Amen. He is the savior of the world. If you're thankful for that, can you say Amen today?
Man, what tremendous music. You guys can have a seat here today. Well, listen, how's the 11 o'clock crowd? You guys awake? You're here? There we go. All right.
You guys always get a little bit of extra sleep than the 830 crowd. And I'm so glad that you are here. And it is so good to see you. We had a great early service this morning, and I appreciate David just reminding us, because now that we're in two services, any time we do baptisms, I want you guys to know we baptized somebody so that you can celebrate it in the opposite service. And we told them that we also baptized somebody or going to in this service, because we get to celebrate that together as a church family.
Well, why don't you do this? Look to your neighbor, tell them Merry Christmas real quick. Whoever is around you. Christmas is upon us. We're full fledged in Christmas mode here at our church. We had a great movie night last night. And I just want to say thank you to you for showing up. Many of you came and many of you invited somebody to come with you and maybe a neighbor, family member, whatever. And so we are so grateful for that.
But I do want to just take a moment. Say thank you for all of our volunteers and staff for just pulling things like that off. Any time we do events like that, it takes a little bit of extra work and creativity. And I appreciate them. So grateful for everybody's team or our team and then just putting things together.
When we think about Christmas, we can have some fun before we dive into God's word today. Bob kind of got us started. How many of you? I want to ask because I'm always down front. I didn't turn around and look at your hands. But I want you to be honest and just because God's watching you.
OK, so you got to be answer honest with these things. How many of you are completely done with your with your Christmas shopping right now? You are done. It is over.
Very, very good. You guys keep your hands raised. I want to see those longer so we know who to judge and who to kind of, you know, covet a little bit maybe.
And you guys can put your hands down. How many of you are, be honest, Christmas Eve shoppers? You're kind of the one jetting out of the house run Christmas Eve. Last minute ideas and things like that. I'm kind of I we do some early Christmas shopping.
OK, let me be honest. Abby does most of the shopping for us. And so but when we have to shop for Abby, we get some stuff early.
But me and the kids like to go out last minute just for last minute things, whatever we can find. And it's always hard for Abby. I'm kind of with David on the birthdays and stuff. My wife, she is she's a Christmas baby.
So December 25th. So we always have to kind of she tries to steal Jesus's thunder every year. And I'm just like, look, it's not about you and stuff. But but we have we have a lot of fun. So we got two things to to shop for around this time of year.
Last question I'll ask and then we'll dive into God's word. How many of you are just online only shoppers and you are not going out to any store around this time of year? Anybody like that? You're online only and you are thankful for Amazon and and things like that, aren't we? But it is the Christmas season. And I mentioned this last week that statistically around this time of the year, Christmas and Easter specifically are the two times of the year that statistics say somebody that doesn't go to church, doesn't know the Lord might say yes to a Christmas or an Easter invite. And so with that in mind, we try to as a church leverage that.
And we try to try to use this opportunity and those statistics just to try to invite people to be a part of what God is doing and what God wants to do in their life. And so that last night was an invitation. We tried to get you to invite people to that.
And you did that. Well, we want to encourage you this week to take a moment and invite somebody to join you and your family for our family Thanksgiving. Family Thanksgiving. I said Thanksgiving.
All right. So family Christmas service next Sunday, 6 p.m. And we are super excited about this. And we are going to share the gospel at this. And we're going to sing songs by candlelight. We're going to read the Christmas story, do some good festive stuff. But the main thing is we are going to share the gospel. This is going to be a message of hope. And and so we would love for you to invite people to be a part of that.
So. You're going to get some invite cards and I want to encourage the kids take those to your school, invite some of your friends, their families to be a part of it. I also want to encourage you maybe as a family, go into your neighborhood. If you have a lot of neighbors around you, maybe walk the street and and just kind of like invite people that way just to bring as many people as possible to join us for our family Christmas service this next Sunday.
So you need to be there and try to bring somebody with you. It's going to be a lot of fun. We did this last year. There's going to be a winter wonderland outside.
Christmas cookies, hot chocolate, all sorts of fun stuff. You don't want to miss it. And I want you there and I want you to bring somebody with you. Well, last week we began a brand new series entitled Emmanuel, entitled Emmanuel. And this series is our Christmas series. And one thing I'm just going to be honest, this kind of the sometimes as a pastor, you have to think through these things. Any time we approach Christmas, we always know what the pastor is going to be preaching on, don't we?
