Longing for Peace

Well, good morning, Sacred Mission.

How's it going?

Good, good, good to see you guys.

It is our second Sunday in Advent, which is wonderful to just celebrate that Christ has come, and we're gonna be looking this morning at Longing for Peace out of Isaiah 9, of which we just read.

Now, the theme for Advent is this every longing heart.

And we got this out of the Christmas song called Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.

And it's a very relevant song because the reality of Advent is that we don't just look back at Jesus' first coming, right?

We're not Ricky Bobby at the table praying to baby Jesus because that's the kind of Jesus we like the best this time of year.

No, what we're doing is we're not simply looking back at the reality that Jesus has come, but we're looking forward in anticipation and longing at the reality that Jesus is coming again.

That's the purpose of Advent.

And so what we have in this line of come thou long expected Jesus is that he is the hope of every longing heart.

And the reality is in our time and day, in this culture we find ourselves in, we have a lot of longing going on, right?

We have longing that this pandemic would end.

We have longing that this suspended election would resolve.

We have longing that the things of this world would work themselves out in some type of way so that ultimately we have what?

Peace.

We want peace.

We want peace in our culture, we want peace in our government, we want peace in our society, but the reality is we often place our hope in empty things that can never promise or deliver true peace.

You see, we long for peace as inherent within our very beings.

We long for peace.

It's a natural reality of our human existence.

We don't like war, we don't like chaos, we don't like contempt, we like peace.

And there's a lot about our culture and our demographic in the burbs, right?

We come to the burbs for peace because we can get out here, be away from a little bit of the chaos of urban culture, we can kind of surround ourselves in comfort and convenience, and we can have our little peace of peace.

That's kind of why we move out here, right?

Not alone, but uh a primary reason.

But even the burbs can't promise peace.

So as we look at this text, what we're gonna be trying to understand is how does peace actually come?

And when it comes, what does it look like?

Because it might be in surprising ways that we would never actually think of intrinsically when we understand peace in its nature.

So when we look at the very first verse of this text, the way that we would understand this is that Jesus turns gloom into glory.

Jesus turns gloom into glory.

If you want to follow along with us, you can open our app or you can download the app.

There's fill-in notes on the app itself so that you can be able to follow along and use those for private devotion afterward as well.

But we want to look at the reality that Jesus turns gloom into glory.

You see, the people of Israel were in a state of gloom.

As we look at Isaiah 9, we understand where is God's people, when Isaiah is speaking to them, we have to understand that they were in a state of gloom.

Now, why were they in a state of gloom?

Well, they had become captive and captured people.

They had become captive and captured people because they did not trust God was a good king.

They didn't trust God was gonna be uh good on his promises that he had made to them.

So, because of that, they started trying to trust in wicked rulers and wicked governments for their security, for their comfort, for their peace.

And what happened?

Each one of these rulers came against them and they captured them and conquered them.

Two specific ones that we want to look at because it says here that it was the gloom that had come upon these two regions, Zebulun and Naphtali.

So if we look at this reality of about 150 years difference, we see two very specific instances.

So in 738 BC, the Assyrian king Tiglath Pilzer had taken the land of Naphtali and led the bat uh the people back to Assyria to be captive.

So 738 BC, the king of Assyria comes in and he leads God's people back into captivity into Assyria.

So he captures them and enslaves them.

But also, somewhere between 885 and 865 BC, the Syrian king Ben Hadad conquered these very cities.

And so 150 years before that, they were taken into captivity as slaves.

Then comes this next ruler, this Syrian king bin Hadad.

He comes and he conquers these lands, and the people of Israel find themselves in a state of gloom.

Now, it's not because simply these were wicked rulers.

We have to understand the context that God's people actually were trying to trust these rulers because they didn't ultimately trust God was a good king.

You see, God's people from the very beginning were meant to live under a theocracy: God as their king, God as their ruler, and they would rest under him in obedience to his long command, and there would be complete flourishing for his people.

All of God's blessing was found under theocracy, his ruling reign.

But the people had never been settled on that.

They had never been content with that reality.

So they constantly pursued to have judges or men or kings and rulers over them instead of God.

And God's judgment upon his people continually was okay, you don't want me for your king, then I will put above you wicked rulers who will overtake you.

And we see this even in this passage of Assyria and Syrian kings, that it was God's judgment upon his people to wield these kings as axes in judgment upon his people.

So it led them to be captive and conquered people.

