Worship Ministry Distincitives

Amen. If I can read our passage and I will use this as sort of a diving off point back to 1 Corinthians 3, 10 through 15. According to the grace of God given me, like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it, for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on that foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become manifest. For the day, we'll disclose it, as we just sung.

Because it will be revealed by fire and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through the fire. So we see a picture of Paul. We see a picture of Paul writing to the church in Corinth, giving them a warning that all their actions and all their work will be evaluated.

He gives them a very sober charge and he says, "Let each one care how he builds upon it." It is our desire in Old Baptist Church, Brother Chris and myself, to put feet to this passage and to be very careful at how we do the work of the church. Brother Chris can tell you of times when he was in prayer, when the Lord impressed things upon his heart, to preach the word and to pray and to plan carefully and to work very carefully. So tonight, as we look at the Old Baptist Church worship ministry distinctives, we'll look at five points of truth or five things that we are striving to do. This is a five-fold mission statement.

We will seek to serve and letting truth lead. We'll seek to serve the preaching of the word. We'll seek to serve by the Spirit. We'll seek to serve the kingdom, Christ's kingdom. We'll seek to serve the people of Nola Baptist Church. So let's talk about this first point, the first challenge. In a sense, you can say, Brother Chris and I are committing to you that we are building this ministry and over several years are building this ministry based on not just our philosophy, but in our doxology, how the Lord has trained us and taught us through his word. So I simply want to give you a sense of where we are coming from in this.

The first thing that we'll look at is serving and letting the truth lead. Every time, Brother Chris and I prepare for a week of ministry, usually we talk Sunday night, we talk Sunday morning before service, we talk Sunday afternoon after service on the way home. We usually eat, take a nap, talk before the service, and then we talk, of course, while we're here and again on the way home. And every single one of those times, we're constantly sort of unpacking, evaluating, and also planning. And I would say we begin planning for Sunday morning on Monday evening. Usually Monday evening, we begin to discuss.

He likes to get an outline, probably knows the verses at least. And he will let me know. And so what do we mean by this letting the truth lead? I've told my students for years that if you ask the wrong questions, you get the wrong answers every time. And I have served in this capacity of leading people in song as a lost person who amassed religious activity that will be burned up. And in fact, that work was actually sin. And the Lord led me to repent of that publicly to people that I served with and youth camps and things of that nature. But in terms of how we serve, I used to ask the wrong questions in preparing worship music.

The questions I used to ask would be like this. What songs are popular? What songs do they know? You typically think of what songs are up tempo at the beginning? What are mid-tempo songs for the middle? What are sort of emotional songs, soft songs? And it very much works that way in many cases. And not that those pragmatic elements don't still come into play. But my friend Jared Walters and I discussed this kind of thing a lot. And he calls it the worship leader bag of tricks. Certain effects or certain songs and knowing how to pull out a certain song at the right time to kind of elicit emotions. And all of those are the wrong questions.

If you start asking the right questions, those things come in play. If you let the cart lead the horse, then you get all sorts of unbiblical experiences. And you get bad doxology, which is not what we want. So just to let you know that our desire and not just planning songs is to plan very carefully. So I, as your worship pastor, promise that under Brother Chris's accountability, because of our very close relationship, he will hold me accountable. And we will carefully consider songs to seek to lead you as you worship the Lord. We will not lead you to sing anything that is unbiblical or that is incongruent with Scripture.

We seek to shepherd the flock through every song that we sing. We believe that songs can teach. And so we desire to put songs before you so that every verse that we sing has something very important. Now, not always will every single verse and every word line up with what Brother Chris is preaching. It happens that sometimes something just kind of fits and maybe it's one word or one phrase or one sentence that really goes well.

And just to show you how this works, there are a lot of times when we plan very well, we plan and when we get together and we start worshiping, even in worship, things come to my heart that we'd never planned, didn't see before. And the Holy Spirit is very active and I credit the fact that the Spirit lives in me and Brother Chris, but he also lives in you. I know for a fact that you all pray for us and as you continue to pray for us, I know that the Spirit will be selecting these songs and we very much do this by faith. So we consider the worship ministry of Noah Babish Church to be part of teaching.

I challenge you to look at every single song, don't put it on autopilot. It's very easy for me. I'm a musician and I have a critical ear and I can sort of analyze music musically or based on its musicality and I have to get out of that when I'm worshiping and when someone else is leading. Because if we really look at worship music as part of the teaching ministry, we ought to really be active, engaged in our minds. Because we see the role of the worship ministry as letting truth lead and almost as a teacher that a worship leader is teaching in song, this is why we ought to have qualified people leading.

There are many times when we have known individuals who are taking part in a worship band or a worship group or worship team who are not qualified to teach or are not qualified really just to be called Christians. I have seen the wrong questions. The questions that are asked are, is this person talented? Is this person effective? And put a person on stage and everyone in the church knows the person lives a questionably moral life or just a straight out immoral life. I've seen it time and time and time again, but if we really take worship ministry seriously, we will see that every song and every verse has an opportunity to teach.

