Worship – Page 2 – PaulThompsonBlog

Courageous Resolve

Posted on November 27, 2014Leave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving!

“Few promptings of heroism rank higher in human annals than the courageous resolve which let the little band to seek in the unknown Western World a new home where they might worship God according to the dictates of their conscience, and found a pure and regenerate society, unfettered by the surroundings of a degenerate past. Of the Pilgrims’ subsequent life and times in America, it has been said: “Theirs was among the most valued contribution of those formative times in our Colonial history.” ” (Hearnshaw’s History of the Pilgrim Fathers, p. 18)

How Aware Are You?

Posted on November 25, 2014Leave a comment

It won’t be long and you’ll begin to see the talented musicians playing those familiar Christmas tones on their pianos, cellos and violins. I don’t mean to make small of their talent when I bring up the matter of their beliefs. I don’t mean to be critical of you if you post their clever videos or are impacted at some level by the music. I simply want to only bring up the question… How aware are you?

Music is a fantastic place isn’t it? It is marvelously close to the heart. Which should give reason to ask oneself, “How aware are you?”

I don’t have any angst with the music of the Piano Guys. I agree with many, they are talented. I enjoy a story told by the music played. But when it comes to music in worship… I have to be aware.

A musician who plays music for the purpose of worship is responsible for what god he is leading the worshiper to worship and the worshiper must know that the leader is leading the worshiper to worship his god. This is why I take issue with believers using music from an unbeliever to generate a worshipful experience. Can the unregenerate properly lead another to truly worship God?

Most don’t know that the Piano Guys are on public record as stating their faith, they are not ashamed of their faith. For that I respect them for disclosing that. How aware are you that they offer full statement of belief on their website, it is as follows…

“We believe the purpose of life is to be happy.
We believe the best way to be happy is to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ and to love others more than yourself.

We believe family is most important.

We believe we are all children of a God who loves us dearly.

We believe that good music can be a source of joy, inspiration, and fulfillment.

We believe as Bobby McFerrin once said, listening to only one kind of music is like insisting on living in only one room of
your home your entire life.

We believe in as much laughter in life as possible.

We are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also known as “LDS” or “Mormons”) to learn more about this church please visit mormon.org”

Last year I pondered the matter like this…

Why is this important for me? Why should you find it a significant thing to think through?

Learning that the Piano Guys are LDS did not change the fact that these [piano] guys are talented. They are. What changed is the origin of their faith. When a Mormon speaks of the birth of Christ, sings of the birth of Christ, or even plays music [without words] of the birth of Christ I’m in a different place of critique. I’m no longer simply enjoying music, I’m in doctrinal conflicted with the musician. When a Mormon sings of the birth of Jesus, he means a god left heaven, came and had sexual relations with a woman, and she gave birth to a child. They are the same words an orthodox Christian may sing but the teaching behind those same words are radically different.

I can still respect the talent of the Piano Guys, but I can’t experience worship as a result of their music. I might feel emotion that their music creates but I can’t trust my emotions to lead me to worship. I must give direction to my emotions. It’s possible that many will disagree with me on this. I welcome the disagreement, I’m only stating my observation from comparing the doctrines of the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

What do followers of Christ (defined by the Bible) have in common with Mormons? There is no place where the two are the same. The two doctrines are at conflict with each other, they have two different masters. The Bible teaches that “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24)

Can a follower of Christ enjoy the talent of the Piano Guys? I think that’s clearly possible. Can the Piano Guys lead a follower of Christ (defined by the Bible) to worship? The answer, in my observation, gets sticky. Because the Piano Guys state their beliefs on their website as clearly Mormon, and because I believe the Bible to be a sufficient rule for my life, I say no; they can only lead someone to worship their god, and clearly they want listeners to worship their god because they invite visitors of their website to check out Mormonism.

I might listen to music from the Piano Guys but I will direct my spirit to not be carried away with emotion. If I’m not careful, my emotion will deceive me and lure me into idolatry. Giving my emotions to another god must be guarded always. Clearly there is a secular product that is enjoyable by the Piano Guys, but just as clearly there is a spiritual component that must not be ignored. If I’m not careful, I can let the familiarity of the music played by the Piano Guys to eventually weaken my heart as to considering that ‘maybe we do worship the same deity.’ We don’t worship the same, so I’ll guard my heart

Be on guard. Guard your heart Christian.

Offered for consideration

A Plan for Gathering With the Church this Weekend

Posted on April 10, 2014Leave a comment

Earlier today I posted 5 Easy Steps to Avoid Gathering with the Church this Weekend. Hopefully you picked up on the satire and won’t follow those 5 easy steps. Now I want to offer a better plan for you. One that I believe will actually be a blessing to you and not a curse.

In the home I grew up in it was never a question of gathering with the church. It was the plan as we left on Sunday night that we would gather on Wednesday to pray together and then again the coming Lord’s Day, unless hindered by an act of God (and that rarely, and I mean rarely, happened). One of the best things you can do for yourself and your family is to establish an atmosphere that this household gathers with other households as often as possible to pray, study the bible and worship together.

