What effect can worship have on the worshipper? In this video Worship Leader Bob Kauflin and counseler David Powlison discuss the therapeutic aspect of worship.
While this video comes from the perspective of the worship leader, and the awesome opportunity and responsibility the worship leader has, I think this discussion will provide everyone an enhanced perspective about the dynamic that entering into genuine worship offers.
[NOTE: This is the First of Two Parts of this discussion]
John Calvin said:
“The human heart is a factory of idols… Every one of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.”
This truth is difficult to convey. Few people think of themselves as idolators. And when I as a pastor, or a friend, suggest to people that they – like me – struggle from this affliction, the most common response is a grinning dismissal.
For most people the concept of idolatry conjurs mental images of statues and shrines. And since few people I encounter would knowingly do something as primitive as that, it is easy to understand why that notion is so easily ignored.
Nevertheless it is a condition that needs to be recognized. We need to recognize it as a general condition of humanity. And each of us needs to discover what kinds of idols our own hearts are producing. You see, what my production center cranks out is different than what your production center develops – both in product and in volume.
In a recent post, titled X-Ray Questions, Scott Thomas, President of Acts 29 Network succinctly addresses this subject. And in that post he offers 35 X-Ray Questions for the Heart. Thomas’ challenge:
Examine the following questions and ponder your heart for the existent idols and then crush the idols of our heart before they crush you.
- What do you love? Hate?
- What do you want, desire, crave, lust, and wish for? What desires do you serve and obey?
- What do you seek, aim for, and pursue?
- Where do you bank your hopes?
- What do you fear? What do you not want? What do you tend to worry about?
- What do you feel like doing?
- What do you think you need? What are your ‘felt needs’?
- What are your plans, agendas, strategies, and intentions designed to accomplish?
- What makes you tick? What sun does your planet revolve around? What do you organize your life around?
- Where do you find refuge, safety, comfort, escape, pleasure, and security?
- What or whom do you trust?
- Whose performance matters? On whose shoulders does the well being of your world rest? Who can make it better, make it work, make it safe, make it successful?
- Whom must you please? Whose opinion of you counts? From whom do you desire approval and fear rejection? Whose value system do you measure yourself against? In whose eyes are you living? Whose love and approval do you need?
- Who are your role models? What kind of person do you think you ought to be or want to be?
- On your deathbed, what would sum up your life as worthwhile? What gives your life meaning?
- How do you define and weigh success and failure, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable, in any particular situation?
- What would make you feel rich, secure, prosperous? What must you get to make life sing?
- What would bring you the greatest pleasure, happiness, and delight? The greatest pain or misery?
- Whose coming into political power would make everything better?
- Whose victory or success would make your life happy? How do you define victory and success?
- What do you see as your rights? What do you feel entitled to?
- In what situations do you feel pressured or tense? Confident and relaxed? When you are pressured, where do you turn? What do you think about? What are your escapes? What do you escape from?
- What do you want to get out of life? What payoff do you seek out of the things you do?
- What do you pray for?
- What do you think about most often? What preoccupies or obsesses you? In the morning, to what does your mind drift instinctively?
- What do you talk about? What is important to you? What attitudes do you communicate?
- How do you spend your time? What are your priorities?
- What are your characteristic fantasies, either pleasurable or fearful? Daydreams? What do your night dreams revolve around?
- What are the functional beliefs that control how you interpret your life and determine how you act?
- What are your idols and false gods? In what do you place your trust, or set your hopes? What do you turn to or seek? Where do you take refuge?
- How do you live for yourself?
- How do you live as a slave of the devil?
- How do you implicitly say, “If only…” (to get what you want, avoid what you don’t want, keep what you have)?
- What instinctively seems and feels right to you? What are your opinions, the things you feel true?
- Where do you find your identity? How do you define who you are?
Two other worthwhile resources on this subject:
Humble Calvinism: The Idol Factory
Idol Factory – A Series of messages by C.J. Mahaney & Mark Driscoll
It sounds like a contradiction, doesn’t it? The Gospel saves you from morality. Can this be true?
It is true. And it is an important truth. And understanding what John Piper is saying in this video can free people from the crushing weight of trying to be good. For others it will free them from self-righteousness, which is a cancer that eats away at the spiritual sensitivity system.
As a pastor from a confessional denomination one of the more difficult tasks I regularly – even constantly – encounter is helping people past a distatse for doctrine.
