Worship - The Word and Wisdom

Amen if you would open your word again to Colossians 3 16. You might know Brother Chris is out on vacation if you would be praying for him and his family. The Lord would give him traveling mercies. I appreciate Brother Chris so much and trusting the word in the pulpit to me. Even on his vacation he is busy about the Lord's work. He's been spending some time with some mentors and some godly friends in the faith. Giving his vacation to the Lord and spending some time with his family. Please be in prayer that that would bring him back thoroughly refreshed. As always when I get an opportunity to preach I'm just thrilled and so excited.

And we're excited about the work of the Lord. Brother Chris has asked me this morning to do the first of many things this fall. We will embark on sort of unpacking our ecclesiology. If you're not sure what that word means you can write it down. Ecclesiology is basically what you believe about the church. You know everyone has an ecclesiology. Many people have an unbiblical ecclesiology. They may think they don't need it. Some people may have an unbiblical ecclesiology and they think they can do it their way. And so we're sort of going to take the fall and will probably take us all the way through.

We will readdress some things that we've covered in the past. Several years ago Brother Chris preached a series of messages called the Ten Pillars of the Church. We will revisit those but those are sort of our mission statement. Brother Chris asked me to sort of get the ball rolling with what we believe about worship. And he asked specifically for me to do two messages. So I will be continuing this in the evening. And it's my pleasure to do this as well. I've oftentimes preached on worship but this will specifically be a policy statement or kind of an explanation for why we do what we do. So let's begin with God's word is how we should begin.

Colossians 3, 16. "The word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God." Let's go to the Lord once again in prayer. Father I thank you for saving me. I thank you for redeeming me, for revealing yourself to me. And God I want to thank you for the work of God that you've done in my life to show me how you would have me sing songs of worship to the Lord to you. And more specifically how to lead our people to worship you. Father you've been unfolding this for several years. And God I thank you that it is now giving birth.

The seeds planted in the soil are bearing fruit as we see a congregation reborn that's learning how to worship. That is appreciating hymns of the faith and new hymns of the faith. Father I pray you would show us what it means to worship the Lord with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to sing with thanksgiving but also that we would not forget to teach and admonish one another. So God us even now, God your servant, so I don't presume to do your work in my own strength. We love you in your name we pray, Amen. The way a group of people worship tells a story just as you may have an unbiblical ecclesiology everyone has it.

But you know everyone also has a doxology. It's another word for you to write down your notes. Doxology is what we believe about worship. In fact doxology will reveal your theology. What that means is how you worship and what you worship will reveal what you think about God. So this morning desire to tell a bit of history for you this morning. Always spring boarding off of scripture of course but this very morning in America all over our country people are gathering to worship. Before the preaching of the word there will be a group of people and they will stand on stage and they will sing songs.

And this experience will tell things about what they believe about God. Several years ago youth minister came to our youth camp and told us one reason why he chose a youth camp that we do over other well known national youth camps was he said on one particular occasion it was sealed for him that he walked into a worship facility and it was dark and there was smoke and lights and there was a band and there arose an urgent student need and his chaperone came to him and was whispering to his ear and he couldn't hear what the chaperone was telling him.

There was an urgent student need so he motioned for the chaperone to get closer and he got closer and he was actually shouting. And he could not tell what the chaperone was saying about the student need. This very morning modern worship is telling us a story about what they perceive to be man's greatest need. It's not uncommon to have very large youth events. It's not uncommon to have bands. As you might know about me I love all instruments specifically in worship. I love guitar and piano even like drums. But this very morning we were communicating all across the world what we believe about worship.

So in another large youth event students gather and there's a worship band that's brought in, very talented group of people, very qualified musicians. Something that grieved others to find out was that this group had been playing secular music, ungodly music and ungodly contexts just a few nights before. And this very morning in America modern worship is telling a story about how we should do church. A mega church pastor recently announced via Twitter he was excited about worship on Sunday morning and he was sure to mention that his praise team was going to open up with a song by a secular artist.

Now all these trends are happening all across the country and we must be very careful as to notice what the doxology is being communicated and specifically what theology is being communicated. So in his book Christ Centered Worship Brian Chappell notes that during the Reformation there were different messages communicated about what people should believe about God. Now we at Nola Baptist Church make no claims to have arrived in our worship ministry. A lot of times people come to us and ask us why we do certain things and why we don't do other things.

