Our Sorrows He Carried (Good Friday)

this evening. We're going to be remembering our Lord's death. And as I was preparing for this, I was thinking there's so much to it. It's kind of hard to know what to say. And I also kind of feel like, well, I've already said that. I think I've said that. So shall I just say the same thing again? And I'm always looking for something that's helpful or a new perspective to me anyway. And I was thinking about the Good Friday sermons that I've preached over the years, and many of them, I think the sum of it is that we would come away realizing our own sinfulness. And that's definitely necessary. And the songs that we've sung and the scriptures that we've read up to this point, and the scriptures we're going to read in the sermon text are based on, are meant to convince us of our sinfulness and our need of a Savior. I want us to focus not so much on the theology of it, but on the...

the heart of it, the heart of God behind it, okay? It's one thing to be able to say theologically true statements about our own sinfulness, our own depravity, our own need of salvation, Jesus' righteousness, and all these types of things, and all that's very true and necessary. But I think that one of the dangers that we face is that, okay, so, but where does that rubber, where does the rubber of that reality meet the road of my life? And so what we're going to talk about this evening is how to bear up and process through sorrows and griefs. In Jesus' death, he came and fulfilled his office as a priest. Instead of being a priest offering up animals as a sacrifice, he came and both was the priest and the sacrifice. He offered himself up. And priests do this work.

Jesus did this work not just as a matter of duty and not just because we needed him to. He did it with love and compassion and mercy in his heart toward sinners, even toward the people who were crucifying him in that moment, and to all sinners that he saved since then. And so this evening what we're going to talk about is Christ sympathizing with us. His sympathy doesn't discount the cost of our sins. It doesn't make his death somehow sentimental or trite or that type of thing. But I think there's a danger in setting the weight of sin and the cost of redemption. I think there's a way of setting that in opposition to his sympathy. And there's two passages we're going to focus on. Well, there's two passages I'm going to read. And then there's really five verses or so we're going to pull out of that and focus on.

we're going to be reading all of Isaiah 53. It's 12 verses long, the whole chapter. And then we're going to read Hebrews chapter 4, verses 14 to 16, which talks about Jesus being our high priest. And we're going to have that as our main text, Hebrews chapter 4, verses 14 to 16. But we're going to come back to verses 3 and 4 of Isaiah chapter 53 to put together with what we see in Hebrews. or what we see in Isaiah regarding his priestly work. So I'm going to ask you to stand now as we read both of those passages of Scripture, and then we'll get into opening them up a little bit. This is Isaiah 53, starting in verse 1. Who has believed our message? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of parched ground. He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon him.

nor appearance that we should be attracted to him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon him, and by his scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away, and as for his generation,

Who considers that he was cut off out of the land of the living for the transgression of my people, to whom the stroke was due? His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death, because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. As a result of the anguish of his soul, he will see it and be satisfied. By his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, will justify the many, as he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty with the strong, because he has poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors.

He himself bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors. And then in Hebrews chapter 4, starting in verse 14. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace. so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, I have a shorter amount of time this evening than I normally do on a Sunday morning. And we've read way more verses than we ever do on a Sunday morning. So my goal is not to keep you here for two and a half hours. What that means is there's just going to be a couple of connections I'm wanting to make in these.

in these passages. So starting in Hebrews 4, Jesus, who's our high priest, we're told there's a double negative here. We do not have a high priest who cannot, which is to say we have a high priest who can. Our high priest, Jesus, sympathizes with our weaknesses. And he's able to do this because he's been tempted in all things as we are. And this is a passage that... can get kind of blurry around the edges and kind of fuzzy. Because it's like, where do you draw the line between a weakness and a temptation and a sin? Because Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses. He was tempted in all ways like as we are, yet without sin. And so there's these multiple layers of things going on here. Sometimes temptations, depending on what they are, are sin. And sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're part of your weakness, our weakness.

