Behold the Suffering Servant

We Considered Him of Little Value
March 30, 2025
Chris Seidman, Teaching Minister, The Branch

Isaiah 53:1 (NIV)
Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Isaiah 53:2 (NIV)
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

Isaiah 53:3 (NIV)
He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

Isaiah 53:4 (NIV)
Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering …

… yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted.

Isaiah 53:5 (NIV)
But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:6 (NIV)
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Francis Spufford Quote
The strain of his whole weight on his outstretched arms hurts too much. The pain fills him up… .
He is all open door: to sorrow, suffering, guilt, despair, horror, everything that cannot be escaped, and he does not even try to escape it, he turns to meet it, and claims it all as his own.
This is mine now, he is saying; and he embraces it with all that is left in him, each dark act … . But there is so much of it.
So many injured children; so many locked rooms; so much lonely anger; so many bombs in public places; so much vicious zeal; so many bored teenagers at roadblocks;
so many drunk girls at parties someone thought they could have a little fun with; so many jokes that go too far; so much ruining greed; so much sick ingenuity; so much burned skin.
The world he claims, claims him. It burns and stings, it splinters and gouges, it locks him round and drags him down.

Through His Suffering …

• We find His companionship in our suffering.

• We find peace in regard to our sin.

Two Questions

• Will you place your faith in Him?

Romans 3:25 (NIV)
God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith.

• Is He is of highest value in your life?

Isaiah 53:3 (NIV)
… and we held him in low esteem.

Ancient Prayer
He whom none may touch is seized;
He who looses Adam from the curse is bound.
He who tries the hearts and inner thoughts of man is unjustly brought to trial;
He who closed the abyss is shut in prison.
He, before whom the powers of heaven stand trembling, stands before Pilate;
The Creator is struck by the hands of his creature.
He who comes to judge the living and the dead is condemned to the cross.
The destroyer of [death] is enclosed in a tomb.
O thou who dost endure all these things in thy tender love,
Who has saved all men from the curse,
O long-suffering Lord, glory to thee.

Communion / Prayer
Dear Jesus, I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God – the one of whom Isaiah speaks. Today, I confess that you were pierced for my transgressions, crushed for my iniquities; the punishment that brings me peace was upon you, and by your wounds I am healed.