Fearless Faith

Please turn your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 41. Isaiah 41, we will be looking at verses 8 through 10 today.

Begin the reading in verse five. Please stand when you have that for the reading of God's word. The coastlands have seen and are afraid.

The ends of the earth tremble. They have drawn near and come. Everyone helps his neighbor and says to his brother, be strong.

The craftsman strengthens the goldsmith and he who smooths with the hammer, him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, it is good.

They strengthen it with nails so that it cannot be moved. But you, Israel, my servant,

Jacob whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend, you whom

I took from the ends of the earth and called from the farthest corners, saying to you, you are my servant.

I have chosen you and not cast you off. Fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am your

God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Amen. May be seated. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the wonderful promises given here to your servants.

We pray that you would bless us this day as we have your word open to us, that we would grasp onto these promises, that we would be encouraged by them, that we would count them as precious and very great.

In Jesus' name, amen. As Christians, we are supposed to be people without fear.

We are supposed to live the Christian life fearlessly. We are not to shrink away as though we are standing under God's judgment, but rather we are to move forward courageously, knowing that we have his favor.

See in this passage how the coastlands and the ends of the earth tremble, but Jacob, Israel, who has been brought from the ends of the earth, brought from the coastlands, brought from the corners of the world, is not to tremble.

They are not to fear. We live in a world that is full of the marks of the curse. All kinds of suffering and things exist.

And these are things that are supposed to, in normal circumstances, produce trembling. The reason why there are curses, the reason why there is disaster and calamity in the world is because of the curse of God.

It is because of sin. So these things naturally signal judgment, naturally signal that you should be afraid.

Yet the people of God live in that very same world, that very same world that is subject to the curse, that very same world that suffers under these pains.

And we are not to interpret these things that way because we have been given a promise that such a curse, such destruction, such calamity, does not signal the judgment of God's own people.

Rather, it signals the judgment of those people's enemies, of God's enemies, who have made themselves people's enemies, having aligned themselves against God.

And if you recognize this, if you recognize that these things are a sign of God's judgment against the enemy, and if you realize the special status that you can have as a servant of God, these are things that are cause for confidence, are cause to pursue

God's ways fearlessly. Consider this passage, it says, but you,

Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend, you whom I took from the ends of the earth and called you from its farthest corners.

I just point out there's a parallel to the coastlands that have seen, are afraid, the ends of the earth. So this judgment is spreading to the ends of the earth.

It is global, it is universal. And yet Israel is not one who is, in that sense, universal.

Rather, they are one who belong there at the edges of the earth, but have been gathered together to be a special people for God's special purposes.

Saying to you, you are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off. Fear not, for I am with you.

Be not dismayed, for I am your God. So what is the call? Given that he has gathered them together, given that he has called them his servant, chosen them, not cast them off, made them his friend.

Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. Then he ends at the end with this promise.

I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

This threefold promise is given. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

And that threefold promise matches the threefold basis that was given at the beginning of this passage. But you,

Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend.

That status of being a servant, being chosen, being a friend is the basis whereby we can have confidence.

He will strengthen us, he will help us, he will uphold us by his righteous right hand. So in a lot of ways, the keys to having that confidence, key to being fearless and not being dismayed is in recognizing that identity and embracing that identity, which is that basis whereby we do not come under his judgment.

It's because of the status we have as his servant, as his chosen one, as his friend.

So consider each in turn and how they are fulfilled, not perfectly in Israel, but rather in Jesus Christ, in whom we are in order that we might have these things counted to us and be blessed with this status.

Israel is, in a sense, a servant of God. They were called to do his bidding, to follow his commandments, to be a light to the nations.

And yet this is not something that they have done perfectly. So how can these things be said of this nation?

Ultimately, this is fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He is the one who is a perfect servant. This is the first time in Isaiah that this term servant is used in this way, but it is one that will be a frequent motif throughout the rest of Isaiah.

So here it begins. Remember, Isaiah can be broken up into two halves, chapter 40 starting the second half.

