Today is the day of gathered worship. All week long you have been doing your thing as I have been doing mine. Some of that was leisure, some was work. Much of it was tedious while a little of it brought us some invigoration. We barely saw each other this week and, if we had a birds-eye view of all of our coming and going I would think we resembled ants in the sand, darting about with tiny hurryings and scurryings.
But today we have something important before us. Today’s activities call us to set aside all of our normal back and forth as we quiet our minds and still our bodies, gathering together in a building to do together the most important thing we could ever share as humans. Today is our day to unite as one and express our hearts’ worship of Jesus Christ. Today it is not about us at all. Sundays remind us that it is always about Him. This is one of the reasons we stop life as we know it and leave our individual obligations and pursuits behind as we enter the doors of a place of purpose for a couple of hours together. We not only bow our heads but we bow our hearts. Beyond lifting up prayers, we will lift up our souls to the gloriously enthroned King above every king. His Spirit has taught us to never view His infinite worth through lenses of our own making; we do not reduce Him to match our current experience in life. If we have pain today then we see Him as being great in spite of our pain, for He is certainly is. Perhaps fear of the future has owned us for a bit – then we will worship Him as sovereign over past, present and future. Trifling things like rent and bills might have owned too large a chunk of our minds the last few days…but not today as we come together and receive a refreshed perspective that our God cannot let us go begging bread as He has promised never to forsake the righteous. Sundays posses the uncanny ability to help us remember in certainty what we have forgotten about God in our difficulty. Worship is all about Him but never let us deny the world of good it serves us to participate. It is the redeemed of the Lord who are to proclaim these things.
Please don’t just “go to church” today. Theologically speaking, that kind of statement does not even make sense. Let the church meet to worship. Go to worship today! Go to the place where the family of God has gathered. Be amongst them with your own prayers, your own song, your own expectation, your own confessions, your own mind, your own laughter, your own tears of repentance. Go with purpose this morning and situate yourself physically in a place that matches your inner posture of submission and spiritual hunger. We are true when we declare that worshiping God is not primarily about a place – indeed, for this is not new brilliance to recognize that God is greater than a place or building. Yet one might do well to examine the heart which declares such things to ensure that there is not some sinful contempt, some silent pity, some protruding pride which narrowly looks down upon something so precious as meeting together on Sunday with others who share in timeless salvation. Your wise insights on this matter might be little more than foolish, selfish pride which serves to insulate you from sharing yourself with others. Be warned against our subtle arrogance which takes a valid insight and turns it into a stool of scorn. Surely it is wise and good to meet with others to worship the God who has reclaimed us both…right?
As for me and my house, we will gather if the Lord allows it. I can think of nothing more valuable than this for my Sunday. I hope to see you there…or I hope you see others and they see you wherever you worship this Sunday.
This is the day that the Lord has made, let us be glad and rejoice in it! — See you in just a little while