In our previous post on what makes Waco Reformed Church different, I stated that the worship is not about feeding the sheep. Many people make the mistake of thinking this is the point of worship. The question even came up on x.com last week when Meg Basham posted the following:

As you can see, this is a common error that most people make when it comes to the purpose of the worship of the church. The purpose of worship is to focus upon and glorify God in the liturgy of the church. The focus is our Father, not the congregation. We are not looking to the congregation to dictate what we do in worship to glorify God. We are looking to His word.

Feeding the sheep is actually the stated purpose of the pastor. He is to feed the sheep “in worship.” Feeding definitely takes place “in worship.” But feeding the sheep is not the purpose of the church in worship.

We get the foundations of feeding the sheep from John 21:15-17. In that passage, we see Jesus reinstating Peter to the ministry by asking him three times, “Do you love Me?” With every affirmative answer that Peter gives, Jesus stated that Peter’s focus was to tend and feed His sheep.

He wasn’t speaking of literal food, although we do literally eat the bread in communion, as well as drink the wine of the table.  Jesus could well have been speaking of communion. The pastor is to serve communion every LORD’s day, and in this, as we partake by faith, the literal bread and wine feed us both physically and spiritually.

Milk and Solid Food

But primarily, when Jesus told Peter to “feed My sheep” HE was speaking of the word of God as the means for feeding them. The word of God is often referred to as milk or solid food (1 Corinthians 3:1-3, Hebrews 5:12-13, 1 Peter 2:1-3). It is, in the spiritual sense, the most important food there is, as we will see below. When the word of God is faithfully preached to the congregation, the congregation is being fed on a spiritual level.

Living Upon Every Word

We also know the word of God to be spiritual food from the Temptation of Christ in the wilderness. Satan tempts Jesus by challenging Jesus on being the Son of God. “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.”

This was after Jesus had fasted for 40 days. Jesus was being tempted on His identity and for His basic physical needs. Yet, He did not give into the temptation, but responded by saying: “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’”

The word of God is what sustains us spiritually speaking, for in His word, life is found. This is why the word as the food is the most important food we shall every dine upon. God’s words feeds us spiritually.

But please note also what Jesus said to Satan. Jesus says that we shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. This means we live from the entirety of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments.

Far too many evangelicals want to “unhitch” themselves from the Old Testament, as if it were somehow holding us back from true spirituality. But please note: when Jesus preached the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, He preached from the Old Testament. The same was true for Paul, and Peter, and Stephen, and all the rest of the men God ordained to preach in the first century.

We point this out because worship has to be informed by the entirety of God’s word, not just the New Testament as so many wish to believe. The Apostle Paul endeavored to preach the full counsel of God’s word to the Ephesian elders, and we should to the same (Acts 20:27).

Conclusion

The point of this post is to help you see that we are indeed fed spiritually by God’s word when we come to worship. But this feeding is not the purpose of worship. The purpose of worship it to actually worship the Father in Spirit and Truth. When this is done, God graciously feeds us the food we so desperately need. We can trust Him to serve us the meal we need. We will be nourished, cleansed, and sent out every LORD’s day for the purpose of His glory. But let us not make the mistake that many make: when we gather, we don’t do so for what we get out of it. We do so because He has called us to worship and He is glorified when we do.

Links:

Waco Reformed Church: What Makes us Different?

Waco Reformed Church: Substack

Waco Reformed Church: YouTube Channel

Waco Reformed Church: Facebook Page.

Waco Reformed Church: Website.