His Wounds, Our Healing

Isaiah 53 | Ps Alex Huggett | 2.11.2025

© Bentley Baptist Church Inc.
www.bentleybaptist.org

Transcript

I'll be reading from Isaiah chapter 53. A well-known passage. If you've never read Isaiah, you've probably heard this. Isaiah 53 verse one. 

Who has believed what we have heard, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground? He didn't have an impressive form or majesty that we should look at him, no appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of suffering, who knew what sickness was. He was like someone who people turned away from. He was despised and we didn't value him. Yet he himself bore our sicknesses, and he carried our pains. But we in turn regarded him stricken, struck down by God and afflicted. But he was pierced because of our rebellion, crushed because of our iniquities. Punishment for our peace was on him, and we are healed by his wounds. We all like sheep have gone astray. We all have turned our own way. And the Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth, like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep silent before his shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was taken away because of oppression and judgement, and who considered his fate, for he was cut off from the land of the living? He was struck because of my people's rebellion. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, but he was with a rich man at his death, because he had done no violence and had not spoken deceitfully. Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely. When you make him a guilt offering, He will see his seed. He will prolong his days, and by his hand the Lord's pleasure will be accomplished. After his anguish, he will see light and be satisfied. By his knowledge, my righteous servant will justify many, and he will carry their iniquities. Therefore, I will give him the many as a portion, and he will receive the mightiest spoil because he willingly submitted to death, and was counted among the rebels. Yet he bore the sin of many, and interceded for the rebels.

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Well, what a great joy it is to come from different backgrounds, languages, countries, different individual journeys. Yet we're bound by one God, one saviour, one gospel, as one family. And that's a beautiful picture of the kingdom of God. When John had his revelation at the beginning of that final book of the Bible. We see this rainbow of people standing before the throne, from every tribe and nation, and people and tongue. We also come from different experiences, even if we come from the same countries. Some of us have had relatively easy lives, Some of us have experienced great hardship and evil. But we all come needing a saviour who can rescue us.

You know, sometimes we need rescuing from a bad situation. Sometimes we need rescuing from ourselves. Sometimes other people need rescuing from us. Hundreds of years before Christ, the nation of Israel found itself once again needing a rescue. They've been carried into exile and they needed rescuing from the oppressive regime, the empire of Babylon. And many of you know their story through your experience only too well. But they've been exiled in the 1st place because of their own sin. The rich oppressed the poor, they'd forgotten God and turned to idols often with very vile practises involved. And I was in to this world of evil and brokenness that in our reading today, God promises a saviour. But not a powerful warrior saviour, like so many people wanted, a suffering servant who would carry the people's pain on himself.

You know, before we judge Israel for what got them into their own mess, We really should recognise them in ourselves. And in our world, because we live in such a broken world, don't we? At every level. We see the results of the fall. We see it in our own hearts and our very bodies sometimes carry that, in our relationships, in our society, and between nations. Many of you have been deeply affected by the brokenness. of the world and its sin.

Isaiah mentions sickness and suffering in this chapter. When we think of sickness, we often think of physical sickness, our illnesses, and that's certainly part of what he's speaking about. In Matthew 8, 17, we read that Jesus was the fulfilment of these words through his physically healing people. We live in a world of sickness and pain, but God desires our healing, our health, and our wholeness. But even more than physical sickness, he cares about the sickness of our hearts and our relationships. The loneliness and depression that drives so many people to despair and the anger and resentment, that drives a wedge between us. The problem is that we live in a world of rebellion and iniquity. We reject God's rule. And we want to set up our own kingdoms. We're driven by selfishness at the expense of others. And so many people justify their sin, they celebrate their immorality and their foolish choices.

When I was much younger. I used to work for a purchasing agency and went around to different businesses purchasing things for remote communities. And I just remember one day going in and just asking one of these young guys, how was your weekend? He said, oh, it was huge. had a huge weekend. Couldn't remember a single thing he'd done because he was plastered. Thought it was great. That's the world we live in. The rich exploit, the poor, the powerful exploit, the weak. People live in foolishness. But, you know, so often. What then turns around is the victims become the perpetrators and carry on the cycle. And we only, look, as a stark example, need to look at the Israel Palestine conflict, to see the cycle of sin played out and out, a youth throws rocks, soldiers shoots him, evil men fly over a wall, 10s of 1000s are dead and displaced. One wound leads to another. And so often we seek revenge on our enemies, or we repeat the patterns that we grew up with.

