Unto Us: Our Suffering Servant
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Good morning church!
Forever He is glorified, forever He is lifted high.
He is risen! (He is risen indeed).
Thank you to everyone who brought in and helped out with breakfast, it was wonderful!
What a pleasure it is to be here, with you, on resurrection Sunday.
Today we come together to worship and glorify Christ, risen from the grave, to bring us redemption.
Back at the Christmas timeframe we were in this series called unto us - where we celebrated the coming of our Savior through the miraculous birth, to be our peace as our humble Messiah.
It felt appropriate to return to that series today, because He did not come into the world to just be a baby, He came as the ultimate gift of peace to sinful mankind, and that peace had a price that had to be paid.
Today we are going to go back to Isaiah, chapter 53, to see just how humble Jesus was as our Messiah.
Our main point for today is that:
Main Point: The Messiah paid the price of sin and death, both spiritually and physically.
Jesus Christ paid the price, and through His sacrifice and resurrection we have the hope of Heaven through His gospel.
At Christmas we celebrate the coming Messiah, at easter we celebrate a risen Savior, and we tend to gloss over the events that had to take place in between.
Today as we look at Isaiah 53 we are going to take a look at the price that was paid so that we could inherit that hope of Heaven.
But let’s start in chapter 52 verse 13 so that we can get a little bit of background.
See, my servant will be successful;
he will be raised and lifted up and greatly exalted.
Just as many were appalled at you—
his appearance was so disfigured
that he did not look like a man,
and his form did not resemble a human being—
so he will sprinkle many nations.
Kings will shut their mouths because of him,
for they will see what had not been told them,
and they will understand what they had not heard.
Who has believed what we have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
He grew up before him like a young plant
and like a root out of dry ground.
He didn’t have an impressive form
or majesty that we should look at him,
no appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.
He was like someone people turned away from;
he was despised, and we didn’t value him.
Yet he himself bore our sicknesses,
and he carried our pains;
but we in turn regarded him stricken,
struck down by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced because of our rebellion,
crushed because of our iniquities;
punishment for our peace was on him,
and we are healed by his wounds.
We all went astray like sheep;
we all have turned to our own way;
and the Lord has punished him
for the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth.
Like a lamb led to the slaughter
and like a sheep silent before her shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
He was taken away because of oppression and judgment,
and who considered his fate?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
he was struck because of my people’s rebellion.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
but he was with a rich man at his death,
because he had done no violence
and had not spoken deceitfully.
Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely.
When you make him a guilt offering,
he will see his seed, he will prolong his days,
and by his hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished.
After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied.
By his knowledge,
my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will carry their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him the many as a portion,
and he will receive the mighty as spoil,
because he willingly submitted to death,
and was counted among the rebels;
yet he bore the sin of many
and interceded for the rebels.
Prayer.
When we look at the book of Isaiah, it’s important to remember that this book was written before Christ ever walked the earth - over 700 years before - and yet the picture that Isaiah gives us in this passage vividly points to our Messiah.
Out of Isaiah here in chapter 53 there are four characteristics of Christ that relate to us as a people who need the Lord.
The first characteristic is that:
1. Christ is Lord, yet He is DESPISED, vv. 1-3.
In verses one through three we see the power of the Lord contrasted with how the world sees Him.
Who has believed what we have heard?
The verses just prior to this, in 13 through 15 of chapter 52, they point out that Christ is going to be successful, He’s going to be raised up and exalted, yet He is going to be grossly disfigured.
He’s going to sprinkle many nations with the covering of His shed blood.
Yet Kings are going to remain silent and not understand or spread His good News.
Then Isaiah says who has believed this? Who has believed what we, the prophets of the Old Testament, have heard and proclaimed?
To whom has the arm, the omnipotent power of God, been revealed? In the Old Testament the power of God was revealed to the prophets, but this verse also points to Christ, who is both God and man, therefore He alone could be who this passage is talking about.
And the power that is passage is talking about, it’s not just the power to do miracles or to heal, it’s the incredible power to save sinners from eternity apart from God, eternal destruction.
The real power of Christ is found in His absolute power to save sinners. The problem that all of the religious leaders had with Jesus in the New Testament was all about questioning this power, the power to forgive sin, because that was something only God could do, that is divine power.
Then in verse 2 the prophet writes that this Messiah, Christ, grew up before God out of this dead ground with no hope.
Christ is born of a virgin, in a time of complete hypocrisy on the part of the religious leaders, and under Roman control. The nation of Judea is led by a king who seeks power over holiness and the priests are so focused on obeying every element of their law that they have forgotten the grace that God has called them to. They are hopelessly lost.
They need a miracle. And God provides one. Out of this dry ground, out of this broken, unfertile soil comes One who doesn’t look like much. He doesn’t take on the form of a King. In fact, it says that he had no appearance that we should seek Him out.
