Go Tell it on the Mountain

Today on Summit life with Jeannie Greer after he talked about the death of Jesus Christ and how the Messiah would die for our sins. Isaiah says this in chapter 52 verse seven how beautiful upon the mountains, go tell it on the mountain of the feet of him brings good news publishers, PC brings good news of happiness republish his salvation. He says Zion your God reigns with. I'm your host only bit of edge and for a special treat as the Senate worship team opens our message with a stirring rendition of the popular Christmas classic.

Go tell it on the mountain.

It's the first message in a short new teaching series that we've titled Carol's always great to know the back story of something popular is it so will be looking at the history and meaning behind a couple of popular Christmas songs over the next days, so if you're not quite in the Christmas spirit yet not you ever so gently with today's message that before Pastor JD begins to join the Senate worship team laying on them all. You go on see me exactly wrote go tell the mountain but we do know that it was a slave song is likely composed in the South sometime between 1848 to 60. Right before the United States Civil War. The text of the song goes like this. While shepherds kept there watching over silent flocks by night behold throughout the heavens there shone a holy light.

Shepherds feared and trembled, when low above the earth rang out the Angel chorus, that hailed our Savior's birth down in a lowly manger the humble Christ was born in God.

Set salvation that blessed Christmas morn.

He made me a watchman upon the city wall. If I am a Christian I am the least of all, go tell it on the Mountain, over the Hills and everywhere go tell it on the mountain. Jesus Christ is born so much wonderful imagery in this song. The song appears to be based on two primary passages of Scripture. First, obviously the store. The shepherds in Luke chapter 2. Second, maybe less. Obviously, Isaiah 52 seven. If you have a Bible and invite you to open it to Isaiah 52, seven, 72, seven, where the prophet Isaiah foretells a day when the good news of the Messiah will be announced throughout the whole earth.

Isaiah wrote these words literally 750 years before Jesus Christ was born in after he talked about the death of Jesus Christ and how the Messiah would die for our sins, Isaiah says this in chapter 52 verse seven how beautiful upon the mountains, go tell it on the mountain of the feet of him brings good news publishers, PC brings good news of happiness republish his salvation. He says Zion your God reigns.

So the writer of this Carol. This slave says go to the mountains and tell this good news about Jesus being born how explain the importance of the mountain imagery in a moment but first, know that the apostle Paul is going to use this exact same text in Isaiah as his primary tax for establishing the Christian mission, which is what Christians call the great commission in Romans 1014, Paul explains the urgency of the gospel, how Jesus Christ died to make a way for every people, every time to be able to come to God and that people need to accept the gospel and to receive it for themselves if they're going to be saved and then Paul concludes that explanation of the urgency of the gospel with these words. Romans 1014 and 15.

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed in our they do believe in him, in whom they have not heard how are they to hear without somebody preaching and how can they preach unless they are sent as it is written. Isaiah 52. Seven. How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news. So what this song dies in picking up on Isaiah 52 seven. It does what the apostle Paul did is it takes this verse and it connects the Christmas story to the great commission and it highlights in so doing, it highlights three very important and I would say rather surprising things about the good news about the good news of Christmas and they are these three number one, to whom the good news comes number two what the good news brings in the number three where the good news sins number one, to whom the good news comes this song notes in the first three verses of the song that the message came first to the shepherds.

Now that the slave who wrote the song felt drawn to the story of the shepherds is not surprising since shepherds were considered to be the lowest class of people in Jewish society at the time, much like the slaves would then consider the lowest class in their time, we have this romanticized version of the Nativity often tell you this where you shepherds of these good-looking strapping young men and cool outfits with sashes and bandannas which we assume work cooler first century kind of way.

Their faces are reverent there, sitting there humbly pondering the mysteries of the Christ child that is not at all. The picture that you get if you understand the culture of the Bible shepherds were basically homeless people. There were always dirty. I mean they stayed outside with animals for weeks at a time.

They were the kind of people that you could smell before you solve them.

When you were a grown man and you were still a shepherd. That meant a total life when you are asked at a party. What does your son do you never wanted answer.

He's a shepherd. The next question will be, will what went wrong and why what happened. He was to have so much promise.

They were considered respectable citizens either since they had to work seven days a week so they could take us out of all the never went to Temple shepherds were so low in Jewish society that rabbinic tradition tells us.

