Worshipping Worship (rerun)

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

The Question of Worshiping Worship

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry. My name's Mike Abendroth. It is, in real time, it is, hmm, no, December 10th, and it's pouring rain outside. Probably had a couple of inches in the last 24 hours.

And cold, but not cold enough to make it snow. We probably would've had two feet of snow if it wasn't for this temperature. But in no compromise time, it's probably late January. Brr. Someone sent me a blog a while ago from David Santesteven.

I thought it was Stevia, first of all, but Santesteven, Santy Steven, and it's called the Blog for Worship Leaders and Musicians. And this was the only article that I've read, but I was glad somebody sent it to me.

Bethany maybe sent it to me on No Compromise Radio. You can send me show links. You can send me about whatever you want. Send me money. Send me beets coffee. You can sow a seed of faith in this ministry, if you like.

I know. All right. It's called Are We in Danger of Worshiping Worship? December 9th, 2019, no, 2019, 2014. And so the question needs to be asked, according to David Santesteven, are we in danger of worshiping worship?

Now, my first question is, is there two Ps in worshiping? Depends on who you're asking. But he brings up a very good point. So I'm gonna read a little bit of this article, kind of go back and forth. You may be asking yourself the question, why don't I just call him up and interview him?

But that takes time. Takes money. Gotta sow a seed of faith, and then maybe I might do it. Because you know what? Don't tell God how big your mountain is. Tell your mountain how big your God is. And in all this, and I kid around a lot on No Compromise Radio, but I want you to know, I do feel the anointing today.

And Steve isn't even around. So I know many of you contribute to the ministry here through your prayers, and we're glad God responds to an email. All right, if you've never listened to the show before, pick one of my other shows and listen to that one first, where I actually teach the Bible.

God Has Regulated Worship

Now, we are gonna talk about the Bible. We are going to talk about this, how important worship is. God does not want us just to worship as we see fit. That would be called foolish. It'd be called paganism.

God has regulated worship. Now, I don't necessarily mean the regulative principle for New Testament worshipers. I don't necessarily mean that, although we could talk about that sometime. What I'm talking about is God has shown himself forth specifically in the Bible, and he has told us exactly how we are to worship him, what he wants.

And see, left to ourselves, left to our deceitful hearts, left to our selfishness, left to our arrogance and pride, it would really be worshiping ourselves, but we're just calling it God. So there's specific things because God knows our hearts.

He knows what the fall did to our hearts. And so we have to worship the Lord Jesus Christ the way he wants to be worshiped. After all, he purchased the church with his own blood, and he can, if I was gonna talk to my kids, or my dad would probably say, he can call the shots.

So he can do whatever he wants to do. He always does what he wants to do. And he has told us in scripture how important it is for us to worship him properly. Even back into Leviticus chapter 10, now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them.

Fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord has said. Among those whom are near me, or who are near me, I will be sanctified, and before all the people, I will be glorified.

And Aaron held his peace. See, my friend, it is not as simple as this. Well, the Bible doesn't forbid this, therefore I'm able to do it. Now, I see where people are coming from when it comes to worship and using that kind of theology, that kind of methodology, that kind of philosophy, that kind of logic.

And, you know, I think it comes from the Lutheran stream of things in the Reformation. The Bible didn't say it's forbidden, so we can do it. And even if you think about drama, well, the Bible doesn't forbid drama on the Lord's day when the saints get together to worship the Savior.

And that's the way people kind of think. But what we're after here, and what I'm trying to push you to, toward, not towards, but toward, is if God has said to do it, we ought to do that. And so, when you look at this article by David San-teh-s-tiv-in, San-stevian, are we worshiping worship?

The mood, the atmosphere, the melody, the crowd, the emotion, your favorite worship leader, your favorite speaker, writes David, the band, the performance, the feeling, are we being moved by the right things?

Are our hearts aimed in the proper direction? And so, see, he's got me right at the very beginning. I think he understands. When it says here, at the very beginning, a blog for worship leaders, I do disagree with him to a small extent.

The worship leader, of course, is Jesus Christ, and to a much lesser degree, he's the pastor. That's the worship leader. I always like to watch the pastor during songs and hymns and those kind of things, as he should be the one who's engaged and who's leading.

This is how we worship. The article goes on to say, are we in danger of worshiping worship? It says, the problem with our worship culture is that we equate worship with an experience, a moment. We end up loving worship more than we love God.

