Martyn Lawrence - Paradox of Liberty - Class 4 - The Form of a Servant

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1. 0:00

   Our first speaker this morning is Brother Martin Lawrence from the Cleckheaton, UK Ecclesia. This week’s classes theme for Brother Martin’s classes is Paradox of Liberty, and today’s class is entitled The Form of a Servant. Brother Martin, the Paradox of Liberty is moving on. Brothers and sisters, we have been in Genesis. We’ve seen God’s guardrails, the way in which he gives his creation this broad, wide, liberal opportunity to serve him in in all these different kinds of ways.

2. 0:31

   Being in the patriarchs lives as well, seeing what’s happening specifically with Abraham and with Moses, and then in the lives of the children of Israel. To the way in which God works with his people as they come out of Egypt, as they come not to be free from Egypt, but as they come out of Egypt to serve on the mountain. And we looked yesterday at those, those tricky verses in Exodus 21, the way in which God is trying to lay the groundwork for the nation to be formed from nowhere, and how they will interact with each other when things go a little bit wrong. Well, as the narrative of liberty moves on into the kings and the prophets, things are not all as they seem. And as we begin to move forward in time, Israel’s history is framed repeatedly as a failure to live up to their liberty, Not just that they sin and fall short because we know that they do that we know you and I do that, but that the language that the prophets use is specifically couched in this language that we’ve been talking about.

3. 1:40

   Have a look. Oh, sorry, there were our our circles. I’ve not not give you the title, but you can see where we’ve got to with, with when liberty is moving on and going wrong. This is what happens when we get to the days of the kings. Think, for example, about the days of Rehoboam. You know it well and you understand what is going on with him.

4. 2:00

   But when we read of the days of Rehoboam and, and when Jeroboam comes onto the scene as well, they come to petition him, you remember Solomon is no longer there. And, and because they’re not particularly happy with their lot, they say your father made our burden heavy. Now lighten the hard service of your father.

5. 2:19

   And they’re just dragging that word, consciously or unconsciously, out of Exodus chapter 1, the very same hard labor that Pharaoh laid on Israel when he changed his immigration policy and realized that they were a threat to him. And you remember that Ray Bohm goes away and deliberates for a while, and he talks to the old wise heads with the long beards, and he talks to the young guys as well.

6. 2:39

   And the young guys are the ones whose voices prevail. And he comes back and says, well, you wanted me to lighten it. I’m going to add to your yoke. And I know that you know the account and I know that you know the story, but isn’t it significant not just that things are going off the rails, but that we are using freedom language to describe that happening?

7. 3:01

   I think, for example, of the days of Ahaz, Second Chronicles 28 and verse 19, who made Judah act wildly. And again, that is an expression which is dragged out of the Book of Exodus as well. It comes from the chapter with the golden calf where the people break loose. In other words, having had God’s broad liberty with guardrails, that’s not good enough, that’s not sufficient.

8. 3:28

   So we are going to break loose. We are going to act wildly. We’re going to run around freely and do as we choose. So not only when the monarchy is still just about in one piece do things begin to go wrong, but also when we’re focusing only on the Southern Kingdom, do things go wrong or take the days of Zedekiah and, and brother Jesse and I have had a chat and I’m allowed to go into this first, provided I don’t talk about it very much. So we’ve, we’ve, we’ve had a chat who of course, in Jeremiah 34 proclaims liberty to the people in exactly the way that the law commanded him to.

9. 4:03

   And it looked great. Six years shall you serve, and in the 7th year you shall go free. And that’s what happens. Only this is not the kind of king whose example you would want to follow. And so he turns it back on itself and reverses the liberty which he gives to his people, which of course is far worse than not giving it at all. One thing to leave somebody incarcerated, another thing to let them go free.

10. 4:27

    And then as they’re getting to the gates, close the gates on them and make them come back. And as a result of that, the Lord in in Jeremiah 34 says, well, if that’s how you treat freedom, then I will proclaim freedom to you, freedom to the sword, freedom to the pestilence and to the famine.

11. 4:44

    What goes around comes around. I suppose you might say for all of the kings of Israel and Judah, just come with me to Jeremiah chapter 2 almost sums up the way in which this works.

12. 5:07

    Jeremiah chapter 2 and and the Lord says in verse 7, I brought you to a plentiful country to eat the fruit and the goodness thereof, but you defiled my land and made MyHeritage and abomination. Verse 14 Is Israel a servant? Is he a? Homeborn slave. This is the only place we had all those circles on the screen yesterday. This is the only place where the AV translates that Hebrew word avid as the English word slave.

