God often visits in disrupts our very ordinary lives. He comes among the most ordinary people.
Christmas songs and Christmas carols are all around us, and I think it's a it's a wonderful way to introduce the gospel in a non-threatening way to the world.
I think we need to help those growing up in this culture today to understand there's a whole different issue at Christmas. And and Santa is not God.
Those who keep the law, God says, I'll walk with you and be your God, and you'll be my people. It's what the cross was about. It was what the incarnation was about. So Emmanuel is what it is all about.
Welcome to building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller The Five Love Languages. And Merry Christmas. Thank you for joining us for a great celebration of what happened in Bethlehem 2000 years ago.
Peace on earth. Goodwill to men is straight ahead. And no matter what's going on in this season of your life, there is rest. There is peace, there is joy because of the lengths to which God went to show his love to us.
We're going back in the archives of several years of Christmas programs to present a cavalcade of guests.
Hey, that's a good word. And here's another a cornucopia of Christmas guests and topics. And of course, we have a featured resource for you.
David and Barbara Lehman wrote a book we talked about a few years ago titled Hosanna in Excelsis Hymns and Devotions for the Christmas Season. You can find out more about that at our website. Building relationships us. Just go to building relationships with us.
Before we hear from the Lehmans, we want to start with a bit of conversation Gary had with author and speaker Dan Darling. This is from 2019. They were talking about a little book called The Characters of Christmas. I think this will set the tone of our program today, as Dan talks about the ordinary, everyday people who were living their little lives in the middle of something extraordinary that was happening in their sleepy little town.
Here's Dan Darling talking about what motivated him to study the characters of Christmas.
You know, I've always loved, loved Christmas ever since I was just a little kid. All the traditions that we had and growing up in the church, I loved. When December comes around, I still do, uh, uh, just kind of how our hearts are turned toward, uh, the baby and the manger, the festivity, the lights, but most importantly, that we have an opportunity to focus on the story of God visiting us in Jesus, uh, God coming among the ordinary. And I've always been intrigued by all the
ordinary people who are swept up in this story of Christmas. Uh, those people around our nativity sets, those people, uh, that we dress up to be like, uh, in our pageants, uh, and what their lives must have been like, uh, in that first Christmas.
Why do you think that through the years in our country, uh, Christmas seems to have become more and more commercial, more and more secular? Uh, rather than focusing on the sentiment of Christ's birth?
You know, it's interesting. I think, uh, there's a couple reactions to Christmas that we can have. I mean, one is to be rightly sort of, uh, you know, one wrong reaction is to get caught up in the, the all the everything around Christmas instead of the actual story. I think there is a way to sort of celebrate it without actually focusing on the good news of Jesus coming. I think the other way is to kind of go
the opposite. And sometimes Christians can be cranky. You know, I find myself sometimes having to fight that, like we're so much against that that we're we're sort of the cranky people. And I think at the heart of it is joy is of God coming to earth in the form of a baby. Because of that, we can celebrate. Because of that, we can give gifts and we can we can celebrate if our King has come to renew and restore the world, but also to renew in store, restore our hearts, and we should rejoice.
You know, the whole thing of gift giving, of course, is a big thing at Christmas in our culture. Uh, kids, look forward to the gifts they're going to get. Even adults look forward to the gifts they're going to get. Uh, and sometimes I hear Christians say, well, you know, it's just become a gift giving thing. And we we don't really concentrate on Christ, but but we're not against gift giving, right? I mean, that's one of the five love languages gift giving.
Yes.
I'm not going to be against gift giving when I'm talking to the author of The Love Languages. Um, but I do think I think you're right. I think there's a way that it gets out of hand. And I think in our families, we have to be the ones that are keeping our kids from making that everything. What am I getting and how come I'm not getting this? Uh, in focusing us on this, our kids on the story at hand. At the other hand, you know, being cranky
about it. I mean, if Jesus has come and if this story is true and he is the king and he has come to save us from our sins, it's time for celebration. It's time for feasts and for gift giving to each other. I mean, all through the Bible we see this, right? That that God compelled his people
to celebrate with gift giving and with with celebration. So we shouldn't swing the pendulum back so far that we're we're sort of like these, you know, utilitarian, cranky people that no one wants to be around on Christmas.
