Please turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Isaiah. I said Isaiah a couple of weeks ago and we had some visitors and they were wondering what book in the Bible is that. So I'll say it for the sake of everyone to understand Isaiah. But I know it is Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 52 from verse 13 right through chapter 53 verse 12 and just a note for your interest, I am only going to be dealing with the first section of this from verse 13 of 52 right up to 53 verse 6. And then tonight I will be dealing with verse 7 through to verse 12. Those of you who know this passage know that it is so rich. This is such a rich gospel passage. And this is one of the reasons why the prophet Isaiah is known, or the book Isaiah is known as the gospel of Isaiah. So we'll read from chapter 52 from verse 13 right through 53 verse 12, but we'll only be dealing with that section I mentioned. 52 verse 13, Behold, my servant shall deal prudently, shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. King shall shut their mouths at him. For what had not been told them, they shall see. And what they had not heard, they shall consider. Chapter 53. Who has believed our report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord being revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form of 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. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Verse 7. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living, for the transgressions of my people. He was stricken, and they made his grave with the wicked. but with a wretch at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Verse 10. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He has put him to grief. When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days. The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied by his knowledge. My righteous servant shall justify many for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul unto death and he was numbered with the transgressors and he bore the sin of many and he made intercession for the transgressors. Herein ends the reading of Holy Scripture. Please bow at your heads with me once again as we ask the Lord's blessing on the preaching of His Word. Father, we are weak and you are strong. We remember the words of the Apostle Paul, where he boasted in his weakness that your strength would rest all the more on him. Lord, we are willing this morning to confess how weak and how poor and how feeble-minded we are. And therefore, Lord, the great need that we have is that you would open our eyes, that you would enlarge our hearts, that Christ and him crucified would be very plainly and clearly said before all of us here this morning, that we may truly say that his flesh is real food and his blood is real drink. and that sinners lost, dead in their sins would be saved. Father, we ask this to the glory and the honor of your name and for the sake of Christ Jesus. Amen. Well, let me say to you this morning, beloved, that I wondered for a while what I would be preaching. And what I would think is quite a unique opportunity. It is unique in the sense that it's the Lord's Day, but it's also the first day of the year and you don't have many of those in terms of the first day of the year. And so I thought of what I would bring to you to encourage you, especially as you begin this new year. And you think about how often we begin the new year and we think about our lives, we reflect on the year that's passed, And even the unsaved, even those who are lost, are prone to doing this. They'll reflect back on the past, and they'll think to themselves, well, you know, my life needs much improvement. And so people will come up with New Year's resolutions, and they'll try and put their best foot forward in the new year as they begin the new year. And we know where that ends. It lasts maybe for a month, maybe two months, and it all peters out. But I wonder how many of us look back at our lives and we think about our lives and we think to ourselves, as I stand here on the verge or the threshold of a new year, have I improved? Am I better than I was then? Well, folks, I want to encourage you this morning as we come to this text to realize that there is only one way that our lives can improve. And that way is with the power of God and specifically that power that comes to us through the crucified Christ. The only way that our lives can really be improved, and I'm thinking in terms of as we look back and perhaps we have relationships that lie in ruins, maybe we want to forget the year behind us, maybe we're hoping for better things in the year ahead of us. Well, beloved, the only way we can do that is by faith trusting in the living God. The only way we can truly progress and move forward in a Godward direction is through the power and the strength that God gives us through His Son, Jesus Christ. And so this morning, I want to begin with a cross where all of us should begin. We cannot move away from the cross. Paul says this, He says in terms of his life, in terms of his direction, in