Tawa Baptist

As the deer pants for the water

Scripture: Psalm 42, Numbers 16 & 26:10-11, Romans 7:15-25, John 4:14.

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Psalm 42
  • Romans 7
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone

Many of you will be aware that Shona is uploading a recording of a hymn to her Facebook page most days while we’ve been in lockdown. Last Wednesday afternoon I was at my computer, working on the sermon, when Robyn walked in and played me Shona’s hymn for that day. It so happened that Shona’s hymn was ‘As the deer pants for the water…’, the very song I had been working on for this morning’s ‘Anthems’ series message. I didn’t know Shona was going to play ‘As the deer…’ and she didn’t know I was going to preach on it. 

Some would call that serendipity. Some would call it chance. Others might call it providence or a God moment. When things like that happen, I like to see God’s hand in it. For me it is a sign of God’s presence.       

As the deer pants for the water is a song about longing for God more than anything else. It was written by a guy called Marty Nystrom. Marty was born in Seattle, Washington, in 1956. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in music education in 1979. It is unclear to me exactly when Marty wrote ‘As the deer…’. Some sources say it was 1981, while others say it was 1984. In any case, the story goes that Marty had travelled to Dallas Texas to attend summer school at the ‘Christ for the Nations Institute’. Possibly there was a girl there he was interested in but that relationship didn’t work out the way he had hoped. For whatever reason it was a difficult summer for Marty. He was struggling with some inner turmoil, and he was struggling physically with the Texas heat.

Marty’s roommate suggested he go on a water fast to draw close to God. A water fast is when you don’t eat any food, you only drink water. Marty recalls what happened next…

“I took up the challenge, and on the 19th day of the fast I found myself sitting at a piano trying to write a song. I was simply playing chord progressions when I noticed a Bible on the music stand of the piano. It was open to Psalm 42. My eyes fell on the first verse of that chapter… ‘As the hart (deer) panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.’ After reading the verse I began to sing its message, right off the page. I wrote the first verse and the chorus of a song, pretty much straight through.”

Marty had no intention of showing the song to anyone. It was to be for his own devotional time with the Lord. However, before leaving the school to go back to Seattle, he did share it with one person, Dave Butterbaugh. Dave then introduced it to the students of the school and it became a favourite.

As the deer pants for the water is special for many people. (Neville tells me they played this song at his baptism.) On the face of it, As the deer appears to be quite simple, but its roots run deep in Scripture. There are many interpretative possibilities. This morning’s message focuses on just two of the Scriptures I’m in touch with as I reflect on this song. First let us consider Psalm 42… 

Psalm 42

The opening verse of Marty’s song reads…

As the deer pants for the water so my soul longs after You
You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship You

These lines find their inspiration from Psalm 42. Psalm 42 is oozing with the pathos of longing for God. From verse 1 we read…

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.
2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
3 My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?”
4 These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God with shouts of joy and praise among the festive throng.

5 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.

6 My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
7 Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

8 By day the Lord directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life.

9 I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” 10 My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”

11 Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

You may have heard on the news this past week of the New Zealanders who were stranded in Peru due to corona virus border closures. It was desperate times as many of them were being turned out of their accommodation and unable to “safely shelter” in Peru. I imagine they were longing deeply to return home. Fortunately, God’s providence came in the form of a government-organised mercy flight, which left Lima last Tuesday (14 April) and touched down in Auckland on Wednesday. I expect those on the flight and their loved ones were greatly relieved.

The psalmist’s home was Jerusalem. However, when we read Psalm 42 all the way through, we discover in verse 6 that the psalmist is writing these words not from the temple in Jerusalem but from the slopes of Mount Hermon. Mount Hermon is nearly 340 km’s from Jerusalem which, in the ancient world, was a formidable distance. In some ways being on Mt Hermon was (for the psalmist) sort of like being a New Zealander stranded in Peru.

The author of psalm 42 remembers how he used to lead people in a procession of worship to the temple in Jerusalem and he longs to be able to do so again. For ancient Jews the temple embodied God’s presence. It’s not that God was only present in the temple. God is omnipresent – like the air we breathe he is everywhere at once. But to the Hebrew mind, God was somehow present in a special way in the Jerusalem temple. Consequently, the psalmist longs to return to Jerusalem and worship God there. Mount Hermon just isn’t the same.   

For Christians, Jesus is our home. He is our sanctuary, our safe place, our temple. On more than one occasion Jesus identified himself as the new temple. Jesus embodies the presence of God in a special way. Jesus taught us that wherever two or three people are gathered in his name, there he is also. So, in Christian understanding, the new temple is not a building – it is a gathering of two or more believers in Christ.

With this in view there is a connection between Psalm 42 and our current experience in lockdown. Some people, perhaps especially those in a bubble by themselves or in a bubble without any fellow believers, may be longing to gather with other Christians to worship God. It’s not that we can’t worship God by ourselves. It’s just that it’s not quite the same.

Having said that, even when we are able to gather for church services, there are still some things that prevent us from worshipping God. On one level we might want to give God praise but on another level we just can’t because what we are feeling on the inside is incongruent (it doesn’t fit) with praising God.   

We may, for example, be going through some inner turmoil. Certainly the writer of Psalm 42 was in distress. He says, ‘My soul is down cast within me.’ If we are feeling anxious or sad it is very difficult to praise God and mean it. In that situation we are best not to fake it. God wants our honesty. Sometimes we don’t have words to offer God. Sometimes all we have are our tears. In verse 3 of Psalm 42 the psalmist says, ‘My tears have been my food day and night…’  He longs to worship God. He longs to have intimacy with God but all he has is a deep and overwhelming feeling of sadness. ‘All your waves and breakers have swept over me.’

If all you have to offer God are tears, then that is where you start, but it’s not where you finish. Please, don’t settle into self-pity. It is a trap. After flushing out his emotions with tears, the psalmist then engages his brain and his resolve (his will). More than once he says to himself, ‘Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?’ This shows us the psalmist is thinking about the cause of the problem, so he’s looking for a solution, or at least some way of managing his feelings. Then he engages his resolve by saying to himself, ‘Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.’  Resolve is that grit, that commitment, that discipline of your will to put one foot in front of other and just keep going until you get through it.   

Praise and worship is not always the starting point. More often it is the goal and we have to do a fair bit of processing before we can reach the goal of praising the Lord. Very simply, the psalmist gives us a three stage process for dealing with our inner turmoil…

Step one: express your feelings in a healthy way – don’t bottle things up and don’t pretend but also don’t wallow in your tears for too long.

Step two: engage your brain – think about why you are in turmoil. This is where talking to someone who knows you and is wise can be helpful.

And step three: resolve to move forward in faith & hope toward God.    

Marty Nystrom was not able to worship God in the way he wanted to while he was downcast and in the pit. He had to do some processing first. In fact, Marty wrote his song at the end of 19 days of processing by fasting. Now I’m not suggesting you need to go on a water fast for 19 days. That may have been the right thing for Marty at that time but it’s not the right thing for everyone. We are all having to give up enough during this lockdown without adding a water fast to the mix. So we need to exercise some common sense.

The point is, we may long to worship God but are prevented from doing so because of what is happening inside of us. Another thing that can hold us back from worshipping God is a feeling of shame. Shame is different from guilt. Guilt is usually a private internal feeling, whereas shame is more of a public external thing. Shame is something we are made to wear so it’s something everyone sees. Often shame is undeserved.

Psalm 42 is one of the songs of the sons of Korah. The sons of Korah were part of the tribe of Levi who served in the temple, but not as priests. They were called the sons of Korah because they were descended from a man named Korah. The book of Numbers tells us that Korah rebelled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness and was killed by fire. However, the line of Korah did not die out. [1]

I imagine the descendants of Korah had to wear quite a bit of shame through no fault of their own, because of what their granddaddy did. But God is so gracious and just. Some centuries after Korah’s rebellion, his descendants served as worship musicians, composing and performing songs in the temple in Jerusalem. This is a beautiful picture of God’s providence and redemption. By giving the sons of Korah a valuable role in his service, the Lord clothed them with honour.

Perhaps, like the sons of Korah, you have a chequered ancestry, a few skeletons in the family closet. Perhaps, through no fault of your own, you live with a sense of shame because of this. Maybe this feeling of shame inhibits you from worshipping God as freely as you would like. May be you don’t feel good enough. Jesus came to set the captives free. God has a place of honour for you in his purpose.

There is more we could say about psalm 42 but I would like to move on to our next Scripture, Romans 7

Romans 7

In his letter to the Romans, chapter 7:15-25, the apostle Paul writes …

15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

Now you might be thinking, how on earth does this relate to today’s song? Well, let me explain. In this reading from Romans Paul is describing the war that rages inside each one of us. On the one hand, we love God and want to do his will. But on the other hand, there are forces at work within us that seem to sabotage our best intentions, so we end up not obeying God as we want to do. Paul calls those sabotaging forces our ‘sinful nature’. While Jesus has conquered sin on the cross, we still wrestle with sin in this life.

I don’t know if you have ever tried swimming in jeans and a pull over. It’s very difficult, not to mention dangerous. Every movement is heavy and sluggish and you keep feeling like you’re being dragged down. Swimming in a wet suit is quite the opposite. A wet suit is streamed lined and naturally buoyant – it actually helps you to stay afloat and makes swimming easier.

Obeying God is the purest form of worship. Trying to obey God while we are encumbered by our sinful nature is like trying to swim in jeans and a pullover. Our sinful nature is one of those things that gets in the way of us worshipping God properly, as he deserves. In contrast, being clothed in the righteousness of Christ is like swimming in a wet suit.

Returning to this week’s song. Part of the chorus reads: You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship You.

The heart here is a metaphor for a person’s inner self – our core.

In the Bible the heart isn’t just a container for our emotions. The heart more accurately refers to the mind and will.

To sing, You alone are my heart’s desire seems like a grand claim indeed.

For those of us who take seriously the words we sing it may feel dishonest to say that God is our only desire. In reality our hearts generally have a number of competing desires.

But the chorus is not the only part of the song that makes bold claims. We may also feel like we are stretching the truth when we sing lines like, ‘I love You more than any other, so much more than anything’ in verse 3.

Or ‘I want You more than gold or silver… you’re the apple of my eye’ in verse 2. While God certainly deserves our greatest loyalty and affection, he doesn’t always get it.
 

And this is where Paul’s words in Romans 7 are so helpful. Paul gives us a way of separating our heart’s desire from the competing desires of our sinful nature. In verse 25 of Romans 7 Paul says: So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

‘In my mind’ is another way of saying ‘In my heart’ because remember, in the Bible, the heart refers to the mind. ‘In his mind’ Paul is 100% devoted to doing what God wants (he’s a slave to God’s law). But in his ‘sinful nature’ (which is something different from his heart and mind) Paul is not inclined to do what God wants.

King David helps us to see the distinction Paul makes between our heart and our sinful nature. In the Bible, the prophet Samuel describes David as ‘a man after God’s own heart’. [2] Which is another way of saying that ‘in his mind’ David wanted what God wanted. And yet, despite being a man after God’s own heart, David’s sinful nature led David to commit adultery with Bathsheba and orchestrate Uriah’s murder. These were clearly things God did not want. So while the desire of David’s heart & mind was to do God’s will, David’s sinful nature sometimes sabotaged his obedience to God. This did not stop David from praising God though. David’s sinful nature did not stop him from writing psalms and delighting in the Lord.       

What I’m saying here is that we can sing to God, ‘You alone are my heart’s desire…, and mean it, because the desire of our heart & mind is something quite different from our sinful nature. While it is true that we all still struggle with sin in this life, the good news (for those who trust in Jesus) is we won’t have to wrestle with sin in the next life. Our ‘sinful nature’ was nailed to the cross with Christ and will not drag us down in the life to come. In eternity we will be free to swim (or worship God) without being encumbered by our sinful nature.  

Therefore, when we sing ‘and I long to worship you’ we mean, ‘I long for the time when Christ returns in glory and I am finally free of my sinful nature, finally free of that force in me that keeps sabotaging my obedience to God.

In verse 3 of the song we sing to Jesus these words, ‘You’re my friend and you are my brother even though you are a king…’ 

Friend, brother and king. These three relationships all have one thing in common: obedience. But the kind of obedience one gives to a friend or a brother is different from the sort of obedience one gives to a king.

We obey a king because we have to – that is our duty. But we do what a friend or a brother asks because we want to – because we love them.

In Matthew 12:48 Jesus says, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Then pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus is saying that obedience to God is what makes us part of God’s family.

Likewise, in John 15 Jesus says to his disciples, “My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command…”     

Obedience is the purest form of worship. When we sing ‘I long to worship you’, we mean ‘I long to obey you Jesus, not just as a king (because I have to) but as a friend and a brother because I love you’. 

In Matthew 5 Jesus says to his disciples, ‘Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you will be satisfied.’ If you truly hunger and thirst to be free of your sinful nature and to worship God in spirit and in truth, then God who looks upon the heart (and mind) will satisfy your desire. 

Conclusion

In verse 2 of the song we say of Jesus, ‘…only you can satisfy…’

Jesus is God’s providence, God’s serendipity for our thirsty soul. As Jesus says in John 4:14…

“…whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

The water Jesus was talking about is the Holy Spirit. Jesus satisfies our thirst for God through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ Spirit is water to our soul.

What is it you long for?

Let us pray.

Father God, you know our needs and you care for us.

We pray for those who are thirsty for you but don’t know it. Save them from looking in all the wrong places. Help them to realise their need for you. May they encounter the living Christ and be satisfied by the water of your Spirit. 

We pray too for those who are thirsty for you and do know it. Help us as we wait for you. Lead us beside still waters and refresh our spirit with your Spirit. We pray these things in the name of Jesus our brother and our friend. Amen.

Let’s sing, ‘As the deer pants for the water’ in our bubbles now…

Verse 1

As the deer pants for the water
So my soul longs after You
You alone are my heart’s desire
And I long to worship You

          Chorus

You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart’s desire
And I long to worship You

Verse 2

I want You more than gold or silver
Only You can satisfy
You alone are the real joy giver
And the apple of my eye

Verse 3

You’re my friend and You are my brother
Even though You are a King
I love You more than any other
So much more than anything

Outtakes

The chorus of the song begins, You alone are my strength, my shield.

The image of God being a shield is found in a number of psalms. It is a way of saying that God is our protector, especially when we are under attack.

To say that God alone is my strength and shield is to admit our own vulnerability. We are like sheep (basically defenceless) but God is the one who defends us.    

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to the song ‘As the deer pants for the water’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does the song evoke for you?) 

Have you had any God moments lately? Who might benefit from hearing about your God moment?

How do you feel when reading through Psalm 42? What are you missing (longing for) most during this time in lockdown?

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being extremely thirsty and 10 being satisfied) where would you place yourself in longing for God? Why?

Discuss / reflect on the three practical steps the writer of psalm 42 gives for processing his inner turmoil? How might these apply to your life?

What prevents you from worshipping (obeying) God properly? Is it in your power to do anything about this? If so, what? If not, what is in your power to do?

What is Paul saying in Romans 7:15-25? How does Romans 7:15-25 help us to sing, ‘You are alone are my heart’s desire’?

What are the implications of calling Jesus our friend and brother?

[1] For the story of Korah refer to Numbers 16 & 26:10-11

[2] 1st Samuel 13:14

Tawa Baptist

In Christ Alone

Scriptures: Ephesians 2:20, John 1:11, Romans 5:18-19, 2nd Corinthians 5:21, Matthew 20:28, Romans 8:38-39, 1st Corinthians 15:20-22.

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Security
  • Atonement
  • Hope
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

What is your favourite comfort food? Is it chocolate? Is it a bag of chips? Is it freshly baked bread? Is it KFC or fish n’ chips? Or maybe you like a good old fashioned roast with lots of crispy potatoes and lashings of gravy.

Comfort food is food that provides consolation or a feeling of well-being. We tend to eat comfort food when we are sad or anxious. It usually has a high sugar or fat content and is often associated with some kind of warm memory from our childhood, like when your grandad made pikelets or your mum made apple pie.

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 In Christ Alone. This modern day hymn has proved very popular in churches around the western world. In many ways it is comfort food for the Christian soul.

In Christ Alone was released in 2002. The music was composed by Keith Getty and the lyrics were written by Stuart Townend. Keith Getty was born in Ireland in 1974 and Stuart Townend was born in England in 1963. Stuart also wrote How deep the Father’s love.

