Prayer is, perhaps, the most important element for those seeking a great awakening.  A lot of things happen when we spend time with God in prayer.  God has chosen that the mechanism of prayer to be his way of allowing us to participate in the ruling of his world.  God chooses to do something only when we pray and only when we pray according to his will.  This fact struck me some time back when I was doing a study in the Book of Revelation.  Notice what these verses say.

Revelation 8:1 When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
2 And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.
3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne.
4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.
5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake. (Rev 8:1-5 NASB)

The action of heaven stops for about an hour so that the angels could collect the prayers of the saints and add them to the smoke of the incense.  Then and only then did he cast it to the earth as an act of judgment.

If we do not pray, we do not hear God.  Even reading his Word will not penetrate our hearts if we do not practice the art of conversation with God.  We become like the fool of the book of Proverbs who refuses to listen to Wisdom:

22 “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing And fools hate knowledge?
23 “Turn to my reproof, Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you.
24 “Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;
25 And you neglected all my counsel And did not want my reproof;
26 I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes,
27 When your dread comes like a storm And your calamity comes like a whirlwind, When distress and anguish come upon you.
28 “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently but they will not find me,
29 Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD.
30 “They would not accept my counsel, They spurned all my reproof.
31 “So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way And be satiated with their own devices.
32 “For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them.
33 “But he who listens to me shall live securely And will be at ease from the dread of evil.” (Pro 1:22-33 NASB)

God’s judgment on those who do not hear is to abandon them to themselves. Romans 1 confirms that this is the worst kind of judgment is this life.  But those who listen to God shall be secure.

How does one pray for revival?  One prays with brokenness and honesty.  We may not know how far from God we truly are until we make prayer for revival a regular part of our lives. Too often our prayer lives are just  slight glances at God with a few words that we really have not thought though.  When we finally become aware of our sin before God, it should shake us up.  And when we realize that God has not been listening to us because of our sin, then it should cause us to cry out for mercy.  There are several Psalms that serve as an example of when God stopped listening to the nation or to the one praying.  Psalm 51 is, of course, a Psalm of Contrition.  There David begs God to restore to him the joy of his salvation.  That sounds like revival to me.  Psalm 80 implores God to rescue his people.  But there is more than that.  He asks, “O LORD God of hosts, How long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people?”  The people have so sinned that God was angry even with their prayers. All one can do is ask God to forgive us and move beyond this impasse.  And only God can remove the barrier.  The Psalmist is persistent in his prayer to God.

Psalm 80:1 For the choir director; set to El Shoshannim; Eduth. A Psalm of Asaph. Oh, give ear, Shepherd of Israel, You who lead Joseph like a flock; You who are enthroned above the cherubim, shine forth!
2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up Your power And come to save us!
3 O God, restore us And cause Your face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.
4 O LORD God of hosts, How long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people?
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears, And You have made them to drink tears in large measure.
6 You make us an object of contention to our neighbors, And our enemies laugh among themselves.
7 O God of hosts, restore us And cause Your face to shine upon us, and we will be saved.
8 You removed a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground before it, And it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shadow, And the cedars of God with its boughs.
11 It was sending out its branches to the sea And its shoots to the River.
12 Why have You broken down its hedges, So that all who pass that way pick its fruit?
13 A boar from the forest eats it away And whatever moves in the field feeds on it.
14 O God of hosts, turn again now, we beseech You; Look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine,
15 Even the shoot which Your right hand has planted, And on the son whom You have strengthened for Yourself.
16 It is burned with fire, it is cut down; They perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.
17 Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself.
18 Then we shall not turn back from You; Revive us, and we will call upon Your name.
19 O LORD God of hosts, restore us; Cause Your face to shine upon us, and we will be saved. (Psa 80:1-19 NASB)

Again this sounds like a request for revival, for a great awakening among the people.  If we want God’s face to shine on us, I think we too must become men and women of consistent prayer, asking, even begging if need be that God will cleanse us, make us holy and most of all, send a great revival upon us and upon the land.

I closing I recommend that the reader check these articles on prayer and revival.  The first is by the old Scotsman, Robert Murray M’Cheyne.  http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ref-rev/01-4/1-4_mccheyne.pdf

The second article is by Roger Nicole  http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ref-rev/01-3/1-3_nicole.pdf

The following are quotations on the meaning of Revival  from Iain H Murray, Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858

There are eras, said (Samuel) Davies, when only a large communication or outpouring of the Spirit can produce a public general reformation. Thus, preaching on “The Happy Effect of the Pouring Out of the Spirit” from Isaiah 32:13-19, he argued that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the great and only remedy for a ruined country– the only effectual preventative of national calamities and desolation and the only sure cause of a lasting and well-established peace. (p 21)

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In speaking of the meaning of revival it is also essential to note that what Davies and his brethren believed about revival was not something separate from, or additional to, their main beliefs; it was rather a necessary consequence.  Such is a man’s state in sin that he cannot be saved without the immediate results from it, the gifts of God.  Therefore, wherever conversions are multiplied, the cause is to be found not in men, nor in favorable conditions, but in the abundance of influences of th Spirit of God that alone make the testimony of the Church effective. No other explanation of revival is in harmony with the truths that are “the essence of the Christian scheme– the utter depravity of man, the sovereignly-free grace of Jehovah, the divinity of Christ, the atonement in his blood, regeneration, and sanctification by the Holy Spirit.

