Life at Calvary : Calvary Baptist Church

2. Understand the nature and practice of Personal Worship in the life of the Christian

PP Goal #2 Understand the nature and practice of Personal Worship in the life of the Christian

Question: If you are feeling brave this morning, share with us what your typical week is like…how and how often do you intentionally meet with God during the week…between Sundays?

Question: Does what you do in Corporate worship on Sunday impact you life during the week? How?

Question: Does what you do in Personal worship impact you life during the week? How?

Question: Can a Christian be healthy and growing if they only meet with God on Sundays?

A.W. Tozer in a wonderful gem of a book titled ‘Whatever Happened to Worship?’ writes:

PP ‘We come to the Lord’s house. We have dedicated it to Him. So we continue with the confused idea that it must be the only place where we can worship Him. We come to the Lord’s house, made of brick and wood and lined with carpeting. We are used to hearing a call to worship: ‘The Lord is in His holy temple, let us all kneel before Him.’ That is on Sunday and that is in church. Very nice! But Monday morning comes soon. The Christian layman goes to his office, the Christian school teacher goes to the classroom, the Christian mother is busy with duties in the home. On Monday, as we go about our different duties and tasks, are we aware of the Presence of God? The Lord desires still to be in His holy temple, wherever we are. He wants the continuing love, delight and worship of His children, wherever we work.’^{^[1]}

Tozer raises the idea that for many worship is a ‘Sunday Only’ thing. Has clergy, unintentionally I hope, taught their people that worship is done on Sunday in the confines of the ‘sanctuary’ or ‘worship center’?

Question: Has clergy (church leadership) caused people to think that the place we meet on Sundays is God’s house and it is the principal, if not the only place, to properly express our offerings of worship to Him? Why or why not?

I would imagine that most people who hear the word worship connect it with what is done for an hour on Sunday mornings.

Question: Is Sunday morning what most people think of when they heard the word ‘worship’?

In a way, they are correct. God calls us, throughout Scripture, to gather as His people and honor Him with our sacrifices of praise and worship. Worship in the Scriptures is often revealed as a corporate event. It is the time when Christians stand together and corporately affirm to the world that we are Christ’s and that He is our God.

Tozer, however, states that the One True God is worthy of worship on Mondays and every other day. I agree that the same God we gather to honor on Sunday is the same God who demands our worship each day of the week. What God wants from His children is lifestyle worship, ‘worship beyond the walls’ of the church building.

Ruth Senter, in an article titled ‘Refreshment Break’ describes what she sees as indicative of our individual ‘worship beyond the walls’:

PP ‘Worship is a lot like an artesian well. You come to it thirsty, you drink and you are renewed, strengthened. You can get on with life. The problem is we forget to drink. We forget to worship.’^{^[2]}

I have observed that many Christians are willing to go through their lives with only one oasis, one watering hole, Sunday morning corporate worship. From my experience I have found that for many Sunday is the only real drink of spiritual refreshment, the only true nourishment they

Question: What do you think is the result of Christians waiting for Sunday to worship and not having any times of refreshment with God during the week?

When Christians wait for Sundays to drink and eat, to be nourished, they go thirsty and hungry the rest of the week. This constant hunger makes the Christian weak, spiritually.

· PP There is little power to be bold in sharing their faith with those who are headed for a Christ-less eternity.

Why? Because they fail to live in the presence of God which is the basis for their strength. Drinking and eating on Sundays only may not cause them to die from spiritual malnutrition, but it will emaciate them to the point of spiritual anemia.

I believe that part of the responsibility of being in pastoral ministry is helping your people grow in their relationship with the Lord.

Question: What are some ways a pastor/elders can encourage people to worship God outside the walls of the church on days other than Sunday?

One of the ways we can do this is by encouraging them to develop the practice of personal worship outside the walls of the church building. I have found that when personal worship is a practiced reality, the Christians corporate worship experience will be filled with the Holy Spirit, they will be secure in their relationship and fellowship with God and with each other, they will experience overwhelming joy in thanksgiving for God’s guidance and protection the past week, there will be the peace of heart knowing that they have met with God personally and they will then share that experience with those who have done the same during the week.

