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Good morning, everyone. Please remain standing as we hear the reading of God’s Word. My sermon text this morning is taken from Isaiah, chapter 43, verses 1 through 13. If you would like to follow along in your pew Bibles, you will find this passage on page 717. The last time I preached, we covered the first four verses, so we will be focusing especially on the latter part of this passage, but I will read the entire section. So let us hear God’s holy word. Brothers and sisters in Christ, this is God’s word to you and to me. This is God’s word; let us hear it with reverence and awe.

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you walk through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be harmed, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you, because you are precious in my sight and honored, and I love you. I give men in return for you, and peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east and from the west. I will gather you. I will say to the north, Give them up, and to the south, Do not withhold. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth.

Everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Bring out the peoples who are blind yet have eyes, who are deaf yet have ears. All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say, It is true.

You are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no Savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed when there was no strange god among you. And you are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and I am God. Also henceforth I am he. There is none who can deliver from my hand. I work, and who can turn it back?

Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God endures forever. Let us pray for the Lord to bless the proclamation of his Word. Oh, heavenly Father, what a privilege it is that you, the infinite, transcendent creator of the universe, would stoop to speak to us. We thank you, Lord, that you have been gracious to us, that you have come down to us, and that you have spoken the word of grace to us in the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. We pray, Lord, that this day you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear wondrous things from this portion of your holy word. And we pray that by your Spirit, your word would find a lodging place in our souls and would bear much spiritual fruit in our lives. Lord, help us to understand, help us to see the importance and the relevance of this passage and how it connects to us in our lives and how it connects to the life of the church. And we pray, Lord, that you would grant unto me, your unworthy servant, the grace to declare and speak forth your word this day with clarity, with precision, and by the power of your Holy Spirit.

We ask these things through Christ our Lord, and all of God’s people said, Amen. Friends, you may be seated. There is a sermon outline on the foyer, in case you missed it, if you would like to follow along, and I would encourage the children especially to be listening for these three key words: the words in-gathering, witnesses, and servant. In-gathering, witnesses, and servant.

So what do you do to relax at the end of a busy day? When Sharon and I want to unwind at the end of the day, we sometimes sit together in our basement family room, turn on the television, and watch an old episode of the Perry Mason Show. Some of you who are younger may not know what I am talking about. What is the Perry Mason Show? For the younger generations in our congregation, let me explain. The Perry Mason Show was a black and white television series that aired from 1957 to 1966. It was a popular legal courtroom drama in which the late Canadian actor Raymond Burr played a brilliant defense attorney named Perry Mason. Most episodes of this series show Mr. Mason carefully uncovering the clues in each case he handles, identifying overlooked evidence, and assembling the pieces of the legal puzzle that the prosecution had missed. He ultimately proves the innocence of his clients, often surprising and frustrating the district attorney and prosecutor in the case, who is consistently defeated. This character, Hamilton Berger, was portrayed by actor William Talman, Jr. The scriptwriters of the series may have enjoyed creating the name Hamilton Berger—Ham-Berger, as it is sometimes called. Nevertheless, I am not a Perry Mason. I have no legal training, and I would not claim any legal expertise simply because I am a fan of the show.

But nevertheless, as a legal layperson, I would venture to guess that if there is one thing from this fictional series that is undoubtedly true in real life courtroom proceedings, it is the fact that having credible witnesses present in a court of law to establish contested claims and to bear testimony. Having such credible witnesses can be vitally important for making a strong case in a court of law. Now, why do I bring up courtroom proceedings and witnesses? Well, friends, our passage for this Lord’s Day morning depicts a legal courtroom setting, a setting where the Lord summons His people and indeed summons all the nations to bring their witnesses. This is a passage where the Lord reminds us as His people: You are My witnesses.

Again, as we read in verses 10 through 12, the Lord says this to His people: You are My witnesses, declares the Lord, and My servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after Me. I, I am the Lord, and besides Me there is no Savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you, and you are what? You are My witnesses, declares the Lord, and I am God.

Now by way of reminder, as we again recall the setting of this passage, as I pointed out the last time I preached from this text, this is a passage of God’s Word which highlights the amazing grace, the undeserved favor and love of God toward His covenant people.

