WORSHIP

One of the questions my congregation asked me before I left on sabbatical was, in essence, "What are you most looking forward to?" My answer was worship. As I explained to my congregation, it's difficult for a pastor to experience worship outside of his job. Of course, we are able to worship on Sundays, but we also have other responsibilities on our minds, like preparation and actually leading the service. So, we can worship, but it's different. Even when we go away for a vacation, it's difficult to get out of pastoral mode. As we sit in another congregation unnoticed, questions will go through our minds: "I would've preached that differently," "We should try that worship song in our services," or "I like this order of service better than our order of service."

I was really looking forward to worshiping in church for an extended period of time as just a regular guy and not a pastor. It did take a number of weeks to fully get out of "pastoral mode," but what I experienced was no less than amazing.

What I experienced was freedom from that which often held me back from truly expressing worship to God. All the questions that my mind goes through regarding preparation became secondary and then eventually went away. This worship that I experienced wasn't just enjoying the singing and a well-crafted sermon. It was something deeper. It was a connection to God where it was just me experiencing Him as Phil, not as Pastor Phil. This is not to say that this experience of worship was better than when I worship with my own congregation, but it was different. I only have four more weeks left until I return to my congregation, and I am a bit torn. In some ways, I cannot wait to get back to my people to worship with them again, but in other ways, I cherish these last four weeks of worship as just Phil.

Let me drop back into pastoral mode for a moment and ask a question because, given my recent experience, I am perplexed. Here's the question, and forgive me if it sounds harsh, but it is something I cannot understand or reconcile in my mind: If you claim to be a follower of Jesus, why do you choose not to come to worship on a regular basis? Or to put it another way: What things distract or take priority over worshiping with God's people?

It's a valid question because I've seen it over 45 years of ministry where people who love the Lord don't seem to prioritize worship on a regular basis. To be honest, I see the toll on their lives and families when a regular discipline of worship is ignored.

So what exactly is it? I don't profess to be the most faithful Christian that ever lived, but I cannot imagine myself not making every effort to worship the one who died for me. Given my recent experience of worship, I believe that all the more. And given the state of the church in America, I believe this is one of the greatest problems that we face because God created us to worship. So if we are not worshiping Him with God's people on a regular basis, I can almost guarantee that we are spending that time worshiping something else. Jesus put it this way:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21)

Where is your heart? What is more important than worship? Do you long to worship Him? If not, we need to check our relationship with Him. We need to examine if we are idolaters, giving our hearts over to something else. David said in Psalm 63 that his soul thirsts for God, but what I see too often is a soul that accommodates God—we just fit Him in after the "other stuff" is taken care of. Is the following your experience?

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you,as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live;in your name I will lift up my hands. (Psalm 63:1-4)

We live in a dry and weary land where there is no water. We struggle as our flesh faints, telling us we should draw near to God, but rather than looking to His sanctuary for what we need, we look to things that bring no satisfaction and then turn around and blame God. On any given Sunday, many Christians will wake up and bow to the god of "I just needed to sleep in," the god of "I stayed up too late last night," the god of "Let's go out to breakfast or the golf course," and a myriad of others. We then wonder why no one sees Jesus consistently in our lives when the answer is simple. We don't thirst for Him because of these other strange gods we worship.

Let me give you a list of suggestions that I plan on implementing in my life as well because there is a danger that I have a god on Sunday that I worship rather than the true God. I've alluded to it. It is the god of professionalism, also known as the god of control everything. The danger for me is to focus so much on my pastoral mode that I miss the opportunity to connect with God as Phil. Of course, I need to perform in the calling that God has given me, but one need not exclude the other.

STEP ONE: Stop making excuses. When you choose to (and it is a choice) worship another god on Sunday, then call it what it is: idolatry. Experience the forgiveness of Jesus, and move on to choose obedience.

STEP TWO: Take the Scriptures at face value. Stop believing the lie that it is an option to go to worship and be part of the body of Christ. As I have said many times before, the Bible is not a book of suggestions. God commands us to do certain things most often because those things are good for us to aid in our growth. When we choose disobedience, we should not be surprised when things don't go well for us. When we feel that the Lord is not near to us, when we feel our faith falter, when we have no desire to read the Scriptures, when we see our wives, husbands, or children slip away from Jesus—these things are connected. If you don't believe me, here is the command to obey:

Do not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:25)

STEP THREE: Discern the reason why you don't attend regularly or why you can't focus while you are at worship. Are you going to bed too late? Is your life so busy and complicated that you cannot control your thought life? Just go through all the reasons why you don't and ask why you do.

STEP FOUR: Get up and go. If you can't accomplish that on your own, find a brother or sister who can hold you accountable and call you every Sunday to wake you up and get you off your tush. The final question to ask if you can't do that is this: Do I really love Jesus, or is there another? Jesus clearly said that if we love Him, we will do what He commands (John 14:15). You can't love both Jesus and those other Sunday gods, and neither can I (Matthew 6:24).

STEP FIVE: Encourage others to worship with you. Maybe even commit Psalm 95 to memory. It is an awesome song calling worshipers to gather together to glorify God.

Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.

My brothers and sisters, children of the risen King, let's not make the mistake of missing the main purpose of why we exist: to worship. I cannot wait till this Sunday. I cannot wait to worship with my congregation again. I pray that you too will thirst for Him.