Music That Glorifies And Edifies - [Colossians 3:16]

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Well, you know I've been really I've been vexed.
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I've been irritated all week, and I'll tell you why it's really had to do with music And so, you know if I get a little preachy tonight, you'll have to forgive me now.
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Let me ask you something What would you think on Sunday morning if you came to church to worship the triune God right here at Bethlehem Bible?
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Church the God who has saved your soul and Charlie Crane who leads our music
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Introduced a worship song that used the tune with some new and improved lyrics from peaceful easy -feeling song by the
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Eagles from the 1970s You might think oh, that's pretty crazy who would do that Well church where we used to live did that and they segued from amazing grace.
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You know played on guitars, which is fine Nothing wrong with that But right to peaceful easy -feeling with these slightly modified lyrics, that's bad
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That's just bad. You know and I've been thinking about this. Oh, you know maybe 150 years from now
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Somebody wants to take that tune change all the lyrics. It'll be okay because nobody will know it.
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It'll be done You know nobody it'll be in the dustbin of history, but right now Using a song like that just kind of conjures up all kinds of Memories I was at a crusade event an event that is meant to draw in Unbelievers, and they had a man who fronted one of the big rock and roll groups of the 70s
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They told us that he'd been saved and he got up and sang again slightly modified words to one of the biggest hits that this group had and I Knew all the right words.
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I was sitting there. I could sing all the you know the right words The ones from the 70s that were wrong
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But all the right words were wrong and all the wrong words were right And it was a very confusing, and I guess that's what you're supposed to do if you want to appeal to the culture to the unbelievers to the
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What they called the seekers today? There's actually a church as I was using the internet and researching this there's actually a church that uses
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I Want to hold your hand as a worship song from the Beatles now
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They've modified it and so the idea is that they want to hold God's hand Nonsense is that is
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The church engaging the culture or being absorbed by the culture is there anything?
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Sinful in the music that we're using in the church today I don't think there's anything necessarily sinful in the chords of I want to hold your hand
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I don't think it's necessarily sinful like I said I think at some point in the future when nobody remembers the
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Beatles whenever that is To maybe change that and who knows what music is gonna look like 150 200 300 years from now should the
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Lord Terry but I think now to use that kind of music and to Just bring back whatever
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Memories people have associated with those songs is just it's not wise Now did you ever wonder on Sunday morning you come to church and look at the bulletin you see the songs that are picked
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Did you ever wonder why we sing those songs? Me too. I don't get it who picks those songs.
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Oh wait I do Well, let me tell you What I'm not going to do tonight.
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I'm not going to tell you that one form of music is more spiritual than another I'm not going to compare or you know give you some kind of lecture about the evils of rock and roll music
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I Mean Again, you know what things change trends change
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At one point what we have now in our hymnal would have been seen as garbage Because all they sang was the
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Psalms and so when these newfangled songs came along whether it was Martin Luther or whoever they just said
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This is tripe. This is bilge get rid of it Why because they'd always used the
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Psalm the Psalms, and that's all they wanted to use and that same way I think we can kind of get
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You know we have our hymnal that's all we've ever used that's all we need to use and that's just fine is contemporary music inherently sinful is
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Are the worship choruses inherently sinful the answer is no
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But my purpose tonight is to give you some biblical guidelines So that you will be able to evaluate and I want you to evaluate the music that we sing on Sunday mornings
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I want everyone To be as picky as your pastoral staff about music.
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Why? Why would I care? Why would I care?
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I got an interesting email this week about somebody asking about a particular ministry a ministry that would like to Teach from this pulpit actually
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And my response was simply we have to know those people We can't just turn over the pulpit to anybody why because as pastors were shepherds
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Our job is to protect the flock as an elder board. We need to protect We don't just minister we protect and in the same way.
