God’s Song Book, Part 3: Servant Song 1, Isaiah 42:1-9 How many of you have heard of Mandisa? She has one of those voices that to me, sounds sweet. Not many people have that affect on me. When I hear her voice it’s almost as if I can “taste” what she’s singing. Anybody’s voice do that to you? Well, today, we begin a “series within a series” so to speak. We’ve been into God’s Song Book, looking at and learning about the inspired writings of Hebrew poetry. The majesty and grandeur of these words! And I can imagine that the songs the servant of the Lord sang were way sweeter than Mandisa in the Lord’s ears! We are going to look at the first of several “Servant Songs” today. And when I say “servant”, I mean servant of the Lord. For many of us, we will right away see it’s talking about the prophecies concerning Christ. But there are a whole lot of people who will see the servant described in these songs as the nation of Israel. Let me say at this point, there are a number of reasons why it’s clear that Isaiah was not referring to Israel, not the least is the issue over the last servant song, Isaiah 53. There are many Jews who will not even read it. And my question is, if the servant in Isaiah is the nation of Israel, why all the reluctance? Also, there are a number of places, even in this passage which if we know Jewish history, make it practically impossible to view the servant referred to here as Israel. Again, there’s so much more to be said about this, but time will not let us. So, let’s dive right in and look at God’s description of His Servant as found in Isaiah 42:1-4: 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. Chosen and delighted in by the Lord--and He will serve the Lord. The servant is to bring forth justice, not just to Israel, but to the entire world. Notice how tenderly the Servant will administer the justice of which Isaiah is speaking: How sensitive He will be to the most fragile, most down and out—He will support the “bruised reeds” and fan into flame again the “smoldering wicks” of the oppressed. In true servant fashion, He will not go about establishing justice in a way that is forceful or intimidating. In fact, He will not cry out in the streets or unduly draw attention to Himself. Another point about the Servant establishing justice. He will stop at nothing to accomplish it. He will be pit-bull tenacious until it happens. People will not stop Him and neither will He get so weary that He will fail at His divinely appointed task. Now, let’s look at the scope of justice the Servant will establish: To the ends of the earth. The islands, coastlands—out in the middle of nowhere. Picture Gilligan’s Island or Castaway—even all the way out there, justice will be established. And even there, they are waiting for His law—literally, His instruction in how to make justice happen. But how is it that they are waiting for His instruction, out there? Why would sinful man want to know God’s justice, anyway? Psalm 19:1 tells us that the heavens declare the glory of God. Romans 1:19 says that God has shown and made plain about Himself to humanity. But we live in a fallen world. Tragically, there is no place where the awareness of injustice is not sorely known and felt, precisely because the glory of God is everywhere, and the knowledge of God is hardwired in the heart of every person. Oppression, violence, lack of community, happens because of injustice and we know there’s something not right about that. And this begs the question: What is justice the way God sees it? What I’m about to say may shock you. But here goes. Justice is not what society tells us. And just like love, the church has allowed the world to hijack its true meaning. And what I’m about to say regarding this is not original with me. It’s my attempt to crystallize what I’ve studied—just so you know. Injustice has much more to do with the heart of people than it has to do with mere equitable distribution of resources. Redistribution of wealth is far easier than administering godly justice. We have come to think that justice means share and share alike. But that is more akin to communism than anything else. No, justice goes much further than just equitable material distribution, though it may include some of that. Justice implies the empowerment of every person to have an equal standing in the community. Justice is associated with the basic requirements of life of those living in the community. And it happens when honorable relationships are maintained between all people in the community, to include the government and its citizens, and especially between all community members and God. I love this summary statement of justice that I came across: It refers to neighborliness in spirit and action between all members of the community. So it goes far beyond just certain ones in power confiscating the wealth of the middle and upper classes and redistributing it to the poor. But true justice is impossible without the Servant of the Lord establishing it. See, when those in power, even with the best of intentions, only seek their brand of justice in society, and especially when it lacks the promotion of it between its citizens and God, self gets in the way. And a perversion of justice happens. Evil hearts take over. And those in power who are supposed to facilitate justice wind up having their corrupt hearts exposed. And the oppressed continue to be oppressed, even if they get stuff, because they are still not made to feel full neighborliness