Transcription
As long as I'm the Lord, oh my soul, praise the Lord, oh my soul. I won't be quiet. My God is alive. I'm going to keep it inside the cloud. Praise the Lord, oh my soul.
Welcome to lecture six, worship together as in heaven. Much of today's lecture is going to be based on information from a book by Josh Davis and Nikki Lerner, worship together in your church as in heaven. Let's look at Matthew 6:9-10. It says, "Therefore, you should pray like this." Remember this is Jesus talking to his disciples. Our Father in heaven, your name be holy, honored as holy. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Much of what we'll look at today is unpacking this verse because it's a guide for how we're to worship, how we're to live together, uh making God's kingdom present here on earth. So, our aim is to translate the theology of multithnic worship into weekby-eek design, team culture, and spirit-led collaboration. So, we've been talking a lot about the theology behind what we're doing. Now, we're going to look at some points, some steps, some guides as to how we actually put this into practice. How would you work as you're designing your worship each week? How do you build your team in strong unifying ways? And how do you make sure that you are following the Holy Spirit as you collaborate together on earth as it is in heaven?
Imagine a ministry in a pre-Christian culture. This is a place where people can encounter Jesus in wonderful ways. I want to give you an example of this. So I have friends Ron and Patty Sheepard and Ron for years has been the executive director of the Puget Sound Baptist Association. I used to be on his team leading church planning and still collaborate with them in planning churches in the greater Seattle area. Well, Ron and Patty, because of uh their equity from living in some places over the years and hitting the market at just the right time when prices were lower in the Seattle area, which is hard to imagine now, but when they did, they were able to buy into an wonderful place in a a high-rise. It was a condo overlooking Pike Place Market. If you've ever seen scenes of Seattle where they're throwing the fish and catching them uh with the farmers market and the fish vendors when they're doing that, that's Pike Place Market. And so Ron and Patty were living in a very desirable location. But the reason they did that wasn't so that they could live in a fancy place. It was so that they could interact with the people in the core of the city of Seattle. And as they would walk the streets to shop or to engage people, uh, they would share with people about Jesus. And what they found, Ron especially shared with me when they would talk to people about the church, a lot of times they had preconceived notions about the church and they weren't that interested in talking about going to somebody's church. But when he started to describe the diversity and the harmony and the living for one another, that is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. That sounded appealing to him and he made it clear that's what Jesus wanted for us here. He wanted us to live together in a way that's transformative and beautiful and appealing. And when we worship together as the church, as the kingdom of heaven uh here on earth, we are bringing God's kingdom here. And it is a beautiful, appealing, transformative thing.
So our key idea is that every time we gather together and worship, we echo this prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name is the way I learned it. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Every time we gather together, we are asking God to make heaven reality. Reality here, visible in our sanctuaries and our hearts. We want God to be present with us. And how do we best ready ourselves to be receptive to him doing that work? So in heaven's worth worship, it is clearly multithnic, multilingual, and spiritfilled. Our worship on earth must begin to sound like that even now. Uh remember revelation 7 says after this I looked and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language which no one could number standing before the throne and before the lamb. And they cried out in a loud voice, "Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb." This is what heaven looked like. This is heaven's worship. It's a multithnic, multi-ingual worship. It wasn't everybody being white or everybody being Hispanic or everybody being whatever. It was all of us. All of us there in John's vision of heaven. and all the languages were represented. But we were that we were unified because we were all focused on Jesus Christ. And such compassion and joy came from that unity. One voice out of many cultures in many languages. That's what God has in store for us. And that's what he wants us to begin to experience here on earth. Multicultural is more than a buzzword. It is God's desire for the church. God's intent is not for us to be isolated. Again, we've talked about it before. Uh yes, we do worship in our heart language. We want to be able to participate, but there are ways to do both. There are ways to bring those languages and those cultures together. And that's God's plan for us is to worship together.
So, one of the things we want to look at is what heaven and being encountered with God is like, what that's been throughout the history of Israel, the church, and even into the future. When we look at the Old Testament coming together, the communities came together. The nation of Israel came together first in the tabernacle and later in the temple. They all came to a specific god-ord orained place to worship. Uh there was much centrality and harmony. Uh even to a degree there was a lot of unonymity in the culture. Even though other nations came and participated, it was focused in this one place in this one time. Uh each time they would gather throughout the year together. In the New Testament, it was much more focused on the Lord's table. It talks in Acts two how they gathered from house to house. They would they would come together in the synagogues, but they would also meet in people's homes. And because of Christ's example of breaking his body and offering his blood spilled to pay for our sins, when the church came together, it was off and around the Lord's table, remembering him each time they did it until his return. And then the imagery that we're seeing seeing for eternity is that we will have the throne room of heaven. Uh that we will all be gathered at Jesus' feet and singing praises to our God and lifting up his name, doing it in our own languages and doing it with who he made us to be. And it'll be this beautiful mosaic of worship for him.
