Home Worship - 3/29/20

Greetings! We're trying something a little "extra" for this week's worship. Given we're all still following the "self-isolation" guidelines to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, I thought we'd give you a supplement for doing church at home.

Sermon

This week's message can be accessed on our FB page here: https://www.facebook.com/Milford-First-Brethren-Church-106750154192984/?modal=admin_todo_tour
Or through our website here: https://www.milfordfirstbrethren.org/live.html

Study Guide Questions

After - or even as - you listen to the sermon, try digging deeper into the text by working through these questions:

1.     Paul, a Jew, calls himself an “apostle to the Gentiles” (Rom.1:5). What is his response to the Jewish people rejecting the Gospel – 9:1-3? 

2.     What are the spiritual privileges Israel had – 9:4-5? 

3.     What is the point Paul is making about the true children and descendants of Abraham – 9:6-9? 

4.     Who are the other Old Testament people Paul references in 9:10-18 and what is the truth about God he is teaching? 

5.     In 9:25-26, Paul quotes verses from Hosea that originally were about Israel. Who does he apply them to now here in Romans? 

6.     What does this chapter teach us about God’s larger plan of salvation?

Worship Songs

Had we gathered in person today, here's a sample of what the worship would have been like. Given our passage's focus on God's plan and promises, focus on these hymns that highlight the same sorts of themes.

Originally, our worship teams were planning to introduce a song to our congregation this week called "King of Kings" from Hillsong. We were going to use it as an offertory and then start teaching it to you over the next couple weeks. Ultimately the goal is to incorporate it into our worship service on Easter. It is an incredible worship song that reflects on the meta-story of the Bible that culminates in the beautiful events of Easter (and beyond).

Daily Devotional Reading

Paul traces Israel’s history through this chapter to show how God’s plan has been unfolding in unique and unexpected ways from the beginning. This week, let’s look at the Old Testament background passages to gain a fuller appreciation of Romans 9.

Monday – Abraham & Isaac, Genesis 21, 22:15-19

      Tuesday – Isaac/Rebekah and Jacob/Esau, Genesis 25:19-34

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Wednesday – Moses and Pharaoh, Exodus 9-10:20

Thursday – Moses and Pharaoh, Exodus 10:21-11, 12:29-36

Friday – the Potter and the Clay, Jeremiah 18

Saturday – the Prophets, Isaiah 10:12-34

Music Mondays: God or Girlfriend?

It was the summer of 2000 and I was spending a month as a counselor at Lancer Basketball camp, staying in the venerable Alpha dorm. I brought my portable boombox along with several other creature comforts to entertain myself during down times.

I can't remember if I'd purchased this CD at a store or through my "Power and Glory" Columbia Records membership (remember those?). But it had been recommended to me and decided to check out this new rock worship group Sonicflood. 

What I heard was worship in a rock style that was right up my alley. 

This band along with their debut album became one of the major forerunners of the modern worship movement, incorporating their own songs along with a number of covers. 

One song that I always liked but always gave me some pause was "I Want to Know You".  The song is fine enough yet it sure seems to venture into the "God or Girlfriend" zone. And upon re-listening to it, it seems like a blatant Hanson rip-off. 

The second verse helps save it, quoting Philippians 3. But it's vague and overly-repeated chorus does it no favors. Lots of songs like this tend to be pronoun-heavy - where everyone is supposed to assume we're talking about God or Jesus. The best ones give a little more clarity. The other issue, if you'll allow me a theological rabbit trail,  "touching" and "seeing" the Lord are probably just other ways to describe wanting to "know" him more, but there are a bunch of examples in Scripture where those would not be desirable things to experience in His presence. Jesus solves many of those kinds of problems of course. The song seems to portray entering God's presence as a frivolous thing - which I don't think it means to (again Phil. 3) but is still a little annoying to my theologically-inclined brain.

Ultimately, this seems like a song of it's time. I'm not sure it has had the staying power of other songs of that era. So my conclusion is that this certainly flirts with this problem even if it isn't the worst of examples.

Music Mondays: God or Girlfriend?

There is a built-in tension with Christian music. It seeks to express all the facets of our relationship with our Creator - a relationship based on love and intimacy that is very much true, genuine, and amazing. But depending on how it is expressed, it can easily venture into sappy love-song stuff. 

I'm certainly not the first to point this out, but often times CCM can turn out a product that is eerily similar to secular songs that croon superficially about romance. And every once in awhile, the opposite can be true - a surface-level love song can seem to be speaking of the spiritual. 

