This Christmas season at Refuge Church Byhalia, we’re slowing down to soak in one of the most meaningful carols ever written — “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Each week, we’ll explore a different verse of this ancient song, uncovering how it points to Jesus — the promised Messiah, our Rescuer and Redeemer. Along the way, we’ll rediscover a truth woven into every human heart: we were made to sing, and to sing of the glory of God.
Intro
- Good Morning & Merry Christmas!
- Thank you again for being here at Refuge Church.
- It’s been an immensely special time together already
- And I hope you’re feeling the Christmas mood between the hot chocolate bar and snow
- Not to mention the absolutely frigid weather
- But seriously thank you for being here at refuge today.
- My name is Michael and I serve as the planting pastor here at refuge.
- It’s an honor to stand before you and preach today as we go into part 3 of our special Christmas series ‘Carols of the Coming King.’
- It’s our last full week before Christmas so today we turn the Christmas spirit up
- And focus even more heavily on the birth of Jesus Christ.
- Now we’ve spent the last 2 weeks heavy into singing in the church. And I want to start by recalling some of what we’ve talked about.
- Because this whole singing in a room thing, can be a jarring experience for some
- Seem odd for some
- Or be something that you may struggle to want to participate in.
- So why do we do it?
Singing Recap
- A larger question, why does the church do what the church does
- It starts with the Bible
- ‘The local church gathering of believers is to do ‘church’ as scripture guides and instructs. ‘
- The Holy Perfect Inspired Word of God, without error is our guide
- This gathering of writings from about 40 authors from 3 continents over the course of about 1500 years with 1 central theme and point
- It’s an amazing book
- And it is our guide
- And in the Bible, there’s a clear instruction about things in church.
- ’Everything the church does, should be done well, in order, & for the glory of God. ’
- And we pull this from 1 Corinthians 14:40 after Paul is giving more instructions on spiritual gifts
- The short & quick summary is the church members all have different skills, passions, & spiritual gifts
- Skills – stuff we are good at
- Passions – stuff we are good at and are excite about doing
- Spiritual Gifts – things that are accomplished only by the power of the holy spirit that dwells inside of every believer and equips every believer individually for the encouragement and building up of the church.
- Well the execution of these skills, passions, & spiritual gifts
- According to the Apostle Paul
- They should be done decently, they should be done well & in order.
- Not chaotic
- Not poorly done
- That doesn’t mean robotic and mundane
- But intentional, on purpose, and clear.
- Now more specifically, the singing
- ‘Why should the church sing?
- The church should sing, because it is commanded & demonstrated throughout scripture. ’
- The psalms over and over say Sing!
- Not sing if you’re in a good mood
- Sing if you’re feeling excited about Jesus
- Not Sing if you’ve been saved 25 years or more
- Not sing if you’re good at it
- No the instruction to us all is Sing!
- It’s one of the one another commands that we talked about when Christian & Monica joined the church.
- But not only is it commanded
- It is demonstrated throughout scripture
- Jesus and His disciples sang together
- Paul in prison sang
- The church should sing because it is commanded and demonstrated throughout scripture.
- So then
- ‘What should the church sing?
- The church should sing songs, hymns, & spiritual songs. ’
- Songs of variety in theme
- But unified in basis
- Songs that are rooted in scripture clearly
- And lead us to Christ and the Gospel
- The good news of Christ Crucified for sinners
- Songs of culturally appropriate style
- Remember 1st century Israel musical style doesn’t fit 21st century Byhalia
- And 21st century Byhalia doesn’t fit 19th century Germany
- And 19th century Germany doesn’t fit the “Jesus Revolution” of the 1960’s & 70’s in California
- Styles change
- Content & basis shouldn’t
- But as styles change – your engagement shouldn’t be impacted
- If the songs around solid & rooted in scripture
- & led with the right emotion & heart behind them
- What should the church sing?
- Songs that aren’t only emotional
- But also songs that aren’t only heady and theologically heavy.
- A healthy but knowable variety of message, style, emotion, depth
- All sung for the Glory of God & congregational participation
- How should the church sing?
- The church should sing with enthusiasm, engaged minds, & engaged hearts.
- Commercial break – hopper indicators –
- Free Flowing = Good = green = voice is uninhbiited, head is engaged, heart & emotions are stirred
- Stopped up = bad = red = voice is subdued, head is distracted, heart & emotions are flatlined & bored.
- How you sing indicates where you are
- To yourself & to others.
