Whatever You Do...

survival you can follow along in the back of your order of worship. So I say to you, you hear the word of God. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Let us pray. Father, I pray this morning that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, that you would give us grace as we talk about what many people think as a difficult subject, and yet Paul seems to think it should have been the easiest subject of all. So I pray that you be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. In Christ's name we pray these things, amen, and amen. If you've been here for the past few weeks, you'll remember that I've been likening the book of Colossians to the television show What Not To Wear, that basically it's a theological version of that. And if you remember the television show What Not To Wear, you know, someone writes a letter about their mother, let's say, and they'll say, she's a fashion nightmare, can you help her out? And then the consultants will come in and they'll tell them basically, here's what you should be wearing. What you're wearing is hideous. Here's what you should be wearing. And then they'll spend the rest of the show sort of accessorizing with everything else. And in the book of Colossians, that's basically what Paul does with the Colossians and ultimately with us. He comes in and says, here's what you're wearing now and it's tedious. It's your sin. It's your own self-righteousness, which is as filthy rags. It's no good. What you should be wearing is the righteousness of Jesus. That's the only thing that can make you look good in the eyes of God. And the righteousness of Jesus can be had by faith. By trusting in his work for you on the cross. And then as soon as he nails that point down, he begins to accessorize, if you will. He tells us what not to wear from our old wardrobe, anger, wrath, malice, sexual immorality, idolatry, all those things you shouldn't wear. And the reason we shouldn't wear those things is because they divide community. Remember after he says all the things you shouldn't wear, he said, because here in the church, if you will, there is no Jew, no Greek, slave, no pre those kinds of things that you should be unified. And the things you shouldn't be wearing will bring disunity. And then last week we talked to what you should be wearing and what you should be wearing. Remember he said his God's chosen ones put on humility and kindness and compassion and love, which binds them all together. In other words, we put on these good things in order to do what, in order to not only live out the gospel, but also to live with each other, right? It would be really easy to live out the gospel, were it not for each other. It's sort of the old joke like ministry would be really easy if it wasn't for all of you. But that's the point, isn't it? The Paul's telling us, how do we live before God and the way that Jesus would have us live? But ultimately also, how do we live with each other? That's where it matters because if we can't live with each other, we're really not living before God. And it's interesting because I often, as I'm thinking through these things, I'm constantly thinking about them and I'll envision myself in different scenarios. What if I was having a conversation with the Apostle Paul, and I thought two things this week because when you're reading the Apostle Paul, if you're thoughtful, you can anticipate where he's going, whatever question, if you stop at a place and go, if that's true, then what about this? You can anticipate where he's going to go next. You couldn't anticipate what he, I read to you this morning based on what he had just said. These are two things. If you remember last week, I made the point that Paul's really telling us that there are some cases in which it is wrong to be right. Sometimes it's wrong to be right. You may be right, but for the sake of unity, if it's a non-essential issue, it's better that you be wronged. Forgive one another, as the Lord has forgiven you. So on one hand, it's sometimes it's wrong to be right. On the other hand, if you ask the question, well, Paul, what's the best context in which to encourage one another toward unity, in the best context, to edify and build up one another within the church, the last thing I would expect him to say, and if he said it to my face, I would have no doubt left, is worship. Oh, where's the place where people's getting along and people's unity and everything should be the most, in front of the world, and Paul says, worship. Where should I encourage people toward unity, worship? Now why would that make me laugh because, you know, after nearly 20 years in the ministry, most of the conflicts that I've seen in church have to do with worship. Out of all the letters, I haven't received a lot lately, people were worried this morning, but of all the letters I've seen in the past 15 years or so, the sort of nasty discouraging letters, probably 70% of them had to do with worship. And I'm guessing in the history of this church, if you ask the elders, how many letters like that, they'd receive it would be probably at least that much. People are very passionate about the issue of worship to the point where it divides, and you know, you hear worship wars, and yet Paul says it should be the place where it's a no-brainer. If you don't get along anywhere else, it should be right here, and it should just be around this one thing. And so the question is, why don't we get it? Why do we fight about it so much? And my contention, at least from what Paul says here, is that we really don't understand the gospel just like every other problem we have. The natural outworking of what Paul taught us last week about what Jesus has done for us and his grace