The Servant of the Lord (Afternoon)
Download MP3Well, good evening. And for those of you who don't know me, my name is Josh Howsin, and I am the executive pastor here at Redeemer. And I'm really grateful for the opportunity to be with you guys tonight as we look at Isaiah chapter 49. Now as you're turning to this passage in your Bible, it can also be found in your worship guide. I need to get something off my chest.
Josh Hausen:This is something I've been wrestling with this week and I figured what better place than around about couple 100 of my closest friends that should talk this through with y'all. But here it is, parenting during the first week back to school is brutal. Now it's true parenting is a difficult task all the time and I wouldn't just say I knock it out of the park all the time but this week man it's been tough. For the parents in the room have any of you been stressed out this week? Yeah I have.
Josh Hausen:What about this? You might not wanna admit this out loud but have any of you raised your voices? I have for sure. Well, why is it that it's so difficult to parent during the first week back to school? Well for our family I think it's mostly that we've had no semblance of a routine for over three months now.
Josh Hausen:And when I say to my kids it's time to go to bed, I wanna say we've got to wake up early, I wanna say just simply Benjamin you've got to put on a shirt, It's been met with grumbling. And since my kids, I told Elliot I was gonna say this, are really, really great. I'm not gonna throw them under the bus right now because honestly, I've been dealing with this transition as well. I've had to get back to some normal routines this week. However, I will say that there have definitely been a few difficult times parenting this week where I've been frustrated with how things have gone and I've responded.
Josh Hausen:And the way I've responded is I've tried to grasp for control. And when I say grasp for control, you can actually interpret it as this, I get mad and I raise my voice. It it's not really a great look but that that's how I respond a lot of the time. You see at every turn this week it has seemed like someone wasn't listening to what I had to say. It's in these moments that I have a pretty common response.
Josh Hausen:I typically get louder and I say things like, did you not hear me? What part of what I just said did you not understand? And this can continue to escalate until I finally send the kids out of the house and I say, I'm gonna do it myself. That way I know it'll get done right. Now I know it's probably surprising but this is somewhat of a picture of what we see in our passage tonight.
Josh Hausen:If you remember from the sermon last week in chapter 48, God is fed up with the disobedience of his people. They've sinned. They've fallen away time and time again. So much so that in chapter 48 he calls them obstinate. He calls them idol worshipers.
Josh Hausen:And in verse eight of chapter 48 he tells the people of Israel, you have never heard, you have never known. From of old your ear has not been opened. Basically in chapter 48 we see that God's patience is beginning to run out. He's clearly told them how to live and how to follow him. He's given them promises, he's given them covenants but they seem to not be listening to the things he has to say to them.
Josh Hausen:In fact throughout chapter 48 he says why aren't you listening? Why can't you hear what I've been saying? Why are you being so disobedient? This sounds a lot like my parenting this week. And this is where our passage begins tonight.
Josh Hausen:In chapter 49, our chapter for tonight it begins with the call to listen. He's saying you haven't listened up to this point but now is the time because I'm about to tell you something that will change the course of human history forever. Something that one of my professors from Beeson doctor Gillette calls a fault line in salvation history. For it's in chapter 49 that we are gonna see how God plans to save his people and we are gonna see that his plan for salvation is so much bigger than we could have ever imagined. And it's with this in mind that I wanna invite you to look with me at chapter 49 as we read it together.
Josh Hausen:Hear these words for these are the words of the Lord. It says 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 and the shadow of his hand he hid me. He made me a polished arrow and his quiver he hid me away.
Josh Hausen:He said to me, you are my servant Israel in whom I will be glorified. But I said I have labored in vain and I have spent my strength for nothing in 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 a servant to bring Jacob back to him and the 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.
Josh Hausen:I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends 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.
Josh Hausen: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 and 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 highway shall be raised up. Behold these shall come from afar and behold these from the North and from the West and from the land of Syene.
Josh Hausen:Sing of joy, O heavens, and exalt, O earth. Break forth, O mountains, into singing for the Lord has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Josh Hausen:Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palm of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. This is the word of the Lord. Please pray with me.
Josh Hausen:Heavenly father, I pray that you would open up our hearts tonight through your spirit so that we might hear and understand your words of salvation and deliverance. We pray that you would help us to see Jesus more clearly and that our time together would lead us to worship. I pray that anything that is of me would be forgotten but that your words would remain and would change us. We pray this in the name of Jesus, Amen. Now as I just mentioned throughout chapter 48 God has spoken directly to his people, to Israel and on six different occasions in that chapter he has called his people to listen or to hear.