Right. It's like we know it's going to be about the birth of Jesus. That's not news to us and things like that. So one of the challenges sometimes as a as a preacher is trying to find a way to talk about the exact same story every single year. And sometimes it's like, OK, I got to come up with a brand new book report about the exact same book or the same story every single year. And sometimes when you listen to this and if you're like me, you recognize, hey, the Christmas story, we know it. We can recite it. Many of you probably memorized at some point Luke Chapter two. You could read the entire thing or recite it right now if I asked you to do that. And sometimes we approach this and we already know the story.
We already know everything about the story. And so this is a time where we can kind of just lack sedasically approach God's word and things like that. My prayer is that you would if you're a follower of Jesus specifically and you've heard this a thousand times. My prayer for you is that you could approach this today and that you would do exactly what the angels said directly to Mary and to Joseph and the shepherds that you would behold him. That is my prayer for this series as we look at Emmanuel.
And that's what we're looking at. It is my I mentioned this last week when we kicked it off. It's my favorite name of God throughout scripture because Emmanuel, it means God with us. And the reason why this is my favorite name of God in all of scripture is because this name and what it means is really the answer to your greatest problem and to my greatest problem. We need a relationship with Jesus. That's your greatest need in all of life.
It's my greatest need in all of life. And so Emmanuel, this name of God, God with us. It is a reminder that God came from heaven to earth and he was made flesh.
And here's the thing. He came to us so that we could have a relationship with us. That's what we looked at last week when we looked at Isaiah chapter number seven. Isaiah, you can go ahead and turn there.
We'll be in chapter number nine here today. But Isaiah is a prophetic book. It is a prophetic book in that a lot of what Isaiah was coming to tell, in this case, Judah. What he was telling Judah was things that are going to happen.
Things that are going. He was prophesying about some things that are going to happen down down the road. And in chapter number seven, we find Judah and the king's name of the king of Judah was Ahaz. Everybody say the name Ahaz with me. Ahaz. So you have Ahaz and Ahaz was the king of Judah and he was a wicked, bad king.
Okay. Wasn't a good king. He didn't want to do that, which was right in God's sight. He didn't want to obey God.
So he was a very wicked, wicked king. And so what happened was in that day, Judah and Israel were split. They were separated. And so you got Judah and Israel. They were split.
Israel represented the 10 northern tribes. And then you had Judah, which was the two southern tribes. And they were split.
And so they were separate. So they had different kings and things like that. And so during this day, there was a large empire that was starting to form and it was Assyria. Everybody say Assyria with me. Assyria. And Assyria was this major empire. And what Assyria was doing is they were going around and they were like taking over all of the different countries and all of the different places.
They were kind of just taking over everything. Well, Israel, the 10 northern tribes, were a little bit nervous that they were going to come, Assyria was going to come and capture them. So Israel, instead of trusting in God, like they were supposed to do, right? And by the way, the reason this was wrong is because when God is on your side, it doesn't matter how big the enemy is, right?
Because you got to trust in God for your protection. Well, instead of doing that, what Israel did was they went and they teamed up with Syria. Different than Assyria, by the way. So they teamed up with Syria, a pagan nation, and they wanted to rise up and create a bigger empire than Assyria was. So they came down to Judah, Israel and Syria. They came down to Judah, the Ahaz, and they said, Ahaz, would you team up with us because we're trying to create this massive empire so that we can overtake Assyria? Well, Ahaz, king of Judah, he said, nope, we're good.
We're fine on our own and that kind of thing. So Israel and Syria now wants to attack Judah and take over them so that they can appoint a new king that would partner with them so that they could create an empire that's going to defeat Assyria. What is during that moment when Judah said no, that God sends Isaiah, the prophet, he sends him with a prophetic word to Ahaz and to Judah. We find in chapter number seven, which is what we looked at last week, he comes and he says this in those moments of fear. And of course, Ahaz was fearful because this invasion was on his way and that would create fear in anybody. And so Ahaz was fearful. Isaiah says from God that one day a baby, born of a virgin, is going to come and his name is going to be Immanuel, and in him all the wrongs are going to be made right.
