Ben Zornes

Living and Dying to Show the Preciousness of Christ

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Loud Worship

Loud Worship

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One of the primary adjectives which should modify our worship of the Triune God is loud. Our worship should be loud. Consider these verses:

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise (Psa 98:4).

Shout unto God with the voice of triumph (Psa 47:1b).

Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee (Isa 12:6).

Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem (Zep 3:14).

[…] The people shouted with a loud shout, and the noise was heard afar off. (Ezr 3:13b)

A distinguishing mark of Christian worship is that it isn’t silent. We serve God with songs of praise and shouts of joy. The bold proclamation of God’s Word is central to our worship. The pronunciation of God’s covenant blessings upon us conclude our services. All of this is noisy by design.

Then as we descend from this holy hill of Lord’s Day worship, returning to our vocations, our worship is to be marked by obedience to the Word. Even in quiet meditation our thoughts are to tune themselves to the Words of Scripture. The world was made by the resonant command of the Voice of God. The covenant on Sinai was a marvel precisely because God’s Voice thundered out His law. The Lord Jesus commanded us to go into all the world as Ambassadors with a message of His good news.

In sum, I compel you, in accordance with the teaching of Scripture and the faithful example of the saints of old: worship the Lord with your outdoor voice. Make a ruckus. Let your “Amens” in affirmation of God’s good promises thunder like the war drums of a marching legion.

Word Centered Worship

Word Centered Worship

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The Word of God is central to the Christian life. We do not worship according to vibes. We do not center ourselves through wordless trances. Our worship services are noisy and wordy. That’s a feature, not a bug.

God is a God who reveals Himself. He is not hiding. A common way to describe His revelation is that of the world and the word. Nature reveals the invisible God, leaving mankind without excuse. But the Word, when accompanied by the Spirit’s blessing, is a life-giving seed.

The Word begets life in us, granting us saving faith. The Word dwells in us richly, and this is the content for our songs of praise. The Word washes us as it is applied in our baptism. The Word nourishes us in the Lord’s Supper. Even in the relatively quiet moments of our service, when we kneel in silent confession, it is the light of the Word which shines into our hearts. In this light we meditate on how our lives are out of conformity to its truth. And then confess our sin in words of repentance.

However, a common mistake in Reformed circles is to think that making the Word central means making our brains central in our worship. Your body isn’t merely a vehicle to carry your enormous brain to church. Our God is free to do as He pleases. The Word will do what He always does: make light out of darkness; make life out of death; make enemies into friends. The Word gives content to muse upon, but He also gives us orders to do with these bodies which the bleeding Word has redeemed for His service.

Hearing the Word and not doing it is a great folly. Here we are gathered before the Word, by Word. So open your ears, prepare your hearts, and let the Word have free reign in you.  

Worship Cows, Become Cattle

Worship Cows, Become Cattle

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I want to draw your attention to the profound wittiness that is present in the narrative of the Golden Calf incident. The tale is familiar enough. The people grow restless as Moses meets with Yahweh atop Sinai. They insist on Aaron making them a god. He complies with their request, fashioning a Golden Calf out of the plunder which they’d gotten as they left Egypt.

But how the text (Ex. 32) describes these idolators is what I want to note. The people stoop down to eat and drink. They spring up to frolic. God calls them stiff-necked, we might say bullheaded. The language paints them as straying, running wild, quickly spooked, needing to be corralled. As one commentator, who first drew my attention to this, said, “[they are portrayed] as wild calves […] because they transformed into the very object of their worship.”

Here in vivid narrative is the truth of the proverbial saying: you become like what you worship. Worship isn’t an optional add on to the life of humans. It’s why we were made. It’s hardwired into our system. God made us to worship Him, and by worshipping Him we most truly bear His image. To be human is to imitate and image forth God our Creator.

If you determine to worship anything else, you are also bound to the imitation of that thing. If you serve a golden calf, you become like a wild ox. This is why the self-absorption of our age is so very destructive. If you become like what you worship, what happens when you worship a powerless and depraved creature in rebellion to his Creator? You get a human deteriorating into themselves. It’s moral radioactive decay. The only remedy for such a moral implosion is to repent and worship God alone according to His Word.

