 And so we've arrived at chapter 12, and now we are looking at verses 14 through 21. And as we look at verses 14 through 21, I chose to entitle this particular installment of our study, God's Beloved Servant. And you're going to see that in just a moment. I will be giving you some introductory remarks. It'll take a few minutes to develop a context, lay a foundation. But then when we get to a portion of scripture, especially in verses 17 following, I'm going to want to share with you some of the things about the Lord Jesus Christ that were prophesied concerning him by the prophet Isaiah over seven centuries before Christ was incarnated. And so we'll look at that in just a moment. Again, I'll begin at verse 14. I'll read to verse 21, give some introduction and move into our study. Beginning at verse 14, Matthew chapter 12, Matthew writes, then the Pharisees went out and took counsel against him how they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew what he withdrew from there, and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all. And he warned them not to make him known that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him, and he will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed, he will not break. And smoking flax, he will not quench till he sends forth justice to victory. And in his name, Gentiles will trust. So let me give you an introduction and a context. Let me lay a foundation. But we're going to be moving into God's beloved servant in just a moment. But I want to lay this down so we can catch up with where we've been and then move forward in our study. This chapter opens up with Matthew reporting that Jesus is now encountering hostility, resistance to his message and his ministry has been growing. And we know that it's been growing for some time and now it's getting greater. He's been accused of various things and the accusations had the intent of undermining the work that he was performing. And as we've already seen, they've been accusing him of blasphemy. They accused him of unholiness. They even went so far as to accuse him of being empowered by Satan himself. Now they're enraged at him because of his apparent break and of their understanding of the Sabbath. Now as we've already seen, Jesus allowed his disciples to eat grain that they had picked and he also had healed a man on the Sabbath. And Matthew told us that they had asked Jesus if healing on the Sabbath was permissible in order that they might find an accusation against him. And his answer as well as his action infuriated him because he told them that it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath and then he performed the healing. Now that was enough for them to conclude that he was a false teacher and that he should be dealt with. Luke tells us in chapter 6 verse 11, they were filled with rage and discussed with one another what they might do to Jesus. Matthew tells us in verse 14 that they took counsel against him, how they might destroy him. So the opposition united and began to devise a plan that they might either render Jesus useless or they may kill him. So what is his reaction? Well verse 15 tells us that when Jesus knew it, he withdrew from there and great multitudes followed him and he healed them all. So his response to this was to withdraw himself. Now he withdrew not because he was afraid but because there was no need to further antagonize these people. He was simply putting into practice what he's already been teaching them concerning how you deal with this kind of hostility. Remember in Matthew 7 verse 6 how he had said, Do not give what is holy to the dogs nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you in pieces. Or how he in Matthew 10, 14 had said, Whoever will not receive you nor hear your words when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. He'd already told them to avoid confrontation, avoid antagonism, just continue moving and ministering. Now in spite of the growing and organized opposition, the crowds are continuing to follow the Lord Jesus Christ and at this point he is very popular and people want to hear him as well as receive from him the healings that he's performing. Mark tells us in chapter 12 verse 37 of his gospel that the common people heard him gladly. The common people speaks of the people in general, the general population and they enjoyed hearing him. They enjoyed listening to what he had to say. Though the scribes and Pharisees are rejecting him, the general population is welcoming him. And the reason they're doing that is they appreciate. They appreciate his teaching and they note that his message that he's giving is superior to anything that they've been hearing from the others. He spoke with a practical insight and he spoke with a spiritual depth and that was something they were unfamiliar with in John's gospel in chapter 7 verses 14 and 15. John writes about the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and he taught. And the Jews marveled saying, how does this man know letters having never studied? Now they were not saying that Jesus was illiterate, unable to read. What they were saying is, where did he get his rabbinic instruction from? What seminary did he graduate from? Because they know that he didn't graduate from any of the rabbinic schools of his day. And so they were so impressed by this man because he spoke as an eyewitness of heaven and the common people would hear Jesus speak with an eloquence and power and authority that the Jewish scribes, the rabbis of his day did not speak with. And so as Jesus was going forth and speaking, many were now coming to listen to him. They wanted to hear him. They also wanted to receive from him because he was also healing people. And he did this. Often he performed a lot of