ADVENT
CHRISTMAS JOY
DR. JIM DIXON
DECEMBER 4, 2005
LUKE 2:8-14
On July 17th, in the year 1674, a boy was born in South Hampton, England, and the boy’s name was Isaac Watts. Isaac’s mom and dad were called dissenters. They were members of the above Bar Congregational Church, and they were dissenters from the Anglican Church. They had rebelled against the Church of England. So when Isaac was born, his father was incarcerated because of his rebellion against the Church of England and Isaac’s mother nursed him on the steps of the prison. Now, Isaac was brilliant. At the age of four, he mastered Latin. At the age of nine, he mastered Greek., At the age of 13, he mastered Hebrew. A wealthy family in England offered to send Isaac to Oxford University, and Isaac refused. He refused because if he went to Oxford University, he would have to bend the knee to the Church of England and Isaac Watts said he would only bend the knee to Jesus Christ.
So Isaac Watts went to a university in London, and he graduated with honors and he became a controversial figure in the world of Christian music. Now, Christian music has always been filled with controversy. Maybe you’re aware of that. In the Middle Ages, there were two types of churches. In the Middle Ages, there were chanting churches and there were singing churches. In the Middle Ages, all music was focused on the Psalms. But some churches were chanting churches, and so they chanted the Psalms. Other churches were singing churches, so they sang the Psalms. Now, chanting churches were traditional churches; singing churches were considered contemporary. They were considered kind of liberal, maybe a little radical. Over a period of years and decades and centuries, the singing churches prevailed, so by the time of the Reformation,all churches were singing churches and no churches chanted anymore. So singing prevailed.
But the world of church music, the world of Christian music, was still filled with controversy. Even in the time of the Reformation, there were still two types of churches. During the reformation there were churches called psalms churches and there were hymn churches. Now, psalms churches are churches where they sang only the Psalms, and those churches were endorsed by John Calvin. Hymn churches were churches where they sang whatever they wanted to sing, and they wrote their own hymns. Anything that exalted Christ was considered worthy of singing. The hymn churches were endorsed by Martin Luther. Now, of course, the Psalms churches were the traditional churches and the hymn churches were considered to be contemporary, liberal, and kind of radical. The battle went on for 200 years, and it was Isaac Watts that kind of swayed the whole deal.
Isaac Watts, in the year 1704, came out with his great publication called Hymns and Spiritual Songs. Isaac Watts wrote over 600 hymns, and they radically transformed the Christian world. His hymns were so great, every church wanted to sing them. Now, of course, today churches are still different, one from the other, and music is still very controversial. I’m sure most of you know that we’ve had our own share of controversy right here at Cherry Hills Community Church. So today you find churches that love hymns and you find churches that love praise songs, and you find churches that love more contemporary music. Some churches are more traditional, some more contemporary, and some more radical. The wars continue.
But the hymns of Isaac Watts have tremendously impacted Christian history. So, a couple of hundred years ago, a gal named Fannie Crosby, one of the great hymn writers, was looking at a hymn by Isaac Watts, and she began to sing that hymn “When I survey the Wondrous Cross,” written by Isaac Watts.
That hymn so impacted her that she decided that God was calling her to write hymns. Of course, Winston Churchill scripted all the songs that were to be sung at his funeral. He selected them and he chose a hymn by Isaac Watts. That hymn was, “Oh God, Our Help in ages Past,” one of my favorite hymns. Of course, Eric Liddell, the winner of an Olympic medal at the Paris Olympics, whose story was made famous in the movie Chariots of Fire, was singing a hymn by Isaac Watts. The hymn was, “Jesus Shall Reign Over All.” That hymn was used by God to lead Eric Liddell to the mission field. He went to China.
Of course, there’s another hymn by Isaac Watts that we all still sing today, and you sing it every Christmas. I promise you, you’ll be singing it this month. When you sing it, you should think of Isaac Watts. That hymn is called “Joy to the World.” If you look at the hymns of Isaac Watts, they’re all filled with joy. The word joy is just found throughout most of his hymns and most of his music.