Yeah. So we're giving if we just communicate clearly, you know, we give gifts to each other celebrating what God did for us, the great gift he gave us. Tying that together is important, I think, in a Christian home. Right.
I think it is. And I think it's incumbent on parents to set the tone. And I think one of the ways we can do that is having regular times where we go through the Christmas story, celebrating advent every day or whatever our rhythms are, and allowing our kids to to really meditate on on the story in a way that's fun and a way that helps them interact with, uh, Christmas.
Christmas is like a multifaceted diamond. There's so many wonderful spiritual truths that emanate from this story that there's so much that we can easily, uh, take several weeks before Christmas and get our hearts ready.
Yeah. So what you do in this book is you're really digging into the lives of the people who were there, uh, that first Christmas. Uh, not just Christ, you know, born in Bethlehem, but the people surrounding all of that. Uh, which which I think is a fascinating approach to explore the broader picture of what was happening at Christmas.
Yeah. I mean, when we think about Christmas 2000 years later, all these people are larger than life, their characters and our Christmas pageants and their around our nativity sets. But we have to remember that that first Christmas, these were
ordinary people. They didn't know this was coming. There was not big neon signs saying, you know, 25 days till Christmas, uh, for the shepherds and the wisemen and the innkeeper and Mary and Joseph even, I mean, so it tells us, I think, that God often visits in disrupts our very
ordinary lives. He comes among the most ordinary people. And this tells us a little bit something about the kingdom of God, who is the kingdom of God, made up of its, made up of the ordinary, the forgotten, those who are humble enough to receive Jesus.
We hope you're enjoying this special Christmas edition of Building Relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller The Five Love Languages. Find out more by going to Building Relationships with us. Our featured resource today is a book by David and Barbara Lehman titled Hosanna in Excelsis Hymns and Devotions for the Christmas Season that's building relationships.
Us David and Barbara Lehman are both graduates of Biola University School of Music, David's retired director of music and worship, and Barbara has taught music at a private Christian school in Dallas, Texas. They joined Gary two years ago, and Barbara talked about why singing together is so important.
I speak to y'all young moms, first grade moms every year teaching them why singing is important and why music is important. I said, well, the first thing I think is because it's important to God. Take your take your Bible and open it to the middle, and you will find the largest book of the Bible there called the Psalms. It's basically a hymn book right in the middle of the Bible. And these were written to be sung. They're not it's not just poetry. There's psalms to be sung
in praise to God. So God has given us this huge, um, amount of poetry and beauty to praise him with. So that's why it's important. Number one. Number two. I tell them that it's important that we sing because we are redeemed people. We have a song to sing. The very first hymn recorded in the Bible is in the book of Exodus, after the crossing of the Red sea. And the people had left their enemies behind and they were rejoicing.
And the first thing they did was saying, I will sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously, the horse and rider thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. That is our song. We are redeemed people. So it's important that we sing, and it's important that we sing together because it creates a solidarity. The family becomes united, the generations become united. The hymns we have chosen are
cross denominational. So the denominations become united in one voice of praising God for our redemption.
David. Many churches have moved away from traditional hymns and they sing more contemporary songs. Uh, what are we missing by not singing the hymns that people have been singing for hundreds of years?
If you think of, uh, our song canon in churches, what we generally sing, uh, as, like a photograph, uh, book of, uh, history of your family, uh, by not singing the hymns. It's as if we've pulled out all the pictures of Grandma and grandpa, or great grandma and great grandpa and said, we only want to see the people that are alive today. There's nothing wrong with seeing the people that are alive today or singing or singing
contemporary songs. But shouldn't we look at what the legacy was left for us by people who wrote these hymns hundreds, even thousands of years ago that have are so good. They're so such quality that we still sing them today.
They've passed that test of time. So while we think that, uh, we can sing all kinds of hymns and psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, according to the Apostle Paul, we wonder if we've left off too many of the ones that really nurture us and fetus, both on the Christian wisdom that, uh, people like Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts and others bring to us. But, uh, we, we really give, uh, only what's contemporary, the priority. And there's again, nothing wrong
with the contemporary. We're not against that. We're just saying, don't throw out that which has stood and served us and still teaches us today.
