A reason to hope

This morning's scripture reading is going to come from Isaiah chapter 9. Isaiah chapter 9. I'm going to be reading the first uh seven verses this morning. For there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naftali. But in the latter time, he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness. On them the light has shone. You have multiplied the nation. You have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest. as they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor you have broken as on the day of Midian. For every boot of the trampling warrior in battle to molt, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born. To us a savior is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder. 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 to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. This is God's word. Let us pray. Lord, we just pray over this word this morning. And I just pray Lord that you would uh give me clarity of mind that even this moment Lord I would decrease and that you would increase and that your voice would be the prominent voice to come and teach us this day. Give me clarity of thought and mind in it all in Jesus name. Amen. in order to to sort of understand this passage and maybe what's going on in the midst of it. It's a beautiful Christmas passage. It's really a good message of good news. That's ultimately the theme here is this is a report and a message of of hope and good news to a people who have been broken in the in the middle of the 8th century BC. This is about when this time is taking place. Um, Israel lives in darkness. They uh they had experienced a reign a long reign of a king by the name of Jeroboam II. He had reigned for about 41 years in the land of Israel. He wasn't a great king. There was lots of idolatry in the land. But there was government stability. And after he died, there was a power vacuum that took over. And in the midst of all of this, in about the span of about 10 or 11 years, you're going to have five different kings. And three of them are going to come to the throne by assassination. And so there's all sorts of just power shifts and struggles. There's a lack and loss of identity. Different people are for different sects and different groups that they support in this sort of fight for the throne. There's just constant battle. There's constant conflict. These people, they were the people of God. They were Israel. And like in the midst of all of these years, this has started to sort of dwindle. And one of the guys that came to the throne, one of the names, one of the kings that came to the throne was the name Pa. And Pika had the northern kingdom of Israel. And uh and he began to start a coalition because to the north of him was the kingdom, this ancient kingdom known as Assyria. And Assyria was going to become the dominant world power at this point in time. And Israel was in big trouble because Assyria looked to Israel and wanted a lot of her resources and the wealth that came with that nation. Uh and so she began to become a threat here. And so all of a sudden, Israel starts to make alliances and form a coalition. and they looked to the south to to one of the Israel tribes known as the tribe of Judah that had its own king they had broken off hundred year hundreds of years before and this king here uh decided to say no well that brought the wrath against them from the northern kingdom and so a conflict began to happen so there's there's lots going on in this passage and in the midst of this that southern king the king of Judah by the name of Ahaz who gets mentioned in these early passages and chapters of of Isaiah is sitting there and he decides to call upon the help of Assyria to help and deliver him from these northern Israeli and um Damascus and Syria forces that are coming against him. The Assyrian king who's already wanting power, who already wants to dominate all of the Middle East, was more than glad to come. And what he did is he marched down the coastland, the coastline along the Mediterranean there all the way to the river Egypt, cut it off so that Egyptian forces couldn't come. It's a really great tactical plan that he did here. Then rushed through Philistine, conquered all the cities there. So the coastline was without help. And then he began to move eastward into Israel and he conquered all of Israel. And what Assyria did that was different than before. Most people when they conquered people, they just said, "Give me tribute. Give me money." But what Assyria did was different than all the empires before. They had a process of basically demolishing people by taking them, exiling them out of the land so that they inbred with the other populations around them. They lost all of their culture, all of their identity religiously, politically in every way, and they disappeared into history. And that's essentially what began to happen here is he went into the land of Israel, into the land of these people, and he hauled them off. Most of them are gone. And the only people left in the land are those who were sort of scattered about or the poorest of the land. And so now we have a land of darkness, a land of hopelessness. And then a few years later, what they're actually going to do, which is also recorded in the Bible, is they're going to move in another group of people who were not Israelites and interbreed them and intermix them in there. And so there's all sorts of loss of identity. There's different cultures. There's different