I Believe: Our Suffering Saviour (Isaiah 52:13-53:12)

Hello, listeners.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning into Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca.

Today we continue our sermon series in the Christian life with God, our Creator.

Let us pray.

Almighty God, whose most dear son went not up to joy, but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified.

Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord.

Amen.

And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be always pleasing in your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, today we continue our journey through the Apostles' Creed.

This statement of Christian belief, I believe, that has been with the church since the second century, a faithful summary of the biblical doctrine that we've received from generations before us.

We've saw how the creed itself, well, it's something like the transit map.

It gives us the neighborhood of Christian doctrine, the truth that we believe and the truth that we profess.

We saw that this creed, in its DNA, is Trinitarian.

It bears witness to our triune God, and because God is triune, he is love.

And this God who is love created us human beings in his image.

To know him, to glorify him, to share with him in this wonderful privilege and mission of cultivating creation.

But what we saw is we, his creation, fell into corruption.

Our first parents rebelled against him, and in self-will reaped the consequences of rebellion and sin and death entered into the world.

But to heal the corruption of our human nature, the word who was God, the word who was with God in the beginning, took on flesh and dwelt among us in his virgin birth.

He took on our humanity to heal it, to restore it.

And now we come to that part of the creed where we behold the cross.

I believe in Jesus Christ, is what the creed says.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate.

This was real suffering, not hypothetical suffering, not a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, kind of fairy tale suffering.

This was real first century suffering under a real first century Roman governor.

Jesus really was taken away by impression and judgment.

Jesus really was crucified, died, and buried.

Not hypothetically, not apparently.

The Quran says that Jesus didn't actually die on the cross, but only appeared to have died and was actually restored to health later on.

No, Jesus really was executed by Roman executioners who knew what they were doing.

He died, he was buried.

The creed even says he descended to the dead, which is to say, his soul departed his body.

The word that became flesh and took on the same human life that we live is the same word who took on flesh and experienced the human death that is ours.

He really died.

And the cross is the central event of all scripture.

It holds all things together.

Before the cross, everything points ahead to this moment where God is with us, bearing our sin, bearing our corruption in his marred body.

And everything that follows the cross in Scripture is seeking to understand the significance of this divine event and understand how it is that we're to live in light of what God has accomplished in Christ.

All of Scripture bears witness to this event.

And I want to suggest that one of the places the cross is most clearly anticipated is in Isaiah chapters 52 and 53.

Isaiah 52 · chapter mention

This is our Old Testament reading this morning.

And what is so remarkable is Isaiah, inspired by the Holy Spirit, writes about the cross, writes about God's suffering, saving servant, nearly 700 years before Jesus was born.

This passage, Isaiah 52 and 53, is known as the fourth servant song.

There are four servant songs in the book of Isaiah.

And these songs are about God's Messiah, his promised, saving, anointed one.

And it's about what he will accomplish.

This fourth servant song is about Jesus.

Well, all servant songs are about Jesus.

This one points us to Jesus' cross.

And we know that because we read in Acts chapter 8 that Philip the Apostle met an Ethiopian eunuch in a desert road who was reading this passage of Isaiah and trying to understand it.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

And Philip, sent there by the Holy Spirit, Acts chapter 8 says, opened his mouth and beginning with this scripture, this very reading of ours today, told him the good news about Jesus.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Philip took the scripture and spoke to this Ethiopian, the gospel, the good news of what God has accomplished in Christ.

For us, this reading is good news.

It's good news for us gathered today at Newsong, here or online.

Isaiah 52 and 53 tells us that God's servant suffered for our sins so that we could have peace with God.

This suffering, saving servant took on our condition of corruption to put it to death, so that we could have a restored relationship with our loving Heavenly Father.

There are five stanzas to this servant song that each speak well unfathomable truth, but we're going to see five truths that these stanzas speak.

Five truths about the one crucified, the one who hangs on the cross.

This servant is exalted.

This servant is rejected.

This servant is our substitute.

This servant is innocent, and this servant is finally triumphant.

Exalted, rejected, our substitute, innocent and triumphant.

This servant, this suffering saving servant, is Jesus.

So today this isn't some kind of a self-help sermon.

I hope I'm not the sort to preach self-help sermons.

This is the sort of sermon that points us to the one on the cross.

This is the sort of sermon that says, Behold the man upon the cross, our sin upon his shoulders.

Behold the man upon the cross, because he is there for you and for me.

Let's look at these five truths that Isaiah 52 and 53 tells us about the one on the cross.

The Lord's servant is exalted.

Verses 13 to 15.

Behold, my, that is, the Lord's servant, shall act wisely.

He shall prosper, he shall succeed in his task.

One translator says, This servant is going to thrive.

He shall be high and lifted up.

He shall be exalted.

Kind of language maybe rings a bell.

We're here to lift Jesus high in Port Perry as we worship, grow, and serve.

And here this servant is promised that he'll be an exalted servant.

He's going to be lifted high.

He's going to be elevated.

So much so that it says, kings, which is to say, the wisest people around, are going to see this servant acting so wisely that they shall shut their mouths because of him.

They're going to be rendered speechless because of what they see.

For that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard, they understand.

So this servant is going to be exalted.

He's going to be exalted far above any other earthly king.

And this is a servant with a mission.

What does that mission entail?

Well, oddly enough, chapter 52, verse 14, it requires that he be brought low.

His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance, his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

This servant is going to be exalted, but not as one who avoids humiliation.

He is going to be one who is exalted even through humiliation.

Perhaps, well, I think Isaiah speaks what Paul echoes in 1 Corinthians chapter 1, that the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

God's wisdom here blows the minds of these kings who wouldn't have otherwise expected what God is doing here.

It's a paradox of God's saving work.

It's exaltation, it's lifting the servant high by bringing him low.

That's why Jesus can say of the cross that I, and when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.

That's what he says in John chapter 12.

John 12 · chapter mention

We would probably have a lot of ideas what lifting Jesus up looks like, what it looks like to be lifted up with Jesus.

But John interjects to say, Jesus said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.

Jesus is exalted, he's lifted high as one who is brought low, and brought low for our sake.

Maybe Isaiah here is confronting a worldly understanding of exaltation, of what success and elevated status looks like for Christians.

These are things our hearts are inclined to chase after, aren't they?

Christian exaltation looks like not self-glorification, but being brought low for the sake of others, so that God's saving work can be put on display, and we can have a share in that glory which is God's alone.

Therefore, Paul can write in Romans chapter 5, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

We too will share in this exaltation of this servant, but as we take up our cross and follow him.

This Lord the Lord's servant is exalted even through humiliation.

The Lord's servant is rejected.

This servant is unbelievably unremarkable.

That's what Isaiah seems to say in 53, verse 1.

Who's believed what they've heard from us?

This is unbelievable stuff.

He, this servant, grew up before him, that is the Lord.

He grew up before the Lord like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no former majesty that we should look at him, no beauty that we should desire him.

This servant is a picture of humiliation and weakness.

He's not particularly magnetic.

Perhaps truth and God's saving action in history is not necessarily the most attractive or magnetic thing around.

It's easy to overlook.

This servant is easy to dismiss, and that's what's happened.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, as one from whom men hide their faces.

He was despised and we esteemed him not.

That's an accounting term.

Some of us are accountants.

I do my taxes every year, that's about as far as I get.

But the idea here is we've added up the numbers, we've tallied up the score sheet, and we've come out with a big fat zero regarding this servant.

We esteemed him not.

We've counted him as zero.

Get him out of here.

Jesus is no stranger to rejection.

He was rejected again and again by the Pharisees within his hometown, by the crowd at his trial, by his very own disciples, as he's being scourged.

But the gospel, the good news about Jesus, is all about remarkable reversals, the first or last.

We're exalted through being brought low, and rejection brings revelation.

This rejected servant reveals what Isaiah describes in 53, verse 1, as the arm of the Lord.

The arm of the Lord is God's mighty power to save.

One of the vivid memories I have of being young is, well, my dad would flex his bicep, and when I was young, I'd just grab onto it with both hands and start swinging.

Did you do the same?

Maybe you've done that for your kids if you have kids.

I thought my dad's arm was the mightiest arm around.

I thought he could beat up Schwarzenegger.

He might be able to do that too.

But it's this feeling of mighty security.

There's nothing he can't accomplish.

And this is the arm of the Lord.

His saving power is limitless.

And this is what's beheld in this rejected servant.

For those who have the eyes of faith to see, they see not a rejected, dismissed servant.

They see the Lord at work saving his people.

And if this is true, perhaps we ought not to be surprised when we face rejection for Christ's sake.

And nor should we, as Christians, face rejection without hope.

Rather, like Paul writes, we rejoice in our sufferings, which includes rejection, knowing that our suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

So the Holy Spirit seals a hope that goes beyond rejection into our hearts.

The Holy Spirit seals God's saving love right here in the very core of our being.

This servant is rejected, but for those with the eyes of faith to see, we see God's mighty arm to save being revealed.

This servant is exalted, this servant is rejected, this servant is our substitute.

This is the heart of the gospel in verses four to six.

Jesus takes, we receive.

That's the good news of Jesus.

The good news, by the way, is not here's a new spiritual self-help program.

It's called being a really, really, really good person.

The gospel is Jesus takes, we receive.

That's good news.

And that's the good news that Isaiah wants us to see in verses four to six.

Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.

Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted.

We thought this is one who's getting God's worst treatment.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.

Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

And by his wounds we are healed.

See, Jesus takes, he takes our griefs, our transgressions, our sins, our iniquities, our corrupted human nature.

He carries our sorrows.

He's like the sacrificial lamb in the book of Leviticus.

Some of us read through the book of Leviticus recently.

He carries that iniquity that separates us from God and puts it to death in his death.