In Christ Alone is lyrically rich, touching on many ideas from Scripture.

This morning I would like to explore three of the key themes I see in the song. Namely: security, atonement and hope. First let us consider the theme of security.      

Security:

A few weeks ago, when it became apparent that the world was about to go into lockdown, we saw some panic buying at supermarkets. Some people felt anxious that grocery supplies would run out and started stock piling food.

Flour was one of the first things to disappear, which makes sense because flour is versatile. It can be used in the making of so many comfort foods. But other supplies have also been in high demand – things like sugar, coffee, pasta, lollies, bread, Nuromol, soap and, for some reason, deodorant. Now, I can understand why most of these things would fly off the shelves in difficult times. Having plenty of coffee and sugar and bread gives people a sense of security. But I can’t understand why people felt they needed to stock pile deodorant. We are meant to be practising physical distancing so one would think there was little need to smell nice. Robyn will be the first to tell you, I haven’t really bothered much with deodorant since we’ve been in lockdown. (I’m pretty sure you can’t smell me over the internet.)      

Seriously though, the events of the past few weeks have tested our sense of security and some have been more sorely tested than others. Sadly, people have lost work and income. Fortunately, our government has provided some financial assistance to cushion the blow and many banks and landlords have extended grace to those worst affected.

These physical and financial comforts are helpful for maintaining a sense of security and well-being but, at the same time, the human soul also needs to feel secure at a deeper level – in our spirit.    

In Christ Alone is filled with words of comfort that remind us of the security we have in Christ. Verse 1 reads…

Christ is my light, my strength, my song. This cornerstone, this solid ground.

Firm through the fiercest drought and storm. What heights of love, what depths of peace. When fears are stilled, when strivings cease. My Comforter, my All in All. Here in the love of Christ I stand.

Jesus is the light of the world. If you are in the dark and feeling afraid then turning the lights on makes you feel safe – it gives you a sense of security.

Likewise, Christ is our cornerstone, our solid ground – he is a firm and secure foundation on which to build the house of our life. This reminds us of Jesus’ parable of the two builders – one who built his house on the rock and the other who built his house on sand. When the storm hit, the house built on sand fell but the house built on rock stood. To build our life on the rock is obey the teaching of Jesus. There is security in the wisdom of Jesus. We can trust his word.

Jesus is referred to as a cornerstone in a number of places in the Bible, like in Ephesians 2:20 for example where Paul writes…

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone.

The security that is in view here is that of belonging to the household of God. The title of the song In Christ Alone might give some the impression of being alone in their faith in Christ. But this is not what is meant. Actually we are in Christ together. Even if you are alone in your bubble at this time you are not alone in Christ. You are part of the household of God.     

I’m conscious that a number of people in our congregation and community have immigrated to NZ recently. I’m told that residency applications (even before the Corona virus hit) are a slow process. And that can create a feeling of discomfort and unease. Without residency there’s a whole lot of things you can’t do, like buying a house and putting down roots. This challenges one’s sense of security. Jesus offers himself as a cornerstone for anyone who will believe in him. In and through Christ we have residency in the kingdom of God.

Verse 1 of the song also describes Jesus as my comforter. Jesus is the ultimate comfort food – he is the bread of life. Jesus is the flour which never runs out.

The last line of verse 1 of the song reads, Here in the love of Christ I stand. God is love and, as the apostle John reminds us, perfect love drives out all fear. God’s love is a reliable source of security.

Atonement:

The second major theme we find In Christ Alone is that of atonement.

Atonement is a word which has a very long and complicated history. It is a technical word used by theological experts to describe what Jesus achieved on the cross. Perhaps the simplest way to understand it is at-one-ment. To atone is to be ‘at one’, whole, reconciled.

During this past week there was a news article on TV about bowling greens. Green keepers were asking for a special dispensation from the government to be able to continue looking after the country’s lawn bowling greens. They were saying that safely maintaining what is already there will be cheaper in the long run than letting things get out of control and having to put it right later on.

Many bowling greens in NZ are sown in a species of grass called Cotula (Leptinella dioca). Cotula is a small native herb that spreads out as it grows, forming a very compact mat. You wouldn’t sow a bowling green in Cocksfoot or Buttercup because those kinds of grasses (which you often see on the side of the road) grow up tall, rather than out flat. 

For the bowling green to be an even playing field the lawn needs to be one type of grass. If part of the green is sown in Cotula with patches of Cocksfoot and Buttercup interspersed, then that’s no good. The bowls won’t roll evenly. A well-kept bowling green is one type of grass. In a sense the job of a green keeper is to achieve atonement (or ‘at-one-ment’) of their bowling green.

If we were to think of our relationship with God as a bowling green and ourselves as green keepers, then the truth is, we haven’t looked after the green. We have allowed patches of pride, selfishness and fear to grow. Consequently, the green (of our relationship with God) isn’t right. It doesn’t run true and we can’t fix it ourselves.

On the cross Jesus was making our relationship with God one again – he was removing our sin and making the divine / human relationship whole, making it right, so that things run true.  

Now, if you don’t understand my illustration, then don’t worry. Just think of atonement as reconciliation.  Verse 2 of the song brings to mind Jesus’ work of atonement – making us one with God.      

In Christ alone, who took on flesh, fullness of God in helpless babe

In John 1 we read how Jesus (the Word of God) became flesh. To take on flesh is a poetic way of saying ‘God became human’. We call this the ‘incarnation’. Christian doctrine says that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine at the same time.

The next line of verse 2 of the song reads…
This gift of love and righteousness, scorned by the ones He came to save
Jesus is God’s gift of love to the world. As John 3:16 says…

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.

Sadly, as John’s gospel tells us, Jesus came to his own but his own received him not. (John 1:11). Jesus was scorned (rejected) by those he came to save.

The Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, could see that Jesus was innocent and tried to save him but the crowd called for Jesus to be crucified.

So far so good, until we get to the next line in verse 2…    

‘Til on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied

For every sin on Him was laid. Here in the death of Christ I live.


Hmmm. Most people probably read these lines without giving the words a second thought. But one phrase there has proved quite controversial.

No one disagrees with the fact that Jesus took our sin upon himself and died on the cross. That is generally accepted by Christian believers. The difficulty is with the line; the wrath of God was satisfied.  

The Presbyterian church hymnal committee, in the United States, asked the authors of the song if they could change the words from ‘the wrath of God was satisfied’ to ‘the love of God was magnified’.

Townend and Getty politely said ‘no’.

The Presbyterians respected the author’s wishes but, on the basis of that one phrase, did not include In Christ Alone in their hymn book, even though they agreed with everything else in the song.

So what’s the problem? Well, before I answer that, it is important to acknowledge that the authors of the song are sincere Christians who I believe genuinely want to honour God and build up the body of Christ. It is not my intention to put them down. It is my intention to help us understand the songs we sing in the best possible light. 

The problem is, that line (about the wrath of God being satisfied) makes God look bad. It gives some people the impression of an angry God who must be appeased – sort of like a pagan god. Now I don’t think the authors intended that meaning. After all, the line actually reads …as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied, which suggests timing rather than causation and so allows for some flexibility of interpretation.

Nevertheless, the ambiguity is not ideal. Not only does this line create a problem with people’s perception of God, it also raises a difficulty in logic. It doesn’t make sense to think that the wrath of God was satisfied by the death of Jesus. Jesus was an innocent man. If God is filled with wrath at sin and injustice, then the death of an innocent man is not going to satisfy God’s wrath – it’s only going to add to it.    

So, if we are going to sing this song, what is the best way to understand that infamous line?

Michael Green describes God’s wrath as ‘his settled opposition to all that is evil.’ God’s wrath is different from human anger. God is just and merciful. He doesn’t fly off the handle in a rage and take out his anger on people who don’t deserve it. By the same token his character will not allow him to tolerate evil.

If we agree with Michael Green, that God’s wrath is ‘his settled opposition to all that is evil’, then the thing that satisfies God’s wrath (the thing that turns God’s wrath away) is the end of evil and the beginning of faithful obedience to Him. As we sing in another hymn, ‘Trust and obey for there is no other way.’

Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that it’s not Jesus’ death that satisfies God’s wrath but rather Jesus’ obedience of faith in going to the cross as God asked. Jesus, who is fully human, obeys God on behalf of humanity and in doing so atones for us – he reconciles us to God.

As we read in Romans 5:18-19, 18 So then, as the one sin condemned all people, in the same way the one righteous act sets all people free and gives them life. 19 And just as all people were made sinners as the result of the disobedience of one man [Adam], in the same way they will all be put right with God as the result of the obedience of the one man [Jesus].

That phrase ‘the wrath of God was satisfied’ needs to be read in context with the very next line of the song which says, ‘For every sin on Him was laid’.  

This reminds me of what the apostle Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5:21,

We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him [Jesus] who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

What Paul is saying here, is that our sin was nailed to the cross with Jesus. Therefore, from God’s point view, our sin died on the cross with Jesus.

Once again, it’s not the death of Jesus that satisfies God’s wrath. More precisely, it is the death of sin which satisfies God’s wrath. Sadly, we can’t have one without the other. For sin to die, Jesus also had to die. 

Verse 4 of the song picks up another angle on atonement where it says…

For I am His and He is mine bought with the precious blood of Christ.

This is probably a reference to the way Jesus understood his crucifixion.

In Matthew 20:28 Jesus said of himself, for the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

To ransom something is to pay a price to redeem it or secure its freedom. Jesus’ blood ransoms us – it buys us back, setting us free from the bondage of sin.

As with any metaphor we need to be careful not to make it walk on all fours. That is, we shouldn’t over interpret it by imagining that Satan demanded and received a payment from God in Christ’s blood. [1]  That gives the devil too much credit. Satan is not able to leverage God like that.

There are two main ideas to take away from the ransom analogy:

Firstly, that Jesus’ sacrifice was costly, it was paid in his life blood. So we shouldn’t take it for granted.

And secondly, we now belong to Christ. In other words, we are now at-one with Christ and with God.

Now, if you’re still listening, well done. You may be thinking, ‘Wow. This atonement stuff is really complicated and hard to understand, especially for a Sunday morning.’ I make no apology for that. It doesn’t hurt us to think deeply about our faith from time to time. One of the advantages of an on-line service is that you can go back and listen to the message again or read the sermon notes until the complicated stuff makes sense.    

By the same token, don’t stress about it if you can’t get your head around the atonement. Our salvation does not depend on understanding how the cross of Christ works. Our salvation depends on faith in Jesus.

When I get in my car to drive somewhere I don’t have to understand how the engine works in order to get from A to B – I just have to turn the engine on and drive.

Likewise, if I go to the doctor with an infection, I don’t need to understand how the medicine works for it to make me better – I just need to take it.

We don’t have to understand how Jesus saves us – we just have to believe that he does. Like I said in my Good Friday reflection: “We cannot understand the full meaning of the cross of Christ. We can only stand in silence before it, acknowledge its wonder, and submit to its power.”  [2]

Okay, so far we’ve considered two themes of the song: security and atonement. A third theme we notice is hope.    

Hope:

Often with Christian hymns the subject of hope is raised in the last verse, at the end of the song. ‘In Christ Alone’ sounds a note of hope in the very first line, where it says, In Christ alone my hope is found.

Hope is a word that is closely related to faith. Hope is believing we have a good future. Hope says, we will get through this. The best is yet to come. Worry and believing the worst about the future is the opposite of hope. The ‘panic buying’ we saw in supermarkets recently was a sign that some people were not hopeful. On the other hand, the way most New Zealanders have supported the lockdown and stayed in their bubbles indicates many people do have hope – we do believe we can eliminate the spread of this virus. If we didn’t have hope, we wouldn’t bother staying home.   

Hope is like a kite. It rises against the wind. When things are going well we don’t tend to think about the future all that much. There’s no need to. We are happy enough in the present. But when things are difficult, when we face some sort of opposition, we look to better days ahead and hope rises. The word we use to describe the positive energy of hope is joy. Joy lifts us when we are going through difficulty.    

I don’t know about you but one of the things I’ve noticed this year is an unprecedented use of the word unprecedented.

Unprecedented means ‘never done or known before’. Therefore, by its very definition, unprecedented is not a word we should use very often.

One thing that is truly unprecedented in human history is the resurrection of Christ. While it is true that Jesus raised at least three people from the dead during his earthly ministry, those miracles were different from the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection. Lazarus and the two kids who Jesus raised from the dead would have eventually died again but Jesus was raised to eternal life. He received a new body, one not subject to sickness or death.           

The third and fourth verses of In Christ Alone celebrate Jesus’ resurrection and the certain hope this creates for us. Verse 3 starts with the words…

There in the ground His body lay, light of the world by darkness slain.
Then bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave He rose again.

All four gospels testify to the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Jesus’ resurrection is proof that Jesus was who he said he was – the Son of God.

Jesus’ resurrection shows us the justice of God – it was God’s way of vindicating Jesus. By raising Jesus from the dead God was saying Jesus was innocent and did not deserve to die.

Jesus’ resurrection also shows us that Jesus is Lord over life and death – he has victory over sin and the grave. The song picks up this theme of Jesus’ supremacy in various lines. For example, in verse 3 where we sing…   

And as He stands in victory, sin’s curse has lost its grip on me.

In the context of the song, Sins’ curse most likely refers to guilt and death, which are mentioned in the opening line of verse 4.

Our sin was nailed to the cross with Jesus so sin has been crucified. Sin no longer has power over us and this gives us hope. It assures us we have a good future to look forward to.   

Verse 4 of the song continues the theme of Christ’s supremacy where it says…

From life’s first cry to final breath Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand.
This reminds me of Romans 8:38-39 where Paul writes,

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Because Jesus is Lord of all, because He reigns supreme we have hope and security, both in this life and the next. 

But wait, there’s more. Jesus’ resurrection provides Christian believers with evidence that God will raise us to eternal life one day too. In 1st Corinthians 15:20-22 Paul writes about the certain hope of resurrection…

20 But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised. 21 For just as death came by means of a man, in the same way the rising from death comes by means of a man. 22 For just as all people die because of their union with Adam, in the same way all will be raised to life because of their union with Christ.

Christ’s resurrection has real implications for those who place their trust in him. Christ’s resurrection guarantees our resurrection to eternal life. This is not an unlikely hope (like winning lotto). This is a certain hope and a real comfort when a believer dies.

Conclusion:

The song finishes with the line, Till He returns or calls me home, here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

This reminds us that Jesus will return in glory one day. Therefore, we need to be ready. No one knows the day or hour.  

It also reminds us that we don’t stand in our own strength. We stand in the power of Christ’s Spirit. This means we are not alone and it doesn’t all depend on us.  

Jesus is our all in all. He gives us security. He reconciles us to God. And, through Christ, we have the hope of a good future.

Intercessory Prayer

Let us pray.

Generous God, we pray for those who are struggling financially during this time of lockdown. Help people in need who are applying for government assistance. Open doors to release your providence where it is needed.

Father God, may you help those who are managing the pressures that come with working from home and caring for children. Give them the grace of patience and good humour. Make our marriages and families stronger through this experience we pray.

Gracious God, may you help those who are feeling insecure or anxious at this time. Calm all ungodly fears and bring stillness to every racing mind. May your peace be our security.

Loving God, we pray for those who are working in essential services. Protect them from all harm and encourage them in the vital work they do.

Suffering God, may you help those (in NZ and overseas) who have lost loved ones and are unable to gather for a funeral. Comfort them by your Holy Spirit and bring to their minds happy memories. The love we give is never lost. 

Faithful God, may you help those who are seeking residency in NZ, wanting to make this country their home. Give them your reassurance and provide them with a turangawaewae (a place to stand), a cornerstone.

Compassionate God, may you help those who are feeling disconnected or lonely. Make the at-one-ment of Christ real for them. Help them to draw near to Jesus and feel the warmth of God’s people. Help us all as we tend the bowling greens of our relationships.    

Living God, may you help those whose hope is waning. Cause them to rise against the wind and soar on wings like eagles. Keep the truth and wonder of Jesus’ resurrection present in our minds we ask.     

