Shout For Joy - Psalm 98 - The Carols

Wow. Hey, guys. Hey, at all of our locations today, man, it is a special day for us as we get a chance to celebrate what God has done. It's really the culmination of what he's been doing in us for over a year, really, but just this sermon series over the last few months, and God is really shaking some things up here.

What have we been talking about for the last couple of months? Man, just like the tree in Psalm 1, we're going to pine after something. Our roots are going to go deep into something. And when our roots go deep in God, our fruit can go wide for the mission of God. We have a ton of plans. We have a lot of things that we want to see over the next couple of years. But really, the question was, God, are you the deepest desire of my heart?

And if you are, what does that look like in terms of the reflection of that in my daily life, in my time, talent, and in my treasure? Guys, I am happy to announce to you today that, man, in terms of our first primary goal that we had, in terms of people jumping in with where we are going, we just saw an incredible thing. We saw over 2,700 people, families kind of all together, 2,700 people make commitments to the deeper initiative over the next two years. Now, we're going to celebrate this one together, all right?

Over 800 of them, it was the first time they have committed at something like this, at Mercy Hill. We want to praise God for that, all right? And so what's left for us at all of our campuses is for me to share with you guys what God has done, but I'm going to build a little bit of anticipation here, okay? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you guys, we enlisted some help really from all over the world to kind of share with you guys what God has done through this. So let's hear from some of our different members in different stages of life, different places of ministry, but man, let's hear from them.

You didn't honestly think I was going to let somebody else tell the final, right? My favorite thing in that whole video is, man, our little man Connor has had a great spiritual year. He gave his Black Panther thing away and he got baptized, all right? So I don't know if you guys saw that on the video, but anyway, hey guys, man, it's been an incredible thing to see.

And before I share the number with you guys, I'm going to build up a little more anticipation here, okay? So man, I do want you to hear this. Man, one of the statements that came through on that video, the earlier video was, man, it's going to change the trajectory of our whole church. And that's really true. Man, because what we said was, God, we want you to be the deepest desire of our heart, but we do want to see the fruit and the mission go wide. And the things that we have talked about, thousands of people, we pray, are going to be saved and baptized in the new home and hub. Campus is planted, church is planted. We're going to see many more families jump off the sideline and onto the frontline in terms of adoption and foster care and rope holding for those that are.

Man, we're going to see many young people, college students raised up and sent out to the mission field over the next few years. We're going to get a chance to see these things, and we're going to be able to look back together on this moment and see that it came not just from talking about the mission, but from talking about God being the number one thing in our life. See, that's what deeper was about. It's what it is about now. And what happens is when God goes deep, the mission goes wide. Let me give you my favorite deeper story quickly, okay? My favorite one came as the last one.

This is what happened. The weekend of the commitment weekend, I'm done. I've preached three or four times that weekend. I'm about to get in my truck and go home, and all the commitments have come in and all that, and a family walks up to me and they say, hey, I mean, there's barely anybody left that's, hey, can we, we want to share our deeper story with you. I'm like, man, this is awesome. And I had the thought. I don't know why.

God just put it in my head. I thought, man, and I know this is not going to be the last deeper story I hear, but it was, and the thought that came to my mind is, man, this is kind of an end cap on the deeper thing, you know, in terms of like, you know, just the commitments and all of that. And the family came up to us and she said, or they said, hey, we want you to know that we didn't write a number down on our card. We're going to continue to give, but that's not what we wrote down on our card. They said, see, we have been going through a process for months trying to make this decision, and this weekend we have decided, man, our family is going to the nations. That's what deeper's about, right?

That's what it is. Man, to see, God, you're number one, and it pushes us to anything that you are calling us to, all right? So anyway, man, without further ado, church, we prayed, we asked God, and y'all just again, man, He did it.

He did it. So we were praying, y'all, we were praying, man, we were praying for 30 million over the next two years to see the mission go forward in the way that we feel like God has called us to, and unbelievably, man, with economic times and everything going on in the world, man, this church committed. Man, in terms of our commitments and expected giving, over $32 million over the next two years. Guys, this weekend is the starting line for that. At all of our locations, man, we have a big give weekend, man, first fruits, okay? Here's what you got to understand. If you run businesses or you run spreadsheets, you're going to understand this, okay? This initiative is over 25 months, but our permits are sitting at the, you know, at the county right now, like as soon as they go, I mean, it could be before Christmas, dirt's going to be moving like we're going.

That's only a 12 month build, okay? So just think about the cashflow situation of that with the major part of this being the new home and hub. So my point in saying that is, man, this big give weekend and the money that we can give on the front of this initiative is very, very important, all right? And so if there are those of you who said, man, part of our commitment was stored assets or part of it was we can deploy it now, my family's going to try to do this the best we can.

We understand that what we can give right now is going to matter immensely in terms of kind of the cashflow situation with the project and all of that. So that's what this weekend is, this big give weekend, first fruits. We'll talk about that a little more later, but guys, it's the weekend for celebration, all right? So let's pray and then we'll dive into our sermon for this weekend. Father, we come before you and God, we are just so grateful.

