The Servant Suffering and Satisfied

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Steven Lee
Pastor for Preaching & Vision

0:14Well, good morning. It's a joy to celebrate Easter together this morning. And if you are a visitor, if you're new among us, or if you're joining us via the live stream, we're glad you are here. And if you have young children with you who maybe aren't used to sitting through a whole service, they maybe get a little bit wiggly, a little bit restless. Let me just encourage you to be at ease. We, we love to have the children among us here this morning. If we find a stray goldfish on the floor, we'll be okay. So we're glad you are here. Let me encourage you to keep your Bibles open to Isaiah 53. We'll be looking at each of those three verses that you just heard read.

0:49And then would you join me now as we pray? Father in heaven, we come this morning as needy people who long to meet the very God of the universe. So give us eyes to see and hearts to behold the wonders of your love. Help us to see the goodness and the beauty of Jesus this morning. Meet us by your spirit and enliven us to see the truth of your word. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. This morning, I wanna begin with a question. How did you walk in this morning?

1:37Perhaps you came ready and eager to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus. Maybe you were the person in the hallway saying to everyone you saw the Lord has risen waiting for them to say back. The Lord has risen indeed. Or maybe you saw that gorgeous sunset that we got this morning. I imagine there were others who woke up this morning and they were burdened and weary, and they thought, should I go to church? Still, others are here. Maybe you're just here with family and this is just what you do. It's you suck it up. You don't normally come, but you come because you spend time with family after the service.

2:17Or perhaps there's others here at the invitation of a friend or family member or neighbor, regardless of the reason you came, you're in the right place this morning. I believe that God has a word for you this morning. And yet we know that whatever today looks like we have all these celebrations. Maybe we get together with family, maybe your houses are gonna start to smell like ham or lamb or some other delicious food. But we know that when we get back to Monday, things go back to normal. And life is full of trials and turmoil and troubles. The the unifying element of life for many of us is that we all experience suffering.

3:06I if you saw the order of worship this morning, that there was that link at the top that said, you know, these flowers were donated in memory of a loved one. And if you click on that little link, you can see the list of names. And I just perused it. And I thought, these are not just names. This was a husband, this was a wife, this was a father, a grandfather, a grandmother. This was a child. Each of these names signify sorrow and sadness and suffering. I often will go to this website called CaringBridge. You guys know what I'm talking about. Uh, I see some nods, CaringBridge, where you can go and read the updates of friends who are struggling with various health ailments.

3:51You know, uh, they had a heart attack or they're undergoing chemo or radiation. And you can read their little journal updates regularly, as others are facing undiagnosed autoimmune diseases or suffered freak accidents. And, and we realize that the only things that are sure in life, like the old saying goes, are death and taxes. And we would add to that suffering. So I realize this is a really happy Easter sermon so far, but bear with me. For many, the problem of pain and suffering is the greatest obstacle to believing in God. Uh, the question goes like this, how can a good God allow so much suffering to exist in the world?

4:32If God is good, then he must be powerless because I still see suffering in the world. Or if he's powerful, then he must not be all that good because suffering still exists. And as we think about it in the Western secular worldview, suffering has no meaning. It's just an interruption in our plans. We want to just move past it as quickly as possible. So we go to medical professionals to address our broken bodies. We go to therapy to heal our broken minds or, or to reconcile our memories. We self-medicate to dull the pain or the trauma of our past. We just want suffering to go away because it has no purpose.

5:17In, in eastern cultures, they believe in karma. So your suffering is a result of something you did in a former life that you don't know about, and that's why you're suffering now. Or perhaps it's some raging battle between good and evil spirits. And so you need to placate or appease the spirits with offerings so that the suffering will stop. I don't know about you, but neither of those is particularly satisfying or coherent. But this morning as we come to our Bibles, the Bible asserts that suffering has a purpose and has a plan. Actually, it's part of God's sovereign plan. And we see that in the greatest suffering that was ever experienced, the crucifixion of his son Jesus, he came to rescue and redeem his beloved children.

6:13And at Easter, we celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead, conquered death and provided new life to all those who believe in him. That's why we're here this morning. So my aim this morning is very simple. By the time that you leave the service, I want you to see more clearly why suffering exists and how God makes suffering purposeful through the suffering, death and even the resurrection of Jesus. Very simply, I want us to have hope when we experience suffering and to see the love of God revealed in the suffering of Jesus. So we're looking at a passage of scripture. This is in the Old Testament, Isaiah 53 verses 10 to 12.

