Joy to the World - July 2020

Most people think of “Joy to the World” as a Christmas song. And why shouldn’t we? It’s been one of the top hymns sung at Christmastime for decades. Based on Psalm 98 the hymn celebrates the reign of the Christ our King and Savior of the world in the present tense. However, an aspect of this hymn often overlooked is its forward-looking celebration of Christ’s final coming.

While we see this Kingdom inaugurated by the initial coming of our Messiah, the fullness of the hymn’s celebration points ultimately to the day when he will return, and every knee will indeed bow and every tongue will indeed confess that Jesus is Lord (Phil. 2:9-10; Is. 45:23). Come, Lord Jesus, come!

Oh, what a day that will be! Oh, what a kingdom we have to look forward to, where sins and sorrows no longer grow, when thorns no longer infest the ground, and the spring of the water of life will flow his blessings eternal! Christ’s final coming will usher in the consummation of him making all things new, and our full inheritance in union with him (Rev. 21:1-7). 

May a hymn that celebrates these truths never be confined to one month of the year. May we never grow so content with the “already” of the kingdom, that we yearn not for the “not yet.” May we sing this hymn of praise, knowing that what we do is but a prelude to eternity.

No doubt, this coming Kingdom is great cause to rejoice today! We live in light of our true King, who has borne our sin, died our death, raised to life, and sits on high. But what a sound it will be with the Lord Jesus Christ comes to usher in the fullness of His Kingdom in the new heavens and the new earth. Joy to the world, set free from the power and decay of sin, and to His people, in perfect eternal communion with him, for the Lord is come!

- Jonathan

Joy To The World

Words by Isaac Watts (1719), Tune by George Frideric Handel, Arr. By Lowell Mason

Lyrics: 

Joy to the World, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King!
Let every heart prepare Him room
And Heaven and nature sing

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ
While fields & floods, rocks, hills & plains
Repeat the sounding joy

No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found

He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love

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Jesus Your Mercy - June 2020

“You don’t think you’re as bad as you really are.” 

This is from the testimony of my friend during the time of his conversion. In college he’d been attending a campus ministry that consistently included confession of sin in its weekly worship gatherings, as well as preached about sin and our need for forgiveness in Christ. Turned off by the “negativity” of this ministry, he stopped going until another friend boldly, but lovingly, approached him and challenged him, saying: “Brother, your real problem is not with our ‘negativity’, your problem is that you don’t think you’re as bad as you really are.”

See, the roadblock for my friend surrendering His life to Jesus was that he didn’t think he needed to. In the grand scheme of things, he wasn’t that bad, right? I mean, some people do some really bad things, but he hadn’t robbed a jewelry store, killed anyone, or cheated his way through school. He lacked a Biblical view of total depravity and a truthful examination of his own heart.

Through the loving and patient ministry of those around him, my friend slowly began to see his need for Christ. And in God’s grace, he’s now a minister who relentlessly quotes Tim Keller’s short definition of the Gospel: “We are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe, yet more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope.”

We are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe, yet more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope.

— Timothy Keller (@timkellernyc) October 29, 2013

Our goal as a church is to proclaim the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). That is why every week when we gather for worship we read, preach, pray, sing, and see (Sacraments) the Word. If we’re going to be serious about God’s Word, then we must be honest with what it says about the human predicament: “None is righteous, no, not one” (Rom 3:10).

This is why Jesus came, to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). The Gospel of Christ will only taste as sweet as our understanding of our need for it. Consider Luke 7:36-50: the Pharisee mocks Jesus for allowing a sinful woman to wash His feet. Cue Jesus’ rebuke. In a parable He explains that it is those who have a greater awareness of their debt who will appreciate it most when it is forgiven. And such was this woman who visibly threw herself on the mercy of Christ in a beautiful act of love and worship. In this context that Jesus says, “I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little” (v. 47).

This is why we seek to curate a song repertoire that proclaims the whole counsel of God. Rather than shirking away from difficult truths, we want to sing about our brokenness and our deep need for the mercy of God. As we declare the truth, our hearts are softened and grow in love and appreciation for Christ. Let us sing of His mercy!

- Jonathan

Jesus Your Mercy

Music and words by Bob Kauflin, Jordan Kauflin, and Nathan Stiff

Lyrics: 

Verse 1

Jesus, Your mercy is all my plea
I have no defense, my guilt runs too deep
The best of my works pierced Your hands and Your feet
Jesus, Your mercy is all my plea

Verse 2
Jesus, Your mercy is all my boast
The goodness I claim, the grounds of my hope
Whatever I lack it’s still what I need most
Jesus, Your mercy is all my boast

Chorus
Praise the King who bore my sin
Took my place when I stood condemned
Oh how good You’ve always been to me
I will sing of Your mercy

Verse 3
Jesus, Your mercy is all my rest
When fears weigh me down and enemies press
A comfort I cling to in life and in death
Jesus Your mercy is all my rest

Verse 4
Jesus, your mercy is all my joy
Forever I’ll lift my heart and my voice
To sing of a treasure no pow’r can destroy
Jesus, your mercy is all my joy

© 2019 Sovereign Grace Worship, Sovereign Grace Praise, Jordan Kauflin Music, Getty Music Publishing, Sovereign Grace Music

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Lift High the Name of Jesus - May 2020

Some have said that the best witness for Christ is a life lived for Him. But what exactly does this life look like? No doubt Scripture gives us many prescriptions and descriptions about what it means to live for Christ as His follower. But I want to highlight an aspect of our Christian witness today that may be often overlooked.

