Scripture Reading:

• Isaiah 2:1-5
• Romans 13:11-14

Opening Prayer:

Father God, we thank you for the honor and the privilege of gathering together this morning. As we transition from our season of thanksgiving towards Advent and Christmas, let us remember to be thankful for the gifts we have already received, even as we eagerly await the promises of God still to come! Bless our time together, we pray. Amen.

Introduction:

If you were not aware, today marks the beginning of the Advent season. Historically, churches have marked Advent as the beginning of their liturgical year and set it apart as a special time of spiritual preparation leading up to Christmas. Ironically, the secular world has so successfully commercialized Christmas that most of us have already been primed for the Christmas season long before Advent arrives. You have probably already received Christmas catalogs in the mail. You have likely already spotted Christmas trees and lights popping up everywhere. The commercials have started showing winter scenes of families making Christmas cookies, playing in the snow, or unwrapping gifts in their pajamas. Billions of dollars are spent on Christmas advertising, trying to give you a warm feeling of nostalgia and childlike wonder so you will buy their products. As a culture we lean into the magic of Christmas and try to ignite that Christmas spirit we all remember from our childhoods. Now it would be easy for me to preach against the pop culture Christmas. I could talk about the consumerism and how Santa Clause seems to push Jesus out of the spotlight every year, but I am not a fan of those messages.

I think giving gifts is a wonderful thing, even if we might overdo it sometimes. I also think this longing for peace on earth and goodwill to men speaks to something all of us are longing for. The images of happy families and the stories of childlike wonder touch on a deep heart-felt need for relationships to be mended and for something beyond us to hope for and believe in. The thing I love about Advent is that it reminds us that this hope and peace we are all longing for, is not wishful thinking. It is deeply rooted in who we are, and it is a hope that finds it’s fulfillment in the one who Christmas is really about.

Strength for Today

When I am asked what my favorite book of the Bible is, my answer is usually Isaiah. It can be a challenging read, but it is a book filled with messianic prophecy and hope. Isaiah has often been called “the evangelical prophet” because he speaks more about the coming of the Messiah and the redemptive work of Jesus than any other book of the Old Testament. During one of Israel’s darkest times, the prophet Isaiah painted a beautiful picture of a savior who would come and bring justice and peace to the world. This messiah would draw people from all nations and unite them under his rule and reign. He would teach them the ways of God and restore all that was broken by sin and death.

It sounds nice, but I know some people need more than just a nice thought. The thing we must remember is that, unlike the advertisers and hallmark movies, Isaiah’s vision comes not from man’s wishful thinking, but from the very Word of God. Isaiah, like all God’s prophets, points us to something real and true.

Isaiah shows us that in time God’s presence will become more evident and compelling to all peoples. People from every nation, tribe, and tongue will seek the Lord’s instructions and gather in God’s house to worship and honor Him. Isaiah foretells a day when God’s presence will be made manifest and people will come hungry to hear from the Lord. We might look around at churches in decline across our nation and wonder if such a thing is possible, but let me tell you some good news. Regardless of the situation in the United States, Christianity is growing around the world. Listen to some of the latest statistics from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary on Christianity in 2022.

While the number of all religious people is growing at a 1.27% rate, the growth rate of nonreligionists is less than half that—0.52%, well below the total population growth percentage. In particular, the number of atheists is almost stagnant, only growing 0.18% per year. There are fewer atheists around the world today (147 million) than in 1970 (165 million).

Lifeway Research, via  2022 Status of Global Christianity Report

This tells me there is a hunger in people to know God all across the world. People around the world are realizing that atheism is not working and they are hungry to find God. Unfortunately there are many false religions in the world who are spreading a gospel that is not true and will not save. Even so, the hunger for God is there and I am optimistic that the truth will win out.

The report continues to note that,

Not only is religion growing overall, but Christianity specifically is growing. With a 1.17% growth rate, almost 2.56 billion people will identify as a Christian by the middle of 2022. By 2050, that number is expected to top 3.33 billion. Catholics remain the largest Christian group with almost 1.26 billion adherents, but the two fastest growing Christian groups around the world are evangelicals (1.8% growth rate) and charismatics (1.88%).

