How does a worship pastor celebrate Christmas? By leading others through his music to truly bow both heart and knee before the King of Kings and worship Him during the most worshipful season of all. Join Charles Morris and Tommy Walker on the next HAVEN Today for part 2 of a program called "What Christmas Means to Me".

What Christmas Means to Me, Part 2 w/Tommy Walker

What happens when a writer’s strike goes long in Hollywood? Much to your chagrin you get to watch shows on TV you’ve already seen over and over again. What happens at Christmastime and if you’re a Christian? You get to celebrate the birth of the Christ child one more time and that’s a birthday worth keeping every year. I’m Charles Morris and welcome to Christmas Haven Today telling the great story that’s all about Jesus. In the next few minutes, we’ll be joined again by worship pastor Tommy Walker, sharing his life. We’ll also talk about the deep, rich meaning of one of the most famous Christmas carols. One other thing I’d like to mention as we get started, there’s still time to get your customized Christmas CD from Haven Today. Make your gift to the ministry and select 12 of your favorite Christmas songs. We’ll even put your name on the CD. We’ve had people wanting more than one copy to share with family and friends and you’ll also be helping us here at Haven Today. Just go to our website, haventoday.org, look for the button on the right side that says, “Christmas Custom CD” or call us at 1-800-65-HAVEN.
This is Haven Today and we’re coming to you from Hollywood. I’m Charles Morris. And Tommy, welcome back to the program.
TW: Thank you so much for having me. It’s good to be here.
CM: At Christmas time. You know, somebody, a friend of mine who goes to a nearby church, Church on the Way, and he’s on our board of directors, he told me just a couple of weeks ago, he said, “You’ve got to hear this new album by Tommy Walker!” Well, it’s not that available. We’re going to make it available to people of course, but because you just came out with it, didn’t you?
TW: That’s right. Just done it here at my church, independently released just a short time ago. But I sure hope it can be available somehow.
CM: Well, that’s right. Well, we had you on yesterday with you doing that song from this new album, “I Vow to Worship You”. You’re more than just performance, in fact that’s what so many people like about you. You’re not worried about how you look, and thank you for that, I might add! But worship is what we need to be about as Christians, isn’t it?
TW: Well, worship is ultimately what we’re all created for. You know, we weren’t created for our glory, we’re created for God’s glory and when we discover that and we learn how to express worship to God we really enter into purpose, and our eternal destiny by the way, as believers. And so, yeah, as a worship leader I get nervous. If people aren’t worshipping I don’t really, I so want people to experience the presence of God when they discover how to express the depths of their heart in worship to God it’s life changing.
CM: Yes
TW: It has been for me and so I long for that to be the case for everybody.
CM: Let me just slip in here. How did you become a worship pastor? You’ve been here at a local church where your family’s part of for 18 years but how did you, how did you become a worship pastor? You were already a musician.
TW: Yeah, I was a musician and I was a Christian and I was doing and writing, you know, just songs about God and there just came a time in my life where I just, I got real sick of, I don’t know, Christian music, my own Christian music. In a time of disappointment and brokenness I just discovered worshipping God in a very simple way at a church I was in in Texas. And I discovered that all I really wanted to do in this life was worship God. And it was a very, it was really kind of a private thing. And so just out of a, a very deep, deep love of worshipping God, and God, I guess, just put it in me to give that away, you know? And so it’s just been my mission to lead all people: the believers, the nonbelievers, the rich, the poor, near and far into the presence of God and inspire them, really my life mission statement, to become worshippers of the Most High God.
CM: Well, what a privilege and an honor for all of us but it doesn’t always come easy to do that, does it?
TW: That’s right.
CM: The Lord has to kind of knock us down a little bit
TW: yeah
CM: Many times before we realize our position before him is on our knees.
TW: Well, that’s right and boy isn’t it amazing how God’s timing is so different than ours?
CM: Well, you probably had ambitions, you had desires.
TW: Yeah
CM: You wanted to become famous, you wanted to be discovered but yet it took you losing that
TW: That’s right
CM: Until God actually gave you some music that you did share with other people.
