The Christmas Concert

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. This is Rodney from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explore manhood within Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds.

Sit back, enjoy it, share it. But most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Kingdom Pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together, we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into kingdom pursuits.

Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host, Robbie Dilmore. Oh my, what a treat. I mean, sometimes God just blows my mind that we could go from the Christian Car Guys show we just had, talking about the ultimate pecudum being God's visits, and then how, you know, so many of those stories had to do with the way God visits us through music and through songs, especially Christmas songs, because so many of us have those in our hearts. From when we were children singing carols or whatever that is, even when you're in a nursing home or wherever you go, that these folks who haven't spoken really for a month or two or maybe six months, you start singing Silent Night or We Three Kings, and they let loose. Because that stuff is down in your heart, and you can sense God in that, and so along those lines, we have Pastor Jay Boyce, who's got a big-time event coming up, but what's really cool, this is part of the big-time event, is he's here in the studio with his guitar. He's got a concert coming up at Oakland Baptist Church in Kernersville, which is on Kernersville Road in Kernersville. That's coming tomorrow, but part of promoting that is he comes on Kingdom Pursuits today to share with us this idea of worship and how close it is to our hearts at Christmas, right?

Absolutely, man. So glad to be here with you today, and grateful for the opportunity to just talk Christmas, sing a little bit, and appreciate the opportunity to promote our event at our church. We do this every year, and it's turned into just a wonderful time of celebration and worship. So yeah, so glad to be here.

Yeah, that's coming tomorrow again. But today is kind of a neat thing, because Pastor Jay was actually—this is not his first time on the show with me—actually, back when the show was called Robbie's Hobbies, which has been a long time ago, but 10 years ago, he thinks, back in 2010 or thereabouts, 2011, he was on when he had just released a CD before he became the worship pastor at Oakland, and so how neat to be back again after all these years! Yeah, I was trying to think back, I mean, at least 11 years.

That CD came out in 2010, and I don't know how we connected, but somehow I ended up on the show and sang a few of those songs. Stu Epperson. Yeah, maybe Stu.

Let me just tell you how I connect with most of you. Stu is three words. Stu Epperson. And that CD ended up, I don't know, I had one song on there that ended up doing really well on radio, the song Forgiven. I still get requests to sing that song quite a bit. Haven't done any recording since, I just got into church ministry and became the worship pastor at Oakland, and then eventually the pastor, so that's where we're at now. Still leading worship, though. That's so cool.

Yeah. That's really cool, and I'm really, really looking forward to the show. Again, I've heard him sing before, and you're going to get to hear him sing live. But he's all, this is so you can come worship, and you know, take your friends, there's a real Christmas concert going on again tomorrow at 6 o'clock in Kernersville, on Kernersville Road. But you know, speaking of Christmas, you know, Robbie's got to do his riddles. And for whatever reason, I've always had a particular affinity for Christmas jokes, as you might imagine, Che.

You know, so here's one, these are old, but I love them, and so I tell them every year, it's just part of what I got to do, right? So do you know, Christian or Carmen, what nationality is Santa Claus? Have you wondered about that? I don't have any idea, Robbie. You don't know the nationality of Santa Claus? How about you, Jay?

I have no idea. North Polish. Yeah, it gets me every time, and you know, they tell this kind of joke upstairs at the North Pole, and so, you know what, the reindeer are always going to say right before they tell you a joke like that that's hilariously funny. You're looking at me like, you got this one, Christian? Not yet, okay.

They tell you, this joke is going to slay you. And I do love this one, this year I made a Christmas wreath out of Franklin fir branches, I don't know if you've ever tried that, but man, I love a wreath of Franklin. That's pretty good.

That's good, we like her too. And so since we've got all these Christmas carols going on, I thought it would be perfect to just have a riddle today, actually it's not a Bible riddle, but nonetheless a riddle that you hopefully can answer that will get you something that Carmen will get to in a minute. So here's the question that you're wondering, to actually call in and win at 866-348-7884, what's the nighttime librarian's favorite hymn? This is in fact a riddle, what is the nighttime librarian's favorite hymn? And when it comes to you, you might chuckle, 866-348-7884, the nighttime librarian's favorite hymn, and if they can answer that, Carmen, tell them what they'll win. They'll win one of our great books from the Kingdom Pursuits Prize Library. Yes, we have.

