Becoming Whole Sermon Week 4 (3)

Intro/Welcome

I was in the Navy for 10 years, 2 months and 2 days.

I joined July 28, 1999 and was Honorably Discharged September 30th, 2009

October 1, 2009 I emerged as a new man.

For the Previous 10 years there were certain freedoms I did not have

Can you imagine the feeling?

The relief, the release was palpable.

It wasn’t until my ‘state’ was changed that I could take hold of my freedom.

Today we look at what it means to Behold Christ but also to take Hold of Christ

Series Intro

We are in week 4 of a our “Becoming Whole Series” as we look at what Transformation looks like.

Last week: We saw brokenness

Our hearts are simultaneously Wounded and Sinful

These become hindrances to our transformation

Hebrews 12:1 ESV let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus

This week: How do we do that?

More specifically, what has God done for us that enables us to change.

What has God releases us from that enables our restoration?

How does God intend to make us whole?

What we will see today is that:

Jesus needed to be broken so that we could be made whole.

We’ll be in Isaiah 53:1-6

Go there in you Bibles

Welcome, My Name

Glad to be with you wherever you find yourself.

Pray

Help us to worship you Jesus. Holy Spirit come!

Beholding Jesus

We opened up this series looking at 2 Cor 3:18

[Annotation]

2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

We said that ‘beholding the glory of the Lord’ meant that we were beholding the person and the work of Christ.

And it is by this beholding Christ that we are transformed by the power of the Spirit.

When we behold the person and the work of Christ, what do we see?

Let’s look at Isaiah 53:1-6

This is the Fourth Suffering Song in the Book of Isaiah, whereby God begins to reveal his plans for the Restoration of His people through the Suffering Servant.

He Identifies with Us

Isaiah 53:2 ESV 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.

When God became a man in Jesus he was an ordinary human being, like you and me.

There wasn’t anything particularly attractive about Him.

He wasn’t first to get picked for a team

He didn’t have a natural allure the drew people

He wasn’t some charasmatic leader who had a BIG Personality that attracted followers.

He wasn’t the popular kid in high school.

Some of us relate to that.

We felt not included, we weren’t in the popular circles, we weren’t picked first.

Jesus knows how this is, he too was ‘nothing special’ humanly speaking.

We can find some comfort in that

But it goes further

Isaiah 53:3 ESV He was despised and rejected (forsaken) by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces (people turn away from) he was despised, and we esteemed him not. (We did not value him)

Jesus experienced rejection, sorrow, suffering, grief.

He was not valued by the people of his generation.

Some of you feel that you have no value,

you have believed that lie becuase of your story, your wounds.

Jesus knows that that like.

It said people turned their faces from him, he was despised

You ever experienced that? People just avoid you? they ghost you?

You feel despised hated?

Jesus knows what that is like.

You see Jesus

he doesn’t just know your suffering (he does know that fully), but he to knows suffering

He has experienced everything that you have.

This is incredible.

No other religion makes a claim anything like this.

That the all powerful God, the Creator of all things, entered into his Creation

and subjected himself to the same kind of suffering as his people.

This means that wherever you are, whatever your story.

Jesus knows. He can identify with you.

He has gone before you. He knows the way out of shame, exclusion and suffering.

This is the miracle of the Incarnation.

Hebrews 4:15 ESV15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Tempted to doubt God’s goodness and plan

Tempted to go his own way

Tempted to repay evil for evil

Faced the enemy as you and I do.

Tempted, Yet without Sin (like a lamb, silent, no deceit in his mouth)

Isaiah 53:7 ESV7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

Isaiah 53:9 ESV “he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.”

Jesus knows the way forward.

Jesus not only identifies with us, but he substitutes himself for us.

Jesus had to be broken so that we could be made whole

Let’s look at Isaiah 53:4-6, which is the heart of Isaiah 53

He Substitutes for us

Isaiah 53:4 ESV Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows (sufferings, pains); yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. (we considered him punished by God)

In Jesus, God, doesn’t just identify with our sufferings

He literally bears them. He carries them. He takes them upon himself.

Yet ‘we’ the people of his day, and in our day

‘considered him as punished by God,’

Which of course he was, not becuase of his sins, but because of ours

Isaiah 53:5a ESV But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;

He was pierced by 7” spikes as he was crucified

he was crushed

For what? For OUR SINS, yours and mine and the whole world.

We said last week that SIN was the problem

that SIN is the source of all suffering and sadness in the world.

The world is broken becuase of SIN

Jesus atoning death is the solution.

Our sin warranted death, Jesus substitutes himself in our place for our sins.

The Atonement

His life as an offering for sin (Isa 53:10)

Isaiah 53:10 ESV10 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 will make many righteous, He shall bear their iniquities (Isa 53:11)

Isaiah 53:11 ESV by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

He bears their sin

Isaiah 53:12 ESV he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Jesus had to be broken so that we could be made whole

Possible Romans 5:7-8 How Bad a Person

Romans 5:7–8 ESV7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Consider the White Supremacists who out of his racism goes and shoots up a black church.

Jesus died for sin. You and I are sinners in need of a savior.

Jesus had to be broken so that we could be made whole

How are we made whole?

Isaiah 53:5b ESV upon him was the chastisement (punishment, judgment) that brought us peace, and with (by) his wounds we are healed.

Peace = shalom

fullness, wholeness, harmony = God’s intention for humanity

Healed = spiritually, restored

by his wounds we are healed

Jesus had to be broken so that we could be made whole

All of us, everyone of us.

Isaiah 53:6 ESV All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on (punished) him the iniquity of us all.

Jesus died for Sin, but he was resurrected in power!

Romans 4:25 ESV 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.

Resurrection Power

We also see the Resurrection here in this passage.

[Annotation]

Isaiah 53:10 ESV10 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.

he shall see his offspring and prolong his days (Isa 53:10)

the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. (Isa 53:10)

Isaiah 53:11 ESV11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.

Out of anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied (Isa 53:11)

Isaiah 53:12 ESV12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

divide him a portion with the many, divide spoil with the strong (victorious) (Isa 53:12)

So we need to behold what God has done for us in Christ.

But we also need to take hold of it.

We need to understand just what has happened to us when we believed in person and the work of Jesus.

This will be foundational for our understanding transformation.

Taking hold of Christ

Holy Spirit

Jesus Christ

Beholding = Worshipping

We need to meditate on this great truths and what they mean for us.

It will be by receiving and appropriating what Christ had done for us that we will be changed this is what it means to behold

We behold and then take hold of Christ

In the coming weeks we are going to unpack what it means to take hold of Christ

Next week: Healing, Repenting and Appropriating

Application: who has believed our report? Isaiah 53:1

Isaiah 53:1 ESV1 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Simply this to meditate on these truths

The truth will set you free

These are are true of you if you believe in Jesus

These can be true of you if you would believe in Jesus.

He is your greatest need, your truest self, your deepest longing, what your very souls were made for.

Jesus had to be broken so that you could be made whole.