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Isaiah 42:1-9
©May 29th, 2022 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Isaiah
There’s an old saying that a guarantee is only as good as the person making it.
Most of us have found that to be true time and time again.
We know that some people will do everything they can to keep their word, while with others, we just assume they won’t and hope to be surprised.
Regardless, we know that even the best people don’t always keep their promises—sometimes things are just outside our control.
God, however, is not like us.
He keeps His promises all the time.
Just in the book of Isaiah, we have seen His faithfulness proven over and over again.
We know that when God makes a promise, He will keep it.
This morning we look at a specific promise—the promise of God sending His servant into the world to ensure justice for all of creation.
We’re going to look at the content of this promise, its fulfillment, and why that matters to us today.
My hope is that as we look at the fulfillment of God’s promises, we will be reminded of His greatness and faithfulness, and we will be driven to trust Him more fully than ever before.
Chapter 42 begins with God telling us about His servant who will come.
If you remember the way chapter 41 ended, God was talking about the futility of worshiping all the false “gods” that people often turn to.
Now, He draws a sharp contrast between these powerless gods and the Servant whom He will send into the world.
1 “Look at my servant, whom I strengthen.
He is my chosen one, who pleases me.
I have put my Spirit upon him.
He will bring justice to the nations. 2 He will not shout or raise his voice in public.
3 He will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle.
He will bring justice to all who have been wronged.
4 He will not falter or lose heart until justice prevails throughout the earth.
Even distant lands beyond the sea will wait for his instruction.”
(Isaiah 42:1-4, NLT)
This servant stands in stark contrast to the false gods mentioned in chapter 41.
The false gods were powerless to do anything, but the Servant God is promising will accomplish much.
We are told the Spirit of God will be upon Him and He will do great things.
He is very different from the false gods the people of Israel were worshiping.
The Bringer of Justice
So what will this servant do?
He will bring justice.
When we hear the word justice, usually our minds immediately go to legal proceedings.
We think of the guilty being punished and the innocent being set free.
Certainly, this concept of justice is in mind here, but I believe the word Isaiah uses here actually carries with it a deeper meaning.
The word Isaiah uses for justice here is also used to describe the blueprint God had given for the tabernacle.
Knowing this gives us a sense of what God means by justice in this context.
It is not only about ensuring that the guilty are punished and the innocent go free, but that the world functions as it was designed to function.
He is going to ensure that the whole earth is made right.
When we begin to grasp justice from this perspective, it becomes clear that this Servant cannot simply be a human king, because a merely human leader could not bring about this kind of perfection.
Our world is profoundly messed up and the solution is not political in nature because the problem is not political in nature.
The problem is sin.
Because of sin, everything in the world has been corrupted, and nothing functions as it should.
Isaiah promises this servant will solve the sin problem and restore the world to the way it is supposed to be.
That is more than any mere human being can do.
Obviously this promise has not seen its complete fulfillment yet, as our world is still profoundly messed up.
Sin has not been completely abolished.
But knowing God will bring justice to the world should remind us of two things.
First, if we want to see things function as God intended, we must live as God commands.
We rebel against the Lord and then act surprised when things go poorly.
We choose to embrace the philosophies and approaches of the world rather than the Lord’s, and in so doing, we are moving further and further from Him.
If we want to see things get better (though not always easier), we must start by living in radical obedience to Him.
The first step in seeing the world change to be more as God intended is for us to start living the way God intended.
We cannot expect to see a change in the world if we are unwilling to make changes in ourselves.
Second, we should not despair at the state of things now.
Because we serve a God who keeps His promises, we know there is coming a time when He will restore all things to the way they should be.
Again, this will not be found through political action or fighting with the weapons of the world.
It will be found through patient trust in the Lord and obedience to His commands.
We can continue to do what we know is right even when it doesn’t seem like it’s doing any good because we have the promise from God that justice will ultimately be served.
I know many of you are facing storms in your lives.
Let me remind you of this hope.
God is still working; we just need to stick close to Him and keep doing what He tells us as we wait for His promises to be fulfilled.
The world may tell us that following the Lord’s commands is foolish but trusting the One who keeps His promises is always a wise choice.
What He Won’t Do
Isaiah tells us that this servant will bring justice, but he also tells us what He won’t do.
He says this servant will not shout or raise his voice in public, he will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle, and he will not falter or lose heart until justice prevails throughout the earth.
So what does all this mean?
Well, it shows us again that this servant stands in stark contrast to all the human leaders we see.
Chapter 41 describes Cyrus, the king of Persia, and chapter 42 contrasts the Lord’s Servant with him.
Cyrus, like most human leaders, established his rule by crushing people and forcing them to submit.
But Isaiah says the Lord’s Servant will not raise his voice in public or crush the weakest reed.
He will still establish justice, but unlike human leaders, he will also be gentle, even as he exercises great power.
Much of the time we don’t think that gentleness and power can go together, but Isaiah promises that this servant will have both gentleness and power in spades.
By now, you may have been able to piece together who Isaiah is talking about.
He is describing Jesus!
Jesus is the perfect marriage of all these traits.
God’s power is within Him; He promised that one day He will restore all things to the way they should be; and while He has tremendous power, He is also gentle and loving to those around Him.
Isaiah’s original audience likely understood this promise was speaking of the Messiah, even if they didn’t have the benefit of seeing Jesus’ ministry, like we do.
They didn’t know when this servant would come (and it wouldn’t be for hundreds more years), but God gave them this promise so they could have hope.
In the midst of difficult times, this was a reminder that God had not forgotten them, He had not abandoned them, and He had a plan to rescue them and set things right once more.
God holds that same hope out to us.
As we look around at our world, it is tempting to throw up our hands in despair.
We may be tempted to think that God has taken His hands off things just because Jesus is no longer physically on the earth, but these verses remind us that God is not done yet.
Isaiah tells us that this servant would not falter or lose heart until justice prevails throughout the earth.
God will not rest until His mission is accomplished.
He will restore the world.
God is still working, even when we can’t see it.
So take heart!
God’s Assurance
God made these wonderful promises to the people of Israel, but they may have been tempted to believe they were too good to be true.
So God reminds them of why He can be trusted.
5 God, the Lord, created the heavens and stretched them out.
He created the earth and everything in it.
He gives breath to everyone, life to everyone who walks the earth.
And it is he who says, 6 “I, the Lord, have called you to demonstrate my righteousness.
I will take you by the hand and guard you, and I will give you to my people, Israel, as a symbol of my covenant with them.
And you will be a light to guide the nations.
7 You will open the eyes of the blind.
You will free the captives from prison, releasing those who sit in dark dungeons.
(Isaiah 42:5-7, NLT)
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