December 7, 2025 | Joy to the World

Joy to the World | The Meaning Behind Christmas Hymns

Psalm 98

A Psalm.

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.


Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth;
    break forth into joyous song and sing praises!
Sing praises to the LORD with the lyre,
    with the lyre and the sound of melody!
With trumpets and the sound of the horn
    make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD!


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. (ESV)

Jed Gillis traces “Joy to the World” back to Psalm 98 to show that Christmas is the joyful announcement that a king has come. He explains that the psalm first calls Israel to sing because God has made his salvation and righteousness visible to the nations and has faithfully protected his people, then widens that call so that all creation joins the chorus, praising God for both salvation and coming judgment.

Gillis shows how Isaac Watts read this psalm through the lens of Christ, seeing Jesus’ first coming as the display of God’s salvation and his second coming as the day when God’s righteous judgment and the full removal of the curse will be seen. Walking through the carol, he highlights that welcoming Christ means bowing to his absolute authority in every part of life and trusting that his rule of truth and grace is far better than self rule. The message urges hearers to receive Jesus as king with glad surrender, to see even the pains of a fallen world as reminders that we make poor kings, and to look ahead in hope to the day when the risen King removes sin, sorrow, and thorns as far as the curse is found.

Transcript of Joy to the World | The Meaning Behind Christmas Hymns

Christmas is the Announcement of a King

Jed Gillis: At Christmas time, the announcement of Christ's birth that Ken mentioned, the angel says, fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all the people, for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. At Christmas, it is an announcement of a birth, but we shouldn't miss the fact that it's the announcement of a king's birth.

It's the announcement of authority. When we sing, Oh, Great God, we're not moving out of the message of Christmas. We're remembering the message of Christmas that the one who was born in that manger was Christ, Messiah, who is the Lord. The master, the king. Part of the message of Christmas is the authority of our king. That's what was announced by the Angels.

Our Plan for the Coming Weeks

Jed Gillis: And as we come to this section, I, I wanna set the stage a little for the next few weeks. Our plan, we're gonna take a break from our, our Galatians series as we go through Christmas, through the holidays in December. And we're gonna take four weeks. And in these four weeks we're going to use a Christmas song as the organizing factor of our teaching time from Scripture. And there's a reason a lot of reasons for that.

One is there's just wonderful truths hidden in plain sight in some of the Christmas songs that we sing, and we really, I was thinking Christmas actually makes, uh, liars maybe more than any other holiday because there's a whole lot of people who sing glory to the newborn king. Who don't care at all about glory for the newborn King. There's a whole lot of people who sing with the dawn of redeeming grace, who don't in fact believe there is any redeeming grace. There's a whole lot of people who sing veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, actually, they usually leave that verse out, but they could sometimes sing it or God and sinners reconciled, who don't actually believe that happens or don't believe it happens through Jesus.

So often we can sing Christmas songs and we get a kind of warm, fuzzy feeling, but it can be separated from the meaning of what we're actually saying.

And so our desire in these four weeks is to take some time to think about the truths. You'll probably hear played over some radio and sung by someone who may or may not believe it. But I hope that we have more. When we sing about our savior's birth, we have more than just the same warm, fuzzy feeling that somebody else who doesn't believe in it could have, but that we recognize the truth that our king was born. That he is the lion who will return to reign.

Psalm 98, the Inspiration to Joy to the World

Jed Gillis: So this morning, we're gonna be starting in Psalm 98, not your normal Christmas passage. Probably not on your bingo card of the top passages you would go to, but there's a reason for starting here, and that's because this is the text that Isaac Watts was paraphrasing and meditating on when he wrote Joy to the World.

He put together a a list of paraphrases on the Psalms. Joy to the World is the song that he included with Psalm 98.

Reading Psalm 98

Jed Gillis: So I wanna read Psalm 98 and ask you specifically as I read it, think in light of Christmas of the birth of Christ. Think about this text.

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.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord. With the lire. With the lire and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the king, the Lord.

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 Psalm 98.

A Call to Worship

Jed Gillis: I want you first to imagine, now we've thought through Christmas as we read it, but pause a second and say, what if you were an Israelite hearing this for the first time?

So Jesus hasn't been born yet. You're not thinking about Christmas right now, you're, you're gathered together for worship, and the musicians start into Psalm 98. What would you hear? Well, first, you'd hear a call to you and your fellow Jews to worship anyone who's hearing it, to come and worship, sing to the Lord a new song.

