The Servant of the Lord (Morning)
Download MP3If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Isaiah 49 as we continue our study in the book of Isaiah. When Jesus rose from the dead, he had a lot of things he needed to do in a very short window of time. Remember he he only appeared to his disciples and and taught them and and did that for forty days before he ascended. And so he had to make the most of the time that was given him in those those forty days and that's why I find the story of what he did on the road to Emmaus to be remarkable. Jesus did not think it was a waste of time to use an entire day just going on a walk with two people who we never heard of before, we don't ever hear of afterwards.
Joel Brooks:And as he's going on a walk with these people, they're saying, oh my gosh, these events that happened in Jerusalem, you know, Jesus died. Have you heard about this? Now, they're talking about him being alive again and of course, he knows all about it. But their eyes were kept from recognizing him and you read that beginning with Moses and the prophets, he told them everything that the scriptures had to say about Jesus, about him. And and he's just unpacking just the whole Old Testament there and then as he's doing so, we read that their hearts were getting warm.
Joel Brooks:We're burning within them and finally, Jesus is revealed to them when he sits down. He has dinner with them and he breaks bread and their eyes are open And they're like, weren't our hearts just burning within us as he went through the scriptures? I love that story for a number of reasons. One, like I mentioned earlier, Jesus didn't see it as a waste of time to spend an entire day just going on a walk with a couple and just talking to them about scripture. Second is this.
Joel Brooks:I I think Jesus is teaching us how we get to know him. Jesus could have easily told these these two people there, yeah, you heard Jesus rose from dead? It's me. I mean, that could have been the end of the discussion right there. Look, guys, open their eyes and it's me.
Joel Brooks:I am alive, but he doesn't do that. Instead, he takes an entire day and he just walks them through the Old Testament. And I think he's teaching us something there that if we want to see Jesus, we gotta start opening our Bibles. Not just to the New Testament. We we have to start pouring over those Old Testament scriptures and allow it to to burn our hearts to where we get to see Jesus clearly.
Joel Brooks:I say all that because where we are in Isaiah, it's one of the reasons we study Isaiah is to see Jesus, but but where we are in Isaiah, I I have a feeling your hearts are gonna start getting warm. This is when Jesus starts really coming into focus and we begin to to get more hints as to his identity, more about his mission, we begin to see him clearly. And so I am hoping that over the next few weeks as we enter the the songs of the servant that Jesus reveals himself to you. So we're gonna read Isaiah 49. We're not gonna do that verse there in 48.
Joel Brooks:Just 49 verses one through 16. Listen to me, oh Coastlands, and give attention you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named me. 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.
Joel Brooks: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 back Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him.
Joel Brooks: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.
Joel Brooks: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 a portion the desolate heritages. Sayings to the prisoners, come out to those who are in darkness, appear.
Joel Brooks:They shall feed along the ways on all bare heights shall be their pasture. They shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind or sun shall strike them. For he who has pity on them will lead them. By springs of water will guide them. And I will make all my mountains a road and my highways shall be raised up.
Joel Brooks: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 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?
Joel Brooks:Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Father, I pray that what you did for those two people on the road to Emmaus, you would do with us now through your spirit. As we listen to your word, our hearts would begin burning and that we would come to see you, Jesus. Pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. So 10 times, 10 times in the chapter just before this, God commanded his people to listen. To hear what he was about to do. He said, I'm about to announce something new to you. Something you've never heard before.
Joel Brooks:Something that was hidden. I'm about to reveal it to you. Something you couldn't even imagine. And I'm about to say this to you. If I said it to you earlier, you wouldn't have understood it because you didn't have ears to listen.
Joel Brooks:They were stopped up. Now I'm opening this up so you could finally understand this new thing I'm doing. And then in chapter 49, it begins with the words, now listen. By this point, all of Israel would have been on the edge of their seats as they finally got to hear what is this new thing that the Lord was going to do. I mean, could you imagine if I did that to you guys on a Sunday?
Joel Brooks:I said, hey guys, I can't tell you anything right now. But I trust me, when I tell you this, it's gonna blow your minds. You wouldn't have ever imagined what I'm about to tell you. It's so new, it's so incredible. So you need to listen to Well before I even tell you this, you know, and I just keep teasing it out.
Joel Brooks:That's what God's been doing. But now he says, now I'm gonna speak. Now I'm gonna tell you this thing. And you get you're asking like, so what is it? What's what is the new thing?
