Worship

Through my bible study I write about what I read and what I feel God is trying to teach me. I look at this time as personal devotion and sometimes I share this in a public setting that God can use for other people too. Yesterday’s section was on Orderly Worship. Worship is a has been a hot topic button at so many churches as of late. As I was praying about it and reading the scripture I debated writing about it. Could this offend people? Am I truly qualified to talk about this subject? Am I doing this out of the wrong desires? The more I read the scripture and prayed the more I felt God was telling me to write this. So before you is what I learned about worship through 1 Corinthians 14…

I think back to my own desires of worship. If I had a choice of worship music, DC Talk’s In the Light would be played every Sunday. It’s a song that has always touched my heart and love for the church and Jesus. This would be pointless. People would get tired of hearing this song even if I wouldn’t. Those are my own desires. One question we have to ask ourselves is what we want from worship? We have different songs, instruments, singers and leaders that touch our hearts. We constantly have to ask ourselves is the worship service supposed to be for me or for more then me?

At Seminary I was taking a preaching class and was taught about humbleness from a man who has been preaching for about 40 years. Chuck Sackett was teaching about the overall worship service. He said something along the lines of…

“For the most part I don’t enjoy the worship at our church and that is a good thing. I have been a Christian for over 50 years. If everything we did was to make me happy we are pleasing an already baptized believer who has been preaching for a very long time. That is not the intent of the worship service.”

I pray that I have this humbleness when I am older. Worship isn’t about my own desires, it’s about God. Hailee and I had a guest over the weekend. This guest over the age of 50 has visited our church several times and said this is the first time they felt the Spirit of God in the service. The goal of the worship service is to plan a service designed to grow people closer to God not to please people. If it was to please people I would imagine most would want five minute sermon.

On a couple of different occasions we have had communion mediations go longer then the three-five minutes they are supposed to go. Sometimes I will have a guest with me and they will turn to me and say, wow that was a great sermon, it was short and had a point. I have to tell them that was the communion meditation. They will look at me with shock and disgust. One said to me, “You mean I have to listen to two sermons!”

1 Corinthians 14:26 and 40…

“What then shall we say, brothers and sisters When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.…. But everything should be done in a fitting and orderly way.”

We need to make sure we try not to take scripture out of context. Now there is much I can say about speaking in tongues and interpretation but that will be for a separate time. One of the words I first see that can cause division is the word hymn. We have to have a hymn. The word hymn is translated from a word meaning Psalm. We need to make sure we aren’t looking at just what we want with worship.

The Christian Church was broken up about musical instruments in worship. Some people hated the use of the piano in the church. It caused a church to divide. The people didn’t like the traditional hymn Hallelujah Thine the Glory. Why? It was a bar song (The only place the piano was in were bars and carting that over to the church was wrong) and titled “Hallelujah I’m a Bum.” Therefore the church was divided on it. Honestly, I am glad they kept with the instruments in the church. My brothers and sisters at non-instrumental church I have much love for and no hatred. They still love Jesus just as much if not more then me, but we can worship in that difference and still love each other.

The point of verse 26, we are supposed to be lifted up through the worship service. In order to please God there has to be a plan and practice to execute that plan. Opening Up 1 Corinthians…

“When Christians gather together to praise God and hear his Word, nothing should be given prominence that draws attention to human personalities or distracts from concentrating on the Lord himself and his message to his people. ‘Does it edify?’ is a question to be asked about every part of any coming together of the church.”

We are not supposed to have our own desires in mind with worship. The musical aspect of worship is not supposed to be a request line. People need to pray and think about the song selections to whether they tie in with the overall message about God. This can take hours of planning and sometimes we as non-worship ministers have no idea how much time and planning goes into every aspect of a church service. I see this from the two worship ministers’ I have served beside in Wally and Kris. These guys put a ton of effort more then anyone would know.

