We Praise What We Love

It's Valentine's Day, a high Hallmark holy day for our culture's obsession with romantic love. I used to be pretty cynical about Valentine's Day (OK, as I re-read what I just wrote I guess I still am) but, at the same time, I'm all for spending time with your spouse and expressing affection in tangible ways. I even like those hard candy hearts with the little messages on them. In small doses.

But as I think about the ways in which movies, books and songs - let's just be honest about this - IDOLIZE romantic love, there is an interesting connection to be drawn between what we love and what we praise.

C.S. Lewis in his book Reflections on the Psalms says this:

The most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or anything—strangely escaped me. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise…lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside.…My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us as regard to the supremely Valuable what we delight to do, what indeed we cannot help doing, about everything else we value. I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment.

Lewis’ observation is true: we can't help but praise what we love...we gush about it, we celebrate it, we shout it out on Facebook. Think back to when you were dating your future spouse – how you couldn’t wait to tell your circle of friends about their best qualities. There were times where you couldn’t stop thinking about him or her, for they had captured your heart’s affection.

Our praise and worship of God ought to flow naturally out of a heart that loves Him – His character, His works, His fellowship. Having experienced His love (and faithfulness, forgiveness, protection, etc.) firsthand, we are moved to praise Him and motivated to let others know of His goodness. Read the Psalms and you’ll see that the psalmist follows the same pattern.

We praise what we love. I love Jesus. Not as consistently as I want to, and not with as great a degree of obedience as I should. I know I am not worthy of His love, but I know that while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me. That's worthy of my praise.

God is Able

This Sunday we are introducing another new song called "God is Able." P. Brian Rice will be preaching from Philippians 4:13, where Paul says that "I can do all this through him who gives me strength." I think this song will help us 1) prepare our hearts to hear from God's Word, and 2) respond to what we have heard through declaring this truth together.

Like any worship song, it is a means by which we might connect with God - or, as Constance Cherry says in her book Worship Architect - have a dialogue with Him.

On this Monday morning, I encourage you to take 5 minutes of your day and watch this video of Hillsongs performing "God is Able". Sure, you could check out what the musicians are doing, or the platform presence aspect - but I want you to just receive the message of this song. I want our hearts to be filled with this truth - that God is with us, for us, able to do immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine.

Sin Has No Hold on Me

We recently introduced a song called "Victory" from Gateway Worship to our congregation. It's a simple, singable song that focuses on the freedom we have in Christ - specifically, our freedom from sin. It was beautiful to hear so many voices singing out this truth on a Sunday morning. I love that every time we gather as the church we have a fresh opportunity to remind one another of who we are in Christ. This is what the Apostle Paul was getting at when he commanded the Ephesians to "speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs" (Eph. 5:20). He understood that corporate singing would be an effective means of affirming and cementing core truths.

As I was working through the lyrics of “Victory” I came to the bridge:

Sin has no hold on me
Sin has no hold on me

It’s a simple line that gets repeated several times. And it’s as if, the more I sang it, the more my heart was gripped by the reality it was affirming. I think my voice grew stronger every time I sang it out in my office. I flipped my Bible to Romans, chapter 6:

…For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. (Rom. 6:6-7)

The phrase “sin has no hold on me” summarizes the reality that Paul spells out in Romans 6. Being crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20) we now, through the Holy Spirit, are able to say “no” to sin and “yes” to God. How I need to hear this over and over again, especially in the face of those sins that so easily entangle. I need to be reminded that, in Christ, sin’s stranglehold has been dealt a mighty blow. I need to embrace this reality on a daily basis – putting off the old, putting on the new. Where once I was bound to sin (enslaved is what Paul says), I am no longer its captive.

The reality is, on this side of eternity, you and I will still struggle with sin. But when we cooperate with the Spirit’s work in our lives we can increasingly experience victory over those besetting sins. We ask for His grace and strength to keep growing in holiness as a grateful response to God’s mercy. And we know that when we fail, His mercies are new every morning.

I leave you with the words of Puritan pastor Thomas Brooks:

“The Lord has stripped sin of all its ruling, reigning, domineering, and tyrannizing power. O Christian, look upon sin as dead! It is not to be obeyed, and not to be acknowledged. The Lord Jesus has given sin a mortal wound by his death and Spirit…thus sin shall never recover its strength and shall die a lingering death in the souls of the saints.”