Our humanity. Its passage does not say that he sympathizes with our sins. He doesn't look at our sins and go, that's okay. You tried hard. That's okay. You have a good heart. That's okay. You'll do better next time. It doesn't say that he sympathizes with our sins. It says he sympathizes with our weaknesses. So what is the difference between, or how do we define what a weakness is? They're not sinful. Though many times they do lead to sin. And in some ways it would just be easier to say all weakness is a sin and we should just not be weak. But we run into this problem that we are weak. Every day we keep running into this problem that we don't have the strength of mind, the strength of will, the wisdom, the perseverance. We lack strength in so many areas to be what we dream we can be. So we're weak.

And our weaknesses, our passage tells us, Jesus sympathizes with. I said in my introduction that we have to figure out how to live and bear up under grief and sorrow in a fallen world. And my answer to you, this passage's answer to you is not primarily theological. I like theology. I like answers to questions. I like... Definitive, absolute, right and wrong. But when it comes to grief and sorrow, all of a sudden our griefs and our sorrows aren't laid to rest by reason and logic alone. Somehow that truth, the truth that's in that, in this passage that's reasonable and logical and that we can understand in our heads has to work its way down into the soil of our hearts and take root there. And as much as...

husbands may want to comfort their wives with the truth. They find that many times that it's very difficult to apply that truth in a way that's an actual comfort. Don't you know that God is a God of comfort? That should comfort you. He gave us the Holy Spirit. He's a comforter, so aren't you comforted? And many times the answer is, honestly, no, I'm not. I should be, and I want to be. But that truth, separate from other things, it's not getting traction in my heart. So the goal here of this sermon is to help make that connection. We live in a fallen world. And what that means is that we're all going to have our shares of grief and sorrow in this world. They will come and they will go. Sometimes they'll be acute. Sometimes they'll be chronic. Sometimes they'll be small. And sometimes they will be...

But life in a fallen world means that we are going to have griefs and sorrows. And sometimes many of them. And sometimes a bunch of them stacked on top of each other. And when those things stack up, Satan has no shame in taking our weakness and exploiting it to add to our, multiply our weaknesses and to discourage us further. In John chapter 16 in his gospel, he's speaking to his disciples about his resurrection. He's speaking to them about his victory over the grave that it's coming. He says, you don't quite understand this stuff yet. You will later, but I'm saying to you now. At the very end of that, he says these things that I've just mentioned in brief. These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage. I have overcome the world. And somehow we live in a world of tribulation and we're always surprised by it.

Or maybe a better way or more accurate way to say is not that we're surprised by it, but we're overwhelmed by it. Even if we knew it was coming, even if we saw it on the horizon, when it arrived, our weaknesses showed up and it was more than we could bear. And so simple knowledge that a hard day is coming or sorrows are coming, like as a concept out there in the world, a theological truth, doesn't help us when it actually lands on us. So Jesus said, in this world you'll have tribulation, but take courage. I've overcome the world. And so while we shouldn't be surprised, we are often overwhelmed. And it's almost like the opposite of overwhelm or the thing that we want to get to, to get away from being overwhelmed, is we just want to get kind of like numb to it, stoic about it, indifferent toward it. Yeah, that happened. Stinks.

But that's not what Jesus told us in John 16. I don't have it on the screen, but what I've read to you, he doesn't say, in this world you'll have tribulation. Get used to it because I've overcome the world. Like, just grit your teeth and bear it, and eventually I'll come get you out of it. That's not what he says. He says, take courage. Take courage. I've overcome the world. The things you're facing, the things you're dealing with, those things that take your legs right out from underneath you, I've overcome those things. And so it was a hard balance for us to strike between taking courage.

And being vulnerable in the face of grief and sorrow, but not becoming calloused. Sympathy is a popular thing. I'm not going to talk about sympathy and empathy and the differences between them and what's good and what's bad and what's toxic and any of that. Sympathy is commended to us here in the most certain terms. Jesus sympathizes with us. And so if we want to quibble about the edges of where that stops and where it's appropriate, we can have that discussion some other time. It's academic. What the scripture tells us is that Jesus is not ashamed to sympathize with our weaknesses, that he's a high priest that we can go to, that in Isaiah we'll come to in a moment, that he carries our sorrows, that he's acquainted with grief. And so this idea that Jesus not only sees them and saves us from our sins, but walks with us, Through those very things, working in our hearts is a truth that we need. And yet sympathy's been abused so much as though sympathy has replaced, it's like sympathy is the new payment for sin. Sympathy's not a payment for sin, but sympathy's appropriate for sinners. And that's hard to figure out how to both.

