that glorious and wonderful passage in the prophet Isaiah, Isaiah 53. Who hath believed our report? To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And with his stripes, we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned every one to his own way. And yet the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb. So he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment. And who shall declare his generation? He was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with the strong. Because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bear the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Amen, and then from Romans 12, I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, With a prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. Or ministry, let us wait on our ministering. Or he that teacheth, on teaching. Or he that exhorteth, on exhortation. He that giveth, let him do it with simplicity. He that ruleth, with diligence. He that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affection one to another with brotherly love, in honor preferring one another, not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer, distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality. Bless them which persecute you, bless and curse not. Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink. For in so doing, thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Amen. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. One of the great teachings of the Christian faith is that the Lord Jesus Christ is the mold into which you as Christians are placed. The imagery I use frequently, like a cookie cutter as it were. Christ is the mold into which you are placed in order that you might present yourself as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. I prefer the older way of rendering that passage. Some newer translations say, which is your spiritual service. But the truth is, it is reasonable. It is within reason for the Lord to expect this service. Indeed, we can say, as the Bible does in many places, that we owe the Lord this service. It is reasonable for Him to not only expect, but indeed to require this service. And yet, as we reflected on in Sunday school this morning, all the strength for this service comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever you do day by day, the strength to do whatever that is will be found in Christ, the servant of the Lord who became a sacrifice, that you might become a sacrifice as well. You see, in Isaiah 53, we speak of the sacrifice of Christ, and in Romans 12, we speak of the sacrifice of ourselves. Now, of course, And I can say with certainty, looking out on who's here this evening, this is a no-brainer to all of you. You all know this, but it does indeed beg a question. Do you begin each day calling on the Savior who was the sacrifice to enable you to live as a sacrifice? We can begin each day in prayer and neglect that very important factor. Sound doctrine without sound practice makes us nothing but windbags, laboring in zeal without knowledge and offering what is truly unreasonable service in an attempt to what only amounts to appeasing God who has told us that He will only accept those who choose sacrifice in the Son. The way that the Lord lays things out in Isaiah 53, He tells us that it was His pleasure. Isaiah 53, you can think about it as describing many things, and it is certainly a focus on the atonement of Christ. But a theme that you could work through throughout is to see that it lays out the pleasure of the Lord. And part of that pleasure of our God was the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. His crucifixion on the cross pleased the Lord. As the Holy Ghost says directly through Isaiah, that it pleased the Lord to bruise his servant, whom we know was and is his son. He has put him to grief. It is to Christ that his own seed is promised. Think of the way Isaiah speaks of Christ in Isaiah 9, being our everlasting Father. in some sense. Though Christ is not God the Father, He has a fatherly relationship to us because we are the seed of Christ. Our life comes from Him. The seed for which His death was offered is the seed that is promised to Him. The pleasure of the Lord is found not only in his bruising of his son, but also in his living again. I believe the resurrection from the dead is spoken of indirectly, but present nonetheless in this text that Christ's resurrection is spoken of, that he lives, that his days are prolonged. Though he died, though he was put to grief, though he was bruised, though he was chastised, Yet his days were prolonged. His days are not only prolonged through his resurrection, but also through his people as he lives and moves through us. He does live again, that it might be said that these things are accomplished in his hand. Did you notice that in that verse, the verse that begins, it pleased the Lord to bruise him? It ends that it was the pleasure of the Lord that shall prosper in his hand. The pleasure of God prospers in the hands of Jesus Christ because he was raised from the dead and he sees to it. We're also told that Christ will see or receive the reward of his suffering as Psalm 2 speaks of. where the father almost beckons the son to ask for the nations. And the implication is that he did indeed ask for the nations. And Isaiah 53 guarantees that this acquisition of the nations, this purchase of the nations will occur and be successful through the Lord. Jesus Christ. Children, it's almost as if Isaiah is wanting you to see that an exchange, a financial exchange, took place on the cross. That Jesus, just like we go to the store and purchase things, Jesus purchased His people out of the nations. Indeed, He purchased the nations themselves through His atonement. Not only will it come to pass, but it will be satisfactory to this servant, to this one who was bruised and stricken for us. Much like it pleased the father to orchestrate and oversee the work that his son does all the way to the cross, we're told in this text as well that this son, this servant of the Lord, this righteous servant would be satisfied. And friends, you are a testimony to that this evening. Every time the people of the Lord Jesus Christ gather to worship, his satisfaction in his work is renewed. Part of his satisfaction comes in justifying many, that great doctrine of justification. Christ declares many, the text tells us, not all, just, that is justified, clean, innocent. pure before God. And this is in light of His bearing their iniquities. And it is because the Lord is pleased, because Christ is satisfied, that His portion will be great. Christ does not receive a meager reward. He