Astonishing Grace, Week 2: What Is Gospel Centered Worship Leading?

Astonishing Grace
Studies in Gospel Centered Worship Leadership
Week 2: What Does It Mean to Be Gospel Centered?

READ:
Galatians 5:1-6

ASK:
1. What is circumcision and how could it be a ‘yoke of slavery’ for the people Paul is talking to?


2. What is the freedom that Paul is describing?


3. How does this relate to being ‘gospel centered’ in our lives and worship leading? What can get in the way of this? What helps us center on the gospel individually and as a worship team?


REFLECT:
You would think that being “gospel centered” would be a given when it comes to worship leading, right? But as we know, it is often not the case. As we all have experienced at times, sometimes worship services seem to have very little to do with GRACE. Sometimes we barely hear any word of Jesus or God’s redemptive work during a worship time and other times worship can seem more like a professional concert, or a lifeless ritual, than an amazing expression of God’s love in Christ Jesus. Other times we can feel manipulated or told explicitly or implicitly that we do not really love God or worship God unless we worship in this way or that way. All of these are indicators that something has gotten in the way of the gospel in a worship service.

This is why Paul is so against circumcision in our passage from Galatians. Circumcision (the removal of the foreskin of the penis) often produces snickers and jokes when it is talked about in Bible study, but to the Jewish people it was (and is) a deadly serious ritual and central to their identity as people of God. In Genesis 17:10-14 God commands Abraham to circumcise his household, as a sign that they are part of the covenant that God made with Abraham and from that day on, all of Abraham’s people have circumcised their male children on the 8th day. In Galatians Paul is speaking against teachers who were urging non-Jewish believers in Christ to also get circumcised.

We might think that the language Paul is using is alittle harsh….how could a harmless ritual like circumcision be a ‘yoke of slavery’ to people? A yoke is a harness that is used on farm animals to limit their movements and make them do certain tasks. To Paul, circumcision is a yoke because it adds something to the gospel. The gospel is no longer “you are saved from your sin and set free through Jesus Christ”, it is now “you are saved through Jesus Christ AND circumcision”, and this leads us into slavery to works righteousness and graceless religion.

Many of the messages we receive from the world around us (and unfortunately the church at times as well) are often graceless because they add the ‘AND’ clause to every aspect of our lives: that I need God’s love AND a better body, I need God’s love and a better car, girlfriend, husband, guitar, etc….. This all leads us to the ‘yoke of slavery ‘and away from the glorious freedom Paul urges us to bask in and receive.
So, as we apply this to ‘gospel centered’ living and worship leading, we can identify a few factors that can get in the way of the gospel and lead us into the ‘yoke of slavery’ (we need God AND something else):

- Our inadequacies and fears. These cripple us more than anything. Our inability to give ourselves grace and to live in freedom as God’s children directly affects our ability to receive grace and our congregation’s ability to receive grace when we are worship leading. So many of us struggle with unhealthy shame that forces us to try over and over again to earn God’s love and other peoples approval. Healthy shame focuses on something we did wrong: ‘I was mean to that person and I feel bad for it.’ Unhealthy shame focuses on the fact we ARE wrong, no matter what we DO. So, ‘I am mean to someone and it just confirms that I am a terrible person.’ We are freed from this unhealthy shame as we more and more believe that we are accepted by God and loved as we are, without anything we do.

-Our own sin and depravity. Our own selfish ambition and pride is the flip side to our inadequacy and sometimes the cause of it. We need to realize that even though we may want to serve Christ, we often are motivated out of self ambitions and for selfish reasons. And this is not always necessarily bad or wrong, but it can lead us inadvertently away from the gospel. The key for us is honesty about our motivations and about our decisions. Humility begins with a brutal honesty about who we are and who we are not, so that we can rest in God’s grace. Remember that ‘we are worse that we could even imagine and more loved that you could ever know.’

- An overemphasis on emotion. We value expressing our whole lives in worship, but we can also over-emphasize feelings in worship until they become manipulative. Any time we are chastised for not feeling\doing something in worship (not feeling the Holy Spirit, not feeling overcome by God’s love, not raising your hands, etc…) or we leave feeling that we haven’t worshiped because we haven’t felt something, then we probably are overemphasizing emotion in worship.

- Lack of passion: This is the other side of the emotion debate. We don’t want to use emotions to manipulate, but we also desire to have worship that is passionate, whatever the style or expression. We can feel when a leader or pastor is just going through the motions….and in worship this can lead away from the gospel quickly and into apathy or legalism.

- Expectations. Sometimes expectations can bind us and not free us, especially if we suspect a reason that is not motivated by grace or love. If the only reason to do something is tradition, that is not a good enough reason. Often we experience this in churches, so our starting point is to have grace filled discussions on gospel values and how they affect our worship. We also have expectations from the larger worship culture, especially as contemporary worship leaders. Most of the music we use as worship leaders come from large church movements or mega-churches, and we can be tempted to think that we can only be successful if we look or sound like them. We need to be careful not to use a Passion or Hillsong as a standard of success. They wouldn’t want that either. Our goal is worship God and to disciple passionate, growing, gospel centered followers of Christ. If we have 10 people or 10,000 people doesn’t matter, the center remains the same.

So as we strive to be ‘gospel centered’ as worshippers and a worship team, here are a few practices and attitudes that can help us:

-Focus daily on God and on God’s word. Learn to daily rest in God’s love and God’s grace. Don’t see this as another thing you ‘have’ to do, but an invitation from a loving God who calls to you: “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly." (Matthew 11:28-30, The Message)

- Practice Honesty. Practice honesty about where you are as a person (what you are struggling with, what you are good at, what you can and cannot/should not do) and about where we are as a worship team. What do we desire? What do we expect from ourselves, and our congregation? Let this honesty not condemn you (or us as a worship team) but lead you into the glorious freedom that the Bible describes.

- Always focus on the story of salvation and Christ love and work. We need to focus always on grace; we need to overemphasize it, over communicate it, and over-emphasize it until our congregation has heard it a million times. Pastor Tim says that we need to preach this message until they are sick of hearing it and then say it a million times more. So, we need to tell the story in every song, every transition, and every word we say. This may sound boring or repetitive, but we only have one gospel to preach and we need to preach it in everything we do!

Being ‘gospel centered’ in our lives and worship leading means believing and living in the reality that Jesus Christ has set us free from sin and death and given us a new existence, not as slaves but as children of God. In this reality we trust that the Holy Spirit is working to transform us (and others) more and more into the children that God has made us into (Romans 12:1-2). This is all God’s action, because of God’s love and for God’s purposes. There is nothing we can do to earn this. We can only accept it and live in it. So, this week I encourage you to try to identify some of the sources of slavery in your life (and in our worship) and to rest in the fact that you are accepted and loved in Christ Jesus, and led into a glorious and astonishing freedom.

ADDITIONAL SCRIPTURE READINGS (to be read throughout the week):
Psalm 119:41-48, Isaiah 61:1-3, Luke 4:14-28, John 8:31-36, Romans 8:1-8, Hebrews 9:13-15