religions. There's all sorts of things happening. And this land that was supposed to be for God's people has lost everything. They're poor. They're suppressed. They're powerless. And so, this is a a time of darkness. This is the time that and the people to whom Isaiah writes. Now, this might seem like, okay, well, we're not dominated by a foreign king. We don't have oppression, you know, like that over our lives. We've not been hauled off into exile or watched those who we love taken away into exile. But we've all experienced darkness. We've all experienced brokenness in our lives. We've all lived in times of anguish and in lament. It could be that you lost someone who you loved. It could be that bully that tirelessly will not leave you alone, harassing you in all sorts of ways, attacking you verbally, physically, causing all sorts of turmoil in your life. It could be the turning away of a child from the faith. It could be all sorts of different ways that we walk through seasons, terminal illness, and all sorts of variety. You probably if you've not lived, you will begin to know at some point darkness, anguish, pain. And that's where we find ourselves today in this passage. But Isaiah comes to these people, not with pragmatic solutions, not with 10 steps of what you need to do in order to fix this problem. He just comes with good news. good news to a people who so need to hear it. So, as we look at that today, we're going to be sort of dissecting this passage and I'm going to come at it with a series of questions that help us to sort of look at this passage and understand what is this good news? What does it mean and what does it mean for us today? So, the first one is is who's the good news for? And what we find is that uh we see in uh in the in the in the early chapters here it says verse one but there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish in the former time he brought into the contempt the land of Zebulun the land of Naftali but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of sea the land beyond the Jordan of Galilee to the nations. So there's really I think three three groups of people this is written to. The first is they have written to the broken, those who are in anguish and in darkness. And it's really a darkness that could be something that they've done, something that they have committed. Ultimately, scripture shows that that these were an idolatrous people. They didn't recognize God. They didn't care about God. They didn't give their life to him. They didn't follow his ways. And so God, like he does many times with Israel, he just leads them to their way. And some of those people in the land might not have been fully responsible for this. Maybe they weren't idolattors, but they lived amid in amongst that. And so it is in our life. There are things in this world that are broken. And part of it is the reality of us. We've all contributed to that brokenness in our own lives. But there's also the reality of we live in a broken world. The fall of humanity created these ripples in the pond, so to speak, that just began to to flow all throughout creation, all of humanity, tainting and thwarting all of God's good creation, and it comes to us. And so, we also experience the brokenness and the darkness just by living in this world. This is also to an unlikely and maybe undeserving people. It would be easy to look at this and say, "Well, these people just got what they deserved. They're in darkness because of their own actions. They should have followed God. They should have known better. They should have done better. And yet, God comes not with judgment, but with mercy. He allowed the darkness into their lives. He brought them into this place." And so it goes with us that at times God will allow the darkness into our lives as a way of reminding us and turning us to look outside of ourselves and our own self-righteousness and to draw closer to God. He will use those things in our life to refine our life so that he may shape us and form us and pull us more and more to himself. but also to remind us, as we'll see in this passage later, that this is ultimately not our own. This world is broken and God is working to create a world and a place that is far beyond anything that this life can offer us. And so, this is also written to an unlikely people, a people who had committed idolatry and even child sacrifice at the time. Um, this is also written and this is one of the great glimpses is it's written to Galilee of the nations. This is the only time in scripture it's used to describe Galilee of the nations. Galilee was the land of Israel. But this is is extended to not just one people, not just the nation of Israel, but there's a glimpse and a clue here that God's saving desire wasn't just for one ethnicity of people. It was for all people of all tribes of all nations. This had been promised earlier way back in Genesis. We'd already seen clues and just once more we begin to find this early clue that God has a desire to save and to bring his light and his good news to all peoples of the earth. And ultimately we will find that Jesus will come here in time. And most of his preaching and teaching ministry will begin and happen throughout the land of Zebulun and Naftali. And it was a land by that point in time that was mixed with many nations. And Jesus would do so much ministry. He would ultimately fulfill and be the light in the darkness that Isaiah talked about in this place. So it's for all types of people. We have light that is that