"The Servant's Success" Sermon: Isaiah 49:7-13 (manuscript)

 

“The Servant’s Success”

[Isaiah 49:7-13]

February 14, 2021 YouTube

            Last week we saw Isaiah transition from talking about the servant, Cyrus, to the Servant Savior.  And we saw that the work of the Servant is to incarnate as a human prophet and to bring world-wide salvation.  We continue now to see the Servant’s success.

            We see first, the Servant successfully brings salvation to the world.

“Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers:”

We must notice right away that a single person is being addressed here – “to one.”  And we also need to remember that Jesus, the Incarnate Servant, is both fully human and fully God – fully Divine.  Jesus in His Divinity knows all things, but in His humanity – somehow – things are kept from Him.  We remember Jesus says He does not know when He will return, for example.

So, the Lord – YHWH – Who is the Redeemer of Israel – the Savior of the people of God – and God the Son, the Holy One – speak to the Servant Savior – Jesus – Who is despised, abhorred, and made servant of the kings of the earth. 

Don’t be confused by the Son of God speaking to the Servant Savior, Jesus.  Consider that the Son of God was not always Incarnate – God the Son incarnate in the person of Jesus two thousand years ago, but God the Son exists from all eternity, so the Word of God is coming out of all eternity – because everything happens according to God’s plan – and comes to the Servant Savior – the Incarnate God.

We enter the season of Lent this Wednesday, and we are not unaware of the horrific and abhorrent way that Jesus is treated by the Jews and the Gentiles – being accused of blasphemy and insurrection, turned over for crucifixion at the hands of vicious cowards.

And this was prophesied, was it not?

 “Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (Isaiah 53:1-3, ESV).

And Jesus is a servant – of God and of humans.  Jesus tells His disciples as He washes their feet, “Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him” (John 13:16, ESV).

And God says to the Servant:

 “’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.’”

The Servant Savior is the Chosen of God, and He accomplishes all that is set before Him for the salvation of His people – because God is faithful.  From the Garden of Eden, God promises to send the Savior Who will save the people of God – and He comes in the person of Jesus.

The result of Jesus being the Savior is that all the kings and princes – as well as everyone else – will prostrate themselves before Him.  They will give obeisance – deferential respect – to Him.  As we are told:

“Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11, ESV).

Isaiah continues, explaining that we who believe only enjoy the blessings of salvation through Jesus – Who is our Covenant – all that He receives through His salvation of His people, He did on behalf of the Church.

“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.’’

God – YHWH – says that in the time of favor – as Paul says, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6, ESV) – at the time that God planned all these things would happen, God gave His Son, the Servant Savior, to be a covenant for the people Who believe in Him.

Jesus is the agreement between God and us.  Jesus unites us with Him through His life, death, resurrection, and ascension, so we are made righteous and forgiven for our sin.  We are united with Jesus before the Father and so we can “see God and live.”

The land symbolizes all the blessing that we who believe receive through Jesus, and we are delivered from our slavery to sin through our union with Christ, which occurs by the Father’s command to “come out” and “appear.”

As Jesus says, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:44 ESV).

 With Jesus as our covenant, we are also adopted as sons and daughters:

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

            And we are eternally at peace in Him:

            “For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:14-17, ESV).

            The Servant, God Incarnate, is despised by the world and crucified.  But He is raised to eternal life, having saved all those who will ever believe in Him throughout time and space as the Eternal Covent for all those God draws to Himself in salvation – the Church.

The Servant successfully brings salvation to the world.

Second, the Servant meets the needs of His people and protects them.

Some may ungratefully look at the first section of our text and say, “Well, that is wonderful that the Servant came to earth and successfully saved all those God gave Him, but what does He do for us in the meantime?  What has He done for us lately?”

“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.”

We’re told that all the people of God will be fed throughout this life – on the barren heights – where there is no vegetation – there will be a pasture for the people of God to eat.  We will never thirst, and the wind and the sun will not overwhelm us because God has pity on us, and He will provide springs of water for us, and God will call on the earth to flatten so our way – our walk – will be easy.  God provides and protects His people in the world.

And a natural reaction to hearing this would be, “Well, that’s not true.  There are Christians who don’t have enough food or water.  There are Christians who succumb to the elements because they have no way to shelter themselves.  And I have never seen the earth change form to make life easier.”

David writes, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake” (Psalm 23:1-3, ESV).

This helps us because when the text says, “I shall not want,” it means “I shall not lack any of my needs.”  The Lord is our Servant Shepherd – the Good Shepherd – and He gives us everything we need.  Not everything we want.  There are many things we want that we don’t need – and we do get some of them, but God promises to give us what we need.  “Give us this day our daily bread” – give us what we need today to be who You would have us be for You.

What we are being told is that God is Sovereign over His Creation.  Everything is His.  He created it and sustains it.  And the Servant Shepherd gives out of all the bounty of the Father what we need for each day.  He is intimately involved with us every day and everything we have and are comes from Him – except our sin.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus tells His disciples that they ought not to be anxious for anything: “For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:32-33, ESV).

The Servant provides for all the needs of His people and protects them as the Good Shepherd.

And then we are told that the people of God – those whom God draws to the Servant for salvation – are from every people in existence:

“Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syene.”

The salvation that the Servant brings is to the world – it is to the Jews – of course – but it is also to those who are from afar – the Gentiles – from the north and west and from Syene.  (There is debate about where Syene is, but it is not Israel – it is a Gentile land.)

All those that God has drawn to Himself through the Servant will come – from Israel and the Gentile lands.  Not a single member of the elect will be lost.  Jesus has accomplished salvation for the world, and each one who is given to Jesus to be His people will come and believe savingly in Him.

As the Servant is the Covenant with His people and God draws people from all peoples of the world to salvation through Him, the Servant provides for the needs of His people and protects them.

Finally, we see that there will be world-wide rejoicing over the success of the Servant.

“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.”

As we already saw, every knee shall bow before the Servant – all those who believe will rejoice in Him.  And the entire Creation will rejoice in seeing the fulness of the Servant’s successful salvation of His people.

Paul writes: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:19-22, ESV).

All who believe have been saved by the Servant and will be saved on that final day – when we receive our resurrected bodies, and the Creation is freed from its subjection to futility.  And then there will be world-wide rejoicing.

John tells us, “Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth” (Revelation 14:1-3, ESV).

Now we sing, but then we will sing! 

As the Psalmist teaches us:

“Oh sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all the earth! Sing to the LORD, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples! For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary” (Psalm 96:1-6, ESV).

The people listening to Isaiah heard these things about seven hundred years before Jesus was born; we hear them now some two thousand years after His ascension.  They and we should be comforted in this news as we wait for His return:  The Servant has successfully saved His people, He provides for our needs, and protects us, and so we sing.

Let us pray:

Almighty God, we thank You for choosing to save us through Your Son, the Incarnate Servant.  We thank You for the comforting news that no matter how things may seem on earth, we are saved, our needs are provided for, and we have reason to praise You in song.  Help us to show our joy in You to the world that You would be glorified as You draw Your people to Yourself.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.