Sep 1

Sep 1 Meet God in His Ordinances

Ordinances.

Admittedly, the word isn't very attractive. It brings up thoughts of city councils or traffic laws. But we're not talking about federal, state, or local statutes, but God's law. If it seems strange to prize God's ordinances, or His commands for public worship, we need to consider Psalm 43's passion for public worship again (see previous post here).

It might help to consider other testimonies about loving God’s ordinances from elsewhere in Scripture, as well as voices from the past and examples from the present. We can also stir love for God’s ordinances by reflecting on their purpose: meeting with God himself.

Other Testimonies

Psalm 43 isn't the only place in Scripture to speak highly of public worship. Listen to another passionate example.

One thing I have desired of the Lord,
That will I seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord
All the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the Lord,
And to inquire in His temple (Psa. 27:4).

The psalmist wants to “go to church” every day of his life! He wants to behold the Lord’s beauty and seek Him there. Psalm 27:4 is so fervent and resolute that it can, by God’s Spirit, rejuvenate any flagging interest in public worship. There are other encouraging passages in the Psalter, such as Psalm 63:1-4, 73:16-17, or 84:10:

“A day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.”

That is so blatant. One day around the ordinances is better than a thousand days elsewhere, and it is especially better than being with wicked people. The modern tendency to give up on church, be sick of it, or make it low-priority, is clearly contrary to God’s ways. If we find ourselves disinclined, or wanting to replace church services with a man-made method of serving God, we should repent of our waywardness and seek empowerment from Him to love what He loves (Phil 2:13).

Christians of the past prized God’s ordinances. John Calvin, Herman Selderhuis tells us, highly prized the ordinance of preaching—"Where the Word of God is preached, heard and practiced, there is the Promised Land. There, in fact, is heaven on earth" (Herman Selderhuis, John Calvin: A Pilgrim's Life, Nottingham: IVP, 2009, p. 43).

Have you ever heard a sermon in church and thought, “This is like heaven on earth”? I fear such a thought may be laughable to many modern people who view church as dull, or at best interesting. Others have known this delight, but it is a relic of their earlier years. Despite our fallen tendency to grow cold to God's precious things, wherever the ordinances are practiced in a biblical way—with depth, reverence, holiness, joy, and reliance on the Spirit—there is no better place to be on earth.

The Pilgrims, who founded Plymouth in 1620, endured great danger to find a place where they could practice the ordinances without corruption. They originally fled England for this reason. Their quest involved great suffering, but their hardships “did not dismay them, though they did sometimes trouble them; for their desires were set on the ways of God and to enjoy His ordinances; but they rested on His providence, and knew Whom they had believed” (William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, repr., New York, NY: Knopf, 2015, 11.) Imagine crossing oceans or continents for this reason! One need not agree with everything the Pilgrims said and did to admire their scriptural priority and resolve.

Sometimes people in our own day make similar, though rarely as dramatic, decisions. They turn back to the Christian faith of their childhood and find themselves perplexed by the blandishments of Christendom. They remember a biblical focus that is now absent, so they begin searching for a place where worship is practiced scripturally. Well-known people have ended up in small out-of-the-way congregations that still valued the commands of God. Imagine it—a celebrity worshiping with twenty farmers in the country, having driven 75 miles to get out there. Often, seeking purity means embracing obscurity, but such a loss seems a small price to those who, by the power of the Spirit, see the glory of God in His ordinances.

Many people are so tired of modern christendom that they’ve used God's precious things to come up with denigrating terms—“churchianity,” for example. Of course, there are reasons that such sad sentiments exist. When the ordinances are abused, it is easy for people to feel justified in becoming sick of them. When the ordinances are practiced without depth, people are dissatisfied with the shallowness. When they are practiced without joy, people gag on the lukewarmness. When they are carried out without holiness, people are alarmed at the corruption. When they are carried out without reliance on God, people are uncomfortable with human-centeredness.

But we must not reject the ordinances; instead, we must rectify their abuse. Always the distinction between baby and bathwater, between what is precious and what is foul, must be kept in mind. There is a terrible tendency to hate what is abused rather than hate the abuse.

Admittedly, much of the western church is in a state of corruption. But the answer is not to think little of God’s institutions. The answer is to think highly enough of them to reform ourselves, repent of our corruptions, and seek God’s gracious help to practice the ordinances faithfully.

Here’s how we can start doing that:

Meet God in the Ordinances

The key to loving the ordinances is to see their value. The ordinances are designed by God to stir our faith in the gospel so that we meet with God and fellowship with Him, the whole group of us together. I fear that many Christians see church services as a bundle of empty rituals. But God sees His ordinances as the way He comes to us to be with us and we with Him. In Exodus 20:24 He speaks of Israel’s worship and then says, “where I record my name I will come to you, and I will bless you.” God comes to meet with us in public worship.

It's not difficult to see how God comes to us in preaching, for preaching involves communicating His Word. In singing and praying we respond to Him. So it is clear that the ordinances involve receiving the Word from Him and giving back to Him repentance, faith, praise, and honor. Public worship therefore reflects a relationship of receiving and giving. But it may be a bit difficult to see how God meets with us in some of the other ordinances.

Let's take the Lord's Supper as an example. In the New Testament we read that taking the Lord’s Supper in faith involves sharing in the body and blood of Christ—“The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16). It’s important to see—the symbol is not the substance. A lot of harm has been caused by mistaking them. The bread and the wine are not the body and blood of Christ, nor do they become them. They symbolize them. They are Christ’s own selected emblems. Nevertheless, they aren’t powerless symbols but are designed to seal an assurance to believers.

A faithful partaking of the symbol means a true sharing in the substance. The word communion (κοινωνία) means “fellowship,” or “sharing in something with someone.” First Corinthians 10:16 was written to churches, so it is clear who is doing the sharing—the gathered assembly. Communion is not a private ordinance. But the verse also specifies what is shared—the body and blood of Christ.

What does this sharing in His death impart? Think of the symbolic value of eating. Just as eating food gives physical strength, trusting Christ's death gives spiritual strength to live the Christian life, by the Spirit’s power. This means that God actually communicates sanctifying grace from Christ when we observe the Lord’s Table in repentant faith. The Supper is for our "spiritual nourishment and growth" (WCF, 29.1). If we come in faith, Christ Himself meets us at supper. He visits us to impart His strength to us.

You can see the special value of the ordinances. God meets with us in all His love and help, and ministers to us, where they are practiced, in a way that is not available by walking in the woods or by sitting and praying in our backyard. Private times with God are precious and important too, and God uses them too, but the Lord's Supper is Christ's institution for the gathered assembly in public worship, symbolizing the continuing nature of the Christian life. It is unique for relating with God, yet in our day many feel closer to God staying at home than coming to church where the Supper, and the other ordinances, are to be observed. It is unhealthy to disregard Christ’s own institution for us, while we supposedly enjoy a relationship with Him on our own. It may be that many Christians, by disregarding public worship, are worshiping a Christ of their own imaginations, rather than the biblical Christ.

All this is crucial for showing us the value of God’s ordinances. And also for showing us how the ordinances are related to spiritual truths. They are designed to stir our faith in Christ by the Spirit’s power so that we’ll benefit from the empowering grace God wants to give us. When we come to the ordinances, we are coming to God’s holy things, generously given to believers as means of grace.

May the church of this generation experience a renewal of its glory— meeting God in His ordinances, and being transformed by that meeting with God.