The Servant Who Suffers for Our Sins (Afternoon)
Download MP3Well, good afternoon. Thank you. Thank you. And same to you. Today, I'm excited to be opening God's word with you.
Dwight Castle:We will be continuing our sermon series through the book of Isaiah, specifically looking today at the end of chapter 52 and all of chapter 53, or most of chapter 53. One of the things that I do very frequently in my job as a pastor here at the church is to meet with people. Meet with people for coffee meetings, for breakfast meetings, for lunch meetings, any excuse that we can have to meet. I meet with people. And usually, I know who the people are when I meet with them.
Dwight Castle:It's often folks from the church that I have relationships with. But sometimes, I end up meeting with someone who I haven't yet met. They've reached out to me by email, we set up a meeting, and then that meeting is the first time I will meet them. This is usually a pretty awkward situation, because what I've learned over time is that you don't actually know what the person looks like who you're meeting. This happened to me recently.
Dwight Castle:It was one of my more awkward times. I went to this coffee shop, got there a few minutes early, planning myself down, and started doing that awkward kind of look. Not wanting to seem like a creeper, just like kinda eyeing at people, like are you looking at me? Am I looking at you? Is this the guy who I'm supposed to meet?
Dwight Castle:Or am I just making you feel strange? I went up to one guy, he looked like we were connecting. He looked like he was looking for someone. Nope, he wasn't. That was awkward.
Dwight Castle:I'll retreat back to my seat now. I'm a little less bold next time. So I'm just sitting there after five, ten, fifteen, twenty minutes go by into our meeting time, I'm like, is this guy not here? So I get on my email, my phone, and I'm like, hey, are we still meeting today at the Red Cat at noon? And yeah, I'm here.
Dwight Castle:I'm like, we both all of a sudden start looking around like this and I realize the guy's right beside me. Extremely awkward. This is a little bit of what is happening today in our passage. Through the prophets, specifically Isaiah, Israel is waiting for someone. Israel's waiting for this servant of the Lord who has been foretold who will be coming.
Dwight Castle:And like me in that coffee shop, Israel is at risk of missing him. Their understanding of what he will look like is not yet complete. They've had some little hints, some pictures, but today we will get a fuller, more accurate picture of what this servant of the Lord will look like. So if you will read with me, we will begin in verse 13 of chapter 52. Behold, my servant shall act wisely.
Dwight Castle:He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. So shall he sprinkle many nations, Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. For that which has not been told them, they see, and that which they have not heard, they understand. Who has believed what he has heard from us?
Dwight Castle:And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 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. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
Dwight Castle:And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet, we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities.
Dwight Castle:Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Dwight Castle: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. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked, and with a rich man in his death, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.
Dwight Castle: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.
Dwight Castle: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. 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. This is the word of the Lord.
Dwight Castle:Pray with me. Lord, we are thankful that we have this word today, and we believe that you have a word for us specifically from this. This afternoon, right here, each of us here, we believe that you have something for us. So we very simply ask you that you'll show us. That by your spirit, you will exalt the name of Jesus to us.
Dwight Castle:That he will be high and lifted up. Lord, I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart will be pleasing. It will be acceptable, Lord, in your sight, my rock and my redeemer. Amen. Now, this passage is the fourth and the final of the servant songs in Isaiah.
Dwight Castle:You may recall over the past few weeks and even months, we have looked at the prior three servant songs. Each of these has given us a clue. It has shaded in the picture a bit more about who this coming servant of the Lord will be. This servant who is long anticipated, who will rescue God's people. Now, this passage in particular is typically referred to as the suffering servant song.
Dwight Castle:And it's one that's very familiar. If you've been in the church at all in your life, you've probably heard some of these verses. They're some of the most famous verses in the bible. But this suffering song of the servant takes a different tone than the prior ones. It shows us that the servant won't just be victorious, but he will also suffer.
Dwight Castle:In fact, it will be through his suffering that he will gain victory. And so today, we will look at this passage together, and I just want to make some observations about things that we learn from this passage about the suffering servant. And this is vital to us, because we're not only learning about Israel's deliverer, but we're learning about our deliverer, our only hope. And so here is the first observation of the suffering servant. And I will say this is a spoiler alert, it's going to ruin the whole plot line.
Dwight Castle:The suffering servant is Jesus. Cat's out of the bag. Okay? I'm sorry if I ruined it. I thought about how I could kind of keep it till the end, and then just reveal his identity.
Dwight Castle:But, foregone conclusion. Let me ask you, have you ever seen one of those optical illusions online? Right? Maybe they pop up on social media. I see them sometimes there.
