Fervent in spirit
October 20, 2009
Continuing on the theme of giving God the honor due His name, I’d like to share some excerpts from an article I just read by Kevin DeYoung. (Some of you may know his name from the book Why We’re Not Emergent.) He is writing concerning the issue of reaching the next generation, but he makes an excellent (and needful) point about worship:
You can have formal services, so long as you do not have formalism. You can have casual services, so long as you do not approach your faith casually. Your services can have a lot of different looks, but young people want to see passion. They want to see us do church and follow Christ like we mean it.
We would do well to pay attention to Romans 12. “Let love by genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord” (9-11). We would be far less likely to lose our young people and far more likely to win some others, if the spiritual temperature of our churches was something other than lukewarm. People need to see that God is the all-consuming reality in our lives. Our sincerity and earnestness in worship matter ten times more than the style we use to display our sincerity and earnestness. (emphasis added)
“Do not be slothful in zeal; be fervent in spirit.” This is actually a command from the Lord. And note the context–these verses come in Paul’s fleshing out of the directive to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice…which is your spiritual worship” (12:1). Right worship is zealous, fervent worship.
Here is an essential point for us to understand: Even if the services or songs or prayers take different forms of expression than you prefer, the truths we are expressing are still the same; therefore, the level of passion we express should remain the same. Our zeal and passion come not from a style of music but from the truth of the Gospel, and who God is for us in Christ. If we can unite in passion for God in Christ, then people will clearly see that what we say and sing and express has affected us deeply. If we can only unite in passion for a style of music or a level of formality or casualness, then people will see that what matters most to us is only superficial and no different than any group of sports fans or concertgoers.
So the next time we gather, set your sights on the Gospel, and on the God of the Gospel. Let Him be what drives your passion. And notice how styles and forms begin to matter less and less.