Their testimony was not even accepted in court. So needless to say, they're not the typical candidates to receive the first announcement about the birth of the King of Kings have a friend who is a CEO of a really successful startup company here in the Triangle in 2008, then presidential candidate Barack Obama asked if he could launch his campaign in North Carolina from the steps of the sky's office building in the research Triangle Park. It's not hard to see why this company was very successful. It was young it was innovative, it represented the future and so that campaign wanted to identify itself with that kind of young aspiring successful leader. That's not a whole hard at all to understand what is hard to understand is why the Angels would choose to inaugurate Jesus's beginning of his kingdom with a group of people. Most despised in Jewish society. Why did they do it that way. The answer is very simple it was to demonstrate from its inception on earth. The very nature of the gospel itself. You see them coming to the shepherds, God reached down to those that everybody considered to be on the bottom showing that there was no one to broken no one to pour no one to it then significant for Jesus's kingdom. In fact, to find out in the ministry of Jesus that he prefers the poor and the broken. Why would he prefer it's because they're in a better position to receive the good news. They realize they needed. The essence of sin, you see the core element of sin is pride and pride is just the idea that we don't really need God that were sufficient without him whenever you're rich in something whenever you're successful whenever you're respectable in some area of your life, it often usually delude you into thinking you don't really need God in that area of your life. So those who are rich in money for like they got enough money to guarantee tomorrow so they don't think much about needing to stay right with God in order to guarantee their security for the future of money to guarantee their future. That's why Jesus said it's easier for a camel to go to be. I've annealed it is for Richmond to go to heaven. Why, because they'll never come up. Why were they realize just how much they need God. Those who are rich in talent or good looks, feel like they have everybody else's approval so they don't really think that much about God's if I got everybody else told me I'm awesome. I'm not that obsessed with whether or not God thinks I'm awesome. Those who are rich in moral goodness. Those who are respectable those who are looked up to assume that if God can accept anybody. Boys can accept them well kind of thing the God rage on the curb were like if God accepts anybody. I'm definitely you're respectable and people think that I'm awesome like this is always going to ask, except me. But this sense of self sufficiency distance of respectability is all an illusion. One conversation with a doctor that you were expecting. After a routine checkup can shatter everything in your life and some of you know that from experience one conversation, one phone call telling you there's been a wreck. There's been a wreck involving your wife and your children can destroy everything that you cherish most in life. One unexpected summons in your bosses office on a Friday afternoon could ruin all your financial prospects and if you think that your good people respectable decent people. It's just because we compare ourselves to the wrong standard.

I told you before that whenever I start feeling good about myself.

Which happens from time to time. It's always because I'm just comparing myself to somebody else and they cannot do a lot better than their doing see that I look into God's word in a circle. See what Jesus said about those who enter the kingdom of heaven.

Many make statements like this, he said, he said. Matthew 18 that I had to be so surrendered to him. If I want to go into his kingdom that he told me to sell everything and give it to the poor.

I would do it without a second thought. He told me that if I wanted to enter the kingdom of heaven.

My heart had to be so full of love that when somebody stole my jacket from me.

My first impulse.

My instinct was to offer them.

My shirt also told me that if I wanted to enter his kingdom. Matthew five my heart had to be so pure that I never even thought lustfully about somebody who was not my spouse.

I start looking into the right standard and I realize that underneath all this religious makeup. I know that I'm a dark hearted center and maybe I am better than you.

Some of you in certain areas. Maybe you're better than me but the point is what you does means are we not put her makeup on better want to show the makeup away away you see that you are a dark hearted senator like me about my life throughout my life I realize I've been one of the most self-willed, rebellious, deceitful people I've ever known. And maybe this is because I know what's inside my heart more than I know what's in yours. See, I always thought I knew best and I've always wanted to do things my own way. The person who is lied to and disappointed and broken more promises to me than anybody else is me. I am a dark hearted center and I have no hope of earning God's favor. So the question is no longer how good you have to be to earn God's favor.

