What is Acceptable Worship?

December 12, 2011 in Bible - NT - Hebrews, Ecclesiology, Meditations, Worship

Hebrews 12:25–29 (NKJV)
25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” 27 Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
This advent we have introduced a number of changes to our Sunday worship, to our liturgy. At such times it is good and right to take note of why we do what we do – and so I have been spending the last couple weeks meditating on this passage from Hebrews.
Paul reminds us that as Christians we have received the unshakeable kingdom. The temporary kingdom of the Jews has given way to the eternal kingdom of the Messiah. And the consequence of this change is not lesser accountability – as many wrongly believe, “we are not under law but under grace” – but greater accountability. Therefore, we stand in constant need of the grace of God to enable us to do that which is pleasing in His sight, including to worship the Lord faithfully week in and week out as His covenant people.
And it is this precise application which Paul makes in our passage today. He writes, “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” Since we are members of the Messianic Age, let us be diligent to possess the grace of God and in that grace to serve God acceptably with reverence and awe.
First, note that Paul wants us, in the grace of God, to “serve” God. The word that is translated “serve”doesn’t mean service in the sense of labor on behalf of another. Frequently we are called upon to serve the Lord in that sense, but that is not what is being mentioned here. Instead Paul uses the Greek word latreuw which means “to perform religious rites as a part of worship—‘to perform religious rites, to worship, to venerate.’” In other words, Paul is explicitly addressing the nature of corporate worship, the religious rituals that we use to approach our God. Even as the old covenant community, priests and people alike, served God by worshiping Him in accordance with His Word, so the new covenant community is to serve God by worshiping Him in accordance with His Word. By grace we are to worship God.
Second, note that Paul immediately gives parameters to describe what this worship should look like. He says that we are to worship God acceptably; we are to worship God in a way that pleases Him. This implies, of course, that there are ways of worshiping God that do not please Him, ways of worshiping Him that are unacceptable. You will recall that at the beginning of the old covenant era God struck down Nadab and Abihu for offering strange fire to the Lord – their worship was not pleasing to the Lord.
Why not? First and foremost, Paul is implying here, because they did not worship God in the grace of God. “…let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably…” It is only by grace that we can worship in a way that pleases God. We cannot approach God acceptably on the basis of our own merits; we cannot approach God acceptably on the basis of our righteousness; we cannot approach God acceptably on the basis of our wisdom. It is only by gracethat we can serve Him acceptably. And this is what Nadab and Abihu fundamentally missed. They did not worship God mindful of the One to whom all their religious rites pointed – Jesus Christ. Nadab and Abihu thought they could tweak the religious rites because they were just conventions of men and any way of worship is acceptable as long as it is sincere. But God had explicitly designed these rites to point to the One and Only Sacrifice through whom human beings can approach God – Jesus.
As we come to worship today, therefore, the message that God delivers to us is that we must approach him acceptably by resting upon His grace in Christ. We must come to worship clothed in the white robes that only He can give. And the only way to worship God acceptably in this fashion is to kneel and confess our sins to God, beseeching mercy through Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
So let us kneel and seek the forgiving grace of our God.

Let us Have Grace

December 5, 2011 in Bible - NT - Hebrews, Ecclesiology, Meditations, Worship

Hebrews 12:25–29 (NKJV)
25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” 27 Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
Last week we learned that in these verses Paul contrasts the temporary, shakeable kingdom of the Jews, the period of the old covenant, with the eternal, unshakeable kingdom of the Messiah, the period of the new covenant. He insists that it is this latter kingdom of which we, in the Lord Jesus, are members. With the final dissolution of the Jewish kingdom, followers of Christ have received a kingdom which cannot be shaken.
Therefore, Paul insists, we must be careful how we respond to this kingdom. We must not refuse Him who speaks. Because God has revealed Himself even more clearly, even more certainly in the life of His only begotten Son, the Christian era is a time not of lesser accountability but greater. To reject the unshakeable kingdom is to invite the cornerstone to fall upon you and grind you to powder. If God took seriously our fathers’ transgressions in the old covenant, how much more seriously will he take ours.
But all of this could lead us to respond incorrectly – to imagine that having begun by grace, having been delivered from our sins by the sacrifice of Christ and the gift of faith, we are now left on our own to live lives of righteousness and purity. Like the British monk Pelagius we can begin to fancy that holiness is our own doing. Sure God has been gracious – after all, he has given me the Bible, he has given me Jesus’ life as a role model, he has given me other believers for accountability – look how gracious God has been. But having received these graces, holiness of life is something we must achieve by our own will power.
It is certainly true that all these things Pelagius mentioned are signs of God’s grace. But none of them in themselves are sufficient. After all, our problem as humans beings is not that we fail to will and choose and even, at times, to make great sacrifices. Our problem is that our nature is inclined toward sin and so even when we choose these great things we do so not for the Living God but for some other object of devotion. Even our most righteous acts are tainted, marred by sin.
For this reason, Paul begins his practical exhortation in our text this way: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverance and godly fear.” Paul clearly understood that the foundation of Godly worship is the grace of God – grace that does not merely give us good gifts externally but grace which sets our hearts free from the clutches of sin. “Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” It is God Himself, the same God who patiently endured the failings of our fathers in the Old Testament, the same God who sent His Son to rescue us from our sin on the cross, the same God who sent His Spirit to open our hearts and eyes so we could embrace the Gospel, who gives us grace to escape our sinful pollution and to worship Him with reverence and godly fear.
So as we come to worship Him together, as we enter into His gates with thanksgiving and praise, let us be diligent to enter there clothed in the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And the only way to enter clothed in His blood is to kneel and confess our sins to God, seeking His forgiveness. So let us kneel and do so.

