The entire mission of Jesus follows this pattern: nothing visibly spectacular at first but growing to a level of majesty we can scarcely imagine.
Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 49. Christmas probably is the biggest event of the calendar. Every year, I would say it’s the biggest holiday there is. A Gallup poll in 2019 says that 93% of Americans, in some way, recognize or celebrate Christmas, and it’s not just here in America, it’s something that is a worldwide phenomenon. Over 2 billion people observe Christmas in some way worldwide, if not more. Christy and I were very surprised when we were missionaries in Japan to see Christmas decorations going up in the malls there in Tokushima. There’s the green and red, and there’s all the Christmas, jolly old St. Nicholas, and all that. Santa was everywhere. There it was, Christmas in Japan, where about 1% are evangelical, but there they were celebrating Christmas. I have a friend who lives in the Persian Gulf. We communicate via Zoom from time to time, and he told me that there are Christmas trees all over that Muslim nation. 99% of the people there are Muslim and they still have Christmas trees.
If you look a little closer though, we realize Christmas isn’t as big as it should be. 71% of Americans say they don’t look on Christmas as a religious holiday at all. That’s a huge percentage of people that see it in a secular sort of way, and we think that must be true of the billions around the world that stop working, gather to eat and to drink, and to celebrate in some way. We’re aware of the fact that Christmas, however big it is, needs to be a lot bigger.
That brings me to the text that we’re studying today, Isaiah 49, in which it is said by God to Christ, “It is too small a thing…” I want to zero in on that concept and link it to Christmas. Christmas is too small, it’s smaller than it should be, however big it is, it still too small. In the text, it is said, “It is too small a thing for you to save the Jews alone.” Too small a thing. Now what an amazing achievement that would be, the salvation of the Jewish nation. When Jesus Christ finally achieves it, what a great achievement that would be at the end of human history, as I believe the mystery that Paul talks about in Romans 11, where he says, “All Israel will be saved.” I believe that that will come, that will be a climax to the long, and torturous, and painful journey that Almighty God has been on with his chosen people, the Jewish nation, the descendants of Abraham. But however great that will be, God says in this text, “It is too small a thing.” God intended a glory far greater than that, a multitude from every tribe, and language, and people in nation standing around the throne celebrating the salvation of God.
The idea of my sermon today is captured in another place in Scripture. “O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name together.” To magnify means to make great or make greater. We cannot make an infinite God any greater than he is, but He does need to be greater in our own estimation. That’s where He is too small. That’s why Christmas is too small, in our own minds, in our own estimation, and the Word of God is the remedy.
Look at the text again. Isaiah 49: 1-6, “Listen to me, you islands. Hear this, you distant nations. Before I was born, the Lord called me from my birth, He has made mention of my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of His hand, He hid me. He made me into a polished arrow, and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I’ll display my splendor.’ But I said, ‘I have labored to no purpose. I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing, yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.’ And now the Lord says, ‘He who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, where I’m honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength.’”
He says, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob, and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth.” I believe that it is Christ speaking in this passage. He’s summoning all nations to listen, look at verse 1, “Listen to me, you islands. Hear this, you distant nations.” I’ve already made the assertion, but we need to ask, “Who is speaking in these words?” This person is speaking of himself and for himself, but He relates something He says that God says to him, the Lord says to him, “The Lord spoke to me.” So who is the speaker in this ancient oracle? There are three possibilities. It is Isaiah the prophet himself speaking, or it is the nation of Israel collectively having a certain role to play, and that’s home base of verse 3, where the speaker says the Lord calls him, “My servant Israel.” Or it could be the Messiah, the Christ, speaking through the spirit of God, the spirit of Christ, through the prophet Isaiah in the first person.
If we look at verse 6, this is a key. He says, “It is too small or too light a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I’ll also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth.” The servant who’s speaking here is someone who both restores the tribes of Israel and is also the light for the Gentiles. There’s no way that can be the sinful nation of Israel. Israel can’t bring Israel back, so that’s eliminated. It’s certainly not Isaiah the prophet, the man of unclean lips, he would never have arrogated to himself the statements made here. The New Testament solves this question for us directly by quoting this passage and ascribing it directly to Jesus.
Shortly after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary took the baby Jesus to Jerusalem to be circumcised in fulfillment of the law of Moses. A prophet named Simeon was waiting for him. Moved by the Holy Spirit, he took the baby Jesus into his arms and said these amazing words in Luke 2, “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and for glory for your people Israel.” So he calls him the light for the Gentiles or for the nations. So also Paul and Barnabas, when they’re preaching in a synagogue in Pisidian, Antioch, quoted this and directly connected it to Jesus in Acts 13:47, “This is what the Lord has commanded us, I have made you,” [singular,] “a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the Earth.” Paul and Barnabas, didn’t think that they were the light to the Gentiles, but they were there at Pisidian, Antioch on his behalf.
The statement that had been made to Jesus, “I will make you a light for the Gentiles,” they took as their marching orders, but it was Jesus that was the light for the Gentiles. Therefore, the speaker in Isaiah 49 is none other than Jesus speaking, long before He was incarnate by the Virgin Mary, speaking prophetically by the power of the Holy Spirit in the first person. This shouldn’t surprise us because He does the same thing in His most famous quotation of Isaiah. At the beginning of His public ministry in Nazareth, He went to his hometown, Nazareth. He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and He took the scroll of Isaiah, and He unrolled it to Isaiah 61. He read these words, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me,” [first person] “because He has anointed me,” [Messiah Christ means anointed one] “to preach good news to the poor.” He went on and quoted more of Isaiah 61, then He rolled up the scroll and sat down, and He said, “Today in your hearing, this scripture is fulfilled.”
So “I am the Messiah, I am the anointed one, the spirit of the Lord is upon me.” But if you just read Isaiah 61, it’s the same thing. It’s an ancient oracle written in the first person. It’s Jesus speaking prophetically long before He was born by the spirit of God. We have that same kind of pattern here, and this is one of a series of what’s known as “servant songs,” the servant of the Lord. There are four of them, the four servant songs. Sometimes the text speaks about the servant of the Lord, and sometimes in the servant song, the servant speaks himself directly. These four servant songs give us a sense of the purpose of God in sending Jesus. This is the thing that’s so amazing, Isaiah was written more than seven centuries before Jesus was born. Uzziah died in the year 733BC, a contemporary of the prophet Isaiah. This is a long time before Jesus was born and it gives us great confidence, doesn’t it? To know that the whole plan had been written out in detail in prophecy long before Jesus was born.
We have these four servant songs. The first is in Isaiah 42, which depicts Jesus as a gentle Savior. Isaiah 42: 1-4, “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.” The speaker there is God, He’s speaking about the servant of the Lord, Jesus. “I will put my spirit on Him, and He will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout, or cry out, or raise His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out. In faithfulness, He will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged till He establishes justice on the Earth, and in His law, the islands will put their hope.” That’s the first of the four servant songs, directly ascribed to Jesus in Matthew chapter 12. When it says, “The bruised reed He will not break, and the smoldering wick He will not snuff out,” it is speaking of Jesus’s wonderful tenderness and skill in binding together broken-hearted sinners and saving them. He’s a gentle and a loving Savior, and that’s the first servant song.
This servant song, Isaiah 49, is the second of the four, and we’re going to walk through it this morning. The third is in Isaiah 50, again, it speaks in the first person. It speaks of the sufferings of the servant. And then the fourth, Isaiah 52 and 53, is the most famous of the four servant songs. Both of those last two, Isaiah 50 and Isaiah 52/53 speak of the suffering servant of the Lord, the intense sufferings of the servant of the Lord, culminating in the substitutionary, atoning death of Jesus.
I. Christ Summons All Nations to Listen
This servant song, Isaiah 49, will depict Jesus as a messenger for the glory of the Lord to the ends of the Earth. To take the greatness of God from small beginnings to a worldwide eternal kingdom, the glory of the Lord shining to the Gentiles, but it begins so powerfully as Jesus speaks in the text to the distant islands and nations to listen to His voice calling on all peoples, all over the world, across all time to listen to Him. Look at verse 1, “Listen to me, you islands. Hear this, you distant nations.” This verse shows the scope of God saving plans. Christ is calling to the ends of the Earth. Christ is the King of Kings. He is the Lord of Lords. All nations on Earth are His, for the Father has given them to Him. And He summons the islands, He summons the distant nations, the farthest places, the remotest locations. For example, the Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic, the semi-nomadic tribes, the cave dwellers of Papua New Guinea belong to Him. The blonde haired Norsemen, descendants of the Vikings, who now live in civilized and technologically advanced cities in Norway. The tall Dinka in South Sudan, perhaps the tallest tribe on Earth. All of these distant lands and all the others are summoned by Jesus Christ, the king of all the Earth, to listen to His voice, “Listen to me.”
