I woke up with an annoying song in my head this morning. Let me say here at the beginning of this post that I am not one who thinks all modern worship music is bad. Just like all music, some is good, some isn't and I wouldn't pitch it all just because, frankly, a lot of it is pretty awful, because there are some gems among the yuck. I have some praise and worship CDs in the car that I bought because certain songs I did appreciate were on them. However, with these songs came some not so good ones as well. In fact, on those CDs there are about four categories (keeping in mind that music style preference is a matter of opinion, but doctrine must be measured by the plumb line of scripture)- decent music and doctrinally okay, doctrinally okay but not my favorite musically, catchy music but doctrinally weak, and skip it - it's just not worth dirtying up the van's airwaves.
One type of song I find particularly irritating is the kind that sounds like a sappy high school love song you would have sung to your boyfriend. Sappy, sentimental, self-absorbed and shallow notions of some nebulous "love." We Americans (I focus on Americans because I am one, that's the culture I know) have self-absorption as a birthright, I think. The lyrics running through my head this morning went along the lines of, "Jesus, Jesus, You're my friend forever....Jesus, I'm so in love with You......." See what I mean? It sounds like a whiny teenage love song.
Yes, Jesus is our greatest friend. However, He is not our equal, pal or buddy. He is our friend because He loved us when we were thoroughly unlovable - while we were yet sinners with NO thought for His glory, He loved us so much He died to reconcile us to God. That is a real friend. He met our deepest need, not just a felt need, but our very real need to be cleansed from our sin. And we did nothing, absolutely nothing, to deserve it. He did it as a gift of His grace. But, in our shallow, self-absorbed culture, we tend to dumb friendship down to someone I feel good about (feelings again!), my buddy, someone I like to hang out with. Jesus, while He is our friend in the very truest sense of that word, is not our equal. He is LORD.
Here's what Jesus said about His friendship with us:
John 15:13-17
"Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another."
See, friendship with Christ isn't just warm, fuzzy feeling good about our buddy Jesus. NO. It is loving Him enough to obey Him, bearing fruit and loving our brothers and sisters in Christ.
And true love isn't some mushy, sentimental, shallow love that just means, "I feel really good about Jesus." True love for Him means total surrender to obeying Him out of our sheer gratitude for His grace. How do we know the standard of that obedience? He gave us His Word. Read the Bible. Study it. Obey it. Learn to love Jesus in spirit and truth. Our Lord suffered and died in our place so that we could be reconciled to God. Our vile sin is washed away in His blood. Accepting that gift of salvation also leads to submission to Jesus as Lord. It all goes together. We can say we love Him and sing sappy songs all day long, but if we are not reverently obedient to His Word, we are saying those things in vain. True love leads to repentance and obedience from a grateful heart. Sappiness is shallow, at best. I'd rather display reverence. Part of what bothers me so much is that the focus of these types of songs is shifted from the glory and majesty of the LORD to how I feel about it all. I think that is the most deeply irritating thing. If we are to sing a worship/praise song, let's sing about His attributes, not how I feel. Give Him the glory, not me.
John 14:23-24 says:
"Jesus answered and said to him, 'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me.'"
Strong words! I'm speaking to myself here most of all: If I am to say boldly that I love Jesus, I'd best be serious about knowing and obeying His word. I am not saying we are saved by our works. I am saying that those of us who trust in Christ's righteousness, whose faith is in Him alone, must walk like we love Him. Let's not be too careless or shallow when proclaiming our love for him, and let's make sure we are never flippant or careless about Who we worship. He is LORD. He is not our equal. He is our friend, for no one else cares as deeply for our souls, but He is not our buddy.
Lord, please restore my first love for You. Convict me of sin that reveals an attitude that I do not love You as I ought, for in any area that I stray from Your plumb line of righteousness, I'm demonstrating that something else has taken Your rightful place in my affections. Let me love You with reverent awe and gratitude for the grace you've lavished on me. May my life bear fruit that truly glorifies You. Amen.
