Jesus is the Promised Hope for Hurting Sinners

Announcements

Vacation Bible School | July 13-18

We are having VBS July 13-18. A mission team from California will be helping us during VBS, but we would like at least four lead volunteers from our congregation. (1) Music, (2) Bible Study Teacher, (3) Crafts, (4) Games.

Toilet Paper/Paper Towel Rolls

We are in need of empty toilet paper/paper towel rolls as a craft supply for VBS. If you are able to save them, please bring them in.

VBS Informational Meeting

After service today will be a planning meeting for VBS. It will be directly after service, and lunch will be provided.

Revelation

Psalm 117 ESV

1 Praise the Lord, all nations! Extol him, all peoples! 2 For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!

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Main Idea: Jesus is shown to be the servant God intended to bring about salvation and restoration to the whole world.

This is accomplished in two ways:

Jesus’s perfect fulfillment of prophecy

Jesus’s compassionate care for the afflicted

Introduction

Prophecy and the Human Element

Go ahead and open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 12. Our text today is going to be verses 15-21.

What we’re going to read today is the announcement of Jesus as “The Suffering Servant.” The gospel-writer, Matthew, is going to quote from Isaiah 42, a famous “Messianic” passage of the Old Testament. “Messianic” means that this passage was pointing to the One that all Israel recognized would be the Savior; the Christ.

In our passage today, we’re going to see how Jesus perfectly fit the character and nature of this “Messiah” as expressed in these verses. When I use that word “perfectly,” I want you to pay careful attention to what Matthew says about Jesus. Because the reality is that there are some bad understandings of “prophecy” out there.

Just the other day, for instance, my family and I were watching a newer movie where the main character ends up “fulfilling an ancient prophecy,” but she fulfills it by breaking it. The prophecy ends up being wrong about how the events occur, but right about the result of the events.

Frankly, this is often how people in Christianity view prophecy. As if this “human element” of failure can end up thwarting God’s plans, or even putting them off for longer than He intends.

So, let’s read our passage for today and work through some things to convict and encourage us about who Jesus is, and how He is the Promised Hope for Hurting Sinners.

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.”

I. Jesus’ Withdrawal and Healings

Jesus withdrew and kept healing

Verse 15 picks up where we left off last week, where the Pharisees are so indignant about Jesus convicting them that their understandings of the Sabbath are aberrant that they “conspired against him, how to destroy him” (v. 14). Jesus’s response to this mounting hostility and hatred against Him and His ministry by withdrawing from the controversy. He knows the hearts of the Pharisees, He knows their intent, and knows what the inevitable result is going to be (His unjust death on the cross at their hands, bringing salvation to all who call on Him as their Savior).

But, it’s not yet time for that to occur, and He knows this, so He moves on and continues His work to prove that He is the Messiah. Jesus withdraws from the escalating hostility of the Pharisees, not seeking their approval but the approval of His Father in continuing His mission.

So, what happens when He withdraws? He doesn’t hide in a cave like Elijah, or flee in the opposite direction of God’s plan like Jonah… Jesus continues His work in healing those who come to Him. Crowds of people come after Him and Jesus “heals them all” (v. 15). But notice what He tells them not to do in v. 16. “... and ordered them not to make him known.”

Why would He do that? Why would He not want to make a name for Himself as a miracle-worker? Why would He not shout from the rooftops how powerful, smart, and incredible He was? The short answer is this: Because that’s not what His Father intended Him to do.

Misunderstandings about the Messiah

You see, any man who had these miraculous powers would be incapable of not swelling with pride. Not becoming pompous in their ability to stump the religious elites, not marching down the street with their chest puffed out. But Jesus is not just any man, He was the Messiah. He was God-incarnate, the Savior, the Anointed One who had been promised to rescue the world from sin.

But, unfortunately, this was not understood by the Jews. When they read of the Messiah, they assumed He was going to be a military commander who had wartime victories like David, rescuing Israel from their Gentile oppressors and giving them prosperity. They had misunderstood what their Savior was going to be like; what His character and actions would be.

II. Jesus was the Perfect Servant

Jesus fulfilled the role of Messiah

Matthew makes the point here that Jesus’ actions of withdrawing, healing, and asking His patients to not make Him known fulfill precisely what was intended by Isaiah 42:1-3. Christ is the “servant whom [God] has chosen, [His] beloved with whom [His] soul is well pleased.”