One of my favorite carols in the book is probably the oldest text that we have in the book. It comes from the fifth century, and it's, uh, Carol number eight of the Father's Love begotten. The two name is divine Mysterium, divine mystery, and it makes the incarnation and the birth of Christ so mystical and so beautiful. Uh, and I love it because it basically it originates in John one, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He
was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness is not overcome it. And then verse 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. Those words aren't are mysterious when you read them in a way.
And the carol, I think, underscores that of the father's love begotten heir the world's began to be. He is Alpha and Omega, he the source, the ending, he of the things that are and have been. And that future years shall see evermore and evermore. It's put out plainsong chant from the 12th century that is so well paired with the words. And then the second verse has a phrase in it talking about, uh, that Mary has by the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race.
And the babe, the world's redeemer first revealed his sacred face. When I first thought that to the children that I was teaching, it just grabbed me in a way that suddenly, in the manger, we had all of human history. We had, from the promises and the prophets and the history of Israel. Suddenly the promise was here, and there was his face right before them. And that just explodes my imagination. When I think of Simeon in the temple, 400 years of silence.
He was aware of that since they had heard from the prophets. And yet he held in his arms and wanted to behold that sacred face. And what a blessed story that is in our Christmas chapel that we did every year at my school. This was held a very special place. This particular song and the children that read that scripture before it from John one, were usually a first grader and a second grader, and these children would read that it was at service of lessons of carols
that we put together for our Christmas program. And after they would read that and we would sing that carol, it was just a very moving and stunning moment in our in our chapel. Yeah.
You know, Barbara, you divided this collection into three sections. Tell us what they are and why you divide them this way.
Well, the Christmas season has three portions to it. And I think in America today we think about Christmas Day. And that's Christmas is one day of the year. But in the Christian year, it begins four Sundays before Christmas with advent. Advent is a word that means waiting or coming. And we're celebrating the waiting or the coming not only of Christmas that year, but we're remembering the long wait that Israel had waiting for their Redeemer. And I think
it's important that we remember that. And we teach our children that and that. I have a little a poem again, back to my teaching days advent, Christmas, epiphany, Lent and Easter. Alleluia. And a Pentecost event. Christian year, Christian year. Celebrate the seasons of the Christian year as our children learned that every year it helped them. I felt like it helped introduce the gospel story through the life of Christ to children.
I did not grow up in a liturgical church that celebrated the different seasons of the Christian year, but I found that I grew to love them as an adult. What I understood the better what I understand, the coming of Christ and waiting and lighting the advent calendars that brings great meaning and anticipation to something besides opening up presents on Christmas morning. And then, of course, Christmas is our second section and we call it in our book.
We call it the Nativity. Thus, all the songs in that section starts before Christmas, but they're all songs of the angels and the tivity the story of the birth. And then after Christmas Day begins the season of epiphany. I think this one is probably the least known of the three that the three sections or the three seasons of the Christmas year to us. And yet to me, it's wonderful because epiphany is about the story of the three wisemen coming. They follow the light. Light is a
sign of epiphany. Epiphany is a word that means I get it. I finally understand it's an epiphany to me. The light bulb goes on and the light bulb that goes on that is so amazing is that Jesus did not just come to the Jewish people, the Israelites. He came for all of us. We are the ones who we Gentiles are the ones who were afar off and brought near. So I think epiphany is totally appropriate for
us to celebrate after Christmas. Because if the part of the Christmas story where we come in, that includes us, and I love teaching that to the children every year as we go through those, the various carols, I wanted to make, note to it that we have a section that describes each of those in our book, Advent Activity at Epiphany, but we also placed poetry, Old English poetry that we found by Robert Herrick, uh, before the advent. What sweeter music can we bring then a carol for
it to sing? The next two sections that John Milton poem on Christmas morning. We took selections from that to help just add beauty to the book, describing the more beautiful way those three seasons of Christmas.
Yeah. You know, I'm guessing, Barbara, that a lot of us who did not grow up in liturgical churches really have never really sensed the depth of what you just walked us through, you know, advent, Nativity, epiphany. And that's why I think this book is going to be kind of a fresh light on the whole Christmas season for for many Christians who did not grow up in liturgical,
you know, services. So, you know, to me, I think you're giving a great service just in those three things, you know, and focusing on those three things.
