Should We Sing Worship Songs from Churches with Bad Theology?

Should we sing worship songs from churches that have bad theology? That's just one of the questions we'll be answering on today's edition of Core Christianity. Well, hi, I'm Bill Meyer, along with Pastor Adriel Sanchez, and this is the radio program where we answer your questions about the Bible and the Christian life every day. Our phone lines are open right now, and we would love to hear from you. Here's our phone number. It's 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. You can also post your question on one of our social media sites, and of course you can always email us your question at questions-at-core-christianity.com. First up today, let's go to Michael calling in from Wisconsin. Michael, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yes, at the 20th election, we had a pro-life Supreme Court justice. There were members of my church that were rooting for the candidate that was not pro-life. I feel that there are spiritual consequences for this, which is biblical status, and then I may want to follow up. So are you saying, what are the spiritual consequences to people in your church being in favor of the pro-choice movement?

Is that what you're asking? Yes, the governor and the governor's race. Yeah, okay. Well, I mean, so it sounds to me like there's some question here about biblical ethics, God's law, what's right and what's wrong. You know, Christians can disagree about any number of things.

They can disagree about politics, but there are specific issues I think in the culture, in society, that it's just really clear. And the abortion industry is I think a terrible industry. Frankly, when we think about the things that are happening in society, the way we think about life and devalue life, in particular the lives of the innocent, the lives of the unborn, I mean, this is a really serious issue. And one of the reasons why I think the church ought to be passionate about this issue is, again, going back to God's law. You know, the commandment that God gives us in the Decalogue not to murder doesn't just mean don't kill, but we should be about the promotion of life, the thriving of life. And sadly, you know, there are many people in society who aren't. And for whatever reason, you have individuals in churches who have bought into that.

And are there consequences? Well, yeah, when we reject God's law or when we're not shaped by the teaching of scripture, there are consequences. I mean, it's clear when you look at the book of Revelation, Revelation chapters two and three, as Jesus is speaking to the churches, writing letters to the churches there, some of the churches, they were compromising with culture. And he says very clearly, if you don't shape up, if you don't repent, I'm going to judge you.

I'm going to come to you and deal with this issue. And so he gives them time to repent. So, you know, I mean, this is one of the issues that the people of God have experienced for the last 2000 years. And beyond that, even thinking about Israel, you know, under the old covenant is compromise with the pagan culture around them. And so, yeah, I would say that this is a serious thing, you know, that having a proper biblical understanding of God's law and Christian ethics is important for the church.

And when the church rejects that, then the church is under, will be under God's discipline. Thanks so much for that. Thanks, Michael, for your question.

Appreciate that. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Just to let you know, just to let you know, we have a brand new core guide available. It's called Five Themes to Help You Understand the Bible. And we would love to get that in your hands. Yeah, Bill, it's a free downloadable resource.

And you already mentioned the name. It's Five Themes to Help You Understand the Bible. And it will help you to dig into the various themes of scripture that we see traced throughout the Bible. It's so important for us to see these, you know, beginning in the book of Genesis all the way through the book of Revelation.

And understanding these themes will help you as you study the scriptures, as someone who wants to grow in your own understanding what the Bible teaches. And so get a hold of this resource. I mean, it's really easy to access. It's a free downloadable resource. And you can access it over at corechristianity.com. Love to get this in your hands. We'll help you understand the Bible and its themes.

And we'd love to get that to you. It's corechristianity.com forward slash offers. That's corechristianity.com forward slash offers. Or you can call us for that resource or any one of our resources at 833-THE-CORE. That's 833-843-2673.

Let's go to Valerie from Wichita, Kansas. Valerie, what's your question for Pastor Adriel? Yeah, I was calling about, I had listened to a message today about how salvation is a free gift and there's nothing that we need to do about it. But yet I feel like there's so many verses out there that say that if we love Christ, we love him with our heart, soul, mind, that, you know, we're not supposed to be greedy, adultery, sexual morality, don't inherit the kingdom of heaven. And as believers, we no longer do that, about repenting of our sins, about seeking God. I mean, I feel like there's so many verses that God says, if you love me, you'll follow my commands, that actually say that we are supposed, like, even though it's a free gift, there are works involved with it that we need to do and be more Christ-like. And I have a lot of friends that I know, like in my heart, they believe Jesus Christ has risen and they died for their sins, but they just don't love them enough to change their lives and to walk any way different than they are. But they still say, well, it's a free gift, so I don't have to change. And I just was wondering kind of how that works together, where it's a free gift, but yet there are works that we have to do as being believers in the Bible that says we have to follow certain ways.

