Isaiah 49:1-12
What’s He Do?

I. Do You Have a Job Description?
1. You know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, even if no one has ever written it out for you.
2. If your job description is to take the orders and the cash, you can’t spend all your time behind cooking.
3. In Acts 6, with the calling of the first 7 deacons, they had a specific job description.
4. Does Christ have a job description? Job descriptions are written beforehand.
II. The Servant Speaks (49:1-4)
1. The second Servant Song begins by us being told to listen to Him. He’s speaking. “Listen to Me.”
2. He’s speaking to the “coastlands”, the ends of the earth like Ethiopia, or China, or America.
3. If you think this is just for the Jews, or the white man’s religion, and ours is different, He speaks to you.
4. Some Chinese think we are for Confucius, ancestral tablets, Taoist funerals, Buddhist art, the filial child.
5. Jesus Himself speaks to that and says, No, ‘Listen to me, Chinese, all people, pay attention.’
6. He’s a king called from the womb to rule. He rules with the sword of His mouth.
7. Hebrews 4:12, The Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, cutting to the deep intentions.
8. The Servant wields the sword of the Word of God, He is the Word.
9. For a while the Servant was hidden. The Lord kept Jesus in obscurity for about 30 years.
10. The Servant is called “Israel.” How is the Servant Israel and the One who gathers Israel?
11. The Servant embodies all that Israel was called to be. The Servant Israel, restores the nation Israel.
12. In Him the Lord will be glorified. The Lord will be made much of, even people in China.
13. But not without trouble; and disappointment; not without people bringing dishonor to the Lord (49:4).
14. How do you think Christ Himself, looking at what’s been done wrong in His name, sees that?
15. The crowds were flocking to Christ but He told them that they would have suffer and so they went away.
16. Followers kept leaving until there was only one disciple left at the cross. He felt of futility.
17. He encourages Himself, not with success, but that His reward is from God, not in tangible success.
III. The Servant Shines (49:5-7)
1. “That Israel might be gathered to Him.” He is sent to gather His people. He’s the gatherer.
2. “It is too light a thing . . .” just to be the literal king of Israel. He deserves a better job than that.
3. Instead, He is to be a “light for the nations,” “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).
4. It’s too little to think that He’s just the light for Israel or white people or just any one people.
5. The Servant is “one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation.” He suffers rejection.
6. Kings will see the Servant and stand up out of respect. Princes will prostrate themselves.
IV. The Servant Shepherds (49:8-12)
1. We get to overhear the Father speaking to the Son, before the incarnation, telling Him His job.
2. “Give you as a covenant”: He’s both the subject of the covenant and the means of the covenant.
3. To form “a chosen race, . . . a holy nation, a people for His own possession” (1 Peter 2:9.)
4. Servant Shepherd will feed us, provide everything that we need, like Israel was provided the manna.
5. The sheep being shepherded through mountains and deserts will come from “afar,” like China.
6. The Lord Jesus: “I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also.” (John 10:16)
7. “It is necessary” to bring “other sheep”, all kinds of sheep, from afar, from every nation.
8. He gathers His people from al kinds of other people. He sustains them along the way.
9. He suffers for us, including the feeling of abandonment, of despondency, of futility.
10. He speaks His word and calls together His church the Israel of God from afar.
V. Invitation: What’s your job description? The Servant calls all people everywhere to repent. You might think, He’s not for my culture. He calls you to change your mind, to accept that He’s for all people, including you. He’s not just the God here, He’s the God everywhere. His job description is to build His church, to make a holy nation, a new people for Himself. Yours is to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness by His shining light. Proclaim that He’s the king who makes royalty bow. Proclaim that He is your King now.