This school of preachers held that the Holy Spirit has appointed means to be used for the advancement of the gospel,  pre-eminently the teaching of the Word of God accompanied by earnest prayer.  Yet no human endeavors can ensure or guarantee results.  There is a sovereignty in all God’s actions.  He has never promised to bless in proportion to the activity of his people.  Revivals are not brought about by the fulfillment of “conditions” any more than the conversion of a single individual is secured by any series of human actions.  The special “seasons of mercy”  are determined in heaven.  Thus for a modern biographer of Davies to say what Blair “began a revival of religion in 1740″ is to assert the opposite of what they believed.  For the same reason it would have been obnoxious to these preachers to hear themselves described as “revivalists” . . .(p 22)

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. . . It can be further noted that what happens in revivals is not to be seen as something miraculously different from the regular experience of the church.  The difference lies in degree, not in kind.  In an “outpouring of the Spirit” spiritual influence is more widespread, convictions are deeper, and feelings more intense, but all this is only a heightening of normal Christianity.  True revivals are “extraordinary,” yet what is experienced at such times is not different in essence from the spiritual experience that belongs to Christians at other times.  It is the larger “earnest” of the same Spirit who abides with all who believe.

Thus Davies and his brethren repudiated the idea that revivals restore miraculous gifts to the churches.  They regarded revivals as more wonderful than that: The Spirit magnifies Christ, and the more abundantly his influence is possessed by the believers the more they will live for his praise.  When we meet with lives such as those of Davies, Whitefield (he had such a sense of the incomparable excellence of the person of Christ), Aaron Burr, Sr (a perpetual holocaust [a sacrifice consumed by fire] of adoration and praise, and many others in the revival period, we are tempted to suppose that theirs was a different Christianity.  It was not so but rather, as Thomas Murphy wrote, it was “the baptism of the Holy Ghost which caused the infant Church [in America] to become animated by the most fervent piety.”  The same writer said of these preachers: “they believed in refreshings from on high, felt some of them in their own souls, and were ready for still more . . . these bright and cultured souls were stirred to their very depths, and blessings untold were involved therein.  They awoke to a life not new in kind, but new in degree, and in all truth and soberness a new prospect opened before our Church and country.”

If revival is a larger giving to the church of grace already possessed– a heightening of the normal– then it follows that the evidences by which revivals are to be judged are the same as those which form the permanent evidences of real Christianity.  Foremost in the New Testament list is the evidence of love to God and men.  At all times to all true believers Christ “is precious.”   Preaching on those words, Davies said:

Because he loves him he longs for the full enjoyment of him . . . Because Christ is precious to him, his interests are so too, and he longs to see his kingdom flourish, and all men fired with his love.  Because he loves him, he loves his ordinances; loves to hear, because it is the word of Jesus; loves to pray, because it is maintaining intercourse with Jesus; loves to sit at his table, because it is a memorial of Jesus; and loves his people because they love Jesus.”

For revivals to be judged to be true we are to look for no greater proof than the increase of this same grace.  Love is not uniform in its strength but it knows many degrees.  Although it is an “active principle” in all Christians, love can also blaze and burn.  Men filled with the Spirit are filled with love (Eph. 3:16-19) and “the sacred fire of love” (to use Davies’ words) will affect al that they do.  They cannot be to others than fervent in spirit as well as dissatisfied with their own coldness. (p 23-24)

Cheap grace is grace without a price, grace without cost.  The essence of grace, we suppose is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. . . . Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system.  it means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth. . . It means the justification of the sin without the sinner…. The world goes on in the same old way, and we are still sinners even in the best of life. . . Instead of following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolation of his grace!  That is what is meant by cheap grace, the grace that amounts to the justification of the sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sin departs.  Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin.  Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. (Cost of Discipleship, p. 45-47)

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on the battle on all the battlefields besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point. (Martin Luther, cited in Francis Schaeffer, The God Who is There. P 11)

More than ever, we need clear, pointed thinking and sound, focused preaching.  We dare not pull the punch because the world does not like it or because someone might be hurt.  To not tell the truth in our sinful environment is to murder the soul those who need to hear the Word of God.  We need to understand that the condition of the sinner is grave and that every living human is a sinner.  It is not a popular subject but it is the truth.  And in order for us to escape the wrath of God and to find purpose and meaning in life one must know the truth.  So, we cannot stand by and agree with the world that sexual immorality is perfectly acceptable, that homosexuality is just another lifestyle, that lying is a perfect form of defense, that willful violation of God’s law means nothing.

We cannot, at any time, agree that sin ceases to be sin.  But, the truth can only be presented and defended from a position of humility and grace.  When we are bold in truth, it must be as one who knows he or she is a sinner who had no hope until Christ himself redeemed him.  We are all sinners telling our fellow sinners where to find grace.

Over 20 years ago, I wrote my doctoral dissertation on The Doctrine of Man in the Theology  Helmut Thielicke.  Today Thielicke is almost forgotten by the younger seminary students.  But he was an important figure in the 20th century.  He was second only to Karl Barth in literary output.  A short, (it appears to be an English translation of a German wiki article) biography can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmut_Thielicke

I was fascinated by Thielicke because he ministered in what we call today a post modern culture.  One can only imagine ministering in a nation that had gone murderously insane and then to minister to that same culture after its fall.  How do you tell about Jesus to a culture that is in despair?  How do you return a nation to its theological and moral roots?  Even in the 1970s one could see something like this coming to our nation.  The following is taken from the introduction of my dissertation.

