Psalm 98

So we study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and we've got some extra copies.

If you didn't bring one and you'd like one to follow along, if you'll just raise your hand up real high, somebody will drop one off at your uh your row, your aisle there, and uh hopefully you'll be able to to follow along.

Let's see if I can make this work.

There we go, everything's working.

As uh you've heard today is uh what we call stir up Sunday around here.

Um it uh wasn't always called that.

Um uh back in uh uh 1925, actually, uh Pope uh uh Pius XI uh called it Christ the King Sunday.

A third option is if you were part of the Lutheran Church of Sweden until 1983, there it was referred to as the Sunday of Doom.

Okay, so we have any of those Lutherans here.

Okay.

Actually, uh I'd like I'd like to I know that sort of it was sort of left it hanging a little bit, but there's actually the focus was on the return of Christ and the final judgment, which is actually really good news.

Okay, so so the fact that they branded that is probably just a bad branding choice, but as we call it branding in our own day and time, right?

So uh but but still the idea that Christ is coming back, and that the idea is that when Christ comes back, he intends to set things right.

No more disease, no more death, no more dying, no more despair, no more, no more tears, no more sorrow.

I'm all for that, man.

That that that's good news.

I I'd be in on that kind of renewal, and so I'm really glad uh that that is it.

There are a lot of folks, I think, that only think of the judgment of God as sort of a punitive, you know, uh uh um lashing for everybody's done things bad, sort of the Santa Claus mindset.

Uh but but his judgment being righteous means he intends to set things right that are not right now.

And that's it, that that's a bit of good news uh as far as I'm concerned.

Now, in our day and time, uh when we get to this holiday season, most of you know this because it started in July already.

I think I think it wasn't in July, some of the stores were doing stuff, and it, you know, we hadn't even gotten to school or anything yet.

But uh we're a little more shallow and uh you know in our in our sort of culture and stuff like that.

And a lot of times uh some of us will go get the crazy sweater thing and sometimes do it as a family.

I like the way this family looks.

It's sort of it sort of uh depicts the way some people approach the some people are just hey, and other people are kind of and other people are like you know, totally grumpy and totally don't want to have a part in the whole thing at all.

Um it's sort of uh a way people uh I I think it does kind of suggest a way that people approach the season.

One thing though that is true for us is, and and I love I love being a Christian in a world that has sort of uh uh got echoes of or hints of, uh they like to sort of borrow from tradition and the religious traditions, especially around this holiday season.

Like I at this church you'll never hear anybody say, you know, that you that you shouldn't put up a Christmas tree, or you you shouldn't, you you know, you shouldn't burn some candles, or or that if you we're not gonna, we're not the people that are gonna go, well, you know, if you scramble the letters to the word Santa, you can spell Satan really fast.

We're not that doesn't bother us around here, okay?

We we're okay with the holiday as as hallmark and as the as a sort of the culture.

But what's great news for us is that there's something more.

See, it's it's not merely humanistic uh romanticism about uh a sort of uh you know some some kind of a contrived uh holiday.

It's not just that, and for some people it ends up being that, but we actually have a message of hope that will endure the incursion of suffering.

We actually have a message of hope that can handle the darkness that might be all around us.

And and the the one thing I was reading a bunch of different theologians, and this one particular theologian that I enjoy reading, Fleming Rutledge, she says, Advent begins in the dark.

And and and the Lord God sovereignly chose to come to a rebellious planet that was in darkness on its own, turned its back on God, and still chose to come, and that's really good news.

See?

Because when you're in the darkness, uh it doesn't help for somebody to just turn to you and say, Well, just look inside yourself when there's nothing inside of yourself.

It doesn't help for me to be told that sort of thing.

Look in look to the light inside of you.

The light's not inside of me.

The problem is the darkness is inside of me.

And what I need is some outside light to break into my inside darkness.

And that's that's why I think the Bible keeps making more and more sense to me is because the darkness that I see around the world is is actually a darkness that I also see right in here, my own heart.

