Isaac Watts penned Joy tot the World way back in 1719, over300 years ago, and yet it is in the record books for being in the most North American hymnals, 1387 at last count. It was also Time Magazine’s second most recorded song between 1978 and 2014, It is certainly popular and for good reason, Joy and Christmas go together.

In this message we’ll discover the many connections between the words Isaac Watts wrote and the good news that has brought millions of people throughout the world to new life in Christ.

O Holy Night was the #3 most recorded Christmas song between 1978 and 2014 according to a Time Magazine study of copyright information for that 35 year period. It’s clearly one of our favorites.

The song has an interesting back story. The words contain a wealth of gospel content. Singing it leads most of us into meaningful worship. Its worth our time to see what the words convey so that we might sing it with deeper meaning this Christmas.

I love playing and hearing Christmas music during the Christmas season. I know in church we enjoy singing Christmas songs during Christmas. Christmas music puts us in the Christmas spirit, and lets us celebrate what Christmas is really about.

In this message, and the next two, we’ll look a three favorite Christmas songs of our church and they to see how the gospel (which we just studied in the book of Romans) is revealed in them. Hopefully this will allow us to hear and sing them with greater appreciation and to see the entire Christmas story more clearly.  Christmas isn’t just about mangers, shepherds, stars, and wise men as these songs reveal.