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We can't just have any kind of song Sung on Sunday morning. Why well because music matters
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Now just a note about the the title of this evening sermon You know sometimes you're just working on a text and you really don't have a good title and that what kind of happened this week
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I Think if I was going to retitle it I'd say music matters or you know something else something more indicative but I all
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I kept coming back to was a song by the great theologian Bob Dylan, you know and Redone by Jimi Hendrix and you too, and I'm just name -dropping but anyway
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The line goes all I have is an old guitar three chords and the truth So the sermon title an old piano three chords and the truth
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That's that's all we have and when you get right down to it. What do we have you know? If we're presenting the gospel to somebody well, why can't we be innovative?
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Why can't we think of some new way to present it because? We still have to give it to him. It's still the same message
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Well, why can't we just you know do something new or something that will appeal to people? Why can't you know
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Charlie Charlie's a great musician? Why can't he just play 15 -minute solos? Why don't we have
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Eric up here? You know? You know bring it down the house with the cymbals and the hi -hats and all that stuff
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Because it's not about Musical performance, it's about worship.
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It's about worshiping God now music Matters for a number of reasons not the least of which is it is a powerful form of communication
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That God has given to us, and if you doubt that And I know some of you never listen to lyrics, but I've heard that too.
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I heard I had somebody once tell me well You know it doesn't really matter. What kind of lyrics I listen to or what kind of music
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I listen to because I don't listen to the lyrics Sadly I happen to be around when that person
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Was singing to some lyrics to some songs that I knew that they shouldn't be singing so We we absorb that if we're around it long enough we pick up a lot of the things that are in music even if we don't want to On a positive note you know one of the things that I took away from my early
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Mormon education Was I memorized the books of the Old Testament in order why because we had a song we learned it on now
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We never had a good one for the New Testament So I had to like memorize those the old -fashioned way But if you ask me to this day if you ask me the books of the
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Old Testament in order I will inevitably fall back on that song. I haven't sung that song in 30 years
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Not you know not heard it recorded or anything, but I can still do it in my head. It's easy Music is very very powerful.
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Yeah, you want to hear me sing it. Maybe some other time Yeah, maybe special music on Thursday But music is vital
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It's a great gift that God has given us and it can cause us to reflect on God I listen to the music tonight
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And I just thought man you guys are like cheating or something because you picked all really good songs And I was so disappointed.
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Well. I wasn't really actually I thought it was great, and I just thought one song
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That we sang tonight in particular just it kind of it just reminded me afresh of just what a great
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God we have 201 Dark is the stain that we cannot hide what can avail to wash it away look there is flowing a crimson tide
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Whiter than snow you may be today That is the message of the gospel. What a great message that is how often do we need to hear that if Luther said?
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When he was asked why he preached the gospel every week, and he told his parishioners I teach it every week because you people don't live like you've learned it in That same respect we can listen to the gospel being sung every single week why?
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Because it's something we constantly need to be reminded of we're sinful as one songwriter said
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We're prone to wander We feel that tug we want to wander and it's
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Faithfulness of God is the faithfulness of God that keeps us from wandering and that's why we sing
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That's why we come into worship, but music can cause us to do a lot of things in our lives
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It can cause us to reflect on God you can cause us to reflect on what he's done in our lives it can be emotional
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Can bring up all kinds of emotions as a matter of fact? but music has a Frightening hold a frightening ability to affect our moods and actions.
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Let me put it to you this way when I was a police officer I Never stopped a carload of hooligans who are listening to Vivaldi's Four Seasons It never happened.
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I Stopped hundreds and hundreds of cars, and I kept waiting for it It never happened in fact
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I can't even remember a car that I stopped where they were listening to Frankie Valli in the Four Seasons. It just It did not happen, but what we listen to Impacts the way we think
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What we listen to and what we sing in church Impacts the way we think and worship
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God Now tonight might be a little controversial I might
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Inadvertently have targeted some of your favorite hymns but beloved if we want our church meetings if we want our
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Church meetings to be worship meetings if we want to be here to worship God Every part of our meeting must be aimed at his glory and not our desires
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Open your Bibles, please to Colossians 3 16 While you're turning there,
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I'll just give you another little experience. I uh I Went once at the request of my friend whose church was struggling with Charismatic issues
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I Went to a charismatic Friday night meeting I'm gonna say there were maybe 1 ,500 people in this hall and it was you know what the whole thing was a little surreal all the things that went on there, but the singing in particular bothered me
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The teaching bothered me everything that happened bothered me, but the singing bothered me because I really felt as though We were all 1 ,200 or 1 ,500 people separate individual reflecting on ourselves
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Not reflecting on God, and I just thought that is just not how it should be that is not what
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God has given us music to do with Let's read Colossians 3 16
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Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another
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With psalms and hymns and spiritual songs Singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God now
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In that in that One verse there. There's a number of things going on But let me just say this first that in the
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Greek the phrase the word of Christ that phrase is moved to the front of the sentence rather than the
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Other ways that it might have occurred, but it's moved to the front of the sentence to emphasize it
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The word of Christ. What is that? What is the word of Christ? That's an unusual way of saying things we don't normally see the word of Christ in the
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New Testament and what it means is it is the Objective truth what can be known objectively about Jesus Christ?
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It describes if we talk about the word of Christ it would tell us about the
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Lord Jesus Christ So what does that? Where can we get objective truth about Christ the
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Bible? That's the only place we can get it for the Colossians This meant this truth would have been
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What was taught to them by the man who established the church the man who taught them who was a path for us?
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Now that the first word in our English translation to let Might be a little bit misleading because it's not like he's giving them an option
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He's not suggesting that the that they allow God's Word to richly dwell within them
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He is commanding it is an imperative. It is an ongoing command and Paul tells them that they must do this
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In fact, I don't think it's a it's wrong to say that you must let the word of Christ richly dwell within you
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So that truth just as Paul said of the Colossians that truth is to dwell within us.
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It is to be As it were I'm getting all worked up about the
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VBS the the marrow the blood What flows through us? We should be focused on the word of Christ the objective truth of Christ that's contained in the scripture
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Now it is not just to dwell in them, which would be enough, but it is to do so richly
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Abundantly in the fullest measure they are to drink deeply of the truth that they know about Jesus Christ They are to stew in it to seep in it to be immersed in it
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They were to be as we are occupied with the truths about our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ What else would we want to be steeped in what else would we want to be occupied with Now out of this indwelling of objective truth about Christ the
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Colossians were commanded to teach and admonish one another in all wisdom
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And by the way, is there any greater wisdom than that which is objectively true about Jesus Christ And the answer is no
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They were to admonish one another with teach and admonish one another with Psalms hymns and spiritual songs now it's difficult to differentiate between Psalms hymns and spiritual songs lexically
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Now if Paul just wanted to say you know what if you guys if there's a problem in your church You guys just go to the hymns or you go to that.
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I'm sorry You just go to the Psalms You just go to the hundred and fifty Psalms and that's all you need and if that's what he wanted to say
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He could have done that but he didn't do that Psalms hymns spiritual songs
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Now they were to teach and admonish one another How do you do that?
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How do you teach and admonish one another with songs? Well, you can do that if your songs are filled with the
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Word of Christ Then you can teach one another you can correct one another you can reprove one another which was what admonish means
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It's kind of an unusual thing. You know, I notice that you're in sin brother. Can I just sing a song for you? Does that sound like a little strange thing to do?
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Yeah, it would be But now let's say that you notice that there's something really amiss in a church a bigger issue
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That's not just one or two individuals, but a lot of people are struggling with it So you write a song?
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So that people will learn They've had an errant view before you want them to learn the right things
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You've given them sermons or whatever, but you write this song and what do people do with songs? Pastor Mike's talked about this before how
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Charlie will introduce a song And he goes, you know, I found myself singing that Furthermore I hear my kids singing it all week long.
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That's a great thing. What has happened? what has happened is that that truth has been introduced by virtue of a song and it is carried with us all week and no offense
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To anyone here to Mike or anyone else but a sermon You probably will not remember everything in a sermon.
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Let's say What do you think by Friday? You've forgotten a few details, but a song can stay with you every single day
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So it's a great way if somebody's struggling with a sin and you can give them a song
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That deals with that if you can give them a song that helps them remember what they're to do in a particular situation
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That's a great help to them Now here's the issue Christians stumble.
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I know this is a shock to you guys, but Christians stumble they falter or in plain biblical terms.
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They sin and Paul wanted the church at Colossae to use music to exhort and correct the brethren in the church music is very very powerful a
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Song can encourage you to continue in faithfulness a song can so prick your conscience
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That you weep as you think about the sins that you've committed It can so console you in times of difficulty now in the midst of this command
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The Colossians were also commanded to sing with hearts filled with thankfulness
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Why would they be thankful? Because of the objective truths about Christ that they had been taught, you know, what's fun and I did this today
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On the way here. I was a little tired Let me tell you mark said something about the air -conditioning imagine what it would be like without air -conditioning
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I didn't have to imagine that was this morning over there at the church On the way here,
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I thought I'll just go buy Starbucks so the girl says She says, how are you today?
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And I said fantastic She said I haven't heard that for a while It is great
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To to say that to somebody a fantastic. I'm doing great or whatever or I'm doing far better than I deserve or Great according to my you know my sin
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It's just great to hear people say I wish I could say that or this is the first time I've heard that This is a burdened world a depressed world of people
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It's filled with people who are focused on problems And that's what
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I say It is great fun to kind of turn things on them and say something that they never would have expected
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Sometimes I can even give you an opportunity to present the gospel just that easily now when you reflect on What has been taught to you about Jesus what he has accomplished for you and promised you how can you really respond with anything short of fantastic or great or Considering what
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I deserve I'm doing very well And when we sing about the great things that God has accomplished on our behalf
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When we sing about his attributes when we sing about his goodness his faithfulness his love mercy and even his wrath
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How can we be anything other than thankful why would we be thankful about a song when we're singing about the wrath of God I Mean we don't have many songs about those.
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You know wait. I was listening to these You know I was thinking over on my own the love of God Oh, I know where it is this on this lyric sheet here, but the love of God Do we ever have a song called the wrath of God how deep and why we don't have one like that do they?
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But I I was I Was at a meeting a church meeting where they were they saying my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the
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Lord Now there are a few theological issues with that. It's post -tribulational written by Unitarian things like that But you know when
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I still kind of like the song, but I'll have to say that songs about wrath. They're good to think about Why because you're thinking about what you've been saved out of But when we think about all those things all the great things that God has done on our behalf how can we do anything, but be thankful and that's what
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God instructs the Colossians to be and by Extension what he instructs us to be thankful because of the truth that we have learned about God now
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What I want to do is we're gonna have a little audience participation. This is our intermission here this evening We're going to and this is fully authorized by Pastor Mike we talked about this let's take a look at a few hymns and Compare them and I want you to take a couple of minutes.
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Look at these hymns There are two on the front two on the back and I want you to rate them on a scale of one to ten in these categories
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Are they biblically based are they God -centered and are they theologically clear and Bruce and Carl?
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Maybe if you guys can give me a hand hounding these out While there's really not going to be a test.
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I will be asking for your input here So, please do that again one to ten in these categories
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Biblically based God -centered and theologically clear and these are all straight out of our hymnal one to ten on biblically based
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God -centered Theologically clear I'll give you a hint one
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Preacher that I respect a lot has said that one of these songs is the most inane song Ever included in a hymnal.
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I won't tell you which one What's that?
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The him Okay, does anybody has anybody looked at all the songs have an evaluation?
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How would you anybody how would you categorize these are there four good songs
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Two good songs and two great songs Three fair songs and a super song.
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How would you Bruce? Mm -hmm, they can choke you up And you know what?
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Let me just say this. There are songs that I love to listen to I mean I have I have a little bit of a
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CD collection and there are songs that I love to listen to I have one by a charismatic
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Irishman I have a CD by I Several CDs by Michael W Smith and I like some of the songs he does
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And sometimes I think I go man. Could we do that song on Sunday morning? And I are you kidding me? I Still listen to it.
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I still like it, but it's more because of The feeling it gives me then then you know thinking oh
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Boy, that's a great God exalting You know song so it wouldn't be one that I would suggest for Sunday morning.
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So So that's that and that's why I'm steering you away from how it makes me feel
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We'll talk about that here in a few minutes But anyway, any thoughts about the songs
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Bruce and can it be?
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Yeah, I like that one. I think that's probably about I think it's one of the best
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And why would you say that how did you rate it on a one to ten thing on Well, let me just give you an example
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And I happen to like that song too. Let's look at verse three there Long my imprisoned spirit lay fast bound in sin and nature's night thine eye diffused a quickening ray
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I awoke the dungeon flamed with light My chains fell off. My heart was free.
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I rose went forth and followed these the lyric so Is that straight out of a
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Bible verse? No, but what's the picture there of Us being slaves of sin
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Christ setting us free. And what do we do as a result of that? We follow Christ. Is that a biblical truth?
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Yes So I'd like to compare that then across the page About halfway through the song
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It says he touched me. Oh, he touched me and oh the joy that floods my soul
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Something happened and now I know he touched me and made me whole and my my
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Main concern it's not that you know the idea of Jesus And I mean it starts out the same verse one shackled by a heavy burden
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We could say that that's sin neath a load of guilt and shame it definitely, you know the burden of sin
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Then the hand of Jesus touched me well metaphorically
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Okay, and now I am no longer the same same kind of idea that this person has been set free from the burden of sin but what
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I what I just Cannot believe is that one little phrase something happened?
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Yeah, what happened? There is objective truth given to us in the Word of God and we don't have to say something happened
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I can't really explain it. I can't explain it. I know exactly what's happened So, I mean there are songs where there are just phrases in there where you just go come on guys
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Can't we do a little bit better than something happened? What does that mean again,
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I could have done this with contemporary Christian music It's easy. I mean people do that all the time
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They they bash on Christian music and I'm not out to embarrass any living or dead writers
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But I want us as a church to evaluate what we sing to think about You know to be
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Bereans literally about what it is. We sing we wouldn't we wouldn't recommend bad books
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We wouldn't say oh get this latest book by Benny Hinn So why would we then bring in bad songs into the church and say sing these songs?
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We just wouldn't do that. We're not gonna turn our pulpit over in it Danny heretic. We're not gonna do that either
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This is all about we when we come here. We want to be theologically precise not because And I'm giving away a little bit of where I'm going here, but not because we we have everything wired but because Our function when we come here together as a body is to worship the
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God who saved us We can't do that. If we're seeing nebulous songs that don't explain anything and don't have a right view of God or biblical truth
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Any other thoughts about these songs here good better best?
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One to ten Knocked out of the park Okay, and that is correct, and don't we have the corrected version in the back somewhere?
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Yeah, the new and approved Yeah Yep In fact and that's a good point because you know we used to You know what we used to call that line there
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Emptied himself of all but love the kenosis is the self emptying of Christ Which we'd read in Philippians 2 and so we call this the kenosis with a vengeance you know
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Jesus did not empty himself of all but love He didn't he laid aside the prerogatives of deity
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But he still exercised them from time to time so to say that you know did he know what was in the hearts of the
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Pharisees yes, did he know you know about the woman in the well, and how many times she'd been married yes? How do you know all that stuff because?
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He was God, and he never stopped being God So good point loose Good points.
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I just think when we look at What's that what's the overall message of in the garden communion with God?
