Joy to be together as we come around the sermon.
High five your neighbors.
Say, I'm so glad I'm sitting next to you.
Tell them that they sounded awesome while they sang this morning.
Thank you, worship team.
How's everybody doing?
Great.
Great, great, great, great, great.
So good to be together.
Please open your Bibles to the book of Isaiah.
chapter 52 Isaiah chapter 52 and we're gonna begin in a few moments picking it up with verse 13 did you bring your paper Bible to church yeah come on there we go I love it should be here in the pages turning Isaiah chapter 52 if you don't know where that is just like turn somewhere to the middle and then turn a little more you'll find Isaiah and we're gonna be in chapter 52 the title my message today is startled by the servant
And we are in a sermon series called Divine Portrait.
And our objective in this series is really very simple.
We're wanting to get to know God by studying the cross of Jesus Christ.
The cross of Christ is God's greatest revelation of himself to humanity.
And it's astounding what we can learn about God if we just
patiently make our way through the biblical texts that speak to us about Jesus on the cross.
And we've actually started, not in the New Testament, where we see the cross most vividly.
We've started in the Old Testament with some passages that provide some really essential background to the cross of Christ so that we can see the cross in its full biblical context.
How many know that context is really, really important and that the cross did not just come out of nowhere?
It was always in the heart of God.
always in the plan of God.
And so we should expect to see scripture in the Old Testament that points us to that wonderful revelation of God on the cross.
And so far, we spent two weeks in the book of Exodus.
Last Sunday, we took one little Sunday off.
We just wanted to take some time and just respond to the goodness of God and spend some extra time in God's presence as a community.
How awesome was that?
Just receiving all that prayer, so powerful.
Prophetic ministry happening.
So, so far we've spent two weeks in Exodus.
And Exodus is cool because it's a book that reveals God's desire to be near his people.
God's desire to come close to you.
And the climax of the Exodus story is in God's command for Israel to build a tabernacle, which is like a tent.
Basically God's house where God's presence was going to hang out, camp, in the midst of his people.
That's ultimately what God is
working towards in the Exodus story but of course this plan gets disrupted because of this egregious sin that Israel commits when they construct this golden calf this idol and they bow down to this calf and they worship this calf and they even credit this idol as being the God that delivered them from slavery in Egypt and they're committing this terrible sin right after they just ratified their covenant with God so like
we said that this is the equivalent of committing adultery on your wedding night.
Like it's such a shocking act that takes place here in the story of Exodus, all amongst God's desire to come close to his people.
And so what that whole episode teaches us is it highlights a tension that runs all the way throughout the Bible until it gets resolved in the cross of Christ.
And the tension is this, we could ask it like a question, how can God, who is both merciful and just,
Forgiving and righteously angry towards sin.
How can God, who is both merciful and just, how can He overcome the sinfulness of humanity?
Right?
Because the sinner cries out for mercy, but the one sinned against cries out for justice.
So how can God overcome the issue of sin in a way that is consistent with the righteousness of His character?
Right.
And what the story of Exodus does is it leaves us with the impression that somehow God must satisfy both His justice and His mercy if He's going to overcome sin in a righteous way.
That's where Exodus leaves us hanging.
Now in Isaiah, we see this exact same tension, but on a much greater scale.
So Israel's sin and idolatry has now compounded over generations of Israelites.
And the whole first half of Isaiah is Isaiah telling them, hey, we are headed for destruction.
If we keep breaking, violating our covenant, our relationship with God, this isn't going to go anywhere good.
And in chapter 39, which is kind of the end of the first half of Isaiah, he prophesies destruction for Jerusalem and exile for Israel.
And that is what ends up happening in their history.
But then after the first half of Isaiah, he begins to prophesy something different.
He begins to prophesy about how God is going to restore his people.
And to talk about this restoration, Isaiah uses the language of a second exodus.
A new act of redemption where Israel will once again be brought back into their purpose of hosting God's presence and shining God's light to the world, reflecting God's glory to the nations.
In fact, to talk about this act of restoration, Isaiah even pulls language from the book of Exodus because he's a good Bible reader.
