Letter 6/17

June 17, 2010
Pastor Steve Mathewson
  

Music is an important element in our weekly worship services, so I’d like to think a bit about it with you today. As a church, we take music seriously because God does. Colossians 3:16 says: Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. According to this statement, music has at least two key functions in our worship. First, it has a teaching function. When we sing, we remind ourselves and others of the message of Christ. Second, it helps us express our gratitude to God. 

The purpose for using music in our corporate worship, then, is to lead people to encounter and respond to the greatness of God. So music is not an end in itself. Nor is its purpose to entertain us or calm us or excite us. Rather, music is a tool or a “language” which enables us to encounter the greatness of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. I am thankful for the musicians who lead us in the music part of our worship each Sunday. Currently, we have four team leaders who select music, lead our weekly rehearsals, and lead our team of musicians on Sunday. These four are Pete Crabtree, Brian Herman, Arne Johnson, and Daniel Reider. We have also recently hired Dave VerLee in a part-time Worship Arts Tech position. He will help us with the technical side of our ministry – basically, anything related to our sound system, musical equipment, and set-up.   I appreciate the skill that he brings along with his passion for worshipping God through music. Please pray for our team of musicians who serve us faithfully week after week. These men and women put in a lot of hours that no one sees. They do it to help us to encounter the greatness of God in Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Speaking of the Holy Spirit, I’d like to share a few excerpts from a book on the Holy Spirit which has helped me immensely for the past twenty-five years. I’m referring to J. I. Packer’s classic, Keep In Step with the Holy Spirit. It is still worth reading, and it is now in its second edition. Packer’s book is a fine explanation of what the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit. Here are a few excerpts from the first edition which you may find helpful.

• “The essence of the Holy Spirit’s ministry is to mediate the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . His ministry is a floodlight ministry in relation to Jesus, a matter of spotlighting Jesus’ glory before our spiritual eyes.” [55, 92]

• “The Spirit is not just an influence; he, like the Father and the Son, is an individual person. . . . He, with the Father and the Son, is God Almighty.” [62]

• “A person receives the Spirit by receiving Christ, not in any other way. . . . That question – Do you have the Holy Spirit? – should not be put to a Christian. . . . No, the question we should ask instead is: Does the Holy Spirit have you?” [92-93]

• “The Spirit shows his power in us by making these regular means – biblical truth, prayer, fellowship, worship and the Lord’s Supper – effective to change us for the better and for the wiser as we go along.” [109]

Let us “keep in step with the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25), then, as we worship God throughout the week and as we gather for a time of community worship on Sunday. This Sunday, June 20, we will continue our series on the letter of James with a message from James 1:19-27 titled “Just Do It.” Remember that our summer schedule begins this week, so we will all meet together in one service at 9:00 a.m. I’ll see you on Sunday!