God Was Pleased To Crush Him (John 11:14-15; Isaiah 53:10)

Welcome to the Shepherd's Church Good Friday service, where we celebrate how God, on the darkest day in human history, accomplished the greatest miracle that abounds for our great joy. Join us as we celebrate what Christ has done on Good Friday.

Before a child understands the concept of gravity, before a baby can even form the words mama and dada upon their lips, we have this sort of internal instinctual nature that's coming to bear, that was given to us by our father, Adam, that causes us to hate pain and to pursue pleasure.

That internal instinct causes infants to scream in agony whenever their faintest hunger pain rumbles across their belly. It causes teenagers to avoid studying for an exam in favor of watching TikToks for hours on end until now they've wasted their time.

It causes husbands and wives to bury their pain and to bury their problems and to refuse to communicate with one another about what's really bothering them in favor of pretending that everything is okay, that we're fine just the way that we are.

You see, we could give a million examples of this, but what is obvious to all of us is that we have this sort of innate desire within us to avoid pain and to maximize pleasure. Think about the decisions that you make.

On any event, what we usually do is we prioritize those things that brings us the most happiness, and we tend to deprioritize those things which make us the saddest, the most annoyed or the things that require the most work, the most pain, the most boredom.

God’s Pleasure in Pain and Human Instinct to Avoid Suffering

You get my point. In knowing this about ourselves, what we begin to realize is just how utterly different we are from God. As we learned a few weeks ago in John 11, God uses pain for redemptive purposes, and He doesn't only use pain, but He embraces the pain.

He causes the pain. He runs towards the pain. He's the one who can take the deepest and most searing losses that have ever been and turn them into the most bountiful joys and pleasure. And He does this, again, not by avoiding the pain, but by running towards it, by embracing it, using it, sanctioning it, even being glad about it, something that most of us cannot do.

Now, as we saw a few weeks ago in John 11, 14 through 15, we saw Jesus expressing this sort of gladness to His disciples, that it was gladness, and it wasn't a gladness that was emanating out of a place of everything was going well, but a gladness that things weren't going so well.

He was glad that His disciples were gonna experience fear and pain. He was glad that Mary and Martha, and subsequently others in the narrative, are gonna experience anatomical reactions that human beings love to avoid.

Jesus is glad that they are going through pain. He says this in John 11, 14 through 15, where He says, Jesus said to them plainly, Lazarus is dead, and I am glad, for your sakes, that I was not there, so that you may believe, but let us go to Him.

He's telling them that I'm glad, which means I'm happy that Lazarus is dead, and in the manner that he's dead. I'm happy that Mary and Martha are in tears. I'm happy that you, my disciples, are terrified to go back to Jerusalem.

I'm happy that this event is not making you excited. It's not making you happy or healthy or wealthy. I'm glad that this event is causing you to tremble, because now you're gonna see the plan and the power of God.

It's verses like these that totally nullify the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel, because Jesus is glad that they're in pain. He's glad that they are suffering. He's glad that they are being faced with their own mortality and faced with the end of Jesus's ministry and faced with the futility of going back to Jerusalem, a place that hated Jesus and was ready at a moment to kill Jesus.

Jesus is glad that they're returning back to an event like that, because Jesus wants them to see the power of God and how God can bring pleasure and joy out of pain. It's amazing, transformative message that Jesus is trying to teach them that you and I would do well to learn as well.

Jesus is essentially saying to them, I'm gonna return to the stinking corpse, it's called Lazarus, and I'm gonna look death right in the face. I'm gonna see it for what it truly is. But unlike you, who's gonna run from the pain and scatter and abandon me, unlike you, I'm not gonna avoid the pressure that an event like this is gonna cause.

I'm gonna run to it. I'm gonna tell them to open up the tomb, even though no one would ever say to do that. I'm gonna tell them to, I'm gonna tell that dead man to come out and he's gonna come out leaping.

I'm gonna bring delight out of despair. I'm gonna be for you what you cannot be for yourself. I'm gonna show you a glimpse of God. Now, this kind of thing happens all over the Bible, but it happens especially, most clearly even you could say, most poignantly and powerfully in Isaiah 53.