Boy, has it expanded lately. There are literally thousands of books in the Kingdom Pursuits Library, so, I mean, literally, there are! I don't know how we've amassed this collection, but we have, and so we would love to send one out to you, all you got to do is call in and tell us what is the nighttime librarian's favorite hymn. As you might have ever wondered that, you know, we're here to help you out. So, Pastor, I think to whet their appetites, man, I think we ought to play the song that you just played for me, like I was just sitting here worshiping while it was going on, as he was just doing the mic check. Awesome.

Alright. We three kings of Orient are, bearing gifts we traverse afar. Field and fountain, moor and mountain, following yonder star. O star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light. Born a king on Bethlehem's plain, gold I bring to crown him again, king forever, ceasing never over us all to reign.

O star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light. Let us worship the king, all our gifts we will bring, with joyful hearts we will shout and sing. O come let us worship the king, let us worship the king, all our gifts we will bring, with joyful hearts we will shout and sing. O come let us worship the king, with joyful hearts we will shout and sing. O come let us worship the king, come let us worship the king.

Wow, if you couldn't have timed it better as we hear the bump. So you could guess we've got a whole lot more of this very special Christmas edition of Kingdom Pursuit, but it wouldn't be the same without your phone call telling me about this nighttime librarian's favorite song. 866-348-7884, we come back so much we get advanced worship of what's going on at Oaklawn tomorrow at 6 o'clock. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom. And today, wow, what a passion we have here with Pastor Jay Boyce and Christmas at Oaklawn. It's coming actually tomorrow evening, December the 19th at 6 p.m. It's on Kernersville Road.

You might say it's in Kernersville, you might say it's in Winston-Salem, but it's right there about four miles outside of Kernersville on Kernersville Road. So how fun, and you could get to hear so much more of what we got to hear a few minutes ago, but right now we get to hear from Mrs. Ward in Greensboro who's got an answer to this riddle of what's the nighttime librarian's favorite hymn. Mrs. Ward, what do you think? It took me a minute to get it, but I think it's Oh Holy Night.

I know they love that. I've never met a librarian that didn't love Oh Holy Night, so that wasn't the one I had in mind, but I'm certain that every nighttime librarian out there loves it, so you're a winner. We're going to send you out a book from the Kingdom Pursuits prize package. There's still another one that you'll see when you hear it. You'll go, oh, okay, but it's okay. If I think of it, if I think of it, can I call back in?

Why not? But since I've got you on the phone, and I happen to have this amazing worship pastor with me, and he's a pastor of the church, he's a senior pastor, but he also has got this beautiful voice, which I'm sure you got to hear a minute ago, and this heart for song. You've got to sing your jungle song, man, that we just, you know, like, just one more time. So good. Go ahead.

Sing it for him. Okay, here we go. Who's the king of the jungle? Who's the king of the sea? Who's the king of the universe? And who's the king of me? I tell you that. Yes, he's the king of me. He's the king of the universe.

The jungle and the sea. He was starting to play the guitar while you were, he was like, man, this is one of the great hits of Mrs. Ward's school bus, and I'm loving it. So thank you again for calling in and for sharing and for winning. Thank you so much. God bless.

All right, there's still an answer out there that will make you laugh, I think. 866-348-7884-866-34-TRUTH, if you know what's the Knight Librarian's favorite song, but I wanted to speak, you know, at the break, you know, I'm quite often ignorant, my wife will tell you this. But I was like, man, I've never heard that version of We Three Kings and Pastor J says that's because I wrote it. Well, he wrote the ending of it. He didn't write the other and he wrote it. This is very cool because he did a series in his church on the gifts of the Magi, which we know there are three gifts, we don't know how many kings. It's true. Yeah, and during the sermon, a priest actually told some myths about that. We don't know that there were three.

That's a myth. We talked about where they came from, but the most important thing we talked about in the sermon was the importance of worship and what they brought to King Jesus. They worshiped Jesus with the right attitude. Matthew 2, verse 10, when they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. Yeah, Stu talked about it yesterday, actually, at a Christmas party, that there's four exceedingly great, I mean, I don't know, when was the last time you had exceeding great joy?

That's huge! Well, that's just a joy that only, I think, a believer in Jesus can quite understand. It's a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. It surpasses all understanding.

It's different than happiness, which can be temporal. And that's how we should come to worship, with the right attitude, with understanding and with a grateful heart. As the song says, with joyful hearts we will shout and sing, O come, let us worship the King. And so, you know, when I gather for worship on Sunday, man, I just want to come with the Spirit, ready to receive what God has for me. And also ready to give Him everything that I have for His glory and His honor.

