Recently in Focus on Worship Category
*Part one in this series raised some comments / questions that I intend to address in parts 3 or 4.
Central to this perspective on congregational worship is the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union. In the Person of Christ we find the objective movement of God-to-man and the objective and vicarious responding movement of man-to-God. This double movement is united in the one Person of the Incarnate Son. Therefore, from the first moment of Christ's earthly existence we have in the one Person of Christ the objective saving activity of God and the objective and vicarious responding activity of man. We must not look at the Hypostatic Union as merely the means of our salvation. Rather, we must recognize that it is actually the place where salvation was accomplished. T. F. Torrance writes:
The vicarious humanity of Jesus Christ...fulfills a representative and substitutionary role in all our relations with God...such as trusting and obeying, understanding and knowing, loving and worshipping...Jesus Christ...in and through His humanity took our place, acting in our name and on our behalf before God, freely offering in Himself what we could not offer and offering it in our stead, the perfect response of man to God in a holy life of faith and prayer and praise, the self-offering of the Beloved Son with whom the Father is well pleased" (God and Rationality, 145).
Moreover, the Epistle to the Hebrews makes it clear that Christ continues to be the place where God's movement to man and man's responding movement to God resides. It is because of this double movement that was brought to its climax in the death and resurrection of Christ and that continues as Christ ministers in the Holy Place (Hebrews 8:1-2) that we now have objective confidence to enter the Holy Place, to draw near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:19-22). This is why the writer of Hebrews closes his epistle by exhorting us to continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God through our High Priest, Jesus (Hebrews 13:15). T.F. Torrance writes:
Jesus Christ in his own self-oblation to the Father is our worship and prayer in an acutely personalized form, so that it is only through him and with him and in him that we may draw near to God with the hands of faith filled with no other offering but that which he has made on our behalf and in our place once and for all (T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, 87).
If my understanding of the Hypostatic Union and its implications is correct, thinking of congregational worship, as I argued in my last post, simply in terms of what we are offering to God is worship that is not as gospel-centered as we might think. It is worship, it seems to me, that has lost sight of Christ's vicarious life and continued priestly ministry. Therefore, I believe, pastors would do well not only to teach the congregation about these things but also to lead it in corporate worship in such a way that those present are consciously aware of the fact that "all our worship of the Father takes place properly within the circle of the life of Jesus Christ which he lived in our human nature in such a way that his whole life formed itself into worship, prayer and praise which he offered to the Father on our behalf" (T.F. Torrance, Theology in Reconciliation, 210-211).
I often wonder what Christians are actually thinking about worship as they worship together through the singing of hymn texts, the giving of offerings, the responsive reading of Scripture, etc. If we could quietly pull a few aside who are engaged in these corporate expressions of worship to ask them what they think worship is, I wonder what they might say. I wonder if their answers would be more man-centered than God-centered. In A Passion for Christ: The Vision that Ignites Ministry, James B. Torrance suggests that more answers would come out on the man-centered side than they would on the God-centered side. Torrance believes that there is one particular view of worship that seems to dominate the evangelical landscape, namely, that worship is something which we do in response to who God is and what He's done.  Although that view appears God-centered at first look, when it's really examined its true man-centered colors begin to show.  He describes the thinking behind this view like this:
We go to Church, we sing our psalms to God, we intercede..., we listen to the sermon (too often simply an exhortation), we offer our money, time and talents to God. No doubt we need God's grace to help us do it; we do it because Jesus taught us to do it and left us an example to show us how to do it. But worship is what WE do (36).
How many within evangelical churches would describe corporate worship in this way?  Worship, after all, is a response to God, our response to God, is it not? In worship we offer to God that which He rightly deserves, correct? Torrance argues that this way of thinking "falls short of the New Testament understanding of participation through the Spirit in what Christ has done and in what Christ is doing for us in our humanity. It is human-centered." (38). He adds:
Its weakness is that it falls short of an adequate understanding of the role of the vicarious humanity of Christ (emphasis mine) and of the Spirit in our worship of the Father - of why Christ became man for us and our salvation (38).
(If you want to hear an entire sermon that considers the significance of the vicarious humanity of Christ for Christian living / worship, check out my audio sermon here.)  Torrance is essentially arguing that the dominant view of worship fails to give the doctrine of Christ's vicarious humanity its rightful place. It is a view that has lost sight , in many (most?) cases, not of Christ's vicarious death but of His vicarious humanity, his vicarious life. Sure, our church may sing songs about Christ, corportately read biblical texts that explicitly reference Christ, and listen to sermons that speak of Christ, but if our understanding of corporate worship centers on what we do in response to what God has done, it's really not as gospel-centered as we think it is. Torrance writes:
Although [this view] stresses how God comes to meet us in Christ, the movement from us to God is still our movement, our faith, our response (emphasis mine)! This theology short-circuits the vicarious humanity of Christ and belittles union with Christ. While it seems to emphasize the vicarious work of Christ on the cross to bring forgiveness and make our faith a real human possibility, it fails to see the place of the High Priesthood of Christ as the One who leads our worship, bears our sorrows on his heart and intercedes for us, presenting us to the Father in himself as God's dear children and uniting us with himself in his life in the Spirit.To reduce worship to this two-dimensional thing (God and ourselves today) is to imply that God throws us back on ourselves to make our response, and to ignore the fact that God has already provided for us that Response which alone is acceptable to him - the Offering made for humankind in the life, obedience and passion of Jesus Christ. But is this not to lose the comfort and peace of the Gospel, as well as the secret of true Christian prayer as the gift of sharing in the intercessions of Christ, that we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit makes intercession for us? Whatever else our faith is, it is a response to a Response already made for us and continually being made for us in Christ (41).
Torrance is arguing that true Christian worship is worship that is swallowed up into what Christ has done in his vicarious life and death and what he continues to do as our Heavenly Intercessor. We may well be aware of Christ's vicarious death as we gather to worship but we must not lose sight of his vicarious life and continued priestly ministry. Gospel-centered worship actively recognizes that God has not only provided us with His gracious movement toward us in Christ but also with our responding movement toward Him in Christ as well. God has not only provided that which we must respond to, namely, the gospel, but also our Response. The Gospel teaches us that Christ is our acceptable response to the Father given to us by the Father. Christian worship is never simply something we do. It is both something that already has been done in the life and death of Jesus and something that Jesus is doing for us in his High Priestly ministry. As we worship we must be careful to understand Christian worship as participation in what Christ has done in His vicarious life and death and presently is doing as our heavenly High Priest. It is never simply a response to who God is and what He has done.
As I mentioned in part one, the writer of Hebrews is not so much thinking of believers approaching God privately in Hebrews 10:19-25 as he is about believers approaching God corporately. Evidently, there were some believers who were neglecting to meet together (Hebrews 10:25). So, he exhorts them to make it their habit to gather together given that they all have confidence or boldness to enter the sanctuary—the place where God is encountered (Hebrews 10:19). That in itself is a remarkable statement. The writer states that every believer has objective confidence or authorization to enter the sanctuary.
A question came to mind as I was studying these verses: What was hindering these believers from gathering? Why were some neglecting to meet together? I think Hebrews indicates what was hindering these believers from gathering with the Christian assembly, namely, reproach from outsiders. A few verses after this paragraph he asks that these believers recall former days when they were “publicly exposed to reproach” (Hebrews 10:32-33). In Hebrews 11:26, he tells them that Moses “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt. In Hebrews 13:13, he exhorts them “go to [Jesus] outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured.”
The question above was followed by another question: What hinders Western Christians from gathering with the saints? Why are some Western Christians neglecting to meet together? I don’t think, at least in my cultural context, that believers are hindered because of reproach from outsiders. So, I thought, if it is not external reproach that hinders, what does? Three quick answer came to mind (I’m sure I could think of several more if I took the time). First, I’m convinced that laziness hinders many. It takes hard work to gather in the way that Hebrews is calling on believers to gather. We are to make it our habit to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24). Hebrews does not allow for spectator Christianity. Christianity, as Hebrews understands it, demands participation, and participation demands hard work. Second, I believe that some neglect to meet together because they dislike some of their fellow-gathers. Some people don’t regularly gather with the Christian assembly because there are certain people at the gathering that they just do not like. They might think something like, “I’m just tired of having to deal with this person week after week. His personality really rubs me the wrong way!” Third, others don’t gather out of fear. They are afraid that others will learn what’s really in their hearts or what they are actually like at home. “If they find out what I’m really struggling with, they’ll think this or that about me and my family.”
What I love about Hebrews 10:19-25 is that it reveals the reason under all these reasons for why some neglect meeting together. Sure, people might admit that they don’t gather because it requires hard work or that they dislike others who gather or that they are afraid, but they probably will not identify the real reason underneath these symptomatic reasons. So, what’s the reason underneath the reasons? Notice how Hebrews 10:19-25 begins. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places…” “Therefore” indicates a logical connection with what precedes. Hebrews 10:19-22 is giving a distillation of Hebrews 8:1-10:18. What do we find in this earlier section of Hebrews? An unpacking of the gospel, that is, an unpacking of what it is Christ as accomplished. We have confidence to enter because “we have…a high priest…who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven” (Hebrews 8:1). He’s seated, unlike the priests of the Old Testament who were always standing, because he finished his work making purification for sins (Hebrews 1:3). We possess this authorization to draw near because our Christ “entered once for all time into the holy places…by means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12). The redemption that Christ secured for his people is an eternal one. Hebrews 10:15-17 then states that the Spirit himself bears witness on the basis of what Christ has done that he “will remember [our] sins and [our] lawless deeds no more.” So, what’s the reason underneath all other reasons? When we neglect meeting together with the saints it’s ultimately because we have forgotten the gospel. It is because the gospel of Christ’s accomplishment is no longer vivid to us; it’s no longer central to our consciousness.
When we neglect gathering with the saints, it’s ultimately because we have forgotten the gospel. Consider again the three superficial reasons I gave earlier. Laziness: When someone says that gathering takes too much work, they are essentially saying, “I’m really don’t see myself in need of that kind of work. I really don’t think I need to be stirred up to love and good works on a weekly basis.” What does the cross have to say about that? “Your need is far greater than you are even beginning to imagine. Your need for salvation and growth in holiness is so great that the Son of God has to die for you. He lived and died not only that the Father might accept you but that He might also grow you into the image of His Son.” Dislike for others: When we neglect to gather because there are those we dislike, we are essentially saying, “I’m likeable!” How does the gospel answer that? “When the Son of God died for you, were you likeable? No, you were his enemy! He wasn’t made like you in every respect (Hebrews 2:17) in order to call you his brother (Hebrews 2:12) because you were likeable! You are far less likeable than you think.” Fear: When we stay away from the Christian assembly because we fear others learning about what is really in our hearts, the gospel says, “The cross has already let your secret out! The cross has made visible for all to see the filth that exists in your heart. It says that the filth in your heart is so putrid that the God-Man had to die for you. Your secret has already been revealed!”
The gospel exposes the shallowness of our reasons for not gathering but it does not stop there. It goes on to say that “we have confidence to enter the holy places!” (Hebrews 10:19). We who are more sinful than we even begin to know have authorization to draw near to God himself! How can that be? Because we, sinful though we are, have a high priest who “after making purification for sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3). He has dealt finally with our sin and guilt through the shedding of his own blood on our behalf. So, while the gospel says that are sin goes deeper than we know, it also says that our sin has been dealt with more profoundly than we can even begin to imagine. How profoundly? So profoundly that the writer says that “we are having confidence, boldness, authorization to enter the holy places!”
When the truth of the gospel is central to our consciousness, all superficial reasons for not gathering will fall away. Not only is the gospel the power of God unto salvation, it is also the power of God unto the gathering of the saints. Where else are the saints going to regularly hear this glorious gospel than at the Christian assembly? Don’t neglect meeting together. Let us go that we might consider how to stir one another up unto love and good works through preaching the great gospel of grace to each other.
Side Note: I think this post has application to the current blog controversy surrounding Mark Driscoll (see here and here). When we forget the gospel, we will fail to be restorative in our criticism. We will fail to see the log in our own eye. Only the gospel enables us to properly deal with the sin we observe in the lives of others. The gospel makes us humble and careful...
One reason I need to gather with the saints around the gospel is because I am too quick to forget it allowing my own pride and arrogance to go unchallenged and corrected...
I'm preaching from Hebrews 10:19-25 tomorrow on the necessity and privilege of the gathering of the church. My default mode is to read “enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” and “draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” from an individualistic perspective. I can read those words and think primarily about the great privilege I have to approach the Majesty on High (Hebrews 1:3) privately. But the writer of Hebrews is not so much thinking of believers approaching God privately as he is about believers approaching God corporately, that is, together. Just consider the repetition of “let us” in these verses (vv. 22, 23, & 24). The writer’s point is that believers are to enter the holy places together . He’s thinking primarily about believers drawing near corporately. Approaching the Majesty on High as a corporate body is the incomparable opportunity and privilege of the blood bought church.
What I find striking about these verses that call for believers to approach together is that the writer says that we together have confidence to do this. He writes, “We have confidence to enter the holy places” (Hebrews 10:19). He doesn’t say that some believers do and some don’t have confidence to enter based upon how they may or may not have lived the previous week. No, he just declares that believers have confidence period.
I find this striking for two reasons. First, if I’m not vigilant, I tend to base my confidence in drawing near to God on how I have “measured up” the previous several days. If I think I’ve lived up to a particular list of standards, I have confidence. If I consider myself to have failed in living as I believe I ought, I don’t have confidence. But the writer doesn’t appear to be thinking in these categories at all. He just says, “Brothers, we have confidence.” Second, if you read the accounts of Israel approaching God through the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, the word confidence is not what immediately comes to mind. Rather, “fear and trembling” comes to mind (cf. Hebrews 12:18-24; Numbers 4:20; 17:13).
So what accounts for this confidence? How is it that people who sin in word and deed can be said to have objective confidence to enter the holy places, a confidence that doesn’t dissipate in the wake of personal sin and in the contemplation of the God who is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29)? The writer answers this question for us? “We have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh (Hebrews 10:19-20). Our confidence to enter is not based upon what we have or have not done but upon what Christ has done through the shedding of his own blood. It's based upon the work of Christ. It is Christ who "entered once for all time into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption" (Hebrews 9:12).
The implications here are many. Let me highlight just one. The work of Christ frees us to gather together not as those who have our lives together but as those who don't. The fact that our confidence is based upon the work of someone else, namely, Christ, means that we all gather with the freedom to acknowledge our sin and not hide it from other believers. I have gathered with the saints with a plastic, "I'm-doing-well-spiritually-this-week" smile upon my face too many times. This smile is a sad attempt to feign confidence, to fake it, and it's evidence that I've forgotten the gospel. Only when I gather with the saints knowing that I have objective confidence to enter by the blood of Jesus will I be free to acknowledge my sin of the previous week before others. Only when I approach in the truth of the gospel will I not have to conceal my sin from myself or from the fellowship of believers. The gospel frees us to gather as we really are, namely, as people who are in need of drawing near to God by the blood of Jesus. Ultimately, the only alternative is to gather with the saints in loneliness though we are surrounded by people who are just like we are. Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood this very well.
“He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone. It may be that Christians, notwithstanding corporate worship, common prayer, and all their…service, may still be left to their loneliness. The final break through to fellowship does not occur, because though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners. The pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. So everybody must conceal his sin from himself and the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among them. So we remain alone with our sin, living lies and hypocrisy. The fact is we are sinners. But it is the grace of the Gospel, which is so hard for the pious to understand, that it confronts us with the truth and says: You are a sinner, a great desperate sinner; now come as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you…He does not want anything from you, a sacrifice, a work; He wants you alone. God has come to save the sinner.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
Bonhoeffer describes what happens to us when our confidence is based not upon the work of Christ but upon our own attempts to measure up. So, the writer of Hebrews says, "since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith" (Hebrews 10:19-21). The confidence that Hebrews 10:19 says we have comes to us through the work of the Messiah. It is ours by the blood of Jesus. When the work of Christ is our confidence, it changes our mindset when we draw near to God and in how we relate to our fellow-gathers.
I had the privilege of attending the same conference that Sam Storms did this past weekend. 
It was Desiring God's national conference. This year's theme was "Suffering & the Sovereignty of God." Joni Eareckson Tada was one of the speakers. The thoughts that Sam shares below were thoughts that I had while watching Joni sing. Her dancing was a remarkable thing for me to behold. Those at the conference with whom I talked about Joni's dancing agreed with me that it was a beautiful testimony to the grace of God in the midst of suffering.
I Saw Joni Dance
Sam Storms
Oct 10, 2005
One of the highlights of the Desiring God National Conference this past weekend was the appearance of Joni Eareckson Tada on Saturday night. As most of you know, Joni, a quadriplegic, was paralyzed 38 years ago in a diving accident. She is going to turn 56 years of age next week.
Joni, together with her husband Ken, and a team from Joni and Friends Ministries, were on their way to England and then to Africa, but arranged to stop over in Minneapolis at John Piper's request and address the conference on the theme of Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. Needless to say, it is doubtful that anyone present, whether those of us in the audience or any of the speakers, has suffered the way Joni has. And few understand its relation to the sovereignty of God with the biblical clarity and wisdom that she does.
She delivered a stunningly great message. That in itself isn't news, for Joni has been speaking on this theme for many years and the clarity of her convictions remains strong and articulate. I first met Joni in 1991 when we were speakers at a Ligonier Conference hosted by R. C. Sproul in Orlando, Florida. I felt so honored to meet her and even more so when she agreed to write the Foreword to my book, "To Love Mercy: Becoming a Person of Love, Acceptance, and Forgiveness" (NavPress; now out of print).
But this past Saturday night I saw something that was as impressive, if not more so, than anything I heard. The worship that night began with the rousing song, "We are Marching in the Light of God" (at least, I think that's the title). It was great to hear so many Reformed folk singing and, yes, actually moving (ever so slightly!) while they sang! But nothing could compare with what was happening on the right hand side of the stage.
Joni handles her wheelchair as deftly as any Nascar driver on a racetrack. No sooner had the music begun than Joni began to "dance". As much as a quadriplegic can dance, she danced. Joni has just enough movement and strength in her hands and shoulders to grip the controls on her chair and maneuver herself without the aid of others. Suddenly the chair began to move with the music. She thrust forward, then backwards, then forwards again, then backwards. Smoothly, and yet with obvious passion, she turned to the right, then the left, then the right again.
I can't prove it, but my guess is that 2,500 pairs of eyes in that auditorium were fixed on the dancing quadriplegic! Suddenly, the forward and backward and side to side movements gave way to spinning. Well, as much as a paralyzed person can spin. Joni began to turn her chair in circles, first clockwise, then back again. If she ceased her movements, it was only so that she could lift her contorted hands as high as her paralysis would allow. It wasn't very high, but who's measuring!
How Joni moved and "danced" is secondary. What's amazing is THAT she did. What struck me, as I trust it struck others, was that a woman who has suffered so horribly and painfully and persistently for 38 years so loves her God and finds him so utterly worthy of her trust and hope that she WANTED to dance.
Joni shared in her message how she struggled spiritually in the early days and months after her accident. She wrestled with bitterness and self-pity and anger at God and longed to die rather than live in that condition. But here she was, 38 years later, celebrating God, enjoying God, honoring and glorifying God. Not simply in her mind or her spirit but with her body as best that body could worship.
I was standing, as were most of the others. All of us could choose when to sit down, were we to tire of being on our feet. We could easily clap or shove our hands into our pockets. Throughout the conference, up till that night, I had taken for granted that I could walk out of the auditorium under my own power and feed myself and tie my shoes and bathe and run and go to the bathroom without anyone's help. Joni, and others like her, don't take that for granted, because they can't do any of those things. Yet, there she was, "dancing" in joy and delight and singing, "We are Marching in the Light of God"! Marching indeed.
I thought to myself, "What she wouldn't give to do what you and I can but won't." I'm talking about worshiping God with her body. She longs to praise and celebrate her God, not simply in spirit and mind and soul, but with her arms and legs and hands as well. That comes easily for the rest of us, at least it does in the physical sense. Yet, many Christians are terrified of raising their hands or kneeling or clapping or, dare I say it, dancing?
I'm not saying that everyone has to worship in the same way. I'm not saying that you and I are obligated to any particular physical expression when we praise our glorious God. But perhaps we need to think a bit more than we do about how to worship as holistic beings, men and women whose bodies have been bought with a price and are now the temple of the Holy Spirit.
I don't want to put thoughts in Joni's mind or words in her mouth. But I can't help but wonder if every once in a while she looks out on an audience, and says: "Do they have any idea what a glorious gift and privilege it is to be able to celebrate and thank God and honor him with their bodies? I don't understand why they stand there like vertical cadavers." Actually, I don't think Joni would ever say anything like that. I think she's far too humble, too mature and obsessed with her God than to use precious energy to criticize the rest of us for how we do or don't worship the Lord.
So, let me put those words in my mouth and speak them to myself (and to you, if you think they apply). Sam, do you have any idea what a glorious gift and privilege it is to be able to celebrate and thank God and honor him with your body? There are many others who would give almost anything to be able to do what you can, but often won't. Yes, of course, worship is first and fundamentally an issue of the heart. It is the attitude of our minds and the passion of our souls and the commitment of our wills that we bring to God as we declare his majesty and proclaim his mighty works. But as I said, we are more than minds. We are bodies. We will always be bodies. So let us honor God with them, however that may seem fitting to you as you consider the magnitude of divine grace and mercy and love and beauty.
I know how self-conscious people can be in a crowd, especially a Christian crowd. What will others think? What will they say? Will I look like a fool? A weakling? An overly emotional, theological lightweight? I don't think Joni cared what any of us thought. Perhaps if the time comes when she is supposed to worship us, she'll give it some consideration. Until then (which is never, of course), she's only concerned with what God thinks.
Finally, the greatest thing in all this is what it tells us, not about Joni, but about her God. What kind of God is this who can inspire such freedom and joy in one who, from a human point of view, would appear to have every reason to hate him? What kind of God is this who can evoke such confidence and trust in a person who is so horribly disabled? What kind of God is this who has the qualities and characteristics and attributes and beauty and glory that he can be found worthy of the praise and gratitude and "dancing" of a woman who's spent the last 38 years in a wheelchair? Wow! Now that's some God!
This hymn text was written this past week by David McGrew, a friend and colleague of mine. It is meant to be sung to “Come Thou Fount” [tune name: NETTLETON]
Praise our Savior—He who bought us
We are truly owned by Him.
Praise His willingness to suffer
He—though God—to call us Kin!
This is why we join together:
Christ has born the wrath of God
What a King—to love His people
Loved to death . . . New Life He brought!
Sing together Church of Jesus,
Center all your thoughts on Him.
He the Maker of all nature
Great Redeemer from our sin.
God bestowed on Him the Name-of-names;
None shall stand before His face
Bow your soul in pure surrender
Humbly grasp the Gospel’s grace.
“More love, more power, more of you in my life.” What should Christians be thinking when they sing the song “More Love, More Power”? What light might the gospel shed on this particular song text? It seems to me that too often Christians tend to sing songs like this utterly disconnected from the truth of the gospel. What do I mean? Is it wrong to long for more of God’s love and power at work in our lives? Is it improper for us to thirst for God? Absolutely not. Consider these verses:
Philippians 3:10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection…
Ephesians 3:19 [Paul prays that the Ephesians might] know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Psalm 63:1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
The desire for God’s love and power and Person is a very good desire. But a problem arises when this good desire is disconnected from the gospel in our thinking. Let me explain. What might we be thinking when our request to know more of God’s love is disconnected from the gospel? Might we be hoping that God will somehow mysteriously inject more of His love into our spiritual veins? Do we hope that somehow we will wake up one morning with a deeper sense of His transforming love? “Wow, God has answered my prayer! He’s given me more of His love!”
Consider the desire for God’s love in light of Romans 5:8. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul does not say that God showed His love for us at the cross. He says that God shows His love for us at the cross. The tense of the verb is utterly important. If it is true that God continuously demonstrates His love for us through something that happened in the distant past, some 2000 years ago, what should we do if we desire to know and experience more of His love?
Just a few verses earlier in Romans 5:5, Paul says that “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” What I find interesting is that the verses immediately preceding and following that statement are filled with gospel content.
Romans 5:1-2 Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. [2] Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5:6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
I think what is indicated by these verses is that the Holy Spirit does not pour God’s love into our hearts in isolation from the gospel. After all, we’ve already seen in verse 8 that God’s love is being demonstrated to us at the cross. The Holy Spirit poured God’s love into our hearts by bringing us to the cross where we saw that “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). And I believe that the Holy Spirit continues to pour God’s love into our hearts as we sit at the foot of the cross beholding its wondrous glory.
So, when you find yourself asking God for more love, more power, more of Him in your life, make sure you ask Him at the foot of the cross. It is there that we find all the love and power we could ever want. After all, the gospel is the very power of God unto everything we need in this life and the life to come (Romans 1:16).
My Grandma Seaver died tonight. In God's kind providence I was able to spend a portion of this evening with her in the I.C.U. After kissing her and whispering in her ear one last time I left the hospital for home, a 50 minute drive. The Lord graciously took her Home minutes before I arrived at my earthly home here in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. While I was on my way home to see my wonderful God-given wife and three children, Grandma was on her way Home to see her most wonderful God-given Savior (who loved her and gave himself for her) and reunite with her wonderful God-given husband (who went Home to be with the Lord on my 21st birthday). Yes, arriving home to be with my family was and always is sweet. But Grandma's arrival Home to see her Blessed Savior is as sweet as eternity is unending. She is now Home never to leave home again. I love you, Grandma, and deeply envy the precious-beyond-description welcome you received when you met our blessed Savior face-to-face! Enjoy the worship in the Home where there is fulness of joy and pleasures forever more!!! There is home and there is HOME...
My daughter, Hannah, wrote a note to Grandma Great yesterday that my mom read to her mom today (or it may have been last night). I close this post with Hannah's encouraging words (as best as I can remember them):
"Dear Grandma Great,
I love you! I remember all of those special times that we had together. If you die soon, remember that you will be with Jesus forever! Give Daniel a hug and kiss for me.
Love,
Hannah"
Original Post: "If it has been a while since you have read any articles by Tim Keller or Jerry Bridges, it may be time for you to give them another careful read. God has graciously grown these two men in their understand of the gospel and its implications. So we would do well to read what they have written fairly often. My personal goal is to read each of their articles at least three times a year. Why? I am so quick to functionally forget the objective truth of the gospel and its penetrating implications.
"Over the next 2 weeks I will be posting the links to particular articles they have written. Please receive these posts as encouragements to give your mind to the gospel afresh."
Today's recommended article is by Tim Keller. In it he briefly discusses the implications of the gospel as it pertains to the church's worship.
Evangelistic Worship (pdf)
"We pray and worship in such a way as to make room in our prayer and worship for the living presence of Jesus as our Mediator in whom Offerer and Offering are one and the same, but in whom we are gathered up, with whom we are inseparably united, so that with Him we pray and worship as we could not otherwise do.
"At the end of the day when I kneel down and say my evening prayer, I know that no prayer of my own that I can offer to the heavenly Father is worthy of Him or of power to avail with Him, but all my prayer is made in the name of Jesus Christ alone as I rest in His vicarious prayer. It is then with utter peace and joy that I take into my mouth the Lord's Prayer which I am invited to pray through Jesus Christ, with Him and in Him, to God the Father, for in that prayer my poor, faltering, sinful prayer is not allowed to fall to the ground but is gathered up and presented to the Father in holy and eternally prevailing form. At the same time, I recall that the Father has promised to send the Spirit of His Son, mediated through the name and vicarious humanity of Jesus, into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father; and I am assured that as I pray in the name of God's beloved Son I am caught up with all my own infirmities within the inarticulate intercession of the eternal Spirit of the Father and of the Son from whose love nothing in heaven or earth, nothing in this world or in the world to come, can ever separate us" (T.F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ, pp. 88-89).