In Matthew 23, Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for not practicing what they preach, for exalting themselves, like whitewashed tombs who outwardly appear beautiful, but within are dead. More than that they construct false examples of godliness demanding that others live up to their standard. “Hypocrites!” Jesus says, which is precisely the right term for the Pharisees. What they proclaimed to be true on the outside was not true on the inside.

However, I fear that too often this term gets misapplied today. Usually when the church makes the press, it’s being accused of hypocrisy. And to be fair, there has been be gross sin and hypocrisy lurking in the church. This will continue until our sanctification is complete (Phil. 3:12) and Christ comes to separate the wheat and the chaff (Matt. 3:12). But should Christians really be accused of hypocrisy when they fall the short of moral perfection? This threat creates the ever-present temptation to prop up our outward image before the world, lest our sin be exposed, our witness be tainted, and we be called a hypocrite (or at least so that people would maybe say nice things about us). But to some degree, this leaves us resistant for people to really know us, sometimes even our Christian brothers and sisters. This is something I’ve struggled with for much of my life.

Again, this comes with big disclaimers. Unchecked sin can taint our Christian witness (think of the constant problems with the Corinthian church) and the Bible clearly calls us to be holy (1 Pet. 1:15-16). As the Spirit continually conforms us more into the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29), it’s our desire to live holy lives unto the glory of God. Still, on this earth, we will wrestle with the flesh (Rom. 7).

This should make us all the more thankful for the precious gift of grace in Christ our Savior, who saved us not according to works done by us, but according to his own mercy poured out on us richly through Jesus, so that we could have the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7).

Now as a pastor, I’m afraid the temptation to maintain a respectable outward image is stronger than ever. I’m called to get up in front of our congregation every week and help lead God’s people in singing God’s praises. I better have it all together, right? I better not let people see where I fall short because then they won’t trust me as a pastor, right? I am so thankful for my wife. She once told me, “What our church needs is not to see you as having it all together, we need to see you dependent on Jesus. What better example to follow in a pastor?” Now that’s some Holy Spirit wisdom right there.

But this goes for all of us, not just vocational pastors! What the world needs to see is not perfect people, but a church fully and solely dependent on Christ for their hope in this life and the next. This is a Gospel witness: that apart from Christ we are hopeless, but God is pleased with us not on the basis of our righteousness but on Christ’s (2 Cor. 5:21). And how do we show this? By letting our guards down. By being real with people. By living authentic lives with our family, friends, neighbors, strangers, everyone. By admitting our failures but confessing our Savior. This is what it means to “make known the power of His grace!”

So how do we avoid hypocrisy today? We must be careful never to claim on the outside what is not true on the inside. We must never claim perfection, to have it all together, to be without sin (1 John 1:8). But at the same time we live by faith in the One who is perfect, who does has it all together, and truly is without sin, Christ Jesus our Savior. His righteousness is the only one we’ll claim before the judgement seat of God anyway. Thankfully, He is making us more and more like Himself each and every day. Let us lift high the name of Jesus together!

- Jonathan

Key Scripture Passages:

1 Peter 3:15
Ephesians 2:1-10
1 John 4:4
Psalm 103
2 Corinthians 4:1-6

Lift High the Name of Jesus

Written by Ed Cash, Fionán De Barra, Keith Getty, & Kristyn Getty

Lyrics: 

Verse 1

Lift high the name of Jesus
Of Jesus our King
Make known the power of His grace
The beauty of His peace
Remember how His mercy reached
And we cried out to Him
He lifted us to solid ground
To freedom from our sin

Chorus

Oh sing my soul and tell all He's done!
'Til the earth and heavens are filled with His glory!

Verse 2

Lift high the name of Jesus
Of Jesus our Lord
His pow'r in us is greater than
Is greater than this world
To share the reason for our hope
To serve with love and grace
That all who see Him shine through us
Might bring the Father praise

Verse 3

Lift high the name of Jesus
Of Jesus our Light
No other name on earth can save
Can raise a soul to life
He opens up our eyes to see
The harvest He has grown
We labor in His fields of grace
As He leads sinners home

© 2013 Alletrop Music, De Barra, Fionan, Getty Music Publishing

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