We end up talking about worship more than we end up talking about God. Isn't that fascinating? In the day and age we live in, hills, song, all kinds of praise, music, Jesus, culture, worship wars back in the day, contemporary, old school, hymns only, sola, hymnody, sola, psalter, psalms only.

We end up worshiping the worship experience. Now, I am the pastor of Bethlehem Bible Church, and we have a lot of things we can improve on, preaching, parking lot, in that order. Our parking lot is the worst.

Whoo, I'm not following the Saddleback model. Parking lot ought to have some great curb appeal. I'd like to do it, but who's got the 130 ,000 to do it? And so some people came in, and they heard some of the music.

We have both contemporary songs, kind of the sovereign grace songs, the Getty songs, the Townsend songs. We have some hymns. We try not to sing Unitarian hymns. We came upon a midnight clear, or a battle hymn of the Republic.

We try not to, but I'm not saying we've never sung those songs. So we have a mixture of hymns and contemporary song. Maybe even some, we'd call those contemporary songs, contemporary hymns, some of them.

And then I preach. So I think the way our, to use a lack of a better term, liturgy, is we have some announcements, because that's not really worship, so that's just to get everybody seated, and I don't want announcements in the middle of the service.

I remember, I think it was Don Whitney, I said to him when he was here once, to critique our worship service and help me, and he said, don't have the announcements in the middle, because there's nothing scriptural about announcements.

It's not wrong for the church to get together and say, don't forget about the dinner we're having tonight before the service, or don't forget about the outreach that we're having on Tuesday night, and the prayer meeting on Wednesday night.

Those things aren't wrong, but it's not really worship. So make the announcements at the very beginning, and then move to worship. And so we have some announcements. We welcome the greeters. Greet the visitors.

And we ostracize them, and we give them a Bible, maybe another book, ultimate questions or something. Little packet there. And then we have a call to worship, usually found from the Psalms, and we sing two hymns, and then there's a scripture reading, a large section most of the time.

It's a little different now, we're going to the Psalms, so Psalm one one week, Psalm two the next week. This week was Psalm 23, and so I read Psalm 23, and then I read Romans, excuse me, John chapter 10, verses seven through 19, by the good shepherd Jesus himself.

Here is the shepherd, the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Then we have the offering. I'm going to yawn right now, I cannot help it. We're gonna have the offering. I need a cup of coffee, but I need Pete's coffee.

I'm gonna have one, I already had one. And then we, let's see, after the offering, then there's a couple praise songs, and I appreciate Charlie Crane, who says, let's continue in worship. He doesn't call those praise songs worship, and the rest isn't worship.

And then I preach, and then we sing one final song, and then I give the benediction. That would be the typical liturgy here at Bethlehem Bible Church. And so every one of those things is because, well, what does the Bible say?

The Bible says to read scripture, we do. The Bible says to pray, to sing, to preach, that kind of thing. So I like this article because many people believe that the singing is the worship. And so back to the story about the parking lots, and people come in, and they left before the sermon because they didn't like our worship.

So I don't know what they would think about the preaching, but here's the thing, they didn't like the music. And in the past, and they wanted faster music. They wanted hipper music. They wanted more moving music.

They wanted more spirit. I mean, bass. For a lot of people, that is the case. I don't see a lot of hands going up during lament songs, and hands going up during Sacred Head Now Wounded. But for the other ones, the up-tempo ones, up they go because it's got a beat.

It's got the drum. And I'm not a legalist. I'm not against drums. I'm not against beat or anything like that. I think there should be the whole panoply of worship in the New Testament church. We've got times of joy and times of sadness, and you'll see that reflected in the Psalms as well.

There's a time to clap your hand, and there's a time to cry. And I don't think every song on Sunday morning should just be up-tempo, clappity-clap kind of thing. And so we've also had people who have come into the church, and they have left after the quote-unquote worship music, contemporary songs, because they're too fast.

They're too... When I first got here to Bethlehem Bible Church, we had no secretary, and I would answer the phone. Didn't have an associate pastor, didn't have any pastor, didn't have any of those things.

And I would answer the phone, Bethlehem Bible Church. And the questions were pretty similar. 70 of the questions were, hi, what translation do you use? And at the beginning, I would try to say, well, we use the...

I think we were NIV for the first year that I was here, that's what I inherited. Then we moved to NAS. I'd say something like, well, we use the New American Standard version. And then they'd basically say goodbye, because I knew they wanted King James, because there's a lot of King James-only folks around here.