Immanuel, may you help those who are trying to care for parents and family members from a distance. Watch over our loved ones for good. May we all remember that nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Wise and merciful God, we pray these things in submission to your perfect and pleasing will. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

In Christ Alone is comfort food for the Christian soul. Not junk food, but real hearty nourishment. Let’s nourish our souls as we sing, In Christ Alone…

In Christ alone my hope is found
He is my light, my strength, my song
This Cornerstone, this solid ground
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm
What heights of love, what depths of peace
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease
My Comforter, my All in All
Here in the love of Christ I stand

In Christ alone, who took on flesh
Fullness of God in helpless babe
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones He came to save
‘Til on that cross as Jesus died
The wrath of God was satisfied
For every sin on Him was laid
Here in the death of Christ I live

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave He rose again
And as He stands in victory
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me
For I am His and He is mine
Bought with the precious blood of Christ

No guilt in life, no fear in death
This is the power of Christ in me
From life’s first cry to final breath
Jesus commands my destiny
No power of hell, no scheme of man
Can ever pluck me from His hand
Till He returns or calls me home
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand

Questions for discussion or reflection

Listen to the song ‘In Christ Alone’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does the song evoke for you?) 

What is your favourite comfort food? Is there a special memory attached to this comfort food?  In what sense are certain worship songs like spiritual comfort food?

Discuss / reflect on some of the images of security in the song. E.g. light, cornerstone, firm foundation, comforter and love. How do these connect with Scripture? Which image of security resonates best with you?  Why is that do you think? 

What does atonement mean?

What problems can you see with the line, ‘Til on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied? What is God’s wrath? How does Jesus turn God’s wrath away? (Think obedience, not punishment.)

What is hope? How is hope related to faith and joy?

Why is the resurrection of Jesus so important to Christian faith? What are the implications of Jesus’ resurrection for you personally?  

Outtakes

The cornerstone metaphor is also used of Christ in 1 Peter 2:6 where the apostle writes: 5 you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual houseto be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.”

In the verses above, from 1 Corinthians 15, we see our three themes of security, atonement and hope drawn together.

Union with Christ speaks of the result of atonement – Jesus makes us one with himself and with God.

Likewise, Christ’s resurrection speaks of hope in that it guarantees our resurrection to eternal life.

And, when we put Christ’s work of atonement and the hope of resurrection together, we have security in Christ.

[1] Refer to the Ransom article in the ‘Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, page 695

[2] Stanley Grenz, ‘Theology for the Community of God’, page 340

Tawa Baptist

When I survey the wondrous cross

Scriptures: Galatians 6:14, 1st Corinthians 1:18-31, Matthew 22:37

Good Friday Reflection:

Good morning everyone.

For many years the BBC Good Friday radio broadcast has started with the hymn, When I survey the wondrous cross. ­The words for When I survey were written by Isaac Watts in 1707 in preparation for a communion service. Isaac Watts was about 33 years old at the time. The hymn was originally named “Crucifixion to the World by the Cross of Christ,” but apparently that didn’t catch on and these days we simply call it by the opening line When I survey.  

Isaac Watts was the son of a deacon in the Independent Church. As an 18 year old Watts was critical of the hymns they sang in church in the 17th Century, so his father said to him, “Make some yourself then.”

And that’s exactly what Isaac Watts did. He started writing his own hymns. Over his lifetime he penned the lyrics for about 750 songs, including Joy to world, which we sing at Christmas time.

Many consider ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’ to be one of the greatest hymns ever composed. Certainly it was ground breaking in its day. When I survey is unlike the other hymns, of that time, in that it reflects a personal spiritual experience. It describes the affect the cross of Christ can have on the human soul.

The sentiment of the opening line (and indeed the whole song) is that “We cannot understand the full meaning of the cross of Christ. We can only stand in silence before it, acknowledge its wonder, and submit to its power.”  [1]

At that stage in church history many people had been focused on getting their doctrines right. While good doctrine is helpful for guiding our thinking about God, Watts could see that doctrine by itself wasn’t enough. Faith in God isn’t just a set of philosophical principles or ideas to be examined under the microscope of our mind. We don’t define God. God defines us.

On some level Isaac Watts knew that God is relational and people need to have a personal encounter with Jesus. We need the love of God to touch us on the inside. Songs like When I survey were controversial in Watts’ day, perhaps because they were considered too subjective or too emotional. And yet, for over 300 years,the song When I survey the wondrous cross has opened people’s hearts to the wonder of God’s love and given us a way to express our deep personal gratitude to Jesus.

The second line of the song refers to the ‘Prince of Glory’. This is a title for Jesus. Prince of Glory (with a capital G) means Prince of heaven.

‘Prince of Glory’ also indicates that all glory and honour are due to Jesus.   

In the last line of the first verse of the song Watts talks about pouring contempt on all my pride. Contempt is the feeling that something is worthless. And pride, in the context of this song, is a feeling of self-satisfaction. Pride says, ‘I don’t need God. I can do this on my own.’ Therefore, ‘to pour contempt on our pride’ is to consider our own achievements as worthless and to rely, not on ourselves but rather, on what Christ has achieved through the cross. 

C.S. Lewis had some things to say about pride. He said, for example,

…pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense. [2]

A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you. [3]

…it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

In verse 2 of the hymn we speak directly to God saying, ‘Forbid it Lord that I should boast, save in the death of Christ my Lord’. This is a paraphrase of Paul’s words in Galatians 6:14, where the apostle writes,

‘May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’  

The world, in this verse from Galatians, refers to everything that is against God. The world then is not so much a geographical place. The world, in this context, refers to an ‘anti-God state of mind’. Paul is saying the cross of Christ has (for him at least) killed his pride. In other words, Paul’s anti-God state of mind has been crucified. He no longer thinks of himself as not needing God. He now thinks and acts with reference to what God wants.

Taking his cue from Paul, Isaac Watts (like C.S. Lewis) had the insight to see that the cross cuts to the core of the matter – human pride. When we face the cross of Jesus squarely and honestly it humbles us.  

To put it another way; if we think of our pride as a house of cards (something we have spent a lot of time carefully constructing, but which isn’t very stable or resilient), then Christ’s sacrifice on the cross flattens our house of cards. 

The second part of verse 2 of the song continues the theme of ruthlessly crucifying our pride: All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood. This line reminds me of what Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 1:18-31. Let me read you read some of the verses from this passage of Scripture…

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

… 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong…

31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”   

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

What the world values and holds in high esteem: things like youth, beauty, wealth, skill, success, popularity, performance, winning and so on, these are of little eternal consequence. What really matters in the end is faith expressing itself in love [4], as demonstrated by Christ’s obedience to God in going to the cross.

You know, as we grow older and more self-aware, we come to understand the paradox that our strengths contain the very seeds of our weaknesses.

What are the vain things that charm you the most?

If verses 1 & 2 of the song seek to crucify pride, then verse 3 of the hymn shows us what we see when we survey the wondrous cross … 

See from his head, his hands, his feet, sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet? Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

This verse sets our minds on Jesus, bleeding out on a cross; a crown of thorns on his head, nails through his hands and feet. Sorrow mixed with love speaks of self-giving love. It also suggests not just the physical pain Jesus endured but also the mental anguish and grief Jesus suffered over his separation from God.

The final verse of the song indicates what our response should be…

Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

This verse speaks of the fact that Jesus was the only one worthy to make the sacrifice to atone for our sin. Nothing else in all creation could have sufficed. When we understand that God did not hold back even his own Son for us, our conscience requires us to not hold anything back from God.

We know from the Law of Moses and from Jesus’ teaching that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our mind. Jesus shows us, by his example, what that means and through the cross he provides the motivation to love God.

Now it needs to be acknowledged that we are all on a journey with this. While the final verse of the song holds up an ideal response, we don’t always manage to love God with our all. Wherever you are at on the journey I encourage you to not give up. Keep walking with Jesus. God is gracious and he understands our intentions are often bigger than our capacity to deliver (like a child at a smorgasbord whose eyes are bigger than his belly).

Peter was adamant that he would never abandon Jesus and yet, within a few hours, his enthusiasm was drained and he denied Jesus three times to save his own neck. Like Peter, we have all fallen short of our own best intentions. The good news is that Jesus did not condemn Peter. Jesus restored Peter and Jesus wants to restore us too.

When we survey the cross we face mystery. We cannot understand the full meaning of the cross of Christ. We can only stand in silence before it, acknowledge its wonder, and submit to its power.”  [5]

Let’s do that now as we sing in our bubbles, When I survey the wondrous cross…         

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God:
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to his blood.

See from his head, his hands, his feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet?
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were an offering far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my All.

[1] Stanley Grenz, ‘Theology for the Community of God’, page 340

[2] C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.115

[3] C. S. Lewis (2003). “A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis”, p.114

[4] Galatians 5:6b

[5] Stanley Grenz, ‘Theology for the Community of God’, page 340

Tawa Baptist

The Servant Song

Scriptures: Matthew 6:1-4, Mark 15:40-41, John 13:1-17, Matthew 5:41,

Ruth 1:16-17, Romans 12:15, Acts 2:41-46, 1 Peter 4:12-13, Hebrews 10:32-33.

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Service
  • Journey
  • Communion
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Good morning everyone.

On the 25th January 1992 R and I were married in Hamilton South Baptist Church. It was a sweltering day and humidity was high. It was also a very happy day. By the end of it I had a sore face from smiling so much.

Although the service was the better part of an hour long it seemed to be over in a flash. Nevertheless, I remember many of the details.

I remember the way R looked.

I remember the pastor’s sermon and jokes.

I remember my fingers swelling up with the heat so it was hard to slip the ring on my finger.

I remember the faces of the guests in the congregation.

I remember at least one of the songs we sang.    

And I remember walking out of the sanctuary with the lapel mic still on.

Fortunately, our MC had the presence of mind to make a dash to the sound desk and turn the volume down before I said anything too personal to R after the service had finished.

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 The Servant Song. And, you guessed it, this was the song we sang on our wedding day. I don’t remember if we chose this song or if it was chosen for us by our pastor. Either way it was a good choice. The words of The Servant Song have held a great deal of meaning for R and I through our married life.

In researching the origins of The Servant Song I was surprised to learn that it was written by a New Zealander, Richard Gillard.

Richard was born in 1953 in England (the eldest of 6 children) and brought to NZ at the age of 3 where he has lived ever since.

Richard’s mother came from an Anglican background and his dad’s side of the family were Pentecostal.  

Richard Gillard started his working life as a Primary School teacher but has held other jobs as well.

He doesn’t have any formal training in music. He is self-taught.

The composition of The Servant Song began in 1977 when Richard was around 24 years’ old. After returning from his OE in Israel and Europe, Richard found the jottings of verse 3 in his guitar case. He then completed the song and it was published in 1978. Written in a folk style, which was popular in the 1970’s, it has become a church classic.

Broadly speaking I see three key themes in the lyrics: service, journey and communion. First let’s consider the theme of service.

Service:

The song starts and finishes with the words…

Brother, sister let me serve you. Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace to let you be my servant, too.

The main idea to hold on to here is that, the way of Christ is the way of a servant. Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. As the followers of Jesus we are to have the attitude of Christ and serve others too.

The idea of serving others sounds romantic and even heroic, especially when we sing it to the lovely tune that Richard Gillard wrote. But, as many of you know, the reality of true service is often more difficult and frustrating and humiliating.

Serving others isn’t just about doing things for other people, like doing the dishes or mowing the lawns or cleaning hair out of the shower drain. It does include those things but true service runs deeper than that. It’s about the attitude or motivation we have in doing things for others. What I mean is, true service doesn’t come with strings attached. It has no agenda except that of seeking the wellbeing of others.

If someone washes your car with the expectation that you will now be in their debt and owe them a favour, then that’s not really true service.  

Or, if someone showers you with compliments so that you will be more inclined to give them what they want, then that’s not service either, that’s manipulation.

Or, if someone helps you out financially and then goes and tells everyone about how they’ve given you money, then they are not really serving you; they are serving their own ego. Jesus preached about this in Matthew 6:1-4 when he said

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honoured by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Jesus is saying a number of things in this passage. One of the things he’s saying is, ‘make sure your service to others is about them and not about you.’

Because if it’s about you, people are going to get hurt. When we make a big deal about helping others we make the people we are supposed to be helping feel small. But when we do our acts of kindness discretely we make the people we are helping feel good and we set them free from any obligation they may feel to us.

God loves a pure heart – so it might seem strange or contradictory that Jesus says God will reward us for the good we do in secret. Well, once again, it is a question of motivation. We don’t do our good deeds in secret so that God will reward us. Doing good is its own reward – there is joy in it. What we find, when we do good in secret, is that it becomes something sacred between God and us. Something pure, something intimate, something valuable, something no one else can touch. And that is the real reward.

Many of the people (perhaps most) who served Jesus in practical ways, without being noticed, were women. In Mark 15 we read about Jesus’ crucifixion and death. Verses 40-41 of Mark 15 tell us how Some women were watching from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joseph,and Salome. 41 In Galilee these women had followed Jesus and cared for his needs.

These women, who served Jesus during his earthly ministry, also served Jesus in his death. On the first Easter Sunday they went to Jesus’ tomb to anoint his body with spices but the tomb was empty. Their reward was being the first to see the risen Lord Jesus.

Brother, sister let me serve you. Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace to let you be my servant, too.

This verse of the song often reminds me of John 13, where Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. It was the night before Jesus’ crucifixion. As the last supper was being served Jesus got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, put a towel around his waist, poured water into a bowl and started washing his disciples’ feet.

In ancient middle eastern culture washing feet was a job for the lowest servant. There was no glory in it. Washing feet was dirty, humiliating work.

It’s difficult to say what the equivalent would be in our society today. Whatever job no one else wants to do I guess. Like when the school care taker gets the saw dust out to clean up someone’s vomit – that’s like washing people’s feet. But it’s not just janitorial staff who wash people’s feet (metaphorically speaking). Sometimes the boss has to do the unpleasant things that no one else wants to do. Leadership can be lonely, especially when you have to make an unpopular decision, which most people don’t understand but which is actually for the greater good.

Jesus is both our janitor and our leader. He cleans up our messes and he makes the hard and lonely calls of leadership. Going to the cross to die for the sins of world was the most famous way in which Jesus washed our feet. His sacrifice was unpopular and misunderstood but it was also for the greater good. Jesus’ blood cleanses us from our sin. By literally washing his disciples’ feet Jesus acted out a parable of what he was about to do on the cross and he gave his disciples an example to follow.

Now, in many ways, I’m preaching to the choir. Generally speaking, people at Tawa Baptist are ready and willing to serve others. Practical acts of service are one of our church values. It’s woven into the fabric of who we are. Perhaps where we aren’t so strong is having the grace to let others serve us.  

Verse 6 of John 13 tells us that when Jesus came to wash Peter’s feet, Peter refused. He thought this was beneath Jesus. Interestingly, Jesus did not wash Peter’s feet by force. Rather he gave Peter an informed choice saying, Unless I wash you, you have no part in me. Only then did Peter accept.   

Richard Gillard’s song says, …let me serve you, let me be as Christ to you…

Service cannot be forced on people. We can only serve others if they allow it. We kiwis (New Zealanders) are fiercely independent. We’ve had to be. Our ancestors came here from thousands of miles away without support and had to do things for themselves. And it has become part of our ethos too. We feel uncomfortable being served. It’s not the kiwi way. But it is the Jesus way.

…pray that I am may have the grace to let you be my servant too. It takes a special kind of grace to accept what other people offer. We see this grace in the way Jesus accepted the woman who washed his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. By accepting her act of love and devotion Jesus was essentially accepting her. To reject her service would be to reject her.

Journey:

The next verse of Richard Gillard’s song reads…                

We are pilgrims on a journey. We are brothers on the road.
We are here to help each other, walk the mile and bear the load.

This verse picks up one of the central threads of the Biblical story – that of journey. Abraham was not settled in one place. He was a pilgrim (a sojourner) following God in faith.

The people of Israel made a number of great journeys. They left slavery in Egypt and journeyed in the wilderness for 40 years before entering the Promised Land. Then, some centuries later, they were taken into exile in Babylon before making the journey back to Judah.

Jesus was often on the road during his public ministry. Never staying in one town for long. Always on the move toward Jerusalem.

Likewise, the apostles travelled far and wide spreading the good news about Jesus outward from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. 

We too are on a journey of faith through this life but we don’t walk alone. We walk beside each other, supporting one another.

…walk the mile and bear the load is probably a reference to Matthew 5:41 where Jesus is talking about not resisting an evil person and loving your enemies. Jesus says, If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. It is from this verse that we get the expression, ‘going the extra mile.’

