Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Psalm9 says, I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart. I will tell you of all the marvelous things you have done. I will be filled with joy because of you. I will sing praises to your name, O Most High.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come now before you. Father, we love you, Lord, we thank you for your son, Jesus Christ. As we spend the next few weeks rejoicing, remembering, excited to carry this excitement out throughout our entire life of the joy and the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, the life that was brought to this earth, that was given to us, that died, Lord, that shed blood, that we may have life with you forever, that we may have a relationship with you now and every day of our life until the day you come back, Lord. We look forward to that. We look forward to the glorification of ourselves as we will one day stand before you, perfect Lord, because of Jesus Christ, Lord, clothed with his righteousness now. And Father, we just want to give this time to you as an offering, Lord, as we come to worship your wonderful name, to praise you for who you are and the life you've given us, Father Lord, this time is for you. We thank you that we can come together as a body, Lord, to encourage one another to fellowship, Lord, to listen to your word, to listen to you because you are so worthy. Father, we love you. We thank you Lord. We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Week 1 Hope Prophet Candle Isaiah 9:2:67 the people walking in darkness have seen a great light on those living in the land of deep darkness. A light has dawned for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.
Dear Lord, as we light this purple candle of hope, we remember that your light pierces the darkness and brings hope to all who trust in you. Fill our hearts with anticipation for your coming and may we carry this hope into every corner of our lives. Amen.
[00:02:41] Speaker C: I encourage you to open your Bibles to the book of Isaiah. Chapter nine is where we're going to be today and we'll just look at a few verses. As you see on your outline on the back of the bulletin, we're going to walk through some important characteristics. Identity of the identity of Jesus, of whom we celebrate here this Christmas season. So let's pray and then we're going to read this passage together and or just a few of these verses from this passage together and see what God has for us this morning.
Lord, as we have already come to you in prayers, Pastor Les opened as was prayed earlier, just celebrating as we lit the candle, the light that we now are able to experience in the world that we are in, we rejoice. Today we find great joy knowing that in the midst of even the chaos that we may see around us, you are a secure anchor for us to hold tightly to. In the midst of a storm that pushes us back and forth. You're a light that guides us in the midst of darkness and haze. Even as we wake up in the morning and see fog, we know that you are a light that is enduring. And we rejoice in that. This morning we thank you Lord, that you stepped into our world not just to be a light, not just to be an anchor for us, but also to be our Savior.
You saw the power of sin in this world and what death does to us. You came to offer us life. And in that again, Lord, we rejoice and we say thank you as we spend time in your word, Lord, I pray that you would open our hearts and our minds to the power that you provide for us. The person of Jesus in this world is not just someone that we look back on and look back at what you've done, but today it is real. It is relevant for us. In Jesus name, Amen. As you see in your outline, your bulletin there, it says this. The Advent season begins with a reminder of the hope of the prophet. So the first candle that we light is the hope candle or the prophets candle in the Old Testament. And they had hope of a coming Savior. What kind of savior? That's the question we're going to answer today. In the points that you see, their true hope was not of a little baby in a manger that we often sing about at the Christmas season, but of a Savior who would reunite sinful man to a holy God that is the person of Jesus. Now, as we think about hope, and I want to lean into the idea of hope for just a moment. There's a lot of people in the world that have hopes. And there's a phrase often hopes and dreams, right? And oftentimes those words are synonymous in the English language or at least the way we use it. I have hopes and dreams or a vision. For if you were looking back some years ago, if you were somebody like Martin Luther King Jr. He had a vision, didn't he? Or he had a dream that one day there would be equality in the country. If you even bring it forward to today, you have people that have a dream. A particular person like Elon Musk, who hopes that we're going to have. Be able to live on Mars or people be able to live on Mars. Right? There's people that we live in the culture today that have dreams or a vision of something in the future, and they begin to work towards that vision. Now, if you're a teenager or, you know, some teenagers, they have hopes as well. They have hopes of being able to sleep in in the morning with no one coming to wake them up, eating junk food and being able to play video games all day. That is a hope or a dream that they have. There's many other hopes and dreams, aren't there? Some hope for happiness, for success, for a bigger house, better food, clean water, a better marriage, more friends, or maybe just friends.