Prayer of Confession

Father God,

You are great and marvelous, and Your splendor is past finding out. You have made us for Yourself, and in our worship of You we find our soul’s true rest, our soul’s true purpose. Yet, mankind has rebelled against this duty of rendering worship to You alone. He has exalted himself, and thus been doomed to a fate of the inward spiral of self-referential worship and imitation. Forgive us, who profess to be Your people, for not rendering unto You the worship that is Your due, and have mercy upon us for where we have gone after other gods who are not true gods. Where we have exalted ourselves in vanity and self-absorption, pardon our iniquities. For we greatly desire to display Your glory to all the world, in and through our faithful worship of You alone. Grant us strength to cast down all idols, and bestow unto us the blessedness of bearing Your image which comes through right worship of You, the One True God.

You have called Your church to truth in the inward parts, so we now confess our individual sins to You. Selah.

We do this in Jesus’ mighty name, and Amen.

Meeting with Jesus

Meeting with Jesus

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This is not a social gathering, although it does bring us the enjoyment of the society of the saints. It isn’t an academic lecture hall, even though we are duty bound by Scripture to pay heed, take note, diligently search out whether the things taught and proclaimed comport with God’s Word. It isn’t a political rally, although we make confession that makes a politically global assertion: Christ is Lord. As we gather together, we must keep one thing central: we’re gathered to meet with Jesus.

When you meet with Jesus, you are meeting with the commander of the armies of the Living God. The Captain of our Salvation. The Man of God’s Right Hand. The Anointed King of Israel, who reigns above all thrones and dominions. You meet with a Regal King. A Strong Shepherd. A Faithful Servant. A Priest. A Prophet. A Bridegroom. A Lion. A Lamb.

So, with all that in mind, have you prepared yourself to meet with such a one? Our attitude and demeanor is all too often flippant & our minds are full of distracted thoughts. But if we indeed believe what the Bible tells us about who Christ is, we ought to ready ourselves to meet with Him. So, how does Scripture command us to come?

You ought not to come to perform some perfunctory task, as if you’re keeping some scheduled but inconvenient maintenance. Rather, you’re to come in faith, with joy & reverence. He initiates this meeting, and as a worshipper You are to come with true faith in response to His summons, trusting that He wants You to partake of all His goodness. You are to come with humble reverence, for He is Almighty God; and yet this is to be mingled with gladness, for He has ordained unto us everlasting joys.

Prayer of Confession

Father God,

Fill our minds with a renewed understanding of the glory and majesty of Jesus. Save us from the distractions and worries and fears and lusts which consume our attention with trifles. You have offered us, as the hymn says, life and health and peace; yet our hearts, too often, seek after vain things. Forgive us, Father, for coming into Your presence as if our worship of You is more like a chore, rather than our chief end. As we now humbly & gladly confess our sins to you, grant us grace to robustly worship you with hearts made clean by the blood of Christ, with hands made holy by Your tender mercies, and with tongues that are full of Your praise.

You have called Your church to truth in the inward parts, so we now confess our individual sins to You. Selah.

We do this in Jesus’ mighty name, and Amen.

A Final Remark

Jesus has come to meet with us, and He meets with us by the proclamation of His Gospel by the power of His Holy Spirit. Christ comes to meet with you, and minister unto you, by assuring you of this news that is good because it is true: your sins are forgiven through Christ.

Bible Reading, Prayer, & Worship

Bible Reading, Prayer, & Worship

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Introduction 

It is a great misfortune that many evangelicals view spiritual growth in a very inorganic way. If a little boy wants to grow to be a great warrior, he needs to do three things: eat, sleep, & breathe. Many view spiritual growth in a very mechanistic way; as if to become more godly they need to add more hardware to themselves. But true growth in godliness comes through a few acts of obedience which spring from evangelical faith: read your Bible, say your prayers, and above all, worship the Triune God.

The Text

Exodus 34:14

For thou shalt worship no other god: for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

A Jealous God

We often associate jealousy with sinful attitude. What we often call jealousy would be better described as envy or covetousness. “Jealous” is one of God’s names. This text expands upon the the first commandment, warning Israel that as they enter Canaan they must resist the pull to enter into covenant with the nations which the Lord is going to drive out before them. The ultimate reason for this warning is that such loyalty to the pagan nations will entice Israel into self-willed worship, which is another way of describing idolatry. 