And it does so by setting God’s gracious redemption of His people against the dark backdrop of their spiritual deafness and blindness, of their faithlessness and their stubborn disobedience, all of which would lead to God removing them from the promised land and sending them into exile in Babylon.

But as I pointed out last time, the people of God in Isaiah’s time had grievously failed in their calling and their mission to be the faithful servant of the Lord, Yahweh. See, God had called His people to be a light to the nations. In other words, He had called Israel to bring the spiritual light of God’s revelation of His word to the Gentile nations. And therefore He had called them to be His faithful witnesses to the nations, testifying that the Lord alone is God and that He is the only Savior for fallen mankind.

But Israel had failed in its servant mission. And not only had they failed, they had run after other gods. Instead of being a witness to the true God among their Gentile neighbors, they had adopted the practices, rituals, and beliefs of those neighbors, compromising their allegiance to the Lord, the true and living God. But friends, in spite of Israel’s faithlessness and their utter failure in fulfilling their servant mission to the nations, Yahweh their God, the Holy One of Israel, had graciously redeemed, called, and saved them. And He has promised always to be with them, no matter what.

And you know, one of the things we learn from passages like this is that Israel’s faithlessness as the Lord’s servant points to the need for a faithful servant of the Lord—a messianic servant of the Lord who would be the true Israel of God. We will learn more about this messianic servant later on in this latter section of Isaiah. There are many messianic prophecies contained in this section of the book of the prophet Isaiah, especially the suffering servant passage in Isaiah chapter 53, which masterfully foresees the sufferings of Christ on the cross, and which is rightly viewed by the church as a prediction of Christ as the suffering servant of the Lord, the messianic servant of the Lord.

And of course, living this side of the incarnation, we know that this faithful servant of the Lord is none other than our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But how does this passage relate to us today? Friends, as God’s people of old, we are called to be faithful witnesses to Yahweh as the only true Savior God. So we, as the Church of Jesus Christ, living in this new covenant era, are called to be witnesses to the truth that our Lord Jesus Christ is the only God-appointed Savior of sinners, for he is the faithful messianic servant of the Lord.

So, friends, as I direct your attention to our passage for today, as we continue to study and examine this portion of Holy Scripture, the first thing we will consider from verses five through seven is the Lord’s promise of a universal in-gathering of God’s redeemed children. We read here of the universal in-gathering of God’s redeemed children. In verse five, we read these words:

It says, “Fear not, for I am with you. Fear not.” The people of God had much to fear from their holy God, for they had sinned against him and had been unfaithful to him. Yet he graciously forgives them and redeems them. He has already told them not to fear, but here he repeats himself. Sometimes when you are trying to reassure your children or comfort them, they need to hear words of comfort not just once, but repeatedly. It is okay. It will be okay. Fear not. I have this. You are safe. And here again, the Lord says in verse five, “Fear not, for I am with you.” The God of the universe says to you and to me, brother and sister in Christ, I am with you. He promises in his word, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” If this is true for us as believers, and if God is for us, as Paul says in Romans chapter eight, who can be against us?

So again, in verse three, the Lord repeats and reinforces what he had already said before, reassuring his people that he has not abandoned them. He has not abandoned his promises nor his people, but he will indeed deliver them and bring them home. Yes, he will judge them for their faithlessness. Yes, he will chastise them and humble them and bring them to true repentance, but he will not abandon them.

Praise God that when we are faithless, he remains faithful. If our salvation depended on our own faithfulness, we would all be lost. But our salvation depends on his faithfulness to us in Christ—his faithfulness despite our faithlessness. Praise God for that.

Now this passage reflects God’s promise of restoration as given by Moses to the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 30, verses one through four. I invite you to turn there if you wish to follow along. After God, through Moses, confronts the children of Israel, preparing them to enter and conquer the promised land, Moses predicts both the blessings of the covenant and the curses of the covenant—blessings for obedience, curses for disobedience. And Moses, through the Holy Spirit, predicted that the people would indeed be faithless and would indeed break the covenant. But that is not the end of the story. For the Lord, through Moses, also predicted that there will be a time of restoration.