So what does that do when we take that and and share it with the people of today? Well, we see that worship is not just a personal devotion thing. Uh in America often people are very individualistic. You may have noticed and it's all about well this is how I worship and this is how I worship. It was never intended to be purely just our individ individualistic worship. Yes, we should worship as individuals, but it was always to be a corporate thing is the goal. And that becomes a public witness to the world. The world sees heaven here on earth when the church comes together for worship. That's what my friend Ron was sharing. uh when when he would describe it, it's like the beauty of our diversity coming together as we're all worshiping the one who gave us life and as we come to faith in him gives us life a new. So it gives us a credible witness to people when believers from different nations, classes and stories lift one voice to Christ because in that the gospel is proclaimed louder than any sermon. Uh we hear it often that people learn more by what is taught than taught. If we say we're unified and we say we love one another and we serve one another and we pray for one another and if we do that in isolation, they see that as a contradiction. Whereas if we do it together, it is a great and powerful story and a great and powerful illustration of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. That Jesus Christ actually transforms us to be different than the world, to be different than others that might be keeping to their own. Instead, we come together.
So, how could we see this practically? Well, I had the privilege of doing this one time. I was in New York City and I was there uh for at that time it may have been to visit my son who was at NYU for a year. I might have been there for a conference. I can't even remember the exact reason I was there. But I remember I had to fly out on a Sunday afternoon. But I wanted to take advantage of something I had always heard about, never got to do is I went to the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Now, many of you may have heard of the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, uh which is the choir of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. Makes sense. And we don't think a lot about church choirs in a lot of churches today, but this one is world famous. They've actually recorded albums. They've they've won Grammy awards. Uh, but the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir is made up of about 250 people from all walks of life. We're talking lawyers and doctors and and heads of industry to people that used to be in human trafficking or drug addicts and they're in recovery now. Uh teachers, everyday people, people from all nations, all languages. It's a very diverse choir. And I got to go hear them and worship with them and hear the message there in the service that Sunday. It was incredible. I I wish I could have stayed till that afternoon because they were doing their Christmas musical for the first time for that season. It was in December and I was I would have been able to hear it and then keep uh you know they would have done many uh worship performance times after that. Uh but um it it's always been a a a church I've heard many things about it. The way they just follow God's leading and do what he says to them. And the pastor of that church is Pastor Symbula. And Jim Simba wrote a book called Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. And I like audio books cuz I can listen to them when I'm driving. And one time I was listening to a story in this book about this church. This was before I ever got to go there. And I just love this story because um they are so led by the spirit. Here it was middle of summer. It was hot outside and for whatever reason, uh, Pastor Simba just felt God's leading that they should sing a Christmas carol. Maybe it was June or July, I can't remember, but here's singing a Christmas carol in the heat of summer. And as they were singing it, there was a man who was walking by and he, you know, he was alcoholic. He was homeless. Uh, he was down on his luck, if you will. and he was walking by and he heard the Christmas carol and he came in and he sat down in the service. And when he sat in the service, uh he sat there and he heard the gospel and at the end uh he came up and he and he said to the pastor, he goes, "I want I want to give my life to Jesus." And he goes, "Well, what led you here today?" And the man said, "Uh, I know I'm in bad shape. I'm just so given to drunk drinking and I'm I'm so drunk that when I was walking by I could have sworn I heard a Christmas carol in the middle of summer and I knew I was messed up and I needed to come in and get right with God. And so here I am. Now the story's got a little humor about it if you think about it. But God knew God knew what knew what that man needed and led them and through that the presence of the Holy Spirit working in this diverse congregation was able to see the kingdom expanded by one more person. And as we know from scripture, there is nothing that throws a party in heaven like one more sinner getting saved and beginning eternal life with Jesus Christ.
