How can you tell if a person is genuinely participating in worship? Be careful with your answer. I have known many who believe that the way to gage the worship of a believer is to look at their face for emotion. Are they weeping? Are they really into the music? Those things must be worship.
If you think that many do not measure worship by such a rule, consider how the churches you have attended shape the worship service. How many of them work to set a particular mood, to play on particular heart strings, in order to call you into their particular form of worship? How many utilize every ploy they can to heighten your emotions to encourage you to feel deeply? Obviously, the assumption is that the more moved you are by the experience, the more you have worshipped. These emotions might be strong joy as the band really cranks it up or they may be deep and touching emotion as the lighting switches, softer music plays, and the video screen reminds you of the depths of God’s love.
Now, before moving on, let me say that I do not oppose media, music, or emotion in worship. But, and this is important, I believe we need to grasp that our emotions are not the measure of whether or not our worship is true. You can be as into the music as anybody, and you can fail in worship. You can weep until you have no more tears to weep, and you may not at all have turned your tear-streaked face to the Lord.
Hebrews 12:28-29 – 28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
Note that here, in Hebrews, there is a call for acceptable worship. What is it? It is not a call to offer acceptable worship, so you better get into the music even if it is not your style. Nor is it a call to get more emotional than your constitution is cut out for. Instead, the call is to respond to the Lord with reverence and awe. Revere the Lord. Bow before him as King. Speak, sing, hear, and believe true things about the Lord that make you honor him. This can be done with deep emotion, but the emotion is not at all central—it certainly is not as important as truth.
Look to the Lord in awe. Be amazed by God. Be stunned by his power, his perfections, and his grace. How do we do that? WE do not do this by manipulating emotions with the same kinds of things that happen here in Vegas when a showman wants to tweak the feelings of the audience. No, we bring about awe by communicating truth about who the Lord is. He is a consuming fire. He is the Holy One. God is our Creator, our King, our Savior, and this truth, if rightly understood, should lead us to reverence and awe.
No, I’m not here trying to rant against modern tech in worship. Nor am I pointing to any particular group. But what I want is for us as Christians to recognize that acceptable worship is not measured by the implicit standards that many are now using. Acceptable worship is about truth, about God, about revering him and being in aw of him. This is not something drummed up by our tech, our music, our drama, our poetry, or anything else. The only way to have genuine awe of the Lord is to know the Lord and to have his word, his revelation of himself, rightly proclaimed. So let our worship be more about the Lord and his word and the truth being spoken, sung, and received. That will be a worship that leads us to reverence and awe.
We Need More Heaven
When I was growing up, we sang about heaven in the church. I expected, on any given Sunday, to sing with a southern gospel twist, songs like “When We All Get to Heaven,” “When the Roll is Called Up Yonder,” or “Victory in Jesus.” And there was both a goodness and something not-so-good with the way that all went.
On the negative side, so many of the songs that we sang about heaven had a sadly misplaced focus. There was a fascination with golden streets and reunion with long lost relatives that, as I grew older, bothered me. It was as if the songs removed the focus from the presence of the Lord, the prime focus of heaven, and majored on the accoutrement’s of heaven. So, of course, as I grew, and while I was far too full of myself and my own wisdom, I found myself turning away from wanting to sing those kinds of songs.
But there is a problem. Singing about heaven is good. Focusing on the eternal life to come is, without question, a Christian salve to soothe our burdened souls in the here and now. Focusing on things above is a godly spiritual discipline. And my turning up my nose at the songs that made me think of heaven did not help.
Hebrews 11:13-16 – 13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
People who speak of their eternity being bound up in heaven please the Lord. People who sing of the joys to come when we are freed from this sin-cursed world to stand face-to-face with our Savior do him honor. People who recognize that we can let go of pleasures in this life for the sake of the pleasures of the life to come give the Lord an honor that the world around us cannot and will not understand.
So, my conclusion is that we need more heaven. We need more heaven in our thinking. We need more heaven in our singing. No, I’m not suggesting that we pick up weak songs that focus more on gold, jewels, and grandma than they do on Jesus. But there has to be something better than throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We need heaven in our songs. We need heaven in our hearts. WE need heaven on our lips. WE need heaven in our minds. WE need heaven in our motivation. We need heaven to give us comfort in our sorrow. We need heaven to drive us to obedience to the word of God. We need heaven to fill our lives so that people will know that we live, not for this world’s rewards, but for the rewards of the world to come when Jesus will make all things new.
So, we should sing of heaven. We should consider heaven. We should study heaven. We should dream of heaven. We should not remove the focus from the focus of heaven, the presence of the Lord in his glory. Nor should we ignore the other joys of heaven. But we, modern, thinking, growing, studying Christians should be sure that heaven is at the center of our hearts just as it was for those who pleased the Lord as the author of Hebrews showed us.
