The sermon titled 'He Opened Not His Mouth' by Scott Brown explores the profound submission and silence of Jesus Christ during his trials and crucifixion as depicted in Isaiah 52 and 53. It delves into the concept of substitutionary atonement, emphasizing how Christ's silent suffering and obedience serve as a countercultural example in a world that despises submission. The sermon highlights the contrast between Jesus' submission and the human tendency towards independence and rebellion, portraying Christ's actions as a reflection of true power and divine purpose. Brown applies these themes to the Christian life, urging believers to reflect on their own submission to authority and the implications of Christ's sacrifice. The sermon concludes by encouraging both non-Christians to repent and embrace Christ's righteousness, and Christians to find joy in the freedom and peace offered through Jesus' atonement, while also applying his example to their daily lives.

Isaiah 52, 13, behold, my servant shall deal prudently. He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so his visage was marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. So shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at him, for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider.

Who has believed our report and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed for he shall grow up before him as a tender plant and as a root out of dry ground he has no form or comeliness and when we see him there is no beauty that we should desire him He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, Yet we esteemed him, stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, and he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement for our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed.

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. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its sheers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation?

For he was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people he was stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleads the Lord to bruise him. He has put himself to grief.

When you make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied. By his knowledge my righteous servant shall justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for blessing us with another Sabbath day, the day of rest.

I pray that you would be with us now as we prepare to hear your word preached, that you would humble us and soften our hearts, that you would make us lovers of righteousness, that we would be willing to submit to your will and be obedient servants. In Christ's name, amen. As we're gathered here in this comfortable, air-conditioned, pleasant place, we, through Isaiah, are being transported, transported directly to the foot of the cross. We find ourselves in the midst of the suffering of Jesus Christ. He's undergone six trials.

He's been beaten. And now he's seen, in this passage anyway, he is seen between two criminals, you know, indelibly identified with criminals of all things. The Son of God identified with criminals and this is the heart of this matter here in verses seven through nine. Now, as he is with these criminals, as he is identified there, he has a certain way about him. He is submitting to authority.

And this is the heart of the matter. If you see the overall outline of Isaiah 53, you'll see these five sections. And we're here in the fourth section now. The first section focused on his unexpected exaltation and success from verses 13 through 15 in chapter 52. And then secondly, his misunderstood humiliation and rejection in chapter 53, 1 through 3.

And then as we covered last week, the third, His suffering, verses 4 through 6, and the fourth section is His submission, verses 7 through 9. We'll focus all of our attention on these verses here. And you know, we're talking about submission of the Son of God here, and it should immediately come to our minds how our culture despises submission to authority. And this is exactly what we find the Son of God engaged in. And Isaiah has been making the same argument in verse after verse in Isaiah 53 that the humility and the degradation of the Son of God, his identification with sinners, his being slapped around and dishonored and hated and even abandoned by his own family and even his own disciples that this is not a sign that he's not the Messiah because people looked at his humiliation and his degradation, his being manipulated by the government, manipulated by everyone around him, and actually being submissive to them.

People look at that and they say, who could believe this is the Son of God? How could this be the Savior of the world? Look at him. He's despised, he's rejected, he's beaten up. You can hardly recognize him.

He's been flogged on all sides of his body, including his face. How could this possibly be? If he was God, he could call down legions of angels to destroy these people. So Isaiah is proving in chapter 53 that his humiliation is a sign that he is the Son of God and has all power rather than that he does not. The Jews wanted a powerful king, they wanted a political savior, but the Lord Jesus Christ just didn't look like that at all.

He didn't look like the visions of success that everybody is looking for. He wasn't glorified in the same way that man wants to be glorified. And so they wanted this successful knight in shining armor king riding into town with pomp and circumstance, he having having it all and they didn't see that. But God sent his son veiled in flesh and taking on the form of a man. And in his sufferings, he's veiling his glory in the same way that his glory was veiled in his human flesh, his human nature, because he was both God and man, a miracle that no one can really explain quite well and he veils his glory in his sufferings we talked about that last time now we see how he veils his glory in his submission and he puts on a disguise as one who is submissive in order to teach the world something about their sins.