It's easy to see it in somebody else's, and well, that if we could only fix that, then everything would be better.

But no, no, no.

The problem is the problem is that humanity is it's right in here and in here.

We got this thing inside of it.

And we what we need is outside light that will help us, and that outside light is coming to us in the person that we celebrate his birth.

We listen, we haven't got a clue on what day uh Jesus was born.

We really don't.

You know, we say, angels, we have heard and I sweetly singing or the plants.

If they were singing and the shepherds were out there feeding their sheep by night, it probab might not have been December.

I hope that's not if somebody, nobody's going home weeping today because I said that, are you?

It might have been, it might have been in April.

We don't know.

But the point isn't when, the point is that it's that he came.

That that in spite of the fact that we lay in darkness, as the songs say, that we lie, the world lay in darkness, in spite of that, he came because of his kindness and his grace and his mercy.

And that's why it's news of great joy for us.

That's why we're excited about it.

And yeah, you know, wear the sweaters, have a great time, all that sort of thing.

It's awesome.

Uh, the crazier your sweater, the better, as far as I'm concerned.

But know this, as Keller says, Christmas, like God Himself, is both more wondrous and more threatening than we imagine.

Yeah.

It's more, it's it's why you keep reading about this, uh, the couplet, like you know, when when the when the women ran from the empty tomb when Christ was risen, they ran with fear and trembling both.

And it's that combination of joy and trembling that now you know you got now you now you know you you're you're talking about a real God.

And not just not just a sort of contrived consumer, or and again, nothing wrong with divine presence and all that, I'm totally in on all that stuff.

But when it comes down to our relationship with God, and is this really good news, and can it endure the incursion of suffering, and can it also bring hope to people who are chronically disappointed, struggling with addiction, overpowered, overshadowed, and overpowered by the darkness in the culture around us.

Is there is there an answer to that that we're celebrating on Stirrup Sunday and as we get into the Advent?

And I would say yes or yes.

So we're gonna we're gonna go with Stirrup Sunday, Joyful Christ the King Sunday.

I love all of that.

And we're gonna look at Psalm 98, and I want if you'll turn there with me, that'd be awesome.

Psalms is in the middle of your Bible.

I love this uh songbook, the ancient song book.

Um I'll remind you that when we study the Psalms, uh every human emotion is on display in the book of Psalms.

150 ancient songs, about half of them written by King David, the guy that we've been studying in 2 Samuel.

About 150 of them total, about 75 of them written by him, uh, because these superscriptions attribute uh the song to him.

Uh some others uh wrote some of the other ones, and this one, Psalm 98, it's not attributed to anybody in particular, so we don't really know.

It seems to be uh after some kind of a victory, and they're giving praise and glory to God, and it's a really powerful uh Psalm, Psalm 98, cantate domino.

It's it's uh oh sing to the Lord is is the is the summons, and it's really awesome.

Um I love it for this time of year.

I'll remind you that the psalms stir the emotions, so every human emotion is there, and every human emotion will be stirred by some psalm at some point as you read through them.

I am the kind of guy that needs help with my emotions.

You may or may not be that way.

Um I tend to be sort of analytical, theoretical, and sort of emotion, sort of flat like this.

What I need the Psalms to do for me, they really do really well.

Um they not only speak to me, as one of the ancient church fathers said, they not only speak to me, they speak for me.

So they give me, they give me words to express how I feel, but it's so deep down, I need it to speak for me.

Maybe you're like that, I don't know.

Maybe maybe for you, it you're you can wear all of that right on your right on your sleeve, and that's fine.

We're all wired differently, but I love the Psalms for the fact that they stir the emotions, inform the mind, uh, direct the will, and and that's really good because our wills need directing.

I know it's it's that's kind of a no-brainer, right?

Um stimulate the imagination, which is great because when you can imagine what Psalm 98 says, if you can start to imagine this, the way he says this, and it is ancient Hebrew poetry, by the way.

So when he says the rivers clap their hands, don't be stuck in the mud like me, be all literal, and say, wait a minute, rivers don't have any hands.

You're supposed to kind of get the point that there's there's something being said by these rivers and these seas that roar, that's more than just a literal clapping of hands.

That it's pointing, these rivers and these sea, it's all pointing to something much greater than itself, even though it's great, it's fast.

I love the ocean.

Uh and then they inspire worship, which is really ultimately where the Psalms lead us, is that we start to see, oh my goodness, this this God who created everything, this God who is sovereign over everything, this God who has come in pursuit of a people he can call his own.

Wow.

Now we start to get a picture of who he is as he reveals himself to us, not just as we imagine him to be, but as he reveals himself to us.

Now we start to bow before him in worship and praising him.

I'm gonna put it up on the screen.

We're gonna read it aloud together.

I know you got your Bibles and and and you you could you could read them out of that if you'd like to, but I'll post it on the screen.

I just want to make a couple comments with each of the three sections.

There's nine verses, breaks very nicely into three sections.

And um, would you read this first section with me, please?

Sing to the Lord a new song.

For he has done marvelous things.

His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.

The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nation.

I love this.

Uh I'm gonna put in a minute, I'll put the other, the last little bit of verses one through three up there as well.

Uh but I love this is the first of three commands that we're gonna get in the three sections.

We're gonna be told to sing, then we're gonna be told to shout.

And if that unsettles you in some way, because you were raised, frozen, chosen, please hang in there because the third one's really gonna give you a bumpy ride.

Roar! Okay, there's gonna be a lot of people roaring at the Titan Stadium today.

I'm telling you, they are.

Uh but and we roar about a lot of stuff.

We get mad about stuff and we roar.

How many of you roared on the highway in the last week?

Anybody?

Confession's good for the soul.

Yeah.

God bless you.

Thank you.

We're gonna form a support group afterwards.

But sing, shout, and roar.

Sing the most often heard positive command in the Bible throughout the Bible.

What's the most often heard negative command of the Bible?

Thou do not what?

Fear.

Right.

Do not fear.

So we have do not fear and do not fear and sing together.

It's do not fear to sing.

Alright?

So I'm gonna put them together just because I think those are the most often repeated commands in scripture, and I think they're really, really healthy for us to hear those over and over again.

Um sometimes, you know, I remember when we first started the church, uh, we met in the hotel over here, with about 20, 25, 30 of us at one point, and we had a guy leading worship, and he was like trying to get us to express ourselves a little bit more.

And uh, and one of the folks from in the church said, because he was like, Come on, everybody, clap! Or come on, everybody, whatever.

And and nobody was doing anything, nobody was doing any of it.

And uh one of our one of our friends, one of our uh people that was helped start the church with us, said, Doesn't he know that we're not a singing or clapping group?

Doesn't he know that we are not a standing group?

We don't, you know, pretty much kind of a harumphy group is what we were.

You know, kind of the the church curmudgeon kind of and uh look, I get it when you don't know the song and you're still trying to learn this song.

I get that.

But there's something about singing.

If you if you guys know the the the Geddies that come here, they have the book on sing.

They talk about how we're we're commanded to sing, we're created to sing, we're compelled to sing, and all of that is really true.

That's a great read.

You gotta you gotta get a hold of that if you want to study uh congregational singing and church worship and all that sort of thing.

It's really important.

There's some result, there's some impact that this all has on you, but uh before all of that, here's what I want to say: the God who is, the God who exists, deserves to be worshiped.

And we were designed to do this.

And so if you've been kind of wondering what's the meaning of life, what's the purpose of life, what am I supposed to do, why am I here?

You know, well, you were designed, actually, to be a worshiper.

And you're all we're all worshiping something.

We we've all got something at the center.

We all think and hope in something.

We all put our put our weight down on something, find our identity in something.

What is that thing?

And I would like to suggest, as we uh study through books of the Bible here, that over and over and over again we're being taught just for this short time we're together, even though out there in the world in which you live, you have lots of time to hear mess messages to the contrary.

