Isaiah 49:1-13, 50:4-11
Introduction
I remember an article I read when I was much younger and in the business world. It was about two founders who were part of a growing tech company in a large city. They had moved to a new high-rise office building in the fall, and things had been going well all winter. But then, they suddenly noticed that their employees were having a hard time coding. It wasn’t that they didn’t have the right computers, or programs, or skills. It wasn’t that the internet wasn’t working well. Rather, at about 3:00PM every afternoon, now that they were in springtime, the sun would be at just the right angle and would come streaming into their high-rise offices. It was beautiful and created a stunning view of the city and with the late afternoon light their entire office brightened and glowed. And it was incredibly hard to see and type on a computer.
They quickly realized this was likely going to be a problem all summer long, and so they began calling around for people to come and install blinds. Getting the blinds themselves wasn’t the problem, but the problem was it was going to take about two months to get them installed. This didn’t seem like a good solution, and so the two founders decided they would take their Friday afternoon and go around the office and install the blinds themselves.
The article was about the oddity of that idea in the business world. They were asked, “Why didn’t you just make some of your workers stop what they were doing and install the blinds?” They answered, “We didn’t hire them to install blinds, we hired them to code software. It is our job to make sure they can do that as efficiently and productively as possible, so if someone should stop and do this, it should be us. Sure, we have other things to do, but a good leader makes sure that their people are taken care of.”
I can imagine how shocking that would have been to many people in the world. To see a leader who was more concerned about their people and their ability to do what they were tasked with doing rather than themselves and their time. To see a leader who was willing to put on grubby jeans and climb up on the windowsills to install blinds must have been an odd site to many.
That imagery stuck with me as young man. It helped to give me a picture for the idea of “Servant Leadership” that we often talk about in Christianity. I once saw a pastor friend of mine, after their church purchased a new building and had a late-night Christmas event, staying late after the event to mop the floors to make sure everyone else could get home to their family’s Christmas times. I have seen countless brothers and sisters in Christ stop what they were doing to go and serve one another in their time of need. We know this is what servanthood is, but sometimes, we miss this image when it comes to thinking about Jesus.
For some reason, when we think about Jesus, we know he came to serve us. We know he came to earth, lived a perfect life, died on the cross and was raised back to life that WE might receive something. Yet, we often think of this like a one-time military exercise. Risky. Costly. Extreme while it lasted. But we often don’t think of this as his heart towards us daily and how he still relates to us even now, today, as this type of Servant. We often think of him as though he is aloof, gone, up in the C-Suite of heaven now, unable to be bothered with the day-to-day problems of the little people.
Review: The Self-Forgetting and Long-Suffering Servant
That is why pivoting to the imagery of God’s Servant here in the Servant Songs of Isaiah is so necessary for us as Christians. We so quickly forget the very nature of our God. We are often quick to acknowledge his kingship and the conquering power he will return with, but we struggle to see him as a servant to me and you, today.
This is what we started looking at last week in Isaiah 42:1–4. We saw first and foremost “HOW” Jesus comes as THE Servant. And we saw:
Jesus the Self-Forgetting Servant
Jesus the Long-Suffering Servant
Jesus came the first time as a Servant-King. He came to make much of you and I to ensure that our problem of sin and separation was dealt with. In this sense he was self-forgetting. He was the perfect image of the founder and creator who cares greatly about the task his people have been given and wants to ensure they can succeed at his own cost. Perfect servant leadership.
We also saw how he is still lovingly serving us today as the long-suffering servant. Where we get discouraged (where we are a bruised reed) and where we struggle to exude the very light of God’s glory (where we are a faintly burning wick), he will never be discouraged with us and our slow progress. He will never become faint in his joyful encouragement of us. He will lift us up and he will fan our flame—he will ensure we succeed.
