Good Friday Service

Man of Sorrows, what a name for the Son of God who came.

Ruined sinners to reclaim. Hallelujah. What a Savior. As we prepare for communion this Good Friday, I want us to meditate on the title given to the Son of God, one of many titles, the title of Man of Sorrows. That designation given to our Lord Jesus Christ comes from an Old Testament passage written by one of the Old Testament prophets, Isaiah, some 700 years before the events. So our text this evening is Isaiah 53. If you have your Bibles, perhaps you can turn there, Isaiah 53. And before we look at chapter 53, I want you to look at chapter 52 verse 13. Now remember, this is an Old Testament passage written 700 years before the birth of our Lord Jesus. Isaiah 52 verse 13, behold my servant. God the Father wants us to look at His Son who is described here as the Servant, the Lord's Servant. But as we read Isaiah 53, many people wonder does this really speak of the Messiah?

Some look on it as a reference to the Jewish explanation, others have other interpretation. And do the verses that we're going to read, do they really refer to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah? Well in the book of Acts, there is a man from Ethiopia, and he has been to Jerusalem to worship and he's on his way back to Ethiopia, and he's in his chariot, and we read in Acts chapter 8 that he's reading his Bible, that is the Old Testament. In fact, he's reading the passage that we're going to read in a few minutes. He's reading from what we know as Isaiah 53 verses 7 and 8. Now listen to the account given by Luke in the first century AD. Now the passage of the Scripture, I'm reading from Acts 8 verse 32, the passage of the Scripture that he, the Ethiopian, was reading was this, like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, 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. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or about someone else? So the man's reading this Old Testament Scripture. He's not really understanding what he's saying, and as he reads it, he's saying now, is the prophet Isaiah talking about himself or is he referring to someone else?

Now look how Luke records this wonderful incident. Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture, that is Isaiah 53, he told him the good news about Jesus. There is no question that the prophet say we're going to read 750 years before the birth of Jesus is referring to Jesus the Messiah. And also in the book of Luke, Luke chapter 22, there is also a reference to Isaiah 53 by the Lord Himself. Luke 22 verse 37, I tell you that this Scripture must be fulfilled in me, and He was numbered with the transgressors. We're going to read that from Isaiah 53.

For what is written about me has its fulfillment. This Scripture, Jesus says, that Isaiah writes about, and he's writing to people who knew their Bibles, that Scripture is referring to me. And in that Scripture, we read of the man of sorrows. Think of this, the Lord of glory coming to this earth and has given this title, the man of sorrows. I want us very quickly this evening to think of four truths from Isaiah 53 about the man of sorrows. First of all, the man of sorrows suffers. Isaiah 53, let's read the first three verses.

Who has believed what He has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 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. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, there's a title, 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 man of sorrows, Isaiah is saying, when he comes, he's going to be despised and rejected by men. In our Lord's incarnation, when the Redeemer comes into this world, He is like a young plant, Isaiah is saying.

Like a root out of dry ground. That is Jesus is born in the humblest of circumstances, born in a stable and laid in a manger. Growing up in the insignificant town of Nazareth in Galilee, working with Joseph as a carpenter.

On one occasion, the people of Nazareth, His hometown, take Him and try to throw Him off the brow of a hill. The writer of John's Gospel says He came unto His own, and His own did not receive Him. And as Isaiah is saying, when Messiah comes, there is nothing about His outward appearance which attracted people. Verse 2, 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, and no beauty that we should desire Him. That is, our Lord, in His physical characteristics, wasn't someone who attracted attention as it were. No, rather, in His humanity, He experiences abuse. He's not made a star.

He's not made a celebrity. He is criticized. He is rejected by the religious establishment and ultimately He's going to be rejected by the nation of Israel. Have you ever been rejected? Have you ever been despised?

Have you ever been thrown out of your own home, your own town? Have you ever been rejected by your friends, your colleagues? Notice what Isaiah says at the end of verse three, and there's one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed Him not.