It says in Deuteronomy 31:4, “When all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul. Then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you. And he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you. From there he will take you.”

This passage again predicts the ingathering of God’s dispersed and scattered people.

And this may be in the background of Isaiah’s mind as he writes the words of our passage for today. But how does Isaiah speak of this ingathering? Look again at verses 6 and following. We will begin at verse 5.

“Fear not, for I am with you,” he says. “I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, ‘Give up,’ and to the south, ‘Do not withhold.’ Notice the contrast there. He contrasts the east with the west, the north with the south. God will call his people from all these locations. And he says, ‘Do not withhold.’ Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Now some scholars suggest that Isaiah’s language here refers only to the people’s return from their Babylonian exile, that perhaps the Holy Spirit through Isaiah is using this kind of broad, inclusive language to depict the Lord’s promise to bring back a faithful remnant of His people from their Babylonian exile. However, friends, I would suggest to you that the universal references used here—references to the east, west, north, and south, the language of from afar and from the end of the earth—clearly indicate that something much greater than merely the return of God’s exiled people from their Babylonian exile is in view. I agree with Dr. E. J. Young in his comments when he writes of this passage that the reference is to the spiritual gathering of lost sinners in Jesus Christ. This passage prophetically foresees a time when good news will go out to all the nations, to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west. It will go to nations far away, not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles, calling all people everywhere to repent and come to Christ and be received into the loving arms of the Savior.

As Dr. Young says, all God’s people scattered throughout the world will one day be brought together, just as the historical Israel was brought back from Babylon and other lands of dispersion to Palestine. Indeed, this kind of universal in-gathering is even spoken of by our Lord Jesus during His earthly ministry.

And to give you one example of that, I would invite you to turn to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter eight, verses five through thirteen. In this passage, a Gentile centurion comes to the Lord Jesus. It says this: Matthew 8, verse 5, when he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly. And he said to him, I will come and heal him. That is remarkable.

Jesus, the Jew, is going to go with this Gentile centurion to heal his servant. But what does the centurion say? The centurion replied, Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I, too, am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, go, and he goes; to another, come, and he comes; and to my servant, do this, and he does it.

When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, truly, I tell you, I have not found such faith in anyone in Israel. I tell you, many will come from the east and the west. Many Gentiles, like this Gentile centurion, will come and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom—those who are unrepentant and unbelieving Jews in this case—will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And to the centurion, Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” The servant was healed at that very moment. This account of the centurion’s servant being healed by the Lord Jesus is an initial fulfillment of what our passage for today is discussing. But not only does our passage speak of the universal in-gathering from the nations, as the Lord brings people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and welcomes them into the fold of His Church, this passage also emphasizes that God alone will gather His people to Himself.

As it says in verse 5, “Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east.” The Lord says, “I am going to do it. This is My work. I am doing this.” I will say to the North, “Give up,” and to the South, “Do not withhold.” Bring My sons from afar and My daughters from the ends of the earth.

Everyone who is called by My name—not just Jews, but even Gentiles—this is what is anticipated in this passage. Certainly, God uses means to bring His people home to the promised land. As we will see later in Isaiah, the Lord raised up the mighty pagan king, King Cyrus, to open the way for the remnant of God’s exiled people to return from their Babylonian exile to the promised land. Likewise, today in this new covenant age, the Lord uses Christian evangelists to call His people, to call sinners from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation to come to Jesus and to be welcomed into the fold of Christ. But ultimately, He alone receives the glory, for He alone redeems, He alone delivers, He alone saves.

And then verse seven: again, we notice that in verse one, Isaiah employs the language of creation to describe God’s redemption of His people. He uses the same kind of language that is used in Genesis one and Genesis two in verse one, but now thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, He who formed you, O Israel. And now we see that creational language used again in verse seven, where He says that those who were called are those whom I created for My glory, whom I formed and made. Created, formed—these are words of creation.

Again, Isaiah uses the language of creation to describe this universal in-gathering of His redeemed people. Just as the initial creation was an omnipotent work of God, a glorious and majestic work of God, so will be the work of redemption and the in-gathering of His people, because He is bringing in a new creation.

