The Old Testament Christmas Hope

Good morning! It’s great to be back here and to be given another opportunity to proclaim God’s Word.

Our text this morning is going to be Isaiah 42:1-9, but I want to bring out some of the context so that we can stay faithful to the original meaning.

When you preach only occasionally, you don’t get to preach a series of sermons on a topic or through a book of the Bible. So, I feel it necessary to make sure we have an understanding of what the text is written for, to who, why it’s written, and so on.

Isaiah is an incredible book. The first 39 chapters are primarily about Judah’s ongoing failures in Isaiah’s time.

But beginning in chapter 40, Isaiah begins to write to a future generation.

This generation would be given prophetic encouragement from God, through Isaiah.

But why did they need this encouragement? Let’s take a quick summary through some of the OT!

In Genesis 3, God’s chosen first family, Adam and Eve sin against God.

Eventually, God starts a chosen race through Abraham, known as the Jewish people. By the third generation of Jews, they end up in Egypt, buying food from the brother, Joseph, who through God’s sovereignty, is now Prime Minister and had a dream about storing up food for 7 years to last through a 7 year famine. This dream saves his family’s lives, even though his brothers had tried to destroy his.

Joseph’s family moves to Egypt and after a change in Pharaohs, the ever-populating Jewish people are perceived as a threat and are made captives of the Egyptian ruler.

After 400 years in slavery, God sends them Moses to deliver them by God’s power. He parts the Red Sea after a series of 10 plagues and the event called Passover, and this allows the Jewish people to escape their captivity.

After rescuing the Jews, God meets Moses on Mount Sinai and gives the 10 Commandments. Of those, the first two were to have no other “gods” and to not make graven images of things to worship.

While Moses was meeting with God, the Jews who had just been rescued from Egypt, convince Moses’ brother Aaron to build a golden calf to worship by melting their gold jewelry and molding it to a calf.

God sends 12 spies into the promised land and 10 of the 12 report back that there’s no way they can conquer the inhabitants and take the land. This causes Israel 40 years of wilderness wandering before going into Canaan.

Eventually, after being in the promised land, the Jews want a king to rule over them like the other countries have. This was yet another spurn of the trust in God as their King.

The Jews make it through Saul and David as one kingdom, but the kingdom splits in two under the reign of David’s son, Solomon.

Of the 12 tribes of Israel, the northern-most 10 tribes are called Israel and Samaria is their capital city. The southern two tribes become known as Judah, even though Judah was comprised of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah. Jerusalem is their capital city.

Israel and Judah each had their own kings moving forward, with most of them not good.

During Isaiah’s ministry, Assyria came to be the superpower of the region and it 722 BC, Assyria conquers the northern tribes and carries them off into exile.

This event is primarily what the book of Hosea is about. Hosea tells a story of an unfaithful wife who God relates as Israel being unfaithful to her husband, God. She goes after other lovers, which is describing idolatry.

Idolatry is placing someone or something on a higher level in your heart than the place that God occupies in your heart. It is so serious, it is considered covenantal adultery.

God finally divorced Israel from his marriage to her due to her unfaithfulness. Let’s look at Jeremiah 3:6-11

English Standard Version Chapter 3

6 The LORD said to me in the days of King Josiah: “Have you seen what she did, that faithless one, Israel, how she went up on every high hill and under every green tree, and there played the whore? 7 And I thought, ‘After she has done all this she will return to me,’ but she did not return, and her treacherous sister Judah saw it. 8 She saw that for all the adulteries of that faithless one, Israel, I had sent her away with a decree of divorce. Yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but she too went and played the whore. 9 Because she took her whoredom lightly, she polluted the land, committing adultery with stone and tree. 10 Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the LORD.”

11 And the LORD said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.

Here God declares that Judah saw the divorce of Israel by God and the ramifications of exile for it and did not fear God.

But these consequences were not a surprise. God entered into a covenant with Moses and the Jewish people at Mount Sinai after their deliverance from Egypt.

Please turn your Bibles to Deuteronomy 28.