So he pulls language from the book of Exodus to talk about this second exodus, this greater exodus that God is going through.
to perform look at Isaiah chapter 52 beginning in verse 10 this is a couple of verses that are actually right before where we're going to spend most of our time today and it says this that the Lord will lay bare his holy arm which is just biblical language for God is going to show you how powerful he is okay and he's going to do that in the sight of all the nations and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God depart depart that's exodus language go out from there
Touch no unclean thing.
Come out from it and be pure.
You who carry the articles of the Lord's house.
Which of course is the priestly responsibility.
But you will not leave in haste or go in flight.
You won't be in a hurry.
For the Lord will go before you and the God of Israel will be your rear guard.
This is greater Exodus language, right?
In the first Exodus, God's people fled Egypt and they were in a hurry because they were being chased.
God says, the next one's going to be even greater.
You'll go in peace because I'm going to deal thoroughly with your enemies.
No one's going to be chasing you.
In the first exodus, the tribe of Levi, that tribe of Israelites, they were the priestly tribe.
They carried the articles of the Lord's house.
But in this exodus, everyone's a priest now.
We all carry the articles of the Lord's house.
In the first exodus, God laid bare His arm.
That is, He revealed His power to Egypt, to the surrounding nations in the promised land.
But in this new exodus, all the nations, all the ends of the earth
we'll see the power and the salvation of our God.
In other words, just as the first exodus revealed God's power, His compassion, His grace, His patience, His justice, His mercy, just as all those things are revealed in the first exodus, so also they will be revealed in the next exodus, but at a much greater scale and with much more clarity.
Such that people will encounter God through this greater exodus and step back and go, wow, I didn't realize He was that powerful.
I didn't realize he was that compassionate or that committed to his justice.
Pretty cool promise.
And so the question is, okay, how is God going to do that?
How is God going to pull this greater exodus off?
Because remember, there's the perennial problem of Israel's sin.
That's the real dilemma that has to be overcome.
The exodus that they need is not freedom from political oppression, not freedom from physical slavery.
Yes, God wants to do that, but there's a deeper exodus that God needs to perform, and it's freedom from the power of sin.
And Israel has this ongoing problem of sin.
In fact, not just Israel, but all of humanity is enslaved to the power of sin.
So how is God going to bring about an exodus from sin?
Not just oppression, but from sin in a way that satisfies both His justice and His mercy.
And that's the question that God begins to answer in the latter half of Isaiah.
And God's answer has to do with this mysterious character that He calls My servant.
Have you read this language in the book of Isaiah before?
My servant.
There are four passages throughout the latter half of Isaiah that are called the servant songs.
And together they combine to tell the story of how God will use this servant figure to restore his people to relationship with him and even deal with the problem of sin once and for all.
And so today we're looking at the last and the most famous of the four servant songs.
The reason it's so famous is because it describes someone who suffers in exactly the kind of way we see Jesus suffer in the New Testament.
And there are 700 years between this passage and the life of Jesus on the earth.
So the predictive power of Isaiah's prophecy here in this passage really is astounding.
This passage is usually referred to as Isaiah 53, but it actually begins in the last three verses of Isaiah 52.
And what's cool is that those three verses at the end of Isaiah 52, they act as sort of a summary of the whole story in Isaiah 53.
And so I thought rather than trying to make our way through the entirety of the chapter of Isaiah 53, we could just exegete Isaiah 52 together.
We could dive in deep.
We could do like some of y'all did with Kendrick's halftime show at the Super Bowl, right?
Diving into all the context, trying to uncover all the meaning that's there, right?
So we can spend some time in this text and we'll connect.
That was pretty good.
That was pretty good.
Okay.
And we can connect the dots to Isaiah 53 as we go along.
Make sense?
Yeah.
How many didn't watch the Super Bowl?
That reference went right over your head.
Yeah.
God bless you.
Isaiah 52 and verse 13 is where we will begin.
Again, these are the last three verses of Isaiah 52.
And these three verses summarize the whole story of Isaiah 53.
God begins by saying this, see, everyone say see.
My servant will act wisely.
He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
That word see right there is literally behold.
So God is inviting you right now to behold his servant.
to enter into a place of awe as you read about the servant of God.
And God draws you into that awe first of all by saying that my servant will act wisely.
This word wisely maybe in your Bible is translated as will prosper.
