Last week we looked at the character and role of Cyrus who had been anointed and called by God to liberate the Jews from their captivity in Babylon.  He is even referred to in the text as the (lower case) messiah and savior. He was a conqueror and king.  He was a military genius. But he was only a precursor, an opening act, for the real Messiah and Savior.  It is the king and conqueror who sets them free from their temporary exile but it is the Servant who sets them free from their captivity to sin and restores them not only to Jerusalem but also restores the whole world.

Between chapters 45 and 49 God again reminds the people of why they were in captivity in the first place. He doesn’t want them to forget. Not because he wants to continually shame them but he knows that they (like us) will forget what put us in trouble as soon as things get better.  It’s just natural. We forget and need to be reminded of the consequences of our behavior over and over again.

So, in chapters 46 and 47 Isaiah rebukes the gods and idols of Babylon and the foolishness of following after them. In chapter 48 he turns his attention away from the sins of Babylon and reminds the people of their own stubbornness and self-deceit.

For I knew how stubborn you were; the sinews of your neck were iron, your forehead was bronze…You have neither heard nor understood; from of old your ear has not been open. Well do I know how treacherous you are; you were called a rebel from birth…There is no peace for the wicked.”

And then we come to chapter 49.  Isaiah’s eyes are turned away from Cyrus and his delivering the people from Babylon. His eyes are on the far distance to one greater and a deliverance that is not just from Babylon but from the captivity of a darkened world and fallen creation.

“Listen to me, you islands; hear this, you distant nations: Before I was born the LORD called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name. He made my mouth like a sharpened sword, in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me into a polished arrow and concealed me in his quiver. He said to me, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.”

How many people struggle their whole lives to discern their calling and their purpose.  How often I hear people asking how to discover their passion. How many people wish they had been born with knowing what it was they were to accomplish in life. But, often they are looking in the wrong places. They are looking for significance and success. Instead, we should make a note of who it is who is born with a sense of purpose – it is the Servant and not the one who seeks to rule others. It is the Servant and not the one who is looking for personal fulfillment or place or influence.

The Westminster Confession asks:

What is the chief end of man?”

And answers:

“Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever”“

We have been catechized and brought up on something other than that.  The chief end of man is to discover his passion and find happiness and meaning. The chief end of man is to make a difference in the world. The chief end of man is to find peace without suffering.

I think Oswald Chambers has it right:

“If you are going to be used by God, He will take you through a multitude of experiences that are not meant for you at all, they are meant to make you more useful in His hands.”

“The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ.”

“My personal life may be crowded with small petty incidents altogether unnoticeable and mean; but if I obey Jesus Christ in the haphazard circumstances they become pinholes through which I see the face of God, and when I stand face to face with God I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed.”

We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!” If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where no one would ever notice you personally. All that is noticed is the power of God coming through you all the time.

We want to be able to say, “Oh, I have had a wonderful call from God!” But to do even the most humbling tasks to the glory of God takes the Almighty God Incarnate working in us. To be utterly unnoticeable requires God’s Spirit in us making us absolutely humanly His. The true test of a saint’s life is not successfulness but faithfulness on the human level of life. We tend to set up success in Christian work as our purpose, but our purpose should be to display the glory of God in human life, to live a life “hidden with Christ in God” in our everyday human conditions (Colossians 3:3). Our human relationships are the very conditions in which the ideal life of God should be exhibited.

The Servant understands that the purpose of his life is to serve the Lord and not his own ends. The purpose of our lives is not grand achievements – although those may happen – but we are here to glorify God.

Skip down a few verses to verse 6:

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

The big thing always begins with our satisfaction with whatever role we have been created to play.  Faithful in little – faithful in much.

But, also notice that the purpose of all our lives is to glorify God and that same word for glorify is often used for light.  Our lives are to light up God for the world. It is not that the world would notice the source of the light – our lives – but that the world would see God in all of the ordinariness of our lives.

