RECAP*
* a consise summary

Here is a recap of last Sunday's adult cell group teaching.

Main passage: Isaiah 52.13 to 53. 12 (scroll down to find it)

Main point: If you are carrying around guilty feelings, or bitter feelings about things that others have done to you, or habits that you can't shake off, or a dark past that seems to still cast a shadow across your present-day life - then you have not understood that Jesus has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows and that the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Summary: 

• God has a 'whole of history' plan for rescuing a people for himself out of rebellious humanity - and that plan applies to the generation we live in - now.
• God has a Servant to enact his plan.
• Philippians 2.5-11 (scroll down to find it) matches Isaiah 52.13 and it identifies Jesus, God's Son as the Servant who rescues us.
• Isaiah 53 goes on to describe just how low Jesus had to come to pull us out of sin and death.
• People who aren't desperate to be rescued from their old life are offended by Jesus and his cross seems foolish to them - but those who are getting freedom because of it welcome the power that Jesus' death activates to free them from slavery to sin and death.
• At the cross God laid on Jesus all the sins, regrets, guilt, broken promises, bitterness and every other negative thing that crushes us. Griefs? Carried!  Sorrows? Carried! Transgressions? Carried! Iniquities? Carried! Turmoil and anxiety? Carried! God laid all this on Jesus and he carried it into the grave for us.
• What miserable load is left for a believer to carry? Nothing. The Lord has laid on him the short-comings of us all. 

Action:

Stand up and shout 'thank you, Lord'!  Let your regrets, burdens, griefs, guilt and timidity fall back into Jesus' grave where they belong. You are free to walk and talk in the boldness of a forgiven life. Leave your past history behind - repent of it.  Walk in the light so that the shadow of your past life is forced back.

Isaiah 52.13 - 53.12

13 See, my servant will act wisely;
    he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.
14 Just as there were many who were appalled at him –
    his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being
    and his form marred beyond human likeness –
15 so he will sprinkle many nations,
    and kings will shut their mouths because of him.
For what they were not told, they will see,
    and what they have not heard, they will understand.

 Who has believed our message
    and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2 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.
3 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.

4 Surely he took up our pain
    and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 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.
6 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.

7 He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
8 By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished.
9 He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
    and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
    nor was any deceit in his mouth.

10 Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
    and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
    and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11 After he has suffered,
    he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge[i] my righteous servant will justify many,
    and he will bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
    and he will divide the spoils with the strong,

because he poured out his life unto death,
    and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
    and made intercession for the transgressors.

Philippians 2.5-11

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

6 who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death –
        even death on a cross!

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.