Joel Brooks:Well the new thing is this, for the first time in Isaiah, his servant is speaking. If you remember, we were briefly introduced to this servant back in chapter 42 for just a few verses. But now for the first time, the servant speaks. And the first shocker is whom he addresses. Because when he speaks, he he doesn't just say, hey, Israel, I've got a word for you.
Joel Brooks:He goes, hey, Coastlands over there, you need to listen to this. Hey, you who are afar over there, you need to listen to this. The servant is now addressing not just Israel, but the entire world needs to listen to what he has to say. That's new. Who exactly is the servant who is speaking here though?
Joel Brooks:Well, verse three, God answers this. He says, You are my servant, Israel. So it seems pretty straight forward that the servant here is Israel. I mean you are my servant Israel. However, if you were to keep reading once you get to you know verses five and six, you're actually gonna see that this servant isn't just, is not really a nation as a whole, but is one particular person who's actually given a mission to Israel.
Joel Brooks:So the servant is both Israel and the servant is a singular person Israel who's actually going to rescue Israel. And here's this new thing, we're beginning to see the the mission and the identity of Jesus. It's coming into focus. When Jesus came to this world, He did not just come as a human. He did not just come as the son of God.
Joel Brooks:Jesus came as Israel. He came as the embodiment of Israel or we might think of it as the representative of Israel. And what He was going to do was take Israel's original mission that they had to be a blessing to the whole world. He was he was gonna take that original mission that they failed at. He was gonna act as their representative and he was gonna complete it.
Joel Brooks:You see when God called Abraham and he said, hey, I'm gonna bless you and I'm gonna make you into a great nation. He didn't say that to Abraham just because. I wanna bless you just because. No, there's a purpose. He says, the reason I'm making you into a great nation is because I'm gonna use this nation as my tool, as my instrument to actually repair all of the brokenness of this world.
Joel Brooks:Israel's going to be a light shining to the nations, pulling them out of darkness, pointing them to God. But we all know that Israel failed in this. Israel wasn't a light. They were just as dark as all the other nations. They weren't the cure to the disease of this world.
Joel Brooks:They just brought more disease. They failed time and time again. And so this new thing that God is doing here, he's saying, hey, you failed at your mission, so I can no longer use you. But I'm gonna bring a singular person who's gonna act as your representative. He's gonna embody you as a nation.
Joel Brooks:And he will fulfill your original mission. And when you read to the New Testament over and over again, they go at pains to show you how Jesus is the embodiment of all of Israel. But he doesn't fall into temptation where they did. He succeeds. God says, my servant, I'm gonna shoot him out like a polished arrow.
Joel Brooks:He's gonna hit precisely where I want him to hit. He's also his mouth is gonna be like a sharp sword. Which means that all He has to do is speak to wield power. And of course, we see this with Jesus. All these things, that the word of Jesus, He would just speak and people would be healed.
Joel Brooks:The demons would flee. Storms would would cease raging. He was that polished arrow that just flew straight exactly where the Lord sent him. And yet, what we read is despite doing all of this, in verse four, we read that Jesus felt like a failure. But I said, I have labored in vain.
Joel Brooks:I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity. Yet surely my right is with the Lord and my recompense with God. When I was a foolish young college student, you'll see why I say foolish in a minute. I'm coming home for the summer. So I've got all my stuff in my car.
Joel Brooks:I'm driving home. I'm I'm almost home to Alpharetta and the car in front of me hits a squirrel. Didn't kill it, but the squirrel's flailing all around. For some reason I decided, I'm gonna save that squirrel. And so I I I pulled over and I I got a towel out of my car and I just threw it over the squirrel.
Joel Brooks:And then I picked up the squirrel and did you know that squirrels could bite through towels? Like I mean just bit right through that thing. I've got the scars to prove it if you wanna look later. And so I'm trying to get the squirrel off me. He won't let go.
Joel Brooks:People are driving by wondering what in the world's happening. And then I just with one little fling like this, it finally let go and it went straight into my car and disappeared. And so my my car's got all my, you know, furniture, clothes, everything in his pack and it just disappeared. And now I know he's tasted blood. And so like he's in there somewhere, but I just drive back home and I can hear him barking at me.
Joel Brooks:And finally, I get home. I decide I'm just going to save the squirrel. At this time, I put on a glove. I reach he's hiding under the seat. So I grab him.
Joel Brooks:Fun fact, squirrels could bite through gloves. And so, more scars if you want to see them. Still, was like, I'm gonna save this thing. So I actually had a friend who was a veterinarian, took him to the vet. Vet said, just kill the thing.