13. 5:32

    And as we said. Yesterday it it’s really just filling a gap where you need a noun, which is why it’s in italics. Is Israel a servant? Is he a homeborn slave? You have brought this upon yourself. The Lord says verse 17 and that you’ve forsaken the Lord your God when he led you by the way, verse 20 of old time I have broken your yoke and burst your bands. I’ve set you free.

14. 5:55

    I’ve released you from bondage. I have led you out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, and you said I we won’t transgress. Yes, on every high hill and under every green tree you wandered about playing the harlots. You are nothing more the Lord, says Danny verse 23 than a a restless camel.

15. 6:15

    Running here and there, you are a wild donkey sniffing the wind. In other words, you are unrestrained. You have been cast off. You have been given your liberty, as Jeremiah 34 said. You have been proclaimed liberty to the sword and the pestilence and to the famine. You can go off and do what you want if that’s how you want to behave. If you don’t like my freedom, then you can go and find your own.

16. 6:40

    And there will be dramatic consequences as a result of that. Something has gone bad at the core of the nation. What happens when there is nobody who will serve? What happens when liberty goes wrong? Well, it’s not as if God doesn’t have a solution. And the Lord is going to raise up another servant for them, who will raise up the tribe of Jacob, and bring it back the preserved of Israel.

17. 7:07

    And we’re going to spend our session this morning, brothers and sisters in. The prophecy of Isaiah in the account of the Servant songs, which a number of us will have touched just briefly in our in our reading groups right at the beginning of the week. Going to sit in Isaiah 40 through 55, which is the section about the Servant prophecies.

18. 7:24

    Just trying to draw some contrast between those kind of ideas that that everything is going wrong in the nation and what God is doing as an alternative. Now, you may well know about Isaiah’s Servant songs, but if you don’t and you’re not certain of the references, there are 4 passages in Isaiah 40 through to 55 which are separate from everything else, and they’re described by by by commentators and and scholars for for decades about the four servant songs of Isaiah. The 1st is chapter 42, verses one through 4. The second is chapter 49, verses one through 6. The third is chapter 50, verses 4 to 9, and the fourth and the longest and the most well known of course, as well, begins in 5213 and runs through to the end of Isaiah 53. And in those chapters we meet 2 servants. 1 is a national servant who is given blessings beyond recognition, blessings beyond imagination, but who turns away from the Father. One is an individual servant, not named, although we can figure out who it is fairly easily, who does the will of his father, who chooses deliberately to obey. And those 4 passages within the broader span of chapters 40 through to 55 tell us of this, this individual servant, of his calling of his.

19. 8:46

    Mission to the nation and to the world of his suffering at the hands of others and of his death and ultimate vindication that comes at the end of things and he’s. Presented to us as a direct contrast from the nation. First of all, you would meet blind, deaf, unbelieving Israel, the rebellious nation given physical freedom by God, as we’ve seen in the Exodus, as we’ve seen in in Jeremiah chapter 2. But who chooses spiritual slavery to sin? And it’s contrasted with a faithful individual, the humble servant who freely chooses.

20. 9:27

    Well, I was going to say to to bind himself to God’s will who chooses to walk out to the cross and give himself for his people. So how do we work out which is which? Because we need to spend a bit of time making sure we understand what these verses tell us. Come to Isaiah’s prophecy, brothers and sisters, if you haven’t done already. And we’re going to just see whether we can paint a broad picture of these two servants before we drill down into the one who, of course, is our focus. Come to Isaiah chapter 41, just do one or two quick comparisons because it’s not always easy to tease out who’s being spoken of. And I just want to try to open things up a little bit for you. So as, as I thought you won a couple of examples here, verses 8:00 and 9:00.

21. 10:09

    You, Israel are my servant Jacob, whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend, you who I’ve taken from the ends of the earth and called from the chief men thereof and said to you, you are my servant. I’ve chosen you and I’ve not cast you away. It’s talking difficult when I just dropped the verse on you without warning, but it’s talking about the nation. Just compare it with chapter 42 and verse one, the first of those two of those four songs.

22. 10:36

    This is not talking about the nation. This one’s talking about the individual. Behold my servant, whom I uphold my neglect, in whom my soul delights. Recognise those verses. We’ve got a hymn that that that encapsulates those verses. So the servants are chosen both in Chapter 41 and Chapter 42. Look back into 41 and verse 13. The servant has spoken of in a different way. I, the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying to thee, Fear not, I will help thee.

23. 11:06

    This is a servant who is held close by the heavenly Father. Again, just contrast not with the song in chapter 42, but just afterwards where the Lord is still, I think, Speaking of his individual servant. 42 Verse 6 I the Lord have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thy hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles or looking. Chapter 44.

