December 1, 2015 Sermon: Oh Come All Ye Faithful Who in here loves Christmas? I mean do we have anyone in here who goes nuts at Christmas? You know what I mean, you re the one that puts all the lights out and you have reindeer in your yard or on your roof, you have one side dedicated to the manger scene and the other side dedicated to Santa. You re the house in the neighborhood that all the kids want to go visit and people come from all over to see your house. You re the reason that my kids look at me and tell me that I m a Grinch and need to take a lesson from you. So, who in here is that person? Christmas is on the way and people are putting decorations up and talking about gifts, family, church, Christmas programs and everything else that comes with the season. A matter of fact Joe and I just had a meeting this past week and one of the questions he asked; when do we want to start playing Christmas songs and how many Christmas songs do we want to play each Sunday building up to Christmas? And then he said something to me that at first I really did not think about and then it sank in after he left. Christmas carols are hymns! I have never thought of them that way; but it made me stop and think about the words that go with so many of these songs and he was right on, they are hymns, they are praises to the savior of the world. So my question for you --- have you ever thought of them in this way? Have you ever caught yourself so wrapped up in a Christmas Carol that you forgot it was a Carol and instead you were worshipping to it? How awesome it would be if we would see these songs as worship songs and not just Carols. During this series my challenge to all of you is to take note of the words that are written in these songs and realize the truth that is placed in each of them. Today we are looking at a classic; O Come All Ye Faithful! The song was originally written in Latin and the original title was Adeste Fideles. The song was written by and 18 th century hymnist named John Francis Wade. It was translated into English in 1841 by a guy named Frederick Oakeley.
This carol has stood the test of time and has been sung by many different people and groups. It is a beautiful song with beautiful lyrics. So before we go any further let s take a moment and listen to this song and may you hear it for the first time as a worship song and not just another Christmas carol. Nick sings! How many of you heard the first line of this song and were a little taken by it? I mean let s look at it> O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant! And the reason that you might be overwhelmed by this, especially during the Christmas season, you can feel anything but faithful, joyful, and triumphant. In fact many times we feel the complete opposite. Many times we feel defeated, depressed, and doubtful and we think to ourselves He surely isn t calling me to come. Maybe it s the faithful side of things, maybe you felt called to something and you really felt that God was in it and then we you got their or started doing it you realized it was much more difficult then what you expected or maybe things just didn t go the way you saw them going and you look at God and ask Did you really call me to this? Maybe it s something else maybe it s just a faith issue with you, there s a lot of trials going on in your life right now and your just like really is this it. You start questioning your faith and doubting it. Maybe it s the word triumphant that throws you off. I know we don t use that word very often and that might just be because we feel so defeated all the time. We look at our finances and think to ourselves I thought we would be in a better place than this by now. Or maybe it s your marriage and you think to yourself after 20 years I thought we would be in a different place. How did we get to where we are? And instead of feeling triumphant you feel defeated. Maybe it s the joyful side of things. I mean think about it --- it doesn t take much to suck the joy out of the room. You don t believe me, try going shopping this time of year. My wife says that I wait until the last minute to go shopping for her and that causes me not to get exactly what she wanted for the price she wanted me to get it. To be fair she is probably right; but I have always liked taking a day and
going off by myself to shop for her until the dreaded moment that you half to stand in line. It does not matter what line I pick I always pick the wrong line. I get in the line where someone tries to pay with three different forms of payment or their card doesn t work and they want to argue with the cashier, or they picked an item up that doesn t have a tag on it or whatever could go wrong happens and I stand there for what seems to be an eternity and all my joy goes out the window. And by the time I get home I have no more joy to share with anyone. So when I started to prepare for this sermon and started looking at my notes and the notes of others I had to take a moment and listen to the song and wonder --- Who exactly is it that Jesus is calling? Let s take a look at Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all who are weary and burden, and I will give you rest. If you re taking notes: first thing to write down: Jesus calls the weary and the burden. The second thing that he does in Matthew 9:12 On hearing this, Jesus said, It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.... For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Jesus calls the sinners! So if we take these two scriptures and what they are saying, we could actually take this song we are talking about and rewrite it to say these words Oh come all ye sinners, ye who are weary and burden, come to Bethlehem. And here is what we need to realize this morning Jesus may call us when we are weary and burdened, but he does not leave us there. He waits for us to call out to him and to realize that we need Jesus in our life we need his love and grace and then he gives us the scripture to give us the hope we are looking for. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, and the new has come! What you need to realize this morning is Jesus helps us to become a new creation when we call on Him. The scripture just told us that the old is gone and the new is here. So the next question; if Jesus helps us to become a new creation and he doesn t just leave us where we were then what does he help us become? If we become this new creation, where does he take us? And this is what we are going to try and answer before we leave here this morning.
