1689 London Baptist Confession (part 54)

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Our Father in heaven, as we come before you this morning, we would thank you for your kindness, for your love, for your mercy on us, those who were your objects of wrath, whom you have turned into your objects of affection, your children, your beloved children.
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Father, we thank you for that. We thank you that we have a long chain of faithful men who have taught the once for all delivered faith.
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And we stand in line and in agreement with them. And we praise you for that. And we thank you for the
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London Baptist Confession of Faith and pray that you bless our time this morning. In Jesus name. Amen. It sounded like somebody else has a microphone out there.
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Well, so we're going through different aspects of worship as we kind of build up to studying the
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Sabbath. And I don't know if we'll get to the Sabbath. I just brought a few things about the Sabbath today. I mean,
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I have a couple of books that I'm plowing through. So I'm sure that we'll be talking about the
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Sabbath for a few weeks. I said, Mike, give me some really good legalistic stuff on the Sabbath. So he gave me a couple of books.
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And I found some other good stuff on the Internet. But we'll go from there. But anyway, we're talking about worship.
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And we talked about the regulative principle, not the regulatory principle, because that would take a commission and a bunch of people sitting in Washington, D .C.
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to figure that out. What is the regulative principle? And I'll give you a hint.
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It's not in the 1689. So don't go to your cheat sheet there in the 1689. What is the regulative principle?
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Anybody? Okay, you worship according to what's in Scripture, what's demonstrated in Scripture, what is,
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I guess we could say, commanded in Scripture, right? Why do we have singing?
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Because the Bible says we should have singing. Why do we have preaching? Because the Bible says we should have preaching. Why do we have prayer?
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Because the Bible says we should have corporate prayer. Scripture reading, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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All the things that we do. Why don't we have dramas?
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Because the Bible doesn't say you should have dramas. Why don't we have dancing girls going up and down?
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I'm not making this up. Churches do stuff like this. Why don't we do stuff like that? Because the
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Bible doesn't say to do it. So we try to follow what the
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Bible says. We don't do what it says not to do. The regulative principle.
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And so 1689, talking about what you ought to be doing, and that's what we've been doing for the last few weeks is talking about that.
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And here we come to a section of it where it says this. The reading of the Scriptures, preaching, and hearing the word of God, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in our hearts to the
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Lord, as also the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper are all parts of religious worship of God to be performed in obedience to him with understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear.
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Moreover, solemn humiliation with fastings and thanksgivings upon special occasions ought to be used in an holy and religious manner.
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They used to say and before words that start with H. No, that's just a little factoid.
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But this is mostly what we do. I mean, I can't think of the last time we had a solemn humiliation.
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Anybody remember that? This Sunday we're having solemn humiliation.
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We don't do that. But when we hear this, the reading of the Scriptures, preaching, and hearing of the word of God, teaching and admonishing one another, this is what we do.
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R .C. says this. He says, True worship involves the reading of Scripture in an attitude of reverence where we cling to every word and delight in hearing it.
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Then he says, we are told the average attention span for listening to Scripture is about 10 verses.
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Relatively few churches will read more than that. Some won't do it at all.
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Is there a problem with that reading public or not reading Scripture at all in a church service?
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And the problem is Scripture commands it. First Timothy 4 .13
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says, until I come devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.
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I thought 10 minutes. How many of you saw or heard when Mark Dever read the 176 verses of Psalm 119 at Shepherds Conference?
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A few of you did. I mean, he kept going. And I think in the audience, because I was there, in the audience, we were all thinking what?
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Is he going to read the whole thing? Nobody could possibly read all of Psalm 119. That is just insane, 176 verses.
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But he did it. And it was very interesting. I didn't find myself going, of course, there was the tension.
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Is he really going to read the whole thing? I think by the time he got to, you know, like 174 or 175,
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I figured out he was probably going to go the distance. But when you think about it, people that or churches that don't do this are really shortchanging the people.
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First of all, they're not being obedient to the Lord. But secondly, they're not giving Christians what they ought to get.
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They're not, you know, giving them what God says is good for them. Other thoughts about public reading of Scripture before I move on to preaching?
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Well, that's interesting. I mean, you know, obviously, I mean, there are some things I do know.
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I mean, you know, I do think it's cool when they find excavations of like Christian communities.
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There were some in Turkey where they were hiding in the mountain, in these mountains, and they found, you know, baptismal fonts instead of little places to baptize babies.