24. 11:33

    You can see them on the screen, but I just want to make sure you walk through one or two of them with me. Beginning of Isaiah 44 Again speaking now of the nation. Verse 1 Yet now here, O Jacob, my servant, and Israel, whom I have chosen. Thus says the Lord who made thee, inform thee from the womb, who will help thee.

25. 11:52

    Fear not Jacob, my servant, and thou Dashurin, whom I have chosen. That’s the nation. What does it say of the individual? Well, it’s in verse. It’s in chapter 49 in the second of the songs, and verse 5. Now says the Lord, who formed me from the womb to be his servant. To bring Jacob again to him, this is a servant, or these are two servants who are called, who are held by God’s hand, who are called by their name, who are formed from the womb. So they look similar.

26. 12:27

    In fact, it’s not altogether easy when we just kind of land on it without warning to be able to identify who’s being spoken of at any particular time. But not only are there similarities, there are also some dramatic contrasts, and I’ll just put them up there for you so you can see it’s up to 42 and verse one. This is my servant whom I uphold. This is the.

27. 12:47

    Individual servant, the one who’s prefiguring the Lord. Well, looking to 42 and verse 19, just so you can see the verse, who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger that I sent, who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant, seeing many things. But thou observest not opening the ears, but hearing not.

28. 13:13

    So they look the same, but they also look different. They are formed from the womb. And yet Israel is described in 48 verse 8 as being a rebel from the womb. You knew I would deal very treacherously, Isaiah writes. And you were called a transgressor from the womb. Not, again, easy to understand what that verse specifically means when we drop on it without much warning, but just to make the point and make sure we understand it.

29. 13:38

    Brothers and sisters, this is these are two servants who look very similar but who have dramatic contrasts. And on each of the occasions we’re thinking about, it’s the four servant songs, those four separate passages, who are telling us of the individual servant, the the ideal servant of God who contrasts hard up. With the servant that failed to live up to what was asked. I mean think about it when you know your your Old Testament history, you know your your modern history of Israel as a nation as well.

30. 14:12

    Think about the way God has worked with his people. Think about the way in which he witnessed to their survival through the. Ages. Think about the way that Israel has been the standard by which all other nations are judged. Think of the way in which he blots out their transgressions time after time after time.

31. 14:30

    And yet Isaiah will make all these accusations against his nation, against the national servant, the one who goes off the rails. Israel doesn’t listen, and it contrasts with what we’re told in chapter 50 of the servant who opens his ear morning by morning. Israel is insensitive to correction. And again, it contrasts with what we’re told in chapter 50 and verse and verse 9. That the Lord is is confident in his, in his Father’s work, and conscious of his influence.

32. 15:05

    Israel is untrusting. It’s weary of offering obedience. Israel are stubborn. 48 and verse 4 Israel are condemned for not pleasing. Their well, I. Was going to say their God, their master in the picture that Isaiah was painting for us. So there are all these contrasts set up between what the national servant doesn’t get right in all these different ways and in the song what the actual servant begins to understand.

33. 15:35

    And that’s why that’s why God needs to bring forward for us a new servant. That’s why we need to recognise that some other alternative needs to come because the nation has broken restraint. They have gone wild. They are running around in the desert like a free camel to borrow Jeremiah to to Jeremiah’s phrases.

34. 15:53

    And because of that, God needs an alternative. But it will not be. It will not be easy. And as Isaiah intensifies, and as the songs become darker and more foreboding, the circumstances will change as we work our way through the songs. And it’s not going to be all that easy to read, because the pressure will grow on God’s individual servant. The work in song one will be long. The labour in song 2 will be hard. The physical abuse that will come in song 3 will bring challenges.

35. 16:33

    And in the final song, when the suffering comes and the unjustified, isolated death occurs, it seems as if everything has broken down again. Only as that happens, God will show us the faith that His individual servant shows in increasing measure. Song #1 He will be, as we will see in just a second.

36. 16:57

    He will be dignified and caring in in song 2. He will become the channel for God’s glory in the earth in a way that the nation was never able to be.

37. 17:09

    In song three, He will have his ears open to his Master and we’ll just catch our exodus echo when we get to that song later on. And in song 4 there will be a prospect not of of death. But of glory in the future with others, which will keep him going strong and will keep him moving on. So come to Isaiah 42, brothers and sisters. We’re going to work our way through all four of them at at a fair old lick.

38. 17:41

    I’m afraid what I’m going to do is just leave that on the screen there. Can you? You can just about say it. Sorry, it’s a little bit dark. All of those are the references for the servants in these in these passages. The the N, the white text, if it makes any difference to you, is the national servant.

39. 17:57

    The, the S is the the individual servant. There’s there’s one slightly awkward one that I think is either, but they’re there if you want them and you can scribble them down at chapter 42, though, we’re going to have a look at at the first song when you get there. You will notice something significant because we’re not going to hear what the servant says himself.

