http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15718199/will-there-be-a-rapture

The individual human soul, rightly seeing the glory of Christ and rightly savoring the glory of Christ, is at the heart of God’s purpose in creating the world. Until we grasp, in some measure, why that is the case, we will not be able to give an account for why the corporate reality of the worshiping church is essential to God’s purpose in creating the world.

So what I hope to do in this message is steer a biblical course between two errors. On the one side, I want us to avoid the error of thinking that the relationship between the individual worshiping human soul and God is in itself the ultimate purpose of God in creation. It’s not.

On the other side, I want us to avoid the error of being so captivated by the corporate reality of the worshiping people of God — the body of Christ, the temple of God, the bride of Christ — that we lose sight of the fact that the vital, ongoing, eternal intensity of the individual soul’s affection for God is absolutely essential to the very existence of the corporate reality of the worshiping church.

The New Testament forbids us to forget, neglect, or minimize the radical, essential, eternal significance of the individual worshiping human person. And the New Testament forbids that we forget, neglect, or minimize the coming into being of the blazingly beautiful bride of Christ who is more than the sum of her flaming parts, though not less.

Individual Soul and Glory

Let’s begin by focusing on the relationship between the individual soul and the ultimate purpose of God in creation. One of the clearest statements in the Bible of God’s ultimate purpose in creation is found in Isaiah 43:6–7:

Bring my sons from afar,     and my daughters from the end of the earth,everyone who is called by my name,     whom I created for my glory.

Or there’s Ephesians 1:11–12: “[He] works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we . . . might be to the praise of his glory.” And we have Romans 11:36: “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

God created the world, he sustains the world, he governs the world, he is doing his saving work in the world, in order to display his glory — his greatness, his beauty, his worth, the whole panorama of his perfections. We see this all across Scripture:

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1).
“The trees of the forest sing for joy” (Psalm 96:12).
“Let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills sing for joy together” (Psalm 98:8).
“[The meadows and the valleys] shout and sing together for joy” (Psalm 65:13).
“Sing, O heavens . . . shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord . . . will be glorified in Israel” (Isaiah 44:23).

The heavens, the mountains, the hills, the forests of trees, the rivers, and the meadows — they all were created to sing the glories of their Maker. And they do. And so does the most brilliant assembly of one hundred and fifty unbelieving singers gathered to perform Händel’s Messiah at Easter, surrounded by the most accomplished orchestra of unbelieving musicians. When they play with excellence and beautifully sing those magnificent biblical truths, all of it reflects the glory of God, like trees clapping their hands.

Why Worship Must Cherish

So if God gets so much glory from the external echoes of his excellencies in the things he has made — including unbelieving musicians and scientists and athletes — why is there any need for the individual human soul to have any particular affections for God? Isn’t God’s purpose to be glorified being achieved anyway?

“God does not intend to be half-glorified.”

No, it’s not. God does not intend to be half-glorified.

A king may be glorified for his great achievements and power and wisdom if he rules his kingdom with an iron hand and sees to it that great fortifications are built, and beautiful buildings and gardens are constructed, and citizens, under coercion, are forced to become excellent musicians and perform for him the finest pieces of musical art. This king may have a reputation for his power throughout the world.

But he is not so great nor so glorified as a king who is loved by his people — admired, revered, cherished, treasured, enjoyed, desired — so that out of that affection for their king, these happy subjects build even greater fortifications and buildings and gardens and musical compositions. A king is more glorified by a cherishing people than a cowering people. God does not intend to be half-glorified.

Not All Sound Is Worshipful Song

Jesus said to the scribes and Pharisees, “You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me’” (Matthew 15:7–9). Here you have an excellent use of lips: “You honor me with your lips. My honor, my glory, is sounding from your lips. I am being glorified by your mouth, just like I’m glorified by the mountains and trees and rivers that have no souls, and just like I am glorified by unbelieving choral ensembles that sing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’”

But Jesus still says that their heart, their soul — their individual human soul — is far from him. What does he mean? Jesus tells us in Matthew 15:9: “In vain do they worship me.” In vain. Meaning: “The external echo of my excellence is a zero when it comes to the essence of the kind of worship I created this world to give. A zero.”