And actually those two translations together, wisely and prosper, together they communicate what the Hebrew word really conveys which
is not to say that the servant will merely be wise or that the servant will merely be prosperous, but the servant will prosper because of his wisdom.
He will be successful in fulfilling the plan of God because he's obedient to God.
That's where his success comes from.
And that's the kind of success that you and I should want, by the way.
That's the kind of wisdom that you and I should want to live.
And any success that doesn't have to do with the obedience of our hearts to God is success that we should want nothing to do with.
Now, as I said, these verses that we're looking at, they summarize the whole story of Isaiah 53.
And this opening verse here is interesting because it actually begins with how the story ends, right?
This verse tells us the story of where the servant ends up.
It ends with him being exalted, with him being raised and lifted up.
And of course, that's how the end of Isaiah chapter 53...
Look at Isaiah 53 and verse 12.
God says, Therefore I will give him, that is the servant, the many, that is many people, as a portion.
And he will receive the mighty as spoil because he willingly submitted to death.
and was counted among the rebels, yet he bore the sin of many, and interceded for the rebels.
Now that's a pretty clear picture of how we are experiencing the exodus from the power of sin.
It comes from the death of the servant, and implicitly implied here, the resurrection of the servant, because after his death, he's receiving rewards.
So you and I's exodus, the reason we get to go free, is because of the death and the resurrection of the servant.
There's the gospel right there, plain as day in the Old Testament.
And that's the result that our verse back in chapter 52 is summarizing when it talks about the servant being wise and raised and lifted up.
Now that kind of prosperous wisdom, by the way, is God's plan for your life as well.
God's plan for you is not to fail and God's plan for you is not to flounder.
God's plan for you is to flourish.
That's the purpose for the wisdom that God provides for your life.
God's wisdom leads to flourishing.
That's the whole book of Proverbs.
Here's wisdom that leads to a flourishing life.
That's the Sermon on the Mount from Jesus.
Here's a way of being in the world that will amount to a flourishing life that honors God.
Right?
God's wisdom is for you to flourish.
Where we get tripped up is that God's wisdom often looks like a cross.
It looks like humility and submission and regard for God and regard for others rather than the prioritization of self.
It looks like God's timing rather than our forcing.
God's wisdom looks like seed and harvest where the harvest lives because the seed dies.
You see, it's not a coincidence that Isaiah chapter 53 is such a clear depiction of the cross of Christ and here right at the start the servant figure is depicted as wise because God's wisdom looks like a cross.
This is what the Apostle Paul picks up on centuries after Isaiah wrote this.
As Paul, a disciple of the cross, reflects upon the life, the crucifixion, and the resurrection of Jesus.
He says this in 1 Corinthians 1.18, For the message of the cross is foolishness for those who are perishing.
That is, it is the opposite of wisdom.
But to those who are being saved, it is the power of God.
Jesus on the cross, an execution device that is designed to display the utter weakness of its victim.
Paul points in that and goes, no, that's God's power on display.
Or to put it in the language of Isaiah, that's God laying bare His holy arm.
It's actually powerful wisdom that leads to a worldwide harvest of the nations.
My question is, if that's how God bears fruit, why would we think that we could bear any lasting fruit a different kind of way?
You see, wherever there is a lack of fruitfulness in your life, it's very likely that you and I have set aside the cross in that area.
We are lacking in the humility to prefer God's ways instead of our ways.
To prefer surrender over self-reliance.
See, the cross in your marriage is the answer.
It looks like servanthood rather than demanding to be or waiting to be passively served.
The cross in your parenting is the answer.
It looks like dying to your own comfort and consistently loving, disciplining and guiding your children.
The cross in your finances is the answer.
It looks like returning the first of all your increase to the Lord and living a generous life rather than hoarding for yourself.
The cross in your discipleship is the answer.
It shows up in how teachable you are and how you respond to being corrected.
The cross in your leadership is the answer.
It looks like laying down your life for the sake of other people's advancement and development rather than your own advancement.
The cross is the key to all truth, fruitfulness, and real freedom.
And if you have cast off your cross, then you have cast off any real hope of a crown.
That's Satan's temptation of Jesus.
Here's a throne without a cross.
What does he say?
Bow down to me in the wilderness and I will give you the kingdoms of this world.
