The Victorious Savior Series

INTRODUCTION

 Peggy Key, of Portage, MI. said, “While driving to church on Easter Sunday two years ago, I told my children the Easter story. "This is the day we celebrate Jesus coming back to life," I explained. Right away, my 3-year-old son, Kevin, piped up from the back seat, "Will He be in church today?"

 Will Jesus be in our church today? Only if He is present in the lives of those of us who are here today!

 This is a glorious day for mankind. Today is the day that we celebrate and remember the fact that Jesus is not in the tomb!

 To the disciples of Jesus, this day did not seem possible. The man they had been following for three years had just suffered a horrible death that was reserved for the worst of criminals.

 The followers of Jesus and eleven of the original twelve believed that Jesus was the Son of God, the Lamb of God who came to save the world.

 On Friday it did not look good. On Friday there was Jesus, the “Savior” of the world dying on the cross. Many of Jesus closest followers abandoned Him, one of His closest, Peter, denied Him three times that fateful evening of His trials.

 After the death of Jesus, the disciples were in hiding (John 20:19), things did not look good, they all feared for their lives.

 Throughout His ministry Jesus told His followers that He would suffer and die, but His followers did not want to believe Him.

 On Friday, when Jesus was crucified, it looked as if Jesus lost and that Satan had won the battle.

 Satan had to beaming from ear to ear as this horrible event was taking place, the Son of God, rejected and defeated. There was something that Satan did not know, but if he had read the Bible, he would have known!

 700 years before the ministry of Jesus, Isaiah is going to reveal the truth about Jesus and the suffering that He dealt with when He lived on the earth.

 Over the last few weeks we have looked at the rejection of Jesus, the suffering of Jesus and the fact that Jesus did not deserve the punishment that He received.

 The accounting department of a large insurance company was working on year-end reports when the computers went down. An emergency call was put in to the systems analyst. Troubleshooting company-wide, the man didn’t appear until three hours later. Yet even then several clerks cheered, "He’s here! Our savior." Without a word, the systems analyst turned to leave. Panicked, the accounting manager cried, "Where are you going?" "I’m leaving," the analyst said with a half-smile. "I remember what they did to the last savior."

 Today we are going to look at three things that we need to understand concerning the suffering that Jesus suffered.

 Jesus did not turn His back on you, I hope that today you will turn to Him and give your life to Him.

 Many of us live our lives for Jesus in such a way that we have not let Him out of the tomb, today, will you have the courage to let Jesus out of the tomb and let Him be the Lord and King of your life?

SERMON

The first thing we need to know is, just when it looked like Satan had won the battle we find that:

I. JESUS SUFFERING WAS PART OF THE PLAN V10

A. The Lord was pleased to crush Him.

 At first reading of this part of verse 10, it seems a little twisted, this says that God was pleased to crush Jesus, to put Him to grief.

 This does not mean that the Father rejoiced in His Son’s suffering and death? It means it pleased Him to see the work of salvation completed, the sacrifice accepted, and sin atoned for. Now a holy God could, in His grace, save undeserving sinners. Though Christ was slain by the evil hands of men, their deeds were overruled to accomplish the purpose of God.

 ACT 2:22-24 "Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know -- this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. "But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.

 Why would the completed work of salvation please God? It is because He loves us so much that He was pleased that it was now possible for us to be in His presence. God is a holy, perfect, sin free God. When we are without Jesus, we cannot stand before God because no matter how “good” we are, we are still stained with sin. God created us to fellowship with Him, but sin interfered with that fellowship.