Health, less anxiety in their life, Joy, peace. The list goes on and on. People who we ourselves, in this room, we have hopes and. What's the phrase? Hopes and dreams. A desire, a longing. Now, some of those hopes and dreams are going to be seen. They're going to be.
They're going to be realized in some way. And other hopes and dreams that we have are probably as likely as flying pigs.
They're just not going to come to fruition, no matter how much you hope for them. Now, when we look at God's word, we turn our eyes here. We see that there is hope that even we see from Genesis chapter three, when the fall of man happens. We see a prophecy laid out before us that one day the offspring of man will one day crush the head of the. Of the deceiver of the serpent. That was a prophecy, or if you will, a hope that was laid out. But what's different about biblical hope from the hopes and dreams that we have today is that the hope laid out in God's Word is not one of uncertainty, but one that will always be realized, one that will always come to fruition. Now, in the book of Isaiah, many of us are familiar, for example, with chapter six that starts off in the year that King Uzziah died. I saw a throne, right? We're familiar with that picture of Isaiah seeing the throne room of God. But if we fast forward just a couple chapters to chapter nine, we see another prophecy laid out. Now, the book of Isaiah lays out something that's important for us to Realize as we look, we're just going to kind of dissect verse six today. But to have this foundation. The book of Isaiah lays out for us the kingdom of the nation of Israel that has been disobedient to God. Any of you know what it's like to be disobedient to God? A few of you know what it's like to be disobedient to God. Now God has laid out his rules clearly to the nation of Israel, and they have rebelled. And then they rebelled, and then they rebelled and they disobeyed and they disobeyed and they disobeyed. So Isaiah lays out judgment for the nation of Israel. We see that. But what we see, that's beautiful. In this picture of judgment that Isaiah the prophet lays out as he speaks for God, for the nation of Israel, he also lays out hope. And it's this beautiful back and forth as you read through Isaiah, you'll see judgment and you'll see hope. You'll see judgment and a promise of something greater that is going to come. And so it's so easy to see as you walk through that, as your eyes are looking for that. And so in this passage, what we see here just moments before is judgment. And then chapter nine comes for us, and we see this promise of hope. And now we know the hope that's laid out that Isaiah lays out for us is not hopes and dreams that one day this might happen. If it's going to be realized or not, we don't know. But this surely will come to pass. So today we'll focus on one of Isaiah's prophecies. He has many prophecies about Jesus. Let's look together, particularly in verses 6 and 7 is what I'll read. We heard this earlier, but it's worth repeating. And then we'll just walk through some of these names for Jesus. Look what it says as we learn about, as we hear about this hope that's coming for the nation of Israel. For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given. And the government will be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of peace, and the increase of his government, and of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness, from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Jonathan, if I could get that up there, that'd be super helpful as we look at this passage. Really what this passage does for us is it puts skin on the hope that the nation of Israel has had for some time now. They've been longing for something, someone to come. And this passage really just lays out, here's what hope is going to look like. It's not just a metaphor in the future, but rather something that you can hold onto. So we're going to go pretty quickly through these names for Jesus. Jesus is, is what you can write in or what you can see there. Jesus is firstly, you can write in this, the Son of Man. Look what it says, Chapter you. Hopefully you just have your bibles open. It won't be back on the screen. Just the points will be for unto us a what is born.
A child is born. A child being born to us is a statement of the humanity of Jesus. He began like any other human as an infant. Isn't that unique? Jesus didn't just come as a full grown man, like an angel shows up. That's not how Jesus came.
Isaiah doesn't say more about this here, but we know that from the New Testament that Christ experienced temptation common to man. Hebrews speaks about this as well, that Jesus was a human. He wasn't just an image or a flash of light that showed up here and disappeared. But here's what Hebrews says about Jesus. For we do not have a high priest speaking of Jesus who is unable to sympathize with us in our weakness, but one who in every aspect has been tempted as we are, yet was without what sin? Some of the other prophets speak about him as well. Isaiah chapter 7 says this. Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will be with child and he will give birth to a and will give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel. This is real, a real person. Hosea 11:1 Again, we're just going to look at various prophecies this morning as well. It says, out of Egypt I called my son. Now this would have been a great encouragement to those thousands of years ago, hundreds of years prior, to read through this, to hear this, because they would have known this, this hope that we have this prophecy, that prophecies we've been hearing about Jesus or this coming person to save us is not just someone that is a metaphor out there, but rather a real person. Maybe write this down or take note of these thoughts before you go to point two. It's this. This is what I personally get from this first phrase in this passage. Christianity starts with God stepping down, not requiring man to step up.
And that's just a beautiful picture that we see right here. For unto us, not somebody else, but to us a child is born. That's for us, God gave. We're going to see in just a moment. Secondly, something to think about here. Jesus became like us before he asked us to become like him. Even as followers of Jesus, he's saying, come be like me. And we need to realize. For unto us the child was given. He became like us first and thirdly, God became a child, humble, lowly and dependent. This first phrase is a powerful revelation of the character of God, his first love and secondly, his faithfulness.
He showed up like he promised he would. Secondly, point two on your outline, Jesus is not just the Son of man, which shows us humanity, but he's also the Son of God. Look what it says. For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given. This speaks of the Savior's pre existing deity by saying he's given, not born, not created. Notice that doesn't say that for unto us a child is born, for us a son is given to us. He existed before that moment. Speaks about his deity. He's the second person of the Trinity. Before he was given to us, he already existed. Doesn't scripture corroborate this truth as well? Philippians chapter two speaks about this. Who, though he was in the very form of God, did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the very form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. He came as the Son of God. God in humanity to conquer sin, death and death forever. He's the perfect Son of God. The promise of ages, the Holy One of Israel, the desire of nations, the light in darkness, and the only hope for a lost world. John 3:16, a verse I think many of us know. For God so loved the world that he gave another word here that the same word that we see here. It was given to us. Jesus was a gift to the world. Here we even see the generosity of God that he gave of himself to this world. This means that the baby in the manger was also God in flesh. Flesh that is weak, fragile, limited, restricting. John 1:14 says, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Now what should you and I do with even just these first two points? Firstly, wow, right? God's love and faithfulness. God didn't have to do any of this. But before Adam and Eve took the first bite, God knew that death would not only be a part of humanity, but would also be part of the story of God in the flesh.
Isn't that incredible? He knew that. He knew I'm going to create mankind. They're going to sin, they're going to die. And because of that I will send myself. And I too will, even as God will have the death as a part of the story of God that has never occurred before.
Secondly, as you look at this point here, the celebration of the infinite becoming finite, God's power being seen in a baby, the Holy King stepping into a chaotic and sinful world should make us stand in wonder.
So we see this picture here. Look at verse six with me again. For to us a child is born, the Son is given, that is Jesus is coming. Thirdly, we have this other phrase that is even in songs that we sing. Point three on your outline, you could write this in. Jesus is also the King of kings. Amen. He's the King of kings. Look what it says in verse six, that second part there, it says, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. Now I just want to rewind a little bit. When I growing up, and I don't know when it was that I came to this realization, I often looked at this and thought, okay, this phrase means. And maybe this is where you are today. This phrase, the government shall be upon his shoulder. That's what we're looking at here in this third point means that the government will be like weighing him down, will be slowing him down. We'll be chasing after him, similar to at his birth. Remember, the king wanted to destroy all the babies. Even in the life of his ministry, the Romans were regularly oppressing him. And so when I read through the government shall be upon his shoulder, I thought that meant the government will be like oppressing Jesus. But that's actually not what that phrase means. And maybe you already know that. But if you don't, here's what that if you do, and if you don't, here's what this is really saying.
The word government really means the. And what this is speaking of is the dominion, the power or the sovereignty or the legal authority will be on his shoulders. Here's what that's telling us is that he is responsible for and has authority over all governments. No matter who is out there, no matter what reign is going on with whatever kingdom or empire or nation or president, no matter who it is, Jesus is the one that's in charge of it all. That's what this is telling us. The government will be upon his shoulder. If you look back in Scripture as well, particularly Isaiah uses this phrase as well in chapter 22, we have the same phrasing going on, in particular Isaiah 22:22, if you wanna write that down.
