I do want to take a moment to say thank you for praying for me as I was in Dubai. No, my trip wasn't as long as Phil's. The only way for it to be longer than Phil's was to do space travel. I don't have any of those trips planned. Dubai is an amazing city. It's like watching a world class city being built before your very eyes, some 150 major skyscrapers being built at once. It said that the national bird of Dubai is the crane. I was ministering at the United Christian Church of Dubai, a church that really is a world church.
A Taste of Heaven in Dubai
It serves the business community there in Dubai, so there are people from nations around the world. It was, for me, a bit of a taste of heaven. A moving experience, the first time, to stand up and just see people from all around the world gathered there to worship. Pray for United Church. It's in a remarkably influential place with incredible opportunities to influence people who will be there some three to five years and then go back to their home countries. Thank you again, for your prayers. As I think of this season of the year, I again and again am brought back to Isaiah 53.
I think who would have accepted this job description. You would not be attractive to the people that live around you. You would be summarily rejected by everyone, even your closest friends. Your life would be marked again and again by suffering and affliction. You would be led like a lamb to slaughter and you would not speak in your own defense. And finally, your death would be amongst criminals, being one who was crushed for crimes you did not commit. Who would accept such a job description? You would only accept that call if you knew that it was an absolute necessity and it would result in ultimate joy.
Turn with me to Isaiah 53. I want to read this entire chapter for you, although we'll just look at one verse in the middle. 1 Who has believed what [they] heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? 2 For He grew up before Him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.
4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 5 But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His [stripes] we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? 9 And they made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth. 10Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand.
11Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities. 12Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 53 is probably the most famous, lengthy prophecy of the coming Christ.
It really does look to what He would accomplish in His life. Yet there's a verse in the middle of this passage that I am convinced you need if you're ever going to understand the Christmas story, if you're ever going to understand the season that we now celebrate. Look with me at Isaiah 53:6. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. Let me explain to you what kind of passage Isaiah 53:6 is. In case you hadn't noticed, your Bible is not arranged by topic.
That irritates some of you. You wish that it was. You wish that it was in topics and your tabs on the side, so you go exactly where you want to go. Well, the Bible is not arranged by topic by means of accident. It's arranged, rather, as a narrative. That's God's purpose. This book that you have is the narrative of the great redemptive story. It's actually a narrative with notes. It's a theologically annotated narrative. It's a narrative with God's explanations. And we have one of those explanations in this passage that we're looking at.
A Story Definer
It functions as a story definer, a story explainer, a story summary. Look with me, as I look at this passage with you. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned--every one--to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. First, in this passage, you have this amazing statement of comprehensive need. Hear the words. "All we like sheep have gone astray." What an all-inclusive statement that is. Like sheep, we are people with a proneness to wander. All of us, somehow, some way, move beyond the boundaries that God in His wisdom and God in His grace has set for us.
We are like sheep. I was driving recently to Plymouth Meeting Mall and we take a back route that takes us through a little bit of country. It's nice and there are sheep there. And one sheep had found a hole in the fence and he wandered out near the road, only to be followed by his happy friends who wanted to - well, they looked quite content. They had no sense of the danger that they had placed themselves in. That's us. All of us have this drive to move beyond God's boundaries. Oh, you recognize that in somebody else, but brothers and sisters, it's in you.
May I say that this morning? You wander in your words. You say things that you should never say. You wander in your thoughts, think things that you would be embarrassed if someone knew you were thinking. You wander away in your decisions. You wander away in your marriage. You wander away in your parenting. You wander away in moments of impatience and greed and selfishness and anger. Who could say even this week, "This for me was a week without wandering"? None of us can say that. What a picture! Created to live for God's glory, created to find identity in Him, created to love Him with every word I say, every decision I make, every action I take, I willingly again and again set my own boundaries.
I willingly again and again step beyond His. That's all of us. I wish I could say, "But not me," but I can't. For all of God's love, for all of His grace, for all of the stunning wisdom that's displayed on the pages of the Word of God, I think my way is better. For all the beauty that He's provided for me, I think the greater beauty is out there. I wonder beyond God's boundaries. All we like sheep have gone astray. Who could sit here this morning and say, "Except me." No one can. No one can. It's the sad reality of humanity is we wander, we wander, we wander, we wander.
