SPEAKER_03 0:04

When Jesus died on the cross, the mercy of God did not become any greater. It could not become any greater for it was already infinite. We get the odd notion that God is showing mercy because Jesus died. No, Jesus died because God is showing mercy. It was the mercy of God that gave us Calvary, not Calvary, that gave us mercy. If God had not been merciful, there would have been no incarnation, no babe in the manger, no man on the cross, and no open tomb. A.W. Tozer. This is The Bright Forever.

UNKNOWN 1:00

The Bright Forever

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Hello and welcome to The Bright Forever, where we explore the power and the richness of some of the greatest hymns of the faith. I am Andy Peavyhouse, and I am your host and guide on this tour through hymnody. Great to be back with you all again this week. I don't know about you, but I feel like we're getting into this nice little rhythm here at The Bright Forever. The hymns are popping, the episodes are dropping, and I am having a great time bringing these songs to you each week. Gemma, who, by the way, is now three months old, is also the first baby I have ever known to hate riding in the car. But this week, at least for a short time, my girls and I have discovered she is a huge fan of Matthew Perryman Jones from Indelible Grace. She quiets down when Oh For A Thousand Tongues starts rocking in the car. Just the other day, she was crying at home and Lily busted out into the song singing, Oh, for a thousand tongues. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing. And Gemma calmed right down. She started crying again after she stopped. But as long as we're singing the song, she was all good. Did you like that segue into what we talked about last week? 04,000 Tongues to Sing is the one-year anniversary hymn of Charles Wesley's conversion, written in 1739, and it does not disappoint. Whether you sing it with a new tune or traditionally... You cannot escape the power of words like Jesus, the name that charms our fears, that bids our sorrow cease, tis music in the sinner's ears, tis life and health and peace. The name of Jesus changes us, brings us new life. That's good. Today, our hymn is all about God's mercy. And I love that A.W. Tozer quote at the top of the episode. When Jesus died on the cross, the mercy of God did not become any greater. Ah, I love that. It didn't become any greater because why? It was already infinite. He goes on to say, Jesus died because God is showing mercy. It was mercy that gave us Jesus. It is a mercy that gave us the incarnation, God in flesh, the baby in the manger, the man on the cross, and the resurrection. Ah, I love that quote. God's mercy is what gave us God's grace through Jesus Christ. God's mercy is the very catalyst And our hymn today might be a little more obscure than some we have done so far. As a matter of fact, until a retuning of this hymn was made in the early 2000s, I had never heard this hymn before. Our hymn today was originally entitled The Mercy of God, written in 1776 and attributed to John Stocker. It is probably better known by its title in later hymnals, Thy Mercy, My God is the Theme of My Song, or its retuned title, Thy Mercy, My God, with music by Sandra McCracken, one of the founding artists from Indelible Grace Music. The first time I heard this song was on Cayman's Call album entitled In the Company of Angels, A Call to Worship that was released in 2001. I had never heard this hymn before. Then it was released by the artist herself, Sandra McCracken, in 2002 on the album Pilgrim Days, Indelible Grace, Volume 2, which we're going to hear a little bit later on. Earlier, I mentioned the that this hymn was attributed to John Stocker. Not that it was authored by John Stocker or that he was the writer. And here's why I said that. One, we don't know a whole lot about John Stocker. And in March of 1776, the Gospel Magazine published nine hymns that were attributed to a J.S., A little ways down the road, a guy by the name of Daniel Sedgwick said that the JS stood for John Stocker. Now, John Stocker was a friend of A.M. Toplety, A.M. Toplety, who wrote Rock of Ages. And so we knew that John Stocker was a hymn writer and a friend of hymn writers, but... There's not a whole lot known about John Stocker and very little that I can find other than I know he was English and I believe he grew up in Devonshire. But other than that, there's not a whole lot of information about John Stocker. And then in 1892, a guy by the name of John Julian wrote a book called Dictionary of Hemology and And in his research, he said that Sedgwick had no authority for saying that the JS was John Stocker. He said, we have no authority for saying this is so or is not so. There is no proof either way. So there's no proof as to whether or not the JS that was printed in 1776 stood for John Stocker or for somebody else. But it has always been attributed to John Stocker. With that said, there's not a lot known about this author. And so today we're not going to be talking a ton about the author himself or himself. Whoever the author might have been, today we're going to be talking about the hymn and what this hymn says and the way it says it. And I can't think of a better way than to talk to another one of my favorite people in the entire world. There is one man in my life that probably loves hymns as much as I do, or most likely more than I do. And that is my dad, Steve Peavyhouse. And I sat down with him to discuss this amazing song and the powerful lyrics that remind us of God's steadfast love, amazing grace, and the depth of mercy that leads us to repentance. But we are here today with my, uh, my father and uh or i'm just gonna say dad because i mean yeah i i don't i don't ever call you father hello father um this is my dad steve pv house um he is um an awesome guy i can say a bunch of stuff about you but i'm just gonna let you kind of tell us a little bit about yourself and uh just um anything else you want to share with us about who you are

