The LORD has made known His salvation

So, this morning, it's Christmas Eve, and I want to read some words to you that will be very familiar to all of you if you've lived in this nation for any more than a few years. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room, and heaven and nature sing. Those words were penned almost 300 years ago by then a 45-year-old hymn writer and pastor, Isaac Watts. And since that time, these words have been sung hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times throughout the world. And they proclaim a universal, all-encompassing truth about the coming of Christ and his kingdom.

traces the redemption story throughout history from the promise in the garden that we heard before in a prior sermon, Genesis 3.15, all the way to Christ's glorious return. 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. Joy to the world is a hymn of redemption. It's a hymn. of the coming of Christ. It's a hymn of salvation. It's a hymn of perfect salvation. And it is actually a paraphrase of one of the Psalms of Scripture. When Isaac Watts wrote this hymn, he wrote it based on Psalm 98. And Psalm 98 has worldwide significance in that it is a universal call for everything in existence.

to rejoice in the coming of Christ and His kingdom. It's a psalm of rejoicing. And so we'll be studying Psalm 98 this morning. So I ask that you stand with me as we hear God speak to us. Psalm 98, a psalm. Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonderful things. His right hand and His holy arm. have gained the victory for him. The Lord has made known his salvation. He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of nations. He has remembered his loving kindness and his faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.

Break forth and sing for joy 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. Shout joyfully before the King, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all it contains. Let the world and those who dwell in it. The world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the mountains sing together for joy before the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated. Now our psalm this morning is a prophetic psalm. Prophetic meaning that it forecasts what is to come.

And it sets forth here two main themes. The first is the glory of the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and the joy of the redeemed. That's us. And the main truth communicated in our text this morning over and over and over again is joy. Joy. Psalm 98 is a psalm. It's a call to excitement. It's a call to be happy. It's a call to get fired up. To go crazy. What we have here is a universal demand that the whole world rejoice in God's salvation. All creation, everything, from the highest to the lowest creature, rocks even, all creation is called to worship and bow down before the coming Messiah. And right out of the gate, the psalmist opens with a declaration, And a command for us, surprise, to do something. To respond to something. And what is that? What are we to do? Oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord a new song. Do you know who has a new song to sing to God? A new believer. A convert. Someone who has just come to faith for the first time.

When God converts a sinner, all things become new for him. He has a new heart. He has new desires, new joys, new direction, a new family. He has an entirely new life, even, in Jesus Christ. And therefore, he has a new song to sing. He has something to rejoice in. Matthew Henry says this. He says, put a new heart into our breast. It will put a new song into our mouths. What's that mean? Well, one of the very first things that we see here, and Matthew Henry just restated it, is that Christ's redemptive work in the heart always results in an outpouring of praise in the hearts of believers. Christ's redemptive work always results in an outpouring of praise.

in the heart of a believer. Our ultimate purpose here on earth is to joyfully worship our saving Lord. Joyfully worship Him. We are to give Him glory for who He is and what He has done. We're to take joy in God. We're to enjoy the salvation of the Lord. What does it look like to rejoice in the Lord? What does it look like? At its most basic level, Our joy in the Lord manifests itself through song. You look at the very first thing that you hear of all the things that the psalmist could have written to begin with, all the commands that we could have been given in a way of showing and worshiping and praising God. He starts with sing, sing, sing. And so a joyful Christian is a singing Christian.

You should sing regularly. If you're a Christian, singing should just be what you do throughout your life, throughout your day. Good voice, bad voice. Sing to the Lord. Why? Well, because God commands it. Because God says, sing to the Lord. Christians sing. Christian men sing. And they sing loudly. They shout. They shout joyfully. There is a universal call that has gone out throughout all the earth. And the command is to do what? It's a command for not just Christians, but the whole world to sing. The whole entire world to sing. The entire earth is summoned to give praise to God through their voices. Making melody to God. Praising the Lord with their voices and with song.

