All I Have Is Christ
February 7, 2010 | Comments Off
We began learning a new song–All I Have Is Christ–on Wednesday. It is a song of testimony, declaring to each other and to God that our only possible salvation is in Christ and His work on our behalf.
This video is a live version of that song, put together by Sovereign Grace Ministries, whose music publishing arm published and recorded the song.
You can download the song or the entire album here.
John Piper on Small Groups
January 29, 2010 | Comments Off
I ran across this brief exhortation from Piper on the importance of small groups in the life of the church. I hope it will encourage you to deepen your commitment to living in community with other believers, because as he says, church is more than preaching.
Songs to help the Word dwell richly in you
January 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Since I taught last Wednesday on why it matters what we sing, I have received several requests for resources for finding recordings, lyrics, and sheet music for the songs we sing. So I am compiling here a list of links that will help you find not only the specific songs we use here but also more songs like them. You can access lyrics, guitar charts, and lead sheets for free on basically all of these sites; the prices are very reasonable for downloading or ordering albums and tracks. I hope you find much here to help you as we strive to let the Word of Christ dwell richly in us.
Sovereign Grace Music: Songs we have used from here include The Lord Is, Out of the Depths, Glorious and Mighty, Let Your Kingdom Come (we learned this for the missions conference this past fall), O Great God, Completely Done (which we recently learned), Oh the Deep, Deep Love, Receive the Glory, and several others. On their website you can find song and album downloads; free lyric, guitar, and lead sheets; and super cheap piano sheet music.
Indelible Grace Music: Songs like The Love of Christ Is Rich and Free, Sovereign Grace O’er Sin Abounding, His Love Can Never Fail. This group specializes in setting old texts to new music, and for the most part they do a great job. We will be introducing more of these songs in the coming year, so buy a couple of their albums and be ahead of the game!
Matthew Smith: He is a principal member of Indelible Grace, and has recorded a few albums as a solo artist. My Lord I Did Not Choose You is an old text he set to music; his album All I Owe is excellent.
Red Mountain Music: Similar to Indelible Grace in that they take old texts and set them to new music. We have not done any songs by them (that I can recall, at least), but you could expect some to come.
Getty Music: Keith & Kristen Getty, along with Stuart Townend, write some of the best hymn-like songs being produced today. In Christ Alone, The Power of the Cross, O Church Arise, and Beneath the Cross are just a few of their songs. They don’t have as many free materials, but you can find their albums on the website, and they are certainly worth the money to own. The newest album, Awaken the Dawn, is really, really good. We’ll be introducing a song or two from that album soon, hopefully.
Sandra McCracken: Her album The Builder and the Architect is all hymns, and is very beautiful. She has written and recorded with Indelible Grace; she wrote the music for both “The Love of Christ Is Rich and Free” and “Sovereign Grace O’er Sin Abounding.”
I hope these links are a help to you. A point that I didn’t make so strongly or clearly Wednesday is that because music is so powerful for teaching, not only should we be careful what we sing when we’re together as a congregation, but we should also be careful what we listen to. Christian radio certainly has its place, but beware songs that make you “feel good” without containing much truth. I believe these sources for music are a great place to start in finding music to listen to that is both enjoyable and edifying. And I hope songs like these will help to shape us more and more into people who love the truth of the Gospel, and the God of the Gospel, above all else.
The Way of Forgiveness and Snares of My Own Arrogance
December 29, 2009 | Comments Off
FCC Family:
If you did not hear Pastor Tim’s sermon Sunday 12/27/09 entitled, “The Way of Forgiveness,” it’s a must! Here is an article I wrote regarding arrogance as a follow to that sermon.
- Jack Colwell
“Snares of My Own Arrogance”
I automatically and continually think in one of two ways that are snares of my own arrogance.
I convince myself that I am able to save myself by working hard and being good. This usually means pushing me above others, obsessing about others’ deficiencies and demanding total conformity to my personal standards from them. It can also mean falsely reconciling God’s standard to my life. “I am obviously OK, so God must be like me, and His standards must be like mine.”
Ironically, I can also catch myself in a snare of arrogance by feeling utterly overwhelmed by defeat and discouragement over my sinfulness; for example, when my behavior falls below my expectations for myself. As a result, I battle hopelessness and despair.
My first tactic is distraction, the second is despair – these tactics are the foundation of life in a fallen world. That is to say they arise instinctively and unthinkingly from within me (Jer. 17:9, Rom. 1:18-21) and are classic satanic discourse (Gen. 3:4, John 8:44, Rev. 12:10).
