Greater Than I

Scriptures: Matthew 20:20-28, Luke 4:18, Philippians 2:5-8, John 4, John 21:5

Structure:

• Introduction
• The origin
• The content
• Conclusion

Following are lyrics to the song:

You set the world into motion
Slavery unbound in each corner of the earth
A way of life to live by
That we won’t forget

You humbled yourself for us,
Status no longer important,
You’ve showed us how to live
Oh we’re grateful, oh we’re grateful

The woman at the well,
You showed her mercy,
You showed us how to love the broken
The blind man on the street,
You showed him kindness, you showed forgiveness
To make us see

Jesus, you’re more than we know,
So teach us how to be, in this broken world
Jesus, you’re a whisper in the wind, you’re the roar of lions
You’re our Prince of Peace

Introduction:

On the wall here is a picture of a mosaic

• A mosaic artist takes pieces of broken ceramics and arranges them in a pattern to make a meaningful image
• There is a certain poetry of redemption in putting together broken tiles and making something beautiful out of them

Today we continue our ‘Anthems’ series

• In this series we are looking at the lyrics of one hymn or Christian worship song each week to see how that song informs our thinking about God and how it connects with Scripture and the heritage of our faith.

The song we are looking at this morning is called “Greater Than I”, written by our very own Peter Sim

• The lyrics of Greater Than I are like a mosaic – they draw together a variety of fragments of Scripture to form a meaningful picture of Christ
• Before we look at the song though let’s consider its author

The origin:

For those who don’t know, this is Peter Sim

• Peter was born in October 1995, which means he is now 24
• He grew up in Tawa, attending Redwood Primary school, then Tawa Intermediate and Tawa College
• After College, Peter studied at Victoria University gaining a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology and Education before completing his Masters of Teaching. Peter is now in his third year teaching at Churton Park School

As a child Peter attended The Tawa New Life church and the Tawa Anglican church with his family

• Then, as a teenager, Peter started coming to the Tawa Baptist youth group and became involved in the music team here
• Peter describes his coming to faith in Jesus as a gradual process, with him taking more ownership in his teenage years
• Peter was baptised here in this church on the 17^th June 2012, nearly eight years ago now

Peter wrote the song Greater Than I in 2016 and we started singing it as part of our Sunday worship the same year. So Peter was around 20 or 21 at the time    

• Peter used to be in a band called ‘Until Autumn’ and has written other pieces of music too – the song Author of my soul is one of Peter’s

A couple of weeks ago when I was talking with Peter about this he said,

• ‘Music transcends language and other barriers. [Even if you don’t speak Spanish] you can listen to a Spanish song and still enjoy it. But you probably won’t enjoy listening to a Spanish audio book’.    
• The idea that music transcends language and other barriers resonates with me. I think that music has a spiritual aspect to it which touches our soul, whether the music is religious or not.

Peter tells me he penned the words for his song after reading a book by John Ortberg called ‘Who is this man?’

• John Ortberg is the Senior Pastor of a Presbyterian church in California
• His book, ‘Who is this man?’, sets out some key principles of who Jesus is in easy to read English with real world application. 

After reading ‘Who is this man?’ it only took Peter four minutes to write the lyrics to his song, while the music came in just two hours the following day

• The song writing process doesn’t normally happen that rapidly
• The quickness of the song’s composition suggests a connection with the wisdom of the subconscious
• It is also an example of how we find the meaning in the rear vision mirror, by looking back and reflecting on our experience
• Often in life meaning comes after the fact
• We have an experience, we react to that experience and then later we glean meaning from the experience by reflecting on our reaction to it     
• This, it seems, was the case for Peter in writing this particular song
• He read a book, reacted to it by writing a song and then found meaning in the song by reflecting on the words later.

The title, Greater Than I, doesn’t appear in the body of the lyrics.

• When I asked Peter about the title he said it came after hearing someone say, ‘modern worship songs always seem to be about I and me.’ Worship songs should be about lifting up God and focusing on who Jesus is   

The content:

With this in view the song begins (and is punctuated throughout) with second person pronouns for God and Jesus

• You humbled yourself for us
• You showed her mercy
• You showed forgiveness, and so on

Verse 1 reads…

You set the world into motion
Slavery unbound in each corner of the earth
A way of life to live by that we won’t forget.

This verse, like the others that follow, is a mosaic of Biblical ideas

• Each line opens a different door on Scripture and faith’s experience 
• ‘You set the world into motion’ is a reference to God’s creation of the cosmos in the opening chapters of Genesis
• Now it is important not to misunderstand this line
• There is a belief among some people in history that God created the world but then stepped back and no longer intervenes
• Sort of like a divine clock maker – he made the world, wound it up and walked away to let it tick by on its own
• This belief is called ‘deism’ – it is not a Christian belief
• Peter is not saying God set the world in motion and then walked away
• As the rest of the song makes clear, God set the world in motion and has stayed present and involved in his world ever since.
• God loves his creation and has not turned his back on it.

‘You set the world into motion’ is an affirmation that we are not here by accident. We are here because God intended us to be here so there is meaning and purpose in our existence  

• Interestingly the phrase ‘world in motion’ suggests a dynamic view of creation – a world which is not settled or complete but still evolving, still changing, still being brought to its full purpose by God
• This view fits with the meta-narrative of the Bible and our experience.

Slavery unbound in each corner of the earth is another piece of the mosaic, not the same as the reference to creation but still connected to it

• I asked Peter if this line about slavery referred to institutional slavery and people trafficking, which is still very much alive in each corner of the earth and he said, ‘No. It’s about the things that bind us personally’
• In Luke 4, Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah saying,

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

There are lots of things that may enslave us personally; our fears, our sins, our past, our prejudices, and so on. Jesus came to set people free from these things

Each corner of the earth speaks of the universal reach of the gospel

• Jesus isn’t just for the Jews, he is for all the peoples of the earth
• In the Book of Acts, the risen Jesus says to his disciples…

“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Returning to Peter’s song, the line ‘A way of life to live by that we won’t forget’ reminds us that the Christian faith isn’t just a nice idea or an interesting philosophy. It’s not an academic thing in our head – Christianity is a lifestyle

• Following Jesus should touch and shape every part of our life
• In John 14 Jesus says: ‘I am the way the truth and the life’.
• The church of the first Century understood this. Because of their distinctive way of living, early Christians were known as ‘people of the way’

The way of Christ is meek and gentle, not rough or violent

• The way of Christ is gracious and truthful, it does not shame or manipulate
• The way of Christ embraces weakness and vulnerability, but turns away from proud thoughts and puts no confidence in human achievement
• The way of Christ turns the other cheek and forgives
• The way of Christ is the way of the cross
• There is a part of us that doesn’t like the way of Christ – that resists it
• The way of Christ can be difficult and painful, inconvenient and frustrating, confusing and humiliating
• And yet we stick to it because, in the long run, we believe it leads to peace

In his book ‘Who is this man?’ John Ortberg writes about the way of Jesus…

• “His life and teaching simply drew people to follow him. He made history by starting in a humble place, in a spirit of love and acceptance, and allowing each person space to respond.”

Verse two of the song…

You humbled yourself for us, status no longer important,
You’ve showed us how to live. Oh we’re grateful, oh we’re grateful

The origin of this verse is found in Paul’s hymn in Philippians 2…

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very natureGod, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; ⁷ rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very natureof a servant, being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!

Verse 2 of the song talks about ‘status no longer [being] important’

• In Matthew 20, after Jesus has just predicted his death for the third time, the mother of James and John came to Jesus and asked him for a favour
• She said, “Promise me that these two sons of mine will sit at your right and your left when you are King.”
• This request is about status and it strikes us as a bit insensitive in light of Jesus having just said that he will soon be crucified
• Jesus replied to James and John, “You don’t know what you are asking”
• When the other ten disciples heard about this they became angry with the two brothers. So Jesus called them all together and said…
• “You know that the rulers of the heathen have power over them, and the leaders have complete authority. This, however, is not the way it shall be among you. If one of you wants to be great, he must be the servant of the rest; and if one of you wants to be first, he must be your slave – like the Son of Man, who did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life to redeem many people.”
• As the Mandalorian would say, ‘this is the way’.