with their fellow citizens. And this is not just our country. Nations all around the world experience the dynamic of those in power, appearing to facilitate justice but in reality continuing to oppress those under them. A good example of that is alleviating world hunger. According to some global agencies I researched, they conclude it would take a certain amount of money to end hunger in the world. Anybody care to guess? As of 2008, about 50 billion a year. And add to that the fact that the world can sustain about 40 billion people on the planet, there is no need to plot and scheme to get rid of people, like many global elites are planning—which is the ultimate oppression. But because the human heart is deceitful above all things and is desperately wicked, we are literally dying because of injustice. But the servant of the Lord will provide justice, not only for Israel, but for everybody. God’s servant will usher in a world-wide global sweep of much needed justice. And how is He going to do that? Verses 5-9 give us some incredible answers to this question, as God declares His Servant’s mission. In verse 5, the Lord reminds those to whom Isaiah is ministering to, and by extension everybody who reads what the prophet wrote, that He is the creator—of the heavens, of the earth and everything in it, and especially all of us. At the end of verse 5 He says: I give life to every last person who walks on the earth, for that’s what “giving breath to the people on earth and spirit to those who walk in it” means. God is in charge and He’s vitally concerned about His servant establishing justice on the earth, with each person actually living neighborly with one another and with God, living in harmony with Him and His ways. Now notice the mission God gives to His Servant in verses 6-7: “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.” Let’s break down this amazing mission the Lord gave to the Servant. First, He called the Servant in righteousness. Simply, this means that God is, by virtue of His protecting and keeping Him that the Lord’s servant will live his life righteously. Everything He will do in bringing justice about, will be firmly within the realm of God’s righteousness. And we see this throughout the gospels. We find Jesus healing people. Dealing with sin. Putting demons in their place. Denouncing religious hypocrites. And making amazing claims about Himself. He declared that righteousness is found in Him. That He is the great I AM. That no one can come to the Father except through Him. One thing that I have been blown away with recently is the distinction Jesus made between Himself and every other religious leader of His day. That was showcased when He delivered what we call the “Sermon of the Mount.” In a couple of places, the Lord all but told those who were in His audience these words: “There are many who claim to tell you the truth. But now, hear this: out of everybody who teaches the Torah, the Law, I alone have the authority and ability to give its full meaning.” Let’s turn to Matthew 5:17-18 so we can see this: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished”. When He said that He came to “fulfill the law”, part of what He meant was that He alone had complete insight into what the Law’s full aim and purpose was. That’s why in that sermon we read, “You have heard it said”, “but I say to you”. That’s also why the apostle Paul tells us, that “Christ is the end—the aim, the purpose—of the law to all who believe.” We also read that John records Jesus’ words when He said “I always do what pleases the Father.” Those are either the most arrogant words and deeds anyone ever said and did—or they are the words of God’s righteous Servant. And indeed, the Lord Jesus IS the Lord’s Servant. And as amazing as those things are, let’s continue on with Isaiah’s servant song to see even more amazing things. At the end of verse 6 we read the Lord saying to His Servant: “I will give You as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations.” And remember, with Hebrew poetry, because that is what we’ve been studying, we see the Lord’s expansion regarding His gift: that He will be a light for the nations as well as a covenant for the people. Both points go together in a powerful way. Let’s unpack it. First, Christ was going to be given as a covenant for the people. So, what people is He talking about? Though initially, it’s Israel, the ultimate reality is the entire world is in view, hence the coupling of the two lines here. The covenant that God is going to make has as its ultimate possible recipients, all people of the world. Let’s continue. The Lord is going to give the Servant AS A COVENANT. Does that sound familiar? Let’s review God’s declaration of the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-34: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put My law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be My people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” And on the night He was betrayed, hours before He was crucified, Jesus took bread and told His men, “take and eat this. This is my body broken for you.” And then He passed around a cup of wine and said, “drink this, all of you, for this is the blood of the new covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” All of Jesus’ life was leading up to this point, and just a little bit beyond, when He would actually give His life on the cross as the mediator of the New Covenant, where God would forgive the