Listen or read the following transcript as Matt Chandler speaks on the topic of Worship from Colossians 3:1–16
The following unedited transcript is provided by Beluga AI.
Hey, if you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them. Colossians 3 is where I’m gonna hang out with you tonight.
I am the father of three children. My oldest is nine, my middle one is six, and my youngest is three. The day that each of them were born, I mean, if you’ve got kids, that’s a pretty spectacular day. You’re in the room, you and your spouse, and depending on the comfort level of your wife, maybe one other person that’s a family member, maybe there’s bleachers in there, and all of your friends and your wife’s friends are actually in there, and they’re selling concessions, and then all of a sudden, there’s another person in the room, and no one came in the door, no one came in the window, and each time that’s happened to us, now three times, I have been overwhelmed with the fact that God trusted me with this.
All right, man, like, I’m not sure where my keys are right now. I believe that they’re back at the soundboard, but I’m not sure, and God gave to me a soul that’s not mine. Now, He gave me mine, but then He gave me three other little souls, and that first day, that day walking, you know, they rough up your kid. I mean, they like come out of the womb, and then they like scrub them with like SOS pads or something, and then they put them in this thing, and you follow them down the hallway towards the nursery, unless some of you guys are hippies, and you gave birth in a bathtub, all right, biting down on a stick with some rhubarb behind your ear, and if that’s what you did, praise God, I’m glad you did it.
I would like to say that all of that pain that’s so beautiful, actually, according to the Bible, is a part of the fall, and so my wife has a whole theology of the epidural, all right, that Christ has made all things new, and so what has happened is that God has redeemed parts of the fall with common grace of drugs right into the spinal column, and so in all of that, in all of that, one of the things that continues to blow my mind is that God’s trusted me with these little things, and watching how they grow, and how you influence them, and how you shape them, and again, if you have kids, all of us have had that moment, oh, no, that’s just like me.
Well, like my nine-year-old just has quick wit, sassy mouth, and sometimes it’s so fast that I find it hard to discipline her, because I’m kind of proud, you know, like I would have said the same thing had I been in the same scenario, and so what I’m profoundly aware of right now with a nine-year-old, a six-year-old, and three-year-old is that God is actively using me and my wife to shape, mold, and form nearly every aspect of our children’s lives. Now, they have intrinsic bents. You tracking with me on that? They have intrinsic bents.
Okay, my oldest is a bit ferocious. My middle’s meek and sweet. My youngest, we just call her the Kraken, all right? I mean, she just, her natural bent is to destroy anything she can get her hands on, all right? That’s kind of their dispositions, and so they have natural dispositions, but almost all of them, all right, we can watch their behavior, and there have been times I’ve just looked over at Lauren and went, sorry, and then there have been times she’s looked at me and was like, that’s all me, that’s completely me right there, I apologize, I’ll own that, and we are actively shaping their lives, and really what we find in Ephesians 5 and 6 is that really all of that’s simply a parallel to what’s actually happening in our churches, that people are given new life, the new birth, their hearts are made alive in Jesus Christ, and when they come out of that spiritual womb, they’re a bit wobbly.
Don’t they cry a lot early on? Require quite a bit of attention early on? Lot of questions early on? Lot of confusion early on? As a pastor, as a practitioner, not just an itinerant minister, I’m telling you that people who have come to know Jesus Christ require a lot of attention if they have not grown up in settings where they’re feeding on what the Bible would call meat or pure spiritual milk, and so the later in life they are converted to Jesus Christ, the more attention they require, unless they grew up in some sort of religious background that was gospel-less and yet heavy on religion, and then, God bless them, they’re so confused about what they can do and can’t do, what they are free to do, what they’re not free to do, how they would even enter in to worship, whether they should like what you’re doing or not like what you’re doing, whether they should write.
