If you have a Bible, I invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 52 for our Old Testament Scripture reading, as well as our sermon text for this morning. Isaiah chapter 52, we'll read beginning in verse 13 through the end of chapter 53. It's the fourth time in Isaiah's book that he speaks of the servant of the Lord. Here, this is the Lord speaking through his prophet. Isaiah 52, beginning in verse 13. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high, lifted up. He shall be greatly exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. And so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. For that which has not been told them, they see. And that which they have not heard, they understand. Who has believed what he has heard from us? To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him. He had no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. And as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised. We did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs. Surely he has carried our sorrows. And yet we esteemed him to be stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him. Was the chastisement that brought us peace? With his wounds were healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to his own way. And yet the Lord has laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. And like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment, he was taken away. And as for his generation who consider that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people, they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death. Although he had done no violence, there was no deceit in his mouth. And 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. The Lord 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, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and he was numbered with the transgressors. And yet he bore the sins of many and makes intercession with the transgressors." And now turning with me, if you will, for our New Testament lesson in Acts chapter 8, Read verses 26 to 40. Here we will see this particular passage in Isaiah play a critical juncture in the salvation of a foreigner, of a Gentile, of an Ethiopian eunuch as he stands before this text not knowing what to make of it. And yet one comes to him as an evangelist telling him that this is about the Lord Jesus Christ. Acts chapter 8 beginning in verse 26. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. So he rose and went and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning, seated in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you are reading? He said, how can I, unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this, coming to us from Isaiah 53. Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearers is silence, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth. The eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself, or does he say it about himself, or does he say it about someone else? Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, see, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? He commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. Philip found himself at Esodos, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea." There's a lot here. Let's return to Isaiah chapter 52, and before we consider this good news about the suffering servant who is the Lord Jesus Christ, let us pray. Our gracious God and heavenly Father, your word tells us as we just read in Acts that this servant is not Isaiah, nor anyone else but the Lord, your son. We pray as we consider the ministry of your son declared to us through the prophet that we would have hearts within us that burn. with delight and joy the glad tidings that come through the death and resurrection of Christ who lives on high. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. For the past four weeks, we have been considering these so-called servant songs of Isaiah, each of these visions given to Isaiah that speak of the work of one who would bring an end to the darkness of sin and death that stretched out like a canopy over the face of the earth. That first song that we considered in Isaiah chapter 42, it spoke of a king who perfectly reflects the heart of the Lord and brings true justice and true healing to the nations. In that second song in chapter 49, it speaks of a prophet and a warrior fashioned to be the Lord's secret weapon against death as he enters the arena and is the representative and champion of his people. And that third song in chapter 50, he has spoken of as the obedient servant, that representative of his people who inaugurates a new creation free from death's sting and models perfect discipleship for those who want to follow and serve the maker of heaven and earth. And yet in each of these three songs, there have only been hints of rejection, toil, and labor in this mission of comfort. We're reminded of the servant's exasperation in one of the earlier songs where he says, was all this for nothing? Or the fact that his beard is plucked, that he is struck and insulted, his back is given over to his enemies. And yet we still do not understand the meaning and purpose of such suffering. And yet here in this final servant song, the contents of the servant's secret mission is unveiled and the purpose behind his suffering is laid bare for all the world to see and to understand that it was for you and for me that we might as a sinful people be reconciled to a holy God. Here in this fourth song, the servant is spoken of both as priest and as sacrifice. The one who offers up himself as that once for all atonement for sin that brings man back into holy fellowship