We can turn our Bibles again to Isaiah 53. And we will read verses one to three. This is our text for this morning. Isaiah 53, verses one to three. Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness. And when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. and we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Those are the words that we are meditating on this morning, and as we do so, maybe you're thinking, why would we study such a gloomy subject as this? Why would we study this depressing subject? Why focus on Christ as the man of sorrows? Those are relevant questions as we go through the Passion Weeks together. Why should we have this focus on Christ's sufferings? Are we just morbid people? Isn't there enough suffering in this world? Why would we take the time and the energy to focus explicitly on the sufferings of Christ? Well, if these questions are in our minds, then it indicates that we are approaching this subject from the wrong angle. If these are the questions that we're asking, then that means that we're only seeing the cross and we're forgetting about the empty tomb. We're only seeing the crown of thorns and we're forgetting about the crown of glory that Jesus now wears. Charles Spurgeon, he helpfully comments, when we think of Christ's sufferings, we should think of them like heroic stories of a victorious soldier who has suffered much for his people. Just think about that. When a battle has been fought hard and when it's been won, it's fitting for us to reflect on the sacrifice, the sorrows that the soldiers went to in order to win the victory. Documentaries have been made to describe the intense suffering that soldiers went through in World War II so that we might respect them, so we might love them, that we might appreciate and be thankful for what they endured so that we might have the peace and harmony that we enjoy today. And so Spurgeon comments that that's how we need to approach Christ's sufferings. We need to approach them, we need to study them, remembering that these are hero stories. These are stories of the captain of our salvation. These are stories about Christ and what he endured so that we might have the victory in him. And so as we go through these Passion Weeks, let's make sure that this note of triumph is always ringing in the background as we study the sufferings of Christ himself. This is really Isaiah's approach as well. Remember how last week we began Isaiah, his fourth servant song, and it begins in Isaiah 52, verses 13 to 15. And there in the first stanza, Isaiah begins with the glory of Christ. He begins by setting forth the victory that Christ has certainly won. And then he then goes from there and takes these steps down into the sufferings of Christ. And this is a pattern for us. This is instructive for us. We need to, as we spend the appropriate time fleshing out and seeking to understand more the depths of Christ's humiliation, we need to do so with Christ's glory in view. He didn't suffer as an end in itself. It was this road of suffering that led to his triumph. And so with that in mind, we want to ponder these precious words, a man of sorrows. That's our title for this morning. And we have three points. First, he's a real man. Second, he's an afflicted man. And third, he's a despised man. a man of sorrows, and in each of these points, we're going to be taking a step down in the descent in Christ's humiliations. We're going to be taking a step further. First, he's a real man. Second, he's an afflicted man. And third, he's a despised man. So Christ is a real man. Now, this first point, it might seem obvious to you. It might seem like we're seeing nothing new here. Of course, the eternal Son of God took on a real human nature. But we need to recognize that this is part of Christ's humiliation. That this is the first step on Christ's descent down in his sufferings, in his humiliation. This is his first act, you might say, of his condescension. And we might miss this fact that this is part of Christ's humiliation. This might just seem ordinary, old news to us. And it might seem that way because either we have a low view of God or a highly elevated view of man. And so the fact that God, the eternal son of God, took on a real human nature, that might not shock us, that might not startle us, that this actually happened in time, that the eternal, infinite, almighty God should take on a finite, weak, real human nature. And Isaiah, he helps us to enter our text with the right mindset, to enter the text with that shock factor. Notice how he begins in verse one. Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Now that phrase, arm of the Lord, is a key phrase in Isaiah. The arm of the Lord. Whenever Isaiah uses that phrase, it's used to describe God's almighty saving power. It's a phrase that describes the Lord's strength. To whom has the Lord's almighty saving power been revealed? We see this if we turn back in our Bibles to Isaiah 51 verse 9, just a few chapters prior to this. There's the remnants, the faithful remnants of God, and they're praying in Isaiah 51 verse 9, awake, awake, put on strength, oh arm of the Lord. Wake up, O arm of God. And then what follows describes the arm of the Lord. They say, awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. And they go on to describe really the exodus, how God's almighty saving strength came and set them free from Pharaoh and blazed the trail through the Red Sea so that they might go through in victory. And so when Isaiah is saying the arm of the Lord, he's praying that God himself would show up in his almighty strength like he did in the past in the Exodus. And then if you go to Isaiah 52 verse 10, a few verses before our text, notice what Isaiah says. The Lord has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations. And so you see what Isaiah is saying. He's saying God is rolling up his sleeves. He's about to show up. He's about to come in his saving power, in his strength. And he's about to enter the scene and win the victory for his people. And so the question is, well, what will it look like? What will it look like when the infinite, the almighty, the glorious God shows up in his almighty saving power? What's it going to look like? Is there going to be thick blackness like there was in the Exodus? Are there going to be plagues that are destroying the enemies of God? Is our mountains gonna be shaking like Sinai shook when God showed up in the past in his almighty strength? Is that what it's gonna look like? This would have been, in Isaiah's audience, this would have been in their mind as they hear, the arm of the Lord. This is the eternal, infinite, almighty creator of the heavens and earth. What's it gonna look like when he enters, when he comes in his saving strength? That's what Isaiah is describing in verse two. That's the question in our mind as he then gets into verse two. What's it going to look like when the arm of the Lord is revealed? And so when we come to verse two, it's startling. It ought to shock us. There's no darkness here. There's no thunder. There's no mountain shaking. Instead, God is coming here in his weakness, in invulnerability. He's coming as a real, ordinary human being. He's coming as a real man. Verse two says, for he, that's the arm of the Lord, he shall grow up before him, that's God, as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. And the New Testament makes clear that this is the eternal Son of God taking on a fully human nature and growing up like a tender plant, growing up before the Father in his life. And so this is the miracle of the incarnation. Here we see the one who is very God of very God taking on a real human nature. And this is beyond the comprehension of our minds. And as Isaiah describes this, the imagery here is communicating weakness and insignificance, really. He says he will grow up like a tender plant. And this could be translated as a little shoot. So children, just think, it's springtime, you're maybe seeing the trees, and on the trees are coming these little shoots, these little green buds. And you can walk by and you can just flick them off, and it seems to do no harm to the tree. And that's the picture here, that this arm of the Lord, he will grow up like a tender little shoot, and he'll seem so insignificant. People won't expect much from him. He's coming in this weakness, in this insignificance, and like a root in dry ground. Again, when we see a plant that's growing or a plant that's existing where there's no water in dry soil, we don't have much hope for it. It's not the right environment for growth. And so the picture here is again of weakness, of insignificance. How can this be God's arm of the Lord? How can this be his almighty saving strength? It doesn't seem to make sense. All the pictures here are communicating weakness and insignificance. And as Isaiah goes on, he continues to explain what this will look like. He has no form or comeliness. And here, the word comeliness could be translated as splendor or appearance of majesty. That there's no royal pomp to this servant of the Lord, this arm of the Lord. When he comes, there's nothing that's going to catch our eye. There's nothing that's going to seem glorious about him. There's nothing that's going to cause us to pause, to stop, to look, and to say, yes, that's the one. That's the arm of the Lord that's come to save us. No, we won't see that. He's coming as an ordinary man. He'll look like an ordinary Joe, you might say. He's going to be lost in the crowd. If we were walking on the streets and there was Christ coming our direction, we would just keep walking. We wouldn't recognize anything different about him. He's coming as a real man. And so do you see how shocking this is? The God of glory, is showing up, he's coming, and yet there seems to be no glory, no visible glory that we can see. And so Isaiah says, when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. There's