00:00:00 Imagine you have a idea for a startup and you want to pitch it to a bunch of VCs um in Silicon Valley. You perhaps have great ideas and you think you\'re going to make it, but what would you be doing that morning is you\'re perhaps thinking, hey, how do I make myself presentable, right? How am I going to what what dress am I going to wear? Am I going to go formal? semi formal or uh like Steve Jobs style turtleneck or Mark Zuckerberg style t-shirts, right? Because we know that people first, you know, they say they 00:00:43 the first impression is the best impression and you want to make your first best impression so your message doesn\'t get lost uh by how you present yourself. When it comes to God, um you know, as a child, I\'ve always had this question. How do I see God? How do I see Jesus? How does Jesus even look like? Right? And we don\'t have any portraits of Jesus. You know, there\'s a lot of discussion. People talk about is Jesus is is he a blue-eyed blonde person or is he a black Jesus or a brown Jesus? 00:01:17 Because the world seems fixated on the physical external appearance of Jesus as though that has some something extraordinary to it. There\'s even this legendary chase for the cloth of Turin, which they say has perhaps the impression of Jesus as someone touched his face with that to recreate how Jesus would possibly look like. But we do not have a physical portrait of how Jesus looks. Interesting, isn\'t it? But here in a book that was written 500 years or so before Jesus was born, a prophet 00:01:55 named Isaiah gets a a seemingly perfect portrait of who the savior who is going to come 500 years later is going to look like. And that\'s the text we read today. Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12. As he thinks about this, as he gets this glimpse and this vision of how this savior, Messiah, Jesus is going to be, he breaks forth in to a poem. Right in the middle of a prophetic book, you find one of the most exotic poems, a poetic literature, because there is no other way to describe Jesus who is so indescribable. 00:02:48 Because what Isaiah saw was this Jesus, this Messiah was unlike any human being or any God or anything that the world has ever known or seen until that time. It\'s one of the most richest passages in the Old Testament to talk about Jesus. The christologology of Jesus is presented with such vivid detail in this short passage. And and one of the recurring themes of the book of Isaiah, how he refers to this Messiah is as the servant of the Lord. And so the theme in these fi in these five stanzas that are there in this poem 00:03:36 is emphasizing five aspects of this suffering servant. Isaiah first shocks us with the paradox of this servant. Then he shows us why the servant was rejected. Then he reveals why the servant suffered. And then he shows how the servant suffered. And finally he declares what the servant accomplished. And of course the servant is connected to Jesus Christ. So we are going to look at five things summarizing these five stanzas of this poem. It\'s one of as I said the most richest Old Testament passage that talks about who Jesus is. 00:04:22 We\'ll see firstly how this is a surprising savior that Isaiah presents to himself of how Jesus is both at one time an exalted king and a disfigured servant. He was a spurned savior of how he was rejected and despised servant and how this servant of the Lord was a substitutionary savior uh suffering on your behalf on mine and how this servant was also a silent savior. How he was willing and submissive to go through all of this and finally how he is our sufficient savior who is vindicated and 00:05:00 triumphant in the servant of the lord. So let\'s look at the shocking display and presentation of Jesus as a surprising savior where Isaiah begins in verse 13 52-13 he says behold my servant shall act wisely he shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted as many were astonished at you his appearance was so mored beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind so he shall sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him. For that which has not been told them they see 00:05:40 and that which they have not heard they understand. So here Isaiah is giving two contrasting pictures of how this servant of the Lord is going to be. He is describing how he is going to be broken beyond recognition in his human mission and high and lifted up beyond imagination in his heavenly mission. Again, how broken and beyond recognition in his human mission and how high and lifted up beyond imagination in his heavenly mission. Two very contrasting views. And remember Isaiah doesn\'t know who Jesus is and how and 00:06:23 how he\'s going to actually look like. But this is the this is the vi image he gets and he describes what Jesus will do in his heavenly characteristics. He says he will act wisely and the idea of wise wisdom is that as a leader a wise leader is someone who accomplished the purpose that they have been assigned to do. And that\'s what Jesus would do. Secondly, he talks about how this g this Messiah will be high and lifted up. The phrase high and lifted up uh is a phrase repeatedly and consistently used in the 00:07:01 Bible to describe God himself which points to the divine dignity and the messianic identity. Now