When we come together as a choir of diversity, as like heaven's choir, we we can hear so many wonderful things. We can hear African drums, Korean chants, Latin harmonies, uh Celtic hymns. Uh they are unique but distinctly blended. That's what it's like to worship together. It's not everybody coming together and becoming a homogeneous unit that looks and acts the way that I do or leads worship the way that I do. Uh we have such great diversity and it touches people in different ways. Heaven's choir is already rehearsing. The church on earth just needs to join in. What a beautiful thing to come in and to be a worshipper of the king collectively getting ready for what is to come in heaven. We are heaven's choir. My contention is we're just in sectionals right now. Well, what do I mean by that? Now, those of you in choir, have been in choir, you know what sectionals are, or hopefully you know what sectionals are. I told you before how in college I got to be in a worldclass choir and just had an incredible experience and our director Dr. Sconus was just he was truly a maestro. It was not overstating it to call him that that he was this incredible conductor. But before uh we would usually before we would try a piece with him a lot of times on the more difficult pieces we would get the music ahead of time. We were musicians. We were expect to go learn our parts on our own and there could be four, eight, 16 parts. I there was even one I was saying in had 32 parts which is pretty impressive with 50 people in a choir. And we had to go learn our parts and come together to rehearse. But when we would get to rehearsal, our rehearsal was 2 hours a day, 4 days a week. We would often start with sectionals. And sectionals are where like all the bases would get together and all the sopranos and all the altos and in my case all the teners would get together or maybe we'd split in first teners and second teners and we would work on our parts together to make sure that the notes were right that we were in tune we were pronouncing the words right because we rarely sang in English except at Christmas or our encourse. So we would work on that stuff together and then we would come together for the con for the rehearsal with the maestro. I believe that we are at that point right now that it's like we are in sectionals. We are churches here and there and we are worshiping and it's not just lifting up God now, but we are preparing for heaven's choir. Wouldn't it be great to be ready when our opportunity comes?
So, how do we see that shaping right now? We want to pray the to the the kingdom into our design of our worship. See, worship planning is theological obedience, not performance. It's very easy as a worship leader to just plan things and not really not really have uh a lot of thought to it. We just kind of pick songs and stick them in here and there. Instead, we are trying to be obedient to God's word, not only in what we sing and say, but in how we do it, how we work together. So, we need to ask what does heaven look and sound like? What does it look like in heaven? Uh when we are worship, when we are worshiping here, what does that look like? How do we bring that in? How do we see the diversity and the depth that is in heaven? Now, obviously, we cannot get there, but not why not try to become more and more like what God intends for us. So, those are the questions we want to ask. Colossians 3:16 says, "Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you in all wisdom, teaching, and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts." We want to let God's word truly come through us and do it together. Again, it says, "Amonishing one another." Well, you can't admonish one another if you're being isolationist. We can't admonish, which you know means to challenge the kingdom of God if we're being isolated with just those that are like us. Instead, we are to come together and sing a new song as scripture says, and sing spiritual songs and have gratitude to God in our hearts as we do it. So, the prayer behind every planning session, we pray your kingdom come, letting that reshape our worship schedules and assumptions. We pray the Lord's prayer as we are coming up with what's next. We don't build diversity to impress. We build it to obey. Heaven's diversity is not an accessory. It's a preview. So we are not just having uh diversity for the sake of we can say we're diverse, but we're doing it out of obedience to God's plan. Thy kingdom come. Every time we work on worship, every song list, reading and prayer can embody on earth as it is in heaven. We are praying that God's kingdom will come and be present and empower us here. Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory. Worship is about God. Worship is about our Lord Jesus. It is to be shaped for that purpose. It is for his glory, not just us. It's not for us or about us. Worship does impact us, but we are not the focus or aim of worship. So true worship recenters on God's glory, not our preferences. It's not about us, it's about him.
I had the opportunity to go to a worship service uh about a week ago in another part of the country. Not one of the church plants I work with, but it was it was a church. It was a strong church bigger than our church plants would be just a great time of worshiping and God's word together. But there was one thing that bothered me about it. As the worship leader got up and talked, he talked about the two reasons we worship were uh one so that we could be transformed and two so that we could go out and engage the world, be empowered, be rejuvenated, recharged to face another week. Those are both great things, but neither one of those are the main purpose of worship. Worship literally means worth, his worth. Worship is about him. True worship focuses on God and not just our preferences. It focuses on him and not like which songs do we like the best. It focuses on giving him honor and not puffing ourselves up. Worship is to be aimed at him. Now the the flip side of that though is worship needs to be done in such a way that brings us all to him. not with things that hinder or things that make us feel like secondass citizens. So, one of the ways we can do this is through setting the table. Well, what do we mean by that? Using the the analogy from scripture where it said that the church was in the New Testament and worship was focused around the Lord's table. Well, let me give you an example through that of that my you may not surprise you when you look at me and how big I am. I'm a good cook. I enjoy cooking when I have time. I enjoy eating. Obviously, I do that every day. I've been enjoying eating less. You may not be able to tell, but I'm down over 50 pounds probably since uh last class I tal taught. But I still enjoy cooking. And uh so I'm also a grandparent. So the way I cook as a grandparent might be better or different than I did when I was a parent. What do I mean by that? Well, when my family and my like my daughter and her kids or, you know, my son, his kids, when they come over, yes, I cook for the family. I cook something that they like. And I it's pretty rare. As a matter of fact, I can't remember the last time I cooked something where they're like, "Whoa, that was a swing and a miss. Uh, we didn't like that." They tend to enjoy my cooking. But I also have uh some grandkids. uh one in particular sometimes too. They are very particular about what they eat. They don't try to be. There's just certain things they like and certain things they just can't stand. And some things