REJOICE: REBIRTH

Merry Christmas!  There are only a few days till Christmas Day.  It is a great time to finish up your Christmas list!  We hope you are having a wonderful Christmas season.  Be sure to join us for Christmas Eve at 3:30, 5:00, and 6:30 pm.  All services are candlelight.  The first two services are more contemporary celebrations with a children’s story, and the last service follows the time-honored tradition of lessons and carols with communion.  It will be a beautiful and wonderful time.  We continue our series Rejoice!  We hope that an active sense of rejoicing is filling your heart as we move through this series.  The sermon this week is Rebirth, and it is based on Isaiah 9:1-7.  God speaks these words to a nation that is being drawn into the darkness of destruction, despair, and departure from God’s truth.  They have lost their way.  The darkness is so thick and overwhelming that they cannot see their way out of the pit they have fallen into.  God is never content to leave anyone in the darkness.  The Word of God to Isaiah brings a powerful light filled with rejoicing and hope!  The darkness of our present world has not lessened since the time of Isaiah, but the good news is that the light has come into the world through the Child born in a manger!  Isaiah could not fully understand the power of this Word for his nation and for all of us.  The darkness cannot extinguish this light in Isaiah’s time, in Bethlehem, or in 2025.  These words help us find a new birth of joy and rejoicing because they continue to lift us from the distress and stress of our lives into the power of God’s presence!  We pray you will find this joy filling your heart and flooding your soul as you read Isaiah 9:1-7.

Isaiah 9:1-7 (NIV): ​

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. ² Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins. ³ A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴ Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. ⁵ And the glory of the LORD will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” ⁶ A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. ⁷ The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the LORD blows on them. Surely the people are grass. ⁸ The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.” ⁹ You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!” ¹⁰ See, the Sovereign LORD comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. ¹¹ He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young