Isaiah is speaking about an administrator and him receiving power from somebody else. And here's what it said. He says that this administrator is giving over his authority to somebody else and it will be on his shoulders. Here's what he's saying. It's like he's taking his keys out and saying, now this is your responsibility. Now you are in charge here. The government will rest on his shoulders. Also doesn't just look at where things were, that God is in charge of all things, but also to the future. It looks beyond the first Christmas to a time still in the future for us today when Christ shall reign literally over the kingdom of this world, everything in the world, he will be that king. Seen for us, Israel's Savior was to be a sovereign king that will rule on David's throne. This prophecy continues to disclose that the Messiah's government and peace will never end. So as we look on, even from this, what we're going to see is now describing words for the King of kings, Jesus laid out as the king. Now, what does this teach us? What does this teach you and I, that no matter who's in power, their clock is ticking well, and even while they are in power, God is the one who has ultimate authority. I think it's appropriate for us to think, even reading this passage, which is very appropriate to consider, even as we think about, and even in sermons, maybe even on the government, because inappropriately, the election was what, a month ago or something? So often after the election, we're all stressed out what's going to happen? How's it all going to work out? We need to realize over and over again, and especially in a season like this when families get together with all sorts of political views. I mean, how many of you had a maybe I don't wanna talk about your Thanksgiving time with family from other places. You might know, we just need to keep politics off the table when Thanksgiving comes around or Christmas comes around. But how appropriate is it for us to realize this truth at a time like Thanksgiving and Christmas, when other family and other places or maybe just friends are around. The government is under the authority of Jesus Christ. We don't need to be stressed about this. We don't need to argue about other people. Is he going to solve our problem? Is she going to solve our problem? Who did you vote for and why? Did you vote for this? All of those things? Yes. We've been given the opportunity to vote in that way. But we need to come back to the table, back to the word here, and realize the government sits under the authority of Jesus Christ no matter what. And so for us, as we sit a month post election and all that going on in holiday times, when people are getting together, we need to come back to as God's people, this truth. The government shall be upon his shoulders. He's responsible. He will carry the weight of who's in office. That's up to Him. Proverbs 21:1 says this. I love this passage. It says this, the king's heart, or you might put in the word president or leader or senator. The king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he wills.
That can give us great peace today.
The next phrase here we have describing words now for this ruler, for this king Jesus. And it's this. He is a wonderful counselor. He's a wonderful counselor.
This describing word is important for us as followers of Jesus because we realize we need help in this world, don't we? There's times that you and I have questions that we don't know what to do. And we need to come back to the wonderful counselor. Now, sometimes we might be kind of like humans are when they approach a counselor now. As you know, some years ago, a little while ago, I closed a counseling office that I ran for a while. And there was a season in that where as I would interact with various clients, had the opportunity to pray with them and to go to before the Lord and go into the word of God and seek counsel from God. And there was times that people might come, their life might be kind of chaotic or whatever. There's at least problems going on they need help with or direction they need need. And so they come, they ask for counsel. And so I was just thinking about this as we think about Jesus being a wonderful counselor. It was. I think it's interesting. Sometimes they would listen and hopefully by the power of work of God, their life might get better. Or whatever question they had might get better. That's the prayer, right? But also there was some that might come along and say, hey, I need help with this, or guidance with this. And then I'm like, here you go. Here's what God says. And then meet again the following week. It's like, so did you do that? They're like, no, like, okay, let's just repeat ourselves again. And so we did it again. We talked through those things. Maybe you should do this. And then like, oh, sounds good. Thank you so much. Just fantastic counsel. We really appreciate this. They go and they come back, so did you do it? And then they are like, no, no.
So, you know, months go by of this, and then I start asking, why are you coming? Why are you coming here?
But sometimes we do that with God, don't we? Sometimes we even, I'm coming back. God, you give great counsel. You might even tell other people, great counsel. He gives great counsel. So are you doing what he's saying?
