sing it again (and again)

We boomers like to complain about today’s worship leaders and their love affair with repetition. Now, I don’t have a problem with it the way some do, but 14 rounds of He is good, good, so good can feel a bit excessive.

Consider a humorous story to illustrate my point:

An old farmer went to the city one weekend and attended the big city church. He came home and his wife asked him how it was. “Well,” said the farmer, “it was good. They did something different, however. They sang praise choruses instead of hymns.”

“Praise choruses?” said his wife. “What are those?”

“Oh, they’re OK. They are sort of like hymns, only different,” said the farmer.

“Well, what’s the difference?” asked his wife.

The farmer said, “Well, it’s like this – If I were to say to you “Martha, the cows are in the corn”’ – well, that would be a hymn. If on the other hand, I were to say to you:

Martha, Martha, Martha, Oh Martha, MARTHA, MARTHA, the cows, the big cows, the brown cows, the black cows, the white cows, the black and white cows, the COWS, COWS, COWS are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, are in the corn, the CORN, CORN, CORN.

Then, if I were to repeat the whole thing two or three times, well, that would be a praise chorus.”

— via Mockingbird Ministries blog

I grew up in traditional Baptist churches where hymnbooks were king. We held thick, hardback hymnals in our hands as the minister of music instructed us to sing the first, second, and last verses of each of the selected hymns (IYKYK). “Turn to page 141 in your Baptist Hymnal…” There were usually two or three songs prior to the offering, and one just before the sermon.

I sound like I’m mocking, but I assure you I am not. Something comes alive in a deeper part of my soul when a worship leader spontaneously leads out with an old hymn at our church. I’m not alone, either. Most of the older parishioners in the mix of our gathered saints suddenly raise their voices…and the sound is pure heaven.

Psalm 118 is a worship song the returning Babylonian captives sang at the dedication of the second temple in Jerusalem. Solomon’s magnificent temple — one of the great wonders of the world in its day — had been razed to rubble by the invading army of Babylon nearly a century before. While the second temple certainly paled in comparison to the first, the joy those exiles felt when their central place of worship was finished had to be groundshaking.

i could sing of his love forever

Take a look at this psalm. Note how many times the psalmist uses repetition. I count nine lines of verse that are repeated. That may not be as impressive as the twenty-six lines in Psalm 136, but it ranks high nonetheless. The next time someone throws shade on modern worship “and their twelve-minute praise songs,” simply point them to Psalm 118.

This psalm was quite important to Martin Luther’s spiritual formation. He referred to it as “my own beloved psalm.” While in hiding in the Coburg Castle during 1530, Martin Luther spent six months writing a significant commentary on its sacred text. On one of its walls, deep inside the castle, he carefully wrote, “I shall not die, but live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.” Verse seventeen became the confession of his life.

What endeared him to it so?

Why was it chosen as a worship song for the dedication of the temple?

Right away we see the first and last verse are identical:

Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!

I’m certain returning exiles would appreciate those words, don’t you? How many times have we come through great hardships only to burst out in song when we have been mercifully delivered!

Five times (1,2,3,4,29) the psalmist repeats the line, HIS STEADFAST LOVE ENDURES FOREVER.The number “five” is a grace number. How appropriate that such beautiful words come at us, through us, and out of us as testimonies of such rich, undeserved, marvelous grace.

he is good, good, so good, etc., etc.

The music begins to swell. The key changes. We are on our feet, stirred by the words on the screen: THE LORD IS ON MY SIDE (vv6,7) when THE ENEMY SURROUNDED ME (vv10,11,12). It may look like I’m surrounded but I’m surrounded by You. I’m in his courts, no longer weeping by the rivers of Babylon. Hallelujah! Everywhere I look I see evidence of God’s saving mercy. I’m loved by the Savior who will never leave my side nor forsake me to the enemy.

The worship leader reminds the exiles they are standing on holy ground. Plant your flag. Hang your shingle. Make yourself at home. Come inside and TAKE REFUGE IN THE LORD (vv8,9). Why would we look for refuge anywhere else? We are at home with You, Lord. Your address is BETTER (vv8,9) than any other real estate on earth.

Thrice the psalmist boasts, IN THE NAME OF THE LORD I CUT THEM OFF! (vv10,11,12) But lest he or anyone expect to lead out the victory parade, he quickly shifts the focus — also thrice! — to the Almighty:

The right hand of the Lord does valiantly (vv15,16)

As of this writing, it’s Sunday morning. While we ready ourselves for church, Sandy and I are listening to a worship playlist I’ve recently curated. Chris Tomlin is singing “How Great Is Our God” and we are caught remembering a particular Sunday when a pair of pre-school twins sang it in front of the New River Church congregation. Not. A. Dry. Eye. I’m so glad our little children learned how to sing God-words over and over.

Millennia ago, another worship leader wrote these words we are reading today. We may not know who he was, but we know he could surely whip out a worship song that once inspired a Reformer and has spanned the generations since.

