Last Sunday I couldn’t help but think of the conversation between Christian and Hopeful in Doubting Castle. While we sang “And Can It Be?” and “my chains fell off, I rose, went forth, and followed Thee,” it reminded me of when Christian remembered that he had a key in his pocket called Promise. This week I could help it, that is, I didn’t have to include it, but I want to. Here’s the larger context of their discussion.

Now a little before it was day, good Christian, as one half amazed, brake out in this passionate speech, What a fool (quoth he) am I, thus to lie in a stinking Dungeon when I may as well walk at liberty? I have a key in my bosom, called Promise, that will (I am persuaded) open any Lock in Doubting Castle. Then said Hopeful, That’s good news; good Brother pluck it out of thy bosom and try. Then Christian pulled it out of his bosom and began to try at the Dungeon door, whose bolt (as he turned the Key) gave back, and the door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both went out. (The Pilgrim’s Progress, 121)

Whereas Wesley’s lyrics describe conversion, Bunyan describes the fight when a Christian is being beaten by Giant Despair. Release and relief from discouragement and weariness come from God’s promises.

We are people of promises. We live on the history of promises fulfilled and look to the future of promises not yet fulfilled. We read God’s Word to remind ourselves of His promises. We assemble as a church to celebrate and be calibrated by promises on the Lord’s day. We sometimes stray from the path and get caught by many troubles, toils, and snares. We all have holes in our faith tires, they leak slowly day by day. We need to join the chorus of those who love the God of promises and be filled again.

The central promise, the center-set diamond around which many other promises compliment, is the promise of forgiveness and eternal life in the gospel. We live by believing the evangel from conversion to consummation of Christlikeness.

Are we talking about worship or salvation? Isn’t this supposed to be a series about worship? Yes. We were made to worship but we needed salvation first. We were made to worship and we were saved to worship. We are natural born worshipers but sin directs our affections to other gods. God saves us into true worship. Our corporate worship is also connected to our salvation because God saves us into His family. He adopts us by ones but always into sibling relationships.

We come to part two of a refresher on our worship. Last week we talked about our purpose to lift up God and then to be lifted up by God. It must be in that order. There is no shortcut to true encouragement.

Initially I had a direction in mind for this message but, after talking with the L2L leaders, there is a better emphasis to make. That will include a few things about our liturgical particulars. Before I do, though, let me say that liturgy means squat without believing the gospel.

Let there be no confusion. The passion of the elders is that each and every person who comes to worship does so because they believe the gospel. It does not matter if you respond to the votum or not, if you ever raise your hands or your voices, if you sit, stand, kneel or don’t, if you take sermon notes or don’t, take communion or not compared to how much it matters that you believe that Jesus died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day according to Scripture (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). Unless you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9), the motions of worship only load your conscience with heavier guilt for the day of judgment.

How does our passion for every man to believe the gospel relate to our worship liturgy?

We Worship by Faith Alone

We cannot do anything to earn our salvation and we can’t do anything to earn a weekly meeting with God or an eternity of fellowship with Him. We cannot clean ourselves up to meet with Him. We can confess our sin and Jesus forgives and cleanses. But that is His work.

The ground of our worship is faith in the gospel promises. We believe that He forgives sinners as Paul wrote from the last part of Romans 3 through Romans 5. We believe that He transforms saved sinners, Paul’s argument in Romans 6 and 7. We believe that He communes with saved sinners. We believe that He strengthens saved sinners for His work in the world. He cleans, He consecrates, He communes, and He commissions.

We don’t get to worship because of what we wear, where we sit, how loud or on key we sing, how big our offering is, or even because we can preach. We do not worship by works. We worship by faith.

We must not forget it. Faith alone qualifies someone to worship. Above all we want people to believe the gospel, not just for the first time, but all the time. We desire that believers keep on believing it. This is why a study of the Gospel of John has worked so well for Christians because it is written that we may believe.

Paul told the Roman church that he was eager to come and preach the gospel among them (Romans 1:15). Does that sound odd? Why would Christians need to hear the gospel? Because they need to be reminded of the promises. They have hard weeks. They get down and worn out. They get stuck in a slough of guilt. They are locked up in Doubting Castle. They need to remember that they have a key in their pocket. And it isn’t only an individual need, it is a corporate one.

We need to remember that we are justified (Romans 3:21-22). We have peace with God (Romans 5:1). We have access to His grace (Romans 5:2). There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). All those blessings are received by faith alone.

If we don’t believe the gospel and declare it in such a way that someone might abuse it, then we aren’t being clear enough. If it doesn’t sound too good to be true, then we haven’t told it truly. If someone can’t say that it doesn’t matter what they do because it’s all about faith, then we have not emphasized the “alone” part of faith correctly.

That said…

We Worship by Faith That Is Not Alone

I am riffing on the common statement, “Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is never alone.” In other words, works don’t ever save anyone but all those who are saved will work.

This is exactly Paul’s point in Romans chapters 6 and 7. How can those who died to sin in Christ keep on sinning (6:1, 14)? Faith and grace aren’t dormant. They do stuff. They don’t like being buried. They will get out somehow.

