Main idea: Sing for joy – the Father has crushed the Son so that we could be His children.
Implications
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let's read Scripture now. We're going to look at Isaiah 53 today, specifically verse 10. We're going to read verses 10 through 12. Normally, this is a passage. Yeah, you can stand up once you get that in your Bible there, normally it's a passage we would read at resurrection, Sunday, Easter Week, Holy Week, Good Friday. But also it tells us why the Savior came. It's a promise about why, what Christ would do when He came. So we want to see in our promised Savior series, Christ came to rule and reign, but he also came to suffer for us so we could be His children. So that's what we want to see here in Isaiah, 53 verses, 10 through 12. So read with me. 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. He shall prolong his days, the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand 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. Therefore, I will divide Him a portion with the many. 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. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together our God. We thank you for your grace, your mercy, your justice. You are a holy God, God we are staggered to see how you have been pleased. It was your will to crush your only son whom you love, to show us your glory, to show us your mercy and compassion, to show us your justice and to make us your children. I pray that today these truths would would minister to our heart your spirit would help us to see the depths of Christ's suffering, the purpose of His suffering, and what you have accomplished, Jesus in making us your own. Help us to sing for joy, to rejoice, to be your sons and daughters who love you and rejoice because of what you've done. We thank you so much. Help us to see the truest, greatest gifts that we could ever receive is belonging to you. We praise you God. We thank you for your faithfulness in giving us the privilege of sending out labors into the harvest. Thank you for Frank and Jacqueline and their kids for the privilege of us sending them. Thank you that they've passed their third language check. Thank you for the ways you've sustained them through these trials with different health challenges and all the things that they're enduring every day that we don't even know about God. Thank you for the way that you're showing them that Christ is worth it. Please give them strength to sustain them. Help them to continue faithfully learning language, faithfully serving those who are up in the mountains. We pray for the DOE people, that many worshipers of you would be raised up among them, that you would establish your church in that village among the DOE people, use Zach and his family make your glory known that may they would, may they see truly who you are, Jesus and worship you God. We pray for Nathaniel, Lizzie and Thaddeus and Chloe and Steven as they go. Would you strengthen them and use them in January as they're there to be a blessing to those that they work with? Pray that they will learn a lot. I pray that they would be a blessing to the root shows and just thank you for the privilege they have of going and of learning and having that opportunity to serve God. We thank you for Keith and Kathy. Thank you for their faithful years of marriage, and we pray that you would continue to strengthen them for many more years of faithfulness. I grant them strength in this physical trial right now. We thank you for how you are faithful to us as we trust in you. We pray for others who are facing other challenges. God, you know the spiritual, emotional, physical difficulties each of us might be facing. And I pray that You would help each person to trust in you, to trust in your grace and your your sufficiency, your love. God, we pray for churches around our city. I think of the ones that I drove by this morning, Garland church and City Church and the gathering house and the church across the street from us here on Cora God, we pray that they would be faithful to preach Christ. They would be faithful to trust in you, to follow you. Help those who are part of you, to those churches who know you, to really honor you with their lives. You are a holy God. We pray for many other churches around our city that we are knit together with and the bond of like mindedness and the Gospel. Help all those churches today to also worship you and we pray right now, you would minister to us by your word, by your Spirit. Amen. May be seated. Christmas time is often a time where a lot of us like to find good Christmas movies, and these movies kind of often have a reoccurring theme. There's one famous Christmas movie that you probably know. It's a Wonderful Life just life starring George Bailey, and George ends up in a very, very dark place. It's very far from being a wonderful life. His business is ruined. His family is being destroyed by his own anger and despair. There's no hope for a happy life for George, and in that moment of his deepest darkness. An angel named Clarence shows up, right? And things would have ended very poorly if it weren't for clarence's timely intervention. Despite not knowing exactly how to do it, his job was that Clarence is able to help him, and through a lot of generosity and kindness from the community, George and his family's life turn around, right? They have reasons to sing another famous Christmas movie that is after Charles Dickens novel, A Christmas Carol. We see Ebenezer Scrooge ruining his life with greed and selfishness. But then what happens? Three ghosts, the ghost of Christmas, past, present and future, save Scrooge, by opening his eyes to see the horrible way he's living and what that's resulting in, and he's able to change his ways and begin a life of generosity and love that's filled with joy, right? Both of these famous Christmas movies share the same plot. A selfish, sinful person is ruining his life and the lives of those around him, and the appearance of a ghost or an angel and some helpful insights result in radical change. There's lots of other movies with similar plot, right? Like elf, the dad is valuing all the wrong things, until Buddy the Elf shows up, and between buddy and Santa Claus and some amazing circumstances, the dad changes his perspective. He changes right? And then we hear from Buddy the Elf a very profound nugget of wisdom. Buddy the Elf our famous Christmas philosopher. He teaches us that the best way to spread Christmas cheer is to sing loud and clear for all to hear, right? That's how we spread Christmas cheer. But