Joel Brooks:And I said, no, we're gonna save him. He actually put a cast on the squirrel. His leg was broken in two spots. And so, know how long a squirrel's back leg I mean, it just so this cast is sinking way out. I'm feeding the squirrel every day.
Joel Brooks:I'm taking care I'm like, you will live. Bites me one more time. Finally though, I let him go. And I I took him over to a tree, and I I spray painted a little yellow dot on his tail because I wanted to be able to look at me like, I saved that squirrel. I wanted to be able to see him up in the trees.
Joel Brooks:And so sure enough, I let him go and he runs right up to the tallest tree up there and I am not making this up. I don't know if he did this intentionally or if he fell, I think it was intentionally, but he just jumped into nothing. And I see that little yellow tail flapping, and it hits the asphalt right in front of me and he dies. Probably trying to do what he was doing earlier. I wanted to do that earlier.
Joel Brooks:Now, I had already been called into ministry at this point. I feel like god was teaching me a lesson. It's like, you want to know what ministry is like? You spend all your time like trying to help people. Don't want to be helped.
Joel Brooks:They're going to claw you. They're going to bite you. Like, you're going to put all of this effort in. It's going to hurt and you're going to wonder why in the world I'm doing this and then it's going to seem like it was all for nothing. That's how Jesus felt during his ministry.
Joel Brooks:Isn't that a little surprising? There are times Jesus is like, I'm giving it all I have and I feel like I'm just spinning my wheels. I've I'm doing all these miracles. I'm teaching you, my disciples still don't get it. I mean, at one point, he says, father No, actually, he doesn't say it to the father.
Joel Brooks:Well, he says it out loud. He goes, how long do I have to be with these people? How long do I have to bear with them? By the way his disciples are right there and they're like, we can hear you. But Jesus, he was so frustrated.
Joel Brooks:You ever feel that way? You feel like I'm trying so hard to obey. I'm trying so hard to do the right thing, but honestly, does it matter? So Jesus felt and it but it was all a test. It was a test.
Joel Brooks:Would he actually entrust himself to the one person who matters? Would he obey his father even when it seemed like there was no fruit? And he did. And because he trusted, we get to verse six. God says these amazing words to him.
Joel Brooks: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 ends of the earth. Did you catch what God is saying here to the servant? He's telling Jesus here, you know what? Using you to just rescue the exiles, to just bring them back home, that's a waste of your talent.
Joel Brooks:It's too easy of a thing, too light of a thing for you. I'm gonna use you for more. You're gonna be a light to all of the nations, and you're gonna bring salvation to the very ends of the earth. Verse 12 expounds on this and tells how people are just coming in from everywhere. It's coming from the North, from the West.
Joel Brooks:People are even coming from this place, Syene. Anybody ever heard of Syene? Seattle's gonna call you out because it doesn't exist. Sayin is just seems to be a a made up place, city or nation. Most people think that the Lord, he he says this as a way of telling us that, you know, even those unmapped places, even those unnamed tribes, they will come to me.
Joel Brooks:They will all come to me. They will all come and worship Jesus. Every tongue, tribe, and nation. All of this crescendos into verse 13. And all this has just been building as you're reading all about the serpent.
Joel Brooks:All he's gonna do is no one can contain themselves anymore. They're so excited. So sing for joy, 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 Romans eight coming true.
Joel Brooks:Do you remember Romans eight is when someday the curse of this world will be lifted and when it's lifted, all of creation is liberated. All of creation breaks out into joy. You know, trees singing, mountains are singing. I mean this is this is glorious. And as all this is is is being pronounced and everybody's singing, it's almost like Isaiah is saying, alright Israel can I get an amen?
Joel Brooks:And instead of getting an amen, this is what he gets. Verse 14. But Zion said, the Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me. You ever hear of a Debbie Downer?
Joel Brooks:I mean, there's just some people. You're like, The difference between verses 13 and verses 14 could not be any starker. Israel hears the good news of how God loves them, how God's actually gonna save the whole world. Everybody else is rejoicing and singing, but as Israel looks at the absolute wreckage of their lives, they think, So you love this world? Excuse me if I don't feel very loved at this moment.
Joel Brooks:Not sure if I could take much more of your love. So you're you're gonna save the world? I don't exactly feel very saved in this moment. What I do feel though is forgotten. Before we're too critical of Israel here, we do need to remember this.
Joel Brooks:At this very moment, their capital city, Zion, is in ruins. All the walls are torn down. It's in ruins. Temple's gone. It's ruins.
Joel Brooks:All of Zion's people are in exile. And so what we find here is just it's a very honest response. I love it. You know, the the Lord that's writing this beautiful song all about what the servant's gonna do and it picks up, you know, after this. And Israel interrupts here, and God allows the interruption.
Joel Brooks:He allows them to voice their complaint, to voice how they actually feel in this moment of celebration. He allows this. It's understandable. It's probably a very honest response that many of you can identify with. I mean, have you ever, you know, come here perhaps on a Sunday?
Joel Brooks:You hear all about the promises of God? Or maybe you were handed, you know, the book, The Promises of God at your graduation. Those go out like wildfire in graduations. You're reading those things or you're you're hearing them from the pulpit. You hear about his love, his salvation.
Joel Brooks:You you hear everyone singing about how Jesus is going to redeem this whole world and intellectually you believe everything. You hear it, you believe there's not one thing you heard that you disagree with, yet you just don't feel like singing. Because when you look around at the situation you're in, in your present circumstances, you actually don't see any evidence of the things you just sang. None. What you you see and what you feel is your loneliness.
Joel Brooks:You feel your pain. At times your anger. I mean you're just struggling to survive. You don't feel like singing. And what we see here is that present pain can keep us from rejoicing in the good news of the gospel.
Joel Brooks:Sometimes that that pain is so acute. It's it's it's so pronounced in our lives that we just we have a hard time seeing anything else. And Israel here, he's saying, all of those words, all of those words that I heard you just just speak, those are about the future. But what about now? I mean, right now, Zion's in ruins.
Joel Brooks:Its people are in exile. I mean, the promises of God, they all sound great. I mean, they're amazing actually. But you know what? I have a marriage that's crumbling.
Joel Brooks:Like I have bills I cannot pay. My health is deteriorating. I can't sleep. My mind's always in overdrive trying to trying to fix all of these problems. I don't have any friends.
Joel Brooks:And you know what? I don't have the time to make friends. Like, so I hear what you're saying, but it's hard for me to sing now. And I think a question that every Christian wrestles with is this. What does salvation look like now in our lives?
Joel Brooks:And we talk about it all the time. We're saved. We're saved. What does that look like? Are we talking about a present reality or are we talking about a future hope when we say Jesus saves?
Joel Brooks:The the answer is yes. It is both a present reality and a future hope. It is both a now and a not yet. We know this that when we trust Jesus, he sends his spirit into our hearts and he begins changing our hearts now. We become a new creation, different people and yet, we still struggle with sin.
Joel Brooks:We still struggle with joy because our hearts will not be completely changed until he comes again. We know that Jesus really does comfort us in our pain now. He gives us a peace that surpasses all understanding. Yet, we still have to suffer and go through those circumstances, those trials and tribulations. Those things will not be removed until Jesus comes again.
Joel Brooks:So our salvation is now and it's not yet. But sometimes the pain is so loud now. We just have a hard time seeing or believing anything else. Let alone rejoicing in God's love for us. So how does God respond to Israel's feelings here of forsakenness?
Joel Brooks:First, notice He allows them to speak. Get it off your chest. Speak to me. Then He says these words in verse 14. Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Joel Brooks:Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. I love that verse. It's it's where one of our partner ministries, Not Forgotten, one of our elders started in at Sanford. When he was at Sanford, he knows runs boys homes in Peru. This is where they got their name.
Joel Brooks:He wants those children to know they are not forgotten. Here the Lord responds to this accusation if you will of them being forgotten. He responds by saying, no, no, no, not at all. And he gives them this image of a this is the most intimate loving image you could get. It's of a mother holding her baby while he or she nurses.
Joel Brooks:And the lord says, that's how close you are to my heart. You're that close. He also says, that's how unconditional my love is for you. When you think about it, the relationship between a mother and a child is a pretty one way relationship. I mean, what exactly does that child give the mother?
Joel Brooks:Nothing. I mean, I know you're trying to like you're trying to like what every smile, you know, like it's probably gasp, but you know, you'll take it. Anything. It's it's but it's a pretty one way relationship. The mother gives everything.
Joel Brooks:Gives life to that child. Holds that child close. And the mother does this willingly because the mother just loves looking at that child, holding it, protecting it. And what the Lord is using here by you saying here by using this image is he's letting Israel know that despite all of Israel's failings, despite never receiving any benefit at all from their relationship, he could not love them anymore. Yes, he gives them everything, but he could not love them more.
Joel Brooks:He also says, you know, there's no way he could ever forget them. You know, a nursing mother can never forget that she has a baby. Because even when she's not nursing, after a few hours go by, the milk comes in, you begin to get uncomfortable, eventually there is a pain. You know you have a baby. When our youngest child, our daughter Caroline, was little, she would not take a bottle, which made it really hard for Lauren and I to get away.