I understand why so many are so often hesitant to embrace any system of doctrine. “Doctrine divides” is a commen lament. And, regretably, it is often an accurate one. I see many who are at odds with others over secondary principles. Another issue is that sometimes those who are the strongest proponents of sound theology carry rather “ugly” attitudes. Looking at life, and the church, with a singular perspective (as opposed to tri-perspectival) some assume that mere apprehension and submission to a system of doctrine is the only thing that matters. As one of my old pastors often said: “Their theology is dead right – but mostly dead.”
Of course there are other reasons to be considered.
The historical influence of the Second Great Awakening continues to infect large portions of the American church. One of the most significant effects is that many Christians, and a number of church traditions, are flarly anti-intellectual. Their faith is almost entirely “feelings” built aroud a few simple theological propositions.
And maybe the biggest hurdle is that developing a comprehensive understanding of a system of theology is, simply, hard work. Like learning anything, it is challenging and takes time and study.
Whatever the reasons for hesitancy, I maintain it is still important. In this brief video Tim Keller affirms the benefits of sound doctrine. In fact he asserts, I believe correctly, that everyone already lives out their theology…
If this so, it would seem important to think it all through.
Ecstasy and delight are essential to the believer’s soul and they promote sanctification.
We were not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration, and the Christian who goes for a long time without the experience of heart-warming will soon find himself tempted to have his emotions satisfied from earthly things and not, as he ought, from the Spirit of God. The soul is so constituted that it craves fulfillment from things outside itself and will embrace earthly joys for satisfaction when it cannot reach spiritual ones…
The believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the love of Christ and savoring the felt comforts of a Savior’s presence. When Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other lovers…
By the enjoyment of the love of Christ in the heart of a believer, we mean an experience of the “love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us” (Romans 5.5)… because the Lord has made himself accessible to us in the means of grace, it is our duty and privilege to seek this experience from Him in these means till we are made the joyful partakers of it.
– John Flavel (1630-1691)
It may defy common wisdom, but sound doctrine is important to the renewal of the contemporary church. While many view doctrine as divisive and unecesary trivia, recent studies by Thom Rainer, Ed Stetzer, and others, reveal that sound doctrine is a hallmark of churches that are the most effective in evangelism. Further, both writers, in addition to Collin Hansen’s experience, suggest that open discussion about sound doctine is what younger, unchurced spiritual seekers are clamoring for. So while it may defy common wisdom, we also need to remember that some things are more common than wise.
The following is a short article by 19th Century Anglican Bishop, J.C. Ryle, who makes the case for the necessity of sound teaching in our lives and ministries. See what you think.
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The times require distinct and decided views of Christian doctrine. I cannot withhold my conviction that the professing Church is as much damaged by laxity and indistinctness about matters of doctrine within, as it is by skeptics and unbelievers without. Myriads of professing Christians nowadays seem utterly unable to distinguish things that differ. Like people afflicted with color–blindness, they are incapable of discerning what is true and what is false, what is sound and what is unsound. If a preacher of religion is only clever and eloquent and earnest, they appear to think he is all right, however strange and heterogeneous his sermons may be. They are destitute of spiritual sense, apparently, and cannot detect error. The only positive thing about them is that they dislike distinctiveness and think all extreme and decided and positive views are very naughty and very wrong!
These people live in a kind of mist or fog. They see things unclearly, and do not know what they believe. They have not made up their minds about any great point in the Gospel, and seem content to be honorary members of all schools of thought. For their lives they could not tell you what they think is truth about justification, or regeneration, or sanctification, or the Lord’s Supper, or baptism, or faith or conversion, or inspiration, or the future state. They are eaten up with a morbid dread of controversy and an ignorant dislike of party spirit; and yet they really cannot define what they mean by these phrases. And so they live on undecided; and too often undecided; they drift down to the grave, without comfort in their religion, and, I am afraid, often without hope. Continue reading
The first and worst cause of error that prevails in our day is spiritual pride. This is the main door by which the devil comes into the hearts of those who are zealous for the advancement of Christ. It is the chief inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit to darken the mind and mislead the judgment, and the main handle by which Satan takes hold of Christians to hinder a work of God. Until this disease is cured, medicines are applied in vain to heal all other diseases.
Pride is much more difficult to discern than any other corruption because, by nature, pride is a person having too high a thought of himself. Is it any surprise, then, that a person who has too high a thought of himself is unaware of it? He thinks the opinion he has of himself has just grounds and therefore is not too high. As a result, there is no other matter in which the heart is more deceitful and unsearchable. The very nature of it is to work self-confidence and drive away any suspicion of evil respecting itself.
