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00:00:00 right is Christmas time and last week Alex brought us through a carol which I think a lot of people don't sing it but very powerful but it's a time of singing carols right and of course uh those of you who know music pentatonics and Acappella band very famous of putting up Christmas carols every year they do great versions so here's my struggle with carols right A lot of people sing it and my my challenge to you that you really know what you're singing uh and and we're going to take two carols uh
00:00:30 both very popular and they're going to be a pair today's Carol is of course uh a very loud Carol the the one next week will be a very quiet Carol you see like pentatonics for example when they sing Mary did you know they themselves don't know the Lord and they're singing Mary Did You Know Have you ever wonder how the Lord feels about it how the Lord feels when people sing songs we are actually worship songs at Christmas but they don't really care about the words because they're not really Christian let
00:00:58 me give you an example um next week we do silent night everybody know silent night right let me ask a question was it really silent on that night where does the bible even tell you silent yet we sing it now today uh particular Carol I'm going to propose to you is one of the most misunderstood carols and I challenge you in that I bet you and i' I've been singing this for years and I've never really knew what I'm singing and so let's go through this and see what we say right okay uh and of course next week I'll do silent night
00:01:32 and then Christmas service isn't me there's a mistake there there actually Peter I don't do three in a row I'll get the heart attack and then there'll be a generous service right now David gave us the words and we sing this whoa Joy to the World let me ask you a simple question listen to the words the Lord is come let Earth receive a king let every heart prepare him room on Christmas day there was no room at the end since when did that happen heaven and nature sing Angels were singing the second line is even more so
00:02:07 the Savior Reigns he was crucified let all the songs employ Fields floods rocks Hills Plains that's creation did creation repeat the sounding Joy creation never did and the last verse the the the third stanza which baby read actually isn't found in most Carol for some reason been taken off so so most people only sing this three stanzas now the third one gives it away he rules the world with truth and Grace makes the Nations prove the glories of his righteousness that never ever happened at Christmas never
00:02:44 happened at his entire life so let me challenge you this Joy To The World Isn't the Christmas carol in fact it was never written To Be A Christmas Carol the person who wrote this is a man called Isaac watts in the 18th century 17th century and he wrote it based on the psalm this is based on Psalm 98 and he wasn't writing about the first coming of Jesus what is he writing about the second coming is very obvious so let me give you the the the the the the facts of it his original title canot read B's coming in Kingdom
00:03:25 very boring title joy to how better and he wrote a part of another book which is even more profound title he called it the Psalms of David imitated in the language of the New Testament and applied to the Christian state of worship can you imagine we gave you a book today to read like that at that time their language very very very serious so his goal and it's interesting we writing music and I don't know why people don't do it nowadays you know what he did he took Psalm 98 and he interpreted it in the light of Jesus I
00:03:54 wonder why people don't do that nowadays why can't we take a sound like the Lord is my shepherd and rewrite it in the light of Jesus interesting right so people used to write himy very powerfully now what happened in 1989 a hym writer took the tone and he borrowed Heron henders Messiah any one of you knows music if you follow henda's Messiah the first four notes of henda's Messiah is Joy to the world that time they didn't St people of plagarism and he wrote it and somehow it became a Christmas carol
00:04:31 now yet everyone sings it and don't you realize in your heart is very appropriate for Christmas Carol why is that so because let me tell you what it does it's the only Christmas Carol let me just give you back that when you sing of it you sing of something that happened in the past which is when Jesus was born but while you're singing it the words are telling you of when Jesus comes again now that makes the Carol very interesting very interesting because it tells you of something in the past and
00:05:07 tells you something the future now I just put the two Psalms night side by side we just just just look at it just for your feel we not going to go through in detail he interpreted it uh for example Psalm 98 uh look at verse 7 Let the Sea ReSound and everything in it the world and all who live with it let the rulers clap their hands let the mountains sing together for Joy there of course tza 2 while fields and floods rocks Hills and plains of course and then sing to the Lord a new song he has done marvelous things verse four shout
00:05:45 for Joy To The Lord burst into jubilan song and that is stanza one heaven and nature sing heaven and nature sing it's a very short Psalm the psalm is basically telling you one day there be so much much joy in this world everybody everything will just raise their hands and hearts in Jubilation and the last stanza Psalm 98 let us sing before the Lord he comes to judge the Earth he will judge the world in righteousness and the people equity and here Isaac WS takes some creative license he is interpreting
