Isaiah 49:4 - I Have Labored In Vain

Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. 2 He made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away. 3 And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” 4 But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God.” 5 And now the Lord says, he who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him; and that Israel might be gathered to him— for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength— 6 he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” 7 Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers: “Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.” 8 Thus says the Lord: “In a time of favor I have answered you; in a day of salvation I have helped you; I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages, 9 saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’ They shall feed along the ways; on all bare heights shall be their pasture; 10 they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. 11 And I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be raised up. 12 Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syene.” 13 Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people and will have compassion on his afflicted. 14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” 15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. 16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. 17 Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you. 18 Lift up your eyes around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the Lord, you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as a bride does. 19 “Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land— surely now you will be too narrow for your inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away. 20 The children of your bereavement will yet say in your ears: ‘The place is too narrow for me; make room for me to dwell in.’ 21 Then you will say in your heart: ‘Who has borne me these? I was bereaved and barren, exiled and put away, but who has brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; from where have these come?’ ” 22 Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and raise my signal to the peoples; and they shall bring your sons in their arms, and your daughters shall be carried on their shoulders. 23 Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. With their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet. Then you will know that I am the Lord; those who wait for me shall not be put to shame.” 24 Can the prey be taken from the mighty, or the captives of a tyrant be rescued? 25 For thus says the Lord: “Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken, and the prey of the tyrant be rescued, for I will contend with those who contend with you, and I will save your children. 26 I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.”

Sermon Text:

Please open your Bibles with me to the 49th chapter of Isaiah.

While you are turning there, please allow me to set to rest any concerns you might have over the title of today’s sermon.

The title “I Have Labored In Vain” comes from the 4th verse of our text, and it is the subject I would like to look at with you this morning.

The title in the bulletin is not a personal complaint or a cry for help, so if you were worried about me, you may breathe easy.

[READ ISAIAH 49]

Chapter 49 begins another great section in the book of Isaiah, running through chapter 55, that is known as “the Servant Songs”.

These are chapters that speak almost exclusively about the promised Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Often, as we saw in the 53rd chapter a few weeks ago, it can be difficult to tell on the first reading whether Isaiah is talking about himself or Jesus;

Spoiler alert: in this section, it is safest to assume these are the things the Messiah might say.

So at the beginning of this chapter, we notice the difference right off: The Lord called ME from the womb.

ME – a person, a person set apart from before birth.

That person is no one else but Jesus Christ.

We can see how He is described just in verse 2:

1. His “weapon” is the word of His mouth.

Not swords, daggers, or guns.

His word – powerful.

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. - Hebrews 4:12–13

The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength. - Revelation 1:14–16

2. He is fully supported by God: in the shadow of His hand, He hid me.

3. A polished arrow hidden – He is the single, special weapon that will deal with sin in the lives of His chosen ones.

Promised in the first pages of the Bible, every book is a step toward the one who would be born “in the fullness of time.”

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. - Galatians 4:4–7

Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God becoming flesh, is the special, unique plan of God to deal once for all with the sin of His people.

When we were ruined, when we were in rebellion, when we only sought our own way and OUR glory, Christ died for the ungodly.

He did what no amount of sacrifice, or even near-perfect obedience and goodness, could do – He reconciled us with God.

4. In verse 3, we see that it is He, Jesus, through whom the Father will be glorified.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. - John 1:14

And in case you didn’t understand at the beginning of the gospel of John, we hear Jesus praying in John 17: When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. - John 17:1–5

Folks – there are four things just in the first couple of verses that only Jesus could do.

Isaiah didn’t do these things. He didn’t redeem anyone.

Cyrus didn’t glorify God.

And as for Israel – I plan to look at them in a couple of weeks if the Lord is willing – as for Israel, they were the very ones who needed SAVING.

They needed rescue – they were in no position to save anyone.

But then we reach a really uncomfortable statement at the beginning of verse 4: But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity.”

“Surely,” you might think, “surely this is someone else talking. Not Jesus. Not the Messiah!”

That is because down deep inside we think there is something sinful, or at least unspiritual, about being discouraged or disappointed.

We push those things down, not even bringing them up to God in our prayers.

We hide disappointments, or shrug them off like so many sour grapes.

