I was having a conversation with a deacon this past Sunday morning before church and we were talking about all the family get-togethers that occur over the Easter weekend. And don’t get me wrong, my family had one too. We were graciously invited out to a friend’s house for the day where they tolerated a small army of children romping through their house and through their yard. I get it, Easter can be a big family time. It also dawned on me that Christmas is much the same. So as I was visiting with this deacon I just pondered. I don’t mind that families get together for Christmas and Easter, but it does cause me to wonder when will we have a day that is just for the Lord? When will there be a day that is for the worship of our Lord that does not get commercialized or turned into a glorified family affair where the worship time is limited because the pot of beans might be burning?
Then last night, as I was doing some reading in regard to our current Sunday night study of Soli Deo Gloria, I was reading an essay by David Van Drunen called: Glory to God Alone: Another Look at a Reformation Sola, and VanDrunen made a remarkable point that I want to share. Towards the end he was talking about how we respond and glorify God through faith and worship and humble service. In regard to worship, here is what he said, “none is more fundamental than worship, by which I refer to a distinct activity in which we set aside other tasks and set our minds and hearts upon the Lord, in order to receive his word and to respond back to him in prayer and song.” So obviously VanDrunen links our commitment to corporate worship as a necessary way in which we choose to glorify our great God.
And then he continues with the statement that really struck a chord with me. “The fact that worship is an immensely unproductive activity from an earthy perspective provides helpful reminder that Soli Deo Gloria is really not about our own achievements: God most delights to glorify himself through us when we rest from our seemingly productive labors and call upon his name in truth.”
Did you catch what he said? He said that worship is by God’s design unproductive in an earthly sense. And that’s kind of the point. It reveals our priority to God when we are able to set aside our priorities in order to make Him a priority in our lives. And that brings me to my current soap box.
I have never been one to beat the horse of church attendance. I don’t seek to guilt people into attending every service we offer. Namely because if a person isn’t in love enough with Christ to want to attend then my prodding them to be there is of little significance. I just don’t do it. So don’t take this as some sort of “go to church” plea because the issue here is not a lack of attendance, but a lack of love for God.
I hear it nearly every week; that is some form of reasoning as to why professing believers won’t be able to set aside time for worship. “We had to go to Lubbock”, “We needed to go check on ____________”, “We had family in”, “I had errands to run”. It’s the old proverbial “My ox was in the ditch” excuse. As if we can genuinely categorize every other earthly desire as an actual ox in the ditch or if Jesus even meant that an ox in the ditch meant skipping worship altogether. But we make our excuses and seem to think it’s all ok.
And what is worse, we now live in a day when kid’s sports tournaments are scheduled on Sundays. “It’s ok”, they say, “It’ll be Sunday afternoon”, they say. Because we all know that Sunday night worship is not really important. If we pay our hour of penance that morning surely God doesn’t desire an entire day for us to focus on Him? Now we live in a day where in our own school district the district track meet is held on a Wednesday night. After all, it’s only Wednesday, what does it matter?
And on the surface level I can hear the argument. I am not one who holds to the notion that church attendance saves you, and even if you did believe it could, still no one would have Biblical ground for making Wednesday night sacred. However, the question remains. When? When are we going to set aside even a day for the Lord?
Through Isaiah, the Lord asked, “Is it a fast like this which I choose, a day for a man to humble himself? Is it for bowing ones head like a reed and for spreading out sackcloth and ashes as a bed? Will you call this a fast, even an acceptable day to the Lord?” (Isaiah 58:5). Do we really think that such shallow commitments as praying like a reed bowing in the wind (up and down and very briefly) is the type of commitment God desires? Do we really think that a prayer time that ends with us falling asleep is showing God His due credit? The question Isaiah asked and I think we are still asking even today is, “When will God finally get His day?”
When will He get a day that is not overrun with family activities? When will He get a day that is not over scheduled by fleeting matters? When will He get a day that is not pushed aside because of a basketball game or a baseball practice or a track meet or a grocery run or a new movie in the theatre or or a trip to the lake or really anything else at all that we can think of that we might like to do? Because God forbid we take time from our jobs, God forbid we give up the things we want to do, we’ll just skip worship, surely the Lord won’t mind.
And that’s the point. It is not to pretend that faithfully attending every service somehow intrinsically makes you more pleasing to God, (though we could write a whole different article on the value of consistently hearing the gospel) but it sure speaks volumes about our commitment to God and our love for Him when we will miss a worship service for any and every reason under the sun. I think VanDrunen is right. I think worship is unproductive on purpose. I think God has designed worship to purposely be a time when you can’t get anything else done, because in that manner it forces us to show just how much of a priority our God is to us.
So consider the gauntlet thrown down. Will you make worship of God a priority? What if you devoted a day to Him? What if it really was “The Lord’s Day”? We certainly know He deserves it.
Grace to You,
Rory
