Grace Reformed Church of Leduc

Following the Salutation we sing what we call an “Opening Song of Praise”. Our liturgy at Grace contains no less than 5 songs sung by the congregation. In this post we will consider the why and what of these songs in our worship.

The first principle of song in our worship is its dialogic nature. For we see that three of the songs in our liturgy are a response to something that God has spoken to us: 1) God calls us to worship and we respond in a song of praise 2) God assures of His salvation promises and we respond in a song of dedication 3) God speaks to us through the preached word and we sing a song of application. We see this principle in Ezra 3. There we read that the foundation of the temple has been rebuilt; God had fulfilled His promise to return His exiled people to the land of their forefathers. And at that  moment the priests

“sang responsively, praising and giving thanks to the LORD: ‘For He is good, for His mercy endures forever toward Israel.’ Then all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.” (emphasis mine)

Similar occurrences in redemptive history demonstrate that this is a regular or established pattern in biblical worship. Consider these examples: 1) Miriam and Israel responding to the LORD’s deliverance from Pharaoh and his hosts (Exodus 15:21ff.) 2) Deborah and Barak responding to the LORD’s deliverance from their Canaanite oppressors (Judges 5) 3) Mary’s response to being chosen by God to bear His Son (Luke 1:46ff.).

This means that when we sing we ought to do so intelligently and thoughtfully or, as Paul says, “with understanding”. (1 Corinthians 14:15) This does not reduce our singing to a mere cerebral gesture for, after all, we are commanded to love God with our heart as well as our mind. (Matthew 22:37) But it does mean that we are required to sing with intent and reason because the very nature of song in worship is directed by the work and purpose of God in history. In other words we should not get so carried away in the moment of song (whether it is because we are focusing on the accompaniment or the sounds of the congregational voices) that we forget the One whom we are praising. Paul assumes this ‘instructing’ character of our songs when he tells the Colossae Christians to:

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.” (C0lossians 3:16)

We should also note here that this would require that the words of our songs be written intelligently and thoughtfully. What songs faithfully describe God according to how He reveals Himself in His Word? What songs faithfully represent our sin, our dire need for divine grace and reconciliation to God? What songs faithfully speak of the good news of Christ’s salvation to us apart from works? What songs faithfully represent God’s His will for our lives? In other words we should not be haphazard in our selection of music and be satisfied with anything but only be satisfied with the best.

The second principle of song is its sacrificial or priestly character. In Hebrews 7-10 the author labours to prove that Christ is the only sacrifice we need in this age for the blood of bulls and goats of the previous era could never take away sins. Believers need not trust in anyone else for forgiveness, atonement, reconciliation, intercession or mediation.

However our high priest has also grafted us in Himself, so that we can take up our calling as priests “by Him [to] offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” (Hebrews 13:15 -emphasis mine) We should note here that our singing to God is not sacrificial in the sense of completing our salvation but a matter of “praise” as the author points out.

This is demonstrated in our worship when we sing the ‘doxology’ which functions as a final word or song of praise at the end of our service. We do not come to God to hear from Him and then to sing praises only at that time, but we also praise Him as His people freely i.e. even when He has not spoken.

In this we see the obligation to praise our God. Indeed our songs are kind of sacrificial giving, just as the faithful in Israel would bring their animals to the altar for God long ago. They are a witness to the world of our calling and service in this life as those who are set apart to glorify God (1 Peter 2:4-10) And we are called to do this often, or “continually”, (Hebrews 13:15) because we will never stop doing so. After all we seek the city to come for here we have no continuing one. (vs. 14) The saints of God love to sing the praises of the Lord because they are citizens of a kingdom that is coming, one whose builder and maker is God. For one day they shall sing

“a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth.’” (Revelation 5:9-10)

Amen.

Next post: Liturgy – Singing the Psalms

Following the Votum is the Salutation. Since its function in worship is similar to that of the Benediction we will consider them together in this post.

God has invited us to His worship and we have responded. Now God intends to assure us that we will be blessed by Him when we come into His presence by means of the ‘Salutation’. Strictly speaking a salutation is a greeting. And whenever God greets us He always does so in a manner that reminds us who we are in relation to Him.

So when Paul opens his letters with the familiar “Grace to you and peace from God…” we can be assured that when the Lord speaks to His Church He wants her to understand that she is His bride, His own possession, His beloved people by grace. Thus the Salutation is really a blessing in words, or a word of grace from our God to a people who are in desperate need of mercy.

This is important not only because we are a people saved by grace but because we need to be reminded that we are saved by grace. The Salutation might often be overlooked because it is repeated time and time again, but it is we who are forgetful, not God. Repetition in worship may cause complacency on our part but that should not make us shy away from it when it functions to bring us back to the essential reality of God’s merciful disposition to sinners as they come into His holy presence.

