Archives For Theology

Worship: The Centre of Existence

May 1, 2013 — Leave a comment

It’s been a while since I last posted. Life has just gotten really busy. But I recently had to do some assignments for Metro Worship Academy. I haven’t written assignments in years! My friend Kelwin says that they should call them “adventures”, rather than “assignments”. We will see…

In an interview with the Canberra Times[1], former lead singer of KISS, Gene Simmons, professing to once being religious, reveals his objection to the worship of the Christian God. “Why,” he asks, “would this God who is very non-human want to hear his name repeated? … Now that’s a really frail characteristic.”

Simmons view discloses a perverted understanding of worship by projecting a human trait on a Being who is beyond and before created things. God’s passion for His own glory is in fact at the very core what it means to worship.

Harold Best calls it the “centre of existence”:

Worship is at once about who we are, about who or what our god is and about how we choose to live…. [A]t this very moment, and for as long as this world endures, everybody inhabiting it is bowing down and serving something or someone.[2]

The question then is: who or what do we choose to worship? Simmons failed to understand that, by virtue of His being God, God necessarily must exalt His name and glory above anything else and that “His first and central love is Himself”.[3] This singular fact is the foundation and fountainhead of created order: for the individual, society, the nations and the cosmos.  Giglio observes:

When God makes His glory the centre of all things and the center of our affections, he gives us Himself – the very best gift He could give us, and the ultimate expression of His love.[4]

In other words, it is only when we understand the centrality of God in our universe that we can fully realise our personal destiny and the destiny of our cities and nations, undergirded by the love and generosity of God in His divine mission to reconcile all things to Himself.[5]

God’s desire and passion for His own glory, manifested in His goal of reconciling all things to Himself led to Jesus’ death on the cross, which is also for Christians, the starting point of our worship.  Paul says this:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.[6]

To offer our bodies suggests that worship must be an all-consuming, continuous act (in other words, “worship as a lifestyle”) but the use of the word “offer” (in the present continuous tense) requires a direct act, a sacrifice. In one sense, whole-life worship can be very much an unconscious reflection of the way we have chosen to live, manifested in our daily choices and actions. But there is also a place for direct, intense adoration and praise.  James Macdonald observes:

We are frequently told that making a meal for your family or cleaning your car or helping your neighbour are all acts of worship. When these acts are the outgrowth of our love for God and done to demonstrate that love, I would agree that they are “worshipful”…. Worship is the actual act of ascribing worthy directly to God. Worshipful actions may do this indirectly, but when the Bible commands and commends worship as our highest expression, it is not talking about anything other than direct, intention, Vertical outpouring of adoration.[7]

So in light of this, the question we ask is: how do we worship? We must understand that worship begins with the heart, from our affections. God is not focussed on “outward appearance … but the Lord looks at the heart”[8]. Jesus puts it another way: God is seeking worship that is “in spirit and truth”[9], that is, worship that is initiated within our spirit by the Holy Spirit, and worship that expresses (and is consistent with) an inner reality.[10]  That does not mean that outward expressions are not important, for indeed the actions of worship themselves (singing, kneeling, bowing, raised hands, clapping, shouting) hold great spiritual significance[11]. The point is that outward expressions originate in inward attitude.

The result? Worship transforms us. We become like what we worship.  The Psalmist says that “those who make [idols] will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.”[12]  Hibbert observes that “worship not only changes our inner lives, it also affects the expression of our faith and service to God in the world around us”.[13] God uses us to change our community and cities, but in the midst of worship, God also supernaturally and metaphysically brings about transformation on the earth.

In Revelations 5, John has a vision of the Lamb who was slain, encircled by the 24 elders, standing as the answer to the question: who is worthy to open the scroll? As the elders worshipped with the harp and the bowl of incense (signifying prayer), the Lamb began to open the seals of the scroll. The scroll represents a will and testament, by which God bequeaths His divine destiny to the earth and all creation.  Through the means of worship therefore, God ultimately reconciles all things to Himself to the praise of His jealously-guarded glory.

 

[1] Peter Karp, Untitled Article, Canberra Times, 12 September 1999.

[2] Harold Best Unceasing Worship (Downer’s Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2003) p 17.

[3] Louie Giglio I Am Not But I Know I Am (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2005) p 162.

[4] Id, p 165.

[5] Paul states in Colossians 1:19, 20 (NIV) that “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in [Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Note: all Scripture references are to the New International Version unless otherwise stated).

[6] Romans 12:1.

[7] James MacDonald Vertical Church (Colorado Springs: David C Cook, 2012) p 168-169.

[8] 1 Samuel 16:7.

