Sovereign Love, Isaiah 50:4-9a
Scripture
“The Sovereign LORD has given me an instructed tongue, to know the word that sustains the weary. He wakens me morning by morning, wakens my ear to listen like one being taught. The Sovereign LORD has opened my ears, and I have not been rebellious; I have not drawn back. I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting. Because the Sovereign LORD helps me, I will not be disgraced. Therefore have I set my face like flint, and I know I will not be put to shame. He who vindicates me is near. Who then will bring charges against me? Let us face each other! Who is my accuser? Let him confront me! It is the Sovereign LORD who helps me. Who is he that will condemn me?” (Isaiah 50:4-9a NIV)
Introduction
A group of four-year-olds were gathered in a Sunday school class in Chattanooga. Their enthusiastic teacher looked at the class and asked this question: “Does anyone know what today is?” A little four-year-old girl held up her finger and said, “Yes, today is Palm Sunday.” The teacher exclaimed, “That’s fantastic! That’s wonderful! Now does anyone know what next Sunday is?”
The same little girl held up her finger and said, “Yes, next Sunday is Easter Sunday.” Once again the teacher said, “That’s fantastic! Now, does anyone know what makes next Sunday Easter?” The same little girl responded and said, “Yes, next Sunday is Easter because Jesus rose from the grave.” But before the teacher could congratulate her, she continued, “But if he sees his shadow, he has to go back in for seven weeks.”
Transition
Indeed, it is Palm Sunday. Today we consider the events surrounding Jesus triumphant entry into Jerusalem. There is much we could discuss today. All of which has great relevance to who Jesus is as Messiah, Christ, God, and King.
Rather than focusing entirely, however, on the New Testament account of Jesus triumphal entry through the Eastern gate, we will focus on a related matter the fulfillment of prophecy of the passion account.
Specifically, we will look at Isaiah’s “suffering servant.” Jesus is the long foretold messiah of the nation of Israel; the savior and redeemer of the world. Today, we will specifically examine the promise of God to save the world through His servant, foretold in Isaiah, who would come into the world first to teach, heal, and suffer and who will later come in great glory to reign!
Today, if you come worshipping with wounds that this world has given to you; worship Him with your wounds, he’s wounded too. (Michael Card)
Exposition
Isaiah is one of my favorite books of the Bible. Indeed, John’s gospel is my favorite New Testament book and Isaiah is my favorite Old Testament book. For serious students of the Bible the connection is obvious. One is written foretelling the servant of the Lord would come to free us from sin. The other is written so that we might believe in one who has come; Jesus the Christ!
God is sovereign over His creation. If there is one fact of Scripture that gives this pastor’s heart comfort and courage in all times, it is the reality that God not only knows me, my past, my present, but that He holds my future in His hand.
Whatever comes to pass He brings to pass or allows it to come to pass. He is a King, exercising absolute dominion in His kingdom. He is the conductor of a symphony, hearing every sound, knowing perfectly the strengths and weaknesses of every member of His ensemble.
So it is with the ministry of Jesus. God had a plan in place from the very beginning of creation to redeem the elect in Christ. Indeed, God, from the foundations of the earth, chose to redeem you and me in Christ.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” (Ephesians 1:3-8 NIV)
This is what Palm Sunday is all about. It is about our great God and King who loved us according to His sovereign love, before the foundations of the earth, from eternity pat, lavishing us with grace, according to His sovereign plan, His divine authority; we are saved because He saved us; nothing more.
Jesus did not happen to do a good work for us at the Cross. He wasn’t just a good man who chose to die on our behalf. He was not some kind of entrepreneurial religious leader who studied the ancient Hebrew prophecies and then went out of His way to fulfill them, as some academics in the modern era have supposed.
Our salvation was known in the mind of God before the earth of created. God, according to His sovereign will, chose to secure for Himself a people, a remnant, the elect, to lavish with His sovereign love.
How amazing is His grace! How wondrous His Cross! The Father foreknew us, predestined us, not because of us, but in spite of us, to be made alive in Christ Jesus, according to grace alone, by faith alone; mystery of mysteries; why would God save me? Why would He lavish me with His sovereign love?
It is precisely because He is full of grace and that grace has come in the promised faithful servant, the suffering servant of the Lord who atoned for my sin.
In Mathew chapter 21 is recorded the account of Jesus entering through the Eastern Gate in Jerusalem. The gospel writer says in verse that “this took place to fulfill what was spoken of by the prophet.”
Historically it has been understood that Mathew is referring to Isaiah 62:11, “The LORD has made proclamation to the ends of the earth: “Say to the Daughter of Zion, “See, your Savior comes! See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.” and Zechariah 9:9, “Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophetic Old Testament Scriptures regarding the Messiah, the Christ; the “anointed one.” It is important to consider, though, that many of the Jews of His day rejected Him; most really. Why is this so?