Stating the above number one and two another way -
1. I arrogantly create my own restorative process by:
Blaming / accusing others or ‘choking’ them – (Matt. 18:28, John 8:7, Rom. 2: 1-4)
·Self- justifying comparative judgment, making my standards as good, or even better than God’s standards – (Gen. 3: 6-7, 4: 1-8, Luke 15: 28-30, 18:11-17) to include self-blinding comparative judgment – (Matt. 7:1-6)
·Blinding immersion in worldly distractions to include work, possessions and family (Luke 12:16-20, 14: 16-23)
Which results in death, but I feel good about myself on the way because I elevated self as the ultimate lawmaker, judge and executioner of all others, including God – (Gen. 3:5, 4:1-9, James 4:11-12).
As Pastor John Piper puts it, “Concealed sin keeps us from seeing the light of Christ. Sin is like spiritual leprosy. It deadens your spiritual senses so that you rip your [and others] soul to shreds and don’t even feel it.”[1]
2. I arrogantly snub the Lord’s restoration process by:
Being remorseful over my own sin, rather than repenting – (Ps. 32, 2 Cor. 7:10) Implying that I know a superior or more effectual sacrifice than Christ - (Heb. 10:11-31)
This also results in death, but I feel miserable about myself on the way – (Matt. 27:3-5). Despairing of my own sin is as opposite to faith as suffocating is to breathing.
The fact is, awareness of my own wretchedness is my only access to Christ and should compel me to come to Him (John 6:29). His work is to forgive MY sin; my work is faith in Him expressed primarily by thankfully loving God and forgivingly loving others (Matt. 22: 37-40). I cannot love those I harbor bitterness toward (Matt. 18: 21-35). Bitterness toward others means I do not love God (1 John 4: 19-21).
Yes but…(insert whatever excuse I generate this moment) and then consider C.S. Lewis: “Anyone who makes excuses is not really seeking forgiveness”
Those times when I most need forgiveness of my sin, are the very times I can least comprehend my need, or His forgiveness. Only Christ can rescue me from this body of death (Rom. 7:21-25), I access Him through repentance and faith. “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” (John 3: 19-21, NASU).
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[1] Piper, John. Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. Multnomah (Chapter 3, Emphasis added)
What makes a Gospel-centered church
November 24, 2009 | Comments Off
The Gospel Coalition (a group organized to build up local churches toward Gospel-centeredness) articulates on their website the distinctives for Gospel-centered ministry. The first item on their list is empowered corporate worship:
The gospel changes our relationship with God from one of hostility or slavish compliance to one of intimacy and joy. The core dynamic of gospel–centered ministry is therefore worship and fervent prayer.
In corporate worship God’s people receive a special life-transforming sight of the worth and beauty of God, and then give back to God suitable expressions of his worth. At the heart of corporate worship is the ministry of the Word. Preaching should be expository (explaining the text of Scripture) and Christ-centered (expounding all biblical themes as climaxing in Christ and his work of salvation). Its ultimate goal, however, is not simply to teach but to lead the hearers to worship, individual and corporate, that strengthens their inner being to do the will of God.
This is what we strive for weekly in our services. Please pray toward this end, that we might gather to both encounter our God and respond to Him rightly. And pray for the ministry of the Word, that we would be continually strengthened in our inner being to do the will of our God.
(ht: Justin Taylor)
Fervent in spirit
October 20, 2009 | Comments Off
Continuing on the theme of giving God the honor due His name, I’d like to share some excerpts from an article I just read by Kevin DeYoung. (Some of you may know his name from the book Why We’re Not Emergent.) He is writing concerning the issue of reaching the next generation, but he makes an excellent (and needful) point about worship:
You can have formal services, so long as you do not have formalism. You can have casual services, so long as you do not approach your faith casually. Your services can have a lot of different looks, but young people want to see passion. They want to see us do church and follow Christ like we mean it.
We would do well to pay attention to Romans 12. “Let love by genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (9-11). We would be far less likely to lose our young people and far more likely to win some others, if the spiritual temperature of our churches was something other than lukewarm. People need to see that God is the all-consuming reality in our lives. Our sincerity and earnestness in worship matter ten times more than the style we use to display our sincerity and earnestness. (emphasis added)
“Do not be slothful in zeal; be fervent in spirit.” This is actually a command from the Lord. And note the context–these verses come in Paul’s fleshing out of the directive to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice…which is your spiritual worship” (12:1). Right worship is zealous, fervent worship.
Here is an essential point for us to understand: Even if the services or songs or prayers take different forms of expression than you prefer, the truths we are expressing are still the same; therefore, the level of passion we express should remain the same. Our zeal and passion come not from a style of music but from the truth of the Gospel, and who God is for us in Christ. If we can unite in passion for God in Christ, then people will clearly see that what we say and sing and express has affected us deeply. If we can only unite in passion for a style of music or a level of formality or casualness, then people will see that what matters most to us is only superficial and no different than any group of sports fans or concertgoers.
