Majesty, Worship His Majesty
One of the great modern Christian songs, written by Pastor Jack Hayford. Hear the story of his drive through Britain which inspired the song, his wife’s claim to have ‘written’ it, and the impact his great song has had on the church in proclaiming the greatness of Jesus.
Introduction
Today's song is not a hymn, though it's one of the most popular worship songs of the last 40 or so years. I love singing this song! We sang it in church the other day, and everyone just got into it the moment we started it. As you hit that first note, the congregation goes, "Oh, we love this song!"
So I thought, wouldn't it be great to feature it on the channel? Now, I have sung it before. You should see on my channel a version of me just singing it with the words on the screen. It's actually one of my most viewed videos, which is surprising to me - it was just a recording I did during the lockdown for my church at the time, and I put it up and it seems to have been quite popular, so it'll be nice to feature it.
Do you love this song? Do you sing it at your church still? I mean, this was written 45 years ago! Is it still part of your church's list of songs? We sing it once in a while and as I said, we love it when we do. It's an uplifting song that feels great to sing. It gets me focused on God in a great way.
Share your stories, your comments. If you have a story about the song or if you know the song, please put it in the comments below. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
If you like this type of content, if you like worship music and hymns, I'm sure you'll enjoy this channel. Please check out my WhatsApp channel as well. You are welcome to join me there where I send out my daily audio devotions, which is me teaching for two minutes like this every morning, and that's one of the things I do. And by the way, I'm about to release Classic Hymns Volume Two, which is another 25 hymns of just me at the piano singing. So look out for that on my channel when it drops sometime in July 2025.
The Story Behind "Majesty"
Pastor Jack Hayford is one of the great pastors of our generation. He was born in 1934 in California, and he seemed to have God's hand on him from the beginning, because even as an infant, he had a miraculous healing during a church service. This event would really shape his life and his family's life as well. He was actually a star baseball player, but ended up giving up his career in sports to go into the ministry. I think we're all the richer because of that!
As a young pastor, he took over a Foursquare church in California. This was not a new denomination, but the church was struggling - there were only 18 members, most of them were over 60, and there didn't seem to be much life left in this congregation. But Jack Hayford took over and he was only supposed to be at this church for about six months, but he ended up staying there for over three decades, and his ministry in that church and in that church movement was profound. This became the Church On The Way, and this was one of the first megachurches in the States, with over 10,000 members. People would flock to hear this man preach. He had a real gift, and he was a caring pastor at the same time.
In 1977, Pastor Jack and his wife Anna were in Britain, at the time of the Queen's 25-year celebration of her coronation. They were driving around Britain and there were signs and there were radio shows and there were posters everywhere about this monarch that everyone held in such high regard. And as Pastor Jack and Anna drove one day, the song came to him. This is what he says about it:
"One day as I drove along, the opening lyrics and melody of Majesty simply came to my heart. I continued driving, asking Anna to jot the words and melody line in the notebook she had beside her. Because of this, she still laughingly insists that she wrote Majesty. Majesty describes the kingly, lordly, gloriously regal nature of our Saviour, but not simply as an objective statement in worship of which He's fully worthy.”
So as he saw this royal celebration around him, he realised none of this means anything, because there's only one who is really majestic, and that's Christ the Lord!
He finished the song only when he got home in California, and this song became a big hit everywhere. People started to sing it - all the churches of the day started to sing it. It got published in hymnals, which were still used at the time more than they are now. And quickly it transcended denominational boundaries and became widely popular. It's one of the songs from that era, the late 70s, early 80s, that has just survived the test of time. And it's really a simple song, as we'll see in the lyrics just now. There's something about it that people just love singing.
Pastor Jack's influence was great. He retired from his church and got very involved in ministerial education. He was a pastor to pastors. He was very involved in the Promise Keepers movement, and he wrote books, he wrote more songs.
He passed away only a short time ago, in 2023. I remember the news because I've got his book, Worship His Majesty, in my bookshelf, and I've read it, and I remember hearing the news and thinking, “that was a good man of God who really made an impact on this world when he was here”. I wonder if any of you over in the States had anything to do with him or his church or his church movement. I'd love to know if you could share that in the comments below. That would be great.
What Do the Lyrics of "Majesty" Mean?
