Advent Peace

I'll return. I'll come to Zion with singing, "Everlasting joy shall come to your heads; for they shall come to joy, and sorrow, and sin." This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today. We thank you for being here today, and to be reminded of what the joy that we have to your coming, not just in the past, but also what we can look forward to as Christians. And we thank you so much for the gospel and the good news of great joy that you gave to us. Help our service to glorify you today. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so you would think we're going to sing the angels we have heard on high. It's not working. It's not working. Here we go.

Okay. Angels we have heard on high, sweet leaves singing o'er the plains, and the mountains in reply, echoing their joyous strains. Gloria. In ex-Chelsea's day. In excelsis Deo Gloria in excelsis Deo Shepherds, why this jubilee? Why your joyous strains prolong? What the gladsome tidings be, which inspired your heavenly song. Gloria in excelsis Deo Gloria in excelsis Deo Come to Bethlehem and seek Him whose birth the angels sing. Come adore on banded knee, Christ the Lord, the newborn King. Gloria in excelsis Deo Gloria in excelsis Deo Gloria in excelsis Deo

Gloria in excelsis Deo Gloria in excelsis Deo Gloria in excelsis Deo Gloria in excelsis Deo Gloria in excelsis Deo Gloria. That was probably the first time Buzz Lightyear has ever lit an Advent candle, because I realized Luke still has his costume on. All right, we're going to be moving into our prayer and share time, and if you're watching online, there will be a phone number for you to text. If you have anything you'd like to share with us, just text that number, and we will share that here, and we're going to be muted during that time for privacy, and so give us a few minutes, and then we'll be back to move on to the rest of our service. So, as we move into that, we're going to be singing "O Come All Ye Faithful."

Come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem. Come and behold Him, born the King of angels. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. Sing, choirs of angels. Sing in exultation. Sing, holy citizens of heaven above. Glory to God in the highest. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him. O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. All right. You may be seated. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. All right. As we move into our time of communion, we're going to be singing "In Christ Alone."

In Christ alone, my hope is full. He is my life, my strength, my soul. This cornerstone, this solid ground, found through the fiercest drowning storm, what heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are stilled, when strivings cease. My comforter, my holy hope, here in the love of Christ I stand. The fullness of God in helpless faith, this gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones He came to save. Till on that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. On Him was laid, here in the death of Christ I lay. There in the ground His body lay, light of the world by darkness. Then bursting forth in glorious day, upon the grave He rose. He rose again. And as He stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me. For I am His, and He is mine, brought with the precious blood of Christ.

No fear in death, this is the power of my destiny. His first cry to final breath, Jesus commends my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand. Till He returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I'll stand. No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand. Till He returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

One of the Gospel accounts that has always captured my imagination is in Mark chapter 5. And in Mark chapter 5, Jesus and his disciples have crossed across the Sea of Galilee. They have arrived on the other side, and instead of finding welcome, they encounter a man who is possessed by demons. And not just one demon, but he says, when Jesus asks him his name, he says, "We are legion, because we are many." And the contrast and the fear that has to be available, because there's moments in life that sort of shock us, that we weren't expecting to happen. And getting out of a boat with Jesus, and looking up, and there's a guy who has lived in a graveyard. Scripture tells us he's been bound with chains, he's broke them, he's not wearing any clothes, he's charging down towards you.

That has to be one of those moments that will open your eyes. And Jesus doesn't run, he doesn't hide, he doesn't try to avoid, but he confronts this man's brokenness, he casts out the evil spirits, and when the townspeople come to see what has happened, they find him sitting with Jesus, he's wearing clothes, and he is in his right mind. But the remarkable part of this story, to me, is what happens at the very, very end. Jesus is talking to him, and Jesus is getting ready to depart, and this man says, "Jesus, I want to follow you, I want to go with you." And in one sense, that's very understandable, because you have the reputation in your geographic area as being the demon-possessed guy who lives in a graveyard who is uncontrollable, is socially unacceptable, and I wouldn't want to stay with that kind of reputation.

