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A Sermon on the Hymn Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder

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I had the privilege of preaching this sermon to my local church family on Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder: The Proper Response to the Gospel

Selected Scriptures
Do you ever notice the tiny little font that runs across the top of our worship songs? That’s the place where we put author and credit information. It’s purposefully small so as not to detract from the lyrics which we are seeking to engage with as we sing. It’s also small to fight the tendency to exalt songwriters or authors for the gifts they have used in giving us tools to move our hearts and minds towards God. This morning I’m going to go against that trend and make the tiny font of our last hymn huge by spending an entire sermon telling you about the hymn’s author and how it instructs and encourages us in worship. Why would I spend time telling you about the life of a Christian and pointing out the Biblical truths that are present in His song?

Because we are commanded to teach one another through our songs and to sing with understanding. Our muzak and iPod connected lives are so saturated with songs and lyrics that I fear we have an automatic tendency to “check out” when it comes to thinking deeply about what lyrics mean. And for some of us, we fear that having to think too much will actually¬ ruin the mood of the music and our perceived connection with God. But the Biblical picture of why we sing is far from that! Colossians 3:16 says “let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Songs are a God-given medium to help us become affected by truth, not to have a good time without regard for truth. The hymns that we use in public worship are, to the best of your leaders’ ability to discern, rooted in Biblical imagery and in line with what the Bible teaches. Today we’re going to see that played out in one particular hymn, “Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder,” written by John Newton. We’re also going to see and be encouraged by God’s faithfulness to save and use a man like Newton – a man whose ministry we are benefiting from even today!

The Life of John Newton

John Newton was born almost exactly 284 years ago in 1725. While we know Newton as the writer of “Amazing Grace,” and consider him a father of British and American Evangelicalism, his life shows him to be the most unlikely hero imaginable. I’d like to take you on a brief tour of his life and conversion in the hopes that it will help you to better understand and enter the world of his hymnody.

At a young age, Newton was taught at home by His mother, a strong Christian, and demonstrated exceptional intellectual ability. In addition to instilling in Newton a love for reading, his mother grounded him in the knowledge of God and the gospel. Tragically, she died of tuberculosis before he turned 7 and Newton was sent to a boarding school since his father was commander of a trading ship. When he was 11, his father took him aboard his ship and began training him for a career at sea. Newton describes his childhood faith in this way: “I was religious in my own eyes; but, alas – I was soon weary, gradually gave it up, and became worse than before. Instead of prayer, I learned to curse and blaspheme, and was exceedingly wicked when under my parents’ view. All this was before I was 12 years old.” By the age of 16, Newton had professed faith three or four times, but never with sincerity and only as a means of escaping hell. As I read the account of Newton’s life I could not help but see the similarities to my own life. By the age of 12 I had learned how to be pious in the eyes of my parents, teachers, and church-people, but inside and to my peers, I was filled with resentment and cursing and engaged in criminal acts for sheer pleasure. I had also “asked God into my heart” three or four times, but was never willing or able to give up my identity as a sinner and humbly seek after God.

Newton’s last religious reform was the most remarkable. In his own words,

I did everything that might be expected from a person entirely ignorant of God’s righteousness, and desirous to establish his own. I spent the greatest part of every day in reading the Scriptures, meditation, and prayer. I fasted often; … I would hardly answer a question for fear of speaking an idle word. I seemed to bemoan my former miscarriages very earnestly, sometimes with tears. In short, I became an ascetic, and endeavored, so far as my situation would permit, to renounce society, that I might avoid temptation. … [This religious life, which lasted more than two years,] left me, in many respects, under the power of sin; and … only tended to make me gloomy, stupid, unsociable, and useless.

After this period of outward prudence, Newton began to slide in the opposite direction – he gradually gave up his piety, temperance, and religious thoughts for the things of this world. He became obsessed with a young woman and made rash decisions in order to court her and spurned his father’s career opportunities by running away only to fall under the bad influence of common sailors. After behaving so badly that he was almost disowned by his father, he joined the British Navy, having been given a wonderful opportunity as midshipman at the recommendation of his father. A year later, after falling out of favor with the captain, he deserted his ship in order to pursue his love and was taken back on board by force as a prisoner and publicly beaten and humiliated. This marked a turning point in Newton’s life – he went from being respected and having a relatively comfortable life to being a public criminal and outcast. His teenage rage festered within him until he described his spiritual state like this: “I was capable of anything. I had not the least fear of God before my eyes, nor, so far as I can remember, the least sensibility of conscience. I was possessed of so strong a spirit of delusion that I believed my own lie, and was firmly persuaded that after death I should cease to be.”

