How Then Should We Worship?

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

God Deserves Our Worship and the Church Must Be God-Centered

Well, I want to begin our time today by recounting an experience I had a number of years ago. It was probably around 2015 -2016 that our previous church, the previous church that I belonged to, sent me to a conference at West Edmonton Mall that was hosted by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

It's probably not an association that I would follow online and figure out when the conference is, but someone had approached me, one of our elders at the previous church, and said, would you like to go to this conference?

It might help as you think about evangelism and church planting and that type of thing. And I thought, surely there's something to be gleaned from this conference. And so, around that time, I found myself at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Edmonton Conference.

And it was what I would consider a big tent kind of conference. And what I mean by that is, as you enter into the conference room and begin mulling about, you find that, oh, there are Baptists here, there are Presbyterians here, there are Pentecostals here, there are a whole host of different denominations represented.

And I recall sitting, or I should say, and we were all there under the banner of Christ, that we might seek to evangelize better and to reach people with the gospel, with greater consistency, with greater effectiveness, whatever that might be.

And I recall sitting in a breakout session at this particular conference. And maybe some of you have heard the story, so forgive me, I'm just refreshing your memory of it. But as I was sitting in this breakout conference, or this breakout session, there was a man at the front of the room who was a church leader from Winnipeg.

A church leader, an international speaker, and really a church growth guru. I don't think that would be an exaggeration to call him that. And as he was speaking about establishing worship services that attract unbelievers, he spoke about different events that they would do in their worship services.

And the keystone event that they did every single year happened at Easter time, on the day that the church celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And on their Easter celebration weekend, they would host multiple services, multiple worship services with all the church in attendance, invite all the unbelievers that they could from the neighborhood, and they would put on an Easter pageant, a drama, a play of sorts.

And in lieu of a sermon, they would have this recurring drama that would play out every year. And as he spoke about it, he showed video clips of what these plays looked like. One year, I remember in particular, they had hosted a play where Batman was the main character.

That got some of the kids' attention. Batman was the main character. And the quintessential role that Batman played was the role of Christ in the story of redemption. And the narrative of every play, every year, was always the same, just with a different character.

And so it was Batman's role in that particular play to save Gotham City and to be crucified on the Bat-Signal. I don't know how that works. But to be crucified on the Bat-Signal for the salvation of Gotham City.

And they would take pop culture events and stories and insert them into the redemptive story of the gospel every year. He showed a number of different ones. Maybe I have put them out of my mind for good purpose.

I'm using those brain cells for other good things. But I do remember another one that there was Captain Jack Sparrow crucified on the mast of a pirate ship for the salvation of the sailors. And every year they did this.

And as I sat there, when I go to a breakout session, I'm not sure about you, but I never ask the questions. When they pass around the microphone, I speak at the front of church on Sundays, and then I go to things like that, and I am silent.

I'm just an introvert at heart, especially in big settings like that. But I felt a moral obligation when, as they asked for questions and were passing around the microphone, to ask something, to say something, to offer an alternate perspective.

And so I raised my hand and received the microphone and stood up in front of a group of probably 80 to 100 people in this breakout session and said this. I said, sir, you probably have heard the expression that what you win people with is what you will win them to.

What you win people with is what you win them to. How do you reconcile that with these big dramatic performances? And the man stood at the front of the room. He knew exactly what I was doing, that I was undermining what he had just spent an hour teaching.

And so he came to his own defense. He talked about how he was not into the seeker-sensitive movement and then moved on. And if he's not seeker-sensitive, I don't know what is. But that was the approach that he took.

And now that we're going to find my place here. Now there are many things that were wrong with that speaker's viewpoints and what he was commending to all the churches. It was indeed heartbreaking to see so many people feverishly writing notes so that they could take this back to their own churches.

But I think that his errors bear particular value, perhaps, in our study today. And that's because our study is dealing with the worship of the church. And specifically when I speak about the worship of the church, I mean what it is that the church does when we assemble on the Lord's Day.

A question that I didn't ask in that session that I could have asked or should have asked is this. That, sir, when you take the church's worship service and you turn it into this kind of pageant, does that please God?