And brothers and sisters in Christ, if you are in Christ, as the Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 5, if any man be in Christ, he is what? He is a new creation. In a sense, the new creation is already here in seed form. You may ask, how? The new creation is already present in the church, in those who are redeemed, in those who believe in Christ as their Savior. A glorious new heavens and new earth is coming, where righteousness dwells. When Jesus returns, the ultimate consummated new creation will be ushered in. But right now, the Lord has created for Himself a people. He has formed them. They are a new creation. And why has God done this? Verse seven: I created them for what? For My glory. All of this, beloved, is to the praise of His glorious grace.

To borrow words written by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 1, verse six. This passage reminds me of what our Lord Jesus says in John 6, verses 37 to 40. If you would like to turn there, you are welcome to do so. John 6, verses 37 to 40, where Jesus, in the bread of life discourse, says this.

He says, “All that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.” He speaks of those whom the Father has given to him—this is God’s sovereignty in our salvation. But then he also assures us, “Whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.”

If you come to Jesus, if you trust in him, receive and rest upon him as he is offered to you in the gospel, he will not cast you out. No matter your background, no matter what sins you carry, the Lord is able to forgive you and deliver you. Come to him today. Then he goes on to say, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life. And I will raise him up on the last day.” He will do it, for he is sovereign, and he will do it for his own glory.

So, beloved, how does God carry out this universal ingathering of his people, as predicted and prophesied in this passage? He does so through his people, through his church, as the church carries out the Great Commission by means of evangelism and discipleship. As Jesus says, “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” Let us, as the church, be faithful stewards in proclaiming the gospel to the nations, that we might be his instruments in this great latter-day ingathering of souls, and that we might be his faithful witnesses.

And that leads me briefly to my next point. As we consider this next section, we see that God’s people are presented as witnesses to the only Savior, God. God’s people are presented as witnesses to the only Savior, God. We now consider verses eight through thirteen. Again, as I mentioned earlier, this final section of our passage appears to present a courtroom scenario. The language of witnesses confirms this interpretation. The Lord calls his people, and indeed, he calls all the nations, to assemble before him for questioning. One commentator puts it this way: God’s people exist in order to declare his exclusive deity. This is how they serve as his witnesses.

But notice how this section begins. It speaks of those who are blind yet have eyes, who are deaf yet have ears. What is he referring to? You have ears, yet you do not hear. You have eyes, yet you do not see. Who is he speaking about? Based on the latter section of chapter 42, many would say this refers to Israel. If you keep your finger here in chapter 43 and go back to chapter 42, look at verses 18 and 19, where God is addressing his people Israel. He says to Israel: “Here you are deaf, yet look; you are blind, yet see.”

Who is blind but my servant, or deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is blind as my dedicated one, or blind as the servant of the Lord? Now, Dr. Young suggests that this refers to the Gentile nations who have been converted from their spiritual blindness and deafness and have come to embrace in faith the true and living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I believe it makes more sense within the overall context to understand the blind and the deaf as referring to God’s people in their failure to perceive the divine truth to which they were called to bear witness.

But whoever they are, the point is, the Lord, as the sovereign judge of all creation, summons them before him. And what does he say? Look at verse nine: “All the nations gather together, and the peoples assemble. Who among them can declare this and show us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to prove them right, and let them hear and say it is true.” In other words, let all of those Gentile nations, with all of the idols and false gods that they worship, bring their witnesses. Let their gods show that they are true—able to declare what will happen, able to control human history and oversee it.

And obviously they will not be able to do that. As one commentator puts it, Isaiah imagines a great gathering of Israel and the nations, in which God challenges anyone to match his proven ability to achieve his purposes in history. But then the Lord, through Isaiah, addresses his people. He addresses us as his church.

He says, “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.” Of course, as we have seen, Israel has not been a faithful witness. They have not been faithful witnesses. They have not been perfect in their testimony to the true and living God. But God says, I have called you. You are my witnesses.

Before me no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. That is God’s assessment of world religion. He says, there is no other God but me. The all-knowing one says, I know of no other God but me. And you are witnesses to that fact. Verse eleven: “I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no savior.”