terms of what God holds for him in the future, he says this in Galatians 2.20. And he's speaking into the context of the Judaizers and the legalists who had come in and affected the church and so-called introduced something better than the gospel, the damnable plus. Paul comes right down to this reality. of power in his life, and he says this, I am crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live. It is not my life, it is his life. And every year God gives me is a year that I can live to the glory of his name. It is him living through me. I am crucified with Christ, therefore I no longer live. But Jesus Christ now lives in me and the life I live in the flesh. How do I live it? I live it by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. Beloved, the only way we can make progress in this life is in a God with direction and the only one who can help us to make that progress to become less and less of what we are by nature and more and more of who we are in terms of our position in Christ is as we fix our eyes squarely on the Lord Jesus Christ and we draw strength by faith, leaning on Him, hiding in Him, living as crucified men and women by faith. And so I share that by way of introduction to this message. And it is a message that tells us a great deal about the power of God, doesn't it? It tells us, this passage tells us astonishing things about the power of God. Let me say this. The power of God is not seen in his wrath in destroying the wicked. The power of God is seen in God taking the wicked and making them righteous. And beloved, the Christian faith includes miracles of divine power. There's no two ways about it. We have many instances where God worked mightily. Think of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. What a glorious miracle. What a wonderful miracle. Think of the virgin birth. And there are many that you can think of, of God's expressions of power. But let me say this to you, friends. Nothing displays the power of God more clearly, more profoundly, than in how God deals with guilty sinners and makes them righteous. You know, a lot of people may struggle with the miraculous. A lot of people may think rationalistically. But I want to say this to you. The issue with the heart of man, the greatest issue with the heart of man, is that we struggle with how God justifies the ungodly. The most outrageous miracle, if we could put it like that, the most outrageous miracle is at the center of the gospel, and it is how God justifies the ungodly. You see, the real problem is not when Jesus walked on water or healed people. That really was just, you know, powerful illustrations of who He was. But when God actually forgives a man or a woman or a child for their sin, that really challenges us, doesn't it? When God justifies the ungodly, He upsets the whole moral order of the universe. Why do I say that, friends? Because you see, wired into us as Adam's descendants, as children by nature of the first Adam, wired into us. We have this notion, well, you know, God punishes bad people and he rewards good people. It's much like that saying, you know, God takes care of those who take care of themselves. We think, well, it's God's job, you know. God looks after the righteous and he dismisses and he deals with the wicked. But let me say this, friends, the gospel disagrees. The gospel says that God justifies the ungodly. I don't know how long it was that I believed that church was for good people and I wasn't a good person and therefore I shouldn't be in church. And people think that way, don't they? I don't know how many times I've had family members saying, oh, I couldn't go in there. I'm just, I'm just not, you know, that's just not me. I've got to clean my life up before I go in there. What a lot of nonsense. The gospel justifies the ungodly. God justifies the ungodly. What does this mean? It means that God declares guilty people innocent. It means that God treats bad people as if they were good people. And beloved, that goes beyond the power of a miracle. In fact, we could say that that is a scandal. It is a scandal. But here's the truth. Every one of us is ungodly, and we know it. When we really, really sit down in the silence of our hearts and our minds, we all know we're ungodly. We all know we have failed to be the people we ought to be. That's why people come up with New Year's resolutions. That's why people make a big deal about the first year and turning over a new leaf. Because in our heart of hearts, we know. We know that we're broken. We know something's wrong. We failed to be the people we ought to be. There's a deep unease about ourselves. But we live in denial, don't we? What lies behind that unease is a troubled conscience. Oh, but we might dismiss that because, well, you know, we were raised in a certain way. It's really, we're products of our culture. It's really a result of our dysfunctional upbringing. Let me ask you this. The next time you fight with someone, the next time you have a a ding-dong battle with a loved one or someone you may know, and you find yourself so passionately and fiercely defending