You hear this call and you say, well, why? Why are you encouraged to worship? Because God has made his salvation known. Specifically verse two, Yahweh. You see the the all caps Lord, the covenant. Lord, the one who made his promises and keeps them. The one who said to Abraham, he would bless him, the one who called Jacob, the one who looked at Israel and said, you are my people and I am your God. Ken read earlier the one who keeps mercy and steadfast love. You're called to praise him because he has made known his deliverance and his righteousness, his salvation.

Specifically, say, how has that salvation shown? Verse three, he's remembered his steadfast love, his never ending love. The same love by the way we've been talking about in Galatians, he's remembered his steadfast love and his faithfulness to his people.

Not only though have his people seen it, but the end of verse three, all the ends of the earth have seen it. So you're called as an Israelite hearing. Psalm 98. Praise Yahweh because he has demonstrated his salvation in such a way that not only can we see it, but all the nations can see it.

God's History of Protecting His People

Jed Gillis: Now, we aren't given any specific information about when this Psalm was written, so we don't know exactly what the songwriter was thinking about.

It could have been written right after Israel came out of Egypt, right after God drowned the Egyptian army. In the Red Sea, and you could have said the nations have seen his deliverance, but it could have been written at any number of situations from there throughout Israel's history, really because over and over God has displayed that he protected his people, whether it was armies that came up to their doorstep and then we're struck with plagues or distracted by bad news.

Over and over. This was something that was true and that Israelites could say, God has displayed his steadfast love and his faithfulness once again, so that the nations can see it.

Roaring in Praise to God

Jed Gillis: And the songwriter here calls them not only to remember that, but to sing about it. He starts with verse one to to sing to the Lord a new song. But down in verse four, make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Break forth into joyous song and sing praises.

He says, explode in praise. And some of us who may not have the best singing voice, we say, I'm really glad it says a joyful noise. Sure. But this idea of noise, even more than just sound like, think of it like, like the roar of the crowd.

We live in the shadow of Neland Stadium, right? So we know what that's like. So you think when Tennessee scores first thing on University of Georgia a couple years ago and the stadium set the record for the loudest decibels at like 137, which is something like sitting in front of a jet engine. That's the roar of the crowd.

And you know what happens with that? Like that doesn't just start. You have this kind of gradual grow and you see, oh, he's about to catch it, and the crowd gets loud and then he catches it and he keeps running and he scores and the crowd and it grows and it swells. And this triumphant roar, this triumphant noise.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. That's what the Psalm Psalmist is calling us, the Israelites who heard it to do and calling the whole Earth to do. It's saying this praise, this joy, this rejoicing in who God is, is it's here. It needs to grow and swell and swell so that it's like the, the crowds cheering and roaring for our God.

This Praise is for God's People and All Creation

Jed Gillis: And then he specifically goes on, not just to the people of Israel, but says the earth. Let the earth rejoice and sing. Let the sea roar. Let it add its sound to the praise for God. Let the whales with their calls add its sound to their praise for God. Let everything in his creation, everything that fills the sea, the world, and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap hands, let hills sing for joy. He calls on all of creation to praise the king.

Priase God for His Salvation and Judgment

Jed Gillis: Now notice there's a slight difference. At first he says. The Lord has made known his salvation in verse two.

That's why they're praising him is because they've seen all the ends of the earth, have seen the salvation of our God now related, but he uses a different word. You get to the end, why is the earth praising God? Because he will judge the world. So we could take salvation and judgment and say, in this psalm, you're called to praise God for both of those things.

And part of that would be because God saves Israel by judging Egypt. So those two things are related, but we're called to praise for both his salvation, which is revealed before the nations and his judgment, which is revealed before the nations. That's now, we could go a lot deeper in Psalm 98, but that's the big picture.

Here's what Psalm 98, if an Israelite was hearing it for the first time, here's what they would say.

How is This Psalm About Jesus?

Jed Gillis: Now you might go, wait a minute, but. It doesn't say anything about Jesus. There's not any messianic prophecies. Why did Isaac Watts think this was actually looking forward to Christmas? And maybe if you've looked at joy to the world before you say, wait a minute, did he even think it was Christmas?