And the call has gone out from heaven to all the earth. Jews, Gentiles, old, young, rich, poor, men, women, everything that exists in this world is called to sing. To sing to the King. Now why? What is this all about? What is this thing that is so important that it demands the attention and vocal applause of the entire world? Well, it is this. Verse 2. That the Lord has made known His salvation. The Lord has made known His salvation. We are to praise the Lord for the victory He has accomplished. That is the reason given for why we are to have joy. For why we are to sing. And you think of all of the music.

that has been written throughout the ages. You think of all the voices that have been used, all the words that have been uttered with melody. You think of even the top 40 songs on the radio today, and they are using and have used their voices. They have sung, but they don't often sing of the things that the psalmist gives us reason to sing about. What do they sing? What do they declare? They declare useless, pathetic, whiny, superficial, unimportant, wicked, vile, vain things. I'm talking about the Christian music station. And I'm talking about Mariah Carey. Except when she sings, fall on your knees. Christ was born.

Worship Jesus. The things that we use our tongues for, the things that we make melody on behalf of, they're nowhere near as important or worth saying anything about as the salvation that's been accomplished by our God. What is this salvation? If the whole world, you think of this, the psalmist is presumptive. And that he would call on everyone to sing. Not just Christians, but unbelievers. He would demand that everyone stop what they're doing right now and declare the praises of God. How presumptuous of him. But it's not because of the thing being sung about. The promise of salvation is this. It's the promise from Genesis 3.15.

where God promised the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. The promise of salvation that one day the curse of sin and death would be done away with through the Messiah. This is the thing. This is the thing. And that Messiah we know is Jesus. We're looking back to that promise that was given in Psalm 98. The one to do that, the one to make all things right is Jesus. He is the one who has come to crush Satan and redeem and restore fallen humanity. Jesus is the second Adam who took on our human nature and accomplished what the first Adam failed miserably to do. He obeyed God perfectly. And Jesus did this in our place. He did this in your place. He did this in my place. He became the perfect sacrifice in our place for sin.

to satisfy the just punishment that our guilt and sin rightly deserved. Jesus rose from the grave three days later, breaking the power of sin and defeating death, so that we who believe are no longer slaves to sin. And Jesus now rules with all authority over all the earth as King. And in love He calls all men everywhere to confess Him as Lord. A second time. We'll come again in glory this time to judge every man, woman, and child who has ever lived to award life to those who bowed their hearts to Him and will give just punishment, hell, and condemnation to those who would not rejoice in Him. That's the salvation that's being spoken of. That's being proclaimed. That's being forecast in Psalm 98.

Isn't that amazing? If hearing these things, though, does not give you joy in the Lord, I don't know what will, brothers and sisters. I don't know what will. Because this is the salvation that the Lord has made known to us. This is the salvation. It's the revealing. It's the unfolding. It's the unwrapping of the gift. And God gives us this activity. Of rejoicing. Of singing. As a means to glorify Him. The power of singing is something that is very mysterious. You look at all the scriptures that call for rejoicing. And so many of those, the call to rejoice is attached with singing. And so when we sing, Each Lord's Day, we're receiving blessing from God. We're blessing God and we're receiving blessing from Him. Because our faith is increased and therefore our joy is increased. And if you don't have joy in your life, I ask you, what are you singing about? Are you singing and making melody? Are you thanking the Lord for His salvation? You're called and made by God to worship Him.

You were designed that way to use your vocal cords to glorify God. Here in the worship service, on the job site, in the car with your children, you're called to rejoice in God through song, lifting up your voices to Him. And because this is the salvation that the Lord has made known to us, where do we see More of His salvation accomplished in our text. Well, we see also this. Verse 1. It says, He has done wonderful things. His right hand and His holy arm have gained victory. The victory for Him. God's power and His faithfulness are here in our text called His right hand and His holy arm. His right hand and His holy arm. His breaking through.