Israel is in covenant with God. For them to break covenant provokes His jealousy. As one theologian points out regarding the sacrificial system under Moses: “The rite speaks of God’s claims on us, whereas what we too often want […] is some kind of claim on God’s mercy, bounty, or gifts.”

Shaped by the Word 

The distinct aroma of the Christian’s life should be the Word of Life. We are not at liberty to live as we pleased, we have been separated unto service. You are not your own.

So in both our private & public worship we must insist upon the grooves of our habits & rituals being biblical. But this is precisely where our internalized sentimentality is rubbed the wrong way. We don’t want to conform to anything other than our own ill-defined grab bag of preferences. 

But if you would serve the living God, you must leave your opinion at the door. You must put your hand over your mouth. You must bend your knee. Most Christians don’t reflect on the fact that much of the OT is a description of how God calls His people to worship Him.

Covenant Renewal

Our liturgy is shaped by asking the question, how does God expect us to worship Him? When we study Scripture two things emerge in regards to how God deals with His people. First, is that God always deals with man covenantally. Meaning, this world is His and He reveals to us the terms of living in His world, and the blessings which come with living according to His ordering of things, and the curses that will come if you defy Him.

The second thing we see is that the covenant which God brings His people follows a glorious pattern of cleansing, ascending, and communing. This is seen most clearly in the ordering of the three primary levitical offerings. 

The Sin Offering was followed by the Ascension Offering, and the concluding sacrifice was the Peace Offering (Cf. Lev. 9). In the Sin Offering, the caul & the kidneys were offered, and rest of the creature became a portion for the priests, but not the worshipper (Lev. 4:1-5:13). The entire creature, except for the skin, was offered entirely to the Lord in the Ascension/Burnt Offering (Lev. 1:1-17).

But after these were offered, the Peace Offering could be sacrificed. This was a shared meal: the LORD has his portion (Lev. 3:9-11), the priest/mediator received a portion (Lev. 7:31-32), and finally the worshipper partook of this offering (Lev. 7:15). A glorious pattern emerges: God calls us, cleanses us, and consecrates us in order to commune with us.

When Christ took the Passover seder and renovated it into a simple meal of bread and wine, He didn’t disconnect it from what came before. He became the final & all-encompassing sacrifice. 

When we confess our sins at the beginning of our service, we are enjoying Christ as our Sin Offering, His righteousness covers our guilt. When the Word is read & preached to us, and as we lift our various thanksgivings and petitions, in Christ & by Christ our High Priest we are offered up entirely to God. The knife of His Word cuts us up, and the Holy Spirit’s fire consumes us that we might be set apart as priestly kings here upon earth.

Then we come to the Peace Offering which Christ offered on our behalf. This ensured that we might partake with the Father and the Great High Priest of that covenant meal. What Christ offered was the blood of the new testament (Mk. 14:22-24). Having been called, cleansed, consecrated, and enjoying the abundant feast of communion with God Almighty, He commissions us to go forth as ambassadors of this gracious covenant which is offered to all men everywhere.

The Word of Life

We begin our week with this ascension into God’s presence, communing with Him and all the saints both here and in Heaven. As we proceed to our various spheres, the duty is to be governed & nourished by the Word. Our worship service is saturated with Scripture, creating grooves in our way of speaking and thinking and living. This ministry of the Word & Visible Word spurs on our daily meditation on the Word which trains us to worship the Lord with skillful understanding (Ps. 47:7).

Trying to walk in accordance with the covenant which we renew here each week, without studying what the covenant calls you to is like fasting for a week before hiking a 14er. You won’t make it far. The Word is our light & our feast.

Regular Bible reading is not just a suggestion. It is mandated by Scripture itself (Deu. 6:6-9; 2 Pt. 3:14-16; Rom. 15:4). The Scriptures fill a man out (2 Tim. 3:17). It illuminates his path (Ps. 119:11, 105). 

Breathing in & Breathing Out

Every Christian esteems praying, but few pray. To continue an earlier metaphor, the prayerless Christian is like a runner trying to hold her breath while running a long distance race. But evangelical prayer has been muddied in a few ways. Jesus gives a real warning about prayer marked by mindless repetition (Mt. 6:7).

