Doug McMasters: Let's take our Bible and go to the book of Isaiah, chapter 42.
Doug McMasters: If you have a church Bible in front of you and prefer to turn there, you can go to page 638.
Doug McMasters: 638, and you'll find Isaiah, chapter 42.
Doug McMasters: We're going to be looking at verses 10 through 17, and I'd like to read it and then pray.
Doug McMasters: Sing a new song to the Lord.
Doug McMasters: Sing his praise from the ends of the earth.
Doug McMasters: You who go down to the sea with all that fills it.
Doug McMasters: You coast in islands with your inhabitants.
Doug McMasters: Let the desert and its city shout, the settlements where Kadar dwells cry aloud.
Doug McMasters: Let the inhabitants of Sila sing for joy.
Doug McMasters: Let them cry out from the mountaintops.
Doug McMasters: Let them give glory to the Lord and declare his praise in the coast and islands.
Doug McMasters: The Lord advances like a warrior, he stirs up his zeal like a soldier.
Doug McMasters: He shouts, he roars aloud, he prevails over his enemies.
Doug McMasters: I have kept silent from ages past.
Doug McMasters: I've been quiet and restrained myself, but now I will groan like a woman in labor, gasping breathlessly.
Doug McMasters: I will lay waste mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation.
Doug McMasters: I will turn rivers into islands and dry up marshes.
Doug McMasters: I will lead the blind by a way they did not know.
Doug McMasters: I will guide them on paths they have not known.
Doug McMasters: I will turn darkness to light in front of them and rough places into level ground.
Doug McMasters: This is what I will do for them and I will not abandon them.
Doug McMasters: They will be turned back and utterly ashamed those who trust in an idol and say to a cast image you are our gods.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray, fathers, we hear this word.
Doug McMasters: We pray that you would present yourself in all of your glory to us, so that we may take up this song, a song of praise to you, and we ask this in Christ's name, amen.
Doug McMasters: In June 1982, I was stationed in England and joined some friends of mine at a Queen concert at Milton Keyes Bowl.
Doug McMasters: It was an outdoor concert gathering together about 65,000 people.
Doug McMasters: One of the defining moments near the end of the concert was when Freddie Mercury, the lead singer for the group, walked to the front of the stage and led all of us in a song we Will, we Will Rock you.
Doug McMasters: And we sang it together.
Doug McMasters: There was no rehearsal, there was just a sea of strangers all gathered together to sing this one song, and that moment captures something that is very deeply human for all of us, across cultures and generations.
Doug McMasters: We sing together.
Doug McMasters: There's a lot of things that we sing together.
Doug McMasters: We sing at concerts, we laugh and sing at karaoke nights, military marches, national anthems, even countrywide songs.
Doug McMasters: They give us a sense of collective identity in one way or another.
Doug McMasters: Sometimes we find unity of voice in protest songs or team songs or school chants.
Doug McMasters: All of these things are expressions of unity and celebration in some way, and they awaken within us a knowledge that we're not alone.
Doug McMasters: We join our voices together, that there's something in the melody that reverberates belonging within us.
Doug McMasters: And here in Isaiah, chapter 42, isaiah taps into that impulse and the prophet doesn't call for a soloist.
Doug McMasters: He invites the coastlands and the wilderness and the mountains and the sea to erupt in song.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because a servant has come.
Doug McMasters: We looked at this last week, but I'd like for us to rehearse this a little bit and just look back and read together what Isaiah starts out with in this chapter.
Doug McMasters: He introduces the servant to us in the first four verses.
Doug McMasters: This is my servant, I strengthen him, this is my chosen one, I delight in him, I put my spirit on him and he will bring justice to the nations.
Doug McMasters: He will not cry out or shout or make his voice heard in the streets, he will not break a bruised reed and he will not put out a smoking wick.
Doug McMasters: He will faithfully bring justice.
Doug McMasters: He will not grow weak or discouraged until he's established justice on the earth, the coast and the islands will wait for his instruction.
Doug McMasters: And after introducing this servant to us, the next verses commission that servant.
Doug McMasters: This is what God, the Lord, says.
