In the sermon 'Hymns of Joy' by Steve Hopkins, the focus is on the profound joy associated with the birth of Jesus Christ as depicted in Luke 2:8-11. The speaker emphasizes the message of the angelic proclamation to the shepherds, which brings good tidings of great joy to all people with the birth of the Savior, Christ the Lord. The sermon explores how this joy transcends time and circumstances, offering hope and comfort even in times of sorrow or grief. The speaker highlights the role of Christmas hymns, particularly 'Joy to the World' by Isaac Watts, as a way to express and experience this joy. These hymns are not only a celebration of Christ's first coming but also anticipate his second coming, when sin and sorrow will be no more. The sermon encourages believers to contemplate the doctrine and scripture truths communicated through these hymns to enrich their worship and joy. Personal anecdotes are shared to illustrate the lasting impact and joy that these hymns can instill, urging believers to make melody in their hearts and let the joy of the incarnation fill their lives.

Okay, wonderful. Turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Luke. We're going to be standing and reading Luke chapter 2 verses 8 through 11. For the last couple of years We've looked at some of the hymns of Christmas and we'll be looking at a few of them today. In this message entitled, hymns of joy.

Let's stand and read together Luke chapter 2 verses 8 through 11 together. It's a congregation. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field keeping watch over their flock by night. And lo the angel of the Lord came upon them and the glory of the Lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, which is Christ the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we rejoice, oh God, as we anticipate the coming celebration day of the birth of our savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, and we thank you Lord that even when we find ourselves in a time or an era of pain or of sorrow or of grief that we can always rejoice in Christ our Savior who came into the world to save us and who never leaves us nor forsakes us. God as always we ask that the Spirit might be given in power to do a work in the heart and the lives of this people that only you can do for we ask it in the name of your son Jesus amen let's be seated you have your Bible open or you had maybe a order of worship out but if you would I'd ask you to have a hymnal next to you as well there's a whole boatload of new hymnals back there. If you don't have an actual physical hymnal for your family, feel free to take one and take it home with you.

We have recently purchased several new ones, but you may want to look at some of these hymns that we'll be going through here in just in just a few minutes. Again, the title of the message this afternoon is hymns of joy. Our text this afternoon from the Gospel of Luke, chapter two talks about joy and not only joy but great joy. Do you struggle with joyfulness? Most of us do from time to time.

The text speaks of joy, of great joy, in response to the angelic announcement of the birth of the Savior of mankind. And great joy unto all people. That is a joy that would spread the entire world over. The message of the incarnation of the second person of the Holy Trinity is the beginning of the good news. It is good tidings of great joy to all people, that is to every tongue and every tribe and nation throughout the world who have eyes to see it and ears to hear it and have been given hearts to receive it.

It is good tidings of great joy to all people who being made sensible of their sins rejoice at the birth of the one who came to save them from their sins the angel told Mary and you shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins, from both its penalty and its power, and reconcile them to God. The angels said to the shepherds in our text before us, Fear not, we also need not fear. Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior, which is Christ the Lord. Think on it for just a moment, that the Almighty, that the infinite, immutable, unchanging, eternally begotten, Son of the Father, one with the Father and the Holy Spirit, he through whom all things were created and by whom all things consist, he before whom the angelic hosts of heaven bow and avail their sight from the blinding light of his glory, that he should condescend, that he should come from the Father to the earth, that he should take flesh and dwell among men, and that for the purpose of saving and redeeming them.

We would say surely it can't be. We would say in the modern vernacular it's too good to be true. It's just it's too good to be true. And yet it is. And we have God's word on it, assuring us of the reality of it.

And the contemplation of the wonders of God's love in it cause our hearts to be filled with joy. That the eternal Son should come to earth from the Father and take on human nature to save a people from their sins, to save us from our sins produces a joy inexpressible in the hearts of the people he came to save. A joy that we wish that every person on earth could experience. Don't you wish that for everyone? The joy that you have, the joy that you know, the joy that you've experienced.

Don't you wish that everyone could experience that, could know it, that lost family member could know it, could experience it, that lost person on the job that you engage in business with, That friend, that person on the street that you see and you know, and you look and you say, oh, that they could only know the joy that I know. Only they could only experience the joy that comes from the Savior and knowing that Christ came into the world to save sinners and that I'm one of those that he came into the world to save. It's a joy that's been overflowing this joy of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ into the world is is a joy that's been overflowing in the hymns of Christmas for 2, 000 years now. The incarnation and birth of our Savior, Christ the Lord, has inspired some of the greatest hymns of joy ever composed on earth by men. In 1719, Isaac Watts wrote the most widely known and published Christmas hymn ever.

