Sermons

Expect Jesus to Save
Isaiah 49:1-7

 In Acts 18 we read that the apostle Paul came to Corinth to tell people about Jesus so they could be saved from their sins and brought into the joy of knowing Jesus Christ the Son of God.  But even though he saw a few people come to know Christ, he also experienced a lot of opposition.

But one night he had a dream, in which the Lord Jesus told him not to be afraid, because he was going to save many people in that city.  So as a result of this vision Paul started praying and preaching with even more energy, and over the next 18 months saw many brought to faith in Corinth.

But now imagine that tonight you had a dream in which the Lord Jesus told you not to be afraid, because he was going to save people in your neighborhood and in your workplace.  How would that affect you?  It would change us, wouldn’t it?  We would pray more, and reach out more, and work on how to share the Gospel more effectively, and we would share the Gospel more boldly, wouldn’t we?

What I want to show you this morning is that even if you don’t have a dream like that tonight, God in His Word has told us that we can expect Jesus to save people in our neighborhoods and workplaces.  We have every reason to expect this.

Let’s turn to Isaiah 49.  If you need a Bible, go ahead and raise your hand and we will bring one to you.  Isaiah 49 is on page 609 in the Bibles we are passing out.

In Isaiah 49:1-7 we get to listen in on a conversation between God the Father and His Servant the Messiah, Jesus the Son, who is also here called “Israel” because Jesus lived before God the way Israel was supposed to – faithful, obedient, glorifying God.  So here we get to listen in on a conversation between God the Father and Jesus the Son – in which God the Father makes a powerful promise to Jesus.

Jesus the Son starts off the conversation– calling the distant coastlands and far off people to listen --

1              Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. The LORD called me from the womb, from the body of my mother he named my name.

2              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.

3              And he said to me, "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified."

4              But I said, "I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity; yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God."

5              And now the LORD says, he who formed me from 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 eyes of the LORD, and my God has become my strength—

6              he says: "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

7              Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers: "Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the LORD, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you."

Now like I said, in this conversation between God the Father and Jesus the Son, God the Father makes Jesus a powerful promise.  So what does God promise to Jesus?  Did you catch it?  Read v.6 again --

he [God the Father]says: "It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel; I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth."

Here God the Father promises that Jesus will bring salvation to people.  Every human being needs salvation.  Every Muslim, every Hindu, every atheist, every church-goer needs salvation.  Why? 

Because God is the infinitely highest joy of the universe, and we have all refused him, and sought our heart-satisfaction in idols of our own making.  That’s what the Bible calls sin, and as a result of our sin we face punishment from God forever.

But here in Isaiah 49 God the Father says Jesus will bring salvation to people.  When Jesus died on the Cross and rose from the dead He paid for the guilt of sin and broke the power of sin.  So the moment we repent of our sin and trust Jesus we are forgiven for all of our sin, we are adopted by God into His family so that now and forever God loves us, guides us, provides for us, and satisfies our hearts with His presence.  Jesus brings salvation.

And here God the Father says that it is too light a thing for Jesus to bring salvation just to the nation of Israel.  God the Father promises that Jesus will bring salvation not just to the nation of Israel, but also to the nations, which means every cultural and ethnic group – even to the very end of the earth.

Imagine the nation of Israel living in sin and darkness, rebelling against God, cut off from God’s love, burning their babies to Molech.  God promises that Jesus will bring salvation to Israel.  God will cause Israelites to repent of their sin, turn to trust Jesus, be forgiven and transformed and rejoicing in God’s love forever.

But not just Israel.  God promises that Jesus will bring salvation to the ends of the earth.  Not every single person will be saved.  But no part of the earth will be untouched; Jesus’ salvation will touch every part of the earth  That’s what God promises.

But now if we have read vv.1-7 carefully this promise should shock us.  Why?  What’s so shocking about this promise?  It’s because Jesus’ earthly ministry did not look very successful. 

You can see that in two verses.  Look first at how Jesus describes his ministry in v.4 --

But I said, "I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity …”

At the end of Jesus’ ministry it looked like Jesus had labored in vain, with very few results.  Think about it.  He did have some followers – the 12 disciples, a company of women, a larger group of 70 disciples, Nicodemus, a few others. 

But after the Garden of Gethsemane most all of his followers had deserted him, and his number two man was publicly denying him.  So it looked like he was laboring in vain.  Not that He Himself thought he had labored in vain – don’t forget the last half of v.4 --

“… yet surely my right is with the LORD, and my recompense with my God."

But anyone else looking at Jesus’ ministry would think he had labored in vain.

 

Then second look at how God describes Jesus in v.7 -- Thus says the LORD, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers…

I can’t help but think this is a description of Jesus on the Cross.  He was deeply despised – same Hebrew word used in Isa 53:3 (“He was despised and rejected of men”).  He was abhorred by the nation – the nation of Israel.  Remember when Israel could choose to spare the murderer Barabbas or Jesus?  They were revolted by Jesus and cried out for His crucifixion – “Crucify, crucify him!”

So here’s Jesus, deserted by most of his followers, with the nation of Israel crying for His crucifixion, His bloody, torn, beaten body nailed to a Cross, shamefully tortured to death.  And now His cold lifeless body is dead in the tomb.  But God says Jesus will be the light of the nations whose salvation will touch every part of the earth. 