The second verse that goes hand and hand with this verse is verse 40. The Corinthian church was struggling with the worship services and The Message writes verse 40 like this, “Be courteous and considerate in everything.” The worship leader needs to look at not their own preferences but God’s. The Bible Exposition Commentary puts it this way…

“The Corinthian church was having special problems with disorders in their public meetings (1 Cor. 11:17–23). The reason is not difficult to determine: they were using their spiritual gifts to please themselves and not to help their brethren. The key word was not edification, but exhibition. If you think that your contribution to the service is more important than your brother’s contribution, then you will either be impatient until he finishes, or you will interrupt him.^”

From this section we are to learn that the worship service is supposed to build the church up and it needs to be done to with careful consideration. This is why I have a special love for those in this position. The worship minister is not an easy position. We need to realize that we can be part of the problem rather then the solution. No matter how much I want In the Light played every Sunday, it’s my own selfish desires and not for the Glory of God.

When you worship this Sunday, no matter what the song, who’s singing, who’s doing the communion meditation and who’s preaching, all the Glory goes to God and not the individual.

What can you do to lift up God instead of yourself? This is what God keeps telling me through this post.

Have a great day.

Over 100 and finding out your wife is pregnant

It’s easy to have faith when everything goes your way. When you score the game winning touchdown, do well on a test or get that raise at work, it’s easy to say, “Thank you God!” What about when the opposite happens?

When things are bad can you still worship God? When a relative dies, you can’t play a sport due to bad grades or you find out you are sicker then you thought? Can you still praise and have faith in God?

I have friends that have struggled through fertility issues. It’s always rough to see people who would be great parents not get that chance. When you have been blessed not to have issues and people close to you have issues, it’s tough. I have friends that have stayed strong in faith and I have seen friends turn their back on their faith. For those you know with fertility issues look at the story of Abraham and Sarah.

These were two people that were outcast because they couldn’t have kids. Kids are looked at as a blessing of God and it was ten times true back in the Old Testament times. You had God’s favor when you were able to have kids. If you didn’t have kids, God must be mad at you. So people looked down on Abraham and Sarah. It drove them crazy to see everyone around them pregnant and they were not. God did promise a kid, but it was on his timing not theirs. They could turn their backs on their faith or grow stronger in it.

During the bad times, you can get down or stay faithful. Abraham chose to stay faithful during this tough time, Romans 4:20-22…

“Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Abraham knew God was going to come through for him and even while he was around 100, he still trusted God. God did eventually bless what today would be great grandparents with their first child. Sarah was pregnant.

Faith in God allowed Abraham to receive his blessing. If everything happened the way you wanted it to and in your timing, would you learn anything or need to have faith? It’s easy to praise God when life is going your way, its tough when things aren’t going smooth. Have faith during the tough times. There is a God who loves you and wants the best for you. Grow through the tough times. No athlete gets anything handed to them, they have to work hard at it. There are times faith will be easy and hard. You go through the hard times and that will make you appreciate the good times even more.

Stay strong, have faith in Jesus to come through. Grow and learn through the tough times and just like Abraham you can have a great blessing in the end. Trust in Jesus.

Have a great day.

Speaking in tongues

A line was forming at the checkout of a grocery store.

A couple of men were waiting behind another gentleman who had an obvious glow behind him.

The couple of men found out just like them he was Christian and started to talk about faith.

Soon this man asked the couple of guys, “So have you guys been able to speak in tongues yet?”

“No,” they replied.

He explains to them in more or less words, you haven’t lived till you have been able to speak in tongues.

As the man left and wished them well, they had a little laugh, one of them was a bible college president.  (this is a true story I heard, but I can’t come up with the exact details as it happened several years ago, so I am not giving any credits to it).

I have heard many thoughts, scripture and desires when it comes to speaking in tongues.

As I read through Acts chapter 2 verses 1-13, this is the main verse I am focusing on Acts 2:4-8…

“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.  Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.  Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?  Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?”

Speaking in tongues is one of the ways the Church gets separated, I will explain what happened above and give conclusions and then my take on this.

In this scripture it mentions being filled with the Holy Spirit and then beginning to speak in tongues.

This is different from Acts 2:38, repent and be baptized each and every one of  you and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

This is not meant just to be able to speak in tongues. 

This different scripture comes up in Acts 4:8, 31; 6:3, 5; 7:55; 9:17 and 13:9, 52.

This is where the Holy Spirit can come up to you not only at the moment of baptism but in other ways.

The way it’s described in Acts 2:38 comes up again in 11:15-16; Romans 6:3; 1 Corinthians 12:13 and Colossians 2:12.