People turn away from Him. People turn away from Christ. They despise Him, they see no quality to Him that should be regarded as special.
Many of us know people like that that today want nothing to do with Christ.
Probably many of us before Christ, before anyone told us about Christ, probably most of us would say that either we didn’t care, or we wanted nothing to do with Christ.
Isaiah is talking about probably most of us in this room today at some point in our lives.
And remember, Isaiah is actually telling us all of this is going to happen, and he is writing this 700 years before Christ.
And Isaiah tells it how it is - He, Christ, was despised and rejected by men.
When we look at Christ’s trial that took place in the gospels, that is the picture that gets painted for us.
In Matthew we see the account where Christ was betrayed, and how through the various trials that take place between the Sanhedrin, Pontius Pilate, and King Herod how Jesus is mocked and ultimately rejected in Matthew 27:22-23
Pilate asked them, “What should I do then with Jesus, who is called Christ?”
They all answered, “Crucify him!”
Then he said, “Why? What has he done wrong?”
But they kept shouting all the more, “Crucify him!”
They rejected Him, He is despised by all those who don’t know of His mercy and grace.
He knows our suffering because He paid the price for our sin, He knows our sickness of sin because He bore it all on the cross.
The second characteristic of Christ is that -
2. Christ is rejected, yet He is our SUBSTITUTE, vv. 4-6.
In verses 4-6 Isaiah says He bore our sickness and carried our pains - Christ substituted Himself for our punishment. He came to take on our iniquity because we cannot do it alone.
Isaiah says our Messiah, Christ, we rejected Him, and we looked at him just as they did on that day of calvary when the crowd said:
and saying, “You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross!”
And the priests, those who should have been fighting for Him, said:
“He saved others, but he cannot save himself! He is the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him.
They mocked Him. They considered Him struck down by God, as He was pierced at the hands and feet to a cross because of our rebellion.
He took our place. Verse 5 says the punishment required for us to have eternal peace was upon Him, and because he was our substitute, because He takes our place, we are healed by His wounds.
Verse 6 says we all have gone astray - every one of us have gone astray, because every one of us are sinners, we all have turned away from the path of righteousness, every one of us has sin in their lives, but the Lord, God the Father, has punished Him, Christ the eternally begotten Son, for our iniquity.
Verses 7 through 9 explain this more, as:
3. Christ is innocent, yet He bore our SIN, vv. 7-9.
Christ went to the cross willingly, like a lamb led to the slaughter.
We call him our spotless lamb because that was what was required in order to pay the penalty for our sin.
In the Old Testament Israel was required to bring an animal sacrifice to cover their sins, and they had to do that every time they sinned. Christ as the spotless Lamb of God came to take away our sin, Hebrews 10:11-12:
Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God.
He was innocent of any sin. He was the perfect, holy, Son of God, without any blemish. But the crowd oppressed and afflicted Him, we oppressed and afflicted Him by our sin, the weight of the entire world’s sin for all time was upon Him, your sin, my sin, everyone who has ever existed and ever will exist, the weight of all of that sin was placed upon Him.
Matthew 27:13-14 tell us that He remained silent in all of this:
Then Pilate said to him, “Don’t you hear how much they are testifying against you?” But he didn’t answer him on even one charge, so that the governor was quite amazed.
He went like a lamb that was led to the slaughter - quietly, submissively, patiently taking on all of our sin. The crowd is yelling, screaming at Him, crying out horrible things, and yet He remained silent. He had the power of God, all-knowing, all-powerful, He could have called out and been rescued by a legion of angels, but He didn’t.
He did not have to endure any of that for Himself. He was perfect. He had no sin. He had no reason to be convicted. He had no reason to be crucified.
He was taken away and killed by those who should have understood who He was, with the permission of the oppressive Roman officials. He was beaten and killed because of the sin of His people, because of Israel’s sin, because of our sin.
He was assigned a grave with the wicked, the grave that we deserved, the grave of a sinner. People who die on a cross in that day, they didn’t get tombs, they got buried as criminals - being buried in a communal grave with others who were convicted. He took our place at calvary, and He was assigned to take our place in the grave, but a rich man came in and requested that He be placed in a tomb.
When it was evening, a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph came, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. He approached Pilate and asked for Jesus’s body. Then Pilate ordered that it be released. So Joseph took the body, wrapped it in clean, fine linen, and placed it in his new tomb, which he had cut into the rock. He left after rolling a great stone against the entrance of the tomb.
Instead of the burial He was assigned by His crucifixion, His body was laid in a tomb.
He is Lord, yet we despised Him. He is rejected, yet He is our substitute. He is innocent, yet He bore our sins. Finally:
4. Christ is crushed, yet He is our SAVIOR, vv. 10-12.
Verse 10 starts out that the Lord, God the Father, was pleased to crush Him.
