Advent is the four week period leading up to Christmas. It is a time of waiting that helps to slow us down as we look forward to the birth of Jesus and on to His second coming.

Longing for Love is the fourth study from Isaiah in our Advent series. As we anticipate Christ’s birth, Advent reminds us of God’s promises that the love we all yearn for will arrive. Use this discovery lesson individually, with your family, or with your discovery community/small group to focus on God’s promise of love as we wait in times of injustice, loneliness, and isolation.

Previously:
Week 1: Longing for Hope at Christmas
Week 2 Longing for Peace at Christmas
Week 3: Longing for Joy at Christmas

Longing for Love at Christmas

Have you ever experienced a time of need and someone came to you, and you felt God’s love through them? Our Advent text today reminds us that God comes to us with love.

Link and acknowledge God’s presence in prayer

Father, cleanse me and prepare me for the coming of Jesus. I open my heart to Your love and the love You have for everyone in my circle of influence.

Listen to God’s Word

In chapter 40, Isaiah reminds the people that God has not abandoned them. He declares that low and high places will be leveled, providing a road on which the coming Messiah will demonstrate His love.

Read Isaiah 40:1-11 with purpose

Take your time and read Isaiah 40:1-11 at least three times, listening for the things that draw your attention.

Discover Love

• In what areas of your life do you need to experience the love and tenderness of God?
• How does this passage describe the ways God will demonstrate His love?
• What barriers keep people from knowing the love of God?
• What needs leveling in your life?
• How does this passage offer God’s love in anticipation of the Savior’s birth?
• How does this passage offer God’s love in anticipation of Christ’s second coming?
• What does this passage tell us about God?
• What does this passage tell us about people?

Look and examine your own life

• Is there anything you need to do differently to be obedient because of what you discovered in this passage?

Leave to be on mission with Christ

• What have you discovered about God’s mission?
• How can you declare and demonstrate God’s love to others?
• Who can you tell about the good news you discovered?

Love and worship God

Worship and listen to Light of the World.

This year our longings at Christmas are strong for numerous reasons. Many yearn for joy, but it seems in short supply, and Christmas is a time of pain, loss, and hurt.

Advent refers to the four Sundays and weeks before Christmas. It helps us prepare our hearts for the birth of Christ. It is a time of anticipation that something better is coming. It looks back with expectation to the arrival of a Messiah and points us to a Savior who will be God with us. But it also looks forward to the return of King Jesus to usher in the fullness of God’s Kingdom.

Longing for Joy is the third study from Isaiah in our Advent series. When Isaiah wrote, joy was elusive for God’s people as they ached, yearned, and hoped for a better day. Use this discovery lesson individually, with your family, or with your discovery community/small group to focus on God’s promise of joy as we wait in times of struggle, disruption, and strife.

Previously:
Week 1: Longing for Hope at Christmas
Week 2 Longing for Peace at Christmas

Longing for Joy at Christmas

Have you ever wondered if joy and hope will ever find their way into your life? This week in the advent story brings us to a turning point, and Isaiah offers us a promise of coming joy.

Link and acknowledge God’s presence in prayer

Gracious God, I long for Your Joy. May it come with Jesus and fill me to overflowing, and may it surge through me to others.

Listen to God’s Word

In chapter 34, Isaiah’s words paint the image of destruction and devastation, but then in chapter 35, he points to a time of great reversals when even dry, desert places rejoice in the Glory of God.

Read Isaiah 35:1-10 with purpose

Take your time and read Isaiah 35:1-10 at least three times, listening for the things that draw your attention.

Discover Joy

• Where, in your life, are you longing for God’s joy today?
• What reversals do you see in this passage?
• What “deserts” in our world need this kind of blooming and reversals?
• What “deserts” in your life do you long to see blooming?
• How does this passage offer joy in anticipation of the Savior’s birth?
• How does this passage offer joy in anticipation of Christ’s second coming?
• What does this passage tell us about God?
• What does this passage tell us about people?

Look and examine your own life

• Is there anything you need to do differently to be obedient because of what you discovered in this passage?

Leave to be on mission with Christ

• What have you discovered about God’s mission?
• How can you help others find the highway through the wilderness that brings them to the joy of being in God’s presence?
• Who can you tell about the good news you discovered?

Love and worship God

Worship and listen to In the Bleak Midwinter and capture the imagery, not only of winter itself, but of a bleak, dark world as cold as ice longing for deliverance.

We are well aware that our world is not a peaceful place. We see the inhumanity of man to man, woman to woman, nation to nation, and people group to people group. Is it any wonder that we long for peace?

Advent means “coming” or “arrival” and is the four week season before Christmas Day. It is a time of waiting, anticipating, and longing. Advent links the past, the present, and the future.

