COME HUMBLY, LEAVE FORGIVEN
There will always be debate over what a worship service should be like. Should it be traditional - and however you define that word - or should it be contemporary - and however you define that word? Should it involve mostly singing, mostly speaking, mostly reading, or the same time set aside for each? How involved should the congregation be? Should the people be spectators as an audience is to a play being performed or should the congregation play an integral part in what is being done? What kind of mood or ambience should a worship service have? Serious? Joyful? Awe-inspiring? Meditative?
Hundreds of years ago a Christian worship service in almost any denomination was mainly on the solemn side. Something important was happening and the worshipers respected the gravity of the situation. But there was little joy, little happiness in those services. Nowadays many Christian churches have a service that is completely upbeat and positive, but maybe a service that loses a little bit of the solemnity and the majesty in the process. There were times throughout history when the congregation played a very small role in worship services: they mainly listened and watched. In our culture that is still true in some church bodies, but other groups do almost nothing without having the entire congregation involved and interacting in some way. At the time of the Reformation in 16th century Germany a worship service was carried out almost entirely by memory - it was the same service week in and week out. Today it is not uncommon to find a congregation that has no two worship services that are alike.
There is really no right or wrong answer - it’s not cut and dry. The Lord doesn’t give us specific directives about exactly how to run a worship service. He leaves the style of worship up to the group of Christians gathered around his Word - guided, of course, by various biblical principles he has laid out for us in Scripture. No matter what style is chosen, however, and no matter how much the congregation is or is not involved, and no matter what mood is being set, it is probably not a bad idea for worshipers to come humbly to God’s house. Not in sorrow or in fear, but in awe and respect. Because we are sinners coming before a perfect God. At least one part of the worship service should address the critical situation that the apostle James talks about in his book: “8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” To be fair: James isn’t talking about a formal worship service here, but he is talking about worship. When we come here before God every week, we are coming stained from seven days of sin. We are entering the house of the Holy Surgeon wounded. We are arriving at the door of our spiritual Doctor completely sick. We are coming to be cured! We must be healed before we ever sing an hallelujah. We must be cleansed before we can ever cry out a word of praise.
And so at the beginning of our liturgy this morning, and in fact at the beginning of both liturgies that involve the Lord’s Supper, the confession of sins is on the very first page. And there’s a reason for that: we as sinners need our hands washed, James says. We as doubled-minded Christians need our hearts purified. That’s why within the first few minutes of our worship service in God’s house this morning we spoke together, “Merciful Father in heaven, I am altogether sinful from birth. In countless ways I have sinned against you and do not deserve to be called your child. But trusting in Jesus, my Savior, I pray: Have mercy on me according to your unfailing love. Cleanse me from my sin, and take away my guilt.” We came humbly. We admitted our what we’ve done and who we are. We made no excuses. We spread out all of our ugliness and all of our secrets on the Lord’s table in full view of a God who hates sin and we asked him not to get mad at us but to take our sins away. We began our worship this morning by throwing ourselves at the feet of an Almighty God and we begged for his mercy.
Did it seem like begging to you? I know you said the words with me and your fellow Christians here, but did you really take those sins you’ve committed this morning and this last week and this last month and this last lifetime and spread them out on the table before your Lord? Or did you just repeat the words like we do every Sunday? We have gone through this confession of sins so often and we have used the regular liturgies in front of our hymnals so many times, that the confession of sins is almost a no-brainer, isn’t it? We say the words of confession, we hear the words of forgiveness, and then we just move on to the next part of the service. And we don’t always stop to think about how serious each and every one of our sins is. We don’t pause to ponder that every sin we commit is condemnable; any sin is damnable. We forget that we are here to be healed! We aren’t standing shoulder to shoulder with our brothers and sisters every Sunday to simply memorize a few lines and go through the motions! We are here with dirty hands outstretched to be cleansed in Christ’s blood. We are here with sickly hearts desperate to be purified. We are here each week as failures of what God has asked us to do. We come here needing the Lord’s pardon again and again and again. But many times our worship is mindless and our confession is mechanical. We don’t treat our sins with the severity they demand and so we also don’t appreciate Christ’s forgiveness even when it is spoken to us by the Lord himself. This confession of sins in our liturgy is not just tradition. It is not just to fill up space. It is not just to give us as the congregation something to say. It is essential to a Christian’s life. It is a necessary prelude to the rest of the service. It is something significant. It is something serious.