sins and write His law on the hearts of every person in a covenant relationship with Him. Forgiveness and holiness—which is what God meant when He said that He would write His law on their hearts, is what the Servant accomplished for everybody who follows Jesus in a true saving relationship. The apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians declared that Christ has become to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification—or holiness—and redemption. Now what was the purpose of God’s Servant in being made as a covenant, ultimately for the whole world? Let’s read Isaiah 42:7: “to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” What would God be saying here if He didn’t mean spiritual blindness, spiritual captivity? How many eyes are blinded by sin but physically have 20/20 vision? How many people are sitting in spiritual dungeons but are free to go anywhere they choose? Jesus was all about this purpose. Remember how at the beginning of His ministry, of all the passages of Scripture, what was the first one recorded in the gospels that He read? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Though Jesus performed MANY miracles in His ministry, as great as they were, they paled into insignificance when compared to the far greater miracle of opening spiritually blinded eyes and prison doors of spiritually captured souls. But our problem is that we have it totally upside down and backward. We think that the more significant display of God’s power is some supernatural demonstration of a suspension of natural law. We are far more enamored with physical healing and financial liberation than we are with God’s greater work of spiritual healing and spiritual liberation. And I think there’s a reason for this. A supernatural work of God in the physical realm dazzles us, but a supernatural work of God in our soul transforms us. It is this transformation that makes us humble. It beats our self sufficiency and idolatrous heart to a pulp. And our flesh would rather do anything than face that. And God told us, yet again, what He’s all about in verses 8-9: 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.” Do you see it? God is all about His glory. He is all about simply being who He is. And when the greatest of His creation lives in rebellion against Him, that robs God of His glory. God would much rather do nothing by way of a physical miracle, and spiritually transform a life, than to dazzle an unconverted soul to show off His power. God declares emphatically, “I will give My glory to nothing else. To no one else.” He also tells His wayward people, “what kind of God can perfectly demonstrate absolute faithfulness in everything He has declared?” And He goes further as if to say: “And what’s more—I’m going to tell you new things. Just as the former things have come to pass, so the things I’m now telling you now will come to pass. I am completely faithful. You can trust me.” A couple of chapters later, God inspired Isaiah to write what amounts to an even more forceful point in this regard when He says through the prophet in chapter 46:8-10: “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all My purpose.’” That is almighty God. He is the creator and sustainer of the universe. He is the One who sent forth His Servant to accomplish His purposes and to bless all who would receive His blessings. And in receiving His blessings, He makes us new. Paul told us in 2 Corinthians 5:17: If any person is in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away—in other words, are dead—and behold new things have come. Because of the Lord’s servant, because Christ has served us in the name of the Lord, we have, and will, experience God’s “new things”. We have new life. We have a new nature. We have a new eternal destination. We are now on friendly relations with the One who is righteous beyond righteous, pure beyond pure, holy beyond holy, and who will take care of all imperfection when all is said and done. God will accomplish all He has set His mind on. He is faithful. He is almighty God. Well, how can God’s people respond to something like this? The passing fad was, “WWJD”. But I think there might be something to this. As we have seen, what did the Lord’s servant set out to do? Establish justice. He was given as a covenant of sacrifice in order to open spiritually blinded eyes and release the spiritually incarcerated. Obviously, we can’t be the covenant the way the Lord’s Servant was, but we can live in a covenant relationship with one another. The challenge before us is this: to the degree that God’s covenant has affected you and me personally is the degree you and I will live in a covenant relationship with one another. And it works this way. Let’s say a brother or sister spoke hurtful words to me. And I’m so offended that now I blow him or her off. Because I’m embittered toward them, I neglect fellowship with God’s people. What does that say about my covenant relationship with God? What does that say about my love for Him and how much I value what He’s done for me? How short sighted am I to forget all the sins that He’s forgiven me of! Or perhaps I don’t even understand what walking with Christ is all about. I may not even be, in the words of Jesus, born again. I might just be playing with this thing called Christianity. I could say much more about this but I think you get the picture. The Servant of the Lord told us, “the world will know that we are His disciples if we have love for