A couple days ago, I posted a short collection of verses from the Bible explaining the reasons for God’s working in the stages of redemptive history. Those verses and the doctrine which is taught in them are to me some of the most all encompassing truths I know. The implications for believing them are deep and wide. In order to give you a taste for this and to encourage you to do the same in your own study of the word and its applications to your daily living, let me share some implications that I see this truth having for our times of corporate gathering.
Why do we as Christians gather together regularly, in chapel and on Sundays? We do so in order to magnify God together. Indeed we do this individually in all that we do (1 Cor 10:13), but we also set aside times to come together as the people of God 1) to publicly declare to each other and to the world that God is God and he is to be praised and 2) to receive from him his gifts of life and salvation.
I see the implications of this truth for corporate worship are at least twofold.
First, that God’s passion is for His glory means that our services ought to be radically God centered. There can be no Christian corporate gathering which does not have as its purpose, the proclamation of the glory of God. This must be kept as central in all that we do because it is central in all that God does. When Christians gather together the focus is to be on God; but not in the sense that we are giving something to him which he did not already have. Instead the focus is upon God and our receiving from him those things which only he can give. If we focus upon our act of “giving” in the service the focus shifts from being on the worthiness of God to the acceptability of our offering. While we should be concerned about what it is we are doing in our times of corporate gathering, we can all to easily get caught up in trying to figure out how to best give to God. We then get into fights and arguments with each other about what constitutes our best or that which is most worthwhile to bring before a holy God. Slowly but surely the focus turns from being on God to our own individual wants and preferences. When this happens services then begin to become catered to what the majority of people want to do and not ordered towards the end of seeking to glorify God by being satisfied in him. To keep God as central in our services is to affirm that He is God. We do this because he has commanded us to and because we delight to.
Second, that God is most glorified when his people are most satisfied in him means that our services, when focused upon declaring the glory of God, will be most edifying and encouraging to the believers present. We will not need to try and figure out what people’s felt needs are in order to better meet them with our own devises. We will not need to alter our preaching by telling silly stories or providing mass counseling in order to be relevant. We can trust that when the full council of God’s word, revealing the fullness of his glory, is rightly preached, it will be embraced and enjoyed by the believers. The twin truths that we are to do all to the glory of God (1 Cor 10:13) and that all elements of our corporate meetings should be for the edification of the believers (1 Cor 14:26) are not at odds. They are one end. Our joy is the glory of God and in this God is glorified.
So we must now ask the question: what does it mean to glorify God in our corporate gatherings?
First, we begin by contrasting the word glorify with that of beautify. When we beautify something we usually mean that we make it more beautiful than it was before. This is emphatically NOT what we mean when we say that we are to glorify God. God cannot be made more glorious; for there is nothing which we can give to God which he has not already given to us. Glorifying God does not mean that we add more glory to God.
Second, we might more positively define the word glorify by comparing it with another word, magnify. But in order to do so we must distinguish between the two meanings of magnify. There are two ways one can magnify an object. The first is like a microscope. When you magnify something using a microscope, you take something which is incredibly small and make it look bigger than it really is. If we take this as our definition of what it means to magnify/glorify God, then we make him out to be something less what who he is; this is evil. On the other hand, we can understand the word magnify like a telescope. When you magnify something using a telescope, you take something which might look tiny and begin to reveal its greatness. We look at the stars and they look very small, but through a telescope we begin to see them as they are; huge, fire burning balls of gas in the gigantic universe. To understand the term glorify in this sense is the essence of true worship. We are to declare God’s glory in such a way that others see him for who he truly is. [Taken from John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Crossway, 2003), pg. 32.]
In our times of corporate gathering this takes a number of forms. We glorify God when we read His word to each other and preach it in such a way as to cause those in attendance to be more knowledgeable of God and to grow in their love for Him. We glorify God in our services when we sing of his mighty acts and our delight in Him. We glorify God by using our instruments to aid our fellow believers in singing in unison the praises of our King. We glorify God when we pray to him; thus affirming our deep need and his glorious providence and sufficiency. We glorify God when we acknowledge his work among us in continuing to regenerate sinners. This we in turn recognize by affirming them as part of the covenant community through the practice of baptism. We glorify God by recalling his wonderful work in salvation through the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. It is in all these ways that we glorify God in our times of corporate gathering as Christians.
Especially when we are in positions of leadership, we must seek to glorify God like John the Baptist (see John 1:19-34). John was clear in his denial that he was not the messiah and clear in his affirmation that Jesus was the messiah. So too, we in leadership need to point others to our all-sufficient Savior. Perhaps the best way in which this is accomplished is when the leadership sees themselves as underneath the authority of Scripture. It is easy for those in leadership to think that they are the ones who determine the form and content of the services because they are the ones planning and guiding them; but if this is our understanding we will not glorify God like John the Baptist. The believers in attendance are not to be subject to the inventions of the men in leadership rather all those involved both in leadership and in participation need to be subservient to the authority of God’s Word. It is especially important that those in leadership seek to lead the congregation in ways which are in accordance with what God has revealed in his word about how he is to be worshipped. In this way it is the Scriptures which then give rise to the form and content of the services and the consciences of the gathered community are kept free from submitting to man’s ideas about how God is to be worshipped.
These are just some of the things that come to my mind as I think about the implications of God’s passion for his glory as it relates to Christian corporate worship. There is much more that could be said on this topic, but let this serve as an encouragement to you to think through the deep implications that this truth has for how you live your life.
