Hey there Journey Point! I’m so glad you’ve joined us this morning, from wherever you are! Maybe some of you are catching this on a run, in the car, or wherever! Hey, go ahead and like this post, comment and tell us who you’re watching with, and where you’re watching from!

If this is your first week with us, you’re catching us in week 2 of a series called CAROLS. We’re looking at some of our most known songs, ones that we sing year after year, but ones you may not pay attention to in regards to their backing in scripture or the scriptures that influenced them. Last week we walked through Joy to the World, and today, we’re looking at one of my favorites carols, O Holy Night.

O Holy Night

In fact, while you’re at it, why don’t you comment below and let us know what your favorite carol is. And listen, if yours is Grandma got run over by a reindeer, OWN IT BABY!

You know what I love about Carols though? They bring back memories. And this year, I think it’s all the more important for us to re-live, think about, and relish the memories we have with the holidays. I know Thanksgiving looked different, and Christmas is bound to look different as well. But the memories we have can’t fade, and can’t change.

So let me ask you,

What memory do you have with ‘O Holy Night’?

Is it with your grandparents? family before bed? On a farm or vacation house with family and a campfire? Or is this your first run with carols and you’re looking to start some of your own memories? What is your memory with these carols? What memory can you start?

And look, as we get into today’s song, I’d love to give some background on it, listen to it with you, then talk about what it means to us today.

The song, O Holy Night, was actually written in the mid 1800's. What's interesting is there was a perish priest who asked a guy in town who was actually a French merchant and a poet, his name was Placide Cappeau. The priest asked Placide, 'Would you write a poem to Luke Chapter Two?' The interesting thing is, Placide was an atheist with a STRONG disdain for religious authority. He was very far from God, made that known, but he was a good poet. So, on his way to Paris, in a stagecoach, he wrote Minuit, chrétiens,” or “Midnight, christians.” He loved it so much he asked his friend who was also not a Christian, to put the poem to music. And this song became so popular that it ran through the Catholic Church, was played at all sorts of churches until a few years into it, when everyone realized just who wrote the song and who did the music and they said, 'You've got to shut this song down!' But, by then it was way too late and the song was massively popular as it is today.

Another interesting fact about this carol is that about five decades later in 1906, a scientist that sat under Thomas Edison name Reginald Fessenden did what many people thought was impossible. He took, kind of out of his own garage and made a makeshift generator, plugged a microphone into it and broadcast the very first AM broadcast in the history of the world on Christmas Eve in 1906. He took Luke, Chapter 2:1, spoke into the microphone and broadcast that chapter, starting out: In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world, and he read the Christmas story. Then he took his violin, played into the microphone and the first song broadcast across airwaves in the history of the world was this song, O Holy Night.

Let’s listen to it, then talk about what it means to us today:

PLAY O HOLY NIGHT!

You know, when I think of the song O Holy Night, I just can’t help but to think of the manger scene that we have.

Now, I don’t think about all of these because it’s not really accurate of the night - REMOVE SOME OF THE CHARACTERS - you see, there were no wise men. There might have been some animals, but there weren’t shepherds or anything like that.

When you read about the birth of Jesus, the best visual picture we get is from Luke, chapter 2 of that HOLY NIGHT.

If you have a bible, turn with me there to Luke chapter 2, and we’re going to roll through verses 1-7. If you don’t have a bible, no worries, just download our app, Journey Point Church, on all app stores. The app is the BEST place for those of you new to what we’re doing here. It has a connect card for you to fill out if this is your first time with us, as well as message notes to follow along with today, and for those of you that call JPC home, that’s where you can give back to God what is his. You know, we don’t reach and serve this community without your faithfulness and generosity. It just doesn’t happen, so thank you for knowing that when you give TO JPC, you’re giving THROUGH JPC.

Annual Missions Offering

That’s why we’re asking God to raise $25,000 through our Annual Missions offering that 100% will go back into the community, as well as to starting new churches in the US and London, England.

So it’s a holy night. Mary and Joseph, trying to have this kid that came to them through the Holy Spirit, traveling on a donkey.

Luke 2:1–7 CSB

1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole empire should be registered. 2 This first registration took place while Quirinius was governing Syria. 3 So everyone went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family line of David, 5 to be registered along with Mary, who was engaged to him and was pregnant. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 Then she gave birth to her firstborn son, and she wrapped him tightly in cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

Pray

You see this wasn’t a hospital room with friends and family pacing around waiting on the grandchild to be born. May and Joseph had actually been shunned, you know, seeing that she was pregnant NOT from Joseph, but from the Holy Spirit. I mean, let’s be honest, Jerry Springer probably would have had a Baby Daddy episode with this one.

But what Mary and Joseph felt was what the world was feeling at that point. You see, I’m sure Mary was weary, right? Riding a donkey, 9 months pregnant, having been told the weight of the world rested in her belly.

One of the lyrics of O holy Night is:

A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices

In fact, that’s the title of my message today, Hope for a Weary World.