The cultural and spiritual situation of pre- and post-war Germany had a lasting effect upon Thielicke’s theology.  He protested Nazi thought, and his outspokenness endangered his life both before and during the war.  He was critical of the German Church for its capitulation to Hitler.  After the war the reigning thought forms in Germany were secularism, nihilism, and despair; and Thielicke addressed these issues in written and oral form.  Because modern culture must be addressed, Thielicke felt that good theology must be preachable.  It was with the goal of proclamation in mind that Thielicke wrote much of his theology as well as his sermons.  Thielicke believed that God marches throughout sacred history.  God moved in the Old Testament; he marched past the cross, and he marches into modern times.  It is the theologian’s job to help men see God as he passes by:

Thus I express my conviction that we should portray to men the poor garment of the Crucified only in such a way that we expound to them at the same time the rustling of the mantle of God in our age.  God does not merely speak; He also marches.  And why should we not venture, why should we not have to venture, to speak of this marching when we have set ourselves under the disciplines of His Word? . . . And perhaps theologians out of the pulpit, even more than preachers in it, are summoned today to hear the command of the hour and to become Socratic theologians, who will move through the markets and shelters and guard posts and command stations, and there, questioning and answering, often maintaining silence when others speak, from man to man, let this Word shine as a light in the darkness of events. (Out of the Depths, pp 22-23)

For Thielicke, theology always must address the present age.  Consequently, modernity always will have a formative influence on theology.  Theology does not capitulate to culture but always addresses culture in such a way that the gospel can be understood. (R. Davis)

We would do well to listen to Thielicke.  Theology always addresses a culture.  We are called to confront each generation with the cause of Christ.  We must speak clearly and we must be honest. Our message is too serious to pull any punches.   Every generation needs to be reminded that we are fallen sinners guilty before God and that God himself has undertaken the most incredible veture of becoming flesh and paying the price for our sins.  Our work as pastors and theologians is necessary for a world in dire need.  may we all be found faithful, not to entertain the masses, but to make clear the Gospel so that it may be understood.

Recently a friend of mine asked the question, “can we experience worship?”   I answered, “no, but we might experience God in worship.”  He said the reason he asked the question, a local church had on its sign, “Come and experience our worship!”

I thought about it for a few days and called him back.  I said, “Yes, you can experience worship, when people fall down and worship you.”

This question helped me to clarify what I find wrong with modern worship.  Worship is supposed to be our expression of the worth of God.  In worship we glorify God, praise, and celebrate him even as we fellowship with him.  However, when worship is focused on the audience instead of God, worship is given to the audience.  I use the word audience on purpose because a congregation is an assembly of the People of God intent on worship.  But when the worship is focused on the people, it is hard to call them a congregation.

Let me be clear.  This is not about musical styles. It is not about old music vs. new music. Traditional churches and formal churches can be as guilty as contemporary churches.  I am opposing any worship which is designed to be inoffensive to the audience at the expense of Scriptural truth.  One church that I am familiar with is made up primarily of senior adults. They have stated that they do not want a pastor who will preach the Gospel to them.  They want someone who will make them feel good and entertain them.  This issue is not about age or style.

Many churches will go as far as removing any signs and symbols that represent the Christian faith.  Churches remove crosses and remove the pulpits to be less offensive. Confession of sin, prayer and Scripture reading are  removed as well.  Preaching, if there is any preaching, revolves around typical self help topics that range from finance to sex.  In recent days, pastors have ridden up on the podium on a Harley.  One placed a sports car on the podium and proclaimed that your wife is like an expensive sports car.  Recently, several churches made the news by preaching on sex and encouraging all married couples to have sex every day for a week.

No doubt that a number of these issues need to be taught to Christians as part of a discipleship program.  But we cannot pretend that this is worship.  The glory and honor and worship expressed has nothing to do with God and everything to do with the audience.

Several years ago, church leaders decided that the church was no longer relevant to the world.  Of course this presupposes that the church was ever relevant to society.  I would argue in the other direction, society, culture, is not relevant to God.  It is the church’s responsibility to make people relevant to God through the very unpopular act of bearing witness to Jesus.

However, when you think the church is no longer relevant, then you will do what you think is relevant to the lost culture.  Thus, the seeker service was born.  The seeker service went one step beyond the church growth movement.  The center piece of the church growth movement involved demographic studies and the homogeneous principle.  You study the demographics of an area and you cater your church to a certain group of people based on class, status, income level and even race.  Seeker service oriented churches dropped the homogeneous principle and adopted the need to be relevant to culture. Using H. Richard Niebuhr model from his Christ and Culture, it is no longer Christ against culture, it is not even Christ transforming culture.  It is now, Christ and culture.  In fact, is all about adopting culture and dropping some key elements of church.

All too often the new view of church meant a weakening of the church’s primary message and adopting an appeal to works as a means of pleasing God and feeling good about ourselves. So good deeds became our gospel.   Today mission trips, working in soup lines, passing out food, etc. are considered acts of Gospel proclamation.  They are certainly righteous acts but it is not the Gospel.  When God calls us to give a cup of water to the thirsty, food to the hungry, clothing to the naked, it was not to be a substitute for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Social action is part of our lifestyle but it is not our primary mandate.  If you want to change a life, giving food will fill them for a few hours.  The Gospel will transform their lives.  However, it is the very least thing that Christians do.  Furthermore, it is the most feared act that any church can ask of its members.