Dwight Castle:And it usually is accompanied by a caption that says something like, wait until you see it. Or once you see it, you can't unsee it. There's a hidden image, usually, in a picture. Sometimes there's a certain color, or pattern thing that flips. At first, you're not sure what it is you're even looking for.
Dwight Castle:You're not even sure if you're being tricked. Is there anything there at all? Or is this one of those ones that's going to like jump out and scare you? So you're kind of skeptical, but you just keep looking. No matter how hard you try, you can't actually force yourself to see it.
Dwight Castle:And then, bam, it just pops out all of a sudden. And it's all you can see at that point. You're not actually sure how you ever didn't see it. This is a little bit what it's like to see Jesus as the suffering servant. Let me ask you.
Dwight Castle:Do you see him that clearly? Do you see Jesus as the prophesied Messiah, the servant of God? Up to this point in Isaiah, the Israelites, they don't quite see it. There are some legitimate questions about the identity of the servant. I mean, sometimes it seems to be referred to as Israel.
Dwight Castle:Could the servant be Israel? Or maybe a remnant, a righteous remnant of Israel? Or could it be a prophet who is coming? Who is this servant? Well, this text today clears it up for us today.
Dwight Castle:Not only do we know it, but the New Testament writers, even Jesus himself, they say with complete clarity that Jesus is the suffering servant. Let me just give you a couple of examples from the New Testament that shows this clearly for us. Acts eight is one of the best. Philip, an early leader in the church, a deacon, he's a he a vision comes to him, an angel in a vision, and says, go out into the desert to this random road. So Philip obeys, and there he finds an Ethiopian eunuch who just so happens to be going by on his chariot.
Dwight Castle:This eunuch is reading from Isaiah 53. And he reads these words that we hear here in verses seven and eight. Look at them with me. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter. Like a sheep before its shearers is silent.
Dwight Castle:So he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. As for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? This man says to Philip, who just happens to be there, who is this talking about? And scripture tells us that Philip says, beginning with this passage in Isaiah, and then throughout all of scripture, he tells him the good news of Jesus.
Dwight Castle:John 12. Jesus is teaching and he's performing miracles, but not everyone believes. And so Jesus quotes from verse one here of chapter 53. He basically says, if people have the ears to hear and the eyes to see, they would turn to him and they would be saved. John, the author there, spells it out for us and he says, Isaiah said these things because he saw Jesus' glory and he spoke of him.
Dwight Castle:Matthew eight says that Jesus took our illnesses and bore our diseases. A direct quote of verse four. I mean, could go on and on. John three, John eight, John 12, all speak of Jesus being high and lifted up, exalted, a rare phrasing that's here in Isaiah. Luke twenty two and twenty three says that Jesus was numbered with the transgressors and makes intercession for us, which is verse 12 here.
Dwight Castle:I'm only scratching the surface, but I'll stop there. Praise God with absolute clarity, we can say today that Jesus is the suffering servant. And we must know and believe this in order to understand this passage today. However, the OG audience, the Israelites, they did not have the benefit of hindsight that we have. They didn't have this clarity.
Dwight Castle:And so this brings us to our second observation about the suffering servant. He's going to be very different than what they expected. What's more, he's not just going to surprise everyone, he's going to unsettle everyone. He's going to be so different that he will actually be rejected. Look at Isaiah fifty three one.
Dwight Castle:It says, who has believed what he has heard from us? Isaiah is basically coming out the gate and saying, guys, you're not going to believe this. It is gonna be shocking how different the servant is going to be than what you expect. He's not gonna look like this conquering hero that everyone might imagine. I mean, up to this point, you can almost picture them.
Dwight Castle:They're thinking about the servant, this Messiah who is gonna come. He's gonna be a strong leader. He's gonna be a rescuer, powerful, victorious. You can just kinda see them building him up in their minds. He's probably gonna be good looking, gonna have a magnetic personality, he's gonna be suave.
Dwight Castle:I mean, thing we know, we're talking about Chris Hemsworth here. Right? Or maybe Brad Pitt, from twenty years ago at least, in the Troy days. Isaiah's about to shatter that picture. Verses two and three is very different.
Dwight Castle: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. No beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
Dwight Castle:And as one from whom men hid their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Okay. What? That's not what I was expecting. This servant is gonna come from nowhere.
Dwight Castle:Total obscurity like a root out of dry ground. He's not gonna have a following. He wouldn't have a social media presence. He's not gonna get a book deal because of the number of followers that he has. Not even from a Christian publisher like Crossway maybe.