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I thought that was cool. But as far as that goes, I don't really know, you know, but it seems to me that they would read obviously like Ephesians is not.
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Now, this is going to sound confusing. But Ephesians isn't really
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Ephesians. It is Ephesians, but it's not Ephesians. It was a circular letter to the church at Ephesus and a bunch of other churches.
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It was meant to be read around. And it has the title Ephesians, which is fine. But it wasn't particular to that church.
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And so when he talks about a circular letter, it was meant to be, it was written by the Apostle Paul and meant to be read in a number of churches.
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And so it was. And the people were illiterate. I think, you know, if you ask if anything's changed since then, well,
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I think the literacy rate is probably a little higher. A little higher.
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But, you know, so I don't know exactly what your question is. If it's just that, should we read a whole epistle?
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Oh, yeah. I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't think that just because, you know, you would have to take a letter like the letter to the
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Ephesians and you would have to say, well, this is an example of what he was talking about in First Timothy 4 .13.
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And it's a limit, not, you know, an exhortation.
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I don't think you can do that. So that's just my first thought.
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Anybody else have any thoughts on that? Yeah, Mark. Sure. Yeah.
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Yeah. And I mean, I think that's a good point. I mean, I think the question would be, you know, like what sort of boundaries do you put on that?
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Do you have to read an entire letter? Do you have to read an entire book? Because if you do, you know,
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I mean, maybe that's just an accommodation we make for the modern. I mean, and we'll talk more about this when we talk about the
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Sabbath. But let's just think about it this way. If we say, and I'll just give you like a little preview, if we say that Sunday is the
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Lord's day, well, what does that mean to us? What does that mean,
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Mark? Okay.
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So it's a day set aside to the Lord and the worship of him. So if I said to you, well, we ought to read an entire book when we do public scripture reading.
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Well, that's fine. If we can have, say, three and a half or four hour services. But that would take a certain mentality that would say, this is in fact the
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Lord's day. Okay. I've had people say, well, why don't we have a lunch every single Sunday after church?
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And then why don't we have evening service? Okay. It depends on how far you want to take the
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Lord's day. I'm all for, let's all just hang out. Let's just be here all day. We can bring in somebody to clean up the bathrooms, but let's be here all day.
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I don't know how many people would do that, especially during football season.
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If I can be frank. I'm not frank. I like frank, but I'm not frank.
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Okay. So I think, you know, I just think there are certain cultural constraints that maybe we've accommodated to, and I just don't know that we could do super long services.
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I remember one time I was with Mike in Los Angeles. He went to a church to preach, and the pastor said, because Mike says, how long do
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I have to preach? And he says, as long as you need. He says, the only, and you probably heard
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Mike tell the story, but he says the only limitation is, the guy in the back, because they were recording everything on what I like to call
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K sets, because I am from Alabama originally. Okay.
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I'm not from Alabama, but I went to Alabama. That's how they say it. The guy had a 90 minute cassette.
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So at 45 minutes, the guy in the back in the sound room is going to wave his hand, and you need to pause for a second.
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Well, he flips the tape over. That was the only limitation. So they were expecting a 90 minute sermon.
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They were used to that. I think people might have a problem if Mike went 90 minutes.
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Well, that's a good question, too. It's a good question, too, but we're not there yet.
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Okay, let's talk about preaching. God himself has commanded both public reading and exposition of the sacred text.
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Let's look at 2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 and 2. And, again, pastoral epistles written to Timothy and Titus.
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In 1 Timothy, he talks about this is how you are to run a church. He's exhorting these young men in how to conduct themselves in the household of God, how to organize a church, how to select elders, all these kind of things.
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2 Timothy chapter 4, verses 1 and 2, and who would read that, please? When Paul does that, when he says,
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I charge you in the presence of God the
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Father and of Christ Jesus, what is he telling Timothy? It's not optional.
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In fact, here are my witnesses. I'm calling two persons of the Trinity, and I'm saying, in front of these two witnesses, this is your duty.
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No options. You don't have the option to take a Sunday off and let the kids put on a little skit.
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You don't have the option to, you know, whatever. This morning we're just going to have a concert for an hour and a half.
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Why? Because this is what pastors are called to do.
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Preach the Word. Preach the Bible. Be ready in season and out of season.
