Incarnate Savior God Divine- An Advent Hymn

Incarnate Savior, God Divine,
The Father’s Son before all time,
True God of God in ages past,
Creator God, the First, the Last.

Begotten of the Father’s love,
Pure Light of Light, eternal Lord,
In Mary’s womb my flesh assumed,
To seal the ancient serpent’s doom.

Thou kept the co-ve-nant of life,
And in thy flesh didst reconcile,
Thrice holy God and sinful man,
To conquer Satan, death and sin.

Thou bore the wrath reserved for me,
By dying on the cursed tree,
Cut off, forsaken, left to die,
My sinful flesh thou cru-ci-fied.

Thou rose victorious from the grave,
And in thy re-surr-ection raised,
All those the Father gavest Thee,
All thy elect, from death to free.

Lo, in thy Person death hast died,
And Thou wilt come to glorify,
The church from every land and tongue,
Alone, in Thee, our victory’s won.

Take All Thy Anxious Fears and Cares

The following is a new hymn I wrote which surveys the ground of Christian hope and perseverance for those laboring under the weight of anxiety.  I hope it proves edifying and encouraging as you encounter fears and cares in your own life.

Take all thy anxious fears and cares,
All thy despondent sighs and tears,
Before the throne of sovereign grace,
Where Jesus ever lives to save.

Yea, each and every sheep he knows,
He feeds and nourisheth his own,
Not one of all the chosen race,
Will he despise or e’er forsake.

He wears my flesh in heav’n above,
With sympathy and tender love,
He intercedeth in my name,
And pleads His blood for my soul’s sake.

His Spirit gives to cheer and bless,
To work in me true righteousness,
With groans divine lifts up my cries,
And all my prayers He sanctifies.

My guilty conscience purifies,
In his perfection justifies,
Adopts me as an heir and son,
In Christ alone my victory’s won.

On that great day my flesh He’ll raise,
And call my body from the grave,
With all the saints of God I’ll rise,
To meet my Savior in the skies.

His law-exalting righteousness,
Shall cover me and be my dress,
No goodness of my own I’ll claim,
But wholly boast in Jesus’ name.

All sin and sorrow conquered then,
When death shall meet its final end,
The tears that once fell from my eyes,
Shall by Christ’s gentle hand be dried.

Lo, when in glory I shall see,
The pier-ced wounds which bled for me,
I’ll praise the wisdom that ordained,
The bitter cross of grief and pain.

O thou my soul do not repine,
For thou art Christ’s and Christ is Thine,
Fret not thy days on earth away,
Thy Lord and God is strong to save.

Cast All Thy Burdens on the Lord (Revised and Finished)

Here’s the revised and finished version of the hymn I posted last night.  We’ll be singing it this coming Lord’s day to the tune of “Germany” (commonly sung with “Jesus Thy Blood and Righteousness” or “God in the Gospel of His Son”).  You can listen to the tune here.  The hymn begins with the call to cast our burdens upon the Lord (first stanza), moves into the context in which the prayer is made (second stanza), and then surveys the foundation upon which the prayer in stanza 1 is built:  Jesus is Immanuel (3), Jesus is Incarnate God for the sake of his people (4), Jesus intercedes and sings over us in heaven as the ascended Lord (5), Jesus will soon come to remove all the anxious cares we daily encounter (6).  The last stanza is a resolve to bless and praise the faithfulness of the Lord in the light of everything we’ve just sung.  The Son of God who wears the flesh of his people can no more forsake them than He can undo His Incarnation.  He will not, yea cannot, leave his church a prey to hell.

Cast all thy burdens on the Lord,
And lean upon His gracious Word,
Thy anxious cares lay at His feet,
Repose in Christ, the Prince of peace.

For I am weak and sore distressed,
And prone to doubt Thy faithfulness,
My mind besieged by unbelief,
My heart bowed down with pain and grief.

In Thee my sweet Immanuel,
All fullness of true God does dwell,
The Lamb of God before all worlds,
Whose blood avails amid the storm.

Thou clothed thyself in human flesh,
To usher in my Sabbath rest,
For me all fierce temptations faced,
And on thy head God’s wrath was laid.

In heav’n before the Father’s throne,
Thou intercedeth for thy own,
I hear thy tender pardoning voice
It sings oe’r my poor soul with joy.

Soon, when in glory I shall see,
My Prophet, Priest, and Reigning King,
All tears and cares shall melt away,
Before the Light of endless day.

So in the fiery trial I’ll bless,
The glories of Thy faithfulness,
For thou cannot forsake my soul,
And leave thy child a prey to hell.

