Music Mondays

This week I'm featuring a couple things that popped up in my Twitter timeline over the weekend. 

The first features the greatest shooter of all time (with apologies to Larry Legend) getting some stage time at a Lecrae concert.

On the other end of the music genre scale is this SiriusXM video that featured NeedtoBreathe covering a couple songs seamlessly - almost like they wrote the selections themselves.

How good is that? A Jackson 5 classic along with a Otis Redding/Black Crowes song (I had to look it up).

Music Mondays

My most recent Music Monday selections have related to my sermon series through the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament. 

One that quickly came to mind from yesterday's message on Habakkuk was this song from Bethel Music:

Habakkuk is a book expressing confusion at the work of God. "How could he let his people go on in their sinfulness?" "How could a Holy God use a wicked empire to punish a people more righteous than they are?"

In the end, God shows up. He reveals his greatness and majesty and it satisfies Habakkuk, who to paraphrase the end of the book concludes, 'even if my present circumstances are more wasteland than oasis, through it all my eyes are on you and it is well with my soul.'

Habakkuk and this song both challenge us to embrace the proper spiritual perspective. We are called to embrace the view that even if our problems seem overwhelming, we can trust in our Great and Awesome Creator.

This 'story-behind-the-song' clip is worth checking out too.

Music Mondays

Yesterday's sermon was on the book of Zephaniah. 

Zephaniah checks all the boxes of what OT prophets did, in three succinct chapters.

• He criticizes God's people and pagans for their wickedness. Along with that criticism comes vivid descriptions of promised judgment.
  
• He energizes the faithful to persevere through adversity by describing the future hope and restoration God will bring.
  
• He calls the people to repent and seek the Lord's presence before it's too late.

Read works by Dr. Walter Bruggemann and/or my former professor, Dr. Brent Sandy and you'll discover Zephaniah fits the prophetic mold to a 'T'. 

Given that summary of the minor prophet, crafting a worship service around the book didn't seem particularly natural. Our worship planners didn't even know the specifics but knew the broad strokes. Honestly though this seemed like one of those weeks we didn't tie the worship to the sermon in real specific ways.

Yet the way the Lord brought things together did just that. Zephaniah's a book describing how God is the one whose powerful wrath we need saved from, but he's also the only one who can protect and deliver us.

The song we used to close the service captured that idea well in my view. It's a newer 'classic' by Michael W. Smith. Simple yet deep in it's biblical descriptions of who our Lord is.