DEC 4 2022 | Isaiah: Messiah S1E3 | Pain That Brings Peace

Sea Change Church · DEC 4 2022 | Isaiah’S Messiah | Episode 3: Pain That Brings Peace
Isaiah 53:4-5
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

isn't there? Isn't that what you want? How do people seek and practice peace today? Like maybe in San Diego, yoga stuff. Yoga, I've gone for stretching. I have a bad back, but at the end, they'll say, what do they say? They say different stuff, but I don't know, namaste or yom or whatever they do. And I always do the sign of the cross. I go, right here. I'm doing this. I'm claiming this session for the Lord. But they, in the Yogini world, they're trying to find peace within or peace from a force or peace from the universe. They're searching for peace. Have you guys heard of neuro-linguistic programming, NLP? Tony Robbins is a great guy, but I went to this conference for a week and they've really tapped into some really profound truths. But their whole thing is trying to rid your thought systems of negativity and only speak positivity to get the results that you want.

And some of that is really good, but that doesn't mean it's going to get you salvation with God in the next world and give you the true peace that only God can give you. Actually, I'm kind of negative and I need to do some of that more. I must admit it. But it doesn't give the true peace. There's a peace problem, though. No matter what we do, no matter what songs, no matter what treaties we make, no matter what yoga poses we do or not do, probably get a letter about that later, there is a peace problem. And the peace problem is we don't have peace with God. We want the peace of God without peace with God that created us. And if you think of the beginning, there was peace.

In Genesis, we used to be blessed by God with the first man and the first woman, our representatives, Adam and Eve. So God created man and woman in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. And God blessed them. He blessed us. We were in them with peace at the beginning. And what type of peace? They were in a garden. He walked among them. They had peace with the animals. They were naked somehow. There's no weather issues, I guess, back then. You know, there was just peace. Holistically, shalom, no death. And isn't that the cry of our heart? We want to get back to the garden of peace with nature, with God, with each other. No shame, no pain. But there was one condition. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, you must surely, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You shall not eat on that day you eat. You shall die.

You shall die. And a lot of people know the story. They did that one thing that they weren't supposed to do. And I'm sure we would have all done the same thing. That's what I would have. And death fell upon the land to where later in the story, in verse 8, they ate, they were naked, they put, you know, tried to hide their shame. And then it said, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the cool of the garden. Isn't that cool? Like God walking in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves. And the beginning of death begins. The beginning of non-peace with God begins.

You ever hidden from God? You ever want to hide from God? It's because of the fall of sin. They hid themselves from the presence of the Lord from among the trees of the garden. But the Lord called out to the man and said, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid. You've been afraid of God. That's not the way it was supposed to be. It's the way it is after the fall, but it's not the way it was supposed to be. And I was afraid because I was naked. I hid myself.

So the war begins between us and God, in a sense. Image bearers made in God's image. But because we sinned in Adam, we're born in sin and we're naked. We're afraid. We doubt his word. Right off the bat, they don't trust his voice. Then they hide. Then they're afraid. Naked in shame. Then when God starts talking to the man, he blames God for giving him the woman. You ever blamed anybody for your own sin? I'm just prodding around here. You know, there's going to be pain and childbearing. There's going to be conflict between the man and the woman, the desire for control that he's going to rule over with nastiness. There's thorns and thistles, and then they're banished from the garden. The power of sin is real. The presence of sin is real. And the penalty of sin is real, robbing humanity of true peace. I'll get to good news in a little bit. And in Ephesians, you know, the Bible is so God's word because this stuff that I could never make up. And when I read this stuff to you, it's so weighty with God's holiness. And God's interpretation by the Holy Spirit through Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2 says, and you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among them, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. I don't know if you've read or heard that lately.

