Thiis morning is the carol service at Cherry Tree Court (10.30 a.m.), looking at the Advent theme of hope. Do join us if you can. Our evening service on the same theme is at 6 p.m. at Market Street and will feature a children’s story.

On Friday 14th December we have our Parent & Toddler Christmas party in the morning, so we’re really looking forward to that! This will be the last session of the Parent & Toddler group in 2018; we will restart on Friday 11th January 2019.

Next Saturday (15th December) is our ‘Churches Together’ Sheep Service between 2 and 4 p.m. at the Salvation Army. Come along for craft activities, bun decorating, stories and carols, plus a guest appearance from some animal puppets to help us tell the Christmas story! Please bring your completed Advent Sheep Trail leaflets for a chance to win a lovely Christmas hamper, donated by the Co-op in Bolton-on-Dearne.

On Sunday 23rd December at 6 p.m. we’re having our carol service on the theme ‘Love Came Down.’ Do join us for that, with free refreshments served after the service.

We will also be holding a short service on Christmas Day at 10.30 a.m. to celebrate the birth of our Saviour!

In the week after Christmas, there will be no midweek meeting at church, but there will be a fellowship evening at Garry and Julie’s on Thursday 27th December between 5 and 8 p.m. There will also be no coffee morning on Saturday 29th December.
Don’t forget also our New Year’s Day party on Tuesday 1st January at 4 p.m!

Ps 149 reminds us also that praise is part of our spiritual warfare: equipped with God’s praises in our mouths and a double-edged sword in our hands (see Heb 4:12, Eph 6:17), we can take part in carrying out God’s plans in the earth. Although this psalm has been taken literally at some periods of history to justify violence and bloodshed (the Peasants’ Revolt in the 16th century, the Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century, for example), Paul makes it plain that the weapons of our warfare are spiritual (see 2 Cor 10:3-5). As believers under a new covenant, we don’t battle flesh and blood enemies (Ephesians 6:12-18), yet we have the responsibility to be not only worshippers, but warriors in a spiritual warfare that at times is difficult and costly. In a spiritual sense, we are to execute vengeance on everything that would oppose Jesus Christ and the work of His kingdom in our life.

Praise is warfare because through it we declare God’s sovereignty to all; in the words of the Rend Collective song, ‘Sing Hallelujah for all hell to hear.’ (‘Marching On’) They say, ‘When we worship in the face of adversity and struggle, when we count our blessings, we declare war on the brokenness of this world. We put our trust in the kingdom of God that will never fade and in Jesus as the king of everything.’ Our songs declare God’s truth and God’s word; we are equipped with the sword of the Spirit which has the power to cut into man’s sinfulness and declare the hope of God for all who will turn to Him. For those who refuse to bow the knee, God’s judgment will come (see Ps 2:8-9, Is 60:12, Rev 19:11-16). Far better to bow the knee now and of our own volition!

Spurgeon said of God’s word as sword, “The word of God is all edge; whichever way we turn it, it strikes deadly blows at falsehood and wickedness. If we do not praise we shall grow sad in our conflict; and if we do not fight we shall become presumptuous in our song. The verse indicates a happy blending of the chorister and the crusader.”  May we learn to be both chorister and crusader, worshipper and warrior and see God’s glory shine over all the earth.

Many may feel we have spent too long in recent weeks and months looking at reasons to praise God. I make no apology for returning to this theme, however – not simply because as we study the Bible, we have to look at what it actually says (and these final psalms say a lot about praise!), but also because our praise is often so lacklustre and uninspiring that it is worth asking why that should be the case. Certainly, in the psalms we find no lack of enthusiasm or zeal when it comes to praising God. They abound with exhortations to praise (e.g. Ps 95:1, Ps 5:11, Ps 33:1, 3 – see also Is 12:6), and that praise is clearly meant to be whole-hearted and exuberant (Ps 71:23, Ps 81:1).

Ps 149:4 gives us yet another reason to praise God: ‘For the Lord takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with victory.’ It’s an amazing thought that God delights in us, but this is a theme developed in other parts of the Bible (Zeph 3:17, Deut 30:8-10, Ps 18:19, Prov 11:20, Is 62:4). The word ‘crowns’ in other versions is rendered ‘beautifies’ or ‘adorns with splendour’, and all these translations show us something of what it means to bring pleasure to God’s heart. Meyer says, “Not only does God take a personal interest in each step of the obedient soul, but He makes it beautiful, and leads it from victory to victory.” There are hints too in Ps 149:7-8 that God’s people will also be involved in carrying out God’s decrees (see Rev 19:15). The fact that we who were once enemies of God (Eph 2:1-3) have now been reconciled to Him through Christ (2 Cor 5:19-21, Rom 5:8) and are counted as heirs of God and joint-heirs of Christ (Rom 8:17) give us so many reasons to praise that we cannot remain silent!

