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!

i am a green olive tree

[7 minutes]

But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.

Psalm 52:8

David wrote this only one chapter removed from his confession to God when a broken, sinful man. The chapters aren’t chronological, of course, but their arrangement seems to be — for me at least — by design.

Looking back over the arc of our lives, we can dredge up seasons when we wondered if we’d ever get past our failures. In other seasons, we’ve known the inestimable joy of intimacy with God we never wanted to end. Hello sanctification.

In Psalm 51 David is the guilty man. In Psalm 52 he is gutted by the crimes of another man — Doeg the Edomite. Doeg brazenly murdered 85 innocent people in cold blood. The slaughtered were priests, together with their wives and children. Their crime? They gave David sanctuary when he was on the run from King Saul. David was beside himself with fury.

“How dare you, Doeg! You will face the wrath of a just God, you dog! You think you’re a big man, all high and mighty, plotting my demise. But it is you who will go down. Me? I’m a green olive tree in God’s house, big boy. You, on the other hand, are kindling for the lake of fire.”

No doubt David was reeling from the news of the priests of Nob and their families. It wasn’t enough for the vile Edomite to kill the priests, he massacred their families too. They died because they all stood with David!

Talk about survivor’s guilt.

selah

In the middle of this painful psalm is a Selah. It’s a strange place for a Selah, sure, but David tacks one on.

You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking about what is right. Selah

(v3)

Selah.

Catch your breath.

Gather your wits.

Get quiet.

Be still.

John Andrew Bryant has battled mental illness his entire life. His brain never turns off; it is always noisy in there. His affliction is a daily surrender and his dependence upon God for the healing of his mind is evident in his words. John describes finding a “foothold” in those especially stormy times when his brain is firing in all directions.

“What I have in Christ is the simple, painful renunciation of the urges created by my brain, the ability to say no to desires and compulsions that will not just go away. I wish it was more. But that is all it’s been: a foothold in the storm of thought and feelings…that foothold, that boat, that kernel, is not a place where I do something to be okay. It is a place where I don’t. That patient, quiet understanding is the place where I stand with Christ and don’t do anything to make things right or win or be okay. It is the place where I don’t fix, the place where I don’t defend myself, the place where I don’t figure things out, and the place where I don’t know for sure. The place where it is somehow possible to not engage those compulsions. The place I stand with Christ and endure what it feels like to not do those things. The place where I’ve learned to stand with Christ by being quiet.”
A Quiet Mind To Suffer With, p17-18

That is David’s Selah here in the 52nd Psalm. He reminds himself with that Selah that however much evil swirls about him, he is not its victim. He must not surrender to it. Lady Macbeth told her husband to “screw his courage to the sticking place,” and this appears to be what David – albeit righteously – was telling himself to do.

I am tempted to substitute the name Jesus where I see a Selah in scripture. I don’t think it breaks any rules, personally.

My heart is broken. Jesus.

I’m hanging on by a thread. Jesus.

Lord, I don’t understand. Jesus.

My only hope is you. Jesus.

This too shall pass. Jesus.

Once upon a time, twelve men sat for an important gospel meal. The scene was humming with observable tension as it was the last Passover in which Jesus would take part. While he was speaking, John, we are told, leaned against his Messiah’s breast. Although the atmosphere was charged, the beloved disciple anchored himself to the Rock.

Think of Selah, then, as pressing into Jesus. Selah, where you don’t fix or defend or try to figure out. You listen. You wait. You trust. You are still.

Like a tree.

a green olive tree

David imagines himself in verse 8 as a tree, but not just any tree. He is God’s tree, a temple tree. He was a well-manicured olive tree, not some scrub tree out in the wild. His roots were resolutely screwed into the sticking place of holy soil.

David, consummate lover of nature, appreciated the beautiful trees in Jerusalem. Adorning the temple grounds, no doubt, were flowering olive trees whose aroma misted the air. He knew they provided the oil for worship in the holy place and said “I’m one of those trees.”

Before I’m anything, I’m a worshipper of God. The Lord made me to love him and enjoy him forever. Doegs and Sauls and Goliaths come and go, but I’m rooted in the faithfulness of God.

The thing about olive trees: they are capable of surviving the worst that life can dish out. There’s an olive tree in Crete that is close to 3,000 years old. Believe me, it’s seen some stuff. Paul was shipwrecked by a horrible storm that drove him into the sands of Crete in Acts 27. That tree is still producing olives today.

I’m one of those trees. I’m precious to God. He is invested in protecting me, so I will not be defeated by those who wish ill upon me. The times I’m living in will not get the best of me. I’m living in the Land of Selah.

Let that cruel dog Doeg and his ilk be who they are, they won’t affect me. They can choose evil but I will stay planted here in the garden of the Lord.

What are you going through right now, beloved? What’s got your goat? Who’s oppressing you? That hard thing in your life may be a person, it may be a condition, it may be a situation. Your hardship hurts even more because it’s out of your control and it’s not letting up. I get it.