Here, you're gonna continue to hear that God created you, that God created you in his image, and that God calls you, summons you to actually sing to him, to praise him, to delight in him.

And that it's part of what you're designed to do and part of what he's calling us, summoning us to do.

So it's and the summons, I like that word so much better because it's uh it it's a it's like it's awakening us.

It's if may I borrow it for this week, it's stirring us up.

Okay?

Stir us up.

Sing to the Lord a new song.

He's done marvelous things.

The word marvelous could be translated wonderful, and I love that.

Uh both of those words are wonderful and marvelous.

Um his right hand and his holy arm, does God have a right hand and a holy arm?

Is is uh is this just a human sort of, you know, are we just sort of personifying God in some way that's human?

We might be, I don't know, but this is the way God's revealed himself.

Uh and it's probably because he wants us to get it, that he can do stuff.

Okay?

So if he were to say some some other way with some terms that we don't understand at all, we wouldn't get it.

But he uses terms that we're familiar with and describing things that we actually have ourselves so that we can know that God is really powerful, that God can actually take action inside of his creation.

And he's worked, what has he done?

He's worked salvation for himself, because it's ultimately for his glory, that he has called to himself a people who he can call his own.

The Lord has made his salvation known.

So not only has God made salvation and put it on order on offer, but he's actually made it known.

It's not like you're you built your house on a huge oil field and you just don't even know that you're sitting on oil.

God has actually said, hey, you're sitting on oil.

You know, you it's right below, it's there, it's on offer, you know?

And he's made it known and revealed his righteousness to all of the nations, which is really powerful.

Read the last verse of the first three with me.

He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of Israel.

All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

There it is.

Okay?

God remembers.

That's another one of those things that describes God very often in Scripture.

He's a remembering God.

He remembers things really well.

And he's faithful.

I love that characteristic of our God.

I often begin my own prayer time and public prayers with God, we thank you for your faithfulness.

Um, help us to be faithful like you are, faithful to you, faithful to each other, faithful to your word, faithful to your calling us and sending us out.

And it's beautiful because all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

In other words, it's everywhere, it's manifest, it's obvious.

It's not a secret.

God didn't do this in secret.

God has put this all out so everyone can see it.

The second section of the psalm is also powerful and beautiful, and it's really wonderful.

Read this aloud with me if you would.

Shout for joy to the Lord.

Oh, we gotta, you cannot say that word that way.

Now, I didn't like stop on sing and have you do a little sing thing.

And this is not just a pep rally.

Um, please understand, this is not just, you know, sort of holiday romanticism or sentimentalism.

Uh, but our God has called us and summoned us to an exuberant, exhilarating form of worship.

So sing, and let's read this again.

Ready?

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth burst into jubilant song with music.

Make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp, and the sound of singing, with trumpets, and the blasts of the ram's horn, shout for joy before the Lord the King.

Now, some of you, you know, you're kind of going, man, that is the first time I have ever shouted.

Oh, except at my kids, or except except at my spouse, or except at my neighbor, or except at the person on I 65, and on and on it goes.

But um, and while those may be negative forms of shouting, this is actually supposed to be, oh, this is actually supposed to be overwhelmed and delighted with who he is.

To the point where you just can't keep it quiet, as the little kids Sunday school says, I just can't keep it quiet.

It's bubbling, bubbling, bubbling in my soul.

Nobody went to Sunday school, evidently.

Nobody here did.

All right.

So, but that's it.

Shout for joy to the Lord, not shout for joy to my work, not shout for joy to my pleasure, not shout for joy to I looked in within myself, but shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

And so it's interesting he moves from in verses one through three, sort of a personal thing.

Now he's moving to all the earth, calling the whole earth, all of the people.

And I love this beautiful.

This is so fulfilled.

We get to the book of Revelation.

Someday we're going to study that here in this church.

But you get to the book of Revelation, what you see is this image of the heavenly worship in the throne room of God.

Every tribe and tongue, people from every nation, you know, all the earth, people represented from all the earth, worshiping the Lord, bursting into a jubilant song with music.

And he he's got the harp there, he's got the he's he's got the trumpets, uh, you know, and those ancient instruments.

Just, you know, bring whatever you play, bring it, you know.

Uh I loved our hymn sing.

I don't know if how many of you were here for our hymn sing, for the advent hymn singing bunch of you were.

Yeah.

So so the guy on the piano, you know, Jeff, Jeff Taylor, awesome guy, plays an accordion, he plays keyboards and all that sort of thing.

Did you see at one point he started playing the spoons?

I was so that was awesome.

I give what you got, bring what you got, and and and play it.

Bring it to exalt the Lord, to lift up the Lord.

The blast of the ram's horn, shout for joy before the Lord.

And then notice this image of him.

Um, he's the king.

See, in verse 1, 2, and 3, we have the same word used to just there's a there's a there's a dominant word in verses 1, 2, and 3, which I didn't point out when we read it, but it's salvation.

And in verses 2 and 3, it's actually the Hebrew word Yeshua.

From that Hebrew word, what we get is the Greek name of the one we worship and follow, and the one who we are disciples of.

His name is Jesus.

Yeshua.

See?

And so it's so awesome to see how Psalm 98 is fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus.

He is God's salvation brought to us.

I need that.

You need that.

So he's our wonderful Savior, and here in the second section, he's our mighty king.

And these are these are really beautiful images.

Again, this poetry designed to help us see from many different perspectives the wonders of his love, the beauty and majesty of who he is.

And this is the last section.

Let's read this together.

Let the sea roar and everything in it, the world and all who live in it.

Let the rivers clap their hands, let the mountains sing together for joy.

Let them sing before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity.

And again, I this this this I want to remind you that the judgment of God is not merely punitive, although he intends to eradicate evil, trust me.

And I'm again I'm glad.

There's no one who has the right to do that except a holy and righteous Almighty God.

Because the rest of us, we don't know how to, we can't bear the weight of managing that kind of judgment, that kind of task.

Only a Savior and a king who is righteous can actually judge with equity and fairness and righteousness, okay?

So that's that's beautiful.

In Christ, we have all of this together.

And so we sing to him and we shout to him, and then all of see, he's moved from the first three verses, the personal, the second three set of three verses, to all nations.

Now it's all creation.

Let the sea roar.

Let everything in the world and all who live in it.

Let the rivers, let the mountains, uh, let them all come and shh and roar before the Lord, you know.

Uh like I said, that there's going to be some roaring in town.

We roar over things that we will forget in 20 minutes.

You know, I I I don't I'm sure there's somebody in the room that remembers who won the Super Bowl five years ago, but most of us have forgotten.

And yet to watch any of those kinds of sporting events is to is to watch people whose very lives.

I mean, they've painted their face blue and red.

I mean, I mean, these people really care about this.

It's the end of the world if they lose.

And if there was a bad call, they get up and they're angry and they're cursing at the referee, calling him all kinds of names.

You know?

And it's it's as if all of reality is at stake on this, whether that was a catch or whether he was out of bounds or not.

And uh again, I'm gonna go home and watch some games today.

It's not a problem.

Just keep it in perspective.

All right?

That's all I'm asking.

That's all I'm trying to nudge you toward.

This is not guilt and sham time.

This is actually just turn on the lights and let's look at this time.

And let's look at see what is it that causes us to sing, to shout, and to roar.

And do we ever come to the place where the eternal is considered?

Where the God of all heavens, in whom in whose image we were actually each created, each and every person, whether you're a believer or not, you were actually created in the image of God.

And the reason we're chronically dissatisfied and chronically longing is because we don't know him and we need to know him.

And he's made that possible.

That's the good news.

He's made that possible in the person and work of Christ.

While we were in our darkness, and he came into the he, the light of the world, came to us.

Um, here he is, wonderful savior.

Here he is, mighty King.

Here he is, righteous judge.

