[0:00] Jesus has done for us gives us great pleasure. If Good Friday and the day of Jesus' death brought us sorrow, then Easter Sunday and the day of Jesus' resurrection brings us great joy.
[0:14] We become satisfied as Christians when, because of what Jesus has done, we have received forgiveness of sins, a new heart, the promise of eternal life.
[0:26] And because Jesus has done something for us, we could not have done for ourselves. I wonder, do you experience any kind of satisfaction?
[0:40] The gospel kind? A satisfaction not in self, but in Jesus? So the stone rolled away from the entrance to the tomb and Jesus rose from the dead and there's our satisfaction.
[0:56] But let's go back to the original question. Is Jesus himself satisfied? The risen, exalted Jesus who sits at the right hand of God the Father on high.
[1:09] Well, according to our text this morning, he is. In Isaiah 53 verse 11, we read, The Lord Jesus, After he suffered, After he suffered, saw the light of life on the third day.
[1:40] He rose from the grave and is now satisfied in a way that we cannot even begin to imagine. If he, our Lord and Master, our Savior and friend is satisfied this Easter day, then what reason do we have to be any less satisfied?
[2:01] If he, to use our dictionary definition, has a pleasant feeling that he has received something he wanted and done something he wanted to do, then why should we be any less satisfied in what he has done for us, by suffering for us and by rising for us on the third day?
[2:21] No, indeed, if we shift the source of satisfaction away from ourselves and our world onto him, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, then we too can experience a kind of joy we have never had before.
[2:36] As we look at this text this morning, we learn that there are three things the risen and exalted Jesus is satisfied about today.
[2:49] First, he suffered well. Then he bore our sin. And third, he justified many. First, he suffered well.
[3:00] He suffered well. It has often been said that Isaiah might well have been painting his word portrait in Isaiah 53 from the foot of the cross of Jesus.
[3:14] Who can forget his haunting description of our Lord, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Surely as Isaiah looked up from the foot of the cross, he saw a Jesus who was filled with sorrow.
[3:29] And grief showed on his blessed face. Surely, though, the suffering which Isaiah saw our Lord enduring on the cross was but the tip of the iceberg.
[3:45] What Isaiah could not see was what our text calls the suffering of his soul. I love the way in which the King James Version, that version of scripture with which most of us grew up, describes this, the travail of his soul.
[4:04] Suffering. Travail. The soul of our Lord was crushed under the judgment of God. The oppressive and infinite wrath of God was poured out upon Jesus.
[4:19] And so the suffering we could see was only a tiny portion of the suffering we could not see, the suffering of his soul. I used to work, before I was a minister, for a large French materials company.
[4:37] On one occasion, I visited one of their mining factories just south of Paris in France. And at that mining factory, having extracted raw ores from the ground, they would pass them through what they called a pulveriser, or we would call a crusher.
[4:57] Great vices would pulverise the stones and turn them into dust. What once were huge rocks were now just dust. They had been crushed by the pulveriser.
[5:10] And when I'd watch that pulveriser in action, I'd get a strange feeling inside. My French colleagues would say to me, don't put your fingers in there. The noise of the rocks being broken up was deafening, and then out of the other side of the machine would come a conveyor belt of dust, which would then be transported to a different part of the factory.
[5:34] The cross on which Jesus died, and the sufferings of his soul. These were the pulveriser of our Lord, where he was crushed beyond human bearing, or mathematical calculation.
[5:49] Our good friend Colin Mackay used to tell me of a primitive form of pain measurement used in Glasgow hospitals.
[6:02] The doctor would ask the patient, how bad is the pain? Mild, medium, or murder polis? However, however pain used to be measured in Glasgow, there is no measurement sufficient for Jesus' pain.
[6:24] To use that word, travail, reminds us of childbirth, and yet even that, not that I've ever experienced it myself, you understand, does no justice to the pain of our Lord as his soul is crushed beneath the pulveriser of God's judgment for our sin.
