Test Post # 5 TRUE DIVINE SERVICE

  

 "Our Lord speaks and we listen.  His Word bestows what it says.  Faith that is born from what is heard acknowledges the gifts received with eager thankfulness nad praise.  Music is drawn into this thankfulness and praise, enlarging and elevating the adoration of our gracious giver God.
   Saying back to Him what He has said to us, we repeat what is most true and sure.  Most true and sure is His Name, which He put upon us with the water of our Baptism.  We are His.  This we acknowledge at the beginning of the Divine Service.  Where His Name is, there is He.  Before Him we acknowledge that we are sinners, and we plead for forgiveness.  His forgiveness is given us, and we, freed and forgiven, acclaim Him as our great and gracious God as we apply to ourselves the words He has used to make Himself known to us.
   The rhythm of our worship is from Him to us, and then from us back to Him.  He gives His gifts, and together we receive and extol them.  We build one another up as we speak to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.  Our Lord gives us His Body to eat and His Blood to drink.  Finally His blessing moves us out into our calling, where His gifts have their fruition.  How best to do this we may learn from His Word and from the way His Word has prompted His worship through the centuries.  We are heirs of an astonishingly rich tradition..."

- - - from INTRODUCTION, Lutheran Worship, 1982, page 6


"...God wishes us to believe Him, and to receive from Him blessings, and this He declares to be true divine service..." 
- - - Apology to the Augburg Confession, Chapter III, Article VI, paragraph 107, page 122 Jacobs translation

"Thus the worship and divine service of the Gospel, is to receive from God gifts..."
- - - Apology to the Augsburg Confession, Chapter III, Article VI, paragraph 188, page 145 Jacobs translation