You know that story, don’t you – one of Aesop’s fables:

A fox is walking along the road and sees a lush cluster of grapes hanging up ahead. He took a running jump at them, but with all his strength and his best jumps, we just couldn’t reach them. So he walked on, saying, “They were probably sour anyway.”

Is that how you treat disappointments – shrugging it off and thinking about how terrible it might have been to have gotten what you wanted?

Do you think Jesus had disappointments?

Or did His teenage soccer team win every match?

Did His carpentry customers always pay Him on time and in full?

Did His disciples, who He poured His life into, always understand and use the fledgling faith He was giving them?

Did the crowds hang on His every word as if they were starving for it, or did they follow Him for some more bread or fish?

For most of the people who heard Jesus speak, even preach, the words were forgotten faster than the taste of the wine was by the wedding guests in Cana.

That is the whole point of this first section of chapter 49: how the Messiah was going to be different than any other messenger God had sent.

All the prophets, all the kings, all the judges were servants – Jesus Christ is the Son.

He IS different.

And the way He would deliver God’s message would be different than anyone could ever guess.

Consider this: Think about all the teachings of Jesus we have recorded in the gospels – all of them.

Love your enemies; enter by the narrow way; My sheep hear My voice – all of it.

If His teaching was all He did – come to earth, take the body of man, and teach His heart out –

It would not have been much more effective than the books of Moses.

Those are the word of God also – the same source.

But Jesus DIDN’T just come to teach and to heal;

To just preach and perform miracles.

He came to die on a cross.

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. - 1 Corinthians 1:21–24

All the good, perfect, life of Jesus would have been for nought in bringing us to God – were it not for the cross and the Holy Spirit.

No amount of solid teaching can convert a heart or a life. We might be convinced, but that doesn’t make us obedient.

Pagans the world over may proclaim Jesus a great teacher – all in vain. They may say, “If we could live by those teachings, the world would be a better place. He was right.”

Vanity. Chasing after the wind.

But with the death of Christ, we are delivered from that futility and, by His Holy Spirit, we are converted to new, eternal life.

And that life is what makes this Servant – the Servant Isaiah is talking about here – different from any other servant God sent.

All of them came from God –

But not all of them were the Eternal Son.

And although many were martyred, including, tradition tells us, Isaiah himself.

Although many of them were killed for telling the truth, God’s truth, their death didn’t save anyone.

Their spirit couldn’t even save themselves before God.

Only the Son could give His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45)

But what about that disappointment thing – that discouragement thing?

What happens when YOU feel like you labored in vain, wasted your time, your money, your prayers on someone who turned out to be ungrateful and unworthy of your efforts?

First: Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. 4 In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. - Hebrews 12:3–4

Know that Jesus understands your disappointment.

There is not a tear that falls from your eyes that He does not count.

He has walked the path of loneliness, and betrayal, and humiliation, and opposition, and disappointment, and cruelty, and death.

Your great High Priest KNOWS your struggles.

There are certainly sinful ways to handle disappointment or discouragement:

1. Throw a great big “pity-party”.

We all have known people, and we may be those people, who parade out our trials and difficulties every chance they get.

They think THEIR suffering is greater than anyone else’s - and it may be.

But people who spend time petting their own discouragement cannot care for others the way they should.

They will demand to be heard, not strive to listen with ears trained in love.

They will meet every tale of difficulty with “If you think that’s bad...”

The disappointment, even the discouragement, is not sinful - it is normal, something everyone endures.

But the selfishness of their hearts testifies against them.

Living as if this life and their comfort is the greatest concern of anyone, even God.

It shouldn’t even be YOUR greatest concern of life - to live comfortably and easily.

YOUR life is about glorifying God in every circumstance, whether easy or hard.

Whether it is something He has equipped you for in advance, or it is a challenge you will have to step with faith all the way.

There are green pastures in our lives, and there are valleys of the shadow of death.

God is in BOTH. He is our Shepherd in BOTH.

The second sinful response: 2. Doubt and ask “Why have you done this to me?”

When you allow a trial or circumstance, easy or hard, to damage your faith in the abiding goodness and trustworthiness of God, you have moved to sinning.

When you tell yourself that satanic message: “I deserve better.” - you are in sin.

Throughout the Psalms, we see David and the other writers struggling with great trials: sickness, civil war, God’s judgment - things that help put our hard things into perspective.