Joel Brooks:It made road trips really long because we were always having to pull over and and and nurse Caroline there. I remember there was one moment we were late for a wedding. I think it was in South Georgia. I can't remember exactly, but we're we're we're driving there. We're, you know, late.
Joel Brooks:We can't get out. And Caroline starts crying, she's hungry. And she is really crying. Lauren's milk then comes in, she's really uncomfortable, then she's in pain. And I'm trying to drive really fast, and my trenches get there.
Joel Brooks:And it's just the commotion, the the anxiety, the I looked down and I was going a 105 miles an hour. It's like, oh my gosh. But trust me, there wasn't a person in that car who didn't remember we had a baby. You you can't forget. I mean, a mom's not gonna forget that she has a a child that needs her.
Joel Brooks:God says, that's me. And it's also his way of letting me know or letting us know that, you know, if we were to be separated, it would pain me. It really hurt if there was a separation between us. Now your bibles likely read here, even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. But actually in Hebrew that word may is not there.
Joel Brooks:It should read, even these forget, yet I will not forget. Because the truth is this, not all moms are good moms and there are some mothers out there who might forget. And there's some worse mothers out there who might actually forget intentionally and that hurts. But even if he had a really good mother, mothers as they age, they might reach a point where they can no longer remember. Or perhaps when they die, they're no longer there to remember.
Joel Brooks:One thing that God is saying is even a mother forgets. Ultimately, a mother will forget. But you know what? I can't. In my love, death can't stop it.
Joel Brooks:Nothing can stop it. Verse 16, he tells us why nothing can stop it. He says, behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Your walls are continually before me. It's likely all of us at some point have written something on our hands.
Joel Brooks:My generation did probably a whole lot more than current generations who do sends text to themselves or puts it in notes on their phones. But I used to, you know, my hands would be covered. You know, pick up milk on your way home. Don't forget to take home your sister. You know, just send a lawyer, things like that.
Joel Brooks:You know, just things that really important things you needed to remember And Jesus is saying, yeah, do the same thing. I wrote on my hand things I wanted to make sure I never forgot. But Jesus, he didn't use ink. He didn't even tattoo it on his hand. We read that we have been engraved on his hands.
Joel Brooks:That word engraved is the Hebrew word for chiseled. We've been chiseled in it. And here we read seven hundred years before Jesus would be crucified. Him saying, his hands would be chiseled or pierced as a way of remembering us and showing that he does indeed love us. When I read this text, I can't help but flash forward and think of the new testament of doubting Thomas.
Joel Brooks:Remember the disciple Thomas who who doubted? He couldn't believe the gospel. I mean everybody had been saying, hey Jesus is alive, we've seen him, you know, he's resurrected. He and he's he's not coming after us in judgment. He still loves us even though we have forsaken him.
Joel Brooks:And Thomas can't believe that. Can't believe he's risen from the dead and can't believe he would still love people who forsook him. And so what does Jesus do? He appears. He says, hey, Thomas.
Joel Brooks:I love you this much. He shows, yes. This is indeed me. Yes. I haven't risen from the dead and I love you this much.
Joel Brooks:I'm not coming in judgment. I'm coming with open arms. Because you see on the cross, it was not Israel that was forgotten. It wasn't Israel who was forsaken. It was Jesus as their representative.
Joel Brooks:So he gets up there and he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus was actually the one who was forsaken so that not just Israel, but all of humanity would never be forsaken. One of the things that we take away from this is we gotta anchor ourselves to this truth that no matter what the pain points are in our lives, we can never for a moment doubt God's love for us when we look at his hands. I mean, it doesn't matter how great the trials are, great the suffering is in our lives. We don't look at circumstances, anything around us.
Joel Brooks:We don't look at our bank account, we don't look at our marriage, we don't look at how our kids are behaving, we don't look how bad our career is going, we don't look how bad our health is deteriorating, we don't look at any of those things ever as an evidence as to whether God loves us or not. What we do is we look at his hands. He says, I've engraved you in my hands. And when we see his hands, we know that he has saved us now and he will save us in the future and that he will forever hold us dear to his heart. Let's pray to him now.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, I do pray that right now through your spirit, just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, you would warm our hearts. You'd come us to see more clearly. And we would not just know intellectually the gospel, but we rejoice in it. Thank you for engraving, engraving us into your hands, Jesus. And we pray this in your sweet name.
Joel Brooks:Amen.