Deuteronomy 28 tells of blessings or curses that would befall the people based on their covenantal faithfulness.

The first 14 verses of Deuteronomy 28 tell of the blessings, but the rest of the chapter tell of the curses. Let’s look at a section of the curses that will be applicable to the passage we will study today.

English Standard Version Chapter 28

58 “If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the LORD your God, 59 then the LORD will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and lasting. 60 And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Every sickness also and every affliction that is not recorded in the book of this law, the LORD will bring upon you, until you are destroyed. 62 Whereas you were as numerous as the stars of heaven, you shall be left few in number, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God. 63 And as the LORD took delight in doing you good and multiplying you, so the LORD will take delight in bringing ruin upon you and destroying you. And you shall be plucked off the land that you are entering to take possession of it.

64 “And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known. 65 And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul. 66 Your life shall hang in doubt before you. Night and day you shall be in dread and have no assurance of your life. 67 In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’ because of the dread that your heart shall feel, and the sights that your eyes shall see. 68 And the LORD will bring you back in ships to Egypt, a journey that I promised that you should never make again; and there you shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but there will be no buyer.”

Isaiah knows Judah is headed for trouble.

In fact, God calling Isaiah to be a prophet is found in Isaiah chapter 6. It’s one of my favorite passages in Scripture. Isaiah is told by God that he will preach to a people who will not listen or understand. He is to preach until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant.

Basically, Isaiah is told to preach to people who will not listen and eventually God’s judgment for Judah is coming.

In fact, God even gives Isaiah the name of the country that is coming to wipe Judah out. Isaiah 39:6-7

English Standard Version Chapter 39

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.”

This is what is fascinating! Isaiah is ministering from 739 BC to probably somewhere in the 680’s BC.

Assyria is the world power when Isaiah is ministering, yet Isaiah tells them Babylon is coming.

Babylon conquers Jerusalem and destroys Solomon’s temple in 586 BC. and the people of Judah were slain or carried of to Babylon as slaves.

This is at least 100 years from Isaiah’s lifetime!

The prophet Jeremiah is part of the generation that is carried of to Babylon during this judgment of God. Jeremiah tells his countrymen that the Babylonian captivity is for 70 years.

Daniel is a Babylonian slave. The fiery furnace and the lion’s den are stories from Babylonian captivity.

So, as I mentioned to start with, Isaiah 40-48 are written to a future generation from Isaiah who need encouragement during their captivity in Babylon.

We will finally be in our passage of Isaiah 42!

This passage is what the OT hope of Christmas meant to a people under God’s judgment. This is what they had to look forward to as their hope.

English Standard Version Chapter 42

42 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.

5 Thus says 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:

6 “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,

7 to open the eyes that are blind,

to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,

from the prison those who sit in darkness.

8 I am the LORD; that is my name;

my glory I give to no other,

nor my praise to carved idols.

9 Behold, the former things have come to pass,

and new things I now declare;

before they spring forth

I tell you of them.”

The Relationship

In the first half of verse 1, we get a glimpse of the relationship between this coming Servant and God.

The first thing we see is that this Servant is God’s Servant.

This servant will Serve God faithfully. This is in stark contrast to the Jewish people.

In Isaiah chapter 41, the Israelites were called God’s servant.

But as we have discussed, they failed continuously.

This coming servant would fulfill the duties that the nation of Israel had been called to do from the beginning.

This Servant is the true Israel!

I know we haven’t looked at chapter 41, but Isaiah 42 opens up with “Behold my Servant”.

This is the third “Behold” in just a few verses. Remember, there was not chapter and verse divisions as Isaiah wrote this.

The “Behold” of chapter 42 verse 1 stands in phenomenal contrast two what we see in Isaiah 41.

The two “Beholds” of 41 are about the worthless idols that God’s people have repeatedly chased, served, or worshipped.

Isaiah 41:21–24 ESV

Set forth your case, says the Lord; bring your proofs, says the King of Jacob. Let them bring them, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things, what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome; or declare to us the things to come. Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods; do good, or do harm, that we may be dismayed and terrified. Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing; an abomination is he who chooses you.