6:58And if you've been with us maybe last week or Friday night, we've looked at kind of four of the five stanzas of this poem or prophecy. And, and so this was written 700 years prior to Jesus actually being born. And this poem was written by this prophet for telling that Jesus would come, that he would suffer, and that he would die for the sins of his people. And what we've seen and what we'll see this morning is that God inspired this writing, this prophecy, and it's all come true. And what we're supposed to do is to marvel at God's eternal plan of redemption. 700 years prior to these things actually coming to pass, it was fore to.

7:43And the main question I want us to consider this morning is why is the suffering, death and resurrection such a big deal? Why is the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus a big deal that, that Christians celebrate it every year? So our plan is to see the three purposes in Jesus suffering. And the first one is this, that we see in verse 10 that Jesus is punished to prosper. He's punished to prosper. Look at verse 10 with me. Isaiah 53, verse 10. It says, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring.

8:27He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. So what Isaiah does here is that he repre, he repeats a truth that was articulated earlier in the poem, that God punishes Jesus for the sin of others. So it says it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. What we saw earlier that Jesus was made a substitute sacrifice for sinners. We read in Isaiah 53, 5, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. By his wounds, we are healed. So Jesus took the place of sinners, paid their debt, and bore their guilt, and he was punished for their sins.

9:17This idea of substitution I is what the entire Christian faith rests upon. Uh, let me try to illustrate it this way. If someone said to you that there's maybe a thousand people on death row right now, and and there's a solution to get 'em all free, I I, it's just this, all you have to do is sacrifice yourself in place of that thousand. You just have to give your life and all of them will get to go free. Or in fact, it doesn't even have to be you. It could be one of your children.

9:53Would you take that deal as a father of five? No way. Uh, I would not sacrifice. They're all sighing and relief over there. Uh, I would not sacrifice my children to let a bunch of criminals go free, but that is precisely what God did with Jesus. We're all guilty of sin. We've all done things that dishonor God. We've all failed to rightly honor him with our lives. We have thoughts and words and actions that stand against us. Imagine for a moment, if your every thought was recorded and then posted to a webpage on the internet, how'd that go? It would not go well, would it? Uh, and this is actually not too farfetched.

10:43You know, there's something called Neural link now and Elon, one of Elon Musk's companies, and they can do a brain implant. And someone was able to play a video game just with their thoughts. And so it's not too far in the future where perhaps your thoughts could be recorded and and posted somewhere. And that just kind of gives us all the heebie-jeebies, I think. But, but what if all of our thoughts and words or actions were recorded and posted? The God says that all have fallen short of his glory, of his perfect standard. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. That's what we've earned by our very sin nature.

11:21And yet it says that Jesus came to make an offering for guilt. You see that right in the middle there. He, he was put him to grief. And when his soul makes an offering for guilt, Jesus took all of our guilt, all of our sin, and then has given to us his perfect life of righteousness. This is at the very heart of the gospel. We call it the great exchange that God takes in himself, our punishment that we have rightly earned, that we've earned with our thoughts, our words, and our actions that have hurt others, that have fallen short of his perfect standard, that have grieved him, that have hurt others, and, and it's all been taken by Jesus.

12:05And not only that, he says, I'm gonna give my people all of my perfect righteousness. And now this punishment that he received leads to this prosperity or blessing. You see that at the latter half of verse 10, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days, and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Now, what does it mean? What would all those three things mean? Well, I think what Isaiah has in mind is Jesus' resurrection. How does someone suffer, die and even get buried, and then somehow his days are prolonged? And on this side of the cross, we know that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, didn't he?

12:51Despite the Roman soldier, despite the big heavy tomb, it was rolled away. And they looked in and they saw there's no one inside. Jesus has risen from the dead. And he appeared to even more than 500 people at one time. One Corinthians 15, six, the disciples actually sat down and ate with him and touched him and put their fingers in his scars. The woman at the tomb saw the empty tomb and then spoke with him. And none of them ever changed their story. Most of them suffered and were killed as a result of their faith. So Jesus' resurrection fulfills Isaiah's prophecy that he will prolong his days.

13:34But more than just continuing to live, this is what Jesus would receive. He would see his offspring and the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. What would, what what does that mean? It means that Jesus would not just rise from the dead, but he would accomplish his mission. And what was his mission? To save sinners, to lay down his life and to rescue all those who've wandered away like sheep. He now brings back as children. And when it says he'll see his offspring, it means all those will indeed be brought back. No longer enemies, no longer estranged, but they're his offspring, his beloved children.

14:15And the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. That will was that Jesus would make a sacrifice for sinners. He rescues a people for himself by his death and resurrection. If we think about the brokenness and the suffering of our world, we often just wonder, is that it? If you've ever visited someone who's on hospice, especially in in those kind of last 24 hours, they're just laid out maybe in your living room, maybe in a hospital bed, and, and you, you feel the belabored breathing. You see the really dried lips. They give you that little sponge and cup and, and you can just moisten it. But there's no more talking.

