That Rare Thing Called Worship
Sunday, February 14, 2010 God does not accept all worship that human beings offer him. He revealed this to us from the beginning with Cain and Abel. He accepted Abel’s and rejected Cain’s. In the stories of Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, and the children of Israel we see the same principles play out.
God gave Israel, through his prophets, specific instructions about how to come into his presence and receive his blessings. We see in these inspired stories a history of true and false worship. With John the Revelator, the curtain is drawn away from the future so that we see the final conflict between good and evil centers around true and false worship.
The worship of God is the heart of spiritual life. To worship in spirit and truth together, to have a faith that loves to obey and serve God, is the life of the church.
I’ve asked the following questions elsewhere and offer them here for us to ponder:
Would you say your personal worship of God, corporately or privately, is informed and conditioned on the Word of God, personal preference, cultural norms, thoughtless habit, or a combination of these? How did you arrive at the values you invest in worshiping God? Are you sure God accepts your offering? Why or why not?
Worship, if offered without thoughtful conviction, is neither true or spiritual, and is not accepted by God. Nor is offering God our achievements as the basis of acceptance with him. Only when we come with helpless dependence on the blood of Christ shed for the forgiveness of our sins, is our offering of thanksgiving and praise acceptable to him. But do we know what it means to come as true, real sinners before God?
Such offerings will be marked by humility in the giving of ourselves and joy in the receiving of God’s acceptance. We will think, speak, and act as if we are in the visible presence of a pure, holy God. We will be conscious of the blood we spilled and the suffering we caused him through our sin. We will tremble at his Word and in his presence until we have the full assurance that our sins are forgiven.
Yet more often than not, the forgiveness of sin is taken for granted, as a casual occurrence, something God owes us without condition because we have professed a set of beliefs or been “reasonably good”. After all, nobody’s perfect! Everybody makes mistakes. We often act as if the sins we so frequently commit have had no serious consequences for God, ourselves, or others. We love a cheap grace that requires no repentance, no change, no suffering on our part though we have caused others immense grief. We condemn those who feel the pain of their sin in crucifying the Son of God, as if that in itself were a sin to repent of.
From the signs around us, when compared to the lives of Bible saints, true worship is exceedingly rare today, so rare that Jesus asked his disciples, “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Will we have the courage to ask ourselves, “How rare is it with us?
Jan McKenzie
Brian Chapell, in his book Christ-centered Worship, basis his recommended order of service (liturgy) on the premise that all Christian worship should reflect the gospel message. The following are those essential elements he sees for coming into the presence of God for worship. They are gleaned from Old and New Testament Scriptures, as well as from the history of Protestant liturgy that was itself meant to model the gospel of Christ.
Each element leads to the next in a natural order of response following on what went before. We begin, as does all encounter with God, with bowing in recognition of God as our Creator and Redeemer, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
*Adoration > recognition of God’s greatness and grace
*Confession > acknowledgement of our sin and need for grace
*Assurance > affirmation of God’s provision of grace
*Thanksgiving > expression of praise and thanks for God’s grace
*Petition and Intercession > expression of dependence on God’s grace
*Instruction > acquiring the knowledge to grow in grace
*Communion/Fellowship > celebrating the grace of union with Christ and his people
*Charge and Blessing > living for and in the light of God’s grace
My own premise that true worship is rare today comes through observing the often missing elements of Confession, Assurance, and Living for and in the Light of God’s Grace, among other things, among postmodern congregations. Hence, I often find the praise we offer an empty exercise in self-deception. Therefore, our worship, is often unacceptable to God. Without the cross of Christ at the center of our worship it becomes the greatest of sins.
