Dock
Resource Kit
Sunday sermon, 5 April 2026
Summary
Today, on Easter Sunday, Phil speaks from Isaiah’s final servant song, drawing us into one of the most powerful passages in the Old Testament. What looks like suffering and defeat is revealed to be the very moment of God’s greatest victory. Through the cross and resurrection of Jesus, we see that sin has been dealt with, hope restored, and love has won. This is not just a message to hear, but an invitation to respond, to lay down what we’ve been carrying, and to step into new life today.
Key Points & Takeways
What looks like defeat can be the place where God is working most powerfully
Isaiah shows a victory that comes through suffering, fulfilled in Jesus
On the cross, Jesus takes our place, dealing with sin and its cost in full
The resurrection declares that death does not have the final word
LOVE HAS WON is not just a message, it’s a reality we’re invited into
We are called to live this out daily, carrying hope, love, and peace into the world
Dock Discussion Questions
Where in your life do you currently feel, “this isn’t how it’s meant to go?” How does the message of the cross and resurrection speak into that?
What stood out to you most about Isaiah’s picture of the servant and the way God brings victory through suffering?
What might it look like for you to receive Jesus’ victory personally, especially in an area where you feel stuck, burdened, or uncertain?
How can we live out the reality that LOVE HAS WON in our everyday lives, in our workplaces, homes, and relationships?
Long-form, edited transcript
Servant Songs LOVE HAS WON.
Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12
LOVE HAS WON. That’s what we celebrate at Easter. That’s what today is all about.
But before we get there, let me start with another phrase: this isn’t how it’s meant to go.
Have you ever felt that?
I remember thinking that very clearly at the start of last year.
Many of you will know that over 2023 and 2024 I had some surgery on my legs and had been on and off crutches for a while, but it was coming to an end. There was light at the end of the tunnel. I was looking forward to being fit and getting stuck into all that God was doing here at SPS, and I’d also begun to think about 2025 as a year of training for myself, planning some study leave and various other things.
I was looking forward to it. Praying into it. Thinking about where I might go and what God might say in that space.
And then, out of nowhere, I got a massive infection. I went into A&E and didn’t come out for eight days. I was dangerously on the brink of sepsis, and two emergency operations later I came out of hospital on more medication than I’d ever seen, with my left leg completely broken and held together by a large metal frame, which was literally screwed into my leg for six long months.
Suddenly everything changed. Movement restricted. Flights cancelled. Plans ruined.
And I remember lying there thinking, this isn’t how it’s meant to go.
Maybe you’ve had moments like that, where life doesn’t follow the script you’d written. Where things you were looking forward to fall apart, or something unexpected interrupts everything. Maybe not a broken leg, but something in your family, your health, your work, or just something that hasn’t turned out the way you thought it would.
If I’m honest, there were moments in that season where I felt frustrated, disappointed, and a bit lost. But looking back now, I can also say this: God met me in that place. Maybe not in the way I would have chosen, but in a way that was real.
Something shifted, and I began to see that what looked like a massive setback wasn’t the end of the story. In fact, it really was a year of training. I had to learn to work and lead in new ways. I had to be more dependent on God and others. And it became a remarkably fruitful time of seeing God at work. I was reminded that sometimes what looks like everything falling apart is actually something deeper being formed.
And I want to encourage you this morning, those moments where we think, this isn’t how it’s meant to go, are not always the end of the story.
When it doesn’t feel like we’re winning
And this isn’t just personal. I’m sure many of us catch ourselves thinking, this isn’t how it’s meant to go, when we look out at the world around us.
We’re living in a moment where things feel fragile. It’s unavoidable on our newsfeeds. War reshaping whole regions of the world. Ongoing instability. Uncertainty about what comes next. And closer to home, the pressure of the cost of living, new fears about rising bills, and the anxiety that sits underneath it all.
People working hard just to keep things going, trying to make ends meet. Daily conversations carrying a bit more weight than they used to.