How many know what it was? The most widely known, one person knows it, widely known and published Christmas hymn in all languages ever, Joy to the World. Joy to the World. The Lord has come. Let earth receive her King let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing and heaven and nature sing The hymn that Isaac Watts wrote in 1719, Joy to the World, was never intended by Isaac Watts to be sung exclusively for Advent.

Advent means arrival or coming. It wasn't just intended to be sung around the time that we contemplate and focus on the birth, the coming of Christ into the world, the incarnation and the birth of Christ. It's based on Psalms 96 and 98 and sings triumphantly of Christ's coming and of His second coming. When sin and sorrows will no longer grow, nor thorns infest the ground. That is, when there will no longer be the presence of sin or the effects of sin.

He comes to make his blessings known as far as the curse is found. As far as the curse is found. The hymns of Christmas are hymns of joy and if you struggle to live joyfully And we all do at times. We all do at times. I would encourage you to sit at times, no matter the time of year, and open up that Trinity hymnal that you have at home and read these hymns.

And as you read, most importantly, think on the scripture, truths that they are communicating. It's one of my beefs with a lot of modern music is that there's a lot of praise, but there's very little content that there's a lot of praising God, but not the content of what we're praising God for. There's not a lot of doctrine in the modern hymns. Some of them have a lot of doctrine in them but a lot of them do not. We have to kind of pick and choose.

But we need to be thinking on the scripture truths that they communicate. If we want our joy to be full, and we need to make melody in our hearts to the Lord as we consider the wonders of the truths that are communicated in these hymns, the wonders of the truth of the incarnation and of the birth of our Savior. When you struggle with joy, contemplate the person and work of Christ, his perfect life, his suffering for your sin, his sacrifice on the cross, and his resurrection from the dead. And remember how it all began, and wonder at the glory of it all. Then when, quote, beneath life's crushing load, as we just read or just sang in the hymn, it came upon a midnight clear, when we whose forms are bending low and toiling along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, and be revived to heights of joy, unspeakable and full of glory.

That hymn is talking about the suffering and the many afflictions that associated with this life and we all endure them and we all will endure them. And maybe you're one of those that hasn't endured any for some time or they they are coming there. They're coming. We have to be tested. We have to be tried.

We have to have adversity in our life in order to grow more in Christ's likeness and learn to rely more upon him and to let go of the things in this life, in this world that we are clinging so tightly to, which can give us no hope. Calvin, referring to our text this afternoon, writes, by calling it great joy, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. By calling it great joy, he shows us not only that we ought above all things to rejoice in the salvation brought to us by Christ, but that this blessing is so great and boundless as fully to compensate for all the pains, distresses, and anxieties of the present life. Amen. Fully to compensate for all the pains, distresses, and anxieties of this life.

On page 146 of our hymnals, look now the old hymn says, for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing and rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing. It's a call in this hymn to transport yourself back to Bethlehem and to rest beside the road with the shepherds. Our text in verses 13-14 says, and suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, good will toward men. This call in this hymn is to put yourself beside that weary road, that weary road of life. And to just sit for a moment beside the weary road, think of the angelic hosts singing and praising God at the coming of Christ.

And let your joy be full. Experience for just a moment what they experienced to the extent that you can. I've said before that some believe that the angels weren't singing here. Some suggest that they were just talking in unison. But we should never ignore the scriptures that link the praises of God with singing.

Psalm 147, one, for instance, says, praise you the Lord for it is good to sing praises under our God. Praise you the Lord for it is good to sing praises unto our God. And then in Job 38 and verse 7, we read of angels singing at the creation of the world. Quote, when the morning stars sang together, that's a reference to the angels, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. For me it's difficult to imagine that the angels of God sang at the creation of the world but held back at the birth of Him by whom the worlds were framed.

Our text tells us that there were with the angel who announced Christ's birth to that lowly band of shepherds a multitude of the heavenly host that is a massive number of the angels of heaven praising God and saying glory to God in the highest glory to God in the highest This is what is from antiquity has been known the Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Glory to God in the highest. It's the first hymn of Christmas and It was sung by angels. It's the first hymn of Christmas. R.C.

Sproul writes concerning the words of verse 14, this was the first singing of the glory in Excelsis Deo that is the glory to God in the highest. Don't you just love to sing the Christmas carols? Sproul writes. Do you love that hymn, angels we have heard on high, angels we have heard on high, sweetly singing o'er the plain, and the mountains in reply, echoing their joyous strain, Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Gloria in Excelsis Deo.

