Saved By The Suffering Servant’s Sacrifice
Great service requires sacrifice. Often we don’t realize or appreciate the sacrifice that has been made on our behalf by the one who has served. In Isaiah 53:1–7, the prophet Isaiah foretold of Jesus, who would make the ultimate sacrifice in obedient service to God, suffering in order that we all might be saved. I pray that you would fully appreciate the suffering and sacrifice that Christ endured as the obedient servant of God to save you and I. Amen
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. (Isaiah 53:1-3)
Over 700 years before the coming of Christ, the prophet Isaiah magnificently painted this picture of the One who would come as the Servant of God who would suffer on behalf of His people to redeem them. Jesus would serve God in perfect obedience and would take on the full measure of suffering in payment for our sins. Jesus’ suffering and humiliation would come in the form of the crucifixion and His appearance would be disfigured in the process that He would be hard to look upon. He would be despised and rejected by Jewish leaders who didn’t respect or recognize His deity. Jesus’ death on the cross fulfilled all of these things that Isaiah had prophesied regarding God’s Suffering Servant. Despite Isaiah’s prophesy some would refuse to believe in Jesus (“who has believed…”).
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6)
The suffering that Jesus endured was payment and redemption for all of our sins. His sacrifice brought us peace and reconciliation with God and His wounds brought us healing from the painful consequences of sin. All of us need the salvation that Jesus paid for on the cross, because all of us have gone astray (sinned) like stupid and stubborn sheep, following our own way instead of following God. Therefore, God laid all of our sins on Jesus on the cross. He was the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. (Isaiah 53:7)
Jesus suffered a harsh and inhumane death on the cross without a word of condemnation against us or pleading His own innocence. He was silent before His accusers except to glorify God. Instead, He endured the agony and death on the cross, allowing Himself to be led as a lamb is led to be sacrificed on the altar.
The prophet Isaiah foretold that Christ would come in total obedience to God and serve Him in the way that Israel (and us) never did or could. Isaiah foretold that the painful and ugly sacrifice that Christ would suffer would have the effect of providing healing (salvation) from our sins. Jesus paid the ultimate price to redeem us and reconcile us back to God. Through our faith and belief in Jesus’ atoning work on the cross, we are at peace and in right relationship with God. We are saved, not by what we have done, but by the sacrifice of the Suffering Servant of God…Jesus!
Blessings, Rev. Glenn
“The blood that Jesus shed for me
Way back on Calvary
The blood that gives me strength
From day to day
It will never lose its power…” from The Blood Will Never Lose It’s Power by Andrae Crouch
