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Today's scripture reading is from the Psalms, chapter 98, verses 1 to 9, as printed in the liturgy.
A reading from the Psalms.
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 nations.
He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to Israel.
All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
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 blast of the ram's horn.
Shout for joy before the Lord, the King.
Let the sea resound 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.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Thank you, Maddie, for that scripture reading.
Good morning, everyone.
My name is Andrew.
I'm one of the pastors here.
And will you join me in prayer as we come to listen to God's word?
Our Father, we ask that you would fill us with your joy.
And not just us, but this world.
And that that would be our heartbeat.
That would be our song.
Joy to the world.
In Christ, in his name we pray.
Amen.
So in case you missed the past two weeks, we've been doing this thing during Advent.
We're going through some famous Christmas carols, and we're looking at the passages of scripture that have inspired them.
And a big reason that we're doing this is because, in case you've also missed the past few months,
our church is in a season of transition, right?
We are without our past worship director of 14 years.
We're in search of a new one, and Jonathan and I wanted to use this interim season to shape our culture of worship here at Christ Church,
particularly in our singing.
We want to be a singing church.
And, you know, though it's been extra work for me as the interim worship director,
and though it's made me feel quite vulnerable and self-conscious,
having to lead all of you with my limited musical abilities,
I have to say it's actually been quite a pleasure and very rewarding engaging in this role for this season.
Many of you may not know this, but if you asked me as a ninth grader or a tenth grader what my dream job was,
I would have told you that I wanted to be a worship leader, like full time.
I would have told you I wanted to be the Asian American Chris Tomlin, all right?
And if you don't understand that joke, that just means that you were way cooler than me in high school, all right?
I had a, we had a worship band, me and my buddies.
It was called DHB, all right?
And it stands for Don't Hold Back, all right?
Because we wanted the people to worship freely, to express themselves, not feel self-conscious.
And, you know, like, as embarrassing as it is for me to share that with you,
it's also a reminder to me of the way that God was shaping me, like, 20 years ago,
for ministry, to pastor here at Christ Church in this particular season.
And, you know, as your pastor leading you in worship over these past few months,
to be able to look out upon all of you, like, this congregation that God has entrusted to me,
and to see you lift up your hearts, to see you lift up your hands in praise,
it's been a special, special season to me.
And I've often gotten, you know, choked up up here, like, even unable to sing when I'm supposed to sing,
because of how moving it is to watch you, the people of God, worship Him.
I remember my first Sunday after Eric had left, my first Sunday leading worship here,
and I'll never forget the joyful sights and sounds of that day.
We were singing,
We sang,
All glory be to Christ, our King, all glory be to Christ, His rule and reign will ever sing.
All glory be to Christ.
And, man, there is nothing, nothing more that a pastor could desire than to see his own flock, you.
A congregation for which I will one day give an account before God,
to see you give glory to Jesus Christ, right, with resolute reverence, jubilant joy.
Anyway, you know, this season has actually reminded me that this is the reason why I wanted to be a pastor in the first place, actually.
I mean, partly because of my limited musical abilities,
but mostly, mostly because as much as I loved, you know, using music to draw people into worship,
to draw out the praise of God's people,
it dawned on me late in high school that, you know, it's not so much my music,
more than the music, it was God's truths that elicited His praise.
Truths about who God is, what He's done, what He's doing, what He's going to do,
especially for undeserving and often ungrateful people like you and me.
That's what got me fired up about being a pastor and a preacher in the first place.
I wanted to lead people into worship, into deeper encounters with Christ.
I wanted to preach the good news of Jesus, the greatest story ever told,
the one-of-kind message of God's costly yet beautifully redemptive grace.
And that's still what gets me out of bed today.
Because full disclosure, every Sunday that I come up here and get behind this pulpit,
I've got an agenda. I do.
I've got an agenda.
And it's not primarily to give you information, to make you laugh, to make you cry,
or to make you even feel like you're at peace, or to have some kind of joy or happiness.
No, my primary objective, every time I get behind this pulpit,
is that people here would taste and see something worth responding to in worship and in song.
My agenda is to preach in such a way that all of you would lift up your heads,
lift up your hearts, physically lift up your hands to the Lord in worship.
That's my aim.
That's my aim, to preach something, and not just anything,
but to preach something so real, so incomparably good and glorious.
Something so worth singing and shouting about at the top of our lungs that this place shakes.