Lifeway Research, via  2022 Status of Global Christianity Report

These percentages may sound small, but they are showing that the body of Christ is growing every year by the millions. Every salvation is a miracle, and we are hearing of miracles happen every moment of every day somewhere on earth. We may hear statistics about Christianity shrinking in the United States and Europe, but understand that we are the exception to the rule. Everywhere else int the world, the Church is growing in number and influence.

The places where Christianity is growing the fastest? Africa (2.77% growth) and Asia (1.50%). In 2000, 814 million Christians lived in Europe and North America, while 660 million Christians called African and Asia home. This year, 838 million live in the global North, while almost 1.1 billion Christians live in Africa and Asia alone. 

In 1900, twice as many Christians lived in Europe than in the rest of the world combined. Today, more Christians live in Africa than any other continent. By 2050, Africa will be home to almost 1.3 billion Christians, while Latin America (686 million) and Asia (560 million) will both have more than Europe (497 million) and North America (276 million).

[Christianity] is also becoming increasingly less concentrated. In 1900, 95% of all Christians lived in a majority Christian country. In 2022, that number has fallen to 53.7%. By 2050, most Christians (50.4%) around the world will live in non-majority Christian nations.

Lifeway Research, via  2022 Status of Global Christianity Report

This data shows that Christianity is spreading out. It is no longer centralized in Europe and North America. It is spreading like wildfire in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. It is increasingly moving into non-majority Christian nations, which is a good thing. The gospel is spreading into places where it has not been heard before, churches are appearing in lands that have never known the saving work of Jesus.

With more Christians living outside of Christian nations, more non-Christians know a Christian. In 1900, only 5.4% of non-Christians could identify a Christian they knew. That percentage has risen to 18.3% today. By 2050, 1 in 5 non-Christians (20%) will know a follower of Jesus and have the opportunity to hear the gospel from them.

As a result, the percentage of unevangelized people around the world continues to fall. In 1900, more than half of the world’s population (54.3%) was unevangelized. That has now fallen to 28%.

Lifeway Research, via  2022 Status of Global Christianity Report

That last bit may be my favorite statistic. In the last one hundred and twenty years, that’s less than two average lifetimes, the number of globally unevangelized has been cut nearly in half.

I don’t know about you, but this sounds a lot like the beginning of the great hope Isaiah foretold so long ago. We have a lot of ground to cover yet, but lets not be too quick to discount the fact that in the two thousand years since the Messiah came, his gospel has spread to all corners of the earth and his small band of followers has grown into a diverse family of believers numbering in the billions. Not only that, the number of believers and reach of the gospel continues to multiply with each passing year!

This year, 93 million copies of God’s word will be printed, up from 54 million in 2000 and 5 million in 1900. By 2025, 100 million Bibles will be printed each year. Currently, almost 1.8 billion Bibles are in circulation around the world. That will climb to 2.3 billion by 2050.

God’s Word continues to expand into new languages in new and exciting ways, including pastors and theologians in India developing and printing a first-of-its-kind Telugu study Bible for the nearly 90 million Telugu speakers in the country.

Lifeway Research, via  2022 Status of Global Christianity Report

Isaiah prophesied that the word of the Lord would go forth into the nations. As the word goes out justice soon follows as peoples are transformed by the Holy Spirit and begin to live by God’s commands. I think we are still a long way off from seeing that day when our weapons of war are dismantled and our swords are made into plowshares (Isaiah 2:4), but realize how much closer we are now than when this was written!

Bright Hope For Tomorrow

It is hard for us in the West to believe this because we are living through an era of drift and decline, but just because our culture has been surrendering its Christian conviction for some time, that does not mean it cannot be reclaimed. The prophet Isaiah wrote about this great hopeful future during a time known as the Babylonian exile. During this time the Temple of God was destroyed and the people were exiled from the land of promise. They people of God had turned away from God, and had seen their nation destroyed. How then can the prophet write of such hope?