But Jesus was wise and he knew that the only throne without a cross is a throne in hell.
And hell is exactly where you wind up if you try to elevate yourself in life contrary to the ways of God.
You may look like you've got a good thing going, but that good thing is all about you.
So it's not heavenly, it's really quite hellish.
When you try to sit on a throne constructed of your own self-elevation, you will not really wind up in a place of true prosperity and fruitfulness.
Because the prosperity owns you rather than serves you.
And so the Scripture says in 1 Peter 5, verses 6 and 8, Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.
In other words, don't take your future into your hands.
And so that casts all your anxiety.
What's anxiety?
It's concern about the future.
Cast it on him because he cares for you.
Be alert and of sober mind.
And if you don't, here's what's going to happen.
Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
You see, God elevates the humble in the safety of his community, the church.
But pride elevates the self.
And that always requires some form of isolation.
And isolation makes us vulnerable to the devil.
Like a lamb who's wandered from the flock that the roaring lion loves to go after.
You see, I found this.
Whenever I am isolated, it can almost always be traced back to a moment where I decided to put myself ahead of the ways of God.
In other words, it can be traced back to a moment where I rejected the lifestyle of the cross to forgive, to serve, to submit, to be humble, to trust.
And as isolated individuals, we may feel like we're safe doing our thing, but we're actually vulnerable.
And we won't actually live truly fruitful lives because true fruitfulness apparently only comes through the wisdom of the cross.
You remember my friend, Father David, that I told you the story about his barbecue business?
Love Father David.
Shout out to Holy Spirit Conference.
Father David's coming to be with us this summer.
The Holy Spirit Conference is going to be awesome.
Father David, during COVID, had a barbecue business where he was smoking barbecue and selling it.
He's a priest, but he's also a barbecue guy on the side.
I don't know.
I'm thinking about, I don't know, taking up fried chicken myself or something.
I don't know.
We'll see.
And Father David.
during COVID gets this idea, I'm going to give food away to the poor.
I'm going to use this gift that I have, this business that I have, to serve those in need.
And so he gets this call one day from this woman who runs this organization that feeds the poor.
She says, hey, can you come and feed a group of 100 people lunch?
He says, I would love to do that.
So he gets up really early the morning of the event, I don't know, 3, 4 a.m.
He's spending hours preparing all this meat.
He loads it all up into its coolers.
He puts it in his truck.
He drives it to the event.
And then he spends time serving all these people.
And then they're good to go.
And so he goes home.
He takes a nap.
He wakes up.
And then he receives a phone call from the woman who runs the organization that's feeding these hundred people.
He picks up the phone.
She says, what did you do?
He says, what do you mean, what did I do?
She says, well, you brought entirely too much food.
He says, no, I didn't bring too much food.
I know how barbecue works.
I checked and double checked my calculations.
I had my wife check my calculations.
I made absolutely sure that I brought enough meat for you to feed your 100 people.
She said, well, that may be so, but we got a lot left.
And every time our team would go back to the kitchen to get more, the coolers just kept on being full.
And we still have extra.
What Father David didn't know is that that morning, before the event, that woman got up, she did her time with the Lord, and she read the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 by multiplying the fishes and the loaves, and she prayed the simple prayer, Lord, I sure would like to experience something like that in my lifetime.
And God said, how about today?
Except let's do one better than fishes and loaves.
Let's do brisket.
That's Father David.
Now we love the miracle, but don't miss the sacrifice that led to the miracle.
Don't miss the getting up at 3 a.m.
Don't miss the giving away of the food, the giving away of the money, the time, the energy, the sacrifice.
Don't miss the cross that preceded the elevation, that preceded the miracle.
You see, so many of us are waiting around for it.
Word from God so that we can experience a miraculous life.
But God already gave you a word.
He said, take up your cross.
And friends, in the kingdom, the cross always precedes resurrection.
So that's all the word you need to experience the miraculous life that God has for you.
Do not be afraid to die daily.
Because God promises that you will live.
He promises that you will live.
And that's the success of the servant.
See my servant.
Act wisely.
And he will be the result of that true success.
Put up verse 13 again.
He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
That's what the cross leads to.
God elevates the servant.
