http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15225437/how-to-defeat-the-defeated-forces-of-evil
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The Physicality of Faithful Worship: Why We Bend Knees and Lift Hands
I can imagine several possible responses to an article with a title like this one.
“Oh great. Another extrovert clueless to the fact that God made people different.”
“Yes! A word of admonishment to the frozen chosen.”
“Come on. Just let people worship God undisturbed.”
“Why do we keep talking about this, anyway?”It’s that last question I feel aware of most as I write another article on what we do with our bodies in congregational worship. Haven’t we talked about this enough? Aren’t people just going to do what they’ve always done? Isn’t it more important to focus on what’s happening in our hearts than what we do with our bodies?
Good questions. But the Bible doesn’t give us the option of minimizing or ignoring what we do physically when we gather as his people in his presence. It matters.
But why? Whether you lift your hands high on Sunday mornings or keep them below your waistline, God gives us at least three reasons why it’s important to display the worth of Christ with our bodies.
1. It Matters to God
Think about it. God created us as embodied souls, not bodiless spirits (Genesis 2:7). In the new heavens and earth, we won’t lose our arms, legs, feet, hands, and torsos. They will be glorified (Philippians 3:20–21). And until we enjoy that future, Scripture encourages and models a whole-being response to God’s greatness with the bodies we have.
My heart is steadfast, O God! I will sing and make melody with all my being! (Psalm 108:1)
My lips will shout for joy, when I sing praises to you; my soul also, which you have redeemed. (Psalm 71:23)
I appeal to you . . . brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1)
God repeatedly connects the thoughts of our hearts with the movement of our bodies. Of course, physical expressions aren’t the whole story. Lifted hands can be a mindless act or a shallow attempt to impress others with our spirituality (Matthew 6:2). We can jump around as a way to feed our emotions and “feel” God’s presence. And Jesus rebuked those who honored him with their lips while their hearts were far from him (Matthew 15:8).
Yes, physical expressiveness can be abused or misleading. But God still intends our bodies to respond to him in worship. From Genesis to Revelation, God’s creatures respond to his worthiness in external ways. They sing. They clap. They shout. They dance. They bow their heads. They kneel. They stand in awe. And yes, at times they even raise their hands. And God receives glory when they do.
Of course, bodily expression isn’t always possible. A woman in our church in the latter stages of ALS recently shared (through her daughter) how she is losing her ability to speak and move. But nothing keeps her from worshiping God with everything she has. She can’t sing, but she worships as others raise their voices. She can’t lift her hands anymore, but she rejoices as others do.
Jesus said we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). As much as we’re able, that love is meant to be shown in and through our bodies.
2. It Matters to Others
God receives glory when we respond to his greatness with outward expressions of praise and dependence. But those responses send a message to those around us as well.
A Sunday morning visitor surrounded by church members mumbling lyrics or standing stoically with folded arms might have a hard time grasping that Jesus is a glorious Savior. Of course, the Holy Spirit can use lyrics alone to magnify Christ in someone’s heart. But the satisfying goodness of Jesus isn’t something we merely sing about. Our body language communicates to others our gratitude for who God is and what he’s done — or the absence of it. After all, “those who look to him are radiant” (Psalm 34:5).
God created us to be affected by what affects others. When people see my face instantly light up the moment my wife, Julie, walks into the room, they understand that I value her presence. They’ll be drawn to share in my joy and appreciation, even if they don’t know her well.
In a similar way, David says praising God with a new song will cause many to “see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord” (Psalm 40:3). Do people have the opportunity to “see and fear” as a result of observing us on Sunday mornings? Do our actions reveal that God has drawn us up from the pit of destruction and set our feet upon the rock of Jesus Christ (Psalm 40:2)? Could we be missing an opportunity to use our hands, arms, faces, and bodies to communicate that God is really present among us and that we’re amazed, humbled, and grateful?
