How Then Should We Worship?

Grace Fellowship Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

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

00:16

Well, I want to begin our time today by recounting an experience I had a number of years ago.

00:22

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

00:35

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?

00:50

It might help as you think about evangelism and church planting and that type of thing.

00:55

And I thought, surely there's something to be gleaned from this conference. And so, around that time,

01:01

I found myself at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Edmonton Conference.

01:07

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

01:18

Baptists here, there are Presbyterians here, there are Pentecostals here, there are a whole host of different denominations represented.

01:29

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.

01:46

And I recall sitting in a breakout session at this particular conference. And maybe some of you have heard the story, so forgive me,

01:54

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.

02:03

A church leader, an international speaker, and really a church growth guru.

02:08

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.

02:23

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.

02:34

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

02:49

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.

03:01

And as he spoke about it, he showed video clips of what these plays looked like.

03:09

One year, I remember in particular, they had hosted a play where Batman was the main character.

03:16

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.

03:26

And the narrative of every play every year was always the same, just with a different character.

03:32

And so it was Batman's role in that particular play to save Gotham City and to be crucified on the

03:40

Bat -Signal. I don't know how that works. But to be crucified on the Bat -Signal for the salvation of Gotham City.

03:48

And they would take pop culture events and stories and insert them into the redemptive story of the gospel every year.

03:59

He showed a number of different ones. Maybe I have put them out of my mind for good purpose.

04:04

I'm using those brain cells for other good things. But I do remember another one that there was

04:09

Captain Jack Sparrow crucified on the mast of a pirate ship for the salvation of the sailors.

04:18

And every year they did this. And as I sat there, when

04:23

I go to a breakout session, I'm not sure about you, but I never ask the questions. When they pass around the microphone,

04:29

I speak at the front of church on Sundays, and then I go to things like that and I am silent.

04:35

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.

04:52

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.

05:03

I said, sir, you probably have heard the expression that what you win people with is what you will win them to.

05:13

What you win people with is what you win them to. How do you reconcile that with these big dramatic performances?

05:23

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.

05:29

And so he came to his own defense. He talked about how he was not into the seeker -sensitive movement and then moved on.

05:37

And if he's not seeker -sensitive, I don't know what is. But that was the approach that he took.

05:47

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.

06:00

It was indeed heartbreaking to see so many people feverishly writing notes so that they could take this back to their own churches.

06:09

But I think that his errors bear particular value, perhaps, in our study today.

06:18

And that's because our study is dealing with the worship of the church. And specifically when

06:23

I speak about the worship of the church, I mean what it is that the church does when we assemble on the

06:29

Lord's Day. A question that I didn't ask in that session that I could have asked or should have asked is this.

06:38

That, sir, when you take the church's worship service and you turn it into this kind of pageant, does that please

06:49

God? Does that lend itself well to the worship of God's people overflowing in hearts of praise to the living

07:01

God? Or is that a distraction? Does God accept this kind of worship as good and right and pleasing to Him?

07:12

Or, to the contrast, does God find that kind of worship? Has God deemed that worship sinful indeed?

07:22

Is it sinful to have a theatrical display during the worship of the church on the

07:29

Lord's Day when the word should be preached and God's praises should be sung and the ordinances should be celebrated?

07:39

Well, today as we look in Leviticus 10, we're going to ask and answer this question.

07:46

How then should we worship? Has God carefully prescribed how the church is to worship?

07:55

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

08:07

God forbids expressly in Scripture? Well, in order for us to truly understand anything about worship, we have to settle these questions.

08:16

Before we can get into the elements of worship over the next several weeks, we have to build the foundation.

08:22

And so we have to ask the question and answer the question, how then should we worship God? So for today's purposes,

08:30

I said already, we're going to look at four different aspects. Four different aspects of worship to develop a fuller understanding of our worship, of worship to God.

08:44

And we'll look now at Leviticus 10, verse 1. I'm going to break this apart very carefully.

