HERE // Dark Days & Strange Prophecies - Ben Stuart

hello passion city church it's great to be with you uh thrilled to see you atlanta d.c everybody who's tracking with us around the world it's so awesome to be together and i'm grateful for pastor louis to inviting me to be a part of this series together so if you've got a copy of your scriptures we're in isaiah chapter seven so turn there isaiah chapter seven and we're going to read a bunch of different verses together i'll look at a few here before we pray but let me just tell you i'm excited about the message god has for us today i think it's going to help us as we continue this series and so isaiah either turn or scroll to isaiah 7. let me read to you a couple verses isaiah 7 14 says this therefore the lord himself will give you a sign behold the virgin shall conceive and bear his son and shall call his name emmanuel now move over to isaiah 9 let me read you a couple verses verse 2. says the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light those who dwell in a land of deep darkness on them the light has shone verse 6 for to us the child is born to us the son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting father prince of peace let me pray for us father thank you for a moment to gather around your word and lord we just invite you now to teach us in this holiday season we know for some it's a time of great joy and expectation for others it's a time of great trial but wherever we are in our circumstances and in our faith journey with you we need to hear from you god and so lord open our ears to hear your word open our minds to understand it quicken our hearts to feel what you want us to feel and i pray the way we conduct ourselves in this season would change as a result of these few minutes and all of that is bigger than what i can do what passion city can do but you can do it and so i want to invite all of you if you're willing take a minute and would you pray and ask god tell him lord please teach me today and then if you would please pray for me that the lord used me and i'd be helpful to you well father we love you and we trust you use this time and we pray that in jesus name amen well henry wadsworth longfellow was without question the most famous poet in america in his day uh his poetry shaped american culture probably most famously his poem on paul revere's ride longfellow accomplished what very few poets ever have in their life he was both famous and paid while still alive he was called our nation's singer and some of you may know some of you may not that longfellow wrote a christmas carol it was a poem entitled i heard the bells on christmas day maybe you've sung it i heard the bells on christmas day their old familiar carol's play and wild and sweet the words repeat of peace on earth good will to men maybe you sing in a church but maybe you don't know that there were actually six stanzas to that poem and the original place it was uh published took out the three middle stanzas and usually when we sing it we do as well so if you don't know he wrote it in 1863 in 1861 his wife the love of his life perished tragically in a fire in their home the civil war broke out and his eldest son went to fight in the war and was shot through the back and it was in the midst of that grieving that wadsworth said christmas has no joy for me and he wrote this poem and the stanzas we cut out say this then from each black and accursed mouth the cannon thundered in the south and with the sound the carols drowned of peace on earth good will to men and in despair i bowed my head there is no peace on earth i said for hate is strong and it mocks the song of peace on earth good will toward men turns out longfellow didn't really like those bills at least by stanza four and some of you may go wow ben that got dark quick you're like hey kids why don't you play in the other room this pastor just got real sad inside uh why would you say that why would you bring this up well these poems come to mind for me because you may not be having a long fellow christmas but i think we are all having a coveted christmas and there's something about a coveted christmas that seems to slap the saccharine sweetness out of this holiday season then i think for many of us christmas is usually this time of sentiment of peace on earth good will towards men but the difficulties of this year have just burned off a lot of that fluff and i think for many of us maybe the good news is it forces us to ask the question does christmas have anything else to offer is it just sticky sweet sentiment or is there something real i can rest my life on and i love this series that pastor louie brought us into called waiting here for you it's a place of longing every human being is longing for hope and for peace in the world we're waiting for it where will it come and grant did an amazing job last week of talking about waiting for god and that god is with us in that waiting that he has purposes that we cannot see his hand we trust his heart right and yet here we're going to talk about waiting here if we're going to talk about waiting a good question is where are we waiting where are we which i think for many of us we've been asking that question during covet where am i like are we really living in a world where everyone's walking around in masks and not touching each other what is going on we need some context to understand where we can get hope in christmas and so i thought about you to be honest those of you who maybe this is the only time of year you go to church uh and i'm not judging you for that i just you've been in my mind i have a lot of people i love that the only time they really listen to a sermon is around this season