So thank you.
David. We usually use the term Christmas carols, but you're calling them Christian hymns. What's the difference?
Well they're really synonymous, but with a distinction. A carol is not necessarily a sacred song. Uh, the people would call Jingle Bells A Christmas Carol. Uh, maybe as Christians, we we wouldn't. But to the world, that's what's seen. And generally the word carol defines something that's a little bit light hearted. Uh, and you can dance to it has that sense. But, uh, these songs in the, in the book could be called carols, but we call them hymns because hymns are always a sacred text, a text
about a deity. And so that's what they are to us. But again, uh, they're both.
Yeah. Okay. So we have a choice. We can sing Christmas hymns, a Christmas carols. I like that distinction because I think you're exactly right. Barbara, give us another carol and give us the story again.
This is a carol by association. I love by association. It's called Once in Royal David's City. It was written by an Irish woman, Cecil Alexander, who started writing poetry very young and continued. Her right. And she decided to do a set of poems to teach children the meaning of each of the phrases of the Apostle's Creed. And she wrote once in Royal David's City for the for the part of the creed that says, born of a virgin, and laid in a manger, born of the Virgin Mary.
And so it begins with telling that that sweet, simple story. Another word about her that I just wanted to say is that I want us to remember that these people who wrote these were they were they were poets. They were learned people. And of this particular author, one time she wrote a poem called The Burial of Moses, and it caused Alfred, Lord Tennyson, to say that it was one of the few poems by another author that he
wished he himself had written. And I tell that story just to say it elevates who we're reading, and the worth of why it is important for us to pay attention to these kind of old, dusty poems. Maybe that we haven't thought about it a long time. Again, this song is used in the Lessons and Carols service that King's College does. And, uh, each year it begins the service.
And several years ago, at the um, encouragement of one of our parent school parents and board members, his name is Stephen Nelson, and I don't know if any of you are familiar with Stephen, but he's a concert pianist who used to be part of the duo Nelson and Young. And he suggested to me why don't we do a service of lessons and carols? And then he proceeded to
help us each year, put this together. And also he I just want you to know that that the piano recording we have of all these carols is Stephen Nelson playing. So you can sing as a family, being accompanied by a concert pianist, if you care to, to do that. Anyway, at the beginning of the service we have the service starts with my great privilege every year was to choose the child that would learn the first verse and would
sing it acapella unaccompanied to begin the service. And the most poignant point of that service to me was after a beautiful prelude, the church is quiet, probably a thousand 1200 people sitting in silence, and they're all waiting for one thing. They're waiting to hear that small voice from the back of the room, begin acapella and walk down the aisle singing this one simple, beautiful verse together, alone. And then we join on the second verse. The whole congregation.
To me, that was a more moving than any Christmas pageant that you could ever could ever put on, because it was a group of people and parents and students and children joining together and singing that wonderful story and waiting for that moment when the when the story was told. Once in a while, David City stood a lonely manger shed. And then it goes on to talk about Jesus as our childhood pattern. And our eyes at last shall see him. It takes us on to heaven. All of the stories there.
Jesus. Fraser. Trotwood. Barton de Boyd. My gosh, he grew. He was little. Weak and helpless. Tears. Girls like us. He knew. For. A sadness. Addition. You know la gladness. And our eyes are glad. Shall see. Through his. Redeeming love. For the child so dear. And Chantal is. To. Two children. He is gone.
Ah! Do you hear the hope.
In those last words? And he leads his children on to the place where he has gone. The birth of Jesus led to his victory over death and his gift to us of eternal life in him.
This is building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman, author of the New York Times bestseller The Five Love Languages. On our Christmas special edition of the program, we're hearing some moments from past programs, and in this segment, we'll hear from David and Barbara Lehman.
They put together our featured resource, Hosanna in Excelsis Hymns and Devotions for the Christmas Season. You can find out more at building relationships.us. That's building relationships.us.
