Monday, October 15, 2018

Public worship as a spiritual discipline: getting more out of church attendance by what you put in (Hebrews 10:19-25, Psalm 134)


It’s hard to preach and talk about church attendance without it being seen as sending people on a guilt trip. We live in a time when there is more and more pressure on time and fitting it all in is difficult. How do we find time for all this stuff? In fact one commentator has coined the phrase “fastpeople” and suggests we are no longer trying to keep up with the Jones, but rather just trying to keep up with the gerbils, on the spinning wheel of life. Reflection, awe and wonder, community are stuff for the slowpokes out of step with society.

 
But October at St Peter’s is our season of prayer when we embrace being slowpokes, we look at taking time to step back and look at our spiritual practises and our devotional life and this year we’re looking at surprising spiritual disciplines that will help us grow in our relationship with God and I want to look at attending public worship, Church on Sunday as one of those spiritual disciplines. Viv Coleman last week talked about the idea of having ‘a rule of life’ a rhythm of practices in our lives that allow us to build our lives around Jesus Christ. She looked at the church in Jerusalem  after Pentecost and saw that they had devoted themselves, built their lives around  four things the teaching of the apostles, the gospel and the word of God,  fellowship what we would call community, prayer, both communal, as it says in Acts 3 they went to the temple for regular public worship and prayers, and personal, and the breaking of the bread, hospitality and remembering Christ in the Lord’s supper. Part of that commitment to life meant being involved in big group meetings, going to the temple and small group activities, living the Christian life together. As Good Jews and following Jesus example public worship would have been part of that rhythm. So I want to look at church attendance as a spiritual disciple, not to bible bash us about it, but hopefully so we can see it as a means of grace, we can get the most out of it by what we put into it.

The passage we had read to us from Hebrews chapter 10 come at the end of the central core of the book, where the author had reflected on the person and work of Christ mainly as a fulfilment of the Old Testament, and with the word therefore, now turns to exhort people how to live that out; what does it mean for us? As one commentator puts it this is the start of a great rollicking exhortation that will take us to the end of the book. In this passage he gives us three imperatives, three commands for our life, that go beyond simply talking about public worship, but that I want to use to help us explore public worship as a spiritual discipline. I was going to make a pun about salads and green vegetables and nutrition for our spiritual life, because each imperative starts with ‘let us’, but I thought that would be too corny. I don’t like corn in my salads…

The first imperative is in verse 22… let us draw near to God…In Christ we have access to the very presence of God. The writer to Hebrews, uses temple worship in the Old Testament to illustrate this. People would come to the temple to worship and draw near to God, but dependant on who they were there was a limit to how close they could come. If you were an invalid or unclean with certain illnesses, you couldn’t come in the gate. That’s the background to the miracle in Acts 3. The gentiles could only go to the outer court. You may remember in Acts 20 Paul is ironically accused of taking a gentile with him into the temple. If you were a woman, there was only so far that you could go, you were allowed into the court of the women, if you were a Jewish man you could come closer, an inner court,   if you were the priest  you could go into the holy place, we had it in our reading from psalm 134, which is a blessing on the priests at the end of one of the major festivals for all their work,  in the house of the Lord. Then there was the Holy of holies, the place where God dwelt with his people, only the high priest was able to go into that place, and only once a year on the day of atonement, after many animal sacrifices for the forgiveness of sin. They used to go in with great fear, a rope tied round their leg, just in case they had undeclared sin and being confronted by the holiness of God would strike them dead, and they could be hauled out.

But we, says the writer of Hebrews can draw near to God, because of Christ’s blood, his death for the forgiveness of our sins. We can all go right into the very presence of God, the holy place, not with shaking and fear but with confidence, not because of who we are or who we are not, but that Christ has made a way, a new and living way. Christ our great high priest has paid the sacrifice for us to be clean before God and opened the curtain that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple for us. The one the gospel tells us was torn in two when Christ died. We’ve been welcomed in.

It’s not just coming to a place to encounter God, but its everywhere in life, we have that wonderful privilege, in prayer, this core section of Hebrews had started with a similar image of us being able to boldly approach the throne of grace in our time of need. The throne of grace was seen as where God sat and was the mercy seat the space on top of the ark of the covenant between the two golden seraphim. Because of Jesus Christ we can get that close In all of life… My son Isaac and I were walking along Bethells  Beach and came upon these three empty pairs of shoes right in the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t help but think of Moses in Exodus 3 being told to take off his shoes for this is holy ground as he encounters God in the burning bush. Mind you if you take off your shoes in the middle of bethels baeach in the middle of summer you encounter not the burning bush but the burning hot west coast iron sand... However, It’s a great image because we can encounter and know that closeness of God and draw near anywhere. It’s all holy ground…On a west coast beach, an Auckland school class room, our place of work, in the wilderness and scorching iron sand of our own lives. But definitely as we gather for public worship, we come to draw near to God. Douglas Bradley has just moved from Glendowie to be the minister at Cromwell Presbyterian church and he said he took this great photo on the day that all the linemen for chorus used the church for a meeting, the photo was of all the work boots lined up outside the church door. Take off you shoes this too is holy ground…

