John Piper first became well-known as a result of his 1990 book, “The Supremacy of God in Preaching.” At the very beginning, he wrote the memorable statement that every sermon should be about God. That seems so obvious, but when one listens to much preaching today, from both liberal and conservative pulpits, it is very disappointing to discover how seldom that is the case. Sermons are too often about us: how we feel, how we should act, how our lives can be improved, how to do a better job raising our kids, or managing our finances, or overcoming anxiety. It’s as if the pulpit has been turned into a psychologist’s counseling couch for a group therapy session! The gospel of what God has done for us in Christ has been exchanged for a false gospel of what should do to make the world a better place.
What we often refer to as the sovereignty of God is what Piper meant by the supremacy of God. And this perspective transfers inevitably from preaching into living, as our sermons ought to be helping us live more continually and consistently with a God-focused world and life view. The more we hear about the greatness of God in the sermons that feed our souls, the more we will instinctively think about everything happening around us and within us with the realization that He is at the center of everything. How desperately we need that reminder when the world, the flesh, and the devil keep trying to override that thought.
The theology of John Piper is nothing new or novel. This God-centeredness fills the pages of Scripture as well as the annals of history, from King David to the Apostle Paul to St. Augustine to John Calvin to Charles Spurgeon. We hear it and read it today in the publications of Al Mohler and R. C. Sproul and James Montgomery Boice and Sinclair Ferguson and Steven Nichols. And in recent music we hear it from the writers associated with Getty Music and Sovereign Grace Music.
At the head of the latter is Bob Kauflin. He has written and published many songs over the last few decades, and is known by many for his piano accompanying work at conferences like Together for the Gospel (T4G). One of the songs for which he is most well-known is “O Great God,” a three stanza song that exemplifies this God-centeredness which we should seek in our worship and in our daily living. His son, Jordan Kauflin, continues in his father’s footsteps of writing, performing, and leading in worship.
Bob grew up on the East Coast of the US and was raised as a Roman Catholic. As a freshman in high school, he attended a junior seminary, planning to pursue the priesthood. But when the seminary shut down at the end of that year, he determined the priesthood wasn’t God’s calling for him. When he was a freshman in college at Temple University in Philadelphia, someone from Campus Crusade (CRU) shared the gospel with him. He understood for the first time that when Jesus died on the cross, He died to take the full punishment for his sins, and that through faith in Him he could be reconciled to God forever and live for His glory.
He spent the next eight years playing and writing full time for a Christian band, GLAD. While he continued to write for the band after leaving in 1984, his true passion became writing songs for congregational singing. He wrote for Sovereign Grace Music for about twenty years before they decided to record an album based on Arthur Bennett’s edited collection of Puritan prayers, “The Valley of Vision.” He had been using that book in his personal devotions and wrote that he “found it to be a great resource for biblically rooted, gospel rich, emotionally engaging, brutally honest, Christ-exalting, Spirit-led prayers.”
One day during his personal Bible study, he was focusing on the prayer in that prayer collection titled, “Regeneration.” It begins with these words.
O God of the highest heaven,
Occupy the throne of my heart,
take full possession and reign supreme,
lay low every rebel lust,
let no vile passion resist Thy holy war;
manifest Thy mighty power, and make me Thine for ever.
He connected deeply with the consuming desire for devotion to the Lord expressed in those lines, a desire unaffected by the world’s smiles, frowns, and allurements. Before too long, he had written the first stanza.
As he sought to fill out the rest of the song, he realized there was no specific reference to the gospel, the means of reconciliation to God and transformation in our lives. And so in stanza 2, he expanded on the “Valley of Vision” prayer and wrote:
Then your Spirit gave me life, opened up Your word to me
Through the gospel of Your Son gave me endless hope and peace.
For the third stanza he returned to the beginning of the prayer, asking, “Why would we sing a song asking God to purify our hearts and lay low every rebel lust? Because, as the prayer says:
Thou art worthy to be praised with my every breath,
Loved with my every faculty of soul,
Served with my every act of life.