And our earnestness reverberates throughout the Bay Area and throughout the world.
Even up to the heavens.
This is my heart as your pastor.
This is my heart for Christ Church East Bay.
That this truly would be a sacred place that exalts Christ, filled with joy.
Thank you.
Now, I understand that this is also a place where some of us aren't ready for that,
aren't ready to exalt Christ, aren't ready to lift up our voices, lift up our hands.
And I want you to know that this is also a safe place to examine and explore Christ at the same time.
And so if, you know, you're here today and maybe singing is your least favorite part of worship here at Christ Church,
maybe it makes you feel uncomfortable to see grown men and women, like, closing their eyes,
lifting up their hands, making a joyful noise,
singing about their feelings of adoration toward this God that you're not even sure exists.
That's you.
Well, we want to personally thank you so much for stepping into such, like, an awkward place.
Like, if that's you, that's totally awkward that you've come here.
I can totally see how it's uncomfortable to be in a place like this.
Because, yeah, if you're not sure that God exists or if Jesus is worthy of all the glory and honor and praise that's in this world,
then, yeah, totally, what we do here in church is super weird, all right?
And it makes complete sense that you'd feel that way.
But you are here, right?
You are here for some reason, probably because you're open-minded enough
to at least entertain the possibilities that God might be real and that Jesus might be worthy.
And so the question I have for you is if God isn't real and if Jesus isn't worthy,
well, is there anything that you have found to be worth singing about?
Like, for the rest of your life?
Again, not just once in a while, like singing your alma mater's, you know, fight song at a football game,
but is there anything in your life that has so moved you that you cannot help but sing about it?
And regularly, not just because it's got some nice tune,
but you put it into your calendar to every Sunday come and gather with hundreds of other people
to sing the same things every single week,
this great thing that's happened in your life through Jesus Christ.
And is there any particular song that you find yourself humming repeatedly or returning to frequently?
Do you have a song, do you have multiple songs that can express your uncontainable joy and hope and comfort
even through the hardest moments of your life?
And these questions aren't just for people who aren't Christians in this room.
Whether you're a Christian or not, have we found anything worth singing joyfully about for the rest of our lives?
That's the question.
And if so, do we have the songs to adequately express ourselves?
Or to put it differently and tie it to, you know, our Christmas carol that we're looking at this morning,
do we have a reason to sing joy into the world and unto the world?
Have we found something so joyful it makes our hearts sing?
Like with unabashed gratitude and earnest invitation and bold confidence,
do we have a song like that worth singing anew for hundreds and hundreds of years?
This morning, as we take a magnifying glass to this famous Christmas carol,
Joy to the World, and the biblical text that inspired it, Psalm 98,
what I hope to show you is that to sing joy to the world, to sing Psalm 98 for all they're worth,
is to sing loud and bold songs of gratitude, invitation, and hope.
Gratitude, invitation, and hope.
That's what these songs place upon our lips.
Gratitude, invitation, and hope.
Or more specifically, commemorative gratitude for the past,
a commanding invitation for the present, and confident hope for the future.
Those are our three points.
So let's start with point number one.
To sing joy to the world for all it's worth,
we have to sing with commemorative gratitude for the past.
Now, Joy to the World was written in 1719.
That's over 300 years ago, all right,
by this English minister named Isaac Watts,
who is regarded as the father of English hymnody.
He wrote, Our God, Our Help, in Ages Past.
He wrote, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross.
Very, very famous hymn writer.
But something you should know about him
is that when he first started writing these hymns,
like Joy to the World,
he was actually being quite provocative and even disruptive.
He was even accused by some of being a heretic.
You see, in Isaac Watts' church's tradition,
they only sang psalms,
and they pretty much just sang word for word
in a kind of very wooden and rigid way.
And so from his early years as a teenager,
Watts would complain to his dad,
who was also a pastor,
about how dry and monotonous and dispassionate
the congregational singing was in their church.
And so his dad, you know,
he got tired of hearing all these complaints,
and he challenged him, like,
Okay, you do better then.
And that's how we got Joy to the World, all right?
And the result has been that
while very few people can recite Psalm 98,
Jonathan, do you know Psalm 98?
I don't think so, man.
I knew it, all right?
Many English speakers, though,
can recite to you Joy to the World, right?
Now, at first, this opened up Isaac Watts
to a lot of criticism
for supposedly playing fast and loose with Scripture.
