Col No.28 Communal Worship

Colossians 3 verse 15 through to the 17th. And let the peace of God, more accurately, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body, and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

And whatsoever ye do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by Him. I think you would find it helpful if you have your Bibles open at Colossians and chapter 3, and if your memory is good, and I'm sure it's reasonable, you will recall that last time, as we were inquiring into these three verses, the 15th through to the 17th, we did so under the general heading of the Apostles' instructions to the Christian community. And in a preliminary review of this passage of Scripture, we noticed that there were three.

The Apostle says, let the peace of Christ arbitrate in your hearts. Let the word of Christ infiltrate within you. Verse 17, let the name of Christ dominate in all that you do.

And I suppose we could leave this passage just at that, having inquired from those starting points, the teaching of the verses. And yet, I think that if we were to do that, we would have overlooked something which is of vital importance. And that really is contained within the 16th verse, to which I was only able to make allusion in passing last time.

For here in that verse, it seems to me, is defined at least partially. The way that the early Christians used to approach the whole subject of worship, corporate, communal, worship before the Lord. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

That tells us quite a lot about the way people used to go to church, not so much a building in those days, as a place where they would meet, which perhaps was the house of one of the more wealthy Christians. The way that they used to approach the whole business of coming together and offering praise to the Lord. Now before we inquire into this verse, let me remind you of a couple of things.

The first is this, the very context which surrounds this passage. In case with such a detailed study of Colossians, you've lost the whole gist of the Apostles argument at this stage. The total teaching in the third verse, really in the third chapter, really devolves from the fact of the coming again of Jesus.

Remember how the apostle tells us that Jesus is coming back, when Christ, verse 4, is our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. Now because we know this, because this is on the forefront of our thinking, it affects the way that we live our lives. So in the first verse we're told that because we're risen with Christ, we think we seek those things which are above.

We're also told in the second verse to set our affections on things above, not on things on the earth. So the Apostle marks us off as being a very distinct group of people, if we've trusted Jesus at our Savior. Our lifestyle is different, our way of behavior, as he outlines from the fifth verse right down to the twelfth verse, is to be completely dissimilar to other folks, who do not claim what we claim.

To have given our lives to the Lord Jesus, and to have received the fullness of his spirit. Even says the Apostle in the thirteenth verse, our very attitude towards one another is to be unique, and to be in such a fashion that it brings honor to the Lord. We're to forgive one another, not to cherish, not to nurture grievances and grudges, rather we are to preserve the fellowship within the Christian community.

So all this is what the Apostle has been telling us, simply because he made allusion to the coming again of Jesus. Because Jesus is coming again, you live differently, you relate differently. And what's more, he says, the whole concept of your worship, when you come together as Christians, is always to be examined in the light of the teaching which I now set down.

Well that's the first thing I wanted to do, to put this particular verse in its context. But there's something else which is necessary. Let me say this, that punctuation in the New Testament is not necessarily inspired.

It's not necessarily inspired when you try it in the English language in the 20th century either. But maybe the translators didn't get it quite right in their punctuation in this 16th verse. And to that end, I would suggest that the NIV is better.

So let me just revise the punctuation a moment or so. Because here in this verse of Scripture, the Apostle is telling us a number of very interesting things about worship. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, semicolon.

In all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another, semicolon. In Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Now if you didn't follow the punctuation, or it got wrapped up in a cough when I was actually spelling it out to you, you'll follow it as we go through this verse in a moment.

Here are three vital things about worship. First of all the Apostle says that in understanding communal worship, the word is central. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Also, the ministry is plural. In all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another. Finally, the worship is vital, or the praise is vital.

In Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. The word is central, the ministry is plural, the praise is vital. Three distinct but necessary ingredients when people are coming together to offer worship to the Lord.

Let's take the first one. The word is central. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Preaching is part of worship. There are those people who sometimes think that worship is really bowing your head in prayer, maybe singing a spiritual refrain, and that sort of discipline. And they think that perhaps the preaching is a sandwich that's in between the two outer layers of worship.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Preaching is part of, if not the very zenith of worship, because preaching is God's pre-ordained medium by which he makes his message known and makes the message applied to the people who come along to hear the proclamation of the evangel. The church was born in praise, but it grew with preaching.