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I listened here not too long ago to a man from New York City who showed up one morning, one
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Sunday morning, and said, you know, I apologize. I don't have a sermon ready. And then he rambled on for 20 minutes, was about something that had nothing to do with the
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Bible, and sat down. And I just listened to it, and I thought, I know.
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We all have bad weeks, and, you know, things come up, and, you know, your wife's sick, or whatever's going on.
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You know, the kids are in the hospital. Okay. Either somebody else in the church needs to be ready to preach, or you need to dust something off out of the archives, get it ready to preach.
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But you have to preach the Word. There's no option here. You can't get up and just babble.
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I've been accused of that on occasion, but you can't do it. Now, nothing is said in the
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Confession about dynamic, exciting, interesting, eloquent, fascinating preaching. Only one word is used to describe the preaching.
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It has to be sound. Now, some people have taken this throughout history to a rather absurd level, right?
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Because there's nothing said about it being dynamic, exciting, interesting, etc. Jonathan Edwards, for all the things that are said about him, seemed quite content to preach in a very dull tone.
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Why was that? Because he didn't want it to be about him.
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He wanted it to be about the message. Now, just think if Mike just wrote his sermon out and just kind of got up and just sort of droned on for 45 minutes.
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He complains about people falling asleep. Now, what would it be like? We read in the second chapter of Ephesians.
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If the preachers fall asleep, everybody else is probably going to have a hard time too. But only one word is used to describe the preaching.
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It must be sound. What does it mean to be sound? If we want sound preaching, what does that mean?
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Oh, the unibrain. Okay, sound doctrine?
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John? Faithful to Scripture. Okay, faithful to Scripture. Why do you suppose that's important?
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Why is it important that the pastor be even told that he must be sound theologically, that he must be faithful to Scripture?
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If you're still in 2 Timothy 4, would somebody read verses 3 and 4?
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He's just been told, preach the word, and then we get this in verses 3 and 4. Yeah, go ahead,
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John. There are people in every church who don't want doctrinal preaching, who don't want to hear the word rightly taught, who don't want to hear the word rightly divided.
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Instead, what do they want? They want their ears tickled. They want to hear something that makes them feel good.
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They want to hear something that can make their lives more, I don't know, solid, more together, something that will help me in my daily life.
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You know, it's like my dad said when I told him I was going to seminary. This is classic dad.
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He says, just make sure that while you're there you learn something practical, right?
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A lot of people come to church and what do they think they want? I want something practical. Why don't you teach me how to communicate more effectively with my kids?
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That's a good thing, isn't it? Why don't you teach me how to be able to be more peaceable towards my neighbors?
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Those things are fine. And perhaps they might even be the theme of a passage or two, right?
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Don't exasperate your kids as much as is possible. Be at peace with all men, these kind of things.
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There might be some practical application in the midst of sermons, you know, from the text, but this can't be the focus of what we do here.
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I thought I would just go to a website because I thought, well, okay, this is what we are to do.
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What do most churches do? So I typed in, how do
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I grow my church? How do I pack the church out?
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Here are the keys to church growth, according to the experts. Number one, know where the church is going.
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Have a well -defined vision, mission, and value statement. What does that sound like?
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What's that? Business. Business. That's exactly what I just thought. This is a business thing.
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Number two, create an inviting atmosphere. We are a consumer -driven society, and people are naturally drawn to an aesthetically appealing environment.
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That's why we have worked so hard to keep this place nice looking. Okay. Sorry.
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Sorry about that. People like to be proud of where they worship.
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Well, that's, you know, on our website it says, you'll come for the parking lot, you'll stay for the pie.
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No, it doesn't say that. Number three, create a welcoming experience.
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People don't like to be ignored or smothered. You know, it's funny.
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We have had people say, you know, either this church is not friendly or it's very friendly.
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I've never had anybody say, you guys smothered me. So I don't know about that one.
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Number four, care for church members. I think this is true, right? We want to have care for church members.
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But listen to how they explain this. They are one of the key customer groups in a church. Yeah. Understanding their unique needs and ensuring their needs are met is critical to church growth.
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Okay. Survey on church members' needs. Number five, provide opportunities to serve.
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I like that one. That's a good one. Number six, proper management of church resources.
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Having good budgeting procedures. That's the key to church growth because they want to make sure that you have the budget to, you know, blow up the building and keep it really nice looking.
