And His Own No.7 The Hope of the World

Isaiah 42, the servant of the Lord, commencing to read at verse 1. 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. He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets.

A bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering 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 earth.

In his law the islands will put their hope. This is what God the Lord says. He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people and life to those who walk on it, I the Lord have called you in righteousness.

I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison, and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord.

That is my name. I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. See the former things have taken place, and new things I declare.

Before they spring into being, I announce them to you. Amen. Let's pick up on that reading in the New Testament and turn to Matthew in chapter 12.

Our Lord is bearing a confrontation with the Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem. He goes into a synagogue, and in the ninth verse we read what happens. Matthew 12, 9, going on from that place, he went into their synagogue.

The man with the shriveled hand was there looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. They asked him, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath? He said to them, if any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath. Then he said to the man, stretch out your hand.

So he stretched it out, and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other. But the Pharisees went out and plotted how they might kill Jesus. Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place.

Many followed him, and he healed all their sick, wanting them not to tell who he was. This was to fulfil which was spoken through the prophet Isaiah. Please join in the reading.

Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight. I will put my spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations. He will not quarrel or cry out.

No one will hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, a smouldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope.

And they shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us, Lord sure as the Father. Have I been so long time with you, and you have not known me? He who has seen the Father, he who has seen me, has seen the Father. God who at sunry times and in divers manners spake unto the prophets and patriarchs in times past has in these last days spoken to us by his Son, who is the exegesis, the illustration of God.

Father bless our time around your word, and enable us by your Spirit to come to an understanding of truth. In the name of the Savior, the one who is the way, the truth, and the life, deliver us from the frustration of not knowing. For Jesus' sake, amen.

And let's have our Bibles open at Matthew and chapter 12. Let me link together the twenty-eighth verse of the previous chapter. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Verse twenty, the next chapter, a bruised reed he will not break, and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out.

I think Kendrick's hymn will go down as one of the greatest, assuming the world lasts into the next century, one of the greatest hymns that was composed this, and it ranks alongside a very wonderful hymn from the tenth century, Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature, Son of Man and Son of God. And it's good to sing hymns sensibly that tell us the truths about our Lord Jesus. It's good to link our hearts up with one another and to extol Him.

And perhaps the only excuse for repetition like, I exalt thee, O Lord, is to realize as you're singing that couplet over and over again the areas in your life where you need to exalt Jesus. To the question, what is God like? The Lord Jesus tells the disciples, He is not only like me, He is me. For the fullness, comments the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Spirit, the fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in our Lord Jesus.

And here within the eleventh and twelfth chapters of Matthew's gospel, you have got claims which might well be summarized in terms of the heart of the gospel. Here is our blessed Lord asserting in a clear and yet in a non-extravagant fashion just who He is and what He can do. Now remember, He's out in the open air.

I take time sketching in the context for visitors. Our Lord rarely preached in a covered auditorium like this. The crowds would ebb and flow, but mainly they were on ebb as far as the ministry in these chapters is concerned.

They've heard that staggering declaration, come to me, all you who are heavy laden. Within the company of the audience are those clergy from Jerusalem who too would like the sort of congregation that the Lord has, and who too would like to be able to offer what He can and they can't, rest and peace for the wearied person in Israel. Implicit within the claims of our Lord Jesus is that He is more than just a rabbi from the north.

He is God Himself. Come to me, I will give you what no one else can give you. I will give you rest.

I will give you a burden that is comfortable for you to bear rather than the yoke that you suffer from at this moment. And so our Lord continues on His itinerary and He goes through cornfields with His disciples. Tim took you through these opening verses last Sunday.

And our Lord once again is hounded like a pack of wolves, snapping at His feet by these professionals from Jerusalem who are just not tuned into His ministry and indeed are apt, listen to the expression, cross-purposes with our Lord. They take Him to task for breach of the Sabbath. The disciples are eating on the Sabbath day and Jesus teaches that necessity knows no law.

Every rule has its exception. Certainly a man works on a Saturday if he happens to be in the temple, he's one of the priests. How can you apply this law without some sort of qualification? It's always right to show mercy even on the Sabbath.

The Sabbath is made for man. Here is the Lord of the Sabbath, one greater than the temple, one greater than the Sabbath. You see, if you put together all the claims, all the assertions Jesus is making, and these men from Jerusalem, they were not stupid.

He is admitting to deity. He is the extension of God to the world. The scene changes and our Lord finds Himself in a synagogue.

We're not saying that they set this particular trap up. Maybe it was just the run of mill of events, but doubtless they were aware that within the synagogue, verse 10, there's a man who has a dry hand, dry is the original word, shriveled. Now, what will Jesus do? Will He break the Sabbath in order to heal? Before He reacts to human need, Jesus impoverishes the so-called logic of His adversaries by reminding them, for some of them owned flocks out in Bethlehem.

