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February 26 Lesson
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The end of a Christian's story is always victory
___Isaiah 53:1-12
___1Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2He 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. 3He 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.
___4Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. 5But 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. 6We 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.
___7He 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. 8By 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. 9He 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.
___10Yet 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. 11After 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. 12Therefore 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.
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___By Matt Cook
___Why does suffering take place? For as long as people have believed in the goodness of God, they have been asking that question. The Old Testament offers various responses. Read the book of Job, and you'll find many of them.
___Job's friends believe he is suffering because of his own unconfessed sin. They urge him to repent and be saved. Job knows he has not done what his friends believe he has, but Job himself can't fathom that bad things might happen to good people. He is confused and cries out in despair.
___In this fallen world, we all can identify with Job. We hope and expect God will care for us. We believe he will watch over and protect us from evil. When bad things happen to us or those we love, we, too, are tempted by despair. The company is downsizing and you find out that you're about to lose your job; the medical report comes back--its cancer; a drunk driver kills someone we love. Where is God in the midst of these circumstances?
___Isaiah on suffering
___In the book of Isaiah, we find an answer. Isaiah 53 is one of the most significant passages about suffering in all of Scripture. Like Jeremiah, Isaiah tries to cope with the utter hopelessness that resulted from the defeat of God's people and the forced exile that accompanied it. Babylon had conquered Jerusalem, and the people were forced to examine the painful reality that their sin had brought about their downfall. Worse, this sadness was slowly hardening into despair. The people in exile saw no hope that the cycle of disobedience that had cost them so greatly would ever be broken. Endless suffering seemed their only possible fate.
___And into this hopelessness bursts the prophetic hope of Isaiah. The 53rd chapter of Isaiah prophesies the coming of one who suffers for the sake of others. This suffering servant will bear the sins of all and break the pattern of disobedience and despair by taking for himself the punishment due others.
___Fairness or foolishness?
___Does your blood boil at injustice? Does it set your teeth on edge when the wrong person gets punished for something someone else did? Have you ever watched a bully get away with pushing people around?
___A few weeks ago I watched a popular movie, "The Shawshank Redemption," on television. It had been released a few years ago but has been edited for television. While it may have contained scenes with language, violence or other material that might unintentionally offend our sensibilities, there was a particular character that, I'm sure, was intended to be very offensive--the warden.
___Here was the classic hypocrite--a man who quoted Scripture and used his position not only to oppress the guilty but also to keep an innocent man in prison. At the end of the movie the main character escapes and he releases evidence that shows that the warden had been breaking the law. The warden takes his own life in shame, and the good guy escapes to a life of pleasure on a sunny beach in Mexico. Of course! I didn't really even have to watch the ending. That's how stories are supposed to end.
___This is America. We like our stories a certain way. The guy in the white hat may be outnumbered, but in the end he's going to shoot the bad guys, get the girl and ride off into the sunset. And they lived happily ever after--The End.
___God, however, writes his story a little differently. Isaiah 53 displays a radical vision of God's grace through the workings of a servant. This servant is a heroic figure but he defies the stereotype of heroes to which we are accustomed.
___ No one recognizes the hero of the story (vs. 1-3). According to Isaiah 53, the good guy shows up, but no one knows he's the good guy. He's not big, or tall, or handsome, having "nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
___God's standards, though, are always radically different than the world's standards. Christ came as a baby in a manger. The church was started with fishermen, tax collectors, widows and orphans. The world's greatest missionary was first an executioner. God has always used strange characters to tell his story. We must not depend on any worldly appearance, because God's servants cannot be determined that way.
___ The story takes a strange turn (vs 4-7). We're used to bad things happening to the hero of the story if the villain is the one doing it. There has to be some kind of conflict to make the story interesting, right? But in God's story, bad things happen to the hero on behalf of those who have done wrong. Furthermore, those people actually benefit from the hero's suffering.