The proclamation of the Gospel includes the fact that we are lost and that we have real guilt before God.  It also includes that idea that we have no standing before God; rather, God’s wrath is poured out on us until we are redeemed.  But the good news is that Jesus died on the cross as our substitute, as our sacrifice.  His blood was spilled in order to cover our sins and to pay the price for our sins.  Thus, we have biblical words like ransom, redemption, and propitiation.  The primary message of the church is not social action.  It is good to do good deeds.  The primary outward purpose is to tell the world what God has done about our sin.

The primary inward function of the church is worship.  But, in this new scheme, worship is almost eliminated from church.  The music is almost always “me” centered.  Of course this was true of many nineteenth and twentieth century gospel songs.  Music moved from the glory of God to the glory of what God has done for man to the glory of man.  Confession of sin is seen as negative. The reading of Scripture is not necessary and prayer is boring.  So, worship focuses on telling the congregation how good they are, making them feel good, lifting their self esteem and expressing their value before God.  This is not the worship of God but the worship and adoration of the audience.  Some will say that we have to do these things so that we can earn their trust and then we can witness to them.  Never mind that this is not the biblical model because we take our cues from society not Scripture.  The biblical model is we come in to worship and we go out to witness and proclaim Jesus as Lord.

Worship is the people of God assembling before God to bring praises and honor to him.  It should always contain confession of sin.  How could the body of Christ approach God without confession of sin?  It must contain praise and honor and glory to God for his person.  And it should also contain our recognition of what God has done for us.  These should be done through music and Scripture reading and through prayer.

The other element of worship that needs to be reformed and revived is the act of preaching.  There can be no substitute of good, expositional preaching.  I know that it seems odd for someone to stand before the church and speak for thirty minutes (if you are lucky) and expect people to come and hear.  But this is the biblical model.  And God has promised that his word would not return to him void.  God has chosen the weakness of a man through the silliness of peaching, as the means of feeding the church.

Preaching is incarnational. God is present in the preaching of his word.  The Holy Spirit goes forth in our preaching and accomplishes the intended work of God in the life of his people.  It may not be good preaching according to homiletical standards, but if it is biblical preaching the word goes forth and it accomplishes work of God.  As part of worship we are called upon to submit ourselves to the authority of the preaching of the Word of God.

I have watched the two distinct groups in church, those who attend worship regularly and submit themselves to the preaching of the Word and those who do not.  There is a tremendous difference between the two.  Those who worship regularly and listen to the preaching of Scripture have stronger marriages, they have less trouble with their kids, they tend to be less materialistic and they give more of themselves to others than those who refuse to worship.  And quite often, they do their deeds in secret and rarely do you hear them bragging about what they have done and how good it makes them feel.

I am just a simple pastor and my observations are far from scientific.  But I think my observations are true and they seem to agree with other pastors when we compare notes on the life of the church.

I also know that my message will not be positively received by a large number of people.  I will seem as old-fashioned and out of touch.  I may even be seen as somehow less “spiritual” because I do not go along with the crowd.  However, I will take my stand here on Scripture alone.  I urge other pastors to read Scripture in one hand and compare what the churches are doing in the other and weep over the difference.  But, don’t weep too long for you have work to do.  It will be a life consuming work of preaching and challenging and calling God’s people to repentance. May God bless you as you fulfill you calling of proclaiming Jesus until he comes again.

I consider the act of preaching to be one of the most important acts any pastor can perform.  Preaching is more than just a written manuscript or a performance event.  I is the act of representing God through the preaching act in which the Holy Spirit takes the feeble efforts of the preacher and communicates the Word of God to those who hear.  I ran across this message from John Piper and was so impressed by what he said about preaching that I wanted to reproduce it here.  In particular, notice his distinction between entertainment preaching and biblical preaching.  The text can be found at:

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2008/3243/

In Honor of Tethered Preaching
John Calvin and the Entertaining Pastor

By John Piper September 17, 2008

The Bible tethers us to reality. We are not free to think and speak whatever might enter our minds or what might be pleasing to any given audience—except God.

By personal calling and Scripture, I am bound to the word of God and to the preaching of what the Bible says. There are few things that burden me more or refresh me more than saying what I see in the Bible. I love to see what God says in the Bible. I love to savor it. And I love to say it.

I believe with all my heart that this is the way God has appointed for me not to waste my life. His word is true. The Bible is the only completely true book in the world. It is inspired by God. Rightly understood and followed, it will lead us to everlasting joy with him. There is no greater book or greater truth.

The implications of this for preaching are immense. John Calvin, with the other Reformers, rescued the Scriptures from their subordination to tradition in the medieval church. The Reformation, let us thank God, was the recovery of the unique and supreme authority of Scripture over church authority.

