Why Corporate Worship is Neither Boring Nor Irrelevant - Mark James

A survey found that the two main reasons people leave the Church is that they find it (1) boring or (2) irrelevant. Psalm 95:6-7 reveals three important theological truths about corporate worship that help us combat viewing Church as boring and/or irrelevant. The first theological truth we find is that God is present when His people gather corporately to worship Him. Verse 6 says “let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!” When we gather for worship, our God is present with His people in a special manner beyond His general presence everywhere (omnipresent). Jesus Himself states in Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” This truth of God’s special presence in corporate worship is also revealed in the fact that God speaks to His people as corporately gathered. Verse 7 ends with a partial sentence that says, “Today, if you hear his voice…” God speaks because He is present.

A second theological truth revealed about corporate worship is that corporate worship reminds us of who God is and who we are. Our God is called “Lord” which is the personal name of God, Yahweh. This name stresses His nearness to His people/creation (immanence) and that He is the covenant-making and covenant-keeping
God. He is called God (Elohim) which stresses His distance from us (transcendence). The God who meets with His people is wholly other and unlike us in His perfect attributes. He is perfectly holy, loving, just, eternal, infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere present. We are not. So, when we worship God, we are worshipping One who is completely perfect in His Triune being. Yet, He is gracious and merciful to condescend to His people and meet with them to minister through His word His comfort, grace, mercy, rebuke, and correction, so as to strengthen our joy, comfort, trust, devotion, and further mold us to the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. A third name for God in this passage is that He is our Maker. He has created us and fashioned us from our mother’s womb and He has re-created us through faith in Jesus Christ and has made and is making us a new creation in Him. The flip side of this coin is that we belong to this near and far God who has made us. Corporate worship reminds us that we are not our own for the Lord Jesus has bought us with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). It also reminds us that we are God’s sheep. Like real sheep, we are to follow the voice of our Shepherd and are completely dependent upon Him to defend us, protect us, guide us, and be with us through every circumstance of our lives (Psalm 23; John 10:11,14).

A third and final theological truth about corporate worship is that God speaks to His people in corporate worship through His Word (v.7). The Scriptures have been breathed out by God (2 Timothy 3:16) which is why in corporate worship we preach, pray, read, and sing God’s Word. Through all of these ordinary elements of worship, God speaks to us His people. Yet it is possible for those sitting in corporate worship to harden their hearts against the voice of the Lord (v.8). Jesus tells us that the Church will contain a mixture of wheat and weeds (Matthew 13:24-30) until His return. The Church will have hypocrites, apostates who have not revealed their apostasy yet, as well as false teachers and teaching. It is possible for people in corporate worship to harden their hearts against the Word of God just as Pharaoh hardened his heart against God’s word spoken through Moses (Exodus 8:15, 32; 9:34). As God’s people, when He speaks, it is for our benefit so we had better listen to His Word lest we be found to fall short of entering the eternal rest found through faith in Jesus (Hebrews 4:11). 

My prayer for us is that this pandemic has caused us to appreciate anew the importance of the corporate gathering of God’s people and a renewed hunger for and commitment to the local gathering of the body of Christ. I hope that this short piece helps us to see the specialness of corporate worship. When God is present and God speaks, there can be nothing boring or irrelevant about that. God is most relevant to our lives and He is awesome (Genesis 28:17; Exodus 15:11; Deuteronomy 7:21; Nehemiah 1:5; Job 37:22).