But, you know, when he penned these hymns,
he was actually doing exactly what this psalm
was telling him to do.
Look with me at Psalm 98, verse 1.
Sing to the Lord, what?
A new song.
And this doesn't mean stop singing the old, timeless psalms,
but it did mean to sing God's timeless truths
always with freshness.
Always with freshness.
For just as God's mercies are new every morning,
they never go stale,
especially for those of us who depend on them daily,
so also must our songs be new each day,
even the same songs we sing.
As we experience God's goodness and grace anew each day,
Watts wanted to give fresh expression to God's fresh mercies.
That's what Joy to the World and Psalm 98 calls to do,
to sing with fresh, commemorative gratitude
for all the kindness that God has lavished on us
throughout our lives,
acts of kindness and mercy and grace
that should never, never grow old to any of us.
Now, look at the psalmist's reasons for worship
in verses 1 to 3.
Sing to the Lord a new song for,
he has done marvelous things,
he has worked out and he has put his salvation on display
and he has remembered his chesed,
his steadfast love and faithfulness.
When we worship, what are we doing?
We look to the past
and we remember the way that God has remembered us.
That's what we're doing in worship.
The ways that God has been faithful to us,
the ways he's kept his covenant love
and saved us from ourselves
and our addictions and our troubles
and our oppressors in marvelous fashion.
For some of us, that's liberation from our alcohol
and drug and sex addictions
or the transformation of certain relationships in our lives.
For others of us, it's this newfound peace
we've experienced through the love, acceptance
and forgiveness of God.
When we sing joy to the world,
just as God's people of old sang Psalm 98,
we're to let our minds wander
to these various ways that he's shown up for us,
that he's come into our lives.
When we sing joy to the world, the Lord is come,
we're to remember the ways he's broken into our lives,
the ways he's come into our lives for our good.
When we sing joy to the world, the Savior reigns,
we're to celebrate and meditate upon the signs
of his kingdom in our lives and all around us.
We're to remember the things that formerly ruled
and dominated us individually and collectively
as a whole people, the systems and the structures
that once oppressed us and all others in our world,
whether the stronghold of pornography on you
as an individual or the stronghold of slavery
and supremacy on whole people groups in history.
The coming of Christ has had an undeniable,
transformative influence upon countless individuals
and even upon all of world history.
Ever since the kingdom broke into history,
it's been releasing people from strongholds.
Like, honestly, come at me if you disagree,
but I don't think you can deny
that apart from the coming of Jesus Christ into history,
there is no abolitionist movement like we know it.
Nor is there any widespread consensus
that many of us take for granted
around human equality and inhuman dignity.
The king has come and the world's never been the same.
And for that, we can and we must sing
with commemorative gratitude.
Now, secondly, to sing joy to the world
for all its worth, we also have to sing it
as a present commanding invitation.
All right, stick with me here.
Present commanding invitation.
If you look at this entire psalm,
it is full of commands.
All right, verse one, sing a new song.
Verse four, shout for joy, all the earth.
Burst into jubilant song with music.
Verses five and six, make music,
and again, shout for joy.
Full of commands.
But you also get the sense that these aren't just,
like, authoritative, domineering commands.
Like, you know, when I tell my daughters,
hurry up and finish your breakfast,
we gotta get to school, because I'm late.
No, these aren't, like, power play commands.
At the same time, what they are
is they're invitational imperatives.
Like, yes, they're commanding imperatives,
but there's also this sense that the psalmist
isn't just trying to tell you what to do,
but the psalmist is inviting you to join them
in something wonderful and life-giving.
Like, when I say, hey, come to my house,
let's have dinner.
That's a command.
That's an imperative.
And what is that?
It's an invitation.
It's an invitation into deeper togetherness
and relationship and shared experience.
And man, I just want us to look at the earnestness
of this invitation.
The psalmist is so earnest here,
so earnest that this command and invitation
is extended to all the earth,
all the nations.
It's a radically inclusive invitation,
even as it's an invitation
into a radically exclusive worship, right,
of the Lord, Yahweh,
the maker of heaven and earth,
the only king.
And it's not just radically inclusive
to every kind of person,
but to every kind of creature as well.
Like, the psalmist can't contain himself
and the extensiveness of his invitations.
Even inanimate creation
is invited to join in praise
and worship and celebration.
Verse seven, let the sea resound,
let it reverberate,
and not just the sea,
but everything in it.
