WORSHIP
by Pastor Jim Lincoln on April 20, 2008
For the next few weeks I want us to think together about some fundamental callings the Lord has made upon us as a corporate Christian fellowship. There are few callings more precious and joyful than God's call on us to worship Him together in the beauty of His holiness. At the same time, what we ought to be doing in public worship couldn't be more debated and polarizing than it is today. Most of the debate has less to do with what the Bible says about worship and more about our preferences. Our tastes for certain styles of music (older hymns or contemporary songs) or the instruments of worship (organs & pianos or guitars & drums) fuel the debates. Other flash points are: special music, solos, formality or informality, planned worship or spontaneous worship. Should we use video, candles, incense or drama in worship? Traditionalists accuse the moderns of blatant disrespect for the past and the shallow practice of 7/11 singing (seven words repeated eleven times). Advocates of contemporary methods accuse the traditionalists of dead orthodoxy and putting up archaic and unnecessary barriers to reaching the seekers among us (old is cold and new is true).
Also, the question isn't easily answered by appealing to the Bible. In the Bible, forms of worship changed as our revelation about God developed and made earlier forms obsolete (He.8:13).1 Before the fall, Adam and Eve worshipped intuitively, just as it will be at the end--when the Lord returns and makes everything as it should be. But, worship among sinners -like us- must be different than the worship of the angels and of Adam and Eve before the fall. Sin created enmity, and separation between us and God (Eph.2:15), who is so holy that He can't even look upon sin. When they sinned He banished Adam and Eve from His presence. So, in light of this sad and woeful reality, worship and its forms changed to make worship of our Holy God possible.
The idea of sacrifice and substitute became critical to cover the guilt and shame of sin. To maintain His justice and to save us, God placed the punishment for sins on sacrificial animals to bear the burden of our sins in our place. In the days of Moses the tabernacle was the designated place of sacrificial offerings. The calendar year with annual feasts days like the Day of Atonement and Passover marked Israel's worship. David introduced choirs and wrote a songbook for the people to sing together into corporate worship. With Solomon the temple, through the administration of the Levitical priesthood, became the central place of worship for Israel.
Our question is, "What of these forms of worship should we continue and what should we leave behind? Is everything Israel did under Temple worship transmuted by Christ and His sacrifice? Should it all be left behind?" Hebrews says that the ceremonial law has been abrogated. Does that mean choirs, like the Levitical priesthood, should be replaced by the singing of the priesthood of all believers? If Jesus is the temple, our Passover and Lamb of Atonement...if believers are now the priesthood, what, if any, of the Old Covenant worship should be incorporated into our own worship today? How much continuity or discontinuity should there be? So, the response, "Let's be Biblical." is not as easy as it sounds. Our task now is to sort these things out.
What about the New Testament? What does it tell us to do in a worship service? Well, there are some general statements given about reading Scripture, teaching the gospel, singing, the Lord's Table, prayer, edification from the sharing of individual gifts, and offerings. But no prescribed public order of worship can to be found. Perhaps this is why we struggle so much to find agreement. We have all kinds of questions.2
PS.100
Let me make things simple for us this morning. What does David in Ps. 100 say to us about worship? He doesn't answer all our questions. And the form of our worship will be different than David's because David worshipped in the days of the Tabernacle and the Temple. Christ taught us that He is the true temple, the real substance of that shadow. After His death and resurrection no church building would have ever been called a temple. When He died the veil hiding the Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom opening up access to the presence of God to all who would come to Him through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. God is no longer exclusively with us in the temple. He is now with us in Christ, in His Body and wherever Christ is.
So, we won't do everything David tells us to do just as he did them. However, we do share many things in common with David with respect to worship. As a created being and a sinner, the needs and yearnings of his heart weren't that different from ours. And He reveals here much about what God expects of our hearts in worship. If we can lay hold of these things, we can avoid a lot of nonsense and foolishness in worship.
I want to point out three realities David teaches us about true worship in Ps. 100.3 He reveals that worship is a Command (100:1-2), He reveals that God is the Object of Worship and none other (100:3) He reveals that God is worthy of our worship (100:3-4).
These things should always govern our worship even if the forms of worship vary. Worship is commanded...God is always the Central object of worship and Worship is a joyful response because God is so worthy of it.
FIRST, DAVID'S REVEALS THAT WORSHIP IS A COMMAND
NOT MERELY AN INVITATION
Look at all the verbs in the Psalm. Shout joyfully ... all the earth! Serve the LORD ... Come before Him with joyful singing. Know that the Lord Himself is God. Enter His gates ... Give thanks to Him." They are all commands; not one is an invitation.
God is not giving His created beings an option here. There is a sense here in which God is not nice about this. God is not pleading with you to come and worship. "Oh please, please...would you come to my house and worship? Oh please, I'm so helpless and lonely, without you here. God is commanding His creatures to worship. He is not making six suggestions.
Therefore worship is a duty due Him by all His creatures. It is the duty and responsibility of the creature to worship the Creator. Yes, there are times when worship comes as an invitation. But even when God invites, the invitation is a command. His nature demands it. Because when God invites, He is your Creator. He is the one who authored you and sustains you every moment of every day. You are therefore made for authority. And He is the ultimate authority over all of life for everyone. If you take a breath today it is because God allows it. You can't decide to breathe or not. It's part of your autonomic nervous system. If God holds His breath, beloved everything ceases to be.
1Chr. 16:29 says, "Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name." Worship is His due, or to say it in an unpopular way, "It is our duty to worship God."
I get these promotional catalogs from companies who deal in outreach ideas for the church. Not once can I remember seeing an outreach card going out to the unchurched commanding them to worship God. They routinely appeal to some benefit or why our church will make you feel better about yourself. But, imagine getting a card in the mail that read like this, "Why Come and Worship?" On the back it would say, "Because God, your Creator, commands you to. And if you don't you are sinning against God. Don't sin! Come and worship!" Now, that truth may not be all that marketable. But to withhold the truth from God's creatures is to fail to treat them with the dignity of being created in His image. To technique them with "softer" messages that appeal to their sense of autonomy when in reality, they are beings who are contingent upon our God who commands them to worship Him, is withholding the word of God from those who need it desperately. This is the worst kind of "bait and switch" marketing that can be done.
Worship is first and foremost a commandment. By the way, so is the gospel! It's also a command before it is an invitation. 2Thess.1:8, Paul speaks the eternal lost-ness of those who do not obey the gospel. In Rom.1 Paul said that his calling as an apostle of the gospel was to bring about "the obedience that comes from faith among all the Gentiles." Both worship and the gospel are commands not merely invitations.
And notice to whom that command comes. The command to worship is announced to all the earth. God commands everyone. Does God have the right to command everyone everywhere to worship Him? He does because He created us and sustains us. As The author of everything He has authority over everything. Secularism and atheistic evolution have lead millions to think that they are not accountable to a Creator and not contingent or dependent on His authority.
Romans three teaches that people know there is a God but they do not honor Him as God. So notice the duty of everyone in v. 3: " Know that the Lord Himself is God and it is He who has made us and not we ourselves." Ps. 95:6-7 says, "Come, let us bow down Let us kneel before the Lord our maker for He is our God." in Rev. 4:11, the angels sing, "Worthy are Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou had created all things and because of Thy will they exist and have been created."
You have been made and you are a contingent being and all the evidence in the world validates this. When someone asks you why they should go to worship? The answer is simple. The God who created you has commanded you to and as your Creator and Sustainer you owe that to him and you are obligated to joyfully worship Him.
HERE'S WHAT THAT MEANS FOR OUR PUBLIC WORSHIP
The question of public worship is not, "Did the service meet my expectations." Here's the question we need to be asking about worship... "What does God expect of me?" If God commands us to worship what does He expect me to do in worship? As Pastors and elders we hear a lot of things. But, it's pretty rare to hear someone say, "I want to be and do through worship what God expects of me." Today we worship the way we buy products on the open market. We come with our list of expectations. "I have my list of expectations for you to meet before I can worship. And here's my list: I don't like hymns with their Thees and Thous." Another, "I don't like choruses with their boring repetition." Some say, "I like spontaneity." Others say, "I like order." Some say, "I like contemporary stuff." Or they say, "I like traditional stuff." Some say, "I like to stand." Others, "I don't like to stand," Some say, "I want the service done in an hour." Others, "I want us to stay all day." "I want more formality. "I want more informality," "I want the minister to wear a tie." "I want him to wear a Hawaiian shirt like those ministers in California."
Consumerism has so much become the air we breathe in our culture that we have carried this same attitude to church. If you don't' get what you want at a restaurant in food or service, you don't go back. If a store doesn't have the stuff you want you go to another store. If you can get it at a cheaper place that's what you'll do. That's the way consumerism works. That's not the way worship should work. Your first question about worship is not what do I expect? The first question is, "What does God expect of me and us?" With respect to worship, the church ought to be counter-cultural. However, I'm afraid that what has happened is that we have found that if we treat the worshiper like a consumer and meet consumer expectations we will succeed. The World Wide Wrestling Federation enjoys enormous success. However, it has nothing remotely to do with the noble sport of wrestling even though it gains new converts every day. Treating worshippers like consumers will rob the church of the soul of Biblical worship.4
WHAT COMMANDS?
And what does God command or expected of us His creatures? What is our duty that is His due? He says here, To "Shout joyfully to the Lord. Serve the Lord with gladness." The command is to choose your joy in the Lord and no one else and to serve with gladness. Our worship ought to be a joyful duty. There is no contradiction in these two things. He tells us why in v.3. He says that we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. What a glad thing to know God as your good shepherd. By the way, do you know when you are being insulted? Beloved, there are no circus acts with sheep. When Lewis and Clark came across the Northwest they didn't find any wild herds of sheep roaming around. Sheep are helpless if left alone. They can't manage by themselves. They are not the brightest of animals. They need a shepherd. To have the Lord Jesus as our good shepherd is a joy beyond words. He is with us to lead, guide, protect, feed, attend to, heal, shelter, and love.
Notice he says, "Serve the Lord with gladness." When you think of the phrase, "A worship service," who do you think is supposed to be served? You? Are you and your preferences to be served? Beloved, David says to worship by serving God. When you prepared for worship this morning, did you ask, "How can I serve the Lord today when I'm gathered with His people for worship?" Or did you expect that you were coming for someone to serve you?
Here are His commands about worship here: Shout joyfully...Serve the Lord...Know the He is God...Enter His gates...Give thanks...this is the heart of true worship. It's joyfully doing what God has commanded. Shout with joy, serve Him and not yourself, enter his gates with gratitude, and intentionally give thanks. Worship is a Command.
SECOND, DAVID TELLS US THAT GOD AND GOD ALONE
IS THE TRUE OBJECT OF WORSHIP
Now you would think that would be obvious. But it isn't. In an effort to reach the unchurched many have unwittingly made the worshipper the object of worship or even made worship itself the object instead of God. When we start asking, "What will attract the unchurched to our church?" if we're not careful, the worshipper and how they are relating to us can easily become the object of our worship. How they think about us and how we perform in worship can prevail in our minds and they and our worship then become the attention and object of our worship. We might begin to think more about how we're doing, how everyone is feeling, and how comfortable the worship is progressing rather than primarily about the God we are here to worship. But look at David's focus: Shout to THE LORD...Serve THE LORD...Come before HIM ...Know THE LORD...Enter HIS gates...Give thanks TO HIM. Can you see the object? The object is the Lord who is God.
So God is calling us to be the most Seeker Sensitive Church possible. But not in the way you may be thinking. The Seeker we must be most sensitive to in worship is the greatest Seeker of all. And beloved, that is God who left heaven to seek us out and save us. Jesus came to seek and save that which is lost. Jesus said in John 4:23-24, "an hour is coming when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers." The object of true worship is God Himself and no one else and nothing else. We must resist the urge to worship worship. The more He is the object, the more you see of Him, know of Him, serve Him, rejoice in Him, trust Him, prize and treasure Him, the more you will be able to worship and serve Him.
I think this is what Jesus meant when he said to worship in spirit and in truth. We need truth to know whom we are worshiping. And you need to worship in spirit because, for worship to be authentic it must reflect the true values of your own heart. We need the Spirit of God to awaken our own spirits to the beauty of His holiness and to make us alive to His grace. Otherwise, our worship may be truthful but it will be in vain. Jesus said of some, "They worship me with their lip but their hearts are far from me. In vain do they worship me." Mtt. 15:8-9
To serve the Lord through worship is illustrated by a parable Jesus told. In Mtt.6:24, He said, "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon at the same time." The surprising thing here is that serving/worshiping God is compared to serving money. But how do you serve money?
You don't serve money by helping money or meeting its needs. You serve money by treasuring it so much that you shape your whole life to benefit from what money can do for you. Jesus is making the same analogy to worship. We don't meet God's needs or help Him out. Rather we serve Him by treasuring Him so much that we shape our whole life by who He is and what He has done for us.5
And what He can do for us that money can't is to be for us everything we have ever really longed for. To worship is to make much of God. Worship is making God the object of our worship and not ourselves.
FINALLY, DAVID TELLS US WHY WE SHOULD WORSHIP
AND THAT IS BECAUSE GOD IS WORTHY OF OUR WORSHIP
Here's why God is worthy to worship. Verse three teaches us that God He has made us and that we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Verse five says, 5, "He is good, His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness is to all generations."
As the Good shepherd he not only loves and cares for His sheep, but He has gone into the very maw of death on our behalf. He is worthy because in the gospel He has made possible for sinners like us to be at peace with Him and know Him and be glad in Him. He is good to give us the record of His goodness as a gift. He is faithful to keep every promise He has made to us without fail. He is gracious to forgive us our sins and keep us forever. He is worthy of our glad worship and these things make us glad.
He is our God and He has the right to everyone's obedience all the time. But even when our worship is flawed, through faith in the Lord Jesus and in the gospel, we stand covered in His righteousness and that includes Jesus' perfect worship and perfect obedience given to us as a gift on our behalf. Jesus is the worship leader of worship leaders who leads us like a good shepherd into the presence of God and represents us before Him with great joy as the perfect worshipper who brings us to the Father along with Himself.
So, beloved,
Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth.
Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing
Know that the LORD Himself is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; {We are} His people and the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving {And} His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
For the LORD is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting And His faithfulness to all generations.
ENDNOTES
1When He said, "A new {covenant}," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.
2Two principles represent two ends of the discussion. Should the principle apply that says, "If God has not forbidden a practice then it should be allowed in worship?" or should the principle apply that says, "Only what God has explicitly approved should be allowed in a worship service?" Or is there a place in between these two that gives some spiritual direction? I believe there is.
3Remember Jesus said that a day would come when we would worship in spirit and in truth. Eccl.5:1 says, "Guard your steps when you go in to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools." The modern practice of defining worship as the song time will be an inadequate way to think about worship. In singing you can't weigh or judge idea. There's no time during a song to deliberate on it, question it, assess it. Singing is wonderful. It's just not adequate to bear the definition of worship.
4Theodor Adorno, a German Marxist (the Frankfort School) and critic of capitalism in the 60's, wrote, "Capitalism created and satisfied too many needs, causing us to value nearly everything for its market price [the lowest cost to the consumer] and not for itself." Although I believe that capitalism has done more financial good for more people than any other economic system, people, influenced by consumerism, can begin to value worship, not for the way worship values God but, for the way it satisfies our own list of personal and consumer expectations which often have to do with us paying the lowest cost for what we get. Ministers are savvy to the consumer. In order to gain market share they will adapt their worship services to meet the consumer demand. This is how success is done in a consumer world. However, it's not so much what is done in our services that is so wrong as it is that the worshiper is treated as a consumer. This is fundamentally wrong and it turns worship on its head. Biblical worship is about the worshipper becoming consumed not the worshipper becoming the consumer. Romans 12 teaches us that the worshipper is to offer his body as a living sacrificial offering. And sacrificial offerings got completely consumed. The thinking error is treating worshippers as consumers and not worshippers. But we don't know how to do this because we are saturated by consumerism. This change in attitude about worship is going to be a hard one.
5See John Piper, What Jesus Demands of the World p.102