I guess I'd like to tell you a bit of my own personal history before I kind of dig into church history a little bit. But as many of you know I was saved in 2003. I grew up in a Christian family. I grew up in a musical family. In fact I'm the only person in my family that does not have a master's degree from seminary. So I jokingly called myself the black sheep of the family. But we grew up singing all the time and made a decision for the Lord and began using musical talent for the Lord.

In fact I first led a group of people in singing at the age of 12 and never really got away from it but really became enthusiastic about playing in music, Christian bands and playing in church. However I sort of got the cart before the horse. It was in 2003 that God showed me that I had made commitments for Christ and made decisions for Christ. But God had never apprehended my heart and soul in biblical conversion. So when the Lord got a hold of my life and saved me at the age of 26 everything about my life was changed, transformed. And so then I had this thing of my gifts.

And so I started doing exactly what I had been doing with greater enthusiasm and the Lord began to take areas of my life and pull me back. And as he began to show me what the word said about how I was doing church you could say I was humbled. So in 2006 I would say God really began to reform me and I had a personal reformation in terms of worship in 2006. You know I got kind of frustrated with hearing some Christian songs that I had. In fact I had lots of CDs and lots of music. And I got sort of an unsettled feeling in my heart and I couldn't really explain why.

So I got an old broadman hymnal, one like I grew up with, and I just began reading it for devotional purposes. And I came across old hymns, many of which did not even make it into the cut. So if I refer to the 1975 Baptist hymnals, the one that we have here, there are several songs that we do at church that were in the Southern Baptist hymn book prior. It didn't make the cut. And some of those were my favorites. More Holiness Give Me, that title grabbed me. More Holiness Give Me, O for Holiness that I could not attain.

I began to read these hymns and these hymns started before me and I started to, I actually can't read music, so I began writing, I didn't know how to sing these songs, so I began writing my own arrangements to them. And so when the Lord called me into ministry in 2010 and led me to NOLA in 2011 and led me to be on staff here in 2012, we were very careful to have a Biblical doxology and I would say that we've come a long way even since we've begun. But you can tell what a group of people believe about God by how they worship. If you're taking notes, you might want to say that a people's theology will dictate their doxology.

A people's theology will dictate their doxology. So in his book, Christ Centered Worship, Brian Chappell notes that the architecture of the Roman Catholic Church told a story about their doctrine. And as the Reformation changed, the worship facility and the architecture changed. So in the Roman Catholic tradition, you might be familiar with, if you walk into a Catholic Church, you'll see a crucifix. They have Christ on the cross largely because they believe in transubstantiation.

That's a big word that just basically means they believe the doctrine that when they take the communion, the wafer becomes the body of Christ and the communion wine becomes the blood of Christ. And that's important to know because if you noticed in the Protestant Church, we have the pastors preaching behind the altar. All of this is very intentional. It's all telling a story. And the reformers, as Chappell notes, led by Martin Luther, preached the priesthood of the believer. So essentially what Luther and other reformers wanted to communicate was that God is a mediator alone through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our mediator.

So instead of the priest standing in front of the altar where the Eucharistic practice is thought to make you right with God, the preacher then moved behind the pulpit. And in some cases in the French Reformation, you saw the pulpits elevated. So you would have the pastor having the right to walk steps, spiral staircase. And that was done to communicate that the word is elevated above any other man. That we have Christ the mediator, the only mediator, and the word which is sufficient for all of our concerns.

And just as the architecture of the Reformation communicated a story about their theology, we at Nolibadis Church desire to communicate biblical theology in how we worship. So if you ever have a friend who comes with you to church and they ask you, we not only want to have resources, we not only want to have sermons to give them, but we want you to be able to communicate why we do what we do. So in our lesson this morning, we have a few points of truth. The first point of truth that I want you to see this morning is that we must worship with the word.

The title of the sermon this morning is "The Word, Worship, and Wisdom." What story are we communicating here in Nolibadis Church when we gather and we sing? What things about our belief about God are communicated? If you go back to your verse, let's read this. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." We'll stop right there. If you read that verse, it would be very easy to just read over that collection of four or five words. That verse implies that this is something we must take great care to do. It also implies that it's possible to come to worship and to sing songs without the word dwelling in us richly.

