Hope + Christmas Carols

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Thank you guys. If you want, you can turn in your Bibles to Psalm 33. Great school parents, we are doing things a little bit more fast forward today, and so now's the time for you guys to go back into grade school. Sometimes we're gonna surprise you. Sorry guys, it's gonna happen. This is the season of Advent at South Burleson, and this is a season of renewal. In this season, we explore things like hope, joy, peace, love, today we look at hope. And what we wanna do this Christmas season is we don't wanna just look at hope and love and peace and joy just kind of as concepts. We really wanna help, we really wanna connect those things to a lot of the Christmas traditions that we already have. And so today, we're gonna talk about hope and Christmas carols, okay? We just sang two of them. We just sang Joy to the World, and oh come, let us adore him. I want you to think about the last time

that you heard a really great song for the first time, okay? Really great song for the first time. I want you to think about it. For me, those songs happen when I'm watching a TV show and there's a soundtrack in the back, and I'm like, ooh, that song, that song's a little different. I like that song, and it's like this wonderful feeling. I was watching The Good Doctor the other day, and there's this song that came on called Rivers and Roads by the head and the heart. I would recommend the song, it's absolutely fantastic. But I'd never heard it before, and as I'm sitting there, as I'm kind of drinking in that song, listening to the lyrics, feeling every note, it was blissful. There's something glorious, something good, something kind of foundationally satisfying about hearing a great song for the very first time. It's like eating a new dish at a restaurant, something that you haven't ever tried before,

or it's like making a new friendship that is kind of unexpectedly great, okay? This is like a first date, okay? There's this high that comes with it. There's this really great feeling. You and I, and everybody else that's ever been created, we are created with the desire to discover new ways to do the same thing. You and I are created with the need to discover new ways to say the same thing. This is why our language, the English language, and any other language that has existed on the earth continues to develop over time. Did you know last year, and really each year for the last couple of decades, Merriam-Webster has added over 200 words each year to the dictionary, each year. That's a lot of words. And look, we didn't get 200 new things to explain, okay? So just kind of see that disparity there. The president of Merriam-Webster says, the one constant of a living, vibrant language is change.

We continuously encounter new ways of describing the world around us, and the dictionary is a record of those changes. So we used to say, and some of you still do, but we used to say, stop and smell the roses, okay? But we don't say, stop and smell the roses anymore if you are under the age of 20. You say touch grass. Touch grass. If you've never heard the phrase touch grass, raise your hand. All right, okay, now you have, you're welcome. If somebody tells you to touch grass, it means you need to go outside and touch grass. It means you need to go outside and experience nature a little bit, okay?

We don't just say, we don't just greet each other with hello, okay? We say, depending on who you are, you might say, what's good? You might say, howdy. You might not say anything at all. It might just be a, you know that, you know that one, yeah, you might dab somebody up. You might hug them, right? There's a different way to say hello. There's actually a lot of ways to say hello. I would venture to guess there's hundreds of ways to say hello.

We don't just say, I love you, right? Sometimes we hug people for that. Sometimes we just say, no, that's okay, I'll do the dishes, okay? That's a way to say, I love you. And this is where the Psalms, if you've never ventured into the Psalms, man, it's a great read. I was once given a project by a guy that was discipling me and he said, hey, I want you to read the Psalms all month

and I want you to read five Psalms a day. There's 150 Psalms, okay? And I want you to read, I want you to read every day. And so on, he said on the first, on the first, like today's December 1st, I want you to read Psalm 1 and then add 30 and keep going. So Psalm 1, 31, 61, 91, and 121, okay? So I want you to read all those five Psalms on the first. And on the second, I want you to do the same thing. And the third and the fourth and the fifth. So that by the time you're on the 30th day of the month, so this doesn't work for February, but it does work for January and December,