Barbara, in this last segment, you gave us a visual picture of a student. A young student might be first grader singing acapella, the first stanza of this song. So we got this picture in our minds. Now we're seated there with these 1200 people. Read that stanza again and let us all experience the truth about which this child is singing happily.
Once in Royal David's city stood a lowly cattle shed, where a mother laid her baby in a manger for his bed. Mary was that mother mild. Jesus Christ, her little child.
Well, I think all of us can feel that, you know, we could, we can. We can see that child singing it and we can see what the child is singing about. So I did that because I want our listeners to get a feel for what this devotional book can really do for them individually as well as for for the family. So, David, give us another Carol and the story.
Let me talk about one that, when it was written in the 1800s, would never have been sung in church. And the reason is it would have been considered much, much too frivolous, too happy. And, uh, they were somber and, uh, severe in their celebration of worship. And yet it was, uh, probably used because the people loved it so much. But no one claimed the authorship. It's totally, uh, anonymous because
they didn't want to be censored by the church. Do you have any guess as to what, uh, that Carol is? It's God rest you merry, gentlemen.
Oh.
Yes.
So we don't know exactly when it was written. Uh, a precise date. Uh, and obviously, who wrote it? But somewhere in the 1800s. And it, uh, brought joy to people. Uh, Charles Dickens employed the song in A Christmas Carol, but it was way too much joy for Scrooge. He rejected it at all and proclaimed, but we think it's a wonderful song. It's a little bit more horizontal in direction than vertical toward God. It's really to encourage one another. Uh,
God rest you, you see. And don't let anything dismay you. Remember, Christ, our Savior was born on Christmas Day to save us from Satan's power when we had gone astray. And then it always ends with this short refrain. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy. Two pillars that the the songwriter said we need in our lives. And oh boy, is it not true today. Comfort and joy. Well. And so it's a great, uh, song to take. Uh, we always try
to do some caroling in our neighborhood. I play the accordion, and I strap it on and grab another few Christian families and walk up and down our street singing songs like God Rest Your Merry Gentlemen and others that are familiar because we think it's a wonderful way to share Christ at Christmas with our neighbors. Yeah.
Well, I hope Covid will not keep you from doing that this year. You know, maybe I can stand six feet apart while they sing.
Okay. Of course, of course.
At least we're.
Outside. Absolutely.
You know, Barbara, I know that you have a heart for those who feel intimidated about singing with others, you know, in a public gathering or maybe sometimes even in the family, and they feel like they can't sing well, you know, and so they're reticent. What would you say to those people?
Well, the first thing I would say to them is sing.
Uh.
God has given us a gift of song to all people. And every person that can speak can sing. And I think that the culture has given us a different message telling us, well, there are singers and their listeners, and I often have people say to me, oh, you don't want to hear me sing? And I would like to say to them, oh, yes, I would love to hear
you sing. And I think that the fact is that people feel because of this, um, performance mentality that we have had, which was really only been around the last couple hundred years. Um, I think before that everyone sang more. That was the only music. If you wanted music, you provided it for yourself. But that performance mentality has given us a sense that we're being judged by our singing, and no one should ever feel judged by their singing.
And so I would simply encourage people, even if you haven't grown up singing or you're not used to it, just just try, you know, just get it out there. I think parents of young children know that you're a young child can learn to sing. It's much harder as an adult, but little children can all learn to sing. And so I think that's one of my, um, vocations in life, is to encourage people to sing.
You know, I'm thinking also, if you're standing in a congregation singing and you happen to be a musician, I mean, you know, trained musician, I hope in hearing the person next to you maybe missing a note here or there, you would just say, God bless them. I'm glad they're singing.
Amen, Amen. Absolutely.
Well, David, there's a song you included that I don't think I've ever heard. Uh, why did you include here's the name of the song on Jordan's bank, The Baptist Cry.