We're challenged by God's word to be very careful about this. Let's go back to the verse we read this morning. You might have your Bible open to Colossians 3 16. The word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. This morning we do not desire to create a worship experience, but we do desire to create everything so that you may have an experience with the Lord. If you look at this phrase, Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, that means worship music may be diverse. There are some songs that are primarily doctrinal.

Those are our hymns. Psalms are scripture songs. We do a lot of Psalms and scripture memory songs on Wednesday night with our kids. Spiritual songs, I think of these as more modern new songs, but here's the kicker. They've got to be scriptural. For a spiritual song to be spiritual, it can't just talk about our commitments to God, our expressions, even our feelings about God. It must be scripturally based. Second, we seek to serve the preaching. Not to be redundant, but biblical worship leaders must put personal agendas aside. So we will submit to those preaching the word.

This is my promise as a worship leader, and I think Brother Chris would tell you it is also my practice. I've had the privilege of leading in front of other pastors like Brother Ed Lacy. I'm always in the habit of calling them and asking what they're preaching on because I don't desire to lead based on my own personal agenda. For instance, what's a new song I've been working on that I really like, and I think that people would enjoy it. Those kind of personal agendas must be put under the blood of Jesus and laid on the altar.

And I must see that worship leaders must see, as they prayerfully and collaboratively plan worship, we must see that God's ultimate goal in this process is the preaching of the word. That's the highest form of worship, as I said this morning. So the spirit of a worship leader should be that of a servant. We must be willing to serve in any capacity, in any role. Now this summer was an interesting challenge for me going to glory days because we had three worship leaders all on the stage, and we kind of joked about it, that we're all used to leading things.

So it was interesting for me, my primary instrument is the guitar, but I primarily play piano and bass, and then I have to learn new instruments for the glory of God to support the worship ministry. I have seen my friends who are worship leaders buy new instruments strictly so they can learn it so that they can support someone else to lead worship.

And whether it is in a worship or music ministry, or whether it is in a teaching ministry, you might think of a person who has a Sunday school class, and they really love teaching, and someone really is trying to grow in their walk with Christ, and they want to become a servant, and maybe someone volunteers to step aside for a time to let another person sort of develop. That kind of service spirit that you find in the church has got to be present. That's why we can sniff and smell and see unbiblical, prideful worship, and it's sort of kind of easy to identify, and it's rather unfortunate. So we seek to serve the preaching.

We must put our personal preference aside. Brother Chris will tell you, usually he tells me what he's preaching on Monday, Tuesday, things are kind of finalized, and we move forward. And usually he doesn't look at the set again until Saturday night, we move forward with making order of worship and that kind of thing. There's a couple of times, one time that I remember in particular, Brother Chris basically said, "Nah, I think I want this song, and this song, and this song, and this song." I think it's happened once, and it was specifically because that just was on his heart, and at that point, the only biblical thing for me to say is, "No problem." And as we worship, and as we lead, and as we serve, our attitudes have got to be first and foremost putting the preaching of the Word first.

And I must say, this is all something that I've had to learn by the Spirit, because before I was saved, and in this world, it was not this way. I saw infighting, I saw people sort of pitching a fit because they couldn't play the instrument they wanted. I once saw a church pianist who was a pianist, an organist, who was asked to play a keyboard for a large church cantata. I still remember being there as a kid and seeing her get up and storm and run out of the church, frustrated with the new instrument, and I still remember that as a kid.

And so we really have to be above our own petty grievances, not just in worship ministry, but in all aspects of ministry. Listen to what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 10. "I appeal to you brothers and sisters in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another, in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and in thought." Now that's a really quick and easy verse, but you know it's hard to live out in the body of Christ.

You might have realized if it's hard in your family, it's hard in the church to be perfectly united and to agree with each other so that there are no divisions among you. I want to challenge you to go back and read this verse, 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verses 10. And I think this is a priority, that if we can accomplish this verse, I think that all of our ministry and church will work out just fine. Whether we talk about the ministry with children in the nursery or vacation Bible school or teaching or recreation at VBS or nursing home ministries. I think a lot of this is just good basic Christianity.

And what about this passage in Mark chapter 10 verses 42 to 45? I'll just read this for you. You might want to go back sometime. Mark 10, 42 verses 45. And Jesus called to them and said, "You know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lorded over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them, but it shall not be so among you. And whoever would be great among you must be your servant. And whoever would be first among you must be slave for all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." So this is our model.

And if we have the priority of the preaching of the word over all other ministries, and if we prioritize the needs of other people, if we care for other people more than ourselves and petty agendas, then things should work quite smoothly. So the third distinctive of our worship ministry is we seek to serve by the Spirit. We seek to serve by the Spirit. Brother Chris and I have agreed on this. We've agreed not to use music to manipulate emotional experiences. That would be a reliance upon man and not upon the Holy Spirit.