Does that lend itself well to the worship of God's people overflowing in hearts of praise to the living God? Or is that a distraction? Does God accept this kind of worship as good and right and pleasing to Him?

Or, to the contrast, does God find that kind of worship? Has God deemed that worship sinful indeed? Is it sinful to have a theatrical display during the worship of the church on the Lord's Day when the word should be preached and God's praises should be sung and the ordinances should be celebrated?

Well, today as we look in Leviticus 10, we're going to ask and answer this question. How then should we worship? Has God carefully prescribed how the church is to worship? Or do we have complete liberty?

Are we a dog at the off-leash park and we can come and go wherever we please so long as we do not do what God forbids expressly in Scripture? Well, in order for us to truly understand anything about worship, we have to settle these questions.

Before we can get into the elements of worship over the next several weeks, we have to build the foundation. And so we have to ask the question and answer the question, how then should we worship God?

So for today's purposes, I said already we're going to look at four different aspects of worship to develop a fuller understanding of our worship, of worship to God. And we'll look now at Leviticus 10, verse 1.

I'm going to break this apart very carefully. I'm just going to parent for a second. It says this, Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord.

The first truth that I want to put in front of you today, convince you of is this, that God deserves our worship. You're probably thinking I'm preaching to the choir, I'm going to get somewhere with this.

But that God deserves the church's worship. That when the church meets on the Lord's day, as all of us meet together, we are here to worship the living God. So in the very first verse of Leviticus 10, we're introduced to Nadab and Abihu.

Now we aren't going to spend a lot of time talking about Nadab and Abihu, but we're going to just do a very, very brief survey of some of the pages of Scripture to find out who these men were. These two men were told in Exodus chapter 6, you don't have to turn there, but in Exodus 6, that these two men were born to Aaron, the very first priest of Israel.

That they were the two oldest sons of Aaron from Elisheba, his wife. And Scripture is almost completely silent on Nadab and Abihu for another 18 chapters until Exodus chapter 24. And it's then that we're more fully introduced to the role that Nadab and Abihu were to play in respect to God and in respect to the nation of Israel.

And to read just Exodus chapter 24 in verse 1, we read this about these two men. As God was confirming the covenant with Moses on Mount Sinai, he instructed Moses and he said, Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, so Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and 70 of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar.

And this verse really captures the essence of Nadab and Abihu's role as sons of Aaron and as priests to God. Their function on behalf of the people, behalf of the Israelite nation, was to facilitate worship.

These men were alive from God's perspective to worship the living God. To worship the one true God. And I think that one of the many lessons that God was teaching his people by establishing the priesthood in Aaron and then in Nadab and Abihu in the successive generations, in these formative days of the nation of Israel, was this.

That of all the things that we are to order our affairs around, people of God, God deserves our worship. That we appoint particular people to assist in the worship of God. That we meet in a place to worship God.

That there are manners and customs, rules, and regulations about how we are to worship the one true God. In fact, if you were to look at the first five books of your Old Testament, it's referred to as the Torah by the Jews, or the Pentateuch, that book serves largely as a manual for the very worship of the living God.

That the Israelites were to read that in all 613 laws, was it? Many of them were given for the express purpose of helping the people, guiding the people to worship God, right? So that is why Nadab and Abihu appear in our text today with their robes and with their censers and with their incense and offerings.

It is because God deserves to be worshipped. Now, you probably think to some respect that I am preaching to the choir, right? If we didn't think that God deserved to be worshipped, we would not be at a worship service on the Lord's Day, right?

I think that most professing Christians would agree with this statement in principle. But I would suggest to you that fewer and fewer of those professing Christians would understand what this means, practically speaking, in the church today.

I fear, in fact, that many people have lost sight of what it means to truly worship a God who deserves all of our worship. Like fish swimming downstream. We live and move in a Christian culture, maybe if I can call it a church culture in the West, that appears to have lost sight of our God-given mandate to worship.

There are many churches today that think, I believe, to some extent, that they exist to be purveyors of religious goods and services. That they exist to offer programming for the whole family, from the cradle to the grave.

