The
God of the Insignificant
Isaiah
53:1-4
I would like to spend today and the next four Sundays talking about how
God works through things that the world sees as insignificant, ending up on the
29th with an emphasis on orphans and orphan ministry, and encouraging all of you
to make plans to go to Guatemala this summer for a ministry that will include
work at three orphanages.
Where is the evidence that the work of God displays itself in things we
would consider insignificant? We
live in an awesome universe that is incomprehensible in size and power.
Doesn’t that suggest that God loves to create big and mighty things?
We live in a generation that loves and emphasizes the big and powerful.
Why would I want to say that our God is the God of the
“insignificant?”
Answer? Christmas. It’s
the New Year but I want to go back to Christmas.
I believe that at Christmas time the Jewish Messiah arrived on the earth.
That belief is not usually held by members of the Jewish nation.
One reason for the controversy is the enormous gulf between the title
He was given, “Messiah,” and the way He came.
What is meant by “Messiah,” the anointed One? The natural conclusion would be that if He is to rescue
Israel, He must be a powerful leader hosting a sizeable army to stand against
the Roman government, which at that time ruled the known world.
But He didn’t come that way. He
came as a baby, born in a stable, almost killed by king Herod, growing up in the
low class town of Nazareth, beginning His ministry without formal training, in
the ghettos of Galilee. How do we
know that such a One is actually Messiah? Have
we Christians fixed this title on Him or are there clear indications that His
life and ministry and death are an evidence of the power of God at work in
amazing ways that look insignificant?
Isaiah 53 helps us answer the question because it gives us a prophetic
picture of how the powerful arm of the Lord will be revealed in the person of
Messiah. Isaiah said:
Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been
revealed? 2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out
of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no
beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of
sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from
Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. 4 Surely He has borne our
griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God,
and afflicted.
Let me make three observations about the surprisingly insignificant
nature of the coming of Messiah:
I.
His APPEARANCE was unexpected. He
didn’t look like a Messiah. The
way He looked didn’t fit our definition of Messiah.
There was nothing outwardly that commanded our respect and response.
A. His childhood – He
grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground.
Isaiah foresees that Messiah, the powerful “arm of the Lord” is going
to grow up “before him” (him in the sense of Israel – before all
the people) instead of charging in as a full grown warrior with overpowering
dazzle. He will grow up as a
“tender plant,” fragile, needing protection and help.
And He will develop like a “root out of dry ground.”
Plants growing in dry ground have little hope of flourishing.
Gardeners don’t expect their dry-ground plants to grow large and bushy
and make one-of-a-kind botanical statements.
You expect them to be spindly, and weak, and yellow.
The “dry ground” identifies the sad character of the circumstances
into which Messiah was born and grew. Israel
was defeated, disorganized and degenerate, and under the thumb of the Roman
government. It was dry all around.
Can you imagine how difficult it would be for next door neighbors who saw
Jesus growing up as a “tender plant,” stubbing His toe, scraping His knee
like everyone else, to accept at the age of 30 that they had been watching the
growth of their Messiah? Apparently,
up to the age of 30, He grew like everyone else, with no special powers or halo
around His head. John chapter 2
records the first miracle He ever performed.
I can see them coming up to Him after hearing of His miracles and saying,
“who are you anyhow?” The
difficulty didn’t excuse them because Simeon in the temple, had no trouble
recognizing Messiah when He was eight days old (Luke 2:29-32)!
But it helps us understand the response of Nazareth to Him.
Listen to their words in Mark six and see if you can hear the neighbors
talking: “and many hearing Him were astonished, saying, ‘Where
did this Man get these things? And what wisdom is this
which is given to Him, that such mighty works are performed by His hands! 3
‘Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses,
Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?’ And they were
offended at Him. 4 But Jesus said
to them, "A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among
his own relatives, and in his own house." 5 Now He could do no mighty work
there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.
6 And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in
a circuit, teaching.
B. His attractiveness – He had no beauty or majesty to
attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
The almost universal verdict of His people; they “saw” Him; they were
there, but they reported that “He possessed nothing to delight us, to attract
us, to encourage us to pay attention to Him.”