believe in the depravity of man and the holiness of God and that those who are depraved and have offended a holy God receive his sympathy as the sinners who've done these things. Sort of a Gordian knot all tied up. And we just go, I'll just stick with my theology. One of the problems is when we struggle, we're left with nowhere to stand, no place to go to where we feel and are able to take hold of the sympathy. that Jesus provides. We also struggle to offer that same sympathy to others. We see their weaknesses, and they bug us. And when their weaknesses lead to them sinning, we go, see, it was all just a path to an end. Your weakness led you to sin, and so we're going to deal with the sin, and we're going to ignore the weakness. And yet Jesus sympathizes with our weaknesses without condoning our sins.

And we ought to do the same thing or strive to do the same thing with one another, even when we've been sinned against. Jesus sympathizes with sinners, not just with weak, broken people. And so his sympathy should be a comfort to us, but it often isn't much of a comfort, not as much as it should be. And here's one of the reasons why. When you suffer, what question do you always want to ask? Why? Why? And we get out our theological, you know, argument like Job did. And we're like, if you're good, if you're loving, if you're merciful, if you're all powerful, if you fill in whatever you write in there, the inevitable then comes. If all of these things are true, then why, then why did you let this happen? Because in my judgment, these things don't follow. That is a common temptation. I don't know anybody who's gone through sorrow who hasn't at least had to wrestle mightily with those questions.

And I've seen people wrestle with them and lose the fight and come away with a broken view of where God is and with no comfort as a result. Our logic asks those questions and we say, here's how it makes sense to me. Why wouldn't it make more sense to remove the need of comfort? Like, why don't we take away the thing that caused it to the suffering and the grief so that we wouldn't need comfort? How about we just take away all of the hard things, take away all of the sorrows, take away all of the opportunities for grief so that then we don't ever need God's comfort? Because everything goes the right way as we count it. When in point of fact, that's actually exactly what Jesus did in his death. He did take away the cause of our grief, like the ultimate root cause of our grief. He did take it away and satisfy it for all of his people. And yet the effects...

of his death are still being worked out in a fallen world. They haven't all been realized yet. And they won't be all realized until we're perfected in glory. And so in this world, Jesus' words are true. You will have trouble. You will have tribulation. But take heart or take courage. I've overcome this world. Our sorrows are very real. And it's also worth us noting they're temporary. They're temporary. which is the thing that is farthest away from your heart and your mind when you're in it. They don't feel temporary. They feel as permanent as can be, the very definition of it. They are here and they will never leave. That's not true. It would be true if Christ hadn't come and died. And so when Jesus says in John 16, I've overcome the world, he's saying, I have struck at the root and severed it.

the cause of all your sorrow and grief. There is still a dying breath in this life of suffering, but it will be done away with. And so our sorrows are real and they're temporary, so we ought to take courage. Here's another thing that happens when hardships come, sorrows and trials, griefs. We go looking for the good in it, right? Here comes Romans just chucking right along, right? God works all things for the good of those who... Seek him who are called according to his purpose. And so we go on this misery hunt, looking for the good in the destruction. As if we could identify the good and say, there it is, that somehow then our suffering wouldn't be suffering. That's not how it works. And it doesn't work that way for a couple of reasons. One, our definition of good and our perspective on good versus what God's definition and perspective on good is, there's a lot of room between them.

We don't, you know, when Jesus, they came to Jesus and they said, good teacher. And he says, why do you call me good? There's only one who's good, who's God. And he was making a different argument about his deity. Say, you're calling me God. It's so bad if I call myself God. But he gets to the truth here that there is a vast difference between what we think as fallen men and women, how we define good and how God defines good. And so when we, in our little... grieving weak minds, go looking for good, we're struggling to find it. Because the only definition of good in our minds is the cause of my grief shouldn't have happened. That's actually what would be good. If we could just hit pause and rewind and then take a different path, that would be good. And so my contention is that it's not necessary for you to see the good in your suffering to be comforted, but actually the pursuit of all of the reasons why.