Now the behavior of the Lord Jesus Christ the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords is about as Countercultural as you can get it's pretty much a contradiction to the whole success culture that we live in today You know doing the will of someone else is looked down in our society. If a wife does the will of her husband, she's called a slave. If a man does the will of his neighbor, you know, he's called a wimp. If a child obeys his parents, it's like a human rights violation. Submission is really undervalued in our culture today.

And we see this, what looks to be an extreme expression of submission. You know, in America you question authority, you do your own thing, you let it go if it feels good, do it, you fulfill yourself, you find yourself, you do your own will. This is the American dream. And so what we find in the Lord Jesus Christ is something completely contradictory to the whole visage of success and accomplishment. And His submission, however, points to our greatest sin, our craving for independence.

This was the first sin of Eve in the Garden of Eden. She wanted a voice better than God. She wanted a knowledge wiser than God. She wanted something cooler than God. This is what we desire.

And we think we can get it by our own way. Now, as we sort of move toward working our way through this text, I want us to think about our independence. I want us to think about our lack of submission to authority. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered for all the ways that we've rebelled against authority. And here we find him in his last times taking the sin of mankind.

And this sin that he is taking upon himself is the sin of rebellion against God of independence of wanting to do your own way to go to do your own will to be your own person rather than to lose your life in Jesus Christ Himself. And you might think of suffering, your suffering. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered for our rebellion, for our lack of submission. But let me ask you this. What have you suffered as a result of your independence?

Has there been a financial impact on your ungodly independence? Has there been a marriage impact on your independence? Has there been an impact on your faithfulness as a father as a result of your independence? As a child, has there been an impact of your dishonor toward your parents? How has it affected you?

As an employee, has there been an impact of your independence on your job and your success there. Or as a church member, what has been the impact of your independence on the church? On your own acquisition of wisdom, on the attitudes that you have toward the people in the congregation, or the attitudes that you spread in the congregation, what is the impact of your independence? Because the Lord Jesus Christ has given himself as the dependent son who does the will of his father. He only does what he sees his father doing and he only says what he hears his father saying.

And this is a picture of the humble submission of Jesus Christ that is designed to teach us about the way of life. The submission of Christ points to the sins of the tongue committed, and the submission of Christ points to the knee-jerk reactions that we've had in our times of stress or humiliation. The submission of Christ points to the deceit in the heart that gets aggravated by the trouble that we find ourselves in or the disappointments that are there. But this is not the message of the Lord Jesus Christ that He communicates here at the climax of His ministry. He is supremely dependent upon His Father.

He always does the will of his Father. And he suffered and died for all those who do not always do the will of their Father. For those who have believed in his name and have repented of that great sin of independence. He has suffered for every act of independence from the time you were a little baby, because when you were born, you were exercising your independence. Have you ever seen a baby arch its back when you're trying to change its diaper?

Independence starts very early. We are born in sin. We have a sin nature. And so everything that we've ever ever done has been tainted with this sin of independence And so it's absolutely gigantic and it's covered every part of our lives even after you turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and you repent of your sins and You desire that He would be your righteousness and you want to follow Him with all your heart, you still struggle with your independence. And your whole Christian life is learning how to sweetly comply, to do the things that are so much better for you than the things that you want for yourself.

And our whole Christian life really is defined by what the Lord Jesus Christ said in the garden, not by will but thine be done. And so this is the whole matter of our struggle as Christians and for those who do not know and love the Lord Jesus Christ then it should be a warning it should be a wake-up call of the wrath of God that will be falling down upon your head if you don't turn to Jesus Christ for his righteousness. If you don't trust his righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ was always obedient. He never broke a single law of his father.

He always did the will of his Father. And he stands as our substitute. This is the whole doctrine of the substitutionary atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. So Now in this passage we turn to Christ's submission, how he willingly entered into these sufferings. He was delighting to do the will of his Father.

He was not rebellious and so he was obedient. Now if you look back to verse 6, this is in contrast. What we just read in verse 6, we covered last week, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. That's us.

