Favorite Worship Songs; But Why?

What are your favorite songs for worshipping God? It is interesting that we identify singing songs with worship? In the Bible, songs were primarily for teaching truth about God, His mighty deeds, and His promises. The second song in the Bible is found in Exodus 15 right after Pharaoh’s army was destroyed by God in the Red Sea crossing. Miriam wrote a song to teach the nation of Israel of God’s miraculous deliverance. (The first song in the Bible was written by a one of Cain’s descendants, Lamech, bragging about how mean he was.)

Music helps you remember words and events. You probably learned the alphabet by singing it. Some learned the books of the Bible with a simple song. Scripture can be memorized easiest by singing the verses in a song. There are many cultures in the world that have not had their language reduced to writing that have preserved their history in songs. Songs teach. That is their primary purpose.

So why do we sing in our worship services? Good question. What are the best songs to sing in our worship services? Divisive question. We all have favorite songs, but how did they become our favorite songs? And if songs are not primarily for worship, what is?

The Bible teaches that the main characteristic of worship is sacrifice (Genesis – Deuteronomy), but not just sacrifice, but a particular kind of sacrifice. The acceptable sacrifice for God, the one that has a “pleasing aroma” (Leviticus 1:9, 13, 17), is the sacrifice with faith, with humility, with obedience, with brokenness. God sees His Son in that kind of sacrifice and it pleases Him.

We worship God by offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice with faith, with humility, with obedience, with brokenness. As God accepts our offering, we experience joy, His joy! God does not want a song of praise, He desires your song of praise, with faith, with humility, with obedience, with brokenness! Without you in that condition, its just words to God (1 Samuel 15).

One of the reasons a particular song becomes a favorite is because in your past, when you sung it with faith, humility, obedience, brokenness, God added His joy to it and you identified it with worshipping Him because you both enjoyed it together. But understand this; it was not the song that God enjoyed, it was you and the condition of your heart (with faith, humility, obedience, brokenness) when you sung it to Him.

Try this:

·         Identify some of your favorite songs and when they became favorites and see if at that time your heart was in that condition.

·         Identify in your favorites the truth you learned about God, His mighty deeds, His promises and how those truths led you, and continue to lead you, to grow in your faith, humble you, encourage obedience, or convict you to brokenness.

·         As you hear and learn new songs addressing God or songs about Him, humble yourself before Him, learn what the song is teaching about God, and be sensitive to the Holy Spirit as He convicts you of sin and go with Him to the place of brokenness, the cross. It won’t matter if it is an old song, new song, fast song, slow song, with or without certain instruments. All that matters is that it is your sacrifice with faith, humility, obedience, and brokenness as the main beat and melody. These are God’s favorites.

Redemption or Regeneration?

Oswald Chambers is one of my teachers. In his book, Conformed to His Image; The Servant As His Lord, (not a quick read) on pages 9-10, brother Oswald challenges our self-centered Christian culture. He moves us out into deeper water than we feel safe in.

“We must distinguish between the revelation of Redemption and the experience of regeneration. We don’t experience life; we are alive. We don’t experience Redemption; we experience regeneration, that is, we experience the life of God coming into our human nature, and immediately the life of God comes in it produces a surface of consciousness. But redemption means a great deal more than man is conscious of. The Redemption is not only for mankind, it is for the universe, for the material earth; everything that sin and the devil have touched and marred has been completely redeemed by Jesus Christ.

There is a day coming when the Redemption will be actually manifested, when there will be a new heaven and a new earth, with a new humanity upon it…What the Redemption deals with is the sin of the whole human race, not primarily with the sins of individuals, but something far more fundamental, viz., the heredity of sin.

Pseudo-evangelism singles out the individual, it prostitutes the terrific meaning of the Redemption into an individual possession, the salvation my soul.” Oswald Chambers

Becoming a Trillionaire Overnight

That’s what happened to Ira and Ann Yates on October 28, 1926. They had traded their small store in Rankin Texas for a 26,000 acre ranch “west of the Pecos.” Their family and friends thought they had lost their ever-loving minds. Nothing was west of the Pecos except trouble. There was some newly discovered oil exploration in West Texas in the early 1920’s but nothing west of the Pecos.

For several years they struggled to pay the taxes. The drought took their sheep and goats. The blowing sand nearly drove Mrs. Yates crazy. The ranch was about to go under. In desperation, Ira contacted a friend who worked for Transcontinental Oil to see if they would be willing to drill a test well on his ranch. They were not interested because the “experts” of the day did not believe there was any oil “west of the Pecos.”

Yates finally convinced Transcontinental to try a test well. After 23 days of drilling, at a depth of 1,000 feet, the Yates 1-A came in. A gusher. It spewed oil, rocks, and chunks of earth hundreds of feet in the air. They dammed up a large draw to catch the oil, which soon became a lake of black gold.

Over the next three years, several more wells were drilled producing over 41 million barrels of oil. Then in 1929 the Yates 30-A came in producing 200,000 barrels of oil a day! A world record. Oil at that time was being sold at $1.19/barrel. In 1929 $238,000 a day was a lot of money. Today it would equate to about $3.4 million a day! From just one well! A new town sprung up as a result of the Yates oil field. They named it Ira-ann after the Yates couple. Today it is Iraan, Texas.

On January 11, 1989 the Yates Field, now one of the largest oil producing fields in the world, produced it’s 1 billionth barrel. Today, it is still producing, and it is estimated that there is an additional billion barrels of oil still in the field. The Yates family went from dirt poor to multi-billionaires overnight.

When I hear that story, I think of the poor guy that traded his ranch and ended up with the store in Rankin selling dry goods. I also think of the many days that Ira and Ann must have considered selling out and getting out from under the financial burden of a piece of land that was worthless, not knowing that they were sitting on billions of dollars of oil.

Many Christians live in that same ignorance today, not knowing of the unsearchable riches that are found in Christ. In 1 Corinthians 2:12 it says, “We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit Who is from God, in order that we might understand the things freely given to us by God.” That verse tells me that the Holy Spirit, as my Teacher and Guide, will lead me to discover the surpassing wealth and value of what I am already in possession of in Christ and Him in me, if I am willing to spend the time with Him each day, studying, praying, and seeking after Him. He is of greater value than all the oil and gold and precious jewels that have ever been found or ever will be.

Start drilling some test wells today. In Christ, you are already in possession of an eternity of wealth.