You have a Bible, let me invite you to turn with me to the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 42 tonight. Isaiah 42 verses 1 to 9, Sun page 602 of your Pew Bible. And let me wish you a merry Christmas. And if you're visiting Redeemer this evening, we're so glad that you're here to celebrate with us as we do the birth of Christ on this Christmas Sunday.
Now it's true that some of us may already be sick and tired of Christmas. I admit that my head may explode. If I hear one more time, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, or I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. I do dream of it, and it doesn't look like we're going to get any snow around here.
For a boy from Ohio, that just troubles me severely. Beyond the glitter, beyond the gathering family, the good food, perhaps, is there anything super important to contemplate at Christmas? After all, each year magazine, profit, by provocatively questioning the historical accuracy of ancient events and the documents that record them. Multiculturalists seek to suppress in the name of sensitivity to diversity, the public proclamations of the DV of Christ.
And many ask if Jesus is really worth all the attention. But consider the words of the British journalist. Peter will be a self-identified atheist writing in this week in the New States, a 100-year-old publication of British political and cultural magazine. Celebrated for its political progressivism and skepticism, we'll be right.
All religions have stories at their heart. Christianity, to my mind, has the best. And omnipotent God who chooses to be incarnated as a human, born in the most humble circumstances imaginable. Whether or not we are believers.
We should all celebrate that story in the coming days. And ponder its meaning. Now, I doubt all atheists will take his words to heart. I certainly hope the Christians here tonight will...
This is a story, as a skeptic says, worthy of our consideration. That tonight we're continuing a series called In Ancient Christmas, The Coming of Jesus, in the Prophecy of Isaiah. It's God's own infallible statement about these events. And so, and even better encouragement to us, of course, to consider Jesus.
Isaiah wrote 700 years before the Lord was born into this world. And he told us who to be watching for and what this coming one will be like. And so tonight we hear about him in Isaiah 42 verses 1-9. That he is a servant who is the hope of the world.
And we'll be reading verses 1-9. And I want to outline where it's going actually before we read it. So you can track the movement of thought. We'll be studying or considering really just verses 1-4 together.
But the whole context is this. In verses 1-4, Isaiah 42, the Lord first speaks about his servant, then he speaks to the servant, and then he speaks about his people. In verses 1-4, he speaks about his servant. You'll hear, behold my servant.
At verses 5-7, the Lord speaks to his servant, particularly if you look at verse 6. I will give you, as a covenant for the people alike for the nation, that you there is singular. In verses 8-9, the Lord speaks to his people, that you is plural at the end of it. New things I declare, before they spring forth I tell you, are you all of them?
And so tonight we'll focus on the first of the four verses where he speaks to his servant. Let's hear the whole thing. This is God's holy and inspired word. Give your attention to it.
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 wreath, he will not break.
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 has 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, 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.
This is God's Word, making right in our hearts. Let's look to him in prayer. Our Father, not to us, but to your name, be the glory. Because of your steadfast love and faithfulness, because of your promise and fulfillment in sending your son, exalt him among us, lift him high, and you are not worthy to know him in ourselves.
I am not worthy to preach about him nor our ears to hear him. You are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. We don't know the half of it. But you are gracious and kind and you are given generous, poor out your spirit and help us show us Christ for the good of our souls and his glory.
And he is my right. Amen. Amen. The servant here is the hope of the world.
And we need to know all about him so that we can recognize who he is when he comes. That is why Isaiah tells us about him. Four or five things about this servant from the prophet tonight. I am going to give you them as we go.
In the first place, see how necessary this servant is. Verse 1, behold, my servant. Now to appreciate what is going on in Isaiah 42 and why that is significant, even that very first word, behold, or maybe your translation says look or see, sadly, some translation simply skipped that little word, viewing it as unimportant. But it is supremely important for you to understand the flow of the text.
In chapter 41, it appears multiple times. If you just go back six to seven verses, it appears twice. It appears at 41 verse 24 and then at 41 verse 29. And both of those verses as the ESV has it, behold.
Okay. Now in both cases, it is drawing your attention to idols and idolatry. He is addressing the idolatry of the children of Israel. They are going after idols.
Verse 24, chapter 41, behold. You are nothing and your work is less than nothing and abomination is he who chooses you. What is he speaking about? He is speaking about idols.
Behold, you are nothing idols is what he is saying. Then he draws attention to idolatry. Those who worship idols. Verse 29, behold, they are all a delusion.
Their works are nothing. Their metal images are an empty wind. They are just a gas bag. So he uses the word behold at the start of each of those to draw the attention to the problem of idols.
