Trusting God in the Darkness (Morning)
Download MP3If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Isaiah chapter 50. It's also there in your worship guide. We've been working our way through major prophets for the last seven months now. We've looked at Ezekiel. We've been in Isaiah for quite some time.
Joel Brooks:Now, if you are a first time guest or if you were just returning from being gone for the summer, I can't catch you up on everything that we because there's a whole lot that's happened in Isaiah. But I could tell you everything you really need to know in order to understand this one passage that's in front of us. Isaiah 50. It's it's about the it's it's an inner dialogue happening within the godhead, within the trinity and it's being communicated through the poetry of a man who lived twenty eight hundred years ago on the other side of the world. And this man, Isaiah, he's not speaking to the people of his day though.
Joel Brooks:He's actually speaking to the people who live a hundred and fifty years ahead of him. And he is telling them about someone who will come six hundred years after them and who's going to save them. If you're confused, you should be. Because it's really hard to know when it's when all these things are happening. Who's exactly speaking?
Joel Brooks:To whom are they speaking? All this. But bottom line is Isaiah is telling everyone here, including us, about Christ who saves people in the past, the present, and the future. If what I told you is too confusing, then all you need to know that this is just a passage that will give hope to the weary or it will be a light to those who are groping in the darkness, which we'll read about. So Isaiah 50, let's read those first 11 verses.
Joel Brooks:Thus says the Lord, where is your mother's certificate of divorce with which I sent her away? Or which of my creditors is to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities you were sold and for your transgressions your mother was sent away. Why when I came was there no man? Why when I called was there no one to answer?
Joel Brooks:Is my hand shortened that it cannot redeem? Or I have no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea. I make the rivers a desert. Their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.
Joel Brooks:I clothe the heavens with blackness and make sackcloth their covering. The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who were taught that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning, he awakens. He awakens my ear to hear as those who were taught. The Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious.
Joel Brooks:I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting, but the Lord God helps me. Therefore, I have not been disgraced. Therefore, I have set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be put to shame.
Joel Brooks:He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand up together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me.
Joel Brooks:Behold, the Lord God helps me. Who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment. The moth will eat them up. Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of His servant?
Joel Brooks:Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Behold all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches, walk by the light of your fire and by the torches that you have kindled. This you have for my hand, you shall lie down in torment. This is the word of the Lord. You pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Father, we ask that you'd be so kind as to send your spirit here, that you would blow in our midst, that you would awaken dead hearts, that you would open up our minds, our ears to hear from you. My words are death, but your words are life, and we need life. So I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But Lord, may your words remain, may they change us. And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen. So whenever Lauren and I go back to our parents' house in Atlanta, You know, we'll sit down, we'll visit a while, we'll eat, just kind of catch up on things. But inevitably, the conversation always turns towards the important documents that they need to show us. Parents, for some reason, like to hide lots of important documents. And as they get older and older, they have to always be talking about these important documents.
Joel Brooks:Now, I need to be careful here because my mom is watching this live stream. And mom, you you know I love you. I do. I hope you live to fifty, fifty more years because I will never figure out your system though. Documents are hidden everywhere.
Joel Brooks:I mean, they're hidden, you know, in in the basement, in closets, underneath beds. You know, hidden or tucked away in various books. It's crazy. Not to tell like every seeker, but if you happen to want February tax returns, they just might be in the guest closet underneath the suitcase. This here, this story, this chapter begins with the Lord telling Judah to go and look for some of those hidden documents.
Joel Brooks:Find some of those important documents. You see, he's actually been accused now of divorcing Israel. And not only that, but then selling them off as slaves to Babylon. And so he says, oh, okay. Go ahead.
Joel Brooks:Find me the documents. You can search all you want, but those things don't exist. Although you feel like your separation with me is final. That our our relationship is dead, it's gone, can never be revived, I want you to know that I am still married to you. And you are married to me.
Joel Brooks:Yes. You were sent off into exile to be disciplined for your sins, but I have never for a moment stopped loving you. In verse two, he asked them. He says, why when I came was there no man? Why when I called was there no one to answer?
Joel Brooks:He's basically saying, hey, I I tried calling, I tried texting, I even stopped by and knocked on the door but you never answered. Why? This is Jesus in Revelation three saying, behold, I stand at the door and I knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come to him and I will eat with him and he with me. Jesus is outside the door.