I declared and saved and proclaimed when there was no strange god among you—that is, no foreign divinity or idol—and you are my witnesses, declares the Lord, and I am God. God’s people are his witnesses, testifying to the truth that he alone is the one true and living God, and that he is the only savior of sinners.

Well, what about us who live after the coming of Christ, after the incarnation of Christ, living as we do in this new covenant age? What about us? Are we still His witnesses? Indeed, we are. Turn to Acts 1, verse 8. In Acts 1, verse 8, this is after Jesus has risen from the dead, and He appears to His apostles, demonstrating the fact that He has been raised from the dead by many infallible proofs, appearing to multiple eyewitnesses over a period of forty days after His resurrection. And before He ascends back up to heaven, He addresses His apostles. Remember, the apostles were the foundation of the church in its new covenant form. And Jesus says this to His apostles:

He says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And we read throughout the book of Acts of the apostles and the apostolic church bearing faithful witness to Jesus Christ as the true Savior.

We see this, for example, if you turn to Acts 4, verses 11 through 12. As Peter, the apostle, and John stand before the Jewish Sanhedrin, which was the religious court of the Jews, they are asked to explain their proclamation of Jesus and the resurrection. And what does Peter say? Acts 4, verse 11. Peter boldly speaks to the Jewish council: “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.”

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. In proclaiming that Jesus is the only name given by God under heaven by which we must be saved, the apostle Peter is simply being faithful to what Jesus proclaimed about himself. Remember John 14, verse six: Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” That is not Christian imperialism to proclaim. It is simply being faithful to what Jesus taught about himself.

And then, of course, the apostle Paul also, in writing to Timothy, Pastor Timothy, in 1 Timothy 2, verses five and six, bears testimony to this truth. In 1 Timothy 2, verse five, Paul reminds Timothy, “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” But then this passage is rounded off and completed and brought to a climax in verse thirteen, where the Lord through Isaiah says, “Henceforth, I am he. There is none who can deliver from my hand. I work, and who can turn it back?”

God has been promising amazing things. He has been saying that there will be a universal in-gathering. People from all nations will be gathered to Christ and His kingdom. And not only that, God promises that we will be His witnesses. And yet, is God able to carry out His promises? Yes, He is, because verse 13 reminds us that Yahweh the Lord, the true and living God, is sovereign and omnipotent, all-powerful, and therefore He accomplishes all His holy purpose, and no one and nothing can stop Him. But that leads us to consider, as we come to the end of our consideration of this passage today, how we, as the church, bear faithful witness to the exclusive deity and godhood of the true and living triune God? How do we bear faithful witness to the truth that our Lord Jesus Christ is the only Savior of the world, the way, the truth, and the life?

There are many ways that we can do this. You are not only being a faithful witness when you go out on the street corner and hand out tracts. There is nothing wrong with that. It can be a wonderful way of sharing the good news if it is done without offense and with love. But there are many ways that we can serve as His witnesses. For example, we can serve as His faithful witnesses by maintaining and upholding and wholeheartedly participating in the pure biblical worship of Almighty God. Brothers and sisters in Christ, why do we gather for worship?

We are not here to earn points. We are not here to earn points with God. That is not what we do in worship. We do not come just because it is a social obligation. We do not come in order to impress God with our singing, our praise, or anything else.

Yes, we come to glorify God, to reflect His glory, to declare His praise, and to receive the good gifts that He gives to us through the word and the sacraments. Yes, we come to do these things. But when we gather for worship, we also gather to bear witness to the reality of God and to the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. We do so through our active, wholehearted participation in biblically-ordered, biblically-regulated worship. Worship is important.

And you know what? It says something to your neighbors. When your neighbors see that you get up on Sunday morning and go to church, with a Bible in hand or in some other way, that speaks clearly. Do not do this in a way that draws attention to yourself, such as saying, “I’m going to church,” or “I’m going to church, Jim.” But when your neighbors see you showing Christian kindness, seeking to live out your faith, and seeing that you make church a priority, that bears witness to the reality of God. It may also spark their curiosity, and they may think, “Maybe I should check this out. Maybe I should get a Bible and begin reading.”