Makes me want to sing it right now, but I'm not going to refrain. Charles Spurgeon comments on the passage, not with the stammering tongue of one who tells a tale in which he has no interest, or even with the feigned interest of a man that would move the passions of others when he feels no emotion himself, but with joy and gladness, such as angels can only know. They sang the story out, for they could not stop to tell it in heavy prose. They sang glory to God on high and on earth, peace, goodwill towards men. And I think they sang it with gladness in their heart, and with the hearts burning with love, and with breasts as full of joy as if the good news to man had been good news to themselves." Close quote.

Angels from the realms of glory. If you're in your hymnals around the 150s and 60s, you'll find these, Angels from the Realms of Glory. Oh, how I love this hymn. Wing your flight o'er all the earth, Ye who sang creation's story, Now proclaim Messiah's birth. Come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn King.

The singing of praises to God erupts spontaneously from within the hearts of those filled with the joy that comes from the Lord. I think there are few things more sad than joyless Christians. We of all people should be the most joyful people on the planet. We should be joyful. Joy to the world, the Lord has come.

Joy to the world, the Lord has come. The hymns of Christmas are hymns of joy. And I don't know about you, but I've always been drawn to them, even from a child, even as a child. I mean, I got the little transistor radio, you know, one Christmas morning and heard the Beatles on Kriz, K-R-I-Z in Arizona, okay? But it was nothing like this.

It had, none of that had the impression or the impact upon me as the singing of the hymns of Christmas. I can remember walking into that little church we attended as a boy one evening and hearing people singing as you went in the parking lot. I don't know why my mother and I were late or why it was dark. All I remember is that it was dark and I could hear the people singing as we were we were walking up the little sidewalk next to the church and they were singing, oh come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. The impression, the impact upon a six or seven year old boy was just immense.

Yes, greater than could ever be impacted by anything that the world has been able to come up with since the writing of these hymns. It was a joyful chorus that was forever planted in my heart and in my mind. I can just remember the joy that that welled up within me at those words And ever since I was a boy just singing the Christmas hymns throughout the year, they've always come back to me. They've always come back to me. The lines have always come back to me.

There's just something very special, very special about them. And I think, you know, being a musician, that there's something different about the music of them for some reason. Like you have a different kind of music that kind of goes along with the compositions with the resurrection day, hymns and of the crucifixion of Christ and his sufferings and then at the birth of Christ there's something about the music but I can just remember the joy that welled up within me at those words as a little boy, oh come, oh come ye to Bethlehem, Come and behold him, born the king of angels. Born the king of angels. And I remember I could imagine that I was just like there at his birth.

And see the star over the place where he lay and hear the shepherds, oh come let us adore him, oh come let us adore him. Brothers and sisters, joy and worship go hand in hand. A joyful Christian is a worshiping Christian. Matthew 2 11, And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother and fell down and worshiped him. There are no more joyful and worshipful hymns, in my estimation, ever written than the hymns of joy proclaiming the birth of the Savior of the world.

I was never intrigued as a child by Santa's and elves and reindeer, I don't know why, it's just there was no appeal there. But these words, these words from these timeless hymns captivated me, oh come all you faithful. Comes on with words straight out of the Nicene Creed, straight out of that creed that were birthed at the time when Christianity had overthrown the worship of the pagan gods of Rome. So the Nicene Creed, You know, is there in the 300s and it makes its way into this hymn and this second verse, second or third verse of, oh, come all ye faithful, God of God, light of light, lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb, God of God, light of light, Lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb. God of God.

Light of light. Lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb. Very God, that is true God, speaking of Jesus, begotten, eternally begotten, not created. O come, let us adore him. O come, let us adore him.

O come, let us adore him, Christ the Lord. I want to back up for just a moment for you know I had a message another message. Eric knows I've just I've been flip flopping all over this week and was going to do a message on Handel's Messiah and all of the verses and got about three quarters of the way through and then jumped ship because of certain things that I needed to research and all and then went to another message and then went to this message last night, late last night, early this morning. But in the message I was going to bring, you may remember a couple of years ago, I think it's just so important for us to remember that in the early days of Christianity, the pagan gods of Rome were overthrown by the Christian God And it was an amazing time. So you have holy days.

Holy day simply means a holiday means a holy day, means a day that's been set apart. So you have these days that were being used to worship pagan deities and then Christianity comes along and overthrows them, co-ops those days, takes them from them, and you no longer have a memory today of even the names of those pagan gods. You have people that will tell you, well, we shouldn't celebrate Christmas, why? Because 2, 000 something years ago, people on the same day worshiped pagan deities okay Christianity overthrew that that's something to glory and not something to run from and it's not something to give back to them. It's not something that we should ever give back to them.