Now the really important part about all this is not just what the servant does, but who the servant is.
Because that's what makes what he does so powerful.
That's what makes the new exodus possible.
If this were about any old servant, then Isaiah 53 would just be a really sad and then kind of confusing story.
But it's not about any old servant.
So who is this servant?
Obviously, I've already identified him with Jesus, the Son of God.
The question you should ask, though, as a good Bible reader, is, is that valid based upon the text?
And I think absolutely it is, and a lot of us are already convinced of that.
But if we'll just take a moment to study the Scripture today, we will learn something incredibly important about God, which, remember, is our goal for this series, is to learn about God through the cross.
And so it's worth our time to dive deep into this passage here.
The key to discovering the identity of the servant is in those two Hebrew words that are translated as raised and lifted up.
The words are ram.
Everyone say ram.
Come on, South Bay, say ram.
Everyone say ram.
Say nisa.
Ram and Nisa translates here as raised and lifted up.
And those two Hebrew words combine together like that outside of the book of Isaiah zero times.
But they combine together like that in Isaiah four times.
So this is unique language that Isaiah uses, and that should tell us that this is conveying a meaningful picture in Isaiah's mind when he brings these two words together.
And so to identify who the servant is according to Isaiah, all we have to do is figure out who does Isaiah have in mind when he talks about someone being raised and lifted up.
And the answer to that question is going to be pretty obvious if we just look at some of these texts where Isaiah uses this language.
Look at Isaiah chapter 6 and verse 1.
Isaiah says this, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord and he was high and exalted.
seated on a throne, and the train of his robe filled the temple.
Now this is the moment where Isaiah was called by God to become a prophet to Israel.
And at this moment, Isaiah says he has a vision of God.
He has a vision of Yahweh.
And he says in that vision he sees the Lord.
And the Lord was high and exalted.
That is Ram and Nisa.
And what these words communicate here is Yahweh's transcendence.
Yahweh's holiness.
Isaiah says, I saw the Lord and He was profoundly holy.
In fact, he was so holy, here was my response in Isaiah 6, 5.
I said, woe to me, I cried.
I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes, my unholy eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.
So Isaiah sees the Lord who's high and exalted, and he becomes frightfully aware of his own unholiness as a result.
It's very much a picture of God as a category unto himself and we are not compatible with that category.
Because God is high and exalted and we are lowly and burdened by all kinds of sin.
Look at Isaiah chapter 33 and verse 10.
It says this, now will I arise, says the Lord.
Now will I be exalted, now will I be lifted up.
This chapter right here is talking about God's judgment upon wickedness on the last day when His kingdom fully finally arise.
And in that process of judgment, we see that God is revealed as exalted and lifted up as Ram and Nisa.
He's high and exalted.
And all the nations are going to know it.
Even to the extent that those who want nothing to do with God, the wicked, they will have no other option but to come under His rule.
That's how high and exalted Yahweh is.
He's not some local tribal deity.
He's not just the God of this people over here.
He's not an American God.
He's not an African God.
He's not an Asian God.
He's Yahweh high and exalted over all the earth.
And all the earth is going to know it.
Because that's how exalted He is.
Now, so far, we've looked at just two of those verses that include this description of Ram and Nisa.
And already we should have an accurate idea of who Isaiah is thinking about when he uses these two words together.
Who is he thinking about?
Yeah, you got it.
Who's he thinking about?
No, he's thinking about God.
He's thinking about Yahweh.
Just sit in that tension.
We'll get there.
Yahweh is the high and exalted one.
God is the one who is raised and lifted up.
And so when we get to the next occurrence of these two words, which is the verse that we're studying in 52.
When Isaiah says, see my servant will act wisely, he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
Who should we be thinking about when we think about that verse?
We should be thinking about Yahweh.
Because Yahweh is the one who is high and exalted.
That's clear.
But in the midst of that clarity, we should also feel a bit of tension.
Because there's this unexpected element in this verse.
In the other two verses, it's very clearly the Lord who's high and exalted.
In this one, it's some unnamed figure named my servant.
Now that's a tension for at least two reasons.
First, we don't conceive of someone so exalted as being a servant.
We conceive of them as a master.
Second, Yahweh describes this guy as my servant.