so they've heard countless sermons about shepherds keeping watch with their flocks by night and angels and mangers and all those passages are amazing but as i thought about preaching in a passage on here i quoted these texts you probably knew the virgin will be born will give birth to a son and call him emmanuel a child will begin to given to us these texts i read you're probably familiar with but you don't know the original context they were given in and so i thought if we're going to talk about context waiting here let's look at the context where these verses were given let's look at the situation they were in as they waited because i think what you'll find is it will give us clarity on the perspective and the situation we're in as we're waiting so what i want to do in our few minutes together is i want to tell you a story about an evil king named ahaz and it starts in isaiah 7 it says in the days of ahaz the son of jotham son of uzziah king of judah resin the king of syria and pekka the son of remeliah the king of israel came up to jerusalem to wage war against it but could not yet man up an attack against it when the house of david was told syria is in league with ephraim the heart of ahaz and the heart of the people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind now there's a lot of detail there we won't get into but the point you need to know is the king over judah the people of god in the old testament gets word that the two nations closest to him have formed an alliance and are going to attack him and so what's the context these original verses of hope were given in their context was political instability and did you notice when they heard about it their hearts grew faint and they shook like a tree in the wind what was their context political instability and widespread anxiety can you imagine try to imagine a day like that political instability and widespread anxiety that's the place we're at and into this moment god sends his prophet to speak and it says in verse three and the lord said to isaiah go to meet ahaz you and sheer jashub your son it was bring your son to work day at the end of the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the washers washersfield and say to him be careful be quiet do not fear do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands at the fierce anger of resin and syria and the son of remeliah the prophet tells them in the middle of a season of anxiety and political unrest i don't want you to fear i want you to be calm which a natural question would be why why would i do that and he says in verse 7 thus says the lord it shall not stand it shall not come to pass for the head of syria is damascus the head of damascus is resin and within 65 years ephraim will be shattered from even being a people and the head of ephraim is samaria the head of samaria is the son of remeliah if you are not firm in faith you will not be firm at all he says you don't need to be afraid why he said because the thing you most fear isn't going to happen it shall not come to pass it's not going to occur and then he gives them a sign to prove it and that's our verse verse 14. therefore the lord himself will give you a sign behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and shall call his name immanuel and you go wait that sounds familiar that's that's quoted in the gospels and you go yes back here he's not talking about an immaculate conception like with mary where she's told though you've never known a man the spirit of god will overshadow you and you'll give birth to the god-man jesus in this context a young woman will give birth to a child and then it says here's the sign in verse 16. and before the boy knows how to refuse evil and choose the good the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted now we'll get into how this relates to jesus in a moment hang with me but catch what the prophet is saying to ahaz in a time of instability and anxiety don't be afraid why because what you fear won't come to pass and here's your sign when a child is born before he knows the difference between good and evil the thing you fear will cease to exist and let me just stop there and say how many of us we are afraid of things that never come to pass we feel real stress about hypothetical situations i remember when i lived here in atlanta i went to the dentist and as he was doing a checkup he was like did you know you've shattered your enamel i said what and he said the protective coating over your teeth you've grounded and shattered it like glass i was like okay i said uh well what do i need to do and he said yoga meditative breathing i was like what i thought he was going to recommend a mouthwash but he was like no you don't get enamel back you've been stressed and you've done damage how many of you stress about hypothetical situations has caused real world damage how many of you have lost real sleep because of what may or may not come to pass or have been short-tempered with your real spouse and kids over your stress over a hypothetical situation that may not be he tells him what you're afraid of will not come to pass and he tells them in your season of waiting let me tell you where you are you will either be shaky in fear or you'll be firm in faith stand firm in your faith or you won't be firm at all so what's our first context it's either going to be shaky in fear or stable in faith and then isaiah does something really wild to him he says here's the thing it has the thing you're afraid of is not your real problem your real problem is not what you think is your problem he says your greatest problem is not what you're scared of but what you're trusting in and he tells him in verse 17 the lord will