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Wisdom Is a Reward

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13 Happy is a man who finds wisdom
and who acquires understanding,
14 for she is more profitable than silver,
and her revenue is better than gold.
15 She is more precious than jewels;
nothing you desire compares with her.
16 Long life is in her right hand;
in her left, riches and honor.
17 Her ways are pleasant,
and all her paths, peaceful.
18 She is a tree of life to those who embrace her,
and those who hold on to her are happy.
—Proverbs 3:13-18 HCSB

Wisdom is a hard thing to come by. When you’re growing up, you often wonder–at least I did–why adults didn’t give you more input in the decision making process. As adults, we know the answer to that question: wisdom comes with experience. But, it isn’t as simple as that, is it? I’m sure each of us knows a few people to whom the word “wisdom” doesn’t apply. Just because you’re getting older doesn’t mean you’re getting wiser.

Proverbs 3:13 tells us that wisdom is found and that understanding is acquired. Found. Acquired. Wisdom requires an active pursuit. If we would be wise, we must look for it. We must acquire understanding. The remaining verses in the passage speak of wisdom in terms of what it offers once it is attained. “More profitable than silver.” “More precious than jewels.” Proverbs 3 speaks of wisdom as a prize, as though those who find her (that’s how the Bible refers to wisdom) have fought hard and won.

Wisdom isn’t a right that comes with age. It is a reward that comes with effort.

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YouVersion

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I have several Bible apps on my iPhone. Some are free and some aren’t. There are a couple of apps I use more than the others; YouVersion is one of them.

YouVersion is a Bible app I think everyone should have on his or her mobile device. It’s available for every mobile platform and gives you free access to many Bible translations, the ability to take notes, the ability to follow church services live (if the church uses YouVersion Live), and just about any Bible reading plan you can imagine.

Of all the Bible apps available for your mobile device, this is definitely one you should download. Because it’s free, there isn’t a reason you shouldn’t. YouVersion is brought to you by LifeChurch.tv.

Have a great weekend!
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Wednesday Wisdom

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Oddly enough, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time studying the book of Proverbs. I say “oddly enough” because that’s one of the books of the Bible everybody recommends for daily reading. There are 31 chapters, so it’s a good book to read a chapter a day in. That way, you can read through it each month.

Proverbs is an peculiar book, though. The breakdown of chapters in the modern Bible doesn’t display what a proverb is very well. That’s because proverbs are short statements of wisdom, often only a few lines long. There might be 20 individual proverbs in a chapter, for example. Each chapter isn’t a proverb; it contains several proverbs. So the breakdown is somewhat arbitrary. It’s helpful and necessary to be able to point to a chapter and verse, but this breakdown doesn’t portray the individual proverbs very readily.

Here’s an example of the first proverb from Proverbs 1:

The fear of the Lord
is the beginning of knowlegde;
fools despise wisdom and discipline.

I’m going to start working through the book of Proverbs in my private worship time. My plan is to offer insights into a proverb each Wednesday here at IsaiahSix.org (hence the admittedly cheesy title of this post). I invite you to join in the conversation.

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Gravity and Gladness in Corporate Worship

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If you are in or around Minneapolis, Minnesota, John Piper will be hosting a free seminar entitled, “Gravity and Gladness in Corporate Worship,” on November 11 and 12. It looks to be very interesting. Seating is limited, so I would recommend registering soon if this is something you think you might want to participate in.

WorshipGod11 Is Around the Corner

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Sovereign Grace Music’s bi-annual worship conference, WorshipGod, starts two weeks from tomorrow. If you haven’t registered, the deadline is this coming weekend. You should consider attending. Seriously.

This year’s featured speakers are Ray Ortlund, Jr., Bryan Chappell, Thabiti Anyabwile, Bob Kauflin, and Craig Cabaniss. And Friday night’s session will be a live worship album recording.

WorshipGod is always a great time of worship and learning. I hope to see you there.

It’s Not a Performance

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I recently had the opportunity to lead an associational choir presentation of an Easter cantata. Several choirs from our association, along with musicians from various churches, prepared and presented More Than a Carpenter, which is based on the apologetic writings of Josh McDowell. After we had gathered in the choir room in preparation to move to the sanctuary, I gave the choir a few moments to pray about what was about to happen.

After a time of prayer, I shared this.

We’ve learned the notes and the rhythms. We’ve worked on polishing the music so that it’s as good as we can possibly make it. We’ve bathed our efforts in prayer. We’ve prayed for ourselves. We’ve prayed for those in attendance. Now I want you to go worship.