II. God Called Jesus Before and After Birth
He wants them to know the origin of His saving mission, it was by the call of the Father before He was born. God called Jesus before and after His birth. Look again in verse 1, “Before I was born, the Lord called me.” Jesus is unique in all of human history. He existed before He took on a human body. He’s the only human being that chose to enter the world. He was called by His father, and Christ’s mission was determined in the mind of God before the foundation of the worlds. Before God said, “Let there be light,” before God created the heavens and the Earth, this plan was established and determined in the mind of God. 1 Peter 1: 19-20 says, “We were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.” This is no new plan thrown together hastily at the end, but it was planned in the mind of God before the foundation of the world. Revelation 13:8 also speaks of the lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.
“Jesus is unique in all of human history. He existed before He took on a human body. He’s the only human being that chose to enter the world. He was called by His father, and Christ’s mission was determined in the mind of God before the foundation of the world.”
III. God Formed, Sharpened, Polished and Concealed Jesus
It says in the text that God formed, sharpened, polished, and concealed Jesus. Look at verse 2, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me. He made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.” God prepared His son, the Lord Jesus, and He prepared the world for the coming of Christ. He orchestrated all of these things. Before the foundation of the world, God the Father, shaped his plan for the world through the Son. Everything in the universe, visible and invisible, was created through the Son. John 1:3, “Through him all things were made. And without him, nothing was made that has been made.” Colossians uses the same concept, the Word through Colossians 1:16, “For through him or by him, all things were created. Things in heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or powers, or rulers, or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him.” So through Him, by Him, for Him. If that’s true of the physical universe, how much more are the plans for the salvation of sinners, from every tribe, language, people and nation made through the Son, by the Father through the Son.
God, the Father, agreed to save the Elect through the blood of his incarnate Son before God made anything at all. Ephesians 1 says, “For he chose us in him,” that is in Christ, “before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace.” His people were chosen in Christ, before the world began, to end up holy and blameless in heaven. That’s all this preparation that was made before there even was a world, before Jesus was conceived and born, the preparation language was ascribed to the unfolding plan of God, and then history unfolded. The calling of Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, the birth of Isaac by a miracle, by the miracle power of God, and then of Jacob, and then of the 12 tribes, and then the bondage, the slavery in Egypt, all of that. The exodus through Moses, then all that subsequent history of the Jewish nation, and also the detailed history of the Gentile nations as well.
God orchestrated all of these things according to His plan and His purpose. You look at the history of Israel recorded for us in the Old Testament, the history of Israel under the laws of Moses, and their tragic, consistent rebellion against God, and their consistent idolatry, and their consistent resistance of the Holy Spirit, and the messengers, the prophets, that came and they would not listen. Their subsequent exiles by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and God’s graciousness and allowing a small remnant of them to return to the Promised Land under Gentile domination and rebuild their lives, rebuild the temple and the city. Then the subsequent history of that small dominated nation in the times of the Gentiles, dominated by Gentile powers, until the time of Christ. Then in the fullness of time we’re told, Galatians 3, “At the right time, God sent his son Jesus Christ.” At just the right time, everything had been prepared, everything had been shaped and prepared for that moment in time for Jesus to come, and so we see that preparation language.
Then God prepared a body for Jesus. He prepared a body for him in the womb of the Virgin Mary, Jesus was a holy embryo. This is an infinite mystery, something we will never fully comprehend, but His body was prepared step by step. It was miraculously conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit came over the body of Mary. But then it unfolded, it seems, in the natural way like any other baby is knit together in his or her mother’s womb. The Virgin Mary was pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, as the angel said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you, and so the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” Mary said, “I’m a virgin, how can it be that I would have a baby?” That’s how it happened, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the ordinary 23 chromosomes that would’ve come from a father, came from the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit.
Other than that, it seems his body was formed step-by-step as the child develops in the mother’s womb. The text in Isaiah says that God made his mouth like a sharpened sword. Before his mouth could be a sharpened sword, He had to have a mouth at all. His physical mouth, and then the lungs that gave him breath so He could speak. Indeed, every bodily system needed for physical life, God willed to give him. By the power of the Holy Spirit, knitting his body together, but in the ordinary way it seems of human gestation. Psalm 139, “You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the Earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
That’s David the psalmist talking about his own physical creation by God inside his mother’s womb. But how much more is that true of Jesus? Again, Job spoke the same way of his own body being knit together. Job said to God, “Your hand shaped me and made me. Remember that you molded me like clay. Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? Did you not clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness.” How amazing is that process anyway for every baby, but how much more significant is it for the incarnate son of God? All the days ordained for Jesus were written in God’s book before one of them came to be. He was concealed, but this concealed son of God was revealed at the right time. “Hidden in the womb of the Virgin Mary like a polished arrow,” it says, “concealed in the quiver, just as God’s plan for the salvation of the world was hidden in the mind of God but then suddenly revealed when Jesus broke on the scene.”
Romans 16 speaks of the proclamation of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages pass but now revealed and made known. Ephesians 3:9 also, this mystery which for ages past was kept hidden in God who created all things. Colossians 1:26, “The mystery that had been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the saints.” This mystery is Christ, the incarnate son of God, the Savior of the world, our hope for glory. Isaiah tells us that God concealed him in the shadow of his hand until the right time. The language here in Isaiah 49 is military. Jesus’ mouth is likened to a sharpened sword, He is likened to a polished arrow. Jesus was unleashed by God the Father as a weapon to destroy Satan’s dark kingdom, to smash it to bits, to destroy it, to bind the strong man, and to plunder his house, and to destroy him eternally in the lake of fire. By his own death, by Jesus’ own death, to destroy him who held the power of death.
In order to do this, God had to give Him a human soul, infinite mystery, and house it in a human body for that is what death is, the separation of the soul from the body. God gave Him blood, blood cells to course through His body, blood vessels to carry that blood, so that at the right time, He could shed His blood as an atonement for our sins. God gave Him bones as the frame of His body, but He ordained that not one of them would be broken when He died on the cross. God gave Him eyes to see the suffering of His afflicted sheep, He gave Him ears to hear their cries of pain, and all of this God prepared for His Son in the nine months that He was knitting Him together in His mother’s womb. Then He hid Him once He was born, He hid Him from Herod’s satanic attacks. Herod sent soldiers to hunt Him down and slaughter Him in Bethlehem, but God concealed Him and protected Him so that He would not die. The demons would’ve killed Him in the 30 years while He was growing up. He was getting ready to be revealed publicly to Israel, but they were held at bay. They would not be permitted to come after Him. They knew who He was, but He was protected and concealed, and He was concealed from public view until the right time came for Him to be manifested publicly to Israel.
John the Baptist came as the forerunner, and he saw in the days of his baptism and the days of his preaching, John saw Jesus come. The only perfect man that has ever lived and he declared, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” John said, “I have seen and I testify that he is the son of God.” John the Baptist said his central mission was the unveiling of the hidden son of God. In John 1:31, “The reason I came baptizing with water is that he might be unveiled or revealed Israel.” The time of concealing was over, it was time for Him to be revealed. Think about the sharpened sword that was Jesus’ mouth. How was Jesus’ mouth like a sharpened sword with the awesome power of the words that He spoke? By His words, demons were driven out instantly. They were terrified of His word, they fled from Him, and no human weapon could ever bring terror to demons or to Satan. Satan has no fear of any weapon that we form, no weapon system. Remember when we were going through the book of Job and we talked about Leviathan, and I thought that he pictured Satan? For Leviathan in Job 41, it says, “The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart of the javelin. Iron he treats like straw, bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make him flee, slingstones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw, he laughs at the rattling of the lance.” There’s no weapon that human beings could make, no sword that we could fashion that Satan would tremble at. But the demons were terrified of Jesus and they fled at His word.
When the demoniac from the Gadarenes with 5,000 demons inside was confronted with Jesus, they ran to Him and fell on the ground before Him, begged Him that He would send them into the herd of pigs and not send them into the pit before they appointed time. He said one word in the Gospel of Matthew’s account, “Go,” and they fled. It was the power of the word of Jesus over the demonic forces. Jesus’ sword is terrible, and swift, and unbreakable against all his enemies. At His second coming, He is depicted as having a sharp, double-edged sword coming out of his mouth. Revelation 19, “Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter, He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. And with His breath, He will slay the Antichrist, the most powerful and most wicked human being that will have ever lived in all of history.”
It says in 2 Thessalonians 2, “The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of His mouth and the splendor of His coming.” All He’ll have to do with the Antichrist is say, “Be dead, go to hell,” and it’ll be done. That’s the power of the sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus. How much more terrifying when He speaks to His enemies on judgment day, when all the nations are gathered before Him and He sits on a glorious throne, and He separates the people, all of them, one from another, into two categories, and only two, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He’s going to say to the goats, to the lost, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” That “depart from me” is His sharp sword cutting them off from Himself, and from life, and from everything good that there has ever been or ever will be. That’s the terror of the sharp sword coming from the mouth of Jesus.