Very good question, Valerie. And I know it, I mean, it grieves me too, when you have people in your life, friends who profess faith in Jesus Christ, but then they live in ways that are contrary to what they profess to believe. And sometimes, you know, they don't even care about it, and they'll say things like, well, you know, I'm saved, it's a free gift, I asked Jesus into my heart.

There's a lot of confusion out there about this. The first thing I'll say is, yes, salvation is the work of God's grace, and the gospel is a free gift. The word gospel means good news, and the gospel, the good news, is for sinners. We come to Christ as sinners.

The gospel, we've said this before on the broadcast, is not what we do. God's salvation is not something we can earn or merit by our works. It's not like, you know, it's a little bit of grace and then a little bit of works, and we're sort of cooperating there, back and forth, back and forth, so that finally one day we earn our own salvation. That's sort of like the Roman Catholic view of salvation. We're saying it's all of grace, it's all the free gift of God's Spirit, but those who are forgiven, who have experienced the grace of God, the Spirit of God is at work in their lives, sanctifying them day by day. Believers in Christ, because we have the Holy Spirit, because we've been sealed with the Holy Spirit, as Paul tells the Ephesians in Ephesians chapter 1, we're going to experience things like conviction over our sins. Now, of course, the Christian life is a battle, and every single day, genuine believers are going to struggle with sin in thought, word, and indeed. That doesn't make sin okay, but we need to recognize that, you know, the sort of idea of sinless perfectionism, that that's not the reality for the believer. And so how do we make sense of all this?

Well, I think with individuals who are struggling, and there are many people, right, and this is just the reality. I think what we do is we help them to understand the goodness of God's grace, their new standing in Jesus Christ, and how they're called by God to live according to this reality. You know, the fact that God has raised you from the dead, spiritually speaking, and this is exactly what the apostle Paul said in Romans chapter 6. You know, he's talking about the free grace of God. It's all of grace, and he anticipates the objection that someone's going to make by saying, well, if it's all of grace, well, why don't we just kind of live however we want, you know? God forgives, and I can do whatever I want. He'll just forgive me, and he says in Romans chapter 6 verse 1, what shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound by no means? May it never be, Paul says, how can we who died to sin still live in it? So this is the conversation I think, Valerie, that you want to have with your friends who are unclear here. I mean, take them to Romans chapter 6 and say, look, how can this be?

How can this be? How can we, how can you who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been raised with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. So the way we, I think, encourage each other, and this is what Paul is doing there in Romans chapter 6, he does it also to the Corinthians, is by reminding one another of the truth of the gospel, calling the people who profess to be Christians but are living in ways contrary to God's law, we call them to repentance. We call them to see, I mean, the reality of the gospel. And I think, you know, sometimes, Valerie, and I'm sure you know this, there are people who were just deceived who, you know, said a prayer or maybe think, well, I was baptized, you know, many, many years ago, don't go to church. I don't really know much about Jesus and what he teaches, but I would call myself a Christian, I guess. But they don't understand the gospel.

So, you know, there are different, I would say, people out there. There are some people who are just deceived who really need to understand the gospel and repent of their sins and receive Christ. And even though they might, you know, refer to themselves as Christians, it's just sort of nominal. There are other people who are genuine believers, who are wrestling with sin, struggling, maybe even in a pretty bad state, you know, fallen into grievous sin. And they need to be reminded of what Paul reminds the Romans of there in Romans chapter six, and them too called to repentance, called to walk according to the spirit, as Paul says to the Galatians in Galatians five and following. And that's where we can encourage each other.

