God's Plan for Redemption and Forgiveness

You pick out the paper anytime or turn on the television or look at the internet, you're always confronted with the reality that there are a lot of bad things going on in the world. I read in the news this week, I don't know if it's on the internet or a newspaper, that a lady got married to someone her family didn't want her to get married to, and when she walked out of the house, her brother killed her because of it. When you look at things like that, you say, wow, that's just unbelievable. I read the story this week that there's a man who runs a daycare center, and he was sentenced to jail because he had made arrangements, were trying to make arrangements for a sexual encounter between an 18-month-old child and somebody that wanted to participate in that. You think, man, that's just gross. How in the world can people live like that? And sometimes I even hear people say, you know, hell's not hot enough for that person that's done such a terrible thing. We look at things that are worse than things that we do, and we're very condemning of it. The reality is that God sees people in a different way than we do. We look at those people who do things that are far worse than our own, and we look at the things we do, and we sort of brush them aside. You know, whenever you break the law, you're a lawbreaker. And every person who lives in the world and violates the instructions of God and does something contrary to what he wants is a sinner, condemned by God. And every person who rebels against the authority of God, the divine ruler of the universe, the creator of everything, he makes a mark against himself so that God promises that judgment will come to that person. Every single person who violates the instructions of God becomes an enemy of God. There's no exception to that. And whenever you're an enemy of God and violate what he wants, the judgment is eternity separated from him, and the worst kind of punishment and circumstances you could ever find yourself. No one is exempt from this. The list of God's record of people's lives who violated those are all of us, every one of us. You can't look around at someone who does these terrible things and not see someone who didn't start out doing those but just started out doing something far less. When you look at the lives of people whose lives are really messed up and who does terrible things, you look back to the very beginning and they start just in small things and it just grows and grows and grows until it becomes gross to all of us. All have sinned, the Bible says, and have not measured up to the standard God sets for us. There is none righteous, no, not one. That's the circumstance for all of us. And as God took Adam and Eve out of the garden because of their rebellion against him, so he separates himself from every person who has violated his instructions, all of us, condemned. In the Old Testament, God said to his people, what I can do for you is forgive you if you'll make sure that you sacrifice an animal for me. So you bring the animal to the temple and there you cut the animal's throat, you take its blood, its life, and you pour it on the altar and you burn it. You put your hand on that animal and say, Lord, I give myself to you as this animal is being burned for you. I give everything in my life to you. Every single day in the temple, an animal was burned for the sins of the people of Israel. And individually, when they came to recognize a time in their life when they were conscious of their sin, they would go to the temple and they would offer another sacrifice, an animal's sin offering for themselves. They knew that they were condemned people and only could trust that God would forgive them and erase their sin and accept them even though they had done this. There was no other hope for them. They knew that. In the story I want to read today, Isaiah chapter 53 and 54, God is telling the people of Israel what his remedy is for what's taking place in their life. They were in a very difficult circumstance. They had been God's chosen people, given a land to live in. They violated the principles he gave them. They continually refused to do what he wanted them to do. He finally came to them and said, I can't take this anymore. You're a nation that needs correction and reproof. And so he drove them out of the country he gave them and they were in captivity in a foreign land, in a place where they were not accepted. They were slaves, speaking a foreign language in a country. They were speaking a language different than their own. They were people without a country, without a home, without a land, without a future. Isaiah was a spokesman for God and he came and told them what they had done wrong and told them that this all was going to happen to them, the judgment that was going to come to them. And then when they got in this foreign land, he received instructions from God to give them words of hope and promise. What is it that can be done for someone who's violated the instructions of God? Go to court and you've done some of these terrible things, there's nothing to do but pay the price, go to jail, be fined, whatever it is that happens. God had a different way. He decided for us that he would make the payment for our sin. The story in Isaiah is a story of what God does to be able to make sure that the need that we have for forgiveness is reached, Isaiah chapter 53, I want to begin reading it, verse 13, excuse me, I want to begin reading it, Isaiah chapter 52, verse 13. See my servant will act wisely. He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted, and just as there were many who were appalled at him, his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any man, his form marred beyond human likeness. So he will sprinkle many nations and kings will shut their mouths because of him. For what they were not told they will see, and what they have not heard they will understand. Jesus is announced here in this story, a remedy for the sins of people who have taken place The people of Israel standing there to hear this story, though, didn't hear the story of Jesus. They're hearing the story of God saying, I have a plan to be able to make sure that forgiveness for your violation of my instructions will come to you. I am making sure that there is a remedy provided for you. This person will come and they will act correctly or successfully. They will accomplish this job. The remedy I have will always work. Some people look at their lives and they say, I don't think God could ever forgive me for what I've done. Because they know they couldn't forgive people who had done the same things to them. So they think God is the same way. I am sending someone who will act successfully. The translation here is wisely, footnote in some of the Bible says will prosper. He will come and do things that will prosper or be successful. I have decided, God said, that I am going to do something for you to forgive you for what