Yet in an amazing way, his polished sharp sword heals us from our sins. Much like a surgeon’s scalpel is able to cut out the tumor, it’s able to take out the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any double-edged sword. It’s able to penetrate, even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marriage, judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. At the day of Pentecost, the people heard the gospel and they were cut to the heart, they were pierced by it and saved, because of that sharp sword coming out of Jesus’ mouth.
IV. The Apparent Failure of Jesus’ Mission
Now we come to a mystery and that is the apparent failure of Jesus’s mission. If Isaiah 49:1-6 is indeed the pre-incarnate Christ speaking of his mission in the world, if it is, what do we make of this one statement in verse 4? “I said, ‘I have labored to no purpose, I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.’” That sounds really discouraged, doesn’t it? I put in all this time, I did all this labor, and nothing has come of it. If this is still Jesus speaking, and it must be because the text continues in the same pattern, how could it be? At what point would Jesus say something like this? The mystery of the incarnation, the entire mission of Jesus follows the same pattern. Nothing visibly spectacular at first, small, insignificant, not very glorious, and just getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Growing to a level we can scarcely imagine. Isaiah 53 speaks of this very thing in verse 2, “He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” He’s not impressive. When the King of Kings and Lord of Lords entered the world, it was in abject poverty and humility, born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger. When the shepherds went and saw them, they saw a baby wrapped up in cloths, that was it.
When the Magi came, having been led by the star, they just saw a normal human baby. He had no majesty, no glory. He was just simple, and so throughout His ministry. He had no outward majesty, no radiant glory shining around Him. He looked like an ordinary man, and a very poor one at that. He had no place to lay His head. He had to be supported by a group of women who supported Him out of their means. This culminated in His arrest, in weakness. He didn’t fight, He just went like a sheep to the slaughter. His disciples all deserted Him and fled the moment that He was arrested. Jesus said they would do it, “This very night you will all fall away in account of me, for it is written. I’ll strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” They’re all gone. His closest, most trusted allies, disciples that he had poured into for three years, they’re gone.
And the time of His death, as He was dying on the cross and his blood was flowing out of His body, all He had to show at that moment, for a worldwide awesome movement in the kingdom that would last for all eternity, was His mother, some other women who were friends of the family, and one of the 12 apostles, John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was an eyewitness to His death. That was it. The only perfect ministry there’s ever been, the only perfect teaching and perfect miracles, all of that perfect example, and that’s it. But I said, “I have labored to no purpose. I’ve spent my strength in vain and for nothing.” The seemingly gloomy statement shows how small the kingdom of Christ would’ve appeared at that moment. If any of us who are followers of Christ could be there at that moment, we would see what it looked like, and it didn’t look like much. It certainly didn’t look glorious, it certainly didn’t look like it would conquer the world and last for all eternity.
It started small, like Jesus’ own body in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Microscopically small, so also the kingdom, which would one day conquer the whole Earth and last for all the eternity. But at that moment, all of those beautiful outcomes were in the hands of God. As He died, He said, “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.” I think we could go beyond and say, “Into Your hands, I commend my kingdom. Do something with this.” That’s why in Isaiah 49:4, it doesn’t last long, this seemingly gloomy statement. “But I said, ‘I have labored to no purpose. I’ve spent my strength and a vain for nothing. Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.’” And God says, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Ask of me, and I’m going to give you the nations as your inheritance.” You cannot measure the zeal that God the Father had to make much of what Christ did by dying on the cross, but at the moment of death it seemed like a failure.
Therefore, like Jesus’ body itself grew, Jesus’ kingdom starts small also and moves out to its appropriate scope, and then we see the eternal glory of Jesus’ kingdom. The text speaks of a glory too small for Christ. Look at verses 5-6, “Now the Lord says, ‘He who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I’m honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength.’ He says, ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I’ll also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth.’” This is Jesus speaking by the Spirit through the words of Isaiah that Isaiah wrote down. He talks of his formation in the womb, the incarnation, Jesus would say, “The same God who formed me, formed my body in the womb of the virgin has glorious plans for Me.” Yes, the original mission was to the nation of Israel.
Paul says plainly to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “Salvation is from the Jews.” He said to the Syrophoenician woman, “I was sent only to the lost tribes of Israel.” Now this text says Jesus’ first mission was to bring Jacob back to God and gather Israel to himself, to restore Jacob and bring back the remnant, those of Israel that I have kept, that remnant. But that mission is too small. The Hebrew literally says it’s too light, it’s too trifling a thing. “I’ve got bigger plans than that for you, Jesus.” Bigger plans than that, however great that is. That Jesus, the eternal son of God, would be the tribal savior of only one ethnic group on Earth, that is too small a thing. Why? Romans 3: 29-30 says, “Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles too?” Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God who will justify the circumcised through faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.
One God for the entire world, one savior. So therefore it is too light a thing for Jesus to only be a Jewish savior. He has a worldwide plan, God does. “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth.” A light for the Gentiles, and that light directly equated with salvation. As Isaiah said earlier, in Isaiah 9:2, “The people walking in darkness have seen what a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.” It says in the next verse, Isaiah 9:3, “You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy.” So we’re going to have a bigger nation. He says in Isaiah 54, “Lengthen the tent ropes and the stakes, and get a bigger tent, you’re going to need a bigger tent, O Zion.” So it’s too small a thing for just the Jews, there are going to be some honorary members of the family of Abraham. By repentance and faith in Christ, they’re going to be grafted into this incredible work.
“One God for the entire world, one savior. So therefore it is too light a thing for Jesus to only be a Jewish savior. He has a worldwide plan, God does.”
It is too small a thing for it just to stay Jews only. They rejoice before you as those who rejoice at the harvest, as those who rejoice when dividing the plunder. It’s a time of joy. Jesus is the light for the Gentiles, giving the light of truth, shining the light on yourself, the light of the truth about yourself, that you’re a sinner who has violated the laws of God as I am, that you deserve hell. Death is coming. You see the light of yourself, and you come into the light because you’re not afraid, because you know what you’re going to find there is a savior who is gentle and humble, and you’re going to find rest for your souls, and salvation for your souls. That light is shining on you, and you can see yourself clearly for the first time, but you can also see the light of the glory of God in Christ, and He’s beautiful and attractive, and you want him. That’s the light, as it says in “Amazing Grace.” “Amazing grace, how sweet this sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found was blind, but now I see.”
Jesus is the light for the Gentiles who would bring God’s salvation to the ends of the Earth. And what is that but missions, friends. You may be wondering, “Why did you do Isaiah?” It’s like, I want to get to missions. I want to talk about missions. “Well, Pastor, you did that last week.” That’s true, I want to do it this week too. It is important that we understand God’s worldwide plan for the greatness of Jesus. Jesus is still too small, and His kingdom is still too small. It’s bigger than it was yesterday, praise God, but it’s still too small and it’s going to get bigger and bigger. More and more people, and more and more conception of the greatness of Christ, and that process is going to go on for all eternity.
Romans 15, “I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews, on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy, as it is written. ‘Therefore, I’ll praise you among the Gentiles, I’ll sing hymns to your name.’” Again, it says, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” And again, “Praise the Lord all you Gentiles, and sing praises to Him all you peoples.” And again, Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations, and the Gentiles will hope in Him.”
V. Application
This time of year, we collect money for missions through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. We have a greater focus on missions, our minds drift away throughout the year. We should be thinking about it daily throughout the year, but this is a good time for us to recommit and reconnect. Think about sacrificial financial giving. It is by offerings like this that missionaries are cared for, paid for, and able to stay on the field. Let’s be sacrificial in our giving.
We do this so that we may finally realize, God the Father’s, determination in Isaiah 49:6, that Jesus would have the full glory of the salvation of the elect from every nation. As Revelation 7 says, “After this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne, and in front of the lamb. And they were wearing white robes, and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb.’” Isaiah 9 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he’ll be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his kingdom and of peace, there will be no end.” This kingdom is going to get bigger for all eternity, not more people, procreation will be done. But in your estimation of the greatness of Jesus, you’re going to spend eternity learning just how infinitely glorious and great Jesus is.
I’m looking forward to that, aren’t you? Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank You for the time we’ve had to study. Lord, we thank You for the gospel and pray, oh Lord, that You would just be speaking very plainly. Like even now, oh Lord, be speaking. Speaking to people who have yet to cross over from death of life. Let them hear the truth, and let them know… They’ve heard the gospel multiple times this morning. Let them know that it is for them, that they would see in the light of the truth of the Word of God, that they need a savior, and that Jesus is that savior. And repenting and trusting in Him, find life in His name. And for all of us, oh Lord, help us to be committed to shining that light in many dark places in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.
