Old College Try - Psalm 33

I know that this might be more shop talk or inside baseball than I've been doing here, but I think that it might help you see where what the Psalms say about how you, I and more specifically what church music leaders have to think about worship. For a long time now...say since the reformation, there has been a war between two camps of worshipers. You might recognize these. One side (started from Martin Luther's heart for worship) emphasizes the idea that anyone can lead worship. No training required, just belt out what's in your heart and you'll do good. This by itself has spawned many a Neil Diamond G/C/D worship singers....and this terrible strum you can hear here. There it sits. It never goes past that. It's a perpetual childhood. The sad part is, from their position, adherents are actually proud of it. Like being a "child of God" or "those who become like a child" in their context means never growing or getting better. They look down on the other side because of their "pure heart." Proponents view their simplicity is far "superior" to the other side because the heart of worship is the most important. They think anything that isn't super simple or doesn't sounds folksy/country is a "production." Aside from the misinterpretation of those texts, the problem is in this Psalm says

3 Sing to him a new song; [trained enough to write]

play skillfully, and shout for joy. [never stop pushing to be better and training on your instrument]

There isn't no real way around it...growth is a fruit and motive of the Spirit. Musicianship and artistic motivations shouldn't be any different.

The other side (started by John Calvin's heart for worship) emphasizes the Lord deserves the purest, most perfect worship. He hired a man to translate the Psalms (and only the Psalms) into a metered french translation. No harmony...all monophonic, but because of the push for purity, specialized musicianship became primary. The demand becomes for more and higher trained musicians, singers, etc. What once began as an attempt for the purest truth, and purest worship, now becomes this garbage, and this apocalypse. I'm sure the idea is that the bigger the production the bigger the Lord looks. That isn't uncommon theme in church history but when it becomes only that, it really dead ends at nothing about the Lord. Adherents to this camp look down at the simplistic and say things like "if you don't have a full stage and don't practice four times a week, you don't really care about the Lord or His people." They act like all that work will manufacture hearts for God and bring more people to the Lord and proves their salvation. Lest we think this Psalm is quiet on the subject, David says later, (I'll filter it for a more modern context)

16 No [Church/leader] is saved by the size of his [production];

no [musician] escapes by his great strength.

17 A [giant screen, dance routine, or band] is a vain hope for deliverance;

despite all its great strength it cannot save.

18 But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,

on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,

19 to deliver them from death

and keep them alive in famine.

Those production aspects become, in church leadership meetings, a matter of manufacturing and maintaining salvation of both the church and it's attendees, but that isn't the reality. The Spirit is the only thing that saves, and nothing or nobody can change or add to that.

You see, one is hiding in a cave or the belly of the ship (ala Jonah), and the other is the Israelites marching forward without the Lord and getting slaughtered (Joshua 7, 1 Samuel 4). The scriptures, and the Spirit both call us out of the safe cave of the easy and known, out into the unknown world where faith and work is required to move forward, but we must stay with Him. We must stay constrained by the word and focused solely on Him and Him being glorified, or we will be lost. We must leave port, but we must be steered by and toward Him.

So I hope this helps think about those things and realize that if those two parts of this chapter are heeded, everything else is preference. What can you and I do sitting with the congregation? We can learn to worship no matter the sound, because the commendation to sing new songs and play skillfully also applies to us in the seats. Don't come with the desire to be entertained and avoid thinking about singing to Him except when it's time to do it together. At my church, I send out the sets the night before in the form of youtube playlists in the hope that at least some will take advantage of it before the service. But you can also buy music your church sings and listen to it during the week. Believe me, worship pastors aren't trying to hid that info from you and I am positive they would be blessed to see you ask about it, and would do their best to facilitate you getting a hold of those bands and songs. You shouldn't be passive, the same as the leaders shouldn't. Put some effort into it outside of Sunday for Him and I'm sure you will see a change in your heart, and hopefully the service. Ok, that's it for now. Till next time...

In Christ,
paul



music for the week (as usual: no claim of being not "offensive" but it is really good):

Your Problem With Sunday Worship Is A Problem With Your Heart

 

