OVERCOMING PROBLEMS IN WORSHIP—By Frank Pack

OVERCOMING PROBLEMS IN WORSHIP---By Frank Pack OVERCOMING PROBLEMS IN WORSHIP
Frank Pack

“When Thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, 0 Lord, will I seek” (Psalms 27:8). In that remarkable verse I believe we have the very essence of true worship expressed. It is the call of God to the heart of man, and the response of a believing heart seeking God who is drawing near. Worship is the greatest privilege that God has ever granted to mankind. It is a privilege that we share with angels. It is a privilege that is not limited to this world but will also be the joy and the glory of that which is to come. Worship is the call of God to your heart and mine as his children as we draw near to him and as he draws near to us. It is the fellowship of our spirit with him as a loving heavenly Father. It is the recognition on our part that he himself in all of his gracious goodness, mercy, and love has come and said that we may be his children and walk with him; that he in his graciousness has promised to the man of faith that he shall be rewarded if that man diligently seeks after him (Hebrews 11:6). Worship lets me know who I am. It shows me all of my unworthiness, my dependence, my weakness, my poverty of spirit in the eyes of an almighty, holy, and powerful God. Worship helps me to know that in spite of that, God is interested in me to the extent that he draws near and has provided the means by which I can, though I am weak, have fellowship with him, the infinite and the eternal Almighty.

Worship impresses upon me the fact that I need his help, his strength, his guidance, his forgiveness every day. Worship gives to me the opportunity in some small way to show forth the praise, the adoration, the thanksgiving, the love and devotion of my own faltering heart to a God that has been infinitely good and merciful to me. It is expressed beautifully in that (longing and yearning expression in Psalms 42:1. ‘‘As the heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God.” It is so difficult in such a few words to express all the riches of worship, the privileges and opportunities extended to us when we come to worship God. But that is really the chief concern of the Lord’s church, that it worship and adore, praise and give thanks and honor unto the Father, that it be concerned with God and his will; that it desire that the will of God may be wrought out on this earth even as it is in heaven. My friends, since worship is concerned with God, and tonight we are concerned to talk about some problems to be overcome in worship, I want at first to suggest to you what to my mind is the most important problem that I face and I believe probably that you face in worshiping God. That is the problem of making God real to you in worship. When we come to worship him we are concerned with God. We are concerned, as I said, to adore him because he is adorable and because he is so infinitely worthy of our praise and our adoration. We are concerned to thank him because he has blessed us so wonderfully and so remarkably and we see the evidences of his grace and goodness all about us temporally. We are concerned to ask that his will might be wrought in our lives and we confess our faults and our failings; we ask him to guide, bless, and strengthen us in the doing of his will. We are concerned to do that which he has asked us to do for worship is not only within, it is also expressed in acts—it is the doing of that which he has commanded in honor and praise unto him. And yet so very often when we come together to worship, we as a materialistic people are interested in the things that the Gentiles seek, what we shall eat, what we shall wear, how we shall be sheltered, so much that instead of seeking his kingdom and his righteousness first, we are thinking of material things. Have you ever thought how many people come to church with the wrong attitude?

Worship demands proper approach, it demands proper attitude. We are coming into the presence of God. The literal meaning of the word “worship'’ is “to kiss the ground toward” or “to kiss the hand toward.” When I worship God, I “kiss the ground toward” him and it is with a profound sense of reverence that I approach my heavenly Father. But many people come to the assembly with the attitude of going to a theater or a circus. They come in and they sit down with their minds filled with material things and interests. They talk to one another. They visit with one another during the services. They are interested to see who is here, what they are wearing, and how long it has been since they have seen so-and-so and how bad this person looks or that one. They play with the children, they litter up the floor with paper and chewing gum and various other things. They are inattentive. They interest themselves in almost everything else and allow everything to distract them from the very thing for which they are there; namely, to worship and to adore the Almighty God. What is the trouble? They have no sense of being in the presence of the Lord. Yes, that is my fault, that is yours time and again. We are light; we are flippant; we are irreverent. We have no sense that he is in our midst, and yet he promised in Matthew 18:20 that where two or three of us are gathered together in his name he is in our midst, and he knows our hearts. He walks in our midst, as the Christ in the midst of the golden candlesticks. He knows when we are showing forth his light brightly and when we are dead even while we live. He knows that in the midst of a dead congregation there are some that have not defiled their garments and they shall walk with him in white. Yes, he searches the hearts and knows the thoughts; he knows our downsitting and our uprising. He understands our way afar off.

