Honest To God

(picture from christian-walpaper.net)

Within the Body of Christ, worship is more than musical songs of great arrangement or harmonious melody. Worship is the underlying effort of all the saints gathering together to praise God through song, proclamation, fellowship and giving. In the book, Worship and Entertainment, A.W. Tozer states that worship is to be the perfect mixture of admiration, fascination resulting in praise filled with honor, love and adoration. “Worship seeks union with its beloved,” Tozer writes, “An active effort to close the gap between the heart and the God it adores is worship at its best.”

Therefore, by understanding that worship is much more than entertainment and song, we are forced to explore the Biblical mandate for true worship. We know that the Body of Christ is to gather in corporate worship, but what is the formula it is to take? The great Christian author, C.S. Lewis proposed that we must find consistency within our corporate worship that provides permanence and uniformity.

Even still, what elements are vital for corporate worship in any context?  
The minds of sinful men are too idol to fulfill the desires of God in worship simply through our clever and creative ways.  I believe that if we want to know the standard for our corporate worship we cannot simply rely on the crutch of tradition, but we must evaluate all in light of Holy Scripture. By looking at the scriptural example found in Isaiah 6 verses 1 through 9, we can find six essential elements for corporate worship.

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Dr. David E. Carlson wrote an intriguing article in the mid 70’s that was delivered at the Research in Mental Health and Religions Behavior Conference in 1976. It was title, “Jesus’ Style of Relating: The Search for a Biblical View of Counseling”. His goal for this article was to “Bridge the gap between carrying helping professions and dedicated to communicating with those in the church who are threatened by [mental health care professions].” This was a daunting task then and a battle that is still being fought today.

In the 1970’s the Southern Baptist were regaining their strength after a long season on interdenominational quarrels. Not only were they struggling to find their identity (again) theologically, they fought against each other over differing views of methodology. The way they related to people and the input they received from the Mental Healthcare professionals was only a small slice of the overall controversy they were facing. However, it was this type of conversing over the hard topics of methodology and theology that was happening, not only among the Southern Baptist, but the Church as a whole as they tried to care for people completely by staying true to their convictions unswervingly.

Dr. Carlson addresses this problem well in his article, and I am sure it was received as vital words in a time of turmoil when he first delivered it. Nonetheless, we are still struggling with these same types of decisions today. Evangelicals are still trying to find how they relate to culture and how much input they allow secular scientific study to speaking into the methods we hold so tight to when doing what the Church has been asked to do.

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The command for us to share our faith literally in black and white in the Bible. But I gotta tell you, just getting a conversation started with someone about Christ gives me Godzilla-sized butterflies in my stomach. I get so nervous (and I’m a pastor).

I have come to realize something – one of the greatest things that we can do to start a conversation about Christ is to simply shut up. I know, it seems like an oxymoron, but if we would just start by listening, we would be miles ahead.

(Picture from jansmith2911.wordpress.com)

For example, I was in New York one summer walking in central park. I saw a guy sitting all alone on a park bench, so I walked up to him and asked to sit down. He didn’t smell real pleasant, and was missing most of his teeth, but as we sat there, I simply asked, “So what’s your story?” This guy had so much to tell. He went on about how long he had lived in NYC and how he couldn’t wait to leave the big apple and get on with life. I listened, asked question, and really tried to pay attention to his every word. After he went on for about twenty minutes, he turned and asked, “What is your story?”

Ding… I was in. now it was time to tell him my past, and the unavoidable part that Christ has in my story.

Speaking of New York, I saw this article in the Chicago paper about two post-college grads for Manhattan who rode their bikes all around the US with a sign that simply read, “Talk to me.” They had no agenda, weren’t selling anything… just here to listen to what ever someone wanted to say. One of the guys that ended up talking to them shared his corroded past of crack addiction, but after 15 minutes he said, “I’ll stop talking now, and give someone else a chance.”

You see, people want to talk, but after they do, they then naturally want to listen. Their listener has now earned the right to be heard. People listen to people who listen.

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Culture screams that sex is just a part of life and nothing more than a Saturday night entertainment activity. You can turn on the T.V. or open a magazine and find that most pop stars, movie stars, and sports stars demonstrate a life style that years ago was only promoted by porn stars.

Frankly, I’m sick of culture portraying that sexually interaction before marriage is acceptable. The intimacy that God intended to be shared between a husband and wife has become a mere social interaction for most of my generation and younger. I’m over it… I want God’s standard to be proclaimed and upheld.

As I flipped through the pages of my Bible, Ephesians 5:3 came to mind - “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity.”

By that verse, God has drawn his line in the sand. He said, “Not even a hint!” Since that’s God’s desire, that’s what all Christ followers should strive for – inside marriage and out.

For those who are single, they should strive not just to have virginity as a sexual state, but it should be a mindset.

As a single man I learned that virginity is not about having a clean record, its about having a clean mind. I know that there are a lot of people that walk down that isle on their wedding day, with a short history sexually, but a long past of perverted thoughts.  We need to understand that our purity is a matter of flesh and spirit. We are accountable to God for our thoughts and our actions. That verse says that we must strive to “not have any kind of impurity.”

When we fall into sexual immorality through our actions, we are not only creating an offense against that person and our future spouse, but we’re taking up and offense with God. Purity and virginity are God’s ideal, and to fall below this is sin.

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God has laid out a clear mandate and plan the universal church to call people to repentance because He cares for the souls of men and their reconciliation unto Himself. Many people over the years of church history have avoided the commands to discipline people for the sake of repentance. Some church congregations have made excuses as to why not to perform church discipline, claiming that it is unloving to do so, the biblical expectation is not defined, or in fear of getting sued by the disciplined member.

Nonetheless, the Scriptures are clear that church discipline is an important part of edification for the Saints within the Church. Because the Bible is the infallible, inerrant and the authoritative Word of God, it should be our sincere desire to apply the teachings of the Bible as it relates to church discipline to the individuals within our church. The attitude of those administering Church should be Christ-like and God glorifying. By all means possible, the example of humility, grace, justice and holiness should be exemplified, as Christ displayed in His work to restore sinners while on earth. 

The primary biblical reasons for church discipline are to restore the straying member to Christ and to the church (1 Corinthians 5:5; 1 Timothy 1:20; 2 Timothy 2:25; Matthew 18:15) as well as maintain the public testimony for Christ that the church upholds (Romans 2:24; 1 Corinthians 5:6). There are many types of offenses that could constitute an occasion for someone to be disciplined. In its simplest form, the standard should be that the church should discipline any unrepentant offense against another believer. This could include, but is not limited to, things such as murder, adultery, gossip, embezzlement, insubordination to church eldership, and many other sins that would cause disturbance within the body of Christ.

Many Scripture verses such as Luke 17:3-4 and Pauline passages make it clear that we are to discipline as a church. However, Matthew 18:15-20 gives us the clearest explanation of how we are to exercise church discipline over a brother or sister in Christ who is acting in willful and unrepentant sin. In the following outline I will summarize the three steps that are to be fulfilled according to Matthew 18, concluding with the final result of dismissal from fellowship. This process should make it clear as to how we should continue to pursue the unrepentant person for the sake of restoration. It is important to note that each step is only necessary if the person continues to refuse the correction of the church and does not acknowledge his or her own wrongdoing before God. Continue Reading…