But Jesus says something to him that is remarkable. In verse 19 of Mark 5, it says, "He did not permit him, but said to him, go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has mercy on you." And he went away, and he began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for everyone. Instead of coming with me, I want you to go out and simply tell everyone what the Lord has done for you. The mission Jesus gives this formerly broken, demon-possessed man is the mission of proclamation. And as we come to celebrate the Lord's Supper, many times we focus on what this meal says to us, and that's absolutely essential. To look to the cross at how Jesus saved us from our sins, how there is a new covenant, how through this we are nourished,

we are strengthened, we are brought to hope, how God is at work through this meal. But Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, and we read this just about every week, says that this meal is also a proclamation. Like this man in Mark, the fifth chapter, Jesus says, "Go and tell others what I have done for you." This meal is one of the ways in which we proclaim our Savior, that we proclaim our hope, that we proclaim where it is we stand, that we proclaim where our peace is found, where our joy comes from. This isn't simply inward focus, but it's also by us when we break this bread and drink this cup. It's a proclamation of our hope in Jesus. Let's pray. Father, you saved us through Jesus. We thank you that you have redeemed us.

We thank you that we are for grace and mercy upon us. And as we think about these things, may they not just simply be for us intellectual truths, but that you would nourish the depths of our soul with these truths. And help us to share this good news, this hope and this joy and this peace. Help us proclaim it to the world. Help this meal to remind us of where we stand and where our hope is. That it's not found in us and in our strength, but it's found in Jesus. And that we would proclaim this hope to those who surround us. We ask that you bless this bread and this cup. We thank you for Jesus and for grace. It's in his name we pray. Amen. If you would take your bread with me, as Jesus did with the disciples, after giving thanks,

he said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." And as Jesus took the cup with his disciples, and he said, "This is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me." And then, as we just mentioned, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." This morning's reading is from Romans 8. "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is it to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God,

who indeed is interceding for us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or swords? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long." We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else, in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is the word of the Lord. Now, you might, as Brent may have done when I gave him this morning a Scripture reading, look at

this and say, "Well, what does this have to do with Christmas?" And then this may come as a surprise to some of you, but sometimes I'm grumpy, and maybe more often than sometimes. And when I am grumpy, and somebody tells me to be joyful, do you know what my general response is? "What's there to be joyful about?" Or, you know, somebody, you know, greet me in the grocery store. You know, it's a wonderful day. Well, what's so wonderful about it, right? And most of us, from time to time, can find us in this place where we look sort of at what's around us and say, "Well, what's there to be joyful about? What's there to be thankful about? What's there to celebrate?" And so in times like this, I don't know about you, but what I need to do is what Dr.

Martin Lloyd-Jones called "preaching the gospel to ourselves" from Psalm 42, where the psalmist will say, "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" And he will go on to say, "Hope in God." And so those moments where I look, for example, as we talk about the joy that comes in the arrival of Jesus, it can be easy to look at all of the brokenness that surrounds us, all the hurt that seems to pile up, the conflict that seems constant, and say, "What is there to be joyful about?" And so what I want us to do, more specifically for me, is to preach the gospel this morning to ourselves. So I'm going to pray, and then we will dive right into it. Father in Heaven, thank you for hope. Thank you for the peace that you have established in our

hearts. We thank you for joy. And so often we lose sight of the fact that you have given us joy in the midst of brokenness and persecution and suffering and sorrow and conflict, that there is joy in you. So help us this morning. Help the birth of your Son to point us to the goodness of joy. Establish our hearts in joy. Establish our hearts in you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So one of the things that I very much love about our children is the fact that, by and large, they're pretty joyful. And they're often joyful about things that, to me, maybe seem small. For example, a couple of weeks ago, they wanted to go through the car wash. I don't think Luke had ever been through an actual car wash because I have a hose and I don't need to spend, you know,