Every obstacle that you and I could not do on our own. You could not keep the law of God perfectly. And yet you are required by God to. Christ broke through that and kept that law that God required on your behalf if you have faith in Him. And so now you get the record of Jesus Christ. The perfect record by faith. And the setting up of the kingdom of Christ. is also represented as a matter of joy and praise. The kingdom of Christ has been inaugurated from the time of his birth. And that kingdom is continuing to be built, to advance, to go forth. There is more and more that we're seeing revealed. This Psalm 98 is becoming truer every day.

Because there's an aspect to this that has not fully been fulfilled yet. We live in an already but not yet time of this prophecy. Notice, joy to the world, it says the Lord is come. It doesn't say the Lord has come. It means the Lord is coming. Has come and is coming. And so we live in an already but not yet time. Christ's kingdom has already been established. But it's not yet fully been fulfilled. It's being fulfilled right now. It's being fulfilled now. The gospel is continuing to move forward. The kingdom of God is being built in you right now, if you're a believer. And it's continuing to extend to the ends of the earth until one day all things will be as they should be. There will be no more thorns.

There will be no more sin and sorrows. You will only know perfection. You will only know joy. Only know goodness. You will only know Christ, as you should. And note in our text that even the most inferior creatures rejoice. Who are those inferior creatures? The sea and the mountains. It's water. It's rocks. Remember when Jesus said, if you don't praise me, I will call on even these rocks to praise me. If even the waters rejoice in God, should not we also rejoice in God's salvation? If the rocks can thank God for redeeming creation, can not we also, who have souls that will never die? The coming of Jesus Christ provides us every reason to rejoice in him.

And declaring him as our king. And not just our king, but the king of the whole earth. Because the scriptures never privatized the lordship of Jesus. There are no boundaries to Jesus' authority. His kingdom spreads from shore to shore, like a hymn says. It spreads everywhere. There's no inch that Jesus is not lord over now. And so therefore, all creatures, great and small, are called to rejoice in the Messiah, Jesus. All of us. What is it that God wants from you? Ask yourself this. What is the thing that God wants from you? He wants you to find your joy in Him. He wants you to find your joy in Him, brothers and sisters. Do you know that He desires joy above all else? When you take joy and delight in Jesus, And who He is and what He has done. You are beginning to become obedient to God's call in Psalm 98. Do you know that God... Do you know... I'll tell you. If you have kids, you know that what you want is. You want their joy. You want them to delight in you. You want them to delight in what you've called them to do. And there's nothing that breaks your heart more as a mother or a father than when your children...

don't do what you call them to do with joy. But I would rather my children screw up what I gave them to do and had a joyful heart. Right? Wouldn't you rather that happen? I'd rather them do it well. But let's be honest, there's still thorns and thistles in this world and there are thorns and thistles in your heart and in your body. And in their hearts, God wants you to find your joy in Him. And I mean joy in Him. I mean down in your heart. Where? In Him. Did you know that God severely disciplined His people when they did not do what He commanded with joy? Listen to this from Deuteronomy 28, verses 45 to 47. God is disciplining His people.

in the Old Testament. And He gives them their reasons, a list of reasons for why He is disciplining them. And He is angry at His people. He is warning them. And He says this, if you continue, if you go in this direction, here's what you're going to get. He says, and here's what you're getting. He says, so all these curses, shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed. Because why? Because you would not obey the Lord your God by keeping His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. And that's what we think God wants of us. Is that all God wants of His people? They shall become a sign and a wonder.

Why? Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a glad heart for the abundance of all things. God takes our joy in Him seriously. God is jealous for your joy in Him. He wants you to love Him. Don't just go through the motions. Love God with your heart. And there are those of us here who do not have joy for the Lord this morning. You don't have a heart that rejoices in God. And it's been that way for as long as you can remember. And I say one of the defining marks of a Christian is joy in the Lord. It's joy. That's the mark. One of the defining marks of a Christian. It's not that you do what's right.