that\'s fantastic. That\'s what these beginning verses talk about. And then he talks about the earthly characteristics. You would expect that someone who is going to be so high and majestic would be flamboyant and charismatic and and have an if I have to use the Gen Alpha language and aura to themsself. Well, Jesus had the most negative aura you could ever think about. He says his earthly characteristics, his appearance 00:07:45 was so mored beyond human semblance. If you saw him, you would not want to follow him. His form beyond that of the children of mankind. Wow. The servant\'s disfigurement is not just about the physical pain. He we will see how it encompassed a totality of his suffering physically, mentally and spiritually. And again he switches back to his heavenly characteristics. He says but this servant who\'s like this he\'s going to sprinkle many nations. The language of sprinkle takes them the readers to uh Leviticus where sprinkling 00:08:28 was always sprinkling the blood about cleansing and redeeming the covenant people. So what he this person will also redeem many nations. It says and it says kings shall shut their mouths because kings who looked more powerful than Jesus who had greater and mightier kingdoms. They know how they got their kingdoms. It was by unleashing power and war and weapons. But here is a king who says in his human mission is going to look so disfigured and yet he\'s going to conquer the nations and that\'s going to make the kings of 00:09:16 the world speechless. They will shut their mouths. They will be astonished by his power and what he accomplishes despite being so broken. What they can never do with their all the power in the world, this king Jesus will do which will cause them to throw their crowns and bow before him as they have never heard or seen anything like this anywhere before. So different, isn\'t it? That\'s the paradox. A surprising savior. And because Jesus is so different, my dear brothers and sisters, he can empathize 00:09:59 with our suffering, but at the same time also have the power to help us overcome or endure our suffering and bring us to glory. You don\'t have anyone in this world who can do that. What a savior we have. There is no amount of pain or grief that you and I have gone through that Jesus has not experienced. He has experienced the depths of pain and grief and suffering. He may not have gone through our exact circumstances but he has experienced the same intensity or even more of pain and suffering 00:10:42 from which we are powerless to help ourselves. Yet at the same time, he alone has the power to transform our pain into glory. So when you\'re in pain next time, whatever that pain may be, whatever is causing that pain for you, go to Jesus. Come to Jesus because he knows it. When you want to have answers for your pain, when you want to have redemption and let God use that pain for his glory, trust and come to Jesus because he also is the only one who has the power to do this. So after shocking us with this paradox 00:11:25 of how the servant is or the essential characteristics, Isaiah then shows us why the servant was rejected. And that takes us to our next point. In the next stanza of this poem, he\'s now referred to as the spurned savior who was rejected and despised servant. That\'s the second characteristics in Isaiah 53:1 says, \"Who has believed what he has heard from us and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty 00:12:01 that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not. You know, the phrase arm of the Lord comes even before in Isaiah because he\'s talking now to people who are in exile, who have lost their land, their homes, their everything. They\'re looking for a Messiah who will come and give them all back. And they\'re expecting that this 00:12:38 Messiah will be more powerful than the Azerans and the Babylonians and all of that. But here it says the arm of the Lord is going to be revealed not in that way of power and pomp but he is going to be revealed. It gives two images here. The first is that of a young plant and second is a root out of dry ground. You know these are images of two fragile vulnerable things. You know, some of us, we have the privilege of living in this west coast where we have the world\'s tallest trees, the redwood trees, isn\'t 00:13:18 it? Um, any of you have been to Mirwoods? If you\'ve not been to Mirwoods, you should go there. You can see trees that have been alive for 2,000 years that grow so tall. And what you would see is that they would have constructed pathways and and tell you you should stay only on those pathways. You know why? Because in between these gigantic redwood trees are beautiful ferns and tiny plants that if you just step on them they\'ll die and that\'s essential for the ecosystem of the redwood forest. 