as we think about our lives, what are we singing about? What about all the darkness and the brokenness in the world, all the pain and the suffering, all the sin, how can we sing? Can people really change? What will it take to redeem us? What should we sing about? You and I and all of humanity need more than a change of perspective to fix our problems. We need more than that to give us reasons to sing. We need more than the appearance of an angel or some scary revelations from a ghost. Our condition is much worse and the solution is much more costly. We cannot get joy for the world through Santa and a white Christmas and a bunch of Hallmark warm fuzzies, it's not enough. Our problem is much, much more serious. Adam and Eve have plunged all of us and all of humanity into a deep pain and sorrow and sickness and disease and grief and rebellion and sin and transgression and guilt. In short, we are all dead in our sins. This sin against God has resulted in the consequences of pain, sorrow, sickness, grief, death, guilt, shame. It's resulted in enmity with God, separation from God, persistent guilt and shame. It's resulted in hiding from God and hiding from each other. We fight with God, we fight with each other. We are not good people on our own. This is a very serious problem. What is the solution to this problem? It's much deeper, much more serious than what we see in these movies. God told Eve that her offspring would crush the head of the serpent. That is the solution to our problem. And Dan helped us to see in the last few weeks that the Lord Jesus has crushed the serpent's head. He has conquered and will conquer God's enemies and save us. Those promises that we saw in Psalm 110 that we saw throughout the Bible, show us that Jesus is the one who can give us life. He's the one who can save us. He's the one who's our priestly king who lets us draw near to God, a holy God, even though we're sinners. And this week, we're going to look at another promise of the Savior, Isaiah 53 this promise of the Savior was given 700 years before. Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem, 700 years before. And it shows us he had to come to earth become a human, fully God, fully man, be crushed for our sins. He needed to do that so that he could crush the serpent's head so he could save us victory out of defeat. We see a depth of defeat, a depth of suffering that Jesus went through. The one who crushes the head of the serpent was himself crushed by God. He became our sin. He took all of it on us so that we could be delivered so dear friends, today, you can sing, you can rejoice. You can be glad. You can face the grim death and despair and destruction that your sin has caused and realize that Christ has fully taken it. He's done everything needed so that you and I could become his sons and daughters. We could be His Church, His Bride. He has suffered extremely so that we could be loved extravagantly by him. These precious truths that we see in Isaiah 53 can cause your heart to rejoice, to truly rejoice at the greatest gift that ever was. This is why Christ came to earth in a manger. He came to suffer for you and I, so that we could be his sons and daughters. How did God make it possible for us to be His children? Jesus took all of our sin on himself so we could be God's children. We're going to see that we can sing for joy. The father has crushed the son so we could be God's children. Look first that Jesus took all of our sin, the pain, the sorrow, the sickness, the grief. The death, the sin itself and the guilt he took all of it. That's what we see in Isaiah 5310
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this prophecy starts in Isaiah 52 verse 12. And then there's 52 verse 13, sorry. And there's five stanzas. We're gonna focus on the last stanza Isaiah 53 verses 10 through 12. And really verse 10. And verse 10 starts with this word yet, or the word, but yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. Why does it start with the word? Yet, if you look back at what came before, we see that the servant has suffered extreme humiliation, sickness, pain and death. But it says in the end of verse nine that he was a man who had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth, despite all that, it was the will of the Lord to crush him. How is it possible that God would crush the servant of the Lord, who is the perfect person? How would he crush him? The people who read this might have thought the will of God has been thwarted. God lost control. Somehow, he's off of his throne, and evil has taken over. If this has happened to his servant. How can God still be in control? How can stop God still be good? But we see here in verse 10 that God has not lost control. God is on the throne still, and it was his will that the servant be crushed. Why is this? We see when God reveals Himself to Moses in Exodus. 34 we see some things about God that are also being made clear here in Isaiah. 53 listen to Exodus. 34 six and seven. When Moses said, God, please show me your glory. What does God do? The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord. The Lord a god merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for 1000s, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But who will, by no means clear the guilty visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and fourth generation. Behold our God. Behold the Lamb of God. What kind of God could be merciful and gracious and give his love and covenant keeping love to a guilty people, a God who would will to crush his son, his only son, whom he loves to be merciful and just at the same time, he visits the iniquity of the guilty on us in His Son, as he crushes his son. That is the God that is being revealed here in this prophecy. Who's the servant of the Lord? This title, servant of the Lord, is used a bunch of times in this section of Isaiah. Oftentimes it's called the Servant Songs or songs about the servant, and sometimes it's referring to Israel. Israel is called the servant of the Lord. How did they do with being the servant of the Lord? Not very great, right? They weren't faithful servants, and God is condemning them, confronting them, calling for their repentance over and over in Isaiah, because they have been unfaithful. And yet, in Isaiah and in His Servant Songs, it doesn't only talk about Israel or Judah being the servant. It also talks about an individual who is faithful from Israel being the servant. Turn back in your Bible to isaiah 42 we see her description in isaiah 42 of the servant of the Lord. That shows us that he is an individual from this group of unfaithful servants, who is faithful, who accomplishes the will of the Lord. Look at Isaiah 42 verse one. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations. Pause. Think about Jesus, baptism. What do we hear the Father saying from heaven, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. The servant is the one in whom the soul of God delights. And when we see it, the baptism, the Spirit coming down on Jesus who brings forth justice to the nations. As Dan talked about last week in Psalm 110 it's Jesus. Jesus is the one who brings justice. Let's keep reading in isaiah 42 hear more descriptions of this servant, this individual from Israel. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street A bruised reed. He will not break a faintly burning wick. He will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. Jesus, in His gentleness, in his first coming, and in His glory and His second coming will bring forth justice. Verse four, he will not grow faint or discouraged till he has established justice in the earth. And the coast lands wait for his law. For whom do the coastlands Wait? Who do the nations in Papua, New Guinea and Indonesia and all around the world? Who do they wait for? It's Christ, the Messiah, Jesus, he's the one who's coming, who will rule on David's throne. Look at Verse five, Thus says the thus says God, the Lord Who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it, and Spirit to those who walk in it. I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I will take you by the hand and keep you. I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. Does Israel? Is Israel given as a covenant for the people? No, the Lord Jesus is given as a covenant for the people. Right? Who is a light to the world? Who's the light of the world, the light of the nations? It's the Lord Jesus. This right. He is the servant who's the light to the nations, who opens the eyes of the blind, who brings the prisoners out of captivity. It's Jesus. Jesus is clearly the servant of the Lord, even though those who had denied that Jesus died in the place of sinners would say, this is not talking about him. But we can see clearly from isaiah 42 from what's said in Isaiah 53 and from the rest of Scripture, the servant of the Lord is Lord Jesus Christ, and it talks in the past tense. What Isaiah sees here, he's describing as if it already happened, which is normal for prophecy. God is showing him something that will happen in the future as it's happening. He's seeing it, and he's describing it. It's certainly going to happen, although this is 700 years before Jesus comes to earth. So what do we see here? Go back to Isaiah, 53, verse 10. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. God was pleased to crush the servant. What does it mean to crush it's not just to bump him lightly or like push him a little bit. Crushing is to destroy, to utterly humiliate, to smite, to damn. It's to break into pieces. We see this progression of crushing in the whole chapter. How could God, the Father, do this to his beloved son? It's because he is committed to his glory. The Son the Spirit of the Father, they're committed to their glory and to saving a wicked people that they would make their own god is ultimately responsible for crushing his servant. Yes, it's our sins that put him on the cross. It's the wicked Romans and Jews. But listen to Acts 223, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. Yes, the Romans and Jews did stuff to him, but it was the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. It was God's will, God's plan, to crush Jesus, to destroy him. We're going to read in a minute, Isaiah 53 and see what that looked like for Jesus to be crushed. The next phrase helps us to see that further. It says he put Him to grief. Isaiah 5310 he has put Him to grief. He's literally made him sick. Throughout the Bible, sickness, pain, death, are connected to our sin. It's not that every time you get a cold, oh, you must have sinned. That's why God gave you that cold. No, it's not like that sin from Adam and Eve and from all of us in general has resulted in this physical problem that goes along with our spiritual problem. It shows us this devastating separation from God and being under that curse that's on the earth. There's sickness and death, and Jesus was made sick, for sure. Throughout his life, he faced sickness and pain and sorrow and grief in many ways, but the ultimate sickness and pain and grief that he faced was when he was being crucified, being tortured and punished for us and crucified. Listen to what that being made sick look like, what that being crushed looked like. As you go back through Isaiah 53 you turn back to Isaiah 53 verse two. Verse Two. It says he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no former majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. We see the humility of the servant. When Jesus came to earth, He didn't come in all of his oh glory, right? It was. He came in humility. He didn't come with a shining light, like the sun, destroying anyone that was wicked. Still, he came, clothing His deity with humanity, humble, not impressive in a dirty manger, in Bethlehem, not being worshiped by people spending years and years in the shadows. He came humbly. But not only was he coming humbly, he came and he was humiliated. Look at verse three. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrow is acquainted with grief, as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not. He was despised, rejected. Think about Jesus on the cross, humiliated, being made fun of, abandoned by all of his disciples, rejected by men, those whom he had created, whom he came to save killing him. He was despised. People looked at him and he didn't even look like like a human. He looked it was so, so So destroyed physically that he didn't even look human. It says in Isaiah, 52, verse 14, he was crushed, and