3. It Matters to Us
Our bodily movements function in two different ways. First, they express outwardly an inward emotion or thought. Soccer fans jump to their feet and cheer when their team scores the winning goal. Parents clap and smile when their daughter takes her first step. Pro golfers raise their hands in jubilation after sinking the winning putt. A husband-to-be bends down on one knee as he prepares to place a ring on his future wife’s finger.
Why do we do these things? Because words alone aren’t enough. God gave us bodies to deepen and amplify what we think and feel. No one teaches us these bodily movements directly (although we learn a great deal through observation). Throughout the world, in all cultures, people respond outwardly to communicate what takes place inside of them.
“God is worthy of our deepest, strongest, and purest affections — and he intended our bodies to show it.”
But physical expressions function in a second way. They encourage us toward what we should think and feel. They help train our hearts in what is true, good, and beautiful. That’s one reason some churches’ liturgical practices include standing, sitting, and kneeling together.
In his commentary on Acts 20:36, pastor-theologian John Calvin elaborated on why Paul knelt to pray as he bid farewell to the Ephesian elders. His comments are as relevant in the twenty-first century as they were in the sixteenth.
The inward attitude certainly holds first place in prayer, but outward signs, kneeling, uncovering the head, lifting up the hands, have a twofold use. The first is that we may employ all our members for the glory and worship of God; secondly, that we are, so to speak, jolted out of our laziness by this help. There is also a third use in solemn and public prayer, because in this way the sons of God profess their piety, and they inflame each other with reverence of God. But just as the lifting up of the hands is a symbol of confidence and longing, so in order to show our humility, we fall down on our knees. (Calvin’s Commentaries, vol. 19, trans. Henry Beveridge [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996], at Acts 20:36)
Calvin highlights three reasons physical expressions matter in our relationship with God (similar to the three reasons in this article). First, God receives glory through our entire being, rather than just a part of us. Second, physical expressions assist us when our affections don’t align with the truths we proclaim and cherish. Third, they inspire reverence in others.
I want to draw attention to the second point here. Sometimes we need to be “jolted out of our laziness.” Occasionally on a Sunday morning, I feel disconnected from what’s taking place. I find my thoughts and affections wandering or dull. In those moments, I have knelt down or raised my hands to acknowledge that God is God, and I am not, and that he alone is worthy of my reverence, obedience, and worship. Eventually, those actions help draw my heart to appreciate more deeply what I’m singing or hearing. I’ve done the same when I’ve been alone. In both cases, my body trains my heart to recognize what is real, what is true, what matters.
Eternal, Embodied Worship
Our bodies are a gift from God that he intends for us to use for his glory, the good of those around us, and our joy. He is worthy of our deepest, strongest, and purest affections — and he intended our bodies to show it.
Obviously, we only have space here to cover a few basic principles and expressions. I’m confident discussions about the physicality of worship in the gathered church will continue and bear fruit until Jesus finally returns. But then the discussions will cease. With every fiber of our being — every thought of our minds, every word of our lips, every act of our glorified bodies — we will endlessly worship the triune God who redeemed us.
What keeps us from starting now?
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What Would World War III Mean for Missions?
Audio Transcript
In the last year, global tensions have risen to a boil. It’s hard to believe how often “World War III” has been a top trend on Twitter in the past couple of years. (Too often, to be honest.) And this leads to today’s question from Malcolm, who lives in Fishers, Indiana. His email resonates with a lot of other emails in the inbox in the past year.
Malcolm writes, “Pastor John, hello to you. I’m a 22-year-old and often anxious about the state of the world. For several years, we enjoyed relative peace, and things were looking calm. But now there are wars in Ukraine and in Palestine, and a threat of war looms over Taiwan. All the world’s major armies seem to be awakening from a long slumber. NATO is growing. Enemies of the West are uniting. The weapons manufacturers are in overdrive.
