This month at church we are organizing our worship services a bit diferently.   We are using a prayer from the Valley of Vision, which I have written about earlier.  The congregation's portion (musical) of the service will be centered around one of these prayers, which is chosen because it goes with the sermon for the day.  We will support the prayer with hymns and choruses.  This morning's prayer was "Freedom".  Not only did it tie in with the sermon, the second in a two-part series on forgiveness, but it fir well with the Independence Day holiday.  As Christians, our celebration of freedom should not be based on freedom from political oppression, or on our own personal liberties.  Instead, our celebration of freedom should be based on freedom from sin and its consequences, and on our dependence on Christ's redeeming work in our life rather than focusing on independence from a political entity or philosophy.

Freedom
O Holy Father, You have freely given Your Son,
O Divine Son, You have freely paid my debt,
O Eternal Spirit, You have freely bid me come,
O Triune God, You freely grace me with salvation.

Prayers and tears could not suffice to pardon my sins,
nor anything less than atoning blood,
but my believing is receiving,
for a thankful acceptance is no paying of the debt.
What did You see in me?
that I a poor, diseased, despised sinner should be clothed in Your bright glory?
That a creeping worm should be advanced to this high state?
That one lately groaning, weeping, dying, should be as full of joy as my heart can hold?
That a being of dust and darkness should be taken like Mordecai from captivity, and set next to a King?
Should be lifted like Daniel from a den and be made ruler of princes and provinces?
Who can fathom immeasureable love?
As far as the rational soul exceeds the senses, so does the spirit exceed the rational in its knowledge of You.
You have given me understanding to compass the earth, measure the sun, moon, stars, universe, but above all to know You, the only true God.
I marvel that the finite can know the Infinite, here a little, afterwards in full-orbed truth;
Now I know but a small portion of what I shall know, here in part, there in perfection, here a glimpse, there a glory.
To enjoy You is life eternal, and to enjoy is to know.
Keep me in the freedom of experiencing Your salvation continually.

From "The Valley of Vision"
© 1975 Banner of Truth Trust

If you're familiar with hymns, I'll tell you which ones we did, and where, and hopefully you can try to piece the service together.  To initiate the concept, we opened each song with a line or two from the prayer that pointed to the song we were about to sing.

We started with the Fanny Crosby song "Praise Him! Praise Him!".  This wasn't a part of the theme, but it's a great song and a great way to start any service.

We followed with the first two lines of the prayer, "O Holy Father, You have freely given Your Son, O Divine Son, You have freely paid my debt," followed by the Stuart Townend song "How Deep the Father's Love For Us".  The next two lines of the prayer, "O Eternal Spirit, You have freely bid me come, O Triune God, You freely grace me with salvation", led into the Wayne Watson chorus "Almighty". 

After the offertory (a rousing brass quartet number which unfortunately took us out of the theme) and the choir's rendition of "Be Exalted", we were back with "Prayers and tears could not suffice to pardon my sins, nor anything less than atoning blood," leading into "Nothing but the Blood".  The quote "Who can fathom immeasureable love?  As far as the rational soul exceeds the senses, so does the spirit exceed the rational in its knowledge of You." led into "What Wondrous Love is This?".  Following that was the quote "I marvel that the finite can know the Infinite, here a little, afterwards in full-orbed truth; Now I know but a small portion of what I shall know, here in part, there in perfection, here a glimpse, there a glory." leading into "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise".

Augustus Toplady's "A Debtor to Mercy Alone" led us directly into the sermon of forgiveness.  After the sermon, the service closed with "Freely, Freely."

All in all, it was a great morning of worship.  We worship and serve a wonderful God, don't we?