Joel Brooks:He's knocking and he's knocking and he's knocking, but but no one will let him in. God's saying, I'm not the one who has forsaken you. You're the one forsaking me. He and he's pondering why and he says, why why are you ignoring me? Is it is it because you don't think my arms are actually long enough to reach all the way out to Babylon and to pull you back from exile?
Joel Brooks:Is that it? I I don't have a strong enough, long enough reach. Well, my arm was plenty strong enough back in Egypt, wasn't it? Where I parted the sea, where I turned the Nile into blood, where I caused darkness to cover the whole land. It was plenty long enough and strong enough there.
Joel Brooks:My saving arm can reach anywhere it wants. And it's at this point, in this moment, the Lord tells Israel just how far His arm can reach. The lengths that he will go to to save them. He reintroduces his servant and he lets his servant speak again. Once again, here in verse four, we finally get to hear the servant speak.
Joel Brooks:He says, the lord god has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary. Morning by morning, he awakens. He awakens my ear to hear as those who are taught. Now last week, we got to see who this servant was. This servant is Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Now we get to see what he will do, how he will save. And the first thing that we see the servant doing is he says he will sustain the weary with a word. The servant's going to go out and he's going to find those who are weary. He's going to find those bruised reeds that we've talked about in Isaiah. You know, there's reeds that are bent, they're right on the verge of snapping.
Joel Brooks:And instead of going and crushing them, trampling over those reeds, He is gonna come, He's gonna be so gentle. He's not gonna bring more law, more to do list. He's not gonna put more burdens on people. He will not crush them. Instead, the servant is gonna come and he's gonna say, come to me all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Joel Brooks:Take my yoke upon you, learn from me for I am gentle and I am lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Jesus came for a number of reasons, but the first thing we see here is that he came to those who are on the verge of collapsing and giving up, to those who are weary. And he said, I have come to lift you up and to sustain you. The servant here, he says he knows how to sustain the weary with a word because he himself has been sustained by God's word. We read that he has the tongue of those who were taught.
Joel Brooks:That word taught is the Hebrew word for disciple. Jesus, he might have been the son of God, but he was also a disciple of his father. And so here he is modeling for us what discipleship looks like. You wanna know what it what being a disciple looks like? Just look at Jesus.
Joel Brooks:It looks like getting up morning after morning after morning and listening to God and obeying him. It means humbling yourself and acknowledging that you do not intuitively just know how to go about life. You don't intuitively know what's right or wrong. You have to be taught these things. For the record, I did not listen to any of the podcast a couple weeks ago, with Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.
Joel Brooks:I just need you to know this at the start. I'm sure many of you listen to it, but but you need to know that I did not. But, I felt like I did because, you know, I've got my finger on the pulse of culture. It's it's one of the things that I am known for. You know, I know I'm not supposed to use the word lit.
Joel Brooks:I can't use the word fire. You can, but apparently my my daughters have said, I can't ever say it. But but I've got my my finger on the pulse of pop culture and so I I've heard things. Everybody's talking about it. And I've been surprised like they're dissecting every word that Taylor Swift said.
Joel Brooks:I mean, you hear that she mentioned that she's been baking sourdough bread? And that and that she likes the, you know, she makes cinnamon bread and she makes blueberry swirl or blueberry lemon swirl, whatever it is. Those obviously have to be references to some of her songs or perhaps some an album cover that's about to come out. And of course, you know what city made sourdough bread famous, don't you? San Francisco, where the next Super Bowl's playing.
Joel Brooks:Think about it guys. And now now, if if that if that didn't convince you right there, just know this that who plays San Francisco the 40 niners? Four plus nine is what? 13. Taylor Swift's favorite number.
Joel Brooks:It's also Super Bowl sixty. And if you subtract 13 from 60, you get 47. She mentioned her '47 era's tour. All the things are aligning people. She is playing at our next Super Bowl halftime.
Joel Brooks:Now, want you to know, I hope you forget every single word I just said. But I I found it fascinating. I mean, people just pouring over every single word she said, trying to find what does she mean here. It's what Jesus did with the word of God. He meditated on scripture night and day.