Josh Hausen:He said I want to announce new things to you and I need your attention and tonight I hope we will see clearly together those new things that God is declaring to his people. One of the most important instances of this is in Isaiah forty eight sixteen which is in your worship guides. It says this, it says draw near to me and hear this. From the beginning I have not spoken in secret. From the time it came to be I have been there and now the Lord God has sent me in his spirit.
Josh Hausen:In this first line of this verse God actually says to the people draw near to me. He is about to make a huge announcement and he wants their attention. He wants them to lean in close and finally listen to what he has been trying to tell them. And I wanna be clear right now, this is actually a call for us as well. God wants each of us to lean in tonight.
Josh Hausen:He wants our attention. We need to hear this announcement just as much as they did. And this is one of the most fascinating things about prophecy in our bible. It definitely has a meaning for people in the time and place that it was received but it also has a meaning that will only be understood over time. And this is true about our passage today.
Josh Hausen:It is meant as an announcement for the people of Israel but it is also an announcement for each of us as well. So in light of that let's look at Isaiah 49 to hear this announcement. We're gonna begin in verse one. Verse one says, listen to me, o coastlands, and give attention you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb and from the body of my mother he named my name.
Josh Hausen:This first verse gives two of the new things that God wants to reveal to his people. Two of the reasons that God's plan for salvation hangs upon the content of this message. First we see that the audience for God's message has grown. Instead of singling out Israel as he has done up to this point in Isaiah, Isaiah 49 declares listen to me o coastlands, give attention people from afar. This is a foreshadowing of the things to come in our passage but we see from the outset that God's message is no longer just for Israel.
Josh Hausen:He's now inviting people from near and from far. He's expanding the scope of his message and in this first verse he is calling for people from every nation and every time to join the people of Israel and listening to the message that he is about to declare. The second new thing that we learn in the first verse of this passage is about God's servant. Now this is not the first time that we hear about God's servant in Isaiah. In fact Conor introduced us to the servant when he preached on Isaiah 42 a few weeks ago.
Josh Hausen:But in this passage we do learn some new things about this servant because as he typically does through prophecy in the Old Testament God is gradually revealing his plans. And Isaiah 49 is no different. In our passage today God is continuing to reveal more about the one that he will use to save his people. So what do we learn about this servant in Isaiah forty nine? First we read in verse one that the servant of the Lord was called from the womb.
Josh Hausen:He'd been chosen before he was born. In fact this servant had been chosen and prepared by God before time. But he wasn't just chosen ahead of time, he was actually named. Verse one says, the Lord called me from the womb. From the body of my mother he named my name.
Josh Hausen:This is a personal connection between God and this servant and in fact this is actually more of a familial connection that we're seeing here. Because if you think about it who gets to name a child? It's the parent of that child. Now we have a lot of baby dedications around here at Redeemer. I think we probably dedicated around a 100 babies over the past year, and so you've probably seen that take place.
Josh Hausen:And one of my favorite things to to hear during dedications is to hear the names of the children being dedicated. One of the reasons is because with that many children you're bound to hear a pretty interesting name that you might not have heard before, but even more than that I love it when a family slows down to tell the story or the reason behind why they named that child that name. Because each parent has spent a lot of time planning and thinking about what they would call their child. It's a high honor, but it's also a high responsibility to name a child. And in this passage we learned that God will be the one to name this child.
Josh Hausen:And it certainly sounds in this passage like God is acting like a father to this child. These are the new developments we're already seeing in verse one that we've learned about the servant. First we've learned that he will be chosen by God from birth and second that God will be the one to give him his name. But that's not all that we get about this servant's identity in the first few verses of this passage. In fact, in verse three, we get one clue to the identity of this servant.
Josh Hausen:It says, you are my servant Israel in whom I will be glorified. In this verse it appears that the servant of the Lord is actually the people of Israel. But if this is true this isn't actually a very new message, is it? Because God has been calling his people to be a light to the nations for generations at this point. In fact this is why he was so frustrated with them in chapter 48 is because they weren't living into the calling that he had set before them to bring glory to his name.
Josh Hausen:So at this point, we're a little confused and we need to keep moving in the passage to better understand what's so new about this announcement and who this servant is. So look with me at verse five. Verse five says, 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. I don't know if you heard that. This this verse says that God formed a servant from the womb so that Israel might be gathered back to him.