Yahweh's like, yeah, yeah, that's my servant.
Which means that the servant is somehow distinct from Yahweh.
But at the same time,
He shares in Yahweh's exclusive exaltation, which is the theological, biblical impossibility, by the way.
Only Yahweh is the high and exalted one.
And yet Yahweh's servant is said to be exalted in exactly the same way as Yahweh.
No way.
Yahweh.
And so no doubt the servant is Yahweh.
But evidently he's not just Yahweh as we know him up here.
He's Yahweh some way, somehow, down here.
And to bend our minds even further, apparently he's both up there and down here at the same time.
Now in case there's any uncertainty about whether or not that is possible, the high and exalted one could simultaneously occupy this lowly place of servanthood.
There's one more verse in Isaiah that settles the question for us.
Look at Isaiah chapter 57 and verse 15.
For this is what the high and exalted, the Ram and Nisa one says.
He who lives forever, whose name is holy.
This is the Lord speaking.
This is Yahweh speaking.
I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit.
To revive the spirit of the lowly, to revive the heart of the contrite.
Wow, so the high and exalted one, while being holy and transcendent, also somehow simultaneously dwells with those who are lowly, those who are contrite.
The word in Hebrew is literally those who are crushed.
The one who is so holy that his very appearance makes Isaiah go, whoa, is me.
Also apparently hangs out with the Isaiahs of the world.
How is that possible?
How can God be up there and down here all at once?
Well, Isaiah 52.13 gave us the key.
It's easy.
It's because Yahweh is God, the servant.
Yahweh is God, the servant.
And so, of course, he can simultaneously be in the high and holy place and dwell with the lowly and the crushed.
Because you can never reach higher than when you descend into the depths of servanthood.
In fact, if you really sit with how God equates the qualities of high and exalted, with this image of servanthood, what you realize is that if Yahweh is not the servant, then He is not high and exalted.
Those two realities are completely dependent upon each other.
He cannot be one without the other.
Pay attention.
God is revealing something incredibly important about His character here.
That if you do not know Yahweh as the servant, then you do not know Yahweh.
How we might say in our Christian vernacular is that the cross is what makes God, God.
And if God is not the servant, then He is not God.
And if there is not a cross in God, then He is not God.
Because God is very content to let you and I know that I'm up here, but I'm also down here.
And it's my down here-ness that informs my up here-ness.
Now Jesus said something exactly along these lines.
When He said, if you want to be first, you have to be last.
If you want to be great, then you must become the servant of all.
Now when Jesus said that, He wasn't just giving some principle.
He was speaking out of His own reality.
Because He Himself became the servant of all in order to reveal Himself as the Lord of all.
And so how does God's servanthood work?
What does God's servanthood look like?
Well, Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 5 gives us the clue, the key.
But He was pierced for our transgressions.
Look at this.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
Now we just read that Yahweh dwells with the crushed.
But here we see that He actually becomes crushed Himself.
You want to know what servanthood looks like?
It looks like that.
He becomes crushed in order to dwell with the crushed.
That's exactly the state that Jesus took upon Himself when He went to the cross.
In Christ we see God exchanging His status of high and exalted for the status of slavish lowliness and sickliness so that He could not partially dwell but fully dwell with lowly people and reveal Himself to them.
In other words, Jesus on the cross is the arm of the Lord
revealed shockingly to the nations.
No wonder God says, behold.
Look.
Pay attention.
Because in seeing the servant, you will see the Son.
And in seeing the Son, you will see your salvation.
Look at Him.
Look at Him.
John the Baptist got it hundreds of years later.
He's reaching back to Isaiah's language here.
And John the Baptist says in John chapter 1 and verse 29, Behold the Lamb of God who will act wisely, who will take away the sins of the world.
But rather than behold Him, people often look away from Him.
Because the image of God on the cross before it is healing,
is deeply unsettling and startling.
How could the creator and ruler of the universe occupy such an unlikely, lowly place?
And why would he need to do that for me?
And that's part of the story that Isaiah is telling here.
He's telling the story of a God who is offensively, shockingly humble.
Look at 52 verses 14 and 15.
Just as there were many who were appalled at him.
Why were they appalled at him?
Well, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being, and his form was martyred beyond human likeness.