So for the next few weeks, I'm going to feature some songs that I've always been confused or conflicted by - songs that teeter on the edge of young-love-sappiness instead of theological wonder.

But to start things off, I want to zig instead of zag. Here are a couple songs from my college days-era that go the opposite direction. These are pop music hits that hint at something deeper if you think real hard.

"Hanging by a Moment" - Lifehouse

A band that has Christian roots, it struck it big with this their first single. It feels like the first hundred times I heard it, I only heard the "love song" part of it. And then when you think of their roots, the rest of their catalog that seems to have spiritual overtones, and then realize the chorus goes: 

Now I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you

Huh. Makes you wonder...

For the record, the lead singer keeps it ambiguous as well.

"Everywhere" - Michelle Branch

Another single from the early 2000's that launched a career, "Everywhere" was part of Branch's album The Spirit Room. By her own admission, this is a straightforward love song, but Christian detectives all over the U.S. bought into a deeper meaning. And it's easy to see why: 

'Cause you're everywhere to me
And when I close my eyes, it's you I see
You're everything I know that makes me believe
I'm not alone
I'm not alone

[Verse 2]
I recognize the way you make me feel
It's hard to think that you might not be real
I sense it now, the water's getting deep
I try to wash the pain away from me
Away from me

I'm an authorial-intent kind of guy, not a reader-response interpreter. I embrace the meaning as intended by the author. Sometimes it's easy to cheat and re-interpret a song based on what I feel, know, or have experienced. Probably not much harm in doing that with something like this.

Music Mondays: Father and Child Edition #2

Children's songs on YouTube are apparently infinite. I've discovered this only now because of our two year old. 

Since they're infinite, what's it going to hurt to feature and comment on three more as a follow up to my last post?

Here are three more remarkable* kids songs that are in the rotation right now:

"Do you know the Muffin Man?

There are other, more palatable versions of this song featuring puppets and creative graphics. This version happens to feature youths overacting like nobodies business. It's no fault of their own. They've been directed to do so, no doubt. And I'm sure it clicks with little kid brains. But boy do I have to resist the urge to go all "Mystery Science Theater 3000" when this comes on.

"Johny, Johny Yes Papa"

Ok, there is no getting around it. This song encourages kids to both sneak food they're not supposed to have and lie to their parents. And this version even has a toddler skateboarding - so make it three things I don't want my little guy to do. On the other hand, it has taught our oldest to go "ha ha ha" whenever we sing the part of the jingle "open your mouth...". It's adorable enough to make up for the corrupting lessons of the song itself.
Let me also note that this is the most logical version of the song I've seen. There are others with all kinds of characters and objects they're eating which make even less sense.

"Down by the Bay"

After coming across this one this morning, I'm convinced is the new generation's version of "The Song that Never Ends". It seems to go on and on and on, limited only the rhyming ability of the song's author ("a snail who gets mail" "a bee drinking tea" etc). The fact that this Super Simple cartoon features various versions with the same little monster (?) singing it underscores it's potential for eternality.  Side note, does this singer have mommy issues? Why doesn't he want to go home? Just because of her incessant questions? 

I think I have a different idea for next time, but thank you for sharing a little of my parental world today.



* I say "remarkable" in that they easily get stuck in my head, provide consistent entertainment to my child, and eventually force me to make the over-thought observations you see above.

Music Mondays: Father and Child Edition

Parenthood is filled with many joys and new experiences. 

What I'm about to share has certainly been new but not always joyous. As my wife said this morning, "You know at first, I thought all those children's songs were dumb. But now I kind of like them."

That pretty much sums it up for me too.  We've entertained our 2 year old with YouTube videos for a while now. We try not to overdo it and there's certainly a point where you start questioning reality after the 14th version of "The Muffin Man" plays.

I don't have the creative energy to rank the best or rate the worst that are in the rotation right now. But for this Music Monday I'm going to pick three different songs from three different "channels". 

If they get stuck in your head, like they do ours, I'm sorry not sorry. I'll offer my own little commentary free of charge.

Here's a good one to start off with. Cute ducks, simple tune, teaching some basic counting skills. I have watched it enough to wonder if this takes the listener on a subtle emotional roller coaster that my toddler is not totally mature enough for. :) Props to "Super Simple Songs" for having a very distinct intro diddy.