[9] John 4:23,24.

[10] Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance #225: “alethia”. The word translated as “truth”, according to Strong, means “signifying the realty lying at the basis of an appearance” and also “sincerity and integrity of character”.

[11] An analysis of the various expressions of worship and their significance are beyond the scope of this post.

[12] Psalm 135:18.

[13] Vivien Hibbert Prophetic Worship (Michigan: Baker Books, 1998) p 147. 

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Taking our Place at the Love Feast: Good Friday Reflections

March 29, 2013 — Leave a comment

Today is Good Friday. On this day, Christians around the world celebrate one of the greatest events that changed the course of history:  the death of Jesus on the cross.

My wife and I usually like to go to a well-programed, evocative, sensory church service on Good Friday. If we can, we try to fit in a service at Riverview Church, Perth’s largest congregation, which every year puts on a high production-value service which ultimately gets the tears flowing. This year, we had a cell group outreach and we spent most of the morning preparing, so we didn’t get time to get down to any of the services at Riverview.

But I think spending Good Friday with our cell group, our close-knit Christian community and a few invited guests, sharing a good meal, worshipping together and taking the bread and wine is as close as we get to properly observing and celebrating Good Friday.

Good Friday always evokes in me some contradictory feelings. It’s a sorrowful day when you think about the sufferings of Jesus, how he took our place and our punishment.

But it is also a time of joy, of celebrating our deliverance and liberty, knowing that all our sins are forgiven and because of Jesus’ death, we now have right standing before God and are called His children.

First Corithians 11:23-33 says this:

 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said,“This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”  In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment.

Verse 29 says that we need to “discern the Lord’s body”, or to bear it in mind.

I think a lot of us misunderstand the significance of the Holy Communion. If you’ve been in the church long enough, it’s sometimes just treated as another part of our Sunday program once a month when on top of the bags we pass around, we also pass around a little plastic cup of juice and some crackers. In our church, we’ve maximized the convenience factor with a presealed cup and cracker combination.  Our little commercial, mass-produced cup almost lends a flippancy to the occasion.

On the other hand, we can approach it with deft solemnity.  I remember when I was younger hearing from the pulpit that we shouldn’t partake of the bread and cup unworthily in case we invite judgment on ourselves. In particular, if you weren’t born again, you shouldn’t partake. It’s as if being unsaved wasn’t bad enough, but the combination of being unsaved and taking something so sacred would somehow invite special judgment. The pastor would say that this was what was meant by taking the bread and cup in “an unworthy manner”.  So sometimes, when I was worried about whether I was saved or not, I would let the cup pass.

But both attitudes betray a lack of understanding about the significance of the Holy Communion and exactly what Jesus was calling us to celebrate.

Luke 22 describes how Jesus instituted the celebration of communion on the Jewish Passover. He could have done it on any other day, but he picked this significant day (the day before He was charged and crucified) – and it was no coincidence.  By doing so, Jesus was making a statement that he was the fulfillment of the Old Testament type of the Passover Lamb in Exodus 12, when Moses told the Jews to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and smear the blood on the doorposts of their homes so that when the angel of death passed, those identified by the blood would be spared. The Passover became the catalyst of the liberation of the Jewish nation from Egyptian captivity.  Since then, the Jews have generation after generation celebrated the Passover in remembrance of that great day of their deliverance.

The Jews traditionally ate the Matzah bread during Passover and this was the bread Jesus would have used when he instituted the Communion.  The Matzah is actually very symbolic, particular in the context of Isaiah 53.

  • The Matzah is unleavened, meaning it has no yeast in it. In the Bible, yeast is often associated with sin. So the Matzah is symbolic of the sinless of body of Jesus – He who knew no sin, became sin for us.
  • The Matzah is also flat because when it is being prepared, the dough is beaten flat. At Calvary, Jesus was beaten and flogged. Isaiah says of Jesus that “he was crushed and bruised for our iniquities”.
  • The bread is then put through fire to be baked. Jesus bore the fire of God’s wrath and judgment.  Isaiah says it this way: “the punishment that brought us peace was upon him.”
  • If you look carefully at the bread, it has holes in it. Isaiah says “He was pierced for our transgressions.”
  • And you can also see the stripe marks.  Isaiah says that “by His stripes, we are healed and made whole.” Even as we take the bread, we believe that by faith that God can do a healing work in our lives too: healing our diseases and illnesses; emotional brokenness; disconnectedness; breakdown of relationships. God can heal all these things.

And then comes the wine. Jesus said of the wine that this represented the blood of the new covenant, poured out for us.

What is the new covenant?

Under the old covenant, the law was instituted to prescribe behaviour and standards fitting of the people of God. If you could do everything according to the law, then you will be blessed. But if you failed, then you would be cursed and punished. The apostle James says that if you fail in one aspect of the law, you fail the entire thing.

God saw that it was impossible for us to keep the law in its entirety.  Justice demanded punishment, so God sent his Son Jesus, who was completely sinless to die in our place. On the cross, the demands of justice and the wrath of God were completely exhausted in the body of Jesus.  As we are in Christ, the principal clause of the new covenant is in Hebrews 10:16-17 is that God has now written His law on our hearts. But not only that, He says that our sins and lawless acts He will remember no more!

The blood was also a mark of distinction. Like in Exodus 12, by the mark of the blood, the people of God were distinguished from the people of Egypt. When we drink of the wine, we remember how God has sealed us by His Holy Spirit as His own – we are His children and nothing can snatch us out of His hands.

You will notice that in Luke 22, there are actually two cups.  In the Jewish tradition, the first cup is known as the cup of sanctification.  Ephesians 1:7 says in Him we have redemption through His blood and the forgiveness of sins in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.

The second cup is known as the cup of praise. It is an acknowledgment of the goodness and love of God that has brought us all His benefits.

So I go back to 1 Corinthians 11. To drink in an unworthy manner has nothing to do with our own sinfulness because we are already deemed worthy in Christ. But the challenge in 1 Corinthians 11 is all about how we regard the wine and the bread (our attitude towards Christ) and how we regard one another and the people around us (our attitude towards others).

Just as Christ’s physical body was broken to bring us wholeness, Christ also resurrected, not just a physical body, but also His spiritual body: the church.

And that is why on Good Friday, as we celebrated the Passover meal, I think God was smiling on our small group as we gathered to eat together and fellowship.  Nothing unites more than fellowship and feasting. Today was all about remembering Christ’s death and sacrifice, but it was also about celebrating HIs redeemed body amongst the gathered community and taking our place at the love feast.

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Why the Church Needs to Embrace Change

August 28, 2012 — Leave a comment

People often ask me: wouldn’t world missions and evangelism be so much easier if Jesus would just show up in person like He did two thousand years ago? He would walk around, do miracles, perform signs and wonders and preach the Word. And wouldn’t His effectiveness be multiplied given that He can now access technology that He didn’t have all those years ago, like the internet and podcasts and Twitter?

I actually think the answer is “no”. If someone showed up in the flesh proclaiming themselves to be God incarnate, your cynicism would likely dismiss them outright. You would say “God wouldn’t look like that”. You would have a certain expectation of His appearance or His status.

It’s just like the Lakeland Outpouring. When I first saw footage of it, I thought: “God can’t be in this. Look at the preacher. He looks like a bikie. And is he punching some old guy in the gut when he should be praying for the guy’s healing?” And we think, “maybe it’s just all hype. Everyone is caught up in the hysteria of it all, but it’s not a real revival.”

In fact, didn’t Jesus face a similar type of opposition when He appeared on earth? The religious establishment had for a long time believed that (in their interpretation of Scripture) Jesus would come as a political figure to free the Jewish nation from Roman rule. They did not expect that a King could be born in a manger, let alone grow up as a carpenter. And then to die on the cross? No way! Jesus could not possibly have been the prophesied Messiah.

And yet (for those us who are born again), we realise that in hindsight, the religious establishment had got it all wrong.

I am reading my signed copy of Frank Viola’s Revise Us Again, a brilliant little thesis on why we need to revise the “Christian script” from which we live.

Here is a pivotal point that Viola makes: “The Lord Jesus Christ will end up coming to us in a way that makes it easy for us to reject Him.”

And Viola says:

We all wish to cling to the Lord that we know now. We all wish to hold on to the Christ that has been revealed to ustoday. But mark my words: He will come to us in a way that we do not expect – through people who we’re prone to ignore and inclined to write off.

Perhaps they don’t talk our religious language. Perhaps they aren’t theologically sophisticated. Perhaps they don’t use our vocabulary. Perhaps they don’t share our jargon or parrot our religious idioms.

And so we cling fast to the Lord that we recognise – receiving only those who talk our language, use our jargon, and employ our catchphrases – and all along we end up turning the Lord Jesus Christ away….

What then does our Lord do when we fail to receive Him when He comes to us in an unexpected way? He moves on. And the revelation we have of Hm ceases to grow.

We see through a glass dimly. No one has a monopoly on revelation. And revelation is just that: it is fleeing, momentary and time-bound. Once it is recorded, set in script and written about, by definition, it soon ceases to be a revelation. In due course, that revelation fades, just like the glory began to fade from Moses’ face.

Paul exhorts us in 2 Corinthians 3:13 that we should not be like Moses, “who put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away”.

So we need to learn to embrace others and the revelation of Christ given to those who are outside our circle. It takes the whole body of Christ (the entire church) to fully represent Christ on this earth. We cannot continue to ignore other parts of the body because they are different. We need them precisely because they are different and fulfill the functions which our part of the body cannot fulfill. True unity embraces our diversity.

And we need to keep in step with the Spirit, not camping around the wonderful theologies and methods of yesteryear, although they were good, but to pursue fresh revelation, fresh insights. That is all part of growing as a church, realising that what we have seen so far is only a part revelation, and that there is more to come. If we fail to embrace change, we will cease to grow; we will stagnate.

Jesus was a revolutionary and we need to capture that revolutionary spirit to advance His kingdom here on earth. We need to embrace change; lest Jesus comes in a way we don’t expect and He passes us by.

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God’s Security in His Own Sovereignty

April 25, 2012 — Leave a comment

Here’s a brief thought:  God is sovereign.  And God is secure in His own sovereignty.  He is so secure in His own sovereignty that He is not afraid of appearing unsovereign.  Which is why He gives us free will to choose, knowing that He’s the best choice you and I could ever make.

You could say that His goodness leads us to repentance.  Not His heavy-handedness.  Not His punishment and penalties.  Not the fear of His judgment.  No, it is His faithfulness, His holiness, His completeness, His love – all of His goodness – that brings us to repentance.

That’s why He is not into control by rules and regulations – He is into relationship.

I recently read an article about how people should dress when they go to church.  The author didn’t say it outright, but the suggestion was that we should honour God in our dress and that the cultural shift towards casual clothing was indicative of a devaluing of God’s greatness in the eyes of the contemporary church.  The author gave an illustration of the victorious national volleyball team going to receive honours from the President, suggesting that they would never think of going to the White House in their flip-flops.

But one astute reader responded that the analogy fell short because the article was looking at our relationship with God as one of a formal outsider being invited into the presence of the President.  Actually, the reader said, it would be entirely appropriate for the President’s daughter to greet the President in flip-flops.

And that’s who we are:  yes, God is a King, but we have been adopted into His family and we are His sons and His daughters!

This is why in the context of our relationships with one another, sometimes we just have to let go and trust God’s sovereignty.  We are often tempted to impose strictures and restrictions in the hope that people will behave in a particular way and to make the right decisions.  But sometimes, the best thing we can do is to let people experience the goodness of God.  And trust that God is infinitely complete in Himself to draw them back to Him.

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Defining Worship

March 31, 2012 — 2 Comments

I expect that this will not be the only post I write on this subject because “worship” is one of those words which we all understand in some way or another, but find extremely difficult to pin down.  Depending on the context, its meaning expands and contracts.  Also, a lot our understanding will also be derived from our subjective experience.  It’s very much like the word “love”.

But I’ve been writing about worship and the church for the last four months and I still haven’t explored this important topic, so it’s about time.

I want to begin by establishing context:  when I talk about “worship”, what I really mean is “Christian worship”.

At its simplest, “worship” and “god” are interconnected; you can’t talk about worship devoid of a “god” being the endpoint of worship.  Without “god”, there is no worship.

But “god” takes some pretty surreptitious forms which we often don’t recognise.  For the unredeemed, fame, fortune and popularity may well be “gods”, things around which people centre their lives.

In the Christian context then, it’s obvious that when we talk about the endpoint of our worship, it is Jehovah God – the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, revealed through the books of the Bible from eternity to the present, existing outside of time and dimension, yet stepping into history through Jesus.

So here is the best definition I’ve come across so far for “worship” (I expect that more definitions may be proliferated in the future that might replace this one as my favourite).  It is “best” in form and substance because it is provided by theologian Harold Best.

In Best’s book Unceasing Worship, he defines worship as “the continuous outpouring of all that I am, all that I do, and all that I can ever become” to God.  (I am simplifying his definition somewhat, because it gets a lot more theologically technical, but what I have extracted here are what, I believe, are the core elements.)

This is a much better definition than the popular, oft-quoted definition of “worship is a lifestyle”.  Best’s definition recognises that worship is more than a lifestyle: it is also a state of being (“all that I am”) and also a life goal (“all that I can ever become”).

There’s a lot more to unpack in Best’s definition, but I will keep is as that for now.

In the meantime, have you come across a good definition of worship?  Or have you come up with your own?  Share with us by commenting below!

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