has come and the people who walked in darkness as it says in verse two have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of dark deep darkness on them the light has shone. So you have a people who dwell in darkness. And then that that word in the Hebrew about deep darkness is really it's it's from the root word death. You're living in the land of death and dying and decaying. You're living in pain. These are a people living in agony. And these are the kinds of people that God wants to bring hope to. You in your own life cannot have the good news and cannot have the hope that God offers unless you realize you're in deep darkness. Unless we realize just the brokenness of our own lives and our own hearts and the brokenness of the world in which we live. How can we see the light unless we know we're in the dark? Unless we see the contrast between the two worlds. How can we long for better until we've experienced something that is not good? Something that is broken in our life. And in this moment here, these people, the the light comes, but you can't see it unless you recognize that it is good and that it's different than the than the world that you find yourself in. We swim in the water and we live in a land that is not light, but it's dark is what Isaiah says to these people. But there is hope. There is hope. John 3:19 reminds us that and Jesus says, "And in this the judgment, the light has come into the world and the people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil." Because their works were evil. You can have the light come to you. You can have it shine in your life. But will you step into it? Do you know that God offers his hope, his good news, his light to you? Or would we turn from it? Would we hold on to the dark and not admit that we need something? We need good news for our life. The next thing I want us to look at here is that what is the good news? And the good news here in this passage is that God delivers from bondage. that he deals with the darkness in life. Verse four says, "For the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor you have broken as on the days of Midian." God's bringing salvation and deliverance to a people who need it. They're in bondage. They're in slavery. These people literally were under the the slavery of the Assyrian Empire. They lived in that. They were not free. And we find here in this passage that they uh in verse four that they had two root causes of that darkness. One was external. It was the geopolitical forces that contributed to them. It was the king who was idolatrous and evil and led them into a place of bondage through his own actions as well. But it also was internal. It was a people who had chosen this. It was a people who had contributed to this. And so it is in our own lives that we can do the same things. We are part of the external brokenness of the world in which we live. But there's also just the internal things that are going on in our own life. And yet God's good news here is that he comes to break it. He comes to deliver in life. And whatever it is that you face, whatever darkness that you go through, whatever pain that you have in your life, God says, "I have a plan. I am working in the midst of this. I am coming to defeat and to bring freedom from captivity and from slavery because ultimately we know that sin leads to slavery. Sin leads to bondage. When we turn from God, the author of life and all that is good. And we go our own way. We begin to experience what life is like alienated and from God himself. That separation from him. that brokenness, that fear, that anxiety that creeps into our life and God comes in to offer us hope. Colossians 1:13-14 tells us that this is what Jesus has accomplished. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So God comes into our world. He comes into the world of these people to offer them hope and life. He offers them good news in himself because ultimately he will bring through his actions deliverance for the people. deliverance by God's hand, not our own hand, not through our own self-righteousness or our own actions. There's there's hints here of two different types of oppressions that happened in Egyp in uh Israel's history. And one of these, this sort of yoke of bondage is ultimately in their history the Egyptian slavery when they lived in Egypt and were under oppression. And through the different plagues that God put upon Egypt and through his servant Moses, God himself led his people out of bondage and out of captivity. And then we also see this reference to Midian. And then in the story of Midian, God once again with 300 guys who basically throw a clay pot on the ground and make a big thunderous noise and scare this invading army into tumult in the night where they kill each other was once again the deliverance that was brought about by God. And so the good news here that is working is that God brings his own deliverance. He is working. He is working in this world to restore, to heal, to free the people who so desperately need it. And it also the result of it is that it brings joy. In verse three, it says, "You have multiplied the nations. You have increased its joy and they rejoice before you as with joy at as at harvest. They are glad." And we find here that that's ultimately that what God does is he brings a kind of freedom into people's lives. that produces worship and gladness and joy. And if you've ever in your life just been in need of help, in need of deliverance, you know the great joy when you are freed