But God isn’t done with his rampage out idolatry and idols!

Beginning in the very next verse, God actually reveals that his is bringing one from the North to deliver the people from their physical bondage.

But He says it so that when it happens, God’s people will again know that He alone was right.

God says that no other “god” has declared this.

Isaiah 41:25–29 ESV

I stirred up one from the north, and he has come, from the rising of the sun, and he shall call upon my name; he shall trample on rulers as on mortar, as the potter treads clay. Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know, and beforehand, that we might say, “He is right”? There was none who declared it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words. I was the first to say to Zion, “Behold, here they are!” and I give to Jerusalem a herald of good news. But when I look, there is no one; among these there is no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer. Behold, they are all a delusion; their works are nothing; their metal images are empty wind.

As we keep moving through the first part of verse 1 of chapter 42, looking at the relationship, we see that God will uphold this coming Servant.

God’s power and protection will help keep this Servant safe and on track in serving God.

This is because God has chosen this servant. He is elected by God for this role.

God will bring this person to prominence. NOT human power, self-promotion, popularity, or any other way that humans try to become important.

God speaks of His soul delighting in the Servant. Wow!

The Servant will please God in doing His will.

The Servant’s Character

The rest of verse 1 through verse 4 describes the character of this promised, coming Servant.

God’s Spirit will be upon him.

The servant’s power, love, and direction will be guided by a direct presence of God upon this servant.

God’s character through His Spirit will be manifested through this Servant!

The Servant was to bring God’s rule to not only the Jewish people but the nations, which are the gentiles.

This means that this Servant would cause God’s Law, rule, and reign to spread worldwide.

Human rulers desperately grabbing for more and more power, do so by running over people.

They use the backs of their peers or co-workers to climb to the top.

They don’t care who they hurt in the process.

NOT SO WITH THIS COMING SERVANT!

As we see in verse 2, the coming Servant would not be boisterous, loud, self-aggrandizing.

Even when it is difficult to push through with the right thing, the coming Servant would stay the course in bringing about God’s truth and justice.

He’s not coming to rule by force and threats of force but he was coming to confront the unjust rulers and their unjust laws that were oppressing people, especially the most vulnerable.

Look at verse three!

Isaiah 42:3 ESV

a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.

This verse is so incredible!

He speaks of a damaged plant and a lamp that is about to go out.

God uses this language to talk about people who are considered a nobody, or who are at the end of their rope, those about to give up, those who don’t have enough class, clout, or money to be of importance to rulers of the world.

God’s Servant is not coming to finish them off.

Or to destroy their flickering hope.

Judah, sitting under wicked Babylonian oppression were nobodies to Babylon.

God’s Servant who would be compassionate would be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Again, at the end of verse three we see that the Servant would bring forth justice, and he would do so faithfully.

There would be no caving to worldy pressures.

There would be no perversion of justice with wicked motives.

The justice brought and proclaimed would be true justice, according to God’s character.

As we move into verse 4, we see an interesting parallel to verse 3.

We see the Servant will not grow faint or be discouraged. This is the parallel to those in verse three that are bruised reeds or faintly burning wicks.

The coming Servant will face the same kinds of injustices, rejection by society, ridicule, as everyone else.

But he will stay the course and will not falter.

He won’t seek other “gods”.

He won’t worship wood or stones.

He won’t reach out to someone else for rescue.

He will stand through God’s upholding of him, allowing God’s soul to continue to delight in him.

Verse 4 finishes up by explaining that the far away and remote places wait for God’s law, Kingdom and justice.

In Genesis 1:27, God declares that we are made in His image.

This does not mean physically. It means other things such as the ability to reason, to love, and to desire justice.

Universally, people want justice and to be treated right and with value. That value only comes from being created in God’s image.

The Mission

Our passage in Isaiah 42, transitions from the Servant’s character to his mission in verse 5.

The foundational authority for this mission is God Himself.