It's so ridiculous that we are still having to have these discussions. We do not have to sacrifice lyrical content to have good music, NOR do we have to dumb down the music to validate the words. It's maddening to me that anything outside the normal musically is dismissed as being a "rock show" or what is above the normal lyrical baby food is responded to like "Um...I don't get it...there are too many words." This isn't to say that few words are bad or a simple song is either, but the idea that either side is promoting, i.e. a wholesale dumbing down of either music or lyrics, is completely preposterous. There is no grounds for the "holiness" of simple music or simple words. You can prefer either of those but please, let us stop putting on airs that our preferred area of simplicity is more holy. God created us in His image. Part of that is that we imitate Him in His creativity. By saying we have too many instruments or volume, words or ideas is so ignorantly void of the context of God's creation that glorifies Him, I am usually left to wonder if people even look around them once in a while. Even in the simplicity of the seeds, there are complex levels of dna, potential energy and systems designed to get a plant started. I think we have the wrong idea that God only speaks in the "still small voice" of 1 Kings 19. But do you think when the Psalmist declares in 148 "Praise the LORD from the earth, you great sea creatures and all ocean depths," that they do it in a whisper? Do you really think a subtle and simple noise is spoke of in Psalm 98 "Let the sea resound, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it." Of course not. We can not assume simple words or music 100% of the time is even acceptable by scriptural standards. There are no grounds for that. We can not be stagnant. We must continue to respond to the greatness of what God is, what God has done, and what God has promised He will do in like manner. Let us consider these two passages and ask ourselves these questions: does my worship sound like this, and does it even attempt to match the grandeur He has made to surround Himself to bring Himself glory?

Psalm 150

1Praise the Lord.

Praise God in his sanctuary;

praise him in his mighty heavens.

2Praise him for his acts of power;

praise him for his surpassing greatness.

3Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet,

praise him with the harp and lyre,

4praise him with timbrel and dancing,

praise him with the strings and pipe,

5praise him with the clash of cymbals,

praise him with resounding cymbals.

6Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.

Praise the Lord.

Revelation 4

1After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. 3And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby. A rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled the throne. 4Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones, and seated on them were twenty-four elders. They were dressed in white and had crowns of gold on their heads. 5From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. 6Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal.

In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes, in front and in back. 7The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. 8Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

“ ‘Holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty,’

who was, and is, and is to come.”

9Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

11“You are worthy, our Lord and God,

to receive glory and honor and power,

for you created all things,

and by your will they were created

and have their being.”

Maturity In Worship

There’s nothing wrong with being childish—providing you are a child. Paul speaks of this in 1 Corinthians 13:11, writing, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.” It’s cute when a mom tucks a 2.5-year-old toddler into bed and cuts the crust off their sandwiches. Not so much when the kid is 25. There is a level and a process of maturing in worship. We do not (or should not) worship Him in the same exact way as in the infancy of our path in Christ. Are we growing in our worship to the Lord? Is our relationship maturing? Are we still trying to hold onto a fervent time, early in our conversion, that was less complicated, and free of the variables we know now? C.S. Lewis writes in Reflections On The Psalms....

"There is a stage in a child’s life at which it cannot separate the religious from the merely festal character of Christmas or Easter. I have been told of a very small and very devout boy who was heard murmuring to himself on Easter morning a poem of his own composition which began ‘Chocolate eggs and Jesus risen’. This seems to me, for his age, both admirable poetry and admirable piety. But of course the time will soon come when such a child can no longer effortlessly and spontaneously enjoy that unity. He will become able to distinguish the spiritual from the ritual and festal aspect of Easter; chocolate eggs will no longer be sacramental. And once he has distinguished he must put one or the other first. If he puts the spiritual first he can still taste something of Easter in the chocolate eggs; if he puts the eggs first they will soon be no more than any other sweetmeat. They have taken on an independent, and therefore a soon withering, life."
 

He says that in his innocence and sincerity it is very well and is no evil for the simple mind to see no great contradiction between his best expression of devotion and praise, and the biblical truth. Now though, we are no longer in that position. We can't unlearn what we know. By wishing for that earlier time, it would be like wishing to start your walk over again. Doesn't a relationship get sweeter as time goes on? Not one of you would I wish to start over again. I love you all more deeply now than I ever have. That comes with knowing each other MORE, not less. Peter in 1 Peter 2 says that "like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may GROW UP into salvation," but Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3 that the milk is not bad but is for the immature. "i fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it." The point, it would seem, is that the meat is the goal. Not that the milk is sacrificed but it compliments the meat. So as we mature in our relationship with the Father, the foundation of the simple gospel (the most basic understanding we had of it at our conversion) is the bedrock that the more ornate or functional aspects build upon (the freedom and glorious depth that a deeper understanding of the gospel compels us to and sanctifies us by). 

There is a reason why the Lord does not give a lot of instruction on HOW to worship Him but that He is to be worshiped only. It is very clear through scripture that the simple and the complex, the barren and the ornate are both correct. It doesn't get more succinct and guttural than Psalm 57:5 "Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let Your glory be over all the earth!" And nothing is better thought out, thematic, artistic, and poetic then Psalm 119. Both are holy and the Lord accepts. The sum of His instruction comes directly from our Lords mouth "But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit (emotion and conviction) and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." John 4:23,24

That is our foundation. The passion that moves us unto song: Psalm 43:4, and the glory of the accuracy of His truth is the theme of that song: Psalm 119:54. The only thing He prohibits as motivation in the worship of God is....anything else. I almost get the sense (maybe in my own deficit in the knowledge of His commands), that the purpose of writing/playing for the body of Christ (for that person who has that as their purpose) is on the same level of the vilest anti-Christ, demonic or worldly direction. It is, I think, the same as the chocolate egg and Christ being raised. If the purpose of being on stage to lead the body is your first purpose it makes everything dead and vapid. But when the Lord is really the sole purpose, and the leading of the body is a dwarfed motivation in comparison, then and only then will you truly worship and lead.