They came together in an exuberant fashion to praise the Lord and to wait upon the Lord on the day of Pentecost. Praise came as they responded to the presence of God and the fullness of the Spirit. Then Peter, with the crowd that came along, made his debut as a preacher, you remember.

And thousands were converted. And when the Apostle is standing at the gate, beautiful, after that remarkable healing, and another crowd assembles, he preaches. And then when he's brought before the Old Bailey, so to speak, in Jerusalem with his colleague, he preaches the Word of God to the Jewry.

And when you go right through the New Testament and the Acts of the Apostles, which tells of the spread of Christianity, you find that the Church of Jesus is a preaching unit. Take Paul. Went to Corinth, stayed in that place for 18 months.

What was he doing? He was preaching. When he went to Ephesus, he booked one of the lecture rooms there. Nineteenth chapter of Acts tells you about it.

And the ninth verse, he was daily in the school of one Tyrannus. And this continued by the space of two years. And in one of the manuscripts, we're told that he preached from the fifth hour to the tenth hour.

From twelve o'clock in the morning to four o'clock in the afternoon, day after day, day after day. And you complain when you get 35 minutes. They had five hours there.

Twenty-five thousand hours I worked out. Paul preached at Ephesus. You can check my mathematics if you like.

And what was the result? Well, the Word of God, it infiltrated that community and many turned from the worship of the pagan goddess Diana and acknowledged Jesus as Lord and Savior. Jesus is a Puritan by the name of Stuart, or rather God, says Stuart had only one son and he made him a preacher. When you read of Jesus in Mark's gospel, he comes preaching the Word.

Luke chapter 4, he's been ministering. The people are astonished and they say to one another, what a word is this? No man has ever spoken to us before with the authority that he spoke. And of course the word which Jesus preached could not be divorced from the person that Jesus was, because the two become fused together as part of the revelation of God.

God's word to the world is Jesus. And so when the New Testament writers, moved by the Spirit, summarized the gospel, they call it the Word of Reconciliation. This is what Paul has been preaching at Philippi.

This is what the people have responded to. They have heard how Jesus has bridged the gap between an unholy humanity and a righteous and a just God. The Apostle has gone throughout the world and his colleagues with him, preaching that Jesus, the Son of God, died on the cross of Calvary for the salvation of all those who would believe.

You can't be saved unless someone preaches the message to you. That's what the New Testament says. And blessed be God, that's what we believe today, here in the tabernacle.

Through the ministry of preaching, God invades the world now by the power of the Spirit. As when his son was on earth, he on two or three occasions in particular, said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. This is my son the beloved, hear him.

So God says, hear my son through the ministry of preaching. So the Apostles went around the Roman world and they proclaimed the blessed gospel, which many of us here, if not all, have come to embrace. And the Word of God was always central in their worship.

So we're grateful to the Apostle for making it so clear here. Let the Word of Christ, the Word about Christ, let the Christ Word dwell in you richly. You've got no reason to come to such a church as this, unless your concern is to offer praise to the Lord God.

And that praise will be stimulated by ministry about the blessed Son of God, even Jesus the Lord. So the Word is central, but, says the Apostle, the ministry of that rich Word is plural. Look again, using the punctuation I gave you, those who have the A.V., from the phrase, in all wisdom, in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another.

Now there's plurality involved in that, is there not? It's amazing how quickly they're changing the roads in Worthing, at least some of the road signs. While I was away in Africa, they made the road alongside the new entrance to the hospital one way. I wish I'd realized as I drove down for the umpteenth time that they changed the regulations and I wasn't supposed to be driving that way.

I'd been used to two-way traffic. It's happening throughout England. I remember going back to my home city, driving down the main street where I used to work in the education offices as a younger man.

I wondered why I could see a policeman and a news vendor chasing my car. And it was to inform me that you just don't go down that street that way anymore. And then when I explained to the policeman that really I was a southerner, well, he forgave me everything.

Ministry, my dear friend, was never meant to be just one way. Listen again. In all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another.

So when the apostle gives us some insight into the practice of early Christians coming together for one of their worship services, he tells us this in 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 26. How is it then brethren, when you come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation and so on. And when the illustrious Paul discloses his desire to visit the church, the Christian community at Rome, he has to revise one of his opening statements.

