observe them.
His ears are open, but he does not hear.
The Lord was pleased for His righteousness sake to magnify
His law and make it glorious. But this is a people plundered
and looted. They are all of them, trapped in
holes and hidden in prisons. They've become plunder with none
to rescue, spoil with none to say restore.
Who will? Who among you will give ear to
this? We'll attend and listen for the
time to come. Who gave up Jacob to the looter,
and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord against whom
we have sinned, and whose ways they would not walk, and whose
law they would not obey? So he poured out on him the heat
of his anger and the might of battle.
It set him on fire all around, but he did not understand.
It burned him up, but he did not take it to heart.
Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we pray that
the same Holy Spirit that was at work in Isaiah, bringing him
along to pen the words that we've just read, the same Holy
Spirit who has preserved Your word over these many, many
years. We pray for that Holy Spirit to
be at work in US right now in this room.
In these moments, even as we read your word, help us to
understand it. Give us an understanding that
moves us to a greater love for you and a greater desire to
serve and to obey you. This we ask in Jesus name, Amen.
Every Sunday that you come and walk into our sanctuary, you
walk past, you walk through the beautiful art display that's in
the foyer. The Vessels of Grace display was
created by our own Eric Van Wyk using some of his father's
pottery with woodwork done by Randy Kennick.
It serves us in a number of ways, but one of the ways is by
reminding us of who we are. We are like fragile pottery.
We are like jars of clay, full of cracks, broken pieces.
We are imperfect and broken. It also reminds us about God's
work in US, that through Christ we are made whole, that our
cracks and our broken pieces are filled with God's grace and
power and goodness. As we come into the sanctuary,
we see those pieces. It reminds us that God cares for
us. He tends to us.
He restores us and redeems us. We are vessels of God's grace.
It also reminds us of what we read in verse 3, a bruised Reed
he will not break, and a faintly burning Wick he will not quench.
Every time that you see the vessels of grace project in the
foyer, every time that you pass through it on your way into the
sanctuary, it should fill you with incredible hope because it
reminds you of who you are, and it reminds you of God's work in
US. Ultimately, it reminds us of the
great servant that the Lord sent to redeem us, to fill us with
his grace and love. Now, it is true that we are
different than the people that Isaiah was writing to then.
These words that we've read, we are not in exile in some foreign
place under God's judgment. We're not waiting for this
promised Messiah, this promised servant to come for the first
time. But we do have many things in
common with the people that read these words, heard these words
for the first time. We, we are waiting for the
Servant to come, not the first time, but the second time at the
end of time. And we are waiting now in a
place that is not our ultimate and final home.
We are foreigners. We are pilgrims and exiles in
this place. And just as God's people that
Isaiah wrote to needed hope and reminders of God's grace as they
waited, as they waited to be rescued and restored and
redeemed, so too God's people today waiting for the return of
the Servant need to be filled with hope and strength and
reminded of God's grace and God's love.
So let's take a few moments and look at Isaiah 42 and see
several of the things that are are given to us about this
promised servant. Let's look and see who he is,
what he does, why he had to do it, and what the right response
to him is. Then we'll finish by asking, So
what with some take homes for us.
So first of all, who is the servant?
Well, if you know the book of Isaiah, then you know that in
just a few chapters we are going to hear about this man named
Cyrus and he is called a servant of the Lord.
It would be, he would be the means by which God's people
would be released from exile. Cyrus would be the king of
Persia, and he would send a decree out for the people to go
back to the promised land. But as we're reading here in
chapter 42 about the servant to come, we know that this servant
being described here in chapter 42 is not Cyrus, who will be
called a servant in a few more chapters.
Cyrus's character and achievements are very different
from the servant who is described here in chapter 42.
It's also the case that Israel and Judah as nations are
referred to as the Lord's servants as well.
In fact, we'll see that that's is what they are called at the
end of our verses for today in chapter 42.
But we also know that there's a clear description here of this
servant that is very different from Israel and Judah as a
nation. Just look and see how this
servant is described. First one, he is upheld by the
Lord. He is in the grip of the Lord.
He is sustained by the Lord. Also in verse one, we're told
that he is the chosen one of the Lord.
The Hebrew word that is used there for chosen 1 is used in
the Old Testament exclusively for being in a relationship with
the Lord God Almighty. Again, in verse one we see that
the Lord delights in this servant.
It is the delight of the Lord's soul.
Again, in verse one, the spirit of the Lord is upon him.
And at the end of verse one, we see that he's given a mission
which we'll come back to in just a minute.
Verse 2:00 we we are told that the servant will not, will, will
not come with great fanfare and parades.