I wonder if you have ever looked at that marvelous book, the book of Revelation, and reflected on the scenes of worship that are repeatedly before the eyes of the saints for our admonition. Some of the most beautiful passages in all of God's word are found in that remarkable book. It is a book that many of us shy away from because there are some things about it that we don’t understand as fully as we ought. We ourselves are the losers, for there is a blessing to a man that reads and to those that hear the words of that remarkable book. I want to read to you one of the scenes revealed through John of true worship.

“After these I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God who sit- teth on the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels were standing round about the throne, and about the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell before the throne on their faces and worshipped God, saying, ‘Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. Amen.’ ” You can almost hear that chorus as they offer their worship to the Almighty. My friends, we ought to raise with ourselves the question individually and personally as we come before God, do you the saints of God show forth the glory of God in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all generations forever and ever? He is to have glory in the church, Ephesians 3:21 declares. Is this worship that which glorifies God in his church? Is the assembly of saints concerned that they may adore and love and express to their heavenly Father the love that he has shown to them? Well, someone says, “How is it that we are going to overcome this?” I think that it is an individual matter as well as a collective matter. It is a matter for me to search my own heart and raise my own questions as I come to the meeting house. I am going to meet with whom? What am I expecting in this time? Am I going to hear the man talk? Am I going simply to be entertained by somebody who will brilliantly discourse while I can sit back and measure his oratorical abilities and his logical reasoning against somebody else, as if we had here before us two boxers who were trying out for a victory, or am I going to meet with God and am I concerned to offer unto him that worship that he is so justly due? We need to preach on it. We need to emphasize it in our teaching. We need to hold up the great truths of God’s word before the hearts and lives of individuals to let them realize how that God is to be approached and the reverence that we should have for his great and holy name. That is possibly the biggest problem that we have.

Maybe you have had the experience sometime of laying aside every other thought and concentrating upon worship so that in the songs, in the prayer, in the reading of God’s word, in meeting around the Lord’s table, and the giving of your means—in every act of that worship—you were concentrated and centered on the Christ and on God the Father. As you have gone away, haven’t you experienced the tremendous uplift that comes from that kind of meeting with God? The more that men come to know God and to worship God as he is, the less that we will have to impress upon men that it is their duty to meet him and worship. The more they will say with the Psalmist, “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go unto the house of God to worship.”

Let’s turn in this lesson to another area of problems, because we are interested in overcoming problems in worship—to the problems of leading public worship. Public worship demands public leadership and I can’t overemphasize the importance of leading people in public worship. I am talking primarily to men now—not just to gospel preachers but to all the men of the church who have the high and holy privilege of leading congregations in various acts of public worship. It is such a great privilege to lead others in worship that we ought to prepare our hearts to go into the presence of God and to lead others as we approach him. After all, the attitude that we have as leaders in public services of worship will be communicated to the members of the congregation, for they watch. I remember sitting recently in a religious assembly which was made up of some high dignitaries of denominational bodies. I noticed the men who sat on the platform constantly during the song service as they talked and conversed with one another as if they were on exhibit and had little respect for what was going on. Their attitude expressed in action was. All the rest of this is kind of a preliminary until we come on the scene. Naturally, if you see people who are to lead behave in that manner, such a wrong attitude will be likewise in the minds of the people. I use this as an illustration to impress upon us the wrong attitude in worship and its danger. How important it is then for us to lead in various tasks of the services of the Lord in a way that is acceptable in God’s sight. In singing, what a tremendous argument against the use of instrumental music is good, spiritual, soulstirring congregational singing unaccompanied. What a tremendous responsibility rests upon the man who leads the congregation in singing, that he not only know music—the mechanics of it—but that he realize the importance of what he is doing when he leads the congregation in song. He must consider the meaning of language, the appropriateness of the selection, and have the ability to get people to want to sing and to praise God from the very depth of their hearts, not in a light, flippant attitude, not as an entertainment program that is a kind of sideshow to the important thing, but that which is essentially a part of the true worship of God. What is the responsibility of a congregation in singing? It is to cooperate; it is to work with the leader; it is to be responsive in singing and praising the Lord out of a pure heart and glorifying his name. I believe that every congregation ought to set aside time when there can be training and special study of songs not to learn new ones technically, but to study the words that we sing. So many times, if we would look at the words we say, we couldn’t sing some of those songs. We would have to cast those out because of the improper wording that is there. In the reading of the scripture what a tremendous opportunity is offered us. My friends, New Testament Christianity is the religion of the book; it is based on the Bible. It determines to speak where the scriptures speak and to be silent where the scriptures are silent. The only authority that a man has who preaches is the authority of the word of God, and if he deviates from that word he has no authority—he misleads. All of the authority that is there is the truth of the Lord. How solemn, how holy is the privilege of reading God’s word and having men to meditate upon it. Have you noticed the way that congregations at times behave during scripture reading? Do we realize that God is speaking to us in his word? As readers of the word of God do we carefully prepare as we ought to read God’s truths, not only letting the people know that we are reading but also speaking it distinctly and clearly, getting the meaning—and that means that we are concerned to know what that meaning is ourselves—that we may read it forth. I have heard preachers quote the Bible so fast you couldn’t hear what they were saying. But, my friends, after all, what God has to say is more important than anything that any man has to say. The Bible deserves a reverent and careful hearing. I may know a passage of scripture well, but I ought to give time to the man who doesn’t know it to feel the force of it as he hears and has it explained in his own hearing. What an important thing it is to read the word of God. Have you ever heard a good reader read the Bible? Brother Holten is here on the front seat. I had the privilege of working in a congregation where his son was a member. He was a wonderful reader and Lord’s day by Lord’s day he read the Bible publicly. What a meaningful thing it was, just to hear the Bible read by a good reader. What should our attitude be in hearing? It is to recognize that this is God’s will, that God has a message in his word for me and my own need as I live here at this time, to reverently consider it, and to reverently study it with the man who presents the lesson. It is the will of the Lord and that is the important thing. It is not the man who presents it but the will of the Lord that is being presented that is the important thing. In prayer how important that we lead as we ought. When you are called upon to lead prayer, do you consider what it involves? Do you realize that as a leader of prayer you are leading the prayers of others? You are helping them to pray in expressing audibly the petitions of a congregation—in expressing not only the praise and adoration, but the needs, the longings and yearnings of human hearts. Have you ever thought before you were called upon to lead prayer for a large congregation or for a small congregation what needs are involved? What weaknesses and sins represented? What longings and learnings are there in those who are in that audience and how to bring those up before the throne of God’s grace that the “incense” might have much more “incense” added to it by the great intercessor, Jesus, who is our high priest? Boldness to come to the throne of grace as priest—what a blessed privilege! In prayer we praise and we give thanks. We intercede for others and bear the names and the petitions of others before the throne of grace.

