The servitude of Jesus.
I. In Christ, service and freedom were perfectly combined. He gave the service of being, the service of work, the service of suffering, the service of worship, the service of rest, each to the very highest point of which that service is capable. But when He came, knowing, as He did, all to which He was coming, He came with these words upon His lips, "I delight to do it."
II. Christ had many masters, and He served them all with perfect service. (1) There was His own high purpose, which had armed Him for His mission, and never by a hair's-breadth did He ever swerve from that. (2) And there was the law. The law had no right over Christ, and yet how He served the law, in every requirement, moral, political, ceremonial, to the smallest tittle. (3) And there was death, that fearful master with his giant hand. Step by step, inch by inch, slowly, measuredly, He put Himself under its spell, He obeyed its mandate, and He owned its power. (4) And to His Heavenly Father what a true Servant He was, not only in fulfilling all the Father's will, but as He did it, in always tracing to Him all the power, and giving back to Him all the glory.
III. There is a depth of beauty and power, of liberty and humiliation, of abandonment and love, in that word "servant," which none ever know who have not considered it as one of the titles of Jesus. But there is another name of Jesus, very dear to His people, "the Master." To understand "the Master" you must yourself have felt "the Servant."
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,9th series, p. 27.
References: Isaiah 42:1; Isaiah 42:2. Preacher's Monthly,vol. i., p. 17. Isaiah 42:1-4. W. M. Punshon, Penny Pulpit,No. 871 (see also Old Testament Outlines,p. 206); W. Hubbard, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiv., p. 291; C. Short, Ibid.,vol. xv., p. 241.