Sermons
Isaiah 42:18-25 1 Corinthians 11:23-29
Let’s begin by reading Isaiah 42:18-25 together.
18 Hear, ye deaf; And look, ye blind, that ye may see.
19 Who is blind, but my servant?
Or deaf, as my messenger that I sent?
Who is blind as he that is perfect,
And blind as the Lord’s servant?
20 Seeing many things, but thou observest not;
Opening the ears, but he heareth not.
21 The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake;
He will magnify the law, and make it honourable.
22 But this is a people robbed and spoiled;
They are all of them snared in holes,
And they are hid in prison houses:
They are for a prey, and none delivereth;
†For a spoil, and none saith, Restore.
23 Who among you will give ear to this?
Who will hearken and hear for the time to come?
24 Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers?
Did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned?
For they would not walk in his ways,
Neither were they obedient unto his law.
25 Therefore he hath poured upon him the fury of his anger, and the strength of battle:
And it hath set him on fire round about, yet he knew not;
And it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart.
1 Corinthians beginning in verse 23 23 For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: 24 And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. 25 After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me. 26 For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death till he come. 27 Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. 29 For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.
Conviction of sin is unpleasant but so is washing out an open cut. I was fifteen, riding my bicycle when a drunk driver hit me from behind and dragged me for more than a mile until another driver forced her off the road.
It resulted in a compound fracture of my left arm and an ugly road rash from my chest to my toes –
full of dirt and gravel and sand spurs and blood.
The initial pain had died down some during the ambulance trip to the hospital, but now the skin had to be cleaned by a seemingly uncaring nurse.
It took several trips to the hospitals sterile bathtub and Nurse Ratchet to scrub and scrub and scrub. It was hard to determine which pain was worse, the accident or the remedy.
We as Christians experience the same thing. After the initial guilt we feel when we have sinned, we start to feel a little better. We convince ourselves it isn’t so bad, no one was really hurt.
We’d rather not touch it, just leave it alone, cover it up. But sin festers. Sin infects us. Sin keeps us from being properly healed. Sin dulls our spiritual senses, and then we wonder why we aren’t seeing
and hearing God. O how we need nurse Holy Spirit.
Previous Isaiah scripture has been mostly about the promises of God, to restore and rescue and redeem. It has been about how great it will be when the wounds are healed. But the cuts have to be cleaned out. So, God addresses the issues, in these 7 verses.
First, we read about deafness and blindness. God, in His frustration, accuses His people of being deaf and blind. Verses (18-19) are clearly about spiritual deafness and blindness (“listen” to the deaf and “look and see” to the blind!).
And the most convicting verse, in the whole section, that I felt stab into me, is verse 20: “You see and recognize what is right but refuse to act on it. You hear with your ears, but you don’t really listen.”
We often think of sin as actions we do which are wrong, like if we steal something, or if we gossiped, or drank to much. But this is something different, “You see and recognize what is right but refuse to act on it.
You hear with your ears, but you don’t really listen.” These are not things we have done which are wrong, but rather things we have not done which are right. The “sins of omission”.
And here is where the dullness of spirit is plainly evident. We hardly notice these sins, because we have not been walking with the Lord, day in and day out.
We have been pursuing our own interests and pleasures, and that has darkened our eyes and plugged our ears. So yes, we know we have been commanded to “pray unceasingly”, but instead we have only said grace at dinner and figured that was ok.
Or we know we have been told that there is life in God’s Word, but we figure we heard a sermon two or three times last month so that suffices.
We know we have been commanded to “have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had. 6 Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. 7 Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave” (Philippians 2), but we still get up and go through most of our days thinking about ourselves.
And that is sin. Just as drunk driving and stealing and gossip. And that is why we are blind and deaf.
Verse 22 has a powerful description of what this sin does to us. “His own people have been robbed and plundered, enslaved, imprisoned, and trapped.”
This is what sin does to us – it robs us of life and joy, it plunders the enthusiasm and eagerness to live, it enslaves us, it imprisons us where we don’t move in new directions that give us life, and it traps us because we don’t know how to get free.
That is why God hates it. Because sin robs and plunders and enslaves and imprisons and traps. And God has more for us. God wants us to enjoy life and Him more than we do!
God wants us to be free and whole and forgiven, to engage our lives and our world with a hope and power and a love that looks in the face of despair and hopelessness and laughs at it while it overpowers it completely.
God wants us to be able to put our heads on our pillows at night with that sweet knowledge that what we spent our day on matters for eternity.
So here is how it works, and it is very simple. God knows we are robbed and plundered and enslaved and imprisoned and trapped, just like the Israelites were. And so, He sent His one and only Son.
I am going to jump down a few verses. In 43:4, God says “4 Others were given in exchange for you. I traded their lives for yours because you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.
Our sin dulls our love, sucks the life out of it, and leaves us trapped. We become the people in 42:19-20, “19 Who is as blind as my own people, my servant? Who is as deaf as my messenger? Who is as blind as my chosen people, the servant of the Lord? 20 You see and recognize what is right but refuse to act on it. You hear with your ears, but you don’t really listen.”