The Christmas spirit is often seen best through the wondering eyes of a small child. Their eyes sparkle at the lights and shiny decorations on the Christmas tree. They whirl around in wonder at the seasonal lights hung on telephone poles and decorating buildings in the streets of the city. They stare in wonder at the manger scenes erected on the lawns of churches. Their wonder reinvigorates the imagination even of the most seasoned adult… and makes it all come fresh again.
Little ones… the ones Jesus claims as his own… they see everything as if it is new and fresh.
I want to take this concept and expand it when it comes to Christ himself, to his birth, and to what God intended by it.
In the text we are looking at this morning, the concept of a movement from something too small to be seen with the naked eye to something infinitely majestic is unveiled before us.
For, as I will prove as we walk through the passage, I believe God the Father is speaking to his preincarnate Son concerning the mission he would enter the world to perform.
God the Father speaks of a scope of mission that is FAR TOO SMALL for him to accomplish. God has immeasurably greater plans for Jesus’ birth, Jesus’ life, Jesus’ death, Jesus’ resurrection, and the proclamation of Jesus’ name. Though all of it would start microscopically small, it was the will of God that it should not stay small.
So, Christmas glory must get larger and larger and larger in our eyes. That is the motion of today’s sermon:
O magnify the Lord with me! Let us exalt his name together!
This sermon is ultimately about MISSIONS… because Christmas, rightly understood, is ultimately about missions. But even missions is not ultimate. Rather, the glory of God is ultimate.
As John Piper put it in his missions classic, Let the Nations Be Glad:
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man. When this age is over, and the countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more.”
So it is with Christmas. Christmas occurred to produce worship. But it is too small a thing for that worship to be done just by one nation, the Jewish nation… God intended that Jesus should be his servant to take his glory to the ends of the earth. So before Jesus entered the world, the Father who was sending him gave him this mandate:
Isaiah 49:6 he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
TOO SMALL A THING for him to save the Jewish nation alone. TOO SMALL A THING! What an amazing achievement that will be when Jesus Christ finally achieves it… when at the end of human history “All Israel will be saved.” That will be an astonishing climax to the long and torturous journey that Almighty God has been on with his chosen nation, the descendants of Abraham. But however amazing that will be, God says it is TOO SMALL A THING! God intended a glory far greater than that… a multitude greater than any human being could count from every tribe and language and people and nation worshiping God for his salvation!
Jesus is glorious
Isaiah 49:1-6 Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name. 2 He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. 3 He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.” 4 But I said, “I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing. Yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand, and my reward is with my God.” 5 And now the LORD says– he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength– 6 he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
I. Christ Summons All Nations to Listen
Isaiah 49:1 Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations
A. Who Is Speaking in this Passage?
1. This person is speaking of himself… and he relates something God says to him… the LORD spoke to ME
2. Three possibilities for the speaker
a. Isaiah the prophet himself
b. The nation of Israel collectively (see verse 3… the speaks says the Lord calls him ISRAEL)
c. The Messiah… Jesus Christ
3. But look at verse 6
Isaiah 49:6 he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
a. The servant is someone who BOTH restores the tribes of Israel AND is the light for the Gentiles
b. No way that can be the sinful nation of Israel!
c. And it’s certainly not Isaiah the prophet… the man of unclean lips
4. The New Testament solves this question
a. Shortly after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to be circumcised
b. A prophet named Simeon was waiting for him there; moved by the Holy Spirit he took the baby Jesus into his arms and said this amazing words:
Luke 2:29-32 “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. 30 For my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the sight of all people, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”
So also Paul and Barnabas quoted this passage at Pisidian Antioch and directly connected it with Jesus:
Acts 13:47 For this is what the Lord has commanded us: “‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'”
5. Conclusion: The “speaker” in Isaiah 49 is none other than Jesus… in the mind and words of the prophet Isaiah seven centuries before he was even born
B. Setting the Context
This is one of a series of “Servant Songs”… prophecies specifically focused on the coming of Jesus Christ
The first is in Isaiah 42 which depicts Jesus as a gentle Savior…
Isaiah 42:1-4 “Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations. 2 He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. 3 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice; 4 he will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law the islands will put their hope.”
When it says the “bruised reed he will not break and the smoldering wick he will not snuff out” it is asserting Jesus’ wonderful tenderness and gentleness to frail and broken sinners. His kingdom will extend by the power of the Spirit to the distant islands who will hope in his name
This Servant Song is the second… the third (Isaiah 50) and the fourth (Isaiah 52-53) will depict the intense sufferings of the Servant of the Lord… the substitutionary death of Jesus in our place
This Servant Song, Isaiah 49, will depict Jesus as the glory of the Lord shining to the Gentiles.
But it begins so powerfully with his call to the distant nations to LISTEN to him!!
It is in HEARING JESUS’ WORDS that the distant nations will be saved!
C. Christ’s Call to All Nations
Isaiah 49:1 Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations
1. This verse shows the scope of God’s saving plans… Christ is CALLING TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH
2. Christ is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords… all nations on earth are His, for the Father gave them to Him
3. He summons the ISLANDS and the DISTANT NATIONS… the farthest places and remotest locations: the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic; the semi-nomadic Meakambut cave dwellers of Papua New Guinea; the blonde-haired Norsemen, descendants of the Viking who now live in civilized cities in Norway; the tall Dinka of South Sudan, perhaps the tallest tribe on earth… all these distant lands are summoned by Jesus Christ, the King of the Earth
He wants them to know the ORIGIN of His saving mission… it was by the call of the Father BEFORE HE WAS BORN
II. God Called Jesus Before and After His Birth
Isaiah 49:1 Before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name.
A. Jesus says Almighty God Called Him to Be Savior Before He Was Even Born!!
B. Unique in all Human History: Christ Existed Before His Birth
C. Christ’s Mission Was Determined in the Mind of God Before the Foundation of the World
1 Peter 1:19-20 [you were redeemed] with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20 He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.
Revelation 13:8 the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.
III. God Formed, Sharpened, Polished, and Concealed Jesus
Isaiah 49:2 He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.
A. God Prepared His Son, the Lord Jesus
1. Before the foundation of the world, God the Father shaped his plan for the world through his Son
2. Everything in the universe, visible and invisible, was made “through” the Son
John 1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
Colossians 1:16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
3. How much more were the plans for the salvation of the world made by the Father through the Son
4. God the Father agreed to save the elect through the blood of his incarnate Son before God made anything at all
Ephesians 1:4-6 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will– 6 to the praise of his glorious grace
5. Before Jesus was conceived and born, the “preparation” language is ascribed to the unfolding plan of God… the calling of Abraham, the birth of Isaac, then Jacob, then the Twelve Tribes, then the bondage in Egypt, then the Exodus through Moses… then all the subsequent history both of the Jewish nation and the Gentile nations
6. The history of Israel under the Laws of Moses, their consistent rebellion and idolatry, and their exiles, and God’s graciousness in allowing a remnant to return to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple… and the subsequent history of that small, weak nation under the Persians, the Greeks and then the Romans
7. “In the fullness of time” (Galatians 3), God sent his Son… at just the right time… everything having been fully prepared, made ready
B. God Formed Jesus in the Hiddenness of Mary’s Womb
1. Jesus was a holy embryo… infinite mystery! His body was prepared step by step in the ordinary way except his conception without a human father
2. The Virgin Mary was pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit
Luke 1:34-35 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
The ordinary 23 chromosomes that would have come from the father came from the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. Other than that, his body was formed step by step within the womb of the Virgin Mary
3. The text in Isaiah says that God made his mouth like a sharpened sword… well before his mouth could be a sharpened sword, he had to have a mouth at all… his physical mouth, and the lungs that gave him breath so he could speak, every bodily system needed for physical life, God willed to give him through the Holy Spirit… but in the ordinary way of human gestation
Psalm 139:13-16 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
Job 10:8-12 “Your hands shaped me and made me. … 9 Remember that you molded me like clay. …. 10 Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese, 11 clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? 12 You gave me life and showed me kindness,
How amazing that process is anyway, for every baby! How much more significant this baby, the incarnate Son of God! All the days ordained for him were written in the Book of Salvation before the world began!
C. The Concealed Son of God Was Revealed at the Right Time
He was concealed… hidden in the womb of the Virgin Mary, like a polished arrow concealed in the quiver
Just as God’s plan for the salvation of the world was hidden in the mind of God but then suddenly revealed when Jesus broke on the scene
Romans 16:25-26 the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, 26 but now revealed and made known
Ephesians 3:9 this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things.
Colossians 1:26 the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the saints.