Before he laid his pen aside, the clever lyricist added the perfect coda to echo on through the ages.

YOU ARE MY GOD AND I WILL EXTOL YOU (v28)

What else is there to say? Besides:

GIVE THANKS! (vv28,29)

You and I may not agree on everything, but I think we can all agree on this: Some things are worth repeating!

Selah, beloved.

Oh, and keep on singing!

the thirty percent

[5 minutes]

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. II Timothy 4:7

How important is it to you to finish well?

Biblical scholar and teacher Dr. J. Robert Clinton studied the lives of one hundred main characters in the Bible. What he discovered was hard to swallow. Fewer than 30% of them finished well.

Which people of the Bible might you add to a list of those who patterned exemplary faith? Joseph! Daniel, for sure. You have to include Ruth. Job had his moments, but he ultimately came forth as gold. Remember, it’s not about being perfect — or whether you stumble along the way (we all do!) — but rather how you finish.

There are noteworthy examples, but none more deserving than Paul. When I die, I hope with all my heart that I am able to echo what Paul confessed before he left this world:

I fought hard.

I ran a good race.

I’m ready.

“Finished” in the scripture highlighted above is τετέλεκα — an echo of the very proclamation Jesus made from the cross: It is finished. While the Savior completed his divine mission to perfection, Paul faced his own human death with Christlike finality.

Do you know what I really love about Paul’s ‘death-bed’ confession to Timothy? Ten years earlier, Paul had a shoreline meeting with some church elders at Ephesus when he declared at that time:

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.

—Acts 20:24

A decade later, Paul sent a letter from a Roman prison to the young pastor of that same Ephesian church to say: “Mission accomplished.”

I fought the good fight.

I ran a good race.

I kept the faith for a good death.

Oh how I long to meet my Savior having the same bravado! I pray I’ll not to be a shipwreck or footnote.

In Clinton’s study only 50 of the 100 Bible characters researched had enough print about their life to determine whether or not they finished well. That means the other 50 didn’t have enough data points to know one way or the other.

Brothers and sisters, I don’t want anyone guessing about my life. I pray there is ample evidence to sift through! One day, by the grace of God, I hope a flag is planted over my bones that declares, “Here lies Scott Thomas Mitchell. He loved Jesus to the death.”

Last October one of my ministry heroes, Charles Swindoll, preached his final sermon at age 90. In a time of great shaking, scandal, heresy, and controversy in the pulpits, it is refreshing to hear of a man who faithfully ran his race and finished his course in a worthy manner.

And yet — shockingly — as the celebrated pastor was preparing for his exit, one of his own staff pastors was fired for moral misconduct a few months earlier. Two men. Two entirely different outcomes.

It’s a mercy of God that as we age our goals for end of life become more streamlined, focused. While in our younger years our dreams were all over the map, old age has a way of shaking them out and latching on to the ones that stick.

Early on in ministry I had a pastor/mentor say to me, ‘You know what my goal is? When I die, if they say ‘he loved God and he loved his wife and family’ then I’ve achieved my goal.’ At the time I thought that was incredibly lame. Years later, I get it. Such wisdom.

— an anonymous pastor

Aging Scott gets it, too.

Three verses after anticipating his own triumphant homegoing, Paul grieved about a man named Demas. Still bruised, the apostle sadly reflected over the tragic outcome of his former companion’s faith.

Howard Hendricks, a renowned seminary professor who died well in the Lord, interviewed 246 men in the clergy who had started out well but failed within two years. Here are some of the common threads he found in those 246 case studies:

  • None of the men was involved in any kind of real personal accountability.
  • Each of the men had all but ceased having a daily time of personal prayer, Bible reading, and worship.
  • More than 80 percent of the men became sexually involved with the other woman after spending significant time with her, often in counseling situations.
  • Without exception, each of the 246 had been convinced that sort of fall “would never happen to me.”

It’s not only pastors or church leaders who should be wary of finishing poorly. In a letter to a congregation in Greece, the apostle Paul offers this solemn charge: “So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall.” (1 Cor. 10:12)

Consider for a moment this alarming statement:

In American Christianity today, there are more defections than conversions. 

— The American Beliefs Study, 2022

There is plenty of evidence corroborating people leaving the institutional church, but the above annotation is taken from a study of those leaving the faith.

Jesus himself knew the sting of such numbers. As the gathering shadows fell across his popular ministry years, a raft of followers decided his way was no longer their way.

Finishing well is hard work. Paul called it a fight, a grueling race to be legged out. The world, the devil, and our greedy flesh each distract and frustrate us to no end. We drop the baton. Knock over a hurdle or two. Or three. We get downcast. We fall and lose precious ground. But we keep legging it out.

The race isn’t over. Wherever you are on the track, beloved, there’s still time to jump back in. Run for the prize. Compete for the crown. Be one of the 30%.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Stay the course.

And finish well.

