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Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

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He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground.

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He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we

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should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind.

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A man of suffering and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide

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their faces. He was despised and we held him in lower

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steam. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering. Yet we considered him

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punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our

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transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought

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us peace was on him and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone

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astray. Each of us has turned to our own way and the Lord has laid on him the

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iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted. Yet he did not open his mouth.

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He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is

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silent. So he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken

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away. Yet who of his generation protested? He was cut off from the land of

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the living. For the transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned

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a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Though he had no he had

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done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord's will to

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crush him and cause him to suffer. And though the Lord makes his life an

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offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days. And the

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will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After he has suffered he will see

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the light of life and will be satisfied. By his knowledge my righteous servant

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will justify many and he will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give him a

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portion among the great and he will divide the spoils with the strong

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because he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the

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transgressors. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the

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transgressors.

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Good morning everyone. It's great to be together on this very very special day

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where we as the people of God reflect on our Lord's work in our Lord Jesus Christ.

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And before we come to these words let's come to our Father in prayer together

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as his people. Would you please pray with me?

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Lord Jesus, you once said that not a jot or tittle will in any wise pass from the

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law until all be fulfilled. These words that we have before us this morning are

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words of eternal life and they are your words to us. We ask that by your Spirit

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you would work in our midst, that you would be held high among us and that you

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would draw all manner of people to yourself. We ask for this in Jesus name.

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Amen. Now it's just a few months ago at Christmas that we were in the book of

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Isaiah looking at what God had revealed to this prophet about what kind of birth

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the Lord Jesus was going to have. As you might remember it would be a miraculous

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birth because as it was told to the prophet Isaiah a virgin would conceive

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and give birth to a baby boy. Now for the original hearers that would have seemed

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like a complete mystery to them as to how any of that could happen. I mean even

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the ancients knew how babies were made but that's why Isaiah said it would be a

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sign, a sign of God working in their midst so that they would believe that

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God hadn't abandoned his people and that was made no more clearer than on the

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way that our Lord was born on that wonderful day in Bethlehem to the virgin

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Mary. Well this morning we turn to a part of scripture where Isaiah begins his

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entire prophecy with an even more outrageous claim to the point that he

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says right there in verse 1 who's even going to believe all of this? Who is

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going to believe what the Lord has revealed this time? Well church as we

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know this awesome prophecy actually came to pass in the course of human history

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about 2,000 years ago and as we're going to see it's not just a message so that

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we'll stand back in awe and say wow it's actually a message about how God saved

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his people, how God rescued lost people like you and me through the Lord Jesus

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Christ so that we might spend eternity with him. A message which the Apostle

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Paul calls the gospel which is the power unto salvation for all who believe. Now

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before we get into our text this morning I just want to say that there is a lot a

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lot that could be said on this passage. In fact one Puritan spent nearly a

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hundred and fifty sermons on just these twelve verses but as we don't have all

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the time in the world this morning I just want to briefly show you eight

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awesome truths that God shows us here about our Lord and his work on our

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behalf and it's my hope that this wonderful mystery will make even more

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sense to you as we see how the light of the New Testament makes sense of it all

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and how as Christians as we gather today we might really say it is a good Friday

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to reflect on the work of our Lord. So if you have your Bibles with you this

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morning look with me at verse 2 and we see this first point. First the one who

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will draw all manner of people won't do it by physical appeal. We read he grew up

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before him like a tender shoot like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty

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or majesty to attract us to him. Nothing in his appearance that we should desire

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him. Okay so the first thing that we're told here is that the one who will draw

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all manner of people to himself from every tribe, nation, tongue and people

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group actually won't do it through a physical attractiveness or majesty or

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beauty. That's what God's telling us here. We won't be attracted to Jesus

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because of what he'll look like. Now if we think to the Matthew series that we're

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in at the moment we see that Jesus wasn't born in a palace as to what we

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would think he would deserve but very much had humble beginnings. Not even

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being born in a comfortable house. Now as we know Mary had him in a stable which

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housed animals and our Lord's first resting place was a feeding trough. And

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then if we read a little more forward we know that he grew up in a backwater town