So the next time we gather, set your sights on the Gospel, and on the God of the Gospel. Let Him be what drives your passion. And notice how styles and forms begin to matter less and less.
A prayer for worship
October 15, 2009 | Comments Off
This is from The Valley of Vision, the collection of Puritan prayers we’ve used in corporate worship several times. In light of the previous post, I thought this might be helpful for you in your preparation for worship.
GLORIOUS GOD,
It is the flame of my life to worship You,
the crown and glory of my soul to adore You,
heavenly pleasure to approach You.
Give me power by Your Spirit to help me worship now,
that I may forget the world,
be brought into fullness of life,
be refreshed, comforted, blessed.
Give me knowledge of Your goodness
that I might not be overwhelmed by Your greatness;
Give me Jesus, Son of Man, Son of God,
that I might not be terrified,
but be drawn near with childlike love,
with holy boldness;
He is my Mediator, Brother, Interpreter,
Branch, Shepherd, Lamb;
Him I glorify,
in Him I am set on high.
Crowns to give I have none,
but what You have given I return,
content to feel that everything is mine
when it is Yours,
and more fully mine when I have yielded it to You.
Let me life wholly for my Savior,
free from distractions,
from worldly cares,
from hindrances to the pursuit of the narrow way.
I am pardoned through the blood of Jesus -
give me a new sense of it,
continue to pardon me by it,
may I come every day to the fountain,
and every day be washed anew,
that I may worship You always
in spirit and truth.
-from The Valley of Vision, ed. Arthur Bennett, ©1975 The Banner of Truth Trust.
Worthy of worship
October 15, 2009 | Comments Off
Matthew Henry writes regarding Malachi 1:6-2:9, “Nothing profanes the name of God more than the misconduct of those whose business it is to do honor to it.” Malachi’s rebuke was primarily directed toward the spiritual leaders of Israel; but as Tim showed us last Sunday, it applies to us as well. We are those whose business it is to honor God with every breath. And we profane His name by our misconduct in the business of worshiping Him.
Worship is all of life, as I have written earlier. However, when we gather on Sundays, we gather for a special time of worship, namely corporate worship–worship as a body. We come together, as God’s people have for millennia, in His presence as He inhabits our praises and speaks through His word. He imparts special grace to us in our corporate gatherings, and in our corporate gatherings our worship is fuller and greater than it could ever be were we to only worship individually. Our Sunday gatherings are special times, and the way we approach them reflects our mindset about not only the gathering itself but, more significantly, the God to whom and for whom we gather.
If our God is worthy of highest praise and honor and glory, we should strive to engage in corporate worship of the highest order. We should wholly devote ourselves to worshiping God all the time, but we should place particular emphasis on our corporate worship.
With this in mind, I want to share with you some ways in which we can prepare for corporate worship so that we come ready to meet the Lord, both to hear from Him and to respond to Him in worship worthy of Him. (Most of the following is based on an article John Piper wrote several years back.)
Practical ways to prepare for corporate worship
1. Pray for the Lord’s help in preparing your heart. Pray to the Lord His promise from Jeremiah 24:7–”I will give them a heart to know Me.” Make it your constant, consistent prayer that He will give you a heart that humbly and honestly seeks after Him, a heart ready and eager to hear and believe and obey His word.
2. Make Saturday night a time devoted to worship preparation. You can do this in a few ways:
- Meditate on the Scriptures. Piper writes, “read some delicious portion of Scripture with a view to stirring up hunger for God. This is the appetizer for Sunday morning’s meal.” I would add to this that, since we are in the habit of preaching through books of the Bible, you can also begin to meditate on the next portion of the book we’re currently in. For instance, since we’re currently in Malachi, and Tim preached from 1:6-14 last week, you can focus on 2:1-9 this week, and add to that some great Gospel passage like Romans 5 or Ephesians 1, to whet your appetite for meeting God in corporate worship.
- Turn away from worldly entertainment. James 1:21 instructs us to “put way all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Your soul is at stake in how you listen to the word; so do your soul a favor by not filling it with worldliness on the eve of the weekly corporate worship gathering. This is an area that takes discipline; I find that Saturday evenings are a prime time for me to just sit down and relax with a movie or a television show. But better to sit down and renew my rest in the Gospel than to turn my eyes to the world for those last hours of the day.
- Have family worship. Even if every other night of the week is too hectic for you to get your whole family together for family worship, make it a priority on Saturday night. This will both help your own heart and teach your children the importance of corporate worship.
- Spend time in prayer for all that will take place on Sunday morning. Pray for your pastor as he is finishing his sermon preparation. Pray for the musicians as they lead the musical praises of God. Pray for those who will read Scripture and lead in prayer. And pray for those who will gather, that all might gather with whole heart and mind seeking the Lord.
