Isaiah 42:1-13
Amen. Turn to Isaiah 42. Remember, we’re on the backstretch
of Isaiah. We’re definitely past the halfway
point, 66 chapters, I believe. But once we finished 39 and got
into 40 forward, we are now looking forward to better days. The first 39 chapters, a lot
of judgment, a lot of doom, a lot of gloom. This nation is going
to get it. That nation’s going to get it.
Israel’s going to get it. Judah’s going to get it. Babylon,
Assyria, Egypt, everybody. So now we’ve entered into lots
of encouragement. We’ve heard great and wonderful
things like comfort, comfort my people in chapter 40. Then
chapter 41, God said, fear not. I’m with you. Get rid of your
idols. They can’t do anything for you.
You can yell at them. tap them on the shoulder, they
can’t do anything. Now we come to chapter 42, which is significant
because it is the first of the servant songs. You’re probably
familiar with Isaiah 53. He was wounded for our transgressions. That would be one of the servant
songs. But this is the first one, maybe because it’s early
and there’s a big gap. People don’t pay much attention
to it, but this is the first. So tonight we’ll look at 42,
one through 17, so let’s hear God’s word together. This is
God speaking of Jesus saying, behold my servant whom I uphold,
my chosen in 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 the Lord who created
a God, the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who 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 and 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 it, the coastlands and all their inhabitants.
Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages
that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants of Selah
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 I will pant.
I will lay waste mountains and hills. I will dry up their vegetation. I will turn the rivers into islands
and dry up the pools. And I will lead the blind in
a way they do not know. In paths 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. Amen. Hopefully this passage tonight
will give us a bit of perspective. Thinking back to the book of
Hebrews, several years back, probably eight, nine years back,
we went through the book of Hebrews and there was a stretch when
we got to Hebrews chapter 12. Let us run the race that is before
us. And a little phrase caught my
mind’s eye and haven’t forgotten it. And it’s this, Christians
need to long for heaven and look to Jesus. That’s the way of the
pilgrim. We long for heaven. This is not
our home. And we look to Jesus, the author
and the perfecter of our faith. So if you need a little jingle
for the new year, need something to put on the sticky note on
your bathroom mirror or to put in the front of your Bible or
tape to the dashboard over the radio or somewhere where you’ll
look for it, that might be a good one. Long for heaven. and look
to Jesus and then put a little something in the offering plate
for the trademark. Now I’m not the one that made
that up, but that’s a good thought, isn’t it? Long for heaven, look
to Jesus. And that’s really what God is encouraging the people
in Isaiah’s day to do. Long for heaven. We get to the
end of Isaiah, it’s going to be about the new heavens and
the new earth. and then look to Jesus. Here’s the first of
four servant songs that tell us about the coming of the good
savior, the good shepherd, Jesus. And so a good motto, long for
heaven, look to Jesus. It’s the way through, it is the
way forward. Remember Hebrews, we touched
on briefly today by faith. Abraham sojourned in a land that
the Lord had showed him. He was looking for a city whose
designer and whose builder was God, a city with foundations,
lasting foundations. By faith, we believe in Jesus,
though we haven’t seen him. We love him by faith. We believe
the world was created by the word of God’s power. These are
things that we have not seen. We did not witness yet because
God has told us these things, that he’s either done it or he
will do it. We believe them. And so we know them to be true. Well, how does this help us?
