A Word in Season: My God, My Strength (Isaiah 49:5)

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Isaiah 49 is one of those wonderful songs of God's servant that are scattered throughout the prophecy of Isaiah, in which

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God's mighty agent of redemption comes to the fore and speaks in terms of the identity that he has and the work that God has given him to do.

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He is the one who carries out God's saving purpose and he is formed and fitted for that task.

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God has put him together in order to accomplish the work that he has given him to do.

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He is the Lord's servant and by him God will be glorified. Now that doesn't mean that the work will be easy.

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It doesn't mean that it will always appear to be going smoothly. Indeed there will be times in the eyes of the world when it seems like everything is falling apart.

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If the servant looked not with eyes of faith but with eyes of flesh, it would appear that things are not going according to plan.

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And yet there is confidence that even when the work does not seem to be what it has been hoped to be, that nevertheless his just reward is with the

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Lord and his work with his God. And when he thinks about the work that he has to do, and when he thinks about the battles that he will have to fight, in Isaiah 49 and verse 5 he says,

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Now this is wonderfully true of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, that great servant of the

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Lord who accomplished God's redemption for his people. He was upheld by the

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Holy Spirit all through his ministry. John the Baptist saw the

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Spirit descending upon him and remaining upon him. He had the Spirit without measure.

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He was able to declare in the synagogue in Galilee that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him for the carrying out of the work of salvation.

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And it is as one who was called for this work, formed and fitted for a divine purpose, that he was equipped for the whole of the task committed to his care.

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There was nothing that he lacked to accomplish what God had given him to do.

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At every step of the way his guard was his strength. And even at those worst moments, even at those times where there were particular discouragements and difficulties, seasons when perhaps for Christ the people went away from him and he turned to his disciples and said, will you also go away?

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Times when the people were baying for his blood, that awful season upon the cross where the anger and the disdain of the people is poured out upon him and God's face itself is turned away from him.

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Even there his guard is his strength. At his lowest moment, at his feeling most forsaken, it is my

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God, my God still to whom he calls. Why have you forsaken me?

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The servant of God was upheld by God every step of his path.

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His guard was his strength. And will it be any different for those who walk in his ways?

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We too will find some of the same challenges and difficulties as our master faced, for the servant will not be above the master.

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We too as we serve God have been formed and fitted for purpose. We are no less the objects of God's particular regard and care in terms of his accomplishments for us, that he has a work for us to do.

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And if we are going to do it, we must do it in the same strength as our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

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Our work is not to save others in the way that Christ did. And we do not have the spirit without measure in the way that Christ had.

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But we do have the same spirit and we are working along the same track.

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We are facing some of the same challenges and we have the same declaration that my

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God is my strength. Now my friends, do we believe that?

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Do we rest upon that? Not always when things seem to be going well, but even when things seem to be going badly.

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When there are discouragements and distresses, when it seems as if we have laboured in vain, do we recall that God is the strength of his servant and his servants, that he was the strength of his incarnate

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Son and he will be the strength of all his faithful disciples. That is our hope and our confidence for the work which