- Go to bed on time. You know the weakness of your flesh, and how sitting still for an extended period of time (such as a sermon) can provide an excellent opportunity to doze off if you are not well-rested. So make it a priority to get plenty of sleep on Saturday night. Figure out how much sleep you need, what time you need to get up on Sunday morning, and then what time you need to go to bed to get the needful amount of sleep. Make this a priority in your family–parents of teenagers especially have the opportunity to teach their children the importance of corporate worship by exhorting them not to stay out late with friends on Saturdays. “It is a terrible thing to teach children that worship is so optional that it doesn’t matter if you are exhausted when you come.”
3. Make a special, concerted effort to show grace to your family on Sunday morning. How many times have we heard (or experienced!) the typical Sunday morning story of the family that wakes up quarreling, drives to church quarreling, and then gets out of the family van at church with the happiest, most pleasant demeanor imaginable–all the while still fuming at each other in their hearts. This is no condition to be in when it comes time to meet your God. Set a tone of love, grace, and forbearance in your home so that you are free from the distractions of grumbling and quarreling on Sunday morning.
4. Come with a meek, teachable spirit. As we saw in James 1:21, the proper way to receive the Word is with meekness. Skepticism, prideful self-assurance, and superiority have no place when it comes to approaching God. Humble yourself before God, and He will exalt you at the proper time; approach Him haughtily, and He will cut you down.
5. Enter the worship place with quiet, eager expectation. Even though there is nothing sacred about the place where we worship, our worship itself is sacred–so when you arrive at the place where corporate worship will happen, let it be a cue to you to quiet your heart before God and to “focus your mind’s attention and your heart’s affection on God.” And if you are worried about having the chance to fellowship with fellow believers, or to greet visitors, keep this in mind: “We will not be an unfriendly church if we are aggressive in our pursuit of God during the prelude and aggressive in our pursuit of visitors [and each other] during the postlude.”
6. Engage with your whole being. Many of us tend toward either emotion without truth or truth without emotion. Stated another way, this means that we are either “head” people or “heart” people. But when it comes to the worship of God, both head and heart must be involved. We must “think earnestly about what is prayed and sung and preached.” And we must feel deeply the significance of the same. We must not allow ourselves to sing or hear mindlessly or heartlessly. “I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.” (1 Cor. 14:15) And in addition to all of this, we show with our bodies how engaged we are in our heads and hearts. Our facial expressions, our posture, our uplifted hands or bowed heads, and our full-throated singing–all of these show our whole-being engagement in worshiping God together.
So when it comes time to get ready for this Sunday’s gathering, I hope and pray your attitude will be that of eager expectation, of the sort that leads you to thoroughly prepare your mind and heart and body for worshiping God together with His people.
Worship as response
October 7, 2009 | Comments Off
I’m currently reading the book Christ Centered Worship by Bryan Chapell. The central point of the book is that the Gospel should form not only the content but also the structure of our corporate worship. This excerpt is from a section titled “The Soul of Worship,” in which Chapell drives home the point that in all our debating about what our worship services should look like, the central consideration must be the Gospel, not personal preference or cultural relevance or propriety or excellence or anything else.
Worship primarily driven by concerns for propriety and acceptance feeds pride and burdens hearts. This is the inevitable consequence of making anything but the grace of the gospel the soul of our worship. If our worship is not an expression of redemptive truths, it inevitably drifts from being a response to God’s saving acts. Instead, the worship itself begins to be perceived as saving acts generated by us–moving us to sacerdotal or cultic attitudes. By re-presenting the gospel we remind ourselves that our worship is a response to God’s grace, not an infusion or conjuring of it. We are blessed by the reality of his presence but we do not create it. The responses we offer in worship are only enabled by the power of the Spirit and are further evidence of God’s grace, not the cause of it.
We must grasp this in order to maintain unity in our corporate worship, and, more importantly, in order to worship rightly. We worship God because of and through the Gospel, and the Gospel will be the driving force behind our gatherings–not any particular hymn, or song, or affect, or prayer, or style, or doctrine–outside of the Gospel of Christ.
The dangers of moralism
September 3, 2009 | Comments Off
In light of our Sunday School series on law and gospel, I thought Al Mohler’s blog article today was very timely and challenging.
No doubt many of you grew up, as I did, in a Christian home, surrounded by rules and standards for what “the Christian life” should look like. Coming from the South, I saw so often exemplified the problems Dr. Mohler brings up–the codification of Christian “morals” into the cultural norm is terribly dangerous, because people come to rely on their morality to save them rather than trusting the Savior.
Law is the default setting for human nature. But Gospel is the only true way of salvation. Praise God for hearts to understand and believe!