From my personal experience of personal worship I have noticed that my corporate worship experience is enhanced, deepened and made more meaningful. The Sunday corporate worship experience then encourages me to seek God’s face in personal worship during the week. As this habit was formed, I found my faith and obedience to the Lord, as well as my sensitivity to his leading and conviction of sin had grown. My personal worship practice has been fruitful and meaningful to my spiritual growth as a Christian.

Question: Is personal worship during the week the norm for the Christian or only the exception for those especially spiritual or those who have a lot more time than you do? Is there a place for personal worship in the life of the Christian and if there is, what role does it play and to what extent should it be encouraged?

18 months ago I surveyed the congregation to assess their experience of both personal and corporate worship practice. The results showed that many, if not most of those who attend Calvary Baptist Church (C.B.C.) on a regular basis, wished their personal/private worship times with the Lord would be more interesting, regular and meaningful. It seems most people at C.B.C. are dissatisfied with their personal worship practices and they look to the Sunday corporate worship experience to help them make it through their week.

· PP We will truly live a Roman 12:1 lifestyle: A practice of daily offering all of who we are, to all of who God is.

· PP We will experience the power and peace we receive from coming to God on a daily basis rather than having to wait until Sunday.

· PP We will keep in step with the Spirit, as Gal. 5:25 exhorts us to do, so that we will know and live the will of God in our lives.

· PP We will have a passionate pursuit of God, everyday, one that draws us closer to our God and with other believers through the Spirit of God who unites us all.

I believe this will only happen when we are a worshipping people, everyday, not just Sundays, when we truly learn to worship beyond the walls of the church building.

There is a sense in which all worship is public, in that we are all part of the Body of Christ and no one Christian is independent of the whole. However, there is that worship that is done apart from the public gathering of the Body of Christ. This time of individual worship is what I am referring to as personal worship.

PP Definition: Personal worship happens when the individual Christian seeks to intentionally communion with God with the belief that God will, in some way, reveal Himself to them, whereby they actively respond, in some way, to His self-revelation. Corporate worship is the

gathering of individual Christians who do together, in public what they do separately, in private.

I believe that personal worship is a microcosm of the corporate worship practice.

· PP Underhill: ‘A willed response to God’s inciting action; a humble and costly co-operation with His grace, moving towards the complete dedication of life. Flexible in expression, single in aim, it takes up and adapts to its purpose within a certain ordered freedom all the faculties of the self, emotional, intellectual, and imaginative.’[4]

According to Underhill, personal worship displays variety and flexibility in its practice all the while maintaining a certain orderliness. It follows then that there must be certain elements that help personal/private worship be a “willed response to God’s inciting action.’[5]

Scripture does not dictate an order or even a specific list of elements to be included in personal worship practice. It does, however, give us examples of God’s people active in personal worship. From these examples I have developed a list of elements that can be used in personal worship. While not comprehensive, the list is meant to stimulate further examination in Scripture of the personal worship practices of God’s people.

I hold strongly that there is a seamless flow of positive examples of the experience of personal worship both in Scripture and throughout the history of the Christian church. These positive examples are a strong indication that personal worship is and has always been a practice of God’s people.

Question: Can you give examples from Scripture of people who practiced personal worship?

· PP Adam and Eve had communion with God daily. They experienced his self-revelation and responded. They worshipped God. PP Gen. 3:8-9

· PP Cain and Able each, individually, brought an offering to God. While one was accepted and one rejected, both were a personal experience of worship. PP Gen. 4:3-5

· PP Abraham built an altar to God and ‘called on the name of the Lord’ PP Gen. 13:4

To ‘call on the name of the Lord’ has been historically understood to mean worship.

In Gen. 24:63-64 we read that Isaac meditated in the field, alone, concerning a wife.

According to Arthur W. Pink, the Hebrew word for ‘meditate’ also signifies to pray

and is also translated ‘commune’ and ‘pray’.[6] Isaac practiced personal worship.

This in no means is an exhaustive list. It represents a pattern, a habit of personal worship.

· PP Moses was a man whose personal walk with God dominated his life. He was a man who was keenly aware of God’s presence in his life and desired to experience him fully.

PP Moses spent so much time in the presence of God that his face shined. Paul, in 2 Cor.

3:12-18 alludes to Moses experience of God in his daily meetings, and uses it as an example of the Christians experience of God today. While it is not exactly the same experience, because of Jesus Christ, our experience of God’s presence in personal is similar in that God shines in our hearts. And Paul, in the very next verse (4:1) says that this is his ministry. Moses had a ministry that was developed from his intimacy with God through meeting with Him regularly. Paul’s ministry is a response to the presence of God when he met with Him. And Paul is implying here that ministry is the result of worship and that every Christian can experience this.

PP Moses would go daily into the ‘Tent of Meeting’ to worship God and as he did, the people would worship God at the doors to their own tents.’ PP Ex. 33:7-11

This text shows us that God wants to be met by his people. Moses’ meeting takes place outside the camp, in a private place and each time he went to the tent, he met with God. In this meeting God spoke to Moses and he responded. This is worship, since Moses was alone, it was personal worship.

· PP The Decalogue or Ten Commandments is a set of laws governing the people relationship with their God. The first four laws are directly related to the worship of God corporately and individually. In actuality, they were to be the people’s response to God’s self-revelation. They were acts of worship that were to not only be corporately obeyed as a nation, but individually before their God.

It can be argued that prior to Israel’s meeting with God at Mt. Sinai, all worship was personal. As mentioned earlier, it was there that Israel as a nation, as a gathered people, as the Q’hal YHWY first worshipped God corporately. All other expressions of worship prior to this point in history were individual acts of personal piety. These individual acts would continue after this meeting on the Mount of God, but added to and seemingly taking priority over, was corporate worship through the Tabernacle and Temple.

· PP The Shema was recited by faithful Jews twice each day; once in the morning and once in the evening[7].

· PP David had a personal relationship with God and he would often spend time alone with him. This is most clearly seen in the songs he wrote and sung to God (Psalms). Many of the Psalms David wrote were for corporate worship, but many were the revelation of David’s own personal worship practice with God. PP (Ps. 3; 7;15;17;38; 145)

PP Psalm 145 in particular, is a psalm of personal worship reflecting David’s own experiences and desires. Here David declares that God is worthy of his praise every day and he purposed to not let a day go by without worshiping God. While there is some argument as to the nature of the Psalms in the life of Israel, many seem to believe that the Psalms were used for private devotions. [8]

The worship of the Temple was daily worship. It had been so since earliest times. Every morning and every evening there were sacrifices in the Temple. These daily sacrifices were called the tamid, the continual sacrifice. It is from these continual sacrifices of the Temple that the Christian discipline of daily prayer is ultimately derived.[9]

While Temple worship was essentially corporate in nature, it was individual Israelites who brought the animals to be sacrificed, for them. There was both a corporate and personal aspect to Temple worship.

Within the Temple sacrificial system can be seen the formulation of daily practices of worship. These daily practices are what encouraged Daniel to worship three times a day from his room in exile.

· PP Daniel and others in the Exile period of Israel’s history were not able to maintain the Temple rituals, as there was no Temple. However, faithful Jews continued the practice of daily worship through prayer. Three times a day they would face Jerusalem and pray.

PP Dan. 6:10 Numerous commentators see Daniel 6 as a display of the daily worship practice for Daniel and devout Hebrews living in exile.

Here, commentators connect the common practice of prayer with the personal worship practices of the post-exilic Jews. While daily, personal times of worship was the norm for Jews during this time, it must be stated that not all Jews had the same worship practice. Most did not have windows that faced Jerusalem and Scripture is silent on how (by what manner) their personal manner manifested itself, except to say that it took place three times a day. While it was their expression of worship, their experience of God at that time in history, it continues the flow of personal worship practice.

Again, this is not an exhaustive list. It is only meant to show the flow and development of personal worship through the experiences of those who met with God individually for worship. And the practice did not end with the event of the New Testament period. Jesus clearly defined the nature of personal/private worship by his own practice and teaching.

· PP Jesus’ Practice: Jesus practiced personal worship as a regular part of his life. Time after time we read that he went away to a solitary place, alone, to pray. PP Matt. 14:23; Mk. 1:35; Mk. 6:36; Lk. 5:16; 6:12; 9:18; 11:1. After ministering to the crowds, on a regular basis, Jesus got alone to pray, to come into his Fathers presence…to worship.