And if you begin to forget how serious your sins are, just ask Jesus what it was like to hang on a cross. Imagine what it was like for the Lord to have to go to hell itself for our sins. He knows how serious our sins are. That’s why he was there bleeding to death: because our sins are that serious. Our sins have done that much damage. Jesus wouldn’t have had to hang on the cross or go into the trenches of hell if our sins were excusable or understandable or not all that harmful. But they were. And they are. Each sin that we commit is wicked and unacceptable. Each sin is a direct violation of God’s perfect law and deserving of the punishment God promised. Our sins are the most serious thing about us. God himself had to die because we are sinners.
But God died not only because we are sinners; God died because we are also his children. And because we are his children and because he cares for us more than anything else in this world, he didn’t want us to have to find out how bad the punishment of our sins could get. Jesus did not want us to have to suffer the consequences of our actions. He would rather shoulder every punishment and every torture all at once than to allow us even a second’s worth of that pain. And so Jesus marched to that cross with a clear understanding of what it would take. And he hung there for hours in the sun, abandoned by his people and mocked by the leaders, knowing full well where he would have to go for our forgiveness. And then he burst from that tomb three days later to seal what he had accomplished. Christ was serious about our salvation. He was going to make sure that it was all taken care of before we were ever born. And so now because Christ took our sins and our salvation so seriously, after we confess our sins together every Sunday, I can turn around from this altar and I am able to say - not just to you but to myself as well, “God, our heavenly Father, has forgiven all your sins. By the perfect life and innocent death of our Lord Jesus Christ, he has removed your guilt forever. You are his own dear child. May God give you strength to live according to his will.” Doesn’t that almost make you blush? “You are his own dear child.” He doesn’t call you his servant. He doesn’t call you his attendant. He doesn’t call you his creature. He calls you his own dear child because he has granted you forgiveness. And he gives it to you every week. He does not withhold it. He does not take it away. He never decides that you weren’t sincere enough or not sorry enough or not good enough. He simply forgives you. And every time you hear those words you can be assured that your hands are clean. Your hearts are purified. And so are mine. And now in the peace of this forgiveness we can praise the Lord.
In the liturgy we are using this morning - “The Service of the Word” - we joined in a song of praise to the Lord after we heard the announcement of his forgiveness. And from then on the entire rest of the service was and will be focused on Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. We sing songs about his power and love, we listen to his holy Word, we confess our faith in him, we give our offerings to him, we join in prayer to him, and we marvel in the blessing he gives to us at the end of the service. We look to Christ in every section, in every song, in every hymn, in every word. In everything we do every Sunday we look to Christ. We keep our eyes focused on him because he is the one who has healed us. He is the one who has made us whole. He is the only one who has shed his blood. Christ is our focus because nothing else can be. Nothing else matters.
And I realize that concentrating on every word of the liturgy and every word of the sermon and every word of every hymn every Sunday is hard to do. I struggle with that each week myself. And I know that it is sometimes easy to forget how serious our sins really are and appreciate what the Lord had to go through because of them. But the good thing is: Jesus forgives those sins too. And he keeps inviting us back to his own house see him again, to receive his forgiveness again, to praise and thank him again. And he doesn’t want us to leave our dirty shoes outside the door, he wants us to wear them on in. In fact Christ asks us to bring all of our dirty laundry so that he can make it clean. That’s what a worship service is all about. That’s worth coming back for. And so enjoy the rest of this morning’s worship service about Christ. And next week eagerly come back with your sins in hand so that you can place them at the feet of your Savior one more time. We have done that already today. We have laid out our sins and they have been washed away. We came humbly. We can leave forgiven.
Amen.
“May God be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power forever and ever. Amen.” - 1 Peter 4:11
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