bring upon you and upon your people and upon your father's house such days as have not come since the days of ephraim departed from judah the king of assyria he tells him you're worried about the two little bitty nations the great superpower of assyria is going to crush you and he tells him later and that day the lord will whistle for the fly at the end of the streams of egypt and for the bee that is in the land of assyria and they will come and settle in the steep ravines and the clefts of the rock on the thorn bushes in every pasture and the day the lord will shave with a razor that is hired beyond the river the king of assyria the head and the hair of the feet and it will sweep away your beard also see isaiah knew something about king ahaz he knew what we find out in second chronicles 28 which i know you've read but by way of review second chronicles 28 we find out that when ahaz was afraid he made a treaty with assyria even though he knew that they would call their victory the credit to their foreign gods he trusted them rather than trusting god and so when isaiah approaches him he says hey the thing you're afraid of won't come to pass the thing you're trusting in assyria it's not going to help you it's going to hurt you they will swarm your land and they will crush you and then he says they'll be like a razor that shaves your head and your beard and your feet back then a shaved head was a sign of dishonor which is kind of messed up but that's the truth in that context so he was saying to him hey here's the deal and here's the point for us your greatest problem is not the thing you fear your greatest problem is the thing you're trusting in if you put your ultimate hope in anything other than the ultimate it will not help you it will hurt you he says you're going to look to assyria rather than god assyria won't help you it will hurt you and it's the same with us as we are waiting for god to give us peace many of us in our fear we will go to other things for comfort or for hope and that will not help you it will hurt you if you put your ultimate hope in anything other than the ultimate it will not help it hurts many people politics has become their new religion if i just get the new leader in office then i will find peace has that worked does anyone feel more peaceful if you look around our country today there is more anxiety and anger and attack politics is not solving our greatest problems and i'm not downplaying that we should have political leaders but i'm saying if you fixed your hope there i've watched the anger boil over in the streets for many of us we thought technology would be our saving grace how much time will be saved through the conveniences of technology and yet what happened our time-saving devices now absorb our time and all this flow of information has not made us more informed as a people it's made us more anxious it's not helped us it's hurt us money is not a stable place to put your hope my first job out of college was as a youth pastor my office was a broom closet when i was moved to a larger office i was told you need to get some furniture and a guy told me meet me at my warehouse i went to his warehouse and there were desks piled eight high from the floor to the ceiling of solid wood beautiful desks i said where did you get these and he said enron enron was the leading company you wanted to work for in texas at the time and ron had power and it had money but it also had deceitful practices and so this whole empire crumbled and this man for a few thousand dollars took all their furniture and just gave it to me for free and so i sat at the desks of a crumbled empire and i knew people who worked there that had friends leap out of buildings and take their life because that on which they had set their hope was suddenly gone and i could tell you story after story of people who've looked to fame to be their comfort madonna said it about her own life she said i have an iron will but my will has always been to conquer a horrible feeling of inadequacy my drive in life is from this horrible fear of being mediocre and it's always pushing me always pushing me even though i've become somebody i got to prove i'm somebody and the struggle never ends and probably never will but some of us were looking if i just get enough followers then i'll feel complete and here she says as soon as you become somebody now you're afraid of losing being somebody she says it's constantly pushing me there is no peace there and for many of us we just go to addiction then i'll just open the bottle at night and we're finding what johnny cash said you start drinking the bottle and then the bottle starts drinking you and here's the point as we're waiting for a breakthrough from god we will either shake and fear or we will stand in faith but if you shake in fear you will be like ahaz you will look to non-ultimate things to give you ultimate hope and if you put your ultimate hope in anything other than the ultimate it will not help you it will hurt you be careful here so this leads to the natural question well then where is god in this and this is our next point isaiah turns and begins to talk about god and he says in chapter 8 verse 5 the lord spoke to me again because this people has refused the waters of shiloh that flowed gently and rejoiced over resin and the son of ramalya therefore behold the lord is bringing up against them the waters of the river mighty and many the king of assyria and all his glory and it will rise over its channels and go over all its banks it will sweep on into judah it will overflow and pass on reach even to the neck and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land oh emmanuel he said if you would have trusted