We as a church bear witness to the reality of God and the sufficiency of Christ through our worship. We also do so by supporting and participating in the church’s Great Commission. Not every Christian supports and participates in the Great Commission in exactly the same way, but we all can support the Great Commission by praying for our missionaries, by giving financially, and in the case of those who are called, by going. We also bear faithful witness by living holy lives and by seeking to avoid all compromise with false religion and anti-Christian ideologies. We do so also by confessing Christ before others as we have opportunity.

Remember the words of Jesus in Matthew 10, verses 32 and 33. Jesus says, “So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.”

As the Apostle Peter reminds us in 1 Peter 3:15, this passage is familiar to many of you. In this passage, the Apostle Peter, as he seeks to comfort and encourage Christians who were being persecuted for their faith and harassed for their faith, says, “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.” He envisions that some of the believers he is writing to might be brought before civil authorities, the pagan authorities of Rome, and asked to account for their faith. He says, always be ready to give a defense and an apologetic for the hope that is in you.

In these and many similar ways, brothers and sisters, we testify to the truth of the gospel. In these and many other ways, may we testify that God is the only God and that Jesus is the only Savior. Have you acknowledged God to be the only true God and Jesus Christ to be your Savior?

But finally and very briefly, all of this should cause us to reflect on the fact that we are flawed witnesses. So let us consider finally the flawed witnesses and the faithful servant of the Lord. In verse 10, the Lord says, “You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he.”

Before me no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me. As I pointed out at the beginning of this sermon, God’s people have been called to be his witnesses to the nations, and have been given a servant mission to bring the light of God’s truth to the nations of humanity.

You may find it discouraging when you study the history of God’s people as it is recorded in the Bible. When you study the Bible, you will see that this history is largely one of failure, of faithlessness, and of God’s people not living up to their calling. They have often been hypocrites and fallen short in many ways. And are we not sometimes accused of the same today? At times, such accusations are justified.

Yet it is also a history of God displaying his amazing grace. Grace means God’s undeserved, indeed, his demerited favor. Why did God allow his people to wander so far astray? He displays his amazing grace toward them, despite their faithlessness, as he accomplishes his saving purposes, even through their deep flaws.

I have said this before, if you have heard my sermons over the years. I often use the illustration that God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick. God’s people are crooked sticks, yet God is able to draw a straight line through us, and this brings glory to him.

By the way, if you study church history—which I also encourage you to do—you will find a similar pattern. I remember taking a church history class in college. I was a young Christian at the time, and I was excited to begin studying church history. As I read the texts and learned about the church’s past, I became discouraged. I thought, “Wow, the church has been deeply flawed, just as it is today.”

And certainly you study church history and there are many, many examples of spiritual faithfulness and many instances of godliness throughout the history of the church. But sometimes finding these examples can be like searching for spiritual truth in a pile of waste. There is much in church history that is flawed. But the amazing thing is that God uses His people in spite of their sins, in spite of their flaws, and all to the praise of His glorious grace.

Beloved, it is in our weaknesses that God’s strength is displayed. We are flawed witnesses. We are flawed witnesses. But the focus is not on us. The focus is on the one to whom we witness, to whom we bear witness. We are broken, we are flawed, we are sinful. But our Savior is flawless. Our Savior is perfect. Our Savior is sinless. And oh, how gracious He is. Let us point always to Him, for He alone is our salvation.

And all of God’s people said, amen. Heavenly Father, we thank You that You, in Your grace and mercy, choose to use us, flawed and faithless though we are. This is not an excuse for our faithlessness, for You call us, Lord, to walk in new obedience, to live lives of daily renewed faith and repentance. Oh, Lord, give us the grace to renew our faith and repentance this day. And I would pray, Lord, that if any are gathered here today who do not know You, that they would turn to Christ in true faith and repentance and come to know Him as their one and only Savior. But give us grace, heavenly Father, to display Your glorious grace in our lives. Even in the midst of our weakness and frailty, may Your power and glory be displayed. And may You alone, Lord, receive all the glory. We pray these things in Jesus’ name, and all of God’s people said, amen. As we close our worship, let us rise and we will sing together, number 243, “How Firm a Foundation.”