Ecclesiology: Elements of Worship

Brother Andy's passing out the handout, and you'll notice on the handout that it says that we are in Ecclesiology. Ecclesiology is a study of the Church. So far we've looked at Part 1, what is the Church?

We've looked at Part 2, Church Structure. We've looked at Part 3, Church Leadership. Part 4, Church Membership. This is part of our larger study on Systematic Theology, and I will tell you this, most Systematic Theologies do not spend this much time on the doctrine of the Church.

But this is a passion of mine,.

Because.

Over the years I have learned the value of having a right Church Structure, because of the dangers of having a faulty Church Structure. And so, because this is a perpetual Wednesday night class, and we're in no hurry, I've just been going slow.

I hope that's okay. I mean, I hope we're not in a rush to get through this, because tonight we're going to talk about something Brother Andy said earlier, Christianity cannot be based on emotions. Well, Brother, we're going to talk about an emotional subject.

We're going to talk about worship, and there really isn't a subject when it comes to Church life that inspires more emotional feelings in people than worship, and particularly the subject of music. Next week, as Brother Andy was teaching, I was thinking about what he was saying about the Word of God being the Lighthouse and being the foundation, and I actually wrote a lesson in my mind, and I said, you know what, we're going to make this two parts, but not this.

Next week, we're going to add an in-between lesson on music, because I think what most people don't realize is the importance of the music of the Church being in line with the Word of God. And so, in the midst of all this, sometimes I add a little, like, so next week will be part 5a, and that'll be what we're going to do next week.

It's just in my heart, you know. I lead the worship here, and I'm so thankful that God has allowed me to do that, and I think to talk about the subject of music. But just that being said, tonight we're going to discuss worship as a whole, not just music.

It's important to understand that worship includes more than music. Dr. R .C. Sproul went to a church one time, and he was the guest speaker. When he was getting ready to stand up to preach, the pastor came up, and he goes, well, ladies and gentlemen, that was a great worship time, and now that worship has ended, we're going to have Dr. Sproul come and preach to us.

And Dr. Sproul came up, and he said, no,.

Worship has not ended.

We are now going to worship through the preaching of the Word of God. We're going to worship through the study of God's Word. It's not ending because the music ends. So I do think that there is a misunderstanding of worship as being only music.

In fact, this is how you often hear it. You hear somebody, they'll say, I love my church. I love the worship. What does that always mean? It always means the music, right? Almost everybody who says that is saying, I love the way they sing, or I love the way everybody says, I love the choir, or I love the praise team.

When they say, I love the worship, it's typically not the 15 -20 minute pastoral prayer or the 45 minute sermon. You know what I'm saying? It's typically the music when they say that, and so we have confused worship with only music.

So tonight, I want to talk about the elements of worship. I am by nature a systematic thinker. I categorize everything. This frustrates my wife because my wife doesn't tend to think in terms of categories.

She tends to, you know, weave things together. I do not weave. I have a category for this and a category for that. It's like, I'll come home from work. Did you think about X, Y, or Z today? No, because I was at work.

I was thinking about work while I was there, and now that I'm home, I'll think about that because that's in the work category, and I got my home. You know what I'm talking about. It's like houses, a house with rooms.

My mind thinks this is in this room, right? It is dangerous, right, because the bad thing is sometimes God gets put in a room, and that's a whole other sermon. God should be in all the rooms, but you know, sometimes we relegate God to a closet and say, you stay there.

Let me go take care of business. God's everywhere. But, as I said, I'm a systematic thinker, and so when I think about worship, I think about worship in the same way I think about theology. I think about it systematically, and I think about worship as the elements of worship.

So that's what we're going to talk about tonight. We're going to talk about the elements of worship. Now, I'm going to get my board over here. When we talk about the elements of worship, we're talking about ultimately those things that make up the Lord's Day service.

Now, even using that language is somewhat obscure for some people because some people don't call it Lord's Day worship. They'll just call it Sunday worship, right? But why do we, why do we use the term Lord's Day?

Anybody know? Early church did. We see it actually in the Bible. Revelation chapter 1 verse 10. John says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and we know from the external literature that the Lord's Day at that time in history was not the Sabbath or Saturday, but it was how the early church, the early Christians designated Sunday.