Now we turn to Christ. He's not that way. He is not a stray. He doesn't go his own way at all. He goes the way of his Father.

So this brings up so many areas of our own lives that we struggle with even today. And the troubles that we have with submission and rebellion to our parents, our employers, our governments, and various things like that. You know, David said it so well. Remember not the sins of my youth. He said that in Psalm 25 verse 7.

There are sins of youth regarding rebellion, and there are sins of rebellion in adults as well. And so when you look at the suffering of Jesus Christ in his submission, don't make it an intellectual category that doesn't apply to you, that It's just something that happened. It's a theological category. It's far more than that. It's really designed to reach into the deepest part of your soul, to touch every rebellious cord in your spirit, to put the finger in the wound, and to remind you the greatness of your sins and the greatness of Jesus Christ's righteousness who has taken the punishment for all of your sins of rebellion, of independence.

Okay, let's move into the passage here. Verse 7. I have three areas of his submission outlined here that correspond with each verse that we're covering here this morning. First of all, he was submissive though oppressed and afflicted. He was oppressed and he was afflicted.

And here you notice the greatness of his sufferings and he there is this oppression. These words express the enormity of our sins in the punishment of laid on the Lord Jesus Christ the the oppression and the affliction was our sin and and so they express the the various forms of independence that have created our rage, our filthiness, whatever it might be. The filthiness of our sins were the oppressions and the afflictions upon the Lord Jesus Christ which made him sweat blood and which made him say, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And so an appropriate question might be to ask is how should we have been oppressed for our sins? How should we have been afflicted for our sins of independence?

How much blood should We have sweat for our own sins. But he willingly took on these afflictions and these oppressions. He voluntarily received the blows. He was a volunteer submitting himself. He could have escaped the sufferings.

You know, there were times in his ministry when he would just disappear through the crowd. He could have done anything he wanted, but he willingly entered into these sufferings. He said in Psalm 40, verses six through eight, I delight to do thy will. In his love he entered into the sufferings that we deserve. And there are two illustrations that he gives to this, about this, that demonstrate the depths of his willingness.

And the first is the lamb led to slaughter. You see that there in verse 7? He was led as a lamb to the slaughter. The second illustration that he gives is the sheep before it shears who is silent. Now both illustrations give different sides of how he did not open his mouth, how he was submissive, how he was perfectly compliant to the will of God.

So these two illustrations are meant to show us two things. First of all about our sins and then how we ought to respond. And so first of all we see that he opened not his mouth, he was led as a lamb to the slaughter. And here In this verse we find the exact phrase That the Ethiopian eunuch was reading when Philip went to his chariot in Acts chapter 8. He was reading this verse and Philip came upon him and He said do you understand what you're reading?

He said, no, I don't. Can someone explain it to me? And then he preached Jesus to him. And he opened the whole doctrine of substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ, that Jesus Christ suffered for his sins. So the first illustration of Christ's willingness is this lamb led to the slaughter and it picks up imagery that goes way way back perhaps Perhaps even to the sacrifices of Cain and Abel in the earliest days, to the Passover lamb in Exodus chapter 12, to Exodus 29, 38, where God's people are called to offer two lambs daily for their sins.

It takes us to John chapter 1 verse 29 where where John the Apostle saw the Lord Jesus Christ walking toward him, and he said to him, Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. The Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. And here in this passage you see how in his humbling himself in submission to his father, He was taking away the sins of rebellion of the world, the insolence, the rejection of the will of God. In 1 Peter chapter 1, we read that we were saved with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. This is the first picture.

It's a lamb being led to the slaughter and He doesn't cry out when he's unjustly punished. And he's meek in that sense. He was not guilty and he did not resist. You know, when he was there at his trial, six trials, the Lord Jesus Christ didn't cry out, objection, objection. If he had cried out objection, if he had diverted his path of obedience to his Father, the sins of the world would fall upon all sinners.

But he didn't object. He absorbed our sin in his own body. He wasn't guilty, but he didn't resist. The second illustration that Isaiah gives of Christ's submission is the sheep before its shears. And those of you who have ever seen sheep being shorn, you know that they don't make any noise.

I actually, in previous to this sermon, have consulted with our chief sheep shearer in the church who has shorn many of different kinds of animals but he says this is a picture of complete submission and to shear a sheep you lift his legs off the ground and once its feet are off the ground it acts almost helpless. He says watch any sheep shearing videos on YouTube and you'll notice that even as the sheep are being manhandled, once they are in position they never really complain. And there really is no better picture of meekness and helplessness than submission to authority. So imagine that, a sheep, completely calm before its shearer. Completely calm before its shearer.

You know, Ephesians 5 says that Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. The Lord Jesus himself in John 10 said, 10, 17, and 18, therefore my father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from my Father.

This is the complete submission of the Son of God taking the punishment of all of the lack of submission from the sons of men. It's remarkable. I think you can see his love towards sinners here. He did not justify himself, but he justified many who didn't deserve justification at all. Now the Bible does say that he did speak words though, because we want to make sure we understand this.

He did say some things during this period just previous to the cross and actually even on the cross. But does this contradict the statement he did not speak? Like for example, to the soldiers, he said, Did you come out to take me like a thief, like I was a thief? Is that really what's going on here? I'm sure he didn't say it the way I just said it, but that was the basic idea.

Then he said to Pilate, you don't have any power over me unless it's given from above. And he prayed for them in Luke 23 verse 34. And at one point he rebuked Peter earlier on, but the answer is that he did not speak anything that hindered him from bearing the sins of many. He spoke words without any deceit mixed in them in order to escape his suffering. He was patient.

He was quiet in the face of pressure. You know this is very interesting, you know, when we face times of difficulty we we have deceit in our mouths, we're not patient, we're not quiet in the face of pressure. But what's implied here is that these times that we sin under pressure, these are the things that have caused Jesus Christ to suffer the full wrath of his father. We should never take lightly our sins in that sense. You don't want to just dismiss it and say, well, he suffered, I'm gone.

That would be a mark of unbelief. But he never tried to get out of something by using a self-serving word to proceed from his mouth. He never used provoking language. He never shot off his mouth. He was silent as a sheep before his shearers is silent.

He might have had the right or the opportunity that anyone else would have granted him. It would have been reasonable for him to cry out. Do you think anyone from the crowd would have thought worse of him if he would screamed and yelled against what was being done to him? Probably not. Most people would say, well, you know, of course anyone would cry out, but he didn't cry out, though he had a right to.

And I think that this whole matter of his silence should help us think of all the ways we're trying to defend ourselves through deceit or how our guilt and our complaints, our sinful resistances for different reasons. Thomas Watson explains his silence like this. He never spoke to hinder our redemption, neither railingly or revilingly. For so Peter explained it, when he was reviled he did not revile in return. When he suffered he did not threaten but committed himself to him who judges righteously.

So his silence just shows his passion, his love for sinners, how he would be willing to take the pain of sinners. And while at the same time the Lord Jesus Christ is teaching us about the freedom that we have, how his kindness to forgive us of our sins and set us free. He is teaching us that, but he's also teaching us not to revile and threaten others to justify ourselves. We may be wronged, but so was the Lamb of God before His sheers is silent. And He opened not His mouth.

Now here's, I want to conclude the teaching on this verse by trying to wrap it with those words but just to add his submission points to our greatest sin our craving for independence and self-justification and the lawlessness that it creates Jesus Christ died for your sins And let's go to the next verse, verse 8. He was submissive though imprisoned and judged, verse 8. He was taken from prison and from judgment. Now, he was in a time of imprisonment and from judgment. This was the unjust judgment of the Son of God.

He was in the midst of his judgment, but he was taken from it. So he was experiencing it, but he was taken from it to victory. I think that's what Isaiah is trying to communicate here. So verse 8 is referring to his trial and his execution you know and he it means after the trial the sentence was delivered and he was separated from humanity for punishment And the guilty verdict would be delivered, and death would be the next step. But then he would come away from that.