You have shown up again. Lord, in 10 years, I can't even count the amount of times that you have moved mountains for this church. God, you have done it for us, but you have done it for the sake of your great name.

God, you have done it for your renown, and I pray, Lord, that every single dollar that comes in over the next 25 months that was committed, that is expected to come in, Lord, I pray that you will anoint it and multiply it for the sake of your mission. God, it is not about the name of this church. It is not about a group of pastors.

It's not even about a group of leaders. God, it's about you and your fame in all the earth. You are the famous one. You are worth it, and we long for you as a deer pants for the water. God, you are the number one thing in our life.

You are the bottom of our heart. Lord, I pray that you will make the fruit in our church go wide for your sake. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. At all of our locations, can we just praise Him one more time together? It's an amazing thing.

Guys, it's an amazing thing to see God continue to move. If you have a copy of Scripture, turn with me to Psalm chapter 98, all right? And here's what we're going to do, and whenever we start a new series at Mercy Hill, you might be brand new, the intro to the first sermon, a lot of times it's kind of an intro to the series, okay? Now, it's only a four-week series, but I do want to give you a quick intro on what we're going to be doing with the whole month of December, four weeks all the way culminating in Tanger, and this is what we're going to be doing. A lot of us understand and know the traditional Christmas songs that come with this season, but do we understand them, okay?

Here's what I want to do over the next four weeks. I want to go to the Scriptures that produce some of the greatest theologically rich songs that we sing nowadays, and I have sung for hundreds of years really about Christmas. I want to try to close the gap between what we sing about at Christmas and what we understand about Christmas, okay? I want to try to close the gap between what we sing about at Christmas and what we understand about Christmas. Now, I am not at all interested in the holly jolly Christmas songs, okay? I'm not saying they're wrong by any means, but I'm not going to be doing an exposition of Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, definitely not doing an exposition of Frosty the Snowman.

I've told you guys he's the most nefarious cultural Christmas character with the weaponizing of the broomstick and taunting the children and disobeying traffic cops and who knows what he's smoking in that corn cob pipe, okay? I don't know. Well, we're not going there, but where we are going to go is to try to say, man, do we understand? Now, I can just give you some examples of like, man, we would say, oh, we understand. Okay, will you tell me what God rest ye merry gentlemen actually means? When you say that, you're like, oh, we sing it.

I think about some of the other songs that come out. Think about this, this line from one of the famous ones that we would know, long lay the world and sin and error pining. If I just polled everybody in here and said, give me the actual definition of pining, who could do it?

Could we all do it? My point is there are these songs that we sing lines of, but we're like, man, I'm not real sure. Of course, the one that makes Christians the most nervous is dawn we now are gay apparel, okay? People are like, man, I'm not sure if I'm supposed to laugh at that or not. I'm not telling you to laugh or not laugh. I'm just saying it makes all of us nervous because we're like, I have no idea what to do with that. I don't know what it means or whatever, or I know what it means, but it's so old and we don't use that language anymore for what it's saying.

Here's the problem, okay? The problem is I've just given you three examples of things that are really easy to clear up if you just think about language 200 years ago versus now. The big problem is what about the actual theology in some of these songs, and that's what we want to try to grab onto, okay? So we're not doing expositions of songs. We're doing expositions of Scripture. That's what we do at Mercy Hill.

I'm going to have to rely a little bit on your knowledge of some of the songs, and maybe you can go back and listen to them or whatever. We will do one in every service that I'm going to talk about, okay? So the one that we're going to do this week, and some of you guys might already be ahead of me, Psalm 98 is what produced the song Joy to the World, okay?

So we've already done that at our campuses. I think we may try to reprise that again before this service is over at our campuses, but the idea of Joy to the World comes out of Psalm chapter 98, and here's what we want to do, and this is why we're going after this. Y'all, songs are tools in the hand of the Spirit to drive faith deep into our hearts, okay? Songs are weapons against spiritual warfare. They are tools that the Spirit uses to drive faith deep into our hearts, but here's the deal.

Psalms are also tools in the hand of a believer to see the Spirit drive faith into somebody else's heart, and that's where I want to get into over the course of this month, because here's the deal. There may absolutely come a day when cultural Christmas and songs and all that are a way of the past in our culture, but that is not where we are right now. Don't you understand? Some of the greatest, richest theology is being played over all the aisles of the local Walmarts right now.

Just think about it. At your kid's Christmas program, okay, at school, even in a public school at the office or whatever, these songs are all over the place, and what if there was an army of a few thousand believers that this week went out into the community and when they heard Joy to the World, because you will in the presence of unbelievers, you were able to say, you know, I heard a talk about that. Did you know where that song actually came from? Actually, the guy who wrote that was dealing with some stuff, and he was trying to preach to his own soul, and we can talk about that, but we can get there from really exposing the Scripture that produced the song, and then maybe we can use the song, all right? Psalm 98 is what produced the song Joy to the World. I think this is the big idea of Psalm 98. The king's arrival brings immense joy. Now, that ends up being kind of the point of the whole song too, right? The whole point of Joy to the World is that idea that the king's arrival is going to bring immense joy.