Weekly At Eastside Baptist, we try to help you with ideas on how to do this with information in the bulletin. A bulletin you say? You know, that piece of paper you are handed by the ushers every Sunday. Yes, that weekly publication filled with typos and grossly misspelled words. It can be much more than a mindless document that you don’t give much attention to. There are things in it that will help you plan to gather with the Lord’s people.

Schedule of opportunities to gather with believers
- Sunday mornings: 9:15AM Bible Study, 10:30AM worship gathering
- Sunday afternoon/evening: This is different most weeks so notice the location and times (for example, this week we will gather at 5PM in Rogerson, Idaho with our extended church family for pot-luck and fellowship)
- Wednesday evening: 6:30PM every week we gather for prayer.
Scripture Memory: The bulletin has information about suggested Scripture that many are working on memorizing.
Catechism Question: Every week there is a new question with answer with biblical prof. Right now we are working on examining the Ten Commandments.
Sermon Notes: The bulletin offers a place to write down observations about the sermon. This will help you recall what was taught on the previous week and help you in preparing for the coming week. I generally preach chapter to chapter, verse to verse. This make it rather easy to know what will be examined the coming Lord’s Day. These sermon notes may help generate discussion with your family throughout the week.
Other opportunities are promoted in the bulletin that you may want to consider as supplemental to your weekly preparation for gathering with the church on purpose.
The monthly prayer guide and calendar can help you stay connected with the entire church family, pick one up this week when you gather with the saints.

May the Lord bless your efforts as you plan and plan on gathering with the believers this week.

On the Topic of Worship

Posted on August 11, 20131 Comment

Once a month (or every five weeks) I have the opportunity to to submit a “Pastor’s Corner” column for the Twin Falls, Times News. For the next several months I will be writing on the topic of Worship. Visit the actual column here. Sharing it on various social outlets helps the editors at the Times News know that it is read. Thanks.

The column is published weekly on Saturdays. My column piece runs every 4th or 5th week. Her is yesterday’s…

—-

Perhaps no greater change has happened in the American church in the past 100 years than the weekly worship gathering of the Lord’s people. It has even been reduced to being referred to simply as ’church.’ On any given Saturday or Sunday all you have to do is drive around the Magic Valley and one could say that some people are at ‘church.’ The puritans were especially careful on what they called these weekly gatherings, but they never called it ‘church.’ They were also careful about what they labeled ‘worship.’

Most attenders today would not hesitate to go to church or participate in an act of worship. But what is really going on inside that meeting house? Has the church gathered or is it a community of people who all think and act alike? Is worship of Almighty God happening or is worship of self and humanity or music style happening?

These are not easy questions to answer, because we would most likely defend the elements of that gathering as pleasing to the Lord. The tragedy is that few are willing to let the Holy Bible be a sufficient source to govern how and/or what the church ought to do when we gather for a weekly meeting.

There is not room in this short column to flesh this entire subject out in a satisfying way, so I’ll attempt to take the next several months and devote my column to this matter of worship.

Let me start here; could one say that every meeting of the church is a worship service or are what we call worship services really only meetings?

If everyone who gathers in a church building or home this weekend were to submit themselves to the Lord and look to his sufficient word, the Holy Bible, then one might find that little if any worship of God is actually happening. Surely there are places of worship that do worship God, but if they are it is not because they have read a recent book on what people want in a worship service. It would be because they are being careful to examine the Holy Bible for direction.

Be careful what you label worship this weekend. You just may, by definition alone, find that you are worshiping yourself, your leisure, you lusts, your sins, or any other substitute you have for God. J.B. Phillips wrote a profound short book on the matter of worship entitled “Your God Is Too Small.” In it, he argued that the very way we approach a worship service shows that we think little of God and much about ourselves.

Evaluate the worship service you attend this weekend from the standard of the Holy Bible. At the end of the day, have you been to a meeting or a worship service? Don’t judge that gathering on how seamless the structure was, how pious the readings were, how loud the music was, how old the songs were, or how good you felt when you left because of what was said. Open up your Bible this weekend and seek out how God instructs us to worship Him.

Do You Not Know This?

Posted on August 8, 2013Leave a comment

“Do you not know…”

Paul uses this phrase multiple times in his first letter to the church in Corinth.

Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. (3:16-17 NASB)
Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened. For Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. (5:6-7 NASB)
Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? (6:2 NASB)
Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? (6:3 NASB)
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate , nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. (6:9-11 NASB)
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! (6:15 (NASB)
Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For He says, “THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH.” (6:16 NASB)
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God , and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. (6:19-20 NASB)
Do you not know that those who perform sacred services eat the food of the temple, and those who attend regularly to the altar have their share from the altar? So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel. (9:13-14 NASB)
Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. (9:24-25 NASB)

As Paul addresses the church in Corinth he clearly doesn’t want them to be deceived. He wants them to know, with clarity, that this unique gathering of people (the local church) is where God dwells majestically and He is upon display like no other place or time in their city.

Do you not know this? What you do and where you gather on this coming Lord’s day may prove whether you know this or not.

Posts Tagged with Worship

Courageous Resolve

How Aware Are You?

A Plan for Gathering With the Church this Weekend

On the Topic of Worship

Do You Not Know This?

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