Merry Christmas

Series Introduction

Background of “O Holy Night”

From :Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas published by Zondervan

“The strange and fascinating story of "O Holy Night" began in France. In 1847, Placide Cappeau de Roquemaure was the commissionaire of wines in a small French town. Known more for his poetry than his church attendance, it probably shocked Placide when his parish priest asked the commissionaire to pen a poem for Christmas mass. Nevertheless, the poet was honored to share his talents with the church. Using the gospel of Luke as his guide, Cappeau imagined witnessing the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. Thoughts of being present on the blessed night inspired him. By the time he arrived in Paris, "Cantique de Noel" had been completed. Moved by his own work, Cappeau decided that his "Cantique de Noel" was not just a poem, but a song in need of a master musician's hand. Not musically inclined himself, the poet turned to one of his friends, Adolphe Charles Adams, for help. As a man of Jewish ancestry, for Adolphe the words of "Cantique de Noel" represented a day he didn't celebrate and a man he did not view as the son of God. Nevertheless, Adams quickly went to work, attempting to marry an original score to Cappeau's beautiful words. Adams' finished work pleased both poet and priest. The song was performed just three weeks later at a Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Initially, "Cantique de Noel" was wholeheartedly accepted by the church in France and the song quickly found its way into various Catholic Christmas services. But when Placide Cappeau walked away from the church and became a part of the socialist movement, and church leaders discovered that Adolphe Adams was a Jew, the song--which had quickly grown to be one of the most beloved Christmas songs in France--was suddenly and uniformly denounced by the church. The heads of the French Catholic church of the time deemed "Cantique de Noel" as unfit for church services because of its lack of musical taste and "total absence of the spirit of religion." Yet even as the church tried to bury the Christmas song, the French people continued to sing it, and a decade later a reclusive American writer brought it to a whole new audience halfway around the world. Not only did this American writer--John Sullivan Dwight--feel that this wonderful Christmas songs needed to be introduced to America, he saw something else in the song that moved him beyond the story of the birth of Christ. An ardent abolitionist, Dwight strongly identified with the lines of the third verse: "Truly he taught us to love one another; his law is love and his gospel is peace. Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother; and in his name all oppression shall cease." Adams (the song’s music composer) had been dead for many years and Cappeau and Dwight were old men when on Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden--a 33-year-old university professor and former chief chemist for Thomas Edison--did something long thought impossible. Using a new type of generator, Fessenden spoke into a microphone and, for the first time in history, a man's voice was broadcast over the airwaves: "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed," he began in a clear, strong voice, hoping he was reaching across the distances he supposed he would.

Shocked radio operators on ships and astonished wireless owners at newspapers sat slack-jawed as their normal, coded impulses, heard over tiny speakers, were interrupted by a professor reading from the gospel of Luke. To the few who caught this broadcast, it must have seemed like a miracle--hearing a voice somehow transmitted to those far away. Some might have believed they were hearing the voice of an angel. After finishing his recitation of the birth of Christ, Fessenden picked up his violin and played "O Holy Night," the first song ever sent through the air via radio waves. When the carol ended, so did the broadcast--but not before music had found a new medium that would take it around the world.”

A moving, and perhaps unexpected background story to this beloved Christmas carol. A song that was once “outlawed” is now sung by millions every year, and I suggest what makes this such a meaningful song for us today is why any worship song is meaningful is its content. It’s not just the music, but the message.... the words.

A line in the song (which we will utilize next week for our offertory), is the inspiration for this year’s Christmas series.

Here’s the line:

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices

We are familiar enough with hope. Many of us even understand that Christ offers His people much more than potential relief from the strife of our lives, but certain relief. Certain hope that we can count on. But what about how hope is described here: A thrill of hope… Is hope thrilling? We certainly can identify with this particular line when it references a weary word. We are weary. Weary still from 2020: the pandemic, presidential election, and a host of other changes, losses and pain that we all are experiencing. And 2021, in many ways has been more of the same.

Fundamental to living the Christian life is persevering. We need to be an persevering people… an enduring people. We believe in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. This doctrine teaches that God preserves His people in their salvation so that they will persevere and never fall away from Him.

1 Peter 1:5 ESV

who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

It is on the basis of this doctrine that the people of God have hope. We will, by God’s grace, persevere. But when it comes to our perseverance, we often think of it it a context of trial and suffering. Perseverance is often thought of what is necessary to get through the drudgery of life. And to be sure, perseverance is necessary because life is difficult… really because of sin. But, persevering is the Christian’s way of life. Is the Christian life merely getting through it? Is it just contending with drudgery?

