Isaiah 9:1-7
This Week’s Main Idea:
Those who face despair from darkness and sin can still experience renewed light and hope through Christ the Messiah.
Icebreaker:
What is the best news you could get right now? Think back to a time when you desperately needed to hear some good news. What happened?
Introduction:
Isaiah’s audience was an entire nation who desperately needed good news. Oftentimes the role of God’s prophets was to deliver warnings and judgment, but in today’s passage, Isaiah relayed to God’s people the greatest news they could ever receive at just the right time: the birth of a King whose reign will never end. Isaiah prophesied the promise of a coming day in which God’s people would be set free from the darkness of their sin to live in peace.
Read Isaiah 9:1-3.
1. Describe a time when you clung to one of God’s promises in the midst of a dark season. How difficult was it for you to believe that the dark season would pass?
2. What does the promise of the coming light, even when Israel was lost in willful sin, tell you about God? How does that shape how you view the circumstances of your life right now?
Read Isaiah 9:4-5.
3. What forms of oppression most frequently grab the headlines in our culture today? Pause for a moment and consider our world without those.
4. How did Christ lift oppression from us for eternity, and how does He do that for us today on a daily basis?
Read Isaiah 9:6-7.
5. Isaiah’s prophecy focused on the coming Messiah dispelling the darkness of sin that enshrouds the world. How does that extremely important idea shape your day-to-day life?
6. The names for Christ in this prophecy are frequently referenced (Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, and Prince of Peace). Preceding that, though, Isaiah prophesied that the government would be on Christ’s shoulders. What do you think it means for the government to be on Christ’s shoulders?
7. What would it look like for you to live out verse 3 this week, rejoicing before God because of Jesus?
8. In what parts of your daily routine do you see the greatest need for peace? How is the Holy Spirit nudging you to address that need?
Suggested prayer request:
Thank you, God, for doing whatever it takes to get our attention and draw us back to You. Use me to show others the path of forgiveness, healing, and restoration that only comes through Jesus. Give me the courage and the opportunities to tell others about all You have done for me.
Other Scriptures to Engage with this week:
Isaiah 52:13-53:4; Psalm 103; Jeremiah 30; Psalm 82; Isaiah 57:14-21; Psalm 107.