“4 The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.
5 The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back. 6 I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.
7 Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame. 8 He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Let us face each other! Who is my accuser? Let him confront me! 9 It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who is he that will condemn me? They will all wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them up.
10 Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of His servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God. 11 But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your firesand of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: you will lie down in torment.
”
Superman comics have always had a problem. If you could bring up the first slide, you can see it.
Here is the Man of Steel moving thirteen planets. He doesn’t seem taxed by the effort. Please bring up the second slide.
Superman knew his sneeze was powerful enough to destroy worlds, and so he flew into an empty solar system before sneezing. The problem Superman comics always bump up against is that Superman is just too powerful. A man who can move planets and whose sneezes destroy universes has very different problems from people like us. He isn’t relatable.
Jesus is relatable. What affects you affects him. Jesus knows what it’s like to bleed. Jesus knows what it’s like to be humiliated. Jesus is no Superman. He is as human as we are in every way other than sin. This means he bumps up against the same parts of life as we do. The difference between us and him that he always responds rightly. That’s the servant of this prophecy. That’s Jesus. The servant responds rightly to life and God. As we lean on him, we do the same. That’s the claim of this sermon: the servant responds rightly to life and God. As we lean on him, we do the same.
We will study this in three points. First: the training of the servant. Second: the vindication of the servant. Third: walking with the servant in the dark. We see the willingness of the servant in verses 4-6, the vindication of the servant in verses 7-9, and what it means to walk with the servant in the dark in verses 10-11.
First: the training of the servant. We’ve been studying the four servant songs in the prophecy of Isaiah to get ready for Christmas. This is number three. Today we see the servant’s preparation; in verse 4 the servant says, “The Sovereign Lord has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary.”
Now God loves to give strength to the weary. “He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak,” is a word from Isaiah ten chapters earlier. The Lord is really into sustaining weak people who bring their weaknesses to Him. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that God’s servant would do the same. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Jesus said, “come to me all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest.” Jesus loves to strengthen weary people. “You don’t need to unburden or collect yourself and then come to Jesus,” as one recent book on the care of Christ puts it, “Your very burden is what qualifies you to come.”
Weary people have been coming to Jesus for centuries. They’ve found in him a great physician of the soul who knows exactly what to say. He has, as verse 4 puts it, “the word that sustains the weary.” Jesus learned this skill. That’s what Isaiah meant when he said that the servant would have, “an instructed tongue.” Jesus was trained in speaking encouragement. We need to take Jesus’ humanity seriously. He didn’t know as much about encouraging others at the age of five as he did at the age of thirty. He learned what his words could do to others just like the two-year-olds, four-year-olds, and sixteen-year-olds of this church are learning the power of their words, hopefully in constructive ways.
Jesus learned how to speak words to heal the human heart—words like, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full”, words like, “I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you”, words like, “it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Jesus learned how to talk to people like us in such a way that we would find our hearts strangely filled. Jesus learned that from his Father; as verse 2 puts it, “[the Lord] wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.”
Maybe you’ve got time alone with God each day. Jesus did; “he wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught.” That’s how Jesus learned how to do the good God called him to do. “[The] sharpened sword and the polished arrow [of Jesus’ words] did not happen automatically or all at once. They were the products of prolonged attention… the discipleship of… morning by morning appointment with God,” as one author put it. Jesus of Nazareth was discipled by God before he had disciples of his own.
We don’t know exactly what these times with God looked like. Based on what we see later in Jesus’ life, I am all but sure that they included Scripture memorization. Jesus hid God’s word in his heart. That’s how he learned how to apply Scripture to his own situations. Jesus spoke Psalm 22 while hanging on the cross as a way of applying what God said to what was going in his life at the moment. If Jesus did that while dying to find help, we can do that while living. Think about how much happier each of us would be if we considered what God was doing in the situations that we deal with every day.
The Father prepared Jesus and Jesus was willing; you see that willingness in verse 5, “The Sovereign Lord has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back. I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” The message here is that Jesus didn’t just learn obedience through the word of God. He learned it by what he suffered. That’s Hebrews 5:8, “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience from what he suffered.”
Jesus knew the word to sustain the weary because he knew what it was like to be weary. Jesus’ words continue to provide support to sufferers because he has suffered. When Jesus speaks to hearts in pain, he speaks out of great experience with pain. He knows what it like to be made fun of. If you are in school, maybe you know what it is like to be made fun of. Maybe you are already a bit nervous about tomorrow because someone at school seems to enjoy bullying you. Jesus knows what it is like to be on the receiving end of that. Maybe you know what it is like to be rejected in a relationship—maybe you know that because of a failed marriage. Jesus knows what it is like to be rejected. “Man of sorrows, what a name for the son of God who came; ruined sinners to reclaim: hallelujah, what a savior.” That’s the training course for the servant. It’s not fit for a superman. It’s fit precisely for someone who hurts where we hurt. That’s Jesus.
Jesus knew what it was like to be shamed. You see that in the words of verse 6, “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” Shame is one of the most painful emotions we experience. Our fear of shame keeps us from close relationships. It keeps us from trying something new. Now we are going to see what Jesus did with shame. That’s our second point: the vindication of the servant.
Being the servant and being shamed went together. They went together because Jesus entered our shame. Being whipped in front of everyone has an emotional impact—“I offered my back to those who beat me.” Having your face, one of the most intimate parts of you, abused has an impact—“my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.”
The natural tendency after being shamed is to isolate. As one author put it, “When we are in the middle of a shame storm, it feels virtually impossible to turn again to see the face of someone, even someone we might otherwise feel safe with. It is as if our only refuge is in our isolation.” If you are still in school, pay attention to those kids that isolate themselves. The odds are there is great shame there. The odds are that you could do a world of good by simply giving caring attention to that kid. The same goes for us in this congregation.
Rather than isolating himself, Jesus turned to his Father. It’s as if the servant’s mind kept going back in forth between the pain of shame and his Father’s care. Listen to the back and forth. “Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced… He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Let us face each other! Who is my accuser? Let him confront me! It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who is he that will condemn me?” Care, shame, care, shame. That’s part of the internal fight of faith.
Shame lost its grip on the servant because the servant chose to focus on God’s care. Don’t keep focusing on what that spit on your face felt like as it rolled down. Focus on the Lord’s help. “Because the Sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced.” Jesus didn’t keep thinking about the jeering crowds as he hung on the cross. He focused on what his Father said about him. “It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who is he that will condemn me?”
Jesus talked to himself that way. You need to talk to yourself that way. Romans 8 can help you do that, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will He not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.” Those verses won’t do me much good sitting on the page. They will only do me good if they are sitting in my thoughts. Robert Murray M’Cheyne put it in his thoughts. Thinking about Romans 8 and the fear in his own heart, he wrote, “If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.”
We need to learn to live as if Jesus is praying for us. Jesus lived as if his Father was caring for him. Jesus did that in the midst of deep difficulties. It’s clear from this passage that people were bringing serious charges against him. We see that throughout his whole life. Respected people in the Jewish community were saying that he had a demon. Others were saying that he was mentally disturbed. He wound up on trial for his life. The prosecution searched for anything and everything they could use to hang Jesus. They wound up bringing in people with fabricated stories. That’s the sort of situation in which Jesus said to himself, “It is the Sovereign Lord who helps me. Who is he that will condemn me?”
Jesus trusted that the Father would take care of that trial. That’s why he told Pilate, “You would have no power over me if it were not given you from above.” Jesus believed that his Father had it all in hand. Jesus believed that there was another trial underway at the exact time that his trial was going on. God was judging the whole proceedings. What we see in verse 9, “They will all wear out like a garment; the moths will eat them up,” was the end results for those who put Jesus to death and didn’t repent.
The idea of God as Judge isn’t attractive today, which is strange and sad because unless you accept God as Judge, you have no hope of justice. You won’t have the hope of Psalm 9:4, “For You have upheld my right and my cause, sitting enthroned as the righteous judge.” If there is no judge, you will remain in shame.
Jesus dealt with shame by appealing to God’s vindication. That’s how he moved forward as we see in verse 7, “Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame.” That language of “setting his face like flint,” to do what was difficult to do shows up in the gospels in Luke 9:51, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Jesus set his face like flint to do what must be done not because he was a superman without fear but because he knew his Father was with him. Do you know that the Father is with you? Trust Him.
You can move forward in trust and that’s the focus of our final point: walking with the servant in the dark. Jesus trusted his Father in the midst of the darkness. That’s the way forward for us in the darkness too. That’s what discipleship looks like sometimes—trusting in the dark; verse 10, “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of His servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.”
The dark is a scary place to be. The dark holds shame and panic and unseen troubles. The paths of life often lead to and through dark places. “Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.”
Imagine a young lady in the mountains. She been waiting for months to get out and hike and now she finally has her chance. She is so enjoying her time outdoors that the time gets away from her and soon night is falling quickly. It’s also getting colder quickly. She needs to get to the camping area, but now it is getting darker by the minute. She picks up the pace but before she knows it, thanks to the cloud cover it is pitch dark. She doesn’t know these paths well and she grows increasingly afraid as the path slopes downhill suddenly. It can’t get any darker. It’s getting colder. She wants to cry but she knows that will do no good, and then her hand bumps against a metal railing. She keeps her hand on that railing and puts one foot in front of the other all the way down that slope. The going and slow and so it is hours before she reaches the campground.
The next morning, she looks back at the path and is terrified by what she sees. There were drop offs on both sides of that trail. She thought she was in danger of twisting an ankle, but she would most likely have died if it wasn’t for that metal rail. That’s verse 10, “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of His servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.”
You hold on to that rail in the dark by trusting Jesus and you express your trust for Jesus by obeying him. That’s verse 10, “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the word of His servant?” It doesn’t make any sense to say that you trust your wilderness guide and then not do what he says. It doesn’t make any sense to say that you trust your master and then not do what he says. Your path will lead through dark places. Lean on the servant by obeying him. Obedience is just trust in action.
Now there is an alternative to leaning on the servant in the dark. You can light your own fires to brighten your way. That’s tempting because walking in the darkness is scary. We humans light our own fires to brighten the way quite regularly. Here’s a beautiful one from Bob Marley in 1980, “Rise up this mornin’, smiled with the risin’ sun, three little birds, pitch by my doorstep, singin’ sweet songs of melodies pure and true, sayin’, (“This is my message to you-ou-ou:”) Singin': “Don’t worry ‘bout a thing, ‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.” Singin’, “Don’t worry (don’t worry) ‘bout a thing, ‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right!” Now I like that song, but if you are walking down a slope of a mountain in the dark with drop offs on both sides, “Don’t worry ‘bout a thing, ‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right,” isn’t enough. You need that railing.
We live in a world that doesn’t have anything to offer other than singing, “Don’t worry ‘bout a thing, ‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right,” as it walks down that slope in the pitch dark. The end of the story isn’t hard to figure out. It is found at the end verse 11, they, “will lie down in torment.” The fires we light don’t give us any way forward. The way forward is to lean on the servant.
That’s the way forward for fragile people like you and me. That’s the way forward for breakable people like you and me. Now if we were Supermen the story would different, but we aren’t, and that’s why Jesus didn’t become a Superman. He became fragile and breakable to show us what it looks like to trust in the darkness. He became like us so that we might lean on him. Amen.