Doug McMasters: I want you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the nations, in order to open blind eyes and bring out prisoners from the dungeon and those sitting in darkness from the prison house.
Doug McMasters: I am the Lord.
Doug McMasters: That is my name, and I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols.
Doug McMasters: The past events have indeed happened.
Doug McMasters: Now I declare new events.
Doug McMasters: I announce them to you before they occur.
Doug McMasters: Now I declare new events.
Doug McMasters: I announce them to you before they occur.
Doug McMasters: So why this song?
Doug McMasters: From coastland to seas, to mountaintops, to deserts?
Doug McMasters: Because the servant of the Lord has come, the proclamation of this one who's going to bring God's purposes into this world, who's going to show the tender mercies of God's heart, who's going to be showing how justice is established, the one who's going to be the covenant for the people and the one who's going to restore that which is broken and lost, and so when God moves with this redemptive power, the only fitting response is a worldwide song of praise.
Doug McMasters: Believing people all over lift up their voice.
Doug McMasters: And what Freddie Mercury and Queen catalyzed in a stadium that I went to some 40 years ago, for only a few minutes Isaiah speaks about and envisions as an eternal chorus, and not just in a little stadium, but everywhere.
Doug McMasters: It's something not manufactured by men, but summoned from heaven itself, and so this morning I want us to look at this, and we're going to find it in three movements.
Doug McMasters: We're going to begin with praise and then proclamation and then promise, and we're going to notice that these three things complement and highlight the work of the servant song in the first part of Isaiah 42.
Doug McMasters: Let's begin with praise.
Doug McMasters: In verses 10 to 12, we're called to praise, and it's in many ways a beautiful passage of Scripture, and I want to highlight a couple things here.
Doug McMasters: One is it's first of all and I want to highlight a couple things here One is it's first of all, an unprecedented song.
Doug McMasters: It's an unprecedented song, you notice, in verse 10, here sing a new song to the Lord.
Doug McMasters: Well, what's new about it, you might be asking, and there's several things that we could say that it might be, but I want to start off by saying what it isn't first.
Doug McMasters: First of all, isaiah in chapter 42 and verse 10 is not offering us a proof text to churches to be continually adding new songs to the corporate number of songs that we sing together.
Doug McMasters: He's not doing that Now.
Doug McMasters: There's nothing wrong with that.
Doug McMasters: We sang a new song this morning.
Doug McMasters: Many of us sang a song a few minutes ago that we had never sung before, and we increase that number of songs that we sing as a church slowly and methodically and purposely, year by year.
Doug McMasters: But that's not what Isaiah is talking about here.
Doug McMasters: Others say that we should sing new songs for new mercies that arise within our life, that there is a way that God has acted today that he didn't act yesterday for us personally and we should elicit from us some new praise, and that is absolutely right.
Doug McMasters: Our responses should be as equally varied as God's mercies are, and they are wonderfully new every morning.
Doug McMasters: But again, that's not what Isaiah is talking about here.
Doug McMasters: What Isaiah means when he says lift up a new song is that he's talking about singing a song that the world has never sung before A song of jubilation, a song about a servant who's come to bring redemption to this world that's been introduced and commissioned in the life of this servant.
Doug McMasters: Now, this is a song that really ought to have been sung before.
Doug McMasters: There really should have been Psalm 96, which we looked at together just a moment ago.
Doug McMasters: The people of Israel were to sing a new song to the Lord and let the whole earth sing to the Lord.
Doug McMasters: But instead of declaring the glory of the Lord, the people of Israel often went to the other nations and asked them how to sing songs to their idols, and they joined together with them in that syncretistic worship.
Doug McMasters: But here Isaiah is seeing the servant has come and instead of the people of Israel singing solos, instead of them singing syncretistically with the nations about other gods, what we find is a complement of all the world joined together in a new song that the Jew and Gentile together.
Doug McMasters: There is the message of life and redemption and forgiveness.
Doug McMasters: It's a song sung because it's a new, new message for this world, but it's also, as I've indicated, a song sung by people that have never sung the songs of Yahweh before.
