Sovereign Lord, we sing your glory

Authors:
Themes:
Scriptures:
  • Leviticus 9:22-23
  • Psalms 110:3
  • Psalms 145:10-13
  • Psalms 2:11
  • Psalms 21:13
  • Psalms 27:4
  • Psalms 59:16
  • Psalms 63:2
  • Psalms 72:18-19
  • Psalms 89:14
  • Psalms 95:6
  • Psalms 97:1-2
  • Isaiah 24:14
  • Isaiah 40:22
  • Isaiah 55:7-9
  • Isaiah 6:1-3
  • Jeremiah 32:17
  • Ezekiel 1:28
  • Ezekiel 43:4-5
  • Ezekiel 44:4
  • Haggai 2:7
  • Luke 1:29
  • John 11:40
  • Acts 8:4
  • Romans 10:9
  • Romans 12:11
  • Romans 5:5
  • Romans 6:7-18
  • 1 Corinthians 4:20
  • 2 Corinthians 3:12-16
  • 2 Corinthians 9:15
  • Ephesians 2:18
  • Colossians 1:28
  • 1 Thessalonians 1:5-6
  • Revelation 11:16
  • Revelation 4:10
  • Revelation 7:11
Book Number:
  • 543

Sovereign Lord, we sing your glory,
yours is the eternal throne;
majesty and awesome power
flow from God, and God alone.
Far above the earth’s small circle
you embrace infinity;
reigning, mighty over all things,
glorious, holy Trinity.

2. Sovereign Lord, we sing your praises
for, though sinners, we rejoice
knowing this, that where your grace is
Man is bound to lift his voice.
Full forgiveness, total pardon,
streaming down from God above,
sets us free from sin’s dominion,
now to serve the King of love.

3. Sovereign Lord, show us your glory,
give us eyes to pierce the veil;
eyes to see transcendent beauty,
God, the Lord who cannot fail.
Draw us closer by your Spirit
till our hearts can bear no more!
Gracious, patient, loving, faithful:
Lord, your glory we adore.

4. Sovereign Lord, we love your glory:
righteousness and truth we praise;
you alone, our God, are worthy
to receive the song we raise.
Angels sing your matchless grandeur
face to face, by glory awed;
gladly we bow down before you
and, by faith, proclaim you Lord!

5. Sovereign Lord, restore your glory,
Sovereign Lord, the darkness lift!
Take us out to tell the story
of our Lord’s stupendous gift!
Fill our hearts until there blazes
holy love to save, to heal.
Sovereign Lord, come down in power,
holy glory now reveal!

© Author
Peter Ninnis

The Holy Spirit - His Work in Revival

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Tunes

The story behind the hymn

Peter Ninnis’s hymn, published here for the first time in a hymnal, was written on ‘a Tuesday afternoon in 1988’. The author was then feeling the ‘lack of hymns focusing on the glory of God.’ It featured in the 1998 sampler for this book, Praise! Preview, with 2.6–8 in an earlier form, now revised. In 2004 it was sung with great vigour at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly at St Helen’s Bishopsgate, London; cf 145A, note.

The tune SOVEREIGN LORD, composed at the same time with and for these words, is also chosen for 71 where there are small differences in partwriting. ABBOT’S LEIGH (570) is the suggested alternative.

A look at the author

Ninnis, Peter James

b Croydon, Surrey 1948. He was raised in ‘a chapel-going but not overtly Christian’ family. Trinity Sch of John Whitgift, Croydon; followed by training for the horticultural industry (Advanced Nat Cert in horticulture). Converted in a small Gospel Standard chapel at Grove, Oxfordshire, he then trained for Christian ministry at the S Wales Bible Coll, and from 1983 served full-time in a Reformed Baptist Ch in Watford, Herts. In 1996 he moved to the Grace Baptist Ch at Basildon, Essex, and after a short break to Truro Evangelical Ch, Cornwall (FIEC), in 2001. His hymnwriting began in 1988 with no.543 and ‘has continued in gentle fashion ever since’—PJN. He has texts and tunes in print, all for the first time in Praise!; others are arriving. Nos.144, 149, 186, 188, 543, 1143, 1198. 1143*, 1198*