Come Down And Renew
Isaiah 61:1-4,8-11
Pastor Bob Hiller
12/14/2014
Series:
come-down
YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/xcramFtRWcE
Isaiah 61:11 For as the soil makes the sprout come up and a garden causes seeds to grow, so the Sovereign LORD will make righteousness and praise spring up before all nations.
1. This season that is supposed to be full of ____________ often makes us feel the most ____________ and ____________.
2. When God's Word speaks into our lives, the ____________ turns towards ____________.
3. In the midst of your ____________ Jesus gives you ____________ by setting you ____________.
Scripture Readings
Isaiah 61:1-4,8-11
1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8,19-28
Take It With You!
As we learn how to live as disciples of Jesus Christ, here helpful tools will be offered to aid in your study.
For them, for you, God was born. For bruised children and broken men. For wounded soldiers and battered wives. For you—no matter your hurt, no matter how screwed up your life is, no matter what kinds of stupid decisions you’ve made, no matter how filthy and vile and useless you think you are—for precisely you God was born. He gladly left a bright and shiny heaven to plunge headfirst into the mud and muck of our world full of darkness and unbelief and tragedy. He didn’t stand in the light and beckon you out of the darkness. He invaded the night. He came in search of you.
You say, “But I’m a lost cause.”
Jesus says, “I specialize in lost causes, for I came to seek and to save the lost.”
You say, “But I just can’t go on.”
Jesus says, “You don’t have to. I will carry you onward. I’ve got you. You don’t need to take another step.”
You say, “But I’m hopeless.”
Jesus says, “I have all the hope you need. I am your hope. I hold your past, your present, and your future in my nail-scarred hands.”
You say, “But look at what I’ve done. I’m dirty. Nobody wants me.”
And Jesus says, “I want you. Look at what I’ve done for you. I have taken your dirt and smeared it all over me. You are clean, I am filthy. See me dirty on the cross. See you clean beneath it. I want you—desperately, lovingly, crazily, I want you.”
Into this mad world, oozing with pain, racked with guilt, pockmarked with graves, God gladly and willingly was born to make you his own flesh and blood. The deeper you have fallen, the farther he will dig to find you. The darker your despair, the more light he will bring to seek you out. The farther away from God you are, the better he sees you. No life has sunk so unfathomably deep that he cannot dig down to grasp you by the hand and climb out of the pit with you in his arms. That’s the kind of God who was born on Christmas. That’s the kind of God that Jesus is.
Chad L. Bird, A Tree Decorated with Tears: The Dark Side of Christmas is Why Christmas Exists, https://birdchadlouis.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/a-tree-decorated-with-tears-the-dark-side-of-christmas-is-why-christmas-exists/
