The Gospel According to Isaiah

BIG IDEA: Jesus willingly humbled himself and suffered in life and death for your sin, to give you life and to receive exaltation

PREFATORY:

a. Isaiah 52:13-53:12 is the last of four Servant Songs in Isaiah

i. While in some preliminary sense, these may speak of Israel as God’s servant, in this passage it is clearly prophetically speaking to a future individual

b. The New Testament makes it clear that this Servant Song is speaking of the work of Jesus Christ, and his suffering on our behalf

c. I’ll read starting with Isaiah 53:3

READ TEXT: ISA 53:3-53:12 (3 min)

PRAYER of ILLUMINATION

Introduction:

What is the Gospel?

- Often don’t define it

- We often think of it as the good news, that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead that we may have new life

- The Gospel is much bigger than that, God is not just saving individuals, but establishing his kingdom and renewing all of creation

- Jesus’ death on the cross is the central, core of the Gospel, and that’s what we’ll be looking at today

- What I love about Isa 53, is the twist it brings to our understanding of the Gospel since Isaiah writes prophetically

- As I read it, did you notice the beautiful poetic form of his prophecy?

It’s meant to touch the emotions

And the artistic nature makes the central meaning of the picture pop out at you

- It also is unique because we get the narrator’s perspective on this greatest of all stories

So we get a unique behind the scenes perspective of why these events happen

I have one goal today, to share the core of the Gospel with you. I want to show you from this passage that Jesus willingly suffered for your sin, and the result is that you should be one of the people that praise him.

Whether you already believe in Jesus, and need to see afresh the reasons for praising Christ Jesus, or whether you are not yet a Christian, and don’t understand why the cross is so important to Christianity, I hope that you will come away with a deeper understanding of the Gospel of Jesus, and why it is truly good news.

Let’s turn back to the text, so that we can see our first point: Jesus suffered for your sin, so that you don’t have to

It’s important to see the extent of what Jesus suffered. He didn’t just suffer at the cross, but his entire life.

Look first at verse 3 again. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”

Perhaps you’ve had someone you wanted to make friends with - but who made fun of you, or gossiped about you behind your back, instead of returning your friendship.

You know, the crowds that listened to Jesus regularly turned against him and spoke against him too

He is called a man of sorrows, because he carried and experienced much sadness

I’m sure many of you have had your share of sorrows, a husband, wife, friend, or child’s death may immediately come to your mind.

And you know, as best we can tell, Jesus’ earthly father, Joseph, dies.

His dear friend Lazarus dies, and we see Jesus weeping at the tomb

Jesus understands the pain you go through when someone close to you dies

He also knows what it is like to be in pain or sick in your bed. He lived like we do, and his life was full of suffering.

Besides suffering in these normal ways, Jesus also suffered the extraordinarily painful death of the cross.

I won’t describe a crucifixion, instead, listen to the verbs that are used to describe it in our passage, starting in verse 5:

Jesus was pierced, crushed, wounded (or you could say whipped), oppressed, afflicted, stricken, and ultimately cut off - killed.

Besides the intensity of Jesus’ suffering, there is something that makes it different than any way you’ve ever suffered.

Jesus himself was innocent of any wrong - look at the last half of verse 9 - “although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth”

So why did Jesus suffer these things if he didn’t deserve any of it? Our text repeatedly answers that question:

Look at verse 4: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”

Verse 5: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities;”

And verse 6: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned - every one - to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity (the sin) of us all”

It was our suffering and sorrow, it was because of our sin.

Verse 6, which I just read, is clear that we - every single one of us - is guilty before God.

Whether you have thought that way before or not, I think that in your heart you know that that is true.

Our hearts feel guilty when we do wrong, and at least deep down, we all know that we are not right with God.

We’ve all broken his law, but that’s why Jesus was punished.

You see, Jesus suffered and paid the penalty for our sin.

Look at the end of verse 5 - “upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds, we are healed.”

Jesus death brings us healing, it brings us peace with God.

You see, Jesus’ suffering was for your sin, and it was done with a purpose.

He was hurt so that you could be healed.

He died so that you could have peace with God.

If you already believe in Jesus Christ, this is meant to remind you of his love for you, and to free you from the burden of guilt and shame for your sin.

Jesus took your punishment, so you are not guilty anymore!

You took your shame, so you can be free!

But if you do not yet believe in Jesus, know that you do not have to make yourself good enough to come to God.

You won’t be able to, like everyone else here, myself included, you have turned to your own way

That deserves death. Turning from the way that the God who created you has for you, to defiantly go your own way. But he died to take away your sin.

All that you have to do is turn to Jesus in faith, confess your sins, and he will take away their guilt and shame

If you come to him by faith, he will not ignore you, and you will be healed, you will be forgiven.

This is an amazing thing, Jesus loved you enough to die in your place - even though you have rejected and despised him. He willingly did this, did you catch what it said in verse 7 - even as he was afflicted “he opened not his mouth”.

Jesus could’ve stopped what was happening with a word, but he chose not to.

Why? What made it worth it?

That brings us to our second point: Jesus suffered for your sin, that his people will praise him

The text consistently speaks of a group “our sin”, “brought us peace”.

Jesus loved each of us enough to die for us, and chose each of us individually

But the Gospel, salvation, is so much bigger than just you!

Jesus is gathering a people for himself from the whole world. One person, even one nation, was not enough for his purposes.

Listen to Isa 49:6 - “he says: “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant

to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preserved of Israel;

I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth”

God has big purposes, and is redeeming the whole earth, that is why Jesus went to the cross.

Verse 11 says that at the end, he is satisfied, because he makes many to be accounted righteous

And then in verse 12, it says he bore the sin of many.

Jesus died to save people from every nation and language group on the planet.

And you know what, his love and redemption didn’t just stop on the cross.

The last line of verse 12 tells us that he continues to make intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus continues to pray for sinners like me, and sinners like you

In doing so, he turns us from being individual sinners, into a people filled with praise

He now calls us saints, holy ones, because our sins are taken away.

His wounds that heal you, his being despised so you are not rejected by God, are what should motivate you to give thanks and to cry out in praise to Jesus

Join with your brothers and sisters in the global church and unite your voices in praise of our great, loving, compassionate, patient God.

This passage really begins in Isa 52:13. Let me read that for us as I close: “Behold, my servant shall act wisely;

he shall be high and lifted up, and shall be exalted.”

Jesus choosing to go to the cross is something he is praised for

We as his people, the ones who have received the blessing of his sacrifice, should be praising, exalting, and lifting him up for what he did for us.

AMEN!

Before we leave, let me read the following scripture to close our time of worship:

Numbers 6:24-26

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.