honestly will almost make them choke or gag if you tell them you have to eat it. Now, you may have been brought up the way I was, which is when you cook, uh you cook a meal and you put it down and if they want to eat, they're going to eat what's in front of them. And as a parent, I totally understand that. I get that. But as a grandparent, you get to live things a little differently. See, I have a model when it comes to my grandkids. I can spoil my grandkids as long as it's not rotten. That's a parent grandparents prerogative. We can spoil our grandkids. We just can't spoil them rotten. And so come when they come over, I know if what I'm cooking is something that I'll just say, one of my grandsons if he will eat it or not. So, believe me, I always have something for him. I might have nachos or I might he likes cereal. There's few things that he really likes. Mac and cheese. And I will be cooking the meal and I'll have his ready to heat up or cook. I'll be cooking on the side. And they'll come in and my daughter will look and see what happens. Like, oh, do you have can we make something else? I'm like, I've already made it. It's already done. Because I set the table for all of them. I set the table so he would feel included and not have to feel bad wanting something else when he just can't eat the parmesan and crusted chicken that I made a couple of days ago. Uh if I got him to try a bite of that, it would have been a miracle. My other another grandson, he he at least tried a bite and swallowed it and that he was done. But they ate other things and I have no problem with that. What I'm doing by that is making them included and valued and elevated. Now, I'm not saying you got to click change your cooking habits because of my little speech there. I'm saying when it comes to worship, we ought to we ought to encourage that. Doesn't mean we can always do everything the way that somebody else would like, but we can find ways to include them and make them feel valued. If we're truly praying the Lord's Prayer in our hearts as we're planning, we're saying the words, "Your will be done." That means that we're giving up the desire for it to be our way for us to have control. Instead, we're saying we want the Holy Spirit to be the one that guides our plans. When we do that, we make ourselves totally as an offering to the Lord. God is looking for worshippers who will worship him with the totality of their being. Remember the passage Romans 12:1 that we're supposed to make our bodies a living living sacrifice holy and acceptable to the Lord. We are to give ourselves totally in worship. When we say God, your will be done, we're saying ours doesn't matter. Instead, we want to be who you want us to be. We want to be used the way that you want us to be. Well, that pertains to worship as well. It's not about us. It's about him and about the way we are to worship him.
So how do we do this? Let's get into the practical designing kingdom Sundays where God's kingdom is present here. The first thing is that we want to pray before we plan. Now that's may sound obvious and people say well you always pray. That's kind of like the pat answer. But truly pray for God's will to be done in this service. Pray pray that we will allow people to encounter him which means be praying for people specifically uh the people that will be there people that we know will be there and how to bring them into this worship and we want to widen the team and I don't mean just widen the worship team but widen the team when it comes to planning are we getting input from others are we getting collaboration and ideas and experiences that there's no way we could have on our own we want to weave scripture into that. So, as we're planning the service, we want to do that. But it's important that when we're working with the worship team that we are also teaching them to be worshippers, which means even when you're having a rehearsal, you're leading in worship at that time. So, weave scripture into your counsel and into your planning uh as much as you do into the service itself. And then plan for participation. So, who do we need to engage have engage with us? And we'll talk more about that in a little bit.
So, I want us to see how that plays out in some other ways. How do we how do we bring these people in? How we get them to engage? Well, sometimes it's even before the planning. There's things that we can do in preparation that can help with this. I have a friend, his name is Mark Clifton. I've known him for years and he is a a leading expert in the area of replanting and he has written a book called Reclaiming Glory and it's talking about reclaiming the God's glory through the local church because churches have life cycles just like we have life cycles. We're born, we live, at some point we die. Well, churches have that as well. They are born, they have their growing time, their their peak time, they have times when they're in decline, and a lot of times they're just struggling for survival. And it's not anything that really uh most of the time points people to God. And so he talks about how to help them regain life, whether it be through revitalizing a church or if it becomes clear that church is done to close it down and replant something new. But in doing that, you're often bringing people together from different age categories. You may have much older people in a church that's dying than you would in the new church that you're starting. It could be diversity. A lot of times in a in a community, uh there was a church that was there, but the the people that used to live there now move to other areas and they drive in to come to the church. and the community around the church has totally changed in terms of demographics, terms of ethnic, ethnicity, nationalities, age, what they do for a living. So the question is how do you bring those together? You don't want to just make it good for one group and exclude the other. How do you bring them together? And uh we it's usually not by starting with worship because our worship styles would be so different. And even though there's some things about food that can be good, a lot of times it's not even food because you have an older crowd that knows how to cook. And like I told you in one of my previous stories, uh we had a crowd that knew how to bring potato chips. Uh that's not necessarily the answer. So how do you get them to serve uh to work together and grow together? It's by serving together first. Serving together leads to worship together. So you find ways that they can serve the community together. Because when you're cleaning a school or or cleaning up a park or you're serving food or bringing socks to those that need them that are homeless, you it put brings down some barriers. You find some unity in it. And finding ways that different people can serve because sometimes people that are much older, they have a hard time going out and doing it. there's ways that they can still be a part of the process and build relationship either by praying back at the home base or getting things ready while others go out and serve. So I want to encourage you to think about this when you're trying to bring a group group together that's maybe got some tensions because of differences in who they are is find ways that they can serve together and that paves the way for what then can be a unifying process in worship. Unity grows through mission though before it does through music because our tastes and music are so different. So be on mission together when you're planning.