By a remarkable providence, Newton was transferred to another ship bound for Africa, whose captain knew his father and sought to treat him kindly. But Newton continued his disrespectful, self-serving, and profane life by dishonoring the captain. He even wrote a song ridiculing him and taught it to the crew! When the ship was docked in Africa, Newton decided to remain there and agreed to work for a slave purchaser. But his impetuousness ended up being his downfall, as he essentially gave himself over to become a slave. He was treated so cruelly and with such contempt that even the other slaves took pity on him and used to sneak him food. After a voyage at sea, a trader unjustly charged him with theft and he was condemned without evidence. From that time on, he was treated with unspeakable cruelty, being locked on deck and exposed to the elements for days on end and kept alive on a pint of rice a day. Newton had hit rock bottom and barely held onto his will to live. After a year in this condition his master sold him to another trader and he was able to write home to his father who eventually sent someone to rescue him.

As the captain of his rescue ship observed how Newton treated his crew and heard the stories of his adventures, he would often tell him that he had a Jonah on board. At the age of 23, according to biographer John Gadsby, “he seemed to have every mark of final impenitence and rejection; neither judgments nor mercies made the least impression upon him.” But before the ship could make it back to England, it encountered a severe storm and became so damaged that the crew had to use most of their clothing to fix leaks despite the cold weather. The storm continued all night with the men working feverishly for hours on end at pumps, having tied themselves to the deck in order not to be washed away. During this hopeless situation he began to think again of the mercy of God available to sinners in the gospel. But his thoughts condemned him still: “I thought if the Christian religion were true, I could not be forgiven. … there never was, nor could be, such a sinner as myself … I waited with fear and impatience to receive my inevitable doom.”

But God was not through with Newton yet. By 6pm the next day, when, beyond all probability the ship was secured from water and appeared stable, he then began to pray and think about this Jesus whom he had so often ridiculed. As he put it, “upon the gospel scheme I saw at least a peradventure of hope, but on every other side I was surrounded by black, unfathomable despair.” Four weeks after the wreck and on their last portion of food, they amazingly made it to a port in Ireland just before another storm would have blown them out to sea again. By the time he reached the shore Newton had believed the truth of the gospel – that the Lord’s mercy shown at the cross could reach even a sinner like him. While the rest of the crew quickly lost interest in God, Newton did not. Newton summed up his conversion experience in his hymn “Saved By Blood, I Live to Tell” like this:

Saved by blood, I live to tell
What the love of Christ has done;
He redeemed my soul from hell,
Of a rebel made a son:
Oh! I tremble still to think
How secure I lived in sin;
Sporting on destruction’s brink,
Yet preserved from falling in.

Newton returned to his career at sea and even went through several periods of backsliding but God faithfully pursued him through trials, winning his affections and devotion back again. Even during his darkest times he proclaimed, “my trust, though weak in degree, was alone fixed upon the blood and righteousness of Jesus.” Within a few years he became captain of a slave ship during which time the Lord delivered him from peril numerous times. While it is hard for us to imagine how and why he remained in his office as a slave merchant, he often prayed that the Lord would deliver him from such a wicked career. The following year, two days before his ship was to leave, his conscience would not allow him to go and he gave up his ship. Soon afterwards, remaining in England, he fell under the ministry of George Whitefield and became a preacher and later a minister of the Church of England. He spent the rest of his life, about 40 years, faithfully pastoring a church in Olney. He composed his own epitaph which reads:
John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy.

What We Should Learn from the Life of John Newton

Before diving into his hymn text, I’d like you to consider several things from the testimony of Newton that should instruct and encourage us. First, we saw that conviction of sin is not necessarily the same thing as conversion. The writer of the book of Hebrews points out that even though Esau expressed remorse over selling his birthright, even with tears, he “found no place for repentance.” (Hebrews 12:17) Second, he showed us how vain it is to strive for righteousness on our own. This only leads to further condemnation and unbearable guilt. The grace of the gospel is the only thing that will set us free and begin to truly change us. Third, we saw that even truly redeemed Christians are capable of backsliding and participating in foolish – even evil – things like slavery. Though he wandered from God numerous times, the Lord always brought him back. And lastly, Newton’s testimony should encourage us because it shows just how far God will go to save sinners – even the worst of the worst. This should give us hope for not only ourselves but the most hardened sinners we share Christ with.

Today’s Hymn Text

Verse 1:
Let us love and sing and wonder,
Let us praise the Savior’s name!
He has hushed the Law’s loud thunder,
He has quenched mount Sinai’s flame:
He has washed us with His blood,
He has brought us nigh to God.

Verse 2:
Let us love the Lord Who bought us,
Pitied us when enemies,
Called us by His grace, and taught us,
Gave us ears, and gave us eyes:
He has washed us with His blood,
He presents our souls to God.