Why? “I did not create the world to get magnificent nothings from the hearts of humans created in my image — whether they are singing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’ in unbelief or going through the motions of corporate worship in church on Sunday morning. That’s not why I created the world. I created the world not only for the echo of my excellence in the external wonders of the created world, including humans created in my image, but also for the echo of my excellence in the affections of my people.”

And where those affections are missing — where Jesus is not trusted and loved and cherished and treasured and desired — the words of God through Amos 5:23 will sound out over our worship services and choral performances:

Take away from me the noise of your songs;     to the melody of your harps I will not listen.

And it almost goes without saying (but it is so crucial I will say it) that these absolutely essential affections for God happen in the individual human soul — or the heart, as Jesus calls it Matthew 15:8. This is why the vital, ongoing, eternal intensity of the individual human person’s affection for God is absolutely essential for the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creating the world, namely, that he be not half-glorified (as by trees and unbelieving musicians), but glorified as he ought in the affections of the heart.

Gathered People and Glory

Now we turn to this question: If affections for God in the individual human soul are the essence of the self-glorifying purpose of God in creating the world, how do those heart-affections give rise to the corporate reality of the worshiping church? Because it is clear from the New Testament that God’s ultimate purpose is not millions of isolated, independent, human souls with white-hot affections for God, like great solos.

God is bringing into being a diverse, global church pictured as the body of Christ, the temple of God, the bride of Christ. Paul pictures the church as the wife of Jesus in Ephesians 5:27 and says that Christ’s purpose in coming and dying was “so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.” Christ means to have a beautiful wife. That’s not the same as saying he aims to have many individual worshipers. She is more than the sum of her parts, though not less.

This conference is devoted to blessing churches understood as local expressions of that emerging, global, everlasting, corporate, worshiping reality called the bride of Christ. What local churches do in their gathered worshiping assemblies is rehearse for that eternal vocation of corporate worship by the bride of Christ.

To God and One Another

The text that connects the heart of the individual worshiping lover of Jesus with this corporate reality is Ephesians 5:18–19: “Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart” (Ephesians 5:18–19). Notice those three dimensions: all of this singing is from “your heart,” all of it is “to the Lord,” and all of it is “addressing one another.”

It doesn’t matter whether the words of the song happen to be (the vertically directed) “We Come, O Christ, to You” or (the horizontally directed) “Come, Christians, Join to Sing.” Whether it is verbally directed to God or verbally directed to man, in both cases it is to God and in both cases it is addressing man because in corporate worship everybody is hearing every song, and God is attending to every song. And all the songs are sung from the heart — or they’re not worship. That is God’s design, as we rehearse for the everlasting corporate worship of the bride.

What is plain from those three dimensions in Ephesians 5:18–19 is that the birthplace and essence of worship is the individual human heart. That’s where the glory of Christ awakens the Christ-exalting affections that magnify his greatness and beauty and worth. Then from this furnace of Christ-exalting affections there flames up expressions in song to God and to people.

“God designed for Christ to have a worshiping bride and not just worshiping individuals.”

The corporate reality of the worshiping bride of Christ is brought into being by God’s combining these individual burning hearts of worship into a new reality — the worshiping bride of Christ — first in the foretastes of our gatherings and finally in the complete, perfected, eternal worship of the bride. This is the ultimate goal of God in creation.

Why? What is it about the corporate reality of the singing bride that makes her worship the ultimate end of God’s purpose, rather than simply white-hot individual worshipers? Why is it that God designed for individual hearts aflame with holy affections for God to combine into a new reality of corporate worship, the worshiping bride of Christ? I’ll give three biblical answers to that question, and they all have the effect of elevating the importance of united congregational worship as high as I know how to elevate it. It is the rehearsal and foretaste of the ultimate aim of creation.

1. Shared joy increases joy.

First, there is a pointer in 2 Corinthians 2:2–3, where Paul touches on the mystery of the union of souls as individual joy becomes shared joy. Paul says to the church, “If I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained?” And: “I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all.”

In the body of Christ, where we are spiritually united in him, something profound happens in the experience of joy in God. It’s not merely that the corporate reality is the assembly of solitary joys. Paul said, “My joy is the joy of you all, and yours is mine. My joy is more because yours is mine, and yours is more because mine is yours.”