Another thing to do is to have your prayer list and your set list kind of side by side. So you're praying through the Lord's prayer line by line. You're praying through what it's saying in that and letting that guide you as you're working through the songs that are there that you're going to have in your kingdom worship time. Praying your kingdom come often means though that what we want, our preference has to go because it's not about us. It's about him and how to bring people into a worshshiping relationship with him. Psalm 96 says, "Sing a new song to the Lord. Let the whole earth sing to the Lord. Sing to the Lord. Bless his name. Proclaim his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his wondrous works among all peoples. For the Lord is great and highly praised. He is feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples. Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name. Bring an offering and enter his courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. Let the whole earth tremble before him. Say among the nations, "The Lord reigns. The world is firmly established. It cannot be shaken. He judges the po peoples fairly. Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice. Let the sea and all that fills it resound. Let the fields and everything in them celebrate. Then all the trees of the forest will shout for joy before the Lord, for he is coming. For he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with faithfulness."
Look back at the beginning of this passage in Psalm 96. It says, "Sing a new song to the Lord. Declare his glory among the nations. his wondrous works among all the peoples." This is talking about how we're to worship God. And it makes it very clear that this is a missional act. It's inclusive of everyone. Look at some of the things that it says that we are to do. We're to sing, to proclaim, to declare, ascribe, bring, say, rejoice. These are actions. It's not just passively sitting there. It is actively engaging the world with the good news of Jesus. Worship then is a missional movement. Worship has action. It should lead us somewhere not only into relationship and worship of God but it should empower us and mobilize us to do more for him. Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible, but not everything builds up. No one is to seek his own good, but the good of the other person. 1 Corinthians 10:23 and 24. What this is saying to us is that even though we can have rights and we can have things that we prefer, it doesn't mean it's what we should do. Sometimes it's putting aside our own preferences for the sake of others. I often in premarital counseling will talk to a couple and I'll ask them what should you give in marriage and a common answer is 50/50 to which I say that's not really the right answer. The right answer is 100 100 each of you give 100%. If you are 100% seeking the welfare of the other then neither of you is lacking. It's the same in the church. We can do things. There's things that are permissible or things that I'm allowed to do, but is it really beneficial to the body? There are things that I can do, but is it really build them up? Well, it's a rhetorical question. The answer is no. It doesn't really do those things. We're not to seek our own good, but the good of the other person. And when we do, then everyone is cared for and everyone's needs are met. Imitate me as also I imitate Christ. 1 Corinthians 11:1 is saying in this that we should be leading an example for others of sacrifi sacrificial living of living in a way that is pleasing to God. We should be able to stand before the world and say look at the church and see what the gospel has done. If we are living in such a selfless it's about others and it's about our Lord way that is appealing just like I told with the story with Ron and Patty that is appealing to a lost world because it's different than what they know. It's different than what they've seen. Look at the church and see what the gospel has done. That's what we should be able to do. Too many people see the church as taking from society or fighting with each other or for what they stand against instead of seeing the church about what they've done for one another and for the community around them.
Revelation 5:9 says, "And they sang a new song. You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals." It's singing about Jesus because you were slaughtered and you were you purchased people for God by your blood from every tribe and language and people and nation. We are to sing a new song of the Lord because he's done it for all of us. He has purchased all of us. He has transformed those of us who receive his gift of eternal life. Look at the church and see what the gospel has done. Multithnic worship demonstrates the gospel as being true. The church's new song is one redemption melody with many tongues. What we don't want to do is mute the harmony by reflecting only one culture. See, if we have everybody singing exactly the same way about God, and I'm not just talking about musically. If we're saying we all must conform instead of being transformed to being like Christ, if we have to conform to an individual's human ideal, we're trying to make them all be one culture instead of being the godly culture in Christ. When that happens, it can be strong. We can be loud. We've seen that where groups that have followed the wrong kind of leader, cults or hateful, even ones that claim to be Christian groups, they have a uniform s sound. It's loud, but there's no depth there. Whereas when we have harmony, when we have difference and we bring that together, we can only do that through humility. And that humility then allows for depth to take place. It allows for us to learn and allows for us to grow. Harmony is the sound of humility making space for another's voice. Uh I I have incredible opportunities. I wish you guys could have some of them that I have, but uh I get the opportunity to be with so many cultures and I learn so much. There's so many things about their faith journey which are not normal to mine. their experiences they've had or things they've seen God do that I wouldn't have if I didn't encounter them and hear their stories.