nothing about his physical appearance that will catch our eye. And so how humbling this is for the eternal son of God to take on this real human nature. Just think about who we're describing. Think about the one who is coming in this way. This is the infinite eternal son who for all eternity has existed in heaven and he's been there surrounded by the angels and by the seraphim. Like Isaiah has described in Isaiah six, for all eternity these seraphim have stood before him covering their faces, crying out, holy, holy, holy. You who are set apart, you are set apart, you are greater than all of creation. Holy, holy, holy. That's the one who's coming as an ordinary real man and we will pass him in the streets as if he's just an ordinary guy. How shocking, how condescending, what steps Christ is going to descend into his humiliation. He's becoming a real man. And so he, as he does, he comes and he goes through the ordinary stages of growth in the human life. He comes as a child. He comes, the one who upholds all things will need to be held by his mother. He'll need to be washed. He'll need to be changed. He'll need to be fed and taught. And as Isaiah says, he grows up like a tender plant. There's this growth, this physical growth, this mental growth that Christ will have to go through. The immutable God who's never grown because he is fully perfect. He's at max perfection. He will go through these growth stages. in his ordinary human life. And so what condescension? What levels he's stooping to? Those who have positions of greatness, who are born into high rank in society, those who are born into the royal family, those who are born into politics and into good status. They don't, for no reason, just come down and become a beggar here in this world. And yet here is the eternal Son of God, the one who has all glory, yet taking on this human nature. And so this is the first step in Christ's humiliation. This is part of his great condescension. But we need to go from here and take another step. The eternal son of God didn't just humble himself in becoming a real man, but he became an afflicted man. And that's our second point. This is what Isaiah, he's putting it before us. He's saying not only will God become man, not only will he enter into this world, but he will become the man of sorrows. Man of sorrows. That's his name. That's the name that really captures Christ's 33 years of his human existence. Man of sorrows. If you were to see Christ in the street and you were to walk by him, if anything popped in your mind, this would be it. Man of sorrows. That's an afflicted man that I see right there. One who's acquainted with grief, one who knows grief well. He's the man of sorrows. Sorrow is what characterizes his experience most. And notice Isaiah doesn't say he's the man of pleasures. He's not the man of wealth. He's not the man of prosperity. He's not the man of the year. He's not gonna come and have his face plastered on Time Magazine. No, he's the man of sorrows. The man who's acquainted with grief. And this term sorrows, it's really the word pains. And it's in the plural here to highlight the intensity. He's the man of extreme pain. The man of extreme sorrow. And this is exactly what we see when we go to the gospels. There we find an afflicted man. There's Christ and he's afflicted by his position in life. Just think, Christ was born into the poorest of places. Christ, he doesn't come and he's not born into the Roman palace, but he's born in Bethlehem and he's born in a manger, in an animal trough. and he's born to the poorest of parents. Luke tells us that when Mary goes to sacrifice in the temple, that she can't afford to bring a lamb, and so she must bring two pigeons. That's the most she could bring. And so this tells us that Jesus, he's not born to the upper class, he's not even born to the middle class, but he comes and he's born to the lowest class in society. He's born into Mary and Joseph's home. And there he lived in this poorest of homes. He grew up with Mary and Joseph, and for 30 years he lived as a carpenter. And then for the last three years of his life, when he goes into ministry, he has no home and no place of rest. Isn't this what Jesus says? Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head. Do you have a permanent place to lay your head? Do you have a pillow? Do you have a bed? Then you have more than this man. He was afflicted by his position in life. He came not into 21st century comforts, but he came to first century poverty. No place to lay his head. He's an afflicted man. He's afflicted by his position in life, but he's afflicted by his providence in life. Just think about it. Jesus is the eternal sovereign Son of God, and he could have charted an easy course of providence for his life. Isn't that what you would have done? If you were able to determine all things, wouldn't you have given yourself a smooth path? That's not what this man, that's not what Christ has done. He