Glorious Day

"One day when heaven was filled with His praises,

One day when sin was as black as could be,

Jesus came forth to be born of a virgin -

Dwelt among men, my example is He!

One day they led Him up Calvary's mountain,

One day they nailed Him to die on the tree;

Suffering anguish, despised and rejected;

Bearing our sins, my Redeemer is He.

One day they left Him alone in the garden,

One day He rested, from suffering free;

Angels came down o'er His tomb to keep vigil;

Hope of the hopeless, my Savior is He.

One day the grave could conceal Him no longer,

One day the stone rolled away from the door;

Then He arose, over death He had conquered;

Now is ascended, my Lord evermore.

One day the trumpet will sound for His coming,

One day the skies with His glory will shine;

Wonderful day, my beloved ones bringing;

Glorious Savior, this Jesus is mine!

Living, He loved me; dying, He saved me;

Buried, He carried my sins far away;

Rising, He justified freely forever;

One day He's coming - O glorious day!"

Glorious Day, John Wilbur Chapman, Charles Howard Marsh

Today was baptism Sunday, which is always a special time in service.  There is a power to worship on these days.  The celebration is firmer, more tangible.   

It's electric.  People who are a bit more reserved in worship move more freely.  Particularly as the baptisms are occurring with song.  The combination of clapping for the baptism and celebrating that bleeds over into the worship and song.   They sing louder, they clap harder.

Perhaps it's the more direct remembrance to what Jesus has done for them.  For their own baptism experience and the joy of seeing others brought into the family.  We know it makes the angels celebrate and it makes us celebrate here too.

For those of the faith, I hope your worship this morning was tangible.  Was electric.  

I hope it was something real that touched you deep down into your soul.  I hope you had a glorious day today.

Because if it wasn't, what's holding you back?

"You called my name, 

And I ran out of that grave

Out of the darkness

Into your glorious day

I needed rescue

My sin was heavy

But chains break at the weight of Your glory

I needed shelter

I was an orphan

Now You call me a citizen of heaven

When I was broken

You were my healing

Now Your love is the air that I'm breathing

I have a future

My eyes are open

'Cause when you call my name

I ran out of that grave

Out of the darkness

Into your glorious day."

Glorious Day, Ingram, Smith, Curran, Stanfill

Made To Worship

We're going through a small group study on purpose.   Trying to answer that age old question, "what is our purpose"?  "Why are we here"?

To that end, we're going through Rick Warren's Purpose Driven Life and looking at it in the micro, trying to find out God's unique design for each of our lives.  This depends on so many factors, like our individual bent in life.  Our passions, our experiences, our circumstances.

But I love the approach the book gives to the macro.  

Why do we as a human species exist?  Why were we creating as just one other group of animals on this planet?  What do we offer that others cannot?  In those terms, our purpose becomes much clearer in the micro.

We as human beings are made for one primary purpose - to worship God.

"The Lord is pleased only with those who worship him and trust his love."

Psalm 147:11

I think we inherently understand this as believers.  We have that hard wired desire to worship something.  We will devote all our attention and effort to something.  That something might be ourselves and our pleasure.  It might be our family.  Our parents and pleasing them.  Our spouse and living for them.  Our children and providing everything for them.  It might be our jobs and our success.  It might be a prized possession, making an idol of our car, our home, our boat.  

Yes, we all worship something.  

When it comes to understanding the worship of God, we may have to adjust our definition of what worship is and what it isn't.  Cause we don't think of it in these terms of devotion.  We think of what we know and experience.

Worship isn't music.  It isn't a particular style of music or a particular period of music.  You don't worship first and then have preaching.  Worship, in fact predates music, as Adam worshipped God and music isn't mention until a couple of chapters later with Jubal in Genesis 4.  

Worship has nothing to do with a particular location.  It has nothing to do with being in the building on Sunday morning. It does not need a pastor. It does not need a worship leader/music minister/song leader/whatever you want to call them. It does not need other people around you.

Worship isn't even about us.  It's not about what we feel or what we get out of it.  It's not about what we learn or what we take away.  It's not about how we feel.

True worship is radically different.

Worship is whatever is pleasing to God.

Worship can include music, but it also includes all parts of a religious service.  It's prayer, it's preaching, it's teaching.  It's serving others.

Worship is everywhere.  It's where two or more are gathered.  It's being struck by the beauty of God's creation.  It's singing along to your favorite song of praise in the car.  It's showing mercy to others at your work.

Worship is for and about God.  It's lifting high and glorifying his name.

In short, worship is a way of life.  It's something you should be doing every day.  Every hour, every second.  It's doing whatever we do as if for the Lord.

It's why Stonepoint always ended with "Have a Great Week of Worship."  It was a recognition that what happened on Sunday morning was only a brief blip in the worship of a believer.