This mystery is CHRIST… the Savior of the world… our hope for glory
Isaiah tells us God concealed him in the shadow of his hand until the right time
The language in Isaiah 49 is military… a sharpened sword and a polished arrow
Jesus was unleashed to destroy Satan’s kingdom… to bind the strong man and plunder him, by his own death to destroy him who held the power of death
In order to do this, God had to give him a human soul and house it in a human body, for what is death but the separation of the soul from the body? God gave him blood to course through his body and blood vessels to carry that blood… so he could die on the cross at the appointed time
God gave him bones as the frame of his body, ordaining that not one of them will be broken
God gave him eyes to see the sufferings of his afflicted sheep… he gave him ears to hear their cries of pain
All of this God prepared for his Son in the nine months he was knitting him together in his mother’s womb
Then he hid him from Satan’s attacks—Herod tried to kill him, sending soldiers to hunt him down and slaughter him in Bethlehem; and all the demons would have delighted to destroy him as he grew. But for thirty years he was hidden from public view until the time came for him to be revealed to Israel through the ministry of John the Baptist.
On a certain day, John the forerunner saw the only perfect man that has ever lived and declared
John 1:29 “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
John 1:34 I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.
John the Baptist said his central mission was the unveiling of the hidden Son of God:
John 1:31 the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.
D. The Sharpened Sword of Jesus’ Mouth
1. How was Jesus mouth like a sharpened sword?
2. By the awesome power of the words he spoke
3. By his words demons were instantly driven out, fleeing from him in terror. No human sword could destroy Satan’s kingdom… as we saw with Leviathan
Job 41:26-29 The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart or the javelin. 27 Iron he treats like straw and bronze like rotten wood. 28 Arrows do not make him flee; slingstones are like chaff to him. 29 A club seems to him but a piece of straw; he laughs at the rattling of the lance.
4. But a Legion of demons instantly fled from him at the simple command “Go”!!
5. Jesus’ sword is terrible, swift, and unbreakable against his enemies
a. At his second coming he is depicted as having a sharp, double-edged sword coming from his mouth
Revelation 19:15 Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.” He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.
b. With his breath he will slay the Antichrist
2 Thessalonians 2:8 the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the splendor of his coming.
c. He will destroy his enemies eternally with this one command on Judgment Day
Matthew 25:41 Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
6. YET the polished sword in Jesus’ mouth is also a scalpel with which he performs life-giving surgery on our hearts and souls… his words convict us, expose us and ultimately save us
Hebrews 4:12 or the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
IV. The Apparent Failure of Jesus’ Mission
If Isaiah 49:1-6 is indeed the preincarnate Christ speaking of his mission in the world, what do we make of this one statement:
Isaiah 49:4 But I said, “I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.
A. This is a Mystery… How Did Jesus’ Work Appear to Have Been in Vain?
B. The Mystery of the Incarnation
1. The entire mission of Jesus follows this same pattern: nothing visibly spectacular at first… small, insignificant… but growing to a level of majesty we can scarcely imagine
2. Isaiah 53 spoke of this very thing:
Isaiah 53:2 He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3. When the King of kings and Lord of lords entered the world, it was in abject poverty and humility… born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger
4. He certainly didn’t look like much; when the Magi came to worship him, they saw a normal human baby in the most abject of circumstances
5. So also throughout his ministry… he had no outward majesty, no radiant glory shining around him; he looked like an ordinary man, and a very poor one at that; he had no place to lay his head; some women had to support him financially out of their means
6. Culminating in his arrest… his rejection by the Jewish nation… his condemnation… and his humiliating death on the cross
7. At that key moment, all his disciples had deserted him and run for their lives
Matthew 26:31 Jesus told them, “This very night you will all fall away on account of me, for it is written: “‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’
8. At the time of his death, this was all he had to show for the only perfect ministry there has ever been on earth: his mother Mary, some other women who were friends of the family, and the disciple whom Jesus loved (the Apostle John)
9. SO… we can see that Jesus’ ministry appeared a total failure
Isaiah 49:4 But I said, “I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.
10. This seemingly gloomy statement shows how SMALL the Kingdom of Christ was at the beginning… like Jesus’ own body in Mary’s womb started microscopically small… so also his Kingdom, which one day will encompass all the earth and span all nations and spread over all the centuries… but at that moment, all those beautiful outcomes were in the hands of God
11. So the text has Jesus saying immediately after that
Isaiah 49:4 Yet what is due me is in the LORD’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”
God the Father is utterly committed to the eternal glory of Christ’s kingdom:
Psalm 110:1-2 “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” 2 The LORD will extend your mighty scepter from Zion; you will rule in the midst of your enemies.
Psalm 2:7-8 I will proclaim the decree of the LORD: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father. 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.
Therefore, like Jesus’ body itself, Jesus’ Kingdom starts TOO SMALL and moves out to its appropriate scope!
V. The Eternal Glory of Jesus’ Kingdom
A. The Text Speaks of a Glory TOO SMALL for Christ
Isaiah 49:5-6 And now the LORD says– he who formed me in the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD and my God has been my strength– 6 he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
1. Jesus, speaking by the Spirit through Isaiah, talks of his formation in the womb… the Incarnation
2. The same God who formed my body in the womb of the Virgin Mary had glorious plans for me
3. Yes, the original mission was to the nation of Israel
4. Paul said it plainly: “To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile”
5. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “Salvation is from the Jews”
6. Jesus said to the Syro-Phoenician woman, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”
7. This text says Jesus’ first mission was to bring Jacob back to God and to gather Israel to himself… to RESTORE Jacob and BRING BACK the remnant of Israel
8. But that mission alone is TOO SMALL
B. “Too Small” = TOO LIGHT
1. The Hebrew word means “it is a trifling thing”… something too little
2. That Jesus, the eternal Son of God, would be the Savior only of one ethnic group on planet Earth…
Romans 3:29-30 Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, 30 since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.
C. God’s Worldwide Plan for Jesus’ Kingdom
Isaiah 49:6 I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”
1. A light for the Gentiles… directly equated with salvation…
2. As he said earlier through Isaiah
Isaiah 9:2 The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
3. This same prophecy spoke of a great enlargement of the nation:
Isaiah 9:3 You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice when dividing the plunder.
4. So, Jesus is the light for the Gentiles… giving the light of truth and salvation to those who were walking in the darkness of spiritual death
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind but now I see!”
5. Jesus is the light for the Gentiles… the one who would bring God’s salvation from sin to the ends of the earth
D. Missions!!!
Romans 15:8-12 For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs 9 so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy, as it is written: “Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles; I will sing hymns to your name.” 10 Again, it says, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” 11 And again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and sing praises to him, all you peoples.” 12 And again, Isaiah says, “The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him.”
So at this time of years, we collect money for missions through the Lottie Moon Christmas offering
We do this that we may finalize God the Father’s determination in Isaiah 49:6, that Jesus would have the FULL GLORY of the salvation of all the elect from every nation
That throng standing around the throne in Revelation 7:9 is the fulfillment of God the Father’s determination that Jesus may be the light for the Gentiles bringing God’s salvation to the ends of the earth:
Revelation 7:9-10 After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. 10 And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
VI. Application
A. See the Glory of Christ and Be Saved
1. Let the Sword from Jesus’ mouth cut the tumor of sin from your hearts
2. Let the dreadful warning of the words he will speak to the goats on Judgment Day cause you to flee the wrath to come
3. Let the beautiful promise he speaks of resurrection and life fill your heart with light and joy
4. Come to him by faith!
B. Marvel at the Mysteries of the Incarnation
1. Think of the stunning mysteries of Jesus’ human body being conceived by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, then prepared in Mary’s womb by the Spirit for his mission
2. Be amazed at the infinite mystery of Jesus as fully God and fully human
C. Understand the Movement from Small to Great
1. Everything about Jesus’ Kingdom shows this same movement
2. From seemingly insignificant to infinitely glorious
3. Right now, you can only see it by faith
4. But someday, all the universe will openly shine with the glory of God and of the Lamb of Gd
D. Fight Discouragement Over the Apparent Failure of Christ’s Mission
1. Because of this consistent movement from small to great, many times our ministry looks outwardly like a failure
2. Fight the normal discouragement this brings…
3. Many of the choicest servants of God had to fight depression
4. Things are not what they appear!
E. Invest in Missions in Jesus’ Name
Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah 49. Christmas probably is the biggest event of the calendar. Every year, I would say it’s the biggest holiday there is. A Gallup poll in 2019 says that 93% of Americans, in some way, recognize or celebrate Christmas, and it’s not just here in America, it’s something that is a worldwide phenomenon. Over 2 billion people observe Christmas in some way worldwide, if not more. Christy and I were very surprised when we were missionaries in Japan to see Christmas decorations going up in the malls there in Tokushima. There’s the green and red, and there’s all the Christmas, jolly old St. Nicholas, and all that. Santa was everywhere. There it was, Christmas in Japan, where about 1% are evangelical, but there they were celebrating Christmas. I have a friend who lives in the Persian Gulf. We communicate via Zoom from time to time, and he told me that there are Christmas trees all over that Muslim nation. 99% of the people there are Muslim and they still have Christmas trees.
