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Day 5 | Dream Big Devotional | Jodi Miller · Life Community Church

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, church family.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to your daily Devo.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I hope that you are being encouraged each morning with our team as we are journeying and traveling these 21 days together.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: This morning we're going to be in Isaiah chapter 9, and it's probably something you've heard before.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it is, I'll just read it here.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who are in distress.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: In the past, he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the nations by the way of the sea beyond the Jordan.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: On those living in a land of deep darkness, a light has dawned.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: They rejoice before you, as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: For as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressors.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a lot there.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to unpack a bit of it.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Darkness.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Literal, physical, spiritual darkness.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Literal darkness.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: We can't really imagine unless we take ourselves to a place where there is no ambient light.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking the Tetons, Grand Teton National Forest, where there is no ambient light and you can see clearly the sky, but it's also dark.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so spiritual darkness we don't know either, because the spirit is in the world now.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: It a widespread, um in a widespread way.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have experienced the effects of the spirit in the world.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We have hospitals, we have university, we have kids being taken care of in care.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We have the abolition of slavery, equality for women.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: All of this has happened by the spirit's power.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't experience physical darkness where we are.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: We don't experience total spiritual darkness either.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: But there was a time when that was true.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: In Isaiah's time, we forget no electricity.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking torches and fire.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is dark.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ has not come to earth.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's not left the earth.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so he hasn't left his Holy Spirit to be available in a broad way.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is spiritually dark.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: So this place, Naphtali, Zebulun, it's the northernmost part of Israel.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's what comes to be known as Galilee.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was the northernmost, it was so this text here is referencing a time when it was humbled.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because it was so uh the northernmost portion of the kingdom, it was attacked first when Assyria attacked, um, conquered, defeated, and deported the residents of Israel.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: We bump into darkness.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: They that was a total attack of darkness.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: We bump into darkness here and now, even though it's not total spiritual darkness.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a child who's been harmed.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Our traditions that we experience.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: This Halloween, when I was driving around Columbia on Main Street, some of the things that I saw were so dark and evil.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it just made me wonder like, what world am I living in that people are okay with putting this in their yards?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: We bump into the darkness of coworkers, families, hopelessness, depression, divorce, betrayal, rejection, and just plain evil.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's in this darkness that Jesus enters.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of those chapters that you'll recognize because later it goes on to talk about, which is why this text is usually spoken of at Christmas.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: It goes on to talk about the wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, a time when he will come and he will rule and reign.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is into this darkness that Jesus comes.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in Matthew, Matthew quotes these very words, and he says that Jesus goes to live in Galilee.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So from this place in Isaiah, this humbled land, is going to come someone from Galilee who will honor the nations.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these words definitely during Advent season, Christmas time, I will say these words together in tandem with John 1.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a prayer that I love to pray for my loved ones, that those who have who have been walking in darkness, who are in fact in deep darkness, that for them a light will shine.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus said, or John said about Jesus, um, that he is the light of the world.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And in him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of darkness, this is the kind of light that dispels that darkness, Jesus.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: The passage in Isaiah, it goes on, it continues, and it says that you've enlarged the nation, increased their joy, for as in Midian's defeat, Midian's defeat is actually that defeat that you may have remember with Gideon and his army of 300.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: An army of 300 is not a lot.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so that account is letting us know this army, Gideon and his army, did not conquer.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was the Lord who conquered.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was the Lord who conquered and enlarged this territory.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was God and his power alone.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus says to us in Acts, he says, I'm sending you to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: You have been placed in whatever place you are right now, in this place of Columbia, in this place of Dupo, Waterloo, St.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Louis.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: You've been placed in this region.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You've been placed in this community of believers, Life Community Church.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: You've been placed in this era, the 2000s.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've been placed in this region of the world.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And your purpose here is to partner with God, to bring light into dark places.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: That starts with you bringing the light into your place, illuminating this human temple that he wants to dwell.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And for some reason, God wants to partner with humans.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is his plan.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: He thought it would be so fun.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: He loves humanity so much that he wants to be with us.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, you know what?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to tell the whole world about me with the power of humans, his power and our willingness to obey, to be the light into every sphere, because we carry the light of all mankind.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, I know there are some pl some times when we feel we are in a very dark place, whether it's in our minds or out of our minds.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that we would allow the truth of your word to dispel the gloom, to dispel the darkness within us.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: But then, Lord, that light does not want to be contained.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be shined out because there are those who are walking in darkness.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: There are those who are walking in deep darkness.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus is the life that brings light to all mankind.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I pray for your people this morning that wherever they go, whatever sphere they are in, they would bring the light of Jesus, and we would expand your kingdom for your glory and for our good.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, Amen.