ResponsiveReiding

Just as in the larger culture, certain terms come and go even in the Church. Ever since the advent of the American Jesus Movement in the late 60’s – leading worship in music took on a life of its own. There emerged in that time and atmosphere, and new focused role called the “Worship Leader.” This worship leader was considered part of the ministry team. The role grew and grew to what might be perceived as occupying a very outsized place of influence. And typically (though certainly not in all cases) this new ministry office seemed to come with its own set of rules.

Worship leaders by and large (and forgive me if I paint with too broad of a brush here) were not held to the same rigorous standards as those who preached and taught. Talent was a main ingredient. Whether or not the music chosen was Biblically sound was not as much a primary concern, as long as it used Bible language or concepts. More importantly it seems – if it produced a certain atmosphere, evoking a visceral response in the congregation.

So the worship leader could be a man or a woman. No distinctions needed there. And perhaps their lifestyles were not as scrutinized as others in ministry. Afterall, they were usually “artsy” and free-spirited and not overly theological. With some very noted and notable exceptions.

Now I don’t want to make that sound entirely out of line. Music should help people fix on Biblical truth in memorable ways that also stir the emotions – with the truth – above just the music itself.

I watched a video recently where someone was reacting to a live recording in Denmark by Gary Brooker of Procol Harum fame, performing the amazing piece – A Whiter Shade of Pale. It is a masterpiece. The man watching the performance broke into tears. The piece is highly emotive. The music is truly beautiful and carried by a melody and chord progression which easily lead one to high emotions. These coupled with a set of very enigmatic lyrics can have a profound effect. But make no mistake, it is not worship.

Truly, this phenomenon can be repeated even in so-called Christian music. The right chords, and a haunting melody can actually eclipse the message – especially if the message is not clearly communicating Biblical truth, but is sufficiently vague to let the “worshipper” sort of pour their own meaning and emotion into it.

Now as far back as Exodus 15, we have Moses’ sister Miriam, leading the people in singing to the Lord in regard to his deliverance of Israel from Egyptian bondage and the miracle of parting the Red Sea. It was an appropriate response. And it fixed on exalting God for his great works. But the very next record of something similar – and serving as both a warning and a counterpoint is in Exodus 32. As Moses descends Sinai with the tables of the Law, he hears something coming from the camp. Once again there is singing and dancing by God’s people – but this time as they celebrated the consecration of the Golden Calf. God’s people, engaging in the identical behavior – but this time, it is idolatrous. It did not have as its anchor – God, and who and what he was and had done. But it was no less joyous, emotional and done by God’s People. It is worth considering.

All of that aside, I want to argue briefly, that all of God’s people ought to be worship leaders, and that we take back that role from a few select talented folk. How so? We catch the concept in 1 Peter 2:0-10 “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, to proclaim the virtues of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

As a people, God has set aside the Redeemed, that we might proclaim, make known, HIS virtues. HIS perfections. HIS glory. And that, more than our joy or feelings about it, as legitimate as they are.

It is a call for an entire congregation of people to delight ourselves in who and what God is and what he has done, and to communicate that to one another over and over and over. And that, with this focus – his deliverance in the cross from the darkness and bondage of sin, having received mercy, and now being made his own people. In other words – to magnify the work of Christ on our behalf.

You may not be able to carry a tune in a bucket. You may not be able to play a single instrument. But you and I can lead others into worship, as we rehearse for ourselves and to one another – the glory of God in our salvation. As we lift up the cross of Christ. And remind each other, especially in our struggles, that he is holy, and good and merciful and full of grace and forgiveness and has purchased us for himself with the blood of Jesus – and has granted us his Spirit, his people, his Word, access to his throne in prayer – and the promise of eternal life in the resurrection.

Let us lead one another in this kind of worship today. And every day.

Be a true Worship Leader.

Most views of the end times, fall into shades or versions of either Premillennialism, Amillennialism or Postmillennialism.

