Go ahead and have a seat this morning, church. As you do, please open your Bibles to Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53. It's fitting that this is Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. For a number of us, this will be the last day that we reside together and worship together in this building that the Lord provided for us when we were wandering in the wilderness as a church, moving from backyard to backyard, and then eventually to the parking lot that the Lord gave to us. We've had the privilege of receiving the word in this building. We've had the privilege, some of you, of being baptized in this building. We've shared the Lord's Supper more than 100 times in this building, in this facility. We have praised, we have prayed, we have seen healing, we have seen answered prayers, we have, with tears, laid hands on people whom the Lord has moved off to other places and goodbye. We have welcomed family members gifted to us as well. This facility will always be a part of our story. It's more than a gymnasium. It was our cathedral for three years. As we walk out of the doors this morning, possibly never to return here again as the Lord moves us to our new facility beginning Good Friday.

Then on Sunday, a day of new beginnings for us as a church in a new facility. Let it not be lost on us the gift that this building has been for us, the gift that this facility has been to us as a people, the gift that Caesar has been to us as well as a church. He did not have to be here on Sundays. He chose to be here for three years so we could be here on Sundays. We are truly blessed this morning to be able to walk out of here into a new future, but with this particular facility as part of our story. Amen. We should be a grateful people that the Lord has never left us without a home as we move towards our five-year anniversary. So this morning, we are finishing up Isaiah 53, and we will be looking at verse 12. Hear the word of God. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.

That's the word of the Lord. Our God in heaven, we have come to see Jesus this morning, and him alone. On the beginning of Holy Week, we would have our eyes and our hearts and our faith and our doubts and our weariness and our sufferings and our prosperities all oriented to the Lamb slain, the Lamb raised, the Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ, the one who rode in on the donkey of peace 2,000 years ago, the true King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And we lend our voice to the Hosanas that were praised on that day. Hosana to the King this morning, the King whose glory it was to enter suffering before exaltation. And today, Lord, I pray that you would seal not simply this word to us, but the whole of Isaiah 53 and the tour and trek that it has been to follow Jesus in his own prophetic footsteps here. We pray this in Jesus' name and Amen. We have spent the past six weeks moving through the prophetic humiliation of Jesus Christ as it's recorded for us in Isaiah 52. In Isaiah 53. And this morning, we come to the final verse of Isaiah 53.

And as we come to this verse, we find something that is waiting for us that we have been waiting for, something that we have waited since the first sermon and the first verse in Isaiah 52:13. We finally enter into the other side of what Christ has accomplished. We enter the reward We enter the victory. We enter the exaltation. We get to behold before us today not our reward, but the reward that was on the other side for Jesus Christ, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. Well, what was the joy that was set before him? What was the reward that was waiting for him at the end of his suffering, at the end of his humiliation, at the end of his grief? What was on the other side? The other side is a reward, a reward promised to him by the Father that if he would endure the will of the Father in crushing him, there would be a reward waiting for him on the other side. We see this, if you look back to 52:13, Behold, my servant shall prosper. That's how this whole thing began. It began with the promise of victory, that the servant is going to prosper, and he will be high and lifted up, and he will be exaltet.

Church, Jesus wins. Amen. Chapter 52, verse 15. So he will sprinkle many nations, And Kings will shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them, they will see, that which they have not heard, they will understand. Church, Jesus wins. Verse 10 of chapter 53. He will see his offspring. He will prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. Jesus will see the accomplishment of his suffering fulfilled. It is guaranteed. It is secured. What Jesus died for will be saved. There is no possibility of it not happening. He will see his seed. He will prosper in every way. He will prolong his day's church. Listen, Jesus wins. Look at verse 11. Out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see and be satisfied. Jesus is actually going to be satisfied with what's on the other side of his grief, on the other side of his piercing, on the other side of his crushing. Jesus is not going to get to the other side and go, And this is what I got? And I did it all for what? No, he will see it and he will be satisfied.

Church, Jesus wins. Jesus wins. And then we come to our verse, verse 12, Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many, and he will divide the spoil with the strong. Jesus is victorious. Jesus wins. And here we are on the other side of the agony, the other side of the crushing, the shame, the despising, the rejection, the sorrow, the physical maarring, the affliction, the smiting, the piercing, the punishment, the oppression, the judgment, the grief, the silence, the solitude, the death, and Jesus wins. On the other side of all that is the exaltation and the victory and the reward of the Son, Jesus wins. This was what was waiting for him from the very beginning. This was what was before him always. This is what he was moving towards. This is what was pulling him through. The reward that would be waiting for him on the other side when he stepped out of the grave. What would be waiting for him was his reward. We ask ourselves, what is the reward? Was waiting for him? Well, it's in verse 12. Now, the Hebrew, as you have found out in this particular passage, is a little interesting.

