I am going to try to actually write a message here; I am not a scholar of anykind, but I do believe the Holy Spirt has better words than I do, and it just so happens that He’ll be speaking for me today:) Or at least I’ll do my best to make it as LESS ABOUT little me as possible! and MOST ABOUT Him:)
This has just been spinning around inside my heart for a few days now…so much so that this message will come in three parts:) Today you get the 1st:)
I titled this ” Grasping Humility”, for the reason that I believe we sometimes all have a hard time trying to figure out if what we are doing or saying is about us, or Him…we see straight and clear and then all of a sudden like we have walked into blinding fog.
We forget who has control.
Looking back in the Gospel of Matthew 26:36-43
Jesus goes with Peter a two others away from the rest of the Disciples.
“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.”
He knew he would be crucified, He knew that THIS was his calling, and he knew that the oppurtune time was about to arrive.
“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Right here, we see that Jesus was showing a human tendency, he was offering sweat and tears of blood if instead he might ” not” have to do the whole job as Savior.
I’ve never had children, but this particular thing makes me think of childbirth.
I’m told when the mother gives that one last push before the baby comes, it is the most
painful of all of them.
But that push brings a brilliant miracle.
Just as Jesus dying for us did.
I wonder at that moment if Jesus had a vision of what the world would be like if he didn’t do what he was called to do.
He walks over to the disciples to find them sleeping when he told them to keep watch. It irritates him, and he basically just says, ” One hour is all I asked and you fall asleep…you guys better keep watch because you don’t know how much the flesh can overcome tonight.”
I think he hears his own words to them, and he thinks about it for a moment as he walks back to go pray.
” This isn’t about me.”
He gets back on his knees, and says,
“My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.”
Basically saying, ” Okay, if I have to do this,
then I humble myself before you to be in control…I’ll die if you need me to.”
This part is always so hard to take in, because its hard to imagine the God of the universe would love us enough to send his only son to die for us. And the fact that he does it willingly.
Now with that said, think about praise and worship at church.
You hear a song being played, and you think to yourself, ” I already know this one, and they play it all the time.” or ” This song is not my taste in music, can’t they ever play something upbeat?”
or ” Why is that person singing that song, they sound horrible.”
I know you are reading this thinking, that’s pretty negative, but what if I asked,
” Have you heard people have thoughts like this?”
I liked what Beth Moore was saying in ” Believing God” in regards to worship,
” God sets the tone of our praise.”
To be a people of humility, we have to realize in regards to worship that nothing about it is about us.
I’ve heard time and time again that this person or that person went to church after church trying to find one with the right music for them to get into worship.
Umm…why?
A church is a building.
What I mean by that is we have to learn to see beyond the music, we have to pay attention first to the words.
And God has SO changed my own heart on that.
I used to love to hear certain songs, and other times be like, ” Isn’t that one over yet”
but God has taught me that music isn’t for me in the first place, and I need to be active in my worship to Him, instead of being active in worship for the way it makes me feel.
Its not about feelings.
It really isn’t even about the words being sung, its about where the foundation of all of it comes from.
When I first became apart of my church, I walked in one day and saw words on the screen as the praise team was practicing. I noticed ” Psalm…” was typed at the bottom of the screen.
I asked ” Why”.
I learned for the first time that the words I sang at church, came from the Bible.
I think that is what will help us keep our focus. If we concentrate on who spoke those words.
” We are pressed but not crushed, persecuted not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed, we all blessed beyond the curse because his promise will endure and his joy’s gonna be my strength”
Does this sound familiar, its the song, ” Trading My Sorrows” and I was SO excited to recognize the same words when I read them in the Bible:)
Yep, if you didn’t know it is in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9
So next time your standing for praise at church. Maybe think of those who have stood before you.
Maybe think of that 80 year old woman who prayed to ask Jesus into her life when she was 6 years old,
and remembers, ” How Great Thou Art” like the back of her own hand.
Or picture the teenager sitting a few rows away from you who you knew just started to come to church with his family, who was used to very traditional music, but when you glance at him he seems to just almost smile because he is so content with the worship music. And it leads him to be called to be a Pastor later in life.
Or that baby in the backrow the seems to cry through the entire message, but sleeps soundly in her mother’s arms during the music.
My Pastor had profound realization for us to hear, that the song we were singing, were not songs at all, but they came from someone’s heart. Psalms of the heart.
Sunday morning, I encourage you to walk into church, find your seat, and not right away talk to everyone, but sit down and just be still…then when the music starts…you let HIM know
You are there to praise him.
Nothingelse matters.
If you can do that, one sunday at a time; ” everything else will fade like the flowers”
The focus will be what is the most important.
ON HIM ALONE.
