In Deuteronomy 31- 32 we read about the final days of Moses’ life and how God would have him pass his leadership but also how he would deliver a parting revelation to the people of Israel. It’s all too popular for Christian songwriters to explain every song with the phrase “God gave me this song“, but this is one of the few cases in scripture where this can be said. God gives Moses a song to write for the people of Israel, for His glory and for the benefit of His people. In this blog series we’ll look at 5 lessons learned through the story of the Song of Moses. In Part 1 we looked at how worship songs are a response to God’s revelation to us. In Part 2 we discussed confrontative worship and in Part 3 we discussed knowing our churches inclination to idolatry.

Unforgotten in the mouths of our children

The song of Moses is sandwiched in scripture with a couple statements about the impact of this worship song to the children(literal) of Israel. First as God gives his directive to Moses in the middle of Deuteronomy 31:21:

[21] And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.” (Deuteronomy 31:21 ESV)

Then after Moses writes and recites the song to the people he clarifies the importance of the worship song:

[45] And when Moses had finished speaking all these words to all Israel, [46] he said to them, “Take to heart all the words by which I am warning you today, that you may command them to your children, that they may be careful to do all the words of this law. (Deuteronomy 32:45-46 ESV)

So we see clearly that a very important purpose of this song is to deliver lasting theological clarity and purpose upon the children of Israel. This worship song was meant to confront Israel, turn their hearts back to God, and for this song of repentance and redeemed worship to be instructed to the kids to the point where they’d never forget it.

I love that the point of instruction for the father’s from God isn’t to have the kids watch them live in response to truth. No God has already bluntly revealed their own wicked hearts and inclination to false worship, instead God has them teach God’s truth to their kids. So both father’s and children are aligning themselves to God’s truth, the only true barometer of righteousness. With that in mind there’s 2 points I’d like to focus on:

1. The value of song in teaching our kids theology

It’s been said many times in many different ways that song has a tremendous impact on teaching and framing our theology. I don’t think there’s any denying that and depending on your background it may be that the only thing you know about God is what you remember singing. Whether or not that’s a good thing is another discussion, but the truth is that’s reality and we can’t ignore it. My Dad was a pastor for many years, all through my youth. I can’t remember many of his sermons but I remember almost every song we sung. What I knew of the gospel as a boy predominantly came from what we were singing, song is and was instrumental in my growth in the gospel.

The Song of Moses shows us that song is a gift from God, intended to glorify Him and teach us about Him. Thank the Lord for song but what an incredibly heavy responsibility it is and the church needs worship leaders that aren’t afraid of carrying it. Too often I hear worship leaders shirking that responsibility and excusing bad teaching in song through some belief that it’s just some kind of “musical venting”. Just something they “felt” a responsibility to release but somehow “felt” no responsibility to consider what it communicates about God. I love creative worship songs sung from different perspectives in different contexts, that’s awesome. But know that ultimately you are teaching something about God and it’s either truth and God glorifying, or a lie and destructive. We’re accountable for that worship leaders.

2. Look at me vs. look at Him

The way we live as parents is a huge influence on our children, but the way we use that influence is what needs to be considered. I’d much rather use my influence as a father to continually point my kids to Christ, his accomplishment and the work of the Holy Spirit instead of hoping my influence and works somehow regenerate their hearts. Now I’m not trying to shirk my responsibility as a father to mirror Christ to my kids. It’s absolutely vital we mirror Christ to our children, but we also must teach them about Jesus, pray for them to know Him, sing songs with our kids that teach them the truth about Jesus and make sure we are mirroring our own need of Jesus to our kids.

We can’t just drag our kids to church and hope that through some form of osmosis they are made into the likeness of Christ. A godly environment is important but it’s not enough, godly influences are important but they aren’t enough, Jesus is enough, Jesus is what needs to be taught and aligned to. And if we as parents mirror that truth to our kids, then we’re doing as God commanded Moses, for parent and child to look to God, worship Him and be changed by Him.