40. 18:19

    We’re we’re only going to hear what the Lord says, what the master says of his servant. It’s as if right at the beginning, we’re finding out that actions speak louder than words. Behold my servant, whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He shall bring forth judgement or justice to the Gentiles. There is something, something tender about this servant. He’s he’s not a warrior, he’s not a Street Fighter. He’s quiet and he’s gentle, but he has a character that will influence others.

41. 19:04

    My servant whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. The emphasis is not on the servant. Yet. The emphasis is on his master. The emphasis is on the one who is calling him out. It’s almost as if the servant is surrendering to his master’s will already.

42. 19:24

    And we’re going to see this as it grows, as as we work our way through. He’s the one in whom my soul delights. It’s it’s an echo. From or Matthew chapter 3 will echo this when when we read of the Lord’s baptism. You are my son in whom I am well pleased. You are my son in whom I delight. It’s an identical expression, just understanding what the master thinks of his servant is.

43. 19:48

    Identical to what the the Father thinks of his son when he submits to the waters of baptism. You won’t cry, you won’t lift up, you won’t cause his voice to be heard in the street. This servant will carry on all the work of his master without raising his voice. He’s not hysterical, although he will cause hysteria.

44. 20:13

    He’s not attention seeking, although people will spread his name abroad. He’s not an advert for himself, although attention will certainly come. He’s he’s not going to. To flaunt his accomplishments, his wealth, or his personal achievements. This is a servant who is, as it were, going to take a step back and leave all the focus on his master.

45. 20:38

    Verse 3A. Bruised Reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench. He shall bring forth judgement unto truth. He shall not fail or be discouraged until he has set judgement in the earth, and the aisles will wait for his law. The The man who won’t break a bruised Reed, the man who will not snuff out a faintly burning candle, is a man who fosters the good qualities in other people. A man who is always looking for the positives and overlooking faults.

46. 21:10

    A man who spots the glimmering ideal of acceptable service and fans it into flame and does not merely cover it over and snuff it out. This is not a man who is a graduate of the Putin or the Trump school of democracy. This is somebody altogether different. He is so far from from smashing the mighty that he won’t break off the Reed that is cracked, but will straighten it and support it. This is a man who is so open to to to fanning that flame again that rather than sniffing it out, he will support it. And until it’s wig his his answer. To the oppressors of the world.

47. 21:48

    Is not more oppression his answer to the arrogance in the world? Is not shouting it down with more arrogance, but in quietness and in humility and in simplicity. He will bear all the evil himself and return only grace. That’s power. Power in a velvet glove, maybe, but that’s power.

48. 22:14

    Now with that kind of introduction, brothers and sisters, don’t you want to hear what the servant has to say for himself? Come to chapter 49 because the tone of the second song is a little different. It’s more personal now, and we’re learning just almost unconsciously, that the relationship is not just one between a servant and a master, but between a son and a father.

49. 22:46

    This no whiles unto me, and hearken ye people from far. The Lord has called me from the womb, from the bowels of my mother. He’s made mention of my name. There is a bit more personal undertone to this. With my mouth. He’s made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand He’s hidden me and made me a polished shaft in his quiver.

50. 23:06

    He’s hidden me and said to me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified. God has made the servant who he is. It’s not him. Seeing it as his inherent ability. If I can extend this, this is not a pre existent Christ who has already got abilities to do things.

51. 23:22

    This is somebody given something by his master and God has prepared him and hidden him and protected him and made him ready for the moment when he will come forth. He’s an arrow in a quiver, prepared and ready for that moment when he’s required. Verse three he said to me, You are my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified in other. Words, this servant will function as Israel. This isn’t a verse talking about the nation, it’s a verse talking about the individual servant.

52. 23:53

    This servant will function as Israel. He will be the Israel that Israel never was. And Matthew’s gospel will will get hold of all of these ideas when he describes the Lord Jesus as a new Israel, which is a whole of the Bible school. So we can do that in a few years time maybe, who knows? But what he’s talking about here is the way in which this man will be the new Israel.

53. 24:15

    God will not wipe out the the nation because of his failure, but will simply introduce another way in which servanthood will be represented in the earth through one who will be the vehicle of God’s glory before all people.

54. 24:30

    And it will bring us to our knees in in admiration I’ve laboured in vain, he says. I’ve spent my strength for nothing and in vain. This is a servant who is. Who is not perfect, by which I mean he is not absolutely confident of everything that will come. Perfect is perhaps the wrong word to use.

