Please turn with me to Psalm 98.
Every year, around Advent and Christmas time, one of the songs I look forward to singing the most is Joy to the World. They really are very few songs like it. For most of us who grew up celebrating Christmas in some form or another, this song is a familiar and constant fixture of the season. It is one of those precious few songs, like Amazing Grace, that never really gets old. Most songs in the world have a short shelf life. They come and go quickly. Not so with this classic.
Isaac Watts wrote this hymn in 1719 as his paraphrase of Psalm 98. It was set to its familiar tune over a century later, in 1836.
Watts didn't specifically intend it as a Christmas song. The song is about Jesus’s second coming at the end of history, when He will finally usher in His eternal kingdom.
The Advent season is a time when we reflect on our need for a savior. In preparation for the Christmas season, which starts on December 25, we spend four weeks in Advent, remembering our need for a savior, what life would be like before the Messiah’s first coming, and reflecting on our need for His return.
Since Joy to the World is about the second coming, it became a traditional Advent song. As the distinction between Advent and Christmas has gradually been lost in recent years, it has become known simply as a Christmas song.
But I wonder if you all, like me, sometimes sense a little nagging question, maybe even in the back of your mind, when you sing this song.
And that question is that we seem to be saying that certain things are true, the Lord has come, heaven and nature, sing, he rules the world, he comes to make his blessings flow, the nations prove the glories of his righteousness. But if you look around at the world and the news and the headlines, none of these things seem to be true. We look out at a world in rebellion against Jesus, and that causes some tension in our souls and minds when we sing these words.
This morning, we are going to look through Psalm 98 and the lyrics to this hymn, and ask the question: How are we supposed to sing 'Joy to the World' in a world where Joy often seems absent?
Or is it just that we're missing something? Are we just supposed to pretend that everything is okay this time of year and ignore the darkness in our lives and in the world that seems so overwhelming? Is this song unrealistic and irrelevant to our daily life, or is there something else going on?
I’d argue that Joy to the World is one of the greatest (in my opinion, THE greatest) hymns ever written, specifically because it is a protest song—a way of fighting for joy in a world full of darkness.
When we understand what it is saying, we can sing it loudly and full of hope because Christians know 1) The King is Coming, 2) the Savior-King is Reigning, 3) the sorrow will end, and 4) the King is Bringing Love and Justice.
Let’s take a look.
We Sing Because The King Is Coming
Psalm 98:1–4 (CSB)
1 Sing a new song to the Lord, for he has performed wonders; his right hand and holy arm have won him victory. 2 The Lord has made his victory known; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. 3 He has remembered his love and faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen our God’s victory. 4 Let the whole earth shout to the Lord; be jubilant, shout for joy, and sing.
Watts renders these first four verses in his first stanza:
Verse 1
Joy to the world; the Lord is come; Let Earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare him room, And heav'n and nature sing.
One thing we notice about older hymns is that the language can sound a little funny. We don’t talk that way anymore. As we go, I’ll try to help iron out some of the wrinkles in the language.
Psalm 98 and Joy to the World both speak prophetically. That is, declaring to God’s people what God has promised will happen. As with much of the Bible's prophecy, we can see and experience these things in part now. We see evidence that these things are happening. God has performed wonders! He has achieved victories! But we also know that it seems the victory is not complete. There are still those who oppose God on this earth. Sin, sickness, and sorrow are still around. What gives?
Psalm 98 and Joy to the World are a summons to the whole world to believe God’s promises. He is coming to redeem the entire world, to win victory over sin, sickness, and death. He has proved it through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, and He promises to return.
And so we should receive our King now! Watts chose the word “receive” and “prepare him room in your heart” - meaning not just to greet and welcome, but an older meaning is to experience Him as King by acknowledging that He is your King!It is a call to offer your allegiance to the King of the Universe: Jesus the Christ.
We Sing Because The Savior-King Reigns
Psalm 98:5-8 says:
Psalm 98:5–8 (CSB)
5 Sing to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and melodious song. 6 With trumpets and the blast of the trumpet shout triumphantly in the presence of the Lord, our King. 7 Let the sea and all that fills it, the world and those who live in it, resound. 8 Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains shout together for joy before the Lord,
Watts paraphrases it this way:
Verse 2
“Joy to the Earth, the Savior reigns;
Let men their songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains, repeat the sounding joy.”