You see, 2000 years ago the land of Israel was occupied by the Romans. A Roman soldier had the legal right to make a Jew carry their pack for one mile. Jesus was saying, if a soldier stops you and forces you to carry his pack, surprise him by carrying it an extra mile. That is an incredibly unpopular (foot washing type) thing for Jesus to say to an oppressed people. No one wanted to carry the Romans’ baggage.

We don’t have soldiers or police forcing us to carry their loads these days but we are sometimes forced to carry things we don’t want to.

Maybe we are carrying a load of grief from the death of a loved one.

Or maybe we are carrying a load of sickness or a load of prejudice.

Maybe we are carrying a load of guilt from something we did in the past or, even worse, a load of false guilt from something we only imagined we did.

Maybe we are carrying the baggage of an abusive childhood or a childhood raised in poverty.

Or maybe we are carrying a load of depression and anxiety.

We might pray for release from the tyranny of these heavy loads and sometimes we get a miracle, sometimes God sets us free.

Other times though it seems God is slow to answer. Some bullets we just can’t dodge. There are no short cuts with grief, for example.

What does Jesus have to say about these unwanted loads? Jesus says, share them with each other. Don’t carry them on your own.

We share the load in a whole variety of ways. Verses 3 and 4 of the song describe some of those ways. Verse 3 reads…

I will hold the Christ-light for you in the night time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you; speak the peace you long to hear.

Jesus is the light of world. Among other things, light is a metaphor for truth.

When we are in the dark we can’t see the truth – we lack the knowledge we need and that makes us feel afraid. To hold the Christ-light is to speak the truth (or impart the knowledge) someone needs so they are not afraid anymore.

This doesn’t mean having all the answers. It may be as simple as saying, ‘You are not alone. I am here with you. We’ll get through this together’.

I will hold my hand out to you; this line indicates an invitation. Once again, we offer, we don’t force.

As I reflect on this verse of the song I am reminded of the movie Good Will Hunting, starring Matt Damon and Robin Williams. Matt Damon plays the part of a young man (Will Hunting) who works as a janitor cleaning up other people’s messes. Will, who has had a troubled childhood, ends up in court and is required by the judge to get counselling. At first he treats the people who are trying to help him with contempt. But eventually he is able to respect one man, Dr Sean Maguire, a trained therapist and Vietnam vet.

Sean helps Will to face the night time of his past. In one of their counselling sessions Sean holds his hand out and speaks the peace Will longs to hear saying, “It’s not your fault’. Sean has to keep saying this several times before Will accepts it. In the end the light of truth finds its way through Will’s defenses and the message hits home.

What we notice about this story is that Sean Maguire had to walk with Will Hunting for quite a long time – he had to go the extra mile with him, sharing the load – in order to earn Will’s trust. If Sean had tried to tell Will it wasn’t his fault at the beginning, without doing the hard yards first, then Will would never have believed him. 

Who are you walking with? Who is your Will Hunting? Who is your Sean Maguire? What is the peace you long to hear?  

Verse 4 of Richard Gillard’s song continues the theme of journey – going the extra mile with people and carrying each other’s loads.


I will weep when you are weeping. When you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow till we’ve seen this journey through.

This verse of the song puts me in touch with two passages of Scripture. The first is from Romans chapter 12, verse 15, where Paul is describing what it means to offer ourselves as living sacrifices. Paul says, ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.’  In other words, I will weep when you are weeping. When you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.

The other passage of Scripture that comes to mind is from the story of Ruth. Naomi has lost her husband and her two sons. She has no grandchildren and it seems nothing to live for. Naomi is living abroad, in the land of Moab, and decides to return home to Bethlehem, in Judah. As she says good-bye, one of her daughters-in-law (Ruth) says to her…

“Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. 17 Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried…   

In other words, I will share your joy and sorrow till we’ve seen this journey through. Ruth, the Moabite, the one no one expected, did the unexpected and committed herself to Naomi in an act of loyal love.

Mother Teresa is quoted as saying, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.” I think Ruth understood that. Ruth served Naomi with a pure heart and God rewarded her. Ruth became the ancestor of king David.

Communion:

The first and last verse of the song are about service. The middle verses are about journey and the fifth verse is about communion…

When we sing to God in heaven, we shall find such harmony.
Born of all we’ve known together of Christ’s love and agony.

I find it hard to sing this verse without choking up. In my view it is the most powerful verse of The Servant Song. These words are talking about the communion of Christ’s followers.  

‘Communion’ is a word which means sharing or exchanging intimate thoughts and feelings, especially on a mental or spiritual level.

‘Communion’ comes from a Latin word. The Greek equivalent, used in the New Testament, is koinonia.

Koinonia describes a certain quality of fellowship and unity within the church. And by fellowship we don’t just mean making small talk over a cup of tea or coffee. The fellowship or communion of koinonia is more profound than that.

For example, in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit is given at Pentecost, we read, Those who accepted Peter’s message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship [that is, koinonia], to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Acts 2, goes on to describe the quality of communion or fellowship enjoyed by the early church in Jerusalem: 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.

What we notice in Acts 2 is that koinonia (or fellowship) was created by a shared belief in Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Their koinonia was characterised by harmony.

Verse 5 of the song starts by looking forward to heaven: When we sing to God in heaven, we shall find such harmony.

Notice it says, ‘When we sing to God in heaven’. It’s going to happen. Our hope is secure. 

‘Harmony’ is not when everyone sings the same note. Harmony is when people make a beautiful sound singing different notes at the same time. Harmony indicates agreement, accord and peace as different parts work together.

If the first half of verse 5 of the song looks forward to heaven, the second half acknowledges the reality Christian believers experience in this life: Born of all we’ve known together of Christ’s love and agony.

Agony speaks of pain – intense pain, horrible pain. It reminds us of the cross. Love and agony go together. Jesus suffered a great deal because of his love for God and humanity. As followers of Christ we too share in Christ’s sufferings.

In 1st Peter 4:12-13 we read: Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed.

The word translated there as ‘sharing’ comes from the Greek word koinonia. The idea is that if we share in Christ’s sufferings we will share in his glory too. 

We also read about the communion (or koinonia) of suffering in the book of Hebrews chapter 10: 32 But recall those earlier days when, after you had been enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, 33 sometimes being publicly exposed to abuse and persecution, and sometimes being partners with those so treated.

Again, the word translated as ‘partners’ is derived from koinonia.

What we notice, in the New Testament, is that there is a certain kind of communion in suffering together.   

Soldiers who have been through battle together share the common bond of koinonia. Theirs is a communion forged by fire.

Likewise, survivors of an earthquake or a plane crash or a pandemic or some other catastrophe, share koinonia through that experience.

The disciples of Jesus were all quite different from each other. Each one sounded a different note. But at the same time they shared one thing in common – Jesus. They were all witnesses to the ministry, the suffering, the death and resurrection of Jesus. They saw Jesus’ love and agony first hand. They smelled his sweat. They felt his passion. They walked the mile with him.    

You know suffering is never pleasant at the time. When we are going through it we just want it to be over. But sometimes God is doing his best work, in our relationships, while we are suffering. Suffering can be a gift – it is the gift of intimacy (or closeness) with Jesus and communion with one another.

It is no accident that The Servant Song was first published on an album by Scripture in Song called “Father Make Us One”.  

Conclusion:

In a few moments we will have the opportunity to share the ritual of communion at home in our bubbles. Normally we would do this together as a gathered community, but that’s not possible while we are in lockdown. Even though we are physically separated from each other, we are not spiritually separated. We are connected with each other by the Spirit of Jesus. God is making us one as we share in Christ’s love and agony for the world.

Let’s sing The Servant Song now as we prepare to receive communion…

The Servant Song

Brother, sister let me serve you.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.

We are pilgrims on a journey.
We are brothers on the road.
We are here to help each other
Walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you
In the night time of your fear.
I will hold my hand out to you;
Speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping.
When you laugh, I’ll laugh with you.
I will share your joy and sorrow
Till we’ve seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven,
We shall find such harmony
Born of all we’ve known together
Of Christ’s love and agony.

Brother, sister let me serve you.
Let me be as Christ to you.
Pray that I might have the grace
To let you be my servant, too.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to ‘The Servant Song’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does the song evoke for you?) 

How would you describe true service?

Why did Jesus caution us to keep our good deeds a secret? What do you think Jesus meant when he talked about God rewarding us for the good we do in secret?

Why did Jesus wash his disciples’ feet? What would be some modern day equivalents of washing someone’s feet?

Are you carrying an unwanted load at the moment? What is it? Is there someone sharing the load with you? If not, who might you ask to help you? What is the peace you long to hear?

What is the meaning of communion (or koinonia)? How is koinonia created?

How might suffering bring us closer to Jesus and closer to each other?     

Tawa Baptist

Abide with me

Scriptures: Luke 24:29, Matthew 9:10-13, Malachi 4:1-2, 1st Corinthians 15:55, John 14:1-4

Introduction:

Good morning everyone

From midnight last Wednesday we have all been in our self-isolation bubbles. But even before that we have been washing our hands more than usual. When you wash your hands you inevitably make lots of tiny bubbles with the water and soap.

Soap bubbles are wonderful really – although fragile and fleeting they are also beautiful, each one containing its own little rainbow. 

A single bubble naturally forms the shape of a sphere (as opposed to a square or a triangle) because that’s the smallest stable structure it can take.

While the life of a bubble is short the joy they inspire lasts a lot longer. Children never get tired of blowing bubbles.

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.

In some ways singing songs of worship is a bit like blowing bubbles. While the singing doesn’t last very long, the beauty and joy of it linger after the music has popped and we find ourselves coming back again and again to sing the same songs, like a child blowing bubbles over and over.

Origins:

The song we are looking at this morning is called Abide with me.

Abide with me is actually a prayer for Jesus to be close to us personally and yet it is one of those songs that people, who don’t usually go to church, keep coming back to

Those of you who are football fans will know that the crowd sing a couple of verses of Abide with me before the start of the FA Cup final. They have done this every year since 1927 as a matter of tradition. It was a favourite of King George the fifth who was present at the FA Cup final that year.

Abide with me was also sung by British soldiers in the trenches during World War 1 and it is often sung at ANZAC services in NZ & Australia.

On Sept 21, 2001 it was played at Ground Zero by a Salvation Army band during the commemoration of the September 11 attacks.

It also features on the soundtracks of several movies, like The Full Monty, 28 Days Later and A Bridge Too Far.

Abide with me was written by Henry Lyte. Henry was born in Scotland in 1793, educated in Ireland and then served as an Anglican priest for a number of years in England.

For much of his life Henry Lyte did not enjoy good health but he didn’t let that stop him serving the Lord. On more than one occasion he was heard to say rather jokingly, ‘it is better to wear out than to rust out’. These are the words of a man who knows his days are numbered and wants to make the most of them. They are not good advice for most of us though. The journey of faith is a marathon, not a sprint and we need to pace ourselves.

Henry Lyte died at the relatively young age of 54, from TB

It is uncertain when Henry Lyte wrote Abide with me. Some say it was around 1820, after visiting a friend on his death bed. Others say Henry wrote the song in 1847, just weeks before his own death. Whatever the case, Erik Routley was surely right when he said Abide with me is a hymn which, “looks death itself in the face”. It is a song which expresses our human desire for companionship when we are in extreme circumstances, which may be one reason why it is so popular outside of church walls.    

While Henry Lyte did write music to accompany his lyrics, the tune we sing it to these days was written by William Monk following the death of his daughter, Florence. William had been standing, hand in hand with his wife, at the window of their cottage, ‘silently watching the glory of the setting sun until the golden hue faded’, when suddenly the words of the hymn Abide with me came to his mind. He wasted no time in composing the music he called Eventide

Death and resurrection:

The opening verse of the hymn reads…

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me.

The word abide, in this context, means to ‘stay with’, to ‘reside’ or to ‘hang out’ together – for example, we abide with those in our bubble.

Abide can also mean to tolerate or put up with or obey, but that’s not the meaning here. In this song abide is about spending time together, enjoying each other’s presence, connecting with one another on the inside.

Eventide means the end of the day when the sun sets and night falls. It is a metaphor for the end of this life, when the sun sets on our mortal body and we are facing death. It could be our own mortality we are facing or the death of a loved one    

That phrase, the darkness deepens, is a poetic way of talking about the sadness, the loneliness and the powerlessness we feel in the face of death. When you are grieving, the things that once comforted you and helped you no longer hold any enjoyment. You might go off your food, for example, or you might find it hard to sleep. In that situation Jesus is the help of the helpless. Jesus comes to the aid of those who are powerless to help themselves.

Now some of you may be thinking, why is Will preaching on a song that reminds us about death and mortality – especially when the world is threatened by an epidemic?

Well, it’s not my job to distract people from reality. We have Netflix for that.

Part of my job involves helping people to face reality and the reality is, everyone dies eventually. But that is only a small part of our reality. The bigger part, the good news, is that Jesus has conquered death and so death does not have the last word. You see, facing our own mortality opens the door to thinking about resurrection.

Henry Lyte, who lived in the constant shadow of death, was very conscious of resurrection.  

The inspiration for verse 1 of Henry’s song comes from Luke 24:29. In Luke 24 two people are facing the deepening darkness of death. Just a couple of days before they had witnessed the murder of someone they loved dearly – they saw Jesus crucified. The bottom has fallen out of their world and the sun is setting on hope. As Cleopas and the other disciple are walking away from Jerusalem toward Emmaus, Jesus himself comes alongside them. They don’t recognise him at first. At that point their minds are closed to the possibility of resurrection. They can’t comprehend that Jesus has been raised to new life.

Jesus asks them what they are talking about and they are shocked that he hasn’t heard all that has happened over the weekend. It would be like someone not knowing we are at level 4 alert for Corona virus. After listening to them Jesus says…

26 “Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 28 As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going further. 29 But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us [abide with us], for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him…

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us

What we notice here, in this eye witness account from Luke’s gospel, is that it is the risen Jesus who abides with his bewildered and grieving disciples. And somehow his presence is enough. Although he disappears from their sight, soon after their eyes were opened, he continues to abide in their hearts and minds. Because of his resurrection, they don’t feel alone or sad anymore. To the contrary, they feel connected and joyful – they run back to Jerusalem to tell the others the good news. 

The next verse of Henry Lyte’s song starts with the words…

Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

These lines are talking about how short life is.  

I remember sitting with my grandfather as he was dying. He said about his life, ‘It all went by so quickly’. He was 72. I was 24 and, at that age, you feel like you’ve got all the time in the world. But really, in the light of eternity, this life is like a soap bubble. It is fragile and fleeting but also quite beautiful in its own short way   

The second half of verse 2 finds a note of hope  

Change and decay in all around I see—
O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

In other words: Yes, life is short and constantly changing (how quickly things have changed in the last couple of weeks) but God does not change. God is stable and secure, faithful and reliable. The Lord is our rock, a firm foundation.

As we read in Hebrews 13:8, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Or as Yahweh says through the prophet Malachi, “I the Lord do not change. So you… are not destroyed.” (3:6)     

Or as we read in the Psalms, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, His mercies never come to an end.

Fear not:

There are actually eight verses to the original version of Abide with me, but we normally only sing four. We don’t have time to examine every verse in detail but I would like to touch on one of the less well known verses, where we say to Jesus…

Come not in terror, as the King of kings,
But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings;

This line of the song recalls Malachi chapter 4 where we read about the day of the Lord’s return – the day of judgment…

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. 2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.  

The day of God’s judgement is frightening. Even though Malachi is using poetic language, the image of being burned up in a furnace is terrifying, especially when you consider that none of us are perfect. All of us have participated in some evil in our life.

But it’s not all bad news. Those who revere God’s name receive healing and are set free to frolic like well-fed calves. Clearly, we want to be on the side of those who revere God’s name. But what does that mean, to revere God’s name? Well, the next line in the song gives us a few clues…

Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea.
Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me.

Jesus is the picture of God’s compassion – he feels our pain and weeps with us for our woes. He has a heart that listens to and understands the cry of our heart. What’s more, Jesus is a friend of sinners, which comes as a great relief in light of Malachi’s furnace metaphor.

In singing the words, Come, Friend of sinners, thus abide with me, we are identifying ourselves as sinners, humbly calling on the compassion and mercy of Jesus, our friend.