That is the beautiful picture of the servanthood of Jesus that we often miss in Scripture and the picture that Isaiah points us and Judah to in the first Servant Song in Isaiah 42. And that was just the first servant song—there are three more! As we go through each servant song, we are going to see how each song increases and magnifies our view of God’s Servant Jesus. Each one adds another layer that depends on the previous song and continues to expand the character of the servant in new ways as we go forward.
This morning is going to have a lot of Scripture, but it will weave together well and we will see several incredible themes about our Servant God Jesus emerge from them.
First to Second to Third Song: Expansion
Last week we skipped the last half of the first servant song in Isaiah 42:5–9. Let us go back there as we start this morning:
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: “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, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I now declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”
(Isaiah 42:5–9 ESV)
Clearly this section is no longer sharing with us “how” the servant comes but moves on to one of the purposes of the servant coming. And we begin to see here that the servant’s coming is not just for Judah, but rather, for all the nations. All of God’s people who are broken, in prison, blind to the glory of what God is doing. All his people need someone to come and lead them out of their dungeon—to be a light for these people. God does not give his glory to any carved image, rather, he places his very Spirit on this living, breathing, Servant. God says here that this servant is doing new things—things that only now is God beginning to share with his people that they may see and know what this servant will be like.
This morning, we are going to look at the second and third servant songs in Isaiah.
Servant Song 1: Isaiah 42:1–9
Servant Song 2: Isaiah 49:1–13
Servant Song 3: Isaiah 50:4–11
Servant Song 4: Isaiah 52:13–53:12
And what we are going to see is how each servant song takes elements from the ones before it and expands on it that we might see and know this servant better. As we just reviewed, we started in the first Servant Song and we saw:
Jesus the Self-Forgetting Servant
[Servant Song 1: Isaiah 42:1–4]
Jesus the Long-Suffering Servant
[Servant Song 1: Isaiah 42:1–4]
This is the “how” of God’s servant that permeates and grounds all the other songs. And yet, even here in song one, we begin to see other glimpses of the servant. Glimpses that will be expanded on in each of these future songs. We see even here:
Jesus the Servant of the Nations
[Glimpsed in SS1, expanded in Servant Song 2: Isaiah 49:1–13]
This idea is glimpsed in Servant Song one but it is greatly expanded in the second Servant Song. We also see two other ideas that are glimpsed in both the servant song one and two, but are really expanded on in the third servant song:
Jesus the Discipled Servant
[Glimpsed in SS1 & SS2, expanded in Servant Song 3: Isaiah 50:4–11]
Jesus the Discipling Servant
[Glimpsed in SS1 & SS2, expanded in Servant Song 3: Isaiah 50:4–11]
This morning, I pray you will walk away seeing how our amazing Servant King came as a self-forgetting servant and a long-suffering servant, and that he also came to be a servant to the nations and was a discipled and discipling servant!
Isaiah 49:1–13, Servant Song 2 — The Servant of the Nations
Let’s start with this idea of Jesus as a Servant to the Nations. Look at Isaiah 49:1–13 with me:
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. 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.
And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
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.”
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— 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.
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.”
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, 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; 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. And I will make all my mountains a road, and my highways shall be raised up. Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syene.”
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.
(Isaiah 49:1–13, ESV)
Notice how the glimpse of the servant that is for the nations in the first Servant Song is exploded here in Isaiah 49. In Isaiah 42 it says the coastlands are waiting for someone like this servant. Here, in Isaiah 49, this servant speaks to the coastlands and tells them to pay attention, to listen to him.
What we see here is the image of God’s love for his people going global! So often, when people read the Old Testament, we think that God only loves Israel. That he doesn’t care about the other people of the earth and only wants to see Israel succeed. Israel truly had a special relationship with God—they were the people who had the very covenant of God, they had his presence in and on the tabernacle and temple, they were given the land by God. Yet they were meant to be FOR the people of the earth. Starting clear back in Egypt as God was taking his people out of the hands of Pharaoh, God says to Moses in Exodus 19* [*I mistakenly quote Exodus 9 in my sermon, but meant to quote Exodus 19! Exodus 9 is being said to Pharaoh, not Moses. It is corrected here]:
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
(Exodus 19:5–6, ESV)
Moses, as their leader, represented Israel. And Moses and Israel were being brought out of Egypt that God’s name would be proclaimed to the entire earth. Even before this, Abraham was told that his family [Israel] would bless all the families of the earth (Genesis 12:1–3). God called all of Israel to be a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” in Exodus 19:6, meaning they were meant as a group (a nation) to proclaim God as his collective priests to the unholy nations around them. Israel was meant to be an evangelizing nation/people.