If you look a little closer though, we realize Christmas isn’t as big as it should be. 71% of Americans say they don’t look on Christmas as a religious holiday at all. That’s a huge percentage of people that see it in a secular sort of way, and we think that must be true of the billions around the world that stop working, gather to eat and to drink, and to celebrate in some way. We’re aware of the fact that Christmas, however big it is, needs to be a lot bigger.
That brings me to the text that we’re studying today, Isaiah 49, in which it is said by God to Christ, “It is too small a thing…” I want to zero in on that concept and link it to Christmas. Christmas is too small, it’s smaller than it should be, however big it is, it still too small. In the text, it is said, “It is too small a thing for you to save the Jews alone.” Too small a thing. Now what an amazing achievement that would be, the salvation of the Jewish nation. When Jesus Christ finally achieves it, what a great achievement that would be at the end of human history, as I believe the mystery that Paul talks about in Romans 11, where he says, “All Israel will be saved.” I believe that that will come, that will be a climax to the long, and torturous, and painful journey that Almighty God has been on with his chosen people, the Jewish nation, the descendants of Abraham. But however great that will be, God says in this text, “It is too small a thing.” God intended a glory far greater than that, a multitude from every tribe, and language, and people in nation standing around the throne celebrating the salvation of God.
The idea of my sermon today is captured in another place in Scripture. “O magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt his name together.” To magnify means to make great or make greater. We cannot make an infinite God any greater than he is, but He does need to be greater in our own estimation. That’s where He is too small. That’s why Christmas is too small, in our own minds, in our own estimation, and the Word of God is the remedy.
Look at the text again. Isaiah 49: 1-6, “Listen to me, you islands. Hear this, you distant nations. Before I was born, the Lord called me from my birth, He has made mention of my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of His hand, He hid me. He made me into a polished arrow, and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, ‘You are my servant, Israel, in whom I’ll display my splendor.’ But I said, ‘I have labored to no purpose. I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing, yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.’ And now the Lord says, ‘He who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, where I’m honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength.’”
He says, “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob, and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth.” I believe that it is Christ speaking in this passage. He’s summoning all nations to listen, look at verse 1, “Listen to me, you islands. Hear this, you distant nations.” I’ve already made the assertion, but we need to ask, “Who is speaking in these words?” This person is speaking of himself and for himself, but He relates something He says that God says to him, the Lord says to him, “The Lord spoke to me.” So who is the speaker in this ancient oracle? There are three possibilities. It is Isaiah the prophet himself speaking, or it is the nation of Israel collectively having a certain role to play, and that’s home base of verse 3, where the speaker says the Lord calls him, “My servant Israel.” Or it could be the Messiah, the Christ, speaking through the spirit of God, the spirit of Christ, through the prophet Isaiah in the first person.
If we look at verse 6, this is a key. He says, “It is too small or too light a thing for you to be my servant, to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I’ll also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth.” The servant who’s speaking here is someone who both restores the tribes of Israel and is also the light for the Gentiles. There’s no way that can be the sinful nation of Israel. Israel can’t bring Israel back, so that’s eliminated. It’s certainly not Isaiah the prophet, the man of unclean lips, he would never have arrogated to himself the statements made here. The New Testament solves this question for us directly by quoting this passage and ascribing it directly to Jesus.
Shortly after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Joseph and Mary took the baby Jesus to Jerusalem to be circumcised in fulfillment of the law of Moses. A prophet named Simeon was waiting for him. Moved by the Holy Spirit, he took the baby Jesus into his arms and said these amazing words in Luke 2, “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light of revelation to the Gentiles and for glory for your people Israel.” So he calls him the light for the Gentiles or for the nations. So also Paul and Barnabas, when they’re preaching in a synagogue in Pisidian, Antioch, quoted this and directly connected it to Jesus in Acts 13:47, “This is what the Lord has commanded us, I have made you,” [singular,] “a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the Earth.” Paul and Barnabas, didn’t think that they were the light to the Gentiles, but they were there at Pisidian, Antioch on his behalf.
The statement that had been made to Jesus, “I will make you a light for the Gentiles,” they took as their marching orders, but it was Jesus that was the light for the Gentiles. Therefore, the speaker in Isaiah 49 is none other than Jesus speaking, long before He was incarnate by the Virgin Mary, speaking prophetically by the power of the Holy Spirit in the first person. This shouldn’t surprise us because He does the same thing in His most famous quotation of Isaiah. At the beginning of His public ministry in Nazareth, He went to his hometown, Nazareth. He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, and He took the scroll of Isaiah, and He unrolled it to Isaiah 61. He read these words, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me,” [first person] “because He has anointed me,” [Messiah Christ means anointed one] “to preach good news to the poor.” He went on and quoted more of Isaiah 61, then He rolled up the scroll and sat down, and He said, “Today in your hearing, this scripture is fulfilled.”
So “I am the Messiah, I am the anointed one, the spirit of the Lord is upon me.” But if you just read Isaiah 61, it’s the same thing. It’s an ancient oracle written in the first person. It’s Jesus speaking prophetically long before He was born by the spirit of God. We have that same kind of pattern here, and this is one of a series of what’s known as “servant songs,” the servant of the Lord. There are four of them, the four servant songs. Sometimes the text speaks about the servant of the Lord, and sometimes in the servant song, the servant speaks himself directly. These four servant songs give us a sense of the purpose of God in sending Jesus. This is the thing that’s so amazing, Isaiah was written more than seven centuries before Jesus was born. Uzziah died in the year 733BC, a contemporary of the prophet Isaiah. This is a long time before Jesus was born and it gives us great confidence, doesn’t it? To know that the whole plan had been written out in detail in prophecy long before Jesus was born.
We have these four servant songs. The first is in Isaiah 42, which depicts Jesus as a gentle Savior. Isaiah 42: 1-4, “Here is my servant whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight.” The speaker there is God, He’s speaking about the servant of the Lord, Jesus. “I will put my spirit on Him, and He will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout, or cry out, or raise His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smoldering wick He will not snuff out. In faithfulness, He will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged till He establishes justice on the Earth, and in His law, the islands will put their hope.” That’s the first of the four servant songs, directly ascribed to Jesus in Matthew chapter 12. When it says, “The bruised reed He will not break, and the smoldering wick He will not snuff out,” it is speaking of Jesus’s wonderful tenderness and skill in binding together broken-hearted sinners and saving them. He’s a gentle and a loving Savior, and that’s the first servant song.
This servant song, Isaiah 49, is the second of the four, and we’re going to walk through it this morning. The third is in Isaiah 50, again, it speaks in the first person. It speaks of the sufferings of the servant. And then the fourth, Isaiah 52 and 53, is the most famous of the four servant songs. Both of those last two, Isaiah 50 and Isaiah 52/53 speak of the suffering servant of the Lord, the intense sufferings of the servant of the Lord, culminating in the substitutionary, atoning death of Jesus.
I. Christ Summons All Nations to Listen
This servant song, Isaiah 49, will depict Jesus as a messenger for the glory of the Lord to the ends of the Earth. To take the greatness of God from small beginnings to a worldwide eternal kingdom, the glory of the Lord shining to the Gentiles, but it begins so powerfully as Jesus speaks in the text to the distant islands and nations to listen to His voice calling on all peoples, all over the world, across all time to listen to Him. Look at verse 1, “Listen to me, you islands. Hear this, you distant nations.” This verse shows the scope of God saving plans. Christ is calling to the ends of the Earth. Christ is the King of Kings. He is the Lord of Lords. All nations on Earth are His, for the Father has given them to Him. And He summons the islands, He summons the distant nations, the farthest places, the remotest locations. For example, the Inuit people of the Canadian Arctic, the semi-nomadic tribes, the cave dwellers of Papua New Guinea belong to Him. The blonde haired Norsemen, descendants of the Vikings, who now live in civilized and technologically advanced cities in Norway. The tall Dinka in South Sudan, perhaps the tallest tribe on Earth. All of these distant lands and all the others are summoned by Jesus Christ, the king of all the Earth, to listen to His voice, “Listen to me.”
II. God Called Jesus Before and After Birth
He wants them to know the origin of His saving mission, it was by the call of the Father before He was born. God called Jesus before and after His birth. Look again in verse 1, “Before I was born, the Lord called me.” Jesus is unique in all of human history. He existed before He took on a human body. He’s the only human being that chose to enter the world. He was called by His father, and Christ’s mission was determined in the mind of God before the foundation of the worlds. Before God said, “Let there be light,” before God created the heavens and the Earth, this plan was established and determined in the mind of God. 1 Peter 1: 19-20 says, “We were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.” This is no new plan thrown together hastily at the end, but it was planned in the mind of God before the foundation of the world. Revelation 13:8 also speaks of the lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.