55. 24:51

    This is a man who is, who is conscious that that he is going to struggle, he is going to suffer. There will be hard nights. This is a man who will be up all night in prayer, worrying sometimes. What do I do Lord? Do I stay here and heal, or do I go on and preach the gospel? And we see that, don’t we, time after time in the Gospels where the Lord is, is almost between 2:00, between two stalls, and both are right.

56. 25:12

    Staying and healing is right. Going on and preaching is right. What do I do, Lord? How do I work it out, Lord? I’ve laboured in vain, Lord. It’s tiring, Lord. I keep saying this stuff, Lord, and they don’t listen to me. 120 people in that upper room in Acts chapter. 120 people after 3 1/2 years of the greatest preaching campaign on the history of the Earth. I don’t listen to me, Lord, I’ve laboured in vain and spent my strength for nothing.

57. 25:46

    The Lord doesn’t know. Sometimes I think the best way to go on, which is why he puts all of his trust in his father. This is a man almost overwhelmed by the amount of work that is coming upon him, as if when he says that the fields are white under harvest but the labourers are few, he knows exactly what he’s talking about. And what’s the master’s response? What’s the Father’s response to this individual servant’s concern?

58. 26:12

    Well my son, you think it’s hard? Now I’m going to give you more work to do. Middle of verse 5. Though Israel is not gathered yet, I will be glorious in the eyes of my Lord, and my God will be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing, that thou should this be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel.

59. 26:36

    I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation. To the ends of the earth. You think it’s hard now? Well, this is a message which is going even further, even harder. And, and this will be the servant who will be God’s vehicle for his glory in all ways. A light.

60. 26:58

    Thing to do the work that he did. But you will be my salvation to the ends of the earth. And Simeon will pick this up and, and Anna will pick this up when the Lord is brought to the temple, when he’s when he’s just eight days old. And, and see in this baby boy, the servant that God was bringing forth before his people. Psalm #3 chapter 50.

61. 27:24

    And the intensity just begins to deepen and just begins to change. Because as the tasks of the servant increase. So to the care of his master increases. Song one shows us about how the servant learns patience. Song 2 shows us how he becomes strong Despite that weariness. Song 3 is going to show us how he can be steadfast in the face of abuse.

62. 27:51

    Song 4 will show us how he can be courageous in the face of death. And he can do it only and only because his master is there beside him. He will uphold his servant song #1, He will strengthen his servant song #2, He will protect his servant against hostility, song #3, and he will redeem and restore his servant in song #4.

63. 28:19

    Just look at some of the power in these words, Isaiah 50 and verse 4. The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned four times in this song where you’re going to see a specific title for the Lord Adonai Yahweh, my Master Yahweh. This is a servant who realises who the master is, almost as if in some sense the battle has now been won, the struggle against himself has now been overcome, the battle that takes place in Gethsemane.

64. 28:49

    Can you take this cut from me, Lord? No. And you therefore are my master and my sovereign. The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens morning by morning awakens my ear. To the learned.

65. 29:09

    The Lord God has opened my ear. There’s the second phrase, the second time that occurs, and I was not rebellious and I didn’t turn away my back. Isn’t it interesting? You know he hears and then he speaks and he can only speak. Because he’s been listening, which might be a little excitation for you and I in the way we speak forth words before God. Discipleship needs lingering.

66. 29:38

    You and I live in a world that connects progress with efficiency. The quicker we get stuff done, the more time we have for other things. Technology brings more efficiency, and yet efficiency means slowing down is difficult. Ours is a faith where we need to linger. We need to linger in prayer with our Heavenly Father. We need to linger in conversations with each other. We need to linger in fellowship when our ecclesia gathers. We need to linger with our children when the Word is open before us and we talk about things and not just move on to the next thing.

67. 30:13

    There are challenges there because everything is always pulling us at every direction all of the time. And yet here is the one who says, come unto me, all ye who are weary, and I will give you rest. So the Lord God has opened his ear, and he’s not rebellious. This is the servant, isn’t it, of Exodus Chapter 21 that we looked at yesterday and some of you were going, well, he hasn’t finished the story here because there’s an awful lot more to be said of this servant. And here it is.

68. 30:39

    This is the servant’s pledge of loyalty, forever in his master’s house. The ear of the servant is now symbolically open, forever because he’s committed himself to the work that his father called him to do. Remember how Exodus 21? Runs when When servants love their masters, they commit lifelong service to them rather than walking away. That’s what true freedom looks like. That’s what that servant of Exodus 21 enacted. And that’s what the Lord is doing here. But you remember how Exodus 21 went on to say, not just I love my master, but I love my master, my wife and my children, and I will not go out free.

