Words I Love to Sing (and know) The more time that I spend in God’s word, the more I find myself falling in love with some of the hymns I sang as a child. The worship services here at Harvest Community are mostly filled with modern contemporary music, which I believe have some very great truths within them. Contemporary worship music tends to get a bad name because some of it is pretty wishy-washy. But just as much can be said of some hymns. Take for instance, “The Savior is Waiting”. I have never sang a song in all of my life that makes God sound so much like a helpless old man with no power at all. “Time after time he has waited before and now he is waiting again, to see if your willing to open the door, Oh, how he wants to come in.” Now, seriously, who in their right mind believes that this depicts the God of the Bible? God is not helpless and begging you to just please, please, please let him be God. He wants to be God. Why won’t you let him? Seriously, this is pretty lame and in my opinion, blasphemous! Enough of my soapbox. That is not what this is about. I want to talk about another hymn that is pretty stinking awesome! Charles Wesley wrote a hymn called “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” and it is one of my favorites. Here is my favorite line: “He breaks the power of cancelled sin, and sets the prisoner free, His blood can make the foulest clean, his blood availed for me”. I believe this to be one of the best lines to ever be written on paper. I love the part that says, “He breaks the power of cancelled sin, and sets the prisoner free.” I want us to look at what “cancelled sin” means. Colossians 2:13,14—And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. Christ cancelled our sins on the cross! The cross stamped the word “PAID” on the sins debts of any who would believe. It was cancelled just like a stamp that you would mail a letter with. Done away with, not to be brought up again. Paul made it pretty clear in this letter that the blood of Jesus has canceled our sin. But looking back at the song what does it mean to “break the power” of that “cancelled sin”? I believe that the grace that we have been given is not just canceling grace, but overcoming, conquering grace. Romans 6:14 says, “Sin shall not be master over you for you are not under law but under grace.” If you are a believer then your sins, past and future, have been cancelled. Your sins in the future have been cancelled even before you commit them (now that is Amazing Grace!). But for all of us, sin still demonstrates some power in our life. If you think it doesn’t, maybe we should take a look at your pride. We all struggle with some things more than others. For instance, I don’t struggle with being a thief. Maybe some of you do. I struggle with pride and loving my enemies. Some of you may not. But just because we struggle with particular sins does not mean that the blood of Jesus has lost its power. Because this blood that has cancelled your sin will also break it’s power through faith in the grace that awaits us. In “Future Grace”, John Piper writes about overcoming lust; “Triumph over the sin of lust is all of grace—past grace canceling lust’s guilt through the cross, and future grace, conquering lust’s power through the spirit. That’s why the only fight we fight is the fight of faith. We fight to be so satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus, that temptation to sin loses it’s power over us.” “O for a thousand tongues to sing, My great redeemers praise, The glories of my God and King, The triumphs of His grace.” May God embed this truth deeper and deeper into your heart. Josh Martin