by Pastor Brian Phillips

The Call to Worship

What happens after these preparations (see Part Two)? Leviticus 9:5-7 describe the first part of the liturgy:

“And they brought what Moses commanded in front of the tent of meeting, and all the congregation drew near and stood before the Lord. And Moses said, ‘This is the thing that the Lord commanded you to do, that the glory of the Lord may appear to you.’ Then Moses said to Aaron, ‘Draw near to the altar and offer your sin offering and your burnt offering and make atonement for yourself and for the people, and bring the offering of the people and make atonement for them, as the Lord has commanded.’”

Moses, when the people are gathered together, says, “This is the thing which the Lord commanded you to do, and the glory of the Lord will appear to you.” Moses is calling the people to worship and he does so with a reminder of God’s own words. It is a reminder that they are about to do what God has commanded them to do - worship. So, after preparing for worship (see Part Two), they were called to worship. 

When we gather for worship, we have the privilege of doing what God has commanded us to do. And this is confirmed for us by the call to worship – a simple, but profound part of the liturgy. Externally, the call to worship may simply be a short portion of Scripture being read – a passage the invites you to worship God. But we dare not miss the significance that the invitation is being given by God’s Word. God uses the minister to deliver the invitation, but the invitation comes from God Himself.

If the King invites you to dine at His house, you go, and you prepare yourself to go. That is, after all, what is happening in worship. The King has called us to appear before Him, so we go and we go prepared. And when we approach worship with eyes of faith, we see there is so much more going on than we may initially think. The call to worship reminds us of that truth; it reminds us not to view life only as what we can physically see happening at a given moment.

The Apostle John speaks of this in Revelation 4. At the opening of the chapter, he writes, “After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this’” (v.1). Some dispensationalists consider this to be a veiled reference to “the Rapture,” but it is nothing of the sort. Rather, it is an unveiled call to worship.

This becomes plain in the next verses:

“At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne… And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,

    who was and is and is to come!’

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God,

    to receive glory and honor and power,

for you created all things,

    and by your will they existed and were created’” (Revelation 4:2, 8-11).

After John is called to ascend to heaven (v. 1), he finds himself in the throne room, surrounded by the 24 elders, the angelic hosts, and their proclamations of worship. The Apostle finds himself joining the liturgy, the worship service in heaven.

So, if someone wants to know when the Rapture is going to happen, a fitting reply would be something like, “Every Sunday morning at about 11:00 a.m.” That’s when believers ascend to the heavenly Jerusalem and, what’s more, we ascend in Jesus. The New Testament repeatedly speaks of Christians as being “in Christ,” who has ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father (Mark 16:19; Acts 1:6-11, 2:33-34; Romans 8:34, 10:6; Ephesians 4:8; Colossians 3:1; 1st Peter 3:22, and more). And it is there that He has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing” (Ephesians 1:3).

As the liturgy begins, and the call to worship is issued, God calls His people to ascend by faith and join the heavenly worship service. We can do this because we are “in Christ” and, as John was, “in the Spirit” (Revelation 4:1).   

What Does the Call to Worship Teach Us?

We live by faith, not by sight. In the call to worship, the liturgy teaches us to see through eyes of faith, and we desperately need to take this lesson with us into the other six days of the week.

We have to view life through eyes of faith – when praying for our needs and the needs of others to the God whom we cannot see but always sees us, when we teach and correct our children in the hope that God is at work in their souls, in the kind words and good deeds you do which we hope bear fruit we never see, when you read or listen to the news and hear that the world has gone mad – understanding there is more going on than meets the eye.

We “live by faith, not by sight” (2nd Corinthians 5:7). It’s not for us to measure, or understand all that God is doing, or how and why He does it. But it is for us to trust and believe.

And a valuable reminder of that lesson is, every Sunday, God Himself invites us, calls us, to worship in the heavenly Jerusalem, at His throne, surrounded by the Church through the ages. You may not see it, but it is no less true.

We come to God on His terms. One of the most commonly repeated mantras of modern churches (and church signs) is “Come as you are.” And while there is a certain truth to that statement, it is often used to justify what amounts to irreverence and flippancy in approaching the Lord. The call to worship reminds us that, as God told Moses, “Among those who are near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Leviticus 10:3). The call to worship marks a formal beginning, a formal invitation, into the presence of God for corporate worship.   

God is gracious to invite us into His presence. The call to worship, as a formal act of the liturgy, is also a reminder of God’s goodness in even allowing us into His presence.

If we are not careful, we can take our access to the throne of God for granted, forgetting that prayer, confession of sin, the sacraments, and all of the other blessings of worship are all grace. What’s more, we can forget that it was all dearly paid for with the blood of Christ (Matthew 27:50-51; Hebrews 4:14-16; Ephesians 2:13-22).

Psalm 5:7 says, “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you.” We enter God’s house only “through the abundance of (His) steadfast love.”

The call to worship is far more profound than it appears on the surface. In it, we are being given a model to follow all the days of our lives. When it is time for morning or evening prayer, time to get ready for church, time for pray for lunch, time for Bible study, or any other time in which approach the Lord, may it be a reminder of His deep grace. May we be reminded of the blood of Christ which was shed for our salvation, giving us the right to respond to His call, and come before His presence.

And when God calls us into His presence, let us be sure to respond with joy, reverence, and thanksgiving.

To be continued…