When we preach, we depend on the Spirit to lead people to Christ, lead people to himself, and music can be done right if it's done with a dependence on the Holy Spirit. We also ask the Lord to be involved in our planning, that we would not get ahead of him, that we would not sing or preach or do anything of our own will. Fourth, we must be servants of the kingdom. We will gauge success of our worship ministry by biblical standards. It is important that we have the right metric. What I mean is that we're looking at the right thing. So for instance, I can't look at physical expressions on faces to see if worship is good.

I may not even be able to see or to hear people singing and to tell whether worship is good. I think the best instrument, the best metric is when you are singing a song perhaps in your heart to the Lord by yourself that you learned in church months later. As songs begin to help you and your personal family worship or your private time or as you're going down the road, yes, I want you guys to have freedom to sing out loud without any fear of someone looking back and giving you a funny comment about how you sing because it's really not about any of that.

But my ultimate desire and goal, and I think success will be measured in obedience to Christ and in thankfulness. No one will hear you perhaps and maybe you have a soft voice, but maybe when you sing there is great thankfulness. And maybe the skill of singing with joy, singing with thankfulness is one that God has been teaching you. And I may not know when that happens, but my ultimate goal is for the success of the kingdom and God's kingdom in your life. And Brother Chris taught me this early in my faith. He said the kingdom of God is the rule and reign of the Lord Jesus in a person's life.

It's the rule and the reign of the Lord Jesus in a person's life. So when you're more obedient to Christ, worship is more pleasing to God. And that's my desire. And I pray that the saints of God who wrote this beautiful music would encourage you to sing with joy to the Lord. I want to read our principal passage one more time just as a sober reminder to us. First Corinthians 3 10 through 15. According to the grace God given to me like a skilled master builder, I laid a foundation and someone else is building on it. Let each one take care how he builds.

If we'd stop right there and say, let each church take great care in how they build their worship ministry. We have spent a great deal of time thinking, praying, talking, going to conferences, reading books, talking to people that we respect. And we're doing our best to put solid music before you. And it is humbling to know that I will give an account for every song chosen for every line sung. And I would appreciate your prayers in this. But you also, as I challenge you this morning, you're held accountable just as you're held accountable for every sermon, you're held accountable for every song. And we need to be careful.

I have been very hesitant to sing songs sometimes songs that are boasting of my great commitment to God if if I'm not certain about that at the moment. So we need to simply have a great deal of sobriety in that. And finally, we are servants of the church. We seek to serve church as a ministry. We will strive to undergird other ministries, not to supersede or over override them. We will not lead in such a way to hinder other ministries as if the worship ministry is more important than others. As I've said, playing church music during college and traveling a little bit, I've seen people who were on a worship team who would play.

And after they were done playing, they would leave. Get in their car and leave during the preaching. Not once, but routinely. And somebody had to see that and know that and report that and be okay with that. It's not okay. For that person, it was not worship. It was performance. And for that person, the performance was the reason they were there. And that's the kind of thing that we're trying to prevent. Not that cantatas or solos or a vast array of other things are never appropriate. I would not say that. But I have known too many musicians who would not serve in any other capacity but music.

I can tell you, we had a great joy, a time of playing with a young man at Glory Days this summer. He was playing drums for us who had been to camp with us as a student from the time he was as young as seventh and eighth and ninth. And had spent his whole year, his whole high school years attending our camp. He was out as a professional, come back to help us and play drums for us. And when we reached out to him about possibly playing with us, he told us as he had told us in the past, he said, "I'll run the slides. I'll run sound if you need me. I'll sweep.

I will do whatever you ask me to do." And that's the kind of attitude that we seek to have, not just in this ministry but in every area of our ministry. And I think that typifies what we hope for. Is that when you bring loved ones and you bring friends and neighbors to church, and perhaps they're expecting more of a performance or a better vocalist or more instrumentalists, which we would love to have at some point. If they start to ask, you would be able to articulate what theology is and what doxology is and the relationship. And you might be able to quote Colossians 3.16.

And you might be able to say, "Well, we sing songs, spiritual songs, hymns to each other." You might say, "We are the choir." That all of us are the choir, every single one of us. You may not have realized that, but you're in the choir. You've been drafted. The minute you came into the church, you have an opportunity not just to sing hymns, not just the first and fourth verse, but any verse that is going to support the preaching. So it's with humble undertaking that I ask you to join this choir with me every week. Attend. If you'd like to know what practice is, the practice would be to find out what Brother Chris is preaching on.

And just read that verse. Read those verses. Get a commentary. Read about the commentary, all the good expository listening things we learned from Bible study. And then when you show up and you see truth and recognize truth, your heart will leap inside of you and you will say, "It's the lion of Judah, the lamb that was slain." I know that's from Revelation. I've studied that and I know that our Jesus is coming back for us. And your heart will leap at joy, at truth when you see it. Let's close in prayer.