The Suffering Servant

Scripture Introduction:

You’re in exile. You’re ruled by a foreign power. The ways of God are quickly being diminished and subverted. Nothing looks like it once did. Your faith is often mocked in the marketplace. You have people actively trying to do away with your people....wipe them off the face of the earth forever.

You are crying for a rescuer. What does he or she look like? What are their characteristics? Does it sound anything like this?

Read Isaiah 52:13-53:12

Sermon Introduction:

Did that sound like the rescuer that you’d have in mind? Now, knowing the story of Christ it probably didn’t seem too shocking too us. But you can get a feel for what kind of head-scratching it would have caused the religious world over 2000 years ago.

This text actually appears in Acts 8 in a remarkable story about a guy named Philip who gets transported to an Ethiopian who just so happens to be reading our text this morning—Isaiah 53. Philip asks him if he understands…and he says, “how can I...” Who is this guy? Is this the prophet talking about himself? Is he talking about someone else?

And so that’s what we are going to be looking at this morning…trying to answer that question. Who is this suffering servant of Isaiah 52 and 53? Why does that matter…and if we can say that the servant has come and has done his job…what does that mean for us today?

First, why does this matter....or to ask that another way…what is this servant supposed to accomplish.

There are 10 statements here of what the Servant is going to do: And a hat tip to Piper here for compiling these...

1. Verse 4: "Surely our griefs He Himself bore."

2. Verse 4: " . . . And our sorrows He carried."

3. Verse 5: "But He was pierced through for our transgressions."

4. Verse 5: "He was crushed for our iniquities."

5. Verse 5: "The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him."

6. Verse 5: "And by His scourging we are healed."

7. Verse 6: "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

8. Verse 8: "[He was] stricken for the transgression of my people."

9. Verse 11: "He will bear their iniquities."

10. Verse 12: "He bore the sin of many."

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What all of these are focused on is the problem of our sin and it’s separation. AND the problem of the impact of sin---our sorrow and our well-being. We’ve not only put a separation between us and God we’re also experiencing the consequences of this separation.

That is the story of the Bible.

CREATION....God lovingly created us in His image to extend His glory through our enjoyment of Him.

God created us to lovingly enjoy Him and to extend His glory throughout the world. Rest. Rule. Relationship. Everything was amazing. The stuff you dream of. Peace. Shalom. Everything was good in the Garden.

Don’t eat of that one true…Would they trust God and rest in His goodness…or would they turn creation upside down? They chose the latter...

RESULT: Each person has great value, great responsibility, and great accountability to God.

TRANSITION: Though God created us to enjoy His grace and extend His glory we decided instead to find our satisfaction in self instead of God and to extend our “glory” instead of His.

FALL…Everything that causes you to weep, mourn, etc. is from this. It’s all turned upside down.

Key Point: We all rebel from God’s loving rule, and choose instead to pursue our own enjoyment and our own glory

Result: Rather than life, meaning, and freedom we are robbed of our humanity and the God-intended relationships with each other and our Creator. Because of sin we are now spiritually dead, enslaved, and under the wrath of God.

The same issue you see in Genesis 3 is present underneath our text in Isaiah 53. They are in exile because of sin. They need hope because of sin…both their own sin and the sin of others against them. They’re just thousands of years removed from that first sin…and it doesn’t get better…it multiplies. That’s why they need rescue.

A couple of principles here so that we can see how deep this goes....A radical disease requires a radical remedy.

We are spiritually dead.

We are enslaved

We are separated.

Implications: A....We can’t fix it. We won’t want to fix it. Something has to happen from the outside. And you see that all through Isaiah 53…something…someone from the outside has to rescue us.

B…This isn’t just behavior modification. If you’ve got a dead guy…what’s his problem? Lack of life…lack of breath…he’s dead. You don’t fix that problem by changing his circumstances…you don’t fix it by changing his behavior....giving him knowledge…helping his self-esteem....

No he needs life. And he can’t give it to himself. He needs a rescuer. YOU need a rescuer. That’s the only thing that will solve our spiritual death, our enslavement, and our separation from God.

Thankfully the gospel story isn’t just that God created us and we blew it. No the highlight is this...Key Point: But God has lovingly acted to rescue and restore humanity through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Now the question from the Ethiopian…who is this talking about?

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52:14....he’ll be rejected…is this even human?

52:15…this sprinkling of the nations points to the OT. What the priest would do to cleanse…cleansing the nations by His blood.

53:2…nothing to desire him. Take your beautiful white Jesus home…no beauty to desire him. He’s not going to stand out in a crowd. That was part of why he was rejected…Nazareth can anything good come from Nazareth.

53:3…despised…we see this on the Cross…we see this throughout his life. Even in our day.

53:4-6....NT picks this up. His death was for us.

53:6…like sheep have one astray.

Silence of Jesus....

Cut off from the land of the living...

How does he make intercession if he’s dead? Points to the resurrection....

Acts 8…Philip opened up the Word and showed him how Jesus fulfilled every single one of these things. Jesus is that rescuer. He is the one who can give life to the dead b/c he himself raised from the dead. He is the one who can take away our sin.

Why Jesus alone?

Why is this necessary…

Proverbs 17:15 ESV

He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the Lord.

God is holy and just. Therefore God cannot simply pardon sinners. Would a judge be righteous to allow a murderer or rapist to go free simply because he said he was sorry? A righteous judge must punish sin.

God is also infinite. So our sin against him is infinite.

Man is the guilty party. So only man can pay the penalty for mankind. or act as a substitute on man’s behalf. Our dilemma is that expressed by Job who longed for one to “lay his hand on us both”.

Jesus is BOTH GOD AND MAN

His perfect life. His spotless righteousness. His account is given our to us.

His death was our death.

His resurrection is our resurrection.

Result: Redemption and Restoration is found in no one else. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

So what does this mean?

Salvation is found in no one or no place else. But if Christ IS that Suffering Servant and he has accomplished it…let’s go back through that list of things....

Do you believe that?