Our greatest privilege in this life is to
worship the one, true, living God on Sunday mornings and/or
Wednesday evenings. In the Service of Worship, this God -- whose
Name is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit -- encounters His Church.
In the Service of Worship, this God actively addresses and
empowers, loves and forgives, commands and corrects, His people.
In the power of God the Spirit and through God the Son, the
congregation lifts up its voice in giving thanks and praise to
God the Father. Faithfully gathering around the Word and the
Water, the Bread and the Cup, is the best and most important
activity in this world.
Today, not all would agree on the importance
of the Church’s worship. Even among Christians today, there is a
popular belief that real religion involves just God and me: God
speaks to me, privately; privately, I speak to God; so I am
religiously okay. According to this way of being spiritual, the
Church is unimportant, and the Church’s worship is unnecessary.
Therefore, people of this persuasion attend a Service of Worship
if and only if the service meets their felt needs.
During the Service of Worship, God indeed
meets our needs. But He meets our deepest needs. He meets
our need to trust Him. He meets our need to be pulled away from
the idols which we grasp, which then capture us. He meets our
need to have our sins disclosed and forgiven. He meets our need
to be taught to love rightly God and neighbor. At times, He
seems to ignore the needs that we think are most pressing. (That
is probably for our own good, for our growth in grace.) But the
bottom line is this: the Service of Worship is for the service
of God, for the worship of God; and the faithful worship of God
changes those in worship to be more like Christ.
As the Season of Pentecost wears on, I
challenge the entire congregation to worship God every week.
Also, make a special point of inviting and encouraging others --
relatives, friends, acquaintances, and neighbors -- to attend
with you. In the Service of Worship, we will be doing the most
important thing in the world: worshiping God with God’s people.