And like sheep, we move toward danger and we think it's pasture, when pasture is only ever to be found inside of the boundaries of the Great Shepherd. All of us. But there's more on this description. Look at this second phrase. "We have turned--every one--to his own way." Now what you have is you have that reality of us wandering, followed by a motivational explanation. Why do we wander? We wander because each of us wants, turns to his own way. You see, you'll never understand your struggle with sin if you think that sin is just a matter of behavior.
Sin is only a matter of behavior because it's first an issue of the heart and what is being exposed to you here is the deepest darkest motivation of the heart of every human being. Now, hear my language. The Bible, as it describes the human being, essentially divides us into two parts - the outer man and the inner man. The outer man is your physical self. The inner man is your spiritual self. And it's characterized in scripture by many words. Mind, emotion, soul, spirit, will. All those words are collected by this one big basket term, "heart", used all over scripture, one of the most welldeveloped themes in scripture.
And the Bible says that what rules our heart will then shape and direct our behavior. Now, something very significant is being said here about the heart of everyone in this room that we need to humbly embrace. There is deep in the heart of every sinner, a desire for independence, a desire for autonomy, a desire to have our own way. That's why we stepped beyond God's boundaries because although we were made for this life of dependency, this life of submission, this life of obedience, this life where we would give our energies to live for the glory of another, we want to be the glory.
We want to be our own kings. We want to have our own plan. We want our own way. Now it doesn't take much observation to notice that. You see it very young in a child. Have you ever seen the body of a yet wordless infant, one not yet able to speak words, stiffen up in anger? It's an amazing thing. You've fed the child. You've changed him. You've sung every hymn to him in the Trinity hymn book. He finally appears asleep. You start making your way out of the room and he pushes his hands up like this, he stiffens his body, and he wails that blood-curdling scream.
I Am King
He is saying to you, "I love you and I have a wonderful plan for your life. And my plan right now is you will not leave this room. I am king." I never had one of my children say, "You know, Dad, I'm really a person in need of authority and if you could just bring more authority in my life, that would be wonderful if you could just command me more and direct me more. I know that you're a representative of the authority of God and I surely don't want to live beyond God's boundaries, so just more authority, dad, would really be helpful."
Never heard that. Think about this. Aren't we talking about the horrible lie of the garden? What was the lie of the garden? "You don't have to live dependently. You don't have to live submissively. You don't have to depend on the wisdom of God. You can be like God. You can be autonomous. You can be independent. You can be free of that life of subservience." Listen, in your heart still exist a desire for autonomy. What makes relationships difficult, quest for independence? What makes parenting hard, sturdy independence?
What corrupts government, the quest for autonomy and independence? What distorts entertainment, the quest for independence? We want our way. We want to direct our plan. In some way, all of us are glory thieves because we want to be in the one place in the universe that we can never, ever be - the center. You see, you'll never understand why Jesus came unless you understand the scary and comprehensive description that's made in this passage of scripture. All we like sheep have gone astray. That's the sad reality.
Each of us has turned to his own way. That's the motivation of the heart. Now, hear this. That means all of us are in the same place. That means we can't help us. That means that no horizontal solution can be found. The normal means won't help us. You can't help us by education. You can't help us by some form of social conditioning. You can't help us just by government. You can't help us by family or by economics or all of those other places you would turn because we're all in the same spot. We all suffer from the same disease.
We all have the same abiding defect in our hearts. We are in trouble. That's what this is saying. There's something wrong with us that we won't fix. May I ask you to do this this morning? Even as a believer, wouldn't you say that trouble still reared its head in my life this week? Wouldn't you say that? And some words that shouldn't have been spoken, a flash of a moment of anger, impatience because some human being is an obstacle in your way, a vile thought, a self-righteous action, greed, self-indulgence.