Have you ever had that experience where you're singing a song like "Holy, Holy, Holy"? And before you know it, the song's over? And you realize you've not meditated, you've not really... What's that song about? If we are going to engage with truth, we ought to meditate, we ought to know what we're singing and why we're singing it, and these verses of these hymns ought to jump off the page. We indeed can go to church every Sunday and let verses of songs go one ear and out the other, just as we can the word. Perhaps the best way to prevent this is by having an active time every day in which you are in the word.

I don't think we can let the word of Christ dwell richly within us for 30 minutes while we sing. If we're not letting the word of Christ dwell richly within us seven days a week. Now we recently concluded a small group study by Ken Ramey, as you remember expository listening, and Ken Ramey talks about a devaluing that happens in our many churches today. He says, "It is fascinating to observe how the evolution of church architecture throughout history visibly chronicles a devaluing of preacher." He makes reference to these French pulpits in the French Reformation.

I told my group as we met in my house for Sunday night small groups that in our church, we actually have gone from the priesthood to the pulpit, and now we're moving to plexiglass, where we have these see-through plexiglass pulpits. I asked people that met in my small group, "What is this communicating about?" Not that a plexiglass pulpit is a sin, but what does that communicate? What are the directors of that worship service trying to communicate? They're trying to communicate that there's an accessibility between the pastor and the congregation. I could say it is a movement away from authority.

We in this generation have been noted for having an issue or being mistrustful of authority. But as we discussed in our small groups, the premise behind many modern worship songs today is an attempt to draw seekers to the church. We kind of dove into Reformation history, but I want to give you some recent history. This is actually much that I've lived my life through. In the 1970s, "Worspying with the Word" takes an interesting journey through music. In the 1970s, there was something you might remember called the Jesus movement. It was basically hippies who got saved.

They would come to churches in bell-bottoms, and they would look like hippies. Many of them couldn't really fit in or find a place, and they just sort of did what was coming natural. They got guitars and they started singing music. This is where a lot of the praise and worship or praise choruses came to the surface. In fact, the praise chorus is something that I can remember being all the rage with my dad's college students. My dad was a BSU minister. I grew up around college students, and I grew up with hearing these college students. I can remember the hairstyles in the late 70s and early 80s.

I was born in 1976, but I can remember that this Jesus movement sort of reverberated right the way through my early childhood days. I can remember my dad picking up a guitar, or a college student picking up a guitar, maybe on the beach around a campfire and singing praise songs. I can remember even before my very eyes how this morphed in sort of a Christian pop movement. Whereas you had Keith Green and Barry McGuire, this sort of gave rise just within the span of ten years to large arena tours by the likes of Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. It's important to note that this movement impacted what we do every Sunday tremendously.

So you could say that Jesus movement and Jesus music gave way to contemporary Christian music, and it's actually a contemporary Christian music industry. We have a good friend in ministry, Brother Chris and I, who worked for one of the largest Christian music distributors and publishers for several years. And he saw the behind the scenes happenings of a Christian music label. And he tells us the story of he went to lunch with a coworker who was having some problems at work and feeling pressure to move units.

And his friend looked across the table at him and said, "Friend, you haven't come to the point where you realize that you don't work for a Christian music company. You work for a music company that sells Christian music." And that was illustrative of how a sort of seemingly innocent purist Jesus music morphed into a huge industry in the 80s. In the 1990s, the same thing happened with praise and worship music. I can remember going to college and the Passion Music Conferences is just an example, but Chris Tomlin and Dave Crowder and Louie Gigniel were sort of the forefront of that movement.

And the large music media companies realized that not just entertainment-based, concert-based music items, but worship music became all the rage. In fact, that's a large market share of Christian music companies is praise and worship music. Now, why is that important? Because when those on staff and when those in leadership and those in the pew have an influence by culture, it's important to ask the question, "What does a song or what does a movement communicate about God?

What is our culture communicating about how we should worship?" And just as Reformation architecture and modern architecture, our music communicates an idea about who we believe God to be. D.A. Carson says it this way, "You cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship." He goes forward and says this. He's recounting a conversation with a friend.