So, how do we help that come together? How do we become that that global choir that is the precursor of the heavens choir? Again, in our worship, we want to have scripture multiple languages. Uh, have you ever had a worship service where you've had somebody from another country and you just you just hear them reading God's word in their language? I've heard that many times and I have to and it's good that I know what passage they're in, but I can just hear God's spirit speaking through that and empowering them and lifting them up and I'm encouraged by that even though I don't know what the words are verbatim. I may know the passage. So maybe sometimes I can pick up a little bit of it here and there, but sometimes the scripture is so different. I can't pick up any of it linguistically, but I understand the spirit of what God is doing. Uh we should have the same thing in musical representation. We we should be singing songs not just translated to other language but songs that come from other cultures that represent their rhythms that represent their harmonies that represent their struggles and victories and the joy that they have from being in Christ Jesus. There should be mutual learning. And this one's great. When I when I talk about working with different languages, one of the things I've I've got to do in the past, I lead a a coalition of guys that do what I do from different denominations, different networks. So, here are these network leaders, but I bring them together because a lot of them only work in a few languages, and they want to learn how to do more. And so I remember some of the best times were when I brought in leaders like from the Filipino Church Planning Network or the Spanish-speaking Church Planning Network or other groups and we didn't try to teach them what to do because we were the experts. We were the students and we learned from them and what they were doing and that included how they approached worship. There's so much that we can learn from each other. And then we also want to link worship and mission together. I encourage churches to be engaged in missions locally, regionally, and around the world. Uh some of those are connected because they've chosen a certain people group to work with. Some are connected because they're from that people group. We encourage them if they're working with a group here to work with that group overseas. And if they're working with a group in another country, why not work with that same people group here? Well, bring that into worship. How much more powerful is it when it's not looking at an us and then such them situation where we're not really engaged with them. Instead, have them be a part of our worship and bring their music and bring bring their uh scripture, have them preach in their language and let us experience uh interpretation into our own language just like many of you do when we get together and I speak in English and it's translated into Portuguese or Spanish. Why not experience that in your own church setting with some people that you're helping with, some groups that you're engaging? Let all the peoples praise you, God. Let all the peoples praise you. Let the re nations rejoice and shout for joy. Every Sunday we can do that. It can be like a many great commission. When Jesus told us to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations, all peoples and we're supposed to baptize in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. We're supposed to teach him everything that he's commanded us. Every Sunday when we come together, we can be living that out. Yes, we live it out in the week, but why not live it out in our worship? Bringing all the people together to praise him.
What then? Brothers and sisters, whenever you come together, each one of each one has a a hymn, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Everything is to be done for building up. If anyone speaks in a tongue, there are to be only two or at most three. each in turn and let someone interpret. But if there's no interpreter, that person is to keep silent in the church and speak to himself and God. Two or three prophets should speak and the other should evaluate. But if someone has has been revealed to another person sitting there, something has been revealed to another person sitting there, the first prophet should be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one so that everyone may learn and everyone may be encouraged. and the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets since God is not a God of disorder but of peace. This passage is from first Corinthians and it's Paul writing to the church in Corenth at a time of great uh tension if you will in their worship that was basically chaos. People were speaking in different tongues. Uh some think that's different known languages. Others talk about it being unknown languages. uh they're speaking in tongues and and there there's people coming in if they were from the outside would just think what is this mad house all this stuff going on and so Paul was pointing out to them how it is to be done and what are the guidelines and there's a couple things I want to point out from this passage first of all you're not there to show off it's talking about each one of us being there you're not there to put on a performance where everybody else watches but that we collectively are to be engaged together in worship each one brought something. And what are the purposes? First of all, edification. Edification means building someone up, lifting them up. And we're building them up. We're edifying them to be more like Jesus. The other thing at the very end of this passage passage, it says God is not a God of disorder. He He is a God of order. And so, what we see there is there's supposed to be intentionality. There's some supposed to be some planning. Now, this doesn't mean that you can never do something spontaneous. Think back to the story I just shared with you a bit earlier where the pastor said, "Sing a Christmas hymn in the middle of summer, a Christmas carol." Well, that wasn't in the plan. That was following the prompting of the Holy Spirit. But we can go too much to one extreme or another. We can plan everything so much that there's no room for the Holy Spirit. Or we can just go, we're not going to plan anything. we're just going to show up and as God leads and we'll have no planning, no preparation. We just won't be be putting our best effort into what we're doing.