The trouble that the Jews had with Jesus then, is the same trouble that we have with Jesus now. Don’t judge them too critically. During His earthly ministry, most religious Jews rejected the idea of His messiahship primarily on the grounds that He was not what they expected. More specifically, He was not what they wanted.
Are we really any different? I am compelled to believe that a great many modern believers similarly reject Jesus on the grounds that He does not comfort their affliction to the extent that they would prefer; that He does not conform to the preference of their ideological persuasions to the extent that they would like.
What am I saying? I am saying specifically that if we would receive Christ we must receive Him for who He is. The Jews were looking for a political messiah, a man of earthly power who would drive out the Roman occupiers and restore Israel to her former military might and prominence.
But Isaiah had prophesied in Isaiah 53:3-5 that “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (NIV)
We long for Jesus to provide comfort and wealth in this life, but Jesus compels us to abandon this world and in doing so gain all things. “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:38-39 NIV)
What does that mean? It means that if we would be acquainted with Christ, then we would be acquainted with sorrow! It means that if we would be familiar with Jesus, then we must be familiar with that with which Jesus was familiar; the poor, the downtrodden, the outcast, the stranger, the humble; if we would find our life, we must let go of the illusionary control and rights over this life that we cling to.
If we would be Jesus disciple, we must accept Him for who He is, on His terms.
The Bible Knowledge Commentary says it this way, “A true disciple must take his cross and follow Jesus. He must be willing to face not only family hatred, but also death, like a criminal carrying his cross to his own execution. In addition, in those days a criminal carrying his cross was tacitly admitting that the Roman Empire was correct in executing its death sentence on him. Similarly Jesus’ followers were admitting His right over their lives. In so doing one would find his life in return for having given it up to Jesus Christ.”
Here He stands, familiar not with worldly prosperity and temporal, fleeting, passing, vanities! Rather, He has covered Himself in our shame. He has clothed Himself in our iniquity so that in taking our sins upon Himself, we who were once afar off, might be covered in the robes of Grace, having been adopted as children of the Most High God and King!
Foretelling the suffering of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah records the word of the Lord, “I offered my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who pulled out my beard; I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting.” (50:6 NIV)
“See how the patient Jesus stands, Insulted in his lowest case! Sinners have bound the Almighty hands, and spit in their Creator’s face.” (Spurgeon, The Shame and Spitting, NO 1486, delivered on lord’s-day morning, July 27th, 1879)
Dear precious fellow sinner, your forgiveness and redemption was bought at a terribly high price. Why do you treat as trite the very face of God bruised, spat upon, broken, and bleeding for your liberation from sin and its consequences?!
Dear child of God, how long will you wallow in despair when grace has come! For what do we wait to recognize the beauty of the one upon whom they, like we, have spat upon with indignant pride, foolish vanity, and worship of self rather than adoration of the one who was promised by the prophets of old and has come into the world freely offering the mercy of God?
How long will we, like the religious people of Jesus day, wait for Him to appear according to our preconceived notions of what His appearance should be like?
What does Jesus look like? His appearance is as mercy veiled in human flesh. His countenance is radiant with the sovereign love of God. He is the obedient suffering servant of Isaiah’s prophecy. He came in the fulness of God’s appointed time to redeem the elect; that is to save sinners. Of whose number we are all counted.
Conclusion
A relevant concluding illustration is found in “Knowledge of the Holy,” as A. W. Tozer attempts to reconcile the seemingly contradictory beliefs of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will: “An ocean liner leaves New York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has been determined by proper authorities. Nothing can change it. This is at least a faint picture of sovereignty. On board the liner are scores of passengers. These are not in chains, neither are their activities determined for them by decree. They are completely free to move about as they will. They eat, sleep, play, lounge about on the deck, read, talk, altogether as they please; but all the while the great liner is carrying them steadily onward toward a predetermined port. Both freedom and sovereignty are present here, and they do not contradict. So it is, I believe, with man’s freedom and the sovereignty of God. The mighty liner of God’s sovereign design keeps its steady course over the sea of history.” (Douglas G. Gerrard, Kingston, Ontario. Leadership, Vol. 6, no. 4.)
Dear child of God, you are not alone, adrift on the sea of coincidence. The love of God has not come unto us by happenstance or chance. Forbid we boast so foolishly as to suppose that we, in our wisdom, sought out God and compelled Him to save us on the account of our own goodness.
Neither shall we cheapen the wonder of grace by implying that God’s sovereign mercy was stumbled upon by accident through our blind groping in the darkness of our own sin, as one seeking a way out of a dark pit.
The God of sovereign grace, by the matter only of His free and sovereign will, redeemed us in Christ before the foundations of the earth and while we are free in our moral capacities, we are chosen before the foundations of the earth!
The love of God is not passing sentiment, it is not fleeting invitation. The love of God sovereign, unshakable, unquestionable, steadfast, and true! Christ died perfectly, to save sinners; to save me by name; you by name; before the foundations of the earth. This is what the Bible teaches on its own terms, and it is as wondrous as it is mysterious and as it is beautiful. Amen.
