From Gloom to Glory - Isaiah 9:1-6

and my voice might try to go out again,

but we'll struggle through it together.

But what a wonderful passage, amen.

I mean, it's one of the main Christmas passages,

this one that everyone here is familiar with this morning,

but the thing you have to understand

is that this event was not just another birth

of another baby, although praise the Lord

for every single baby that is born, amen.

Now this event was cataclysmic.

This event rocked the very foundations

of humanity to its core.

It was paradigm shifting,

and yet so many people today do not want to give

the Son of God the credit He so rightly deserves.

I was reminded of this this past week

as I was recalling a book written by Michael Hart

called The 100, a ranking of the most influential persons

in history.

Now, I expected to find Jesus first on that page

of that book, right?

You're telling me you've got a book

of the 100 most influential persons

throughout all of human history.

Surely the Son of God, God and the flesh

would be first on the list, right?

No.

First on his list was the prophet Muhammad,

born in AD 570 and died in AD 632.

Second on his list was Sir Isaac Newton,

who was born in AD 1643 and died in AD 1727.

And then third on his list was Jesus.

Third, the Son of God, literally God in the flesh,

calm down from heaven to earth.

And Michael Hart says, yeah, put him at third,

a solid third.

Now, here's the reason why that list is ridiculous.

And it should be obvious why it's ridiculous

for a number of reasons.

But if you haven't picked out the most obvious reason,

let me just point it out to you.

As you read this book of the 100 most influential persons

throughout human history, you're gonna notice

that Michael Hart gives you the person's birth year

and the year of their death.

And each one of those years is either going to be BC or AD.

You all see where I'm going with this yet?

Okay, so BC stands for before Christ.

And AD stands for Anu Domini,

which in Latin means in the year of our Lord.

And so for many reasons,

Jesus should be first on the list,

but one painfully obvious reason

is that the birth of Christ literally caused all of humanity

to change how they record the years.

Every year after that is either gonna be before Christ

or in the year of our Lord.

But let's put that guy third.

It's pretty crazy, is it not?

But this is just one of the ways

that the birth of Jesus has radically impacted our world today.

You see, Jesus was not born by accident.

Jesus was not born in some random place,

at some random time in human history.

Jesus was born on mission.

And the Christmas season reminds us of this mission.

And I know the Christmas season is different

for a lot of people,

because some people, they're Christmas people,

and they're the type of people

they're gonna start decorating in July.

And they're gonna post pictures on it on Facebook,

Christmas in July, and they're gonna leave them up.

They're people who leave their Christmas decorations up

all year round.

Some people decorate right after spooky season is over.

Although in my house, that was not allowed.

Mom said you have to wait till Thanksgiving,

and then after Thanksgiving, the tree goes up.

So that's how we operate.

But there are different types of feelings about Christmas,

but I know for some people,

even though this is a season of joy for many,

it's also a season of mourning for a lot of other people.

Right?

Because in this season,

people tend to remember the loved ones

who are no longer with them.

They tend to pay more attention to the empty seats

at the table than those that are filled.

And so no matter where you find yourself this morning

in the Christmas season,

no matter where you find yourself,

whether you're full of joy,

whether you're full of sadness and mourning or busyness

or whatever it is,

I want you to understand

that the birth of Jesus did something very special

for each and every one of us.

And what did he do exactly?

What was his birth intended to do?

Well, the point of this passage is that

the birth of Jesus moves us from gloom to glory.

The birth of Jesus moves us from gloom to glory.

That's the plan, that's the goal.

That is the mission of Christ upon his birth

into the world.

And so really the question that I want us to consider

this morning is, well, how does that work?

How exactly does Jesus move us from gloom to glory?

And I think you'll see exactly how he does that

in this passage.

So look with me again, if you would, in verse one,

and a spoiler for you,

we're not gonna get through all six verses completely.

So just hang with me, but we'll get a couple of them.

So verse one, notice what it says,

but there will be no, what's the word church?

Yeah, no gloom.

There will be no gloom for her who was in English.

