Majestic Sweetness

This is a song about the exceeding beauty of Jesus. Though we cannot see Jesus, we know Him to be beautiful both by our knowledge of His character and works in Scripture, and by our experiential knowledge of Him. As we say today, He is a “beautiful person.” Why is He beautiful? Stennett reminds us in this hymn text that Jesus’ beauty was most clearly demonstrated to us at the cross. By referring to His brow Stennett juxtaposes both the images of a majestic coronation and the picture of the crown of thorns being placed upon Jesus’ head in jest. While on the cross Jesus’ lips overflowed with grace as He prayed for the very ones who crucified Him. Jesus demonstrated grace and love far beyond anything we can know or experience “among the sons of men.” And Philippians 2 shows us that Jesus’ humiliation and suffering serve to further glorify His great beauty: “although [Jesus] existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name.” As the last verse encourages us, let us not only enjoy “regarding the wonders of His grace” but tell others of His beauty that they might love Him and join our songs of praise.

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Reviving the Hymns Seminar

The audio recording of my seminar from the 2009 Sovereign Grace worship conference is now available. I'm also making my notes available directly in this post (formatting may be hard to read) and as a PDF attachment (see the right-hand column).

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Go Up, My Heart

Jesus called God’s command to “love the LORD [our] God with all [our] heart and with all [our] soul and with all [our] might” (Deuteronomy 6:5) the “greatest commandment” since all of the aspects of the law, including our duties to God and fellow man, stand or fall on the depth of our love to them. The depth of the love that God requires and deserves is staggering. The Pentateuch records the elaborate duties that God gave to His people that were to be an expression of their love for Him. And those rituals are indicative of an even more pervasive, all-of-life, kind of spiritual service that God requires of us. Horatius Bonar understood this love and desired to give all of himself, including His heart, to God. But he also realized that our hearts are naturally deceitful and desperately sick (Jeremiah 17:9) and incapable of loving God on our own. We naturally orient our lives around, find security and satisfaction in, and spend our time thinking about the things of this world. We were made to be satisfied in the only truly satisfying object of our love – God Himself. This song is plea, both with our hearts to leave the empty things of this world, and with God who alone has the power to draw out our affections to drink from His “fountain of delights.” (Psalm 36:8)

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A Sermon on “Be Still My Soul”

From our hymn-memory project, here is my sermon on our latest hymn:

Be Still, My Soul: Resting in the Sufficiency of Christ

Sermons Examining Corporate Worship

In preparation for the TBC Music Ministry Leadership Conference, I began a series of sermons that I've come to title "What Are We Doing Here? Examining Corporate Worship." So far, they have covered:

Why Your Congregation Should Have a Worship War (Every Sunday): The Indispensability of Corporate Worship

Bring the Book! The Primacy of Preaching in Corporate Worship

Singing Songs that Teach: The Role of Song in Corporate Worship

Teaching Songs that Teach: Teaching God's People How to Think and Sing

In the weeks to come, I plan to teach two additional sermons on the role of The Ordinances (Lord's Supper & Baptism) and the role of Public Scripture Reading & Public Prayer.

I've posted the manuscripts from my addresses at the conference. The audio from my sermons at church are also available. I've collected the links here.

My Heart Has Found Its Rest in Christ

Before my restless heart was found,
To worldly treasures it was bound.
The will that seemed so free within
Availed me nothing but to sin.

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What Love Is This

While at Together for the Gospel 2006, Bob Kauflin led us in singing "How Sweet and Aweful is the Place." I had neither read this beautiful text by Isaac Watts nor sung the Irish melody it was set to, ST COLUMBA. Nevertheless, both of them remained stuck in my mind for the days that followed.

I found the hymn on The Cyber Hymnal and began to read and sing it often. The middle three stanzas struck me:

While all our hearts and all our songs
Join to admire the feast,
Each of us cry, with thankful tongues,
Lord, why was I a guest?

“Why was I made to hear Thy voice,
And enter while there’s room,
When thousands make a wretched choice,
And rather starve than come?”

’Twas the same love that spread the feast
That sweetly drew us in;
Else we had still refused to taste,
And perished in our sin.

This led to extended meditation on the sovereign love of God that pursued me, called me, drew me, all while I was yet a spiritually dead sinner that hated God. This theme (and this tune) filled my mind one afternoon and forced me to sit down and pen a text on the theme of God's love to this tune.

David helped me polish the last verse of the text. I pray this blesses your hearts and helps the church to celebrate the redeeming love of God in Christ.

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TBC Music Ministry Leadership Conference

I'm praying for David as he teaches a session this week at the WorshipGod09 conference.

As he teaches, I'm finishing up preparations to teach at a conference next week. I'll be leading four breakout sessions for the "Senior Pastor and Worship Pastor Track" at the Tennessee Baptist Convention's Music Ministry Leadership Conference, August 13-14 in Brentwood. I'm excited to get to learn from speaker David King (pastor, Concord Baptist Church) and Keith and Kristyn Getty, not to mention getting to hear the Tennessee Ladies' Chorus and Tennessee Men's Chorale.

My four session titles are:

1) Why Your Congregation Should Have a Worship War (Every Sunday): The Indispensability of Corporate Worship
2) Bring the Book: The Primacy of Preaching in Corporate Worship
3) Singing Songs that Teach: The Role of Song in Corporate Worship
4) Teaching Songs that Teach: Teaching God's People How to Think and Sing

If you can attend, I'd love to meet you. I'd appreciate your prayers for myself and those who attend.

I Love You, Christ, My Crucified

This is one of the earliest hymns that I wrote. I believe the occasion was Good Friday, meditating on "the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

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The Fury of the Wind

This text by Eric Schumacher is a beautiful mixing of the fiery descriptions and words of God in Job and the need that seeing such wrath stirs within the human soul to “flee to Christ.” We would all be “knocked off our high horse” if God were ever to appear to us the way He did to Job in the final five chapters of the book. What a frightening and humbling experience that would be! Our only sane response would be to fall before the feet of the Holy One. It is this very realization of our mortal and sinful selves that shows us the need that we have for the Holy God to make provision for us (no other could possibly do so!). God the Son is the only one who can “make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy” (Jude 24).

This text can also be set to a traditional tune.

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