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Okay, his his closeness of course Really know if he walks with us and talks with us, but setting that aside
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It's the idea of this close relationship with God, then I look at the other the other side of the page the love of God and I think this is
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This describes the love of God which I think kind of also the in the garden is talking about but He tells me
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I am his own and the joy we share as we tarry there None other has ever known, but when we look at the other side of the page
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Talking about the love of God it goes beyond the highest star and reaches to the lowest hell In other words the writer there is wrestling with how to explain the love of God And he's struggling just even trying to get his arms around the words that would adequately express that when he says
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The final verse there could we with ink the ocean fill? Could you have more ink than that not on this earth, and we're the skies of parchment made
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Where every stock on earth a quill and every man a scribe by trade to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry
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Nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky now that says something about the love of God That tells me it's immeasurable that it's it's just mind -bogglingly huge and that is something that I can get excited about and I can relate to I Can be challenged by?
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Now let me give you five helpful guidelines to evaluate whether music is actually worship or not now
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I couldn't write or Sing a song to really express what I want to be talking about But I did come up with a pretty original acrostic that I'm pretty pleased with It's tulip t -u -l -i -p
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It could help you Okay, so when we're evaluating songs is the song the
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T is theologically precise is It as Colossians 3 16 says is it filled with the
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Word of Christ? When I look at it do I either think of a
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Bible verse or do I think of a biblical truth as We were saying that one verse in and can it be has it's it doesn't really refer to a specific verse
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But when we think about the picture that it's presenting that's exactly what happens to the Christian Chained by sin set free by Christ and a heart set free that wants to follow him
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That desires to follow him. Here's another question.
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Is it written by a Christian? There's a tough one When you look through the handle look at who wrote the song sometimes when you do a little research you find out
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Now sometimes we don't know but sometimes they're Unitarians Sometimes they're of different stripes.
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I know of one man who has been Arrested for for drugs multiple times and one of his songs is in the hymn
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Nolan. I'm going well I don't know if he saved or not, but His reputation isn't too good You can call and ask his probation officer how he's doing.
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I don't know, you know But is it written by a Christian Why would that matter because an
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Unbeliever can't possibly understand the Word of God and he can't express those truths in song
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Does it conform to sound doctrine? Is it sound in the way it looks at God?
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Many times in the pastoral epistles first and second Timothy and Titus The phrase sound doctrine is mentioned he urges
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Paul urges Titus and Timothy To teach sound doctrine to adhere to sound doctrine to exhort in sound doctrine to refute those who contradict sound doctrine matters and it matters in our music if we as we say if a preacher in second
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Timothy 4 2 is commanded to preach the word
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Shouldn't the other portions of a worship service Also be focused on the Word of God Shouldn't we in essence as a congregation sing the word?
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Isn't that what we should be doing if God wants to hear his word preached? Shouldn't he want to hear biblical truths?
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sung to him Isn't that worship? So that's the tea
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You Unworldly our music should be unworldly Again this is not with regard to style
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I'm not here to say that one style is Necessarily better than another.
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I do think there are things that you can do to Make the music worldly again, you know,
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I think we have great musicians here And if we just focused on you know, okay now it's
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Dan Rathbun's turn to do a you know Piano riff in the song, you know, and etc, etc.
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So well, that's taking away that's putting the spotlight on them and not on the music There's a tendency
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I was reading about this the other day Steve camp has written about a tendency in the church toward nebulous
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God as my girlfriend songs Now, what does he mean by that? What does he mean by God as my girlfriend?
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That's it sounds It sounds so blasphemous. You just think how can anybody say that?
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It's deplorable. It's horrible But here's that here's this point if a song could be played during the dedication hour of a radio show on some secular station
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And nobody could know that Jesus Christ or God was the object of that song. There's something wrong with it if it's just such a love song and it never mentions
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God Christ salvation anything else and It could be you know, I'd like to dedicate to this to my girlfriend
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There is something seriously wrong with that as a Sunday morning worship song
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Right now I have a CD in my car My truck I don't want to lie. It's a truck.
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The first song is catchy bouncy, this is a Christian CD and It promises a light at the end of the tunnel for those who are suffering for those who are in pain
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But it never talks about what that light is Never mentions it and I like the song but I just think boy that is
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That's about as theologically nebulous as you could get a Psychologist could say hey listen to this song.