You see, the reality of this state of gloom is that the people of God had placed themselves in darkness through trusting and seeking deliverance from wicked, ungodly rulers.

Their sinful trust and sinful practice had made them a captive and conquered people.

God judged them and brought upon their oppressors to rule over them.

Now it's fascinating that these regions, Zebulun and Nephtali, actually, when Jesus does appear and he actually starts his public ministry.

So if we look at Jesus' birth, he grows up right, and then he starts his public ministry after his baptism by John the Baptist.

Then he's led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted for 40 days, and then he comes out of that temptation and he starts his public ministry.

And guess where the first place he goes?

Zebulun and Naphtali.

He goes to this very region preaching because the light had truly come to the darkness.

Let's look at Matthew 4, 12 through 17, where Matthew writes and records this for us.

It says, Now, when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee.

And leaving Nazareth, he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulon and Nephtali.

So what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.

The land of Zebulun and the land of Nephtali, the way of the sea beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light.

For and for those dwelling in the region in shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Now there's a key phrase in this recording that Matthew gives us.

So he's saying, Jesus actually fulfilled what Isaiah had prophesied of him hundreds of years beforehand.

In fact, when we look at the prophecies of Jesus, for him to actually be able to fulfill all the prophecies of his own life, of which he did, it would be like this.

This would be the possibility or plausibility of that.

If you took the state of Texas and you covered it in silver coins about two feet deep, you took one of them out, colored them red, colored it red, and chucked it in the middle of like Houston, and you blindfolded a man and said, Go pick up that red coin on your first try.

That's the possibility, mathematically, of Jesus actually fulfilling all the prophecies of which he did about himself.

So this is just one of those.

And what's he doing?

He's going into the land of Zebulun and Aftali to be able to preach to them, to be able to actually bring the reality that light has shined on the darkness.

But what is the first thing he preaches?

It's not, hey, be nice to each other, be loving and accepting of one another.

Can we not just be uh these people who coexist?

No, it's repent.

Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

See, the first thing that we have to understand about peace is peace is light exposing the darkness.

You see, sin brings chaos into our lives.

Sin brings destruction and death into our lives.

It's the absence of sin where the presence of peace dwells.

And so for that to be accomplished, light has to expose and exploit the darkness.

And so Jesus came with the message.

The light has come.

Now repent.

Because the kingdom is here.

You see, gloom was brought upon themselves, but Jesus is bringing them into glory.

Notice the present already language of Isaiah.

If you look through 9, 1 through 7, he constantly uses present already language.

Even this is going to be fulfilled hundreds of years from the time of Isaiah.

His trust, Isaiah's trust in God, that his word is yes and amen, that it will never return void to his people, that it is something that he can stand upon as a guarantee.

He uses language as if it has already actually happened.

Utmost confidence in the Lord accomplishing his will and establishing his kingdom.

See, this is something that we've lost in our culture, in the church world.

This trust in the full sovereignty of God.

There was nothing, there is nothing, there will be nothing that can thwart God's plan.

It doesn't matter who's elected into our government, it doesn't matter what kind of government structure we reside under in the next 50 years.

It doesn't matter what our economy does, it doesn't matter anything.

Nothing can thwart God's sovereign decree.

When he determines it's going to happen, it happens.

Imagine if our wickedness could thwart God's divine purposes.

Herod would have killed Jesus.

Right?

Uh uh Mary would have not said yes to be the servant.

We would have had all these different circumstances of which God had to overcome and conquer or change his plan or refit configure how he was going to accomplish it.

But we see that we have to have, like Isaiah, utmost confidence in the Lord accomplishing his will and establishing his kingdom, because nothing can stop it.

When we look through verses 2 through 6, we see that a light has shone in the darkness, bringing peace without end.

A light has shown in the darkness, bringing peace without end.

You see, the people who walked in darkness, those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness.

That's how this kind of starts out.

And what we have to look at is that that's active human behavior.

The people who walked in darkness, the people who dwelt in deep darkness.

This is active human behavior.

I want to stress the fact that God's people were in the place they were in because of their own sin.

Right?

This wasn't some outside force that they couldn't control or couldn't help.

This was sovereignty of God, providence of God using their enemies against his people as judgment because the root of that is their sin.

It wasn't like everything was going great and then this stronger, more wicked ruler came and overtook them.

It wasn't that they were being super obedient and trusting the Lord and they were just having their own thing over here, and then this ruler came in and overtook them.