1 Corinthians 10, 31, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. So they worshiped Him with the right attitude, and then they worshiped Jesus with the right altitude, was the second point in my message when I talked about the Magi. Verse 11 in Matthew 2 says, they saw the young child with Mary, His mother, and they fell down in worship.

No! They fell down. I love that, they worshiped to the right altitude. And worshiped Him.

Just on their face, yeah. And, you know, we often have this idea of worship being everyone standing in a dimly lit room with lights going and smoke. And all of that is fine, I'm criticizing that, but the word worship has the idea of falling on our face before the Lord in reverence. And so they worshiped Him with the right attitude, the right altitude, and then they worshiped Him. Right, like Peter, when he gets away, what did he do?

He hit the deck. Yeah. Right, literally. Yeah, it doesn't mean we, you know, do that dramatically in front of everyone, but I think it's the attitude of our heart. Right. That we come before the Lord.

Oh, it's beautiful. Humbly. Right. And then lastly, they worshiped Him with the right gratitude.

Of course, they brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and they offered them to Jesus. Just to back up again, because I was just thinking about it. 119 Psalm, when he gets to the Dalit section, the first verse is, my soul cleaves to the dust. Yeah. Right?

Well, cleaving to the dust, that's the right altitude. Absolutely, yeah. I think it's, you know, our worship team, we pray every Sunday before we start, and we pray that the Lord would remove anything out of the way that would just hinder us from having a humble spirit to come before Him. What are we offering Him?

Right. It's not about me standing on a stage performing to you. It's about us singing to the Lord corporately together.

What can we offer Him? That's one way we do it with music. I think worship typically gets, you know, misdefined as one hour on Sunday morning when worship should encompass our entire life. I have this thing that I say to our church, that worship is work.

Worship is seven days a week, what am I doing to surrender my life to the Lord each and every day in worship? Ah, yeah. And, you know, the end of that verse, after my soul cleaves to the dust, right, quicken thou me according to your word. Yeah. Right?

So the pathway, like the Dalit itself, right, is the door to your walk with Jesus is humility, and that goes with starting out right on your face, right? Absolutely. Beautiful, wow. We've got Virginia is in Lexington, she thinks she knows. Who? Excuse me, Virginia, who do you think was the nighttime librarian's favorite, or what do you think was the nighttime librarian's favorite hymn? I would say Silent Night. You have nailed it.

You're exactly right, and the winner. So how about you, what's your favorite hymn? Well, I like O Holy Night. Oh, I've got to tell you that for me, and for anybody who ever attended Calvary Baptist Church when Mark Quartz was pastor, and he had been, every Christmas he sang O Holy Night, and he could sing O Holy Night as a friend of Jesus. You know what I'm saying, when you're watching somebody worship that is deeply intimate with Jesus, that they add something to the song that you never saw before, you know what I mean? Right, uh-huh, and I also like O Little Town of Bethlehem. I was in Gatlinburg one time, and there was a thunderstorm, it was Christmas Eve, and there was a thunderstorm, and I went out on the balcony of the hotel I was staying in, and it was like I was just transformed into Bethlehem. All the streets were silent, and the Christmas lights were reflecting in the rain running down the road, and there was fog on the mountains and everything, and it was just so beautiful. Well, here's the good news is that the pastors pulled up O Holy Night, I just saw him, and so you could give us a verse real quick, we've got to go to break in a minute, but here we go for you, Virginia. Thank you.

From Pastor J. Well, I've not played this one on the guitar, I usually play it on the piano, so we'll try a verse and we'll see what happens, alright? I might just end up doing a rockapella, let's try it.

Here's where I'll lose it with the guitar, but we'll sing it. All on your knees, oh hear the angel voices, oh night divine, oh night when Christ was born, oh night, oh holy night, oh night divine. There you go, Virginia, thank you for calling in and for winning. That was beautiful, thank you.