Josh Hausen:This presents a challenge for our understanding tonight because on one hand the servant is called Israel and on the other hand he's been given a mission to save Israel. Something seems off here. But before we we attempt to arrive at this this final answer of the the identity of this servant, Let's look at one more responsibility that God has placed upon the servant in Isaiah 49. Look with me at verse six. Verse six 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.
Josh Hausen:I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. It's in this verse that we get one of the most important statements in all of scripture. We read that God will use his servant as a light for the nations so that his salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. This is huge. God's salvation which he will bring about through his servant is no longer just for the people of Israel.
Josh Hausen:In fact, it will go out so much further. Instead, the servant of the Lord will be used as a light for the nations and for all people to all the ends of the earth. And as we learned last week, God is in the business of ensuring that his name will be glorified. He will do what it takes to make sure that people throughout the world are given a chance to see and experience his glory. We read in 48 in verse 11, God said, for my own sake he says it again, for my own sake I do it for how should my name be profaned?
Josh Hausen:My glory will I will not give to another. And this is why verse six in chapter 49 says it is too small a thing for the servant to only save Israel. Instead he is going to do something so much greater. He is going to save people from every people group and every nation. He's going to make the offer of his salvation so much broader than they could have ever imagined and God is going to do it through His servant for His name's sake.
Josh Hausen:This is a monumental task for the servant. We have to ask the question how could any one person accomplish all of this? And this is why we need to answer the question, who is this servant? At this point the text is actually just begging us to answer it. We must identify the one from Israel who will save his people, the one who will be named by God before birth, the one who will usher in the day of salvation.
Josh Hausen:And this is where I will actually quote doctor Gillette one more time. He says that this passage lunges towards Jesus. The only one who could ever fit this description and the only one who could ever accomplish all that is contained in this passage is Jesus Christ the son of God. Now typically as I am preparing a sermon I spend a lot of times asking myself the question, how does the passage I'm preaching on point people towards Jesus? But that wasn't a problem this week because this passage just kept leaping towards him.
Josh Hausen:In almost every verse up to this point, in these first six verses we have seen God revealing truth about his servant. In almost every single one of these instances they connect with truth that we see about Jesus in the New Testament. I'd love to point out just a few of these instances so you can see what I mean. First we saw in verse one that this servant would be chosen and named by God before he was born. This sounds a lot like Luke chapter one when the angel says to Mary, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and he shall be called Jesus.
Josh Hausen:He will be great and will be called the son of the most high. In Isaiah forty nine six from today it says, I will make you a light for the nations and and that that word nations can actually also be interpreted as Gentiles. So I will make you as a light for the Gentiles that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth. This sounds a lot like what Simeon says in Luke chapter two after seeing Jesus. He says, my eyes have seen your salvation that you've prepared in the presence of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to the people of Israel.
Josh Hausen:And one more, listen to what Jesus says about himself in John chapter eight. He says, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life. I hope you can see that this passage is not talking about some abstract figure. It's not talking about a people group.
Josh Hausen:It's not talking about something that could be accomplished by a mere mortal. Instead this passage is revealing something new. It is saying that God will send his son into the world to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. This sounds a lot like the the really well known passage from John three sixteen which says for God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.
Josh Hausen:You see this servant will be one from Israel and this servant will save Israel but not only Israel he will be a light of salvation to all the ends of the earth. You see this is the connection with Isaiah 48 because in chapter 48 God says that he will not give his glory to another. In Isaiah 49 we see how he will make sure that that is true. He will send his son into the world to live a perfect life and to ultimately be obedient in a way that Israel never could be to the point of death where he will once and for all save and redeem his people. This is the good news that is prophesied tonight in Isaiah 49 and this is the great news of the gospel.
Josh Hausen:And it's at this point that we need to return to our passage and just see how are we to respond to this great news that we've just heard. So if you would look with me at verses eight through 13. Hear this response it says, 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, and to those who are in darkness, appear.
Josh Hausen:They shall feed along the ways and on the 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 highway shall be raised up. Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold these from the North and from the West and from these from the land of Cyrene.
Josh Hausen:Sing for joy, O heavens, and exalt, O earth. Break forth, O mountains, into singing for the Lord has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted. This is how we are to respond to this news. It's a song of celebration. Look at all that God will do.
