Is Worship a War? Pt. 2

When I was younger, I remember a song called "Fight Thru Praise".  It actually helped me get past all my distractions in worship.  At that time, it was a challenge to get through all my defenses and really express my heart to God. Perhaps it was good for me at the time, but I want to talk about the dangers of getting into this mindset that worship is a fight.

1.) Fighting through "distractions".  For one, when I would go into prayer or worship, the first thing on my mind were all the small concerns of the day; what am I going to make for lunch, when will I get my chores done, how will I get all my tasks done... Or more serious ones like, "is my friend's mom going to make it through this cancer?" Or, "how will her family deal with this?" Etc.  maybe I was dealing with emotional problems; depression, anger, frustration, feelings of loneliness... Maybe even guilt or sin issues.  I used to think that all these were things the devil was bringing up to distract me from God.  And so my goal was to fight through them and get to a place in my mind in which I was only focused on Jesus.  Even recently when I led worship at a small church singing mostly hymns, I used to tell the congregation to put all their worries and concerns of the day aside and to put their focus on God.  This in itself is not necessarily wrong.

Interestingly enough, John Crowder says that these things that come up aren't from the devil, they are from God.  He talks about this either in his video about music (http://youtu.be/WDVuMjOzqiU) or his video about prayer (http://youtu.be/yVBGQk_9ZzI). I can't remember which, but both videos are excellent.

From God?  God is purposely distracting me from worshiping him?!  What?  John Crowder says that He's bringing these things up to remind you that he's going to take care of them.  God cares about what you care about, down to the smallest detail.  So in those moments, rather than fight through them, just put them in God's capable hands.  It's a time to place our trust in Him.  Then we can move on to a much more clear-headed state of worship! 

In a sense, you would be putting them aside, but not to deal with later; to let God deal with them.  He's going to do that anyway; there's no need to stress about them.

So in fighting through them I was only creating more trouble for myself.  If you find yourself distracted from worship by your daily concerns, give those things to God.  It's so much better than trying to deal with them on your own.

2.) Fighting through sin / Striving.  In all my years being a leader in ministry, I've never seen one person gain victory over their weaknesses by focusing on overcoming sin.  Not one!  If they overcome one thing, they only realize it's gotten worse; it's hidden itself and reared its ugly head in other, more complicated ways (look at the Jews.  They would stop worshiping idols for a while, but then later on, there they go again, and five times worse!).  I've tried to help people overcome sin.  I've told them all the advice, shown them the consequences, pointed out things they can't see.  Nothing helped. You can't overcome your sin, and I can't help you.

Only Christ can overcome sin, and only when trust-falling into Him will He melt your sin away.  When I say melt, I don't mean he will forgive it.  That's a given.  He already forgave you by dying on the cross in the first place.  I'm talking about taking it away from you so that you never do it again, and you never struggle with it again.  Christ melts it away with such ease, there's no fight.  Trusting God is the most passive "action" you can take to combat sin.  It's practically inaction.  It is simply a realization; a knowing; a quiet confidence that Christ has already overcome sin for you.  With him, your sinful nature died.  It's gone.  Everything is set up to trick you into believing that it will always be there...

In part one of this blog, I mentioned that when we're always focused on our part in worship, we get into a striving mentality.  I think people feel that their worship makes them more pleasing to God; more acceptable in His sight.  What they don't know is that they are pleasing to God already.  People think that what we are doing makes us more holy.  They don't realize that Christ is our holiness.  If there was some way I could make myself holy or righteous by sheer will and determination, Jesus would never have had to die on a cross for me.  Striving implies that we are trying to make ourselves holy for God.  But that is impossible.  It's the other way around; Christ makes us holy by His spirit dwelling in us.   Striving is a battle that lasts as long as you believe you can achieve holiness over time.

A sin-focused believer acts like a sinner.  A Christ-focused believer acts like Christ.

When worship music is focused on God and who He is, real worship happens.  That's the stuff I want to be a part of.

I tend to get frustrated because when real worship starts taking off, someone always brings the focus back to us by saying something cliche like, "just tell God how much you love Him," or, "Let everything we do be pleasing unto you.", or "God we invite you into this place," (as though he hasn't been here all this time) or, "just press in," (what does that mean, anyway?).  People even like to remind us of our shame, "God, we are so unworthy of you, we are such sinners, and yet you love us.  Even at our worst, you love us..."  There they go bringing the focus back to what we can do, or how terrible we are...  Can't we just focus on God for a while?

There's nothing wrong with telling God you love him, or getting into worship in an active way.  There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that he loves us despite our worst moments.  My issue is focus.  Am I looking at myself, or am I looking at God?  Am I worshiping my own desires, or am I worshiping the object of my desires?  Am I trying to impress God with my good behavior, or am I impressed by God?  Realize that everything you have gained physically and spiritually was bought, paid for, and given to you by Christ.  Even your faith has been given to you (Rom 12:3).  Even your good deeds are Christ working through you.  You can't take an ounce of credit.  All your efforts to be holy have been in vain.  You're already holy through Christ (I can't say that enough!).

