Good morning, church. It's good to see you all this morning. Would you turn with me to Isaiah
chapter 41 and verse 21. That is page 563 in the Pew Bible. Isaiah chapter 41, verse 21, page 563.
Now, what we're talking about this morning is ultimately joy. Why is it so hard to find?
Where do we get it? Joy. Now, if you're new to the Bible, the chapters are actually the big numbers,
and the small numbers are the verses. But it's good to know, as you think about those numbers,
that the chapter and verse numbers were actually added later to the text over time to help readers
navigate the passages together. But those chapter divisions don't always divide the flow of thought
perfectly. So what we'll see in Isaiah is that there are some sections or some ideas that begin
in the middle of one chapter and that end in the middle of another. So our chapter divisions aren't
always perfectly dividing our sermon units. And that's what's true of our text today. Isaiah is
turning his sights to a new topic, and his treatment of that topic doesn't end until chapter 42, verse 17.
So we're going to look today at the end of chapter 41 and how that idea gets developed and brought to
its conclusion in chapter 42. And then what we'll find is in the middle of 42, another idea picks up,
and that's where we'll start next week. But today, here in 41 and the first half of 42,
the topic is joy. How can the nations find lasting joy? That's where Isaiah is headed in this section.
And you can see that for yourself if you have the Bible open and you jump ahead and look at chapter 42,
verse 11. 42, 11, which is the sort of climax where Isaiah is headed in this section. 42, 11 says,
let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the villages that Kedar inhabits. Let the inhabitants
of Selah sing for joy. Let them shout from the tops of the mountains. So Isaiah is looking all around,
all around at the nations around him, from the deserts to the mountains, from Kedar, that's an area in the
northern Arabian desert to Selah, that's a city in the far south. He sees all around all these nations.
What does he see? He sees them erupting with joy, joy for the nations. Isn't that what we want for
not just ourselves, but our friends and our kids and our neighbors? Real joy.
Well, Isaiah here is going to give us an analysis of joy. First, why it's so hard to find, and then
second, how we can actually get it. So first, let's take a look at why it's so hard to find.
This is where Isaiah starts in chapter 41, verse 21. Now, just a little context for our passage.
Remember, up to this point in this section of Isaiah, up to this point in chapter 40 and 41,
who has Isaiah been talking to? He's really been talking directly to the people of Israel.
But now he's going to turn out to the broader nations. To the people of Israel, God has been
speaking to their felt problem that they're weary in exile, that they're feeling guilty because of
their sin. But to the nations, it's not so much that they're feeling weary or guilty,
empty, but empty. Empty. Bring out your gods, the Lord is going to say. And let me show you
why you feel so empty. Let's pick up in verse 21. All right, verse 21. Let me read this for us.
Set forth your case, says the Lord. Bring your proofs, says the king of Jacob. Let them, that is the
nations. Bring them, that is their gods, and tell us what is to happen. Tell us the former things,
what they are, that we may consider them, that we may know their outcome. Or declare to us the things
to come. Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods. Do good or do harm,
that we may be dismayed and terrified. Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing.
An abomination, that is, an offense against creation, is he who chooses you.
I stirred up one from the north, and he has come from the rising of the sun, and he shall call upon
my name. He shall trample on rulers as on mortar, as the potter treads clay. Who declared it from the
beginning that we might know, and beforehand that we might say, he is right. There was none who declared
it, none who proclaimed, none who heard your words. I was the first to say to Zion, behold, here they are.
And I give to Jerusalem a herald of good news. But when I look, that is when I look among the gods,
there's no one. Among these, there's no counselor who, when I ask, gives an answer. Behold, they are all
a delusion. Their works are nothing. Their metal images are empty wind.
Okay, so if you're not feeling well, and you go to your doctor, what you want is a diagnosis, right?
Why am I feeling this way? What you don't want is a doctor who says, you know, you're actually fine.
Everything's okay. When everything's not okay, right? You need to hear the bad news so that you
can get to the root and hopefully find a remedy. And what's happening here in verses 21 through 29
is a diagnosis of what's ailing the nations. And in fact, it plays out like a court case.
The Lord, the God of Israel, is calling together the nations and saying, let's have some proof.