You'll only ever celebrate the Christmas story if you first embrace the inescapability of your neediness. But the passage isn't done, by God's grace. It says, "And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." What an amazing thing! And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. What an unexpected turn. You would expect that a righteous God would rise and say, "I gave you every good thing you need. I placed you in a position second only to me on earth. I surrounded you with a gorgeous world.
And again and again and again, you have denied My existence. You have craved my position and you've stepped beyond My boundaries. I've had it. Enough. I'm going to wipe you off the face of the earth." But that's not God's response. Righteous, as it would be. No, His response is a response of magnificent love, of inconceivable grace. What does He do? In the face of our rebellion, in the face of our autonomy, He sends another sheep. But this sheep will not step beyond His boundaries. He will willingly live inside the boundaries set for Him by His Father, in every word and every deed and every encounter, in every action, reaction, response, He will only ever do the will of God because He must come to that point of sacrifice as the perfect and pure Lamb of God.
The Full Weight on the Lamb
And then, in this amazing act of redemption, God places the full weight, the full load of all of the sins of all of His people on this perfect Lamb. He, in that moment, bears every one of our sins. Think about that. Every terrible thing you said, every terrible thing you thought, every poor decision, every selfish act, every moment of anger and impatience and greed, all of those things, every one of those moments were placed on the shoulders of Christ. Praise God, praise God! In carrying our sins, He satisfies the righteous anger of Almighty God, so that we would not have to bear that penalty, so that we would receive forgiveness, so that we would be given the power to stay inside of God's boundaries.
You see, when you look into that manger, what do you see? It's right to see a Messiah. It's right to see the King of kings, but you must also look in that manger and see an infant Lamb. Because of the inescapable reality of our sin, because of its deep hold on our hearts, the only solution for humanity is that a Lamb would come, bear our sin, and purchase in that our acceptance and our deliverance. Now what I've told you is the Christmas story. It's very interesting how that this little passage in Isaiah 53:6 really does foreshadow what we've come to know of the Christmas story.
Let me just point you to three vignettes that are foreshadowed by Isaiah 53:6. Here's the first. If you read Isaiah 53, it should not surprise you that this infant Lamb, this Messiah King, sleeps His first moments in a feeding trough. You see, this is a Lamb who came to suffer and so, although He's the King of kings, He doesn't sleep in the gilded crib of a palace. No, He's in a stable in a hastily created bed. On a mattress of straw, the hope of the universe lies. He came to suffer and His suffering was immediate.
There's a second vignette that shouldn't surprise us as horrible as it is. It is that horrible slaughter of innocent male children under the age of two meted out by King Herod. There in that moment, you have a picture of how deep the problem with sin is, how much we rage against the plan of God. And in a moment, Herod raises his fist to Almighty God and says, "You will not reign," and slaughters children across his region with hopes that he has killed the coming King. That's how dark our sin is. That's how great our problem is.
That's how sturdy our quest for autonomy is. But there's a third vignette that is foreshadowed by this passage as well. It is the glorious song of the angels. If there is ever a moment in human history, if there's ever a moment for celebration, it's this one because the Lamb had come. The Lamb had come and in His coming is hope and life and peace and forgiveness and restoration and reconciliation and deliverance. And I would ask you this morning to say to your Lord once more, "Lord, I am just that needy.
I am a wanderer. I do want my own way and because of that I'm so deeply grateful for the Christmas story. I am so deeply grateful that You did not turn your back on humanity but instead, You provided the only solution that could ever be a solution - a Lamb sent for slaughter, sent to satisfy Your wrath, sent to bear my punishment and purchase my forgiveness." Hear this. Those hymns of Christmas celebration are sung best by people who admit their need. All we like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Celebrate, celebrate, celebrate for in that manger is an infant Lamb. Let's pray. Lord, all of us would want to say that we are righteous, but we are not. We want to say that we always stay inside Your boundaries, but we don't. We want to think that there is no quest for autonomy or independence inside of us, but there is. And so, we come one more time asking You to help us to accept the depth of our need, so that we could celebrate the glory of Your provision. We thank you that Your response to our rebellion was not a response of anger, but a response of grace.
And we celebrate with the angels that in that manger was an infant Lamb whose sacrifice is our hope. Thank You. In Jesus name, amen.