from that, when resolution comes your way. And God will often work in the midst of that brokenness with his good news to bring that deliverance. So, how does God's good news come about? And ultimately, we see that God's good news comes in a very surprising way. Verse six says, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given." This is a surprising act. The people living in this land, you know, God says, "I'm coming with light. I'm coming with good news. I'm coming with deliverance." And then he says for since because this is going to be achieved by what? A child, a baby born, what in the world does it have to do with the salvation of the world? How are you going to deliver God? And and this is the thing is sometimes God's resolutions and answers don't seem to add up. What do you mean like a baby coming into the world's going to save this? this is going to fix the the dominion and the slavery and the darkness or the the death or the things that I feel in my own life. This is your solution. And yet, this is how God often works in unexpected ways, sometimes through unexpected people. And here we find that God does something that's really breathtaking because the great mystery and wonder of Christmas is that God himself came. But he didn't just come. He came as a baby and he came as a human. Now just just think about that for just a second. God entered into time and space, infinite, immortal, beyond all of things, and yet somehow found his way to be contained within human form, to take on flesh, to know the brokenness and the sin and the fallenness, to experience and expose himself to all of those things. How how can the holiness of God even come into a place like that? Through mystery. And the wonder is the what we call the incarnation. God becoming human in this world taking on our flesh and he grew up in midst of us and he experienced all the things that we experience the darkness the hurt. If you ever just study the life of Jesus and look at his life, you see he knows what it's like to be betrayed. He knows what it's like to have a prayer go unanswered. He knows what it's like to probably lose a parent. He knows all of these different things. and he experienced them willingly because of his love for us. That God came into this world to come and save and rescue us. For to us a child is born. Born not not just popping out from anywhere, but he came through human means. But he was also given a son. And what does he do? What does it say in this passage? It says that he takes the shoulders and the weight of governance, the weight of trying to to rule this world, to rule our own lives. And he takes it upon himself. And he carries that yoke. Jesus even said, "Take upon my yoke because my burden is easy." Because Jesus does the heavy lifting for us in our lives. That we don't save and rescue oursel. In fact, in our life, the thing is is that ultimately sin in in the Garden of Eden and ultimately for all of our lives is that we at some point say, "I don't want God to be king. I want to be king. I want to be queen. I want to rule. I want to call my own shots. I want to live the kind of life I want to live. I want to do what I want to do in this world." And when we live that way, we begin to feel our own life. That feels good for a while. Yeah. But at some point in life, we were not made to be the ends in oursself. We can't save ourselves. And in that vulnerability and in all of that that we begin to feel in our lives, it frightens us. We carry the weight of it and we feel anxious. We feel fearful. We feel incapable. We feel vulnerable. And all of these things begin to weigh upon our lives. I mean, in the world today, we see that it's it's at pandemic level. sometimes anxiety, loneliness. You can have your own throne. You can rule your own world. And where does that get you? Isolated, alone, fearful. And yet here, God comes in and says, "Let me take that weight. Let me carry that thing that you were never made to carry. Let me be God again in your life. Let me have it. Give it to me. And right there, this child who would one day grow to be the king will carry that weight so that we do not have to. And he ultimately will be the one who brings the salvation who carries all of those things for us. The names here that we find should ultimately to the early reader that would have taken their breath away. We live on the other side of this and we understand how this story goes. But just just look at that for a second. And his name shall be called wonderful counselor, mighty God. I mean the mic should drop. You know the record stops because at this moment like what you just said that like they're thinking a king is coming in the line of David, another David, another great king that God will establish. But right here, Isaiah is telling us, "Mighty God will be that king. God himself will invade. God himself as a son of David born into this world will fulfill all the prophecies and things and promises that he said he would." But it would also be not a human solution, not a Superman, not any of the not some great hero. It would be God alone who came into this world, born into our brokenness in order that he might rescue and pull us out. He came into our space and his our time. He didn't wave his hand over creation. He came in to experience it. And the early church fathers began to talk about this, you know, that that God didn't just try to like give deliverance by waving his hand as the creator of this broken world. He entered into his creation. He wrote