In the former time, he brought into contempt

the land of Zebulun and the land of Naftali,

but in the latter time, he's made glorious

the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan,

Galilee of the nations or Galilee of the Gentiles in Hebrew.

All right, so this is our background.

We need to understand a little bit

of the background behind this verse,

because I know this is the one that leads into

like the Christmas verse, but there's a whole context

and a whole situation going on here in Israel's time.

You have to understand, it was a very dark

and scary time to be living in Israel,

because there was a new superpower on scene

that was making everyone nervous,

and that was the nation of Assyria.

And Assyria was making everyone nervous

because they kind of risen to power

and become this new superpower in the region.

And so all the nations, because they were nervous,

all the surrounding nations decided

to form an alliance together,

and they were going to protect each other from Assyria.

And so what they did is all these nations,

they came to King Ahaz of Israel and they're like,

hey, have you heard about Assyria?

Scary guy, that guy, right?

Yeah, so here's what we wanna do.

We're forming an alliance, and we would just love

for you to join our alliance.

And then that way, we can protect you from Assyria,

you can protect us from Assyria,

so man, we would love for you to join this alliance.

But if you don't, we're gonna kill you.

And we're gonna put someone else on your throne

who will join our alliance and play ball.

So we love you, we'd love for you to join the alliance,

so you join us, or we're gonna kill you.

Well, Ahaz was like, no thanks.

He didn't wanna join their alliance

because he didn't really like those guys.

And so then, what happened is, the king of Assyria,

he came to Ahaz and he's like, those other guys,

am I right?

Like, pretty crazy that they're trying to form this alliance

and they think I'm the bad guy here.

Trust me, I'm not the bad guy here,

but I know you're scared of them,

so here's what I'm gonna do for you.

You can join me, and if you'll join me,

I'll protect you from all those other nations,

so you don't have to worry about them,

and you don't have to worry about me,

and we can all be buddies.

So that's what you should do.

Oh, but if you don't, I'm gonna kill you,

and I'm gonna put someone else on your throne

who will join my alliance.

And so this is a situation of King Ahaz.

He either gets to join the nations or die,

or he can join Assyria or die,

or he could do neither, and probably, most likely,

you wanna take a guess?

Die, yeah.

So this is what it was like to live in Israel

at the time that this was written.

It was not fun, and what's interesting is that two cities here

are specifically mentioned by name,

the cities of Zebulun and the cities of Naftali,

which these were the northernmost cities

in the nation of Israel,

which means they would have been the very first cities

to be invaded by the enemies,

because almost all of Israel's enemies

were to the north of them,

and so if you were going to invade Israel,

you're coming in through Zebulun and Naftali.

In other words, actually, if you read

the last half of the Old Testament,

the nations of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia,

they all invaded from the north,

through Zebulun and Naftali.

And so for Israel, this was their weakest point.

These cities were their most vulnerable point,

their darkest point.

This was the place where they had experienced

the most setback and difficulty,

and yet God says it is gonna be this very place

in this region where the light of Christ

is first going to shine,

and the gospel of Christ is first gonna be proclaimed

and believed, and people are going to trust

in the Messiah first in these places.

Notice what it says in verse two.

It says, the people who walked in darkness

have seen a great light,

and those who dwell in a land of deep darkness

on them a light has shown.

Now here's what I want you to do.

Look at the screen,

because we're gonna turn to Matthew chapter four.

And this is what the Bible says, Matthew chapter four.

Now when he, this is Jesus, heard that John, the Baptist,

the Presbyterian, John the Baptist, had been arrested,

he withdrew into Galilee.

So this is right after Jesus has been baptized by John.

He's just been tempted in the wilderness

for 40 days and nights by the devil.

And right after this,

he's about to start his public ministry.

And this is what it says,

in leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum

by the sea in the territory of what church?

Zebulun and Naftali.

So that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah

might be fulfilled.

The land of Zebulun and the land of Naftali,

the way of the sea beyond the Jordan,

Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light,

and for those dwelling in the region

and shadow of death on them a light has dawned.

