Amen. Our scripture reading this morning comes to us once again from the book of Isaiah. This morning we're in the 49th chapter, verses one through seven. I encourage you to take out your Bible or take out one of the Pew Bibles. If you're looking in the Pew Bible, you'll find our reading on page 830. Now as we prepare to hear from God's word, would you please pray with me? Lord God, You are our light and our salvation. May your word, as we hear it this morning, be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Isaiah 49, beginning at verse 1. Listen to me, O coastlands. Pay attention, you peoples from far away. The Lord called me before I was born. While I was in my mother's womb, he named me. He made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand, he hid me. He made me a polished arrow. In his quiver, he hid me away. And he said to me, you are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified. But I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing in vanity. Yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God. And now the Lord says, who formed me in the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob back to him, and that Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the sight of the Lord, and my God has become my strength. It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the survivors of Israel. I will give you as a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and His Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the slave of rulers, Kings shall see and stand up, princes, and they shall prostrate themselves because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you. This is the word of the Lord. Listen to me. Pay attention. Earlier in my life I was a high school teacher. I got used to those two phrases, saying those two phrases, that is, listen to me, pay attention. Then I had children. That's the parents laughing. They know you don't get, if you're a teacher and then you have kids, you don't have much of a chance to get out of practice with those two phrases, listen to me. I'm not looking at my own kids now, pay attention. Now to be fair, I know that children often have a legitimate reason to say to their parents, listen to me, pay attention. We can get distracted too, can't we? Looking at our phones or just kind of zoning out, whatever, maybe plinking on the banjo, I don't know what it might be. We're not paying attention to our children and they have some legitimate reason to be saying to us, hey, pay attention, listen to me. Now you'll notice something about those examples that I just gave though. The nature of the teacher-student and parent-child relationship gives the one saying, listen to me, pay attention, the authority to say it. And expect that attention will be paid. So even in the child, when the child's asking for it, there is some moral authority there. Parents don't always have, hear this children, your parents don't always have to listen to you? But oftentimes they really should. And so there is a sense of moral authority. So at any rate, the one who says, listen to me, pay attention to me at the beginning of our passage this morning is quick to establish his own authority. His authority for demanding the attention of his rather broad audience. An audience that includes the coastlands, or you could translate the Hebrew there, the islands, which indicates the farthest reaches of the earth geographically. And then in the next line, peoples from far away. He is saying that he has the authority, he's gonna establish the authority for which he can speak to an audience that includes everyone. Now, note that from the beginning here, what I've just said there is the audience, because you think, well, this is in Isaiah, and the prophets are usually just speaking to Israel. Note that the one speaking is not speaking just to Israel. That's the implication here. His audience is global. It includes everyone, and that includes us. That pay attention, listen, that's spoken to us this morning. And if we think in terms of a teacher calling his worldwide class to order, the other thing to remember here is that we must remember that his class is a rather unruly, rebellious class. It's a sinful world that is not prone to listening well or even listening at all. So the speaker needs to establish and proclaim his authority here. If we had the ears of the ancient people of the Near East, we would hear this speaker immediately speak of himself as an ancient king would have spoken about himself, as he was asserting his authority. So right off the bat, he says, the Lord, that is Yahweh, the creator God, Yahweh, called me from the womb. from my mother's belly, he proclaimed my name." The word womb should show up in the first line rather than the second. I don't know why they translate it that way, they just do sometimes. Ancient kings understood themselves to have been appointed and ordained by the gods for their reign from their mother's wombs, at least that's what they asserted to their subjects. Ancient kings claimed that they were divinely appointed for their specific tasks. And here, in our passage this morning, the one who claims our attention tells us something of that call and tells us something of his task. He, Yahweh that is, made my mouth like a sharp sword. In the shadow of his hand he hid me. He made me a polished arrow, that presumably points to the polishing of the shaft so that it will fly farther and more accurately. He made me a polished arrow, in his quiver he hid me away. Now of course, ancient kings, if they would have spoken like this, would have been speaking about literal swords and arrows. They thought predominantly in terms of vanquishing their enemies and subjugating peoples at the end of the sword with the help of the arrow. Here though, our speaker tells us that his divine appointment relates actually to his mouth, to his words. His words, the proclamation of his mouth will be effective in cutting through the human heart. just as a sharp sword or arrow would be. His word would be, as the author of Hebrews put it, living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Now, the sword is a weapon used in close combat. You can't use it from a great distance, right? You've got a limited reach there. But by divine appointment, from the womb, the speaker's word, like an arrow, would be effective also from great lengths. It would be effective to the islands and to the ends of the earth even down to this age. The Lord himself, Yahweh, would keep the one calling us to listen to Him close at hand, right there, ready for use, in