Voices In My Head Podcast Episode #243: An Advent Sermon

<LYRICS>Hymns, Prayers and Invitations</LYRICS> The latest album from Rick Lee James has garnered praise from CCM Magazine, Worship Leader Magazine, UTR Media and more. Written and arranged using hymnals and prayer books for inspiration, this collection of 10 modern hymn-like worship songs will inspire individuals and congregations to draw near to the heart of God. <LYRICS>—hold in name of God.</LYRICS> Highlights include Christ Is Lord, inspired by St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer, Advent Hymn, and the communion hymn, The Invitation. Worship leaders will be glad to know that all songs on the album are published through LifeWay Worship. Find Hymns, Prayers, and Invitations on Amazon, Spotify, Apple Music, CD Baby, and at Rick Lee James.com. .com. Have you ever thought to yourself, man, I'd like to host my own podcast? Well, guess what? You can go to podbean.com/voices and get everything you need to create, manage, and promote your podcast. I use Podbean every week for Voices in My Head. There's easy uploading and publishing tools, stunning templates, custom domains, social and promotional tools, an embeddable podcast player, monetization tools, and more. It is your your all-in-one podcasting solution. With Podbean, you can create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Best of all, everything is mobile ready right from the start. So go to podbean.com/voices, and when you sign up, use the code voices and you'll get a sizable discount. Podbean, for your home podcasting. Thank you for listening to Voices in My Head. Today's podcast is brought to you by Audible. Get a free audiobook download and 30-day free trial at audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. That's audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. Over 180,000 titles to choose from for your iPhone, Android, Kindle, or MP3 player. That's audibletrial.com/voicesinmyhead. Give it a try today. Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer-songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is your source for discussions on music, literature, movies, pop culture, theology, and more. Now sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of the Voices in My Head podcast. And don't forget to let Let the voices in your head be heard by following me on Twitter @RickLeeJames and sharing your thoughts about today's show. Welcome back to Voices in My Head. I'm not sure if you could hear me that first time. Something was going on audio-wise, so hopefully this is better. I'm glad you could be here on this special day. It's, it's a special day because it's Advent, and I love Advent, and all of Advent days are special to me. This is going to be probably a shorter podcast today. It's actually an Advent sermon that I wanted to share with you. I don't get a chance to do a lot of sermons, but this is sort of a mini sermon I want to share, and I'm just going to call it an Advent sermon. Before I do that, I want to let you know, if you have not been following things on my website at rickleejames.com or on Facebook or Twitter, or on Songkick or Bands in Town or any of those places where you follow my scheduling. On the week leading up to Christmas, on the 19th of December, I'm gonna be at 7 o'clock in the morning on Shine FM Ohio for about a 2-hour radio show playing some live music. It's— I'm gonna be guest DJing that day, so I'm— or guest hosting, I guess we would say. But if you are in the Bellefontaine, Ohio area, you can listen to it right on your phone. If you don't live in the Bellefontaine, Ohio area, then you can listen to to it through the app on Shine FM Ohio's website, or you can go to iHeart FM and look up Shine FM, and, uh, or iHeart Radio and look up Shine FM, and you can tune in there. And then just a couple days after that, on Friday the 22nd of December, I am going to be playing a big Christmas show here in Springfield, Ohio at Beacon of Hope store. It's going to be a great night. I'm going to bring in some special guest musicians to play with me, and you can come in and drink good coffee and do your last minute Christmas shopping at Beacon of Hope store and just sit back and enjoy some music. My plan is that almost all the songs— I'll do a couple originals throughout there, but almost all the songs for the evening, I just want to have a time where we can sing together songs that are familiar and have a stress-free time for you. There may be some stress for me, but I want it to be stress-free for you. So please come out and join us. It's going to be a great night on the 22nd of December. If you don't live in Springfield, Ohio, we have lots of hotels right near the venue at Beacon of Hope Bookstore, and there's also a coffee house inside called Kairos Coffee. So if you look up either of those things, you'll be able to see it. Well, with that in mind, I also want to remind you that my albums and my book, Out of the Depths: A Songwriter's Journey Through the Psalms, they make great Christmas gifts for people, and it helps me out as an artist. And we actually do have a a special on the website. If you go to rickleejames.bandcamp.com, if you're gonna buy the album Hymns, Prayers, and Invitations, you can actually get a discount on that album by using the code ADVENTHYMN whenever you are ready to check out. And that's buying a physical copy of the album. As always, if you buy a physical CD, like a real CD you put into your CD player, you will actually get a free digital copy as well at the same time, at the time of purchase. So you can keep the digital for yourself and give the CD away to a relative for Christmas. Or if you buy a whole bunch of them, there's not very much extra money for shipping involved if you wanted to buy like a stack of them and give them to your praise team at church or give them to people in your family. So just keep that in mind. Go to rickleejames.com, you can find more of that. But remember, if you go to rickleejames.bandcamp.com and use the code ADVENTHIM HYMN, Advent Hymn, that you can get— I believe it's a 10% discount on your purchase. So, all right, commercials are over and we're going to get right into this Advent sermon today. So here we are in the season of Advent, and to the world it's the season of Christmas, right? It's a time when we shop for presents, we hang up decorations, we go to work parties, we eat lots of unhealthy but usually very delicious food. However, the Christmas season, it doesn't start until Christmas Day, December 25th. This is the season of Advent, and even in the church it doesn't seem to be celebrated as it should, does it? Advent is the, is the season when we look forward to the birth of Jesus. It isn't Christmas, it is the approach to Christmas. But it's also more than that. See, our Advent hymns, they make it clear we are awaiting the second coming of Jesus. And our lens through which to view his second coming is his first coming, when he was born and was laid in a manger. Advent is a time of waiting, waiting for the Christ child to be born. But his birth can only be understood as we look forward to the second coming In Advent, we sing, "O come, O come, Emmanuel," but we also sing, "Lo, he comes with clouds descending." When we talk about looking forward to the birth of Jesus, we know that it is a figurative way of speaking. The birth of Jesus happened over 2,000 years ago, so we aren't really waiting for Jesus to be born. He was already born. But what we are now looking forward to is Christmas. Our annual celebration of Jesus' birth. It's a holy way