8 comments:
Wow! I completely agree!!! You have just put into words what my husband and I have been saying as the new songs have seemed to taken over some churches. Some new songs are great-doctrinally sound,etc...but some are just bad-both in doctrine and Biblical truth and the sound of the music. We prefer most hymns but some newer songs have become favorites of ours. Butmthey are not the happy clappy short feel good choruses.
The way we like to say it is...God is Holy but also personal...if the songs makes him so casually personal,then we have lost His holiness....there is a way to have both-through rich Biblical Truth.
I LOVE this post and am going to print it to keep! You've said it so well!
Kim
A good observation. However try not to let yourself get to where you have to inspect a song before you can worship. I love most of the music of Hillsong even though they are charismatic and somewhat prosperity in their doctrine.
I have often said that what does God hear most of all? The heart. So in some cases a person who is singing a great hymn but whose mind is not captured by the spirit of worship is probably not pleasing God. And in other cases a person who is singing a somewhat shallow song but is obedient in their life and broken in worship probably pleases God.
The message of the song is secondary to the music and the heart of the singer is what pleases God most. Remember, in reformation times they would have rejected even the most conservative hymns of today. And addressing Jesus in the second person would have been considered blasphemy.
True worship eclipses all the external accutrements and it is carried by a surrendered heart by the Spirit into the very presence of God and laid before Him in worship. A sweet smelling sacrifice of which He is infinitely worthy!
I meant to say the music is secondary to the message. Sorry!
Rick,
I hear what you are saying. I did not mean to imply that I tear apart every song actually looking for error. You'll notice, of the 4 categories, only one do I actually turn off, and that is the songs that are so doctrinally off that I just don't want them on at all. Yes, I do listen to some that are shallow, and yes, I can worship with some of them, for I belong to Christ and when my heart is praising Him honestly, He can use even a "love song" type of praise chorus.
My point is, however, that it seems that the ones that get stuck in my head are the irritating and shallow rather than the sound ones, and that it also seems that recently we're being offered these shallow songs as if they are deep. I realize that some of the songs are written by sincere worshipers who are probably young and still maturing in the faith, so their lyrics reflect that. And, to a point, that's okay.
I am just saying that I would rather the bulk of our praise and worship music - especially what we sing in corporate worship in our churches would be the richer, more doctrinally sound things. I am not making any comment on music style, but on the message of the music. The problem I am addressing is that the bulk of what is being sung these days is the shallow, and there is a real lack of good, solid new worship music. I am not saying that it is sinful or blasphemous to listen to the more shallow songs, just that I would prefer more of the deeper ones as well.
I also meant to add that, coupled with the fact that much of the evangelical church is functionally biblically illiterate these days, what I see in much of my experience is that people sing the shallow songs, never read their Bibles, and think they have a deep understanding of Who God is. There isn't anything inherently sinful with some of the weaker songs, but I object to the fact that sometimes that is all we ever sing, and we never get past the milk. And also, I know lots of Christians who buy every new praise and worship CD that comes out, and know all the songs, and assume that because it has that label it is all perfectly doctrinally correct, but they don't read the Bible very often. It's like we're substituting music for the Word, and assuming we can still worship in spirit and truth. Sure we can sing the weaker songs with a heart of genuine worship, assuming we are grounded in the Word of God. Unfortunately, that's a dangerous assumption in a lot of our churches today.
You are right. And sometimes people will get sucked into wrong doctrine through the Trojan Horse of music.
Oh I so totally agree., I have just now started reading your blog along with the other Sola Moms.'
Praise God for good stuff to read and be uplifted by.
Thanks
I was just preparing a sermon for Sunday, and in my wandering thoughts had just typed,
"This is not a relationship of equals! The creator of the universe loves me – amazing!"
Then followed through with some on-line research on "Love and Obedience" and you popped up with wonderful confirmation about the greatness of God, who loves me. So clearly, it needs to be part of what I will say - and I have holy chills from the joy of it all!!!
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