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Well, first of all, I'll tell you, I'm not an awesome guy. I mean, you have to be nice. Thank you very much, son. I hate you lying on the air, but I'm like everybody else, a sinner saved by grace, and deeply needing mercy always. I'm a believer and have been for many, many years, but it doesn't change the fact that that grace and mercy is absolutely essential for every day of my life. But I appreciate you saying those wonderful things about me, even though they are untrue.

SPEAKER_03 9:25

You're welcome. Can you tell us a little bit about the super abridged version of Because this can't go on for like an hour or two. But of how you came to Christ, how did you find your way to a relationship with Christ?

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Well, I started going to church probably when I was about six years old with my family. And I grew in many, many ways, and hymns were a big part of that because I've always loved music, and the hymns actually planted things in my life. I went forward, if you know from Baptist tradition, I went forward as a believer when I was very young. Did not really understand all that much about it, but for many years after that, Those hymns and those things that I learned while I was in church, the pastors, the counseling, that really made a difference in how I began to think. But it wasn't until not long before I was married. I was actually driving along the road between Dallas and Houston, Texas, and I just realized that my life, my heart was a shambles, that I professed to believe things, but my heart was not in it. I got this amazing picture of what I was like inside, the fact that I was a liar, the fact that I cared more about how people thought of me than that I cared about what God thought of me, and that really broke me. And at the Absolutely amazed by God's mercy in my life, and I'm driving down the interstate crying, trying to stay on the road. because I became very aware of God's great mercy for me in my life and how, in spite of all the ways that I had failed Him to that point, that He really loved me and wanted my life to be different than what it had been to that point. And then, for many years after that, I grew. I went to seminary for a while. I went to law school finally and became an attorney, an unusual turning point in my life. But I became an attorney and practiced law for many, many years. All during that time, I was busy in church, singing in the choir, teaching Sunday school, becoming more and more aware. I've always loved scripture. I've always loved hymns. I've always loved singing, but it really became a continuing and continual time when God, in His mercy, would open up my heart and show me things about me that were not pretty, things that were not pleasant, things that made me realize that even though I was busy in church and doing churchy things and spiritual things, that I had a long way to go. to be Christ-like in my life. And to me, I look at those things, and even though they were devastating when they hit, they were examples of His grace, of His mercy to me, because He would show me It's actually amazing

SPEAKER_03 13:32

how God does that. If it were anybody else, you'd be angry if they pointed out those things to you. But when God does it, it just breaks your heart. I mean, it goes back to the quote. At the beginning of this episode, we always think that it was because of me. Because of me. And it's a very prideful, because of me, God showed mercy. No, God has mercy. That's why he saved me. As you said, he will break

SPEAKER_00 14:04

your heart, but he breaks your heart so there'd be a crack, a crevice that he can come into. Yeah. And he can show you who he is and how much he loves and how much goodness there is in him. I agree with you. I love that A.W. Tozer quote because especially Nowadays, a lot of times, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and some of the new atheists would talk about how there was a God of the Old Testament who was very harsh and very mean and very judgmental and so on, and then there was a sweeter God in the New Testament and so on. No, it's the same God. It's all one story. And all the time during the Old Testament, he was telling us the story of how bad we were, the things that we were doing wrong. He was also always telling giving us hope and saying, there is more, there is better. I will send someone who will make a difference in your life and remove that heart of stone from you and give you a heart of flesh. And that's what he did when he sent his son.