Dwight Castle:You gotta be Christian cool to do that. Jesus doesn't qualify as that. The servant's not gonna qualify as that. He's not gonna be a McDonald's All American recruited athlete. He's not gonna even come from a major conference, from a reputable family.
Dwight Castle:He has no beauty. He's gonna be completely normal. And since we know that this text refers to Jesus, we can actually see this in his life. Jesus is the dirt poor son of a carpenter, who is actually coming out of a scandalous and disreputable pregnancy and birth. Who will be fatherless for most of his life.
Dwight Castle:He comes from an obscure town called Nazareth. He's a blue collar day laborer. He's homeless. So much so, he is obscure that his own friends from his hometown are like, really? Him?
Dwight Castle:Jesus? Isaiah says it gets worse. He's not just overlooked. He's completely rejected. He's not just rejected, he's abused.
Dwight Castle:He's oppressed. He's cut off. Verse three says that people were so embarrassed by what happens with him that they turn their faces away. Have you ever been in that situation where something is so awkward that you literally like find yourself kinda looking down? That's what people did to Jesus.
Dwight Castle:But why? By every outward appearance, he seems to have come under the wrath and the condemnation of God. Now, this is important because in ancient Near Eastern culture, the time of Isaiah, as well as first century Palestine, the time of Jesus, there was an embarrassment associated with suffering. And that's because there was an assumed connection between suffering and guilt. Bad things happen to bad people.
Dwight Castle:Good things happen to good people. So if someone's suffering, they probably deserved it. This is why when Jesus in the book of John is walking around with his disciples, they see a blind man and his disciples are like, hey Jesus, who sinned? That man or his parents? Because, obviously, somebody sinned here.
Dwight Castle:Right? Good people are blessed. Evil people are punished for their sin. So nothing about Jesus seems like what we see here in Isaiah referred to as the arm of God, his power. No one saw God's power on display here.
Dwight Castle:Jesus's message rubbed people wrong. The religious leaders hated him. Lowlifes and outcasts were drawn to him. So people's conclusion about him was clear. Reject and ignore.
Dwight Castle:And even in his death, everything about him appeared to be a total failure, not victory. It never occurred to them that what Isaiah foretold would have to be true. That God's deliverer must suffer in this way. Now before we get on our high horses and judge them, I wanna ask you, are we really that different? We might not say out loud that suffering means rejection from God.
Dwight Castle:But I bet most of us feel that way. I know that I am tempted to feel that way. When something bad happens to us, we wonder, what have we done to deserve this? Or at least we ask the question, how could God choose to use suffering as part of his plan for me? I mean, it feels like failure.
Dwight Castle:It feels embarrassing, like shame, like we're abandoned. No. We're just the same as the Israelites. It's just as hard for us to understand that God chooses to use suffering in the lives of his children. This is unsettling.
Dwight Castle:It seems backwards. How can good come out of bad? How can God's power be displayed in weakness and in loss? How can someone be crushed out of love? It doesn't make any sense apart from the cross.
Dwight Castle:Even now, to me, I ask questions in my life like, how do kids get cancer? How do some of my friends who long so deeply to be married, they're unable to find a spouse? Or those who long to have children, they can't seem to have children? Or those who seek freedom from that sin that plagues them, or from anxiety and depression, they can't find that freedom. Where is God in that suffering?
Dwight Castle:And so, I have to force myself to look to the cross. To the most horrific, cruel, unjust act ever committed. Not only did God allow that, but he ordained it. And so through that, the greatest suffering and loss known to man comes the greatest victory ever known. And so then somehow, maybe, just a little bit, I can begin to believe that God might be doing something like that in my own life and circumstance.
Dwight Castle:Even if it doesn't feel like it. Now, the Israelites, they didn't get this. Not in Isaiah's time, and certainly not in Jesus' time. They looked to Jesus through the temporary external lens, and they came to their conclusion. He's guilty.
Dwight Castle:He's being judged. He's a failure. He's defeated. He's being rejected by God. If we look back at our text, we will see, yes, this suffering servant is going to look very differently than anyone anticipated.
Dwight Castle:But it also brings us to our next observation, which is, though it appears as if the suffering servant is suffering for his own sin, He's actually taking on the sin and the pain and the suffering of his people. Now, the fancy theological word for this is substitutionary atonement. Basically, means this. Jesus is our substitute. He stands in our place.
Dwight Castle:He receives the condemnation for our sins. We are not only forgiven, we get his perfect righteousness. Do you see that? I call it the great exchange. He takes our sin, we take his righteousness.