didn't go through a smooth path, but he was afflicted by difficult providences. We don't know much about his earthly father, Joseph, but we know that he died when Christ was a young man. Because when we come to the gospels, we find Mary alone. And so for you who have lost a parent at a young age, you know the pain that comes with that. Christ was an afflicted man. He knows that pain, the pain of losing a parent. He knows the pain of having to care for his single mother, his lonely mother. He knows that. And not only did he lose his father, but he lost a friend. He stood at the grave of Lazarus and he wept. You who know the searing pain of losing a dear friend, Christ, he knows that. He endured that providence. He went through that trial of losing a dear friend and he wept those bitter tears of loss. Jesus was afflicted by his providences. He didn't have an easy path. He was the man of sorrows. And Christ is also afflicted by the sin that's happening around him. Just think about this. Child of God, if you are living a life that's close to the Lord, then it pains you when you see sin, yes, in yourself, but also around you. It hurts you when you hear your coworkers frequently cursing God's name. That hurts you. There's pain there. Now think of what it would have been like for Jesus, the sinless man, for 33 years to have lived in this grossly rebellious and sinful world. Here is Christ. We have consciences that are seared by our sin. So often we don't feel that pain of sin like we ought to. And yet here is Christ and he is tender. His conscience is pure and it's right. His heart is pure. And so he's tender to the sin that's going on around him. It's like pins that are constantly pricking him. He hears his father's name being blasphemed. We see an instance of this in John 2. There you remember how Jesus, he goes to the temple. He loves to go to that place of worship. He goes up to God's house, and it's to be a house of prayer, and yet when he gets to the doors, he sees these merchants, these men who are robbing those who are going in, and he says, you thieves. You've turned God's house into a den of thieves, and he drives them out in righteous anger. Why? Because he's zealous for the glory of God. He has this tender heart for God's name. And so think of the affliction that he endured just by living in this swamp of this world. As he walked through this world in the environment of sin, that would have afflicted him. But Christ is also afflicted by the sorrows of those who are around him. Christ, the one emotion that describes him most as we go through the Gospels, it's this, that he had compassion. How many times, you're reading through the Gospel of Matthew or of Mark or Luke or John and you read these words, and he was moved with compassion. That's the one emotion that marks Christ most. As you go through the gospels and you think, what's the emotion he's expressing? Compassion, compassion, compassion. He is touched by the pains of others. He's afflicted by what others are enduring. Now if you are a paramedic or a doctor, you know that to protect yourself, you have to put up something of a shield. You can't give yourself, you can't be emotionally attached to each of your patients because you're not gonna make it if you are. And yet here is Christ, no shield, no barriers. He's moved with compassion on the multitudes. He sees the blind, and he's moved with compassion. He sees the sick, and he's moved with compassion. He sees the poor, he sees the lepers, the outcasts, and he's moved with compassion. He's afflicted by the sorrows of others. Does this match your view of God? Jesus is the revelation of God. And as we think about the suffering of this world, we can sometimes think that God sits back, untouched, but we can't put God in a box like that. The incarnation doesn't allow us to. Here is Jesus, the God-man, moved with compassion by the sufferings and sorrows of others. He's the man of sorrows who's acquainted with grief. And that word acquainted, it's a precious word. It's a word that means he has intimate awareness. There's an intimate knowledge of grief. Jesus knows pain up close and personal. He's fully aware. He has a knowledge and an understanding Of what grief, of what pain, of what sorrow is. If you're a sympathetic friend, it's often not helpful for you to say, I know what you're going through, because we actually don't know what someone's going through. We might see that yes, that that person is struggling and there's suffering there, but I can't really say I know what you feel. And yet here is one. Here is one who can actually and accurately say that. He can say, I know what you feel. I know what you're going through. I am acquainted with grief. I have this knowledge of suffering. And so that's why Hebrews 4 tells us that we have a high priest who can sympathize with our weaknesses. Are you burdened? Are you suffering? Are you here? Are you enduring affliction? Are you going through a period of sorrow, of