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Yeah, that's

SPEAKER_00 15:09

awesome. To me, again, what's exciting about that quote, and you'll see it again in the actual hymn words themselves, is that All of God's mercy, all of God's love, all of God's goodness was there at the very beginning. This triune God with Father, Son, Holy Spirit, that was all planned before creation occurred, before time began. And so all that was happening now is because He has made a way for us, this love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that was always there is He is able to invite us into it and to change our lives and make us ready to join them in this love relationship that has always existed between the different persons of the triune God.

SPEAKER_03 15:59

Well, let's jump into this hymn. This has probably been years now, but I went to a conference. I think it was at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. It was the Institute of Christian Worship Conference. And a guy by the name of Bob Coughlin from Sovereign Grace was there speaking.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

He was actually a part of GLAAD and wrote a bunch of songs for GLAAD as well.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

One of my favorites is a Christmas song in the, what is that? In the First Light. In the First Light. Ah, great song. But he was speaking and he was talking about the fact that we as worship leaders, we sometimes don't, we end up singing a song because it sounds good. and it sounds hip, it sounds new, and it's got a good tune, but we don't look at the words. And he was saying, it all starts with the words. And so I was going back and looking at some of the songs I was singing and going, oh, these words are atrocious. Some of these are barely biblical. I was going back going, I sang this in front of congregations of people going, I'm never seeing the song again. Oh my goodness. And then I got to a song like this and I'm going, oh, I've sung this song. And I start reading the words, not, with the tune in mind, but just reading the words and I'm going, thy mercy, my God is the theme of my song, the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue. Thy free grace alone from the first to the last hath won my affections and bound my soul fast. Oh my gosh. I start reading this and I'm going, this is, this song is great. is saying something about who God is and about his mercy and the depth of mercy that we have. And then the second verse comes in and hits you even harder. But what's the first thing out of the song that you're like, just kind of jumps out at you?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Well, first of all, one of the reasons I love hymns is because they are fabulous poetry. I love the English language. I love, and I'm not really a a poet or I'm not a normally, I like prose more than poetry most of the time. However, I love, I hate to say it this way because it sounds so trite, a well-turned phrase. Some phrase that just comes along and just, you know, It makes you think about what you are reading, the concept of what you are reading, in a different way. The person who is writing it has a thought in their mind, an idea, and they are putting it into words, and those words are like a code, and your mind decodes that. And suddenly, you never saw it from that point of view before. I mean, well, I hate to jump into your realm there, but that second verse. Oh, no, please. Without thy sweet mercy... I could not live here. Sin soon would reduce me to utter despair. Wow, is that not the truth? Yeah. But through thy free goodness, my spirits revive, and he that first made me still keeps me alive. Okay, that is absolute truth.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Yo, yeah. That first line, without thy sweet mercy, I could not live here. Like without God, I mean, even those who have no relationship with Jesus Christ do not understand without the mercy of God, we don't exist. And I've shared this before out of Colossians chapter one, where it says, Colossians 1, 16,"'In him and by him and for him.'" All things hold together. Literally all things hold together because of who Jesus is. In all things, Jesus holds the world together. As a matter of fact, Sandra McCracken mentions this in a little excerpt that she does about the song and about why she wrote the song. It says the rhythms of our families, the rhythm of the sunrise and everything in creation held together by the sheer magnetic and dynamic force of his mercy. Mercy for you, mercy for me, and mercy for the world. I love that. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

I mean, to me, people who are not believers do not understand that they are beholden. Even though they don't know it, they don't believe it, that's not a part of who they are, what their life is all about, they may simply be ignorant of it or dismissive of it or actively fight against it, hate it. But God's mercy, God's grace is what gives their life any meaning that it might have, any existence that it might have. It's sad they don't see it because once you see it, then you can never unsee it. From that point on, you are seeing mercy, you are seeing grace, and you have to actively try not to see it. To miss it because all of life is just full of his grace and his mercy.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