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Number seven, and this is very important, and this is a quote, enjoy the ride.
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What does that mean? I compare that with what the confession says about how a church should be run.
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I compare that to the regulative principle, and I'm like, I don't even know what to say about this. This is just how to run a business kind of thing.
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Okay, back to the real world. Not only is the preacher responsible before God for sound preaching, but the congregation is accountable for sound listening.
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The congregation is accountable for sound listening. I don't even want to, at the risk of sounding like a legalist, here's what
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I would say. If you think a sermon is boring, here's what I would ask you. What kind of effort are you putting into it?
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When I get tired, there are a few things I do. If I'm really tired, I haven't done this in a long time, but if I'm really tired, you know what
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I do? I just close my eyes and start counting sheep. No, I stand up.
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But there are other things I do to sort of stay engaged. If I'm having trouble, if I'm wandering, the hymn writer wrote, you know, we're prone to wander.
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Lord, I feel it, right? Are we prone to wander while we're listening to a sermon? Sometimes. And when
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I really want to focus in on it, when I'm struggling with it, I'll take notes. Taking notes are helpful.
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John Calvin wrote that even the greatest saints can wander mentally while praying. Some great saints fall asleep during sermons.
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I don't want to go on an excursus about praying, but have you ever noticed that? That you'll start praying, and the next thing you know, you're thinking, did
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I pay that bill? Did he mow the lawn yet? I mean, it's wintertime, so I guess that's not much of a problem.
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But all of a sudden, you're just thinking about all these things, and you're like, oh, yeah, I was praying for...
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This is what we do. We wander. It is our duty as believers to do whatever is necessary to keep ourselves awake and attentive.
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We're responsible for listening attentively to the preaching of the Word. Okay. Anybody have any other tricks that they use to keep themselves kind of tuned in?
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Because now they know it's chow time, right? Yeah, that's an excellent point, because sheep, as we're described as being in the
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Scripture, are very eager to get fed. You know, I could tell you about dachshunds, because I know about them, but they are very food -driven.
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I've seen people with dogs, and they can just put out a bowl of food, and the dog will just kind of nibble on it all day.
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I'm like, that doesn't work with dachshunds. They see it, they eat it.
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And it's not unusual to see really fat dachshunds. Well, why is that? It's because they have zero self -control.
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I'd like to see some theologically fat Christians, right? I have no self -control. I just have to listen to more and more and more.
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I have to learn more and more and more. That's, generally speaking, not a problem. Some people are like that, and they usually wind up going to seminary.
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But you're exactly right. You know, do we show up on Sunday morning thinking, I am about to feast.
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I'm about to hear the Word of God preached, you know, presented to me on a platter, as it were.
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God has something for me today. God the Holy Spirit has something for me today. Am I ready to receive it,
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Charlie? I totally agree. I don't think people, and you know, his main point there was, people don't sleep enough.
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And I've talked to people, you know, I'd really like to come to Sunday school. Well, come on, bring it.
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I can't get up that early on Sunday morning. What time do you get up on Monday? 6 .30.
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You know, but Sunday's my day for sleeping in. Okay? I mean, not my job, right?
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Here's what I can tell you. If you stay up till 1 or 2 in the morning on Saturday night, you're going to have a hard time getting here.
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And when you get here, you're going to have a hard time listening. Because, you know, unless you, you know, drink an excessive amount of caffeine, which has its own side effects, you'll have difficulty listening because you're tired.
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Tired is a real thing. Get sleep. Let's talk about Charlie's other bailiwick, music.
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It was interesting to me because there are differences. You know, we talked about the 1689 being sort of a,
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I don't want to say a ripoff. They borrowed heavily for the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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You know, sanctification, a sanctified ripping off. The Westminster Confession of Faith lists only psalms as far as music goes.
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And so some Presbyterian churches sing only psalms.
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Some even Reformed Baptist churches sing only psalms. But the Linden Baptist Confession of Faith says psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.
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Now, there are two ways of looking at that. One is, as usual, the Baptists are libertarians. They're just out there pushing it.
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They're out on the edge. Or the other way we can look at it is the Baptists are more biblical. Let's look at Ephesians 5.
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Ephesians 5. And I'm going to start, I want you to start with verse 18 and read through 20.
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And I have my reason, and it's not to scold anybody who had a drink of wine last night. Ephesians 5, 18 to 20.