And so none of us is innocent. We've all gone astray like sheep. The great shepherd leads, and he cares for us, and he protects us, and he feeds us, but we'd rather go our own way. And as a result, we all deserve some kind of punishment. We've all got to live with the consequences of our sins and more. And so we see sick people need to be kept apart. So they don't spread their disease or illness. Rebels need to be stopped, so they don't wreck society. Wrongdoers need to be punished, so justice is served, evil regimes need to be resisted. If only there was someone who could rescue us from our suffering, our sin and ourselves.

Praise God, Jesus is the good news, and Jesus is the good news that unites us together. But what a strange saviour he is. How often do we want almost a magician who will just make our lives pain-free. We want a champion who'll step in and fight the bully or the oppressor. We want a judge who will condemn our enemies, but let us off free. Every culture has its heroes, its revolutionaries, its champions, and we want an action hero who will wrestle the gun off the bad guys and shoot them with it. But instead, Jesus wrestles the gun off the bad guys and then he beats it into ploughshares and invites them to till the fields with him as his friends. And it's a good thing he does that, isn't it? Because You know, at the end of the day, we're all the bad guy to someone, there's someone you and I have wronged. Most of all, we've sinned against God.

Sometimes we fully rebel against him. We fully rebel against his ways, just like the Israelites did. They're being rescued by God in the desert and they set up the golden car. Sometimes we're simply careless about God's goodness and holiness, like Israel, constantly grumbling against God in the wilderness while he's feeding them and watering them and caring for them. You know, if justice was done, it would mean me standing before the judge. Should I switch this over?

Instead of coming as an action hero dispensing justice, Jesus came as one of us. He was like a root out of dry ground. You know, there wasn't much of a healthy culture around Jesus. As he grew up, there was no one, well, he had people to nurture him, but the culture wasn't a nurturing culture. It was a hard scrabble society. If you were poor and at the bottom of the heap, there was no welfare system, no one cared about you. He was under an oppressive regime. Some people turn to strict religion thinking, oh, just if I follow all the rules before God, he'll rescue us. Others thought I need to fight the oppressor and became freedom fighters. Few could live out their faith really well. And yet in that environment, Jesus lived a life without sin and without hatred. He wasn't charming. In fact, Jesus offended the poor and the powerful alike. When he fed the 5000 they loved him, but then when he confronted them with the demands of faith, They turned away from him and left him. He knew what it was like to be rejected by people. And of course, ultimately rejected on the cross. And perhaps you feel like that. You feel like you never had much of a chance given the life you grew up, and that may well be true. It was a place where goodness was hard to find. You know what it's like to be rejected by people and by society. Jesus understands you. He came for you.

Jesus came and carried our pains and bore our sicknesses. Yes, he healed people physically and he still does. But more than this, he heals our hearts and our relationships. And I know many of you suffer from broken hearts, broken lives and broken families. Some of you grew up in homes that were rich in strife and poor in love. Some of you have grown up in war zones, some with addiction. You know, I pray with people all the time who have children or brothers or sisters who have turned away from them, walked away from God, sometimes into self-destructive lives of addiction and self-harm. Maybe you have that track in your head that plays over and over and over telling you you're no good. You're unlovely, you're unworthy. You're messed up. And maybe it's not just in your own head. You see it in the eyes of others. Maybe you hear it in their words. Jesus came for you. He bore those sorrows and sicknesses, the sicknesses of the soul and the sicknesses of the body. He wants to lift those burdens off your shoulders and put them onto his own.

Isaiah says, so long before it happened. He was pierced because of our rebellion and crushed because of our iniquities. You know, iniquity is the sin and immorality that each of us carries in our hearts. When I look to God and I see his perfect love and holiness, and then I look into my heart, I soon realise just how deeply I failed and sinned against him in my thoughts, in my words, in my actions. I fail to adequately love people made in his image. And Jesus said when we fail to care for the poor, we're failing him. You know, my words don't reflect his perfect truth. My temper doesn't reflect his perfect love, my selfishness doesn't reflect his overwhelming generosity. And yet on the cross, Jesus took the punishment I deserve and brought me peace. He took the wounds I should receive. and turned them into my healing. And yours as well. And we can have peace with God.

Jesus became a guilt offering. Now guilt offering was a payment made for a debt someone had towards God because of their sin. And it didn't matter if the sin was deliberate or unintentional. They had this debt they had to pay and we have a sin debt before God. But Jesus was the punishment that took was the sacrifice that took our punishment and made atonement for our sins. He paid that sin debt. And as a result, Jesus has justified us on the cross. And that means to be declared righteous before God. Someone's put it to be justified, is to be made just as if I had never sinned. The word has a legal overtone to it. When I break the law, I'm guilty before the law and before society. I have a debt to pay, whether that's paying a speeding fine, or going to prison for something more serious. Once I paid my debt, I'm free once again, because my payment satisfies the law. The problem is, the sin debt I owe to God is so great, I can never pay it. But Jesus knew no sin. He had no debt to pay. He was God in human flesh. And so he could pay for your sin and for mine. And he puts us in right standing with the divine court. Our debt is paid, and our names are cleared.

And not only are we in right standing before God, Jesus cleanses us from the impurity of sin, sin and brings us not just into right standing before God, that we can go free. But he brings us into relationship with him. We're reconciled with God. Jesus doesn't just stamp the file and say, case closed, now go away. He opens his arms and says, welcome home, and he makes us his family.

You know, this whole thing of being cleared of guilt, I remember the time this was made real to me. I'd actually grown up in the church, but the track in my head said over and over, you're guilty, you're unworthy. But then the Holy Spirit set me free. The sense of guilt was lifted through the blood of Jesus. And I knew a peace and a joy that I hadn't, up to that time, and I'd been going to church my whole life. This is what Jesus does. Whether rich or poor, whether native born or migrant, whether you're university educated, whether you barely made it through school, whether you've been coming to church your whole life, or this is your 1st time. We all stand equal at the foot of the cross.

The gospel begins with my relationship with God, but it doesn't end there. As we experience the healing, power of God's forgiveness, and he lifts our sickness and suffering from us. We're not only set free from the guilt of sin but from the power of sin. And this is what we call the work of sanctification. We're declared righteous so that we can then live righteous lives before God and with others. And so part of that is he brings us into a family of people who have also experienced this transforming power. And just so often, the cycle of human experience repeats these patterns of sin and abuse that we grow up with. So we can repeat the cycle of mercy and forgiveness that we've received in Jesus. He gives us the power. Even to forgive those who have sinned against us. He gives us the power to love our enemies. Because I was his enemy. And he forgave me.

You know, Corey Ten Boone was a Dutch Christian, a young girl whose family had Jews from the Nazis during World War II. They were betrayed and sent to a concentration camp. And her sister died in the camp where she was. After the war, one of her prison guards came up to her at one of the conference, she was speaking at, He became a Christian. And he asked her for forgiveness. And in that moment, she had to make a choice. She was chewed up with pain and hatred for this man as he stood before her. But she'd just been talking about God's forgiveness. And she says, as she reached out her hand and forgave him, her heart melted and filled with the love of God towards his brother in Christ. That's the healing, reconcile and power of the gospel. The church is where enemies become family in Jesus.

And more than just enjoying this family life we have together, he calls us into mission to bring that gospel healing and forgiveness to the world. And as we share this gospel, One person at a time we can bring transformation to whole communities. We live in a world of sickness and sin. We stand guilty before God and others. But Jesus has taken our sickness and our sin on himself. The punishment that brought us, peace is on him. We can we have peace if we've accepted that. With God, we can have peace with one another because of Jesus.

And so this invitation is to you today. Like me, if you've grown up with the church, But you've never really experienced his peace. He wants you to have that. The Holy Spirit wants to make that real in your life. Or maybe you've never trusted Jesus as Lord and Saviour. The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord. And if you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That means turning from sin, what the Bible calls repentance, being baptised in Jesus' name. And when we do that, we enter into a whole new world of experience with God. And we see this summed up in the communion table, which we come to now. At the communion, we celebrate what Christ has done. We declare our commitment to him in the covenant he made in his blood. We declare that Jesus is our Lord and Saviour, and we're part of his family. And we look forward to the day. He makes all things new.