Why? Because when the king comes, and some of you guys are Tolkien fans, okay, and you're gonna know this, you get all the way to the end of the whole deal, and what do you find out? When the king comes, how do you know it's the king? Because there's healing in his hands.

That's how you know. And when our king comes, there'll be healing in his hands. And when there is an immense healing, it produces an immense joy.

When there is a regeneration, not only of the Christian heart, but also of the very earth, the very dirt, all of the things as far as the curse is found, right? When we see a renewal of all things, man, it will create a great shout of praise in our life. And that's what we're gonna get into, Psalm chapter 98.

Here's what it says, Oh, 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 known his salvation. He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

We're gonna get into this, ends of the earth, what the nations are seeing. But the first thing that I wanna talk to you about is this concept of remembering what God has done and what it produces in the life of a believer. That is what Isaac Watts in 1719 was trying to preach to his own heart. When he wrote this song, it was not a Christmas song, okay?

Not primarily. It was based out of Psalm 98. I don't know that Psalm 98 is a Christmas Psalm.

I don't know how you would think about that or not. But what it does is, you know, Christmas sort of anchors us to the main idea, which is when the king comes, and we think about this on our side of the cross, think about when the king comes again, there is an immense amount of joy because of the healing that he brings in his hands. And that is something that anchors our soul even in the midst of trials and circumstances, okay? I think what Isaac Watts had in mind in this song, Joy to the World, is trying to provide believers to anchor your soul to an immovable joy. Because sometimes, even in the life of a believer, joy is something that we have but we need to lay hold of, okay? It's not that it goes away.

We have it, but the feelings of it. Man, it can be things that can ebb and flow in our life, and we need to grab onto, and I think that's what Isaac Watts had in mind. Listen, this guy's life, he was a sort of fringe at the time, filter, okay, of a church that wasn't recognized as the right church in his society, all right? Man, he's dealing with melancholy. He's dealing with sickness that put him out of the pulpit.

He's dealing with a failed marriage proposal. I mean, things in this life that would make us go awry, and this song is a fight song for him. Joy to the World is a fight song to lay hold of that which we already possess, an immovable joy that we can anchor to that is only ours in Christ, and it comes out of Psalm 98. Now, I read the first three verses of Psalm 98.

We're going to go through the whole thing, okay? But here's what you didn't hear. You didn't hear any of the great verses from the song yet. You didn't hear Joy to the World. You didn't hear Far As the Curse is Found.

You didn't hear any of the stuff about Let Earth Receive Her King and all that kind of stuff. Well, that's because the first three verses sort of set up the shout of joy. You know, Christians, and you may not be a believer.

You might, one of our campuses, man, you're just kind of coming around or whatever, and here's what you think. You think that Christians sometimes are kind of happy-go-lucky, smile. They kind of maybe wear a little bit of a facade, but they do it for happiness sake. They're joyful for joy's sake.

That's not true, all right? Because the Bible never calls us to a joy that is empty. That'd be like a shadow. There's nothing really behind it. It's an apparition.

No, no, no, no. What the Bible calls us to is not joy for joy's sake. What the Bible calls us to is to remember the wonders of God. And when we remember the wonders of God and think about what He is going to do next in His marvelous works and salvation, that's what it said. Joy to the world, shout for joy. Why are we going to get into that in verse four?

Why would we make a joyful noise and join a joyous song? Because the Lord has done, look what it says, sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things. Another way to translate that is God has done wonders. His right hand and His holy arm have worked salvation for Him. Now, many of us, all right, believers, especially on our side of the cross, we hear salvation.

We think Jesus and the cross and the empty tomb and all that, which is not wrong. But you got to understand in the Old Testament, this concept of salvation probably is more tied to just generalized victory, okay? It's generalized victory, things that God has done for His people. Maybe it's talking about coming out of Egypt. Maybe it's talking about different victories that they have won. Maybe depending on when this is written, maybe there's something about the exile and the return.

I don't know exactly, okay? But they're thinking about maybe a conglomeration of the times that God has worked in their life. You know, Psalm 136 is a great example of this, where what you have is the psalmist over and over just talking about the things God has done. God made the world. God made the sun. God made the moon. God brought us out of Egypt. God drowned the whole army of Egypt that was pursuing us in the Red Sea. God gives us food. God gave us a land. The last thing it says in Psalm 136 is give thanks to God.

Why? Why would you give thanks? Why would you praise?

Why would we shout and worship? Because God has done wonders. He's done marvelous things.

Let me ask you a question. What are the works of God that generate wonder in your heart? What are the works of God that generate wonder in your heart?

Salvation here just means victory, I think, wonders, marvelous works. What has God done in your life? Man, He's doing things all the time. Sometimes we're living too fast to see them.