I think it's the best example in scripture. It's so painfully obvious that in Isaiah 53 10 that God is bringing pain on purpose so that he can accomplish his eternal pleasure. And while we're only gonna be able to cover that one verse, verse 10 of Isaiah 53, if you could only cover one verse on this topic, this would be the one, this would be the greatest example of how God can be pleased during something painful because he's willing to bring pleasure out of pain.

So let's read and then let's pray and let's examine this text on this Good Friday evening. Isaiah 53 10 says, but the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, he would see his offspring, he would prolong his days and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I pray that we would see the truth of this passage. I pray that we would see how you were pleased to crush your one and only son and not just crush him, but put him to grief. That you Jesus also were pleased to participate in this because you were gonna come and you were gonna die for the sins of your people and pay for their sins, rising from the dead in victory so that you could have an inheritance, a nation, a group of citizens who you're gonna call your bride and your church.

Lord, Good Friday is the greatest example of how the darkest day in human history can actually be the greatest moment of our victory. Lord, I pray that we would see the truthfulness of that. And Lord, I pray that we would in our own lives, that we would apply these things, that we would remember these things, that when we face grief and pain and sorrow, that we would remember that you're a God who can redeem those things and turn them into joy.

Lord, we pray this in Christ's name, amen. God in this passage is pleased. That's how the passage actually begins, but the Lord was pleased. And if you just do a sort of a cursory study of the pleasure of God all over the scriptures, you'll find different things that God is pleased with.

He's pleased with his sovereignty. Isaiah 115 verse three says, but our God is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases. This passage is talking about his right and his power to do all that he wants to do.

He does everything that he pleases and it pleases him that he does this. God is pleased with his own sovereignty. God's also pleased to give pleasure to others. Psalm 1611 says, you will make known to me the path of life and your presence, that's God's presence, is fullness of joy and in your right hand, there are pleasures forever.

God is saying that he is pleased to offer the pleasures of God to those who can't deserve it. Based on future grace and what Christ is gonna do on the cross. We remember passages like this when we're thinking about the pleasure of God.

We also remember the negative passages like Ezekiel 33 11, where we see what God is not pleased with. It says, as I live, declares the Lord God, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked would turn from his way and would live.

God is saying that he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but here in our passage, he is taking pleasure in the death of the only righteous one. He takes no pleasure in the death of sinners, but yet for the sinless one, it pleased him to crush him.

How is that possible? What is this passage teaching us? How is it possible that God could find such pleasure in his sovereignty, that he's gonna share his pleasures with people who can't deserve it? And for the one who deserved all of God's praise, all of God's blessings, all of God's happiness and delight, that is the one he crushed.

The reason this is so important is because it teaches us the plan, the gospel, the redemptive story of God, that on the darkest day in human history was the most delightful day for God. It's a day that he dreamed about since the moment that he created the earth.

It's the day that he and Christ spoke about in heaven before even making the cosmos. This is the day that the Lord made to accomplish redemption for his people, and that is what pleased him. Isaiah 53 10, the very first part of this passage, we're gonna dissect this passage in a couple of different ways.

The very first part says, but the Lord was pleased to crush him. This is an astonishing statement. It's made even more astounding by the phrase that follows it. For God was not only pleased to crush the one and only son, but look at what it says right after that.

The Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. You can imagine the crushing aspect of this. Many people throughout the history of the world have been crushed. Many of them probably were crushed instantly so that they felt pain for a millisecond and then the pain was over.

Not Jesus Christ. God not only crushes him, but he crushes him in such a way that causes him prolonged agony and suffering. The English is a little bit unclear on what it means, putting him to grief. That's four words in English, whereas that's only one word in Hebrew.

The word in Hebrew actually is holy, and it doesn't mean holy like we're thinking set apart. This is intentionality. This is causality. This is intention and will. This is choice-making language here.

We know that because this verb is cast in a particular grammatical construction, which is called the hyphil. You don't need to know what that means, but only that when Hebrew verbs are put in that construction, they're talking about causality.

Some verbs talk about simple reality. Like we could say he was put to grief in English. That would be an example. This is an event that happened in the past. There's no accusation of who intended it or why it happened.

It's just describing the matter frankly and simply he was put to grief. This verb though is actually communicating intention. God was pleased to cause him grief. He intended it. He willed it to be so.