And at the beginning we see that starts to happen. Even in the Exodus we are told there was a mixed people coming out with Israel (Exodus 12:38). We see the nations beginning to come and worship Yahweh in different people throughout Israel’s history like Jethro, Balaam, Rahab, and Ruth. Yet, overall, Israel failed at their evangelistic mission to the nations around them.
God’s had commanded Israel to remove the unholy people from the land of Israel and their idols and gods so that God’s people might rightly represent his holiness to the nations around them and become an ever-expanding people of the nations around them as these people came to know and love God. Instead, Israel embraced the idols and gods of the nations around them and failed to live out this priestly identity that God had given them. That is what we are seeing Isaiah prophesy against.
Note here what one of the roles of the Servant is to be Israel:
And he said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
This new servant is taking over the role of Israel. In fact, he is actually the true Israel whom the nation of Israel was meant to point towards. He is the one in whom God will actually be glorified as people rightly see his holiness and all the nations are brought to Yahweh. And, note what the servant himself, Jesus, says:
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.”
God’s people—Israel—don’t seem like they are going to come to Yahweh after all. It seems like the servant is failing. Yet Yahweh answers him:
And now the LORD 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.”
This servant was commissioned to bring Jacob, to bring back Israel as the TRUE Israel. God surely brought about this Servant—Jesus—that Israel might be saved, but God sees that as too small a task. God will do even more! He will use this servant to bring back all his people from all nations—to the end of earth as he says here! In fact, even amidst Israel rejecting Jesus, God will bring the nations to Jesus.
God says, “to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation:” that is Jesus, abhorred by THE nation, Israel. And God says here that Kings will come to Jesus, princes will bow own before him. We see this in the wisemen who come to worship Jesus at his birth, bowing down before him and giving him gifts.
God says this servant will say, “Come out” and “Appear” and people will “feed along the ways; on bare heights shall be their pastures.” This is exactly what Matthew is seeing here in Jesus’s ministry and at the Sermon on the Mount. Right as Jesus starts the Sermon on the Mount Matthew says this:
So his [Jesus’s] fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.
(Matthew 4:24–25, ESV)
In front of Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount is a mixed people. People who, as Isaiah says, Jesus has said “come out” and “appear” to, and on the bare heights of this hill they are feeding on the very word of God! Matthew is seeing again and again this servant of God spoken about in Isaiah.
Application
Main Street, where Israel failed to bring in the nations because they loved the gods of the nation more than Yahweh, this Servant—Jesus—has not failed. You and I are here today because of Jesus’s success. We are here because we were called in as the multi-ethnic people of God to our new identity in Jesus Christ. The Sermon on the Mount is being preached to a mixed Jewish and Gentile people, and it is the beginning of God’s plan for the people of the nations to be served by the Servant mentioned in Isaiah 49. It is that servant that is preaching before Matthew on this hill.
Friends, God is on his mission to save all his peoples from the nations, and we are meant to be on that mission with him as God’s newly formed people! We are to be for the nations as well! Whether you are a goer or a sender, we are all meant to be a part of God’s miraculous plan to bring “all peoples” (Matthew 28:19) to himself.
And being a part of this missional plan of God will come at a cost. It will be no different for us than this Servant who came and brought the nations to himself at great cost. It will cost you and I as well. We will lose sleep like the savior who constantly looked for a spot to rest. We will lay our heads on the ground at times. For many of us it will mean using the resources God has given us up-and-beyond our regular tithes and offerings of the church to support others who are out on the front lines with people who have never heard the name of Jesus. For some of us, it will mean going away from home and friends to new places to bring the glory of God to the nations.