When looking at Acts 2:4-8, most bibles will have a footnote next to tongues and in the footnote it will say…or languages.

So where it says “they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues,” it could be read like this, “they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages.”

The original bible uses the word dialekto, this word translates to the word language.  This what gives way in 1 Corinthians 2, 10, 19 and 12-14.

This is where I struggle with speaking in tongues today.

In the bible they used moments like Acts 2:4-8 to speak to a huge crowd of people.

This would be like going to the crowd at the Olympics you start talking in English and people who are Russian, German, Spanish, Ethiopian, Swedish and Canadian can hear what you are saying in English and understanding every single word in their own language.

They asked each other how can we understand them we don’t speak their language yet we can understand them?

Speaking in tongues is used differently today.

Through my lifetime and before coming to my own faith, I attended several different churches (Catholic, Lutheran, Non-denominational, southern gospel, Baptist, Community Church amd Christian Church).

I have been to Churches that have believed in speaking in tongues and I have been in Churches that have believed in speaking in tongues and needing a translator.

I talked to a friend who believes in speaking in tongues but believes you need a translator.

He once walked into a service and found out they spoke in tongues, they  didn’t have a translator so he walked out.

In bible times they used this so crowds of people could understand what they were saying and the message they wanted to share about Jesus.

This is completely different then the speaking in tongues today.

Today speaking in tongues is done mostly in Sunday morning worship settings, sometimes with translators and sometimes without.

I struggle with this.

If speaking in tongues was done in public setting where anyone could hear the message, why do we subjugate it to a certain denomination of Church and just in a Church building?

I believe that the speaking in tongues in the bible is not the same speaking in tongues that we used today.

I have heard of one story with an exchange student that didn’t speak any English and she was able to recite perfect English through speaking in tongues.

That happened once and I have never heard of anything like that ever again.

This brings me to why people speak in tongues today….

1.      They get caught up in the worship and don’t know how to express themselves (In the 1800’s people would get so caught up in emotions in revivals people would scream nonsense and bark up trees).
2.      When they are caught up in worship this is what happens.
3.      They see someone else do it and feel like doing it themselves.
4.      They think it’s an act of prayer.
5.      Feel called to do it.
6.      I don’t know.

There is a lot I am not sure of, but I don’t believe the speaking in tongues in Churches today represents the biblical reasoning for speaking in tongues.

If we felt like God was giving us the ability to speak in tongues, why is it only done inside a Church?

Why isn’t in done in a public area instead of in a Church building?

Why don’t I see this happen in a restaurant or a major sports event?

I have yet to go to a public place where multiple different languages were spoke and someone spoke in tongues on behalf of Jesus.

So when I look at how people speak in tongues today, I look at it as an expression done in a worship setting where you let yourself go, voice, mind and spirit.

The translating part I believe is garbage because the miracle of speaking in tongues was everyone could understand in their own language and did not need to be translated.

The miracle was in the ability to listen not to speak.

If you are thinking will I not associate with these people because they believe this, you are wrong.

Jesus said this is Mark 9:40…

“for whoever is not against us is for us.”

Speaking in tongues is not a deal breaker for me.

I have plenty of friends that believe in speaking in tongues and are minister’s at churches that do or go to church there.

That’s cool, the main thing is worshiping God with our lives.

I will not attend a church that believes in speaking in tongues personally but the gospel message is way more important than a churches view on speaking in tongues.

Our main goal is to reach people with the gospel message and that is why I work hand and hand with people of multiple denominations and we have been able to do some amazing things we would not have done without each other’s help.

There is much love I have for those that carry to name Christian and speaking in tongues is not a reason to disassociate with someone.

It’s the same way with Churches that don’t believe in instruments in the Church, that’s their thing, they like it that way.

I wouldn’t attend that Church but I am not going to hate those people for that reason.

Summing this entire thing up…

I don’t believe in speaking in tongues today represents the biblical way it was meant for.

I will still associate with people that believe in speaking in tongues (Mark 9:40).

Jesus loves all of us and the most important message is for us to share this and not argue about smaller things like instruments in church or speaking in tongues.

If you read to this point I appreciate that.

Have a great day.