God says: “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.” By withdrawing from the controversy, by not “quarreling” with His opponents the Pharisees, Jesus has met this qualification. To “quarrel,” by the way, means to engage in verbal battle. Notice that Jesus has never quarreled with the Pharisees, only rebuked and corrected them. He hasn’t done a blow-for-blow with them, but seems to more stump them than anything.

Then by having no one hear His voice in the streets, meaning that Jesus isn’t just walking down the street declaring His own greatness and grandeur, telling people to remain quiet, He is thus fulfilling this portion of the prophecy.

So Jesus is fulfilling these roles, but not necessarily in a way that interpreters of these prophecies had expected He would. Otherwise, Jesus’ first allies in His messianic work should’ve been the Pharisees, instead of them being His opponents.

However, God decreed Jesus’ opposition would be the Pharisees. In reference to Israel, God said in Isaiah 42:20: “He sees many things, but does not observe them; his ears are open, but he does not hear.”

A puzzle already formed

So this whole situation was not only foretold centuries before Jesus came, but it was also being ordered precisely the way God intended it to be to accomplish His plan. Remember that God is the One “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph 1:11b). He ordains sovereignly and providentially all that happens, and when He says something will happen (or decrees it), it’s as sure as done. In His “definite plan and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23) God is ordaining all that’s occurring to accomplish His goals. Or, to say it another way: “... no purpose of [His] can be thwarted” (Job 42:2).

When we read passages like this in Matthew, or any other book of the Bible for that matter, we need to remember that God’s formation of the beginning from the end is sure and already plotted out. “...for I am God, and there is no other,” God says in Isaiah 46:9-10, “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.”

We are trapped in our time, we can only see as far as our perceptions can reveal. But, to God the times are ordered. He stands above an already fashioned puzzle. Meanwhile we’re here pretending like we can put the pieces together.

This was where the sin of the Pharisees was so absolute. They “knew” what the Messiah would look like, but they missed the Messiah when He came and instead of being HIs allies, they were His opponents.

The hope

There’s both a rebuke and conviction in Matthew quoting these verses. First, the rebuke.

We should not be prideful like the Pharisees, pretending we know how God is ordering all of time, like it has to fit our preconceived notions in order to be true. Jesus so perfectly fit the descriptions of the Suffering Servant, He didn’t force Himself to play a part like many of us do when we have expectations placed on us. Jesus didn’t “fake it till He made it,” but simply was. He was who God had promised, and He comfortably fit Himself into that plan without an internal struggle.

Such are the plans of God. They are fixed in His mind, they occur by His hand, and nothing we can do will thwart them. Our duty, then, is to have our hearts aligned with His will. Following Him where He leads, being faithful to Him in all things, and we will find ourselves joining Him in His work instead of opposing it like the Pharisees.

Now, the hope. The hope lies in the fact that we cannot break God’s plans. The Pharisees sure tried their darndest to break God’s plans, thinking they were helping it. In fact, they were, but not in the way they thought they were. Since Jesus so perfectly fit the plans that He and His Father had intended, since Jesus was so perfectly suited to be the Savior that God had promised, we can be sure that He will return just as He has promised and usher in the restored New Heavens and New Earth that He has promised to.

Nothing, friends, no-thing can stop God from accomplishing His purposes. Not me, not you, not the Pharisees, not President Biden, not Hitler or Chairman Mao, not Kim Jung-un or Xi Jinping, or Vladimir Putin can mess up God’s plans! Nobody and nothing can stand in the way of God’s purposes of redemption, reconciliation, or salvation!

This is incredible news, folks! Of all the things that we have the capacity to screw up: accidentally burning down a house, breaking important things, getting in car accidents, creating catastrophic failures in power grids, not installing something properly and having it destroy an entire wall, WHATEVER… If God’s plans are in something, NOTHING can mess that up!

Now, let’s look at the second part of this passage that entails Jesus’ actions and personality. These feature another massive comfort.

III. The Bruised Reed and Smoldering Wick

The Gentiles

Now, take a look at verses 18 and 21. In both cases, the greek is the word ἔθνος, which is translated either “ethnicities” or “Gentiles.” Culturally, this word was used by Jews in Greek to describe nations other than Jews, but if we were to open to Isaiah 42, the same statement reads “nations” and is silent in the second statement. Instead, it reads “he will faithfully bring forth justice.”