That's dolphins and whales,
turtles and tilapia,
oysters and anemone,
every coral reef,
every inch of seaweed,
the whole world
and all who live in it,
everything that has breath,
and even everything
that doesn't have breath,
let it all praise the Lord.
Verse eight,
let the rivers clap their hands,
let the mountains sing together
for joy.
The psalmist is saying,
let all that is made
make much of its maker.
Let all that is made
make much of its maker.
And this is incredibly profound
if you think about it,
that all creation
is created for the glory of God.
Every square inch of it,
even inanimate objects
like rivers and mountains,
that they too can glorify
and exalt God
and sing his praise.
In fact, I would say,
they're probably better at it
than we humans are, right?
Do you remember what Jesus said
when he arrived in Jerusalem
on Palm Sunday?
People were praising him.
The Pharisees said,
tell your people
to stop praising you.
And Jesus said,
you can't contain
the praise of God.
Creation will not be silenced.
Even the stones will cry out.
The stones will cry out.
The stones worship.
The stones are doing
what they're meant to do.
Us humans,
we're the ones who don't.
We're the ones who often
silence ourselves
or each other.
We're the ones who often
withhold our worship.
We fail to submit
to God's laws
in ways that rocks and trees
and mountains and oceans
would never dare to disobey.
It's crazy but true
to think that while humans
are far more glorious creatures
than rocks,
actually rocks have been
far more faithful
to God's intention for them
than humans have been
for God's intentions for them.
And this is what the psalmist
is recognizing.
As he commands
and invites all people
and all nature
to sing and shout God's praise.
And this is what we do
when we sing,
let earth receive her king.
Let earth receive her king.
Like all of it,
every square inch of it,
let earth receive her king
and especially humanity
made in the image of God,
made to glorify God
and enjoy him forever.
Let us not be like
that little town of Bethlehem
that had no room
for their king.
but let every heart
prepare him room.
And let heaven and nature sing,
let all of nature
join the songs of heaven
in worshiping God,
our king.
When we sing,
let all their songs employ.
Fields and floods,
rocks, hills,
and plains,
let them repeat
the sounding joy.
We are commanding the cosmos
to do what it was made to do.
We're inviting the inanimate
to join us
in animated worship.
And man,
if you stop to think about
that for a second,
man,
it's like,
who are we
to invite
all the rest of creation
to join us in worship?
You know,
like,
what authority do I have
to tell a mountain
to worship,
to tell the sea
to worship, right?
These massive,
majestic,
uncontrollable forces
of nature
that remind us
of how small
and insignificant
and temporary we are.
But remember what Jesus said.
He said,
if we have faith,
we can tell the mountain
to be thrown
into the sea
and it will be done.
So how much more
will God be pleased
to draw a song
out of the lips
of a mountain
if we command them
and invite them
to do so
in his name?
I mean,
is this not what
God meant for us
to do when he made us
in his image
and he gave us dominion
over the earth
to exercise his authority
upon it?
See,
Psalm 98,
to sing Psalm 98,
to sing Joy to the World
is to step into
our God-given
authority and faith.
It's to unashamedly
call all of creation
to do
what it was meant
to do.
And not in an oppressive way
but in an invitational way.
When we sing Joy to the World,
we're evangelists.
We're missionaries.
When we make a joyful noise
in this place,
we are inviting the world
to come join us
in our worship.
And did you know
that that's actually
happened here?
People walked in
from cedar and walnut
in the middle of our singing,
in the middle of us
declaring to the world
that God is our king
and that there is nothing
greater than his
steadfast covenant love.
People have been drawn in
because our singing
was always meant
to be an invitation
to each other,
to our neighborhood,
to the world,
to join in our celebration.
Like, think about that.
It was you that I was
thinking about, Chris.
You're the one who came in, right?
Amen!
We're glad you're here.
But think about that.
If Psalm 98
and joy to the world
place on our lips
a commanding invitation
to the mountains
and to the sea,
imploring them,
begging them
to worship our God
with us,
how much more
should we extend
this commanding invitation
to the people
in our lives
who have yet
to join our song?
People who are living
apart from God
and pursuing
other lesser joys
than Jesus.
People who can't find
a good reason
to sing something
so ridiculous
as joy to the world.
Do we realize
what a unique gift
we have to offer
the world
in the name
of Jesus?