Pride takes many forms and shapes and encompasses the heart like the layers of an onion- when you pull off one layer, there is another underneath. Therefore, we need to have the greatest watch imaginable over our hearts with respect to this matter and to cry most earnestly to the great searcher of hearts for His help. He who trusts his own heart is a fool. Continue reading
A few days ago I penned a post suggesting that we consider the Christian Life through a different paradigm than what I believe is ordinary. I suggested the the fundamental gauge ought to be Humble vs. Proud, rather than Good vs. Bad and/or Right vs. Wrong. I have received several positive responses, and I have been asked a couple times for some clarification.
While I suspect few, if any, would suggest that Humble vs. Proud is not a valid grid, I understand how some might find it a bit audacious to say it should be the fundamental, or primary grid. What makes this the predominant paradigm?
Humble vs. Proud is the grid within which these other standards fit.
Let me explain:
First, Christianity is a substantive faith. Doctrine is the way we express and transfer the substance of Truth. So Right vs. Wrong is an important concept; an indispensible concept. But God tells us that there is a knowledge that merely “puffs up”, a knowledge that may be true but which is not helpful. It is not the substance of truth that it the problem. The problem is the condition of the heart that is receiving and processing this truth.
What is interesting is that understanding Truth also promotes humility. Paraphrasing C.J. Mahaney: “Humility is seeing ourselves in right relation to God.” In other words, the more we understand about God and about ourselves the more humble we wil feel. But paradoxically, before Truth produces humility the heart must already be humble before God.
Second, James tells us that we are known by our actions; that Faith without works is dead. This underscores the importance of Good vs. Bad. But our actions can be deceiving. Not only can we deceive others by our actions, but we often deceive ourselves. Many people think of themselves as being loved by God because of their actions. But this often stems from a false sense of righteousness. God tells us that our best efforts, if they are not generated from faith and a love for God, are as appealing as a filthy rag. And Jesus spoke to a group of people telling them that despite their “good deeds” he had no relationship with them. (See Matthew 7.21-23)
Again, while both the Good vs. Bad and Right vs. Wrong paradigms are important, and have their place, I still suggest that Humble vs. Proud is the most fundamental. Against this paradigm there is no warning. And it is only within this paradigm that the others get their meaning.
“To become more like Jesus is to feel increasingly unable to do life, increasingly wary of your heart. Paradoxically, you get holier while you are feeling less holy. The very thing you were trying to escape – your inability – opens the door to prayer and then grace.”
– Paul Miller, A Praying Life
Not long ago, while a friend of mine was preaching in my place at Walnut HIll Church, I had somewhat of an epiphany. I understood something that had been nagging at me for a long, long time, but that I had never before been able to express – even to myself. I realized: We have it all wrong. We are using the wrong standard to measure our spiritual lives. We need a new grid.
Too often, I am afraid, we gauge the Christian Life through a grid of Good vs. Bad, or of Right vs. Wrong. The more serious of us may see that both ought to be wedded together. But I am convinced that, while both of these grids have some value, the real grid that God fundamentally calls us to use is Humble vs. Proud.
Good vs. Bad gauges our behavior. Right vs. Wrong evaluates our doctrine, or our Worldview. But Humble vs. Proud reflects our heart – and that is where everything must begin. If we get that out of whack, everything else will be too.
I was blown away as I thought about the paradoxes of the Gospel as it was described by Paul Tripp in his book, Broken-Down House. Don’t just read through quickly. Stop and consider the contrasts:
Grace is a story and grace is a gift. It is God’s character and it is your hope. Grace is a transforming tool and a state of relationship. Grace is a theology and an invitation. Grace is an experience and a calling. Grace will turn your life upside down while giving you a rest you have never known. Grace will convince you of you unworthiness without ever making you feel unloved.
Grace will make you acknowledge that you cannot earn God’s favor, and it will remove your fear of not measuring up to his standards. Grace will confront you with the fact that you are much less than you thought you were, even as it assures you that you can be far more than you had ever imagined. Grace will put you in your place without ever putting you down.
