Many Will See, Fear and Trust. . .

Our worship begins and ends with God.  We have an audience of One.  We glorify Him! We praise Him!  We magnify Him! We exalt the Lord Jesus!  And beautifully, we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so.  Jesus said that the greatest of the commandments was . . . "to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and strength"  and the second . . . "love your neighbor as yourself".  Sadly for some in the church, worship has just become a perfunctory habit.  Too many times we just go through the motions.  There should be joy and lament.  There should be enthusiasm and reverence.  We gather to glorify Him and to seek and experience His presence among us.  We should do it with passion realizing we don't "perform" music for music's sake and that our own preferences have little to do with our glorifying Him!  If it is not that way when the body gathers, it will never be that way outside the walls of the church.

In Psalm 40 we find that King David has spent much time in prayer waiting before the Lord and crying out to Him in repentance.  God hears His cry, lifts him up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay and sets his feet on a rock as a firm foundation.  David's life has now been cleaned up and his footsteps and faith reestablished.  So, then look what happens as a result in verse 3: "He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord."  I have mentioned this passage many times and the interesting choice of words, "many will see and fear". They didn't notice the beauty of David's music.  They didn't notice his technical accuracy and that he knew how music was to be performed.  God's Word says many will see and fear because of the outward expression of David's life, and love for the one of Whom he was singing.

We all have been given the new song.  Are people seeing Him in our song?  That is the only way they too will experience His power and presence in their lives.  mjm

Outside the Walls

Does our worship impact our lives and others lives outside the walls of the church?  To some this might seem a strange question.  However, it is very important in our day and time if we are to embody the mission of the church to the world.  Specifically, how does our worship music impact "outside the walls"? 

Music is a powerful tool and has much to offer the church of the future.  It has been and will continue to be a primary means of impacting our world with God's grace.  But if we are to do that, we need to look at some areas in which we must do better.

We need to find and use songs that have texts that really impact our lives.  Too many times we want to sing only of God's reign, God's greatness, our awe of God or our need to praise Him.  If we are not careful we will get so caught up in a "spiritual time of praise and worship experience" that it leaves us disconnected from faith and the living out of our faith.  

We also need to find very singable tunes that use meters much like the old hymns.  The Gettys and Stuart Townsend (writers of "In Christ Alone") are an example of these strong theological texts set to folk-like singable tunes.  We need songs like this to keep us in connection with strong history and theological teaching.   

Also, we need songs that help us come face to face with the human condition and what it means to live out our every day lives.  Our worship must connect with the world - it's problems, pain and great need. We must not just sing "joy" songs.  We also need to have songs that make us realize that sometimes God is silent, and that we are not always able to understand God, and that the very heart of our existence is the hope that we have in Him!

Even as we did on the mission field, we must study and find music that impacts where we are, not where we wish we were.  We must have music that is so natural to our culture and sub-culture that our songs move easily from the worship of our church to our homes, and even to our work places.  We must send folks out of the church singing the songs we sing all week long at home and in the work place if it is to impact their lives fully outside the walls. Then it becomes a shared experience with others and has the missional impact that completes worship and makes a full circle back to beginning again with new worshippers joining the gathered body and the throngs of heaven!  mjm

Making His Praise Known (Part 2)

Continuing to think on the theme for our Worship and our Worship-Leading Choir this year, we look at Isaiah 12:4-5:  "In that wonderful day you will sing: Thank the Lord! Praise His Name! Tell the nations what He has done.  Let them know how mighty He is! Sing to the Lord, for He has done wonderful things; Make known His praise around the world."  

We've discussed before about how worship is missional.  Our mission is to be used of God to lead others to be worshippers.  I'm hoping we will see with this theme a renewed emphasis on the fact that worship should not just happen inside the walls of our church, but outside, beginning in our own personal sphere of influence, our neighborhood, our city, our state, our nation, and yes around the world.  We join believers all around the world in worship of our High King!  This was brought home by a report not long ago that Chris Tomlin's worship songs are sung by 20 million people almost every Sunday around the globe.

As we are personally involved in evangelism and missions, we take the song of worship that is in our hearts and on our lips making His praise known to all.  As the scripture says, " . . . many will see and put their trust in the Lord."  