Commenting on John 17:20, Calvin wrote,

Woe to the Papists who have no other rule of faith than the tradition of the Church. As for us, let us remember that the Son of God, who alone can and ought to pronounce in this matter, approves of no other faith but that which comes from the doctrine of the Apostles, of which we find no certain testimony except in their writings.  (Commentary on John)

Calvin’s preaching inspires me to press on with this great and glorious task of heralding the word of God. I feel what he says when he writes to Cardinal Sadoleto:

O Lord, you have enlightened me with the brightness of your Spirit. You have put your Word as a lamp to my feet. The clouds which before now veiled your glory have been dispelled by it, and the blessings of your Anointed have shone clearly upon my eyes. What I have learnt from your mouth (that is to say, from your Word) I will distribute faithfully to your church. (“Letter to Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto,” quoted in J. H. Merle D’Augigne, Let Christ Be Magnified, Banner of Truth, 2007, p. 13).

For Calvin, preaching was tethered to the Bible. That is why he preached through books of the Bible so relentlessly. In honor of tethered preaching, I would like to suggest the difference I hear between preaching tethered to the word of God and preaching that ranges free and leans toward entertainment.

The difference between an entertainment-oriented preacher and a Bible-oriented preacher is the manifest connection of the preacher’s words to the Bible as what authorizes what he says.

The entertainment-oriented preacher gives the impression that he is not tethered to an authoritative book in what he says. What he says doesn’t seem to be shaped and constrained by an authority outside himself. He gives the impression that what he says has significance for reasons other than that it manifestly expresses the meaning and significance of the Bible. So he seems untethered to objective authority.

The entertainment-oriented preacher seems to be at ease talking about many things that are not drawn out of the Bible. In his message, he seems to enjoy more talking about other things than what the Bible teaches. His words seem to have a self-standing worth as interesting or fun. They are entertaining. But they don’t give the impression that this man stands as the representative of God before God’s people to deliver God’s message.

The Bible-oriented preacher, on the other hand, does see himself that way—“I am God’s representative sent to God’s people to deliver a message from God.” He knows that the only way a man can dare to assume such a position is with a trembling sense of unworthy servanthood under the authority of the Bible. He knows that the only way he can deliver God’s message to God’s people is by rooting it in and saturating it with God’s own revelation in the Bible.

The Bible-oriented preacher wants the congregation to know that his words, if they have any abiding worth, are in accord with God’s words. He wants this to be obvious to them. That is part of his humility and his authority. Therefore, he constantly tries to show the people that his ideas are coming from the Bible. He is hesitant to go too far toward points that are not demonstrable from the Bible.

His stories and illustrations are constrained and reined in by his hesitancy to lead the consciousness of his hearers away from the sense that this message is based on and expressive of what the Bible says. A sense of submission to the Bible and a sense that the Bible alone has words of true and lasting significance for our people mark the Bible-oriented preacher, but not the entertainment-oriented preacher.

People leave the preaching of the Bible-oriented preacher with a sense that the Bible is supremely authoritative and important and wonderfully good news. They feel less entertained than struck at the greatness of God and the weighty power of his word.

Lord, tether us to your mighty word. Cause me and all preachers to show the people that our word is powerless and insignificant in comparison with yours. Grant us to stand before our people as messengers sent with God’s message to God’s people in God’s name by God’s Spirit. Grant us to tremble at this responsibility. Protect us from trifling with this holy moment before your people.

Pastor John

© Desiring God

By John Piper. © Desiring God. Website: desiringGod.org

Scripture gives a fairly clear picture of what the church should be, even though many will disagree over the exact structure of the church.  Perhaps this is not as important as we think.  But what we are and how we live is of the upmost importance.  I make a few simple biblical assumptions about the Christian life and about the life of the Church.  I am a Southern Baptist but there is a baseline of doctrine that all biblically based churches share.  We are to be faithful to the commands of Christ to make disciples and to baptize.  We are to live moral, holy lives.  We build each other up in Christ and in his values.  We are to live simple lives and bear witness to the world.  This witness is a personal, one-on-one witness, we can’t do it by remote control or pay someone to do it for us.  We are to be in the world but not of the world.  And, the Church above all, is an eschatological community.  We live for the future because we are now aliens and strangers in this world.  We belong to the Kingdom of God, our citizenship is in heaven, and we await that day when God brings us home and we sit at the great banquet table with our Lord.  And in that moment he lifts the cup for the first time since his betrayal.

With this simple biblical understanding, we compare the reality of today’s church and we discover level upon level of irrational insanity.  I happen to be Baptist by conviction.  But I don’t have a problem if you are Presbyterian or Methodist or Episcopalian, which encompasses the three major forms of church polity.  However we all have drunk from the same poison and we all exhibit the same forms of insanity.  We are not comfortable with the simple presentation of the Christian life that we find in Scripture.  It seems simplistic and it makes us stand out in society and we don’t like being different.  The great modern sin of the western culture is to be different.  We do not want to be strangers and aliens.  Above all, we don’t think that suffering of any kind should be a part of our enlightened lifestyle.  So, we largely ignore our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in non western nations under oppression for their faith.  They live their lives as open Christians knowing the consequences of living as strangers and aliens.  Weekly, we hear the horrors of the slaughter of Christians in Orissa, India.  A friend of mind went on a mission trip to Vietnam and reported the incredible price someone pays for calling Jesus Lord.  But we have an emotional meltdown when someone questions our faith, or makes fun of us.  Somewhere deep in our hearts we think that God has failed us.