It's not very positive. And we're in a very positive world now that you can only speak positive things, you know. But God is a God of love. He created us to be in a garden with him in fellowship. We sinned. And because God is so holy, death must be dealt with, physical death and spiritual death. So is there any hope? I think a lot of us outside the church or maybe inside the church, we think when we're born and we're going to face death that I'm going to be good. It's going to be good.

I'm a good person. I'm going to end up having peace with God in the other world. I'm going to, even now, I have peace with God. There's something about my own works and my own righteousness that is good enough. But God is holy. And he says through his word that nobody is good enough. We need another representative that is the second Adam that is completely holy, the perfect human, the perfect God to step into our story, to earn righteousness before God, to obey in that garden when he said, don't do this and take on that penalty. I remember when I was in Ecuador just this summer and you ever been to a different country and trying to get to a hotel and trying to get your Airbnb and you can't get in and you don't know the phone numbers, you're stuck. And my friends, my new friends were behind the gate. It was a gated community because there's kind of some stuff that happens in Ecuador. It's a gate guard. They have guns. I'm like, hey, I'm trying to go to number 54.

They're like, your name's not on the list. I'm like, yeah, but she's my friend. Can you call her? You know, they're calling, not getting through. It's me and my buddy Nick are just waiting there, just waiting there. Eventually they had to come out and say, yes, we know. I'm going to say, yeah, we know the gringos. Let's let them bring them in and beside the gate. And the thing is, I didn't have access to just on my own strength to get into that community. I was locked out of the community. There was a guard with guns with the community. I'd have somebody come from within the safe walls out to me to talk to the authorities and bring me into the city in a sense or the community. And that's what Jesus does with us. It says that he is the second Adam. I'm going to read in Scripture out of Romans. The free gift is not like the trespass. If many died through one man's trespass, how much more the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abound for many. The free gift is not like the result of one man's sin, for judgment followed one trespass brought condemnation. But the free gift following many transgressions brought justification. For if, because one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through that one man, Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men. For by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. So by one man's obedience, many will be made righteous. Adam was our first representative.

He didn't know what's right. Sin fell to us, and therefore the penalty of sin. Jesus steps into the world. He is our new representative head. And what did he do to attain righteousness, to please God the Father, to give us access to peace, to get into God's home or city or heaven? Well, he suffered. The Day of Atonement in Leviticus says there's a sacrificial system in Israel on one day, and I forget the month, you know, somebody else, I'm not a big Jewish historian guy, but in one day they would come and they would bring a scapegoat and another goat to the priest. And one goat would have to be slain with blood, and there'd be blood just sprinkled all over the place to represent this. This goat is dying in a place for all of you, Israel. And then the other goat would come, and I'm going to read it for you, but they would confess the sins symbolically over this scapegoat, and then that scapegoat would be left into the wilderness, representing that our sins were placed on this goat, and then that goat went off into the wilderness, never to be found. And that is foreshadowing the good news that all of our sins would be placed on Jesus. He would be slain, and then God would forgive our sins forever, and we could have peace with him. Let me read this. And when he has made the end for the atoning of the holy place in the tent of the meeting, the altar, he'll present the live goat. And Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess all the iniquities of the people of Israel and all their transgressions and all their sins. And he'll put them on the head of the goat and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all the iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go free in the wilderness.

And then Isaiah 53, the passage. Surely he has born...see the similarities from what I just read to this passage. Surely he has borne our griefs. He's carried our sorrows. We esteemed him stricken by God, smitten by God, afflicted. He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds, we are healed.

We've all heard the story, I think. But we're trying to get deeper into the story. All your sins literally were placed on Jesus. The symbol is, there's multiple angles and multiple symbols here. One, it says he was crushed for our iniquities. And in Hebrews, it says sin is weighty. If you think about all the sins just you've committed, and let's say you did one sin every day, and I don't know how long you're living. Each one of those sins was a pound, you know. And then you put, I don't know what it is, 10,000 pounds at the end of your life on Jesus versus on yourself.

