Let Us Adore Him

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So we get to the chorus of this great old carol, and I'm sure it's familiar to you:

O come let us adore Him, O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!

"Adore" is the key word today. Listen to what the great AW Tozer says about this word:

"We need to refine our definitions. Such words as honour, love and adore don't mean what they are supposed to mean. We use divine language in such a common way that when we try to rise to the exalted and divine level we find ourselves using words that do not express anything. If I had the power, I would pass a law permitting the use of such words as love, honour and adore only in prayer, Bible teaching, preaching and song. We have spoilt them and made them common, yet they belong to God."

Maybe he's right! Maybe when we sing this old carol we hardly adore Him, but we just sing it mindlessly, because it's so familiar it's become spoilt.

Moving Beyond Explanation to Adoration

Tozer also wrote this: "Our thought habits are those of the scientist, not those of the worshipper. We are more likely to explain than to adore." Maybe he's right again! Maybe we are looking for explanations and theories when we should instead be singing in adoration and praise of what we see.

Do you adore Christ the Lord? Does He mean more to you than anything? Do you cherish Him more deeply than you cherish anything else?

A famous prayer pattern that many people have found helpful is the word ACTS - which stands for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. It's a great way to pray, truly - it keeps you focused on what matters in your prayer time. And the fact that it starts with adoration is, I think, important. As RC Sproul wrote, "to omit adoration is to cut out the heart of prayer... The prayers of the great saints, the prayer warriors of church history, are marked by their fervent adoration of God."

Adoring God From the Heart

Are our prayers also marked by our fervent adoration of God? Now, some of you might be thinking that you don't have the words to adequately express your adoration for God. You're right. None of us do! Charles Wesley wrote a hymn in which he wished for a thousand tongues so that he could sing praise! Our tongues and our minds often can't come up with words of adoration. But that's OK, it's not about fancy wording. It's about appreciating God from the heart! Think of it - we can sing "O come let us adore Him" with a heart far from God, and it means nothing. Or we can sing nothing but be inwardly amazed and in awe of God. That's worship.

I encourage you to adore Him! To spend your life in pursuit of a greater adoration of this Jesus. He is so good, so faithful, so kind, so merciful, so patient, so loving, so powerful, so wonderful. How can you not adore Him, when you begin to get to know Him?

This Christmas, let Jesus be the object of your adoration. In the end, that's what Christmas is all about.

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True God of True God

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Let’s get to the most theologically rich verse of this classic Christmas carol, which often confused me when we sang it in my young years:

True God of true God, light of light eternal
Lo! He abhors not the virgin’s womb
Son of the Father, begotten not created

This is some deep stuff, and let me do my best to explain it so that we can worship together today:

Understanding Jesus' Divine Nature

"True God of true God" is a phrase that comes from the Nicene Creed, a famous statement of faith from the 4th century. It means that Jesus is not half a God, or a man who became God, but He is the true God, who came from the true God in God the Father. It's an essential belief in Christianity, the Trinity - that God is One, but in three persons - Father, Son and Spirit. Jesus the Son is truly God, who came from the Father who is the true God.

And this actually leads into the last line which says "Son of the Father, begotten not created". Some teach that God the Father created the Son, but Christians believe that Jesus shares the divine essence of God the Father and always has, and so He is begotten by the Father, not created by the Father. Everybody else is created by the Father, but Jesus existed eternally with Him.

He is also "Light of light eternal" - again emphasising that Jesus is light, and He comes from eternal light in the Father. When Jesus came to earth, we got to see the human representative of that light of God!

God United With Humanity

And lastly, the line "Lo! He abhors not the virgin's womb" was one that puzzled me. Firstly, what does "lo" mean? Well, it means "look!" or "behold!", to draw attention to something. In this case, the author wants to draw attention to the fact that God doesn't "abhor" the womb of a virgin. In other words, it was not beneath God for Jesus to be carried in the womb of a young woman. Some would say that God would never unite with humanity in this way, but the truth is that He didn't disdain humanity - He actually allowed humans to be part of His redemption story in this way.

It's all quite wordy, but in the end this verse is meant to lead us to worship! It teaches us that Jesus is great and worthy because He is one with the Father and not just another human. And it teaches us that God would unite with His people and not disdain them in their human state.

What a verse! Does it cause you to worship? Does it bring fire to your soul? Listen again and sing with gladness of this wonderful Jesus!

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Yea Lord We Greet Thee

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Let's listen to verse 3 of O Come All Ye Faithful:

Yea, Lord we greet Thee, born this happy morning
Jesus to Thee be glory divine
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing

This is a beautiful verse! First, I love the greeting of Jesus here. I have a friend who, if you ask him to open a meeting in prayer, will always say "good morning Lord Jesus" or "good evening Lord", and I have always found that very meaningful. Maybe we too quickly rush into our prayer without a respectful greeting to the King of kings!

Showing God Appropriate Respect

In some cultures, greeting people in the correct way is a very important thing. It shows the appropriate respect for somebody who has come into your presence. I remember how at school, if a teacher walked into our class, we had to stand and greet them. Why? It was the respectful thing to do. In fact when I spent a few short months at a private school in Johannesburg, I remember that it was drilled into us that if an adult walks past you here at the school, you stand and greet them. And it was quite a thing for parents to have an entire grandstand of kids stand and greet them "good morning sir" or "good morning mam" as they walked around school. It showed respect.

Do we show God appropriate respect in our prayers? Perhaps we should greet Him more often, so that we can give Him "glory divine", as the song says - we can acknowledge that there is none like Him and that He is the only one who is worthy of glory and honour.

The Word Made Flesh

The songwriter then says something profound: "Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing". This comes from John 1, where Jesus is referred to as "the Word" which was with God in the beginning, but which "became flesh and made His dwelling among us" (John 1:14). And I like what John then says in the rest of that verse: "We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." Those who were lucky enough to see Jesus in the flesh saw one who had been with God from the beginning, before time, become human and display the glory of God in a real way. At Christmas time, we sing of this wonderful truth, and perhaps we wish we were there to have seen what those first disciples saw!

So when you greet Jesus in your prayers, it's not just a religious figure from centuries past that you're greeting - it's the very Word of God who took on flesh and dwelt here among us so He could live, die, and be raised again.

Yes, indeed, we sing with the writer of this song, Jesus to Thee be glory divine!

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Sing Choirs of Angels

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Verse 2 of this great old Christmas song O Come All Ye Faithful says:

Sing choirs of angels, sing in exaltation
Sing all ye citizens of Heaven above
Glory to God, glory in the highest

"Sing" is the main word here, as you heard. The author is calling the angels to sing in choirs, to sing with a spirit of worship and exaltation, to sing as citizens of heaven, to sing "glory to God in the highest".

Biblical Imagery of Angel Worship

Of course this is all biblical imagery - in Luke 2 the shepherds are visited by angels who tell them about the coming Messiah, wrapped and lying in a manger, and we read "Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven.'" (Luke 2:13-14)

What must it be like to hear a choir of angels singing? I can only imagine. In Job 38:7 we read that "all the angels shouted for joy" when God created the world. In the book of Hebrews, the author makes a point of stating that Jesus is greater than angels - in Hebrews 1:6 we read "when God brings His firstborn into the world, He says, 'Let all God's angels worship Him.'" Peter writes that Jesus "has gone into heaven and is at God's right hand - with angels, authorities and powers in submission to Him." (1 Peter 3:22) And of course who can forget the picture John has in Revelation 5, he writes: "I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they were saying: 'Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!'" (Revelation 5:11-12)

Joining the Existing Song of Praise

All throughout Scripture, angels worship God, and in particular, they worship Jesus. Jesus is worthy of our praise, because clearly Jesus is worthy of the praise of angels!

So, this Christmas time, as we remember the birth of Jesus, and as we sing songs of praise and worship to Him because He is the Messiah and the Saviour and the Lamb of God - let us not forget that ours are not the only voices praising Him. In heaven the angels are singing His glory even now! When we sing, we are the ones who join an existing song of praise to the only one who is worthy.

Let your voice ring out! Join in the chorus! I've never been to a Mighty Men conference, like so many men in our country have, but friends who have been tell me how amazing it is to stand in a crowd of many thousand and sing, and for your voice to get lost in the sound of the worship of the crowd! How much more amazing, to join the choirs of angels as they worship the newborn King again this Christmas.

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Come and Behold Him

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One of my favourite Christmas songs is O Come All Ye Faithful. It's got some beautiful words that really make us think about Christmas in a deep way, and I am going to run us through them this week.

Let's start on verse 1 which says:

O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant
O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem
Come and behold Him, born the King of angels

Following the Wise Men's Example

The word "come" is the key one here, and it makes me think of the wise men from the east who came to Jerusalem when Jesus was born and said in Matthew 2:2 "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw His star when it rose and have come to worship Him."

Of course, you don't have to go to any particular place to worship Him now. Wherever you are in this very moment is a perfectly acceptable place to worship Jesus!

But, for the faithful Christian, the Christian who is overjoyed by Jesus, and who is triumphant because of what Jesus has done - there is something special about coming together with other faithful, joyful, and triumphant Christians to worship Jesus as a group of believers.

Bethlehem in Our Church

There is a sense in which church is Bethlehem to us, at Christmas time! The church - the people of God - is where Jesus dwells now. So just as the people gathered to worship Him there at the stable, so now we gather together as His people and worship Him in our own spiritual Bethlehems.

Do you hear the call, to come together and worship Him? To gather to behold Him who was born the King of angels?

Be faithful, and gather with your fellow Christians where you can, this Christmas.

Be joyful, and celebrate this child that would change the world.

Be triumphant, because you know His power and His love and His wonder.

Come together with your people and behold Him, and this will be a special Christmas time.