No, the root cause, if we just look at the outcome, we might come to that conclusion.

But the root cause of why were these rulers coming and conquering them was because of their sinful disposition.

You see, we have to realize God's people were in the state they were in due to their own sin.

But we have this contrast.

The people who walked in darkness, what?

Have seen a great light.

The people who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, a light on them has shone.

What we see here now is God's active grace.

So beforehand, those in darkness we see active human behavior.

But in this section where the light shines on the darkness, we see God's active grace.

God in his grace is causing the light to shine upon them.

So we're doing Advent devotionals at our home, and it's having all kinds of great conversation and dialogue with our children and family.

But even us, we had to kind of walk through what is the difference between mercy and grace.

And a lot of us get that confused.

And the reality is that mercy is that we don't get what we deserve.

Right?

If we're standing before a judge because we had committed a crime and the penalty for that crime is X.

Let's just say 10 years in prison, right?

If the judge extends mercy to us, see, we deserve the 10 years in prison.

There's no denying that fact.

If the judge extends mercy to us, then we don't get what we actually deserve.

That means we would be freed from our penalty of crime and not have to serve that 10 years.

That's the judge extending mercy instead of justice.

Grace is when we do receive what we do not deserve.

Specifically speaking of God's riches and blessings toward us.

When we do receive what we do not deserve.

We got God's riches and blessing.

He's bringing his people out of darkness and into the light.

Now let's ask a question.

What does light do?

And that might be a very elementary question, right?

But the reality is, as you start to think about this, the fundamental, if we were trying to dwindle it down to one simple statement, I would submit light exposes darkness.

What does light do?

Light exposes darkness.

So therefore, what is God's grace to us?

God's grace is to shine the radiance of his righteousness on the darkness of our sin.

Do you want to know what God's grace is to you?

To expose the darkness of your sin by the radiance of his righteousness.

That's God's grace to us.

God's grace to us is that when we think wicked, we feel wicked.

That when we're in disobedience, we're corrected.

God's grace to us is that all the darkness of our sin would be exposed and brought into the light through the righteousness of his radiance, so that death, destruction, and the sin that reigns within us might be put to death.

This is the reality of our being and our existence.

We understand the cross most gloriously when it's placed against the backdrop of our sin.

In the same way that a star shines brightest against the darkness of night, so Christ's cross will shine brighter against the darkness of our sin.

This is grace.

This is God's love for us.

First Peter 2 9 says, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light.

So this is what our when we're proclaiming the excellencies of God, what's the fueling factor of us proclaiming his majesty, of exalting his name?

It is the King, the God of grace, who brought us out of our darkness and into his marvelous light.

You see, we're called out of the darkness, chaos of our sin.

And we're placed into the wonderful light of peace.

You see, this is where peace comes from.

The absence of darkness, the absence of sin in our lives, because sin only breeds chaos.

Sin only brings death and destruction into our lives.

So God says, I want you to have peace beyond explanation.

I want you to have peace without end.

And you know where that's going to come from?

That's going to come from the righteousness of which I am shining upon the darkness of your sin and having that sin put to death.

Because in glory, as we are saved in Christ, conform to his image, and we die to go with him into glory, or by God's grace he returns to capture his church, we will be what?

In a kingdom of eternal peace, because sin no longer can reign there.

There is nothing but light.

There's nothing but righteousness.

That's where peace resides, in the absence of the darkness of our sin.

It is in the darkness that peace is absent.

And it is in the light that chaos is abolished.

Because Jesus has called his light to shine upon his people, rejoicing then ensues.

We see this going down in two through six, this rejoicing that ensues because he is shining his light upon his people.

But what outcomes of peace does Jesus bring?

So they they they rejoice, right?

They rejoice as in the harvest as men dividing the spoils.

But then we see these three fours of the outcome of the peace of which Jesus brings.

The first one that we see is that the burden of oppression has been broken.

The burden of oppression has been broken.

Why God's people had placed themselves under oppressors, it was because they placed themselves first under the oppressor of sin.

Though God's people have been placed them had placed themselves under oppressors, it was because they placed themselves first under the oppressor of sin.

And Jesus comes in and breaks it.

Says in verse 4, 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.

The second thing that Jesus does is that He the enmity of war has ceased.

The enmity of war has ceased.

Though they have become a captive and conquered people, Jesus came to free the captive and conquer back what he had lost.

