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Maturity in Worship (Further Up #2)

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INTRODUCTION

There is a stark difference between childlike faith and childish folly. “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him” (Prov. 22:15). “Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18:3). Likewise, there is a massive difference between the high-octane praise of nursing infants (Ps. 8:2) and infantile vain repetitions (Mt. 6:7). And the difference is between hope and despair. Childlike faith and praise is rooted in the greatness and goodness of God, but folly and infantilism despair of growing up into any greatness and goodness and settle for momentary gimmicks and games and emotional highs.

As we consider Christian maturity, we really have to begin at the center all human endeavor, which is worship. It might be easy to react to certain forms of childish worship by lurching into what looks to us like “grown up” worship, but we really must remember that the worship wars go back to Cain and Abel. It’s not enough to just find something older. We want our worship to actually please God, and by His grace, we want it to be a potent force in our lives and world.

THE TEXT

“… Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may worship God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:18-29).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

Christian worship is not gathered at Mt. Sinai – where the mountain could be touched and burned with fire – where Moses and the people shook with fear (Heb. 12:18-21). Christians are lifted up to Mt. Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels and redeemed men, to God the Judge and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant (Heb. 12:22-24). Therefore, Christian worship is not less authoritative or potent but more since it originates from heaven and shakes both heaven and earth, until nothing remains that can be shaken (Heb. 12:25-27). Worship is one of the central means by which we receive this unshakeable kingdom, and therefore our worship must be reverent because God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:28-29).

ACCEPTABLE WORSHIP

Acceptable worship takes place in the presence God and under His blessing. It is not acceptable worship where people say God-words and sing God-songs, where God is not present. And it is not acceptable worship to summons God and then do and say things that do not please Him. Nor is it acceptable to do things that God has commanded merely as a way to buy Him off for all the ways you are disobeying Him elsewhere (Is. 2). The only way a finite sinner approaches the holy and infinite God is by the gift of evangelical faith. Evangelical means “gospel,” and what we mean is that the only way into the presence of God is by the blood and righteousness of Jesus covering all the worship and all of the worshipper. The storm of God’s fiery presence is far more glorious in Christian worship than at Mt. Sinai (Heb. 12:25). The blood of Christ, the blood of the New Covenant, speaks better things than that of Abel, but it is still like Noah riding in the storm, Israel walking through the Sea, the fire falling on the water-drench altar of Elijah. It is joyful and solemn. And faith is what holds all of this together: faith in the person and work of Jesus. God is a consuming fire. The question is not whether you will be burned; the question is only whether you will survive.

COVENANT RENEWAL AND SACRIFICIAL WORSHIP

When Israel met with God at Mt. Sinai, they did so in order to renew the covenant that God had made and renewed with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Ex. 2:23-24, 3:16, 6:3-8, 24:6-8, 15-18). That covenant with Abraham was a renewal of the covenant that God had made with Noah (Gen. 9:1-17), which in turn was a renewal of the covenant that God made with Adam and Eve after the Fall (Gen. 3:15-24). The covenant needed renewing not because it expired, but Paul says to think of the Old Testament as the time when Israel was in school under tutors (Gal. 4:1-4). So think of the covenant renewals of the Old Covenant like convocations. God was teaching, training, and graduating His people in the school of preparation for Christ. The sacrificial system was a “memorial” system meant to constantly remind Israel that they were God’s people, and at the same time it was a standing reminder to God to remember His promises to His people. Every sacrifice was a mini-covenant renewal (cf. Ps. 50:5). Just as couples go on dates and continuously pursue one another romantically, renewing the marriage covenant as they do, so too God has always been pleased when His people gather together to renew covenant.

GROWING UP IN WORSHIP

Christian worship shakes everything that can be shaken (Heb. 12:26-27). This includes the United Nations, the Supreme Court, the Oval Office, Wall Street, our businesses, families, marriages, all that we are. The Church is the light of the world, the salt of the earth, and as the Church goes, so goes the world. Another way of getting at this same principle is that you become what you worship (Ps. 115:8). Part of the theological lesson of all the blind, deaf, mute, and crippled people in Israel when Jesus came in the gospels is that Israel had been worshiping idols (and there were demons in many of the synagogues, Mk. 1:39). However, when the whole Christ is preached, we all with open face behold the glory of the Lord and are changed into the same image – whole humans, from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18). This is the maturity we aim for.