A lot of us are probably excited about the inauguration coming
in a couple weeks. We’re moving from one extreme
worldview to another. And for me, it’s… good that we have a candidate
who believes in life. I know he’s not perfect and he’s
waffled on some pro-life issues, but it’s good to have the freedom
to live and to work and to prosper and to educate and to worship,
uh, to eat. Although maybe RFK is going to
tell us what we shouldn’t eat and probably do some of us some
good, you know, good eating, um, processed foods. But, um, anyway, that’s another
story. But we, we, we want a life giving, King, right? We want life and prosperity promoted. And so maybe we’re excited about
it, but let me encourage you not to have false hope. Because
we mentioned the commandments, didn’t we? You shall have no
other gods before me. And if we’re not careful, and
especially not careful as Christians who think somehow America is
Zion, which it is not, There’s only one Zion and that Zion is
now above in the heavenly city. And I’m sorry, dispensationalist,
but you know, read your Bibles. You’ll come to that spot. We
long for a greater, lasting, longer looking city, but it’s
good for us to keep our eyes on Jesus, to keep our eyes on
the Lord. Yes, we may prosper and God may give us good things
in this life, but don’t have false hope. There will be hard
times again. I think we’ve just been through
a couple of years of misery. I think before, and I don’t mean
to be political here, I think it’s worldview and ideology that
drives a country. But we’ve had some rough years
in recent history, and it’s very heartbreaking to see sin elevated,
to see sin rewarded, to see sin normalized, and to see righteousness
punished or poked at. And so perhaps in the coming
days, you have some hope. That’s a good thing. But remember,
look to Jesus. Well, what if you’re in Isaiah’s
day? What if you are in the city of
Jerusalem and you peek over the wall and you see the Assyrians
surrounding their ramparts, their war machines, their nastiness,
the smell of their campfires. You see that they’ve cut down
all your beautiful trees and burned them for firewood. just
ravaged your land. And it’s just a matter of time
before they get in and take you or destroy you or kill you or
steal you or whatever. Think about perhaps over in Israel
a year and some change ago that for many Christians who were
there had faced difficulties that did come to pass. God spares
Jerusalem from Assyria, but then Babylon comes a hundred or so
years later. Or perhaps it’s not that you’re
under siege from an enemy, like Isaiah’s audience, but you’ve
been to the doctor and the doctor has told you this or that, or
the economy’s been hard on you, or relational struggles are your
lot in life, or the end times. We’re in them, Jesus says, the
last days, the latter days. Lots of things are coming to
pass. There’s wars and rumors of wars.
evil and darkness and what do you call them? Antichrist, all
kinds of things around us. There’s uncertainty. And so what
does God say? He says, look to my servant,
Jesus. He says, long for heaven and
he’ll in heaven, make all things new. He’ll take away tears and
pain and broken things. He’ll fix them, make them right.
but also look to Jesus, the author and perfecter of the faith. So
just in a couple of verses tonight, we have the chance to look at
God’s servant and it’s God’s servant for our sakes. Now we’ve
been thinking through on Sunday morning’s covenant and wouldn’t
you know it, covenant just pops right up in Isaiah 42. You think
I’m just beating this drum and making this thing up. No, it’s
everywhere. And if you read your Bibles, you begin to see that.
But here in Isaiah 42, you get a very clear picture of the mission
of Jesus. Several weeks back, maybe the
first Sunday in December, we thought of what is called the
Council of Peace or the Covenant of Redemption, wherein the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit in eternity past said, what will bring us
the most glory? Well, we’ll make a world and
everything in it will permit its fall into sin. And we’ll
let righteous men who have become unrighteous in their sin be made
righteous again through the sending of the second person of the Trinity,
the eternal son of God, the Lord Jesus. And his mission, which
Isaiah speaks of here, is to seek and save the lost. And when
he seeks and saves the lost, he will receive them as a reward,
as an inheritance. as a nation, as a bride, as reward
for his completing the mission that God has put him on. So all
through Isaiah 42 here, you should have your covenant bells ringing. This is the eternal Son of God
who made covenant with the Father in eternity past to seek and
save the lost, to be a servant for their sake and to bring them.
And so think of Isaiah 42 verse one says, Behold my servant whom
I uphold, my chosen and whom my soul delights. I have put
my spirit upon him and he will bring forth justice to the nations. This is the servant, the son’s
mission to come to this earth, sent by God. We just sang Christmas
songs. Thou who was rich beyond all
splendor for our sakes became poor. We think of the incarnation,
the eternal son of God became man by taking to himself a true
body and a reasonable soul being conceived by the power of the
Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary, born of her yet
without sin. We think of the sending of the
son, his condescension from heaven. his taking on human nature. The book of Galatians chapter
four says, in the fullness of time, God sent forth his son
born of a woman. Think of that, the son of God
born of a woman, peasant woman at that, a poor young girl at
that. And that he was born into, as
our catechism says, in a low condition. He suffered more indignities
than most in every age and stage and phase of his life. But he
was sent and he willingly went, he willingly came. And his mission
was to seek and to save the lost. His mission was to live, obey,
suffer and die in our place. And the whole Bible is building
towards that point. All of the sacrifices, all of
the priesthood, all of the types and the shadows that Hebrews
so well explains to us were pointing to the eternal son of God coming. And so the mission of God is
to be the servant of God’s people. My servant whom I uphold. You
know, we get surprised. I think sometimes we see Jesus’
baptism. Comes up out of the water and
a dove descends and voice from heaven says, this is my beloved
son with whom I’m well pleased. And we think, oh, isn’t that
neat? God approves of his son. Well, he was already doing that
here, wasn’t he? chapter 42, one, my servant,
whom I uphold my chosen and whom my soul delights. He’s been in
delighting in the sun since eternity. If you thought of that, he’s
been delighting in the sun and the mission he would soon go
on since eternity. It’s almost like God couldn’t
wait. You know, we just got through Christmas and Maybe you bought
somebody a gift and you kind of put it in front of them and
said, go ahead, open it, go ahead, open it. Because the real gift
for you is to see them open it, right? And to have the joy. And
the scripture speaks of how Jesus, the joy set before him was our
salvation. And he went to the cross willingly
to die to save those God sent him to save. And so that’s his
mission. But then you see the blessing
of the Holy Spirit. You pick up in verse two or at
the end of verse one, I put my spirit on him. He will bring
forth justice. to the nations. So his mission
is to seek and save the lost, but he does it in the Spirit’s
power. Think about all the times the Holy Spirit is mentioned
in Jesus’ life. So Joseph couldn’t be his dad. I mean, he could
have been, but he would have been born with original sin.
Adam’s sin would have been passed down to Jesus, and that would
have just ruined the whole thing. So he was conceived in the womb
of Mary, by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit on high
descended on her and gave her a child. And so in chapter 42,
1, I have put my spirit on him. We begin to see that. And maybe
you could fudge a little and back up to when Mary and Elizabeth,
you know, they hung out before babies came. And what happens
when baby Jesus meets John the Baptist in utero? It’s kind of
a little Holy Spirit flutter in the womb, right? And pretty significant. God is at
work. God, the Father, God, the Son,
God, the Holy Spirit. But anyway, Jesus conceived by
the Spirit. He’s born and he’s presented
in the temple. They go back to Nazareth after all the escaping
from Herod business. And when they go back to Nazareth,
the Bible makes a point to tell us that Jesus grew in wisdom
and in stature and in favor with God and men and that God’s grace
was on him, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the grace
of the spirit of the living God, the grace of the Holy Spirit
was on him. And he, he grew by grace. Yes, Mary, you know, taught him
things. Joseph nurtured him as a father,
but the spirit was resting on him in a mighty, in a special
way, like no other child, maybe since Samuel or some of the other
great ones God had a special task for. Then we fast forward
to Jesus’ baptism. and the spirit descends on him
as a dove and God’s voice from heaven speaks, then Jesus is
driven out into the wilderness and he’s driven out in the wilderness
to pass the test that Adam failed in paradise. He’s driven out
into the wilderness. The Holy Spirit and the angels
were tending to him 40 days, 40 nights without food. You know, sometimes we do these
intermittent fast, right? Maybe get up and eat a yogurt,
gets around two o’clock and you need something to eat. Your tummy’s
growling. Belly button is touching the backbone, as we say. And
it’s never that bad. We’re first world. Well, I won’t even try to put
it delicately. But you know what I’m thinking, at least. I’m not
going to say it because I’ll get sued or banned or something. I’ll get, what do they call it,
canceled. But you know, we got enough stored up. We can make
it like the squirrels. Right. They’ve got some store
for winter and they’re fine. We’ll be fine. But Jesus, no,
40 days. And this was a spiritual test. He’s a lion. He doesn’t
have a helpmate like Adam. This is a spiritual test. Satan
is going to come to him and hit him with these temptations that
are very direct. Hey, instead of going to the
cross and accomplishing the mission of the suffering servant and
getting a people for yourself the hard way, why don’t you do
it the easy way? Just bow. down to me, Satan, and I’ll give
you the kingdoms of the earth. That’s not the way God, the Father,
God, the Son, God, the Spirit, determined in eternity past in
the council of peace for Jesus to accomplish his mission and
receive his inheritance. That would be the easy way. That
would be the cheap way. That would be the ungodly way,
the unrighteous way. And so Jesus passes that test
among others, but it’s with the Spirit’s help. And then he’s
anointed in his three-year ministry. He’s given all the graces needed
to minister to the brokenhearted, to the people who are tortured
in spirit, who have demons in them, who have withered hands
or palsies or limps or lameness or blindness or whatever oppression
from the fall of man into sin. And so he’s anointed in this
three-year ministry. to give sight to the blind, to
give health to brokenness, to give salvation to those who are
living in darkness. And then the book of Hebrews
says so well, and I believe it’s chapter eight, that it was by
the eternal spirit that Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice.