08:51

I'm just going to parent for a second. It says this,

08:57

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

09:13

Lord. The first truth that I want to put in front of you today, convince you of is this, that God deserves our worship.

09:25

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.

09:33

That when the church meets on the Lord's day, as all of us meet together, we are here to worship the living

09:43

God. So in the very first verse of Leviticus 10, we're introduced to Nadab and Abihu.

09:53

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.

10:04

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.

10:16

That they were the two oldest sons of Aaron, from Elisheba, his wife.

10:21

And scripture is almost completely silent on Nadab and Abihu for another 18 chapters until Exodus chapter 24.

10:33

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.

10:44

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

10:54

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.

11:09

And this verse really captures the essence of Nadab and Abihu's role as sons of Aaron and as priests to God.

11:18

Their function on behalf of the people, behalf of the Israelite nation, was to facilitate worship.

11:26

These men were alive from God's perspective to worship the living

11:33

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.

11:52

That of all the things that we are to order our affairs around, people of God, God deserves our worship.

12:02

That we appoint particular people to assist in the worship of God.

12:08

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

12:18

God. In fact, if you were to look at the first five books of your Old Testament, it's referred to as the

12:26

Torah by the Jews, or the Pentateuch. That book serves largely as a manual for the very worship of the living

12:35

God. That the Israelites were to read that in all 613 laws, was it?

12:43

Many of them were given for the express purpose of helping the people, guiding the people to worship

12:51

God right. So that is why Nadab and Abihu appear in our texts today with their robes and with their censers and with their incense and offerings.

13:03

It is because God deserves to be worshipped. Now, you probably think to some respect that I am preaching to the choir, right?

13:15

If we didn't think that God deserved to be worshipped, we would not be at a worship service on the

13:22

Lord's Day, right? I think that most professing

13:28

Christians would agree with this statement in principle. But I would suggest to you that fewer and fewer of those professing

13:36

Christians would understand what this means, practically speaking, in the church today.

13:45

I fear, in fact, that many people have lost sight of what it means to truly worship a

13:51

God who deserves all of our worship. Like fish swimming downstream.

14:00

We live and move in a Christian culture, maybe if I can call it a church culture in the

14:06

West, that appears to have lost sight of our

14:11

God -given mandate to worship. There are many churches today that think,

14:19

I believe, to some extent, that they exist to be purveyors of religious goods and services.

14:25

That they exist to offer programming for the whole family, from the cradle to the grave.

14:32

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.

14:48

But this is not why churches exist. Churches exist to worship God and to make worshippers of God.

14:57

Because God deserves to be worshipped. And I think that this misunderstanding, or this lack of understanding, in the modern

15:06

Western church is betrayed, a lot of times, by the language that is used. You've heard me say this before,

15:13

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.

15:29

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

15:42

God himself. In many churches today, and this might seem like low -hanging fruit, it might seem like a pot shot,

15:50

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.

16:02

I think we need someone to lead in song. May the Lord provide someone who will lead this church in song better.

16:10

But you need someone to lead the songs. And I'm grateful that the Lord provides musicians.

16:16

And you will find musicians on those worship teams. I'm thankful that the Lord has sent musicians here to help.

16:22

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,

16:36

I don't know where their place is in the worship of God. How is

16:41

God glorified, for instance, in the use of fog machines, and high -tech concert lighting?

16:49

Does it create a mood for the worshippers? My question to you is, who are we here for?

16:56

For the worshippers or the God of the worship? I had a friend who operated the fog machine at a megachurch here in Edmonton.

17:07

And I was speaking with her one day, and I was not trying to be critical.

17:12

I was not trying to be harsh with her. I asked her, so how are you volunteering at this church? She said,

17:17

I operate the fog machine. That's the only job I do, is to pump fog into the building.

17:23

And I asked her very kindly, I think, very kindly, what is your worship of fog?

17:30

Or, sorry, what is your theology of fog? And she said, hmm, that's an interesting question.

17:38

I saw her the next week. I said, how's church? Were you operating the fog machine this week?