of organizing our time, our Christian calendar. Now, Thomas Cranmer, uh, Cranmer rather, who wrote the Book of Common Prayer, he wrote a collect in the Book of Common Prayer that says this: Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light. Now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility, that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal. Through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and forever. Amen. Did you hear the present reality in that? Says, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light. Now, it's a present reality. It's not the past of history, it's not an unknown future. It is the here and now, in this present moment. Then now we are called right now now to cast away the works of darkness. Now, in the time of this mortal life, it says in that collect, each and every moment of our lives, every moment is the time to cast away the works of darkness. Now is the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility, it says. So in Advent, we look back to the birth of Jesus, his life and his ministry on earth. We look forward to his birth at Christmas, and we look further still to his coming again when he will judge the living and the dead. But don't forget the now, the emphatic now of Advent. If we, if all we do in Advent is to look back to Christ's earthly life, and forward to His coming again, then it will make it seem like nothing much is happening in the present. But something truly significant is happening, just as something truly significant happened in the past, and something truly significant will happen beyond history. Don't forget that the same God who is God of the past and God of the future is also active in the present. Right now. To quote one of my songs, well, lyrics to a song that I put words to: Today, tomorrow, and ages past, the Alpha, Omega, the first and last, who is, who was, who is to come, the Father, the Spirit, the risen Son. The is is also part of now. It's not just the past, it's not just the future. As the collect that I read from the Book of Common Prayer said, Give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light. So drawing on the words of St. Paul: Now it is high time to wake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light. The sense of urgency here is enormous. It is time for us to wake up out of our sleep. The moment is critical. The now of Advent is so important. Whether Christ is received into our hearts and whether his love is shown in our lives is so important. The writer of "A Little Town of Bethlehem" took the Christmas story and applied it to our present situation. Listen to these words that maybe you have neglected over the years because the song seems so familiar: How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given. So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of His heaven. No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin— hear that, in this world— where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in. We believe that Christ will still enter into souls that will meet Him in this world of sin, and that heaven truly will come to earth in the now. No ear may hear His coming— what a beautiful line! But in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him still, the dear Christ enters in. It might not be like St. Paul's encounter with the risen Christ on the Damascus road. According to the Gospel, Christ seems to visit us unnoticed in the hungry, the inadequately clothed, in the refugees, in the foreigners, the people in prison. The Gospel seems clear that those who are to inherit eternal life are unaware that Christ has even visited them and that they have even received Him. We see this in the parable of the sheep and the goats. Remember that parable? At the end of all things, and the people who have been blessed by the Lord to enter the kingdom, they say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?" 'When did we see you a stranger and take you in, or naked and give you clothes? Or when did we see you sick or in prison?' And the King will answer them, 'Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of my brethren, you have done it unto me.' This is the central message of Advent. It's the story of our redemption set in the past, and it's a story of judgment and forgiveness that will be realized in the future. But it's also a call to accept Christ in our hearts and lives right here and right now. And we find it on every Sunday of the year. We find it on every day of the year. We find it every time we celebrate Holy Communion together. You know, think about it. The Eucharist is an act of remembrance and anticipation. We're looking back in time and we're looking forward in time. We're looking beyond time. We are being made aware day by day of our place in a great cosmic drama of redemption which gives meaning to every moment of our lives. We also, we feed on Christ in our hearts by faith, with thanksgiving, and in humble prayer, and we pray that as we eat the body of Christ and drink his blood, that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. Unless we allow Christ to enter into our hearts here and now, to visit us in great humility, the story of redemption fails to come alive for us, and the redemption work is not fulfilled in us. So let us cast away the works of darkness. Christians, don't join in with it. Do not be taken in by the politics of your party. Do not join in with the darkness, no matter how dressed up it is, no matter how powerful it looks, no matter how much benefit it may seem to you. If it's darkness, it's still darkness. Do not join with it. Christ has no fellowship with darkness, so how dare we even think of joining with the darkness. We're in a climate full of darkness. We have things coming out every day in the news of people who have traded their souls for pleasure and for taking their power and lording it over other people. So as Christians, we will not support the darkness. We won't support people like Trump or Franken or Moore or any of the movie stars and producers who lord their power over others to exploit them or cause them harm. No, we will speak the truth to them and not be taken in by their ways. We will speak light into the darkness. We will be light in the darkness, because Advent is a time of casting the darkness away. And we will not marry Christ together with Satan, no matter how patriotic Satan claims to be. So as we close our time together on this podcast today, I again visit the Book of Common Prayer: Almighty God, give us grace, that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and forever. Amen. Thank you for joining me here this week on the Voices in My Head podcast. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com, follow me on Twitter @RickLeeJames, like my artist page on Facebook at facebook.com/rickleejames, www.rickleejames.com, and keep up to date on what I'm writing at my author page on Amazon.com. Make sure to follow my calendar on the website, and if you would like to have me come to your town for a concert, a speaking engagement, or a book event, you can book me through my website by clicking on the link for Pare Booking Agency. That's P-A-R-E Booking. And finally, it would mean the world to me if you were to leave me a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast is on the internet. And now the benediction: May the God of peace, who raised Christ from the dead, strengthen your inner being for every good work. And may the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest upon you and dwell within you this day and forevermore. Amen.