healing. As a matter of fact, in John 21 verse 25, when John is writing, he said, there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. So Jesus was performing a lot of works and he was speaking some magnificent words and people are now in the multitudes following after him. Great multitudes of people are following Jesus Christ. They want to hear what he's teaching and they want to receive a healing. Now Jesus came, not just to perform miracles. Jesus came not just to heal people. Jesus came to deliver them from eternal suffering. He had compassion and he would heal their bodies but his greatest desire was to save them. You see, though they might be made physically well, if they remained unsaved, what profit would that be to them? In Matthew 5 verse 30, he said it like this. He said, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It's more profitable for you that one of your members perish than for your whole body to be cast into hell. He wasn't saying that if your right hand causes you to sin, literally go out and cut it off. Else all of us would have one hand today. He's saying, deal with sin brutally. Make sure that you don't minimize it. You see, Jesus' mission was to bring salvation to sinners. His mission was to bring people to faith in him and he made that clear. In Matthew 9 verse 13, he said it like this. He said, I didn't come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. Now these crowds are gathering around him. How did he react to crowds? Well, we've seen it mentioned several times already in the Gospel of Matthew. We see that in Matthew chapter five when crowds began to surround him, that he sat down in order that he might teach them. We saw in Matthew chapter nine verse 36 that when he saw the multitude, he was moved with compassion because they were weary, scattered and without a shepherd. In Matthew chapter 12 verse 15, when he saw the crowd, he began to heal them and he healed all manner of disease. So here Matthew tells us in verse 16 that he sees the multitude. Notice, he warned them. He warned them not to make him known. And so here Matthew tells us that he warned them. You see, this isn't, again, this isn't the first time that he's warning them not to speak of them. Matthew 8.4 tells us that when he cleansed the leper, he told that leper not to make him known. In Matthew nine verse 30, when he healed two blind men, he ordered them not to share about it. So this isn't the first time he's done that, but he is doing this in order to prevent them from missing the point, missing the point of his works. Again, Jesus is more than a miracle worker. Jesus is a savior sent from heaven to rescue sinners. He said in John 5.36, I have a greater witness than John's for the works which the Father has given me to finish the very works that I do bear witness of me that the Father has sent me. And so his miracles were intended to draw their attention that he might point them to the Father and be that mediator who brings to them salvation. And so he's saying, do not make me known. Now, Matthew goes on in verse 17 to say that it might be fulfilled, which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him. He will declare justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not quench till he sends forth justice to victory and in his name Gentiles will trust. And I want you to note this and I'm gonna lay a little bit of a foundation in the move in some practical application of these verses. But notice again in verse 17, how it says that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet. Matthew explains Jesus' reason for withdrawing from that place. It was in order to fulfill what was spoken by Isaiah. Each one of the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, each one has a purpose for it being written. Mark was written to the Romans. Luke was written to the Greeks. John was written to combat a heresy that was entering into the church called Gnosticism. And Matthew's gospel was written as an apologetic so that the Jewish reader could come and know that Messiah had come and Messiah is Jesus. And so Matthew had Jewish readers in mind as his primary audience and that's why he would use the Old Testament as often as he did. One scholar noted that there are around 67 Old Testament references found in the gospel of Matthew. 67 Old Testament references. You'll see that nine times he says that it might be fulfilled. You'll see that nine times Matthew uses the words it is written. Four times Jesus will ask the question, have you not read? And so Matthew wants to establish that Jesus Christ fulfills prophecy. In the New Testament it is recorded that Jesus fulfilled around 20 prophecies that were found in Isaiah alone. And here Matthew is saying that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 42 verses one through four in order to explain why Jesus withdrew himself. Now Jesus has worked that he is continuing to do. It is not time for him to be exalted because we know that before he's exalted he first experienced humiliation. And it's necessary for him to be revealed as the servant as prophesied by Isaiah. And that's what we see here in this passage. Now let's look at it together and see what it's saying and how we can make proper application to our own lives. It begins again in verse 18 by saying, behold my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him and he will declare justice to the Gentiles. Notice how he begins here. Notice how he begins by speaking concerning my servant. Look upon my servant, my servant whom I have chosen. He also says my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased. And so what we have with Isaiah is various characteristics of Messiah, various characteristics of Messiah prophesied by Isaiah 700 plus years before Christ and how that Jesus fulfilled this prophecy. So he begins by referring to Messiah as God's servant. Now when he says, behold my servant, if you study the book of Isaiah you're gonna notice that Isaiah uses the word servant fairly often. He speaks of the word servant in the sense of the way it was commonly used when you'd speak of a household servant. And so in the book of Isaiah you'll see that there are times that he uses the word servant to refer to a servant or somebody who was working for somebody else. You'll see that. But you'll also see that he'll speak concerning the word servant in different ways. Sometimes he'll speak of Israel, the nation. Israel he'll say my servant. And then sometimes he'll use the word servant to speak of those who are serving God personally. And so the word servant is used in various ways in its normal way or in the way of referring to Israel or in the way of referring to somebody who was serving God. But it is also used in reference to Messiah. It is what is called a messianic title and it is used in that fashion as it relates to Jesus Christ. And what he's saying is Messiah is God's servant. In Isaiah 53 verse 11 it reads, he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many for he shall bear their iniquities. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of as being God's servant, which is another way of saying he was Messiah. Now it is compounded when he says my servant whom I have chosen. The word chosen there in reference to servant speaks of somebody that was specifically called by God. But when he says my servant whom I have chosen that word servant going a little further speaks of an intimate servant, somebody that is completely trusted and somebody who is trusted and treated as the son. And so he was saying that the one who was chosen is God's supreme servant. And he's the only one who's been chosen to redeem the world. He is the one trusted to carry out God's program because he is the one who is completely obedient to the Father. That's what Jesus said concerning himself in John 6 38 when he said I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. That's what it says in Luke 12 50 I have a baptism to undergo how distressed I am until it is completed. Jesus came to fulfill the plans of his father and he came obediently to carry them out. And so one of the qualities that the Lord speaks concerning Messiah is that he's a servant. And Jesus is a worthy model to follow. He refers to himself as a servant and he calls us to also be servants. In Matthew 10 24 and 25 the disciple is not above his master nor the servant above his Lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his Lord. When Paul the apostle was referring to Jesus and speaking of his obedience he said in Philippians chapter two verses five to eight your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing taken the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man he humbled himself and became obedient to death even death on a cross. Jesus is a servant. Jesus says you are my servants you ought to have the same mindset and lay your life down as you take the gospel to others. My servant whom I have chosen. Now chosen is a title for Messiah. He is referred to as the chosen one. That speaks of his office as well as the task. Chosen is a word that speaks of a decision that is irrevocable. To say that Jesus is chosen is to say this is his final choice. And he's referred to as the chosen one because they recognize the term chosen as messianic. When Jesus was dying on the cross it's recorded in Luke 23 verse 35. The people stood watching and the rulers even sneered at him. They said he saved others let him save himself if he is the Christ of God the chosen one. And so Jesus is the chosen one Messiah. He is the only one qualified for the task of redemption. He is the servant and he is chosen. Now in verse 18 he says my beloved in whom my soul delights. When he says in whom my soul delights in whom my soul takes pleasure in whom my soul accepts. As a perfect servant Jesus completely pleased his father and is loved by his father. In Matthew 3 verse 17 it reads a voice came from heaven saying this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. In John 8 29 Jesus said he who sent me is with me. The father has not left me alone for I always do those things that please him. Those who love the Lord also desire to be well pleasing to the Lord. Our main motivation as believers our main motivation as Christians ought to be to delight the heart of our God. In second Corinthians chapter five verse nine Paul said it like this. He said we make it our aim whether present or absent to be well pleasing to him. That's what we want. We want to bring pleasure to God. In Matthew 25 23 Jesus speaks this way. He said his Lord said to him well done. Good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a few things. I will make you rule over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord. When our motivation is to delight the Lord we will have the joy of hearing him say well done. And so that auto motivate us. Now how are we gonna do that? Well notice he says in verse 18 again I will put my spirit upon him. I will anoint him. He is anointed by God for works as service. Now two things I'll share with you and then I wanna bring an application to this. God's spirit is upon him for two basic reasons. One is though he was conceived by the Holy Spirit his human nature was strengthened at his baptism. In Matthew 3 16 it says Jesus when he was baptized went up straight way out of the water and behold the heavens were opened unto him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting upon him. Now a second thing would be the anointing of the spirit was a witness to his mission because