So when we sing
joy to the world,
we aren't just
singing as grateful
worshipers,
but we're singing
with God-given authority
as missionaries
and as evangelists.
We're singing
as emcees to the world
crying out,
make some noise
for Jesus.
That's what we're doing
when we sing
joy to the world.
And not only that,
but we're singing
as prophets.
Not just with
commemorative gratitude,
not just as a
commanding invitation,
but with a confident
hope for the future.
Now if you've been
paying attention
to Psalm 98,
if you've been paying
attention to the song
Joy to the World,
maybe it's raised
some question marks
because Psalm 98
is a little bit,
it's pretty vague,
right?
Like what is the
psalmist actually
singing about
in the history
of ancient Israel?
What marvelous
things had God done?
What was he referring
to?
What salvation
had been accomplished
and seen by the nations
and did the divine
king really come
and if so,
in what way?
Did Israel
ever really see
so great a salvation
to match the triumph
and the victory
and the tone
of this psalm?
You know,
even for those of us
who believe
that this salvation
was fulfilled
not in the nation
state of ethnic Israel
but in the coming
of Christ
and in his wider kingdom,
I think a lot of us
still struggle
to sing Joy to the World
in a deeply authentic way
because how are we
supposed to sing
Joy to the World
to our neighbors
seeking asylum
and refuge
from violence
in their home countries?
How are we supposed
to sing Joy to Gaza
and to Ukraine
and to North Korea
and to Sudan?
I mean,
many of us
probably feel like
we can't even sing
Joy into our own hearts,
into the darkness
of our own depression
or the despair
we feel about our jobs,
our relationships,
or the whole of our lives.
And you know,
this time of year,
this is a super important
question for us
with all the commercialization
of Christmas
and all the manufactured
merriment around us.
We have to be asking,
how can I sing Joy
to the World
with authenticity
rather than superficiality?
And is there really
such a thing
as Joy
to the World?
This world
is so broken, right?
It just seems so broken.
Joy can seem like
such a far-off dream.
So who do we think
we are to command
this broken world
into joy?
How could Isaac Watts
be so bold,
so brash
to write a verse
like verse 3?
No more let sin
and sorrows grow,
nor thorns
infest the ground.
How can he expect us
to sing such a thing?
I mean, sure,
Jesus has come,
but man,
I still got plenty
of thorns in my yard,
plenty of sin
in my life,
plenty of sorrow
in my family,
let alone the rest
of this world.
How can we sing
this song
without being superficial
and sentimental?
How can we sing
Joy to the World
with depth
and authenticity?
Well, if you notice
in verse 9,
verse 9 of Psalm 98,
it says,
let them sing
before the Lord
for he comes,
or it can be translated
for he is coming
to judge the earth.
He will judge,
or that word
can also be reign.
He will reign
in righteousness
and the peoples
with equity.
Did you notice
the tense change,
the change in the tense?
Verses 1 to 3
had us looking backwards
to the marvelous things
that God had done.
Verses 4 to 8
have us looking
to the present,
calling upon creation
to join us
in our present worship.
But verse 9
at the end,
it ends
in the future tense.
He is coming.
He will judge.
He will reign
as king
over the world.
You see,
ancient Israel
could have sang this song
in reference
to any number
of salvation events.
Deliverance from Egypt,
the establishment
of David's throne,
return from exile
in Babylon,
but no matter
when they sang this,
no matter what salvation
they'd experienced,
there was always
a greater future salvation
to come.
When God would finally come
as their king.
Which means that Psalm 98
was always intended
to be sung prophetically.
Prophetically,
with eyes toward
a future hope.
And you know what?
So was joy to the world.
Fun fact,
did you know
that Joy to the World
actually is a part
of a collection
of hymns
that Isaac Watts wrote?
And the collection
is not entitled,
you know,
Best Christmas Hits
by Isaac Watts.
No.
It's entitled,
simply,
The Psalms of David.
It wasn't intended
to be a Christmas song.
It's actually
a perfect Advent song
if you think about it,
longing for the coming
of the Messiah,
the king.
See,
Isaac Watts,
he saw
the prophetic nature
of Psalm 98
as ancient Israel
awaited their Messiah.
And then he looked
at our own present age
and saw that
though Christ has come,
thorns still infest
the ground.
Right?
And so like the prophets
of old,
we wait for the return
of our king.
And so just like
Psalm 98,
Joy to the World
is a song that was
meant to be sung
prophetically,
in faith,
and with confidence
in our future hope,
hope that our king
will come.