with the Holy One of Israel. There's four things I'd like us to consider this morning. First, I would like us to consider the servant's estate. You'll see that here in verses 13 to 15 of chapter 52. Secondly, I'd like us to consider the servant's form. You'll see that in the first three verses of chapter 53. Then I'd like us to consider the servant's suffering in verses 4 to 9, and then finally, the servant's glory in verses 10 to 12. So his estate, his form, his suffering, and his glory. Again, we've seen over and over again in these particular servant songs by Isaiah, the despair of the servant. In chapter 49, verse four, he has this tone of exasperation. Was this for nothing? In chapter 50, we are told of the utter humiliation he goes, even as he is sent to bring comfort to his people, it is a message that is not received by all. He comes to his own and his own do not receive him. Rather, they strike him, they afflict him, they insult him and injure him. And yet we see here at the opening of this psalm, the Lord makes it very clear, make no bones about it, his servant, though humiliated, will in fact be glorified. You see that here in verse 13, three times the Lord says that his servant will be exalted. He will be high, he will be lifted up, he will be greatly exalted. It's as if the Lord is wanting to drive home a particular point. The humiliation of the servant is not the end. In fact, it is the means and the road to his exaltation. How interesting it is that in John's gospel, John will so often speak of Christ's exaltation, his glory that the people have seen as his being lifted up. just as the serpent was lifted up in that brazen form in the wilderness, so too must the Son of Man be lifted up for all the world to see, giving a picture of Christ on the cross. So jarring juxtaposition, that the exaltation of the servant will come only through a dark and painful ordeal. He will, in fact, be humiliated. You see here in verse 14, national Israel had known what it was like to be hated by the world. You see that here, he says, oh, verse 14, just as many around you, Israel, were astonished at you. You know what it's like to be hated, but here the servant is hated even more. servant is described as an appalling figure of sorts. With a plucked beard, he's beaten and bloodied, and yet his shed blood is said to wash away the sins of his people. Not just of Israel, mind you, but the sins of the whole world. Notice how it is it's not just the kings of Israel that are going to come and bow down before this servant. It's the kings of the earth. Here this servant is described not simply as the priest of national Israel, but as it were a global priest. that this bloodied priest sprinkles the nations with his own blood. Now pagan kings don't even know how to respond. This is something none of them ever saw coming, that the Lord, the true God, would send his servant to make them clean. And now they hear, Isaiah says, now they understand, and all mortal flesh is left silent and dumbstruck at what the Lord has done for a people who did not even know the true and living God. It's an unbelievable report. Isn't that what Isaiah says here at the beginning of chapter 53? He was believed it. It sounds too good to be true. The Lord has bared his arm in the sight of the nations. You see that phrase showing up several times in the Old Testament and so often it's used to describe God's redemptive activity in the salvation of his people in the face of great opposition and hostility. Who would believe that this would become the means by which the Lord showed his salvation to the people? You think about Isaiah chapter 51, awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord, awake as in the days of all those generations of long ago, was it not you who cut the serpent into pieces? Was it not you who pierced the dragon?" That's just two chapters prior to this particular section. In other words, the bloodied work of the servant is the means by which the serpent is left undone. How glorious a work this is. This is cosmic in its scope. It is universal in terms of the sphere of its redemption. In other words, that extends beyond the boundaries and borders of national Israel. It is a salvation that comes to the nations as Satan himself is left undone by the death of the servant of the Lord. It's right here in Isaiah. The New Testament is not making this up. is something prophesied by Isaiah 800 years before Christ comes on the scene. The humiliation of the servant is the means by which Satan is destroyed. It is a glorious work, and yet the great tragedy is that nobody even took notice when it happened. You know, I just got engaged a few months ago, and as I got back from my engagement trip to propose to my now fiancé out in the Midwest, I got back and my parents were here in town. We took a trip down to the Redwoods, and as a commemoration of this great moment, when we were down in the Redwoods, my parents bought me a little sapling of a redwood. I don't know if you've ever been to the California Redwoods. Staggering trees. I'm assuming they're the largest trees on the face of the earth. If they're not the largest, they're among the largest. You could drive whole cars through some of these trees that are so big, and yet I have sitting in my living room a sapling where the redwood is what I presently have, only about this big. It's the day of small beginnings. but they're small beginnings that will lead to a great end. And here the Lord speaks of his Messiah, his servant, his anointed and chosen one in these terms. He's spoken of as a tender sapling. see that here in verse 2. With those echoes we see in Isaiah chapters 5 and 7, you remember national Israel, the