They called it the Lord's Day because, we see this a lot in 2nd century literature, because that was the day the Lord rose, right? So they called it the Lord's Day, and so the church has consistently worshiped on the first day of the week.

Since the beginning, since the early church, we have celebrated the first day of the week, not the old Jewish Sabbath, but the new Lord's Day. And there is some tie together, but it is not the same thing.

And you've heard me make that argument before that the Sabbath of the Old Covenant is not the Lord's Day of the New Covenant. We have a new day for a new covenant, and we worship on this day. And when we were, and by the way, that should not be optional.

The idea that Christians had the option, there's no such thing biblically as a lone wolf Christian. The whole idea of, I worship on my own, and I hate it when I hear people say that. They say, I don't need to go to church, I can worship on my own.

I say, well certainly you can worship on your own, but where do you get the idea that you don't need to worship in the corporate body? Where do you get the idea that you don't need the body? You know, Paul says, the hand can't save the foot, I have no need of you.

Right? Because if the hand were, if the body were just a hand, where would be the sense of hearing? If it were just an eye, where would be the sense of taste, right? The body needs the whole body, and there's a time to gather together, and it's not, it's not any time we want.

We come together when God calls us together, and I do believe that's another reason, and this is maybe a conversation for another time. I believe Sunday is sanctified, because we see that's when the early church met, Jesus rose on that day, that's the day John was in the Spirit, and he called it the Lord's Day, and that's the only time the possessive Lord is used for anything other than the Lord's Supper.

The term Lords, with the possessive, L-O-R-D apostrophe S, meaning to own, or to be possessed by, right? The only two times we see the Lords is the Lord's Supper, and the Lord's Day. That's the only two times in the New Testament that the possessive is used.

So this day is sanctified, it's special, it's set apart, it has a purpose, and the purpose is for the gathering of the saints to come together and to worship. But what do we do on this day? What do we do?

What are the things that we're called to do? That's going to be the subject of today's.

Lesson. Four truths.

About worship that are found in Scripture. These are on your sheet. I'll read them to you, and then we're going to go back and I'll expound on each one, but I'll read them first. Number one, worship is the highest priority of the Christian.

Number two, worship is regulated in Scripture. We'll talk about what that means. Number three, worship is not about us.

Who?

That's a whole sermon. And then number four, worship is an activity of believers. Now, none of those you might say sound very profound, but I hope that as I expound them, you'll understand the profundity of them.

So let's go back and look at number one. Worship is the highest priority of the Christian. It can be argued, and I think with very much merit, that wasn't good English. Let me try that again. It can be argued with great merit that the most important occupation we will have in the new earth is worshiping God.

That that will be the chief focus of our existence for eternity. In fact, how many of you know what is the chief end of man? Well, that's one way. There's a couple of different ways that it's written, but where does that come from?

It's the catechism, right? The chief end of man is to love or you could say to glorify God and enjoy him forever. That's another way of saying it. But the point is that we're going to be in God's presence.

Forever.

Revelation 21 says what? The dwelling place of God is with man.

That's the way it was in the garden, right? He walked with him in the cool of the day. He came and he fellowshiped with him. There was no separation. Then came the fall. Now there's separation. They're kicked out of the garden.

The first act of excommunication was get them out of there and they're separated from the presence of God. And now we have the whole narrative of redemption that happens beginning in the first part of Genesis going all the way through to Revelation, culminating in the cross of Christ, that great once-for-all act of sacrifice where the Lord himself gave himself for our sin and we see that act of redemption.

By the way, the Bible is very easy in the grand scheme. It's creation, fall, redemption, restoration. That's the four main parts of the biblical story. God created, man fell, God redeemed, and God will restore.

That's the meta-narrative of the Bible. And so we're in the redemptive part now, looking forward to the restoration. But when it's restored, it's going to be worship. That's going to be our main occupation.

Now, will there be other things in the new heaven and the new earth? Yes, but it's all going to be centered around that chief occupation. In fact, I want to say this. We do many things in the church. We evangelize, we disciple, we fellowship.

