As the Lord Commanded

In Exodus 39 and 40 we read about the making of the priestly garments and the tabernacle being erected. In those two chapters, at least 18 times they are said to have done something "as the LORD had commanded Moses" (or some other phrase with similar meaning). Upon reading this today, a series of thoughts came across my mind:

• Wow. It's pretty amazing how specific God was in what exactly he wanted done amongst his people, especially in terms of their worship of him. We probably ought to be very careful about our propensity to choose churches on the basis of our preferences.


• Wouldn't it be nice if God spoke to us as he spoke to Moses, so that we might do things "as the Lord had commanded" us? 


• About a tenth of a second later it occurred to me that of course he DOES speak to us, through the Scriptures! If I truly hungered to know and do God's will, then surely I would be ravenous in my appetite for God's word. And yet, there are times when I hunger for other things. Perhaps you are the same. Lord, forgive us of our double-mindedness and smash our idols that we might worship only you!

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom...Lewis on Pleasures

"Pleasures are shafts of glory as it strikes our sensibility…But aren’t there bad, unlawful pleasures? Certainly there are. But in calling them 'bad pleasures' I take it we are using a kind of shorthand. We mean 'pleasures snatched by unlawful acts.' It is the stealing of the bad apples that is bad, not the sweetness. The sweetness is still a beam from the glory…I have tried since…to make every pleasure into a channel of adoration. I don’t mean simply by giving thanks for it.  One must of course give thanks, but I meant something different…Gratitude exclaims, very properly, 'How good of God to give me this.' Adoration says, 'What must be the quality of that Being whose far off and momentary coruscations are like this!' One’s mind runs back up the sunbeam to the sun…If this is Hedonism, it is also a somewhat arduous discipline. But it is worth some labor."

C.S. Lewis
Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
(as quoted by John Piper in When I Don’t Desire God: How to Fight for Joy)

Is That Song Theologically Incorrect or Just Theologically Incomplete?

I saw a great post on worship today from Zac Hicks calling on us to distinguish between those songs that are theologically incorrect, and those which are theologically incomplete. As Zac points out, "Sometimes in our zeal for truth, we blur that line and dismiss songs with a prophetic kibosh, branding them with the scarlet letter of "bad theology" when the truth is that they are not wrong, just incomplete."

Far too often this is more a reflection of our biases than our gospel fidelity. Zac argues that by differentiating between theologically incorrect and the theologically incomplete, we can guard ourselves from this, understanding that whatever songs we sing in worship, we need to use them in their proper doxological context.

He goes on to elaborate on the benefits of making this distinction:

The incomplete-wrong distinction opens up new possibilities for engaging songs that seemed to be ruled out before.  It becomes more about weight and balance within a whole service (or within a whole series of services).  This distinction also allows us to assume a more humble posture with our brothers and sisters from traditions which differ from ours (and God knows we could use more humility!) without compromising on what we feel is solid, biblical truth.  It seizes on 1 Corinthians 13's encouragement that, within the body of Christ, "love hopes all things."  So before you dismiss a song outright because you believe it's "wrong" (which it still might be), stop and ask yourself if this song wouldn't be more "right" when given its full doxological context. 

Click here to read the whole post, and if you are involved in the planning of worship services, I strongly recommend that you to regularly visit Zac's blog.

How the Doxology Shapes Us

Far too often I talk to people who base the quality of a church's worship solely upon the type of music they sing on a Sunday morning. There are those who argue that the music and atmosphere of church should be similar to that of a rock concert, while still others can't even imagine calling it "worship" if it doesn't include a pipe organ.

In a world that is full of voices saying all kinds of things about what worship is (and isn't) or should (and should not) be, Zac Hicks is one of my favorites. The subtitle of his blog is "Seeking cultural relevance, biblical depth, historical engagement, & theological reflection in worship," and he somehow actually finds a way to bring these diverse yet admirable goals together!

