The Suffering Savior Series

Sermon: The Suffering Savior

Scripture Isaiah 53:1-12 “Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed his powerful arm? 2 My servant grew up in the Lord’s presence like a tender green shoot, like a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. 3 He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. 4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows[a] that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, a punishment for his own sins! 5 But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed. 6 All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all. 7 He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. And as a sheep is silent before the shearers, he did not open his mouth.8 Unjustly condemned, he was led away. [b] No one cared that he died without descendants, that his life was cut short in midstream. But he was struck down for the rebellion of my people.9 He had done no wrong and had never deceived anyone. But he was buried like a criminal; he was put in a rich man’s grave. 10 But it was the Lord’s good plan to crush him and cause him grief. Yet when his life is made an offering for sin, he will have many descendants. He will enjoy a long life, and the Lord’s good plan will prosper in his hands. 11 When he sees all that is accomplished by his anguish, he will be satisfied. And because of his experience, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins. 12 I will give him the honors of a victorious soldier, because he exposed himself to death. He was counted among the rebels. He bore the sins of many and interceded for rebels.”

Introduction: “He paid a debt, He did not owe, I owed a debt, I could not pay, I needed someone to wash my sin away, and now I sing a brand new song, “Amazing Grace. Christ Jesus paid the debt I could never pay!” When reading Isaiah 53 one could almost believe the prophet Isaiah lived during the days of Jesus and was at the cross when he died. However these words were written approximately 700 years before Jesus was born. Again, 700 years before Jesus was born Isaiah captures Jesus’ pain and death Jesus experienced on the cross. The day we call Good Friday! Think for a moment, the details given by the prophet Isaiah concerning the forthcoming pain and suffering of Jesus are amazingly precise. Isaiah asked, “Who has believed our report?” “And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

The arm of the Lord has been revealed to believers who have become friends of God. The Bible calls believers precious, valuable, and highly esteemed. In Genesis 1:27, God created all of us in His image, male and female, and in His likeness with a mind. The question is, “Who has believed our report?” Maybe Isaiah asks the question because who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this? Paul in Romans 10:16 repeats this question when he says, “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed our report? The question is, Who? Who hears? How well do you hear? What do you hear? What will you do with what was heard?

One commentary writes, Jesus, the Messiah will spring out of the earth without notice; low in its beginning, slow in its growth, liable to be crushed with the foot, or destroyed with the frost. No great birthplace could Jesus claim. No flamboyant parent, just simple people. That’s enough. Isaiah predicts, Jesus wasn’t renowned, He had no political favor, He didn’t belong to any social clubs. Yet, He was God’s only Son and God’s plan for salvation.

Isaiah 53:2-3 “For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, And as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”