The Suffering Servant
Sermon Notes
Introduction:
Today we are continuing in our yearlong series called The Story. We are exploring how the entire Bible, even though it’s composed of 66 books with different genres and authors, is really telling one big story. The last time I preached we were in the book of Leviticus, which while rich with good content, can feel like a bit of a slog to get through. Today, we are in one of the most famous and beautiful passages of Scripture in Isaiah 52-53.
As I was preparing this message I was reminded of some of my favorite parts of movies. I love in a movie when there is a difficult task that requires an intricate plan to accomplish. I’m thinking about movies like Ocean’s 11, 12, 13 or other heist films. Throughout the movie you are seeing a plan being formulated but you’re not entirely sure how it is going to work out. But then you get to extremely satisfying moment where all of the plan comes together. Everything works in conjunction with the plan and you finally understand how all of it fits together. Isaiah 52-53 lays out God’s plan for us in perfect detail. It helps to look both forward and back in our Bibles to understand how it all fits together. I’m excited to dig into it with you. Here’s the Big Idea for today.
Big Idea-God’s plan for our salvation has been set for all time, so you can trust it today.
Context:
Isaiah served as a prophet in the Kingdom of Judah under multiple different kings. He lived in the 700s BC. The book of Isaiah is full of both messages about the spiritual state of Judah during Isaiah’s time and prophesies that would not come to pass until hundreds of years later.
Isaiah 52-53 is one of these future-focused prophesies. It’s actually the fourth prophecy in a series that Isaiah wrote about a mysterious “servant” of the Lord. These servant songs can be found in chapter 42, 49, 50 and 52-53. These chapters along with Isaiah 6 are the can’t miss chapters in Isaiah. These prophecies detail the life and ministry of the Messiah of Israel who we know to be Jesus. Today’s passage is the most famous of these texts and it is widely referenced by NT writers to identify Jesus with the Servant in Isaiah. Scholars have found at least 85 NT references to this passage. So like I said, this lays out the plan of salvation and the NT writers noticed that.
Sermon
Because this is such a beautifully written passage of Scripture, I think it is best served by reading the entire thing at once and then we’ll dive into the points within it.
Read Isaiah 52:13-Isaiah 53:12
Now when the Bible is that clear and profound, the temptation is to read it, say amen, sing a song, and just soak in it. But, and this may be a self-serving thought, I think there’s even more beauty to unpack here if we take a look in detail at some of what Isaiah says about this Suffering Servant that we know to be Jesus. So, this morning we will look at 4 aspects of the work of the Suffering Servant.
The first aspect we’ll explore is that He Succeeded Despite Rejection (52:13-53:3).
It’s in these verses that we get the famous line that the Messiah would be despised and rejected, described as a man of sorrows, someone who people hide their faces from, and that his likeness would be so marred as to be unrecognizable. We know that Jesus was beaten and mangled severely during his trial and execution on the cross. We even see in these verses that He is described as being generally unremarkable. That He didn’t possess any notable physical trait that would attract people to Him. If you were with us when we walked through the book of John you’ll remember numerous stories where people rejected Jesus or tried to kill him during his ministry, even in his hometown of Nazareth. When John summed up the ministry of Jesus in John 1, I think he had this passage in mind when he wrote these words.
10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.
No matter how many times you here these verses it still blows my mind that the Messiah, Jesus, God himself in flesh faced rejection at every turn during his life and ministry. But when you step back and think about it, you begin to see our sinfulness in all areas of life, so it holds that sinful people would reject God even if He was physically with them. But let’s move now to the success of Jesus despite his apparent rejection. This is where the chapter 52 verses are crucial to be included with this passage. Verse 13 tells us that the Servant will act wisely, or other translations may say prosper or succeed. That he will be high and lifted up and exalted. So, the effectiveness or success of Jesus ministry wasn’t to be measured by the number of followers or converts he had, but by how faithful and wisely He lived out God’s plan for him to be the suffering servant. There’s a lesson in that for us too, that we don’t have to be defined by worldly measures of success, but can remain faithful in what God has for us and trust him to reward us as he sees fit.
