Doug McMasters: All right, let's take our Bible and go to Isaiah chapter 53.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: If you don't have a Bible, you can find one in the front of you in the pew, and page 650 will get you right in the ballpark of Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: Years ago, I was serving as a senior pastor in Northern California in a fairly large church, and there was a couple there.
Doug McMasters: Most people didn't know.
Doug McMasters: They were quiet, very unassuming, um, just largely unknown, not one of the more prominent families in the church.
Doug McMasters: Uh they they dressed very simply, they spoke very softly, and they carried themselves without any pretense at all.
Doug McMasters: And they came up to me one day after the service and asked if I would officiate the wedding of their nephew and his fiancee.
Doug McMasters: And when the day came, uh they gave me the address, and it was uh their home, one of their homes, uh up on the shore of Lake Tahoe.
Doug McMasters: Beautiful place.
Doug McMasters: And I drove up, and it was a large walled, fenced compound with a gate.
Doug McMasters: And as I entered in, there was this magnificent uh building.
Doug McMasters: The ceremony and the reception were held out on this large patioed area uh overlooking Lake Tahoe.
Doug McMasters: And we all sat down, it looked beautiful, and uh I came home telling my sons that we had uh gazpacho in handcrafted ice uh goblets, which was really kind of fun.
Doug McMasters: And the house had uh a boat dock, its own private boat dock with several several boats could be uh moored there, and they gave me a tour of the home.
Doug McMasters: And as we went through the home, they took me into a room that was had just had a piano in it, and they said from time to time Paul McCartney would rent out their home and he would compose some of his songs on that piano.
Doug McMasters: I was stunned.
Doug McMasters: They were very soft-spoken, plain in appearance, modest in their speech, often overlooked, and um they didn't carry any airs, they never sought attention, they lived without any sense of ostentation as far as you could tell.
Doug McMasters: And I remember thinking to myself then, how many times have they passed in the halls of our church and nobody ever paid any attention to them?
Doug McMasters: Last week, when we introduced the fourth servant song, we talked about small things subtly happening, so soft and so quietly, so easily misunderstood and overlooked.
Doug McMasters: And here in the fourth song, we have some more of that.
Doug McMasters: A small, unremarkable, unassuming Savior who enters into this world, but not with fanfare or a spectacle, not with accolades of a king, but silently and quietly.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures tell us that the day would come when kings would be in silence over him, but before that he had to suffer in silence.
Doug McMasters: And that this exalted and lifted up one would be marred by humanity.
Doug McMasters: And so here in Isaiah chapter 53, in the first six verses, the paradox that was introduced to us in the last few verses of chapter 52 is deepened.
Doug McMasters: Because this servant comes to us quiet, unassuming, silent, but in reality, he is the arm of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And when he is revealed, he is revealed to us and sadly received by us with disbelief, with resistance and rejection.
Doug McMasters: But the passage invites us, despite how unassuming and unimpressive he might be, that there's something vital and necessary for us to see in him, because he is the very means of our redemption.
Doug McMasters: And so let's walk through the first six verses of Isaiah 53 together and see this person who's unoppressive in appearance but divine in nature, who's despised by men but bears our grief, who's pierced for our transgressions and brings us peace.
Doug McMasters: Let's listen closely to this humble Savior.
Doug McMasters: And our first point will be in verses 1 and 2, where we see the servant's appearance.
Doug McMasters: Who has believed what we've heard?
Doug McMasters: And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
Doug McMasters: He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of a dry ground.
Doug McMasters: He didn't have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him.
Doug McMasters: What a remarkable way to speak about the Savior whose coming.
Doug McMasters: No majesty, no beauty, no outward impressiveness, no grandeur.
Doug McMasters: Humility.
Doug McMasters: And this isn't a comment comment about his physic any physical deformity or any of that.
Doug McMasters: This is a statement about his condescension.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't meet us with the worldly expectations of grandeur and greatness.
Doug McMasters: He grows up like a tender shoot, fragile, overlooked, easily dismissed.
Doug McMasters: He's like a root out of a dry ground, unlikely to have one, unimpressive, maybe even seemingly lifeless.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus fulfilled all of that.
Doug McMasters: Born in the obscurity, not in royalty, born in Nazareth and not in Jerusalem.
Doug McMasters: His arrival is announced to shepherds and not to sages and senators.
