God’s Presence is the Point

Two great obsessions often impede the worship of many saints as they gather with their local church. The first is an obsession with feeling. The second is an obsession with relevance.

The obsession with feeling is symptomatic of a poor understanding of the Holy Spirit’s work. It is wrongly believed that the Spirit works primarily by estatic experience. The Spirit is stifled by order and if things are slow, intentional, and in order then a move of the Spirit simply can’t be “felt.”

Of course, the problem with this understanding is that it’s contrary to the very way God orders worship in both the Old and the New Testament. Israel’s liturgy rehearsed God’s redemption out of Egypt. Isreal was not to sacrifice in any order, but in a particular order: the sin offering ➡️ burnt offering ➡️ peace offering. In this order, the Passover deliverance is rehearsed with intention. Isreal’s worship wasn’t about having a new emotional experience, it was about remembering and being shaped by what they had experienced! All so that they might dwell with God and as his people. For Israel the rehearsed journey was the point, because worship is about God and entrance into his presence.

We might believe things change with the sending of the Spirit in the New Testament, but the early church was devoted to the ordinary means reminiscent of the gospel of Jesus Christ (Acts 2:42). When positive commands are given about worship in the church, we read, “let all things be done decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40). Corporate prayer (1 Tim. 2:1-7) and the public reading of Scripture (1 Tim. 4:13) are the slow, ordinary way of New Testament worship. An obsession with feeling runs the risk overlooking the very acts through which God promises the Spirit to work.

An obsession with relevance is symptomatic of misunderstanding what worship is and who worship is about. It centers man in worship, by demanding an answer to, “so what?” Worship is about God and entering into the presence of God through the means he ordains: Word and Ordinance. In worship, the presence of God is the point. It needs no further justification or application. God is under no obligation to explain to us why he matters.

When relevance is an obsession corporate confession of sin, corporate prayer, and the public reading of Scripture may indeed seem boring, but this judgment is often an attempt to avoid a deeper issue. It is easier to deal with ourselves than it is to deal with God. A loud, individual, and unpredictable manner of worship may help distract us from the purifying power of God’s presence but it will be to our detriment. In corporate worship God gathers us to himself, forgives us as we confess sin, assures us by his grace, teaches us as we hear his voice through the Word, feeds us at his table, and sends us blessed in his very name. God’s presence is the point.

Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:28-29)