your position, you want to be right. Why do you want to be right? Why do you always want to be right? Isn't it because you're not sure you really are? Isn't it because you need to reassure yourself, well I'm right, I'm right, and you have to keep telling yourself that? And there's a reason why we shift the blame, friends. There's a reason why our problems are always someone else's fault. There's a reason why we don't take responsibility. Why? There's a reason why parents blame their children, and husbands blame their wives, and so forth, and brothers and sisters blame one another. Because we are guilty, but we are unwilling to come out into the light and to confess it. And we are afraid and we live in fear. And as we live in fear, we grow harder and harder and harder and further and further away from the true solution that God has given us. What do we need, friends? We need, every one of us needs what the gospel refers to or the Bible refers to as a scapegoat. You see, It is in the gospel that Jesus says, I am the willing scapegoat of the world. At my cross, I came for this very reason, this sole mission to be crushed under the unbearable guilt of others. That's why the title of my sermon is Guilt, Substitution and Grace. Jesus is saying it is my role to bear away others people guilt. That is what I do Why? Because I love guilty people. I came for sinners. Are you a sinner here this morning? Are you sitting here thinking to yourself? I'm as guilty as guilty could be I'm a rich I'm selfish. I treat my wife with disdain. I disrespect my wife. I have no time for my kids. I Christ came to be our scapegoat, friends. And it's a miracle and it's a scandal that God justifies the ungodly through the finished work of Christ on the cross, that God accepts unacceptable people, that God honors shameful people, that God treats fools and harlots with a royal dignity as Jesus steps into our place at the cross and he bears our real moral guilt far away upon himself. Beloved, that is how God, our judge, becomes our justifier. That is how God forgives you. That is how God forgives me. God wants to glorify His name by flooding our lives with sin-bearing mercy in Christ. So maybe you do feel guilty this morning. Don't run away. Don't run away. Maybe you're sitting here and you're thinking to yourself, Pastor, you just don't know what I've done. You just don't know what's going on in my heart. The Lord does. And you are here for a reason. You are here for a reason. Don't run away. Run to Him. You see, friends, the only barrier to being awash in freshness and joy and release The only barrier to that is when we cling to our guilt and we cling to our own righteousness. All our guilt must go to Christ and all our righteousness must come from Christ. We must see that we have nothing to give, that we are naked and poor and empty. We must come with empty hands to receive. I'm beginning my message this way, because this is God's way of release for guilty people, and there is no other. And Isaiah is really answering the question. He's answering the question, how can the gracious promises of God come true for guilty people? Now we've been working through the seven Psalms for a while, so we've come to this point. And he's answering that question. How can these promises be true for guilty people? How can the glory of God come down to people who deserve the wrath of God? The question has been lingering in the background, as it were, and it's the question of life. How can God love me? That's what we really struggle with, isn't it? How can God love me? Well, Isaiah explains that in this fourth and final servant song, and we're only going to get a bit of it this morning, but we'll get the rest of it tonight. Now, there are three headings that I want to open up and explain to you this morning. The first one is the servant's success. We'll see that in verse 13 to 15 of chapter 52. The second one is the servant's suffering. We'll see that in chapter 53 verse 1 to 3. And the third one is the servant's significance. Chapter 53 verse 4 to 6. So the servant's success, the servant's suffering and the servant's significance. Let's deal with the servant's success. And it's interesting that we deal with the servant's success because really we see that he was despised and abhorred by men. Yet he redeemed his people in verses 13 to 15 of chapter 52. Take a look at the first verse here. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. There's no doubt who Isaiah is describing here. He's describing the Lord Jesus Christ. And what he's doing for us is he's describing Jesus' successful mission into the world. In fact, that is what act wisely means. In this verse we see he shall act wisely. That's what it means. That Jesus did what needed to be done, and Jesus accomplished his purpose. His work was completed. He arose from the dead, he was lifted up to the right hand of the Father, and he reigns on high with all power and authority. The suffering servant of the Lord doesn't need our pity, friends, but he deserves our worship. You read this text and you think, oh, look at this, it's terrible. And Isaiah is saying, hey, hang on. He was successful. Don't pity him, worship him. But when you look at this text, it's not really the first reaction, is it? Why? Because Isaiah is describing what He's describing a crucified Savior. He looks crucified. Look at verse 14 and 15. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man and his form more than the sons of men. Verse 15. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him for what had not been told them they shall see and what they had not heard they shall consider. Now what Isaiah is doing is he's connecting two words. Look at verse 14. Just as many were astonished of you. And then take a look at verse 15. So shall he sprinkle many nations. And what Isaiah is doing is he's connecting as and so. And he's saying don't get thrown off. about how abhorrent, how gruesome it looked that Jesus was beaten and marred. Don't let that throw you off. In fact, if anything, that is describing to you how effective Jesus was in purifying us. You see, beloved, our Lord was beaten so badly by the Roman soldiers. that none of the people were asking, well, is he the Lord? No one was even thinking that. Is he the Lord? In fact, if anything, the question was, as they beat him, as he looked like a pulp of meat, the question was, is that human? But in a paradox, he worthy of God. Let me say this, friends. It was with his extreme suffering that measures his extreme power to cleanse. That's the paradox. His extreme suffering correlates with his extreme power to cleanse men. Look at verse 14. As many were astonished at you. Verse 15. So shall he sprinkle many nations. the gruesome death of Christ and the powerful effects. And folks, when Isaiah is talking about the sprinkling of many nations, what comes into your mind? What illusion, what illustration is Isaiah giving us here? What is he drawing from? He's drawing from the picture of the priest in Israel. Remember what happened with the priests? Remember, for example, with the leper? How, when the leper was cleansed, a priest would sprinkle blood on him to show that his disease was washed away and this man was now healthy and ready to be accepted back into the community. Beloved, pause for a moment with me and think about that because Isaiah is telling us this is what the servant does with moral lepers. This is what Jesus does with moral lepers. And on the Day of Atonement, a priest sprinkled blood on the mercy seat, making Israel fit for the presence of God. Even the priests themselves had to be sprinkled with water. The water of purification numbers 8 verse 7. But Christ Isaiah is saying Christ is both our priest and our sacrifice. This priest and this sacrifice does not need to be cleansed. In fact, the sprinkling of his blood is pure enough and lavish enough to cleanse all his people. In fact, verse 15 says many nations. What do you have before the throne of God in the book of Revelation? A people and tribes from many nations standing before the throne of God. Beloved, this servant touches the unwashed. He touches the unclean, the outsiders. And what does he do? He makes them fit for God. They cannot defile him. He makes them fit for God. And this was something completely new. Isaiah was saying this, but the people were saying, we don't understand what you're saying, Isaiah. Do we understand it today? Well, for the most part, the world doesn't understand it. Even the top, the most brainiest people, the most intelligent people could never have thought of a way like this to remove the guilt of people. This is God's way. You see, the servant of the Lord will judge our evil, but how will he judge our evil? He will judge our evil by bearing it in himself, in his own suffering. And folks, I want to say this to you, even those of us who know the gospel, even those of us who have been walking with Christ for many years, struggle to understand it. We struggle to grasp it. And yet this, says Isaiah, was the joy set before him, to cleanse everyone. He was dehumanizing everyone who was his enemy. One solitary man abandoned, crushed into the dirt under our heel, giving to us in return life and transforming purity. This is the only way lepers like you and me are healed. How does that affect you this morning? Well, if your heart is a heart of flesh, it should leave you speechless. It should leave you in awe and wonder. Here's the wisdom of God, friends. Listen to this. Here is the wisdom of God. The undeserved sufferings of Christ Jesus, far exceeding and outperforming the best of the world's sweet oblivious antidotes. All the world that can, everything the world can come up with, nothing, nothing can even be remotely compared to this glorious remedy for man's sin. Let me say this, the mission of the church is not to offer the world a Christianized, sanitized version of their own false moralistic salvation. The mission of the church is to communicate a good news that they have never seen or heard before, a good news that leaves them in wonder and awe every day. I want to say, beloved, if people do not sense that the gospel is saying something unheard of, something