That’s the most confused animal in the world, someone who has grown up in church under what I am persuaded is unbiblical teaching of the Bible. There’s such a thing, unbiblical teaching of the Bible who have sat under that and have been rescued by the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ but still carry on them the confusion of unbiblical preaching of the Bible, and they require a lot of time. They require a lot of energy. They will keep you up at night. All right, they are prone to stumble and fall often. They are clumsy spiritually. It will not take much for them to find a book and latch on to it as though it is the truth, rather than the truth of the Word of God, because they are confused. They require a lot of energy, a lot of effort, and look right at me. God has given those men and women His grace, which may manifest through you and me who will patiently walk, clean up their mess, put a Band-Aid on their wound, and will train, pour into, and love even if you’re a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the neglect of your own sleep for a season.
So, I’m gonna just start. I know most of us are ministers here. I tend to be far more aggressive with ministers than I am with the people that I’ve been called to shepherd, but look at me. If you’re in this thing for the stage and you’re not shepherding people, I would be very nervous about touching the stage. You belittle what God is about. It’s not about your musical proudness, all right? It’s not about your gift in melody. God is doing something much bigger than that in our midst.
And so, that takes me to Colossians 3. If you know your Bible and you know the book of Colossians, particularly the first two chapters, they are like this mountain range of Christology, this kind of beautiful unpacking of who Jesus Christ is and what Jesus Christ has done. Then, there’s the threat of false philosophy and false teaching in light of who Jesus Christ actually is. In chapter three, there’s this kind of tectonic shift in the nature of the book. He moves away from who Jesus Christ is and what Jesus Christ has done, and then he begins to really drop these kind of explosive ideas onto the mind and heart concerning what Christ has done, concerning who Christ is in regards to how we mature as believers in Jesus Christ.
So, let’s look at it together starting in verse one. I was only assigned one verse in this chapter, but I simply don’t work that way, so let’s go. Colossians 3:1,
1 If then you have been raised with Christ.. (Colossians 3:1. ESV)
So let’s stop. Is he talking to everybody now? Up until this point, he’s simply going, here’s who Jesus is, anyone who has ears, here’s what Christ has done, here’s what He’s accomplished, here’s what He’s done, and now in three, we’ve moved away from that, and he says what? “If, if you have been,” so now we’re not talking to everybody, now we’re talking to the saints.
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. (Colossians 3:1-4, ESV)
Now, I love this, because almost everyone I meet who has been baptized into Christ, who is in love with Jesus Christ, wants to grow in their relationship with Christ. And, almost all of them carry the baggage of sin and certain iniquities that haunt them, right? There are bents that I have and bents that I do not have. Like, if I walk out and head to my car tonight and someone offers me black tar heroin, I don’t need to wrestle with that. I’m not going to question, should I inject that into my veins? There’s no wrestle, there’s no pro-con list, nothing like that needs to happen. No, I’m fine. But there are things that my flesh would love to grab ahold of.
And so, honestly, one of the ways that I see evangelicals and the church, by and large, really struggling and growing in freedom from the sin that so easily entangles them, is that they begin with mortification rather than vivification. If you don’t follow the Puritans, let me unpack that for you. Basically, what he just said here is you want to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ, you want power over the sin in your life, your iniquities, your bits, what do you do? “Set your mind on things that are above where Christ is seated.” How do we mature? How do we grow? By growing in an understanding of who Jesus Christ is, what Jesus Christ has done. Get your eyes up.
So earlier in this set, we sang from the Psalms, “Lift up your head.” The posture of defeat is head down, looking at the ground, defeated, overwhelmed, but David saying, David, who we know from Hebrews 11, was by faith trusting in the Messiah’s sacrifice for him, says “Lift up your head.” Get your head up. It’s coming from a murderer, an adulterer. Get your head up. Get your head up, man. You’ve won. “Lift up your head, you sinners.”