in Luke 4 18 and 19 it says the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted to preach deliverance to the captives recovering of sight to the blind to set at liberty those who are bruised and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. So he was anointed. I mean the name Christ is a Greek word that speaks of the anointed one. Jesus Messiah is the Christos he is the anointed one. And so let me develop something with you make it very practical if possible. If we're going to be servants like Jesus we need to be anointed by the spirit of God. Then normally comes through dying to self and asking God for strength. One of the biggest problems I think that Christians can have is that though we believe we're saved by the grace of God through faith it seems that sometimes we try to make ourselves into the image of God through our own efforts. We try and try and try to almost perfect ourselves. And the fact of the matter is is we can't do that. The work has already been done. What we're supposed to do is receive from the Lord by his grace and faith and just ask God to just infill us and to work within us. You know one of the things to make this practical if I can one of the things in my own spiritual life that has been a lesson that has taken a while for the Lord to actually teach me was to learn from the Lord that the work has been done that when Jesus died on the cross and said it is finished that there's nothing I'm gonna add to my own salvation outside of the sins that he has to forgive me concerning. I couldn't work for my own salvation and I cannot work to make myself righteous. What I wanna do is flow in his spirit and be free in Christ so that he might do the work. I have made a determination to pursue him but at the same time I realized that I in my own strength cannot perfect myself. When I was in the army a long time ago now I was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. And every day outside of one day a week I would run. I had a course that I ran. It was through a forest. There was a road that had been cut out and it was a course that I would go and I would run almost every day except for Sunday. And I'd go by myself. Our barracks were close to a street. I remember crossing the street walking into this forest and I can remember doing this almost every day. I was 20 years old and I can remember going across the street and walking through it through this forest and then finding the place where I'd start to run and then I would run my distance and I would be praying and I would be saying God help me. God please teach me. And I used to ask the Lord and I still do. I'd say Lord please teach me how to love people because I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to love. And I would ask the Lord that as I was running and that was every day and to this day I still will say God teach me to love. Teach me to be a person with compassion and kindness and gentleness and all of that. Like you, I would pray and say God help me to be a loving person. You see, when I grew up and I'll say this quickly and I don't wanna say it in a way that brings any kind of bad feeling towards my family but it's simply the truth. When I grew up, I grew up in a home where my father didn't know how to show any affection. My dad just didn't and that was common for the men of his generation. They were men who came out of the Great Depression. They were men who fought in World War II. They were men like that and so my dad was not an affectionate man until he got saved. My dad didn't get saved until he was 44 years old. And so when I grew up, I grew up in a home with a dad who felt that showing love was putting food on the table, putting shoes on your feet and putting clothes on your back. And that affection was something that he didn't need to show because that's what a woman was supposed to do and so my dad didn't show affection. So when I would be around my dad, my dad, if he wanted to show me affection, I'd walk by him and he'd hit me in the back of the head. That's what my dad did and I didn't understand that and so I remember asking my mom, why did dad hit me in the head? And my mom said because he loves you. And I remember saying, can you tell him not to love me so much? Because my dad, that's how he showed love and a lot of you may have come from a similar background where they didn't know how to show affection, where the man did not know how to say, I love you, where a man didn't show any physical affection. He didn't want to do that. And my father didn't want me to kiss him goodnight. My father would shake my hand. My dad didn't tell me he loved me till I was 17 years old and he only said it one time and that's when I was 17 and he never said it again until after he got saved. That was my dad and some of you grew up in the same way. You just didn't know what love was. You were not taught. It wasn't something that was experienced freely in the home. There wasn't a lot of affection. There wasn't a lot of kissing. There wasn't a lot of words of love where they'd say, oh, I love you, I'm proud of you or anything like that. I didn't grow up in that atmosphere. I didn't. My mom got ill when she was 24 years old. My mom had epilepsy from the time she was 24 and she had one disease after another until she finally died of a collection of diseases that she'd been suffering all her life. So my mom didn't have a balanced life. My mom grew up as an orphan. Her mother died when she was 10 months old and her dad died when she was around 14 and she was moved from place to place until she met my father at the age of 16 and married my dad one month past her 17th birthday. My mom did not know anything about love because she was moved from place to place and so my mom didn't know how to show affection. My