Worship Pastor Michael Bleecker provides teaching and insight into one of The Village’s favorite gospel worship songs, “Glorious Day.” If you would like to maximize the video to full screen for easier viewing, mouseover the video and in the bottom right corner you will see the full-screen icon. The video below is also available on The Village Church YouTube Channel.

Watching the video again, I realized I communicated the chords too casually. Here are the actual chords being played:

“A” is “Asus4″
“D” is “Dsus2″
“D/F#” is “Dsus2/F#”
I forgot to add the “Em7″ as well. It’s played during “Rising He justified…”.

Additional Resources
Chords & Lyrics | Audio Only
Songs We Sing at The Village

I want to preface this blog by saying that when Michael Bleecker asked me to write a blog, the first thing that came to mind was the Holy Spirit. I am definitely not an authority on this and there are plenty of much more capable people on this staff that would have a lot more information and depth on this subject. This is just my experience and some of the things the Lord has been revealing to me.

I have some friends who were teaching their young son, Titus, about the Holy Spirit and how He wants to be with us and we can talk to Him. Titus responded by saying that the Holy Spirit could come into the living room, but not into his bedroom because I think he was a little freaked out by Him.

Honestly, I can relate to Titus for most of my life. I grew up in small town Missouri in an even smaller Southern Baptist Church. We were taught about the Holy Spirit, but only that He was a part of the Trinity and that He was in our hearts if we were believers. So, I thought the Holy Spirit was great, but kind of a little scary. What if He comes around and does something crazy? Or worse, what if He wants ME to do something crazy? I just wasn’t so sure about Him.

Looking back on my life, there are clear moments where I know the Holy Spirit was leading me and I was obedient to that leading, but when I came to The Village 6 years ago I began learning just how much He can and should be a part of my life. He’s always been there and I’ve always been aware of His presence, but just knowing some of the promises that come along with that have been extremely eye opening to me. So, here are a few simple lessons I have learned about the Holy Spirit.

First of all, if you pray to hear more from the Holy Spirit, you will hear more from Him and will begin to recognize His voice. It sounds really simple, but this has been my prayer a lot lately and I have begun to see little opportunities that weren’t obvious to me before. Subtle leadings to share Christ with a friend who doesn’t believe, encouragement to make amends for things that happened years ago and revelation of my own sin and the desire to repent of it.

Second, when you feel the Spirit leading you and are obedient to that leading, you will be changed and will begin to see that leading even more. When I see those subtle leadings and am obedient He brings more and more opportunities and I will be more and more sanctified through those opportunities.

Third, sanctification is a good and exciting thing. The more I am sanctified the more I want to be sanctified and the more I want to be sanctified, the more I ask for more of the Holy Spirit and the cycle starts all over again (2 Corinthians 3:18).

I encourage you to begin to pray to hear more from Him. Allow Him to speak to you and then act on what He asks of you. It may seem difficult or strange at first, but it is so worth it in the end. Anything that brings you into a deeper relationship with Him is worth whatever it takes to get there and the Holy Spirit is our helper in that (John 14:15-31).

Here are a couple of great resources that have been instrumental in these realizations for me to help get you started on this journey:
“Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit” by Francis Chan
“Our Great Advantage” by Paul Matthies

The Plan:
Read a study Bible plus the notes in a year. I love the ESV Study Bible. Use these bookmarks developed from Discipleship Journal that segments the entire Bible into 300 daily readings.

Just because Jan. 1 is behind you, it doesn’t mean you can’t start today and end a year from that date.

The Why:
I could write about countless battles won, a deeper joy, and a greater understanding of the goodness of God because of the Scriptures, but I’ll let the Scriptures tell you “The Why.”

Scripture is to be understood correctly

2 Timothy 2:15 – Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
Acts 17:11 – Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for the man of God

2 Timothy 3:14-16 – But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Scripture provides nourishment that bread cannot

Matthew 4:4 – Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
Job 23:12 – I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food.

Scripture will set you free from guilt and the enslaving power of sinful patterns of conduct

John 8:32 – “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Bob Kauflin, The Director of Worship Development for Sovereign Grace Ministries and worship pastor of Covenant Life Church, read the ESV Study Bible last year and wrote down some thoughts on it that I found helpful

May our lives be saturated with the Word; our thoughts, our songs, our prayers. Let me know if you’re up for the challenge. It’s worth it.

Thanksgiving was a heavy day. I received the call from Josh Patterson that morning informing me that Matt had had a seizure and was being taken to the ER. I didn’t want to hear that news. I wanted to eat until I got the meat sweats, sleep and be thankful for my world not being turned upside down. But that’s not what happened. I wasn’t prepared for what my heart and mind was going to experience over the next six days.

I’ve been anxious and I’ve been hopeful. I’ve experienced worry and I’ve experienced great confidence in God’s sovereign hand. I’ve wept hugging my brother and I’ve laughed at his endless supply of humor. I’ve let my mind wander and I’ve set my mind on things above. In the end, the best offensive I have in this battle is the Word of God. So here are a few passages of Scripture that have kept me clinging to the cross and thinking rightly about what I “deserve.” As John Piper said in a recent tweet, “At 83 or 63 or 33 or 13 we have all lived longer than we deserve. At death therefore be grieved, but not embittered.”

“For the righteous will never be moved;
He will be remembered forever.
He is not afraid of bad news;
His heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.
His heart is steady; he will not be afraid…”
Psalm 112:6-8

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-5

“But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more”
Psalm 71:14

If you are a human, you have suffered greatly or you have known someone who has suffered or is suffering currently. Brokenness is all around us and in us. Our bodies are broken and fragile, but our faith in our great God and King is strong. My prayer is not only for Matt but also for all those suffering, that their eyes would be fixed on the cross and that they would cling tightly to it. May we suffer well with those suffering and be used to remind them of the goodness of our God.

At The Village we are passionate about truth. We talk about it, preach about it, sing about it and attempt, through the Spirit, to live it out. Ultimately we define truth as a person, the God-man, Jesus Christ who said in John 14 verse 6, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Jesus explicitly says here that if you are seeking the truth, if you desire to know what it is, it is found in me; “I am the truth.” Truth can also be defined as the body of real things, events and facts. Certain things, facts or events are true while other things, facts or events are not true. All but the most relativistic thinkers agree on this point.

Right thinking leads to right living

Someone once said that right thinking leads to right living. If you will think rightly about God, you will begin to live rightly. In other words, unless our understanding and our thinking of who God is and what He has done is rooted in the truth of the biblical revelation, we will be unable to grow in holiness and obedience.

How does all of this relate to the music we sing at The Village? As I said in my previous post, we believe that songs teach and because of this it is incredibly important that what they teach is true. To ensure the truthfulness of the songs we sing, we (Michael, Isaac, Jeff and I) do at least two things. First, we pay very close attention to the lyrics of the song and do our best to discern from our understanding of scripture and from study that what the song teaches is true.

Additionally, we send all the lyrics of songs we are considering to our Discipleship Resource Pastor, Geoff Ashley, to look them over with the same things in mind. God has gifted Geoff with an incredibly sharp mind and coupled with his extensive post-graduate work at Dallas Theological Seminary, has given him an ability to see things we may have missed. All of this is done to ensure that we are being biblically faithful to our call as pastors from Ephesians 4 to:

“equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

Jonathan Edwards: “And the duty of singing praises to God seems to be appointed wholly to excite and express religious affections. No other reason can be assigned why we should express ourselves to God in verse rather than in prose, and do it with music, but only that such is our nature and frame that these things have a tendency to move our affections.” The Religious Affections, page 44

Psalm 96:1-2 — “O sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the Lord, all the earth! Sing to the Lord and bless His name; tell of His salvation from day to day.”

Psalm 66:1-2 — “Shout for joy to God, all the earth; sing the glory of his name; give to Him glorious praise!”

Psalm 98:1 — “O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things!”

If the things above are true, then it is clear that we should be singing songs to God to praise Him for who He is and what He has done so that our thoughts, affections, emotions, minds and hearts might be stirred up to love Him and treasure Him above all things. Too often we think of singing praises to God as a religious duty we do each week with fellow believers before or after the sermon. The reasons we sing to the Lord will not be fleshed out here but the question of why we sing new songs will be addressed.

Why new songs?
The question could be raised (and legitimately), why do we sing new songs? Why don’t we simply sing old hymns and songs that have been around for several hundred years?

The Container Store
After the apostle John had written his Gospel of all that Jesus said and did, he wrote this: “This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true. Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:24-25, italics mine). The quick and easy answer to why we sing new songs is that what God has done in Christ through the Spirit is a wonderful, awe-inspiring, glorious, deep, mysterious thing. Christ died in our place for our sins and that fact can be celebrated and sung into eternity without us ever fully exhausting the beauty of it. The gospel is a multifaceted jewel, which reveals new depth and beauty each time we look at it. New songs seek to highlight new, forgotten or neglected sides of the jewel stirring the heart with affection for God. Simply put; we cannot contain all that God is, has done and will do in one perfect song.

Time, place and culture
The Bible is very clear that God has, “determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward Him and find Him.” (Acts 17:26-27). In other words, we are where we are, when we are, because God has ordained it to be so. To ignore this fact and its implications for the type of music we sing in church is not exercising biblical faithfulness. What I am not saying is that there is one way of doing music in church that is biblically faithful and all other expressions are unfaithful, rather we need to think critically about when and where we have been placed by God and do our best, guided by the Holy Spirit, to make choices in style and song that honor God and encourage the body.

What I believe I have been led to do in the worship ministry of The Village Church in Denton, Texas, in 2009 is not going to be normative for all churches everywhere and will probably change five years from now. I am simply seeking to be Spirit-led and faithful to my particular context. The implication then is that we will continue to do new songs written in our church and elsewhere that are biblically faithful and culturally relevant in style, melody and lyric. To constrain our expression of worship only to songs written 200 years ago would be to disregard our place and time.

Teaching
We at The Village understand and believe wholeheartedly that music teaches. Lyrics of songs can be remembered long after even the most articulate sentence leaves the preacher’s mouth. This is the nature of the human mind and the way it engages with song, melody, rhyme and rhythm. We diligently seek out and study new songs to ensure they are biblically faithful and theologically sound. Jesus said, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him.” (John 4:23, italics mine).

May we be such people.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how well I receive advice, ideas or correction. When approached by a member of our church or cornered by an enthusiastic musician who has ideas about how I could do things differently (“better” may be a more appropriate word here), or even caught up in the inevitable “difficult talk” my wife and I inevitably have (the double “inevitable” is for you single guys), how do I receive such advise, ideas or correction?

How do you receive advice, correction or ideas that may alter your idea?

Do you thoughtlessly reject others or do you respond with humility?

Scripture gives wisdom here:

Proverbs 13:10
By insolence comes nothing but strife,
But with those who take advice is wisdom.

Proverbs 17:10
A rebuke goes deeper into a man of understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.

Andrew Murray writes:
“All want of love, all indifference to the needs, the feelings, the weakness of others; all sharp and hasty judgments and utterances, so often excused under the plea of being outright and honest; all manifestations of temper and touchiness and irritation; all feelings of bitterness and estrangement, have their root in nothing but pride, that ever seeks itself.”

Pride will bring destruction by isolating us from others who love us. We will become an island that can’t be challenged by others. Memorize the Scripture passages below and use them in times where pride creeps in. Be teachable. Be humble. Be approachable.

Proverbs 19:20
Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.

Philippians 2:3-4
Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Proverbs 11:2
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.

1 Peter 5:5-6
Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you…

Introduction: Recently The Village Church changed the lyrics to one of our songs in order to better express what we believe the Scriptures teach. We believe that the words which we sing convey the content of our hearts and minds and thus we want to be diligent to teach, whether by song or sermon, that which communicates the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The change involves one particular line within the song “Made Us Alive.” The chorus formerly read: “There on the cross He bore our sins/And then imparted righteousness/And now we stand here justified/Now we live because He died.” It now reads: “There on the cross He bore our sins/And He became our righteousness/And now we stand here justified/Now we live because He died.”

The song was revised as we reflected upon the word imparted and its theological meaning. Below are a few thoughts on the rationale behind our considering the former lyrics to be inappropriate.

Imparted or Imputed Righteousness?

“Thy righteousness is in heaven.”

These were the words impressed upon John Bunyan, the author of The Pilgrim’s Progress, as he walked in a field one day. Here is his reflection upon the thought:

“One day as I was passing into the field . . . this sentence fell upon my soul. Thy righteousness is in heaven. And methought, withal, I saw with the eyes of my soul Jesus Christ at God’s right hand; there, I say, was my righteousness; so that wherever I was, or whatever I was doing, God could not say of me, he wants [lacks] my righteousness, for that was just before [in front of] him. I also saw, moreover, that it was not my good frame of heart that made my righteousness better, nor yet my bad frame that made my righteousness worse, for my righteousness was Jesus Christ himself, “The same yesterday, today and, and forever.”

Now did my chains fall off my legs indeed. I was loosed from my afflictions and irons; my temptations also fled away; so that from that time those dreadful scriptures of God left off to trouble me; now went I also home rejoicing for the grace and love of God.”¹

There have historically been two verbs which have competed for the proper term to describe our justification: imparted and imputed. For the most part, it is safe to say that most Roman Catholics officially hold to the former, that is impartation, whereas Orthodox Protestants hold to imputation. The distinction between these two, though perhaps difficult to grasp, is nonetheless extremely important for our understanding of the gospel, and our assurance of God’s love.

The best place to look in the Scriptures for a theological grasp of the language of justification is Romans 3:28-5:21. Within the first 12 verses of chapter 4 you might notice the prevalence of the verb “count.” Eight times in twelve verses Paul uses the Greek word logizomai and applies it to the means of faith by which both Abraham and other believers are justified before God.