But might I tell you that all of it, all of it, is centered in the idea of worship. Let me give you this thought.

Evangelism is.

Meant to make worshipers. Discipleship is meant to mature worshipers. Fellowship is meant to motivate worshipers. It's all centered in worship. Why does evangelism exist? Because worship doesn't. There's people out there that aren't worshiping God.

They should be. We go and tell them. See, people get the wrong idea about evangelism. People think going out to evangelize is to keep people out of hell. And that is a partial motivation, but the main motivation is there's a God who deserves your worship.

I said this a few weeks ago. I was at a music festival. I was asked to sing. Our worship team went and sang at Set Free. They had a music festival and we sang. We sang the song, Though He Slay Me. That's based on the book of Job.

Even though God slays me, yet shall I worship him. And I said, I said, even if God didn't save you, he would still be worthy of your worship because he's still God. People don't, people can't wrap their minds around that.

But God doesn't, God isn't worthy of your worship because he saves you. God is worthy of your worship because he's God. Now the good thing is he does save you, and he loves you, and he cares for you, and he condescends to redeem you.

But he deserves worship because he's God. That's, that's the key. God is God. We have such a small view of God and therefore such a small view of worship.

You want to say. Oh, I was quaffing, but I will say. I think a lot of times we lose fact in the worship. That God has not only saved us from something, the eternal function, but God has saved us to something.

Yes, absolutely. And that to something is to worship and enjoy it forever. That's right.

So it's from and to. Yeah, we are saved to glorify him. So that is the highest priority. I'll say this. People join the church and it is important that we find our place in the body where God has gifted us, right?

We've had several new people join recently and I'm very grateful and we want to help people find where God has for them to be in the body and what gifts they have. We want to connect and help them to not only learn what God has given to them as a gift, but how that would function here.

But the thing that everybody can do is come worship. The thing that everybody can do is be here consistently to worship. Remember what we talked about last week? What should the church expect and what should you expect in the church?

What was one of the things the church should expect if you remember? That you're going to be here to worship when you're when you're when we're not here. There's a seat that is unfilled and there's a voice that is unheard and that's.

Missing. And so.

This is why the whole COVID thing, the idea that, well, we just do church online. That's just not church. I mean, I'm thankful for technology that we can continue to be connected, but it's not church when we're not together.

The very word church means the assembly. So I'm stuck on number one, like I always do. Let me move on because I'm going to tell you I'm really going to get stuck on number two. Because worship is the highest priority of the Christian.

Worship Is Regulated by Scripture

Number two, worship is regulated in Scripture.

Now,.

What do I mean by that? In the history of the Reformed.

Faith, I hate to even call it the Reformed faith, it's a Christian faith, but particularly within Reformed theology, there is something called the regulative.

Principle. The regulative principle. And the regulative principle of.

Worship basically means this, that the elements that exist within our worship should come from the Scripture. They should be commanded by the Scripture. Therefore, the Scripture becomes the regulator of.

Worship. And.

The other position is often called the normative principle. There's two competing thoughts. The regulative principle says you can only do in worship what God has commanded. The normative principle says you can do whatever you want as long as it's not forbidden.

You understand? They're two vastly different positions. I've got a guy who I love, he's a very dear friend of mine, and he wants to debate this subject on my podcast. So we're probably going to do this at some point, because he's a sweet man, he's a minister, he's a Gordon Conwell student, so he's certainly no fool.

I mean, he's very intelligent, but he takes more of the normative principle, and I take the regulative principle. I think it's going to be a nice conversation, but let me explain where these two, where the real heading comes in.

The real issue comes in is, okay, has God commanded that we stand when we sing? No, there's no command to stand and sing. So somebody would say, well then, then by doing that, it's not commanded, it's not part of the regulative principle.

Or for instance, did God command that we use a projector on Sunday morning? And to project the slide, of course not, right? Because the Bible was written before electricity. So somebody would say, see, that's violating the regulative principle.

But it doesn't. This is where people have a lot of difficulty, because the regulative principle is not concerned with the secondary means, but rather with the primary elements of worship. For instance, here's where it would come into play most specifically.