the world”, right? Is that a correct statement? No, the Servant of the Lord told us, “the world will know that we are His disciples if we have love for each other.” It is an absolute sham to attempt to show the love of Christ to the world if you and I refuse to get along with our brothers and sisters, for whatever the reason. So, our first response is to live in a covenant relationship with one another. The second response is this: As the servant of the Lord, Christ looked at the bruised reeds and smoldering wicks around Him and was determined to deal so gently with them. He supported the bruised reeds and fanned into flame the smoldering wicks in His world. The only proper response for us is to do what Jesus did: support bruised reeds and smoldering wicks in our world—the broken hearted, the down and out, the discouraged and simply do what is within our power to support them, to encourage them. Who in your world is a bruised reed or a smoldering wick that needs your support? Christian or non-Christian. Friend or foe. God is no respecter of persons, and neither should we be. We’re going to have an altar call in a minute. This would be a great opportunity to either come to the cross or commit ourselves to the Lord right where we are to doing what is within our power to support that person, or persons as bruised reeds and smoldering wicks. The third response we can take away is over the issue of justice. As we said, justice is not making sure that every person has an equal amount of money in their checking account. Or that they have the exact same stuff as everybody around them. No, justice is to facilitate neighborliness among all those in the community. We help them with material needs, emotional needs, so that they can feel worth and dignity, and a true part of the community. We do that through outreach, investing our time, talent and treasure, in the name of Jesus, the servant of the Lord. And let’s not forget about the most important One who is in every community: the Lord Himself. We work to facilitate neighborliness between everybody in the community and Him as well. And we tie the justice issue together like this. As CAT 1—Church Advisory Team that is—while CAT 2 is the Creative Arts Team, we at the CAT 1 meetings have been brainstorming this question: how can we, as a church, serve those around us? And for me personally, even as the Lord has helped me to begin to understand about justice, serving those around us is THE way that Grace United can partner with the Servant of the Lord in facilitating justice in our town. But remember, it’s not just about justice on the horizontal level, facilitating neighborliness among people in the community. These are good things. But just as importantly, we want to make inroads into the lives of those we are facilitating neighborliness with—we want to overtly tell them about the one who’s mission it was and is to establish justice. We want to give them the gospel of Christ and back up our proclamation by serving them with our time, talent and treasure. So, on behalf of CAT 1,we are going to announce soon the details of several things that Grace United can do in this regard. One of those things is in November, when we will participate in Mission to Virginia, where we will join forces with many other churches to winterize homes. The other thing we are thinking about is engaging in a local school to see what we can do to help them. We are also in the process of setting up opportunities as individuals, small groups or Grace United as a whole to participate in giving to extend justice, and the gospel, to the ends of the earth. One such thing is the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering. We’ve seen the video twice now about what the offering is used for. And there will be several more opportunities for us to get involved as well. Let me close with us seeing the Servant of the Lord in action, as He sang His song during His ministry. Not only did Jesus fulfill all of the prophecies about His first coming, His entire life embodied that of a servant. Indeed, as the Lord went around doing good, He healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath—on Saturday, while they were at the Synagogue. After Jesus put the leaders in their place for lambasting Him about doing good on the Sabbath, Matthew, in the 12th chapter of his gospel tells what the Servant of the Lord did after His encounter with them, beginning at verse 15: Jesus, aware of this—as in knowing the Pharisees were plotting to kill Him—withdrew from there. And many followed him, and He healed them all and ordered them not to make Him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, My servant whom I have chosen, My beloved with whom My soul is well pleased. I will put My Spirit upon him, and He will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets; a bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not quench, until He brings justice to victory; and in His name the Gentiles will hope.” Here is the Servant of the Lord, doing what He did, telling people NOT to make Him known, quietly doing what He was able to do, letting His light shine before men so that the Father would be glorified. And it is in that spirit that we need to go from here, bearing the same attitude, the same selfless love, and same bold commitment to see the Father glorified in our world.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 04:04:29 +0000
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