extraordinary, Something that is so different from the unusual remedies or from the usual remedies for sin and for human conditions. And I'm telling you, we're not speaking clearly. The gospel should floor people. It should floor people. And as Christians, as churches today, we moralize and we sanitize and we become a good old boys club. Everyone's clicky and in the right circle and speaks with the right lingo and has just the right way they dress, etc, etc. And the church has become so inept and dead in the communities that we're living in. Because, friends, we have emasculated the gospel that Jesus Christ came, the righteous spotless Lamb of God came to die for sinners, guilty, lost sinners, prostitutes, drug addicts, the worst of the worst. And to the moralistic person out there without Christ, the gospel really should offend him. You're telling me I'm that bad? I'm that bad? Oh yeah. And I want to tell you, beloved, it's as you study and as you meditate on the cross that you begin to realize how bad you really are. Secondly, we see the suffering servant. His life was lived in rejection. So we've seen something of the victorious servant, something of the servant's success, despised and abandoned by men, yet redeeming his people. Now we come to the suffering servant. His life was lived in rejection. Verse 1 to 3, take a look at the text. 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. How do the nations respond to the servant? Well, according to this text, with an awed silence, as the gospel reveals his true worth. But here in verse 1 to 3, the believing remnant of Israel lament. And why do they lament? They lament that so many or so few of the gospel, so few have in the nation have believed their witness of the gospel. And beloved, think of that. When Christ came, was he believed on by everyone? No, he wasn't. The people closest to our Lord didn't understand him. They may have known him personally. They saw him as one from their neighborhood. Many knew him that way. It was easy to dismiss him. It took faith to see the glory of God in Jesus of Nazareth. Beloved, it still does. Here's a question. How do we break the faith barrier as it were? How do we embrace Jesus Christ crucified as our only Savior? What has to happen for us to see Him for who He is? Well, maybe we should watch more movies with gruesome pictures of Jesus being crucified. Maybe we should have this program or that program or this drama about hell. And maybe we should do that. Maybe that will get people to see what Christ or who Christ really is. Well, beloved, let me tell you, the only way that we will see who this servant really is, is by the power of God. by the power of God. It is God's power that enables us to see. It is His arm of power that enters in, that awakens in our hearts a new sense of glory, of the glory of Jesus. You know, we just read, we sang it, we sang the Jehovah's at Kenya. If you have the words with you, take a look at them. It begins Each paragraph, I once was a stranger to grace and to God. I knew not my danger and felt not my load. And then it goes on, I offer it with pleasure to soothe or engage. So I had sensitivity. And then the third stanza says, like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll, I wept when the waters went over his soul. Yet thought not that my sin had nailed to the tree. Jehovah said, Can you? It was nothing to me. And then you get to the fourth stanza. When free grace awoke me by light from on high. Then legal fear shook me. I trembled to die. No refuge, no safety in self could I see. Jehovah said, Can you? My savior must be. It is only the power of God. that opens our hearts and our minds and our eyes to who this suffering Savior is. Friends, we need God's help to believe because the truth is we are blind and we are superficial and we look on the surface of things. We judge by appearance. And I want to tell you from a human level, Jesus wasn't impressive. He was an ordinary man. Our Lord did not respect false appearances the way we do. In fact, Isaiah says in verse 2, he was like a root out of dry ground, an unpromising person appearing in a failed nation. Here comes this man preaching and this people are scattered and they subjugated under Roman authority. How can this be the Messiah? Now, I want to say this to you. Don't for a moment think, well, you know what, if I had been an eyewitness of Jesus, I would have admired Him. Think of the miracles of our Lord. They did not have the impact that we would expect from miracles like this, that they should have. Even His own family who saw Him, who saw His righteousness, who saw His lifestyle, even they misjudged Him. The woman at the well had no idea who she was talking to. John the Baptist even himself questioned, go and see if he really is who he says he is. John's in prison and he sends his disciples. And Jesus says, go and tell John that the dead are raised to life, that the sick are healed. In fact, friends, Our Lord just wasn't special in the way that counts with us. He became hideous in His suffering so that people shunned Him. Look at verse 3, "...as one from