In the tomb, he was in the prison of the grave, but he broke out of his burial clothes and that tomb. So he was delivered from prison and from judgment, but he experienced it there. He was taken prisoner. He was on trial before Caiaphas, and he was on the cross. And this just expresses, again, the humility of Christ, the submission.

He had all power at his disposal. He was gentle, he was meek, But he was taken from this judgment and this prison. And he did it in order to make a pattern to show his people what will happen with them. As the Lord Jesus Christ through His Holy Spirit condemns sinners of their sins, they see their depravity, they see their filthiness, they see their rebellion. And for the first time in their lives they realize how they've departed from the glory of God how every part of their life has been a rebellion against God and they see that and they are delivered from prison and from judgment because they repent.

You know a person doesn't become a Christian until they see the depth of their sin and the greatness of the punishment for their sin. True Christians don't make a small thing of sin, But at the same time, their sins are dwarfed by the sufferings of Jesus Christ. And they're overcome. And so he's delivered from the Christian is one who is delivered from his prison and from his judgment. And then it says here, who will declare his generation?

Who will declare his generation? I think this is the response of the onlooker. Here's the idea. His generation is so long and so wide and so deep that nobody can proclaim it completely. Nobody can grasp it as deep or as long enough.

And he lives forever as a mediator. And you know, who will be able to proclaim it long enough? Who in a generation can do that? Because it will be proclaimed for all eternity. The world will not declare his generation to be a successful generation.

He died and was put in a grave. It's over. That's how the world looks at it. Who will declare his generation? What is there to declare?

Or how long could it possibly be declared? There are various opinions on what this means. But If someone likes to talk about that, I could take some time and length to illustrate them. I think he's just speaking of this generation, this generation to come, and that no one is really able to declare the beauty and the glory of it, or the depth of it, or the length of it. And then it says here, he was cut off from the land of the living.

He was cut off from the land of the living. For the transgressions of my people, he was stricken. So there was this attempt to cut him off and destroy the potential fruit. You know, you could go to Daniel chapter 9 verse 26 and read about the 62 weeks of the Messiah when they shall be cut off. Perhaps it's related to that.

But the word is used for cutting trees. It indicates to take something down, to violently take something down. And it can also imply the banishment that those who deserved when they were put out of Israel, when they were banished, When they were cut off from the people in the same way that in in the church when when there's biblical church discipline There's there is ex communication. There's a cutting off of A person who claims to be a Christian but continues to live in sin that person should be cut off We're not talking about sinless people we're talking about people who claimed to be Christians and continue to love and gravitate toward their sin. The banishment that we deserved fell upon him and he was banished.

He was cut off. He was cut off for our transgressions, plural. And he's speaking of the transgressions of all those who repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ. The hundreds of billions, quadrillions of sins against the authority of God. And he was separated.

Says he was cut off from the land of the living. I take that to connect with his statement, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And when you're cut off, it means that you're deprived of something, of something good. The Lord Jesus Christ was deprived, He was cut off so that you as a repenter would not be deprived of the goodness of the Lord. He was stricken.

This is a blow. You know, a stroke was inflicted upon him. I had a sensation many many years ago when I was in college. I was being just battered every day for my faith. I was studying history in college.

And every day was like a war. And I was always the idiot in the class. I was always the one who believed that God created the heavens and the earth, you know. And, you know, I remember sitting there with some other Christian friends and we thought, We are the buffoons. We're the dolts here.

That's how we were treated. And it took a toll on me. And I began, I actually had a period, it was a short period. But I had a period where I wondered if the Bible was true at all and I remember this increasing alienation From God I was losing my heart And it was all And I had this moment at some point where it seemed like God was so far off and I just could hardly reach Him. And then I saw what was happening to me and I was falling into despair.

And the good things that I had known, I wasn't knowing them at that moment. And it terrified me. And I turned to Christ. And He restored my belief with all the strength that I had before. But I was being deprived of something so good, the presence of God, the word of God, the beauty of desire for God and being moved and changed by his word.