TW: Yeah, and to this day we all have that,
CM: It keeps coming back
TW: that original sin for longing for self-glory and we all want people to think highly of us and this and that but I can say, from the depths of my heart, though I am a sinful man and I long for things like that, the presence of God and the nearness of God, that I experience when I, when I sincerely in spirit and truth worship him, I can honestly say I long for that much deeper than I long for flattery or fame. I can long for those other things but, man, I love to worship God and sense his presence. To be a part of leading worship and looking out over a crowd and seeing the Holy Spirit just touching and transforming lives, I’m telling you, that’s what gets me going. It’s what gets me up in the morning.
CM: Well, it’s Christmastime and we’ve already shared from your new Christmas album, but – well, I guess I should say, how did you decide to do a Christmas album? I know every Christian musician is supposed to do a Christmas album, but every non-Christian musician
TW: Yup.
CM: does a Christmas album, but you did one and you did one this year. There’s one carol on there that really meant a lot to me when I first put it in my CD player at home and listened to it. And I think it’s the greatest Christmas carol out there because it’s not just one line over and over. It’s rich. It’s got verses that just need to be chewed on a little bit. Why did you decide to put “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” on this new album?
TW: Well, probably because it’s my favorite Christmas carol.
CM: Oh, OK!
TW: And I’ve heard it said that “Hark the Herald” is the greatest hymn ever written as far as communicating the Gospel
CM: Yes
TW: and I wouldn’t dispute that at all. And it is just rich with the theology and the truth of the Gospel like almost no other song. But I want us to go back to why I did this in the first place. It really goes back to my local church here. Every year for the last, really like 15 years I’ve written a Christmas song, an original Christmas worship song because I find for worship leaders in churches it can be difficult in the holiday season because people go into kind of caroling mode.
CM: Right
TW: And caroling mode isn’t necessarily worship mode
CM: Worship
TW: and so my hope is that some of these new, original worship songs plus these updated arrangements of the others will help churches really enter into worship during the holiday season because Christmas is all about worship, about the angels singing and the heavens rejoicing and the saints worshipping, so boy, we should definitely not be putting shopping and busyness over worshipping the new born King, amen!
CM: Amen! And I might mention also that you have this passion to help the church and we’re going to throw a link up on our website to your website and the charts are there so people at churches anywhere can actually use some of your arrangements, some of the new songs that you’ve done. And I think we just ought to be blessed by the praise band from Christian Assembly in outside Pasadena we’re, in the shadow of Hollywood and Tommy Walker, just thank you for blessing us with Christmas this year.
TW: My pleasure, my privilege and Merry Christmas everybody!
CM: Haven Today and we’ve got to have Tommy Walker on with us again. Tommy, would you mind just closing us in prayer that all of us would know this Christ of Christmas?
TW: Yes
Oh, God I pray. I pray for everyone listening to my voice at this moment, that the true Spirit of Christmas would come over these airwaves by your Holy Spirit and you would touch them. You said one of your names is Emmanuel, “God with us”, that you would be the God who would come close to so many listening now, some without family, some in whatever tough situations and some in the midst of rejoicing Lord. Would you just come near to us Oh, God? And bring us the sweetness of your presence that we would be able to worship you this Christmas season like never before in our lives, to truly give you glory and honor due your name. We love you Jesus and we thank you for being born in this world so that we can be free from our sins and become worshippers of the Most High God. In Jesus’ powerful name, amen.
