Stuart Townend
Grace
Lord, I’m grateful
Amazed at what You’ve done
My finest efforts are filthy rags
But I’m made righteous
By trusting in the Son
I have God’s riches at Christ’s expense!
‘Cause it’s grace!
There’s nothing I can do
To make You love me more,
To make You love me less than You do
And by faith
I’m standing on this Stone
Of Christ and Christ alone
Your righteousness is all that I need
‘Cause it’s grace!
Called and chosen
When I was far away
You brought me into Your family
Free, forgiven
My guilt is washed away
Your loving kindness is life to me
Freely given
But bought with priceless blood
My life was ransomed at Calvary
There my Jesus
Gave everything He could
That I might live for eternity
Grace loves the sinner
Loves all I am and all I’ll ever be
Makes me a winner
Whatever lies the devil throws at me
I was just listening to this in preparation for singing it at my dear friends wedding tomorrow when I was struck by something. Stuart Townend is older than me. This is an important thing for me to remember because I have a tendancy to be a little arrogant in my faith. I have discovered (actually, God has shown me) this beautiful thing, God’s grace, and I am a young man. As a result I often act as though this amazing thing which I found out is unique to me, and that the generations before me probably didn’t “get it”.
It’s easy enough to look back at the big names like Luther and Calvin and accept that those guys had a handle on the truth of the gospel, but much closer to home, the generations of my parents and my grandparents, it’s much easier to overlook them. It’s really easy for me to be arrogant and think things like “well the Church is in a mess because the guys who are older than me just didn’t understand the gospel, so they screwed everything up.”
OK, so in some instances this is probably true, and continues to be. But it isn’t true universally. The grace that God has revealed to me he also revealed to the generation before me, and the generation before them.
1 Timothy 4:12 says “Let no one despise you for your youth”. Let’s not despise people because of their lack of youth either.