All of us have felt like the black sheep at some point in our lives, like we didn’t belong or we didn’t fit in. Maybe you feel like that right now. Well, I have good news for you because this is why Jesus, the Good Shepherd came. Let me share more about that, starting with the Book of Isaiah.
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Transcription:
All of us have felt like the black sheep at some point in our lives, like we didn’t belong or we didn’t fit in. Or like you just can’t get it right. Maybe you feel like that right now. Well, I have good news for you because this is why Jesus, the Good Shepherd came. Welcome to the Bible for busy people. I’m Erica, your host, and yeah, this week we’re studying how the language of the Bible doesn’t have to be complicated. You can read it in the Message translation, which is the most modern of all of the translations. It’s how we’re studying God’s word this week. But sometimes it’s just sticking with the gospels until you know God better reading Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. They’re so story oriented and it can help you understand the Bible if you are a beginner, if you’re new to the faith. So, I steer you that way if it’s true for you, or the Psalms like we’ve talked about, right there in the middle. So chock-full of the emotions that you and I grapple with on the daily.
Well, today we are going to study something that was written 700 years thereabouts before Jesus was born. And it’s about Jesus. So, join me in the book of Isaiah. He’s one of God’s prophets, one of his male carriers, chapter 53, beginning in verse one.
Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this? 2-6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him. 7-9 He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn’t say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence. Justice miscarried, and he was led off— and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though he’d never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn’t true. 10 Still, it’s what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him. 11-12 Out of that terrible travail of soul, he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many “righteous ones,” as he himself carries the burden of their sins. Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly— the best of everything, the highest honors—Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.
That’s me. That’s you. This is why Jesus came. We’ve just been reading the story of Jesus’s life and death and it also pointed us toward his resurrection. And Isaiah wrote this before it ever happened, hundreds of years before. And I want to be careful here to share that it’s not the end of the story. I remember when I was a teenager and I shared my faith, my Jesus story for the first time to a bunch of other teenagers, and I just kept saying, he died for you. I was so enthralled by that I still am, that Jesus would die for my sins and yours.
That’s amazing to me. And this precious woman, a fellow Christian who was there leading this group with me, came up alongside me and said, and Erica, he rose again too. And yes, it’s true. Jesus left heaven to come to earth so that you and I could go to heaven one day. He opened the door of fellowship again between us and God, it’s so beautiful. So, I want to wrap up our time today with a few verses from Hebrews because I want to be mindful of that precious woman who reminded me, “Erica, there’s so much more to the story,” right? So join me now in Hebrews chapter 12 verse two. This is the message now.
Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
Powerful stuff. Until next time, you are really loved.
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