Every Lord’s Day we come together for Covenant Renewal Worship. This doesn’t mean that our covenant with God expires each week unless we or God renew it every Sunday. God’s Covenant of Grace is an everlasting Covenant. But, from our standpoint, our participation in the Covenant is designed to grow and flourish. Just as food and drink strengthen and grow the body and give us a sense of renewal, so too does the worship of God strengthen us and grow us by His grace and thus renew our covenant with Him. Our zeal, our commitment, our faith, our heart, our mind, our body, and our soul are all renewed as we worship the Triune God together with God’s people.
In Covenant Renewal Worship there is a back-and-forth with God and His people. We lift up our prayers and our praise to Him. We lift up our hearts, our hands, and our voices to Him, and He pours out His mercy and grace upon us, washing us with the water of the Word, consecrating us and equipping us, and then meeting us at His table to nourish us and gladden our hearts with His presence, gospel promises, bread and wine, and then He commissions us out with His blessing upon us to go and live for His glory, the good of His church, and the life of the world. As we seek to worship the Lord in line with His Word we bless the Lord and one another, but our primary focus is on the Lord. Everything we do on Sunday morning is to be in obedience to Him and for His glory. No doubt, when we sing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs we are singing and making melody to the Lord, but we are also addressing and building up one another, just as we are when we do corporate Bible reading, corporate prayer, and the Bible is taught and preached. It’s all for God’s glory and the good of God’s people, but again, God is the main point.
What I’ve laid out so far is fairly straightforward and obvious, but there is more to Covenant Renewal Worship than meets the eye. Consider what God’s Word says. In Hebrews 9:24 we read, “For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.” Then in Hebrews 10:19-25 we read, “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
Because of the person and work of Christ, every Sunday we meet together and stir one another up to love and good works in and through our faithfulness, fellowship, and faithful worship. But, we are drawing near with a true heart in full assurance of faith to where Christ is; we are entering, not merely into holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself. As pastor Doug Wilson once put it, “It’s like every church has a retractable roof that opens up to heaven when we worship together.” In other words, as we are worshipping together we are truly a heavenly embassy, because heaven is opened up to us and we worship with the heavenly hosts, experiencing the very culture of heaven together, and so we pray that God’s Kingdom would come and His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray that the taste of heaven that we get in and through Covenant Renewal Worship would fill us, our church, our homes, our nation, and the earth.
When we humbly confess our sin to the Lord we are kneeling before the King (Psalm 95:6). When we stand for the reading of God’s Word and to praise the Lord we are rising in respect for the King (Nehemiah 9:3). When we loudly declare, “AMEN!” after we sing or say, “Praise be to God!” after God’s Word is read we are declaring our agreement with and submission to our God and King (Psalm 106:48, 2 Corinthians 1:20). When we lift our hands when we sing The Doxology or the Gloria Patri we are doing so in a posture of prayer and praise to God (Psalm 63:4, 1 Timothy 2:8), and when we sit to hear God’s Word preached and to take the Lord’s Supper it is as if we are hearing from God Himself and sitting at the Lord’s Table to feast and fellowship with our God, because we are kings and priests with Christ meant to be equipped by Him, counsel with Him, sit with Him, minister with Him, and reign with Him (Luke 22:30, Romans 8:16-17, 16:20, Ephesians 2:6). And we do all of this faithfully and reverently because Christ has opened heaven up to us, and in and through our worship together we draw near to the throne room of God to worship our God and King. By faith, each Lord’s Day we are in the heavenly places worshipping the One who has all authority in heaven and on earth.
Going to church each Lord’s Day is not merely going to a church building to worship with God’s people, it’s going into heaven itself with Christ to experience and participate in the Kingdom and culture of the King, to be transformed by it and equipped with it so that it would be advanced to the ends of the earth in and through us. And this means that the whole worship service matters. It isn’t all about singing, anymore than it’s all about the sermon. Every aspect of Covenant Renewal Worship is important. God has given us water (baptism), bread and wine (communion), and the Word to worship Him rightly, and they all matter. People tend to elevate whatever part of the service they like most, but God’s Word says it’s all important because it’s all a part of the church being elevated into the heavenly places with her King.
