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Weekend Recap – Emmanuel Comes To Rescue

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We kicked off Advent 2022 at Crestview this past weekend. My opening sermon was Emmanuel Comes To Rescue. I tried to work hard in this sermon to dig into our longings in a holiday season like this, especially as it comes at the end of a year and wraps it up. For some, that doesn’t mean there’s a bow on top — the year has been rough! But passages like Matthew 20:28 show us that Jesus’s intention in coming was to affect change in people like us.

I hope this sermon and season affect your adoration of Jesus Himself.

Extra Christmas Resources Dec 2021

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Hey everyone! I hope you’re feeling blessed this holiday season. I found some resources that might encourage you this holiday season. So, I thought I’d post them here to keep a record of them.

One contention that preachers make is that the season of Advent is about hope. But, you might not realize just how much hope Jesus being born was to those first listeners. And, Glen Scrivener helps us see that here in this poem called The Night Before Christmas:

The Gaither Vocal Band isn’t my preferred genre of music, but I don’t think there is any denying how incredible David Phelps performance of O Holy Night was in this video. Stick around for the 3:20 mark and then how he brings it home at the end. Pretty incredible:

Finally, for the more theologically minded, I don’t know if you’ve ever read the Nicene Creed. But the Credo Magazine devoted an entire issue to this moment in church history. So if you want to have your mind stretched around what it means that the second person of the Trinity came to earth to save sinners, I’d encourage you to seek to digest these helpful articles.

The Nicene Creed issue by Credo Magazine

Weekend Recap – Advent Joy

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My 12/19/21 sermon at Crestview, Advent Joy (Luke 2:8-12), is now online. I tried to dig into what is producing joy in our lives and the reasons why the Gospel is the good news of great joy. I hope this sermon encourages you and helps you prepare your heart for Christmas later this week.

New Song – O Come, All You Unfaithful

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At Crestview this Advent singing, we love singing many of the cherished carols of Christmas. God has given us such a gift in the music the church has. This year, we introduced the song O Come All You Unfaithful. Here are a lyric video and lyrics:

Lyrics: 

Verse 1
O come, all you unfaithful
Come, weak and unstable
Come, know you are not alone

Verse 2
O come, barren and waiting ones
Weary of praying, come
See what your God has done

Chorus
Christ is born, Christ is born
Christ is born for you

Verse 3
O come, bitter and broken
Come with fears unspoken
Come, taste of His perfect love

Verse 4
O come, guilty and hiding ones
There is no need to run
See what your God has done

Bridge
He’s the Lamb who was given
Slain for our pardon
His promise is peace
For those who believe

Verse 5
So come, though you have nothing
Come, He is the offering
Come, see what your God has done

Music and words by Bob Kauflin and Lisa Clow © 2020 Sovereign Grace Praise/BMI (adm. worldwide by Integrity Music). Sovereign Grace Music, a division of Sovereign Grace Churches. All rights reserved.

I love these lyrics and this song. We opened our service with this song last week and invited everyone to come and enter in to find hope in the good that Jesus Christ has come for us. I hope it encourages us.

The Colors of Christmas 2020

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I love Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday. I love being able to pastor through the season of Advent. Each year, we take a break from the regular, digging into the Bible verse by verse work we do each week to think about what Jesus’ coming to earth means.

This year, we are using the colors of Christmas to inspire our imaginations.

We’ve already began with Red Christmas, showing that Jesus was born to die. Gold Christmas will point to our King being born. Blue Christmas will show how Jesus enters our despair. Finally, white Christmas will focus on Jesus taking away sins. It’s a simple way to worship Christ our newborn King.

Join us.

Antiphons at Advent

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On December 1, Burk Parsons tweeted out…

This got me curious, so I dug into some research on Advent Antiphons and learned this…

Each stanza highlights a title for the Messiah: O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord), O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O Rising Sun), O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations), and O Emmanuel. Each verse praises the coming of the Savior by a different name, and closes with petitions appropriate to the title. According to musical scholars, the arrangement was not accidental. It is called an acrostic, something known to puzzle fanatics. If one starts with the last title and takes the first letter of each one – Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia – the Latin words ero cras are formed, translated as, “Tomorrow, I will be [there].”

So, when these are sung, they help express a longing for Jesus to come and each of these longings make an acrostic with a promise: “Tomorrow, I will be there.”

Now you may think, “I wish I could hear this song.” And, fortunately, you have probably heard it and maybe sung it already:

1 O come, O come, Immanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.

Refrain:
Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel
shall come to you, O Israel.