Doug McMasters: As God's redemptive purposes unfold in human history through the servant who's coming, all people all over the world will take up this new song and give it voice like they've never done before.
Doug McMasters: And so in 1983, just a year after 1982, in that concert where I sang we Will Rock you with 65,000 other people, god, in His wondrous mercy, took a young airman, transformed his heart and I began to sing songs I had never sung before.
Doug McMasters: I sang.
Doug McMasters: Christ is the solid rock on which I stand, and I didn't just sing in an outdoor arena of 65,000 people.
Doug McMasters: My voice joined with a multitude all over this earth, and not just in this generation, but everyone since Christ rose from the dead.
Doug McMasters: Christ rose from the dead.
Doug McMasters: This is the wonder that we have an anthem of praise to the Messiah, not only of the Jews, but to all people.
Doug McMasters: And this is why I wanted to highlight just a little bit more this glorious song of praise.
Doug McMasters: It's not just an unprecedented song, it's a universal song, and this is the focus that these verses give to us.
Doug McMasters: This passage highlights this summons for a global celebration, an eruption of a new song from every corner that covers sea and desert and canyons and villages and mountaintops.
Doug McMasters: Now notice a few things here.
Doug McMasters: First of all, the geographic spread.
Doug McMasters: It begins with a call for the whole earth, the ends of the earth, in verse 10.
Doug McMasters: Now imagine you will, isaiah, some grand conductor, as he speaks to the orchestra of the world and he calls the whole world to lift up its voice in song.
Doug McMasters: And as the music begins, isaiah begins to move over to the wind section and he says those who go down to the sea, all that fills it.
Doug McMasters: And then he moves over to the brass section and he says the islands and their inhabitants.
Doug McMasters: And then he looks over at the percussions and asks them to sort of lift up their sound amid the symphony.
Doug McMasters: And he says the deserts and its cities.
Doug McMasters: And then he looks to the string instruments and says you who play on the mountaintops, join in the song.
Doug McMasters: But it's not just a geographic spread, it's an ethnic diversity that's here.
Doug McMasters: Notice the number of names that are listed.
Doug McMasters: He talks about Kadar, he talks about Salah, he talks about the islands.
Doug McMasters: Kadar was the nomadic Ishmaelite tribes in Arabia and their tents and their flocks took them away from the place of worship in Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: Silah is modern-day Petra, the Edomites, the capital city of that place, entangled into the hills southeast of Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: And then the islands Tyre and Sidon come quickly to mind when we talk about that.
Doug McMasters: But this isn't just a geographical description and it's not just an ethnic diversity.
Doug McMasters: It is something that all of them have in common.
Doug McMasters: All of them are people condemned but now invited.
Doug McMasters: And if we've been paying attention to the book of Isaiah, these names are familiar to us.
Doug McMasters: We've heard about Kadar, we've heard about Salah, we've heard about the islands Tyre and Sidon, and so the invitation finds its greatest importance here, because this invitation to praise is a message of the good news that even those who were previously under judgment are now able to sing the song of salvation.
Doug McMasters: The sea and the mountaintops Well, isaiah has talked about both the sea and the mountaintops.
Doug McMasters: He said that Mount Zion will be the highest of the mountains among all the mountains in the world.
Doug McMasters: What was he talking about?
Doug McMasters: Well, obviously, mount Zion is not the tallest mountain in the world, but it is the highest place of praise to God, because the high places is where they would worship.
Doug McMasters: The sea the sea was emblematic of chaos and destruction.
Doug McMasters: The sea the sea was emblematic of chaos and destruction, and he says that the sea will be a place of order, a place of joy and not fear.
Doug McMasters: Tyre and Sidon the inhabitants of the coastlands In Isaiah 23,.
Doug McMasters: A pronouncement concerning Tyre.
Doug McMasters: Wail ships of Tarshish, for your haven has been destroyed.
Doug McMasters: A message of doom, but now a message of invitation.
Doug McMasters: The Edomites in Isaiah 34 and verse 5.
Doug McMasters: When my sword is drunk, it's filled in the heavens.
Doug McMasters: It will then come down on Edom and on the people I've set apart for destruction.