When faith comes out in practice, it comes out in ways that do not contradict the profession. Saying “Christ is Lord” but living with self as lord doesn’t fly. What we do shows what we believe. Sanctification—increasing in holy living like Christ, necessarily follows justification—being declared forgiven and righteous in Christ. The two things, justification and sanctification, must be distinguished without even being separated. The apostle James said it this way:

But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. (James 2:18, ESV)

Unless we preach sanctification in such a way that someone could accuse us of saying that salvation is by works, we aren’t explaining sanctification strictly enough. Until someone says that we are pressuring them into holiness, we probably don’t understand the inevitability of living in living faith.

The same is true of our worship. What we believe will always find a way of expressing itself. Those expressions should be consistent with the profession and a profession without expressions will be immature at best.

We do not have the option to believe in a vacuum. Nor do we worship in a science lab where moments can be suspended. We are in bodies. The Bible reveals that there are different ways for the body to express believing. It is not whether but which. It isn’t whether or not we’re saying something by what we do, it’s which thing we’re saying.

Remember, worship is by faith alone. So, let’s think about it. Does a heart full of faith worship with the arms crossed and a scowl on the the face? It could, but we usually read more about how the full-of-faith raise their hands and shout joyfully. When God’s people gathered to worship and Psalm 136 was in the morning set, imagine how the full-of-faith responded. By faith they gladly replied, “for his steadfast love endures forever,” all 26 times.

Before we give any more examples, is it possible for some worshiper to do the externals without faith? Of course. Is it possible that some with faith will be unable to do some of the externals? Yes. But what is the ideal? The ideal thing is not to do nothing because it’s all about faith. Will a heart full of faith do nothing? It won’t.

So, while knowing that the ground of worship is faith alone, and while knowing that faith that worships will take some shape and expression, we have worked to include a more obvious structure with movement to our liturgy. God has not revealed His one-and-only order of service anywhere in Scripture. He has revealed some explicit priorities for corporate meetings. We always say something by what we do and how we do it. Liturgy cannot replace faith, it gives opportunity for faith to come out.

We begin with a call and response . Why? Because we agree to begin our meeting. With faith it provides an opportunity for each individual to consciously join with the whole; many voices become one voice. We are a collective force. We sing . Without faith we could be entertained or critical of the instrumentation, the lyrics, or the style. With faith we give melodic and harmonious expression to our praise.

We confess sins , even inviting those who want to and are able to to kneel. This has been one of the more contested pieces of liturgy. Ironically, the liturgy of confessing our sin has probably caused the most amount of sinning, either by reacting to the invitation to kneel or by condemning those who don’t. If you don’t, I don’t know it. But why not? Why not start next Sunday? Try it. Those of you who do kneel, are you proud about it? That misses the point of the heart’s posture.

We read and hear Scripture . We set aside time for nothing else than the reading of God’s Word. It is a great time to check out if you don’t have faith that God is speaking.

We offer corporate prayer of supplication . We believe that we can’t get the things we need for ourselves. We believe that God invites His children to cast their anxieties on Him, that He loves not only to provide, but that He loves to be asked to provide. We’re a room full of people showing our kids that we need God.

The sermon fits into the expression of faith already happening. Those with faith are being transformed by the Word as it prepares them as living sacrifices. His Word, His knife cuts us. So in Hebrews 4:13, the word “exposed” (ESV) or “laid bare” (NAS) is a form of the word, τραχηλίζω: “to lay bare the neck,” as in, to pull back the head and slit the throat as the sacrifice is prepared. His Word is preparing us as sacrifices.

We bring forward an offering , usually with its own song so that we all have time to think with faith about the statement we are all making. “I give with everyone to God.” We are worshiping Him, some with larger numbers on their check and some with greater faith in their hearts. But we’re doing it together. We know that God accepts us as individuals and as a body. This is the way we’ve chosen to express faith in giving.

We eat and drink communion together. We believe that this is a meal of peace, a shared consumption of Christ’s body and blood. We believe that He unites us as we partake, so we don’t ask for all the heads to go down and eyes to be closed. We believe that He welcomes us to a feast at His expense. We move around and look around to enjoy the meal together.

We ask the young men to pick up the cups. We don’t have a verse for that. But we believe that they are part of us so we give them a part. In particular, men are to bear responsibility for others, we’re giving them an opportunity and respect.

Then we go with a benediction , with a “good spoken word.” We have not expressed our faith all throughout the service so that we can make sure we have an altar call. We do not ask Christians to run a gospel gauntlet every week. We call them to worship and be strengthened and go with faith. It is possible that someone without faith will hear the good words spoken to them and abuse the benediction. It is possible that people will abuse the good news of salvation by faith alone when they have more alone than faith. But do you see how those with faith who faithfully express it throughout worship will make a distinct contrast to the person who does not express except for thinking he’s safe because we didn’t invite unbelievers forward?

Conclusion

Don’t blame the liturgy if your heart is empty. It is not the job of liturgy to fill your heart, it is the job of liturgy to allow expression of faith in your heart.

”But,” someone might protest, “worship is a private thing.” That’s the mindset that comes from faith being private. That’s the mindset that has allowed so many weeds to grow in our cultural garden.

If salvation is by faith, then what works are required? “Required” is the wrong word. Salvation is by faith so that we can’t boast, and we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:8-10).

If worship is by faith, then what liturgy is required? It’s not a have to but a get to. There are many and various expressions that lift up God and by which He lifts us up. May God increase our faith and be pleased with the expressions of our faith in worship.