I dunno if you stopped to look the lyrics, was it even a Christmas song? It's a fair question because you sit here and say, well, when will every heart prepare him room? Not at his first coming. His own didn't even receive him. When will there be no more thorns and sin and sorrows? Not at his first coming, but at his second.

So people have argued, it's not really a Christmas song at all. We should just sing about second coming. I think it actually works for both, but I understand the point too. But here's what Watts knew. About God and his plan of salvation that the psalmist writing Psalm 98, didn't.

The Psalmist writing Psalm 98 knew God displayed his salvation and God will judge and probably was thinking something like when God saved Israel and judged Egypt, they happened at the same time.

What Watts knew and what we know. Is that when God displayed his salvation, he did it first as a baby born in a manger who didn't come conquering the way we think of who didn't come casting judgment. In fact, he came saying to the woman caught in adultery, neither do I condemn you.

When God revealed his salvation in Christ, it wasn't at the same time that he revealed his judgment. So Watts knew looking backwards. Those two things, while they're related, they happen at different times. You wanna see the salvation of God displayed to the nations. You look to the angels saying, glory to God and the highest, you look to the wise men coming and saying He is the king and bowing before him and giving him gifts. You look to all of us who are part of the nations sitting over here in America looking and saying, Jesus was born for me. You say the salvation of God was displayed at Christmas.

But there's also truth that we look forward to the second coming when his judgment will be revealed like that, like Psalm 98 points us to.

So I think just like Psalm 98 gave you two sections and he didn't understand how all those things fit together, the salvation of God has been revealed, and the judgment of God will be revealed. God's people praise him for salvation. Let the whole earth praise him for his judgment. So Isaac Watts writes saying, praise God for his salvation revealed in sending Christ. And praise God that one day Christ will return, and when he does, there truly will be no more sin and sorrows and thorns. He's looking forward to both with the same two steps that the Psalm seems to give us.

Joy to the World, the King Has Come

Jed Gillis: So let's talk about the verses. If you just think of verse one of joy to the world, which. And by the way, we'll sing it at the end in case you're wondering like we didn't sing joy to the world. Right? We'll sing it at the end because I want you to sing it, thinking hopefully a little more deeply about the words you're singing.

Verse one says, joy to the world. The Lord is come let earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room, and heaven and nature sing. You can hear echoes of Psalm 98 in that.

He starts with joy to the Lord, joy to the world. The Lord, the master, the king has come. In one of his sermons, Tim Keller, called this the most counter-cultural message of Christmas. Think about the most counter-cultural message of Christmas isn't that you should give rather than hoard. That is counter-cultural mostly, but that's not the most counter-cultural message. Christmas isn't mainly a message against consumerism, although there's plenty to critique.

Christmas is an announcement that the king with absolute authority has come, and so you don't get to rule your life. That's the most counter-cultural message of Christmas that if you were Mary, who just birthed this baby, it was right for you to bow before him as the king of the universe. That if you were the wise men who rule, have authority in their own context, it was right for you to come and bow before this baby.

But it wasn't just Mary and the wise men. The, when the angels announced to the shepherds, they say unto you, is born this day. He was the king, not just for those people. He was the king for the shepherds.

That means when we come to Christmas, one of the things we should be challenged by is that it's the announcement of a king with absolute authority. And the angel said, that's good news of great joy.

I don't know about you, but when people tell me what to do, I don't naturally think that's good news of great joy. See, that's not the way we're often wired. We think I want to rule my life and that's the best joy I can have. But the message of Christmas isn't that. It is that the Messiah, the king of the universe, came and was born.

Notice when Watts writes this, he says, let Earth receive her king. Let every heart prepare him room.

When Jesus. Comes into your life when you engage him. You don't engage Jesus to tell him what to do. You bow before him so he tells you what to do.

Let earth receive her king. It doesn't say let Earth receive her butler like he can bring good gifts to me, that's his purpose. Jesus doesn't come into our lives like that. You don't prepare room for Jesus as a delivery man to bring you the things you really wanted.

Watts is right. He says, let every heart prepare him room. As what? As king. Let Earth receive her king.

You don't prepare room for Jesus like, like an EMT. Like if I have a serious enough emergency, Jesus can help me, but other than that, he can just kind of stay outta the way. Watts is right. We're not called to prepare room for Jesus like that.

We're not even called to prepare room for Jesus as a judge who will mostly leave us alone. But if we've done the wrong thing, he shows up. We're called to prepare him room as the king, as the one who has absolute authority, not just authority over our external circumstances. Watts is right. Prepare him room. Let every heart prepare him room.

