God spoke.
He didn't need to speak. He wasn't forced into speaking. He spoke on his own accord for his own glory. In God speaking he revealed to us his plan of salvation. Through God's word we were created (Gen 1). Through God's Word we are saved (John 1:14). Through God's word we have the Bible (2 Peter 1:21).
The Bible is the primary way in which God reveals Jesus to his people.
Apart from hearing God's word, we are trapped. God has revealed himself to us in creation, but it is an incomplete revelation. Creation shows us just enough of God to condemn us in our unbelief, but not enough to bring us into a saving belief. To be saved you cannot go into the woods and think your way to Jesus, Jesus must be revealed to you. The Bible is the primary way in which God reveals Jesus to his people. The Bible is the greatest means of grace God has given us outside of his Son, because it testifies to the Son. It tells us who God is, it shows us how we are to be saved, and it defines how a saved people ought to live.
We Responded
D.A. Carson has attempted to define what worship is and the main verb he chooses to use is "response": "Worship is the proper response of all moral, sentient beings to God, ascribing all honor and worth to their Creator-God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so. This side of the fall, human worship of God properly responds to the redemptive provision that God has graciously made."
This side of the fall, human worship of God properly responds to the redemptive provision that God has graciously made.
According to Carson, worship is therefore a response to two things: 1.) the reality of an existing God, and 2.) the reality of his redemption. In our worship services at Sovereign Hope, we want to "respond" to God and his redemption. That is why we have a call to worship.
No one can know God outside of what God has already revealed to us: his word, the Bible. That is why, between the second and third songs in our service, a member of our worship team reads a portion of scripture. This scripture either reflects on who God is (he is just, righteous and holy), or reflects on the redemption he has brought us (Christ on the cross). Worship is then the natural response to these realities.
The Word Leads
It is the reality of God that leads us in worship, not the music, lights or band members. We worship because God is worthy. This is important for us because in responding to God as portrayed in scripture it puts proper priorities on our worship. Often times we make worship subjective to our emotions. If we had a good week it is easy for us to worship. If we had a bad week we are often distracted in worship. Sometimes the opposite is true, the desperate worship easily, and the content worship weakly. The problem with this situation is that worship has become about who you are and how you are feeling rather than who God is and the faith that we have in him.
Don Williams, who comes from a charismatic perspective on worship says, "We do not worship because we feel like it. We worship because God alone is worthy. It is primarily about him, not us. Often this is also for our good, because as we worship, our affections are stirred once again." Critics of Charismatic worship often say that charismatic worship is tied too much to humanity and not enough to God. Here Williams' corrects that notion and stresses that before worship ever engages the emotions of humans (which it should) it is rooted in the reality of a God who lives and saves. Kent Hughes echoes this sentiment in writing, "We must worship God according to his revelation, not according to our disposition."
We also choose to have a longer time of music at the end of the service, after the sermon at Sovereign Hope. That is because the sermon is where God is most fully presented and the gospel clearly articulated. While some worship songs use scripture in artful and powerful ways, the presentation of Jesus through a scripturally grounded sermon gives us the best atmosphere of response.
After hearing a sermon we should be made fully aware of who God is and the beauty of the cross of Christ. John Piper says, "Where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead."
"Where feelings for God are dead, worship is dead."
Our hope is that the truth of Christ becomes the sole fuel for worship. Word -centered, or Bible-centered worship, is cross-centered worship. As the Bible chooses to center on Jesus as God's ultimate revelation and act of redemption, we want to lead with Jesus in our services. That is why we incorporate scripture readings and response time into our services. We want individuals to be trained to respond in worship out of faith, not circumstances. Harold Best, a former professor and Dean of Music at Wheaton College, says, "Faith is not circumstantial, yet all circumstances must be gathered together and subsumed under a life of faith." Jesus is Lord over our circumstances. We live on this side of heaven, that means we will have good days and bad days. Faith in Christ does not negate tough circumstances, but faith in Christ does establish Jesus as Lord over those circumstances.
Faith in Christ does not negate tough circumstances, but faith in Christ does establish Jesus as Lord over those circumstances.
Our services want to help facilitate that truth by leading with the Bible, God's full revelation, and allowing us to respond in repentance, celebration and evangelism, all of which are acts of worship. To worship out of an objective faith in Christ is to worship, as Jesus said to the woman at the well, "in spirit and truth."