Daily Time in the Word: Legalism or Just a Right Idea
How do you handle the word of God on a daily basis? Obviously, I’m asking Christians here. What do you do with Scripture from day-to-day? Are you reading the word of God? Are you actually putting in work to understand it, to learn it, to apply it, to obey it?
Wait a minute. Nobody says that we have a biblical command to read the word every day. That is not written in Scripture. So we cannot give each other a guilt trip over daily quiet time. Besides, all of us have different schedules and different capacities.
Look at something that David said about his time in the word of God.
Psalm 119:15 – I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
David, the man after God’s heart, when speaking of the word of God, overflows with love and praise. Here, in the longest of the Psalms, David says that he will meditate on God’s word. He is going to take time to really think, really mull over the word of God. David is not merely going to do a cursory reading and immediately walk back into his normal life. He is going to let the word of God have its impact on him.
No, I cannot and will not make a rule for any Christian regarding required Bible reading. I will not tell you how much you have to read or how long you have to spend reading. But I will say that, if King David saw that meditation on the word of God was a right and lovely thing, if God saw fit to inspire that love in David and to have it recorded in holy Scripture, then we should see that this is a good thing. Thus regular time in the word of God, meditating on and studying the Scripture, should be a part of a healthy Christian life. And if your life lacks in time in the Scripture, you should examine yourself carefully. You should ask the Lord to help you. And you should work to make time to do the life work of growing in the word of God.
Balancing Fear
As human beings, our fears are upside-down. Often we find ourselves skittish about the opinions of others. Often we let ourselves worry about what evil people might do to us. And somehow, we have forgotten that the God who made us is far more powerful and far more dangerous.
Isaiah 51:12-13
12 “I, I am he who comforts you;
who are you that you are afraid of man who dies,
of the son of man who is made like grass,
13 and have forgotten the Lord, your Maker,
who stretched out the heavens
and laid the foundations of the earth,
and you fear continually all the day
because of the wrath of the oppressor,
when he sets himself to destroy?
And where is the wrath of the oppressor?
God says that, for those who know him, he is the God who comforts us. God is right here with us to have mercy on us, to show us kindness, and to shape us into people who honor him. Yet, if we are honest, we often find ourselves afraid, not of disappointing our Savior, but instead of not being accepted by those who oppose the Lord. We find ourselves afraid of what people will think of us, of what our futures may hold, of what our health might do, of violent men, of what the government might do. But the Lord tells us that such a fear is misplaced.
Consider how Isaiah put it. We fear men, mortals, people who die. We forget the Lord, who by his own mighty hand stretched out the heavens above us. We worry about the actions of humans. We forget the eternal life and infinite power of the God who made us.
So, as I say, our fears are upside-down. God is almighty. God is Creator. God is righteous. God is our Judge. We must not assume that we can ignore him and be blameless. Instead, we should turn to him, seek his mercy, and trust him. We should run to him for eternal safety, even if we are worried about the here-and-now. May we set our priorities, our devotion, and our fears aright. May we focus ourselves on the God who is eternally God and not on the things that will fade like grass on a desert summer day.
Isaiah Points to Jesus
One of the joys of regular Bible reading is the way that we get to see pictures of and references to Jesus that had previously not gotten our attention. In my reading through Isaiah, I find myself noticing more and more of how the prophet said things that are about the Lord Jesus, things that speak to the deity and glory of the Son of God.
Isaiah 45:22-23
22 “Turn to me and be saved,
all the ends of the earth!
For I am God, and there is no other.
23 By myself I have sworn;
from my mouth has gone out in righteousness
a word that shall not return:
‘To me every knee shall bow,
every tongue shall swear allegiance.’
In verse 22, we see a couple of things that are undeniably happening. God is clearly declaring his own identity. There is one God. There is not another. And watch as the descriptions continue. The one God, the only God, says that to him every knee shall bow and all tongues swear allegiance.
But wait, that sounds familiar.
Philippians 2:9-11 – 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Here we see a New Testament usage of Isaiah’s prophecy. But we see that this text is not only applicable to God the Father. Instead, the Father is clear that the honor due his name is also due the Son. The Father is making it clear that, though the Son humbled himself and gave up his rights (Phi. 2:5-8), the Son is restored to his position of glory. The worship due only the Father is also given to the Son. This identifies the deity and glory of the Savior, as to him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess him Lord, swearing allegiance.
If the Scripture is true, if Philippians is accurate, if Isaiah is inspired, then there is only one conclusion for us to reach: Jesus is God. If Jesus is God, he is truly the only way for mankind to have grace and eternal life. We must bow to him as the Father says, declare our allegiance to God through Jesus, and find our hope and our life in him.