Josh Hausen:God is going to usher in a day of salvation. God is going to remember his covenant. These verses say that people will no longer be thirsty and no one will be hungry and all people will be brought to God's holy city to worship him. They will come from the North and from the South. They will come from the East and from the West.
Josh Hausen:This is what this servant will accomplish and this is what the day of salvation will look like and all of the people will respond in worship. In verse 13 we even see that the heavens and the mountains are singing songs of praise to the Lord for he has comforted his people and has shown compassion on his children. What a beautiful scene that is in those verses. This sounds a lot like the book of Revelation that describes a day that is coming when God will dwell with his people and people from every nation and all tribes and all languages will congregate before the throne and worship him. And there will be no more tears for God will wipe them away.
Josh Hausen:Oh, what a scene we're getting here. And as we get to this point in our passage, I bet you can guess the response of the people of Israel. I bet you're guessing that there will be mass hysteria in Israel and that they are so excited. They've spent years under the rules of other nations and many of them are still in exile in Babylon and all they've wanted for years is deliverance. And God is finally saying that day of salvation is coming.
Josh Hausen:What a wonderful scene. I imagine parades and dancing in the streets. So let's look at verse 14 to see how the people of Israel respond. Verse 14, but Zion said the Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me. I'll be honest that's not the reaction I was expecting from them.
Josh Hausen:In verse 13 we have the mountain singing songs of praise for the deliverance of God's people and in verse 14 God's people are saying, why have you forgotten us? Those reactions honestly couldn't be more opposite than what I expected. Why in the world is this the reaction of the people of Israel? Well before I answer this I want to turn the attention towards you and towards me for a moment. Have you ever been in a situation where what you felt and what people expected you to feel were on completely opposite sides of the spectrum.
Josh Hausen:Try to think of a time when everyone expected you to receive some news with excitement, but all you could feel was discouragement. I actually know that I've felt that way before. For me probably one of the best examples of this was in the early days of telling people about our surprise pregnancy with triplets. I know this is old news by now but man those were crazy days. I I remember the moment that I told so many of y'all in this room that news.
Josh Hausen:It was shocking. And so so many of you met us with love and support and encouragement. I can't even begin to tell you about all the ways that our church family rallied around us and made us feel so seen and loved and cared for. And even with all of this, it was one of the darker moments of my life. I had to come to grips with this new reality.
Josh Hausen:I had to come to grips with the fact that my life would look different than I had ever expected and I had to do my best to accept this new reality. And I remember those days vividly because I was in sort of a shock. I was in a stupor, y'all probably remember it, but my world was upside down. And it was in those moments that a few well intending friends came to offer me a word of encouragement. I remember hearing things like think about how much fun you're gonna have when you have a huge family sitting around the dinner table together.
Josh Hausen:Think about what it will be like to have two boys and two girls. Your house is gonna be so full of energy and joy. Now seven years later I can finally come up for breath and say, you know what? They were right. Those things are true and I'm experiencing them now.
Josh Hausen:But do you wanna know what I thought in that moment when those things were said to me? I thought what in the world do you know? Your words of encouragement don't seem to align with my current reality at all. All I feel is fear and anxiety and worry over what my future will hold. How are we gonna make it through the next few months, let alone the next few years?
Josh Hausen:The reality you are describing is so far away I can't even imagine finding peace or consolation, let alone excitement. You see my head was so caught up in my current situation that I couldn't even begin to look ahead at how the Lord might use it for my good. Have you ever felt that way? Maybe you're sitting in this room tonight feeling the way I felt in that moment. You're hearing all of these nice things I'm saying about Jesus.
Josh Hausen:You know they're supposed to be encouraging and you know that they're supposed to instill hope, but right now all you feel is forgotten. Do any of you feel that way? Well I'll tell you the people of Israel did. Sure they heard these words of prophecy from Isaiah and they knew they were supposed to celebrate but in that moment all they felt was forgotten. You see for so many of these people receiving this message they were actually living in exile in Babylon and they saw no end in sight to that exile.
Josh Hausen:They were living in a land that was not their own and they could not even begin to imagine a day that resembled the one that was described in this passage. They were hearing about a day of salvation when all people would flock to Jerusalem and worship God, but when they looked around, all they saw was their own captivity in a foreign land. And in that moment they answered honestly and they said, why has the Lord forsaken us? And you know what? I appreciate their honesty because I can often identify with exactly how they felt.