will be the way we worship. So we're going to look at three things this morning, if you're a note-taker. The first thing we're going to look at is the engine of worship. The second thing we're going to look at is the practice of worship and the third thing we're going to look at is the extent of worship. Before I talk about those three things, though, I think it'd be helpful to sort of define some terms, because people think different things when you say worship or anything else. And so for the sake of what I'm saying today, worship basically has to define worship first. And it has basically two definitions, sort of a subjective definition and an objective definition, or a theoretical definition and a practical definition. And the theoretical definition is something along the lines of thankful awe, or thankful reverence, or thankful giving of praise. It's hard to capture. And as I thought about it, it's captured in some wedding vows that I often used. What does it mean to worship on a subjective level? You see, whenever someone comes and they say, Tommy, will you marry us? And I say, assuming I say yes, you know, I basically will sit down with them and I'll say, I've got two wedding services. I've got one that's a very traditional Presbyterian, it's really good. And I've got one over here that's really cool. And the one that's really cool is really cool because it comes from the 12th century. It's medieval. And so the language tends to make people in the congregation their eyes pop when you read some of it. And the thing that is most cool about the whole thing, and I love watching the congregation as I'm reading the words to the couple, it's when the giving and receiving of rings, both the wife and the husband say this, you know, I'd say take the ring and the husband will take the ring and he will say, you know, Sally, whatever her name is, with this ring, I the wed, with my body, I the worship. And to the all my worldly goods, I to the endow, with this ring, I the wed, with my body, I worship, and with all my worldly goods, I give to you. And some, I love people's iPop, you know, because theologians out there are saying, well, that's idolatry. It wasn't to them because they didn't mean the same thing. In that sense, worship means everything that I am I'm giving to you. Not just with my mouth, not just in the vows, but when we leave from this ceremony, everything that I am including my body is yours. It's completely and utterly committed to you and to making you look good, making us look good together and to be completely bound to you forever. That's worship. And so when you think about worship of God, it's the same thing. And if that doesn't do it for you, I was thinking this week, it's sort of the attitude of my dog, Ransom, when I've got cheese. Right? The girls and Judy were out of town and they left Ransom with me and he, we can never get him to come when we call him and I thought, I'll fix his wagon. So I got a whole bunch of cheese and I went outside and I'd throw the tennis ball and he'd just sit out there and I'd hold up a piece of cheese, Ransom. And he's like, he's like, Toto from the Wizard of Oz, his little ears would go up and he could not get back fast enough. After that a couple of times, he lived for me. I'd walk around, cheese my hand, everything, he could not take his eyes off me. He was enamored. That's worship. That's subjective. It's hard to get your hands around exactly what it means because it means so many things, but just try and get a grasp on that sort of subjective sense of like reverence and all. And the other side, practically speaking, what is worship, well, the best definition that I know of is in the context of the church. It simply means the rehearsing of God's saving deeds in history. In whatever form you choose to do that, whatever your cultural background, you're rehearsing what God has done in history for the church and for you, practically speaking. It's a rehearsal service every week. So why is there any problem with that? Well the problem is because basically in the church there are two camps. There's a contemporary camp and I'm going to call a traditional camp or a historic camp. Now what's the problem with the contemporary camp? The contemporary camp, generally speaking, I know after this people are not going to agree with what I say, but that's fine, write a letter, don't sign it, because I don't read them if you don't get that joke. Basically on one hand, we need to stop spending so much time thinking about history and tradition. We need to jettison that. And what we need to do is we need to elevate pop culture. We need to elevate so that people can understand. So history is denigrated and pop culture is elevated. So that's one issue that they have, but also they tend to emphasize the imminence of God or the very presence of God. Everything is in me and God, me and God. And so it's very right here, God is my friend. That's not necessarily wrong unless that's the only thing you do. You see at the other end of the continuum, you have people who, what's called traditional worship and everyone's somewhere in between, traditional worship on one hand, elevates history, and tends to denigrate popular culture. And instead of emphasizing the presence of God and the immediacy of God, it tends to emphasize the transcendence of God. And if that's all you do, you're missing something. So I'm going to tell you, surprise, surprise, guess what? They need each other. You see because if you're going to, if you're going to elevate culture, the question you have to ask is what culture gets elevated? Should it be Anglo culture? Should it be white culture? Should it be black culture? Should it be Latin American culture? If you're going to elevate one