So on the top level we have a view that either says: 1 – Human history will plod on until Jesus returns, and then there is his literal 1000 year reign on the earth; 2 – Jesus is ruling and reigning now and will continue to do so until he returns – but the “1000” years is basically now until he returns; 3 – Christianity is going to gradually grow until it becomes dominant on the earth, and then Jesus will return. And then like I said, there are variations on each of these themes. And, each points to scriptures that appear to validate their particular view, and then extrapolate what that will look like in the unfolding of human history.

To be honest, I think there are in fact smattering of all 3 concepts in the Bible. The question is, are these views mutually exclusive – or might something else be at play? And I think it may be the latter.

Let me explain, but with a bit of oversimplification to get at a point.

Most Premills, envision Christianity in the world continuing but facing an inevitable period of severe persecution just before Jesus comes back. Again, with some variations.

Amills envision Christianity in the world, but with Jesus on the throne now – all things sort of continue as is until his return.

PostMills envision Christianity in the world continuing and progressing to a wonderful state until Jesus’ return.

But hind all 3 of these views, is the tendency (I’m just citing a tendency mind you) to interpret these matters in light of what is or isn’t happening where were are in our little corner of the world.

For example, Jonathan Edwards, a convinced PostMill, experiencing the Great Awakening and it impact here in America, easily sees his PostMill convictions verified in the move of God he is in the midst of. Naturally. But while this move of God was happening here, what was going on in China, or the Sudan, or Australia? Would Believers there think the Kingdom was dawning in that way?

And how would Premills here during that time read it? Where is the persecution and the rise of anti-christ? Or Amills? Was this a sign of Jesus’ present reign? Or was it simply one of the ups-and-downs of history?

My point is this: When Jesus returns – when it comes to Believers globally, he will probably return to Christians somewhere nearly extinguished by persecution, where others are enjoying revival and great advancement, and others still in other climes solidly holding the fort. Some will be grinding at the mill in hard labor, some just laboring in the field – maybe harvesting and rejoicing, some will be asleep, others awake, some marrying, some burying, some rejoicing, some weeping. The “Church” in any given region may be living and ministering in a PreMill, PostMill or Amill context. And to assume that the whole Church globally will be experiencing Jesus’ near return in exactly the same way is perhaps a bit too parochial, too narrow. It does not leave room for the various ways the Scripture may speak.

So, when we look at the group of parables in Matt 13 – Will there be sowing the Gospel with varying results? Yup. Will the Kingdom be growing like a mustard seed? Yup. Will the Kingdom be invading like the leaven? Yup. Will evil weeds be growing in God’s field? Yup. Will the Kingdom be hidden like treasure? Yup. Will the Kingdom be like gathering good and bad fish together? Yup? All of these will be true, in varying degrees in various places and at various times.

At some times and in some places, the Church will look fantastically triumphant. Satan utterly bound.

At some times and in some places, the Church will look like it is snuffed out. Satan rampaging and seemingly conquering.

At some times and in some places, the Church will be steady Eddie. Satan bound but still active.

And then the big deal: All of these can be happening in various places on the globe AT THE VERY SAME TIME – when Jesus returns.

Bottom line? Don’t let your eschatology be governed by your local newspaper. The Kingdom is vast, and is in various stages of growth and experience all over the place.

No matter what the current stage or experience you or I are undergoing right now, nor what trend we may see on the horizon – it may be very VERY different for your brothers or sisters elsewhere. How some of the Believers during the Black Plague must have understood their plight as the sure sign of final torment before Jesus’ return.

He’s coming back. As Robert Winsett wrote in song years ago:

Troublesome times are here, filling men’s hearts with fear
Freedom we all hold dear now is at stake
Humbling your hearts to God saves from the chastening rod
Seek the way pilgrims trod, Christians awake

Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the skies
Going where no one dies, heavenward bound

Troubles will soon be o’er, happy forevermore
When we meet on that shore, free from all care
Rising up in the sky, telling this world goodbye
Homeward we then shall fly, glory to share

Oh, Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the skies
Going where no one dies, heavenward bound

Jesus is coming soon, morning or night or noon
Many will meet their doom, trumpets will sound
All of the dead shall rise, righteous meet in the skies
Going where no one dies, heavenward bound
Heavenward bound, heavenward bound

As one who has spent decades preaching and teaching God’s Word, I can say without fear of contradiction that this beast we call preaching is sometimes akin to riding an untamed monster. Let me explain.