Has God commanded us to pray? Yes, he has. So therefore, prayer is an element of worship that must exist because God has commanded it, and it's regulated by God. Right? Has God commanded that we have interpretive dance?

No.

Now, somebody may say, David,.

Thank God for that.

I thought you were going to go to David dancing before the Lord. But, and somebody may, right? But is there a command in Scripture that we dance before the Lord? No, not specific. So that would come under the area of, well, what if we did do it?

Would we be wrong? Well, the normative principle will say, no, because it's not forbidden, right? The regulative principle would say, yes, no, we should not do that, because it's not commanded. So the regulative principle at that point becomes more restricted.

And that's why a lot of people frown on the regulative principle, because they say, well, I want to have freedom in worship, freedom to express myself. Well, here's where the issue really comes to bear, is when we see people using their freedom to express themselves in worship in the Bible, it usually doesn't work out well.

Yes, sir. Well, that's one of the conversations, that's going to be hopefully part of the discussion, the dialogue we have about this. Because that's where the question arises, right? Like, should we, for instance, Charles Spurgeon, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the wonderful Spurge everybody loves.

Charles Spurgeon did not allow musical instruments in the church. He didn't allow the organ. He didn't allow the stringed instruments. Because he said this, he said, it's not commanded in the New Testament, which it's not.

There is no command. There is, in the Old Testament, the use of instruments, but it's not commanded in the New Testament. Therefore, we are a New Testament church. It should not be. And so he took the regulative principle so far as to say that it would forbid the use of instruments.

And Spurge's, I say Spurge like we're best friends, Spurge's,.

The wonderful Dr. Spurgeon,.

He wasn't a doctor actually, but he should have been. He said the voice, that's the instrument. Actually, the person is the instrument, the voice is how we sing and make melody unto God, and we shouldn't include instruments, and they didn't.

Spurgeon would come on Sunday. He would walk. He had two levels. The bottom level was where he would lead the music, and then he would climb the stairs to the pulpit where he would address from the word.

He had a stairwell leading to the pulpit. So he started by leading the songs, and then he would come upstairs and lead the preaching. So even in that, there was a certain sense in which music was under the word, and there was sort of a visual of why they were doing that.

But is it legalism? I don't think the regulative principle is legalism. I think it's an attempt, if I were defending it, which I will be, I think it's an attempt to not violate God by imposing upon him worship that he does not desire.

All worship is not godly.

I wasn't saying what I was saying.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I'm not, I'm not.

Related to the normative principle.

Yeah, and I wasn't saying you were. I'm saying...

You should have asked the Pope.

Yeah, no, no, no. And I hope I didn't seem like I was arguing. No, no, no. I think that somebody could look at the regulative principle and say, yeah, that seems legalistic because you're not allowing certain things.

But I think that we have to be careful what we do allow. And that's where the regulative principle comes in. How do we know what to allow in worship? Well, if God commands it, then we know it's allowed.

God commands the preaching of the word. God commands the singing of songs. God commands the praying of prayers. God commands the taking of communion. These things are part of worship because God commands them to.

But are there other things? Think of that like... Think of a modern church that allows for... Well, interpretive dance is a good example because that is done in churches. But what are some other things that you've seen done in churches that you would say, that's really...

That's not something that I would think would be biblical. Can anyone think of an example? Blow a whistle? You guys blow whistles?

Oh, okay.

By the way, for those who don't know,.

Miss Charlene, it's so good to have you. That's Pastor Rod's wife. And I'm so glad you used to get to come to see us a lot more. Now we don't see you as much anymore. I'm glad you're here tonight. I've never heard of that.

Yes, I'll give you an example. You mentioned blowing the whistle. It reminded me of something. There was a church near here where on Super Bowl Sunday, the worship service began with the blowing of a whistle and the pastor ran up to the chancel and caught a football.

And spiked it.

On the chancel. Brother Wood, I still have a job. If I ran in and caught the football and spiked it, I think the elders would want to have a meeting with me. Yes, I don't want to quench the Holy Spirit.

That's right, and that's what's often said, right? You're quenching the Spirit. By not allowing that type of self-expression, you're quenching the Holy Spirit.