There's the basis for our Advent hope this year and every year.

This is the reason we can live lives that can actually endure the incursion of suffering.

This is the reason we can live lives that have a completely inexhaustible hope, even in the face of death.

Why?

Because our hope is not in ourselves, our hope is not in our job, our hope is not in our pleasure, our hope is not in money, our hope is in something eternal, someone eternal, I should say, and someone who's actually shown us that he has the power over death itself, our last and greatest enemy.

And so we hope in him.

We place our hope and our confidence and our faith in him.

He's the Lord who remembers and saves, he's the rightful sovereign of all nations, the the mighty king, he's the righteous judge who will be the one to have the last word no matter what.

And that's why we place our hope and our confidence in him because of who he is.

Now, I want to I want to say this.

Look on the screen there.

The Bible teaches this.

You get to pick who the first two will be.

Okay?

You and what I would say to you is this choose well.

Sorry.

Chip, did that get you?

All right, you get to pick the first two wonderful savior and mighty king.

Who's gonna be your wonderful savior?

Who's gonna be your mighty king?

And and I don't just mean at the end of all time.

How about right now?

Because right now, some something or somebody's your king.

It might be you.

Oh my goodness, that's exhausting.

I mean, isn't it hard?

Isn't it exhausting to try to be king of the world?

Somebody say amen.

This is a difficult job.

I mean, I have trouble being the uh king of my bicycle, you know, much less anything else, you know.

Um you don't get to this this may offend some of you in the world in which we live, but we don't get to choose number three.

See?

So this I'm just telling you what the Bible teaches, okay?

The Bible teaches us that one day we will all come before God and have to give an account of our lives.

The great news is this is why I love Advent and Christmas and all that sort of thing.

The big story, the giant story, the huge story, is that Christ came into this dark world so that I don't stand, I have to stand before God at the end of all time, give an account of myself and say, Well, I was I was I I I tithed 2.9% to village chapel, and then I and then I went on a missions trip.

Oh man, look at that.

And I I was really nice to you know some animals, and I I did a lot of things.

I don't have to do, I don't have to balance out the scales.

There's no scales when it comes to grace.

See?

What I need is not scales, I need a c a cross.

A Savior who died for my sins, paid the price for my sins.

Now I can place my hope and confidence in him at the end of all time.

I stand before God to give an account of my life and I say, I got nothing.

But Jesus, he took my sin.

Jesus, he paid the price for my sin in full, past, present, and future, and I'm hoping and trusting, and I'm confident in him.

And that's the difference between the Christian faith and every other faith.

I mean, it's we're not balancing out scales here.

We're simply we we come to the table with nothing.

We just go, I got nothing.

Uh what I need is grace.

I don't need karma.

I wreck karma, I ruin karma completely.

I fail at karma.

I don't need Jesus as an example, I need Jesus as a savior.

He's the best example there ever was, no question.

But I need him as a savior, not just an example to follow.

Um, because I'm not good at following.

I'm inconsistent at best.

I love the way Stott put it about Jesus.

He says, in no other person but the historic Jesus of Nazareth has God become man, lived a human life on earth, died to bear the penalty of our sins, and been raised from death and exalted to glory.

There's no other savior, for there's no other person who's qualified to save.

You see, Psalm 98 really points us to this, that God's the one that can do it.

God's the only one that can actually ultimately save us.

And Jesus said all those Psalms there are about him.

He actually made that claim.

You can't just say Jesus was a nice guy.

He's either a nut job, or he really is the Son of God.

He's either a megalomaniac who thinks it's all about him, or if it really is all about him, he's the Lord Himself.

And we can trust him.

And I choose the latter.

I choose to believe the latter about him.

I believe he really did do all of this, and he did all of this, motivated by his great love for sinners like me, sinners like you, wonderful Savior, mighty King.

Now, some people say, yeah, well, the biggest problem I have with Christian faith with the gospel is that there's just one way.

How come there's only one way?

And I've said this before here, I'll keep saying it.