In our Bible study on Thursday night, we looked at Psalm 149, another of the five ‘Hallelujah’ psalms which conclude the Psalter. In Ps 148 we saw that all of creation (including angels and the natural creation as well as mankind, from the highest to the lowest) is commanded to praise God and here in Ps 149, we see different ways to praise explored. Praise can, it seems, be both verbal and non-verbal, and in this psalm, dancing and music through instruments (in addition to singing) are both mentioned as being appropriate ways to praise. (Ps 149:3)

Dancing is mentioned in many places in the Bible, from Miriam leading the Israelites in joyful praise after God’s great deliverance from Egypt (Ex 15:20-21) to David dancing before the Lord with all his might on the ark’s return to Jerusalem (2 Sam 6:14, 16). Earlier in the book of Psalms, we have been reminded that the Lord is the One who turns our wailing into dancing (Ps 30:11) and in the conclusion to the Psalter, we are again urged to praise God with tambourine and dancing. (Ps 150:4)

Musical instruments are also mentioned in many places in the Bible, from Jubal’s pipes and stringed instruments (Gen 4:21) to the many instruments listed in Ps 150. Ps 33 urges us to ‘play skilfully’ on a variety of instruments and trumpets, harps, timbrels, tambourines, lyre and ram’s horns all mentioned in different places (Ps 98:4-6, Ps 144:9, Ps 150:3). In the New Testament, making music is continued to be seen as a valid way of expressing praise to God (Eph 5:19-20) and in that great revelation of heaven, we see angelic harps and singing (Rev 5:7-10), perhaps the origin of the notion that angels live on clouds and play harps all the time!

It seems there really are no ‘set’ ways to praise God. We may prefer the simplicity of antiphonal chanting (as in some Catholic and Anglican churches), the vigour of charismatic worship (with a band of instruments and choirs of singers), the familiarity of the old or the challenge of the new, but as long as there is breath in us, we can all find ways to praise our amazing and holy God.

Today, we are all still waiting in hope for the Lord. (Ps 33:20) We all have longings and dreams still to be fulfilled. In some ways, that’s the definition of hope: waiting for something to be fulfilled. Paul says to the Romans, ‘hope that is seen is no hope at all.’ (Rom 8:24) But hope is not something vague and unsubstantial; it is energy and power to keep us going steadily and steadfastly towards the goal, the dream. Paul goes on to say, ‘if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.’ (Rom 8:25) Advent is a time when we learn to wait patiently, opening the doors of the calendars with alert expectancy, with growing anticipation, with excitement and joy.

Advent, I think, is an easier time for us than others, because there is a definite timescale involved. We are counting down to December 25^th. We know when the Christ child is going to arrive!

That first Christmas, no one knew that. And no one knows when the Lord will come back again. No one really knows when the Lord will step in and fulfil His promises to us. Waiting is not easy in those circumstances, when we really don’t know the timescales. That’s why so many of the Psalms ask God, ‘How long?’ The psalmist in Ps 6:3 says, ‘My soul is in deep anguish. How long, Lord, how long?’ David, in Psalm 13, says, ‘How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?’ (Ps 13:1-2) When you are going through trials and sorrows, suffering and anguish, it can be the not knowing ‘how long?’ which makes them particularly difficult to bear. But hope says to us, ‘you may not know how long, but you know the One who has made the promise and He is faithful.’ The certainty of God’s character acts as an anchor for our souls. (Heb 6:19)

Hope can be an anchor for us, the thing that roots us in God, trusting that He who has promised is faithful. The One who sent His Son at just the right time (Gal 4:4) will fulfil His word to us at the right time. We may face uncertain timescales, but our times and our very lives are in His hands.

The hope of the Messiah is one of the great themes of the Old Testament. God’s people were told that God would send a deliverer to rescue them and they were longing for this deliverer. When the New Testament opens, there had been the long period of four hundred years from the last word in the Old Testament, the so-called ‘silent years’, when it seemed that God was doing nothing. Yet still, hope was keeping the people of God going. Then, out of nowhere, it seemed, God sent angels to Zechariah and to Mary and spoke to Joseph in a dream, all telling them of the special children to be born. Zechariah, at the birth of John, his son, rejoices: ‘Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.⁶⁹ He has raised up a horn of salvation for us  in the house of his servant David ⁷⁰ (as he said through his holy prophets of long ago.)’ (Luke 1:68-70).

Mary rejoices in the fulfilment of God’s promises: ‘He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful ⁵⁵ to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.’ (Luke 1:54-55)

Simeon, when Jesus is presented at the temple, says, ‘For my eyes have seen your salvation, ³¹ which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: ³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”’ (Luke 2:30-32) All of these people were fully aware of God’s promises and rejoiced because they were able to see the fulfilment of these promises and participate in God’s great story and salvation. These people were all very different. Simeon, and Anna the prophetess, were very old. Zechariah was probably quite old: certainly, he and his wife, Elizabeth, were past the age when they could reasonably expect to have children. Mary and Joseph were younger, probably still teenagers. No matter what their age or circumstances, however, they were fuelled by hope and they had to walk by faith. They show us all that no matter what our age or circumstances, we too can be fuelled by hope and walk by faith.

Advent is a time of anticipation, as we look forward to remember the coming of the Christ child. In remembering that, however, we also look ahead to the rest of the story of salvation. We look ahead to Jesus growing in wisdom and stature, growing in favour with God and man. (Luke 2:52) We look ahead to His ministry of healing and teaching and preaching. We look ahead to His death: why else do we think about those gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh at Christmas time? We look ahead to His resurrection. All these things are essential elements in the gospel story and many of our Christmas songs and carols keep this balance, not simply focussing on the birth of Jesus, but also what else He went on to do. And Advent, that time of coming, of arrival, always looks ahead too to the completion of the story, to the part which is not yet fulfilled: the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are still waiting for the ‘day of the Lord’ which will come like a thief in the night. (1 Thess 5:2) We are still waiting for the Lord to come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God. (1 Thess 4:16) We are still waiting to be with the Lord forever, for that marriage feast with the Lamb. Paul urged the Thessalonians to encourage each other with these truths (1 Thess 4:18), and hope is the fuel that helps us to do that.