Everything wrong is going to be made right with this baby that is going to be born. This prophecy about Immanuel was actually given by Isaiah, listen to this, 800 years before Jesus was born. Can you imagine that?
Can you imagine? And this is what I want you guys to understand. For us, we have the entire scripture, right, 66 books, we have the entire scripture. For us, the Messiah coming, the baby born, that's like in the rearview mirror for us.
So it's something that's happened, that we've trusted in. For Ahaz, he's receiving this prophetic word from Isaiah and this is something that Isaiah is talking about that's not going to happen for another 800 years, that's when the baby's going to be born. So you can imagine how he probably struggled, just like you would, just like I would, in trusting if this is true or not. But this prophecy, 800 years before Jesus was born, that one day a baby will be born of a virgin and you will call his name Immanuel. The name Immanuel is really made up of two Hebrew words. The first one is this, Immanu, which means with us, and it is combined with El, which means the mighty God. You could literally translate this if you wanted to, the mighty God is with us, or just simply God with us. And today we're going to look at Isaiah chapter 9 and we're going to see a little bit more of Isaiah's prophecy about the coming baby that is going to be born, that is going to solve all of the problems that we have, or is going to solve the main problem that we have.
Look at verse number 1 of Isaiah 9. Nevertheless, the dimness shall not be such as it was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun, the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea beyond Jordan and Galilee of the nations. The people that walked in, what's the next word? Darkness. Everybody say darkness out loud. Darkness have seen a great light. They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shine.
Now, verse number 1 uses a word that I want you to see real quick. It's the word dimness. That word literally is talking about darkness. You could actually translate, if you look in the original Hebrew, it can be translated the word gloom. And so it's just this dark, you know those gloomy, dark days, right, and things like that.
That's kind of the idea here. And what Isaiah is saying to Ahaz, king of Judah, he's given him this prophetic word, and he's saying this, is that the world is in darkness, but he's giving him a little bit of hope in the midst of the darkness here in verse number 2. And what he's saying is this, is that light is coming. Is that even though the world is dark, and by the way it was in Ahaz's day, I mean, think about it, Ahaz was into idolatry. He actually brought in all of these false gods into the nation of Judah, and they were destroying the temple, and they were allowing false worship into the temple and things like that.
It was just a terrible situation, and they were doing some terrible things as a nation, just wild and evil, if you would. And for them, it was a dark, dark place. But what Isaiah is saying is, Ahaz, listen, light is coming. Light is coming, and that light is going to light up the darkness that exists today. Verse number 3, thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy. They joyed before thee according to the joy and harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. You could really summarize some of verse number 3 by saying this. So verse 2, light is coming. Verse 3, joy is coming, because Ahaz and Judah, they didn't have a whole lot of joy in right now. There wasn't a whole lot to get excited about, because everything was so dark and that an invasion was coming, and that they were fearful.
There was nothing to get excited about. Joy was gone. But what Isaiah is saying is that light is coming, and joy is coming. Verse 4, for thou hast broken the yoke of his burden and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise and garments rolled in blood, but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire.
You could say this. Verse 2, light's coming. Verse 3, joy is coming. Verse 4 and 5, victory is coming. Now, Ahaz was faced here with a dark situation. In fact, I mentioned that they dealt with idolatry, evil, and that Isaiah, by the way, chapter number 8 of Isaiah is all about the coming invasion of Assyria.
If you remember, eventually Assyria was going to come in and overtake Jerusalem and overtake Judah. So there's this coming invasion that is on its way, and everything is dark. And let's just be real. Anytime things are dark, we tend to get a bit fearful, right? How many of you, if you're honest, at some point in your life were a little scared of the dark?
Let's just be real, okay? And all of us have been, and if you have kids, you understand that sometimes darkness can be a little bit scary, can't it? But if you think about it, you know what makes darkness less scary?
A little bit of light, right? It's like when I was growing up, I was scared of the dark, and so a lot of times is if my door was shut to my bedroom and where I lived, I didn't have a window in my bedroom to bring any light in from the outside. So if the door was shut and the light was off, it was completely dark, okay? So dark when I was growing up. And so when I was a kid, when that would happen, I'm like, hey, that's too dark, and so what I would do is I would open the door. I'd crack the door just a little bit so that some of that light from the hallway or whatever would kind of come in, and for whatever reason, if the door was completely shut, I couldn't go to sleep.