This should change the way we think about church on Sunday. For instance, though we should seek to train our children to be quiet and respectful in church, we should want them in there with us because we should want them to experience heaven with us. People often assume there’s no point in having children in church because the sermon is over their head, or because they can be so disruptive that others can’t hear the sermon. But, that assumes that the sermon is the main point, or that everything else we do doesn’t matter that much. And it misses the point, that in and through Covenant Renewal Worship we are experiencing heaven itself. Imagine hearing a parent say I want to go to heaven today but I don’t want to bring my child with me because they might distract me. We should want everyone with us. And more importantly, as members of covenant households, our children have just as much a right to be in worship with God’s people as we do, especially if they have been baptized. As Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).
In Covenant Renewal Worship God CALLS us to worship Him in and through His Word, but before we can answer that call rightly we must CONFESS our sin and our faith. And then as we worship Him through the reading, praying, singing, and the right preaching and teaching of His Word we are CONSECRATED by Him and for Him. And after being washed in the water of the Word God COMMUNES with us at His table, nourishing us and gladdening our hearts with His presence, promises, wine and bread. And finally He COMMISSIONS us with His blessing upon us so that we can go out into the world and stand out and shine out as salt and light for Him. These five Cs that lay out how God’s people are to worship are seen throughout God’s Word. This is the pattern laid out especially in the book of Hebrews, but it’s based on the Old Testament sacrifices.
Being called by God to worship and commissioned by God to trust and obey is pretty straightforward, it’s the middle parts that are easier to miss. Pastor Doug Wilson speaks to this as well, explaining, “In the Old Testament, there were three distinct kinds of sacrifices—the guilt offering, the ascension offering (often translated as whole burnt offering), and the peace offering. The guilt offering was intended to address a particular sin on the part of the worshipper. The ascension offering was an offering of ‘entire dedication.’ The whole sacrificed animal ascended to God in the column of smoke as an offering to Him. The peace offering was one which the worshipper was privileged to partake of, as a covenant meal. Whenever those three offerings are mentioned together in the Old Testament, they are listed in that order, which makes good sense. You deal with the guilt first, you dedicate all to God, and then you have communion with God. This is why our Covenant Renewal services follow the structure they do, absent the sacrificed animals. Jesus Christ died once for all, in order to be the fulfillment of the entire sacrificial system—He was not just the guilt offering.” But now, we worship God in this same manner in and through Christ, and in and through Christ and our Covenant Renewal Worship, we are giving ourselves over to entire dedication to God, and being equipped to do the same.
Romans 12:1-2 says, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” By participating in Covenant Renewal Worship on the Lord’s Day we are being equipped to live every day in a posture of worship for God’s glory, the good of God’s people, and the life of God’s world. And all of this is why worship is warfare. Every Lord’s Day when the church comes together for Covenant Renewal Worship it’s like a battering ram is being slammed against the gates of hell because heaven is being opened up and God’s Kingdom and will are flowing from heaven to earth, pushing back the darkness and advancing the light of Christ, and equipping God’s people to do the same throughout the week. As God’s people worship the True KING of all, the enemies of our King are being reminded of their ultimate defeat and are taking a great blow as the truth in love is proclaimed, embraced, and lived out.
This is what we participate in each Lord’s Day, or this is what we miss out on when we miss church. And likewise for our children and everyone else. Our attendance and our participation, our children’s attendance and our children’s participation, the whole church’s attendance and participation matter for the glory of God, the good of God’s church, and the life of God’s world. So, commit yourself and your family to attend and to participate. Train your kids to be quiet and respectful, but also to participate rightly, and train yourself to do the same. By all means, sing with joy and pay close attention to the sermon, but understand that every aspect of our worship together is important, and it’s important for all of us. So may we and our families, may we and all we can get to come with us, gather together with God’s people to engage in Covenant Renewal Worship for our good, God’s glory, and the life of the world.
In Christ’s service and yours,
Nick Esch