mom would say I love you but there was a period in her time, in our time when I was a little boy, when I was growing up, where my mom had so many problems, physical problems, they began to give her medications and my mom was reacting to the medications and before you know it, she became vicious and mean, she became cruel and she began to abuse her children. So I grew up in a home with an angry mother who said to me more often in a certain period of my life, she would say more often I hate you than she ever said I love you. That was my mom. My mom was the one who would take the shoe and beat you up. My mom would kick you, throw you down. My mom was like that when I grew up. So I didn't know what love was. I thought that love was just a spending the night with a woman, I thought that love was a word that you use to get what you want and then move on down the line. I didn't know how to have relationships with people. So I used people and I used the word love and then one day I got to the point where I said I'm not even gonna use the word love anymore. If they wanna be with me, fine. If they don't, that's fine too. And that was my life and that went on for a long time. That went on for years and then I got saved. And now I'm only a few months old in the Lord and I'm there in North Carolina and I'm walking through a forest and I'm saying to God, teach me how to love. I don't know how. I don't know what it means. I don't know how. Mama can't, my dad can't, but somebody has to. That's when the word of God became so dear to me. So I'd read it and they would bring Jesus babies and He'd hold them. And I thought, men hold kids? Because I'd never seen that. See, when the men got together, I have a big family and when the men got together, when my grandmother died, she left 100, I think it was 118 great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Norwalk, that's my family, the whole city. Hundreds of cousins. I did a funeral for my uncle Ray with 200 in attendance, all of the blood relatives. We have a huge family. When I grew up, my uncle had died. I was doing the funeral, I see all these people and I'm realizing these people are my kin. These are people and I don't even know them. But I can remember we would go on the weekend to my grandmother's house and the brothers would come and sisters and the cousins would be there and all of that, like many of you. And I never saw any of my uncles with their children, never. The children would go play, the cousins would go off and mess around. The men would be in an area, the women would be in the kitchen. That's how I grew up, that's how I grew up. I never saw affection from any uncle for any of their kids, never. They didn't show affection. My family was not a kissy, huggy, warm family. My uncles are real direct, that was my upbringing. Now I'm saved and I'm walking through a forest and I'm doing it five out of, six out of seven days a week every day. God helped me to learn to love. I don't know how, I don't know what it means. I need your help. Listen, the word of God combined with the spirit of God transforms your life. And I read about Jesus holding babies and I begin to think, you mean it's okay for a man to hold a baby? Never seen it, never seen it. I was the guy, even when my nephew was born and they handed the baby to me, I was the guy that, take it back. The first baby I ever held and rocked and kissed and loved was my own. I didn't do that with other people's babies. I only did it with my own and the Lord began to teach me. Jesus loved him. He's there at a meal reclining and a man named John is reclining next to him and John leans against Jesus's chest and whispers to Jesus. I'm reading that and I'm thinking, oh, that's a, because see, I didn't know because when we got saved, you know, the Jesus people, we would go to a Bible study and afterwards we'd go to a home and we'd talk about the Bible study, we'd worship together and we would pray and I've got these guys, one on my right, one on my left and we'd hold hands and I don't hold hands with men. I was very uncomfortable with this, you know? I have a friend named George and George would kiss me. I just was uncomfortable with that. I, and I can still, this is true. Some of you have heard me say it, but it's true. I would hold hands with the guys because we had to, but I'd squeeze real tight so they wouldn't get any weird ideas about me. And they turned, oh, you brute. No, that's not what I'm trying to communicate. I'm telling you, I asked the Lord, would you teach me how to love? I'm still learning. I'm still learning. God gave me a wife who is very loving to me. And when he did that, because of her goodness, I began to realize she deserves the best man she could possibly have. She deserves a man who will love her with all of his heart. And I did not know how to say I love you even to my wife. And some of you have, I've told you this before, but it's true. We got married and Marie wanted me to say I love you. And I would say, why do you have to hear that? Are you insecure? I mean, am I not doing enough for you? Look at, I'm working, I'm going to school, I'm teaching studies, what else do you need? She'd call me up at the office. And then she'd say, I'm going to hang up. And I said, all right. And she'd say, I love you. And I'd say, yeah. And she would say, tell me. And I'd say, what? Tell me you love me. I said, you know that. Well, tell me, why would I? And a boss who had been married 25 years sat next to me and he'd say, tell her you love her or she'll never hang up. That was his advice to me. But I saw that as insecurity. I said, you got to be kidding. Oh, we'd go shopping and she'd say, how does this look on me? And I'd say, do you like it? And she'd say, yes, then get it. Well, how's it look? I