Monday Morning Music Ministry

3-29-21

I hope the words of that title, and the kiddie-pop version of all we hold dear does not remind you of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.” But in our cultural cocoon it would not be surprising if some children grow up thinking that the Easter Bunny was at the manger scene; or Santa Claus went to the cross.

Exaggeration, perhaps, but I will not cop to sacrilege… except as our whole culture has become sacrilegious; secularized; post-Christian. And include most of our churches themselves as complicit in the apostasy.

Palm Sunday used to be universally celebrated in Christian churches. Now it is barely observed. Catholics would burn the palms and save the ashes for the subsequent year’s Ash Wednesday. When I was a boy our church and Sunday School were festooned with palms that were distributed at the end of services; and in our house, anyway, we arranged them behind the picture frames with Jesus and Bible scenes.

Why palms? They were symbols and reminders of the palms – and flowers and garments – laid before Jesus as He entered Jerusalem for the Passover. No power to salvation, they survived the centuries as spiritual Post-It Notes: This is how the people received Jesus as His power and glory became known in that city.

For three years he had performed miracles. Walked on water. Healed the sick. Raised the dead to life. Read minds. Forgave sins.

He had followers, slowly growing in numbers. The word spread, just as the Word spread. Yet through the small towns in the region of Galilee, after more than three years of such ministry, His adherents were numbered as a cult following. Skepticism? A lot of it. Suspicions, too, that he was a magician or prophet at best. Or the “miracles” were exaggerations or coincidences or swindles…

By the time He entered Jerusalem, Jesus knew it was His final visit. He knew the word-for-word prophecies from Isaiah and other Scriptures that would be fulfilled a hundred times over before the week was out. Followers, even Scribes and Pharisees, did not connect the dots.

The city fairly went crazy to welcome Him. A virtual parade. His path strewn with elements of welcome. Music and cheering; crying eyes; workers and housewives taking time to welcome the Messiah.

But my question today is, Do you ever think back, either because of (or in despite) Jesus movies, or Sunday-School bulletins? Have you imaged the scene? “Why is He on a donkey?” “He asked for one!” The mystery was lifted when people eventually realized that it was another puzzle-piece of prophecy from 700 years earlier.

If you have thought about that jubilant scene, you likely did not see yourself as a scoffer or skeptic or hater. These types were hard to find! As we know, the Roman officials tried to ignore the whole “Jesus thing.” The only opposition, and bitter it was, came from the religious leaders. Not the Jews in general, not at first, because the cheering crowds were Jews. It was the religious Establishment who hated Him.

Rejecting Jesus as Messiah, but also nervous about their own positions and security, they ignored Scripture and colluded with the political Establishment. As we know.

You might have pictured yourself in that adoring, welcoming throng. Of course! But how often have you pictured yourself in that crowd beneath Pilate’s balcony only a few days later… screaming for Barabbas to be pardoned and Jesus to be executed?

Have you pictured yourself as a member of the mob who watched, approving, as Jesus was scourged to a bloody pulp?

Have you pictured yourself as someone in the crowd along the Via Dolorosa, as Jesus was forced to carry His cross; were you, too, jeering, spitting on Him?

And after your love had turned to hate, were you then so indifferent to this innocent Man’s suffering that you wandered away from Golgotha? – Probably so, because most of the Disciples were not there at His feet with His Mother Mary.

WHY would any of us think we would have been any different that the population of Jerusalem? Happy welcome? Join the party. “Crunch time”? Spit on the Great Pretender. Fair-weather faithful.

Manipulated by the mob… when you are part of the mob. Swayed by the Establishment… and its version of the news of the day. Knowing Scripture… to the extent it could be cited to justify your changing but comfortable notions. Doubting, disbelieving, rejecting. God forbid we do such things again!

I have been asking if you ever pictured yourself “there” during Holy Week. But you don’t have you. Jesus Himself pictured you there. At every event that week, from jubilation to tortured death. He looked into the crowds, but saw the faces of you and me.

Beyond our faces, He looked – and still looks – into the hearts of you and me.

On Palm Sunday, however, we commemorate His entry… into Jerusalem; into fulfilled prophecies; into our lives. No turning back! And, for us, no ignoring Him.

More audacious, really, than a Virgin birth, or the astonishing miracles, or the timeless wisdom He left us… is the very thought of the Incarnation: that the Creator of the Universe became flesh and dwelt among mankind. That He LOVED that much.

That He LOVES that much. Humankind should rush toward Him, yet He came to us.

They sang “The King is coming!” But He is still coming, still wanting to enter our lives, our minds, our hearts. He’s coming for you. Will you welcome Him? Can you picture that?

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Click: The King Is Coming

3-11-19

There are many “new” Christians, converts, and born-again believers, who experience many fresh insights into God; or at least their relationship with Him.

One of those feelings, and I speak from experience, is to be overwhelmed by an awareness of God’s majesty, and all those Omnis – Omnipresent, Omniscient, Omnipotent.

Sometimes that flood of awareness is manifested in the type of awe that makes us feel unworthy. We realize that we are “the apples of God’s eye,” and that He loved us so much that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to provide a way for our salvation.

And we know that we can “boldly approach the Throne of Grace.”

But we become aware that our righteousness is still as filthy rags compared to the glory and holiness of God.

So many of us consider a proper prayer to begin with the confession that we are unworthy in His sight. We humble ourselves, begging that He deign to hear our prayers.

Even seasoned Christians, not only “baby Christians,” will pray to God in this manner. He created the heavens and the earth; and despite His knowing the numbers of hairs on our heads, it easy to see ourselves as microscopic sinners in the great hands of a God such as He. Whether He is angry or merciful, surely we should be humble and realize how insignificant we are –

– except that we are not.