Oftentimes, it's difficult to translate. But I'm going to be going with the translation that comes from a better use of the context in an agreement with the Hebrew scholar and one of the commentaries we were using by Alec Mottier. The first is this, the reward of Jesus according to Isaiah 53:12, is twofold. There's a twofold reward that is given to Jesus because of his willingness to suffer and to go through the grief. This is military language. This is conquest language. This is language of Jesus winning the war, Jesus winning the battle, and Jesus coming back with the spoils of war, and Jesus coming back with a reward because of what he has accomplished on the battlefield of Middle-earth. He has taken Middle-earth, and he has accomplished his redemption, and he has been given a reward by the Father. Notice the language here. Therefore, I, this is the Father speaking, Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the many. The translation that is better than divide him a portion with the many is this, I will allocate or a portion, or give, or reward him the many, you see. In other words, the reward of Jesus is not that he shares something with the many.

The reward of Jesus is that he gets the many. The many whom he has redeemed are his reward. Who is the reward that the Father gives to the Son? You. You, the church, the bride of Christ, you You are the many. I am the many. The one holy Catholic and apostolic church is the many. Why did Jesus go to the cross? He went to the cross so that he might receive on the other side of his suffering, his people, his bride, his temple, his church, the many that he accomplished the redemption for. You'll notice that this is a guarantee. It is not as though the Father says to the Son, Look, I send you to endure You're this grief and this suffering in the hopes that maybe you'll get the girl. I hope you do. No, the Father has already said to the Son, She's on the other side. If you go through this, what you are purchasing is her. You will have her. You will have the many because they are promised to you. Turn over John 6 with me. This is echoed in John 6 so powerfully that the reward of Jesus is the very people that he came for.

John 6, beginning in verse 37, look at the confidence of the suffering servant. The confidence of the suffering servant in John 6, beginning in verse Let's start in verse 37. All that the Father gives me, not might, not maybe, not I hope, all that the Father gives me will come to me. And whoever comes to me, I will never cast out, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of what he has given me, but raise it up on the last day, for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. There is no possibility of Jesus losing. None. The Father has given to him a people, a temple, a bride, and Jesus has come to secure the redemption and the salvation in destruction destructibly of that bride. And he will have that bride, and he will have that many, and he will have that people because it is the Father's reward to him and whom Jesus came to get, he will lose none of them.

Church, listen. In the annals of eternity past, you are the reward that the Son is satisfied with. You are the reward that he despised the shame for. You are the reward that he went through the suffering for. Once the Father committed you to him, once the Father committed us to him, there is no way that Jesus would be without us. And because of what he accomplished for us, we are the reward that the Father has given to the Son. But that's not all. That's not all. It should be enough, right? It should be enough. We should be able for me to have preached the shortest sermon I've ever preached and just said, be done with it now. But poor Isaiah, he wrote more and I got to say more then. Go back to Isaiah 53. You see, there's more there. There's the second half of the verse, right? Jesus receives the spoils of war through the cross. And those spoils begin with you and me and the church. But Jesus is not a stingy brother. Jesus is not a stingy elder brother. He doesn't say, My reward is mine. It stays with me. No. Jesus is not only the receiver of the reward, Jesus also intends to share his reward with his bride, to share his reward with his siblings, with his brothers and sisters.

And that's what the second part of the reward for Jesus is, is that he gets to actually open up his reward and share it with us. Look at what the verse says. It says, Therefore, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong. That word strong should just be translated the many. It's translated the many everywhere else in this passage. It doesn't make anything contextually, except for going back to maybe the Kings before to change it. The whole passage so far has been about the many, the many, the many, the It's the same word. They're trying to do an interpretive move, the ESV is, but we don't have to do that because it's the many. If you look at before that, it's the many that come before that, and it's the many that come after that. Jesus is not deserving the dividing up of the spoil with just a few of the strong believers. Sorry, you weak-need people, ye out. Who qualifies to be among this only the strong. Well, here's what. We all qualify to be a part of the many. We all qualify to be a part of the many. And that's the better translation there.

It says, And he will divide the spoil with the many because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the rebels. Yet he bore the sin of many, and he makes intercession for the rebels. If you look back up to verse 10, it says, It was the will of the Lord to crush him when he makes his soul an offering for guilt. He shall see his offspring prolong his days. The will of the Lord will prosper in his hand, and out of the anguish of his soul, he shall see him be satisfied by his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, will make many. The whole context is the many that are there. And so what Jesus does, the suffering servant does, is not only does he receive the reward that is us, he also shares his reward with us, which means all that his death achieved, everything that his death achieved becomes ours. Everything that his death accomplished flows to us. It's not for him. He doesn't need the other end of his death. He doesn't need the salvation and the forgiveness and the sin bearing and the righteousness that we need.