you can read through all 150 Psalms in a month. When you do that, you begin to kind of see, yeah, they're talking about the same thing. These Psalms, there's some themes that are repeated, but it's never the same way. It's always talking about something differently. It's a new way to praise the Lord. It's a new way to lament. It's a new way to wonder why. It's a new way to confess sin. And today we're gonna be looking at Psalm 33. And this is a new way for us to say God is really neat. Okay, it's a new way to say that. I know that most of you woke up this morning, you're like, God, thanks for being really neat today. I know that's how you talk to the Lord. It's not, okay, tough crowd this morning. Okay, so let's get to Scripture. Psalm 33, let's look at verses one through three. It says, shout for joy in the Lord, oh you righteous. Praise befits the upright. Give thanks to the Lord with the liar.

Make melody to him with the harp of 10 strings. Sing to him a new song. Play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts. Okay, so it's calling for the Psalm 33. It's calling for all the saints that are gathered together, that are listening to the Psalm. It's saying, give thanks to the Lord and do it. Do it by playing the liar, which is like a musical instrument that's similar to a guitar-ish. It's not exactly, but make music with the harp, with the 10 strings, okay? So it's saying, look, find some instruments, start playing those instruments, start singing some songs, because that's what we're gonna do. But then look at verse three, it says, sing to him a new song. Play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts. Sing to him a new song. It calls for all these things, but it says a new song in particular. A new song is a biblical way, a particularly biblical way to say that God is good.

In Psalm 40, this is Psalm 33. In Psalm 40, it says that God put a new song in my mouth. In Psalm 96, it says to sing a new song to the Lord. Psalm 98 says the same thing. Psalm 144, Psalm 149, Isaiah 42, verse 10, says the same thing, this idea of a new song. Not just a song, but a new song. And if we keep reading Psalm 33, it expands on why we sing these new songs. Look at verses four through seven. Sing the Lord a new song, why? For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness. He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord. By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth, all their host. He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap. He puts the depths in storehouses. So the Psalmist is saying sing new songs to the Lord because, in particular, because God, our Creator,

is completely faithful to us. Sing to the Lord, because God, our Creator, is completely faithful to us. The number of ways that God is trustworthy, the number of ways that God is in control, the number of ways to express those things is limitless. There's no way for us to kind of contain that, and we simply, the Psalmist is saying, we simply cannot use the same old song. There's too much to express. There's too much there. It doesn't fit. If we say the same old thing, we say the same old song, it doesn't quite capture what's going on with the Lord. Look at verses eight and nine in Psalm 33. It says, let all the earth fear the Lord.

Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him, for he spoke and it came to be. He commanded and it stood firm. And here's the reality. It is too much to express, but it's not just that. It's not just that it's limitless, that the number and ways that God is faithful and in control and good and loving is limitless. It's not just that. It is that, but it's more. Because when we sing a new song, it actually does something to us. When we sing a new song, it does something inside of us. That God's beauty, his justice, his faithful love,

his majesty compels us to write new songs because it inspires hope in us. It inspires hope in us. God's beauty and justice. And just taking one of those, God's faithful love. God's faithful love, this is a Hebrew term, hesed. And some of you may have heard that term before, but this Hebrew term, hesed, it sometimes often gets translated into love or steadfast love or loyal love. But what that word contains is kind of this, it's a covenantal word, it's a promise. It's saying, I'm gonna love you. I'm gonna love you past whatever you do. I'm gonna love you past. However terrible you've been, I'm gonna love you past all that. In my covenant, in my promise to you, I'm gonna love you forever. It's a word that you say at a wedding altar. That word, that word, hesed, is what you say at a wedding altar. I'm gonna love you forever. I'm gonna promise to love you forever. Even when you look back at Psalm 33,

there is a message of hope, right? The idea is that God who has been faithful will be faithful. God has been faithful, he will be faithful because it's who he is. God who loves justice will uphold justice. Not because he has nothing better to do, but it's because of who he is. God will be faithful, God will be just because it's who he is, he will continue to do that. God didn't just speak the world into existence. He wasn't just a creator who spoke these things. He will sustain these things.