- Which means sometimes we sing through tears in impossibly hard weeks
- Sometimes we sing to keep our eyes on Christ when things are going immensely well.
- But Christian, we should never be stuck in robotic unengaged musical worship.
- And last week when we discussed this, I pulled a helpful quote from Keith & Kristyn Getty’s book Sing! As a guide for our involvement in worship
- “When… you stand to sing, consciously focus on what is going on… Ask God to help you focus; think about the words you are singing and the images they are painting; respond in prayer to lines that particularly strike you; be mindful of those around you, enjoying being part of something greater than just yourself.” -Keith & Kristyn Getty
- Take a picture of that
- Remember that
- Especially if you struggle to be engaged and involved during musical worship
- Now, I don’t want you to think this is just a Michael idea
- Or Michael just likes Music
- In rapid fire succession, and a helpful break between them
- Here’s some quotes from some farther along or already passed brothers & sisters in Christ.
- Feel free to try and write these down or take a quick picture of them.
- I share these quotes that have been helpful or impactful for me
- Challenging for me.
- But also to show, these ideas – aren’t just my own. Other people have had them.
- Singing Motivation
- “The fact that we are singing ‘to the Lord’ makes it worship. The fact that we are singing to be heard by each other makes it corporate.” -John Piper
- “We are not to sing in order to entertain ourselves. We are to sing the truth of God in the presence of God.” -Martin Lloyd-Jones
- “We do not come to church to sing trivialities. Worship demands that we sing of God as He is revealed in Scripture.” R.C. Sproul
- “We should sing “heartily as unto the Lord; not with our voices only, but with our very souls.” -Charles Spurgeon
- “Singing together bears compelling witness to the truth. It says … that, just as we sing the same melody together, we share the same faith, the Faith; … we share one Lord of all, who transforms the life we live together and will bring us home to eternity.” -Keith & Kristyn Getty
- Transitioning to O Come O Come Emmanuel
- Now a job for us all every Christmas, is to be sure we are keeping our eyes on Christ
- The reason for the season as the cliche says
- Now I’ve got 4 kids
- This week our youngest had his 1st Birthday
- Yes, that’s right, Zeke is 1 year old.
- And now, our glorious pattern is running strong
- How old are my kids
- 7, 5, 3, & 1!
- So my kids are young
- And something we started a few years ago to try and keep our eyes on Christ
- Was to have a bunch of nativities in our home, and then we ask our kids the question
- Who’s the best part of the nativity?
- And they respond – loudly now – Baby Jesus!
- And as we go about this Christmas season, all of us, need to fight to keep the arrival and birth of Christ at the forefront of our minds.
- So as you have the spotify or pandora playlist going
- And that Christmas music gets to playing
- Once you finish singing frosty the snowman
- And bounce into hark the herald angel sings
- Or away in a manger
- We should try to get our minds engaged a bit and think about what the popular Christian Christmas songs are saying
- So we’ve been doing that by looking at the verses of ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.’
- Today we look at ‘The Dawn of our Salvation.’
Song Recap
- [Verse 1] – November 30th
- O come, O come, Emmanuel
- And ransom captive Israel
- That mourns in lonely exile here
- Until the Son of God appear
- In this verse, we see, remember, and try to identify with the people of Israel
- Longing and waiting for the Messiah
- Wandering in exile
- And at times in her history, Israel was in captivity
- And there was an intense longing
- An intense desire
- And intense hope
- For God to be with them
- And so we sing, with anticipation like they had
- And with anticipation greater than that for Christmas morning with our families
- We sing looking forward to Emmanuel, God with us
- Then last week
- [Verse 3] – December 7th
- O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free
- Thine own from Satan’s tyranny
- From depths of hell Thy people save
- And give them victory o’er the grave
- We remembered the longing for
- The family member descended from the broken family tree of Jesse
- The broken family tree of King David
- That was the promised family tree for the Messiah.
- Though cut down
- A shoot
- A twig
- A stick would spring forth from that broken family
- And that stick
- Would be the Christ
- The messiah
- The one who would save a people from their sins
- And He would free them from hell and separation from God forever
- And would free them from the bondage of sin
- Setting the captives free
- Oh what glorious words are in this song
- If your mind and heart are not stirred when you see words like these
- Examine yourself to see that you’re in the faith
Verse of the Week
- [Verse 4] – December 14th
- O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer
- Our spirits by Thine advent here
- Disperse the gloomy clouds of night
- And death’s dark shadows put to flight
- Line by line – let’s see the scriptural basis & talk about things
- “O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer”
- Luke 1:78–79 Page ___ ‘78 because of the btender mercy of our God, whereby cthe sunrise shall dvisit us8 efrom on high 79 to fgive light to gthose who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into hthe way of ipeace.”’