69. 31:24

    He doesn’t just stay in the house because he loves his master. He stays in the house because he has family there. This is a servant who is motivated by other people. This is a man who is going to be glorified, that he might bring many sons to glory. Not just that he might be made immortal in some grand mythological way and sit on a throne and rule the empires, but that he might be the head of the body and be in the Kingdom and share the Kingdom with those who are of faith as well.

70. 31:57

    So he says, I love my master God. I love my work, Israel, I love my children, the Gentiles, and I will not go out free. I will commit myself to the ’cause that my Father has given me. Even though they will smite me on the back, verse 6, even though they will pluck off my beard, even though they will shame me and spit at me, I have set my face like a Flint and I will not be confounded. It’s the words from Luke Chapter 9, isn’t it? When the Lord sets his face to go to Jerusalem, He’s he’s, he’s telling us to go to this verse

71. 32:37

    because he set his face like a Flint after the transfiguration and will go like he’s carved out of granite and will go to Jerusalem and offer himself. Come on to the fourth song, chapter 52 and verse 13. You understand how I say that things begin to get darker and harder as the songs move forward? How things just become a more complicated and and more more challenging for him.

72. 33:02

    Even here the Hebrew is different. The Hebrew is is less rhythmical, it’s more wrenched. There are fewer words being used. It’s almost as if somebody who is under under pressure is falling back on a vocabulary that is very limited. To them, because that’s what. You and I do when we’re under pressure or the the paraphernalia around the edges disappears and we just. Fall back on who we really are.

73. 33:24

    That’s what this servant will do as well. 52 and verse 13 Behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He will be exalted and extolled, and be very high. As many as were astonished at the His visage was so marred more than any man, and He’s four more than the sons of men, So He shall sprinkle many nations.

74. 33:45

    Kings will shut their mouths at him. For that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall consider something about. This man that drew the eye for all the wrong reasons. Who could have believed that when the Lord bared his holy arm, it would look like this? Someone who was scarred and battered by 3 1/2 years of ministry.

75. 34:09

    Somebody who looked more than 50 when he was only 30 years old. Someone who would had all those sleepless nights in prayer to his Father. Someone who had sweated great drops of blood in Gethsemane, who had been beaten by the soldiers, who looked not like a saviour, and who was going to be let out to die like a common criminal.

76. 34:28

    Who could have believed that when God bared his holy arm, it would look like this servant? Service takes its toll on this servant. And when verse 14 says that his visage was more marred than any man, it’s word that comes from Leviticus 22. You may have a note in your margin. It’s it’s to describe something rejected for sacrifice, as if to say you would not have picked this man to be your saviour if you looked at him on the outside. Verse 1 of chapter 53 or verse 2, He shall. Grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground.

77. 35:09

    He’s got no formal comeliness, and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him here is. Abraham and Isaac coming to Moriah, go to the mountain and offer him on a place I will tell thee of. Here is the vineyard mismanaged by Jewish husbandmen. What more could I do for my vineyard, says the owner.

78. 35:30

    I will send my son. Here is Hezekiah growing up in his father’s wicked reign. Here is Moses in Egypt, with the temptation of all the treasures and the wisdom of that land, and choosing to go into those exoduses, out into the wilderness, and come back to lead his people.

79. 35:48

    There is Paul in the Roman world that persecuted him, surrounded by brothers and sisters who mistrusted him. Here is God’s care for us when we stand up for truth in a world that doesn’t want to hear it, in a world that says if you feel it, then it must be true. Here is the way the Lord looks after us, no? Form or comeliness, that we should desire him no beauty, but when we should see him no beauty that we should desire him. Was the spiritual aura of this man that drew the attention. He wasn’t head and shoulders above everybody else. This wasn’t King Saul.

80. 36:28

    This wasn’t a kingship based on external appearances. This was something on the inside, which of course was when, why when the message got too much, everybody turned away. Because he doesn’t look like a leader, doesn’t look like somebody that could carry you out and and and throw out the Romans. Verse 3. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. Here’s the greatest sacrifice for the Servant. Of all things, because the condemnation on this man was that he was to be utterly, utterly alone in a society built on community, his call was to be an absolutely isolating 1. That’s why leprosy language runs all the way through Isaiah 53, because we’re reading about somebody who was cast out. We’re reading about somebody who was put outside the camp. We’re reading about somebody who was seen as being unclean in a most hideous and ironic way.

81. 37:33

    He would have to be completely isolated. And it puts those parables in the Gospels into a new light, doesn’t it? When the Lord heals the lepers, when he sees Legion amongst the rocks chained, the chains have been broken and yet still he needs healing. And we finish off with that account with. Legion sat at the Lord’s feet, healed and in his right mind.

82. 37:59

    Because the Lord looks at that man and sees himself, the servant who had a calling and can do nothing else but reach out and heal in mark one, when the Lord does have that dilemma, when he goes to his father in prayer and says, what do I do, Lord? Do I stay here and heal?