In Matthew 9 the Pharisees saw Jesus abiding with disreputable people, people they considered to be evil doers, so they said to Jesus’ disciples, ‘Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ To which Jesus replied…

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

You see, God doesn’t want to destroy people – he loves people and wants to save us – that’s why Jesus came, so that we might have abundant life. Those who revere God’s name are not perfect but they are not arrogant either – they are humble. True humility is about being honest with ourselves. Those who ‘revere the name of the Lord’ are under no illusion – they rely on Jesus’ mercy, not their own power.

The risk with living in a bubble is that people may become fearful and anxious. Consequently, there has been a lot of talk in the media about taking care of our mental health while we are in self-isolation. The pen-ultimate verse of Henry Lyte’s song addresses this very thing…

I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

This verse implies that having Jesus abide with us does not mean nothing bad will ever happen to us. Jesus’ presence is not a bullet proof vest or Personal Protective Equipment. We may still suffer illness but the ills have no weight – they are lighter somehow when Jesus abides with us. Likewise, we may still suffer injustice & grief but our tears hold no bitterness – if anything the presence of Christ brings release. How is this possible? It is possible because when Jesus abides with us we know we are loved by God

I am mindful of several verses from the Bible which hold together the paradox of suffering with joy (and without fear). In particular…

Psalm 126:5, Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.

And the beatitudes where Jesus says, Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted (Matthew 5:4)

Also Paul’s letter to the Romans (5:3-5), We rejoice in sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.  

And that’s the key right there isn’t it. When we have faith in Christ we are not afraid of illness and calamity because we know God loves us. Therefore, we know our suffering is not a punishment from God. We may get sick, we may even die, but we are not destined for the furnace. As the poet Robert Browning said, ‘The best is yet to be’.  

Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory? This is a quote from 1st Corinthians 15:55, where Paul is talking about the resurrection of Christ. When Paul wrote this he was making reference to the Old Testament prophet Hosea (13:14) where God says to the nation of Israel…

I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. Where O death are your plagues? Where, O grave is your destruction?    

Henry Lyte could say, with a chuckle, ‘it is better to wear out than to rust out’, because (despite having TB) he believed God loved him and would raise him to new life. Henry was not afraid of dying. His last words were, “Peace! Joy!” He was looking forward to heaven

We don’t need to be afraid of this plague we are in either. We do need to be careful, but we don’t need to be anxious, for our God is greater than illness and death – we have resurrection to look forward to.

Conclusion:

Abide with me starts with the sun going down and the darkness of night deepening. In the final verse the darkness of night has past and we have the picture of light breaking at the dawn of a new day… 

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;
Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

The last verse looks beyond this life to the next. For those who trust in Christ, death is not the final reality. Yes, we all die but Jesus has transformed death from an ending to an open door. When the brief bubble of this life pops those who are in Christ are released from their self-isolation into a wonderfully spacious intimacy with God. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves.  

In John 14, the night before he died, Jesus said to his disciples…

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

That’s a verse about abiding with Jesus forever in the house of God  

The song Abide with me is a prayer for Jesus to stay close with us through life and death and resurrection. It is a prayer God is happy to answer.

Let’s sing now, in our bubbles, Abide with me. Make this your heartfelt prayer.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to the song, ‘Abide with me’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does the song evoke for you?) 

How are things going for you in your bubble? What rainbow moments have you had this past week?

Why do we need to face the reality of our own mortality? What is the bigger part of reality (the good news)?

What difference did it make to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus to learn that Jesus was alive? What difference does Jesus’ resurrection make for you, personally?

Why do we not need to be afraid? What basis do we have for facing suffering with joy?

What does it mean to revere God’s name?

How might you abide with Jesus while in self-isolation? Take some time this week to be with Jesus.    

Tawa Baptist

The Lord is gracious & compassionate

Scriptures: Psalm 145:8-9, Psalm 103:1-13, Exodus 22:16-27, Exodus 34:4-9

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The Lord is gracious and compassionate
  • The Lord is slow to anger and rich in love
  • The Lord removes our transgressions
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

Some of you may have been on the Inter-Islander ferry

  • The Inter-Islander is a relatively large boat that transports people and cars across Cook’s Straight, between the North and South Island
  • Sometimes, when there is a bit of a swell on the ocean, the boat heaves backward and forward like a see-saw
  • When that happens the best place to stand is in the middle of the boat
  • If you try to walk around it is hard to keep your footing – each step is uncertain
  • And if you are standing at either end of the ship you will feel the up and down motion of the swell a lot more
  • But when you are near the centre, holding on to something firm, it doesn’t feel so bad

The world is in a bit of turmoil at the moment with this COVID-19 virus

  • For some people it feels like being on a ship in a heavy swell.
  • People’s plans are being thrown out and shut down
  • The horizon is constantly changing and each step feels uncertain
  • Perhaps the best thing we can do is find a firm hand hold and centre ourselves, stand still for a while.     

For Christians, Jesus is our centre. He is the rock, the firm foundation on which we stand and find security in unsteady times.  

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 The Lord is gracious and compassionate

  • The words of this song come straight out of the Bible – they are woven throughout the Old Testament and find human form, in the person of Jesus Christ, in the New Testament.
  • These words reveal the heart of God and, consequently, are at the centre of Jewish and Christian faith
  • For centuries they have given millions of believers, stability and a firm handhold in unsteady times.

Although the lyrics to The Lord is gracious and compassionate have been around for literally thousands of years, the music is relatively new

  • Graham Ord recorded the song in 1998 with Vineyard music

Graham Ord was born on the 22nd March 1961 in the U.K. which means today is his birthday – he is turning 59. (Isn’t that a lovely piece of synchronicity)

  • Graham learned guitar when he was 15 and got heavily involved in the punk music scene during the 1970’s. He describes his conversion…

“I met a girl and she told me about the Lord and that was when I first got interested in Christianity. I never had any background of Christianity at all. I spent six weeks trying to find out if it was true, doing a lot of soul searching…

I thought about the Lord, and eventually I got on my knees in my bedroom and asked the Lord to come into my life. At that point I realised that was why I was born, to use the music that God gave me to communicate something about Him, His love and all that sort of stuff.

I gave up music for a while because before it had been like an idol, really. Then one day, about a year later, the pastor says to me, ‘Are you hiding your light under a bushel?’ I thought, ‘What the flippin’ heck is a bushel?’ I’d never heard of a bushel before… But he said, ‘I hear you used to play, in a band.’

I said, ‘Yeah’, and he said, ‘Well don’t you think it would be good to play your guitar in church?’ So I started playing in my punk style” [in church].

That was Graham Ord’s story of becoming a Christian

  • He didn’t end up playing all his music in church though – he also plays in pubs and bars, both covers of popular songs as well as Christian worship songs – so he’s not afraid to publicly express his love for Jesus.
  • There is an authenticity to his character and his faith

The Lord is gracious and compassionate:

A backbone gives strength and stability to the body

  • It runs through our centre (physically) and keeps us steady & flexible
  • Graham Ord’s song starts with the words, the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love
  • This is a direct quote from Psalm 145, verse 8, in the NIV
  • These words provide a backbone for our faith

So let’s consider what each of the key words in this phrase mean    

  • ‘The Lord’ is the personal name of God Almighty – that is, Yahweh.
  • Yahweh revealed his name to Moses.
  • The name, Yahweh, cannot be contained by any definition we might try to give it. Yahweh may mean something like ‘I am who I am’, which is another way of God saying, ‘You don’t define me. I define myself.’   
  • And the backbone of the way God defines himself is, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.

We heard last week about the graciousness of God when we took a closer look at the song Amazing Grace

  • Grace is a word which simply means ‘gift’
  • A gift is not something we earn like wages and it’s not something we deserve like justice, nor is it something we are entitled to by law
  • To receive grace is to be given something good that we haven’t earned, don’t deserve and are not entitled to 
  • God’s grace, his gift of unmerited favour, is multi-faceted
  • Sometimes God’s grace feels pleasant and other times it may feel painful but it is always good for us. 

The word compassion is also very rich in its meaning

  • Our English word for compassion comes from a Latin word
  • In Latin, ‘com’ means with and ‘passion’ means suffer – so to have compassion for someone means to suffer with that person
  • We might also call that empathy – putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes, feeling what the other person is feeling
  • Therefore, to say ‘the Lord is compassionate’ is to say that God suffers with us – he feels what we feel.
  • God is not aloof or unfeeling or disconnected from the suffering of his creation

But suffering with someone only goes so far. If you are going through difficult times you don’t just want God to empathise with you – you want God to be moved – to do something to help you      

  • Which is where the Greek word, splagchnizomai, comes in
  • Splagchnizomai is the New Testament word for compassion
  • Splagchnizomai means to be deeply moved in the depths of your being, in your guts, in your spleen.
  • For the people in the ancient world love and compassion didn’t come from your heart (like we might think of it) – love and compassion come from your bowels
  • So compassion is a gut wrenching feeling that moves you to action    
  • This was a revolutionary thought. The gods of the Romans and Greeks had no compassion for mortals – they were unmoved by our situation
  • The living God, Yahweh, is deeply moved by our predicament and will take action for humanity’s well-being.

But wait, there’s more. The Hebrew word for compassion, used in the Old Testament, is taken from the word rechem, which means ‘womb’

  • I like the connection Bonnie Wilks makes here when she talks about the womb of compassion…

To have compassion on someone means, symbolically, to carry them in your womb. In the womb of compassion, the suffering one is nurtured and protected and given what is good for them. They are carried until they are strong enough to come out of the womb.

Now when we think of God’s compassion as a womb, it makes us feel safe and close and connected to God with the deepest bond known in human experience 

  • Like a woman in labour God suffers with us to give us life
  • God’s compassion is a source of security for us

In Exodus 22, God gives some laws about social responsibility.

  • Things like, don’t take advantage of a widow or an orphan,
  • Don’t mistreat immigrants,
  • Don’t lend money at interest,
  • Don’t make life hard or uncomfortable for the poor, that sort of thing.
  • And in the same breath (in verse 27) God says: For I am compassionate.  
  • In other words, the widow, the orphan, the immigrant, the poor and the powerless are like a baby that I carry in the womb.
  • This means if we mistreat them, we are mistreating God and he will be moved to take action in their defence.

There is a line in Graham Ord’s version of the song which reads…

  • The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all that he has made
  • This is a quote from Psalm 145, verse 9
  • It basically refers to the universal scope of God’s goodness and compassion.

Jesus spoke of God’s goodness and compassion for all, in Matthew 5

  • Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

God’s love and compassion makes him vulnerable to rejection and abuse

  • We human beings sometimes take God’s goodness for granted.

Graham Ord was well aware of God’s vulnerability to rejection. He says,

“When I first got saved I wrote a tract, and I used to go out on the streets with a friend of mine and give this tract out to people…. So we started giving them round, we used to pray for people at bus stops, all sorts of things.

I gave one chap this tract, and he said, ‘I don’t want to know’.

  • So I said, ‘Well, Jesus loves you’.
  • And he said, ‘Well I don’t give two monkeys. So what?’
  • That really shocked me, because I thought everyone must be interested in Jesus; it was such a real thing to me.

So I went home and prayed saying, ‘Lord, how do you feel when people just completely reject you?’ The thought came to me,

  • ‘Well, I know all of that. I know that people turn their back on everything I’ve done for them. But just like a bird doesn’t need to try to fly, so I can’t do anything but love you. That’s the way it is… I don’t make up the love I have for people – I just feel love for people. That’s the way I am.'”

God shows goodness and compassion and love for people (whether they appreciate it or not) because that’s who he is – he’s simply being himself.

The Lord is slow to anger and rich in love:

As well as being gracious and compassionate, the Lord God also defines himself as slow to anger

Many of us don’t like this idea that God is capable of anger but actually anger is part and parcel of love and justice and compassion

  • My spiritual director said to me once, ‘If you cut yourself you bleed. If you experience injustice you feel angry’
  • And it’s true, if someone does something to harm a person you love then it cuts you and you naturally feel angry
  • Or if you yourself are treated unfairly you will inevitably feel angry
  • If God did not get angry over injustice then he would not be a loving and compassionate God, he would be an apathetic god
  • Apathy (not caring at all) is the opposite of love

Anger is essentially an emotional energy. Anger is not a sin in itself.

  • So it is okay to feel angry. The critical thing is what we do with the emotional energy of anger
  • Do we use that energy to destroy and take revenge?
  • Or do we use that energy to declare the truth and restore?    

It needs to be said that God’s anger is not the same as human anger

  • God is always in control of his anger. We human beings, on the other hand, are not always in control of our emotional energies
  • God’s anger is carefully measured. Our anger is often out of proportion.
  • God’s anger is provoked by injustice and untruth, whereas our anger may be fuelled by fear or selfishness rather than love or righteousness
  • To say that God is slow to anger is to say he has a long fuse – he is patient and fore-bearing
  • We human beings tend to have a lot shorter fuse
  • God’s anger is always righteous. Human anger is often unsteady.   

In thinking about the contrast between divine anger and human anger I’m reminded of the story of Jonah

  • Jonah was a Jewish prophet, in the Old Testament, who was told by God to preach a message of repentance to his enemies – the people of Nineveh
  • Jonah did not want to do this and ran away in the opposite direction
  • But God, who is gracious and compassionate and slow to anger, pursued Jonah with his love, turned him around and put him on the right path

Jonah went to Nineveh and told the people that God was going to destroy their city. The people repented and God relented

  • The people turned their lives around and God saved the city.
  • This made Jonah angry – he was furious with God and said…
  • “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.
  • Don’t you love the irony – God’s grace and compassion and slowness to anger actually made Jonah angry. God listened to Jonah and then he said,
  • Have you any right to be angry, Jonah? Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?  

There is a bit of Jonah in all of us I think. We want God to be patient and gracious with us but quick to anger with our enemies.

  • We can’t have it both ways.

The Lord God is slow to anger and rich in love.

  • What does it mean that the Lord is rich in love?
  • Well, the Hebrew word, translated as love here, is actually hesed.
  • I’ve spoken before about the meaning of hesed but for those who missed it, hesed refers to loyal love or steadfast (covenant) love
  • Depending on the context in which it is used, hesed can also be translated as mercy or kindness

There are three criteria to hesed in the Hebrew Bible:

  • First, an act of hesed is done for someone you know already
  • Second, the action is essential to the survival or basic well-being of the recipient (it is no small thing)
  • And thirdly, the needed action is one that only the person doing the act of hesed is in a position to provide [1] (no one else can do it)

When God gave Sarah & Abraham a son (Isaac), that was an act of hesed

When Joseph saved his family from starvation and forgave his brothers for selling him into slavery, that was an act of hesed

And, when God delivered the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt that was an act of hesed.

  • There are many other examples of divine and human hesed in the Bible

To say ‘the Lord is rich in love’ is to say God is not mean or stingy with his hesed – his love for humanity is long and deep and generous.

The Lord has removed our transgressions:

The second verse of Graham Ord’s song reads…

  • As far as the east is from the west, that’s how far he has removed our transgressions from us

This line is a direct quote from Psalm 103, verse 12

  • It is basically talking about God’s forgiveness of Israel’s sin
  • Transgressions is a word which means breaking God’s law
  • The distance between the east and the west is an infinite distance
  • It is immeasurable – you can’t get further apart than the east and the west

Now we may be inclined to take a romantic view of God removing our transgressions from us

  • We might think it happens without any cost or inconvenience to us
  • But that is not always the case
  • For example, if you are a recovering alcoholic or a drug addict then having God remove that addiction from you is not usually an easy process. Withdrawal can be painful and requires your cooperation.
  • Or perhaps your sin is less obvious, more socially acceptable.
  • Maybe you love money or your reputation or your personal freedom or something else, more than you love God. We call this idolatry
  • If money is our idol, then having God remove our transgressions and sin means losing our excess wealth
  • Or if our reputation is more important to us than God, then having God remove our transgressions will probably involve some form of public humiliation 
  • And if personal freedom is what we worship, then the remedy will sound something like, ‘deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me’.

God’s forgiveness may be free but it’s not cheap.

After God had done hesed for the Israelites, by rescuing them from slavery in Egypt, they did a terrible thing in the wilderness

  • They repaid Yahweh’s loyal love with betrayal and disloyalty
  • The people made a golden calf and bowed down to it in worship and then they had a big booze up
  • Moses was on the mountain at the time getting the ten commandments
  • When he came down and saw what was happening Moses was so angry with the people he broke the stone tablets on which the commandments were written and destroyed the golden calf
  • Then Moses interceded for the people, asking God to forgive them, and God listened to Moses. (A good use of angry energy one thinks)

Afterwards Moses went up the mountain again with new stone tablets for God to write on. Take two.