Yeah, we fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith. Get our eyes on Jesus. You want to grow in godliness. You want people to grow in godliness. You can’t go “stop doing” before you say, “look at that.” Can’t do it. You will enslave your people if you start with, “stop that.” you have to start with, “look at that.” And to look at that is to begin to be transformed. Now, that doesn’t mean we have some other work to do. Let’s keep looking at the text.
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3:5-11, ESV)
Now, I love this text because what you just got is fix your eyes on Jesus Christ and now let’s put some things to death. It’s not, because this needs to be corrected. That’s why I love that they handed you out the little sample chapter of de young’s book. It’s not just fix your eyes on Jesus, but it’s fix your eyes on the things that are above and put to death. There is actively in you and in me a violence to put to death what is not as lovely as Jesus Christ. I don’t even think you do one before you do the other. I think you do them both simultaneously, but until you see that He is lovely, you will make no effort to put to death, therefore, what is in you. It’s been my experience.
I try to use this illustration. Years ago, I was with Bo Hughes, who’s our campus pastor in Denton, at just a little cabin out in the woods. I was actually riding at the time. I had a deadline, and so I was riding, and we’d worked all day, and I turned on the television, and there was that show When Animals Attack. Has anybody seen this? Okay, so, and in that show, When Animals Attack, there was a girl in a bikini, and they were selling shampoo or something. Man, I don’t know, and they laid her on a lion, like a lion with its giant mane. So she’s laying, she’s holding a bottle of shampoo, and the lion just ripped into her. And so they were tasing that thing and whacking it, and finally, the lion let her go, and then they’re interviewing all these people who didn’t see it coming.
All right, like they talked to the trainer, never done anything like that in her life. Never, I’ve never seen him act like that. The whole time I’m going, it’s a lion. Like it’s an apex predator, that’s all it does. Like it serves no other purpose except to eat other things. It’s all lions do, right? Nothing hunts lions, lions hunt everything else, right? The lion’s not on the plane looking out for the elephant, all right, it kills everything else. It’s an apex predator, and so I thought to myself, if you put a fajita near me, I might not eat it, I might not be hungry, but here, eventually, I’m gonna eat the fajita, all right?
And so here’s what I’m so concerned about in this gospel movement that we’re seeing. In this, I couldn’t be more pleased with the emphasis being placed on the gospel of Jesus Christ, but here’s my concern. My concern in all of it is that for all our looking to Jesus, we’re still giving our flesh room and board. We’re still trying to train the lion as though it can’t devour us. And we grow by fixing our eyes on Jesus, by looking to what is above while simultaneously putting to death, therefore, what is in us. We are serious about sin, serious about sin. Well, I’m not the lead pastor. Well, no, no, no, it doesn’t matter if you’re the lead guy. If you’re a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you’re serious about sin, yours and the people God has given you to lead, all right?
Let’s keep going, and in fact, I’m gonna, for time’s sake, because we don’t have two hours, and I’m on pace now to keep us about that long, so I’m gonna go to, after this, verses 12 through 14 basically just talks about what binds us together as brothers and sisters that love, binds us together in perfect harmony, and now look at verse 15.
15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15, ESV)
So now, the command in light of the transforming work of the gospel of Jesus Christ in the lives of believers, this act of God, of sanctification, of maturation, of which you and I are both a part of, being matured by the Holy Spirit and also being used by God for the maturation of others. He moves on and says, let the peace of Christ dwell. Let the peace of Christ, and then he moves it to being corporate. Did you see it? Look back at 15. He moves it from being individual to being corporate and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in what? In one body. In one body. So that the peace that we walk in is an individual peace that reveals itself corporately as we worship God together. Let the peace of Christ be among you as you’ve been called to one body and be thankful. Be thankful. See, this book starts to really make sense if you look at it in order.
You’ve got this: this is who Jesus Christ is, this is what He’s done, and then you’ve got this. Now, you keep looking at that while you put to death and then let peace be among you. Why wouldn’t peace be among you? Look what Christ has done. What reason do you have to fight or be jealous or want more? What reason do you have? I mean, look what Christ has done. Look at who He is. Why would there ever be discord among you if Christ is who He says He is?