the quiver, ready for use, ready for effective use. In short, as biblical scholar John Oswalt puts it, the servant is saying that he is particularly called for the task, he is particularly equipped for the task, and he has been particularly kept for the task. It is not by chance that the servant finds himself in this role. Think of all that's gone before this page. All the culmination of God's work in history comes to its point in him, in the servant of the Lord. Now, we are speaking once again of the one to whom Yahweh says, you are my servant Israel, in whom I will be glorified. We are speaking once again this morning here in the 49th chapter of Isaiah of our Lord Jesus Christ. Or rather, we should think about it this way, through Isaiah, our Lord, Yahweh's servant, is speaking to us and to all peoples, inviting us to listen to Him, to pay attention to Him and the word of His mouth. Now, I think I've mentioned this before, I am not a fan of red-letter Bibles. I am not a fan of red-letter Bibles because the whole of Scripture is Christ's Word. So, it either all should be red or we should just all read it all in black, which is a little gentler on the eyes, I think. But if we're going to do red-letter Bibles, this passage here should be in red. This is our Lord speaking. Yahweh's servant. That's who's speaking here. It might seem at first glance like it is the nation of Israel speaking, but the fact that this is not Israel, the nation, is made clear in verse five when the Lord declares that Jacob and Israel are certainly not His servants, because they themselves need to be brought back to Him. They have gone astray from their Lord. They need to be brought back. They can't be servants. They're disobedient. There in verse five he says, and now the Lord says, who formed me in the womb to be a servant, to bring Jacob back to him. And that Israel might be gathered to the Lord. They've strayed. Moreover, if you just go back the column over there in Isaiah 48 verses 17 to 18, the Lord says to Israel, I am Yahweh your God who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go, Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments, but Jacob did not pay attention. Israel did not listen. And then in the very last verse of chapter 48, right before where we picked up this morning, verse 22, speaking of Israel, the Lord says, there is no peace for the wicked. The wicked, that's Israel he's talking about. So the speaker here is not the nation Israel. The speaker here is certainly Yahweh's servant who would be for Israel what Israel could not be for Israel's self. And that's the one thing they were supposed to be, Yahweh's faithful servant. He was called by God from the womb. His name announced from his mother's belly. And you can think of the announcement stories, Christ's own birth. You can hear the words of Isaiah elsewhere. The virgin shall conceive and give birth. You can think of Mary visiting Elizabeth, all of that. Yahweh formed him in the womb specifically to be his servant for the task of bringing Jacob back to God and that Israel might be gathered to him. Now, we need to note, well, here at this point, the difference between Israel's being restored to the land, the land that God promised to them, and Israel being restored to its God. God had already given the pagan king Cyrus the task of restoring Israel to the land. But as this text makes clear, Israel's restoration to the land did not mean that they would be therefore necessarily restored and reconciled to their God. Cyrus, a pagan military and political figure of this passing age, was incapable of redeeming Israel from its continued rebellion against its God. All he could do was send them home. How often do we also put our trust in princes, in political candidates and political parties, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation? thinking that there is salvation in a restoration of this or that piece of land, or this or that piece of policy or program, when what we and the world need is nothing less than the reconciliation with the God who created and sustains us. So, in our own tumultuous times, let us remember that the restoration of a comfortable status quo by a modern-day Cyrus might restore some level of temporal peace, and that's not nothing. We should hope and pray for that. But what the nations, our nation included, need is reconciliation with God. The increase of the GDP and even things like equal treatment before the law and equal opportunities for all, as great as those things are, and they are great, they're good, They are temporal goods, but we must remember they are penultimate temporal goods. And those things will mean little in the end without the ultimate eternal good, which is the reconciliation of people and nations to their Creator God. And that can't be accomplished by any King Cyrus, modern day or ancient. but rather is accomplished by the servant of the Lord alone, by the effective word of His mouth which proceeds from Him and proceeds from His body, the church, because we proclaim His word in word and in deed. So as much as we, the church, and our members might labor for those penultimate temporal ends, and some of you might be called to those things very specifically, We must remember, we must work, and we must pray, most of all, for the ultimate eternal ends, that our neighbors might be reconciled to God and experience the blessing of His life here and now and in the age to come. But as we've gotten a bit ahead of ourselves in the text, that brings us back to this problem. who was chosen and set apart by God to be a light to the nations, set apart to bring the nations to God, if Israel could not restore itself to God, Cyrus is only gonna send them home, how could the nations hope to be reconciled to their creator? Well, as we've seen, God has said to the one who has asked us to listen to him, the one who's asked us this morning to pay attention to him, he has said, you, are my servant. You are my servant Israel in whom I will be glorified," or you could translate it, in whom I will show my beauty. Again, God's kingly servant will do and be what the nation Israel could not do and be. Not merely for Israel's own sake, but to fulfill what was always expected of Israel. that Israel would be a light, a blessing of reconciliation to God for the world. But if we're tempted to think that God's glory will be displayed in easy worldly ways or by worldly means, we've already established it's not gonna be by worldly means, because that's the end of the sword. This is by the word of Christ's mouth. Listen also to the words