“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 34:11Ezekiel 34:11
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
11 For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.  

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.

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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 1:8-92 Timothy 1:8-9
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
8 Be not ashamed therefore of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but suffer hardship with the gospel according to the power of God; ⁹ who saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before times eternal,  

), 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.

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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 1:16John 1:16
English: American Standard Version (1901) - ASV
16 For of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace.  

, “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.

 

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Thanks for everyone’s votes on the tattoo poll. We got a lot of feedback on that one. 70% of you had a balanced approach and thought the worship leaders responsibility with his/her tattoo depended on the tattoo and the congregation. Almost 20% took the Crazy Town approach and said, flaunt those suckers. 15% of you said the leader should hide their tattoos. And the other 15% said it was a mistake to get the tattoo in the first place. That’s a pretty diverse set of responses so I’m excited.  I promised my take when we finished up so here we go.

The Levitical law (19:28) that states “do not cut your bodies or put tattoo marks on yourselves”. This is the foundation of the argument against tattoos and the belief that they desecrate the spiritual image of God, the functional image of God due to a mutilation of our body, relational image of God due to the dis-unity it may cause in the church body, and lastly the vision/purpose/being of God by glorifying the vulgar or ungodly things. Many in the church believe this, a small portion believe just the opposite that tattoos actually glorify God and his image by demonstrating our God given artistic body in a exalting way to God.

I, as you might expect, fall between the two positions. The Levitical law exists due to the nature of tattoos in that time, which were a symbol of ownership and devotion. Slaves were tattoo’d to show who they belonged to, or were tattoo’d with a name of some pagan god. Many Old Testament scholars(including rabbis) say this prohibition was to combat idolatry and worship of false gods, in fact some believe there was even an exception to this law where a tattoo was ok for a slave so he did not run away. There’s layered problems in that, but that’s another discussion.
I believe tattoos are not inherently immoral, but rather amoral with the potential to be moral or immoral. I am not bound by the Levitical law but deeper than that the spirit of God that wrote the law. As long as a tattoo is not idolatrous in nature, and that it does not cause dis-unity in the church, I believe it to be a liberty and not sin. There is a very good and in depth ethical evaluation on tattoos done by the Christian Research Institute from which many of my positions basis derive. It’s a really interesting read and if you are thinking of getting a tattoo or already have I highly recommend reading it and devoting a lot of prayer time and practical evaluation of the consequence of the tattoo relationally.

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I love that I serve a God who’s never through showing more of himself. The more I long to see something new, something unseen by myself, something for the present day, He blossoms something in my spirit. These past months have been an extremely difficult time for me personally, while being an incredible growth period spiritually. A few lines had come to me in one of my prayer times that has been on replay in my heart:

“God I know your truth, but I need it spoken in me. I know your love, but I need you wrapped around me. Give life to what’s weak, and be lifted as I speak.”

Fast forward to our discipleship meeting this past week and Pastor Aaron was leading out of 1 Peter 5, here are the first 4 verses:

1 To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers–not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. 

The phrase “Chief Shepherd” just jumped out to me, I thought it such an interesting name for God. So I just began to search myself on it and God began to reveal some stuff to me right there. Many of you may be aware that the position of worship leader in the church is not literally ordained scripturally, although there were many leaders in worship in scripture. Now along this line there is a wide spectrum of interpretation. From churches who don’t believe any instruments should be played, to just some instruments and not others, to do whatever you want basically. My point is not to debate the validity of any point in that spectrum but to show what I believe God revealed to me about the flaw in what I had allowed to become a belief. I use the word “allowed” because I don’t think I made a conscious effort to believe the way I had, rather it was a passive and evolved view.

What had seeped into me is that in many ways what we do in ministry is a tactic of modern church and God is not concerned with the tactic but the fruit, heart and spirit of the tactic. While I believe that to largely be true I think I became out of balance in that in some aspects to the point where I felt God had left me to my own tactics, music included. That not only was God not concerned by the tactics or ministry strategy, he wasn’t really much involved at that stage beyond inspiration and some remote guidance. Almost as if God would give me a little encouraging slap on the butt in the physical and say, “I’ll meet you in the spiritual end zone”. I don’t know if I can really explain it all that well, but that’s my best attempt.

Here’s how the scripture above totally jacks that up. Peter addresses God as commander of the specific ministry, Chief of Shepherds, shepherding being the ministry or tactic. What God began to reveal to me is that there’s nothing I can do righteously in the Father’s name without Jesus already having done it and been appointed as chief. If I am sent by God then His presence does not lift until His purpose is fulfilled, as long as I don’t step outside his will. If I’m sent by the Spirit to my neighbor’s house to mow his lawn for the glory of God, then God is Chief Landscaper. He leads every blade of grass being cut and willed it as so. How incredibly arrogant and prideful for me to believe I could even mow a lawn without God. I can’t do anything.

Likewise in my music, I had cast aside my music as personal style, un-important to others, un-important to God and that God only cared about the goal of the music and that it be done in excellence. I can no longer say that. When I write worship songs, I believe and now must admit God is Chief Songwriter, when I play, Chief Musician. If he’s not leading me in the physical act, the tactic, then it’s worthless and the fruit will prove that. (I’m not claiming God writes my songs or plays my guitar…I hate having to even say that, but I know someone will read and mis-interpret this, sorry in advance)

This is important to me because I had felt somewhat abandoned in my music. That what I did physically was trivial. Now I humbly believe God is on me, within me, He’s concerned with what I say next, He’s eager to hear what I play next to him. He finds joy in my abandonment, He is honored when I practice a solo, He is moved when I write songs for His glory. He’s not waiting on the sidelines to see how it all turns out, I believe God is along for the entire journey, the messy middle part where our flesh battles our spirit. I need God there, I couldn’t continue to do this without Him in the thick of things. This isn’t a radical change or departure in belief, but rather a crucial adjustment to remain balanced. God saw me angled off course and by His grace corrected me.

Thank you Father, for your truth spoken in me, your love wrapped around me, for giving life to my weakness, be lifted.

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