Sermon Tone Analysis

Leader Guide ESV, Unit 15, Session 1

© 2019 LifeWay Christian Resources.

Permission granted to reproduce and distribute within the license agreement with purchaser.

Edited by Rev. Lex DeLong, M.A., Jan. 2023.

Summary and Goal

In the previous unit, we explored why God would judge the sins of His people.

In this session, we will examine how God showed mercy to us by transferring our sins to His Son, the Suffering Servant.

Though people often look for a Savior who is a bold, charismatic leader, the Servant—Jesus—came to serve the least of these and ultimately redeem us by His blood.

It is in living by faith in His sacrifice for us, following His example, that we will find a life of satisfaction and fulfillment.

Session Outline

++The Suffering Servant is despised and rejected (Isa.

52:13–53:3).

++The Suffering Servant is struck down as our substitute (Isa.

53:4-9).

++The Suffering Servant is exalted and victorious (Isa.

53:10-12).

Background Passage: Isaiah 49–55

Session in a Sentence

Jesus is the Suffering Servant who was rejected and struck down on our behalf in order to win the victory.

++In love, Jesus became what we are, so that we could become what He is (Isa.

52-53; 2 Cor.

8:9).

Christ Connection

God opened the eyes of Isaiah to see the coming Savior with detail no one had seen before.

Isaiah prophesied about a faithful Servant who would be rejected and despised and yet accomplish salvation through His suffering.

The New Testament shows that this prophecy is fulfilled in Jesus and His work.

Missional Application

Because we have received life through the sacrifice of Jesus, we embrace a life of service and suffering on His behalf as we share the gospel with others.

Group Time

Introduction

DDG (p.

76)

Walk around the NICU at a local hospital and listen to the babies crying, unable to vocalize their hurts and their questions.

Pokes, prods, tubes, and shots.

These are painful and surely confusing for an infant.

The weight of a child’s pain is felt profoundly by a parent, and its purpose may even elude us.

Now move to the Labor and Delivery Unit, where you hear a different sort of cry—laborious cries.

What sounds like someone near an excruciating death are the pangs of childbirth.

Moms endure the pain because they know what is coming—a beautiful, unique, wonderfully made baby.

And moms are even willing to face this pain again for the sake of another child.

Our perception of pain often depends on what we hope for after the pain.

All suffering is part of God’s sovereign plan.

We have no hope in our suffering if God has nothing to do with the pain, but the Bible is clear that God has everything to do with it, and He uses it for our good (Rom.

8:28).

This does not dismiss the hurt or the difficulty of suffering, but it does put it in perspective.

Jesus Christ, our ultimate example, walked the path of suffering that God chose for Him to bring redemption for us.

God showed mercy to us by transferring our sins to His Son, the Suffering Servant.

Though people often look for a Savior who is a bold, charismatic leader, the Servant—Jesus—came to serve the least of these and ultimately redeem us by His blood.

It is in living by faith in His sacrifice for us, following His example, that we will find a life of satisfaction and fulfillment.

Start Here

Point 1: The Suffering Servant is despised and rejected (Isa.

52:13–53:3).

Start Here

Read Isaiah 52:13–53:3 (DDG p. 77), asking group members to circle positive descriptions of the Suffering Servant and to underline negative descriptions of Him.

52:13 Behold, my servant shall act wisely; he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.

14 As many were astonished at you—his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind—15 so shall he sprinkle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand.

[Israel was told about Him, but didn’t recognize Him when He came, but the Gentiles who were not told of Him, saw and understood Him]

53:1 Who has believed what he has heard from us?

And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

3 He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

DDG (p.

77)

For the overwhelming solemn, even negative, tone of this passage, one can almost miss the fact that it begins in victory.

Honor would come to the Servant, yet this Man would suffer deeply.

But His punishment would not be for His own sins but for those who would behold Him in faith.

It’s this pivotal act that would cause knees to bow.

The Servant’s suffering leads to victory.

His broken body paves the path to glorification.

· Victory: The Lord starts by explaining the Servant’s great success with three various terms: “He will be high and lifted up and exalted” (52:13).

· Suffering: People would be appalled at the sight of Him.

Can you imagine people bowing a knee to a disfigured, humiliated man (52:14)?

How could people go from being horrified by this Servant to bending a knee before Him.

· We can’t seem to reconcile deep suffering with dynamic success; like oil and water, we assume they must be separate, so we hold them in tension.

But God sent His Son as the Servant, which reveals this tension need not exist.

Jesus faced rejection, abandonment, mocking, flogging, a spear to His side, and nails to His hands and feet for His eternal glory and our redemption.

In Him, God painted a picture of utter bleakness and weaved it with ultimate victory so that we could spend a lifetime in faith reconciling our suffering with our eternal celebration.

Ask:

Why do people so often believe that no suffering is good?

(we equate our suffering with God’s punishment for our sins; we only have an earthly perspective regarding the result of suffering; we have an earthly perspective of glory, which involves riches, fame, and success)

DDG (p.

77)

We typically correlate leadership with charisma, power, and victory — not with suffering.

With God’s perspective, however, we must correlate leadership with servanthood and glory with the lowly.

In this passage we see three ways God weaves together these polarizing concepts through the revelation of the “arm of the Lord,” the Servant Jesus Christ: First, He comes onto the scene in an unassuming way.

Second, this “arm” has no extraordinary beauty to draw people to Him.

Finally, the Lord’s “arm” would be rejected because He would be marked by suffering.

· He comes onto the scene in an unassuming way.

Jesus was born into this world and lived most of His life without earthly fanfare.

He was “like a root out of dry ground” (53:2).

No farmer’s almanac would find this a promising scenario.

God’s victory, however, comes in unassuming ways.

· This “arm” has no extraordinary beauty to draw people to Him.

Since Jesus lived without an impressive form or majesty, no one had reason to take notice of Him (53:2).

Our culture is so fixated on image that it seems impossible for us to accept a leader who is not polished and put together.

God’s victory, however, comes in unassuming ways.

· The Lord’s “arm” would be rejected because He would be marked by suffering (53:3).Jesus took upon Himself the sin of the world.

Who would ever guess victory would come through a man nailed to a cross?

But God’s victory comes in unassuming ways.

“The arm of the Lord” brought deliverance to the Israelites in the exodus (Ex.

6:6), and that same “arm” would defeat the mighty nation of Babylon (Isa.

48:14).

God is a spirit and does not have a body like men, so His “arm” is a reference to His sovereignty and power to deliver His people.

Yet the “arm” here is revealed to be a Suffering Servant—God in the flesh.

As Paul wrote, the message of the cross is foolish and weak to the world, but to those who are being saved, this gospel of Jesus is the power of God (1 Cor.

1:18).

Ask:

How should this prophecy about the Suffering Servant challenge our views about victory and success?

(we should not necessarily equate suffering with losing; we should not necessarily equate success with winning; if we would follow Jesus’ example, then we should expect suffering as an indication that we are successfully walking in faith)

Point 2: The Suffering Servant is struck down as our substitute (Isa.

53:4-9).

Read Isaiah 53:4-9 (DDG p. 78), asking group members to underline every instance of “our” “us” “we” (altogether, 9 x’s).