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How to Worship, Part 3 -Instructed Eucharist - Part A: The Word of God

May 7, 2006

by The Rev. Clancy Nixon

Church of the Holy Spirit

Ashburn, Virginia

www.holyspiritanglican.org

1. INTRODUCTION

Good morning! This morning we are going to do our worship differently we

will be learning about worship at the same time as we are experiencing worship.

Why do you come to Sunday worship? [raise hand] We come for many reasons,

good ones to learn about God, to see friends, to get encouragement - but the best reason

to come is to minister to God, not for our own benefit. We have an attitude of worship

when we do what we do for an audience of one not for ourselves, nor for any man.

How do you prepare to worship God on Sunday morning? Do you have a

scheduled weekly argument with your husband or wife? [raise hand] I used to. The devil

wants to steal your joy and family unity as you prepare for church. The best way I have

found to deal with that is by getting to church early. So come on time. Come prayed up.

Come with expectant faith to experience God. Come clean in body, mind and spirit.

Come prepared to enter the presence of a Holy God.

My role in the liturgy, which means the work of the people, is called the

Celebrant. Have you ever been to a party where there was nothing to celebrate? It's

pretty flat, isn't it? We have something to celebrate every Sunday we celebrate that

Jesus is alive today, that he has won the Victory over Evil and Death. Amen?

Celebration involves our senses. When Jesus healed the blind, the deaf, the mute, and the

lepers, he affirmed that He is a God who cares deeply that we can see Him, hear Him,

speak of Him and feel Him! We worship with all our senses, with our body, mind and

spirit. I may be called the Celebrant, but Jesus is the host at this feast, not me. When you

worship, please try not focus on me, nor on the music team, nor on the people around

you; instead, focus on God. My job is to point you to God, and get out of His way. Your

job is to worship God, to encounter Him: to look to God, listen for Him, feel him, taste

Him, even to smell His sweet aroma. When you come into the presence of the King, you

will be changed! One of our slogans here at Holy Spirit is "It's all about God." Say it

with me: "It's all about God."

Our worship in song at the start of a service typically follows this pattern. The

first song is a call to worship, it's often a hymn about God `s attributes, and it's meant to

bring us into the Outer Courts of the Temple of God. The second song is intended to

bring us closer in, to the Inner Courts, as we become more intimate with God, and he

becomes yet more real to us. The third song is typically intended to be an encounter with

God in the Holy of Holies. We are privileged to enter that holy place because Christ tore

the veil away for those who trust in his finished work on the Cross. This third song is

usually not a song about God, but rather a song sung to God directly. I encourage you to

arrive early enough on Sunday so you have enough time to enter in fully to God's

presence at the top of our worship. Let's begin in song now.

2. Kids homily. The Children's Blessing is not in the Prayer Book, but we do it

because we want our children to know that God loves them enough to have a special time

in the service just for them. Kids, do you like our parade when we came in behind the

cross? The cross is our standard, like a flag for Christians. We lift it high like that to put

us under it, to remind us that the cross is over us, that we stand in its shadow. The cross

is our main symbol as Christians, because it is central to our life. The Cross reminds us

that Christ has already beat Death; he has already beat Sin, he has already beat the Devil.

We bring the cross in to claim this gym for Christ once more, and we place it front and

center as a reminder of the centrality of the Cross. I'd like to teach you a way to honor the

cross. Would you like to learn a way to honor the cross? When it passes by, you can bow

your head slightly as it goes by. [I bow.] That is a reminder for us of what the cross

means. We acknowledge how precious the cross is, how precious is the work that Christ

did on the Cross, when we bow our heads to it. After I pray for you, will you do that with

me? You adults can join us in that. (Crucifer comes forward) Please join me in praying

for the children.

3. On the Acclamation and Collects.

Before the kids' homily, we said the Opening Acclamation for Easter Season. The

church calendar is a reminder for us that Time is sacred, that time itself belongs to the

Lord. The Church marks off the seasons of the year to focus on particular themes of

God's truth. For the Christian, time is not marked off solely by the government and its

holidays, nor by the demands of the workplace; we have our own calendar, because God

is the Lord over every place and time, and He puts His stamp on the seasons. This rhythm

is also followed in the 3-year lectionary cycle of Bible readings that most churches read

aloud on Sundays. That ensures that you get a relatively balanced diet of Scripture, rather

than being served only from the preacher's hobby horses.

Then we prayed the "Collect of the Day" for that matches the theme for this

Sunday in Easter season. The Collects are the beautiful collected prayers of the church

throughout history. Ginger's grandmother, Mother B., memorized several collects, and

taught them to her grandchildren. You can, too! The collects were collected into the

Book of Common Prayer, which looks like this. We pray common prayers, and not just

extemporaneous ones, or ones you or I compose, for several reasons. First, the Collects

teach us how to pray they are both eloquent and concise. Let's pray together one of the

collects Ginger memorized as a child: the Collect for Grace. "Lord God, almighty and

everlasting Father, you have brought us in safety to this new day: Preserve us with your

mighty power, that we may not fall into sin, nor be overcome by adversity; and in all we

do, direct us to the fulfilling of your purpose; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

The Collects are an example for us of why we worship liturgically at all. In a real

sense, our form of worship, the liturgy is not something we choose; rather, it is a sacred

trust handed down to us it is something we receive. It's not market driven, or results

oriented for reaching the most people in today's world remember, worship is for God

more than it is for us. Our liturgy is what it is because we are "back to the Bible" people,

New Testament Church people, we are reconstructionists who want to worship as they

did in Acts 2. You remember, Acts 2:42, "They were devoted to the Apostles' teaching,

to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers." They early church had

the Lord's Supper every Sunday, right after the ministry of the Word. Our order of

worship today is the same as the earliest forms of worship we have from the first and

second century. The earliest written order of worship or liturgy we now have was

discovered in my lifetime, and it's called the Liturgy of Hippolytus. Our newer Prayer

Book changed our liturgy to conform to the more ancient one. We think older is better,

because it is closer to the worship of the Apostles. Not only that, the Liturgy is a sign of

our unity with the universal church across time and geography who pray the same way

indeed, the great majority of Christians worldwide worship this same way every Sunday,

and have for 2,000 years. Go to any Roman Catholic or Lutheran Church and you will

see that this is true.