Doug McMasters: And when people meet him, they're shocked.
Doug McMasters: Even his own disciples in John 1, 46, Nathaniel, can any good thing come out of Nazareth?
Doug McMasters: Matthew 13, the people say, Isn't this the carpenter's son?
Doug McMasters: And they were offended by him.
Doug McMasters: And therefore they reject him.
Doug McMasters: Every line of Isaiah 1 to 6, every line of Isaiah 1 to 6 finds its fulfillment in the New Testament.
Doug McMasters: It echoes all the way through everything we read from Matthew to Revelation.
Doug McMasters: But here's the mystery behind it all.
Doug McMasters: This one who comes without greatness, this one who comes without fanfare, this one who doesn't come seemingly connected like we would expect, with nothing that we might desire when we first look upon him.
Doug McMasters: Look at verse 1.
Doug McMasters: He is the arm of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: This arm of the Lord is a metaphor for God's power.
Doug McMasters: Power displayed in deliverance.
Doug McMasters: God's power displayed in judgment.
Doug McMasters: God's power displayed in salvation.
Doug McMasters: Listen to some verses that say that.
Doug McMasters: Exodus 6.6.
Doug McMasters: I'll redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.
Doug McMasters: Deuteronomy 4.34.
Doug McMasters: God delivering Israel by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm.
Doug McMasters: Psalm 44 and verse 3.
Doug McMasters: It was not their sword by which they won.
Doug McMasters: It was your hand, your arm.
Doug McMasters: Psalm 89.
Doug McMasters: You scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.
Doug McMasters: Psalm 98, his right hand and his holy arm to work salvation.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 51, 9.
Doug McMasters: Awake, awake, put on strength, old arm of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 52, 10.
Doug McMasters: Right before this, the Lord has bared his holy arm in the sight of all the nations.
Doug McMasters: And you would think, you know, like teenage boys would do, roll up the sleeve and show you the biceps, right?
Doug McMasters: God says, let me roll up my sleeve, and you're like, is that all you got?
Doug McMasters: Is that all you got?
Doug McMasters: Isaiah 53.
Doug McMasters: This servant is the arm of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: And what does he look like when we look at him?
Doug McMasters: Unimpressive.
Doug McMasters: Not desirable.
Doug McMasters: This is the embodiment of God's saving power.
Doug McMasters: And this is how he came here.
Doug McMasters: The arm of the Lord in human flesh.
Doug McMasters: Divine strength in human weakness.
Doug McMasters: Eternal word made vulnerable.
Doug McMasters: Augustine put it very well.
Doug McMasters: The word of the Father, by whom all time was created, was made flesh and born in time for us.
Doug McMasters: He without whose permission no day completes its course desired a day for his human birth.
Doug McMasters: The maker of man became a man.
Doug McMasters: The ruler of the stars had to be nourished at his mother's breast.
Doug McMasters: He that's bread, the bread, became hungry.
Doug McMasters: He that's the fountain cried out that he was thirsty.
Doug McMasters: He that's the light had to fall asleep.
Doug McMasters: He that's the way was weary on his journey.
Doug McMasters: He that's the truth bore the testimony of false witnesses.
Doug McMasters: He that's the judge had to be brought to a trial before a mortal judge.
Doug McMasters: He who's the foundation had to be suspended on a cross.
Doug McMasters: He, courage, became weakened, he, security, became wounded, he, life, died.
Doug McMasters: Isaiah chapter 6 saw the Lord high and lifted up.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah 52 said that this servant would be high and lifted up, because he is none less than God Himself.
Doug McMasters: But here he is revealed to us in humility and humanity.
Doug McMasters: So much so that he's easily overlooked and quickly dismissed by all those who look at him.
Doug McMasters: From the throne to the manger and from majesty to meekness, the servant's path is one of fulfilling God's redemptive plan.
Doug McMasters: And he speaks with one voice, a lowly one, a quiet one.
Doug McMasters: And here he confronts humanity's perennial temptation to judge by appearances.
Doug McMasters: We assume people are worthy or unworthy of our attention or our allegiance based upon whether they can capture our attention, whether they can gain our respect, whether we can give them our allegiance.
Doug McMasters: God said, You want a king?
Doug McMasters: I'll give you a king.