said, I don't know. What do I care? I don't wear those. Why are you asking me that? I didn't get it. I didn't get it at all for the longest time. And that's why I started saying, make it practical. And the Lord said, your wife is not insecure. Your wife is dressing for you and she wants you to know that. And you ought to tell her how beautiful she is. That's how I learned those things. Plus, I learned that if I say it quickly I get out of the shop faster. Love, Jesus Christ loves you, my beloved son. Well, Jesus loves you. I became a better man because I began to realize that I'm loved. I'm loved by God and I'm loved by my wife. I'm loved by my babies. That made me a better man. I don't try to be a good man. I respond to the love that's poured into my life that provokes me to want to deserve the kind of love, if you will, to be the kind of man. Be the kind of man that that woman and those children love. Not to try and win their love, they already gave it to me. That's what Jesus did. Jesus showed us his love. He made a full demonstration of his love. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, and Paul said, my daughter, Corinne's, read Cal Poly Pomona, she's a year and a half. I'm saying to her, do you love your daddy? And she says, yes. I said, how much do you love your daddy? And she says, it's all my heart. I said, how much is that? And she stretches her little arms out. She says this much. And I said, that's not very much. She says, well, I love you this much. She tries to stretch further. I said, that's not very much. Then the third time she does it, I have a camera and I take a picture of her straining and you can see her little face straining as far as she can. And then I kept that in my mind. And one day my mom gave me a plaque and it said on the plaque, I asked Jesus, how much do you love me? And he said, I love you this much. And he stretched out his hands and he died. That spoke to my heart because I had the picture of my baby showing me how much she loved me. And Jesus said, I love you more. And when you know how much God loves you, changes your whole life. Changes your whole life. It stops you from trying to make him love you and it starts you just receiving his love. And then when you receive the love of this Messiah, this chosen one, beloved of God, your life is transformed. And a long time ago, I said, God, I need your spirit. I need your help. In Luke 11.13, if you then be an evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And so I've said, Lord, pour your spirit into my life and may the fruit of your spirit, which is love, be demonstrated. He goes on in verse 18 to say, he will declare justice to the Gentiles. The word declare there means to openly proclaim. It speaks of him proclaiming or evangelizing. Now remember that Jesus initially had sent his disciples only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. We saw that in chapter 10. But this was not God's only plan just to reach the nation of Israel. Jesus brought salvation to all who would receive him. Isaiah 45.22 says, look unto me and be saved all you ends of the earth. For I am God, there is no other. In Psalm two, verse eight, it reads, ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance, the ends of the earth for your possession. Psalm 22.27, all the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nation shall worship before you. You see his mission was to go beyond Israel. It included us, we who are Gentiles. God loved the whole world and God made salvation possible for all who come to him through Jesus Christ. And where to go out and share this gospel? Where to make disciples? Where to encourage people to know Jesus Christ. And one of the things I love about God's family and this is something for us to remember is it's Jew and Gentile. The world was divided in the Old Testament into two groups, Jew and Gentile. In the New Testament, there's a third description of humanity, it's Jew, Gentile and the church. So those who are not Jews would be called Gentiles but both the Jew and the Gentile brought through Christ into the body of Christ make up the church. And so it doesn't matter what my ethnicity may be. It doesn't matter what I consider to be a race. What matters is that I am part of the body of Christ. And so I say this quite often. I'll say it again right now. In the kingdom of God, the only color that matters is red, the blood of Jesus Christ, which washes and cleanses us of all sin. And it's the Holy Spirit who brings us into this body, into the body of Christ. And it doesn't matter whether you're white or whether you're black or whether you're red, whether you're brown, whether you're yellow, it doesn't matter what matters is you belong to Him. And we're family, we're family. And by one spirit, have we been baptized into one body? And we've all been made to drink of that one spirit because we are His children. We need to understand that because sometimes people will go to church and say, there aren't any people like me here. Oh, there are plenty of people like you, you're a sinner. And there are plenty of other ones here too. And we all need Jesus Christ, amen. There are people like you here. We all need Jesus Christ. We need to understand that. And so He came and that's what He does. He brings us to Him. In verse 19, He will not quarrel nor cry out, nor will anyone hear His voice in the streets. There's humility in Him. When it says He will not quarrel, the word quarrel speaks of hassling people. It speaks of brawling or even wrangling. To cry out means to shout and scream excitedly. In other words, Jesus didn't come to harang. He didn't come to inflame. He didn't come to intimidate like a carnival barker. He didn't come to use carnal means to gain a following and to stir up carnal