And for all of us it means taking advantage of this amazing moment in history where God is bringing the nations TO US! You and I should all be pro-immigration in many ways. Not only because God is for the immigrant/sojourner (c.f. Exodus 22:21; 23:9; Leviticus 19:33; Malachi 3:5, etc), and not only because Christ saw himself and us as a immigrants/sojourners (Matt 25:35; Phil 3:20; Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 2, etc), but because immigration strategically brings people to US who desperately need to hear about Jesus! The mission of Christ is served well by immigration, and we should strategically be for that idea. It is an amazing missional strategy to have people come to us that we might share with them the beauty of Jesus!
Main Street, see in Jesus the missional king who came to accomplish his mission by being a servant that you and I might come into his people. And begin to see, even here in the Old Testament, how you and I are called into this missional move of our Servant King. A mission that we see accomplished in Revelation 7:14–17 as the lamb wipes every tear from the eyes of his people. See here:
Jesus the Servant of the Nations
The Servant Discipled and Discipling
And we see even more here. Starting in both the first Servant Song and second Servant Song we see the path this servant took to become this missional servant-king and how he creates his mission people. It is the path we are taking as well. We see here:
Jesus the Discipled Servant
Jesus the Discipling Servant
We don’t think about this often, but Jesus became the Servant by being discipled. We saw a glimpse of this in the first Servant Song when it said:
I am the LORD; I have called you [Jesus] in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you;
(Isaiah 42:6, ESV)
We also see a glimpse of it here in the second Servant Song when he says:
The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name. 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.
God forms this servant, keeps him, prepares him for the right words and as an arrow polished and put away in his quiver, ready to be used. But we really see this idea of Jesus, the servant who was Discipled and who Disciples, explode in the third servant song. Look at the third servant song with me this morning:
The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught.
The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord GOD helps me; who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up. Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.
Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment.” (Isaiah 50:4–11, ESV)
Look again at that first section:
The Lord GOD has given me the tongue of those who are taught, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning he awakens; he awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. The Lord GOD has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious; I turned not backward.
Jesus was discipled just as we are discipled. He speaks as one who was taught because he allowed himself to be discipled by the Holy Spirit just as we are discipled. He perfectly grew and was taught as we are called to be grown and taught. And he did that on purpose! When God tells us in Philippians 2:7 that Christ emptied himself, this is part of what he meant. He became available to be taught by the Holy Spirit that he might know exactly what we feel when we are discipled and taught. This is what Luke means when he says that Jesus “grew in wisdom and stature” in Luke 2:52. Jesus was discipled and grown like us.
Jesus knows our path is hard because he walked it! In fact, he chose to do it this way that he might purposefully know our path and then, encourage us! It says here that he was taught that “I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.”
Jesus wanted to be able to sympathize with us as our great Servant (the same thing the writer of Hebrews 4:15 says). And he does sympathize with us. Jesus doesn’t just heal and lift up bruised reeds and sustain flickering wicks, he knows what it feels like to be discouraged and faint—and HE succeeded in not sinning in those moments. It says here that God opened his ear, “and I was not rebellious; I turned not backwards.” Now, in that success and power, he only wants to encourage us. Jesus now embraces his teaching and encouraging ministry to us (Isaiah 49:2) that we might be encouraged and succeed.