And listen, from that time,

Jesus began to preach saying,

repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

So when Jesus was on earth,

he could have chosen anywhere to live.

And yet he specifically chose Zebulun and Naftali

in order to fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah.

And it was there in the region of Zebulun and Naftali

that Jesus preached his very first sermon.

It was the very first place that ever heard the message

of the kingdom of God,

straight from the mouth of the Son of God.

It was the very first place where they believed

in the gospel of Christ,

and the very first place where the light of Christ

began to shine here in our world.

It was the darkest place,

and God decided to shine the light of Christ.

So the picture here is that God identified

their weakest point, their most vulnerable point,

their most shameful point.

And he chooses this place to be the place

where he's going to shine his light.

And I want you to understand something, church.

This is how God operates throughout history.

I want to tell you about my friend, Tim.

He is an inmate at Perry Correctional.

And Tim's a great guy.

He's an amazing man.

And I was talking with him recently

when Brian and I went to serve the prisoners

a meal a few weeks ago.

And I was talking with Tim

and just trying to get more of his life story.

And he said that he's in prison

for committing a violent crime.

And he did not have a violent tendency,

but he committed a violent crime serving the sentence for it.

He was not a Christian when he went into prison.

And he said that when he first went into prison,

he thought that his life was over,

as I imagine most of us would feel that way as well.

So he said he felt like his life was over,

that he had thrown it all away

because he knew from that point on,

he would be spending the majority of his life behind bars

and then he's gonna die and that's his life.

And so he was in a dark place.

I would think we would all agree.

A prison is a pretty dark place, right?

He's in a dark place figuratively, spiritually.

And so one day Tim decides to go to one of the chapel services

that they're having there at Perry Correctional.

And it was the first time in his life

that he heard the gospel preached.

And it wasn't in a church building,

and it wasn't in a revival,

and it wasn't at any other Christian conference

or something like that.

The first time he heard the gospel preached

was in a prison behind bars.

And he said that when he heard the message of the gospel

in that dark place,

he said he felt the light of Christ

begin to shine in his life.

He was convicted of his sins.

He turned his sins over to God, repented of them.

And that day he became a Christian,

a light in the darkest of places.

But then guess what else happened?

He felt God's call on his life.

And so he joined the chaplaincy program

that they have there.

And they do this really cool program

where if you join the chaplaincy,

you can actually as a prisoner be transferred to Columbia

where you get to attend Columbia International University

and get a degree in Bible while you're in prison.

And so he was completely uneducated going into prison.

And while he was in prison,

he went to college and got a degree in Bible.

He graduated that program.

And then he said, as part of that program,

they can send you to any prison in South Carolina

that needs help in the chaplaincy program.

And so Tim told me he started praying

and he told God, I will go wherever you need me.

You just send me.

Wherever the darkest place is,

I wanna go and be a light in that place.

And in God's providence,

he sent him right back to Perry,

the very place where the Lord had led him to faith in Christ.

And now Tim, every single night in his dormitory,

leads a Bible study with the men in his dormitory.

He is part of the chaplaincy program.

He's a chaplain's clerk

and he gets to preach the gospel two times a month

for their Sunday services.

All because even though he was in a dark place,

the light of Christ began to shine in that dark place.

And he saved him from his sins.

That's exactly how our God works.

It's exactly what he was doing when he sent Jesus

to the region of Zebulun in Naftali.

He said, here's a dark place.

Here's a weak place.

Here's a vulnerable place.

But I can do something in that place.

I can shine the light of Christ there

and I can make a difference in people's lives.

And this is one way he turns our gloom into glory.

Here's what I want you to understand church.

God transforms our reasons for shame

into stories of grace.

Anybody in here got a story of grace this morning?

Yeah, just me, okay.

God turns our reasons for shame into stories of grace.

In other words, I want you to understand something

this morning.

There is no shame for Christians.

I don't know if you believe that or not,

but it's 100% biblically true.

There is no shame for Christians.

We do not have to hide our past.