I recall having heard a story—I don’t know just where—of a young preacher who went out into the rural area to preach in the beginning of his preaching days, and as people are in country churches, he was taken to the hearts of those people and treated wonderfully. There was an older brother in that congregation who became very much interested in that young man. But the circumstances of life were such that after that first year the young man did not come there again to preach and some twenty years passed before the brother saw the preacher again. The preacher had forgotten him for he had seen and met so many. After the services the older brother introduced himself again to the preacher. He said, “I have been interested in you and watching you through the years. I have prayed for you ever since you came down to our place that God might bless you and make you strong and faithful in his service.’' That man who preached the gospel had received the blessings that come through the intercessions of someone that he didn’t know about through twenty years. How many prayers have been addressed to God on your behalf and mine? How many times have our names, our interests been borne to the throne of grace by those we do not know and possibly shall not know until over there? Nevertheless, we have been blessed, benefited, and strengthened by these prayers. In prayer we ask God’s blessing; in prayer we confess our wrongs. When we are leading the hearts of men in prayer it ought not to be difficult for us to call upon our Father and to express the petitions and desires of human spirits to God. We ought to avoid the needless repetition of the various titles and names of God over and over again. Instead, let that prayer be direct, simple, and earnest as we lead the hearts of men. How important it is to prepare to lead prayer. In serving the Lord’s table what a solemn and beautiful part of worship we lead. It is a high moment in worship when we come around the table to remember the Lord’s death in the Lord’s Supper. It is a showing forth of his death till he come. It is a looking backward as well as forward with hope toward the time when he shall come and receive us unto himself.

