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Weimar University

Looking to Jesus

Don Mackintosh

Looking to Jesus Part 1

Our message tonight is taken from Isaiah 52 verse 13 and John chapter 13 verse 1.

And of course, Isaiah 52 is the beginning of what's called a servant song, the servant songs of Isaiah.

And the servant songs of Isaiah are really talking about Christ and his ministry, of course, hundreds of years in advance.

And 1 of those servant songs has a direct allusion, I believe, to the communion service, which I want to share this evening with you.

Isaiah 52, 13, behold, my servant shall deal prudently.

Let's just ask the Lord to bless us as we open this word.

Father in heaven, Lord we're thankful for the call to communion and to a service of foot washing that happened every day multiple times throughout the week in the first century and probably should happen much more often in our own spiritual lives as well, but help us to catch a glimpse of it this evening that could be a blessing to our souls and then through us, through your grace to others.

Behold, my servant shall deal wisely or prudently.

So the idea of a servant, What is a servant?

A servant is subordinate, serving someone else, under the direction of someone else, and they serve According to the leadership of the superior, and Jesus made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a what?

Behold my servant shall deal wisely, he shall be exalted, and of course he was exalted in the resurrection.

He had the resurrection and also ascension.

When he went through the heavenly courts, he said, open up you everlasting doors.

Who is this king of glory, the Lord strong in battle?" And when he came, he was extolled.

And none of these things could happen unless he had humbled himself first.

You can't lift something up that's already lifted up.

You can't exalt something that's already exalted.

You can't make something very high that has not yet been made very low.

And so the story of the gospel is that God, in his infinite wisdom and love, made himself of no reputation and became a bond servant.

And the foot washing is a picture, to be a picture of this loving self-sacrifice.

Now before the feast of the Passover, When Jesus knew that his hour had come, that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." He loved them to the end.

Have you ever had someone tell you they love you only to change their mind?

How many of you have ever been through a painful experience like that?

And true love is only the love that loves to the end.

Having loved his own, who were feast that was being celebrated at this time, what did it say?

How they left Egypt and they left by the what?

The blood of the Lamb over their doorposts.

And this reminded them of what God had done to deliver them, but also what he would do to deliver them.

And he would love not just at the beginning, but to the end.

And of course the Passover pointed them to who?

And did Jesus know this when he was coming to the communion service?

Did he understand the time that he had come to his life?

If you knew that you were about to die, what would you do?

What would most men do at a time like this?

They would be filled with anxiety, maybe even panic.

Of course, Jesus had anxiety in the Garden of Gethsemane, not because of anything he had done, but because he had an experience he had never had before, sensing the weight of the sin of the world.

They might have been filled with anger and thoughts of revenge.

And of course the disciples were, When they saw what was happening to Jesus, as Judas betrayed him with a kiss, Peter took out his sword and chopped off the ear of a servant.

Now the miracles of Christ are pronounced in many.

In fact, the ones in the New Testament are only representative.

And in John it says there was so many miracles that all the books in the world could not hold them all.

It didn't matter if they weren't believers, they were healed.

And here this great healer is now being betrayed.

No doubt most people would focus on anger and revenge.

His focus was entirely on others, preparing them for ministry, doing what was necessary on their behalf.

This took a very practical tone with the foot washing, with foot washing, which we are going to celebrate this evening before the Lord's Supper.

Everyone in that time and era needed their feet washed.

This is why we don't really appreciate the magnitude of this service, but everybody needed their feet washed because they had walked the dusty trails.

Some had come through the rain and mud, others through the excrement of animals.

There was nobody who did not need this service.

And so, in every home and in every public place, there were basins that were there for this purpose, for washing feet.

And this was no exception in the upper room where Jesus and his disciples had a room prepared.

There was a towel also provided that was there, as there was in every home and every place you went at that time.

However, no 1 was washing either the disciples nor Jesus' feet.

Maybe ask that question to the person next to you to see if they're alive still.

Go ahead, you can turn to the person next to you and ask them a question.

If you're not sitting next to someone, you should move next to someone.

So why was it, now that you've discussed it, why was it?

Because there was not a servant there to do it, right?

It was something that was supposed to be done by the lowest ranking slave.

Whenever you went into a room, you would always see who is the lowest ranking person here.

And nobody was willing to admit that they were the lowest ranking person in the room.

No 1 believed they were the lowest ranking slave.

In fact, they were having a dispute about who is the greatest.

So instead of thinking about who was the lowest, they were thinking about who was the greatest.

Looking to Jesus Part 2

We're in a little series here on Isaiah chapter 53, 52 and 3.