He said, "As a brother put it to me, it's a bit like those who begin admiring the sunset and soon begin to admire themselves admiring the sunset." If you think about how easy it is when you have a large industry moving people to sort of get caught up in how worship is, and all the while we're not letting the word of Christ dwell richly within us. We may like the song. We may like how it makes us feel. We may like the phraseology. And all the while, if you look at the content, so many things can be emphasized other than the word of God. Some things that I just take note of, of songs, you know, we can sing about our response to God.

We can sing about our commitments to God. We can sing about our praise to God. We can even sing about our feelings towards God. And none of those things may be letting the word of Christ dwell richly within us. And I know I've taken a lot of history and gone through many different points, but I think we can now see. I just want to ask you a question in application of this first point. When you come to worship, are you challenged to let the word of Christ dwell richly within you? If you were to step into a congregation and hear songs that you know, a lot of times we, as worship leaders, feel pressure to sing songs people know so they can sing.

Well, the songs people know in our culture may not be letting the word of Christ dwell richly within them. And not all modern music is bad, and not everyone that works in that industry is bad. That's not what I'm saying. But we must take very care, great care, of letting the word of God dwell richly within us as we sing. The second point of truth this morning is to teach and admonish. Teach and admonish. If I were to ask you what worship is, what would you tell me? I ask students when I teach this in small groups or when I have small group studies, they ask what worship is. A lot of times you'll hear singing.

A lot of times you'll hear maybe words like praise. We typically do not think of correction in the context of worship. We think of maybe even a choir. We think of maybe some instrumentalists, maybe vocalists. In fact, I guarantee you I've never heard of a person tell me when asking what worship is. A person's never responded. Well, you know, when someone tells you what you're doing wrong. But let's look at this verse. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. And I do believe this is connected to our music ministries and our churches.

We ought to be singing things about God which are convicting. We ought to be singing truths about God which are challenging to us. So in looking at systematic theology by John MacArthur, I have a definition for us. Biblical worship by definition is associated with corrective truth. Biblical worship by definition is associated with corrective truth. I'm quoting MacArthur here. Worship is the theme of salvation history and it is our primary eternal occupation. Worship is the theme of salvation history and worship is our eternal occupation. I just want to read some verses for you here.

You can write these references down and go home and read them. John chapter four verse twenty three. But the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. It's not enough for a person to have emotional experience or to sing loud or even to sing well if that person cares nothing for the truth of God. If that person does not care about reorienting their life to live in accordance with Scripture. And our songs ought to be challenging us to live in accordance with Scripture.

I have a friend who says it this way for Jared Walters who will be leading here when I'm out on vacation. He says we hitch our wagons to truth and we let the truth lead communicating the gospel. The truth of God's word is and must remain our first and greatest priority. It's very easy to get the cart before the horse or singing songs. In fact we will routinely challenge people not to sing lies. You know all I have I surrender all I have I surrender don't sing that if it's not true. In fact I'm held accountable if I lead you to sing things that are not true about your life.

And a lot of the songs today are basically singing about commitments and singing about sanctification or are consecrating things. And we've got to be very careful so as not to lead our people to sing lies and not to sing empty words because you will be accountable not just for everything you hear but for everything you sing. If you sing holy holy holy and you do not live a life you'll be held accountable for those words. So not only are we challenged this morning to worship with the word to teach and admonish we're also challenged to worship with all wisdom.

I'll read that verse again let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. So truth must govern our worship and it must govern our worship in such a way so that we recognize error. When you walk into a worship venue or there's worship music playing could you recognize if those worshiping had an unbiblical theology. Could you spot unbiblical doxologies. I have five things here. I would say these are five unwise doxologies. Five unwise doxologies. You can write these down the first worship is not about us.

According to McCauther to worship the Lord is to ascribe him the honor and the glory adoration and praise and reverence that is due him. McCauther continues we worship God for his greatness and for his goodness and it's not about us. So let me just kind of unpack this worship is not about a performance and it's not about a production from time to time. People may ask if we have Christmas cantatas big productions not that I believe that these are always bad. But I think it kind of sets a precedence of performance and show.

We just choose to stay away from it and just that very simply we want our doxology to communicate that worships not about us. It's about the grandeur and the glory and the honor of God. And so we keep things kind of simple. You know I'm not really a guitar player who can do guitar solos but if I could we really wouldn't do a lot of that. I don't see that. I think it's very tempting when someone has talent to sort of let the talent sort of bang and gong. Look at how well I sing and talent is great. I love talent. But talent is not the reason why we come and worship is not about us.

