Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, December 12, 2024. We Will Never Be Without the Joy of the Lord!
Good Morning, Good Morning my brothers and my sisters and welcome to halfway between December 1 and Christmas Eve!
I have been thinking a great deal about Advent lately (for obvious reasons), and I have a few thoughts about faith, hope, love, peace, and joy.
We live in the age of the church. What does that mean, and how does Advent reflect that?
We explore this and much more this morning. Thank you for liking and sharing this. Thank you for checking out the podcast. All of what you do helps get the Word of God out there.
May God bless you and keep you and, as always, we will see you in church!
This is a video recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, December 12, 2024. Watch here via the YouTube link!
This is an audio recorded copy of the FaceBook Live event of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, December 12, 2024. Listen here or through your favorite podcast app!
This is a transcript from the audio of this episode of Turning on the Lights! – Thursday, December 12, 2024
Good morning, good morning, my brothers and my sisters. And welcome to Thursday, Thursday, December 12. We are almost halfway through the month. In 12 days, we will have our Christmas Eve service. That will be, say it with me, Christmas Eve at 7pm. That would be the 24th at 7pm. You’re looking at the sanctuary of the Church Town Church of God. Had a new face in the church on Sunday and stuck around and introduced myself to talk in. And of course, she wanted to know a little bit of history of the church. Good morning, Dee. And as you saw the garage doors over there, and those are such a conversation piece. So I tell them the best that I know about the church, you’re looking at the church proper right now. That is the rectangle that was originally built in 1849. Wow. Incredible. Good morning, everybody. Good morning and welcome to Turning on the Lights. I am starting a little bit later, quite frankly, because one, I didn’t have any trouble getting on this morning. But I must be, you guys know the story of Gracelyn the Rescue. And we have worked diligently, faithfully and consistently with her. Her belly was a mess. Her health was a mess. Her behavior was a mess. All of those things. One of the things that we learned that you do with rehabilitation when it comes to a dog, rehabilitation is consistency. Now, it’s no different than when you’re talking about a child or any sort of behavior. What can the congregation expect from me? Well, they know what to expect if I am consistent, that sort of thing. But we’re consistent with everything. Her schedule of going out and going to the bathroom, the food that she eats, when she eats it, etc. So we try, you know, she goes out after she eats breakfast. She goes out first and and usually pees and then she comes in and eats breakfast. Then we have to go out again. And I have to maintain that schedule with her. So I’ve been a little bit later. A little bit later. How are you all doing? I am excited because I feel as though and the evidence shows that we are, I said, right in the middle of a Christmas season right now. I’m feeling better and my work is getting done. We’ve got council coming up. We’ve got all kinds of things going on. We’ve got caroling coming up. We’ve got joy service and then we have love service and then Christmas Eve service. And then a fifth Sunday service. If you are a churchtonian. You come regularly to church town. Message me. Don’t message me. You can message me. Let me put this and make this clear. Message me that you would like. To examine a particular verse of scripture on the fifth Sunday, we’re going to do that again where people come up with a scripture that they love and they’ve walked with their entire lives or confuses them and they’ve been challenging to them. And they read the scripture and we comment on it. Right. I will do my very best and it’s enjoyable for me because it puts my brain on notice and I like that very much and it very well. The last time it was not a disaster at all. It was wonderful. But it very well could be a disaster of I mean, there’s a scripture that’s in there somewhere that you’re like, this does not make any sense or this seems to be a contradiction. Like what? What is he saying here? I like that and we will address it right there on the spot. And if I don’t know, I’ll say let’s go to our Bibles and try to find out. So if you are a churchtonian and you would like to present a scripture message me, don’t give me the scripture. That’s the added element that we want on the fifth Sunday. The added element. Don’t give me the scripture. Let me find out that Sunday morning. That’s at the end of the month. My. We go from warm and literally muggy to kind of warm and rainy, then cold and rainy, now dry and cold. I don’t know about you guys, but you know, that’s like a roller coaster for your