himself into the story. He wrote himself into your story, into your brokenness in your life as the as the solution and the savior of it all. He entered into all of those things as mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. And he took upon all the sin and the weight and the guilt and the darkness and all of those things. This cosmic problem needed a cosmic and spiritual solution to it. This cosmic problem manifested itself and revealed itself in a physical world. But physical solutions will not work. The solution must go deeper. It must be more profound. And the early church fathers like Athanasius used to look back and say that's what it needs. The spiritual solution that gets to the root of the issue that gets to all of the brokenness that is within me. Because awtoer, one great old saint used to say that sin isn't the thing that we do. It's the thing that we are. It's the thing that's within us. I may not do things. I could look at my life and say, "Well, I didn't do this. I didn't do that." But our thoughts and our desires and our heart, those types of things are broken. They aren't pure. They aren't holy. And God wants them to be that. Why? So he can just make us squeaky clean and tidy people? No. Because we weren't made to be broken. Years ago, and I've told this story before, I had someone um you know, many years ago, not in this setting or anything, um uh confess uh an affair in his life. and his wife had not known about it and it had happened years prior and he'd been carrying uh this weight and this guilt in his life and uh that moment it was brutal. It was raw. I mean I watched this guy shake and cry and weep and there was just this emotion of hatred and anger and shame and all sorts of things were just erupting. He was like this volcano just spewing out as he just almost couldn't get the words out but felt like he had to or he might just crumble and break. You could tell that he had been like this crushing weight in his life. In that moment as I watched this guy just sort of sputtering along in his life and and just all the things he was feeling. I just thought we weren't made to sin. We weren't made to turn after our own desires and our own ways. Look at the result of it. Look at what it's done and what it may do in the rest of his life and in his marriage and in his family and what may come about. We weren't made for this. But it's not always the things we do. There's something deeper. And that's what God came to address and to heal. To get to the root of the issue deep within us. God himself would come to ultimately establish and bring this about to bring his cosmic solution just like he did at times past. But this time for once and for all, God would come and he would put as he promised within us a new heart. He would recreate things. He would fill us with his spirit. And when we come to Christ, that's what begins to happen. God enters in as we lay down our crown and our throne and our our dominion and we say, "I can't do it. I can't carry this weight anymore." And we allow him to come into those places. He puts his spirit within us and he begins to slowly change our heart and work in our life. Begins to to peel back the layers until we become who he wants us to be. And in in uh in CS Lewis's book, Chronicles of Narnia, there's one story. There's one book called uh the the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. And if you ever read it before, it's a it's kind of a neat story because at one point there's this boy named Eustace. And Eustace is just he's a wretch. Nobody likes him. He's really proud. He's arrogant. Everybody's kind of on guard around him. He just is constantly just he he gets along with no one with no one. And uh and one day, this is sort of a fairy tale, but Eustus falls asleep and he turns into a dragon and he wakes up and he can't communicate with people and people want to kill him because he's a dragon all of a sudden, right? And uh and this CS Lewis wrote these with these spiritual metaphors in there. And one of the things that that he does in this is Eustus is just completely helpless. He can't even communicate that he needs help. And and and and it symbolizes what he really is. He's like a d all these scales and all these things. He's he's he just spews against people. He's at enmity with everybody kind of like a dragon is. And and in the midst of this in in in his sort of bondage of being a dragon, um even though he's a boy, Alen, who represents Christ, comes to him and says, "Let me heal you. Let me take away the layers." And Eustace is really afraid because he knows that that will require Alen, who's a lion, his claws, to peel back the layers of the scales on this dragon. But Eustace surrenders and he allows it to happen. And Alen slowly begins to peel back the layers on Eustace until this young boy is revealed underneath all of it. And in that same way in our life, God wants to come in and he wants to say, "Let me heal. Let me heal you." Not get your life right and fix it. Let me heal you. and he wants to enter into our lives and peel back the layers. And sometimes it's through hurt and it's painful and it's hard. But if we'll trust, if we'll submit oursel to him, believing that even if it's flaws at times that he is good, at the end of the day, who we were created to be, who he meant us to be will be revealed. It will be revealed. And so God coming into this world it accomplishes this that God begins to heal us, to make us new. You know, I I kind of wonder in some ways, how does that