17:43

She said, actually, I quit. After you asked me what my theology of fog was, I didn't have an answer, and I thought,

17:50

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,

17:57

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

18:04

I have coined, or what others have coined, actually, worshiptainment. Worshiptainment, where the focal point of the service is not

18:12

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.

18:27

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.

18:39

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.

18:50

I'm going to quote just from two or three witnesses. In Psalm 96, verse 4, it says,

18:58

For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods.

19:05

Psalm 150, verse 6. I could just read the book of Psalms to you. Let everything that has breath praise the

19:12

Lord. Oh, praise the Lord. Revelation 4, verse 11. Worthy are you,

19:20

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.

19:32

A 19th century Baptist pastor, John Broadus, he preached a sermon once. Why ought we to worship

19:39

God? And his main points were these. Because it is due him, and because it is good for us, we worship

19:48

God because he deserves it, and we worship God on the Lord's day, because that is the very best thing for his people.

19:56

Not to be entertained, not to be moved with emotion, but to worship the living

20:04

God in sincerity and truth. You've often heard me preach and speak of John Calvin, a man of tremendous intellect.

20:15

I look at him, and I think, wow, a devoted student of the Bible, a preaching machine.

20:22

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

20:32

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

20:39

Bible, no notes. Open his Bible, preach 20 times a month.

20:47

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.

20:58

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.

21:12

Why? Because he had studied the Bible for all that it was worth.

21:18

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

21:29

God of the Bible and to worship him is the greatest undeserved privilege. It was his greatest joy.

21:37

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.

21:45

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.

21:57

Every bird, every dandelion, every caterpillar and butterfly, every page in your

22:03

Bible exists to this end that we would erupt in praise and song and exaltation and rejoicing to our sovereign

22:14

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.

22:26

And on his stamp, I mean, with a man like John Calvin, he could have anything.

22:32

He could have an open book. He could have a pillar for the pillar and the buttress of the truth.

22:38

He could have a sword, a shield. But what did he have on his seal that he sealed every letter and every envelope with?

22:47

It was in the center of the seal, it was an outstretched hand with a heart on fire.

22:54

And the idea was that he wanted to be a man above everything else who had a heart aflame for God, to worship

23:04

Him. His motto was this, I give thee all, I keep nothing back for myself.

23:12

And so brethren, God deserves your worship. Give Him your all. He commands it. He expects it.

23:18

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

23:33

Sam accountable, keep whoever is next accountable that as for this church, we will worship

23:40

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.

23:49

That He must be the center of your worship or it is not worship at all. Next, number two.

23:59

God deserves to be worshipped, number one. And number two, God doesn't accept all worship.

24:06

Isn't that an interesting thought? We read in verse 1b and verse 2, it says this,

24:13

And they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them.

24:19

And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the

24:27

Lord. Nedab and Abihu were given strict instructions.

24:34

Much of the chapters leading up to this were dealing with that. Strict instructions on how they were to worship

24:41

God. But they did not follow these instructions. We're going to delve into it more in my third point.

24:50

But I want us to see here for a second that it doesn't say that they offered forbidden fire.

24:56

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.

25:10

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,

25:23

He struck them down dead. Make no mistake.

25:29

You might have the best intentions in all the world. And yet, if you do not worship

25:35

God according to His will and His precepts, God does not accept that worship.

25:43

And I want you to see this. Again, in our free will, autonomy -driven world, there's this idea that whatever

25:53

I offer, so long as it is earnest and honest, God must accept. He must take it.

26:02

And let me just tell you that it is God's prerogative and God's prerogative alone to determine how

26:08

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

26:27

He is to be worshipped. Because it is His prerogative alone. And we see this throughout the

26:34

Bible. In Genesis chapter 4, we find the very first instance, the very first recorded instance of worship in all of our

26:43

Bibles. Our brother read it earlier for us, which I'm grateful for, so I'm not going to read it all again.

26:49

But it speaks in verse 3, Genesis chapter 4, that in the course of time,

26:54

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.