“As we step into this new age of global tension, and as you see the news — the wars and rumors of wars — what are your spiritual reflections about global conflicts? The Bible seems to say a lot about warfare between nations. How do you comfort yourself with biblical truth, and with God’s sovereignty, when it seems that the world is growing more hostile, and World War III is talked about more and more openly as a real possibility in the near future?”
Well, I could, I suppose, answer Malcolm’s question with a very general biblical observation about the absolute sovereignty of God over nations and over the church and over my life, and then combine that sovereignty with the sweet, precious promise that he works everything together for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28). I could do that, and it would be wonderful. It would be glorious.
However, I want to answer his question with something much more specific, just because I saw it while preparing a message on missions last October. And it did for me just what Malcolm is asking: “How do you comfort yourself, Pastor John, in light of these kinds of upheavals in the world?”
And so, that’s what I want to do. I want to address one specific worry that rises in this setting that we’re in right now, wars and rumors of wars and social upheavals — namely, what happens to the global missionary enterprise in times of wars and rumors of wars? That’s the specific thing that creeps into my heart with anxious thoughts.
Missions in Wartime
I think many of us feel, from time to time, the anxiety arising that social upheaval and political and military disruption will so distract the church, and so intimidate the church, that we forsake or neglect or minimize the command of Jesus to make disciples among all the peoples of the world.
We just feel like, “Well, that’s got to be put on hold because the world’s about to blow up and go to hell in a handbasket. What good does it do to send the missionaries to so-and-so when the place is about to explode in war?” I think that’s the kind of feeling that rises in our hearts with regard to world missions in wartime.
So, I’m reframing Malcolm’s question to be more specific: Not just “How do I comfort myself in a world about to be engulfed in war?” but “How do I steady my hand and keep my focus and press on in the cause of world evangelization even while the world’s moving toward annihilation?” That’s the question I’m trying to face.
White-Hot Christians Will Go
And what I saw last October when I was preparing for my global-focus sermon at Bethlehem was from Matthew 24:5–14 and the connection between war and missions. I had never made this connection before. So, here’s what Jesus says about the times we live in — and I think these words from Matthew 24:5–14 are intended by Jesus, in every generation where these things show up, to make us lift our eyes and pray that our redemption is drawing near. Here’s what he says:
Many will come in my name, saying, “I am the Christ,” and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom [these are the international upheavals, and now come the natural upheavals, the disasters], and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. (Matthew 24:4–8)
So, Jesus is picturing the coming of the kingdom of God that he will bring as a kind of new birth for the cosmos, and natural disasters are like labor pains. He goes on:
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:9–14)
Now, I have said in lots of missions conferences over the decades that even though in the very last days of history the love of many in the visible church will grow cold (verse 12), this promise that the gospel will be preached to all the peoples of the world — even while we are being hated, he says, by all these peoples — this promise is going to come true.
But the Christians who take the gospel to the nations during this time of great trouble will not be among those whose love has grown cold, right? They will be the people who have white-hot, not cold, love for Jesus in the face of persecution and killing. Not everybody’s love is going to grow cold in the last days, in other words. The Great Commission will be completed by faithful Christians, while millions are leaving the church like lukewarm coals rolling away from the fire.
All that I had seen before, but this time, while I was meditating on this passage, I saw the connection between war and missions — not just the de-churching of cold love and missions, but the connection between military upheavals and missions.
Far from Stopping the Advance
So, verses 6–7 and 14: “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. . . . Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. . . . And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” This connection makes plain that “wars and rumors of wars” will not stop God’s mission. That’s the lesson that I saw fresh in this text. The mission will be completed in spite of, sometimes because of, nation rising against nation.
Now, even as I say it, I know there could be an objection, even a biblical objection, because peacetime is good for the church. We’re not naive. We know that, historically, wars and social upheavals have hindered missions. Yes, they have. That’s true. But how many of those setbacks proved to be advances in disguise?
For example, the removal of missionaries from China, which felt like such a setback, between 1949–1953 — was it a setback? Thirty years later, it appeared that the church had grown by tenfold in China without the missionaries.