of the servant To the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, hear these words on this third Sunday of Lent, as he says, but I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing in vanity. That's that Hebrew word that the preacher of Ecclesiastes uses again and again, vanity of vanities, it's all a mist, all a breath, it's just air. I've spent my strength for nothing in mist. As Old Testament scholar Alec Mottier reminds us, throughout the Gospels, and we've heard this recently reading through Mark, throughout the Gospels, Jesus faced rejection, unbelief, prejudice, and misunderstanding. He cried out, how long? He was grieved by his disciples' failure to understand that continued blindness. He foresaw the following away of the core group, And so, Matthew says, what is thus diffused through Jesus' ministry is, so to speak, compressed into this single utterance. I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing in vanity. The words of the servant, the words of our Lord, accurately reflect what John Oswalt rightly calls his frustrations and feelings of futility. Our Lord had these feelings, frustrations, feelings of futility. Yes, the servant of the Lord was met with some belief in his years of ministry, but think about Jesus' own reality. He was met far more by unbelief, was he not, and by resistance. Only to end, as verse 7 here puts it, deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the slave of rulers. The king of the cosmos at the end stands before Pilate to be sentenced to death by Pilate, having seemingly done so very little in his life and in his ministry. These are the words of the servant of the Lord, our Lord Jesus Christ. I have labored in vain. I've spent my strength for nothing in vanity. Now, if he felt that way, As He sought first the ultimate ends of God's kingdom, I don't know where you are this morning in how you're feeling about your work for the ultimate ends of God's kingdom, but if Christ our Lord felt that way, then would we also not expect sometimes to feel the same way as we try faithfully to do the kingdom work that God calls us to do? Would we not sometimes feel like we also are laboring in vain, spinning our wheels? Would it not make sense that we too will sometimes feel like that we're pouring out our strength, pouring out our very selves for nothing and for vanity as we seek first God's kingdom? Like we're pushing against a brick wall and not surprisingly finding that it's not moving too much. But hear these words too, because these also are the words of our Lord. Yet surely my cause is with the Lord and my reward with my God." The servant's real feelings of frustration and futility do not cancel out his trust in the Lord. Rather, they are defined and shaped by his trust in God. And so, as John Oswald put it, too often we miss the two-sidedness of what is being said here in those phrases. On the one hand, we think that to admit feelings of futility is not to trust in God. On the other hand, we often feel that if we really trusted God, we would never have feelings of futility. The servant shows us that neither reality is incompatible with the other. Trust is ultimately to do with the final outcome. And of this, the servant is fully confident. It is God, the God who called him, equipped him, and is using him who will make the final adjudication concerning the servant's work. God, not the world, not even the servant, will make the final decision concerning the worth of that work. Though the world has itself spoken of the futility of Christ, deeply despising and abhorring him. We hear the Lord Himself pronounce His final true verdict in the second half of verse 7 of Isaiah 49. Whatever the world might think, this is the reality. Kings shall see and stand up, in obedience to the servant that is. Princes, and they shall prostrate themselves because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you. Those are words spoken to the servant. The God who chose and appointed the servant from the womb will be faithful, honoring his servant and becoming his very strength, rewarding his servant as his servant reveals God's own glory. Friends, so it is for us. It might seem to us or to our neighbors or to the world more broadly around us that all of our work for God's kingdom is for naught. You're wasting your time. That we labor in vain, that we pour out our strength for nothing but a mist. We might very well legitimately experience frustrations and believe our work to be futile. But we also must remember that it is not up to us or our neighbors or the world to judge the effectiveness of our work for God's kingdom. It is up to God alone to judge. And that means that it is up to us faithfully to follow where God leads. That's it. That's our task. Not to judge the success of our work or the effectiveness of our work, it is up to us to faithfully follow. I split my infinitive. faithfully to follow where the Lord leads, no matter how effective or ineffective we might judge our work to be. It's not up to us to judge. We, too, have been chosen by God. God's election of all of us sealed in the waters of our baptism. So in our union with Christ, God's faithful servant, we can say precisely what our Lord says. My cause is with the Lord, and my reward is in Christ alone, praise be to God, with my God. And that should give us energy for the work our Lord gives us to do. to carry forward the work that He has in Himself already accomplished. Now, that work is not, as we note, just for the restoration of Israel, for that would have been too light a thing. Can you imagine saying that, actually? The work of restoring Israel to God, how heavy a task that has been in all of these pages up to this point, but that's too light a thing. The work of our Lord God's servant was this, to be what Israel was from the call of Abraham on supposed to be, a light to the nations, to all peoples. It was this. The work given to him was this. And here the translation of the few Bibles is a bit insufficient, I would argue. The Hebrew of that last line of verse 6 more literally says, to be my salvation to the end of the earth. The servant of the Lord Jesus Christ has become God's salvation to the end of the earth. Praise be to God. And we who have been called to pay attention and listen this morning, we are the beneficiaries, we are the ends of the earth. The beneficiaries of his saving work And he is saying, saving being, and we are called therefore and equipped therefore just as he was to go forth as his light. Proclaiming the effective word of the servant salvation to the ends of the earth.