Which brings me to my next point. Even though we have seen that music and artistic expression of the greatness and glory of the Lord is something the Bible declares as good, does the Lord need us on stage...or even music for that matter? Lewis points out the absurdity in the thought that sacrifice (the physical act) and worship (the spiritual act) are inseparably the same.

"Even the Psalter, though largely a Temple collection, can do so; as in Psalm 50 where God tells His people that all this Temple worship, considered in itself, is not the real point at all, and particularly ridicules the genuinely Pagan notion that He really needs to be fed with roast meat. ‘If I were hungry, do you think I would apply to you?’ (v. 12). I have sometimes fancied He might similarly ask a certain type of modern clergyman, ‘If I wanted music — if I were conducting research into the more recondite details of the history of the Western Rite — do you really think you are the source I would rely on?’"

It is, in worship sometimes, easy to totally forget the Lord entirely..."Did I learn that part right?" "What do I do with my hands again?" "I wonder what I'm doing for lunch." "Boy, I sound off today." You know I can say that, that goes through our heads because all of those things have gone through mine and the one common denominator in those is self. A focus on ourselves and to a lesser extent, anything else beside the Lord, is the main thing impeding a true worship of the Lord (which is really the only purpose of being a worship "leader"). Those things hit at the core of sin, which is our pride. Here are a few ways this works itself out in real life off the stage and divides one passionate church worshiping Him according to His truth, from another passionate church worshiping Him according to His truth (inaccurate/heretical/anti-biblical worship here is assumed truly wrong on the admirable comparison with scripture). "Oh, I would never do that in a worship service!" "They are mild (or out of control)!" "They are too country (or rock)!" "They jump (or stand still)!" "They don't clap or sing (or do that every song)!" "They have too many words (or not enough)!" It is ridiculous, and totally sinful. We all know this! All of us! Everything so far, I really believe through our walks, we know...maybe I'm wrong. But through your humility I know you will see what I am saying. We see the "chocolate egg" for what it is...us, on stage, with an instrument/mic/music in front of us. We know that putting that even remotely on the same level as the Lord is sin and leads to all sorts of things like: prideful grandstanding, singing anything that isn't totally Biblically true, dispassionately reciting words you've sung a thousand times before, backbiting, clicks, and most directly...NOT WORSHIPING HIM. We know this...we have matured past that innocence. Lewis points out that Job knew that trying to use the same elasticity in what/how he may have worshiped in his innocence is no longer acceptable because he had matured past that in his worship of the Lord.

"A passage from Job (not without its own wild poetry in it) may help us: "if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness; and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth kissed my hand; this also would be an iniquity" (31: 26-28) . There is here no question of turning, in a time of desperate need, to devilish gods (or ourselves). The speaker is obviously referring to an utterly spontaneous impulse, a thing you might find yourself acting upon almost unawares. To pay some reverence to the sun or moon is apparently so natural; so apparently innocent. Perhaps in certain times and places it was really innocent. I would gladly believe that the gesture of homage offered to the moon was sometimes accepted by her Maker; in those times of ignorance which God "winked at "(Acts 17, 30). The author of Job, however, was not in that ignorance. If he had kissed his hand to the Moon it would have been iniquity. The impulse was a temptation; one which no European has felt for the last thousand years."

He knows that turning to anything, or worshiping anything but God was a sin, even if it had been done in innocence before. That is what we do when in any of the things I have described; we worship ourselves, or somebody/something else. We are worshiping our own superior extra-biblical stance on genre, volume, or any other stance beside the accuracy of our worship to scripture. I say these things not to shame anyone of you (the Lord knows that is not my intention), but to encourage you in the Lords truth. We are not just "musicians." We are Gospel presenters, and if the Lord wants us to grow and mature in Him (which He does), glorify Him in that! He is a great and powerful God, who is worthy to be praised! Let His righteous statues, your position without/apart from Him, His truly amazing sacrifice to reconcile us to the Father, and the power of our helper the Holy Spirit that sustains us till His Glorious return in power and glory, be the motivation and expression of your worship both in front of the church and in your daily life. That is the Gospel! Let me end with one of my favorite semi modern expressions of the depth of our great God.

"Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky."

                -from "The Love Of God" Frederick M. Lehman, 1917

In the love of God,

Paul