He was beaten brutally beyond the point of recognition.
In the same way that they were appalled at his state, so also he will sprinkle, the Hebrew word also connotes, he will startle many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they'll see.
What they have not heard, they'll understand.
What these two verses are describing is the shocking journey of the High and Exalted One.
And it's a shock from start to finish.
In His humble state, Isaiah says, people will be appalled.
And even more shocking will be the realization that this suffering is the means by which He brings salvation, by sprinkling His blood upon the nations.
And some of those nations, some of those people will flare up with pride and reject Him, but others will humble themselves and receive Him.
That's the message.
In the same way His appearance was appalling, so also His salvation will be startling.
Because from start to finish, it is all the manifestation of unthinkable servanthood, of the High and Holy One.
on the cross.
This was the tension for those who first rejected the gospel.
How could God suffer so shamefully like that guy did on the cross?
They rejected the gospel.
Their issue wasn't necessarily with whether or not God could become a man.
No, their issue was with whether or not God could become a slave.
It wasn't a substance problem.
It was a status problem.
Can the God of Exodus really become like someone who appears to be in desperate need of Exodus himself?
Can the most high become the most low?
Can God become the God forsaken?
Can the holy one become the hopeless one?
Can the healer become the wounded?
Can the helper become the destitute?
That's what Isaiah prophesied.
Isaiah 53 in verse 1.
Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
God displayed His power.
The High and Holy One came.
The people didn't receive Him.
Even His own people rejected Him because He looked like the salvation they needed rather than the salvation they wanted.
Verses 2 and 3.
He, the servant, grew up before God like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him.
Nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.
He was despised and rejected.
A man of suffering and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces, he was despised.
And of course he was, because what kind of worldwide savior appears as a fragile sprout rather than a mighty oak?
What high and exalted God suffers in the way this man suffered?
The suffering servant being God is akin to the ugliest man in the world winning the contest for best looking.
That's what that scripture is saying.
He had no opinion.
Nothing about him was magnetic or attractive.
Not only because of what he lacks...
but because of what he possesses.
He lacks the appearance of majesty, and he possesses an unusually high amount of pain and suffering.
Saviors don't look like that.
Sinners look like that.
Losers can't help losers.
You need winners for that.
This man has no evidence of anything to offer, so we despised him.
We rejected him for his pain and suffering.
But it turns out that the reasons we had for hating him
were in fact our own issues that He was taking responsibility for.
Verses 4 and 5.
Surely He took up our pain and our suffering.
He was pierced for our transgressions.
He was crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment that was on Him brought us peace.
By His wounds we are healed.
You see, the very issues that we despised and rejected Him for were our own issues.
It's like the reasons we had for rejecting Him were really just a projection of the reasons by which we reject ourselves.
Which of course is pride's way of pretending that we're not the problem.
The fragility, the weakness, the shame that we feel about our pain, our suffering, our sin.
We project it on to Him.
But it was our issues that He was bearing all along.
He took up what was ours.
The Hebrew word is nesah.
You remember that from a couple weeks ago, Exodus 34?
The God who forgives, nassaz, wickedness, rebellion, and sin.
It means that He bears it.
He takes responsibility for it.
He takes it up upon Himself.
In Exodus, we're kind of left with the mystery, God, how do you do that?
And still satisfy your mercy and justice.
In Isaiah, we see the answer.
Oh, He really takes it upon Himself.
He really bears it.
He becomes our substitute in our place for our debt and our sin.
In fact, that word nesah is the root word for exalted, for nesah.
When Isaiah is pulling back the curtain and letting us know
ever more high than when he's brought most.
And so in this picture, we begin to see how God overcomes our sins with both justice and mercy.
Because by substituting himself for our sins, he pays our debt and he fulfills his justice.
And by bringing us peace and healing in the process, he fulfills his mercy.
So initially, we may share the shock of the nation's
It's only natural to be startled by a brutally beaten man hung upon a cross, all the more so to learn that he was taking your place in that endeavor.
We may see him as a man of suffering, familiar with pain.
We may see him as punished and spitten, as crushed and lowly, as someone from whom we want to hide our faces in embarrassment over his condition.
A man oppressed and afflicted, a man despised and rejected.
And we may want to ask the same question that the nations ask.