whom men hide their faces." And you've got to ask yourself the question as you look at that, as you wrestle with this in your mind, because as a child of God, you should wrestle with this. Why? Why did He sing so low? Why did He have to become like this? Well, beloved, the truth is He had to become like us for us to become like Him. But I want to say this, if we had been there at the cross, as Isaiah tells us, every one of us would have despised and rejected Him and turned away to follow others who were more prominent in the community. We would have been more inclined to follow the likes of Barabbas, or maybe Caiaphas, or maybe Pilate, depending on our politics or our mood. That's where we are, friends. We follow these things. We judge on the surface, don't we? But the only true remedy for the guilt that tortures us, the only true remedy For that which threatens us with eternal destruction appeared in front of us. And even if we were standing in His physical presence, our emotions and our decisions and our misguided minds and corrupted minds would have chosen anyone else but Him. Anyone else but Him. How did our Lord respond? No. Our Lord embraced this. He accepted it as the price love had to pay to give our lives back. Well, Isaiah moves on from his suffering. And now he talks about the servant's significance, verse 4 to 6. In verse 4 to 6, tell us how he bore our sins. Take a look at these verses. Surely he has borne our griefs. and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. As you read that, aren't you struck at how Isaiah is writing that? How is he writing that? Isn't there a sense as you read it that Isaiah is writing it in a way in which at least inclines or should incline us to think He's writing it as though we were there ourselves. We were there ourselves. Beloved, in a manner of speaking, we were. In a manner of speaking, we were. If it wasn't our guilt that required the death of Jesus, what did? What did? And he's telling us, Isaiah is telling us, he's writing to the generations who will read this prophecy and he is saying, all of you are sinners, all of you are guilty. Christ came to deal with that guilt from age to age, from generation to generation. You see, Isaiah is not just describing Jesus. What he's doing is he's telling our story. You see, we cannot say, well, if I'd been there, I wouldn't have shouted crucify him. But listen carefully to what the prophet is saying, friends. The heart of Isaiah's message is this. Jesus really was a man of sorrows. He really was. But they weren't his sorrows. They were ours. They were our sorrows. He didn't deserve them. They were our sorrows. And in a way, we don't understand how Jesus submitted himself for us at the cross. You see, friends, God has done what we would never understand and what we have no right to do. What has God done? God has shifted the blame to Jesus Christ. as He died for guilty people. See that is why we can walk in the light. Because we can be honest and confess we sin. But our sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and we bear it no more. We can shift our blame onto Him. God has done that for us. God has pointed his finger. He has laid on him the iniquity of us all. In fact, the theological term for this is the word imputation. And it quite literally means to charge to someone's account. You see, the guilt must be paid for. The guilt can't be swept under the rug. And you know that from your own personal experience, when you're wronged or you're injured and a crime takes place against you, you don't just wink your eyes and say, oh well, toughies, and off you go. You want justice. How do you feel if something terrible has happened to you, some crime has happened to you, and they haven't been able to capture the perpetrator? How do you feel? Oh, justice hasn't been served. Justice hasn't been served. But when justice is served, now you feel much better. Because what's right has happened. Justice has been... You see, friends, the damage and the cost don't just go away. They don't just go away. If it's going to be put right, someone has to pay the cost. And so it is with God. There is no way He can turn a blind eye. He is holy and pure, so pure and holy that He cannot behold evil. He is a just God. He will never bend His laws. He will never turn or twist His law into some wax nose that we can shape to our own liking. If we have sinned against an eternal God, friends, God, God will have His payment. God will have His just demands. Well, how does God confront it? How is the damage paid for? The sin, the damage that we're guilty of, because our every breath is an offense to Him as sinners lost from Him. How does God deal with it? Does He deal with it in anger? No, friends, out of love for us, God charged that infinite debt to a substitute. God charged that infinite debt to Christ. This is what we call the great exchange. Jesus Christ put himself in our place, in the place of sinners. And the unbearable weight of their guilt was imputed to him. And the Bible tells us it was so bad. It was so bad that he sank under it. Look again at what the text