I was sitting on my porch talking Jesus with a dear friend of mine who’s in a real life struggle. He turned and asked me a simple question that struck me as deeply profound, he asked “Why do you follow Jesus? Why?” See my friend, let’s call him Steve, knows how hard this life is as a disciple of Christ, I could hear the pain of that question in his voice. His entire walk has been a battle, a war in the trenches. It was as real of a life/ministry/discipleship moment I think I’ve had.

I had to really search my heart for an answer. My answer in short was, “Because God’s grace has impacted me to the point where I see and desire no other way. There aren’t any other options.” Really that’s what it’s boiled down to. I serve, follow and love Jesus because his grace has chased me down, replaced my heart and now I see my life in context to how it fits in and serves his kingdom. I love how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15:10

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain.”

As Steve’s follow up questions probed deeper, “Why do you sacrifice for this? Why allow yourself to be broken?” it became clearer and clearer that my life makes no sense outside of grace.

I don’t know why I’d sacrifice as much as I have, why I desire God to break me down, it’s just crazy really. There is no logic behind it, there is no formula, there is no global earthly reward I could point to that could explain why this life made sense. There is a great level of foolishness here that can’t be avoided, nor do I want to avoid it. Because as I explained to Steve, God’s grace does not compute in our brains, the math doesn’t work. Works makes sense, or as Matt Chandler brilliantly puts it, moralistic deism. That makes sense, you do good and you get good back. Do bad and you get bad back. But I did bad and God showered me with grace and replaced my heart. I received beauty for ashes and gladness for mourning.

Any good that comes out of my life is a reflection of grace poured out. It’s totally changed my heart, my mind and spirit and I can’t point to any 12 step program that makes you earn it or put God in your debt in any way. I don’t know if that comforted Steve or scared him, but it is what I know to be true.

Now I desire to simply place myself in his hands daily and beg him to work with this gross lump of clay. And because he is a good and loving God he does and it doesn’t make earthly sense, but I love him.

At Life Connection Church we very much value songs written specifically for the local congregation. That doesn’t mean that they won’t have any relevance outside of our church, but just that it was written with our body prayerfully in mind. I believe that’s not only how the best songs are written musically, but spiritually I think that’s where the greatest gift is to the kingdom, in building of the local church.

Recently I’ve been examining ways to get my church body even more involved in our songwriting process. As a worship leader and elder I’m aware of the larger spiritual issues impacting the body, and as my role as discipleship leader I’m privy to more personal issues on a smaller scale as well. But in order to bring in everyone something else had to be done.

The idea is this. We will write a song around a theme and ask everyone in the body to submit a 1 sentence response to a question around that theme. The song’s lyrics will predominantly be made up of these responses. First up we will tackle grace. The question to the body is this…

How has God’s grace changed your life specifically?

Huge question I know, so many aspects to grace so I expect a wonderful wide spectrum of answers. The goal is to answer personally(can be anonymously) and not generally. An example of a general response would be, “He took this sinner and made me clean“, a personal response would be, “He took my life of drugs and death, and gave me a life of purity and hope.”

I’ll then take these answers and shape them poetically to fit musically, rhyme etc… I’ll probably write a chorus that captures the entirety of the submissions, but if someone submits something that God puts heavy on our hearts then we may very well use it for the chorus as well. I don’t really know what to expect out of this exercise, this is new ground for me.

By God’s grace at the end we’ll have a skillfully crafted song of worship that glorifies God by demonstrating the life saving, transforming, empowering impact of God’s grace in our church body, by our church body. I’m incredibly excited to get started on this. I’ll keep everyone up to date on how well or poorly this experiment goes, should be fun.

Let me know what you guys think, am I nuts?

This morning’s blog hour of power brought to you by Mark…

“O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be”

This is a powerful line speaking on how we are compelled every day to be in Gods debt because of his grace. In Eph 2:8-9 it says:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is a gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

We are never to forget that everyday we need Gods unmerited favor in our lives, but it is also important for us to not only rely on the grace of God but move ahead into obedience through faith and act out what the Lord is telling us. Gods grace enslaves those that understand the power of it, but the freedom of that grace enables us to pursue the will of God for our lives and others. Constrained means imprisoned of confined forcefully. Romans 6:18-22

“And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.” … “But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.”

Before we know the grace of God that sets us free, we are enslaved or constrained by our sin, but being imprisoned by grace allows us the freedom to; one bear fruit, and two, gain everlasting life.

The opening lines to this read like a David psalm although not nearly as whiny and scared, much more at rest. These lines remind me of Hebrews 4 where it speaks of sabbath rest, resting in the accomplishment of Christ as the Father rested in his finished work. Hebrews 4:10 “for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his”. Resting in the sacrifice of Jesus and His work should lead us to sing this verse. God has brought us to a resting place, I rest in His grace and know His hand will bring me home(salvation).

I also find the use of God’s “hand” here especially poignant. Wherever God’s hand is at work in our lives is where we are weakest and He is strongest. When the hand of God touches us in healing, restoration, purification, it’s His holiness, His majesty, His glory falling upon us. So God’s strength will bring us home, not our works, but his grace and accomplishment has become our strength if God’s hand is at work. I think this verse does much in the way of illustrating salvation by grace through faith.