We do not have to hide our sins, our shortcomings,

our failures because the light of Christ

has already exposed us.

There's nothing else we can hide from.

What are you talking about?

I don't think people understand this.

To identify with Christ and to claim to be a Christian

is to say that when Jesus died on the cross,

he died for my sins.

It was my sins that nailed him to the cross

according to the Bible.

And so as he's hanging on the cross naked,

bearing the shame that comes with hanging naked

on a cross, we are saying, that should be me.

I should be the one on the cross.

Why?

Because those are my sins.

This is exactly what I deserve.

So how could I possibly hide my sins

when Jesus has already exposed them?

The light of Christ has exposed them.

And so now I don't have to hide from them

because the Bible says that in Christ,

God has now hidden us in Christ.

So God no longer looks at you and sees your sins.

God looks at you and he sees the life of Christ

because you have been hidden in Christ.

And so we don't have to hide our sins.

We don't have to be ashamed of our past

because Jesus has done something about it.

I know that many of you in here,

you might be like me and you struggle with this

because you look back over your past

and all you see are failures.

All you see are reasons for shame,

a past full of sin and disobedience and rebellion

against God.

And I just want you to understand

that God can use those dark points in your life

for his purposes.

He can transform them into a testimony

that are gonna help other people see the work of Christ

in you and lead other people to Christ.

I've had people say about me.

Yeah, he may act holier than now.

Preaching every Sunday, but I know who he used to be.

I know the things he used to do.

I know the way he used to talk.

I know the way he used to treat people.

I know the things he used to be involved in.

You can see him there on a Sunday,

but I know who he was.

And to all that I say, yes, sir, amen.

That is who I was.

That's not who I am.

That's who I was before Christ.

That's not who I am because of Christ.

That old identity does not fit on me anymore.

The Bible says now I am a child of God.

I am a sinner and yet a saint,

not because of what I've done,

but because of what Jesus has done for me.

And so yeah, you can say all that stuff you want about me,

but Jesus has washed me clean, brother.

So I'm not gonna hide from my past.

I'm not gonna deny my past

because I want you to understand my past

is nothing more than a story of God's grace to recall.

And I've tried to point this out to people.

When all these people from my past come

and they try to remind me of all these things

and all the ways I've failed and all the things I've done,

and they're using that against me to try to shame me,

I'm like, brother, all you're doing

is reminding me of how good my God is.

All you're doing is reminding me

of how much he has forgiven me.

All you're doing is reminding me

of his great love towards me and mercy towards me

and grace towards me.

You are just giving me reasons to praise God.

So keep it on coming.

You can let people talk about your past.

You can let the devil remind you,

I glory in my sins forgiven

because the light of Christ has exposed my darkness.

And the Bible says that he has transferred us

out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his Son.

And he has transformed our reasons for shame

into stories of his grace.

I wanna encourage you even now, Christian,

it's not even just about your past.

I wanna encourage you to be open

about your shortcomings now in the present.

You don't have to hide those either.

I know we like to put on our church clothes.

This would work better if I was wearing a jacket,

but you know me, first Sunday of the month kind of guy.

So if I had a jacket, but we like to wear our church clothes

and we like to come here and pretend

that we all have it together, look at us.

We're good church people and we dress the part

and we play the part and we try to act

like we're perfect church.

Who's that helping?

Has that helped anyone recently?

No, we need to be open and honest about our shortcomings.

This is one reason I always try to be open and honest

from the pulpit with you about my shortcomings and failures.

I don't try to hide anything

because I think, excuse this rant for a second,

but I think for far too long,

the church went through this period

where they put the pastor on a pedestal

and they acted like he was a separated man of God.

He was holier than everybody else.

He was the anointed one.

You can't touch God's man.

And that's what gave rise to the celebrity pastor

influence stuff that we've got going on today.

And that is so unhelpful for the church

to think that there are two classes of Christians.

There's the pastor and then there's all you dirty sinners.

How dare you be part of this group?

Look, I'll tell you something.

Yes, God by his grace has given me discernment

and the ability to understand his word and teach his word.

