Welcome to Walking in Worship, a podcast from Orchard Hill Music, where our goal is to journey towards a deeper understanding of what christian worship really is. New episodes periodically on Monday!

This episode, Dan Shields, Chris Jamison and David Bowens sit down to continue their conversation about chapter 1 of Zach Neese's book, "How to Worship a King". Follow the link below to purchase Zach's book and follow along with our discussion.

Link to buy the book - https://amzn.to/2tVxF6P

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Podcast Transcript

Dan Shields: Hello everyone. Welcome to Walking in Worship. My name is Dan Shields. I'm a worship pastor here at Orchard Hill Church.

Chris Jamison: My name is Chris Jamison. I'm a worship leader here at Orchard Hill Church as well. And.

David Bowens: My name is David Bowens, and I'm also a worship leader here at Orchard Hill Church.

Dan Shields: And this Walking in Worship podcast is designed, just to help all of us grow in our faith and understanding of what worship really is. In today's episode, we'll be picking up where we left off in chapter one of Zachary Neese's book, How To Worship A King. We're just going to take some different parts and again, the format of this, this podcast, we're just going to go through the book. We're going to call out page numbers, and call out some paragraphs and quote some things that come from the book. And this is what we've done just as a the three of us over the last year or so. So we're going to try to engage you guys in how this, how our conversations go. So on page one, the bottom paragraph, he says this, "I didn't know what I was sensing was the result of God's call for my life." He said, |"God was calling me as he's calling you, to be more than a recipient of ministry. That person who sits out in the pews and just absorbs and takes in, he has called us to be ministers of his grace."

Dan Shields: "So Christians are ministers of his grace, and any church experience that does not place a demand on that calling, will either cripple us with ennui." I don't know exactly what that word is, and if you guys know that word, okay, if somebody's out there, and hears that word, knows what it is and-

Chris Jamison: Let us know what is.

Dan Shields: ...can't Google search it, but knows it off the top of their heads, send it to us "and complacency or frustrate us by underutilizing us. That's why many people have fallen asleep in regard to their callings. They become spectators, watching as other people live God's dreams for them." I like that in general. I think that's a good understanding of what we are as the kingdom of God. We're all to be priests under God. You know, that was one of the biggest things that Martin Luther talked about when he had the reformation.

Dan Shields: He basically dealt with this exact issue, and he hated this issue. He hated that there were ministers on stage who were doing the ministers, ministering, and people out in the pews who were totally disengaged. Now you have to realize too, this was a, this was an illiterate people largely, that he was speaking to. So they couldn't read the word of God. Plus the Bible was written in Latin, and only the priesthood in general knew Latin, and the services themselves were in Latin.

Dan Shields: So nobody even knew what was being said. And the music was the high music of the church. I mean it was some of the most incredible music of the church, but a lot of it was difficult to sing. And the people in the pews basically would just sit and listen to these Bach choirs or organ pieces, or whatever it was that were really incredible. But they really were spectators. They turned into spectators watching this religious performance on stage. And I think what he's saying here is that God's calling us out of that. He does not want that to be the case. He wants us to be worshiping together. What's, what's your thoughts on that? How do you guys see that?

David Bowens: You know, I, I believe it's true. I think everything that Jesus did, spoke to us connecting with one another, and connecting with God. God first, and then each other. And that formula doesn't look like that. You know? I think when Jesus came, he kind of disrupted the norm of the Pharisees and Sadducee and, and they were kind of the religious way, the high religious way of the time. And when he came, he brought God directly to the people with no form or fashion, but just the love and the desire of God wanting to be in relationship with his people, and bringing his people back to himself.

Dan Shields: Yes. Right. 'Cause he, he could have come as the high priest or he could have.

Chris Jamison: Oh he could have come as whatever he wanted to come as, because that's with the church, right?

David Bowens: If he wanted to be in the church, and in the form, and then the high church, the religious factions, he would've come in that way.

Chris Jamison: Right.

David Bowens: But he came like a regular person talking to regular broken people, and extended love and life, and truth and that caused those people to respond in worship and adoration in, in following him, and giving to him and, and wanting to just be in his presence, which is part of what worship is. Is what worship causes us, allows us into the presence of God. Whether it be work, whether it be home, whether it be singing, whether it be whatever form of worship we're in. It allows us into the presence of God in a way that we recognize it because God is always there.

David Bowens: So God is everywhere. But our sense of him is heightened in worship, if that makes any sense. But yeah, I feel like Jesus showing up and disrupting that whole high church experience, said something to what God wanted because in essence, and well and not in essence, but in truth, Jesus is God. And so if that's the case, then he shows you what exactly he wanted. He wanted to get to the people, connect with the broken people, and reach their hearts. And that didn't look like the high church model when we saw it.