First, we are met with the weight of trying to communicate God’s Word, on his behalf. to his people. So it is we need to separate between our own mere thoughts, opinions, agendas and ideas, and God’s as they are found in the text. There is the constant danger of letting us as communicators spill over on to him. To superimpose ourselves onto Christ’s personality, heart and mind. Here is a battle we must constantly fight – to let his Word be heard, and not our own.

Second, we come to the task with all sorts of defects. We preach to people about their sins, but must never lose touch with our own lest we become imperious and give the impression we do not need the Gospel as much as our hearers do. That we are the example – not Christ. Truth be told, we often do not want to need the Gospel as much as we tell others they do. We want to think ourselves above certain attitudes, weaknesses and outright sins. But as the old saying goes, we are in fact only lepers, telling other lepers where they can find bread – as per 2 Kings 7.

Third, we are so often prone to gauge our success (or lack thereof) by how we feel a particular sermon was received or not; by the sensory experience of that particular worship service. To rely on the comments of others, both positive and negative. In this, we can forget the reality of how our own subjective feelings on any given day may fluctuate due to a host of factors – as well as those of our audience. It is a fruitless consideration – but very present and real.

Fourth, it is easy to forget that we are merely heralds and that the Holy Spirit alone can make our preaching effectual in the hearts and minds of our hearers. And so to constantly plead with him for his moving upon both ourselves, and them in the execution of our office.

It is in thinking on these things again this morning that I offer up something I wrote many years ago for my own reflection upon my preaching duties. I titled it then – The Preacher’s Manifesto.

And might I add, if you are going to worship this morning – pray for your preacher. Please.

I am a preacher of the Gospel,

One of the sails on a great ship.

I did not make myself.

I was created by His hand,

For His purpose.

Sin brought rottenness, carelessness and neglect.

But the holes are mended through by His Grace,

Lest even unfurled, I am of no use.

Prayerlessness keeps me wrapped and rolled.

Prayer alone hoists me high in preparation for service.

Yet, mended in righteousness and hoisted high in prayer,

If the Wind not blow,

If the Spirit not move;

There is no power, no progress,

no true advancement toward the Harbor.

I am, we are, adrift – and at the mercy of the currents, or lack of them.

Holy Spirit – Breathe on us!

John 12:21d – “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”

In D. A. Carson’s wonderful memoir of his Dad – (Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson) – he mentions something his Dad wrote in one of his journals; the entry reads: “Keep me from the sins of old men”—some of which he details: a tendency to gravitate toward watching television, the temptation to look backward instead of forward, sliding toward self-pity, easy resentment of young men.” ^{D. A. Carson, Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008), 144.}

Those are excellent words, and not surprisingly, in principle, demonstrating pitfalls alluded to in Scripture. Among those references I think we can rightly look at Proverbs 3:25-26. For it references one of the other sins of old age – the tendency to give into various fears. As weakness and frailty begin to make their way in our bodies, so neither are our minds and hearts immune to new places of weakness and frailty. Things which we used not give a passing thought to now take center stage in our minds.

The Preacher in Ecclesiastes 12 calls old age the “days of adversity”. When the eyes don’t see as well, the hands tremble, the ears lose their acuity, sleep patterns shift and even things like climbing steps engender fears we never had before.

Growing old is not for the faint of heart!