suffering, and it seems too heavy to bear? Then look at this man of sorrows. Look at this high priest, this one who knows and who can sympathize, one who's touched with weaknesses like we are, at all points, and yet sinless. He is the one who is sympathetic. He is the one that we can go to in our griefs. Go to him. Go to him. Go to him with your burdens. Go to him with your sorrows. Why wouldn't you? Here is one who knows grief. He is the man of sorrows. He's available to those who are suffering. Well, Isaiah has been taking us by the hand on this dark descent, really, this path of condescension, this path of humiliation for the Lord Jesus Christ. He showed us how the eternal Son has taken on a real human nature. He's become a real man, an ordinary, weak man. But then he took us a step further and showed us that he's an afflicted man. He's the man of sorrows. But Isaiah has one step further that we need to descend to, and that is that Christ is the despised man. And this is our third and final point. Christ is the despised man. You see that in verse three. He is despised and rejected by men. Now this word despised, it's really an accounting term. It's not so much an emotional attitude, but one of the mind. It's an accounting term. We did an appraisal on Christ. And we saw that he's not worth our time. That's what this means. He's despised. We don't think he's worth following. We saw who he is, what he's worth, and we don't think he's worth us following him. He's despised. He's irrelevant. We discarded him from our thoughts. And he's rejected by men. He's abandoned, he's forsaken by men. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. That's really an act of disgust. We see Christ and we treated him as if he were a leper. We don't want him in our presence. We say, quarantine this man, lock him up, remove him from our presence, get him out of here. We hide our faces from Him. We're ashamed at who He is. And so we go the other direction. We don't want anything to do with Him. We don't want to be associated with Him. He's despised and rejected by men. He was despised and we did not esteem Him. Don't you see the heights of our pride, of our folly? We don't want to be associated with Him. the God of the universe, the God-man, our creator. We don't want to be associated with him. He's despised. And we see this again in the gospels. This was Christ's experience. He's despised in his life. He's despised by the religious rulers of his day. Just think, there's Christ teaching the truth, and they're always rising up, the Pharisees or the Sadducees. They're rising up and they're picking a fight with him. And they're spreading slander and lies. They're saying that he's a drunk. Can you believe it? This perfect, sinless God, man, he's a drunk. Or he's demon-possessed. And so he's despised and rejected by the religious rulers. He's despised by his neighbors. In Luke 4, Jesus goes back to Nazareth, his hometown, and there he is in the synagogue preaching. And when his neighbors hear what he has to say, the people he's grown up with his whole life, his closest companions, you might say, his closest acquaintances, they want to take him and throw him off a cliff. They want to kill him. He's despised by his neighbors. He's despised by his family. Mark records for us how that Jesus, his own family, think he's insane. They say he's out of his mind. Look at what he's teaching. Look at what he's saying about himself. They think he's insane. He's despised by his family. He's despised by his followers. In John 6, Jesus, again, teaching many things, and the people say these are hard sayings, and they forsake him. And he's only left with the band of 12. And so there's Christ with love motivating his teaching. Yes, he's teaching hard things about judgment and about their persistent unbelief, and yet love is the motive for these things, and the people hear his words, and they twist them, and they twist his intentions, and they forsake him, and they reject him. He was despised in his life. But most of all, Christ was despised in his death. Just come with me to the darkness of Gethsemane. And there we are in that dark garden with Christ. And Jesus says to his disciples, my soul is very sorrowful, even unto death. Remain here and watch with me. And so there is Christ, and he's enduring the deep anguish of his soul. He's there wrestling with the fact that he has to drink this full cup of the Father's wrath, that he must drink that cup. And so he says he's sorrowful, and he asks his disciples to pray with him. And there we find that his closest companions, they can't even pray an hour with him. In that moment, he's despised by his closest followers, and then he's betrayed by a friend. He's betrayed by one of the 12, by Judas, who comes with a kiss, that lying kiss of deceit, and he takes them away. He's betrayed by this one friend. He's forsaken by the rest. The others, they see the soldiers coming, and they flee. They run for their