doesn't receive a small gift from the Father. He receives a great gift. He is satisfied in it. His portion will be great, we're told. And He is the one dividing the spoil That is Christ, as we mentioned in our prayers. Christ has been victorious. He has conquered all things, even our sin on the cross. And that victory is being declared. But there's a wake of battle that is behind him. And Christ goes through that wake, as it were, and divides the spoil. He takes his own people out of that remaining And Christ, having triumphed over all principalities and powers through his cross, we're told he spoils them. That is to say, he draws out what he has defeated. He draws out of what he has defeated, his own purchase. He goes through the heaven and the earth, not simply proclaiming, but indeed he has accomplished his victory. And he has begun his work of taking the spoil of the enemy. Isaiah 53 gives us another reason why this is the case, why this was the pleasure of the Father, why this is satisfactory to the Son. It is because He has poured out His entire self unto death. The King James uses the word soul. I don't know if you've ever thought about the various ways that Christ was afflicted on the cross, but His affliction penetrated even unto His own soul. Do you even think about the fact that Christ has a soul? He's a true man, right? He has a body and he has a soul. He has a divine nature. He has the Holy Spirit and all those things, but he has a soul and his death entered into even his soul. That affliction, that punishment that he bore for our iniquities that Isaiah speaks of, it touched his soul. It did not overcome him. But indeed he did die, and the pain reached unto his soul. His pouring out of his soul, as it were, as if his soul is a drink, a drink offering like Paul speaks of. Christ's soul is described as being poured out. And this chiefly occurred as he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. This intercession that Isaiah speaks of is not the intercession that Christ is doing right now, but that which he did in his earthly ministry that culminated on the cross, that he was interceding for us. He was between us and the Father, even in those moments. Christ's intercession for us did not begin in his ascension, it expanded but it began before. As we know in the right teaching of the scriptures, there was a mediator even in the Old Testament. He was the mediator by promise, but he was the mediator nonetheless. We now live in the age of fulfillment, in the New Testament age when that mediator has indeed come to be and taken flesh and dwelt among us. And this morning we spoke briefly in Sunday school again about the fact that outside of Christ, we are enemies of God. Not just alienated from communion with him, though that's true, but his very enemies. And when you read passages like Isaiah 53, is it not clear why this is the case? The arm of the Lord that's described in verse one is Jesus Christ himself. He is the power of God shown in its greatest fashion. And yet, he was despised. He is despised. He was rejected. He is rejected. He was a man of sorrows. And he is still in some sense. He was acquainted with grief and he continues to be. But what did we do? Don't separate yourself from the we or the our of this passage, because when you do that, you remove yourself as a recipient of this payment that Christ made. Even if you never did this, even if you weren't there when Christ was being crucified, even if you don't ever remember a time when you were outside of Christ, you participate in this ever-present reality by virtue of your union with Adam. We joined in the rejection of Christ. You are part of this we. And the dangerous temptation of sin is to dance before the cross as that we once again, or that our. When he has borne our griefs, he has carried our sorrows, and he was bruised for our iniquities, how could we respond this way? He was the one who bore the punishment, not you. He was the one that was wounded for your transgressions. Children, those sins that you receive spankings for, Christ atoned for those as well. His death was for you, just as it was for me. He bore the pain in his own body for your healing and for your peace. Simeon, in our New Testament text from this morning, could only depart in peace because of the blood of Christ's cross. So in closing, I want to give you three things. One, to know how indebted you are to the Lord for the cross of Christ, because without it, you are nothing. Without it, that punishment that he bore remains upon you, and you will take it up in eternity. Second, Know what unbelievers are refusing. Know that they participate in this we and our as well, that they are those for whom Christ was bruised and wounded, and that the Lord is angry because of their rejection of what Isaiah calls his pleasure. And third, in like manner of Christ, enduring all things for the sake of the elect, Paul says this as well in his epistles. I endure all things for the sake of the elect. Where is he getting that image from? He's getting it from Christ himself, the one who has died for the elect. And I would wonder if Paul is taking up that imagery, if we too ought not to take it up for ourselves, that we endure all things for the sake of the elect. And I wonder how close we are to living out that reality. How close are you to doing it in your home? Enduring all things for the sake of the elect. Children, this is something that you do as well. When you seek to live righteously in your home, you are enduring, you are participating in the carrying of the weight of righteousness for those whom the Lord loves in your home. What do you endure for righteousness sake? For the sake of the elect among you, even outside of your home. In your participation in the life of the church, are you willing to imitate Christ and his apostles to this degree? I appreciate, as was mentioned in our prayers earlier, often the difficulties and the temptations of the flesh that would draw us away from even small occasions like this, but the love of Christ demands it. not just the love that we have for Christ, but the love of Christ for his people. It demands, it compels us to do even acts of service such as coming to worship to encourage the saints and offer praise to the Lord. The love of Christ for his people, it makes you one of his people, but it also makes you to love his people and you're to do so like him. I would ask you, what is it that sacrifices do? Well, they die. they die. And because of the greater sacrifice of Christ, they die, but they live again. Because Christ died, we die, and take up our cross and follow him, for this is our reasonable service. Amen. Let us pray. Our dear Christ,