27:04

And the Lord, it says this, had regard for Abel, but not Abel only, had regard for Abel and his offering.

27:14

But for Cain and his offering, he had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell.

27:22

Many people will explain this passage and say, well, it was simply the case that God accepted

27:28

Abel because he was a righteous man and did not accept Cain because he wasn't a righteous man.

27:33

And God looks at the heart. We can't see the heart. And so that's why God chose Abel and not

27:39

Cain. But I want you to see this with me. It wasn't just the person. It was the person and their worship.

27:47

And why was that? It was because Abel offered, it says here, of the firstborn of his flock, of their fat portions.

27:58

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.

28:07

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.

28:25

Meanwhile, Abel, his offering from the fruit of the ground went unheeded.

28:34

Why is that? Because it is God's prerogative to determine how he is to be worshipped.

28:43

In Exodus chapter 3, when Moses appeared before the Lord, who was in a burning bush in Exodus 3 .3,

28:52

when the Lord called Moses, Moses said, I am here. And then he said, do not come near.

29:00

Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

29:07

Moses could not approach God in any way that he liked, but only in the ways that God had dictated.

29:18

Now, who of us would say, I just got these sandals. They're nice sandals. I'm going to walk up anyways.

29:25

I think we would have read another story about Nadab and Abihu. It is God's prerogative alone to determine how he is worshipped.

29:35

Another example that we find is in the account of Uzzah and the ark in 1

29:43

Chronicles 13. As the ark was being moved on a cart, not in poles as it ought to have been carried, but on a cart.

29:52

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.

30:05

He outstretched his hand to steady the ark. And what did God do?

30:11

God struck him down, dead on the spot. Why? Because he sought to interact with and to worship

30:20

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

30:33

God so harsh towards those who simply want to worship him?

30:39

They have a zeal for God. Maybe it's a zeal for God, not according to knowledge, but they love him.

30:45

And certainly he will accept any worship that is offered with good intentions.

30:53

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.

31:04

That word is sin. That God is good and holy. And our sin has made a separation with God.

31:11

And therefore, God, in order for us to come to him in worship, must dictate how we are to worship him rightly.

31:19

Lest we dishonor him. Bannerman, who wrote an excellent work on the doctrine of the church, he says this.

31:28

He says, The path of approach to God was shut and barred in consequence of man's sin.

31:36

It was impossible for man himself to renew the intercourse which he had been so solemnly closed by the judicial sentence which excluded him from the presence and favor of his

31:47

God. I know this is a bit dense, so just pay attention if you can. He said,

31:52

Could that path ever be opened up and the communion of God with man and of man with God ever be renewed?

32:01

This was a question for God alone to determine.

32:08

If that path could be opened, on what terms was the renewal of that intercourse to take place?

32:18

And in what manner was fellowship of the creature with his creator again to be maintained?

32:24

This too was a question for God alone to resolve.

32:30

I suppose that if we were all without sin, then we could all worship

32:35

God freely without any inhibitions, but because we all have sinned and because we worship a holy

32:42

God, he has determined how we are to approach him. Now, some might say,

32:49

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

32:56

Old Testament. That's only the Old Testament. I want to take you to two New Testament examples.

33:03

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

33:09

Bible. But Colossians 2, perhaps an unlikely place to see the regulative principle of worship in place.

33:18

But Colossians 2 in verse 20, Paul is dealing with what has been called the

33:25

Colossian heresy. And the Colossian heresy was this. It was some early form of Jewish Gnosticism, of Jewish legalism, and then of Gnostic teaching.

33:38

And in this section, maybe particularly in verse 23, for the sake of time.

33:45

Oh, I'm going to read from verse 20. I must, I believe. It says, If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world.

33:51

So if you're a Christian, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations?

33:58

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.

34:08

He says this. They have indeed an appearance of wisdom. So these ascetic views have an appearance of wisdom.

34:17

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.