Because as you know, you can find somebody who does what's right and who doesn't love God. You can do the exact same things. You can provide for your family. You can work hard. You can raise children who obey you. The next door neighbor does the same thing. The question is, why do you do that? Why do you do that? It should be because you enjoy. You enjoy glorifying Him. You have experienced and tasted inside you the salvation of God. Your affections for God are such that you will just sing in the middle of the day. That's how your affection for the Lord and how your joy in the Lord shows itself, is that you just begin to sing. And your voice is so awful. And yet, You can't help it because you're singing to the Lord a new song. He's given you a new heart. He's changed something inside of you. He's redeemed you. He's given you everything that you need in Christ. You know, if there's one person that this is true of, it would not be me. I am not an example of where joy comes from. I'm here right now to you by the grace of God. And this sermon is a sermon to me.

And it's only going to be as helpful to you as I've made it helpful to me. But you know who demonstrates this over and over and over and over again in our church? It is James Sands. You guys know this. James is a sinner and he is not some man to put up on a pedestal because he has real sin. But James demonstrates joy in the Lord. You can't be around James without knowing the joy of the Lord. You can't be around him. And I say, praise God for James. And what we need is we need joy in the Lord. We need to allow James' joy to overflow into our hearts. We need the same joy of the Lord. You know, brothers and sisters, we're a serious church. People know that about us. Right? We don't play church.

People come in and it's like as soon as you come in, just the worship. You're right. It's like, wait, what are we doing with our knees again? What? Next thing you know, you're on your knees and you're talking about what you did wrong. It's like, I just came because I saw the website. I didn't know we were going to do this. Guys, we deal with a serious God. And we have serious sin. But we have... Serious things to be joyful about. You want to know how you can make the biggest impact on someone's life? When you give the truth to someone, smile. Love someone from your heart. Show compassion on those who make your life difficult. Be joyful. Be happy. Stop complaining. For Pete's sake, stop complaining. You've been given so much.

Stop complaining about how things are hard and difficult. Don't you understand what God went through? Don't you understand what the Son of God sacrificed himself for? And you're there talking about how your life is so difficult because your kids don't do this and you don't make this much money. And I'm telling you, you have never suffered like the Son of God. Don't complain. Stop it. Mothers, stop complaining. Stop complaining. about your children, your husbands. Husbands, stop complaining about your wives and your work. Stop it. You have things to be joyful about. You do. And if you're given to the sin of discontentment and complaining, then you can take that to the cross. You can take it to the cross. And you can say, Lord, here I am. And here's my sin. I'm impatient. And you know what? I have been given more than enough in Jesus Christ.

I've been given more than enough. I've been given so much. And I'm serious. If you will not be satisfied with the salvation that God has given you, you will never be happy. You will never be happy. And you might as well throw a radio in the bathtub and jump in. And don't you dare do that. God did not sacrifice his son so that you could complain about how hard your life is. And that is a rebuke to me as much as it is to you. But we have to stop complaining about this church, about each other, about our lives, about how difficult things are. We must not complain. We must give joy to the Lord. We must have our joy in Him. He's done good things. He's a kind and merciful. He's a patient God, right? He's a patient God. The coming of Jesus Christ provides us every reason to rejoice.

And I'm telling you, if you give yourself to joy, if you find it difficult for yourself to have joy, if you always sense that the glasses always have full and nothing's ever right, listen, growing in joy is a process. I understand. I'm there right now. The first step is to confess it and to ask for help. Men, you cannot be self-sufficient. You need to confess. what your sins are, and you need to ask for help. And God will grow you if you grow and humble yourself. Women, the same thing. And if we grow in joy, I am telling you, joy is contagious. If you've ever been around somebody who has joy, you know that what they have, you just want to be around them, right? You want to be around them. And you know that when you don't have joy, nobody wants to be around you, right? Husbands, you know that, right?

Nobody wants to be around you because you just suck the life out of everything. And we don't have to be there because we have Christ. We have Christ. We don't have to be there. We can get help. And I'm telling you, if you need help being joyful, if your marriage is not joyful, talk to us. Talk to the elders. Talk to the pastors. Because we've been there. If your job is not joyful, talk to us. Talk to your brothers and sisters. We've been there. You understand? We're not here to bash anybody. We're here because we've been redeemed and we have something to be joyful about. And this is a battle and we need to help one another win. So let's do this together. What is it that God wants from all mankind? He wants them to find their joy in Him.