Cast All Thy Burdens On the Lord

The following is a short hymn/meditation I wrote on the subject of anxiety which begins with a call to trust in the Lord and concludes with the hope of new creation when our faith becomes sight.  Christ and Christ alone is the divine antidote for those anxious cares which plague the minds and hearts of believers living as exiles in a sinful world.  Christ and Christ alone gives us the rock solid confidence that soon all our worldly sorrows will melt away in the light of eternity.

Cast all thy burdens on the Lord,
And lean upon His gracious Word,
Thy anxious cares lay at His feet,
Repose in Christ, the Prince of peace.

For I am weak and sore distressed,
And prone to doubt Thy faithfulness,
My mind besieged by unbelief,
My heart bowed down with pain and grief.

In Thee my sweet Immanuel,
All fullness of true God does dwell,
The Lamb of God before all worlds,
Whose blood avails amid the storm.

Soon when in glory I shall see,
Thou my true bridegroom, God, and King,
All anxious cares shall melt away,
In glory bright, in endless day.

So in the fiery trial I’ll bless,
The glories of thy faithfulness,
For Thou cannot forsake my soul,
And leave thy child a prey to hell.

 

Psalter Notes #9: Psalm 146

Text and tune for this Psalm can be found here.

Psalms 146-150 constitute the final doxology of the Psalter, beginning with a rousing call to praise the Lord (146:1). Psalm 146 emphasizes the protection which the Lord provides for those who cannot help themselves- the oppressed (v. 7a); the hungry (v. 7b); the prisoners (v. 7c); the blind (v. 8a); those who are bowed down (v. 8b); the righteous (v. 8c); the sojourners (v. 9a); the widow and fatherless (v. 9a). Those who are despised by the world are the favorites of the Lord. And only He can afford protection against the church’s enemies since human protectors are weak and subject to death (v. 3). The Lord, however, is the omnipotent and gracious protector who created all things (v. 6). The biblical logic of the Psalmist is that if God exercised his infinite power in the creation of the world, surely he exercises his power in the preservation of the world, but in particular, the people of God. The doctrines of creation and providence provide rich food for the helpless believer in need of divine protection. Question and answer 28 of the Heidelberg Catechism beautifully illustrates this truth. The Catechism asks:

Q:  What advantage is it to us to know that God has created, and by his providence does still uphold all things?  Answer: That we may be patient in adversity; (a) thankful in prosperity; (b) and that in all things, which may hereafter befall us, we place our firm trust in our faithful God and Father, (c) that nothing shall separate us from his love; (d) since all creatures are so in his hand, that without his will they cannot so much as move.

Dear believer, if you are united to Jesus Christ, his almighty resurrection power- that power which created and sustains this world- ceaselessly exerts itself on your behalf, protecting and preserving you from all your enemies so that apart from God’s gracious and powerful hand, you cannot so much as move. That power, the power “that enables him to bring everything under his control” (Phil. 3:21) will one day manifest itself in the eternal reign of the Triune God in a new creation where righteousness dwells: “The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the Lord!” (v. 10).

Matthew 5:1-20- Introducing the Sermon on the Mount

As we’ve read previously in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus has come as the long awaited King to establish his kingdom among us. What does that kingdom look like? What do its citizens look like? How shall we now live in this new age that Christ has inaugurated with his Incarnation? Jesus tells us in Matthew 5-7. The Sermon on the Mount is a portrait of this new community of disciples that has gathered around Jesus. In particular, this is a portrait of God’s people from the vantage point of God’s law- the final and defintive interpretation of the law’s true intent by the one whose very existence reflects its perfection. As the perfect expression of God’s character interpreted by the new and greater Moses, the moral law of God- seen through the eyes of Jesus- forever binds those who have been redeemed. We learn from the Sermon on the Mount that the Christian message is more than a message of mere forgiveness, glorious as that message is. The Christian message is a message of change, transformation and newness of life for those who are united to the Savior who came to fulfill the law and the prophets for their sake.

Psalter Notes #8: Psalm 119:89-97

The text and tune for the metrical version of Ps. 119:89-97 can be found here.  It’s the first Psalm we’ll be singing this Lord’s day.