83. 38:16

    Do I go on and preach? He goes on and preaches because that’s the that’s the command that seems to come. But there is one person who changes his, his direction, one at the end of mark 1, and it’s the leper who comes to him. And again, the Lord sees the man like himself, the isolated man, and turns things around, even though so many of the others were indifferent to their fate, even though so many enslaved societies over the years had been mistreated, because the people were indifferent to their consequences.

84. 38:47

    And when Isaiah says we hid, as it were, our faces from him, it implies that they just didn’t care. There is an indifference underlying that phrase.

85. 39:03

    Like we said, 120 people in that upper room. After all the work that the Lord did, pouring himself out day after day, and when verse 8 says who shall declare his generation, you could read it well, who will acknowledge? Him who’s going to bother to speak of him? Because so few people did that? The Lord Jesus Christ, your Lord and Master, your King, the one who will rule all things, The one who is the Son of his Father and the servant of his Master.

86. 39:31

    As the soldiers gamble for his garments, as they crucify him naked, as he gives up every last vestige of himself for somebody else, they are going to come out of Jerusalem. They’re going to look at him on the cross and they’re going to shrug their shoulders and move on. We hid, as it were, our faces from Him.

87. 39:59

    Isaiah 53 has a centre point and it looks like this. Tried to keep you away from chiasms this week, but but here’s 1 and I and I think it works. You can begin to work this in and I’ll make sure the slides become available. But all of those phrases, one by one just track US into the centre part of this song.

88. 40:21

    You can, if you are are interested, break the 4th song down into 5 sections, 3 verses in each of those five sections. But the centre point is there in verse 7 where the Lord is LED like a lamb to the slaughter. It takes us to the very heart, my brothers and sisters, of the paradox of liberty.

89. 40:40

    Because physically he is led to the cross. We know that. In fact there is an implication that they have to half carry him there because of what they’ve done to him. And he can barely bear the cross bare. That’s why Simon of Cyrene is called out of the crowd, because he can’t take it by himself.

90. 40:57

    He has to have some help physically. They get in there spiritually. He’s the one directing events. I have the power to lay down my life and I will take it up again. He bowed his head and he gave up the spirit. It’s the difference between being told to go to your death. I’m voluntarily choosing to do so. This is the servant who has given everything over to his master.

91. 41:24

    Everything now matters because he realises that the Lord is all things. Isaiah 53 or or the the the 4th song, as we should probably call it, is quoted in all manner of places in the New Testament, as if to say we should focus our attention on this perhaps more than any other place when we think about the Lord’s suffering.

92. 41:49

    And and as we break into the very heart of the song, as we read about how he’s LED like a lamb to the slaughter, the realization comes to. Us that the servant suffering was for you and I. You were there when they crucified our Lord. And the gospel writers and the Lord himself, and Philip in Acts and Paul in his letters, and the Hebrew writers as well, all want us to come back to this place and see something remarkable happening to the place where the Lord gives everything of himself for his brothers and sisters.

93. 42:28

    Can I bring you to First Peter chapter 1? The most of of all those places, the most sustained quote is the one that’s in the bottom of the list there at the end of of one Peter chapter 2. But I want to start in one Peter 1 because if we drop in in the middle of a in the middle of a sentence, we can read about how Peter tells us of the prophets of old time verse 10, one Peter 1.

94. 43:02

    The prophets inquired and searched diligently, prophesying of the grace we should come to you searching what or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them, signified when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that shall follow. Now you can apply that expression to lots and lots of Old Testament passages, but I think.

95. 43:22

    Because of where Peter was going to lead us, he’s. Specifically talking about the fourth of those servant songs. It’s a letter about submission. In other words, a letter about making yourself not free. So look at chapter 2 and verse 13. Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.

96. 43:46

    Submit yourself to the king as supreme, or to governors as unto him who are sent by the punishment of for the punishment of evil doers. Verse 18, Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only the good and the gentle, but also the froward. And now we know how to read that in light of Exodus 21. So it’s not about abusing your employees. It’s got a bigger context.

97. 44:07

    So you’d be subject to the king, you’re subject to the governors, you’re subject to your masters. Chapter 3 and verse one wives be subject to your own husbands, which is a verse that we tend to take in isolation and get all funny about. But actually it’s in a long line of verses telling us about people submitting to each other and chapter 5 and verse 5 younger submit yourselves to the elder.