head. The barometric pressure and the humidity is just crazy. Father, we pray that your word will go out today, changing hearts and minds for the kingdom of God. We want the kingdom of God to grow. Lord, we know that we are commissioned by you and empowered by you to do just that help with just that. The Lord live in us and through us. May you be reflected in us in Jesus name. Amen. Joy, joy, joy, joy, joy. Awesome. I appreciate that. Rosie. That is exactly why we do what we do here. Why we’ve been doing it for years now. If you go to the Facebook. YouTube channel at Churchtown Church. There’s like 1200 1600 videos there like a lot because all of these are converted to videos. The church service are converted to videos and they populate our YouTube channel and it’s big. There’s a lot of teaching there. There’s a lot of nonsense there because, you know, we like to have fun. But usually I give a little bit of information in the title as to what we’ll be looking at that day. Today we’re saying we will never be without the joy of the Lord. And I’ve been thinking a lot about this in the church town weekly is going to come out in just a little while. And in it, I talk about something that someone said that struck me this holiday season. I listen. I follow along a New Testament reading called the Bible recap. The Bible and recap. I’ve taken on their New Testament chronological, which, like I said, chronological doesn’t fit me so well in the New Testament. It’s a lot better than all through the Old Testament. But anyway, so I’m doing the if you get a chance, look at it. And it comes along with a podcast, the Bible recap. It’s in the Bible app. And there’s a little podcast about eight minutes long that comes along with every reading every day. And the person that does it is her name is Tara Lee Cobble TLC. She’s very easy to listen to in the morning. One of the first things I listen to in the morning is the recap of the day before in the reading. She has little quips and little sayings and all of those things. And you’ve heard me say this already. She longs for the day. She just said, you know, when she got to Romans eight and talked about faith and hope. And she longs for the day when she will be faithless and hopeless because everything that’s discussed will be fulfilled. And I was like, I never thought of it that way. Now, she just sort of put it out there and kept on going because it’s one of her little things. And I got stuck there. And then I began to relate all of that. That’s why I said this year’s Advent teaching and preaching really is based on Romans seven through 10. But I really got stuck on that saying I long for the day when I’m faithless and hopeless because faith is the assurance of what we hope for. And that we’re we have faith in this assurance in the truth, the promises of God, when those promises are fulfilled. How does that affect faith? And I thought that’s a very interesting question. We truly faithless. I can’t imagine being faithless, but there we will be in glorified presence of God. Perfectly able to dwell with God here on Earth. What do we have faith in that that point in time we are complete. What is our hope at that point in time? It is complete. You hope for more to be resurrected from the dead in a perfect glorified body dwelling with the Lord. What are you going to hope for? What more are you going to hope for? Gee, I hope this gets better. So I thought, really, I’ve been thinking about that. And then I started thinking, how does that affect the other aspects of Advent? Right. Peace, love, joy. Because hope is in there as well. And I discussed that in my sermon. Right. And it all focuses on Advent. Advent focuses on, we celebrate the birth that was. We focus on the coming that will be. We focus on the fulfillment of the kingdom of God on Earth. We focus on the fulfillment of the reconciliation of everything unto God. That’s Advent. We await Romans. Romans Revelation 21, 22. We await that. That is Advent. What happens to love? I don’t think we will ever be without love because God is love and we will be dwelling in the presence of God. What happens with peace? I think that we will experience good morning, Mark. The perfect peace. Congratulations, Mark Landisburg Church of God. Congratulations, my brother. Right. We will be focused. We will have perfect peace with God. What happens with joy? We will be fulfilled. We will be dwelling in the joy of the Lord. Those three aspects that we examine and focus on in Advent are completed. Fulfilled. Made perfect in the coming. But then I started thinking, what about hope and what about faith? So that’s where we are today talking about. We will not ever be without the joy of the Lord. And I’m going to go to Isaiah 65. Isaiah 65. And just read a little bit. About this age to come. That was written, you know, 1400 years before Christ. Not 14. 