And like the scapegoat, sends it out into the wilderness, never to be seen again.

Jesus takes that iniquity, that sin, that transgression, which is ours, and gives us his peace and heals us by his wounds.

The cross is many things, but it is not less than an exchange.

It's an exchange of our sin for his righteousness.

And why does that exchange take place?

Because we deserve it?

Isaiah wants to say no, he was all we like sheep have gone astray.

We have turned everyone to his own way.

This was not us deserving this.

This was the righteous dying for the unrighteous, the faithful for the unfaithful, the good shepherd for us, wayward sheep.

That's why Paul can write in 2 Corinthians, for our sake, God made him, Jesus, to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

This is the exchange that take place.

It is for our healing.

This is the forgiveness of sin wrought by our repenting faith and the grace of God.

Friends, this is important assurance for us believers, because I don't know about you, but my conscience and the enemy can accuse me when I've sinned that sin for the thousandth time, that sin that I've promised and sworn off again and again, that sin that makes me feel like I'm a fake, like I'm a hypocrite.

When I need assurance that God really is for me and not against me, this is a comforting thought.

Paul writes, Since we've been justified, we have been made righteous by faith.

We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

And he goes on to say, while we were still weak, we were powerless, we were helpless like sheep, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

Do you feel accused by your sin?

Don't look within to find assurance.

Don't look for the good deeds that you can try and muster up but find lacking.

Look at the cross.

That's where he bore your sin and your transgression and your iniquity and did away with it, and gave you his peace and his goodness and his righteousness.

This is the good news.

The Lord's servant is our substitute.

He takes God's wrath, and we receive his peace, we receive his love.

Unless we think that this servant in some way deserves punishment, Isaiah is quick to tell us that the Lord's servant is innocent.

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

That's why Jesus offers no self-defense at his trial.

His desire is to be for his people the spotless lamb, to be their substitute, to be the one to take away their sin.

He was cut off from the land of the living, Isaiah writes, stricken for the transgression of God's people, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

What the servant receives is not what he deserves.

He receives what he desires for the sake of his people.

Even at the cross, the one crucified next to Jesus says, This man has done no wrong.

Even the centurion says, This man is innocent.

The Lord's servant is an innocent one.

He suffers for our sake, so that we could have a part of his righteousness.

This is where I want to land today.

The Lord's servant is exalted.

The Lord's servant is rejected.

The Lord's servant is our substitute.

The Lord's servant is innocent, and finally, the Lord's servant is triumphant.

Verses 10 to 12.

None of this is just a tragedy of history.

None of this is just the stars aligning in such a sad way.

All of this was God's will.

All of this was the Father's loving will for us in Christ, and Christ himself was delighted to follow through with it for our sake.

Verse 10 It was the will of the Lord to crush him, this servant.

When his soul has made an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

There's a flip side here.

It's the will of the Lord to crush this servant for the sake of those of transgressors, and yet it's also the will of the Lord that he should prosper, that he should thrive, that he should succeed, that he should be exalted.

We're right back at exaltation.

It's the Lord's will that he's crushed, but it's the Lord's will that the servant triumphs at the same time.

I suspect that's why Peter, preaching to an open crowd on the day of Pentecost, can say, Men of Israel hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth.

This Jesus, he goes on to say, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, not random circumstances, God's will.

This man delivered up by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

Neither the crucifixion nor the resurrection happened by accident.

This is Jesus triumphing over sin and death, taking our sin upon himself to give us his victory.

That's why in verse 12 Isaiah can say, Therefore, I, the Lord, will divide him a portion with the many.

Suddenly, this servant that was put to death is miraculously alive and dividing up spoil as if from war.

He shall divide the spoil with the strong.

This is a conqueror who's dividing spoil with those who belong to him.

He's conquered death, and he's generously dealing out new life.

In Christ, we have an inheritance of new life.

In Christ, we see a victorious conqueror.

We see his exaltation through humiliation.

We see the hope of our forgiveness.

The Holy Spirit seals the Lord's triumph over death and sin in our hearts and guarantees us a portion of this new life.

The Lord's servant is triumphant over death.

So the good news for us today, friends, is that God's servant suffered for our sins so we could have peace with God.

He has taken upon himself what is ours, our transgression and sin, and given us newness of life and forgiveness and an eternal inheritance.

We're assured by this every time we look at the cross and we behold the Lord's servant who is exalted, rejected, our substitute, who is innocent and triumphant.

We know that this servant is Jesus.

So my question for you today is: do you know this Jesus?

Do you know this servant who is exalted, rejected, our substitute, innocent and triumphant?

You can say yes to him today in faith.

You can be counted among those who have an inheritance of new life, of those who are forgiven.

And if you do know Jesus, if you endeavor to be his disciple, you can rejoice.

His death has brought you new life and peace.

You are secure because of what our faithful servant has done for us.

So behold the man upon the cross.

He's there for you.

He was there for me.

Amen.