98. 44:30

    It’s in light of ecclesial activities and how ecclesial members are encouraged to submit themselves to ecclesial elders. Because God is sanctifying decisions that ecclesial elders make. This is a letter about making ourselves not free and and as I keep talking about the goodness of constraints and how this is a. World that doesn’t seem to have any chapter 2 tells us why we try to do it 2 verse 15 so is the will of God that with well doing you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men as free and not using your liberty as a cloak of maliciousness and we’ve picked up that verse earlier on in the week it’s done to silence those who don’t understand and. And and this is a letter that turns around that servant song. You remember the one who was silent. We submit, we give up our liberty in all the ways we’ve been talking about through these, through these sessions, in order that we might make others silent, in order that they might look in awe at the God of all the earth. Now you’re not going to.

99. 45:33

    Like this slide, it’s very tiny. It’s really just there as a hold. OK, if you want it later, but it will tell us about all the different ways in which Peter is going to pick up that Servant’s song. I’ll bring you down to verse 21 in chapter 2 and we’ll just read it through for even hereunto were ye called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow his steps and you can put your Isaiah 53 antenna up and we can just work our way through. He did no sin.

100. 45:58

     Neither was guile found in his mouth. Who when he was reviled, reviled not again when he suffered, he threatened not, but he committed himself to him who judges righteously, Who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness. By whose stripes you were healed, For you were his sheep going astray, but now are restored. Remember that idea of freedom, putting people back where they belong, but now are restored to the Shepherd and the Overseer of your souls?

101. 46:32

     The question that was asked in Mark chapter 12, when the Lord tells the parable of the vineyard, remember the owner goes into a far country and he sends his servants 1 by 1. And the first one gets beaten and sent away and the second one gets killed. And there is a whole series of servants going backwards and forth to the to the vineyard to work out what’s going on. And finally, when there are no more servants left, the master says, I’m going to send my son.

102. 47:00

     And you and I, who know what’s happening, sit there tearing whatever little hair I have left out and saying don’t do it, Lord, because they’ve beaten the other guys and Chuck rocks at them and thrown them out and killed them. Don’t do it Lord. Don’t send the son having yet therefore one son who’s well beloved.

103. 47:18

     He sent them, lost them to them, saying they will reverence my son. And they just shrugged their shoulders and moved on. And they didn’t want to know anything about him. That was that list. Of references that we had all the way through Isaiah 40 to 50. Five and if I just bring you in to the bid at the end and bring you back please to Isaiah 53, we’re going to see something just to round us off this morning.

104. 47:45

     Come back to Isaiah 53. There is one more thing because all the way through the songs. All the way through these passages that tell us of the national servant and the passages that tell us of the individual servant, we are only ever reading of an individual servant in every single place except for one. And it’s the very last occurrence that you can see there on the screen. 54 and verse 17 where it changes. Why?

105. 48:14

     Well, the answers at the end of Isaiah 53 answer. At the end of the fourth song, verse 10 of 53, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He’s put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed, He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand, healthy the travail of his soul, and be satisfied by his knowledge.

106. 48:37

     Shall my righteous servant justify many? Now all of the focus comes back to the servant. He’s done the work. He’s been to the cross. He’s been numbered with the transgressors. Verse 12. He’s borne the sins of many. He’s made intercession for the transgressors. And all of our focus on this idea of service and liberty and freedom comes to this point and this moment because suddenly he’s described in an altogether different way.

107. 49:04

     He’s not a servant now. He is a righteous servant because the work has been done. He has obeyed his master. He has gone to the cross and. Everything has been accomplished. Because of what he does in the fourth song, He is a righteous servant. And you know what, Brothers and sisters, never again in the rest of Isaiah’s prophecy. Well, Isaiah describe any individual servant again, every single time he’s going to talk about servants, plural. Why?

108. 49:32

     Because he has died, That he might bring many sons to glory. This is the work of the master. This is the work of the King, the one who came well not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. There is only one who can fulfil true freedom, and the effect of his work is that it brings us into the family of God. Freedom principle #8 Just in case you thought I’d forgotten this.

109. 50:06

     We choose service because of the character of God’s servant, because we can do nothing else. When we see this altogether lovely man but fall down at his feet, we can choose no other path other than doing as Peter says and following in his footsteps. The one who who becomes obedient to death and gives up his freedom.

110. 50:28

     The one who is bound, like the sacrifice of Psalm 118. The one who leads captivity captive and gets gifts for men. The one who leads his people in triumphant procession. The one who can’t be bound, held in the grave, as Peter says in Acts 2. The one who causes everybody to bow before him and give up their freedom because you and I, brothers and sisters, who all our lifetimes were subject to bondage, are set free by the love of our Heavenly Father.

111. 51:00

     May it be as we continue our week, enjoy our company, enjoy our fellowship, that God would work in our hearts and awareness of our own sin and the insufficiency of our abilities, and that we might put everything we have onto the Son who gave all things for us.