Verse 3:
Let us sing, though fierce temptation
Threatens hard to bear us down!
For the Lord, our strong salvation,
Holds in view the conqu’ror’s crown:
He Who washed us with His blood,
Soon will bring us home to God.

Verse 4:
Let us wonder, grace and justice
Join, and point to mercy’s store;
When through grace in Christ our trust is,
Justice smiles, and asks no more:
He Who washed us with His blood,
Has secured our way to God.

Verse 5:
Let us praise, and join the chorus
Of the saints enthroned on high;
Here they trusted Him before us,
Now their praises fill the sky:
"You have washed us with Your blood,
You are worthy, Lamb of God!"

Newton’s hymn “Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder” is really a song about worship, though the word is not directly used. The closest thing we have to worship is in the very last line – “You are worthy, Lamb of God!” So why do I say that it’s about worship? Because Newton demonstrates a Biblical understanding of what should be happening in worship. Worship is responding to God in a way that He has prescribed as a result of something God has revealed about Himself or His works. It’s responding to God’s revelation; put another way, God’s truth drives us to respond to Him in various ways like singing, shouting, quietly reflecting, or in absolute silence. Newton lays out four proper responses to God and uses them to structure the hymn: love, singing, wonder, and praise. This hymn is not only about worship, but also about the gospel. Newton clearly understood the means by which we can have peace with God – through Jesus’ death on the cross – and saw that as the penultimate motivator for worship. The mercy that God has revealed in loving and saving sinners like us should drive us to love and sing and wonder and praise.

Let Us Worship

Newton starts off each verse with the phrase “let us,” pointing to the fact that these responses are not optional but rather commanded. Let’s look to the Scriptures to see his basis for commanding us in this way. First, the command to love God is perhaps best known by the Old Testament passage Deuteronomy 6:5, which Jesus quotes from. It says “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” Second, singing is commanded in many places but none more concentrated than the Psalms. Take Psalm 33 for example. Verse 1 says “Sing for joy in the LORD, O you righteous ones.” Third, the word “wonder” is used 33 times just in the Psalms alone. It means astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience. Take Psalm 139:6 for example. When David meditates on God’s limitless wisdom and knowledge, he exclaims “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it.” Saying that God’s knowledge is wonderful is another way of saying that he wonders at it. And lastly, that praise is commanded should hardly need to be demonstrated. The entire chapter of Psalm 150 is devoted to commanding all of creation to praise God. Psalm 69:34 sums it up nicely: “let heaven and earth praise Him, the seas and everything that moves in them.”

Right from the start, before even going through each response individually, Newton gives us a wonderful reason to worship God. Why should be love and sing and wonder and praise? Because “He has hushed the law’s loud thunder.” This language is unmistakably taken from Exodus 19, so let’s turn there. Exodus 19 sets the stage for the more well-known chapter 20 in which God gives the Israelites the 10 commandments. Before they assemble, God reveals a glimpse of his terrifying power and holiness. He warns them to stay away from mount Sinai under penalty of death. The scene is meant to depict fear and terror. Why is the Law depicted as such a terrifying thing? Because of just how high the bar has been set for what we must do to please God. Jesus summarizes the Law in Matthew 5:48 by saying “you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Sinai is meant to terrify us by showing us the awful weight of God’s law and the holy justice that demands death as punishment for failing to keep it. Fear is a strong motivator but will never produce heartfelt love songs, wonder, or praise – only slavish obedience.

How did God hush the law? By fulfilling its stipulations for us and by bearing the punishment required for breaking it. He supplied both the righteousness and punishment set forth in the Law. Jesus shows his mission to fulfill the law in Matthew 5:17: “do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill [it].” And the Apostle Paul puts it this way in Galatians 3:23-23: “But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.” Newton sums up how the law was quenched in this way: “He has washed us with His blood, He has brought us nigh (near) to God.” The sparkling purity of Jesus’ obedience cleanses the vile impurity of our sin and restores our relationship to God by the power of His sacrificial death on the cross. Newton has already, in just a few short lines, moved us straight to the heart of the gospel!

Let Us Love

Let’s move on to verse 2 where Newton explores the command to love God and gives us ample reason. He says that we should love God because He bought us, because He redeemed us. Can you think of a better motivator to love than redemption? How many movies or great works of literature involve redemption, rescue, and the gratitude and love that is formed as a result? Let’s ponder the nature of this redemption a little bit. If God purchased us, whom or what did He purchase us from? Ephesians 2:1-2 says that we “were dead in [our] trespasses and sins, in which [we] formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” We were essentially enslaved to sin and Satan. Titus 3:3 says that “we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.” And Colossians 1:13 says that God “rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

Who, then, did Jesus make his ransom payment to? Well, it’s not, as some have suggested, to Satan, as if he himself owned us. We had given ourselves over to the darkness willingly and lived under God’s wrath and curse. Jesus offered the payment of His priceless, pure blood, to the Father himself, to satisfy the demands of divine justice. In an unfathomable mystery, God is both the one giving up His Son, just as He is the one receiving the payment. This is what the term “propitiation” is getting at – it signifies a payment or sacrifice made to turn away or appease wrath – the wrath of God himself. 1 John 4:10 says “in this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” and a few verses later in verse 19 it says “we love, because He first loved us.” Love is the result of redemption accomplished through propitiation. If you want to love God then meditate hard on the fact that in love He bought you.