Verse 15 shows us the success of Jesus’ life through the expansion of the Gospel and it clearly shows us how this was the plan all along.
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.
If you’ve been following us through this series, hopefully the word sprinkle sparks a memory of something else we’ve studied. This is a reference back to the sacrificial law given back in Leviticus specifically in chapter 16 talking about the Day of Atonement. In that passage we saw the ritual of the High Priest sacrificing various animals for both his and the sins of the people and sprinkling the blood on and all around the ark of the Covenant. But notice what is receiving this atoning sprinkling in Isaiah, the nations. The work of Jesus as the suffering servant expands God’s atonement of sin from a ritual intended to forgive 1 nation, Israel, to all nations. Anyone regardless of ethnicity, nationality, sex, or race can find forgiveness and atonement in the work of our Suffering Servant Messiah. Isaiah explains this again by saying that “kings” (stand-ins as leaders of other nations) will be awestruck and will be able to understand things that were not originally taught to them as people. The fact that we as a non-Jewish group of people are worshipping God today is because of the Success of the Servant despite his rejection.
That’s the first aspect of the life of Jesus as our Suffering Servant. The second aspect is that He Suffered for our Sins (53:4-6). We’ll read through these verses again to highlight a few things.
Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But 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. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
The first thing that jumps out is the accuracy of the prophecy itself and we’ll see even more examples of this as we go. Remember that Isaiah is living around 700 years before the birth of Jesus and about 300-400 years before crucifixion is invented as an execution method. But he includes the specific detail of Jesus being pierced. Jesus would eventually use this detail of his puncture wounds after his resurrection as proof to his disciples that it really was him come back from the dead.
Also take note of the substitution language throughout these verses. Jesus was pierced and crushed for OUR sins. OUR chastisement was put on him. He got punishment and wounds, we receive peace and healing. Please hear me this morning if you aren’t a Christian listening to me. This is Christianity, it isn’t that Christians are somehow more holy or moral than you are. It isn’t that we live perfect lives. It’s that we recognize that we are broken and sinful and need someone to heal us of that sin. Christians don’t get to sit as judges over people, instead we are to realize that we deserved judgment from God, and that He in his Grace and love decided to take our place for the execution.
Again we also see direct connections back to Leviticus and the old sacrificial system. Part of the day of atonement that we discussed was the process of laying sins on the animals that were to be sacrificed. The priest would lay his hands on the animal and proclaim over it all the sins of himself and the people of Israel. The death or casting out of that animal then symbolized the forgiveness and removal of the people’s sins. Verse 6 tells us that God laid the sins of us all on Jesus in the same way. What bulls, sheep, and goats did symbolically and temporarily for the people of Israel, Jesus did in reality once and for all for all people over all time. He Suffered for Our Sins so that we can now be declared righteous before God.
I know for many of you in here today, this is a hard reality to take hold of. You keep looking at your life and seeing the sins and struggles that you have and wondering when God’s patience is going to run out. Your treating Jesus’ sacrifice like He was just another sheep sacrificed and that his sacrifice can wear off and need to be repeated. What you need today is to fully trust in the once for all sacrifice of Jesus. You need to stop trying to suffer to save yourself and recognize the grace and forgiveness in Christ that is yours already.
Some of you may be on the other end of the spectrum. You’ve got some sins in your life that you may be okay holding on to. You can keep them secret or only indulge them in private. It’s not hurting anyone, you think you have it under control. Look at this passage and see what Jesus had to endure in order to atone for our sin. When we realize that it was our sin that led Jesus to the cross, it should change our perspective on it. What feels pleasurable in the moment should remind us of the suffering that it brought and brings about. Let’s not make light or take advantage of the suffering of Jesus on our behalf.
