1.21 Church

Throughout the church's history, Christians have been concerned with maintaining orthodoxy. This is usually understood as holding to right beliefs, but in Greek the word actually means right worship. This points us to an important reality. First of all, our theological beliefs are not ends in themselves. Instead, they are means to the end of the proper worship of God. When we study Scripture, and reflect upon or speak about God, our activity should be oriented toward this end.

This is because at 1.21 we believe that we were all created to worship something. Moreover, we believe that God commands us to worship him. The British author-theologian C. S. Lewis once lamented over the fact that the book of Psalms in the Old Testament continually asks of the creation to praise the creator. He writes:

"The most obvious fact about praise – whether of God or anything – strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honour. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless . . . shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise – lovers praising their mistresses [Romeo praising Juliet and vice versa], readers their favourite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favourite game – praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. . . . Except where intolerably adverse circumstances interfere, praise almost seems to be inner health made audible. . . . I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: 'Isn't she lovely? Wasn't it glorious? Don't you think that magnificent?' The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can't help doing, about everything else we value.”

Therefore we've tried to summarize several points about how 1.21'ers exist to worship God.

Worship is a lifestyle:

Every day of the week, every hour of the day, we are looking to something for meaning, acceptance, fulfillment, joy, and righteousness, and giving ourselves over to it. Whatever we present ourselves to is the object of our worship. The goal of the Christian life is for this object to be God, the only one worthy of such devotion. This extends from the profound (e.g., sexual intimacy with our spouse) to the mundane (e.g., folding laundry).

Worship is also an event:

Every Sunday we come together as the church to assemble before and meet with our God. When we come together several factors are prominent.

Biblically rooted, driven, and ordered

The Bible is our authority and guide. Therefore each element of worship should flow from, conform to, and lead us back to the truth of Scripture. We don’t get to make this up as we go along. By submitting ourselves to Scripture, we submit ourselves to God, and seek to ensure that he is in the driver’s seat, rather than us.

Gospel saturated

If we are faithful to Scripture, our worship will continually point us to the fact that though we are sinners, Christ has given himself for us, risen from the dead, and reconciled us to God without any help on our part. Our preaching, songs, prayers, and actions should all testify to the death and resurrection of the Son of God for sinners like us.

A priority on the action of God

Not only is God the object of worship, he is also the subject of worship. In the power of the Holy Spirit, through the work of the Son, we drawn into the life of God. In the church’s gathering God is the primary Actor, speaking to us through preaching, nourishing our faith through the sacraments, and sending us out into the world  again to be his ambassadors. We participate, but only as we are carried along by what God has done and is doing.

Corporate rather than individual

Our worship is a common experience and a communal expression because it is only with the help of all the church that we have any hope of understanding the fullness of Christ’s love for us (Ephesians 3.18-19). Therefore we sing, speak, and pray together. Rather than fostering introversion and introspection, worship is designed to lead us upward toward God and outward toward the people around us, as we learn what it is to be the Body of Christ.

Accessibly contemporary but rooted in tradition

The world has changed in the last two thousand years. We want our worship to be biblically faithful and accessible and understandable to people living today without degrees in theology and church history. But we also recognize that the Bible didn’t drop out of the sky yesterday. The church has a rich history filled with resources that we want to tap and draw from in a way that’s faithful to Scripture, but still makes sense today. We express this through liturgies, creeds, catechisms, and so on.

The glory of God

We want to do our worship well. In other words, we want songs and sermons to flow smoothly and without mistake. But we are much more concerned that we do our worship good. In other words, we want the right motives, goals, and effects: the glory of God and the joy of all people in Christ. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how well we’ve done. God and his glory should be the focus and goal of all our worship.