[6:42] How vast the contrast between the suffering Jesus and the satisfied Jesus. How great the difference between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
[6:55] And one of the aspects in which Jesus looks with satisfaction is that he suffered well. We read in Isaiah 53, verse 7, He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.
[7:08] 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. Even as he's led to the cross, bound hand and foot and carrying the great weight of that cross upon his holy shoulders, even as he makes his way up the Via Dolorosa, the path of sorrows, he is silent and speaks only to give comfort to the sorrowing.
[7:36] And even as the Roman soldiers nail his hands and his feet to the cross, he does not open his mouth except to call out, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
[7:52] In verse 9, we read, He was assigned a grave with the wicked, with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. From the holy mouth of Jesus on the cross came no cursing or swearing, no calling down the judgment of God upon his executioners.
[8:12] Yes, he suffered well indeed. When even the darkness lay upon the earth and the wrath of God was crushing his soul, even while he was in hell, he expresses his dependence upon God and his love for his people.
[8:29] How great the suffering of Jesus! No man has ever suffered like unto him, because no man has ever had his soul crushed under the infinite weight of the sins of the world.
[8:45] The blood running down the forehead of Jesus from that crown of thorns was but a tiny fraction of the lifeblood of Jesus being poured out for us. And now as Jesus looks back from the right hand of the majesty on high, we say of him, he has done all things well.
[9:03] Yes, even he has suffered well. No one ever suffered like he did, yet without any kind of sin whatsoever. Suffering in its purest form if there is such a thing.
[9:17] And now from the throne of God in heaven, with the marks in his hands and at his side, he is satisfied with his sufferings. He could have suffered no less for us lest our sins would still stand against us.
[9:33] And he could have suffered no more for us because more suffering than he endured is not possible. Yes, although these two days are about two days apart, how great the difference between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
[9:51] One represents the infinite suffering of our Lord, the other the infinite satisfaction of our Lord. He has suffered well and in that he is satisfied and we are too because in his suffering we have salvation.
[10:10] And in the travail of his soul we have the assurance of forgiveness and hope for the future. He suffered well. Second source of his satisfaction is that he bore our sin.
[10:26] He bore our sin. The language of Jesus bearing our sin is found throughout the Bible from here in Isaiah 53 11 to 1 Peter 2 24 where we read he himself bore our sins on the tree.
[10:40] The word which the NIV translates as bear literally means to be loaded down with heavy burdens.
[10:52] It's used in other places in the Bible to refer to slave laborers toying under the heavy weight of rocks or oxen struggling to pull overloaded carts.
[11:05] There's our Lord on the cross. He is loaded down with the heaviest of burdens the iniquities of a world lost in sin and shame and he falls under the weight of the cross as he makes his way up to Golgotha via the Via Delosa.
[11:23] But was it the weight of the cross which caused him to stumble and fall or was it the weight of our sin on his shoulders? For what crime of his was Jesus being crucified as a criminal on the cross?
[11:39] Isaiah has already established he had done no violence nor was any deceit in his mouth. Verse 9 It was no sin of his own which condemned him to the death of the cross.
[11:52] He was not bearing his own personal sin on his shoulders he was bearing ours loaded down under the heavy weight of our guilt and iniquity. Like a laborer struggling under the heavy weight of the bricks he is forced to carry like a donkey stumbling and falling under the load it's masterless placed upon its back.
[12:12] So our Lord was laden down with the heaviest of all loads and he carried it to the cross every minute of the agony of Calvary another load of sin he bore it to the tree.
[12:28] All our sins all our iniquities all our transgressions. the Greek God Atlas is portrayed as carrying the planet earth on his shoulders muscle and strong he even he bends under the weight of the world.
[12:48] Had we eyes to see it we'd have seen an altogether heavier world on the shoulders of our Lord on the cross. We'd see the world of our sin our iniquities and our transgressions and all on the shoulders of this one man Jesus Christ as he hangs and dies for us to hear.
[13:09] The righteous servant of God dying for the unrighteous people of this world. But the satisfaction of the risen and exalted Christ is this.