“Jesus is unique in all of human history. He existed before He took on a human body. He’s the only human being that chose to enter the world. He was called by His father, and Christ’s mission was determined in the mind of God before the foundation of the world.”
III. God Formed, Sharpened, Polished and Concealed Jesus
It says in the text that God formed, sharpened, polished, and concealed Jesus. Look at verse 2, “He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me. He made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver.” God prepared His son, the Lord Jesus, and He prepared the world for the coming of Christ. He orchestrated all of these things. Before the foundation of the world, God the Father, shaped his plan for the world through the Son. Everything in the universe, visible and invisible, was created through the Son. John 1:3, “Through him all things were made. And without him, nothing was made that has been made.” Colossians uses the same concept, the Word through Colossians 1:16, “For through him or by him, all things were created. Things in heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or powers, or rulers, or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him.” So through Him, by Him, for Him. If that’s true of the physical universe, how much more are the plans for the salvation of sinners, from every tribe, language, people and nation made through the Son, by the Father through the Son.
God, the Father, agreed to save the Elect through the blood of his incarnate Son before God made anything at all. Ephesians 1 says, “For he chose us in him,” that is in Christ, “before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will to the praise of his glorious grace.” His people were chosen in Christ, before the world began, to end up holy and blameless in heaven. That’s all this preparation that was made before there even was a world, before Jesus was conceived and born, the preparation language was ascribed to the unfolding plan of God, and then history unfolded. The calling of Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, the birth of Isaac by a miracle, by the miracle power of God, and then of Jacob, and then of the 12 tribes, and then the bondage, the slavery in Egypt, all of that. The exodus through Moses, then all that subsequent history of the Jewish nation, and also the detailed history of the Gentile nations as well.
God orchestrated all of these things according to His plan and His purpose. You look at the history of Israel recorded for us in the Old Testament, the history of Israel under the laws of Moses, and their tragic, consistent rebellion against God, and their consistent idolatry, and their consistent resistance of the Holy Spirit, and the messengers, the prophets, that came and they would not listen. Their subsequent exiles by the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and God’s graciousness and allowing a small remnant of them to return to the Promised Land under Gentile domination and rebuild their lives, rebuild the temple and the city. Then the subsequent history of that small dominated nation in the times of the Gentiles, dominated by Gentile powers, until the time of Christ. Then in the fullness of time we’re told, Galatians 3, “At the right time, God sent his son Jesus Christ.” At just the right time, everything had been prepared, everything had been shaped and prepared for that moment in time for Jesus to come, and so we see that preparation language.
Then God prepared a body for Jesus. He prepared a body for him in the womb of the Virgin Mary, Jesus was a holy embryo. This is an infinite mystery, something we will never fully comprehend, but His body was prepared step by step. It was miraculously conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit came over the body of Mary. But then it unfolded, it seems, in the natural way like any other baby is knit together in his or her mother’s womb. The Virgin Mary was pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, as the angel said, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you, and so the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” Mary said, “I’m a virgin, how can it be that I would have a baby?” That’s how it happened, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the ordinary 23 chromosomes that would’ve come from a father, came from the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit.
Other than that, it seems his body was formed step-by-step as the child develops in the mother’s womb. The text in Isaiah says that God made his mouth like a sharpened sword. Before his mouth could be a sharpened sword, He had to have a mouth at all. His physical mouth, and then the lungs that gave him breath so He could speak. Indeed, every bodily system needed for physical life, God willed to give him. By the power of the Holy Spirit, knitting his body together, but in the ordinary way it seems of human gestation. Psalm 139, “You created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the Earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
That’s David the psalmist talking about his own physical creation by God inside his mother’s womb. But how much more is that true of Jesus? Again, Job spoke the same way of his own body being knit together. Job said to God, “Your hand shaped me and made me. Remember that you molded me like clay. Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? Did you not clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life and showed me kindness.” How amazing is that process anyway for every baby, but how much more significant is it for the incarnate son of God? All the days ordained for Jesus were written in God’s book before one of them came to be. He was concealed, but this concealed son of God was revealed at the right time. “Hidden in the womb of the Virgin Mary like a polished arrow,” it says, “concealed in the quiver, just as God’s plan for the salvation of the world was hidden in the mind of God but then suddenly revealed when Jesus broke on the scene.”
Romans 16 speaks of the proclamation of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages pass but now revealed and made known. Ephesians 3:9 also, this mystery which for ages past was kept hidden in God who created all things. Colossians 1:26, “The mystery that had been kept hidden for ages and generations but is now disclosed to the saints.” This mystery is Christ, the incarnate son of God, the Savior of the world, our hope for glory. Isaiah tells us that God concealed him in the shadow of his hand until the right time. The language here in Isaiah 49 is military. Jesus’ mouth is likened to a sharpened sword, He is likened to a polished arrow. Jesus was unleashed by God the Father as a weapon to destroy Satan’s dark kingdom, to smash it to bits, to destroy it, to bind the strong man, and to plunder his house, and to destroy him eternally in the lake of fire. By his own death, by Jesus’ own death, to destroy him who held the power of death.
In order to do this, God had to give Him a human soul, infinite mystery, and house it in a human body for that is what death is, the separation of the soul from the body. God gave Him blood, blood cells to course through His body, blood vessels to carry that blood, so that at the right time, He could shed His blood as an atonement for our sins. God gave Him bones as the frame of His body, but He ordained that not one of them would be broken when He died on the cross. God gave Him eyes to see the suffering of His afflicted sheep, He gave Him ears to hear their cries of pain, and all of this God prepared for His Son in the nine months that He was knitting Him together in His mother’s womb. Then He hid Him once He was born, He hid Him from Herod’s satanic attacks. Herod sent soldiers to hunt Him down and slaughter Him in Bethlehem, but God concealed Him and protected Him so that He would not die. The demons would’ve killed Him in the 30 years while He was growing up. He was getting ready to be revealed publicly to Israel, but they were held at bay. They would not be permitted to come after Him. They knew who He was, but He was protected and concealed, and He was concealed from public view until the right time came for Him to be manifested publicly to Israel.
John the Baptist came as the forerunner, and he saw in the days of his baptism and the days of his preaching, John saw Jesus come. The only perfect man that has ever lived and he declared, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” John said, “I have seen and I testify that he is the son of God.” John the Baptist said his central mission was the unveiling of the hidden son of God. In John 1:31, “The reason I came baptizing with water is that he might be unveiled or revealed Israel.” The time of concealing was over, it was time for Him to be revealed. Think about the sharpened sword that was Jesus’ mouth. How was Jesus’ mouth like a sharpened sword with the awesome power of the words that He spoke? By His words, demons were driven out instantly. They were terrified of His word, they fled from Him, and no human weapon could ever bring terror to demons or to Satan. Satan has no fear of any weapon that we form, no weapon system. Remember when we were going through the book of Job and we talked about Leviathan, and I thought that he pictured Satan? For Leviathan in Job 41, it says, “The sword that reaches him has no effect, nor does the spear or the dart of the javelin. Iron he treats like straw, bronze like rotten wood. Arrows do not make him flee, slingstones are like chaff to him. A club seems to him but a piece of straw, he laughs at the rattling of the lance.” There’s no weapon that human beings could make, no sword that we could fashion that Satan would tremble at. But the demons were terrified of Jesus and they fled at His word.
When the demoniac from the Gadarenes with 5,000 demons inside was confronted with Jesus, they ran to Him and fell on the ground before Him, begged Him that He would send them into the herd of pigs and not send them into the pit before they appointed time. He said one word in the Gospel of Matthew’s account, “Go,” and they fled. It was the power of the word of Jesus over the demonic forces. Jesus’ sword is terrible, and swift, and unbreakable against all his enemies. At His second coming, He is depicted as having a sharp, double-edged sword coming out of his mouth. Revelation 19, “Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. He will rule them with an iron scepter, He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. And with His breath, He will slay the Antichrist, the most powerful and most wicked human being that will have ever lived in all of history.”
It says in 2 Thessalonians 2, “The lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will overthrow with the breath of His mouth and the splendor of His coming.” All He’ll have to do with the Antichrist is say, “Be dead, go to hell,” and it’ll be done. That’s the power of the sword coming out of the mouth of Jesus. How much more terrifying when He speaks to His enemies on judgment day, when all the nations are gathered before Him and He sits on a glorious throne, and He separates the people, all of them, one from another, into two categories, and only two, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He’s going to say to the goats, to the lost, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” That “depart from me” is His sharp sword cutting them off from Himself, and from life, and from everything good that there has ever been or ever will be. That’s the terror of the sharp sword coming from the mouth of Jesus.
