In a recent post I wrote about the Great Evangelical Scandal when God’s people in the same local church refuse to come together to worship; instead “everyone [chooses to] do what is right in his own eyes”.
In this post I would like us to think about what worship is.
STAYING FOCUSED IN OUR WORSHIP
1) The Focus of Worship Is God
Paul Tripp (New Morning Mercies) notes that “the first four words of the Bible may be its most important words: ‘In the beginning, God…’ ” He says:
These are four thunderously important words.
[These words] help us to remember that life is simply not about us. It is about God— his plan, his kingdom, and his glory.
They really do change everything, from the way that you think about your identity, meaning, and purpose to the way that you approach even the most incidental of human duties.
And, especially they change the way you think about worship!
In worship we give to God.
Give to the Lord, O families of the peoples,
Give to the Lord glory and strength.
Give to the Lord the glory due His name;
Bring an offering, and come into His courts.
Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!
Tremble before Him, all the earth. (Psalm 96)
We give to God: we declare His “worth”.
That’s what “worship” is: It is “worth-ship”; it is all about declaring His worth !
We declare God’s worth:
– by giving Him praise, confession, thanks, requests: in prayer and in song.
– by giving Him our attention when His Word is read and preached.
– by giving Him our offerings.
Above all:
– by giving Him our hearts. As George Herbert put it: “…above all, the heart must bear the longest part.”
Jesus complained “These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honour Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” Matthew 15:8
“Give Me thy heart,” says the Father above,
No gift so precious to Him as our love;
Softly He whispers, wherever thou art,
“Gratefully trust Me, and give Me thy heart.” (Eliza E. Hewitt)
2) The Focus of Worship Is the Triune God
I have written about this before here, and here.
So I won’t go further into it except to remind you that true worship is, must be, Trinitarian.
3) Worship Is Meeting with God through Our Mediator, Christ
In worship we meet with God.
We do this by worshipping Him in our spirit, and in truth: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4:24
Here “in truth” implies: 1) in sincerity, and 2) according to His revealed will for how we are to worship Him.
God’s revealed will for meeting with Him, and the only way now possible for us fallen but redeemed creatures to meet with Him, is through the merit of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ:
“Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” Romans 5:1-2
4) Worship Is God Meeting with Us
In worship we meet with God.
But worship is a two-way meeting: Not only do we meet with God, but God meets with us.
God meets with us through His Spirit, and through His Truth – which is the Word of God.
God meets with us in worship, especially through His Word. And that Word comes alive in our hearts only as God meets with us through His Spirit.
If we draw near to God in worship, He promises to meet with us.
– “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” (James 4:8)
– “You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)
– “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near; [and] the Lord will have mercy on [you]; and He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7)
Worship is about God; our own selfish wants take a back seat.
It is about meeting with God; and God meeting with us.
BECOMING UNFOCUSED IN OUR WORSHIP
1) Worship is not primarily about you. BUT…
Worship is not, first and foremost, about:
– what you get for yourself,
– what you can do to enjoy yourself,
– how you can amuse yourself.
BUT:
When you come to worship seeking God, and only God,
– you will be blessed.
– you will go away from there amazed at how much it has helped you !
This is because our “chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever” (Shorter Catechism, Q.1). When we make it our aim to glorify God in worship, we will enjoy Him!
Which leads me to:
2) Worship is not primarily about entertainment. BUT…
In many churches today, worship is about people being passively entertained by the music program, watching others who (maybe, maybe not) are giving to God, instead of the watchers themselves using their God-given voices to give of themselves to God.
This is not “new” by the way. Many think this is solely a characteristic of “contemporary worship”; some think it is a great innovation, and that any way of worshipping God prior to 1980 (2000?) belongs in the Dark Ages.
Ironically, music as entertainment in worship began back in the Dark Ages.
At the time the Church (the Roman Catholic Church) had lost all spiritual power. It had lost the gospel; and when you lose the gospel, you lose power.
Without spiritual power church becomes boring. If you don’t have the Spirit in you, you will always find church boring.
What to do? All you can do is find some other way, some substitute, to entertain. Where the Spirit is absent, something has to fill the vacuum.
So, back in the Dark Ages, and right through to the present day, Roman Catholic Cathedrals became entertainment centres with magnificent musical productions: massed choirs, oratorios, wonderful choral compositions that were sung at the Mass etc.
The Church introduced a Music Program to entertain the masses, once they were no longer gripped by the message of the gospel.
Where the Spirit is absent, it is easier to stir people up with music, than it is to stir them up with the gospel.
BUT:
Where the Spirit is, the gospel does “entertain” (if I can use that word) – with or without music. I recognise that music has its proper place in worship. But the greatest “lift” to our souls must always come through the gospel itself.
The spiritual person will always be uplifted by gospel-based worship. The spiritual person is “entertained”; his soul is given a “lift”. No Christian, filled with the Spirit, would ever find gospel-based worship boring.
In that sense, the gospel-based message is the most entertaining message in the world.
But we don’t come to worship specifically to be entertained. That is not what worship is principally about.
3) Worship is not even primarily about evangelism. BUT…
All true worship is gospel-based, i.e. only possible for us now through the merit of the finished work of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. The message preached in true worship will also be gospel-based. This does not necessarily mean always specifically aimed at the unconverted, though in preaching through the whole counsel of God the message will be specifically evangelistic where the Scriptural passage being proclaimed is.
Don’t get me wrong: I strongly believe in the importance and priority of evangelism in the church’s mission. I have talked previously a bit about the importance of one aspect of evangelism here.
But, if worship is not first and foremost about us, or even about the unconverted, then neither is worship first and foremost about evangelism.
First and foremost worship is about the people of God worshipping God!
Nor should we be relying on our worship service as the only means of evangelism (again, see here). As Carl Trueman (The Wages of Spin) observes:
On a practical level, given that few unbelievers bother coming to church these days, an evangelistic strategy based primarily upon Sunday services is, humanly speaking, not a strong one anyway… Sunday services should be focused more on equipping the saints.
Of course, if an outsider attends our service, he should be made welcome, and should be able to understand what is going on and being said – one might add, he should be able to see an obvious connection between what is read, said, prayed and sung; but accommodating him should not be the decisive priority in the service.
In fact, coming into the presence of God’s people worshipping a holy God should be an unsettling experience for the unbeliever. If you do not believe me, read and reflect upon the implications of 1 Corinthians 14:24-25.
In particular, worship is not about entertainment that pretends to be evangelism.
Robert Godfrey, President of Westminster Theological Seminary has noted: “Entertainment is not evangelism, and evangelism is not worship.”
Entertainment is often sold in the name of evangelism nowadays.
And we are told that we must make worship interesting and exciting for the unconverted so that they will come to church and be converted.
But, Robert Godfrey comments:
At first glance that argument is very appealing. We all want to see many brought to faith in Christ. Who wants to be against evangelism?
But, people are evangelized, not by a juggler, but by the presentation of the gospel. And while evangelism may occur in worship as the gospel is faithfully proclaimed, the purpose and focus of worship is that those who believe in Christ should gather and meet with God. (emphasis mine)
BUT:
Evangelism will occur in a worship service.
As noted before in 1 Corinthians ch 14, unbelievers do sometimes come to Christian worship services. But it doesn’t say, “Therefore, you’ve got to make sure they see or hear you doing nothing they wouldn’t see or hear people doing out in their pagan world – otherwise they might feel a bit uncomfortable and leave.”
On the contrary, it is what the unbeliever sees and hears in a worship service that he doesn’t see or hear in his pagan world that arrests him. It is the very “differentness” of a Christian worship service that grabs his attention.
And, yes, that may mean he walks out and doesn’t come back again.
Or it may mean that he himself “will fall down and worship God, exclaiming, ‘God is really among you!’” (1 Corinthians 14:25)
Only let not our “differentness” be because we are eccentric or abrasive.
But let it be the result of a true gospel differentness.