And then the text I was assigned. Let’s look at verse 16. “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” So I want to start, “let the word of Christ.” This is a confusing phrase. It shows up a couple other times in the New Testament. It’s not saying that they’re like these new words of Christ. This is not, “I’ve got a word from the Holy Spirit for you, here’s what it is,” all right? This is much better translated. Sorry, ESV, one of my favorite things about the video is look, Cray going, “When I read this, it’s kind of how I talk.” And I, no, all right, this, no. Thank you, Cray, uh-uh, all right? I’d read this just like I talk. No, I don’t, maybe in the Kings, but nowhere else, all right?
And so in this, this is better translated, all right? The words about Christ, so let’s talk now because here’s what you do. You stand in front of people as an ambassador of Christ in order to be used by Christ to mature people He loved so much He died for. You get the weight of that? So you’re not repping you. That is not the task you have been given. In fact, the task concerning you when it comes to this is to disappear a bit, is to disappear, get out of the way a bit. Too much of you is a bad thing. And I know you’re ridiculously gifted, right? Just like music, you just pick it up by osmosis. You’re like, “Oh, what’s this instrument? Oh, a nail,” right? I know you’re a bit of a freak, little child prodigy, all right, but you’ve got to in some ways use that to glorify God while trying to hide yourself behind the glory of Christ.
And what He just said is “let the words about Christ dwell in you richly.” Now, what are the words about Christ? Where do we find those? Maybe the Word of God? So hopefully you know this. From Genesis to Revelation, there’s just one story being told. You got that, right? If you don’t have that, I’ve got to switch sermons. All right, Genesis to Revelation is about God reconciling the world to Himself in Jesus Christ. The entire Bible is about that story, all right, 66 books all telling the same story with unbelievable unity, unbelievable unity. “Let the word about Christ dwell in you richly.” So let’s chat about that.
There’s a difference between knowing Bible verses and letting the words about Christ dwell in you richly. Jesus rebukes the Pharisees in John 5 and says this to them, “You study the scriptures in vain because you believe that in them you have life and yet you refuse to come to me to whom those scriptures testify.”
39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me (John 5:39, ESV)
Which basically is the scriptures lead you to me so if all you’ve got are the scriptures and you don’t have me, you’re no better off. So Jesus Himself says there’s a type of Bible study, look at me, that’s worthless. You ever thought of that? There’s a type of Bible study that’s dangerous. “Let the word about Christ dwell in you richly.” That we are not just readers of the Word of God, we are partakers in the person of Jesus Christ.
That if you think of us as ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ as being sponges that just try to soak it up, you don’t read the Word of God like it’s the newspaper. You meditate, you think, you dwell, you let it get in you, you let it bother you, you let it frustrate you, you feel the weight of it, you let it expose you, you let it flick scabs off, you let it do the surgery that it was meant to do. You sit under the weight of it so that when you get wrung out, it comes out of you. See, the Word of God for all of us, you and the people you lead, according to the scriptures, has the power to help us in the midst of temptation, to be our rock in the day of sorrow. Anybody had one of those yet? If you live long enough, you’re gonna get one.
So I’m coming up on three years ago that I was diagnosed with terminal cancer and after surgery, when we sat down with the doctor and they opened up the envelope, the results, and began to read out what I had and were just very frank with us about what all that meant and really gave us two to three years. Literally, the floor just kind of fell out and I don’t know how else to explain it. I mean, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t function, I couldn’t hardly think and then, man, I can’t tell you how much we wept.
I could hardly look at my children, didn’t even want to see my friends. You know, it was, everything was a loss. Like anyone who had came over, that’d be a loss for me. That would, so I kind of went into my shell and my wife’s godly enough to go, “Hey, I don’t know how much time you have left but that’s not how you’re going out. So take off your freaking headphones and get in here.”All right, and so in the middle of all of that, you know, it began to, after all the tears were gone, I don’t know if you’ve ever hit that spot where you just don’t, there’s no more liquid in you. Then all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit began to remind me of things. And you know what He reminded me of? One stuff a preacher said. Wasn’t something I read in a Piper book. It was the scriptures.