God bless, thank you so much. Alright, we will be back with much more Christmas at Oak Lawn concert coming up next, well actually tomorrow, at 6 p.m. in Kernersville with Pastor J. Boyce. We've got so much more coming up, stay tuned, wow. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we hear how God takes your passion and uses it to build the kingdom today. We're enjoying a concert, actually, of Christmas at Oak Lawn concert, Oak Lawn Baptist Church, tomorrow the 19th at 6 p.m. In Kernersville Road, in Kernersville, Pastor J. Boyce will be there, but he's with us now, and we're getting a chance to share some music, and we were talking a minute ago during the break again about the gifts of the Magi and talking about the frankincense and how much bread has to do with the whole Christmas idea and that Bethlehem be in the house of bread, and Bethlehem is obviously where it happened, but Pastor, you were sharing that you got a chance to actually visit Bethlehem a few years ago. Yeah, it was actually 2008, so it's been quite a while back, but I was overwhelmed when I was able to take a trip to the Holy Land and visit the town of Bethlehem, and you know, they take you to the tourist place, the Church of the Nativity, and they tell you this is where Jesus was born, but we had a guide on our tour. He was a brilliant young man, a historian, and he said, now we're going to take you to this little cave outside of Bethlehem, and it was actually a cave. We had to walk down on the side of the hills there, and he said it was probably more somewhere like this where Mary and Joseph were taken or told to go out on the hillside there with the animals there, and so it was a unique experience to get outside of the tourist part of Bethlehem.

It's a very awesome, pretty cool little place to visit, as well as every other place over there. But you said you were eating at a restaurant? Yeah, I was eating at a restaurant, and I remember this pretty clearly. We were sitting at this restaurant on the outside of town there, and we're on this little portico. We're sitting outside on a porch, outdoor dining, if you will, and out of the corner of my eye, I catch a group of sheep walking by, just out maybe 25 yards away, and shepherds, and they're just out doing their thing. I don't know, just the Bible comes alive, and if you ever get a chance to go to the Holy Land and visit these places and see, I don't know, it was a really cool thing. I was looking out and going, wow, they're still doing that today out there shepherding on the hillsides there in Bethlehem, but it was pretty cool to visit the birthplace of the king.

So clearly you get an opportunity to play the guitar a lot, play worship. What is your favorite Christmas hymn? I just sang it, O Holy Night.

Really? I really love that one. And then, you know, I love Christmas, so I'll do several concerts. Yesterday I sang at Mallard Ridge Retirement Home, and I even like the secular tunes to some degree, and I sing those. But O Holy Night seems like it's a lot of great new ones. If I get a chance to sing it today, I'm going to do a little new song. A lot of great new Christmas songs. But that one, when you're talking Christmas hymns, I don't know, that one right there is probably my favorite. Alright, here we go.

Alright, here's one fairly new. It's called Adore. You stepped down from heaven, humbly you came, God of all creation, here with us. In a starlit manger, Emmanuel, Light of the world, here to save, Adore, come let us adore, O come let us adore, here the Lord, Worship Christ the Lord, let all that is within us adore. Wise men bring their treasures, shepherds bow low, Angel voices sing of peace on earth, What have I to offer to heaven's King? I will bring my life, my love, my all, Adore, come let us adore, O come let us adore him, The Lord, worship Christ the Lord, Let all that is within us adore, adore.

Wow, I hate there's not a whole audience to clap, you know. I love that one too, it's a great song. Did you write that?

No, I'm not sure who, maybe Chris Tomlin, I'm not positive. It's a great Christmas worship song. Right, because that whole, you know, come let us adore. And that word, you know, fortunately, hasn't been watered down. Yeah, absolutely.

It's really an absolutely beautiful. So this Christmas, right, you're bringing messages. What message has God given you for this season in 2021?

So this is pretty awesome how this worked out. I am preaching through the book of Galatians, verse by verse. And the Lord really worked this out because I happen to be right in Galatians 5, preaching through the fruits of the Spirit. Right, I was going to say, that's pretty much what's there. So we do the four... Joy might be in there, I'm just guessing.

Well, that's what I was about to say. We do the four weeks of Advent, which are joy, peace, hope, and love. And they lined, honestly, they lined up perfectly this Christmas season right where I was at. So I didn't have to detour and prepare different Christmas messages this year. We just stayed right in Galatians and tied it into the fruit of the Spirit, which was pretty awesome. So yeah, it's pretty amazing how it worked out. So that's what I'm doing. I like to preach expositionally and through the Bible, through the text, verse by verse. And so we're almost through Galatians. Yeah, so it's been pretty cool.

That's what I've done. So wow, what jumped out at you that you didn't see coming in those words this year? Well, overall, you know, in the text, it's very convicting and it's also encouraging. You know, Paul was a master writer.