I suggest the song gets it right. The hope we have in Christ, even in the face of our weariness, is thrilling. So, I want to suggest that there is a certain wonder in our perseverance. Those who are in Christ, that is, those who are united to Him are meant to experience a certain wonder in day-to-day living. No, we’re not oblivious to the pain and suffering that exists in our lives, but we face it with hope and wonder because we belong to Christ, and nothing can overcome Him.

So our Christmas series is titled

The Thrill of Hope: Recapturing the Wonder in our Perseverance

Sermon Introduction

As you might have noticed in the bulletin today, we will be in the book of Leviticus this morning. Now, I’m not sure what you think of when you think about this book. If you even have any thoughts, you may think this book to be out of touch with what you and I typically face day-to-day. We may assume that it’s a book full of ceremonies, laws and practices that are no longer relevant rendering this book irrelevant to us today. To be sure, many of the practices we see the people of God practice in this book are no longer in play for the church today, but their meaning and purpose and what they are meant to point us to is very relevant for us. We are not undertaking an exposition of this book today (although that may be coming in the future), but I do want to provide a little context before moving onto our particular text.

This book can be divided into several sections. Briefly they are

1. The various kinds of sacrifices the people of God must make are described in chapters 1-7

2. Chapters 8-10 describe the preparation of Moses’ brother Aaron as the High Priest.

3. An outline of the purity laws are provided in chapters 11-16

4. And various laws about holiness are described in chapters 17-27

The section in which our text appears in the one in which the purity laws are outlined. We’ll get into what is meant by purity in a few moments, but what we will see in these 2 verses is an exhortation to be a certain kind of people in light of the fact that our God is a certain kind of God.... the only true God to be sure, but very specific.

Leviticus 11:44–45 ESV

For I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

And when we take time to consider the kind of people we are to be in light of the kind of God we worship we will recapture....

The Wonder in Seeing Beyond Ourselves

FCF: The fact that the holy God is the holy God of His people is often under-revered by God’s people when striving to live the holy lives He has called us to live.

Define “revere”: regard as worthy of great honor; deep respect and admiration

Big Idea:

We must revere the fact that the holy God is our holy God in order to live the holy lives He has called us to live.

Analytical Question:

What must we embrace by faith to properly revere our holy God.

Notice, we are not asking, what must we do to properly revere our holy God. We do not take action to revere God. Revering God is the byproduct of His redemptive work in His people. But to get more specific than to say we need to revere God, we offer some specific realities we see in this text that we need to embrace by faith in order to revere God. What are these realities?

We must revere that the holy God is personal. (44-45a)

AQ: What helps us to revere that God is our God?

As much as we need to clearly see that God is holy, we must also see that He is a personal God who is intimately connected to the intricacies of His people’s lives.

In the well known throne room scene in Isa. 6, after hearing the angels declare, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory, Isaiah said, I am a man of unclean lips… In other words, clearly seeing the holiness of God will make us more aware of how unfit we are to be in His presence. But the holy God was a personal God to Isaiah. God called Isaiah to serve Him, and proclaim His word to a people who needed to hear.

What’s important for us to understand, when it comes to the book of Leviticus is what is meant by terminology that is used throughout the book. There is:

Clean & Unclean

Common & Holy

Clean & Unclean:

Clean: Big circle - almost everything

Unclean: all that is sinful and some non-sinful things

certain kinds of food were declared unclean - not sinful in-and-of-themselves, but unclean

But much of what was declared as unclean could be made clear through ceremony

For a person to commit immoral actions such as adultery, homosexuality murder etc., and many other things mentioned in this book would have rendered the person who committed these actions as unclean.

But having a miscarriage or contracted some infectious disease would have also be considered unclean. The major difference between these two scenarios of course is sin.

Common: Everything that is clean and unclean

Holy: Some of the common things that could be made holy. The process of pushing the common thing into the smaller holy circle is called sanctification

And what we see throughout this book are commands to take what is unclean outside the camp of Israel, because what was at the center of the camp was the Tabernacle of the Lord, which of course represents His presence.

So back to the first phrase in v. 44, I am the Lord your God… How does this business of clean and unclean and common and holy connect to the fact that God is our God? That He is a personal God?

What helps us to revere that God is our God?

Know that our God is concerned about every inch of our lives.

