Isaiah 42:1-9
What We Behold

I. We Become What We Behold
1. If all you do is behold athletics what happens when your body ages and declines?
2. Others behold wealth. Their life is all about money-making.
3. Others in our culture only behold the relationship. Maybe now it’s the kids.
4. More pernicious is religion that appears zealous but that puts out a portrait of God that is wrong.
5. Some behold a God who oozes sentimentality, caring for them with a “reckless” love.
6. An idea of spirituality is an angry man in a suit and tie thumping the Bible decrying “heretics”.
7. The narcissistic culture today churns out people who think the “Servant of the Lord” is their servant.
II. Look At Him (42:1-4)
A. Upheld: “whom I uphold”
1. The Lord holds onto the Servant. He preserves, sustains Him, through death and burial.
2. We can believe He will hold us fast through death too.
B. Chosen and Delighted In: “My chosen in whom my soul delights”
1. Our being elect depends on the Elect. First, Christ is the elect.
2. Ephesians 1:4, “we were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.”
3. The Father chose Him because, He says, “in Him My soul delights”, personally takes joy in Him.
4. The Father finds the Servant delightful and so chooses Him.
C. Spirit-Filled: “I have put my Spirit upon Him”
1. About the servant, “I have put my Spirit upon Him.” Jesus had the power of the Spirit.
2. How much more do we need the Spirit?
3. We behold the Servant as a man of the Spirit.
D. Brings Justice: “He will bring forth justice to the nations.”
1. He’s the justice bringer.
2. So the servant of the Lord brings God’s Kingdom on earth, to nations, like China and America.
3. “Justice” is the judge decreeing His judgments and now us living according to those decrees.
E. Peaceful: “will not cry aloud or life up His voice or make it heard in the street”
1. He’s peaceful. He’s not an angry young man, pouring out vitriolic denunciations.
2. He understands that if you’re in the graveyard, speaking to the dead, raising your voice doesn’t help.
3. “Come to Me, all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Mt. 11:28)
F. Meek: “a bruised reed He will not break and a faintly burning wick He will not quench”
1. He calls, “Come to Me, . . . for I am meek and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.”
2. If you’re bruised, like a stalk of reed (or bamboo), He won’t break you. He’ll let you heal first.
3. You may feel broken, He’ll let you grow until you’re strong enough to hold up.
4. He cares for you, understanding your bruises, your weaknesses, so He does not crush you.
5. You wonder whether you have any faith. But you have a spark. Something is smoldering.
6. He will first, gently fan it into flame. The Servant does not blow you out now if there’s a flicker.
7. Richard Sibbes wrote, “The best men are severe to themselves, tender over others.”
G. Faithful: “He will faithfully bring forth justice”
1. The weapons of His kingdom are still, small voices; gentle words; the good news of the gospel.
2. He won’t give up when it gets hard, when people quit on Him and choose superstition and coercion.
3. He’ll bring justice to “the coastlands”, the furtherest distant lands.
III. Look at Me (42:5-7)
2. He was speaking to us about the Servant. Now He is speaking to the Servant about Himself.
3. The Lord, created the universe, currently 46 billion lights wide, and spread out the earth, gave life.
4. Behold our God! We overhear the Father speak to the Son. “I will take You by the hand and keep you.”
5. The Servant is a covenant, the one who makes it possible for us to have a relationship with God.
7. And Can It Be: “Long my imprisoned spirit lay, . . .; Your eye defused a quickening ray”.
8. The Servant makes it possible for us to behold our God. Look at Me, says God.
IV. Look at This (42:8-9)
1. “I am the Lord.” “My glory” — my weightiness — “I give to no other.” He is a jealous God.
2. He’s not like a Chinese temple sharing a space with other gods.
3. He shares His glory with no idols, no kitchen gods, or ancestral tablets, or buddhas. He allows no rivals.
4. Yet He’s spent most of this passage glorifying the Servant because the Servant is also the Lord.
5. “The former things have come to pass”. Now new things are come to pass.
6. Now a new covenant and new life. Jesus says, “Behold”, look at this, “I made all things new.”
7. 700 years before the Servant came, He’s described for us here.
V. Invitation: We become what we behold. The question, now, then, is what have you been beholding? We think, that all things are fine, in their place, if they serve me, maybe ancestral veneration, Chinese traditional religion, or Buddhism. The idolatry of self is the most demented idolatry. Here we’re given a picture of the one to behold, the Servant, the Lord, the good shepherd who gently leads His sheep and lays down His life for them. Behold Him.