And this is the first mention of servant, which is a frequent motif throughout the rest of this half of Isaiah.

You may be familiar with the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, that Jesus is this perfect servant. In Isaiah 52, 13, it says, behold, my servant shall act wisely, shall be high and lifted up, shall be exalted.

Throughout the rest of the next chapter, you see that he is, that is Jesus Christ is the one who is crushed, the one who is persecuted in order that we may be healed.

He is the perfect servant. He is the perfect servant who has the perfect basis on which it can be guaranteed that he will be strengthened, he will be helped, he will be upheld.

And yet if we are in him, we as his servants have that status. We are ones who get to enjoy the blessings of God and can be confident without fear because we are his servants.

It also speaks of us as chosen. It says, Jacob, whom I have chosen. Notice that it switches from the language of Israel to Jacob.

Remember, Jacob was renamed Israel, so why would it switch here to the name Jacob other than just arbitrary parallelism?

Remember, Jacob was the one who was particularly chosen over Esau, his brother. And Jacob speaks to that selection more than the name

Israel does. So Jacob, I have chosen, right?

And Esau was hated. Jacob, I have loved. These, this speaks to that selection, that election.

Christ, likewise, is one who has been particularly chosen and appointed.

Hebrews 5 talks about how no one is, no one appoints himself to this position. Rather, God appoints him.

Jesus Christ is the chosen servant of God. He is the chosen servant who represents his people.

But then, we also are chosen in him. Verse Peter 2 .9, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

Once again, in Christ, these things are true of us. Then it speaks of the offspring of Abraham, my friend, and status of being a friend.

It's an important status. But actually, before we go there, another passage I wanted to read to you. In Psalm 135, verses one through four, it speaks of this nature of Jacob being chosen.

It says, praise the Lord, praise the name of the Lord. Give praise, O servants of the Lord, who stand in the house of the

Lord and the courts of the house of our God. Praise the Lord, for the Lord is good. Sing to his name, for it is pleasant.

For the Lord has chosen Jacob for himself. Israel has his own possession. So why should they praise?

Because God has chosen Jacob for himself. He's chosen Israel for his own possession.

They can praise the Lord. They can praise him knowing that they will be saved because they have been chosen.

And yet, the nation does not continue. The nation had been, fell apart in 70

AD when Titus came, conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the temple.

And so how can these things ultimately be said of Israel? Ultimately, they are said of Jesus Christ and of his church in whom they are.

Now, speaking of friendship, friendship is the key whereby we are also confident in salvation from God.

Consider Jehoshaphat's words in 2 Chronicles 20, verse seven. He's praying that the

Lord would deliver them from the Moabites and Ammonites. Did you not, our

God, drive out the nation, inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham, your friend?

Right, because this was given to Abraham, friend of God, it is the case that they have reason to be confident that God would save them.

Now, if this is true of Abraham and them in Abraham, how much more is it true of us, those who are sons of faith, sons of Abraham by faith, who have been made friends in an extraordinary way, even beyond the friendship that Abraham enjoyed.

John 15, 15 says, no longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends.

For all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you. So a servant is one who enjoys some of the master's house.

He is able to do some things, but the master doesn't bother disclosing to him all his purposes because there's no point.

The servant has to do these things. A friend, there's more of a disclosure. There's a letting you know what the intentions are.

We are indeed servants of Jesus Christ, but we are also called his friends because he has disclosed to us his purposes.

He has told us what he intends to do in this world. He has given us his promises. He has told us what hardships to expect.

He has told us what victories we are to expect. He has told us why he is accomplishing these things, ultimately all for his glory.

All these things are even more fulfilled in the church.

And so if this is the case that Israel had a reason for confidence, how much more is it the case that the church has reason for confidence?

In fact, these things are ultimately written for the church's benefit. As Peter says, they realized, the prophets, including

Isaiah, realized that they were not writing these things for themselves, but they were writing these things for you. These things into which even angels long to look.

These are ultimately truths for you to hang on to. You will be strengthened. God will help you.