Sometimes we don't slow down enough. Man, what has God done in your life? Was there a financial thing that you never thought you could recover from? Was there a broken heart and a bad breakup relationship that you never thought you could be whole from? Was it difficult having children and then God brought a child into your life through birth or through adoption?

Man, is there something that has gone on with a family member in terms of maybe an addiction that is broken? Maybe God is... I'm not saying there's not things in our life that are trials or troubles. I'm not saying we're not going through some things right now. But even in the midst of going through something hard, can we not look back and in just about one minute make a list as long as your arm of the things that God has done in our lives?

Where He has come through. When we didn't see a way, He made a way. And if we will go back and begin to think about those things, what will end up happening is a shout of praise and joy. What about your salvation? What about the fact that heaven awaits you?

What about the fact that despite all of our sin, because of the cross, we're not defined by our greatest failures? There is great wonders and victory that God has won for us. And because of that, we begin to shout and sing new songs and we begin to praise when we are grateful. Gratitude is the gateway to joy and joy is the gateway to praise.

Okay? Gratitude brings joy into our life. Joy brings praise into our life.

Now, some of those things I think are a little bit interchangeable too. Sometimes it's gratitude that all of a sudden gives way to praise and that praise leads us to joy. But in general, my point is these things are all sort of wrapped up together, but they begin with thinking about what God has done. We sing a new song because we're thinking about His marvelous works. The problem many times in our society, guys, and I'm right there with you, is that we don't slow down enough to remember all the stuff that God has done for us.

And that's my question for you. My question for you today is are you slow in death? Is there solitude in your life at all?

Is there ever five minutes of the day that are quiet? Man, are we doing things to put ourselves in a position to remember what God has done? When's the last time you made a gratitude list? When's the last time we sat down with our kids and said these are the things that we're thankful for, even in the midst of trial? You know, I think about this in my life. Man, try when you're going to sleep at night and before you fall asleep say I'm not going to fall asleep until I've named five things that I'm grateful for today.

You know, not 10 years ago, but today. Blessings for today. What am I grateful for today? I don't know what your rhythm is and every one of us can have a different rhythm, but are we practicing the gratitude that gives way to joy and praise in our life?

Because when we do, this is what happens. Look at verse 4. Make a joyful noise to the Lord. All the earth break forth into joyous song and sing praises.

Note that it doesn't say how good of a singer you got to be, okay? Amen. Amen. It ain't saying it's got to be a great noise, okay? But it needs to be a joyful one and we are joyful when we think about what God has done. Break forth into joyous song. You know another word for that?

I don't know what your translation says. Burst. Burst forth in a great song of singing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre. With the lyre and the sound of a melody. With trumpets and the sound of a horn. Make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. We were created to make a joyful noise. Worship is rooted in gratitude and mission is rooted in worship.

This is how it all sort of goes. Did you see in verse 2 how it said let all the earth? Did you see here in verse 4 when it says make a joyful noise in all the earth?

Verse 2 talked about, you know, God's salvation in the sight of the nations. Many times when we start to think about worship, we just sort of think about our little church right here, you know, in our campuses and just right here. We forget that in the book of Psalms many times when you're talking about worship, it immediately pivots to the whole world. It immediately pivots to all the peoples that are in the earth and all of the earth praising and worshiping because these two things really go together. That as we are thanking God for what He has done, a praise erupts in our life.

Joyful singing, joyful melodies. And what happens is it propels our hearts to see the peoples in the earth that don't worship with that kind of joy. I don't know if you've ever seen world religions. And I'm not going to name them. Many world religions are absolutely joyless.

They are rote repetition. They are sacrificing and begging and hoping to God you're not going to get smote, you know. There are entire religions with billions of people that the whole point is to feel nothing. That's what we're trying to get to. We're trying to get to a state of nothing.

And what I would say is I would say, no, no, no. The Christian experience is one of shouting for joy and it is an apologetic. That just means it's an argument, okay. It's an apologetic to the world about the God that we worship. These things are linked together.

I know it's become popular. I remember this. When I was in college, and maybe you've heard this before, people were like, man, I worship for an audience of one, you know.

And there was even songs like that and all that. I kind of understand exactly. I understand what's being said there, but I would also say, man, that is not what the Psalms talk about. Now I want to make sure you understand, okay. When we're talking about an audience, all right, it's not like the band is playing and you guys at the campuses in the seats are an audience.

No, no. We are all playing for God who is the audience, but there is another audience and that is the sight of the unbelievers in the world who look in and peer in and they say, what are you singing about? What is it in your life that would create a grown man to put his arms up in the air like he's a little kid asking for his dad?

Who would be undignified like that? Why would we do that? And the world looks in and they see something about God through our worship. Let me talk about worship and then I want to talk about mission. They go together, okay.

You got to remember, missions is not ultimate. Worship is, okay. Worship and missions exist because worship doesn't.

There are places in the world where people don't know, but they go together, right. Let's talk about worship for a minute. Man, I just want to push on you guys.