Zac will certainly never be accused of being a member of the "organ only" club, but he still maintains a high view of the history of worship and the value of traditional liturgy. Today's blog entry was no exception as he extols the benefits of singing the ancient words of the Doxology as part of our worship. I love the way he begins:

One drop of water on a rock has little effect, but a steady dripping will eventually wear a hole into a seemingly impenetrable stone.Singing the Doxology every week is like getting a steady drip of life-giving Trinitarian water over hardened hearts.

So true. So profound. Click here to read the whole post, and gain a sense of how singing the Doxology can shape not only our worship, but our very selves.

So, What Exactly Am I Supposed to Render?

Yesterday I preached from Matthew 22:15-22, "So What Exactly Am I Supposed to Render?" In this sermon, we took a look at what exactly it is that we do (and don't) owe the government, and why this is so. Click here to access audio from it as well as from prior sermons.

Matthew 22:15-22 (ESV) - Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God truthfully, and you do not care about anyone's opinion, for you are not swayed by appearances. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. And Jesus said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” They said, “Caesar's.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.

Worship Conference: Magnify 2012

If you are in Michigan, I wanted to let you know about what looks like it will be a great conference next month.  Magnify 2012 is coming up on February 10-11 in East Lansing, and will feature Bob Kauflin, Director of Worship Development for Sovereign Grace Ministries.

Pastors, worship leaders, and church members will all benefit from this conference, which is for all those who want to grow in biblical understanding and in a theologically-grounded experience of worship. The conference is very reasonably priced ($20 in advance, $25 at the door) and is being held at University Reformed Church.

Click here to register for the conference, click here for a brochure, or if you would like more information you can click here.

Kevin DeYoung on Our Use of Music in Worship

Kevin DeYoung had two great posts this week dealing with how we incorporate music into our public worship (Part 1 and Part 2). As with much that Kevin writes, I highly recommend that you read them. Whether your church's worship style is "traditional" or "contemporary" (or whatever other options are out there these days), you can surely benefit from what Kevin has to say.

He offers the following ten principles that ought to guide our use of music in worship.  And again, please see his two posts (Part 1 and Part 2) for more detailed explanation of these points.

1. Love is indispensable to church singing that pleases God.
2. Our singing is for God’s glory and the edification of the body of Christ.
3. We ought to sing to the Lord new songs.
4. Church singing should swim in its own history of church singing.
5. Sing the Psalms.
6. We should strive for excellence in the musicality and the poetry of the songs we sing.
7. The main sound to be heard in the worship music is the sound of the congregation singing.
8. The congregation should also be stretched from time to time to learn new songs and broaden its musical horizons.
9. The texts of our songs should be matched with fitting musicality and instrumentation.
10.All of our songs should employ manifestly biblical lyrics.

Wednesday's Words of Wisdom: Preaching as Worship

"The preaching and the hearing of the Word of God is in the last analysis worship, worship in its most profound sense.  Preaching is not an auxiliary activity to worship, nor is it some kind of preparation for worship which one hopes will follow...The proclaiming of the Word of God, simply in itself, is high service to God.  The solemn reading and preaching of Scripture in the midst of the congregation is a cultic act, if we may use that term, in continuity with the sacrifices of the Old Testament.  Even more it fulfills these ancient cultic acts.  The Old Testament sacrifices were the type, the foreshadow, of something far greater, the proclamation of the gospel.  The reading and the preaching of Scripture is worship of an even greater intensity, an even greater depth, and an even greater magnificence than were ever the sacrifices of the Temple."

Where Have All the Singers Gone?

Zach Nielsen has one of my favorite blogs and it definitely has the coolest name in all of the Christian blogosphere: Take Your Vitamin Z. This afternoon Zach pointed readers to a post he had seen dealing with the lack of congregational singing, specifically among men.

In it, David Murrow suggests that much of the reason for such a lack is the constant introduction of new and unfamiliar songs.  Click here to read his whole post and I'd love to hear your thoughts on the topic as well.  Zach is a talented musician who says he might write about it himself tomorrow.  Keep an eye on Vitamin Z, as I'm sure his insights will be a helpful addition to the conversation.

We Praise What We Enjoy

Today I read another great post from Jared Wilson. In it he insightfully states that we offer praise to those things which we truly enjoy.