And then all of a sudden, as scary as death is, it wasn’t as scary. And I began to remember, you know what? Moses was faithful and then he went in the ground and then Joshua went on. And Paul was faithful and then he went in the ground and Timothy and the boys ran with it. And that reality that the messenger goes in the ground but the message goes on and God loves my wife and loves my children far more than I ever will began to get kicked up in me via the word of God.
Let the word about the Son of God dwell in you richly. In you richly. So here’s where I worry about worship, guys. Pastors, preachers, are focused and forced to be in that word every week. So here’s what I mean by that. Because it’s the internet era, and maybe it was different before the internet era, but if a pastor goes online, just rips a sermon, probably gonna get busted, right? So you can’t just find something and regurgitate it.
But worship, guys, you just find a song that’s like 400 years old that everyone knows and lead out in it. And everybody would be like, awesome, right? I mean, didn’t we just do that? Didn’t Bleeker bust out some old school stuff up here? All right, we’re like, praise God from, all right? And we’re in it. Nobody went, that’s not his. He didn’t write that, right?
And so my concern is that you’re not, if you’re not careful, letting the word of God dwell in you richly. Because it’s easy to let the word of God dwell in somebody else and have overflow out of them. Beautiful lyrics about Jesus Christ. And then you get worship leaders, God help us, and I think you get pastors like this, too, who know a lot about Jesus but don’t actually know Him. Like to sing about Him but not out of an overflow, not out of a ringing out of their heart because they’ve experienced, because they’ve seen, because they’ve tasted, because they’ve sat with Him and love Him so much that it’s just blowing out of them.
But that’s the type of worship guys we need. It’s been my experience that I’ve been around guys that are really good musicians but aren’t necessarily anointed worship leaders. And then I’ve been around guys who aren’t really great musicians and are anointed and love the Lord so much that it just comes out in their poor plane. I know some of you pastors that maybe brought your worship guy like, don’t, uh-uh, hey, man, I’ve been working my tail off trying to get this fool to practice. Don’t give him this right now, all right? You’ve gotta steward your gift if you’re a musician. God hadn’t asked you to be the best but He hadn’t asked you to stink either.
All right, now, in this, let’s look where the text goes next because here’s where your role comes. What do we do with this word about Christ that’s in us, that’s dwelling richly in us? What happens next? Let me get back to the text.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. (Colossians 3:16a, ESV)
So teaching and admonishing are the same but they’re different. So teaching is organizing information in such a way that it can be heard and understood. That’s teaching. So what I’m doing here, what I’m doing up here tonight is I’m organizing information and presenting it in such a way that you can hear, comprehend, understand and walk through the flow of this text and exegete a bit.
Admonishing is teaching but has a bent of encouragement in it, strong encouragement. So we are to be filled with the word about Christ and what are we to do with that? We are to teach and we are to admonish in wisdom. Now, why does that require wisdom? Well, if I had time and I don’t, if I had time and we went back over Colossians, there’s a couple of things that’s important to note. There’s a lot about what Jesus Christ has done, a lot about who Jesus Christ is and a lot about when all’s said and done, what He’s accomplished in His life, death and resurrection.
But there’s also plenty about my sinfulness, my brokenness, my desperation and my need and the worship pastor, the one who is leading the saints in song is teaching and admonishing the saints into maturity but he must exercise wisdom lest all he does is teach on what Christ has done and not our need for what Christ has done. So not all our songs are chipper. You tracking with me? Not all our songs are chipper.