I try to do this every six months or so, so here we go, okay. When we think about singing, I know that in a church like Mercy Hill, there are a lot of people, I know this, and you might say, man, this is going to step on my toes or whatever. It probably is, okay. But here's what we do. We say, well, I don't sing because I'm not really wired that way. Well, you're wired to sin. I mean, the Bible don't say like sing if you want to. I mean, what else are you not wired for? Like what else are we not wanting to do that the Bible just calls us directly to do?

It's so funny to me. We'll say, well, man, that's just, you know, I'm struggling with this. No, we're sinning in this.

That's what we're doing. Like if we're not willing to bring a shout and a praise to the Lord our God over the things that He has done, we're just looking straight at the Scripture and we're just saying, I will not. A settled position to disobey God is rebellion no matter how much we say it's wiring, you know. And it ain't really wiring anyway.

I mean, because I'm going to tell you something. I ain't never heard a shout of joy like I've heard in my whole life about blew the roof off of this place when the USA scored that goal against Iran, okay. The whole staff sitting in a, you know, the whole staff sitting there and they're watching and boom, I mean, we shout, people shout. Man, you look at our culture.

It's not like, well, I'm not really wired for that. I think about this. Man, I saw earlier this year, Garth Brooks had a concert at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge at LSU, okay. And at the end of that concert, all right, the very end of the concert, people were waiting on it the whole time.

And all he said was, if you remember any Garth Brooks music, okay, all he said to that crowd in Baton Rouge, all he said to them was, is it time? And the whole place started, you could just, I mean, you can watch the YouTube video. It starts going nuts. And they hit the first chord of the song calling Baton Rouge. And the shout that went up from that place literally registered on the school's seismograph as an earthquake.

It did. It showed up at the school and all of their, you know, all of their geology stuff as an earthquake. Man, don't tell me we don't shout for joy, right. We shout about things. We sing about things. And I just want to call upon us to have maybe a heart posture that moves that says, I will not have a settled position in my heart that just says, God, I won't.

And I know what this is like. Listen, I went, when I got to college, I remember this, I had grown up in an incredible tradition of theologically rich music, okay. But it was also a tradition where you did not move your body at all. I mean, you don't clap, okay, really. Maybe at youth camp or something, okay. But you don't really, you know, not in big church, okay. You don't clap. You don't, you know, you don't, you know, we don't raise our hands. You certainly don't dance, okay.

And maybe some of you guys know what that's like. And then I'm not, I'm not throwing rocks. I'm so grateful for the church that I grew up in and theologically super rich songs. But I remember being in college and reading all the songs and be like, man, it kind of feels like what the Bible's telling you to do is let your physical body lead your heart posture. It seems like that's what it's telling you to do. It's like clap your hands, raise your whole, you know, raise holy hands, even dance.

I'm not telling you got a good crazy here, okay. But I'm just saying, you know, you know, moving our body and it's like there's something about moving and there's something about your physical body, and there's something about the actual, the voice, you know, going forth in song. It's so funny to me. People will say, I'm singing in my heart. That is literally not singing. That is the opposite of singing.

Singing in my heart is called thinking, okay. And so it's like, it's like, no, there's something physical about it. And I just want to push our church. I know this is pushing. I know this makes people uncomfortable. I want to push you. Is there a settled position that you have that says I will not?

Man, I can die today. And God can bring you to repentance in that, and God can move you to a place of greater intimacy with Him. And as He does that, listen, as He does that and our hearts erupt in praise, we will be propelled to think about the peoples of the earth that do not have access to the gospel, that do not know about this God that we shout and we praise God for.

And that's what I want to push us to see. There are places where the sun rises and sets and no one there knows who to give the credit to. How do we become fired up about the nations?

Well, I'm going to tell you something. If we're not passionate in our own worship, we sure as heck won't be passionate about theirs. If we're not passionate in our worship, we're not going to worry about the worship of the world. This is why the Bible says Psalm 96 and Psalm 98, we will sing in all the earth, that we will sing here. And what we do at churches like Mercy Hill Church will spill over. People will see, they will lean in, but also our hearts will be ones that are set on fire for the peoples of the earth.

And so that's what we're seeing. All right, so Psalm 98, think about God and what He has done. Marvelous works, salvation. What does that produce? It produces joyful music. It produces shouts of praise. All right? It produces us leaning all the way in.

Trumpet, liar, harp, the whole deal. Okay? We want to do everything we can.

Man, big praise to our God. But then it says this. This is where it all comes down. All right? Here's the deal.

This is so good. Okay? It's not just us. It's not just you and I. It's not even just people.

All right? That when the king comes, the healing in his hands is not even just spiritual. It's holistic. The whole earth will experience this renewal. And this is why while the creation groans right now, it will not always be so. And one day that groaning will turn into a shout even from the very earth. That's what it means to serve a king that has healing in his hands.

Look what it says. Let the sea roar and all that fills it. The world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord. For He comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. This is what, and I know I haven't talked a ton about the song. Okay? It's a Christmas carol sermon, but it's all about Psalm 98. You got, hopefully when you, when we sing the song again, it's going to be like, oh man, got it.