Worship of God is enjoyment of God. We have no problem laughing at something funny, smiling at something pretty, "mmmm"-ing something delicious, humming something catchy, or cheering something exciting in the stadium, but when we get into church on Sunday mornings, we have trouble worshiping because we don't know and enjoy God the same way we know and enjoy jokes, pictures, food, songs, or sports.

Click here to read the whole post.

Steak on a Paper Plate

Trevin Wax has some interesting thoughts on worship today. He argues that form does matter, but suggests that in determining our church's "worship style," the primary question ought not be about contemporary vs. traditional. Rather, it should be about casual vs. serious.

Christians need to sense the weight of God’s glory, the truths of God’s Word, the reality of coming judgment, and the gloriousness of God’s grace. Trying to package the bigness of this God into most casual worship services is like trying to eat steak on a paper plate. You can do it for awhile, but at some point, people will start saying, "I want a dish."

You can read the whole post here.

Take up Your Cross and Sing!

Zac Hicks is the Minister of Worship and Liturgy at Cherry Creek Presbyterian Church in Denver. Cherry Creek hosted the EPC's General Assembly last week and Zac did a great job leading music in our various worship services.

Over at his blog, Zac has started a series on John Wesley's rules for singing. The other day he had a great post on congregational singing and the need for us to refrain from a consumeristic approach to it. Zac warns us against "the individualism and idolatry of self" in making reference to John Wesley's exhortation that we all sing in worship, even if we are personally uncomfortable doing so:

For the person who says, “I just don’t like singing…I don’t get a lot out of it.” Wesley’s answer is, “It’s not about you. Deny yourself and take up your cross.” What a different approach to worship! Worship (specifically singing) is not a product to be consumed by some and left on the shelf by others. It is something we all must do, even if it means it is at times (or permanently) difficult for us.

You can read the whole post here.

Glorifying God

I saw this post last week and meant to share it, but never got around to passing it along. In it, Trevin Wax considers John 17:4, where Jesus, on the night he would be betrayed, prays, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.” He points out,

Jesus could boldly say that God the Father had been glorified, because – as the Son – he had finished the master plan that had been set out for him from the beginning of time. We, in turn, must not relegate our worship to a passive, once-a-week event that makes us feel good.

Instead, we must exemplify the lifestyle of worship that has at its center, the will and purposes of Almighty God, who has loved, saved, and regenerated us “according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.”

You can read the whole post here.

Real Preachers of Genius

I saw this video today and thought it was pretty funny:



I found it humorous, but at the same time I was reminded of the words of the Apostle Paul who wrote to his young protegé Timothy, "...the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions," (2 Timothy 4:3). I assume that this was the case in the first century and I know that this is the case today.

Many churches forsake the preaching of the Gospel of Christ's life, death and resurrection on behalf of sinners, instead opting for sermons that are little more than self-help seminars wrapped up in Christian trappings. Another thing we often see is what I would term a trivialization of worship, as it often seems to be more about entertainment than about worship.

Now I'm not saying that "traditional" worship is necessarily better than "contemporary" worship. I've been to "contemporary" churches where the worship was indeed very worshipful, and I've been to "traditional" churches where quite frankly it was not. Neither am I saying that a preacher needs to wear a robe and ascend into a massive pulpit in order to truly preach. In fact, I applaud what I hope (and honestly believe) is an effort to reach people "where they are" and "in a way they can understand." But there is a caution that must be noted. We must not forget that the way in which we say something says almost as much about what we are trying to communicate as the actual words we use. As Marshall McLuhan put it, "The medium is the message."

The following words from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Preachers and Preaching, pp. 85-86) do well to underline these thoughts:

The preacher must be a serious man; he must never give the impression that preaching is something light or superficial or trivial…What is happening is that he is speaking to them from God, he is speaking to them about God, he is speaking about their condition, the state of their souls. He is telling them that they are, by nature, under the wrath of God – 'the children of wrath even as others' – that the character of the life they’re living is offensive to God and under the judgment of God, and warning them of the dread eternal possibility that lies ahead of them. In any case the preacher, of all men, should realize the fleeting nature of life in this world. The men of the world are so immersed in its business and affairs, its pleasures and all is vain show, that the one thing they never stop to consider is the fleeting character of life. All this means that the preacher should create and convey the impression of the seriousness of what is happening the moment he even appears in the pulpit. You remember the famous lines of Richard Baxter:

I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men.

