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March 27, 2005
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The Cross
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"The Triumph of the Cross"
Isaiah 53
- 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 men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.
Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
- 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 crushed 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, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
- 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 her shearers is silent, so he did not 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 transgression 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’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.
- After the suffering of his soul, 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.
NIV
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- Yo Peque
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Yo Peque | I am a sinner | Thumb | |
Pero Dios me ama | But God does love me | Index Finger | |
Y Cristo murio por mi | And Christ died for me | Middle Finger | |
Yo le recibo | I receive Him | Ring Finger | |
Y ya soy su hijo | He makes me his child (son) | Little Finger | |
Y es su plan para mi. | And that's his plan for me. | Clap Hands
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Es su plan para mi… es su plan para mi! Yo le recibo y ya soy su hijo y es su plan para mi.
How can we sing this song?
Could we 'receive' Jesus, like the song said, if Jesus were dead? Nope!
Could a dead man make any difference in our lives? Nope, He couldn't!
So, that little song called "Yo Peque" (in Spanish) sings the Gospel truth, that the cross was not the end, it was just the means to accomplish all that God wanted to do for you and for me. It was God's means of healing. The triumph of the cross is seen in the resurrection.
- That is the testimony of Isaiah - who wrote 700 years before Jesus was even born. He tells in this one chapter the kind of home Jesus would be born into, what tribe he would come from, and the fact he would be ill treated, beaten, and crucified and through such wounds bring us healing and peace. Isaiah predicted that Jesus would die like a criminal among criminals and then be buried in a rich man's tomb: all of which happened. But he does not stop there. Isaiah also predicted that Jesus would rise from the dead.
In verse 10 which we looked at last week, Isaiah said, "though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering," remember: that means someone else takes the guilt of our sin away. That is what a guilt offering was, an animal died in place of my sin.
As Isaiah writes in verse 11 he will "bear (our) iniquities" and in verse 12 will "bear the sin of many".
God made this man, Jesus, a guilt offering for us. "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God," Paul wrote to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Again, the sentence says, "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."
Now, many guilt offerings had been offered by the people of Israel over the years. Many lambs and rams had been sacrificed on behalf of the sin of the people. But never had one of them had a "future" after sacrifice. They died in the place of the people.
However, did you hear that word "will" used again and again in this verse? That word gives away the triumph. The death was not the end of this one's life, but the beginning of something yet unseen. This one: will see his offspring, will prolong his life, will prosper God's will, and in verse 11 we read, will see the light of life.
Someone who "will see" something, is no longer dead! Isaiah says the cross ends in a triumph previously unseen: the resurrection!
Now the word offspring is not referring to children physically born to the suffering servant described, for Isaiah has clearly stated in v. 8 that this one was "cut off from the land of the living."
That phrase is a specific Hebrew reference which means to die without marrying or fathering children. No, the word 'offspring' here speaks of another kind of seed coming from this life. The seed of spiritual children, as written in the book of John: "Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-children … born of God" (John 1:12-13).
- That's why we can sing Yo Peque, "I am a Sinner" because it speaks the truth. Although we are born in sin, and then we choose to sin, although, we can to nothing to redeem ourselves from our plight, God has already done something through Jesus, the one offered on our behalf. God has defeated the power of sin by nailing our sin to the cross with Jesus and made a way for us to live in him.
Yes, that's his plan for me! That's his plan for me! I receive Him, He makes me his child and that's his plan for me.
Through the cross Jesus accomplished God's plan is to make you His child - to grant you the privilege of a relationship with Him that is living and daily filled with love.
I remember the account of the Muslim woman whose husband had been in the Pakistani government who in reading the New Testament found it impossible that people could call God father. One thing she knew about Allah was that he was not like humans. He was greater than human beings, infinitely different; human categories could never be used to describe him, certainly not one as personal and direct as "father".
She said when she came to faith in Jesus Christ, her first response was to life her heart and say, "Father," and the moment she uttered the word, she fell on the floor in absolute terror of being killed for her impertinence. But instead, the heavenly Father came to her in all His love and compassion, and she heard one word: "Daughter." She recalled, "I wept uncontrollably at the reality that God in His sovereignty and greatness could belong to me in that kind of relationship."
(from the book I dared to call Him father, retold by Dennis Kinlaw The Day with the Master,
Nappanee, IN: Francis Asbury Press, c.2002, 2/8 devotional, ubp)
- Yes, we enter and then live in the relationship offered. Through the cross our status is changed. No longer strangers, but children. No longer sinners but justified. In verse 11 Isaiah records that this one justifies us as well. We are no longer labeled as sinner, but as saint. We are justified, made right with God.
That's what happens as recorded hundreds of years before the life of Jesus when we receive Jesus. We are made God's child and are justified.
That's what happened to murder suspect, Brian Nichols, in Atlanta when encountered with the good news of the Gospel through Ashley Smith. Brian encountered life. He felt his life had no purpose. She was able to share with him that he did have a purpose, that he needed to turn himself in, and that he needed to share the Gospel with those with him in prison.
"Yo Peque"
The little song we have sung during lent does tell the story. But if the triumph of the cross is just in the fact we can become children and be justified, that we can gain our sight (like Brian Nichols), but not have these changes affect how we live beyond Sunday, then there is little triumph to it.
What Isaiah wrote about was not just a man who would come, live, die, resurrect and be exalted, and bless us in that. But a man who would do all that and then who would walk in relationship to us all through our lives.
The triumph of the cross is in the possibility of a daily, real, living relationship with Jesus. It is the possibility of not having once come in repentance for sin, but being able to come today with our most current failure, and meeting with the grace that we need today to take the next step. It is about coming with the most recent fear or problem, and bowing before the one who alone can make a difference.
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