Confession is Essential

The Church’s Liturgy Must Be Biblical and Intentional

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you. Now. I don't know about you, but I hate when a pair of socks. Or maybe my favorite sweater. You know has that one thread that just sticks out and it's just begging for me to pull it and Every time without fail I end up caving in to my carnal desires and I pull that thread.

Hoping that this time it's gonna be different this time that it's not gonna cause that gaping massive hole as my reward and and I just I pull the thread and Inevitably it happens. I've got four toes sticking out of my socks.

I've got a third arm hole in my sweater. But there's this like curious thing that I just I can't get over when I see that string. I know I need to leave it, but I always end up pulling it. Well in a sort of a more positive way, I hope that that analogy can sort of frame How we view preaching at this church.

Because no matter who it is every person who is preaching here that is standing up behind this pulpit. Underneath the authority the Word of God every person who is preaching here on Sunday. It is my heart.

It is my hope that they would be pulling on the threads of Scripture because there's all kinds of threads that go from the beginning of Scripture and Genesis all the way to Revelation that that when we pull on them, they open up and they unravel the meaning of the text and you and.

Big.

Massive beautiful holes open up holes of meaning that we can that we can open up and look at and and we can Understand the gospel in a so much in a deeper way. Just by pulling on those threads that begin in Genesis and then work their way all through the Bible and today.

I want us to do that I want us to pull on a few different threads that are gonna show us and open up for us and unravel the meaning of what a true and a faithful church actually is and The angle that I would like for us to take this morning is how do these things apply?

To the worship service. I want to pull on some threads in the Bible that are gonna help us understand why we do the things that we do in our worship service and Specifically, I want to apply that to this concept called liturgy.

Now you may have never heard of that word and you may not know what that means liturgy just means the form of worship. Every single church has a liturgy. Some churches liturgies are going to be thoughtful.

Some churches liturgies are gonna be lazy. Some churches liturgies are going to be faithful. Some churches liturgies are going to be Unfaithful some are gonna be biblical some are gonna be unbiblical but every single church has liturgy and what I want you to understand about this church is that is that none of the things that we're doing are haphazard or Thoughtless where there is thought that has gone into every single aspect of our gathering.

Because we want if we're gonna have a liturgy because every church has one we want our liturgy To be biblical and we want it to be thoughtful and we want it to represent what the scripture teaches. So we didn't pick these things by accident.

Every week when we go through the call to worship or God's greeting or the various scripture readings or prayers or songs of praises and celebrations and preparations and reading the law and confession of sin and declaration of pardon the sermon communion and the benediction all of these things are there for a reason because we believe that the Bible says we must do each and every single one of These things if there's a church That is not doing a benediction or not doing a call to worship or not Preaching a faithful sermon or not administering the sacraments in a faithful way.

We would say that's not a true church plenty of churches are Gonna just throw together a liturgy Announcement to song sermon to song go home with no thought about what they are doing. I've been in churches like this all my life in fact It's rare to find a church That cares about why they do the liturgy.

It's rare to find a church that cares about why we gather in the way that we gather and We didn't come to this on purpose. The planting of shepherds church is all about the glory of God. When we planted we had no idea what we were doing.

The only thing that we got right and that is not even a credit to us. It's a credit to the Holy Spirit is that we decided that everything we do is going to be biblical and for three years We've been researching everything that we do and if it doesn't have a biblical purpose We scrap it and if we're doing something that that has a biblical purpose, but we need to modify it or shift it we've done that like We have just been dogmatic on everything.

We do has to be rooted in Scripture and Today, I love liturgy for this reason. I love Why the church Does what we do because we have a biblical reason chapter and verse for all of it. But that's the minority in Christian churches today.

You see actually think that a true church prioritizes liturgy. I think that a true church has Reasons for why they do things and I don't think That the reason for why we do things is based off of the opinions of carnal man.

I don't think the reason that we do things is because it works. I don't think the reason that we do things is because it's practical. I don't think That we're supposed to hand out surveys and and do straw polls to see what people want in worship.

I think we're supposed to ask God what God wants in worship now that may lead to some people thinking that we sing too much or that we Preach too long or that or that we pray too much or we read too much Scripture and service and and I would say that I love you, but we don't base our services on what your thoughts are about church.

We don't base our services on the preconceived idea of how long you think services should be or how long you think sermon should be. We don't base our services on how many songs you think we should sing.

And I know that ruffles feathers right because you're like, how would you why would you say that to me? I'm the one who's who's coming and I'm the one who's participating but but listen. We're not here for you and we're not here for me and we're not here for Derek and we're not here for anyone in this room we are here for God and If the reason that we're doing things is based entirely on man, then we're a man-centered Church.

God's opinions are what matters his opinions are what leads people to blessing. When Israel followed the opinions of God Israel was always led towards blessing but when they started Leading into the opinions of man and man-centeredness and this is why we do things because it makes man Happy when they do that is when they cut themselves off from blessing.

We own a time period when the church is sick. And one of the reasons that they're sick is because they don't have a liturgy that's biblical. I mean that I Mean that churches have learned to prioritize 60 minute gatherings because that's the attention span of people or We shouldn't talk about sin because that makes people unhappy and on and on and on you can look from top to bottom of most churches in evangelicalism and there's some Man-centered reason for why they do things instead of a biblical reason because God is the true consumer of our worship.

We've made worship about consumeristic tendencies. When it's God who's the true consumer of our worship so to the best of our ability we're trying To have church services That are highly intentional that are highly and deeply biblical that are pulling on the threads of redemption that are running throughout the entire scriptures because if we give you the Bible and If we give you what God says ought to be in worship.