Remember there are priests and Pharisees and Sadducees in the company, the shepherds who keep watch over their flocks by night. You remember the carol were very much in the employment of those who control the temple. So Jesus says, if one of your sheep is in difficulty on the Sabbath, will you go after him? Of course they will.

They'd lose a few shackles if they didn't. Then home set and match, game set and match to Jesus, if it's right to do that, then surely it's right to come to the aid of somebody who's in need. So our Lord summoning up all of His dominical, His masterly authority, His master's authority, He says in words which would have the same intonation, I think, as when He stood by the grave of Lazarus, stretch out your hand.

So the man responds, the Sabbath is broken in the estimate of the Pharisees who annoyed with Jesus, verse 14, leave the area and plot how they might kill Him. Now, it wasn't easy for these men to react to our Lord Jesus and to put into practice straight away what was the murderous intention in their heart. You see, the Lord may have lost the confidence of the Pharisees, but He had gained the attention of a congregation in the synagogue.

There is a sense, have you noticed, that the synagogue in which He goes is not His synagogue? Verse 9, He went into their synagogue, the very possessive adjective there indicating that our Lord is so distant from what Judaism at this point represents. Those scribes, those Pharisees at the temple, in the synagogues throughout the land were far removed from the revelation of the purposes of God in the Old Testament. I repeat again, they are at cross purposes with our Lord Jesus.

There is this great distinction between Him and His gospel and them and their preaching. He went into their synagogue, and He wasn't wanted. And there are times when God is not wanted in the so-called churches of today.

He wants to move in in the power of His Spirit, and His message is spurned. I was talking to a colleague of mine with whom I've worked for 15 years in the Africa Inland Mission. He's an Anglican, a man who's had one of the strongest churches in London, but he's just been moved out to a parish with about 15 people in his congregation, and he says to me, Tony, they just don't want to know.

I have not got one born-again person in our parish with the exception of the headmaster of the local school, and when I preach the gospel, it's an embarrassment. Jesus goes into their synagogue, and He is not wanted, so He goes back into the open air. And with the magnetism that is His, as He draws out of that place, many people, verse 15, follow Him.

And because of this, the Pharisees and all their colleagues cannot put into practice immediately what they want to do. They can't kill Jesus, because, well, the popular people at this point are alongside the Savior or following after Him. Now what does the Lord do? Well, He keeps His word.

He always does. He said in the 28th verse of the previous chapter, come unto me, all you who are weary and burdened, I will give you rest. Here are the weary.

Here are the burdened. Here are those who have not been taught properly, because the shepherds are false shepherds. They follow the Lord Jesus.

So what does the Savior do? Well, He does what you would expect Him to do. He heals the sick. And within that praise of His activity, we take for granted that He speaks more truths to them, and He tells them, not to publish abroad in a large-scale fashion at this moment who He is, for He's got specific work to do in Jerusalem.

And the sort of messianic secret which has been disclosed to some is not yet ready to be broadcast wholesale around Israel, let alone around the world. Now homing on verse 17. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah.

Now notice that that's an introductory formula. We are now going to get an extract, the longest extract from the Old Testament recorded in Matthew's gospel. But before you can do justice to what is told us about our Lord Jesus, you have to understand why Matthew dips into Isaiah 42 and quotes it at this point.

He's setting up a contrast. The contrast is between what the religious leaders from Jerusalem are about and their attitude over against the Lord Jesus. He moves from that place, their synagogue, in order to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah.

And what does Isaiah tell you? Well, he tells you the most astonishing things about God. I tell you, you can go through the Koran with a fine-toothed comb and you'll find nothing like this. You can go through the religious manuals of Hinduism and you'll find nothing like this.

The Christian doctrine of God is unique. It is extraordinary. Here you see is a description of the one who is God's revelation to the world.

You ask, what is the Lord Jesus like? What is God like? Here compressed within these verses plucked from Isaiah 42 and sharpened in his interpretation of them by Matthew is the answer to your question. What is God the Son like? He is my servant, whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight. Put the clock back just a few months.

Here is our Lord on the banks of the Jordan, and He constrains His cousin John, the one who just sent some messengers to Him. You remember in the eleventh chapter the reference? He constrains His cousin John to immerse Him in the water, and at the point of immersion a voice is heard, what the Hebrew calls the bath call, and God says, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And later on when our Lord is on the Mount of Transfiguration, the bath call, the divine voice is heard once again, almost the same comment, but not quite.