Our danger lies in half-hearted worship.  In going through the motions.  While it is true, we sometimes must rest on ritual and wait for our feelings, our spirit to catch up, we must be careful not to repeatedly offer stale prayers that we don't expect to be answered, empty words, man-made ritual without even thinking of the meaning.  God does not care for any of this.  "I've come for mercy, not sacrifice."  Jesus explicitly said to the most "religious" of his day, the high "worshipers" that he did not care for their sacrifices if their hearts didn't match.

This is also exactly what God complains of in Isaiah 29.  His heart is not touched by the Israelites tradition in worship, but is looking for their passion and commitment.  "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men."  Oh, that this not apply to the American church today.  I fear it does far too often.  Think of how much chatter there is when the order of worship is changed.

The challenge, then, is to be fully committed to worship.  For our every activity to be done for the praise, glory, and pleasure of God.  To be transformed into our act of worship.  That way, it is so ingrained in our lives that we can't help but worship.  

We know that is what the rest of creation does.  What it was made for.  So, it's our turn to join in that chorus and shout at the top of our voice:

So will I

"All we are
And all we have
Is all a gift from God that we receive
Brought to life
We open up our eyes
To see the majesty and glory of the King

He has filled our hearts with wonder
So that we always remember

You and I were made to worship
You and I are called to love
You and I are forgiven and free
When you and I embrace surrender
When you and I choose to believe
Then you and I will see who we were meant to be"

Made to Worship, Chris Tomlin, Ed Cash, Stephan Sharp, 2006

Praise Team

One thing that I've really enjoyed over the past couple of months is getting opportunities to sing.  As I've written before, the pandemic has been tough on live music.  For months, everything was shut down.  And even as things opened back up, live music has been one of the slower things to come back.  When we first were able to go into our church for worship last August, we were still wearing masks for services and singing through masks.  Most choirs weren't meeting.  

Over the past several months, I've found those new opportunities to sing.  First with the Cummins Diversity choir, as written about before.  And since this August, with the praise team at Connection Pointe.  

I've forgotten how much I missed this.

Especially because the choir and the praise team stretch different muscles.  There are musical differences.  The choir is about matching volume and pitch with others in your range, while balancing with the rest of the choir.  Following the director.  The praise team is about blending with the small group of singers, often with tighter harmony.  About finding the right harmony to bring to the group that is additive.  

There are technical differences.  The choir is accompanied by a piano and generally does not use a microphone.  The praise team has a full band behind it with a click track and handheld microphones.

There's even one more fundamental difference.

The praise team is about throwing yourself unabashedly into worship.  

It's being able to strip away everything else, the rest of the band, the congregation, the lights, everything and just worship.  All of the musicians at Connection Pointe are able to do this very well.  To take pride in rehearsal and in trying to present the best music possible, but at the same time, being able to let that go and just worship.

This cuts across denomination, across the size of the church, and the style of music.  I've sung in church since I was four and have been part of worship teams or choirs since high school.  Sure, some things change.  I know here I have definitely been caught off guard because of the live video feed that is shared on the screens on each side of the worship center.  Nothing like catching a glimpse of yourself when you are not expecting it to make you do a double take.  

But the heart of it consistently remains the same.  

Praise forever to the King of Kings.

It's Not About Me

With yesterday's post getting so much attention, I thought it appropriate to discuss why understanding worship, why viewing it in the appropriate context is so appropriate. 

Why we have to move past thinking of it as something we go to.  Move past viewing it an hour or so long appointment on Sunday mornings (and maybe Sunday and Wednesday evenings).

That comes from remembering who worship is for.

Remembering that it's not really about us.

Worship is not about that feeling I get from singing songs in a group setting.

It's not about that feeling of conviction or exhortation we get from a message.

It's not about that joy of communal fellowship.

It's not about something labeled a "worship service."

It's not about the leadership of the church.

It's not about the other members of the church.

It's not about us.

It's not about me.

Worship exists for one purpose - to glorify God.

Worship is about God above, and God alone.

Sure, worship can encompass all the things above.  It can involve singing, it can involve the preaching of the word.  It can involve hearing a message.  It can involve fellowship.  It can be in a building, it can be in a formal structure, it can be just how you have experienced it.

But that's not all that it is.  That barely scratches the surface of worship.

Worship can be being moved by God's creation.  Worship can be an act of simple gratitude.  An act of kindness.  An act of mercy.  Worship can be loud and noisy.  It can also be still and quiet.  It can be out among the multitudes, as in the largest evangelism crusades that Billy Graham ever had.  It can happen all alone, in a quiet corner, of a quiet room.  It can happen on the battlefield.  It can happen at work.  Yes, it can even still happen in our schools today.