Doug McMasters: The people of Edom are now called to sing Kadar.
Doug McMasters: In Isaiah 21 and verse 16,.
Doug McMasters: The Lord has said this to me within one year as a hired worker counts years all of the glory of Kadar will be gone.
Doug McMasters: Those warnings have now shifted to welcome these people who were once under God's wrath are now under God's summon to joyful hope.
Doug McMasters: And then all the nations Isaiah 34, 2,.
Doug McMasters: The Lord is angry with all the nations, furious with all their enemies.
Doug McMasters: He will set them apart for destruction, giving them over to slaughter.
Doug McMasters: But now judgment is given way to grace.
Doug McMasters: Now the servant, as he's come, is opening up a global transformation.
Doug McMasters: And so, when we read all of this together, what we're reading is a new song that's envisioned, in which there will be, if I can put it this way, a doxological revolution.
Doug McMasters: There will be a whole group of people all over the world singing something that's never been sung in this world before Praise to God for his deliverance, with united voices, from deserts to seas, from stronghold to rebellion, to heights of revelation.
Doug McMasters: Every voice is summoned to cry out in praise to God because it's a hymn of new beginnings.
Doug McMasters: It's a vision of worship that's broken down geographical and ethnic and sin barriers, so that we can unite our hearts all over the world.
Doug McMasters: Jesus said to a woman in samaria who had told him he said well, we worship on this mountain and you say you must worship in jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: And he said I want you to hear something.
Doug McMasters: The day is coming and has now arrived when the Father is seeking out true worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth, and it won't be confined to this mountain or to that mountain, it's going to be all over the world.
Doug McMasters: Jesus came and he brought this prophecy song into reality.
Doug McMasters: That's why it's a new song, that's the newness of the new song.
Doug McMasters: And this is not just a geographical expression of praise, it's an eschatological expression of praise.
Doug McMasters: You go to the book of Revelation and you find in the eternal heavens, above all of the chaos of this earth, in the peaceable, joyous place of the throne, room of God, people singing and what are they singing?
Doug McMasters: I saw a vast multitude from every nation, tribe and people and language which no man could number Sorry, freddie Mercury, god's got you beat Standing before the throne and before the Lamb, and they were clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and they cried out with a loud voice Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb.
Doug McMasters: This is a new song, a new song for a new era, because a servant has come.
Doug McMasters: You know, when we sing songs, we often can't sing them because we're not a part of it.
Doug McMasters: At the end of that concert, freddie Mercury led the group in another song God Save the Queen.
Doug McMasters: I didn't sing that song, but here's a song that no people, no person if they're believing in the Lord would ever feel foreign to, because this is our song, it's all of our song, and it doesn't matter where we were born, it doesn't matter what accent we have, it doesn't matter what shade our skin is, it doesn't matter what economic peg we have on the scale, it doesn't matter how educated we are, it doesn't matter a wit, it doesn't matter if we grew up worshiping idols or sitting under the sound of evangelical preaching, a believing heart, wherever it's at, joins into this song, because it's all of our songs.
Doug McMasters: We proclaim this message.
Doug McMasters: But, church, I want to say something to us.
Doug McMasters: This is not just a song of praise, it's not just music we're talking about here.
Doug McMasters: This is mission, this is our message of mission.
Doug McMasters: Jesus, before he left this world, in the ascension, said that there was going to be a proclamation about him to all the nations.
Doug McMasters: Go, therefore, teach all nations.
Doug McMasters: And so the gospel spread in Acts, chapter one.
Doug McMasters: It speaks about it from Jerusalem to Judea, to Samaria, to the uttermost parts of the earth.
Doug McMasters: You see, this is not only a message that the servant brings in, a message that we sing, it's a message that we proclaim.
Doug McMasters: It's a message that we proclaim because it's mission as much as it is music, and our mission should have the lilt of song to it, a joyful heart and voice who's felt and senses the eternal forgiveness of God, singing to people under the condemnation and guilt of their sin and telling them and inviting them in see the servant.
Doug McMasters: He can make all things new and he can make you new too.