Okay. Joy to the world over his marvelous works. All the earth. That what that's what world kind of means. Well, what is the line of that song that we're focusing in on here? Have you ever thought about that line in the song that says far as the curse is found, how far is the curse found in the very fabric of this broken messed up world?

And that's what it's getting at here. That when the King comes again, now what's funny is here, the people in the book of Psalms, they're thinking about the savior coming. You and I are in a position to think about the savior coming again, but you better believe when the savior came, they thought about Psalm 96. They thought about Psalm 98. I should have said this. Those two Psalms are almost linked.

Okay. They thought about Psalm 98. They thought about Zachariah nine chapter nine. This says, shout aloud. You know, when they did all those things, you know, when they grabbed for those verses, they grabbed for those verses on Palm Sunday, when they laid their coats down for him to walk by.

They did this once. Man, they grabbed for these verses. Now we, on the other side of the cross, we grabbed for these verses again and we think about the next time this King comes with healing in his hands, there is a renewal, the likes of which we almost can't even imagine. Psalm 93 through 100 are all about God's kingship. Okay. And here's a great way from Abraham Kuiper to think about God's kingship. There is not one square inch of this universe where God has not declared that is mine. Now that's what it means to be King. Okay. And this King is coming back and he's not coming back to renew a piece of it.

You and my hearts and our life that is a piece of it. He's not coming back for a piece. He's coming back for the whole shooting match.

Okay. He's coming back for the whole deal. He's coming back to renew the very creation, new heavens and new earth. This is how the song, this is how the song Joy to the World and Isaac Watts, it's radically Christ-centered because he understands when Christ, the true King comes back, this is when all that is sad, that's another Tolkien, Sam Wise looks at Gandalf and he says, could it be that all that is sad is coming untrue? That's what Jesus brings. That's what he's going to do.

He's going to reverse the curse. Maybe some of you guys have read the Chronicles of Narnia. You know, the very end of the Chronicles of Narnia, the very end, I mean all the way at the last battle, what do you end up seeing? You have this concept of new Narnia invading old Narnia and old Narnia is going away and new Narnia and it's a whole picture of what Christ is going to do with the new heavens and the new earth. And this is what the actual, this is what the book says. It says, the new Narnia was a deeper country.

Think about this. Every rock and flower and blade of grass looked like it meant more. I can't describe it any better than that. If ever you got there, you will know what I mean. It was the unicorn who summoned up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right forehoof on the ground and nayed and then he cried, listen, I have come home at last. This is my real country.

I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for my whole life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we love the old Narnia is because sometimes it looked like this. Come further, you remember this line from the book, come further up and further in. This is why the rivers clap and the hills sing because Jesus Christ is not only coming for you and me, he is coming to renew all that is. It is the new Genesis.

It is going to be the renewal. That's the new heavens and the new earth. And that's why the rivers are going to clap and the hills are going to sing. They grow now. We grow now, but everything that is sad is going to come untrue. I remember sitting with my kids when they were really little, okay, and I can't remember. I mean, they were young, like toddler age.

And we're sitting there and we're watching this National Geographic thing, which now when I look back on it, it may have been a little advanced, okay, for their age, okay. And the lion is stalking the gazelle and then he just totally takes him out, okay. And he takes him down and he's eating the gazelle or whatever. And my, I don't know how old he was.

He must have been like two years old or something. And AP leans over to me and he says, dad, I kind of wish the gazelle was faster. And you know what, in that moment I was like, you know what, bud, I kind of wish he was faster too. Like this is kind of, you know, just watching this is like, man, it's something's, something's kind of wrong, you know. And I'm just, you know, I'm like, man, I, you know, it's, and then my daughter who's, you know, a couple of years older, she was still young and she says, well guys, you know, it's all good because it's just the circle of life. You know, you love it when Disney sprinkles a little Zen Buddhism into your kids, okay, with the Lion King and all that, all right.

And, you know, I remember kind of being like, no it's not. Like death is the enemy. And one day that lion is going to lay down with the lamb. And one day this whole world is going to be different than it is right now.

And one day we're going to stand and we sing this at Mercy Hill as the great celebration awaits and it is going to be wonderful there. And this, see, even if you're not a believer, man, I'm telling you, you may not be a believer, you may not believe a word of this. Don't you want it to be true? Isn't there something, isn't there something in your heart that is drawn? We know we're not created for this world. If we were created for this world, we would never think it shouldn't be this way because it's all that it is. But we know it's not all that it is.

Man, we, our hearts echo back to a place where it wasn't like it is right now. And here's the deal, you know, why do we look forward to the King? Man, the King comes and what does He do? This is kind of odd to me. The beauty of what He does is He judges.

Now that's a little bit weird for us in our context. But look what it says, for He comes to judge the earth and He will judge the world with righteousness and the people with equity. Now in our context, we're like, man, judgment don't seem like what I, I don't think I like judgment, you know. I don't know if I want judgment. But you go back and you read the Psalms and C.S.