Joel Brooks:No one meditated more than him. Not only does Jesus quote from 24 different books of the Old Testament, you read that in the Gospels, but you will find that 10 times when He is arguing with with different religious leaders, He hangs his entire theological argument on one word. Just a single word. And so he's arguing with people over there who don't believe in the resurrection. He says, well, have you not read that God is the God of Abraham?
Joel Brooks:Not God was the God of Abraham. God's the God of the living, not the God of the dead. His whole theological argument depended on one word. That's how deeply shaped Jesus was by the word of God. His whole life depended upon it, and he didn't pick and choose which words he would keep.
Joel Brooks:He savored every single one of them. And if you want to be a person who sustains the weary, or if you are a weary person who needs to be sustained, then you gotta trust that what God has to say is infinitely more important than what you have to say. And you have to listen to his words, every one of them, as if your very life depended upon it. Now over thirty five years ago when I was still in high school, I came across this verse. And I remember reading about how God woke up the servant morning after morning and opened his ear to listen to him.
Joel Brooks:And I thought that's what I want. And so I made the decision then and there, I turned off my alarm clock. We didn't have iPhones in, so I had to turn off my clock. And I said, Lord, you wake me up in the morning. And when you wake me up, I'll get up and I'll spend time in your word.
Joel Brooks:And he was faithful to do so. And he has done so every day for over thirty five years. I've never set an alarm since. And what I have found is that some mornings when the Lord gets me up, he gets me up really early. Some mornings, I'm actually angry.
Joel Brooks:Why? And I just needed a little more sleep. But he woke me up, so I get up. And what I have found is that he's given me a word that he knows I will need to sustain me from my weariness later in the day. He's always been so faithful to do that.
Joel Brooks:So that's what the Lord has done for me. I'm not saying that that you need to start turning off your alarm clocks. If you do that and you miss school, you know, tomorrow or you're late for work, don't blame me. Alright? Blame God or just or he didn't tell you this and he just made a foolish decision.
Joel Brooks:But but what I am saying is this, find time. Find time. And say, Lord, open up my ears. I'm gonna listen to every word you have to say. Speak.
Joel Brooks:The next thing that we read in this passage is that although God's word will sustain the weary, it's actually gonna lead you into places you do not wanna go. That's how he's gonna sustain the weary. He's gonna take you to places where you will be weary. Look at verses five and six. The Lord God has opened my ear and I was not rebellious.
Joel Brooks:I turned not backward. I gave my back to those who strike and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard. I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting, but the Lord God helps me, therefore I have not been disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame. Here we see that this servant, he is listening intently to the word of God, and God is telling him to go to a place he does not want to go.
Joel Brooks:God is leading him to a place of deep humiliation and suffering. But we read that despite getting that word, the servant, he doesn't rebel, he doesn't turn his back, instead he sets his face like flint. And that's exactly what Jesus did. You read about it in Luke nine. You read, he set his face to go to Jerusalem where he knew he would be crucified.
Joel Brooks:He courageously, he obeyed God's word. He resolutely made that decision to obey even where he knew it was gonna lead him to not just be tortured and killed, but to be deeply humiliated. And that's really the focus here. And next week, when we get to Isaiah 53, we're gonna we're gonna look at the torture that happens to Jesus. But here, what Isaiah is highlighting is actually the humiliation.
Joel Brooks:The spitting, the pulling of the beard. Those were all ways in that culture to deeply humiliate somebody. This isn't how we would go about humiliating somebody today. When I think of humiliation, one of the things I I think of is on First Avenue North near where I live, there's a whole lot of prostitutes that are there on First 70 North. And one of the ways that the police tried to to clean up the the streets and the prostitution there is if you were caught soliciting a prostitute, they put your name up on the billboard on First Avenue North.
Joel Brooks:I don't know if you remember that. If any of you went there a few years ago, so you would just read and there would just be the names. These were the people caught soliciting a prostitute. That's shame. That's how they tried to end the crime.
Joel Brooks:There's shame. And sure enough, every time I read and be like, oh my gosh. That's a respected business leader here in Birmingham. Being shamed for what he did. And that would just be the beginning of the shame because then of course, the paper's gonna write about it.