Listen to me say this as your pastor.

I'm just a sinner saved by grace.

And that's not my past story.

That's my present story.

Every single day I wake up,

I'm reminded I am nothing more than a sinner saved by grace.

I am in need of God's daily grace in my life.

I am no better than you.

God has gifted me in different ways than you,

but at the end of the day,

we are just struggling together

until we get to be with Jesus in glory, amen.

So I'm not better than you.

We need to be open.

We need to be honest

because Jesus has exposed our sins.

And so here's what I want you to do.

When you think about Jesus going first

to Galilee of the Gentiles,

I want you to know that Jesus comes to us at our weakest.

He comes to us at our most shameful.

He comes to us at our most vulnerable

and he shines the light of Christ.

And I want to just remind you this morning, church,

the light of Christ always shines brightest in the darkness.

And so gloom becomes glory in an unexpected place,

but it also becomes into glory in an unexpected way.

Look at the first part of verse six.

I told you we're not gonna get as far as we'd like,

but the first part of verse six,

for to us, a child is born,

and to us, a son is given.

Now I want you to just pause for a moment

and think back to the situation of King Ahaz in Israel.

Do you remember their situation?

You either side with the nations or die,

or you side with a Syria or die,

or you do neither of those and you probably still die.

That's their situation, right?

They're stuck between a rock and a hard place.

I imagine living in Israel at the time

would have felt a lot like living in Ukraine today.

Living in constant fear of an invasion from the North,

except with Ukraine,

they're fearing an invasion from Russia

and they know, given how much smaller and weaker they are,

that if a full out war ever did take place,

they probably stand no chance.

That's exactly how Israel feels here.

And so here's what happens.

God sends the prophet Isaiah to King Ahaz.

And he says to King Ahaz,

hey listen, God's gonna protect you.

Here's what you do.

Ask God for any sign.

Any sign that you want.

It could be as deep as Hades, high as the heaven.

You ask him for any sign that he's gonna protect you.

God's gonna give it to you.

Now let's just be real honest with you.

If Isaiah was offering that to me,

I would have taken that deal

before he could have even finished talking.

As soon as he said, hey ask God for it,

I'm like, yes, absolutely.

Here's what I want.

I would have laid out my demands and asked for a nice sign.

King Ahaz though says no.

Can you imagine that?

Literally Isaiah is like, hey, God's gonna protect you.

Ask him any sign he'll give it to you.

And Ahaz is like, no, I'm good.

I don't really want a sign.

And so Isaiah says in modern translation,

okay, cool, cool, cool, cool.

God's gonna give you a sign anyways

and here's what it's gonna be.

And he tells him, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son.

And he, you shall call his name Emmanuel.

Do you see what is strange about that?

They're worried about Assyria.

They're worried about the nations.

They're worried about an invasion.

And Isaiah, God through Isaiah says, hey, don't worry about it.

Why? Because a baby's gonna be born.

Nobody, nothing there yet?

Let's just imagine that we were about to be invaded

by a nation and it's gonna happen any single day now

and you're living in constant fear

and the threat of death is over you.

And God says, don't worry about that

because a baby's coming.

Do you feel very secure from the nations at that point?

Okay, now you got it.

See, yeah, that's the point, right?

Like a baby did not seem like a great solution, right?

They did not want a baby.

They wanted another David.

They wanted a Gideon or a Sampson

or they wanted God to just wave his hands

and make Assyria just no longer exist.

Wipe them off the face of the earth.

They wanted some other like parting of the Red Sea miracle

and then let the sea swallow Assyria back up into it.

They wanted some miraculous work of God.

They did not have a baby in mind as the solution

to the problem of the nations.

Now, that was surprising to them

but what was gonna be even more surprising

is the way in which God was actually going to deliver them

because as you know, the baby Jesus is eventually born

but when he grows up, Jesus never once overthrew

the Roman government, did he?

That's exactly what people wanted him to do.

That's what they expected of the Messiah.

They all thought, hey, the Messiah is gonna come.

He's going to deliver us from the oppression of the nations.

