People today are tired of McChurch’s doing their next can’t miss series called “At the Movies.” They are looking for something more rooted and real. They are not looking for novelty. We are inundated with choices. Want a buy a kids mattress? Here are 5,000 options. It’s tiresome.
This happens in church too. There’s a tension in church where we feel that we always have to do things bigger and better than last year. So many people get churned and burned by churches that pursue a doctrine of Sunday worship which is basically: big show, must go bigger next Sunday. You’ll see a reaction to this: people go to house churches or people say I love Jesus but not the church. People get very cynical on the church.
But church doesn’t have to be this way. God has given us a pattern.
The question all serious Christians should be asking is this: how can I please the Lord? How can I live in a way that honors and reveres him? And churches should be asking the same thing.
When we gather for worship, we should have in mind not how can we motivate people to change, or how can we see people saved, or how can we have the best kids ministry or worship experience. What we should be asking is: how can we honor the Lord in our worship?
The way to honor the Lord in our worship is worship according to His Word.
When the church gathers, we are not just making things up. We are following the Scriptural pattern for worship. It isn’t random. It’s a pattern of covenant renewal. It’s coming to Sinai, approaching the throne of grace. It is formative. It is not dead ritual. It does something to us.
From beginning to end, everything is intentionally designed to honor the Lord. When we call people to worship, we are not just telling people to find their seats, we are speaking God’s Word to summon people to worship Him. When we close with a benediction and the doxology we are not just saying see you next week. God is sending his people out as ambassadors into the world with his authority.
We are not just rehearsing for heaven. We are living out the story of God’s redemption today.
We are a covenant people gathering before our covenant God.
Here’s the pattern:
Call to Worship, Confession, Creed, Consecration, Communion, Commission
Call to Worship (Deut. 29:1–13)
God calls us. God summons his people. God speaks and we respond. This is the pattern of our covenant God. We love Him because He first loved us.
God initiates the conversation.
So when we do our call to worship on Sunday mornings we are modeling and repeating what God always does. He goes first. We are saying, “God has spoken, and He is speaking.” The call to worship is not the worship leader or pastor just telling people to settle in. It is a divine invitation to come to the Lord.
Worship is not a concert where we just sing. It’s not just a monologue or lecture where we listen to a sermon. We are responding to the Lord.
Confession (Deut. 29:14–29)
The pattern of worship is always to confess your sins before the Lord. To acknowledge how we have failed to follow his ways, whether in active disobedience or in failing to do what we ought to do.
We come to him, our creator, the maker of heaven and earth, whose glory we have all fallen short of, to admit and confess our sins.
This is why we take time each Sunday to confess our sins to the Lord. We don’t have a priest we must confess to. We go directly to the Lord Jesus Christ, our great high priest.
Many Christians live with a pent up need to confess their sins. They do not know what to do with them. And so they just bury them, and it is eating them alive.
How much better is it to know that each Sunday we have a time to bring our sins into the light, to be honest with God about the state of our lives?
After confession, we are not left to wallow in our sin. We are assured from Scripture regarding the nature of our salvation in Jesus Christ.
Creed (Deut. 30:1–10)
What do we believe? We affirm the covenant promises.
When we recite the creed or confessions we are not just looking for memory or facts. We are pledging allegiance to the kingdom of God. It is a profession of faith, of loyalty.
We recite the Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Definition of Chalcedon. We don’t do this just for ritual. We do this to publicly declare and worship our covenant God.
We are not smarter than thousands of years of Christians, and we are not seeking to be novel. If some of the words bother us, that’s fine. Be bothered.
Consecration (Deut. 30:11–14)
This is the part of worship where God’s people are sanctified. We are shaped and formed by God’s Word.
And we are preaching not merely teaching. We are communicating from God’s Word, His truth, to His people. We are not just getting information in your head like a lecture of Ted Talk. We are preaching to those have been saved the nature of their salvation and who to walk according to all that Christ has commanded. And we are preaching to those perishing in their sins that they would come to the Christ and find life.
Think about the average Christian who goes to church. A lot if riding on the communicator up front to do a good job. What a good job means varies widely. But the focus is too often on the person communicating, namely the preacher, and not enough on the person behind the person, Christ who speaks as the Word of life.
The focus is too often on the person communicating and not enough on the person behind the person—Christ who speaks as the Word of life.
Communion (Deut. 30:15–18)
This is the covenant meal. What are we doing when we take the Lord’s Supper? We are taking the meal of the new covenant. Meals often carried symbolic meaning under the Old Covenant. Most notably, the passover meal which the Israelites were to have every year to remember their God and His deliverance of them. Now, in Christ, we take this meal, from Christ who is our passover lamb, and it is a covenant meal with him.
He invites us to feast and dine, he has prepared a table before us in the midst of our enemies. We sit when we take the meal because that is what you do when you are a guest and dine with a king. We feast remembering his body for us and his blood shed for us. We drink wine, even though juice is available, because that is what Jesus drank.
But, we are not just remembering or recalling what Christ has done. We are eating with the King who has made covenant with us. You must remember that when we worship and gather in this way, we are not merely going through motions, we are going to God who has called us to himself.
This meal is one of two ordinances of the church which we, the elders or pastors, are to guard. You have baptism which is a one time deal symbolizing your entrance into the presence of God who has given you new life, and you have this meal which is taken every Lord’s Day. This meal is for baptized believers in Jesus Christ. For those are not baptized believers in Jesus Christ and partake in the meal unrighteously, it is judgement upon them. This is a meal for those who belong to Christ’s body, the church.
He has given us his Word to feed us, and he has given us himself to give us life.
Commission (Deut. 30:19–20)
God sends us out renewed. We come in heavy laden. We go out carrying the yoke that is easy and light.
We go out in the light of Christ, reminded of our salvation, renewed in our covenant with him, sent into the world, having put on the full armor of God, going forward as more than conquerers.
Each week we come in burdened by sins, and so we confess them to our Lord, we turn to the Lord for life and he gives it abundantly as we are assured of His salvation, sanctified by His Word, and eat his meal, and then we are sent out to live lives of abundance and blessing as we are commissioned.
It’s life, death, and resurrection week after week.
Why This Matters
The ceremony of worship itself preaches the gospel. The worship service becomes a means of renewal.
The question Moses leaves us with is this: Will you choose life? Will you enter covenant again?
God has made a covenant with us by sending his Son Jesus Christ to die as the final sacrifice for sins. No matter how far gone you think you are, you must come to Christ and worship.
When a church commits to this pattern of worship, we take the focus off ourselves and put it on the Lord. It leads to a church that doesn’t need novelty or charisma to carry the day.
When we worship according to His Word, we are proclaiming the gospel from beginning to end.
So do not go through the motions. Delight in the gospel. Sing with joy. Recite the creed with confidence. Feast on Christ with gladness.
This is a testimony in and of itself.
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