god he would have been like a gentle stream but you trusted assyria and it will flood you like a raging river and he says but the flood waters will come they'll be destructive and yet as they reach your neck god will stop them as they spread their wings like a bird of prey they won't be successful and then he does something interesting he's not talking to ahaz anymore he says they won't hurt you o emmanuel god with us and he speaks of this land as if it belongs to emmanuel then he speaks to the nations in verse nine be broken you peoples and be shattered give ear all of you far countries strap on your armor and be shattered strap on your armor and be shattered take counsel together but it will come to nothing speak a word it will not stand for god is with us emmanuel and then he says to his people in verse 11 for the lord spoke thus to me with a strong hand upon me and warned me not to walk in the way of this people saying don't call conspiracy all that the people call conspiracy don't fear what they fear nor being dread but the lord of gods him you shall honor is holy let him be your fear let him be your dread and he will become a sanctuary and a stone of a fence and a rock of stumbling to both houses of israel a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of jerusalem and many shall stumble on it they'll fall and be broken they shall be snared and taken it's interesting he says you know you put your hopes in something that will hurt you he said but god rules the nations god whistles for assyria like a bee and he stops it whenever he wants it as a raging river because god is with us emmanuel and then he says and god will accomplish his purposes every army will shatter in his place and then he calls him a rock and then he says that rock will either be a sanctuary a refuge for you from the flood or it'll be a stumbling stone you fall over that's the second place we wait the first is you're either going to be wait waiting shaking in fear or waiting standing in faith it depends on where you've set your hope the second is as it relates to god he will either be a sanctuary to you or a stumbling block he will either be a place of safety for you as you trust him even though you may not see the working of his hand you trust his heart or he'll be a stumbling block something you trip over if you deny him and life doesn't work your way you'll get angry at him and frustrated but here's the thing if you don't believe in god it doesn't make god go away if you deny his existence it does not stop him from existing if i deny that a stone is in front of me and keep walking the stone doesn't disappear because i've denied it i just trip over it and he says you need to decide in an anxious day where will you wait if you wait trusting god you'll have peace even in an uncertain day if you get angry at god and vengeful or forget him and deny him god is still real and it will be a stumbling block to you you can't deny him you'll just end up stumbling napoleon discovered this on the eve of the battle of waterloo as he prepared for that battle he told his generals in defiance he said you know what i want to start the battle early tomorrow because i want to beat all these fools by 2 pm and one of his generals reminded him man proposes but god disposes which was a riff off of proverbs 16. and napoleon heard that and said it's about time you got something straight napoleon proposes and napoleon deposes i do what i will then it started to rain and his big cannons on which he relied got stuck in the mud and he got crushed and he lost and then was exiled to an island where he took up in his spare time reading the bible and taking seriously the god he had denied you either stand on him as a sanctuary or you stumble over him as a rock but your denial of him does not make him not exist matthew paris it's an atheist who wrote a an article for uh the times in the uk and it was a fascinating article called as an atheist i truly believe africa needs god and i don't have time to read the whole article but in summary he tells about his experience of going back to where he grew up his boyhood home in malawi and he went back to see the wells that were being dug to provide fresh water and as he saw them being dug he said it renewed my flagging faith in developmental charities but he said traveling in malawi refreshed another belief too one i've been trying to banish all my life but an observation i've been unable to avoid since my african childhood it confounds my ideological beliefs stubbornly refuses to fit my worldview and has embarrassed my growing belief that there is no god now a confirmed atheist i've become convinced of the enormous contribution that christian evangelism makes in africa sharply distinct from the work of secular ngos those alone will not do education alone will not do in africa christianity changes people's hearts it brings about spiritual transformation the rebirth is real the change is good and then he goes on to explain i tried to just say well it's their physical relieving of suffering but he said the facts don't don't uh support that i'm watching people's hearts change and their lives changed and their cultures change and he said so i'm trying to deny christ but i can't deny his power to stabilize a human heart and he ends this article with a warning they need jesus christ and if they don't have them all that's left as he said is the cellular phone or the machete consumerism or violence and so he says they need god because man unto his own devices is in a dangerous place where are you waiting are you in shaky faith do you deny god and put your faith in something else that something else will not help you it will hurt you and the god you deny