And idolatry in Israel. And then at chapter 42, the word behold, to draw your attention to God's answer and solution. Now before we move on to that answer, just reflect. This is not just a problem for the ancient Israelites.
Idolatry is not just a problem for people who lived a long time ago. We are all tempted to idolatry and we all struggle with it. Idolatry doesn't just mean making figurines of metal, of gold, or silver, or wood, and then bowing before them and worship. Idolatry is any time.
We find our satisfaction or our security or our treasure or our hope in someone or something or anyone other than God. Idolatry is when we love anyone or anything more than we love God. Or when we love God less than we love anyone or anything. Or substitute the word trust or hope.
Anytime we trust something more than we trust God. Or trust God less than we trust something else. It's a form of idolatry. We are all idolaters.
And God's answer to Israel is his answer to us here. Verse 42, behold, my servant. Behold, behold, the idols. Behold, idolatry.
Behold, my servant. He is the answer. He points us to the solution. The ultimate place of hope, trust, affection, security, love is not an idolatry but in Jesus.
Who is God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. And he is real and he can actually do something for us and that idols cannot do. Last but first one, I placed my spirit on him and he will bring forth justice to the nations. Verse 1, verse 3, verse 4, all concerning themselves with justice.
And justice is what you get when someone judges rightly. You get a righteous or just regime or world or government and he will bring forth this justice to the nations. This is what he is going to do. He is going to be a person who embodies all that Israel ought to be but has not been.
And he is going to do something nobody else has ever or can do. He is God's answer to the problem of idolatry and to the problem of our weakness and our failure in the temptation to idolatry. And so we need him. Donald Great Barnhouse, who was a pastor in Philadelphia, he was counseling a young woman, he met on the sidewalk outside, tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, and even worship service.
She said to him that she was a Christian. She wanted to follow Christ but she wanted to be famous too. She wanted to pursue a stage career in New York City. After I had made it in the theater, she said I will follow Christ completely then.
Barnhouse took a key out of his pocket and he scratched a mark in a metal pole standing at the corner. And he said this is what God will let you do. God will let you scratch the surface of success. He will get, he will allow you to get close enough to the top to know what it is.
But he will never let you have it because he will never let one of his own children have anything rather than himself. And years later he met that girl again and she confessed that had been just as he had said. She said in moments of discouragement I have closed my eyes and seen you scratch on that metal pole with your key. God let me scratch the edges but he gave me nothing in place of himself.
In Jesus God gives us himself. In Christ the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. He is God with us and we meet him and the sight of him draws our hearts away from all idols. And so Isaiah says look, look at him.
How necessary he is. The second thing is he says how delightful he is. Verse 1, my soul delights in him says God. This is how a static God is over his son.
This is in Mark 1 verse 11 of course, Jesus back to him when he comes up out of the water. You know that the Father's voice spoke to the Son. You are my Son. The one I love.
I am delighted in you. You are my beloved Son. And you am well pleased. The Bible says that God delights in him in a way that God has never delighted in any of us since the fall into rebellion.
He could not say that my soul delights in the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve nor in their fallen parents. But he delights in his perfect Son. He is pleased with him. And this Son, this servant has come as the mediator between God and man when we had fallen away.
And if you don't understand this about Christianity, you don't understand what most important things there is to understand about Christianity. You may be a Christian trusting Jesus to save you, but you will not be a very joyful Christian. You will not have the kind of peace and assurance of God's love and approval and acceptance of you if you don't see that God delights in Jesus. He approves of him completely.
Everything Jesus is and does is perfect in the Father's eyes. Nothing meets with his disapproval and the Bible says you are welcome before God in this perfect Son. We have access to God through his acceptable Son. Just trust in Jesus.
Just look to Jesus and you in him are part of his beloved. Two of my kids went to Silver Dollar City this week with their grandparents. They're the children we love. The grandparents bought season passes.
The grandparents had the right of access into Silver Dollar City and my kids purchased nor did their parents purchase a thing. But Silver Dollar City says, you know, on certain days of the year if you show up with a season pass holder, well, then you can get in free with that season pass holder. And so two of them did. Two grandparents pleased the ticket office at Silver Dollar City.
And so two grandchildren enjoyed all the perks and benefits of that park. Such is the gift of God to us. And he's been God-expective. You to be right with him.
Jesus has already accomplished on your behalf. To make you right with him. Just come to God through him. The good you have failed to do, that you continue as a Christian to fail to do.
Jesus did all that good. That is necessary. And the punishment that you deserve for your failures and sins. Jesus says it was a word of that.
All of it on your behalf too. And if we are in him, it is enough. Because he has enough. So you can turn your back on your own performance and simply trust in his perfection.