Israel's gonna be free once again.

If Jesus is the Messiah, he is going to take it to Caesar

and Israel will be victorious

and instead Jesus says, actually,

you should keep paying your taxes.

We're gonna do what the Roman government says

and I'm gonna submit myself to death on a Roman cross.

And what was surprising to them

is they didn't realize that their deliverance

would come through death, not a military trial.

And that made no sense to them.

That was shocking to them.

They wanted a military victory

and yet the way God chooses to deliver his people

is through the death of the Messiah.

And you see, it just goes to show

that the way of the cross,

it seems like foolishness to the world.

But the Bible says that the way of the cross

is the wisdom of God and the power of God.

In 1 Corinthians chapter one,

the Bible says, for since in the wisdom of God,

the world did not know God through wisdom,

it pleased God through the folly of what we preach

to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom,

but we preach Christ crucify.

A stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.

But listen, to those who were called both Jews and Greeks,

what is Christ, church?

Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God,

for the foolishness of God is wiser than men

and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Do you see what he's doing here?

Just as a baby seemed like a foolish solution

to the problem of oppression by the nations,

the way of the cross seems like foolishness

to those who can't understand the wisdom of God.

The way of the cross seems like a foolish solution

to the problem of sin.

And yet it is through Jesus' death and resurrection

on that cross that we find our victory,

not because we have earned it or achieved it,

but because Jesus did so on the cross

and in the empty tomb and in the ascension

and now where he is seated at the right hand of God,

even to this day, interceding for his people.

This was accomplished in the wisdom of God,

which makes no sense to the world.

So this is one way that God turns our gloom into glory.

It's by helping us realize that no solution

is ever found in ourselves.

No solution is ever found in ourselves.

This is one truth that I think the American church needs

to understand more than almost any other truth today.

It's that no solution is ever found in ourselves.

When Israel was fearful of Assyria in the nations,

God didn't say, hey, come on guys,

stop doubting yourself, you got this.

Eat some spinach, bulk up a little bit.

You could do this, just believe in yourself.

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

You got this, I believe in you.

No, he said the exact opposite.

God said, hey, guess what, you're right, you can't do this.

Assyria is too big, you're too small.

There are too many other nations and you're too little.

You cannot do this.

You cannot deliver yourself.

You stand no chance on your own,

but here's what I'm gonna do for you.

I'm gonna raise up a son from among you

who's actually going to deliver my people

in a permanent way against a greater enemy than Assyria.

I'm gonna raise up a deliverer

who will deliver people from sin and oppression from sin.

I want you to understand that you will not find

the solution to your sin problem in yourself.

I've met so many people today.

It's probably the most common class of people I meet today

are people who call themselves Christians,

they claim to be Christians,

and they think that as long as they can just try to be

as good as possible,

if they can just be as religious as possible,

then maybe, just maybe,

they'll get to go to heaven when they die.

And I wanna just tell you two things this morning

because they're true and I love you.

Number one, you're never gonna be good enough,

but pastor, I probably know.

You're never gonna be good enough,

and number two, you're never gonna be religious enough.

And there probably aren't a lot of pastors

who will say that to their congregation,

but again, I say it because I love you

and I say it because it's true.

It does not matter how good you think you are

and it doesn't matter how good you think you can be

one day in the future.

You're never gonna be good enough

and you're never gonna be religious enough.

But let me just make my point here for arguments sake.

Let's say that you're the exception

as everybody believes they are.

So let's just say you are.

And you spend your life and somehow,

you find a way to become the greatest person on earth.

You become the most loving person on earth,

the most helpful person on earth,

the most forgiving person on earth,

the most merciful person on earth,

the most moral person on earth,

the most biblically knowledgeable person on earth,

the most religious person on earth.

Let me tell you something church,

even if you did somehow manage to achieve all of that,

it still wouldn't be enough.

Because God never says that you have to be more moral

and more religious than the people next to you.

The Bible says you must be perfect

as your heavenly father is perfect.

And no matter how hard you try,

you're never gonna be perfect.