- John the Baptist’s dad
- Prophesying that John, would be the prophet of the Most High going before Jesus to prepare His way
- And that Jesus – would be the sunrise will happen
- Light will shine
- It’s a beautiful prophecy
- Now I’m a big sunrise person
- In fact, if we were to go through the pictures on my phone you would find many a sunrise and sunset picture
- Here’s one I took a few weeks ago (show picture on screen)
- I got this one on the way to Men’s Bible Study a few weeks ago.
- Now this 2nd picture (show 2nd picture) – I got here at the building in October 2024 one night as we were working on the renovation.
- They are amazing
- And God created them
- Do you think about that often
- Like before God created the World
- There was no sunrise or sunset
- And God came up with those
- The explosions of color and gradients
- Amazing
- Intense
- And Jesus is compared to that
- His arrival to complete the mission of our salvation, our redemption
- Compared to the explosion of light and color of a sunrise.
- Now when we go on vacation, because my daughter knows I love sunrises.
- She’s decided – vacations are times to wake up early with her Daddy-o and look at sunrises.
- And she looks forward to those moments
- She anticipates them
- And before she goes to sleep – she says – please please wake me up for sunrise
- (Show picture of Cozette & I)
- Oh come thou dayspring
- Oh come sunrise
- Oh come salvation!
- What a beautiful amazing thing
- Let’s look forward to it!
- “Our spirits by Thine advent here”
- Isaiah 61:1–3 Page ___ ‘sThe Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has tanointed me to bring good news to the poor;1 he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and uthe opening of the prison to those who are bound;2 2 vto proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, wand the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; 3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion— xto give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, ythe oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; zthat they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, athat he may be glorified.3’
- Come and cheer our spirits
- And cheer them
- As we celebrate the arrival
- The advent of a special person
- It’s a glorious thing to remember
- A glorious thing to have looked forward to.
- Puritan Pastor Jonathan Edward said “The coming of Christ was the greatest event that ever came to pass, because by it the true happiness of mankind was procured.” -Jonathan Edwards
- “Disperse the gloomy clouds of night”
- Isaiah 9:2 Page ____ ‘2 3 iThe people kwho walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of ldeep darkness, on them has light shone.’
- Christ’s arrival was special
- And burst through as light
- And busted through gloomy clouds
- What imagery this is
- What a beautiful picture this verse is painting as we sing.
- “The light of Christ is not merely information; it is illumination that shatters the darkness of the soul.” -R.C. Sproul
- “Where Jesus comes he dispels despair, drives away fear, and causes the night to flee before the morning.” -Charles Spurgeon
- “And death’s dark shadows put to flight”
- Hebrews 2:14–15 Page ____ ‘14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise hpartook of the same things, that ithrough death he might jdestroy kthe one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who lthrough fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. ’
- Death is no longer a fear
- Death is no longer a sting
- Death – accomplishes something for the believer
- Author of the Pilgrim’s Progress, John Bunyan said “By his death, Christ pulled out death’s sting, and made it a servant instead of a tyrant.” -John Bunyan
- What a change Christ’s arrival brought
- The question for all of us though is
Gospel
- When we sing or hear these Christmas songs
- That are about Jesus
- And His arrival
- His humble birth
- His earthly parents
- Do we sing
- Knowing
- What his life, from those moments in little bethlehem, do we know what His life would bring?
- That by his perfect life
- His substitutionary death
- And victorious resurrection
- We would have hope
- That though our sin is scarlet
- Though our sin separates us from God
- Though our sin is something we cannot overcome on our own
- That Jesus – did everything that was needed.
- And that by putting our faith in trust in Jesus
- We can be saved
- It’s not hoop jumping
- It’s trusting in the perfect hoop jumper
- Jesus Christ
- This Christmas season, do you hear of Christ and celebrate
- Are you doing that today for the first time?
- Friend – today can be the day of salvation
- Trust in Jesus
- Our sunrise
- Our dayspring
- Our dispeller of gloominess and cloudiness.
- Mark it on your care card
- Put that in the offering box
- Or bring it to our prayer team and know Jesus as today as your savior.
- And spend this christmas season, enjoying and knowing Christ in a new way
- As the freeer of your captive soul.
Let’s pray.