  • While he was up the mountain The Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with Moses and proclaimed his name, the Lord. He passed in front of Moses saying, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished…”
  • The Lord showed hesed (loyal love) to the nation of Israel by forgiving their sins and renewing his covenant with them
  • In that situation those who had sinned eventually died in the wilderness but the next generation were allowed to enter the Promised Land
  • In this way the Lord removed Israel’s transgressions as far as the east is from the west.  

God’s grace and compassion and love don’t always make us feel good but they are always good for us. 

Conclusion:

The song finishes with the opening and closing line of Psalm 103 where David says, Praise the Lord, O my soul;

  • In this context the soul refers to the individual person – in particular to a person’s inner self, their inmost being
  • David is intentional about worshipping God genuinely, from the inside out, in spirit and in truth; not just putting on appearances    

Graham Ord understood this when he chose these words from the Psalms

  • In an interview he talks about the need to be real in worship, saying…

“I’ve worked a lot in Eastern Europe in the past. I used to smuggle Bibles…

One thing I’ve learnt is that Christians out there [in Czechoslovakia] aren’t afraid of the pain as well as the joy when they worship. Like if you hear a Romanian choir they very rarely sing songs that are all happy-clappy. Their music is very mournful; minor key type songs, because they’re singing about things that are touching their hearts. Worship… is about expressing everything, every facet of human experience… It’s very, very important to be honest in worship.”

With many of the events that are unfolding in our world today it may feel difficult to ‘praise the Lord with our soul, our inmost being’

  • We don’t need to pretend. We have freedom to be honest with God
  • Honesty in worship ultimately enables us to take our eyes off the situation and leads us to praising God for who he is, not just what he can do for us
  • When we get to that place of praising God for who he is, our perspective and our peace are restored.

Let us pray…

  • Father God, we praise you, for you are bigger than Corona Virus or empty supermarket shelves or any other threat
  • Lord, we praise you, for you are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love
  • You are able to bring good out of the current circumstances and make all things serve your purpose. Blessed be your name. Amen. 

Song Lyrics:

The Lord is gracious and compassionate
Slow to anger and rich in love
The Lord is gracious and compassionate
Slow to anger and rich in love
The Lord is good to all
He has compassion for all that He has made
As far as the east is from the west
That’s how far He has removed our transgressions from us

Praise the Lord, oh my soul
Praise the Lord
Praise the Lord, oh my soul
Praise the Lord.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to the song, ‘The Lord is gracious and compassionate’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does the song evoke for you?) 

  • How are you feeling about recent events in the world? Why do you think you feel this way?  
  • What gives you strength and stability in times of uncertainty or change?
  • Discuss / reflect on the meaning of compassion.
    • What are some of the implications, for us, of God’s compassion? (E.g. Exodus 22.)
    • What are some of the implications for God in being compassionate?
  • Why is God’s anger inseparable from his love?
    • How is God’s anger different from human anger?  
  • What does it mean that God removes our transgressions from us? What are the implications of this for you personally?
  • What does it mean to praise the Lord with our soul, with our inmost being?
    • Why is honesty in worship so important? 

Take some time this week to remember God’s particular acts of hesed for you and give him praise.

[1] Katherine Doob Sakenfeld, Ruth, page 24.

Tawa Baptist

Amazing Grace

Scriptures: Romans 10:12-15, Luke 15:11-32, Acts 26:12-18, Psalm 66:8-12, Psalm 28:6-7, 2nd Peter 3:10, [Psalm 73:26]

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • The grace of forgiveness
  • The grace of fear
  • The grace of providence
  • The grace of heaven
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

I have here a pendulum

  • If I let the pendulum go from just a little height it won’t swing that far the other way
  • But if I let the pendulum go from a greater height it will swing further to the opposite extreme

People can be a bit like pendulums. Often the further we go to one extreme, the greater we are inclined to rebound to the opposite extreme

  • For example, if your mum made you vegemite sandwiches every day for your school lunch you may develop a life time aversion to vegemite
  • Or, if you grew up not having much and not knowing where your next meal was coming from you may (as an adult) be inclined to save aggressively to avoid ever going hungry again.

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 Amazing Grace. There are two versions of this song. We sang the newer more modern version last Sunday

  • Today we are looking at the older, more traditional version 
  • Amazing Grace was written by John Newton in 1772
  • John Newton was one individual in which the pendulum effect was certainly noticeable
  • As a young man he led a pretty immoral life but later went to the other extreme and became a church minister
  • Amazing Grace draws heavily on John Newton’s personal experience of God’s grace for him. 

There are a number of verses to the song, each of which focus on different aspects of grace. God’s grace is not one dimensional – it is multi-faceted

  • For example, there is the grace of forgiveness, the grace of fear, the grace of providence and the grace of heaven.

The grace of forgiveness:

The opening verse of the song reads…

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.

A wretch is a person who behaves badly

  • And grace is a word which simply means ‘gift’
  • A gift is not something we earn like wages and it’s not something we deserve like justice, nor is it something we are entitled to by law
  • To receive grace is to be given something good that we haven’t earned, don’t deserve and are not entitled to 
  • God’s grace, his gift of unmerited favour, is amazing both in its generosity and in its scope.

In the opening verse of his song John Newton describes grace as a sound that saved him. Perhaps he was thinking of the sound of the gospel of Jesus being preached. As we read in Paul’s letter to the Romans

God is the same Lord of all and richly blesses all who call to him. 13 As the scripture says, “Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved.” 14 But how can they call to him for help if they have not believed? And how can they believe if they have not heard the message? And how can they hear if the message is not proclaimed? 15 And how can the message be proclaimed if the messengers are not sent out? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”

So the grace of God is a sweet sound – it is something which can be heard as the gospel is preached – it is the sound of Jesus saying, ‘Do not be afraid. Your faith has saved you.  Your sins are forgiven. Come follow me.’

I once was lost but now I’m found; was blind but now I see is probably a reference to the story of the lost sons, aka the parable of the prodigal son

  • In Luke 15 Jesus tells a parable about two sons. The younger son runs away from home and squanders his inheritance on wine, women and song
  • Eventually, when his cash runs out, he ends up feeding pigs
  • He is so hungry he could eat the slops being fed to the pigs
  • It is at that point, when he is at his lowest, that his eyes are opened and he comes to his senses.
  • He realises his father’s servants are treated better than this so he returns home with a plan to ask to work as a hired hand for his dad
  • In an extraordinary act of grace, the father generously welcomes his wayward son and throws a party to celebrate his return
  • The older brother is angry and refuses to join the party so the father says to him: we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost but now he is found.   

That’s a picture of God’s amazing grace in the form of forgiveness and salvation and it was John Newton’s experience too

The grace of fear:

Verse two of the song reads:

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.

Fear is one of those words which can take on a different nuance or meaning depending on the context

  • Fear can mean panic and terror, but it can also mean the deep calm of reverence and respect

We may think of grace as a lovely pleasant feeling – something nice that we enjoy or that makes us happy – and while it can be like that, grace can also be something painful, which we don’t enjoy and which makes us feel afraid

  • The hunger the prodigal son experienced was just as much a part of God’s grace as the warm welcome he received from his father
  • Without the hunger the young man would never have come to his senses and returned home.
  • God’s grace is multi-faceted – not only does it teach us to fear (in the sense of creating reverence and respect for God), it also relieves our fears, in the sense of removing panic and terror

I don’t know if there are any Johnny Cash fans here but if there are you may be familiar with his song ‘When the man comes around’

  • It’s a song which reminds us that Jesus will return one day and when he does, ‘will we be ready?’
  • Johnny Cash was a bit like Johnny Newton in that, as a young man, he led a pretty immoral life but later, by the gravity of God’s grace the pendulum swung the other way and Johnny turned his life around
  • Johnny Cash has a line in his song where he says, “It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks”
  • A prick is a long pointed stick that was used in the old days to get a stubborn animal (like an ox) to move in the right direction, sort of like a cattle prod or a goad
  • A prick teaches the animal to fear or respect the farmer so they walk in the right path

“It’s hard for thee to kick against the pricks” is a quote from the Bible – from Acts 26, verse 14, where we read of the apostle Paul’s conversion

  • As Paul (or Saul as he was known then) was on his way to Damascus, hunting down Christians to persecute, he encountered the risen Lord Jesus in a flash of blinding light and he heard a voice say to him…
  • ‘Saul, Saul! Why are you persecuting me? You are hurting yourself by kicking against the pricks’
  • Naturally Paul was terrified and fell to the ground saying, ‘Who are you Lord?’
  • And the Lord replied, ‘I am Jesus whom you persecute.’

‘To kick against the pricks’ is to learn to fear God the hard way

  • Johnny Cash, Johnny Newton, the prodigal son and the apostle Paul all learned to fear God the hard way
  • God would rather not use the pricks on people but he will if he has to
  • Although not pleasant, the pricks are one of his instruments of grace

The grace of providence:

John Newton’s conversion wasn’t as quick as the apostle Paul’s – it actually took John Newton many years to learn the fear of the Lord, but all through those years God offered John the grace of providence

  • Providence is the protective care of God – it’s God giving us just what we need at the right time    

One of the verses of the song acknowledges God’s providence through the difficulties of this life

Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

John Newton certainly knew about dangers, toils and snares

  • When he was just six years old John’s mother died of tuberculosis
  • His father was a shipping merchant and therefore was away a lot
  • John was sent to boarding school.
  • At age 11 he joined his father in the shipping trade   
  • As a teenager John’s faith was like a pendulum swinging wildly back and forth, from one extreme to the other.
  • He was in a pattern of behaving badly, then being corrected by the pricks, before falling back into bad habits again 
  • On one occasion John was talked out of his faith by a crew mate
  • Newton later wrote, “Like an unwary sailor who quits his port just before a rising storm, I renounced the hopes and comforts of the gospel at the very time when every other comfort was about to fail me.”

John’s behaviour became so bad he was made to join the Navy but, before long, he deserted in order to visit his sweet heart Mary Catlett.

  • The Navy couldn’t handle him so they traded John Newton to become a crew member on a slave ship, where John’s profanity became legendary
  • (Profanity is the opposite of holiness)
  • John created obscene poems and songs about the captain much to the delight of his fellow sailors.
  • Not only did he use the worst swear words you are ever likely to hear, he also created new ones – brains and vulgarity

As a consequence of his behaviour John Newton was punished severely

  • They withheld food from him, imprisoned him while at sea and chained him up like the slaves they carried.
  • Then he was made a slave himself and forced to work on a plantation in the British colony of Sierra Leone
  • After several months as a slave his father intervened and arranged for the rescue of his prodigal son

In 1748, while aboard a ship called the Greyhound in the North Atlantic, John Newton read a book called The Christian’s Pattern, which is a summary of Thomas a Kempis’ classic The Imitation of Christ

  • While on that same voyage a storm hit
  • It was so bad one of Newton’s crew members was swept overboard in the very place Newton had been standing
  • He and his crew mates fought for many hours to keep the ship afloat
  • During this time of fear and terror, Newton cried out in desperation ‘Lord, have mercy upon us’.  
  • God did indeed have mercy on John and the crew – two weeks later the battered ship limped into port on the coast of Ireland.

During those two weeks John kept thinking about the words he’d spoken “Lord, have mercy upon us”

  • He began to ask if he was worthy of God’s mercy after all he had done
  • He had turned his back on God, mocking those who believed and denouncing God as a myth and yet he could not deny the hand of God’s providence in his life 
  • As he contemplated this, the grace of God slowly went to work in John’s heart and mind.

John Newton’s conversion was not instant or quick (like the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus), rather it was more gradual

  • Despite his own experience of slavery John Newton did not quit the slave trade straight away
  • He continued in that line of work for several voyages and participated in many of the same activities he had before, except for his profanity   
  • The prick of a severe illness helped to remind John Newton of God’s grace for him and it strengthened his resolve to walk in God’s ways but he wasn’t yet ready to give up transporting slaves from Africa.
  • To be fair to Newton though, we need to remember that slavery was simply an accepted way of life at the time, sort of like we used to accept plastic bags or burning coal or CFC’s or drinking and driving
  • Those things are frowned upon now but they were considered normal in the 1970’s and 80’s 

Some things are deeply ingrained in us and don’t come out in the first wash

  • Sometimes we are slow to learn but the grace of God is patient, refining us like silver

In Psalm 66 we read…

Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard; 9 he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping. 10 For you, God, tested us;
you refined us like silver. 11 You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs. 12 You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

Believe it or not, Psalm 66 is a song of thanksgiving, much like the song Amazing Grace. It recognises God’s hand of providence in painful events.

  • Verse 10 mentions the refining of silver.
  • Silver has antibacterial properties, which means germs can’t survive on it, which is one of the reasons it is used as a shared cup in communion – silver is a symbol of holiness and cleanliness.
  • The refining of silver in ancient times involved melting the metal so the dross rose to the top, then removing the dross
  • The writer of psalm 66 used this as a metaphor for the way God had tested and refined the Israelites
  • Although the process of being refined in a furnace is not pleasant at the time, the poet is able to look back and see God’s providence in it
  • Despite all they have suffered he is able to say, God preserved our lives and brought us to a place of abundance 
  • It seems John Newton was familiar with this refining process
  • And, despite the dangers, toils and snares he went through, God protected him and he was able to praise God for his multi-faceted grace.

There is another verse of the song which celebrates the grace of God’s providence. It reads…

The Lord has promised good to me, His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be, as long as life endures.

Our hope is based on God’s promises – God always keeps his word.   

  • To say that God is my portion is to say that God provides all I need
  • The image of a shield is a metaphor for God’s protection – we are reminded of Psalm 28…

Praise be to the Lord, for he has heard my cry for mercy. 7 The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and he helps me. My heart leaps for joy, and with my song I praise him.

This was certainly true for John Newton – the Lord did hear his cry for mercy and eventually John wrote many songs of praise to God.

The grace of heaven:

So far we have considered the grace of forgiveness, the grace of fear and the grace of providence. Now we turn our minds to the grace of heaven  

  • If the grace of fear is God’s stick, then the grace of heaven is God’s carrot

‘Kicking against the pricks’ only went so far in reforming John Newton’s behaviour. The thing that finally got him out of the slave trade and back on shore was his love for Mary Catlett – Mary was one of God’s carrots

  • John found it harder and harder to leave Mary as he went away on those long sea voyages, so around 1754 or 55 (about 10 years after his experience of God’s mercy during the storm at sea) he gave up his life as a ship’s captain and began studying Christian theology.
  • John was 30 at the time.
  • The Anglican church were reluctant to accept him at first, but in 1764 (10 years after he quit the sailor’s life) the Bishop relented and John Newton became the curate of Olney. (A curate is sort of like an apprentice priest.)
  • It was at Olney that John Newton met the poet William Cowper and they started writing Christian verse together
  • The transformation brought about by God’s grace is truly amazing
  • The young sailor who used to write obscene songs was now writing sacred hymns for the church.

God’s grace is multi-faceted – He uses the stick and the carrot. At least one of the verses of the song we sing alludes to the grace of heaven

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise than when we’d first begun.

This verse may not have been written by Newton himself – some say it was added later in the 19th Century as part of the African American gospel tradition.

  • On the mount of transfiguration Peter, James & John saw a vision of Jesus glorified, bright shining as the sun  
  • In these lines of the song John Newton imagines heaven as a place where the Christian believer is transformed into the likeness of Christ – so that we too share in Christ’s glory, ‘bright shining as the sun’.
  • Heaven is also pictured here as a place of singing praise to God tirelessly forever – which implies that the goodness of God’s grace will totally absorb us and sustain us, so we will be saved from ourselves.

Conclusion:

The original version of Amazing Grace finishes with the verse…

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below, will be forever mine.

For many years this verse was dropped and replaced by When we’ve been there ten thousand years…

  • Only recently was it restored by Chris Tomlin, who did a modern version of the song with the chorus My chains are gone…
  • The imagery in this verse is misleading if you don’t understand the context. It seems to suggest that God is going to destroy the universe  
  • And if you think that then you might end up thinking, we might as well trash the planet because it’s going to be burned up anyway
  • This is stinking thinking – it is not helpful
  • The bigger picture of Scripture indicates that God’s plan is to bring a new order to the earth – this new order is known as the kingdom of God
  • So we shouldn’t think this verse from Amazing Grace is talking about the physical destruction of the planet earth – that wouldn’t be grace
  • It’s using poetic language to talk about the destruction of the old order – the dissolving of evil power structures.