That alone would crush him. But imagine the weight of sin of the entire world crushing our Savior. But it was the Lord's will to crush him. And he was also slain before the foundation of the world. It was all part of the plan. He was crushed so that you would not have to be crushed. He bore our griefs. He carried our sorrows. Jesus is a compassionate God. He experienced everything that we experience. And when I grew up, I grew up doing construction. And my dad would have me stack two by fours, you know, and take them from over here and take them over there. And then sometimes I, when I got stronger, I got up to four by fours. And then I'd have a contest, you know, how many four by fours and two by sixes I could bring, you know, like over. And I was carrying that wood back and forth, over and over. And Jesus not only carried our sins on himself, but he carried our sorrows.

Some of you don't think you can take your sorrow to God. Like God's far away. He's distant. But Jesus was acquainted with sorrows. And there's sorrows, I think, that you're holding on to right now. I was thinking about this. Some of us hold on to sorrows for another person, like for a family member or a loved one or a friend. And God's not asking you to carry those sorrows. It's one thing to love them, but you don't need to carry those sorrows when he's carried the sorrows of the entire world.

You would just point them to him, the man that carried the sorrows. He was afflicted. He was pierced. He was crushed. And when he was crushed, the work was accomplished. He took all the anger and wrath of God so that God would be satisfied and there could be peace. But peace must be received. Peace must be received. Galatians 3 says, If the law that had been given could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. Jesus stepped into the story, was the perfect Adam, was the perfect human.

He was the perfect sacrifice, attaining righteousness, obeying the Ten Commandments, obeying the Father of glory, so that when he went on that cross, symbol of the cross right there, he was crushed by the weight of our sin. He was pierced for our transgressions. But God proactively poured out his wrath on his own son instead of us. And how do we have so that righteousness would be accomplished and finished? Salvation would be earned. And he did this because of love for God so loved the world. But how do you have access to this painful peace, this peace brought on by pain? How do you have access? Is it by doing good? Is it by works?

I was having a, I don't know, not a panic attack, but it was day before my birthday, you know, getting older isn't very fun all the time, you know. And I think, and I was going into the doctor, and then I think I had to give a talk to my group, and I just had a lot of nervousness. And I could not, I couldn't lift it, you know. God, help me, help me. Nothing happened. You know, I'd even read, I'd try to read the scripture, it'd ping off me. And then I put in a sermon, like two sermons by a couple of my favorite guys, and I listened to that I'm saved by grace through faith, not in my own works. And it, I don't, I was like, it, a flood, flood of peace came over me. It took about 30 minutes. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I've been approaching God by my works. He calls us to works after we have faith in Christ. But I put my identity and his smile on my face according to the way I think, the way I feel, what I do, and what I haven't done. And as a result, that almost becomes like a curse. Because what's the line of how good I have to do to please God? Only Jesus was the one that was perfectly good. And he says, if you receive Jesus by faith, through his grace, you can be saved. You can have peace. And that peace that comes to you is given by the Holy Spirit. Jesus says in John 3, you must be born again to see the kingdom of heaven.

You must be born again to enter the kingdom of heaven. And when you believe, whatever that mystery is, there's mysteries. Like does the Holy Spirit come right before faith at the same time after? The Holy Spirit comes into you when you believe and gives you the peace of God. And your guilt, your shame, your pain, all that stuff is transferred into Jesus's account and placed on him. And all of his righteousness, all of his peace is transferred to your account. There's like a double imputation. His righteousness transferred credit to you. Your guilt, shame, transferred credit to him to where you have peace with God. Do you believe today, oh Jesus follower, that you have peace with God? We only have peace with God through Christ. And you can just say it, yeah. You just say that really flippantly. But is it in your guts? Is it in the deep parts of your soul?