He continues today to write for Sovereign Grace Music, but of all the songs God has enabled him to write, “O Great God” has a special place in his heart. Even when singing it now, he writes that “I’m often affected by the worthiness of Christ and my desire, however mixed, to make much of Him in everything I think, say, and do. I pray it has that same effect on anyone who hears or sings it.”
The three stanzas follow a sequence similar to that in Isaiah 6 that is a good model for the liturgical structure of a worship service. It moves from adoration in stanza one to confession in stanza two before concluding with petition in the final stanza. All three are directed to “our great God.”
Stanza 1 begins with a powerful contrast between this great God “of highest heaven” who is willing to occupy the “lowly heart” of humble worshippers. Our initial desire is that this God who fills all space would condescend to fill our tiny hearts. This prayer of adoration recognizes that for Him to do so must require that He “conquer every rebel power” that still operates within us in our redeemed but not yet fully sanctified souls. While we abhor war in our world, this is a “holy war” which we need Him to wage against whatever “vice or sin” remains within our old nature. And how wonderful to make this request of the one who has “loved and purchased me.”
O great God of highest heav’n, Occupy my lowly heart;
Own it all and reign supreme, Conquer every rebel power
Let no vice or sin remain That resists Your holy war.
You have loved and purchased me; Make me Yours forevermore.
Stanza 2 is characterized by a spirit of confession. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 2, sin’s effect on human nature from the time of Adam’s fall has been devastating. It has left us spiritually blind, spiritually deaf, spiritually without feeling, spiritually hungry, and even – and most tragically – spiritually dead. All five of those are referenced in this stanza as we acknowledge to God what was true of us before His Spirit came to work the marvel of regeneration within us. Writing in the first person singular, first I was “blinded by my sin,” second I had “no ears to hear,” third I “did now know” His love, fourth I “had no taste for heaven’s joys,” and fifth I was dead until “Your Spirit gave me life.” The glorious result is that “through the gospel” of His Son, He has “opened up” His Word, granting me “endless hope and peace”
I was blinded by my sin, Had no ears to hear Your voice.
Did not know Your love within, Had no taste for heaven’s joys.
Then Your Spirit gave me life, Opened up Your Word to me.
Through the gospel of Your Son, Give me endless hope and peace.
Stanza 3 brings a petition for God’s work to continue making us more like His Son. We cannot do this in our own strength, so we profess our dependence on His grace. It should be more and more instinctive that with a new nature we will instinctively long to live a life consistent with that work of sanctifying grace. God’s Word warns us about our battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil (Ephesians 2:2-3), and so we pray in this third stanza that He would “keep my heart and guard my soul from the evils that I face,” evils that war against me from all three of those dimensions. Trusting that He is not only able but willing to do that, we conclude by acknowledging that He is ‘worthy to be praised with my every thought and deed.”
Help me now to live a life That’s dependent on Your grace.
Keep my heart and guard my soul From the evils that I face.
You are worthy to be praised With my every thought and deed.
O great God of highest heaven, Glorify Your Name through me.
Kauflin also wrote the music for the song, and described here how it came into being.
The melody came somewhat spontaneously during my devotions. I wanted it to be singable and somewhat pleading, as the lyrics are a prayer. At the start of the second half of each verse I wanted there to be an emotional lift to communicate the passion behind the prayer. “Remove these rebel lusts! Your Spirit gave me life! You are worthy to be praised!” So the melody appropriately goes up the octave, which enables us to belt those thoughts out with enthusiasm. Each verse ends more reflectively, to reflect our complete dependence on God to do his work in us through his Holy Spirit for the glory of Jesus.
Words and music by Bob Kauflin, © 2006 Sovereign Grace Praise.
Here is a link to this song that is on the Sovereign Grace Valley of Vision recording.