Over all of my years, I have been blessed to be on both sides of this both personally and in ministry.  I have seen it at work here at home and around the world as we served in Zimbabwe years ago as a Music Missionary.  My life verse that I have asked to be on my tombstone is Psalm 119:54 - "Your decrees have been the theme of my songs wherever I have lived." 

May we answer the call together to make His praise known!!!  mjm

Making His Praise Known

The theme for our worship leading choir and our church this year is Making His Praise Known.  We've looked at the fact in the past that . . . loving the Lord our God . . . leads to loving our neighbor.  Psalm 105:1 states, "Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim His greatness.  Let the whole world know what He has done."  In giving thanks and praising the Lord in worship we are challenged to proclaim His greatness and His great works to the world.  The second verse of the Psalm simply says . . . sing His praises telling everyone about His wonderful deeds.  The third verse reminds us to exult in His holy name, rejoicing in worship.  Verse 4 restates the fact that we are to search and seek after His presence and then verse 5 . . . remembering the wonders He has performed and the teaching and truth He has given. 

On the one hand,  we see in these first five verses: Giving thanks, Singing praise, Exulting in His name, Rejoicing in worship, Seeking His presence and strength continually.  These have to do with our worship and praise.  

Then, on the other hand, we see in these verses: Proclaiming His greatness, Letting the whole world know what He's done, Telling  everyone  about His wonderful deeds, Remembering the wonders He has performed, His miracles, and His rulings. 

These two come together in the phrase - Making His Praise Known.  Our worship begins in our private time with Him and in our corporate time with the fellowship of believers.  However, our worship must move outside of ourselves and be made known to others, and outside the walls of our church we must make His praise known to all so as to fulfill our call to worship.  Let's make His praise known! mjm

Our Highest Act of Worship

David makes clear what He thinks our highest act of worship is in Psalm 40.  "In sacrifice and offering You have not delighted . . .Burnt offering and sin offering You have not required . . . I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart." David loved God's Word, treasured it in his heart, and worked hard to be obedient to it.  That was the reason God called him . . . "a man after His own heart."  David was far from perfect, but was serious about doing God's will.  As far as David was concerned, obedience was one of the highest expressions of worship.  In Psalm 5 right in the middle of passionate worship David reaffirms his desire to live a life of obedience.  "I will bow down toward Your holy temple in the fear of You.  Lead me, O Lord, in Your righteousness."

Jesus echoes this principle in John 14:15, 21.  Jesus said, "If you love me, you will keep My commandments.  Whoever has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me."  Jesus very succinctly and simply is telling us that we can not supposedly express love and adoration for Him and yet ignore His will and His commandments, doing whatever we please.  

God very strongly rejects Israel's worship in Amos because of their superficiality and selfish disregard for His teaching about the poor and oppressed.  He straight forwardly tells them He doesn't want to hear the noise of their songs or the melody of their harps.  When our worship and our worship song doesn't match what we do in following His commands, the result is a hypocritical worship that God absolutely despises.  When we disobey His commands, we replace God and His glory with our own inferior substitutes which is nothing less than idolatry.  A.W. Tozer stated that that is simply worship directed in any direction but God's.  

As we can see, our highest act of worship is obedience.  May we have the same passionate desire as David to be "one after His own heart",  remembering Jesus' words,  "If you love me, . . ."  mjm 

Born to Worship

Man is born to worship.  God created us for relationship with Him.  However, He ends up giving us a choice after revealing Himself.  Our hearts are born longing to worship something.  We can look through the ages and see how man stumbled around worshipping the wrong things.  Man has bowed to the sun, the moon, the animals and trees, man-made idols.  We look in history and condemn, forgetting that we have created our own idols of worship in our day.  And, we find just as they did that none of them satisfy.  Because the worship of Yahweh has a personal relationship factor.  We worship Him in spirit as He reveals Himself and He respond to our spirits.  He is the only God who responds, fulfilling the unquenchable thirst that man has to worship God.