Members of the Unshakeable Kingdom

November 28, 2011 in Bible - NT - Hebrews, Ecclesiology, Meditations, Worship

Hebrews 12:25–29 (NKJV)
25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” 27 Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain. 28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
After the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Jewish kingdom with its bloody sacrifices, priestly rituals, and frail kings, was replaced by the Kingdom of God – a kingdom that Paul describes in our text today as unshakeable.
This picture of an unshakeable kingdom harkens back to the prophet Daniel. Hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, Nebuchadnezzar had seen the kingdoms of men as a great and impressive statue made of different metals. But as Nebuchadnezzar was admiring the statue, a rock made without hands struck the feet of the statue and caused those kingdoms to shake and totter and crumble. The rock itself became a huge mountain that filled the entire earth. It was unshakeable. And what was that rock? The kingdom of God.
In Paul’s day this rock had just struck the feet of the statue: Jesus had come and fulfilled the prophecies of the Old Testament: he was the long awaited king who would reign on earth, the lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world, the rock that struck the feet of the statue. Through his earthly ministry he established the kingdom of God but the remnants of the old covenant system were still around. The Temple still stood; the priests still offered sacrifices; the feasts of the old covenant were still celebrated. But Paul knew that all this was going to change – the old covenant was ready to disappear, to be destroyed and in its place would stand the kingdom of Christ, the unshakeable kingdom. Paul’s prediction came to fruition as God destroyed the temple and the rest of the old covenant system; the kingdom of the Jews came to an end and the kingdom of the Messiah was begun.
It is this kingdom of which we are members; we have received the kingdom which cannot be shaken – we are members of Christ’s body, subjects of His sovereign rule. And so our responsibility, like our fathers before us, is to respond to this kingdom in a specific fashion. And the first thing that we are to do is listen and obey. Paul exhorts us,“See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven…” In other words, if God took seriously the transgressions committed under the old covenant, the shakeable and temporary kingdom (and he did), then how much more seriously will he take the transgressions committed under the new covenant, the unshakeable and lasting kingdom.
Today is the first Sunday in Advent, the time of year that we call to mind the transition from the old covenant to the new, from the age of immaturity to the age of maturity, from the kingdom of the Jews to the kingdom of Christ, from the shakeable kingdom to the unshakeable. As we recall this transition, let us remember that the Lord who spoke to our fathers in the old covenant continues to speak to us in the new and that this means not less accountability but more. We are called upon to approach the Lord with reverence and awe – for our God is a consuming fire.
Reminded that the Lord has given us the great privilege of being members of the unshakeable kingdom and that there is forgiveness with him that he may be feared, let us kneel and confess that we have treated this privilge lightly. 

Trinity Sunday Meditation

June 19, 2011 in Bible - NT - John, Meditations, Trinity, Worship

John 4:21-24 (NKJV)
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in Spirit and Truth.”

On Trinity Sunday for the last couple years we have considered the words that Jesus speaks in this text and the way that they help us understand the Trinity. Unfortunately, this text is frequently misinterpreted. It is imagined that Jesus is contrasting the external, formal worship of the OT period with the heartfelt, internal worship of the New. At one time people worshiped externally, now all worship is “in spirit and truth” – that is, heartfelt and genuine.

The difficulty faced by this approach is not the insistence that worship must be heartfelt and genuine. That is most certainly true. The difficulty is that this was no less true in the OT than in the New. David declares in the psalter, “Sacrifice and burnt offering you did not desire, a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Heartfelt, genuine worship was to characterize the OT no less than the New.

What then is the change Jesus is anticipating in His words to the Samaritan woman? There are actually two changes. First, Jesus insists that the corporate worship of the people of God would be decentralized. Remember that in the OT God’s people had a central sanctuary located at Jerusalem. Three times a year every male had to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to Mount Zion, and worship at the central sanctuary, offering sacrifices, feasting with God’s people, honoring the Lord. The Samaritans, for their part, refused to acknowledge the centrality of Jerusalem but likewise had a central sanctuary at Mount Gerizim. Here the Samaritans had their collective feasts. The woman asks Jesus – You’re a prophet; so which is it? Mount Zion or Mount Gerizim? Jesus responds, “Neither! In the Christian era, during My reign, God’s people are not required to gather for corporate worship at a central sanctuary – whether in Gerizim or Jerusalem or Rome. Rather, wherever the people of God gather together in My Name and lift My Name on high, there is Mount Zion, there is the City of God, there is the central sanctuary.” In other words, Jerusalem in Israel is no longer the center of God’s dealings with man; the heavenly Jerusalem, Mount Zion, the Church is the center.

Second, Jesus informs us that not only would corporate worship be decentralized, it would be explicitly Trinitarian. When Jesus rose from the dead and sent forth His Spirit, the worship of God’s people was forever transformed. It became explicitly Trinitarian – worshiping the Father in Spirit – the very Spirit whom Jesus promised would come and lead His people into all righteousness – and in Truth – the very Truth who took on human flesh and declared to His disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.”

Today is Trinity Sunday, the Sunday the Church has historically emphasized the Triune nature of God. It is this that Jesus does in our text. Worshiping the Father in Spirit and Truth is not an exhortation to heartfelt, genuine worship – that exhortation had been given throughout the OT. Worshiping the Father in Spirit and Truth is to worship the Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And it was this transformation that Jesus anticipated and announced to the Samaritan woman. “The time is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth.”

So what does this mean for us? It means that this morning as we gather together to worship the Father in Spirit and in Truth, as we gather to worship the Triune God, we are approaching the central sanctuary of God, the place where God dwells. Mount Zion is His dwelling place and it is this place to which we draw near every time we gather to worship the Lord together. Hebrews tells us, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first born who are registered in heaven…” (Heb 12:22-23) And, like Isaiah, who entered into the presence of God in the Temple, the first thing that should strike us is our own unworthiness – in ourselves, we are not worthy to be here. And so let us kneel and seek His forgiveness through Christ.

Public Reading of the Word

April 22, 2011 in Meditations, Word of God, Worship

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.” Rev. 1:1-3

It is always dangerous to introduce things into the worship of the Triune God that have no grounding in the Word of God. The reason for this is obvious. We as human beings are corrupt and prone to idolatry. We drink iniquity like water. We study ways to subvert the worship of the true and living God and to replace pure worship with the traditions of men.

And so it is always good to ask questions of our service of worship. Are the things we are doing reflective of the patterns and principles laid out in the Word of God? Have we introduced this practice because we think it’s a good idea or because it genuinely reflects biblical principles?

The text in Revelation today addresses one of these practices. It helps us understand why the Church has historically included the reading of Scripture in the service of worship. For if we look carefully at the words in verse 3 we find this practice revealed:

“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.”

John pronounces his blessing both on the reader of the biblical text and on the listener, indicating that this was an oral communication of truth. John expected that in the assembly of God’s people the Word of God would be publicly read.

Knowing that our practice of reading the Word of God aloud each Lord’s Day is biblical requires us to ask another set of questions. For it is not enough to read the Word of God aloud and to hear its vibrational tones in our ear drums. We must read in a particular way and we must hear in a particular way.

First, how ought we to read the Word of God? The answer, quite simply, is that the Word of God should be read as though it were the Word of God – divinely powerful and authoritative, living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing as far as the joints and marrow, separating light from darkness, and wisdom from folly. The Word of God should be read as though we believe it.

Second, how ought we to listen to the Word of God? We ought to listen so as to be transformed by it. Notice that the blessing in the passage is pronounced not on the one who notices the general hum of the passage in his otherwise preoccupied mind, but on the one who hears and keeps the things revealed in it. We should listen to the Word of God in order to be transformed by it.

And so let me encourage us to use each Lord’s Day as an opportunity to train our ears to listen attentively to the Word of God. Let us train our ears to listen with care – allowing our Lord to speak and transform us for His glory. Let us not treat the reading of the Word as simply one more activity to check off in our worship but rather as one more opportunity for God to break up our fallow ground and teach us to live in fear of Him all our days.

Reminded of our failure to give heed to the Word of our Heavenly Father, let us confess our sins to Him and pray that He would grant us hearing ears. We will have a time of private confession followed by the corporate confession found in your bulletin. Let us kneel as we confess.

All the Earth Shall Worship God

October 21, 2010 in Bible - OT - Psalms, Meditations, Postmillennialism, Worship

1 Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth!
2 Sing out the honor of His name;
Make His praise glorious.
3 Say to God,
“How awesome are Your works!
Through the greatness of Your power
Your enemies shall submit themselves to You.
4 All the earth shall worship You
And sing praises to You;
They shall sing praises to Your name.” Selah
Psalm 66:1-4

When we look toward the future, what do we expect? And how does our expectation shape the decisions and investments which we are making with our time today?

For the last 100 years, the predominant Christian view of the future is what we might classify as pessimistic. It is believed that we are living in the last generation before Christ’s bodily return, that the world is destined to get worse and worse prior to His return, and that there is nothing Christians can, or even should, do to reverse this trend. Indeed, to attempt to reverse the trend would be to postpone the imminent return of our Lord, something no thinking believer should want to do.

The results of this particular vision of the future for the history of our nation have been deadly. Christians retreated from cultural involvement, downplayed the importance of future generations, and prepared for the rapture. The results of this retreat have been tragic. Violent crime has mushroomed, educational standards have plummeted as ignorance has spread, church buildings have been designed for utility as opposed to beauty, Christian kids have been abandoning the faith in droves. America has become, in many respects, an ugly place. And much of this is a result of the church’s view of the future.

How does this pessimistic view of the future mesh with David’s view in the psalm before us today? It is the exact opposite. Notice that David describes his anticipation for the future like this:

“Through the greatness of Your power God
Your enemies shall submit themselves to You.
All the earth shall worship You
And sing praises to You;
They shall sing praises to Your name.”

In light of the power of God, David sees the future full of the worship of God, full of the knowledge of God, full of the praise of God. All the earth shall worship, all shall sing praises, even the enemies of God shall submit themselves to Him. Why? Because God is Almighty.

How does this vision of the future shape David’s exhortations in this passage? For notice that David is issuing a series of commands. Listen again:

Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth! Sing out the honor of His name;
Make His praise glorious. Say to God, “How awesome are Your works!

Notice that David is summoning the nations – make a joyful shout to God, all the earth! David calls upon all creation to worship and serve the Lord; to join him as he praises God for His might and power.

This is the same summons we make every Lord’s Day. As we come into God’s presence and sing His praises, we are invoking the nations to come and to join us: smell the fragrant aroma, behold the goodness of God, come see the glory of our King and join us in praising Him. And this praise, which starts here each Lord’s Day, is to eek out of here and make its way into our lives during the week so that folks can’t help but declare – how good and how pleasant it must be to know the Lord.

This morning, then, as we enter the presence of the Lord let us consider the exhortations that David gives us:
• We are to sing – don’t mumble, learn psalms as quick as can
• We are to sing joyfully – Make a joyful shout to the Lord
• We are to sing loudly – Make a joyful shout, sing out His Name
• We are to sing beautifully – make His praise glorious

And so let us fill this building with the praise of God – but let us begin by seeking His forgiveness for failing to live now in light of the glorious future that He has promised – let us kneel and confess our pessimism and doubt to Him.

Going to Heaven

March 1, 2010 in Ecclesiology, Postmillennialism, Worship

“Alexander Schmemann has beautifully drawn attention to the nature of worship as the Church’s weekly ascension to heaven (cf. Ex. 24:9-11; 34:1-8, 29-35; Mark 9:1-29): ‘The early Christians realized that in order to become the temple of the Holy Spirit they must ascend to heaven where Christ has ascended. They realized also that this ascension was the very condition of their mission in the world, of their ministry to the world. For there – in heaven – they were immersed in teh new life of the Kingdom; and when, after this “liturgy of ascension,” they returned into the world, their faces reflected the light, the “joy and peace” of that Kingdom and they were truly its witnesses. They brought no programs and no theories; but wherever they went, the seeds of the Kigndom sprouted, faith was kindled, life was transfigured, things impossible were made possible. They were witnesses, and when they were asked, “Whence shines this light, where is the source of its power?” they knew what to answer and where to lead men. In church today, we so often find we meet only the same old world, not Christ and His Kingdom. We do not realize that we never get anywhere because we never leave any place behind us.'” Chilton, pp. 332-333.