He didn't just make you and leave. He didn't just start your life, wind you up, and then say, see you later. God is not a deadbeat dad. God is an intimate creator, sustainer, that whenever God made you, God made you with a purpose, something that actually we're gonna be looking at with service with a slice after this. Step one on serving with a slice is figuring out how God made you. It's figuring out how you're put together in a particular way. At our church, we don't want people to serve just any old way. We'd like for you to serve in a way that you're gifted. We'd like for you to serve in a way that resonates with how the Lord put you together. We believe that's a sacred thing.

You can serve however you wanna serve, but we really wanna take the time to do that because God didn't just make you and walk away. He made you, Ephesians 2:10 tells us that he made you and he laid out good works for you to do. That your life is not some random, pointless exercise and futility, that your life is created intricately and prepared and that whenever life kinda happens to you and you're freaking out, God isn't freaking out. God's not worried about that. God knows exactly what act and what scene your life is in.

And he's planned it and there's a purpose in it. This is hope. Think about the hopelessness of believing that this is all there is in this world. If it's just, hey, have as much fun as you can and then die, that is a hopeless existence. That might be fun when you're 12, but that's terrible when you're really any older than that. It's not a future, it's hopeless. And this is the same hope, the same unbreakable hope, the same hope that is sustained by God's promises, God's character, the same hope is what we see in Christmas carols. Now in terms of a new song, Christmas carols are quite the opposite. Christmas carols are old songs. We dust them off every year and sing them and they're good. I don't mean to despise Christmas carols. They are good.

And even though they are on the opposite end of being new, they do talk a lot about hope. I wanna look at two verses of Joy to the World. I wanna look at the second and third verse, the ones that we don't sing very often. Okay, so first verse up here, it says, it says Joy to the World, and I have some punctuation here just so we can kind of see what it's saying. It says Joy to the World to save your reigns. Let men their songs employ while fields and floods and rocks and hills and plains repeat the sounding joy. Look at this verse, what is it saying? It's saying that everybody, everyone, everything should stop and just sing, including creation itself. Everybody should just stop and sing.

Why? Because Jesus' reign gives us a bright future. Because Jesus, the fact that the Savior reigns, the fact that it's not somebody else that reigns, that it's in his control, it's under his rule, that should inspire us toward joy. If the Savior is reigning, then let every man sing any song he knows and let all of creation start singing with him. Let it be just a huge chorus. Look at verse three, he rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and prove the wonders of his love. I realize this is kind of difficult because we just sing these songs, right? And we think of these words,

make the nations prove. We don't really think about what does that mean. What does it mean that God is making the nations prove his righteousness and prove his love? That's a really kind of a wild thing to say. Well, it's actually similar to Psalm 33. What it's saying is that because Jesus rules graciously and honestly, so he rules the world with truth and grace. He's gracious, he's honest. Then as he rules those things, because he's in control of those things, the play out of our lives and the lives of everybody around us display his glory and his love. Let me just kind of narrow that down, right?

The fact that Jesus rules the world with truth and grace, okay, some of you were around a lot of family for Thanksgiving or you were around some people for Thanksgiving and when you're around those people, what are you doing? You're enjoying those people. You are saying, and let's just say it's family for this example, you're around family. Well, do you know when you get around family, I'm sure it's complicated, but there's some joy that comes out of that, right? Simply, you couldn't even explain it. If I asked you to, hey, explain how joy comes from being with your family. You'd be at a loss for words. You don't know it, but you do feel it. You can experience it. Why? Because it proves the fact that the Savior reigns. Our lives, all these things that we cannot explain very well, all these things that we just kind of experience almost as if floating through life.