[13:21] He bore the heaviest burden onto the cross. The iniquity of a rebellious and sinful world. But that's where he left it. He bore them onto the cross but he did not take them with him into glory.
[13:39] He dealt with them once and for all at Calvary. That heavy load which none of us could ever have carried. He carried it to the cross and he left it there. That load of my sin has been carried.
[13:53] That weight of my iniquity has been born and now it is no more. Christ died once for all to rid us of the condemnation of our sin and earn our forgiveness.
[14:13] John Bunyan, that famous English Puritan, knew only too well that Jesus had borne his sin. In his famous book The Pilgrim's Progress, he pictures a man who says to himself, I fear that this burden on my back will sink me lower than the grave.
[14:34] That burden was so great, the burden of his sin, that he said, I seek to be rid of this heavy burden but get it off myself I cannot. Nor is there any man in our country that can take it off my shoulders.
[14:48] At length as that man goes on in his journey, we read, he ran until he came to a place somewhat ascending and upon that place stood a cross and a little below a sepulcher.
[15:08] So I saw in my dream, Bunyan says, that just as Christian came up with the cross, his burden loosed from his shoulders and fell from his back, and began to tumble and continued so to do until it came to the mouth of the sepulcher when it fell in and I saw it no more.
[15:29] Bunyan then recounts how that joyful, unburdened man sang these words. Thus far have I come laden with my sin, nor could aught ease the grief that I was in till I came here.
[15:43] What a place this is. Must here be the beginning of my bliss. Must hear the burden fall off my back. Must hear the strings that bound it to me crack.
[15:57] Blessed cross, blessed sepulcher, blessed rather be the man that was there put to shame for me.
[16:07] the burden was that man's sin and at the cross Jesus took it away. As the great redemption hymn tells us, burdens are lifted at Calvary.
[16:22] how great the satisfaction of our Lord, that having borne our iniquities, he bears them no longer and neither do we. For having come down off the cross, our sins and guilt have been dealt with once for all.
[16:42] Are you today still bearing the burden of your own sin? Are you toiling under its heavy weight, sinking you lower than the grave? Come then to the Christ of Easter Sunday who was once for all dealt with sin by himself bearing it onto the cross.
[17:02] Then, as you come to the cross, the burden will fall from your shoulders and tumble away never to return. Christ is satisfied because he suffered well.
[17:18] He's satisfied because he bore our sin. And then thirdly and lastly, he is satisfied today because he justified many. He justified many.
[17:32] So here we have in Isaiah 53 verse 11, the prophet looking up at his Lord, amazed that one such as this one could suffer so terribly for the sins of the world.
[17:46] God. Isaiah in this verse also looks up into heaven and he stands amazed that such a one as this one could be satisfied with the people for whom he shed his blood.
[18:01] But he looks upon us with delight. You will notice in our text that Jesus is called my righteous servant, the righteous servant of a holy God who always acted righteously and kept the holy law of God at every point.
[18:20] Where we like sheep went astray, he kept going until the very end, loving God with all his heart and loving us.
[18:33] Could any ever accuse him of wrongdoing? Even the charges on which they convicted him were lies and deceit because Jesus is the only one to ever lived a fully upright, sin-free, love-filled life for the glory of God.
[18:52] He alone stands righteous before God and yet on that cross he becomes sin for us. He became all that was unrighteous in this world.
[19:06] He bore our equities onto that tree and so as we've said, all our sins have been taken away and the burden of them is gone. Banyan's heavy burden which caused them to sink lower than the grave, Jesus took it all away.
[19:27] He leaves us with a spring on our step. For the first time in our lives, that grief which our sin has brought us is gone. but you know, this is only half of the beauty of what our Saviour did for us on the cross.
[19:46] For there a great exchange, as Phil Stogner spoke about on Friday night, has taken place. Not only was our sin reckoned to his account so that our burden rests on his shoulders, but his perfect righteousness has been reckoned to our account.
[20:08] This is what it means to be justified, to be declared righteous in the eyes of God. Jesus was treated like we should have been treated. He was punished on account of our sin and guilt.
[20:22] We are now treated as Jesus should have been treated. We are counted righteous and declared the delight of the heart of God himself.
[20:34] We were not righteous before, anything but, but now the perfect law-keeping, love-filled, perfect righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ is reckoned to us.
[20:46] And God the Father, delighted in us all, declares to all heaven, earth, and hell, to all angels, men, and demons, have you seen my servants?
[21:00] that are none who are righteous like unto them. You could not be more delightful in the eyes of your heavenly Father than you already are, because when he looks at you, he sees the perfect image of his righteous servant, who on the cross exchanged our sin for his righteousness.
[21:28] Right? he has justified us. How great the satisfaction of our heavenly Lord Jesus, that even as he saw the light of life and looks upon his people from the throne of God, he sees purity and spotlessness holiness.
[21:48] He loved us and gave himself for us and now he has made us perfectly righteous in the eyes of God. Consider then with me the great satisfaction of Christ.
[22:01] He has done all these things. The greatest two cries of satisfaction the world ever heard are first the cry of Jesus from the cross.
[22:14] It is finished. And secondly, the cry of those who were the first to discover his resurrection. He is risen.
[22:28] According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, satisfaction is a pleasant feeling that you get when you receive something you wanted or when you've done something you wanted to do.
[22:39] by any definition, on the throne of heaven, the risen exalted Jesus is satisfied with his work. But what about us today?
[22:55] How shall the joy and satisfaction of Easter become ours? How shall we also on this Easter Sunday when because of the coronavirus we don't have our loved ones around us, how can we be satisfied and have these pleasant feelings?
[23:13] Isaiah answers halfway through verse 11 by his knowledge or as many Bible commentators choose to read it, by the knowledge of him.
[23:27] To know Jesus Christ, that's how his satisfaction becomes ours. To believe that he is the one who has suffered well, who was born our sin and has justified many.
[23:43] There's room for you here alongside Isaiah and the Christian and the pilgrim's progress at the foot of the cross and at the head of the empty tomb.
[23:55] There are many whom Jesus has justified. Isaiah is there and John Bunyan is there and hundreds of millions of others today who have trusted in Jesus for salvation.
[24:11] Now shall you come also and learn perhaps for the first ever time what it means to be truly satisfied. Let us pray.
[24:23] Lord, we thank you that Jesus could not be more satisfied than he is today. Satisfied with how well he suffered and how he has borne our sin and how he has justified many.
[24:44] We thank you also that we have a Lord in heaven who as well as could be no more satisfied than he is today, could be no more sympathetic than he is today. So we pray that you would help us to go to him to find grace and mercy to help in time of need.
[25:02] Help us, O Lord, to know him by believing and trusting in him. Amen. This evening we're going to be looking at perhaps the most famous passage in the book of James, James 1, 22 through 25.
[25:18] Do not merely listen to the word but do it also. So what better way to begin and end the Lord's day than with the worship of God? Half past six, you can get it on this site.
[25:30] We're going to close now as we sing together, Lo in the grave he lay, Jesus my Saviour, waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord.
[25:41] Lo in the grave he lay, Jesus my my Saviour, waiting the coming day, Jesus my Lord.
[26:02] Up from the grave he arose, with a mighty triumphal his own. He arose a winter from the dawn of the wind, and he lives forever with his saints to reign.
[26:20] He arose, he arose, hallelujah, Christ arose. in He gold.
[26:36] He served Jesus my Saviour, he sounded кровậdrink, came himphrase his hand, Jesus my Lord.
[26:54] leurино is christ Death cannot keep his prey, Jesus my Saviour, We to the world obey, Jesus my Lord.
[27:44] Come from the grave he arose, With a mighty shine upon his own voice. He arose, our winter, from the dark adorned, And he lives forever with his saints to bring.
[28:02] He arose, he arose, Alleluia, Christ our Lord.
[28:19] Go in peace to love, serve and be satisfied in the Lord. And now may grace, mercy and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, One true and living God, Rest with each one of you, now and always.
[28:37] Amen.