The Suffering Servant Series

INTRODUCTION

 We are closing in on Resurrection Sunday. As we get closer to that wonderful time of celebration I want to take you back to the book of Isaiah as we return to the 53rd of Isaiah.

 I want you to remember as we look at our text today that Isaiah wrote this some 700 years BEFORE the birth of Christ. Isaiah, with great precision almost as a man who saw the events unfold before him, wrote about what would happen to Jesus when He came to earth to save mankind.

 In our last message Isaiah told us that Jesus was going to be rejected by His own people and we still see that rejection today.

 In our passage today we are going to see that Isaiah not only spoke of the rejection Jesus would face some 700 years before it happened; but he also spoke of the suffering that Jesus would endure, giving the people of his day insight as to the why it happened.

 In our society today people have the mentality that they do not need Jesus because they are too good to need a savior or they feel that they can follow the path of their choosing to heaven.

 I saw a T-shirt once that showed a picture of Jesus’ bloodied body on the cross with the something that basically said, “If I am alright and you are alright, then why did this happen”?

 People today look at Jesus and they wonder,if He was the Son of God, why did He die like He did? People have a hard time believing that a loving God would allow His one and only Son suffer and die.

 Today I want to talk to you about why God allowed His one and only Son suffer and die on the cross.

 The Easter season as we call it is a unique time because it is a time in which many people will come to church that do not usually come. It is a time when we need to really think about what Jesus has done for us.

 It is my hope that after today’s message that we will all have a clear understanding as to why Jesus suffered and died on the cross and by the way why He rose on the third day!

 I hope that today, we will all walk out of here with a renewed commitment to love and commit ourselves to Jesus because of what He did for us.

SERMON

I. THE REASON JESUS SUFFERED 4-5

A. The misconception of His day (4)

 In verses 3 and 4 Isaiah tells his listeners that when the Messiah suffered, people would turn their backs on Him because they believed that He had to have done something to deserve the punishment that He was receiving.

 This is part of the reason that verse 3 says that He was despised. At the end of verse 4 we see that we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. People could justify His treatment because they thought He deserved it.

 Look at how this was fulfilled in Matthew 27:39-44. READ verse.

 The only way that people could be so cruel to Jesus was to write Him off as a sinner.

 Today people write Jesus off as just a good teacher, a fable or anything else to justify not following Him.

 The religious leaders incited the hostile feelings toward Jesus because they did not want to lose their power structures.

 Today we put Jesus on a lower level than we should because we do not want to have anyone tell us how to live our lives.

 The Jews of the day were very black and white. In t heir thinking if you are being punished, you must be guilty. Seeing Jesus hanging on the cross made many of them forget all the great things that Jesus had done over the course of His ministry.

 Isaiah and the rest of the Bible tell us the real reason that Jesus suffered. Let’s look at the passage.

B. The true reason for His suffering

The first reason that Jesus suffered:

1. He suffered so He could bear our griefs (4)

 Isaiah says that one of the reasons that Jesus suffered was so that He could bear our griefs. The word griefs in many contexts referred meant diseases and sickness. Matthew in Matthew 8:17 said after Jesus had healed many people of various illnesses and possession, “This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: "He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases."

 The word for grief means sickness, disease, anxiety, and affliction. It does not refer to sins, but to sufferings.