If you've ever been in a worship music kind of event and the people are very talented you can tell the person who does that with humility and you can tell that person who does that for a show. And it's kind of self evident. So we like to say that arrogance is self evident but so is humility. So worship is not about us. Secondly worship is not about God's goodness alone. Make sure you put that on there. Worship is not about God's goodness alone. And this is a trap. I'm afraid and I'm concerned for American worship as a movement because I think we've fallen into this.

Turn on Christian radio or go by a story by a CD and look for songs about God's justice. His wrath. His anger. His hatred of sin. All of those elements are entirely true from scripture. In fact I've been teaching the young people on Wednesday nights. I asked them to tell me attributes of God that speak to his greatness. And I asked them what are attributes of God that speak to God's goodness. So with goodness we know God is good because he's merciful. He's eternally merciful, loving, compassionate, forgiving. He's gracious. God in terms of his greatness is always just. He's wrathful. He hates wickedness.

In fact he wouldn't be good if he didn't hate and punish wrongdoing. And so then I asked my students what do you think our worship songs feature more. Songs about God's greatness are songs about God's goodness. Without a doubt we say God's goodness. We hear songs about his love, his compassion, his mercy and I say why is that? That is a tendency to make us feel good. And so I asked my students this. I've been married to my beautiful wife for 19 years. Still my best friend. And I tell my youth what would happen if I told my wife here are some attributes over here that I like. Here are some attributes over here, not so much.

What kind of trouble would I get in if I only loved my wife for certain attributes? I would get into major trouble. Why? Because essentially my wife would say well you don't really love me if you don't love all of me. And we are in very dangerous ground in America when we're only singing songs about his love and mercy and kindness. Because we are telling God we like the merciful God but we don't like the part about God giving judgment upon Canaanites. And upon evildoers and wrongdoers. In fact those things make us uncomfortable so let's just focus on the happy stuff.

And so if we're only worshipping God for his goodness and ignoring his greatness then we have theology that is suspect. Third, worship is not about man's efforts. According to MacArthur worship begins in the heart of the worshipper. Worship is not about man's efforts. Now this is similar to worship not being about us. But I wanted to kind of unpack this a little more. I have had different types of jobs and one of those jobs is I do some counseling. And I do counseling with older people who get down on a point in life where they're depressed and perhaps they've lost a spouse for 50 years.

But I was working with someone one time who was very upset because she had gone to a pastor and actually had written several songs that she could sing. And had given this to the pastor in charge of worship ministry and hadn't heard anything back. In fact for five, six, seven years she was nursing a grudge and battling resentment because she was not being able to use her talent. I was kind of thinking well she might be upset here if she were to come to our church. We don't really do a lot of solos. But God has given many of you great voices. At this point in our development we have tried to err on the side of simplicity.

I brought one of my college students to church here and he said, "Y'all are kind of minimalist." I thought, "Well, I never thought of that." We're not minimalist to be minimalist. But we have an attempt to have a doxology that creates or communicates our theology. And we're very, very protective of that. And so essentially what I heard from this woman was, "Perhaps my talent isn't what they are looking for." And what I thought and felt for her is sad when we would start to see worship ministry as anything regarding talent whatsoever. Now talent, there has to be some kind of talent or else I'd be a distraction.

And I think that we've missed a point. When we listen and look for talent or even a message or even anything apart from, "Let the word of God dwell richly in you." So worship is not about man's efforts. Worship is not about music, number four. Worship is not about music. MacArthur notes that worship may include prayer and praise and thanksgiving. You can reference that, Hebrews 13-15. But do you know that the apex of our worship is not the song service? If we have a rousing rendition of "Holy, Holy, Holy" and we feel amazing, that was fantastic. Do you know that is not the pinnacle of worship?

The pinnacle of worship is the preaching of God's word. Martin Luther said that the greatest expression of worship is the preaching of God's word. And why is that? Because that's the means primarily through which that God saves people. It's through the foolishness of preaching that men are saved. I kind of see what I do as part of the teaching ministry to support what Brother Chris is preaching about. If you go back and look at the songs that I picked this morning, I picked songs about God's greatness.