When John Newton wrote this verse of the song he may have had 2 Peter 3:10 in mind, which in the NRSV, reads…

  • But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed. 

To disclose something is not the same as destroying it

  • 2nd Peter 3 is talking about the second coming of Jesus (or as Johnny Cash would say, ‘When the man comes around.’)
  • It is clearly poetic language not intended to be taken literally
  • When snow is on the ground you don’t know what’s underneath, whether it’s grass or mud or rocks. But when the snow melts all is revealed.
  • The main point is that when Jesus returns in glory the true state of things will be disclosed
  • In other words, the true character of our deeds will be revealed
  • The wheat will be separated from the chaff
  • The old world order, which is false and without substance, will be dissolved. While that which belongs to the new order, that which has been done in love and truth, will shine like purified silver
  • So, with this in mind, we need to make sure we are living truly holy lives, in line with the new order of God’s kingdom.

John Newton practiced what he preached, eventually.

  • From about the 1780’s onwards he joined William Wilberforce in the abolitionist movement speaking out against slavery
  • Once again we see God’s amazing grace. God did not destroy John Newton but rather transformed him from a human trafficker to an advocate for the poor and oppressed.

God’s grace is multifaceted.

  • It reaches out to us with forgiveness
  • It corrects us with Godly fear
  • It provides what we need and purifies us so we are prepared for God’s kingdom, the kingdom of heaven.  

Questions for discussion or reflection:

Listen to the song, ‘Amazing Grace’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does the song evoke for you?) 

  • Is there a pendulum effect in your life? What caused the swing?
  • What is grace? (What is not grace?)
  • God’s grace is multi-faceted. John Newton’s song touches on at least four aspects of God’s grace – i.e. forgiveness, fear, providence and heaven.
    • Which of these aspects of God’s grace have you experienced? How?
    • What other aspects of God’s grace are you aware of?
  • Which verse of Amazing Grace do you most identify with? Why?
    • Which verse do you find most difficult? Why?  
  • How might God go about refining us (like silver)?
  • Consider the line, ‘The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, the sun forbear to shine;’
    • How are we to understand this line of the song in the light of the bigger picture of Scripture and in light of 2 Peter 3:10?

Outtakes:

Another of the song’s verses, which we don’t sing very often, also makes us think of heaven…  

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail, and mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil, a life of joy and peace.

The veil here is a reference to death

  • The purpose of a veil is to hide something (like a curtain) – to prevent us from seeing what’s on the other side
  • In this life we can’t see what lies beyond the veil of death but for those, like John Newton, who place their trust in Christ, there is the hope of heaven – pictured here as a ‘life of joy and peace’.

This verse of the song may find its inspiration from Psalm 73 where the poet writes: My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

  • The idea here is that God sustains us with the grace (or gift) of himself not just in this life but even through death.  
Tawa Baptist

Seek Ye First

Scriptures: Matthew 6:25-34, Matthew 7:7-11, Matthew 4:1-4

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Seek ye first the kingdom of God
  • Ask and it shall be given unto you
  • We cannot live by bread alone
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

The order in which we do things matters

  • When you are packing your car to go away on holiday it’s a good idea to put the larger suitcases in first and then pack the smaller things around them
  • If you have a leak in your roof, then your priority is to fix the roof before you start painting and decorating inside the house
  • When you buy a flat pack of furniture, the first thing to do is read the instructions before you start assembling the product
  • Likewise, when you prepare a sermon or a Bible study you start by praying and reading the Scriptures, then you write down your thoughts
  • And, if your wife or husband or child is telling you something important, your priority is to listen to them, before attending to the dinner or your emails.  

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 Seek Ye First

  • The words for Seek Ye First come from the mouth of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew
  • Verse 1 of the song is a quote from Matthew 6:33, where Jesus is talking about the futility of worry
  • Verse 2 of the song comes from Matthew 4:4, where Jesus is responding to one of the temptations of Satan in the wilderness
  • And verse 3 is from Matthew 7:7, where Jesus is helping his listeners to understand that God is a loving Father who knows how to give good things to his children 
  • All three verses are about giving God priority – putting God first   

Seek ye first the kingdom of God

The music for Seek Ye First was written by a woman called Karen Lafferty in 1971. Karen was a worship leader for Calvary Chapel in California at the time

  • She was 23 years old, had graduated University with a degree in music and recently returned to the Lord and to church after some time away  
  • In an interview Karen Lafferty says this about the origin of Seek Ye First,

“I had quit my entertainment job and was trying to support myself with teaching guitar lessons. I had three students! When my savings were all gone and I had no money to make my car payments, I became very discouraged and confused.” One evening I went to a Bible study at church, and we talked about Matthew 6:33. [Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.]I was tremendously encouraged and challenged by the words about Christ’s kingdom. So I went home, wrote the tune, recorded it on a tape recorder, and then sang this little descant part.”

  • Karen taught the song in church the next week, and it caught on right away.

So what is Jesus saying in this verse from Matthew 6?

  • Well, to understand the meaning, we need to hear the verse in its context.
  • From Matthew 6:25-34 (in the NIV) we read…

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.   

May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.

The word ‘worry’ appears six times in this passage. Worry (or anxiety) is part of the human condition.

  • It doesn’t seem to matter what culture you come from or what time in history you live, we all have to deal with worry at some point in our lives

Jesus says we are not to worry and then he gives a number of reasons why we don’t need to worry. He effectively uses reason and logic to disarm worry.

  • Reason is to worry what waking up is to a bad dream – reason puts us back in touch with reality and restores our perspective
  • Reason is to worry what sunlight is to mould – reason dries out the dampness in our mind to prevent the mould of worry
  • Reason is to worry what companionship is to loneliness – reason is a friend who brings understanding and makes us feel connected

The first reason (or logical argument) Jesus gives for not worrying about food and clothes is that there is more to life than food and more to the body than clothes

  • While food and clothes are basic to human survival and we need to attend to them they are not the only needs we have in life and they are not the most important needs either – we must keep things in proportion
  • For example, other things needed to support human life include:
  • Right relationships and community,
  • Hope and a sense of purpose,
  • A rhythm of worshiping God, which gives us something positive to occupy our minds, something greater than ourselves.

Another reason Jesus gives for not worrying is that worry is pointless – like running on a treadmill it wears you out, it gets you nowhere.

Jesus also gives evidence from nature for not worrying

  • God feeds the birds of the air and we human beings are far more valuable to God than birds, so how much more will God feed us
  • And, following the same logic, God clothes the grass of the field with beautiful wild flowers which are here today and gone tomorrow, so how much more will he clothe us, for we last a lot longer than grass.

Now, at this point some of you may be thinking, ‘Okay, if it’s true that God feeds the birds, why are some species of birds going extinct? And more to the point, why do so many people in the world starve or walk around in rags?’

  • Well, some of the responsibility lies with human beings. While God provides what the world needs humanity doesn’t always manage God’s resources in a way that is fair or equitable
  • Having said that, humanity can’t bear the full responsibility – some things are not in our power to do anything about
  • The world we live in is not perfect or fair or safe – God’s will is not always done on earth as it is in heaven
  • Jesus’ teaching here seems to picture the world as it should be rather than as it is [1]     

This is not to imply that Jesus’ teaching is out of touch with our reality. Quite the opposite – Jesus’ teaching is very down to earth  

  • In verse 34 of Matthew 6, Jesus says, Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.  
  • Jesus acknowledges that the world isn’t perfect – each day has enough trouble of its own – it simply does no good to worry about what we can’t control and what might never happen in the first place.

The other thing we need to be aware of is that Jesus is not saying we shouldn’t make provision for the future – he’s simply saying don’t worry about the future

  • Making provision for the future is not the same thing as worrying about it
  • Jesus’ point is not that we should throw all caution to the wind, when it comes to financial matters
  • Jesus’ point is that we should not let fear and worry tie us up in knots or impede us in the present

Returning to verse 33 of Matthew 6, the focus of the opening verse of the song; Jesus gives us an alternative to worry – something far more meaningful and fruitful to spend our time and energy on

  • Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.

God’s kingdom and righteousness means God’s way of doing life

  • So, instead of worrying, we need to give top priority to living under God’s direction and governance – we need to obey God in faith that he will provide for our needs.  

Karen Lafferty, the author of Seek Ye First, went on to work for Youth with a Mission (YWAM). She said,

  • “The Lord really paved the way for me with that song. “Seek Ye First” has opened doors for me all over the world. And because it’s in so many hymnbooks, about 40 percent of my mission support comes from that song!”
  • As I mentioned earlier, Karen had been worrying about making ends meet and paying her bills
  • But when she went to the Bible study and spent time seeking God, the Lord sorted out her priorities, dispelled her fears and provided her with an income stream by giving her a tune to put to the words of Jesus.
  • And all these things shall be added unto you.

Sometimes the priority is not clear to us. Sometimes what we think is most important is actually not as important in hindsight

  • You may be in a hurry to get out the door for work or school drop off but you’ve lost your keys and you are starting to feel stressed
  • In the heat of the moment you might think, ‘okay I just have to look harder to find my keys’
  • But the faster you look the more flustered you become
  • In that moment the priority is not finding your keys but finding your calm
  • The best thing to do is stop, be still, let your brain stem settle and then retrace your steps to find your keys 
  • In the long run it won’t matter if you are a few minutes late
  • In fact, being still for a few moments may help you to find your keys quicker and it will also help you to drive safer.  

It is similar with seeking first the kingdom of God. Sometimes the priority (finding what God wants us to do) is not clear at first

  • Sometimes we can be in such a hurry doing the work of ministry or serving God that we miss the spirit in which God wants us to serve
  • In that moment the priority is not doing the work of ministry but finding God’s heartbeat, getting back in step with the Lord again.   

We cannot live by bread alone

Verse two of the song reads: We cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

Again, these are the words of Jesus, this time from Matthew 4. To understand the meaning we need to read the verse in its context. From Matthew 4, verse 1, in the NIV…

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be temptedby the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Satan then went on to try and tempt Jesus in other ways and each time Jesus resisted the devil with Scripture

The phrase, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God’, is a quote from Deuteronomy 8:3 where Moses is addressing the Israelites at the end of their 40 years in the wilderness

  • Moses is essentially saying to the people, ‘As a father disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.’
  • That’s why you’ve spent all this time wandering around in the wilderness facing various deprivations – so you can learn to trust and obey God
  • Among the lessons you should have learned during these past 40 years is not to depend on bread alone but on God’s word
  • Not to put God to the test
  • And not to worship any other god – but rather to make the Lord God the exclusive object of your worship and obedience [2]

Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness recalls Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness

  • Israel (the nation) was known as God’s son
  • So too Jesus is God’s son – he embodies the new Israel
  • Where the ancient Israelites failed, Jesus passes the test, doing for Israel what they were not able to do for themselves

For a long-time I was puzzled by the temptation to change stones into bread

  • I mean, what’s wrong with that? Everyone has to eat.
  • What’s more there were other occasions when Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes in the wilderness to feed thousands – so what’s the problem?
  • Why was not okay on this occasion (for Jesus to use his power to make bread) but it was okay on a different occasion?  
  • Well, as Richard France explains, it is a question of obedience to God’s will in this particular situation…

Obedience to God’s will takes priority… Jesus understood his experience of hunger as God’s will for him at the time and therefore not to be evaded by a self-indulgent use of his power as the Son of God. To [turn the stones into bread] would be [to disobey God] to call into question God’s priorities and set himself at odds with his Father’s plan. [3]

Although Jesus understood his hunger to be God’s will for him at the time, this doesn’t mean that every occasion of hunger or deprivation is God’s will, but sometimes it is and when it is we must trust God to provide for us in his way and his time.

  • In Matthew 4, God sent angels to minister to Jesus’ needs after Satan had left him – Jesus passed the test where Israel had failed

You know, sometimes we go without things and we don’t like it

  • Perhaps we don’t go without food for 40 days like Jesus did but maybe we go without something else important, for a significant period of time
  • We might, for example, go without work for several months,
  • Or without our health for several weeks
  • Or without joy for several years,
  • Or without an answer to prayer, or something else
  • Those wilderness times of testing don’t necessarily mean God is angry with us or against us
  • To the contrary they show that we are God’s children because he is taking the time to teach us to rely on him – to trust and obey.
  • God disciplines those he loves

We are in the season of Lent at the moment – that 40 days (or so) before Easter

  • Traditionally many Christians give up something during Lent (maybe chocolate or swearing or justifying yourself or whatever)
  • The point of this self-imposed fast is to draw close in solidarity with Jesus – to remember his time of testing and to embrace our identity as children of God who rely on our heavenly father, not on ourselves    

Jesus’ words in Matthew 4, verse 4, about needing the word of God as much as we need bread, connect with his words in Matthew 6:33 about seeking first God’s kingdom

  • The word of God is actually more important than food, just as seeking the kingdom of God is more important than seeking money
  • Food and money are useful for this life but the word of God and the kingdom of God have value for eternal life.  

Ask and it shall be given to you

A couple of weeks ago Lotto jack potted to $50 million. When it gets that big someone has to win. Apparently the key is getting the Powerball

  • So even if you were to win first division, you don’t get the $50 million unless you also have the Powerball number
  • Of course it was a popular draw. At one point they were selling 2,000 tickets a minute
  • When you don’t have much and life is difficult winning Lotto seems like a silver bullet, something that will fix all your problems
  • But excess can be just as harmful as poverty – there is wisdom in moderation. Better a regular sized portion with peace, than a double portion with worry.
  • I imagine thousands of people prayed, asking to win the $50 million but, as it turned out, the grand prize was shared by only two families.

In Matthew 7 Jesus says…

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 10“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? 11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

In the movie Bruce Almighty (starring Jim Carrey and Morgan Freeman), God gives Bruce the power to answer people’s prayers and so Bruce just says ‘yes’ to every request, with the result that almost everyone wins the lottery

  • Of course when $50 million is split equally between 2 million people the winners end up with only $25 each. People took to the streets in riot

When Jesus says, Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you, he doesn’t mean God is obligated to answer ‘yes’ to every prayer we pray

  • In the context he means God will give you what you need and what is good for you, which may not necessarily be what you want
  • As the little parable in verse 10 indicates, the son isn’t asking for a luxury, he’s asking for his basic needs; bread and fish (carbs & protein) 
  • So praying to win Lotto won’t help your chances but praying, give us this day our daily bread will help you.

Jesus’ point is that God is a loving Father who knows how to give good things to his children    

  • God Almighty is not like the pagan gods of the Greeks and Romans. We don’t have to sacrifice things to try and persuade God to provide for us
  • God is ready & willing to help us with genuine needs, we just have to ask
  • And even if we ask God for the wrong things he will still give us the right thing.
  • God won’t give us something useless (like a stone), nor will he give us something harmful (like a snake). God wants to do us good.

Jesus’ words about asking, seeking and knocking are supposed to cast out worry and inspire trust in God.

  • They invite us to explore the scope of God’s generosity

Having said that, Ask and it will be given to you; also needs to be understood in the context of God’s freedom

  • Sometimes our requests may be entirely reasonable and unselfish; maybe we are praying for healing for someone we care about or perhaps we are asking to be spared from some injustice and yet God is silent
  • The will of God is inscrutable at times.
  • Inscrutable simply means we can’t always understand God’s will and purpose. We can’t put God’s will under a microscope and scrutinize it

Oswald Chambers once said: “Whenever the insistence is on the point that God answers prayer, we are off the track. The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer.”

God will always do his best for us but sometimes it’s not about us and sometimes the options available to God are limited

  • Jesus wrestled in anguish, as he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, asking God to spare him the ordeal of the cross
  • (Jesus didn’t want to be separated from his heavenly Father)
  • But, for whatever reason, God did not change his mind
  • While Jesus did not get the answer he wanted to his prayer, he did get hold of God and submitted himself in obedience to God’s will.    
  • For Jesus, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness took priority.

Conclusion:

Each of the verses of the song Seek Ye First ends with the descant or chorus, Allelujah, which is a shortened form of the Hebrew word, Hallelujah

  • Allelujah simply means ‘praise the Lord’
  • The message is clear; giving priority to what God wants is the truest act of worship and praise we can offer the Lord.