But when that little bit of light would come in, it would help me sleep because sometimes the light actually takes away some of the fear that we have. Well, Ahaz was living in a dark, dark day. So for him, it was dark. It was like the door of life was completely shut. There was no hope. There was no future.
Everything around them was completely dark. And in verse number 6, Isaiah gives Ahaz a prophecy that everything is going to be changed. That joy, that light, that victory is going to be found in who is going to be sent in verse number 6. It says, For unto us a child is born.
Unto us a son is given. By the way, let's do this. Let's go back to the beginning of verse 6. Let's read this together.
It'll be up on the screen. If you didn't bring your Bible today, let's all read this out loud together, the whole verse. Here we go. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given.
And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. What a great verse, isn't it?
It's what we sang about here today. And what Isaiah is trying to tell Ahaz, and he's telling you and me today is this, is that the light, the joy, the victory, everything you're looking for is going to be solved in a coming baby. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a son is given.
And his name shall be called Emmanuel. You see, the point of what he's trying to say in these six verses, I believe is this, is that Emmanuel brings light to the darkness. Emmanuel brings light to the darkness. We're all in the midst of this darkness. And here's the truth is, we are all in a dark place, right? Our world's in a dark place.
Well that's no different than what Ahaz was experiencing. And Emmanuel, God with us, brings light to the darkness. And for a couple of moments, if you would, I want to just kind of mention a couple of things about the light to the darkness and the fact that he has come in the form of a baby, Emmanuel, to bring light to our darkness. The first thing I want you to see is this, the need for light.
The need for light. Here's the problem with Judah and Ahaz specifically. You know what they thought the problem was all along? Ahaz thought that his biggest problem was the enemy.
Right? You were in his shoes and you were told, chapter 8, that Assyria is coming to attack you and overtake you. You would think that's your biggest enemy. That that's your biggest problem in life.
What are we going to do? Isaiah, give me something that is going to help me to defeat the enemy. That's what I want to hear more than anything. The problem with Ahaz was not the war or the invasion around him. The problem was actually what was inside of them. It wasn't the war around him or the invasion.
The problem lied within. It was the darkness in which they lived, the darkness in which they were in in that moment. And so Isaiah is coming and saying Immanuel is the light of the world. When Jesus comes onto the scene and he's born and he grows up he even says, I am the light of the world. Because he has come to light up the dark. You see, that's what Immanuel does. That's what God does when he comes into it.
He lights up the dark. Think about it from the very beginning. Genesis chapter 1. You remember when God created the world?
When God created the world before creation. You know what existed? Just complete darkness. Nothing. It was just dark. Could you imagine that, by the way?
Terrible, right? But listen, when God spoke, what changed? He brought light out of darkness. You see, from the very beginning you see this theme throughout scripture that when things are dark the only one that could provide light is Immanuel. So you say, what does that mean for us? What does that mean for me?
Why do I need that? It's because the scripture is clear and we don't have time to look at it, but in Ephesians chapter 2 we learn that you and I were both born into this world in a dark, dark place, weren't we? You know what Ephesians 2, it's not very good news when you look at kind of how we were born into this world, but it's actually true of every single one of us. We were all born into this world, here's what Ephesians 2 says. It says that we were born into this world dead in our trespasses and sins. That's darkness. It says that we were born disobedient. That means we were disobedient to God's original design.
You know what that is? Darkness. It says in Ephesians 2 that all we could do when we were born into this world was fulfill the desires and lust of our flesh. Darkness. It actually went as far to call us the children of wrath. Darkness. Now, if the story ended there, that wouldn't be very good news, would it? That's terrible news. That's bad news for you because that's true of every single one of us. Every single one of us, when you were born into this world, you were all of those things.
Dead in your trespasses and sins, disobedient, you fulfilled the desires and the lust of your flesh, and you were children of wrath. You were born into this world into darkness. And our world's in darkness, is it not? Watch the news any day and here's what you're going to say. If you've ever looked at the news and you watch it and you might say something like this, the world has lost its mind.
