Category: worship

See the Lord


Tonight’s home fellowship study was of Isaiah 6, and Isaiah’s encounter with God that changed everything, and how it will also change everything for us if we see Him as He is. You can hear the message here.

Come and worship

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to Him with songs of praise! For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods.

In His hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are His also. The sea is His, for He made it, and His hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.
Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, “When your fathers put Me to the test and put Me to the proof, though they had seen My work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, ‘They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ Therefore I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’”
–Psalm 95

On leading corporate worship


It surprises me when you do a search for help with worship leading online, how often you will find people who advise the worship leaders to do something like, “don’t worry about the people in the pews, just go up front, get into the music, close your eyes and worship God from the heart.”
I’m not a worship leader, as you know, but a pastor. As such, I have to correct what I think is a very misguided view on worship leading. The “just focus on yourself” advice for worship leaders would be akin to my telling a young preacher, “Don’t worry about the people in the pews; just get in the pulpit, open your Bible and talk to yourself about what God is saying to you. If you speak to the congregation at all, let it be to tell them, ‘Just open your Bible and have a quiet time of meditation with the Lord, as I do the same.'”
As a pastor, it is my job to do my private study ahead of time, and to be VERY conscious of the people in the pews as I try to teach them the word.
As a worshiper in the pews, it would be fine for me to just close my eyes and enjoy God’s presence as I sing to Him.
But when you are playing an instrument or singing at the front of the church, you are not there for yourself. You have taken on the responsibility for the people in the pews, and for leading them into the presence of the Lord to worship Him. You had better be VERY aware of them, encouraging them with your song, your eye contact, your smile, your prayers, your words of instruction and encouragement (stuff like “Sing out, now!”), and everything you are and do, to focus on the Lord. It is not about you and your one-on-one fellowship with Jesus on Sunday morning. Be worshiping alone all week to take care of that. When the pews fill up, it is time for you to function as a leader. When you are a leader, you must lead. When worship leaders just go up, close their eyes and sing to the Lord, then the only ones in the pews who worship too, are the self-led. They worship in spite of the lack of leadership. But they are few in number. Most people in the pews won’t do that. So there is absolutely no congregational unity.
A vibrant service is one where the whole of the congregation is heartily singing to the Lord, and that only happens because the leadership leads, as the Spirit of God moves on hearts that are unified in a desire to worship the Lord together as a Body, not as a group of individuals.

Jailhouse Concert

A Philippian Jail Cell

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.”
–Acts 16:25
         How do you handle it when things don’t go so well for you in ministry and the people don’t receive your message?  Do you complain to God?  Do you give up and quit?  Do you speak ill of those who oppose you?
         Paul and Silas’ response was to worship with their whole hearts.
         God had sent them to Philippi to preach the gospel, and there they were accosted, falsely accused, severely beaten and thrown in prison.  There, in the middle of the night, locked in stocks so that they couldn’t even nurse their wounds or recline to sleep, they praised the Lord.
         Their midnight praise & prayer session became a jailhouse concert, because as they ignored the pain of their circumstances to focus on the glory of their God, all the other prisoners were listening to them.  And that’s no surprise.  Would you not take notice if you saw people in such a trying situation praising the Lord with their whole hearts and calling upon His name?
         They had been placed in an inner cell, because the jailers thought it would make it impossible for them to break free; but it appears that it was really God’s plan, putting them at center stage so that all in the place could hear them glorify Him and know that He is God and the God who saves.
         The freedom their souls had found in Christ Jesus was so great that the walls of a prison couldn’t contain their testimony of faith or restrain their passion for God.
         If you’ve got the “winter blahs” or things just aren’t going all that well for you, remember to focus your attention on the God who is bigger than your problems and circumstances, and give thanks all the more.  What a witness it will be to unsaved family members, friends, or coworkers who know what you’re going through if you live your life not complaining, but saying, “Hallelujah” and giving Him honor in the midst of difficult times.
         Because the unsaved people around you go through tough times, too.  They might even be in the same “prison” you’re in.  And if you praise Him, they will be listening.  And it just might make them want what you have to be thankful for.
          Don’t let any circumstance keep you from saying “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”  If anyone had a reason not to praise the Lord, Paul and Silas did.  But they rose to the challenge and praised Him anyway.  And God was glorified.  Their hearts were already free, and because they praised Him, their bodies were also set free from prison later that night, with the family of the jailer who had imprisoned them becoming Philippi’s next converts for Jesus.

Carol to read, pt 3

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Risen with healing in His wings
Mild He lays His glory by
Born that man no more may die
Born to raise the sons of earth
Born to give them second birth

Carol to read, pt 2

Christ by highest heaven adored
Christ the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold Him come
Offspring of a virgin’s womb
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Immanuel

A carol to read

because sometimes reading it without the music will make its words feel more meaningful.

Glory to the newborn King!
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
“Christ is born in Bethlehem”