culture and say this is the way it should always be done, which one is it going to be? I'm going to tell you which one it always is in a minute. The next issue is when you think about the traditional side and you want to elevate, if you want to elevate history and tradition, the question is who's history and who's tradition are you going to elevate? What point are you going to stop? Is it going to be 15th century, 16th century, 17th century, 18th century? What are you going to do? No one really knows, do they? I mean, everyone knows in their own heart, which is why it's one of the reasons that it's wrong to be right here oftentimes. But the other issue is that in my opinion, in my ministry, almost every discussion I've ever heard of worship, almost everyone at the end of the day always has come down to the issue of personal preference, what I like and what I care about and what I think is important. And you can come and make a case that this is the most godly or that's the most biblical, but at the end of the day, it's really your preference. As long as you're willing to admit that, we can talk. So what does Paul say about worship here? On one hand, he says some very specific things. On the other hand, he makes things very general. You see the thing is the Bible gives us several mandates that are supposed to happen in worship, but it never gives us an order of service. I mean, more than anyone else, I wish there was sort of a Psalm 151 that was just an order of service. You do this every time and you'll be good, but the Bible doesn't do that. So we've got to figure it out ourselves at some level. So the first thing we need to figure out is what is the engine of worship? What drives it? What should drive all worship? First part of first 16 there, Paul says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. That's it. He's memories talking to the community, that's a plural you. He's not saying let the word of Christ dwell in you personally richly, although I'm sure he would say that. He's talking about the community and what does he mean when he says let the word of Christ dwell in you richly? Most evangelicals, if he said, what does he mean by the word of Christ, you'd say, well, let's pry the Bible, the word of God, right? And the answer was no. I'm not saying that it shouldn't, but if you think about it, Paul didn't have the Bible back then. He had the Old Testament, but he didn't have the New Testament, which is what we would typically talk about as the word of Christ. So it must mean something else and probably a better translation would be something like this, let the message of Christ dwell among you richly, let the message of the gospel of Christ dwell among you richly. In other words, surprise, surprise, the gospel itself is the engine of worship. The gospel not only should drive our worship, but the gospel informs our worship. How does the gospel drive our worship as the engine? Because when you begin to think about it, what is worship, back to the definition? Worship is a rehearsal of God saving deeds in history. And what has God done in our history as a church? And I don't mean recent history. I mean, all the way back to the beginning, he delivered Israel from Egypt, promising he would eventually send a redeemer. Then eventually he sends Jesus and eventually even you personally trust Jesus. Is that a reason to worship? Is that not like cheese to ransom? Is that not something where you would constantly be enamored with? Look at what this man, Jesus has done for me. What is the gospel? The gospel is just this, that Jesus lived the life that you and I should have lived and he died the death that we should have died and because of that, we now can have a relationship with God. Are you a Christian here? Because if you have one simple question, do you really believe that? Do you? If you're not a Christian, let me ask you, have you ever thought about that? Do you believe that or would you be willing to consider that because once you're willing to consider that, it affects every other area of life, particularly worship. And so what's the issue with worship? The engine of worship is this message of Jesus. And if the engine of worship is the message of Jesus or the gospel of Jesus, let me tell you what that makes every worship service by definition. It makes every single worship service that you have ever gone to by definition, whether it is successful or unsuccessful, evangelistic in nature. You see one of the big issues in the church, one of the big struggles in the church is whether worship services should be evangelistic, in other words, or should they be seeker senses, should they try and just pander to people who don't trust Jesus, or should they just be for edification? In other words, it's just us here. Let's just talk about what we know is true. And if you look at the Bible, it's always both. If you look through the Old Testament, what is God constantly telling Israel to do in the Psalms? I read you one at the call of the worship, praise my name before the nations. He's constantly telling the nation of Israel to praise his name in front of all the unbelieving nations. We're going to look in the fall at David and Goliath. Remember David's slaves, Goliath, he tells him why God did that. You can imagine on one hand you have the Philistines, on the other hand you have the Israel. He said in this one event, the reason that God did this was so that you Philistines would know that there's a God in Israel. And so that you Israel would know that God does not deliver by sword or by chariot. That every worship service is evangelistic by definition, because if you're a Christian, you need to be evangelized just as much as the person who doesn't know Jesus, unless you've somehow