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. Listen to the song, ‘Seek Ye First’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does the song evoke for you?) 
  2. How do you begin each day? What’s the first thing you do?
  3. What sorts of things worry you? What reasons does Jesus give for not worrying? How do you deal with your worry?
  4. Why does Jesus tell his disciples to seek first God’s kingdom and his righteousness? How might we do this? (What does this look like specifically for you?)
  5. Discuss / reflect on the parallels between Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness and the Israelites’ 40 years in the wilderness.
  6. Why did Jesus refuse to turn the stones into loaves of bread? (in Matthew 4) What have you had to go without for a significant period of time? What have you learned through this experience of deprivation?
  7. Take some time this week to reflect on how God has responded to your prayer requests over the years. For example, what things has God said ‘yes’ to? What things has he said ‘no’ to? And what prayers has he answered in a way you weren’t expecting?    

[1] R.T. France, NICNT, Matthew, page 266.

[2] Ibid, page 128.

[3] Ibid, page 131.

Tawa Baptist

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 17th 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? 
Tawa Baptist

Be still for the presence of the Lord

Scriptures: Genesis 28, Exodus 3, Isaiah 6:1-7, Matthew 17:1-3, Matthew 8:1-13

Structure:

  • Introduction
  • Verse 1 – Holiness
  • Verse 2 – Glory
  • Verse 3 – Power
  • Conclusion

Introduction:

When our kids were young we took them to the Wellington Zoo

  • The day we went they had the Cheetah’s out of their cage taking them for a walk around the grounds on a leash
  • The zoo keepers explained to us that if we ever find ourselves in the presence of a Cheetah in the wild, the best thing to do is stay completely still, don’t move a muscle
  • Because as soon as you start running the Cheetah is hard wired to think you are dinner and will chase you down
  • Being in the presence of a creature as fast and powerful as a Cheetah gives one a feeling of vulnerability and respect at the same time.

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 Be still for the presence of the Lord

  • If you ever find yourself in the presence of God the best thing you can do is be still.
  • God won’t eat you, like a Cheetah might, but he is powerful and you can’t outrun him, so you may well feel vulnerable.
  • Being still and listening shows God respect and it helps us to take in the experience; to be present to God

The music and lyrics for “Be Still” were written by David Evans

  • David J. Evans was born in 1957 in Dartford, Kent, the United Kingdom.
  • He grew up in Winchester and was educated at the University of Southampton, studying social science

David Evans has been involved in a variety of church denominations and has led musical worship for much of his life

  • He works in the field of music education, having done research into the psychology of music
  • David will turn 63 this year but he was in his 20’s when he wrote Be still for the presence of the Lord

At the time Evans was involved in the charismatic movement of the 1980’s

  • The charismatic movement emphasises the ecstatic gifts of the Holy Spirit and encourages the expression of those gifts in gathered worship
  • For example, giving a word of knowledge, speaking in tongues, miraculous healing, prophecy and so forth
  • An ecstatic gift of the Spirit sometimes involves a mystical experience of God’s presence which overwhelms or transcends a person’s self
  • Many of the songs we might associate with the charismatic movement have tended to be upbeat, light and breezy type choruses
  • Be still for the presence of the Lord is not like that. Be still has a more serious, reverential tone.

In worship we are expressing to God how amazing he is

  • If we become too chummy or casual with God, then we undermine the basis of worship
  • Apparently David Evans felt that some of the worship of the charismatic movement risked treating God in a trivial fashion
  • So he wrote ‘Be still’ as a kind of reminder to the church of the awesomeness of God
  • We need to be careful not to treat the presence of the Holy Spirit cheaply
  • We need to remember just who God is (his holiness, glory & power) and be still in his presence

Verse 1 – Holy:

Hence the song begins…   

Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here.

Come bow before Him now with reverence and fear.

To claim that the Lord God is here, with us, may seem a bit presumptuous, but it’s not. In Matthew 18, verse 20, Jesus says to his disciples…

  • For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.  
  • Which means when we gather for worship on a Sunday the Lord Jesus is present with us by His Spirit

Verse 1 highlights the holiness of God

  • Holiness encompasses a number of concepts at the same time
  • To be holy is to be different, not the same, unique, set apart as sacred
  • God is different from us, he is ‘other than’ his creation, not made of chemicals or physical matter like the earth or a plant or an animal 

Holiness also speaks of wholeness or oneness – having moral integrity or goodness, being the real deal   

  • God’s holiness holds together justice and mercy (as one) 
  • God can be relied upon to do the right and good thing because he is holy

Reverence is a feeling or attitude of profound respect and deep awe

  • People have traditionally demonstrated their reverence by bowing down. 

Verse 1 of the song also refers to the fear of God; bowing with reverence & fear

  • The sort of fear that is in view here is not terror or anxiety
  • The sort of fear that is meant, in this context, is the feeling or motivation to respond in worship and obedience to God 

C.S. Lewis gives us a wonderful picture of what it means to fear and reverence God in his book, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe  

– Lucy is curious about Aslan’s nature and in a conversation with Mr & Mrs Beaver she asks, “Then he isn’t safe?”

– To which Mr Beaver replies, “Safe? …Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he is good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

One of the ways we might encounter the presence of God is in reading the Bible

  • About 12 or 13 years ago now, I stood in the pulpit here and gave a reading from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 53. It was getting close to Easter
  • Isaiah 53 tells about the suffering servant – it describes in profoundly accurate detail the way Jesus suffered. You know the passage…

…Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

As I read that Scripture I felt deeply moved and started crying.

  • It was like the Word of God was present to me in a special or unique way (or perhaps I was present to it) and my emotions were overwhelmed
  • Crying like that, in a work context, is very unusual for me. I’m a trained professional. I don’t do public displays of emotion even at funerals.
  • With tears comes a feeling of vulnerability, a feeling of coming undone.
  • Somehow though, I managed to get through the reading
  • When I had finished and taken my seat in the congregation again a sense of stillness settled over me – sort of like when someone does something really nice for you and you feel touched and humbled by it.

Scripture is holy. Sometimes when we handle the Scriptures, we become aware of the transcendent (the holiness or otherness of God) and we are filled with a deep sense of awe and respect.

  • My tears, and the stillness that followed, were a natural expression of reverence – a sort of internal bowing of my heart before God’s goodness.

The second part of verse 1 of the song continues…

In Him no sin is found, we stand on holy ground.

Be still for the presence of the Lord, the Holy One is here.

We stand on holy ground sounds echoes from both Genesis and Exodus

  • In Genesis 28, Jacob is on the run for his life, after having deceived his father and stolen Esau’s blessing
  • At sunset he came to a holy place and lay down to sleep, resting his head on a stone
  • He dreamt that he saw a stairway reaching from earth to heaven, with angels going up and coming down on it.
  • And there was the Lord standing beside him, on earth.
  • Then God spoke to Jacob promising to be with him and protect him
  • When Jacob woke up he said, “The Lord is here. He is in this place and I did not know it.”
  • Jacob was afraid (he felt small and vulnerable) and said,
  • “How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
  • Jacob responded to God’s presence in an attitude of worship, promising to give God a tenth of his income.

We are also reminded of Exodus 3 when God called Moses

  • Moses was tending the sheep of his father-in-law when he noticed a burning bush. Although the bush was on fire it was not consumed
  • When Moses drew closer to see what was happening God called from within the bush saying, “Moses, Moses.”
  • And Moses said, “Here I am.”
  • “Do not come any closer,” God said, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

When Robyn & I got engaged, we gave a wedding invitation to my pop (my grandad). He immediately said, ‘The church will fall down if I walk into it’, by which he meant, I haven’t been to church in years and I don’t feel worthy to go.

  • My pop associated church buildings with the presence of God – his generation considered churches to be holy ground
  • For him attending a wedding in a church was not a trivial thing – the very thought of it raised feelings of vulnerability and reverence.

In some ways our contemporary western society has lost its sense of reverence for the holy. Many things that were once considered sacred are now treated as ordinary or profane.

  • Traditional Maori culture has managed to retain a respect for the sacred though

A few weeks ago a German tourist died on the Tongariro Crossing

  • The local iwi put a rahui on the mountains for three days
  • A rahui is a ban or prohibition against a particular area or activity
  • You could say a rahui is an order (or edict) to be still
  • No one was allowed to walk the Tongariro Crossing while the rahui was in place – in a sense it became holy ground (tapu)
  • TV reporters interviewed the son of the man who died and he said that, while he didn’t understand the Maori language (the words they spoke), he felt a deep sense of reverence or respect from the local iwi (tribe)
  • He was genuinely touched by the people and the rahui protocol.

We need to recover our sense of the sacred if we are to give God the honour he is due.

Verse 2 – Glory

While verse 1 highlights the holiness of God, verse two emphasises the glory of God…

Be still for the glory of the Lord is shining all around.

He burns with holy fire, with splendour He is crowned,

How awesome is the sight, our radiant King of light.

Be still for the glory of the Lord is shining all around.

The word glory has more than one meaning

  • Glory can mean ‘high renown, fame or honour, won by notable achievements’  
  • As in the glory of winning an Olympic gold medal, or the glory of saving someone and being known as a hero
  • Certainly the Lord’s achievements are very notable and he is famous everywhere
  • God’s glory is a weighty thing; a thing of substance, the real deal, solid glory through and through, not just glory coated 

But glory can also refer to beauty or splendour, radiance or magnificence

  • As in, the sunrise over the mountain was glorious
  • This sense of the word glory also fits for God
  • God’s grace is beautiful, his smile is radiant, he is clothed in splendour

For Christmas last year I was given a book of poetry by Anne Powell, who lives on the Kapiti Coast. She has a poem called Letting Go…

When it comes to prayer

trying hard is not the answer.

Think more of flying

a kite to freedom

on a clear day

or bathing beneath a waterfall

each sense awake

or letting the heart-gaze rest

on beauty.

Beauty opens to presence.

I want to draw your attention to that line: Beauty opens to presence.

  • One of the ways we become aware of God’s presence is by being still enough to let our heart-gaze rest on beauty
  • When I see something beautiful, whether that’s a sunset
  • Or the moon when it is full and close to the horizon,
  • Or dolphins leaping out of the water
  • Or Tui feeding in a kowhai tree
  • Or a snow capped mountain bathed in sunshine
  • Or a child’s smile
  • Or a quiet act of kindness done in secret
  • Whenever I see beauty I am reminded of God our creator
  • Beauty opens to [the glory of God’s] presence
  • But to see the beauty that opens to presence we need to be still, still on the inside.

Back to verse 2 of our song…

  • ‘Be still for the glory of the Lord is shining all around’
  • Jesus said, Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
  • Perhaps when Jesus said this he meant, you can see the beauty of God’s glory everywhere you look.

In Isaiah 6, the prophet had a vision of God

  • In his vision he saw seraphs (heavenly creatures) calling to one another:
  • Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.
  • If you read on you will see how Isaiah felt both vulnerable and full of reverence in God’s presence – he was acutely aware of how far he fell short saying, ‘Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips…’

When Moses came down from the mountain, after meeting with God, he had to wear a veil because his face shone with the reflected glory of God

  • Even though the glory of God, in the face of Moses, was second hand the people still couldn’t look at Moses directly.  

We see the glory of God, first hand, in the person of Jesus

  • In the opening chapter of his gospel the apostle John writes…
  • We have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father
  • And at the birth of Jesus, the glory of the Lord shone around
  • Then, in Matthew 17, we read how Jesus was transfigured on the mountain top with Peter, James and John as witnesses
  • As they looked on, a change came over Jesus: his face was shining like the sun and his clothes were dazzling white. 

And, in talking about the glory of God in the face of Jesus, we are reminded of Jesus’ crucifixion & death, along with his resurrection & ascension to heaven

  • There is no glory without suffering – suffering always precedes glory
  • Each year, at ANZAC parades around the country, we pay respect to those who served, suffered and died in war
  • Part of any ANZAC service involves being still and observing a few moments of reverent silence
  • Sometimes we forget how much God has suffered (and continues to suffer) for his creation
  • If we show respect to fallen soldiers how much more should we show respect to Christ for all he went through.
  • The appropriate response to the suffering and glory of God is to be still in an attitude of reverence and respect

Verse 3 – Power

Verse 1 of our song draws attention to the holiness of God’s presence

  • Verse 2 talks about the glory of God’s presence
  • And the theme of verse 3 is the power of God’s presence…

Be still for the power of the Lord is moving in this place.

He comes to cleanse and heal, to minister his grace

Implicit in these lines is the good news that God is not coming with power to destroy us, but rather with power to do good to us

  • Minister here is a word which means serve
  • And grace is any good gift of God, usually undeserved.
  • In other words, the Lord serves good gifts to people, sort of like a chef serves a meal to the hungry or a chemist dispenses medicine to the sick or a priest serves communion to the faithful.

Last week we heard how God’s power cleansed and healed the bitter waters at Marah, so the people could drink (Exodus 15)

  • In the gospels we see time and time again Jesus’ power to cleanse and heal and minister God’s grace   
  • In Matthew 8, for example, we read…

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him. 2 A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”

The first thing we notice here is the man’s vulnerability and reverence before Jesus. He doesn’t presume upon God’s grace

  • He addresses Jesus as ‘Lord’, a title of respect and then he says, “…if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
  • He is truly respectful. He doesn’t tell Jesus what to do. He asks.
  • We can’t begin to understand how much rejection this man experienced in his life because of leprosy
  • He was taking a huge risk. He was making himself vulnerable. What if Jesus said ‘no’? It’s not like the man had any leverage in this situation. He is at the bottom of the heap.

3 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. 4 Then Jesus said to him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”

Jesus ministered God’s grace by cleansing and healing the man with leprosy

  • Notice though that Jesus still required the man to fulfil his obligation under the law after he had been healed
  • Jesus’ kindness does not equate to slackness or casual dismissal of the law. Rather Jesus’ kindness leads to respectful fulfilment of God’s law.  

No work too hard for him. In faith receive from him

  • This line of the song reminds me of the Roman Centurion (also in Matthew 8) who came to Jesus for help…

6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”

7 Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him?”

8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith…”

13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.

The Roman Centurion is at the opposite end of the social scale (compared with the man who had leprosy) and yet he still behaves in the same way when in the presence of Jesus – with vulnerability and reverence

  • Even though he is an officer in the Roman Army the Centurion treats Jesus with the respect due to a superior
  • And even though the Centurion has the weight of the Roman empire on his side he doesn’t exert this power (he doesn’t attempt to leverage Jesus)
  • But instead makes himself vulnerable before Jesus, for indeed he does feel vulnerable.
  • Like Isaiah, he is acutely aware of how unworthy he is saying, ‘I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word and my servant will be healed…’ Reverence and vulnerability you see.
  • The Centurion believes that nothing is too hard for Jesus and in faith he receives from Jesus.

Conclusion:

The song, ‘Be still’, reminds us of the holiness, glory and power of God

  • But these attributes of God’s presence are not separate things – they are integrated as one, just as God is one.
  • We may well feel vulnerable in God’s presence – but that’s okay, in fact it is appropriate
  • Vulnerability with reverence prevents us from treating God’s presence too lightly and it purifies our worship of God making it more meaningful.  

In a few minutes we will share communion together

  • Communion is about celebrating the presence of Jesus among us
  • Communion is a holy ritual, not something to be treated lightly, but something to be handled with an attitude of reverence 
  • Communion reminds us of the suffering and glory of Jesus
  • Just as it reminds us of the power of God over sin and death.

As we prepare our hearts to receive communion let’s stand and sing, Be still for the presence of the Lord the Holy One is here…  

Questions for discussion or reflection:

  1. Listen to (or sing) the song, ‘Be still for the presence of the Lord’.  What are you in touch with as you listen to this song? (What connections, memories or feelings does it evoke for you?) 
  2. Why did David Evans write the song ‘Be still for the presence of the Lord’?
  3. What is your experience of the charismatic movement? Or, have you ever had a mystical experience of God’s presence? What happened?
  4. What do we mean by the holiness of God?
  5. What does it mean to ‘bow before God with reverence and fear’?
  6. What is the glory of God?
  7. How did the man with leprosy and the Roman Centurion (in Matthew 8) behave in the presence of Christ? How do you behave in the presence of Jesus’ Spirit?
  8. Discuss / reflect on Anne Powell’s poem, ‘Letting Go’. Is it true for you that ‘beauty opens to presence’? Take some time this week to let your heart-gaze rest on beauty.