Beloved,
As I have wrestled with my AM sermon text, I am freshly astounded by the glorious goodness of our God! But to be honest, yesterday I found my heart lagging. I found myself asking, “How can I be trafficking in such amazing truths about the Lord and be so apathetic?” The tendency of Reformed folk like us is for our heads to be ten steps ahead of our hearts (in some cases, the intellect is on a different planet entirely!). That, of course, is not the way God intended it. He intended our intellects and affections to walk hand-in-hand as they traffic in His astounding self-revelation.
I feel the need to stress that as we transition from our first core principle, God-centered theology, to our second core principle, God-ordered worship. Let us not be content with merely having God-exalting theology in our heads. Let us labor to get the truth of God into our hearts. For if the knowledge of God is in our intellects alone, we will have a theology that falls short of doxology. That is what I experienced yesterday, and I can assure you it was not pleasing to God.
We have seen in our adult Sunday school class that worship is the affectionate, whole-person exaltation of our infinitely worthy God. You might remember that the term worship comes from the Anglo-Saxon “worth-ship.” In other words, worship is our response to God’s revelation of His infinite worth. And it is a response that only results when that revelation reaches, not merely our intellects, but also our affections.
God-centered theology saturating the intellect and the affections will impel the will to wield the whole of the person in the exaltation of God.
Read that again.
And again.
And again.
That is why theology is our first principle, and worship is our second principle. Where there is no true knowledge of God, there will be no true worship. That is why Calvin in his treatise On the Necessity of Reforming the Church states, “There is nothing to which all men should pay more attention, noting to which God wishes us to exhibit a more intense eagerness than in endeavoring that the glory of his Name may remain undiminished…and the pure doctrine, which alone can guide us to true worship, flourish in full strength.” That is why Luther admonishes the clergy of Lubeck, “Do not begin with innovations in rites….Put first and foremost what is fundamental in our teaching…Reform of impious rites will come of itself when what is fundamental in our doctrine has been effectively presented and has taken root in our pious hearts.“
Friends, we want to be a church that worships God aright. And if we would be such, our must fundamental need is to know Him. For this pure doctrine taking root in pious hearts cannot help but lead to God-ordered worship.
As we anticipate our final introductory sermon in our series Our God Beyond All Praising, let us give ourselves to prayer that our affections would walk in step with our intellects, and that the knowledge of God would so grip us that we cannot help but exalt Him with the whole of our redeemed humanity.
See you Sunday!
Yours in Christ,
Pastor Nick