Often believers develop a guilt complex about prayer. So, we can try to generate high quality prayers (“praying until we pray”). The thinking is that if you add a bit of zing & zest to your prayers they’ll get to heaven faster, and the good Lord will be obliged to answer them more quickly. 

We’re also tempted to think that we need to increase the quantity of our prayers. But while it’s our duty to “pray without ceasing,” we ought to understand it rightly, not dip it into an overly sweet piety syrup. Have you ever been paralyzed with the thought that you’re not breathing enough? 

So then, pray the Lord’s Prayer. Read the Psalms and let the language of them permeate your own prayers. Talk to God. All the time. Tell it all to Him. Ask Him for whatsoever. Intercede for the lost, the orphan, the widow. Breath in and breath out. Pray. Pray. Pray. But don’t be weird about it.

That Restoration Might Come

When it comes to these basic Christian duties, we should bear in mind that when God gives commands, He is commanding our blessing. He’s the lavish God. When you look at the offerings which are required, the worshipper isn’t obliged to just give a pinch of incense. It’s entire beasts. It’s large casks of wine. It’s fragrant loaves of grain. But these offerings of worship unto God are the result of God’s abundant blessings to Israel.

He increased Abraham’s flocks and herds and children. He loaded Israel with all the spoil of Egypt. He filled their barns, filled their wombs, filled their homes. He filled the tabernacle with glory. When we return to God, we find that He is already loading us up with bounty & blessings (Hos. 14). Here is a daily feast. Here is true rest in the courts of Jehovah. Here is the clear air.

Charge & Benediction

So yes, these might sound like simple chores: go to church, read your Bible, say your prayers. But think of them as eating, sleeping, and breathing. Try this, grab one of the Bible reading plans and get started (or restarted) reading the Word. Make a list of your petitions…and then as God answers them, make another list of thanksgivings. Then, next Sunday, come to church brimful with gratitude for the blessings God has loaded you down with.

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and with love of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessings of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon, and remain with you always. Amen.

Ingrown Autonomy

Ingrown Autonomy

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The affliction of modern man is what should be ridiculed as “ingrown autonomy”. Man views himself as totally independent. He is authorized by whatever impulse stimulates him at the moment to act accordingly. It is his subjective truth that dictates his moral framework, and his moral framework is guided by that great humanist trinity: “my, myself, and I.”

In contrast, the early Christian creeds begin with a statement which offends man’s self-centeredness by confessing that God the Father is the maker of heaven and earth. As one writer notes, “the creed is simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive. This means that if God is the creator and we are His creatures we owe Him all the honor, obedience, and most importantly worship that is due to Him as the Almighty Creator.” 

When Christians recite the creeds, it isn’t a robotic recitation of syllogisms. Rather, our confession of faith in who God is as revealed by scripture, obliges us at the outset to bend our knee to worship. As the 95th Psalm reminds us, “It is He who made us, and not we ourselves.”

The deep roots of the creeds anchor us in faithful worship. You are created, dependent, complex. God is uncreated, free, and simple. You require daily bread, but He is as one Christian mystic put it, “Self-kindled and self-fed.” To be a human is to exist in reference to the sovereign God, while He is the eternal I AM.

He isn’t your equal. He isn’t just the biggest created thing in the cosmos. He is your God. This truth summons you to worship Him, for He made you, and through Christ redeemed you. The humanist daydream of autonomy is to build your house in a nuclear reactor in meltdown; but to bend in faith to worship your Maker is to live in this glorious house which the Living God has created for your good & His glory.

Our sinful attitude throughout history has been to think that God is disposable, ignorable, or irrelevant. Yet the Scriptures and nature itself compels us to come face to face with the awesome truth that He is God the creator of heaven & earth, of all things visible & invisible. This demands our worship. This demands our praise. This demands our faith & obedience. Yet our every sin is a defiant insistence on attempting to be autonomous in a world which God Almighty made and is anything but autonomous. May God forgive us for the pride at the heart of this twisted sense of independence. May He grant us grace to humble ourselves and cast ourselves entirely upon His great mercy and grace.

After all, to be truly human is to recognize that He is God and you are not. This is the only way to truly start living.

Ben Zornes