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I want somebody to read that, please. Okay, now I have to make a few observations just off the top of my head here first. I just want to say this.
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Notice what it says. Singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.
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Not necessarily with your wonderful voice. It really is a matter of the heart. It is worship. You know, everybody calls music worship.
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It is worship. And it should come from your heart. And I know people who are like, well, you know what? I want to make a joyful noise unto the
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Lord, but I want it to be a beautiful noise a la Neil Diamond, you know, circa 1977 or 76 or somewhere in there.
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Here's the problem. The problem is it's a matter of your heart, not of the timber of your voice, the quality of your voice.
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So we're to be singing with our hearts. But I also want to go back to verse 18 because, you know, we frequently use this, do not be drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, right?
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It's wrong to be drunk. But be filled with the Spirit. There's a contrast there, but there's no break.
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This isn't the end of a sentence, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another, congregation, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, addressing one another.
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Do we think about that? You're not just singing, you know, for the glory of God, although that's your principal reason, you know, out of joy and everything else.
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You're addressing one another. You're encouraging one another. You're reminding one another of these biblical truths.
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There is a reason why I, there are a number of songs that I, over the years, that I've just absolutely loathed, okay?
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And I was so overjoyed when they came out with these new hymnals, and the first thing I looked for was one song.
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And if you know me, you know what that song was. In the Garden. And there's a reason why
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I particularly didn't like it, besides the fact that it's false, okay? Because of its huge focus on me.
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And he walks with me, and he talks with me. Well, first of all, am
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I in the Garden with him? Is he walking with me? Well, is he spiritually walking with me? Is he talking with me?
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He's talking to me through his Word. There's so many, you know, asterisks to all the lyrics, I'm just like, it's not worth singing.
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I think MacArthur may have called it the most utterly vapid song in the history of, you know, hymnody.
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It was pretty empty of theology. But there are worse songs that people sing.
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In a lot of the so -called modern churches. I bet
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Charlotte could probably give us some songs, you know, that just focus on me.
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And that is never the focus in Scripture, where we're to be singing about ourselves.
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You know, how about references to God rescuing me, or Christ dying for me, or the Spirit working in me.
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Those things are fine. Because we like to recount all the things that the
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Lord has done for us. But songs shouldn't be about me.
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If a song is about how I feel, or somehow me -centered, how could it be a worship song? If the goal is to worship the triune
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God, Father, Son, and Spirit, how do we do that if we're singing about us? I think it's pretty hard to justify those kind of things.
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Music is the source of much controversy in the church, particularly in the
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United States. And I want to say that, again, as I've said before, worship, you know, in many churches, if you go there, well, we're about to have worship.
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Well, what were we doing before? What were we doing when we had corporate prayer?
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What was it when we read the Word of God? What was it, you know, or what is it when we have a sermon?
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Those things are all worship, right? Aren't they? But somehow worship has become synonymous with just singing.
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And that's not right. You know, we hear worship ministers, and we all know what the worship minister does.
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He does the singing, the music. That's just not right. It should be the minister of music kind of thing.
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That should be his title. R .C. says, Not all churches that use contemporary music are committed to contemporary forms of worship.
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What does he mean by that? Not all churches that use contemporary music are committed to contemporary forms of worship.
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Okay. You can sing contemporary songs without the whole place turning into a rock concert, you know, with Charlie sneaking in ACDC riffs or whatever.
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Do you do that? Sometimes, okay. Well, contemporary worship is not just limited to music, though.
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It goes into other things. What are some things that churches do during their
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Sunday morning services that are not prescribed by Scripture?
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I mean, I mentioned a couple of them. It's such a good point. You know, I'm not totally against, although some people may be against it.
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You know, the projections and all that. I wouldn't project the words of Scripture up there just because I like the fact that even if people have an electronic thing that they can look at it, see the context, everything else.
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But what's really become fashionable is to use... I think one time
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I counted 11 different translations that a man used during a so -called sermon and just project them all up there.
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Well, why would you do that? Why would you use 11 different versions of the
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Bible during a sermon? Iso -Jesus, right?
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I mean, because what you're really looking for is the ones that give the nuances that you want to emphasize, regardless of how accurate they may be.
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You want to emphasize certain points, so you pull those things up. But, you know, think about it. If somebody wanted to check the context of those, they couldn't do it because they would need 11 different Bibles to pull up all the different translations.