$10 or $15 on a car wash because I can just use a hose to wash my car. But we went through, and the joy that was experienced in this moment, it was a little bit contagious. And it helps me when I see the joy of, for example, my children. It helps me to maybe put aside some of my sort of innate grinchiness or grumpiness and realize that there are things to be joyful about. And so this morning, as we look at this passage in Romans chapter 8, I'm somebody who always likes to ask why, especially about joy. And I think what we'll see as we move through this passage this morning is that there are a lot of reasons to be joyful in the wonder of the birth of Jesus. And so our text this morning starts with a very familiar and a very wonderful promise, and that promise is probably most of us know this

or have heard this. If God is for us, who can be against it? These are words that have encouraged Christians since they were written. They've brought courage to those who were fearful. They've brought hope to the hopeless. They've brought rest to the exhausted and joy to the struggling and broken. These words, if God is for us, who can be against us? And one of the reasons that they bring joy and hope and rest and peace to us is because one of the things that this tells us is that all of these things are no longer on our shoulders, but they rest on the shoulders of the Creator of the universe. So most of us probably have somebody when they show up or we've been in a situation where somebody showed up and we said, "You know what? There's somebody else here. Everything is going to be okay."

In my last year of college, I was driving, and I've shared part of this story with some of you before, and I was driving to the church that I preached at on Sunday mornings, and I was in the absolute middle of nowhere, super early in the morning, and a guy comes over the hill and completely in my lane, ends up hitting me. His car goes over the bank. I get my car to the side of the road, and then I look around because there was not a lot of cell phones. I certainly didn't have a cell phone. I can't even see his car. I managed to get out of my car. I run to this one house that looked like it was 90% vacant. I pounded on the door for a good five minutes, it seemed like. It may have been shorter.

And nobody answered. I'm sitting here, and there's nothing I can do, right? There's no cars. There's no people. And then, perchance, I looked down to where my car was, and I saw a car that I recognized because there was another guy from school going to preach a few minutes from where I was going, and he, by the grace of God, left after me, normally left before me. And he sees my car, and so he stops, and he's looking for me. And at that moment, all of the adrenaline just sort of went out. It's like, I don't have to deal with this by myself anymore, right? There's somebody else who is there to help. And one of the reasons that this verse has strengthened and helped and brought peace to Christians throughout the centuries is because one of the things that tells us at the very first is that

it's no longer resting on your shoulders, right? We might be in the midst of all of these things, and in fact, Paul will talk about some of them, but the point is that you are not alone. And it's not just that somebody random has showed up to help, right? It's God who is for us, right? Psalm 145, which we read this morning, talks about how the people will praise God's name forever and ever because His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall commend your works to another, and it goes on to extol the greatness of God. And one of the ways, if you want to sort of practically see this in your life, in the book of Job, starting in chapter 38, Job, God has listened to Job's complaints and his friends' arguments, and God finally says, "Enough." And he will say to Job, "Dress for action like a man, and I will

question you." And God then begins to question Job, saying things like, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Where were you when I spread out the lines that divide the inhabitants of the world? Where were you when I created this? Where were you when I plumbed the depths of the ocean?" And you begin to see the greatness and the bigness and the power of God. And that's God's intention for Job, because Job's vision has become so narrowed to his area of brokenness and hurt that he has missed the greatness and the power of God. We see it in the ministry of Jesus as Jesus heals the broken. He loves the hurting. He takes a tiny lunch and feeds 5,000 with it. He walks on the water. He heals the sick. The blind see. He raises the dead. We get a glimpse

of the greatness and the power of God. And what Paul says is that he is with us. Not just somebody random, but the God of all creation is with us. And that's a wonderful, powerful, encouraging thing. But I would like to point out to you this morning that that is not a passive with us. We all understand a passive with us because we're probably with a lot of things in a passive manner. If you've ever gone and watched sports, you're rooting for your team, and you're like, "Man, I am for them." Well, what are you going to do? They're not tagging you in as quarterback. You're not going to pull you out of the stands and take over on defense. We are with them sort of in spirit. We support them from a distance. We root for them. When you and I hear that God is