00:06:24 this in light of John chapter 1 because John chapter 1 the word became flesh and then John tells us Moses came with the law but he comes with Grace and Truth he fulfills moses' law by grace and truth and so how does God judged the Earth in righteousness and Equity with truth and Grace that's what Jesus will do when he comes and when he first come came he gives a four days of it now this is what we said just now the lyrics about the second thing and this is the key thing we're going to talk about today the idea
00:06:59 of looking back to look forward that's the thing I want us to really get into all right so let me ask you what's the main theme of the song all right two things come out here already one is joila the other is of course Glory that's a theme we we we we rarely look about is God's glory will fill the Earth but there's one another theme which is is not stated but it's obviously the key theme of the song Because is looking forward looking forward so okay so what do you think is the word hope the song is about Hope in fact
00:07:54 I would suggest to you Christmas carols are all about Hope because the baby born and next week when we do silent night there's a great verse in the third stanza the dawn of Redeeming Grace that's beautiful the dawn of redeeming God redeemed us Grace now how do you understand hope okay so let me tell you a serious story here on Friday night uh I was trying to sleep in the middle of the night I heard a yell and a tud it was my wife yelling and there was a t I thought what happened and I heard these words
00:08:46 gold I tell you next morning she come and tell me but L messy by the way I'm a geek I'm a football follower I can't clean my wife is a AR football fan which is very funny because reversal Ros well complain to me about how Brazil the hope of it then Croatia the penalty whole I was hearing that you know wow really she watch until both matches 6:00 in the morning she should be Yan's good friend the point is how hope is processed by most of us whether it's aan whether it's a football game is looking at the
00:09:32 odds simple as that man you look at the odds and you tell whether the odds are favorable and then you say haran correct you don't do that you're not hopeful and we all enter the world with hope we all enter this life thing I hope to get married and the marriage last I hope to have children and they'll be good children I'm proud of I hope to get a job and it's a good job I hope to have good health go through life make meaningful relationships and then die peacefully that human being what are the chances of you
00:10:17 getting there very low so let me process this a little bit there two ways of looking at Hope before we go to the text and we go to the text in a while the one is optimism and some Churches teaches this there so much triumphalism and the churches are packed and we got to be hope in fact what is religion all religion sells you hope and when he's not careful he sells you artificial hope so this is a man called Simon bobah Jesus came not exactly the person the Jews were looking for right baby Carpenter never negotiated the
00:11:04 Pharisees so not really our kind of Savior but the time of Emperor hrin another man came now this this is this is the Messiah we're looking at he's strong he's big and he wants to kick out the Romans and so he fights unlike Jesus who goes around telling people to forgive turn the other chiek love your enies what that's not the Messiah we're looking for we looking for someone to kick out the Romans and he did he's so famous Israel has a stamp for him and in the second Jewish War he establishes the independent state of
00:11:44 Israel and pronounces himself as Nasi which is Hebrew for Prince and they establish their own government and they even have their own coins they are so optimistic in the second year the coin flip side says year to to the freedom of Israel they establish their kajan but we have seen this before right last election you win then you got Sheran MLA Tropicana MLA don't know what movea when you put your hope in circumstances they will disappoint you and it's worse when you in put God's name into it and say God gave me this
00:12:28 and so ially after year two the Romans overran them and what happened if you know your history Israel is blocked out from the map and modern day Palestine gets his roots from there because hin completely empties Judah Jerusalem the earlier one under Titus Titus destroyed the temple in the in in in the first war in this war Israel removed from the map so optimism is dangerous so let's do a reality check sometime we have Christians telling us God is on my side I see signs and there's this danger about believing what you want to believe
00:13:07 and when you put your hope in optimism it's very dangerous I mean we all pray the kajan padan would work but after two by elections without being partisan on it you can see the ground and you would you be surprised if next few years we have another split Malia is very famous for that one so when we do that you get heart attack you know very hard to live you know every year so you know we had covid already so difficult then now we have hyperinflation so this is a difficult topic I want us to spend a bit of time
00:13:40 to process this the second is this right this is a son of a very famous Pastor all right Pastor John Piper son Barnabas very famous story I I follow their sons not this is Abraham you should really read Abraham and J son Barnabas you really see another side and he went astray he came back to the church big thing the father liant of the prodal has return he came back because he read Romans and then he left again and he posted this in his Tik Tok account last week nothing really matters this work gives us the freedom
