9/2/07 - Liturgy Sunday - Acts 2:42

DEVOTE YOURSELVES
- To the liturgy
- With joy

The sermon has occupied the central position in the liturgy for centuries. Not because pastors are so eloquent. Not because the men who came before me had such brilliant insights. Not because a minister of the gospel is somehow holier than other Christians. The sermon has taken priority because it is the Word of God. The things I say in a sermon are not my thoughts or interpretations. I have been trained and I make it my goal to expound the Word of God to you and the Word of God alone. These are the Lord’s words to you. I dare not add my own. And, Lord willing, I never will. The sermon is a key aspect of the liturgy because it is God’s Word - but as we have seen already today in our service, the entire liturgy is based on the Word of God.
Our sermon text for today comes from Acts 2:42. Right after the event of Pentecost, Scripture records of us that the believers there “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Those Christians devoted themselves to Scripture readings and sermons, fellowship of Christian brothers and sisters, participating in the Lord’s Supper, and joining together in prayer. Those are the basic tenants of our worship services today, aren’t they? That is what our liturgy consists of and is built around. We are simply following the example of the apostles in the early Christian church.
And did you notice: they devoted themselves to this liturgy? The word devote means more than performing the action. Devote means more than doing something on a regular basis. Devote means more than simply memorizing something by heart. Allow me to read to you one of the definitions of this word in the Greek text: “to occupy oneself diligently with something; to pay persistent attention to…” We are to occupy ourselves diligently with the liturgy. We are to pay persistent attention to it. But I think we fail to do justice to that word - especially as we become more and more familiar with what we are doing.
The main way we don’t live up to the meaning of the word devote as far as the liturgy is concerned is by just going through the motions. We’ve gone through the liturgy so many times we have it memorized, don’t we? We don’t really have to crack open the hymnal anymore if we don’t want to. And so tell me: how many times have we gone through a portion of the service in which you participated, but all the sudden your mind snaps back into the moment and you realize that you may have been speaking or singing, but your thoughts were nowhere near the words coming out of your mouth. How many times have you sung the songs of the liturgy without the slightest emotion at all? I’m not saying everyone has a perfect voice or that you have to wear your emotions on your sleeve, but you aren’t singing for others, you’re singing praises to your God. How many times have you gone through a worship service in a way that if a visitor saw you participating they would think you were extremely bored or unimpressed or even unhappy? How many times have you mindlessly recited the Lord’s Prayer without ever asking him for a thing? We are terrible at concentrating on the Word in the liturgy. We are horrible at devoting ourselves to the worship of our Lord. The liturgy should never become just a habit. It should never be something we do because it’s just something we do. The liturgy has been constructed to feed us with the Word. And we have neglected that far too many times, if not every week.
And so does it surprise you that the Common Service has the confession of sins right at the beginning? With how many times we sin during the week, and with how poorly we devote ourselves to the Word in the liturgy every Sunday, it’s a good thing we have the confession of sins right away! I know I need it! I know I need to fall on my knees and ask for the Lord’s mercy - especially when I come to grips with how often my mind wanders during this time of week. What a great way to start the service! What a great way to start the week! I hope that the confession of sins is as precious to you as it is to me.
And does it surprise you that we have so many songs of praise in our liturgy? We thank God for forgiveness after the announcement of our forgiveness is made, we sing alleluias after the verse of the day is read, we praise and glorify him before and after the reading of the gospel, we honor him as the Triune God before communion and praise Christ as our sacrificial Lamb after it, and then we end the service with the Song of Simeon: “Lord, let you servant depart in peace…” We are constantly thanking him in the liturgy. We are constantly praising him for what he has done. And that’s the greatest thing about the liturgy. It reveals to us the entire plan of God’s salvation every week! It shows us our sins, it reveals to us our Savior, it lays out for us what Jesus did and why it matters. Even if we didn’t have a sermon, even if we didn’t sing any hymns, the liturgy itself brings us to repentance and then ushers us into an inexpressible joy because of our Savior. The liturgy as we know it in our circles today sums up the law and the gospel. What a blessing to go through that every week. What a blessing to hear forgiveness pronounced, to see forgiveness in a baptism, to experience forgiveness in the Lord’s Supper. What a wonderful act of grace it is on the part of our Lord to supply us with his words of forgiveness in the liturgy.
“To occupy oneself diligently with something; to pay persistent attention to…” Devoting ourselves to the liturgy will not be an easy task. It will take work. It will take prayer. It will take dedication. But why wouldn’t we want to? The liturgy is where we find our forgiveness and our Savior and our peace. These things should make any Christian jump for joy! These things should motivate any Christian to devote themselves to the means through which these blessings are offered! Do we have to have a liturgy in order to worship God at church? No. We can worship the Lord here any way we please. But I would be hard pressed to find a form that is any better. I would be hard pressed to find anything better that gives us the Word and helps us devote ourselves to it.
Amen.

“May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” - 2 Cor. 13:14