Sermon Tone Analysis

April 5, 2015

*Read Isa 53:6-10* – A cartoon depicts the living room of a retirement home.

A man looking totally dejected sits facing the wall, window shade drawn, paper fallen in his lap.

Others look equally dejected.

One man says to another, “Last week, I think I had a near-life experience.”

That vividly depicts the end all of us fear.

We’re good now, but what happens when the end comes crashing in?

It happened to 2 disciples in Luke 24 on the Sunday after Jesus was killed.

They’d pinned all their hopes for now and later on Him.

Now, their expectations were dashed and their “near-life” experience was over they thought.

Then Jesus arrives on the scene, unrecognized by them, He’s not very sympathetic.

He kindly rebukes them.

Why? Lu 24: 25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!

26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”

He’s saying, “Guys, your hopes aren’t crushed.

He was crushed so that your hopes wouldn’t be!

Your own Bible told you He’d suffer and be resurrected.

It was all there and you didn’t believe it.”

I used to think Jesus was a little hard on them.

Finding death and resurrection of Messiah in the OT?

Not easy!

But I was just as wrong as they were.

It’s there everywhere.

It’s there in the Garden when God takes Adam and Eve’s fig leaves and replaces them with the skins of animals who died to illustrate this truth.

It’s there in God’s demand to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac only to provide a substitute lamb at the last minute.

It’s there in the three days Jonah spent in the belly of a great fish.

It’s there in the prophecies of Psa 22 and Isa 53 of a crucified Messiah who becomes the eternal Son of Man from Daniel 9.

And it’s all there in a single verse in Isa 53:10.

Amazing.

If I said, “Give me the gospel in a single verse,” you’d go the same place I would.

Jn 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish by have eternal life.”

The gospel in one verse!

But Isa 53:10?

Dave, are you sure?

Yes, it’s there & it’s beautiful: “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 verse has book ends – the will of God at the beginning; the will of God at the end.

Salvation is all of God.

But in the middle, it is about the Son—and us; it is about Jesus because He implemented the will of the Father.

Remember how all thru His life, all Jesus ever talked about was doing the will of His Father?

This verse explains God’s will 700 years ahead of time.

Jesus’ disciples should have known it.

This verse tells us the price of salvation.

It begins with inexplicable horror, but it ends with unimaginable glory.

It begins with death, but ends with life.

It is the gospel in miniature – in the OT.

It shows us 5 ways God’s will prospered in His Son and why that was critical to every one of us.

*I.

It Was the Father’s Will He Be Crushed*

“Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief.”

Wow!

What kind of Father would crush his own Son?

The worst father we know wouldn’t do that.

It’s unimaginable.

Yet it says it was the Father’s will to crush his son.

So there must have been some overwhelmingly, compelling reason, right?

there must have been an unavoidable reason!

And there was and we’ll get to it in a moment.

But first, consider implications of this phrase.

First, it shows the death of Christ was the Father’s idea.

It was not a tragic, avoidable accident of history.

It was not primarily the plan of the Jewish leaders, altho they will be accountable.

It was not the plan of the Romans, altho they will be accountable.

It was not ultimately the result of 3-years of planning by jealous men.

It was ultimately the result of the eternal plan of an infinite God.

Note how God’s sovereignty and human choices meld together in Peter’s Pentecost sermon 7 weeks after Jesus’ death: Acts 2:23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” “God planned it, but you executed it.

God’s blood is on your hands.”

No wonder 3,000 of them turned to Christ that day alone.

But Jesus’ death was purposeful and intentional.

And infinitely painful!

Imagine asking your Son to die.

Sure Jesus suffered – but so did the Father, Beloved.

Remember how David’s son Absalom led a rebellion against David trying to seize the throne?

And remember David’s reaction when news was brought that the rebellion had ended with the death of his son?

II Sam 18:33 And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept.

And as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom!

Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

If David felt that way about the death of a rebellious, wayward son, imagine how the God the Father felt about the death of His absolutely perfect Son.

Understand that your ability to have a broken heart reflects your Creator’s ability to feel that same way, and imagine what He felt.

It could not have been for no reason, could it?

So what reason?

*II.

It Was the Father’s Will He Be Guilty*

“When his soul makes an offering for guilt.”

We are rapidly going from bad to worse, here, aren’t we?

But now at least we know the reason the Father would ask His Son to die – to make an offering for guilt.

Whose guilt?

Couldn’t have been His.

He had none.

Heb 4:15 assures us He was “without sin.”

No guilt there.

So where?

In the life of every person who ever lived.

Our guilt.

Where does guilt come from?

Sin.

And where did that come from?

Adam and Eve.

And what was the result?

Death.

Separation from God.