We want to avoid suffering and oppression at all costs.  So, we look like the world, and we invite the world to come to our churches with these words, “We are just like you, why don’t you come to our church?”  In fact, we live in the age of the non-church church.  We are well beyond leaving out the denominational identifier in our church names.  Now we are the Orchard, the Vine, the Sojourn, the Well, etc.  We have non-church names and non-church buildings.  One church prides itself because it looks like a movie theater.  Others look like black boxes with no windows and certainly no crosses or other Christian symbols.  They have stages with high tech lighting and smoke machines.  And the Pastor is a stand up comedian who, along with the professional musicians and singers, deliver first rate entertainment to the masses.  But, the church in the United States still declines.  Many are predicting that the church will soon be a quaint cultural leftover from our less enlightened days.

How did we get here?  It began with the fact that we don’t want to follow the simple plan of the Christian life as laid out in Scripture.  We decided we needed new ways of organizing our churches.  So the modern church invented the program.  I think we all agree that churches need to be organized in some way.  Moses organized the Children of Israel at the advice of his father-in-law.  The early church shows some organization.  It had divinely appointed leaders and servants and rules by with to elect them.  Being a Southern Baptist, I can tell you that the genius of Southern Baptists was the adoption of just two programs, Sunday School and Discipleship training.  In fact these two programs fulfilled the biblical mandate of teaching the church the Word of God and the doctrines of the Church.  These two trained our members to live the Christian life in a world that, at best, is challenging to our faith.  In addition, Sunday School the greatest  outreach programs ever developed.

Bible study and Discipleship training seems to comport well with the life of the biblical church.  But something went terribly wrong as we approached the 21st century.  We went program crazy.  We started creating programs with catchy names.  Programs became substitutes for Bible Study, for teaching doctrine, and for teaching holiness.  Denominational leaders promised great things if we follow these programs.  And we recycled these same programs after a few years with new exciting catchy names. It became apparent that these programs did not work.  But we keep repackaging them and selling them to the churches and they continue to fail.  You have to wonder how much of this is motivated by profit.

The programs were designed to make the Christian life easier and to take away the stigma of being aliens and strangers.  In the late twentieth century, it became obvious the world does not like Christians, they hate God and we did not the hot breath of hate.  We made the excuse that we cannot evangelize in that environment, so we must accommodate society and look more like them.  We did this well and now the difference between the average Christian and non Christian is that the Christian will attend a church on occasion.

Along with the proliferation of colorful programs with catchy names, there was a theological shift that took place.  In our old doctrine, the problem with humanity, even the problem with us in the church, is sin and alienation from God.  The church taught the biblical doctrine of the depravity of humanity.  Humanity stands before God with real guilt and is condemned with real condemnation.  The result is that we are the object of the real wrath of God.  But our modern society has rejected this model and has created a number of cultural and philosophical mechanisms that forbid us to tell the truth about our sinful state before God.  If we violate these cultural mores, we will definitely offend everybody, even Christians.

We have a real problem understanding ourselves as sinners.  Some years ago, a family left our church and went to another church.  They had a son who was approaching that age when children become self aware, particularly when they become aware they are sinners and are in deep need to be redeemed.  The mother took her son to see their pastor and he presented the Gospel to him, including that fact that we are sinners and we need to repent of our sin.  The mother responded that her son was not a sinner and had no need to repent.  My pastor friend is solid in his theology and he refused him membership under those conditions.  I knew the boy and I can honestly say he was a sinner like the rest of us, a new messiah had not been born unto us.

Programs had shifted from teaching biblical doctrines to a kind of social psychology.  Our problem is not sin, it was the lack of self esteem, a horrible family situation, and the lack of purpose for our lives.  Of course, this summary does not really begin to uncover what is being taught.  The bottom line is that we are unfulfilled people.  Our parents, our spouses, our friends, our society and especially our churches are failing to be positive, uplifting, life affirming institutions.  It was about this time that our teenagers in church started talking about how hard life is, they had gone through so much and we adults do not understand.  This usually happened when they came back from camp and whatever cool program they had for that year.  The most materialistic, most indulged generation in human history was having some problems.

So, the church adds more programs.  We now have segregated worship.  We have children’s worship, junior high worship, senior high worship, and college age worship.  Add to this separate worship for baby boomers and the legacy generation and you have a church divided by political correctness.  And we have guaranteed that the elders cannot pass on the faith the younger generation which is the biblical model.

Today, the most popular pastors are the ones that make you feel good.  In my home church, a deacon told my mother that their next pastor needed to be someone who told them how good they are and made them feel good.  No more of these guys who preach on sin and tell them they are sinners.  Joel Osteen is our new model.  Sin is just missing out on God’s blessing.  We are all ok, and God wants us to be happy.  And church programs are designed to make a better you.

Sam Rainer, Thom Rainer’s son and the president of Rainer Research, has made several interesting observations concerning today’s church.  The article is Squaring Off with the Church Dropout Rate. He was particularly interested in why young adults are leaving the church.  The main reason seems to be that 53% don’t agree with their church’s doctrine.  Of course this presupposes that their churches were teaching doctrine to start with.  And they see hypocrisy in the Church, how shocking!  He gives a top ten life changing experiences list that affect young adults and causes them to stop attending church.

1.  They simply “want a break” from church.
2. They move to college.
3. Work responsibilities change.
4. They move too far away from church.
5. They become too busy, though still want to attend.
6. They spend more time with friends outside of church.
7. School responsibilities prevent them from attending church.
8. They want to make life decisions not accepted by the church.
9. Family and/or home responsibilities prevent them from attending.
10. They lose touch with churchgoing friends.