Joel Brooks:There's faces gonna be on the paper. Probably their board of directors is gonna fire them. Those who knew them, know, people wanna go up and be like, hey, weren't you friends with so and so? They're like, no. I don't really even know them.
Joel Brooks:Yeah, were maybe in the same room a couple of times together, but that's it. Everybody's distancing themselves from this person. And that's exactly what happened to Jesus. Jesus allowed his reputation to be smeared for him to be mocked and humiliated all unjustly. But yet he says in verse seven, despite all that happening he actually hasn't been disgraced.
Joel Brooks:He will not be put to shame because in verse eight he says, He who vindicates me is near. Who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me.
Joel Brooks:Behold, the Lord helps me. Who will declare me guilty? Behold, all of them will wear out like a garment. The moth will eat them up. Here Jesus says, go ahead.
Joel Brooks:Go ahead. Take your best shot. Go ahead. Put me on trial. Let's see what happens.
Joel Brooks:Make your accusations. Fire away. Condemn me all you want. I don't really care because you know what? Your verdict doesn't matter.
Joel Brooks:The only verdict that matters is the Lord's. And I'm here because of Him. I'm obeying His voice. I mean, yes, you guys look good now. You're dressed to the nines and your fancy clothes and all that.
Joel Brooks:Those garments will someday fade out. And so will you. But I will remain. Jesus, he he endured all of the shame and all of the suffering because he knew that's where God wanted him to go and that he would be vindicated by God. And he was when God raised him from the dead.
Joel Brooks:The resurrection is how Jesus was vindicated or how he was justified. The resurrection was God's way of saying, Jesus was right. He was right. You were all wrong. And for those of us who put our hope in Jesus, we will be declared right or righteous.
Joel Brooks:Because what we see is Jesus actually endured all of this on our behalf. You see Jesus, he's not just the model model disciple. He is not just our example for how to live in a way that we follow God. He's more than an example. He is our savior.
Joel Brooks:Remember the servant, like we looked at last week, He's our representative. He's the one representing us. And so Jesus is going on trial for us. Perhaps when we were reading through verses eight and nine, perhaps something in your head was like, this sounds really familiar to me. These verses, I know I've just I've read them or something like them somewhere and it's because you have.
Joel Brooks:The Apostle Paul, he refers to these words in the most glorious chapter of the Bible he ever wrote. Romans eight. He says this, who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn?
Joel Brooks:Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. In other words, Paul says, for those who have placed their hope in Jesus, it means that any charges that are brought against you, any of them at all, they will not stand. They cannot hurt you because Jesus went on trial for you. Jesus took on all of those accusations upon himself, and he was crucified for them and then was declared justified through his resurrection.
Joel Brooks:That's why Paul would say there is therefore now no condemnation for those, who have placed their hope or who are in Jesus. This means, and I hope you get this, that even if the devil himself were to go up to you and were to whisper in your ear all the evils you have done. Just whispering like you did this again? I mean, isn't this like the the thousandth millionth time you've done this again and again? You know what you could say to the devil?
Joel Brooks:You're right. And you actually don't know the half of it. I've done far worse things. But you know what? I've already had my trial.
Joel Brooks:And Jesus stood in my place and he has already paid for those sins. There is now no condemnation for me. I wish those Jewish exiles thought God no longer loved them. I wish they could have believed what the servant was going to do for them because then they would have encountered what Paul says next when he says, for I'm sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come, neither powers, nor height, or death, nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Nothing separates us.
Joel Brooks:And what we read next in chapter 50 is a little surprising. I'd go so far as to say it's a little unsettling. Here we're gonna read that although the servant endured suffering, and yes, he was vindicated all for us, this does not mean that the Lord will not lead you into similar paths of suffering and shame. No, it actually means that He will lead you into those places, but you can actually trust that you will be vindicated because you were in Christ. Look at verses ten and eleven.
Joel Brooks:Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Just stop right there. You need to know that it is no longer the servant speaking. Now it is God speaking about his servant. Once again, if you're not confused, you're not reading it correctly.
Joel Brooks:It is hard to know at times who is speaking, but now this is the Lord saying this about his servant. He's saying, who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. Behold all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches, walk by the light of your own fire and the torches that you have kindled. This you have from my hand that you shall lie down in torment.