Doug McMasters: Paul, when he preached the gospel to the Gentiles, connected himself to this very, very servant song, this one and one that we'll look at in Isaiah 49.
Doug McMasters: In Isaiah 49, in verse 6, the Lord speaks to the servant and says it's not enough for you to be my servant raising up the tribes of Jacob and restoring the protected ones of Israel.
Doug McMasters: I will also make you a light for the nations, to be my salvation to the ends of the earth.
Doug McMasters: That's Isaiah 49.6.
Doug McMasters: Simeon, in Luke, chapter 2, when he spoke about the baby Jesus, said this is a light of revelation to the nations.
Doug McMasters: And then, when Paul, in Acts, chapter 13, took up the voice of the gospel and began to proclaim it to people that weren't Jewish, to speak it to the Gentiles, he said about himself I have made you a light to the Gentiles that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.
Doug McMasters: You see, this movement is pivotal.
Doug McMasters: Why are we still here?
Doug McMasters: So that others could join the chorus, so people might see our glad celebration of God in Christ bringing us life and forgiveness, so that they could feel and sense and understand, through our testimony and our praise, that they too could be a part of this global movement of life.
Doug McMasters: The servant has come and he's bringing praise around this world.
Doug McMasters: And as the day dawned on this Sunday, as it awakened for each of the passing movements around this globe, people in every, every time zone, began to lift up their hearts.
Doug McMasters: And we're just simply a part of that great wave, aren't we?
Doug McMasters: Well, this praise turns to proclamation in verse 13.
Doug McMasters: The Lord advances like a warrior, he stirs up his zeal like a soldier.
Doug McMasters: He shouts, he roars aloud, he prevails over his enemies, and I'm sure this could have been a great deal of comfort to those who were surrounded by their enemies.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah speaking to his generation, isaiah speaking about a future generation that would be captive in Babylon.
Doug McMasters: And so to hear the message that the Lord is advancing like a warrior, that he's stirring up his zeal like a man of war, well, they've trembled under the iron of Assyrian Babylon, and boy wouldn't it be great if Assyrian Babylon could tremble under the iron of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And boy wouldn't it be great if Assyria and Babylon could tremble under the iron of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: But the Lord is warring, not for conquest, not for dominance, but for justice and redemption.
Doug McMasters: He's not risen like a warrior.
Doug McMasters: He's risen like a warrior Because of imperial hunger.
Doug McMasters: He's risen as a warrior with redemptive purpose, and this is why he sent his servant To reveal the tender mercies of God, to establish justice and make people right in this world, in order to be a covenant for the people, in order to restore that which is broken and wrong.
Doug McMasters: You see, he's marching mightily as a warrior, not in order to squash people, but to save them.
Doug McMasters: He shouts, yes, he roars, but remember he's also the same servant that verse 2 says he will not cry out or shout aloud in the streets.
Doug McMasters: And this is the wondrous paradox of God's power.
Doug McMasters: He makes light of the powers of this world in the establishment of his weakest moment.
Doug McMasters: When the rulers of this world had crucified the Lord Jesus on the cross, they sat there with smug face, thinking they had won.
Doug McMasters: They sat there with smug face, thinking they had won, but they had just nailed their doom Because God wasn't finished, because in Jesus' weakest moment, death, he destroyed the one who has the power of death, that is the devil.
Doug McMasters: And through death he's made dead people alive.
Doug McMasters: And in his death he came and took up his life and demonstrated his power over death itself.
Doug McMasters: The true king has risen not to crush but to redeem, and his roar is a shout of deliverance.
Doug McMasters: And it will prevail.
Doug McMasters: It will prevail, as Isaiah here speaks about in this proclamation.
Doug McMasters: It's a promise.
Doug McMasters: Whatever rises up against the servant in that generation, in the day of Christ himself or in our generation, it will not overcome, it will not prevail.
Doug McMasters: Be it idolatry or injustice or nationalistic fervor or the domineering of a dictator, they will not prevail.
Doug McMasters: They will not overcome the purposes of God to bring redemption to people all over the world.
Doug McMasters: And so, as believers, we don't have to cower in fear when this world is filled with iniquity.