00:13:53 So Jesus you when you would think if a poet wants to describe a god who will draw people and attract someone and if he lived in California you would think he would say Jesus is like these giant redwoods come to him. But he says no. Jesus is is like the ferns that if you step gets snuffed out wow because the kings who were expected to redeem had great form and majesty. But Jesus in his earthly mission was was a very ordinary human being. Nothing made him stand out. Nothing king-like in his earthly appearance. We know the 00:14:37 story was born in a manger. Didn\'t even have a home. Said I don\'t have a place. The son of man does not have a place to lay his head. Was not just that says he was burned and rejected, despised, rejected. No one could accept him as a savior. Not just that they despised, they did not respect him. They even hid their faces from him. It\'s a downward spiral. You see, the learned rejected him, the religious rejected him, the crowd and the masses rejected him all for different reasons. The religious thought he was not 00:15:30 religious enough and he was arrogant because he claimed to be God. The learned tried to trick him with questions that they thought would get him in trouble. But the masses, the crowds, the majority of the people, they only went to him and treated him like people would treat like like a guru or someone who says he has powers to do things so they can get something from him in a very religiously consumeristic way. And it says he was not respected. His life looked like it had no meaning. Was like a tiny blip in eternity with no 00:16:18 real value. And many people reject Jesus even today cuz he\'s not so attractive to them. You know the go the gospel does not make sense even today to the most brilliant human minds. Now, I\'ve been to some of the top schools in this country and other places, and 90% or more of them do not have belief or faith in any God, let alone Jesus Christ. And when I ask them, I I I\'ve been speaking to my own professor about this. They tend to believe in theories that have not been established as having more intellectual 00:16:56 rigor than being able to trust in who Jesus is and what he does because it\'s not a problem of the mind, it\'s a problem of the heart. And other religions have their gods displayed as powerful. If you look at the idols of the the Greek gods, you know, Thor, the god of thunder, you know, you all have watched the movies of superheroes, you know, he raises his hand and and he gets this hammer and and it\'s thunderous, right? Or if you look at the eastern religions, Hinduism or Confucianism, they have gods 00:17:35 who are exotic, who have like powerful and so to them, Jesus is not appealing. what he he he does what? And and they all use violence and power to destroy evil. That\'s not the path Jesus took to conquer evil in the world or even in our heart. In fact, Jesus says if someone slaps you in one cheek, show the other cheek. How many takers will be there for that? and other people let alone those outside even Christians those who claim to be Christians who go to churches reject him and and in this way say if you don\'t 00:18:20 heal me from the sickness I\'m not going to believe you if you don\'t give me the things I want more money better job better life prospects I don\'t need you where are you my dear friends this morning which group do you identify with do you reject or scorn Jesus today and why. So the prophet is building the tension. He\'s now walked us through this part of explaining why the servant was rejected after showing us the paradox. And next he reveals to us why the servant suffered. Why did Jesus do all of this? 00:18:58 And that takes us to takes us to a third point because he\'s our substitutionary savior, a suffering servant. 53:4 onward says, \"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace. And with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the 00:19:33 Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. As I was preparing the sermon, I had to stop when I was doing this. This is heavy. This is the heart and the soul of the gospel. And and this is something deeply personal. And I hope that you will find that as well this morning. This is one of the most graphic misrepresentation of what was going to happen to Jesus 500 600 years later on the cross. Isaiah didn\'t know that it was going to be a cross. He didn\'t know that Jesus was going to be flagged. He was going to be 00:20:12 crucified. He was going to be pierced. But he gets this picture and it\'s staggering. And he uses words. He says he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. All like sheep have gone astray. These are words that are used in Leviticus to describe the substitutionary atonement where they would bring an animal, a pigeon or a dao or a sheep or a bull and they would place their hand upon that animal and especially the goat, the scapegoat. I I hope you remember the sermon I preached several years a few months ago, I guess, 00:20:51 where they would slaughter one goat and then they would let another goat to go away in the wilderness so that it is representative of it taking away their sins from them. He uses that language, but now there\'s no animal he\'s talking about. It\'s now setting the stage for the substitutionary understanding of the servant suffering. Jesus not only is suffered with us, his suffering is for us. Now this is important. When the animal carries goes away, the offerer does not carry them anymore. 