I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.  For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.  Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;  if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching;  the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness. – Romans 12:1-8 (ESV)

Sometimes we struggle to find where musicians fit within the list of spiritual gifts in the New Testament.  If you are teacher, you are called to teach. If your gift is hospitality, then you are to encourage others. If your gift is giving, then do it generously. If your gift is prophecy, then prophesy and preach. Where and how do the musicians minister?  To that question, I have good news. Musicians are mentioned at the end of Romans 12:1-8. “The one who leads, with zeal.”  If you are up in front of a group, people you are leading. Whether it’s through verbal contributions, melodic contributions, facial expressions, or body posture, people are following you. Are you aware that you are being followed? When you are on stage singing in the choir, you are being followed. The definition of zeal is this: Great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective. Isn’t that a great definition for Worship Leaders?  Great energy in pursuit of a cause. Well, what is our cause? To worship God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to encourage others to join us! You know what that tells me? It tells me that if my gift is to lead then it is a sin to appear boring. We are all leaders, and we have been told to lead with ZEAL. If we’re not doing that, we are going against God’s commands. So what can we do as leaders to obey this instruction to lead with zeal? Because let’s be honest, a lot of times we don’t feel like jumping around with a whole bunch of energy at church. Sometimes we are in bad moods. Sometimes it’s been a rough week. What can we do to prepare our hearts to lead in worship with zeal every week? I have a couple of ideas:

First: Ask God to help us by His Spirit. Do you ask God to speak to you on Saturday night? Do you go to bed early and prepare your heart for Sunday morning? Do you read the Scripture passage for the following morning? Do you read your Bible Saturday night? A congregational worship service is the most important meeting of the week, and a lot of times we drag in here totally exhausted! Go to bed early. Prepare your heart. Ask God to help you as you lead others in worship.

Second: Expect God to speak to you at our corporate meetings. Listen to what he is saying to you. God constantly speaks to His people throughout the New Testament at their corporate meetings. Do we think He’s somehow stopped in our century? I think we expect to hear God’s voice in our daily devotions and time alone with God. Personally, I think He speaks far more clearly in our corporate meetings. It’s the purpose of meeting together. We encourage and exhort each other; we teach each other; and we hear God speak.

Third: Respond to what you sense the Spirit is saying or doing.  If you have asked for God’s active presence, and are listening for the Spirit’s leading, it should be evident through your faith-filled obedience that he really is working in our midst. That means you might feel moved to pray for someone in the middle of the music and worship time. It means God might move you to go over and encourage a brother or sister. Respond to what the Holy Spirit moves you to do.

That is how we prepare our hearts, now what can we do as musicians to lead with zeal?

SING SKILLFULLY

So that you can focus on God and serve the church. Singing skillfully allows you to lead with zeal. Bob Kauflin says, the difference between fruitfulness and ineffectiveness is skill. God wants us to use our musical gifts skillfully. In Psalm 33:3, David wrote that musicians are to “play skillfully.”  When David looked for a Levite to lead singing at the temple, he picked Kenaniah, “because he was skillful at it” (1 Chronicles 15:22).

Here’s a passage from 1 Chronicles 25 regarding worship instructions at the temple.

They were all under the direction of their father in the music in the house of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres for the service of the house of God.  Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman were under the order of the king.  The number of them along with their brothers, WHO WERE TRAINED IN SINGING TO THE LORD, all who were SKILLFUL, was 288.

Do you want to know what Jennifer’s job is each week when we meet together? To train you in singing to the Lord. This has been going on since the construction of the temple. God wants us to be skillful in singing so that we can stir people’s hearts in worship because music can move people. I take that back, good music can move people. Bad music doesn’t move people, except to cover their ears. Their hands move from their side, to their ears. When we sing skillfully and know our parts we are able to focus on the One we are singing too. We are able to worship God as we sing, and encourage others, and invite them to join us.  Know your part in our choral anthems. Sing skillfully.

HAVE A JOYOUS COUNTENANCE.  Psalm 34:5 says, “Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.”  So when we lead others in worship, and we are looking to God, it ought to show on our faces. We shouldn’t be making confused faces because we lost our place in the anthem.  We shouldn’t be cringing because people are singing the wrong notes. We shouldn’t look completely uninterested and bored out of our mind, because that makes God look boring. It makes it look like it’s a burden to worship the God who redeemed you, and saved you from your sins. We don’t want to make God look like that. We are leading with ZEAL! Our faces should be radiant.

Lastly, BE EXPRESSIVE IN YOUR PRAISE. Singing is not the only way to worship God. We are to offer our “entire bodies as a living sacrifice.” There are many other physical expressions that are used throughout the Bible to worship God.

1. Singing (Psalm 5:11, 7:17, Zeph. 3:17)
2. Raised hands (Psalm 28:2, 63:4, 119:48)
3. Clapping (Psalm 47:1, 98:8)
4. Shouting (Psalm 20:5, 27:6, 66:1)
5. Bowing (Psalm 5:7)
6. Kneeling (Psalm 95:6)
7. Standing in awe (Psalm 22:23)
8. Playing instruments (Psalm 150, Revelation 15:2)

I don’t want to spend too much time on this tonight because I think that a study of physical expression in worship is worth a devotional in itself. Yet, I will say this, the congregation will never engage in expressive worship that surpasses what is being modeled by the Worship Leaders. If all we do is stand like statues looking bored, we cannot expect the congregation to engage in moving, heartfelt worship.  There are appropriate times to shout; there are appropriate times to kneel; there are appropriate times to stand in awe.  The important thing to remember is that the congregation will never surpass what they see modeled by us, and our ZEAL for worship. This all starts with the WORSHIP LEADERS.

I’d like to close with a quote by Martin Luther about the importance of music:

“Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. It controls our thoughts, minds, hearts, and spirits…This precious gift has been given to man alone that he might thereby remind himself that God has created man for the express purpose of praising and extolling God. However, when man’s natural musical ability is whetted and polished to the extent that it becomes an art, then do we note with great surprise the great and perfect wisdom of God in music, which is, after all, His product and His gift; we marvel when we hear music in which one voice sings a simple melody, while three, four, or five other voices play and trip lustily around the voice that sings its simple melody and adorn this simple melody wonderfully with artistic musical effects, thus reminding us of a heavenly dance, where all meet in a spirit of friendliness, caress and embrace. A person who gives this some thought and yet does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs.”

 We have an important job when we lead people in worship each week. Worship matters to God and he wants our leadership to reflect the awesome gift of salvation that he has given us. So let your faces be radiant, let your music and your hearts and your actions be expressive and accurately portray the One you are singing too.

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