00:14:21 to feel our own meaning and to feel you EAS in still a sense of feel guilt he's actually accusing the Church of that he's got a lot of ammo against the church Christianity this my friend is the peep gospel you like good news the universe doesn't give a beep that's the other end nothing matters Richard Hawkins has a book called Rivers out Eden too bad you are born you're lucky you get married you have no cancer you have kids you do well you're not lucky too bad for you you live a bad life die that's it so two
00:14:58 extremes how do we process this and and in our mid here we have this and some of us are so emited we come to church and we sort of given up on hope we sort of like some of us are we have hope but we we we feel that God's going to change my life God's going to God's going to make me better God's going to do this and and and we are not a church that sells you false hope so I want you to really dig deep into this so here's the other problem I have we can preach hope biblically and leave people feeling even
00:15:30 more hopeless now this is a very dangerous thing to say and if you don't like what I'm going to say next come up to me in Grace and once I I I I made a criticism of a very famous pastor know and someone came up to me says you don't even know your Bible half as good as this person you criticize him I said yes I have a right as much as you should criticize me but I must do it in Grace so I'm going to do a critique of a very famous pastor and he's a very Godly man I'm not even close to his righteousness he lives a lifestyle which
00:16:00 is really Godly let me show you a sermon he did on Hope and it's what someone calls bumper sticker Christianity because I had dinner with some Christian friends on Tuesday we are from various churches and he left his church because he said he kept hearing this kind of sermons about Hope and he was going through so much difficulty he says bumper bumper sticker you know bumper sticker Christianity you give you a lot of statements you know God Jesus is Hell Without You you know all this cliche remarks so let me give you a sample of
00:16:32 what he wrote and you will know who he is I'm not going to give his name and this is one of the sermons of hope he says is there any heaviness in your life do you carry any burdens that heavy and seem to drag on and on you th throw this to this church there be many people says yes yes yes what's the answer the Lord teaches us that the glory of God is going to be so heavy that's Psalm 98 by the way that's the glory of God then when it is put in the scales of your life for your enjoyment he loves to
00:17:00 preach about enjoying God it will make all the heaviness of this world go up like air in the balancers wow you know when I heard this in all honesty I'm not going to criticize him I just say I don't feel it I and I can't program myself to say yes Joy to the World the Lord Reign joy to let all nature sing Joy to the World My Savior Reigns I'm not feeling it now maybe maybe I need the musicians to play a bit more then I get a bit more high and here's the problem when you go along this kind of road if I don't feel it what's the
00:17:39 default emotion I feel guilty there must be something wrong with me I must be a really bad sinner so I wouldn't be honest and everyone should be open to criticism including my sermons you don't like it tell it to me in Grace here's the next one he ends with this the reason we can always Rejoice Psalm 98 again joy to world is not a Christian Life and easy life the reason is that the glory of God is great beyond all imagining and in Christ Jesus it is rock and so Rejoice this is this is Joy to the World rejoice
00:18:12 in glorious hope our Lord the judge shall come and takes his servants home that's Joy to the World to the Eternal home that's Psalm 98 Live Your Heart Live your voice Rejoice against the sa Rejoice Hallelujah don't feel it and if I don't feel feel it is there something wrong in my Christian Life there the problem with what I feel is rationalist preaching it come from a good place but if you don't feel it it makes a person feel so rotten and what happened to this brother of mine he just left the
00:18:46 church so I want us to really dig deep because hope is a difficult question so let me tell you how the Bible defines hope let's take a little bit and then we go to Christmas on this all right now when you look carefully at the song the song is talking about future and he covers everything all people first stanza All Nation that's all Fields floods rocks and nations in simple English is the whole of creation so where is a verse a very powerful verse that talks about this and the discourse is Romans to be very careful all the way
00:19:25 and the most famous verse about the whole of creation and about hope is Romans chapter 8 and he says this in verse 22 we know the whole creation has been growning as in the pain of child birth right of the present time not only so but we ourselves we have the first fruit Spirit We Grown inwardly as we wait and then verse 24 in this hope we will say but hope that is seen is no hope at all who hopes of what they already have but we hope for what we do not yet have and here's the key word we wait for for it patiently and in verse
