October 9, 2016
Morning Worship
Text: Isaiah 53:1-12
Subject: Healing
Title: He Has Borne Our Griefs – By His Stripes We are Healed Part 2
We began this series a couple of weeks ago from the prophecy of Isaiah 53 that we are calling, “By His Stripes We Are Healed…” And though much of what we say pertains to what the scripture says about healing, the spiritual truth taught here goes way beyond healing. I just want you to keep that in the back of your mind as we continue through this.
Can we take the time to just read through this whole passage and let it soak in before we begin to go deeper into what it says?
Isaiah 53:1-12 (NKJV)
1 Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
2 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.
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes 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.
7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth.
8 He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.
9 And they made His grave with the wicked-- But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
10 Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.
11 He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.
I believe this is God’s word…
I believe it is for me…
I accept it as mine…
I will appropriate it to my life today…
We started out by answering the question that is asked in verse 1, Who has believed our report?
And the answer is really found in the next question,
And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
In John chapter 12 it tells us that those who did not believe in Him did not receive revelation.
But there are so many other scriptures that tell us that to those who believe in Him more revelation will come. God is continually revealing Himself to believers by His Spirit.
2 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.
3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Isaiah wrote these words some 700 years before the birth of Jesus and he gives us a clear picture of the life and ministry of Jesus.
1. He grew up before the Lord… By The Spirit of God that was alive in Christ from birth Jesus was in constant communion with the Father. When Judaism had come to the place where religion had become a list of rules to follow, Jesus grew up and brought freshness and new revelation and new hope and new promises.
2. He has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. There was nothing about Jesus’ appearance that would draw attention to Him. He wasn’t like Saul who was a head taller than anyone else in Israel and good looking besides. Not like King David who was 1 Samuel 16:12 (NKJV) ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. Jesus didn’t have a glow about Him or a halo around his head the way He is depicted in many Renaissance paintings. The word comliness means, magnificence or splendor…
3. 3 He is despised and rejected by men, A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Try to put these thoughts together… when Isaiah says “we” who is he talking about? WE hid our faces from Him… WE did not esteem Him… He is despised and rejected by men… but more specifically by the Jews. John 1:11-13 (NKJV)
11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name:
13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
Are people still despising Jesus today? Is He esteemed in the world today? Are people everywhere hiding their faces from Him? And even in the church world Jesus is not esteemed. How can I say that?
Because people everywhere reject the Word of God concerning Him.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
I want to focus the rest of today’s message on verse 4…
Let’s begin by looking at some of the words use in this passage…
Surely He has borne our griefs…
Borne = the Hebrew word nasa it means to bear or carry away … or, to remove at a distance…
carried our sorrows… cabal (saw-bal') v.
1. to carry (literally or figuratively), or (reflexively) be burdensome
2. specifically, to be “in labor” as with pregnancy
So with both of those words we get the sense that Christ carried away at a distance, or “delivered” ; gave birth to our sorrows and griefs… the idea in both is that Jesus carried them for us and that He carried them just long enough to get rid of them altogether. Far enough away so we don’t need to pick them up any longer, because we have to go to great length to do it.
Psalm 103:12 (NKJV)
12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows…
Look at the words griefs and sorrows…
Those two words are translated elsewhere in the bible as sickness and pain…
Many other bible translations use those very words in this verse.
Isaiah 53:4 (YLT) This is one of the most highly esteemed literal translations of the bible…
4 Surely our sicknesses he hath borne, And our pains--he hath carried them, And we--we have esteemed him plagued, Smitten of God, and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:4 (HCSB) Holman Christian Standard Bible
4 Yet He Himself bore our sicknesses, and He carried our pains; but we in turn regarded Him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.
Isaiah 53:4 (MSG)
4 But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures.
This is one of the most relevant verses in the bible relating to scripture and yet so many people want to relegate it to referring to griefs and sorrows and ignore what it means for healing.
Surely He has borne our sicknesses And carried our pain…
Now Isaiah begins this verse with strong language… Surely… there is no doubt about the fact. You can trust it… you can believe it… you can accept it as truth!
Why did Jesus carry our pain and our sicknesses? So we don’t have to! The Father knew that we could never do it.
There is an expression used in the medical field that sometimes people are carriers of certain diseases. They carry this virus or that disease. And we aren’t supposed to be carriers. Jesus is the carrier. He carried it all. Have you ever seen a UPS Truck carrying FEDEX stuff? Why? Cause they aren’t hired to do it. They carry their own stuff. They carry what they are hired to do. And yet so many Christians want to carry the sickness and pain that Jesus came to carry for us. And the more you carry the more the devil will load on you so that you become so overloaded, so burdened that you just feel like you can’t take another step. And as long as he has you believing you are supposed to carry it you’ll keep getting it from him. And the sad thing is they don’t have to carry it. As long as the enemy can load you down he will keep stealing, and killing and destroying your life. And you don’t have to let him do it. As a matter of fact when sickness or pain comes we should refuse to carry what Jesus has already carried. It doesn’t matter how you feel in your body, you don’t have to receive it in your heart. You should be insistent that you are not going to carry what Jesus has already carried. Galatians 2:21 (NKJV)
21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain." Was the work of the cross in vain? For salvation? For deliverance? For blessing? If that is true for eternal life isn’t it true for your healing?
But as long as you insist on carrying what Jesus has already carried for you then what He has done for you was done in vain. Not that the redemptive work of the cross was in vain, but the work that He did for you for you healing is in vain. But you don’t understand… I am carrying about in my body the sickness and disease. I am carrying the pain! NO! NO! NO! You may have it in your body but you don’t have to accept it in your heart. I reject it. I refuese it. I resist it. And you know what the devil has to do when you resist him? He has to flee. So I’m not going to accept what you say I have to carry devil. I am going to accept what the bible says Jesus already carried for me.
Romans 4:14 (NKJV)
14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect,
If you can carry on your own what Jesus has already carried, then the promise is voided. It has no effect.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
Can you see it? The work is already done. You don’t have to carry it any longer.
Now let me close with this.
2 Corinthians 4:10 (NIV2011)
10 We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.
The only thing that we have to carry is our agreement that the work has already been done.
We carry the evidence of the work He has already done
The evidence of salvation…
The evidence of power…
The evidence of authority…
The evidence of blessing…
The evidence of healing…