The one who created the universe.

The one who spoke into a molded piece of clay and gave breath and spirit to Adam.

Verse 6 is where God begins speaking directly to the promised Servant.

God starts off verse 6 with another dose of His authority, “I am the LORD”.

His calling of the Servant for this mission was in accordance with God’s righteousness.

Under God’s authority over the universe, He will lead and protect this chosen Servant.

Through trials and tribulations, God’s righteousness was going to go forth, faithfully.

God tells the Servant that he is to be a covenant for the people.

He will be the promise. The personification of a promise.

This Servant, given as a promise, in the righteousness of God, would be a light to all nations.

The only people that need light are those that can’t see because of the darkness.

This is exactly the diagnosis of those sitting in Babylonian captivity.

The same diagnosis of Israel who had been decimated by Assyria and still not back in the land when Isaiah writes.

But God had promised a deliverer from Babylon in chapter 41.

God even named him specifically in the last verse of Isaiah 44. His name would be Cyrus.

This chosen Servant of chapter 42 would be a greater deliverer.

He would deliver beyond the mere physicalities of captivity or physical disorders such as blindness.

He was coming to allow people who have vision to truly see.

He was coming to allow people in bondage to sin to be set free.

Those who are hopelessly guilty of moral failures to have a light to guide them back to sure footing.

This is all promised in verse 8 again by God’s authority by stamping this prophecy with “I am the LORD”.

He is going to glorify Himself through this.

The blind and captive, the helpless, the hopeless, the damaged goods, those with barely flickering hope and purpose in this world, those drowning in guilt. The idol gods have done nothing for.

God’s glory is going to shine through in this coming Servant!

Besides, many other prophecies that God had spoken through the OT had already come to pass. There is reason to trust God’s promises!

The Hope Fulfilled

The OT people of God were looking forward to this promised Servant’s arrival.

We look back at an event in history, where a baby was born of a virgin, in humble circumstances.

We call that day Christmas!

John the Baptist preached that Jesus was the sent one.

Jesus claimed to be sent by God.

Let’s walk again through this passage in Isaiah and see how Jesus fulfilled the things that were promised of this coming Servant!

Verse 1

Jesus came to do the Father’s will as His Servant. Jesus confirms this in John 5:30

John 5:30 ESV

“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

In Matthew 3 we read of Jesus’ baptism in verses 16-17

Matthew 3:16–17 ESV

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; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

It is here that we see how the Spirit of God was upon Jesus and how God’s soul is delighted in Christ, promised in Isaiah 42:1

We also see the fulfillment of God’s Spirit on Jesus and His upholding and protection of Jesus in Luke chapter 4.

Jesus has just completed the 40 days in the wilderness being tested by Satan and then comes into Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown. He arrives at the synagogue for worship service and He was given the scroll of Isaiah, no less.

He opens it to Isaiah 61 and reads:

English Standard Version Chapter 4

18 “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,

19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

After reading this section, Jesus rolled that scroll up and then told the people there that the Scripture Jesus just read is fuflilled in their hearing. He claimed to be the fulfillment of that.

The congregants later drove Jesus out of the synagogue and up a cliff so that they could throw Him down. But Luke 4:30 tells us:

Luke 4:30 ESV

But passing through their midst, he went away.

Jesus slipped right through this mob that had driven Him up this cliff to kill him. He had some supernatural help to “pass through their midst”!

We should also not forget God’s protection of Jesus as small child. Herod had been told that the King of the Jews had been born and that it would have taken place in Bethlehem as the Scriptures prophesied it would happen.

But Joseph was given a vision in a dream by the Angel of the Lord to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt until Herod was dead.

Herod sent a delegation to kill all the male children in Bethlehem under the age of 2, to make sure that this King gets stamped out of existence before He takes the throne. But Jesus was not there.

In fulfillment of Isaiah 42 verse 2, we know that Jesus went through sham trials on the night of His arrest.

He didn’t make a scene about the injustice that was being leveled at Him.

He was tried by the religious elite and the Roman governor in the cover of darkness.