He will come quietly and humbly and modestly.
Verse three, He will come not to destroy, but to save and to
preserve. He he comes with a caring
concern for the vulnerable and those who are in need.
Verse 4, the servant will never grow tired, will never become
weary. He won't get discouraged.
And then at the end of verse 6, we have this wonderful word that
the servant will be a covenant for the people.
That in this servant will be the essence of the covenant
relationship between God and His people.
This servant would be the fulfillment of the covenant.
He is the one who fulfills the covenant.
He will be the one through whom the Lord will secure redemption
of His people as He had promised, all the way back to
Adam and Eve and Noah and Abraham and Moses and David.
And in verses 5 through 9, we read that the servants will have
the full support of the Lord God Almighty, the Creator of the
heavens and earth. We read Yahweh Himself will take
and keep this servant. Yahweh, the one whose glory is
given to no one else, will be at work in and through this servant
to accomplish His purposes, to bring to pass new things, things
that will spring forth. This servant has the support and
the backing and the power of the Lord God Almighty.
There's no question who this servant is.
This servant is the ultimate and greatest servant that is Jesus.
In fact, the way that verse one begins is probably meant to
point us to Jesus's baptism in Matthew chapter 3.
As the Father put the Holy Spirit on the Son, so here the
Spirit of the Lord is put upon this servant.
And in verses one through three, they are quoted in Matthew
chapter 12, specifically being applied to Jesus, the ultimate
and the greatest servant that is prophesied by Isaiah in the 8th
century BC. He's pointing to no one less
than Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what does this servant do? The servant of the Lord is given
a mission. The mission is mentioned three
times in the 1st 4 verses. The end of verse 1.
He will bring forth justice to the nations.
The end of verse three He will be He will faithfully bring
forth justice. The end of verse 4.
Till He has established justice in the earth and the coastlands,
wait for His law. This servant had a mission.
He was coming to bring justice, and not just for God's people,
but for the nation's, a global justice.
Now certainly it's referring to bringing fairness and
impartiality and the restoration of wrongdoing.
All, all the things that we think about when we hear the
word justice. But the Hebrew word here has a
greater breadth of meaning than just impartiality and fairness.
This word in the Hebrew Misha, it occurs 30 times in Psalm 119,
and if you know anything about Psalm 119, it is all about God's
word 30 times. In that Psalm we hear the Hebrew
word for justice. It occurs 20 times in the book
of Deuteronomy, which is the book about the law of God.
We even see justice and law being juxtaposed together at the
end of verse 4 in our passage here.
So this servant is coming to bring justice, but it is not
just fairness and impartiality. He is coming to bring God's
Word, God's decrees, God's law to the nations.
He will establish the Word of God among all peoples.
He will bring justice and equity and fairness.
He will make all things wrong right.
He will bring righteousness and he will declare and establish
the word of God for all. That's part of his mission.
But you can see another part of his mission in verse 7.
He's coming to open the eyes that are blind to bring out the
prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison, those who sit in
darkness. This is also part of the mission
of the servant. He is coming to open the eyes of
the blind, to bring prisoners out from the dungeon, those who
sit in prisons that are full of darkness.
This is clearly a reference to work, to the work of Jesus and
opening the eyes of those who can't see to see who he really
is. That he is fully God and fully
man. That he is the ultimate prophet,
priest and king. That he is the King of kings and
the Lord of Lords. That he is the long promised
Messiah, the one who came to crush the serpent.
Jesus came to free people from their slavery and their bondage
to sin, to release them from the dark prisons of their sin and
idolatry and disobedience and unrighteousness.
And we know from the teachings of the New Testament that He did
all of that through His life and death and resurrection, through
His life of perfect love and obedience to His Father, Through
His willing and voluntary death on the cross as a sacrifice,
Through taking our sin and God's wrath for our sin on Himself and
paying for it all through His death, crediting us with His
perfect righteousness that we could never earn for ourselves.
He opens our eyes. He opens our ears.
He rescues us from the dungeon of darkness that is our sin and
is our heart. This is what the servant of the
Lord does and did. But notice why the servant needs
to do this. You can see that in verses 18
through 25, Isaiah points out why the servant had to do this
work, why he was sent on this mission.
Now it's interesting because in these last verses of chapter 42,
a servant is mentioned again. But as you read the whole
passage of verses 18 through 25, you see that he's now changed
from this ultimate servant that he's described for us in verses
one through 9. And now he's talking about his
servants in terms of the nation of Israel and Judah.
He refers to them as such throughout the passage.
It's clearly a different servant.