· PP Jesus’ Teaching: Jesus taught his disciples that prayer, which is a foundational part of personal worship, should be done at all times, not just in specific places at specific times. PP Lk. 18:1.

Perhaps the clearest example of Jesus’ teaching on personal/private worship is found in PP Matthew 6:5-15. Again, this text forces us to examine the connection between prayer and personal/private worship. Arthur Pink wrote:

PP Eight times in the space of this verse is the pronoun in the singular and the second person, a thing unique is all Scripture, as though to emphasize the indispensability, importance and value of private prayer. We are to pray in the closet as well as in the church.[10]

PP This shows that for Matthew, prayer was not understood psychologically for its affect on the one praying and those who hear it, but like all worship is God centered and understood as an objectively real event in which God hears the worshipper.[11]

Here, Jesus assumes that personal prayer will take place in the life of the Christian. Elements of personal worship are found here in Jesus words; privacy, prayer, confession of sin and praise.

· PP The Apostle Paul’s practice of personal worship is evident from both his experience and teaching. In regard to prayer, it was to be continual as he practiced prayer night and day : PP 1 Thess. 2:1; 1 Thess. 3:10; 2 Tim. 1:3; 1 Thess. 5:17; Eph. 3:14-21; Col. 4:2; )

For Paul, the Christian life was a life of prayer.[12] For Paul, prayer, Scripture reading/meditating, fasting, praise and thanksgiving are all elements of personal worship. (2 Tim. 3:15-17; Eph. 6:17; 2 Cor. 11:27

Paul, being a good Pharisee, would have made personal worship a daily practice. He would have, in private, recited the Shema as well as several prescribed introductory and concluding benedictions. He would have done this three times a day.[13] And Paul was not alone, within Judaism, by A.D. 110, the customs of daily personal worship was considered obligatory.[14] With much of early Christian worship being derived from Jewish practice, it is important to know that everyday Jews had a daily practice of prayer that focused upon their past deliverance and future liberation.[15]

As we leave the New Testament and begin our exploration of extra-biblical material, as well as, the personal experiences of those Children of God who have practiced personal worship, it must be said that I hold these examples as authoritative because they are in agreement with what Scripture has already revealed concerning this practice.

Question: Can you name some individuals, apart from the Bible, who practiced personal worship?

· PP The Didache, an early Christian document written sometime after A.D. 60, states that Christians are to pray three times a day.[16] It can be argued that there is no reference to this being corporate or personal prayer. I understand that I am making assumptions based on silence. However, my assumptions are also based on a pattern I see which began in the Garden and flows throughout Scripture. It is not a far stretch to interpret this pattern of prayer as personalworship.

· PP The Apostolic Tradition of the early third century states that there are seven daily occurrences for private prayer.[17]

Daily private prayer by the mid to late third century was quickly becoming a thing of the past. The common people were beginning to believe that these hours of personal worship belonged to the clergy. It was also during this time that the monastic movement began to take place. This movement took personal/private worship to a new level of commitment.

· PP The Monastic movement was primarily responsible for developing the Daily Office. This was a rigorous recitation of a number of Psalms and prayers throughout the day, both in corporate worship and in the monks personal worship times. Common people could not follow the demands of the Daily Office and this lead to a gradual disappearance of the people’s daily prayer hours.[18] This practice continued until the Reformation.

· PP Lancelot Andrewes, an Anglican bishop born 1555 in London worked out a personal daily liturgy and after his death is was published as Private Devotions.[19] A book of private worship, it became the most widely read and popular work of Anglican devotional literature.[20]

· PP The Puritan and Reformed traditions during the seventeenth century developed many different manuals for the reinstitution of a much simplified daily personal, as well as, family worship in the lives of laity. Included in these manuals for daily personal worship were prayers and praises, and the reading of Scripture.

· PP William Law, born 1686 in England wrote A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.[21] In this book, Law describes his own personal worship practice and suggests that those who wish to grow in Christ follow his example.

· PP Matthew Henry, a pastor and scholar wrote the classic A Method of Prayer[22] which emphasized his discipline of daily morning and evening prayer. Henry saw this daily personal worship time as fulfilling the continual sacrifices of the temple as he believed Christians are a royal priesthood with daily worship responsibilities.[23]

· PP John Wesley, born in 1703 in England was deeply struck by Law’s A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life and practiced personal worship for an hour each morning and evening.[24]

· PP Pietism was the movement that replaced family worship with personal devotions[25] (worship) Pietism was individualistic with each person responsible for his/her own relationship with God, this included maintaining their own times of personal worship. Corporate worship during this time was secondary to personal worship.[26]

· PP Deitrich Bonhoeffer, in his book titled Life Together makes a strong point for the need of personal worship in the life of the Christian.[27] Bonhoeffer’s practice includes silence, solitude, meditation and prayer.

· PP Luis Palau, prominent evangelist wrote this about his personal/private worship practice.

It is a question of deciding whether this is fundamental to my overall walk with

· PP The Mennonite tradition teaches that ‘Private worship is the concern to make faith operative in daily life.’[29] They get their understanding of personal worship from the Anabaptist tradition. While in Anabaptist literature the ‘how to’ of personal worship is not found, writings on it’s practice and acceptance is prolific.

I could continue with denominations and ecclesiastic traditions until there were none left, the result would be the same. Every major denomination and Christian tradition surveyed included personal worship as an important part of what they teach and practice. Again, the terms used may be different but they all speak of communion in the presence of God and the response of the one meeting with God.

Question: What do all these examples; Biblical and historical, tell us about personal worship?

Personal worship has been a practice of God’s people from the Garden of Eden. It was practiced prior to the existence of the Tabernacle and Temple and continues today in the life of God’s people who are priests unto the Lord. While each Christian tradition does not give personal worship the same level of importance, the practice is still encouraged and a plethora of literature has been written in support of the practice.

^{^[1]}A.W. Tozer, Whatever Happened to Worship? ed. Gerald B. Smith (Camp Hill:Christian Pub. 1985), 121-122

^{^[2]}Ruth Senter, “Refreshment Break”, Discipleship Journal: 90, (ColoradoSprings: NavPress, 1999) Electronic ed.

[3] Underhill, 163

[4] Underhill, 176

[5] Ibid.

[6] Arthur W. Pink, “Private Prayer” editor Emmett O’Donnell for Mt. Zion Publications internet article www.eternallifeministries.org/awp_prayer2.htm

[7] Hughes Oliphant Old editor, Guides to the reformed Tradition: Worship (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1984), 143

[8] Charles Lee Feinberg, ‘The Uses of the Psalter’ Bibliotheca Sacra (Dallas: Dallas Theological Seminary, 1998) electronic ed.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Pink

[11] M. Eugene Boring. ‘Matthew, Mark, Luke’ The New Interpreters Bible (Nashville: Abingdon Press., 1995), 201

[12] Martin, Hawthorne, Reid, editors Dictionary of Paul and His Letters, (Downers Grove: IVPress, 1993), 725

[13] Ibid.

[14] Old., 144

[15] S. Shawn Madigan, ‘Spirituality, Liturgical’, Peter Fink Ed. New Dictionary of Sacramental Worship (Collegeville:Liturgical Press, 1990), 1225

[16] Paul Bradshaw, Early Christian Worship (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press. 1996), 70

[17] Ibid., 52

[18] Ibid., 55

[19] William O. Paulsell, Rules for Prayer, (New York: Paulist Press., 1993) 41

[20] Ibid.

[21] Paulsell, 45

[22] Matthew Henry, Method For Prayer (Peabody: Hendrickson Pub., 2003)

[23] Old., 148

[24] Paulsell, 51

[25] Ibid.

[26] Thomas H. Schattauer ‘Sacred Actions in the Protestant Churches After the Reformation’, in The Sacred Actions of Christian Worship, Robert Webber, editor (Nashville: Star Song Pub. Group, 1994), 188

[27] Deitrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, (SanFrancisco: Harper, 1954), 81

[28] Discipleship Journal, Issue 12, (Colorado Springs: The Navigators/NavPress, 1999) electronic ed.

[29] internet article http://www.mhsc.ca