will not support you you'll stumble over him he does not cease to exist and your need for him does not cease to exist bertrand russell did not believe in god he said you are an accidental collocation of atoms that unfortunately developed self-consciousness but he said you must understand your life has no purpose and build your life on that unyielding despair but then is he said at the bedside of a sick colleague's wife he said the loneliness and humanity is unbearable what we need is a love that can wash over it that is as powerful as what the religious teachers speak of anything less is useless this man wanted to deny god but as he looked at the world he said but we need him so badly he stumbles over the stumbling stone but you don't have to you can build your life on him like a sanctuary where are you waiting in times of difficult are you trusting god pouring out your heart to him or are you running to some other comfort that will hurt you but he can help you he can stabilize you in an anxious day alexander solzhenitsyn who wrote the gulag archipelago about his time in the forced labor camps in russia as he looked at the devastation of six million murdered by their own government he said in a speech once he said you know i remember as a child hearing the elders say how did this befall russia he said they would say men have forgotten god that's why this happened he said since then i've spent 50 years working on the history of our revolution i've read hundreds of books collected hundreds of personal testimonies contributed eight volumes of my own towards the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval but if i were asked to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people i could not put it more accurately than to repeat men have forgotten god that is why this has happened we need him we need a refuge in times of struggle to deny him does not make him cease to exist if you're struggling with the existence of god shake your fist at him go ahead that's what c.s lewis did he enraged at god when he saw the injustice in the world but as he did that it occurred to him i'm judging god based on a moral standard where did i get that moral standard and if it's not a universal standard then i'm just raging against him based on my preferences which isn't really as strong i prefer you do things different he said no i want to hold him to a moral order that circumscribes the universe but to admit to a moral order outside of myself i have to admit to a lawgiver outside of myself so i'm raging against god for being god and he's realized i've stumbled over the stumbling stone i've got to deal with this god and as he came to him with his anger and his frustration and his fear he found that stumbling stone can be a sanctuary and he wrote his autobiography about being surprised by joy where are you waiting if it's in fear you'll be shaky if it's in faith you have a sanctuary so to close as he continues to speak to them the people begin to look to spirituality for answers and we don't have time to read all this but they start going to mediums and necromancers chirp and mutter some of you may say well ben i do need some spirituality in my life and so they start to look to spiritual answers but they're not looking to the god of the word of god they're not looking to jesus the son of god they're looking to a spirituality they can control and so isaiah closes the speech in verse 20 of chapter nine by saying to the teaching and to the testimony the solid rock comes from the revealed word of god not from a spiritualism from within he says if they do not speak according to this word they have no dawn they will pass through the land greatly distressed and hungry and when they're hungry they'll be enraged and they'll speak contemptuously against the king and their god and turn their faces upward and they will look to the earth but behold distress and darkness the gloom of anguish and they'll be thrust into thick darkness that's the last place that you might be waiting we'll either wait in fear or in faith we'll either wait stumbling or secure in a sanctuary and will either wait plunged into darkness or basking in the light and he says for them they quit looking to heaven they looked to the earth and as they looked for answers in the earth they didn't find it all they found was deeper darkness money won't solve your ultimate problems political success won't give you the security you're longing for a relationship won't heal the deepest longings in your heart nothing that we've leaned on as human beings will ultimately give us the stability we crave the meaning we long for the desire's too deep and too strong it's ultimate and only the ultimate can fill it and as they search among the earth for answers he says their searching only leads them to deeper and deeper darkness but then in verse excuse me chapter 9 verse 1 he says but there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish in the former time he brought into contempt of the land of zebulun and the land of naftali but in the latter time he's made glorious the way by the sea the land beyond the jordan galilee of the nations the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light those who dwell in a land of deep darkness on them has light shone you've multiplied the nation you've increased its joy they rejoice before you as with the joy at the harvest they're glad when they divide the spoil for the yoke of his burden the staff of from his shoulder the rod of the oppressor you've broken as in the day of midian for every boot of the trampling warrior and battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire he says christmas reminds you that we sit in darkness that's why