A Promised Messiah Pt 1

Introduction

What is the goal of your life? What is it that you are striving for right now? What are you working towards, pursuing day in and day out?

When you go to work in the morning. When you come home in the evening. During the weekend or on your days off. In your retirement. What is it that you are pursuing?

We began a few weeks ago, in our series “Finding the Messiah”, looking at the period of Israel’s history when everything seemed to be falling apart. The nation was split into two Kingdoms, The Northern Kingdom, composed of 9 of the tribes of Israel, was ruled only by wicked kings. The Southern Kingdom, Judah, had a sprinkling of godly, faithful kings, but was overall not much better. Each of these kingdoms were eventually overtaken by foreign nations and taken into exile.

All throughout this period, though, the Lord provided Prophets to serve as His messengers to His people—warning them, calling them back to Himself, assuring them of His purposes and His promises. It would take many, many weeks to navigate together all of the prophecies given, even as we look through the lens of our series and ask, “Where do we find the Messiah” within these prophecies. So what I would like to do over this week and next is to look at two very prominent prophecies that point towards this Promised Messiah, the promised Saviour. And as we look at these prophecies, it won’t be hard to answer the question we’ve been asking througout this series: “Where is the Messiah”, because we’re going to look at very clear, very direct descriptions of this Messiah.

So our focus over these next two weeks isn’t simply to ask where He is, but as we see him, we ask: What then should our response be to such a Messiah, to a Saviour such as this?

What do these bold declarations of who this Messiah is to be, as fulfilled in Jesus Christ, mean for us who are followers of this Messiah?

The first prophecy we are going to look at, we find in the book of Isaiah. If you have your Bible, I invite you to turn with me to Isaiah 52. I struggled this week trying to navigate what to focus on in this sermon. There is so much in the prophecies of Isaiah that we could look at, and even passages immediately leading up to and immediately following the one we’re focusing on this morning. I also know that the attention span of listenners usually correlates quite closely with the comfort of their seat. I was reminded this week of the story of the young man, Eutychus who fell asleep and fell out of a window from three floors up while the Apostle Paul was preaching, and needed to be healed by Paul. Now, while I do still believe God works miracles today, let’s perhaps avoid people falling from their chairs exhausted by long-winded preaching.

So I’m going to begin this morning by sharing two major assumptions I am making in this sermon, that I believe to be valid, and right and true based off of what Scripture teaches, but that I am not going to explain in detail. If you are curious why I came to these conclusions, why I am making these assumptions, shoot me an email or let’s grab coffee and I can share more. But for expediency’s sake this morning, these are assumptions I am working off of:

The Suffering Servant, referred to in 4 different spots in Isaiah’s prophecies, is ultimately referring to the coming Messiah, who is Jesus. (I draw this conclusion from specific New Testament references to Isaiah’s prophecies.)

The Suffering Servant, of whom we will be looking at this morning, was promised not only to Ethnic Israel, but also to all who would embrace Him, no matter what ethnicity, tribe or language the came from. (This is drawn from specific portions of Isaiah’s prophecies surrounding these references to the Suffering Servant.)

So as we jump in this morning, to put it simply, two major conclusions we are assuming: This is about Jesus, and it’s for you and me.

Let’s pray before we read.

PRAY

Understanding the Suffering Servant

READ Isaiah 52:13 - 53:12

There’s so much, even here, but let’s quickly go through it because, again, our focus this morning is going to revolve around what our resposne should be to the realities of who this Messiah is, this Suffering Servant.

He is to “act wisely”. The Hebrew word there has a double meaning, also meaning to “be succussful”. He’s going to understand and comprehend wisdom, act in that wisdom, and find success in his wise actions. So the things He is going to do are wise and are going to be marked by success.

He is going to be exalted. These three phrases: “be high”, “lifted up”, and “exalted” all point to this idea of being elevated to to a high position worthy of praise and exaltation. This is a place reserved in Scripture for God Himself.