He will uphold you by his righteous right hand. And why can you have that confidence?

If you are his servant, if you are his chosen, if you are his friend. How can you know that you are those things?

It is by faith. It is by trusting in the Lord that you can know that you are those things. Those who have not trusted in the

Lord, they cannot have any such confidence. But those who by faith trust in Jesus Christ, they can have a perfect confidence.

Consider what it means to be a child of Abraham, a child of Abraham who was a friend of God. Galatians 3, 16 says, now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring.

It does not say into offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, to your offspring, who is Christ. Okay, so Christ is this offspring of Abraham, this ultimate offspring of Abraham who has these promises true of him.

He can trust that he will be saved. He can trust that he will be delivered from death and raised from the dead.

He can trust that, yeah, that he is, yeah, that he has all those blessings of God.

Galatians 3, 29, and if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Galatians 3, 7 says it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. It is by faith that we are made sons of Abraham.

We are sons of Christ. We are in Christ, sons of Abraham, able to have that status of friend whereby we have this guarantee that we will be saved, that we will be rescued away from death, that all the judgment around us does not need to be interpreted as judgment against us, but can rather be interpreted as something that we will be saved from and have the great joy of being part of the redeemed, being part of the people

God has gathered together for his own possession, for his own glory. So if you want to develop this kind of fearlessness that comes from knowing these promises of God, you must also develop an identity that will give you that basis for that fearlessness.

If you want to know that he will strengthen you, that he will help you, that he will uphold you with his righteous right hand, then you must know yourself as a servant of God, as one of his chosen, as his friend.

You must know yourself as these things. Well, how can you do that? First of all, if you identify as a servant of God in Jesus Christ, the ultimate servant of God, you know, this is why

Paul calls himself a servant in Jesus Christ, a slave in Jesus Christ, because it is through his status in Jesus Christ that Christ's status as the ultimate servant of God that he is able to enjoy and to accomplish those things.

You can embrace that identity and still have that fearlessness. What does it mean to embrace the identity of being a servant of Christ?

What does a servant do? A servant serves. You know, the more you serve God, the more you will have that confidence.

And think about this in reality, what this looks like. How many people are self -focused, self -centered, and it leads to depression, it leads to anxiety, it leads to all kinds of things, but then those people who are outward -focused, serving for the sake of Christ, do not suffer from these things in the same way.

Why is it that there is such a strong correlation between those two? You would expect it to be the opposite, wouldn't you?

Wouldn't you expect that the one who focuses on themself, you know, gets their me time, is very focused on comforting the self, would be the most comforted of those two groups?

Rather, no, it is the one who ends up serving others who is comforting others that is themselves the most comforted.

There are several reasons for that, but one of them, at least, is because it is in the identity of being a servant of God that you can have confidence about those things.

If you are not embracing that identity, but are holding it loosely, and your mind is on other things, you will not have the confidence whereby you know that the ills in this world, you will sense them, your sixth sense that God has given you of conscience will sense those things as judgment rather than as things that are to be endured with a confidence, knowing that they are against the enemies of God rather than against you.

Consider these words, 2 Thessalonians 2, 17, comfort your hearts and establish, he will comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word.

You know, in our series on good works, this is something that I'll address eventually, but our hearts are comforted in every good work.

There is a working that God is doing to comfort us, even through the activities that he has given us to do, these are means by which we are comforted.

These are not things that we do apart from comfort, but rather, his desire is for our comfort, part of the reason he gives us opportunities to serve is to more embrace this identity as a servant and to more have confidence and to enjoy the comfort he has to offer.

You know, you read 2 Corinthians 1, and you see the

Corinthians, that Paul's anticipating the Corinthians having that mindset against him that, oh,

Paul, you're putting heavy things on us because you don't care about us.

He says, no, we are laborers for your joy. We come to you representing the God of all comfort.

The reason that we say these things for you is for your comfort. You can be comforted in every good work, like it says in 2

Thessalonians 2, 17, that embracing that identity, this is not through your own labors being comforted, but it is rather in Christ's status, you in him enjoying that status, which is fully worked out in serving, that you are able to embrace that identity and enjoy these comforts.