Favor – A Review
Greg Gilbert. Favor: Finding Life at the Center of God’s Affection. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2017. 178 pp. $9.85.
I’m growing to love the writings of Greg Gilbert. His work with Mark Dever devoted to helping us understand church health is highly valuable. His little book, What is the Gospel, is a wonderful tool in helping believers to understand a simple presentation of the true faith. And now Gilbert has produced a solid book on helping us to know how to understand, gain, and enjoy the favor of God.
In Favor, Gilbert takes on the false understandings of the favor of God that are often put forth by prosperity preachers and legalists worldwide. Then Gilbert shows how the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way to the favor of god. As in What is the Gospel, Gilbert speaks to us clearly and relatably about the way of salvation in Christ. Then Gilbert spends half of the book showing us the glorious benefits of life in the favor of God.
As a pastor, I would quickly recommend this book to a variety of people in the church. Gilbert’s writing is so engaging and simple that any believer of any level could read and benefit from the book. Believers struggling with contentment or guilt could gain from the insights of the text. This book would make a fine tool in the toolbox of a biblical counselor who wants to help a person see that the gospel, and not our performance, is the source of our receiving favor from the Lord. Even non-believers who assume they must work their way into the favor of God could benefit from the clear gospel at the beginning of this work.
Are you struggling to actually believe that God loves you? Read this book. Are you wondering if your failures in the past are keeping you from the goodness of God? Read this book. Are you foolishly thinking that you have earned something good from God by your good behavior? Read this book. Are you wanting to know how to communicate the gospel of Christ and the sweetness of his Favor? Read this book.
• I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Milk is not Enough
We expect different behaviors from different people. If a person runs on wobbly legs, falls down, gets up, runs again, falls down again, and continues the process, our reaction is completely different based on the person’s age. If it is a toddler learning to walk, we love it. We applaud. WE voice words of encouragement, “You’re getting so big!” But if it is a 25 year old with no physical disability, we immediately want to know what is wrong.
In the life of a believer, there is a different standard for what we should expect of a person based on their spiritual age. If a person has just become a believer, we do not expect them to be able to recount for us a systematic theology. WE are happy if they grasp the gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. We are happy if they know that the Bible is the word of God, trustworthy and authoritative for all of life. And when they make mistakes in their thinking or reasoning regarding Christian truth, we are gentle in helping them along.
But what about the person who should be growing in faith? What about the one who should be mature? What about the one who has been a believer for years and is still walking like a toddler when it comes to biblical truth?
Hebrews 5:11-14- 11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
The author of Hebrews says that he wants to share some deep and powerful spiritual truths with the Hebrews, but he can’t. They are not ready. Though they should be ready, they have not worked to grow in their understanding of the faith. Their knowledge is lacking. Their ability to distinguish good from evil is lacking. They have continued to eat baby food when they should have progressed, and it leaves them at a disadvantage.
Christians, milk is fine for babies. But milk is not the diet of a grown-up. And if you are a believer, know that God wants you to grow up. That means that you cannot sit still in your learning. You cannot slack off on your discipleship. You should be studying. You should be reading. You should be listening to good teaching. You should be challenging your intellect. You should be shaping your thinking more and more to match the word of God. You should never think you know enough. And you should be giving yourself to growth for the good of your soul and the glory of God.
How do you grow? Sit under good teaching. Read good books. Have deep conversations about hard things. Stop choosing to do the minimum. Stop choosing to settle for fluff. Connect with a strong church where the word is faithfully taught and where people are involved in one another’s lives. Do not make excuses for why you can’t learn, just battle to know and to grow and to obey.
Redefining God
One of my favorite movie lines is, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it does.” Often people will say the same words but mean something completely different. And nowhere is that more true than when people are speaking of God.
This is not a new problem. In around the early seventh century B. C., the king of Assyria sent a representative to spout propaganda to dishearten the people of Jerusalem. The king threatened the city that was being ruled over by King Hezekiah, and his envoy spoke some very false things about God to try to convince the people to surrender.
Isaiah 36:7, 10, and 18
7 But if you say to me, “We trust in the Lord our God,” is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, “You shall worship before this altar”?
10 Moreover, is it without the Lord that I have come up against this land to destroy it? The Lord said to me, Go up against this land and destroy it.’ ”
18 Beware lest Hezekiah mislead you by saying, “The Lord will deliver us.” Has any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
Note the three falsehoods that the man spoke. First, he accused Hezekiah of removing the high places of the Lord, though the high places were never commanded by God. In a simple yet dangerous move, the Assyrian representative attempted to redefine who God is so as to make the people give in to the desires of the invaders. The representative declared God to be someone God is not and to desire things that God does not desire.
Second, the Assyrian said that God had told the king of Assyria to invade. Once he had redefined God, he claimed to have knowledge of the will of God that the people of God lacked. He claimed extra, supernatural revelation to make his own evil cause right.