750 for Isaiah. I get right before Christ. OK, centuries before Christ, may I say. And he’s talking about what Revelation talks about. Those who are redeemed, those who are not liars, cheaters, stealers, adulterers. Right. Those and those who are. And there will come an age when final judgment is made and the gate to the New Jerusalem. So, you know, it’s brought out in Revelation will be closed. Now, we go back centuries earlier to Isaiah. He says, this is what the sovereign Lord says, my servants will eat, but you will start my servants will drink, but you will be thirsty. My servants will rejoice, but you will be sad and ashamed. There it is. My servants will rejoice, but you will be sad and ashamed. My servants will sing for joy, but you will cry in sorrow and despair. Your name will be a curse word among my people for the sovereign Lord will destroy you and will call his true servants by another name. All who invoke a blessing or take an oath will do so do so by the God of truth. For I will put aside my anger and forget the evil of earlier days. Look, I am creating a new heavens and a new earth, and no one will even think about the old ones anymore. Be glad, rejoice forever in my creation and look, I will create Jerusalem as a place of happiness. Her people will be a source of joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and delight in my people. And the sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more. No longer will babies die when only a few days old. No longer will adults die before they have lived a full life. No longer will people be considered old at 100. Only the cursed will die at that young. In those days, people will live in the houses they build and eat the fruit of their own vineyards. Unlike the past invaders, unlike the past invaders will not take their house and confiscate their vineyards for my people will live as long as trees and my chosen ones will have time to enjoy their hard won gains. Thank you. Did you hear that? Now that’s prophecy. And when you know that when turning on lights, right, we’ve talked about this many times. Scripture itself is written in many, many layers. Prophecy in particular is written for the time that it is written. It is written for an immediate time to come here, as in warning of a Babylonian invasion or Syrian invasion. And it is written for posterity, sometimes referring to the life, death and resurrection of the Christ, sometime referring to the church and how the church will extend, extend, and sometimes referring to the age to come. This is referring to the age to come. So we read this and we see so many similarities in Revelation. Now when all is restored by Jesus Christ and upon his return, all is restored, all is reconciled, all is made perfect. We are not just going to live as long as trees. We are not just going to be sturdy and enjoy the fruits of our labor. We will live, dwell forever in the house of the Lord. This house. Not just this house, him dwelling here. This house, his creation. But we read the prophecy of the age to come and it gives hope for the people then. And then now when John writes Revelation and people begin to read that and it’s actually canonized in our scripture, we say, “Wow, it’s the same story. It’s the same message. It’s the same prophecy all throughout scripture. And Jesus will bring this about. And at that time, my people will endlessly rejoice in the Lord.” Oh yeah. That says it all right there. Right? Scripturally, word for word, our joy will not be replaced by anything else. It will be made complete. Can you imagine that? There’s no more of this. Even though I am a committed Christian and I believe I have a healthy perspective, I’ve been through some junk in my life and I have learned, shall we say, the hard way about the joy of the Lord. The consistency, the fundamental cornerstone joy of the Lord, the peace of the Lord, the love of God. We’ve learned that through life circumstances, how powerful that is and unwavering even still. You get panicked or depressed or anxious or whatever the case may be, because I am still my brain and my body, this fragile clay jar. There will come a time when there will be no more of this. There will just be this. I like to think about that. Right now, that’s where my faith is and the assurance of what I hope for. The assurance. And I write about that. I wrote about that this week in the Church Town Weekly. The assurance is interesting wording there in Hebrews. Faith is the assurance of what we hope for. Well, if it is assured, it is a done deal. Why do we need to have faith? Well, we have faith in this truth. Because the kingdom of God is now and yet to come, both at the same time. We know the kingdom of God is real. We dwell in it. And by the power of God’s Holy Spirit, we live in it. We dwell in it. We live his will on earth. We expand the kingdom of God. All of those things. We know that it is real and we know that it will be made complete throughout the earth. Just an interesting choice of word. Faith is the assurance. As in, as if assurance were a