you've done, no matter what it is. Your life will never be hopeless. The people of Israel now were in a foreign land and they had no way to ever get back. No way to get an army. No way to ever receive anything that would allow them to hope that they could go back to their land of promise, their homes, and live again. But God comes in the middle of this circumstance and says, I have plans that will be successful for you. Many, many people are in despair about the circumstances of their life. They look at what they have. They look at what's going on around them. And they assume, because of their inability to change themselves or the events or circumstances around them, that their life is hopeless. What God has given to His people in the middle of this is, I have plans and I want to assure you they will be successful. It may not look like it. The man that I'm sending to you may look to you like he's unqualified to do anything to help you. He may look like he's the worst kind of person. But don't look at the circumstances around you. Look at the promise I make for you. The man is coming and he will be successful in all that he has to do. And what I've sent him to do is to save you, to rescue you from the circumstances in which you find yourself. Chapter 53, verse 1, 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, 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 men. A man of sorrows, familiar with suffering, like one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we assumed him not. Don't look at yourself, Israel, and say, look at the mess that we're in. Don't look at your leaders and say they don't have the ability to take care of us. Don't look at the human circumstances around you. I have plans and even though to you the plans may seem ordinary and as if they won't work at all, they will. This is my plan. I sent you the message and it will be accomplished. Now whenever you think of being rescued and you're in captivity, you think of an army being raised, a great general that would come and stand and say, if you will follow me, we will fight our enemy to the death. I guarantee you we'll overwhelm them. I have plans. I have ways by which we can accomplish this. But the promise that God had for his own people was not that way. He talks about Israel. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was cursed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray and each of us has turned to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. What he said to the people of Israel is, you've been looking at yourself and saying, how can we ever rally ourselves and get back to the place where we were? You're looking at the wrong place. I'm not going to do this by you, but I'm going to do it by someone that I've given to you. So you look at this person who will stand between you and your enemy, who will fight the enemy that now controls you, and I will stand in the way of that person. God's plan, even though you were crushed and even though you were pierced, someone will stand between you to take all the blows that are coming to you. The consequences that ought to come will be absorbed by someone else. He was oppressed and afflicted that he didn't open his mouth. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before his shearers is silent, so he didn't open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away and who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the Lord, the Lord's will to crush him and cause him to suffer. And though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days. And the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand and all the suffering of his soul. And he will see the light of life and be satisfied by his knowledge. My righteous servant will justify many. And he will bear their iniquities, therefore I will give him a portion among the great and he will divide the spoils with the strong. Because he poured out his life unto death and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. God said to the prophet Isaiah, tell the people not to look at themselves and what's going to take place, but the promise that I give to them. That even though they violated everything that I've asked them to do, I have a plan to rescue them. The plan will not be simple and they will not be able to figure it out. For whenever it's set in place, you will not even think it will work. You'll look at the persons I've sent to you and you'll say they're not adequate for the job. They can't do it. They're weak. They're powerless. Don't look at that. For what will happen is I will rescue you. This was his promise. Now the people gathered around Isaiah in that time, they didn't know what this was about. When I read this, you think of something different than they would have thought about. They looked around at themselves. They said, who is this suffering servant? They remember the promise that God had made to Abraham. He said, Abraham, if you'll follow me, through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed. We are the people who followed Abraham's promise. This must mean us. And so they begin to think of themselves as the fulfillment of this promise. We are the suffering servant. After all, you look back at what happened to us in Egypt when we were slaves for 400 years. We left there and wandered in the wilderness. You remember how all of our people died. You remember how we were entered into the land of promise and then it was taken away from us. Our nation, our home, our religion, everything was taken from us. Surely we have suffered more than anyone in all the world for God. We are the suffering servant. And through us all the nations of the earth will be blessed. Jewish people, some of them still believe that to be true today. They're waiting for the Messiah to come out of their group, that through him all this fulfillment will come to pass. And that's what the people who were there that day thought was going to take place. Through the nation of Israel, someone will come who will bring to the world a dramatic change. People look at us, Jewish people, and they don't like us and they hate us. And we are this person that they despise and are rejected. And yet someday God is going to open the door and we will be the people who will bring this redemption to the whole world. Now you know the story of the New Testament, the story of Jesus' life. And when we read this story, we see in this story a perfect picture of Jesus. He comes as an ordinary human being, lived in this world, a sinless life, never did one single thing in rebellion to God. He only did things that helped people. He healed people, he fed people, he cared for people, he did everything that God wanted him to do. Not one thing anyone ever had that would indicate that he was not obedient to God. To try him they had to get people to lie, to find something bad about him. Someone had to lie to tell something wrong with him. Not one thing did he do. But he was not what they wanted, you