Selah, and see you at the finish line, dear one.

the quiet protest of praying before a meal

Saying Grace, Norman Rockwell

[5 minutes]

Everything God made is good, and is meant to be gratefully used, not despised. The holiness or otherwise of a certain food, for instance, depends not on its nature but on whether it is eaten thankfully or not, It is consecrated by the man who has accepted the message, and thanks God for food.

1 Timothy 4:3-5, JBP

I’d like to share something with you in this post that you may not have thought of before. At least not thought of in quite this way. But first, some background:

A young ‘Timothy’ and I are going through Paul’s first letter to Timothy together. He has recently come into my life and has been such an unexpected blessing. We’re learning about a very complicated church in first century Ephesus, seeing it as more of a battleground for Timothy rather than the promising church Paul birthed. In short, Ephesus Church was a hot mess.

Timothy wanted out. He felt the job well above his pay grade, but Paul told him to stay put, wage war (with faith and a good conscience), get prayer back into the assembly as the first order of business, remove unqualified teachers, and ordain qualified leaders.

Of course, Paul warns the GenX pastor, these strategies aren’t a guarantee that some – possibly even many – won’t still break his heart by abandoning the faith and make shipwreck of their lives. But, Paul exhorted Timothy, make it harder for them to defect by giving them life-saving truth!

Paul gave Timothy five tools for changing the culture at Ephesus Church. He instructed him to be an “example” in these specific areas: speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity. Just as David had five smooth stones at the ready to take down Goliath, Timothy had five straight arrows in his arsenal.

  • Words matter.
  • Conduct matters.
  • How we treat people matters.
  • What we believe matters.
  • Character matters.

“Example” is tupos, the Greek word for ‘mark, impression.’ Thomas used it when demanding evidence that Jesus was truly raised from the dead. “I’ll believe it when I see the marks of the nails!”

Leave your mark, Timothy. So live that they will know a man of God is in their midst!

There are two other surefire weapons Paul hands Timothy in chapter 4. One of them was to “make scripture great again” by reading it aloud in the public services. Stop letting false teachers share their devilish doctrines and twisted hermeneutics in the congregation. Put the kebosh on all that trifling nonsense. Make it policy that only God’s word will be preached and taught in the pulpit.

The other weapon might surprise you. It did me. In the context of zealous nitwits who had infiltrated Ephesus declaring certain things morally wrong — including food — Paul told Timothy that,

…everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

1 Timothy 4:4-5

“And prayer.” That’s what caught my eye.

Since the dawn of human history, food has sparked both lively conversation and controversy. Right there on the first page or two of the Bible, a crisis happened where food was involved. God created a garden world for Adam and Eve where he served up vegetables and fruits of every variety. He told them to feel free to eat anything their little hearts desired — and enjoy it — except for…

/Enter the dragon./

Food, fun, and fellowship nazis had apparently entered Ephesus Church and overturned God’s “saw that it was good” edict and put their own devilish spin on it.

Paul told Timothy to ixnay that, say grace over God’s good bounty, and sanctify it. It’s not only good, it’s very good. Eat up!

Norman Rockwell, the true-to-life artist whose paintings have been a mainstay of American lore and inspiration, painted Saying Grace (seen above) in 1951. Rockwell was inspired by a Saturday Evening Post reader who shared a story about seeing a Mennonite family praying before their meal in a busy restaurant. Rockwell was intrigued. He set to work creating a touching tribute to that iconic moment. Post readers voted Saying Grace as their favorite magazine cover in 1955.

Saturday Evening Post editors presented it this way:

The world is not too happy a place these days. There are wars and threats of wars. Anxiety and frustration are abroad, and in many quarters we see the bankruptcy of morals. So, suddenly comes the day to give thanks for the goodness of life. And perhaps this can be done most understandingly by someone like this little old lady who, wherever she may be, bows her head to say grace, speaking not analytically from the mind but spontaneously from the heart.

Sandy and I have long made it our practice to join hands and pray over our meals, whether at home or in public. Most of the time we don’t think anything about it, but there are other times we are palpably aware of people nearby; it can feel awkward.

This is why we pray before our meals. To consecrate it, to recognize it as God’s good provision from creation for us to enjoy. To believe that it sustains us and gives us life.

The devil hates Genesis 1-2. He hates God and good and living shamelessly and obedience and fellowship and harmony and beauty. He hates the imago dei and likeness and dominion and fruitfulness. He hates ex nihilo. He hates that he was created by One infinitely more powerful and wise than him.

He hates mankind and womankind.

“I’m better than either of them. I’ll prove it. I’ll have them eating out of my hands!”

The simple act of praying before a meal, then, is our protest against the devil’s narcissism and our profession that we only eat from God’s hand.

So the next time you are sitting at a table, whether at home or in a public place, and food is before you, remember that scene in the garden. Make the devil mad by bowing your head, saying grace, and thanking our Heavenly Father for giving us a world where food is on the menu.

Selah, beloved.