We just, yeah, let's be near family for Thanksgiving and find joy in that and find comfort in that and remember our roots and let's do those things. The fact that we're doing those things proves Jesus is gracious and he is honest. Today, I thought it'd be a good idea to sing a new song and as I was kind of thinking and praying through this, I remembered, David, come on up, I remembered as I was kind of praying through this and this whole idea of a new song was just kind of just popping up everywhere, you know, starting to read Psalm 33, starting to kind of understand this. The Holy Spirit reminded me, hey, David Tribble just wrote a Christmas song. I was like, oh, that makes perfect sense. So, David Tribble, we're gonna have the words up. Feel free to sing along or not, it's fine. It's a Christmas song and as you listen to it, as you listen to it, I would like for you

to consider the words, okay? You see, all the excuses start running for the door and he sits on his throne. Across he did bear all the glow. Houses moved and houses old. Nativity, Santa Claus, angels and snow. Don't miss the wonder that is Christmas. Your head wrapped up in all the wrong things. But you know, what was born in a manger saves us from sin. Deck the halls, praise the Lord for the King of Kings. It's the reason we can't Christmas place. Back where it grates your heart. Miss the one Christmas wrapped up in all the wrong things. Gives us from sore, the King of Kings. We can deck the halls, back where it, back where it. Thank you very much. I think I might start saying deck the halls and praise the Lord a little bit more now. I like that part of the song, it's my, I like that. I've heard it a few times, I really enjoy it. And it was just great, I mean, it wasn't like I said,

hey, I have this sermon where I'm singing about new songs, David, write this new song for Christmas, it's gonna be great. He just wrote a new song. He just, brother, just writes songs, which is great. And I wanna invite you, just even as I invited you to listen to the lyrics and consider what he was saying, I wanna invite you even further, man, you're gonna hear a lot of Christmas carols this season, a lot. And some are gonna be terrible, like that Beatles song. Oh my gosh. But some are gonna be great, sorry, that's your favorite Christmas song, sorry. Simply having a wonderful Christmas time. I can hear it like twice and then I'm done. But all these Christmas carols, right, Joy to the World, all these things that we traditionally sing, I want you to stop and actually consider what you're singing. Even if you're just like sitting down and drinking hot cocoa and it's the end of the day and you got

some Christmas music playing in your house, man, just stop and listen to those songs. If you have Spotify and you're playing them on Spotify, you get the lyrics right there, look at them on Spotify. Look at what you're singing and consider the hope, the true real hope that you are walking in. The hope that God's love and justice provides. You not only see this hope throughout the Psalms and you do and then Isaiah, but you also see it at the end of scripture. So we were in Psalms 33, but if you want, you can turn to Revelation five, okay. Revelation five, to kind of set it up, this is what it's called apocalyptic literature. Normally we think of apocalypse and we think it's like, you know, apocalypse now or like the end of time or something like that. Really the word apocalypse, apokalupsan, means revealing something. That's why we call the book Revelation. So this is a revealing, this is apocalyptic literature.

So this kind of literature is very kind of vivid with imagery and, you know, these kind of these wild scenes. In Revelation five we walk up on one of these wild scenes. All of heaven is, there's this scroll and it's got seals on it and nobody can open it. And all of heaven is looking around for somebody to open the scroll. And then bam, you see Jesus the lamb who is killed yet alive. And he is the only one who's worthy to open the scroll. And when Jesus the lamb takes the scroll, this is the full scene. Look at Revelation five and then we're gonna be in nine and 10.

It says, and they sang a new song. And here's the song they sang. Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open it seals for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed. People for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have made them a kingdom and priest to our God. They shall reign on the earth. It tells us why Jesus is worthy to open that scroll. He's worthy because by his blood he bought people out of slavery or to say it a different way. He brought people from a place with no hope, no future, no way out. He bought those people out of slavery. He took them away from a place of no hope and he gave them, he put them in a position of the brightest hope possible. If you are in Christ this morning, you have a hope that is unbreakable. You have an ability to be optimistic. If we can talk about it that way, you have the ability to be optimistic

in a way that nobody, nobody else does. People that are in Christ, you have a reason and a hope and a future that you can build on, that you can depend on, that you can bet your life on. That's your hope, your unbreakable certain hope. You were bought out of slavery and you've been put in a position of high, the highest hope. So he bought people out of slavery. He also made them kingly priests who will reign. A future so magnificent that it's somewhat difficult to comprehend. Let's keep reading. Look at verses 11 and 12. This is the scene continuing to play out. Then I looked and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who is slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.

