Isaiah 53
Notes
Transcript
Isaiah 53
Isaiah 53
Good evening church! We are picking up in an incredible passage of Scripture tonight. Isaiah 53 along with Psalm 22 reveal to us an incredible amount of information about the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Not at all a coincidence that we are in this passage on the same evening that we are scheduled to remember and proclaim the sacrificial death and the life giving resurrection of Jesus.
If you were with us last week we made it as far as verse 3, Let me read that far. Isa 53:1-3
1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Lord GOD, as we read from Your Word, about Your Son, please reveal YOURSELF further to us. In Jesus name, amen.
Much of the passage I’m going to read tonight is probably familiar to most of you guys. With that, we are sometimes tempted to move through it quickly to get to the passages that you’re not familiar with, so the teaching and equipping can continue.
But I want you to consider again the time frame when these words were written. Roughly 700 years somewhere between 740-690 B.C. , 700 years before Jesus was born. These words were written. IF that is so, then how do we know they were written about Him? Could they be talking about Israel, or could they be talking about another man? No way! We will talk about that more later. Perhaps there could have been confusion when this was written, or before the cross, but there shouldn’t be today. I want to quickly look at verse two again.
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
This is speaking of Jesus, and I think last time we met, I talked about there been dry ground between the old testament profit Malachi and John the Baptist showing up as the forerunner for Jesus. God was silent for 400 years! But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that and comparing it to the world that we currently live in. A world that is so dry and so parched, they have lost their desire for God.
Pastor Josh was talking about the kids that they see every day that are hungry and thirsty. Some of you might remember years ago the horrible videos they used to show on television of little kids with belly's distended that are literally starving to death. There is a period of time in that process, a window when the sensation of hunger disappears. Right up to the time that the body begins to consume itself, muscle tissue, etc. I don’t bring that up to be gross, or to invoke emotions this evening. But this picture of our world, our community being dry ground.
No longer a sense of community. But yet that is offered here! No longer a sense of belonging, or compassion, or a life lived with a sense of purpose and belonging, yet that is all offered here. But the world is dry, and we need to stimulate that appetite by showing them we have something, someone that is desirable. Pastor Josh said that if our friends, if our co-workers, or our families don’t know that we are a Christian, that is a problem. With that I agree. We have the answer, we have the hope, we have the quencher of thirst. I don’t mean our church. We need to be pointing those experiencing dry ground to Jesus. He said, John 7:37-38
37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
Not only is this world we live in dry ground, but people themselves are broken, and hurting, depressed, some living in dark, dark, discouraging places. Verse 3 again says. Isa 53:3
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
I think I shared the passage last time about Him coming to His own, and His own received Him not. I did that in closing as so much of what is written about this talks about that piece of it. How we are called to be sober minded, it’s even a qualification for church leaders. But it is such an interesting title for Jesus. He certainly is loving, He is merciful, yet those are not titles that He is given. Here He is called A Man of sorrows and in the next verse it tells us why…Isa 53:4
4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
He is A Man of Sorrows from carrying our grief, from bearing our pain, carrying our sorrows. This isn’t talking about Him taking on the wrath of God for us. This is saying that He gets us, and He wants to take the pain that is on the inside, so that we can survive it. SO that we can have joy, He will carry the pain. It is too heavy for us. Too raw for us sometimes.
Some of you guys met Jordan on Sunday, one of the guys on the Great commission ministries team. I’ve been friends with his family for a long, long time. He came up to me when they got here and said, hey I was telling these guys about the time you carried me out of a swamp. That was probably 20 years ago, so I said tell me the story. Jordan was just a boy then. He reminded me of a day that we were hunting out at his grandfather’s camp. His father was in another section and Jordan and I were walking through the woods and came upon a swamp. It started getting deeper and deeper and he finally said he couldn’t go anymore.
He said, you just said OK, picked me up on your shoulder and carried me out of there. So we joked about it a little bit, and how much that is like ministry sometimes. Things can get messy, and sometimes one of us needs to be carried for a season, but that is how we support each other. But that is how I envision this verse. That Jesus takes your grief, and He takes my sorrows, and piles them all upon His back and carries them, when we can’t go anymore. Only He wants to take them before they they begin to weigh us down at all....yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Concerning verse 5 there has forever been debate on the meaning of the last part, we are healed by His stripes. Is this where physical healing comes from? Is this talking about healing from sins? Yes, and yes. I personally don’t think it should be a debate. Our sin put Him on the cross. I know those are big words, and they should be big words. Because when I say my sin put Jesus on the cross, it means that because of my sin, He had to be wounded, He had to be bruised, He was chastised, scourged, pierced, crucified, because I disobeyed God, Jesus Had to suffer, and all of that is true. But also because that is true, it means that if only I had sinned, He still would have done it.
