SOME THINGS I’VE LEARNED IN 30 YEARS OF PASTORING:

#3 – It’s not how often you get knocked down, but how long it takes you to learn to stay down.

When our first child left home to go to UBC, some time back at the end of the last century, he found a church that he really enjoyed. So, when he came home for Christmas, or perhaps summer vacation, I asked him what he loved about it. He told me that he loved the worship. In fact, he said he felt like he had never really worshipped before.

Now, he had been raised in the churches I pastored, so I was, predictably, a bit startled to hear this. But I bit my tongue and listened while he explained the difference between what they did in his new church and what we had been doing all these years in ours. And, again predictably, I didn’t get it.

Some time later, however, Suzanne and I found ourselves in Vancouver on a Sunday morning and decided to visit his church and just check this thing out. The scene was more casual than our church, but otherwise not so different. The lights were a little dimmer, and it seemed a bit less churchy I suppose. The worship team began as the people gathered, and the people began to sing and sway with the music. Some got up and moved around. The children moved and sang with the adults. And, after about ten minutes, Suzanne and I were caught up in the wonder of just knowing a God who was big enough to create this amazing universe, and small enough to dwell in you and me; strong enough to set a galaxy in space, and gentle enough to assemble an embryo in an egg or womb; immense enough to call into being the very stars of heaven, and intimate enough to speak to a little child, and call her by her name. WE GOT IT.

And, over the years as I’ve reflected on this, I have come to see how right Nathan really was. Not that we never worshipped in our churches, but it certainly isn’t what we did. For the most part we gathered on a Sunday morning to pray, sing, study the Bible, be with our friends, and, above all, listen to a sermon. As a preacher I can affirm all these things, especially sermons, but they are not worship.

Worship the LORD in the splendour of his holiness;

tremble before him, all the earth. Psalm 96:9

Worship is about bowing before God, submitting to him, and acknowledging that he alone is great and glorious and good. Not that there is no greatness, glory or goodness in other things, but that all greatness, glory and goodness comes from him. As James tells us: Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:16-17

So, what was happening, and what has changed?

The church of the 20^th century was the child of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, so it’s focus was theology and teaching. The hymns and prayers prepared our hearts and minds for the sermon, and the sermon filled our hearts and minds with sound theology and the knowledge of God. This was never right or good, but we got away with it because this was the age of Christendom.

In Christendom (that world where “Christian” was a synonym for “well mannered” and “well behaved”, and cultural assumptions were largely built on vague and garbled memories of biblical texts), we Christians were the only show in town. There were a few strangers among us, it’s true; a few Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and an atheist or two. But, as was often said, “Some of them are even better Christians than some of us”. My goodness, we were an arrogant breed!

But God has knocked his people down a peg or two since then, and we are learning, as we’ve done before, how to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land. God has thrown us into Babylon once more, where we are the strangers. He is humbling us so that we can, once again, be salt and light; salt for the food, not for the shaker; light for the world, not for the lamp.

When we are strangers in a foreign land we learn to bow again. We learn to not be in control, in charge. We learn humility, and begin to understand, once more, that God has called us for the sake of others. And how does he teach us these old truths again? He turns our hearts to worship, the wellspring of humility, compassion, grace.

Knowledge puffs up , but love builds up. The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. But the man who loves God is known by God. 1 Corinthians 8:1-3

The antidote for the arrogance that so often comes with knowing about God is the humility that comes with loving God, and being known by him. And this comes through worship.

So, Come, let us bow down in worship,... Psalm 95:6. And stay down.