October 2, 2016 Sermon Reflection

Sermon Reflection 10/2/16

Pastor Gene’s sermon this past Sunday got me thinking again about the topic of worship. A cursory study of church history would reveal that the issue of worship has been central and significant for the Christian church since the beginning. This seems to go without saying if we accept Pastor Gene’s point that we are fundamentally lovers who express our desires and affections through worship. The question is not if you’ll worship but what you’ll worship and how. The illustration of the room that would give you what you truly desire was especially poignant (and convicting). When I think of what might appear if I were to step into that room I am humbled by the fact that God still has much work to do in shaping and directing my loves. This drives me once again back to the truths of the Gospel which were so powerfully stated by Martin Luther in his great formula “Simul justes et peccator”: at the same time just and sinner. Luther knew that the Gospel was meant for sinners and that the Gospel promise of being declared righteous by God was true of people like you and me while we yet still have a ways to go in being made righteous in our sanctification through the power of the Spirit.  

But, you know we don’t really need a room like that to come to know what we truly desire. What we worship (and how we worship) is a natural refection of what we truly desire. Today it is clear that we are, as a people, no less interested in worship. But our interest in worship, when compared to church history, may have taken a different direction. One of the true desires that can be gleaned from reflecting on our contemporary interest in worship is a love of “absolute novelty”*, and a general disdain for anything with a whiff of age or tradition. Not everything new is inherently bad and not everything old is to be commended. Discernment and wisdom shaped by Scripture is key, but, to solicit the wisdom of the German poet Goethe, “He who cannot draw on 3000 years is living from hand to mouth.” 

One last thing that stuck me from the preaching was the realization that just as much as what and how we worship is a reflection of what we truly desire, what and how we worship can shape what we come to truly desire. As Pastor Gene went through our liturgy, explaining the intention and scriptural sanction behind each element, I was truly appreciative to be able to participate in the worship of God in this way. And “participate” is a choice word. We are not just a passive audience and we are not performers on stage. We are participants responding to God’s call to worship. With this in mind, reflect on this from Hughes Oliphant Old: 

“If there is one doctrine which is at the heart of Reformed worship it is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It is the belief that the Holy Spirit brings the Church into being, that the Holy Spirit dwells in the Church and sanctifies the Church. Worship is the manifestation of the creative and sanctifying presence of the Holy Spirit. If we are to understand the worship of the early Reformed Church we must recognize that they went to worship not to do something for God, nor even so much to get something from God, but far more to be something with God” (The Patristic Roots of Reformed Worship).

-SFE

*More on this from C.S. Lewis in Screwtape Letter 25