God is not indifferent about anything in our lives. For His people in the OT, God was concerned about their physical lives, civil lives, emotional lives and spiritual lives. For us today, God is concerned about every square inch of our lives. He is a personal God. We must be very careful to not assume that something is morally neutral. Whether it is the way we drive, the way we dine or the way we denounce what we deem as wrong, our God cares about the who, what when where how and why of our lives.

See our lives in this light has profound impact on what our lives look like day to day. Do we understand that the everyday, little things of our lives are of eternal importance. All of us need to patronize a local grocery store most weeks. The list (mental or paper) we make, the food we select, the way we speak to the deli and produce people, the budget we set and everything else in between possesses eternal significance. And instead of being overwhelmed by this thought, we can be encouraged and take comfort in knowing that God cares about all this, He is intimately involved in it all because He is a personal God. The one and only holy God of the universe is our God.

Something else that helps us to revere that God is our God is to

Know that our God has shown us how to properly worship Him.

Notice again in v. 44: Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. Because the holy God is our God, we are to consecrate ourselves. Set yourselves apart, in other words. Now, we will consider this call to consecrate ourselves more in a moment, but consider how this word is used elsewhere in contexts of worship.

Hezekiah began his reign as king over Israel, and previous to his reign, the temple of the Lord had been defiled due to the unfaithfulness of people before him and his people.

2 Chronicles 29:5 (ESV)

and said to them, “Hear me, Levites! Now consecrate yourselves, and consecrate the house of the Lord, the God of your fathers, and carry out the filth from the Holy Place.

There was a particular way God had revealed He would be properly worshiped, and that required the worship leaders rid the place of worship of the remnants of unfaithfulness.

We want to worship God according to how He wants to be worshiped. How we worship God, is not left to us to figure out. Certainly, there is a certain elements of creativity in our worship, especially in the music we sing. But even in the music, we care about the songs’ content. Beautiful music is not necessarily music that facilitates worship from those who sing it. Everything we do in a worship service, must reflect God’s prescription for how He wants to be worshiped. The music, prayers, reading of Scripture, how we handle communion, preaching; these are all addressed by God in His word. We need to be particular and careful how we handle God’s design for the worship of Himself.

And again, we are suggesting that God has shown us how to properly worship Him, and that fact should be revered by His people. And when we revere that God is concerned about every inch of our lives, including how we worship Him, we will revere the fact that the holy God is our holy God and then we will be able to live the holy lives He has called us to live.

Seeing beyond ourselves to recapture the wonder in our perseverance

What else must we embrace by faith in order to revere our holy God?

We must revere that our call to live holy lives is a call to reflect the holiness of God. (44)

AQ: What demonstrates that we revere this call?

It should be noted that Leviticus 11 is a chapter that outlined what is clean and unclean and how the people of Israel should live in light of that. These remaining verses in the chapter summarize all of this and underscores the importance of distinguishing clean and unclean. Consider vss 41-43:

Leviticus 11:41–43 ESV

“Every swarming thing that swarms on the ground is detestable; it shall not be eaten. Whatever goes on its belly, and whatever goes on all fours, or whatever has many feet, any swarming thing that swarms on the ground, you shall not eat, for they are detestable. You shall not make yourselves detestable with any swarming thing that swarms, and you shall not defile yourselves with them, and become unclean through them.

This, in part, was how the people of God were to set themselves apart to God. Now, we don’t have these dietary restrictions in play today, but as noted before, the call to set apart as holy to God remains. How do we do this?

Obedient worship

This prevents us from taking our lives into our own hands

To be a Christian is no small thing. To be a child of Christ, follower of Christ, someone who is in Christ is not insignificant. And the significance of this can be seen in the fact that all of us who are in Christ are in covenant relationship with Him. Christians are blood-bought people. Christ died to secure a people for Himself, and now reigns as king over His people and will come back to reign on the earth. This is the covenant He made with His people. In response to this, we are to render Him obedient worship. Now why obedient worship. Why not just worship?

For God’s people in Leviticus, the fact that God had brought them up from the land of Egypt, where they were salves, as the basis for His call for them to be holy. And they were to pursue this holiness through obedient worship..... observing dietary laws and more. For us today, in response to the salvation we possess as children of God, we worship God..... We live lives that reflect the holiness of God. We consecrate ourselves. We are no longer common or unclean. We have been cleansed and made holy, so now we are called to live holy lives. This is obedient worship. We don’t presume to have authority over ourselves that we do not possess. Not my will, but yours (Lord) be done.

And we show we revere this call to be holy by

Reflecting divine holiness

This prevents heartless ritual

Obedient worship is not heartless worship. Notice the flow of v. 44:

The fact that God is a personal God to the people of Israel is the reason why they should observe the dietary laws outline in chapter 11.