We may want to ask the same question that the kings ask, that God's own people even ask.
And the question is this.
Can the Lord truly also be the servant?
And God, in response to that question, the God who took up our pain and took up our suffering, the God who pierced Himself through for our sins and crushed Himself for our iniquities, punished Himself for our peace, wounded Himself for our healing, that God takes our question and says, son, daughter, you don't understand.
Only the servant can also truly be the Lord.
In other words, we may look at the cross and ask, can that really be God?
And Isaiah with his 700 year prior prophetic perspective will say to you, you don't get it.
Only that can really be God.
Because Yahweh is God.
Let's all stand.
Let me hold our hands out in front of us like this.
This is a sign of openness to the fact that God's in the room.
God, we thank you for the revelation of yourself as a servant.
May we firstly receive you as such.
May every single ounce of pride that we have that seeks to reject you be removed right now so that we can accept you as the God who humbles himself to such a lowly point in order that we could be served by you.
Let us not be like Peter in the moment where he refuses the washing of his feet by Jesus.
He's uncomfortable with the most exalted one doing the lowliest task.
Father, let us accept and receive the gift of your servant.
God, we've read the books.
We've climbed the ladders.
We've checked off the boxes.
We've gained the followers.
We got the influence.
We did the stuff.
And we found that self-salvation does not work.
And so help us right now to behold the Lamb of God who takes away our sins.
In Jesus' name.
Just every eye closed, let's keep the broadcast going.
South Bay, Nashville, you guys hang with us.
As one body all across the city, across this country, I want to collectively call every person in this room
to behold the Lamb, to receive Him.
And for some of you, you need to do that in like a really, really significant way.
So significant that it's like the first time you've done it.
I'm always aware that in an American context, there's always so many different backgrounds that are present in the room.
A lot of you would have grown up in church.
Some of you may have walked the aisle one day in a Baptist church and came down and shook a preacher's hand and prayed a prayer.
But you wouldn't say that you are living a life of beholding the Lamb of God.
You couldn't say that you're living the lifestyle of the cross.
That you're following Jesus.
That you have a relationship with Him.
That you know Him.
Some of you, you've never prayed a prayer like that.
Never given your heart to the Lord.
whether or not you're coming from some kind of exposure to Christianity or this is all new to you, what I want to call every single person to in this room is nothing short of complete submission to the Lordship of Jesus.
Friends, receive His servanthood today.
Nothing you have to do.
Receive the gift of the High and Exalted One who came down to serve you.
And so in just a moment, what I want to do is I want to invite you to respond to that.
not going to call you out of your seat, not going to shine a spotlight on you.
But I do want to give you the opportunity to respond to the gospel of the Lord Jesus who loves you, who took your place, paid your debt, so that you could go free, so that you could have an exodus from the burden of sin and the burden of shame.
If you would like to make that decision today across all of our locations, then I want to invite you to respond.
Every head bowed, every eye closed.
Would you receive Jesus the servant this morning?
You ready?
One, two, three.
Just lift your hand all across this room.
Say, Jake, I wanna receive Jesus.
Beautiful.
Who else is there?
Just lift it up nice and high.
Let me see you.
Thank you, Lord.
Beautiful.
Wonderful.
Who else is there?
Just gonna give it a few more moments.
This is a holy moment.
Let's not rush it.
Thank you, Lord.
God, we praise you.
Thank you.
Yes.
Who else?
Would you just lift your hand?
Please don't let anything keep you back from Him.
He traversed a cosmic universe to come to you.
Just take a step.
Receive Him.
Thank you, Lord.
Keep your heads bowed for a moment.
We're going to lead us in prayer.
I want you to pray this prayer out loud with me all across our locations.
Let's pray this together.
For those of you who lifted your hand, this is you talking to God right now.
So just try to center your heart on the reality of his presence.
He's not distant, he's close.
And let's pray this all out together.
Say, Father in heaven, thank you that you have revealed yourself as a servant.
And you showed
your servanthood, by taking on skin and bone, living my life, dying my death, and rising again in power.
Jesus, I trust in you and I submit to you.
Help me to follow you, to take up my cross, to die daily,
that I may live today and always.
In Jesus' name.
Let's give God praise.
God is great.