But the Lord Jesus Christ was cut off for our transgressions. And his being cut off, it just points to his submission, which exposes our greatest sin of craving our independence and the lawlessness that it creates. And then after telling us about his submission though imprisoned and judged, he speaks of his submission because he was in this third point, he was submissive though killed along with the wicked. Verse 9. And they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.'" Now this whole idea of his grave with the wicked corresponds with his identification with criminals on the cross.

He was delivered into the hands of the Pharisees and the Roman soldiers and the crowd were crying out for his blood. This is all wickedness and he dies between two wicked men. But then it says, but with a rich man. So he was buried with the rich because Joseph of Arimathea, which you can read about in Matthew 27, verse 60, in John 19, 38, wanted to take the body of Jesus. He was given permission and he was finally entombed with the rich.

But he was crucified with the wicked and he was identified with their reputations. They deserved the crucifixion. There's no doubt that each man deserved to die. And so he died like the wicked die, with their own kind, with all the cursings that they would receive. And so he's dying on the cross with criminals in order to show us that we too are criminals, that our reputations are so far more marred than we can imagine.

You know, the Romans would normally have just thrown the body of a man into a mass grave, But that's not what happened with the Lord Jesus Christ. He was put in a rich man's tomb. Luke 23 verse 50 says, Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good man and a just man. He had not consented their final decision indeed. He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God.

This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock where no one had ever lain before." So the Lord Jesus Christ receives violence on the cross, he receives all the rank and filthy reputations of the men. He kept every law. He never was a criminal in any way, breaking any commandment. Says he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.

He didn't have a violent reaction like we would have. He didn't have any deceit in his mouth to try to tell any lie he possibly could to get off that cross, to try to justify himself. Here, the Lord Jesus Christ exposes the sin of self-justification and self-exaltation to do whatever you can to put such a shine on yourself but there was no deceit in his mouth at all I love those words the people listen to him and they said they said that he there were gracious words that were falling from his lips. He was full of grace and truth. Psalm 120 verse 3 says, What shall be done to you, you false tongue?

What should be done to you, you false tongue? You know, in time past, they would cut your tongue out if you lied. There are societies that that was the punishment for lying. But what shall be done to you, you false tongue? What punishment should you receive for the lies that you've told, the exaggerations, the ways you've turned a story to flatter yourself rather than to tell the truth?

Well, the Lord Jesus Christ suffered for every occasion of a deceitful tongue. The times that you've slandered your neighbor because he mistreated you. The time that you hated your brother for disappointing you or harming you in some way. This is the beauty and the glory of the submission of Jesus Christ. You wouldn't want it any other way.

You wouldn't want him hurling curses and throwing his weight around as he was suffering for your sins. You would let him, you would keep him there because your sins have put him there. So Isaiah is showing us the submission of Jesus Christ and he was submitting to his father And it points to our greatest problem, our craving for independence and the lawlessness that it creates. Now, I'd like to apply this in three ways, and then I want to briefly take you to three passages of scripture that connect explicitly to this text in the New Testament. Because the New Testament does interpret this, and I want to give you three ways of application.

First of all, for the non-Christian, let the sufferings of Christ teach you about your future if you refuse his call to repent and to believe in the gospel. See how Christ suffered for your sins. Don't spend another day of your life bearing the sins that you have. You bear these sins lightly in this world there are punishments from your sins here But they are light punishments but that day will end the day of light reminders of the tragedy of your sin will end. And while you're just receiving light punishments for your lies and your deceit and your lack of submission, while there's just this natural punishment that God lays in the world to get sinners to see how devastating sin is, it will end.

And the punishment will fall upon you in full measure. And so flee to Christ, trust in His sufferings, repent of your sins, stop loving this world and become like a lamb, become like a submissive son who says, not my will but Thine be done. A submissive son who says, I delight to do thy will. A submissive son that looks to his father and says, I only want my words to be like your words. I only want my life to be like your life.

Turn to him. This is the opportunity that God presents to sinners. That God presents to sinners. He bled on that cross to compel you, to show you where you are headed, to head you off at the pass and put you on the narrow road. The second way is for the Christian and I don't know how to even fathom the freedom and the peace and the joy that we ought to have knowing that Jesus Christ has completely paid for every ounce of our rebellion.