Step back like David did and see the bigger picture. See a Land called Selah. Can you see it? Now look closer and see a City in that Land called Peace. Picture yourself there, planted in its soil, loved and cherished and protected by God. You may not think so, but you are thriving. It may feel like you’re losing, but God sees olives in you.

Let them cancel you. Let the situation play out. Ignore the lying voices inside your head. Screw your courage to the sticking place and hang your hope on the sure peg of Selah. Hollywood is going to be what it is. Politicians will be who they are. The world and its pleasures are passing away; let them go the way of the dust. Stand your ground, Olive Tree. It’s okay. He’s got this. He’s got you. You’re safe. Just be still, stay rooted, and “trust in his unfailing love” (v8).

Selah, beloved. Jesus.

secrets between friends

[6 minutes]

Feast your eyes a moment on this surprising promise from the Psalms:

The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.
Psalm 25:14

I’m blessed with a close circle of friends. They know less about me than Sandy but far more than anyone else. They are trusted confidants and counselors; a few know my secret burdens and carry them in their hearts and into their prayer rooms. They know God, God knows them, and they know me.

The psalmist (David) had a friendship with God that would make any of us swoon. A man after God’s own heart, the Lord reminds us more than once. They shared secrets. God knew David’s best and worst moments and David was dialed in to God’s heart like no one else who ever lived. Abraham knew God as a close friend and Moses knew Yahweh face to face. But David was entwined with God’s very heart.

The word “friendship” in the above verse is weighty. In the original it suggests being in one’s inner circle. It describes a relationship in which one feels confident confiding in or telling closely guarded secrets to the other.

Wouldn’t it be something to be the person that God always finds in a crowded room? Picture this: you’re in a place that is buzzing with activity and suddenly He leans in and whispers something that lights up your soul. In a room full of people, you are the one he picks. How cool would that be?

I’m not talking about God playing favorites. It’s just that you’ve proven yourself to be trustworthy and loyal over time and He sees your sincerity. He taps into that. Just as the squeaky wheel gets the oil, the hungry heart gets the meal.

One of the proverbs says, “It’s the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search out a matter.” This is what I’m getting at.

There are forty-eleven ways I could go with this, but I’m focusing on only one today: getting the people of God into the Word of God for the good of their souls and glory of God.

Instagram verses aren’t bad — at all. But they’re crumbs. I don’t mean that negatively, for they do serve a purpose. Bible memes should be used as appetizers for a bigger feast. What I’m talking about is spreading an open Bible on your lap and devouring portions of scripture until one of them spurs a thought that transcends normal ditties. Until God presses in and whispers something sacred into your spirit.

Here now, I’m not imploring us legalistically but rather lovingly. Treating God’s Word as an occasional snack will lead to spiritual emaciation and weakness. There is a famine in the church today and we’ll not fare well within this weird world until we become people whom God finds in a crowded, noisy room, pulls us into Himself, and instructs us.

Isaiah warned us about tromping through the minefields of life without proper intel. He offered a better way when he said,

And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
Isaiah 30:20-21

Scripture are the very words of the Eternal God. Peter told Jesus the only thing keeping him hanging tough in a fluid world were the words with which the Savior shepherded him. Those jots and tittles were life to the wobbly disciple.

We wonder why we don’t get more out of our Bible reading. It’s awfully dry for our taste. Why isn’t the ink more wet?? Could it be that we aren’t approaching His Word with the desperateness and reverence of Peter? Where else will I find what’s true and real and living?

You’re not going to find it on the back of a cereal box or in a tweet. No celebrity preacher can fill the dearth in your soul. We may get crumbs but we’ll never get change.

Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart.

—Jeremiah 15:16

“A joy.” Yeah, that’s it. Let us go to the Word with that on our lips. Make your Word a joy to my heart today, Jesus. Tell me something I don’t know. Amen.

Christian people will attend conventions, plunge into all kinds of Christian work, read many good books about the Bible and Christian living; but they give the Bible itself the most cursory and superficial heed. And it is for this reason that the Bible does not speak to them.
If you would know all the wondrous beauty of a forest glade, you must not be satisfied with passing through it with hasty foot and in company with a troop of merry children whose ringing laughter carries panic into the hearts of thousands of shy living things that, with trembling hearts, keep still in hole and brake and nest. No, you must go alone and sit quietly down on the log of some felled tree and wait. Then the mystery of beauty will begin to unfold itself: the fairy bowers, the mossy glens, the interlacing boughs. Presently a note will sound from yonder bough, as the signal for the outburst of many sweet-voiced choristers, and the woodland will ring with the music of the birds while the squirrel runs up some neighboring tree, and the rabbits come out to feed, and the young foxes play about their holes.
All this is hidden from those who cannot wait. So there are mysteries of glory and beauty in Scripture hidden from the wise and prudent but revealed to babes. There is no book that will so repay time spent over its pages as the Word of God.
If the people who are now perpetually running about to meetings for crumbs of help and comfort, would only stay at home and search their Bibles, there would be more happiness in the Church and more blessing on the world.
– F. B. Meyer

That’s it for now. Hope it helps.

Selah, beloved.