There should be a thickness to what you do when you lead men and women in worship. It should not be trite, it should not be viewed as secondary, you are, think about this, teaching the people of God, being used by God in a mysteriously beautiful way to stir up affections, to challenge minds and hear me, even in the moment, maybe seeing someone come alive for the first time. We’ve seen multiple times in our baptism service, somebody get in the water and in the water, they’ll talk about that when all was said and done, we were just worshiping and getting after the Lord. They just felt like Saul when David played the harp, something fell off of them. How amazing is that? That blows my mind.
Like you just prepared in your office, right? I don’t know how you prepare, you prayed up, hopefully, all right, got everything ready. Then as Bleeker led worship at The Village Church in Flower Mound, some guy came with a friend. As we were singing to Jesus about our need for Jesus, in this guy’s words, something fell off of him. How amazing is that?
We teach and admonish in all wisdom, we tell the whole story. Do you have to do that every week? Man, I don’t know, my preference is yes. Tell it every week. I’m saying the same thing every week. I got one sermon, I just get all these different texts to come out of. This is actually, right now, the same sermon I preach every weekend. So I’m just in Colossians 3 doing it, okay?
Now, let’s look at how you are to go about doing this teaching and admonishing. Teaching and admonishing one another, so I’m sure Deborah covered this, that it’s the body that’s admonishing one another in these psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, right? It’s the body that ministers to the body, but here’s my question, who’s leading the body in that? Aren’t you? Isn’t that your task to lead the body in that?
So how do we, what are the tools that He’s given us?
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16, ESV)
Singing to the Lord is a profoundly powerful thing. It is something that will never go away. So I don’t know if you’ve thought about it this way, but there’ll be a day that I don’t need to exegee anything anymore. You ever thought about that? Like, in glory, Jesus isn’t gonna go, hey Matt, unpack Colossians for him. Okay, so Paul was writing to the Colossians, raise your hand, over there, the Colossians, and what he was saying to them is that they need to, right, that will not be taking place in glory. There’ll be a time where the word of God never goes away, but I will not, preachers will not need to exegee the text to the saints. We will fully know as we are fully known. We will be in the presence of Jesus, the Word.
But singing, God has ordained that that goes on forever. Without, so I don’t know about, I don’t know where you were in that set that Blear just did. I get to where I feel like I can’t get any further than I am, so I’m loud as can be. I noticed the mic, I probably just jacked up whatever was being recorded in here. I do not have a pleasant voice, all right. It’s joyful, but it is not pleasant.
And so man, I’m just full hands up. I feel like I should get my hands higher, but I can’t. I feel like I should be louder, but I can’t. I wanna just explode, but I can’t. And how amazing it’s gonna be on that day where all the physical restrictions when we get after the Lord are no longer there.
So what are the tools by which you are to teach and admonish the saints? Psalms, so that’s Old Testament, that’s the Psalms. Hymns, hymns when all said and done are just festive songs about Jesus Christ. So the Psalms are gonna be the Psalms, right? The Old Testament, the Word of Christ. The Old Testament’s about Jesus, right? And you know that, right?
And so the Psalms are there, then you’ve got hymns, which don’t think 1950s Baptist hymnal, right? Hymns are just festive songs about the person and work of Jesus Christ, and then you’ve got spiritual songs. Now, the way this text is written, that word spiritual can actually be applied to all three of those. He’s basically just saying, however you’re coming at the Lord, it needs to be deeply spiritual, all right?
And so what I think He means, and that text, I’m phrasing that the right way. What I think He means in that is that our approach, when we stand in front of the covenant community of faith and admonish them, encourage them, and teach them via psalms and hymns, is that we are acknowledging that regardless of how good our instrumentation is, regardless of how good our voice is, what we need to happen cannot be orchestrated or manipulated by us.
That we are in desperate need for the Holy Spirit of God to breathe life into what we’re bringing to the table. Getting people to sing along with you does not mean people are worshiping. Like, you know, some people just like music, right? Did you know that? Like, some people just like music. I mean, goodness sakes, people pick churches based on music. They spend a ridiculous amount of money buying music, going to concerts. There’s something dynamic about the gift of God in music, and it makes disciples.