We see this here in verse 5 for every boot of the tramping warrior in battle, tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.

The third thing that Jesus says is that the reign of wicked rulers has ended.

No longer would his people reside under wicked rulers in corrupt governments, but they would be made citizens of his kingdom, and he would reign over them as wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

We see this in six, for to us a child is born, to us a son 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.

So we have the rod of the oppressor broken.

We have the enmity of war ceasing.

The reign of wicked rulers ending, but how does all of this come about?

You see, this is the kind of paradox of the kingdom of God.

He doesn't come in as the warrior of which his people thought he would, as the Messiah of this king who would conquer physically their oppressor, who would beat them down through sword and bow, who would gather his army to overthrow corrupt government.

No, it was through the birth of a child.

It was through the birth of a child.

For unto us a child is born.

God ultimately breaks the rod of oppressor through a manger, a cross, and an empty grave.

If we look at verse 7, we see that nothing can stop God's jealous love.

Nothing can stop God's jealous love.

So at the close of this passage in Isaiah, we see this statement: the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this, will accomplish all of this.

We'll be in peace without end.

It's the zeal of the Lord of hosts.

If you look at the original language of that word, zeal, it means jealous affection.

Jealous affection.

Not this zeal of anger, not this zeal of battle, not this zeal of strength, this zeal of God's jealous love for his people.

You see, Jesus has come bringing peace through a true and better kingdom.

It's only under a righteous king that a people can exist in a peace-filled kingdom because sin breeds chaos, righteousness breeds peace.

So Jesus brings us out of the darkness and chaos of our sin, shining his righteous light upon us.

If our sin had put us in such a state, then what would be the motivating factor for God to extend such infinite grace to us?

Simply and solely his jealous love for his people.

God loves you so much that he will go to any end to ransom and capture you.

When you had been conquered and captive by the oppression of sin, Christ came to conquer you back, to make you a captive of his kingdom, of a true and better leader, ruler, king, whose kingdom is without end, full of peace.

This is God's grace to you.

This is God's jealous love over you.

None.

All other efforts and attempts at finding peace will lead us to be a captive and conquered people.

This is the problem with idolatry.

This is the problem when we don't actually trust God to be the good king of which He's promised us to be.

We enslave ourselves through the process of our own sin to be captive and conquered to false, weak, pathetic gods.

And we do this constantly, and one of the primary ways we do this is by pursuing comfort and peace.

As we are transformed out of the darkness darkness of our sin and into his marvelous light, we obtain Jesus' peace.

Christ promises his peace to us and gives it freely to his people.

In John 14, 27, he says, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

Not as the world gives do I give to you.

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Just keep that verse up for a little while.

Look at that verse over and over and over again.

There is many of us who are filled with fear.

Our hearts are troubled and afraid because we look at the circumstances of our current culture.

We look at the suspension of the election.

We look at the ongoing realities of the pandemic.

We look at whatever thing, right?

These other foreign governments rising up and creating mutant soldiers.

I just read that somewhere.

But this is coming all around us.

And what is happening?

What have you seen friends and family members and coworkers do?

Lose their ever-loving mind because their heart has been ransacked with fear.

Christians who have the peace of Christ, do we not trust he has overcome the world?

Do we not trust that he is seated on the throne?

Do we not trust that nothing can thwart his plan?

Do we not trust that he works all things for good for those who love him?

Then why are you afraid?

I'm not asking us to be ignorant.

I'm not asking us to be foolish.

I'm asking why are we genuinely afraid?

You see, we experience the peace of Jesus because we are liberated from the oppression of our sin.

We are no longer enemies of God, but are now children, and we are made citizens of an eternal peace-filled kingdom under the reign of the Prince of Peace Himself.

This is how we become peace-filled people.

You see, we were in darkness, the darkness of our own sin.

And what God did is by his grace shined his light upon us.

And it's the shining light of the gospel of Jesus that overcomes our darkness.

And then we place our faith in that he was born, that he lived a perfect life, died, buried, but resurrected on the third day.

And when we are born again, made alive in Christ through the power of the Spirit, we're adopted as children into a different kingdom under a different king, a true and better, righteous ruler who now reigns over us, and we are citizens of that kingdom.

No longer of this world.

We become aliens, foreigners, sojourners of this land, wandering to a better place of which our hearts long for, and peace must reside here and now within our being.

Because we cry out as citizens of that kingdom, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And you know what's in heaven?

