Isaiah 42:1-4

Christmas in Isaiah  •  Sermon  •  Submitted   •  Presented   •  40:50
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Introduction:
If you have your Bibles let me invite you to open with me to the book of Isaiah chapter 42.
Isaiah chapter 39 ends with a very specific prophecy.
Isaiah confronts Hezekiah, King of Judah,
and he warns that the people of Judah are going to go into exile at the hand of the king of Babylon.
Isaiah 39:5–7 ESV
5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the Lord of hosts: 6 Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. 7 And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
Its a difficult prophecy.
A foreign, violent, and evil king will invade, capture, and enslave you in a foreign land.
We know to some degree what such a life in the foreign land would be like from the stories we read in the prophet Daniel.
The famous stories of Shadrach, Mishack, and Abednego tell us of God-worshippers being thrown into a fiery furnace by the hand of the King of Babylon.
The story of Daniel being thrown into the lion’s den occured in the Babylonian exile.
This was the future for the people of Judah.
Babylon was coming.
A future exile where the evil kings of this world would oppress them and persecute them.
Isaiah chapters 40 through 66, however, are prophecies that are hopeful.
The exile would not be the end.
Just as we saw last week with the imagery of the chopped down forest, and the shoot of life coming forth from the stump
This week’s text promises that God is still going to send his true King to establish his eternal kingdom on earth.
Four of the Isaiah prophecies in this section refer to that coming king as “the Lord’s servant.”
These prophecies are known as the “servant songs”
They describe a coming servant king…. a very different kind of king compared to the kings of Judah, Israel, Assyria, and Babylon.
We turn our attention this morning to the first so called servant songs of Isaiah describing the coming servant King.
Lets read Isaiah 42:1-4
Isaiah 42:1–4 ESV
1 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. 2 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; 3 a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. 4 He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.
Lets Pray
Isaiah 42:1 ESV
1 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.
This morning we are going to meditate on three descriptions of the servant in Isaiah 42.

#1 He Pleases God

This servant that Isaiah promises will come is immediately recognized as someone very different than any king of Israel or Judah.
This will be God’s servant.
He will be upheld by the sovereign hand of God.
He is the chosen one of God.
In this servant, God’s very soul will delight.
Thats a stunning thought.
What makes God happy?
What pleases him?
This servant.
God will rejoice in this servant.
He will be pleased with this servant.
He will be happy to behold and indwell this servant.
He will gladly place his Spirit upon this servant so that the servant himself will be like a walking tabernacle or temple among God’s people.
Compare this description of the servant with Israel who was supposed to be God’s servant in the world.
Later in Isaiah 42, God describes Israel as the failed servant.
Isaiah 42:18–25 ESV
18 Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see! 19 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 servant of the Lord? 20 He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear. 21 The Lord was pleased, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify his law and make it glorious. 22 But this is a people plundered and looted; they are all of them trapped in holes and hidden in prisons; they have become plunder with none to rescue, spoil with none to say, “Restore!” 23 Who among you will give ear to this, will attend and listen for the time to come? 24 Who gave up Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned, in whose ways they would not walk, and whose law they would not obey? 25 So he poured 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.
Israel was supposed to be a servant of the Lord among the nations who pleased God.
But they failed miserably.
They did not listen to God.
They would not obey God.
They did not please God.
And even when they faced discipline for their sins, they did not take it to heart.
What the people needed was a servant King who would actually please God, and who would be indwelt by the Spirit of God,
and who would lead the people to likewise please God and be filled by the Spirit of God.
What they needed is what God provided in sending Jesus.
No doubt, Matthew had in mind the servant who would please God from Isaiah when he recorded the events surrounding Jesus’ baptism.
See if you notice the themes from Isaiah.
Matthew 3:16–17 ESV
16 And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; 17 and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Behold, a chosen servant in whom God delights.
Behold, a chosen servant whom God’s Spirit rests upon like no other.
The message of the gospel… is that God sent Jesus, God the Son, to live a life that is pleasing to God the Father.
God the Father delights in God the Son because God the son fulfilled all righteousness.
In the Old Testament, Kings mediated the blessing of God to God’s people by ruling according to the word of God.
This king Jesus would mediate God’s blessing to God’s people beyond what any earthly king could do.
He actually pleased God entirely,
and the good news is that by trusting in him,
God delights in me.
Christian, God delights in you.
because he delights in Jesus…,
and you by faith in him, you are in him, you are represented by him,
you are pleasing to God because of him.
This is good news for me.
I don’t have to try to pease God on the basis of my leadership ability, or on the basis of my preaching, or on the basis of how successfully or unsuccessfully I please anybody else.
God the Father delights in God the Son… and I am united to that Son.
#1 He Pleases God
secondly,
Truth #2:

#2 He Establishes God’s Kingdom

notice the repetition of the word “Justice”
Isaiah 42:1 (ESV)
1 …..; he will bring forth justice to the nations.
Isaiah 42:3 (ESV)
3 …… he will faithfully bring forth justice.
Isaiah 42:4 (ESV)
4 He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.
We typically think of “justice” in terms of the wicked being punished, and the innocent being freed.
In fact, we spoke about those concepts of justice last week
but justice encompasses more than just that legal reality.
Commentator John Oswalt writes this,
“In many ways justice is the antonym of ‘chaos’. It is much more than merely legality. Rather it has the idea of ‘right order.’ The word contains everything we think of as ‘justice,’ but it contains more than that as well…Isaiah is saying that the coming Messiah will do all that is necessary to restore God’s right order on the earth.”
- John Oswalt
The language of God’s justice is the language of God’s Kingdom.
To establish justice to the nations is to expand God’s kingdom to the ends of the earth.
It is to invite all peoples into the Kingdom of God where humanity perfectly flourishes forever under the life-giving authority of God….
God’s kingdom is:
- a Kingdom where all things submit to God’s good authority,
- all people are in right relationship with God,
- all people are in right relationship with one another.
-and all people are in right relationship with the created order.
The servant of God was going to be a king who perfectly established the kingdom of God on earth… .
As the promise to David states about the coming messiah, “Of his kingdom there will be no end.”
And so its only fitting that the first summary of Jesus’ preaching in Matthew was a simple proclamation of God’s kingdom on earth.
Matthew 4:17 ESV
17 From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
His commission was that this kingdom would spread to all nations by his followers.
Jesus himself claimed to be inaugurating this kingdom promised by the prophets like Isaiah.
Listen to how he teaches his disciples about their role in this big story.
Luke 24:44–48 ESV
44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46 and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, 47 and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things.
Justice would come to all nations,
as people from around the world repent and believe in King Jesus,
they begin to experience the kingdom of God in part.
We experience it when we dwell among a people who submit their lives under the authority of King Jesus.
If I am with a group of people whom I trust serve Jesus as their ultimate authority, then I get to experience life with a group of people whom I can trust…. its a taste of the kingdom of God.
At this moment in redemptive history, the kingdom is a spiritual one, but it has physical ramifications.
There is a reason that everywhere Christianity spreads,
its not long before schools are built and hospitals are built and orphanages are built and training institutes are formed, and churches are planted.
We Christians live in the kingdom of man…,
but in living according to the way of King Jesus, we strive to put things into God’s order wherever we go.
If St. Rose Community Church continues to grow,
If we continue to mature in this place,
If we continue to pray for our community,
to show love to our community,
to share Jesus with our community,
There is in a very real sense in which we will see sparks and flashes of the Kingdom of God among us in St. Rose,
Whats going to effect the crime rate of our communities?
Church buses picking up kids and sharing the gospel with kids and teenagers and changing the trajectory of their lives.
That is small scale justice, order, or King Jesus causing human flourishing in the here and now…
Jesus taught us to pray this way.
Matthew 6:9–10 ESV
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. 10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
We are laboring and planning for the planting of a new church in Metarie and in doing so… we are expanding the spiritual kingdom of Jesus a little more.
We are praying for Julio and Becky, and Matt and Amanda, and giving to support the work among other nations, because we are expanding the spiritual kingdom of Jesus a little more.
Jesus is the servant who came to begin this kingdom spreading project through servants like you and me…
And one day he will finish the work, we got the privilege of participating in.
But Jesus’ tactics were so surprising to those who longed for a coming king.
Look again at Isaiah 42:2-3.
Isaiah 42:2–3 ESV
2 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; 3 a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.

#3 He is Gentle with God’s People (v.3)

