A gospel-centered church in Austin, Tx
The last post in this series. Thanks Grayson for your work in summarizing these sermons! For the last five weeks we’ve gathered on Sundays to look at specifically at the nature of our corporate worship. We’ve preached on each “element” of our gathering individually in an effort to answer two questions: What is the worship [...]
Sunday’s gathering marked the third in our series of five on the specific nature of our corporate worship at Providence. So far, we’ve introduced a brief definition for the worship of the church, unpacked the church’s “call to worship,” and examined God’s process of separation and restoration as expressed in our time of corporate “confession and cleansing.”
A time of “consecration” follows a time of “confession and cleansing” in our liturgy. Again, this is not an accident. In the “call to worship” God moves towards us and begins his process of renewal. When we “confess,” God continues this process by tearing us from our old ways and preparing us for new life in Christ. New life comes primarily through God’s word. For this reason, we continue to gather to hear God speak, allowing him to “consecrate” us through the reading and preaching of his word.
Last Sunday’s gathering kicked off a new preaching/teaching series on the specific nature of our corporate worship at Providence. First, we introduced a succinct definition for the worship of the church, calling it a “covenant renewal event.” Following that, we introduced five “aspects” of God’s covenant with man that ought to be reflected in corporate worship.
More specifically, we looked at God’s movement towards us as expressed in the church’s “call to worship.” Now we’ll look at what Jeffrey Meyers has described as God’s “separation of some portion of the old ‘material’ so that it can be formed into something new.” This process is expressed in our corporate time of “confession and cleansing.”
*Another post from Grayson Walker on the start of our new preaching series on Covenant Renewal:
Sunday’s gathering kicked off a new preaching/teaching series on the specific nature of our corporate worship at Providence. On the whole, the series aims to ask and answer two main questions. First, what is the worship of the church? And second, how does worship form us?
In college I measured my progress in faith by what I didn’t do. In ministry, I measured my progress by what I did do (my performance). In both cases, I was trying to establish a righteousness of my own, before God and others. That kind of Christianity is not only exhausting; it’s actually not Christianity at all. It’s legalism – an approach to God that treats Him as a system to be worked rather than a person to be known and loved and served.
We articulate the message of the gospel in this way: It is the good news that God saves sinners through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus. It’s worth meditating a bit on each part. That’s what I do in this audio clip:
The Lenten season is a time of preparation and repentance in which we make our hearts ready for remembering Jesus’ passion and celebrating Jesus’ resurrection. The forty day period is symbolic of “repentance seasons” in the Bible (Genesis 7:4, Exodus 24:18, Jonah 3:4, Matthew 4:2). The purpose is not merely an extended meditation on Christ’s suffering and death, but is rather a season to explore and deepen our sense of union with Christ.
The common question among those observing Lent is, “What are you giving up for Lent?” Before you answer that, please know that giving up caffeine or TV- while probably good for you – is not the main point.
*Providence Church (and this blog) is a very communal affair, so … Here are some thoughtful words from Grayson Walker, who is a younger guy in our church trying to sincerely follow Jesus and live out his faith:
Do you remember the Christian fad circa 2001? I do. All the “Christian kids” were wearing them. They weren’t like today’s trendy Silly Bandz. There were no fancy shapes or stretchable “fabrics”. Instead, kids wore simple bracelets — the letters WWJD stitched neatly into them, usually in white. Surely you remember them.
It seems like the aptly named “W.W.J.D.” bracelets had become the cultural mark of young Christians. After all, we seemingly bought into this vision: If only we can remind ourselves ‘What would Jesus do?’ in everyday situations we’ll conquer sin. Of course, that was shortsighted. Whenever we de-emphasize the death and resurrection of Jesus, we lose the very power of the gospel to change us.
To guard the gospel means to uphold it as true and defend it against whatever is contrary. The very thought confronts one of our deepest cultural values: individualism.
This value makes us feel that “I” am the final authority on what I believe and do. It passes as inclusivism, but it is really just individualism. Far from promoting community, it promotes autonomy and surface relationships.
This value has shaped our view of church as well. Christians love concepts like “organic church,” and we say things like: “When I am with my friends serving people, that is church.” I continue to hear church leaders say that we need to stop talking about what we believe and start focusing on doing what we believe. Such sentiments reflect our individualistic desire to define church and spirituality on our own terms. When someone is confronted by a pastor with regard to his doctrine or conduct, he is likely to hear it as good advice from a respected friend, but not as admonishment from godly authority. His “right” is to proceed however he wants because the individual is the final authority.
So this is an important question for our day. What does it mean that the church guards the gospel?
Worship. If we’re honest with ourselves, we can easily have a reductionist view of that word. That is, for most American evangelical Christians, worship is primarily about music and preaching. Like it or not, all of us are in some way shaped by this cultural ethos in the American church. So, when we evaluate a worship service, we typically ask ourselves questions like, “Did I like the music and was I moved by it? Did I like the sermon, and was I personally challenged, motivated, convicted, and (as a plus) entertained by it?” In other words, knowingly or unknowingly, we tend to evaluate worship based on our private or personal experience of it. What did I get out of it? How did it make me feel? The problem with this is that a worship service of the church is not private worship. It is corporate worship. It is the gathering of God’s people. The focus of the worship service in the New Testament is not upon self-edification and self-gratification but upon worshipping God and building up the church (edifying others). Gathered worship on Sunday is not something for us to consume or observe or from which to seek a “feel good” experience. Rather it is something we enter into and in which we participate by faith.