Jesus undoes our notions of social value and status    

• Our status, in the sense of our place on the greasy pole, doesn’t matter because we get our identity from God, or more specifically from Christ
• So, for example, when the apostle Paul was thrown into prison for preaching the gospel it didn’t matter (he could be joyful) because his identity, his status, his worth was secure in Jesus.         

On the wall here is a picture of a painting by Claude Monet

• Monet painted this in the 1870’s – it is called ‘Sunrise’
• Monet is famous as one of the founders of the French Impressionist movement
• Impressionism is characterized by a concern with depicting the visual impression of the moment, especially in terms of the shifting effect of light and colour.
• Or said another way, impressionism is a literary or artistic style that seeks to capture a feeling or experience rather than to achieve accurate depiction. (Impressionism is more subjective than objective)
• So this painting by Monet is not necessarily an accurate depiction of the sunrise over a harbour in France
• Rather it is a depiction of how Monet experienced or perceived that particular sunrise on that particular day
• If he painted the same scene on a different day, it would look slightly different because the light would be different and his perception also.

The lyrics of many of the more contemporary worship songs we sing in church these days are written in the style of impressionism

• So what we get is an expression of how the writer of that song saw the light of Christ (or perceived God) at the time they wrote it
• Sometimes their impression of God resonates with our experience and other times it doesn’t
• If the words don’t happen to harmonize with our own subjective impression of God, then it doesn’t make the song any less true
• It just means we see God and the world differently from the author because our experience in life has been different from theirs.
• None of us have a monopoly on God.
• Much of Peter’s song needs to be understood as impressionism
• I don’t think Peter sat down with the intention of writing in the style of impressionism, it just happened to turn out that way.

For example…

The woman at the well, you showed her mercy,
You showed us how to love the broken.

‘The woman at the well’ clearly refers to Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4

• And, back in 2016, it gave Peter the impression of Jesus being someone who shows mercy and love to broken people
• If Peter were to revisit this gospel story in 2036 he might get a slightly different impression of Jesus because by that stage he would have had another 20 years’ experience to reshape his perception and feelings
• Our impression of God is not usually static – it is dynamic, changing 

For those not familiar with the story in John 4, Jesus is travelling by foot through the land of Samaria

• It is around noon and he is tired and thirsty after walking all morning
• His disciples have gone into town to buy some food while Jesus rests beside the well
• As he is sitting there a Samaritan woman comes to the well to draw water
• This is strange. Normally women came in the morning to draw water, when it was cooler, to avoid the heat of the day  
• It appears this woman is not on good terms with her neighbours because she comes to the well at a time which avoids the other women

Jesus doesn’t have the means to draw water out of the well and because he is thirsty he asks the woman for a drink which, in that culture, is weird

• Firstly, men didn’t speak to women in public – it just wasn’t proper
• Secondly, Jesus was a Jew and, historically, Jews and Samaritans hated each other

The Samaritan woman can see that Jesus is a Jew by the clothes he is wearing and she says to Jesus, ‘How can you ask me for a drink?’

• (You Jews won’t even use the same cups and bowls as us Samaritans)
• But Jesus doesn’t let the conversation end there – he keeps it going, telling the woman the truth about himself, about herself and about God 
• The truth about Jesus is that he is the spring of eternal life – he offers the life-giving water of the Holy Spirit
• The truth about the woman is that her life and relationships are a mess – she has been married five times and the man she lives with now is not her husband
• And the truth about God is that he is Spirit and can only be worshipped by the power of his Spirit.

All this truth telling made such a good impression on this woman that she went back to her village telling people about Jesus

• The people begged Jesus to stay and Jesus graciously received their hospitality for two days, something other Jews would never do

Jesus shows us how to love the broken (like the Samaritan woman)

• Jesus did not come in a show of strength, he came in weakness and need, feeling thirsty and tired
• Jesus loved people (he built trust) by speaking the truth, giving people space to respond and receiving their help in the form of hospitality

The next couple of lines of the song give us Peter’s impression of Jesus after Jesus healed… The blind man on the street, you showed him kindness, You showed forgiveness to make us see.