So how can God promise this?  God can promise this because God is God.  God is sovereign.  It makes no difference how dead Jesus’ corpse was, God can raise it from the dead.  It makes no difference how hard a heart is, or how many hard hearts there are, God can change them.  God had promised to bring Jesus’ salvation to the ends of the earth – and God always keeps His promises.

So God brought His power upon that tomb and raised Jesus from the dead, displaying Him as the Messiah, the Son of God, who was conqueror of sin and death, who would live forever and advance His saving work. 

Then God pours the Holy Spirit upon Jesus’ followers on the day of Pentecost, and they are transformed from fearful cowards into strong, rejoicing believers.

Then God has Peter preach Jesus in front of thousands who a few days before had cried out for Jesus to be crucified – and he stands before them and says “you crucified the Messiah, and now God has raised him from the dead, and you are in trouble.”  And God changed the hearts of 3,000 of them – and they repent and receive Jesus as their Lord, and Savior and Treasure.

And from there over the next centuries God caused Jesus’ salvation to spread south into Africa, and east into Saudia Arabia and China, and north into Europe, and then west into the Americas.  And today Jesus’ salvation is spreading to more and more ethnic groups, and it will continue to spread, until it has reached to the very ends of the earth.

So what does this mean for us?  It means we can expect Jesus to save people in our neighborhoods and workplaces.  Now how do I get from Isaiah 49, where God promises to bring Jesus’ salvation to the ends of the earth, to saying God will bring salvation to your neighborhood and workplace?

There’s two steps in my thinking.  First of all, God promises to bring Jesus’ salvation to the ends of the earth, and since Isaiah is writing in Jerusalem, and San Jose is half-way around the globe from Jerusalem, San Jose is the ends of the earth.

And my second step is that as followers of Jesus we have every reason to believe God will use us to save people where we are.  Jesus calls us to this: “Go and make disciples of all the nations.”  Jesus promises that everyone of His followers will bring people to salvation: “Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men.”  And Jesus said: “As the Father has sent me, so I have sent you” – so Jesus has sent us to our neighborhoods and workplaces.

So we can expect Jesus to save people in our neighborhoods and workplaces.  But do we?  Do we expect Jesus to save people?

This will make a huge difference.  I used to love to go backpacking and fish for trout in streams in the Sierras where you could actually see them and get those salmon eggs right in front of them and catch them and then cook them fresh that night over the campfire.   But what if I had a guidebook that told me that I was going to an area where I should not expect to catch any trout.  What would I do?  Would I fish?  Would I take my rod and reel and salmon eggs?  No. 

But what if the guidebook said that this area was excellent for fishing – that there were lots of big, juicy trout – and that I should definitely expect to catch some.  What would I do.  That would change everything. 

God has told us to expect Jesus to save people in our neighborhoods and workplaces.  And if we do expect this – it will change everything.

John Miller wrote an excellent book on leadership called “The Heart of a Servant Leader.”  It’s a collection of letters he wrote to young pastors and Christian leaders.  In one letter he’s responding to a young pastor who’s discouraged because he has not led anyone to Christ in a long time.  So what would we say to this pastor?

Would we say that maybe he doesn’t have the gift of evangelism?  Would we say that maybe he is in a part of the country that’s resistant?  Would we say that maybe he sows and others will reap?

That’s not what John Miller said.  His answer shocked me when I first read it – but he’s absolutely right.  He said:

Don’t rest until you have at least twenty people who pray for you daily. Ask them to pray for you to be able to lead five people to Christ in the next six months.  Then put feet on your prayers and go out and find them. (p.55)

How can he say that?  Because he knows that we have every reason to expect Jesus to save people.

So what can we do?  Ask yourself honestly – do you expect Jesus to save people in your neighborhood?  Do you expect Jesus to save people in your workplace?  I would guess that all of us could strengthen our expectations.  So let God’s promise to Jesus ring in your ears: “I will make you a light of the nations; I will bring your salvation to the end of the earth!”

If you will expect God to save people in your neighborhood, or your workplace, that will change everything.  It’s changed Jan and me.

Maybe four years ago, to my shame, we did not really expect Jesus to save people in our neighborhood.  And so while we knew most of our neighbors, we didn’t really reach out to them in any significant way.  We had never had any of them over to our house.  But that changed when we saw that we had every reason to expect God to save people in our neighborhood.

Two summers ago we decided to organized a barbecue in our cul-de-sac for our neighbors.  We passed out flyers to them and invited them and almost everyone came and we had a great time.  We all liked that so much that we did another one later in the summer, and then during the school year we sent out emails and invited people over to watch Monday Night Football or to watch the Giants win the world series. 

And now neighbors are frequently coming over.  A week ago Thursday we were standing in front of our house with the couple next door to us and the couple across the street, and we were talking about the Sharks playing that night – and we invited them and they both came over for pizza and we watched the Sharks defeat the Detroit Red Wings.

Now we have a bunch of new friends – and there’s lots of open doors for the Gospel.

The most crucial step is to raise your expectations.  Ask yourself – do you expect Jesus to save people in your neighborhood?  Do you expect Jesus to save people in your workplace?  Let God’s promise to Jesus ring in your ears: “I will make you a light of the nations; I will bring your salvation to the end of the earth!”