all sound? You know, we we we ponder Christmas and we think about, you know, maybe you see the nativity sets and the baby and maybe you don't follow Christ. Maybe you're sort of wondering, you know, like, you know, this always sounds nice and I love the tradition behind it and the warm feelings and the things that it creates, but I wonder how this sounds to maybe some of you. I wonder in your own life if if it feels like this far removed story that doesn't have anything to really do with our own reality, our own brokenness in this world, that it doesn't have any sort of bearing or application for us. And I hope through these words that you already see, we need a rescue. We are not the end of ourselves. We need a savior savior. And and for many people, people believe, oh, Christ was a I believe he existed because historically, it's pretty much all academics out there in the world know there's so many historical records for the life of Jesus. A man did come named by Jesus. He did die by Roman crucifixion on a cross. It's pretty much historical fact. But where people struggle is, was he the savior? Was he mighty God? Did he really enter into time and space? Or was he just some good moral teacher who set a nice example for us to live by? And ultimately, you can't leave it at that because when you read the stories of Jesus, the things that were recorded by his followers that he said, he doesn't leave you that way. He said things like that he was God, that he was God's son. He made and elevated himself in that way. He allowed people to bow and worship him to treat him as if he was God. And ultimately we find in this that you cannot Jesus would not let you leave him as just a good moral teacher. It's just a moral example in this world. He is either the Lord of all of life or he is a lunatic. He's a crazy person. He's leading a cult following and he's just lost his mind and he's claiming to be something he is and he can't save any of that. He can't be a moral teacher. You don't claim to be the savior of the world. You're either that or you're crazy or you're a liar. You're a con artist and you're leading people astray. You can't just say God's a good moral teacher. You have to either recognize him as the son of God for his own words and for what he said he was or you have to write him off as crazy, manipulative con artist. At some point in our own life, we have to come to terms with this child who was born. Who do you say he is? Who is he in your life? Will he be your Lord? Or will he be a moral example who's not really that moral at all? Finally, the last thing is is what does this good news promise? We see in verse 7 that it says, "Of the increase of his government and of peace there is 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 forever more, the zeal, the fervor of the Lord of hosts will do this. The increase there's there's there's a few things I three things I really want us to see is number one, the bad goes away. Ultimately, this addresses the pain and the brokenness that comes. It says, "Of the of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end." That word peace in the Bible, some of you have heard me say it before, is shalom in Hebrew. And the word Hebrew words are fa fascinating because they're so much richer and fuller in meaning than a lot of times our English words do. The maybe the best way to communicate shalom to us is wholeness, rightness, fullness. It's when everything in the world begins to operate as the way it should. When there's no conflict, there's peace. But it's deeper than that. Everything begins to work the way. Your bad things begin to be turned to good. God takes the weight on his shoulders and he establishes that kind of peace in his world. the the good news of this promise that it accomplishes it is that God enters in with that kind of peace, that kind of shalom and drives out the darkness. But then from there, see if that if it's a solution for a time, that's great. I'd love if we, you know, a king they, you know, like they wanted would come and for 40 or 50 years bring in some great reign where they don't have famine and poverty and economically they thrive. But that's a human kingdom. And like I said earlier, God came to to to address the root of the issue. He has come to address the cosmic and spiritual things that have broken this world. God's not putting a band-aid on creation. He has come to heal. He has come to save. This is the ultimate light. This is the ultimate reality. This is the ultimate promise that God is establishing here. And we find there where he says the increase of his government and peace there is no end. It keeps on going and going and going over and over. There is no end. There is no fail. And we can't even really fully imagine that in our lives. A place where God's goodness, where God's peace grows, it increases, where life abounds more and more fully. That's the description. All right, I'm using a lot of CS Lewis this morning. I'm going to use one more. Okay, so CS Lewis at the end of Chronicles of Narnia. I was thinking a lot about this this week with that that that series. So, sorry about that. But at the end of the book, sorry if it's spoiler alert, they really they they find they're dead. Okay, so there you go. Spoiler alert. and and they're God's bringing them into his kingdom and they're and it's almost like as the closer they move to God, the more real everything becomes, the more real that creation becomes and the grass becomes and and and the more alive they feel. The