Isaac Watts knew Christmas is all about joy. So this morning we look at Christmas joy, and I want us to look at the joy of Christmas, first of all, from an earthly perspective, and then from a heavenly one. So we begin by looking at joy on earth.
This was the message of the angel: “I bring you good news of great joy, which shall come to all the people. Joy on earth; joy to the world.” Now, when the angel said, “I bring you good news of great joy,” the words “great joy” in the Greek are “charon megalon,” and charon megalon literally means “mega joy.” I bring you good news of mega joy. It means massive joy. It means huge joy. It means great joy. “I bring you good news of charon megalon.” That’s what Christmas is about. Christmas is about great joy.
What makes Christmas a time of joy? The angel explains it. The angel says, “I bring you good news of great joy, for unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior,” Christmas is all about joy because Christmas is all about a savior. The word for savior is the word “soter.” the word “soter” comes from the Greek word “sozo.” The Greek word sozo is the equivalent of the Hebrew “yasa.” And this is important because the name Jesus or the name Yeshua comes from the Hebrew “yasa.” Yasa is the equivalent of sozo, or soter. Yasa means savior. Yasa means to save. So when you say Jesus the Savior, you’re really kind of repeating yourself because Jesus means savior. It comes from yasa, the equivalent of sozo or soter, which also means savior in Greek. So Jesus is the Savior, He who saves. The savior. That’s why Christmas is all about joy.
But understand this: these words—soter, sozo, yasa—at their root means safety. When we think of eternal salvation, we’re really thinking about eternal safety. Joy. The joy of Christmas is all about safety. Jesus Christ came into the world. That baby was born in Bethlehem to offer safety.
Now, in the year 2000 Barb and I had the privilege of going to Israel with some of you. And about 135 of you traveled with us to the Holy Land, and a hundred of you continued on with us into the land of Egypt. From Cairo, we caught a plane and we went on Egypt Air, and it was a scary flight. Now, I don’t know what the pilot had for breakfast. I don’t know what Egypt Air is normally like. I don’t know whether the plane was lacking stabilizers or what, but I know we all noticed this was a really bumpy flight, and the plane just seemed to kind of be unsteady all the way. As we were coming down into Luxor, you could hear people kind of afraid on the plane. And when the plane finally landed, it just went down like a rock. I mean, it just went down like a rock, hard onto the runway. But when we realized as we looked around that we were safe, everyone began to clap and there was just clapping over the whole plane, and there was great joy. Why was there great joy? Because of safety. I mean, we were still in Egypt, but we felt relatively safe, so there was great joy.
Now, Heather has her birthday next month. Heather will be 31. It’s hard for Barb and I to believe that our daughter is 31 years of age, but every time she celebrates a birthday, we remember and celebrate the manner and the moments of Heather’s birth. Many of you know that story. Heather was born 31 years ago at what was then Aurora Presbyterian Hospital. Barb had been in labor, it was a Friday night, and the labor had been long, but as far as we knew everything was okay.
There came a salesman to demonstrate a fetal heart monitor. At that time, Aurora Presbyterian Hospital was brand new (31 years ago). It was brand new. They didn’t have a fetal heart monitor yet. So they brought it into the maternity ward. Barb was the only person in labor. They hooked it up to her to demonstrate it, and they found that Heather was dying. It was a miracle. So they rushed Barb in for an emergency cesarean section, and we were just all shook. We were all shook. Barb had never had surgery before, and we were afraid What’s going to happen to our child? What’s going to happen to our daughter? And it all turned out great.
When Barb was in recovery, they told me that she was coming out from under the anesthetic. So I went into the room and I held Barb’s hand. And as Barb was waking up, she said, Jim, is that you? And I said, yes, Barb. I said, we have a beautiful healthy baby, and everything is okay. Then Barb began to say, praise Jesus, praise Jesus, praise Jesus. Two nurses in the recovery room looked at each other, and I could see they were thinking, we got a wild one here on our hands. But Barb had Pentecostal joy. She had joy. The joy was rooted in safety. Our daughter was safe, Barb was safe, and there was great joy.
Now, I know the world doesn’t seem that safe, does it? This doesn’t seem like a very safe world. Cancer doesn’t seem very safe, and some of you have been told you have cancer. That doesn’t feel very safe. Of course, we’ve been reading articles about the avian flu, and there are concerns that the virus might mutate and it might become an airborne contagion and it might be pandemic on the earth. That doesn’t feel real safe.
And of course, when the Bible prophesies that in the apocalypse there will come pandemics, that doesn’t sound very safe. Of course, you know, there are countless illnesses and diseases on the earth. And Al-Qaeda doesn’t seem safe. Radical Muslim terrorist organizations do not make the world safe. Many people have postulated that eventually a radical terrorist organization is going to get ahold of nuclear weapons and nuke, perhaps, an American city. That doesn’t sound very safe. The world just isn’t safe. When the Bible says the Earth is racing towards Armageddon, it doesn’t seem safe.
It doesn’t feel like a safe world to raise our kids in. I mean, there are drugs and promiscuity and all kinds of dangers. It doesn’t seem real safe. Even on the relational level, the world’s not very safe. I mean, you know, maybe you’re going to experience rejection. Maybe somebody you love is going to leave you. The world is like that for all of us. It’s not a safe world. Yet there’s joy. There’s joy, and there’s the joy of Christmas. There is the good news of Charon Megalon—massive mega joy because the Savior has been born and He offers safety.
Now, to understand the safety that Jesus offers, I want to tell you a little story. Now, I know today the Denver Broncos play the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. Boy, it looks kind of like it could be a close game. I remember 13 years ago, in 1992, the Broncos played Kansas City. It was about the same time this weekend. At that time, Barb and I lived in Littleton in a place called Arapahoe Ridge. My brother Greg lived just off the street. I went up to Greg’s house to watch the Bronco game as they played Kansas City 13 years ago.
As we were watching the game, we were getting frustrated. I mean, it seemed like everything was going wrong and the Broncos were losing. Of course, when you’re losing, it always seems like things are going wrong. The officials are blowing the calls and they’re making mistakes and you’re having bad luck. That’s how it feels when you’re losing, right? And so we were frustrated, and finally near the end of the game, the Broncos were down 20 to seven with just a couple of minutes left. We were just so frustrated, you know, we turned it off. I went out of the house and started walking down the street, frustrated. As I got back to my house, just across the street, Bo Mitchell came out. At that time, Bo Mitchell lived right across the street from me. Of course, Bo was one of the founders of this church. Bo preached here just last year.
Bo came out of his house and he was all frustrated too. He’d walked out. Here we were in the street commiserating, and he called the Broncos “the donkeys.” He was just so upset. We talked for a while. Then I went into the house, turned the TV back on, and the Broncos had won. The Broncos had won. They made two touchdowns at the very end of the game and beat Kansas City. It was incredible. Well, an amazing thing was I had videotaped the game. I didn’t normally videotape the game, particularly if I was going to watch it, but I videotaped it.
Later that week on my day off, I decided to watch the videotape. It was strange. The same parts of the game that had frustrated me before weren’t frustrating at all, you know? And it seemed like, hey, even the officials were pretty good, making pretty good calls. You know, because I knew the Broncos were going to win, I just had joy during the whole game. Isn’t it incredible?
If you belong to Jesus Christ, if you’ve discovered the true meaning of Christmas, that’s what life’s like for you. I mean, you’ve read the book and you know how it ends. You know that God wins. You know that you’re going to be safe. There should be joy, mega joy—charon megalon. Because not only are we promised that all things will work together for good on this earth, but we’re promised that we will be eternally safe. He will bring us to eternal safety. We ought to live our lives with incomprehensible joy.
I want you to think about the movie Superman. In that movie, Lois Lane says holding Superman’s hand like is like “holding hands with a God.” Well, of course, Superman just a work of fiction. It is just a fantasy. But there’s a sense in which that kind of reminds me of what it’s like to walk with Christ, to hold the hand of Christ. I don’t know what you’re going through. You might feel like you’re in a free fall. Maybe you’ve let go of Christ’s hand. Maybe there have just been events in your life that have overwhelmed you and you’ve had discouraging news and you might just feel like you’re in the midst of disaster and you’re in a free fall. But if you belong to Jesus Christ, here’s the message of Christmas: You’re safe. If you belong to Jesus Christ, you are safe. He’s going to catch you. There’s going to come a day when you’re going to have a free fall right into the valley of the shadow of death, but I promise you He’ll catch you. So you might as well, wherever you are in life, enjoy the flight. You might as well just experience the joy of living with Him and the adventure of it all, knowing that ultimately He brings safety. That’s what Christmas joy is all about.
Well, a second message this morning concerns heaven’s joy. I mean, Christmas isn’t simply a message of joy on earth. We look at the Christmas story and we see heaven’s joy. It was the angel of the Lord who brought the message of good news of great joy. It was an angel of heaven who brought this message of charon megalon, mega joy. Of course, we see that angel surrounded by a multitude of the heavenly hosts—all singing, all praising God, saying, “Glory in the highest, peace on earth.”
But you get a glimpse of heaven’s joy. Why is it that we see heaven’s joy at Christmas? It’s all about the gift and the joy in heaven over giving. No gift had ever been given to the world like this, not ever before. You want to know what’s the greatest Christmas verse in the Bible? In a sense, it’s John 3:16. “God so loved the world that He gave His best.” He gave the gift. Of course, there’s joy in giving. I mean, you can’t outgive heaven. You can’t outgive God, and you’ll never have God’s measure of joy, because there’s joy in giving. In fact, the Greek word for joy is the word “chara.” It’s the root of the Greek word for gift, which is “charisma” or “charismata.” And so that the word gift is rooted in the word joy. When we receive a gift, it brings joy. But all the more, when we give a gift, it brings joy.
Why does heaven have so much joy? Because God gives. No one gives like God. He is filled with joy. Psalm 16 says, “In God’s presence is fullness of joy.” Fullness of joy. So when you think of Christmas, you think of heaven’s joy, and you think of the gift.
Now, Christmas Eve we’re going to focus on the subject of the gift, but I want to approach this a little differently this morning because on Christmas Eve, we’re going to have a couple of thousand visitors with us, and I want to be sensitive to that. But this morning, I think most of you belong to the church and believe in Christ, and I want us to focus for a moment on the joy of giving.
This subject is important to the church as we approach year end because we are hundreds of thousands of dollars behind in our operating budget, in our ministry budget. We have two wonderful buildings that are going up. But it’s a time of great financial challenge. So it’s important to the church, but the subject of the joy of giving is also very important to you, not simply because you’re part of the church, but because the joy of giving is a lesson we need to learn for all of life. It’s a lesson we need to learn for all of life.
Now, some of you may have gone through the 40 Days of Purpose. I think most of you have, and maybe you’re kind of new to the church. Maybe you’re new in your walk with Christ and you really haven’t thought through the issue of giving and what it means to be a follower of Christ. And maybe it’s never occurred to you that giving can be a source of incredible joy. But I want to make sure you understand what our Lord Jesus Christ tells us. The Bible is very clear that in this world there’s basically two types of people, and that will be made manifest at the last judgment. In Matthew 25, Jesus said that He’ll separate people into two groups, and the group on His right will be the sheep. The group on His left will be the goats. He’ll say to those on His right, “Come all blessed of My father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from before the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave, and I was thirsty, and you gave. But to those on His left, He will say, “Depart from me, you workers of iniquity, into the lake of fire. For I was hungry and you did not give. I was thirsty and you did not give.”
See, in the final analysis, there are givers and there are people who just don’t give. Of course, as Christians, we’re called to be givers. We’re called to give our time. We’re called to give our talent. We’re called to give our treasure. We’re called to give, and we’re supposed to experience all the joy that comes with giving.