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called Nazareth and like a little tender shoot he grew in stature with both God

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and man Luke tells us. In other words our Lord Jesus would have nothing about him

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to attract people to him because of anything physical or his stature in

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society. In fact people found the little saplings to be of no use and would

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usually discard them. There's a warning in that isn't there? People will reject

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Jesus superficially. Yet all of this was for a purpose and done under the

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providential care of our Heavenly Father. Those who will be drawn to the Lord

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Jesus Christ won't come because of his physical attractiveness but his

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character and what he has done for us. What has he done for us? Well that's made

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clearer in the coming verses. As second he lived a life of sorrow and grief to

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serve us. We read in verse 3 he was despised and rejected by mankind. A man

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of suffering and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces

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he was despised and we held him in low esteem. Incredible isn't it? The most

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famous man to ever walk the face of the planet. We're even at this very moment

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millions of people around the world are reflecting on this Jesus. We see that not

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only was he not much physically to behold but he was despised and rejected

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while he was with us. Think about the language here. This wasn't a man who was

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just ignored. He was despised, deeply hated. But again this all goes back to

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the plan of God. None of this would happen by random chance. No the one who

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would be sent to be our joy and our Savior would also be the one who would

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be personally involved and acquainted with our suffering and pain. This is the

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most incredible thing to behold brothers and sisters. Our Lord Jesus not only had

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humble beginnings but a life where he would personally know the suffering of

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those in whom he would suffer for. So much so that people would look on him.

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Look on his suffering and be disgusted by it. Church we have a Lord who is

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familiar with all our pain and suffering. One who personally experienced

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isolation and grief and loneliness. That is what Jesus experienced on this earth.

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He was a man of sorrows, rejected, despised and yet what joy we as the

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people of God see in all of this. In that he would leave his heavenly home to serve

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his people in this way. As a side note I just want to say if you find yourself

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saturated in grief and sorrow in isolation, in rejection, then hear this

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this morning. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who we can go to because he knew

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a deeper sorrow and grief than we would ever know. Yet he was sent in this way so

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that he could identify with us. Third he bore the consequences of our sin. Verse

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4. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering yet we considered him

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punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. There's irony in all of this

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isn't there? He was indeed a man of suffering and despised and isolated and

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as we've just seen it was all for us. Yet notice it. People will put it down to

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him being punished for something he did. Do you see what God is is revealing to

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us this morning? The sorrow and grief that our Lord was sent to carry was

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never his own. He lived a life of sorrow and rejection not because he deserved

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any of it but because he was sent to take on the consequences of what we have

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bought on ourselves. Often times our bad behavior, our law breaking, our sin

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brings about unwanted outcomes and because of our shortcomings and

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lawlessness we can feel isolated, rejected, dirty, shattered and defeated.

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Our sin has bought about incredible pain and suffering, sometimes physical,

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sometimes mental, always spiritual and yet our Lord came to take the ultimate

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consequence away from us so we wouldn't have to suffer for all eternity for no

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other reason, for no other reason than that he loved us. That is a love that

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knows no boundaries and yet as the Lord carried this out, as the Lord carried

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out this ultimate act of love we're told that people would look on him and judge

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that he was the cursed of God. Do you see the irony? We are the ones who deserve to

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be cursed of God for what we have done having broken, no smashed his law yet we

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deserve and we deserve to suffer yet our Lord came into our mess to bear the

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consequence of our sin. So no wonder that the saints can sing from the depth of

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their hearts those blessed words of John Newton, amazing grace, how sweet the

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sound that saved a wretch like me. Fourth, he suffered in our place. Our Lord was

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despised and rejected, he was well acquainted with grief and sorrows and

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people despised him and thought that he was cursed of God but, but verse 5, he

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was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the

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punishment that brought us peace was on him and by his wounds, his stripes we are

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healed. That's incredible. All the way back in the Genesis account after our first

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parents had sinned and the curse of rejecting God's Word was being poured

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out, you'll notice that a promise was also given and that promise was that

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there would come a day where a man would be born to a woman and though he would be

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struck, he would crush the serpent's head. All this to say this suffering that our

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Lord went through, it's intrinsically tied into healing the sin-plagued sons