The first thing that we need to realize: 1. Jesus helps us to become more faithful. Take a look at Hebrews 12:2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith. So what do we learn from right off the bat --- Our faith comes from the one who author s it!! Jesus gives us our faith and then he goes on and works with us in perfecting our faith. How you ask? Romans 10:17 Consequently faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ. So what do we learn from this scripture? We learn that when we hear God s word our faith grows. Let me give you an example! He was the Chief of Shiva Sena, a Hindu extremist group that is likened to Al Qaeda. It was his job to kill all Christians and to train other extremists to do the same. His office was in a warehouse stocked with weaponry. It was here that he trained killers. Until his son grew ill. The Chief took him to a witch doctor of sorts one who practices black magic within Hinduism and asked for healing. The magician replied, With black magic we can only destroy, not save. Then his wife, too, grew ill. She was told she would not live for more than a month. The doctors that gave this diagnosis were told that if his wife died, they would die as well. His Shiva Sena fighters intimidated the doctors and hospital staff to ensure she was getting the best treatment. One day, a man came to the Chief s office. He was dressed as a Sikh man. When the Chief answered the door, the man informed him that he needed to trust in Jesus. The Chief replied, Go away. I should kill you just for mentioning Jesus. But the man insisted that he hear God s word. As he walked away, he told the man that he once had leprosy and had lost all faith until hearing the word of God and Jesus healed him. The chief went home and told his wife the story. He agreed to pray to Jesus and read God s word. He prayed in this way: Jesus, if you are alive, heal my wife. For twenty-one days he prayed this prayer. And on the next day, his wife was healed. They started going to a Christian church. Whatever he heard taught he shared with his family. He shared so much he was kicked out of his family. On one occasion he went to church at an appointed time. But no one was in the building. He waited thirty minutes, then one hour.
Then two hours. Finally, he walked outside the church building and found the pastor. Pastor, I am here for church. When does it begin? When you leave my people will come in. They are scared to go inside with you here! Like Saul, the Chief s transition to Christianity was not easy. People doubted his transformation at first. But now the Chief is a preacher. He has been so for 12 years. Twenty other Shiva Sena extremists are also preachers. His church gathers near a major highway. The congregation spills out of the building and clogs up the road there are so many that want to be a part of this move of God. He hosted a band of robbers in his home for twenty months sharing the Gospel, feeding them meals, and giving them shelter. The entire band of robbers was converted as a result. He has been in prison eighteen times and his life is at risk; but because of the word of God his faith had changed, it grew, and now it permeates his being. Jesus helped this man to become faithful! The second thing I want you to write down: 2. Jesus helps us to become more joyful. We actually see joy talked about in the scripture. Joy is found in Galatians 5 as being one of the fruits of the Spirit. Verse 22 says this But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. What does this mean for us? Well, how many of you have ever canned fruit? Yeah, well I can remember my grandparents canning fruit and going down in their basement and seeing all the canned fruits and jams that they had. I always wondered why they used wax to seal the jar, I thought why not just use a regular lid and screw it on; but then my grandma explained to me that the wax kept the fruit from spoiling. The same goes for us, without the right relationship with God our joy spoils and becomes bitter. But when we come to God and we receive the Holy Spirit in our lives, it s like that wax seal being placed on us. We are being preserved, we are being protected and we are maturing so that when the time is right and the jar is opened we are full of joy and sweet as strawberry jam. Now I want you to understand something before we move forward --- joy and happiness are not the same thing. I heard a minister say it this way:
Happiness depends on happenings, but Joy depends on Jesus! Happiness depends on happenings; what s going on in my life right now? Do I really like where I am in life, do I really not like where I am in life. You see our happiness depends on where we are in our life. Think about it, are you happy or not happy with where you are right now in your life? But joy my friends comes from Jesus! That kind of joy comes from deep down inside our soul. That kind of joy has been placed there by God and has been put into our Spirit. And out of that overflow comes the fruit of the Spirit filled with love and joy because happiness depends on happenings, but joy depends on Jesus. We can see this happen in the Christmas story. Take a look at in in Luke 2 where the angels have come and are proclaiming to the shepherds who are out watching over their flocks by night. And it reads starting in verse 10 But the angel said to them Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Why? Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you.... And to you and to you and you and you. A Savior has been born, and that causes great joy and Jesus can help us to become more faithful, Jesus helps us to become more joyful. And last but not least: 3. Jesus helps us to become more triumphant. How do we become more triumphant? Well I think that sometimes to be more triumphant we half to have someone in our life to help us. Because many times we feel like we talked about earlier, we feel defeated and it helps to have someone helping us. Let me give you an example: When I was younger my brother and his friends liked to pick on me quite a bit. I was three years behind Tony and to say the least I was not as cool as my brother was. So when he would have friends over they would get me down and put the hurt on me and think that it was funny. If you are in here this morning and you have an older brother you can probably relate in some way to what I m talking about. My body grew very fast. I was always the tallest kid around and I was clumsy, and had acne really bad so that made me an easy target for other kids to make fun of me. I had it pretty bad growing up and the worst part of it, for the longest time I thought my brother didn t have my back.