Song: Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Performed by: Tommy Walker

“Hark the Herald Angels sing! Glory to the new born King! Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.” Tommy Walker’s version of a very important Christmas carol from his brand new Christmas CD here on Haven Today. How many times have we sung those words without stopping to think what we’re singing? “God and sinners reconciled,” what does that mean? It means there’s obviously some problem that needs to be resolved. Something needs to be reconciled. There’s a rift, a break, a conflict between God and us and it needs to be reconciled before we can have peace. Reconciliation means bringing 2 hostile parties together and make them friends again, making peace between them. In most reconciliations there’s a fault on both sides. Both sides have to be willing to let go of the past before they can be reconciled. But in this conflict between God and us all of the past offenses belong to us. God hasn’t offended us, we’ve offended him. We’ve greatly offended him. How can he be reconciled to us? Well, listen to the Apostle Paul explain it in 2 Corinthians 5:19-21, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sin against them and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” That’s how he did it. That’s how God and sinners are reconciled. God made him, Jesus, who had no sin to be our sin. The cause of offense between us and God was our sin and he put it on his Son. God counted our sin against Jesus so it wouldn’t be counted against us. This Christmas I pray that each one of us who’ve accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior will take this deeply to heart. There’s peace between you and me and our God. There’s no more conflict. God has reconciled himself to us in the most amazing, the most mind boggling way. The King of heaven and earth took on our flesh and blood. He became like us and then on the cross he became our sin and died for us, and by dying he carried all our sin way and reconciled God to us. Take that to heart but don’t stop there. God made him to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. We’re not only reconciled to God, we’re united with him. We’re in him, in Jesus. He’s wrapped us up in himself and everything that is his, all his righteousness all belongs to us. Take that to heart. That’s the gift God gave us that very first Christmas when he gave us his Son and it’s all gift. He does all the giving and we do all the receiving. So let’s unwrap his gift slowly and carefully and look at it this Christmas. Let’s take time to see it for what it is and feel rich because of it. Especially, let’s rest in the peace that Jesus brought us. God and sinners reconciled, God and you, and me. Even though we’ve sinned so much against him, we’re reconciled. We have nothing to forgive but he had so much to forgive and forget and he’s done it. He’s forgiven it. It’s gone. Jesus took it on himself carried it away. There’s no more guilt, no more anxiety, no more separation, no more worrying that we turned God against us. He’s for us. He’s reconciled himself to us and brought us great peace. Take that to heart. And if you’re listening and you haven’t received this greatest gift of all, the gift of all gifts, may I invite you to receive it now? God was in Christ, reconciling himself to the world. I implore you, on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. Take to heart what he has done. Receive it from his outstretched hands and this will be the best Christmas you’ve ever had.
Father in Heaven, thank you for sending your Son to be born in a manger but to die on a cross so that we, we sinners, can be reconciled. Lord, may we be reconciled this year? And I know there are some of us right now who are listening and are not reconciled. May we come to the cross and not just the cradle? May we see and meet Jesus Christ and ask for forgiveness of sins and find this new life so that this will be the best Christmas ever? May we be reconciled, not just to the Lord above, although that’s the most important thing that can ever happen to us, but may we be reconciled to others, those we love, those we’ve offended, those who we’ve hurt? Make this Christmas special in our hearts this year, in the name of Jesus, amen.
This is Haven Today, I’m Charles Morris and thank you for joining Tommy Walker and me. Well, just in time for Christmas, we have Tommy’s brand new Christmas album “What Christmas Means To Me”. New songs and new versions of songs you know by a worship pastor for his congregation. Or if you want to design your own traditional Christmas CD, we’d like to share with you a customized Christmas CD where you can get to pick 12 of your favorite Christmas songs as sung by Haven. We’ll even put your name on the CD and if you get in touch today we can get it out right way. Many people have been ordering multiple copies. At the same time, whether you get Tommy Walker’s new album or the customized Christmas CD by Haven, you’ll be helping us share the great story of Jesus to a very needy world. Here’s how you get in touch. You can go online at haventoday.org, just look for that “Customized Christmas CD” button on the right side of our home page. That internet address again is haventoday, h.a.v.e.n.t.o.d.a.y, haventoday.org or you can call us toll free at 1-800-65-HAVEN, that’s 1-800-654-2836. One other thing, we still have plenty of “Jesus Storybook Bibles” by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Thanks especially to Sandy in Texas who ordered 6 copies yesterday. And I have a hunch that every one of those are for grandchildren. The “Jesus Storybook Bible: Every story whispers his name”. And remember, be very careful when you pick it up and start reading. It’s not just for kids. Please let us know the station you’re listening to when you get in touch. Here’s our mailing address if you want to send us a note by snail mail. We’re:
Haven Today
Box 79997
Riverside, CA 92513
And in Canada we’re:
Haven Today
Box 6800
Vancouver, BC V6B4C9
I’m Charles Morris with Tommy Walker. Thanks for joining us. Come back again tomorrow would you when again we’ll celebrate Christmas, the birth of the Christ child who went to the cross to save us from our sins and we’ll do it together here on Haven Today.