i started with such a bummer of a poem this text i think six times talks about darkness darkness gloom deep darkness the world is a broken place and if you don't believe me read the news and look in your own heart the world's surrounded by darkness and as we look to the earth the answers we crave will not be found and yet he says in the gloom there will be people who have joy like a harvest how he says the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light he said and on them a light has shone did you notice that they didn't discover the light it didn't emerge from outside of them it's shown on to them from above that's what we need what you and i need to get out of waiting in darkness is we need the grace of illumination we will either wait in the dark searching the world for answers or we will wait in the light looking to our king who has come uh if they turned off the lights on this stage and i was plunged into deep darkness let's say you were standing here next to me and suddenly you and i were in this cavernous room completely launched in darkness if i looked at you and said guide us friend we're in trouble because you can't see any better than i am and if the blind is leading the blind we're both going to fall in a pit you can't help me and if i go well then fine i'll just be guided by my inner light it shall lead me home i'm going to fall off this stage i'm going to get hurt my inner light will just lead me to fall right i need jay desai from production to turn the lights on i don't know if you've ever been backstage and walked out often back there the curtains are black everything's black it's darkness for me just to give you a window into it sometimes when i'm coming onto a stage like this this is how i come out just can't see anything and as i'm fumbling out it's problematic i might trip over a drum riser it could be catastrophic and embarrassing what i need is a j to turn on his flashlight and to illuminate my path walk this way you clueless man and find safety and peace i need an external light to guide me to lead me to show me where i am show me the wrong path i should not go and then lead me on the right path towards peace and that's what this passage tells us we have how do we get it what's the light that shines here's our text for to us a child is born to us a son is given the government shall be upon his shoulders and his name shall be called wonderful counselor mighty god everlasting father prince of peace 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 uphold it with justice with righteousness and from this time forth and forevermore the zeal of the host lord of hosts will do this how does god stop the chaos of this world the endless wars the anger the anxiety and the fear what will ultimately cause it to cease it won't be us binding together it won't be us figuring it out it won't be technology that will improve the human heart it will be illumination from heaven and it will come not with a war and a tumult in a battle it will come with the gentleness of a child napoleon as he sat on that island and read the bible he said this alexander the great caesar charlemagne and myself we founded empires but upon what foundation did these creations of our genius depend upon force they depended jesus alone founded his empire upon love and to this very day millions would die for him he said what we need all my military might can't provide what you need all your genius and self-help books can't provide he said but one comes that looks meek looks like a gentle stream looks like a little child but that child is god with us what you saw in isaiah 7 was a little bit of picture of what matthew saw ultimately come and a day in matthew's day where they were still under domination he says but now an actual virgin has had an actual child who's going to bring us peace that's what zechariah saw as he prophesied in luke chapter 1 because the tender mercy of our god the sunrise shall visit us on high that's one of my favorite names for jesus the sunrise are you in the dark look to the east look to the rising sun he will give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace that's what god has sent he sent us a wonderful counselor you need better advice than any of us can give you but you have a counselor who is wonderful you need a mighty god stronger than your problems can stop the raging seas of assyria can unravel you from the addictions that you're suffering in now can change your story in a moment you need a mighty god and he has come you need an everlasting father your problems are temporary your pain are temporary but your longings are eternal and you need a god who is eternal too and you need a prince of peace shalom well-being that goes all the way to the depths of you and he's come not from within not from the earth but from heaven a child has been given it's by grace a child has come and the more we fix our eyes on him the more light we see and the more light we see as zechariah said in luke he will guide our feet into the paths of peace do you want peace it's in him look to the sun as you wait fix your eyes on jesus because he has come as a prince of peace and for us now in an anxious day he will come again all throughout your new testament we wait for the second coming the arrival of our king the blessed hope the one we'll see again who will wipe away every tear and bring the peace we just can't generate on our own longfellow's poem was mad depressing but as he talked about hearing those bells and they mocked his sadness he closed his poem with this then peeled the bells more loud and deep they did not stop they kept going and as they went they got louder and they got deeper and these christmas bells declared