People didn't even want to look at Him. He's given this description, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And his suffering and his rejection come to a climax on what we now call Good Friday. He's flogged. He's mocked by the soldiers. He's spat upon. He experiences a travesty of a trial. He's beaten so much that He is scarcely recognizable as a man. Isaiah 52 verse 14, as many were astonished at you, His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and His form beyond that of the children of mankind. That is, He's going to be so lacerated that He's scarcely going to look like a human being. People are going to look at Him and He's going to be so disfigured that He is horrified. Have you ever looked at someone who's been disfigured that you're repelled by it? I remember when I was practicing law, I had a client who was up with a very serious charge of assault.

One of the charges against him was that in a pub he got into a fight with a man and he had taken his beer mug and he had smashed it on top of the, where they serve the beer, and he'd taken that glass and put it right into the face of this man. And I saw the photographs of the man and I could hardly look at it. It was so disfigured.

His face was scarcely recognizable as a man. That is what Isaiah is saying regarding the Messiah. God's lovely Son, the Lord from heaven, is ridiculed. A crown of thorns is put on Him. He's condemned to die. Then He's crucified. A death reserved for slaves and criminals and traders of the worst kind. And death, my crucifixion comes very, very slowly.

Crucifixion is designed to be a death of shame, a death of humiliation, a death of unspeakable horror. There's no doubt that the man of sorrows suffers. Secondly, the man of sorrows, Isaiah is saying, suffers for us. Verse four, surely He's borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed Him 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, and with His wounds we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned, every one of us, to His own way, and the Lord has laid on Him, that is the man of sorrows, the iniquity of us all. Now when we think of the man of sorrow and his suffering, he doesn't suffer for his own sins. He suffers for us.

That is, his suffering is vicarious. He takes the suffering that we deserve. He, the Messiah, the man of sorrows is sinless. His words, his actions, his thoughts are 100 percent pure. In all of human history, he alone completely obeys the law.

He made the law honorable. He fulfills all righteousness. He never sins.

He is unique, absolutely different from everyone else in this, that he is the perfect man, the perfect Son of God, God's perfect servant. That's why we read that the Lord is saying, look at My servant. There's none like him, and he bears our sins. He suffers for us.

Do you understand that? His eyes are reminding us here in verse 6 that everyone of us has failed. He says we're like sheep having gone astray. Straying sheep will never find their way home. They stray, they wander, they get into trouble. Sheep need a shepherd, a good shepherd. And so the man of sorrow comes, looks at us portrayed in this passage as straying sheep, and he comes to us and he is pierced for our transgressions.

Look at verse 5. But he, this is the man of sorrows, was pierced or wounded for our transgressions. This word, transgression, means the willed full rebellious breaking of the law. A transgression isn't an inadvertent failure. No, a transgression is something that we do deliberately as an act of rebellion against God. We have transgressed.

Notice what the text says. He is pierced, wounded. That is the deliberate assault by man the sinner against the innocent Christ.

Here is a man of sorrows, perfect. And we, yes, people like you and me who have sinned, we pierce him. And he takes our transgressions. He is pierced for our transgressions. Verse 5, he is crushed for our iniquities. Not only do we transgress, we have iniquity. Iniquity refers to the inward perverseness that we have. We sometimes use the expression of someone that is twisted as a corkscrew.

Anyone like that? Well in a sense, we all are. We are twisted. Not only do we transgress, we are, we have iniquity.

And what's the answer to that? He is crushed for our iniquities. As I is lightning, our sin is a terrible heavy load piled one on top of the other, and here is the sinless man of sorrows, and he is being crushed for our iniquities. Can you imagine if all of the sins that you've committed in your life were stacked up? Would that be quite a load?

A tremendous load. And all that you've done, the magnificent man of sorrows comes, and he is pierced for our transgressions. He's crushed for our iniquities. Again, verse five, upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. When we talk about chastisement, we think of the work of a father. This is the father's work, restoring our relationship with God. We have rebelled against God.

We're not at peace with God, and so our Savior comes, the man of sorrows, and upon Him was the chastisement, the father's discipline as it were, that brings us peace. And again, verse five, with his wounds we're healed. Sin is portrayed as a sickness here, as a virus. We are spiritually sick. We're spiritually ill, and the Messiah comes. He is pierced for our transgressions.

He's crushed for our iniquities. The discipline that we deserved falls on him, and with his stripes, with his wounds, we're healed. Think of the wonder of the work of salvation. The sin, which is like a virus which infects our whole being, is now healed through our magnificent man of sorrows.