Well, no, because it doesn't really fit my life right now and I don't really want to adjust some things in my life. What we see here about Jesus is he's a wonderful counselor. And a wonderful counselor is worth listening to, right? If we truly believe he's a wonderful counselor, then we believe that us changing our life based on his counsel, and by the way, he's given us lots of counsel, then we truly will do what he has asked us to do. It would be just as awkward for us to go to a physical counselor or therapist or someone and say, hey, I have this problem. Can you help me with this? And they're like, yes, do this. And then we don't do it. Just as strange as it was for you to hear, like, then they come back and they still don't do it. They said it was great counsel. Why didn't they do it? Do we do this with God too?
He's a great counselor.
Last week I encouraged you and I did this, and I know many of you did as well, just to spend three times a day praying on your knees. And I know for myself and I know for you, especially as you communicated with me this last week, that was really helpful to be able to sit before the Lord and just say, what do you want to say to me? Maybe you didn't do that this last week. You could still do that. It gives you space to sit quietly and listen to the counsel of God.5 on your outline, we see that as the ruler, as the king of kings, as the one who is responsible for all things, we should go to him as the for counsel when we have problems. But we also see that he is a mighty God. He's a mighty God.
You might know all. You might. I already wrote that in. I already know that. But as someone who desires to follow Jesus means faith that he can do anything.
And sometimes when life is really, really hard and you read through, for example, you read through what these guys are going through, the nation of Israel is going through in the book of Isaiah, what they're seeing Here, Nation of Israel in the book of Isaiah. What they're seeing here is that life is falling apart. Have any of you experienced that before? Life is just hard. And I don't have an answer for what's going on. I can't figure out why it's happening. Maybe there's confusion and relationships or struggles with marriage or family stuff, with work. Whatever it may be. Life is hard and I don't know if it's going to get better. And then we can look at a passage like this or just the name of Jesus and recognize this. He is a mighty God, not just a great counselor, but he's strong enough to change what's going on in my life. Remember the song what a mighty God We Serve?
This is just a great song. What a mighty God we serve Angels, they bow before him Heaven and earth adore him what a mighty God we serve. We can come before him and ask him for those things that we want changed. But for me and maybe you as well as I think about this identity of Jesus as him being a mighty God, I ask myself this question.
Do I treat him like he's mighty?
That he actually can do the things that I want him to do, or that he promises that he will do?
Yes. God is all powerful and he loves me. If God were not all powerful, what would we be doing here? Just wasting our time? There's a question every once in a while that people ask, you know, if God is all powerful, why do bad things happen? He loves us, right? Why does he let these bad things happen in the world? We look at him, we say, jesus is a mighty God. Why does he let these bad things happen? Because he's given us the opportunity to make our own choices. Because he loves us.
And so even in the midst of us doing our own thing like the nation of Israel and that leading towards sin and destruction and sin and destruction. Here's what the mighty God promises, that in the end, he's going to bring restoration. And it is only a mighty God who is able to make something that is broken, as broken as we are, into something beautiful, who's able to show to able to bring people who have rejected God into restoration and a restored relationship with God that is only something that a mighty God can do. And so as we look, even, and maybe as you think about family and friends in this season that's going on, these relationships are hard or their heart is so far from God, don't forget he's a mighty God and he can bring people that are far from him close To him, he can bring relationships that are broken and restore Him. And that's the hope that we have. And if it's not realized even in our lifetime, we know that one day it will be realized that he will come and make all things that are broken for those who have submitted to him into something wonderful. For me, I find great peace knowing that He's a mighty God. I hope you do as well. Point six. Look at this. He says not just that he is a wonderful counselor. Thus we should run to him when we have problems. We should run to him when we are worried. We should run to him when we need direction. He's a mighty God who's able to bring restoration and wholeness out of brokenness. But also it says everlasting Father, which literally means this, the Father of eternity. He is the Creator and Sustainer is what that teaches us. He's the beginning. He was at the beginning of time. So. Point six. You could write in that. In the Creator and Sustainer, Christ as the mighty God is the One who brought about all things. Listen to some passages. Just listen to these from Hebrews one, you, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands, and they will perish, but you remain. They will all wear out like a garment. All the things in this world will wear out like a garment, like a robe. You will roll them up like a garment. They will be changed, but you are the same, and your years will have no end. This is speaking of Jesus. Colossians 1. For by him, Jesus, all things were do you know this verse? Created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers and authorities, all things were created through him and for Him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Nothing is too difficult for Him.