It pleases God for Christ to go to the cross of calvary for us.
Look, God counted the cost before Christ ever walked the earth. God knew what the price was for redemption.
Twice God is heard in Heaven calling out that He is well-pleased with Jesus, once at His baptism, the second at the transfiguration.
The Father is pleased with the Son, Christ was obedient to the Father, even unto death. Philippians 2:8 tells us:
he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death—
even to death on a cross.
It pleases the Father for the Son to be crushed, not because He wants this for His Son, but because that was the price to redeem you and me from sin. Without that sacrifice, we cannot have redemption.
Jesus in His divine nature voluntarily submitted Himself, as God the Son, to be the payment for sin. He did it because He knew the cost to have a relationship with us, He knew the cost to pay the debt we could not pay.
It says when Jerusalem, the crowd, makes Him their guilt offering, when you and I make Him our guilt offering, Isaiah says that He, God, will see His seed, those that are saved by Christ’s sacrifice, will prolong His days and God’s pleasure will be accomplished by the work of Christ at calvary.
Christ had to die, but Isaiah says He’s going to live a long life, or more literally, eternal life.
Christ had to die in order for there to be a resurrection.
Verse 11 says there’s going to be a resurrection, after His anguish, after His death, He will see light and be satisfied.
Going back to the gospel narrative in Matthew, Christ is buried in Joseph’s tomb, but then in chapter 28 a couple of women are headed to the tomb, and this great earthquake happens, and the massive stone is rolled back from the grave, and an angel descends from Heaven and in Matthew 28:5 we read:
The angel told the women, “Don’t be afraid, because I know you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. For he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has risen from the dead and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; you will see him there.’ Listen, I have told you.”
Christ was, in fact, raised from the dead.
He is risen!
And then it says by His knowledge, by the knowledge of Him, by knowing Him, He will justify many, and He, Christ, will carry all of their sin, all of their iniquities, because He is mighty to save.
2 Peter 1:2 and 3 tells us:
May grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
It is by the knowledge of Jesus Christ, a relationship with Him, that we are saved and justified. He justifies us, because we cannot, He suffers, He is crushed, he is violently murdered on a cross to save us because that is the cost that it takes for our salvation.
Verse 12 says that He willingly submitted to death, he willingly was counted among the rebels and the criminals, and because of that Christ will be glorified, and those who trust in Him are saved. he has interceded for the world.
Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15 says:
This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them.
You may be saying you don’t know what I’ve done, you don’t know the things I’ve said, God could never love me. God could never save me, the things I did are too horrible, but Paul says he was the worst of them, he was a hunter of Christians, he was there as an accomplice to murder, and yet Christ was able to save him.
In John 3:17 Jesus says:
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
It doesn’t matter what you’ve done, Jesus came to save all sinners, and that includes you.
And for those that will receive Him as their Lord and Savior Paul writes in Romans 8:1-2
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.
The good news of Jesus Christ is that Christ came in that tiny package at Christmas as a baby, born in a humble manger, to live that perfect, sinless life, to go to calvary, and die a gruesome death to pay the penalty for sin for you and me. Without all of that, there is no resurrection, and there is no hope to be found in Christ.
But because there is a resurrection, we can have hope in the gospel of Jesus Christ, because through His resurrection He defeated the grave and Hell, and He promises us eternal life, with victory over sin and death, with Him instead of the eternal destruction that we deserve.
Jesus Christ, the Lord of all creation, was despised and rejected by men, so that through that rejection he might be our substitute for punishment, that He, the innocent Lamb of God might bear our sin, to take it to calvary, to be condemned to death that we might be saved through His resurrection.
Have you trusted in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Do you know Him?
As Carly makes her way up here and the music begins to play, if you’d like to know more about knowing Christ today or if you’ve made a decision to follow Christ today, I’d like to ask you to do one of three things.
One, you can make your way up here after I pray, and we can talk about what that looks like and how you can do that today.
Two, on the screen behind be is a number, you can simply text that number and I will receive that text and we can schedule a time to talk.
The third other option is there is a connect card attached to the bulletin or at the back of the sanctuary on the prayer table are some prayer cards, you can simply fill that out and when the ushers come by here in a moment you can drop that in the offering plate.
I’m going to give you all just a moment as those decisions are being made, but I want to encourage you as perhaps you are struggling with that.
If there is something going on, and you know, you are struggling with whether or not you should fill out a card or send that text, if that’s you and you are even considering that, but you don’t know what to say or how to say it, then here’s what I want to encourage you to do. You can send that text or fill out that card, and just say “call me” on it and leave your number. We’ll set up a time to talk and explore just what that looks like.
If you haven’t trusted Christ as your Savior and Lord yet, today can be that day.
Prayer.
Song: By His wounds