The weekend is being invaded. As Americans have more extended workdays and after-school activities, the weekend has come under attack, and it is no longer for rest, but it is now time to jam more activities into. Christians are not immune to this cultural shift. There are now an equal number of soccer games played on Saturday mornings as there are on Sunday mornings, and if Christian parents want to keep their children eligible for college scholarships, they are now forced to choose. However, for the Christian, there is no choice at all. It is only seemingly a choice, and only the faithless would choose soccer over the very God of the universe. Christians might be fooled for a moment into thinking there is a legitimate choice, but Christians must and will follow the instruction of Scripture and the desire of their hearts and worship their God in church. There is no valid reason for a Christian to pick anything worldly over weekly worship in the church, so Christians should faithfully prepare for worship.
It could be argued that this is too harsh of a perspective. Possibly, for a season, church worship should be skipped because a boss is demanding Sunday hours, or maybe a break is needed to recover from the messiness of church, or perhaps it has been a long week. Perhaps individual worship is equal in value, if not better, than worshipping in church. Fundamentally this is nonsense; this is because God deserves our collective worship. Psalm 95:1-2 reads, "Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!" (ESV) Why are we called to do this? Psalm 95:3-7 continues, "For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand." It is simply impossible for a Christian to properly recognize this truth and then choose to skip church, where he gets to worship his maker for a lousy soccer game. Yes, a Christian can err in this matter for a time, but ultimately a Christian will realize his failure to evaluate priorities, and he will return to the church to worship. Christians realize this because they know that God is the only god. There is nothing else that compares to him. There is no idol, totem, lovely weekend, amount of rest, sports scholarship, or anything that can be measured against the one true and living God. And this God is the Christian’s God. The Christian belongs in God’s pasture, and God’s pasture is the church. If someone still finds the primacy of weekly corporate worship overly demanding, then they desperately need to seek to understand who God is and what he has done.
The most significant of the things God has done is sending his son to die for his people’s sins. Humanity, created by God, has rejected God and turned to worship themselves. A Christian in church worship is a miracle and a work of God to turn him from this rejection and remove his guilt and the punishment of death from him. God is the creator, and he is the only God, and God himself is looking for sheep to follow him and bow to Him in worship. When Jesus spoke to the Woman of Samaria, he helped her understand there would no longer be an established place to worship, as there had been in Israel, but a time was coming when his followers would worship in spirit and truth. That time has come, and it is done in part corporately as a church body. As a result of Jesus’ death and resurrection, true worshipers are worshipping God in spirit and truth, and Jesus himself said, “...the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” in John 4:23b. Wayne Grudem writes, “Worship in the church is not merely a preparation for something else: it is in itself fulfilling the major purpose of the church with reference to its Lord.” Christians worship because Christ has come and completed the work of his gospel, which is why Christians now rejoice in worship. This is something Christians simply cannot and must not miss out on.
If all of this is true, then why are there so many self-proclaiming Christians who no longer attend church or who are taking an extended break from church? Why, for those who do attend regularly, is corporate worship often dismissed and described as deficient compared to their personal worship? There is not enough preparation for worship by churchgoers before they walk through the doors. Indeed, some churches have failed to lead their congregations in faithful worship, but a Christian is not called to belong to a church because any aspect of the church is perfect or because a church will serve them flawlessly. It is the case that in most faithful churches, the church members need to prepare better to participate in worship as God intended it.
This begins with addressing the specific issue of where worship ought to be done. Although it is certainly true that Christians can and should worship by themselves, it is essential to return to Psalm 95 and note the use of plurals to describe who is worshiping in Psalm 95. One God made a people, a group to worship him, and Christians do this together. No one has argued it is better to watch a favorite sports team in an empty stadium by yourself in peace than to be surrounded by the electricity of thousands of fans, and this is all the truer with the corporate worship of God. Donald Whitney writes, “God delights in the devotion of every individual and each moment of private worship, but we ascribe greater glory to Him when we join our hearts and voices together in a symphony of worship.” Moreover, Christians will worship in this symphony for eternity. Revelation 5:11 reads, “Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” So, Christians worship in private but never neglect corporate worship, expecting the joy to do this into eternity. Recognizing this is the first defense against thinking lowly of worship. Moreover, thinking this way should excite a Christian as they prepare to worship God next to fellow Christians God has chosen to save.
What if this is still not good enough, and a Christian continues to find corporate worship tiresome? Although many cringe at the possibility, after months and years of disparaging corporate worship and knowing passages such as Psalm 95, John 4:21-26, Philippians 3:3, and Revelation 5:11-12, it is likely such a person is not a Christian. Wayne Grudem writes,“[G]enuine worship is not something that is self-generated or that can be worked up within ourselves. It must rather be the outpouring of our hearts in response to a realization of who God is.” If a person claims Christ but has no legitimate response to the knowledge of who God is, then he has not received the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, preparation for corporate worship must include a Christian making sure he is right with his creator. This has already been alluded to and is implicit in the very nature of preparation, but Christians must not assume they are to be served in worship. Instead, their worship is a personal and intentional act of service to God himself. Christians must actively and weekly choose to have no confidence in the flesh and ask the Spirit of God to help them glory in Christ Jesus. (Phil 3:3) Christians do not worship as if the band on stage were their favorite musical performer, nor should they receive preaching like a movie. Worship is not for entertainment but to fulfill the purposes of God. Christians must fight the temptation or be lulled into thinking worship is merely something they experience or are served in. When Christians start talking about which vocalist they do not like or which song is played too often, they have fallen into this trap. Instead, Christians should encourage each other to worship more heartedly and eagerly. There is a place for criticism, but that place is much further away than most Christians believe. Engaging the mind this way and specifically before worshiping is essential to worship the creator rightly.
Christians must skip the Sunday morning soccer games and spend time preparing for worship and then actually find themselves worshipping at church. Indeed, there is no valid reason for a Christian to pick anything worldly over weekly worship in the church.
Grudem, Wayne A. Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, 2004.
Whitney, Donald S. Spiritual Disciplines Within the Church: Participating Fully in the Body of Christ. Chicago: Moody Press, 1996.
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