How many of you have ever said that at your TV, right? Sometimes you see that and you're like, what in the world is wrong with society? What is happening, right?
Here's what's happening. We're in a dark world. Darkness.
It's becoming more normal. Darkness. Darkness is everywhere we turn. And here's the point, is that all of us were born in darkness.
But aren't you thankful the story doesn't end there? Verse number four of Ephesians chapter two, after he just described how dark the world is and how dark we were. Verse number four of Ephesians two changes everything with two words. But God.
But God, who is rich in mercy, guess what? He loved you. He loved you in the midst of your darkness. I'm thankful that he didn't just love us when we fixed everything in our life up, right? He didn't say, hey, go fix your life up, then I will love you.
No, you know what he did? He came to you, not when you were searching for him, but actually when you were rebelling against him. When you were sinning against him. When you were running the other way.
Guess what? God came to us in the form of a baby, Emmanuel. God with us. He came to us.
Why? To provide light in your darkness. You see, the point is this, the only way out of the darkness is through Emmanuel. That's what Isaiah is trying to say to Ahaz. He's saying, Ahaz, listen, you're just looking for deliverance from Assyria, from Israel, from Syria, all these armies that are rising up against you.
You're looking for deliverance on them, but here's what I want you to know. This is what Isaiah is saying. He's saying that God is actually delivering you from a much deeper problem than Assyria. And for you, you might look at your life and say, man, I got a tough thing at work going on. I need God to deliver me, and that might be true.
I got a tough family thing I'm dealing with. God might want to deliver you from that. And that may be true.
But here's the point. Emmanuel has come not to deliver you from those things. He's come to deliver you from the most important thing you need deliverance from, the darkness.
And that's what he's trying to say. That's your need for light. We all need light. The second thing I want you to see is this, the nature of the light. How does Jesus bring light into the world?
How does he light up the dark? Well, here in Isaiah chapter 9 in verse 6, he mentions a few different names of God. The first one is this. Emmanuel is the wonderful counselor. And I know there's a comma there, but in the Hebrew, they're put together. Wonderful counselor. And so I want to put them together today. And so these are two Hebrew words.
The first one is wonderful. It's a Hebrew word, Pele. And it literally means indescribable. It means it's beyond understanding. In other words, the baby, unto us a child is born, that baby, we can't describe it.
We try to sing lyrics about it, try to write sermons about it, right? But here's what I'll tell you. The most words you could ever use to describe how good and wonderful he is, here's what I'm going to tell you.
They're going to fall short because he's indescribable. That's what this word, wonderful, means. And it's paired together with the word counselor, which is a Hebrew word yao-este. And I think I'm pronouncing that right.
And here's the point. When you think of counseling, and you think about this, when you go to counseling, it probably means that you have a problem of some sort. You're trying to get fixed. And I believe in counseling, and there's licensed counselors to help you.
I think if you want to get better at something, then go and get some help. And so when we think about counselors, we go to him with problems. Here's what I want you to understand. Is that Jesus, in the form of a baby, Emmanuel, he's the wonderful counselor. He's the indescribable counselor who came to you to fix the greatest problem that you and I have.
And that's that we're in darkness and we can't get out by ourselves. He came to fix that, but not only that, it says Emmanuel is the mighty God. The phrase mighty God in Hebrew is El Gabor. It literally means, it can be translated God the mighty one.
Gabor in Hebrew, it means this, that he's a warrior. He's powerful. It carries on the idea that when we say that he's the mighty God and we sing about that, it's a reminder that he is powerful enough to accomplish or to deliver you from anything that you have going on in your life. So you say, can he deliver me of the darkness? Yeah, because he's the mighty God. He's indescribable, but he's also all powerful. He is the mighty one. And in him contains all the power needed to light up your dark life. That's why we tell you go out and share the gospel. Right?
Because the gospel Emmanuel is the only way the dark world that we live in can be lit up. Right? That's why we don't go out of here and say we just came through an election cycle. Right? That's why we don't go out of here and just say, hey, go tell everybody to vote for this person. Right? Why don't we do that?