Doug McMasters: And here's Saul, and this is what it says about him a handsome young man.
Doug McMasters: There was not a man among the Israelites more handsome than he.
Doug McMasters: A little bit, anyway.
Doug McMasters: He stood head and shoulders above everybody else.
Doug McMasters: Why was that there?
Doug McMasters: Because that's what a king was.
Doug McMasters: Strong, vigorous, tall, good looking, that's our king.
Doug McMasters: And when the people saw him, they said in 1 Samuel 10, 24, Long live the king! Why did they want him to be the king?
Doug McMasters: Because he looked the part.
Doug McMasters: He had stature, he had presence, he was impressive.
Doug McMasters: It made the people feel secure that they could have a leader like that.
Doug McMasters: But his reign unraveled.
Doug McMasters: His heart wasn't aligned with God, and his physical strength didn't match his inner obedience.
Doug McMasters: And so when God was to choose a successor to him, Samuel the prophet said to the people, Do not look at his appearance or his stature.
Doug McMasters: Because humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart.
Doug McMasters: And it's that lens that Isaiah is calling us to adopt.
Doug McMasters: The servant doesn't come with Saul's stature.
Doug McMasters: The servant doesn't come with Saul's physical impressiveness, but he's divinely appointed.
Doug McMasters: He is the arm of the Lord.
Doug McMasters: We fall into this trap still, don't we?
Doug McMasters: Charismatic speakers, well, they've got the wisdom I don't have.
Doug McMasters: Polished resumes, well, they've got the abilities we're looking for.
Doug McMasters: And we assume that the people with the deepest and most assuring voice is the one that needs to be followed.
Doug McMasters: Be careful.
Doug McMasters: Because if we think like that, we're going to miss the servant.
Doug McMasters: Because he doesn't come to meet our expectations.
Doug McMasters: In fact, he comes to confront them.
Doug McMasters: He is the arm of the Lord, but he's clothed in humility.
Doug McMasters: The gospel doesn't flatter us.
Doug McMasters: The gospel is meant to confront us.
Doug McMasters: But in confronting us, it frees us.
Doug McMasters: And so look again.
Doug McMasters: Don't dismiss this one, Jesus.
Doug McMasters: Look at your expectations again.
Doug McMasters: And look at what he is, not what you think he ought to be.
Doug McMasters: Here's his assurance, his appearance, but let's let's look at his rejection because it's tied hand in hand into the second point in verse 3.
Doug McMasters: He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering, who knew what sickness was.
Doug McMasters: He was like someone people turned away from.
Doug McMasters: He was despised, and we did not value him.
Doug McMasters: Now, Isaiah brings us face to face with the emotional and relational cost of the servant's mission.
Doug McMasters: It's a sorrowful, sorrowful moment.
Doug McMasters: He's not just overlooked, he's despised.
Doug McMasters: He's not just misunderstood, he's rejected.
Doug McMasters: He's not just received with honor, he's received with contempt.
Doug McMasters: And at the end of it, we did not value him.
Doug McMasters: He's treated as if we would we would push him to the margins of our social connections.
Doug McMasters: We would dismiss him as irrelevant.
Doug McMasters: And we would avoid him as if he was an offense.
Doug McMasters: And all of this, again, in the life of Christ.
Doug McMasters: John 6, many disciples turned back and no longer followed him.
Doug McMasters: They were offended by him.
Doug McMasters: John 11, rejected by the religious leaders.
Doug McMasters: Luke 23, condemned by the state.
Doug McMasters: The political, the religious, and the populace all said no to him.
Doug McMasters: Everybody.
Doug McMasters: And he wasn't just rejected once, he was rejected repeatedly in every slice and sector of society.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures tell us that this rejection is found in all the places of the New Testament.
Doug McMasters: It is God's divine blueprint of salvation.
Doug McMasters: Now, for us, this is both a comfort and a challenge as believers.
Doug McMasters: It's a comfort to us because this is a Savior who understands sorrow.
Doug McMasters: He is a man of sorrow, as the scriptures say, acquainted with grief.
Doug McMasters: He knows suffering intimately.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't know grief from a distance.
Doug McMasters: He's entered into it.
Doug McMasters: He walked into it.
Doug McMasters: He carried it.
Doug McMasters: And this is part of who he is as a redeemer.