Prove to me that your gods are really gods. If they are really gods, then surely they could speak,
and surely they could act, right? Verses 22 and 23, God says, they should be able to tell us
something. And at the end of verse 23, they should be able to do something, even if it's good or bad,
good or harm. So can they speak? Can they act? And more particularly, not just can they speak,
but a little more closely, if we look at the text, God is sort of saying, can they look back at all
that's come before and make sense of it? Can they give meaning to it? Verse 22, tell us the former
things what they are, that we may consider them and we may know their outcome. Can these so-called gods
give any sense of meaning to history? And not just that, can they look ahead and tell us where history
is headed? Verse 22 picks up, declare to us, not just former things, but the things to come.
Tell us what's to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods.
And of course, the idols of the nations come up short. They can't speak and they can't act.
They can't give any kind of meaning to the past or tell us where the future is headed.
But with the Lord, the God of Israel, things are completely different. Can this God act?
Yes, verse 25 tells us. Verse 25 says, he's the one who will stir up one from the north. Now,
in the historical context, the reference there is to Cyrus, the coming Persian ruler who will defeat
the nation of Babylon and liberate the exiled Jews in the sixth century. Okay, this God can act.
Can he speak? Yes. Verses 26 and 27 say that this God foretold it all before it would happen.
The Lord predicted Cyrus's conquest right here in the book of Isaiah, hundreds of years before it
happened. Part of the power of this section of Isaiah is that God is telling his people over a
hundred years before the fact, not just that they're going to go into exile, not just that they're going
to be brought back, which practically never happened in the ancient world, but he also tells them how he's
going to do it. Now, many skeptical scholars will treat these predictions in Isaiah, they'll sort of
look at these predictions in Isaiah and say, hey, look, this is just proof that these chapters were
written after the fact. In other words, they say, you know, they'll say that some later anonymous
writer in the sixth century must have seen these things happen, Cyrus and the downfall of Babylon,
and then he must have written them down and then added them to Isaiah's old book.
And of course, if that's true, if that's where these texts really come from, then these parts of
Isaiah don't really have much power, do they? In that case, the Lord isn't so much different than the
so-called gods of the nations. But the question is, should we jump to such a quick conclusion?
Should we rule out the possibility of predictive prophecy altogether? Is it simply impossible
that God could have foretold these things? How do we figure that out? How do we decide?
Well, you know, the fact of the matter is, is that we don't have any evidence of some anonymous
sixth century pseudo-Isaiah who saw these things and wrote them down and attached them to the book
of Isaiah. We don't really have any evidence of that. But we do have evidence that the God of the
Bible can predict the future and make good on those predictions. Well, where do we have that evidence?
Well, you know, in this very book of Isaiah, we will see God speak not just about Cyrus,
who will liberate the people from their political exile, but Isaiah is also going to talk about a
servant who will come after that, who will atone for the people. And other Old Testament prophets
will speak of a king who is supposed to come from David's line and who will come from Bethlehem
and who will first appear in northern Galilee and who will appeal not just to the Jews but to the
Gentiles as well. And this one to come will be pierced and wounded for his people's transgressions.
You see, hundreds of years before the fact, the God of the Bible predicted
that Jesus, the Christ, would come. And God has made good on all of those promises.
So if we follow the evidence, where does it lead? Which view has the best evidence? That there was
an anonymous writer in the sixth century who could have wrote things down and then attach them to
Isaiah? Do we have any evidence for that? Not really. But we have a lot of evidence that the God
who created all things and who is the Lord of history can make promises and fulfill them.
So for following the evidence, we find that maybe it's not so hard to believe that God,
through Isaiah, can predict the coming of one like Cyrus who will liberate his people.
But of course, the problem with the nations is that they don't know this God.
They serve gods that aren't really gods at all. In fact, at best, they're just personifications
of the created world. That's why verse 24 says to these so-called gods, look at verse 24, he says,
Behold, you are nothing, and your work is less than nothing. An abomination, that is an offense
against a created order, is he who chooses you. You know, to take, to take some aspect of the created
world and hold it up as a God, right, to take a good thing and make it an ultimate thing, which is
what idolatry is. Isaiah says that's an offense against creation itself. Created things aren't
meant to be worshipped that way. And what is the outcome when we do? We'll look at verse 29.
Behold, they're all a delusion. Their works are nothing. Their metal images are empty wind.
Emptiness is the outcome. Now, it's easy, of course, to look at the ancient world and think
how foolish they were to worship idols, right? How empty all of that was.
