**UPDATE (10/7/13): The song is now available right on this page. Just scroll down to download!**
Happy Reformation! My family and I uprooted our lives in Denver to move to the foreign land of South Florida for one reason: There is a gospel revolution taking place at Coral Ridge, and we wanted in…both for our sake and for the sake of the world. I’m reminded of this clever description of that Spirit-breathed rediscovery of the gospel half a millennium ago:
The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discoverd, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace–bottle after bottle of pure distilate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started.*
LIBERATE 2014
I can’t tell you how excited I am to be both attending and leading music at what has to be one of the most important conferences in the world–LIBERATE 2014. Tullian Tchividjian, Steve Brown, Matt Chandler, Andy Crouch, Elyse Fitzpatrick, J. D. Greear, Sally Lloyd-Jones, Justin Holcomb, Scotty Smith, Paul Tripp, and Paul & David Zahl. No finer lineup of speakers to jam on the themes of what it means to live, die, grow, and breathe by the power of Christ’s finished work, in life and death, on our behalf. This is the under-told good news for tired Christians and burnt out non-Christians. Come sip on (or guzzle) the two hundred proof with me next February 20-23. Find out more and register here.
My Part in All This
I, my friend and co-writer Julie Anne Osterhus, and the rest of the musicians at Coral Ridge will be leading the conference in some great moments of singing and rehearsing the gospel and marinating in some great old hymns and fantastic new ones. We’ll be releasing our worship EP, One Way Love–six songs focused on the themes of “God’s two words”–Law and Gospel–and what they mean for us on the ground-level…some retuned hymns, and some new material I’ve been working on with friends.
If you come to this conference, there will be times for us to hang out, and I insist on it. Ft. Lauderdale has quite the east-coast-style night life, and we’ll make sure to have fun, connect, talk shop, and spur one another on in worship leadership in the 21st century. Contact me if you know you’re coming and want to carve out some time for a group hang-out one of the evenings.
Listen to and Download the Song Right Here
One Way Love – Lyrics
1. O how beneath the law I lay
In heavy bondage and distress
I try to perfectly obey,
I try in vain, without success.I’m desperate, and weary
I lift my eyes to YouOne way love
From the Father, through the Spirit, in the Son
O grace inexhaustible, in my exhaustion come
O cross, where atonement for my sin was made
By Jesus Christ, in death and life
Descending from above through Your one way love2. To see the law by Christ fulfilled
To hear His gentle, pardoning voice
Changes a slave into a child
Transforming duty into choiceI’m forgiven, adopted
Your grace is changing meOnce bound beneath the weight of sin
You bound me to Your grace
Now freely chosen in the Son
I freely choose His ways
Words: William Cowper, 1779 (verses) alt.; Zac Hicks & Julie Anne Osterhus, 2013 (pre-chorus, chorus, & bridge)
Music: Zac Hicks & Julie Anne Osterhus, 2013
©2013 Unbudding Fig Music (ASCAP); Julie Anne Osterhus, 2013