A quick survey of English translations finds the following words used to translate logizomai. The ESV, which we use at The Village Church, has “counted” as does the NLT. The NASB and NIV have the word “credited” whereas the ASV has “reckoned.” All of these stress the same nuance of being “considered” righteous. What Paul is saying is not that Abraham actually became righteous by faith, but rather that Abraham was considered, counted, or reckoned as righteous, that the righteousness of God was credited to his account, and that therefore Abraham (and those who are like him in faith), was “declared righteous.”

Paul is not writing that we are transformed into people who possess righteousness, but rather that we have been united to Christ and because of our union with Him (the emphasis of Romans 5), we have that which He possesses, that is, righteousness. We are in Christ and thus what is His is credited to our account.

Here is how John Piper expresses the difference between the two terms:

“Imputation” is different from “impartation.” God does “impart” to us gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, so that we have them and they are in us growing and they are ours. But all of that gracious impartation through the Spirit is built on an even more firm foundation, namely, imputation – the work of God outside of us: God’s own righteousness, not imparted to us, but imputed to us. Credited to us, as Romans 4:6 and 11 say. Put to our account. Reckoned to be ours.

The distinction between the two understandings of justification is crucial especially for our assurance. If we believe that we have been made righteous, then any sin which we commit after salvation affects our justification. We are therefore less just and God once again is obligated by His justice and holiness to punish us (this is at the heart of the Roman Catholic doctrines of penance, indulgences, purgatory, and confession.)² If Christ is not our righteousness, but rather we are infused with righteousness, then our standing before God shifts as we progress or regress in our faith.³

What Bunyan realized in the 17th century is the same truth which set the Reformation in motion a century earlier and it is the same truth which causes us today to declare that even now and forevermore, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). There is no condemnation for us because we never cease to be united to Him and He never ceases to be righteous.

Jesus Christ is currently exalted and seated at the right hand of the Father and thus we declare that which Bunyan knew, “thy righteousness is in heaven.”

For Further Study:

• Counted Righteous in Christ: Should We Abandon the Imputation of Christ’s Righteousness – John Piper
• Chapter 36 “Justification (Right Legal Standing Before God)” in Systematic Theology – Wayne Grudem

¹(John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, [Hertfordshire: Evangelical Press, 1978, orig. 1666], pp. 90-91)
²http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/1999/1095_Faith_and_the_Imputation_of_Righteousness/
³For more on the distinction between Roman Catholic and Protestant theology, see this article.

We are busy in the studio this week recording a new album. Over the last six months we have written five songs based on our five foundational truths that we teach in our Little Village classes: God is Good, God Wants to Talk with Us, God Made Everything, God is in Charge of Everything, and Jesus Came to Save Sinners.

We have debated/rebutted/discussed/prayed over every word of every song and are excited about being able to put out a kids’ record that is both theologically and doctrinally sound while also being musically good. We are also thankful to be working with producer Taylor Johnson, who has truly captured the concept and message of each song.

Pray with us for this upcoming record. It will probably release early 2010. We are still in the recording process and still have a few more things to get done before the record will be ready for listening, so our prayer is that these songs, as with every song we write, would scream the gospel. And, we are also praying for wisdom and discernment for Jeff Capps, who is our next generation worship pastor. He will be making a lot of decisions in the coming months concerning this record and will need your prayers.

I entered my high school years in the student ministry at Ridgecrest Baptist at the same time the modern wave of praise and worship music made its way down I-30 to our small town of Greenville, TX. At our church we only sang hymns so the “new way” of doing music was a breath of fresh air for anybody under the age of 24, and the added fact that our parents hated it made us like it even more.

One of my favorite songs during that period was a song with lyrics written from man’s perspective directed to God. This song had a lyric that said, “I will never let You go.” Seemed harmless, but a problem arose when I got to college and the first thing I “let go” was God. Calvin says that “the human heart is a factory of idols,” and I am living proof. So what I knew at that time was that God was gracious and merciful to me, an undeserving sinner, and in return I pursued my fleshly desires.

I think all of us want to be in a place spiritually like Job or David, that when our world crashes we would reply, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away,” or “The Lord is my strength and my shield, in Him my heart trusts,” but what I learned from this song is that I had the power to “let go.”

For the next five years I searched for ways to earn back the love of the God I “let go.” It wasn’t until I heard the gospel through Ephesians 1 that I understood that salvation does not belong to me therefore I have no power to “let go” of it. According to His will I am sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. Power of salvation belongs to its author, our Lord God.

As a worship pastor, it’s my duty to examine lyrical content. What does each line teach? Does the song promote wrong theology? As a teenager, even later in my early 20’s, I had dismissed hymns as outdated and irrelevant. Now, in my 29th year, I am overwhelmed with hymns and their authors because, for the most part, their lyrics flat-out hold water. And if I would have given an ear to some of these lyrics while growing up as a young music lover in East Texas, maybe I would have known more about the gracious God of my salvation.

“O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.”

Author: 22-year-old Robert Robinson