Gathering the church for worship 2

Jesus is building His church, and He’s doing it by the power of His own Word (; ; ). He also regulates the church’s worship by that same Word, graciously informing us how we are to approach Him. How then can we structure our Sunday morning worship gatherings in a way that reflects God’s commitment to shaping the church by His Word? As leaders who are committed to seeing the church changed and protected according to God’s Word we’ll follow what we see in God’s Word. These basics are essential to the corporate life, health, and holiness of our local church.

READ THE BIBLE

"Until I come, give your attention to public reading, exhortation, and teaching.” ()

Pastors are commanded by God to see to it that Scripture is regularly read in the public, assembled congregation. Scripture is powerful—even when the person reading it doesn’t try to explain it (; )!

What does teach us about God’s Word? _____________________________________________________________

12 "For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 "No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.” ()

Cuts in both directions. God’s Word speaks deliverance to God’s people, but destruction to those who oppose God.

God’s Word is living and effective because it comes from God, who sees and knows all, it has penetrating authority to judge “the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

Carving out time in our Sunday morning services to read Scripture aloud, without comment, every week, makes a statement about the value we place on God’s Word.

Carving out time in our Sunday morning services to read Scripture aloud, without comment, every week, makes a statement about the value we place on God’s Word.

It says we are eager to hear the Word of the Lord—we desire it.

It acknowledges that the life and growth of our local church depend on the power of God’s Word, and that we really believe what says: _________________________________________________________

It acknowledges our own weakness in that we continually need to be reminded of what God has said.

It says we’re willing to listen to God’s Word, to sit under it in order to be instructed, assessed, and evaluated by it.

It says we’re willing to agree with its estimation and judgment of us.

It says we’re willing to submit to its verdict and commands without qualification.

Yet if the regular public reading of Scripture says all this, what are we saying if we neglect it?

PREACH THE BIBLE

"Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching.” ()

Pastors are commanded by God to preach Scripture regularly. The preaching of God’s Word is God’s ordained method for communicating the Gospel to sinners (; cf. ).

What is one major task for leading in the church? (look up ).

Pastoring is ultimately about ensuring salvation for ourselves and others ().

But we cannot do that work without devoting ourselves to preaching and teaching. This is true because the Gospel is what ensures salvation ().

What happens if we stop preaching the gospel?

Pastor’s then will compromise their responsibility in ensuring the salvation of the souls God has entrusted to you.

What is Jesus’ view of Scripture, that it is ultimately all about…? (look up , ).

He has given us both the permission and the mandate to read the whole Bible with Gospel-colored glasses—and then to preach the Gospel as we preach the point of the passage, addressing both believers and unbelievers with its truth, power, and implications.

PRAY THE BIBLE

"First of all, then, I urge that petitions, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone,” ()

This command is given at the beginning of a chapter that gives instruction on corporate worship and organization. Paul wanted these prayers to be staples in Timothy’s leadership of regular corporate worship.

What words of Isaiah did Jesus quote? (See ).

Pastors are commanded by God to lead their congregations in public prayer. Everything that happens up front in church is part of the teaching ministry of the church. You are either teaching the members of your congregation how to pray biblically, teaching them how to pray poorly, or teaching them not to pray at all, simply by how much time you carve out in the service for prayer and how you fill that time. Scripture teaches us how to pray. Praying God’s Word back to Him in the corporate assembly communicates that we want to approach Him on His terms, not ours, and according to who He has revealed Himself to be, not who we would prefer Him to be. We should be led in solemn, humble, and Scripture-saturated prayers of

Adoration, would focus on praising God for His attributes and perfections.

Confession, would be a corporate confession of the ways we have sinned against God since we last gathered, particularly focusing on ways we have disobeyed a publicly read passage of Scripture, the Ten Commandments, or the passage to be preached that morning.

Thanksgiving, would focus on expressing gratitude for both spiritual and physical gifts that God has given us.

Supplication, would function as the pastoral prayer as the pastor brings the needs of the congregation before God, prays for the local church from the priorities of Paul’s prayers for the churches, and possibly even prays the main points of the upcoming sermon for the congregation.

And the prayer of Supplication would function as the pastoral prayer as the pastor brings the needs of the congregation before God, prays for the local church from the priorities of Paul’s prayers for the churches, and possibly even prays the main points of the upcoming sermon for the congregation.

SING THE BIBLE

Dever, M., & Alexander, P. (2005). The deliberate church: building your ministry on the gospel (p. 83). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

SING THE BIBLE

"speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making music with your heart to the Lord,” ()

Part of pastoral leadership, then, is to facilitate this kind of edifying worship. But again, Jesus uses His Word to build or edify the church. So it makes sense that we only sing songs that use His Word both accurately and generously. The more accurately applied scriptural theology, phrases, and allusions, the better—because the Word builds the church, and music helps us remember that Word, which we seem so quickly to forget.

How do we avoid the “worship wars” of the Traditional VS Contemporary styles of worship? We become biblisists! “Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” is the biblical criteria. We cannot let the dictates of personal preferences of the traditionalist or the passing fads of our contemporary culture lead us in our song selection. God and His Word do that for us!.

Dever, M., & Alexander, P. (2005). The deliberate church: building your ministry on the gospel (p. 84). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

We have to ask questions like: What is the theological content and edification potential in this song?

Edification—building people up—happens when people are encouraged to understand and apply the Gospel more biblically, not necessarily when they are led into an emotional experience or encouraged to identify temporary emotional expressiveness with worship.

Lyrics set to music have formative power because they are memorable. Use songs that fill our minds with God’s character, that form our worldview by God’s truth, and that teach us about the biblical meaning and personal implications of His Gospel. Just as with prayer, so here, everything that happens up front in corporate gatherings is a function of the teaching ministry of the church. As the main teaching pastor, it is therefore my responsibility to shepherd the congregation into the green pastures of God-centered, Gospel-centered songs.

SEE THE BIBLE

“Do this in remembrance of Me” (). The ordinances are the dramatic presentations of the Gospel. They are the moving pictures that represent the spiritual realities of the Gospel, written and directed by Jesus Himself. The bread and juice in the Lord’s Supper portray Christ’s body and blood broken and poured out for the remission of our sins, a visual reminder of Christ’s Cross-work on our behalf (). In the same way, baptism portrays our spiritual death to sin, our symbolic burial with Christ, and our resurrection with Him to new life (). The ordinances, then, are where we see the Gospel enacted, and our participation in it dramatized. They are where the word of God’s promise is spoken to us in tangible form—we touch and taste the bread and juice; we feel the waters of baptism. They are means of grace instituted by Jesus that God uses to assure His people of the trustworthiness of His Gospel and the reality of our participation in it.

Faithfulness here also implies that we are exercising church discipline when necessary—ultimately protecting people from taking the Lord’s Supper if they are currently involved in scandalous, unrepented sin, or if they are reasonably suspected of hiding unrepented sin by prolonged neglect of church attendance. Such sins call into question the genuineness of a member’s profession.

The diligent pastor will, by protectively barring that member from the Table, warn such a person what? (see ).

Taking such care in our administration of the ordinances will help prevent false conversions, protect the regenerate nature of our church’s membership, deter unrestrained immorality, and thus crowd out charges of hypocrisy, making our evangelism more winsome and more consistent with our witness.

Conclusion

These practices are the central elements of worship: the preaching of God’s word, the public reading of God’s word, praying in accordance with God’s word, singing what coheres with God’s word, and seeing God’s word through the ordinances. God has graciously blessed his people by taking great care to teach them how to glorify him in worship. He has told us not only what to do in worship but also how to do it. In Christian worship, as with all aspects of the Christian life, may we learn to “not go beyond what is written” ().

If we are seeking to equip God’s people for works of service (), we need gatherings that are theologically powerful and doctrinally multifaceted—where the whole will of God is proclaimed (), not just reshuffled tidbits. Here are some examples for us as church leaders to spur on our congregation toward Christian maturity, to what Paul calls, “into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fulness” ().

Croft, B., Adkins, J., & Kauflin, B. (2015). Gather god’s people: understand, plan, and lead worship in your local church (p. 45). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Dever, M., & Alexander, P. (2005). The deliberate church: building your ministry on the gospel (p. 85). Wheaton, IL: Crossway.