The God of the Bible is a God who speaks. All things were brought forth by His Word (John 1:3); all things are sustained by his Word (Heb. 1:3); his covenant promises are enacted and ensured by His Word (Heb. 6:13); and He reveals Himself to us AS Word- the Son of God is the eternal speech of the Father, revealing his perfect character (John 1:14). It’s no surprise then, given the emphasis in Scripture upon the Word of God, that the Psalmist, in v. 89, ascribes eternal permanence to that Word, a Word which is “firmly fixed in the heavens.” God’s “word” here is synonymous with God’s “law” and refers to the written revelation of God in the Hebrew Scriptures, particularly the moral law or the ten commandments. According to the Psalmist, the law provides a clear expression of God’s character and is therefore righteous (v. 75, 137, 144); trustworthy (v. 86; 138); everlasting (v. 89, 152, 160); and true (v. 142, 151, 130). Contrary to many Christians today who think of the law in exclusively negative terms, the Psalmist possesses a high regard for God’s law, expresses his deep love for God’s law, and teaches us that keeping God’s law, for those who have been redeemed, brings life and blessing. As chapter 19 of the Westminster Confession of Faith states so beautifully, the uses of God’s law for the believer are not “contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it; the Spirit of Christ subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely, and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requires to be done” (WCF 19:7).

While uncertainties, questions, and restlessness abound in our ever-changing world, there is one reality that remains forever sure- the unfailing and unchanging law of Almighty God. Those who seek to know and experience the faithfulness of God find that faithfulness shining most brightly in his infallible revelation (v. 90). Those who suffer and groan under affliction find life and strength in the precepts of God’s moral law (v. 93). For those who are redeemed by the One who embodies the Law in his very flesh, the One who came not to destroy but to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, the law is no longer an enemy but a friend, a gracious guide to life in the midst of hardship. The true believer who has come to know and love the Word and law of God can say with Charles Spurgeon:

The pleasures arising from a right understanding of the divine testimonies are of the most delightful order; earthly enjoyments are utterly contemptible if compared with them. The sweetest joys, yea, the sweetest of the sweetest falls to his portion who has God’s truth to be his heritage.

Matthew 4: The Temptation of Jesus

I’ve often heard this text preached as a kind of “Defeating Temptation for Dummies” as if it was written primarily as an example for us to follow: “Jesus defeated the devil by quoting Scripture and so should you!” The problem, of course, is that Jesus’ temptation- no less than his birth and baptism- are unique events within this history of redemption that the Bible records. Why was Jesus tempted by the devil? Jesus was tempted by the devil on behalf of sinners subjected and enslaved to the tempters’ soul-ruining influence. Jesus faithfully resisted the devil for the sake of those who are unwilling and unable to live faithfully under the devil’s viscous assaults. Particularly, Jesus enters into the wilderness as the new and greater Israel- fasting for 40 days and 40 nights in order to replicate, in his own perfect divine-human experience, the experience of Israel in the wilderness. Jesus, as the new Israel, succeeds where Israel failed, accomplishing, in that victory, the righteousness Israel failed to secure so that the Israel of God (Gal. 6:16) might be set free. Jesus also enters into the wilderness as the new and greater Adam who, though tempted to question God by receiving food at the hands of the devil, faithfully resists him on behalf of those fallen in Adam.

The condescension of Jesus to stand in the place of his enemies by subjecting himself to the assaults of the evil one is nothing short of astounding and reveals to us something of the unfathomable mystery of the Incarnation. The good news from this text is that sinful, weak, and wavering people like ourselves- people who have not stood firm amidst the assaults of the devil- have a Savior and advocate who faithfully obeyed in their place. The good news is that our great High Priest who was tempted as we are yet without sin (Heb. 4:15), now supplies the resurrection strength our wandering hearts so desperately need when we are tempted. The good news is that the heavenly inheritance attached to obedience has been secured for us by the obedience of the Incarnate Son who will come again, in glory, to fully and finally crush the head of the ancient serpent under our feet (Rom. 16:20), delivering us from the all the temptations we daily encounter. The good news is that if we are united to Christ, victory over the devil has already been won for us by this Incarnate Savior who wears our flesh so that He might succeed where we daily fail.

Psalter Notes #7: Psalm 148

Psalms 146-150 serves as a concluding doxology to the Psalter. In this particular Psalm, the Psalmist calls upon the created order (v. 1-6), the inhabitants of earth (v. 5-12) and Israel (v. 13-14) to praise the Lord. The entire cosmos ought to praise the Lord because, as the Psalmist tells us in v. 5-6, the Lord “commanded and they were created. And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.” Unlike the modern scientist who attributes the existence of this earth and all that is in it to an undirected process of chance, Psalm 148 celebrates the truth that all life was created by God’s sovereign power alone. The doctrine of creation, therefore, is not an uncertain theory that needs empirical verification but a fact that demands the whole-souled worship of God. As the new Israel of God called out from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, we simultaneously worship and groan with the created order because, while “the heavens declare the glory of God,” they also “reveal the wrath of God” against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, bearing the effects of mankind’s tragic fall into sin. Our worship in the “already” is broken hearted but inexpressible and full of glory (1 Pet. 1:8), infused with the hope of “a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Pet. 3:13). The tune and text we’ll be using can be accessed here.