All of the efforts we had put into creating this wonderful event would have failed and it would have been nothing more than a musical performance had we not been worshiping as we presented the music. I’m not downplaying musical performances. I certainly have either participated or lead literally hundreds of them. But when we step into a church setting, our singing and playing takes on a different purpose. It isn’t for the entertainment of those who have come to listen and it isn’t merely for our pleasure because we love to sing or play.

In order to lead others in worship, we must also worship.

Who Gets the Glory?

One main difference between performances and worship services lies in who gets the glory. After a performance, we expect applause and the audience response we receive lets us know how well we sang. But after a worship service, we’re not seeking applause or the accolades of those in attendance. We seek God’s glory instead of our own. We pray He’s been magnified through the music we have offered.

It’s not a performance.

“All I Have Is Christ” Animation

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From Chris Powers, who created this animation of “The Gospel Song” by Sovereign Grace Music, here is an animation of “All I Have Is Christ.”

Private Worship Through Scripture Memorization

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I’ve said many times that worship is not something that takes place at a certain time on a certain day. Worship is an all-of-life event. As such, there are different angles we approach the subject. Certainly the one that’s at the forefront of most of our thoughts is corporate worship, the times we set aside to gather with our local body of believers to worship God in a public setting. Family worship is another aspect, and private worship is a third.

One way to enhance our private worship is to be able to recall passages of scripture at any moment. That ability frees to see the possibility of worship at any time during the day, not just the moments we purposefully sit down and have a Bible and a hymnal or worship CD available to us.

Fighter Verses App

Fighter Verses logoThe folks at Desiring God Ministries have put together an app to help you memorize scripture on a weekly basis. Based on their excellent Fighter Verses memory program, apps are available for both iOS (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad) and Android devices. The app is extremely well designed and offers a number of options you can use to customize your scripture memory program.

  • Your choice of ESV, NIV, or KJV translations or La Biblia de las Américas in Spanish
  • Your choice of the Fighter Verses Collection, Extended Memory Collection, or the Legacy Collection of scripture passages to memorize
  • The ability to create your own collection of passages right in the app

The Collections

The Fighter Verse app offers access to three different collections of verses. Each collection is a five year program, so you could use this app for fifteen years without running out of material. There may be some overlap within the collections, but given their different focuses, there won’t be much. You have a lot of memorizing to do, so get started.

Here’s what the Fighter Verse website has to say about the different collections.

Fighter Verses

The Fighter Verses focus on the character and worth of our great God, battling against our fleshly desires, and the hope of the Gospel. This five-year memory program is a revision of the original program, now the Legacy Set, and includes a number of the original verses as well as many new verses.

Extended Collection

The Extended Memory Set is designed for those who wish to memorize longer passages of Scripture. Still structured as a five-year program, this set will walk you through memorizing Philippians, James, Romans 5-8, the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), and one year of larger passages from various books of the Bible that are considered key to the life of faith.

Legacy Collection

The Legacy Set is the original Fighter Verse collection as it was released in 1997, focusing on the fight of faith. Along with a number of short passages, this collection also includes the Sermon on the Mount (as the fifth year). The Legacy FV Collection will be available through 2011.

CDs with musical aids are available at the Fighter Verse website to assist you with Sets D and E of the Legacy Collection.

Buy It

The cost for the iOS version is $2.99, but it’s a universal app, which means once you buy it, you can install it on both the iPhone (or iPod Touch) and the iPad. The cost for the Android version is $1.99. Why the price difference? I don’t know. I don’t have access to an Android device, so I’m not sure if there are feature differences in the apps that warrant a price difference.

Download Fighter Verses for iOS devices | Download Fighter Verses for Android devices

This is a great app. I’m using it now and really think you’ll be pleased with it.

How Much Does Worship Cost?

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Sunday morning. 8:30 a.m. You’re just about to head out to church. You don’t really think about lunch this early on any other day, but today is Sunday. Are you going to cook or go to a restaurant? What about after lunch? Do you have things to do around the house or, because it’s a “day of rest,” will you try to sneak in a nap?

For those of us who grew up in the church,1 it’s quite easy to get into a routine such that church is something we do, a place we go, on the way to lunch. We make an appearance there on the way to visit family. It’s another task on our check list. At 12:00, we get to check it off our list and move on to the next item.

