If meeting with Christians for regular Biblical worship meant you might possibly get persecuted and killed (not certainly, but possibly), would you join in such worship? If worship meant persecution, would you still gather with God’s people to praise Jesus?
Every Christian I have asked answers Yes. Yes they would.
So let me ask another question: If there was a light dusting of ice or snow, and gathering to worship might interfere with your Sunday plans (i.e., you might get stuck or maybe slip and fall in the parking lot), then would you miss? I don’t have to ask Christians this one, I know the answer. Yes, yes many would miss, and they certainly do miss. They say they are down for the cause of deathly and costly worship, but when it is slightly inconvenient (or when other family plans interfere), then not so much.
I know how hard it is to be plain. So let me give a few scenarios in this article that will help you clearly see the contrast of my main argument against common pseudo-Christian practices.
Scenario 1: If a family member of mine dies and the funeral is somehow scheduled to be during Sunday morning worship, what would I do? Well, first off, I am sorry for the loss — wounded and deeply sorry. However, this funeral does not trump my meeting with the people of God for worship. In fact, worship — at that moment — is the balm most needed. This is where worship would be costly, for my family would think me crazy. However, I would not miss worship to go to a funeral home. A funeral scheduled during worship would not induce me to put Jesus second. I serve Jesus first. This is a highly odd and fake scenario. However, I made it up because it is exaggerated, and because I know too many who would not even have to think for a moment what they would choose — they would choose the funeral every time. So let me quote Jesus:
Another of the disciples said to him, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.” And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. — Matthew 8:21-23
Let’s say you would go to worship even if it meant you might take a bullet for Jesus. But how about this: what if you were upset with or annoyed by the people in your church, then would you still go and worship? Again, I already know the common answer. People regularly abstain from the worship of Jesus because they are disgruntled with God’s people. How ironic; they can take a bullet for Jesus, but they can’t be annoyed for him (or be wrong when in dispute with another Christian). They would die for him if that were the theoretical cost of worship, but when the actual cost is inconvenience, being wronged, or annoyance, then they skip worship.
Scenario 2: The church goes in a direction that you feel is tactically (not doctrinally, but tactically) mistaken. Should you keep worshiping there? The solution here is simple: stay and love the people of God! What happens more often, however, is a private and silent warfare and ultimately an abandoning of the body. In fact, there are some so crass that they never worship with a church again (then blame God’s people for their lack of worship). They claim to be able to take a bullet for Jesus, they just can’t take a bruise for his bride.
I hope this is helping. If you find yourself agitated, let me reveal something of my motive.
I am affected by these realities, but not angry; I am just exploring them here on my blog. If I have a goal in writing this, it is to help you encounter your own responses to these scenarios and questions, and then to encourage you to be at peace with your behaviors of worship. Yes, at peace. If you are a pseudo-worshiper, then admit what the rest of us know. Quit pretending to yourself. Better still, move beyond that! These questions should reveal something about you that will be significantly useful to your own activities.
I know we all say we’ll take the theoretical bullet for Jesus, but if worshiping with other Christians meant you didn’t get to be with your loved ones for a couple of hours, would you still join in the church’s worship? Or how about this: what if going to corporate worship meant you would disappoint a boss, a co-worker, a friend, yourself or a family member?
Scenario 3: Friends come into town from a distance to stay at your house. They are tired on Sunday morning and really need rest, or they are hurting from life and need a retreat. Solution: Go to worship without them. Better, tell them ahead of time they can come with you, but either way, let them know that Jesus is the priority in your life. Alas, what I see happen instead is that the host of the home stays home and misses worship to serve the guests. Guests first, Jesus second. Everything first, and Jesus gets his time only if he does not interfere with your real life.
The irony here is that God lets us serve guests in our home for the other 166 hours in a week, while we insist that even the last 2 hours of Sunday (which we owe to Jesus) belong to the visitors. If you are the host who misses worship to serve guests, you are making a public statement about God. You don’t know it, and few of us say it to you face, so hear me now: you would not take a bullet for Jesus no matter what you say. You can’t even bear the burden of worshiping Jesus when friends come to town, so how will you bear a bullet in your flesh? Your true worship is exposed when you are too inconvenienced to gather with God’s people for such a short moment in time.
