You just have to admit this is pretty cool . . .

Kevin Love of UCLA.

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Sermon I preached on December 30, 2007

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Some of our friends from church recently read an article on Reformed Worship. Sarah and I attend, Rincon Mountain Presbyterian Church, a PCA Church in Tucson. The issue of proper worship should be a question that all churches should deal with. It seems that with worship, most of the battles are about music tastes. What I like or don’t like when it comes to music should not be the issue, as important as that is, but the real issue is what is worshipful to God. Many in Reformed churches, it seems, have been moving further and further away from the theologically rich Reformed tradition and exchanging it for the “feelings oriented” contemporary evangelical worship. Every church has liturgy, it just depends how much, what kind, and how theologically deep it is. The reason to do liturgy in a worship service is to expose the people to the Bible. Every element of worship should be steeped in the Bible. It should drip with the richness of the Psalms, the Gospels, the Epistles, etc. The Old Testament and the New Testament, the Word of God, should be read publicly, preached, prayed, sung, confessed, and rejoiced over. Unfortunately, for many people in church congregations, the only Bible they get that week is what they hear on Sundays. (This is a sad testament to the spiritual walk of many Christians, but a topic for another time). Many people approach a church service and say things like; “The worship was good, and the preacher said some encouraging words.” Modern Evangelicalism, equates worship with singing. Everything that happens in the worship service from the Call to Worship to the Benediction, IS worship. Most of the fighting when it comes to worship, seems to be over music, but there is so much more to it then that. Our worship, as I said, must be Biblically, and theologically rich. There is one danger on the other side of this issue that we must deal with in Reformed Churches, and that is that is that just because something is older it is better. Not all hymns written in the 16th century are good, and not all praise songs written today are bad. That to me is not the issue. All elements of worship, and this of course includes music must be Biblically based. All generations of Christians should be writing new songs and singing old ones along with the new ones. Music in worship, along with confessions of faith, connects us with other Christians in time and space. Music must also preach the Gospel, just as the pastor does. This is the purpose of music and all elements of worship. The Gospel going forth to the people, encouraging, challenging, convicting of sin, and rejoicing over the salvation that is only through Jesus Christ. Let us go forward in worship and make it Christ exalting!

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When I am in a situation where confrontation is taking place and I am being lied about, I am not quite sure how to approach this.  At times, I feel really defensive and I want to clear up the “misunderstanding” or blatant slander against me.  We are, after all, supposed to love truth.  At the same time though, I know it is just my pride that does not like taking a beating.  I am sinful  - more than you know.  Shouldn’t I be content knowing that what someone is saying is a lie and that my Heavenly Father knows the whole situation.  He knows the whole picture and loves me regardless of what someone is saying about me.  Ironically, the reality is that the person lying also knows the truth as well.  I think what hurts me the most are the people caught in-between who may leave with a warped view of the situation.  Are there levels of slander so that at some point you should clear up the lies or do we ignore any attempt of self-defense?  Also, does the situation dictate how we should act as well?  For example, today I met with a student, his mom, and the school principal.  The student sat there and blatantly told lies about what was going on in the classroom.  

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Starting a blog is kind of an exciting thing for Sarah and me.  I am not a computer programer, and I don’t totally understand “code,” but it has been kind of fun to figure out ways to make this WordPress thing work.  Hopefully we will be able to use this to keep in touch with family and friends.  We are going back to Colorado on May 18th and in theory, this should be a great way that, Sarah’s family, my family, and our church family can keep up with us and the new baby.  I have to admit that working on figuring out the code has been fun and sometimes an obsession.  I think I have already wasted way too much time on it, but there is still a lot of work that needs to be done.  A big thank you goes out to Jason Saeler who has been very helpful with answering questions for me and giving me advice. Unfortunately, I can’t afford to continue to devote as much time to the development as I would like because I still need to finish translating and writing a commentary on the book of 1 John (currently I am in the middle of chapter 4).

Well I have to go, because my wonderful wife who is carrying our child, needs to have her legs messaged.

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The glucose tolerance test sucks! I didn’t think I had to have it in the first place but then there I am being called in for it. They really have a way to convince young mothers “It is for your baby….you do want to be healthy for your baby, don’t you? Do you know what all could happen if you don’t take this test?, etc, etc”. So I up my carbs for three days per doctor’s orders. Then I fast for 12 hours before taking a super sugar drink. You have to wait three hours before you can go since they draw blood every hour to see how your body is tolerating the glucose. My technician says “The first hour is especially rough. Don’t throw up or you have to come back another day”. Encouraging news as I begin this waiting period. Imagine eating a bag of starbursts or skittles for breakfast and then nothing else….eeks! So what does that do for the baby? I made it through the 3 hours with only the bruises from drawing blood to show for it. But then….sugar crash! I slept for quite awhile in the afternoon although I didn’t feel quite right until the next day. Today, I heard the results. I passed with flying colors!!!! Apparently my body does okay handling that much sugar but I think I’ll pass on eating skittles for breakfast.

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