I’m really excited about the next chapter in this exposition, it’s my favorite part of the song, stay tuned.

 “Teach me some melodious sonnets, sung by flaming tongues above.

Praise His name I’m fixed upon it, name of God’s redeeming love” 

I’m amazed how this song mixes a psalmist sense of poetry with a strong declaration of doctrinal truth. The author, Robert Robinson, comes from a place I think we can all relate. Daily indebted to God’s grace and stirring up within ourselves our desire to remain fixed upon Christ. I was telling my pastor as we sang this last Sunday as each line passes I feel regret for not meditating on it at that moment. Each line so rich of truth.

There is a story I read online about the author who, as he says later in the song was prone to wander away from God. It was some years after his writing of the song and he was on a stagecoach as a female passenger sat next to him and began to converse. She was telling him of her faith and he spoke as though he didn’t know of Christ and had fallen away. The woman began quoting the hymn Come Thou Fount to him and told him, “These words might help you as they have helped me”. Robert began to weep and replied, “Madam, I am the poor, unhappy man who composed that hymn many years ago. I would give a thousand worlds if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then”.

What power is in the Holy Spirit as we profess the goodness of God and what he’s done in our lives. My heart broke for Robert as I read that story, that he was unable to remain fixed upon Christ, but that again through God’s unending mercy and grace He sent this woman. God sent this woman to recite the very things God had done in him years ago as a reminder of his goodness and love. In God’s persevering grace he hunts us down, Ezekiel 34:11 says “I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.”. God was searching for Robert. One of my favorite examples of Christ’s love for the lost is Matthew 18, verse 12-14 reads

“…If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about the one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way the Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost”

The Father in heaven is not willing that Robert should be lost. I love that even as we are unfaithful to what we’ve prayed and sung to heaven, that God is always faithful. That He does not cast aside our prayers as we often do. God uses our own words to remind us of our own heart, He sends people to remind us of what He’s been trying to get through to us as he sent Samuel to Eli.

It’s fitting that this story comes with this verse, cause God literally was teaching Robert to sing as he sings and showing him what being fixed upon really looks like. Those melodious sonnets came back full circle as the words Robert wrote to God, now being sung back to himself by a good and loving God, through a servant of Christ, to remind him of who he should be fixed upon.

Yesterday we explored line one of Come Thou Font. Today I’m going to look into the second line which proclaims:

“Streams of mercy never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise”

The same Hebrew word (hesed) used for mercy is also translated as love. I have a much easier time comprehending God’s unending love than his unending mercy. Then to see that love and mercy are interchangeable, that mercy and grace are God’s demonstration of love, forces me to confront a limitation I’ve put on God. That limitation being that while God’s love in unending that his mercy has bounds, that sooner or later God’s going to say, “enough is enough with this guy”. Again I must realize that it’s all about Jesus and his accomplishment, not my merit. I’ve not earned anything, since God’s mercy and grace was appointed before time (2 Timothy 1:8-9), I have no authority or ability to earn persevering grace in my life. God in his unending love has extended unending streams of mercy, thank you Lord.

I love the imagery of being washed in streams of mercy as we’ve been covered in the blood of Jesus. Jesus’ accomplishment on the cross, the defining moment in human history, DEMANDS response. His continued, renewing mercy calls for songs of loudest praise. We’ve not felt the transforming power of Christ if we are not called to songs of praise. We all have major sins in our lives  we’ve been forgiven and healed from earmarked as evidence of God’s grace and mercy upon us. If we’ve been washed in his mercy and grace, God’s tuned and transformed out hearts, our spirit responds the the Holy Spirit’s call, and we give praise.

Come Thou Fount is one of the greatest songs of God’s grace I’ve come across. It’s lyrics are challenging, thought provoking, honest, desperate, vulnerable, humbling and encouraging. I’ve probably listened to the E-Pop version about 100 times the last few months. I literally cry every time, it is gut wrenchingly sweet and full of truth. I wanted to do a little series on here breaking it down line by line. And what God speaks to me, convicts me on in each line. It’s always evolving and right when I think I’ve received a good glimpse of God’s grace, He goes deeper, His grace expands, deepens and I see God for who He is and me for who I am in ever clearing sight. The first line is this:

“Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace”

God led me to this scripture in John 1:16, “From the fullness of His grace we have received one blessing after another”. Through grace I have received continued blessings. This line challenges me to put into proper perspective my life, past, present and future. That everything good, every blessing has it’s origin in grace. From the breath of life to the birth of my children, God has extended abundant grace the depths of which I can’t comprehend but pray for God to reveal.

That in response to grace that my heart would be tuned to sing thy grace. God has created in me a new heart that thirsts for him. Out of the overflow and outpouring of my heart, my mouth would sing thy grace, how could it not. I can testify now that is my deepest desire, that my life would be a song of God’s grace. By His grace my heart be tuned, molded, formed that the outpouring of my life would be a song of grace, love and hope.

I love that this line demonstrates everything empowered by God. We the believer accomplished nothing here. God in his goodness gives us every blessing, then in continued grace tune’s our hearts that we may reflect that very grace. Stay tuned(no pun intended) for line 2 tomorrow.