There are churches that I think exist, at least in practice, to draw crowds, to move emotions, to provide self-help strategies from the pulpit. But this is not why churches exist. Churches exist to worship God and to make worshippers of God.

Because God deserves to be worshipped. And I think that this misunderstanding or this lack of understanding in the modern Western church is betrayed, a lot of times, by the language that is used. You've heard me say this before, I'll say it again because I think it bears repeating.

That when someone talks about planning a worship experience, a worship experience, that is the language that is used by many megachurches today. What does that language convey? But that the personal experience of the worshipper is more important than the object, the supreme object of the worship, namely God himself.

In many churches today, and this might seem like low-hanging fruit, it might seem like a pot shot, I'm not trying to pick on people, I'm just trying to call it out as it is. That in many churches today, on the worship team, you will find someone who leads in song.

I think we need someone to lead in song. May the Lord provide someone who will lead this church in song better. But you need someone to lead the songs. And I'm grateful that the Lord provides musicians.

And you will find musicians on those worship teams. I'm thankful that the Lord has sent musicians here to help. But what you will also find in a number of churches is then lighting techs, and special effects techs, and a whole host of other groups that, frankly, I don't know where their place is in the worship of God.

How is God glorified, for instance, in the use of fog machines, and high-tech concert lighting? Does it create a mood for the worshippers? My question to you is, who are we here for? For the worshippers or the God of the worship?

I had a friend who operated the fog machine at a megachurch here in Edmonton. And I was speaking with her one day, and I was not trying to be critical. I was not trying to be harsh with her. I asked her, so how are you volunteering at this church?

She said, I operate the fog machine. That's the only job I do, is to pump fog into the building. And I asked her very kindly, I think, very kindly, what is your worship of fog? Or sorry, what is your theology of fog?

And she said, hmm, that's an interesting question. I saw her the next week. I said, how's church? Were you operating the fog machine this week? She said, actually, I quit. After you asked me what my theology of fog was, I didn't have an answer, and I thought, I don't need to do this anymore.

I need to do something different. If you visit the biggest and the fastest growing churches in our city, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I don't rejoice in this, that you will not find worship, but I'm afraid that you will find what I have coined, or what others have coined, actually, worshiptainment.

Worshiptainment, where the focal point of the service is not God, but the entertainment of man. See, we acknowledge that God deserves to be worshipped, but I fear that God is not the center of much of Churchianity's worship today.

That we have become man-centered in our worship. And that's why it needs to be said that God deserves our worship, and God must be the very center of our worship. Now, I could spend the next three years, the next ten decades, explaining to you why it is that God needs to be worshipped, why it is that God deserves to be worshipped.

I'm going to quote just from two or three witnesses. In Psalm 96, verse 4, it says, For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. Psalm 150, verse 6. I could just read the book of Psalms to you.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Oh, praise the Lord. Revelation 4, verse 11. Worthy are you, O Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power. For you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.

A 19th century Baptist pastor, John Broadus, he preached a sermon once. Why ought we to worship God? And his main points were these. Because it is due him, and because it is good for us, we worship God because he deserves it, and we worship God on the Lord's day, because that is the very best thing for his people.

Not to be entertained, not to be moved with emotion, but to worship the living God in sincerity and truth. You've often heard me preach and speak of John Calvin, a man of tremendous intellect. I look at him and I think, wow!

A devoted student of the Bible, a preaching machine. It was his practice to preach 20 or more times per month. When he stepped into the pulpit, this is something that I don't think I'll ever get to. I think very few preachers do get to this, but as he would walk into the pulpit, he would carry only his Bible.

No notes. Open his Bible, preach 20 times a month. Something new to say, something edifying to say. In fact, you read some of John Calvin's commentaries and sermons, and you'll wish you went to his church.

And while some have tried to paint him as an austere man, as a very severe man, he was a man given to the enthusiastic worship of God.

Why?

Because he had studied the Bible for all that it was worth. And in his study, he discovered that it is man's highest calling to worship God. It is man's duty, yes, but even more. To know the God of the Bible and to worship Him is the greatest undeserved privilege.