It's because at the end of the day, somebody in Washington is not going to change the dark world that we live in. Right? The ultimate difference maker that can light up the dark is Emmanuel. God with us. And so that's what we need to be pushing. That's what we need to be sharing.
That's what we need to be telling. He is the wonderful counselor. He is the mighty God. He is, Emmanuel is the everlasting Father. He's eternal. Right?
He's always been and He always will be. Wrap your head around that. Right? Try to explain that.
That's hard. Right? He existed before anything else. He's always been. You don't even have a beginning because He's always existed.
Isn't that wild? But that's our God. But not only that, He is eternal but He's a Father to us. Listen I don't know what your relationship with your earthly father was or is but here's what I want you to understand is that all the attributes that you desire in a Father everything that you wish and you hope He is.
Here's what I'll tell you about dads because I am one whatever and I had a dad. We're flawed people aren't we? Every single dad, your earthly dad is flawed. He's going to mess up. He's going to mess up in your life. I mean I have to tell my kids I hate to do this but sometimes I have to come to them and tell them I'm sorry because I screwed up. I made a mistake.
Whatever. But here's what I'll tell you. I am a flawed person but here's the good news about your heavenly Father. He is your everlasting eternal perfect Father.
Everything you desire is found in Him. That is who Emmanuel is. And then he goes on and he says, Emmanuel is the Prince of Peace.
Here's what I'll tell you. Emmanuel is the Prince of Peace. Peace is what all of us are desiring.
Let's just be real. Even if you don't know Jesus, we want peace. Everybody's wanting it.
We're craving it. But here's what Isaiah is saying. Isaiah is saying is that peace has only found their relationship with Emmanuel. The Prince of Peace. You've got to know the Prince of Peace to experience peace.
Right? And when we think about peace you say, what exactly does that mean? Really the peace that we get to experience with God it comes in two different ways. And I want you to see this so that you can understand how important the Prince of Peace is in your life. First, when you trust in Jesus as your Savior, we receive the peace with God. We receive the peace with God.
You say, what exactly does that mean? It's the Gospel message. Remember I told you, Ephesians chapter 2, you were born into a dark place, right? The Scripture says that you were dead and you were dead in your trespasses and sins and you could do nothing to get out.
That means that your good works, the money that you want to give, all of those things you could never give enough to ever reconcile yourself back to a relationship with Him. You see in Genesis chapter 1 and 2 God created you and the way He created mankind is so that we could have a relationship with Him, so that we could walk and talk with Him. But in Genesis 3 sin entered into the world, right? And when sin entered into the world, that relationship and fellowship with God was broken. And there was nothing that you could do to fix it.
That's your greatest need. So God sent Jesus to live the life worthy of a relationship with God, something you could never do. And then to top it off, He died for you paying the penalty that you should have paid with your life.
And here's why. So that you and I could have a relationship with our Creator. That's the reason for the Gospel. So the Scripture says in Ephesians 2, we were enemies with God.
That's a hostile relationship. But now because of Jesus we can have peace with God. We can move from a hostile relationship to a peaceful. That's the most important peace you need in your life. Is the peace with God. That peace is going to make all the difference between where you spend eternity and when you stand before God one day. This peace is going to make all the difference.
Have you trusted in Jesus or haven't you? So we receive the peace with God. But the second thing, the second type of peace you get is the peace of God.
You say what's the difference? The one gives you peace and access to Him. That means you have a relationship with Him again. You're not enemies. You're actually friends and you have peace with Him. The second one, the peace of God is different. It is that inner peace.
The first one is an upper peace. This is more of an inner peace that we get to experience. So if you lose a loved one and you still have peace, that's this peace. The inner peace that you get as a relationship with Jesus. You still can have peace no matter what. You can have peace if something doesn't go your way at school or something doesn't go your way at your job. You can have the peace of God in the midst of your trials, in the midst of your struggles.
You see, that's what we get to experience. And what Isaiah is saying to Ahaz is this. Ahaz, listen. Life's bad now. Yes, Assyria is coming to invade you. Yes, Israel to the north of you, they want to invade you. And Syria is tag-teaming with them and you feel all alone and you're in a dark place and you're fearful and you're uncertain about the future.
Yes, nothing looks good. It looks gloomy. It is dim.
It is dark. But listen, one day light is coming. For unto us a child is born. Unto us a sun is given.