Longing for Peace is the second study from Isaiah in our Advent series. Isaiah lived in tumultuous times as people longed for righteousness and justice. Use this discovery lesson individually, with your family, or with your discovery community/small group to focus on God’s promise of peace in a world that knows too much of violence, hatred, and anxiety.

Previous Studies
Week 1: Longing for Hope at Christmas

Longing for Peace at Christmas

Advent is about waiting and longing for the coming of what seems impossible.  Isaiah gives us a picture of a time when peace will be ushered into a world through a promised King.

Link and acknowledge God’s presence in prayer

Glorious God, in expectation of the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ, I long for Your peace. May it spread through me and all the nations of the world. In Your name, amen.

Listen to God’s Word

Isaiah 10 ends with the image of the destruction of Israel and Judah as a devastated forest, with only stumps remaining. Yet out of the stump of Jesse, the father of King David, a shoot will emerge. A good and righteous King will reign and bring peace to the earth.

Read Isaiah 11:1-10 with purpose

Take your time and read the Isaiah 11:1-10 at least three times, listening for the things that draw your attention.

Discover Peace

• Where, in your life, are you longing for God’s peace today?
• In this passage, what will characterize this future king of Isaiah’s prophecy?
• Who in our world today needs the fairness and justice this king will bring?
• How is our world different from the things that characterize the kingdom pictured here?
• How does this passage offer peace in anticipation of the Savior’s birth?
• How does this passage offer peace in anticipation of Christ’s second coming?
• What does this passage tell us about God?
• What does this passage tell us about people?

Look and examine your own life

Is there anything you need to do differently to be obedient because of what you discovered in this passage?

Leave to be on mission with Christ

• What have you discovered about God’s mission?
• How can you display the “knowledge of God” so others can receive a foretaste of the peace that God offers?
• Who can you tell about the good news you discovered?

Love and worship God

Worship and listen to O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

The season of Advent starts four Sundays before Christmas Day and concludes with the arrival of God’s good news in the birth of Jesus. It anticipates Jesus’ first coming and His second coming. It is a time of longing, waiting, and anticipation, which is very appropriate for us in the year 2020.

Isaiah has been called the Prophet of Advent or the Prophet of Christmas. Writing centuries before the incarnation, he prophesied in a time of national turmoil, social unrest, and spiritual longing.

During Advent, Isaiah’s longing becomes our longing. Isaiah’s yearning for God’s deliverance is our yearning. The following is the first of five discovery lessons from Isaiah that you can use individually, with your family, or with your discovery community/small group.

Week 1: Longing for Hope

Isaiah offers God’s hope in the middle of calamity, chaos, and distress. There is a day coming when God will act.

Link and acknowledge God’s presence in prayer

Heavenly Father, in Your name, thank you for the hope that You bring at Christmas. May it reach into my life and the lives of people in the nations of the world.

Listen to God’s Word

Isaiah tells us that there will be a time when God will draw all people and nations to himself. 

Read Isaiah 2:1-5 with purpose 

Take your time and read the Bible passage at least three times, listening for the things that draw your attention. 

Discover Hope 

• How does this passage offer hope in anticipation of the Savior’s birth?
• How does this passage offer hope in anticipation of Christ’s second coming?
• What does this passage tell us about God?
• What does this passage tell us about people?

Look and examine your own life

• Is there anything you need to do differently to be obedient because of what you discovered in this passage?

Leave to be on mission with Christ

• What have you discovered about God’s mission?
• Who can you tell about the good news you discovered?
• How can you walk in God’s light today?

Love and worship God

Worship and listen to Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus.

On January 13, 2003, I climbed into my pickup and drove away on one of the most challenging journeys of my life.

As a minister and pastor of more than 30 years, God was calling me to step out of my comfort zone into unfamiliar ground. At age 53, I found myself moving toward a dream God had placed within me.

My heart was in my throat as I watched my wife, Beth, waving from the sidewalk. For the first time in 30 years of marriage, we would be apart for more than a few days at a time. She was going to continue teaching until May and get our house ready to sell while I worked at a new job 400 miles away. For the first time in more than 30 years, I would be employed in a position that was not ministry-related.

As I drove, the story replayed in my mind. My experience in professional ministry had been mainly positive. In my current pastorate, I had a good compensation package along with all the perks, plus a good ministry budget. I had the freedom to lead. By all external appearances, I had it pretty good.

But Christ was calling me to follow in a new direction. An enthusiasm for church planting and starting simple, organic churches was increasing.

I was disturbed by the inability to impact the current North American culture through the system in which I worked. At first, I criticized this emerging way of life. It was becoming more difficult to reach people with the Gospel with my current methods. Retreating behind the walls of the church was still another option, but God began to show me another way of sharing His Good News. I was not to curse the culture or retreat from it. I was to use it.