I do not think that can be bettered. You remember what was said of the saintly Robert Murray McCheyne of Scotland in the last century. It is said that when he appeared in the pulpit, even before he had uttered a single word, people would begin to weep silently. Why? Because of this very element of seriousness. The very sight of the man gave the impression that he had come from the presence of God and that he was to deliver a message from God to them. That is what had such an effect upon the people even before he had opened his mouth. We forget this at our peril, and at great cost to our listener.

Children in Worship

R. Scott Clark blogs today on the benefits of children partaking in worship with their parents on Sunday morning. He writes:

Yes, having children in church means that it will be slightly less entertaining and possibly less moving emotionally. It’s a little harder to be enraptured by the latest chorus when your child is fidgeting next to you or someone else’s is wailing in your left ear. That’s okay. You might not have the same emotional “high” this week as you did when there was children’s church. That’s okay. Worship isn’t about your experience of religious ecstasy. It’s about hearing God and responding appropriately, according to his Word.

God doesn’t mind that your emotional experience is less intense. He takes the long view. Your children will grow up not segregated from public worship and the means of grace. They’ll grow up a part of the community of the redeemed and watching baptisms (so they can see what happened to them). They’ll see the supper administered and they'll ask, “When can I have it?” They’ll hear the Law and the Gospel and they’ll grow up knowing that this is their identity, that it’s really true, that God said, “I will be your God and your children’s God.”

Read the entire post here.

An Epiphany of Worship

Happy Epiphany to those who are wont to celebrate such days! Epiphany is the day on which the Church has historically commemorated the visit of the magi or wise men. In my devotions this morning I was looking at Matthew 2 which tells us about this event.

The actions of the magi are often held up as an example of how we should rightly respond to the news of Christ’s coming. Namely, we should come and worship, bearing our gifts and bowing before the Lord! This is altogether right, but there are also examples in the text as to how we ought not to respond.

Herod is one such example. His reaction to the news is one e responds to the news is one of blatant self-interest. We read of how he looks to kill the Christ-child so that his own throne would not be threatened. He eventually goes to the most horrifying of ends in his futile efforts to accomplish this.

While it probably true that none of us will respond with the same actions as Herod, we do need to be careful not to respond out of similar self-interest. Our day is one in which the popular view of Jesus is increasingly one of a self-help guru. While Jesus does indeed give our life purpose and it is only through knowing him that we can have our best life, these are not the ultimate reasons Jesus came. He came to redeem and renew his good creation, and to prepare a bride for himself. His work is about God’s glory, not our comfort.

One less obvious, though perhaps even more applicable example for many of us would be that of the chief priests and the scribes. These religious leaders know their Bible. As such they are able to properly identify and recite the prophecy of Micah 5:2 that fortells the location of the birth of the Christ. But what do they do next? Unfortunately, nothing. What the chief priests and the scribes should have done is gone online and booked an immediate trip to Bethlehem to see the Christ-child themselves!

Too often, when I read the Bible, I am like these religious leaders, merely gleaning information from the biblical text. At times I read it as a history book, telling me about past events. Other times I read it as an instruction manual, telling me how to live my life.

I need to be careful though not to read the Bible simply in either of these fashions. It is indeed these things, but it is far more. It is a book that is meant not only to inform us, but to transform us. I should read it so as to be changed by God.

I need to not only read the Bible, but meditate on it, mulling it over in my heart and mind, as did Mary when she “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). I need to ask God to use it to make me more like him, not simply because it gives us step-by-step directions, but because it is a book that is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) and capable of effecting such change.

May God be at work in us all this new year, transforming us ever-increasingly into the likeness of his Son!