And so then I would try to use a little nuance. I study from the original, and we look at the Hebrew and Greek, and the Pew Bible is the New American Standard, but, and then hang up, because they wanted that.

So then when they called and said, what Bible translation are you looking for? I just changed it. I did a little no-compromise kind of attitude early on, after those first ones didn't work. And of course, pragmatism is where it's at.

And so I just said, if you're looking for a King James-only church, this is why you shouldn't be. And then they still hung up. So, actually, we've had some folks come from King James-only churches. I'm happy for that.

I like the King James Bible. But if you're naive enough to think that somehow the Texas Receptus is pretty, pretty near inspired, or you act like it is, pragmatically consider it as, for all intents and purposes, you would be naive.

You would be misguided. That's a different show, right? That's a different show. So, anyway, we've got people who, one time said to me on the phone, what kind of contemporary music do you sing, if any?

I said, well, we have some hymns and the contemporary music. And I think at the time it was Steve Green's song that came out. It was called, He's Good from the Psalms. He is good, he is good. His love and kindness endures forever.

I don't know how it goes. Anyway, it was super simple, super biblical, nothing crazy going on. And they basically told me that if we listen to Steve Green music, then we're modern and sinful. And they never made it here.

So, I thought they were gonna say, Steve Green isn't poppy enough. So, we've got underdoing it and overdoing it. We've got people that think we should be snazzier and jazzier and peppier. And we've got other people who think that we should be more hymns only, slower.

And I'll just leave it at that, slower. And so, I don't think what we're after here is how fast, how peppy. Of course, it's always how biblical. And does the music take away from the words? But there are some people that if they don't have some good songs, they just can't do any kind of worship.

Worship, Music, and the Shape of Congregational Life

Now, for me, on No Compromise Radio, this is Mike Ebenroth. We're talking about worship a little bit today. People who worship worship styles, who worship worship songs, who worship up-tempo music. When I travel across the world, and I'm not trying to say it, I do it all the time, but I do it some.

And I should do it more if we had some of our listeners in Australia and south of France, Manuel and some others, if they could put together some No Compromise Conference so I could travel more. Try as you may, but if you look on No Compromise Radio, you won't find the required honorariums for me to travel.

I know you might find that on other people's sites, but I would never mention who they are. Well, I might mention one of these days again. But I just think it's bad taste. It's a foul. But when I travel, I love to travel to other countries and participate in Lord's Day services and worship services and meetings because it's so great, because the music's different enough.

Sometimes it's slower. Sometimes it's faster. Sometimes it's a mixture. Sometimes I know the tune. Sometimes I know the songs. Sometimes I learn new songs. Sometimes I was once in South Africa and it was pretty much a black service.

That is to say, I don't mean like a black mass. Most of the folks there were not Caucasian. And they were, it's before I preached, I got up to preach, but before I did, when they were singing, they were pretty much singing with their whole bodies.

They were using their whole bodies. Now they weren't dancing in some kind of weird way. They weren't prancing around, drawing attention themselves, but in place, they were really involved. And I just, I mean, here's my problem.

I was so touched by it. I was so moved by it that I wanted to capture it. And so, you know, here's stupid Abendroth before I get up to preach. I'm like hiding my cell phone, trying to videotape the thing because it was so wonderful.

It was so fantastic. And so, you know, the worship songs and how we go about it, to me, I just think every church has its own culture, whether it's overseas or here. And so here we're in New England. And since I'm older, I'm 54 now, we're a little calmer than probably other churches that if you went downtown Boston or something like that.

But the question is, if you went to a church that had solid Bible teaching, but you didn't like the style of music, I didn't say the music was unbiblical. I didn't say the lyrics were unbiblical. I didn't say the lyrics were man-centered and moralistic and therapeutic and deistic.

What I'd said was, if the music had biblical Christ-centered lyrics, but was slower than you preferred, or the musical accompaniments were either a present and you didn't like that because you wanted, you know, no music at all, no musical instruments, or it was a little too fast, too loud might be another whole story because I don't think we should drown.

I don't think the band, hate to use that word, on stage, hate to use that word, should drown out the audience. I'm kidding. But I don't think the folks on stage should drown out the congregation because they're trying to enhance congregational singing.

That is why they exist. So if the Bible preaching is solid and Christ-centered and the lyrics are solid and Christ-centered and the music matches the lyrics, to use MacArthur's old quote, it's hard to sing holy, holy, holy to the tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy and not lose the reverence and worship of the song.

