Exhortation, December 28

Exhortation for December 28:

New Year’s is frequently a time for assessment, and for making resolutions and setting plans for the coming year. With New Year’s Day coming up this week, I am devoting the sermon to sketching what we want the church to be and to do in Moscow. Central to the whole vision, and to the life of every church, is the worship of the Lord’s day. That’s a point I plan to make in the sermon, but it is likely to be abbreviated because of time, so I’ll emphasize that here.

Scripture teaches that worship is a form of warfare. The tabernacle, the place of Israel’s sacrificial worship, was at the center of Israel’s war camp in the desert, and when Israel entered the land to fight against Jericho the priests carried the ark around the city blowing trumpets. The battle at Jericho was as much a liturgical as a military operation. When a coalition of Gentile nations attacked Jerusalem in the days of Jehoshaphat, his response was to assemble the people for worship, and while the Levites and people sang praise the Lord set Israel’s enemies at war with one another. In the book of Revelation, the prayers of the saints ascend before the Lord, and He sends fire to the earth. Throughout Scripture, we’re taught that as we exalt the Lord of armies on our praises, He rises up to fight for us.

Many sorts of implications can be drawn from that, but I want to point to one in particular. Military operations cannot be undertaken without discipline and preparation, and if an army is going to fight effectively they have to fight with energy and determination. Those same principles apply to worship. At Israel’s temple, worship was vigorous and loud, with hundreds of Levites singing, trumpets sounding and cymbals clashing, people shouting and clapping. Worship at Israel’s temple was not “quiet time.” It was time for vigorous, militant action.

If we are going to be effective in using the spiritual weapons that the Lord has given us to bring down vain imaginations and everything that exalts itself against Jesus, then we have to cultivate the same militancy. We need to prepare beforehand for the battle. We can’t come in here, as if worship were an afterthought. And once here, we cannot be passive in our worship. Think about your attention in worship, about your posture, about your energy and engagement, and ask yourself, if you acted with this same degree of energy and attention in battle, would you survive? Would your fellow soldiers around you survive?

At Christ Church and Trinity, we hope to continue developing and beautifying and glorifying our worship. We want our worship to reflect the glory of the Lord, and to be a fitting offering of praise to the Lord of glory. But we can make our worship as beautiful as you like, and yet our worship will be ineffective and weak unless it is permeated with the energy and power of the Spirit. So: Sing with vigor. Don’t whisper the Amen, but shout it. Stand at attention to hear the word of God. Throw yourself wholly into this work. Treat Lord’s Day worship as an act of war, because it is.