You know, it wasn’t just that Jesus was a strong man who could
tough it out and go to the cross. He could tough it out through
those lashes. He could tough it out through the pressing of
the crown into his head. He could tough it out as those
nails were driven into his body. No, that’s not how it was. It
was the spirit upheld him. And what’s so amazing, I think,
is that it’s that same spirit God has given to us. He’s not
left us as widows. He’s not left us as orphans.
He’s not said, Hey, tough it out, brothers and sisters. He’s
left his spirit with us. He’s left his spirit in us to
teach us and guide us and to comfort us. And that same spirit
who hovered over the face of the deep and created the world,
that same spirit who conceived the Christ child by the divine
or immaculate conceptions, that same spirit within us. And so
his mission is a spirit empowered mission, a spirit driven mission.
But then what do we see of Jesus? We see his mission, we see it’s
spirit powered. You get to verses 4, 2, 3, and
4, and you see a bit of his character. Verse 5, even the character of
God behind it. It says he won’t cry aloud, verse
2, or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street. You know, the saying goes, the
louder a person is, probably the needier they are. Isn’t that
about how it goes? And so we see celebrities. They
need to be heard. We see people who are loud and boisterous.
And often behind that being loud and boisterous is a lot of hurt,
a lot of neediness. And that’s not the way with Jesus.
He quietly comes on to the scene and he doesn’t toot his own horn. John the baptizer did that for
him. He prepared the way. When Jesus was born, it took
angels to declare his birth, but Jesus isn’t, well, what we
call a horn tooter. You know, he doesn’t go around
and say, you know, you sure you want to mess with me? You know,
I’m from heaven. I can arm wrestle you and beat
you. That’s not how he goes. He comes quietly. He’s not loud. He’s not obnoxious. He’s not
a shouter. He’s not a brawler. He’s not
a boaster. He doesn’t cry aloud. And then
we’re told he’s gentle. What does Jesus say? Come to
me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, take my yoke. upon you, my burden upon you.
My burden is easy or gentle. My burden is light. And so we have gentle Jesus. He knows how brittle we are. Psalm 103 says, God remembers
our frame and remembers that we are dust. Aren’t you glad
God holds back? You know, he could hit the nuclear
button. But he’s gentle with us, he’s
gracious with us, and that’s Jesus. If you’ve not read it
and want a good read for the year, I think a really helpful
book is called Gentle and Lowly by one of the Ortland brothers,
I think Dane Ortland maybe. It’s a book that’s been out a
couple years and it’s been a blessing to me, but you see the gentleness
of Jesus. in that biblical exposition of
the kindness of Christ. And then we see that he’s faithful,
verse 3. A bruised reed he will not break,
a faintly burning wick he will not quench. Continues in his
gentleness, but he will faithfully bring forth justice. You can
count on Jesus. You know, isn’t it interesting
when you get the birth of Jesus, and there’s Zechariah’s song,
there’s Mary’s song, there’s the Benedictus, or no, that’s
Zechariah, isn’t it? There’s the old man, and then
there’s the old lady Anna, the prophetess in the temple. All
four of them show you that they were longing for heaven, looking
to Jesus. And they expected a faithful servant. And in that little baby,
in that little baby, they knew that faithfulness, rescue, justice
would come. I don’t know if y’all thought
about it today, a little baby on the middle row of church, and
there’s the grandparents and the parents. Did you ever think,
wonder what this child will be? Wonder what this child will do?
Will we someday in our old age say, I knew that kid when he
was a baby? Maybe that’s how they thought of Christ. He’s
faithful, you can count on. Verse four says he’s strong.