15:02It's just slowly slipping away. And you're often left wondering, is this the final goodbye? And in a secular worldview, well, it's just a clump of mass and cells. It's not that big of a deal. And in the Eastern worldview, they, they say, well, maybe they'll be reincarnated into another person or an animal or a butterfly in the next life. But just instinctually, we know that is deeply unsatisfying. We are all longing for resurrection, aren't we? And according to the Bible, we will indeed continue to live after we die, and we'll stand before God to be judged. And when we stand before God, there'll be this long list that's unveiled, uh, of all that we've said, done and thought.

15:50And, and when He turns to us and says, why should I let you in? What will be your reply in that moment? What will you say? The only sufficient answer in that moment is substitution. That Jesus has taken all of my sin and guilt, and it was laid on him. It's already been paid for. And the only thing I bring is the righteousness of Christ, the very perfect righteousness of Jesus. That's why the New Testament says that death is swallowed up in victory, death and suffering. No longer have decisive power over Christians who die because they've already died with Christ. That's what our baptism signifies, that we've been buried with him in his death, that we've been raised with him in new life, and we are now going to live forever in the resurrection of Jesus.

16:46Death is deman dismantled, though we will all still die, those in Christ will live on with him. And what we see in Isaiah 700 years prior to Jesus even birth, is that this was planned from the very beginning. This was God's magnificent plan from the very beginning. He knew that sin would enter into the world. He knew that the world and all humanity would groan under the weight of sin. He knew that we would all have broken hearts and broken bodies and broken minds, and that we would be sinners in need of a savior. And he planned Jesus' suffering and death to rid us of our sin and guilt. And so Jesus' suffering, that's foretold precedes his glory precisely because that is how God planned it.

17:43Suffering is not a surprise to Jesus or to God, but rather it's the pathway to glory. The cross precedes the crown. Now we come to our second point where we see this pattern kind of laid out again for us. It's that Jesus suffers in order to be satisfied. Look with me at verse 11, it says, out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied by his knowledge, shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted, righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. And so we see that out of his anguish that eventually gives way so that he sees something and then he's satisfied by what he sees.

18:31And so the question for us was, well, what does Jesus see and what brings him this satisfaction? Well, it goes on. It says, by his knowledge, shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted, righteous. So what is it that satisfies him? I think it's exactly that, that God, through Jesus is going to make many righteous. His mission was to come into the world, to make, uh, destitute people who had no righteousness of their own righteous. Jesus would not only pay for sins, but impute his righteousness. He's the righteous one. You see that He, he's the one who has perfect righteousness, so he suffers anguish.

19:17But this ultimately leads to his joy, his satisfaction, the accomplishment of this mission. So Jesus delights to do God's will because it's gonna bring him joy, not because he, he likes to die, not because he wants to be beaten, but because he knows that there's a reward on the other side that I'm going to make many righteous. He accomplished his work. If you think about it, what's the most satisfying thing that you have ever done? What, what's the most satisfying thing that you've ever done? Maybe some great accomplishment. Maybe you built a business, maybe you built a family. Maybe you've made a lot of money.

20:01Maybe you ran a marathon, or you built your house with your own two hands. Maybe you finally made it to retirement. You got this big pension and you get to just relax. So what, what's the greatest accomplishment? Well, it, it probably took time and training and grit and diligence and discipline. It just didn't come easily did it. Theodore Roosevelt says, nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, and difficulty. The most satisfying things are the most difficult things, and even the most painful things at times. And what we see is that the most satisfying reality in all of heaven and earth is the suffering of the servant Jesus.

20:48He's satisfied with the fact that he has now saved sinners. Notice that Jesus has the knowledge or understanding to make people righteous. It says, by his knowledge, shall the righteous one my servant, make many to be accounted righteous? What that means is Jesus knew exactly what was needed. He knew exactly the cost. And he says, I'm the only one on earth that can pay that cost. No one else can pay that cost. And so I will go and be that sacrifice. He is the perfect sacrifice who at owns for our sins and then gives us his righteousness. Imagine with me, you, you have a rich uncle, really, really rich uncle.

21:32You know, he, he's come into all of this money and he, he says, you know, I, I've been thinking about you and I I know that you have that mortgage. I I wanna be a blessing to you. Let me pay off your mortgage. But he says, you know, I know you've already been paying off, paying on it for several years. Not only that, let me not only pay off your mortgage, but let me make you a joint account holder to my bank account so that everything that I have, you're you're welcome to use. I I'll pay all of your debt and give you all of this money. Any debt that we accrue, I'll pay. And all of my income is yours to use.

