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God's Emerging City
Jesus revealed God perfectly to first century Israel. He was not motivated by what others thought of Him; He lived to please His Father. To put it another way, He did not come to Earth to simply give men what they thought they needed; He came to do what the Father knew must happen if mankind was to have any hope. Both in His life and ministry as well as in His death, He revealed the nature and character of the One who had sent Him. Herein is true greatness.
Throughout our lives, God will give us opportunities to choose His ways and be conformed to His likeness. To choose correctly will often involve a decision to suffer. Will we embrace God’s will over and above our own inclination to preserve our name, our reputation, or our agenda? The decision to die to self is always painful and our flesh always has good reasons why we need not do so. However, when we humble ourselves before the Lord and others, He imparts to us the grace we need to change.
God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
In the end, God’s destiny for us, like the one for His Son, is eternal prosperity. The route He took was through the Cross; the same road lies before us.
Many would be stunned and amazed that God’s Servant would experience great suffering and then sprinkle the nations with His blood (Isaiah 52:15). In light of such a plan, Isaiah raised a question.
Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
The prophet wanted to know who would believe his prophetic word. Those watching would need revelation to understand when God arose to demonstrate in the Messiah His mighty arm of power. And it would only be revealed to some.
The Lord’s arm speaks of His active power revealed on Earth (Exodus 15:6, Psalm 98:1). For example, He made known His mighty arm when He swept through Egypt with plagues and judgments, divided the Red Sea, destroyed the Egyptian army, and delivered His people. He did so again when Elijah called down fire. But when Jesus healed the sick and cast out demons, those of His generation would not even understand apart from revelation that God was again displaying the arm of the Lord in their midst.
Many of the religious leaders of His day were proud and self-sufficient. As a result, they misunderstood the significance of what was occurring and missed the revelation of God. And because they rejected their Messiah, they ultimately crucified Him.
God has manifested His mighty arm among men many times throughout history (e.g. in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, the Welsh Revival, the Great Awakenings, etc.). Yet many who knew, loved, and memorized the Scriptures proudly rejected what God was doing because it did not fit their interpretation of the Bible.
While we often say that we take our stand on what the Bible says, what we really mean is that we stand on our interpretation of what it says. But to be clear, only God’s interpretation is comprehensively perfect; ours always falls short. While His understanding is thorough and complete, we know only in part.
As a result, we must build our lives not simply on our own interpretation of the Scriptures, but on their Author. How do we build our lives upon Him? The key is that if we seek Him with a humble heart, He will reveal himself to us through His Word. And then, because our ability to hear Him in the Spirit is imperfect, He will fine-tune us where we need it by the power of the Holy Spirit, sometimes speaking through others who love us. Of course, such adjustment will only be effective if we maintain in His presence a consistently teachable, accountable, and correctible attitude.
For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.
Jesus did not grow up before the religious establishment of His day seeking to impress them with His credentials to be the Messiah; He grew up before His Father. He was not concerned with how to conduct himself so that people would receive Him. Neither was it on His list to get some ministerial training and learn how to establish a public ministry so as to come into His calling.
Today, too many believers pursue ministries. But God has called us to pursue Him: we have been summoned.
For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.
(Acts 2:39 ESV)
We must respond to God’s call to come and spend time with Him. And we will grow in spiritual maturity before Him, as we are conscious of His “microscope” constantly trained on the motivations of our hearts. And when we fall short, we must humble ourselves and repent so that He might increase in us. To be clear, it is in knowing Him that we will discover both who we are as well as what He wants us to do.
Just as Jesus trusted His Father, we also must put our trust in Him as He goes before us, opening doors that men cannot shut. No one could keep Jesus from being revealed in Israel – no Pharisee, no Sadducee, not even the whole Roman Empire. No one could prevent the Father from preparing the way and then sending His Son in the fullness of time to accomplish His will. So it is with us.
God will establish us in His purpose in His own time as we walk before Him. Our goal is not that we or our local churches become more visible in ministry. That is God’s concern. In fact, we should learn to enjoy the peace that is found in obscurity. Spiritual opposition always intensifies the more visible one becomes. But when God does make an individual or a group more known in a local area, it is because He has prepared both them and the unbelievers of that region. He knows how to both make ready and then send a people to sow His word in others as well as how to plow the ground in the hearers’ hearts to receive that seed.
Jesus grew up in Israel like a root out of parched ground, among a people of dry religiosity. The religious system of His day was full of activity, and the Scriptures were often read and quoted. Many considered it important to build synagogues or to travel as missionaries actively preaching from the Law and the Prophets. Yet much of the activity was dry parched religiosity. And amazingly, it was out of the midst of such arid conditions that Heaven’s tender green shoot emerged.
God has the ability to bring forth out of a seemingly dead religious system men and women who are full of the Holy Spirit. How amazing! Sometimes we might tend to think that He will arise in our region primarily through us – our movement, our stream, or our group. Of course, such thinking often reflects pride. And just to keep us humble, God will regularly reveal himself in power in other groups and movements in ways that we did not foresee. And what is often our first thought? “Why did He choose them? Doesn’t He see their obvious weaknesses?”
If God does have an amazing ability to bring forth tender shoots out of dry, parched places, then we should lay down any tendency toward pride in our hearts when a new, powerful ministry (music, evangelistic, teaching, etc.) emerges out of our midst.
Isaiah goes on to say that the Messiah would have no stately form, or majesty that would attract others to Him; He would not have a royal and regal appearance.
How different from when Saul became king in Old Testament Israel. He was head and shoulders above all others; everyone was attracted to him. But when he rebelled, God chose one who was but a youth to replace him. Even Jesse, David’s own father would not invite him to the meeting when the prophet Samuel came to seek and anoint the next king. He probably thought that David was just too young for this honor.
Though those around him failed at first to see that David was God’s choice, it was the same for the greater Son of David. There was no majesty to behold in Him; He did not have a halo or a glory cloud resting upon Him. There was nothing mighty or majestic to see with the natural eye. He was a very normal looking man, and apart from revelation no one would recognize Him as the Messiah.
He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Jesus’ whipped and bloodied appearance on the cross was truly appalling; it certainly did not inspire worship. He was One from whom men turned away. As the sins of the world came upon Him, people passed by hiding their faces. The very answer to their eternal dilemma was being demonstrated before them, and they evaluated Him as worthless.
But it was not just they who were guilty; Isaiah used the word we. Seven hundred years before the fact, Isaiah identified with the human race, seeing his own failure. We did not esteem Him, or value Him properly.
While Isaiah looked forward in time, we must look back in time, realizing that it was our sins that necessitated Calvary, and that apart from revelation, we too would have incorrectly evaluated God’s Son and His death.
Surely He has borne our griefs (or diseases) and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.
While many looked at Jesus and concluded that God was dealing with Him and judging Him, in reality it was our transgressions for which He was wounded.
Have you ever had someone tell you when you were in the midst of a painful trial that God was bringing judgments upon you because of your sins? Many have done much damage in the Church from either a lack of discernment concerning what the issues really are or from a lack of compassion. Yet God allows such incidents, so that we might know just a little bit of what Jesus experienced at Calvary.
If we are to be conformed to His death (Philippians 3:10), then it is a great honor to experience something of what He felt in the rejection of men. At such times, His nature and character can be worked deep in our souls if we respond to Him instead of simply reacting to others. And to be clear, we will find God’s way forward to spiritual maturity if we humble ourselves in such suffering.
For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake.
For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.
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