Pages Menu
TwitterRss
Categories Menu

Posted by on May 25, 2010 in Worship |

Gospel Worship: Sermon III

While I have questions about some of what Burroughs says in Gospel Worship, I can’t help but admit that he (like many of the Puritans)  insightfully reveals the status of the human heart.  He constantly reminds us of many important issues related to worship:

The Importance of Corporate Worship

My brethren, I beseech you, learn this lesson this morning.  Learn to account the duties of God’s worship as great matters.  They are the greatest things that concern you here in this world, for they are the homage that you tender up to the high God, as you heard, and those things wherein God communicates Himself in choice mercies. (70)

How to Prepare for Worship

Meditation is a good preparation to holy duties.  And these are the general heads of our meditation for our preparation to duty: what God He is with whom we have to deal.  Meditate on God’s attributes, and then meditate on the weight of our duties, the nature of them, the rule of them, and the end of them.  Get you hearts possessed with meditations of this nature, and in this, as a special thing, dos your preparation to holy duties consist.  And that’s the first thing…The second thing consists in this, the taking off of the heart from every sinful way (the endeavor at least)…A third thing is this.  The preparation of the heart is the disentangling of the heart from the world and from all occasions and businesses in the world. (77-78)

What underlies Burroughs’ thoughts here is something that deserves further consideration: Is there something fundamentally different about the time of corporate worship than there is in “all-of-life-worship”?  Burroughs obviously says yes.  Even Jesus said that when two or three are gathered in his name, he is there among them.  And the whole NT is unanimous that the gathering of the saints is very important.  Does this warrant a common/sacred divide?  Burroughs is spurring me on to think through that further, but regardless of one’s position on that, surely we can still agree on his approach to preparing for worship: focus on God, repent of sin, and take your focus off of all the other things that you normally have to deal with.

What Happens When We Prepare for Worship

Now be careful for awhile to prepare for every duty of God’s worship to which He calls you, and, I say, within a little time you may bring your heart into such a temper that you may be ready at all times to perform holy duties, because you shall be able to come to that temper and frame to which the Apostle exhorts us, “Pray continually.” (86)

What Burroughs is really getting at here is something that I addressed in my most recent seminary paper: the importance of forming habits in the body of Christ.  In order for us to “spontaneously” serve God (see my discussion of Van Til’s Christian Theistic Ethics in the paper for the use of this term), we need to form godly habits that will shape our character.  As we repeatedly perform the “practices of the church” (listening to the word, prayer, the sacraments), God will use those means of grace to cause of to be the kind of people who follow him continually.

Read More

Posted by on Apr 13, 2010 in Worship | 4 comments

Gospel Worship: Sermon II

I’ve truly been challenged and encouraged as I’ve continued to make my way through the sermons on Leviticus 10 presented in Gospel Worship. Burroughs seeks to be so rigorous both in his exposition of the text and in his application of it to our hearts and lives that I can’t help but find it compelling. Some of the issues he raises–particularly those related to the regulative principle–have caused deep reflection.  But what is most amazing about Gospel Worship is his deep commitment to call us to “more and more die to sin, and live unto righteousness” (Westminster Shorter Catechism,  Question 35).

Sermon II

Again observe That it is the part of true friendship to help friends in their distress and seek to comfort them from the Word…For there is no particular affliction but there is some Word of God that is suitable to that particular affliction, and those who are well exercised in the Word of God can apply some word to every affliction.  And indeed, this is an excellent friend, and such a friend is worth his weight in gold who can come to another friend in any affliction and evermore has something of the Word of God to apply to that affliction. (38-39)

Burroughs draws this point ought of Moses’ actions in the story of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, Moses’ brother.  Moses said to Aaron, “This is that which the Lord said, ‘I will be sanctified.’”  Burroughs’ point is a helpful reminder of two things: (1) God’s word is sufficient for man’s life.  (2) Friends have the responsibility to not just say what others want to hear, but to say what God wants them to hear.

Yea, but though we are always nigh to God in regard of that essential presence of His, yet there is a more peculiar and special drawing night to God in the duties of His worship, and that the Scripture seems to hold forth unto you. (41)

Here Burroughs is making the distinction between “all-of-life worship” and the corporate worship of God’s people.  This is vital to what Burroughs (and the Puritan and Reformed tradition) argues for regarding the regulative principle of worship (that whatever is not commanded by God for worship is forbidden).

First, when we come to worship God, we come to tender up that homage and service unto Him that is due from us as creatures unto the Creator.  That’s the very end of worship.  If you would know what it is to worship God, it is this. (42)

Burroughs roots his exposition clearly in the Creator-creature distinction.  This is not to make the distinction more important that Christ’s mediatorial role, or any other doctrine.  However, it is fundamental to our attitude as we come to worship God.

When we have to deal with creatures, like meat and drink and our outward businesses, we have to deal with God in them, but when we come to worship God, we come to present ourselves before Him in those things that He uses to let Himself out in a more special and glorious manner to the souls of His people. (44)

Again, Burroughs affirms a distinction between how we live a God-honoring life and how we give God-honoring corporate worship.  He grounds this distinction in the fact that God has given us very specific ways of approaching him in worship–ways that he has not commanded for the rest of life.  Once again, this distinction is vital to the regulative principle of worship.

Why is that sometimes worship can be a painful experience?  Burroughs suggests an answer:

A man or woman that has an enlightened conscience and is under the guilt of sin finds that coming to God in holy duties is a very grievous burden to them.  Why? Here’s the reason, because to worship God is to draw nigh to God, and the guilt that is upon them has made the presence of God to be terrible to them, and therefore they would rather go into their company and be merry, eat, drink, sport, or anything rather than come into God’s presence. (49)

He hits my conscience right in the middle.  And perhaps his insight reaches to all of us.  Worship is so focused on God that when we come to worship cognizant of deep sin in our lives, the effect is that we would rather do anything else than worship.  And the answer of course, is not to skip worship.  The answer is to flee to the cross, and to continue to come to God in worship:

Whatsoever plea there may be by any temptation to neglect God’s worship, certainly there is danger in it, and, therefore, never listen to any such temptation that shall draw your hearts from the duties of God’s worship. (52)

Drawing near to God in worship is important, so important that we should not listen to any attempts to draw us away from it.  And what result should worshiping God regularly have on our lives?  I will let Burroughs’ words stand alone at the end:

And by drawing nigh to God often, you will come to increase your graces abundantly.  How ill your graces act?  The presence of God will draw forth the acts of grace as the presence of the fire draws forth out heat.  So the presence of God will draw forth our graces.

And by this means we come to live most holy lives. (55)

Read More

Posted by on Apr 7, 2010 in Theology, Worship | 4 comments

Studying Worship: Guiding Doctrines

As I’ve been studying the topic of worship, I’ve been reminded to think through some big-picture doctrines that should guide how we think about worship. I hope later to post on more specific exegetical reflections on worship—particularly the Regulative Principle of Worship and the Dialogical Principle of Worship. However, for now, I’ll just mention some theological concepts (exegetically derived, I hope) that should give some direction for worship.

The distinction between Creator and creature.

Van Til emphasized this daily in his classes at Westminster, drawing two circles on the board, one larger than the other. He meant that the Creator (large circle) and the creature (small circle), were distinct and that this fundamental distinction should guide our thinking. We do not come as equals to God. We come to him as the Creator of the universe, the one who is infinitely wise. Job’s acknowledgment of this fundamental distinction in Job 41-42 is instructive, for there we see the humble recognition that we have no right to judge God. Rather, we are subject to God’s will. It is at this point that the Creator/creature distinction is helpful for the doctrine of worship, for if this is indeed the metaphysical situation—that we are the creatures of an infinitely wise God—then surely when we come in worship to him, we must do so in accordance with how he has revealed himself to us. For us to come to God telling him how we want to worship him would be akin to a two year-old walking up to his father, and in halting sentences instructing him how their relationship is to be conducted. Instead of such an absurdity, we must recognize that God as Creator reveals himself to us in his word. This revelation is, as Calvin said, God using “a ‘lisp’ in speaking to us” (Institutes, Book I:13:1). This “lisp” means that God is our Creator, and that we ought to look to him to see how he wants to be worshiped.

The sinfulness of man.

We are not merely creatures. Since Genesis 3, we are sinful creatures. As Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” If this is the status of the human heart (yes, of course, I believe that the Holy Spirit renews men who have faith in Christ; but this does not mean that the presence of deceptive sin is eradicated), then one should surely think that the human heart is not the best source of direction for worship. Accordingly, once again, the church must look to her Creator and Redeemer for directions for worship.

Sola Scriptura.

If the Reformers weren’t just on crack, or looking for a fight, or having a (good many) bad days, then we ought to take seriously the implications of sola Scriptura—Scripture alone—for determining how we ought to worship God. If, as 2 Timothy 3:16-17 indicates, Scripture is sufficient to fully equip God’s people for every good work, then surely Scripture is a sufficient guide for how we ought to worship God. Sola Scriptura shouldn’t be just a cry that distinguishes Protestants from Rome. Rather, it ought to be a cry that erupts from our souls proclaiming that we fundamentally order our lives by the commands, examples, stories, promises, and even threats of Scripture. This includes worship. Commitment to this wonderful Reformation doctrine shouldn’t be put on hold when coming to the topic (practice) of worship.

Much more could be said about how theology ought to inform our understanding of worship. But as I’ve been studying this topic, those three doctrines have jumped out as vitally important to making sure that as we worship, we aren’t just flailing our arms trying to get God’s attention (this is not a sideways jab at those who may like to raise their hands in the service), but rather that we are worshiping as God intended, for his glory, recognizing who he is, who we are, and of course by whom we come: Jesus Christ, as he is freely offered to us in the gospel (see the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Question 31).

Read More
%d bloggers like this: