Every week in corporate worship, we have the opportunity to
praise our Lord, to acknowledge what He has done, and to rejoice
together as a body. We often do that through
Scripture. We do that through witness to
His work as Maria has just done. We do that through the
expectations that we all bring to the table when we come
together. We do that through our prayers,
and we do that through song. What we're going to do now is
we're going to recount the Christmas story through
scripture and through prayer and through song.
So we encourage you to join us. Listen carefully as we weave
together very familiar scriptures, very familiar songs.
But note carefully that sometimes the familiarity of it
all causes us to be blind to what we're actually singing.
We're about to sing. We're about to hear some
powerful things. I encourage you to allow the
Lord to gather up your heart and draw him, draw you to himself at
this time, through the things that we say, through the words
in which we sing. Let's pray together.
Lord in heaven, do take this time of worship, Honor yourself
with it, be glorified. And all we do, we pray.
Through Christ our Lord we ask, Amen.
And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden
in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid
themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of
the garden. But the Lord God called to the
man and said to him, Where are you?
And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was
afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.
He said, Who told you that you were naked?
Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to
eat? The man said the woman whom you
gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree and I ate.
Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you
have done? The woman said, The serpent
deceived me and I ate. The Lord God said to the
serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all
livestock and above all beasts of the field and your belly you
shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your
offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and
you shall bruise his heel. To the woman.
He said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing, in
pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule
over you. And to Adam, he said, Because
you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of
the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it.
Cursed is the ground because of you in pain, she you shall eat
of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles you shall
bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the
field by the sweat of your face. You shall eat bread till you
return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are
dust, and to dust you will return.
Christian traditions vary. I'm well aware of that.
Not everybody does it the way that I do.
There are those who open, those of us who open our Christmas
present Sunday, Christmas morning.
There are those who do it wrong. There are those who wear their
pajamas all day long. There are those who do it wrong.
I understand that. So we want to give variance for
the fact that the Scripture allows for a way of celebrating
the Lord that not not necessarily follows in the same
pattern. Having said that, I believe that
we all come to Christmas with a certain longing, with a certain
common theme that runs all the way through it.
And I'm not talking here just about believers.
I'm not talking about folks in this room.
I'm talking about humanity as a whole.
Humanity as a whole shares a common experience that Christmas
tackles. That common experience was
highlighted by what Jerry just read.
For us, the fall has produced a longing, a desire, a yearning
within us that we need to scratch, that we need to
experience, that we need to see satisfied.
That longing, that yearning, is captured well in the song we're
about to sing together. Come thou long expected Jesus in
the midst of this song and you'll hear it in the tone of
the song, etcetera. It's expressing this yearning, A
longing that we all gathered together to see Christ come to
this earth and in doing so, he satisfies that deep yearning
that I think is inherent in every individual.
Every person along the second line of this pet of this song
that we will sing talks about from our fears and from our
sins. Release us.
Let us find our rest in thee. And I think that line captures
what everybody experiences, if they acknowledge it or not, that
we have a yearning to be free from our sin and from our fears
and we have a yearning to be at rest with the Lord.
Let's stand together as we sing Come thou long expected Jesus.
Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your
kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show
you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless
you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I
will curse. And in you all the families of
the earth shall be blessed. And the Angel of the Lord called
to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said by myself, I
have sworn, declares the Lord, Because you have done this, and
have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless
you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of
heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore.
And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies.
And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be
blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.
I really enjoy teaching history. I know that that's not something
that a lot of people get into. From a lot of people, it's just
a bunch of dates about old people that are dead and gone.
I enjoy teaching history because I enjoy when people connect
something that's happened long time ago, you know, 20 years
ago, 200 years ago, 2000 years ago.
And when I'm able to say, look, the reason why we do this today
is because of what happened back then.
And for some people, the light comes on and they enjoy it.
For most people, they still sit there and think that it's a date
they have to memorize. So, OK, there you go.
But I enjoy teaching history because of the way in which it
connects. Along those lines, what happens
in the past affects us in the present.
That is, of course, absolutely true.
When we come to Christmas, Christmas details for us a
historical event, something that happened 2000 years ago.
It happened 2000 years ago and yet we're all gathered together
here today precisely because it happened 2000 years ago.
There's a historical reality and that reality continues to impact
and influence us even today. That is certainly the case when
it comes to singing a little town of Bethlehem.
Many of you are going to know that hymn are going to be used
to that song, but note, the song actually carries with it not
just the historical realities. We're going to be talking about
what happened 2000 years ago, but particularly when we come to
the fourth verse. We're going to talk about Christ
being born in US today. We are going to take what
happened 2000 years ago and recognize that it has an
influence, an impact in our lives even today.
A little town of Bethlehem. Let's stand and sing that
together. You may be seated.
