Hope For A Broken World Series

When you look around the world, you see there’s a lot going wrong. People who don’t care at all about God are thriving. The tide of our culture is rushing quickly toward dangerous places. Just go to the public library, or onto Netflix or YouTube, and you’re confronted with many godless values. People talk about justice and equality, but they really mean justice only for some, and they’re actually looking for a revolution. Meanwhile, we see wars and disasters and so much misery.

If you dwell on these things, maybe if you read the news too much every day, you despair. What’s next? Where’s all this going to end up? God is the Lord, but maybe we wonder about the evidence of that sometimes. What is God doing with this world?

And then we turn to the gospel of Isaiah, and his account of the Lord’s great glory. Back in chapter 9, he told us about a Child to be born, a Son, and “the government shall be upon his shoulders.” This promised one will sit on David’s throne to govern in true justice.

In Isaiah’s time, maybe the people weren’t so sure about that promise anymore. God said that great kings would come from David’s house, but so many of them were disappointing. The cowardly Ahaz was just the latest one to show himself faithless and to fail to give leadership.

But God’s not done with the line of David. Instead of another poor leader, God will raise up a King who is filled with his Spirit: “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse” (11:1). It’s interesting that Jesse is mentioned here, and not David. God wants to remind everyone of the very humble beginnings of the kingship. David certainly wasn’t born as a noble prince with a silver spoon in his mouth, but as the youngest son of Farmer Jesse, reared in the country village of Bethlehem, and trained as a shepherd. Like God loves to do, He brought something great from this small beginning—and God would do it again.

For this is what’s going to happen: “A Branch shall grow out of [Jesse’s] roots” (v 1). Isaiah likes imagery of the forest. At the end of chapter 10, he says Assyria will be cut down like a tall tree, lopped off, never to grow back. But Isaiah also told us in chapter 6 that new life will come from Israel’s burned-out stump. So for Judah: ‘a branch will grow,’ as God restores what is broken. The stem of Jesse and the branch of David don’t look like much, but God will raise up a glorious King and Saviour. This is our theme,

The broken world has great hope in the coming Root of Jesse:

1) the Spirit who fills Him

2) the righteousness by which He judges

3) the peace that He brings

1) the Spirit who fills Him: If you take a quick glance at verse 2, what word jumps out? 'The Spirit.’ Isaiah says about the Root of Jesse that “the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him” (v 2). He’ll be a Spirit who brings him many gifts: wisdom, understanding, and counsel.

Not that the LORD had never given his Spirit before this. The Old Testament tells us about many people who received the Spirit so that they’d be ready to serve God. Think of Joseph, a young man in whom was God’s Spirit. Or Bezalel, one of the craftsmen of the tabernacle—equipped by the Spirit. The Spirit moved among the judges too, men like Othniel and even Samson. Kings like David and prophets like Micah were blessed by the Spirit, and you could see his mighty work in them. For the Spirit brings good wherever He goes. It’s only through the moving of the Holy Spirit that a person can be faithful, and fruitful, for God.

When Jesse’s great offspring comes, the Spirit’s holy presence will mark his life. The Christ will live not according to the sinfulness and selfishness of the human spirit. But the coming King will stand apart, the Spirit of the LORD ‘resting upon him.’

And the Spirit will supply him everything that He needs to be a good and faithful King. What kind of Spirit? “The Spirit of wisdom and understanding” (v 2). Scripture calls a person ‘wise’ whose life is lived in a constant communion with God. A wise person can make the right decision at the right time, because he is always thinking about how the Lord would want him to go. You can’t study for this kind of wisdom. It’s gained by those who truly fear God.

One of the ways Christ would be remarkable is through his Spirit of “understanding” (v 2). Jesus had a deep insight into people, a penetrating knowledge of who they really are. In our life, we’re sometimes blessed to have someone who understands us, who truly ‘gets’ us and knows our heart. You’ll know how rare that is—and what a blessing that is—which makes Christ’s ability so amazing. John writes in his gospel that ‘Jesus knew what was in a person.’ He can see into the deepest places of every person.