Do you get the depth of love that that requires. I don’t know what levels your anxieties get to, or your fears. When we read about Jesus in the garden, praying to the father, it says…Luke 22:41-44
41 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed,
42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
43 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him.
44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
He was literally sweating blood. Yet He didn’t go to the cross by force, but by love. By submission. Heb 12:2
2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
He went to the cross with joy, because it rescued you Christian, and it saved me. AND all those that have come to know Him as Savior, that needed a Savior, and that is all of us…verse 6 again Isa 53:6
6 All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
and again it is by His stripes we are healed. I mentioned both because the Bible says both. Two quick passages, the first from Matthew talks about the physical Matt 8:16-17
16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick,
17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our infirmities And bore our sicknesses.”
and the spiritual is spoken of in 1 Peter 2:24-25
24 who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.
25 For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
Healing, true healing only comes through the stripes of Jesus. This next section is part of how we know this is specifically about Jesus....verse 7 Isa 53:7-8
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
If you guys remember the story about the Philip in the book of Acts, when he was directed to go out to a desert road to intercept an Ethiopian ruler of: some sort, -I get the picture of him being chauffeured in some kind of chariot or fancy wagon…let’s just turn there and see exactly what it says. Acts chapter Acts 8:27-29
27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship,
28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.
29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”
Meaning stop him…and Philip does.... Acts 8:30-33
30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.”
Now this next part is what we are really looking for here…verse 34 Acts 8:35-38
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.
36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.
The rest of the story is awesome, but he confirms here, that what Isaiah is talking about where we are tonight is definitely Jesus!
9 And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
Every single verse here is just such incredible prophecy that was fulfilled in Jesus. They made His grave with the wicked. Jesus was crucified in the middle of two criminals sentenced death. Them, by there own admission rightly so, but Jesus only because of us. He was not just to die with the wicked, but those pounding the nails that day had every intention to dispose of His body along with the bodies of the wicked. You guys know that permission had to be sought to do otherwise. They hadn’t carved out a grave from the stone for Him, that wasn’t their plan.
Remember is was a rich man, Joseph of Arimathia that, well He and Nicodemus that went to Pilot to request the body and then put Him in Joseph’s own tomb. Isa 53:10-11
10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.
He gave His only begotten Son, for He so loved the world. What an incredible act of love. Parents have you ever punished one child (accidentally) for the sins of another. Maybe you have a little liar at home, and they convinced you that they were innocent and accused a sibling, only to later find out you punished the wrong child? Or maybe you have falsely accused someone in your life, and your accusation cost them something? And then later found out you were wrong?
It please the Lord, to bruise Jesus, why? Because we are the prize! You Christian are the trophy of His grace. He punished the innocent to rescue the guilty. And verse 11 tells us that in Seeing the fruit of that sacrifice, Jesus was satisfied. Sweating blood was worth it. Being scourged worth it. Body pierced, nailed to a tree, the result of justifying many, worth it. Verse 12 Isa 53:12
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.
We are the spoil, the treasure. He made intercession and as we read last week in Romans 8 , continues to make intercession for us at the right hand of the father. The first part of this chapter, I think verse 2 tells us that there is nothing physically that would attract us to Jesus. Isa 53:2
2 For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him.
It is this sacrifice that makes Him like no other. It is this act of love, at our worst, in our uglists state, in the depths of our sin, that He would say, number Me with them, and let me bear their iniquity. That makes Jesus so worthy of our love, our gratitude, and the only one that deserves our worship. There is a day coming, spoken about in Rev 5 when we will see the scars, and will respond with praise. Rev 5:10-13
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands,
12 saying with a loud voice: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain To receive power and riches and wisdom, And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”
13 And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: “Blessing and honor and glory and power Be to Him who sits on the throne, And to the Lamb, forever and ever!”
Lets remember Him together tonight.
Communion
26 And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”
27 Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.
28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
29 But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Grace and Peace