Why not find that balance? The other thing is that we need to continue to emphasize it's not a performance. It's us participating. It's us engaging in worship together. And the difference of that is who you expect to respond. If you're trying to wow the people, you're putting on a performance. If you're trying to worship God and lift him up, that requires us to participate. He is our audience. So having all these things together creates a culture in which we can have diversity. Order is not oppression. It creates space for everyone's best offering. If you don't have order, what you can have is those who are the most dominant will lead things. If you don't have planning, you can have those that are the marginalized to become even more marginalized. But by planning, we can enable that diversity to take place. The structure sets up to allow us to function. But most of all, the structure needs to serve love. We are not here just to fill in the blanks and hit the certain markers. We are to bring each other into a loving, worshshiping relationship with God. So, as you tell the truth to someone, you're supposed to speak the truth and love. When you want to let someone know that you're his disciples, you're supposed to let them know by the way you love one another. If you want worship to be as fulfilling and lifting lifting up, building up as possible, you need to do it in a spirit of love. Psalm 133:1 says, "How delightfully good when brothers live together in harmony." When we come together in a loving relationship, we have the opportunity to show each other and the world what it is like to truly be in a good, holy, healthy relationship of harmony.
So, how do we build this climate where this can take place? Well, we want to build a culture and we want to build a participatory culture, a culture where people, many people can be involved. So, the first thing I encourage you is to rotate leadership. Now, it's very common, you know, hey, we pay a worship leader or we got the worship leader and so that we pay them to do that. And by doing that, we we sometimes stifle the the ability of others. Uh if we rotate leaderships, yes, you have somebody coordinating it, but you allow different people to be the one to lead. Maybe within a worship service, they lead a song or a scripture, but also they're leading in the planning and and encouraging them to have a key part in where we're going to go on a particular Sunday or other worship times. We want to train for listening. We want to be able to hear one another. If you've ever been in a vocal group that has tight harmonies, like I've sung jazz in the past or other ac capella groups, you really have to listen for one another. So, if you're just belting out, you can't hear that well and the and the harmony
Isn't there? Well, it's the same thing. We need to tune our hearts to hear the input of others. Don't be quick to run over somebody or offer a better idea. Listen. Be quick to to listen and slow to speak.
As we've heard in past studies, we need to have open table testimonies. One of the most encouraging things that we've done in our church planting endeavors is to get planters together uh with other leaders and pastors and let them share their stories. Uh we have had missions times at our annual meeting and and we'll have 40 tables and we'll have church planners at different tables. And it's especially important for our non-English church planners because a lot of times they may be the o only one or maybe one of two pastors in our group that speak their language and they don't get to share their story. They're working with people but they can't really share with their peers uh because they have no other peers in their language. So by getting together around these tables, we make them the guests of the evening or the star of the evening that we're here to hear their stories and to encourage them and pray for them and find ways to edify them and encourage them and maybe even join in and help them.
The same thing can be done in worship, bringing in people that have a different journey. There are some people around us that have gone through some incredibly difficult times uh and have survived because of God's grace and have been encouraged because of God's grace. I know people that have lived in in refugee camps for 18 years and when I ask them about it, they say, "I have no complaints because it's where I found Jesus." We have a pastor who survived the killing fields and now is ministering to other survivors. Their testimonies aren't about how horrible it was. Their testimonies are about the goodness of God and the joy they have in being alive, not only physically but spiritually in God's presence. We would miss those stories if we didn't give opportunities for their testimonies.
And then the fourth thing is we need to evaluate for edification. What did this service accomplish? Did it do what we'd hope it do? Did it fulfill the Lord's prayer and all the components that we looked at earlier? Did it engage people? And did it reflect the kingdom of heaven? Was it the multicultural worship we were hoping for where people had a voice and people felt apart and not secondass, but they were included? We want to make space for God to be at work. Not multithnic musicians, but kingdom worshippers who make space for one another's songs. We're not just trying to fill a quota. We're trying to make room where we can be complete.
We uh we when we approach people it needs to be with that attitude. We need you here so we are complete as the body. In order to do that we can do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look not to his own interests but rather to the interests of others. Again, this is the idea of that 100%. We're not looking at you, me, as being better than you. We're lifting you up as better than me. Meaning, what's important for you is of greater importance to me than what's my own heart desires. And if we're all doing that, then no one is in need and no one is left out.
So to do this, we build our diverse teams. We have to recruit broadly. We need to we need to find people that can add to the team. We need to train cross-culturally. We need to train people for things that are positive or offensive. Uh I I just went out to an early birthday dinner with my wife. Our birthdays are both coming up and because of my traveling schedule this year for like the first time maybe ever, we don't get to be together on uh either one of our birthdays. And so I'm hoping maybe she'll make one of the trips with me. So, we went to dinner. I actually interrupted this video in the middle to go to our birthday lunch and come back and do the second video. So, if I look fuller right now, that's why.