Third, the Assyrian then redefined God by declaring God to be too weak to stand against the Assyrians. This claim, as much as any other, would lead the Assyrian army to their downfall. These men will not win the victory, as God will not have them boasting of besting him in a contest of strength.
Why point this out? The tactic of redefining God is not a new move, nor has it gone away. In our world today, people use the word “God” to justify whatever opinions or desires they have. People often declare God to be for something that God has forbidden in Scripture. They declare to have heard from God permission to do things that actually violate Scripture. Or they simply declare God not to be there or not to be strong enough to make a difference.
But, if you read on in Isaiah, you will see that God proves that the attempt to redefine him does not work. The Lord is. The Lord is holy and mighty. God will not be mocked. God’s will is revealed in his word, and we dare not attempt to warp that word or manipulate it to say what it does not. Instead, we must allow God to reveal himself in his word. WE must allow God to be who he is (as if we could stop him from being who he is). And we must bow to him, get under his rule, and seek his mercy. God is the King of kings, and he has the right to tell us who he is, what he demands, and how he is to be approached.
Such a Great Salvation
How does man get to God? Is there more than one path to the Lord? Are people of all religions, so long as they are sincere, OK? Or is there a particular way to be made right with God that is exclusive?
Scripture is plain to us that we have a great salvation given to us by the Lord. But Scripture is also clear that there is only one salvation available.
Hebrews 2:1-4 – 1 Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. 2 For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, 3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
Let the question of verse 3 ring out to you: How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? God has given us a salvation, one salvation. He has sent to us a Savior, one Savior. And the Lord has inspired his authors of Scripture to point out to us that, if we neglect that way, if we ignore what God has given, we do not have another option. We are not free to tell the Lord how he must respond to us or to the rest of the world.
Consider what the Father did. God sent to us his Son. Jesus willingly laid down his life to bear the wrath of God that had to be taken away for us to be saved. Jesus suffered in a way that no human being has or ever will suffer. Jesus took upon himself more hell, more pain, more spiritual sorrow than any other person ever will face.
Knowing what the Father did and knowing what the Son did, we have a very legitimate question to ask. How can we hope to escape the wrath of God if we reject such a great salvation? How can we expect that God is going to welcome us to himself if we look at what his Son did, decide that is not for us, and then try to make ourselves spiritually sound through our own efforts? The Bible is clear that this will not work.
God has the right to set up his parameters for how he will receive people to grace. Either he has spelled them out in Scripture, or all the Bible is a lie. What cannot be true is the idea that the Bible is true and other world religions are true too. This is not me trying to be mean or arrogant, it is simply logic. The bible declares Jesus the only way to God. That cannot be true if there are other ways to God. So my heart’s desire is that none of us, none of you, neglect so great a salvation. God the Father sent God the Son to pay for our sins and grant us life. Believe in Jesus and turn to him as Lord. This is our hope.
Refreshing the Hearts of the Saints
How would you like for other Christians to describe you? How do you think they describe you? Are you a breath of fresh air? Are you a constant complainer? Do you bring life into a conversation? Do you make it hard for people to smile?
When Paul wrote to his friend, Philemon, with a major request, he first described Philemon in a way that should make us want to imitate Paul’s Colossian companion.
Philemon 7 – For I have derived much joy and comfort from your love, my brother, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you.
Paul, describing Philemon, says that the hearts of the saints have been refreshed by Philemon. That, my friends, is something we want said of us. We want to become the kind of people who, when other saints see us and are around us, they are glad for the time. We want to pour into each other more than draw life out of them. We want to brighten and not darken each other’s day.
So, perhaps a good and godly application question here would be, “What can I do to refresh the hearts of the saints?” Take some real time to pray it through. Brainstorm some ideas. Let the Spirit of God help you to be able to help others.
What are some starters? Perhaps consider the following simply as a way to get your mind working in this direction:
- Offer a compliment instead of a criticism.
- Choose to talk about something positive rather than complaining about what you do not like in the local church or the political scene.
- Choose to point humor at yourself instead of teasing your friends.
- Talk about what you like in the worship service or in the local church rather than focusing on what is wrong.
- Ask your friend how you can pray for him or her.
- Give someone a gift for no reason.
- Make a phone call to someone who could use an encouraging word.
- Share with a friend what you are learning in Scripture instead of keeping it to yourself.
- When you find a small problem, something that is not a major sin issue, pray about it and let it go rather than feeling the need to aggressively correct every problem.
- When someone around you does something you do not understand, believe the best about them rather than assuming the worst.
Make your own list. Do it however works for you and your personality. But why not make it a goal in your life to have other Christians say of you that you refresh the hearts of the saints?
Pastor Travis Peterson 