Doug McMasters: He is touched with the feelings of our infirmities.
Doug McMasters: He became human.
Doug McMasters: He's not surprised by our grief, and he's not impatient with our pain.
Doug McMasters: He walked the path of rejection.
Doug McMasters: And he walks with his children still as they walk that path.
Doug McMasters: There's a song.
Doug McMasters: Nobody knows the trouble I've seen.
Doug McMasters: Nobody knows but Jesus.
Doug McMasters: He does.
Doug McMasters: Now, there's also a challenge here.
Doug McMasters: If he was despised, so may his children also be.
Doug McMasters: His faithfulness didn't bring applause.
Doug McMasters: Your faithfulness may not bring applause.
Doug McMasters: In fact, it might bring rejection.
Doug McMasters: His obedience didn't win popularity.
Doug McMasters: Your obedience will not bring popularity.
Doug McMasters: But we're not alone in that.
Doug McMasters: Our servant savior also suffered those things.
Doug McMasters: If you're here this morning and you don't know Christ as your Savior, like all of us, you can feel rejected, alone, suffering and silent, nobody understanding.
Doug McMasters: Here is a savior who's not recoiled by pain, who's not overwhelmed by the depth of your discouragement.
Doug McMasters: You see, he hasn't come and asked you for a list of credentials in order to be impressed by him.
Doug McMasters: He's invited you to come in the middle of your need.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't ask you to be impressive.
Doug McMasters: He wants you to be honest and to come as you are.
Doug McMasters: And I'm not just talking about suffering and difficulties and heartaches that life brings.
Doug McMasters: I'm talking about the worst of who you are.
Doug McMasters: Those things you wouldn't even share with your family that you think or maybe have done.
Doug McMasters: You see, he came for that as much as he came for all the other things.
Doug McMasters: He was rejected so that you might be received.
Doug McMasters: And we'll talk about that in just a moment.
Doug McMasters: There was once a man who had a skin disease.
Doug McMasters: The people avoided him.
Doug McMasters: He was untouchable.
Doug McMasters: They kept their distance.
Doug McMasters: He was cast out among the people and from the people, considered unclean.
Doug McMasters: But when he approached Jesus, Jesus didn't step back like the others had.
Doug McMasters: But he did more than that.
Doug McMasters: He touched the leper.
Doug McMasters: He touched him and said, Be clean.
Doug McMasters: There's a woman also who carried years of shame.
Doug McMasters: The scriptures say that her story was complicated.
Doug McMasters: And she was put on the outward edges of society, so much so that she had to go in the middle of the heat of the sun in the middle of the day in order to get water alone.
Doug McMasters: When other women would have gladly have gone together early morning to get the water from the well.
Doug McMasters: This is the servant Isaiah's describing here.
Doug McMasters: Yes, he's been rejected and he's moved by it all, but he's entered into it that we might be brought to healing.
Doug McMasters: So if you feel cast aside, if you wonder if God would ever draw near to you considering who you are, look again.
Doug McMasters: Look again.
Doug McMasters: Because the arm of the Lord is clothed in humility.
Doug McMasters: And this brings us to our third point, verses four and five.
Doug McMasters: Where the servant's appearance and then rejection brings us to a place where the servant's a substitute, the servant's substitution.
Doug McMasters: Look at verse four and five with me.
Doug McMasters: Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains.
Doug McMasters: But we in turn regarded him stricken, struck and down by God and afflicted.
Doug McMasters: But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities.
Doug McMasters: The punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds.
Doug McMasters: And now we're coming to the heart of the servant's mission here.
Doug McMasters: That the servant is not only despised, he's also burdened.
Doug McMasters: And he's not only burdened, he's pierced, and he's suffering not as a victim of circumstance, but as a substitute under divine judgment.
Doug McMasters: And Isaiah corrects our thoughts here.
Doug McMasters: Because we can see this person, unimpressive as he is, refused by us, and we might think that everything that's happening in him is because of who he is and how bad he was.
Doug McMasters: My watch is talking to me.
Doug McMasters: But the scriptures here give us a correction.
Doug McMasters: He was born our sicknesses, he carried our pains.
Doug McMasters: He was cursed for us.
Doug McMasters: He was despised for our rebellion and our iniquities.
Doug McMasters: This is substitution.
Doug McMasters: This is how the atonement, the being right with God happens.
