New Songs for Our Term 1 2022 Series -John 1-4

Over the last few weeks, our music team leaders have been working on the music for Term 1 next year, when we’ll be digging deep into the first 4 chapters of John.

There will be 3 new songs appearing during the term – the next few months might be a nice time to listen to them, get familiar with them, and dwell on the words of truth expressed in each of them. You can listen to them on our “Songs We Sing Playlist” on Spotify.

Great Are You Lord – All The Sons And Daughters,

Through our series in John, we see a common theme of light shining through the darkness, of Jesus being the true light that restores us from our sin, that gives us hope through the difficulties of this life and who is worthy of all of our praise. In “Great Are You Lord”, we sing about Jesus’ love and life giving spirit: “you give life, you are love, you bring light to the darkness” and also sing about how he restores us and gives us hope through the trials of this world “you give hope, you restore, every heart that is broken”. This song not only reflects how great our God is, but encourages us to share the message of hope and redemption to our friends and family who haven’t yet come to Jesus yet in prayer that “all the earth will shout God’s praise, our hearts will cry, these bones will sing, great are you Lord”.

Behold the Lamb – Passion

In John 1, John sees Jesus and says “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”. This is the message of the gospel, that Jesus, being fully God, was crucified on a Roman cross to take away our sin even as we turned away from Him and mocked Him as He died on Calvary’s Hill. In this song, we sing of God’s love despite our rejection and humiliation of our saviour: “Lifted up on Calvary’s hill, we cursed your name, and even still, you bore our shame and paid the cost, Oh God, we thank You for the cross. We also sing of the victory that Jesus has over sin which is the victory we have because of Jesus in the words “Behold the Lamb, the story of redemption written on His hands, Jesus, You will reign forevermore, The victory is Yours”. The message of this song encapsulates that though we have sinned, there is forgiveness found in the Lamb (Jesus) and one day, “when the age of death is done, we’ll see your face, bright as the sun, we’ll bow before the king of kings, oh God, forever we will sing” (of God’s great love”).

Your Will Be Done – City Alight

The lyrics of this song call us to try and live as Jesus did: as someone who sought the needs of others about Himself, who was fully obedient even to the point of death and whose hope was put the defeating of death and eternal glory with His father forever. In John 3, Jesus tells us that “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”. As followers of Jesus, we need to trust in Jesus’ promise to us that “whoever believes in Him will have eternal life” and live everyday with our new identity in Christ. The lyrics “my heart is drawn to self exalting” proves so true for all of us living in a fallen world, but by God’s grace, we should always be striving to “seek God’s kingdom first”. To fully understand the magnitude of living for God, we need to look at Jesus in the garden of gethsemane where he was fully obedient to God, even to the point of death: “how in that garden he persisted, I may never fully know, the fearful weight of true obedience, it was held by Him alone”. The final command we see in John is that we should be sharing the gospel and making life about Jesus not ourselves, “He (Jesus) must become greater, I must become less” (John 3:30). In the final verse of our final new song, we sing the beautiful words, “as we go forth, our God and Father, lead us daily in the fight, that all the world might see Your glory and Your Name be lifted high”. Let this be our prayer, that we may be so transformed by the cross of our saviour, that we can’t help but share this news with others that they too may trust in Jesus and glorify His name forever.