Selected Scriptures

January 20, 2019

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

Download the bulletin.

Download the Kid’s Korner.

The sermon starts at 14:35 in the audio file.

Or, Liturgy for All Seven Days

Our working mission statement, though not yet ratified to back of a business card status, sets the organic and corporate tone and trajectory for the church, starting with the pastors and leaders.

We are laboring in joy TO CULTIVATE A TRINITARIAN COMMUNITY of worshipping, maturing disciples who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord over all the world.

We’re making disciples, who are a certain kind of disciples who are related a certain way to other disciples who behave a certain way as disciples. It’s a process, lifelong even, so we’re happy with “maturing.” And in some ways, our joyful laboring starts with the “worshipping.”

When we talk about worship at TEC we usually mean the Sunday morning assembly of the saints as we follow the five part liturgy. We worship in singing, but we also worship in praying, reading Scripture, listening to Scripture read and preached, communing at the Lord’s Table, and receiving God’s blessing before we go. This connection between worship and liturgy is what we’ve been focusing on the last couple weeks and will do once again this morning for this go-round.

That is sort of the capital W worship, worship proper, similar to theology proper as the study of God Himself. All of the -ologies are God’s, so theology covers a lot of subjects. Likewise with worship. Everything we do, everywhere we do it can be worship (with the lowercase w), as in, our thoughts and affections and conduct are done with the intention of honoring God.

It’s easy to pit the capital and lowercase (W vs. w) against each other in competition. Admittedly, competition is better than strict dualism. Which one is more important is better than which one will burn. For the most part we’re maturing as disciples to understand that corporate, liturgical worship and individual, whether private or productive worship are complementary. What God has joined together, let no man rend asunder.

But how do Worship and discipleship relate? I remember a sermon about this from high school. The preacher made an acronym to explain it with W.I.F.E. since the church is Christ’s bride. He said, and I wrote it in the margin of my first “adult” Bible, that the church gathers for Worship, Instruction, and Fellowship, and then scatters for Evangelism. There have been worse acronyms, but it’s not quite sufficient.

In the past I’ve used the borrowed analogy, especially in the context of making disciples, of the Air war and the Ground war, or more accurately, the Air and Ground campaigns since it’s the same war. Whole groups can be covered from the air, whether with artillery or with supplies (food, medicine). Specific houses, even individuals, can be targeted more closely at eye level.

I still think that has profitable cognitive capital, but I keep thinking that there is more that needs to be said. The problem isn’t just with the militant tone; that part has a place. Maybe it’s that there isn’t enough magic. And also magic isn’t the best word itself, but getting after God’s supernatural and mysterious operations. It’s also that it can miss that both leaders and followers are worshippers, disciplers and disciples worship.

So back do the question, how do Worship and discipleship relate? How does the corporate relate to the individual? How does the one day relate to the six? How do the W and w connect?

Adoration is not merely an end, it is the end. The world culminates in praise. All things go towards God’s glory. But in this time of worship by faith, this worshipping in a season of waiting for Christ’s return, Worship also aligns us for all of life as disciples.

Five alignments:

Worship aligns a disc[...]