Is your Christianity tied to the body of Christ, or to normal (even important) social and family relations and events? You don’t need to answer, everyone already knows your answer. The church knows if your kid’s basketball game or some horse show, music recital, party, fund raiser, soccer match, family event or family reunion trumps worship. We know you. And if you are that person who needs only a minor reason to miss worship, we know that about you. We know if you are that person who is defined by your own pain. We know if your social calendar or private pains are more real to you than the calendar of the church or the pain of others. You are known by your perpetual self-referential crisis; you are known if you are a perpetual Jerry Springer episode (attended by an unending supply of reasons why you miss worship). If this is who you are, you don’t need to answer any of these questions. I am asking them hoping you will search yourself and discover what everyone else knows about you.
Must I say it? Yes I must: I am not here talking about missing worship for a car crash on the way to worship, violent or horribly contagious sickness, travel for a job assignment, exceptional circumstances or even yearly vacations. You may be looking for a church because you moved or are transitioning — I get that. I am not talking about that. I am talking about the person who exhibits a fuzzy-like border-line behavior with its hard to measure semi-habitual worship abstinence. I am talking about the subtle case of a person who worships often enough so as to imagine that their true affections have gone unnoticed.
Here is what I have seen as a pastor over the years. The very things that would never interrupt Christians from their secular employment, are the same things that easily and routinely displace their corporate worship. Many convenient-driven worshipers won’t give God 100 hours of worship in a year of 8736 hours, while simultaneously they give their family, work, hobbies, friends, hunting, sports, T.V., recreation and sleep generous quantities of time. So when I ask, Would you still be willing to worship if worshiping with Christians was the occasion of persecution, Let me urge you: Don’t answer. Don’t answer because we already know the answer. The only person you fool when you answer falsely is yourself. If you are a true worshiper, we know that too! If you really do love Jesus, we see it. Many imagine that persecution would help all of us to discover who really worships Jesus. But I suggest that we don’t need persecution to help us in our seeing.
We don’t need persecution to help us see who the real worshipers are. We just need a light dusting of rain that could possibly freeze. That is sufficient to empty churches of many pretend-worshipers. To empty churches we don’t need some theoretical threat of a gunman who will burst in and kill Christians, we just need a forecast of possibly inconvenient weather.
No, I am not just talking about this past Sunday (we had a report that weather would be icy, and so churches were emptied). This past Sunday makes my case, but I am talking about every Sunday. For when it is not the weather that disrupts worship, it is randomly anything else. I wish we had a light layer of ice every Sunday, then we could just know that most pretenders will be at home. Then I wouldn’t have to write as I now do.
Can you believe I am writing this? Yes, this is a public post, and I am the pastor of a church, so how can I dare challenge people this way? Alas, you who publicly miss worship are the ones who are publicly revealed. For your implicit statement is a charge against the worth of God (he is not worthy of worship if you might slip on non-existent but possible ice). The ease with which you miss worship is the scandalous accusation that worship should be accommodating and convenient. It is too bad that I have to write this way, and after conversations with other pastors, this is a problem in a majority of the churches.
The ranks of American churches swell with pretenders. Oh, sure, these same pretenders can pontificate on the woeful condition of our politics and economy (they see clearly into earthly matters), but what they don’t see and bemoan is the defaming of Jesus revealed by an endemic convenient-based worship. Please, don’t be upset that I write about worship, but be ashamed if your worship is easily withheld from God because of trivial inconveniences. Be ashamed if you are more in-tune with the woes of America politics, but are aloof to the real spiritual condition of your heart and your church. Be ashamed if you are more concerned about yourself and your family than you are about the sanctioned public worship of the family of God.