The first line is Majesty, worship His Majesty. Now the word “majesty” appears throughout Scripture, describing God as regal, as royal. I love Psalm 93:1 that says, the Lord is robed in majesty, so He's completely covered in majesty. Psalm 104:1 says that He is clothed with splendour and majesty. It's just a beautiful way to say that God is great and awesome.
In fact, the word “majesty” comes from a Latin word from which we get "major" or "more". And so it means greater in dignity and more than. When we call Him majestic, when we call Him Majesty, we're declaring that He's greater than anything else, that He's worthy in a way that nobody else is.
And of course, singing "Worship His Majesty," giving Him that title, His Majesty - that's a royal title! You would say that to a king here on earth, wouldn't you? But really only Christ is His Majesty in the greatest sense. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords, of course. So we worship Him, and nobody else deserves the worship that Christ gets.
Majesty, worship His Majesty. Unto Jesus be all glory, honour and praise. Now for some reason I have started singing this one as "glory, power and praise." I don't know where that crept into the way we used to do it. Maybe it was in a songbook, or maybe somebody put the chords together and put "power" in. But I for the longest time have sung "glory, power and praise." But this makes more sense: glory, honour and praise goes to Him. In other words, we're ascribing worth to Him. We're ascribing glory and honour to Him, and we're praising Him for who He is.
Does your life look like this? Where all your praise and all the giving of glory and honour is to Jesus, and Jesus alone? That's what the Christian life is about.
Majesty, kingdom, authority. Of course, Jesus had great authority. He came to establish a kingdom on earth, a spiritual kingdom which can't be seen or touched. But it is within us, as He said. And when He went back into heaven, He told the disciples that all authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Him. And so for us to sing that He is the authority is a very powerful thing.
The important thing is, is He the authority in your life? Are you a citizen of the kingdom or not? Because if you are, then of course He's your authority and it's your joy to submit to Him. But if not, He's still your authority. You just don't know it yet.
Flow from His throne unto His own. Now this is a picture of the throne in Revelation 22, how there is this river flowing from the throne of God, and it's as clear as crystal. And on the banks of the river are the trees of life. And flowing from the throne of God to His own people is healing and love and goodness.
His anthem raise. We as His people lift up His name in song and in word, and we praise Him. That's what this song is great for, isn't it? For just lifting up our praise to Him. It helps us to do that in a great way.
And then the second verse says, So exalt, lift up on high the name of Jesus. Paul in Philippians 2 talks about how God “exalted Jesus to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every other name. And so we declare that in this moment of the song - that He is exalted and His name is the highest of all names.
Magnify, come, glorify Christ Jesus the King. Now I love this word “magnify”. And I remember once hearing John Piper talking about it, how we don't magnify like a magnifying glass. We don't magnify God in that way, because that takes something small and blows it up to something bigger, to look bigger than it is. But when we magnify God, we use a telescope - we take something huge and bring it into our view. Are you magnifying God by bringing Him into view and pointing Him out and saying, "He is awesome, He's great. Look how huge and majestic and amazing He is"? Come, magnify and glorify the Lord! That's what your life as a Christian is about.
Jesus who died now glorified. Here you have the Easter story, very briefly in one sentence. Jesus died and is now glorified. He gave His life on the cross, but He rose again and ascended to the right hand of the Father, where He now has all authority. Again it comes back to this authority as a real monarch, as the King of all Kings.
As the last line says, He is the one who is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. As Revelation 19 points out, on Christ's robe and thigh is written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Oh wow, what a great song. I mean, it's simple, but it's just worship. It allows you to think of Him as greater than anybody else. What do you like about the song? Is there a line that really grabs you? Is this something that resonates with you? I'd love for you to share that in the comments.
Conclusion
We're going to sing it, but first, I just want to thank you for donating towards my work. As you know, I am a minister in a local church here in South Africa, but I do this once a week. I come to the studio and I record a bunch of daily devotions. I record a Friday classic hymn. I record an Encounter, which is my weekly online worship on this channel. And usually I also record another song, which is the Canaan Melodies project I'm busy with. So your donations help me to do all of this music work, and it's just such a blessing to me to be able to use my gifts in this way. Thank you. Thank you for being so generous. So please head over to my Patreon if you're interested and check out the extra offerings I have there for those who contribute.
Jesus is worthy. He's the King of all Kings. He's more majestic than any monarch on earth could ever be. Shall we sing His praise together? Come, let's do it.