00:20:00 23 he says the same thing we wait eagerly for adoptions to sunship so here is what hope is biblically is simply waiting not waiting for your circumstances to get better no but to wait on God now that that has taken me years years to understand and if you struggle through the covid you travel through uncertainty you struggled through medical issues you struggled through and you you you you feel emited this is the key verse to wait now how is this a trait of talk I won't go through this but let me give you the Hebrew word
00:20:44 now there's a great study by uh Bible project it studies the words of the event and the Hebrew word is jakal you know what it is you go go and Google is waiting on God they use another word to do together the psalmist love to use it it applies it appears 48 times in the psalm it's the word kav and it's even more interesting is waiting like a cord that means it is bounding the idea is that you have a bow you pull the bow and you wait the idea is to wait in anticipation so Christian Life is a Archer with a bow and I pull and I wait
00:21:26 that is Christian Life right that is waiting and here is where when you read the Psalms you know how long you sometimes have to wait your whole life that's what Psalm 98 is your whole life so Psalm 130 says I wait for the Lord my whole being Waits and in his word I put my hope what do we wait patiently for for things our own concerns next week when we look at baby Jesus we go to a story of samon who looked at the baby he waited for the consolation of Israel and he saw the baby he said ah God I can now
00:22:12 die in peace let me ask you a question what happened did did he did his health improve did his business get better did his relationships get better his whole life nothing changed but he died happy so here's the key about about hope you know in the scripture in fact Christians should be the most realistic people on Earth because if you look at biblical hope especially in the Old Testament right a lot of the Saints accept that they accept that life is not going to get better Habu accepts the Babylonians are going to come and
00:22:48 there be no the Fig Tree will not grow there be no food in the barn but what does he do in early verses I will wait I Will Wait For Justice to come Jacob goes down to Egypt and and God says I'm going to take you back yes he has hope he's going to die in Egypt the nation is going to come back and so Christians should be the most realistic people yet Christians very often we buy into false hope so there are two kinds of people here in love some we buy into that we want God on our side to make our circumstances better
00:23:24 and we get it right we get it and when it doesn't get better we get emited know we have a disease a loved one has a disease and we pray we say God and then the cancer Market goes down and you say yes I pray then it doesn't you get emited you pray government comes in you get very Kong election results W like that like that don't know on Saturday like that Sunday like I still remember one day on that day Sunday morning Ming came up here and she prayed and she was almost in tears you know I don't know where
00:24:00 remember on that Sunday a lot of people very depressed and then flip out FL out who's going to be SW now hallelujah how sure are you next year going to change how sure are you next year economy hyperinflation things going to get better there this thing about us so if you put your hope in circumstances getting better it's stupid the Bible telling you that you're stupid it's a very hard truth biblical waiting is to wait on God and to to you in your state of hopelessness depend on him and in that way thing you know what God does he
00:24:36 changes you it's like the word cover because in a bow and arrow if I pull the bow what happens you develop muscles you learn to be Keen that is the function of waiting and so biblical hope recognizes sometimes in this life things will not get better so I I want to take a moment especially for those of you who are struggling and and you're hoping things get better and and I will tell you you may not realize it I get it the last few years were really difficult for me from a business point of view mean the co went longer expected
00:25:13 now we got hyperinflation every year my wife know I worry whether I can pay the bills now on thought that other things come yours may not be business it could be relationship you may be waiting for some good news and here the biblical idea about waiting yes wait but if you don't get what you want you wait some more because one day whole of creation would sing in the meantime we wait and that is something we do not know how to do so next week we're going to do a bit of this all right let me give you to the
00:25:49 point how Christmas points us to a living hope you see Christmas hope is in a person you know if it's not in FA outc comes the Assurance of Faith The Living Hope Peter talks about in First Peter is the person of Christ let me give you a not a very good example but maybe the best way of doing it in February this year my daughter left for Australia she's in the youth right now my wife is coming second service so got bit of Liberty to say this it was very very painful for me because we only have one
00:26:26 child you have no idea the day she left uh I went back I went into a room to smell her tell her sat on her chair and weep hey you know 20 years one kid on she goes uh you break you know you really break you know then what happens what kept us going through the months let me tell you one as the months go back first I look back with very good memories so me and wife we look back on our relationship with our daughter and the love we had the second thing that kept us going was we look forward that in December 3rd you would
00:27:18 return and from February to December 3rd we count the days now how then do you live wait like that just wait every day or take like in prison one more month that's not waiting that's called excruciating waiting there's not a way to wait how do you know how we kept going because of something called Zoom Zoom because during those months I had a relationship with my daughter and as I had a relationship with her I went on and on and as the day approached we counted the days on the Friday the day before she came on
00:28:02 Thursday my wife didn't sleep she's not here I can see all these things and at 3:00 in the morning 2:00 you went to the airport and you see that photo you see her coming through the gates Joy to the World joy to ad now it's a poor example but that is really what it is isn't it look back act with what gratefulness look forward with anticipation and in that time live in a relationship with Christ that's hope so I want us to really pause on this because Christian hope is premise on looking back in gratefulness and
00:28:58 that's what Israel does again and again again God tells them in lot of Psalms I saved you in Egypt I saved you in Babylon and so in the present you look back because what scripture is saying if God has been faithful in the past and you have tasted him he'll be faithful in the present and then you look forward to the coming again and that is the message of the Bible a bad example is this why is it we have no hope why is it whatever I say here now maybe it doesn't come in and I will throw to you this in love because you
00:29:40 have not tasted that the Lord is good it's like food tasting right you you go you taste the food is good next time tell me you go cook me a banquet I have hope a lot of us I think we have not tasted the Lord we we we come to church we sit here is enough in our minds but it's not in here and the way to taste the God is taste that the Lord is good is to do an audit you audit by Looking Back how does it affect you and then you move forward let me give you a few things how you look back in Romans 4 very famous
00:30:20 chapter on Abraham he says this about Jesus he was delivered over to death for sins and was raised to life for justif vacation and that's really the Christmas story Jesus came not like Simon Boba to overrun the Romans he came so that he could be king of our hearts to have room in our hearts and so he came he lived he died for our sins Paul opens chapter 5 to say how you should look back so how should you look back you look back in three things one you're justified through faith meaning not by your own
00:30:57 Merit that's what he is as a king two you have peace with God and you can't have internal peace I will tell you if those of you struggling with anxiety struggling with issues if you don't have peace with God what that means in simple English you don't have a relationship with God you're not going to have other kind of peace and here is the third one you gain access by faith by grace in now with stand that's the grace and truth and then we boast in the hope of the glory of God now all of this very
00:31:27 theological you know but you pause and take these three things and I suggest you go home and meditate on these three things justification peace and Grace you know what it does to you the next verse is very telling he says this we glory in our sufferings why you crazy man I'm going through cancer you want me Glory my sufferings I have a lawsuit and you want to Glory my sufferings my wife and I have a bad relationship you to Glory my sufferings I'm not even so sure whether my husband will leave me you the glory
00:31:59 my suffering what what's wrong with you Christians but this is why the first three points are so critical if you meditate on how you've been Justified how you have peace with God how you have Grace then only your suffering makes sense why because he says this suffering produces perseverance perseverance character character hope and it ends with this which is really the song and hope that not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been
00:32:37 given to us God's love the wonders of his love into your hearts through the Holy Spirit and the challenge I want to ask you right now do you sense the spirit giving you that because everything I see here could just be a rambling of a guy you know who hasn't who doesn't understand your pain but if you maybe maybe lowerer yourself a little bit in humility maybe the Holy Spirit even right now is trying to speak to your hearts on this you see the Jews wanted this they wanted a a savior to come like this and so when he
00:33:16 came like this they could not recognize him you want to have hope you need to go through suffering that produces endurance perseverance and character so let me challenge you a few things as we close one is there room in your heart for Jesus the king because the song says let every heart prepare him room and again in love I'll say this you can be a church go that's been here a long time but you may have certain places in your heart where you you you just don't want to open and you don't want to tell
00:33:52 anyone there there are things you struggle with past pains some rooms are closed and you don't realize because those rooms are closed when you go through a difficult time you get anxious there's a connection because you haven't learned to fully trust God why is it you haven't learned to fully trust God the next stanza tells you that because the Savior isn't reigning in your life you come to FBC you want Jesus as your savior but not as king but he saves you completely how do we do that I want to ask you a few things to
00:34:34 pause you know as we maybe do this as a small exercise actually this is basic I be honest what you call cognitive behavior therapy but all these things come from God on you know number one this has been really important for me number one how does your past affect your present life so I I'll give you example I look back at how I was saved the I want to be honest with you you know how I was how I came to know Jesus I was pressured into it yes I was preed I was in a group everybody knew to say all the right
00:35:10 things I wanted to fit in so I say all the magic was that Jesus is my Lord and Savior Hallelujah never really quite believed it because I never lived like a Christian took me years later so I want to ask you one thing one way to to to do this is to go back to your starting point because if your starting point is is right you should be on fire for the Lord so if it is thought go back and I think the Lord taught me that you know and I look back there two things I learned by myself one I keep repeating the same sins again
00:35:41 and again and again and again only thing the Lord taught me this year is the subtle sins for example I'm very anxious I I have difficulty in my mouth I will say things without thinking I I will sugarcoat things you throw a stone all of you have it you know what is madness madness is doing the same thing over over again and expecting different results that is called You're hoping people will change but God wants you to change so this first thing so I want to challenge you right now to look back you
00:36:17 know and look at patterns because that's what the Bible teaches us to do look at pattern Israel had a pattern of idolatry repeating the same thing and we go to New Testament they tell you look this what Israel does again and again some of you have a pattern of Pride you cannot admit you're wrong some of you have pattern of of always blaming others now it takes a lot of courage to do this here the other problem some of us look back and the past so defines us it traps us and so you need to look back
00:36:50 at what with Grace because Grace and Truth he comes to rule in grace and truth and your identity isn't Shackled In the past your identity is Shackled In the love of God some of you were so traumatized by what your parents did to you the fact that you never succeeded because you had a divorce two divorces and do and you tell yourself I'm a failure your past has defined you and God's asking you look back no your past is defined by the birth of a savior who so loved you you're justified by faith you have peace with God you're are now
00:37:22 standing in the middle of his grace and his love comes out to you you don't feel that you won't have hope second thing want to challenge you is that that now defines you going forward so let me ask you a simple question we talk about Winston churches say this once the the more you look back the more you able to look forward in fact they teach you that in business and that that's actually a Biblical truth you know let me ask you a simple question where do you see yourself in 5 years do you see yourself 5
00:38:00 years now and here's the thing when you see yourself 5 years when you impulsively say it here the next question ask you where is God in that picture if you honest just now when I ask you that you will have said a few things uh I see myself successful I see myself retired I see myself with children all of that you know what what's wrong the picture or not what God's not in it it shows you our hearts you know our future plans don't have God you know when we pull God out when we feel hopeless I don't say this as judgment to
00:38:39 you so you look back and you look forward because if you look back and Jesus is there Jesus is in your present Jesus is in your future and if we are honest he's not really there that's really my message for you today look back look forward where was he in your past where is he in your future where is he now let me end with this I want to teach you another Malay word last one now all enemies already at the time before this there's a word for this in Malay is called MBA it comes from an Arab word which is
00:39:31 habba you see we see muhba mainly in the very surface area people of different Creeds different race coming and Mar together that's very superficial you know you see this word is quite strange because we don't quite understand it's one of those words that English doesn't have a translation for it the real meaning of muba coming from the Arab word is actually showing love and understanding and showing love in the group let me tell you how you can have hope the word hope another word is kavah called it means tied
00:40:12 together so when we say he rules the world with truth and Grace and makes the Nations proof the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love is not just Jesus showing the wonders of his love it is the church and the church does this by doing it together that is the spirit of MBA and if you cannot even MBA among your FBC members what hope does the kajan padwan even have because our faith is always so Shackled In you know so let me challenge you this as a closing challenge there are two challenges the first is
00:40:55 this really take this so hard this has been life-changing to me hope is about waiting and while you wait you look back and you see patterns and you see patterns you tell God I want to change can you do that because I found out it's very hard for people to do that it's easier to blame everyone else and you go back you write it down and you say this I have a habit of doing this repeatedly number one every time I got a problem I push to someone else it's a small sin you know when you do that then you say God I