Josh Hausen:So in this moment, I'm pretty interested in seeing how God responds because in chapter 48, I'll be honest, He was calling them out. And I'm standing here wondering was that the final straw? I'm pretty sure at this point He's gonna go off on them. And then when I dig down deep in my own reality, I feel like He's gonna go off on me when I say the same kind of things. So it's with trepidation that I want us to look at verse 15.
Josh Hausen:Look at this verse. It says, can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget yet I will not forget you. At this point in the passage I honestly feel like I've been on a little bit of a roller coaster. In chapter 48 God was condemning his people for their disobedience but now they're receiving words of assurance and comfort.
Josh Hausen:That's not really how I thought this would play out but boy does it feel like real life. Like I just said, I often feel like the people of Israel. I feel surrounded by truth about God believing it in my head, even maybe encouraged by the promises, but honestly sitting in my own sin and my own doubt hoping that God won't be mad at me. And it's in real moments just like that That God listens and he says, oh my child, how could I ever forget you? I know how you feel but it couldn't be further from the truth.
Josh Hausen:And he goes as far as to say that even a nursing mother can forget her child but I will never forget you. God is saying that it is more likely for a nursing mother to forget her child than it is for God to forget any one of you. Now having had four children and having seen the way that my wonderful and amazing wife did a great job loving and caring for those little babies. I think I have a little bit of an idea of what he's saying. He's saying that there is almost no way that a nursing mother could ever forget her child.
Josh Hausen:That child is utterly dependent on her and she has the physical responsibility of making sure that that baby is fed. When it cries she has to be there. When that baby is hungry she is there. And it seems like for six to twelve months that mother's full time job is to take care of that baby. And God is saying it is more likely for that mother to forget her child than it is for me to forget you.
Josh Hausen:What an image he gives us here. Now I personally got a fuller and deeper understanding of these verses last year when I had the opportunity to go to Peru with my dear friends Allison and Tyler Fuquay and to see the ministry of Not Forgotten that we partner with. It was such a wonderful trip because I got to see the amazing ministry that they do there for boys who have been orphaned in the town of Aquitos. They've created a boys home that cares for children from their childhood all the way up to their adulthood And I got such a wonderful picture of the comfort and assurance presented in these verses. You see those boys can relate to the people of Israel.
Josh Hausen:They came from situations where they were forgotten and abandoned and they were forced to live in a place that was not their home. But God through this ministry has reminded these boys that they are not forgotten, that they are loved and valuable, and that God has a story of redemption in their future. And this is what God wants you to hear today. Even if you feel abandoned, even if you feel forgotten, no matter what your life looks like at this present moment you are not forgotten declares the Lord. Even a nursing mother might forget her children, but I will never forget you.
Josh Hausen:This is a promise you need to hear and receive tonight. And my hope for you is that you will feel its truth deep down into your bones. My hope is that as we read this passage you will feel safe to bring these thoughts and these feelings and these emotions before the Lord to say where are you God? I need you. Have you forgotten me?
Josh Hausen:And as you do that I hope this text points you to the truth that you can never be forgotten by our God. This leaves one question left to be answered. How do we know this? What is our confidence that this is true? And this is found in the final verse of our passage in verse 16.
Josh Hausen:Listen to these words. It says, behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. This is our hope as we look back to the servant. Our hope is that God will not forget us because he has written our names on the palms of his servant's hands. Listen to these words from Paul from Philippians chapter two because I think this really brings it all together.
Josh Hausen:It says have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus who though he was in the form of God did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so 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. This is how we know he will not forget us. Jesus Christ, the son of God came into the world as a servant. He humbled himself to take on the form of humanity and to accomplish what we could never do.
Josh Hausen:He lived a perfect life and died on the cross as a perfect sacrifice for our sins and because of this we will never be forgotten. The nails from the cross were the same ones that have inscribed our names on the palms of his hands. That is where we find our hope and this is why we can worship and celebrate no matter what we are walking through today. It's because God has saved us. He has purchased our salvation on our behalf.
Josh Hausen:And because of this, we can know with confidence that he will see us through to that day when we will join with people from all nations and tongues worshiping him before the throne. But until that day may we find hope that God is taking it upon himself to save his people, to save you and to save me. Let's pray. Heavenly father, thank you that you will never forget us. We thank you for sending your son Jesus into the world to accomplish for us what we never could.
Josh Hausen:Thank you for dealing so generously and graciously with us. And we pray that you would help us to trust and believe the words we have heard tonight. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