Sesame Street has adopted a very clear strategy to incorporate pop culture figures into their videos. This one is a little more obscure as Feist had more of a pop culture moment over a decade ago with her "1,2,3,4" (shoutout to SS for capitalizing on this made-for-their-show connection).  I was legitimately impressed by the choreography of the video and it turns out, this one isn't just popular in our house, it has turned into a phenomenon of it's very own. 

No feature on kid's songs would be complete without some version of "Baby Shark". This one comes from a group called Bounce Patrol. They have a ton of videos and this one has over 1 BILLION views. I'm not even going to look it up but I think it is safe to say that they are from Austrailia. Their visual creativity is probably a big part of their draw with kids. As an adult, I just imagine you have to really love childhood education/entertainment to do all the over-the-top stuff these folks do. Kudos to them I guess.

A Brush with Greatness

My sophomore year of college, I had just barely earned my way onto the travel squad on our Grace College basketball team which allowed me the special opportunity to go to Los Angeles in late December 2000. We did some cool sightseeing, lost our two games, and had three interactions with sports legends.

One was a mere accident. We were hitting up the famous In-N-Out Burger when Rickey Henderson pulled in the driveway in a limousine. He rolled down his window and dapped us up. It was close to noon but he and his friends were dressed like they were going to the Oscars or some other prestigious party. Our guess, based on our quick observations, was that these folks were actually still partying from the night before.

The second interaction was a planned dinner with UCLA legendary coach, John Wooden. It felt like a visit to see a basketball pope - minding your P's and Q's, straining within the group setting to listen to every word he said, even going back to his apartment and trying not to trip over all of his "Coach of the Century" awards that littered his living room.

The third interaction was during a visit to a defending NBA Champion LA Lakers practice. Laker forward Rick Fox had been more or less "discovered" by our college coach and we'd used that connection to sit in some bleachers and watch these world class athletes play and compete...and goof around. Shaq had kicked a giant medicine ball during the practice after one of our party had snapped a picture with the flash on while he was shooting free throws. (He seemed playful about it because he'd missed, and the whole team had to run...make that jog down and back). Fox chatted with us for a good amount after practice, showing us around the facility once everyone had cleared out.

But at some point during our time there, as practice had ended, we'd noticed Kobe come out and conduct an sit-down interview across the gym with a reporter. To me, it seemed like a long interview, because we were waiting around for a good while before Fox came out.  Eventually, Bryant did end his interview and headed our direction. It was clear we were some sort of team or group. Being the burgeoning superstar that he was, he was more than willing to take some pictures with us.

That's me in the gray shirt and blue jeans..

I was and will always be a Boston Celtics fan - the historic arch-rival of the Lakers. But even this staunch supporter of the Shamrocks couldn't deny Bryant respect for his greatness. He was young then, close to the age of some of our upperclassmen in fact. His life and career still had so many ups and downs ahead of it. Yet he was a star and we all knew even more greatness lay ahead.

He did earn his place among the all-time great players. In terms of personal and team accomplishments, his resume stands up with anyone's. And tragically, his life ended yesterday in a helicopter accident that killed his daughter and 7 other people. We have all been confronted again with the fact that death is no respecter of persons. Famous or not, all those lives that were lost is a devastating reality. It comes for all of us. Yet Scripture over and over again encourages us that God has done something about the enemies that are sin and death - Hebrews 9:27-28 is one passage that comes to mind.

I cannot speak to Kobe's spiritual life. Others more qualified than I can speak to his basketball genius. It was a pretty neat experience to get to brush with greatness 19 years ago. But it was only 10 minutes.

So I share all of this not only to share my memorable experience, but also to remind myself and you that life is preciously short. Make the most of each day. Embrace Christ as the hope of eternity and live each day for God's glory. Love the people around you and make sure they feel it. Thank God for the mundane and special moments - whether you are grinding along or brushing up against greatness.

Music Mondays

A lot has taken place since my last post. Most significantly, we added a fourth member to our family - Elijah Harlow Compson, born on 12/31/20, 8 lbs 9 oz, 21.75" long. His two year old big brother has adjusted very well and so are mommy and daddy for the most part. We are blessed.

Our emotions are quite the opposite than one of the heroes of my youth. TobyMac, formerly of dc Talk and still a giant artist and producer in the CCM world, had his oldest son pass away suddenly this past fall. 

Now I am a father, that kind of experience hits home in a very real way. It is excruciating even to think about. The McKeehan's have expressed grace and faith in the few public statements they've given. And just recently, Toby came out with a powerful tribute to his son and this situation with a song that expresses grief, but also grace and faith.