Public Worship Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

One of my favorite teachers on the subject of worship is Pastor Jack Hayford, former senior pastor of Church on the Way in Van Nuys, CA.  This week I am excerpting a portion from “A Man’s Worship and Witness” where Jack gives his own unique spin on one the very first worshiping communities—Cain & Abel (see Genesis 4).

Soiled hands placed vegetables in a tidy arrangement on the rock altar. Cain felt proud of his display. His brother, Abel, had begun assembling his own offering hours ago and still wasn’t done.  Cain was. All Cain did was walk into his garden and pull up the fine specimens out of the ground. They had grown all by themselves. And the garden was close by. It all seemed so easy.

A smug smile curled Cain’s lips. His brother- still searching out in the fields for an offering- was laboring for nothing, Cain mused. He looked again upon the grand, colorful altar. There it was. Vegetables. On the altar. Easy. This being one of his first offerings, Cain wondered what exactly was to happen next. Pondering this, he sat on a nearby stone and waited. He looked over at this brother’s altar just as Abel came through the bushes carrying several ewe lambs. It wasn’t long before the lambs were mounted on Abel’s altar and slain.

Cain noticed that Abel’s altar was smaller than his. Good. Having sacrificed the animals on the altar, Abel walked several paces back and knelt in prayer. Cain felt uneasy. He hadn’t done that. But comforted himself by observing that Abel’s altar was blood-stained and dirty, while his was neat, tidy and colorful: orange and red and yellow and green and – just then: Whoosh! Brilliant flames from out of nowhere- from another realm- licked up all of Abel’s sacrifice! All of it! Cain jumped to his feet. A few ashes drifted in the breeze. The colorful harvest on Cain’s altar remained defiantly the same-unchanged. Nothing happened to his.

Cain stormed off, angered and pouting. And it was later, as his tormented mind seethed with hatred and jealousy, that the Lord met him near a tall palm tree: “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it” (Genesis 4:6,7).

Shortly, Cain’s competitive jealousy grew to such intolerable levels that he rose in fury to kill his brother, Abel. And thus, the record teaches us: the first murder was born in the heart of a man who resisted God’s ways of worship. The first victim of violence was a man who worshiped God physically, openly, and freely.

Personally I am challenged by this story…not only from the original text, but also by the way Hayford has drawn applications for us as a worshiping community.  From this, I have come up with a list of takeaways:  

• As we bring an offering to God (ourselves), He wants all of us, not what is comfortable or convenient.
• Nothing less than our very best is really worthy of God.
• He doesn’t require what He does not provide.
• Man looks at the outside—God looks at the heart.
• No true act of worship can be separated from the need for the shedding of blood.  Either we return to the old animal sacrificial system or we adopt God’s new covenant offer of the life of His son. (Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. - Hebrews 9:22)
• Uncontested spiritual warfare can be deadly.  For the time being, Cain, an enemy of true worship, succeeded in quelling the sacrifice of praise offered by his brother. But unlike Abel, we are not left alone to be victimized by the Enemy in an effort to silence our praise.  This is why we often pray that God would “bind the enemy” (Mark 3:27) prior to our worship experiences.  We believe the One in us is greater than the one who is “in the world.”)
• If we allow our worship to go public, it will impact others.  Some might be blessed and encouraged. Others will begin to pull away from us or, worse, try to discredit us.
• As Abel learned, worshiping freely with abandon in public places can be hazardous to your health!  At the very least it can result in you being judged, ridiculed, less popular.  Kind of like Jesus.
• In the end, warring over whose worship is more Christian or appropriate or godly still misses the mark. As wrong as Cain was, he still was not beyond redemption.  The writer to the Hebrews reminds us, “You have come to Jesus, the one who mediates the new covenant between God and people, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks of forgiveness instead of crying out for vengeance like the blood of Abel.”
• Sincere and God-focused worship touches His very heart!  (“The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering...” 4:4) 

Bottom line?  May our ultimate goal be to bring pleasure to the One who alone is worthy, no matter what the personal cost. 

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Easier Sang than Done

Welcome again to each and every one of you who have joined us this fall!  I hope you have had a refreshing break and are raring to go.  To you veterans, you have been missed!  To you rookies, we are glad you are here and hope you still feel the same in a few months!!  As we start another choir season, let’s dive into the Word together for a few moments and see what it might say to us about our worship community.  Let’s focus on three little verses from an Old Testament prophet—Micah, found in chapter 6:6-8.  On one level, it satisfies because of its simple Q & A formula.  If only all of scripture was as clear and indisputable!  But on another level, it could be the source of the old adage: “easier said than done.” 

Q:  With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? 

He has showed you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you? 

A:  To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.