That's a nonstarter. The only question when you understand things are. Do you realize you're so bad that you can never earn God's favor, God's favor, has to be received as a gift. It's the only way it can be received. It cannot be merited or earned and shepherds and slaves are usually the better position to be able to realize that that's what Jesus in Luke 18 tells a story that was scandalous to think about it today still scandalous, but it was especially scandalous background I'm resisting and going to the temple to pray, one man, everybody recognizes its religious leader in the local synagogues got up I was up to. Don't think religious hypocrite. By the way, this is not what Jesus was presenting were talking about the kind of guy in the summit church that everybody knows there's your prayer leader ma'am it is time to pray that God is always there defraying loud mainframe heart there's you he's got greener buddy at the door. He's a guy that that does childcare volunteers and nobody also volunteer. He's a guy who serves on the deacons even were talking some of you like that. God is awesome and Jesus as he comes down front to pray because that's where people like the CMI goes on front by spraying thinking about all the righteous things he's done and how God must surely happy because all those righteous things that he's done that kinda guarantees his place of God Jesus. It is another man stands in the back stage the back for two reasons. One, or buddy. HME is a tax collector, tax collectors and their days were the lowest of the low, morally speaking, because they were traitors.

They extorted money from Jewish people to give it to the Roman oppressors and so were talking bottom of the barrel for them to restain about their he's hated but is also standing back there because he knows that he is so wicked that he doesn't have any place in God's kingdom and he stands back Bayern. All he does. You didn't pray and think about his righteousness, he lays on his face and he beats his chest beats his chest and Jesus is. He says over and over. Can God be merciful to me a sinner and in Jesus is the most scandalous thing this is one of those men went home justified one of those men went home right with God.

And it's not the one that the Jewish people. Another one that many of us would think it was in the man that everybody looked up to.

It was the tax collector because this man came in this good man came in with his righteousness, which is no righteousness at all in God's sight and he left without righteousness, but that tax collector came in with only the knowledge of his guilt and he left with the gift righteousness of Jesus Christ and a gift righteousness of Jesus Christ. His righteousness indeed.

And because he was in a place where he knew he needed it than he was more liable to receive it than those who were morally respectable. She shepherds and slaves and tax collectors are usually in a better place to receive the gospel than those of us who were not any of those three things, because when you're flat on your back usually look in the right direction. You don't have to be a shepherd.

You don't have to be a slave you have to be a tax collector to be saved, but you have to have the heart of one to be saved. You have to become like a child slave, a tax collector in a shepherd because you have to know your need in Christianity all you need is need, but you need me.

Even if you don't have me then you will have Jesus number two what the good news brings the good news comes number two what the good news brings like many Negro spirituals. This song focuses on God's promise of relief from suffering. You see a slaves the world they lived in was a terrible world full of injustice and pain but they knew that the birth of Jesus Christ was bringing about a new world in which sin and suffering and slave masters would no longer reign over them. So again Isaiah 52 seven the writer this careless thinking about how beautiful upon the mountains of the feet of Emma brings good news publishers piece suit brings good news of happiness and publishes salvation says design your God reigns.

The most famous Christmas Carol in the world Joy to the world was written by man Isaac Watts in the midst of intense suffering and joy to the world was a declaration that sin and suffering and injustice did not rain. They would not have the last word that God reigns. In fact, that's the way he phrased it in the song Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns in one of the most my favorite phrases from the Christmas Carol.

He he says this he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found everywhere. The curse is found everywhere. The curse is touched everywhere.

The curse is broken but for the Savior's gonna reverse the curse. He's going to heal what is broken, this slave that wrote the song had felt the sting felt the sting of the curse in just about every area of his life. The curse was felt in the shame of his subjugation. The curse was felt to be injustice and abuse that he had endured at the hands of others.

It was felt in the thankless toil that he endured at the oppression of others. It was felt in the broken family that he was probably a part of. We've all heard the horror stories of families in and in it and slave culture. When I bid that the kids get older that that the slave master takes the kids and sells them in separate these family separate husbands and wives them fathers and sons and mothers and daughters of the never see each other again. This man had felt the curse in every area of his life and the good news that he is declaring there's all this is temporary and Jesus one day will reverse all of that in establishing a new world. Joy my opinion.