22:14How, how would you respond to this uncle? What have you done with my real uncle? Right? And who have you replaced him with? It would be too fanciful to be true. It's, it's ridiculous. And yet, that's exactly what happened in the death of Jesus, Jesus says to us, all of your debt that you have accrued to your name, put it on me. I will take all of your debt, every single one, all of the guilt, all of the shame, every evil thing, every evil thought I will take on me. But not only that, I have the limitless resources of heaven and earth. And I am going to give that to you. I will give you all of my righteousness, make you a joint account holder to my righteousness, so that every time the father looks down at you, he doesn't see what wicked or evil thing, he doesn't call to mind.

23:08That horrible thing that you think about from your past that torments you. He sees the perfect, pure, and spotless righteousness of Jesus every single time. He has the resources to pay our debt and to tone for our sins. And then he gives us his perfect righteousness. This is the wonder of the gospel, brothers and sisters. This is the wonder of what Jesus did in his crucifixion and in his resurrection, he makes children righteous and bears their iniquities. It says that Jesus was satisfied with what he accomplished, satisfied he saw it, and, and he was happy. He Hebrews 12, two says, he saw the joy that was set before him and then endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

24:06When he looked at the cross, he didn't mainly, primarily see suffering. He saw joy, not because he wanted to suffer, but because he knew what it would accomplish for us. He says to his disciples in John 1620, truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. Why will the disciples sorrow turn into joy? Yes, because they get to see their friend again. But then Jesus ascends to heaven and disappears. Their joy is not just rooted in the fact that he came back alive, but that his work was finished and he accomplished his mission.

24:50He reconciles sinners so that by faith in him, we have forgiveness of sins. So Jesus' suffering precedes his joy and satisfaction. Now, I wanna see the third thing in verse 12. Look there. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. So at first glance, verse 12 looks awfully anticlimactic. Uh, he's merely given a portion with the many. He, he divides the spoil with the strong. It sounds like, you know, if there's one pie, he gets one slice.

25:37I don't think that's what it's saying, but it sounds like that, that it's divided among many. And he just gets a little bit. A better translation is this, I will apportion to him the many and I will apportion to him the strong as spoil. What's it saying there? It means that Jesus gets his rightful reward after he sacrifices himself. Namely, he gets the many and he gets the strong. It means that Jesus, when he lays down his life and, and all those who believe in him, he receives them rightfully. They, we, we've all wandered away like sheep, each one to our own way. But God has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him so that those wandering sheep get rescued and brought back.

26:25And now they're called beloved children. That's why he gets to see his offspring, and that's why he gets the many. And the strong, I think, is referencing the kings that we saw in chapter 52. Verse 15, the, the kings of the earth are astonished or silent at seeing the visage of Jesus. And now they're part of his spoil. And what does that mean? If Jesus receives a bunch of kings as his people, it means that he's the king of kings and the Lord of lords. He's been enthroned from on high. The image that's being portrayed here is of completion. The completion of redemption. Not only is Jesus resurrected to new life, but he's enthroned as the king of the universe, given all authority, made victorious and granted supremacy over all things.

27:17Here, how Paul describes it in Ephesians that God worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and then seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. And where did he seat him? Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come, he put all things under his feet and gave him his head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of Him who fills. All in all, Paul is grasping at language to say he's made him supreme over everything. In his death, in his resurrection, Jesus becomes the king of the universe.

28:05Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And you'll either do it willingly with joy because this is your treasure and savior, or you will do it because he will exert his judgment and justice. But in this, God displays his glorious love. Jesus receives the many and the strong because look at the latter half of verse 12. He poured out his soul to death. He was numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. He sacrificed himself. He, he, he identified with the sin of his people, even though he had no sin, he who had no sin, God made to be sin so that we might become the righteousness of Christ.

29:04This basically just repeats what's already been mentioned in the rest of the poem. Jesus poured out his life on the cross. He identified with those. He came to save and he bore our sins in his body. We've seen how Jesus suffering and death accomplish God's plan of redemption and results in his exaltation, his joy, his satisfaction, his prosperity. This is why Jesus could say it is finished. So we began with the question, why is suffering? Why is the suffering and death of Jesus such a big deal? Jesus suffering and death is a big deal because it's the only thing that can reconcile us to a holy God.