Let Us Sing

In verse 3 Newton reminds us of our duty to sing to the Lord. Singing has always been a vital activity to God’s people and closely bound up in the act of worship. The first congregational worship song in the Bible, Exodus 15, explicitly names the reason for the song. Exodus 15:1 says “I will sing unto the Lord, for…” and goes on to recount how God delivered them from the hand of the Egyptians. Many of the 70 references to singing in the Psalms are in response to God’s past, present, or future deliverance. For example, in Psalm 51:14 says “deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, the God of my salvation; then my tongue will joyfully sing of Your righteousness.” Newton picks up on this theme and instructs us to sing when threatened by the enemy of our own temptation. Newton was well acquainted with the struggle against sin and also knew that God has promised to save us from it. God seems to have designed singing as a way of pressing that truth home when we most need it – right in the heat of battle. So Newton tells us to sing “for the Lord, our strong salvation, holds in view the conqueror’s crown.” He makes use of two Biblical principles here, namely that God will cause us to persevere until the end and that he has a reward in store for us when we finally finish the race of the Christian life. Philippians 1:6 clearly shows God’s promise to never let us go: “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” And James 1:12 tells us of a crown that the Lord will bestow on all those who persevere: “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.”

Let Us Wonder

Newton then moves on to the response of wonder in verse 4. Remember that wonder is astonishment at something mysterious. What is the mystery that we should wonder at? He immediately moves to answer that question by juxtaposing the terms grace and justice together. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve while justice is getting what you do deserve. Do you see the tension here? How can God show us grace and justice? Doesn’t one cancel the other out? From the storehouse of God’s boundless mercy comes His plan to be gracious to us while never letting the guilty go unpunished – while never committing a travesty of justice. When we trust in Christ, who shed his blood to satisfy the demands of justice, He becomes the one who was punished in our place. What’s more, God credits us with Jesus’ obedience so that we then deserve to be treated as sons. Newton points out that this exchange can only happen by grace through faith, when we embrace what Christ has done on the cross for us. In the language of Ephesians 2:8 “by grace you have been saved through faith.” And in the words of Romans 4:5, he who “believes in [God] who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Faith gives us the righteousness of Jesus, which satisfies the demands of divine justice.

Let Us Praise

Moving on to our last verse and last response to God, in verse 5 Newton explores why we should praise God. His answer to that question comes at the end of the verse when he says “You have washed us with your blood, You are worthy, Lamb of God.” This is strikingly similar to the content of the praise going on even now in heaven. In Revelation 5:9 we see those in heaven singing “worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” The central theme of the praise of heaven will forever be our salvation secured by the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus’ surpassing worth is shown most clearly by the fact that He was slain and used the value of his suffering to purchase totally undeserving sinners back to God. Newton encourages us to praise Jesus not only because He is so worthy, but because it’s already going on … he simply encourages us to join in!

Conclusion

So let’s learn how important it is to love, sing to, wonder at, and praise God from the example of John Newton – his life, his testimony, and his witness to us through these lyrics. Let’s remember that the fires of true worship are stoked by the billows of the gospel – where, because of the mercy of God, grace and justice join in the person and work of Jesus Christ who suffered and died in order to wash our sins and secure our way to God. And these fires are not only stoked by the gospel but also ignited by them. If you’ve not been washed by Jesus’ blood then you don’t know what true love and singing and wonder and praise are really like. And you can’t know or truly participate in worship until you embrace Jesus by faith. Sure, you can attend worship services, but there are many reasons why people attend church. Maybe you’re stuck in the place where Newton was before he gave up religion altogether – seeking to appease your conscience about eternity by being good (or at least better than most). Or maybe you’ve all but given up on Christianity because you’re so sick of the religious hypocrites and are here to appease a friend or family member. Or maybe you believe the truthfulness of the gospel but like Newton, you can’t believe that there is enough mercy left for you – your sins are too high-handed, you have resisted for too long, you are unredeemable.

I want each of you to taste what worship of the true and living God is like so I beg you to come – let go of your own goodness or self-loathing and embrace this Jesus who Newton spent so many hours writing songs about. And as we turn now to sing this great hymn for the second time this morning may we all praise Jesus with a deeper love and wonder than we had before.

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