But you know, the human heart always worships something. It's impossible for our hearts to not
have some ultimate concern, some driving deep love, something that we elevate to ultimate in our lives.
We always worship something. And that something will either be a created thing or the creator.
There's really no third way.
So whereas today our gods, you know, we don't call our gods by names like Marduk,
like they did in the ancient world, or Zeus in ancient Greece, or Odin, you know, like the old
Norse gods. Even though we don't give our gods those names, right, we're still worshipers.
And our so-called gods leave us just as empty and just as without joy.
What are some of the gods we might worship today? Well, think of the god of success.
It's easy to worship success, isn't it? After all, who doesn't want to be successful? To be liked,
to be known, to be influential. And so, in chasing success, in worshiping it, we study hard, we work
hard, we make the right social connections, we climb the ladder, we pay our dues, we take our risks.
And you know what the outcome is? Some people actually make it. But then what?
It's emptiness.
The irony is, if you worship success, you never feel like you've truly made it.
It's always emptiness in the end.
Now, of course, success, right? That's a pretty, that's a pretty base god, isn't it? Everybody knows
you shouldn't worship success, duh. After all, we think it's relationships, right? It's love that
really matters. We don't want to build our lives around success. We want to build our lives around
relationships, around finding a partner, or starting a family. So maybe if I just get the right spouse,
or the right kids, or I find the right community, then I'll make it, then I'll be okay.
But again, the irony is, if you worship family, if you worship relationships,
it'll tear your relationships apart and leave you empty.
Besides, no spouse, right? No family, no community could ever meet those expectations.
If you're looking to another person to make you ultimately happy and ultimately okay,
that person should run the other way, right?
And look around.
You know, most of us who move from partner to partner to partner or community to community to
community searching for it, we're not happy. We're empty.
We think we're so much more evolved than the ancient world.
But are we?
You know, in the ancient world, they had gods of power and family and love.
They had names for them, but that's what they were.
We worship the same things. We just use different names.
But though the names have changed, the result is the same.
We're empty too.
Why is joy so hard to find?
Because taking a good thing and making it into an ultimate thing leads to emptiness.
But what does the Lord do about it?
Does the Lord, the God of Israel, the one true God, just leave us, the nations, in our emptiness?
He could, you know.
He could say, that's what you've chosen.
You can have what you choose.
And He could continue to let us worship created things.
And He could let us just continue to reap the empty wind.
What does God do about it?
What hope is there for the nations?
What hope is there for us, for you and me?
And that brings us to the next part of our text.
You know, you notice in verse 42, or excuse me, in verse 24,
in verse 24 of chapter 41, God says,
Behold, the false gods are nothing.
And then in verse 29, He says,
Behold, they're all a delusion.
But then chapter 42 opens,
and God says, Behold, again.
Behold.
But this time,
Behold my servant.
Behold the remedy
to your emptiness.
Behold the one who brings real joy.
Let's pick up and read chapter 42,
verses 1 through 9.
Behold my servant,
whom I uphold,
my chosen,
in whom my soul delights.
I have put my spirit upon him.
He will bring forth
justice
to the nations.
He will not cry aloud,
or lift up his voice,
or 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
till he has established
justice in the earth,
and the coastlands
wait for his law.
Thus says God,
the Lord,
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 the Lord.
I have called you,
and you there
refers to the servant
in verse 1.
I have called you
in righteousness.
I will take you
by the hand
and keep you,
and I will give you,
this servant,
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 the Lord.
That is my name.
My glory I give
to no other,
nor my praise
to carved idols.
Behold,
the former things
have come to pass,
and new things now
I declare
before they spring forth.
I tell you of them.
So the bridge,
the bridge between
the emptiness
at the end
of chapter 41
and the joy
that we looked at
at the very beginning,
the joy for all nations
in chapter 41,
verse 11,
the bridge
is right here
in verses 1 through 9.
This is how God does it.
This is how God
can take you and me
from emptiness to joy.
But notice,
God has to do it.
You know,
it's easy to think,
well,
if my problem
is idolatry,
if I'm worshiping
the wrong things,
then I'll just start
worshiping the right things.
And on the surface,
that sounds obviously right,
right?
Stop doing this,
start doing that,
and you're good.
