A short address on Worship

It’s probably not a good idea to let your imagination run riot, but as I thought about this subject I found that this was what was happening. I imagined a girl coming up to her pastor one Sunday and saying, ‘Do you mind if I give up playing the flute in the music group? I feel I must join with everyone else in singing God’s praises. Last week when everyone was singing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow” my heart was so moved, and I want to be able to praise God myself.’ And I imagined someone else also coming up to the pastor and saying, ‘I’ve been thinking. God has given us a whole Bible and yet we often don’t read more than ten verses or so in our services. Can’t we have two readings and read both from the Old Testament and New Testament?’ My imaginings didn’t stop there, but that’s enough to make the point.

Let me give you three reasons why I believe this is such an important subject. I recognise that the New Testament applies the language of worship to the whole of our Christian lives. But what we are thinking about today is drawing near to God himself in worship. A wife may do a great deal for her husband – in the home, out at the shops – and a husband may do a great deal for his wife – do-it-yourself jobs, cutting the lawn. But that is not the same as spending time together, and expressing their appreciation of each other and the love they feel. Whether we eat or drink or whatever we do, all should be done for the glory of God, but that is not the same as coming into his presence as congregations and engaging directly with him in praise and prayer, in the reading and hearing of his Word. Worship is directed to God himself. It needs to be acceptable to him, pleasing to him, for his honour and glory.

Secondly, in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul says of God, ‘He is not a God of disorder but of peace’, and Gordon Fee comments, ‘The theological point is crucial: the character of one’s deity is reflected in the character of one’s worship’. The way we worship shows the sort of God we believe God to be. I am not at all sure that today’s worship always reflects the glorious sovereign God of holiness and grace which the Bible shows him to be.

Thirdly, our worship services are often our showcase to unbelievers. It is true that they learn from our personal witness, both by conduct and word. But when they come into a service they see us worshipping our God. What do they see? What impression do they gain? Our worship is likely to be strange to them, and so it should be, because there is no other human activity like it, and the worship of other religions is quite different. Paul, again in 1 Corinthians 14, speaks of the unbeliever or unlearned person who comes into a service of worship falling down on his face, worshipping God and declaring that God is among you of a truth. It will not always be like that today – just as it wasn’t always like that in those days, as Paul knew by experience. But I believe that unbelievers and those who don’t understand the Christian faith who come into our services – and they do from time to time – should at least be able to say, ‘They believe that God is among them of a truth.’ They may think we are fools or out of date or overly pious, but they should be able to discern that we are absolutely serious in our worship of God, it is great thing to us, it is real and heartfelt.

Let me at this point add a sentence or two from the Banner of Truth magazine, which arrived after I had prepared most of what I’m saying today. Here’s the testimony of a prodigal who after six years in the far country went back to church:

I was very thankful that I walked into a church that was different, a church where the otherness of God was sensed immediately… I was observing the people of God honouring God as God, and I was drawn in by the glorious mystery of it all. I was being evangelized, not by a man-centred show, but by a God-centred atmosphere. I was experiencing what Dr Ed Clowney calls ‘Doxological Evangelism’. It was, quite literally, out of this world.

What does the Bible have to say about the way in which we worship? Many of you will at least have heard of what is called ‘the regulative principle of the Word’: nothing must be introduced into worship which is not commanded or authorised in the Word of God. I personally have some difficulty with this principle. On the one hand it can seem overly restrictive and too concerned with externals, on the other it is interpreted in quite different ways. Moreover, it does not seem itself to be commanded or authorised by a plain verse of Scripture. But I am prepared to say that Scripture must regulate our worship. We can find valuable principles for worship from the Old Testament, but new covenant worship must take its primary guidelines from the New Testament. There is no set procedure for worship laid down in the New Testament, but there are more than enough principles to guide us to what is God-glorifying and to keep us from what it is harmful or inadequate. A verse I’ve always found significant is Colossians 3:16: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. If worship arises from a church in which the word of Christ dwells richly it is not likely to go very far wrong.

Let me mention two more points from 1 Corinthians 14. Firstly, the whole thrust of that chapter is that only what is intelligible is edifying. The church cannot be built up if people do not understand what they are hearing. Paul is his usual outspoken self in verse 9, Unless you utter by the tongue words easy to understand how will it be known what is spoken? The operative word is eushmoV. My little Souter dictionary gives the translation ‘with clear meaning’: ‘a message with clear meaning’. So I am not in favour of using archaic language in Bible translation, praying, preaching or hymnody because the Bible itself tells us that for edifying the church we need to speak ‘with clear meaning’. And worship must be edifying or else our coming together will be a waste of time. Truth must be presented to the mind, the mind must understand the truth, and then the church is built up.

The second point is this. In verse 33 Paul not only says, For God is not a God of confusion but of peace, he also goes on to say, as in all the churches of the saints. I know that some scholars believe that the last clause begins the next sentence rather than ending this one, but that doesn’t affect the issue. The point is that Paul is telling the Corinthians that they are out of line, they have departed from the way things are done in all the churches of the saints. If there is one thing that is clear today it is that we have no concept at all of all the churches of the saints worshipping in anything like a similar fashion. It is almost a matter of principle with us that churches are quite free to order their worship in any way which they believe is right for them. Quite often it is a matter of which pressure group exerts the strongest influence in the church, whether it is the young people, whom the church doesn’t want to lose, or the older traditionalists who happen to be in the majority.

I believe we need to think about this far more seriously than we have done. At present there is a continual movement of people between churches. Some leaving to go to ‘freer and livelier’ churches, others moving to churches where the worship is more reverent and orderly – at least those are the terms in which this is often expressed. I believe if we were more serious about following out the principles we find in Scripture; if we paid more attention to how worship has been conducted throughout Christian history; if we were really concerned to put God first; we would find our churches coming closer to each other rather than diverging as they often do.

I recognise there is the whole question of culture, and I believe it is important for worship to be the authentic expression of our hearts. There will always be some differences. I would not want the imposition of any prayer book or directory for worship, though perhaps some fairly representative and authoritative guide to worship might prove to be helpful. But I do long for a greater measure of agreement.

What should our worship services be like? Let me get a few things off my chest. Firstly there should be balance and proportion about them. I remember once going to a well-known church. We sang for more than an hour, the prayer lasted for about three minutes and the only reading of the word of God came right at the beginning of the sermon which lasted about half an hour. Whatever else might be said about that service things were right out of proportion. I remember another service. There was quiet organ music beforehand, and an atmosphere conducive to worship. The notices came at the very beginning, but lasted for twenty minutes and included inter-action with the congregation. Notices can be a bit of a problem anyway, but twenty minutes is out of all proportion. If people had been quietly preparing themselves by prayer beforehand that was quite lost by the time the first hymn was announced.

Proportion is important. If the praying regularly only lasts for three minutes out of an hour or an hour and a quarter, that is saying something about our belief in the importance of prayer. If the reading is never more than a short passage that shows the place we give to the word of God. I believe in the importance of preaching, but I only preach for about thirty five to forty minutes because our morning service is timed for an hour and a quarter. You have probably heard that terrible expression, ‘the preliminaries’. There are no preliminaries; it is all worship.

Although the format of worship services can vary, I think that generally over the centuries churches have developed what could be called the responsive principle. Our worship is to be responsive. We approach God and he responds to us. He speaks to us through his Word and we respond to him. This is why generally speaking we don’t have a block of singing, a block of praying, a block of reading the Scriptures, and then preaching – though I’ve been in a church where the pattern was not far from that. So we might begin with a short appropriate passage of the Word of God to which we respond in sung praise. Then God speaks through his Word again and we respond with prayer. His Word is preached and we express our thanks or perhaps commitment as we sing and conclude perhaps with a blessing from the Word to take home in our hearts. The pattern of hymn and reading, preaching and hymn and so on, turns out to be a thoughtful, intelligible, spiritual, time-honoured responsive form of worship.

You will expect me to say something about singing the praise of God. The most obvious feature of the New Testament is that it says very little about this. If you compare what it says about singing with what it says about praying, you have to acknowledge that there is a great contrast – a contrast that is by no means always reflected in our churches today. Acts 2:42 tells us that the early Christians in Jerusalem devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers. If we are honest we have to say that in some churches today we would need to include singing, and possibly exclude one or two items that Luke lists as features of early church life. But, of course, though the New Testament doesn’t say much it does say something and there can be no doubt that there was singing and thanksgiving to God. Indeed this is one of the features of Christian worship which distinguishes it from the worship of other religions. Some of you may be familiar with the words that John Stott quotes in his book, The Cross of Christ: A Buddhist temple never resounds with a cry of praise. Mohammedan worshippers never sing. Their prayers are, at the highest, prayers of submission and of request. They seldom reach the gladder note of thanksgiving. They are never jubilant with the songs of the forgiven (p.257/8).

I wish our services were more jubilant with the songs of the forgiven than they are. It is my experience that, all-too-often, praise is sung in a half-hearted way. It is not only a joy, it is also a responsibility to sing to the Lord, making melody from our hearts. Hymn singing is not an option; it doesn’t simply provide a suitable toilet break, it should be part of our response to God’s grace, and we should sing to the best of our ability. A minister I know recently went into a well-known London church. Afterwards he spoke to the minister about the worship in song, which he found very disappointing. It was not that it was way out. The congregation was very young, mainly people in their twenties. They lounged about during the singing with their hands in their pockets. Sometimes they sang and sometimes they didn’t. I was reminded of another telling phrase from John Stott’s book, he says: We saunter up to God to claim his patronage and friendship.

I think the trouble is partly that many people are not accustomed to congregational singing today. Some of the more recent music is not so suitable or straightforward enough for a congregation; its cultural background is the group or solo artist. Sometimes it is those of us who are ministers who are to blame because we ourselves do not join heartily in the singing. I remember years ago one very well-known minister who used to look around at his congregation, beaming upon them during the hymns – at least he did when I was present. The fact is, though, that if we are singing our praises to God then we should all be doing so together, and whoever leads the service and all those who are at the front should set an example. There is something glorious, in a small way anticipatory of heaven, about a congregation singing from their hearts ‘lost in wonder, love and praise’.

For this reason, even though I think accompaniment is a good thing, I don’t want it to prevent people singing. Last week I was at a church in London, and the organist was singing lustily as well as playing. Not everyone can do that, nor am I making a plea for organs, though I think they are versatile instruments that give depth to the music. I look upon those who cannot join in the singing as being deprived of a great privilege and joy. The present desire to multiply instruments, which often results in the most odd assortments, is neither useful nor spiritual. A suitable accompaniment with the maximum number of people singing together to the best of their ability is what we should be aiming at.

It goes without saying that the words we sing are of the greatest importance. I think that in these confused days theologically we had better be pretty careful about what we sing. If the teaching known as the ‘Openness of God’ gains a foothold in our churches it is my belief it will do so primarily by means of songs. Or perhaps it would be better to say that songs are likely to prepare a receptive soil for the books and teaching which are circulating more and more.

One more point about singing, though it extends beyond that. Joyfulness is important because worship is the response of the redeemed people of God to his grace. But there are many other emotions which need expression. The book of Psalms caters for the whole range of spiritual experience and all the different conditions of soul and emotion which God’s people know. In most congregations there are the sad, the depressed, the lonely, the bereaved, perhaps the broken hearted. If our worship doesn’t recognize this and allow them to express what is on their hearts and minister to their souls, then it has certainly failed – proportion, balance, once again.

Worship depends greatly on the spirituality, prayerfulness, understanding and manner of those who lead it. It also depends on the spirituality, preparedness and right attitude of the majority of worshippers. Worship can never be casual if that means careless, negligent, off-hand, slapdash or perfunctory. Nor can it be informal if that means lax, slack, disorganised, indulgent or disorderly. Nor should it be formal if that means pompous, stuffy, ritualistic, affected, unnatural or mere appearance. However, worship should be structured, orderly, fitting, and appropriate to the God who is worshipped and the way he has saved us in Christ, and the way we approach him.

Easter Sunday forty-six years ago found me on the United States Air Force base on the island of Bermuda. Going to the evening service at the base chapel I was handed The Old-Fashioned Revival Hour Songbook, which paradoxically meant the latest and greatest gospel songs of the time. I thought, ‘Wow, this is going to be great!’ But it wasn’t. As far as I was concerned the service was a damp squib and a great disappointment. A few weeks earlier, reading John chapter 6 in my billet back in the UK, I had come to realise that God is the sole author of salvation in a way I had not understood before. I was 19 years old; those two events were, I think, defining moments in my spiritual pilgrimage. The latest and trendiest worship can prove empty and spiritually unsatisfying. So, of course, does a dead traditionalism. We need worship that is grounded in biblical truth, guided by biblical principles, God-honouring and Christ-centred, arising from the living experience of the worshippers, in the power, grace and blessing of the Holy Spirit.