The people walked in darkness have seen a great light, those
who dwelt in a land of deep darkness.
On them the light shone. You have multiplied the
nation's, you have increased its joy.
They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are
glad when they divide the spoil for the yoke of his burden and
the staff for his shoulder. The rod of the oppressor you
have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every Buddha, the tramping warrior in battle, tumult, and
every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the
fire. For to us a child is born, to us
the son is given, and the government shall be upon his
shoulder, and his name shall be called.
Wonderful Counselor, mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of
Peace, of the increase of His government and of peace, there
will be no end on the throne of David and over His Kingdom to
establish it and to uphold it with justice and with
righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of Host will do this.
To comma or not to comma, This is an esoteric biblical
question, but I think it's worth commenting here in verse 6, if
you have the scriptures available, can we get verse 6
up? If you have verse 6 on the
Scriptures in this passage that Jerry just read for us, you will
know that we have this idea that the sun is coming.
This is Isaiah's anticipation of the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And he says a son will be born
and we will call his name wonderful counselor, mighty God,
everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Now some of you will know that in the original language,
Hebrew, Hebrew doesn't use commas.
And so we kind of have to put them where we think that they
belong, etcetera. And there's a long standing
biblical question that about if there are four things, four
titles in Isaiah's mind or five. Is it wonderful counselor,
mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, That's four.
Or is it wonderful comma, counselor, comma, mighty God,
everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, five of them.
In other words, when Isaiah has this picture of the newborn
Jesus, when he sees Jesus coming with the excitement of that
Christmas morning that is working in Isaiah's heart 700
years before Christ was born, when Isaiah looks out and sees
Jesus, He wants us to join with him and see what a wonderful
counselor, Almighty God and everlasting Father, Prince of
Peace. He wants us to see the Lord that
way now. Does he want us to see Him?
Wonderful or as wonderful counselor, does he want us to
look at the Lord Jesus and say, wow, look, here is a here is a
counselor, a wise counselor that is wonderful and all that he
does Or does he want us to say, look at Jesus, he's wonderful,
look at Jesus, he's a counselor, look at Jesus.
Now does it matter? I don't know if it matters or
not, but it certainly helps, I hope redirect our thoughts and
our prayers. When we look at Jesus Christ, we
are looking at someone who is wonderful, somebody who's a
counselor, somebody who's Mighty God, Prince of Peace,
Everlasting Father. Structurally, just so that you
know, there's a little hint within the Hebrew itself that I
think if you have, if you think of it in terms of five different
titles, the center title, Mighty God jumps off this page at you.
That's a typical Hebrew trick and writing Hebrew scripture.
And so I kind of lean towards the five titles, but if you hold
the four, that's fine. The point is, how do we look at
Jesus that he is born? Well, Scripture also provides us
a summary name, something that encapsulates this idea of
everlasting Father, mighty God, Prince of Peace, wonderful
counselor. And that overarching name is
Emmanuel. Emmanuel, God with us.
Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel, let's sing together.
You may be seated. There shall come forth a shoot
from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear
fruit, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the
spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of
counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the
Lord. And his delight shall be in the
fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his
eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear, but with
righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for
the meek of the earth. And he shall strike the earth
with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he
shall kill the wicked. Righteousness shall be the belt
of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie
down with the young goat and the calf, and the lion and the
fatted calf together, and a little child shall lead them.
The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie
down together, and the lion shall lead straw like the ox.
The nursing child shall play over the whole of the cobra, and
the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the
earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the
waters cover the earth, the sea. Isaiah looks 700 years in the
future and he sees that first birth, that first Noel.
We're about to sing the first Noel together.
And if some of you will recognize, Noel comes from the
old, old French term for Noel, which means nativity, which
means the first birth, the first coming.
And so when we sing the first Noel, what we're talking about
is we're directing everybody's attention back to the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ, that first coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now, if you know the hymn,
you'll know that when we get to the chorus, we're going to sing
Noel a bunch of different times. No, Well, no.
Well, no. Well, no.
OK. And it's kind of like we're
going to sing it over and over again.
And you got to kind of think, well, now why are we doing that?
Poetically, I guess maybe it makes sense musically.
Maybe it makes sense not not knowing either of those things.
I'm not really sure. But we sing that line over and
over again. When you realize that what that
line means, Noel, Noel, it means he is born.
He is born. And so you can imagine a bunch
of people running around together looking each other in
the eye going he is born, he is born, he is born.
That's what we're doing when we sing Noel, Noel, Noel over and
over again. And Old French, we're saying he
is born. He is born.
Now the verses kind of step through the traditional
Christmas story. We talk about the angels coming,
we talk about the shepherds coming, we talk about the wise
men coming. And the point of each one of
those is Noel. They're all saying he is born.
He is born there with the excitement and enthusiasm.