If you want to pray properly, you should see yourself properly. That is, as God sees you. The Bible more often says “worthily.” Not to be Unworthy – meaning that Worthiness is to understand and respect God’s own perspective.

We are Worthy because it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves.

We are Worthy because He loved us with an everlasting love, before we were formed or born.

We are Worthy because He became flesh and dwelt among us; the Incarnate Jesus identified with our pain and suffering and joys; He was persecuted, endured agony, injustice, torture, rejection, desertion, crucifixion, and death for us; and rose and ascended to assert His divinity that we can believe and be saved…

Would the Lord do all that if we are unworthy?

Ah, some might say, we were unworthy while we were yet sinners. And now things are different. Yes! Just so. But if you understand that dividing-line… do you act like it?

Without being presumptuous, we must realize that – whatever our sins of the past or present; or however we might feel about ourselves for the moment – God cannot see those things!

When you pray, and Jesus is in your heart, God sees not you, but Jesus. He hears your prayers, but sees not the “old you” but the Jesus in you. When He looks down, so to speak, you might think He sees the sinner, but when you are covered in the blood – the sign of atonement and forgiveness that was foreshadowed ages before Jesus, in the “Pass-over,” – He sees the Blood before He sees you. And He will hear your prayers, but you need to remember that the Holy Spirit also groans and sings and advocates for us.

Guilt is drowned out; guilt has been paid for; guilt has been erased.

Understanding our relationship with God – our true standing – makes us Worthy indeed.

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Click: Victory in Jesus / Power In the Blood

5-22-17

The worst prayer – the worst kind of prayer – that a Christian can pray begins from the attitude of “Forgive me, a poor sinner”; or “Unworthy!” or “Lord, I am not fit to approach Your Throne of Grace”…

We do need forgiveness, all the time. We are poor sinners. We are unworthy and not deserving of being in His presence. These things are true…

Except for the factor of Jesus. The Person of Jesus. We are less than worthy, but we are more than conquerors.

I do not contradict myself although, like Walt Whitman, I sometimes say, “Very well, I contradict myself!” But not as to what the Bible teaches – the core of Christianity. Above, I said that prayers offered with those ATTITUDES are mistaken. If we see ourselves in those relational positions, we reject the Truths of God to whom we pray. We insult the work of Jesus on the cross. We insult the Holy Spirit of God, who is sent to be our Helper, our Guide, our Counselor.

What do people think – what do Christians think – God sees when He looks at them?

Through history, many Christians have thought, hoped, and operated on the belief that He sees our good deeds. He does… but scarcely the totality of what He sees.

Many Christians take comfort that He sees their charitable activities, missions works, volunteer efforts, even the merciful acts performed. Surely the case… but, I submit, not the main things He looks for.

There are Christians who are confident, even in spiritual modesty, that their sacrifices and their service, their sweet spirits of forgiveness, please God. Of course these “fruits” please God… but we are told that such things are as dirty rags to a Just and Perfect God if we believe that they guarantee our home in Eternity once God sees them.

The Bible is full of believers who were at the other extreme of spiritual modesty: presumption. We know of “whited sepulchres”; of show-off givers; of those who pray loudly in the temple to be noticed; of hypocrites and vipers and wolves in sheep’s clothing. Of these types God will say… “Be gone, I never knew you! Depart from Me!”

So, what does God see when He looks down (or up, or over, or through) us? Many Christians will say, “He looks at our hearts.”

Yes, He does look at our hearts. He knows us better than we know ourselves. I happen to believe that if there is a choice – however, this is not a choice in life – but if there had to be one direction of “knowing the heart,” we should desire more that that we seek after God’s own Heart, and fear that He sees ours. Which is the point of this message.

Yes, when God sees us, He sees and knows our “hearts” – our thoughts, motives, desires. But that is STILL not what sees first, last, and most important when He looks at us.

I want us all to be reminded, and take comfort, and seize for dear life, the spiritual truth that when God looks at a Christian, a believer, a Christ-follower, those who believe in their hearts that Jesus is the Son of God, and confess with their mouths that God raised Him from the dead…

And when we are in that proper relationship with God… He does not see our deeds or our merciful works or our sacrifices or our forgiveness or our offerings or loud prayers or our memorials and names on church buildings or seminary dorms…

He sees these things, and He sees, yes, our hearts.

But what God sees first and, I believe, most importantly – He sees the Blood.

When we accept and confess Jesus, we are “covered in the Blood.” As surely as its foreshadowing – the blood on the doorposts of the pesach lambs, so the Angel of Death would Pass Over – the believers in Christ are shielded from judgment.

Those who truly believe on the Saviour can be free of guilt and shame and fear. Because when God sees you… He sees your elder brother Jesus, His only-begotten Son. The precious Blood was shed in order that God’s judgment would pass over your sins and shortcomings and failings. “Do not fear,” as Jesus so often said to people.

And the precious Blood also completes what you started, in faith and hope at your best times, in areas of charity and sacrifice and forgiveness. Jesus “finished” many things on the cross, among them the spiritual assignments we accepted when we first believed.

Thank God we did not conceive these things in our puny minds, but by the Great Commission He would have us undertake. We cannot really do them except by the teachings and directions of the Christ. We cannot find the required strength and wisdom but by His Holy Spirit.

Hallelujah, when He sees us, God rather sees the Person and the Blood of Jesus. What does God see in you? He sees the Blood covering you, and the Christ in you. The proper relational understanding of God, and the confidence we can gain, should give us confidence in the ATTITUDE of the prayers we raise to God!

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Click: Come Thou Fount of Blessing / Nothing But the Blood