The only way you can fulfill that command

and that expectation is by dying to yourself

and casting yourself on Christ and saying,

God, I cannot be perfect on my own.

I need you to make me righteous and holy in your sight.

You see, in order to come to Christ,

we must first come to the end of ourselves.

We have to be willing to say,

God, I have tried my way and all it's done

has caused me to fail time and time again.

God, I cannot do the things that you have asked me to do.

I need you to enable me to be able to do them.

God, I cannot do this on my own.

I can't overcome on my own.

I cannot beat this thing on my own.

God, there is no good in me.

I'll never beat my sin on my own.

I need you to do it for me.

I know so many Christians today who are struggling with sin

and they think if they can just do more

and try harder, one day they're gonna overcome that sin.

You're never gonna do it on your own.

God did not design you to be able to overcome sin

on your own.

No solution is found in you.

You can only overcome in Christ.

You can only find victory in Christ.

You can only have peace in Christ.

You can only have assurance in Christ.

You only get a spot in eternity in Christ.

It's not found in you.

So in order to come to Christ,

you first have to come to the end of yourself.

And I wanna just tell you,

this mentality makes absolutely no sense

to the rest of the world.

Unbelievers do not understand this.

And I've witnessed this firsthand.

I remember sharing my testimony

with a guy I used to work with at Lowe's.

And I was explaining how Jesus had saved me

and I was explaining how I had come to the end of myself

and I was nearing death and I was thinking about

taking my own life and in that moment,

I cast myself on Christ and he saved me from my sins.

And as soon as I said that,

this guy looked at me and said,

what a load of malarkey.

Transparency, he didn't say malarkey.

But I'm not gonna repeat what he actually did say here.

So, but you can fill in the blank.

He did not say malarkey.

But he said, what a load of malarkey.

He said, Jesus didn't actually save you.

He said, you were in a moment of weakness

and you latched on to the first thing that gave you comfort.

And so you just started using Jesus as a crutch.

I remember telling him, I was like, look,

I know that sounds pretty smart, pretty good argument.

I was like, but that line of reasoning

is only ever used in religious arguments

and it would never be applied anywhere else.

So it doesn't belong here.

He's like, what do you mean?

Well, imagine I was having a heart attack

and I called 911.

Would you say I was having a moment of weakness

and just latching on to the first thing

I thought could give me hope?

No.

Would you say that I was using emergency services as a crutch?

No, you wouldn't.

You would say that I was in a desperate situation

and I was calling on the only people

who could do something about the problem I was experiencing.

And in the same way,

when God revealed to me my true spiritual condition,

I called upon the only person who could do something

about the situation I was in.

And I said, I know that you are saying

that Jesus is my crutch and you think

that's some sort of insult to me.

I said, brother, you're not giving him enough credit.

Jesus is not just my crutch.

He is my life support, my IV, my heart monitor.

He is the bed itself.

Jesus is everything to me.

Okay, so you can say he's my crutch,

but you're not giving him enough credit.

You're not giving him enough credit.

It just goes to prove the scripture true

that the wisdom of God,

it confounds the wisdom of the world.

It makes no sense to the world.

They think we're giving up, but we're not giving up, church.

We are just simply coming to the end of ourselves

and casting ourselves upon Christ,

recognizing that Jesus is the only solution

to all of our problems, amen.

And when we realize that, we move from gloom to glory

because we're no longer trusting in ourselves,

no longer hoping in ourselves or even depending on ourselves.

We are casting ourselves on Christ,

putting our trust in him and saying,

no matter what, Jesus is sufficient.

No matter the problem, the matter of the difficulty,

no matter what I'm up against,

Jesus is sufficient for this.

I want you to remember this during the Christmas season.

And really every day for the rest of your life,

that when Jesus came to this world,

he came to move us from gloom to glory.

He came to transform our reasons for shame

into stories of his grace.

He came to be the solution to the problems

that we face in our lives.

And so today, this Christmas and every day after,

we should be giving thanks and praising God

for the Son that was given to us, amen.

Let's pray.