There's no more sin, there's no more chaos, there's no more fear, there's no more turmoil, there's no more enmity.

There is peace.

But the truth is, we don't believe this.

Many of us, we look for peace in the darkness.

We look for peace in the darkness.

We are stumbling blind fools.

Many of us remain wandering through the darkness expecting to find peace.

Darkness, sin can only breed chaos.

We often blame others for our state.

It's their fault, it's this person's fault or this system or organization's fault.

I'm in the place that I am.

You can look at it in our culture right now.

There's a whole demographic of people that is pointing the finger at everyone else for the state of their condition.

But it's not just that demographic, it's many of us.

Many of us sit in apathy, pointing the finger at other people.

And Israel could have looked at Assyria, could have looked at Syrian kings and said, it's because of their wickedness that we are in the place we're in.

And God will look at them and say, No, it's because of your sin you're where you're at.

Rather than seeing our own sin and taking responsibility for where it has taken us, we blame others for our state.

We remain in darkness, unable to see that it is our sin that has us where we are.

And so, how do we look for peace in the darkness?

We try to get them out of our life.

Right?

If you could just brush off the haters.

If you could just get people that are toxic out of your life, if you could just get the people who are making your life a mess out, then peace would reign.

But the reality is many of us fail to just look at ourselves.

Some of us we continue returning to our sin expecting different outcomes than the pain and hardship that it has always brought us before.

This is a pattern many of us face, and it's rooted in an absence of trust that Jesus really is a good king.

You see, we don't pursue righteousness, we don't pursue relationship with Him.

We just keep doing the same old thing, expecting different outcomes in our sin.

Some of the simplest ways that we see this is in our relationships.

Before marriage, right, and we're just going after person after person, trying to find somebody or something that's going to fill this void.

We continue going back to the very same sin that hurt us and marred us the first time, expecting some kind of different result.

But we don't do this with just relationships, we do this with the way we spend our money.

We do this with our time and resources.

We do this with all kinds of different sin, right?

Lust is a huge one.

Look at how many times the cycle of pornography and lust will capture a man thinking that there's going to be a different outcome this time around.

And women.

We hide from the light because we secretly love our sin.

Even if we hate what it does to us.

An unwillingness to bring sin into the light is only fostered through a love for it.

We may hate its effects, but we love its fleeting momentary pleasures.

But some of us, we look for peace from lesser kings and kingdoms.

We look for peace from lesser kings and kingdoms.

Our inability to trust that Jesus is a good king places us under wicked rulers.

When we fail to see Jesus as the eternal good king, we always end up at the feet of wicked rulers.

It's hard for us to see Jesus as a real king and ourselves as citizens of a real kingdom.

I get it.

We get wrapped up in the tangible and present now.

Because it's what's in front of us, it's what we can reach out and touch.

It's something that's actually before us.

When we have this king that we've never seen in this kingdom that we've never experienced in a tangible sense, some of us, even though I argue that that can be and that should be for us as his people, it's hard for us to place our trust in it.

And so it becomes simpler.

Simpler to trust in tangible and present realities.

We're like Israel.

In that we exchange the righteous rule of God for the unrighteous rule of man, and then we're frustrated when they just show themselves to be wicked rulers.

The kings and kingdoms of this world can never give us the peace we're actually looking for.

We have to remember we may reside here as people, but we are not citizens here.

We may live here, and no matter what this government becomes, whether it becomes socialist, socialist democratic, socialist capitalist, socialist communist, socialist, whatever, I don't care what it becomes.

If it stays capitalist forever, red, white, and blue bleeding American citizens, right?

It does not matter.

It is wicked.

It is not righteous.

It is not the eternal kingdom of which Christ has called us to.

And no matter what is tangible in our present reality, we are citizens of an eternal kingdom, sojourners and aliens of this one.

So, God, may it be so.

This should be the prayer of the church.

If God, if that brings you glory, if that brings your fame to your name, let it be so.

Let my blood be cost as one to be spilled on the altar of the fame of your name, let it be so, Lord.

If God's good grace in the pursuit of his glory is to take your life, cry, let it be so.

If it's to bring you to ruin and poverty like you've never seen, God, let it be so.

Because why?

He's a better king.

And his kingdom is a better kingdom.

Ultimately, we find ourselves in a cycle of chaos from our sin or our distrust in God.

There is no peace where there is no righteousness.

There is no peace where there is no righteous ruler.