It was his greatest joy. Calvin said, there is not one blade of grass. Think about this. Put yourself in a park, maybe, with a bunch of vibrant colors and trees and grass. He said, there is not one blade of grass.

There is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice. And to rejoice in God. Every bird, every dandelion, every caterpillar and butterfly, every page in your Bible exists to this end that we would erupt in praise and song and exaltation and rejoicing to our sovereign God, the creator and the sustainer of all these things.

John Calvin lived in a day when you didn't have an email signature. You had a stamp or a seal. And on his stamp, I mean, with a man like John Calvin, he could have anything. He could have an open book.

He could have a pillar for the pillar and the buttress of the truth. He could have a sword, a shield. But what did he have on his seal that he sealed every letter and every envelope with? In the center of the seal, it was an outstretched hand with a heart on fire.

And the idea was that he wanted to be a man above everything else who had a heart aflame for God to worship him. His motto was this, I give thee all. I keep nothing back for myself. And so, brethren, God deserves your worship.

Give him your all. He commands it. He expects it. He deserves it. God must be the center of our worship. If the Lord should take me home to be with him next week, in my absence, as much as in my presence, ensure, keep Sam accountable, keep whoever is next accountable that as for this church, we will worship God.

He will be the center of all of our worship. And don't just tell that to the next guy. Tell that to your own heart today. That he must be the center of your worship. Or it is not worship at all. Next, number two.

God Does Not Accept Unauthorized Worship

God deserves to be worshipped, number one. And number two, God doesn't accept all worship. Isn't that an interesting thought? We read in verse 1b and verse 2, it says this. And they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them.

And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Nedab and Abihu were given strict instructions. Much of the chapters leading up to this were dealing with that.

Strict instructions on how they were to worship God. But they did not follow these instructions. We're going to delve into it more in my third point. But I want us to see here for a second that it doesn't say that they offered forbidden fire, but that they offered unauthorized fire.

And it was not fire that God had commanded them not to offer, but it was fire that he had not commanded them. There is an important distinction there. We're going to dive into that in just a minute. But because these men offered unauthorized fire, rather than God receiving their worship, he struck them down dead.

Make no mistake. You might have the best intentions in all the world, and yet if you do not worship God according to his will and his precepts, God does not accept that worship. And I want you to see this.

Again, in our free will, autonomy-driven world, there's this idea that whatever I offer, so long as it is earnest and honest, God must accept. He must take it. And let me just tell you that it is God's prerogative and God's prerogative alone to determine how he is to be worshipped.

One of my seminary professors said that if God commanded us to wear green shirts and orange ties as an act of worship, as strange as that might be, still, if God commands it, then that is how he is to be worshipped.

Because it is his prerogative alone. And we see this throughout the Bible. In Genesis chapter 4, we find the very first instance, the very first recorded instance of worship in all of our Bibles. Our brother read it earlier for us, which I'm grateful for, so I'm not going to read it all again.

But it speaks in verse 3, Genesis chapter 4, that in the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.

And the Lord, it says this, had regard for Abel, but not Abel only, had regard for Abel and his offering. But for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell. Many people will explain this passage and say, well, it was simply the case that God accepted Abel because he was a righteous man, and did not accept Cain because he wasn't a righteous man.

And God looks at the heart. We can't see the heart. And so that's why God chose Abel and not Cain. But I want you to see this with me. It wasn't just the person. It was the person and their worship. And why was that?

It was because Abel offered, it says here, of the firstborn of his flock, of their fat portions. He knew already that man had sinned against God, that God required a covering for man, prepared a covering for man with an animal skin.

And so he offered worship in accord with the revealed will of God. He offered a better offering, not just because it was the firstborn, not just because it was the fat portions, but because God had demonstrated that already in redemptive history.

Meanwhile, Abel, his offering from the fruit of the ground went unheeded. Why is that? Because it is God's prerogative to determine how he is to be worshipped. In Exodus chapter 3, when Moses appeared before the Lord, who was in a burning bush in Exodus 3, when the Lord called Moses, Moses said, I am here.