It can happen physically and it can be sent out and shared virtually.

It is, quite literally, what we were made for.

You and I are created to worship.  If we do not do it, the very rocks will cry out.  Further, I guarantee that you are worshipping something, even if you would claim no belief.  Everyone worships something.  Money, status, self, their spouse, their kids, leisure.  Something.

While we have a responsibility in the process in Christian worship, while we are involved, it's not about us.  The focus should never be on us.

To misunderstand this can bring us closer to worshipping the wrong things.  Closer to idolatry than we would like to imagine.  It can make us enforcers of form over substance.  Bring us close to worshipping our style of worship, the building we attend, our ministers performing the service over the one true God who has called us to worship.

This was the problem of the Pharisees.  According to Jewish tradition, they were the best worshippers.  They followed every religious custom.  They prayed the right prayers, worshipped the right way, they met the requirements that we would identify as worship.  They went to the temple, they gathered like they were supposed to do, attended all the right meetings, and to the Jewish people of the day, they appeared the most pious.

But Jesus had to remind them that their focus on form over substance, on their focus on tradition instead of actual worship, was worthless.

"Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 'The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works that they do.  For they preach, but they do not practice.  They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their little finger.  They do all their deeds to be seen by others.  For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.  By you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.

And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.  Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor, the Christ.  The greatest among you shall be your servant.  Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces.  For you neither neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves...'"

Matthew 23:1-15

Jesus continues on through all of his seven woes, but I think the point is made.  The Pharisees were so focused on their ways of worship, the way that the conceived of worship, that they missed the opportunity to worship the Messiah when He was right there before them.  He was calling them out of their familiar, to experience true worship, and they completely missed it.

A great example of this can also be found in the story of the woman at the well.  After all the initial questions are dispensed with.  After Jesus has revealed just how well He knows her, the question turns to where to worship.

"The woman said to him, 'Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.  Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.'  

Jesus said to her, 'Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.  You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in 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 4:19-24

The Samaritans and the Jews had always disagreed about how to worship.  About where worship was to occur.  And here in this conversation with a Samaritan, Jesus reveals that they have both been missing the point.  Worship is not about a location.  It's about a spirit.  Worship is about glorifying God and we must do that in spirit and in truth.  Those are the requirements.  

That's why being out of our buildings should not phase the church.  It's why the church can't be re-opened, because the Church was never closed.  We who make up the Body of Christ, the great universal Church, have been open and active in this time.

There was an opportunity in this time for our worship to have increased.  I have seen it happen and I pray it has happened for you.  That is what we should take away from this.  What we should carry with us long beyond this crisis is over.  To move our worship beyond a building, beyond our previous ideas of what worship entails into spirit and truth.

Let's focus on that and not a temporary interruption of our meeting together.

Your Right to Worship Was Not Infringed

I'm going to get some mail on this one, so let's jump right into it.

Much ado has been made over the past couple of days that President Trump has "opened up" the churches.  

"The governors need to do the right thing and allow these very important essential places of faith to open right now -- for this weekend.  If they don't do it, I will override the governors."

"In America, we need more prayer not less."

"Some governors have deemed the liquor stores and abortion clinics as essential.  But have left out churches and other houses of worship.  It's not right.  So I'm correcting this injustice and calling houses of worship essential."

These are really nice sounding words that are essentially meaningless.  They accomplish nothing but pandering to his base.  It's unclear that he has any authority to accomplish any of this, but it makes for a good sound byte.

On a grander scale, these comments get to the root of some fundamental misunderstandings regarding the whole issue. 

• That's Not How Federalism Works - One of the issues that has dogged us through the entire Covid-19 pandemic is the United States of America is not one monolithic whole.  We are, for better and worse, a collection of differences.  Different races, different religions, different regions, different geographies, different proximities, and different states.  Our government is a republic comprised of 50 very different states, and we have generally preferred a reservation of a lot of key issues to the state level.  That has included how to handle emergency situations.  In this pandemic, stay-at-home orders, emergency declarations, lockdowns, etc. have all been handled at the state and local level.  Trump forcing states to open back up would be as gross an overreach of federal power as it would have been to institute a national lockdown.  Of course, that's the hypocrisy of the Republican Party.  It preaches limited federal government, so long as it accomplishes their purposes.  If it needs the big federal government to step in for its goals, well then, all is fair.

• That's Not How Our Rights Work in America - The loudest voices raised surrounding this issue have alleged that our absolute rights to freedom of assembly and free exercise of worship have been infringed.  That the government should do nothing to stand in our way, under absolutely no circumstances can or should they interfere, and that this has all been a gross overreach of power in opposition to the Constitution.  Plus, that it's likely a trial run for shutting down churches in the future.  Have to throw in a good conspiracy into there.  All of this presumes that the government does not add limitations to any of the rights we have under the Bill of Rights.  That is false.  The government places limitations on all of our rights in that document.  You can't yell fire in a crowded theater.  There are limitations on who can own guns.  Your worship cannot include human sacrifice.  The tests has never been whether or not government action places any limitation on our rights.  The test has always been whether it has been reasonable.  (That's a gross simplification, as there are different standards for the different rights, but reasonableness covers a lot of it).  The test for free exercise is a compelling interest.  If the government places a burden on the practice of religion, does it have a compelling interest in doing so?   Public health and safety has been found to be a compelling interest.  Plus, the shut downs had the benefit of being limited in durations, neutrally applied (they didn't single out churches, the rules applied to everyone), and never actually required the churches to be closed.  That's right - the shut down orders didn't require them to close, they just put limitations on the numbers that could be present.  Ten or fewer still could have gathered.  This point is the one that makes me so frustrated when people share the false claim that mosques were open in New York City but not churches.  It was a purposefully misleading headline that fooled a lot of people.  The mosques had less than ten people in at a time praying.  Christian churches had the ability to do the same thing.  But that's an inconvenient point. 

At this point, I think it's probably time to make the most controversial statement in this whole post - If you are a Christian, your right to free exercise of religion has not been infringed by this whole process.

I'll shout it a little louder for those in the back.

IF YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN, YOUR RIGHT TO FREE EXERCISE OF RELIGION HAS NOT BEEN INFRINGED.

And that's because of point number 3 -

• That's Not How Worship Works - If you believe that your right to worship has been infringed, I would offer that you fundamentally do not understand what worship is.  Worship has nothing to do with being in the building on Sunday morning.  It does not need a pastor.  It does not need a worship leader/music minister/song leader/whatever you want to call them.  It does not need other people around you.

Worship is not a service you attend.

Worship is a way of life.  It's something you should be doing every day.  Every hour, every second.

It's why Stonepoint always ended with "Have a Great Week of Worship."  It was a recognition that what happened on Sunday morning was only a brief blip in the worship of a believer.

And even if your entire focus was on Sunday morning, there were still so many options available to you to create that experience.  Worship music is available on every radio and all over the net.  Biblical teaching can be found online or on the radio or television from so many sources.  Full sermons and worship services can be streamed from a plethora of great churches across this country.  Even small little country town churches began sending messages and devotionals out online.

Even if all that was not accessible, you still had the option of family worship.  For where two or three gather in His name, there He is.  That can be church.

If we are going to complain about missing some key point of Christian living, let's at least use the right terminology.  We're missing fellowship, not worship.  And I get it, fellowship is important.  I'm missing it too.  But there have been ways to accomplish this virtually to help slow and stop the spread of this virus.  To not do more harm than good. 

Further, fellowship is not something that should be limited to Sunday either. The early church continually met in the homes of each other.  Our Christian fellowship may have been impacted, but it should not have stopped during this time.

Let's remember why this restriction was imposed on church buildings in the first place.  Churches generally have larger populations of older people.  Those that are more at risk.  There are some churches that may be primarily serving elderly populations.  Or your church may be one where the elderly come into close contact with the very young - those that may be carriers but not at risk for the deadly effects of the virus.  

There have been a couple of examples that have displayed the risk very well.  In Arkansas, a pastor and his wife attended church related events on March 6 through March 8.  At the time, they didn't have symptoms.  They later developed respiratory symptoms and fever on March 10 and 11, later confirmed to be Covid-19.  During the church related events, the pastor and wife came in contact with 92 people.  At least 35 of the 92 people they came in contact with acquired Covid-19.  That's 38%.  Three of those people died.  Further, those 35 infected people were confirmed to infect 26 other people. One of which died.

Likewise, in Washington, in late March 60 people attended a choir rehearsal.  No one was exhibiting symptoms.  No one appeared to be sick.  And yet, 45 attendees contracted Covid-19 from the rehearsal.  Two died.

These stories could happen at any church across America right now.  We still have a virus that has no cure or no vaccine.  A virus that we know little about that is highly contagious.  And while it is mild for the vast majority of people that contract it, for those that do get sick from it, it is lethal.  Lethal without any known ways to manage it.

I don't know, I suppose I'm just punchy.  Getting tired of armchair Constitutional scholars.  The one that really got me was someone indignant at the thought that churches were impacted, but yet self-admitting that they do not attend anywhere, nor are they in a hurry to do so.  The coopting of "religion" for political gain.

This should have been a point where we were different.  Where we stuck out because of how well the Church adapted.  How well it went to work aiding those around them, like I have seen so many churches do.

Not just standing around griping and complaining, waiting for things to be exactly as they were before, as I've seen far to many do.