I am going to begin this post with something I rarely do. I’m going to quote someone I am not a fan of — John Piper. There is so much of Piper’s theology that I cannot agree with. But we should always be open to the thoughts and ideas of those with whom we do not totally agree. They are not always wrong. And we are not always right. One statement by Piper that I totally agree with is,
A congregation learns its theology by the songs it sings,
not just by the preaching it hears.
I would go on to say that what we sing may even have more of an impact on our theology than the preaching we hear. We may not remember the main points of Sunday’s sermon or even the scripture passage the pastor used, but most of us know the lyrics to the songs we sang last Sunday. Our theology is in the music we sing in our worship services and listen to on Christian radio. There is both an advantage and a danger in that truth. Why is there a danger?
There are a lot of Christian songs with flawed theology. When we sing those songs, we are embedding that theology into our lives. We may not realize it consciously, but we are developing our theology from the worship music we sing. And listen to. Ashley Danyew, a contemporary Christian musician and music teacher, shares about the power of musical theology.
She says that when we sing our faith, "we internalize it. We remember it. We write it on our hearts".
One of the things I’ve done over the years is design websites. I started doing this back in the infancy of the Internet in the 1990s. To supplement my income as a church planter, I designed websites for churches. I’ve kept up with website design over the years and am currently fairly proficient with the WordPress platform for websites. When something is embedded in a webpage, a code is inserted that is not visible to the public. However, the embedded code usually shows something to the public that is visible. For example, when an html code for a video clip is embedded on a webpage, you don’t see the code. You see the video clip. This is what happens with the songs we sing. They embed theology into our lives. We cannot see it, but we express it through what we believe, how we think, and how we act.
This brings me to the primary focus of this post. Jesus is not our buddy! We don’t hang out and joke with him at a coffee shop like we do with our best friend. He is our Lord and Master! He is the King of Kings! He is the sovereign God of the universe! He deserves our complete honor and respect!
So, where do we get the idea that Jesus is our best friend? Well, actually, from the Lord himself. In his final message to his disciples, recorded by the apostle John. Jesus said,
I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn't know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father. — John 15:15 CSB
The problem is that we have misunderstood the cultural context in which Jesus made this statement. We have translated the cultural understanding of friend into our Western American mindset of friendship. Those to whom Jesus said these words would have understood his statement in a totally different way from how we understand it today. Their concept of friendship was totally different from ours.
I am giving you a link to a post by another writer, because he explains this much better than I can. Skye Jethani is someone whom I enjoy reading and listening to. He is a deep theological thinker and can express deep and profound thoughts in easily understood ways. The post linked to below is from his daily devotional, “With God Daily,” to which I subscribe. You will need to read his post to fully understand where I am coming from and what Jesus really meant when he said, “I have called you friends.” I hope that you click the link below and read his post (it is not very long).
We Are Jesus’ Friend; He’s Not Ours
Again, I encourage you to click the link above and read Skye Jethani’s post. My article is unfinished without reading his article.
Thanks for reading! And remember, you are constantly being formed!