Grace will enable you to face truths about yourself that you have hesitated to consider, while freeing you from being self-consciously introspective. Grace will confront you with profound weaknesses, and at the same time introduce you to new-found strength. Grace will tell you what you aren’t, while welcoming you to what you can now be. Grace will make you as uncomfortable as you have ever been, while offering you more comfort than you have ever known. Grace will drive you to the end of yourself, while it invites you to fresh starts and new beginnings. Grace will dash your hopes, but never leave you hopeless. Grace will decimate your kingdom as it introduces you to a better King. Grace will expose your blindness as it gives you eyes to see. Grace will make you sadder than you have ever been, while it gives you greater cause for celebration than you have ever known.
Grace enters your life in a moment and will occupy you for eternity. You simply cannot live a productive life in this broken-down world unless you have a practical grasp of the grace you have been given.
In a culture conditioned to instant everything, perhaps we would do well to pause and consider these words from John Newton, author of the hymn Amazing Grace:
“A Christian is not of hasty growth, like a mushroom, but rather like the oak, the progress of which is hardly perceptible, but in time becomes a great deep-rooted tree.”
-from The Letters of John Newton
Missions is not just for Super Christians. The Great Commission will be accomplished by ordinary people, who posess a heartfelt faith in Jesus Christ, and who are faithful to follow Jesus’ instruction to go into all the world to make discples.
Simple, right?
Well, the concept is simple. Even the decision to oby or not obey is a simple choice. There are only two options, yes and no. There is no in between. But the implementation is not so simple. Each individual has a question to answer regarding his/her role. Even before that role is determined one must be informed about what roles there are that need to be played. Then there are the questions about what God is doing in the world. What skills do I have, or do I need to develop? How do I figure out where in the world I should go?
Every Christian is called to answer these questions. No one can slip by, simply dismissing Jesus’ mandate by saying, “I’m not called to missions.” Even if that were true – and I suspect it would be more accurate to say “I am not called to go overseas” – we are still left to answer the question: Then what are you called to do? And, Where are you called to do it? No one whom God has called has been called without a purpose for his/her life. And frankly, whatever the specific purpose, at least an aspect of everyone’s calling is connected to taking the Gospel to the Nations.
I am aware of no better tool to help people discover what God is doing in the world and what role they can play in God’s Mission (missio dei) than the PERSPECTIVES course. This course does take work, but the benefits far overshadow the expended effort. To say PERSPECTIVES makes a life-changing impact is not mere hyperoble. It’s true.
The above video offers testimonies from some who have participated in this couse. The video encourages you to find a class near you, which I would also urge. But what is not revealed in the video is that if an intensive 15 week course is not feasible for you, for whatever reasons, there are alternatives. One is an Intensive PERSPECTIVES class, where participants are indundated with God’s Global Glory for either one or three weeks of instruction. I am not sure how the corresponding readings are handled. Another option is to take this course online. When taken online you don’t have the benefit of interaction with other participants, but you can spread your reading out over the course of a year. For this option check out: PERSPECTIVES Online.
And finally, if you are a college or seminary student, PERSPECTIVES can be taken for either undergad or grad school credits.
There are some peculiar perils prevalent among the professional holy – those in full time ministry or service for God. High on this list: We know a lot of stuff and we do a lot of good things. And it is easy to misconstrue either, or both, of these with being righteous. But neither of these things makes us righteous.
In Christ alone we are declared righteous, by God’s grace through faith in the substitutionary life and death of Jesus. (The theological word is “imputed”.) Actual righteousness is faith in Christ expressing itself in good actions; or to put it another way, only when our actions are driven by genuine faith are we actually righteous.
Knowing a lot of stuff, even sound, biblical theological stuff is not itself righteousness. It is not even faith. It may provide the substance for faith, but right knowledge alone does not necessarily lead to faith. There are a lot of things that I know, that I agree are true, yet that at any given time I still fail to trust and act upon. Many things I assent to are not manifest in my character. Such knowledge is my profession-al faith (that which I profess) but not a functional faith. And that disparity is important.
This is a particular problem in my denominational circles. We have a rich, deep, profound, and thoroughly biblical theological heritage. It takes discipline and commitment to get a firm grasp on the system of doctrine. And I suspect it may be for that reason that some have, historically as well as today, felt a sense of righteousness for enduring the rigors of study and learning.