I don't think of it that way myself.

I think of it this way.

Why is there even one way?

What claim do we have on God that He has to give us one way?

And I find the people that always say that kind of thing, why does it have to be one way?

Typically, if there were a hundred ways, they would say, Why does there only have to be one hundred ways?

If there were two hundred ways, they would say, Why why is there why are there only two hundred ways?

And what they're really saying is, I want my way.

And I want God on my terms.

And I'd be guilty of that as well, if I didn't bow before this God and just gratefully receive the one way he offers.

Listen, if there was, you know, I don't know how many, how many of you had respiratory issues in the last month?

Anybody out coughing colds, whatever that's all.

If there was one cure for the common cold and it was a tiny little, you know, red pill, and the doctor said to you, take that red pill, your cold will go away.

How many of you are gonna go to the doc?

I'm not interested.

There's only one pill, not doing it.

We don't do that.

We don't do that.

Why would we do that with this?

Take offense?

That we can't have God on our own terms is really what we're offended at.

And yet here's God, he's saying, You can't do this on your own.

I'm gonna break into your darkness.

I'm gonna bring the light and the light of the gospel of hope, the light of the gospel of grace, and he breaks through to all of us in the personal work of Jesus.

Notice the scope of his kingdom, all of creation in Psalm 98.

Notice the right that God has to be king.

He's the creator.

So he didn't just come in and seize it or take it by violence.

He's the creator by right of creation.

He owns everything.

And yet here we are down here going, no, you don't, you don't know me.

You can't tell me what to do.

I was talking with somebody this week, and we were talking about the biggest problem we all have in the world is that we want to be God ourselves.

We want to have the last word, we want to be the one.

And we get tripped up all the time when God speaks, when God is God.

And we that's what we're really saying ultimately is we don't want him to be God.

We want to be God.

And that indeed is the basic problem of sin.

So God has the right to be our king, just he's he is the creator.

It's all his.

The nature of his kingship is righteousness with equity.

I love that.

Psalm 98 teaches us that.

The nature of God's kingdom and his reign is that he reigns with righteousness.

Oh, we've all, every single person on the planet, everybody in this room for sure, we've all experienced some kind of a failure in leadership.

Could have been in school, could have been in politics, could have been in church, whatever.

Every single one of us knows what it's like when a leader fails.

Us.

And yet here is God revealing himself as the wonderful Savior, the mighty king, and the righteous judge.

The one we can count on, the one we can trust who will have the last word.

The duration of his kingdom and his kingship is for all eternity.

That's good news.

Max Licato is a pastor, and one of my favorite books around Advent time and around Christmas time is to read God Came Near.

I've read it multiple times.

He's a good storyteller, is what he is.

He's just one uh one glimpse of the king, and you're consumed by a desire to see more of him and to say more about him.

That's so true.

Pew warming is no longer an option.

Junk religion will no longer suffice.

Sensation seeking is needless.

Once you have seen his face, you will forever long to see it again and again and again and again and again.

See?

So true.

It leaves no room for nominal Christianity.

You hear people talking all the time about all the people leaving the church.

Well, you know, maybe that's the case.

I think what's happening is that nominal Christians are leaving the church.

The people that really don't mean it.

For them, it was just a social club to begin with.

And so with the you know, with the cultural pressures on it, they think, yeah, this isn't worth it.

I'm out of here.

And yet I think the people who take it seriously, who take this gospel, this good news seriously, you start to see him in all its beauty and magic, you start to see that he actually loves you, sinner though you are, and all of a sudden you start going, this is exactly the savior, the king, and the judge that I need, that I want.

He really is the one we need.

Look no further.

I love the way these two guys, I follow these guys on Twitter.

I and I I couldn't find out much about him, but I thought I thought this was well said.

The creator creatively became the created to recreate his creation.

Isn't that awesome?

Let me read it slowly again because some of you need to let it sink in a little bit better.

What happened at the incarnation?

What happened at Christmas?

The creator creatively became the created to recreate his creation.