34:32

In verse 23, what I want to highlight, at least if you're reading the ESV, is this. Self -made religion.

34:40

That could also be translated as this. Will worship. Worship according to the will.

34:47

A self -made religion or a worship that is drawn at a thin air by a person's own will.

34:53

Worship according to one's own will or desires. That might have the appearance of wisdom, but is of no value.

35:01

What this means is this, that Paul here is casting aside any worship that arises from an individual's will.

35:11

Their own self -made religious intentions rather than the word of God. If that's not clear,

35:20

I'll give you a clearer one still. John chapter 4 and verse 23. As Christ is speaking with the woman at the well, he says,

35:29

The hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

35:38

For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. He says, God is spirit and those who worship

35:44

Him must worship in spirit and in truth. In verse 23 he says,

35:51

True worshipers. What does that imply? It presupposes that even in the

35:59

New Testament, in the new covenant that we have with Christ, there is true worship and there is false worship.

36:08

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

36:19

Christian woman. This was when I worked in the frontline human services field.

36:24

Steve can stand there with me and remember these days. On one particular day,

36:30

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.

36:44

A fervent and a zealous, an earnest Christian, an immature

36:50

Christian certainly, but earnest in her profession. As I came into the residence that we were operating, just a stone's throw, essentially across the 50th street here,

37:01

I came in and as I walked in, the house was full of smoke and I thought, what in the world is going on?

37:08

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.

37:21

If you're not familiar with smudging, what that is, it's usually a seashell and you'll take tobacco and sage and sweet grass and perhaps some other things.

37:30

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 a cleansing ceremony as well as there was offering benefits to the creator.

37:45

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?

38:03

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

38:12

God. Brothers and sisters, why is that wrong? Because God alone has determined how we are to worship him.

38:24

That it is not a free for all. God does not accept this kind of worship.

38:31

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.

38:39

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?

38:53

Some might even say, but doesn't this create inroads for indigenous people to worship the one true

39:01

God through Jesus Christ? And I will speak plainly. This is not wise.

39:09

This is will worship. It is self -made religion. It seeks to be inclusive, but it excludes

39:17

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.

39:29

And there are many other forms of worship that are more widely practiced by Christians today that must be labeled as such also.

39:41

All right. Number three says this, Then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the

39:49

Lord has said among those who are near me. I will be sanctified and before all the people

39:56

I will be glorified. The third truth that I want us to see about worship is this.

40:03

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.

40:14

It is the Bible and the Bible alone that is to guide our worship. And if it's not in the

40:19

Bible, then it's not to be in our worship. To revisit that,

40:25

I saw some of you doing mental gymnastics in verse one. That they put, they offered fire that was unauthorized before the

40:34

Lord. Not forbidden, but it was unauthorized. Meaning that God never forebode it, never forbade it.

40:44

Can't remember how that goes, but that it was something beyond what God had commanded.

40:50

It wasn't something that God had not commanded them to do, but it was beyond what they had commanded.

40:57

And that these men and those who are to worship God, God must be sanctified and glorified.

41:08

God alone gets to decide what true worship is and he has revealed that in the

41:13

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

41:23

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.

41:36

Now someone might say, but Jesus, what do you mean by truth? How are we to worship you in truth?

41:42

John 17, 17, Christ said this, Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth.

41:50

That the Bible alone must guide our worship. Probably one of the strongest ones that we find in the

41:56

New Testament is Matthew chapter 15. In verses three through nine,

42:05

Christ says, And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

42:11

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.

42:20

In vain, what? In vain do they worship me. Why? Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.

42:29

Self -made worship. Self -willed worship. In second

42:36

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.

42:51

Well, what is the best work that we are called to do? But to worship. We are equipped for worship through the word of God.

43:02

And so as we worship God, according to his word, we acknowledge the sufficiency and the authority of Scripture.

43:10

The whole ethos of the Bible is this, that the church has given instructions on how they are to pray.

43:17

The church has given instructions on how there is to be preaching. The church has given instructions on singing.