You see, Jesus comes as a baby to light up your darkness. So you say, what are we supposed to do with this? What's the next step for us?
Listen, I want to give you two next steps. First one is for Christians. Here and here and you've trusted Jesus as your Savior. That's the majority of you. I know most of you and I've heard your stories.
That's probably the majority of you. You've trusted in Jesus. You know Him as your Savior. Here's your next step here today. For the Christian, here's what I want you to do. This season, this is my prayer for me and this is my prayer for our church. Behold Him.
Behold Him. I said this at the beginning because this has been on my heart so much. We get so busy with all the different things around this time of year, don't we? We get busy with the traditions, the gifts, the lights, Christmas movies, we love Christmas movies, Christmas music, and all these things. And those things are all good and there's nothing wrong with those things. We participate in all of that. But you know what? This season we need, as a church, we need to stop and think and reflect and behold Him. You see, every time the angels showed up to Joseph or Mary or the shepherds, you know what I always say? Behold.
You know what that means? Gaze upon Him. Look to Him. Reflect upon Him. So if you're in here and you've heard the Christmas story a bazillion times, kind of like I have because I've grown up in church my whole life, right?
It's all that I know. Here's what my prayer is. Behold Him. But if you're in here today and possibly you got invited and somebody brought you and invited you here and you don't know Jesus as your Savior, you're an unbeliever, I want to remind you that right now if you don't know Him, you're in darkness, the scripture says.
But listen, I've got good news for you. For you, here's what I want your next step to be. For the unbeliever, it's to behold Him, gaze upon Him, and believe Him. You see, what Jesus has offered you, you're in darkness, He's offered you a free gift. A free gift and that gift, completely free, all we have to do is accept it, but the gift that He has offered you is light out of the dark, joy and ultimate victory and a relationship back with your Creator.
Something that you cannot do on your own. So for you, if you're in here and maybe you're putting it off or you keep saying no or you can't really believe it, listen, behold Him, and when you behold Him, I want to encourage you, believe Him, because for you, the only way out of the darkness is through Emmanuel. The only way out of the darkness is through the baby born 800 years after this was written, Emmanuel, behold Him.
Would you bow your heads with me? I want to invite everybody to stand at this time. Nobody's looking around, heads bowed, hearts lifted in prayer. This is what we call an invitation or a response time. Something that we can just reflect upon the word that we just heard.
Nobody's looking around. Music's going to start playing. Eyes closed. Here's what I want to ask you. If you're like me, this one's so important. Say, pastor, I've kind of like maybe lost sight of some things. You're a Christian and you know Jesus is your Savior, but you're like, man, I need to take some time, maybe as a family or as a dad or a mom or a grandparent with my kids, grandkids, whatever, where I need to just take some time personally to reflect and to actually gaze upon Him and behold Him. You say, pastor, that's where I'm at today and I want that for my life and my family's life. Would you slip up your hand? That's you. Hands going up throughout the place. My hand's with you.
That's where I'm at. I want to behold Him. I want to gaze upon Him.
I want to see Him for who He is. But if you're in here today and you say, pastor, I don't know Jesus. I don't have a relationship with Emmanuel. I don't know Him as my Savior. I don't have a relationship with Him.
Would you please just slip up your hand high enough for me to see it, long enough for me to recognize it, anybody, anywhere, be honest before God saying, I don't know Jesus as my Savior. I don't have a relationship with Emmanuel. Amen.
Listen, if that's you, don't put it off any longer. Listen, you can trust in Him and it's in a relationship with Emmanuel that you can find light in your darkness. You can find joy in your life and you can find victory in your life because you can be reconciled back to a relationship with God. I'm going to pray for you and listen, the way we do it, this altar is open. You're welcome to come pray down front. If you want to pray and just behold Him for a few moments or you can pray right there in your seat, just spend some time gazing upon Him, reflecting upon what Christmas means to us. Father, blessing this invitation time, Lord, we love you for it's in your name we pray. As God speaks, you can come or pray right where you are so that we can gaze upon Him and behold Him. Not to get so wrapped up in traditions and gifts and other things in life, but Father, that we could gaze and fix our eyes upon you, our Emmanuel, God with us.
