3. The church models and magnifies true worship
Worship is a concept that teens are at once very familiar with. In many respects, we have a deep love/hate relationship with worship, especially as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines it:
"extravagant respect or admiration for or devotion to an object of esteem"
We worship our iPhones. We worship our boyfriends or girlfriends or best friends or social media friends. We worship money. We worship sports. We worship the television, MTV, reality TV, you name it. We worship facebook and Twitter and Snapchat. We worship our family. We worship food. We worship school. We worship our bodies.
We are an idolatrous generation, one that indeed knows much about worship, but worship of all the wrong things. We have hearts that are "factories of idols" as John Calvin put it. That's because our hearts yearn to worship. We long to set our wandering affections somewhere. Yet it's in Christ that we find the object for our worship, and it's in the church that we find corrective teaching on, appropriate modelling, and joyful magnification of true worship.
The church's primary task is to worship - not inanimate objects or sinners like you and me, but the Triune God. We worship the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so even the modelling of true worship in and of itself is a combatant to the idolatry that runs so rampant among teens today. For holy worship, given with a truly humble spirit, resulting in truly joyful praise is a great testimony to God.
For that is what will mark heaven - humble and joyful worship. Jonathan Edwards wrote,
"The saints in glory are so much employed in praise, because they are perfect in humility, and have so great a sense of the infinite distance between them and God."
True worship knows the glory of God and the weakness of man. It embraces that, and it celebrates that, because it is the story of salvation. And it's an outpouring of a humbling and loving faith.
Teens needs to see true worship. We need to see the people of God magnifying the glory of God, through preaching and teaching and song and fellowship. That promotes a proper understanding of the Christian faith. Too often we hear older Christians say that true worship is the mark of a healthy church, yet more often, we don't see that worship. We see lots of yawning. Lots of whispering. Lots of snickering and wandering eyes and trips to the bathroom and checking phones. But we don't see the worship.
Worship is not for those who don't want it. Worship is rooted in joy, spilling out of a deep affection for God. It is an incomprehensible joy that the Eternal One, Creator and Sustainer of the universe chose us to be His children. This God wanted us. He didn't need us. But He brought us into His family. Worship is about celebrating the gospel. Too many adults miss that, and so the Christian teen misses it too. It becomes ordinary, a compulsory ritual that's just a part of Sunday morning.
But that's not worship. It's tradition. And that's not a means of grace. Gathering together to glorify God with God's people through worship is a beautiful thing. The Christian teen needs to be a part of that, just like every single other Christian needs to be a part of that. People will try to say that their worship is better without the church, that being "lost in the crowd" stifles free and heartfelt praise to God. Yet this is a sharp contrast to the picture the New Testament paints of the church. The church fosters worship!
As Martin Luther said,
"At home, in my own house, there is no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church when the multitude is gathered together, a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through.”
Finally, worship in the church is just a glimpse of an eternity in heaven. Reread that Jonathan Edwards quote above. The saints in heaven love to worship. When it is our turn to join them, we will spend the rest of eternity worshiping God with His people. So when we gather corporately with other Christians to worship on this earth, we are getting a glimpse of heaven, in fact, one of the clearest and closest pictures to heaven we will get here. It is a beautiful thing. Why wouldn't we want to be a part of that?
Teens are a worshipful bunch, but too often we sacrifice ourselves at altars of idolatry. In Christ we find a resting place for our wandering affections, and in the church we find an outpouring and example of godly worship.
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