4“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
A.W. Tozier is most known for his diagnoses of the critical state of worship in the church. He said half a century ago, “Worship is the missing jewel of the Evangelical church.” His observation was aimed at the lack of spiritual fervor and emotive engagement in church services. The aim was for people to turn their hearts to God, and find our greatest source of joy in communion with God through worship. Perhaps, in liturgy the church had seemingly lost the desire to engage with God. Tozier felt that the function of biblical worship had been trumped by the formalities of religion. Biblical worship has seen somewhat of a resurgence over the last fifty years of our unfolding history. We have witnessed a great deal of reclaiming the scope and necessity of worship in the life of both the church as well as the individual.
A cursory study of modern evangelical worship quickly takes us beyond the elements of liturgy. Biblical worship begins much deeper than expression or form. It begins with the ideas that worship is Trinitarian, Gospel-centered, Christ-centered, living obedience, and operates in spirit and truth. While I don’t disagree with Tozier’s diagnoses, I feel in some way it may be misdirected.
My conviction is that the confusion regarding authentic biblical worship begins not with liturgy (the Sunday service), but originates with the lack of spiritual disciplines of the part of the individual worshipper. (Duet 6:4-9) Deficiency in personal worship spills into the very fiber of the family, avoiding the gift and joy of family worship. (Duet 6:7) Finally, this “missing jewel” of the church is manifested in liturgy that does not stimulate the mind, provoke the affection, or enhance communion with God.
Communion is the practice of walking in relationship with God. A relationship in which friendship is exchanged through the cross of Christ. The sinners become the sons and daughters. God befriends us through his own initiative. Communion is the essence of worship. As elementary as it sounds, often times we neglect the truth that communion with God is the prize of the Gospel. As evangelicals, we would agree that the spiritual disciplines and practices like prayer, scripture reading, memorization, meditation, reflection are vital to our spirituality. The trouble is that we neglect to see the vitality of walking in those practices.
Communion was something the Puritans held as the priceless treasure of worship. JI Packer says of the Puritans, “Communion with God was a great thing; to evangelicals today it is a comparatively small thing. The Puritans were concerned about communion with God in a way we are not. The measure of our unconcern is the little we say about it. When Christians meet, they talk to each other about their Christian work and Christian interests, their Christian acquaintances, the state of the churches, and the problems of theology – but rarely of their daily experience of God.” (A Quest for Godliness)
In order to experience communion with God in liturgy, we must first look at the gravity of personal worship. First though, we will uncover the urgency of family worship. Finally, we will be able to study how communion can be experienced with God during the Sunday morning experience for the glory of God and our increasing joy.
(to be continued)