Here's another danger of the "fight the war of worship" mentality:

3.). Giving Satan too much credit.  He might be active during worship, sure!  If you think he is, rebuke him and then focus on God.  You don't have to engage in some sort of fight against him.  You have control of your own mind.  Don't get into thinking that Satan has one ounce of sway over you.  He has no right to you no matter how sinful you were last week (or your whole life). And you have authority over him because of Christ, not because you read your Bible every day and were faithful in your devotions.  Not because you have several years of ministry under your belt.  Not because you've racked up a bunch of spiritual points by doing good deeds.  Not because you're a pastor or a missionary.  Our actions have nothing to do with our authority.  It is our right as heirs to Christ's throne.  It is our identity. [see my post about how action does not define identity]  If you are a believer, you automatically have authority over the enemy through Christ.  Who are we as believers to think that our actions have earned us (or lost us) one ounce of spiritual authority?  People who get into that mindset are fooled by the enemy. 

Satan likes to make us think he has legal jurisdiction over us because of that one sin or the fact that we haven't picked up the Bible in two weeks.  He wants us to forget our identity as heirs to the throne of Christ.  Being an heir means that we have the same authority that Jesus has.  The only way Satan can get a "foothold" as they say, is by getting you to believe a LIE about who God is and who you are in Christ!  Sin has nothing to do with it.  Sin gives him NO jurisdiction or foothold whatsoever.  Satan only has as much power over you as you believe he does.  So if he can get you to believe he has power over you, then he can do damage.  The battle against Satan has already been won, my friend.  If you're fighting with him, you've been duped.

Here's another one:

4.) Getting into the mindset that our will is always in opposition to God.  This goes hand in hand with striving, but this is more about how we view God.  This can get us thinking that in order to worship Him, we have to fight.  This is simply not true.  It may be the case if we are ignorant of the truth; ignorant of who we are and who God is.  The more you get to know God, the more you want what He wants; the more you think the way He thinks.  Your desires transform into His.  Then you actually enjoy doing His will because its something you want to do.  If I'm told that my will is always going to be in opposition to God, that will hinder me from truly experiencing Him, or it will take an hour of fighting through my own will before I can get to His... 

This mindset did hinder my relationship with Him!  I thought that my whole life was going to be one loathsome event after another, one fight against my will after another.  I couldn't trust God!  Why would I trust someone who is always going to make me do things I don't want to do?  For someone who was emotionally controlled as a young girl, and then mistreated by spiritual leaders as a young adult, I started to think that maybe God was just like those abusive people in my life; always making me uncomfortable and feel terrible about myself.  But that's just not who He is. 

And then, what about when my will DOES align with His?  I'll think that desire is sinful!  Our own selves are not always going to be our worst enemies.  Your will is not in constant opposition to God.  People call it the "flesh".  They say you'll struggle against it for the rest of your life.  Let me tell you something you might not have heard: your flesh died with Christ on the cross.  We have been crucified with Christ and we [our sinful nature; flesh] no longer live, but Christ lives in us!  Your sinful nature is dead, my friend.  Why fight with something that is merely a memory of what used to be?  It's not you anymore.  And it never really was your identity to begin with.



All these are problems that stem from a wrong view of who God is, and who we are in Christ.  And these wrong views affect us in every way.  Most importantly, they affect our relationship with God, which, in turn, affects how we worship Him.  An like I said in part 1, the truth will set us free.

Is Worship a War?

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/church/modern-worship-music-wars

A friend of mine recently posted this article from Relevant Magazine.
 
In a nutshell, it talks about how the "war on worship" has died down from being a debate on whether we should sing the Old Hymns or Modern Worship music, to simply a subtle barrage of nit-picky complaints.  Miller describes them, "The volume is either too loud, or not loud enough. The lighting is either too bright or not bright enough; too showy or too bland." etc.

His main point is that we should not look at church or worship as something that must meet our preferential standards, but rather we should approach worship based on the truth of who God is.

Indeed, it is a mark of maturity when one can overcome the technicalities of the music (lighting, volume, style, etc.) and just worship God for who He is.

As his final statement, he describes worship as war, "So the next time you go to church and the music is too loud, or the leader is singing that song you don’t like, go to war. Fight against the sin at work within yourself. Fight against consumerism and disunity. Fight for a grateful heart. Fight for the truth to captivate you in a way music never could. Fight to stand in awe of a mighty God who rescued you and graciously sings over you.  Fight the true war of worship."

Beautiful words.  Yet I feel it only touches the surface of what is really going on.  I have concluded that there are two deeper issues at work on this subject.