29:47His suffering was for us. He was the substitute that could atone for our sins. He took the punishment that we earned, and then He's given us the righteousness that we could never earn or deserve. His death gives us life. So if that's the suffering and death of Jesus, why is the resurrection of Jesus important? The resurrection of Jesus is important because it reveals that all that he said he would do has come true. It's God vindicating his son. One Corinthians 1517 says this about the resurrection. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith, my faith is futile. And you are still in your sins without the resurrection.

30:40Jesus is just a crazy guy that said a bunch of stuff and then died, but only because of the resurrection. If he rises again to new life, and all of these people look upon him and see it's God saying, this is my beloved son. Not only listen to him, but believe in him because he is the one who has brought forgiveness of sins and can give you righteousness so that you're reconciled to the Father. This means that God vindicates Jesus, our sins are forgiven and were made right with God. And we are now subjects of this risen and exalted king of kings. The the the last question I wanna look at then is how does Jesus suffering make sense of our suffering?

31:29That that's where we began. Really, we all suffer. We will still all suffer. Suffering is inevitable. No one escapes it. It's always painful. It always catches us off guard. And it often feels mysterious, doesn't it? Like you look and you're like, why does she die at 30 and and someone else lives to 85? Why? Why did they die at four? And I know some rotten people who live into their old age. Why? But what Jesus does in his suffering is he transforms suffering itself. It is not meaningless, but it's purposeful in the hands of a sovereign God. Jesus told his disciples that he needed to suffer many things be rejected, rise on the third day in order to enter into glory.

32:25That in, in Hebrews 1312, he says that He suffered outside the gate, suffered alone and abandoned in order to sanctify his people through his blood. And, and Jesus suffered. Remember, he was beaten beyond the resemblance of man so that he could sprinkle his blood on the nations and purify them. And our suffering now for those who are in Christ, brings us to God. Suffering doesn't always mean we deserve it, but God uses it so that we turn to him to free us from our complacency and to bring us to God. One Peter four 19 says, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good as we suffer.

33:12It's to push us away from trusting in ourself so that we would trust in God who knows our suffering. Or apostle Paul writes, we can rejoice in our sufferings. Know that knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance, pursues character and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame. God uses suffering to put our hope not in this world, not in these bodies, not in our 401k, not in our bank account, but in the world to come to put our hope in Jesus. Our earthly suffering is to pale in comparison to the eternal glory that we will receive with Jesus and our suffering glorifies God as we look to him, as we endure it.

34:01And as we find our hope in Jesus, suffering frees us from the pleasures of this world so that as we suffer, we realize this world is not where I live my best life now, but it's the one to come as I put my hope in Jesus. He gives us life abundantly, even in the midst of all suffering. We can be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, and we live with him forever in heaven. So the crucifixion of Jesus reveals that God knows our suffering. He cares about his children. He's not indifferent to our suffering, but he sees our sorrow and pain. But he uses death, the death of Jesus to rescue us, to display his love and to exercise his infinite wisdom.

34:53If you're not trusting in Jesus this morning, the question I want to ask you is, where is your hope? What are you hoping in when suffering comes, where will you turn to? Who will you turn to? What will you turn when you stand before God in judgment? What will you look to? What can wash away your sins? What can rectify your guilt before a holy God? The answer is only the perfect substitute. Jesus, for us, our prayer is that you would receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior and trust in Him alone for all of your guilt, all of your sins, all of your shame. He takes it upon himself and he gives us perfect righteousness so that you can now approach the Father as a beloved child and know him.

35:49And if you're trusting in Jesus this morning, what do we wanna, how do we wanna respond to these realities? We wanna marvel at this glorious work. And then we want to be able to say, thank you, Jesus. My hope is not and how good I can clean myself up and make myself right with you. But instead, all of my hope is in Jesus, the one who, who by his knowledge, knew exactly what was the cost. It was the infinite cost to, to rectify all of these people who are on death row, who are gonna die in their sins and perish apart from Christ. And he says, I know the cost. Only I can bear it. And I've come so that you might have life.

36:37And not just that I would take your sins, but I would give you righteousness so that when you stand before the Father, your beloved holy chosen, clean, and he looks down at his people. And what does he do? He smiles, he rejoices. And the Bible even says he sings over his people because he delights in them. Oh, that we would walk out with that glorious hope that the God of the universe sees our suffering, knows our hearts, sees all of the mess, and he sings over us with rejoicing because he loves us. Let's pray. Father, we marvel at your love that we don't deserve, but that you've lavished, gloriously in your son Jesus.

37:34So awaken our hearts so that we would be able to sing in spirit and in truth, oh, thank you, Jesus, for what you've accomplished. And for those who are not trusting, oh, we pray that they would be rescued out of darkness into your marvelous and glorious light. Even now. Do that, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

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Sermon Text

Isaiah 53:10-12