It Has to Cost Something

I just finished teaching a 16-week Bible study on 1 and 2 Samuel.2 In 2 Samuel 24, Israel had apparently sinned (again), and “the Lord‘s anger burned against Israel.” Because God was angry at Israel, David became angry at Israel. So he ordered a census. When the census was complete,3 David realized that he had sinned. “I have sinned greatly in what I’ve done. Now, Lord, because I’ve been very foolish, please take away Your servant’s guilt.”

As punishment, the Lord sent a plague on Israel and 70,000 men died. David begged for mercy. “Look, I am the one who sinned; I am the one who has done wrong. But these sheep, what have they done? Please let Your hand be against me and my father’s family.” God commanded David to build an altar on the threshing floor owned by Araunah. Araunah offered everything to David for nothing in return. David refused to accept the offer. “No, I insist on buying it from you for a price, for I will not offer to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.”

What Are You Bringing to Worship?

I’m reminded of a story Dave Bullock recounted in a conference a few years ago. Dave is the Associate Pastor of Fine Arts at Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin. One particular volunteer would serve once a week in the church’s welcome center and every week when Dave passed by the welcome center, she would ask him, “Am I going to get anything out of worship this week?” His response was always the same: “That depends. What are you bringing to worship this week?”

David’s response to Araunah and Dave’s response to the volunteer serve as excellent reminders of what worship actually is. Worship is not something we gloss over on the way to something else. It certainly isn’t something God glosses over. There are several instances in the Bible that show God’s wrath toward those who offered worship in ways that God did not approve of. In order for our worship to glorify God, it has to cost us something. It has to mean something to us in order to offer it. If it doesn’t mean anything to us, it isn’t worship.

So, before you head out to gather with your brothers and sisters-in-Christ again, ask yourself this question: How much does the worship I offer cost me?

Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
Greg
 

1 If you’re a new believer, strive to keep from placing worship and other opportunities to gather with believers on a routine check list. [BACK ↑]
2 I recommend studying these two books if you haven’t already. David’s life, although not perfect, is a great example of how to live a life pleasing to God. [BACK ↑]
3 Actually, Joab never finished the census because he thought the whole thing was a bad idea (1 Chronicles 21:6). [BACK ↑]

The Cafeteria of Worship Services

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There are more generations alive today than ever before in modern history. Making up the membership of most churches in America, from the smallest rural church to the largest mega-church, are five or six generations of people. Life experience and cultural influences change over time, ensuring that the youngest of these generations sees things much differently than the oldest does. Given the generational differences, how do we plan worship for all these different people? Do we expect them all to worship in the same way? Or do we plan for each generation differently?

Many churches have addressed this dilemma by scheduling multiple worship services of varying styles. One service might include “contemporary” music, use a band, and project lyrics on a screen. Another might make use of “traditional” instruments like an organ and piano and use a hymnal. And I’ve known churches to offer a third type of service, which they call “blended,” which is a happy mixture of the other two. The thinking behind that is that if you like both contemporary and traditional music, you’ll like the blended service format. So churches have turned themselves into cafeterias of worship services.

Two Initial Problems…

There are two problems I see with the thought process behind the multiple worship service idea. The first problem is that it places music at the center of the reasoning for why a worship service is planned the way it is. Music isn’t the most important aspect of a worship service. The second problem I see here is that it grants our human likes and dislikes great importance in determining the content and direction of a worship service. But worship isn’t about us; it’s about God. It is directed by, for, and to God. It’s great if we enjoy it, but it doesn’t matter much whether we do or not.

…Lead to a Third Problem

The two problems I mentioned above are on the front end of the multiple worship service process. There is a third problem that comes as a result of the implementation of multiple worship service programming: the church becomes split. All of a sudden, the local church that has been called together to serve God in their context has split into different churches that simply share the same building and staff. If a church chooses to use this approach, great pains must be taken to guarantee that the body doesn’t splinter. Whether that’s through a diligent use of small groups or some other solution, the battle will always be an uphill struggle.

The Power of the Gospel

In an article entitled, “We Are One,” Tullian Tchividjian, pastor at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church (and grandson of Ruth and Billy Graham), has recently addressed his church’s use of multiple worship services. Here’s a quote from Tchividjian:

You see, when we separate people according to something as trivial as musical preferences, we evidence a fundamental failure to comprehend the heart of the gospel. We’re not only feeding toxic tribalism; we’re also saying the gospel can’t successfully bring these two different groups together. It’s a declaration of doubt about the unifying power of God’s gospel. Generational appeal in worship is an admission that the gospel is powerless to join together what man has separated.

The gospel is more powerful to unite us than music is to divide us.

Impacting the Kingdom Through Worship,
Greg
 
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