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and daughters of Adam, intrinsically tied into taking the curse and its

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punishment that we deserve upon ourselves. Looking back at the Lord's

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crucifixion, the Apostle Peter put it like this in chapter 2 of the first

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epistle, of his first epistle, speaking about Jesus he says, who his own self

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bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should

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live unto righteousness by whose stripes we are healed. Present tense. None of us

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are Christians because we think we can keep the law perfectly and thus convince

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our Creator that we're good enough to deserve a place in his home. No, we as

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Christians, we are Christians because we know we deserve to be crushed for our

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lawless deeds, crushed for our iniquities, pierced through for our sin, yet look at

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the wonderful truth that we find here. We don't need to go through any of that. We

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don't need to go through any of that because of our Lord Jesus Christ. He took

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our place, took our crushing, took our punishment, took the curse of our

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lawlessness so that we might be out from under the weight of our iniquities and

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alive forevermore. That's why we're Christians, because we are people that

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have put our hope and trust in the one who took what we deserve. And our Lord

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was able to do this because fifth, he never went astray. Verse 6, we all like

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sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to our own way and the Lord has

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laid the iniquity on him, the iniquity of us all. Now before you all start going

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off into Columbia Cannon land with your do-bar-bars, there's a simple truth in

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what we just read. We strayed, Jesus didn't. We strayed, Jesus didn't. And yet,

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he was punished for our straying, which makes, if we think about it, his

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suffering essential. And his suffering was essential because there is nothing

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that any of us could do to save ourselves. No, it took a supernatural act

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of God to bring us back to himself and because our God is good and won't just

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ignore sin and brush it under the carpet, he must punish it. So either that's going

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to fall on us or that's going to fall on the sacrifice that he provided in our

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place. It's a little wonder isn't it church? It's a little wonder that our prophet here

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starts by saying, who is going to believe all of this? Who's going to believe any of

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this? Well it's because we've seen in this section this morning, it shows us the

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wonderful and awesome mercy of our God. The wonderful and awesome mercy that God

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is the one who has taken initiative after we strayed from him to bring us

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back to himself. To bring us back to himself by sending one, his servant, his

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only begotten son to take our place so that we might be set free from the pains

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of hell and spend eternity with him. Church, there is nothing that we could do

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to make ourselves right in the eyes of our God. We all strayed yet God sent a

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servant so that we might be restored and put into perfect relationship with our

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loving creator forever. It's the most astonishing thing and we see it here in

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the sixth point. This was voluntary. Verses 7 through to 9. He was oppressed

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and afflicted yet he didn't open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the

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slaughter and as a sheep before its shearers is silent so he did not open

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his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away yet who of his

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generation protested. For he was cut off from the land of the living for the

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transgression of my people he was punished. He was assigned a grave with

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the wicked and with the rich in his death. Though he had done no violence nor

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was any deceit in his mouth. Church notice the language here. He was

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oppressed and afflicted, slaughtered like an innocent lamb yet he didn't protest

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or make any effort to escape. Not even an appeal to his absolute innocence and

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that's because our Lord knew that this was the only way to heal his people and

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to restore us into right relationship with our God. He knew that we had to be

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judged and condemned so he took our place so that we would not be judged

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guilty. Church all of this happened not because our Lord didn't want to or

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because he was forced but because he wanted to. He endured our sin being

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placed on him and being punished by God crushed under the weight of the

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curse all so that his people would be declared not guilty. You're free. Seventh

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he was crushed in order to spare us. Look with me at verses 10 and 11 we read yet

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it was the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer and though the Lord

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makes his life an offering for sin he will see his offspring and prolong his

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days and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hands. After he has

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suffered he will see the light of life. What a wonderful resurrection promise

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and be satisfied. By his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many and

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he will bear their iniquities. In just a moment we're going to sing a wonderful

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hymn together called Because He Lives and in that song we're going to sing God

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sent his son they called him Jesus. He came to love, heal and forgive. He lived

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and died to buy my pardon. An empty grave is there to prove my Savior lives.