What's the beauty of the gospel for us?

It's that Jesus entered into our chaos to give his people peace.

Jesus entered into our chaos to give his people peace.

It was into darkness the light shone.

It was into darkness that the light shone.

Jesus is the child born to us, the righteous ruler who would liberate his people and bring them peace without end.

But first, he had to deal with the chaos of our sin.

You see, Jesus didn't come in the way that his people thought he was going to come.

He didn't come as this governmental power, as this revolutionary leader.

Not in the way they expected it.

And so at the time of his crucifixion, many all abandoned him, forsook him.

Peter himself denied him three times.

What was Jesus having to do?

Jesus was having to enter into the chaos of our darkness and sin so that the light truly should shine upon us.

Because what did we deserve?

We deserve to remain in darkness.

We deserve to not have peace.

We deserve to remain in the chaos that the darkness bred in our lives.

We deserved God's judgment and wrath poured out upon us.

But Christ in his mercy took our place.

Christ in his mercy said, You don't have to endure this any longer.

I'll endure it for you.

And in his grace, he says, because I want to give you my peace.

Ultimately, I want to give you my righteousness.

The oppressor had to be defeated.

The war had to cease.

The ransom of sons and daughters had to be paid.

We, you and I, were a people who walked and dwelt in darkness.

Jesus, our righteous King, has shined his light upon us.

That is a glorious good news.

God loved us so much that he didn't allow us to remain in darkness.

And now how can we be a people who choose to go back there time and time again?

Instead of understanding that God's grace is that the darkness of your life has been exposed by the radiance of his righteous light so that you can have peace.

As gospel people, we have to love the light.

This is our gospel vision point one this morning.

We have to love the light.

Here's what that means: we have to love righteousness.

We have to love the fruit of righteousness.

Just think for me with a minute.

Think about the ways that you sinfully practice things in your life, right?

Maybe it's the way that you continue to sinfully spend your money.

Maybe it's the ways that you can tend to sinfully not work the way that you should, uh, as unto the Lord, right?

Maybe it's in the ways that we sinfully do whatever.

What does that breed?

Anxiety?

Fear?

Looking over your shoulder, wondering what's coming behind you.

All of this breeds chaos.

Sin breeds chaos.

It does not, it will not, it cannot ever produce peace in our lives.

Now, Christ has promised us peace.

If we want to experience tastes and morsels of that peace here and now, I can promise you it is through the process of sanctification of becoming more and more righteous.

You want anxiety to leave your life?

Pursue righteousness.

You want to not be looking over your shoulder, worrying that something's coming on the other side?

Pursue righteousness.

You want to have fear removed from your heart?

Pursue righteousness.

Because it's even in that righteous pursuit, a deeper rooted trust in Jesus will flourish.

You see, we have to love the light, which means we have to hate the darkness of our sin.

And we have to be a people who actually value and love the light exposing the darkness in us.

That's God's grace to us.

You have to understand that.

God's judgment and punishment to you would be allowing you to remain in darkness, would be allowing for your sin to remain in darkness.

God demonstrates his love for us and grace to us when that light exposes the darkness of our sin and it's brought out.

And then here's the extra blessing is that when you find yourself in community of other believers who love you and support you and want to see the sin in your life put to death, when that light exposes the darkness in you and it's brought out in front, a community of people lock arms with you to see it trampled underfoot.

We have to love the light.

Number two, we have to bring others into the light.

We have to bring others into the light.

This is part of our call to Christians that we actually confront sin in one another's life.

Not because we're judgmental, not because we're uh uh hyper-religious or legalist.

We confront sin tenderly and lovingly in other people's life because we are trying to be like Christ and bring them into the light.

Because we know that love for our brother means the absence of darkness in them.

Conformity to Christ.

Conformity to Christ is what we are called to as his people, and in Christ there is no darkness at all.

There is only the radiance of his light.

In fact, in Revelation, when it talks about the Lamb in the kingdom, you don't need light because Jesus Himself is the light of heaven.

He is so radiant in his righteousness that he exudes light to all of heaven.

Can you imagine that type of righteousness?

Can you imagine that type of purity?

Can you now imagine that he's calling you to live like that?

He did not suffer the penalty of our sin so that we could wallow and remain there.

No, we proclaim the excellencies of him who brought us out of darkness and into marvelous light so that we might know peace.

So we like Christ bring others into light.

Our brothers and sisters, we bring into the light.

