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Today is the second in our six part series on the Six Marks of
Discipleship from a corporate perspective, from the perspective
of the church as a collection of individual disciples learning
and growing together in faith. The six marks are essential for
our individual growth and effectiveness as a disciple of Jesus
Christ, and they are also essential for our corporate growth and
effectiveness as the church of Jesus Christ. They are the ways
in which we seek the Lord in earnestness in our lives (the call
from Jeremiah), and they are the pathways of seeking through
which we will find the Lord and begin to discern and understand
His plans for us—again, as individual disciples and as
the particular collection of disciples known as Shepherd of the
Hills Presbyterian Church. Last week the essential and
foundational faith discipline of praying daily. Please take
that admonition seriously. Pray daily. It is essential to our
being a productive church in the Kingdom of God. Pray
daily. Today, corporate worship weekly—together we
worship. (Read Psalm 100)
When we first looked at the Six Marks of
Discipleship back in 2003, the admonition to “worship weekly”
met with a few questions. First of all, in introducing the
marks to the Session and asking the elders to commit to
practicing these marks in their lives as leaders in the church
(we ask the staff and our leaders, both elders and deacons, to
sign a sheet of commitment to these marks of membership), one of
the elders asked this question. “You mean you’re asking us,
when we’re out of town on a Sunday while on vacation, you expect
us to fly back here to be in worship on Sunday?” And my
response was, “Absolutely. You should be here every
Sunday.” No! That wasn’t my response and it’s not what is
meant by worship weekly. What is does mean, and what my
response was to that question, is that wherever you are when
Sunday comes around you ought to find a place to go and
worship. Followers of Christ want to find a place to go
and worship God. So, the first clarification on “worship
weekly” is to find a place, wherever you are, to go and worship
God. Preferably another “house of worship,” a church someplace
near you where fellow believers are gathering together to offer
their worship to God. If that’s not possible, and I suspect it
seldom is, but when that’s not possible set aside a dedicated
time wherever you are to worship God.
Then the second question that arose picked
up on the point we’ve repeatedly been making that our words and
actions throughout the week are an act of worship. Someone
asked me, “Haven’t you been telling us that we are to worship
more than just weekly, to worship each and every day by what we
do and say?” (It was Alvina Mabry who asked. Frankly, I
appreciated her paying attention and holding me accountable to
what I’d been saying!) She was absolutely correct. So, we’ve
changed this mark of discipleship from “worship weekly” to
“corporate worship weekly.” A faithful disciple wants to
worship, yearns to worship God in fellowship with other
believers. And it’s certainly a central task to what we do as a
church. We gather together, one day a week, and together we
worship.
It’s important, however, not just to gather
together and worship. How we worship is important.
Let’s take a look at a few important points about how we worship
when we gather together.
First of all, what worship is not. Simply
stated—it’s not about you. What gets caught up in worship that
is, first of all, about us are such things as worship styles,
entertainment and what I “get” out of worship. Those are not
bad things. They just are not primary things about worship.
They become bad things when they become primary things about
worship. As Pastor Douglas Brouwer, who is a Presbyterian
pastor, reminds us in the quote on the bulletin cover this
morning, “Worship is not, and never has been, something
people attend in order to be entertained or fed. Worship can be
entertaining. Worship can be richly nourishing. I have pleasant
memories of worship being both of those things to me. But those
are not the reasons God calls us to worship.” We ought to
be clear about that as we gather together for worship. It’s not
about us, not about our being entertained or fed, not about our
likes and dislikes on matters of worship styles—be they music
styles or otherwise.
What worship is about, first and foremost,
is…of course, God. Worship is all about God. Everything else
is secondary. God is primary when it comes to our worship. Tim
Keller (another Presbyterian pastor!) defines worship this way,
“Worship is pulling our affections off our idols and putting
them on God. Worship is seeing what God is worth and giving him
what he’s worth.” At its core, worship is giving God the
praise and honor that is due him…and no other.
The truth of the matter is…there is much we
could worship apart from God. The strict dictionary
definition is this, “reverence offered a divine being or
supernatural power,” so the first, most common use of
worship points us to God (“divine being, supernatural
power”…although divinity or the supernatural can be ascribed to
something besides God); but a second definition opens the door
more, “extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to
an object of esteem.” We can, for example, worship the
Denver Broncos. Or the Colorado Rockies. Although, admittedly,
our worship of such things is conditional based upon how they’re
currently doing. Anyone currently worshiping either the Broncos
or the Rockies? However, we can misdirect our
“extravagant respect, admiration for, or devotion to” something
other than the only One worthy of our worship, Almighty God.
Certainly we can fall to the temptation of worshiping money,
status and wealth. The author, George Orwell, said, “When
men stop worshipping God, they promptly start worshipping man,
with disastrous results.” An important aspect of our
corporate worship life together is if we’re not worshiping God
we’re going to worship something else…and the results are
disastrous.
So, at its very core, worship is all about
God. God is the object of our extravagant respect, admiration
and devotion. First there must be that. From there, with our
worship properly directed toward God, our worship together can
be many other things.
For one thing, worship must be
participatory. You are the actors in the theater of worship.
There may be prompters in our act of worship—the leading of
musicians or speakers in worship—but you are the actors in
worship, not spectators. The only spectator is God. The
worship psalms do not invite gathering believers to come and
observe worship, but rather to come and participate in worship,
offering to God their praise and thanksgiving, their
joyful songs. When we gather together for worship it is for the
participation of all of us in worshiping God.
Another factor of importance in corporate
worship being a regular and consistent part of our week is that
it re-energizes us for the rest of the week ahead. It is a
secondary purpose to worship—the first always being
simply giving God the adoration and praise He deserves—but it is
a benefit we receive from worship. Focusing our attention on
God reminds us of what is important in life. Humbling ourselves
before God’s holy throne sets our hearts in the right attitude
for living. Being in the presence of God through worship helps
empty us of our selfish tendencies and fill us with more of
Christ’s servant heart. Gathering together with other
believers, especially your particular church family, to offer
together your praise and adoration of Almighty God brings
firsthand encouragement that you are not alone in serving God in
an often difficult and dark world. We benefit secondarily from
our corporate worship that re-charges our batteries for whatever
draining experiences lie ahead that week. Nicholas Wolterstorff
puts it well, “It seems to me that the Christian life, when
properly lived, is a rhythmic alternation between turning toward
God in worship and running toward the world in love and with a
passion for justice, between congregation and dispersal, liturgy
and labor, worship and work, adoration and obedience.”
Regular, weekly worship with others is an
essential act for the individual and church seeking to
serve Almighty God. Want to be the church God wants us to be?
Now and into the future? Come, worship the Lord…with gladness
and joyful songs, acknowledging that He is God and we are His,
entering the doors of this sanctuary with thanksgiving and
praise, for the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his
faithfulness continues through all generations. |