And that's where you can encourage your friends as well. You know, Paul does say in 1 Corinthians, when he's writing to the Corinthians, I wrote to you in my letter, not to associate with sexually immoral people, not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world or the greedy and swindlers or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world. But now I'm writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother, that is somebody who's a member of the church, a part of the church, if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler, not even to eat with such a one. And so we have a holy obligation as Christians to encourage each other and to exhort each other. When you see a brother or sister who's walking away from Jesus, who's breaking God's law, and they just don't care about it, well, it's up to us. You know, God calls us to come alongside of them and to plead with them, and to remind us that we remind them of the grace of Christ and the goodness of the gospel, and to call them to repentance. So may the Lord bless you in that, Valerie, and help you, giving you wisdom as you have these conversations with your friends. Valerie, thanks so much for your call, and thanks for listening to CORE Christianity. By the way, our phone lines are open. We'll be taking your calls for the next 10 minutes or so. If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, we would love to hear from you. Our phone number is 833-THE-CORE.

That's 1-833-843-2673. And if you have an email question for us, here's our email address. It's questionsatcorechristianity.com. Adriel, here's an email from one of our listeners named Sharon. She says, Thank you, CORE Christianity, for your show.

My husband and I started watching it online during COVID, and we've learned a lot from you. We have a question about the worship music from churches like Bethel, Elevation Church, and Hillsong, but mostly about the music that comes from churches that preach false teachings like the Health and Wealth Prosperity Gospel. We moved from the church we were attending and are now looking for another church, and that is one thing we've been convicted on. Should we be concerned if a church plays songs from those churches? What should we look for in worship? Sharon, thank you for that question.

I mean, there are actually a couple of questions there. What should we look for in worship? Well, the elements of Christian worship. I mean, what makes a worship service a worship service? It's the preaching, the faithful preaching of the Word of God, the ordinances that Jesus instituted, baptism and the Lord's Supper.

It's prayer. It's offerings. I mean, we see the early church taking offerings to care for the needs of the poor, to support the ministry that was taking place. These are the kinds of things that we see happening in early Christian services. You can read about that in places like the Book of Acts. In Acts chapter two, really early on, after Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter two, verse 42, it says, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, that is Bible teaching, the preaching of God's Word, and the fellowship to the breaking of bread, probably a reference to Holy Communion there, the breaking of the bread and the prayers. And all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, and all who believed were together and had all things in common. This was the early church right there as they're gathering together, participating in the Lord's Supper, doing these things, hearing the preached word.

And since then, this is what faithful churches have done and continue to do. Now, with regard to the music in the church, it is vitally important that the way we worship God and the songs that we sing are true, are biblical. This is so important because worship shapes us. It shapes how we think, it shapes what we believe about God. And if we're worshiping God the wrong way, if we're singing songs that are theologically inaccurate or biblically untrue, we're going to begin to believe things that are false.

And so we really need to recognize this is so important to understand. This is just actually a principle in scripture that we are shaped by worship. Now, what should we sing then?

Well, I think there's a couple of places in the Bible that you can go to find an answer. One, we do have an entire book of the Bible that is songs for worship, the book of Psalms. And I think the book of Psalms really ought to help inform us as we're thinking about the way God wants to be worshiped. One, we should just sing the Psalms. How many churches don't have the Psalms set to music?

We're really missing out here. One of the beautiful things about the book of Psalms is that it really helps, it really covers, if you will, all of the different emotions that we have. It's not just all the happy-clappy kind of songs.

There's nothing wrong with those sort of upbeat praise songs. You do have that in the Psalter, but you also have the laments. When a psalmist or the psalmist was brokenhearted because of sin or because of some trial, I wonder if we really missed out on the laments in Christian worship. How often do we go to church not really feeling very upbeat, feeling like God is not speaking to us, or struggling with some sin and just wanting to be able to say with David in Psalm 22, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There are times where we feel that way, and the Psalms help us in that they give us words to express our feelings to the Lord.

You do have these songs. There are also in the New Testament a number of passages in the New Testament that people think are maybe early Christian hymns. Philippians 2, for example, verses 6 through 11, many people think that these are the words of an early hymn, Christological hymn, that was sung in worship. Philippians 2, beginning in verse 6, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth, and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, there's debate about whether or not that was an early Christian hymn, but this is what the Church was focused on.

It was focused on worshiping the Holy Trinity, fixing the eyes of the worshipers, not on themselves per se, but on Christ, on what he had done, on his humiliation and his exaltation, his suffering on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. That's what we need to be focusing on with the songs that we sing. And I think we have to inspect every song, regardless of where it's coming from.

We want to look at the lyrics and say, okay, is this good? Is this true? Is this beautiful? Is this in line with what God says in his word? And if it is, praise God and sing with all of your heart to the Lord. But we really do want to be discerning. We need to be discerning with regard to the things we hear, not just the things we hear, not just from the pulpit when it comes to the preaching, but also with regard to the music and what we're hearing and what we're singing to God.

Is it true? Is it in line with scripture? And so I would say be discerning. Everything that you sing, everything that you do in worship, you want to ask these questions because it is so important. And so thank you, Sharon, for your email.

I'm grateful that you're encouraged by the broadcast and pray that the Lord gives you wisdom as you seek to make this decision for your family. Really good response, Adriel. What about Kumbaya? Is it okay to sing that at camp? Yeah, I don't even know what that means, Bill, to be honest.

Kumbaya. So I would say no. I mean, Paul does say in 1 Corinthians 14 that if someone is singing in a tongue and you don't understand what they're saying, how are you going to say amen? So we have to sing songs that people understand.

And so no, the answer is no, unless there's an interpreter. Okay. Thank you for that. This is Core Christianity with Pastor Adriel Sanchez. Just a reminder, we have this wonderful resource available for you today. It's absolutely free, and it's called Five Themes to Help You Understand the Bible. It's our brand new core guide. You can find that by going to corechristianity.com forward slash offers. And a reminder that we're going to be recording a second Core Christianity show today. So after we finish this program, we're going to be going to a recorded program. You can call us for the next 35 minutes or so with your questions.

So feel free to give us a buzz right now. 833-THE-CORE, that's 1-833-843-2673. Harold from Oklahoma has this question. He says, what does it mean when we have a fear of God? What does the Bible mean by the fear of God? Here's an opportunity.

Actually, I do want to plug a resource here. It's a book by my friend, Dr. Michael Horton, called Recovering Our Sanity. And it's actually all about this. It's all about the fear of God specifically. And he really digs into the sort of cultural moment that we're in and how so many of us are afraid of each other. We're afraid of what the other person believes, my political opponent, my theological, whatever it might be.

And he unpacks that. But what he does a really good job of in this book is also talking about what the fear of God is. And he says, you know, a lot of times we water it down.

We say, oh, it just means respect that kind of a thing. No, it means fear, to fear the Lord. You think of trembling. You think even of terror at times because we're talking about the Lord, the uncreated God, the one who made all things. We melt as sinners in his presence. And this is why when Peter recognizes who Jesus is on the boat, he says, depart from me. I am a sinful man. It's why Isaiah, when he was in the throne room of God in Isaiah chapter six, he's overwhelmed with the glory of God. And he says, depart from me, or he says, woe is me.

I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell amongst the people of unclean lips. It's the recognition that sinners have in the presence of God. And I think even as believers, you know, there's still this fear. Now, it's not the fear of condemnation for the believer. It's this fear, ultimately, that's rooted for us as Christians and the love that we have for God, the fear of disappointing the Holy One, the fear of sinning against him. And so, you know, scripture speaks a lot about the fear of God.

Of course, Proverbs says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. We're called to fear God. And yet so often many of us fear everything else but God. We fear being persecuted. We fear other people. We fear loss of comfort. We have to ask ourselves the question, do we fear God more than everything else?

And so that's rather what I would say right now. And I just want to encourage you to get a hold of that resource again by Dr. Michael Horton on the fear of God. Well, here's another email question for you, Adriel, before we go today. When reading the Bible for the first time, can you start in the New Testament or do you have to read the Old Testament first? I've been told it's new age and bad to read the new before the old. It's not new age to read the new before the old.

I'm not sure where that's going to go. Actually, when I first became a Christian in high school, started going to church, I started with the book of Psalms and I would read three pages a day. Just say, I'm going to read three pages a day. I'd stop in the middle of the chapter. And that's where I started.

And that's okay. You can start in the Old Testament. You can start in the New Testament. I often tell people, if you're just starting to read the Bible, go to the book of John, the Gospel of John. I think it's really helpful there to think about who Jesus is, the signs that Jesus did confirming his deity, confirming that he was the Messiah. So I'd recommend if you're just starting to read the Bible, pick up the Gospel of John and dig in. And be sure to join us next time as we explore the truth of God's word together.