Our community, mission group members, we bring into light our children and spouses, we bring into the light.

We confront sin tenderly and lovingly.

And this is one of the primary things we have to understand.

If we are going to confront sin in someone else, we have to be so committed in love for them that we are willing to walk through life.

With them to see that sin eradicated in them.

We do this together.

We shoulder one another's joys and burdens.

And the great one of the greatest burdens we're going to experience as believers is the exposing of the darkness of our sin.

It is going to feel crushing at times.

It is going to feel so defeating at times, like we cannot go on, like we should just give up.

And then you're going to have other people in your mission group or community or family who were people that were affected by that sin.

And you have to support them and love them and speak faith and righteousness into them to see restoration and reconciliation happen so that the light can continue to expose the darkness so that peace can reign.

You see, so many times we're just looking for our own comfort in our own peace that we're so unwilling to shoulder the burden and load with others.

We're so caring about ourselves that we entrap ourselves into this cocoon of false peace that if nothing can get inside of here, I'll be okay.

But you don't realize how unfaithful, how wicked of a servant you're being.

Jesus says, if you're going to be a servant of mine, then there's some expectations for you to live out.

There's some things that is required of you to be a faithful servant.

And we can't do those things in our wall of isolation and of our fortress of solitude where people can't get in and harm us any longer.

We, as part of letting our light shine and bringing others, we're gonna have to become vulnerable people who sit there and take arrows when we don't deserve them and take arrows that are shot at our brothers and sisters, and we keep trudging along because we know Christ is the healer.

And it's us who rest in that healer, who trust in that healer, that keep pressing forward to see the light expand.

Lastly, we have to reflect the light that is shown on you.

Reflect the light that is shown on you.

This is what Jesus calls us to be light and salt.

You are a light.

You are a light.

You expose the darkness.

A light hidden under a basket, it can't do anything.

It's of no good, of no use.

You see, we have to reflect the light that is shining on us.

We don't have light intrinsically within us, right?

I don't care what your theology is, there is no good or light within you from birth.

It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit that light is poured into the darkness of our being so that we can then reflect that light that was shown on us.

So we have to realize that it's nothing good within you, right?

To shine on others.

That's not our purpose.

Our purpose is to shine the light of Christ, which reflects off of us because it first shined on us.

It is Jesus' light of which we are to reflect the gospel of peace, the hope that Christ has conquered all things, that he's broken the rod of oppressor, that he's caused the word to cease, that he has ransomed sons and daughters for his kingdom.

We are living in such a darkened culture.

We don't trust one another for anything.

We are constantly attacking one another over everything.

We're canceling family members because they don't agree with us or see eye to eye with the way that we do certain things.

We are rejecting, destroying relationships.

We are at great enmity with one another.

And the let me just say this: the first thing that that has to be fixed is within the church.

It's within the church.

If we can't go to one another and talk and have a conversation, if we can't love our brother enough to try and shine light upon the darkness of their sin, what are we doing here?

Literally, why are you here?

You have to answer that question.

I'm not that good of a preacher.

There's a lot of other podcasts and YouTube videos that you can watch instead of coming here and just listening to me.

My voice doesn't sound great.

I don't like the way it sounds or projects.

I'm not that intelligent, I don't preach that well.

Like, really, why are you here?

If you're not here to do life together in a messy pursuit of Jesus, where darkness is exposed to the shining of light and bringing others into life, if you're not here to get your hands dirty in one another's life to see you conform to the image of Christ, if you're not here to share joys and burdens with one another, at loss we weep with you.

At gain we rejoice with you.

If you're not here for that, one, stay home, or two, go somewhere else.

We are here to be the church.

I'm not here to put on a Sunday show.

We have to be a people who love the light, who love one another.

And church, how are we reflecting the light of Jesus now to the world around us?

There's no peace out there.

Here's some of the promises you've been fed this week.

New vaccines coming out.

The pandemic's gonna be over soon.

New president getting the office.

It's gonna bring unity and peace.

The economy's bouncing back.

Your bank account's gonna be full again.

All these things you've been told this week, you know what they all are?

Hopeless garbage.

They are things vying for your trust.

They are things vying for your affection.

They are things vying for your hope.

They are glory thieves of Jesus Himself.

We have to reflect the light that has shone on us by placing, first and foremost, by placing our own hope in the King of peace, wonderful counselor, mighty God.

And then we're able to proclaim that peace has come to a world without hope.

Let's pray.