We worship one God.  He created it all and deserves all our worship.  Throughout history, God has rejected any and all worship that was not . . . to Him alone, of Him alone, and for Him alone?  We saw how that worked out for the children of Israel.  Will we make the same mistakes?

But yet, after Israel . . . we see changes in the place of worship, in the availability of Scripture, (Jesus is the Incarnate Word, and is accessible to all).  The last Israel heard from God was Malachi crying, "The Messiah is coming."  And in Matthew, the first book of the New Testament we find it proclaimed, "Messiah is here!"  One has said, "We must see Jesus as our Conductor, who came to this world to direct a magnificent symphony that puts us in harmony with God and each other." Jesus restores order out of chaos and transforms our ugly discord into beautiful music for the glory, honor and praise of our Most High God!  If we will but faithfully follow our composer and conductor our worship will be the right kind of worship that makes His praises known - that others might join in the great symphony of worship! mjm

Music in the Church

Speaking of history.  I was reading a book this week called Church Music published in 1935 by the Sunday School Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.  It was written by Isham E. Reynolds.  He was the first Director of the School of Music at Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth.  The insights were interesting as he discusses  how music has always had an important part in all religious worship.  The character or style of the music depended largely on the cultural development of the people using it.  

That hasn't changed.  Every church is different, much like every family is different.  I tell couples in pre-marital counseling all the time that they are bringing two sub-cultures together in a marriage as each of their families are different.  That is why music is perceived and used differently in every church.

Music in the Christian faith is different than all other religions.  First it is a singing religion.  It is a means of praise, adoration, thanksgiving, and exalting the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Andrew Law said, "Theology and music move on hand in hand into time and will continue eternally to illustrate, embellish, enforce, impress and fix in the mind the grand and great truth of Christianity."  

Early believers emphasized music in their churches realizing the power of music proven throughout both the Old and New Testaments.  Others also recognized the importance and power of music.  Plato said, "Music was not given men with the sole view of pleasing their senses, but rather for appeasing the troubles of their souls."  Bach said, "Its final purpose is none other than this, that it ministers solely to the honor of God and refreshment of the spirit, whereof, if one take not heed it is no proper music, but devilish din and discord."  Handel said of the inspiration in composing The Hallelujah Chorus in The Messiah, "I did think that I did see all heaven before me, and the great God Himself."

Not only does it feed our worship but we've also seen the worth and power of music in winning the lost to faith in Christ.  We need to seek to continue under God's hand to cherish and cultivate the use of music in the church bringing peace, joy, and fulfillment to the church and to those outside the church.  mjm

Reaching Both Directions

The history  of Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual songs is unbelievably vast and varied.  From generation to generation, the great hymns and songs of the faith have been kept alive in the great traditions of congregational song.  The great doctrine and theology set to music has been profound in the church over the centuries.  We certainly must not dismiss such a great heritage of the way people have responded to God's love and redemption over the ages.  It has been said that true worship flows from remembering the Gospel. 

In my own experience I began using both the old Broadman Hymnal from the '40s and the 1956 Baptist Hymnal.  During my youth years, we began to sing songs from musicals such as Good News and Tell It Like It is.  The Baptist Hymnal in the '70s began using both newer songs and hymns and songs of generations back.  Then in 1990 a new Baptist Hymnal came which not only had newer songs along with the old, but also worship choruses from the praise and worship tradition.  As we moved into the new millennium, with the new 2008 Baptist Hymnal and many others, we began to see the proliferation of more new hymnals that included hymns from generations past with newer worship songs that were not only printed but continued to expand via the digital process.  

As a worship leader planning worship for a multigenerational church, we are blessed with humongous and vast resources of both old and new.  We continue to reach both directions - being blessed by the great hymns of the faith that have carried generations of folks in their walk with the Lord, and being blessed by new expressions of faith and worship that help us enlarge our expression and experience in Him.  Some of the younger generations, at this time even, are looking back not hundreds of years but even to the ancient to enhance and enlarge their expression of worship to the everlasting God.  

As we reach both directions may we say, "You have exalted Your Name and Your Promise above everything else,"  (Ps. 138:2b) and seek to unify the church in worship as we exalt the Lord Jesus Christ and His Word to all.  mjm