NEPC MUSIC is a community of worshipers who
Glorify God
Serve One Another
Lead in Worship

The “who” of worship is all-inclusive for us as believers with a shared privilege and ownership to corporately love and praise God.  Considering our call to worship, we worship the very God WHO created us to worship!

Imagine the pure joy in God’s heart when He breathed out all of creation!  To see deep waters and high mountains, fish of all colors and sizes in the shallows and depths of the sea, all forms of living creatures roaming over His verdant earth, and then the people of His heart.  Adam born of God’s breath! Eve from the bone and marrow of Adam!  Both formed in the very image of God!

According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. The thought of standing in the Garden of Eden with everything perfect surrounding, simply hearing the sounds and knowing God’s beauty in nature.  Pure worship!

Yet, all was broken when temptation hooked their hearts and lured the man and woman into sin’s clutches and out of perfect worship.  Even still, God’s saving grace prevailed through the fall of humankind.  In the beginning was His word – His God-breathed creation.  Central to His Word, John 1:1 reminds us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”  Jesus, part of the trinity in the beginning then came as the Holy Word incarnate as our Savior centuries after the first breath of creation was issued.

We celebrate His birth in a few short days, looking at the humble manger into which His helpless form was laid.  Coming in human form, with human feelings and with lack of all fortune, His was the humblest of births. Living as a poor carpenter, moving as a man from place to place without any predictable shelter or income, He lived and walked in faith and then walked His faith to the cross, was nailed naked and with the most excruciating humiliation so that we have life.  So that we have faith – hope – and love eternal. – So that we have breathe to worship forever.

As NEPC MUSIC, through worship we share what we value – humility, commitment, and excellence.

Jesus walked with humility.  Philippians 2:3-4, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”  Nothing of Jesus exhibited selfish ambition but only what would give us the gift of life. The passage continues, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 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.”  Our minds in worship are called to be emptied of self and focused on Christ who gave Himself humbly on the cross and now sits at the right hand of God.  We are privileged to bow at His name and to confess Jesus as our Lord, to the glory of God our Father!

Jesus lived with commitment.  A most tender place in scripture is His prayer in Gethsemane before the guards came and took Him to torment and then death.  In Matthew 26:39, He prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”  His feet did not falter in the face of fear.  His resolve was to do His Father’s will.  We stand as worshipers against the world’s fears with resolve in our Father’s will.  Worship gives us strength and courage to stay the course, to run the race of this life with the confidence instilled by approaching His throne of grace in our time of need and receiving His beautiful mercy.  Committed to worship in all circumstances, we know confidently that we have unending life because of Jesus’ ultimate commitment and sacrifice.

Jesus served with excellence.  Not as His disciples expected Him to reign as an earthly king, with a kingdom under His Excellence, Jesus instead modeled what it was to live with servant-heart excellence. To feel the cleansing touch of Jesus’ hands tenderly washing His disciples’ feet must have been daunting.  Peter was aghast!  “How could Jesus wash his feet?” Peter wondered!  But Jesus said, “If I don’t wash your feet, then you have no share with me.”  To which Peter said, “Then douse my whole body!”  Jesus assured him that wasn’t necessary but bent his knee and dirtied his hands to scrub the grime from his disciple’s road-weary feet.  When we enter the doors of our sanctuary, Jesus still washes our feet clean, setting us on holy ground, drawing us to be bowed in worship, to surrender our hearts to Him as the most excellent Servant.

It was for this humble, committed, excellent Jesus that Mary raised her song of awe-filled joy and to whom we give ourselves in worship.

Luke 1:46-55 (ESV) Mary’s Song of Praise: The Magnificat

And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

 

From generation to generation, we prayerfully worship our God – Father, Savior and Spirit – with humility, commitment and excellence – to glorify and enjoy Him forever!

Maria Currey, Assistant Director of Music


Check out the songs we’ll be singing in Contemporary Worship (11:15am) this week:

NEPC Contemporary Setlist