But don’t miss what it looked like for Jesus to be taught or discipled in this sense. Our teaching and discipleship look much the same:
I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
Much of Jesus’s discipleship came through suffering. That is because you and I will go through suffering as well, and it is one of God’s methods to disciple us and grow us. Jesus perfectly knows what suffering feels like, and he has succeeded in walking righteously in those sufferings. In fact, Jesus knows suffering in a way you and I don’t. We often experience suffering, but none of us has perfectly walked sinless in our suffering. We all, at some point, give in to some type of sin in our struggles. Self-centeredness, self-pity, anger, frustration, you name it—we fail. But Jesus never failed. He suffered, and even under the suffering weight of all our sins, he never sinned himself. And he did that FOR us. That he might save us but also that he might know what it was like to be discipled that he might turn and lovingly, caringly, carefully, disciple you and I.
This is why the cross is folly to the world but power to us, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1:18. God showed his incredible servant’s heart to us through suffering in discipleship that we might be saved and discipled. This is why we are encouraged often to take up our cross (later in Matthew 16:24–26). To be willing to be discipled in the same path as Jesus—through suffering.
Application
Friends, note that Jesus was discipled just like we are being discipled. God, through his Holy Spirit, grew and perfectly formed Christ through his walk here on this earth, and as the God-man he perfectly succeeded where we fail. He is not asking you and I to do something he has not done nor something he does not understand.
Go through hard times—check. Pain, suffering, death—check. Deny your desires and your flesh—check. Jesus knows exactly what we are going through, not just conceptually but practically as the God-man, and he is there for you!
Everything Jesus ever says to us—in places like the Sermon on the Mount about our identity and elsewhere in Scripture—he says those things knowing exactly what it will look like and how it feels to struggle to walk out that identity. And he promises to “sustain with a word him who is weary.”
Are you weary in your discipleship before God this morning? Turn and see your Servant Savior who only wants to encourage you with a sustaining word. Find in Scripture that Jesus beckons you to rest in his work, not your own. Jesus cares gently and lowly, self-forgetting and long-suffering because he has walked our path. And he cares for you knowing exactly what it was like to be discipled in the ways you are being discipled. He understands perfectly the struggle for growth we are going through!
But rather than being discouraged, there is joy that Jesus noted in the path of discipleship that often comes through suffering, and joy that you and I should note as well! Look what the Servat says:
I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.
But the Lord GOD helps me; therefore I have not been disgraced; therefore I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near.
God helps his Servant, and God will help me and you. We see here again, like in the first Servant Song, linguistic and conceptual connections between several phrases. Where Christ was struck, with God’s help he can now set his face like flint—strong and determined. Where people pulled his beard and spat on him—signs of disrespect in his culture—he can now stand and not be put to shame in the help of God. God is near to his Servant Jesus and he vindicates both his Servant and you and I.
Main Street, Jesus endured and persevered through God’s discipleship for JOY! Jesus went through the discipleship and discipline of the father joyfully—so you and I should also persevere in God’s discipleship of us because we see joy in Jesus! Pursue JOY, Main Street. And pursue this joy and see that joy most clearly in Jesus!
We see joy motivating Jesus, the perfect servant, throughout Isaiah’s servant songs. In the first Servant Song it said of Jesus “He will not grow faint or be discouraged until he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law” (Isaiah 42:4). In the second servant song even though it said of him, “I’ve labored in vain. I’ve spent my strength for nothing and in vanity,” yet Jesus declares, “My right is with Yahweh, my recompense is with God.” (Isaiah 49:4).
In fact, this is why Hebrews 12:2 is one of my favorite verses. We see there why Jesus did all that he did for us!
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1–2, ESV)
Jesus came as a Servant, and he says here in the Servant Songs and he declares it in Hebrews 12:2 and the rest of Scripture that he came for the JOY that was before him. The Joy of seeing and knowing the favor of God upon him.
Friends, you may have felt a glimmer of “should” again when we looked at Jesus’s heart for the nations in the first half of this sermon. You may have felt the familiar feeling you may have felt in the Sermon on the Mount—that you needed to hurry and DO something like Jesus. But that is not what God is saying there in the second Servant Song and that is not what Isaiah is showing us about this Servant. Here we see our Servant King who has done it all FOR us. He suffered and persevered through discipleship that he might help us on OUR path of discipleship and growth. He suffered to know our suffering. He was discipled so he could disciple with gentle words, uplifting encouragement, and fierce perseverance on our behalf. Jesus knew you and I would struggle in our growth and he came to do even that perfectly for us, and to give us the discipleship he bought. You don’t need to strive. Jesus will give you the discipleship he accomplished. And he wants us to see this process and path as he saw it—as JOY in knowing God is looking at us smiling!
