At Church a few weeks ago Matt was attempting to introduce his plans to refresh the idea of cells in our church. For many, cells haven’t really become all that they wanted them to be and as such several new initiatives have started, by way of experiment, to see if we can scratch the midweek meting itch.
At St Simon’s last Sunday the sermon was looking at worship. What is it? Why do we do it? How? You get the idea. I’m sure I’d be forgiven for starting to switch off at another sermon on worship. This is, of course, a very important subject but having spent a number of years in a very charismatic church I have herd many, very similar, sermons on the subject. This one however, offered something new to think about.
The meaning of worship
Often the meaning to what worship is is lost in the excitement of praise. Many Christians would not be able to give you a definition that did not involve praise (or at very least singing) but worship in the Bible is much more than this. In fact praise and worship are actually two very distinct things. The meaning of the word worship, I am reliable informed, is ‘to come forward and kiss’. The implication is that this is an intimate action which can only take place in the context of a relationship. I’ve heard it said many times before that worship is what we do in our daily lives, not what we do on a Sunday morning, and while I had an understanding of that, how it practically worked out, I was always a little confused about. This however puts worship firmly in the context of our relationship with God. We are worshiping Him when we get to the point of coming forward to kiss our Lord.
Worship a progressive activity?
Michael Piper, the guest preacher as the vicar is on holiday, raised the possibility of worship being a progressive activity. How often do we turn up to a church meeting and just expect the worship leader to take us to a place of intimacy with God? If worship is about intimate relationship then this is a big ask. It was suggested that Psalm 100 gives us something of an idea of how this progression ‘works’.
The Psalmist is using the temple as his picture. The temple was the place to meet with God. In the Old Testament the place where this level of intimacy was possible was the temple. When we enter the temple, before we get as far as the holy place where we can worship God, we need to go through the gate. The Psalm suggests that we need to enter the gates with thanksgiving. Basically we need to be thankful for all that God has done for us. Nobody in our rich western world can be short of things to say thank you for, whatever their circumstances.
From the gates we move on to enter the courts. It’s suggested that we enter the courts with praise. So we need to praise God for who He is; not what He has done but who He is. This is something that most of us are not used to. We need to think, if all of our blessings were taken away what would be left? God would still be God and that is where we can start to think about what praise is all about.
To stretch the metaphor beyond the Psalm, before we reach the Holy Place of worship we pass by the alter of sacrifice and repentance. We get cleaned up, laying our wrongs at the foot of the cross. Only then have we reached the Holy place where worship takes place.
Pressure off the worship leader
This progression is an interesting idea and one I need to give a little more thought too. But how many of us can say that when we enter the doors of our Churches we do so with thanksgiving in our hearts? As we walk across the reception area, past the army of welcomes, can we say we are full of praise for who God is? As we seek out our favorite pew (or comfy bean bag depending on how cool your church is) can we say we have clean hands and pure lips? Or do we just stroll up to the worship leader and demand they let us be intimate with our God?
Its one to ponder. If worship does indeed flow out of our lives, only when we have the other components right can we come forward to kiss our maker.
Ok, OK, I’m sorry for the deliberately inflammatory title. This will take a little explaining.
At a recent cell group meeting the subject of societal sin came up (I can’t remember the exact title it was given but that will do). Basically it’s the idea that there are things which are wrong with the world that are no longer within the control of a particular individual but are actually now inherently wrong with system as a whole. Things like the arms trade, world poverty, the sex industry, trade justice, etc all fit into this category.
It was suggested that for a complete view of the Gospel to be considered then we must be actively, as interested (for want of a better term), in helping to solve such problems as we are in our own personal relationships with God; our own personal holiness if you will.
Now, I realize I’m running the risk of being labeled a conservative here but I think I disagreed. I even suggested that it is possible that, for all of the good that Christian involvement in such things can and does bring, this whole area is something of a diversionary tactic used by Satan that we need to be aware of.
I’m not suggesting for a moment that these things are bad. If you are a regular reader here then you will know by now that this is not my feeling but I cannot agree that they deserve equal weighting in our priorities list as our personal walk with God. Let me try and explain why.
While I do not believe the two to be mutual exclusive it is not guaranteed that with one you automatically get the other. For example, and healthy relationship with God will lead you to seek to helps others (Iââ?¬â?¢m trying to break this into its simplest form). As James puts it “faith without deeds is dead”. If you have a true, living, vibrate relationship with Jesus Christ, then you will have the deeds to match (what shape that takes will be dependant on the individual of course). However, it does not follow the other way around. If you have lots of good deeds then faith does not follow.
This is my fear with the kind of statement that prompted this discussion. If you say that personal holiness and social holiness are actually in a 50/50 partnership then in reality you must start with one of them. I guess in an ideal world you would be able to do both at once, focusing equal attention on both but in reality this is not going to happen. If you start with the personal holiness option and develop your relationship then the deeds will naturally follow. If you start with the deeds then you end up doing a lot great things, and help a lot of people but you will not find God.
This is where the deception comes in. Social justice etc is a growing “fashion trend”. It’s cool to be active. But if we focus all our attention on such things then God need not have a part. Satan is happy if with perform lots of good deeds because in the end we may never find the reason why.
Good deeds follow a vibrant faith. A vibrant faith does not follow good deeds. All those involved in such things, keep up the great work. But do not fall into the trap of forgetting the reason why. Your personal relationship with God needs to be the number one focus in your life. From that, everything else will follow.