This is the gospel. But he suffers. He suffers for us.

He's our substitute. Peter writes, Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust. Paul writes, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. No, the man of sorrows is not suffering for his own sins, but for our sins. Blow by blow, lash by lash, piercing by piercing, crushing by crushing, the man of sorrows is bearing our burden of sin. Have you ever experienced guilt?

Have you ever experienced the shame of your wrongdoing? Our blessed Savior is bearing that. Our sin, our shame, our guilt is borne by the man of sorrows. He suffers for us.

And at the cross, we see how evil we are, and we see how loving God is. He suffers, but He suffers for us. Wounded for me, wounded for me. There on the cross, He is wounded for me.

Gone my transgressions, and now I'm free. All because Jesus was wounded for me. The man of sorrow suffers. The man of sorrow suffers for us.

Third, the man of sorrows suffers silently and submissively. Have you ever suffered? Have you ever been treated unjustly? Do you ever feel at work you're not getting what you deserve?

Do you ever feel you've been unfairly criticized or accused of something you didn't do? What's our natural reaction? Silence? I don't think so. Submission?

I don't think so. The man of sorrows suffers silently and submissively. Verse seven, he was oppressed, and he was afflicted. Notice this, yet he opened not his mouth.

Don't you marvel at that. Our blessed Savior. He opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearer is silent.

So he opened not his mouth. Twice Isaiah tells us that in his suffering, he is suffering silently. He opened not his mouth by oppression and a 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, and they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, though he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.

What's one of the most frequent ways we sin? With our speech. And as our blessed Savior, the man of sorrows is suffering, he opened not his mouth. There is no deceit in his mouth. He is God's perfect servant. He himself said, I always do the things that please the Father. And even in the garden of Gethsemane, you will recall when he's overwhelmed as he agonizes in the garden, his sweat is like great drops of blood he prays, Abba Father, all things are possible for you.

Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will, but you will. He's on the very verge of being arrested and anticipating the judgment of God, anticipating that cup of the outpouring of the wrath of God, which he's going to drink. He is submissive to the Father's will.

In the face of all of the injustice, all of the insults, all of the violence, twice we read in verse seven, he opens not his mouth. He's like a sheep that's before its shearer is silent. Goody and I had a trip to New Zealand and we watched their sheep shearing. They round up all of the sheep, and there's men who are specialized in shearing sheep. Now you would think, they get them into the pen and one by one, they take them, they put it on his back and you think, if I'm a sheep, I'm watching the other sheep. If Tim Hathaway is sheep number one, I'm watching what's happening to him, and I don't like what I see. I mean they're taking off my wool and putting me on my back.

These sheep are absolutely silent. The Lord is suffering as no man ever suffered. And then the awful shadows of Gethsemane, at the unfair trial, he silently submits to his Father's will.

In fact, he delights to do the Father's will. Yes, he has cut off verse eight out of the land of the living. Why is he stricken, verse eight? Isaiah gives the answer, for the transgression of his people. You realize he's the Lamb of God who's taking away the sin of the world. This is why the Father sends him.

So silent, he goes to the cross. You've got difficulty submitting to the will of God. God's path for you has been very difficult. You're struggling with surrendering to Christ. You think life is unfair, and it often is. You think you don't deserve this, and perhaps you don't from a human perspective.

But this is good Friday. Look to the man of sorrows. We who are followers of the man of sorrows must surrender our lives to our Heavenly Father. The man of sorrows suffers. He suffers for us, and he suffers silently and submissively. Meekly, he bows his sacred head to die.

The agony, the shame are almost over. The parched lips have framed their last lone cry, the tender heart of Christ need bear no more. But yet, he bows his head, submissive even in the hour of death to all the Father's will. The man of sorrows, finally, is suffering in accordance with God's will, verses 10 through 12. 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. Many 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 spoiled 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.

Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Prophecy is going to intercede even for those who are putting him to death. Yes, this suffering, we must understand, is all in accordance with the Father's will. It's the will of the Lord to crush him, verse 10.