However their was this one day we were on the bus and a much older and much bigger kid who had made fun of me the whole school year was really giving it to me hard and being young and helpless I thought if he was going to make fun of me I was going to spit on him, so I spit on him and then he got me down in the seat of the bus and started to beat me to a pulp. All of a sudden my brother grabbed the kid by the arm and told him know more, the kid brushed him off until my brother said it loud enough that the whole bus heard it and the kid realized that he was going to get a beating if he did not stop. My brother scared the kid into going to the back and setting down and saying know more. My brother picked me up and told me it was going to be alright and at that moment I felt triumphant at that moment I looked back at that kid and I wanted to say go ahead make my day because I knew my brother in all his meanness had my back when push came to shove. Here s why I tell you this story, I think there are too many times in our life that we don t realize who it is that has our back. And we need to realize that it is the God of this world who is standing beside us! In the Old Testament we read a prophecy written about Jesus hundreds of years before he was born it comes from Isaiah 9:6-7 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. WOW! Not sure about you and if you need to you can read it again; but that is pretty triumphant right there. Listen church that scripture is prophesying about a baby boy who was born in a manger. But we need to realize as we see that baby in that manger, as we picture all that was going on that night --- this baby he is the King of kings, he is the Lord of lords, He is the Alpha and the Omega, He s the beginning and the end, He s the author of our faith and the perfecter of it. He is the one who spoke everything into existence, He is the bread of life, He is our salvation, He is the lifter of our head, and as the song says He is born the king of angels and we come to adore Him, for He is Christ the Lord. I say it again WOW!! If that doesn t make you feel triumphant I m not sure what will.
We need to understand who it is that fights for us. My prayer for you this morning is that you hear the truth that has been ringing throughout the ages in the lyrics of this song, its O Come All Ye Faithful. Why? Not because we are, but because He is. So I call to you church, I implore you to come --- O Come All Ye Faithful, be joyful and triumphant! Come to Bethlehem, come and see born the King of Angels; O come, let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him, for He is Christ the Lord! Let me tell you now if your setting here this morning and you are thinking well that s all good; but you don t know what this year has been like or you don t understand where I m coming from and your throwing up every excuse in your head right now to defend why you re not faithful, joyful and feeling triumphant. My guess; you are either not in a relationship with Jesus or your relationship that you once had with him has been put on the back burner and is struggling. Listen to me church; Jesus calls the weary and the burden! And this morning he s speaking to you he s telling you he knows you ve tried other things and none of those things have worked out. He knows you ve been seeking for something to fill that emptiness and he is waiting for you to realize; if you want to leave here this morning feeling triumphant then you need to come to Jesus. I m telling you Jesus is the answer, God sent him has a babe in a manger, as Emanuel God with us, to die on a cross one day. Why? Because we are told in the Bible that we have all sinned and fallen short of God s glory. Because of the sacrifice that Jesus made on that cross our debt has been paid and we have been brought back to God. And when you say YES to Jesus and you ask Him to take over your life, you become a new creation. The old is gone! The Holy Spirit has moved in and taken control. Let s pray!