But apart from actual faith there is no righteousness. In fact, even if faith is present there is no righteousness unless that faith is coupled with good works. (Please note: I am not suggesting that there is no salvation without “works”. We are saved – “justified” – by grace through faith in Christ alone. Nothing else added – nada. Nor am I suggesting that apart from works there is no “imputed righteousness” – the righteousness of Christ credited to us at the moment of conversion/justification. What I am saying is that there is no “actual righteousness”, no righteousness of our own, apart from faith being expressed through our conduct.)
Just what makes a good deed “good” I cannot say. At least I cannot say concisely enough to ponder in this post. I hope it will suffice to say that good deeds are those things that benefit others and honor God.
I suspect that many deeds are done to the benefit of others, whether there is any mind toward honoring God or not. In many cases we would never be able to tell, at least so far as those deeds are done by others. Sometimes, if we are honest, our own good deeds are done without conscious thought of honoring God. I do not want to make the case here that these deeds are therefore not “good”. But I do want to again suggest that they fail to qualify as righteous.
Again, righteousness may best be defined as Faith expressed through good deeds. Genuine faith has a conscious awareness of God, his glory, his grace to us, and his expectations of us. And in this we are all deficient, sometimes more so than at others.
Jerry Bridges, in his excellent book Respectable Sins, explains that our thoughtlessness about God, those moments or periods when we are not thinking about or conscious of God, demonstrates the very essence of “ungodliness”. It is the sin of not being conscious of God. And all are guilty of this sin, to varying degrees.
But if this is so, and I’m convinced it is, it is then possible to do good deeds and sin at the same time, and by the same act. (Again, it could be reasoned that this negates the idea that the act is good. But for practical reasons I am not making that argument.) People benefit from our actions, God may even be praised for our work, but we workers fail to recognize God – except maybe in hindsight. Good as this may be, we must never kid ourselves into mistaking these deeds as righteous.
Only when our genuine faith is expressed in action that honors God and benefits others, only when all those criteria are met, are we actually righteous.
As I write I am well aware that most who read this post are probably not in full-time ministry. Nevertheless you most likely will recognize this same tension, this same problem, in your own life. That’s because, while this problem is prevalent among ministers, it is not limted to us. It is universal among all who “profess” faith in Christ. And in that sense, with a little play on words, we can still say this problem is common to the “professional holy”.
So what is the solution?
I don’t have anything profound to say. I know nothing that will eliminate the problem from your life, this side of heaven. But a couple things do come to mind that may help us deal with it, and perhaps lessen the extent of it over time.
1. Reflect on the meaning of Righteousness. Train yourself to evaluate your life in light of the twin requisites of righteousness: Faith + Good Deeds. Don’t allow yourself to settle for one or the other. Remember these twins cannot be separated.
2. Deal with it. Recognize the problem, and the associated sin. Realize this is not the way it ought to be, but it is the way it is. Confess the sin.
3. Apply the Gospel to yourself. Remember, Christ did nto die for the righteous but for the ungodly. His death has paid the penalty of your sins of ungodliness and lack of righteousness. When you repent of these sins and believe what he has done on your behalf you grow in grace; his righteousness is credited to you. (What an amazing exchange!)
4. Live in light of that Gospel. Act toward God in accord with the love he has given to you. Act toward others with the grace & love you know God has demonstrated to you. And do you know what that is if you do these things? Righteousness.
I received this quote from my friends at Graced Again. The author, Bob Flayhart, is minister at Oak Mountain Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, AL.
A Gospel-centered life is the Christian Waltz. A waltz is a dance made up of three steps. Christians need to consider the Christian three step when it comes to growth.
In the first step, we acknowledge our need as we see our sin in light of the Law. In the second step, we look to Christ to change us. In the third step, we fight against sin and fight to choose righteousness in the strength of the Holy Spirit. Repent! Believe! Fight!…Repent! Believe! Fight!…Repent! Believe! Fight!
An emphasis on the love and grace of God lays the dance floor,or the foundation, for the waltz. Unless Christians are convinced of God’s love for them and His favor over them by virtue of their union with Christ, they will minimize their sin and engage in blame-shifting and excuse- making in order to feel justified before God.
Unfortunately, many in the Church today teach believers a Two-step. The two-step is to simply repent and fight. They acknowledge their sin and proceed with new resolve to try harder to avoid sin. The problem with this approach is it bypasses the cross of Christ and the power of the resurrection. -Bob Flayhart
This was such a good insight and great illustration I wanted to post the whole thing rather than just the link. But check out Graced Again and subscribe to their weekly e-mail. They regulalrly provide thought provoking and insightful quotes.
GRACE & PEACE 