Singing and Praying Your Way Through Christmas

Nothing says Christmas like a water buffalo. For a poor family in Asia, getting a water buffalo is like getting a farm tractor to pull a plow, or getting a milk truck full of delicious milk, or getting a stand at the market to sell cheese.

A water buffalo opens the door for work, food, and income. More importantly, it opens the door to talk about Jesus. And nothing says Christmas better than that. Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. So today on Encouraging Prayer, we're looking at a song that didn't start out as a Christmas hymn, but really that's how we all sing it today, right, James? Yeah, that's right.

It could be sung really at any time of the year. And to look at how it started way back in 1719, we need to ask a question. W-W-D-D. W-W-D-D. I mean, do you mean W-W-J-D? I mean, what would Jesus do?

No, no. It's what would David do? Because that's the question that the author of the song asked.

If David were to write a song about Jesus, what would he write? And he went from there. Ah, okay. But you're going to have to explain that a little bit more.

All right. Well, the author was Isaac Watts, and he's considered to be the father of hymns in English because he was one of the very first prolific hymn writers. He was a trailblazer. Before he came along, the church was only singing the psalms put to music, and they weren't very enthusiastic about it. And by the way, sometimes in the colonies, they'd even bring their dogs to church, and the dogs would sing along. Anyhow, this whole mess bothered Watts. So he tried to take the psalms, which, by the way, are the prayer book of the Bible, right?

And he wanted to take some of their themes and other themes from Scripture about Jesus and weave them all together and help the church praise God with them. And that's what he did with this song. So, James, I guess we're playing Name That Song, right? Because we haven't said it yet. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that'll work. But first, let's start with the psalm that Watts used, and that was Psalm 98. It starts, 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. So that's Psalm 98 verses one through four. I can really see our song in that, right? I mean, don't you think we should tell our audience what it is at this point?

Go for it. OK, so you might not be surprised when you hear all this Yeshua, which is salvation, right? That the actual song is joy to the world. The Lord has come.

Let earth receiver king. That's the one. And the funny thing about this is that it doesn't say anything about Christmas. It's really more about Jesus coming back again. The only part what you might think of as Christmassy, if you will, is let every heart prepare Him room, because, of course, there was no room for Jesus in the end. But it really says nothing about Jesus' birth or about Mary or Joseph or the angels or shepherds.

None of it's in there. So it's really a song we can sing all year round. Yeah, it is. And we should. But we've stuck it in Christmas and it'll probably stay there. But it would help if we sang it at other times, because it reminds us that Jesus is coming back. And it's really a picture of that fields and floods, rocks and hills and plains repeat the sounding joy. It's a reminder that creation anticipates Jesus will return and will cry out when he does. Yeah. And that's awesome. I mean, the line that says he comes to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found.

Yeah. Yeah, that that one is one of my favorites, especially the way it repeats far as the curse is found. Yeah, I can sing it. I mean, it's saying no matter where you've been, no matter how you've been held down and discouraged by sin, no matter what the curse of sin has done in your heart and life, Jesus can change it all. He not only saves us, he blesses us. And then there's the last part and how he rules the world and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love and wonders of his love and wonders, wonders of his love. Yeah, I mean, what a gift.

I want to write like that when I grow up. There's I mean, there's so much wonder in Jesus' love. And just to put it that way, you know, you and I become wonders of his love as he saves us and sets us free and and pours his hope into our hearts. Oh, that's so true. And I think of where I would be without Jesus. And it's really not very pretty when you think about, man, a friendless like sort of Scrooge Robbie that I'd rather be scary. Yeah, me too. Me too.

I would be so uptight. And, you know, that that brings us to another great thing about this hymn. When when Isaac Watts started writing hymns, a lot of people weren't too happy about it. And you can understand that if you think about how some folks can be so set in their ways, especially at church. You know, I mean, we've always done it this way and can be a popular saying with some folks. And they were used to singing scripture.

And let's face it, this wasn't. But Watts's whole goal was to get people to understand why they were singing at all, that they really had something to praise God for and to praise him more. And so he did this, staying close to scripture. And no matter the pushback, he just kept praising God for Jesus. So, you know, don't let the world steal your joy, because that's who Jesus is. Joy to the world when we come to him. What a great reminder, especially at Christmas. I mean, where we get so focused and wrapped up in the wrappings, if you will, spending more of our time focusing on things and stuff sometimes than we do on him.

Right. But the beautiful thing is he really has come to show us the wonders of his love. And we need to praise him for that always.

That's so true. Not only to show us the wonders of his love, but to make each one of us who will have him truly a wonder of his love. I mean, I may not be who I'm fully meant to be, but I'm not who I was, all because of the grace and goodness of God to us, all because of Jesus. Amen. Me too.

And that really is something to have joy about. So, James, would you wrap us up with a prayer? But before you do that, I want to remind our listeners that we have a very special and new encouraging prayer broadcast and right podcast as well, right here on the Truth Network on Christmas Day. So you don't want to miss that, right, James?

That's that's right. Let's pray. Lord, bless us. Bless our listeners this Christmas to just know the joy of knowing you. Lord, we praise you for the wonder of all that you are, that you welcome us into. We praise you that you break the curse of sin and death over our lives.

And we can live in your joy forever because of it. We worship you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray. This is the Truth Network.