And then you get to the last verse, which is now we're
supposed to join in that chorus and sing as well.
He is born. He is born.
So we're supposed to look at each other all the time.
And I don't want you to do this because that'd be weird.
But while we're singing this song, we're supposed to be
running around going he is born, He's born.
That kind of enthusiasm, that kind of excitement is supposed
to pour forth from us so that we can't really say anything else.
We're all just saying he is born.
Noel, Noel, let's stay seated and sing the first note.
In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a
city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin be tried to a man
whose name was Joseph of the House of David, and the virgin's
name was Mary. And he came to her and said,
Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you.
But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern
what sort of greeting this might be.
And the Angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you
have found favor with God, and behold, you will conceive in
your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father
David, and he will reign over the House of Jacob Forever, and
of his Kingdom there will be no end.
And Mary said to the Angel, How will this be, since I am a
virgin? And the Angel answered her, The
Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will over shadow you. Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has
also conceived a son, and this is the 6th month with her who
has, who was called barren? For nothing will be impossible
with God. And Mary said, Behold, I am the
servant of the Lord, let it be to me according to your word.
And the Angel departed from her. Do you know how preachers always
use rhetorical questions? That was funny.
That was supposed to be funny. You know how preachers always
use rhetorical questions? There you go.
Preachers always use rhetorical questions for the simple reason
that rhetorical questions evoke a kind of emotion.
They evoke something that words have a hard time describing.
Words can't articulate. Sometimes the things that you
use a rhetorical question in it and it kind of leads the leads
the congregation, the audience to go ahead and formulate their
own thoughts, the only ideas of these kind of things.
William Dix lived in the 1850s, was an insurance salesman and
was moderately successful at it. But he was having some very
strong difficulties in his life when he ran into a preacher of
the gospel who communicated the gospel message to him and late
in life turned his life around and he gave his life over to the
Lord. In response to that, Dix wrote
numerous poems and hymns, and one of them is one that we're
going to capture together here when we sing What Child Is this?
Now, what Dicks is saying is he's not asking a question.
He doesn't. He's not sure what childhood is.
What he's trying to do is capture the overwhelming awe,
the overwhelming excitement, the thrill of seeing Jesus Christ
born to this world, to see Christ come to this earth as God
himself. And so here we have the Dicks
saying, what child is this? And he asks a series of
questions. We're going to ask a series of
questions when we sing this hymn together, but all of the
questions are rhetorical, as we know the answer to them there is
intended to evoke that awe, wonder, amazement that captured
Dix's heart and I trust captures yours as well.
Let's remain seated together as we sing.
What child is it? In those days the decree went
out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be
registered. This was the first registration
when Kyrenius was governor of Syria and all went to be
registered, each to his own town.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee from the town of
Nazareth to Judea to the city of David, which is called
Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David to be
registered with Mary his betrothed, who was with child.
And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth,
and she gave birth to her first born son and wrapped him in
swabbing claws and laid him in a Manger because there was no
place for them in the inn. So first you have Christmas
gifts, then you have Christmas food, then you have Christmas
trauma when you try to make everything that you bought fit.
It's always a trauma for me because getting things to fit is
not what I necessarily enjoy doing.
Kelly buys me clothing and then we go through the afternoon of
saying, how do we make this fit on my body?
So the trauma is, of course, that I want something that looks
good, I want something that feels good, I want something
that is good quality, et cetera. That's kind of what I'm looking
for across the board. Nothing fits as well to the text
in which we've been reading than the song we're about to sing.
Angels we have heard on high. It fits.
Wonderfully, there's a wonderful pattern of what the song in
which we're about to sing which captures all the stories in
which we've been talking about. Now, most of them you're going
to be familiar with. Most of these steps that we're
going to take are things that you're going to be common
knowledge for you. But as I sit and I look at it,
it reminds me of some of the things in which we're saying
Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Now, many of you have sung those
words over and over again, and you've probably wondered what
they are, as maybe you've known them.
Glory to God in the highest and once again we step through that
the angels sing this, then the shepherds sing this, then the
wise men sing this and then we sing this all together.
Gloria in Excelsior's Deo glory to God in the highest and the
imagery is the line that the begins with angels we have heard
on high. By the way, the on high there
angels we have heard in heaven, angels we've ever heard in
heaven. And then you go to the shepherds
in the fields. Then you go to the wise men on
on distant lands. Then you come straight home to
us and say, just like all of those groups are saying glory to
God in the highest, so should we sing glory to God in the
highest. Let's stand and sing glory to
God. You may be seated, and in the
same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch
over their flock by night, and an Angel of the Lord appeared to
them, and the glory of the Lord shown around them, and they were
filled with great fear. And the Angel said to them, Fear
not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will
be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in
the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord, and this
will be a sign for you. You will find a baby wrapped in
swathing claws and lying in a Manger.