Yet because of Jesus, it doesn’t have to stay that way. Jesus is the one “given in exchange for you, God traded Jesus’ life for ours because we are precious to Him. God says, “You are honored, and I love you.”
God offers to cleanse the wounds caused by our sin, open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, and set the captives free.
God literally gives us the keys to the prison, and invites us to open the door and let Him come in.
God promises to deal with sin, redeem and empower. We promise to repent – it means a promise to live differently. We re-enact this covenant whenever we eat the bread and drink the cup.
It is meant to remind us of the love of God for us, and it is meant to not make us weighed down with guilt or shame but rather to enliven us and feed us and strengthen us with sustenance and overwhelm us with God’s incredible love, which then makes us eager to go out and live for Him.
Having dealt with the sin, God moves on. If we stopped at 42:28, we are left in despair and fear – that verse ends with God’s people “consumed by fire, but they did not learn their lesson.” We must read on, and find chapter 43 beginning with a marvelous word: “but”…
Now the promises flow again. “I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.” Can you imagine what it would be like to have someone pay a ransom for you?
Imagine being kidnapped, trapped, held, but then ransomed. Bought back. Valued and loved so much that God would give His only Son and trade His life for yours. “I have called you by name; you are mine.”
If that is true, what can stand in the way of God’s Kingdom and God’s people enjoying it? What is more powerful than God calling us by name, and making us His own? Nothing, as the verses that continue proclaim: Not “deep waters” Not “rivers of difficulty”
What about “fire of oppression”? Nope. We saw that image of fire as destructive at the end of chapter 42, now here is the promise that the fire will not destroy.
Those are three great promises, three great images, three great messages of hope. But notice the verse says “when” … not “if.” Why are we surprised by trouble? Why do we assume that following God means we will not have tough times.
Or why do we assume when we do have tough times that this is not how it is supposed to be, that there is some problem with us (or more likely we think there is some problem with God…).
The promise is not that we won’t go through deep waters/rivers of difficulty/fires of oppression; the promise is that “I will be with you” (vs. 2). And God will protect us and get us through.
One last point. Verse 10 tells us why: “You are my servant. You have been chosen to know me, believe in me, and understand that I alone am God. There is no other God— there never has been, and there never will be.”
So how are you going to live? The Scripture is plain – “chosen” to “know, believe, and understand”. Ransomed by the blood of Jesus. Promised that no matter what challenges we face, God will be with us. Chosen, special, valued, and loved. “I have called you by name, and you are mine.”
Let it sink in. Open your eyes, open your ears. “You have been chosen to know God, believe in God, and understand that He alone is God.”
Then live out of the joy of being loved by Him and loving Him in response. And as we do, we see His Kingdom come, His will being done, on earth as it is in heaven.
So, God has covenanted with us and we with Him. He has exchanged His righteousness for our sins, which is why we celebrate Communion.
Communion is important because it’s a command to remember all that Jesus has done, especially for us. Jesus wants us to remember when we sit at the tables in our own homes, that He is the one who provides all we need.
He gives us the physical food that we need to survive and the spiritual nourishment we need to keep taking our next steps with Him.
Remember, Jesus was sharing the Passover meal with His disciples. It was the custom in those times, due to the dusty dirt roads, that the very lowest of servants would wash the feet of the guests before the meal.
That night Jesus Himself became that servant and washed the feet of the disciples.
In John's Gospel, Jesus shared these words: "If I your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you also should wash each other's feet." Jesus did this as an example.
Then Jesus took the bread and the cup and set another example. "Do this, in remembrance of me." (John 13:14)
"This is my body given for you." "This is my blood which is poured out for you." (Luke 22:19-20)
In 1 Corinthians, Paul reminds us of the manner in which we should partake of the Lord's Supper. "So a person who eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in a way that is not worthy of it will be guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord." (1 Corinthians 11:27)
My mother would tell me before you sit down to a meal, you need to wash.
And ... Before partaking of the Lord's Supper, we each need to also wash... spiritually.
Cleanse your heart. Remove your prideful attitude. Humble yourself before Him and one another.
Think of Christ and what He did for you on Calvary. Ask Him to mold you into His humble servant.
Martin Luther ... had visitors for dinner one day. His puppy happened to be at the table looking for a morsel of meat from his master's hand.
The puppy watched motionless with open mouth and eyes widened in anticipation.
Martin Luther said, "Oh, if I could only pray the way this dog watches the meat! All his thoughts are concentrated on the piece of meat. Otherwise, he has no thought, wish or hope.
Without Christ, we would have no hope.
Always be mindful to yield yourself to the Holy Spirit so that you will be transformed more and more into the image of Christ.
We are called to Imitate Christ. To have a servant's heart. To care for others before self. To be a servant of all. In Jesus’ Name, Amen!