At the center of who you are and who I am of what controls us. Jesus has the authority. That's the message of Christmas. To quote Keller, he said, when Jesus comes into your life, you lose the right of self-determination. If you accept Jesus into your life, you are under authority. You have lost control of your life. Now, I would add you never really had it to begin with. So you willingly give up the illusion.

Now, of course, you make decisions. Of course, you manage your life. Of course, you're responsible for your actions, but your king has come.

We as Americans have had a little bit of strained relationship with kings since, you know, 1776 at least. So we can hear that in a strange way. But remember, the announcement is, this is good news. The best news you have at Christmas is that your life is not your own.

Sometimes it's hard to believe that. Sometimes I think, well, if I could just handle my own life, I would do it better. I would take care of myself better. That's not what the announcement at Christmas is.

We read Micah chapter five earlier, and it began by saying, this ruler is going to come. I want you to think a minute about the verses we read together. He shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord. Do you want a ruler with enough strength to do something about evil? Of course you do. The king Jesus is the one who has that strength.

In the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, do you want a majestic ruler, one that you can look at and just marvel at his greatness and his goodness? Yes. That's king Jesus.

And his people will dwell, secure. Do you want a king who can help you really dwell, secure? You see, if I rule my life, the amount of safety I can guarantee is so small. That's true for all of us. We like to think we, we, you know, we do our insurance and we lock our doors and we do all these things and, but there's so much that is outside of your control.

We hear these stories, people who seem to be doing everything right, people who exercise consistently, who drop of a heart attack at 35. People who are driving safely and somebody else on the street comes across the line.

We like to think I can rule my life and guarantee my safety, but we are way too weak for that. The ruler we want is the one who can promise they will dwell secure, and he will be your peace all the way to the end.

Joy to the world, the Lord, the king, the absolute authority is come. So let earth receive him or king. Let every heart let each of us prepare our hearts by bowing before this king.

Creation Repeats the Sounding Joy

Jed Gillis: So Watts it continues in verse two. And if you wanna say, wait. Does Watts actually say anything about Christmas directly? I think he implies it here.

Joy to the earth. The savior reigns. It's our savior. I think he implies it there. I think he also implies it when he says, looking back from the New Testament, the Lord has come like, well, he did. That's one of the places the Lord came.

So joy to the earth, to savior your reigns. Let men, their songs employ. While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy.

Just like Psalm 98, it starts with the savior. The revelation of his salvation is what people see, and it's not just people creation is to repeat his praise.

Now, we could say that's beautiful poetry. It means something like this. It means that the authority and reign of our God is so good that it is as if all of creation celebrates.

We could say that that's true poetically, that's part of what he's doing. We could take another step and say that the beauty and the majesty and the greatness of creation points to the greatness of the one who made it.

So we could take those two steps. And I don't know, but I've read people who have speculated and studied and asked questions, and I wonder about the parts of creation that we don't really know much about.

You know, we see a fraction of light waves. We don't see most of them. We hear a fraction of sounds. We don't even hear all of them. And even when we do hear them, depending on who you are, you say, maybe I hear them better than some others.

For centuries, people have been fascinated looking at the stars and have talked about the frequencies that are generated by planets and their orbits and the way they fit together. And they've talked about things like, you'll hear phrases like the music of the Spheres, and they're saying like, how does all this fit together.

And what does God hear? What does God see? I'm pretty sure it's more than the fraction of visible light that we see.

What do the stars when, when scripture says things like, and sure, it's, it's poetic. Granted, when scripture says things like the heavens declare the glory of God, maybe that's just poetry, or maybe there's this roar of creation, praising its maker that you and I don't see at or hear at least yet.

But Psalm 98 and joy to the world at least invite your imagination to say, God made all of this world and it praises him.

The fields, the floods, the rocks, the hills and the plains cry out in praise. Say, well, why? Sure. He made it. That's good. Great. Well, the next verse gives us another reason. No more let sin and sorrow grow, nor thorns infest the ground. Why is it good news we have a king? Because our king came to deal with our biggest problem.

No More Sin or Curse

Jed Gillis: I want you to think with me back to Adam and Eve in the garden. Think to their beginning. Think to their failure. Well, what happened? They, they worshiped the wrong thing. God had given all these good things, and instead they followed Satan. They obeyed the wrong person.