Well, it's not talking about Baptist by denomination. It's talking about John the Baptist, who obviously had a very important part in the Christmas story because he was a foretelling of Jesus. And I think he needs to have some recognition for that. And so this, this great hymn, uh, it is true. I'm not surprised you don't know it. Uh, not very many people sing it. Although would you believe
it's found in 145 modern hymnals? Hmm. But it was written in, uh, the late 1600s and, uh, by a person who was trying to teach people against some of the doctrines of the Catholic Church. And, uh, he it's only the first verse that really refers to John the Baptist. From there on, it goes on to exclaim the Christmas story, the mystery of the incarnation, and it guides us through our repentance that, uh, is part of the advent expression. So it is a in our advent, uh, part of
the book. And it encourages and the gift of grace by which without we're doomed as flowers bright for a season than gone. We know that the only way that our current political issues and social problems will be solved is by the power of Christ and the grace of forgiveness. And so it has that all in this, in this song. And we just felt we have 43 hymns and it was not easy choosing which ones should go in this.
We stopped at 43 because we wanted one for every day at the beginning of advent, which is four weeks, the the Sunday, four weeks before Christmas Day and then through January 6th, which is the epiphany. And so that's how we came up with 43, and we tried to use all the most familiar, uh, carols, The First Noel and Silent Night and so forth. But then we were able to include a few of these, like on Jordan's bank, that are not as familiar.
To you. Oh Christ, our praises beam.
Was heard and states. Were people free by the grace. We adore and Holy Spirit and.
Well, this is building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman. We hope you're enjoying our Christmas special. And we're going to end with a guest whose music is known by generations of Christians around the world. Singer and songwriter Michael Card.
Michael joined us a dozen years ago, and we talked about the people who populate the Christmas story. And then he got personal about his own walk with God. Here's Michael Card.
Well, I grew up in a Christian home. Both of my grandfathers were were Baptist ministers. So, I mean, Jesus was always this person. He was always this presence in our in our house. Um, my father was a doctor, but he was a Christian doctor who prayed with his patients. My mother loved the scriptures. I mean, so I was, I, I grew up in, in, in a very good context. I'm very thankful that I grew up in this context.
I don't have a real flashy testimony. And I walked the aisle when I was eight, but I was still say, there's this. There's this moment in everyone's life when it has it has to become your own. When you have to make it your own, you know, there are no God has no grandchildren. And for me, I, I didn't do it very gracefully, to be honest with you. I was in high school and got real serious with reading
my Bible. Didn't have much of a prayer life when my mother said she said, once you're when you're 16, you don't have to go to Sunday school anymore, okay? And so the day I turned 16, buddy, I was out of there because I was very serious about the Bible and and very critical of my church. And it became very critical of my family and with complete jerk. And, um, so I when I came to faith on my own and made it my own, I'm afraid I didn't do it very gracefully. But God, still, he brought me back
around and blessed me. And my parents forgave me.
You know, Michael, I think you put your hand on something there of of sometimes walking away from God because of what you see in the church, maybe as an organization or sometimes in people. And I wonder today, uh, when people see Christians in America, I wonder if they're drawn to him or if they see in us things that push them away from him.
Yeah.
And I'm afraid we all know the answer to that question. Um, but the good news is that I think God is still doing his thing and and that there's still so many individuals, there's so many people who love the Lord and, and are are on a one on one, you know, basis are going, you know, going, doing racial reconciliation, doing
neighborhood renewal, reaching out to, you know, Aids victims. And I mean, who all all those people that that, uh, oftentimes for theological reasons, the church quits reaching out to. I've still got to believe, you know, God doing his thing and, uh, but, uh, but it breaks my heart, uh, Gary, that. Yeah, that that's so often where our where our own worst enemy. But again, the fleet of the life of Jesus. What happens early in the ministry of Jesus? He's he's just
like Paul. He's preaching in synagogues. And he he preaches that sermon in Nazareth where he says that there are all these times that God reached out to the Gentiles before he reached out to the Jews, and that's it. They kick him out of the synagogue. He never goes back. So organized religion, you know, didn't didn't embrace Jesus, uh, very well either. So it's always been a struggle.
Chris brought up the concept that one of the names of Jesus is Emmanuel, which which means.
Which.
