“The Worship We Share” Basics of the Christian Faith Series Sept. ‘17

1.                                   Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Why do we gather here for worship every Lord’s Day?  Is worship really necessary for us as Christians, or is it something that’s irrelevant in our modern age when we can catch a sermon or a worship service on the TV, radio, and the internet in the comfort of our own car and our own homes?  In our message from God’s Word today we’re going to see that worship is important to our lives as Christians and how God serves us through, “The Worship We Share,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                                   One Sunday morning 40 Hell’s Angels roared up into the parking lot of a church in Concord, California, just as the service began.  One of the bikers got off of his motorcycle, walked into the church, and sat down.  The rest of the motorcycle gang stood at the edge of the parking lot, smoking and waiting for the service to end.  The congregation held its breath, wondering what would happen next.  When the service ended, some church members invited the bikers in for coffee, it must have been a Lutheran church.  Some came.  During the conversation over coffee in the fellowship hall, the congregation learned why the lone Hell’s Angel had come to the worship service.  It seems he’d broken the gang’s “code” somehow, and his fellow bikers had punished him by making him go to church.  Maybe going to church is punishment for some people.  Maybe even some of us here have found it painful at times.  Maybe more than one or two of us wince when we sing the lines of the hymn, “Grant us courage for the facing of this hour.” 

3.                                   Just what makes worship painful at times?  A worship service can be poorly planned.  Some sermons are less inspiring than others.  But, those aren’t the only things that get in our way.  Sometimes we who worship in a liturgical setting don’t understand the meaning behind what we say and do together in worship.  Then it’s easy to go through the motions of the service and leave 60 minutes later unchanged by the Word of God.  Instead of a blessing, worship becomes a bore.  When we let this happen to us week after week, we may begin to resent the time we spend in church.  We may look for reasons to attend less often.  We may show up, but use our time to plan next week’s menus or what we need to get done at work or at home.  Or, we may congratulate ourselves on “doing what good people do” showing up in church on Sunday.  Or, we may come with an attitude that expects the sermon and the ceremonies to impress us and, if not, we’ll find better entertainment somewhere else.

4.                                   Even if nothing quite this drastic happens, we may suffer in other ways.  We may find ourselves valuing our time of prayer and Bible study through the week more than the time we spend in worship.  We may “get more out of” being alone with God than from being with God and His people in church.  What a tragedy.  What a tragedy when we realize even a few of all the wonderful things God wants to do for us in worship.  When the Holy Spirit gathers us together as the body of Christ to worship, we stand on the edge of eternity.  Heaven touches earth.  The God who created the universe moves His throne to the place in which we gather.  In grace, He comes to us to receive our praises, forgive our sins, hear our prayers, and speak His powerful, freeing Word into our hearts.  We join the angels in their delight standing in God’s presence to enjoy His love as we lift our voices to honor the Holy One.  The psalmist writes in Psalm 16:11, “You will fill me with joy in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand.”  That will happen in its fullness in heaven.  But, that eternal joy can be part of our worship now.  Think of it!  We as God’s people can praise Him in a way more fully than the angels themselves!  How can this be?  Because we worship as the redeemed, the ones bought back from Satan’s terrible grasp by our Lord Jesus who’s taken away the sins of the world--your sins and mine.  The holy angels don’t know the grace of God in that way, but we can!  And we worship our Lord and Savior for it!  And as we worship together, we practice the praise song we’ll shout throughout eternity on that day when we enter God’s presence in heaven as the Apostle John describes for us over and over again in the Book of Revelation. 

5.                                   We don’t need to pit personal prayer, meditation, and Bible Study against worship in God’s house with God’s people.  Scripture tells us both are important.  God wants to meet with us, to touch us with His grace in both settings.  And both personal Bible Study and worship can work together.  When a person grows more deeply in the study of God’s Word, their worship will also cause them to grow and mature in the Christian faith.  This gives us another reason to learn to understand the liturgical heritage we share.  As we grow in our understanding of the elements of the liturgy, we can use these elements in our own private devotions.  As they become more meaningful to us in our personal prayer lives, they will carry more meaning as we gather with God’s people in worship.  And, they will mean more to us as we use them in our own personal devotions during the week.

