Isaiah: People Like Us

Pastor Hope Flask

December 22, 2024

Main Scripture: Isaiah 40:1-10

Additional Scriptures: Isaiah 6:5-7, 9:2, 29:13, Hebrews 12:5-6, 1 John 4:16,18, John 16:33

POINTS:

• Is there a disconnect between what your mouth says about God and what your heart really believes about Him?

• God doesn’t punish those He loves; He disciplines them.

• Their hearts had been far from God for a long time, but it was only when their bodies went far from God, too, that they thought they were being punished.

• The good news of Christmas is that God is with us!

• The more we recognize God’s Majesty during suffering, the more comfort we will feel in that suffering.

• To experience His Majesty, we must worship Him for who He is.

• Repentance: disconnecting from what is untrue and connecting to what is true.

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “We have become so accustomed to Christmas that we no longer feel the fear that God’s coming should arouse in us.”

• God’s majesty both threatens and comforts.

• Exile may be where you are, but that is not who you are.

• When we worship God in a biblical community, we get a fuller view of His majesty, and we realize that we aren’t alone in exile.

• Jesus came down from heaven to say, “Me too.”