One of my favorite passages in God’s Word is from the 6th
chapter of Micah. If you have ever found
yourself asking God, “what is it you want from me, Lord?” this provides a
pretty straightforward answer. I believe
it also can inform what our life together
as a community of worshiping artists can/should look like.
6 With what shall I come before
the LORD and bow down before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with
thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I offer my firstborn for
my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
8
He has showed you, O man, what is good.
And what does the LORD require of you?
To
act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.
Worship has always been about giving…or giving up something. Offering something. Sacrificing.
Back in the garden and before the fall, God made sure we understood
this. Talk is cheap. At the end of the day, all Adam and Eve
really were given to demonstrate their
worship to their Creator was a simple act of obedience. A simple act of restraint, really. “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is
in the middle of the garden.” Pretty
uncomplicated. Pretty straightforward. In reality, what could the first family offer
to God? Just the simple demonstration that yet another 24 hours
had past and they had willingly
avoided eating fruit from the forbidden tree. This was really the only true
worship they could offer. Anything else
they gave back to God was already a gift from Him. Almost like giving your kids a $20 bill to go
buy you a tie. Not all that satisfying…for
you or them.
The OT prophet Micah got this, when he records one of the most
profound Q & A’s found in the Bible.
Given that our God has made everything, and has supplied our every need,
what could we possibly hope to give Him in return that would mean anything to
Him? Well, to quote Eliza Doolittle from My
Fair Lady, “I’m tired of words; show
me.” Justice, mercy, humility. God, through Micah, is saying ‘don’t just talk about it—do it.’
Practice these things in your personal life and particularly in your
interactions with others.
Acting
justly in the
context of the worship ministry implies simply doing the right thing:
keeping commitments (who was it who said 90% of life is showing up?), being punctual, honing your craft, giving your personal best, not showing
partiality, etc.
Consider for a moment just one area of our weekly
routine—attendance. Peter Drucker once
wrote that “there is no correlation between potential and performance.” What he meant was that ultimately we are not
measured by what we are capable of doing but what we actually do.
As teammates, it is important that we not only worship together
regularly but also prepare together
regularly. Why? I can think of few other ministries which
rely so heavily on teamwork to
accomplish their mission. And I know of
few other teams in life which “perform” at a very high level if “practicing” together isn’t a high value.
For most of you, this is a non-issue. You are actually to be commended for your
sacrificial example of regular attendance.
For some of you, however, this is an area in which you struggle. Perhaps you might even question if you are
missed, or worse, you have concluded you don’t personally need regular rehearsals.
Still others may have allowed yourself to commit to too many things and
find yourselves having to making weekly choices for which commitments you can keep.
Let me encourage each of you to revisit your schedules and commitments
and prayerfully consider what is appropriate for you and for us as we offer
what the scriptures call “a sacrifice
of praise.”
The second requirement our God considers good is simply to love
mercy, to foster a grace
atmosphere. Interestingly enough, it falls directly on the heels of the cry for
justice. While God calls us to right
living as the prescription for what is best for us, He knows all too well that
in our humanness, we are prone to fail and disappoint each other. Rather than “lower the bar” or standard in
his first requirement, He simply keeps before us the need to keep on loving, for
love “covers a multitude of sins.” To
love mercy means to treat others as we wish to be treated, assume the best
motives, even when the behavior is different than expected, and be quick to
forgive when behavior or motives fall short.
Loving mercy is intensely
active and passionate, not passive and wishy-washy.
And finally, we are individually and collectively to walk humbly with our God. What a
great phrase…every word as rich in meaning as the next. Rather than playing the Holy Spirit for you,
let me encourage you to pause right now and invite Him to lead you as you meditate
on those five simple words.
WALK humbly with
our God.
Walk HUMBLY with our God.
Walk humbly WITH our God
Walk humbly with OUR God.
Walk humbly with our GOD.
At the end of the day, just like in the garden, worship is a verb.
It is less blah, blah, blah and more bless, bless, bless. Micah discovered this: Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with our God. Our worship and arts ministry is designed to
help you grow in these three areas. We
do not simply unite around a common task—though we have one. We do not simply pursue excellence, though
God is worthy of nothing less than our best.
And we do not practice our art for the sheer joy of it, though for the
gift of the arts in our lives we are immensely grateful to their Giver. Rather, we choose to eat, pray, study,
celebrate, laugh and cry…together, all so that Christ may be glorified in us.
I pray that each of you might come to discover your unique and valuable
role in this family. It might be your
voice. It might be your love of
technology. It may your enthusiasm for
playing your instrument for the Lord.
But, then again, it might be your smile.
Maybe it is your ability to listen and care. It could even be your ability to trust God in
prayer. Whatever it is, you are God’s
treasure and have been placed here by His design. May God be free among us to create the
tapestry of His choosing. And may each
of you come to know how much you matter to us
and to God.
tad
* adapted from previous
article Micah’s Message written by
Tim Dommer
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