This discrepancy is because of the difference from the original Hebrew and then the translation into Greek called “The Septuagint.” The Greek version of the Bible is what those in Jesus’ time would’ve been most familiar with. It was what was distributed and copied to synagogues, and so when Jesus reads from the Old Testament or when His disciples quote it, they are using the Septuagint.

Most of the time, this shows the historical thrust on a statement. For instance, in Isaiah 7:14 we have: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” In the Hebrew, though, this word can be translated as both “virgin” or just “young woman who is not a virgin.” But when you get the Septuagint, the Greek version of this word means only “virgin.” That means that those who translated it to Greek reflected what was cultural at the time.

But, by the time you get to Jesus’ time, ἔθνος had stopped meaning “all nations” and had just become “non-Jewish nations” or “Gentiles” for short. So, for us, the Hebrew quotations might be more helpful, so please turn to Isaiah 42 with me. I ask that you have it open so we can read past just the few verses, but we aren’t quite there yet.

Jesus doesn’t crush the wounded

Take a look at verse 3: “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.” This is the character we see constantly of Jesus. Those who are wounded, either physically or emotionally crushed under the Law, He doesn’t harm them. Even in His dealings with the Pharisees Jesus is more gentle than they deserve. He is gracious and kind, rebuking them with words instead of scorching them with fire from heaven.

We discussed that last portion last week, but I want you to think back on all the times that we’ve read of Jesus dealing with wounded persons. Doesn’t this statement, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a fairly burning wick he will not quench,” perfectly describe the gentleness of Jesus? Every single interaction He has, even in “healing them all” like we read in Matthew 12:15, doesn’t that describe Him?

He has taken His twelve Apostles, allows the treacherous Judas to remain in their midst knowing what He will do. He has taught the crowds the true intent of the Law, He has reminded them of their sin and comforted them with God’s kindness, He has promised to fulfill the Law (Matthew 5:17-18), has taught them how to pray (6:5-15), commanded them to lay up their treasures where it truly matters (in heaven) (6:19-24), shown people how to practice right judgment (7:1-6), warned them of false prophets and false righteousness, calmed storms, healed incurable diseases, cast out demons from oppressed, honored friends who took their paralyzed friend and lowered them through a roof, brought the dead back to life, and so on and so on!

Jesus has taken those who are bruised and broken, barely burning because their flames have been extinguished, and He has restored them! He has given people all that they truly need, but has done so gently. He has taken those who are both hurting and sinners, and come alongside them instead of beating them down!

A bruised reed He will not break! A faintly burning wick He will not extinguish! What a gentle, kind, and caring character Jesus possessed. Being God, He perfectly fulfilled His role! No hypocrisy, no failure, but also no harshness. This is who Jesus was.

But, is it only who He “was?” No! Look at Isaiah 42:4, a verse that Matthew didn’t include in His passage! It reads: “He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law.”

Jesus’ nature remains gentle even today. How do I know this? Because he has not yet established justice in the earth! We are also given this promise in Isaiah: the coastlands wait for his law. This means that the ends of the earth (the coasts) are still waiting for his law!

That means that those in our own area are needing and waiting for God’s rules of gentle correction, His salvation to come to them!

Conclusion

Isaiah 42:1 says to Behold [God’s servant]. The word “behold” means to emphatically LOOK! Look to the One whom God has chosen, His very own Son, His chosen servant who does not break bruised reeds or snuff out faintly burning wicks! Look at Him!

Puritan Richard Sibbes wrote a gold-mine of a book on Isaiah 42:3. It’s called “The Bruised Reed” and is a book I would recommend you read to see the gentle and caring nature of Christ. In it, He uses this description of Christ and says this: “Are you bruised? Be of good comfort, he calls you. Conceal not your wounds, open all before him and… Go to Christ… There is more mercy in [Him] than sin in [you].”

Jesus simply is who was promised in Isaiah 42. He simply was that servant, as the gospel-writer Matthew recognized. He saw it, witnessed the merciful kindness that Jesus displayed during His ministry on earth. We are to remember that this is who Jesus is, that He perfectly fit the predictions given about Him.

We are to remember this in both fact and experience. Behold Him. BeholdHim who will not break your wounded spirit, who will not quench your hope, but be your hope and salvation.

Jesus is the Promised Hope for Hurting Sinners, of whom we all meet that description. We are all hurting sinners, and Jesus is our Promised Hope. Look upon Him in His Word, experience His tender mercy on you.