Okay, go ahead and try it. Go ahead and try it right now. Just get it out of your system. I know you want to. So in his article, his blog article, Danger, Are We in Danger of Worshipping Worship? David goes on to say, I'm not advocating we bring boring, terrible music or rid our gatherings of emotion.

This isn't a time to point the finger, listing all churches, record labels, and artists who are doing it all wrong. I'm issuing a caution, a warning to guard our hearts from loving worship more than we love God.

The image you see on the top right isn't just a nice image. Cameras focus. They block out all distractions and zero in on what is most important in that moment. Imagine hiring a photographer for your wedding who was so distracted by the scenery that he never took any pictures of you and your spouse.

It's interesting. Not only would we call that unprofessional, we'd call it ridiculous. As your camera focuses in on a singular object, a special moment, so your life should frame itself around Jesus Christ.

But with any good intent, many of us are running around focusing on anything and everything but God himself. It's as if Jesus is enthroned before our eyes, but we're taking Instagram shots of the throne itself.

We're more enamored by the gifts and talents of God's people more than the creator of all things. If we took away the music, the songs, and the artists, what do we have anything to say about God? Great point.

So let's put it this way. If there was no singing at the church, we just got rid of all the singing, would you still attend the church that you attend? Just preaching. They just preached and then prayed.

That was it. What if all the music went away? You say, yeah, but that's just in your theoretical little no-compromise rule. That's true. David goes on to say in his article, do you know all there is to know about the latest worship album, but barren when it comes to knowing scripture?

Hmm, good question. Can you talk about worship music for hours but have nothing to say about God who is in your life and what he is doing? Hmm, good question. If you were alone in a room with Jesus Christ, what would well from the depths of your heart?

And then he said, I'm not here to guilt you. Except, you know, David, I think a little guilt's good. I like to be convicted. You don't have to apologize. He says, I want you to know God. I want you to have a history of seeing God move and see his promises at work in your day-to-day, at work in your day-to-day, in your day-to-day life maybe it'd be better to say.

But anyway, I don't mind a little guilt. I don't mind a little confrontation. I don't mind a little exhortation. We at No Compromise Radio like that. How true worshipers experience art? Well, this is gonna be fascinating.

Let's find out. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Being impressed by talented people and feeling good through the force of their performance is not enough. The wise worshiper will enjoy that, bless that, encourage that, but also see through it to the giver of all gifts.

Now, if he means we've got a performance art group up there and we need to see past them, then I would disagree with that. We don't need performance art. I've been in churches before, small C, that have people doing murals up there and some kind of dancing thing and streamers, and it's awful.

As my father would say, evil can evil, awful can awful. If you don't know who evil can evil is, you can look him up. I think he made a profession of faith later in his life, didn't he? I hope it was a real profession.

It's not that great art is wrong or unnecessary. The worshiper of God just knows how to use it. So if they mean art, if he means by art music, fine. If he means art because it's real art with canvases, real canvases, real painting, I think Christians should be the best artist.

I think they can create, or should be able to create great art, but not for worship services on Sunday. Not for worshipers on Sunday. And then he quotes C .S. Lewis. And of course, even though C .S. Lewis has all kinds of things that were good to say, he's got all kinds of awful things.

So we don't quote C .S. Lewis on Compromise Radio. By the way, if I ever were to quote C .S. Lewis, you'd never know it. Why? Because I would just say, an old Anglican said, and then you wouldn't know if it was J .C. Rye or C .S. Lewis.

I would say an old Englishman said, a one writer said, one scholastic writer said, one person who denied inerrancy said. So overall, I do like the article. And to give it to you one more time, kudos for asking the question, even though we got bogged down at the end.

David Santistevin. And so it's a blog for worship leaders and musicians. I don't know his background. He could be Hillsong. He could be Sovereign Grace. He could be Mars Hill. I have no idea, but I like the question.

Are we in danger of worshiping worship? And so let's make sure we worship the Lord Jesus Christ. And God wants worshipers in spirit and in truth, of course, John chapter four. And when you take a look at Revelation chapter one, when you look at Colossians chapter one, when you look at Romans, you will say the depths and the riches and the knowledge and wisdom of God, right?

You'll say from him and to him and through him are all things. You will respond with praise as you focus on the Lord Jesus Christ and his redeeming work, his representative work, his substitutionary work and his confirming resurrection.

Mike Abendroth here, nocompromiseradio .com.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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