Key Bible Passage(s):
Psalm 95; Is.6 / Rev.4; I Cor.1:9; II Thess.2:13-14
Tier 1:
The question of worship touches the question of our relationship with time. We assume we ‘own’ our time and that we can do what we want with it. We wake up with the belief that I am at liberty to decide what I will do with today! I negotiate my ‘list’ with those things others are asking of me (or paying me for). I try and juggle it all to fit everything tin. That isn’t how a Christian thinks about how they use time. God has given us today as a gift and as a responsiblity, and the question is one of stewardship: the question we need to learn to ask is how HE wants us to spend it. This lies behind the idea of a Rule of Life introduced in our last session, but also that of our gathering for worship Lord’s Day by Lord’s Day.
Tier 2:
We continue to reflect on the idea that the Spirit is at work through liturgy training us to worship and to live as authentic disciples of Christ. Liturgical worship is not an anachronistic cultural hangover from a bygone age of the Church. It remains integral to Christian worship in heaven and on earth. In heaven they have been using the same liturgy for centuries and it remains as fresh as the first day they used it!
Tier 3:
To glorify someone other than ourselves doesn’t come naturally, and it doesn’t come easily to creatures contaminated as we are by sin. It is an act of God’s grace and it requires diligent spiritual effort to embed in our experience. This is why Christian worship is shaped by the Gospel. And the Gospel begins with our being called. We are called to worship. We are not invited. That changes a very great deal about our attitude to our services, and re-aligns them with God’s purposes, rather than ours.
In this session I recommend a book by James K A Smith called ‘You are what you love’. It helps us to recognize and think through the place of liturgy not just in worship, but also in the whole of life. You can hear James Smith talking about the ideas in this book in a lecture he gave at the University of Michigan. I’ve included it below.
The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men. This she has not done deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic.
A.W.Tozer
Discussion Questions:
Read Ps.95
What titles and images are used to describe God? What do they convey to you? How do they draw us into worship?
Does it matter whether we literally ‘bow down’ or ‘kneel’ before Him (v.6)? Does it matter what we do with our bodies in worship? Why do you think we stopped kneeling in prayer in services?
What does it mean to ‘hear His voice’? What does that look like in our services?
Why does the Psalm refer to Meribah and Massah (see Ex.17:7)? How could we make the same mistakes in our worship? What does it mean to ‘harden our hearts’, or for our hearts to go astray?
Homework
Over this half-term we have been working to memorise Matthew 7:21-28. You will have to keep refreshing Matt.5:1-26, Matt.6:5-15 and Matt.7:7-12 whilst you do this.
(we’ll memorise the whole of the Sermon on the Mount over the 3 years of DTP)
Read Articles 20 & 34.
Read through these Confessions before our next session:
The General Confession for Morning & Evening Prayer
Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the thinking and desires of our own hearts; and we have offended against your holy Laws.
We have left undone those things which we should have done; and we have done things we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we are miserable sinners. Spare us, who confess our faults; and restore us, who are penitent according to Your promises, which you have declared to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
And grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake, that we may, from now on, live a godly, righteous and sober [i.e. serious, clear-headed, self-controlled] life, to the glory of your Name. Amen.
The General Confession for Communion:
Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things and Judge of all people:
We acknowledge and lament our manifold [a multitude, and of different kinds] sins and wickedness, which we, consistently and most grievously have committed, by thought, word and deed, against your Divine Majesty.
We have provoked your wrath and indignation against us, and in this you are most just.
We do earnestly repent, from the depths of our being we are sorry for what we do wrong. Even remembering them now breaks our heart. The burden of our sinfulness is intolerable and beyond what we can bear.
Have mercy on us, most merciful Father. For your son, our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, forgive us all that is past, and grant that from now on we may serve and please You in a newness of life, to the glory and honour of your name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
(If you really want to go to town, get hold of a BCP and read through the service of ‘Commination, Or Denouncing of God’s Anger and Judgements Against Sinners’. Traditionally this was a service that would have been used by the Church on the first day of Lent. I warn you though - it’ll make your hair stand on end).