And that brings peace of conscience. That nagging fear that there's just one more thing I've got to do that there's just ten more minutes I have to spend in the Bible. But there are prayers I have to be praying that I'm not praying. And surely God is ready to count the days he's and I should do it with him.
He loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me, he loves me. We don't have to do that. God was in Christ reconciling us to himself. And every child of the Father who comes in Jesus Christ can say the Father loved me and gave his son for me.
And faith can say Jesus loved me and gave himself for me and nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus. That's how delightful he is. Now that's the Father's view of his son. Do you take that same view?
Is he your delight? Now the third thing we see is this. Look how unusual he is. He will not verses two and three cry out or lift up his voice.
Now what gives with this? How will he bring justice to the nations if he doesn't brown in pound? If he doesn't mash and smash. Right?
How's he going to bring justice to the nations? He's not going to lift up his voice. He's not going to break the bruised. Read what is this?
It's two things and it's very surprising. First it's quietness. He will not cry out or lift up his voice. The cry there and expression used to be thunderbolts or a raging bolt.
But he will not be loud and brash. There's no screaming and shouting orders with him. He doesn't shout others down. He doesn't stand in the street and call people out.
His manner isn't like that Westboro group of protesters who show up in military funerals, protesting government policy about the sexual practices of people in the face of grieving families. That's not who Jesus is. And this servant that Isaiah speaks of, he doesn't blow off about himself. He doesn't call undue attention to himself.
He doesn't toot his own form like so many TV freezers do. He's not self-promoting. Matthew, chapter 12, gives you a picture of this in 9 to 21. This is Jesus way.
He entered a synagogue. He entered a synagogue and there was a man there in the synagogue with a withered hand. They, the religious leaders, asked Jesus, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? They wanted to accuse him, Matthew, and told you.
And he said to them, which of you who has a sheep if it falls in the pit on the Sabbath will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep? So is lawful to be good on the Sabbath. And so he said to the man, stretch out your hand.
The man stretched it out and he was restored, healthy, like the other hand. Jesus here, compassionate, merciful, kind, heels him. The Pharisees hate Jesus for it. He'd go out and conspire against him, how to destroy him.
And Matthew tells you at verse 15 of chapter 12, Jesus aware of all of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him and healed them all. And he ordered them not to make it known. And this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah right here in Isaiah 42, wonderful.
And this is a rebuke to all of us who promote ourselves in the most sophisticated ways. Jesus isn't into that. It's a wonderful story about John Calvin. Before he died, he did, he made plans.
He didn't want to be distinguished in his burial from any other one. He didn't want founding fans gathering at his resting place at his direction. He was sown in a plain white shroud and put in a plain box. And he didn't want a tombstone.
And when weeks later, four students visiting wanted to be shown the final resting place. They couldn't even find it among all the others. And maybe you and I are tempted to think, I would believe in Jesus today, if he would just get in my face like a drill sergeant. Scream a little bit in my ears or flip cartwheels before my eyes.
Do something really loud and boisterous and unmistakable. Then I believe in Jesus. If he would have made himself more popular, more attractive, more impressive in his day. If he had used his powers to fly like Superman, then I would believe in Jesus.
But you wouldn't believe in the Jesus that God promised. He's totally unexpected. But you should believe in him because Isaiah said he would be humble and quiet. And that is exactly how he came.
But not just quietness, also gentleness. Notice verse three, a bruised reed. He will not break. And a faintly burning wick.
He will not quench. What does this mean? A reed here is a kind of tall, thin-leaved grass that has a sturdy stem. Not like the fescue and Bermuda.
You and I just cut in our yard. But the taller grasses with sturdy stems that can be used actually as supports for other things. But here, the stem of it has been bruised and flops over under any stress. Some of us are like a bruised reed.
And Jesus will not despise us. He will not break us off or tear us out. That is not how he deals with the bruised. And Jesus says a faintly burning wick or a smoldering flax here.
He won't quench or extinguish. This is the wick of an oil lamp where there is smoke. They say, of course, there is fire. And as one pastor put it, there's a great deal more smoke than fire in most of us Christians in our generation.
He said that 150 years ago. It's still true today. If you've ever tried to rekindle a fire that's almost out, you know how tenderly you have to deal with it. Gently you have to blow on it or if you just heard it too much, it will go out.
And some of the Lord's people are like this. Discouraged, lacking assurance, weak in faith, weak in hope, weak in love, ready to give up entirely. And he will not despise you, Isaiah says. He will not quench you.
He will not extinguish you. He who began a good work in you will carry it on completion until the day of Christ Jesus. So he shows gentleness here. To this servant, nothing is useless.
No one is useless. No one is beyond repair. He can mend the bruised and the damaged. He can strengthen the weak.