Doug McMasters: Because the servant stands in our place and takes the punishment we deserve and carries a weight that we cannot bear.
Doug McMasters: And this is specific and complete.
Doug McMasters: And we'll talk about how complete in a second, but the punishment for our peace was upon him, and we're healed by those wounds.
Doug McMasters: The cross wasn't just some arbitrary ridding of this man that everybody should have rejected.
Doug McMasters: This was the arm of the Lord brought to a particular place for us.
Doug McMasters: No tragic accident, nothing to be overshadowed, nothing like Islam to say, well, it was just, it just looked like Jesus was being crucified.
Doug McMasters: No, he actually was.
Doug McMasters: Paul said, if there's anything to glory in, I'm going to glory in the cross as shameful as it is.
Doug McMasters: Because he was pierced so that we might be pardoned, and crushed so that we be cleansed and wounded so that we would be healed.
Doug McMasters: And the scriptures are full of this language.
Doug McMasters: 1 Corinthians 15, Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures.
Doug McMasters: 1 Peter 2, he bore our sins in his body on the tree.
Doug McMasters: Matthew quotes this and says, He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.
Doug McMasters: Again, every line of Isaiah 53 finds its echo in the New Testament.
Doug McMasters: The servant crushed, pierced, burdened, and risen.
Doug McMasters: And here's the scope.
Doug McMasters: We all, like sheep, have gone astray.
Doug McMasters: We all, everyone.
Doug McMasters: No exceptions, no exemptions, no alternate path.
Doug McMasters: Every one of us.
Doug McMasters: We're not divided into categories of the righteous and the unrighteous, the great and the small, every single person in the same place.
Doug McMasters: We all unified in our wandering like sheep going astray, each of us going down our own way.
Doug McMasters: The image is pastoral, but the indictment is universal.
Doug McMasters: But here is the Lord who's come into the middle of that reality.
Doug McMasters: He's come into the middle of this willful lost society with every one of human creatures that he made running away from him and running away from his design and purposes for them.
Doug McMasters: Every single one.
Doug McMasters: And yet he comes.
Doug McMasters: And so he is here, coming after the sheep.
Doug McMasters: This is the heart of the Savior.
Doug McMasters: 1 Peter 2, we read it, for you were like sheep going astray, but now you've returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.
Doug McMasters: Not that we just woke up one day and said, I need to go back.
Doug McMasters: No, he went and got us.
Doug McMasters: He went and got us.
Doug McMasters: You know, there's two steps, and you're like, oh, look, the Lord is walking with me in my trouble.
Doug McMasters: And then there's the one footprint, and you go, Oh, the Lord's carrying me through my trouble.
Doug McMasters: Well, one guy went up to the gates of heaven and had the asked the Lord, he said, What was that sort of one set of footprints with the long mark in the sand?
Doug McMasters: And he said, That's when I had to drag you back.
Doug McMasters: This is the Lord grabbing us in our rebellion and bringing us back.
Doug McMasters: He bears our sins to bring us home.
Doug McMasters: And I want to speak to us as a church.
Doug McMasters: This is the foundation of why we're here.
Doug McMasters: And this is the Savior that we proclaim and that we adore.
Doug McMasters: He's not impressive.
Doug McMasters: We can't put him on the eye-level shelf of our grocery store and have everybody go, Well, I think I'll buy that.
Doug McMasters: There's nothing we can do that can market that.
Doug McMasters: He didn't come to be treated that way.
Doug McMasters: He came to bear sin and to do so in humility and suffering to death.
Doug McMasters: But through that punishment, we have peace.
Doug McMasters: He came so that we don't have to live under the shadow of condemnation.
Doug McMasters: But we can be embraced under in the shelter of grace.
Doug McMasters: And we don't have to approach God with fear, but we can approach him with warmth and confidence.
Doug McMasters: It's humbling, I know.
Doug McMasters: It levels us, it reminds us daily of who we are.
Doug McMasters: But it's true and it's wonderful.
Doug McMasters: And it's something we need to remind ourselves of every day.
Doug McMasters: Just like Martin Luther said, he said, I preach the gospel to myself every day because I need the gospel every day.
Doug McMasters: And if we walk into these doors without remembering the gospel, we're going to start acting like you need to be impressive for me to be impressed.