Doug McMasters: We don't have to hole up and wait and just say come now, lord Jesus, quit.
Doug McMasters: It's really horrible here, no, we stand as sheep led to a slaughter, yes, but in everything we're more than conquerors, through him who loved us, because his victory is not dependent on favorable conditions.
Doug McMasters: His victory is dependent upon his very character to keep His promise.
Doug McMasters: And he will.
Doug McMasters: And that leads us to the last section.
Doug McMasters: Here, this song of praise, the statement of proclamation by Isaiah himself, is now God adds His voice, god adds a voice of promise in verses 14 to 17.
Doug McMasters: I have kept silent from ages past.
Doug McMasters: I have been quiet and restrained myself, but now I will groan like a woman in labor, gasping breathlessly.
Doug McMasters: I will groan like a woman in labor gasping breathlessly.
Doug McMasters: Royals had the privilege of being in rooms where those sounds have echoed all four walls and even beyond.
Doug McMasters: As a labor and delivery nurse, I've had the opportunity twice to go into those rooms and heard my own wife make her cries.
Doug McMasters: And if I told her, like look, you're being a little loud, I'm not sure I would have been in the room very much longer.
Doug McMasters: She couldn't help but make a voice when the time came.
Doug McMasters: And here the Lord uses that as a metaphor about silence and yet shouting.
Doug McMasters: 2000 BC thereabouts.
Doug McMasters: Think about that.
Doug McMasters: 4000 years ago, god speaks to one man, one solitary soul on this earth, and he says to him I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who treat you with contempt, and all the peoples on the earth will be blessed through you.
Doug McMasters: And from that point in time, 4,000 years ago, there were little episodes of revelation and understanding of the peoples who began to see God at work among the children of this man, abraham.
Doug McMasters: There was a movement here or there, an awakening by a Pharaoh, a discovery by a Rahab, an understanding by a Ruth, pockets here and pockets there, but still the voice was quiet to the nations, most of them gone on in their ignorance, continuing to worship the idols that they had done, thinking little of the people of Israel, largely because of the way they acted.
Doug McMasters: The voice of revelation was quiet as generations of people came and left, as they stumbled through time and entered into eternity.
Doug McMasters: But God's restraint wasn't indifference, it was preparation purpose.
Doug McMasters: And the labor pains would soon come when the eruption of this action of God would unveil itself, of this action of God would unveil itself.
Doug McMasters: And so, in the book of Galatians, when the time came to completion, god sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law so that they might receive the adoption as sons.
Doug McMasters: The time has come for God to shout.
Doug McMasters: The time has come for him to say the birthing is happening, the awakening is here.
Doug McMasters: The nations are to hear.
Doug McMasters: The people waited.
Doug McMasters: They waited in hope for the day would come when there would be one who could fully, fully represent the purposes of God in this world, the one who could declare, fully, embody even the very tender mercies and heart of God, the one who could be and bring justice, the one who himself would be a covenant, keeping promise for the people, the one who would be able to restore that which is broken.
Doug McMasters: And so when Jesus came into this world, he was all of that.
Doug McMasters: And now the song is awakening and the chorus is rising and the symphony is here, because the orchestra is now playing, and it's playing in the mountaintops and the valleys and the coastlands and the deserts, and it's playing with these people and those, because all of us can now sing a song of redemption, because this servant has come, and he comes with the threads of thought of a new exodus, and not just the people of Israel from the clutches of Egypt, but from those who are ensnangled in the domain of darkness, into the glorious light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, this one who's delivered us from the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who's now working in the children of disobedience, those of us who have been willing captives, carrying out our fleshly desires and the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, by nature children of wrath, who now can say by the grace of God, we're children of the living God.
Doug McMasters: This is why he says I'll lead the blind by a way they did not know.
Doug McMasters: I will guide them on paths they've not known.
Doug McMasters: I will turn darkness to light in front of them, in rough places, into level ground.
Doug McMasters: Is God leading you into new places of light?
Doug McMasters: Is he directing your steps into new wonders of his mercy and grace?
Doug McMasters: Are you still plodding through life thinking that you'll get by by your own ingenuity or perhaps luck or circumstance?