And so my question would be, do you feel the weight of what you’re putting together for the saints on Sunday morning, or Saturday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night, however you’re wired? So, in kind of rounding out our time together, closing out our time together, I do like that in this text He ends with, twice now He’s mentioned thanksgiving, all right? That there is this fervency about our worship to the Lord. That for those who are maturing, for those who are growing, there’s this excitement and zeal to worship the Lord.
And I think one of the markers that we should have as leaders over our people is to gauge their fervency for the Lord. To know who He is, is to throw gasoline on that fire. To know who He is, is to throw fuel on that fire. And I know some of you are like, well man, our people are just old and crotchety and not interested in that at all. They actually think, I wanna be real careful that we don’t gauge enter in, because here’s what I’ll tell you. It’s best for the village church that I’m always a little tired. All right, Matt Chandler at 100% is a little bit too much for anyone.
All right, and so fervency, excitement for me is it’s almost off the scale, it’s obnoxious. All right, and then my, I’ve got good friends who, man, excitement for them is them holding their hands up like this. All right, and I don’t know if you’ve had this experience, but I’ve had multiple occasions, people like sitting down and looking at me angry while I’m preaching. It’s like not interested at all, and then afterwards come up to me and go, man, God stirred my heart tonight. Really, because I could have swore you were giving me the finger in the middle of my talk. No, I was worshiping. I can’t do it, I was, no.
And so, in the end, let me ask you a couple of questions so we can look at our hearts. In fact, I’ll ask Michael and the guys to come on back up if they’ll do so. I wanna ask a couple of questions for you. For you. Are you expecting the people that you lead to taste something, sense something, or walk in something that you yourself do not walk in? How hungry are you for the things of God? How passionate are you about the person and work of Jesus Christ? Do you need, like our brother David prayed, God to restore to you the joy of your salvation?
It is a biblical fact that the people of God are prone to forget the works of God. Have you forgotten how He rescued you, how He saved you, what He did to draw you to, to quote Colossians 1, to transfer you out of the domain of darkness and into the kingdom of His beloved Son?
13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, (Colossians 1:13, ESV)
Does the words about Christ dwell in you richly? If life were to start to wring you out, what would come out? How confident are you in the saving work of Jesus Christ?
The second thing, in preparing to lead people in singing hymns and psalms, is it rote? Is it routine? Look, look right at me. Do you so believe in your ability and gift that there’s not a tinge of, oh, please show up, Holy Spirit? Nobody’s that good. You hear me? Nobody’s that good. Is it routine? Is it rote? You just know how to do it now. Okay, well, we’ve gotta do this chord progression from this song in to this song, and then, do you seriously seek the Lord? Do you pray, are you, or is this just routine? Is it just what you do? Do you mail it in? Do you rely too much on your own ability?
Now, and here’s a thought I just wanna give you because my hope is that you wouldn’t forget what we find ourselves caught up in. My guess is that many of you started playing an instrument early in your life, either because your folks wanted you to or because you like Dave Matthews or Hootie and the Blowfish. All right, and so you got an acoustic guitar for Christmas and for whatever reason, you locked yourself in your room and you just listened to Satellite over and over and over and over again and just tried to figure it out and you just, you put in the time and you developed the calluses and you learned how to play the instrument.
Here’s what I want you to think about. All the while, God’s going, okay, I’m gonna use that. Yeah, keep going, bro, keep playing, keep playing that. I’m gonna teach you this and so you in sixth grade, in eighth grade, in fourth grade, all right, learning to play, being drawn to music. You know who’s never been drawn to music? Me. Now, I like to listen to it. I’ve never thought, I need to play an instrument. All right, so why were you drawn? Could it be that God wired you, designed you and rescued you for the purpose of making much of His name via the gift of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs?