1 Timothy 3, 18, consider this promise that is given to deacons, and what does the word deacon mean?

It means a servant, right? This is the promise. 1 Timothy 3, 18, for those who serve well as deacons, for those who serve well as servants, gain a good standing for themselves and also great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

This is one of the promises, that they will gain confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus. You know, that whole chapter, you read it, and it talks about the mystery of the faith a number of times, even after talking about the qualifications for elders and deacons, and they must hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, and it talks about how the mystery has been revealed, about Christ has been manifested.

That is something where it is assumed in that passage, or it is understood in that passage, that different Christians are going to hold that mystery that has now been revealed of what

Christ is doing in the world with various degrees of confidence. Now, everyone who has faith is holding that to some degree, but it's understood there that there is a maturity by which you grasp that and enjoy it more firmly, so much that it can be even called a reward for deacons.

And so, as they serve well, they gain a great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

They hold that mystery of the faith with a greater confidence. This is something that can be true of you as well.

Even outside the office of a deacon, this is true, that those who serve well gain a good confidence, a great confidence in the faith that is in Christ Jesus.

And what about the status as a chosen, as one who is chosen? This is something where studying the grace of God can lead to.

You know, when I was young, and I went to a church that was not particularly

Calvinistic, or was not Calvinistic, I did not believe in the doctrines of grace. I did not believe in election.

Yet, the thing that I found most comforting was the idea that we are saved by grace through faith, and not out of our own doing.

Now, many of the other kids my age, my peers that were raised up in this church, many of them actually came to the faith, but it was not until much later because they did not understand this.

For some reason, that verse just really hit me when it was taught, and it really stuck with me in a way that developed a lot of fruit.

But others, because they did not understand the grace of God, because they thought it was by their own decision -making, by their own efforts, that they would be saved, they were not thinking of themselves as chosen ones, they did not have that same kind of comfort.

And it wasn't until much later when they discovered that they had more of a comfort. Now, for me, even though I didn't understand the fullness of that truth,

I understood it in a good measure. But then, later in college years, discovering that more and more, discovering the doctrines of grace, and I know many people here have the same story, right, of not understanding this fully, and then learning the doctrines of grace,

I've heard other people use the same phrase that I use. It was like being born again, again, right?

You know, when you experience the grace of God for the first time, the Bible calls that being born again, but the more you understand that grace, and that really key truth about being chosen, that it's not us who chose him, but him who chose us, and what that means, that it's not us who are maintaining our own salvation or anything like that, but the work that he has started, he will finish in us.

And understanding that grace, understanding what it means to be chosen, just gives such an additional comfort that though we do not want to denigrate the new birth as being something that could be, something that could be truly rivaled, it does make you well up and say things like, it was like being born again, again, to know that you are chosen.

So study the grace of God. Learn what he is doing that you might appreciate it more fully and know that status of not just being a servant who has opportunity to work, but one who is being chosen by perfect grace and not by your own works, has been brought into the kingdom.

And then how do you know yourself as a friend? What Jesus said about a friend is true. I have called you friends for all that I've heard from my father,

I have made known to you. A friend, the context of John 15, 15, is one who knows what the father is doing.

If you are not in this book, if you are not hearing what the father is doing, you will not experience the friendship of Jesus Christ as you ought.

You will experience to some degree as you hear it here, et cetera. But the more you are in this book, the more you know what he is doing, the more confidence you will have that you are a friend of God.

You will know the plan, nothing will surprise you. A lot of you know that I have on a couple of occasions taken my kids on a cross -country road trip to visit our relatives on the

East Coast. And I've done this in a single shot, no stopping except for gas.

And that is a hard journey. I do not, I expect that my children would take that very differently if I did not tell them what was happening beforehand, right?

If I just got them all in the car, then several hours later, they're asking, are we there yet?

No, I let them know ahead of time, you're going to be sleeping in this car, don't ask when we get there because we're not gonna get there.

