Will God Use Me in Revival? The Servant of the Lord, Isaiah 49:3-5

³ And he said to me, “You are my servant,

    Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”

⁴ But I said, “I have labored in vain;

    I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;

yet surely my right is with the Lord,

    and my recompense with my God.”

⁵ And now the Lord says,

    he who formed me from the womb to be his servant,

to bring Jacob back to him;

    and that Israel might be gathered to him—

for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord,

    and my God has become my strength.

The second main task of the servant is to live out the message.  In Isaiah 49:3 God tasks the servant to demonstrate to others what he is like. Originally God intended to display his glory to the world through the nation of Israel. But Israel failed. God speaks to his people in Malachi 1:10 saying, “I am not pleased with you, and I will accept no offering from your hands.” When no offering is acceptable, sins cannot be forgiven, and God’s people cease to have a vital relationship with him.

But where Israel failed, Jesus fulfilled God’s requirements of a perfect sacrifice and a perfect reflection of his glory. St. John says of Jesus, in him “we have seen [God’s] glory.”  We in the church are also called to move towards this glory. Therefore, Paul can write “We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

Abraham Lincoln was discussing a certain senior official who had applied for a post in his government. He said to his advisors, “We won’t have him—I don’t like his face.” His advisors retorted, “He is not responsible for his face.” To which Lincoln replied, “Oh yes he is—everyone over 40 is responsible for his face!”

Do you know what sold me on coming to St. John the Divine, the church at which I currently serve?  It was the Sunday after Christmas 2001 in the 9:00 service. An associate rector/pastor was preaching. And as I listened to him talk about how God loves us as a father and how we can trust that love, I kept watching Larry Hall, the rector, watching his associate. Larry’s face communicated to me that the associate's sermon was the most important sermon ever preached at St. John the Divine. And I knew that’s where I wanted to be. In Larry’s face I saw God’s love and glory.

Yet it is not only as individuals but primarily in Christian community that we are called to display God’s splendor. As we live the Christian life together, people will come into the church and recognize that God lives in and among us. Do you want your church to be a place of God’s splendor?