Absolutely. Ephesians chapter two, verses one through 10, which I know this is a long chunk of scripture, but oh my goodness. And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you once walked, in which you once walked. Like the rest of mankind. Okay, first of all, let's back up. Nothing... You can't say that the God of the Old Testament, the God of New Testament are different. He just called us children of wrath, sons of disobedience. He points out our flaws quite well. And Paul just hits the nail on the head here. Like everybody else, you are children of wrath. And then my favorite but in scripture. Here it is. But God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved and raised us up again. And seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith and this not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. But where does it all begin? But God being rich in mercy. Without thy sweet mercy, I could not live here. Sin would reduce me to utter despair. But through thy free goodness... My spirits revive and he that first made me still keeps me alive. Why? So that we can be his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Oh my goodness. I just, and this hymn just hits the nail on the head. Verse three, thy mercy is more than a match for my heart. which wonders to feel its own hardness depart. Dissolved by thy goodness, I fall to the ground and weep to the praise of the mercy I found.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Well, I just love it when it says, which wonders to feel its own hardness depart, dissolved by thy goodness. I mean, the whole picture of, we do, we just, Not only do we have hardened hearts naturally but the world tends to harden our hearts. God gives us opportunities to do the right things. We choose to do the wrong things. That hardens our heart. We listen to what the world has to say, whether it's on television, whether it is just the people around us and so on. We listen to what the world has to say, what our own flesh has to say, what Satan has to say, and we harden our hearts. And then his mercy comes along and his goodness comes along and dissolves it.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

And even as believers, it's just, you know, going to another hymn now, but prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. That's it. That's our natural bent. We are prone to leave, prone to forget the mercy, prone to forget the love, prone to forget what he has done for us, and wander off. And the more you wander, the harder you become. Yeah. The more you walk from the light into the shadows, and then sometimes if you are not stopped by the Spirit, into darkness. But he is so rich in his mercy is that he tends to zap you. wonderfully, beautifully, he stops you and he shows you what your life is like and what you are like in your heart of hearts. And I mean, if it really opens it up to you, it takes your breath away because you can't believe how bad you can be in terms of your thoughts, your actions, your attitude toward others.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

And it goes back to a little bit about what you were saying earlier about your own life. When God just... shows you who you are. I mean, if it were anybody else, you'd get angry and you'd, I'm not like that. But when God does it, it breaks you. And the thing is,

SPEAKER_00 27:32

we need that breaking. But he will bind that up as well, even the breaking that you have caused yourself.

SPEAKER_03 27:41

Yeah. And then we get to the final verse, which you've already kind of touched on when you were talking about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit earlier. And I was like, ooh, is he going to jump directly into the fourth verse? But not yet. So we can jump into the fourth verse now. Great Father of mercies, thy goodness I own. Ah, I love that. And the covenant love of thy crucified Son, all praise to the Spirit whose whisper divine seals mercy and pardon in And righteousness mine.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

It's so good.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Well, it's a beautiful picture. This is not, we are not, I don't know how to say this because I don't want to sound, I don't want to say something that's going to sound heretical, but it's not Jesus died on the cross and he is the one among the Godhead that saves us. Because salvation for us, and I've heard it said recently, is the united work of a triune God. Because God the Father initiates that, that salvation in our lives. God the Son, Jesus, accomplishes the salvation, and God the Spirit does. He then applies it to our lives. He seals us the mercy, the pardon, the righteousness. He seals that in our lives. And so all of God is involved in all of our salvation to the uttermost.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Yeah. Sandra McCracken actually talks about this in the post that I was talking about earlier, where she talked about Colossians. Just before that, she talks about your goodness I own, and what does it mean to say your goodness I own? And just so that y'all out there listening, I always do put a link to these songs, but I'll also... on top of a link to the words and the music for this song that goes to indelible grace underneath that, I believe is this post of hers about how she wrote the song. So you can read the, the entire thing. It's really, really good. But she says here, John's hymn proclaims another bold expectation in the midst of our failings and fears. We are the recipients of love. by a fiercely loving God and obliging God even. He gives himself to us again and again. It is as if we are the receiving address where he sends and supplies his goodness daily. I love the phrase she goes on to say in the Anglican communion liturgy that says, for it is your property always to have mercy. Mercy is a did not. Mercy is a demonstration of God's abundant nature in Philippians two. We are reminded of how Jesus humbled himself in obedience to the father's will. His faithfulness towards us. And she ends with this. His faithfulness towards us is measured by his provision. Daily bread of every variety. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