Some of the recommendations that Rainer makes are the same stuff churches have been doing for years.  But two of them struck me as important.  The first was that the church needs to be moving from complexity to simplicity.  He has in mind church structure, including parring down on complicated programs.  The second one was moving from shallowness to depth.  We need to move from a shallow faith to a depth of understanding.   I agree with Rainer.

We could go on citing examples of books and articles telling us why the church is declining.  There are a couple of books explaining why men don’t go to church.  The evangelical world has become prolific at explaining why they think the church is in decline.  And of course, there are a number of secular writers who both explain the decline of the church and  wholeheartedly celebrate it.   However, the common thread in this little thumb nail history of the contemporary church is the refusal to return to the biblical analysis of the human condition and the biblical model of the Christian life.

I agree with Rainer that we need to simplify our structures.  We have way too many programs.  Most programs come from our denominational leaders.  We pastors and church leaders do not have to do every single thing that denominational leaders want us to do.  I believe that the reason we do is a kind of laziness.  We don’t have to think or do a lot of work when we use prepackaged, one-size-fits-all programs  I also agree with Rainer that we need to regain depth in our faith and in our teaching and preaching.  If our denominational leaders really want to do programs, let them spend more time writing about doctrine and less time making adult literature to look like a comic book.    But, it will not happen until we have a fundamental shift in our thinking about the nature of the church.  The solution cannot be accommodated in today’s worldly structures.  If you read Rainer’s article there is more to agree with than disagree.  But, none of it will work if we stay within the current framework of evangelical thinking about church.

The condition of society is not about felt needs or social alienation.  It is about sin and divine-human alienation.  The church is not modern or post modern.  It is supra modern and transcendental.  We must recapture, not reinterpret the vital doctrines of Scripture.  Man is fallen, he is a sinner, he is guilty and he has no hope without the intervention of God.  It is not that he has been deprived of something or that his self esteem has been violated, it is that he is evil in the sight of God and he has been judged and the wrath of God is poured out on him, upon us all.  That is the condition, rich or poor, democratic or socialist, east or west, humanity is doomed in its current condition and we cannot save ourselves.  It is insane to think that as we enter each new state of human development, we will some how change our human nature.

The latest utopian vision is that we will wed human biology with genetic modifications to technology such as ultra smart computers, enhanced memory chips and global programming that insure that we all think a like and live in harmony.  The benefit of this is that we will now live forever either in a replaceable body or a computer which holds our consciousness.  Our computers will become sentient beings because we will become the computer.  It is another insane vision along with fascism, communism, socialism and a host of other isms.  They all contribute to the slavery of sin.  Christians, pastors, laymen, national leaders all need to be fearless and proclaim the true nature of humanity.  We do not fulfil our calling if we continue to ignore the human condition.

The second component that we must restore is the biblical church.  We must return to the idea that the church is our community.  It is the place where we should have our most important relationships and social interaction.  While ball clubs, Scouts, social organizations, political parties, and advocacy groups are good, they are not the church.  If we allow these to take us away from our fellowship, our koinonia, we will live in a weakened state.  We become like those whom we hang out with.  If we spend our time in the world, we become like the world, then we will want to bring the world into the church.  The more we look and act like the world, the less church we become.  We do not need be less but more.  If we want to look like Christ, if we want to be conformed to his character, then we need to spend more time together in his presence.  There is no long ranger Christianity.  You cannot exist on your own as solitary Christian without an organic and intimate connection to a local church.  In fact, for the church to even exist we must come together.  After all we are the called out ones.  We are called out of the world and called to gather together as the Body of Christ.  I have noticed that many have taken the concept of the universal church and acted as if we do not need to participate in a local church.  The New Testament Church is always a local congregation.  The concept of the universal church is vague and it is spiritual and has no accountability.  The local church is the place that God gave us to find strength and life and to which we become accountable to each other.  The universal church does not teach doctrine or preach or worship, it does not exercise discipline and it does not wait together for the Second Coming of Christ.  If you are not active in a local church, you area being faithful to Christ.

The engine that makes the church run  is the promised Holy Spirit who abides with the church.  He is the uniting factor of the church.  Because of the presence of the Holy Spirit, if we spend time in fellowship in church, as the church, then we help shape each other, forming us as members of God’s society.   And it is the Holy Spirit that transcends denominational differences.  The unity of the Church is through the Holy Spirit, not in being part of one human institution.  Thus we can find fellowship with all who understand the Lordship of Christ and practice a biblical faith.
Scripture calls us the children of God, the sons and daughters of God, the people of God, the body of Christ, and other wonderful metaphors.  All of them are indicators that we are different from the rest of the world.  Early pagan writers referred to Christians as the Third Race as can be found in the writings of Tertullian.  But it was not necessarily a complement.  The lives of the early Christians revealed a life that was different from the Greeks, who were civilized, and the barbarian because their fundamental set of values was different from all the others.  We remain a third race.  If we do not live radically different lives, then we cease to be known as the third race.  But our lives are not radical just to be different.  Our lives are radical because we are conformed to Christ.  Just a sampling of Paul reminds us of how supernatural our lives are supposed to be.  Instead of the hate, sensuality, haughty behavior, self centeredness and other sins which are the norms for humans, Paul said:

Colossians 3:12-17 (NASB)
12  So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience;
13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.
14 Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
15 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
17 Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.