know, the great hero to drive out the enemy and establish the kingdom of God. They wanted someone who was powerful, you know, Superman or Batman kind of person to come in and take charge and stuff it to the enemy. Instead Jesus came, he wasn't appealing and attractive, he was in the construction industry for 30 years of his life, and then without any training he starts out teaching and preaching and doing powerful things, everyone's astonished at what he is. People crowded around him when he fed them, but he would begin to tell them what he was going to do, they left him in droves and herds until he was down to just a few people that were with him. Everybody turned their back on him. He was reviled. When it came time for his trial, they captured him, lied about him, told things that were not true about him, made it up. But there was no one to stand to defend him. No one looked at him and said, this is a travesty of justice. Even the most righteous people in the nation agreed to lie and kill him because there was nothing appealing about him. He was like that root out of the ground in the sun, drying, not even any life left in him. He was like that person who was beaten and left and no one wanted to look at him. And indeed, that's what happened. He was beaten severely, nailed to a cross, the most despicable thing that could happen to a person in that day, and that's what he was like. But what Isaiah was promised by God was that all these things that happened to him are the result of him taking the punishment that should come to people. For he died for the sins of the people. It doesn't take a very strong person to stand in front of another person who's being shot and take the bullet itself. Heroes are made that way. Medals of honor are given to people in battle because they were out there on the battlefield and someone was shooting and they stood in front of the friend beside them or they fell on the grenade themselves. You don't have to be powerful or strong to do it. You just have to be committed to rescue others. So Jesus said to the Father, I have not done one thing in this world that would justify my death, but I give myself in behalf of these people who are your enemies. If they will accept me and follow me, I will vouch for them. So when they stand before you, if they belong to me, I will say, this is my friend. He has trusted me with his life and allowed me to be the guide and the Lord and the ruler of his life. He belongs to me. And when you look at him, I want you to see me. Jesus came to stand between us and the punishment that was due to us. You can think of the things in your own life you've done that are wrong, things that may not be criminal, but you know that they're wrong. You may be ashamed for anyone in the world to know them, but God knows them. And what he said is, I will pay the price for you so that the payment of my life will allow you to stand before God and claim not your own righteousness to enter heaven, but you can claim my righteousness. I say, this is my son, accept him. This is my daughter, trust her. She belongs to me. And though he was beaten, punished, crucified, he had one thing in mind, I do this for the benefit of others. Jesus gave his life for us, to stand between us and the punishment that was due us, to pay a price that we cannot pay. We cannot say, I've never violated the instructions of God. We cannot pay for that, nor erase it, but Jesus says, I will stand between them and what they deserve. Give it to me, death. And when we look at the story of Jesus, we see that this is fulfilled in his life. He wasn't a very important person. He didn't have anything to attract people to him as a great leader. This always puzzles us. So people look at Jesus' life and they want to make something great out of him. They want to say, well, he was the greatest person in the world, but he wasn't that way when he was living on earth. He was a righteous, holy person, but he wasn't a great financier, he wasn't a businessman, he wasn't an athlete, he wasn't a rock star. He was just a person. Not even very appealing to everyone. Books are written all the time about Jesus saying he would have been the greatest businessman in the world, he would have been a multimillionaire, he would have been a great rock star, he would have been a great athlete. Because in our mind, we can't hardly imagine anyone significant not being significant in human eyes. All Jesus wanted to do was be significant in the eyes of his Father. And so for us, we look at him and he's not very big or important or significant. Hanging on the cross is not the way to die. I don't know if many of you know who Roy Rogers is, an old cowboy hero. Years ago I had a story a teacher told, a Sunday school teacher told, about the story of Christ on the cross, and she was talking about how they beat him and how they nailed him to the cross, going through great detail about the pain and suffering, and the children there struck by this story. Cross lifted up, stomped in the ground, flesh tearing on Jesus, and one of the boys spoke up and said, you know, if Roy Rogers had been there, it would have never happened. Our thinking is, you don't lose your life, you beat the other person. Jesus did something that made giving his life away heroic. He died for us. Now this could be the end of this story. The book of Isaiah fulfilled in the life of Jesus, except for one thing. When Jesus called his disciples around him, he said to them, if you want to follow me, here's what you have to do. You must deny yourself, you must take up your own cross, and you must follow my example. What was he telling us? He was telling us that the work that he'd started was not finished. He was saying there's a whole world out there that still needs to know what it means to experience the love of God and the care of God. Now I'm going to leave this place because I can stand here and only talk to you, but you're going to be spread around the world to talk to all the other people, and how are they going to know what this is really like unless they see it in you? So what I'm asking you to do is exactly what God asked me to do, what was prophesied in Isaiah. I want you to deny yourself. Don't follow your own direction in life. Don't make a future for yourself without God. Don't plan on the things that you want and leave God out. Do exactly what I did. I lived a life for thirty years and God said time for something else, and I threw everything away and I did exactly what he wanted. I want you now to say to God, I give you my life. I'll live as a carpenter, I'll live as a brick mason, I'll live as a farmer, I'll do whatever you want, anytime you want it. And whenever you're ready for me to do something else, I give my life to you. Just like I've done, you have to do that. And then I want you to obey God regardless of the cost. He may ask you to do something heroic or may ask you simply to stand between another person and danger. I want you to be prepared.