In Deuteronomy 31- 32 we read about the final days of Moses’ life and how God would have him pass his leadership but also how he would deliver a parting revelation to the people of Israel. It’s all too popular for Christian songwriters to explain every song with the phrase “God gave me this song“, but this is one of the few cases in scripture where this can be said. God gives Moses a song to write for the people of Israel, for His glory and for the benefit of His people. In this blog series we’ll look at 5 lessons learned through the story of the Song of Moses. In Part 1 we looked at how worship songs are a response to God’s revelation to us. In Part 2 we discussed confrontative worship.

Know your church, know their inclination

In Deuteronomy 31:21 the Father reveals something incredible not just about his own nature(patience, mercy, love) but of ours as well.

“And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness (for it will live unforgotten in the mouths of their offspring). For I know what they are inclined to do even today, before I have brought them into the land that I swore to give.” -Deuteronomy 31:21

Ouch! God is commanding Moses to write this song of intervention and confrontation because he knows their hearts, that not only do they worship other gods now, but their hearts are inclined to continue in idolatry. The Father’s heart for his people is laid bare. Despite his abundant mercy and goodness shown to the people of Israel, they’ll continue to give praise and thanks to other gods. God knows this about his people and out of a heart of mercy and love, he has Moses write a song that will identify and confront the inclination of His people and remind them of the truth of the only true God.

Moses as a worship leader has communed with God, received revelation and contextualized this song for this people. Moses appeals to their specific history(32:7-14), calls out their sin (32:15-18) and sings painful truth of God’s righteous anger (32:19-43). What makes that song so powerful is that it’s specifically convicting to that people because the language is directed right at them. Not a generalized people, with a generalized sinful attitude pointing to a generalized god in the sky. No it’s you people of Israel, committing idolatry and being called back to worship Yahweh. I think the global church suffers greatly from over-generalized, hyper-sanitized worship and this happens because of a few reasons in my view.

First, the momentum(NOT consensus) in modern worship and really with all gifts, is to emphasize its place and value in the global church at the expense of the local church. You get a lot of talented guys that hop from church to church and instead of submitting their gifting to the local church, they’d rather contribute their gifting to the global church. And now the gifting is pre-eminent and hell hath no fury like a worship leader scorn when his pastor/leader comes between him and his dreams of global reach and influence with his tunes. No I’m not blasting famous worship leaders, this isn’t a rant against CCM and no I don’t have any particular person(s) in mind. If you feel convicted great, if not, great. I have plenty of friends whom I love and support doing God’s work in the global church worship scene(not sure what to call it).

Second, we fear man tremendously and want as many people to like our songs as possible. We write for the masses and in doing so accomplish the seemingly impossible of writing for everyone but speaking to no one.

Third, worship leaders don’t commune with Jesus, minister to/pray with/serve along side their people as much as they think and their songwriting shows. Be part of your church body worship leaders, pray for them and with them. Be in community, love and serve your people. Only then can you see the idols, the struggles and the places where Jesus needs to be elevated where he’s been lowered.

Was that as tough to read as it was to write? Aye…

Next in series…Part 4: Generational worship

In Deuteronomy 31- 32 we read about the final days of Moses’ life and how God would have him pass his leadership but also how he would deliver a parting revelation to the people of Israel. It’s all too popular for Christian songwriters to explain every song with the phrase “God gave me this song“, but this is one of the few cases in scripture where this can be said. God gives Moses a song to write for the people of Israel, for His glory and for the benefit of His people. In this blog series we’ll look at 5 lessons learned through the story of the Song of Moses. In Part 1 we looked at how worship songs are a response to God’s revelation to us.

Worship songs should be confrontative

In Deuteronomy 31:19-21 we read God’s directive to Moses and God’s intended nature of this song and how it should be received by His people.

“Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel. For when I have brought them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to give to their fathers, and they have eaten and are full and grown fat, they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise me and break my covenant. And when many evils and troubles have come upon them, this song shall confront them as a witness…” -Deuteronomy 31:19-21

God has seen Israel continually abuse his grace, worship other God’s, complain, be disobedient and unthankful, yet God is about to lead them into the promise land. God tells Moses, using very forceful language, to put a song in their mouths that will confront their wickedness, that will serve as a witness of himself when they undoubtedly turn away again. We must recognize that we are Israel, our church is Israel, we behave the exact same way.

What we need as a church body are worship leaders that respond like Moses. We must hear the calling of God, respond to the revelation in creative song and have the guts to sing against the sin we are engaged in corporately. We must put songs on the mouths of our people that confront our idolatry, that serve as a witness of Christ against our people because we love them. I don’t want to  repeat myself on this point so you can read an earlier post I wrote directed at worship leaders called “Play Songs Your Congregation Doesn’t Like“. As worship leaders we can’t pacify our body’s idols with safe songs that don’t challenge anything in our spirits, if we do that we are petty entertainers, not leading worship of the one true God that won’t co-exist with our idols.

Foundational to that point is worship leaders must know Christ and must know the gospel. Sadly all too often passion and zeal are celebrated to the exclusion of wisdom and maturity. Paul describes us accurately at that point in Romans 10:2 “they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” We can’t confront idolatry if we can’t recognize it and we can’t recognize it if we don’t know the gospel. Where traditionally the reformed side has lacked passion and a sense of mission, the charismatic side has lacked maturity and a deep understanding of the gospel. Both are crucial to being an effective worship leader.

Worship leaders, I implore you as God implored Moses, put these confrontative songs on the mouths of your people. Interrupt their hearts and spirits and let your songs act as a witness for Christ. Know the gospel, know your people, know their idols, write about it, teach it to your people and sing!

Next in the series…Part 3: Writing in a local church context vs. Global church context

In Deuteronomy 31- 32 we read about the final days of Moses’ life and how God would have him pass his leadership but also how he would deliver a parting revelation to the people of Israel. It’s all too popular for Christian songwriters to explain every song with the phrase “God gave me this song“, but this is one of the few cases in scripture where this can be said. God gives Moses a song to write for the people of Israel, for His glory and for the benefit of His people. In this blog series we’ll look at 5 lessons learned through the story of the Song of Moses.

Worship songs are a response to revelation from God

As the story begins we see how Moses was commissioned to write a worship song to God for the people of Israel. There are 2 key phrases in Deuteronomy 31:16-19 starting at v.16 and ending with v.19 that describe how this song came to be.

16 And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers. Then this people will rise and whore after the foreign gods among them in the land that they are entering, and they will forsake me and break my covenant that I have made with them.17 Then my anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide my face from them, and they will be devoured. And many evils and troubles will come upon them, so that they will say in that day, Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?18 And I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil that they have done, because they have turned to other gods.19 Now therefore write this song and teach it to the people of Israel. Put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for me against the people of Israel.

We see that it all begins with God speaking to Moses, revealing something of his nature, heart, will and plan for His people as well as Moses himself. Then in verse 19 scripture says “Now therefore…”, highlighting the previous 3 verses importance as the basis for his commission to write this song. The song is born out of a response to God’s revelation to Moses.

When our songs don’t begin with revelation, with truth, we’ve set a trajectory for the song that is at the least misguided and possibly much worse. We can’t just know ourselves, our culture and the church, though all of those are important, we must know God. We must love God. We must talk with God.

As I read this story I’m struck that God has just told Moses that he is going to go die (31:14,16) and Moses doesn’t even respond to it. He only responds to the missional call, to God’s directive to “write this song”.  I can’t imagine at that point writing a song that wasn’t all mixed up with myself. That I wouldn’t just emote on paper and have a convoluted mishmash of my life’s greatest hits, regrets, worries alongside a few lines of God’s prevailing goodness. The writing session for this song was ripe for emotionalism, but Moses stayed in the story. He didn’t waste this opportunity and talk about himself, but he humbled himself and talked about the eternal God, who saved these terrible group of people who have constantly betrayed Him and will continue to do so. He laid down a lesser truth(his story) for the greater truth(God’s story).