He says in the 11th verse of the first chapter, I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift. But then he says, no, it's not just one way traffic. And so he goes on, to the end that ye may be established, that is, or rather that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me.

Not just one way, two ways. Because you see, within the New Testament, as opposed to the 20th century ecclesiastical establishment, there wasn't this absurd distinction between the clergy and the laity. I wanted to give you the origin historically of those two terms, but it would take me about three minutes and I'm not going to spend that time just at this moment.

So maybe on another occasion I'll show you. But just briefly to say that within the New Testament, ministry is equated with the total body of Christ. Now let's come back to the thought.

It doesn't mean that you're all going to run out and buy clerical collars. That was something that came along much later in the church, when she really got a little out of sorts with sacramentalism and what have you. Neither does it necessarily mean that you're all going to put Reverend in front of your name, which I don't myself, since realizing that the Hebrew translation of Reverend is awful.

And the Reverend Sargent's one thing, but the other option is just not acceptable. In all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another. Not pooling ignorance, but sharing what you know.

Every man, a Bible student, as every Hebrew gathered for himself or herself manner that God sent from heaven to sustain life in the wilderness wanderings. Each one of us being able to impart to the other, when opportunity arises, when worship is possible on a democratic basis. Those things which God has entrusted to us.

One of the things that really thrilled my heart last week about which the majority of you know nothing, was a meeting that we had in the tabernacle last Tuesday. Some 26 men, I think that number is accurate, gathered together with me to come before the Lord and to make a resume of the developments of our ministry and to try to think and plan for the 1980s. Who are these men? Well they were the elders, the assistants to the elders, the deacons.

All who in any way as men exercise spiritual leadership in this church. All who have a gift to contribute. And by no means does that exhaust the ministry gifts within the church.

Because we would have had to have moved from the lounge to the hall to have brought in everyone who is directly engaged in teaching some group, upholding some aspect of our ministry. And quite frankly if we have been trying to evaluate the total witness of this church for Jesus Christ in Worthing, we would have had to have brought together the whole membership. And if anyone did not feel that they could come along to such a meeting as that, then basically they have no right to be in the membership.

Because being in the membership of the church means that you accept a call by God to enhance the ministry of the church. Whether that's in the area of prayer, domestic work, tract distribution, loyally supporting the ministry on a Sunday by being present. A myriad of ways in which we complement all that we're offering to the Lord.

Making a contribution one by one and bringing to him what is worship. In all wisdom with knowledge together as Christian people teaching and admonishing one another. So what have we discovered so far? That in worship the word is central, ministry is plural.

And here and this was to have been the longer part of my meditation this morning but that Clark's possessed. Praise is vital in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

These early Christians they were so enthusiastic. I wish that we could have a trip back down 2,000 years and just go to Colossae and go to Philippi and go to the Christian community at Jerusalem. I think it would do us all a world of good.

Some people are so afraid of joy that they think all who are devout must be unhappy. That's what Charles Spurgeon said, not me. These people came together and as the word was central as they contributed one to another what the Lord had taught them.

So they were stimulated to praise God vocally in their singing. That's why they sang. They sang because they loved God.

They loved God because God had given his son. There is nothing that blows my mind more than this, than the thought that the eternal God who ever existed should send into this world his own son to die so cruelly for me. It doesn't matter whether it's a little boy or a little girl who's telling me the story of Jesus.

I tell you I'm still moved, still stimulated as a result to praise the Lord. The Hebrews on one occasion could not praise God. They were in Babylon.

How could they sing the Lord's song in a foreign land and so they hung their their harp upon the willow, you remember? In depression it's not easy to sing, is it? But you see one of the reasons for the ministry of the word is to help alleviate the pressures and the consequent depressions of life. I can come into church on a Sunday, come to be with you and I can have had an awful week and I can feel as depressed as depressed can be. And then I look into the word and having the privilege more than most of ministering this word, I find that it applies to my heart.

It becomes as balm to my soul and the depression and the despondency goes. Why? Because Jesus is central and when my eyes are fixed on him it helps to dwarf all the other problems and pressures within my life. Thou art my God and I will praise thee.