The promise of God was not consistent with the reality that Isaiah saw on the ground as he spoke these words, but the prophet was keyed into something more real than his present moment. He had his eyes on God and God’s mission in the world. He could transcend the reality on the ground and see the bigger story that was unfolding and he placed his hope in that!

The statistics I cited are a nice comfort, but my hope is that your comfort would not be in statistics. My hope is that you would take comfort in the fact that the future belongs to God. Without God’s promises, I would struggle to find hope. I would see little reason to think that the future will be any different from the past. But with God’s promises, there is hope for tomorrow because our basis for hope is in the faithfulness of God!

I believe we can raise up generations far godlier than any generation that came before us. As proof I point to the churches all across the world who are starting to do this, sometimes from ground zero. They have far less of a foundation than we do, and they are accomplishing so much because they are taking God at His Word.

Isaiah offers is not only a vision of global transformation, but an invitation to live toward that day.

O house of Jacob,
    come, let us walk
    in the light of the Lord.

Isaiah 2:5, ESV

Isaiah called his people to walk in the light of the Lord, even if their times were dark. He called them to hope in the Messiah who would one day come and redeem His people. For hundreds of years Israel hoped for the day that we now look back upon and celebrate, the day we call Christmas. We know the Messiah that they could only hope for. We are living in the days of salvation that the ancient ones longed to see. Let’s not let any momentary darkness cause us to lose sight of our hope. We can walk in the light of the Lord today, because we know that God is guiding our steps. The future belongs to God, and so we can trust Him to lead us on the right path.

As we conclude this morning, I want to leave the prophet Isaiah for a minute and jump ahead some five hundred years to the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul, much like us today, was living in the times that the prophet Isaiah had written about and hoped for. These were days when Christ had come and fulfilled his earthly mission. He had died on a cross for our sins and had risen three days later. He had ascended to the right hand of God the father and left His church with the Holy Spirit and the great commission. The church in Rome which Paul wrote too was holding the light of the gospel in a lost world that was far more pagan than anything we have yet experienced.

The church in Rome was far from perfect, just as our church is far from perfect today. But listen to the words of the Apostle Paul, written some two thousand years ago:

You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Romans 13:11-14, ESV

Salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. It’s time to wake up. The times of darkness in which people could only look ahead with hopeful expectation are over. It is time to wake up and live into the reality of the new age that Christ has brought into the world. It is time to realize that God’s kingdom is expanding and this is the time of victory.

We need to wake up and leave behind the darkness of sin. It’s time to get dressed in the armor of light. There is work to be done, souls to be won, lives to be transformed, and injustices to correct. What Isaiah and Paul both understood is that just as God brought all things into being, so also there will be a time when God will bring the history of this world to an end and usher in the promised new creation; one without war, sin, or death. There will come a day when every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that day is closer now than it was yesterday!

So as we prepare our hearts for Advent, let us awaken our hearts to the amazing fact that we are living in incredible times! Let’s wake from our slumber and realize that we each have a part to play in this amazing unfolding story of redemption. As we look back to the birth of Christ, remembering God’s greatest gift, let us remember that there are many in our community who have not yet received this gift. Perhaps this is the season when we will invite them into our celebration, so that they can come to know Christ as we do. Let us remember that all the promises of God are always coming to pass, and will one day all the promises find their full completion in Christ’s triumphant return. Let us be found faithful and obedient to the call, even as we eagerly await that coming day.

Prayer of Decision:

Father God, we thank you for this Advent season. It is a wonderful time for us to reflect on the birth of our Savior and Lord. We thank you that we are living in the days of promise, in the days of salvation. Help us to remember that even in the times that seem dark, your light shines bright. Help us to remember that You are faithful to Your word, and that all Your promises are good. May we live our lives in eager expectation, looking for opportunities to reach others with the good news of Christ even as we look forward to the great day of salvation, which is nearer now than ever before. Amen.