Thus, to serve a congregation and lead the hearts and minds of individuals so that the Lord Jesus Christ in all of his beauty and love may stand forth the more clearly is a great privilege. Decency and order should prevail. Yet we don’t want to let an order become a form—a ceremonial to the extent that we go through a kind of ritual while we deny the power and the spirit thereof and find ourselves observing but inwardly far from the Lord. How can we improve these things in our services of worship? I believe by teaching, by offering opportunities for training in congregations, by having classes where young men and older ones can have the experience as well as the training in leading others in public worship, by having sermons that will impress upon the hearts of men and women the importance of these things and the need for their cooperation in worshipping God. The last major group of problems that I want to suggest to you tonight is the group connected with getting people to worship. We are creatures of habit and many people go to church to worship out of habit. When the habit is broken they form the habit of not going and it is very difficult then to get them again actively in service. I know this is true because time and again we have the experience of working with people trying to get them to be faithful in a new place. When they moved to a new community they didn’t take any Initiative to go to the place of meeting to get acquainted, to become a part of the worshipping assembly at that place, and consequently just a few more days of carelessness and indifference and the habit of being at worship was broken, and a new habit formed of not being at worship. After all it was mainly a matter of habit. If a man realizes that in worship he is approaching the Lord and that there is fellowship, communion, and companionship between his own spirit and God, then he should not have to be reminded of the need for worship wherever he is and of the importance of it in his own life. He would long and yearn for it. He would seek the face of God. But many people are not that strong. They have never learned the blessedness of real, true devotion to the Lord. Consequently, they are haphazard, indifferent, and careless in their attendance. I don’t know how it would work out in every congregation, but I suspect that almost any congregation would be surprised to find out how many people who claim membership in the Lord’s church in that community are irregular and careless in their attendance at worship, who come possibly one Lord’s day out of the month or one out of every two months. We wrestle with these problems because men and women have not learned the importance of true worship unto God. How important it is that we be faithful in attending.

How are you going to work with people like this? someone says. The answer is teaching—public teach-ing—teaching in the classes—personal contact and visitation—impressing upon people the importance of God’s will and the need that they have for God—the opportunities and privileges that are theirs to enjoy in Christ. Yes, Christianity is a way of teaching.

Then we have the problem, particularly in com-munities as large as Abilene, of drifting members of the church. Somebody has called them “cafeteria Christians.” I don’t know whether that’s a good name for them or not. They are here this Sunday and there another Sunday. A common question is, “Who is going to preach over here? Well, we shall go hear him today.” Like going down the cafeteria line and making selections these folks have no responsibility; they are not anywhere actively working. Nobody knows anything about them. They are just drifting from place to place. Two women have expressed it in this manner about a certain denominational church to which they went, “I like to go to that church. You can go there and they don’t ask you to do anything.” Well, my friends, maybe that is what some people are looking for—a religion that is a do-nothing religion, and such a religion is usually a be-nothing religion, as well. Teaching, teaching and warning; visiting and constant work on the part of faithful ones—that is our responsibility. Somebody says, “Well, why waste time on these?” Then the phrase comes back to me that I cannot forget from Paul’s writing. He is “the brother for whom Christ died” (1 Corinthians 8:11). When I see this man, that woman as the brother, the sister, for whom Christ died, I cannot be indifferent, careless, and unconcerned about his or her spiritual welfare. It is my responsibility if I am one of the “spiritual,” if I am endeavoring to serve the Lord, to restore those that are overtaken in a fault.

Early Christians worshipped God out of a sense of joy. Joy is one of the great notes of the New Testament. Men were joyous in the Lord. They sang praises to God; they glorified and honored him. They wanted to show forth the excellencies of him who called them out of darkness into his marvelous light. It was so marvelous to be a child of God, to be free from bondage to the rudiments of the world that they constantly expressed it in terms of rejoicing. “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice” (Php_4:4). Early Christians had a profound interest in the word of God. They preached it; they taught it; they instructed themselves and others in it. They were continuing steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine day by day—preaching the word, endeavoring to live it as they heard it proclaimed. They were a powerful people — persistent in prayer, powerful in prayer — in public prayer, in private prayer, personal prayer. They were praying—praying unto God, thanking God, praising him, asking him for blessings, guidance, and strength to meet the trials and the persecutions that beset them day by day. They were Christians who re-joiced to show forth the death of the Lord, to dwell upon the wondrous things accomplished for them on the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the grave. They rejoiced in the fact that he had the keys of death and of Hades, that they were members of a body bought with blood, washed clean and pure so that they could show forth that death until he comes—looking for his coming, living day by day in the joyous hope that they should one day live in his presence and see him forever. They gave themselves and their means. They laid their bodies a living sacrifice on the altar of service to the Lord. My friends, New Testament worship was worship that was God-centered; it was worship that was Christ-centered. It was not individualistic. It was not a kind of worship that got off out somewhere in the quiet aisles of the forest and said, “I can worship God out there better than I can with others.” It was a congregational worship. The church was an assembly of the saints gathered together worshipping the Lord as a body of reedemed people and praising him in preparation, yes, and in hope, for that life which is to come. There is the ideal before us—restoring New Testament Christianity in worship, not only in the acts that we perform but in the spirit, in the joy that is the very heart of true worship.