Songwriters, we need to begin with truth, with knowing God and His story and following His missional call to write. It takes a humble songwriter, a songwriter obsessed with God’s glory and filled with his grace, to be able to lay down a lesser truth for the greater truth. God’s gifted and sent many in the body on this mission to write from several perspectives and that collage can be a beautiful reflection of Christ or a distorted refraction if we and our songs aren’t rooted in truth and true to the missional directive of Jesus.

Next in the series…Part 2: Songs as a Witness Against Our Flock

Came across a tweet that touched on an issue I’ve prayed on, preached on, contemplated and wrestled with much of my life. The issue deals with dreams, desires and hopes in light of the gospel. The tweet said…

That little voice in yr head telling U 2 giv up UR dream…It’s a lie from hell.When you hear it.Chase Harder, Faster, Stronger

The person who tweeted it loves Jesus, serves Jesus, no doubt about that. This isn’t a condemnation of the person, so just put that to bed if you know who said this. Theologically bulletproof tweets are extremely hard to come by, 140 characters just doesn’t lend itself to it. I’m glad this was tweeted because it motivated me to blog on this subject which I’ve held in a draft state for some time now. Moving on. This phrase implies a few dangerous things in my view.

1. That all your dreams and desires must be good.
2. That we should rebuke any voice that tells us to lay down a dream or desire of ours.
3. That Satan’s lie would never be for some to actually achieve their dreams.

I can’t see any biblical reason to believe any of those things.

1. By nature and choice our dreams and desires are wicked

We are born with a heart that does not hold Jesus as our deepest desire or our most precious treasure. Out of this sinful heart we choose to dream about many things above the glory of Jesus Christ. Jeremiah says this well in Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

We need Jesus to save us, for the Holy Spirit to intervene and to regenerate our hearts. In regeneration we find that what we used to love (sin) we now hate and what we used to hate (God) we now love. This regeneration completely tears down our old hearts, desires and dreams and it’s good and right and mercifully so. By God’s grace we lay down all those dreams of ours at the foot of the cross and through regeneration we see what God puts back into our hearts. Our dreams change, our desires change and what we’re now called to is all for God’s glory and not our own.

2. That little whisper could be the Holy Spirit

Though after regeneration, we are still in the process of sanctification and in that process we have conflicting desires. Sometimes we’ll dream about things that aren’t Godly, that don’t glorify Jesus but attempt to bring glory to ourselves. Elijah in 1 Kings 19 is surrounded by hurricane winds, an earthquake and a fire but it says the Lord was in none of those but found in a “low whisper.”

That little voice inside your head telling you to lay down that dream may be the merciful call of the Holy Spirit to repent and return to what God has called you to, and not what you’ve been dreaming about. In fact Romans 1:24 shows that one of the worst things that can happen to us is for God to give us over to our own desires. God save us from our fleshly desires.

3. Satan’s lie is that you should get some glory too

Tim Keller breaks this down for us in his book Counterfeit Gods:

“Most people spend their lives trying to make their heart’s fondest dreams come true…We never imagine that getting our heart’s desires might be the worst thing that can ever happen to us.“

Satan’s lie might not be always telling you to lay down a “dream”, it may be the lie is encouraging you to accomplish what you dream. In order to find out we better put it into gospel perspective. Is this dream or desire planted by God? If not planted by God has it been redeemed? Does it exist to bring God glory or you glory?

Only after we’ve prayed on those questions and have some clarity of response can we discern whether the voice in our head is a loving call home or a deceitful encouragement to sin. Let our prayer be that God would save us from our dreams, regenerate our hearts and implant dreams that will give God glory.

What dreams of yours have you laid down at the cross and what has Jesus put back in your hearts in exchange?

In Part 1 I discussed how dangerous it is for our worship to be uninspired and in Part 2 I talked about how often our worship music can be cheap and its impact on the gospel. In Part 3 I discussed the prevalence of the fear of man in our often safe worship music. In Part 4 I discussed the importance of being pureposefully and missionally original. For the conclusion of this series I’m going to discuss the danger of our worship being inauthentic.

5. Inauthentic

There are 2 primary ways our worship can be inauthentic, one way is how our worship presents or describes our object of worship, Jesus. Another way our worship can be inauthentic is in our engagement and life with Jesus in worship. Bad art will take some vague idea and attempt to represent it in the cheapest way possible to achieve an intended emotional response from viewers. Neither the artists engagement or representation of the object of art is authentic it’s just utilitarian. I’m going to use 2 definitions of authentic to illustrate this idea.

Authentic Jesus

• def. authentic: conforming to fact and therefor worthy of belief

If our worship is not conformed to truth, the person and work of Jesus, then what we are singing is not worthy of belief and shouldn’t be sung. Our worship can lead us and others astray from the gospel by either being generously vague or acutely false. And honestly there are great examples of both in popular CCM worship. John Owen wonderfully said,

“We must not allow ourselves to be satisfied with vague ideas of the love of Christ which present nothing of his glory to our minds.”

And I love how Bob Kauflin puts it,

“If most of our songs could be sung by Buddhists, Muslims, or Hindus, it’s time to change our repertoire.” -Worship Matters

We have to be careful about crafting songs that are vague and presenting an inauthentic view of the very specific and clear demarcation of Christ and anything other than Christ. Our job as worship leaders is to point people to Christ, not an “elevated idea” or even an idea about Christ, but Christ himself. If you’ve read any previous posts in this series or any other posts on this blog really, you’ll know how I value creativity. I think there are many ways to creatively point people to Christ and imagery, poetry and the arts in general can be used in a way that present clearly, the authentic Jesus. So I’m not saying art = vague, both simplicity and creativity have the same potential to miss the mark, use them both with wisdom.

Not much needs to be said about acute false statements, descriptions, ideas of Christ in worship. They exist unfortunately, and they always will until Christ returns. This is typically what separates worship pastors and music leaders, entertainers and shepherds. A pastor seeks to lead the congregation to Jesus and remove every obstacle in that journey including bad lyrics, but a entertainer seeks bring something of themselves to the people in the context of church, but not Christ. Don’t be an entertainer.

Authentic Worshippers

• def. authentic: genuine; undisputed credibility; with authority

In other words, believe and live what you sing and sing what you believe and live. Paul urged the Colossian church to “walk(live) in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work…” How careful we should be singing something we don’t believe or have no evidence or fruit of believing in our lives. Our religion is so transparent at times that we get used to operating in it without even seeing it.

Our worship should be saturated with humility and repentance when we start singing things we know we struggle to believe or live out. This is why I seldom make it out of a worship set without crying. Glorifying God for who he is in worship forces me to see the separation in sin, the short comings in my life, and moves my heart and affections more towards Christ. Being an authentic worshipper doesn’t mean having it all together it just means we are continually asking Christ to knit and hold us together in him. It means that not one word escapes our lips where the cost hasn’t been counted because we’ll have to give an account for every word, every word that we sung but didn’t mean.

I pray that all of us as worshippers would be authentic, that our hearts would be genuine in our praise, confession and words of adoration.

In Part 1 I discussed how dangerous it is for our worship to be uninspired and in Part 2 I talked about how often our worship music can be cheap and its impact on the gospel. In Part 3 I discussed the prevalence of the fear of man in our often safe worship music. For part 4 I’m going to discuss another aspect of worship that can turn it into bad hotel art — unoriginality.