Lord described as His precious vineyard, but had been infected with rot down to the core. And so the Lord had promised in an act of judgment He would begin the great act of pruning. He would hack the vineyard down to a stomp, and yet from that stomp would shoot just a little sapling, the offspring of Jesse, the son of David. Here's that tiny branch. There's really no appealing form to it. Nobody takes notice of a little sapling. If you don't know what it is, you wouldn't think much about it. You might think it's just a weed, and yet the Lord looks at the end of what this will lead to, and it'll become the greatest tree, as it were, on the face of the earth, towering over all the other kings and princes of the world. And yet Isaiah continues to remind us that by our appearances, that doesn't look like the case. This is not a figure that would make it on the cover of GQ or People's Magazine anytime soon. Nothing notable in terms of appearance. There's really not even any charismatic charm that's to be seen in him. As we heard earlier in chapter 42, he's not even one who would raise his voice in the streets. There is nothing in us that would make us look at him and go, ah yes, he must be a king. One thinks of the distinction between, the difference between Saul and David in Samuel. First Samuel, everybody looks at Saul and goes, oh man, he must be the king. He's head and shoulders above the rest, literally. He's so tall. He must be the king. I want him as the king. And Israel's given a taste of their own medicine to see how that is not the king that the Lord wants for his people. The Lord says, I've appointed David. It's so funny because everybody's response is, him? He's a runt. He's the runt of the litter. He's this little shepherd boy. Who is this? Now that's true for David, how much more true it is here for David's son. Isaiah goes further. Not only is there nothing appealing about him that would make us be drawn to him and see him as the guy that we wanted to rule over us, not only is he unremarkable in his appearance, he's actually in many ways quite despicable. you look at his life and it is one that is marked by rejection, sorrow, and grief. In many ways, he's the kind of guy that you would actually cross the street so that you wouldn't have to bump into him on the sidewalk. And how fascinating it is here that though this servant is the people's scorn, he is the object of the Lord's delight. And yet, as the servant is scorned by the people, that scorning gives way to suffering. It's much like Job's friends. Isaiah says, when we looked at his agonies and we thought, well, what did he do to deserve this? Clearly, this is his fault. He's been smitten, he's been stricken by God, he's been afflicted. What has he done to deserve this? And yet Isaiah, under inspiration of the Spirit, recognizes almost right away the griefs that he bears are not his own. They are not the consequences for his sin. Notice the repeated emphasis that Isaiah gives here in this particular song. The griefs that he bore were ours. The sorrows that he shouldered are ours. Looking back at these other previous songs, again, trying to tether these together, it's giving to us a composite picture of the work of the servant of the Lord. Isaiah 42, behold my servant and the one in whom I am well pleased. Isaiah 49 and 50, this one in whom I am pleased will offer this wholehearted obedience unto death as the champion of his people. And here we find that the servant, in obedience to the Father, bears a pain and a grief that words cannot describe. And yet the grief he bears is the grief that was due his own people. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The servant has come to take our sin upon himself. that by bearing the sickness of our own sin, we might be healed. His bloodied wounds become the fountain of life. Sinners plunge beneath the flood and find all of their guilty stains removed. Verse 6, despite our own wandering hearts, the Lord placed all of our sins unto Him. It's not as if we first got our act together and then he said, okay, I'll find a way. Even in the midst of all of our wondering, even while we were still sinners, the servant dies for us. And he goes willingly. In verses four to six, he's humiliated. But in verse seven, the manner of his humiliation is brought to the focus as he demonstrates utter humility in the face of such suffering. He goes silently, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, he goes quietly. Two times, Isaiah repeats, and he does not open his mouth. He does not protest. For the joy that is set before him, he embraces. suffering and shame, knowing what his mission will accomplish. Even in the imagery given here that he is one who is disfigured and marred beyond all human semblance, reduced as it were to hamburger meat, we're told the significance of this. See, under the old covenant, in order for sin to be reckoned with among the people of God, a sacrificial lamb had to be offered. I mean, this is the message of Leviticus. How is it that a holy God can dwell in the midst of a sinful people? The answer is through the shedding of innocent blood. One dying vicariously in the place of sinners as their substitute. so there were sacrifices offered morning and night, sacrifices for sin in all of its facets. You read of the several different types of offerings for sin, and Leviticus becomes dizzying because there's so much overlap, because the point I think that Leviticus is trying to get across is that there has to be a sacrifice for sin in all of its multiformity and all of its variety in which sin manifests itself in terms of its guilt, its alienation, its corruption. That sin has to be reckoned with through the death of an innocent lamb, one who dies in his place. For the sinner to live, the innocent must die in the place of the guilty. Yet, what we find here is not simply the offering up of another lamb, but the servant is offered up himself using the imagery of that lamb of God that is slain. for the salvation of God's people. What is it that John the Baptist says when he sees Jesus? The opening chapter of John's gospel. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. There's real meaning there. It's not just some sappy illustration. John the Baptist is describing what Christ will accomplish even as he initiates his earthly ministry. Here is the lamb who comes to die, sinless though he is in the place of the guilty. And he offers up himself once for all in this consummate act, one which the prophet Jeremiah will later refer to as a new and better covenant. one that is so great that it will render all the sacrifices of the old covenant obsolete, of which those old covenant sacrifices are just pictures, it's a scaffolding, it's a blueprint for what the final construct will look like when the servant comes to take away the sin of his people. And yet, this servant, he suffers But it's not simply that he's slapped on the wrist and he's allowed to go on his own way as if he gets a couple spankings or is sent to his room and is grounded for a few weeks. No, this is a suffering that leads to death. You see that here in verses 8 and 9. He's not simply bullied and bloodied. He is slaughtered. Isaiah asks, who would have ever thought that he was struck down on account of our sin? died for our sins, he's buried in a rich man's grave, all according to the scriptures, as we're reminded. Something that the gospel writers remind us when Jesus is buried in an unused grave of a rich man, when he's numbered with the transgressors and treated as a common criminal, And yet what is reiterated over and over here in this servant's song is that his death is the punishment not for his own sin, but it is the punishment for our sin. And what's even perhaps most striking is that this is not an accident of history. In verses 10-12, we are told of the Lord's double delight, as it were. How striking and startling it is to hear in chapter 42, behold my servant in whom is found all my delight. And now it says here, this is my servant and it is my delight to crush him. It pleased the Lord to crush him. How are we to make sense of that? There's no way to make sense of that unless you're to understand that this is the manifestation of the love of God for sinners. That the servant goes as a lamb to the slaughter so that the sinner might find his sinful soul counted free. That he might be made righteous and so it pleased the Lord. to crush his beloved servant for the sake of his people. There's a double delight here. It delights the Lord to crush his servant, but it also, we see here, delights the Lord to make his servant prosper. The Lord will look and see and will be satisfied for what his servant has done. Here is the means by which the Lord's arm has been revealed and laid bare before the nations. Here, the secret mission of the servant has now been opened for our eyes to see why it is that he has been hid as an arrow in a sling or a sword in a sheath, as we read in these prior chapters in Isaiah. This is the way in which death will be undone. This is the means by which the Lord's people are saved and becomes the grounds for the servant's subsequent exaltation. Because the servant is now declared to be victorious on account of his own suffering and death. Two facets of the servant's victory are now brought into view. Because he has died, it says the Lord will now prolong his days. The only way one can understand this is in light of the promise of a resurrection. If it pleases the Lord to crush and have his servant put to death to be buried in a grave, and it says the Lord delighted and was pleased by his obedience, therefore he will prolong his days. Implied there is the reality that the servant is victorious. If the servant has been sent as the secret weapon against death, then what is the greatest proof that death has been undone? Then by the resurrection from the dead by the servant who has accomplished this task and defeated death and hell. And so one of the fruits of the servant's victory we see here in verse 11 is our justification. It's described as one of the spoils of war. Now the Lord says, I will allot with him that with the strong and the mightiest, this picture after a giant raid of the disbursement of the booty, of the funds, the treasures that have been acquired through the ransacking of the strong man. One of those spoils of war we see here, the servant bears the sins of his people, therefore the people are made righteous. they are justified. Not simply pardoned, mind you, not simply having their sins washed away, they are positively declared to be righteous. Elsewhere, Isaiah will say, you have clothed me in the garments of righteousness and salvation. Clean clothes on a filthy people made clean through the sprinkling of this high priest. All because of the righteousness of the servant. Our sins are put to death in the death of the servant. Therefore, because he has died, our sinful soul is counted free. God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me. And now we see it's not just our justification, but yet another one of the spoils of war we see here in verse 12. The ever-present intercession of the servant. Though dead, the servant now lives. One who has poured out his soul to death is now set in this final verse in chapter 33 as one who makes intercession for transgressors. How can a dead man make intercession? The