And then he said, do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. Moses could not approach God in any way that he liked. But only in the ways that God had dictated.

Now, who of us would say, I just got these sandals. They're nice sandals. I'm going to walk up anyways. I think we would have read another story about Nadab and Abihu. It is God's prerogative alone to determine how he is worshipped.

Another example that we find is in the account of Uzzah and the Ark. In 1 Chronicles 13, as the Ark was being moved on a cart, not on poles as it ought to have been carried, but on a cart. As the cart cut a rut, what did Uzzah do?

He was a man who was well-intentioned. A faithful man from all we know by many accounts. He outstretched his hand to steady the Ark. And what did God do? God struck him down dead on the spot.

Why?

Because he sought to interact with and to worship God in a manner contrary to his word. Now, there's probably at least one person in this room that is saying, why in the world is God so harsh towards those who simply want to worship him?

They have a zeal for God. Maybe it's a zeal for God not according to knowledge, but they love him and certainly he will accept any worship that is offered with good intentions. Brethren, the reason why we cannot worship God simply by good intentions is because of a three-letter word that every single one of us is beset with.

That word is sin. That God is good and holy. And our sin has made a separation with God. And therefore, God, in order for us to come to him and worship, must dictate how we are to worship him rightly.

Lest we dishonor him. Bannerman, who wrote an excellent work on the doctrine of the church, he says this. He says, the path of approach to God was shut and barred in consequence of man's sin. It was impossible for man himself to renew the intercourse which had been so solemnly closed by the judicial sentence which excluded him from the presence and favor of his God.

I know this is a bit dense, so just pay attention if you can. He said, could that path ever be opened up and the communion of God with man and of man with God ever be renewed? This was a question for God alone to determine.

If that path could be opened, on what terms was the renewal of that intercourse to take place? And in what manner was fellowship of the creature with his creator again to be maintained? This too was a question for God alone to resolve.

I suppose that if we were all without sin, then we could all worship God freely without any inhibitions. But because we all have sinned and because we worship a holy God, he has determined how we are to approach him.

Now, some might say, I'm coming up with a lot of contentions. A lot of people don't agree with the regular principle of worship. Some might say, but Shane, that's the Old Testament. That's only the Old Testament.

I want to take you to two New Testament examples. Two or three witnesses seems to be my theme, just so I don't take us to every passage that deals with worship in the Bible. The Colossians chapter 2. Perhaps an unlikely place to see the regulative principle of worship in place.

The Colossians chapter 2 and verse 20. Paul is dealing with what has been called the Colossian heresy. And the Colossian heresy was this. It was some early form of Jewish Gnosticism, of Jewish legalism, and then of Gnostic teaching.

And in this section, maybe particularly in verse 23, for the sake of time. Oh, I'm going to read from verse 20. I must, I believe. He says, if with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world.

So if you're a Christian, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch. Referring to things that all perish as they are used. According to human precepts and teachings.

He says this. They have indeed an appearance of wisdom. So these ascetic views have an appearance of wisdom. Stay with me here. In promoting self-made religion. And asceticism. And severity to the body.

But they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. In verse 23, what I want to highlight, at least if you're reading the ESV, is this. Self-made religion. That could also be translated as this.

Will worship. Worship according to the will. A self-made religion or a worship that is drawn at a thin air by a person's own will. Worship according to one's own will or desires. That might have the appearance of wisdom.

But is of no value. What this means is this. That Paul here is casting aside any worship. That arises from an individual's will. Their own self-made religious intentions. Rather than the word of God.

If that's not clear, I'll give you a clearer one still. John chapter 4, verse 23. Christ is speaking with the woman at the well. He says, The hour is coming and is now here. When true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. He says, God is spirit. And those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. In verse 23 he says, true worshipers. What does that imply?

It presupposes that even in the New Testament. In the new covenant that we have with Christ. There is true worship and there is false worship. And we'll get to what that true worship looks like in a moment.

Some of you again have heard this story. That I worked with a colleague who was a professing Christian woman. And this was when I worked in the front line human services field. Steve can stand there with me and remember these days.

And on one particular day I came into work. And this young woman, a professing Christian. Attended church religiously on Sundays. Consistently. Was at a lot of the youth and young adult events throughout the week.

Would go to 24 hours of prayer. A fervent and a zealous and earnest Christian. An immature Christian certainly. But earnest in her profession. And as I came into the residence that we were operating. Just a stone's throw, essentially across the 50th street here.

I came in and as I walked in the house was full of smoke. And I thought, what in the world is going on? And then I realized that this woman was walking around the house. With a seashell and a feather.

And was smudging as you'd call in indigenous spirituality. And if you're not familiar with smudging. What that is, is it's usually a seashell. And you'll take tobacco and sage and sweet grass. And perhaps some other things.

I do not claim to be an expert. You should be concerned if I am. And then you'd light it on fire. And then from there it would be used for cleansing ceremony. As well as there was offering benefits to the creator.

And as she walked around I went to the office and got to work. And when she came back I mustered up the courage to ask her. How do you reconcile smudging? Burning this sage and sweet grass and tobacco to the creator.

The indigenous creator. How do you reconcile that with your own Christian beliefs? And she said, well that's just one of the many ways that I worship God. Now brothers and sisters, why is that wrong? Because God alone has determined how we are to worship him.

That it is not a free for all. God does not accept this kind of worship. It may seem spiritual. It may, from Paul's perspective if we look at Colossians 2. Have the appearance of wisdom from a worldly perspective.

Some people might ask. Is not the indigenous creator the same God that we worship? Some might say. Does this not help us to pursue reconciliation with the indigenous people? Some might even say. But doesn't this create inroads for indigenous people.

To worship the one true God through Jesus Christ. And I will speak plainly. This is not wise. This is will worship. It is self-made religion. It seeks to be inclusive but it excludes God himself. He has not commanded us to worship him in this way.

Therefore, this kind of worship is sin. And is to be labeled as such. And there are many other forms of worship that are more widely practiced by Christians today. That must be labeled as such also. Alright.

God Has Defined True Worship in His Word

Number three. It says this. And Moses said to Aaron. This is what the Lord has said. Among those who are near me. I will be sanctified. And before all the people. I will be glorified. The third truth that I want us to see about worship is this.

Not only does God deserve our worship. Not only does God not accept all kinds of worship. But God has defined true worship in his word. That it is the Bible. And the Bible alone that is to guide our worship.

And if it's not in the Bible. Then it's not to be in our worship. To revisit that. I saw some of you doing mental gymnastics in verse one.

That they put.

They offered fire that was unauthorized before the Lord. Not forbidden. But it was unauthorized. Meaning that God never forebode it. Never forbade it. Can't remember how that goes. But that it was something beyond what God had commanded.

It wasn't something that God had not commanded them to do. But it was beyond what they had commanded. And that these men. And those who are to worship God. God must be sanctified. And glorified. God alone gets to decide what true worship is.

And he has revealed that in the Bible. In Deuteronomy chapter four and verse two.

He says.

You shall not add to the word that I command you. Nor take away from it. That you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God. That I command you. We read in John chapter four. I'm speeding through a couple of these.

That God is spirit. And those who worship him. Must worship in spirit and in truth. Now someone might say. But Jesus what do you mean by truth? How are we to worship you in truth? John 17, 17. Christ said this.

Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. That the Bible alone must guide our worship. Probably one of the strongest ones that we find in the New Testament. Is Matthew chapter 15. In verses three through nine.

Christ says. And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? He says at the end. I believe it's verse eight or nine. He says. This people honors me with their lips. But their heart is far from me.

In vain.

What?

In vain do they worship me.

Why?

Teaching as doctrines. The commandments of man. Self made worship. Self willed worship. In second Timothy three, 16 and 17. We read that the word of God. Was given to us. That the man of God may be complete.

Thoroughly equipped for every good work. What is the best work? That we are called to do. But to worship. We are equipped for worship. Through the word of God. And so as we worship God. According to his word.