We are a colony of heaven.  This is not just an overused quote, it is a faithful description of the church.  Because of the great work of Christ on the Cross, we are already seated with Christ in heaven at the right hand of the Father.  This is not pie-in-the-sky talk.  It means that we are immortal and will live forever with Christ.  According to Saint Paul, our dying is the mortal putting on immorality.  We are people who will live with Christ forever.  The church has lost its excitement and anticipation of that day.  We spend our time talking about signs and fulfilment of millennial schemes and what beast does what thing.  We have forgotten the everlasting splendor that awaits us.  We focus on death and despair.  We work and collect and consume as if the world has no end and that consumption is our highest goal.  And we forget about that future time promised to us, a time we already can taste in the present, a time that is already reality in the lives of believers.  It is a time when we experience the joy and promise of perfection, perfect peace, perfect relationship with God and man, and perfect contentment.  When we dwell on this subject, we cannot find the words, our imaginations fail, but like Saint John said, we know we will be like Him because we shall see him as He is.  It is our future promise but it is also our present reality.  We just ignore the taste of heaven because we are so preoccupied with the trinkets of our present day.

The church does not need to live in the past as if there was a better day somewhere back there.  It does not need to live in the present as if our society has something better to offer.  The church needs to live in the future.  It is the future that defines us, the infallible promises of God define us and inspire us.  The glory of God shapes us.  And the invitation of Christ is like a beacon drawing us unto himself.

But what about the suffering and the shame imposed on us by the world?  How can we stand  and face the fierce hatred of the world?  Paul offers us biblical guidance:

2 Corinthians 4:7-18 (NASB)
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;
8  we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;
9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
11 For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
12 So death works in us, but life in you.
13  But having the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I BELIEVED, THEREFORE I SPOKE,” we also believe, therefore we also speak,
14 knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.
15 For all things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God.
16  Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
17 For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

Brothers, lets not forget who we are.  We are sinners saved by grace.  We were no people but now we are the People of God.  God took the vilest of sinners and named his name over us and called us his own possession.  We are the sons and daughters of God.  Eternity flows in our veins.  If this is so, then let us live as simple Christians who may very well be mocked by the world.  Let us be the true church, the Body of Christ, the People of God.  May we be found faithful to the biblical view of the Christian life.  And may we be so radical in our commitment to Christ that the world once again calls us the third race.

Worship is Trinitarian.  We fellowship with the Father, in the Son, through the Holy Spirit.  God is the only one worthy of our adoration, fellowship, prayers, and honor. The Father calls us to himself through the advocacy (an advocacy that includes the cross, the grave and  resurrection) of the Son and by the instrumentation of the Holy Spirit.

Because we are in the Son and when the Father sees us, he is seeing the Son in whom we are in union, and the Holy Spirit who maintains that relationship.  Therefore as the Father and the Son and The Holy Spirit fellowship, we participate in that fellowship as well.  In fact, since the Holy Spirit resides with the Church until the end of time, we need to see the profound nature of that work He works in us when the Body assembles to worship. It is he who maintains our fellowship.  He is the one who calls us out of sin, enables us to come to faith and then maintains that faith forever.  In the last chapter of the book of Revelation it is the Bride (the church) and the Spirit who call unto Christ to return.  So, for now, then and until the end of time, the Holy Spirit empowers the church to do all of its functions.

Considering the depth of the nature of this relation, then what kind of worship is worthy of the Creator of the universe who has condescended to man and allowed us into his holy abode for fellowship?  Do we not offer our best to him? The best of our income, the best of our time, the best of our voice and heart and mind?  Do we sing meaningless jingles or words of depth?  Do we prepare our hearts for worship or do we carouse all night, come in late, come to the  assembled Body of Christ unprepared to be in his presence?  I think the answers are obvious.

If we want to take worship seriously we must forever be aware of who God is and who we are.  That means that we live our lives in anticipation of meeting God in worship.  But since worship is also an eschatological event anticipating the return of Christ, we must live as those prepared to meet our returning Savior.  In Church we are living proleptically (that means we are living future promises in the present) thus we assemble and worship with the same solemn (meaning the with the awe that comes from being in the presence of the living God–the word awe used in its proper way)  and depth as those who are worshiping in the Book of Revelation, as if the church were already sitting at the banquet of the Lord’s Table as he lifts the cup for the first time since the night of his betrayal.

When we enter to worship, for those few minutes we are no longer those whose portfolios lost over half its value this week, we are not those whose bodies aches with the pain of age, we are not those riddled with anxiety about what we will do for a living or whose lives are troubled by the brokenness of their family.  When we enter to worship, we are the People of God, the Sons and Daughters of the Father, the Siblings of the Son, the saints of God those who reside in heaven, we are the future in the this very present moment.  When we worship, we are in the presence of the Father and we gather around his Word as the tree of life.  We gather at his table for fellowship with the one who died for us and we find our strength renewed as we drink the cup and take the bread.  And our prayers, the prayers of many as one man, are intense and deep words to our Father.  And when we sing, we are in chorus with the heavenly angels as we proclaim our collective praise to our King.  And for that moment are in a bubble of the future intruding into the present, a bubble that is a new heaven and a new earth.  For that short time we are straining to apprehend that which has apprehended us.  And when we leave that worship, we should be thirsty for more, a thirst that cannot quenched, a hunger that is cannot be satiated until we stand in his presence forever

That is how we should worship!