Here is my beloved Son, hear Him. The one who moves away from their synagogue is none other than God's own Son, my servant whom I have chosen, not just whom I have chosen, but also whom I have anointed. I will put my Spirit on Him.

God sends His Son into this world, and when He is baptized in the water, the Spirit comes upon Him in an unusual fashion. And instead of immediately starting to preach, He goes back into the wilderness. There's confrontations with the evil one, and then out of the wilderness after forty odd days and nights, He returns to His native Galilee and He preaches the gospel in great power and authority.

And you see how distinguished this is from how distinct it is from these clergy from Jerusalem. They don't understand the psyche of Jesus. They don't understand who He is.

But Matthew, when he reflects upon this scene, it's just as though the penny has dropped. He's got it as clear as crystal. This Lord Jesus, who withdraws from their synagogue into the wilderness, into the fresh air where He can speak in an uncomplicated fashion to the hundreds of people who are now following Him, this Lord Jesus is none other than the servant of God who has come into this world not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to seek out the likes of those who bear a heavy yoke and who suffer with an incredible burden.

Don't you see? This is the Christ of the gospels who walks on every page. This is the manifestation of God, meekness and majesty. This is our God, called, anointed, empowered.

How does He go about His ministry? Well, look at the 19th verse, for that will tell you. He will not quarrel or cry out. No one will hear His voice in the streets.

What does that mean? Well, let me give it you from the original. At least I'll give you various possible translations that will help you understand quarrel and cry out. It's referred to as the barking of a dog, the croaking of a raven, the bawling of a drunken man, the reaction of a discontented audience in a theater.

And we're told by negative statement what the Lord is not like in His approach to the ministry. He doesn't bawl. He doesn't cry out.

He doesn't croak. He's not extravagant in the way that He goes about things. When Muhammad pushed the news of Islam around the Middle East, how did converts come about? Through the cutting edge of the sword.

You either believed or you were butchered. Christianity is so different from that. There is not coercion.

It is a question of conviction. How does our beloved Lord win the disciples over? By the wisdom of His teaching, by the transparency of His personality. This is the way that the men of the Acts of the Apostles who named the name of Jesus will move out from Jerusalem to Samaria, to Judea, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

The men who have the sword will die by the sword. The men who use political power will never get to the hearts and the minds of people. You cannot coerce people into mass conversion.

Karl Marx's legacy demonstrates this. But our Lord Jesus, in the way that He ministered, as He tells people to come unto Him, does not bawl. He's not in a frenzy.

He does not use black magic. He does not use political clout. That is not the way of the Savior.

Neither should it be your way or my way. For when we sing meekness and majesty as we extol Him, so in our minds as we play upon the words, we're also saying, blessed God, let that meekness and that majesty, which was part of the fabric of our Lord Jesus' personality, may it be spun into the wap and woof of my life, so that I might become, to UCS Lewis' brave phrase, a little Christ. There is, I say, no wrangling as far as Jesus is concerned.

He is the man who is approved of God, verse 18. He is the man whose approach is so contrasting to that of His adversaries, verse 20. His attitude is so compelling.

Here is one of the most wonderful statements in the whole of the prophetic scriptures as it describes our Lord. A bruised reed, He will not break. A smouldering wick, He will not snuff out.

He came by His own statement, not for those who were healthy, not for those who were religious. He comes for the people who don't feel themselves, or for different reasons, comfortable in the synagogue or in the temple. Our Lord Jesus comes for those who have just a little grain of faith, who are bent, really, in terms of their commitment to the Lord.

They've compromised, but nonetheless, in the depths of their heart, they do believe in this God. And yet they're afraid of this God, because they recognize their own inconsistencies, and they feel that this God is so awesome they can have nothing to do with Him, so they beat their fists upon their breasts. And the Son of God says to such a person, a bruised reed, I've not come to break.

The little bit of positive faith that you have, the little bit of goodness which you've tried to recover, unrealized by you through the empowering of my Spirit, I want to nurture it and make you strong. A woman bruised in her lifestyle is one day brought in a bedraggled condition before our Lord Jesus. Caught in sexual misconduct, her adversaries say, now, Christ, zap her.

But He can't. He will not condone the sin, but He will not condemn the sinner, for He has come not to condemn the world, but to save the world. Here is a broken reed.

Watch what happens when she is brought into the company of Jesus. First, He embarrasses to their hair roots the men who dare to accuse her without confessing their own sin, and having rid them of the sin, He deals with this woman, a bruised reed. Smoking flax, a smouldering wick, there's no man in Scripture who fills that bill more than Peter, on the occasion when he's denied Jesus.