If we’re honest, a fair bit of the time it doesn’t feel like we’re winning. It feels like this isn’t how it’s meant to go. And the uncertainty of it all can be overwhelming.
So when we come to a day like today, and we hear Christians say things like LOVE HAS WON, it’s worth asking the question, what does that actually mean? What does victory look like in a world like this? And where is this victorious God when life doesn’t feel like it’s going in the right direction?
Because those are not abstract questions. They’re real questions, rooted in our lives.
And it’s into a moment not unlike ours that the prophet Isaiah speaks.
The victory we didn’t expect
a. Framing Isaiah
Isaiah’s words were written around 700 years before the time of Jesus, into a world marked by uncertainty, instability, and fear. God’s people were facing real pressure and real threat.
But in the middle of that, the prophet Isaiah is given this extraordinary vision. A picture of a servant through whom God is going to act. A servant who will somehow bring justice, restoration, and hope, not just for one nation, but for the whole world.
At SPS we’ve been learning from Isaiah over the past few weeks in the run up to Easter, looking at four poetic passages, or songs, about this servant figure. They foreshadow Jesus and help us understand something of what he came to do.
And now, on Easter Sunday, we come to the final one. The one where everything comes into focus. Perhaps the most important of them all. Some would say this is one of the most important passages in the Old Testament, quoted again and again in the New Testament, in places like Luke, John, Acts, Romans, and 1 Peter.
It’s a longer passage, Isaiah 52:13–53:12, so we’re going to look at it in three short parts. You might want to have it open in front of you, and perhaps take it away to reflect on later.
b. The promise of victory
We’re starting with just three verses, Isaiah 52:13–15.
It begins with victory.
See, my servant will act wisely;
he will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted.Just as there were many who were appalled at him – his appearance was so disfigured beyond that of any human being and his form marred beyond human likeness –
so he will sprinkle many nations,
and kings will shut their mouths because of him.For what they were not told, they will see,
and what they have not heard, they will understand.
This story, this song, begins with and is framed with victory.
Right at the beginning, we hear that this servant will be raised, lifted up, and highly exalted. That phrase, raised and lifted up, is language Isaiah normally uses for God himself, and now he’s using it for this servant.
Something extraordinary is going on here.
There’s a sense that whatever this servant is going to do, it’s going to have global impact. Nations affected. Kings silenced. People seeing and understanding something they’ve never seen before. This is not small, local, or temporary. This is total victory.
But at the same time, we’re told something else. That this same servant, the one who will be exalted, will also be appalling to look at, disfigured, broken, hard even to recognise as human.
So we’re left holding these two things together. Exaltation and suffering. Victory and disfigurement.
There’s an immediate tension here. This is not the kind of victory we would expect. You’d be forgiven for thinking, this isn’t how it’s meant to go.
c. The suffering we didn’t expect
Isaiah continues, another three verses, chapter 53.3–5
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
In Isaiah’s world, and in many ways still in ours, when someone suffers like this, the assumption is that they must have done something wrong. That God must be against them. That this is punishment.
But Isaiah wants us to be clear. This servant is not suffering for his own sin. He is suffering for ours.
He’s not being crushed because of what he has done. He’s being crushed because of what we have done. He’s carrying something that doesn’t belong to him.
Our iniquities. Our failure. Our guilt. Our sin. The things we’ve done, and the things done to us.
And at the very centre of it all is this extraordinary line, verse 5:
The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
In other words, what we couldn’t carry, he carries. What we couldn’t fix, he takes on himself.
This is not deserved suffering, but it’s not random suffering either. This is purposeful. This suffering is achieving something.
And still, to everyone watching, it looks like defeat. Like, this isn’t how it’s meant to go.
d. How LOVE HAS WON
Isaiah never uses the phrase LOVE HAS WON, but that’s exactly what he’s describing. A victory that comes through suffering and ends in life, healing, and restoration.