You know like a waffle, just waffle came into my brain. Like waffle, you know, crispy waffle. And you melt the butter and it has all the little holes, whatever, chambers, you know. I like to pour the butter in all the chambers of the waffle. And imagine the inside of us, like, this is just what came into my mind. Like chambers of a waffle, just all these different parts. Like, oh, I got, I have peace with God in my finances. I have peace with God in my, um, in my work. But I don't have peace with God with the, my, my child.

I don't have my child's walking with the Lord. I don't have peace with my wife right now. Like, there's all these chambers that, of non-peace that we hold on to that can rob us of the true peace that we have with God the Father. And if we interpret all of reality, that we have peace with God the Father through the Son, everything just, I don't know, normalizes and becomes into perspective. Do you have peace with God?

Have you received Jesus? Peace also must be practiced. Peace also must be practiced. There was a problem with peace. Pain came and brought peace through Christ. Peace must be received, and then it must be practiced. Peace. Do you understand you have peace with God? Romans 5 says, therefore, we have been justified through faith, and we have peace with God. If you have faith in Jesus right now, on the count of three, I want you to say, I have peace with God. One, two, three.

On the count of three, I want you to say that again. One, two, three. If we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God. If you don't realize that and water your brain with you, you're going to go mental. You're going to be in a mental asylum spiritually. And I struggle with this too. Christians, we need to assure each other that when we put our faith alone in the Lord Jesus, we do have peace with God the Father. You can't do anything by your works to earn His favor. But what we do is we start living like Galatians where we began with the Spirit, but now we're trying to put on our works and thinking that's going to make God smile more.

But yet, true faith is not dead, and it produces works. I don't want you to hear that. Obviously, God cares about works. He cares about obedience. But if you flip the train the wrong way, for you guys, some of you guys know, some of you guys are really hard on yourselves. There's some that are pretty hard on yourselves. You just work harder, you know, this and that.

And you bring them, smuggle that into your relationship with God. When you put your faith in God, not only are you justified, but you're adopted into the family, I believe forever. Forever. Understand you have peace with God. Albert Einstein, peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. The more we look through Scripture about our God, it'll just make...

When you realize you have peace with God, it's eternal smiles all the time. I have it right now. Hopefully it comes tomorrow too. But you got to feast on that peace. Understand. Walk in peace with others. Peace is a journey of a thousand miles, and it must be taken one step at a time. Lyndon B. Johnson. Are you a peacemaker? Hebrews says, Make every effort to live in peace with everybody.

Second Corinthians says, Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice. Live in peace, and God's love and peace will be with you. If we have peace with God, why are we letting our wrath and anger overflow onto the people we love? Why are we letting our wrath and anger flow into the people in our community when we don't get the parking spot or get the wave or get whatever?

You know, our cappuccinos made a little bit different. Like, we got a bunch of little agitated kind of Christians walking around here, you know? And I think it's because, you know, this is real to me, right? What I can touch is real to me. What I can see is real to me. But the realm of faith can only be accessed by reading Scripture and meditating on what God says by the Holy Spirit and then put into practice.

It's not always easy. And we need to strive to be peacemakers. I mean, the world is at war right now ideologically and all these different stuff. And I don't think it's going to get much better, you know, but it can only get better by God's grace through his people being peacemakers wherever they go. And it starts with us. I think that's why God's so serious.

When we don't forgive our brothers and sisters, like, if we can't love each other and forgive each other, the outside world is going to be like, you smell a little. I don't want to come into your house, you know? Well, if we can't work on being peaceful with one another, it's not going to be as beautiful to the outside non-believing world that wants to come in.

Then last, mentally we need to fight for that peace. We need to try to understand. We need to fight for it. Eleanor Roosevelt said, it's not enough to talk about peace. One must believe it. And it isn't enough to believe it. One must work at it. Second Corinthians 10 says, we demolish strongholds and arguments and everything that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.

And we take every thought captive. Let us take all thoughts captive for Christ. And then in closing, there's another song that I wish I could sing by Cat Stevens. And it's called, The Peace Train. Anybody heard of The Peace Train? That was probably too sudden. All right. Back in the day. Now, I've been happy lately. There's a future peace that people long for, right?