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people had looked at him and looked at him and thought, and that man must be, must have really done something bad for God to let that happen to him. They thought he was being smitten by God for his evil, maybe. But then we see in the next verse, it wasn't his sin, it was our sin that he's bearing. Look at verse four. Jesus is humble. He's humiliated. He has given all the sicknesses and pains. Surely. He has borne our griefs, our pains, and carried our sorrows, our sickness, our disease. We esteem him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. He goes from the depths of being humiliated to bearing all of our grief and sorrow. He bears it on himself. And then look at verse five. He was pierced for our transgressions, killed for our sin against God, crushed for our iniquity, for our guilt, our punishment upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, punished so that we could be reconciled to the god with whom we had made enemies. With his wounds, we are healed with his terrible wounds through the suffering of. Is time being whipped and crucified and taking all of our sins on him. Through those wounds, we are healed, not just physically in the resurrection, but in every sense. He heals us. He saves us. Look at verse six, oh, we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He died with our sins. Laid on him. He was oppressed and afflicted, but he went willingly. Yet he opened his not his mouth, like a lamb that's led to slaughter like a sheep that's before his shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. He dies verse eight, by oppression and judgment, He was taken away. And as for his generation who considered that, he was cut off out of the land of the land of the living, stricken for the transgressions of my people dead, and they made his grave with the wicked, with the rich man. In his death, he was buried to see the progression of what Jesus has gone through the depth of his suffering, from humility to rejection, to pain to sickness, to death, to burial, he fully suffered every effect that sin has given to humanity. Isaiah is telling God's people, the servant will take the entirety of your sin, the humiliation, the rejection, the shame, the pain, the sorrow, all of it, the sickness, the death, the wrath, the guilt, every single aspect of our sin. Christ takes on himself. He takes it. Remember, pilgrims, progress pilgrim. He's got this big burden on his back. You can imagine. That burden is all of the effects of his sin, the sickness, the weakness, the pain, the sorrow, the sin itself, the guilt, the shame, the hiding from God, the death. And he's crushed down by the weight of that burden, and nothing he does can get rid of it, no amount of religiosity, no amount of trying on his own, he can't get rid of that burden. What does this verse tell us? ISAIAH three says that the servant Jesus takes that burden from us, puts it on himself and bears it to the cross and fully pays for all of it. There's no aspect of our sin that he's not taken. He's taken all of it, and that's why we can sing. We can sing for joy, because everything that's connected with our sin, he's taken it so that we can be free from it in his ultimate Second Coming. We celebrate that he came. We look forward to that he's coming. He will free us perfectly from all sorrow and sickness and death and sin. How does God keep his promise to crush the head of the serpent, who actually deserves to be crushed? Listen to First John three verse 10. By this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. First John three is saying that sinful humanity, us, the people of Ephesians, two say, are following the prince of the power of the earth. We are the offspring of the serpent. We are following his ways, rebelling against God. We deserve to be crushed along with the serpent, but so that God could justify us and make us his children, he crushes the serpent. Jesus takes all of our consequences that we deserve, and he's crushed. Second Corinthians 521, says he who knew no sin became our sin. This shows us how bad our sin is, how devastating our sin is, that this is what Jesus had to do, had to go through in order to save us from it. This prophecy shows us how deadly and terrible our sin really is. So we should respond in two ways, right? Get away from my sin. I don't want my sin. I wanted to let Jesus take that. I don't want to live in that anymore. And then thank you, Jesus, thank you for taking my sin. We don't just see the depth of his suffering. We see the purpose of his sacrifice. Though. Look at the third line in Isaiah, 53, verse 10, the third line, when his soul makes an offering for guilt, Jesus his soul, his life. When he makes an offering for guilt, he will see his offering. That's the result. We'll talk about the result in a minute. But what is he doing? He's making an offering for guilt. The servant here is offering up his life as a trespass offering, a guilt offering. Remember when the Jews on the Day of Atonement would have the two goats? The one goat was the scapegoat they would take and lay their hand on it and symbolically pass all of their sins onto that goat. Then they would get the goat out of there and go off into the wilderness. It was taking the guilt away. It symbolically took the sin and then took it away and the other guilt the other goat got. He got killed for their their sin. He took the death that they deserved. The Fancy word is expiation. Expiation taking it away. That's what Jesus has done. His purpose in giving Himself on the cross, offering Himself as our Great High Priest to God and the Holy of Holies, is that the guilt of our sin would be taken away. But not only that, he's not just the guilt offering. He's the sin offering, right? He fully takes all of our sin and takes the wrath of God. He propitiates that wrath that we deserve. He's crushed so that our sin can all be passed on to him, and all the wrath can be passed on to him. And he takes it away. He's also our peace offering. Right? He makes us right with God. We go from being God's enemies through faith in Christ, we're God's children. We get to trust in Him and become him. Sons and daughters. He is the perfect sacrifice. That was his purpose, was to be our substitute, to go in our place, to interpose between us and God and take the wrath of God so that we could be God's children. He's our substitute. That's why we sing. Behold the Lamb of God. Jesus is the Lamb of God. He takes our sins on him. Literally. We see in this passage two things throughout this whole these whole three verses in Isaiah, 5310, through 12, the father crushed the Son so that we could be His children. You see in all the verses there in red, all the lines in red are describing how the father crushed the son. We've already talked about the will of the Lord, crushing him, putting Him to grief when his soul makes an offering for guilt. Look at the next one are the anguish of his soul. Verse 11 are the anguish of his soul. That's what Jesus went through. That's how he suffered. And at the end of that verse, He shall bear their iniquities, because he was poured out, poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. He bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. He bears our sin. All this that we see in red is showing what Jesus has done, how he has suffered, and what's the result. The result is all these things we see in green, which we'll look at in a minute, all the ways that he makes us his sons and daughters. He makes us righteous. He forgives us. Jesus does everything necessary so we could be saved so we could be brought to God as his sons and daughters. He goes through anguish, he bears our iniquities, he pours out his soul to death. He goes in between us and God and makes intercession so that he can save us. So what should we do? What should our response be? If Jesus has done this, we need to trust in Him. When you're tempted with sin, don't think you are on your own to deal with it. Jesus has fully entered into your situation, your sin, and He knows how to rescue you. He has suffered in every way. He's been tempted, and he knows how to save us, like Dan said last week, if this is the way Jesus suffered for you, draw near to Him. Trust in him. Don't think that you have to earn your own forgiveness. He has paid everything. It was finished. He's paid everything we need to become God's sons and daughters. You can trust God's will, right? We see here, this was God's will that he would crush his son. And sometimes things are gonna happen in your life, in my life, we're gonna say, How is this God's will? How can this be good? But Romans eight is true. Romans eight is based on what we see here in Isaiah 53 God's will is sometimes the suffering of his children. But why is Romans 828, say that happens for our good. It says in Romans 828, to those who love God and are called according to His purpose, all things work together for good. What's God's purpose? In verse 29 to make us like Jesus. God wants to make us like Christ. That's the best thing he can give us. Romans 832 says that God gave us Christ. He paid the ultimate price. You see what Jesus did in Isaiah 53 he has paid the ultimate price. So Romans 832 says, Will God not also with Him freely give us all things you can trust God's goodness and care for you in the midst of whatever trial you go through? Because God is sovereign and good, he's ordained the suffering of Christ to redeem us and make us his children. And as he ordained suffering in our lives, we can trust his good purposes in that. Romans 838, and 39 tell us that nothing can separate us from Love of God because of what Jesus did, because he took all of our sin on him, all the sin, the sorrow, the death, the guilt, the suffering, the wrath, no matter what sickness or death or persecution or anything you go through, nothing can separate you from the love of God, because Christ has purchased you to make you his own if you believed in him.
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That's why Isaiah 5046, verse 10 says, I am God, and there's no one like me declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times, things not yet done, saying My counsel shall stand. I will accomplish all my purpose. God never loses control, no matter how dark or hopeless the situation is. He is on his throne. He is sovereign. He is wise and good. So let's look at what the suffering of the servant accomplished. Why did Jesus suffer? We see our second point. Jesus suffered so that we could be his sons and daughters, his people forever. He's making a people for Himself, counted righteous and forgiven. Look at these promises that we see here. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. We're gonna talk about those three. He's gonna see his offspring, he's gonna prolong his days. And the will of the Lord prospers in his hand. What else he will see and be satisfied by his knowledge, the Righteous One will account many righteous and he will receive his portion, his spoil that he deserves from what he has done. So let's look at those things that we see, that he accomplishes through his suffering. First, the servant will see his offspring. That doesn't just mean he's gonna see a picture of him on Instagram. Seeing his offspring means he's gonna live with them, right? Like, if God tells you you're gonna see your kids and your grandkids and great grandkids, it means you're gonna live with them, right? He's gonna see this great family that comes from him. He's gonna be alive and enjoy living with them. How does that happen? We just read that the servant got crushed. He got killed. So how can he see his offspring? What happened after he got killed? He was risen. He's risen, right? He's resurrected. He's living now so everyone that, or his offspring, he's going to live with them forever. How is he getting his great family? It's not a biological family. Abraham was promised that he would be a great nation. He did receive a large biological family from Abraham. At certain times, millions of people were alive that came from Abraham. He had a huge family, right? But what does this song mean? That song that we some sometimes we've sung, Father Abraham has many sons. I'm one of them. So are you. And then we do little hockey, Pokey and stuff, yeah, some of you know that song. What is the point of that song? It's not that we're his biological children, that we're Jews, necessarily, or Israelites. The point is, if we are Christ's offspring, if we believed in Christ, makes us sons of Abraham, makes us part of that blessing. Remember, God promised Abraham in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. He's talking about becoming God's sons and daughters through Christ, spiritual children. Listen to John one, verse 12 and 13. John, chapter one, verse 12. Jesus came to his own they didn't receive him. But verse 12 to all who did receive Jesus, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. Do you see that, who are Jesus' offspring? Everyone who receives him believing in His name. They're not born of blood. They're not born into God's family in a physical way. They're born of God. So Jesus has offspring, children who are born into his family as they trust in Him. That is the blessing that Jesus gets for his suffering. He suffered so that through his suffering, through his offering of himself, we could become his sons and daughters by believing in Him, we get to be born into this great family of the second Adam, the Lord Jesus, becomes the head of a new family, joining together Jews and Gentiles into a new humanity, the people of God, the church, people from every tribe and tongue and nation and people group. They're grafted into Israel, into Abraham and his blessing and their greatest identity is as children of God, children of the suffering servant, because of his suffering, he will see his offspring.
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That's why we sing this song at Christmas, Away in a manger. I'm just gonna read the lyrics. Bless all the dear children in thy tender care. Now oftentimes, we might think of all the dear children, kids who have died. Maybe they were infants or babies, or maybe they're really young, and then they've died, and we're saying, bless all those dear children in your care. Then the next line says, and fit us for heaven to live with you there. I think those two lines are going together. And I think he's talking about all of God's children. We are His dear children through believing in Christ. And he fits us for heaven. He gives us birth into His family by the Spirit, not by our own works, not by our own righteousness, but because of Jesus. We are His offspring. We get born into his family. And so I want to encourage you, if you have not been born into God's family, this is an offer for you. If you will receive Jesus, if you'll trust in Him, stop trusting in yourself. Trust in Jesus. He will give you a new heart, a new set of desires. He'll give you forgiveness because of his suffering. He'll make you His child. He wants you to be His child. And it's not something you have to try out for and try to be good enough. Our problem was so much deeper. It's like if I got a cannon wound right here, just boom, big cannon hole right here. And I think I'm gonna fix that with a band aid. I'm gonna try to put a band aid on there, and it's too much. The Canon wound is too much. I can't fix that with a band aid. That's what our spiritual life is. Our sin against God is results in death. You can't solve it with a band aid. You can't try to be a good enough person or pray enough or go to church enough, or do enough good deeds or stop sinning enough. The only is one way you can fix that wound, that sin, that problem you have is through Jesus, Jesus can give you a new life, a new body. Spiritually, he can make you new and one day, he'll give you a new body. Physically, we don't need a band aid. We need Christ the Savior. He's the one who can make you his offspring, if you trust in Him, that's the best thing, greater than any other reason to sing at Christmas, better than a present you might get, or a nice time with your family. Being God's daughter, being God's Son, belonging to him, living with him forever. That's going to be a really good family time. That is what he gives those who trust in Him. And so I urge you, if you haven't trusted in Jesus, now is a good time to believe in Jesus and to become his child, to be born into his family. It doesn't matter how old you are, how young you are, if you trust in Jesus, that He is God in the flesh, who lived the perfect life and died like Isaiah 53 says on our behalf, for our sin, that we deserve to die for and rose again, he will give you birth into his family. Trust in Him. What happens also? He will see his offspring. He will prolong his days. He'll live a long life. How long is Jesus going to live eternal, right? He will prosper and live a long time. We see this with the patriarchs, like Job, he suffered, then he lived a long time and had lots of kids, and then he died. He'll get resurrected one day, but he died Abraham, he lived a long time, had lots of kids, but then he. Died, he'll also get resurrected. Jesus suffered a lot. He died, He got resurrected. Now he's having lots of kids spiritually, and he's going to live forever, right? Because Psalm 1610 is true, for you will not abandon my soul to shield or let your Holy One see corruption. Jesus will continue to live and reign forever, and all of us who are His children will live with him and reign with Him. Remember what Jesus prayed on the cross, My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? You read through Isaiah 53 you see why. Why would he pray that he was suffering so much the father turned his back on him and was pouring out His wrath on Jesus. But look at what the result is. God answered that prayer in Psalm 22 God answered him and look at listen to Psalm 22 verse 27 this is the result of Jesus suffering. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and He rules over the nations. Jesus receives as the reward of His suffering, all the families of the nations, people from every tongue and tribe and nation will worship him and live with him as his children forever. Listen to Isaiah nine, six and seven. You turn back there if you want in Isaiah, great Christmas prophecy. How long will Jesus reign? What are this prolonged? His days mean? How long will those days be prolonged? Listen to Isaiah nine, verse six, For to us, a child is born. To us, a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of peace, of the increase of His government and of peace. There will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness. From this time forth and forevermore, the zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. How long will his reign be from this time forth and forever, forevermore, right? That's that's a long time. His days will be prolonged. Forever. He suffered. He paid the full price. The fact that he's resurrected and his days are prolonged now means that God accepted it. The Walmart security person is not going to stop you and say, You didn't pay enough. Take it back. God's not saying, No, Jesus, you didn't suffer enough. What about that sin that that person committed? You didn't pay for that one? They gotta go back. No. Jesus walks out with all of us. He paid it all right. That's why he can take us with him and prolong his days. So we sing and come, oh, come Emmanuel, oh, come that rod of Jesse, son of David, free thy own from Satan's tyranny. He frees us from Satan's tyranny. He takes us out of the kingdom of darkness, from the depths of hell that people save and give them victory over the grave. The grave could not hold him. The grave will not hold us. If you have believed in Christ and you're God's child, you will live forever with Him, and it's going to be amazing, the best celebration of God's creation and God's goodness that will last forever. Ephesians two, verse seven, says that it's going to be God showing the riches of His kindness forever to us. In Christ, we also see that the will of the Lord prospers in his hand. The last part of Isaiah 53. Verse 10, the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. What God wants to do. God accomplishes through the servant, through Jesus' suffering and then through his salvation. What is the will of the Lord we see in Colossians one, verses 19 and 20, that God's will is that Jesus, who is fully God, become fully man, live the perfect life and reconcile all things to God. He reconciles God's God's children, to himself. He judges God's enemies. He reconciles the earth and restores it. Another way of saying it is Ephesians, 110 that everything will be summed up in Christ under his rule. That's God's will, is to bring everything together under Christ, the Christ would rule, and God's glory will be displayed through God's sons and daughters, the children of Christ, as they live forever and rule on the earth. What is God's will that the seed of Abraham Jesus would bless all the families of the earth? Genesis, 12, three, what is God's will that the Son of David would rule forever? Second Samuel, 713, see in Psalm 110, that's Jesus. He's gonna rule forever. That God's people would receive new hearts that love Him and obey Him. That's what his salvation accomplishes, Jesus taking all of our sin means he can count us righteous. He can make us righteous. He can give you a heart that loves God and loves others. Is your heart like mine? Is it Prone to wander? Lord? How we feel it? But Jesus, by his suffering, has accomplished that God's will will be done. God's will be accomplished in us with the good work he began. He's gonna complete it. He's gonna make us like Christ, Jesus, and keep us, keep us loving God. You're not gonna arrive at like day, 1050 in eternity and oh, you stop loving God, you stop loving your neighbor. You're gonna always be like Jesus, loving God, loving your neighbor. It's gonna be amazing. No more weak heart that struggles and falls and fails. That's why we sing and Hark the herald angels. And we'll actually sing this one. I'll turn off my my microphone thing here, and then we can sing
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righteousness. Light and light to all. He brings this with healing in His wings, his glory no more may die for to raise
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us from dear You
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see, as we just sang in that song, he's born that we no more may die, prolong his days, prolong our days, fulfill the will of God to raise us from the earth, the resurrection, to give us the second birth, born into his family. That's what God's offering. Because of the suffering of Christ, you can come to Christ and be a child of God, and if you have already come to Christ. Rejoice. You are a child of God, and he's not gonna kick you out of the family. Listen to Hebrews 12, two. This is why Jesus suffered, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. He endured the cross, the suffering, despising that shame. Why? For the joy set before him of pleasing the Father, doing the Father's will and purchasing us to be His people, He had joy knowing that he wanted to make us belong to him. He could show us the mercy and the grace and the justice of God. That's why, in Revelation five, nine and 10, they sing this new song, saying, Worthy are you to take this scroll and to open its seals? For you were slain, and by your blood, you ran some people for God, from every tribe and language and people and nation. You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. Jesus bore their sins, their iniquities so he could purchase people from every tongue and tribe and people and nation for himself. That was the purpose of His suffering, to make a people for Himself. Why do we send out missionaries? Yes, it's a command. Yes, people need to hear the gospel and be saved, but mainly we send them out because Jesus paid the ransom for the nations, and he deserves to receive what he paid for. This is why the Moravians, those checked missionaries in the 1400s would say, May the Lamb who was slain received the reward of their suffering. You can think about your life. May Christ the Lamb who was slain for me received the reward of His suffering from my life. What does he deserve from your life? From my life? We would love him. We would worship Him, that we would trust in Him. We belong to him. He purchased us and people from every language group. That's why Ephesians 118 says, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints? Jesus portion his spoil that he deserves is these, these saints, the people that God has purchased to make his own. We are his inheritance, his his children, his bride, his brothers and sisters, his family. He makes us righteous. Look at Isaiah 53, verse 11, by his knowledge, by his experience of suffering, by His wisdom, by His saving work, shall the righteous one my servant make many be accounted righteous. He shall bear their iniquities. Jesus can make us righteous. Who can live with God and dwell with Him in His family? Psalm 15, two, says only the one who walks upright, whose tongue is blameless, can dwell with God. How can you not be righteous? How can we dwell with God? Because Jesus suffered for all of our sin, all the weight of it, he took and he makes us as children, as we trust in Him. He is the one who saves us. He picks up our sins and carries them on himself to the cross. So what should we do because of this worship God, who is pleased to crush Jesus for our sins? You can always ask the question and read the Bible, right? What do I see about God here? And then, based on what you see about God, adore Him, praise Him. God's will was to crush Jesus, to make us his sons