Yet in an amazing way, his polished sharp sword heals us from our sins. Much like a surgeon’s scalpel is able to cut out the tumor, it’s able to take out the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any double-edged sword. It’s able to penetrate, even to the dividing of soul and spirit, joints and marriage, judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. At the day of Pentecost, the people heard the gospel and they were cut to the heart, they were pierced by it and saved, because of that sharp sword coming out of Jesus’ mouth.
IV. The Apparent Failure of Jesus’ Mission
Now we come to a mystery and that is the apparent failure of Jesus’s mission. If Isaiah 49:1-6 is indeed the pre-incarnate Christ speaking of his mission in the world, if it is, what do we make of this one statement in verse 4? “I said, ‘I have labored to no purpose, I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.’” That sounds really discouraged, doesn’t it? I put in all this time, I did all this labor, and nothing has come of it. If this is still Jesus speaking, and it must be because the text continues in the same pattern, how could it be? At what point would Jesus say something like this? The mystery of the incarnation, the entire mission of Jesus follows the same pattern. Nothing visibly spectacular at first, small, insignificant, not very glorious, and just getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Growing to a level we can scarcely imagine. Isaiah 53 speaks of this very thing in verse 2, “He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.” He’s not impressive. When the King of Kings and Lord of Lords entered the world, it was in abject poverty and humility, born in a stable, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger. When the shepherds went and saw them, they saw a baby wrapped up in cloths, that was it.
When the Magi came, having been led by the star, they just saw a normal human baby. He had no majesty, no glory. He was just simple, and so throughout His ministry. He had no outward majesty, no radiant glory shining around Him. He looked like an ordinary man, and a very poor one at that. He had no place to lay His head. He had to be supported by a group of women who supported Him out of their means. This culminated in His arrest, in weakness. He didn’t fight, He just went like a sheep to the slaughter. His disciples all deserted Him and fled the moment that He was arrested. Jesus said they would do it, “This very night you will all fall away in account of me, for it is written. I’ll strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” They’re all gone. His closest, most trusted allies, disciples that he had poured into for three years, they’re gone.
And the time of His death, as He was dying on the cross and his blood was flowing out of His body, all He had to show at that moment, for a worldwide awesome movement in the kingdom that would last for all eternity, was His mother, some other women who were friends of the family, and one of the 12 apostles, John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was an eyewitness to His death. That was it. The only perfect ministry there’s ever been, the only perfect teaching and perfect miracles, all of that perfect example, and that’s it. But I said, “I have labored to no purpose. I’ve spent my strength in vain and for nothing.” The seemingly gloomy statement shows how small the kingdom of Christ would’ve appeared at that moment. If any of us who are followers of Christ could be there at that moment, we would see what it looked like, and it didn’t look like much. It certainly didn’t look glorious, it certainly didn’t look like it would conquer the world and last for all eternity.
It started small, like Jesus’ own body in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Microscopically small, so also the kingdom, which would one day conquer the whole Earth and last for all the eternity. But at that moment, all of those beautiful outcomes were in the hands of God. As He died, He said, “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.” I think we could go beyond and say, “Into Your hands, I commend my kingdom. Do something with this.” That’s why in Isaiah 49:4, it doesn’t last long, this seemingly gloomy statement. “But I said, ‘I have labored to no purpose. I’ve spent my strength and a vain for nothing. Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.’” And God says, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Ask of me, and I’m going to give you the nations as your inheritance.” You cannot measure the zeal that God the Father had to make much of what Christ did by dying on the cross, but at the moment of death it seemed like a failure.
Therefore, like Jesus’ body itself grew, Jesus’ kingdom starts small also and moves out to its appropriate scope, and then we see the eternal glory of Jesus’ kingdom. The text speaks of a glory too small for Christ. Look at verses 5-6, “Now the Lord says, ‘He who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him and gather Israel to himself, for I’m honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has been my strength.’ He says, ‘It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I’ll also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth.’” This is Jesus speaking by the Spirit through the words of Isaiah that Isaiah wrote down. He talks of his formation in the womb, the incarnation, Jesus would say, “The same God who formed me, formed my body in the womb of the virgin has glorious plans for Me.” Yes, the original mission was to the nation of Israel.
Paul says plainly to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, Jesus said to the Samaritan woman, “Salvation is from the Jews.” He said to the Syrophoenician woman, “I was sent only to the lost tribes of Israel.” Now this text says Jesus’ first mission was to bring Jacob back to God and gather Israel to himself, to restore Jacob and bring back the remnant, those of Israel that I have kept, that remnant. But that mission is too small. The Hebrew literally says it’s too light, it’s too trifling a thing. “I’ve got bigger plans than that for you, Jesus.” Bigger plans than that, however great that is. That Jesus, the eternal son of God, would be the tribal savior of only one ethnic group on Earth, that is too small a thing. Why? Romans 3: 29-30 says, “Is God the God of Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles too?” Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God who will justify the circumcised through faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.
One God for the entire world, one savior. So therefore it is too light a thing for Jesus to only be a Jewish savior. He has a worldwide plan, God does. “I will also make you a light for the Gentiles that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the Earth.” A light for the Gentiles, and that light directly equated with salvation. As Isaiah said earlier, in Isaiah 9:2, “The people walking in darkness have seen what a great light. On those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.” It says in the next verse, Isaiah 9:3, “You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy.” So we’re going to have a bigger nation. He says in Isaiah 54, “Lengthen the tent ropes and the stakes, and get a bigger tent, you’re going to need a bigger tent, O Zion.” So it’s too small a thing for just the Jews, there are going to be some honorary members of the family of Abraham. By repentance and faith in Christ, they’re going to be grafted into this incredible work.
“One God for the entire world, one savior. So therefore it is too light a thing for Jesus to only be a Jewish savior. He has a worldwide plan, God does.”
It is too small a thing for it just to stay Jews only. They rejoice before you as those who rejoice at the harvest, as those who rejoice when dividing the plunder. It’s a time of joy. Jesus is the light for the Gentiles, giving the light of truth, shining the light on yourself, the light of the truth about yourself, that you’re a sinner who has violated the laws of God as I am, that you deserve hell. Death is coming. You see the light of yourself, and you come into the light because you’re not afraid, because you know what you’re going to find there is a savior who is gentle and humble, and you’re going to find rest for your souls, and salvation for your souls. That light is shining on you, and you can see yourself clearly for the first time, but you can also see the light of the glory of God in Christ, and He’s beautiful and attractive, and you want him. That’s the light, as it says in “Amazing Grace.” “Amazing grace, how sweet this sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found was blind, but now I see.”
Jesus is the light for the Gentiles who would bring God’s salvation to the ends of the Earth. And what is that but missions, friends. You may be wondering, “Why did you do Isaiah?” It’s like, I want to get to missions. I want to talk about missions. “Well, Pastor, you did that last week.” That’s true, I want to do it this week too. It is important that we understand God’s worldwide plan for the greatness of Jesus. Jesus is still too small, and His kingdom is still too small. It’s bigger than it was yesterday, praise God, but it’s still too small and it’s going to get bigger and bigger. More and more people, and more and more conception of the greatness of Christ, and that process is going to go on for all eternity.
Romans 15, “I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the Jews, on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for His mercy, as it is written. ‘Therefore, I’ll praise you among the Gentiles, I’ll sing hymns to your name.’” Again, it says, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people.” And again, “Praise the Lord all you Gentiles, and sing praises to Him all you peoples.” And again, Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations, and the Gentiles will hope in Him.”
V. Application
This time of year, we collect money for missions through the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. We have a greater focus on missions, our minds drift away throughout the year. We should be thinking about it daily throughout the year, but this is a good time for us to recommit and reconnect. Think about sacrificial financial giving. It is by offerings like this that missionaries are cared for, paid for, and able to stay on the field. Let’s be sacrificial in our giving.
We do this so that we may finally realize, God the Father’s, determination in Isaiah 49:6, that Jesus would have the full glory of the salvation of the elect from every nation. As Revelation 7 says, “After this, I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne, and in front of the lamb. And they were wearing white robes, and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb.’” Isaiah 9 says, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he’ll be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his kingdom and of peace, there will be no end.” This kingdom is going to get bigger for all eternity, not more people, procreation will be done. But in your estimation of the greatness of Jesus, you’re going to spend eternity learning just how infinitely glorious and great Jesus is.
I’m looking forward to that, aren’t you? Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank You for the time we’ve had to study. Lord, we thank You for the gospel and pray, oh Lord, that You would just be speaking very plainly. Like even now, oh Lord, be speaking. Speaking to people who have yet to cross over from death of life. Let them hear the truth, and let them know… They’ve heard the gospel multiple times this morning. Let them know that it is for them, that they would see in the light of the truth of the Word of God, that they need a savior, and that Jesus is that savior. And repenting and trusting in Him, find life in His name. And for all of us, oh Lord, help us to be committed to shining that light in many dark places in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.