So these are the first two realities we find regarding this Suffering Servant, through which we have to now see everything else. And it’s important we hold onto these, because what comes next appears to show a very different picture…

His appearance so marred, beyond human semblance

No form or majesty

No beauty

Despised and Rejected

Man of Sorrows

Acquainted with grief (sickness)

one from whom men hide their faces

Despised

And we think: This makes no sense! This wise and successful exalted One! How do these two realities go together?

Then Verse 4-11

The reason this all happened: It was our griefs (sickness) that he bore. It was our sorrows that he carried. It was our transgressions that He was pierced for. It was our iniquities he was crusehd for. His chastisement brought us peace, and his wounds brought us healing.

You see, on our own, in our sin, we are all like sheep who have gone astray, going after his own way, and finding the very just repurcussions of that choice that we make. So lost in our sin, that at first we don’t see, at first, we don’t understand how this highly exalted, wise and succesful servant of God could be met by such pain and such suffering…

Not realizing, not recognizing that it wasn’t for His own transgressions that He was cut off and stricken…but for ours.

As one commentator put it, “…the servant’s affliction stems not from unworthiness but from his unique capacity to redeem others.”

His suffering, His affliction was not the result of anything He had done, but was the fruit of His ability, His capacity, to redeem us.

Don’t miss that in verse 10: “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief, when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.”

This was the greatest act of redemption the world has ever seen. The suffering Servant, God Himself, taking on flesh, bearing upon Himself the griefs, sorrows, pains, the punishment that we deserve.

…and with his wounds we are healed.

There’s so much we could sit here and unpack in these verses, but I hope we see the main point of this prophecy regarding this Servant of the Lord and its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ: He took our place, he bore our sin upon Himself, and through His sacrifice, we are healed, redeemed, and given life! And this act, this amazing, mind-blowing sacrifice that so many people miss, is the very thing that leads to Him being lifted high above all others, exalted above any other throne or dominion. It is through this sacrifice that we see the Wisdom of God successfully displayed before all of mankind. We could jump over to 1 Corinthians 1 & 2 and talk about the Wisdom of God and how it seems like utter foolishness to this world, but we’ve already done that twice over the past year and half, so we won’t this morning.

This prophecy given hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, when everything seemed to be falling apart within the people of God…One who would come and take their place, bear their sin, make a way for them to be redeemed. (Redeemed is one of those words we use a lot in church, but maybe don’t always remember or know what it means: Redemption is an act of freeing someone from bondage, whether slavery, sin, death. This is what the Suffering Servant, Jesus the Messiah did for you and for me.)

Our Response

So now we come to the question I wan tto challenge us to consider this morning: What should our response be to this reality? As those who follow Him…who bear His name…What is the calling He has placed on our lives?

Please turn with me to Colossians 1.

I’m going to be honest with you…I didn’t fully enjoy my sermon preparation this past week. And it’s because it made me uncomfortable. It forced me to ask myself some really difficult questions that I am still wrestling with. And so as we move into this time now, I am inviting you into this discomfort…into this place of wrestling…and I can’t promise that it’s going to be enjoyable for you. But what I can promise, because Scripture promises it: If you, if I, continue to press in, continue to wrestle, continue to surrender…we will come to know a greater joy than we could have ever know otherwise.

What should our response be to this Messiah who came as a suffering servant?

READ Colossians 1:24

Okay, let’s be honest, this almost sounds heretical what Paul is saying here: “…filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions”. It’s interesting how God works…on Tuesday of this past week, Pastor Mike from Bethel Church stopped by here to chat and pray (he does that regularly), and he mentioned this verse to me, wanting to know my thoughts. And at that point, I had no idea that it was going to play such a prominant role in me message this morning, but the Lord used that conversation to get my mind and heart going to ponder what it is that we’re being told here.

Now, one thing we can reject right away, based off of the clear teaching of Scripture (seen in other parts of Paul’s writings, even) is that he’s referring to the Atoning work of Christ—that Sacrifice that purchased our redemption. Paul isn’t in any way saying here that Jesus’ sacrifice was in any way lacking in regard to it’s sufficiency to pay the price for sin and our salvation.