So, who knows what are advances and what are setbacks in God’s strange ways? Whatever disruptions in missions are caused by wars and rumors of wars, the words of Jesus stand firm. Wars and rumors of wars will not stop world evangelization. In the midst of hatred, coldness, and wars, this gospel will be preached to all the peoples, and then the end will come.
What History Has to Say
To test my new insight against historical experience, I did a little research, and here’s what I found. What has God done in missions during wartime?
During the American Civil War (1860–1865), Sarah Doremus founded the Woman’s Union Missionary Society for sending single women to Asia. The Episcopal Church opened work in Haiti. The Paris Evangelical Missionary Society opened work in Senegal. The London Missionary Society published the first dictionary of the Samoan language. The China Inland Mission (today OMF) was founded by James Hudson Taylor, which has sent — what? — thousands of missionaries to Asia. All of that while Americans are consumed with the Civil War.
What about World War I (1914–1918)? C.T. Studd was glorying in a great revival movement in the Congo during the First World War. The Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association, IFMA, was founded during World War I.
What about World War II (1939–1945)? William Cameron Townsend founded Wycliffe Bible Translators. New Tribes Mission was founded with a vision to reach the tribal peoples of Bolivia. The Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society was founded, now named WorldVenture. The Baptist General Conference started its own missionary-sending agency, which is the denomination that our church belongs to, during the Second World War. Mission Aviation Fellowship was started, Far East Broadcasting Company was founded, Evangelical Foreign Missions Association was formed — all during that horrific Second World War.
What about the Korean War (1950–1953)? The World Evangelical Alliance was organized. Bill and Vonette Bright created Campus Crusade for Christ. Trans World Radio was founded.
You get the picture. This is just a tiny taste of the truth that wars and rumors of wars are not going to stop God’s promise to complete the task of world missions. So, Malcolm, this is what the Lord has been using recently in my life to strengthen my heart, and encourage me to press on in this great work.
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How Do I Stop Rooting My Joy in My Circumstances?
Audio Transcript
We seem to be hardwired to root our happiness in our circumstances. It comes naturally to us. We are happiest when things are going well; we are saddest when things are going badly. Our mood is determined by the up-and-down roller-coaster of life’s ever-changing circumstances. We do it at age 4. We do it at age 24. We do it at age 44. And we do it at age 14. Today I want you to meet Tessa. She is a 14-year-old listener to the podcast who writes us today. “Dear Pastor John, hello! Thank you so much for this podcast and for the ministry of Desiring God. All of it has been a huge blessing in my life. Recently, I have been feeling more and more that my happiness depends on the circumstances around me. Will you please offer me biblical guidance on how I can root my joy in Jesus instead?”
Well, I feel so thankful for this from a 14-year-old. When I think back on the things that I struggled with when I was 14, I don’t think I posed the question the way I should have. So let me just encourage you that your very way of asking this question is a sign of significant, growing spiritual life and maturity, for your age especially. So take heart: from where I sit, it looks to me like God is at work in your life, and that is always a wonderful miracle.
Lifelong Labor
Before I give you some suggestions from the Bible for how you can shift your circumstance-dependent happiness onto Jesus-dependent happiness, let me also say that this battle that you feel right now, you will be fighting sixty years from now if you’re still alive and Jesus hasn’t come back. Because that’s how old I am.
“God is much more committed to building godly joy into his children than we are committed to finding it.”
Actually, I’m one year older than that — 75, not 74. And I have to address this issue of where my joy is rooted every day — every morning in battle against the devil and the world and the flesh — rather than letting the old nature, which the Bible calls “the flesh,” lure me away from Jesus to earthly things as more valuable. Every stage in life — a 14-year-old stage and a 75-year-old stage — has its unique allurements away from Jesus-dependent happiness to world-dependent happiness. It does. So, you’re going to have to fight this all the way to the end, so it’s good to get a good start now and learn your battle strategy.