Dwight Castle:How is that even possible though? The idea of substitutionary atonement isn't new here. It's actually something that the Israelites knew of because Jesus, God, established it in Leviticus 16. He established it through the animal sacrificial system. It was the idea that the blood of animals would be shed and sprinkled over the people to cover their sins.
Dwight Castle:It was a belief in God's mysterious power to transfer their guilt onto an innocent substitute. Now, Hebrews 10 tells us that animal sacrifices could never truly deal with the sins of the people. It only covered them for a time, appeasing the wrath of God until the sin would be fully dealt with. So the Israelites accepted this practice and the underlying principle, but they never anticipated what Isaiah is saying here. God is saying through Isaiah that his servant would suffer on behalf of the people.
Dwight Castle:He would take on their sins once and for all. Look at verse five. This is the core of this passage. This is the heart. Verse five.
Dwight Castle:He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed. Notice this great exchange.
Dwight Castle:What does the servant do? What do we do? He is pierced. Why? Our transgressions.
Dwight Castle:He is crushed. Why? Our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brings us peace. With his wounds, we are healed.
Dwight Castle:Martin Luther said that these words should be written in gold. They're the gospel. What the servant took on was complete and total misery. Physical, emotional, spiritual. Did he deserve it?
Dwight Castle:Verse nine tells us, he had done no violence. No deceit was in his mouth. This is an all inclusive way of saying, he was sinless in word and in deed. Verse 11 refers to him as the righteous one. Now guys, if you've grown up in the church, you get used to this.
Dwight Castle:This is old news. But I want you to listen to this with fresh ears. Lord, give us fresh ears today to hear this. The sinless, righteous one takes on the sins of all of the unrighteous. His blood is now sprinkled over our sins.
Dwight Castle:He is our substitute. And here's the kicker. Though he did this for his people, they rejected him. See, they rightly saw the judgment of God fall on the servant. But they wrongly attributed it to his guilt.
Dwight Castle:Did you catch that? It is the judgment of God falling on him. They're correct. But they're wrong because it's not due to his sin. It's due to theirs.
Dwight Castle:They were detested by him, ashamed, appalled. But it was their own sin they were appalled by. Think about it this way. If you walk in here today, and you go to greet a friend, you're about to shake their hand, and they're like, ah, and they pull back, and they got this nasty fungus, an infection on their hand. Like when you think about leprosy from the Old Testament, that's what you're thinking about right there.
Dwight Castle:And they're like, yeah, you better not take my hand. And you're like, woah, you're immediately judging them in your mind. Do they practice good hygiene? What's going on in their house? Can I even let my kids go over there anymore?
Dwight Castle:So you're like, hey, like what's going on? And they're like, you know, they kind of hem and haw, beating around the bush, and finally you drag it out of them. They're like, well, the other day when I left your house from cleaning your bathroom for you, I got this. And you realize that the person you're grossed out by is you. It actually came from you.
Dwight Castle:Imagine that. That's a little bit of what's going on here. K? Everyone is judging the servant wrongly. He does the most sacrificial thing ever.
Dwight Castle:He gives up his life. Why? For us to take on our sin and failure. And no one even cared. We could sit in that for a while, but there's more here in the text.
Dwight Castle:What else do we learn about the suffering servant? This didn't just happen to him. It wasn't a tragic mistake. No, Jesus did this willingly, and according to the plan of God. This wasn't simply an avoidable miscarriage of justice that Jesus just so happened to fall into.
Dwight Castle:No. These two things are vital to understand. This was according to the plan of the father, and it was willingly carried out by Jesus. Verse six says, the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all. Verse 10 says, it was the will of the Father to crush him, to put him to grief.
Dwight Castle:How does that sit with you? Because if it doesn't rub you wrong a little bit, you might need to hear it again. So it was the will, or a different translation even says, the pleasure of the father to crush his son. How? What was pleasurable?
Dwight Castle:Well, wasn't pleasurable for him to put his son through anguish. The father received no pleasure with what Jesus had to endure. I think this is actually why we see at the time of Jesus' death on the cross, the sky darken, the earthquake, all of creation seems to be coming undone. The father is in anguish too on behalf of his son. No.
Dwight Castle:It was his pleasure because of the glory accomplished. He does take pleasure in rescuing his people. The father is willing to lay the burden on his servant, his son. And make no mistake, as tragic as it is, this wasn't ultimately man's doing, it was God's will. And the servant is not coerced into this.
Dwight Castle:He doesn't come dragging his feet. He is oppressed. He's afflicted. But make no mistake, his participation is active. In John 10, Jesus says that he lays down his life willingly for his sheep.