So what is Paul getting at here? Let’s look at it in context, we’re going to read verse 24 - 28

READ Colossians 1:24-28

Paul is writing here about the calling on his life to make the word of God fully known among these people. And he has been doing that, not simply through his preaching (though that was an important part), but also through his suffering.

Paul had become the visible presentation of Christ’s suffering through the suffering he endured. Those in Colossae that he is writing to…they weren’t eye witnesses to the sufferings of Christ. They didn’t see Him beaten and mocked. They didn’t see the crown of thorns thrust upon His head or see Him hung on that cross. But they saw Paul…they saw the suffering he willingly endured to make the Gospel known among them.

This is the “filling up what is lacking”—it is the visible and personal presentation of the sufferings of Christ to others.

Now here’s where it gets uncomfortable:

Am I willing to do the same? Are you?

Now before we give a quick, mindless resposne, let’s truly consider what it is we are speaking of when we speak of suffering. Because Paul explains elsewhere what it is that he endured:

2 Corinthians 11:23–27 “Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure.”

Philippians 3:7–11 “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

And in case we might think this pertains to only Paul and perhaps a few others…

Remember Christ’s call:

Matthew 16:24–26 “Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”

A book that has been one of the most challenging in my walk with the Lord (other than the Bible) is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship”. In it he says: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

He calls us to die to this life, to the things of this world! And in this life, as we await the fulfillment of all that Christ has promised, we carry a cross…

Listen to Paul’s words in Philippians 1:

Philippians 1:29–30 “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.”

Do you count it a gift, an honour, to be found worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ?

Or are you living your life fighting with all that you can to avoid suffering?

In the year 197, an early church father by the name of Tertullian wrote these words: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”

You and I are here today because countless followers of the Suffering Servant counted it an honour to be found worthy to suffer for the sake of Christ…to be the personal and visible presentation of Christ’s suffering to the world.

Will we join them?

The last 250 years has lulled the Church of North America to sleep, caused us to beleive that we can have our “Best LIfe Now” by simply following these 7 easy steps…that somehow the good, Christian life means confort and prosperity in this world.

But church…that is not what Christ has called us to.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night He was betrayed, He did not leave His disciples wondering as to how they should expect to be treated in the world…how should expect to be treated in the world:

John 15:19–20 “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”

Do you know where the fasted growing churches are in the world? In the places where there is the greatest persecution, where Christians are facing the greatest suffering.

Do you know where the church appears to be dying…to be slowly fading into the background? Where it has most safely existed for the last 250 years.

We are far too often marked by a fear of suffering. When laws seem to be changing…when rights appear as though they might be taken away…what is our response? We fight, we picket, we get angry.

Why is this our response? We’re told to expect it! Why are we holding on so tightly to this facade that we can somehow be friends with this world?!?!

Church, we must learn to embrace the suffering! Surrender our lives to the Suffering Servant! Trusting that as we suffer, as the message of Christ is proclaimed through the suffering we face in this life, that God is doing something so much greater…

I’ve said this countless times from this platform: there is a world outside of these doors that is in desperate need of salvation. And we have the answer! We know the Way, the Truth and the Life! And the call on our lives is to show them this truth, to be the visible and personal presentation of the sufferings of Christ through our lives.

Are we willing to suffer?

I have often wondered, and this is the first time I’ve said this publically…would the greatest tool for the advancement of the Gospel in Canada, in the “west”, in fact be greater persecution? We often pray, I often pray, thanking God for the freedom to gather to worship in public without fear of imprisonmnet, without fear of attack…but has this freedom actually led to a weakened Church, unable and unwilling to take up our Cross and follow Him?

I am preaching this message just as much, if not more, to myself than anyone else here this morning…

I am far too comfortable. I am far too unwilling to suffer.

Lord, would you please change that. Lord, would you please make us ready, make us willing, strengthen your Church, strengthen your people, help us to not just accept the gift of believing, but the gift of suffering for the sake of Christ.

SONG OF SURRENDER: I Surrender All.

2 Corinthians 4:16–18 “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”