Advent: Join the Triumph預覽

The Scripture:

"May we shout for joy over your victory. May we lift up our flags in the name of our God. May the Lord give you everything you ask for" (Psalm 20:5, NIRV )

The Story:

I don’t know about you but when I think about victory, I think about music. If you ever go to any sporting event there is a lot of music. There is the walk-up song, the song when the team scores, and the song to get everyone hyped up. There is a lot of music. The reason why is because music is special, and it shows how we feel even beyond words. This is one of the reasons why we sing at church because it’s one thing to say, “God, I love you,” but it’s another to sing it. Something special happens when we sing.

The Bible knows this and that is why about halfway through our Bibles are 150 chapters of songs. Except they are not called songs, they are called Psalms, which sound very similar if you say it out loud. Ok now that you’re done trying that, let’s look at our Scripture. It is from one of the Psalms and it talks about how we can shout for joy because we have victory.

The Psalms are filled with songs of victory and shouts of joy. They are also filled with very hard moments. Sometimes we sing songs because we feel burdened or there’s a lot going on. The Psalms teach us no matter what emotion we feel, we can bring it before God.

And here is the amazing thing about The Psalms: even though some Psalms are songs of anger or sadness, they end in a place of peace. They may start with “I’M UPSET,” but they end with “GOD I TRUST YOU.” That is Peace.

Peace is not that nothing is wrong in our lives, but it is that through all of it we can trust God is Good and He has Good Plans. God wants us to bring every emotion to Him: happiness, sadness, boredom, anger, jealousy, even hunger (I don’t know if that’s an emotion but trust me if I don’t get something to eat I get emotional).

The Psalms are the songs of the Bible, but they are also the prayers of the Bible. So whether you sing how you feel or pray how you feel, God wants to hear you and wants to remind you that no matter what is going on, we can have Peace in the Victory of Jesus.

The Triumph:

When Mary heard the News that she would have Jesus, and after she had Peace about it, the first thing she did was sing. She sang, “My soul gives glory to the Lord. My spirit delights in God my Savior” (Luke 1:46-47). We sing because we have a Mighty Savior named Jesus who brought Victory. We sing every emotion and have Peace that Jesus was really born, He was really God, He really died, and He really rose again.