Praise the Lord, O heavens adore Him
Our guest writer today is David Jackson:
Why do Christians put their trust in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit? Does this mean that there are three Gods? The Bible makes it very plain that there is only one God. But the words of our Lord Jesus and the New Testament writers make it clear that the Son and the Spirit share, with the Father, in the nature of God. Therefore, we are driven to the conclusion that there are three Persons in one Godhead.
Humankind at present is made up of seven or eight billion persons. God is only Three and this never changes. Humankind is constantly quarrelling and making war. God is a perfect unity of love and thought and will, so much so that we commonly speak of him in the singular and not them in the plural.
The apostle John tells us that “God is love”. This is his unchanging nature, and so the perfect love that exists between Father, Son and Spirit has always existed: it is eternal. But we worship him because this perfect, eternal love is not limited to the experience of the three Persons of the Godhead: it has burst out into our experience also. God’s love has reached out to draw us into his family. He has loved us with an everlasting love, that began before we were born and continues unaltered after death. And all three Persons of the Godhead are involved in bringing this joy to us. What can we say or do in the light of all this? We love him because he first loved us. We can only bow in worship and serve him with joyful obedience.
Here is a hymn that I adapted and added to some years ago. The first two verses were published anonymously in 1796. I have altered them slightly and have added three more verses to make it a hymn to the Triune God. The tune that I prefer is Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, found in Mission Praise at number 600, set to the hymn Sing to God New Songs of Worship.
Praise the Lord, O heavens adore him; praise him, angels in the height;
sun and moon, rejoice before him; praise him, all you stars of light.
Praise the Lord, for he has spoken; worlds his mighty voice obeyed;
laws which never shall be broken for their guidance he has made.
Praise the Father, he is glorious; never shall his promise fail;
he has made his saints victorious; sin and death shall not prevail.
Praise the God of our salvation; hosts on high his power proclaim;
heaven and earth and all creation praise and glorify his name.
Praise the Saviour, loving, caring, suff’ring for us on the Tree;
darkest sin and torment bearing, willingly, to set us free.
Praise the conq’ring King who frees us, rising glorious from the dead;
hail to you, exalted Jesus, throned in heaven, the Church’s Head.
Praise the Spirit, God within us, working out his holy will;
his the voice that spoke to win us; now he guides and guards us still.
Love and joy, with peace and patience, Gentle goodness, self-control,
faith and meekness – these creations form his harvest in the soul.
Praise the one true God, all-powerful, Maker, Master, Saviour, Friend;
his the majesty so awesome, his the mercy without end.
Praise the Father, praise the Spirit, praise the great, eternal Word;
blessing, honour, might and merit, be to our all-gracious Lord.
P.S. from Stephen
If you would like to sing David’s lyrics, the tune is played for you on YouTube: Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee (Ode to Joy) Piano solo
Sunday arrangements:
If you are wanting to come to church on Sunday at either 10:430am or 6:30pm (Identical services), we do need you to book you place beforehand.
At this Sunday’s gatherings we will be giving those attending the opportunity to share communion, if you are staying at home you can share communion with us as you watch the ‘live-feed’ on the church facebook page. If you aren’t able to do that, I will aim to start the communion part of our gatherings at 11:15am and 7:15pm and will have some words for you to follow in Sunday’s article on the Website.