False witnesses were put forth by the religious authorities, in direct violation of the 9th Commandment!

The preachers and teachers were breaking God’s commandment to try and convict God incarnate.

If we know our Bibles, we know Jesus encountered many bruised reeds and faintly burning wicks.

He didn’t destroy them. He had compassion.

Woman at the well in John 4

The woman caught in adultery in John 8

The paralyzed man in Luke 5 who had friends who broke through a roof to try and get help from Jesus in this packed house.

Matthew 12:1-21

English Standard Version Chapter 12

12 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

9 He went on from there and entered their synagogue. 10 And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse him. 11 He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? 12 Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” 13 Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other. 14 But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

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.”

That is compassion for a bruised reed. A man with a deformed hand gets healed and the Pharisees cared more about their rule than this man’s wholeness and value as a human. This is Jesus bringing justice faithfully, in the face of hatred and self-elevation, rules and not mercy.

We have a Savior sent to us that was in every way tempted as we are and yet He was able to stand.

Jesus was rejected by most of all the Jews in His time on earth.

Jesus’ apostles abandoned him at His arrest and only John is mentioned of being at the cross, the biggest injustice ever perpetrated in human history!

One of His 12 betrayed him and turned him over to be arrested.

Jesus was given as a covenant to people of every nation, language, and ethnicity.

He is the promise of God’s judgment and salvation.

Jesus lived in complete righteousness. He never sinned.

This allowed Him to be executed on the cross to bear God’s wrath for the sinners He would save.

We are completely helpless to avoid being dropped into Hell at the moment of our last heartbeat, if not for this Chosen Servant being dispatched to earth, to take on human flesh, to fulfill the requirements of the Law because we can’t, and to die under the wrath of God, the wrath of man, and the wrath of Satan all at the same time.

This payment made for sins, allowing us to be right with God, is the light of the nations!

Jesus even claimed to be the Light of the World in John 8!

English Standard Version Chapter 8

12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

In John 9, Jesus gives sight to a blind man.

Yes, he was healed physically, but the point was the Jesus was there to give spiritual sight to those who had none.

There was a greater meaning behind the physical signs.

In fact, John called the miracles of Jesus signs.

Signs point to something beyond themselves.

An exit sign is not the actual exit. It just lets you know that’s where the exit is located.

Finally, Jesus promised in John 8 that anyone who commits sin is a slave to sin and that only He can set someone free from the prison and captivity of sin.

Application

As we prepare to celebrate Christmas this year, I hope this sermon has brought home the reason for the season.

Idols are worthless.

The god of alcohol, drugs, lust, gambling, power, money, sports, work, or gods of other religions…THEY ARE ALL WORTHLESS!

A savior has been sent, as promised.

Every generation, every society, every country, and even every church in Burlingame, KS has broken people everywhere.

Bruised reeds or faintly burning wicks.

People on the verge of suicide.

Spouses that have been abandoned by their unfaithful spouse for someone that spouse thought was better.

People grieving a loss.

People going through a severe or terminal illness.

People in financial despair.

People that have been ran over by someone else trying to climb to the top of an organization.

People unjustly charged and convicted of crimes, languishing in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.

People who are marginalized or treated unfairly based on the color of their skin, or their ethnicity.

People burdened with heavy guilt for moral failures.

These matter to our God. Everyone has value.

If you have been saved by Jesus Christ, you undoubtedly have been broken over something. You realized you are a sinner in need of grace.

This is why we love Christmas.

Many people out there need you to represent the Savior and His compassion to them.

They need the gospel to come to eternal life.

They’ve tried the idols just as Israel and Judah did.

The idols produced nothing but grief and distance from God.

There are many still blind, or in darkness, and who are in the prison of sin.

This Savior given at Christmas is what they need.

The one who came here to shed His own blood to save His people. He was the covenant. The cross was the truth of God. There’s judgment for sin. It was either paid for by the Servant sent to us or it will be paid by our own self eternally. There is refuge from God’s wrath in Christ.