It was God's plan and purpose to crush him, and that plan and purpose pleased him. God was pleased to inflict suffering upon his son. The inescapable conclusion is that God was responsible for Jesus' suffering and had a holy pleasure because of it.

The Lord was pleased to crush him by putting him to grief. You think about the crown of thorns, the whippings, the beatings, the scrapings, the bruising, the piercings, the blood loss, the organ failure, the hanging on the cross naked and being mocked by the crowds and all of the physical brutality, and then you think of the spiritual brutality where the only one who was innocent before God, the only one who never sinned, never broke God's law, never did anything that would ever cause such a situation to happen, the physical brutality was bad enough, but it was the spiritual reality of being abandoned by God.

My God, why have you forsaken me? It was God's pleasure to put the son of God to grief. As we know from scripture, this is a hard passage, but Jesus was not a victim in this. He was a participant in this.

Jesus was not screaming out to God because he felt like God was being unfair. He was screaming out to God because he had never felt separation from God in his life, in his eternal, never-ending existence.

But make no mistake, Jesus was a willing and active participant in his own crushing. We get verses like in Hebrews where it says, for the joy set before him, he endured the cross. Isaiah 10 clarifies this for us immediately after we see that God was pleased to crush him, causing him to be put to grief if he, that's Jesus, if he would render himself as a guilt offering.

Now, what I wanna be very clear about right here is that it's important for us to understand that when we read the word if in this statement, we are not, Isaiah is not casting doubt on the crucifixion.

He's not saying that God will be pleased to crush Jesus, that he will be pleased to put him to grief if Jesus is willing. That is not what this passage is saying. It is not talking about the willingness of Jesus to be punished for our sins.

Jesus was willing and the crucifixion was never uncertain. This is an if-then statement that is gonna teach us more about God's pleasure and about Christ, but the crucifixion was never in question. It was never in doubt before the foundations of the world, God and Christ had planned for our redemption through a bloody Roman cross.

Ephesians 1, 4 proves that. In him, Jesus, in him, we were chosen before the foundations of the world, and the way that we get into him is being crucified with him. The crucifixion was not plan B for Adam's sin.

The crucifixion was the plan the entire time. There's no backing out of God's sovereign plan. The Lord is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases, and it was his pleasure to crush his one and only son, and it was Jesus's pleasure to be crushed by his father.

And while we'll look at this if-then a little bit more in a moment where it says if he will be, present himself as a guilt offering, we'll look at this if-then a little bit more in a second. I do wanna point out the fact that Christ is playing a role here.

His father is the one with the pleasure of crushing him. His father is the one who's pleased to pour out grief and suffering upon his son, but it's Jesus who's gonna participate by willingly rendering himself as an offering, and not just any kind of offering.

The Old Testament guilt offering is the one that Jesus is going to render himself willingly and voluntarily to become. If you remember in the Old Testament, especially in the book of Leviticus, the guilt offering is one of the most violent of all the offerings.

The animal is not only killed, but it is entirely consumed. Every part of the animal is put to the flame so that it will be consumed in full. There's no eating it. There's no sparing it. All of it goes under the flame, and this is an example of what Christ has come to do.

He came to be thoroughly and totally consumed under the wrath of God. This guilt offering in the Old Testament is a type for what Jesus is going to experience, showcasing the kind of death the Lord God himself would undergo.

He would be consumed. He would be put under the total weight of God's people's sin, and like the guilt offering where the aroma of the carcass of the animal would go up into the heavens and it would be a pleasing aroma to God, the stench of the death of Christ would waft its way to the heavens, and God the Father would be pleased by his own son's obedience.

As a dad, maybe you're listening, you're a mom, or you're just a human, it's really hard to capture how this is possible. Why? Why did Christ have to die? It's in the very next clause that we find the answer.

It's in this if-then statement in Isaiah 53 where we see the full compounding effect of the gospel message. An if-then statement, just so you know, is a statement of conditionality. If this happens, then that.

Let me read it to you, and I'm gonna supply the word then because the translators of the English did not supply it, so I'm gonna add that word into the text, but as I do that, I want you to know that that's my addition.