And the fact that God is a personal God to the people of Israel is the reason they should consecrate themselves and be holy.

And they should be holy because their Lord is holy.

Nothing about this line of argument allows for heartless ritual. We’re not even talking about what was done for them yet..... this is just resognizing who God is to them. He is THE holy God and He is THEIR holy God. And He is calling them to live holy lives. And living holy lives is reflecting divine holiness. God’s holiness. I think this is some of what the Apostle Paul was getting at:

2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.

As we behold he glory of God in Jesus Christ, we are transformed into that same image… Again we are moved from common and unclean to holy.... So what we do as such people out of a joy and humility that is present because of an awareness of this transformation. We love to live holy lives. We are passionate to live holy lives. Why, because the holy God is our holy God.

This is the key to recapturing the wonder of our perseverance. Seeing beyond ourselves.

Revering the fact that they holy God is our holy God

And lest we think that our efforts to set ourselves apart as holy is burdensome, we must remember something else we are to embrace by faith:

We must revere that the holy God purchased our redemption. (45)

So is God’s call to His people to live holy lives a burden to His people? Consecrating ourselves and refraining from certain things and striving to reflect the holiness of God in every aspect of our lives.... isn’t all of this a weight too much for anyone to bear?

AQ: Why is God’s call to His people that they set themselves apart as holy not burdensome?

relate this to 1 Peter 1:16

Because he paid the price of our freedom from sin in full.

So let’s remind ourselves the flow of argument here:

God is a personal God to His people

Therefore they are to live holy lives to Him

And they are to live holy lives to Him because He is holy

So they are to abstain from certain things and embrace other things which will reflect the holiness of God

But this is not burdensome because the holy God brought them up from the land of Egypt.

And it is God’s act of freeing His people from slavery in Egypt that points us to the ultimate freedom the people of God possess today. Slavery from sin.

Romans 6:17–18 ESV

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

This is what the freeing of Israel from Egypt is meant to point us to. We were once all salves to sin, but Christ redeemed His people. No longer slaves to sin, but slaves of righteousness.

The freedom we now enjoy as children of God exists because we have been reconciled to God. We were once enemies but now are His children. And we want to be clear on the basis of this reconciliation, that is, the basis of our freedom from sin:

Romans 5:10 ESV

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

So, when we see any reference to the fact that God brought His people out of the land of Egypt, it is right for us to think about our own freedom from sin and reconciliation to God.

Now after the reminder is given regarding God’s act of setting His people from slavery in Egypt, Israel is told, once again to be holy, and once again, the reason they are to be holy is because God is holy.

Again, this call to be holy is not a burden to God’s people:

Because setting ourselves apart as holy is a celebration more than it is a duty.

It’s important to know that our text today is quoted in the New Testament. And something that we have noted over the years here is a very important principle of Bible interpretation. The New Testament interprets the Old Testament.

So since the New Testament quotes the text we have been considering in Leviticus, it is important that we look at this.

We see this in

1 Peter 1:16 ESV

since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

But we need to know the context to get at the significance of all this

1 Peter 1:13–16 ESV

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

So much we could say here, but I want to point something out in verse 13:

set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

This is the thrill of hope we want to lay hold of this Christmas season and beyond. Our hope is in Jesus Christ. He came and he is coming again. But notice the context of this hope statement.

Prepare your minds for action

Be sober minded

do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance

In other words, be holy, for God is holy.

He delivered you from your sinful passions of your former ignorance.

Celebrate! See beyond yourselves, and live holy lives to God, because Jesus has set you free.

Conclusion

We must revere the fact that the holy God is our holy God in order to live the holy lives He has called us to live.

God is a personal God

Our call to live holy is a call to reflect God’s holiness

Our redemption came to us by way of a price being paid.

All of this, when we take time to dwell on these wonderful truths, helps us to see beyond ourselves and see God more clearly. And when we see God more clearly, we begin to recapture the wonder in our perseverance, so that our everyday living is not getting through the drudgery, but delighting in our Savior through the ups and downs of life.

When O Holy Night was played for the first time on the airwaves just about 115 years ago, a combination of shock, excitement, and hope must have swept among those who were hearing it. Today, this hymn remains a favorite among many, and I want to encourage us to know that Jesus Himself is our thrill of hope, and though we are part of the weary world, we can rejoice because the holy God of the universe has made His people holy, so as we live holy lives to Him, we are recapturing the wonder that is the life of a child of God. Look beyond yourself to see our holy God.