So, in the Graviton Principle, people would say that they would say you're legalistic. The other way people would say you're anonymous, you're lawless. You blow whistles, you spike a football, so, remember those terms?

We made those terms up? No one did, right? So, it's just a thought, but that's what it is. One way or the other. Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah, I think Mark Dever, he wrote Nine Marks, you've talked about Mark Dever before. He has a good quote, and I have it in my notes here. He says, Corporate worship is too central to God's purpose and redemption for him to lead the specifics of it to the likes of us.

And basically what he's saying is it's not up to us to decide how God should be worshipped. If we want to know how God should be worshipped, we should start with the Word. And on that sense, I would fall on the regulative side.

But I do know that there are people who take the regulative principle so far that it does become legalistic and into such a way that would, like for instance, there are people who only believe, and we're going to talk about this next week because I'm going to do the lesson on music, there's three, there's basically, well there's more than three, but there's, the three that we're going to look at next week, the three positions on music, one is that you should only sing psalms.

That's called exclusive psalmnity. Meaning the only songs that God has regulated are the songs that he wrote. So you should only sing the psalms. That's called exclusive psalmnity. We're going to look at that next week, maybe we'll sing one of those because a lot of people never have sang a psalm as a psalm.

But they are, there's whole hymnals that have all the psalms. It's called a psalter, you can get it, it has that. The next would be those who would say.

Hymns only.

And typically that is those who would say, up until the.

Mid -50s,.

God's music was perfect, and then in came the contemporary music and messed it all up, and everything that's been written since the 50s is bad. And I'm not being, I'm not trying to be, you know, crass.

A lot of people think there's a certain point at which like the perfect music and then everything after that was bad.

And.

That was actually pretty common about 20 years ago. It was, you were either a hymn church or a modern church and there was really no blending. Right? The whole idea of blending, which is what we try to do, we blend, try to do some of both.

And that's the third position is really the idea that there are some good new songs and there are some good older songs, and trying to do both. So we'll talk about that more next time, but ultimately, when we talk about the regulative principle, it comes down to the question of what elements should go in.

So, quickly, this is actually, if you look down on questions for discussion, we're going to jump down and come back. Very quickly, what are the elements of our worship service? Can anybody tell me right away, what are the elements of our service?

What are things that we do every time we gather?

Scripture. Right?

So we read Scripture, and that's independent of the sermon. Right? Paul tells us, give yourself to the public reading of Scripture. So we think that it's valuable not just to read what we're going to preach on, but to read whole chapters of the Bible.

We read a whole chapter of the New Testament right now, and then, of course, because I'm preaching in the Old Testament. If I was preaching in the New Testament, we'd read a chapter in the Old Testament, so that's sort of the way we do that.

So, reading of Scripture, that's one. You said communion, surely, right? So that's an element of worship.

Prayer.

Thank you, brother. And we have and I don't want to do this, but I could do a whole lesson on different types of prayer. Because there are invocational prayers, there's benedictory prayers, there's prayers of confession and repentance, and there's prayers of what do we call it? Intercession, right?

There's all kinds of different prayers. And so prayer by itself, there are different types of prayers that are called for. What's other things that we do? We give. Thank you. Yes, so we give. That's another part of worship.

Preaching, right? Absolutely. The proclamation.

Of the Word. What else?

We sing. What else?

We greet.

We greet. And honestly, I'm glad you mentioned that, Dan, because a lot of people wouldn't see that as an act of worship. But we are called to greet one another with a holy kiss.

Ready?

We're not going to do that.

We're called to.

Extend the right hand of fellowship. So that's what we do now. We no longer kiss. COVID cut all that out. So we greet one another. So these are elements of worship. Are there others? Well, we could say baptism, but that's not an element of every service.

But baptism would certainly be an element of worship. When we did the baptism.

Two weeks ago, it was an element.

Of worship. What else? Benediction. Well, that would be under prayers, but yes, that's part of it.

Yes. I think we got it.

I'm trying to think myself. Is there anything.

That we've left out? What, Ashley?

You got a thought?

Okay. I think.