He will not grow faint, nor will he be discouraged till he has
established justice in the earth and the coastlands wait for his
law. He’s going to be strong for the whole earth, not just
for Israel as a nation, but he’s gonna be strong for the Gentiles,
a light for the Gentiles. He’s gonna have the stamina to
do the work of the ministry. His ministry will be wide and
broad. And it says he’ll bring his law.
or perhaps he’ll bring his doctrine. He’s the Moses we’ve been looking
for, right? Remember, Moses says there’s
going to be a greater Moses after me. Well, here’s greater Moses
in Jesus, the servant, and his law, his teaching will be written
on the hearts of people and it will go across the face of the
earth. And how does this come to pass?
Well, it’s the eternal task. It’s the eternal job that comes
from God, the Lord, verse five, who created the heavens. He stretched
them out. He spread out the earth and what
comes from it. He gives breath to the people.
He gives spirit to those who walk in it. And so what does
that God say? I am the Lord. I’ve called you,
Jesus, in righteousness. I’ll take you by the hand. I’ll
keep you. I’ll give you as a covenant for
the people, a light for the nations. You know, we’re not big scripture
memorizers. We ought to be, but we’re not
because we have iPhone brain, right? Short attention spans.
And we can just, we can just Google it, right? Why remember
it when he can just Google it, but don’t, you know, Jesus had
this in his heart. He had this in his mind and as
he went through his ministry and, you know, maybe he’s walking
out of, you know, one of these cities where they’re going to
stone him or run him off the cliff. And he’s saying to himself, Father,
the Lord, you called me in righteousness. You said you would uphold me.
You’d walk with me. You’d give me your spirit. These people
are tossing rocks at me. They’re breathing murderous threats.
So this is the time for you to do what you said you’d do. Be
who you said you’d be to me. Those are the kinds of things
that God says of his servant. Perhaps Jesus had those on his
mind. And then it gets into his mission.
I’ll give you as a covenant to the people, verse six. I’ll give
you as a light to the nations. You’ll open the eyes of the blind.
You’ll bring the prisoners from the dungeon. You’ll bring from
the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord. That is my name.
My glory I give to no other.” So this is the mission of Jesus,
spirit powered. This will be his character. We
see it on display clearly in the gospels. And so what’s a
fitting response? Well, what do saved people do?
Sing. And so verses 10 through 17 are
a song, in fact, a new song. And anytime you come up in the
Bible, maybe it’s Psalms or it’s in the book of Revelation, and
it says, sing to the Lord a new song, that generally means God
has revealed himself in a new or special or bigger way. When
Israel was rescued from Egypt, they got over the sea onto dry
land. And what did Moses and Miriam
do? They had a quarrel. Why are you the boss? Oh, wait,
that’s later. Now this time they’re together and they sing a song.
I will sing unto the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously,
the horse and the rider he’s thrown into the sea. David’s
a song singer. He’s a psalm writer. We come
to the New Testament and there’s some glimpses of songs in Colossians
and Timothy. And of course, there are new
songs when we get to the book of Revelation, the elders, the
creatures, the souls made perfect who’ve gathered in the celestial
gathering of people around God’s throne, they sing new songs.
And what will we do in heaven? We’ll sing new songs because
this God sent his son on that mission, powered by the spirit,
endued with the character he’s displayed, and he’s rescued and
redeemed us. Now, we’re not there yet. We’re
still marching to Zion. We’re still longing for heaven.
We’re still looking to Jesus, but it’s as good as done, isn’t
it? And isn’t it interesting how the writer of Hebrews says,
when we gather for worship, we gather with those around the
world who call on the name of Jesus, but we also gather with
the heavenly worshipers. And we join in with the programming
already going forward in heaven, right? Their worship is eternal.
It’s night and day, and we’re just jumping in. We got to go
back to work and do our earthly stuff until we get there. but
we get to sing a new song. And so perhaps in the new year,
perhaps with these thoughts in mind, God will put a song in
your heart to sing to him for his great goodness and salvation. Let’s now look to him in prayer.
Lord, we thank you so much for making more and more clear to
us the person and the work of Jesus. And we thank you that
many of the things you gave to him, you’ve given to us, you’ve
given us the spirit. You’ve given us the fruit of
the Spirit. We can be meek and gentle and
strong and faithful. And Lord, you’ve given us a mission,
and that’s to seek and save the lost. And so may we be imitators
of Christ Jesus, being lights to the Gentiles, being kind and
gracious to those who are sheep without a shepherd, who are bent
and broken and bruised by the fall. May it be so, we pray in
Christ’s great name, amen.