Beloved,
My friend Carl came on New Year’s Eve to hang the chandelier I told you about in last Sunday evening’s sermon (praise God for a friend who is an electrician!). He told me about a New Year’s Eve worship service he attended years ago where the pastor preached until 11:55pm, and then called upon the people to break up into groups to “pray in” the new year.
If worship is the chief end of our existence, then what could be a more befitting way to end the past year and begin the incoming year? Our forefathers loved to saturate the beginning of the year with worship and even composed hymns to do it. There are two that have been particularly on my mind and heart at the beginning of 2025.
The first one is familiar to us all. It is John Newton’s famous “Amazing Grace.” Many of us know Newton’s story which is recounted in the hymn of a wretched slave trader being transformed through the gospel into a trophy of God’s grace. But few are familiar with the story behind the writing of the hymn itself. Newton was preparing a sermon to preach on January 1, 1773 on David’s words in 1 Chronicles 17:16-17: “Who am I, O LORD God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And this was a small thing in your eyes, O God.” In his New Year’s Day sermon, he called upon his people to look backwards and forwards through the spectacles of God’s grace in Christ. As Newton so often did, he wrote a hymn to accompany his sermon which we continue to sing to this day. Consider these lines from it in light of the new year:
Thro’ many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
Ttis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.
The second hymn is little known in our circles. It was penned by another eighteenth-century Englishman named Charles Wesley, and it was used by his brother John to open the annual meetings of the Methodist Societies as they praised God for His goodness displayed in the year past and looked ahead to a new year. The hymn is so sweet that it is worthy quoting in full:
And are we yet alive,
And see each other’s face?
Glory and praise to Jesus give
For His redeeming grace.
Preserved by power divine
To full salvation here,
Again in Jesus’ praise we join,
And in His sight appear.
What troubles have we seen,
What conflicts have we passed,
Fightings without, and fears within,
Since we assembled last.
But out of all the Lord
Hath brought us by His love;
And still He doth His help afford,
And hides our life above.
Then let us make our boast
Of His redeeming power,
Which saves us to the uttermost,
Till we can sin no more.
Let us take up the cross
Till we the crown obtain;
And gladly reckon all things loss,
So we may Jesus gain.
I know that we are already two days into 2025, and perhaps you feel like you have already made a blunder of it. But can I encourage you to find your singing voice and to make the amazing and redeeming grace of God in Christ your song. For if God has brought you this far by His grace, He will be sure to bring you all the way home by that same grace.
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick