Isaiah 49:5-7 | "Celebrating Salvation"

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Good morning and welcome to this first Sunday of 2020.

I bring greetings to you from our sister church across the world, Olomotz Baptist Church.

In Olomotz, Czech Republic, I send them greetings, and Peter sends greetings to you on behalf of all of the brothers and sisters in the Czech Republic.

Well, this morning I would like to direct your attention for a few moments to Isaiah chapter 49.

Isaiah 49 · chapter mention

Isaiah chapter 49.

Isaiah 49 · chapter mention

I say for a few minutes, and that is going to genuinely be my desire, but I don't know how accurate it will be.

The more I think and pray and rest in this passage of Scripture, the more there is to bring out and to say.

So I'm going to do my best to keep it to a minimum because we have some baptisms to celebrate.

But this morning we are celebrating together salvation.

Celebrating salvation from Isaiah chapter 49.

Isaiah 49 · chapter mention

And we are able to do that and accomplish three things at the same time.

My goal this morning is to sum up the importance of Christmas, of the fullness of Christ, to serve as a beginning for our new year, but also to lead us into celebrating salvation through baptism.

And I'd like to direct your attention to Isaiah 49, three verses.

Verses 5, 6, and 7.

If you have a Bible or a device, I encourage you to make your way there.

Isaiah records in verse 5 of Isaiah 49, and now Yahweh says, He who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, so that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the eyes of Yahweh, 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, so that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

For 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 Yahweh who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you.

Amen.

At this point in time, things are not good.

At least internally.

On the outside, things things were like 2019.

Thriving.

Markets were good.

People were healthy.

Nations were thriving.

But on the inside, they were dead.

The nations of Israel and Judah were thriving, but true worship of God was failing.

And so as a result, God is going to judge their sin through the invasion of foreign armies and the destruction of war.

In fact, if you flip back just a page or so to the beginning of chapter 48, you will see how God Himself describes the inward spiritual circumstances of the people.

He says in verse 1 of chapter 48, Hear this, O house of Jacob, you who are called by the name of Israel and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of Yahweh and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right.

On the outside things are wonderful, but on the inside things are rotten.

God's people are faithless hypocrites, people who had a verbal claim to trust in their God, but who had no authentic, genuine relationship with him.

Their actions, God says in this passage of Scripture, betray the real status of their hearts.

They're not walking in obedience to him.

Their allegiance to the God of Israel is only in word.

So the people to whom Isaiah addressed the hopeful promise of Isaiah 49, of this servant, were rebellious.

They were hypocritical.

They were unfaithful.

They were an unredeemed group of people about to experience God's wrath.

And that's an important element for us to remember.

Most who come to Faith Evangelical Free Church, maybe even many who watch online, come as faithful people who have trusted in Christ alone.

But we need to remember that we all were at one point rebellious.

We were all at one point hypocritical, unfaithful, and unredeemed.

Maybe, maybe that's your spiritual state still.

It could be that even here on the first Sunday of 2021, there is someone here like these people to whom Isaiah wrote these words, someone making a verbal claim of a connection to God, but who still is at heart unchanged by the Spirit of God.

And that's a terrifying and dangerous place to be, my friend.

Because God must judge those who have been called by his name.

He says, if you claim my name, if you're one of my people, at least in word who confess me, but don't do it in truth or in right, it's simply a matter of time until God acts against your sin.

But there's another aspect to our context in chapter 49.

And that begins even further back in Isaiah, in Isaiah 42.

In Isaiah 42, you might be familiar with what is called the servant songs.

Beginning in Isaiah 42, there's this person, sort of vague, beginning at first, but growing in complexity and growing in clarity.

Beginning in chapter 42, God first speaks through Isaiah about this mysterious person whom he calls his servant.

He says, Behold, my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights.

I have put my spirit in him.

He will bring forth justice to the nations, he will not cry aloud or lift up his voice.

He will make it heard in the street, a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench.

He will faithfully bring forth justice.

He will not grow faint or be discouraged until he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands wait for his law.

Thus says God, Yahweh, 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 Yahweh, 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 Yahweh, that is my name, my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols.

Notice that God is commanding glory.

He's saying to his world that he has created, that he has stretched out, that he has set and established in the heavens.

He's saying, I am orchestrating all things to bring me glory, even that awful year of 2020.

All things for my glory.

But specifically, he says there's going to be a person, a servant who's going to come to bring me glory, this person who would be a light for the nations, a light in the midst of a dark world.

Now we are most familiar in our Christian settings with this servant from Isaiah 53.

We are generally unfamiliar with Isaiah 42 and 49, but we are familiar with Isaiah 53, a section that details the inconceivable suffering that this servant would endure.