There's a lot there. But what I want you to see is that there's really so much happening that the guy who's writing this, John, he's having this vision, he's writing this down. The guy who's writing this down really has trouble showing you what he's seeing. He's really having trouble describing it. He really can't tell you how many angels are there because it's myriads and myriads of thousands and thousands. It's so many angels that he can't count them. They hit so many angels that he can't see where the end is and they're all singing loudly.

They're singing louder than a million arenas put together and they're all saying the exact same thing. Worthy is the lamb who is slain. Look at the next two verses in 13 and 14. It says, and I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever. And the four living creatures said amen and the elders fell down and worshiped. Let me just kind of end with this. When we meet together every Sunday morning with rare exception, we sing. We sing songs. Sometimes they're new, sometimes they're old, but we sing songs. And let me just pull back the cover on that just a little bit. We don't, David and I, David and Cindy, whenever we're having a staff meeting on Wednesday morning and we're kind of talking through these things,

it is on default. We don't say, man, you know what, this Sunday, let's sing songs. Like that's some new idea, right? And David's like, oh good, because I was planning to sing some songs. Like that's how serendipitous is that. Whenever we come together, we know that we're gonna sing. It's a staple in our church. It's a staple in many churches, but that's not an American thing. It's not a modern thing. It's not a Western culture thing. This thing wasn't invented 500 years ago with the Renaissance. This thing is old. The fact that we sing together, the fact that we come together and we make songs with our voices together is as old as time. It's as old as heaven.

It's been happening forever in eternity past and it will continue to happen forever. When we come together and we sing, we are joining heaven. We are singing not just good things, not just true things, but we are singing about our hope. We're singing about our freedom. We're not, sometimes people talk about singing worship songs and this is valid, but it's just not just this. They talk about singing worship songs and they say we're rehearsing what is true. We are singing the things that are true and we kinda wanna get it right. And that's valid. That is 100% good. Yeah, I don't wanna sing wrong things either, okay, yes. But that's not the only reason that we're singing.

Part of the reason that we're singing together is to practice what is true, but the more foundational reason that we are singing songs on a Sunday morning is because Jesus is on the throne. That's why we sing. We sing because we have a sure hope. We sing because Jesus is on the throne. He's in control. He's the one who's putting all things together. He's the one that is planning out our lives, the lives of everybody around us, humanity in general and the future, the end of the world. All of these things are in the grasp of Jesus. And when we sing new songs to worship in a fresh way,

what we are trying to do is we're trying to match, trying to capture something, some way, somehow, to say, God, I love you in a new way. We do this with the people that we love. We don't just say, I love you. Sometimes we do, but that's not the only thing we say. If it is the only thing you say, here's a news flash, you should come up with a different way to say it, okay? Because even coming up with a different way to say it is still a way to say, I love you. We declare our freedom in Christ. And maybe the reason that it's new is because we've just learned it, right? Let me just say this. Look, I've been in, I've been a paid religious professional for 25 years, okay? I've been doing this a while. And man, regularly, regularly, these kinds of things happen

where I'm learning something new. Regularly, I'm reading scripture and something new pops out. I'm praying through something, something new pops out. I've seen the same verse a thousand times and something new pops out. The Spirit is continuing to show me new things. Look, the Spirit doesn't have to do that. I don't know if you guys have ever seen the movie, The Matrix, it's kind of an old movie. But, and if you don't think that's true, then okay. The verdict is in. In The Matrix, there's this moment where the main character is having to learn things, but the way they learn things in the future, which is where The Matrix is set, is that they just download it into their brain. There's like a spike that goes like right here and they just put like an SD card in or something, some kind of cartridge. And the line is Keanu Reeves, the main character, he kind of, he gets like some information and goes,