Three more verses, 53.10–12
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life an offering for sin, he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
Here we see suffering… but it’s not the end. His suffering will lead to total victory.
Again and again in this passage, Isaiah says will. This will happen. This will lead to victory.
For centuries, people wrestled with this servant song. Who is this servant? How can someone suffer like this and somehow bring such victory? It’s a mystery that runs right through the Old Testament.
Until Easter.
Because on Easter Sunday, we see what Isaiah saw ahead of time. This servant doesn’t stay in the grave. Death can’t hold him. The story won’t end in defeat.
In Jesus Christ, this picture comes into full view. The one who was despised and rejected, pierced and crushed, rises again. Exalted. Alive.
Why would he go through all this?
Why would he do it?
For love. For you. For me.
LOVE HAS WON.
Not by avoiding suffering, but by going through it and defeating it. Not by overpowering from the outside, but by breaking the power of sin and death from the inside.
This is how God wins.
Sin, and the suffering it causes, has been dealt with. Not ignored, but carried in our place and paid for in full.
The horror of the cross is not the failure of God’s plan. It may feel like this isn’t how it’s meant to go, but this is the moment it succeeds.
This is the moment that LOVE HAS WON.
This changes your story
If this is true, it changes everything for you.
Because this isn’t just a story about something that happened back then. This is about what is possible now.
It means you don’t have to carry everything on your own anymore. The guilt, the shame, the weight of things you’ve done, or things that have been done to you, or are happening around you. The patterns you feel stuck in, the parts of your life that don’t seem to shift.
And in all those moments when you feel, this isn’t how it’s meant to go, you can trust that this is not the end of your story.
Because LOVE HAS WON.
And we’ve seen a glimpse of that this morning.
We’ve watched people step into new life through the waters of baptism. A visible sign of something changing. A line being drawn. The old not having the final word.
We’ve witnessed victory in real time.
And that’s not just for them.
It’s open to all of us.
Whether you’ve been around church for years, or this is all quite new, or you’re still figuring out what you believe, the invitation is the same.
His victory can be your victory.
Life in all its fullness, marked by hope and peace, is not out of reach.
You can take hold of it today.
You can receive this love.
A people who live from victory
And this doesn’t just change us as individuals, it creates a different kind of community.
Not a people trying to win, but a people who live from victory.
That doesn’t mean life suddenly becomes easy. It doesn’t mean the pressures disappear or the challenges go away. There will still be moments where we feel this isn’t how it’s meant to go.
But we are no longer defined by them. Jesus has been there and done that, and he promises to be with us now, always.
In a world shaped by fear, we become a people of love. In a culture that often feels uncertain and fragile, we become a people of hope.
In the middle of pressure and struggle, we become a people who carry peace.
And this is good news, not just in here, but out there.
You get to take this good news into your workplace, your school, your street, and your home. Into the ordinary places where life really happens, into the conversations you’re having, with the people you’re walking alongside.
Because LOVE HAS WON.
Step into the victory
So today is a moment to celebrate and to respond.
To acknowledge and receive what Jesus has done. To release what you’ve been carrying. And to step into the new life he offers you.
The band are going to come back and lead us again, and as they do, this isn’t just a moment to reflect, it’s a moment to act.
Would you stand with me?
We’ve already seen it this morning. People stepping into new life, a visible sign that the old doesn’t have the final word, that new life is possible.
And that invitation is open to all of us.
This is not just a story to hear.
It’s a victory to enter.
Closing Prayer
So Father, thank you that in all the ways we need forgiveness today, we can receive it.
And if you’ve been carrying something for too long, we lay it down before you.
Jesus, thank you that in all the ways we wonder whether things can really change, you remind us today that they can.
Holy Spirit, when we feel this isn’t how it’s meant to go, help us to know this is not the end. That our past is not the end. Our sin is not the end. Death is not the end.
Because of Jesus, LOVE HAS WON.
Amen.