And we know that that's fulfilled in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In fact, Jesus himself quotes some of these servant's songs, identifying himself with the promised servant.

And so back in chapter 49, this promised servant is given a voice.

What we see beginning in verse 6 is this servant speaking the words that God has spoken to him.

And so in verse 5, the servant begins to inform us about himself.

Yahweh says, He who formed me from the womb to be his servant.

Now we approach this passage understanding that this is spoken prophetically about the Lord Jesus Christ.

When we put this in the scope of all of redemptive history, God is working to bring light to the darkness through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Matthew made that perfectly clear to us in the first two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew.

But what we're reminded of here is that God is stepping into earth history.

Maybe a better term is he's invading it.

God has been deemed to be separate, to be apart, so much so that his own people are going through time as if God is non-existent, doing whatever they want to do, acting however they want to act, believing whatever they want to believe, going forward as though God is non-existent.

And God reminds them I am going to invade time.

Reminds us that the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ would not have occurred without the direct work of God.

Notice what the servant says.

Yahweh formed me from the womb to be his servant.

Should be no surprise then when Mary hears from the angel that the power of the Most High God will overshadow you.

So that the one in your womb will be called Emmanuel.

God with us.

But there's some implications here, my friends.

Isaiah's people are going on as though time just keeps going.

It's just one year after another after another.

It's one month after another.

It's one day after another.

The calendar keeps going.

I just took down my 2020 calendar and put up my 2021 calendar.

And we do that as if it's a very normal thing that everybody does.

Time marches on with no change, and God says, Oh, there's going to be change.

I'm going to invade time because you need me to invade time.

See, there's an implicit statement here that a need exists for God to send his son.

A need exists.

And that need is that we desperately need God to step into time.

See, we have to come to grips with the fact that our sin alienates us, it separates us from God.

That's what Isaiah is writing about from the very first verse in his book.

He's saying in the very first chapter, listen, animals know their master's place.

Animals know the place that their owners have established for them to live in and to rest, but my people don't know me.

They just keep on going as if nothing matters.

But sin creates a vast gulf between man and God.

When God told Adam and Eve that they would die, he could have left them without sacrifice, he could have left them without covering for their shame.

He could have left them without atonement.

But instead, God was gracious and he kicked them out of the garden.

Had he not done that, they would have eaten of the tree of life and lived forever in their sin.

So removal from Eden and even death itself was at the same time an act of grace and an act of judgment.

But God was not required to do that.

He could have left Adam and Eve to be eternally rotten in their sin.

And we're no different.

If God had done nothing, then we are still dead in our sins.

If God had not invaded time, if God had not established that first Christmas, we would still be dead in our sins because the wages of our sin is death.

We've exchanged the glory of the Creator in order to worship our creation.

By our very nature, we are enemies of God.

And God is not duty bound to do anything for us in our sin.

There's no goodness in us to compel God to act on our behalf.

Some of us are more beautiful than others.

That's a gift of God.

But there's no beauty in any of us to draw Him towards us.

There's nothing that we can do to compel him to be gracious to us.

God is under no obligation to forgive our sin.

But in our arrogance and in our pride, we enjoy thinking highly of ourselves, so highly, in fact, that sometimes we think that God must be obliged to forgive us of our sin.

We live in a world in which the individual, the self, has become so enthralled with itself that we think that God somehow must be constrained to love us.

But God is under no obligation to be gracious.

In fact, the only obligation he's under is to judge sin with complete justice.

His holy character demands that sin be judged.

He could have simply let sin take its course and let Adam and Eve rot forever, constrained to eternal death and judgment, passing that on to all of the children of Eve.

And some are saying, yes, Pastor, but God loves the world.

We heard it in Mark's prayer a few minutes ago.

Yes, God does love the world.

Let's not forget John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he sent his son.

But why did God send his son?

Let's remember the same author, the apostle John, wrote in 1 John.

And this is love.

Not that we loved him, but that he first loved us and what?

Sent his son to be the propitiation, the satisfaction for our sins.

God's love is seen when God righteously judges.

We have to be careful not to let one or two aspects of God's character overshadow others.

And what Isaiah is laying out for his people here is that God says, listen, your sin has separated you from me so much so that you require rescue.

And you can't rescue yourself, so I'm invading time to do it.

That leads us then to God's intention within time.

To bring Jacob back to him.

Is that not rescue?

I I love one of the mistranslations of the most beloved Psalm.

Psalm 23, the end of that psalm, it says that surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

We've been conditioned to accept that translation, but it's a mistranslation.

A better term is pursue.

Surely goodness and mercy shall pursue me.

Or if we want to put it in kind of a more common language vernacular, it'd be more like surely goodness and mercy shall chase me down.

To bring back Jacob to him.

God says, I'm going to invade time.

And here's my intention.