The sort of hymns that we're delighting in singing. They are acceptable to the Lord and a reproduction of what was going on in the in the first century. Praise was vital and they sang because they had been reminded of Jesus.

What did they sing? Well listen to the apostle here. They sang one to another in in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Not really easy to distinguish those three categories.

I'm sure there's a measure of overlap. But Psalms, well it seems reasonably obvious that these were the Psalms of Moses and the Psalms of David. You remember on occasions when the Christian community are together in Jerusalem and they've received good news.

All of a sudden it says they they started to burst forth in praise when Peter and John had finished with the Sanhedrin. You remember they came back and they reported all that had done and then to a man they started to praise the Lord. Somebody commenced with, is it the first part of Psalm 2? And they all joined in praising God.

If you're a little despondent sometimes you turn to the book of Psalms because the Psalms is written for people who are in perplexing situations. And here's dear old Paul and Silas with their skin off their back. Flayed by the Roman whips and they're they're in the dungeon.

And what happens? They think think of the Psalmist and of his ministry in those fine Hebrew poems. And throughout the corridors of that prison are echoed the praises of God. Psalms.

Hymns. You remember how Jesus and the disciples left the upper room and they sang as they were going. The literal translation is they hymned a psalm.

You get the same translation incidentally in Acts. They hymned to Silas and Paul in the prison. Praise even though their circumstances were so so painful became natural to them.

Spiritual songs if you like odes which are written to the praise and to the glory of God. Listen to the Apostle John giving us a foretaste of the tremendous praise in heaven. And they sung as it were a new song before the throne and before the four beasts and the elders.

And no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand which were redeemed from the earth. And then he goes on in the third verse of the 15th chapter. And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God.

The song of the Lamb saying great and marvelous are thy works Lord God Almighty just and true are thy ways thou King of Saints. I think that one of the most wonderful things that's happening these days is the way that people are beginning to sing the scriptures again. For some of us we had to be shaken out of our bias because there was the repetition that sometimes comes in the singing of some of these spiritual refrains.

He is all my righteousness I stand complete in him and worship him. And we sing it three times and some just nod their heads. That's all emotion you know just repetition.

And yet sometimes the criticisms will come from those who each Christmas will go and listen to Handel's Oratorio which is largely two-thirds repetition and a majestic piece of music at that. Sometimes my friend I tell you when I come into church you may be different and thank God if your abilities are greater than mine I'm sure mine are very small. But all I can do is center upon one fact and the thought that Jesus is all my righteousness and I stand complete in him.

I want to bask in that and take it with me throughout the day. I praise God for the old hymns for Wesley's hymns and Luther's hymns. But sometimes I wonder just what thoughts do go through our congregation when we sing about God in terms of consubstantial co-eternal while an ending ages run.

Not too easy to determine what that means with unless you're plugged into Calvin's systematic theology. Sinners who ne'er can can ne'er forget the wormwood and the gall. Well I sing about the wormwood on the gall because you sing it and I know you wouldn't be singing it if you didn't understand it.

And what am I saying I'm saying simply this my friends that these spiritual songs these spiritual odes which emphasized one aspect of the Word of God the Word of Christ and seemed to be so precious to the New Testament people are equally precious to ourselves. There was a lot more that I wanted to say but let's just stop at that. What have we learned about worship this morning? Communal worship means that the word must be central.

The ministry is plural. The praise is vital. Worship is ascribing praise and worth and value to the Lord.

It's like the psalmist in 136 saying oh give thanks unto the Lord for he is good. And just in case you don't get the message he repeats it 26 times incidentally. The overwhelming of the Spirit that came upon the church that enlivened their fellowship as they drew together Sunday by Sunday to offer praise to the Lord which had been stimulated by the message of Christ which they'd received and the contribution that one had made to the other of what they had learned about the Lord Jesus and his dealings with them during that week.

So we in our inadequate fashion endeavor to take our pointer from the Word of God and to offer him as a group of his people today worship which we pray we plead is acceptable in his sight delighting to make melody in our hearts and to sing our psalms and our hymns and our songs. Amen. And father we just say amen to that and help us not only by the emotion that caused forth our singing but also by the conviction of our hearts which shall cause our lives to correspond with our words to praise you throughout this week.

Amen.