Who Is This Man?

In one paragraph

Brian walked through Isaiah 63:1-9, pressing on one question: who is this figure marching in from the desert with blood-stained clothes? The point was not to hand out life application steps but to let the passage paint a portrait of Jesus that most people never encountered in Sunday school, and then let that picture sit. Isaiah had already seen the Messiah as an infant, as a royal child, as a...

Read together

1. Isaiah 63:1-9 main passage read and expounded through the sermon
2. Song of Solomon 8:5 parallel phrase 'who is this' compared to Isaiah 63
3. Isaiah 7 brief mention of Isaiah seeing the messiah as an infant, unto us a child is born
4. Isaiah 9 brief mention of the messiah described as a divine royal child
5. Isaiah 11 brief mention of a picture of the messiah's sevenfold spirit
6. Isaiah 42 brief mention of the messiah as Yahweh's chosen servant
7. Isaiah 49 brief mention in list of Isaiah's servant passages
8. Isaiah 50 brief mention in list of Isaiah's servant passages
9. Isaiah 52-53 brief mention of the messiah as Yahweh's suffering servant
10. Habakkuk referenced for additional description of earthquakes and storm clouds as the figure marches

Talk about it

1. Brian said he wanted to paint a portrait of Jesus and let the Holy Spirit do the work rather than connecting all the dots to Monday morning application. How did that approach land for you, and what did you notice about it compared to how you usually receive a sermon?
2. Isaiah sees the Messiah as an infant, a prince, a chosen servant, and a suffering servant before this passage, but Brian said the figure sweeping in from Edom was a picture Isaiah was unprepared for. What surprised you most about this description, and why do you think it does not come up much in church?
3. Brian described the core problem as God being too holy to look at sin while also loving the people he created, and said no self-help book or human effort can solve it. Where do you find yourself still tempted to try to earn right standing with God on your own?
4. Lissa shared that when she thinks of her father, she saw a tender man who became something visibly different when his family was in danger, and she connected that to a fear of the Lord. Has your picture of Jesus ever shifted in a way that brought that kind of reverence? What caused it?
5. Brian drew a distinction between immaturity and maturity in faith, saying that immaturity focuses on the rescuing while maturity means reckoning with the cost of the battle that made the rescue possible. Where do you think you sit on that right now, and what would it look like to move further toward maturity?