Do you feel that? Do you know that? You know the Christian life is kind of a strange life in a lot of ways. It's strange this way. On the one hand, you are shown your wickedness And you cannot help but feel the weight of your sin.

It's impossible. At the same time, he has lifted the yoke of the punishment and the weight of your sin off of your shoulders and put it on his. We read about that in the first section in Isaiah 53. He bore our sins and our sorrows. So on the one hand, you know, you have, you have this sobriety about your sin and you don't want to dismiss it or downplay it or play patty cake with your sin.

On the other hand, you're free. You've been set free. It was for freedom that you were set free. And so the Christian lives in this world of being reconciled to God, that the blood of Jesus Christ has cleansed from all unrighteousness and ungodliness, and yet at the same time it's a real world because you're left with yourself. It's not a fake world where you just deny everything.

There are many religions where you just deny that things exist. Hinduism does this. The Christian science does this. It's not real. Well this is a real world.

And you're a real person, and you're a real fallen person, and you still have sin, but you have a Savior, and you can rejoice. We can hold our heads up today. It's always a great tension when you preach the Word of God to leave the people too heavy. It's a tension I always feel. Sometimes I feel like I leave the people too heavy too much.

But here we find that the Lord Jesus Christ suffered for your sins. And he took all the punishment that you deserve for your rebellion past present and future rejoice we should be the happiest people in the world but not the stupidest people in the world who deny who we really are. I think Christianity brings a proper sense of reality. It shows you who you really are. It doesn't deny one thing for the sake of another.

The third way to apply the sufferings of Christ is really to apply them quite broadly. And the reason I say that, there are three passages of scripture that we're just going to do a super fly overview of. Super fly overview of. But in 1 Peter 2, 3, and 4, in Hebrews chapter 12, and in 1 Peter, and in, Let's see, where else? I forgot where the last one is.

Hebrews 12 and Philippians 2, thank you, Philippians 2, 8 through 17, you find the broad applicability of the submission of Jesus Christ. These passages that I've just listed speak explicitly of the submission of the Son of God in his sufferings. And so now you have the New Testament answer to it. How do you apply it? I think you should apply it the two ways that I just mentioned, but there's more.

There's a lot more. Now, let me just encourage you to go home today and read some of these or maybe as you're sharing around the meal, you know, pull out your Bibles and just share some of the things that are here. It's deep, it's rich, it's phenomenal. So I'm just going to begin with 1 Peter 2. Now notice from 1 Peter 2, 3, and 4, all three of those chapters, all three of those chapters are always connecting back to the submission and the suffering of Jesus Christ.

Three chapters in 1 Peter. And you can follow it. Look for these words, submission and suffering, and you'll see how Peter understands this. Peter was an eyewitness to this suffering of Jesus Christ. So 1 Peter 2 verse 11, beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul, having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles, that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation." And then he begins to speak about various kinds of submission.

Verse 13, therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake. So he's talking about how do you apply the submission of Christ. You obey the laws that are around you unless those laws make you disobey God. We know that. And then in verse 17 he says honor all people.

Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. Jesus Christ was honoring his father and now Peter turns it around and says now you honor all people. And then he speaks of servants being submissive to masters in verse 18.

Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear not only the good and the gentle but also the harsh. Yes submit to your harsh crummy boss, the worst boss you ever had. Yes be like Jesus Christ. Don't cry out don't let there be deceit in your mouth, don't slander that man. That's what Peter's saying.

In verse 20 he says, but when you do good and suffer you take it patiently. This is commendable before God. And then in verse 21 he says to follow the footsteps of Christ for this you are called because Christ also suffered for us Leaving us an example that you should follow his footsteps So he suffers so that we will suffer well under the crummy lousy Government boss church, whatever you're in, you know Look at verse 22 Who committed no sin nor deceit was found in his mouth. Oh, I wonder where that came from. He's quoting Isaiah 53.