It's not there in the NASB that I'm using tonight. If he would render himself as a guilt offering, then he will see his offspring, then he will prolong his days, then the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

It says that the Lord was pleased to crush him, putting him to grief. If he will render himself as a guilt offering, then he will see his offspring, and he will prolong his days, and the good pleasure of the Lord will prosper in his hand.

God was pleased to do all of this to Christ so that he could give the pleasures, his own pleasure to Christ so that Christ would have those pleasures in his right hand and be able to give them out to anyone and everyone that Christ pleases.

So let's look at this part by part. If Jesus would render himself as a glorious guilt offering before God in order to cover all of the sins, all of the iniquities, all of the failures of all of God's people, then he would see resurrection from the dead, meaning his life is not gonna end in death.

Then he would see God's elect raised from the dead, meaning that they're not gonna see death either. They're gonna have an eternal life, and then the good pleasures of the Lord are gonna abound out of his right hand, a leadership term, a term of power, a term of authority.

Christ, after his death, burial, and resurrection, will have the authority to pass out and divvy out the pleasures of God to all of God's elect. What an astounding thing. The reason that God is pleased to crush Jesus was to save us.

The reason God was overjoyed down to the depths of his soul was that his son was going to endure the unspeakable tragedy of our sin that you and I deserve to pay so that Christ could rise from the dead and give us the pleasures of God.

God was pleased that Christ would suffer so that we could have his pleasure. Christ was pleased that he would die so that you and I could have his obedience and his righteousness. God on the cross switched our places with Jesus.

Jesus was treated like we deserve so that we could be treated like God's one and only son deserved, and that brought pleasure to God. God is pleased with that story because he was coming to redeem you.

God was pleased with that story because his son would be consumed on the cross instead of you. God was pleased with that story because Christ would raise from the dead so that you would no longer be under the curse of death so that you would follow his resurrected son, empowered by his spirit to live like citizens of heaven, even here on earth, to be members of his kingdom forever and for always.

God brought the most abundant, deep, and satisfying pleasure out of the most awful and ugly scenario in history. God crushed his son to save you. As Christians, the greatest joy in our life is our salvation, that a holy and righteous God could look at us with pleasure.

It's a gift that's far too wonderful for us to understand, and it is a gift that we often overlook. God looks at pleasure upon us because he was pleased to crush his son. He looks at us who were worthless in our sin, and he looks at us with pleasure because he sacrificed his most priceless treasure, his own son.

As we end tonight's Good Friday service, I want you to remember something powerfully. I want you to remember what Jesus went through for you to be a Christian. I want you to remember that you have been given the pleasures of God because Jesus experienced the wrath of God.

And if you're ever tempted to believe that God doesn't love you, I want you to remember this moment. I want you to remember the moment where you saw the horror of the crucifixion and you saw that you should have been on that cross instead of Jesus for all your lying, for your cheating, for your adulteries, for your lust, for your manipulation, for your failed relationships, for every sin that is now creeping up in your heart and your mind, reminding you that you should have been on that cross.

I want you to remember the crucified Christ as a declaration of God's love for you. I want you to remember that God was pleased to do that so that the resurrected Christ could share with you the pleasures of God.

If you don't have this Christ, you have no hope, but praise God that he's given us Jesus. If you're a Christian, I pray that you would see the beauty in this dark day. If you're not a Christian, I pray that you would turn to the crucified Christ and also pray that you would come back on Sunday to hear about the resurrected Christ, the only one who can save you.

Let's pray. Father, this is a dark day, a day where it seems foolish even to celebrate, and yet in the middle of the darkness, Lord, you are the one who can bring pleasure and joy, everlasting beauty and life out of the deepest and darkest pain.

God, I pray that we would see that upon the cross. Lord, I pray that we would see that in Isaiah 53. Lord, I pray that we would see that you are not interested in only giving us happiness in this life, that there are times where you will give us pain and circumstances that will test us and challenge us, and Lord God, I pray that when we go through those things, that we would look to Christ, the author and the perfecter of our faith, and instead of being frustrated and angry, Lord, I pray that we would have joy.

I pray that we would remember that God can bring joy out of suffering and that we would look forward to future joy and that that hope that we have that will not disappoint would cause us to have present joy.

Lord, we love you and we thank you for what you did on the cross. It's in your son's beautiful name, amen.