Joel Brooks:Hear the Lord, he tells those who have just listened to the servant speak and are still listening to him. He lets them know where the servant is going to lead them. And he's gonna lead them into darkness. I'm not sure, you know, exactly how you came to know Jesus, how you became a Christian. I don't know how the gospel was presented to you.
Joel Brooks:But I'm just imagining it wasn't accept Jesus and be led into the dark. It's probably more of like, hey God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And you might not have read the fine print. But here God says, I'm gonna lead you into the darkness. And it's not the type of darkness that you usually find all throughout scripture which darkness typically represents sin, represents evil.
Joel Brooks:That's not what's being represented here. It's another type of darkness that Isaiah, he intentionally keeps vague. This could be the darkness of suffering. It could be the darkness of doubt. The darkness of confusion.
Joel Brooks:When when you think about it, what darkness really is, darkness is being in a place where you have no idea what's happening around you. You're in the dark. I mean, there could be a person next to you, you know, don't know, doing a dance aerobics or something. But if it's completely dark, you have no idea what's happening. It's not having any idea where you're actually going.
Joel Brooks:It's it's not knowing the way out of it either. You're in the dark. And we read here that if you listen and you obey the voice of the Lord, there's gonna be times that you'll be led into a place like that. And in the darkness, when you have no light, he's saying, trust me. Just trust.
Joel Brooks:Keep listening to my voice and resist the urge to light your own torch. Once again, Isaiah is very vague. We actually don't know exactly what he means by that, resisting the urge to to to light your own torch. It could possibly be you just losing your patience and deciding I'm no longer gonna wait on the Lord. It could be you no longer trusting his word, but deciding your goodness is gonna choose an easier, more immediate path to get out of this situation.
Joel Brooks:Proverbs sixteen twenty five says, that path though, he says, there is a way that seems right to man, but it's end is a way of death. That's how Isaiah 50 ends, with death. So there's gonna be times when listening to God, we're holding fast to his word, we're striving to obey him, and instead of moving into the light, we're actually moved into a dark place. A place that's unknown. A place that's unfamiliar.
Joel Brooks:Perhaps a place that is even painful. And when this happens, keep trusting. Don't lose faith. Keep listening. Resist the urge to just just come up with something.
Joel Brooks:Just create your own light in order to get out of that situation as fast as you can. Because that path is going to destroy you. But if you keep listening, even if it leads to suffering, even if it leads to humiliation, or even if it leads to death, if you're listening to the Lord, your promised resurrection. When I look at my life, I I know this for absolute certainty. It's in the darkness where my faith becomes real.
Joel Brooks:It's in those times. It's not in the light, but it's in the darkness that you have to cling to. Your faith becomes real and you intently listen to the Lord's word. In chapter 51, we don't have time to go in there, but Isaiah, he gives us some examples of what it looks like to listen to the Lord in a place of darkness. And the the first one he gives us just of Abraham and Sarah.
Joel Brooks:He says, the Lord told them to leave the comfortable, to leave the familiar, to leave the light, and to go out into the darkness into a place unknown to them where they had no idea what they were going or what was happening. All they had was the voice of the Lord and they obeyed. He said, and God turned them into a mighty nation. He says, listen to him. This path of darkness is actually a path of life that will lead to your eternal glory.
Joel Brooks:And we have this confidence. Jesus has already gone that path before us. And he went into the darkest of all places. You cannot get a place more dark than a tomb. But there in the darkness, he came out the other side and was vindicated.
Joel Brooks:Jesus has gone before us in the dark places, and he will pull us through those dark places to be with him. We can rest assured that despite our many failings, our many stumblings, all of our sin, that Jesus will indeed sustain the weary even through the most dark moments. Let's pray to Jesus. Jesus, as hard as it is for us to believe, you will sustain us even in death. And so whatever comes our way, I pray in this moment, you would give us the courage.
Joel Brooks:You would help us to set our face like flint. We would hold fast to the word of God, every single word of it, and we will obey you wherever you lead, putting our hope and our trust in you. And when we fail, and we most certainly will, we pray that as the accusations come, we realize we've already had the trial. You paid for all of those sins, Jesus, on the cross. And just as you were resurrected, you will resurrect us.
Joel Brooks:That's our hope. And we pray this in the sweet name of Jesus, our present and our future king. Amen.