god is not dead nor doth he sleep the wrong shall fail the right prevail with peace on earth good will towards men i set my hopes on things on earth and i lost them all even good things will ultimately fade he said but i have hope and i can wait patiently even in a dark day why because the bells of christmas ring loud and clear god is not dead evil's not the end of my story god has sent his son god in heaven came to take on our darkness and he buried it in the earth and he came and he is light to the world that's what john said this light shines in the darkness and the darkness will not overcome him you may feel like the darkness is overcoming you it doesn't overcome him jesus broke the chains of your sin and mine as in the days of midian it is helpless before our mighty god and he's shown a light into a dark world that we can know what we're for we can know what's wrong with us and we can know how it's dealt with the son of god will take on our frailty take on our sin let the darkness overwhelm him on that cross and then rise victoriously from the grave and say wait patiently because i'm coming soon i don't have a lot of hope in what i can accomplish i don't have a lot of hope in what you can accomplish i want you to do good i want me to do good but all my hope my ultimate hope is in the ultimate one the light who's shone on us the child that was given to us do you want peace look to the sun look to the prince he is calling you today god the world waits and you you tell us i love that your bible is not saccharine sweet sentiment your bible has the grit and dirt of life in it as we struggle with the anxiety of today as we wrestle with the weariness of this coveted season you tell us the world sits in darkness darkness gloom deep darkness it really is as hard as it feels and yet there can be joy because a light has come we feel our longing for security but as we look to the earth everything we look to will fail us our technology our politicians our our teachers our money all of it can't ultimately give us the security we crave and if we try to dismiss you we stumble over you because we still know there should be a moral order and we can't create it but god if we come with faith we can stand in a sanctuary that's stable and into our darkness a light dawns i see the grace of god the peace of god the love of god and i see it shining forth from the face of jesus christ napoleon said it no one else was like this man he's in a category all to himself this was not an ordinary child born of a virgin born by the holy spirit of god the ultimate emanuel god literally with us not a temporary king but the king whose kingdom will have no end that's the king we're looking to the ultimate fulfillment the one true king the son of god and i want to encourage you friend if you've never gone on a journey to understand him read the bible this christmas you literally have nothing to lose read the gospel of luke and see your king coming for you and find hope in the light of his face and if you've never put your faith in him he is the only stable place to set your heart and you can do that today you can do it right now you just tell him god my heart is faint but i wanted to have faith i want the stability of knowing the rock of ages i want the light of knowing the prince of peace the light of man jesus christ god i know i'm a sinner i know i'm a mess but i know you sent your son that i might have life and i want to encourage you wherever you are right now whoever's in the room or not in the room with you you talk to god right now and i want to encourage you to tell him lord i need you lord i trust you king jesus i'm looking to you to be the forgiver of my sin to be the light to illuminate my darkness to be the hope that leads me through an anxious day in the pathways of peace and to be the one whom i will ultimately come safely home to i trust you king jesus yeah and if that's you we would love to celebrate with you we'd love to pray with you if you put your faith in jesus a number is going to come up on the screen a word to text into it will you let us know will you let us know what god's doing in your midst we'd love to celebrate with you resource you help you however we can and for those of you who have put your faith in him we are in a difficult day but we get to be hope-filled people and when people see us have hope in the midst of difficulty they'll be drawn to the light the grinch hated christmas because he thought it was just about the presence and the tinsel so he swept it all away and do you remember what happened the little whose sang anyway and when he saw that christmas wasn't all the fluff there was something deeper what did it do it made his shriveled heart expand and he came to life christian you have hope though a coveted christmas may not be as fun as any other one you've had there's an opportunity here for the world to see us have a hope that's deeper and stronger and wider and stretches into forever let them catch us singing because in the midst of this darkness a light has come we trust you

Channel: Passion City Church

Views: 28,318

Rating: 4.9155469 out of 5

Keywords: louie giglio, passion city church worship, louie giglio sermons, passion city, giglio louie, city church, passion, giglio, passion city church sermons, Atlanta, passion church, louis giglio, cumberland, live church, live worship songs, Passion, Passion City Church, Passion Sermons, Ben, Stuart, Washington D.C., Passion D.C., passion city church dc, passion city church gathering, full gathering, Ben stuart, pastor ben stuart, washington dc live, washington dc church

Id: r2kCvODsZYo

Length: 44min 57sec (2697 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 07 2020