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They could never do it. But some other things that go on. There was a church that during...
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I think it was during Communion. I'm pretty sure it was during Communion. They had a ballet performance. Why would you do that?
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Well, I would like to see an exposition of Dance Before the Lord that suggests that that is to be normative.
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I agree. They're pulling it out of context. Other things that people do on Sunday mornings.
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Churches do. Yeah, John. Recite the
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Lord's Prayer. I mean, is there anything necessarily wrong with that? Every Sunday morning. Yeah, or they'll do the
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Apostolic Creed. Some of those things I can chalk up to tradition.
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I don't think that's really the worst of it. But yeah, I don't...
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That might not be the best way to go. But there are... Well, how about Easter Sunday Easter egg drops or having cartoon characters available for photographs.
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I don't even understand some of the things that pass for worship or pass for fellowship or some of these other...
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I don't really get it. And when I say I don't get it, it's because, yes, I'm an old fuddy -duddy because I believe in just sticking to what the
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Bible says. But let's get back to singing for a moment. How about this statement?
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Is it true or false? The older a song is, the better it is. Why would that be false?
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Ave Maria is pretty old. Whereas, Mary, did you know is not as old. Somebody said, is that our hymnal?
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I go, I hope not because I'm going to tear it out if it is. Not that there's anything wrong with listening to the song, but the answer is like the meme shows.
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Yes, she did know. Mary, did you know? Yes, she knew. No, the older a song...
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I mean, the age of a song doesn't necessarily make it better. Which would you rather hear?
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In Christ alone or in the garden? Don't answer that question because there are some people that say in the garden.
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But again, going back to the confession, we should sing heartily and joyfully. Why? Why should we sing heartily and joyfully?
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What's that? We've been forgiven a lot, right? Here's what we forget.
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This is not a performance, right? When we sing, we're not going, okay, I'm going to be graded by my chorus teacher.
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This is about worshiping God because of what He's done. When I sit there and I think, in Christ alone, you know, when
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I sing that song, I'm like, it's all true. When I sing Amazing Grace, I think, it's all true.
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These are great truths. These are things that have been done to me and for me by the great
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God who created everything and who could have hated me and instead set
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His affections on me. And I'm going to sit there and just be like, in Christ alone, my hope is found.
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No. No, because I read those words and I'm like, yes, that is true.
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That's what happened to me. And I don't care if the person in front of me says to themselves, I am never sitting in front of Cooley again because it's not about them, right?
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It's about worshiping the Lord. And my heart needs to be into it.
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I need to be thinking these things are true and what a great God. What a great
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Savior. What great things have been done for me. R .C.
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goes on and he says, well, the goal of bringing great honor and glory to God. Well, the goal of edifying one another, right?
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Those factors give us some insight into the kind of songs we should be singing. R .C.
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says, if we are singing songs that express bad theology, we are undermining the truths of God's word.
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Why would we sit here and sing, you know, a really bad song? In fact,
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I'm going to give you a really bad song. Either after or before we hear the word of God taught.
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Why would we do that? Right after we hear the word of God read or right after we pray.
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This is a song, and this one just particularly sticks my craw. It's particularly popular. It's called
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Reckless Love. Familiar with it? Some of the lyrics, before I spoke a word, you were singing over me.
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Is that true? I don't think so. I can't remember ever hearing that or reading that in the scripture.
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You have been so, so good to me. That's true. Before I took a breath, you breathed your life into me.
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I don't think that's true because if he breathed his life into me, I'd be breathing. I'd be alive. It says, when
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I was your foe, we were enemies of God. That's true. Romans 5, right? Still your love fought for me.
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Now, is that true? This whole idea, you know, that is somehow some kind of yin and yang, some kind of, you know, the force and balance kind of thing, worldview where, you know, evil has to be pushed out by God and God fights for us.
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That's just false. You know, the Bible says that God set his affections on us when?
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Not before I took a breath, which would be true, right? But before the foundations of the world, before anything existed.
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He'd already set his mind to love those that he was going to save.
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When I felt no worth, you paid it all for me. That's just psychological claptrap, and it's not right.
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He did pay it all, but it's not when I felt no worth. Listen, it's not about what
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I feel. It's about what I've done, and what I've done is I've sinned against a holy God. When I sinned against you, if he said that, when
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I sinned against you, you paid it all for me. True. He didn't die for our self -worth, for our self -sense of self.