Miller hit on part of the first issue.  He mentioned personal pride [nothing is ever good enough for me].  He says we must fight against it.  But saying that is like taking a pain-killer when you are sick: you're only treating a symptom.  The deeper issue is self-condemnation.  It is almost always masked as pride (the other extreme of the same problem would be false humility: always thinking too lowly of oneself.  Both pride and false humility can co-exist in one person).  The answer comes from how we view God and knowing the truth of how He views us.

Romans 8:1 says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus".  God does not condemn us, nor does he choose to love us based on our "good" behavior.  He simply loves us.  He simply accepts us for who we are.  But often we tend to feel that our relationship with Him is dependent on our behavior.  It's easy to do since we associate our human relationships with Him (especially our parental ones).  We may have been created in His image, but He is God and not man (Hosea 11:9), and the metaphor breaks down on so many levels.  Human relationships help us to understand God, but they are so limited in that respect.  When you truly understand the nature of your oneness with God, condemnation disappears.  Then the "nothing is good enough for me" mentality also begins to disappear.

The second problem is the wrong or misleading theology communicated by worship music.  Going back to the age-old Hymns vs. Modern music debate, if you read through a hymnbook, you'll find that hymns are choc-full of deep and rich theology.  The bulk of today's worship music is all about our experience, and feeling God. For the most part, it lacks the juicy truth.  Good and true theology always leads to the deepest worship, and I think that our beloved hymn singers can feel that.  They just can't always pinpoint what exactly is bothering them so they point to the music, or the lights, or the look on the worshiper's face.

I do this all the time.  Something bothers me and so I feel off, but I can't put my finger on it because it's a subconscious thought, so I try to describe it by pointing at surface things.  Usually my heart knows what's off before my mind does.  Until I've really stopped and analyzed (or prayed about) the source of my disturbed feelings, I can only guess what is wrong.  I have talked to many elders who still feel that the hymns are the best because of the truth that is expressed within them, even though they have accepted the new style of worship.

Let's face it, a lot of our worship music (I say "our" because I am in the "modern music" generation) is focused on our desires and our actions and our commitment to God.  We find ourselves singing things like, "I will worship you," and "I have decided to follow Jesus" (I know that last one is a hymn.  Some hymns fall under this category), "I just want to be where you are"... all beautiful expressions.  But when the focus is always on us, we've missed the point.  We start to get into this mode of striving.  "I will do this," and "I will do that" or, "purify me," and, "draw me close to you,".  Then there's the ever famous, "Here I am to worship".  Me, myself, and I!  Don't get me wrong, I love to sing these on occasion.  But I am kinda tired of worship being a time of self-reflection, looking at myself and all my failures and trying so hard, making all kinds of promises to make my life pleasing to God.  We get so focused on our desire to be righteous.  Martin Luther called this the "Idol of the Will"

Don't even get me started on the songs that ask God (or the Holy Spirit) to "come", or that welcome Him into His own house.  Would you invite your dad to his own house as if he didn't own it already?  Furthermore, God owns me.  Why would I have to continuously invite The Holy Spirit into my soul, one for whom He has already paid for with His blood?!  I don't invite my husband into our house because it's OUR house!  Okay, I have to step off of that soapbox...  Simply read my earlier blogs for more on this because I constantly talk about it.  It drives me insane.  Every other opening worship song is this long, drawn out plea for God's presence to "come into this place".  It's as though people have no idea that the Bible says He's always with us (actually, He lives IN us).  I used to sing this stuff all the time (and still do out of respect for worship leaders and Christians around me).  I've finally realized the futility of it.  (I am stepping down for real this time)... But the truth is when we finally "feel" His presence, it's not that He suddenly entered the room, it's that we finally came to an awareness of His presence... gah... okay, stepping down...

Ironically, when the theology of the worship is right, people are pulled out of their prideful nitpicking anyway.  Some people may be just that stubborn, but let me tell you, even here at North Central, the biggest response in worship always comes from a song full of good theology.

I have been taught that worship is a lifestyle.  But it is more than that; more than a series of life choices towards righteousness or a relationship with God.  I now believe worship is a revelation.  Only through a revelation of who God is will true, deep worship result.  This revelation comes from the Holy Spirit Himself.

And if it is a revelation, it is not a fight.  If it is a war, it is not worship.  We need only ask for new revelation.

When you know who He is, you can't help but be in awe.  Then you will see that He is irresistible, trustworthy, loving, gracious, wise, hilarious, beautiful, interesting, witty, smart, dynamic, fun, caring, considerate, and interested in your well-being.  You'll see that He is utterly in love with you.  And you will see that He accepts you; all of you.  Knowing these things, and I mean truly knowing them, causes worship to happen at random (gotta love those moments of laughter, rolling on the couch at home).

"How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!" (Psalms 139:17)

We can talk about fixing our attitudes and our behavior, but that will only have us running in circles.  Those are surface issues; symptoms, if you will.  The truth is what we need.  And the truth will set us free.