He didn't do any of that for himself. That is not why Jesus suffered all of what we've been describing for the past six weeks. Because he just wanted to show us how much he loved us, so he just suffer with us and leave it there. The suffering of Christ accomplished for us a full and final resurrection, but not only that, a shared sharing with him in the very spoils of his victory. It's amazing. It's the salvation that we already know that we have that Christ accomplished for us. But I want to tell you it's a little bit more than that as well. It's a little bit more. It includes our salvation. But this language here that is military language of Christ actually coming before his people and handing out the spoils from his conquest. Here, John, here's some of my spoils. Here's some of my spoils. Kaylyn, here's some of my spoils. Teresa, here's some. And handing out the spoils of his victory to his people. Well, that's the language of Ephesians 4. Even though that's Psalm 68 is quoted there, turn to your Ephesians 4 with me. Jesus takes the captivity that he captured, which is us, and he shares the spoils with us as we are the spoils.

It's amazing. Ephesians 4. This is one of those great cryptic passages that I love to get in with my students at Beacon Hill. I'm just letting you know now I'm going to exercise an enormous amount of discipline here. Because if we started going, there'd be no coming back. Ephesians Chapter 4, beginning in verse 4. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. One Lord, one faith, and one baptism The one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all. But watch verse seven. Watch this. Here comes your spoils. Here comes the Lord Jesus giving you a part But grace was given to each one of us. There's a grace given to everyone in this room, a particular grace given to you, not given to anybody else. But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. So Christ receives the gift, the reward, and he takes from that gift and reward, and he begins to grace, gift the spoils of that to all his people. Verse 8, Therefore it says, When he ascended on high...

You're going to see why we can't stay here. When he ascended on high, he led a host of captives. Watch this. He ascends, he leads captives, and then he gives gifts to men. He gives gifts to men. In saying he ascended, what does it mean that that he had also descended to the lower regions, the Earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things, and then he gave. Here is this little passage Right in the middle of Ephesians 4 that says that Jesus, who went and brought the spoil back, which were his people, turns around and out of the spoils of his people, grace gifts one of his people to be able to faithfully participate in his church and kingdom and world in a way that no one else can fill your shoes in doing that. You see. Think about it. You're the captured and you're the gifted. So he receives you as his reward. Then he gives some of his reward to you, and he graces you with a gift. He shares spoil with you. And then he says, Go use it.

Go steward it. It's amazing. It's incredible. That's how Jesus wins. Jesus wins not simply through the accomplishment of his redemption. He wins through the very lives of his people on the Earth, participating in the Kingdom come, the will be done on Earth as it is in heaven. That's how he does it, you see. That's how Jesus accomplishes his victory in history through the lives of his people who serve him faithfully with the grace that he's given to them. And so Jesus's victory, when we pray thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven, we are asking the Lord to put us in a place where we can participate in that with the gift that he's given to us from the spoils of his victory on the cross, you see. There's no one in this room. You We're like, Well, Mr. Deutz, I'm sure he left me out. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. Our problem is that we have a tendency to identify in our culture rewards with idolatry and rewards with celebrity. Rather than rewards with simple, unacknowledged, uncrowned faithfulness in everyday life that may not ever be recognized here, but will not be forgotten by the savior when he says to you on that day, 'well done, well done.

It doesn't have to be the big boom, people. Your name doesn't have to be across lights. Your bank accounts don't have to be full. But every cup of cold water that you give with your hands shaking in the name of Jesus is because of the spoil of the grace gift that he's given to you to be there in that moment, to offer that cup of cold water to that person. Jesus wins, but he wins in the upside down way. Well, we come to the recognition for why Jesus has the reward. Let's just look at these quickly. The word there in Hebrew, because, therefore I will divide my portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong. That word there because is, again, not powerful enough. Because. No, the Hebrew means in recognition of. So think of somebody getting a certain honor, a medal of honor. And so somebody getting a medal of honor and the person who's bestowing that medal says, in recognition of this service fulfilled, this reward. This is the Father saying to the Son, My Son, in recognition of these things you have done, I reward you with the people, and I reward you with the spoils that you will give to those people.