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Then the last verse here, there's no shadow you won't light up, mountain you won't climb up, coming after me.
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There's no wall you won't kick down, lie you won't tear down, coming after me. Now, to me, that sounds like Lass of the
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Mohicans. I will find you. That's not the
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God of the Bible. I can't believe you said that.
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The chorus, the overwhelming, never -ending, reckless love of God.
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It's not reckless. Reckless is, I mean, what are some synonyms to, not cinnamons, but synonyms to reckless?
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Careless, foolish, chaotic, unplanned, right? Like, you know, it almost reminds me of, there's an old
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Johnny Cash song, you know, where he talks about, you know, he gets drunk, and they go into this town, you know, in a fever, and I'm like,
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God didn't come after us in a fever. It was planned, not reckless, before the foundations of the world worked out in time.
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He decreed these things. So, all those kind of, you know, does a song being new make it bad?
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No, but this is a song, I don't care if you listen to it in your car, knock yourself out. I listen to worse songs than that in the car.
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But we're not going to sing that on a Sunday morning, because it is not a worship song.
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It doesn't tell us truths that we should all rehearse and think about. I mean, one of the great things about music is, and I've tested this too, one of the great things about music is that you can remember great things that you would never remember any other way, if they're in a song.
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And you can also remember some really bad things. I remember a certain teenager who assured me that he did not listen to the lyrics of these heavy metal songs.
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So one morning, you know, for school, his alarm goes off and some heavy metal song comes on.
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And immediately, like within two seconds, he's singing along. I'm like, how does that go again?
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You know, remind me about how, you know, music, the tying together of lyrics and music is an amazing learning device.
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Right? These things that, you know, that's true for most of us. Some of us never remember lyrics, and I'm not going to mention any names.
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But it can help us learn a lot of truths. And when we're singing these truths, when we're worshiping our
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Triune God through these kind of songs, not only do they encourage us in the moment, but there are things that we can even remember.
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You know, difficult times, you know, what do we want to think about? We can think about, you know, what's the name of the song that I'm thinking about?
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I just think about Mark Westcott. He used to always ask for this song. Oh, when peace like a river attendeth my way, you know, so we can,
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I'm feeling down, I'm feeling down, I need to think about how Christ is always faithful to me and these kind of things.
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I can just sing those kind of songs to myself. Let's just finish up here.
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And I'll just say this. Content matters. The Confession says this, singing with grace in our hearts to the
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Lord. Some complain that hymns are foreign in today's culture. They don't find the songs moving.
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And some just kind of go through the motions. R .C. says this, he says, we're to sing in a spiritual mood and not in empty recitation, mouthing the words.
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We are to think about what we are singing. I mean, think about this.
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How could it be worship if we're just kind of, again, just going through the motions, just kind of faking it. And I really thought,
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I mean, I mentioned this sometime this week. I just thought there are people, there are even
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Christians who get up on Sunday morning and what do they think? I have to go to church.
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Please don't think that way. I mean,
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I wonder if we put a time clock out in the lobby, how many people would look for their time card so that they could punch in and punch out.
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Don't think that way. This isn't religious duty. This is our opportunity to come and rejoice before the
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Lord who has saved us. That's what we're doing. And when we sing, when we hear the word read, when we hear it preached, this is what we're doing.
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We're worshiping. This is really part of, let me put it another way.
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What if we got up on Sunday morning and we said, not only do we get to worship, but I'm going to put it another way. What if we just thought,
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I'm going to the spiritual gym this morning. This is my workout. This is my tune -up.
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This is where I'm going to get my spiritual muscles on. We should be fired up when we come in.
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This is a blessing, not some kind of drudgery, not something, it's not like Monday morning where you go, oh,
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Monday, the start of another work week. This is Sunday, the
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Lord's Day, the day that we get to go worship Father, Son, and Spirit. Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you. Thank you for your word. We thank you for the Lord's Day. We thank you for the opportunity that you give us to worship you, to be reminded of the great truths of Scripture, the great truths of what you have accomplished for your people.
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We ought to come every Sunday morning in awe, eagerly anticipating all that you will remind us of, all that you will teach us as we learn more and more about you and your character and your nature.
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And we're just reminded again and again of how good you are to us.
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Father, bless us all. Encourage us. By your Spirit, just guard us from bad thinking and bad theology and bad practices and habits.