Four Ways to Root Your Joy in God
So, let me make four suggestions for how to root your joy in Jesus and not in circumstances.
1. Get to know God’s purpose for the troubles in your life.
God is much more committed to building godly joy, happiness, into his children than we are committed to finding it. And one of his ways of doing this is by seeing to it that we walk through enough trouble to make us give up on finding our joy in a trouble-free life. Get to know the passages in the Bible that teach this. For example, Romans 5:3–5:
We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
In other words, the joy of hope is intensified when our faith endures through trouble. Or in 2 Corinthians 1:8–9, Paul says,
We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.
In other words, the joy of complete reliance upon Jesus is God’s purpose when he brings us to the very brink of death. So, suggestion number one: Get to know this biblical teaching for the rest of your life. It will serve you very well.
2. Form the habit of finding God everywhere.
It’s a little unusual. Think it through with me. I suggest that you take all the natural pleasures that God gives you, which are not sinful, and make the conscious effort to see and to savor, or taste, God himself in and behind those pleasures. In other words, the best way to keep a God-given pleasure from becoming your God is to push into the pleasure and through the pleasure to the Giver of the pleasure, who is trying to show you something about himself and how satisfying he is.
So for example, the Bible says that God’s word is sweeter than honey (Psalm 19:10). And the Bible says that Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12). And the Bible says that he’s like living water (John 4:10–14). So when you taste anything that is really delicious, or when you pass out of a scary darkness into some beautiful light and brightness, or when you really, really, really are thirsty and you drink a glass of cold water, at every one of those points, say to yourself that Jesus is sweeter than honey, and he wants me to taste him in the gift of honey. Say to yourself that Jesus is brighter than this beautiful light, and he wants me to enjoy him in his brightness. And say to yourself that Jesus is more satisfying than this great thirst-quenching water, and he wants me to be satisfied in him like I feel right now with this water — only better.
In other words, form the habit of finding God everywhere that there is goodness in this world. This will keep you from treating the goodness as God, and it will keep you from scorning the goodness of God by rejecting the gifts. All God’s good gifts are meant not for idolatry; they are meant to give us a taste of the one who created them and to show us something of himself.
“Form the habit of finding God everywhere that there is goodness in this world.”
And I find it helpful to add this: since I’m a sinner and deserve nothing from God but judgment, therefore, every good thing that comes to me as a child of God was purchased for me by the blood of Jesus, without which I would only be condemned. I would base all that on Romans 8:32. Therefore, every good thing not only points me to the goodness of the Giver, but it points me to the infinite price that was paid by Jesus so that I could have the gift and the Giver. This helps me love him as I ought. I hope it does you too.
3. Make Bible reading personal.
Make your Bible reading every day very personal. Don’t just think about learning how to live from guidelines in the Bible, which are important, but every day, think about what you can know of Jesus, the Son of God, and God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit — what you can know about them as persons. In other words, read the Bible to get to know the person of God. Always think: I love a person. I love a person. God is admirable. God is strong. God is wise. God is kind. God is patient. God is just. God is merciful. And as you see these traits in God, love him because of them. Find the person himself to be your treasure. Make Bible reading personal.
4. Remember your coming death.
And finally, even though you’re only 14, keep death regularly in your mind — not all the time; just regularly return to the thought that you’re going to die. And the point of this is not to make you scared. It’s not to make you sad. It’s not to make you morose. Just the opposite. Everybody is going to die unless Jesus comes back first. It might happen when you’re 15, it might happen when you’re 95, but it is going to happen.
And when that time comes, everything but Jesus will lose its comforting power. All our possessions, all our accomplishments, all our personal looks and intellect, all our family and friends, all of them will fail as a foundation for hope and joy in our dying. But if you know Jesus personally, the day of your death will not be a day of just leaving things behind that you’re familiar with, but it will be a day of stepping into the presence of the one that we care about most.
So thank you for asking such a very good question at age 14. I’m really excited about what God is going to do in your life between now and when you’re 24.