He can lift up the downcast. So he's not dismissive of the weak. However, passing their primary duty, however near to extinguishment they may be. The smoldering wake has run its course.
It may be low on oil. Jesus doesn't snuff it out. Or it may just be getting going and it needs delegate encouragement to fan in the flame. He doesn't overdo it.
He can fan in the flame the tiniest faith. You remember the story of Thomas Dowding Thomas who wouldn't believe all the other disciples who had seen Jesus resurrected in the flesh and told Thomas about it. He wouldn't believe any of them. And he doubted and he said unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails and place my hand in his eye, I will never believe.
You sense how disappointed Thomas must have been by the events of the crucifixion. His beloved friend and teacher is dead and gone he thinks. And perhaps he thinks how cruel of the other disciples to act as if he's alive. I simply cannot believe it.
I cannot put my hopes in him. And eight days later gathered together in a locked room with the other disciples and Thomas, Jesus appears to them. And he doesn't come screaming and yelling at Thomas for disbelieving. He just says, peace be with you.
And then he says to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands. Put out your hand and place it in my side. Jesus had been listening to Thomas in his doubts. And he says to him, do not disbelieve but believe.
Obviously here, Jesus doesn't come with sharp review. He doesn't extinguish faith in doubting Thomas. He fangs it into flame gently. And so Thomas says, my Lord and my God.
Now that didn't just happen for him. I know some of us are saying, well, I'd like to be in that locked room, you know, and have this experience myself. And then I'll believe. Of course, I understand.
But Jesus turns it around and he says something to all of us. He says, have you believed because you've seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed. He's thinking of us.
And isn't this the description of the church? We are bruised reads. We are flickering wits. And we are safe in Jesus hands.
When we come to church, we have heartaches. People know nothing about. We have a bag of past sins that weighs us over. We have all kinds of bumps and bruises.
That's who we are when we gather together and we are safe in Jesus hands. Shouldn't Jesus weigh with people also than be our way with people? How often? As a parent, I've acted like, if I just say this thing once more and a little bit louder than I'll get the response I'm looking for.
If I just treat them a little more roughly, then they'll get it and do what I've asked. And it is true whether it's a spouse or a child or friend, you can manipulate people and you can berate people until at least for a little while, they get with your program. But in the end, you don't win their affection and you don't hold their respect for a lifetime. But Jesus comes and he doesn't destroy people.
He doesn't despise you for your weakness. He doesn't mock you for your fears. He doesn't crush you in your despair. And that gentleness is attractive and can capture our affection and respect.
You see how he's the answer to idolatry. No one will treat you like he will. Not this good. We want Redeemer to be a church for the week, for the fringe, for the worn out.
Not a church just for those who think themselves healthy and strong and mature and leaders. But a church for the sick and the blind, the broken, the bruised, the immature and the helpless. Because Jesus is a savior, a gentle quiet savior for such as these. He's so unusual, behold.
And last, fourth place, look at verse 4 how successful he is. He will not grow faint or be discouraged until he has established justice in the earth. In other words, Isaiah is saying his candle will not dim, his will will not give out, he will not be bruised, same word but meaning discouraged, your translation has taken it that way. Though battered like others, Isaiah 53 will say he is bruised for our inequities.
Though battered and bruised outwardly the blows don't deter him, discourage him, make him faint and give up. He'll experience the things that crush and quench, but he will succeed in his work. Why is he able, verse 1, he's chosen by God. He's upheld by God.
He's kept by God. He's gripped fast by God. The spirit of God is upon him. God put his spirit on him to do this and nothing will stop him.
This is freeing. The weight of his kingdom and the welfare of his people are on his shoulders and not ours. The progress of this kingdom is on him. He said, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Now that doesn't mean we sit back and do nothing. No, he doesn't like to have us work with him in the work, but it's on him to accomplish his task. He's working ahead of us. He's working behind us.
He delights to do this work, working within us, working beyond us and above us and without us, around us. He's doing all of this and that takes the pressure off. He's going to be successful at this work. Doing what only God can do.
Do you have that same sense in your guts that Isaiah has, of the inevitability of Jesus just reign throughout the earth in the New Heavens and New Earth that he has come to bring and will bring in his final coming? That sense of certainty ought to infect our faith and strengthen our hope. He's better than all the idols. He's delightful.
He's quiet. He's gentle. He's successful. And if you have him, Isaiah is saying, God is saying, if you have him, who else?
What else could you possibly want? Let's pray. Father, thank you for the word Jesus. We pray that he would be more glorious in our eyes, so that we would have better vision to behold his greatness in glory and so be captivated by him.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Stay together and sing.