George Guthrie helps us understand this drawing near to God as a spiritual discipline by asking the question ‘What is it you yearn for?” when you come to church what is it that you are wanting that you are looking for, do you come with an expectation of encountering and meeting with God, of somehow being transformed by that encounter. Do you come with a sincere heart, aware that we are able to come because we have been made clean through Jesus Christ, and it’s a great privilege we have to worship God together as brothers and sister with such intimacy and being so loved. At general assembly Graham Redding a previous moderator of the PCANZ spoke on Isaiah chapter 6, the calling of Isaiah, Isaiah was in the temple, worshipping, and suddenly it was like his eyes were open and he saw the reality of what was going on… he saw the Lord high and lifted up, the whole place was filled with the glory of the Lord, he is aware of his sinfulness and receives a pardon from God and then is given the word of God to take out with him into the world to be part of God’s kingdom coming. That was a foretaste of what you and I have in Christ as we gather for worship. Do you come to Church with an expectation of encountering God. ‘what is it you yearn for?’ not yawn for but yearn for…

The second imperative is in verse 23 let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess. Our hope found in Jesus Christ, that death and sin are conquered and on their way out because of Christ’s death and resurrection, that things can change, that there is a better world coming, because of who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Not because we simply believe it but because God is faithful. God keeps his word, he keeps his promise.

Again George Guthrie helps us see this as a spiritual discipline by asking the question What is it you are committed to? it’s a whole life question, one of the biggies that defines us, but its helpful to see that as it relates to public worship as well. By making it part of our rhythm of life we are witnessing to our hope. Its part of our profession of hope… Not wishful thinking like.. I hope howard doesn’t speak to long today… I hope they don’t sing those songs again… But that the gospel of Jesus Christ will make a difference, in me, and you through us in the society round us. In the face of what’s going on in our lives, still I will come and give thanks and hear the gospel proclaimed. It’s defiant and prophetic. I love Psalm 42 and 43, as the psalmist laments that  all he has known is being stripped away and he or she is being dragged away into exile, and it feels like the stormy waves Mediterranean sea and the turbulent  rapids on the fast moving  rivers that flow down from Mt Camel have combined to smash and crash over them, the psalmist say why are you so down cast O my soul yet I will still praise you my Lord and my king. Public worship says we have hope of light when it seems the darkest, it says in the midst of the business f life that there is time to stop and to contemplate something so much more important. It says to the worries and sorrows of life, I have hope in Jesus Christ, it says to the amusements and distractions of life, there is something more solid and real. What are you committed to…

Finally in verse 24 “Let us spur one another on towards love and good deeds” the writer from Hebrews carries that on by saying don’t stop meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing… The Christian faith is communal, its about being together and building one another up in the faith. When we think of spiritual disciplines we usually thing of solo alone stuff, of the hermit away in the wilderness, but its about being together in community. To encourage each other in ur love and our good deeds, which are the outworking of our relationship with Christ, we are loved so we love, we are cared for and shown compassion, so we show compassion and care.

George Guthrie again helps us see this by asking the question ‘who do we walk with?’ who we commit to journeying with. Whose shoes are with ours on the beach. When it comes to public worship Paul in 2 Corinthians 14 says we should come to worship, not with the attitude of whats in it for me, what do I want, but rather, what do I have to give, he says one should bring a song, another a teaching, a word of encouragement. One of my other favourite psalms, I think I have about 150 of them, is Psalm 107, which is the story of peoples epic journeys from exile back to Jerusalem. Epic desert journeys through stormy seas, from darkness to light, illnesses to health, even one that seems to talk of God using going from rich pasture to brokenness and want, but they each finish with people giving testimony to what God has done in the assembly to build one another up. Are we willing to pray for each other, Pauls letters to the churches were designed to be read in public worship and in them he prays for the people he is writing to and asks them to write to him. When we come together are we willing to use the gifts god has given us to build each other up. Even the gift of prophecy and discernment, speaking straight, spur one another on has an almost negative feel to it at one level, of pushing and prodding each other. Who are you walking with, invites us to look at worship as a chance to come and to contribute to others, not just to be a consumer society.

We very often use the analogy of life as a journey even our faith we speak of our spiritual journey and our spiritual disciplines maintain us and keep us on that journey. Often its like how you pack your car for that journey. With six people in our family how you pack a car is a big thing. How am I going to fit everything into this small space? It’s three D tetras… if you remember that game on your phone. But you start by putting the big things in first, the important things and then fill in round them, you find you’ve got space for the little things the extra things on top of those basics and essentials. It’s harder to fit a big bag last… Can I suggest for the spiritual journey we fit in those essential spiritual disciplines first and once they are in place the rest of life seems to fit round them. Public worship is one of those things.


The questions that help us choose what goes where are ‘what do you yearn for”, what are you committed to, who are you going to walk with? 


… So let us draw near to God, let us hold fast to our hope, let us consider how we will spur one another on in love and good deeds.

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