The defining mark, one of the defining marks of a Christian is joy in the Lord. That is how you know whether or not your soul is safe, is that you have joy in God. You can fake this, that, and the other thing. You can't fake joy. It's so much more difficult to fake joy. So where is your joy today? Where's your joy? Ask yourself, where's my joy? How do I make the Lord my joy? Well, you must make room. in your heart for Jesus Christ. Make room for Him in your heart. You must shift your desires and longings away from all the things and people, listen, who are guaranteed to let you down and disappoint you. You must shift those desires from those things and those people and longings to Him. You must long for.

Not wishing this circumstance was different. You must long for Jesus. Shift that. You must first desire and long for Jesus. And then you will find joy in Jesus. You'll find joy in him. Will you long for Jesus? He's there. He's ready. He's a king. He rules and reigns. But he's a patient. He's a kind. He's a humble king. And that's what we have in front of us. is a humble king who receives and casts no one out, but we have to desire him. You will only go after that which you desire. And if you don't go after Jesus, it's because you don't desire him. Which means what? You don't have Jesus. Do you need Jesus today? I need Jesus. Do you need Jesus? Do you? Oh, we need him. And he's good.

We're closing the year, and this is the time where we reflect on everything that we said we were going to do and we didn't do. And it's a time to get very depressed, and it's a time to get very discouraged. But it's also a time to realize that that's exactly why Jesus came. That's exactly the whole point of the salvation, is to deal with all of the things that make me depressed and discouraged. And to give me hope and joy. And 2018 is around the corner. And it will be filled with more things to be discouraged and dissatisfied with. And yourself and with other people. But you know what will never be discouraging and dissatisfying? It's Jesus. He will never be discouraging and dissatisfying. Those who are discouraged and dissatisfied with Jesus have not tasted Jesus.

As they should. I'm telling you brothers and sisters. Give yourself to joy. Give yourself to Christ. The one who came. Who took on flesh. Give him your heart. Make room. Make room in your heart. Get rid of whatever's in there. Something is in your heart right now. That is taking the space away from Jesus. Something else is on the throne. What is that thing? If you don't have joy in Jesus. Talk to us. We want to help you have joy in Jesus. Talk to James. You know, James has had a hard life. And he has plenty of things he could complain about. Let me tell you. Talk to him. Ask him, what's the secret? I guarantee you he's going to say the same thing I'm telling you now. Will you rejoice this Christmas? Will you desire God? Will you desire Him? We live in an already but not yet, I said. You remember that?

Some of you have heard that Joy to the World was not written as a Christmas song. And yet we sing it at Christmas. Why? Because we recognize that this has begun to be true. We're not reserving our joy. We're not waiting for our joy until Jesus comes back. We're starting the party right now. The truth is we live in an already but not yet state of fulfillment of these promises. And since the birth of Jesus Christ, the promises that are spoken of here have already begun to be fulfilled. And yet they will one day finally and fully be realized at the final coming of Christ. When He returns again in glory to judge the living and the dead, to make perfect all things, to wipe away every tear, And right now we're living in the very age, get this, we're living in the very age where the promise is being fulfilled. They were called to sing to the Lord a new song before he had even come at all. And you imagine the faith it took to sing before you knew the Messiah was going to be there. And here we have, we get to look back and we get to see Jesus. We get to see that he has come.

And that He is coming. And we're right in between these two amazing things. And we have so much to rejoice in. We're seeing God, His plan being fulfilled. And the power of Christ breaking through. And it has to start here. I'm telling you, this church has so much to offer the city of Indianapolis. We do. Those of you who are here know that because you've received from it. But you're the recruiters. They know our church. They know the joy of our church and the fulfillment in Jesus Christ through you. You're the face. Let's give joy to our families. Let's give joy to one another. And let's trust that God will build his kingdom if all we do.

his delight in him and say, yes, sir, with a smile and do it. Let's pray.