He had little, if any glamor, majesty, or handsomeness.
He was just an ordinary guy. Only
when individuals moved beyond the external, beyond what He looked like, and
started listening closely to His message did they begin to recognize who He was
and see His glory. John reports
this in 1:14, “we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth.” Where
was His glory? It apparently
wasn’t in His face, or hair, or clothes.
As Isaiah says in verse one of chapter 53, His glory appeared and the arm
of the Lord was revealed only to the eyes of faith.
Why then did so many follow Him? For
the same reason so many attend NASCAR races – to see something spectacular –
to see a wreck. They were attracted
to His miracle. His sandwiches
probably tasted pretty good when He fed the 5000.
They hoped to see Him walk on water, or take down a demon, or challenge
the Pharisees with His insightful words. They
came in expectation to see what amazing wonder He would do next.
The words “attract,” and “desire” implicate Jewish culture at the
time of Christ. They needed to be attracted; they needed something to stir
their desires because that’s where they lived.
They focused on the OUTSIDE, and went toward what was attractive; they
followed their desires and the flashing lights and the moving screens.
The culture had degenerated so that the only real motivations were those
of the eye and personal desires. Can
you relate to such a description of life? This
is the attraction and curse of idolatry – life’s guidance arises from the
eye and the glands. Little guidance
is sought from Law, or Love, or higher forms of motivation; it was all what one
could see, and what one wanted. Thus
Someone slightly un-attractive and un-desirable flew under the radar of their
lives. Even stronger than that; not
only did they miss His significance, but they despised His person.
Jesus probably wasn’t voted “most likely to succeed” in 6th
grade in Nazareth PS 2. He wasn’t
written up in People magazine. He
lived His life under the radar of most people’s interest and attention.
Do you see why the question in verse one is so searching?
Who has believed our message?”
“Has anyone believed our message?”
Messiah’s coming promises to be a total broad-side shock because no one
in their wildest dreams will have anticipated that He would be like this!
Even after people have heard all the details they will still have trouble
believing it. They knew Messiah was
coming, but how could One like this be the real Messiah?
Here’s my question: If Jesus Christ came to us today the way He came to
Israel at Christmas time, would we recognize Him?
Or would His insignificant look fly under our radar screens of important
people? And perhaps a corresponding
question is, “do we really recognize the work of God today?”
“Do we know what He is doing?” “Do
we see His power and might?” What
should it look like?
Isaiah’s announcement is that God is going to bring to Israel an
absolutely “un-messiah” looking Messiah.
They will have to listen closely to His message, because chances are
pretty good that their picture of Messiah will be too big, too mighty.
In the same way I wonder if we would tend to miss Him because we so often
train our binoculars on the big, powerful and popular.
Not only did God bring an “un-messiah” looking Messiah, but God
characteristically works with un-powerful looking power and ineffective looking
effectiveness.
Where is God working today? There
is no question that He is working at Willow Creek church with their 12,000
people, and at McLean Bible church with their 10,000.
But is He at work at Belcroft with our 229 people?
Can God work in a small church? Would
you agree with the statement, “God is at work in a mighty way at
BBC?” Or does that sound a little
pretentious given our size? Whether
you agree or not depends on whether you understand that His mighty work is often
demonstrated in un-powerful ways and in tiny, unseen areas.
If we continue to maintain that God’s mighty arm is always revealed in
the visible, the popular, the large, we may miss what He is doing.
This is not to claim that God is not working at Willow Creek or at
McLean; He is, this is not to argue that God is only working at small churches.
What this claims is that He works in ways at big groups and small,
that we tend to overlook – ways that look insignificant.
II.
His RECEPTION was unexpected (3).
He didn’t receive a Messianic response.
The way people responded to Him didn’t seem to fit the normal
definition of Messiah. There are
some people who can walk into a room and the conversation stops and everyone
looks at them. There’s a certain
dignity and attractiveness to their walk. Other
people enter and no one notices. What
would you expect from the appearance of Messiah?
When He walks in, the conversation stops.
But that didn’t happen here. The
words that describe what happened when Christ entered the room are words like,
“despised,” “rejected,” “a man of sorrows,” “familiar with
suffering,” “people hid their faces from Him,” “people didn’t esteem
Him.” Strange words to associate
with Messiah.
A. PEOPLE didn’t respond positively - He was despised and
rejected by men. The word
“despised” is a strong word that suggests that they despised Him from their
hearts. He was ‘held in popular
repugnance’ (Motyer, 390). What
an amazing response. It wasn’t
that they were withholding their judgment until a later time; they despised Him.
He was out; He was unfit; He didn’t belong in their company.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed
him not. Hiding their faces implies their disgust.
They did not look up to Him as anyone of importance.
And they weren’t gentle about it.
To hide one’s face in disgust when meeting another Israelite suggests a
proud, sassy, jaded, cutting life-style. In
their estimation, the value to His contribution to their lives was ZERO. And they “told” Him when they saw Him by their reactions.
That HE would represent anything of importance from the Lord, much less
be the ARM of the Lord, the Servant of Jehovah, was IMPOSSIBLE.
“We esteemed Him not” shows the bankruptcy of human hearts.
Israelites could watch the Servant of the Lord in action and find no
beauty in him. To hear His
words and see His love and kindness and then to conclude that He is nothing
condemns our minds as sinful. So
much for “science,” and the observational powers of the common man; so much
for “logic” and the power of the human brain to reason profitably.
When faced with the presence of God in an insignificant form, humans had
no cognitive “space” for Him. He
was out; He was unfit; He was a nothing.
B. Circumstances didn’t seem to be favorable - He was a man
of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
Why would Messiah be a man of “sorrows?”
He should be a man of “power,” and acquainted with victory and
success. But His distinguishing characteristic was constant, repeated,
continual “sorrows.” For
Him, suffering was normal because of His daily contact and personal experience
with it.
Rather than excitement and a royal reception, Isaiah questions in verse
one whether anyone will actually see the arm of the Lord because of their
overwhelming blindness. Their
initial reaction to His presence was so negative (despised) that few could get
beyond. You don’t generally spend quality time with people you
despise. God’s powerful Servant
didn’t LOOK like anyone important. In
their desire to associate themselves with the more popular, more successful,
more powerful, they failed to see the value of listening to Him.
I mean, what kind of “ministry” did He have?
He didn’t seem to have any headquarters, He didn’t seem to be
organized, He just walked around from city to city preaching and healing (Matt.
4:23). And the only people He could
really deal with were the blind, the prisoners, the needy.
It was the opposite of what you would think of as a successful,
God-honoring, TV-ready, ministry. The
Pharisees, with all their problems, were at least – organized.
He didn’t seem to be in the same league as they.
Do you see how Israel, in spite of the prophets, was poorly prepared for
this form of God’s power? Do you
see the point here? God’s power
may reveal itself in ways that most people miss!
Even God’s chosen nation, with a Bible in their hands, and the
prophets, and priests, and kings, and sacrifices, and temple, and the testimony
of believers around them – MISSED THE ARRIVAL OF GOD HIMSELF!
Are we missing the work of God because it flies under our
“significance” radar? Are we
missing omnipotence because it isn’t powerful looking enough?
This week we received a DVD that had images of the last three Schuppe
Christmas gatherings. They were
kind of dark and jumpy, but we could see a couple of pictures of Jonathan.
As I was looking at Christmas 2002, I could see Jonathan sitting beside
me looking depressed. It brought
back memories of how I had responded to his depression back then.
I saw it as something he needed to get rid of so that he could live the
Christian life. I reasoned, “how
could someone be living a vibrant Christian life and be depressed?”
I wondered how God could be working in one’s life and doing significant
things when that person was depressed. And
yet Jonathan, in his depression was attending Bible College successfully,
memorizing large quantities of Scripture, and serving the Lord in several ways.
Probably part of the reason for his depression was that he couldn’t
memorize enough Scripture! He
couldn’t keep up with his goals. I
can remember sitting at Allan’s pond, discussing his depression.
And I was saying and thinking, “your depression shows your lack of
believing and obeying God.” And
he was saying, “I am believing and obeying God and am still depressed.” I look back now and realize that even though the fulness of
God normally brings joy and peace, that doesn’t mean that the presence of a
battle with depression indicates the absence of God’s presence and
power. The evidence was that God
was working in Jonathan’s life in mighty ways and I didn’t see it because it
was mixed in with a little “depression.”
III.
His TREATMENT was unexpected (4).
The things that came upon Him didn’t fit our definition of
“Messiah.” He didn’t look
like He was from God because of the way God seemed to treat Him.
Instead of being BLESSED by God, He looked like He was under the judgment
of God. Messiah, by
definition, will be blessed of God. What
kind of blessing did this man receive from God?
Verse four says, “infirmities,” “sorrows,” “stricken by God,”
“smitten by God,” and “afflicted.”
A. God seemed to be against Him - we considered him stricken
by God, smitten by him, and afflicted – The word “stricken” means a
“blow” like being hit with a major calamity unexpectedly. It’s used many times for leprosy – being smacked as a
blow with this awful, fatal disease. This
One seemed to be receiving His blows from God.
Instead of watching the revelation of the arm of the Lord, Israel thought
they were watching One who was being punished for His sins.
It was justice He was receiving from God.
They were thinking the way Job’s three friends were when they argued
that the sinfulness of the sufferer can be measured by the degree of his
suffering. Those who have been stricken
by God and afflicted by some incredibly shocking disease could only have
received that stroke as a result of massive sin.
It didn’t even enter their minds that such a One might be sinless!
B. We didn’t understand that He was our substitute - Surely
he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows – Here is expressed the
unbelievable point of the whole passage – here is the reason why the powerful
arm of the Lord was revealed in such a humble way – here is the reason why He
suffered so greatly – because He was taking up our sin.
He had none of His own; He “took up our infirmities and carried our
sorrows.” We totally
misunderstood the source of His sufferings.
We saw Him in His pain, but didn’t realize that it was our infirmities
and our sorrows that were weighing Him down.
The word “surely” that begins this verse is a conjunction emphasizing
the unexpected (Motyer, 430). His
sufferings were for a totally different purpose than we had supposed.
In reality, He was taking up our infirmities and carrying our sorrows,
alone, by Himself. He “took up”
our debt of sin upon Himself; it was His selection; and He carried it as if it
was His own. In His eyes, our
“infirmities” and our “sorrows” BELONGED to Him!
“Infirmities” and “sorrows” are the consequences of our sins, but
He took them up as His.
His action goes beyond sympathy and empathy.
He not only “fellowshiped” with our misery, but He “took up” our
misery in order to endure its punishment. He
became our substitute bearing the wrath of the Father upon our sin.
Those were our sins; He had none.
The very sorrow we despised in Him was sorrow that we caused.
We should have recognized our own sins on the list for which He was
suffering. Instead we turned away,
we ignored Him, and saw no value in what He was doing.
What we thought were His well-deserved judgments were really ours.
What an amazing statement of Grace; Someone else stepping in to do for us
what we cannot do. Someone else taking up our sin and paying its awful price.
At the same time, Israel missed it entirely.
They misunderstood who He was, they misunderstood why He was here, they
misunderstood what He was doing on the cross.
How amazing that the human mind can so totally deceive itself!
“God’s people” can miss God. Do
you see why we need to be so careful? That
which attracts us, that which looks mighty and powerful, may not necessarily
contain the power of God. God may
disguise His appearance; He may do something that is not received by the
majority; He may be working in situations where what seems to be is not.
APPLICATION
–
1.
This passage is intended to be an encouragement to all of us who live in
the less attractive locations of life, who feel despised and rejected.
How well does the ministry of Messiah fit our needs.
2.
This passage is intended to direct us as to where we should focus our
ministry – with people like this. Ministry
is based on insight into peoples’ needs – understanding what pressures are
contained in their relationships, jobs and shoes.
Praying for them, moving out to help them.
3.
This passage is to direct us as to what God wants us to become – like
Him.
We
may miss God’s significant work because it is too close to us – in our
family, or job, or school, or neighborhood, or church; or because it is too
small – in prayer, in listening, in talking to a child.
May God open our eyes.
01/01/06
– BBC am