00:21:33 The animal does not die merely because the offerer sinned, but in the offerer\'s place doing what the offerer must do otherwise. You know the word stricken that is used here in Hebrew nagwa is sometimes associated with the disease of leprosy. You know it\'s it\'s symbolic of what Job went through. You know we get a sneak peek of that Job was said to be a righteous man and he literally he had leprosy. His own wife rejected and despised and walked away. He said she she told him curse your god and die. 00:22:16 So it\'s referring to a physical sense of illness and moves from that to injury. He says he was stricken and then smitten and afflicted. And every phrase with every word this becomes more and more severe. And then it talks about pierced through. You know while pierced through is not always specifically said to result in death, it is typically used in context with death. In fact, one of the commentators says it\'s the strongest term for violent and excruciating death in language. And similarly, crashed is stronger than 00:23:12 that which bruised implies. It suggests breaking something into pieces like crushing it and in some case even pulverizing it. You see the intensity of the words that are being used at what is going to happen to the savior. Smitten, stricken, smitten, afflicted, pierced, pulverized. Why? For what? It\'s because of our sins. The idea here is God is a holy God. He cannot tolerate sin. Any sin from the smallest and the least to the greatest. A sin that is not just committed by action. Jesus talked about it in the 00:24:09 sermon on the mount. A sin that can even be in our thought life. Says if you look lustfully at someone, you have committed adultery. If you speak angry words at someone, it\'s like you\'ve killed somebody. You cannot gossip. You cannot slander. When you do all these things, they are sins. And and the book of Leviticus and other passages talk about what is the extent to which the guilt offering needs to be. The bigger the sin, the bigger the animal and more laborious is the sacrifice process. Which means every 00:24:51 time you and I got angry at someone, we should have been stricken. Every time you had a lustful thought that even crossed your head and you engaged, you should have been afflicted, pierced, pulverized, and shattered to pleases because our God is a holy God. That does not change. But yet Jesus did not want us to go through. So he put himself there. For every sin that you and I do or did in the past in our thoughts, in our words, and our actions, he let himself be pulverized on the cross, throbbing in 00:25:37 pain physically, emotionally, spiritually. Do you get that? Do you get the magnitude of that? Because what that does is huge. Sin has consequences. First, in terms of our relationship with God, he even now will do that to every single person on humanity. He does not take sin lightly. Whether as an individual or a society or a nation, you turn your back against God. All these things will be unleashed on you through the wrath of God because he is a holy God. Otherwise, he ceases to be God. It may not take away our immediate 00:26:26 consequences. I\'ll come to that in a minute. But if you and I need to be rescued from that, someone has to take it on our place. We need a guilt offering. And Jesus is here offering himself to be that guilt offering. Why would he do that? Why would he do that? You know the two implications are that first is sin is serious. It deserves God\'s wrath. There is no escape. God is not going to ask you when he comes what was your philosophy, what was your worldview, what was your religion, whether you 00:27:05 believed in him, whether you did not believe in him. sin is serious. He has to execute judgment because he\'s a just God. But the second implication, why would someone go through this, put themselves in the middle to take all this when they have done nothing wrong? It\'s because the love of Jesus is bigger. Jesus took, we know this. I\'m not telling you anything new. Probably it\'s become too familiar that we don\'t take this so seriously. That we don\'t see the weightiness of this. Oh, Jesus died on 00:27:39 my behalf. Oh, you know how weighty that is. Every time I sin, I should have been stricken and pulverized and Jesus took that on my place. Jesus took what should have been mine because he loves you and me. You know, the biggest motivation for holy living is not to create a new bunch of laws. is not to not do it because of fear of going to hell. I don\'t want to sin not because I will go to hell. Every time I sin now when I think that for this very sin, God smited Jesus. God pierced Jesus. Jesus was flogged. Jesus was punished 00:28:24 and he was pierced. I\'m moved by such extravagant love. Why would I want to hurt this Jesus? This is why Paul prays, \"How wide and deep and long and high is the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge.\" So let me ask you, my dear friends, do you know you are a sinner? You are. I am. We all are. The Bible says all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So if you\'re leading a sinful life willingly or unwillingly, there is no small sin or big sin. There\'s no adultery or slander or lying or lust or 00:29:05 gossip. The Bible puts them all on the same place. If you\'re leading a sinful life, stop because justice will come and you will face more than hell the wrath of God. But if you are able to trust this Jesus that he loves you more and was willing to put himself through it then come to this Jesus again. He can restore that relationship. Maybe he will not remove the consequences of our earthly sins. Because for the Israelites, they were still in exile. God told them, \"If you walk away from 00:29:42 me, you\'ll be taken in exile. You will you will lose everything.