Means God with us, which, uh, which is his incarnation name. And, uh, it's the perfect name. Um, because what I, I like to, I like to think that it embraces the whole Bible because it's the deepest desire of God is to be with us. That's what the garden we saw in the garden after the fall. Right after the fall, God is still saying, Adam, where are you? Because his his deepest desires to be with us. Then he gives us the law, the purpose of the law is that we might. Be
with God. The promise in Leviticus is that, uh, those who keep the law. God says, I'll walk with you and be your God, and you'll be my people. It's what, uh, the cross was about. It was what the incarnation was about. It was, um. The last words from his lips were, I behold, I'm with you see, the God who's with us. And then the climax of the Bible in Revelation 21, John hears a loud voice saying, it lasted. Dwelling of God is with men and women, and he will live
with them. So Emmanuel is what it is all about.
Yeah.
You know, I was reading, uh, just recently again, Michael, uh, Matthew chapter one, where it lists the genealogy of Jesus, uh, traced back through Joseph. And I was astounded at so many people in that list who were liars, who were murderers, who were who were prostitutes. And they're all in the genealogy of Jesus. Right. That gives hope, does it not? For people today who may feel no hope in their life, in their relationships?
Oh, absolutely. And I you know, when I look at my own life and see what a liar and what a cheater and, you know, uh, uh, how in so many ways I've, uh, I've fallen short, um, I, I, I always, always look back and realize, you know, that. But that's all. All God has to work with is people with mixed motives. And, uh, the people in that genealogy. Right. And God, you know, God love him. I mean, I love the man, but I think Billy Graham would tell you all he's got is mixed motives, right? That's all
any of us have. And so isn't it wonderful that, um, God allows us to be part of this? I saw this in Mark for the first time. Jesus begins his preaching ministry before he calls his disciples. He could have done it without them. Yeah, but isn't it isn't it amazing that after he begins his preaching ministry, he he he calls us, uh, to be part of what he's doing and, uh. Wow, what an incredible privilege that is.
Yeah.
You know, you mentioned Billy Graham. I was up at the Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center, just recently, and I saw a quote on the wall and in the little, uh, museum part there, uh, where Billy had said about his ministry and his life, I just feel like a spectator standing back watching God work.
Wow, wow. Now, for Billy Graham to say that, I mean, it's one thing for me to say that, for Billy Graham to say that. But that's true for us all, isn't it? I mean, my, my my approach to ministry when I mean, whenever I do a concert or speak or whatever it is I do, I always stop and say, okay, uh, one, don't humiliate yourself to don't mess up what God's doing, right? God's doing something. Don't you dare mess that up. Okay, so now, now go do whatever it is you're supposed to do.
Don't get in his way.
Don't get in his way.
Well, Michael, it's been great to have you on the program today. And we're going to close with your song, Emmanuel, can you tell us how you came to write this song?
Well, this this song came from our wedding. Uh, the the sermon that was preached at our at our wedding, uh, 30 years ago by William Lane was, uh, it was a Christmas wedding, uh, December 14th. And, uh, the message that Bill preached was in the context of marriage. Emmanuel, if God is with you in the context of your marriage, who could ever be against you? And, uh, I wrote that song. It came out maybe, maybe a year later. And Bill, uh, calls me and, uh, says, oh, Michael,
I just heard you. This your song? Emmanuel. What a marvelous use of Scripture you have. And I laughed. I said, Bill, that was your sermon that you preached at our wedding. And he laughed. He belly laughed on the phone. He said, well, I did think it was particularly fine. But that's where that song came from. That's how our marriage started, was with hearing this word if God is with you, then who could be against you?
Well, Michael, it's been great to have you with us today. God bless you. Hope you have a wonderful Christmas season.
Thank you so much. And the same. Right? Right back to you, Doctor Chapman and and Andrea and Chris. Always good to be with you guys.
Michael Card from a conversation more than a decade ago. And we hope you've enjoyed our Christmas special here. On building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman.
For our featured resource. Go to Building Relationships with us and you can see the Lehman's book Hosanna in Excelsis. You can also find simple ways to strengthen relationships right there. So go to Building Relationships with us.
Thanks to Steve Wick and Janice backing next week, our final program of 2023. Don't miss it!
Building relationships with Doctor Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. As we conclude our program, here are some final musical thoughts from Michael Card.
What will be your answer? Oh, will you hear the call? Of him who did not spare his son. We gave him for us all. On earth, there is no power. There is no depth or. Could ever separate us. In my. Stand again. Our God is with. Those in my. Against us. Will be my.