And last night we looked at Jesus and how it was that he was a servant, behold my servant.

And how it was that he fulfilled that role of a servant when he washed his disciples' feet, the most despicable job reserved for the lowest person in the room.

And None of the lowest people in the room volunteered to do the job, and so he came forward and did that.

Now today we continue our series on Isaiah 53 by looking at the passage that was just read to us by Rachel of, he was despised and rejected of men.

A man acquainted with sorrows and griefs.

He was despised and rejected, but we esteemed him not.

So let's invite the Lord to bless us as we open his word.

Father in heaven, we're thankful today that we can come, spend some time reflecting on your word, and we ask that you would attend it.

You've told us already in John 63 that your word is spirit and that it's life.

And we ask that it would come alive for us in Christ's name, amen.

Have you ever been despised and rejected?

To despise means to be thought lower than the person despising you.

A person looks down on you, maybe names off the things where you don't measure up to what they think.

And that's the first step towards rejection.

Someone is despised usually before they're rejected.

And Jesus was the most rejected person and still is in all human history.

And this, even though he was perfect, even though he was tempted but with no sin, even though he had no personality or character flaws that could be picked on, although there were some close manufactured flaws, he hangs out with people that party a lot, we don't like his messages, He would take the rabbi's parables and change the punchline.

And it says the common people heard him gladly.

But he had no personality or character flaws.

In fact, the Bible says if you had to, you could not have enough books to write about all the people that he healed and all the wonders he did.

And Luke says that he healed everybody in cities.

In fact, there probably was no need for a Auburn faith or a Kaiser or any health care plan, which might have been 1 of the reasons the chief rulers didn't like him, because that was their business.

He indeed had healed the hurting world and yet he was rejected.

He still, he suffered undeserved rejection prenatally and throughout his whole life.

Even before he was born, he was rejected.

So have you ever experienced rejection, being despised and rejected?

Let's just review some of his rejection and then how he handled it.

Isn't this the carpenter's son, they said, when he got up 1 day to do the scripture reading and talk about the scriptures.

In fact, they were so upset with him that they were gonna push him off a cliff.

And that just because he had scripture reading.

By the way, he also had a message that day.

And this sermon, which was a present truth sermon that actually related to the people in the synagogue that day, he said, well, that's not good.

How many think that would be a bad response to a sermon?

His family rejected him, his brothers, not even his brothers believe in him.

And of course why was it that his brothers didn't believe in him and didn't like him?

Well, he said, the world hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.

Wait a minute, you're saying our works are evil?

He came to his own, and his own received him not.

The religious leaders of the day rejected him.

That word men is not Adam, not of mankind.

In fact most of the common people would have enjoyed him and would have not been led astray against him.

We don't have fishermen coming out and striking against Jesus.

There were huge strikes of all the fishermen now.

We don't have all the shepherds saying, you know what, we just don't like this guy.

It was the leaders that rejected, because it's not Ben Adam of mankind.

It actually says in the text, Ben-ish, lords, rulers, leaders, Top leaders rejected Jesus first, and then the others piled on.

Ultimately, these leaders were able to shift public opinion as a result of church-state manipulation.

The crowds that just days before were singing Hosanna were now screaming crucify him.

And when Pilate asked him, who should I release, Jesus or Jesus Barabbas?

They chose Barabbas, thereby rejecting Jesus.

With these decisions in place, most of the Roman soldiers followed suit.

He was spit on, he was beaten, he was stripped, physically violated, He was mocked as king of the Jews.

Shockingly, he was even rejected by his own disciples.

Peter denied him 3 times after saying he never would.

And he was there surrounded by his enemies, who also had already rejected him.

Roy Baumeister, 1 of the famous psychologists of our time and researcher, wrote about being rejected and alone, and I summarized some of his findings.

Rejected people become more aggressive toward others.

Rejected people, rejection increases toward, in their lives, toward neutral, innocent third parties.

They get rejected and they start picking on people they don't even know.

Rejected people leads 1 to view the world with suspicion and hostility.

Rejected people are more likely to cheat on tests.

Rejected people are less likely to help others.

Rejected people make more unhealthy food and health choices.

Rejected people have difficulty reasoning, analyzing, drawing conclusions.

Rejected people don't even like to look at themselves in the mirror.

I studied rejected people and they won't even look at themselves in the mirror.

And when someone else looks at them, they look down or they look away.

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Looking to Jesus

Looking to Jesus Part 2

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Looking to Jesus Part 1

25m

Looking to Jesus Part 2

22m

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