I found myself hungrily reading anyone who was offering fresh ideas for ministry. I began to see the possibility of God’s people connected in simple, relational gatherings, supporting and encouraging one another. Although I hadn’t even heard the word missional, I was moving toward a way to reach those who would not attend our traditional churches. It wouldn’t be long before I would learn that living missionally was about more than church attendance.

I was facing a crisis of belief. Was I going to yield to the invitation to this new adventure or suppress it? I could wait until the picture became more clear, or I could cross the threshold and take a step of faith. I could not escape the call of Christ.

My seven-hour drive ended, but the journey was just beginning.

In His time, Christ brought together a group who would establish a simple, organic church in the north Dallas area. I will forever be indebted to those early adapters who shared this journey with me.

On this journey, the church, as Christ’s body, has become so precious to me. I understand more fully how the priesthood of believers works in practical and missional ways. I see disciples daily living as Christ-followers rather than merely having head knowledge. I have discovered that entangling people relationally in the net of God’s love is a dynamic form of spiritual transformation. People with little or no church background are responding to the Good News of Jesus.

Looking back, I realize that God had been preparing me for this journey all my life, from the simple rural church I belonged to in my childhood, through my years as a pastor, student minister, and even in an administrative position at a Baptist University.

By October of 2007, God had worked through me to start a network of simple, organic churches, and I was coaching people who desired to know about this missional journey.

God has given me awesome partners, like those at Freeman Heights Baptist Church, who make it possible for me to encourage, empower, and equip everyday Christ-followers, as well as pastors and others in vocational ministry.

Through this blog, I desire to help you engage in a missional lifestyle both individually and collectively.

If God is calling you on a journey towards this missional adventure, let’s travel together. Keep reading here. Make comments on the posts. Signup to receive periodic email updates with tips, ideas, and inspiration for missional living. Share the journey with others through social media. Pray for me as I continue as a practitioner of simple, organic church and encourage others on this journey.

Step across the threshold and let’s go together.

I read a challenging Facebook meme that reminded me to consider some missional changes in my life in the coming year. The title of the post was, “This Year I Want To Be More Like Jesus!” and it was followed by a series of bullets enumerating specifically what that might look like.

A Goal for 2020

Let me share a few of my thoughts that were sparked by the meme.

God doesn’t want you to simply have more information about him. He desires your transformation into the image of Christ.

Growing in the likeness of Christ is the ongoing process of your transformation, evidenced in your actions and conduct. This happens as you mature in your personal relationship with God.

But it goes beyond this individual element. You should also grow into Christlikeness in your relationship with others within the body of Christ and with those you encounter in the world.

Here are some things to remember.

1. Spiritual transformation is the work of God

While you have a responsibility to do your part to grow in Christ, never become so vain to think that you have the power to change yourself. Spiritual Growth is a shared project between you and God. You work, but you do so according to the power Christ gives to you (Colossians 1:29). Just as in your own strength, you are powerless to be saved; you are also powerless to grow.

2. Spiritual transfomation is a life-long journey

Spiritual growth is an ongoing process that requires time as you are transformed more and more to resemble the one you are following.

3. Spiritual transformation happens and is evidenced in the everyday rhythms of life

Jesus formed disciples by choosing a group of followers and lived life with them. Spiritual maturity is an organic process that is developed and lived out in the everyday ebb and flow of life.

4. Spiritual transformation is the result of obedience

Transformation occurs when you discover God’s truths and live in obedience to what the Spirit reveals to you.

5. Spiritual transformation is best formed in community

The journey of growing in the likeness of Christ is best nurtured in community as you find encouragement, correction, and example from fellow travelers.

6. Spiritual transformation is not linear

Life is messy, and so is spiritual formation. God works in different people in different ways. Growing in Christ does not take place in a predictable pattern.

7. Spiritual transformation results in missional living

As you are transformed more and more into the image of Jesus you move out and pursue the Father’s mission.

Building on the Goal

Now, back to that challenging Facebook meme. It expanded the goal by listing some bullet points. What specific points would you put under a goal like that?

1. Make disciples
2. Spend more time in prayer
3. Listen more to the Father

Well, that meme was a little revolutionary and it challenged me. I’ve revised them a bit for my own list, and if you want to be a little radical with me, how about…

• Let my Bible studies become Bible doings
• Hang out with people on the margins – the broken, the forgotten, the lonely
• Rub shoulders with sinners so they might be delivered from sin
• Upset self-righteous, religious people
• Tell stories and ask questions that make people think
• Choose unpopular friends
• Be kind, loving, and merciful
• And because Jesus went to sleep in the back of a boat – Take naps on boats

Grace and peace to you on your missional journey