If you were to go out on the street today and you were to say, just pick a random person and say, can you tell me one of the names of the gods of Rome that was pagan gods that was worshiped on December 25th. I don't think you're gonna find anybody who's gonna say, oh yeah, the ones that were, they were so and so and so and so and so and so, they're not gonna say that. You might find one person who has a lot of history, knowledge, or what have you. But one thing they're going to know is that the name of Christ is indelibly stamped on the day. Christmas.

We can't get away from it. We can't get away from it. But back to the message. Somehow the words from the Nicene Creed make its way into that hymn of old. Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.

God of God, light of light, lo, he abhors not the virgin's womb, very God, true God, begotten, not created. That was a time where you had the Aryan controversy where Arius, this presbyter stands up and says you know Jesus is a created being. Oh he's a God, but he's a created God. And all the controversy that took place there and was trying to tear the church apart, and it results in councils, the church councils, and then the Nicene Creed. He is true God of true God, light of light, begotten, eternally begotten, not created.

And it makes its way into this hymn. Sing choirs of angels, sing in exaltation, sing all you citizens of heaven above, glory to God, glory in the highest. So much doctrine here and so much doctrine impressed on a little mind. Word of the Father, it says, now in flesh appearing, straight out of the Gospel of John chapter 1. The incarnation and birth of Christ, the Savior of mankind, is proclaimed in these old hymns.

And, oh, the joy, the very thought, brings to the minds of God's redeemed. The King of Kings, the Savior of the world is here. George Weissel's old hymn from the 1600s proclaims, Life and salvation doth he bring, wherefore rejoice and gladly sing. You've heard me talk in the past about Voltaire. How many of you know who Voltaire was?

The French folks at the back, you know who Voltaire was, right? Yeah. Okay. Former French men and French. What do you call a French lady?

French Frenchmen and what? Don't know? Just French. Okay. So, you know, Voltaire, he was French, right?

Yeah. He's a, he was that infamous atheist philosopher of France in the 1700s. He hated Christmas. He hated God. He hated the church.

He hated Christianity. He hated the Bible. He hated the holidays that were celebrated concerning Christ. And he longed to see the death of the Christian faith and he wrote about it books multiple books about it and then not only wrote about it he prophesied the end of Christianity how many know that Voltaire prophesied the end of Christianity yeah how many know that he died a madman insane his body infected with all manner of diseases, screaming his head off and blaspheming against God. He died a horrible death.

But he predicted before his death that within 100 years the only Bibles left on earth would be in museums. 100 years after his death Voltaire's home was purchased by a Bible society to store Bibles in tracts. And the very printing presses used to print his blasphemous works against God were now churning out Bibles. Were now turning out Bibles. In fact, they were still found some of the paper, this really expensive paper that had been left over, and they were gonna use it to print, you know, Voltaire's works on or whatever, and Bibles were printed on it.

Bibles were printed on it. He rules the world with truth and grace, Isaac Watts, him. He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove. He makes the nations prove. And the wonders of his love and the wonders of his love.

He made Voltaire prove. He makes the heathen nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love. They're gone. They rose. They fell.

They were here. They're gone. Christianity continues and the people of God continue to grow in the world. The nations have been proven the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love for 2000 years. Joy to the world.

Joy to the world. Do you ever struggle with joy? As you contemplate the person and work of your Savior and Lord, contemplate the words of these timeless hymns and sing them and make melody in your heart to the Lord. I'll end with just a couple of other hymns from our hymnals on page 160 of your hymnal. We read that Christ was born to save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray.

To save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. He goes on, God and sinners reconciled, or another hymn as Wesley's old hymn goes, God and sinners reconciled, joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies, with the angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem. Do you struggle ever with joylessness? Do you struggle with joyfulness to be joyful?

Contemplate the hymns of Christmas and let your heart be raised to praise and glory at the incarnation of the Son of God into the world. Veiled in flesh, veiled in flesh the Godhead see Christ seen in the flesh when he took on flesh. Hail the incarnate deity. Who could come up with words like this? Hail the incarnate deity.

The enfleshment of deity pleased his man with man to dwell. Jesus, our Immanuel, our God with us. Jesus, our God with us. Joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let earth receive her King.

Let every heart prepare him room. And heaven and nature sing, heaven and nature sing. Let's pray. Father, oh Lord, I pray God that the timeless truths and lines of the Christmas hymns of old would be brought back to our memories time and again and time and again and Lord not only at this season but even at the seasons of the lowest times in our life oh God and at the thought God of the incarnation Jesus Christ came into the world and the purpose for which he came into the world. Lord, would fill our hearts with joy and with praise.

Oh, fill our hearts with joy this season, oh God, as we contemplate the wonder of the coming of the Son of God into the world to save sinners like us. In the accomplishment of it, in Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you.