And suddenly there was with the Angel a multitude of the
heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the
highest, and an earth peace among those with whom he is
pleased. When the angels went away from
them into heaven, the shepherd said to one another, Let us go
over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which
the Lord has made known to us. And they went with haste, and
found Mary and Joseph and the Babe lying in a Manger.
The hymn Angels from the Realms of Glory, The realms of Glory is
obviously heaven. You may never have thought about
that. It took me to studying the hymn
to realize that's what was happening.
Angels in the realms of Glory, in the realms of glory in
heaven. They are proclaiming this, and
then the shepherds are proclaiming this, and the wise
men are proclaiming this. And what are they all
proclaiming? They are all proclaiming what?
We're going to sing here a few minutes.
Come and worship. Two things.
Come and worship. Now the idea of come is what?
What that's we're talking to each other, we're looking at
each other. You're looking at your
neighbors, you're looking at your family members, you're
looking at the people that you work with.
You're looking at the folks that you come in contact with all the
time. And you're saying, come, if
there's every time where you can say come, it is Christmas time.
It is a time where people associate with church to where
they associate with Jesus Christ.
If you've got somebody in your mind and you need to have
somebody in your mind that you want to be able to say to them,
come, let's worship together, this is the perfect time to do
it. But it's not just come, it's
come and worship. Come and gather together in
worship. That's what we do.
When we gather together and we praise the Lord, we are
worshiping him. We also do that through our
prayers. We urge you to be spending time
praying this this break with your family, with your friends,
with those you gather with. We ask that you would read the
scriptures with with together, for this is how we worship the
Lord together. We also worship the Lord by
giving of ourselves. There are immense needs out
there for us to meet each and every one of them.
So seek the ways in which you can worship the Lord faithfully.
Come and worship angels. We angels from the realms of
glory. Let's stand and worship, and as
we do, the ushers will come through and collect our offer
offerings as well. Let's pray for the offering.
Lord, we do ask for your blessing upon the gifts in which
we give. We ask, Lord, that you use it
for the furthering of your Kingdom, so that collectively we
would join the angels in the realms of glory and all of the
Christmas characters by coming along one side of another and
saying, come, let us worship Him.
Come, let us worship Him. Amen.
You may be seated now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of
Judea, in the days of Herod the King, behold, wise men from the
East came to Jerusalem, saying, Where is he who has been born
King of the Jews? For we saw his star when it
rose, and have come to worship him.
When Herod heard the King. When Herod the King heard this,
he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, and
assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he
inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.
They told him in Bethlehem of Judea.
For so it is written by the prophet.
And you, O Bethlehem in the land of Judea, are by no means least
among the rulers of Judah. For from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.
Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from
them what time the star had appeared.
And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, Go and search diligently
for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word that I
too may come and worship him. After listening to the King,
they went on their way, and behold, the star that they had
seen when it rose, went before them, until it came to rest over
the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they
rejoiced exceedingly with great joy, And going into the house
they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and
worshipped him. Then opening their treasures,
they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.
There's so many characters in the Christmas story that we
could emulate. Of course we should emulate the
angels. I've already mentioned that we
need to go around saying Noel, Noel to everybody.
We can emulate the shepherds who go and see what is taking place.
But the imagery that often comes to mind is emulating is
following the example of the wise men.
Wise men still seek him is a catch phrase, and I believe it.
Wise men following after the wise men is an appropriate
model, something we should learn, something that we can
pick up when we follow the Christmas story.
But if we focus too much on following the wise men, we will
miss the point. We're about to sing Oh come All
Ye Faithful. And the idea of following those
who are faithful, Oh come All Ye Faithful.
The emphasis is not on what the faithful are doing, but sorry,
not on on who the faithful are, but on what they are doing.
We are going to adore him. That's what all of the biblical
characters were driven to do, to adore him.
That's what we need to be doing as well, to come.
Let us adore him together. Let's sing, O Come all ye faith.
May be seated in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was
with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with
God. All things were made through
Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has
not overcome it. There was a man sent from God,
whose name was John. He came as a witness to bear
witness about the light that all might believe through Him.
He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming
into the world. He was in the world, and the
world was made through Him. Yet the world did not know Him.
He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him, but
to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave
the right to become children of God who were born not of blood,
not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. And the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only
Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
We end, of course, where we should, with joy to the world.
Joy to the world. And yet, as you go through the
hymn, you'll notice that we're doing two different things.
We are saying joy to the world. God has come to earth and has
brought joy, joy to the world. But we are also capturing the
image that because Christ has come to this world, the world
itself is full of joy. It is the joy of the world.
Let's stand together as we close out our time together singing
Noel. Noel, he is born, Amen.
Let us go from this place so that we can tell others to come.
Let us adore him together. Amen.