become completely and utterly like Jesus and you never need to be reminded of his finished work for you. You never need to be reminded of what he's done and how he's done it and what he means to you, because that is evangelism. My job is a pastor. Before I became a pastor of an established church and when I was a church planner isn't an evangelist. I've been evangelized people who don't know Jesus and people who do know Jesus because the only thing that we have is Jesus. And the job, in my opinion of the pastor, is to constantly be bringing you back to that. That's the engine. So the engine of worship is the gospel and by definition worship is always evangelistic. People are always worried about that when you say that because they're afraid that you're going to try and just make people comfortable. And the apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 14 that the goal of the church is not to make people who are not believers comfortable. So if you're not a believer, I hope you're feeling very uncomfortable right now, not real. The goal of the church ought to be not necessarily to make worship comfortable, but to make worship intelligible. Remember when Paul was, he was writing about the speaking of tongues in 1 Corinthians 14. People wonder what to do and I'm summarizing here, obviously. The Paul basically says whatever happens, when the barbarian walks in the back of the narthex, he needs to understand what's going on. He's certainly not comfortable, because remember if Paul says that if he understands what's going on, then he's going to be convicted of his sin and fall on his face and worship. So comfort isn't the issue, the question is, do you understand what's going on? And I hope that helps you understand why it is I explain things so often. And I hear every now and then, I used to hear it more in the past, you know, every week you say, God, always initiates with that, you say the same thing, we've got it. I say it in my sleep. My first response to that is good. If you're saying in your sleep, you've finally got the point where I am. That's where you need to be. The second thing is, there's a lot of other people here for whom it's the first time here. And as a church, our responsibility is to make sure they know what's going on. Have you ever been to a church? I'm a pastor and I get frustrated when I go to a church and I don't have a clue of what's going on, when I should stand, when I should sit, why we're doing this, it drives me crazy. How much more so for someone who's nervous already and checking things out, should they not be able to understand what's going on? It might not be comfortable, but at least it'll be intelligible. So that's the engine, is the gospel. What about the practice of worship? Paul gives us some broad categories here. And as many biblical scholars as you read about what I'm going to say next, you will have probably that many different opinions and what you're going to get today is what I think is right, obviously, or I wouldn't say it. But let's look next at the practice of worship. Paul says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. How should that happen, Paul? Teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Okay, so the gospel should be the engine of worship. How's it supposed to be the engine? He says first, by teaching and admonishing one another. More earlier in the letter, he said we should be teaching and admonishing. He was the one who teaches and admonishes. Teaching is positive, instruction, admonishment is negative. He says here, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, don't go off half-cocked in all wisdom. And the interesting thing is most translators here, it doesn't say it shouldn't, it might be better to say teaching and admonishing one another with all wisdom, not just comma singing psalms hymns and spiritual songs, but having the word by in there, by teaching and admonishing by singing psalms hymns and spiritual songs. In other words, one of the primary places that we are to encourage each other and admonish each other and to teach one another is in the context of worship. And if you think about it, when you sing a hymn, you're praising God, but at the same time the people around you are hearing you, are they not, they should be. You see, worship is directed toward God, but it also has a wide birth that it carries and it should also affect those around us. If you're not a Christian, you might sing something and for the first time you get it. If you are a Christian, you sing something for the millionth time and it makes you cry every time. It's not so easy as saying it needs to be this or it needs to be that. And Paul tells us that, he gives us basically three things that should be happening in worship. Psalms hymns and spiritual songs. Some commentators say that all three of those things are just synonyms for one another and Paul's using it for emphasis. I don't believe that because I don't think Paul would waste his time like that. And also the early church read that verse very differently than just saying it's generic. So the best that I can do for you is say what the early church thought about these things when they say psalms hymns and spiritual songs. Here's what worship should look like or at least here's what it should include in its practice. The first is psalms. If you ever heard anyone say that every week, why should the psalms be included in worship because psalms first and foremost are the baseline. They're the hymn book of Israel, they're the hymn book of the church, and they are the baseline to teach us what it means to worship. Because when you look at the psalms, you see both the immanence of God or the fact that God is right here with you and you see the transcendence of God. The psalms don't pick one or the other, but also the psalms teaches how to praise God. They teach us how to adore Him at and how to confess our sins. They teach us all that stuff. And so the psalms are the baseline for worship. And by the way, the Greek word there for psalms indicates that there's psalms to be played on strings, solo. The next thing in the list is hymns. What does it mean by hymns? Again, people disagree, but probably something like hymns. In other words, the psalms are the baseline for worship, but there's also a place for people in the church to capture and record the church's theological history and the church's theological tradition. And I've told people in the first service, you know what the most important theological book that you find in any church, right here. You should have one in front of you in the pews. You want to know what book, if you come up to me and say, you know what, if I could just get one book to learn all my theology, what should I get, training Him? In fact, it's so important to remember when I first came on, it became the senior pastor, you know, the first orders of business that was enabled by some very gracious folks was to change the hymns from what we had. Because at least in the EPC, a senior pastor, you're responsible for what goes on in worship, but also for the spiritual nurture of your congregation. And for me to have to do that, I needed to be able to trust the theology of the hymnal. And if you want to learn theology, sing your hymns. A lot of you know a lot more theology than you think you do because you know a lot of hymns. You see the great thing about hymns, if you say, I only want contemporary music and I only want praise music, what you in fact are saying is that what God has done in the last 2,000 years is worthless. You see, one of the primary ways we need to integrate our kids into the church and to teach our kids good theology is to make sure they know the hymns of the church. Do your kids know hymns? And by the way, I'm not a hymn only guy even though I am old school, but that portion is just as important. Do you know that theology of your church? In fact, a lot of the hymns, you see them in the New Testament where you see it sort of set aside, little creeds and things, and this morning after, instead of the doxology, I asked the musicians if we could do the glory of patry, because the glory of patry most would say it was a response to heresy in the ancient church. You look in the hymnal, it's a second century AD. Remember, that's when they were arguing about whether or not Jesus was God. And apparently the heretic came up with some jingles, right? Which is, you know, oh, green, you know where that comes from, because it's a good jingle. And so how do you combat a good jingle? You come up with a better one, glory be to the Father, right? Who was in the beginning, who is and will be forever, right? And we think, I think that was jingle was better because it's still here. I don't know the pagan, there are many ones, there's not go round. So hymns are important. You can't just throw them out. But the next thing that Paul says, at least the way the early church read this, is the thing that's probably going to make most people in this room very uncomfortable, where he says songs, hymns, spiritual songs, and spiritual songs there, it's ode pneumatic, or pneumatic odes. Right? Sounds like something that you should have in a Boeing machine shop, a pneumatic ode. But in fact, what this has to do, why would it make us uncomfortable here, at least as Presbyterians? Because that last language there is a loophole for having unscripted things happen. It's the things like hallelujahs. It's the things like praise God, it's the amends that happen in church. I'm trying to move you that way. That's what some people ask. Why do you always say amen and amen? I'm trying to get, that's what we're working on. It's a more spontaneous response to what's going on in worship. And Paul said, that should be a, is there room for that in your worldview, in your, in your view of worship? Now, some places are going to be more than others last week. I did the invocation at New Beginnings Christian Fellowship, two blocks north of us. Great service. But it was amazing to me, if you're not familiar with the church, it's primarily an African-American church. I got up to do the invocation, they gave me three minutes and it took me five. But that's because I got more amends in five minutes there than I've gotten in five years here. And you know, that's one way to worship and it's not always right and you know, they've got issues as well. But the fact is the more someone is responding, the more you want to keep going, don't you? I could have probably kept going all day. And I think after I left, I'm sure their pastor did. But it helped me understand why, why their worship service is a run-long. Man, we got to be out of here by 11, 15 or else we're in trouble, 12, 15, right? We have to beat the Baptist to lunch, shouldn't be that way, shouldn't be that way. Are we open to what the Holy Spirit might do? And on an advocating, any this particular thing, but we complain about, well, I can't believe that they did this kind of worship versus that kind of worship. And the whole time, are you asking yourself, what if the Holy Spirit showed up? Should I be willing to see that happen? If you've ever read Annie Dillard, I forget which one of her books it is, where she talks about walking into a church and being handed an order of worship and she said, if we really believed what the gospel says about Jesus and about God, they would hand out crash helmets not orders of worship. You believe that when you walk into church, because once you start feeling that