But the problem is,
that way of thinking
underestimates
how deep
our problem
really is.
We can't
actually
save ourselves
that way.
Our hearts
are like
little
idol factories,
and they just keep
churning them out.
And if we turn
from one,
we'll fall
into another.
And if we try
to worship
the true God,
we constantly
fall away.
You see,
what we need
is more than just
a little bit of knowledge
and a little push
in the right direction.
What we actually
need
is to be
liberated.
In verse 7,
God says,
I didn't come to give you
a little knowledge
and a little push
in the right direction.
I've come
to set you free,
to open the eyes
that are blind,
and to bring out
the prisoners
from the dungeon.
You can't make
this right,
God says.
I have to make it right.
You can't simply
wake up one day
and say,
you know,
I'm going to promise
to follow God today.
I'm going to make
a covenant
to stop worshiping
the wrong things
and start worshiping
the right things.
God says,
how long will you
keep that promise
of yours,
that covenant
of yours?
No,
God says,
I have to be
the one
who makes
the covenant.
I've got to make
the promise.
I have to seal
the relationship.
There's no other way.
You can't make
things right.
I have to make
things right.
And how does
God do it?
Look at verse 1.
Behold my servant
whom I uphold,
my chosen
in whom my soul
delights.
I have put my
spirit upon him.
He will bring
forth justice
to the nations.
Justice.
To a world
where everything
has gotten
mixed up
and gone wrong,
this servant
of the Lord
will come,
Isaiah says,
and put things
right.
He will bring
forth justice.
Justice,
a writing
of what's wrong.
You can't make
it right,
but he can.
Three times
the word justice
is used here
in these first
four verses.
And the word justice
in Isaiah
means not just
God's declaration
of what's right
and true,
but God's
restoration
of what's right
and true.
Justice in the
Bible is sort of
like the opposite
of chaos.
You know,
you remember
chapter 41,
it ends,
speaking of empty
wind, right?
That's where chapter
41 ends,
empty wind.
And the Hebrew
word there,
one of the Hebrew
word there is
actually tohu,
which is a word
that sort of
means what it
sounds,
tohu.
It's the same
word used in
the opening
verses of Genesis
to describe
the unformed
creation,
formless and void.
It's just tohu.
It's as if Isaiah
is saying,
look,
idolatry returns
us to the
nothingness and
emptiness of God's
creation.
But God's
justice
is the right
ordering of
life.
When the
Creator speaks
in Genesis 1,
what happens?
The formless
takes form
and the
emptiness
teems with
life.
This is
justice
in the Bible,
the right
ordering
of life.
If
idolatry
sinks us
into chaos,
the servant
comes and
at last
brings justice,
the healing,
restoring order
of the
Creator.
And He's
doing this
not just to
Israel,
but to the
nations in
verse 1.
He's going to
bring forth
justice to
the nations,
to all of
us.
And is He
only going to
do it
halfway?
No,
He's going to
carry it
through faithfully,
verse 3 says.
And He's not
going to stop
until it's
established,
verse 4 says.
Through the
agency of
this servant,
the Lord is
going to put
right what we
could never
put right.
Into the
sea of our
idolatry and
emptiness,
the servant
comes to
restore and
repair and
ultimately to
put us right
with God.
That's what the
Lord says of
this servant in
verse 6.
If you look
again at verse 6,
He says,
I will take
you by the
hand and
keep you,
and I will
give you as
a covenant
for the
people.
In other
words, in
and through
this servant,
the nations,
the nations
who didn't
know God,
who were far
from God,
without God,
and without
hope in the
world, trapped
in the emptiness
of idolatry,
in and through
this servant,
those nations
would be sealed
in a right
relationship with
the one true
God, held
by Him in a
covenant, in a
binding promise.
And when you
look at the
Old Testament,
the heart, the
very heartbeat
of the covenant,
of God's covenant
in the Old Testament
can be summed up
in this phrase,
a phrase that God
says to His people
over and over
again, what is
the covenant?
It's this.
God says, I will
be your God,
and you will be
my people.
That binding,
intimate,
sealed relationship
with God.
In and through
this servant,
the nations who
are far off
will be brought
near.
Though they had
spent themselves
in the service
of false gods
and reaped the
wind of emptiness,
God says,
through my servant,
I'll be your God,
and you'll be
my people.
That's the justice
He will bring.