He used these metaphoric illustrations. For example, these fruits, if you will. And fruit. I think we have a break coming. Is that what I'm hearing? That's what you're hearing. So we're going to leave them on the edge of their seat. What is it about fruit? I'm just saying, it must have something to do with the taste of this. I don't know.

I don't know. You just have to wait until we come back. In the meantime, you know, we're so appreciative that you're listening. And if you can, obviously, tomorrow, six o'clock in Kernersville. What a way to have a visit from God. Come worship with His people. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits, where we have got this special Christmas concert going on.

How fun it's been with Pastor J. Boyce, Christmas coming up at Oak Lawn tomorrow. They're on Kernersville Road. You know, they're in Kernersville. If you're in Charlotte today, you might be in Raleigh. You might even be in Richmond.

Or you might be in Ohio. It's all good. You can come down here.

I'm just kidding. In a way, you've got to be here during the show. Yeah, the concert will be streaming.

Okay. Folks can check it out. You can get to both of our online platforms by going to our website, oaklawnlife.com.

O-A-K-L-A-W-N, life.com. And we'll be live on Facebook, on our church Facebook page, Oak Lawn Church. And then we are also streaming live on YouTube. So if you're out of the area, you can join us online. We'd love to have you.

Yeah, join with your family and be able to worship there. So when we left our hero, we were talking fruit. And oh, I think, boy, you're going to be glad you tuned in today to hear what he's going to share about Galatians and fruit. Yeah, I just think that Paul is what he's getting at here. The whole letter, he's been combating legalism.

And we know that Christianity is not about rules. It's about a relationship. And so he's using this metaphor of garden and fruit growing. And I just went to our people with the idea that from a healthy garden, healthy fruit grows. And to have a healthy garden, you have to work at that. You have to cultivate it. You have to take care of it. You have to protect it. You have to keep the predators out.

You have to water it. And so a life that's yielded to the Spirit of God, which he talks about that multiple times, yielded to God's Spirit will produce these behaviors. These behaviors are not a list of rules. These behaviors happen when a heart that is yielded to the Spirit of God, when you're taking care of that spiritual garden, if you will.

These are behaviors that grow out of a heart yielded to the Spirit of God. So that's how I see it. I hope that that's a good interpretation of Galatians 5. So we've got another song coming for you. And I can hardly wait.

All right. Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. Joyful, all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies. With angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King.

Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord. Late in time behold Him come, offspring of a virgin's womb. Mild He lays His glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give in second birth. Hark, the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King.

The newborn King. Wow. Like oh my goodness.

That's just off the hook. I got to say that you are in for a treat tomorrow night. There at Oak Lawn Baptist Church.

It's in Kernersville. Or if you can go online apparently and watch it. He's streaming and you've got, I'm assuming there's more than you. You'll have the whole team. We have, just so blessed we have a worship team at our church who's so gifted.

I like to brag on them every chance I get. Our main goal is that the gospel is given out. That we are presenting the gospel. We're going to do a candlelight service also.

It'll be at the end of the concert. The main goal is that people hear that Jesus is the reason for the season. That they hear the life transforming power of the gospel.

Every song just leads to Jesus. And that's our goal. That's our prayer. So we'd love to have you 6 p.m. tomorrow night there at Oak Lawn Baptist Church. In Winston-Salem, Kernersville area. 3500 Kernersville Road is our address.

3500 Kernersville Road. And wow, you can see that, you know, what a way that, you know, if we hear it. You know, it's just a beautiful thing to me as I'm listening to you sing.

I've heard that song, you know, obviously since I was a little kid. But the emphasis on certain things that, you know, you can touch your heart. And see that, you know, those fruits that you're talking about being planted by those streams of living water.

Yeah, they come out. They're absolutely beautiful. And so, what a way that we can all plant ourselves.

Absolutely. Next, tomorrow night at 6 o'clock in Kernersville. Thank you so much, Jay, for sharing your gifts with us.

And what a beautiful thing that God is going to be glorified tomorrow in Kernersville. Amen. Thank you so much for having me.

I've really enjoyed it. Thank you. And now get ready because you've got so much truth coming at you. You've got a special encouraging prayer that the pastor has done for you on another Christmas hymn. And Masculine Journey will be with, you know, starts here and now at 12 o'clock.

Followed by, it's time to man up with Nikita Koloff. Oh my, what truth. You've got it coming at you on the Truth Network. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com.