Dan Shields: I always thought it was interesting too. You know, you look at the, you look at the apostles and they are a real cross section of the culture of the day. You know what I mean? They came from every possible background. You know, they were all Jewish. That was, they were all Jewish men. That was the common homogeneous thing. But other than that, they were really diverse. But the one thing that was really striking is that there were no priests. There were no, there was a zealot, but there were real religious people as his disciples, the, the 12 apostles, until Paul. So even at, at the end he, he sort of crossed that barrier of truth.

David Bowens: Yes.

Dan Shields: It's, I'm here for everybody including the priesthood, including the high religious people who have grown distant and cold, and far away from me. I'm also here because I love them. I love peoples. I love all people. You know, I remember hearing a guy named B E Taylor, he's a local artist, who is a popular local artist, and he did a show for a long time called Light Music. And after he became a Christian, he was a popular pop singer. And then he became a Christian, ended up on this TV show. And he started thinking how God could use him because he was a gifted singer, and he had a lot of thoughts about God using these talents that he had. So I'm going to transition in on page three, about halfway down, he starts talking about this.

Dan Shields: He says, "I have good news for you. God doesn't want to use you. He wants to know you. He wants to be known by you. God used Pharaoh, but he knew Moses. God used Saul." That's King Saul. "But he knew David. God used Judas, the betrayer, but he knew Jesus. God didn't create you so that he could use you. He created you to know you."

Dan Shields: And then if you skip down a paragraph, it says "religion teaches us to view ourselves as a tool, but he wants that relationship with us. He doesn't just want to use us." Christian, I mean, you came from background before you came to the Lord, you were a well-known singer, you had, you had sung on The Voice, and obviously God had given you some really high-level skills. How do you see this and how does that play out for you?

Chris Jamison: I don't know. I think in a couple of different ways. One was when I was growing up, a lot of people would always say like, "Oh, I don't know where he" it's is referencing my singing voice, "I don't know where he gets it from. None of his family really sings, and none of his", whatever. And everyone would just be like, "I don't know. I don't know." And then the more that I, as, as I grew up, and I'm now an adult, and now have, have the faith that I have, I know exactly where I got it from. It didn't, it's not something that's necessarily passed down. I mean, there's a love for music. But I think that we are given tools, and we are given gifts. And I think that it's important to understand that we can get carried away, especially when it comes to music. Being someone that was in a very secular music world, which is fine when you're, when you're a musician, you're trying to amplify yourself, you're trying to get as much exposure as you can.

Chris Jamison: You're trying to get as many eyeballs on what you're doing, as many ears on the music you're making as you can. And it becomes all about you. And I remember talking to Jansen, my wife about this, and saying like, at one point I was like, "Why am I doing this? What is the purpose for me trying to become a professional singer?"

Dan Shields: Now this is before you became-

Chris Jamison: No, no, no. This is after I came to the Lord and started, and started serving here at the church a lot and, and growing in my faith, and I was asking myself the question all the time, "Why am I doing this?" 'Cause at the time I'm still out playing gigs, and playing shows, and recording stuff, and releasing music and all that stuff, and trying to make a career out of it, which in a sense I'm still doing.

Chris Jamison: But, I asked her, I said, "Why am I doing this? Because it feels like I'm just trying to get as much attention on myself as I can." And some people will probably have a different perspective as far as living in that world and, and performing, and making a living, making music. But for me it was like that question of, why are you doing it. And the only one that I could come up with was to point eyes to me. And that didn't seem right, because I didn't do anything for myself. I didn't pick out the gift in a shop, and be like, "You know what? I like the singing voice one. I'm going to go ahead and go with that." Like no, I was, I was given this so I need to use it-

Dan Shields: Say, if we could go to a shop and get it, I would want to get your voice. I definitely like your voice.

David Bowens: I'll take a Chris Jamison voice, for one.

Chris Jamison: [crosstalk 00:10:21] But I think that's, that's the thing is like what, what better thing can we do then use the gifts we've been given to help people draw closer to the giver of the gifts. And that's why it's such a blessing to be able to do that on a regular basis. And I think we all have the opportunity to do that, 'cause every single person is given gifts, whether you're a singer, whether you're an accountant, whether you're whatever you are, and to be able to use the gifts you've been given to point people to the giver, I think is the most important thing. And, what we're called to do is human beings created in the image of God.

Dan Shields: All right, on page four, about three paragraphs down, something like that. He's talking about religion and religion. "The religious heart says, I must do my duty in order to be a value to God. Worship is the opposite of religion. The heart of worship says, Jesus proved that I'm valuable to God, that I have value to God. I serve him because he is also a value to me. Religion teaches us that our function determines our worth and our identity. I am because I do. Worship teaches us that our identity determines our worth, and are functioned. I do because I am, and God determines our identity."

