Joy To the World - An Anthem for the Kingdom of God

Intro

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” (Luke 2:8-14 ESV)

Many people assume that this is the scripture that inspired the song, “Joy to the World!” Many people assume that “Joy to the World!” is a Christmas song. But many people are wrong. “Joy to the World!” is not a Christmas song, and it was not inspired by the story of shepherds and angels in Luke 2.

I believe that “Joy to the World!” is an anthem for the Kingdom of God. Every disciple of Christ should claim this song as their battle hymn. Today, we will look at a few passages of Scripture that show us that “Joy to the World!” is the metanarrative (the primary, overarching story) of the Bible. It is the essence of the Gospel that Jesus proclaimed. The heart and passion of “Joy to the World!” should be at the core of everything we do, every day of the year. “Joy to the World!” is the soundtrack on The Way to Discipleship.

Body

In 1719, English minister, theologian, and hymnwriter, Isaac Watts, published a poem based on Psalm 98, titled Joy to the World!

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare him room,

And heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns;

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains

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.

He rules the world with truth and grace,

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love.

Psalm 98 (ESV), the Psalm this poem was based on, calls for praise from all creation about the reestablishment of the Kingdom of God in a world that is suffering the effects of the fall in the garden. It reads,

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.

[Remember, this is a code word meaning everyone who is not in the house of Israel]

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.

After Isaac Watts wrote his poem, it appeared in many songbooks paired with various tunes. ‘Across the pond,’ in 1848, an American composer and arranger, Lowell Mason, published the poem with a new tune – the one we are familiar with today. By the way, for your next Trivial Pursuit game, Mason (the tune writer for Joy to the World) was a banker by profession, but went on to publish over 1,600 songs, including Mary Had a Little Lamb.

The reason many associate “Joy to the World!” with the story of the angels and shepherds is because they both highlight the primary, overarching story found in the Bible. I’ve been talking about this overarching story of Scripture – this metanarrative – for over four years. It is the first of seven waypoints in my book, The Way to Discipleship. The overarching story of the Bible is the Creation and Redemption of the Kingdom of God.

Let’s trace this story through Scripture.

If you’ve been around church for a while, you know what we mean when we talk about the Fall. We’re not talking about Autumn, and harvest parties, and apple cider, and warm sweaters. When we talk about the Fall, we’re talking about the point in history where human sin first happened.

After placing the man and the woman in the garden in Eden, God said, “Help yourself to anything in the garden, except for one tree. You are not to eat from this one particular tree, and if you do you will surely die.” Then there was a talking serpent who told Eve, “If you eat from that tree you won’t REALLY die – your eyes will be opened and you will be just like God.” Eve rationalizes what God REALLY meant when he said, “Don’t eat from that tree.” She looks at the fruit, she sees that it is good for food and delightful to the eyes, she sees that is desirable because it can make her wise, so she TAKES, and EATS, and SHARES it with Adam.

In this series of actions, the man and the woman show that neither one of them fully trust what God says, and they willfully, intentionally disobey him. That is the essence of sin – we don’t trust what God says, and we act in ways that are contrary to his will for our lives.

There are consequences for sin, and this simple act of disobedience introduces death, and pain, and suffering into God’s perfect creation. The Kingdom of God now has rebels that are acting contrary to the will of the King. Among the consequences that God announces are these found in Genesis 3:

And to Adam he said,

“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree

of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground,

for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 3:17-24 ESV)

The ground became cursed because of their sin. It would produce thorns and weeds. As a result, there would be increased pain, and work would be difficult. Humans were no longer welcome in this God-space called Eden (Paradise), and we were no longer able to eat the life-giving fruit of the tree of life. Instead of living forever in the presence of God, our human bodies would decay and die. All of creation now felt the consequences of the curse.

As you can imagine, this idea of cursing and blessing became a big deal to the Israelites. In Deuteronomy 27-28 it’s spelled out in clarity: If you obey God you will receive blessings; if you disobey God you will fall victim to the curses. In chapter 30, Moses sums up the choice that we’ve been living with ever since the garden in Eden:

Deuteronomy 30:19 (ESV)

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,

In other words “The choice is yours … Choose well.”

The disciples and their contemporaries believed that if you were suffering, if you had an illness or disease, if your crops failed, if you were poor, it was because you had not chosen well, - you had sinned and were under the curse. That’s why his disciples, when they came across a man who was blind from birth, asked Jesus, “Whose sin caused this man to be blind from birth, him or his parents?” (John 9:1-7) Jesus went on to adjust their thinking.