But, um, in doing that, um, I come to a place where I am working with her. I'm I'm spending time with her. I'm trying to show her my love, but I also need to create shared values with her in life. So, we need to grow to be more like each other. We need we need to be in a better place. And so, I need to learn from her, I need to listen to her just like she learns and listens from me. We need to do those things. But we also need to do this in our life with others. We need to share and engage and create these shared values. We need to train cross-culturally. There's times when I need to let someone else be the one that teaches and the one that guides instead of me being the one that's always speaking because I'm a preacher.
How do how do we get people in together? It's by opening those opportunities with one another. It says in 1 Corinthians 13, "If I speak human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a ch clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I might can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing." I have to do this in love. I have to engage people by sharing the good news of Jesus as I am leading them to worship. And in doing so, I create the right kind of culture, >> a culture of affirmation, a cult culture of mentoring one another, a culture of planning together and listening for humble feedback. uh I have to evaluate am I doing these things in such a way that it gives them honor and by doing so also honors our lord.
In order to live out a life of worship with one another, we need to have a character within us that builds kingdom worship. Colossians 3:12-14 says, "Put on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and then towards the end it says above all love." We need to create a culture that leads people into a worship culture. And the culture within us that's behind that begins with humility. Again, not seeking our own. It comes by tuning our hearts to Jesus as the one who is our true focus, our true savior. And then through that restoring our melody by being forgiving of one another, receiving and giving forgiveness as well as receiving forgiveness from our Lord. If anyone says, "I love God and hates his brother or sister," he is a liar. We need to be in harmony with each other to be able to worship God freely. And the Lord said he will prepare a feast for all the peoples. Again, the idea is that he doesn't want us to do that in isolation. We need to come together, live in harmony with one mind and one voice, scripture tells us.
So, how do we do all this? By bringing people together, we do it by being inclusive. But we need to make sure when we do that, we are avoiding tokenism. Tokenism is the is the appearance of being diverse without having authentic relationship. Now I think about my dad. My dad has gone on home to be with the Lord a few years ago, but even in his 90s he was at a church in Arizona and he was the chairman of the missions team. And my dad loved to tell me about his team and it was because of the great diversity that people were from Africa and there were Navajo Indians and there were Asian people. There were people from a variety of different places to where there was this great diversity and he felt like that made them complete that allowed them to be more effective in serving people here and in other countries. They they worked they did uh evangelism and served the Navajo Nation nearby. They went to South America and other places to do great ministries. And even though physically he couldn't do everything they were doing, he helped create a culture that allowed for that to take place.
So we need to be complete, not conforming. Tokenism says fit our mold. You guys come in and be like us. Kingdom worship says we need you and your voice to make us complete. We want to be whole as the body of Christ. So how do we avoid tokenism? Start by relationship. Genuinely care for one another. Don't just show up on Sunday morning think it's going to pop together. Spend time living and praying and serving and just having fun together. We empower by representation. If our group is everything else and everybody looks like me except for one person's different, we really aren't quite there. We're we're just kind of giving it a little token, if you will. We need to educate the congregation. say, "Hey, we want to be this. We as a congregation are different. We want to lead worship in ways that are different, which means we've got to reflect the room that's out there." And through that whole process, say stay humble. Don't try to make it like I'm doing you a favor, but instead I'm inviting you to be with me, my teammate, to do these things.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace who made both groups one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. He's talking about the groups of the Israelites and the Gentiles. That those walls were broken down. That's been done since the time of Jesus. He's broken down the walls. Why do we keep putting them back up? Instead, he wants us to be one. The multithnic church is not human achievement. It's a miracle of divine grace. It's not something we accomplish but God accomplished within us. And diversity is not decoration. It is disciplehip that shares power. It is living it out in a positive way. Every act of worship prepares us for heaven or keeps us from it. Are we being drawn to who Christ has made us to be or are we shunning that and holding ourselves back?
So how do we do that? We do it by welcoming one another just as Christ welcomed you to the glory of God. We glorify God not by singing louder but by welcoming wider. So the final thoughts I want to give with you give to you is to worship as in heaven is to pray like Jesus our father who art in heaven. To plan like Antioch a city of great diversity that was inclusive to sing like the psalm singing praises giving worship and expressing joy to our Lord but to do it all by loving in the ways of Christ. And when we sing together across difference we don't just sound like heaven. We sound like Jesus. God bless. >> As long as I'm breathing, I got a reason to praise [Music] the Lord, oh my soul. Praise the Lord, oh my soul. I won't be quiet. My God is alive. How can I keep it inside the Lord, oh my soul?