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It will really encourage you no matter how bad things are There's a light at the end of the tunnel for you. Maybe there is maybe there isn't
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But for a Christian, we know there's a light at the end of the tunnel Because no matter how bad things are going here no matter how horrible they are
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We know that there's an end to it and then Jesus Christ is gonna wipe away every tear. That's hope
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That's the light at the end of the tunnel, but there's another song on that same
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CD That extols the work of Jesus Christ on the cross
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I think it is I mean it's straight out of the Bible and I think it would be a Magnificent song for us to do on Communion Sunday.
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I think it's great In fact, I think I listened to it about 20 times today while I was around I love that song, but there are good songs
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There are better songs and then there are best songs and those best songs are the ones that we want to sing on Sunday Why because we want to bring our best when we worship the
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God of the universe Furthermore about being unworldly.
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We want our worldview to be clear in the songs that we sing Unbelievers should either not understand the lyrics in other words
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They should be so biblically based that they don't really get it or they should be offended by them Why because songs we sing in church should be many sermons they should be such that unsaved people can come in or cannot come in and just Understand agree think the song was great and have no impact on their lives.
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Let me just give you an example That's kind of a contradiction to that but amazing grace
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How many funerals are done where amazing grace is sung? I think About 90 % a lot of times that unbelievers funerals
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Does that mean that there's something wrong with the song? No But unbelievers don't get it.
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Why because they don't understand grace if we were to sit down and explain grace to them They wouldn't like it
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What do you mean I have to believe in Jesus Christ in order for this amazing grace To be true for me
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What do you mean that because I just have the bagpipes playing at somebody's funeral that they're not going to heaven if an unbeliever?
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Properly understands the songs that we sing they should be afraid Why Because they recognize that these truths about God are in fact reality and they're outside of his favor
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They're outside of his protection They're outside of his promises At the very least our music should challenge their notions of God man
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Heaven and hell just as any biblically based sermon would We come here to worship
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God We don't come here to appeal to unsaved people that's what we do outside of these walls
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Number three the L Limited focus on man. I'm name -dropping like crazy tonight
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George Harrison once wrote a song called I me mine Which derided materialism and I can't help but wonder as some of the songs that we sing today
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Not we but the church sings today have adopted an I me mine mentality
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Not materialism per se but an exaltation of man Corporate singing when we come together to sing it is an element of our worship service
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God is the object of our worship Therefore the focus needs to be on him not those who may come in here
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Not on us It's not about making us feel good or anything else
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I once heard a song in another church that reflected the idea that the singers hoped would be true what they wanted
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Was they wanted the unbelieving world to look at them and to see Jesus in fact
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They must have repeated that line when they look at me 20 times or more throughout the song
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Now if the idea was that in looking at these singers they were hoping to do some kind of lifestyle evangelism
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Okay, but who was the song for the song was for the believers in the church, or maybe it was for unbelievers
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Maybe it was supposed to be for the Lord, but there was no gospel in it So how can an unbeliever get saved there was no exhortation to fulfill the
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Great Commission in it and? There was no scripture or biblical truth presented so how then
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Could it exhort encourage the believers there? How could it challenge the end believers?
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How could it glorify God? The song could have been titled be a good Christian, and maybe someone will figure out that you are a
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Christian That is not an appropriate worship song Our song should have a
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A not a man focus, but a God focus number four I immeasurable depth
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Songs sung in church should give you a sense of awe about God Even as I was talking about earlier the the love of God song
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You know when if we just contemplate how high how great his his love is it is just a
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It's a mind -boggling concept, and that's the way that we should be thinking about God Think about songs like what wondrous love is this and that that is
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It's those kind of songs that just focus on God focus on biblical truths that have a depth to them
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That those are the kind of songs that we want to sing now. They don't have to be old I mean old songs can be bad new ones can be good, but what we have to do is examine them
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Hold on to those that are good Songs about God should never be boring just as sermons from the
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Bible should never be boring It is a sin to make the Bible boring whether you are singing whether you're preaching whatever you are doing
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God is never boring Fifth the P is promotion or preservation of the faith
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Songs can be reminders of what we already know many songs are like that 2nd
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Peter 1 12 says this Therefore I will always be ready to remind you of these things even though you already know them and Have been established in the truth, which is present with you when we come here.