My intention is to bring my people back to me.

I'm going to chase them down.

Yeah, you can run fast.

You can run hard, fleeing away from the goodness and the mercy of God.

But if he is intent on chasing you down, good luck with that.

Note that verse 6 qualifies it.

It says that God's going to bring Jacob back to him, that Israel might be gathered to him.

But it says in verse 6 to bring back the preserved of Israel.

See, the servant's precise purpose would be to draw back to God a particular group of people.

He's not referring to the entire nation, but those who have been preserved by God.

It's an important element to consider, and you can look throughout scripture to see this.

It's why the Apostle Paul said in Romans 10, verse 1, that his heart's desire and his heart's prayer was that Israel might be saved.

Romans 10:1

But he goes on in Romans chapter 11 to give an illustration of the prophet Elisha's time.

Romans 11 · chapter mention

Sorry, Elijah, not Elisha.

He said, in Elijah's time, Elijah ran away and hid because he thought this is not good.

This is pointless.

This is worthless.

He said, God, I'm all alone.

I'm the last one.

There's nobody else who loves you.

And God said, Elijah, let me tell you something.

I have 7,000 more people.

There's a remnant, in other words.

God always has a remnant among his people.

So these are the preserved of Israel.

God says, I have preserved people, and I'm sending my servant to bring those preserved back to him.

The reason for that is God specifically sends his son to bring his preserved people back to him.

But there's a problem when we get to the Gospel of John in chapter one.

When the servant comes, says his own people did not receive him.

Imagine that.

Imagine going home for Christmas and the door's locked.

Imagine going home to your family for New Year's celebration and you knock on the door and the door opens up and then the door shuts right in your face.

Remember that when the angel told Mary in Matthew chapter 1, you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

God had a very specific intention to save those that he had preserved.

His primary intention was to come and to save the preserved people of Israel.

And he began his work with them, and he continues it today.

We would do well to incorporate that truth into.

Some of our spiritual lives, praying that God would continue to open up the eyes of the Jewish people that he has preserved for himself.

But God didn't stop there, did he?

He doesn't say that it's enough to send his servant to bring back the preserved of Israel.

No, he says that's too small of a thing.

Notice that.

Sorry, I lost my place.

It is too light of a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribe of Jacob.

So God said, I'm going to bring back my preserved among the people of Israel.

I'm going to do that.

I'm going to send my servant to do that.

That's going to be his job.

That's his intention.

But that's too small of a thing.

So there's going to be more to this.

There's going to be an illumination within time.

To be a light for the nations.

You see, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ had a greater purpose as well, and that is to bring light to all of creation that's been mired in the darkness of sin.

Isaiah chapter 9 is a passage you might be familiar with at Christmas time.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

Speaking of those areas of Palestine that were the first to experience the enemy invasion of God's judgment, God said, The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

Those who dwelt in the land of deep darkness, on them a light has shined.

Now, in that context, in Isaiah chapter 9, God was speaking specifically about those areas of northern Palestine, northern Israel, that were first destroyed by Assyrian armies.

Isaiah 9 · chapter mention

The tribal territories of the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali and Galilee.

That was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ when he began his ministry in those very areas.

Listen to what Matthew wrote.

Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee.

And leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that was spoken of the prophet might be fulfilled.

The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light.

Now, the light that we're talking about here in Isaiah 49 is not directed towards Israel.

Notice what he says.

It's too light a thing, it's too small of a thing to just go to the tribes of Israel and bring back the preserved.

I will make you as a light for the nations.

Then when we read that nations, that's a highlight for us, it's a Hebrew way of saying, not Jewish.

In other words, they're the nations of the world, not named Israel, and not named Judah.

God's greater or God's larger intent is that his salvation would extend across the globe through his servant.

That's why John the Baptist would look at Jesus and point at him and say, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Now notice what God Himself says about this work of Jesus.

The work of bringing back the preserved of Israel.

It is too small of a thing for my servant to raise up, to bring back the preserved.

I'm going to go further than that and I'm going to make a light for the nations.

Notice what's taking place here.

God's under no obligation to save Adam and Eve.

But he did.

God was under no obligation to rescue the human race, but he promised Eve that one of her descendants would crush the serpent.

God was under no compulsion, once he chose Abraham, to work with any other people group besides the people of Israel.

But he graciously determined that his salvation would reach even beyond those boundaries.

Why?

So that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.

At least in part, saving the preserved of Israel is too small of an act.

Instead, God wants to go, so we might say today, he wants to go all out and extend his saving work so that the majesty of his name would be proclaimed over the entire world.

God wanted us to see the greatness of his power, to save, to glorify his name, and so he would send his son, he would send his servant to be born into the human race in the fullness of time and so bring light to dispel the darkness.

What a great way to begin a new year.

