Your Liturgy Says a Great Deal About Your Beliefs

"To reapply the words of Henry Van Til, all cultures, including all ecclesiastical cultures, are the externalization of a religion. The only question to ask and answer is—what religion?"

Holiness is not appealing to the unconverted soul. Seeker-sensitive churches have a false doctrine of man that inspires their liturgical practice. This false doctrine is the belief that man is in a neutral position with God as per his desire to either accept him or reject him. In a word, Arminianism. If you are ever curious as to the real-life doctrine of a church all you need to do is examine its liturgy. Having doctrinal statements on a webpage are nice but the weekly service will tell you if those are actually believed. If a church has statements that it believes in the total depravity of man but goes to great lengths to accommodate to sinners that they feel right at home when they visit on Sunday the fruit of their liturgy is an apple all the while they are assuring the Calvinists among them that they really do have an orange tree. Total depravity teaches that man in his sin does not and cannot desire the things of God, and yes, that includes faith.

"So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."
Romans 8:8

Holiness is our life. We are to be a holy people for we worship a holy God. Orderly, saint to God and God to saint focused worship will never be palatable to the unconverted soul. The Apostle Paul actually told us this explicitly in his letter to the Corinthians.

"If therefore the whole church be come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned, or unbelievers, will they not say that ye are mad? But if all prophesy, and there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, he is convinced of all, he is judged of all: And thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest; and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth."
1 Corinthians 14:23-25

When we worship God correctly the unlearned man will feel conviction to the degree that he would even fall on his face and worship God. This is the kind of reaction John and the prophets of old had when standing before angels and the Lord himself. Holiness is a powerful thing. A holy man can walk into a room and people will clean up their language. Even those who still use filthy language around a holy man cannot help but reserve their conduct and language a great amount that they would not in their usual company. Because the church is the City of God, the New Jerusalem, she is glorious. Her beauty is stunning. She is so stunningly chaste and beautiful that a vile man blushes at the sight of her. Not because she is embarrassing but she has exposed his mind for what it is. We should let her beauty be known. She is not caught in pajamas, leggings, baggy shirts and unkempt. No, she is a bride adorned in radiant beauty. Liturgy that is leggings, baggy shirts, blue and pink hair, is not our aim nor is it God's desire.

"Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints."
Revelation 19:7, 8
 

Yes, ladies, you can take example from the church for you are likened unto her as the husband is likened unto Christ. But this application is not our focus. We must seek to have our worship be honorable to God, it is to be reverent and holy. The purpose of our gathering is always to exalt Christ as Lord and to edify the body. Churches that have an incipient or inchoate lazy liturgy where the "fine linen, clean and white" is being exchanged for something a little more comfy need to cast off the leggings and put the dress back on. Congregations are not meant to merely receive the entire service. The congregation is to be participating to the point of oddness. A congregation that is declaring the oracles of God in recitation together is the type of congregation that Paul was speaking. So what would a service look like that is through and through an ideal service? A basic outline: there is to be joining before the throne of grace, singing praise to the King, recitation of confessional and Scriptural beliefs demonstrating affiliation with the King, bowing/kneeling before the King in confession of sins, receiving assurance of pardon by the minister by the authority of the King, prayer and supplications offered, tithes and offerings presented to the King, the message from the King, feasting with the King at his Table with his bread and his wine,  celebration in song and thanksgiving, hearing His benediction and leaving his courts in a jovial spirit to do his will. That is what Liturgy should be. But because these things are uncomfortable we often neglect them and the people starve for it. The service becomes so much about evangelizing and not wanting to scare off a would-be-convert that the sheep become emaciated over time. Is it no wonder the congregation is phlegmatic? Lights, guitars, and all the contemporary trinkets will not excite a thirsty soul. It is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder but that beholder is God. He has left us his inspired words to direct our lives and instruct us as to what he desires when we gather together on the Lord's Day. Let us seek those things that please him. For in pleasing him we are most satisfied. Also in doing this we will find that the unconverted will see God for who he is.
 

 

Wilson, Douglas. A Primer on Worship and Reformation: Recovering the High Church Puritan