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We
often talk about Jesus being the center of our lives but we are not always so
consistent in showing it. John was on the Isle of Patmos for the Word of God
and the testimony of Jesus Christ when Jesus appeared to him standing in the
midst of the seven golden candlesticks (Rev. 1:12-13). The candlesticks
represented the seven churches of Asia (vs. 20) and John immediately knew the
meaning of the vision—Jesus must be the center of the church and also of every
believer’s life. When John saw this, he fell at his feet as dead (vs. 17).
The
full description of Jesus Christ on the Isle of Patmos (vss. 13-16) is the
clearest idea we have of what Jesus will look like when we see Him in glory.
From this description, John is instructed to address each church by emphasizing
the various characteristics of the Lord’s appearance. To Smyrna, the suffering
church, Jesus was “the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive” (2:8).
To Pergamos, the sinning church, Jesus was “he which hath the sharp sword with
two edges” ( 2:12). To Philadelphia, the church of the open door, Jesus was “he
that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and no man shutteth;
and shutteth, and no man openeth” (3:7). Jesus is seen to be the central figure
in every church and His attributes are the comfort, warning, and blessing of
every church’s ministry.
Jesus
walked with John through the churches and showed him the pastors who are in His
hand (1:20). As Zechariah’s flying scroll went into every house and searched
for and listed those things that are offensive to God (Zech. 5:1-4), so the Lord
searches every church for those things that are offensive to Him and warns them
to remember the first works and repent of their sin. In any church, if Jesus is
not in the midst, there may be many works but they are to no avail without the
blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The
book of Hebrews also presents Jesus Christ as the central figure of the church’s
life. He is the Captain of our salvation (2:10); the Apostle and High Priest of
our profession (3:1); the Mediator of the new covenant (9:15); the Author and
Finisher of our faith (12:2). He is also in the midst of the church as He ever
intercedes for her, washing her with His own blood so that she may draw near in
full assurance of faith (7:25; 10:22). Even all the angels of God fall
prostrate before Him as He ministers for the saints.
We are
being told by many today that Jesus is a mere spectator in the church and that
we are the central figures in worship and that we are the performers who draw
attention from heaven as the Godhead sits as an audience before us. Brian
Liesch, in his book The New Worship
titles chapter 8,1 “Is Worship A Performance?” to which he answers,
“yes! Absolutely!” He takes great pains to “reload” the word performance so
that (to his way of thinking) anything we “do” is some sort of performance and
therefore it becomes impossible for us to worship at all without performing. He
includes two drawings of football stadiums, one of which he shows God as the
audience, the people as players, and the pastor as a coach. This is Liesch’s
view of proper worship. The second stadium depicts the people as the audience,
the pastor as the player and God as the coach. Liesch sees this as backwards.
He advocates a more liturgical method of worship where the people go through
various old and new rituals to act out their devotion to God. This, of course,
fits well with contemporary worship and the idea that all artistic ability ought
to be displayed and God is happy to watch all of our human inventions.
It has
been my contention for some time that the contemporary worship style is today’s
version of the old liturgical, sacramental, and Romanish way of worship (see my
article, “The New Formalism”). The bands have become the priesthood, the
screens have become the stained glass, the swaying back and forth has become the
obedient kneeling and kissing the hand of the priests, and, most alarming of
all, the gradual orientation of new attendees has replaced repentance and faith
as the requirement for membership and has effectively become a new form of the
old confirmation.
Robert
Webber, in defending the Emerging Church (which is the logical outcome of such
formalism), advocates bringing back the Eucharist, or “Table worship,” and
reestablishing “a new emphasis on the presence of the resurrected Christ
experienced in the breaking of the bread.”2 He scolds the Protestant
Church for leaving the Catholic form of worship. Harold Best, in critiquing
Webber and other contemporary worship remarks, “I am fascinated by the continual
need of worship thinkers to go back to the Old Testament for sequential
categories without going forward to the New Testament to examine how these might
have been Christocentrically fulfilled or transcended in entirely new and
organic ways.”3 This is exactly my point! Just as our forefathers
had to leave the formalism of the Jewish worship, the Catholic worship, or the
Anglican worship, so we need to leave this new formalism for the pure New
Testament way of worship and that is with Christ alone as our object.
The
perspective of making human inventions the center of worship rather than an
understanding of what Christ has done and is presently doing for us will always
lead us away from Christ and eventually to idolatry. Fallen human beings have
always found it easier to express themselves and their desires and talents than
to concentrate on the truths of Christ’s work for us. The fact is that Christ
is the “performer” of worship (the only sinless man who can approach the throne
of God without condemnation—see Rev. 5:7-8) and we are all observers who are
being taught by Spirit and Word all that our wonderful Savior provides for us.
We
have forgotten that we are always worshipers and that worship does not begin and
end on Sunday morning. We do not bring sacrifices to a temple and ask that God
become propitious; He IS the propitiation for our sins continually (1 John
2:2). Neither do we start up the heavenly tabernacle where Jesus intercedes
for us by calling ourselves to worship on Sunday morning. Jesus is not in a
vestibule waiting for our first hymn. There is not a time of the day or week
when our High Priest is not “performing” His intercessory work for us. The
writer of Hebrews, therefore, saw that the “sacrifice of praise to God
continually” is actually “the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. But
to do good and to communicate forget not: for with such sacrifices God is
well-pleased” (Heb. 13:15-16). William Newell wrote,
“Yes, we need a Priest, and we have a Priest, thank God, a Great Priest over the
house of God (vs. 21). Let us mark, however, that we do not serve Him as
Priest: He serves us. We are not directed to come to Him as Priest, but to
God’s throne of Grace, relying on Christ’s shed blood, and having Him as Great
Priest over the house of God.”4
Louis
Berkhof wrote,
“He is priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. When He cried out on the
cross, ‘It is finished,’ He did not mean to say that His priestly work was at an
end, but only that His active suffering had reached its termination. The Bible
also connects priestly work with Christ’s session at the right hand of God . . .
. Christ is continually presenting His completed sacrifice to the Father as the
sufficient basis for the bestowal of the pardoning grace of God. He is
constantly applying His sacrificial work, and making it effective in the
justification and sanctification of sinners. Moreover, He is ever making
intercession for those that are His, pleading for their acceptance on the basis
of His completed sacrifice, and for their safe-keeping in the world, and making
their prayers and services acceptable to God.”5
Worship, then, is the wonderful recognition of Christ’s work on our behalf. For
this we give thanks in word and song, in prayers and supplications, and in
allowing His Spirit to illuminate our minds and hearts through the Word. That
is because we are the audience and we see Him doing these things. Yes, we have
much work to do but it is because these things are so, not to make them so. We
toil in prayer for many things; we witness of these truths to the lost and
needy; we sing praises in response to what Christ has done; and we fellowship
with other believers who also recognize the truth of the gospel and with us look
forward to the glory that shall be revealed in us when we all get to heaven!
We
have also forgotten that busyness is not necessarily worship. Our independent
churches have become good at getting people involved and active. We know that
when people get involved they are more likely to stay around. We also have
created so many “ministries” that it takes a huge staff of volunteers to keep
them running. When we add to that the contemporary model of making the church
platform a “stage” and making the church service a “production,” complete with
lights, sound, background and technology, we must have an army of busy people in
order to make it happen. Since these are the things in which today’s young
people excel, we have made novices more indispensible than an elder member who
only knows how to pray.
The
added danger to this scenario is the perception that all ministry takes place at
the church. This is the only place where people can “perform” and where the
obedient attendees can give their symbolic worship gestures back in return.
Perhaps this is why the disconnect between what is said on Sunday and what is
lived on Monday continues to grow larger and larger. There is a way, however,
in which it doesn’t grow larger. Since church attendees make little effort in
dressing up or in general manners or in prolonged attention spans, often there
is little disconnect between the two—it is all minimal! If true religion,
according to James 1:27, is to visit the widows and orphans and to keep oneself
unspotted from the world, then the self-centered worship model is not working
very well.
It is
also true that we have effectively left the ministry of the Holy Spirit out of
our church services. Once we conceive of ourselves being the performers of
worship, what need do we have of the Holy Spirit’s work in our heart? Evidently
we are plenty qualified to do what we’re doing! Let human emotion take over.
Human ability in art and music is much easier to muster than contriteness and
humility before the Spirit that lives and yearns within us. But He also has a
rightful place in the midst of our worship. Strong wrote, “The Holy Spirit is
an advocate within us, teaching us how to pray as we ought; Christ is an
advocate in heaven, securing from the Father the answer of our prayers. Thus
the work of Christ and of the Holy Spirit are complements to each other, and
parts of one whole.”6
Whether we are stirred and convicted by the Spirit’s work in our daily lives or
taught and comforted during the services of the church, He is the One who is
illuminating Christ’s work on our behalf and directing our thoughts toward Him.
Our command is to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18) so that we may be
speaking among ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. There is
nothing quite like a local church service where simple songs are sung from the
heart, humble prayers are made and heard from God’s people, and all are
challenged by the Word of God. The Holy Spirit works among God’s people and
Jesus Christ becomes central in the church. Believers can leave the service
prepared for work in God’s field because they have properly observed and learned
in the church.
And So . . . .
One
sign of true reform throughout church history was made by congregations who put
the pulpit back in the middle of the platform. In the liturgical churches, the
pulpit was moved to the side and the altars where the priests performed were
squarely in the middle of the church. Our churches removed the altars along
with the priestly paraphernalia and put the preaching of Christ and His Word
back in the center of the worship service! So again we need to put Christ back
in the midst of the churches.
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