Dan Shields: Sorry. "Identity is determined by God and that's where our worth is." This'll be a rabbit trail and this is sort of an unintended rabbit trail, but this popped into my head as I was doing this. Yesterday I was going for a run, and my son was, my son and my dog were with me. My son's 13 he was riding a bike, and we were just talking as I was running and he, I don't know how we got into this conversation. It was sort of an odd conversation for a jog, but we started talking about evolution, and the value, inherent value of people.

Chris Jamison: It's a heavy discussion for a jog.

David Bowens: [crosstalk 00:12:03] He runs differently than everyone else. That's what I was fixing to say was like yeah, we were having this conversation while we, that was pretty much [crosstalk 00:12:09].

Dan Shields: That was pretty much it. Yeah. If you're like really hard, he's just like biking along. So anyhow, I started talking about how Christians value things differently than, than people of the world. And if you believe that everything is simply just random chance, there is no possibility for real, inherent worth in anything. There really isn't. It's just random chance. You and I or random chance. And if you take that to some extremes, if you take it to the Darwin extreme, which would be, it's simply survival of the fittest, and it's passing the dominant genes down onto the next generation so that the, the most powerful genes are the ones that gets passed on for the lineage, to be able to make the species stronger, and stronger, and stronger, which is really the secular humanist naturalist thinking. Then things like the Nazis or the natural outpouring of that, because with the Nazis, for instance, they believed that they were the dominant human beings on earth. That they had the best genetic pool, and that therefore they could make everybody subservient to them, and people who that they thought were, were very weak, they could absolutely wipe out.

Dan Shields: So Jews, gypsies, people like that, they just eliminated the gene pool. Now, if you're, the reality is, if you're a secular humanist out there listening to this, it's hard to get around that argument that there is no reason why the Nazis shouldn't have done what they did, right? I mean, you think about that really, that's that's the reality. If it is random chance, it is the dominant gene, and it is survival of the fittest. They were the fittest, and they should be the ones that dominate everybody else. It's just the natural order of things. You would never look at a lion taking down a gazelle and saying, "What a cruel lion that is." You just say that it's survival of the fittest. And that lion, when he's around the pride, when he tears into the, the next biggest lion to prove that he is the strongest lion and should pass his genes on to the next generation, nobody would say, "Ah, he's just a bully. That's a bully lion."

Dan Shields: That's just survival of the fittest, right? But as Christians, we see things from a completely different perspective. We recognize the brokenness of, of not just humanity, but this world. How in the fall things broke. But we also realize and recognize the inherent value of human beings. We recognize that we all have that Imago Dei within us, that, that we're all designed and created by God for his glory and for his good pleasure. And that's something that I think we can forget. And we think with, with the religious thing, if you start thinking about it in those terms, that your worth is determined by what you do.

Dan Shields: And that's really the world's view, right? I mean if you make a million dollar, or if you're famous, or if you're good-looking, or if you're athletic or whatever those things are, whatever giftings you have, that's what determines your worth, rather than who we are inside, who God created us to be.

Dan Shields: And I feel like a lot of times because of the pressures of the culture, we oftentimes become who we're really not designed to be, and it just brings misery in our lives. But when we can find who we really were designed and created to be by God, and we start to bring those things out, and bring those to the surface and develop those things, and see what character God put in us and our unique identity, that's when we really get to see the hand of God working in our lives in some really powerful ways. And that also comes out in our worship because we recognize God in our own lives, and God in the lives of those around us. Did you guys agree with that?

Chris Jamison: Yeah, I think it's so fascinating as far as like the way that humans are created, not just physically, but the, the personality and the souls within each individual. You can be a twin, completely identical physically, but be completely different emotionally, and all, all that different stuff. But you cannot explain how each one of us on this earth is completely different in our makeup as far as our souls, and our spirits, and all that different stuff. I just think that that, for, for reasons to worship when everything in life seems like it's going wrong, the simple fact that we were made in the image of God uniquely, and He made you particularly the way that you are, is means enough to worship, and thank him for the, the, the fact that we, I mean, He could have made us all completely identical.

David Bowens: Yeah.

Chris Jamison: But for some reason he didn't. So it's like that's a pretty cool thing. Let's worship God for that. And let's, I don't even know where I'm going with this now. I lost my train of thought.

Dan Shields: But you know, everybody has that unique worship too. I mean, and it probably goes into all of creation, you read in psalms-

Chris Jamison: That's where I was going. Yeah, exactly.

Dan Shields: And all of creation.

Chris Jamison: Kidding.

Dan Shields: All of creation is able to uniquely worship God in its own special, distinct way. But he was the one who created that. He's the initiator of, of all of those things. All right. On page four, he starts to talk about our identity and one of our primary identities as a Christian as that we are the priesthood of believers. And he says this at the very top of page five "Did you know that God never intended the ranks of his priesthood to be restricted to a few people from a certain tribe?" He was talking about Levi there. "He originally called Israel out of an entire, out to be an entire nation filled with priests, to reach the entire earth" or, excuse me, "to teach the entire earth how to worship God." And then he talked about what happened and he said that the golden calf happened, and that's, that's when the, the priesthood was separated. And about halfway down he said, "but the truth is this, as soon as you were saved, you were drafted. You were born or reborn to be a priest."

Dan Shields: What are some of your thoughts on that? 'Cause we are called the priesthood of believers. There's a, we're chosen people, or Royal Priesthood. Throughout the new Testament, we see that, that we're called to be priests. And you know, in the old Testament there was that separation of prophet, priest, and King, where the three, three areas that you see specific callings from God. But this is saying that we're all called to be priests. What do you guys think about that? What's some of the significance of that do you think?

David Bowens: Well, I think when Jesus came, there was, it was pretty clear in the evidence of, at his crucifixion where the veil was torn. Because in that time, priests were the only ones, the priests and the prophets were the only ones, at least in the old Testament, who could directly connect with God. Who God directly connected with.

Dan Shields: Yeah. And just [inaudible 00:18:56] that, the priests were supposed to take the prayers of the people and give them to God, and make the sacrifices for the people to God. The profits were to take the word of God and disseminate it to the people.

David Bowens: Yeah, and so, because of that, I think it's a [inaudible 00:19:13] when we're being called priests. It's almost saying we all have, through Jesus, a straight line to God. In that sense, we don't have to jump through hoops, or go through somebody else, but we have access to him. As much access as anybody else as it relates to, the access has to do with our commitment, and relationship. And devotion, and time spent seeking him, and it gives you more access. You can't go from, not that you can't because God can do anything and respond to anybody, however he choose to. However, often you don't find people having deep understanding of the truth of who God is without spending time seeking him.

David Bowens: And and so because we're all called priests, I think we're all called to share the word. We're all called to continually draw closer and get to know God more, but we're all called to be examples of who he is, of who God is and who God calls us to be. And I think that priest title, because most people don't see themselves as priest, even in church. Mentally, we're not walking around thinking I'm a priest.

David Bowens: We look at the preacher like a priest, or we look at the those who are up in front of us teaching other leaders like priests. I can say that because growing up in church, that's how I saw them. Like if someone said, "You're a priest too." I'm like, "No, I'm not." That would be my first thought because I wouldn't consider myself a priest just in my own mentality. Just the way the structure of church, even. Especially the way I grew up with it. And so, hearing that, and gaining a greater understanding of it, should call us to I think an intentionality to our individual relationships with God, and not look for everything to come from the pastor, but we're also called to seek the Lord ourselves, and grow in our understanding of the word ourselves. Not just being fed from the pastor, which is necessary, but also growing in our own individual walk, and understanding of who God is. And then shining that light, sharing that love, and the great commission, winning souls. But I think winning souls through our life and relationships that we have with those around us, so.

Chris Jamison: And I think it's, it's important, and I think necessary to though to understand that the pastor that's preaching, that's a gift he's been given. We've all been given gifts. He just happens to have the gift of being able to relay the word of God, in a way that is able to touch tons and tons of people. And he's a great, he's just really good at it. Just like your, you have your gifts, you're good at too. And so, it brings them back to, "Oh, he's a human being. He's not this high priest individual." And there was like a couple on page six and seven, he said two things. The first, that was a scripture. 1 Peter 2:5 "You also as living stones are being built up into a spiritual house as a Holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices that are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Chris Jamison: And then on seven he says, "What a wonder that common believers like you and me had been ordained by God with no regard to our worthiness, pedigree, or education, to be his personal priests. According to the word of God, your creator has called you, qualified you, and ordained you to be a priest." So I thought there were just some powerful thoughts and words from our friend Zachary.

Dan Shields: I was just thinking as David was speaking too, when you think about some of the things that the priest did, he's, they, they pray for the people, and intercede for the people. And that's something that we're, all Christians are called to do, is to pray for people. They bring the sacrifices and you know, it says, I think it's Hebrews 13:5, where it says "We bring the sacrifice of praise to the Lord." And it also talks in Romans 12:1 about how we're a living sacrifice, how we're to offer ourselves, our bodies, as a living sacrifice unto God, Holy and pleasing. And all Christians are called to do that.

Dan Shields: So, you can see how all of those parts of the priesthood I think are for us, and accessed for us, regardless of what our function is in the, the kingdom of God. So all right, well with that, I think that's enough for today. So we'll start next week on chapter two. But thank you David. Thank you Chris, and thank you guys for listening to Walking in Worship.

Chris Jamison: Hey it's Chris. Thanks so much for listening to episode two of Walking In Worship. Join us next time as we dive into chapter two of Zachary Neese's book, How To Worship A King, and continue to walk with us towards a deeper understanding of what worship truly is.