We read of this connection between God’s graciousness and our worship in Psalm 100:4-5:

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the LORD is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations. (italics mine)

Come worship the Lord, praise His name! Why? Because He is a good and merciful God; He has condescended to us in Christ that we might have confidence to come to His throne of grace (Hebrews 2:16). Contemplation of this truth will help us to be joyful, to sing His praises being full of His grace. (Colossians 3:16)

Similarly the Benediction (or as it is titled on Grace’s liturgy “The Lord’s Parting Blessing”) functions as the giving of God’s blessing but, in contrast to the Salutation, it does not apply so much to the service itself but to the life that we enter into as we leave God’s presence.(1) Therefore the Benediction is God’s favor resting upon us from day to day in and through from worship and not apart from it. The Benediction assures us that the Lord will be with us and bless us in all that we go forth to do for He was surely with us as we worshiped Him. It also then reminds us that as we journey on this pilgrim life we need that weekly Sabbath worship to reinvigorate and replenish us. (see Psalm 84)

One final note, regarding how we ‘do’ the Salutation & Benediction. It is common (if not uniform) amongst Reformed churches for the pastor to raise his hands as he pronounces both of these blessings. It would appear, then, that the blessing proceeds from God through a mediator. This may be troubling to those who are unfamiliar with the practice: do we not only have one mediator, the Man Jesus Christ? (1 Timothy 2:5) Why would Reformed people receive a blessing from God through a fallible, sinful minister when the scriptures tell us we should come to the holy, sinless Christ? (Hebrews 7:26)

To answer that question we need only point out how, in this objection, the pronouncement of the minister is being misinterpreted. Even the mediatorial high priest Aaron was instructed to tell the people that the blessing is from the Lord (Numbers 6:23ff.) and yet imparted that blessing through the raising of his hands (Leviticus 9:22). Indeed the blessing is from God and does not depend upon the efforts, merits, words or any other work of the pastor in order to come to pass any more than the Call to Worship or Votum comes from himself. Rather the minister, having been appointed to proclaim the gospel, is a chosen representative of Christ to bring this message (Romans 15:16). The raising of the hands of the minister should be looked upon as symbolic, that is representing to us the blessing that we receive through Christ alone, who is our High Priest (Luke 24:50)

Footnotes:

1. Certainly we are always in the presence of our omnipresent God (Psalm 139:7-9) but the corporate gathering of God’s people in worship is distinct unique to the Christian life as is indicated in our first post on Liturgy.

Next post: Liturgy – Songs of Praise

After the Call to Worship comes the Votum. Votum is a Latin term meaning ‘vow’ or ‘prayer’. Its use in worship is a kind of confession or statement of truth, even a response to God’s command to worship Him. Some examples from scripture include:

Psalm 121:1-2 “I will lift up my eyes to the hills – from whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth.”

Psalm 124:8 “Our help is in the name of the LORD, who made heaven and earth.”

What we see in both of these passages is a willingness on the part of the Psalmist to confess his dependence upon God. We do not come to worship boasting of our strength, power and wisdom. We come recognizing our weakness, frailty and foolishness. (1 Corinthians 1:26ff.)

So much of the worship that follows indicates the ‘needy’ attitude and posture we ought to practice in our public praise and adoration of God. We might bow our heads during the salutation (blessing) to indicate our submission to Him, as we do in our prayers. (Psalm 95:6) We read God’s law so that we might be humbled to confess our sins, and see our need for Christ. (Romans 3:21ff.) The word is preached to us that we might be fed in accord with our hungry and thirsty souls. (Psalm 81:10; Psalm 84).  The sacraments (baptism and Lord’s Supper) are administered as a form of gracious condescension by God to “our weakness and infirmities” as those who need physical signs and seals of His grace. (Belgic Confession, Article 33).

We must therefore ask: does our worship show this dependence upon God, in the songs that are sung, in the sermons that are preached, in the hearts and minds of those who have assembled? If an unbeliever were to come into our sanctuaries would they conclude that we need God or that God needs us?  So much of worship today, whether ‘clothed’ in conservative or liberal garb reflects the thought that God wants to hear from us more than we need to hear from Him.(1) For example our songs and worship teams go on and on so that the poor pastor is only given 10-20 minutes to preach his sermon. (2)

But whose voice would we rather hear? Who will feed us better: man or God? Don’t I need to hear the voice of my Shepherd (John 10:4,16), follow Him and be led unto the green pastures and still waters He has prepared for the restoration of my soul? (Psalm 23:1-3)  (3) Indeed scripture tells us He made us and not we ourselves, created by and for Him (Psalm 100:3). He needs nothing from us (Psalm 50:12-13; Acts 17:25) but we live and move and have our being in Him (Acts 17:28).

Let our worship then become and be, in spirit and in form, like David’s prayer to God:

Psalm 86:1 “Bow down Your ear, O LORD, hear me; for I am poor and needy.”

Footnotes:

1. I am indebted to Dr. Darryl Hart, co-author of With Reverence and Awe: Returning to the Basics of Reformed Worship, for this insight. On a side note, I highly recommend the book he has written for a more indepth discussion of many of the issues that these posts are intended to cover.