Doug McMasters: Here the Lord says that he will take you and he'll bring you into unfamiliar places, but he'll be alongside you all the way Paul used this metaphor in 2 Corinthians.
Doug McMasters: For our gospel is veiled.
Doug McMasters: It's veiled to those who are perishing In their case.
Doug McMasters: The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Doug McMasters: We're not proclaiming ourselves, but Jesus is Lord and ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake.
Doug McMasters: For God said let light shine out of darkness.
Doug McMasters: Has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: This is all good news, but we have to look at the passage one more time, because the promises of God come with a very deep and important and vital sense of reality Verse 15.
Doug McMasters: I will lay waste mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation.
Doug McMasters: I will turn rivers into islands and dry up their marshes verse 17 they will be turned back and utterly ashamed those who trust in an idol and say to a cast image you are our gods.
Doug McMasters: When the servant comes, he's going to expose humanity.
Doug McMasters: We're all going to be divided into two groups.
Doug McMasters: We're not going to be divided up into our geographical settlements, our ethnic identity.
Doug McMasters: We're going to be left into two groups.
Doug McMasters: Those who were once blind but are now led to light by God are those who continue to persist in that darkness and will be left to face the consequences of their refusal.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures tell us here that in the face of God's advance, any false hope will fail and it will crumble and it will come under judgment.
Doug McMasters: But Isaiah invites us to lay down these lesser and false hopes and to come to the one who promises us all of this.
Doug McMasters: And so this song, this song sings because the servant moves and Isaiah, chapter 42, verses 10 to 17, takes us into a breathtaking movement of God with global praise, and it swells with Isaiah's proclamation of how God is going to act and prevail.
Doug McMasters: And then it lands with God himself joining voice with unshakable promise.
Doug McMasters: And when the servant comes, his coming may, yes, be quiet in the beginning, but it won't stay that way.
Doug McMasters: It's going to reverberate all around the world, so that those in the deserts and the mountaintops and the islands and the seas will know it, because when the servant comes, the silence will begin to sing and the stillness will begin to roar and the blindness will find itself in glorious heavenly light.
Doug McMasters: You see, this is not just prophetic poetry, it's gospel, it's a message of good news, it's a movement of God's redemptive purposes, and whenever this servant moves in hearts, praise breaks out.
Doug McMasters: We can't help but sing, and so I want to make an appeal to each of us in several different ways.
Doug McMasters: Perhaps you're here this morning, and this is the first time you've ever heard this message before this invitation to a song that you've never sung before, there was a day when I sat in a pew and I heard someone speak, just as I'm doing right now, and for the very first time in my life, something awakened within my heart to move toward God instead of away from him, and to understand something about him that I needed, because I had a realization in my heart that I was a sinner like I had never understood it before and I needed to know if there was any hope for me, because I knew God was God and I wasn't, and he was a judge and I wouldn't be able to stand before him with any excuse that would prevail.
Doug McMasters: Perhaps you're here in that same position.
Doug McMasters: Hear these words the servant has come to take the blind and lead them to light, to take those who are lost and lead them down a pathway.
Doug McMasters: And he promises not to do it for any other reason, but because he wants to.
Doug McMasters: You see, he's not over here saying the only way you can come to me is if you possess light.
Doug McMasters: He grants it, he gives it.
Doug McMasters: So what do you need to do?
Doug McMasters: Realize that you're in darkness, realize your path is wandering, realize you are in disobedience, and turn to the one who is life and light and say be my Lord and Savior.
Doug McMasters: May this servant, jesus Christ, be my life.
Doug McMasters: Perhaps you've been coming to church for a long time.
Doug McMasters: Maybe you grew up in this church, maybe you're still growing up in this church, but there's a difference between being familiar with church life, and even familiar with preaching, and understanding the newness of life in Jesus Christ.
Doug McMasters: You might know the lyrics of the songs of Zion.
Doug McMasters: You might know the rituals, you might know the language, but does your heart know the Savior?
Doug McMasters: You see, false hopes will not prevail before the Holy God.
Doug McMasters: He will bring down those who still cling to idols.