He broke in so that we might have the possibility of being recreated.

The Christian faith is described throughout the New Testament in different ways.

It's taught you know the the language is things like born again, new creations in Christ.

It's not just a tune-up of an engine, it's a complete engine replacement.

See?

And that's the beauty of the gospel, and that's the beauty of this new life that we find in Christ Jesus.

I'll close with this little anecdote.

Uh Stutter Kennedy was an English Anglican priest and poet.

He was nicknamed Woodbine Willie.

I don't know if you had any.

I might have told this story before if you're if you've heard it before, I'm sorry.

But during World War I, uh he he used to, he was a chaplain and he used to go from foxhole to foxhole out on the battlefield.

And he would jump down the foxhole, especially where there was a wounded soldier.

He would jump down to the foxhole, he would pray with them, had his little New Testament with he'd read his New Testament with them, and then he had a pack of woodbine cigarettes and he'd give them their final smoke.

You know.

So they called him Woodbine Willie.

But he really wanted to bring the gospel to these people sitting on the precipice of perhaps the end of their lives.

These people sitting in a place where all of their life is passing before them, they don't understand what's going on, perhaps they they see their life ebbing uh coming to an end.

And he used to say this if I am a son of God, nothing but God will satisfy my soul.

No amount of comfort, no amount of ease, no amount of pleasure will give me peace or rest.

If I had the full cup of all the world's joys held up to me and could drain it to the dregs, I should still remain thirsty if I had not God.

Stir up Sunday.

I'll stir you up.

We're getting ready for Advent next week.

The first Advent began in darkness.

Um the light of the world broke into the darkness.

And we'll be celebrating that for four weeks running.

We'll be talking about the Christmas story as it's as it's uh reflected in all the way across the narrative of Scripture, the grand narrative of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

We're gonna fly over real fast, but each of those four uh sections of the grand narrative of scripture, the the creation, the fall, redemption, and the restoration of all things.

And we're gonna talk about each one of those things in the coming four weeks, and I'm really excited about doing it all.

And I hope that you'll be thinking and praying about those folks that need to hear that in your own life, whether it's your work world, your family, or your neighborhood.

The incarnation is about a relentlessly intrusive and invasive God.

He will not leave us alone.

He's in pursuit of a people he can call his own.

And he burst into his own creation, coming after his wayward and rebellious people with rescue and salvation.

He came for you, he came for me.

And on that first night when the angels sang, the shepherds ran, and the wise men began a search.

What a great, what great images for all of us.

It's time to sing, it's time to shout.

Yeah.

And it's time to roar.

It may not be getting up in people's grill and getting up in their face and all that sort of thing.

But it sure doesn't mean stay silent.

It sure doesn't mean be all harumphy and curmudgeon-like.

Catch a sight of who he is this advent season.

Um, allow your heart to begin to sing Joy to the World again.

I'm gonna ask the band to come up.

Um it's been 300 years, actually, since Isaac Watts was inspired to write Joy to the World.

And guess which psalm inspired Joy to the World?

Psalm 98, the one that we just studied this morning.

By most reckonings, it's become the most published carol in North American history.

Um he was an 18th-century English uh pastor, author of about uh 60 theological and philosophical books and about 700 different hymns.

We sing some of his other hymns, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, O God, our help uh in ages past, and of course, joy of the world, uh, which was first published in 1719.

He didn't originally intend for it to be just a Christmas carol, but rather about the future second return of Christ.

And that's the beauty of Advent, uh, as we as we shared uh together uh with our Advent hymn sing.

Advent is about a uh uh reflection and an anticipation.

We reflect back on the first appearing or the first Advent of Jesus, but we look forward to with anticipation his second appearing as well, when he intends to fulfill all of these promises and to set things right.

The ancient Psalm, Psalm 98, inspired this song that we call Joy to the World.

It proclaims and rejoices in the God who's come, in the person and work of Christ, uh, who is our wonderful Savior, the mighty King, and the righteous judge.

Let's sing it again.