Doug McMasters: You need to be of stature for me to follow you.
Doug McMasters: We're going to have worldly judgments amidst this Savior and His people, in which there's nothing impressive.
Doug McMasters: But when we come rejecting comparison and rejecting pride, we're going to find no limit of his grace and of his mercy to us.
Doug McMasters: And so let us adopt the posture of our chief pastor, Jesus Christ, the shepherd of our souls.
Doug McMasters: This brings us to our last point, the effect.
Doug McMasters: We've seen the servant's appearance, the servant's rejection, the servant's substitution, but now the servant's effect.
Doug McMasters: In verse 5, he was pierced because of our rebellion.
Doug McMasters: He was crushed because of our iniquities.
Doug McMasters: The punishment for our peace was upon him.
Doug McMasters: And we are healed by his wounds.
Doug McMasters: So now Isaiah wants us to see the effect of this servant's suffering.
Doug McMasters: He's shown us his burden.
Doug McMasters: He's shown us his piercing.
Doug McMasters: But now he wants us to see the result.
Doug McMasters: That the wounds of this Savior are not wasted, but redemptive, and they accomplish what no earthly power can accomplish and what we ourselves cannot receive in and of ourselves.
Doug McMasters: Peace with God and healing for our soul.
Doug McMasters: And he gives these two phrases and he puts immense weight on them.
Doug McMasters: The punishment for our peace and healed by his wounds.
Doug McMasters: We can't leave the cross ever.
Doug McMasters: How's it going today?
Doug McMasters: Good.
Doug McMasters: How are you doing before God?
Doug McMasters: I'm well.
Doug McMasters: Do you have a confidence about heaven?
Doug McMasters: Yes.
Doug McMasters: Why?
Doug McMasters: Because of the wounds of Christ.
Doug McMasters: Because of the suffering of the Savior.
Doug McMasters: Why do you feel peaceful today?
Doug McMasters: Because you have a Savior who received no peace.
Doug McMasters: That's why.
Doug McMasters: Why are you whole today?
Doug McMasters: Because you had a Savior who was broken on your behalf.
Doug McMasters: He's absorbed the chastisement we deserve so that we might receive a peace we could never earn.
Doug McMasters: And here we hear these words reverberating in the gospels and reverberating in the letters of the apostles.
Doug McMasters: He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.
Doug McMasters: And yes, Jesus in his earthly ministry raised people from the dead.
Doug McMasters: He healed broken bodies.
Doug McMasters: And there's a big question today: is there healing in the atonement?
Doug McMasters: And people will use that term and they will go off and they will do nothing but think about lengthening somebody's leg or getting somebody out of an armchair.
Doug McMasters: He's going to get you out of the grave.
Doug McMasters: Okay?
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: He's going to lift you into a glorious presence.
Doug McMasters: That's the healing of the atonement.
Doug McMasters: Those things in Jesus' earthly ministry are just whispers of the wonder that's coming.
Doug McMasters: This is it.
Doug McMasters: Everything that sin is broken, including our bodies, will be redeemed.
Doug McMasters: Here is our Savior.
Doug McMasters: Giving us peace and giving us wholeness, the likeness of which we can't even begin to imagine yet.
Doug McMasters: Eye is not seen, nor is ear heard, nor is it entered into the hearts of men, the things God has prepared for those who love Him.
Doug McMasters: What is it like?
Doug McMasters: We don't know.
Doug McMasters: We just throw images out and kind of amazed at the images.
Doug McMasters: But the reality behind those things is beyond us.
Doug McMasters: Beyond us.
Doug McMasters: But here it is, bought for us with a price.
Doug McMasters: The Savior who has suffered, suffered our rejection, suffered the condemnation from the Holy Father for us.
Doug McMasters: What does this tell us?
Doug McMasters: Your past does not define you.
Doug McMasters: Your failures do not disqualify you.
Doug McMasters: Your grief does not isolate you.
Doug McMasters: All of these things are born by the Savior, and in Him you can have peace with all of it.
Doug McMasters: And this is why we worship.
Doug McMasters: This is why we come to someone so unimpressive as Him.
Doug McMasters: And it shapes our life and it anchors our hope.
Doug McMasters: And it gives us strength even at our weakest moments.
Doug McMasters: Because the punishment that brought our peace was upon him.