43:24

The church has given instructions on reading the word of God. The church has given instructions on baptism and the

43:32

Lord's Supper. But in no place has the church given instructions on drama performances, on special music, on extended testimony times that erase the sermon, that erase the preaching of the word from the service.

43:52

The ethos of the Bible is that God instructs his people how to worship and therefore we are to worship him in that way.

44:02

Now there was a debate early in church history, or not early in church history, early in Reformation church history between the

44:09

Anglicans and the Puritans. And the Anglicans, they had a view that could be described as the normative principle for worship.

44:17

If you're writing that down, the normative principle for worship. And what they said is that anything that is not forbidden is allowed in worship.

44:25

So long as God does not forbid it, that's the word

44:31

I'm looking for. As long as God does not forbid it, then we can do it. In article 20 of their 39 articles they say this, listen to this, the church hath power to decree rights or ceremonies and authority in controversies of faith.

44:46

They have the power to determine how to worship. And yet it is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to the word of God.

44:56

And so their view was the normative view that you can do anything so long as it's not forbidden. The Puritans and the

45:03

Baptist ancestors of those Puritans, they said this, that true worship is only that which is commanded.

45:11

And that to regulate our worship is to do only that which God commands.

45:17

They said, the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in Holy Scripture.

45:43

A good way, and I heard this from one of my professors, is to look at this is in this way.

45:49

Imagine for a moment that I were to have two men building a house. I want them to build a house particularly for me.

45:58

And I say to one man, you may use any material you want except for this, this, and this.

46:09

And then I go to the man and I say, you must build a house but you can use only this, this, and this.

46:17

Well if God has done that to prescribe our worship, you tell me which one is going to look closer to the true worship of God, that which seeks to do exactly and only what

46:29

God has said, or that which says we will do anything except what God forbids. Worship that is in keeping with the character of God is worship that is regulated by his word.

46:44

And this includes not the circumstances of worship, the time we meet, whether we have pews or chairs, whether we have

46:54

Bibles or a projector in the back. I'm not talking about those kinds of things, but the elements of worship, namely praying the word, singing the word, preaching the word, reading the word, and seeing the word in the ordinances of baptism and the

47:13

Lord's Supper. Someone might charge me again with legalism.

47:18

Legalism at this point. Why is it, Shane, that you say that the only things that we can do are those things which

47:26

God has expressly commanded? I would say to the exact contrary that in the early years the reason why the

47:36

Puritans held to the regulative principle of worship was because they were being dragged down the road of this

47:44

Roman Catholicism that insisted on you must do this and you must do this and you must do this.

47:50

And so the regulative principle for the early founders of Reformed theology was this liberty that for the first time in my life

48:01

I get to worship God exactly as He has said and no more and no less.

48:10

They insisted that no man including someone with authority had the right to constrain a worshiper to participate in any act of worship that had no scriptural directive.

48:26

They saw regulating scripture according to the Bible as breaking free from the bonds of Roman Catholicism.

48:35

They did not want their congregational worship of God to be filled with unbiblical elements of worship.

48:42

They wanted to be free to worship the one true God according to the dictates of sacred scripture.

48:50

To be free of all man -made distractions that had been introduced over the centuries to worship

48:56

God in spirit and in truth. The regulative principle of worship to the true worshiper was about the freedom to worship

49:04

God in the way that God has commanded to be worshipped. And again today there are

49:11

Christians who want to worship the one true God. But because many churches do not regulate their worship of God according to the word of God these

49:23

Christians are subject to a whole host of distractions on the Lord's day. Think about this for a moment.

49:30

I think of a friend or not so much a friend but an acquaintance who lives in northern Canada. He lives in a small town.

49:36

He believes the Bible. He loves the gospel. He wants to belong to a biblical church.

49:44

In his town he can choose between the Pentecostals on one side and I think something like the

49:51

Anglicans or the United Church on the other side. Oh where should he go?