6.                                   Literally millions of God’s people down through the centuries have found their personal devotional lives tied up in their corporate worship lives.  The liturgy we use has developed over 2000 years of Christian worship.  Lutherans aren’t alone in using the liturgy.  The Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox churches also use it.  Why would Lutherans bring into their worship a form of worship left over from the Roman Catholic Church?  We need to remember that Luther and his coworkers didn’t create a new church.  Rather, they reformed the church that was still there, though corrupt.  They followed the “principle of retention.”  Retaining the traditional teachings of the church and practices except where these conflicted with the Bible.  Lutherans respect the tradition of the church, not “tradition” with a capital T, as exemplified by the Roman Catholic Church, which bases its theology on Scripture plus the “tradition”--the decrees of popes and councils.  Instead, we as Lutherans base our faith on Christ alone, believing that the Scriptures alone, are as Luther said, “the cradle in which we find Jesus.”  Human beings put the liturgy together, but it’s anchored in the Holy Scriptures and filled with quotations from the Bible.  We use the liturgical traditions of the Church, not for their own sake, but because they put us in contact with the Word of God, which is His means of grace.   

7.                                   Maybe you’ve begun to ask yourselves exactly what we mean when we use the word liturgy.  The word “liturgy” comes from the Greek word leitourgia, which means, “public duty.” It’s a prescribed form of worship like our service of Holy Communion, but it can be other worship services as well, like Matins or Vespers.  We believe that our Lutheran practice of worship using the liturgy must be centered in our Lord Jesus Christ and His cross.  The essence of our worship centers on the cross of Christ.  Because God acted in Jesus to redeem us poor sinners when we were helpless and in rebellion against Him, we can now come together as His family to hear the Gospel.  This Good News involves much more than mere words spoken by a human being with kind intentions.  No, it’s the Gospel of God that we hear and speak to one another. 

8.                                   This Gospel doesn’t just inform us about what Christ has done; it transforms us by conveying to us the grace of God through His Word.  You hear me say to you as your pastor, “I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”  We speak together the words of the Creed, reminding one another of the truth that has set us free, the truth that’s now at work in us, with God’s power continuing to give us freedom and peace.  We listen to the sermon, centered in the cross of Christ, and we receive the grace of God that comes in His Word to soothe our hurts, clarify our dilemmas, and comfort us in our pain knowing that our Lord Jesus is with us.  We receive the body and blood of our Lord Jesus along with the bread and the wine in the Lord’s Supper that gives to us the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.  We Lutherans believe that something very real happens to us when we worship together as the people of God.  We don’t just hear about forgiveness; it’s given to us.  We don’t just tell one another about freedom from sin, death, and Satan’s power; the chains that anchor us to our old sinful ways drop away.  We come together to receive from our Heavenly Father the freedom and power He makes available to us in His Word and Sacraments.  And then we respond to that freedom and use that power to return to Him the praise and honor He so richly deserves.

9.                                   Once a Christian grasps the centrality of God’s action in our Lutheran approach to worship, the question of going somewhere else to “get more out of” worship goes away.  Remember how at one point in Jesus’ ministry a number of followers left the Lord and how Jesus turned to the 12 and asked them, “you don’t want to leave too, do you?  And Simon Peter answered for himself and the other disciples, “Lord to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.”  (John 6:67-68).  What more could God’s children “get out of” worship?  Why would we want to participate in a service where the cross of Jesus wasn’t central?  Where those who lead and those who act don’t expect God to act, forgive, and free us as His Word is preached and His grace toward us in Jesus is declared?  Jesus is the object of our faith.  He’s the foundation that will never move.  He’s our Rock & Cornerstone.  In our worship we focus on Him alone.  We, “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,” who endured the cross in our place (Heb. 12:2).  We praise our God-- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who has redeemed us and who stoops down in His grace to bring that redemption to us (Ps 18;35; 40:16-17).  All this leaves us with a better understanding of what God does for us when we gather to worship Him.  I pray it leaves each of us with an interest in learning more about the elements of our worship services we use so that our worship will grow more meaningful to us.  And I pray that it leaves each of us with a  sense of excitement as we anticipate coming to God’s House in a few days to worship Him there with all God’s people, with our brothers and sisters in God’s family.  God bless your worship both now and forever!  Amen.