Man of Sorrows

Thank you for reading this sermon from Christ Fellowship. I hope and pray that this sermon will be a blessing of grace and truth to you. With that said, let me encourage you not to use this sermon as a replacement for your local church. Christ Jesus did not establish his Church simply for us to consume content. Instead, He calls us to be part of a real, covenant family.

We are looking for Christ in the Old Testament and this morning we’ve come to the most obvious prophecy about Jesus that there is. It’s found in Isaiah 53.

And you may be thinking, how did we skip from Ruth all the way to Isaiah? But if you look at the Road to Emmaus story in Luke 24, it says that Jesus explained the Scriptures to his disciples beginning with Moses and the Prophets. That’s going to be our focus as well, so the rest of the series until Advent will be taken from the Prophets.

Isaiah 53 is all about a mysterious figure known as the Servant of Yahweh. Let’s walk through it together, starting in verse 1:

1 Who has believed what he has heard from us?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

“The arm of the Lord” in the Bible always refers to God’s power to save or to judge. And so, this prophecy begins with a question. God’s salvation is being revealed, but will you recognize it? Will you see it?

2 For he grew up before him like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
and no beauty that we should desire him.

The prophecy says that God’s powerful Servant will come from humble beginnings. He will not look the part.

The illustration here is a seed buried in the dirt, something that always looks dead and unimpressive at first. But that’s where life begins… from an acorn or an embryo. Without form or beauty, but the DNA of something amazing is hidden inside.

3 He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

This hero will not be celebrated and adored. Instead, He will suffer rejection. In Hebrew, to call someone “a man” of something is to make that part of his identity. In other words, the Servant will be someone who suffers and grieves by nature. He will be deeply familiar with suffering, both inside and out.

4 Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.

This verse is incredible. The Servant will bear the grief and sorrow of the very people who will reject him. He will deeply identify with the pain and suffering of His people. But instead of embracing Him, they turn away.

Why do they turn away? Because they won’t understand. They will look at this man and assume He did something wrong to deserve his suffering. He must be under the judgment of God for his own sin! But the prophecy immediately corrects this error.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.

This is the surprise revelation of the prophecy. The Servant will not suffer because He deserves it. He will suffer because we deserve it, in our place and for our peace.

6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

In other words, God will take the initiative to lay His people’s guilt on this Servant.

7 He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.

Innocent and humble, the Servant will face death without protest. He will go willingly.

8 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 living,
stricken for the transgression of my people?

This should remind us of the Day of Atonement and the scapegoat that carried the sins of the people into the wilderness.

9 And they made his grave with the wicked
and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
and there was no deceit in his mouth.

Somehow, this man will be buried in both humiliation and honor.

10 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.

All of this is the plan of God for the salvation of His people.

11 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.

God’s Servant will make many righteous and bear their sins. This is the Great Exchange, which is explained in the New Testament as justification by faith. In fact, the early church understood this verse to be the clearest example of what Jesus accomplished in the Old Testament.

The phrase “by his knowledge” was understood by the Apostles to mean “our knowledge of Him”. In other words, by knowing Him, or believing in Him, we are saved.

12 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.

All of this will earn the Servant a great victory and He will share the benefits with His people. And that’s Isaiah 53.

If you already know something about Jesus, then Isaiah 53 is very familiar. We immediately think of the suffering and death of Jesus.

But what if you didn’t know the story? What would you think?

In Acts chapter 8, there’s an important man from Ethiopia travelling home from Jerusalem. The man was reading Isaiah 53 in his chariot when a Christian named Philip approached him.

Philip shared the Gospel with the Ethiopian man. It says that he began with Isaiah 53 to explain the good news about Jesus.

A few years ago, I watched the testimony of a Jewish man who converted to Christianity. The man said he was told never to read the New Testament, because it was a book about killing Jews.

But he was curious, and when he finally read it, he discovered that it was a book about a Jewish man who claimed to be the Messiah and was rejected by His own people. And it was the prophecy of Isaiah 53 that connected the dots for him.

When he read the Gospels, He realized that the story of Jesus fits perfectly with Isaiah’s prophecy – which was written 700 years before Jesus!

And what we find here is a beautiful story of salvation that’s being hidden in humility. God took someone that looked weak and ugly to the world and made Him the author and perfector of our faith!

God created glory and beauty from the darkest moment of injustice and pain. Like a master painter, God used darkness and shadows to bring out the light.

I want to suggest three take aways for us.

First, God does His best work with things that the world considers to be weak and ugly.

This is God’s pattern. He chose an enslaved people to be His nation. He chose a shepherd boy to slay a giant. He chose a cross—the ugliest instrument of death—to become the most beautiful symbol of grace.

So, when you feel overlooked or unimpressive, when life feels dry or complicated, please remember… those are the places God delights to work. The arm of the Lord is revealed not in worldly beauty and power, but in humility and dependence.

Second, our suffering is redeemed by His suffering. He’s not watching from a distance. It’s safe to take our pain to Him… he already knows what it feels like.

God doesn’t stand on the sidelines of our struggle giving us advice. He has entered into it with us. He knows what betrayal feels like, what loneliness feels like, what grief does to the human heart. There is nothing you can bring to Him that He hasn’t already carried.
You can take your pain to Him because it’s safe there. The Man of Sorrows understands, not because He read about suffering in a book, but because He lived it. And when you come to Him, you find not pity but compassion and healing.

Finally, I want us to go home today knowing that none of our sorrow is wasted.

The Suffering Servant proves that God never wastes pain. Every dark stroke on the canvas serves to bring out the light of His glory.

The same God who crushed His Son to save you will one day wipe away every tear from your eyes. The Man of Sorrows is also the Lord of Joy.

Your suffering has an expiration date; the joy of our salvation does not. In fact, the book of Isaiah ends with a vision of the new world that God promises and joy that will never end.

And until that day, no sorrow you bring to Him is wasted. There is no Gospel without suffering…

And so, look to Jesus, the author 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.