December 4, 2022: "Advent - Hope in the Darkness" - Daniel Wagner

Watch:

Sermon begins at 29:45

 

Listen:

Sunday Setlist

O Come All Ye Faithful x Wade, Oakley, & Tomlin

Build My Life x Pat Barrett

Great Are You Lord x All Sons & Daughters

Jesus We Love You x Maverick City

Living Hope x Johnson & Wickham

Every group is different. Please choose the questions that relate best to your group, and don’t feel like you have to get to every question.

Connect 

Are you a generally optimistic or pessimistic person? 

For the pessimistic person, is it easy for you to get stuck in what feels like overwhelming darkness? How does this affect your life? 

For the optimistic person, how do you fight against the encroaching feelings of darkness? 

Engage & Apply

Read Isaiah 8:11-15 

How have you been able to make sense of the existence of suffering in the world? Has working through this weakened or strengthened your faith?  

What do you think about this line: “How we treat God determines how we experience God.”

How have you seen people of faith experience darkness differently than people who have no faith?  

Read Isaiah 8:19-22

Think about a time in your life when you’ve been guilty of “doubling down on darkness” and sought to cope with your darkness with things outside of God’s will? What did you learn from that season?

Are you more prone to focus on the darkness “out there” (in the world) or “in here” (in yourself)? What are you doing today to bring light to an area of darkness? 

Read Isaiah 9:1-7

“God came to his people first where they had suffered the most, and from that place He launched salvation for the world" 

In what ways have you seen God bring hope and light from a place of great pain in your life or the world? 

Daniel pointed to 3 key ways that this light brings change:

  1. Increase

  2. Freedom

  3. Peace & Justice 

Which of these 3 areas of change are you the most thankful for in your life and in the world today?