implication is the servant, though having died, has now been raised and holds the power of an indestructible life. He who has been the sacrifice for sin is now also declared to be the high priest. Him who has offered up his own self as a sacrifice for sin once and for all now lives even presently to make intercession for sinners as the one from whose wounds bring healing to the nations and as the one from whose lips bring comfort and life. And it is here that we see the work of Christ brought into full view for us and for our salvation. See, the significance that we have here is Isaiah 53 depicts for us the purpose of the incarnation. It was not enough for Christ simply to have been born. Or even to have died. He must have died in accordance with the Scriptures. As the sinful as the sin bearer of a sinful people, sinless though he was. As Paul writes to the Church of Corinth, God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Just a few days after Jesus was crucified, there are two disciples who are walking on the way, on the road to Emmaus, and as they're talking with one another, heartbroken over the death of Christ, of the Lord Jesus, thinking this is the one who we thought would have brought healing to the nations, this is the one who we thought the Messiah would come and establish the kingdom of God on earth, Jesus comes walking alongside them, and once again, they don't even recognize him. He begins asking them, why are you so heartbroken? And they lay their hearts bare before the man who is their savior that they don't even recognize. And after hearing their distress, he says to them, oh foolish ones, it's slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory? beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." When we read the prophets of old, what you should be looking for is how it points to the person and work of Christ, the sending of the Son and the outpouring of the Spirit. given to inform us of the great plan of redemption that had been planned from before the foundation of the world. Here we find in these four servant songs a composite picture that describes the work of the servant of the Lord as our prophet, priest, and king who would undergo that secret mission to shatter man's covenant with death and bring light, not just to Israel, but to the nations. Here it speaks of one who was sent and who went obediently to bear the curse of death, that we might be made righteous and find life everlasting. Here it speaks of one who was condemned, who suffered and had died and was buried, and who was in fact raised. and lives even now to make intercession for sinners like you and me, that we might be healed of the wounds of sin. Here it speaks of one who, though he once had suffered, has now been highly exalted on account of the victory secured by his obedience unto death. And as the New Testament makes very clear, the servant of the Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ. It was necessary that Christ would die. And the significance of that death is spelled out here in this very chapter. He had to die if we ever were to be saved as one who dies in our place. Vicarious, substitutionary atonement is not an invention of the 19th century. but it's something embedded in the scriptures from its very inception. Here, the reward for Christ's humiliation is his exaltation to the right hand of the majesty on high. And Isaiah, looking back on this, says, who would have ever believed such a thing could ever happen? That death would be undone by the death of the sinless son. that sinners would be welcomed into the holy courts of heaven because of the death of the sinless servant. Who would have ever thought that such a thing would happen? And who would have ever thought that it would have been prophesied eight centuries before it happened? And so we here have before us the glad tidings of great joy for all people. For those struggling with anxiety over sin, or the prospect of death. Scripture reminds us that because we are made of flesh and blood, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, though the eternally begotten Son from eternity past, took to Himself a true body and a reasonable soul, was born under the law, born of a virgin, lived a fully obedient and sinless life, spoke words of comfort to his people, and for it was rejected, despised, and falsely condemned and crucified as a common criminal. And everybody looked at it and thought nothing of it. But the Lord looked on it and was pleased. And so three days later, in accordance with the scriptures, he raised his son from the dead and has now seated him at his right hand very proof that we need and have been given that the power of death has been undone and so has the devil and all of his accusations against us. Our sins have been dealt with fully at the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. At the cross, Christ drank the ocean of God's wrath that we would not have to taste a drop. Our sins have fully been satisfied have fully been dealt with at the cross. Justice has been fully satisfied. So when the Lord looks on us, he sees us clothed in the righteousness of his servant and the righteousness of his son, so that we can now come boldly before the throne of grace and give glory and honor to the one who loved us and sent his son to die and be raised for our justification. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, what glad tidings you've given us this morning. We pray that you would comfort our hearts with the message of scripture that we, like the Ethiopian eunuch, would hear of the work of the servant and looking to Christ would believe and be saved. Strengthen our faith, we pray. We ask in Christ's name. Amen.