noun. You know, I don’t have to have faith that my Bible is right here. That’s my hat, by the way. I don’t need to have faith that here’s my Bible. It’s right here. It’s as though this assurance is already a reality. And in fact, it is. Because the kingdom of God is both now and yet to come. It’s wonderful stuff. It’s a wonderful age we live in. And we’re going through acts like talked about the Bible. Excuse me, the Bible recap. And there she keep going back into acts and Paul’s missionary trips and the letters that he writes. And you see the age that he is constantly speaking of. This in between time. Settle down, settle into the Lord. Lee, as we say today, press into the Lord. Right? Dwell with his Holy Spirit. Listen, discern, be true to him, be true to the word. Be intentional in your relationship with him. This is the age we live in the age of the church. The age of the church is not the age of the law and the prophets. Right. It is the age of the church and the spreading of the kingdom of God. And that will be completed upon his return. Exactly. Right. We know it. It’s like a noun. Like I said, it’s hard to explain. And this is an imperfect analogy, but it’s like a noun. We know it because we’re dwelling in it. It’s wonderful. There will never be a time when we are not without the joy of the Lord. In fact, when all things are reconciled to Christ. Our joy will be made complete. Our peace will be made complete. Love. We will know completely as God knows love because God is love. Man, that’s good stuff. That’s good stuff. Melissa. Good morning, dear neighbor. We were just checking out here. Getting close to it anyway. Does anybody have any questions, comments, concerns? It’s only 853. We have a couple of minutes. Is everybody going to church this Advent season? You know, I’ve been wagging my finger and saying admonishing regular churchgoers for not going to church. I’ve been doing my teacher thing. The number one reason that keeps regular churchgoers out of church during the holiday season is what? Family. Now, I again, if I’m able to brag about church town whenever we have these special things, the hymn sings and Easter, Christmas, Christmas Eve, all. I see families coming in. Oh, my goodness. It warms my heart. Just it’s that’s it. That’s what it’s all about. When I see grandparents and parents, aunts and uncles, bring children. Say, hey, let’s go out for breakfast and let’s go to church. And there’s these people, young people, kids sitting there. From little babies through teenagers and I’m like, and they’re just coming because people are setting that great example. For their family, for the children. And I don’t know everybody right now, but there they are. And it’s fantastic. Do not ever think that the darkness can overcome your light. That is scripturally inaccurate. It is also, according to the laws of physics, inaccurate. Your light will always overcome the darkness. Now, the people may choose to dwell in darkness because they love their darkness. They love their sin, as scripture teaches. But you don’t. You are the light and the darkness will never overcome you. It’s impossible. And that’s the beauty of it. That’s the beauty when you say so and so is coming into town. So and so is coming into town. I’ve got the kids. Guess what, kids? We go to church Sunday morning. Here we go. No, no, no. You don’t need to worry about church time. Just wear your jeans and a T-shirt. You’re good. No adult son, adult daughter, adult grandchildren, whatever the case may be. I know you’re here for Christmas. If you choose not to go with us, there’s everything you need for breakfast. But this is who we are. Mom and dad. Still faithful Christians. I wonder what there is to that. Good stuff. Well, everybody, officially, like I said, halfway to Christmas Eve. December 12th, Sunday morning at church town. Please spread the word. Brass Triumphant will be leading today. And if you’ve gone to the went to the hymn sing, you know, Brass Triumphant. We love these guys. They come here fairly regularly. We love them. And you would say brass in that little church. They know what they’re doing. They are accomplished musicians. And that brass is just at the right level. And it sounds so magnificent. Like, like, like the organ sounds pouring out over the congregation. The brass is the same way. So whether you’re if you’re not a regular church Tony and make the trip, if you are, spread the word. Because it’s special. It’s special. So. Good Lord willing in the river don’t rise. I know I always say that on Tuesday, but I want to say it today because it rains so much that I don’t want to be at the cross. Any flooded rivers to get to church, which is kind of impossible because I only live 30 feet away. But I want you to go to church. Go to church. Be the church. We live in the age of the church. It’s important. May God bless you and keep you. And we will see you in church.
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