You're just gonna, this is your life for the next two days. You are going to just be in this car. And they're able to handle that much better knowing what's coming.

Okay, the more that you know what's coming, the more you're gonna be on the same page with God himself and the more you are going to understand that he does not have in mind your harm, but rather has in mind your good and those things you experience that are difficult are going to be interpreted in the right way.

You will be able to interpret the providence of God correctly and face it more fearlessly. And many people don't know what he's doing and are not able to experience these things that well.

This is true, this is most importantly true over just the general promises that we have and the anticipations that the

Christian should have that the servant's not greater than his master, that we will experience trials in this life, et cetera, and the rewards that will come.

This is most true for those things. But there is a degree for which this is true for end times things as well.

Scripture speaks a good bit about these things and it is, while I think many people are misguided in how they study these things, it is good for Christians to understand this.

I think that I gained a great competence in the faith just in studying 2

Thessalonians 2. The traditional Reformed understanding of this, which I believe is correct, is that the man of lawlessness in that passage is the

Pope. And that as the emperor declined in power, there would be one, people believed this before the

Reformation, one in Rome would rise to power and set himself up as the head of the church.

And this is precisely what happened. And just the number of things that this opened me up to, for me to understand why it is that we would see this course of history, what was

God doing, was this in his plan? A lot of people will hit you with things from church history and expect you to be concerned about this.

Like, look, evangelicalism as it exists today, it didn't exist for many years and so this should shake you to your core, right?

You should fear because you don't know what's happening. But if you read what God's plan was and you realize this was his plan the whole time, that there would be this large apostasy in the church and that there would be a falling away and then he would be destroyed with the breath of Christ, which happened in the

Reformation, but then not destroyed until his coming. And so there would be this exact arc that has happened.

Then those people who would try to bring history to you in a way to shake your faith only confirms it because you knew that that's what

God had planned the whole entire time. Now, I say all this knowing that this is a minority position in Christianity, that the

Pope is the man of lawlessness spoken of in 2 Thessalonians 2 and that the

Roman Catholic Church is the great apostasy. But I think this is one very concrete, very good example of how in my own life

I've experienced more of the friendship of Jesus Christ in seeing him disclose to me what his purposes were so that I do not fail to anticipate things and I'm able to look at his providence and read it with eyes that do not cause me to shake in fear, as they did before, honestly, because as they did before,

I would think, man, I don't know how to account for all this. It does seem to lend credence to the idea that maybe what we believe is not testified to by the

Holy Spirit's working in history, but then finding out that this was what the Holy Spirit intended to do in history the whole time makes so much more sense.

So that, like I said, the primary thing to know is the promises around the trials we will face and the rewards, the promises

God has given. But there are specifics to learn about his, what he intends in history as well that we ought to learn and can help us to experience that friendship of Christ in a way that gives us confidence and a fearless faith.

So promises at the end of all this. Fear not, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your

God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. He will strengthen you, he will help you, he will uphold you with his righteous right hand.

What is his righteous right hand? That's right, it's Jesus.

Isaiah 53, one, who has believed what he has heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

If you have faith in Jesus Christ, to you the arm of the Lord has been revealed because the arm of the Lord is Jesus Christ. He is the righteous right hand of God who saves.

He saves his servants, he saves his chosen, he saves his friends, and the more and more you identify with those identities, the more you embrace them, serving the

Lord, embracing your identity as a servant, recognizing his grace, identifying as one of the chosen, and then going to his promises, experiencing his friendship, the more you will face the trials in this life fearlessly, being one who does not interpret them as judgment, but rather interprets them as opportunities for the

Lord to show his glory and salvation toward you, his servant, his chosen, his friend, amen.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this promise. We thank you for Jesus Christ, who is the ultimate servant, chosen, friend.

We thank you that we are in him by faith. We pray that you would increase the number of those who are part of the fold, that we may rejoice in these truths with them.

We ask that you would accomplish these things in us, that we would fearlessly, fearlessly go forward, knowing the promises that you have given.