Scenario 4: Let’s say there is a school program or sporting club that involves my kids on Sunday mornings. They grow up so fast, and these are formative years. Will I let them regularly participate in such events? No, I won’t, and it is precisely because this is a formative decision — one by which I get to teach them the primacy of worship. Did they think worship is only supposed to be convenient? Worship is costly, even in the small things. I never teach children to miss worship (Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them”, Luke 18:16). I lead people into the worship of Christ, not away.
“But, of course,” you say, “you are a pastor.” Really? Do you think that is the reason? Well if you think so, then I have really caught you in a trap. For if this is you, then you seem to think there are two levels of Christianity. Consciously or otherwise, You think the pastor is dedicated to worship because he is paid — being a member of some kind of professional tier of Christian. Wrong! A worshiper — be he a pastor or otherwise — is dedicated to worship because Jesus is awesome. That is what you are missing. Pastor or not, we must be sold-out passionate for Christ. Worship is ultimate, and it was ultimate before seminary or ordination. It is ultimate because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus is passionate for the church (he died for the church), then we do no better than to join him in his passion! Do you think Jesus would miss worship to go watch a kid throw a ball, play a piano or ride a horse? Kids can do those things any time! Jesus was a good Jew. Jesus is God. He lived and observed God-centered worship. Jesus is not like you, and we can’t justify our lack or worship by dragging him down into our devotion to kid’s programs.
“Yeah,” you say, “but what if the kids practiced all year and this was their big performance?” You see, this is the problem with people who want an escape. I would agree that there might be exceptional moments which call us to something else. But the real issue here is the heart desire. So, let me make it easy for you: Do what you want. If you sign up for programs or activities that you know will take you away from worship, then that is what you want, and you are leading children down the same path.
Okay, let me give one more scenario, slightly related to the last. I am not trying to lay down law here, I am trying to help you explore your life choices through scenarios. And if I can map out some suggestions — suggestions which are reasonable to people who champion the worship of Jesus — then maybe you will have the mirror necessary for your soul. I pray that this is helpful advise from one worshiper to another.
Scenario 5: What if you have a relative who gets their kids involved in such programs, and then they ask you to come watch their kids. What then? I suggest you ask them this: Will you come to worship? Do they want you to go watch their kids, yet they won’t worship Jesus? Don’t we live our lives for worship, so the fact that they practiced for an event is not more powerful than our passion to be with Christ. Do you not see the warfare here? All kinds of objections are arising in the heart of the one who looks for an escape, “What is worship? Didn’t Jesus honor the kids? Wouldn’t God want me to enjoy my kids this way? ….”
My best advise is this: Do what you want. I hope you want Jesus — on his terms. I hope he is more precious to you than little Johnny or little Sally when they pull you away from worship with their songs, games, or performances.
I would not need to speak so plainly if this scenario were not so dominant in the church of middle class America. My experience is this: People who miss worship for kid’s programs are destined to leave the church when they get challenged on it (or when they read this post), for they not only love their lives, they don’t want to be challenged.
Everyone can celebrate kids in our culture — it is the easiest thing to do — how about giving up the culture’s system and adopt a new one? How about adopting a life of white-hot passion for Jesus? How about organizing our Saturday night activities around our need to awake and go to worship with the people of God? The Jews took the Sabbath very seriously, we can’t even take an hour of worship seriously when we let kids interfere. Satan distracts us with great ease.
The Cross teaches us this: Worship is most significant when it is most costly, and least relevant when it is most convenient. My proof is Jesus. The greatest act of worship cost Jesus his life. The Cross of Jesus is the high-point of worship acts committed on Earth. Jesus showed us true worship. It was painful. It was deadly. True worship is this way. And if we only worship in convenience, then God is not taking our worship. Some of us worship a lot, but mostly when it is convenient. When it is most costly is when it would be most relevant.
You agree that you want the kingdom of God to advance, do you know that it is evident by the Worship God? Do you want Worship to advance in your own heart? How important is the worship of Jesus to you? The Cross teaches us this: Worship is most significant when it is most costly, and least relevant when it is most convenient. My proof is Jesus.
Worship God.
No Comments