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Because he lives I can face tomorrow. Because he lives all fear is gone because

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I know he holds the future and my life is worth living because he lives. Do you

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know why our Lord came and did any of this? Do you know why personally do you

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know why Jesus came to do any of this? Do you know personally why he came to

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suffer to bear your iniquity to be despised and rejected and ultimately to

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be murdered in the most horrific way under the curse of God? Well our brother

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Tony he quoted that wonderful passage of the Lord Jesus words for God so loved

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the world that he gave his only begotten son. Whoever believes in him will not

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perish but have everlasting life. It was all because he loved us so much. He loved

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us so much that he wanted to heal and forgive cosmic rebels. It's because he

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loved us so much that he wanted to buy our pardon. Brothers and sisters God did

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all of this because he loves his people and he wants to be in relationship with

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you and me forever. This was the way. This was the only way for that to happen

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and that's how God sent his only begotten son into this world. God made

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flesh born of a virgin. A man who lived a perfect life to serve his people. This

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was a plan out worked by our triune God. Out worked in the Godhead. No person

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forced, no person working against another's will. This was our God's plan

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from eternity past. A plan worked out in our history. A plan that was worked out

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and fulfilled perfectly. Also that our pardon would be assured and our future

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secure. And the resurrection, the resurrection proves that our Lord's work

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was perfect. And so in light of that in the truth of this passage this morning,

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if you have heard the good news of the gospel, if you have believed the message

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then I am looking at a people that have been purchased by the blood of Jesus

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pardoned by God and are precious in his sight. A people who have been forgiven of

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all iniquity and have at this very moment eternal life. I'm looking at a

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people who have been won through the selfless sacrificial love of our Lord.

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How can we not reflect on this wonderful truth this morning and call it a

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wonderful, gracious Good Friday. This leads to the eighth and final thing we see here.

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He lives to make intercession for his people. Verse 12, therefore I'll give him

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a portion among the great and he will divide the spoils with the strong

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because he poured out his life, his soul unto death and was numbered with the

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transgressors. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the

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transgressors. I just want you to quickly notice something very interesting here.

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Notice how the language changes in verse 12. Notice that it goes from this kind of

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second person to first person. It's almost like Isaiah has gone from

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witnessing about this incredible event like one of the New Testament evangelists

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to God speaking directly to us about this coming one. And he tells us in no

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uncertain terms that he will be pleased and satisfied with our Lord's work. So

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much so that what he set out to achieve will be granted by him. In other words

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because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus we are not a

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people without hope. No we are a people who live in peace at this very moment

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with God because of the perfect finished work of Jesus Christ on behalf of his

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people. The New Testament attests to the fact that Jesus indeed came and lived a

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perfect life and bore the sin of his people and was crucified. But this is the

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good news. He didn't remain in the grave. No three days later he rose from the

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dead, he ascended to our Father in heaven and is once for all sacrifice. His very

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life was accepted as the perfect sacrifice for his people. This means that

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at this very moment this man, this God-made flesh, this Jesus is seated in

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heavenly places interceding on behalf of his blood-purchased people. Interceding on

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behalf of you and me because he conquered death to die no more. And because of his

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work alone he is now sharing the spoils of his victory over sin and death with

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his people. How do we come to share in this work? How do we come to share in the

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perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well there is only one way and that is

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by placing faith in the once for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ alone. Our

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Apostle Paul sums it up like this in chapter 3 of his letter to the Romans. He

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says, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified

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freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom

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God set forth to be a propitiation and atoning sacrifice through faith in his

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blood. To declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are passed

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through the forbearance of God. To declare, I say, at this time his

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righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of those who believe in

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Jesus. Is that you today? Let's pray.

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Father, these are indeed your words to us and they reveal a wonderful treasure and

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we ask by your spirit, by the work of your Holy Spirit in our midst, that you

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would help us to know the treasure that is Jesus. To know forgiveness, to know the

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kingdom, to be transformed, to be born again. We ask Lord Jesus that as you

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minister to your people, that as you work through your spirit to lift our eyes

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heavenward to what you have done and who we are in you, that we would

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overflow with joy, that we would be excited, that we would tell those around

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us without fear. We thank you for the gospel. We thank you that it is good news

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and that there is redemption, forgiveness and love in you. We thank you for all of

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these in Jesus name, amen.