___In God's eyes, the true conflict is not with our enemies but with sin itself. This changes the way we treat others who have done wrong to us. We are never to see people as enemies but as people whose lives we can change by turning the other cheek. Even if that means we have to suffer.
___ The hero dies (vs. 8-9). God's heroic servant pays the ultimate price willingly. His very life is forfeited so others far less worthy may live. Imagine if you were sitting in a crowded movie theater watching a story like this and the story ended right there. What would you do? I'd think it was some kind of joke, a very bad joke--some Hollywood producer with a warped sense of humor. Either that or someone very foolish was allowed to write the story.
___And that, of course, is exactly what happened. The Apostle Paul called the cross foolishness. God's plans always defy human ideas of reason and justice. In Isaiah 53, we get to see the first faint outlines of what Paul was talking about. It isn't fair. It's the foolishness of grace.
___ That was the plan all along (v. 10). How could such a travesty of justice be allowed to take place? An innocent man's life has been taken, and the guilty have been set free. The answer takes our breath away. "It was the Lord's will." Isaiah scholar Ernest Hanson says this revelation is "a daring plunge into the heart and mind of a God who suffers so intensely with the people as to lead to a course of action that breaks all conventions of justice."
___Is God just? No! If he were, then the guilty would pay for their sins. Is God love? Absolutely! If he were not, then why else would he give his Son as a sacrifice for our sins?
___ The story does have a happy ending (vs. 11-12). Even though the story has been a bit unusual so far, it has a great ending. The suffering servant will be lifted up and his sacrifice acknowledged. God's purposes are achieved.
___The way a story ends is important. The promised triumph of God's servant helps us see the way we live our lives in light of that ending. We, too, are called to suffer on behalf of the world, and we can do so knowing the sacrifices we make will not be in vain. Because we know how the story ends, we know God's power will work through our suffering.
___When Romania was under communism, there was a well-known evangelical dissident named Joseph Tson. He preached all throughout the country in violation of government policy. Finally, the secret police seized him and took him deep within their central headquarters. The head of the secret police threatened Tson with torture and death. Tson, however, was not frightened.
___"Sir," said Tson "you see death as your greatest tool. You believe that if you threaten my life you will have power over me and what I do. I also see death as a tool. You know that many people have heard of me and listen to tapes of my preaching that circulate illegally. If you kill me, you will sprinkle my blood on those tapes, and people will ask themselves what could mean so much that a man would die to tell about it. If you kill me, my death will be a great tool in the hands of God."
___The secret police promptly released him.
___As Christians, our stories already are written, and like Joseph Tson, we can put our very lives on the line to help build the kingdom.
___Sometimes there is no answer ... only God
___Difficult things happen in this world. Many of those things are not the will of God. Sometimes they are. Sometimes God asks us to suffer as a powerful witness to our willingness to do whatever it takes to share the love of God. Even when those difficult times are not God's plan, however, we can remember that in Jesus Christ, God suffered with us and for us. Knowing that God is with us in our suffering may not explain our suffering, but it can help us through it.
For thought and discussion
___ What are some examples of suffering for the sake of others that you have witnessed? What did you learn from those examples? Did it strengthen your own ability and/or willingness to do the same in your own life?
___ This passage was written for people experiencing despair. Have you ever had an experience of hopelessness or despair? What enabled you to move beyond that feeling? Did it involve a sacrifice on the part of someone else?
___ This passage suggests appearances can be deceiving when God's purposes are involved. Has God ever revealed himself through an unlikely vehicle in your life? What did you learn through that situation?
___ The suffering servant's life was given in behalf of others. That is quite a sacrifice. Everyone isn't called to physical death, but we are called to die to self. What other sacrifices are the most challenging for us to make? Why are those sacrifices particularly challenging?
___ The suffering servant was despised and rejected. Have you experienced rejection in following Christ? How has that affected your continuing willingness to make sacrifices on behalf of those who may have rejected you?
___ How can we tell the difference between challenges God gives to help us grow and suffering because of the wrongful acts of others? Is there a danger in confusing the two? What is that danger?
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