This does not mean that our liturgy must be a straightjacket, or that the Spirit is

somehow quenched by the liturgy. As Jesus said in John 4:23, our goal is to be "true

worshippers, [who] worship the Father in spirit and in truth." Almost every church

develops some expected pattern of worship that eventually becomes relatively fixed, what

we call a liturgy. The typical Community Church in America has a format of four songs,

pastoral prayer, offertory, and message, and this is no less a liturgy than what we do. I

am committed to honor the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our worship. Every week I pray

that God would have His way in our worship. If God wants to change it up, He is free to

do that here. We often have times when I encourage recognized prophets to speak out a

word of encouragement. We open the mike from time to time, encourage testimonies,

and invite people to speak out their prayers so we can all hear. If we have ears to hear,

the Holy Spirit speaks through the liturgy, through the preacher and also through you. Do

you want to see the fire of the Holy Spirit in our church? I do! God can use you to speak

to all of us. If you receive something that you believe is from God for the body, but I

have not made room for it, just come to me, and whisper in my ear, and I'll tell you

whether to share it or not. I want to get out of God's way, but it's also my job to protect

you. If you are going to have a fire inside, it's better to have one in a fireplace than in the

middle of the floor! That is why fireplaces were invented, to provide a safe place for the

fire to burn brightly and not harm anyone. The liturgy is one kind of fireplace. The

Liturgy gives us a structure for our worship that makes deep symbolic sense, and still it

makes room for extemporaneous prayers, for testimonies, for prophetic words.

Unfortunately, all too often the liturgy is used in many churches as an excuse for

confining the Holy Spirit.

4. The Scriptures. The next section of the liturgy is the reading of the Scriptures.

We typically have one reading from either the Old Testament or a New Testament

Epistle, one portion of the Psalms that we recite, and a reading from a Gospel. Why do

we spend so much time reading the Bible aloud? Two reasons: First, the Scriptures are

sacred we call them the Holy Scriptures. They are living and active, and they change

us, all by themselves. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. The

Bible is inspired by God, given for our guidance and learning. Please read Second

Timothy 2:16 with me. "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching,

rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect,

thoroughly furnished unto all good works." Notice the four ways Scripture changes us

according to 2 Tim. 2:16 it changes our thinking in two ways, and it changes our

behavior in two ways. Teaching is learning right doctrine; correcting is unlearning wrong

doctrine! Training is learning right behavior; rebuking is how we unlearn wrong

behavior! Four means to a single end. What is the end? So That our lives may be

changed! The purpose of the Bible for us is to change our thinking, and to change our

conduct, so we think and act more like Christ. After the readings, the congregation

affirms that they are indeed "The Word of the Lord." God's love letters to us.

We have a high view of the Scriptures here at Holy Spirit. Look at the values

listed on the back of your bulletin. Let's read the fourth bullet together: "-The Bible is

our infallible authority in faith and life." Why do we say that? Because we are Jesus

people, and this is a point of submission to Him. Since Jesus is our Lord, we adopt His

view of the Scriptures, which is very high. Jesus himself said that not one vowel or

punctuation of the Scriptures would pass away until the end of all things. Whenever Jesus

got into theological arguments with his opponents, He always appealed to the authority of

the Scriptures. Jesus reproved the Pharisees for adding to the Scriptures with their

traditions, and he reproved the Sadducees for subtracting from the Scriptures - the belief

in the resurrection and in the Prophetic books. We do not judge the Word of God; the

Word of God judges us. We sit under the authority of the plain meaning of the word of

God. This is the majority Anglican view affirmed at the last Lambeth Conference in

1998. That is comforting, but we believe the Bible no matter what any group of Bishops

may say about it at any time. If you'd like to read about the authority of Scripture, I

recommend John Stott's book Evangelical Essentials. Stott says that as Evangelicals

under the Lordship of Christ, we have resolved in advance to believe and obey whatever

Scripture may be shown to teach. Friends, this is huge; this is life changing. Our fallen

condition makes cherry-picking the Bible an ever-present temptation, not just for

revisionists, but also for us evangelicals. If you have not yet made this resolution, do it

today. You and I do not have the authority to create our own standards of belief or

behavior, God has given those to us. Amen?

A man in church once came to me for prayer one time with a moral struggle he

was a married man who was carrying on an emotional affair with a woman on an internet

chat room. While he wanted help with this problem, he was not willing to give up this

relationship, because it was a comfort to him. I showed him his sin from the Scripture,

but he was not submitted to the Scriptures in advance. How could I pray for him to

manage his sin better? This kind of an attitude causes me to question whether this man

was really born again, since a truly renewed mind will submit to whatever can be shown

from the Scriptures to teach. This is a huge step for many people, a test of the Lordship of

Christ.

Now let's pray for submission in advance to believe and obey whatever Scripture

may be shown to teach....