[BBC List] Ho hum

[Mike Abendroth]

The Whole Earth Is Full of His Glory: The Recovery of Authentic Worship,
Part One


Monday, February 06, 2006

Surveying the literature on worship currently being published, and listening
to the conversations currently taking place among the churches, one can
quickly discern that worship is now one of the most controversial issues in
the local congregation. As a matter of fact, many current book titles in the
evangelical world suggest that what the church faces today is "worship
warfare." The very combination of the words "worship" and "war" should lead
us to very sincere and sober biblical reflection. What is worship? And what
does God desire that we should do in worship? 

The symptomology of the current confusion over worship is seen in the fact
that now many believe some modifier or adjective must be appended to the
word "worship" in order to indicate that will take place. Traditional
worship, liturgical worship, contemporary worship, blended worship,
seeker-sensitive worship, praise and worship! But what in the world is
worship?

It is true that worship has led to some warfare. In local congregations we
see not only confusion, but also fighting, controversy and splitting. And
what is the meaning of all of this? Jack Hayford, one of the nation's most
eloquent proponents of "renewal worship," suggests that nothing less than a
new reformation is taking place. The reformation of the sixteenth century
was a reformation of doctrine. It was a necessary reformation as biblical
truth was recovered. But he says we are experiencing in this generation a
reformation in worship that is just as necessary and just as historic. 

My concern is that the issue of worship will define not only our church
services, but also our theology and our beliefs about God. There is no more
important issue for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ than that we worship
as God would have us to worship Him. 

Geoffrey Wainwright of Duke University reminds us that theology and worship
are inextricably linked. Setting the context of missions as primary, he
entitled his systematic project Doxology. We should be reminded that the
purpose of the theologian is to serve the church so that the people of God
worship Him more faithfully. By understanding God's revelation in His Word
we know how He would wish to be worshiped. The Lord himself reminded us that
God seeks those worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth (Jn
4:23). But what does it mean to worship God in spirit? What does it mean to
worship Him in truth?

Theology is by definition not an ivory tower discipline. It is not merely a
form of academic discourse. When rightly conducted, theology is the
conversation of the people of God seeking to understand the Lord whom we
worship and how He wills to be worshiped. So, we might ask in that light,
what are the proper conditions of evangelical worship? What is the pattern
for worship among those persons who claim to be established in the gospel
and submitted to the Word of God?

We know the history of worship through the ages. We know what took place in
the Reformation. We know what transpired in the English reforms. We know
what took place as features were stripped away that were considered to be
unbiblical--and yet we see these same things returning. What is the
condition of evangelical worship? It is not an exaggeration to suggest words
such as pandemonium, confusion, and consternation.

In the midst of the upheaval, there is a great deal of encouragement to be
found from reading the late A. W. Tozer. This is what he said some decades
ago: "We have the breezy, self-confident Christians with little affinity for
Christ and His cross. We have the joy-bell boys that can bounce out there
and look as much like a game show host as possible. Yet, they are doing it
for Jesus' sake?! The hypocrites! They're not doing it for Jesus' sake at
all; they are doing it in their own carnal flesh and are using the church as
a theater because they haven't yet reached the place where the legitimate
theater would take them.

Tozer takes his argument further: "It is now common practice in most
evangelical churches to offer the people, especially the young people, a
maximum of entertainment and a minimum of serious instruction. It is
scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend the meeting where
the only attraction is God. One can only conclude that God's professed
children are bored with Him for they must be wooed to meeting with a stick
of striped candy in the form of religious movies, games and refreshments." 

This has influenced the whole pattern of church life and even brought into
being a new type of church architecture designed to house the golden calf.
So we have the strange anomaly of orthodoxy in creed and heterodoxy in
practice. The striped candy technique has so fully integrated into our
present religious thinking that it is simply taken for granted. Its victims
never dream that it is not a part of teachings of Christ and His apostles.
Any objection to the carryings-on of our present gold calf Christianity is
met with the triumphant reply, "But we are winning them." And winning them
to what? To true discipleship? To cross-carrying? To self-denial? To
separation from the world? To crucifixion of the flesh? To holy living? To
nobility of character? To a despising of the world's treasures? To hard
self-discipline? To love for God? To total commitment to Christ? 

Of course, the answer to all of these questions is "no." As these words were
written several decades ago, Tozer certainly saw the future. But there are
contemporary witnesses as well. Kent Hughes, who is Senior Pastor of the
College Church in Wheaton, Illinois, has written perceptively on this issue.
Hughes put it this way: "The unspoken but increasingly common assumption of
today's Christendom is that worship is primarily for us--to meet our needs.
Such worship services are entertainment focused, and the worshipers are
uncommitted spectators who are silently grading the performance. From this
perspective preaching becomes a homiletics of consensus--preaching to felt
needs--man's conscious agenda instead of God's. Such preaching is always
topical and never textual. Biblical information is minimized, and the
sermons are short and full of stories. Anything and everything that is
suspected of making the marginal attender uncomfortable is removed from the
service
.Taken to the nth degree, this philosophy instills a tragic
selfcenteredness. That is, everything is judged by how it affects man. This
terribly corrupts one's theology."

Hughes is right. Our confused worship corrupts our theology and our weak
theology corrupts our worship. Are these voices alarmist? They do mean to
sound an alarm. But there are others who are saying, "Don't worry--be
happy--go worship." One recent church growth author has written, "Worship is
like a car to get us from where we are to where God wants us to be.
Transportation and communication are imperative; the mode or vehicle is not
imperative. Some worship God in cathedrals with the rich traditional organ
tomes of Bach and Faure from the classics of Europe. They travel in a
Mercedes Benz. Some worship God in simple wooden churches with a steeple
pointing heavenward. They sing the gospel songs of Charles Wesley or Fanny
Cosby. They travel in a Ford or Chevy. Some worship God with the
contemporary sounds of praise music with a gentle beat. They travel in a
convertible sports coupe. Some worship God to the whine of a guitar and the
amplifiers to the max. They travel on a motorcycle, without a muffler."

But surely there is more to worship than the spectrum of taste from a
Mercedes Benz to a motorcycle. There must be something weightier here.
"Worship is like a car to get us from where we are to where God wants us to
be." Can that be said with a straight face as we listen to the Scripture
speak of worship? We know from the onset that there are many different
Christian opinions concerning worship. This does not come to us as news. But
the real issue for us this morning is whether or not God Himself has an
opinion on this issue. Does God care how He is worshiped? Or is He some kind
of laissez-faire deity who cares not how His people worship Him, but is
resting in the hopes that some people in some place will in some way worship
him? 

Scripture reveals that God does care. Leviticus 10:1-3 serves as a witness
to this point. "Now Nadad and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their
respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it
and offered strange fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.
And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they
died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, "It is what the Lord spoke,
saying, 'By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy, and before all
the people I will be honored.'"

These were Aaron's sons. But they did what God had not commanded them to do
in worship. They brought strange fire to the altar and they were consumed.
Clearly, God does have an opinion about worship. He is the God whom we have
come to know in Jesus Christ, the God who has revealed Himself in the Bible.
He is a jealous God--a God who loves us and is calling out a people but a
God who instructs and commands His people that we should worship Him
rightly. 

In one sense, I think you can say looking throughout the Bible that there
has been worship warfare even in the Scripture itself. As a matter of fact,
I think you can look back to the very first murder and see that it had to do
with worship as well. What is an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord? Cain and
Abel saw this issue differently. 

Well, Scripture makes clear that worship is something that we do, not just
something we attend. It is not merely an issue for the pastor and other
ministers. It is not just an issue for the musicians and those who will plan
the service. It is an issue for the entire congregation, for worship is
something we do together. It is our corporate and common responsibility to
worship God as He desires.

Where shall we turn for instruction on how we ought to worship? There is
only one place we can turn, and that is to the Word of God. The norm of our
worship must be the Word of God--this Word that He has spoken. As we turn to
this Word, we do see a pattern of worship, a pattern that is replicated
throughout the fabric of Scripture from beginning to the end.

 HYPERLINK http://www.albertmohler.com/graphics/div-commentary.gif
http://www.albertmohler.com/graphics/div-commentary.gif

This is Part One of a three-part series. Tomorrow: Authentic Worship Begins
with a True Vision of the Living God.



Charis,
 
Mike Abendroth
 
"Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to
be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won.   Endow us with
courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns
to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth
are in jeopardy."
  - West Point Military Academy Cadet Prayer
 
HYPERLINK "http://www.bbcchurch.org"www.bbcchurch.org
 


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