Remember what Chambers says, “My personal life may be crowded with small petty incidents altogether unnoticeable and mean; but if I obey Jesus Christ in the haphazard circumstances they become pinholes through which I see the face of God, and when I stand face to face with God I will discover that through my obedience thousands were blessed.”

Don’t aim to bless lives or to be considered a showpiece for God. Aim to be faithful in every mundane circumstance. When you think your life is small and your circumstances are ordinary and unsatisfying, think of these words. Through your obedience in the smallest of things people will be blessed.

But that doesn’t mean once you do that the road is easy with success at every turn. Maybe just the opposite.  Even the Messiah experiences dry times.

“I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.” (49:4)

How often we feel the same way.  Remember Jesus saying to the crowds, “How long must I be with this unbelieving and perverse generation.” How much resistance did he meet with his whole life? That is why John writes that “The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it…He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.”  It is worse than that. It was not simply not recognizing the truth but they consciously exchanged the truth of God for a lie.  They chose darkness over light. They chose a lie over truth. They did not simply fall into unbelieving. They preferred darkness.  We are not likely to experience the oppression that Christ did here or that Paul did when he writes,

“Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked. I spent a night and a day in the open sea.

In my frequent journeys, I have been in danger from rivers and from bandits, in danger from my countrymen and from the Gentiles, in danger in the city and in the country, in danger on the sea and among false brothers, in labor and toil and often without sleep, in hunger and thirst and often without food, in cold and exposure.

Apart from these external trials, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not burn with grief?”

Often, men and women new to ministry think people will change once they hear the message and will turn from ignorance, stubbornness, disbelief, and their own ways. They underestimate the power and the varieties of darkness.  There are many kinds of darkness that can simply wear you out.

Of course, there is pure evil but that is rare and often obvious. Facing it makes heroes of people and it often is defeated because it is so clearly evil.

But then there is the darkness of confusion – the twilight kind of darkness where people have trouble discerning shapes and seeing what is right and what is wrong in the half-light. They want to see but everything is murky to them

There is darkness of ignorance where many times not by their own fault they are blind to the truth or they have never heard it stated in such a way to open their eyes.

There is the darkness of futility where people are in such despair that they have given up any hope of finding what is true. They have been fooled too many times. They have been discouraged too often. They are hopeless and have just covered their eyes and put their heads down.  They have declared with the writer of Ecclesiastes that all is meaningless. Truth is too hard or it does not even exist.

There is the darkness of false teaching where people have been deluded and lied to about the truth and they have lost the desire for truth. They follow teachers and leaders who have led them down the path of destruction but they cannot turn around – even if they wished to. They are caught in a snare and have hoods over their heads.

We think if we simply bring the light people will say, “Thank you for enlightening me! I was lost and now I am found. I was blind and now I see.”

But they don’t. We all resist the light.  That is why for every kind of darkness there is a different kind of light.

Emily Dickinson wrote:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Success in Circuit lies

Too bright for our infirm Delight

The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind —

Sometimes, but not often, we need to be dazzled like Paul was on the road to Damascus. The light strikes like lightning.

Sometimes the light must be steady to light the path. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

Sometimes the light must be clear and bright to make the truth known – even if it makes us uncomfortable. “Just then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.”

Sometimes the light must attract and not intimidate. “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the Lord rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings drawn to the brightness of your dawn.”

There will never be an end in the struggle with darkness but that is not ours to decide, is it?  Instead, we should be able to say with the Servant, “Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”  In some mysterious way that is impossible to understand we are told by John that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Our light may be tiny or large, dazzling or subdued, but all for one purpose – to light up and glorify the Father. That is our ordinary and grand purpose.  We are a small point of light in a dark world but we do not despair. We may be like the ten bridesmaids waiting for the bridegroom who fall asleep waiting for the bridegroom. But it is the wise bridesmaids whose lamps did not go out because they were prepared for waiting as long as necessary.  Let’s be like them – prepared to wait knowing the Messiah is coming and the feast will be worth the wait. “Therefore stay alert, because you do not know the day or the hour.”

What is the chief end of man?”

And answers:

“Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever”