Meeting with I Am

In worship music today we find some interesting things about references to the name of God.  When we look at the Trinity, we find that it is difficult to find very many songs of today that reference the triune nature of God.  The person of God most mentioned in songs of course is the second person of the Trinity.  There have been entire movements in Christian history because of the neglect of this aspect of worship.

There have been debates for many years about how we should address God in worship.  There are names, titles and metaphors revealing different aspects of who God is.  Much of how we name God has to do with our own tradition and sometimes even a particular congregation or group of people. There is not room here to dig into all that Biblical scholars have said about the revealed names of God, titles for God and metaphors for God we find in scripture.  

My reason for even bringing it up is to say we need to seek balance.  If we are not careful, we tend to get stuck on only a few names for God to the neglect of other revealed, scriptural names or descriptions of God that reveal the nature of God, and can create in our minds a sufficient Biblical picture of who He is. "Hallowed be Thy Name" . . . should have us seeking to learn from scripture how better to sing and pray using the different names of God, growing in our worship acknowledging the fullness of the Trinity and how that should affect our worship.  May we be diligent about reading and studying God's Word, allowing Him to inform us of the fullness of the Godhead we worship. And may we be reminded again that when we come to worship, we come to meet with "I Am".  mjm

Tribute to Jim's Service of Worship

Our beloved brother, Jim Hawk, went home to be with the Lord yesterday. Jim served in our worship band as a guitarist for some 8 years starting out in our Saturday evening worship services.  When He and Linda first joined our church, Jim came to me and said he would like to play the guitar in our worship services.  I told him at that time I had a need for a guitarist for Saturday night worship.  He laughed and said, "That's no problem. Years ago I played on Saturday nights in honky-tonks all the time.  Saturday is fine."  He has laughed about the look on my face for years and retold that story to many.  He thought it was hilarious.  

I have never had anyone in the worship band more faithful that Jim.  He was always there, always early, and always prepared.  Many times when we were doing some new praise song or "contemporized" hymn arrangement, he figured out the "new, strange" chords and shared with the other guys.  He loved the fellowship with the band and loved playing to support the worship of the people.  Jim's service was worship which is totally Biblical, especially as seen in Romans 12:1.  We see in this passage, as many theologians have understood, that the "presenting of one's body as a living sacrifice" is becoming "wholly God's property".  This "self-surrender" is something that we all should continually repeat in our experiences with Him.  

The implication is that true worship which God desires embraces the whole of the Christian's life from day to day; otherwise our gathering for "worship" would be false and unacceptable to God.  The corporate sense of worship is not rejected here, but balance is given to worship. Our gathered worship, or corporate worship in the narrower sense, is practiced as part of our wider worship that embraces the whole of Christian living in obedience.  It is the worship of the faithful and so describes Jim Hawk in his service of worship. L. Perry in Getting the Church on Target says, "Worship functions for the glory of God and the sanctification of man."  Thus worship is never ending. God has called us to worship Him...and worship Him throughout all eternity we will.  Jim has gotten the jump on us.  We will long remember his service of worship and one day we will worship with him again.  mjm

Remembering and Rehearsing the Resurrection

We have been remembering this week what our Lord went through during His last week on earth.   We remembered in Palm Sunday services and in the Lord's Supper service, and tomorrow we will remember, re-tell, reckon and rehearse the resurrection.  The beauty of it is that we do this every Lord's Day.  We remember, re-tell, reckon and rehearse the facts of and the fact that we are enabled by the Holy Spirit to live the resurrected life in Christ Jesus, because of what happened on the third day after His sacrifice for us.  

He delivered us from the chains of sin and satan, just as He burst forth from the grave.  When God brings deliverance it is supernatural in scope.  One of the most important exercises of our walk with Him is the reckoning of what God has already done.  In the Old Testament He would say to the ancient followers of God, "Remember the crossing of the Red Sea . . ."  He wanted them to remember, re-tell, rehearse and reckon the truth of what kind of God He was.  

In the New Testament Paul says, "Remember it is God who raised Jesus from the dead . . . " We are being challenged to reckon the resurrected power of God active in our everyday walk with Him!  If I need to know what God can do, all I have to do is look how He made a way through the sea and that the power of the resurrected Lord is the very power for my life and walk.  The resurrection makes all the difference in our lives. Hallelujah!  He's alive . . . in me and in you.  mjm

Confessions of Holy Week

We have already celebrated Palm Sunday.  As we came and worshipped the Lord Jesus on that day, we had to confess that there are parallels in our own lives to that of the people in Jerusalem on that day.  Some of those folks in Jerusalem went with the crowd - one day shouting, "Hosanna, Blessed be the Name of the Lord!" Later in the week some of the same joined with the crowd shouting, "Crucify Him!"  Sometimes we are a lot like that crowd.  One day we are welcoming and celebrating His presence in our lives; another day we are grumbling about the demands of discipleship, of following Him with all that we are.  Sometimes we accept the message; other times we resist.  Too many times we shape our faith and commitment around convenience.  

Then we come to that time with a heavy heart as we gather for a painful remembrance of Jesus' last night.  Just as some of His disciples we have a desire to follow Christ wholly, but often our faith lives are weak in acknowledging Him when we are in the throws of the deep challenges of life.  So we come to the table that in a real sense Christ Himself prepared for us.  We come to remember how our Lord Jesus gave His body for the complete remission of all our sin.  And we remember that His blood was shed for the complete forgiveness of our sins.  In these moments of worship we reflect on the Crucifixion within our minds and hearts so that we might see His wounded, outstretched arms of love.  And then on Good Friday the shadows of our sin are lifted and He drives home the redeeming goodness of Friday.  Our response should be the last phrase of "When I Survey" - "Love so amazing, so Divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all!"

Holy Week brings the depths of sorrow and pain together in the same week with the greatest of celebrations!  The collective Body of Christ joining with the hosts of heaven shouting and singing - the grave could not hold Him, He's Alive - Hallelujah!  We go from the depths of sorrow and repentance to the greatest joy of all time in one week's time.  And in the doing of that, we proclaim the gospel again!  mjm

Excellence in Worship

Over the years I've noticed that a lot of folks push back on the idea of excellence in worship.  In Hebrews 13:15  we are challenged to "offer a sacrifice of praise to God continually".  When David came to worship the Lord and sacrifice to Him, he said he would not offer anything that cost him nothing.  (2 Sam. 24:24).  There is Biblical basis for excellence in worship. There are three basic parts to excellence in worship.

Giftedness is the first of those ingredients.  It is clear in I Cor. 12 that we have all been given gifts for use in ministry.  God has gifted some with a gift to communicate through creative expression and many times God uses them to be a part of worship leadership.  

Second is enabling or equipping.  We see in Ephesians 4:12 that the role of pastors is to equip these people  for service.  Nurturing relationships, mentoring, training, giving tools and resources, building skills are all a part of enabling worship leaders to use their gifts for the glory of God.

Last ingredient of excellence in worship is application or the "work of it". The work of worship is the hard work of preparation and prayer and more.  

When the three parts of worship come together they combine, resulting in excellence in worship.  Psalm 33:3 says we will "play skillfully on the strings with loud shouts . . ." The idea of excellence in worship should not be foreign to our thinking according to Scriptural principles.  And we only scratched the surface here.  mjm

Words Without Heart

As I was reading through Isaiah this morning, Isaiah 29:13-14 jumped right off the page and struck me right in the heart.  "And so the Lord says, 'These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  And their worship of me is nothing but manmade rules learned by rote.  Because of this, I will once again astound these hypocrites with amazing wonders.  The wisdom of the wise will pass away, and the intelligence of the intelligent will disappear.'"

Wow, did that speak to me about today.  These last several years as churches have "warred" over worship and worship leaders have gone to seminars, conferences, and workshops trying to find out the "rules" of worship, I am afraid we have many times missed a very simple point that is expressed beautifully in the above passage.  Erwin Lutzer says, "Worship isn't listening to a sermon, appreciating the harmony of the choir, and joining in singing hymns!  It isn't even prayer, for prayer can be the selfish expression of an unbroken spirit. Worship goes deeper.  Since God is Spirit, we fellowship with Him with our spirit; that is, the immortal and invisible part of us meets with God, who is immortal and invisible."  

John Bunyan once stated, "In prayer it is better to have a heart without words, than words without a heart."  I am afraid many times we speak and sing words of worship with our mouths, but keep our hearts at a distance from His holy presence.  We can act out the proper church roles, speak pious words, even shed superficial tears without submitting our wills, our thoughts, and our actions to His scrutiny.  Is our religion sometimes on display when our spiritual condition is a disgrace?  May our words of worship flow from a heart hungry for Him, connected with Him and overflowing with the glory and presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!  mjm

Tribute to our Pastor

Steve Swofford has served our church for the last 25 years.  I also served with him before in another church, for a total of about 30 years in the two.  In fact, he and I turned 30 together, 40 together, 50 together and yes, 60 together.  My family had a stint on the mission field between those two churches.  The one thing that we have always been able to count on is that when he stepped into the pulpit we were going to hear a Word from above. As long as I have known him, Steve has been very serious about breaking the bread of life before the people of God.  

Steve has always known that for the people of God to have an encounter with the Word of God meant they would have an encounter with the God of the Word.  It is the "breathings" of Almighty God.  As we have said in this blog before, "Worship is a dialogue - God speaks - we respond."  When we allow the power of Scripture, it cuts loose to impact our lives and we are change forever.  When Heaven touches earth, sparks fly.

The faithfulness of our Pastor to preach the Word means that we are soaked in Scripture, which will impact our lives as we seek to be obedient. He is faithful to deliver.  We must be faithful to obey.   When that happens we are the church that God meant us to be, as he has led us to be a church with a heart for missions.  Praise the Lord! To God be the Glory, with congratulations to Steve for the long and faithful preaching of God's Word and ministry among us! mjm 

Unity in Worship

Unity itself is not worship.  Unity in the body is a by-product, or a result, of worship.  I am not speaking of unity about worship, but unity among the body.  This was the theme of our Baptist Church Music Conference Meeting this week here in Dallas.  I want to comment and elaborate on some of the statements I heard about how worship builds unity in the church.  We are talking about the spiritual reality of unity among the body.

First of all - the simple gathering together of the people of God brings unity to the body.  We are told in Hebrews to "not forsake the assembling of ourselves."  Obviously if we don't bring the people of God together in worship then unity is impossible.  If the church is to truly know unity as a spiritual reality we must gather together on a regular basis. 

Second - when we gather together we are connecting people with God.  As a worship leader I constantly pray and think - "How can I help, enable, encourage people to make a connection with God when they gather for worship?"  If people will connect with Him there will be the transforming healing power of God moving on worshippers' lives, and people will leave worship different than when they came.

Third - when we gather the people of God we are exposing them to the Word of God on a regular basis.  Unity among God's people is totally dependent  on feeding on the Word of God.  We must remember that worship is a dialogue - God speaks - we respond.  If we are not faithful to expose people to His Word then it is no longer a dialogue.  Our church is blessed to have one who is faithful to expose us to the Word.

Worship is for the people, not for the leaders.  It is the work of the people of God.  It is not for the preacher.  It is not for the worship leader or music leader.  It is for the people of God.  A. W. Tozer once said, "Forty pianos tuned to each other will not be in tune.  But, forty pianos tuned to one tuning fork will be in tune."  That's how we find unity in worship - by all being "tuned" to Him!  mjm