The new heavens, the new earth. Non-believing world, believing where we all long for someplace better. Cat Stevens in the 70s saying, now I've been happy lately, thinking about the good things to come. And I believe it could be something good has begun. Oh, I've been smiling lately, dreaming about the world as one. And I believe it could be someday if it's going to come.

Because out on the edge of darkness, there rides a peace train. And, oh, peace train, take this country. Take me home again. Wouldn't it be rad to have a peace train with all the nations getting along? With even all the states getting along and all the cities getting along, leading to the highway of our God? But the only way this gets realized is in the new heavens and new earth.

In Revelation 22, at the end of the world, it says, The angel showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and from the Lamb. And down the middle of the great street of the city, on each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

In the passage of Isaiah, it says, His wounds brought us peace. By His wounds, we are healed. And His healing, His peace is for the world. Will you believe and step into this peace? We pray. Father God, we could speak forever about You. We gather every Sunday to talk about You and Your Son and the Holy Spirit. And I just ask that Your Word didn't return void.

And we just ask that anybody here who doesn't have peace, the salvation peace, that they get curious. They ask the Lord Jesus to come into them and give them peace with You, God the Father. And then also for people that have already believed in You, Jesus, where they don't have peace, they struggle with anxiety, fear, worry, that they appropriate the true peace that Jesus has already earned for us.

And it helps interpret all of reality. We love You and praise You. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Well, now I'm going to lead you guys in communion. And if I can get my Bible, which is below me. There should be elements in front of you. Sometimes that top part is hard to peel off. Yeah. So I'm going to read out of 1 Corinthians 11. One, Jesus gave a physical sign for those who have put saving faith in Him.

A sign of peace. And this is for the church throughout all time. It spans all across the world. For those who have put... I'm going to read, so I don't take it yet. But for those who have accepted... Finished in 30 minutes. For those who have accepted the Lord Jesus, this meal is for you. Because it's a family meal. For those who have not accepted the Lord Jesus, this is not a meal for you.

No judgment. We can talk to the prayer team after. But this is for people that are part of the family. Let me read. For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you. That the Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, took bread. And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

So people of God, if you want to take the bread, and let's eat it together. In the same way, after the supper, He took the cup, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink in remembrance of me. Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until He comes. But there's also a little bit of a warning.

Therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, he'll be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats the bread and drinks the cup. Maybe I should have read that sooner. We're saved by His grace. That's good. But the point is, this is a very reverent, deep symbol.

It's for the people of God. And if there's unforgiveness you have towards somebody, or there's some gnarly thing you need to confess, maybe you need to confess it before the Lord, before you take it. But this drink is for all those who love Jesus, who need His blood. Let us drink together. Let's drink together. God, take these signs and symbols of your broken body and your shed blood for all who believe.

Implant them deeper into our hearts, into our minds, and help us know we are part. We're sinners. We're image bearers that are sinners, and we need a Savior. All of us who take that meal realize our works don't gain us peace with you. Only Jesus works. Now let's live out of those works. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for pursuing us, never giving up on us.

We all have somebody, Lord, that it's hard to live with or be around. But help us practice being peacekeepers with them. There's people out in the world that, you know, it's a crazy, crazy world out there. And the minute we can step out of this building, it can be hard to continue to keep peace. But help us, Jesus, you came and suffered in all different levels.

Help us take a posture of patient peace and suffering so we can be a better witness in this world. And be willing to not always give our rights, get our rights when we want them. Because you didn't. Lord, we love you and we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. If you guys want to stand and symbolically, if you want to put out your hands or not, I'm going to try to give you a blessing.

I have no power in myself, but it's part of our tradition. May you always have peace with the Father. May you know you have peace of the Savior. And may you always feel the peace of the Holy Spirit. Go God's church.