It is amazing. It is amazing. And the wonderful thing about it is that you go all through your life. And at different times of your life, different aspects will sort of surprise you and will be amazing to you. But there are things now at 74, I'll be 75 later on this year, and my eyes are still being opened all the time. As I study His Word, my eyes are opened all the time to fresh mercies, to fresh pictures of who he is and what he has done and the qualities of this wonderful God that we love and serve. And the more you see him, the more you love him, and the more you want to obey him, which opens your eyes to see him more and see him more clearly and love him more deeply. and then want to obey Him more.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

And just the wonderful cycle of life when you accept His mercy and you begin to walk in it.

SPEAKER_03 32:50

That's really good. Well, it was amazing to get to talk to you. I talk to you about this show all of the time and about The Bright Forever, and I talk to you about the hymns I'm doing, but to actually get to have you on the actual podcast and get to talk to you about a certain him and to actually talk through stuff is really cool. So thank you for being on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

You're very welcome. My son, my son, if you could be very formal now. Thank you, father. Thank you for having me on.

UNKNOWN 33:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:34

Thy mercy, my God, is the theme of my song, the joy of my heart and the boast of my tongue. Thy free grace alone from the first to the last hath won my affection and bound my soul fast. Of Thy sweet mercy I could not live here Sin would reduce me to utter despair But through Thy free goodness my spirit's revived And He that first made me still keeps me alive Wonders to feel its own hardness depart Dissolved by thy goodness I fall to the ground And weep to the praise of the mercy high Hearted and righteous as a mountain

SPEAKER_03 36:50

That was Thy Mercy, My God from Pilgrim Days, Indelible Grace Music, Volume 2, performed by Sandra McCracken, one of the founding artists of Indelible Grace Music. If you have not had a chance to go to Indelible Grace and check out what they have, you really need to go. You need to go to www.igracemusic.com. That's the letter I, grace, music, volume Once you're there, you can buy their albums. You can listen to their albums. They've got news. They've got tour information. But they also have this button that says Sheet Music. If you click on Sheet Music, it takes you to the Indelible Grace hymn book. They have all sorts of hymns that have been retuned and that they have chord sheets for them. They have lead sheets for them. Some of them have... We'll see you next time. Thank you as always for listening to this podcast. Please take a minute to subscribe to or follow this podcast either through Apple, Spotify, Google, iHeart, Amazon, or any of the other podcast platforms you find us on. You can also find us at www.thebrightforever.com. And we always want to hear from you. Let us know what you think about the show. Give us hymn suggestions, comments, your stories, prayer requests, whatever you want to talk to us about. We would love to hear from you. And you can send those comments and those posts to podcast at thebrightforever.com. Again, that is podcast at thebrightforever.com. Or if you go to our website, you can go to the contact us section and you can fill out a message there, hit submit, and it sends it to us as well. Again, thank you for listening. I hope you have a great week. Let me close this out in prayer. Father, I thank you so much for your mercy and for your grace, for the fact that you do not leave us in our sin, but because of your amazing depth of mercy, you sent your son, Jesus Christ, to live the life that we could not live and to die the death that we deserved so that through his resurrection, through his conquering of death, we could have life and life abundant and full and eternally with you. God, we love you. We thank you for being a God who loves us so much. It is in Jesus' name, our Lord and Savior, we pray. Amen. God bless you all. Have a great week, and we'll see you back here next week. We're out.

UNKNOWN 41:04

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