Don't lead to comfort. There's a distraction to the comfort that's offered to you in Christ. It just sends you on a discouragement tour because you can't find the answer. And if you do find the answers through a doctor or through something, when does it encourage you? Oh, you have cancer. That's tragic. Go to the doctor and find out how you got cancer. Does that encourage you when you find out that the way you've eaten your entire life is what's caused it? Or that it's hereditary? Are you like, oh, I found the answer and now I'm comforted. No, you still have cancer. The person's still gone. It's tragic. It's a manifestation of sin and its effect in our world. Suffering is an outworking of the fall. And all we find when we travel around looking for the good in it, the silver lining, is more sorrow and grief. Instead, Jesus offers to sympathize with us, sympathize with us in our weaknesses. He lost loved ones. When Lazarus died, he wept. He wept. He stood right there and wept. And we know that he stayed back until, like, Lazarus is sick, and he stayed away, and then Lazarus died, right? And everyone's like, what, you're going to call him out of the tomb now? It's like, it's going to be decayed. Jesus knows what that feels like. Jesus was sinned against.

There's a sense, a very real sense in which we can say he's the only person who's ever walked the earth who didn't deserve to be sinned against, who never did something that provoked, who never sinned and provoked someone else to sin. Certainly Jesus suffered and was falsely accused. He was tempted in every way as you and I are, and yet he, through all of it, was without sin. And so instead of searching for meaning in our suffering, we ought to draw near to our sympathizing Savior who knows our weaknesses and cares for us. In spite of them. Remember that passage in Romans that says that he who gave us his son, who freely gave us his son, will he not also freely give us all things in Christ Jesus? Is comfort not one of those things? Like it's kind of a twisted view of God to think that he would give us his son to pay for our sins, but he wouldn't in the same way give us comfort and our weaknesses. It's kind of broken. It's like there's missing parts.

Like if he would give his son to die, which is what we're remembering tonight, why would we then think that he would then withhold the comfort that we need when we're sorrowing, when we're suffering? I'm going to read Isaiah 53, verses 3 and 4. It says, he was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hide their face, he was despised and we did not esteem him. Surely our griefs he himself bore and our sorrows he carried, yet we ourselves esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. And so Isaiah, many years before Jesus would come, prophesied about what Jesus would be like. And he says he would suffer. He would be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And his sorrow and his suffering would be so intense, so intense that people would turn their face away from him.

They wouldn't want to look at him. Have you ever felt grief like that? Where nobody wants to, like you don't want anyone to look at you and you don't want to look at them because it's so palpable. And you're like, I don't want to touch that. I see it and I'm aware of it and all I want to do is get away from it. Jesus went through that kind of grief. That's what Isaiah is telling us. That he was, a man of sorrow was acquainted with grief. like one from whom men hide their face. He was despised. He was rejected of men. That intense feeling of loneliness, of all by yourself, Jesus has felt that. He's felt that. And he didn't feel it for the fun of it, and he didn't feel it in some theoretical way. He really did feel it. He had mockers, and he had scatterers.

as he was dying, you know? Those ones who hid their face from him and despised him, think Peter, the apostle Peter. He hid his face. I don't know him. You ever thought about that? The most intense grief you've ever felt in your life, Jesus has felt just that very thing. In his humanity, when he was here, he's been there. And because he's been there, he's able to sympathize with you and your weakness. And those are the kinds of things that really expose our weakness, aren't they? Death. It also says in this passage that he bore our griefs and he carried our sorrows. All of the language in this passage aims at Jesus coming into this world. It's prophesied to do it in Isaiah. He's spoken about it after the fact in Hebrews. Is that he's coming to take possession of a people through his death and resurrection. They're not going to be mine. And I'm going to be theirs. And I'm going to be in them. And they're going to be in me. And we are together. We're going to be one.

