I can imagine that you have had a mix of emotions lately: perhaps a sense of sadness that Bro. Watson won’t be filling this pulpit every Sunday, but also a sense of excitement to see how God will use this new phase in the life of your church. Bro. Watson certainly has set a high bar for me with his 54 years of faithful ministry here. And, I’m willing to bet that you’ve become quite accustom to everything about him. I’m also sure that he knows you very well. Now, while some of you already knew me, for most of you, we are new to each other. Don’t worry, we have over 50 years to remedy that, but to make it that far, I’m going to need your help.
So, as I start my ministry here, I want to make two promises to you. First, I promise that I will be patient with you as you are patient with me. Because we don’t know each other, and because I don’t know this church very well, there will inevitably be ways in which I disappoint you (and honestly, you might disappoint me at times too). Especially over the next few months, I may forget your name. I may not know your uncle, even though everyone else in the community does. I may not know that the church has always done one particular thing in a particular way. I ask that you bear with me on these and other things, that you show me Christian love and respect as I learn more about you. Second, I promise that my primary mission at this church will be to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in everything I do, whether it’s from this pulpit, visiting with you, or serving out in the community. I believe that this is my chief responsibility as your pastor, and everything else flows out of that.
To that end, as I was thinking through what I should preach for my first series here at Antioch, the Lord kept bringing me back to the topic of worship. I’ll be honest, over the last 10 months, I have wrestled with the essential nature of the church. I’ve wrestled with that because the COVID19 pandemic has upended everything about our lives, and it has not left the church out of that. During the lockdowns of March and April, there was much debate over how to categorize the nature of the church. Is it essential or non-essential? Should we stop our care ministries and discipleship ministries? Church leaders landed all over the place with this, but in thinking through all of this it became very clear to me that the regular, faithful worship of the church is essential. In fact, I believe the worship of the church is the essence of what it is to be a true church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m not real big on mission statements, but as I thought through this, I came up with a mission statement that I believe helps to define the nature of the church: “A faithful church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a body of baptized believers who delight in the Triune God by discipling one another and devoting themselves to the work that he commanded.”
If you pay close attention to that statement, you’ll notice that there are three pillars. First, a true church is one that delights in God. Worship should be the center of a faithful church. Everything else that we do ought to flow out of a delight for the things of God. As we delight in God, we disciple each other. And, as we delight in the Lord, we devote ourselves to serving him through our obedience to his commands.
So, if delighting in God is at the heart of what it is to be a faithful church, then there is no better place for me to start in my ministry here at Antioch West than with a sermon series on the doctrine of Worship. Over the next seven months, we are going to take a deep look at everything to do with worship, from who it is that we worship to what worship is to why we worship to when and where and how we worship.
To start, I need you to understand that worship is more than just what we do on Sundays. Worship is more than a song service. Worship is more than just one requirement in the list of things that we are expected to do as Christians. Worship is the very reason for which we were created and the very reason for which God has saved us. John MacArthur says, “In the grand theme of redemption, one of the principal things God is doing is transforming sinners into worshippers.” A passage that illustrates this point perfectly is Ephesians 1:3-14. In the time that we have left, let’s consider a key point of this beautiful passage.
First, understand that this passage is a beautiful song of praise that Paul offers. In fact, in the original language, this is one long, run-on sentence from verse 3 to 14. In this passage, Paul gives us a complete, panoramic view of all that God has done for us in Jesus Christ. This one long sentence is divided into three sections, with each section considering the work that a member of the Trinity has done for our salvation. Now, we could spend the next seven months just unpacking everything that is said in these verses, but I want to focus on a key phrase that Paul says in verses 6, 12, and 14: “to the praise of the glory of God”. In considering this phrase, I want to look at three points this morning: The Foundation of Praise, the Faithful Service of Praise, and the Future Reality of Praise.
First, let’s consider the foundation of praise in verses 3-6. Paul begins by telling us that God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing through Jesus Christ. Then, he starts listing out all these blessings, starting with the way God the Father was involved in our salvation from before the beginning of time. There are two phrases that Paul uses to describe the work that God the Father has done for our salvation.
First, Paul says that God the Father “chose us in him before the foundations of the world.” This phrase “Chose us,” means to “pick out” or to “set apart.” In other words, before the world ever began, God knew you, he purposed you, and he had a plan to save you. The second phrase is “predestined to adoption.” Just like God knew you and set you apart, God also determined beforehand (what “predestined” means) that he would adopt you into his family through Jesus Christ.
But why?! Why did God the Father make a plan for you and set out to save you and purpose to make you a part of his family before the world ever began? Paul gives us the answer in verse 6: “to the praise of his glorious grace.” God the Father purposed your salvation before the world began so that you might be a testimony of praise to his glorious grace. Understand, brothers and sisters, God did not save you as a reward for some good deed you did or some decision you made. He saved you by his grace so that you might delight in it by worshipping him for all of eternity.
Next, notice the faithful service of praise in verses 7-12. Paul turns from the work that God the Father did for our salvation to the work that God the Son has done for us. In verse 7, he says that Jesus has “redeemed” us. This word “redeem” is the idea of purchasing something back. It particularly relates to redeeming a slave. In Paul’s day, a slave owner could set his slave free by paying off the debt that led to his slavery (redeeming him). Masters would often do this in order to adopt the slave into their families. In a similar way, we were all slaves to sin, owing a debt that we could not pay, and Jesus Christ redeemed us and made us adopted children of the kingdom of God.
Also, in verse 11, Paul says that Jesus has given us an inheritance through his work of redemption. When Paul says this, there are two things that he has in mind. First, remember that Israel, God’s chosen people in the Old Testament, received an inheritance in the promised land of Canaan. Every individual member of Israel received a portion of that inheritance. In the same way, through Christ, we receive an inheritance in the heavenly kingdom of God. And, also, remember that Israel was said to be God’s own special possession (or heritage, Deut. 7:6). They would represent God to the world. And now the church is the heritage of God, a special possession that represents God to the world. 1 Pet. 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
So, why did Jesus redeem us? Paul gives the answer at the end of verse 12: that we might be “to the praise of his glory.” Jesus has saved us for faithful service to him. Just like Israel was rescued by God from the Pharaoh of Egypt so that they might be a worshipping nation, so we who are saved by Christ are called to be a worshipping people.
Finally, let’s consider the future reality of praise in verses 13-14. Paul finally moves to the third member of the Trinity – the Holy Spirit - and his work for our salvation. Paul says that the Holy Spirit serves as a “seal” or a “guarantee.” In ancient times, if a king wanted a person to know that he was protected by the king, he would offer some sort of seal (a ring or a piece of clothing), to signify to the world and to the person that he was set apart by the king. Paul says that the Holy Spirit is a royal guarantee of our inheritance. The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives reminds us that we are set apart by God, and he reminds us that we have a future home in Heaven. So, why does God promise that future home through his Holy Spirit? Again, verse 14 has the answer: “to the praise of his glory.” Our future home will be a place of pure worship to the one who has purposed our salvation, the one who has redeemed us by his blood, and the one who has sealed us through his Spirit.
Friend, is there a void in your life? Are the things you have chased after proven to be terrible gods? Have you wondered what life is really all about and struggled to find any purpose or fulfillment? The reason you have a void, the reason you can’t find fulfillment, is because you were made for more! You were made to delight in the good God who made you and who loves you and who purposed before the world was ever made to save you from your sins. Won’t you turn in faith to Christ today?
Brothers and sisters, if we are to be a faithful church of the living God, then we must find our delight in the God who set us apart, who redeemed us, and who has sealed us. We can have the best music in the country, but if we do not find our delight in God, it will be meaningless noise. We can have the deepest Bible studies, but unless we find our delight in God, it will only be useless chatter. We can fill this church up and impress all of the important people up at the SBC with our growth, but unless we delight in the Lord, it will just be another country club. My hope for this church is that we might devote everything we are to the worship of the one true God, and that we might find our delight in him.
No comments:
Post a Comment