December 11, 2020
Why should December have all the good music? I ask this tongue-in-cheek, but it’s something I think about at the end of every year. The poetry and melodies that have been composed to celebrate the birth of Jesus are some of the most Scripturally-saturated, doctrinally-rich, gospel-rejoicing, Christ-centered, and God-honoring songs the church gets to sing. It shouldn’t surprise us that this is the case, because even in the days and months surrounding the actual birth of Jesus, God’s people wrote songs of praise and thanksgiving for the incarnation of the Messiah.
We’re looking at those divinely inspired songs on Sunday mornings as we close out 2020. They’re found in the first and second chapters of Dr. Luke’s gospel, and were “sung” by Mary, Zechariah, the angels, and Simeon. The saints under the old covenant had long awaited the coming of the Christ, and when He came, they couldn’t help but expressing their joy in poetry. We don’t know what sort of tunes or rhythms these psalms were set to, but the content is clearly designed to get us contemplating the sovereign purposes of God in the birth of Jesus to bring salvation to His people. As it was said of John Bunyan, “If you prick him, he bleeds bibline,” so it is of these songs - they are filled with references to the Old Testament. The birth of Jesus didn’t come out of nowhere, but was the fulfillment of the promises of old, starting all the way back in Genesis 3:15. His appearing has brought joy to our sorrow, peace to our turmoil, righteousness to our sin, and hope to our despair - and as we conclude 2020, aren’t we in desperate need of a whole lot more joy, peace, righteousness, and hope?
As you meditate on Jesus’ birth, spend time in Luke 1-2. There’s no way we can cover in our sermons the depth of truth found in these four songs, so use our preaching each Lord’s Day as a springboard for further exploration of God’s word. Think about the birth and appearing of Jesus not just in December, but throughout the year - and especially as we come to the Lord’s Table each month. Jesus became a man to reign on David’s throne as our King, to offer Himself as a priestly sacrifice, and to guide our feet in the way of truth and peace through His prophetic teaching. May we submit to His reign and rule over us anew in these coming days.
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I’m not only excited about our preaching in December, I’m also eagerly anticipating what we’ll be preaching in 2021. As the calendar turns over its annual leaf, we’ll finish up Genesis on Sunday mornings for about a month, and after our Missions Festival we will work our way through Philippians and then start Paul’s magnum opus, the letter to the Romans. We’ll close out the year with a frolic in the Servant Songs of Isaiah. On Sundays evenings, we’ll work our way through Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) from January to August, and then study several Messianic Psalms to learn more of who our Savior is and what He has done for sinners like us.
Please be praying even now for God to bring forth much gospel growth from the preaching of His word. Pray for conversions and for sanctification. Pray for God to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Pray that He would strike straight blows with crooked sticks. Pray that He would prevent Satan from snatching away the word that is sown in our hearts, and cause us to bear good fruit for His glory. Pray that we would receive the word as the very word of God, and that it would accomplish its work in use who believe. Without prayer, preaching is powerless. So pray that we as preachers would pray as we prepare, pray as we preach, and pray after we preach. Let us all like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the Word of Christ!