Dwight Castle:He reiterates it by saying this, quote, no one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down, and I have the authority to take it up again. Philippians two says, Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. We hear that he humbles himself.
Dwight Castle:He obeys his father. He willingly goes to his death. Hebrews 12 takes it one step further. It says that for the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame. Does that sound familiar to the father's pleasure?
Dwight Castle:Verse 11 adds to it and says, out of his anguish, the servant will be satisfied. Jesus doesn't love going to his death any more than the father enjoyed sending him to it. He's scorning it shame, but he endures it because of the joy set before him. What is that joy? What's the joy set before him that makes this worth it?
Dwight Castle:It's the next thing we learn. That through his act of self sacrifice, he will be high and exalted. Look at verse 13 of chapter 52, fifty two thirteen. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and exalted.
Dwight Castle:Another translation for acts wisely is, he shall prosper or he shall be victorious. Verse 12 talks about verse 12 of chapter 53 talks about the servant dividing the spoil. This is a military reference here. The victor of a battle gets the spoil. So what is the spoil of Jesus' victory he's securing?
Dwight Castle:We are. He has brought many sons and daughters to glory. He has adopted us as his children. Not just the Israelites, but all the nations. All people will now be rescued from captivity to our greatest captors, our greatest enemies, sin and death.
Dwight Castle:This is possible not just because of Jesus' sacrificial atoning death, but because of his resurrection, which is hinted at in verse 10. Look at verse 10 with me. 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.
Dwight Castle:He shall prolong his days. He shall see his offspring and he shall prolong his days. Aren't we talking about the person who was just killed? How is that possible? It's a hint at the resurrection.
Dwight Castle:Jesus dies for our sins, but he also rises victorious, high, and exalted. And this vindication for his suffering and his death, it brings clarity about his identity and his purpose. Don't miss what true victory looks like here in the life of Jesus. What true exaltation looks like. It's not the way we usually think of it.
Dwight Castle:It's through humility, through loss, even through death. Death to sin, death to our desires and ourselves, and for us, life is on the far side of death. This brings us to our final observation about the suffering servant, and where we'll end tonight. This servant is our only hope. The hope for those who believe.
Dwight Castle:Chapter 53 opens up with this question that lingers for us tonight. Who has believed what he has heard from us? Who will believe this counterintuitive, countercultural message? Who will believe that life can come through death? Who will believe that there can be divine purposes in our suffering?
Dwight Castle:Who believe that our sins are both so grievous that they warrant death, and yet that we are so loved by the servant of God that he has taken them on himself? This is our question for us today. Do we believe this? Not just in word, but really, actually, in our lives. I don't know what you are walking in here with today.
Dwight Castle:But we live in a world of suffering, and grief, of loss. Everything around us wants us to believe that we are defined by these external circumstances around us. Things like money will bring us happiness, and ease that we seek in life is success. And the likes that we get, the approval we need, these things will make us happy. And it can feel lonely, and demoralizing, and exhausting to believe that there's gotta be more than this.
Dwight Castle:To believe that you aren't defined by your worst moment. That you aren't forgotten by God in your pain. That there are realities in life that are greater than what we can just see around us. So it's in that setting, in the real mess of our lives, that I ask you, do you believe? Do you believe that Jesus took your sin for you?
Dwight Castle:That you don't have to carry it in guilt and shame? Do you believe that he suffered so that you don't have to bear the load of your suffering alone? Do you believe that you have hope in the situations that feel like loss? Because the cross shows us that even death doesn't have the final word. Second Corinthians one five says that as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too.
Dwight Castle:If we follow the way of Christ, we will encounter suffering. It's unavoidable. But we also have the eternal hope, and the comfort, and the life with he with that he purchased with his own blood. The suffering servant died on our behalf. Do you believe this?
Dwight Castle:Pray with me. Jesus, these words are our only hope, and we bank everything on them. We ask that you will reveal these truths to our heart so that we can believe them, that by your spirit, you will help us to see, to know, to believe, to live by the fact that you died for us. The righteous for the unrighteous. That not only do you forgive our sins, but you give us hope.
Dwight Castle:That in our lives here in this earth that seem fleeting and temporary and we have so many heavy things that weigh on us that you have given us all that we need in this life. The hope, the purpose, the deliverance, and that we will spend eternity with you. I pray that you will open up our hearts to these truths and to the joy that comes in them, that you came to us to die for us. Thank you, Lord. In the name of Christ.
Dwight Castle:Amen.