Could it be that you have been rescued, wired, redeemed for the glory of God to be used by the Spirit of God to encourage and edify the people of God? This past Sunday, in our 715 service on Saturday night, there was a man up in the bleachers. He’s got an awful case of cancer. In fact, he’ll probably go home in the next three or four months. It’s gotten into his bones now and so now his bones will just randomly break and it’s a really horrible deal.
And after I was done preaching, I kind of went around the back and I like to sing and so kind of came around on the side and there’s this really beautiful picture of this man who is very close to seeingJesus, face to face. Just raises his arms, his body’s all maligned and beat up, and finds this refuge for just 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 45, 50 minutes to just sit under and sit in the praises of the people of God. What a gift. Like we get to do this. Like this weekend, you get to do this. You get to stand in front of God’s bride, Jesus’ bride, and encourage her and, in some very real ways, wash her in the water of the word.
Oh, that you might be captivated by what God has called you into. Why should you be trusted with the bride? Aren’t you an idiot? Aren’t you? Anybody walking in perfection here? No struggles of the inward heart? None of you wrestling this week, oh, I could do it better than that up on stage if they’d just give me a shot. No comparison going on in this room? None? None of that in here?
And yet, as ungrateful as you’re being in doing that, God’s still gonna let you love His bride. Still gonna let you wash her in the water of the word. Still gonna let you encourage her. Still gonna let you edify her. Still gonna let you teach her. How gracious is He? How beautiful is He? That as the chief of sinners, He would trust us with such a prize of His.
Let’s pray. I want to just ask you a couple of questions here in closing. It’s my experience and my belief that just because you are on staff or feel called to ministry or lead people in these things, that that does not in any way exempt you from dry patches and dark seasons and frustrating periods of time.
And so maybe if we were honest, and I’ve always said maybe that’s impossible in here, but maybe if we’re honest tonight, we would say, man, I’m dry. I don’t think the word of God is dwelling in me richly. Don’t believe that the peace of Christ, that the word about Christ is really stirring up in me affection right now and passion right now and zeal right now. And if I had to be frank, either because of my own sin or just because of a season I’m in, I’m dry and a bit exhausted. If that’s you, would you just raise your hand? No reason to be ashamed. We all find ourselves there. If our hand isn’t up now, it’ll be up later. Okay, praise God. Why don’t you put your hands down?
And maybe for you it’s a relational dynamic. Maybe you feel called and don’t get a lot of opportunities. Maybe when all said and done, you and your pastor don’t see things the same way and there’s some relational strife. Maybe in your team and maybe you’re not quite sure how to lead out in that and how to handle those things. And maybe what’s weighing on your heart at this conference is man, you’ve just got some real issues relationally in and around your team, whether that be staff or whether that be those volunteers that play with you. And maybe that’s you tonight. If that’s you, would you just lift your hands and just go man, there’s some relational dynamics that I’m having a hard time navigating right now. All right, praise God. Why don’t you put your hands down?
So we’re gonna close out tonight just like this. We’re gonna sing right out of the book of Matthew, Jesus’ unbelievable invitation.
28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28, ESV)
No one extends that invitation. If you’re difficult to handle, if you’re frustrated, if you’re a complainer, if you’re ungrateful, hey, come to me. Come put that on me. Come let me carry that. What an invitation from Jesus Christ. Are you tired? Are you weary? Are you not all that you think you need to be? Are you exhausted? Come to me. Hear me, invite you into me. Rest in me. Find solace in me. Find your gladness in me.
Father, thank you for these brothers and sisters. Thank you for evening just to let the word of God read us. Thank you that you trust us with so much. It really is baffling. I thank you for the Holy Spirit that protects our people, your people that you’ve given us care of or from us in so many ways. Pray that you would let the work of grace saturate our hearts tonight, that our confidence in you would grow, our joy because of you would grow, and that you might stir up and ring out of us tonight gladness in you. And it’s for your beautiful name I pray, Amen.