This servant isn't able to open the eyes of the blind or to give
hearing to the deaf because they themselves are blind and deaf.
They need to be given hearing and sight.
Verse 20. They have seen many things.
He says The Lord has revealed Himself to them through his
word, through his miracles, by rescuing them from Egypt, by
giving them the promised land, by preserving them from the
nations who wanted to destroy them.
They've seen many things, he says, but they haven't observed
them. They haven't truly taken them in
and believed and been changed by what they've seen.
God's people that Isaiah is writing to, he says, have been
plundered and looted. In verse 22, they're trapped in
holes, they're hidden in prisons, they are in need of
rescuing and restoration. Verse 24 the Lord gave his
people up to be conquered and taken into exile because of
their sin, because of not walking in the ways of the Lord,
because of not obeying the the word of God.
Verse 25 the Lord pours out the heat of his anger and the might
of his battle upon his people. And even then, he says they
didn't get it and they didn't take it to heart.
This is why the servant had to come.
This is why he needed to be sent with the mission that he had,
because God's people then were blind and deaf to the beauty and
the goodness and the faithfulness and the grace and
the love and the holiness of God.
But that's not just true for the people that Isaiah was writing
to. The servant needed to come and
accomplish his mission because God's people today, God's people
in this room are blind and deaf to the Word of God, to His law,
His beauty, goodness, faithfulness, grace, His love,
His Holiness, because we do the things that He tells us not to
do, and we fail to do the things that He commands us to do.
Because we don't love the Lord God Almighty with all of our
hearts, strength and mind, and we don't love our neighbors as
ourselves because we haven't kept the 10 commandments
outwardly in our actions and especially not inwardly in our
hearts. This ultimate Savior or servant
of the Lord, the Lord Jesus himself, He had to become.
He had to come on His mission because of our sin, because of
your sin, because of my sin. This is how personal it is.
You can imagine Jesus hanging on the cross, enduring the wrath
and the judgement of the Father, feeling forsaken by His Father
for your specific sins, for my specific sins.
He knows us by name. He knows our sin by name, and He
endured the wrath and the judgment and the justice of God,
and He suffered as the ultimate servant for you and for me.
That leads us to reflect on what the right and proper response to
the Servant is as we meditate on who He is and we meditate on
what He has accomplished and why He had to accomplish it.
Not just for people so long ago that were blind and deaf, but
for the people in this room that are blind and deaf.
As we meditate on that Servant, what is the right response?
Well, how does Isaiah respond? Verses one through 9, he talks
about the Servant, who He is and what he does.
And then what does Isaiah do as we move to to verse 10?
Sing to the Lord a new song. He says his praise from the end
of the earth. You who go down to the sea and
all that fills at the coastlands and their inhabitants.
Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice.
The villages that Kedar inhabits.
Let the inhabitants of Sayla sing for joy.
Let them shout from the top of the mountains.
Let them give glory to the Lord. Declare his praise in the
coastlands. What's the right, what's the
proper, what's the necessary response to the servant?
It is the praise and the worship of the Lord.
It is to sing Him a new song that we would be that people
should be brought to Him from the ends of the earth and fill
up their voices and sing for joy to to shout from the mountain
tops the praise of our God and give glory to the Lord,
declaring His praise to the uttermost, uttermost parts of
creation. Is that what the coming of the
servant makes you do? Is that the response to the
servants of the Lord and His work for you?
Our worship with God's people on the Lord's Day or whenever we
worship it should never be dry and dusty and boring.
We we should never think of it that way.
As we pass through the vessels of grace and we enter into the
sanctuary of the Lord, as we assemble with brothers and
sisters in Christ, as we remember who we are and we
remember what the Lord has accomplished for us and in us
through His servant, we should be moved in our hearts and our
minds and our spirits and our bodies to praise and to worship
and to glorify the Lord. Our worship of the Lord should
flow out of our relationship with the Lord.
And it should be a living, heartfelt devotional singing of
a new song, shouting from the mountaintops, the praise of our
God. If that's not your heart, then
it probably means that we aren't really reflecting and meditating
on this Servant, who He is and what He's accomplished and why
He had to accomplish it. If that's not us, we need to
come back to the Scriptures, places like Isaiah 42, and be
reminded of this wonderful Servant once again, How much the
Lord loves us. So what?
Let's finish with a few applications.
The first is simply this question.
Do you know the Servant? Do you know the servant?
Maybe you're here today and you know that you don't really know
him. You may know about him, but you
don't really know him. If that's glad, if that's you,
we're glad that you're here with us today.
We are glad that you are hearing the Word of God and having a
chance to reflect on it, hearing about Jesus, who he is and what
he did and and what he is doing. But don't stop there.