I picked songs about His holiness, about His righteousness, and also sang songs about the cross and rejoicing in our Redeemer, singing with thanksgiving. But worship is not about music. Finally, the fifth challenge to us to have wisdom in our worship is that worship is not an emotional experience. Worship is not about an emotional experience. Now, should worship be emotional? Absolutely. In fact, as we're going to see in this verse in the very next point, the fourth point of truth is worship the Lord or sing with thankfulness. However, that can only happen when we first set the word first and foremost.

I think we have confused emotionalism and emotional experience with true worship. In fact, we have started to gauge how well we worship by how we feel. And that's a dangerous, dangerous error. So, for instance, if we go back to the purpose of worship being corrective, let's just go back to the verse. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you, richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom." I don't always feel great when I'm admonished.

In fact, when the preaching ministry is what it needs to be, and I'm convicted, and after church, I shake hands, "Good to see you, great Sunday, wonderful." I go in the car and I think, "God, this needs to change in my life." And I may even have tears of brokenness because I'm convicted at the sermon. I'm not always feeling too great. But I've never worshiped more than when I have repented. And our worship experience has been confused, I'm afraid, in this country. In fact, the more emotional people get, seemingly, the more effective we are. And that's not always the case.

So, at the risk of sounding to contradict myself, let's go to the last point, which is to sing with thankfulness. This is actually a command. "You are commanded to let the word of God dwell richly within you," and then to sing in response to this. So, let's read this verse. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom," and here it is, "singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thanksgiving." That is actually an emotion. But that emotion can only happen when we follow truth. Emotions must follow truth. And if you want to take notes, you could write that down.

Emotions must follow truth. And more specifically, emotions must follow truth as we are in awe, as we realize. It is almost as if God's eternal attributes are being unfolded right in front of us as we sing, and we are in awe. So, at Nola Baptist Church, if you were to ask us of our doxology, we would say, "We never try to create a worship experience." A worship experience should never be a goal of a worship leader. But only a byproduct of God's truth impacting hearts and minds and lives.

And as you are corrected by truth, and as you are broken by truth, and at the point you realize God's great mercy has now restored you to truth, then you will have emotions. And we will put our arms around you, and we will say, "Amen." And we will have emotions with you, and we will worship with you. And that is the purpose of a very, very often neglected phrase in this verse. I want you to go back and let's read this passage.

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching, admonishing, one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs." In other places of Scripture, there is another word that says, "To one another." There's actually the scriptural premise by which we need to sing to each other. You don't need to hear me primarily. You need to hear the church. To have a problem if the volume is so loud in a worship environment or song environment, that you can't hear the congregation singing. This was also another complaint of a friend of mine who actually loves loud music.

But he said, "I have a problem when I can hear the guitars and the bass and the drum, but I can't hear the person singing to me, singing right next." Now, what is it about this that we need to hear each other? I've said it. I believe the Holy Spirit in me is edified by hearing the Holy Spirit from within you sing truth. In fact, the Spirit and the work of the Spirit in my life is edified by hearing you all sing. From time to time, I'll stop playing. Melissa will stop playing. And I want to hear our voices. I think we need to hear our voices.

Specifically, we need to hear our voices together singing truth, because that nourishes our spiritual life. And we should especially sing with thankfulness in our hearts when we are admonished. Just in conclusion this morning, I want to leave you with a verse. Hebrews 12.6. "For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, He chastises every son whom He receives." Do you know why you sing with thanksgiving? Not just because heaven awaits, not just because Jesus died on the cross. No, you sing with joy because you are a child of God. How do you know you are a child of God? Because He has chastised you. He has corrected you. He has loved you.

And when truth corrects us through a sermon and through song, and even we are broken wide open, that is the perfect time to sing. I am going to ask that you close your eyes in this time. I am going to ask that you have a moment of reflection. Have you gotten this right? Have you been worshipping or have you been singing? Have you ever confused the biblical, the unbiblical? Have you ever sought out Christian entertainment but neglected the Word of God? Have you ever showed up to a Christian concert and not gone to church? Have you ever sought out an opportunity to have an emotional experience, yet you haven't been obedient to Scripture?

If you would just ask the Lord to reveal anything in your heart that would need to change.