whoa, I know kung fu. And then he starts to do kung fu, right? That's not how Christianity works, okay? I didn't get it all down, I didn't get the Bible downloaded. I didn't get Christian history downloaded. I didn't get systematic theology downloaded. I didn't get all these, you know, all these experiences with the Lord just downloaded instantly. Bam, like, oh, I know how to walk as a Christian. Like, that's not how it happens. It happens as we continue to learn and discover and grow. In fact, this is the life that the Lord invites us into. It's a life of discovery and growth and learning, okay? And it doesn't mean you need to learn it all at once, but it does mean that the invitation is there. Sing a new song, say it different.

Think about songs that you've sung for decades in a new way. Think about all those songs you've heard as a kid and think about those lyrics in a new way. And maybe for some of you, you might be at a spot where you don't wanna sing new songs. You may not wanna sing at all. And I understand, I understand the perspective. You don't wanna sing, and you don't really understand why other people are singing either. You don't wanna sing, and you're in a church service and you're kinda looking around like, why in the world are these people singing? I hear this guy next to me, he can't even sing, but he's singing, okay? He's all off key, but he's singing loud and proud. That's great. You may not understand why people do it. You may think that they look silly, because in your heart, man, you don't wanna sing. You don't have a reason to sing. You especially don't wanna learn a new song.

Here's my encouragement, and maybe it's just kind of evident on its face, but I want you to consider the fact that you may not wanna sing because you don't have anything to sing about. You don't wanna sing a new song because it doesn't really interest you. It doesn't match what's going on in your heart. If part of the reason that we sing and write new songs is because there's this overflowing hope within us, then maybe you're just not feeling that hope. Maybe that hope is somewhat off-putting. Maybe you honestly, and I'm not even mad about it, I'm not even saying that you should be ashamed of this necessarily, I'm saying that maybe you feel like you don't have anything to look forward to anyway, and you're being honest. And on that front, I applaud it. If you're not feeling like you got a whole lot of hope, then don't fake it. Don't sing the new song. Don't sing any song.

You don't have a reason to sing. Don't sing, but don't let that be the end. Because listen, I'm never gonna force you to sing. Okay, I don't think that's right. I don't think people should be forced to sing or worship. Okay, we got a whole country kind of built on that ideal. Okay, so I don't wanna force you to sing, but I do want you to know this, that the hope that makes people sing, the sure, secure, steadfast hope that we can look forward to that makes people wanna sing is not far from you.

It's not in some secret place where everybody else goes to get it, that the hope is actually near to you. That the new song is actually not that far from your heart. What I wanna encourage you to do, we're about to have a time of singing, we're gonna sing a couple of new songs, nope. We're gonna sing a couple songs, not new songs. We already had the new song.

We're gonna sing some songs that you probably know. And as we do, my encouragement is sing, to sing. But if you can't sing, if you don't wanna sing, then listen, watch other people sing. Because you know what you're gonna see on their face, and you know what you're gonna hear in their voice, and you know what you're gonna see in those words? Hope. You're gonna see real hope that abides. Look, as we have our time of singing, I just wanna encourage you, I'm gonna be back here where those two lamps are lit over there, and that couch and those couple chairs. I'm gonna be back there the whole time. I'm gonna be back there after the service. Man, if you wanna talk, if you wanna pray, we're just gonna have an extended time. I'm gonna call David and worship him back up. And I just wanna be able to invite you to say, hey, let's just sing.

If you have hope in Christ, then let that come out. If you have hope in Christ and you wanna sing, then let's sing, let's stand. Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to sing. Lord, I pray that if there's people here that don't have that reason or don't want that reason, that they would see the hope. That they would know that there's a reason to sing. They would know that you are continuing to work and do mighty things. We can walk in that, we can rest in that.