with us, this is not a passive, from the stands, at a distance, looking at you and saying, "Man, I hope they succeed. I'm really rooting for that guy." But God is with you. In fact, isn't that one of the wonderful promises of the incarnation of Jesus? His name will be called Emmanuel, which means that God is with us, that God did not stand at a distance, but he stepped into the brokenness of our world, into a broken family, a broken world. Jesus knew what it was like to struggle with hurt and his family and with his friends, and conflict and betrayal. He knew what it was like to be tired and hungry. He was truly and is truly with us. And so you have this picture and this promise that God is with us. And immediately, maybe you've developed this

same kind of skepticism. We might immediately say, "What's the catch?" Because we're used to just about everything having a catch. If you've ever seen an advertisement for medicine on the TV, what happens? "Hey, this will alleviate all of your symptoms and make life better." And then the like 45 seconds out of the 60 second commercial is some guy reading absolutely as fast as he can all the things that are going to go wrong if you take this medicine, right? And it always ends the same, right? It may end in death. And so we've become accustomed to asking, right, "What's the catch?" We're used to people trying to put one over on us. I remember for me when I was probably in junior high or high school, and I got this little flyer in the mail, and I always

loved books. And it was for this book club where you would get like nine or ten books free. And I was like, "Yes, I'm on board with this," right? And maybe you remember how these work. It's like, "Yeah, but you have to buy four more books at regular price." And regular price was like two or three times what you pay for it in the store over the next two years, right? So then I've got to buy these books that I didn't really want because I wanted the free ones. There's a catch. We're used to seeing and looking and trying to find the fine print. And so maybe when we hear this good news, that God is with us, you might say, "Well, what's the catch?" Maybe it's too good to be true. You see, our world has conditioned

us to question all of the amazing promises that we hear. And we have this statement, "God of all creation is for us. Who can be against us?" Right? Nothing can come close because His power and His love, His mercy and His grace, He protects His people. He strengthens. He works even in the midst of brokenness. And we go, "Well, what's the catch?" And we begin to have some lingering doubts about whether this promise is truly for us. And our doubts, I think, can be summed up in one word. And Paul understands this. In fact, he works those doubts a little bit into this verse because what does he say? If God is for us. And that's the question I have. If. Is God for us? If he's for us, yes, this is true. But how do I know

that he's for me? Because I don't know about you, but I've experienced broken promises from people. I've broken promises myself. You've broken promises. We know that, by and large, even people with good motives will break their promises to us. And so we hear a promise like this, and we say, "Well, is it really for me? It's for me." I've been burned before. People have said good things and have never done them. And maybe we doubt this promise because we're so small and God is so great. It was in November of last year that the population of Earth hit 8 billion, and I had to try to visualize this because those numbers are so big that it's hard to visualize. There are visualizations of this. If you were to take a grain of rice for every single person on Earth,

it would fit a large two-story house. You'd fill it to the top with these grains of rice, right? And we're not talking about, you know, you just got bags staffed everywhere. We're talking about you open the front door and rice just pours out of this house. And here we are, one little grain of rice in this two-story house. We go, "I'm so insignificant. There's a billion people here. Why me?" Why would God make this promise to me? But more than that, not just that God made this promise to me, but I'm not a good person. None of us are good people, right? We are sinful, and God is holy. Right? We're constantly living in fear that someday maybe our sin will catch up with us. I remember the very first time I was driving to school,

and we were driving along and behind us, you know, a police car pulled out behind me, and I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden, especially when you're a brand new driver, you start driving real carefully, you know, all of a sudden using all the turn signals, you're very gentle with the accelerator. I mean, you can ask my brother, I was always very gentle with the accelerator, but in this case, even more so. And I'm sitting there, and all of a sudden, right, those lights come on behind me, and I'm just like, "Oh, world's over for me." So I go ahead and pull over, and he just takes off around me to get somebody else. That's kind of the way we feel when we encounter a holy God. I know there's something. He has every right

to come to a sinful person with judgment. And so we hear this promise, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" And we go, "Yeah, if..." I'm small, I'm insignificant, I'm not righteous. And Paul knows this, and this is one of the things I love about how Paul writes, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is the rest of this chapter, verses 32, 33, 34, 35, that section all the way down to 39, are just reasons for us to know that this is true, so that we might have joy in the goodness of God. And so you say, "How can I know that God is for me?" Paul says, "First of all, He's shown you that He's for you. He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how

will He, not with Him, graciously give us all things?" He says, "How do I know that this is for me?" And Paul will say, "Have you seen what God has done through the incarnation of the Son, as He gives us the Son?" And this is so big that we struggle to wrap our heads around it. I remember the first time I encountered leaving something that I really, really cared about. Maybe not the first time that that happened, but I remembered it. Rachel and I had just adopted our dog, Rigby. She's a very sad-looking boxer dog. She really needed to go visit the groomer. And so we dropped her off, and we were like parents dropping our kid off at kindergarten. We're like, "Do you think she's okay? Do you think she's okay? She's so scared." We're like, "Don't use the

hair dryer on her, because she's terrified." And I thought it was like, "Wow, this is kind of a big deal to drop my dog off." And then, I remember when Evelyn was little and the first time we left her with grandparents, right, it's like, "Should we call and check on her? Should we make sure it's okay?" It's like, "Well, it's two in the morning. I'm sure if something was wrong, they would call us, right?" And that was just for overnight stays. But when God gives his son, it's not just sending him to the grandparents, right? He sends Jesus into this world. And the prophecy to Joseph in the dream is that he will save his people from their sins. And the way that he saves people from their sins is by dying on the cross.

How do you know that this promise is for you? Because God sends his son into this world to save you by going to the cross. He doesn't just say he's for us, he demonstrates that the passage in Romans chapter 5, "For while we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. Though perhaps for a good person, for one will scarcely die for a righteous person although for a good person, someone might dare even to die. But God shows his love to us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." And you have this picture here, where Paul says there are some things in this world that God will, that people will give their lives for, right? A good cause or a good person. And he says, "We are neither

of those. We are neither a good cause, nor a good person. We are weak, and we are ungodly, but God demonstrates his love in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." How do I know this promise is for me? Because God has given us his Son. How do I know this promise is for me? Because Jesus has removed the accusations that are against us. Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who judges. Right? A charge is an accusation of wrongdoing. And it's not sort of asking for payment in a nice way, right? We've all been out to eat, and the waiter or waitress will come by and say, "I'm just going to leave the bill with you. You guys need any refills? Get back with me." That's not

the picture of this charge against us, right? This is the charge of judgment. You have done wrong. I have done wrong, and we must pay. Have you ever felt accused? Whether that accusation is right and true or whether it's absolutely false, it never feels good, right? In fact, there's a tendency to hide and run from our accusations. In fact, one of the great promises of the new heavens and the new earth is this: "I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and power and the kingdom of our God, Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, the one who accuses them day and night before our God. They have conquered Him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. They have loved not their

lives even to death." There's this accusation, and the worst part is that this accusation is accurate. Notice what Paul says: "Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?" It is God who justifies. Paul doesn't say, "You're justified." He points us to the goodness of God, who is the one who justifies us. The one who can do it fully and completely. We know that God is for us because He sent His Son, because He removes the charges against us, but also because He removes our guilt. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand indeed interceding for us, right? There's a difference between accusation and condemnation, right? Accusation is the finger pointing. You did this. Condemnation is the fact that you are

guilty. Just removing the accusation does nothing about our guilt at the end of the day. It would be like saying, "I need new brakes on my car, so I'm going to go get it painted and make it look really nice." It may remove the outside blemishes, but it has done nothing about the problem that is within. And so God, first of all, removes the charge that is against us because of our sin, and He removes ultimately our accuser. But we still face this problem that even though our accusers, we're still guilty. And so what happens? Who gets to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who has died, more than that was raised, who is at the right hand of God. This picture is wonderful. It's a picture of complete and total restoration. The condemnation can be removed, not because God simply

looks at us and says, "I'm not going to hold against them anymore." It's removed because Jesus takes our brokenness to the cross. The weight of the burdens that you and I carry. And He pays the price for them. The reason there is no longer any condemnation against you is because Jesus was condemned in your place. And you say, "How can I know that God is for me?" He's sent His Son. He's removed the accusations against you. He's paid the price for your sins. And there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then you see this beautiful picture that He removes our fear. Right? So we have this fear that the thing we desperately want will disappear. Just a couple weeks ago one of our children had been saving for a toy they wanted.

And they've been working and doing a little extra thing so they could get a little extra money to go buy this thing that they wanted. So we finally went to buy it, and it was gone. Right? We'd seen it in the store before, but it was gone. And it was one of those scenarios and I had forgotten this. Is that at Christmas time there are certain toys that are very, very popular. So people go in and buy them and then turn around and sell them online. So I'm looking everywhere trying to find this one thing. It's not available. At 9 o'clock at night, I pulled the Target out and said, "Let's just see if anything's happened." And I looked, and there it was. And so the kids and I, maybe to the disapproval of mom,

jump in the car and go to Target at 9 o'clock at night to grab this because what would happen if we could wait until the next morning? It would be gone. Right? And we fear this. Maybe not for some kind of special toy, but our lives reflect this fear. Do you remember at the beginning of the pandemic, the one thing that was really hard for everybody to find, right? Your favorite brand of toilet paper? Because everybody's like, "It's gonna be gone! Let's stock up! Let's get as much as we can because we're worried that it will run out." You and I live in a constant fear that the things we have will disappear, will run out. And we come to this point where we look at the goodness of God. And we say, "Okay, God is for us

because He sent His Son. God is for us because He's removed the charges against us. God is for us because He has taken away my condemnation. But how long will this last? Everything in my life wears out. You gotta repair your house. You gotta repair your car. You gotta buy new clothes and new shoes because they wear out. Things go out of stock all the time. How can I trust that in all of my life this will continue? These good things that God is for us. This God is for me, but for how long? What happens if He's not there? Look at what the Apostle Paul says. What shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or hunger, or the sword, as it is written, for your sake

we are being killed all the day long. No, we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. And here's the objection. All these things are happening to me, and it feels like I'm a sheep led to be slaughtered. How can God be for me? How can He have removed the accusations and sent His Son and remove my condemnation if I'm going through this brokenness? How does this last when it feels like everything's falling apart? Look at what the Apostle Paul writes. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation can separate us from the love of God in Christ

Jesus our Lord. What He's saying to us who fear that things run out, circumstances change, things disappear. He's saying, that's not true of Jesus. Yes, it may look in the world as if things are falling apart, but what can end what God has done for you? He says, it doesn't matter how high or how low. It doesn't matter whether it's physical rulers in your world, or whether the power of evil forces arrayed against you. It doesn't matter whether you're alive or you're dead. That nothing He's very clear about this. That nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. How can I know that God is for us? I know that God is for us. That He's for me. That He's for you, because He sent His Son. And through

that Son, He's removed the accusations and the guilt and through that Son there is nothing that can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus the Lord. The good news of the Gospel is that God is for us. Sometimes when we come to our brokenness we might say, "Well, it's not a big deal." We try to minimize it. Sometimes we'll come and maybe we'll try some self-improvement projects to fix it. Sometimes we'll just simply try to cover it up or hide it. Sometimes we'll just simply run and hide. We've come to brokenness. And it's a struggle all of us. Every single one of us has. How can I put this back together? What can I do in my life to make things better? The good news of the Gospel is that you can't,

but Jesus has. We can try every self-improvement project, every plan falls short. But Jesus, not just can, but Jesus has. It was the message of the cross. Jesus will say, "It is finished." These things we hear about, about our redemption, and this accusation that was against us, and the condemnation, that has been... finished. Jesus has saved us. The Gospel is, that there is something you and I desperately need. We've tried to figure it out, and in every attempt, we've made it worse. We're not just failing, but we're making it exponentially worse. And Jesus comes, and restores us completely. You see, the hope, and the peace, and the joy in Christmas, is that there is good news in the fact that God is for us, and we see it through the gift of His Son. Let's pray.

Father, as we face the struggles and brokenness of the world in which we live, help us to see the good news as we consider Jesus, as we see His arrival in His life, as we see His death and His resurrection. Help us to see that You are for us, and that as we look at this world and we say, "What is there to be joyful about?" that You would help us to see Your restoration, Your forgiveness, Your grace, and Your power at work in our lives. Move us to joy. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. As we consider Jesus, we're going to go ahead and stand and sing Joy to the World. The wonderful thing about this song is that it doesn't just encapsulate the joy and rejoicing you find around the birth of Jesus.

In fact, those who see Jesus as He's announced, the shepherds rejoice. The wise men rejoice. Simeon in the temple rejoices. This also points us to a day when He returns and we rejoice. So we're going to sing Joy to the World. Joy to the World. The Lord is come. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and nature sing. And heaven and heaven and nature sing. Joy to the world the Savior brings. Let all their songs employ. Jesus said, "Footsteps and floods. Rocks, hills and plains." Repeat the sounding joy. Repeat the sounding joy. Repeat, repeat the sounding joy. He rules the world with truth and grace. And makes the nations prove. The glories of His righteousness. And wonders of His love. And wonders of His love. And wonders and wonders of His love.

Just a couple of announcements before we sing our praising and sing our closing song. First of all, we're here Wednesday night for Bible study. This week we're going to be talking a little bit about the arrival of Jesus. We've seen how He steps in the last couple Wednesday nights. We've seen the sovereignty of God working all things according to His will. We've talked a little bit about how Jesus comes into the midst of a world of broken people last week. And so we're going to continue taking a look at Jesus. Now next Wednesday night, this is the Wednesday before Christmas, we're going to do things a little bit differently, and we're going to do things a little bit earlier. We're going to put together kind of a meal for that Wednesday night, kind of an early Christmas Eve, Eve, Eve, Eve dinner. And so we would like you to come and join us for that. We'll send out some details and reminders.

First part of this week to let you know about that, but we'd like to invite you to come share a meal with brothers and sisters in Christ and just be encouraged in each other and in the fact that our hope is in Jesus. Is there anything else I'm forgetting, Rachel? Off the top of my head. It seems like I'm forgetting everything. Just a very long-term announcement. On January, what did we say, 28th? We're going to do a men's breakfast here at the church. We'll have more details about that coming, so that's just long, long-term to get you thinking about it. I saw a statistic the other day that we have to hear or see something like seven to ten times before it clicks, so we're going to repeat that for the next several weeks as well.

All right, so I'm going to pray, and then we'll read a little bit of what Simeon says about Jesus in the temple, and then we will sing a verse of "Go Tell It on the Mountain." Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus and grace and hope and peace. We thank you for joy. Just be with us, care for us, help us not just to hear these things for ourselves, but to proclaim the good news into the world. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Simeon will say this about Jesus: "My eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all people a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel." So we're going to sing the chorus, and the first verse, we're kind of adding a little more each week, to "Go Tell It on the Mountain."

Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born. While shepherds kept their watching, or silent flocks by night, behold, throughout the heavens, there shone a holy light. Go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere. Go tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born. Let's pray. Let's pray. Let's pray.