And the overwhelming question of those faithful men is not “Why?” but “How long?”

Psalm 13:1–2 “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”

Revelation 6:10 “They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?””

Habakkuk 1:2 “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you “Violence!” and you will not save?”

Luke 18:1–3 “And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’”

In all these prayers, and more, there is one common thread: an abiding faith in God’s goodness, mercy, and justice.

Never let some short circumstance make you doubt that.

Never let the enemy make you doubt that your Father in heaven loves and cares for you.

Don’t continue to listen to that Serpent, making you a judge over God’s works.

Trust Him. Ask “how long?”, and know that no matter how long, He will be with you.

He loves you.

We see that in the second half of our verse today.

So what shall we do if we see our faith failing?

Reading the second half of Isaiah 49:4 would be a good start:

But I said, “I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the Lord, and my recompense with my God.” - Isaiah 49:4

Jesus undoubtedly saw people walk away from the good news of the gospel, and it was discouraging.

The rich young ruler; Judas Iscariot.

But look at the faith of the second half of the verse:

My right is with the LORD, and my reward with my God.

We will return to that abiding faith in God over and over again in these Servant Songs.

It is everywhere.

That is a great work of faith in God: to continue on when all you have is Him and His promise.

I know of no greater statement of faith that God has made His promise to me, and that is enough for me.

Oh, beloved – that kind of faith doesn’t come over night or over a decade.

That is a faith trained in adversity;

That is a faith that is no stranger to the fire of earthly trials.

That is a faith, that Peter says, is more precious than gold:

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, [as] necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. - 1 Peter 1:6–7

Is that kind of faith important to you?

Is an abiding faith in God something you really want?

It is the mark and seal of His people, so I hope you do.

No one, at least no sane person, seeks out disappointment or discouragement.

No one starts out planning to waste their time in great efforts.

But do you trust God to walk with Him through the difficult times of life?

Will you strengthen your own faith in God for His goodness and His presence?

Will you turn to Him MORE OFTEN in concerted prayer when the trials are upon you?

Will you REJOICE that you have been taken through this trial, and that you will be made purer for God?

Our Lord DID shed His blood in His struggle against OUR sin.

And that was NOT in vain.

Target Date: Sunday, 4 May 2025

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

Thoughts on the Passage:

This begins the section of Isaiah often called “the Servant Songs”.

3 - And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.” - Isaiah 49:3

This is a promise to the Messiah that God will be glorified through Him, not a promise to Israel that the ethnic nation will glorify Him.

This might be read by those who pursue dispensationalism to be God addressing Israel proper, not the Christ. To read it this way, though, does great violence to the remainder of the passage, which is clearly Messianic.

3 – “You” (second person singular) are the ONE in whom I will be glorified.

5 – formed from the womb – a person, not a nation.

Also, to be His Servant – appointed for this task, something that can hardly be stated about Israel.

5 – To gather Israel and Jacob – these are the nations, and the Christ is doing the work.

Also 6 – to raise up the tribes of Jacob…

6 – In this verse we see not only Israel, but all the Gentiles (nations) gathered to Him.

This is seen in Acts 13:47: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’ 

It should be noted that Paul uses this verse to justify the CHURCH preaching to the Gentiles, but the verse is quoted retaining the SINGULAR “You” – so what he is saying is not that God was sending PAUL to be a light to the Gentiles, but it is the mission of the church to bring CHRIST to the Gentiles.

This is also quoted by Simeon in the temple at the presentation of the baby Jesus: Luke 2:32 - a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel.

Maybe we should note that both books are attributed to Luke, so there is a theme building there.

7 - …chosen You – again, this is singular.

We also see the theme of suffering and despised we find in the remainder of the songs.

The only way to see this as national Israel is to believe in a dominant day for the secular nation – a strong repudiation of the Messiah.

8 – give you as a covenant to the people – This is a specific promise of the Messiah becoming, Himself, a covenant between God and His people.

These are not the “nations”, but the “congregation”, the “flock of God”.

Luke 22:20 - This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

9 – The allusions to the manna and the pastures recalls John 9-10.

4 - God does not approach the arrogance and oppression of the world with greater arrogance and greater oppression. Rather, he comes with the humility, the vulnerability, and the powerlessness of a child.

