Becoming a True Fan of Jesus--Isaiah Series

     There’s an old saying which states that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. That’s just one of the reasons that we find things like Elvis impersonators in the world (actually, I guess I don’t really know what the other reasons are!). People love “The King,” and what better way is there to show that love than dress up like him and try to imitate everything about him! This principle also explains why we find events like Star Trek conventions and football games where thousands of adoring fans dress-up in the jersey of their favorite player.

            Now, if this idea about imitation is true, it offers us a great way to think about following Jesus Christ. If we adore Him and want to be His disciple (or student), then we should seek to imitate Him in every way that we possibly can. We should try to act the way that He did and embrace the same priorities that He did. We should hold the same opinions that He did and promote them the same way that He did.

            Isaiah 49-52 brings us into the heart of a prophecy about Jesus Christ, who is referred to in these chapters as simply “The Servant.” These chapters describe some of the achievements that He will accomplish for the Lord, and they also describe the attitude with which He will accomplish them. There is much that we can learn from His attitude that will help us imitate Him today. Let’s see first of all what He will accomplish, and then we’ll focus specifically on His attitude.

1. What Will The Servant Do?

A. He will be used by God to fulfill God’s promises to Abraham (49:8-26; 52:7-10)

            When God first spoke to Abraham and told Him that He was going to bless the whole world through His family, He made some significant promises to Abraham. One of those promises was that Abraham’s descendents would possess the land of Palestine as an inheritance from the Lord. The people of Isaiah’s time may have doubted this promise because they were constantly under threat from other nations, but this passage makes it clear that although the people would be taken out of their land for a time as an act of discipline, God would use The Servant to establish them in their land once again [READ 49:8-23]. God made it very clear in these verses that He had not forgotten about the children of Israel and He had not cast aside His promise to them. Though they would lose their land for a time, they would be established in it once again. Earlier prophecies in this book make it clear that these prophecies will be fulfilled when the Lord Himself reigns from Jerusalem over a kingdom of righteousness and peace.

B. He will extend God’s salvation to the ends of the earth (49:5-6)

            Lest we think that God was only concerned about Israel and cared nothing about the rest of the world, we see here that The Servant would be a source of salvation for the whole world. God has always been concerned about all of humanity; He had simply chosen Israel to be a pipeline of blessings to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, Israel had clogged up the pipeline with their sin, but the Lord states here that He would use His servant to take salvation to the ends of the earth [READ 49:5-6].

All in all, we are seeing a certain overlap with prophecies that we have already read—that the Lord Himself will reign from Jerusalem, re-gather the children of Israel in their land, and extend His blessings and His reign over all the earth. In chapter 53, we will read a prophecy about the crucial events that will make all of this possible. But for the rest of our time, I would like to focus on the attitude with which The Servant serves the Lord. He models the kind of attitude that we should have in our service for God.

2. How Can We Imitate The Servant?

A. We can look to God for fulfillment in the midst of frustration (49:4)

            Let’s face it—serving God can be very frustrating at times. We don’t always see the fruit that we want to see from our efforts. Moreover, service requires sacrifice, and its easy to feel like our sacrifices are going unnoticed, unappreciated, and unrewarded.  Even Jesus experienced frustration in serving God the Father. At times, Jesus spoke to His disciples and said things like, “How is it that you fail to understand?” and “How much longer must I endure you?”

            Isaiah briefly mentioned some of this frustration that The Servant would feel, and he also mentions the attitude that allowed The Servant to handle it [READ 49:1-4]. The end of v. 4 contains the attitude that we must embrace to handle the frustrations that come as we serve. The Servant felt like His labor had not produced the desired result, but He looked to the Lord and acknowledged that God would reward Him for His labor. Jesus endured the most undeserved treatment in history. He deserved nothing but honor and worship, but by and large He received insults, rejection, and a wrongful conviction. But 1 Peter 2:23 says that He “continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”

            Jesus simply placed Himself in the hands of the Father! The only opinion that ultimately mattered to Him was the Father’s! He remembered as well that God does not overlook nor forget the smallest act of service performed in His name.

            One day, God will show His pleasure with our service and reward us for it. That’s the real fruit that we should hope for from our service. If our obedience to God doesn’t produce the results we’d like to see from it today, that’s no big deal, because one day we will see results from it when we receive our recompense from God.

B. We can be accepting of and obedient to God’s teaching—even in the face of insults and opposition (50:4-9; 51:7-8)

            Follow with me as I read a couple of passages [READ 50:4-9; 51:7-8]. In the passage from chapter 50, The Servant describes how the Lord opened His ear to learn, and he states that he did not disobey even in the face of opposition. And how did he remain faithful? He kept a long-term perspective about the whole situation. He knew that one day God was going to render His verdict about him, and the truth would be established for all time. Meanwhile, his adversaries were going to fade out of the picture like an early-morning fog that disappears in the heat of the day.

            Opposition from other people is one of the greatest obstacles that we face as we try to obey God, and we often face this opposition because obeying God makes us stand out from the crowd. The great philosopher Kermit the Frog once sang “It’s not easy being green,” because he tended to blend into his surroundings and get overlooked by others. Well, when we obey biblical standards, we face just the opposite—we stick out like a sore thumb! We stand out among everyone else, and as the old saying goes, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down!

            But we have a very strange reaction when we face opposition for our obedience—we say that it is “unfair” that we be treated this way. We think that life should be nothing but sunshine and rainbows when we obey God, but in thinking like this, we are perhaps the only servants in history who think that we should have it better than our Master! We say that we are following in the footsteps of Jesus, but have you seen where His footsteps led? They led to the cross, and Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be My follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34). We are following a man who is carrying a cross, so why are we so surprised that the trip isn’t always a pleasant one? What did we expect when we decided to follow a man who was hated and rejected by many of the people around him?

            But you must remember this—you are never more like Jesus than when you suffer for doing what is right! So in those moments, we just have to respond the way that Jesus did, by remembering that after the suffering there is glory; there is vindication; there is the declaration of a God who promises to make all things right!! Only that hope will allow us to persevere in obeying God. Nothing else can carry us through those times of opposition, so call these things to mind, as Jesus did.

C. We can trust in God rather than relying on ourselves (50:10-11)

            Let’s read 50:10-11 [READ 50:10-11]. Quite a pronouncement against those who rely on themselves! The activity described here of building a fire and making torches represents a sinful self-reliance. God certainly is not against hard work or ingenuity or initiative. The context makes it clear that this activity is carried out as a replacement for trusting in God. That’s when our efforts become sinful—when we believe that we can’t count on God or trust Him to keep His word, thus we have to figure everything out ourselves.

            But The Servant—the Lord Jesus—models a different way for us—the way of relying upon God. When I read the Gospels, I am often amazed by how much time Jesus spends in prayer. I’m always tempted to think that if anyone could get by with just a meager amount of prayer, it was Jesus, yet we find Him so often going off by Himself to spend time alone in prayer.

            I am equally amazed when I read Jesus making statements like, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34). Can you honestly make that statement? Can you say that serving God satisfies you the way that food satisfies a hungry appetite? That kind of attitude takes trust in God, because as we’ve seen, serving God can be very frustrating at times. Finding this kind of satisfaction requires that we trust God and believe that His commands are the very best way to live—even if it doesn’t look that way at the moment!

            If imitation really is the sincerest form of flattery, then to display fan-like devotion to Jesus, it is clear what we must do—we must imitate Him! That doesn’t mean dressing like Him or wearing the same hairstyle; rather, it means that we express the same kind of character that He had, we embrace the same kinds of attitudes and opinions as He did, and we persevere in these things even when we face opposition. Jesus once told His closest followers, “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). He has shown us how to persevere through tribulations by looking to the glory that lies ahead. Let us follow Him confidently even through the valley of death, knowing that He is leading us to greener pastures.