I
believe as a worship leader, it can be easy to confuse ministering to the Lord
and ministering to man. It is easy to
get so caught up in leading a congregation in worship that we lose sight of the
ultimate goal. We often want so badly
for others to have a meeting with the Lord that we ourselves miss out on that
meeting. As leaders, it is crucial that
we also take part in this meeting.
Our
Identity In Christ
As
human beings, we all have identities, and they are found in different
things. I'll use a music reference of
this if I may for an example. Imagine a
bass player; that person calls themselves a bass player because they play bass
and they play regularly whether that be on stage, or at home, etc. They identify themselves as such because they
simply play bass. However, if that
person doesn't get the opportunity to play their instrument on stage or at
home, their identity is damaged and they feel their sense of value and worth
are detracted from.
In
this post, I'd like to focus for a minute on our identity in Christ. The Bible defines us as several things. The Bible says that we are chosen and dearly
loved, the Bible calls us children of God, but for our purposes, I want to look
at the fact that God says that we are Priests.
"You also, like
living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood,
offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ" 1 Peter 2:5
"But you are a chosen people, a royal
Priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the
praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful
light."
1 Peter 2:9
That
last verse even goes into a job description for us: we are made Priests so that
we can declare the praises of Him who called us out of darkness into His
wonderful light.
Now,
our identity, who we see ourselves as, makes a huge difference in the way we
function, how we live, and the choices we make.
If we do not see ourselves as priests, that then relieves us of any responsibility
that a priest holds. But, what happens
if we take on the role of a priest?
Our
Role as a Leader
If
we see ourselves as priests, that will change everything. It will change the way we relate to God and
other people. If we see ourselves as
priests, we have the right and responsibility to do what priests do.
I
have a list of things that we are able to do once we have taken on the role of
the priesthood. To do this, I would like
to use the Levites as examples..
1) Build/Host Tabernacle - To get
something out of the way here, I want us to understand that the word
"tabernacle" is much more simple than we think. It is just a fancy word for
"tent". In the Bible, when you
see Moses' tabernacle, it just means Moses' tent. The Hebrews referred to this as a tent of
meeting.
The
idea behind tabernacle is exactly how the Hebrews defined it; a place of
meeting. When you go to church, do you
have some sort of an expectation that you are going to meet with God? It is a body of people coming together with
God being the focus. So, with that said,
here is where being a priest comes into play:
In the Bible, only priests were allowed to set up tabernacle. Only priests are able to host meetings with
God. So as a worship leader, if you do
not see yourself as a priest, do you see where this can be an issue? This is part of the joy of the
priesthood! We have the ability to set
up a meeting between God and man.
2) Carry the Presence of God - At that
time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of
the LORD to stand before the LORD to minister to him and to bless in his name,
to this day. Deuteronomy 10:8
The
Ark of the Covenant always represents the presence of God here on earth. This was the Levites responsibility to do so,
as was their responsibility to set up and carry the rest of Moses' tabernacle. As it was their responsibility, it is ours as
well, and our joy. We carry the presence
of God where ever we go. This also can
pose a problem. What if we don't see and
identify ourselves correctly? As a
worship leader, we carry the Presence of God onto that stage; it is crucial
that we recognize this.
Think
about the fact that we are ambassadors.
Where ever an ambassador goes, the laws of his mother nation apply in
that place, like diplomatic immunity. If
a United States ambassador goes into a foreign nation, where he is standing
just became the United States of America, even though he may be standing on
German soil, U.S. laws now apply there as well.
The same goes for us as followers and as priests. Where ever we go, we are able to bring the
Kingdom of God into that place, because the Kingdom of God is our mother
nation. That is why I believe we are
able to bring a small piece of heaven to people that we come in contact
with. When we contact someone without
God, the laws of the kingdom of this world, the laws of sickness, death and decay,
no longer apply because we are in that place.
Isn't that interesting?
3) Minister to God - Look at that passage
again in Deuteronomy 10:8. It mentions
ministering to the Lord. This is going
to be the point of what I am trying to say in all of this. As priests and especially as worship
leaders, our primary focus is NOT to minister to man. We should focus on ministering to God and His
pleasures, His desires, His will, His glory and His entertainment. As worship leaders, our focus should not be
on ministering to the people in the congregation. That means, our primary concern must be of
the will of the Lord. If the target of
our ministry is pleasing the people in our congregation, we will always have a
ministry that falls short. We want to
target our ministry on pleasing God and His tastes.
Also,
as people, as humans, we do not have the ability to meet the needs of
others. We don't have the ability to
take care of everyone's problems or even provide them an answer for
everything. But, we minister to the One
who is able. I think we as leaders in
the Church would be more effective if we step away from people's needs and
concerns and focus on pleasing the heart of God, because He can take care of
all the things that we cannot in people's lives.
Final
Thoughts
As I mentioned in the beginning, it's easy
to get so caught up in leading a congregation that we often miss out on the
meeting that we took part in setting up.
If we have an effective ministry, it will be because our focus is on
Jesus alone. I think that is something
that we all know, but is easy to lose sight of.
Want to know something else that's pretty
interesting? Do you know what happens
when we minister to the heart of God?...
He shows up.
That's the ultimate
goal.
Justin
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