Now while all of these are natural processes in these years before resurrection, most, if not all of these and more, spark a raft of new fears. Fears which are then exacerbated by a society and media machine that blares constant predictions of doom at every turn. Nature gone wild, politics gone wild, nations gone wild, movements of all kinds threaten us at every turn. And then we read this: “Do not fear sudden danger or the ruin that overtakes the wicked, for the LORD will be your confidence and will keep your foot from the snare.” ^{Prov. 3:25-26}

Is ruin at hand, that overtakes the wicked? Yep. And how are we to respond to it? Young or old? By confidence in the Lord. For the one who is bought with the blood of Christ – keeping our hearts and minds fixed on the love of God that sent Jesus to die for us, and will raise us up in the resurrection to rule and reign with him – that love, drives out fear. (1 John 4:18) In fact, nothing else will. Not the right party in office; the end of religious radicalism; not a better economy; not the absence of war; not the eradication of diseases and other existential threats. Nothing but the privilege of the Believer, to rest in the love of the triune God.

Let me apply this to the time we find ourselves in America today, with the shifting sands of everything we once thought stable, by way of example in Israel’s history.

When Israel and Judah were judged for their sin as nations, the righteous among them went into exile with them. They too endured invasion, war and captivity. But the righteous could cling to the Lord and have confidence in His keeping, while those actually being chastened could not.

It is not far fetched to think America soon to fall under more severe judgments than are already ours for our national sins.

But the Christian, the child of God need not be afraid of the sudden terror and the ruin of the wicked when it comes. The Lord remains our confidence, and He will keep our foot from being caught up in it. We remain His.

Mature saint – let us take up the mantle of living this way – so that we can pass it on to a younger generation who – surveys tell us – are living under more and more fear of existential threats reinforced by social media and magnified on every hand.

There is security from the fear that something unseen, unknown, unstoppable will suddenly come upon us. It is the steadfast love of the Lord.

Let not the younger ones around us grow faint because we have caved to a panicked dread. But let them see our calm resolve in the faithfulness of our Christ and King and his sovereign hand over all – in love.

Reading this passage, what popped into my head was a scene from my early youth – in Sunday School (or was it VBS?). We were taught this little song:

Building up the Temple
Building up the temple,
Building up the temple.
Building up the temple of the Lord.
Brother, won’t you help me?
Sister, won’t you help me?
Building up the temple of the Lord.

We did it complete with hand gestures, of fist upon fist as building stones and then waving to “brothers and sisters” to come and help. It’s a sweet memory.

Now the artificial division between the end of 1 Kings 6 and the beginning of 7 tends to soften what is at first a jarring consideration. Solomon takes 7 years to build the Temple, but thirteen years to build his own palace? What’s going on here?

As for what the actual reasons are for the disparity – who knows? One commentator chalks it up to 2 factors; a. Solomon felt more urgency and importance in building the Lord’s House, thus finishing it first as a priority, and b., since the palace encompassed both Solomon’s residence and the complex for the seat of government – it was much larger and wasn’t as urgent.

Again – who knows? We’ll give Sol the benefit of the doubt.

But perhaps there is something of a type or shadow here too?

Creating the heavens and the earth was but a 6 day affair for our God; which contained the Garden, His first “Temple”.

Think then how long Christ has been about the work of building His own house through the making and assembling the living stones redeemed by His blood.

It is a much more monumental and glorious task to build His Church as His dwelling place than to create the cosmos.

What then is this “building” He is assembling to dwell in? And no wonder when Paul prays in Eph. 3:16-17 he notes that it requires nothing less than the glorious efforts of the Holy Spirit to strengthen us in our inner man so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.

The unbearable weight of the glory of His presence must be supernaturally granted. We cannot stand it in ourselves. How much time, care and divine craftsmanship is being exercised in this great assemblage.

1 Peter 2:4-5 “As you come to Him, the living stone, rejected by men but chosen and precious in God’s sight, you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

He is taking his time with us beloved. For the glory we are to so fully contain, is indeed, uncontainable – and beyond description. “In My Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and welcome you into My presence, so that you also may be where I am.” John 14:2-3

6 Days of creation, thousands of years for his house. And Christ is faithful as the son over God’s house – whose house we are if we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope of which we boast. He who began the good work in us – WILL complete it!