2 O come, O Wisdom from on high,
who ordered all things mightily;
to us the path of knowledge show
and teach us in its ways to go. Refrain

3 O come, O come, great Lord of might,
who to your tribes on Sinai’s height
in ancient times did give the law
in cloud and majesty and awe. Refrain

4 O come, O Branch of Jesse’s stem,
unto your own and rescue them!
From depths of hell your people save,
and give them victory o’er the grave. Refrain

5 O come, O Key of David, come
and open wide our heavenly home.
Make safe for us the heavenward road
and bar the way to death’s abode. Refrain

6 O come, O Bright and Morning Star,
and bring us comfort from afar!
Dispel the shadows of the night
and turn our darkness into light. Refrain

7 O come, O King of nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind.
Bid all our sad divisions cease
and be yourself our King of Peace. Refrain 

Psalter Hymnal (Gray) (O Come, O Come, Emmanuel on Hymnary)

May this season be one in which you reflect on the longing those first-century people had as the Christ came and may you long for the returning Lord, as well.

Some Advent/Christmas Stuff (2019)

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There are lots of tools that I use during the Advent/Christmas season. Each year, I’m trying to find new music, resources, to other things that might help my worship.

Some books/reading:

I’m reading Repeat the Sounding Joy by Christopher Ash. This is a simple devotional walking through Luke 1-2. Speaking of Luke, I saw on social media a reading plan that meant reading Luke 1-24 on the days leading up to Advent, so I designed this plan to read, using the Illuminated Scripture Journal on Luke.

Using Tony Reinke’s #IsaiahChristmas plan, I’m incorporating his notes into a fresh reading of Isaiah. And, I’m also reading the He Reads Truth Advent Devotional. Also, there’s a section of Paul Miller’s JCurve book that focuses in on Incarnation. Been thinking about this a lot.

I’ll probably do a follow up on some music for this year.

How Great Thou Art – Christmas Edition

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Many of us love the hymn How Great Thou Art.  For this year’s advent season, I wrote an additional verse to include.  I’ll include it where I think it would fit best in the original…

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder
Consider all the *worlds thy hands have made,
I see the stars, I hear the *rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed:

Refrain:

Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee:
How great thou art! How great thou art!

When through the woods and forest glades I wander
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur,
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze:

My addional verse:

Consider this: that God the Son eternal,
Came down to earth, becoming man for all,
Angels announced and shepherds marveled greatly,
Our God with us, good news of peace entralls.

And when I think that God, his Son not sparing,
Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in,
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

When Christ shall come with shout of acclamation
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!
Then *I shall bow in humble adoration,
And there proclaim, My God, how great thou art!


I hope you enjoy and are helped to magnify our Great God with this addition.

Immanuel (The Shepherd’s Song)

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I love the music of Advent.  This year, Melanie Penn’s album Immanuel has been a great release.  It contains songs that showcase various perspectives of the characters in the Christmas story.  She even made a video, which I’m posting here, of her song Immanuel (The Shepherd’s Song).  I hope you enjoy it and dig into the fuller album.

Cranmer and Christmas

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Thomas Cranmer loved the Church of England and worked hard to keep her prayers (and prayer book) pleasing to God.  Here’s how Tim Keller describes the impact of Cranmer (with a little background):

Years ago when I wanted to become more skillful in public prayer, I was fortunate to come across the collects of Thomas Cranmer, the writer of the original Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. The “collects” (the stress is on the first syllable) that Cranmer wrote were brief but extremely ‘packed’ little prayers that tied together the doctrine of the day to a particular way of living. They were prayed by the minister on behalf of the people, or prayed in unison by the whole congregation.

As I have read them over the years they have brought me two great benefits. First, they have given me a basic structure by which I can compose good public prayers, either ahead of time, or spontaneously. Cranmer’s collects consist of 5 parts:
1. The address – a name of God
2. The doctrine – a truth about God’s nature that is the basis for the prayer
3. The petition – what is being asked for
4. The aspiration – what good result will come if the request is granted
5. In Jesus’ name – this remembers the mediatorial role of Jesus

So, what do we make of this?  Well, it’s encouraging because of the collects related to Christmas Day (and this year, we have a Christmas Day on a Sunday) and you can read these collects, with history, and a meditation here.

Christmas Day

The First Collect

God, which makes us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of thy only Son Jesus Christ; grant that as we joyfully receive him for our redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold him, when he shall come to be our judge, who liveth and reigneth, &c.

The Second Collect

Almighty God, which has given us thy only begotten son to take our nature upon him, and this day to be born of a pure Virgin; grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit, through the same our Lord Jesus Christ who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost now and ever. Amen.

I like Paul Zahl’s summary: “The two Collects for Christmas are so arranged as to give priority in time to the for-ness of Christ.  The prayer for the First Communion of Christmas stresses the Atonement.  But Christ’s with-ness is also celebrated, in the prayer for the Second Communion of the Day, which stresses the Incarnation.”

So, Cranmer and Christmas helps us see these amazing theological themes wed: that Jesus became like us to do something for us, specifically save us from our sin.  I hope you’re building up to have a Merry Christmas.