And so our griefs and our sorrows, he bore them. He carried them. And to carry our griefs, he has to carry us. Because they're not separate from us. He carries us along. It's like going on a long walk with a baby. They make little contraptions to carry them that are uncomfortable most of the time. And you take them because you want to go to the place. and they're your child, so you want to bring them with you. And what that means is at some point, they're going to be on your chest or on your back or somewhere, and you're going to be just carrying along all their whining and complaining. Because that's what they're doing, right? They're not like, oh, look, isn't that beautiful? This is so wonderful. I'm so glad mom and dad decided to miss my nap time for this. But you carry them along with all of their griefs and all of their sorrows. Why do you do it? Because you couldn't get a babysitter? No, you take them along because you love them. You want them with you.

Whether they can see or perceive or understand any of the beauty or the fulfillment or the adventure that you're going on, they're your kids, so you bring them with you. And their perspective is like, why is dad doing all this? And isn't that the question we have for God in our sorrows? Why? And isn't the best medicine you can give your kids in that moment is to reassure them of your love for them. We're going to a good place, honey. It's going to be sweet. We're going to have pictures of it, and we're going to show them to you when you're younger, or older rather, not younger, right? That's how God carries us. When he carries us along, carries our griefs and our sorrows, he's literally picking us up and carrying us along. And so that's the comfort that Jesus offers us.

And it's not something you're going to take a hold of. I realize I started out saying, we're not going to talk about theological stuff so much. We're going to talk about these heart. And then it's like, but then here comes some of this theology. And it's like, isn't this like the big bait and switch? Like, you keep telling me you're going to give my heart all these perfect answers. And then you just came back in with all these Bible verses. If I failed, I'm sorry. But I think that Isaiah 53 is like top three sweetest passages in all of Scripture. And you should too. Because it promises to us in our weakness that God's going to walk with us and carry us along through it. And so when we feel all alone, like Jesus did in the garden when he was praying and his disciples were sleeping, he actually was alone in that moment except for with his father. He had his father and he was conversing with his father. And so the comfort that we, the real palpable comfort that we seek and yearn for in the midst of suffering, we have access to by faith.

Okay, if you want some, if what you're craving is someone to say, here's how you can get over your hardships and here's how you can like, here's some helpful hacks to like sort it all out. I don't have that. And part of the reason I don't have that is because the Bible doesn't have that. What the Bible offers to us is Jesus Christ, his body as a payment for our sins and his spirit as a comfort in our grief, who dwells in us and who walks with us and who's not ashamed of us. And who carries us along in our weaknesses. And we are like those little kids on that long walk who don't know where we're going, can't figure out why this is where we're at. I kind of feel like when you read the book of Job, you look at a guy whose life was really comfortable and ideal for the time. Pretty ideal. Until all of the tragedy. Then it wasn't ideal. Then it was like awful. And it's like...

Why did Job's apple cart get upset? Like the apple cart of his life. Why did God just upend it? Did Job ever figure out or find comfort in his griefs and his sorrows? We can point to a lot of the things he says as just being sinful, and they are. But what was first on display was first Job had like this much strength. And so we read in like, I think it was in chapter three, where it's like Job didn't sin and at his mouth. And then it just sort of like his weakness and he just kind of devolves into accusing God. And then God comes and he rebukes him and cracks him and Job received it. And Job was blessed by God because he received it. And he never would have chosen that path, nor would we choose our paths if they have suffering and sorrows. We would always take the other way.

Even if it meant unfaithfulness to God, we would often be tempted to choose unfaithfulness if it meant ease. And so I think oftentimes it's God's kindness that he takes away our ease and our comforts to confirm to us, I'm the one constant, I'm the one steady, I'm the one reliable in all of creation. I'm the only thing that you can rely on and count on. You can't rely on your health, you can't rely on your intellect, you can't rely on your money. You can't rely on your government. You can't rely on your spouse. You can't rely on your parents. I can't rely on my parents. I can't rely on my spouse. Not for things that only God can give you. No, you can't. Your husband is not God. Your wife is not God. Your parents, your kids, your joy, if your joy is all tied up in your kids, you're going to be really disappointed at points in your life. So we just walk around angry and sullen and dejected all the time? No. Not.

if our hope is in God and we've tapped into that reservoir. So we have to find a way to tap into that reservoir. We have to ask God and plead with him to open it up to us and give us access to it so that we can have comfort. You remember when Jesus asked Peter, are you going to leave me too? Do you think Jesus was being tempted when he asked that question? Was there any temptation in him asking that question? Or maybe we'll phrase it this way. If you were asking that question, What temptations would you have been facing in that moment? Despair? Depression? Like I'm all alone? Like I'm out here doing the thing I think I'm supposed to do and everyone's just like rats off a sinking ship. They're just jumping and going away. Yet Peter, that same guy who denied Jesus and who walked on the water and who's done all this wonderful and terrible stuff, what did Peter say? Where else am I gonna go? You alone, oh Lord, have the words of eternal life.