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It's not that we have to have new ideas about God We come here To hear a lot of things that we already know
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I mean when I taught this morning about Samson and I had to shorten it a lot for the congregation, but The title was
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Samson the rest of the story And I wanted even though people thought they knew a lot about Samson and because people do but what they didn't know was the rest of the story all the little details and really the focus that story is on God and The truth is when we come in and we sing what we want to do is be reminded be refreshed in our recollection of the greatness of God of the goodness of God of the love of God of What he has done on our behalf and just as we can hear a sermon on the same passage
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Over and over and over again and get something new out of it. It's the same way with good songs
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We can hear those songs over and over and over again Why because again we constantly need to be reminded of the truth
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Now there can be new songs new songs that present old truths in a new form
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I mean if we were to look through what the Bible says about songs What would happen is Moses leads the people out of Egypt.
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What do they do? They sing why has God changed no, but they want to express that joy
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The the the marvelous thing that God has done on their behalf and they have a new song to do that New songs are fine.
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And any kind of new song is going to present an old truth Because God hasn't changed
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Songs that are derived from Scripture Well, not necessarily inspired. I mean there is nothing we
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I cannot hold up this hymnal and say this is Inspired because it's not
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Apostles didn't write it the Holy Spirit didn't move on the writers of this Book necessarily at least we're not told that right but if a song is written and Presented properly if it is biblically based if it contains biblical truth, it can enhance our faith
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We can learn we can grow we can be reminded and challenged to the things that we constantly need to be reminded of now
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It amazes me How many emails from potential visitors we get to the website that ask about two things number one is programs number two is music and Nobody ever agrees on this.
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I've had people who want to rock the house down and then there are people who say I'm glad you don't have drums
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But I've never heard or had one person ask about the theological content of our songs not one and That should be the most obvious thing doesn't the style is not the thing.
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It's what's in the song. What does it focus on? Music matters whether it is in the hymn book or the lyric sheet as Christians we have a responsibility to make sure it is
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God honoring as is everything else we do in our services preaching praying reading
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Reading of Scripture are giving everything that we do in a church service is worship
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So our music should be theologically precise unworldly limited in its focus on man immeasurable in its depth and promoting or preserving the faith
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Finally let me just read First Thessalonians 521 is just a final exhortation
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But examine everything carefully everything carefully Hold fast to that which is good
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That's what we do with everything that we do and that includes music We don't just sing a song because it's popular.
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We want it to be good We want it to be good in God's sight Let's pray
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Lord. We just praise you this evening for all the gifts that you'd give us Father among those gifts is music when we think of how music is so Central to so many aspects of our lives whether we're driving in the car whether we're
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Watching TV, whether we're at church, there's always Seemingly always music in the background at an office wherever we are
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Father when we come to worship you I just pray that you would give us Discernment that you would give us hearts that would long to Worship you as you deserve to be worshipped
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Father that we would not be satisfied with good sermons Prayers that honor you
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Father scripture reading giving and then sing songs that are not worthy of you
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Lord would you just cause us to? Want to honor you in all that we do when we gather together as your people
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Lord would you use hymns songs Spiritual songs
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Father to remind us the great things that you've done on our behalf Father to teach us new things to admonish us to keep us from sin
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Lord as we Listen to biblical truths and to scriptural truths about you
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Father we thank you for this day. Thank you for the the great opportunity. We've had of being together and Fellowshipping Lord would you watch over our pastor while he's gone?
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His family and return them to us father we pray for all those who are off on vacation
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Just thank you so much for the way. You've blessed this church the way you've provided Visitors and just all kinds of exciting things father.