Suicide must have crossed through his mind, surely. And with what apprehension does he keep an appointment with Jesus on the seashore of Galilee, where he met Him three years ago? He's a smouldering wick. Will Jesus snuff him out? Not a bit.

He puts His hands, so to speak, around the dying flame. He blows His breath, and He coaxes the little flame into a bigger flame, until Peter, later on, charged even more by the dynamic of the Spirit of Christ, is addressing thousands of people and pointing them to the Lord Jesus. Peter, the man who follows the one who will not break bruised reeds or snuff out smouldering wicks.

And, my friend, He's the same Jesus. Come unto Me. Not those of you who are successful.

If you feel perfectly self-confident, I say with great respect, He can do nothing for you. Not the righteous, not the righteous. Sinners, Jesus came to call.

The man who broke His vows. The woman who looks into her own image in a morning as she stands before a mirror and despises what she sees, not so much, perhaps, her facial appearance, but what she represents. Those who dislike themselves for such people, this Christ came into the world.

And the message that He brought was so different from what was taught in the synagogues, they didn't want Him. And so Jesus says to them, look, the day has come when a greater than the temple is here. And there's a gospel that makes your beliefs almost pale into heresy, because you have lost the truths embedded within the Scripture, and you have bound on men's shoulders burdens that they cannot bear.

You're blind leaders of the blind. You're hypocrites. You don't understand the weight of God, and you're preventing other people from coming away from your synagogue.

I remove myself, and people come to the Lord Jesus, because there's no one else who can resolve the nightmare of their problems like He can. The one who's approved of God, the one whose approach is so different from the establishment of His day, the one whose attitude compliments that grand invitation, come to me, all you who are weary and are burdened, and I will give you rest. And finally, linking in verse 21, the latter part of verse 20, also in with the last part of verse 18, there is an agenda that's spelt out, which is far more wide than those people in Jerusalem could have ever appreciated.

I will put my Spirit on Him, my Anointed, and He will proclaim justice to the nations. In His name, the nations, the Gentiles, will put their hope. In other words, here is, if you like, an extension of the purposes of God.

It's actually incipient. There's evidence of it in the Old Testament. Our God is the God of the Jew.

Yes, He's the God of Abraham and the seed of Abraham, but He's also the God of the Gentile. He brings Ruth into the genealogy of our blessed Lord. He deals with Gentile people in the Old Testament, but it's undercover, so to speak.

But when Jesus comes on the scene, He extends the good news. This God has a concern for children of Israel and for all the children of Adam. He will proclaim justice to the nations.

He will lead justice to victory. He will vindicate the reason why He came into this world, to deal with the problem of sin, to become the victorious Messiah over death and over hell. And He will lead tens of thousands, thousands of thousands, millions of people into a relationship with God so that they can call Him Father.

In His name, the blessed name of Jesus, will the Gentiles put their hope. You see how wonderful it all is. And this was really just a side comment of Matthew.

I mean, he wasn't really trying at this point. It's just that, well, as he was writing the story up, there flowed into his mind this little catena of verses from the Old Testament. And he realizes that they speak because they're part of what are known as the Servant Songs, of which there are several, the most remarkable being the one later on, which speaks about the suffering servant of the Lord in the prophecy of Isaiah.

But Matthew realizes that all this is a reference to none other than our blessed Lord Jesus. And it's to Him that people went in the days of Scripture when there was no one else to whom they could turn. And we invite you to come to Him right now, to this great God.

What about that poor man who spent two days on the motorway and said to the police that he thought he was lost? The understatement of British motoring history, I would think. But how many people are on the motorways of life, lost, circling round day by day, week by week, wondering what on earth it's all about. Look, here's the guide, the blessed Savior.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. Here is God's anointed servant who will not bawl, who will not coerce, who will not act with the frenzy of a disappointed audience. He, rather, is the man of great gentleness, full of feeling, a bruised reed.

He'll not break. He respects you as a person. Smouldering wick, He will not snuff out the little bit of good.

He'll blow into something far more wonderful and far more wholesome. He'll take your life and use you in His service as you hand over the driving wheel to Him. Father, many of us here have known what it's like to feel uncomfortable in the so-called synagogue.

We wanted to get out because what was happening had little relevance to us. We didn't feel at home. But we bless you, there was a time when we were brought face to face with biblical Christianity.

We heard the authentic voice of one who spoke with compassion and said, come unto me. We came and we discovered that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. We thank you for the transparency of His character, for the consistency of His actions.

And we praise you that we can come to Him around the Word and around the table, around the throne. We also come on behalf of others. Some of us are so alarmed for our loved ones, our own relations.

Our hearts break for them. We bring them to the Christ. Hear our prayers now and bless our time as we take this break and as we go out into this day.

And all the people of God said, Amen.