\" He didn\'t give them back all of that. But he reset that covenant relationship for eternity. And that\'s beautiful. The biggest motivation to lead holy lives is this love of Jesus, my dear friends. So the next time you\'re tempted to sin, remember this, will you? That he was smitten, stricken, pierced for that because he loved you so much. After describing to us why the servant suffered, Isaiah now wants to go and 00:30:26 show us how the servant suffered willingly and submissively. He was our substitute and now he was our willing submissive servant as a silent savior. Verse 7 onwards. He was oppressed and he was afflicted. Yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter and like a sheep that is before is here is silent. So he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away and for his as for his generation who considered that he was cut off out of the land of living, stricken for the transgression 00:31:00 of my people. And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth. He talks of how he was unjustly punished. You know Vinod Ramachandra is a nuclear physicist from Cambridge. Uh he worked with interarsity in Sri Lanka during the times of war. He wrote a small booklet called the scandal of Jesus. Uh if you have time I encourage you to read it. I have a few copies. If you want to read it, come see me after church. I\'ll be 00:31:34 happy to give you one where he talks about how um hanging someone on the cross was a scandalous thing. It was the worst form of Roman punishment. Now, Jesus didn\'t hang on the cross because some injustice just happened from a legal point of view. The legal process was very meticulously followed. It was not unjust in that sense, but it was unjust in the sense that he did it instead of you and me. And again, it said in the previous phrase, like sheep, we wander. We, you know, sheep basically are animals 00:32:12 without brains. Left to themselves, they\'ll just wander everywhere. And that\'s why the shepherd has to take care of them. And if they sense a threat, they\'ll scatter. And we are like that. We always wander around. But here the same sheep is used to describe Jesus in a different sense as the lamb. He\'s enduring it patiently while suffering deeply. You know, it says um he was oppressed and he was afflicted yet he opened not his mouth. The the the Hebrew word verbs there is in the participle which means he was 00:32:56 constantly being oppressed and he was constantly submitting. Peter captures this beautifully in second Peter 2. When he was reviled he reviled not in return but he continuously gave them over to God his father who is a righteous judge who judges righteously. You know, you and I, if someone messes with us, says one wrong word to us, we want to get back immediately, isn\'t it? But here it says Jesus continuously endured repetitive insults and pain and suffering. Not just that, it says he even in his death 00:33:43 he was submissive. Jesus could have taken the bait when the soldiers mocked him on the cross. If you are the king of Jews, get away from the cross and walk away. He could have done it. He has the power to do it. But he did not. You know why? Because he knew he had to die. Without death there is no guilt offering. He knew he came for this very purpose that he had to give his body as a guilt offering and for that he had to die. So even the death of Jesus on the cross was his willful submission and not just death even his burial. It 00:34:26 says even that is not left. He says, \"And they made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death.\" He was not only identified with sinful people like you and me in his life and in the cross. Even in his death, he was not given a royal tomb. You know, the Egyptian pharaohs built those pyramids because they deserved kings need such great funeral uh great uh uh graves or a religious person dies, they they they they either embomb him or put him in a church or a cathedral or a temple 00:35:02 or a mass. You can even now go to Goa and they have St. Francis uh his body is embalmed and preserved and people flock to see that because they think he he was a noble man. Even in death Jesus was given a grave it says with the wicked and with the rich were thought to be oppressors in those days. So even in his death he identified with such people. Where do you find a god like that? He did it so he can offer himself as a guilt offering for you and me. And again, why would he do it? Only love. He 00:35:42 loved us so much. Romans says, \"While we were still sinners, he love he died for us. He\'s the highest and best source of love, my dear friends. Yet we still try to look for love in all the wrong places. Isn\'t it?