and daughters, worship him. Thank him for being a gracious and merciful God who's also just and holy. Second question we can ask, what do I see about God? What do I see about people? We see about people here how bad our sin is. So what should we do? Confess, repent quickly of our sin and draw near to Jesus, who alone can save us. If my sin is that bad that Jesus had to suffer like that for it, why do I want to pick it up and caress it and be close to my sin? No, get out of there, like the kick it, like the goat. Go away and Jesus takes it away. You can't do that in your own effort, but Jesus can make it go. He takes it away. He gives you His righteousness. The third question, what do we learn about our relationship with God? And as a result, we should thank him for whatever we see there. We should rejoice because Jesus has taken our sin fully so we can be His children. We have a relationship with God. Through faith in Jesus, He makes us His children. We can be his sons and daughters and live with Him forever. Then we think about, what should I put on from this, we see that Jesus is the servant of the Lord. He's willing to suffer the extreme, most extreme suffering of anyone for the sake of pleasing the Father and loving his people. It. And so we should have that same attitude, right? Philippians two have the same attitude Christ has in obedience. Sometimes we're gonna be called to suffer for the Lord's purposes. This week, as you hang out with family, and it's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year, and your kids are fighting. Your siblings are fighting. Your parents are fighting, whatever it might be, your body is fighting you, your checkbook is fighting you, the government's fighting you, whatever it might be, all these difficulties, our first identity is we're children of God. We're His servants, and we're called to suffer for his purposes. We can sing for joy because Christ has suffered for us. He has saved us. He's made us his children. And whatever God has ordained today, like Earl Dannon says, Whatever God lets into my fence from Psalm 139 right? Whatever comes in, I can trust God. He's good. I put my hope in Christmas time a lot of times, and everybody's gonna get along, and we're gonna have a great time together, but we're all sinners, right? And so maybe we're having fun for five minutes, but then somebody is fighting. How can we still sing for joy? Because Christ suffered so I could be his son or his daughter. We get presents. Oh, I hope that present will make them happy. It lasts for a while, but then the shininess wears off and you're back to what you had before, right? This is not a present that will shininess wear off. Jesus, being your savior, you being God's child that's going to last forever and give you joy in Christ. You can rejoice because of what Christ has done, regardless of whatever circumstances you have, whatever gift you have, it's just a small point, small thing to point to Jesus, the greatest gift he is, the one we should treasure and cherish. Every good Christmas movie holds up something that's the good life, the ideal which we should strive for. Christmas in our culture is all about having the ideal, the good life. Right for George Bailey, it's having enough money to care for his family, being there for them to love them. For Ebenezer Scrooge, it's sharing his vast wealth with Tiny Tim and his family and others so that he has a family to live with. But what's the truest and the best good life to strive for? What should you be striving for? To be God's sons and daughters, to live as those who are righteous before God, pleasing to Him because of Jesus, looking forward to reigning forever with Him on the New Earth. That's the good life. It's the Garden of Eden 2.0 and the center of the good life is Jesus Christ. He is the one that makes things good. He is the one who has suffered for us and makes us his sons and daughters. Only He can make that good life happen through his deep suffering and his sufficient sacrifice. He took the fullness of our sin, pain and sorrow and sickness and grief and death and guilt so we could be free from it, so we could sing to him. So I encourage you, brothers and sisters, rejoice in what Christ has done. Sing to him. We're gonna do that right now one more time, with joy to the world. Just these stanzas that I'll have up on the screen. I'm gonna mute myself again, and you all can kind of work it out like you did last time. Good job.
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Sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy. No water, depressed around
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in Christ around he comes to make his blessings slow, far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, he the world with truth and grace and makes the
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nation's truth and wonders of His love and that is
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a good reason to rejoice and to sing the wonders of God's love, as we see them in Christ suffering for us all The effects of our sin so that we could be as sons and daughters. Let's pray God we thank you for your kindness. You are a merciful and gracious God, abounding in steadfast love, slow to anger, and you did visit what our iniquity deserved. On Christ. Thank you, Jesus for suffering in our place for us so that we could be your sons and daughters. Thank you for giving us the best gift of all yourself, so that we could live with you forever with new hearts, with forgiveness, with grace. Help us to remember these truths, to rejoice in them, to quickly run to you Jesus and trust your sufficient sacrifice for. Us. We love you. Thank you. Amen.
Nathan Thiry is the Growth Groups & Outreach Pastor at Faith Bible Church. He enjoys biking and outdoor activities, and has a passion to see the gospel spread throughout our community and the whole world!
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