says. We pleased God to crush Him. He became a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. We hid our face from Him. He was despised and we did not esteem Him. And if we go to the New Testament, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.21, For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Beloved, this, this is the love of God. This is the love of God. Substitution is the very meaning of love, dying love, real love, and it comes from God. John tells us this. We don't know what love is. We don't know what love is. How do we know love? He puts it in the positive. How do we know love? We know love by this, that God sets forth His Son as a propitiation for our sins. God offers up His Son. This is true love, friends. Let me say this to you this morning. How do you respond to this love? How do you respond to this love? Are you going to spurn it? Are you going to reject it? Don't do that. Don't do that. Jesus died for you. Don't do that. I want to encourage you by faith. Look at Jesus hanging there on the cross. What is our Lord saying to you in his sacrifice? What witness is he bearing before you? He is saying to you, come to me, you who labor and are heavy laden. Maybe you're struggling with anger. Maybe you're struggling with bitterness. Maybe you're struggling with hatred. Maybe you're struggling with murder in your heart. You know, I knew a young boy, sweetest young boy, one of the sweetest young kids in our youth group. This young boy got angry, so angry one day that he took out a butcher knife and he stabbed his mother many, many times. She died, bled to death. That young boy had so much anger inside of him and so much bitterness. And he was so filled with hatred. Nobody knew it. Nobody knew it. He bottled it up all inside. And I want to encourage you. I don't know where you are this morning. I don't know what the state of your soul is. I don't know what you're wrestling with. And your struggles and your pains are real. I understand it. They're real. But I want to encourage you to take your eyes just off of yourself for a moment and look at that figure on the cross hanging there, that grisly figure hanging there, pierced for your transgressions, and hear his words as he says, come to me. I am doing this because you, because I don't want you to labor. When you labor under that sin and you try and deal with it, what does it do? It destroys your life. Just like that young man's life was destroyed. Less than 10 years later, he died. Unrepentant. And the worst thing is he took his brother with him. His brother was unrepentant and just as rebellious. Your sin doesn't just affect you. It affects those around you. And don't think you can cope with it. Don't think you're doing a good job because you're not. Come to me. all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Listen to me. He will give you rest. He has promised it. And look around you. There are testimonies of many Christians you can verify that He has given us rest. He has given us peace. Luke 14 verse 17, Jesus says, Come, for everything is now ready. Though your sins were red as scarlet, I have cleansed, I have washed them away. You are my child. I am preparing for you a place of glory. Everything is now ready. Isaiah 55 verse 3, Come to me and I will make with you an everlasting covenant. Friends, I want to encourage you. Look at Him by faith. Look and see His dying love. What is it worth? What is His dying love worth? His blood flowing down into pools at the foot of the cross. But it doesn't lie there in waste and loss. It flows out towards us guilty, sad us. His blood flows out toward a woman who has shamed herself in her desperate cravings. A woman who leaves an abortion clinic after she's just had an abortion and her conscience is smiting her and she just wants to curl up and die. The blood of Christ comes out to a woman like that and takes the shame away as she trusts in Jesus and all that shame is on Christ. That burden, that shame flows back to the cross where it shames our Lord Jesus and it is no longer her burden to be. What about the man holding bondage to lust? Perhaps he's plunged in and then he realizes what he's done and everything inside of him says God will never take you back, God will never accept you. But he realizes the longer and longer he stays there, there's nothing but emptiness and bitterness and self-hatred. Beloved, the blood of Jesus flows to such a man, flows to such a man, to such a person and cleanses him entirely and takes that painful wrong back to the cross where Jesus suffers for it as his own wrong, freeing that man forever. That is a great mystery we will never understand. But Paul tells us, He who knew no sin became sin for us. Even though He was never tainted with sin. And there's a mystery there and I understand it. But I can't get away from what that text says. He took that sin as really and as truly as though He Himself was committing that sin. And yet He was untainted. While you're in that sin, the love of Christ is reaching out to you. While you're in that anger, while you're in that act of immorality, Christ is reaching out to you and His love is there and His blood is ready to cleanse you at that moment. David said, when I confess my sins, you are faithful and just to forgive me. Like that. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just. We've bought into this whole thing of we want to beat ourselves up and we have to go through some long protracted exercise to make sure we've truly repented. Beloved, turn to Christ. Don't look for those. Just turn to Christ. Leave it in Christ's hands. Let Him deal with it. Bring your sin again and again to Him. Don't judge the Lord's work by feeble sense. Trust Him. The judge shall live by faith, not by feelings. Beloved, I am saying this because this text tells us the blood of Jesus is flowing out to sinners of all kinds, taking from them their guilt, their shame, their loss, their tears and despair, and giving them a whole new life. The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all unrighteousness, but as our brother Charles Wesley so aptly said, his blood breaks the power of canceled sin. You keep going back to that blood. You keep going back to that cross. Sin cannot live in your life, I promise you. It will not. The Lord will deliver you from it. The Lord will remove it from you. Beloved, there is nothing hindering you from coming to the Son of God right now. Because the text tells us, Jesus did this for us. And he does not want us to bear our burden for a moment longer. And Jesus is saying, my chastisement will give you peace. Let my stripes heal you. Peter said it. You know, Peter tells us, go to Peter with me quickly. What does Peter say? 1 Peter chapter 4. There's so many wonderful passages in Peter, but 1 Peter chapter 4 says this, Therefore, verse 1, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same mind, for he who suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. It is when we lay hold of Christ by faith, friends, and we lay hold of the power of that cross, that the sin in our lives finds no place to root and grow. The cross, the crucified Christ, the broken Son of God, He Himself bearing our sins in His body on the tree so that we should die to sin and live to righteousness. It is there that we must dwell even in the midst of sin, even when we have been lured away and we've been entrapped. Don't run from the Lord. Right there and then cling to the cross. That's your weapon. That's your weapon. That's the power to undo. You see, when we sin, the Lord judges us and we're guilty. And when we look to Christ and we believe on Him, Christ takes all that guilt away, doesn't He? And the power of sin is found in that guilt, friends. It's found in that guilt to put us in bondage, to get us all tied up in ourselves, to get us thinking that we can do something in our own, that we've got to try and clean ourselves up. That's the worst thing we can do. Throw yourself in Christ. Look, fix your eyes on Him. Run to His wounds. Appeal to His blood. It is there. It will cleanse you again and again and again. and it will give you power over broken sin. Let me close off. The last thing Isaiah 53 says in verse 6 is, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Folks, what are sheep? They're dumb creatures. We are dumb creatures. That's why Isaiah says early on, even the foolish won't go astray on the highway of holiness. We're dumb creatures. And we have myriads of ways that we turn away. When we think about our lives, when we consider how many times we sin in our hearts, when we consider our bad attitudes, our wrong words, our wrong thoughts, when you sit down and you think about your sin, it can be overwhelming. If you really are honest with yourself and you bring yourself into the light, it can be overwhelming. And the tendency is for us to just turn away and say, Lord, I'm just, I mean, this is not for me. I'm just not getting this right. Isaiah is telling us in this passage What does he say? We've turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all take your eyes off of yourself and Fix them there and don't believe What the enemy is telling you and don't believe what your guilt is telling you take that Your sin to the cross and Christ will deal with your guilt and he will give you power and strength to overcome. God has done it for us. He has done it in Christ. Believe and entrust your guilt to him. You know what, beloved? You can't bear your guilt, but he has borne it for you. And what did it do to him? It crushed him. It crushed him. But he was still willing to do it. And nothing can change that fact. And that's why when we come to this table, what is this table telling us? He has done it. It is finished. It is gone. It has no claim on your life anymore. But if you are not going to live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself up for you, then your sin is going to cloud your mind and draw you away and get you all turned in on yourself again. Come to the cross. Begin the year at the cross and walk through the year at the cross every day in every way. I promise you, you will look back and you will be amazed how God has changed and transformed your life. Amen.