Now, in the universe and the cosmos, there are many stars—many suns—and they give light and perhaps even life to solar systems that surround them. They are light-giving and perhaps life-giving. But of course, as astronomers look into the universe and the cosmos, they also see darkness. In places there is great darkness. The Hubble Telescope has sent back photographs to the earth of a vast darkness in the midst of a galaxy 30 million light years away, and this darkness is huge. It’s ominous and it’s powerful. It has the equivalency of 1 billion stellar masses a billion times greater than the mass of our sun. Yet it’s dark and it’s black, and it’s just sucking stellar matter into its void. It is, of course, a black hole. I mean, black holes were always postulated on the basis of physical laws, but now we have evidence. The Hubble Telescope has also sent back to earth pictures of a larger black hole and a galaxy 50 million light years away called M87. This black hole has the equivalency of 2 billion stellar masses. This black hole is larger than our entire solar system. It’s just sucking stellar material into the void with great power. As soon as anything reaches what is called the event horizon, it’s lost.
The event horizon is that imaginary spherical line that surrounds the black hole. When something gets too close, when it crosses the event horizon, it’s never coming out. It’s going in and it’s never coming out.
Now, in this world, what’s true on the physical level is sometimes true in the world of humanity. I mean, there are people in our world who are kind of like black holes. You’ve met them and whenever they get their paycheck it’s an event horizon. It’s going in and it’s never coming out. It’s all going to be absorbed for them and for their needs and their wants and their desires. They’re not light-givers and they’re not life-bringers. There are people like that. Of course, it’s not that simple. We’re all so complex and none of us are as giving as we ought to be.
But understand that Christians are called to be givers just like God gives. We’re supposed to experience all of that joy, all of that incredible, wonderful joy. Well, it was the city of Houston where that tragic CU event took place yesterday. The city of Houston was named after Sam Houston. Sam Houston was the man who of course led the battle for Texas independence. Sam Houston had served as the president of the Republic of Texas. When Texas joined the Union, Sam Houston became a United States senator. Sam Houston ultimately became governor of the state of Texas. I read just this last week about the conversion of Sam Houston. It’s amazing story. I’d never read it before.
Sam Houston was not a Christian, but his wife was loved Jesus Christ. Sam Houston just wasn’t a believer, so she would go to church by herself and he would stay home. Of course, in the world today, there are countless couples like that. She never ceased to pray for Sam. She never ceased to pray for her husband, “Lord, please tug on his heart; draw him to Yourself; save his soul.” Ultimately, over a period of years, her prayers were answered. Sam Houston gave his life to Jesus Christ, body, soul, and spirit. There came that moment for his baptism, and he wanted to be baptized in the river, kind of like the first century church. So Sam Houston went down to the river and there was a gathering there of family and friends and members of the congregation. The pastor said to Sam, “Hey Sam, your watch and the chain, you might take that off, because if you get that wet it’ll never be good again.” Sam Houston said, “Thank you, pastor, I’ll do that.” He gave the watch and the chain to a friend. The pastor said, “You know, Sam, while you’re at it, you might as well take your wallet. You don’t want to get it wet. You might give it to your friend too.” Sam Houston said, “Pastor, I think the answer’s no, I’m not going to do that. The truth is my wallet very much needs to be baptized.” It’s a true story. So he took the wallet into the water and baptized it. The amazing thing is when you look at the life of Sam Houston from that point on, he began to give. From that point on, he gave of his time and his talent and his treasure for the furtherance of the cause of Christ in the world.
Is it possible you have a wallet that needs to be baptized? I mean, it’s possible. I mean, maybe you have a wallet that needs to go under, needs to be surrendered to Christ. You know, once we do that, all you find is joy. I mean, you can invest a dollar in a lunch or a dinner at a restaurant, and you know that investment will last for, you know, a couple of hours. You can invest a dollar in a car or even in some clothing. Your investment might last a number of years. You can invest a dollar in a house and your investment will last even more years. But you know, if you invest in the church of Jesus Christ, if you invest in the cause of Christ and the work of heaven on earth… wow, that’s an investment that lasts for an eternity.