As we ponder here, just the person of Jesus. And I think about this, maybe as you think about this, what this tells me. Before time began, Jesus knew that we would be right here where we are today.
Before time began, he knew when you would be born, where your parents would be in that process, when you would submit your life to Him. He knew what your friends would say before they said it. He knew how you would respond. He knew how many kids you would have. He knew how long each of us would take breath. He knows when the end of your life will be and the end of my life will be. He knows how many times your heart has beat from the time of the moment of inception to the moment that we are today. And he knows how many more beats are left. The Creator and Sustainer is the one who keeps us going, who puts breath in our lungs. He knows. He knew who you would marry if you got married. He knew if you would or wouldn't get married. He knew what job that you would have. He knew all of those things.
And in the midst of us knowing that, he knew all of that. How easy is it for anxiety to still grip us? How easy is it for stress to still overwhelm us or problems to come up and just say, God, why is this happening? He said, I knew it would come and I know what's going to happen in the end.
He knows all of those things, and not just that he holds them all together.
Without him doing that, our life truly would fall apart.
So maybe this is what you need to hear today, no matter what's going on in your life. Maybe what I need to hear today, no matter what's going on in our life, we need to keep running back to him because he's the Father of eternity before the world began, in the time that we live in and both after time is done, he will be the one who holds it all together.
We can find great peace in that, great hope in that. That leads us to point seven on your outline. So we've learned now we've seen this, that he is a mighty, a wonderful counselor. He's a mighty God. He's the Father of eternity, from before all things. He exists outside of time and also in the midst of chaos, especially for the nation of Israel.
He's the Prince of peace.
He's the Prince of peace.
He's the one who will bring about peace in a world of chaos. In the Messiah's kingdom there will be no conflicts because he is the Prince of peace. He offers peace from God to all who receive his grace. He makes peace with God as Romans 5 speaks about. For those who surrender to him in faith, he brings the peace of God, as Philippians 4 says to those who walk with Him.
As we hear so often at Christmas, the beginning of his earthly life was heralded by angels who declared peace on earth in Luke 2. There never really has been peace on earth in the sense that we think of wars. And rumors of wars have characterized our world for thousands of years and even the 2000 years since Jesus. And yet peace was announced with Him. So what are we talking about here? The announcement of peace on the earth was a two pronged proclamation and it was this. Firstly, it was announcing that now because of Jesus, you can have peace with God. Because before Jesus, you were enemies of God. Jesus is the one. Firstly, Jesus is the one that can bring you who was far from God to be close with God. The one when God looked at you, he saw sin. And now because of Jesus, he sees peace, reconciliation, because of what Jesus has done. So that's the first prong peace on earth now can be realized because Jesus is here. And secondly, this is important for us to realize because we don't just look backwards or even in our in the present now and say, I can have peace with God. Or people could have peace with God then because of Jesus. But we realize that in the future we also know that there will be peace in the world where we regular in a world, we regularly turn the news on and we see chaos around the world. Or maybe you scroll on your social media thing and you see your news there. Wherever you find your news, you see chaos all over. And you and I wonder and ask the same question, don't we? Will this ever end?
Will this ever end? It's so overwhelming. Every day is a new bad story. Every day there's something else, chaotic, bad, negative, horrible going on. When will it stop? So we see the first pronged announcement was to the peace that you and I can have with God. The second was one day there will be world peace. There will be. And that is only realized in the person of Jesus Christ when he comes and makes all things new, when he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
He desires us to have this kind of peace. Now, I know the candle is hope, not peace. So let's save peace talks for a different Sunday. But what we see here today is this.
In that point of peace is that we can have hope. That when you look out in the world and you see the chaos, you can say, I have hope though, because it won't be like this forever.
And as people that you sit around the table with in the coming week, the coming month or so, and you're talking through all of that, you can sit there with a level of peace. They might ask you, why are you like that? Or how are you like this? Don't you care about what's going on? Yes, of course I care. And I realize it's not going to be like this forever.
There will be a day when Jesus comes and makes all things new, all things right. And I know that I have peace with God now. And if you don't have peace with God now, I would like to introduce you to Jesus.