We'll talk about this aspect of the gospel enough we talk about salvation is God's forgiveness of our sins about him wiping the slate clean about him removing our guilt before God and that the gospel certainly is. But the gospel is also healing, Jesus didn't just died to take away the guilt of our sin he resurrected to reverse the pain of our sin's resurrection is a reversal of the curse. A recent study I looked at showed it to thirds of evangelical believers, which just be people in churches like this one don't think we'll have a body in heaven. Only love about and we discover a Bayern would assert in the presence of God were float around or play harps and Unisom and I'm not going to stop, but that's no heaven is the Bible's name for heaven is listen. The new heavens and the new earth rights a new heavens and new earth means old heavens older, not some fundamentally different, something that's like the old one. Just not broken down and just a lot better. I know I gotta be honest I love sitting on imagining what that is what's I like what is a glorified ribeye taste like about indoor ribbon I like about the cursed one. What is the heel Montes like I don't think will meet in heaven. Jesus, a fish after he resurrected from the dancer boom and got put on the Bible for people like me come was a heavenly Grand Canyon look like was the heavenly Hawaii look like that's the cursed Hawaii was a real Hawaii look like where is the curse. Where's the curse touched the earth because that's the place of God can reverse it as you heal it. Where is it touched you did your marriage there were the curse touched you is in your physical body is it in your with your children is in your job been reading Isaiah this week in my own time of God. I came across a verse that he will I absolutely love and I just forget about that been a read it again and like all of his first is a 4922 this is what the sovereign Lord says was in this in that day, give the signal was also a signal I can be like and they will carry your little sons back to you in their arms and will bring your daughters back to you on their shoulders was at me to the slave.

It meant that that family that it been torn apart by injustice would one day be restored right. The means of that parent. He's lost a child lost a son to an untimely death is going to see that son brought back.

I would assume by the Angels and their arms without lost daughter who died when she was four years old carried back to you on the Angels on the shoulders of the Angels. What a glorious day that will be. That's good news for shepherds. That's good news for slaves. That's good news for people who have walked to the valley of the shadow of death, and it's good news for people who suffered and it's good news for people that are in pain and is good news for you and for me, number three, where the gospel where the good new sentence to whom it comes what it brings. Number three where the GNU sends this Christian brother of ours. This slave is you gotta tell this everywhere is the good news really means and there's nobody to lowly forgot to pursue the good news means that there's no one so insignificant that God would overlook them if there is no one so guilty that God would forsake them know once or broken the God when the ailment no one so lost that God couldn't find them. If Jesus really is able to save to the uttermost all come to God, the faith in his finished work than you gotta tell this everywhere because there is no element of society know people on earth. No brokenness that this message of salvation will not penetrate and heal me. Now explain the mountain imagery because I think we're in place where we can understand it easy in those days most cities in the Middle East were settled between mountains and so in a day before cell phones before radiocommunication when the city was awaiting some kind of news. Maybe it was why a battle that was taking place that threatened their kingdom.

The city waiting on this news would look up to the top of the mountains because of the first place.

You see the messenger come carrying the good news she had the watchmen on the city walls who are waiting and watching, looking on the crest of the mountain for the messenger to come over the mountain with the flag of a certain flag that represented this is good news and then the watchmen would begin to publish the news that the messenger is coming. The battle has been one and we have been saved.

That's what a writer of go tell it on the Mountain uses that 1/5 verse, the watchmen on the wall the watchmen upon the city wall.

He made me that watchmen I'm the one who, it seems salvation on the one who is experienced in and I can tell the rest of the city. I get the tell these people that salvation is come. See Isaiah 52. Isaiah imagines groups of people scattered all over the world in different cities and different nations, different languages, different situations and different classes of people all waiting all waiting overwhelmed and oppressed by the curse scared of doubt without hope. Here comes the messenger to announce the battle is over the kingdom has been no will not win the victory so we go tell it on the mountains over the hills everywhere to all groups of all peoples and all places with a message titled, go tell it on the mountain here listening to Senate life with pastor JD Greer if you enjoyed today's message and music and you'd like to hear it again. You can do so online, free of charge. JD Greer.com all agree that 2021 was not significantly better than 2020 disabling our world continues to face hardening hardship and uncertainty, and it may feel like hope is in short supply to be right, JD. You know what you mean Molly, we have all had to find a new normal. As we enter yet another year of not knowing what the future holds. I would say my family could not have made it through thus far without the support and encouragement of our family, our local church or the summer church and folks like you are our Summit live audience in the Christmas season and it reminds us that our God is not a God who is a far off got a God who is unfamiliar with pain God who leaves us alone in her loneliness he enters into with acts as we close out 2021. I would love to ask you to consider becoming one of her first 500 gospel partners in the that's on a monthly giving commitment that enables us to take the gospel new places and planned impact people. One thing to say right here Summit life. You don't get to Senate life is much as you get through Senate life. Your giving impact with the gospel is our joy to be able to doing that.

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