The New Testament speaks of this transformational communion with God sacrificially: “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable [worship]. And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Rom. 12:1-2). The cross was the final and complete bloody sacrifice, but the New Testament teaches that Christian worship is still sacrificial (Heb. 13:5, 16, 1 Pet. 2:5). The main Old Testament sacrifices were the sin offering, ascension offering, and peace offering, and when they were offered together, they were offered in that order (Lev. 9, cf. Num. 6, Ez. 45:17, 2 Chron. 29). In Christ, we are Called, we Confess, we are Consecrated, we Commune, and we are Commissioned. And we trust that the fire of God’s presence will fall and burn everything new.

THE WHOLE OF CHRIST

It’s not enough to say that we did worship correctly, or we did the liturgy. There is a way of being grown up that is actually very childish. What we want to see and enjoy is real fruit. We want to offer Biblically mature worship with a childlike faith in Christ, hungry for the fruit of the Spirit, “proving what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (Rom. 12:2).

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What Worship Accomplishes

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Introduction

We ascend into the heavenlies in our worship and meet with our God there (Heb. 12:22). But this heavenly worship is not something that has fearfully run away from the enemy on earth. Rather, as the book of Revelation shows in great detail, the worship of the saints in heaven accomplishes God’s judgments on earth. The twenty-four elders worship God in heaven (Rev. 4:10), and the seven seals are opened in heaven (Rev. 5:5). But this does not leave the earth untouched or unaffected.

If you want to fight the culture war, you have to fight from the high ground. The only high ground we can successfully fight from is the high ground of Heaven, where our Lord Jesus is seated at God’s right hand.

The Text

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3–5).

Summary of the Text

Paul here tells the Corinthians that we still live our lives in the flesh but we do not conduct our warfare according to the flesh (v. 3). Our lives are material without being worldly. The fact that our weapons are not carnal weapons does not make them ethereal, impotent weapons. Just the reverse. They are mighty (through God) in the toppling of the devil’s castles (v. 4). Unbelieving man erects two things against the knowledge of God, and those two things are “imaginations” and “every high thing.” These exalt themselves, but the weapons of our warfare cast them down, and take them captive (v. 5). And the warfare is described as total—we take every thought captive.

Relate This to Our Worship

First note that in our text we are expressly told that we do not accomplish this mission by means of physical weapons. One of the things that has disturbed our local secularists is that they have heard us saying things like “all of Christ for all of life for all of Moscow.” This seems to them as though we want to get a row of howitzers up on Paradise Ridge, and to start dictating terms like we were the Taliban of the Palouse. They have also quoted us saying that Moscow is a “decisive point,” to use our military phrase. But we are talking about spiritual warfare. However, spiritual warfare has real time consequences. Spiritual warfare is not ethereal warfare, or some form of make-believe warfare.

Secondly, we know that Jesus Christ has ascended into the heavenly places, into the court of the Ancient of Days, where He was given universal dominion (Dan. 7:13-14). He bought all the nationsof men with His own blood, and He intends to have them (Ps. 2:7-8). He told His followers that He had been given all authority in Heaven and on earth, and that was why they were to fan out and disciple all the nations on earth (Matt. 28:18-20).

And third, our worship services are a weekly celebration of that great coronation. And coronation celebrations always spell trouble for all pretenders to the throne. This is what Adonijah discovered to his dismay. His coronation party was quite overshadowed.

“And Zadok the priest took an horn of oil out of the tabernacle, and anointed Solomon. And they blew the trumpet; and all the people said, God save king Solomon. And all the people came up after him, and the people piped with pipes, and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of them. And Adonijah and all the guests that were with him heard it as they had made an end of eating . . . And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king in Gihon: and they are come up from thence rejoicing, so that the city rang again. This is the noise that ye have heard. And also Solomon sitteth on the throne of the kingdom . . .  And all the guests that were with Adonijah were afraid, and rose up, and went every man his way” (1 Kings 1:39–49).

