Set Free Audio and Text

Here is the theme song that I wrote for this year's Summer Sanctus PNW. Click on the song title (below.) GH

Set Free

Summer Sanctus PNW 2017


Trapped in this prison-house of shame and sin

I’m shackled from without and wedged within

I long to breathe the air outside my jail

So hear my plaintive cry and wail

I yearn to be set free, set free


My dungeon walls seem like they’re ten feet thick

Impervious as steel and stone-hard brick

My only hope is for a Savior true

To do for me what I can’t do

I need to be set free, set free


The warden called, he said my debt’s been paid

I’m free to leave this stifling stone stockade

My Savior waits for me outside the gate

The time has come to relocate

Because I’ve been set free, set free


Sometimes I’m tempted to retake my chains

Pretending that I’m still in sin’s domain

But when I do, I hear my Savior say

“I died to put those chains away

C’mon and follow me, and live set free”

Set free, set free


If the Son sets me, free, then I’ll be free indeed

If the Son sets you, free, then you’ll be free indeed

If the Son sets us, free, then we’ll be free indeed

Set free!

Taste and See that the LORD is Good

One of the Spirit’s favorite metaphors for God’s Word is food, indicating that it is tasty, nourishing and meant to be ingested and digested, not merely tasted (like gum.) In chapter 3 of his prophecy Ezekiel is instructed to “eat” a scroll of God’s Word. And John is likewise instructed to do so in Revelation 10. In Psalm 19, David describes God’s law as “sweeter also than honey and the drippings from the honeycomb.” Oh yeah…


Recently, I had the privilege of filling the pulpit at one of our sister churches, and chose to preach out of Daniel 9. There are 1189 chapters in the Bible, and unbeknownst to me, the guest preacher (who received his PhD in Hebrew from Oxford University!) the previous week had used the same chapter for his sermon text. Fortunately, this repetition was not brought my attention until after I had delivered the sermon. But from the people’s comments afterward, it was quite obvious that God’s Word is indeed food, and not merely the recitation of data. Like pizza or a Milepost 111 burger, the same texts can be enjoyed and provide nourishment over and over again.


But sometimes it is a challenge to get beyond tasting God’s Word to actually ingesting it in a way that it becomes a part of us, shaping our affections and directing our thoughts, words and deeds. I recently came across eight questions to ask of a text in order to better hear what the Holy Spirit is saying as I read a portion of God’s Word. I use the King’s Cross lectionary, so after I have read the 2-3 chapters for the day, I spend a few minutes praying back to God my answers to the questions, and then conclude with a short prayer focused on the one or two questions/answers that seem most pertinent/applicable.


These questions have helped me move from tasting to feeding upon God’s Word, but they may or may not be helpful to you. As with a sumptuous feast, there are lots of different ways to eat and enjoy at table. Here they are:


Understanding:
1. What do I learn about God?

2. What do I learn about people?

3. What do I learn about relating to God?

4. What do I learn about relating to others?

     Pray…



Application:

1. What does God want me to understand?

2. What does God want me to believe?

3. What does God want me to desire?

4. What does God want me to do?

     Pray…

GH

Are These Promises for You?

(Jeremiah 29:11–14) For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the LORD, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile.

This is an perfect example of what I like to call “refrigerator magnet verses”, so named because of the way that they are forcibly yanked out of context and blithely placed in Hallmark cards and placarded on internet memes.

In Jeremiah 29, the prophet speaks of two different classes of people within Israel. And the above promises are tenderly given to one sort of Israelite and clearly withheld from the other.

So, before we can put any sort of claim upon the mercies promised in these verses, we first need to determine which class of people we most closely resemble.

One camp within Israel was characterized by its refusal to listen to God’s Word and to embrace the God-ordained “death” of exile in Babylon, and to faithfully await the “resurrection” of return to the holy land by God’s means, in God’s time. To the Israelites who spurned God’s Word and were confident that they could save themselves, God promised “the sword, famine and pestilence.”

The other camp within Israel listened and obeyed God’s prophets, humbly embraced the “death” of Babylonian exile and faithfully awaited the “resurrection” of return. But their waiting for resurrection was not passive. In obedience to God’s command they actively built homes, planted gardens, bore and raised children and grandchildren, labored and prayed for the welfare of city where God had placed them, believing, as the Lord had said, that their welfare was linked to the welfare of their city; their city of exile.

It was to these Israelites; the Israelites who listened carefully to God’s Word, humbly submitted to God’s plan of death and resurrection and faithfully labored for the good of the worldlings who surrounded them, that God promised “plans for welfare and not for evil…a future and a hope.”

And so, not coincidentally, every week in our assembly on Mt. Zion, we revisit, re-hear and indeed reenact the Gospel, God’s wonderful plan to save us via our union, by faith, in Christ’s death and resurrection, along with reminders to build, plant and parent while actively seeking the welfare of the unbelieving city in which God has placed us.

And this we do, reveling in the sure knowledge that God’s plans for us are supremely good, filled with hope and bursting with promise.

GH