49:59

And for many people they are in this position. Rather than being able to sing God's praise with their whole heart they are made spectators of worship in a

50:09

Christian concert where the voices of God's people are drowned out by the overpowered audio system.

50:16

Rather than participating in earnest congregational prayer that extols

50:22

God alone that confesses sin that thanks God for the Lord Jesus Christ that brings the needs of God's people to the very throne of God in the presence of all his people they are subjected to shallow prayers by people who seem almost embarrassed to pray in public.

50:43

They are those who rather than rejoicing in the public reading of scripture where the

50:48

Bible informs the worship of the people of God from beginning to end in the service the

50:54

Bible is not opened in the service perhaps at all. I preach off an iPad so I can't boast too much but goodness at least

51:04

I bring my Bible. But there are churches and I have spoken to some of you where you said how was it visiting that family member?

51:13

And you said they didn't open the Bible until 20 minutes into the sermon. And this starves the people of God.

51:26

And then rather than hearing the word of God faithfully preached God's sheep are spiritually starved while being served up TED Talks video clips entertaining stories charismatic personalities all is the centerpiece of the message.

51:43

In the ordinance of baptism the Lord's Supper are treated with no due reverence or respect.

51:49

We might forget that some people actually died for practicing these things wrongly.

51:56

A failure to regulate the worship of God by the word of God by many churches has had a damaging effect on churches that will be felt for generations to come.

52:09

And this does two things. It teaches immature Christians to become accustomed with man -centered worship.

52:19

A church that does not offer worshiptainment to these people they become a boring church.

52:27

They might even come here and say this is a dead church. Now I'm not advocating for boring worship but they might come and say that was terrible.

52:36

That was a terrible service. That guy preached for 60 minutes. We sang all these songs about all these theological words.

52:44

I didn't understand it one bit. I just want to sing oceans or some variation of that.

52:52

It inoculates them to true biblical worship. And on the other side for those

53:00

Christians who are in that church they are starved out. They are smoked out.

53:06

There is nothing there for them. They are malnourished. They are unkept.

53:12

They are free from the picking from every wolf around. Brethren we need to regulate the worship of the church according to the word of God.

53:24

We need to be uncompromising in our obedience. This is probably a good time for a kid's story.

53:30

Kids listen to this. This will make you think a little bit about how you obey your parents. There was a man named

53:36

Richard Cecil who became a Baptist preacher in the 1700s and 1800s. When he was a little boy his father went to business.

53:45

How many times do our parents or have our parents taken us to a place because they had business to do and we just had to follow along.

53:53

It's not always exciting is it? He took his child to business into the city to do business and as he began to make his transactions and do his things he told his son son

54:05

I want you to wait at the front door. Just wait there for me. When I'm done I will come and get you.

54:11

As he finished his various interactions his transactions buying and selling all of his goods the time came to go.

54:19

He needed to go to his next appointment and he left the building but through another door. Now husbands if you come to me you and your wife come to me and you say we need counsel because I left my child at the store for several hours.

54:38

I'm going to side with your wife. I'm just going to side with her. But this is what happened.

54:45

He left his child there and he got home and he was conversing with his wife that evening. That evening and his wife said where's

54:52

Richard? And he realized in that moment that he had left little

54:57

Richard at the door of the business in the city where he had forgotten him there.

55:03

And he assured his wife he said to her he said where's the quote because it's a good one he said you may depend on it.

55:12

He is still waiting where I appointed him. Now wouldn't kids wouldn't that be an obedient young man or young woman that your dad it's only a dad that's going to do this.

55:23

Your dad leaves you at the front door of a business for several hours. You've been instructed to stand there.

55:30

How many of you would say I'm going to walk home. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that.

55:36

But here Richard was given this instruction. Dad says don't worry he will be there. And so getting on his shoes he headed back to that business where Richard was to be found.

55:45

And where did he find him? Faithfully standing on the spot where he had been ordered to wait.

55:52

God is looking for that kind of uncompromising obedience to his word in the church's worship.