Doug McMasters: So if you're trusting in tradition or trusting in achievement, so if you're trusting in tradition or trusting in achievement, or trusting in moral behavior, or trusting in simply being around the church itself, it won't do it for you.
Doug McMasters: Instead, hear the warming, wrapping embrace of grace that's here.
Doug McMasters: That's here Again.
Doug McMasters: I want to point out for us that this song is tied to the servant's movement, and our movement is tied to the servant's movement, and our song is to be joined together with those around the world, because this is meant to be a global proclamation of praise.
Doug McMasters: This is a message of divine compassion and love and mercy, and if the Lord is going to stand and roar, we need to speak.
Doug McMasters: If he's going to lead, we must step out into those places, because the mission of the gospel is not an option.
Doug McMasters: It's the very heartbeat of God himself.
Doug McMasters: It's right here.
Doug McMasters: And so we're not here to build safe sanctuaries for ourself, but we are to step out and to carry the victorious song of grace in every place around this world, and it's something we do together, sending people like Kevin and Sarah out on the other side of the world, chad or Emily or others.
Doug McMasters: It's also something we do.
Doug McMasters: We sing the song of grace among a dying people that we work with and live among and meet or even live with in our home.
Doug McMasters: But I also want to say something to those of us who are perhaps weary, feeling the silence of heaven, the neglect of hope, discouraged, perhaps.
Doug McMasters: Listen to what the Lord says here.
Doug McMasters: Discouraged, perhaps, listen to what the Lord says here.
Doug McMasters: I have kept silent from ages past and I've been quiet, restrained myself, but now I will groan.
Doug McMasters: God's silences are not God's desertions.
Doug McMasters: The quietness of revelation over the course of thousands of years was not God's neglect of this world, but God's preparation for a crescendo of grace.
Doug McMasters: And if that's something on a global scale, you better believe it's something on a personal level as well.
Doug McMasters: There are things in our life that we don't understand, seasons that seem to be long, full of waiting and wanting and weariness.
Doug McMasters: We groan for that day.
Doug McMasters: But the scriptures tell us that this is an experience of life in the complex of this world, in which the new creation is interjected but the old is still here.
Doug McMasters: And so we live in the midst of this tension of the already, but the not yet.
Doug McMasters: But the scriptures tell us that the day is going to come, when there's going to be a revealing of the revelation of the sons of God, in which the whole creation is going to feel a liberation from that captivity, and all who wait and long and hope for that day will sing the song of victory as well.
Doug McMasters: So yes, we wait, and yes it's weary, and yes it feels at times like silence.
Doug McMasters: But just as the world waited for the coming of the servant in its first revelation, so the world still waits in anticipation for that coming day of the full revelation of Jesus Christ himself.
Doug McMasters: And when that revelation comes, the new heaven and the new earth will come ablaze with life and light and all of these things.
Doug McMasters: As Paul said, I consider the sufferings of this present time to not be worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed within us.
Doug McMasters: So if you're here this morning, waiting, weary, wounded, so if you're here this morning, waiting, weary, wounded, just wait with hope.
Doug McMasters: You're not forgotten.
Doug McMasters: The Lord will again cry out with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise and we will be caught up together with him to meet the Lord in the air.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray, father, may our voice join together now in song to you.
Doug McMasters: I pray, father, that this might be for some in this room the first time they've sang from the heart a song of salvation, because you've awakened them in this moment to first time they've sang from the heart a song of salvation, because you've awakened them in this moment to turn to the Savior, to flee from sin and to flee to Christ, to turn away from those things that they've held as dear and precious in order to have Christ in him alone.
Doug McMasters: Pray, father, that you might be able to cause the weary to be strengthened with an understanding of your glorious promise and to sing with greater voice in this next song than they sang in the previous ones we've lifted.
Doug McMasters: And, lord, I pray that as we exit this place in just a few moments, may we leave with a song in our heart that strengthens our steps and reverberates with redemption, so that others might see and understand and look and wonder and ask what is the hope that resides within you, and may we, with reverence and gentleness, speak of Christ, our Savior, the servant who's come, and we pray this in Christ's name Amen.