emotions. It's interesting how Ecclesiastes 9.17 says, the quiet words of the wise are more to be heated than the shouts of a ruler of fools. You see, some ministers, some of us seem to do things so that others might give us attention. That's more like Pharisees who are interested in receiving recognition. Matthew 23.5 says, all their works, they do to be seen by men. And so sometimes we can get energized by the flesh and begin to scream or carry on or shout or whatever to draw attention to ourselves. Sometimes we say we're dancing in the spirit. Sometimes we say, well, the spirit was on me and I had to roll around in the carpet there. I've seen it. You have too, perhaps. The holy rollers. I've been there, I've seen that. It's a whoa, whoa. I was a new believer. I was in a, I went to a revival in some small church somewhere in South Carolina and it was put on my holy rollers and I'd heard the term but I didn't know what it was. There's this guy in a gray suit up in the stage and he's spinning around all over the stage and I'm like, whoa, I've never seen anything like that. How interesting. I was in front and I started charging people a quarter to take a ride. No, I'd never seen anything like that before and they blame God for that. So God made me do that. No, he didn't. The spirit is the spirit of self-control. Please don't blame God for your carnality and Jesus did not go out there shouting in the street like a carnival barker. He brought the word of life and people listened to him and came to faith in Christ because of that and he came to gently lead people to the truth because he brought attention to his father. It says in verse 20, a bruised reed he will not break and smoking flax he will not quench. He was compassionate. Jesus treated the hurting with great love and great compassion. He was gentle with sinners. He didn't bully. He didn't intimidate them for what they were. We read how he cleansed lepers, ministered to Gentiles who were outcasts. How he delivered demonized people. He allowed prostitutes and sinners to actually approach him. It's interesting to note that he saved his greatest anger for the self-righteous. And even so, if we're gonna be servants like Jesus, we are called to be gentle to those who are lost. Be very careful that you don't get into this mindset where you start saying things like, I don't know how they could do that. I don't know how they do that. No, you know how they do that. You were like that yourself. You just did things that were more pleasurable for you. And so I have to be very careful that I don't begin to scratch my head and wonder how did they do that? No, but by the grace of God, I probably could do that and even worse. And when you have compassion for the lost, you're gonna speak to them with love. Psalm 103 verses 13 and 14 says, as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. You see, God desires to restore the broken lives. He desires to deliver those who are drunkards, who are drug abusers. He wants to deliver those who are angry and those who are promiscuous. He wants to heal those who are bitter and those who have been hurt. And he can save anyone who comes to him. I was in a concert, a Christian concert, where they had a band playing and then a message. And in front of me was a motorcycle gangster kind of guy. He had a Levi jacket where the sleeves had been cut off and he had his colors and I'm seated right behind him. And when he stood up, he blocked the stage. He was huge. I couldn't see him. I couldn't see past him. All I could see was this big old guy and I'm sitting there looking. I didn't tell him I couldn't see. I just didn't want him to take my head off. But I try and look around him. He was huge. I still remember this. And then a guy came up and started sharing about Christ and how Jesus forgives sins. And I'm looking at this guy and I'm looking at his colors and I'm looking at him. His hair was past his shoulders, big old beard and huge arms. I remember this guy, he's a huge guy. And I start saying within myself, he can't get saved. This guy can't get saved. No, he can't get saved. And I'm saying that to myself. And so the invitation comes and the evangelist says, if you need to get saved, you need to get right with God, stand up and come forward. This man stands up and he's weeping and he's rubbing his eyes as he's crying. He makes his way through the aisle, goes standing up there. He's towering over everybody else and he stood right in the middle. I still remember as I watched him and I was in wonder and the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart, something I've never forgotten. He said to me, I can save anyone. And I've never forgotten that. No matter how far you've run, no matter how deep you've gone, God is deeper still and God will hound you to the end of the earth. He loves you. Never forget that God that we serve is a God who loves us. And finally, it says he sends forth his justice to victory and in his name's Gentiles will trust. Weariness and discouragement is not something that he gives in to. In spite of opposition, in spite of persecution, in spite of rejection, Jesus wins. The Bible says in Psalm 13 verse five, I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. You see, God will bring restoration and he does it through Jesus, our Messiah. That's what Jesus will do. He is God's beloved servant. He is on fire, victorious and compassionate. He is loving and he loves you. And he'll restore you. Somebody wrote, down in the human heart, crushed by the tempter, feelings lie buried that grace can restore. Touched by a loving heart, wakened by kindness, cords that were broken will vibrate once more. The Lord can restore and he can heal because that's what he does best. And this is God's beloved servant.