Worship - Listening to God

The following comments apply to Chapter 15 of Batsell Barrett Baxter's book, The Family of God.  This is the first of five chapters devoted to the individual "acts of worship" or things we do in Christian worship.

Among the numerous things that Jesus is known for, one of the more enigmatic occurs when he is telling a parable and tacks on the statement, "He who has ears, let him hear."  Matthew 11:15 and 13:9 are two examples.  In these teaching situations, one can imagine the questions in the minds of Jesus' followers:  Who is this message intended for?  Some people say that Jesus is trying to be as all-inclusive as possible by creating a category of those with ears.

Most scholars agree that the Lord's intent is to show that spiritually minded people will understand the spiritual message in His sayings--especially the parables--while those with worldly minds, who figuratively speaking can be said to have no ears with which to hear the spiritual truths, would not understand the message but would see only the surface story in a parable, because they are not tuned into the moral value.

Local newspapers sometimes ask the poll question, "If you could have dinner with anyone in the world, who would it be?"  I've seen several responses indicating that people would really give up a lot to spend time with Jesus.  What a shame it would be for those who were fortunate enough to be  in the presence of Jesus, if they turned out to be the ones who "didn't have ears," and could not understand His teaching due to shallowness or worldliness.

Baxter says the same thing happened when Robert Fulton tried to describe his idea for the steamboat to Napoleon.  He got only two minutes to make his pitch, and Napoleon was not intererested.  Napoleon might have had significant victories if only he had listened and understood what Fulton was trying to tell him.

So it is with this first element of Christian worship.  God's message is taught and heard as part of our worship.  Everyone has a part in it, even though only one person is doing the speaking.  Having ears for spiritual things, we listen and absorb something that God wants us to know, and that in turn provides us with a blessing that extends through the week and beyond.

Baxter points out that this teaching is different from the other elements of worship.  Singing, praying, participating in the Lord's Supper, and giving of our means are all from us to God.  The message is from God to us.  So, if we count the worship acts on the fingers of one hand, we might want to make the thumb represent preaching, because it is a good bit different than the four fingers.

This one element takes up a large portion of the worship time.  For that reason, among others, we need to know and remember that each of us has an active role in that act of worship where the message is presented.

Some day you might be explaining to someone how to be saved, and you would tell the person that it all starts with hearing the message of Christ.  We should be thankful that hearing the message doesn't stop after it is first accomplished.  It goes on and on, and there is much more to be heard as we become a member of the church and begin each week in worship.

I remember as a child getting pretty excited about collecting trading cards.  We had cards with baseball and football players, cards with elephant jokes, and even cards with Civil War scenes.  As we mature, we try to put more meaningful things in our lives.  Some people try to remember as much as they can from each sermon.  Let's all hope that we can get as excited about hearing biblical messages as we used to get when we bought a pack of trading cards.  Certain ones of those cards have gone up in value quite a bit as time has progressed, but none can compare with the ultimate value of the gospel.

Baxter says there are two things needed for preaching and two main purposes for it.  The two things needed are man and the message.  The two purposes are to bring people to the Lord and to help people who are in Christ to live by faith.

For the Bible to be in written form helps make it permanent.  It is a time-tested method of bringing the message to people that a spokesman teach in the worship assembly.  That goes all the way back to the time before Christ, but it seems that with the coming of new technologies, this method has been challenged as the primary means of teaching.  Radio, movies, television, the Internet, wireless communication, and social media on the Web all beg for our attention, and they deserve consideration as teaching tools.  Yet, when a preacher stands in a pulpit and teaches God's word, he spans the entire history of creation with the method he uses.  There is a lot to be said for maintaining and upholding that skill, because in the final analysis, faith in Christ is passed from person to person, just like a spoken message.

The message is equally important.  A preacher must know what he is presenting to his hearers.  Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4 that we have this treasure (God's message) in earthen vessels (that's us).  Elsewhere, in Romans 1, he announced rather pointedly that he was not ashamed of the gospel and its power.  When it is regarded in that way, the message will be worthwhile and will produce its desired effect.

The preacher has a responsibility and so do the hearers.  We should remember from the last chapter that the sermon is not done until the hearers go out and demonstrate that they know how to "walk in the light" and are willing to do it.