We live in a fallen, sin-sick world. We live in a world of pain and suffering. As a result of sin and disobedience in the garden, we live in a world where bad things happen – even to good people. The world is living in rebellion to the Word and will of God. We live in the midst of people, communities, even nations that are not living in alignment with the Kingdom of God – and pain, suffering, and chaos are the result. So where do we get off, singing “Joy to the World!”?

Well, for that answer we need to go back to the story of the angels and shepherds. All of creation has been living in rebellion to the Kingship of God. The Jews were looking for a new King – the promised Messiah [which means Anointed One] to make things right. Then, Jesus is born into this rebellious world. And the night sky is suddenly filled with light as the angels announce, “There’s a new King in town. Things are about to change. The Kingdom is going to be restored!” Listen to the story again.

Nearby there were shepherds in the field, keeping watch of their flock during the night. And an angel of the Lord stood by them, and the light of the glory of God surrounded them, and they feared with great fear. And the angel said, “Don’t be afraid for I bring Good News of great Joy, and this Good News is for all people!”

“A Savior has been born for you in the city of David (the King) [in the Royal lineage of the King] – he is Christ [the anointed one, the King] the Lord. You will know that it is him when you find him lying in a feeding trough, and wrapped tightly with strips of cloth.”

And suddenly, there was an Army of heavenly beings, praising God and saying, “Let there be glory to God in the highest heaven! For on earth, God is pleased to give peace to mankind.” (Luke 2:8-14 Curt’s Translation)

The Kingdom is being restored! What Kingdom? The Kingdom that Psalm 98 talked about. The Kingdom of God that Isaac Watts saw advancing when he wrote: “Joy to the World!”

Isaac Watts loved the Word of God. He marinated in Scripture, and his poem was flavored with allusions to other passages of Scripture beside Psalm 98.

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Let earth receive her King;

Let every heart prepare him room, (Revelation 3:20 – Behold I stand at the door)

And heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the world! the Saviour reigns;

Let men their songs employ;

While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains (Luke 19:40 – the rocks would cry out)

Repeat the sounding joy. (Romans 8:19-22 – Creation awaits the revealing …)

No more let sins and sorrows grow,

Nor thorns infest the ground; (Genesis 3:18 – thorns and thistles)

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found. (Deuteronomy 27-28 – blessing and curses)

He rules the world with truth and grace, (John 1:14 – full of Grace and Truth)

And makes the nations prove

The glories of His righteousness,

And wonders of His love.

When Isaac Watts penned those words, he was not thinking about Christmas – the birth of Christ. Some think he was focused on Christ’s second coming. But I believe that he saw this song for what it is - the everyday battle cry of the disciple of Jesus. We are called to declare this Great Good News! The Kingdom of God is here! Today! Right now! And it’s advancing!

The gospel – the Good News – that Jesus declared was that The Kingdom of God is at hand and is advancing. Look at the first chapter of Mark:

Mark 1:14–15 (ESV)

Now after John [the baptizer] was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Good News.”

At the very beginning of his earthly ministry, Jesus applied these words from Isaiah to himself:

[Good News!] “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives

and recovering of sight to the blind,

to set at liberty those who are oppressed,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19 & Isaiah 61:1-2 ESV)

We are heirs to the ministry of Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:16-21). We proclaim Good News of Great Joy for All people!

“Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King;”

That’s why, in the passage from Matthew that we call The Beatitudes, Jesus included the poor in spirit, those who mourn, and those who are persecuted for righteousness.

Matthew 5:3–4 (ESV)

“Blessed [NOT CURSED] are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed [NOT CURSED] are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:10 (ESV)

“Blessed [NOT CURSED] are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

What Jesus said was shocking! It wasn’t that the disciple’s paradigm wasn’t true – “That bad things happened to people who sinned.” Jesus was saying, “It’s NO LONGER TRUE!” The Kingdom of God is at hand! No one is irredeemable! No one is purposeless; there are only those who do not know they were created for a purpose. Everyone can be delivered from the curse! Everyone can receive the blessing of God!

“He comes to make His blessings flow, Far as the curse is found!”

Conclusion

From Genesis on, we see this contrast between blessings and curses in Scripture. And we see that Christ’s mission was to remove the curse, and extend his blessing to all who would receive him. Before we wrap things up and revisit this great hymn – a hymn for all seasons – not just Christmas, let’s look at the last chapter of Revelation.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:1-5 ESV)

When the Kingdom of God is finally, fully established, the rebellion is finally and fully defeated, and Heaven and Earth are reunited, there will be no more curse – only blessing.

Jeannette told us last week that we live in the “now, and not yet” and that is the place where Hope lives. Scripture tells us today that Joy also lives in the “now, and not yet.”

1 Peter 1:2b–9 (ESV)

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Church, I bring Good News of Great Joy,

and this Good News is for All people!

There’s a new King in town.

Things will change as we advance the Kingdom of God!