Doug McMasters: And by his wounds we're healed.
Doug McMasters: And if you don't know the Lord is your Savior this morning, you don't have to pretend that you're whole.
Doug McMasters: Right?
Doug McMasters: He's not asking you to carry your wounds and suffer so he might receive you.
Doug McMasters: He suffered those for you.
Doug McMasters: There's once a woman who suffered for years.
Doug McMasters: She spent everything she had trying to get better, but nobody could help her.
Doug McMasters: And therefore she lived in isolation and shame, silence, and perhaps even the suffering of poverty, because she spent all that she had to try to get better.
Doug McMasters: And one day she saw Jesus and touched him.
Doug McMasters: And Jesus said, Go, go.
Doug McMasters: You are well.
Doug McMasters: Go in peace.
Doug McMasters: All the strivings that we might go through to try to feel better about ourselves, or to try to cover our guilt, or try to sort of fill that gnawing ache in our soul.
Doug McMasters: You could spend everything you have in aura and still find that well empty.
Doug McMasters: But you come to Jesus, He'll say, Go in peace.
Doug McMasters: You are well.
Doug McMasters: We can't ignore him.
Doug McMasters: And it's a question of recognition here, isn't it?
Doug McMasters: It's a question about our attention.
Doug McMasters: It's a question about our response.
Doug McMasters: Because he's not going to be clamoring for it.
Doug McMasters: He comes quietly, like a root out of dry ground.
Doug McMasters: He doesn't have any majesty, no beauty, no physique or form that catches our eye.
Doug McMasters: And when we do look at him, we quickly look away.
Doug McMasters: But look again.
Doug McMasters: Look again.
Doug McMasters: And look again until you understand why he's here.
Doug McMasters: And when you see who he is and why he's here, you'll understand more about yourself and who you are.
Doug McMasters: As a believer and as someone who's not yet come to Christ.
Doug McMasters: This servant is overlooked, but he can't be ignored.
Doug McMasters: He is the arm of the flesh clothed in humility, a man of sorrows who enters our grief, a substitute who stands in our place, a healer who brings us peace, a shepherd that pulls us away from wandering and straying, and a savior who delivers us from our iniquity.
Doug McMasters: So, church, let's be grateful.
Doug McMasters: Let's be grateful that we have a Savior who's done this for us.
Doug McMasters: And let's be humble in our posture.
Doug McMasters: Let us walk like the Savior walked.
Doug McMasters: And for those of you that don't know Christ, look again.
Doug McMasters: Because what you don't want to look at is the very place you need to look.
Doug McMasters: Look to Christ and be healed.
Doug McMasters: Let's pray.
Doug McMasters: Lord, we've heard the word of the prophet Isaiah.
Doug McMasters: And he's caught our attention.
Doug McMasters: And we've seen your servant despised, rejected, pierced.
Doug McMasters: And we have to confess, Lord, that in discomfort and denial we've looked away.
Doug McMasters: And we've turned our own way.
Doug McMasters: And yet you laid the iniquity of us all on Him.
Doug McMasters: Thank you for revealing your arm, not in power against your enemies, because that is what we are and deserve.
Doug McMasters: But you revealed your arm in humility because that's what we need.
Doug McMasters: In suffering, in substitution.
Doug McMasters: Thank you for these wounds that make us whole, and for this punishment that brings us peace, and for this reach that brings us home.
Doug McMasters: We pray, Father, that this word would not pass us by, but it would take root within us.
Doug McMasters: And I pray, Father, that it would humble any of us who are proud and comfort any of us who are afflicted and awaken any of us who are so full of ourselves we can't emote look.
Doug McMasters: But for those of us who know the Savior, deepen our gratitude and shape us by our Savior to be gentle.
Doug McMasters: Open our eyes to see a Savior.
Doug McMasters: And for those that don't, Father, we pray that they would be drawn near, to hear this wonderful invitation, to find in Christ healing and peace that they long for, and not miss this servant because he comes so quietly, and not to overlook the arm of the Lord because it's clothed in such humility.
Doug McMasters: Lord, I pray their eyes would be opened so they would see him rightly.
Doug McMasters: And that they would trust him.
Doug McMasters: And that they would follow him.
Doug McMasters: And Lord, we ask this in the name of Jesus, the servant who saves.
Doug McMasters: Amen.