Lewis pointed this out. When you read the Psalms, they long for the judgment of God. Now what's the difference? Well, I think it's because, number one, culturally, maybe some of us have grown up in a society where, man, we don't quite understand what it's like to be disadvantaged, okay. And I think about like you look around the world where there's not a lot of law and there's not a lot of police and there's not a lot of, you know, authorities and maybe there's kind of chaos.

And what happens in those situations? Then you look around the world and you see different groups of people that really, really, really understand brokenness to the point of like, man, I'm starving to death because the supply chain is held by a different group of people. And in a situation like that, and I think that's what's akin when you think about the book of Proverbs and all that, where people are begging for justice, it's like, man, you look at a situation like that and you can understand pretty quickly how people are like, I long for the right judge to come. Now what we need to do is get our mind in that reality and say, wait a minute, guys, think about how messed up and broken the world is.

We should be longing for the judge to come as well. I mean, think about how messed up things are around us, how broken things are. For example, I was thinking about this the other day. I saw, I remember years ago, I saw this documentary where they were talking about how when the Taliban has come back in to Afghanistan, they showed some footage of these guys being in the school where they walk into this school. And the first thing they do is they tell every single little girl to stand up and move to the back of the room. And they say to them, you will never in your life sit in front of a man again.

These kids are seven or eight years old. Now I've got, I've got daughters and all that. I mean, it's like, man, it's like infuriating, you know, and you look in and you say, wait a minute, when I see how broken the world is, I start to want to long for the judge as well, because what does a judge do? He judges with righteousness.

He judges with equity. Now that's, that's good. And that's great. And he's going to set things right. I think that's why we long for the king. We shout for the king because he will set things right. But here's what we got to wrestle with for just a moment here, believer. We've got to wrestle with this concept.

Wait a minute. If he's going to set things right, which side of right am I on? I mean, in my own sin, like, what I want to do is I want to grab for that illustration of the jihadi somewhere and wait, wait a minute, man, what time, when in my life have I practiced inequity? When in my life have I had words that tore somebody down? When has the sin in my life put me on the wrong side of God's judgment? See, this is when you really get into why we shout and praise for the king that is coming. Because the king that is coming has some kind of way managed to come and set things right while covering us from the judgment that we deserve. This is why we shout.

This is why we praise. Because this king has come in and yes, he will set things right. But when you get all the way to the end of the book, when you get all the way to the end of the Bible, what do you learn? You learn about a king who came and traded himself. Yes, he was born in a manger, but he was destined for a bloody cross.

Why? So that he could die the death that we deserved. So that he could resurrect and offer us the newness of life so that the God of the universe would look upon us and see the righteousness of Christ covering us. We have confidence because of the gospel. We can await the return of Christ. We can look forward to Revelation 19 where the redeemer warrior gathers up his people and judges the world. But we can look forward to that day without fear if we are found in Christ. And I would call upon you today, joy to the world. Are you going to be joyful when the king comes to judge and to set things right? Only if you're found in Christ. But if you are found in Christ, now hopefully it begins to fall open. Hey, if the rivers are going to clap and the hills are going to sing, what are we going to do?

What do you call that? What should we be doing now? And that's how I want to apply this when we're done. Make a joyful noise in anticipation of the king. You think with me about the marvelous works of God in your life, salvation being the chief among them. I mean, you went from death to life, right?

But it's also what else has he done in your life? You know, this past week, Thanksgiving week or whatever, man, it was like kind of the culmination, nine or 10 days of sickness in our house. I know a lot of people were sick. A lot of people were dealing with this right now.

Okay. But man, in our house, our youngest one, you guys know, Faith Ann, man, very small. She has Down syndrome. She struggles with some things and that's the, it just amps up everything. Like when there's a sickness or when there's, it just, it just times it, okay, by a few degrees. And, and you know, it's scary, man, on Monday, you know, she had strep and then she had flu and then she got pneumonia.

And the pneumonia put us in the hospital for a couple days and a couple nights. And I've been sharing that illustration with you guys about fear and faith circling that chair, you know, and man, just try, you know, fighting to not have fear be the thing that sat down on that chair in our heart and having faith sit down in our heart. And one of the things that we continue to call to memory in that time is thinking about all the times that God has moved on her behalf before. All of the things that he has done, marvelous things, wonderful things, began to sing songs to God out of gratitude, songs that I reached for. You know, the songs that me and Anna reached for right now are not the songs that our kids are going to reach for because it was a different generation. The songs that we reached for, the ones that we learned at the ages of our kids are, are, are now those things just begin to flow out of us. Maybe we don't have a hymnal.

We don't need the words. It's like, man, they just come. We're thinking about what God has done and praise God. You know, a couple days later she was able to come home and now we have another thing to think about in terms of the wonders and victories. I'm just sharing that as a personal testimony in our life right now.