Warfare Through New Eyes

God established the antithesis at the very beginning of human history (Gen. 3:15). There is therefore a constant state of war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. The Lord Jesus crushed the serpent’s head in His crucifixion and resurrection, but by His grace He permits us to participate in that struggle (Rom. 16:20). He crushes the adversary badly, bruising him under His heel. But remember, as His body, we are His heel.

“And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church” (Eph. 1:22).

But there is more. Jesus promised us that in this conflict, the gates of Hades would never prevail against us (Matt. 16:18). But please note that the gates of Hades are not an offensive weapon. We are not besieged by the gates of Hades. We are the besiegers. We are not manning our tiny little Alamo, fighting until we finally go under. It is the other way around.

This does not mean that our warfare is easy. Far from it. The first men up the scaling ladders can find the fighting hot at the top of the wall. But it is the top of their wall.

Proclaim the Lord’s Death Till He Comes

Every faithful sermon that declares Christ as Savior and Lord is a proclamation, but not just to the gathered believers. The message is also for unbelievers, as well as all the principalities and powers. Every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, which we do every seven days, we proclaim the vicarious death that conquers the whole world (1 Cor. 11:26). And every time we open our mouths and our psalters to sing, we want to do so in a way so that Adonijah can hear it.

What is it that overcomes the world? Is it not our faith (1 John 5:4)?

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The Structure of our Worship

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Introduction

We assemble here week after week to worship God in the name of Christ in the power of the Spirit. This is what we do. But it is also important for us to understand what we are doing, and why we are doing it. Otherwise we will drift into a mindless routine—which is quite different from a Spirit-led routine.

The Text

And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving (Col. 2:4-7).

Summary of the Text

In verse 4, Paul warns against the seductive power of a certain kind of religious approach, the kind that always fails to approach Christ. Even though Paul was not present with the Colossians (v. 5), he was with them in spirit. He rejoiced as he beheld their order (taxis), and the rock-solid nature of their faith in Jesus Christ. This word taxis is a military term, and should be understood as a kind of regimentation. But note that this order was both disciplined and alive. It was not an orderly row of gravestones, but rather it was the order of a military troop, arms at the ready. It was more than such order that pleased Paul, but it was certainly not less.

Paul then urged the Colossians to walk in Christ Jesus in just the same way they had received Him initially (v. 6), which was of course by grace through faith. As they did so, they would be rooted and built up in the Christian faith, in just the way they had been taught. The overflow of this, when it is happening, is an abundance of gratitude. As with all things of this nature, we measure whether or not it is happening by the fruit. That said, why do we do what we do?

The Structure of Our Worship

Consider first the broad outline of our worship service. We find five basic elements here. Take a look at your bulletin as we consider this. Notice that the first and last elements are the Call to Worship and the Commissioning. These are the book-ends of our service. The church is the called out gathering. The word for church (ekklesia) means “called out.” So at the start of the service, we call you in, and at the end of the service we send you out. You are sent out with a blessing and a task.

So the first invites us in from the world to assemble before the Lord to worship Him. The last sends us out into the world in order to function as ambassadors of Christ and of His gospel. If we have learned rightly, when we are being sent out into the world, we are letting the clutch out. Worship is the engine, but we have to let the clutch out.

Then there are the central three elements of our worship.

Confession of Sin—we wipe our feet at the door.

Consecration—we offer ourselves up to God as living sacrifices.

Communion—we sit down for table fellowship with our God.

These follow a basic biblical pattern of sacrifice. In the worship of the older covenant, God commonly required three kinds of sacrifices together. Whenever they are mentioned together, they come in this order. First was the guilt offering (confession of sin: Lev. 17), then there is the ascension or burnt offering (consecration: Lev. 16:24-25), and then comes the peace offering (communion: Dt. 12:17-19). We see this overall pattern in Lev. 9 and 2 Chron. 29:20-36.

Our name for worship that deliberately and self-consciously follows this basic pattern is called covenant renewal worship. This is not because the covenant was going to expire, like a lease. It is an everlasting covenant. But it is also organic and alive, and needs to be nourished and fed.

Filling the Structure In

We find in various places of Scripture that certain particular practices are called for in New Covenant worship. So one of the things we therefore do is look at the nature of that practice and decide where it would best fit within this general structure. For example, the Bible requires the public reading of Scripture in worship (1 Tim. 4:13). So where do we put it? It seems to fit best under Consecration. The Bible commands us to sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19). Where do we place the different kinds of songs? We would put penitential songs at the time of confession, for example. We are commanded to have preaching (1 Tim. 4:2). Where does that go? In doing this, we are seeking to be obedient while arranging our worship intelligently.

Posture and Demeanor

A very common temptation among the Reformed is to over-engineer the intellectual aspects of our faith. Reason and systematics have their necessary place, but that is not every place. Reformed people need to be reminded that they have bodies, and that these too are involved in worship. This is why we lift up holy hands in the Doxology (1 Tim. 2:8), and why we kneel in confession (Ps. 95:6). We stand in order to show deep respect for God’s Word (Neh. 8:5). Our overall demeanor is to be solemnity mixed with gladness. “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord” (Ps. 122:1).

A Conversation Between God and His People

Worship is a time of meeting. During this time, God speaks to the people through His ordained representatives (as in the Scripture reading, assurance of pardon, or the sermon). During this time, the people also speak to God, either through their appointed representatives (as in the prayers of petition), or all together with one voice (as with a hymn or psalm, or the creed). We should therefore learn how to think of the worship service as a large conversation, with a direction and a theme, and not as a disparate collection of random spiritual artifacts, crammed into a shoebox.

In the Call to Worship: God says, “Come, meet with Me now.” We say, “First, let us praise Your majesty.” Having done so, God warns us through the Exhortation not to approach Him with unclean hearts. We respond by Confession. God responds by declaring that we have Assurance of Pardon. This is a conversation in which you all are called to actively participate. And so on, through the rest of the service. As you do, you are following the most important conversation in the world, which is between God and His people.

Worship is Warfare

One other thing. And last, we return to the passage in Colossians. The order we are cultivating here is not the order of porcelain figurines in a china hutch, neatly arranged on a shelf. The order we are pursuing is alive and disciplined, the order of a well-trained military unit. And why? Because every Lord’s Day we go into battle. But as God’s people we fight on earth from the high ground of heaven. There will be more on this next week when we consider the point of our worship.

All About Jesus

In the meantime, whether we are considering the regimented array of our forces, or the reason for the war, never forget that everything is all about Jesus, all the time. He is the crucified one, He is the risen one, and He is the ruling one. And make sure you consider these things by faith, such that they include you and your family.

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Worship Like You’re Told

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Introduction

People, being at root self-idolaters, think they can worship God on their terms, rather than worshipping Him as He has instructed us to. The difference between right worship and wrong worship is the difference between smoked brisket and burnt hair. If you don’t believe me just ask Cain, or Nadab and Abihu, or Ananias and Saphira.

The Text

Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: bring an offering, and come before him: worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness (1 Chronicles 16:29).

Worship Faux Pas

Worship in modern evangelical parlance has come to mean, almost exclusively, music. To be more exact, the sort of music that consists of three chords and the truth, give or take a chord, and give or take the truth. While we ought not to disparage the musicality which has come to pervade much of Protestant worship, we shouldn’t think of worship as confined to the musical aspects of our service. I just used the word service and it would be good for us if we began to think of worship and service as synonyms (Rom. 12:1). In other words, our worship service contains music, but music is too small a thing to contain our worship.
King David, in our text, is consecrating the restoration of the Ark of Covenant to the Tabernacle. He does so by way of “burnt sacrifices and peace offerings (1 Chr. 16:1).” But of great import is the offering of another type: a psalm (16:. In this song of thanks, we are summoned to give glory to the Lord, bring an offering, and come before Him. We are not only told what to do (i.e. bring glory), but how to do it: worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. We must worship not in common garments tailored to current fashion, but in garments of holy beauty.
The way we worship shapes what we believe. Ugly worship results in ugly faith. As an example, a deep bond of love and loyalty is formed in a family as they share meals together, go on walks together, laughing and talking. They might not realize how those routine elements of their family liturgy are shaping and fortifying their view of family. If a family becomes a bubble or two out of level, oftentimes a deliberate return to those basic “rituals” help to dispel some of the relational funk.
An important adjective for our weekly Lord’s Day worship should be familiar. In one way, we shouldn’t notice our liturgy. When you first learn the guitar every placement of every finger is a painful labor. But once you are well-practiced, those fundamentals fade. Not because they’re unimportant, but their purpose is to provide the framework for glorious strums, progressions, and scales. If we don’t deliberately look at what we’re doing, and why we’re doing it, we can grow flabby in our execution of what we’ve been told to bring: glory.

Call

Leviticus 1:1
And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation.
The book of Leviticus begins with God calling unto Moses with instructions as to how the Israelites were to bring their worship to Him. Worship begins and ends with God and at His initiation. We aren’t Aborigines with rain sticks hoping to make a loud enough clamor to get the gods’ attention. God calls, we answer. God initiates, we respond.
In the OT, God is continually coming to and calling to those whom He has set apart for His redemptive purpose. When He initiates His covenant there is a distinct pattern. But Man doesn’t summon God, rather it is He who calls to us, and invites us into His covenant life. He invites us to a meal.

Confession

Psalm 51:16-17
For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
Before you can enjoy communion with Him, something must be done about the black tar of sin that is caked on you three inches thick. Though David invites us to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, outside of Christ, the most beautiful thing we can offer is the rasping of dead bones, ornately decked out in soiled grave-cloths. God summons us, and the first thing we realize is that we’re wretched, blind, and filthy. Unless our sins are covered, we cannot come. So we confess not only the vile truth about ourselves, but also the new creation which God has begun in Christ.

Consecration

John 15:3 
Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
But in being cleansed by the blood we are set apart for service. When the priests were consecrated, they were adorned in such a way as to tell the world that they were busy with sacred work (Cf. 1 Pt. 1:15). Their uniform declared their occupation. So we are consecrated to go about the work which God has called us to which is to hear the Word of Christ, in hearing we are renewed by that Word, to keep that Word (Deu. 6:17). Now our prayers and offerings of praise ascend to Him and are accepted by Him, because they are offered in the person of His Son (Heb. 13:15-16).

Communion

Psalm 63:5
My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.
God calls us, cleanses us, and consecrates us in order to commune with us. The Peace Offering followed the Sin Offering and Ascension Offering (Cf. Lev. 9). This sacrifice was a shared meal: the LORD has his portion (Lev. 3:9-11), the priest/mediator received a portion (Lev. 7:31-32), and finally the worshipper partook of this offering (Lev. 7:15).
It’s no small wonder that Christ took the Passover seder (the pinnacle of the entire sacrificial system), and renovated it into a simple meal of bread and wine. Jesus didn’t disconnect it from what came before. The final sacrifice would be Himself. Thus the Peace Offering He offered on our behalf, ensured that we might partake with the Father and the Great High Priest of that covenant meal.

Commission

Mark 16:15
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.
We’re commissioned because we have been equipped and filled for the task for which we’ve been set apart. Arrangement is always made for the successful completion of the covenant. In the instance of the New Covenant, we are assured that Christ will give us His very Spirit to guide and comfort us. He will be with us. Our practice of weekly Covenant Renewal service isn’t because we’re worried the Covenant will fail week to week.

Glory Upon Glory

The long and short is this: order and ardor are not at loggerheads. We worship with joy unspeakable and full of glory, but we do so with reverent fear. Your worship and service will only be accepted if it is offered in Jesus.
If we think we’re confined by an orderly liturgy, we are likely in danger of indulging ourselves in worshipping the way we want to, rather than the way in which God has commanded us to worship Him. The OT order didn’t become irrelevant because of the fulfilling work of Christ, any less than an acorn becomes irrelevant because it turns into an oak.

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