And that's the confession. That's the confession of a Christian heart. To whom shall I turn? Where shall I go? If I'm going to be comforted, if I'm going to have rest and peace from my griefs and sorrows, it can only come to me from your hand, O Lord. And any turning away from you to try to find it somewhere else is a wandering away from the God of all comfort. And so... The other thing I'll point out to you in Isaiah, and then I want to close by reading the last few verses, is there's two places in verses 3 and 4 where it describes our disposition toward him. At the end of verse 3, it says, we did not esteem him. We did not esteem him, meaning we didn't give him, we didn't recognize him. And that's a lot of what I've been trying to get at, is this we don't recognize him for what he is and what he's given to us. Instead, it says at the end of verse 4,

Yet we ourselves, we esteemed him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. And that's why we've gone away from him. It's because we've gone, instead of you walking with me through the sorrow, I want a God who doesn't take me through sorrow. But there's only one God. And there's only one name under which you may be saved. And he's acquainted with your grief. And he's overcome death. And there's nowhere else for you to turn. where you will find help and hope. And so my exhortation to us, to all of us, is to turn to him and to wait on him and to plead for his mercies and his comforts. As long as our hearts are broken, you don't have to act like there's something wrong with your weaknesses. You aren't going to find a solution for that. But you can find comfort for that in Jesus Christ. I'm going to read you verses 9 through 12 of Isaiah and then we'll be done. This is chapter 53. We've read it once. We'll read it again.

His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet he was with a rich man in his death, because he had done no violence, nor was there any deceit in his mouth. But the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief, if he would render himself as a guilt offering. And one thing I'll say, we've read a little in Leviticus lately, that rendering of a guilt offering is like the burning of the fat. Take all the fat. out of the animal, all the visceral fat and the kidneys and the fat tail, if it's off of a goat and all this stuff, and burn it, render it. Think beef tallow, right? Like burn it all up. If he will render himself as a guilt offering, like if he will go through that fire, he, the father, will see his, the son's offspring. He, the father, will prolong his, the son's days.

And the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand. As a result of the anguish of his soul, he, the father, will see it. I'm adding father and son, right? Because it's all he, he, his, him, he, his, all these pronouns. He, the father, will see it and be satisfied. And by his knowledge, the righteous one, my servant, he will justify the many. Right? Justification is his death as an acceptable sacrifice, satisfying the wrath of God against us. He will justify the many as he will bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will allot him a portion with the great. This one who's borne all the griefs and sorrows of the world and of his people. I will allot him a portion with the great, and he will divide the booty with the strong. And the question is, who are the strong? Who are the strong?

We've been talking this whole time about our weaknesses, but who are the strong? The strong are those who've put their faith in Jesus Christ and those who've come to him and looked to him to just carry him through it because they can't get their feet walking because his power is perfected in our weakness. He will divide the booty with the strong because he poured out himself to death and was numbered with the transgressors and yet he himself bore the sins of many and he interceded for the transgressors. And so, Brothers and sisters, you have Jesus Christ offered to you in the gospel and in these passages, not just as a sacrifice for your sins, yes, that, and a sympathizer with your weaknesses. So draw near to him. There's no, like, you can medicate yourself, but you won't find any real help and hope. You'll just have fears and sorrows and eventually bitterness. And I don't want that for you. I don't want that for me. And so our work is to live by faith.

Jesus came and died. And if you're a Christian, you believe that. And so then you turn to him in your griefs. And you don't have to be ashamed of being weak because he sympathizes with the weak. All right? We love strength in our society, and Jesus sympathizes with the weak. And so come to him. Let's pray.