To expand on that point let’s look at the 3rd aspect of the Suffering Servant. He Served in Innocence (53:7-9).
Verse 7-8 highlights the highlights the attitude of Jesus during his suffering. He didn’t go out of his way to defend himself. He knew his mission to suffer for his people, so he didn’t need to prove himself to his accusers even as they wrongly and unjustly oppressed him. Verse 9 gives us another specific prophecy that will come true in Jesus’ life. Joseph of Arimathea, a rich member of the Jewish Sanhedrin, would offer up his family tomb for Jesus’ body’s brief stay of death. We also see that Jesus’ life was characterized by perfect living in both word and deed, he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.
This shows how different Jesus’ life was from our own. If we’re honest with ourselves, there is no part of our lives that we can claim as being fully innocent of sin. Even the good things that we do, we often do with selfish motives. We hope that people will recognize our sacrifice. We make sure that we promote it just right and we get offended when people don’t give us the right credit. Jesus had every right to defend himself from the false charges that he faced throughout his entire ministry and trial. He did the right things, for the right reasons, with the right mindset, at the right time, all the time. But instead, He mostly kept silent, because he knew he was called to be the Suffering Servant. He would receive his glory and praise, but that would be after his work was complete.
Isaiah points this out because this is exactly what we needed from Jesus to be our sacrifice. Jesus couldn’t just be some mostly holy guy who died as an inspiration for us all. He needed to be the perfect spotless lamb of God in order to save us. He couldn’t be like the old high priests, who first had to offer sacrifices for their own sins before seeking the atonement of the people. Jesus had to face his suffering as a perfect sacrifice so that he could take our sins to the cross with Him.
This leads us to the fourth aspect of the suffering servant that we see here. He Sees Ultimate Victory (10-12)
The language shifts in these verses for sure. We see the servant’s suffering mentioned, but it is mentioned as the reason why his victory is so sweet. Jesus will see offspring increase over time, He will be satisfied, and He will reap the spoils of his victory. Isaiah closes out this passage by circling back to the first verses we read in chapter 52. When you look at the description of the suffering and rejection that Jesus would face and think about the specific stories where he did face those things, it seems impossible to think that all of that would result in a great victory. But that was the plan all along. We even see this in Genesis 3 when God says that while Jesus will crush the head of Satan, He will have to endure the crushing of his own heel.
The apostle Paul picks up on this idea in Philippians 2. He tells us that we are to live selfless lives without rivalry and contempt for each other. He holds up Jesus as the ultimate example of this. That though he was God in flesh, he humbled himself to the point of death on the cross. Because Jesus lived this out, this is how God rewarded Him.
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus’ greatest glory comes not from his power, his miracles, or his teaching; it comes from his humble and successful suffering on our behalf.
Closing
We see from Isaiah that Jesus as the Suffering Servant Succeeded Despite Rejection, Suffered for our Sins, Served in Innocence, and Sees Ultimate Victory.
Again the Big Idea for today is this: God’s plan for our salvation has been set for all time, so you can trust it today.
The reason we decided to do this yearlong series through the whole story of the Bible is that you would see and understand this idea. From the first words of Genesis, until the present day, and going all the way to the predicted events of the book of Revelation. God is working out his plan to redeem us through the suffering service of Jesus. As you read your Bible, you are seeing the unfolding of this plan. It is highlighting the power and glory of God, the depth of our sin, and the even greater depth of Jesus’ humility and love for us.
The response for us today is to trust in this plan. Whether that is for the very first time, you can go to God with your sin knowing that Jesus has already sacrificed himself perfectly to redeem them. If you are already a believer, you can trust that his perfect work is sufficient for you to trust him. He still makes intercession for us. He didn’t face that suffering and rejection back then and is now sick of dealing with our sin. He still fights for us and seeks to cleanse us of our sin. Jesus fully understands rejection and rightfully could have rejected us for our sin, but he chose to be pierced and crushed for our sin instead.