As worship leaders, we know that the very question Micah poses is critical to understanding the nature of worship. It's not about us. It's attitude before action.  It is giving before getting.  What can I bring? What can I offer…to the One who has everything, who owns everything? The apostle Paul reiterates this in Romans 12 when he calls offering ourselves to God as the reasonable thing, the spiritual act of worship.  It’s not the goal, it’s the starting point. 

Much of what we as a choir do in corporate worship involves words, speech, song lyrics, prayers.  But Micah suggests in this passage that offering ourselves to God in worship doesn’t have a whole lot to do with what we say (sing). His three prescribed action steps are just that…actions.  In some sense, our corporate gatherings are more about stated intentions than the fleshing out of what we vow to God.  It is here we declare before Him and one another what we desire to see become reality in our lives.  To put it another way, singing about the awesomeness of God, that He is holy, sufficient, above all gods, is quite different than demonstrating those beliefs with our lives. 

To act justly is one thing when hanging out with other Christians on a Sunday morning; quite another thing come Monday morning (or even Sunday afternoon).  It’s easy to love mercy when we corporately pray for the needs of the Body.  But what does it look like when others hurt us, devalue us, even oppose us?  And walking humbly?  That wasn’t even easy in heaven, when Lucifer lost his place and was cast out.  (Isaiah 14:12ff) The reason: He found it hard to be so gifted, so beautiful, etc., and to walk humbly at the same time.

Gathering around the common task of leading people in worship as a community provides us an excellent lab experience to practice these very principles.  Acting justly in the context of this 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, etc.  As teammates, it is important that we not only worship together regularly but also prepare together regularly.  We will not maintain a consistent momentum towards excellence if we allow issues of comfort or convenience to rule us as it relates to the grunt work of our task—practice. 

As a community, we love mercy when we foster a grace atmosphere...create a safe place for others to grow and be accepted. It means we treat others as we wish to be treated, assume the best motives, even when the behavior is different than expected or what you yourself would do, and be quick to forgive when behavior or motive falls short.  Loving mercy is intensely active and passionate, not passive and wishy-washy. 

And finally, we walk humbly with our God when we demonstrate the attitudes Paul writes about in Romans 12 and Philippians 2:  

Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, 
but rather think of yourself with sober judgment,

In accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, 
but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, 
but also to the interests of others.

So, again, welcome to this choir season!  Welcome to what I believe will be an exciting year of service, outreach and fun. But also welcome to the grand lab experiment we call Christian community, where we learn how to worship with more than words.  

I hope and pray each of you comes to discover your unique and valuable role in this family.  It might be your voice.  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.  The fact is that concepts like acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God are not all that difficult to discuss. But becoming a community of worshipers who experience that regularly in action?  Well that would be something to sing about.

tad

What Not To Wear

You may recognize the phrase “What Not to Wear” as the name of a popular cable TV show which finds seemingly ugly ducklings with frumpy dressing habits and transforms them into chic swans. It happens to be one of my wife’s favorite indulgences. The premise is simple: take one ‘lucky’ candidate (selected, by the way, by close friends and/or family members), put ‘em through fashion boot camp, give them a $5,000 credit card, and turn them loose on a shopping spree, and voila! —they are transformed into a more acceptable, less embarrassing part of mainstream society.

One of the criticisms leveled at this “helpful” show is that it spends the first 10 minutes dismantling the self esteem of its chosen “project” before attempting to reconstruct her. They mock their clothes, shoes, hairstyle, etc., even while trying to affirm the inner or essential beauty of these fashion failures. To be fair, they do spend much of the rest of the show trying to build up their client, focusing their attention on the root cause of the person’s less-than-appealing “presentation.” But by connecting one’s wardrobe, hairdo and makeup to their personal worth or value (even the approval of their friends and family), the viewer is left with the conclusion that it really is important to know what not to wear.

So does what we wear really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things? One ancient proverb states: “A pretty face and fine clothes do not make character.” On the other hand, a very quotable ancient Latin proverb contends: “clothes make the man.” The great humorist Mark Twain later modified that statement a bit, writing: “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

Sadly, this is not how God intended it to be. He made His creation to live unashamed, wearing nothing at all but their ‘birthday suit’. Still, ever since our first parents lost their innocence through the fall, we have been trying to find just the right clothes to cover our bodies. I say right clothes, because what Adam quickly learned was that clothes may make the man, but not just any clothes will do. He discovered all too soon what not to wear—namely, leaves—even big fig ones. They have a habit of drying up, shriveling up and eventually giving up any secrets they initially might hide. (The prophet Isaiah, writing to God’s prideful people, observed that “we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” Isaiah 64:6b) It wasn’t until God himself fashioned skins for our first family that mankind began to understand that not all clothes are created equal. Those first ‘outfits’ were anything but cheap either, having been acquired at the price of some poor animal’s life, by the shedding of blood.

But those first skins were but a foretaste of a much more miraculous makeover that God had in store for us. He knew in advance that our wardrobe required something more permanent than garments labeled wash and wear. Out sin and shame demanded something more holistic than mere window dressing. The prophet Isaiah discovered this hundreds of years before the birth of Christ when he wrote:

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, My soul shall be joyful in my God; 

For He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, 

He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, 

As a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, 

And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

{Isaiah 61:10 - NKJV}

This passage, as one guest preacher recently referred to it, is a legal statement for the Christian, for those who throw themselves completely on the mercy of Jesus for their salvation. The garment of salvation is put on us by God himself, not something we design, that we sew, or put on ourselves. So it is with the robe of righteousness. We are declared righteous because God has punished all our sin when Jesus became sin for us. It, too, is custom designed, purchased, and put on us by our loving Heavenly Father when we trust Christ. We are declared saved...righteous.

But out God-given wardrobe doesn't just have legal implications. We also wrestle with the practical side of this life every day, every moment. And for that, we are also provided a wonderful wardrobe, which we ourselves get to choose. It’s like having that $5,000 credit card to buy that which we could never afford or supply ourselves. Ponder this makeover:

“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, 

clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. 

Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, 

which binds them all together in perfect unity.”

{Colossians 3:12-14}

Are you and I compassionate, kind, humble, gentle and patient by nature? No, but through the Spirit we can put on these divine qualities. Can you and I produce agape (unconditional) love on our own? We don’t have to. Put it on.

So, I guess knowing what not to wear is actually pretty important. For instance, don’t wear leaves (self-made attempts to hide your sin and shame). Don’t wear your own self-determined value system (all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment—Isaiah 64:6a-ESV). But from this point on, determine to enjoy the garment bought for you with the very blood of Christ (yours legally) and the clothes made possible for you through the work of the Holy Spirit (yours practically). It may not get you on a cable TV show, but you can sleep well at night knowing God’s got you covered.

tad

Two negatives equal a positive

Sitting here listening to a new song from one of my favorite contemporary song writers, Nicole Nordeman, entitled Not to Us (from her new CD The Unmaking) To listen, click here. It references and embellishes another one of my favorites, Psalm 115, which begins…

Not to us, LORD, not to us but to your name be the glory,

because of your love and faithfulness.

…our God is in the heavens; He does whatever pleases Him.

It is rare for the psalmist to begin with a negative, much less a double negative.  Not to us…not to us, O Lord. Truth is not all the psalms come out of the gate with praise or thanks.  Some start with questioning, others appear to be rants, still others suggest that David (and other musicians responsible for these 150 poems) could be a bit of a whiner.  Imagine that…a whining artist!  And yet God allowed these musings to be penned and recorded for billions to use as tools for worship.

I think David was so convinced that we are never to be the subject or object of worship that he chose to emphasize what it is not.  It is not about us, though it is essentially for us, for our edification.  And it is certainly not to us, and David gives us the reason why.  “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.”  Period.  As one prof once told me, “Whatever God does is right, because He is God.  When I become God, I can challenge His wisdom for doing whatever He does.” 

Now it is no small thing that we believe, and scriptures clearly teach, that God is good, and mighty, slow to get angry, rich in mercy, etc.  But often we find ourselves in the midst of pain, suffering, or confusion, actually placing God on trial, demanding that He make it perfectly clear what exactly He is up to.  It’s often out of our pain or rebellion that we begin to question His character or motives.

David seems to conclude that the only things we need to know about concerning the worthiness of God are that He is love, and that He is absolutely trustworthy.  Since no one ever created or yet to be created will ever exhibit these two traits perfectly: contest is over.  And since He is God, He gets to make the “glory” call—who deserves it, who doesn’t. Consider a related passage from Isaiah 48:

I am the first and I am the last. 

My own hand laid the foundations of the earth,

and my right hand spread out the heavens; 

when I summon them, they all stand up together.

From now on I will tell you of new things, 

of hidden things unknown to you.

For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath; 

for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you,

See, I have refined you, though not as silver;

 I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.

For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.  

How can I let myself be defamed?

I will not yield my glory to another.

Our God is a jealous, zealous God, remember?  He alone has earned the right to be the focus of any worship uttered by His creation.  In her rendition of Psalm 115, Nicole Nordeman reminds all Christians, but particularly those who lead worship, not to be tempted to hog the spotlight belonging only to our God.

Let us not imagine

that we might have a hand in

where the wind blows,

where grace goes.

Let not any passion

 be for kingdoms we have fashioned

in our own name,

for our own fame.

As we begin another season in the ministry of leading corporate worship, let us be reminded that we are called to bring glory to Christ through our music. Every picture frame has its place, but it is not in the center. Not to us, Lord; not to us but to Your name…  I told you two negatives equal a positive.

tad