And then in verse 23, no reviling or threatening in return. In verse 25 he says, all you like sheep are gone astray, But now have returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls." If you go to chapter 3, he talks about wives submitting to husbands and he's using the same argument. The reason a wife should submit to her husband sweetly and not be a carping, complaining, dripping, nagging person is because Jesus Christ suffered for sinners as well. He says, wives likewise be submissive to your own husbands that even if some do not obey the word, they without a word may be won by the conduct of their wives. And then he turns it to husbands.

And he says, husbands, this is also how you should, there's a way that a husband submits to his wife. In verse 7, by living with her in an understanding way, giving honor to the wife as a weaker vessel. This is verse 7. As being heirs together of the grace of life that your prayers may not be hindered. So he's saying husbands you know there's a way that you've got to be sensitive and and kind to your wives and recognize they're the weaker vessel.

Live with them in an understanding way. Understand. This is how you apply the sufferings of Jesus Christ as a husband. And then in verse 8, he speaks of compassion toward one another. In verse 10, he speaks of speaking evil.

The Lord Jesus Christ did not speak evil and therefore we should not either, even when we are being mistreated. I mean this is just so contrary to this litigious world that we live in where every time somebody gets mistreated there's a lawsuit. Well the Lord Jesus Christ has a different way and I'm not saying that the civil government should be punishing civil crimes. I'm not saying that Christians are exempt from the punishment of civil crimes. But here's what we read in chapter 3 verse 14 but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake you are blessed and do not be afraid of their threats or be troubled." And then in verses 15 through 16 he talks about giving sanctified answers.

He's applying the suffering and the humiliation of Christ. Then in verses 17 through 22 he speaks about suffering for doing good and in verse 18 he says, we're still in chapter 3 for Christ also suffered once for sins for the just and the unjust that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but being made alive by the Spirit. And he uses this to prove that you should suffer even for doing good. But if you suffer for doing evil then you're suffering rightly. That's what he's saying.

If you go to chapter four, it continues. In the first verse, he says, therefore, since Christ suffered for us in the flesh, because he suffered for us in the flesh, therefore, arm yourselves with the same mind, for he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin." And it just goes on and on. How do you apply the sufferings of Christ? Hospitality in verses 9 and 10 in chapter 4, speaking the word of God in verse 11, being glad in trials, that's in verses 12 through 19. And then if you go to Hebrews chapter 12, there's a whole other realm of applying the sufferings of Christ and his humiliation, his submission to his Father, and that is that you look to Jesus Christ in the discipline that you receive, that Christ is your example in discipline, that God disciplines those whom he loves.

And read this section in Hebrews chapter 12, And then in Philippians chapter 2 we read, And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth. And then he says this, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Do all things without complaining and disputing. But bring the Word of God.

So this is all about the submission of the Lord Jesus Christ and how He always did what his father told him to do. He always said what his father said. And he suffered and died for every single occasion that in your heart or in your outward life you ever resisted his authority. Jesus Christ's love is so great. It's so magnificent.

And his love is designed to drive us to love. That's the whole essence of these other passages of scripture. His love is designed to show us how we ought to love one another and how we ought to mortify the flesh and turn away from all of our sins. The Lord Jesus Christ desires to raise up an obedient church, sweetly compliant to His will, not wanting to do their own will. But to walk in his ways and to recognize as they are struggling to walk in his ways to remember his blood that was shed and the sufferings and the alienation that he received into his body.

And as the church learns how to walk in the sufferings of Christ, you know what happens? The church is actually saved from many of its temporal punishments that it would have received if they had not turned to Jesus Christ. Because God blesses those who turn to him and who obey him. Blessed shall you be in the city, blessed shall you be in the country, blessed shall be your basket in your kneading bowl, blessed shall you be when you go in, and Blessed shall you be when you go in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. And that's really the essence of these passages of Scripture that teach the application of the suffering of the Son of God.

Would you pray with me? Oh Lord, I pray you would help us to see your obedience, to find the vestiges of disobedience in our hearts, to render them to you, to say the same thing about them that you say, to repent, to turn to you, and to receive the benefits of your suffering, the greatness of your love towards sinners. I pray oh Lord that you would fill this church with these two seemingly competing propositions that our sins are filthy but you have cleaned them. Amen.