lives. And the one that stays, Peter, the one that stays with Jesus and goes to the courtroom, he's there and he's cursing Jesus. He's denying him in that moment of trial. Christ is despised and rejected. And then we go to the courtroom and we see Christ despised by his own people. There, Pilate, this Gentile asks, behold this man, what shall I do with him? And the Israelites, the Jewish people, Christ's own people, he is the Messiah of the Jews. And his own people are saying, crucify, crucify him. We don't want him, we don't want to be associated with him. Crucify him. And Pilate says, what wrong has he done? Crucify him. We want Barabbas, we would rather have this lying, murderous thief. than to have Jesus Christ. Anyone is better. than this man. He was despised. And so he goes to the cross, and there he's nailed to that torturous cross. There he allows his body to be hung on that bloody tree. And there he's despised, he's mocked. Those who walk by, they spit on the ground, they see him. He becomes the song of drunkards. And the thief on the cross hanging next to him is ridiculing him. It is blaspheming him. And the religious leaders are continuing their taunts. And so all have forsaken him. He's despised. Isaiah sees this coming. He doesn't probably understand it, but he sees that the servant of the Lord, somehow the arm of God, will come. Yes, as a real man. Yes, as an afflicted man, but also as a despised man. These are the depths of Christ's humiliation. And here's what we need to see, that Christ did this all voluntarily. No one's twisting his arm to endure this. The eternal son of God did not need to leave his glory in heaven. He could have wiped us and every other sinner off of the face of the world. And he would have been just. And yet Christ did this voluntarily. He chose to become the man of sorrows. This is what God has done. And so the question that you need to answer is what is this all communicating to me about God? Why on earth would God do this? What's the main point? What does God want us to take away from Isaiah 53 verse one to three? What's the main point of this message? Well, here it is. We see the love of God. in the man of sorrows. That's what God wants us to see. As we contemplate the man of sorrows, he's saying you need to see the love of God in him. You need to see, you need to come to terms with the love of God reaching out in this radical way that he would endure such affliction, that he would go through such condescension. It's in Christ that we see God's intense love for sinners, for rebels. And so the question is, what will you do with this man? What will you do with this man of sorrows? Will you receive God's love in him? Will you give your life to him? Isn't he a worthy soldier? to make much of. Isn't he a hero worth following? Isn't this the captain of our salvation? Children of God, isn't this the reason why we contemplate the sorrows of Christ? We remember, yes, his suffering, but so that we might see the victory he's won, so that we might more fully give ourselves, give our lives to follow in the footsteps, that we would take up our cross and follow after this man of sorrows. Yes, because of all that he has done in love for us. Isn't he worth living for? Look at all that he has endured for you. Look at the depth of his sorrow. Isn't he worth living for on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on being despised for, on being rejected for? He was rejected for you. And so see the man of sorrows and take up your cross and follow him. But here's the startling thing. Isaiah begins with who has believed our report? Who has believed our report? God has gone to this level. God has condescended this far, and yet still many reject the gospel. In John 12, verse 37, our text is quoted, because there it says, though Jesus had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe. And then it quotes our text. Who has believed our report? God has done all of this, and the question for you is, have you believed this report? Have you believed the message of the gospel? Or is your heart so hard, so cold, that you would continue to reject God and his vast display of love that he portrays to us here in the man of sorrows? My friend, if you haven't believed this report. then you need to see the hardness of your heart. And you need to deal with the hardness of your heart. You need to take it to the Lord. You need to cast your hard heart of stone on God and say, give me a heart of flesh. How can I be so insensitive, so blind, so hard-hearted to not see your love and not receive your love in this man of sorrows? And so let this be your prayer in these Passion Weeks. Help me to see the love of God in this man of sorrows. Lord, take my heart of ice and melt it. by the heat of your love. Help me to come, help me to embrace, help me to believe, help me to receive all that you are. Holy Spirit, make Jesus Christ precious to me. Help me to see the love of God in the man of sorrows. Amen.