Kings were almost always prideful, larger than life, loud, powerful, ruthless, authoritarian, monarchs who crushed their enemies…,
But Jesus’ first coming was nothing like this.
Isaiah prophesied the coming of this servant was not going to be marked by magnificent skill in combat or large armies.
This servant of the Lord was going to usher in the kingdom of God, quietly, humbly, and gently.
When you think Kingdom building, you think trumpets blasting and army conquering.
But this servant who bring forth justice to the nations…
He won’t yell.
He won’t unleash a battle cry in the streets.
In fact…,
He will be so gentle, he will move about in his ministry so careful as to not break an already bruised reed.
He will carry out his ministry with such gentleness that his movements will not extinguish a faintly burning wick of a candle.
one commentator writes:
“The point is plain: like the child of chapter 9 and the branch of chapter 11. God’s answer to the oppressors of the world is not more oppression, nor is his answer to arrogance more arrogance; rather, in quietness, humility, and simplicity, he will take all of the evil into himself and return only grace. That is power.”
- John Oswalt, NICOT
While King Herod is scheming to kill firstborn sons who might threaten his reign.
King Jesus is born to a virgin girl in a food trough in Bethlehem.
He quietly grows in stature and wisdom.
He embodies righteousness as a toddler,
and as a teenager,
and into adulthood.
He quietly works as a carpenter with excellence.
And when it comes time to start his Kingdom building ministry…,
He calls a small group of 12 normal, sinful, struggling, insignificant guys… and he begins to do life with them.
The apostle, Matthew was one of those 12 guys following Jesus around.
He was a greedy tax collector, hated by men, but turned jesus follower.
When others rebuked Jesus for asking Matthew to be a follower.
Jesus responded with these words.
Matthew 9:12–13 ESV
12 But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13 Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
If there had ever been a bruised reed of a person, Matthew was it…,
but Jesus’ gentle and compassionate ministry of caring for the sinful and the sick welcomed Matthew into his forgiveness.
A bruised reed he will not break…
So its only natural that when Matthew read Isaiah 42:1-4 after having spent so much time with Jesus…
He saw Jesus in the words of Isaiah.
After Jesus heals a man’s withered hand In Matthew 12, Matthew actually reflects on Jesus’ ministry and he quotes these words from Isaiah.
look with me at Matthew 12:15-21.
Matthew 12:15–21 ESV
15 Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all 16 and ordered them not to make him known. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 18 “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. 19 He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; 20 a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; 21 and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”
Matthew was noticing something about Jesus.
To the arrogant and seemingly strong religious know-it-alls…,
Jesus was sharp, he was bold, he was forthtelling of their wrongs.
But to the hurting, and the broken, and the sinful, and the desperate people, to the poor in spirit, who knew they needed a savior….he was soft, inviting, compassionate, and quick to offer forgiveness.
This servant of the Lord in Isaiah,
this Jesus of the gospel of Matthew,
is the same Jesus yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
He is gentle with God’s people who will come to him in a spirit of humility and need.
Just before Matthew quoted that Isaiah passage, he quoted directly from the words of Jesus.
Matthew 11:28–30 ESV
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
The question is not whether Christ will embrace you if you come to him in faith…
The question is whether you will come to him.
Do you believe the invitation of God that this Jesus does not and will not break a bruised read or quench a faintly burning wick…
Do you feel bruised this morning…
Does it feel like your flame is faintly burning…
There is a God in heaven who welcomes you.
He will not destroy a struggling sinner who seeks his forgiveness.
He will not cast you out.
John 6:37 ESV
37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
This is the true servant of God’s ministry to us….
but do not miss the application…
Beyond the comforting reality that Jesus will not cast you out when you come to him…,
There is the convicting question… Are you the kind of servant who embodies Jesus’ gentleness toward the people of God.
Are you less gentle than Jesus is?
Are you less patient, less forgiving, than Jesus is with you?
I had the opportunity this morning to see how quickly I am un-Christ like. My daughter Amelia gets a little demanding when she would like a book read to her.
This morning I was fully dressed for church drinking my coffee when Amelia loudly requested that I read to here while she simultaneously thrust her book into my full cup of coffee… affording me the opportunity to choose a different outfit for this morning.
My initial, gut-level, immediate response was not the kind of gentleness. I am pretty sure my frustrated walk to the closet alone was enough to put out a faintly burning wick…,
But thats not how Jesus responds to me when I make a mistake.
The servant songs tell us a lot about the perfect servant….,
They tell us what Jesus is like…,
But they also hold before us a picture of faithfulness for which we should strive.
We are Jesus followers.
We want to be like Jesus.
This is why the qualifications for being a pastor include things like, “not violent, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not arrogant, not quick tempered”
And the best way to tell whether we are are growing in Christ-likeness is when we are given the opportunity to respond to someone who sin against us, what will they receive from us.
What will they see in us?
Here at St. Rose Community Church we have a church covenant that we read out loud at each member meeting.
It is essentially a summary of Biblical teaching on what we commit ourselves to as church members and how we are to treat one another
The very last line of the covenant is a prayer from Romans 15.
This is what it says.
Romans 15:5–7 ESV
5 May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, 6 that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
To welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us is a tall order.
Christ does not hold grudges against me.
Christ does not love me or relate to me based upon my performance as a pastor.
Christ does not befriend me based upon what I can do for him.
Christ does not give up on me when I fail him.
Christ welcomes me by his grace alone
And out of an abundance of thanksgiving.
We are called as a faith family not to hold grudges,
Not to keep long records.
Not to love one another based upon performance, or what we can get in return.
We are slow to anger,
Slow to be offended,
Slow to assume the worst in someone,
and quick to forgive…. like the Father sprinting to the prodigal son, we run to fellow church members with forgiveness in our hearts.
We welcome one another by grace.
And in doing so we display the very Kingdom that God is building.
What is the promised servant King of Isaiah like?
He Pleases God
He Establishes God’s Kingdom
He is Gentle with God’s People
May we come to the open arms of this servant…
May we model the open arms of this servant to one another and to the watching world this Christmas season.
Lets Pray.
Announcements:
Prayer tonight at 6:00 PM
Disciplines of a Godly Man, January 5th at 4:30 PM
Disciplines of a Godly Woman, January 12th, 4:30 PM
Morning Prayer Services begin, January 12th at 8:30 AM
Community Groups begin, January 13th
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