There are a number of accounts, in the gospels, of Jesus healing the blind – for example, Bartimaeus in Mark 10 or the man born blind in John 9

• Whichever version you look at, those who are physically blind appear to have more spiritual sight than the religious leaders
• The punch line seems to be: Jesus helps us see God and he helps us to see how to be human, for we human beings are made in the image of God 
• Kindness and forgiveness are divine attributes. When we show kindness and forgiveness we reflect the image of God.

And so we come to the bridge of the song…

Jesus, you’re more than we know,
So teach us how to be, in this broken world
Jesus, you’re a whisper in the wind, you’re the roar of lions
You’re our Prince of Peace

These words are essentially an expression of heart felt adoration to God

• There is more to Jesus than we know
• The apostle John finishes his gospel by saying this…
• Now there are many other things that Jesus did. If they were all written down one by one, I suppose that the whole world could not hold the books that would be written.
• I like the fact that Jesus cannot be contained by the human mind
• I like that there is still more to discover about God
• I like the mystery (the cloud of unknowing) that shrouds God
• As the title of the song says, [God is] Greater Than I, which means he is more than we know

So teach us how to be, in this broken world

• Jesus is our teacher; we are his disciples (his students)
• We are learning how to ‘be’
• As disciples of Christ we are not learning how to do – we are not learning a skill – we are learning how to be
• Being is about the whole person and it’s about our character
• As disciples of Jesus we are learning how to be like Jesus – to have his character        

And we are learning these things in this broken world, a world that God loves.

• Now, it’s not that the world is completely broken beyond repair
• It’s not broken like a glass shattered on the floor
• There is still much beauty and goodness in the world; but at the same time there is something not right with the system or the way we live
• History is scarred with war and oppression and misery
• Even today it seems we can’t participate in society without colluding with injustice
• We buy food or clothes and we don’t know where they come from or who may have suffered in making them cheap for us
• Then there is the harm we do to the environment – all the plastic we dump and all the glaciers we melt
• We are not willing participants with this injustice (often times we are not even aware of it) but still the way we organise or manage ourselves in this world is broken   
• We need Jesus to teach us how to be in the world in a way that glorifies God, blesses other people and takes care of the environment.

The song finishes with three images of Jesus…

Jesus, you’re a whisper in the wind, you’re the roar of lions,
You’re our Prince of Peace.

When I asked Peter about this he said: small voice, big voice, sense of peace

• Sometimes we hear Jesus (like Elijah heard Yahweh) as a still small voice
• Other times Jesus roars loudly, like the lion of Judah
• Always we are guided by his peace

It occurs to me the three things each of these images share in common is power

• The wind is a powerful force of nature, just as a lion is powerful in the animal kingdom and a prince holds royal power in the human realm
• Jesus isn’t just Lord of humanity – he is Lord over all of God’s creation.

Conclusion:

There’s more I could say about the words of this song – it is so rich – but that’s enough for today.

• Peter, thank-you for sharing your song with us and for letting me preach on it this morning
• Some of the things I’ve said are my impression of the meaning and not necessarily what you were thinking of when you wrote it
• But that’s the beauty of poetry – it has a life of its own and speaks to each person’s heart as their experience allows and as the Spirit leads.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

1. Listen to the song, ‘Greater Than I’.  (See the link at the top of these sermon notes.) What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does it evoke for you?) 
2. What is deism and how does it differ from Christian belief?
3. What sorts of things bind you personally? Can you think of a time when Jesus set you free in some way? What happened?
4. What are some of the things that characterise the way of Christ? How do you experience walking in the way of Christ?
5. What impression do you get from reading the story of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman in John 4? What does Jesus’ example (in John 4) show us about loving the broken?  
6. In what sense is the world broken?
7. Discuss / reflect on the three images of Jesus at the end of the song: ‘a whisper in the wind, the roar of lions and our Prince of peace’. Which of these images resonates best with your experience? What other images would you suggest for Jesus?