0:00:00 - 0:00:29 Isaiah 53 verse three. And the King James says he is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him. Not, this is a verse that's not new to most Christians. And yet there's a lot to it that's not 0:00:29 - 0:00:52 really understood very well. It's a, it's a wonderful example of the use of words that we think we understand. But actually, which mean a lot more and sometimes a lot different than we thought. So let's start with what it means to be despised. If you look that word up, you'll see a lot of synonyms that 0:00:52 - 0:01:19 are words that we don't really use. And so despise is actually the more common of the chain of words that are connected to that meaning. If you despise something or someone, it's not just that you don't like it and, and it's not even that you hate it or in this case, him to despise someone is to consider 0:01:19 - 0:01:47 what they do to be evil. If you look up the, the definition, that's, that's where you'll, where you'll go And so we, in our, in our common use of the word, what we do is what we minimize, we minimized the actual definition rejected. That's when we get right. So what does it mean to be despised and rejected 0:01:47 - 0:02:14 of men? It means to have your good called evil and to be rejected? So people don't listen to you. But the reason they do is because they find what you're saying and who you are, they consider it to be evil. Now, what's interesting about this is, well, let's, let's jump to the end because despised is 0:02:14 - 0:02:40 repeated at the end. There, he was despised and we esteemed him. Not esteemed is a word that we don't use very often. Maybe if you're emceeing some event, you could see say like ladies and gentlemen, esteemed guests, whatever to esteem means to value and so to despise someone and not esteem them. It 0:02:40 - 0:03:12 means that you do not value them and you consider who they are to be evil and what they say. So what's interesting about this is uh we don't have to guess what people valued Jesus at because we have some hard data from Judas. So Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver and in those days, one piece 0:03:12 - 0:03:51 of silver was a laborer's daily wage, unskilled labor. So today unskilled labor is worth $7.25 an hour according to Uncle Sam in the United States, that's minimum wage at the Federal level for now. So if you extrapolate this in modern dollars, Judas betrayed Jesus for $1740. So assuming an eight hour 0:03:50 - 0:04:19 day, which of course, people used to work longer than that, but we're just keeping it simple. So here's the question and this ties into the middle of the verse which we're going to get to in a second. How long did Jesus work? So we read he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Most people would 0:04:18 - 0:04:44 think that his suffering was limited to the last few days of his life and they would be wrong because his suffering at least included the entire three years of his ministry. If you read through the gospels, you'll see. He says things over and over again. Like how long do I have to suffer you? And it's 0:04:44 - 0:05:07 very obvious that he was not having a good time. This was, this was a hard thing for him to do. It wasn't just from gem on that he was suffering. That's a, that's a false idea. Well, here's a question. Is his suffering. Was it just limited to those three years of public ministry? We're told that that 0:05:06 - 0:05:29 started in one of the gospels. We're told that that happened when he was around 30. So what about the prior 30 years? What exactly did Jesus have to go through that qualified him to minister as he did for those three years? Yeah, I know. And you've seen them too, you know that there are people out there 0:05:29 - 0:05:56 , maybe you're one of them that thinks that he popped out of the womb with holy powers and you know, he was a magical baby, but that's not the case. Jesus came to earth under all the same struggles as we face the power that he gained with. God. It came line upon line just like it does for us. It's all 0:05:55 - 0:06:22 the same conditions. God doesn't have a separate law for different people. He has the same laws of cause and effect for everyone. So what those 30 years entailed, we're suffering lots and lots of suffering. Now, the full story has not been told about that. Obviously, we don't have very much at all that 0:06:22 - 0:06:52 touches on that time in his life, but it's an important thing and it will be revealed in our time anyway, if you were to limit the time that Judas was valuing at the three years of the ministry that Judas accompanied him in what you'd get is that he thought that jesus' time during those three years was 0:06:52 - 0:07:28 worth $580 per year, which is a dollar 50 six per day in today's dollars. So if you think of all the wisdom that he taught all the miracles, he performed all the suffering that he he bore in Judas's mind, that was worth $580 per year based on the three years time frame, but surely Judas would have understood 0:07:27 - 0:07:53 that the 30 years prior were also just as essential for Jesus to be able to do what he did during the three years. And so across 30 years, which I guess more accurately, you divide this across 33 years. But just for the sake of the math, 30 years, it goes down to $58 per year. That math is obviously 0:07:53 - 0:08:25 wrong. Sorry about that. Anyway, it's a low number. That's, yeah, it's divided by 10, not 30. So it's actually even lower than that, right? It's about, it's a, it's uh about $19 a year, over 30 years from doing that mentally correctly. So that's very, very, very, very little money. Now, you might say 0:08:25 - 0:08:48 , yeah, but that's Judas and he's your textbook bad guy. He, he's the, the archetype of everything wrong with humanity in some people's eyes. I know in certain places in South America they burn effigies of Judas and they throw rocks at him and stuff. But is it really all that different to how you see 0:08:47 - 0:09:15 him? Now, how could you make such a claim, Rob? Well, if we read that verse, it says he's despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and who hid their faces. We did. If you read the rest of the chapter whose sins is he suffering for ours. So it's easy to say, well, Judas 0:09:15 - 0:09:43 was a knucklehead and I'm not therefore, but guess what odds are you do the same thing? So how would you know that? Well, you'd know that by looking at your life and seeing exactly what you put at a higher priority than God breaking that down further, you look specifically at anything you're doing that 0:09:43 - 0:10:11 is different than what you believe he would do in your place. Whatever that is, you value that more than Jesus and in many cases what you put in front of the Lord put before him in terms of you, considering it more important is probably worth less than $1740 is probably worth less than $580. It's probably 0:10:10 - 0:10:43 worth less than $19 because it's probably something that's not very good at all, but whatever it's worth, it's certainly worth less than Jesus. So what's this business about us hiding as it were our faces from him? Yeah. Well, faith is one of those words in Hebrew, that means something much more than 0:10:43 - 0:11:11 the English translation. And just to keep it brief. If you reread the middle and end part of John chapter three, you'll read more about what this entails. The Lord is the light and he came to shine that light and that light is echoed through all of his Children to the extent that they seek and receive 0:11:10 - 0:11:37 the light. But we read in John chapter three that we are all condemned until and unless we do that until and unless we fully submit to the light of the Lord, as far as we see it because he came to reveal it. But instead of opening ourselves to it, to see our faults and fix them, what most people do is 0:11:37 - 0:12:03 they turn away from the light and that's how we hide our faces from him. So a face is much more than this. It's what someone is all about. It's their character. So when you read about seeking the face of the Lord, that doesn't just mean seeking for an opportunity to stand before him or see what he looks 0:12:02 - 0:12:33 like. Although you'd learn a lot from that, it's about seeking his character and making it your own. That's yet another way in which we despise him and esteem him. Not because if he were to reveal more of his character to most people, they would write it off as evil and they absolutely do not value that 0:12:32 - 0:12:56 because he's constantly trying to reach out to us and reveal more of himself to us. But we turn away from the light. And so as we read Isaiah 53 3, we should think about the ways in our lives in each of our lives where we're undervaluing God and everything that comes from Him, everything that leads us 0:12:56 - 0:00:00 closer to him because odds are you are also despising him and esteeming him. Not