Pray to the Lord and ask him to open your eyes and your ears to
see and to hear the servant, the Lord Jesus.
Talk to God's people that are here.
Talk to one of the elders, talk to one of the pastors.
Get to know the ultimate servant.
Believe in Him, put your hope and trust in Him.
Start a relationship with Him. Do you know the Servant?
Secondly, we must hope in the sovereign work of the Servant.
I thought Isaiah tells us plainly and clearly that this
Servant, the Lord Jesus, is fully capable of opening the
eyes of the blind, opening the ears of the deaf.
Many of us have loved ones, family members, friends, Co
workers who don't know and believe in Jesus.
Some of us have family members and friends who have walked away
from Jesus, who've walked away from the church.
We're not following Jesus who are living lives like the
prodigal in Luke's gospel. Don't lose hope.
The servant Jesus opens the eyes of the blind and the ears of the
deaf. Deaf.
There is no heart that is so hardened that the servant Jesus
can't melt it with his love and His grace.
Do not lose hope. Don't stop praying and crying
out to the Lord for him to be at work and your friends and family
and loved ones. But there's another reason why
we must hope in the sovereign work of the servant.
It's because a bruised Reed He will not break.
A faintly burning Wick He will not quench.
Some of us find ourselves in seasons when we feel like a
bruised Reed, when we feel like a faintly burning Wick.
We feel fragile and easily broken, easily snuffed out,
vulnerable, at a loss. Don't lose hope.
The servant doesn't break bruised reeds.
The servant doesn't quench faintly burning Wicks.
Our servant cares for us and serves us and restores us and
strengthens us and motivates us. Don't lose hope.
Hope in the sovereign work of the servant.
Thirdly, the leaders of the Church should follow the model
of the servant. The leaders of the church should
take away something from the description that we have of this
servant, the one who ultimately and perfectly serves his people.
The the servants and the shepherds of the church should
learn from the model of the greater and the ultimate servant
and shepherd. How has he been described for us
in this chapter? Well, he's not loud and
bothersome. He doesn't put the spotlight on
himself. He serves quietly and humbly.
He seeks to bring forth justice in the full meaning of that
word, not just for God's people, but for the nations he serves
with fairness and equity and impartiality.
And he brings the Word of God to the people.
He has gentle and kind care for those that he serves, not
breaking or quenching them. He doesn't grow weary in the
work that God gives him to do, and he doesn't get discouraged.
He opens the eyes of the blind and leads prisoners that are
stuck in the dark dungeons into freedom and light.
Now this is the ultimate servant Jesus.
He does all of those things and is all of those things
perfectly. The leaders and the servants of
the church will never do or be those things perfectly, but it
is a good model for us what we should strive to be like.
What we should strive to do is we serve the people of the
church. What are the descriptions of
this ultimate servant, his, his being and his doing that you
need to work on as a leader in the church?
Fourthly and lastly, do you have a care for the nations?
It's clear from Isaiah 42 that the Lord, this, the servant have
a concern for the nations. We see that concern throughout
the Old Testament and we see it even more clearly and boldly in
the New Testament, especially in the life and the ministry of
Jesus. Think about the Great Commission
that he gave to his disciples. He said go there for and make
disciples of all nations. That was the Lord's calling, not
just on his disciples in the 1st century.
That is the Lord's calling on his disciples in every
generation. It's Our Calling as God's
disciples today. We need to have a concern and a
care for the nations. What are some ways that you can
strengthen your care for the nations?
Well, you know, one of the things you could do very easily
is come to our monthly prayer meeting.
We, we spend an hour once a month praying for the people
that are going to the nations, the people that are taking the
gospel to the nations. You could come to the prayer
meeting. That's one way you could
strengthen your concern for the nations.
You could get on the newsletter lists of the missionaries and
the ministries that we support as a church so that you could be
hearing about the, the prayer request that they have and you
could be lifting those things before the throne of mercy on
their behalf. You could join our global
outreach committee or our local outreach committee.
You could attend the Global Outreach Conference that's
coming up in a few weeks. You could become a financial
partner with someone that is taking God's Word to the
nations. You could go visit some of the
missionaries that we support or join, join in on a missions trip
to go and to serve with people who are taking the gospel to the
nations. You could go out to Crow Creek,
the nation of the Lakota and Dakota people, and take the
gospel to the nations. Do what you can to strengthen
your concern for the nations because our God has a concern
for the nations. Our servant, the Lord Jesus has
a concern for the nations, so God's people should have a
concern for the nations as well. Let's pray together.