They listened to the wrong judgment. Hey, this is good. Obey God. You have all these good things and Satan comes along and says, no, that's not good. In other words, they listened to the wrong authority.

And God had already established his authority. He made them. He gave them purpose. He said, here's where you're gonna live and here is how you should live. He blessed them. He made them in his image. He gave them dignity. He gave them a command. That's one thing authorities do. He gave them consequences. God's authority at the beginning was displayed in a perfect context. The king ruled and the king had only given one command. Don't eat of this tree. And there was no curse, no nothing bad in their lives.

So you would think of all the times that you'd say, yes, I want to follow my king and obey his command. That would be it. There were no bad circumstances pushing you against obeying your king. As long as Adam and Eve were willing to submit to the authority of their rightful king, they could have enjoyed that blessing forever, but they didn't.

So when they failed, they faced the judgment of their king. It's also part of what Kings do, and I want you to think about this. The, the curse was actually the first time Adam and Eve had ever seen mercy.

See, before that nothing bad had happened. They hadn't sinned. They didn't deserve punishment, so they couldn't have seen mercy. They couldn't have seen God withholding punishment that they deserved.

And I think the curse was even more merciful than just withholding that punishment. If you think about God is the king who will win. There's a great cosmic battle, if you will. It's not the outcome's, not in question, but it's a cosmic battle where the rightful Lord of the universe will crush his enemies, including Satan, who tried to live on his own authority. Adam and Eve chose the wrong one.

Now think about it. If God had said, there'll be no consequences right now, go ahead, live in the Garden of Eden. Enjoy the good gifts. He's already said, you will die if you disobey this command. They could, in theory, they could have lived a life with all these good things right up until the point where they died and they would not have had eternity with God forever.

But God and his mercy, he tells us what he is doing. He says, I will put enmity between Satan. The seed of the woman. He's like, I'm going to put this curse to remind you that those who side with Satan in fact have a worse existence. That's mercy actually, because it gave Adam and Eve a chance to turn and trust in God for his salvation.

Now that's the background for Watt's third verse, no more let sin and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. Looking back and saying, Adam and Eve sinned, and now they are under the curse. Just like all of us, we feel a fallen world. Why do we feel that fallen world? Why did God make it that way?

So that we would remember that when we turn from following our rightful king, we face thorns, physical difficulties, we face sins, moral difficulties, and we face sorrows, emotional difficulties. Those are all there so that we would recognize that if I claim my own authority, I'm a lousy king.

I can't fix thorns, I pull 'em out, they come back. In my strength, I can't fix sins. Not only do I struggle to fight my own sins, but I can't help that other people sin against me. I can't even fix the sorrows in my life, much less the sorrows of the universe. I'm a lousy king, and so are you.

Those things exist though now, so that we know we're lousy kings. So that when we have the good news that says, here's a king who was born and he will take away the thorns and the sins and the sorrows. We say, praise God. I want that king. That's why it's joy. No more let sin and sorrow grow nor thorns infest the ground.

When you face the physical challenges, the frustration in this world. It's partly there to remind you that self rule isn't all it's cracked up to be.

And Watts points out that Jesus in his first coming, came to give salvation, which makes it possible for you to experience his spirit working within you to defeat sin. And in his second coming, he will come to remove all of that curse.

Notice the way Watts talks about it, as far as the curse is found, you say, however far the physical difficulties, emotional difficulties, and sins in this life, however much they affect you, that's how much Jesus is gonna make it better.

And we read that in Galatians chapter three. When we went through this section. It says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, that we might receive the Promised Spirit through faith. He took that curse so that we did not have to be under the curse any longer.

Or we could talk about Ephesians chapter one towards the end of this section. It praises the blessings we have, and it says, in Christ, you also, when you heard the gospel of your salvation or the good news that Messiah was born, that Christmas happened. When you heard the gospel of your salvation, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

How do we know that one day we will experience no more sin and no more sorrow and no more thorns? Because now we have the spirit within us working to change us, to fill us with hope, to transform us, to fight against sin, to put that sin to death.

He Rules the World with Truth and Grace

Jed Gillis: It's good news that a king is born that you have to follow. It's good news because he came to remove this curse and it's good news because of verse four. He rules the world with truth and grace.