So you see,
when we sing
Joy to the World,
we are confessing
our faith.
We are prophetically
declaring our great hope
and what we know
God will do
in the future
for our good,
for the good of the world.
With the eyes of faith,
we declare this vision
of the king
that we have
who comes to make
his blessings flow
as far as the curse
is found,
and that's super far.
With the eye of faith,
we look upon a world
with no more sin,
no more sorrow,
no more thorns
infesting the ground,
and we live as prophets
and priests,
princes and princesses,
as signposts
and witnesses
to this vision
of the king.
As prophets,
we sing Joy to the World,
declaring and inviting
the world
into a better,
more glorious future.
As priests,
we sing Joy to the World,
offering up our sacrifice
of praise unto God,
and as a tender reminder
to one another
of our greatest
and only comfort
in life and in death.
We remind each other
that our sorrows
and our sufferings
are not forever,
and that in Christ
we have a deep joy
that can never,
never be taken
away from us.
You know,
there are some of us
here in this room
who have experienced
very recent,
incredibly tragic loss.
I'm thinking particularly
of losses of sons,
losses of daughters.
I think of Elizabeth Poore.
She would have been
five years old
this week.
I think of Isaac Lee.
He'd be on his way
home shortly
from his first semester
at college.
And we groan,
don't we?
We groan.
As the Apostle Paul says,
we groan
with all creation,
awaiting the final redemption
of Elizabeth's body,
of Isaac's body,
of our bodies,
of this broken world
that we inhabit.
But you know,
when Lori and Peter Poore,
and when Brian and Sam Lee
come faithfully here
to this place,
this sacred place,
to worship every week,
and when they sing
from their hearts,
Christ our hope
in life and death,
when they sing
joy to the world,
when they sing
he is worthy,
along with us,
into our ears,
let it come into our hearts
as well.
This is powerful.
That is a powerful,
prophetic,
priestly testimony
to the hope
and the joy
that we all share
in Christ,
and in Christ alone.
Like royal children,
we sing joy to the world
with confidence
in our triumphant Father,
who is the King.
One Old Testament scholar,
Derek Kidner,
he said that the psalms,
the psalms we sing now
are a rehearsal,
and God's presence
among his worshipers
is a prelude
to his appearing
to the world.
You see,
we rehearse
what we believe
to really be coming,
even when it hasn't
happened yet,
even when we haven't
seen it yet.
And honestly,
it's more than a rehearsal
because God is here.
Christ is here
in our midst
by his Spirit
even as we await
his final consummate
return in the flesh.
So my only
concluding exhortation
this morning,
Christ Church,
is to sing.
And to sing
with all our hearts
joy to the world.
Sing as a kingdom
of priests
with our eyes
fixed on Jesus
with commemorative
gratitude to God.
Let us sing
as a commanding invitation
to one another
and to the world
to join in our song
and let us sing
with confident hope
in God's good
new creation promises
to us in Christ.
Sing to the Lord
a new song,
even if it's 300 years old.
Sing to the Lord
a new song
for our King
has come.
He's come
wearing a crown
of thorns
and he has done
truly marvelous things
and in marvelous ways
too.
Look upon his right hand,
the hand that accomplished
salvation for us
and see that it is pierced
straight through.
Look upon his holy arms
spread wide upon
a cross
in our place.
This is the kind of king
that we worship.
It's a king who rules
the world
in truth
and grace
at the same time.
Uncompromising truth
and costly
yet abundant
grace.
A God
who made a way
for us
through the cross.
A God
who's come to us
to go to a cross
that we might both
glory in his righteousness
and at the same time
wonder at his love.
It's my prayer for us
that we would sing
as a people
glorying
in the high standard
of righteousness
that Christ has set
before us
and at the same time
who has loved us
unto death
on a cross
and met us there.
Let us wonder
in this season.
So let's do that now
as we sing
joy to the world.
Will you pray with me?
Amen.
Lord God
two wonders
now that we
confess
our worth
and our unworthiness.
Christ has paid it all.
Our ransom has been paid.
He's come to give us joy.
Father
many of us
feel like we cannot
taste that joy.
What do we taste
in our encounter
with Christ
here in this sacred place
even as we long
for the fullness
of that feast
at the last day.
Make us a prophetically
singing people of God
inviting the nations
to join in our joy.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.