air is richer and deeper and sweeter. Everything about it just begins to abound. And he's trying to draw these metaphors and they keep saying higher up and deeper in, further up and further in as they just continue to approach God's throne closer and closer as life abounds more and more. And then at the end of the Bible, we have sort of a glimpse into that. And the glimpse is this. It's Revelation 21:es 1-5. And it says, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband. And I heard a voice of the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them. He'll dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. Like the recreation of Eden at the beginning of the story, God walked among people again. He restores all that is lost and broken, not just externally, but internally and it resets all of creation. So, here it goes. and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away. And he who was seated on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." Also he said, 'W this down for these words are trustworthy and true. True. And we find here this glimpse into what God promises. Can you imagine a world where there is no death or dying? Can you imagine a world where you don't feel bad? You don't think bad? Can you imagine a world where there is just joy? And this is not pie in the sky. I hope that you can see it. It's not just heaven and we go play harps. God is describing the healing of all of creation, all of the universe. New heaven and new earth, the wiping away of what is broken. God's shalom, that peace, that wholeness restored. There's no bullies. There's no death. There's no turning away and loss. There's no decay. Everything about this life is winding down in some ways. Things get old. Things lose their polish and flare and flash. But in God's world, it is only growing better and fuller and more. And way the ways that we find it sort of that theologians talk about is it's almost like a rhythm or a dance that God's salvation and blessing and life is showered upon a people who can fully appreciate it who have been fully healed in him who've been recreated. And what's the response as we saw earlier in verse three? Joy, gladness, worship. And you know who it's directed to? God. And you know, so they worship God and they're thankful. Dad, thank you. Thank you for all these things. And they're and they rejoice in it. They rejoice with one another. It's like a party, a festival, a feast. It's all good. And through that, guess what? God is pleased. And you know what he does? He blesses more. He showers more life. And everything continues more and more to build, to grow. The increase of his government and his kingdom. There is no end. It keeps increasing. It keeps growing. The life that he offers keeps abounding fuller and fuller and fuller into this infinite God. We only understand finite. But here we see this message, this beautiful message of hope that almost feels surreal. Psalm 126 uh reminds us it was people, this is written to a people that were restored from captivity. I just wanted to read it really quick for you. It says, "When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed. Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tong tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us. We are filled with joy." This is the good news that is proclaimed to a people who are in darkness. And if you hear this and you are in that darkness as we all experience it, we what should be the response for you and I? What should be our response in the hard moments of life? What should be our response when we're alone or afraid or sorrowful? It should be hope that God is working that he promises good and he already started it because a child was born, a son was given and he has promised that one day he returns and in that final day he will bring about all of the end of the promises which we find here and also described at the end of the Bible. The zeal of the Lord will accomplish this. And if this is true, we can live with lives of hope. We can worship. We can serve. We can sacrifice. And I ultimately as we begin to live these things out because this is true. And I begin to live in light of that reality in my life. I begin to labor for that kind of good in this world. I begin to be a person of hope. Death is not the end. And in hardship, I don't mourn as if things cannot be changed. I know that God is working. And I believe even in the good or in the hard that he works. And so, we can plant gardens and seek good for the land. We can labor within our marriages or our families or our community. We can model gospel centrality, deep devotion to God, and sacrificial living. And why? because we see the end. We see God's light. We know his promises and we just simply live within that reality. If your life is in darkness, consider this offer. Consider the good news. Consider what he offers. A son is given to you. He came into this world that he might bring salvation. And what he says is, "Let me have the load. come to me. Don't try to reign and be your own king or queen anymore. Let me have it. And over time, he will peel back the scales and all of that so that he may reveal who we were truly meant to be in a life that is connected with him. Come to him and turn to him. This Christmas when you ponder the fact that God came to earth, let it remind you that he will come again and he will once again work in a surprising way that will not end and all will be right. So that today we can have hope in our present circumstances. Let's pray.