2. N.B. We are not against the singing of psalms and hymns for God has commanded that we do so. (Colossians 3:16) We are against what we believe to be the overabundance of singing that goes on in the modern church, especially to the undermining or even exclusion of the preached word.

3. This argument depends on whether or not God has intended to speak to His people through the preached word. I believe Romans 10:15-17 & 2 Peter 1:16-19 are sufficient to prove that this is the case. (cf. 1 Timothy 4:6; 2 Timothy 4:1-4;  Titus 1:9, 2:1ff.)

Next post - Liturgy: Saluation & Benediction

At first glance the call to worship seems redundant. What, do we not know that we are coming together as God’s people to worship Him? Yes but at the same time we are weak and prone to stumbling. Therefore the call to worship, as the description on our Liturgy page tells us, is

[a] passage of scripture that is read to prepare our hearts and minds to enter into God’s presence

Thus like the silent prayer, the call to worship reminds us, forgetful people that we are, what our priestly service to and for our God is all about. However we also need to see that in contrast to the silent prayer, the call to worship has a more objective nature. Now it is not in our own words that we ready our hearts to worship our God but in His.

This is important because we think that God wants to hear from us, that He needs our company and presence, that He awaits to embrace us with open arms if we would only come. And this is the way it is popularly presented in the church and culture alike so it is barely questioned.

But scripture tells us that He doesn’t need us: Psalm 50:12ff. For He made us, not we ourselves (Psalm 100:3) In addition scripture tells us what it is like for sinners such as us to be in the presence of a holy God: to hide from Him out of fear (Genesis 3:8-10), to be afraid even to look on Him (Exodus 3:6), to tremble at the sound of His ‘nearness’ (Exodus 19:16), to be consumed in fire if we do something He did not command (Leviticus 10:2), to fear lest even one of His commandments be broken (Deuteronomy 28:58ff), to prepare to meet the one who roars from Zion (Amos 1:1; cf. 4:12), to be silent before Him (Habakkuk 2:20), even to fear when His words come to us through just another human being (Haggai 1:12).

But we say: God no longer works in the ways of our Old Testament forebears; our God is a God of love and not of anger. Yet God bids all men to fear Him now no less than He did in the days of old. (Hebrews 12:28; Revelation 11:18; 15:4; 19:5) And He is still a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:29)

Thus we rightly ask: are we really ready to meet with our God? But the more important question is: will God accept & receive us? In short, perhaps it would be better for sinners not to come. Better to stay home lest we should do something to displease Him in our worship and have to face His anger and wrath.

After all the Psalmist says:

Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully. (Psalm 24:3-4)

Is that not me? Like the leper I am defiled, I am unholy. (Matthew 15:18ff). How may I come? I shall not come.

And yet strangely He bids us come. (Psalm 95:6) Why? Is it that He desires to destroy us, to cast us away, that we might die? No. (Ezekiel 33:11) And yet in His justice He must cast us off, no less than a judge in a court of law today must judge and execute justice upon those who have broken the law. (Romans 3:19-20)

But the call is from our God who not only judges but saves. For He seeks His people even when they are not seeking Him (Matthew 18:12; Romans 10:20). Indeed it is our nature to wander away from God, ‘like sheep’ to go astray (Isaiah 53:6) For there are none who seek after God (Romans 3:11).

Therefore like every other element in our liturgy, the call to worship has a theological function. For in it we see who our God is and what He has done (and what He is doing). He is the one who changed us and inwardly called us to worship and glorify His name. Only through His sovereign grace did we want to come and, indeed, do come. He calls us to worship to show us that He has not left us dead in sins and trespasses (Ephesians 2:1) but has used His Word through the Holy Spirit to raise us from our spiritual corruption (Ezekiel 37:1-14; cf. Ephesians 2:5; 1 Peter 1:23)

And He gives us His Son, Jesus Christ, that we might be drawn to the Father through Him. (John 6:44) The call to worship God comes with or is united to the proclamation (gospel) of the work of the Son by whom we are reconciled to our Creator and Lord. (Romans 5:10) That is we are justified by faith in Christ apart from any effort on our part. (Romans 3:24,28) Indeed only though Him may we come. (John 14:6).

And so now we will, as His special people, “continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.” (Hebrews 13:15)

At the same time we must note that the call to worship also has a public or universal aspect. It is not only the covenant people of God who are called. There is a certain invitation or better, a command for all to worship God in Zion. Thus the church must open her doors wide so that none may be forbidden to come and hear the Word of God preached and proclaimed. So the call to worship reminds us of our evangelistic purpose as well as the indiscriminate call of the gospel itself. Though not all will come all are bidden to come. (Isaiah 45:22; cf. Matthew 20:16)

“Oh, sing to the LORD a new song! Sing to the LORD, all the earth.Sing to the LORD, bless His name; proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples. For the LORD is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods.” (Psalm 96:1-4)

Next post - Liturgy: Votum