Who Has Believed Our Report

In one paragraph

Pastor Karl worked through two of Isaiah's servant songs, Isaiah 50 and Isaiah 53, showing how they describe the life, suffering, and vindication of Jesus in precise detail written roughly seven hundred years before the events took place. He pressed the congregation on a single question that runs through both chapters: who has believed this report? The answer, he said, makes all the difference....

Read together

1. Isaiah 50:4-11 main sermon text, the servant song read and expounded at length
2. Isaiah 52:13-53:12 main sermon text, the suffering servant passage read and expounded at length
3. Isaiah 42 mentioned as an earlier servant song already covered in the series
4. Isaiah 49 mentioned as a continuing servant song already covered in the series
5. Luke 2:8-11 read aloud by the Daltons for the third Sunday of Advent
6. Luke 9:51 cited as a callback to Isaiah setting his face like flint, the turning point in Luke
7. 1 Peter 2 quoted to show Peter drawing on Isaiah: Christ suffered leaving an example, committed no sin, bore our sins on the tree
8. Nehemiah 4:14 cited as the basis for the Fight Club men's ministry program
9. Mark 15 cited to show Jesus was numbered with the transgressors, two robbers crucified with him
10. Philippians 2 referenced to show Christ did not grasp equality with God but took the nature of a servant
11. Romans 3 quoted at length: no one righteous, all under the power of sin, no one seeks God
12. Romans 8:1-4 read aloud as a closing benediction: no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus
13. Jude 24-25 read aloud as a closing doxology: God able to keep you from stumbling and present you blameless
14. 1 Timothy 1:15 quoted as a trustworthy saying: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners

Talk about it

1. Pastor Karl read from Isaiah 50 that God awakened the servant morning by morning to hear. What does it look like practically for you to set aside time to be reoriented by God's word at the start of your day, and what gets in the way of that?
2. The sermon pointed out that the people of Israel were expecting a military conqueror and largely missed the suffering servant passages as a result. In what ways do you think we today come to God with a fixed picture of what He should do, and how might that cause us to miss what He is actually doing?
3. Pastor Karl said that when Jesus was being nailed to the cross He was praying for forgiveness for the men holding the hammer. What does that kind of response to suffering and injustice look like in ordinary life, and where do you find it hardest to imitate?
4. Isaiah 53 was written roughly seven hundred years before the events it describes, and the sermon pressed the question 'who has believed our report?' What has it taken, or what is it still taking, for you personally to trust that report?
5. The sermon closed with two options from Isaiah 50: trust in the name of the Lord, or walk in the light of your own fire and lie down in torment. Where in your life right now are you most tempted to kindle your own fire rather than rely on God, and what would it mean to hand that over?