Weary world. Man, if that doesn’t describe 2020, I don’t know what does. The waiting. COVID, jobs, marriages, school to return, sporting events, concerts, dining in restaurants, and SO MUCH MORE.

When will things return to normal?

But you know, not saying this will happen to us, but did you know that this couple, weary, represented a weary nation that were waiting 400 years leading up to this night to hear from God. That’s right, God had been silent 400 years. The time in-between the Old Testament and the New Testament is called the Intertestmental Period. Malachi was written around 420 BC and then the appearance of John the Baptist in the 1 century AD was when God spoke again through Him.

In that time, there were no new prophets raised and God revealed nothing new to his people, the Israelites.

This Holy Night, this divine night, it was HOPE FOR A WEARY WORLD.

The Holy Night was Hope for a Weary World.

If you take away anything today, that’s what I want you to remember. The birth of Jesus, the Holy Night, the Divine Night, was hope for a weary world 2,000 years ago, and that truth still true today.

The Holy Night IS Hope for a Weary World.

You see, HOLY, in the bible means SET APART.

Holy: set apart

The root idea of holiness is that of separation, or withdrawal. It’s a divine quality, part of the very nature of God, but it is also ABSENT from a fallen world.

You see, God went silent because for thousands of years, man continued in it’s fall. From Adam and Eve in the very beginning until the warnings and disobedience to the way God desired them to live in Malachi of the Old Testament, the world needed an answer.

They needed something set apart and different… They needed something Holy.

They needed JESUS. You see, God couldn’t become less Holy because of us, but he had to send His son as the answer. As the Savior.

THAT’S what this night was about. And listen, this HOLY, set apart night had been prophesied for since the book of Genesis, in the very beginning of the bible.

For those new to the bible or still processing your thoughts about Christianity, Mary and Joseph walked through this because in the beginning, God created man to be in fellowship with him, but Adam and Eve lived outside of the way God desired, and sinned by doing what God asked them not to do.

In doing so, God punished them, but then turned his attention to the enemy, Satan. He said this...

Genesis 3:15 CSB

15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

The enemy here would bruise the heel of this Savior, but the Savior would trample the head of the enemy. You don’t have to be a doctor to know which injury is worse - a bite to the foot or a kick to the head! Sin, in that moment, was promised to be defeated. We, you and I, and these Israelites represented by Mary and Joseph on a holy night, were to be rescued.

O Holy Night shows us 3 truths from God.

He knows our need.

In all our trials, born to be our friend. He knows our need, our weakness is no stranger. Behold your king, Before him lowly bend.

I don’t know where you are right now, what your needs are, but Jesus knows them. He knows your need before you know them. And that should comfort us. On this holy night that he was born that we celebrate in a few weeks, let that give you hope. That He knows your need.

Hebrews 4:15 CSB

15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.

When you feel alone this week, look to Jesus. He knows your need and is NO stranger to your weakness.

He knows your need.

He teaches us to love.

Truly he taught us to love one another. His law is love and his gospel is peace.

The birth. The Holy Night. It came to rescue us, but also to rescue others. This gospel, which is Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection in our place, came to us on it’s way to someone else. WHO IS YOUR SOMEONE ELSE? Who is WEARY right now that you need to tell them that Jesus knows their need?

John 13:34–35 CSB

34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Say love… throw some hearts out.

In fact, this is a great time also to throw some hearts for how you feel. Give me a green heart if you’re feeling good today, yellow if you’re just MEH, and red if you’ve been better.

He teaches us to love and his message gives peace.

Ephesians 2:17 CSB

17 He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.

This week, LOVE. Love one another. In the year that we’re in, the greatest thing you can do for your neighbor is to LOVE them. And the Holy Night we celebrate is a reminder of that.

He knows your need. He teaches you to love.

He sets us free.

Chains he shall break, for the slave is our brother. And in his name, all oppression shall cease.

The freedom from what you’re going through right now is freedom in Jesus. He is literally the only Hope you need to get you through what you’re going through.

We talked about the hope set in the beginning of the bible in Genesis, and then that story leads to the Holy night, Jesus’s birth, and the work that he does by dying on the cross and taking the place of our sin.

Being a follower of Jesus sets us free. It removes the chains of bondage we have to the sin in lives and it gives us freedom.

And also gives hope, that what we experience today, even in 2020 and COVID, will ultimately cease. You see, the end of the story is this...

Revelation 21:4 CSB

4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away.

The Holy Night gives Hope to the weary world.

This week, I want you to press in to the TRUTH of this, but also to be thankful that God is not silent any more. Through the Holy Spirit, we have him with us, speaking and leading… ALWAYS. Through his word, through other followers of Jesus, and that can leave us to have Hope in a weary world.

PRAYER MEETING THIS WEDNESDAY 6:30am.

But that hope, those 3 truths, only come for those that have said YES to following Jesus.

Text “ISAIDYES” to 720.780.6969