The Lord Jesus Christ is King of the universe and the Savior of the whole world. American, Asian, African, European, even Australian! Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Jew, Wiccan, New-Age, Atheist, and Christian, and everything else - are all called to bow before the Savior-King Jesus, to worship Him and sing His praise!
We are to take the hint from the rest of creation, fields, floods, rocks, hills, plants, trees, birds, animals, sun, moon, and stars! They repeat the sounding joy! They echo back and forth with praise to the one true and most high God.
But it doesn’t always seem that way in our experience. Nature, at the moment, can also be very destructive. Wild animals kill. Natural disasters wipe out towns and villages, and disease and hunger ravage. If we think back through the tragic headlines of just this past two weeks, let alone 2025, it is very distressing.
We Sing Because The Sorrow Will End
And this is why Watts adds verse three. Not as a direct paraphrase of any verses of Psalm 98, but as an interlude, a reflection on the things that choke out the joy we’d otherwise experience:
Verse 3
No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found.
Sin, sorrow, thorns, curse. Pulling from the first few pages of Genesis 3. The result of man’s original rebellion against God and his fall into sin: the whole world is under the curse of man’s sin against God, and we experience much pain and sorrow as a result.
Verse three is an opportunity to acknowledge the reality of this life. Sin, sorrow, thorns, and curse infest every nook and cranny of our lived experience, don’t they? Which is why we can sing with such hope and protest against that pain by remembering the promise that God’s blessing will flow into every place where sin, sorrow, thorns, and curses are, bringing healing and blessing.
We experience that in small and temporary ways from time to time in this life! That is a glimpse of the complete healing and blessing that will be brought when Jesus returns.
That will be a great day.
We Sing Because We Know The King is Bringing Love and Justice
And because of that, Psalm 98 calls us, and the whole world, to rejoice! Verse 4 of the Psalm says: “ Let the whole earth shout to the Lord; be jubilant, shout for joy, and sing.” Why? Verse 9 explains:
Psalm 98:9 (CSB)
…for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world righteously and the peoples fairly.
And so Watts has as the final, triumphant stanza of his greatest hymn:
Verse 4
“He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness, and wonders of his love.”
Jesus Christ is currently ruling over the world with Truth and Grace. But the whole world does not yet bow its knee to him.
They will one day.
Philippians 2:7–11 (CSB)
And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. 9 For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow— in heaven and on earth and under the earth— 11 and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
But in the meantime, we Christians do know the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love. The psalm says that he will come to judge the Earth, and that is good news for those of us who know that he is going to judge with righteousness, fairness, and love.
What does Watts mean when he says that Jesus will “make the nations prove the glory of his righteousness and wonders of his love”? The word prove has two edges to it. An older meaning of the word 'prove' means something like 'experience'.
One day, every individual who has ever lived in every nation will experience God's righteousness, love, and justice.
The other edge, the other meaning, is the one we are more familiar with. When God comes to judge, he will do so fairly, righteously, and lovingly. And the way each individual is judged will prove to everyone who is watching that God is indeed righteous in all of his judgments.
Joy to the World is a summons to trust in the goodness, love, justice, righteousness, and mercy of the God of the universe. To bow your knee in worship to him!
Here's the best part of the news about God's goodness and justice. It is where we find the joy we are looking for! The understanding that all of the sorrow and pain and death and thorns we experience in this life are a result of our rebellion against our Good and Wise and Loving Creator — and that through Jesus's life, death on the cross in our place for the payment of the debt we owe God for our rebellion, he offers us for forgiveness and mercy and entrance into the joy we are seeking for the rest of eternity — we can find and cling onto the Hope we so desperately need to live every day with the joy and peace and hope and love that this season of advent celebrates.
I hope, from now on, as you sing this familiar old song, you are able to do it with fresh eyes and ears. That you sing it as a protest against all the darkness and despair this world tries to pin us down with. And are able to more deeply and richly proclaim the Hope we have in the return of our Lord Jesus to right every wrong, bring justice to every injustice, heal every wound, and make blessing flow far as the curse is found.
Let’s pray.
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