Lessons and Carols

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.