God calls believers to live in peace with one another. His Word charges us to make every effort to keep ourselves united in the Spirit, bound together with peace. No matter what our roles of service are as members of Christ’s body, this effort is part of our striving to lead a life worthy of our calling by God and His gospel.
The members of a worship team often have many different preferences and musical palates. Sometimes we worship leaders impose our preferences upon other team members and congregations. Or, we may be put out because our lead pastor has imposed his preferences upon us and we feel hampered in our ability to lead with the songs and musical styles we prefer.
There may also be times when we or one of our team members are full of pride or envy, or are doing a sloppy job singing or playing our instruments, or are consistently failing to show up to rehearsals and services on time. These faults can be difficult to forgive. However, according to God’s Spirit in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we are commanded to
“Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” (Ephesians 4:2)
This statement immediately precedes the directive for us to make every effort to be united in the Spirit and bound together with peace, and it highlights explicit ways that we can make this effort:
- We must always be humble and gentle.
- We must be patient with each other and make allowances for each other’s faults.
Why? Because of our love for one another which flows out of our love for Christ in response to His great love for us.
If we struggle to keep peace with our brothers and sisters (regardless of the nature of our servant leadership role), we need to remember how God has loved us first and that His love compelled Him to make peace with us despite our faults and preferences. While we were still sinners, enemies of God with our sinful natures at war with His perfect, sinless nature, Christ died for us and made peace with us through His blood shed on the cross for our sins (Romans 5:1, 8; Col. 1:19-22). This is amazing! We are no longer God’s enemies because HE chose to be punished for our sins so that we might be reconciled to Him and have peace with our Maker.
Consider also this charge from Paul in his letter to the Colossians:
Let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful (Col. 3:15).
We must let the gospel rule our hearts. We cannot afford to forget the good news of the peace that we now have from Christ, because of God’s great love which compelled Him to humble Himself to the point of dying on a cross for our sins. Christ has humbled Himself and been gentle and lowly among us. Our Father has been immeasurably patient with us. And He’s given us His Word and His very life lived among us as our example to follow as we persevere in leading lives worthy of our calling. Let’s make every effort to walk worthy of our calling by letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts and our worship teams.
Therefore I [Paul], a prisoner for serving the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling, for you have been called by God. Always be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love. Make every effort to keep yourselves united in the Spirit, binding yourselves together with peace. For there is one body and one Spirit, just as you have been called to one glorious hope for the future. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one God and Father, who is over all and in all and living through all. – Ephesians 4:1-6
“War and Peace” photo above by Russell Trow, used via Creative Commons license