The strong contrast of this verse with the previous one (“He said … But I said …”) expresses that vulnerability and powerlessness. If the Servant described in this passage is more than human, he is not less than human. Frustration and feelings of futility, all too familiar to everyone who inhabits flesh, were part of the burden he came to bear. To become powerless is to experience what the powerless experience (see also 50:6; 53:3), and that is the reality of what the Servant’s blunt retort conveys. No Christian can read these words without relating them to the ministry of Jesus Christ. When he died, what had he accomplished? To all appearances, nothing. By every measure of the world, his life had been futile. Well could he cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

This certainty is introduced by an even stronger particle of contrast than the opening disjunctive waw, But. That is the particle ʾākēn, Nevertheless, or “but surely.” Too often we miss the two-sidedness of what is being said here. On the one hand, we think that to admit feelings of futility is not to trust God. On the other hand, we often believe that if we really trusted God, we would never have feelings of futility. The Servant shows us that neither reality is incompatible with the other. Trust has ultimately to do with the final outcome, and of this the Servant is fully confident.

Christ, being sent to the Jews, complaineth of them, 1–4.

4 – Is it sinful to be discouraged? For many, any discouragement is great sin – a lack of faith, or worse, a lack of optimism. Can a pastor confess discouragement? I know one who did (and called it depression), and his church released him.

More to the point, was Jesus discouraged? Ever? Most of the Servant Songs of Isaiah we use to anticipate the person and work of Jesus – is this verse about His heart as well? Do we dare put these words into the mouth of our Lord, even if we find that discouragement is not sinful, but is a common ailment of men? Was Jesus, in His focus on the will of God, above discouragement?

What about when He looked out and spoke the lament over Jerusalem? What about when His disciples grieved Him because of their “little faith”? What about the garden – or the cross? Is Jesus allowed to be discouraged when people who should run to Him in faith instead hurl mocking and curses at Him? Or when they receive the words of life from His lips, but seek only the bread and fish that fill their bellies?

Could He be human without discouragement? Can we? Is it faithless to desire more than we receive? Did the teenage Jesus’s soccer team always win their games? Did His carpentry customers always pay Him on time? Did He never lose a marble or misplace a tool? Did people around Him never do things He knew were harmful to themselves or to Him?

It bothers me that Jesus might feel like all His teaching and miracles might be in vain, but does its difficulty make it less true? Those things alone – the teaching and miracles – fell onto ears as deaf to them as they had been to Moses. Jesus’s great teaching might have convinced one in a hundred, but even they would soon forget His teaching, just like those wedding guests in Cana soon forgot the taste of the wine. Even glorious and miraculous manna gets old for us after a while – it is nutritious and filling, but not satisfying. Even those who waved palm branches and shouted “Hosanna” either slept on the night of His betrayal or shouted “crucify!”.

All the good, perfect, life of Jesus would have been for nought in bringing us to God – were it not for the cross and the Holy Spirit. No amount of solid teaching can convert a heart or a life. We might be convinced, but that doesn’t make us obedient. Pagans the world over may proclaim Jesus a great teacher – all in vain. They may say, “If we could live by those teachings, the world would be a better place. He was right.” Vanity. Chasing after the wind. But with the death of Christ, we are delivered from that futility and, by His Holy Spirit, we are converted to new, eternal life. That means something!

What is the Good News of this passage – Where is Jesus Christ? (if you can’t answer this question, are you finished?)

Teachings:

God’s Servant, Jesus Christ, will not come as a conqueror to raise up Israel – He IS Israel, the true Israel, and those who are found in Him are Israel.

What do we learn about God/ Jesus/ Holy Spirit?

Applications:

For the Christian:

For the Backslidden:

For the Unconverted:

Primary Preaching Point:

Building Points:

[on even numbered page]

MORNING PRAYER:

Adoration:

Almighty God and everlasting King.

Confession:

Forgive us our pride, and the loathsome lengths to which we will go to support our fleshly vanity.

Thanksgiving:

In You we find our only hope, both in this life and in eternity joined with Christ Jesus.

Petition:

We beg that You subdue the power of our sins by Your Holy Spirit.

Intercession: (also beyond our local)

We pray that Your peace would reign anew on the earth: