A Potpourri in Preparation for the Lord’s Day

I have been writing devotionals for our congregation to help prepare for the Lord’s Day for many years. Sometimes I post them here. This week, instead of a coherent essay, I decided to simply share a series of thoughts and reflections.

Every week the Church gathers in local congregations to sing, to pray, to hear God’s word read and taught, to meet with God and to be blessed by him through the ministry of the Word and Spirit, both verbal and sacramental. There is a sameness to Lord’s Day worship, a rhythm, a familiarity that is intentional and important. Church services are not supposed to be creative. They are contemplative, celebratory, and communal. The Lord meets with his people, and there is a tradition, a pattern, defined by Scripture, which orders our shared experience of the presence and blessing of God.

The Church is the family of God, bound by the blood of Christ, united by the love of God poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Families do not always get along. There are arguments, fights, tension, and the temptation to go our own way. Our current generation thinks little of family relationships. Families are disposable commodities, easily discarded with little regret. But your brothers and sisters in the Church are the people whom God has called into eternal union and communion. You do not have to speak to your drunk uncle or remain forever bound to the brother that makes every Christmas a battleground, but your spiritual family is eternal, so we need to learn how to get along. If you think you can easily discard your spiritual family, you may find out that it was not because they didn’t belong, but because you did not.

Singing in the corporate gathering of the saints is prayer. There may be hymns or contemporary songs that we enjoy and find edifying in our private life and personal worship but are not appropriate for the Church’s corporate worship. When we sing, we are speaking to God (and to one another). It does not matter whether you can sing well or not. When we speak to God, we should not mumble. When the Church lifts its voice, you should not remain silent. Private prayer can be offered privately and silently, but when the Church speaks its corporate prayers, our songs and psalms should roar.

Corporate worship is… corporate. It is not a collection of individuals simply worshiping in their own way in the same place. That is the way many evangelical churches structure their services: every man doing what is right in his own eyes. We have a different view of what Scripture teaches. The Church acts as a unified body in worship. We stand and sit together. We lift our hands together. We lift our voices in response together. No one acts in isolation. There are no individual expressions. Each of us has an individual and personal experience of worship, but the expression and engagement is with one heart, one body, and one voice.

The robe the minister wears each week is intended to hide the man. It is also a symbol of office, and it adds dignity and gravity to the pastoral role in worship. Beyond this, it emphasizes that we are hearing the word of God, no matter the man from whose mouth we receive it. We do not put a bag over our head, so you can probably tell which minister is which (Pastor Josh is the younger and better looking one), but the point is that it does not matter. No matter who preaches, prays, administers baptism or the Supper, we receive the word and ministry of grace from Christ’s servant. The pastoral office is important; the particular person in that role is not.

The Church gathers to hear God’s Word, not the opinions or political pontification of men. We do not come to hear Pastor Josh’s bullet points or Pastor Joel’s hot takes. We come to hear the word of the Lord, and unless the pastor has a word from God, he should keep his mouth shut. Preaching is biblical and important, but many congregations would be better off if the pastor simply read the Scripture, said Amen, and sat back down.

The Scriptures are more than a rulebook. They are a revelation of God, the breath of God made visible upon the sacred page. The declaration and instruction from the pastor’s mouth, if faithful to the text of Scripture, is the word of God. It can no more be dismissed or disregarded than the voice of Yahweh that once spoke from Mount Sinai and caused the Israelites to tremble. Unfaithful preaching is perverse and pointless, but faithful preaching is God’s word to his people. Christians should tremble with holy reverence, awe, and joy as they hear and receive his word today.