John one, speaking of Christ, coming and taking on flesh says that the word Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory. Glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth. For from his fullness, we have all received grace upon grace for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

See, we need both truth and grace. And in our own self rule, we don't really have either. You think about it, if you try to rule your own life, how many times have you been wrong about something? If you look back at your life and think, if I could have just made whatever decision I wanted, it would've turned out very badly. That's because I don't have enough knowledge of truth to rule my life.

Not only that, we're not even good at giving grace to ourselves. We're pretty good at giving excuses to ourselves, but that's not the same thing. When you do wrong and you know you did wrong and you think I should be better than that, is it easy for you to rest in God's favor?

I'm gonna guess it's not, because if I try to rule my life, I don't have enough truth and I don't have enough grace. But the king who came and was born in a major, he rules the world with truth and grace.

The Nations Prove the Glories of His Righteousness

Jed Gillis: Text may be the strangest phrase in, in Joy to the World, and makes the nations prove, and then we have this weird break there. Prove what? Right? And make the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love.

I'd love to ask Watts exactly what he meant by that, but I think based on Psalm 98 as well, what he's doing is saying that when Jesus returns to judge all the nations, everyone who sees it will have to admit, whether they wanted to or not, he's right. The nations he judges with condemnation will have to bow before him. It says every knee will bow before Jesus and say, he's right. I'm guilty. And the nations, the people that he says these, these are my people, they've trusted in me, and they find salvation, they'll bow and they'll say, he's right, and this is good.

When he returns, I think here he is talking about the second time in that last verse to display his judgment, everyone will see, yes, he's the righteous judge. Yes. His love is really that wonderful. Yes. When I want justice, it's really Jesus that I want. He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove, display the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love.

Jesus Coming as a King is Good News

Jed Gillis: So the message of Christmas is that Jesus coming as a king is good news of great joy. It was joy in the revealing of his salvation in his first coming, and it will be joy in the revealing of his perfect justice at his second coming.

Here's the sobering truth, though. You don't get to tell a king which parts of his authority you approve of. If so, you'd be the real authority. You don't get to say, I'll follow Jesus as long as my circumstances aren't too bad and they make sense to me. That's not following a king. You don't get to say, I like the authority of Jesus when it comes to judging his political enemies, but I'll run my own life. Thank you.

You don't get to say, I like to trust in ultimate justice from Jesus, but I'll be my own king when it comes to my money or my time. You don't get to say, I'm so glad the glory of his righteousness will be seen while you boast in the glory of your righteousness.

When you receive Christ as a king, you have to take all of his authority, which feels scary to all of us because we like to run our own lives. But the message of Christmas is that it is good news. It's good news of great joy. Don't believe the lie of our culture that says authority is bad.

Authority is not bad. Abused authority is bad. Selfish authority is bad. Sinful authority is bad.

But king Jesus, we bow before him and say, you run every piece, every single part of my life. That's not bad. That's joy. Because our king uses his authority with truth and grace to have there be no sins and no sorrows and no thorns, and one day he will return and make all of that new, which is why we sing Joy to the World.

So I invite you to stand and let's sing.

Singing Joy to the World

Jed Gillis: I'm not gonna play, I'll just leave it to our voices. I'll start us off.

Congregation: Joy to the world; the Lord is come;

Let Earth receive her King;

Let ev'ry heart prepare him room,

And heav'n and nature sing.

And heav'n and nature sing.

And Heaven and heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the Earth, the Savior reigns;

Our mortal songs employ,

While fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains,

Repeat the sounding joy.

Repeat the sounding joy.

Repeat, repeat the sounding joy.

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground;

He comes to make his blessings flow

Far as the curse is found.

Far as the curse is found.

Far as, far as the curse is found.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of his righteousness,

And wonders of his love.

And wonders of his love.

And wonders, and wonders of his love.

Closing Prayer

Jed Gillis: To our king who has all truth and grace, our king be all glory forever and ever. Jesus, we pray that this week and this Christmas season. Our hearts would bow before you. I pray that you would convict us of any area that we try to rule our own lives.

I pray that we would gladly bow before you and know that your kingship, your absolute authority over us is good news because you are so wonderful and so far greater than we are. The best life that I could construct as my own king would be nothing compared to the paradise that you prepare for your people. And it would be nothing compared to the joy of knowing you and loving you now by your spirit.

So help us to bow before you and to receive your authority as joy. Thank you, and we pray this in the name of our king. Amen.