Chris Voigt Worship

Psalm 101:3 - I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it.

"Can I watch 21 Jump Street?" asked my 15-year-old son. Hmm. We have a general rule that rated R movies aren't appropriate for under 18 year old children (and most adults). I say general because, I must admit that I do have some R-rated films (for action violence) that rank in my favorites list.

I had my suspicions about the film's content. So I looked up a movie review from Focus on the Family's pluggedin.com. To say the least, there are about 125 f-bombs and more than 70 s-words (and much, much more. How could one f-bomb per minute ever be beneficial to one's soul.

Sadly (for him), we had to decline our son's request. Though he'd argue that the words don't affect him, we know that to be false. His argument is common to man, Christians included. We live the lie that we can compartmentalize our lives and swim in the mud and not get dirty. Every decision we make moves us toward Christ or away.

I was reminded of a book I recently read, Soul Detox: Clean Living in a Contaminated World, by Craig Groeschel. In it he addresses this issue and asks how many f-words would be appropriate in one of his sermons? Where do we draw the line?

We live in a culture that makes it increasingly hard to avoid, as David says in Psalm 101, "anything that is vile." Like the fog in a horror flick, vile is seeping into the cracks and crevices of our soul and mind everyday. It warps our view of right and wrong, and blurs the line between the holy and the profane. It contaminates us and pushes out the Holy God we love and follow.

Then we wonder why we feel so distant from God.

Shouldn't we be more like David? What would our worship look like in our churches if all of our worship teams and the worshipers they lead refused to take part in that which is vile during the week? Why should we expect God to find his way through the mud just to touch our spirits when we take a few minutes away from the evils of this world on Sunday morning? Would you?

May we live by verse 4b: "I will have nothing to do with what is evil."

Amen.