4. Unoriginality

This is a delicate topic because in some ways our worship is intentionally unoriginal. We are singing the praises of an unchanging, everlasting God, who gave us the greatest revelation man will ever know 2000 years ago in the cross and chose to make his word known through scripture that should never be added to or subtracted from. So at some level we certainly shouldn’t be looking for anything new there, that content remains the same. But the methods of delivery continue to change and that must be purposefully and missionally original.

Let me define the phrase “purposefully and missionally original” as it relates to worship.

Someone who’s inspired and informed by the gospel through the Holy Spirit to reach a specific people with the message of Jesus in an effective way through music and the arts.

The art in my hotel room was copied all over the country or all over the world, no thought was given to the different contexts it might be displayed in and if there might be a more effective art piece in different areas. The thought being if it worked in Beverly Hills it must work in Omaha, or Denver, or Miami, or Puerto Rico. Seems silly right? The culture, the idols worshipped, language used in those areas is so different.

But how silly are we in the church when we say the same thing? If it works in Australia at Hillsong, it must work in Phoenix, or in Santa Barbara. We attempt to carbon copy the missional expression without doing any of the evaluation or prayer to see if that expression would be effective in our mission field.

Being purposefully and missionally original requires worship leaders to find how best to use music and the arts for the people in their mission field through prayer, study and practice, for the glory of Jesus Christ. All being attractionally unoriginal requires is a CCLI license and a few hours of band practice to cover the latest CCM hit.

I’m not saying that Hillsong or Tomlin won’t work in multiple churches, locations and cultures, I’m just saying don’t blindly assume they will. And then perhaps you can find an arrangement that better suits your church rather than just ripping the cd.

Let’s be purposefully and missionally original.

Earlier I posted a video of a new song from Jesus Culture called “Burning Ones.” I really dug the vibe of the song and thought the melody was really cool. This past week I started evaluating it to see if we’d do it in service and step 1 of evaluation was writing down the lyrics. Verse 1 was kind of innocuous.

Here inside your presence I’m taken by the wonder of You
Here inside your glory we give our lives wholly to You

Moved on to the pre-chorus which was a simple “Holy, Holy are You” which was good and all. But then I hit Verse 2…

Your love it burns inside our hearts are satisfied by You
Your love is our reward it’s why we ask for more of You

What?!?! God’s love is our reward? Let’s look at the definition of reward to make sure we are on the same page here:

reward: “a recompense for worthy acts or retribution for wrongdoing” or “fair return for good or bad behavior”

It seems entirely ridiculous to me we’d have to dive into this much for us not to see the foolishness in this line. This isn’t extra-biblical this is entirely contra-biblical. It violates the core of the gospel. I don’t like to rant, but folks this line is simply not truth, and I’m shocked and saddened that it would be sung. Here’s what the gospel says about our reward for our actions:

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So our just reward for our actions and fair return for our behavior is death, not God’s love. But the glory of the gospel is the cross, “where sin increased, grace abounded all the more”. We received grace instead of what we deserved, death. Here’s how God’s love really works:

Romans 5:6-10 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die–8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

We did not and cannot earn God’s love, repeat, we did not and cannot earn God’s love. 1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.” We can keep plowing through scripture, there is no shortage because it’s the entire narrative of the gospel.

I don’t know Chris Quilala, I don’t know Kim Walker, but I believe they are Christians brothers and sisters who love Jesus and I don’t mean to bash them. In fact I bet you if I asked them, “do you think you earned God’s love or did he love you first, while you were a sinner?” That they’d answer, “no, I didn’t earn it.” Which is why I’m so puzzled that they’d sing just the opposite.

I’ve tried to think of any context that line works in and I can’t, I just can’t. Working in the second half of the line only confuses me more, “that’s why we ask for more of You.” I haven’t a clue what this line means. If anyone has an explanation by all means step in here in the comments and let me in on it, I truly feel like I’m missing something.