00:41:29 want to break it how do I break it I break it by sitting in the center of his grace by knowing I have peace with God I'm not defined by that I'm Justified and now by the power of Holy Spirit I want to change then I ask myself where do I see myself 5 years from now and I say where is God in that picture that's the first big lesson here's the second one it's very hard to do that alone you do that together you do that by finding someone in the church that you can sit down with and he can pray for you and you know
00:42:08 what you don't even need to tell him your issues the problem with FBC like most churches we are a lot of people who come to church but we are actually solo people we sit in the church we do then we walk off but muba means we find people to walk with us what really helped me the last few years was I had people walking with me and they were not even from this church and I don't need to tell them my problems and I saw the wonders of their love and that gave me hope and through the dark tunnel I will tell you even my
00:42:43 own struggles are not over but I have hope and I will wait on the Lord and that brothers and sisters is my prayer for you let us close our eyes and come in silence as the worship team comes up Lord we ask today your spirit speak to us Joy to the World and some of us don't feel it because we have no hope and we understand hope is to wait how long oh Lord maybe this whole life but while we wait we will grow how do we grow we look back and see where in our past we have not surrendered to you and then we say
00:43:36 Lord this room we open the Savior Reigns so in this quietness now I want you to just think back at patterns in your life which you've been pushing to everyone that God is saying you need to clean this up I want to give you a moment to just pause on that as a spirit moves the spirit moves in Simon the spirit moves and then may the wonders of a love shows you my identity is not in these things you're not Shackled by this and Lord I want to be a new creation and for that I look forward and then here's the second
00:44:19 question to be pause Lord where am I next year Lord where am I 5 years Lord where am I 10 years Lord are my dreams just about me my family my work my health where are you in that picture Lord if we say we wait for you to come back in anticipation we wait for you for all of creation to rejoice we ask that you be in that picture so today Lord we look back in gratefulness we look forward in anticipation and we wait change us as he wait and we say this in Jesus name amen for [Music] [Music] thank you brother ano for the message
00:46:00 church can us shout a joyful to Rock of our Salvation let us sing for Joy to the World with priz and Thanksgiving let us [Music] arise right to the world the lord let be the king let [Music] heart and Heaven made you see that heaven made your see and heaven and [Music] Heaven Joy to the World the saor that [Music] and feel and feel and repeat the S repeat the S repeat repeat [Music] the we Ru the world through and make the nation GR the glory of he and wonders of is and wonders of his love and wonders and wonders of his
00:47:45 love Joy to the World the Lord is let Earth the let every heart there in and Heaven nature see and Heaven nature see and heaven and Heaven s and heaven and Heaven [Music] nature therefore since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand and we boast in the hope of the glory of God please be seated Lord as we close in prayer we ask for some of us here we don't feel that
00:48:49 we've been justified through faith we don't have peace and that Grace avoids us if you are that person we ask that we go back and hear this word Jesus Christ died for your sins because he so loved you and just sit there right now I ask you to look back and think about that if you don't feel that ask you stay back and talk to us Lord you loved us so much you died for us while we were still Sinners you died for us second part as you sit quietly now let the word of the Lord Pierce into your hearts not
00:49:32 only so we also glory in our sufferings because we know suffering produces perseverance perseverance character and character hope and L some of us are just struggling we have medical issues we are fearful those medical issues get worse some of us have career problems we are fearful our careers get worse some of us are waiting and waiting for circumstances in our life to get better and they don't seem to be and so we wait we yakal we wait on you and maybe we have to wait our whole lives we do not know teach us not to
00:50:20 have false hopes so Lord and while we wait we ask for your love that's poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit just so Comfort us for those here who are just anxious every day waiting Lord uh is is the cancer marker going to go down is is is this government going to is this government going to be around will our prime minister be around for 5 [Music] years is my husband going to leave me am I ever going to get married these are real questions and I want us as a church to pause we too often we rush at
00:51:09 Christmas and I ask these words from scripture pierce your heart suffering produces perseverance perseverance character character hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us joy to all of you the Lord Has Come even right now in our midst Joy to FBC the Savior Reigns here Joy to all of you who are suffering May grace truth and the wonders of his love fill you as you depart and God's people say amen God bless all of you
00:52:22 please stay back if you want to talk to any of the church leadership we always here to pray for you