Therefore, the totality of Christ-exalting affection that comes into being especially in corporate worship is greater than the sum of individual affections. The worshiping bride is the goal of creation because the interpenetration of Christ-exalting joy is something new, something greater, something more God-glorifying than the assembled joy of individual worshiping hearts.

2. Diverse voices sing more beautiful harmonies.

Second, the unified harmony of diverse voices is more beautiful than the greatest sound of voices in unison. It is a glorious thing when a thousand voices, like a trumpet blast, sound in unison. But when those voices break into the unified diversity of harmony, something more glorious comes into being.

And this is not just a musical phenomenon. It is true in relation to countless diversities God is assembling into his church — across all time and all geography. Ethnic diversities, age diversities, male and female diversities, personality diversities, taste and preference diversities, voice quality diversities. (Think of voices like Bob Dylan and Pavarotti.)

In the unified diversity of the worshiping bride of Christ something more beautiful is created, and Christ is more glorified as the Creator and Redeemer and Beloved of that bride. That’s why the corporate worship of the bride is ultimate.

3. Diverse affections display Christ’s worth.

And third, God designed for Christ to have a worshiping bride and not just worshiping individuals, because the greatness and beauty and worth of the Leader is revealed by the extent of the diversity he is able to inspire and unify in one following, one body, one bride.

This is why the song of heaven in Revelation 5 calls attention to the worthiness of Christ — precisely because he ransomed so many diverse peoples and united them into one kingdom and one singing priesthood.

They sang a new song, saying,

“Worthy are you to take the scroll     and to open its seals,for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God     from every tribe and language and people and nation,and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,     and they shall reign on the earth.” (Revelation 5:9–10)

“When you gather in worship next Sunday, remember: you are a rehearsal of the end for which God made the world.”

The glory of Christ shines more brightly because he is the kind of Leader-Redeemer who holds together the allegiance and the affections of so many peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations in our worshiping kingdom.

The universe was created to display the worth of the Lamb, and in him the glory of God. When you gather in congregational worship next Sunday, remember: small or large, you are not just individual worshipers; you are a manifestation, a foretaste, a rehearsal of the end for which God made the world: the combining of individual souls aflame for God into something more — the greater joy, the greater harmony, the greater diverse affections of the worshiping bride of Christ — the goal of all things.

Audio Transcript

Several decades ago, preaching was defined as an act meant “to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed” (Campus Gods on Trial, 102). You’ve heard that definition before of preaching. Disturbing the comfortable remains one of the great challenges faced by the preacher and the evangelist and all of us who seek to share the gospel in the prosperous West today. Because to be comfortable in sin, apart from Christ, is the deadliest place to be.

With that concern comes this question from a listener named Matt. “Hello, Pastor John! As an evangelist, what have you done to try and convince people who have their material needs met of their need for Christ? I have a wealthy brother who has no interest in the gospel or spiritual matters. I’ve been praying for him for years to be saved and I just don’t know how to break through all the comforts of his life that make him feel confident and assured and safe.”

This question resonates deeply with me, not only because of people I know who are outwardly quite content and yet are lost, but also because my father was an evangelist who saw thousands of people come to Christ through his ministry, and he said to me when I was a boy, “Johnny, getting people saved through the gospel seems not to be the hardest thing in my ministry. But getting them lost so that they know they need to be saved — that’s the hardest thing.” So, this question is not new to me. It’s been around for a long time. I suspect it’s not unique to our time.

Alternative Gospels

The thing that this question is getting at is that most people do not feel any need for the most important thing that Jesus accomplished and offers. And add to that the tragedy that so many Christians, and even some preachers, in our day have altered the message of the gospel so that the main thing — the most important thing Jesus accomplished by dying and rising again — is not the most important thing being offered when people share the gospel. Rather, there’s a constant effort to make the message fit the felt need, which drastically alters the message from something infinite and ultimate and glorious and precious to something temporal and far less important.