That's the covenant
He will make,
and that will bring
joy.
But who is
this servant?
Who's the one
who can bring us
from emptiness
to joy
through the justice
that He brings?
Who's the one
who can liberate us
from the prison
of false gods
and seal us
in a covenant
with the one true God?
Well,
Isaiah doesn't
tell us here.
He just says
He's coming.
One day,
He'll come.
And when He comes,
He's going to be
really different
than what you
might have expected.
When He comes,
He's not going to be
brash and loud
and self-promoting
like the rulers
of this world.
Look at verse 2.
He will not cry aloud
or lift up His voice
in the street,
lift up His voice
or make it heard
in the street,
right?
He's not going to
parade around
making a big show
brash and loud
and self-promoting.
Rather,
He will be gentle
and He will be good.
A bruised reed
He will not break
and a faintly burning wick
He will not quench.
And you know,
hundreds of years later,
after Isaiah wrote
these words,
when Jesus Christ
arrived in Galilee,
preaching
and healing
and announcing
God's kingdom,
it all came true.
Here was the one
who had the power
to cast out demons,
but the gentleness
to meet the most
troubled
and burdened
sinner,
the most afflicted
and weary soul
and take them
into His hands
and give them peace.
How true
Isaiah's words
really were
when we look at Jesus,
a bruised reed
He will not break
and a faintly burning wick
He will not quench.
Friend,
how empty
do you feel this morning?
Do you feel bruised
and weak?
You know what a reed is,
right?
A reed is like
a long piece of grass
down by the water,
you know,
these sort of long,
slender things
that grow.
And they're really tender,
right?
And they're really easily
snapped and broken
and bruised.
Is that you today?
Or do you feel like,
do you feel like
your light
is about to go out,
right?
That's a faintly burning wick,
right?
You know,
if you have a candle
in your house
and it's burning
and then you blow it out,
right?
And then there's
a little ember right there
just sort of faintly,
faintly burning
and smoking,
smoldering,
just barely glowing.
Is that you today?
Do you feel like
your light
is about to go out?
Friends,
then listen
to the message of Isaiah.
listen to the words
of God for you.
That Jesus Christ,
the servant of the Lord,
has come
for you.
You might feel
useless
like a battered
and bruised reed,
but you're not useless
to Him.
And you might feel
like you've gone too far,
you've strayed too far,
like your wick
is about to go out,
but you're not
too far gone for Him.
None are too weak
or too far gone
for the Lord Jesus.
Though you
might grow faint
or be discouraged,
as Isaiah says
in verse 4,
He will not grow faint
or be discouraged
till He has established
justice in the earth.
Read the stories
of the Gospels,
friends.
Jesus faced
every trial.
He actually was
bruised and broken.
He was quenched.
He descended
into the godless chaos
of the crucifixion
when everyone around Him
was worshiping
a false God
and put the one true God
in their midst
to death.
He descended
into that godless chaos.
Why?
To bring justice
to the nations.
So that you can be
put right.
So that God's justice
might be established
for you
so that your sins
can be put off
and so that His righteousness
can be put on.
He went down
into sorrow
so that you can know joy.
Real joy.
The joy of knowing God.
And you know, friends,
if this was true of Jesus,
then it must also be true
of those of us
who follow Him.
The ministry of Jesus
was one of strength
exercised in gentleness
and in restoration.
Bruised reeds
were handled with care.
Faintly burning wicks
were nursed back to flame.
Jesus came as a servant.
So as you come
to trust Him,
know
that He will hold you
tenderly in His hands.
And as we seek
to follow Him,
let that be true
for us as well.
Let us be servants.
And may we find
that His joy
becomes complete
in us.
Let's pray together.
Our Father in Heaven,
as we take a minute
and just pause
in the quiet
of this moment
to be before You,
our Creator,
and to take deep breaths
of air
that You have provided
and to just sense
our bodies
that You have given to us.
God, help us to see
our need
for a Savior.
Help us to see
the ways in which
the false gods
that we worship
under whatever name
we give them
have left us empty.
But help us to see
now, Father,
the substance
and the justice
and the joy
of Jesus,
our Savior.
by Your Holy Spirit,
allow our hearts
to reach out
to Him in faith
and in grasping Him
to know
that we are taken
hold of by You.
We pray this
in His name.
Amen.