To be reminded that God sent his son so that whatever darkness might lie in 2020.

God wants you to see the light of his son.

And not just to see the light of his son, but to be a part of that light being seen globally.

Finally, one more point.

God's inexplicable work within time.

Thus says Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers.

But then it switches course.

Kings shall see and arise.

What king stands up in honor of a servant?

Isn't it the other way around?

Servants stand in the presence of a king.

Here's a servant deeply despised, no, abhorred.

And yet kings will see him and arise, princes and they will prostrate themselves.

See, the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ would bring about two extremes for God's people, for God's servant.

He would be abhorred on the one hand, and he would be exalted on the other hand.

You know, we celebrate the passages like Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6 at Christmas time.

Isaiah 9:6

The name's prophetically given to God's servant, a picture of his majesty, of his grandeur, of his greatness, even of his identity.

He is a wonder of a counselor, he is the mighty God, he is the everlasting father, he is the prince of peace.

Isaiah and all of his people looked for that greatness to arrive on the scene of history to save the day.

We don't need to worry about those invading armies.

God's gonna send us the rescuer, the son of David who would reign and lead in glory from David's throne.

And so I can imagine that Isaiah was sort of brought up short from this declaration from God about this rescuer, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation.

God promised that his servant would be abhorred by his own nation.

And I'm sure that that must have flabbergasted Isaiah.

What?

How could God's people abhor the one they looked for?

How is that possible?

And then we arrive at chapter 52 and chapter 53, where Isaiah is told that God's servant would be astonishing to the people, astonishing in all the wrong ways.

His appearance would be marred beyond human semblance.

His physical form would be so so beaten that it would look alien.

He would not be beautiful or handsome, but very normal.

He would be despised and rejected.

A man thoroughly acquainted with sorrow.

He would be oppressed and afflicted.

God's promised servant would be abhorred by people.

So much so that when they looked at God's promised servant, people would think that he was under the judgment of God himself.

But in reality, he would be led as a sheep to the slaughter because God would crush that servant.

Not for his own sins, but so that we might experience the saving power of God.

Because it's by the stripes given to God's servant that we are healed.

Because God's son, the servant, experienced the wrath of God against sin because he was abhorred.

Those who come to him no longer face the wrath of God.

You see, there's not an end in the middle of verse 7.

It doesn't end with one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers.

It doesn't stop there.

There is continued exaltation because the tomb is empty.

And everyone who trusts in this servant will never be ashamed.

Instead, they're going to be commanded to identify themselves joyfully with this abhorred servant.

They're going to be commanded to put their trust in the one deeply despised.

They're going to be commanded to identify themselves with his triumph by dying, being buried, and raised again through baptism.

And one day, God promised Isaiah.

One day kings are going to see and arise.

Princes will see and prostrate themselves because of Yahweh, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel.

That sounds an awful lot like the New Testament passage in Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

A passage that talks about the Lord Jesus Christ taking on the form of a slave in order to die a death of a slave.

Even death on a cross.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus everything and everyone might bow.

That, my friends, is the culmination of Isaiah 49.

That's the culmination of our salvation.

When every tongue confesses, either by choice or compulsion, and so gives glory to God.

God's work in sending his son will be complete.

His work in invading time to rescue his people will be complete.

So Christmas is all about salvation.

It's about God desiring to show the greatness of his power so that we might bring him glory by praising him for his power and his grace.

And our new year ought to be given to proclaiming that light in the midst of darkness, that same power, that same grace, extending that light in the darkness.

And we proclaim, we proclaim this by continuing the work of God of identifying ourselves with this abhorred servant.

Yes, right now we join him being abhorred and despised.

We join him in his death and his burial and his resurrection.

And one day we will join him in his exaltation.

We have an opportunity to declare that in this new year.

And as a church, as a gathering of people brought together by this grace in which we stand, we begin this year by celebrating that work of God with five individuals who desire to publicly identify themselves with this servant King.

Would you bow in prayer as we praise him in that way?

Lord Jesus.

We give you thanks that you are the one who is.

The one who was and who is to come.

We give you thanks that you are the one, the living one who was dead and is alive.

You are the one deeply abhorred who will come in the glories of heaven with us by your side.

Lord Jesus, we recognize it's only by your grace, that gift of faith that you give to us, that we can be trusting in you this very moment.

Thank you that you hold us fast, and thank you for the profession of faith that these individuals will display in a moment by identifying themselves in water with your death, burial, and resurrection.

Identifying themselves with the abhorred servant who one day will command the praise of everyone and everything.

May we, together corporately, give you honor and praise and glory today.

Celebrate your work of salvation, your work of granting us grace and mercy, your work of chasing us down to be your own.

May everything that we say and do, and even who we are, bring glory and honor to your grace.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

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