Main Street, that is the only way God knows how to look at you in Jesus—with joy and smiling. In Christ God sees you only as having succeeded in being discipled because Christ has promised to give his perfect discipleship to you. Today, if you are in Christ Jesus, God is only smiling on you in his love and joy at who you are in Jesus.
Let the Servant Serve You
In fact, as we look at this third Servant Song, we see that Jesus is presenting us with only two choices when we see his discipleship and his desire to disciple us. We can fight him, or we can trust him. We can come alongside and let him now disciple us or reject the discipleship he wants to give us. When we see this perfect Servant we must make a choice:
Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. Behold, the Lord GOD helps me; who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment; the moth will eat them up. Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.
God has done everything for you! He was perfectly discipled so he could disciple you perfectly. He knew complete suffering—separation from God—that he might come alongside you and I in OUR suffering.
You and I, we will want to contend with God, to joist with Jesus, that we might determine our own path and our own ways that seem right to us. But Jesus asks here why do that? Who can truly be discipled and walk perfectly like him? Why be his adversary? Instead, stand together with Jesus. Come near to Jesus. See that God has helped him succeed and now he only wants to give you his success that you might succeed as well. Trust in the one who has found favor and walk with HIM. Come to Jesus and receive him as the perfect discipler of your soul because he already succeeded and will give it to you. See:
Jesus the Discipling Servant
There is only one other option:
Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches! Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment.”
(Isaiah 50:4–11)
If we try to walk by our own light, we will miss the very light of Jesus who came to serve us. Let the servant serve you! Let Jesus do it all for you, and in trusting him find that he wants to GIVE it all to you. Accept this light of Isaiah 9:2. This light who came into the world in Isaiah 9:6.
Conclusion
This is the servant that Matthew is seeing in the Sermon on the Mount and throughout Jesus’s life, and the servant we should see today.
Jesus the Self-Forgetting Servant
Jesus the Long-Suffering Servant
Jesus the Servant of the Nations
Jesus the Discipled Servant
Jesus the Discipling Servant
This servant wants to be a light for us that we might be given his discipleship in gentleness, sacrifice, and JOY. This is what Matthew is seeing immediately before the Sermon on the Mount:
The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles— the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned. (Matthew 4:15–16)
Friends, see in this servant a longing for all his people—a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation—to be walking rightly with God again. See in this servant a God-man who chose to empty himself and be discipled that he might know exactly what your discipleship looks like, feels like, and now he can give you exactly what you need in every moment. He knows that because he went through it. And he even went through suffering—more suffering than you and I could ever imagine—that he might be the firstborn among many and take us safely to our Father’s feet and bring us to serve forever with him in the new heavens and new earth.
Jesus is not an aloof CEO who has left that he might delegate tasks to his underlings. Jesus came, did all that was necessary to ensure our salvation, and he gives us now his very Spirit all that we need that we might have his discipled and discipling presence in our life THROUGH his presence, the Holy Spirit. That we might know his gentleness and patience, that we might be discipled. And that we might go to then go to the Nations—near and far—and bring them this beautiful discipleship of God.
Communion
This morning, come with us to communion and see that servant. The servant who knows your suffering because of his suffering. A servant that is giving you and I a new identity through faith in him that we might be discipled into our new identity. Communion is mean to be received as something we did not do. This is true of our salvation but also our sanctification—our discipleship—that Jesus perfectly accomplished for us and now is giving to us.
Benediction
Main Street, know the smiling face of God on you this morning. Receive this benediction:
“The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
(Numbers 6:24–26, ESV)