And he gives four points of recognition as to why the Son should be rewarded the way that he's rewarded. Look at them real quick. Number one, because he poured out his soul to death. This is something that Jesus did voluntarily. The accent here is notice on who does the pouring out. Look at the passage. Because he poured out his soul to death. Because he poured out his soul to death. There's nothing outside of Jesus that could have demanded what he did. It's his own free pouring out his soul all the way to death for you. That as far as the Father is concerned, is worthy of the reward on the other side of the death, which is you, which means he's not going to stay dead. Secondly, the second reason is, the Bible says, not only because he poured out his soul to death in recognition of pouring out your soul to death, but in recognition of the fact that he was numbered with the transgressors. He was numbered with the transgressors. The Hebrew says, He let himself be numbered with the transgressors. He let himself be numbered with the transgressors. Think about that for a moment.

Jesus is at home among the rebels. Jesus is at home among those who need to be called back to him. He lets himself be named with and numbered with the transgressors. And so according to Luke 22, Jesus says, I'm going to the cross around the corner here, and what you're going to see is I'm going to be numbered with the transgressors. That's in Luke 22. Jesus quotes this verse. It says, I'm about to be numbered with the transgressors. And then we get to Luke 23 and 24. What do we see? Jesus is actually numbered with the transgressors. He goes up on the Calvary, and he's in the middle cross. Jesus is in the cross in the middle, and he's numbered with the transgressors. And he has a rebel on one side and he has a rebel on the other side. Jesus is there. As people walk by him, they see no difference in their estimation between the rebels and Jesus. He's simply identifying with their total position as being the rebels that they are. Jesus is comfortable in that place. But in that very place from that middle cross where Jesus has on the one side of him a rebel and the other side of him a rebel.

Geographically from the cross, which is outside the city, on the one side of Calvary flanks Zion, Mount Zion, and on the other side, flanks Gehena. God. And so Jesus stretching out his arm to two sides, one side pointing towards Zion, the city of communion with God. And what will happen is that one of the criminals will himself that day become a part of Zion on the one side. The other side of Jesus's arm points towards Gehena, and the other criminal that day will take his place in the fires that quench. The whole thing is this drama unfolding for us as Jesus himself is numbered with the transgressors, and one of them is saved so that no may despair, and the other one is not saved so that none may presume. And what we have is this unfolding drama as Jesus is numbered with the transgressors. And what we find is that Jesus, even on the cross, brings a trophy home, snatched a trophy at the last minute, snatched a captive at the last minute. Jesus himself is actually enacting the salvation of grabbing a part of his reward while he's on the cross as he's dying today, you will be with me in paradise.

And so Jesus, this is what he's doing. Even while he's being numbered with the transgressors, he's receiving his reward on the cross. And not only that, he bore the sins of many. He made the exchange and the substitute for us. And lastly, he makes intercession for the transgressors. I think oftentimes with intercession, we try to move intercession towards something that Jesus did after he ascended. Like that's the ministry that he takes on in the ascension only. The language here is bigger than that. It won't allow for the intercession for the rebels to begin there after the ascension. It's a word that means a little bit more than just praying for. It means really to stand for the total, stand in for it. And what it means, it certainly includes the intercessory prayers of Jesus for his saints. But it works its way all the way back to the baptism of Jesus. When he stepped into the water and John said, Why are we baptizing in you. And Jesus says, Because I must fulfill all righteousness. And in the water, Jesus began to offer the total intercession of his entire life for us in a particular way.

It in which he gets into the water and takes our name to himself. You see, when we get baptized, we take his name. When he got baptized, he took ours. And in our name, he began to represent us in an official way that extends all the way to his present intercession right now, which means the whole of Christ's life is offered as an intercession on our behalf. So you don't have to worry about the glitches in your day and the glitches in your obedience. You don't have to worry about the ups and downs of your performance and the ups and downs of your faithfulness and the ups and downs of whether you had one of those days where you can exalt in your own righteousness, which you should never do. Had this one for you, Jesus. Not sure. Were you really dealing with your motives that day? Don't try. Don't try so hard to wear yourself out with a perfectionism you can't attain. The whole intercession on your behalf has been offered. And it's Jesus, and it's yours. And so as we bring Isaiah 53 to a close today, You are the reward. And Jesus shares his spoils with you in recognition of the self-offering of the Son on our behalf.

But there's more. And it's this, the spoils that Jesus offers to share with us, they remain with us every week because the spoils of victory are at this table. And so when you come to this table today and you look each other in the face and you pass the peace, you are looking into the eyes of the prize of Jesus in the face of others. And you are receiving the spoils of his victory from the cross in the bread and the wine, because we always need to be renewed that Jesus wins. Amen. Our God in heaven seal the word to us today, I pray in Jesus name. Amen..