Light in the Darkness: Oracles of Isaiah

Order of Worship

The lighting of the Advent Candle 

Welcome

Song of Praise “O Little Town of Bethlehem”

Call to Worship Micah 5:3-5a

Song of Praise “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”

Confession of Faith Romans 5:1

Song of Praise “Christmas Day”

Prayer of Adoration

Greet One Another

Confession of Sin

Assurance of Pardon Psalm 130:7-8

Prayer of Intercession

Giving of God’s Tithes and Our Offerings

Song of Preparation “What a Beautiful Name”

Scripture Reading Isaiah 9:1-7

Sermon  “The Character of the Savior” Craig Swartz

Prayer of Commitment

Song of Preparation “What Love my God”

Celebration of the Lord’s Supper

Song of Response “Jesus Shall Reign”

Benediction

Sermon Notes

John 8:12

Isaiah 8:22

C.S. Lewis:

“We are to live not hoping to get Heaven as a reward for our actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside of you.”

1. THE  WHO ARE IN 

Isaiah 9:2

Silvertris:

“The darkness that surrounds us cannot hurt us. It is the darkness in your own heart that you should fear.”

St Francis of Assisi

“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle:”

     2. THE  WHO OFFERS DELIVERANCE

Isaiah 9:1:

I Corinthians 1:27-29

Isaiah 9:3-4

Dorothy Sayers

“The incarnation [of God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth] means that for whatever reason God chose to let us fall into a condition of being limited, to suffer, to be subject to sorrows and death—he has nonetheless had the honesty and the courage to take his own medicine…. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation, defeat, despair, and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worthwhile.”

     3. THE  WHO ESTABLISHES 

Isaiah 9:6

C.S. Lewis

“The power of the Higher, just in so far as it is truly Higher, to come down, the power of the greater to include the less… Everywhere the great enters the little—its power to do so is almost the test of its greatness. In the Christian story God… comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to recapitulate in the womb ancient and pre-human phases of life . . . down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him.”

Romans 5:1