BSM Devo - Spring 2023
Notes
Transcript
Isaiah 49:14-16
Isaiah 49:14-16
Unexpected question: Who in here has a tattoo or wants a tattoo?
This comes to mind: One of our JH youth girls, when I asked “What is the unforgivable sin?” honestly and innocently answered, “Having a tattoo”
By various studies and polls, a major reason people get tatted, or physically marked with ink, is to remember or honor someone they love. Someone who passed, husband/wife tats, *mom* etched in a heart on your arm.
Did you know that God Himself took on physical markings out of love for you? If He had a tattoo:
14 But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me;
my Lord has forgotten me.”
Zion - God’s people, Israel.
Israel had fallen on some hard times. The latter part of Isaiah, ch. 40-66, is dated in the 6th century, which means the people of Israel, Zion, has gone into exile and are under the oppressive rule of Babylon, naked and humiliated.
But listen to God’s response of comfort and promise:
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
How likely is it for a woman to forget her own baby?
Obviously we live in a broken world where we do hear stories of such- but perhaps there is no greater, inseparable love than a woman’s for her child.
So, even though it is possible for a woman to forget or forsake her child, God tells His people that "I will NOT forget you”
The Lord’s affection for His people is greater than the devotion a woman has for her nursing child!
16 Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are continually before me.
This has obvious and beautiful fulfillment in the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, the wounds He received from the Cross. Jesus’ nail-scarred hands remind us of the full slate of pain He underwent: the beatings, the 40 lashings with a scourging whip, the mocking, the crown of thorns, the carrying of His cross to Calvary, His piercing and pinning to the Cross, His agonizingly slow suffocation and bleeding out, the spear that stabbed His side, His death.
“He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities,” Isaiah 53:5
In Isaiah’s time, this Scripture established a future hope for the suffering people of God. The people suffered, but God saw them. A servant of God would one day stand in the gap, suffer for His people, and bring about new hope, life, and redemption.
Today, this Scripture offers hope fully realized for all who are in the thick of affliction and trouble. I don’t know what your suffering or struggle may look like or include. You may be asking, “Why have you forgotten me, God? Why have you abandoned me?”
D. Guzik: “When we see the nail-scarred hands of Jesus, we see how He has inscribed us on the palms of His hands. With such love, how could God ever forget His people?” He hasn’t forgotten or forsaken you.
Out of His love, the Son of God gave Himself to be beaten and crushed. Humiliated and pierced. And ultimately, killed. Why? Why would the King of the Universe endure such humiliation, excruciating pain, and horrid death?
So forgiveness could be extended your sins (the mess-ups and screwups that we all have committed, might be currently committing, and will commit). The screw-ups that separate you from God and lead to death. So suffering and anguish that characterizes the default state of humanity would be conquered- and you could be set free.
Listen: This is the gospel message. Jesus died, Jesus was buried, and Jesus rose to life from the grave in victory- and in His abundant life and victory, He now reaches out His nail-scarred hand to you as an offer of forgiveness and to become His beloved child. To set His fortress of love around you.
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.”
Receiving Jesus by faith is grasping His nail-scarred hand. It is believing. A suffering-free life is not promised, but hope beyond this present suffering- hope that will last for eternity- rests in His nail-scarred hands.
He knows what pain is like. He knows what suffering is like. He knows what sorrow is like. He understands. And by His love, the love etched in His hands, He offers you life that overcomes as a free gift.
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What is the most loving thing someone has done for you? How did you, or how will you, respond?