56:02

Derek Thomas says the regulative principle of worship states that the corporate worship of God is to be founded upon specific directions of scripture and scripture alone.

56:15

We're building a foundation here. I have one last point and it's a fast one I promise you. And that's that number four that God delights in true worship.

56:25

God deserves to be worshipped. God does not accept every kind of worship but the worship he does accept he is indicated in his word and when we worship

56:35

God according to his word oh he delights in it that God is glorified in the church's worship when it's regulated according to scripture.

56:46

In Leviticus 10 .3 he says this I will be sanctified and before all the people what's this

56:56

I will be glorified. It says in Psalm 22 verse 3 yet you are holy that is

57:06

God God is holy enthroned on the praises of Israel.

57:13

In a spiritual sense at least the very throne of God is built on the praises of his people that worship to the true and living

57:24

God. It says in another variation another translation of that verse that God inhabits the praise of his people that it pleases

57:32

God. Oh friends you might be the worst singer in all the world. It pleases

57:40

God when you read the words on that page and you sing two keys out of tune

57:48

I don't even know how you say it you're too flat you're too sharp but when you sing in spirit and in truth to your

57:58

God he is pleased. Proof that God delights in our worship is that he sent his son that we might worship him.

58:10

1 Peter 3 .18 says for Christ also suffered once for sins the righteous for the unrighteous for what purpose that he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh but being made alive in the spirit that is why the curtain tore in two we just read that a few weeks ago that we might enter into the holy places of God with what?

58:35

with sacrifices of praise and worship to him. Psalm 147 verse 10 says his delight is not in the strength of the horse nor his pleasure in the legs of a man but the

58:51

Lord takes pleasure in those who fear him and those who hope in his steadfast love.

58:59

If that's not explicit enough I'll give you one more. Psalm 149 it says this in verse 4 for the

59:06

Lord takes pleasure in his people he adorns the humble with salvation.

59:14

Now who here has heard of Eric Liddell? Has anyone heard of Eric Liddell? Eric Liddell was an

59:21

Olympic runner from Scotland and one of the things about Eric Liddell that people have enjoyed about him or have been critical of him was that he believed that God alone had the prerogative to regulate worship.

59:37

And so what that meant was Eric Liddell a world class track athlete would not compete on Sundays but that he saw

59:46

Sundays as the Lord's day when God's people go to be with God's people and worship him there.

59:56

And in 1924 he made it to the Olympics the Olympics in Paris, France and during those

01:00:03

Olympics he found that his discipline, his event the 200 meter dash the 200 meter run was taking place on a

01:00:13

Sunday and so what did he do? He requested that he participate in a different event this probably would never happen in the world today but they assigned him then to the 400 meter dash which took place on a day other than Sunday and kids, what do you think happened to Eric Liddell at the 400 meter dash?

01:00:31

This is not his discipline he doesn't run the 400 meter, he runs the 200 that's twice the distance you get the gold medal that's not always going to happen that you get the gold medal, but he got the gold medal on that particular day and his one biographer writes about him, they said this

01:00:52

Liddell's plan for every race was as follows for the first half he would run as fast as he could for the second half with God's help he would run faster in many ways the strategy mirrored his ministry he served with all that he had, all the while relying on God's help to start develop and complete every good work in the movie about his life,

01:01:23

Liddell's quoted the saying, when I run I feel God's pleasure and dear friends, when we worship

01:01:31

God according to his word we can feel God's pleasure that we might not be, how many times do

01:01:39

I say this I'm encouraging myself as much as I'm encouraging you we might not be big we might not be fancy but if we're preaching the word and we're singing the word praying the word, reading the word seeing the word, then

01:01:54

God is pleased with this church he takes great pleasure in it and we ought to worship

01:01:59

God then in that way and so I'll finish with the question that I asked that instance where the drama takes place at the front of the church was that wrong?

01:02:13

was that sin? I think if we say that if we do anything beyond what God has commanded then it is sin it is wrong, and so how then are we to worship

01:02:22

God? how then should we worship God as the title says we worship