He has put him to grief. We saw in verse 4 that the man of sorrows is smitten by God and afflicted. It is the Lord who laid on him the iniquity of us all, verse 6. It was necessary for the Son of God to suffer.

On the road to Emmaus, there are two men with him, two of his disciples. They don't recognize who he is initially, and he opens the Scriptures, and he explains from all of the Scriptures, I'm sure including this Scripture, that the Christ that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into glory. First the suffering, then the glory. The man of sorrows, yes, he will be exalted, chapter 52, verse 13. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted, but before the exaltation, before the glory, there is the suffering. And although mankind is held responsible for putting the man of sorrows on the cross, it is, Peter tells us in Acts chapter 2, it's all according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God.

Don't think of Jesus as a kind of victim caught up in the net of circumstances from which he can't escape. No, this is all the Father's will. This is God's plan of salvation. And even our Lord Himself said in that great passage on John 10 of the Good Shepherd, no one takes my life from me. I've power to lay it down.

I've power to take it up again. This commandment have I received from my Father. No, this is the only way of salvation. We who are followers of Jesus are sometimes criticized that we're bigoted, that there are many ways to God. Why do you say that your way is right? Well, it's not our way. It's God's way. This is God's plan of salvation.

Is there anyone else who can forgive? Is there anyone else who can save us? Is there anyone else who can take us to God?

No, the man Christ Jesus is the only one who can unlock the gates of heaven and let us in. All right, as we began from Romans 5, God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Peter said, He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree.

How magnificent. All of my sin was borne by the man of sorrows. He's perfect, therefore He and He alone can be the perfect sacrifice. The Father sends His Son into the world to be the Savior of the world. This is the will of the Father.

This is why it pleased the Father to bruise Him. There's no other way in the whole universe for guilty sinners to be saved. He takes our curse that we might receive a blessing. He enters into death that we may have eternal life.

And so, in this Old Testament prophecy, I commend you to read it and study it. In Isaiah 53, we see the man of sorrows suffering. We see Him suffering for us. We see Him suffering silently. We see Him suffering submissively. We see Him suffering in accordance with the eternal purposes of God. Praise God, He suffers for us, bearing shame and scoffing root. In my place, condemned He stood, sealed my pardon with His blood. Hallelujah.

What? A Savior. Do you understand that? I have to ask you, this Good Friday, is He your Savior? Have you experienced the reality of God's salvation in your heart?

Many years ago, at the great parliament of religions in Chicago, every known religion was represented and many learned theological discourses and religious talks were given. During one session, a great preacher, Joseph Cook of Boston, suddenly rose and said, gentlemen, I beg to introduce you to a woman with a great sorrow. Blood stains are on her hands and nothing she has tried will remove them. The blood is that of murder and nothing will take away the stain.

She has been driven to desperation in her distress. Is there anything in your religion that will remove her sin and give her peace? He said there was a great hush.

And over the auditorium as one person looked to another for an answer, no one spoke. And then Joseph Cook, standing up, raised his eyes heavenward and said, I'm going to ask someone else the same question. John, the apostle of Jesus Christ, can you tell this woman how she can be rid of her sin? And the great preacher waited for the answer and he came and he said, listen, the apostle John is speaking. The blood of Jesus, His Son cleanses us from all of our sin. How wonderful.

This is the only power in the universe. This is the only way in which your guilt and your shame and all of your sin can be forgiven through our Lord Jesus Christ, the man of sorrows. What a name given to God's Son who comes to suffer, who goes into death, is wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. And so, we come to get ready to break bread and repent of our sin and confess our sin.

If you have never done it, ask Christ to come and save you, to forgive you, and to give you eternal life. And for those of us who know the Savior, may we rejoice in that magnificent salvation we find, which is completely sourced in the man of sorrows. Bow with me as we pray. Father, we thank You for this passage of Scripture which so vividly explains the work of our Savior, the man of sorrows.

And there are some here who have never yet received Him as their Savior. I pray for them. Open their eyes to their sin.

Open their eyes to the wonder of Christ. And for those of us who are His followers, refresh us, Father. May we repent of all of our sin. May we renew our commitment to follow Christ, to love Christ, and to serve Him. Work in our hearts now as we look to Jesus, the author and the perfector of our faith. In His name we pray. Amen.