The prosperity gospel, of course, is the most egregious example of this, as prosperity preachers try to sell Jesus as a kind of magical force in your life that will make things go better in this world. But there are less egregious forms of prosperity-gospel distortion, which do the same thing at a lesser level, that is pretty much infecting the American church. We create alterations of the gospel as we try to persuade people with our own seemingly innocuous version of the prosperity gospel — by mainly referring to the fact that your psychological state or your marriage or children or finances or health will improve if you accept Jesus.

Death and Judgment

Now, my father was a very happy man. He knew the wonderful effects of God’s forgiveness and justification by faith and the hope of eternal life. He knew the wonderful effects here and now of being a Christian. He was a happy, well-rounded, balanced Christian. I think that’s probably why I’m a Christian today. I never saw in my father or my mother any reason to jettison what they were so authentically changed by. My father wrote a little paperback. Most fundamentalists don’t write books like this — and he was one, a very happy one. I have it on my shelf: A Good Time and How to Have It.

And yet he also knew that most people thought they were having a good time and the gospel would just get in the way. That was the problem. That’s what he had to overcome. Therefore, what I remember most clearly in his preaching is the flame in his eyes of mingled kindness and severity when he quoted Hebrews 9:27: “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” Oh, I can just hear him say it. I can see the look on his face.

“At the bottom of all other problems is the problem that we are under the wrath of God.”

Sometimes we joke and say, “Well, two things are unavoidable in life: death and taxes.” Well, that’s not true. Taxes are avoidable. You can just go to jail. But there are two things that are unavoidable without Christ: death and judgment, death and hell. The main thing Jesus came into the world to accomplish was to make it possible for human beings, under the just sentence of death and hell, to escape that eternal condemnation and live forever, glorifying God by their happiness in him. That’s what he came to do — centrally at the bottom of all other things.

Solving Our Biggest Problem

What God sent Jesus into the world to do was to solve every human problem eventually. The problem that has to be solved at the bottom of all other problems is the problem that we are under the wrath of God. That’s humanity’s biggest problem. No matter how rich we are or happy we are — or healthy or famous or strong or beautiful — we are all sinners. We have belittled the glory of God by making so little of it, and we deserve eternal condemnation. Romans 5:9 says, “Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.” And 1 Thessalonians 1:10 says, “[God] raised [Jesus] from the dead, . . . who delivers us from the wrath to come.” And Romans 2:5 says, “Because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”

This is the problem at the bottom, under all other problems, and this is the main problem for people who feel they have no problems and don’t need the gospel: the rich, the comfortable, the content; the poor, the comfortable, the content.

So, my father pleaded with healthy, wealthy, self-satisfied people to wake up and realize that every heartbeat could be your last, and you’re not ready to face an all-holy God. There’s only one way to be ready, and that is to be united to Jesus Christ by faith in him as our Savior and Lord and treasure. According to Romans 8:3, God condemned sin in Jesus Christ’s flesh. That is, he gave his Son to bear the condemnation of his own wrath for all who will trust him.

Or in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us — for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” My father would plead with people, “If you don’t accept the curse that Jesus came under God’s wrath against you to give, you will have to bear your own curse in hell.” That’s the one crucial message that our comfortable, oblivious friends and neighbors need to hear. There are many other good things to say; that dare not be neglected.

Warning with Wisdom and Love

We need to be deeply aware that this is a message of love about an act of love that is so great it cannot be exaggerated. Just before mentioning God’s wrath in Romans 5:9, Paul said, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). There is no greater love than that God would put his only Son through hell on the cross to save his enemies from going to hell. That’s the heart of the gospel.

So, Matt, let’s pray that God would give us tears and compassion, not just for the pains and sorrows of this life. Oh my goodness. You read the news of what’s happening around the world, and there is just so much suffering now. Yes, by all means let us weep for that, but also, may God give us tears for the pain-free people, the comfortable people, the healthy, wealthy people who are blind to what awaits them without Christ.

God will show you, Matt, when and how to give this message as you seek to lay down your life for others. He will. He’ll show you. I have seen such warnings — I mean severe, earnest, tearful warnings, from my father and in my own ministry — I have seen warnings from my father and from me bear the fruit of salvation. May God cause our love to abound with great wisdom so that we know how best to deliver this essential message.