That we could say there's a sense in which we're worshiping, but the benediction ends the service. There is a time where that holy time where from the moment we pray at the beginning to the moment we pray at the end, that caps or parentheses that moment in time.

So I do think that there's a special sanctity in that.

Won't you take a minute and just explain why we moved the announcements? Oh, okay. I think that plays into it.

I don't know if you guys noticed last week, but I did the announcements at the beginning, which was different. Part of the reason why I did that was because it got to the point where it felt like every service was ending with a little mini business meeting.

And I want us to end on the word. I want us to end on the prayer, that final benediction where it's not interrupted with some kind of, well, don't forget the jamboree, or don't forget the karate class, or don't forget this or that.

And Brother Gary talked to me about putting some more stuff on the screen so we have less announcements. Because when we come together, it shouldn't be like a business meeting. It should be a worship service.

And from the moment we begin to the moment that we end, it should be all focused on God and focused on what we've come to do. So yeah, that was the reason why I said, hey, rather than, I don't like, I've just preached the word for almost an hour.

We've just taken the elements, and now I'm.

Talking about business.

And I don't want to do that. Yes? Recently.

You've been praying before the service starts. Praying for.

The service. Yes. Yeah. And that's key as well. And that's something I want to mention to you, Jack, because you've started reading some more. I want you to, I guess I can tell you this privately, but pray when we do that.

Because we want to start with prayer. Like pray and then read. Or read and then pray. But that begins by going to God and saying, God be with us today as we worship.

We can never pray enough.

That's right. You can pray 15 times throughout the service. You notice I pray right before I preach every week. Even though somebody prayed right before me. What I always say, keep me from error, fill me with the Spirit.

You know what Spurgeon used to pray when he climbed those steps? He said, God I need the Holy Spirit, God I need the Holy Spirit, so he'd pray to himself. Because he knew he couldn't do it without the Holy Spirit of God as he went up those stairs to preach.

And so, I do think that the Scripture regulates worship because all these things are commanded. Now what if somebody came up next week and said, hey, here's something the Scripture commands that we're not doing.

Well we'd have to consider that, right? But where do we get the primary commands?

I think.

In the example of the church in Acts, specifically Acts 2 .42, if you're familiar with that passage. Remember Acts 2 .42? Turn in your Bibles. We'll look at that one.

Very quickly. Acts 2 .42.

Sister Ann, you have it? Will you read it for us please?

And they continued steadfastly in the Apostles' Doctrine and fellowships in the breaking of bread and in.

Prayers. That's right. So notice that doesn't mention all the elements, but it does give us some foundational ones. They continued in the Apostles' Doctrine. What is that? That's the preaching and teaching of the Word.

Right? And they continued in the breaking of bread. I think the breaking of bread there is more than just the meal. I think that refers to the Lord's Supper. I think an argument can be made for that. And the fellowship, which goes back to Ashley's, is fellowship and active worship?

Yes, but I think the fellowship is the gathering. That's what we're doing. We're gathering together. And prayer. So I think those four things sort of set the foundational things, and then we see other things.

In Ephesians, speak to each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So there's the command to sing. Christians have always been a singing people. And we are to make melody in our hearts to the Lord.

And so those are the elements. And this leads us, if you'll indulge me for just a couple more minutes, I want to finish this. Because number three is that worship is not about us. And we're not about music.

But for tonight, let me just kind of tell you what I mean by that. Modern worship has been consumed with entertainment and experience. It's all about entertainment and experience. It's all become, what do I want?

How do I know that? Because people will leave and they'll say, I didn't enjoy worship today. What's my response? Well, thank God we weren't worshiping you.

I mean,.

Not to be ugly, but, what do you mean I didn't enjoy worship today? Typically, I didn't like.

The music.

Almost always, that's what it means. Or the sermon was too long or too difficult. I have had people tell me, oh, your sermon was five minutes too long. Five minutes? For a guy who preaches for almost an hour, that's a little bit tough to swallow.

Five minutes is really what turns you off. But when we look at worship, we come to worship God. This is why, honestly, I have to give up myself, because I'm the worship leader, as well as being the primary preaching elder.