\" Remember, no one ever can love you like that. Your friends will fail you. One small word or disagreement, they can walk away and not talk to you for the rest of their life. Your spouses whom you made a covenant with on the day of your marriage till death do a part, they have 00:36:14 limited love as well. Your parents who are perhaps the closest to us to closest to godly love, but they also will become old and die and be gone. The only love that stays, the only love that fulfills, the only love that can satisfy is the love of Christ. If you want such love, come to Jesus. And lastly, after giving us all this, he ends us with this climactic fra stanza. This savior is our sufficient savior because he\'s vindicated and triumphant. This is going to end in a great way and we\'re going to celebrate this reality 00:37:00 this coming week. You know, today is Palm Sunday and if you read Isaiah and other prophets, you would say Jesus is now entering Jerusalem gently on a donkey, not pompously on chariots like the Roman emperors. But this Friday, he\'s going to face all these things we talked about on Good Friday. But there is a Sunday that comes after Good Friday, and that\'s Easter. And that\'s what this passage is talking about. He\'s going to be exalted. Says, \"Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. 00:37:35 When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be counted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. 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 00:38:03 transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for transgressors. His soul was made a guilt offering. And it says that God crushed him, put him to grief and made his soul as a guilt offering. But he was vindicated. He accepted that. And he has now given him the authority to make others, you and me, righteous. Israelites knew when they messed up, what had to be done was to go and do the sacrifice. And the moment they did that, when they transferred it on this guilt offering, they knew they were free. And it\'s the 00:38:51 same even today for those who feel guilty. It\'s hard to embrace and to accept that we are sinful, right? Because it cuts at the root of human pride. But when you are able to get there, there is something amazing that awaits us. Those who accept this guilt offering of Jesus personally for our sins, he says he\'s going to make us righteous. He\'s going to bring us home, my dear friends. And he\'s going to do that for people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. That\'s what it says here. 00:39:31 He shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. Shall divide a port him a portion with the many. And when it says he interceded, he makes intercessions for the transgressions. It\'s not just talking of Jesus praying for us. He is interceding to absorb it all. He becomes homeless so you and I have a home. He loses touch with his heavenly father when he was hanging on the cross. Judicial silence. So you and I can experience the love of God at all times. Kings will now bow down to him. He is sufficient. 00:40:10 God accepted his guilt offering as sufficient and raised him up. Gave him the authority to make others. He is all we need. And you know what this should do to us? Why Isaiah is writing and why it\'s preserved for you and me? It should bring us not just to come to Jesus, not just to taste his love, but to result in worship. We like to worship other things that offer far less things, isn\'t it? We tend to worship in Silicon Valley education or jobs because they tend to offer money or security and we are willing to 00:40:53 worship it. We are willing to give that our undivided loyalty and attention. We fear our bosses more than we fear God. Or we tend to worship friends and acceptance with friends. Craving for those likes on those Instagram reels makes your day perhaps or beauty or power. None of those are worthy of worship. My dear friends, Jesus alone is worthy of worship. And and that\'s why we come every Sunday to worship because our hearts tend to drift. And that\'s why we don\'t just worship on Sundays. God calls us to worship every 00:41:35 day. And a big part of worship is our prayer life. I don\'t know how you pray. Is your prayer usually a laundry list of things from God? Or is your prayer more a emotional dump that you just want to do and feel good about yourself? How about this week we we take some time in our prayer before we rush to our personal please to look at these five aspects of our savior especially as this is the called the holy week a week set apart specifically to think about this. I think I\'ve given you enough meat. I want to do this and 00:42:19 I\'d encourage you to do this. Just pause, read these verses and pray and commune and worship God and experience his love. Let his love fill your hearts. That\'s the best way to remove our loves for other things. And once his love fills your heart, maybe if if it comes with worship, sing a song. You can sing when you drive. If you think I\'m not a great singer and you know I can\'t stick to the tune inside your closed doors of your car when you sing nobody can hear. It\'s all good. 00:42:54 Worship it says is a making melody in our hearts. That\'s liberating. Go for a hike or a walk. Take this in dear friends. This is beautiful. You know Christian meditation is not about emptying our minds but filling our minds with Christ and we have so much for that and when we do his peace and joy will fill our hearts. You remember I asked this question when we began everyone wants to know who is Jesus how he looks. Isaiah shows us the truest portrait of Jesus. It\'s not the color of his skin. 00:43:35 It\'s not the shape of his face, but the beauty of his saving work.