You know, what about in your life? What has God done in your life that you would praise him over and then begin to think, because this is what happened to me. You know, we're praising God for what he's done in her life, but I'm also pushed in that moment, just like Psalm 98, just like the, the, the song joy to the world talks about. I'm pushed to begin to think about what God is going to do. You know, Psalm 98, joy to the world, the song that we sing here at Mercy Hill, a great celebration awaits.

It's very similar. And I think about that song. I feel like God gave our church that song in some ways because I needed it for my little girl. But I think, I think about that song and I'm like, man, one day she's not going to struggle like she struggles right now. One day, whether it's on this side of heaven or the next, and I don't know which, she's going to sing and shout and praise and her tongue is going to be loose and I'm going to be able to know what's in her heart.

One day, it's not today, not yet. You know what Christmas does? Christmas keeps us waiting for that glorious day. It reminds us that Christ came and that he's going to come again. And it keeps our hearts anchored to an immovable joy about the King that comes with healing in his hands. And of course you can see, and I'll close with this, guys, of course you can see the connection. Man, worship and mission. We have this opportunity. Let us shout and praise.

Man, let us go through this season with joy and praise on our lips, but let us not go through this season without realizing that these very songs that we praise God with are also sermons that can be shared. I mean, really, that's what they can be. I mean, they're theologically rich.

Man, school programs, office music, retail store, they are everywhere. I want you to imagine this, downtown New York City, Rockefeller Center, some of you guys might have seen this this week, they always light the Christmas tree, right? It's a big kind of celebration. I mean, all the news anchors for the Today Show, they've done nothing but holly jolly Christmas stuff the whole night. Those lights come on and the choir begins to sing broadcast through thousands of millions of television all across the country.

Joy to the world. And I was like, I really don't think you know what that means. Like, I really don't think you understand that that song goes back to a psalm that talks about there being one king. But man, they're singing it. And we have the opportunity to say, I heard a talk about that.

Actually, you know, I heard about I heard and maybe I want to share that with you. We get to be heralds this time of year. So let's do it, man. You guys have these at all of our campuses. Man, these are just little Inviter cards.

Hey, think about Christmas at Tanger. It's a great opportunity. You know, one of the one of the applications of this, man, serve one and bring to one that needs to be the refrain. Serve one, bring one. Okay, and bring so who needs to hear about what God has done?

What about the nations? Is God waking you up? Would you go ahead and commit this year to be on a mission trip next year?

Is God moving? You know, one of the greatest things I love about our church, we got, you know, the Gherkin, the Gherkin family was getting ready to go, we saw them. But I also know we got about 10 college students, young professionals right now that are in the process of being prepared to go to the nations, not just on a church plan. It's not like going going, okay, to the nations. And I love that maybe you would be counted among that number. We are heralds. It's connected to worship. You guys remember the 2018 I'll close with this 2018 story Thai cave diving kind of thing where the water rose soccer teams in the cave water rises they get trapped everybody thinks they're dead days and days these British cave divers that are absolutely insane okay to be able to do this I mean they're under the water freezing cold temperatures hours under the water pitch black darkness can't even see the light in front of your face they find these kids all right and they get they get all the way to the end it's a harrowing thing you know they end up having you know they find them in June 2018 they don't get them out until July 8th 9th and 10th of 2018 the only way they can get them out is to sedate them fully knock them all the way out put a mask over their face put oxygen in their mouth and float them for three or four hours underneath the water all the way out of the cave crazy they all end up getting out here's what the kids did they made a list of who got to go home first and you know how they did the list they did the list by who lived the furthest away why because the one that lives the farthest away can go to everybody else's house and tell them that their kids okay they had no idea it was an international story I mean there's just 10,000 people outside of the cave at every news organization they had no idea right so what they said was hey if we get out the the the one furthest away has got to go so that the other one can go and herald the victory that's what it means to herald and we have the opportunity y'all to go out this month into our communities and herald the good news for people and that there is a king that is coming with healing in his hands let's pray father we come before you lord and we pray right now god that you will move in our our hearts and in our church god create white hot worship in this church in the month of december over your coming and lord i pray god that you will create an immense heart for the mission in us that culminates yes in some ways with the tanger experience and god i pray that we'll have thousands of people come that have never been to mercy hill and i've been out of churches but lord i also pray that you'll move upon our hearts for the nations god let people make decisions about going to places where there is not white hot worship in christ's name we pray amen amen well hey guys at all of our campuses i'm gonna go ahead and invite you to stand all right man we have an incredible opportunity to respond this weekend and we can do that by praying bringing and singing okay man we're gonna sing shout to praise man let's make a joyful noise at all of our campuses you can pray at our campuses you can come down front and pray at any of the altars at our campuses or you can do that where you are but also we have an opportunity to bring our first and best y'all this weekend is big give weekend for mercy hill what that means is it's the first fruits of the commitments that we have made for the next 25 months the starting line is this weekend every dollar for the next 25 months is going in that bucket for the deeper initiative and all the things that we have talked about so i pray that we will be moved in this way to give in a big way starting this weekend really all through the month of december