Your table. This Christmas season is a great place to introduce people to the hope that they could have if they don't have Jesus. Yet.
We conclude with this. The prophetic message of Christmas is the good news of God's answer to all the confusion, all the chaos, all the complexities and all the conflicts of life. It is the gift of a newborn infant who is also the father of all eternity. Yes, he was an innocent child, yet he was a wise counselor and a mighty king. He is God with us, Emmanuel.
So this Christmas, consider the wonderful promise of Christ and how he has fulfilled each of these rich prophecies. As you look at your outline, he has fulfilled every one of those in your life. And maybe you need to just sit there for a moment and maybe this week look at those and say, how, Lord, have you fulfilled this? How have I seen you as human, as someone who's gentle and lowly and wants to come close to me? How have I seen you as a God who is massive and I should magnify? How have I seen you as a wise counselor in my life? How have I seen you as a mighty God in my life? What miraculous things have I seen you do? How have I seen you as the Father of all eternity as I'm able to look back at my life and go, look, Lord, you worked it all out for good. I wouldn't be here today unless you had done those things that I didn't like then. But you knew where it was going.
You have seen God work out in your life, him being the Prince of Peace, haven't you? If you know Jesus, you have seen that reality play out.
I pray that today, if you haven't yet trusted in Jesus, that you would do that, that it wouldn't just be a nice story in the future, but rather someone. The hope of Jesus is someone that you can trust in, because hope truly is this hope is like the blood in our veins that keeps us going in the midst of hardship, just like blood keeps us going. Without blood, we're going to fall apart. Hope is what keeps us going in the midst of hardship. Hope is what drives us forward when our heads are downcast. Hope is what keeps us looking towards the end when bad news strikes us. And the hope that we can be sure of is not hopes and dreams, but the hope that we can be sure of that keeps us going is the person of Jesus Christ. Let's pray together.
Lord, we come before you this morning able to experience joy today because we know that you are a God who is near us. You became like us so that we would see you, so we would know you, so that we can experience peace with the Father.
You have given us guidance and counsel, even in the midst of your word and in your spirit that you've put inside of those who have trusted in you. You've shown us your power in so many ways. Yes, in the creation around us, but also in the way that you've changed us and shaped us to be more like you.
You have complete control of the governmental systems around us. And we can find peace in that knowing that it is upon your shoulders, not ours, to make all things right. You will do that, and we find great joy. We find peace in that knowing that one day it will happen. Not maybe, but it will happen.
And for those here today maybe, who haven't trusted in you as their Lord and Savior, Lord, I pray that you would grab ahold of their hearts right now.
You would show them that the hope that they have is hopes and dreams. It's an unrealized future. It's a hope that they have that will be unrealized being in your presence. But through your work on the cross, Jesus, we know for sure where we will end up.
We know for sure that you do create an opportunity for us to be at peace with the Father, to be joyful. This season we celebrate your coming in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:53:39] Speaker D: Come, Thou long expected Jesus born to set thy people free from our fears and sins.
Release us. Let us find our rest in thee, Israel. Strength and joy of every longing heart on th.
And yet a king born to reign in us forever.
Love thy gracious kingdom by thine own eternal spirit ruling all our hearts alone thy suffering leaving today.
[00:56:35] Speaker C: You'll find the youth out there as well. And they'd be happy to grab Christmas cards from you if that's something you want to be doing. And many will head to Maud. But in the midst of all of that, remember there can be a smile on our face, no matter what we're running up against. Because Jesus is coming back again. Amen. There is a second advent that we celebrate, Lord Jesus. We are joyful today as we leave as your children, as your people, as we step into a world that needs you. We are your ambassadors. You've called us to go, to be a light in the midst of darkness. And so, as we think today, even about this Advent candle that we lit, this candle of hope, Lord, I pray that you would help us to be like this candle of hope. That we would be a light of hope in a world that needs hope, where we might interact with people who are hopeless. We would be a clear, evident light of your love, of your grace, of the promise of redemption that is coming, the promise of salvation, the promise that we can be at peace with you. We rejoice in that today. Help us to be those ambassadors of hope in the world that you're sending us in Jesus name, amen.
