the cornerstone is laid and the stars sing together

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
      Tell me, if you know so much.
Who determined its dimensions
      and stretched out the surveying line?
What supports its foundations,
      and who laid its cornerstone
as the morning stars sang together
      and all the angels shouted for joy?  (Job 38:4-7)

What a great picture. God lays the cornerstone for the world and heaven breaks out in the Hallelujah Chorus.

After all, the foundation and cornerstone of this world is Jesus. And the word says that he was laid from before the foundation of the world.

So when God set everything up and got everything ready, the angels were watching, waiting. He set the dimensions of this new world, he lays out the surveying line and ours the foundation.

The angels cheer.

The cornerstone is laid – the Word himself – and the stars sing together. the world is set up and the angels are shouting for joy, the stars sing, all of creation is beside itself in joy.

I wonder, though, if the angels or the morning stars knew the pain that would come in all this.

Yes, Jesus is the Foundation and the Cornerstone. But to truly take his place as those, he had to become human and die a violent death.

God knew it, of course. And since God knew, the Word knew, as did the Spirit.

They knew the sacrifice that would be made so that the people of earth would have access to God, would be able to show their love for him and feel his love.

What love God had for these people who turned from him the first chance they had, who spent so much time doing whatever they could to be against him.

What unspeakable love. Praise God.

sing a new song of praise to him

Sing a new song of praise to him; play skillfully on the harp, and sing with joy. (Psalm 33:3)

I’m listening to a jazz record of spiritual songs put to jazz beat. 

The first few times I heard it, I kept thinking that it sounded like a couple of kids had been sitting through boring church song services and were thinking "We could do better than that."”

Then when they became adults, they did a jazz record of those same songs.  What a neat thought.

The psalmist says, Sing a new song of praise to him. In fact, he uses that same idea six more times. With all of the emphasis on new in the Bible, one wonders why so many insist on singing and playing the same old music to God.

Listening to these young men playing makes me think that there are so many new things we could do for God, if we could get out of the old.

When we ran a coffeehouse in Kansas City, it amazed me at the number of young people in little Christian rock and roll bands who just wanted to give something new to the Lord.

It also amazed me at the number of people in churches who just wanted to stop them.

For some reason, people have always wanted to stop new things. Maybe it is the fear of the new, or the desire for people just to let stuff alone.

Wycliffe was killed in the fourteenth century for making a new Bible, Galileo was censured in the sixteenth century for making a new observation on the universe, the Hugenots were castigated for a new vision, Americans were killed for trying to make a new country based on a new thought: freedom of religion, William Booth, who founded the salvation Army, was condemned for bringing the gospel to the streets using modern music.

Wesley, Campbell, Knox, all these people were doing nothing more than bringing something new to the world in the name of the Lord. Yet they had a lot of enemies.

New is not necessarily bad. If the Bible condemns it, that is one thing. However, just because it is new doesn’t mean it is bad.

Give the new a chance. After all, if God likes it, you might want to rethink it yourself.

daily java

Daily Java: Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.(Colossians 3:16).

Our worship is an outpouring of our hearts to God. It is a natural expression of gratitude and joy. With it we teach and encourage each other.

Singing together was meant to be more than just singing together. it was meant to be a morale booster for a church, for a teaching instrument, or an encouragement.

The emphasis was never intended to be on the how but the what and the why. We worry so much about singing the right way that we lose the whole point of the doing.

We argue over style or from or how we sing or whether or not we use instruments (a small percentage of the church, true, but tone I grew up in) and in so doing destroy all of the good in the singing.

It is a real shame when a church divides itself over how to sing and never considers that the main emphasis is to sing.

And singing together is one of the best things you can do.