way in church, once you really believe that whether they do traditional or contemporary or some mix, you see, I think the end of the day what Paul is saying here is that worship at some level needs to be blended. And we tend to think in church when we talk blended as a 50-50 compromise between this camp and that camp. All you contemporary worship people will do every other Sunday, will do your kind of music and all of you historic worshipers will do it your way the other time. And that's not the point. If you're not challenged at some level in worship, if you're only contemporary, you need to hear the history. And if you're only historical, you need to hear the contemporary, you need to hear how to reach the people around you. Because once you start to do that, then you realize that worship expands from this place to everywhere else. And that's where I'm going to finish with. The last thing is the extent of worship. Notice what Paul says. He says, and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, given thanks to God the Father through him. And be honest with you, most Christians, myself included, almost the only thing I do in the name of Lord Jesus, consciously is pray. If you don't pray in the name of Lord Jesus, I'm going to tell you about it. And Paul says, in whatever you do, in word or indeed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus to the praise of God the Father. In other words, the extent of worship is that it is not just what happens in this place, but it is all of life. Has anyone ever told you that? Remember when God placed Adam in the garden, and this is before the fall, he put him in the garden, and the Hebrew says, you should put here to work it and to keep it. And another way to translate that in the Hebrew is to worship and obey. In other words, Adam's primary worship was also his primary vocation that Adam's job and his worship were one and the same. And in the gospel of Jesus, once he begins to redeem people, the same happens for you. What do you do? Are you a builder, are you a lawyer, are you a builder, are you a machinist, are you a mom? What do you do? Because whatever you do, not only matters to God, but it is your primary outworking of worship. Do you believe that when you go to work in the morning, do you go to work saying, I can't wait to get there because this is what God has given me and the venue he's given me in which to worship today by word and by deed. Even how different the world would look, if just Christians treated their jobs as if they were worshiped, do you think it would look different? I think it would, but you can't treat your job as if it were worship unless you first understand the engine of worship. Do you really understand the gospel? And whenever your job begins to feel like drudgery and toil, either one of two things needs to happen, either one, you may need to find a different job. But the other thing is you may just need to remind yourself of the gospel. I'm thinking right now, Judy reminded me the other day that she thinks that she has to remind me of the gospel a lot more than I remind her. It's because I'm a pastor, I always say. You see, I sitting in my office, I've got to tell myself the same thing. What I'm doing actually worship as well is just cranking out another widget or another sermon because if it is worship in and of itself, then it changes everything. And also worship by definition is what, do you remember? It's evangelistic. You want to know how to reach your friends and your neighbors right there, it says it, whatever you do in the name of the Lord Jesus with praise to God, you don't need a class in order to know how to do evangelism. What you need to know is that your work is worship, that your play is worship, and that by definition is evangelistic. I've told you the story, I'll finish with this, about when I was in college, I've worked for the Olive Garden in Tallahassee, and in Tallahassee, Florida, Olive Garden is like where you want to take your, that's where people take their prom dates, there's not a lot of fancy places in Tallahassee, and I worked there and I couldn't help, but I can't to this day, but constantly saying is I'm working, even here, and partly deaf, so I don't know if I can even sing well or not, but who cares, I'm deaf, so I walk up and down, and I remember walking up and down the alley at the Olive Garden, people are only salads flying, everything's going crazy, and I just, they didn't, low heat comes on clouds descending once for favored sinner's slain, thousand, thousand saints attending, join the triumphant of his name, oh come quickly, oh come quickly, I don't know why that song in particular was stuck in my head and why I sung it so loud, but at one point one of my co-workers came up and said, Tommy, I don't have two questions, why are you singing, and can you explain to me what it is you are singing, her name is Julie, and I'm going to sit down with her and break, and Julie became a Christian, and when I remember leaving several months later, they actually threw me a party to go to seminary, I think they're ready to get rid of me, and she ran out in the parking lot and flagged me down and she said, Tommy, thanks for singing, you see if your work is worshiped, it cannot help, but affect those around you, think about that, let me pray. Father, I pray that as we consider worship, there's so much more that could be said, there are classes that could be taught, there are books that could be read or written, and I pray that you, first and foremost, make us clear about the engine, the gospel message of Jesus, and then enable us to forgive and to love one another as we figure out what the rest of it should be. In Christ's name, we pray this thing, our man and our man.