Do you understand? I mean, it lasts for an eternity. You can’t make a better investment. And oh, the joy of it. Of course in the Bible in virtually every passage where it talks about giving, there’s also the promise of blessing. And that can only increase our joy as we give, because you can’t outgive God.
I want to conclude with a story about the First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas. First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas was at one time the largest Baptist church in the world, and one of the largest churches in the world. I know many of you have been to the First Baptist Church in Dallas, and you’ve told me you’ve been there. The famous pastor from First Baptist Dallas was Dr. W.A. Criswell. Dr. Criswell in 1946 on a Friday was looking across the street and he saw a vacant lot. He’d seen it many times, but it was different that Friday because a sign had been put up and the sign said “for sale.” Well, the church was relatively small, but they needed more land, and they were needing to grow. Christ was working. He thought, boy, it’d be great if we could buy that land. But he knew that they didn’t have the money. They just didn’t have the money. So friends and leaders in the church encouraged Dr. Criswell to just pray. So he got on his knees every day. He began to pray that God who is Jehovah Jireh, who is the Lord who provides, would provide the means to purchase this land. I mean, he thought, Lord, work a miracle. Some corporation’s going to come in here and put a 50-story building or something. Lord, give us the money to buy the land.
Well, time passed and a phone call came into the First Baptist Church. It was a woman named Minnie Veal. Minnie Veal was one of the four daughters of Colonel Slaughter, who was famous in Texas. I’m sure many of you have heard of Colonel Slaughter. In the 19th century, he was the largest cattle baron in the world, and he owned 3 million acres of Texas real estate. Of course, if you know anything about his story, you know that they found vast oil deposits on Slaughter’s land. So the Slaughter family became incredibly wealthy. This was one of the four daughters. She had inherited a vast fortune, and she was married to a prominent surgeon in the city of Dallas. So she calls Dr. Criswell. He gets on the phone and she says pastor, I hear you’ve been praying. He said, that’s right. She said, what are you praying for? He said, well, I’m praying for the land across the street that we’d have the money to buy it. We need it. She said, what does it cost? He said, well, it costs $255,000. In 1946, $255,000 was a lot of money. She said to him, buy it. I’ll send you the check today. Incredible.
But the conversation wasn’t done. She said, what do you want to build on the land? He said, well, you know, we want to build a fellowship hall and we want to build an activity center. I mean, we really don’t have place for congregational fellowship and we also need to build more parking. She said, well, what’ll that cost? He said, well, our architects estimate that it’ll cost $1,500,000. Again, this is in 1946. I mean, I don’t even know what that would mean in today’s dollars, but it was $1,500,000.
And what did Minnie Veal say? She said, buy it. Build it. I’ll send you the money this week. Incredible. He said, oh, thank you. I can never thank you enough. I could never thank you enough. She said, not at all. She said, you cannot imagine my joy. You can’t imagine the joy I have of being the instrument that God uses to answer your prayer.
Now, wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could do that? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could do that? Wouldn’t you love to be able to do something like that? I mean, I know I would just love it if I could provide like that for the needs of the church of Jesus Christ in this world. I would love it. But understand that you can have the joy. You can have the joy if you just give as you’re able.
If I just give as I am able, we can all have the joy. We can all be instruments of God, answering prayer and answering needs of the kingdom of heaven and the church of Jesus Christ on this earth. We’re all part of this. The joy is unbelievable. You can’t imagine when you get to heaven and you’ll see what your gifts have done. You know the time you’ve given, the talents you’ve offered, the money you’ve given, and maybe God will give you the blessing of seeing what it did. Oh, how incredible. So as we come to the end of this year and as we’re moving towards a new year and the needs of the kingdom of heaven are great on the earth, I want you to understand the joy of Christmas. The joy of Christmas is the joy of safety, because Jesus is the savior. He offers eternal safety. You can have joy every day and understand the joy of heaven. It’s the joy of giving. Christians are called to share in that joy. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.