I Don't care if the church is five people or 500. I really mean that I Don't care if we dwindle down or if we explode when I stand before the Living God and I have to be held accountable for what I preached and For what this church did as far as our worship services, I want to be able to stand with Fidelity to God and say that we valued your word God.

I don't want to be that pastor and I know you don't want to be that Christian That looks at our entire life work and all of it is burned up as dross and as chaff and nothing remains. That Christian that we talk about Anecdotally as getting into heaven by the skin of their teeth.

I Mean who aspires to that? So why do we aspire to that in our worship? Give me the minimum. This church won't do that. Today for a brief moment. I Just want to zoom in on a couple things Today, I want to look at The a couple themes that run through Scripture that will give you sort of an idea of why we do church the way that we do church.

And.

Then once we've looked at those themes I want us to look at this concept of confession of sin and why confession of sin is absolutely so Critical to the life and the health of a local church. That's the threads we're gonna pull on today.

That's the big gaping hole that I hope that we leave with so with that. Let us pray and let us jump in. God, I pray with all my heart that we would be a faithful church. I pray that we would prioritize biblical things.

I Pray that our worship service even in the elements. Even in the way that we do things in the words that we say in the aspects in the categories. And from the top to the bottom everything that we do here.

God would be biblical Lord, I pray Against this modern tendency that we have freedom to offer you whatever kind of worship you want. You don't accept that from Cain. You don't accept that from Nadab and Abihu.

You don't accept that from Uzzah you don't accept that from Annihilation Sapphira. Lord, I pray against ingenuity and creativity. I Pray against lawlessness. I pray against Unbridled untethered worship strange fire that we could offer up because we think it works and because it's pragmatic Lord, let what happens in this house be biblical.

Let us not fear anything at all, but God. Let us fear you and let us offer up to you worship. That is befitting of your holy nature and let us offer up to you worship that is glorifying to you and Lord, let us be as Poor beggars who are coming.

Let us be ready to receive all of the treasures and all of the gifts that you give Lord, we're here to give but we're here to receive Lord today. I pray that you would let us receive from you and worship and It's in Christ's name that we pray Amen, as we think about this story of redemption.

If you've been around for a little while, you know that we like to tell it in a lot of different ways we like to tell the story from Genesis to Malachi or from Genesis to Revelation in a variety of different ways because First of all, we want you to know the story of the Bible and we want you to be able to see it's multi-vein multifaceted multi-dimensional nature.

But I.

Also want to share the themes of the Bible with you because in that you see the gospel and today I want you to see a few different themes that that are in the Bible. That that will really give you an understanding of why we do things in our worship service The way that we do them.

So if you're struggling here to understand what we're trying to say I'm saying I'm gonna share with you a theme in the Bible and Then I'm gonna apply that theme to our worship service and then I want you to see why We do things the way that we do.

That's what I want to do here in the first part of this message is I want to Examine some biblical themes and I want us to look at why we do that in our worship. The first one that I want to look at is the story of redemptive historical The redemptive historical gospel the story of the Bible.

What is it? We know that there's various eras in the Bible, they're not just all the same there's there's the era of creation that happened before sin entered into the world and there's there's God dealing with Adam and Eve in the in the garden and then we know that there's this this time of fall where sin and ruin and misery and plagues and kovat and and all of these things come bursting out upon the world in Genesis 3 and from Genesis 3 to 4 to 5 to Exodus Leviticus numbers Deuteronomy all the way until Malachi you've got this overarching era where man is is Cast out of the presence of God and if God does not intervene on Their behalf then they fall deeper into ruin and misery and sin we see that all throughout the Bible God God intervenes in the life of Noah and The generations that follow fall deeper into sin.

God actively intervenes in Abraham and in Isaac and in Jacob and then then that generation falls into slavery in Egypt and God actively intervenes in the life of Moses and the people of Israel and then that generation falls into Wilderness wandering death in the middle of the of the middle of the wilderness like if God is not actively Interjecting and pursuing this people.

They're constantly Falling Deeper and deeper into sin. We see that in the book of Judges. We see the book of Samuel. We see that in the book of Kings. We see that in the story of how the Israelites fall at the hands of Assyria.

We see that how the story that the Judeans fall at the hands of Babylon and we see that they just are Elking they're just eking their way towards the New Testament literally about to collapse by the time you get to the book of Malachi and.

Yet.

That's not the end of the story. Because God in human flesh came the Word made flesh dwelt among us we beheld his glory and the glories of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and.

Truth.

Emmanuel God with us came and the chiefest and sweetest of all of the graces that we beheld in his incarnation Was when he willingly gave up his own life and for the joy set before him he marched up the cross up to the cross and He was crucified.

For our sins stricken smitten and afflicted so that we could be healed and not only did he justify us and Reconcile us back to the Father permanently this time. So the no longer we will stray like the Israelites and no longer we fall into this sort of Apostasy that they continue to fall into no longer will we do that.

But not only did he do that and justify us by the work of his glorious grace But he also deposited within us his righteousness so that we're not only set Negative net neutral where where he's forgiven all of our sins and yet now we're back to the starting point.

No, he is deposited his infinite storehouses and treasures of righteousness. So that you and I are not even the same people were new creations. We've been transferred out of darkness to light. We were dead and now we're alive.

Right after he resurrects from the dead.

And he's.

The first fruit of a new creation. He's made us into new creations right after he resurrects from the dead. He makes his appearance to his disciples in Matthew 28. He marches them to the Mount of Transfiguration.

And.

They meet with him and he says all authority in heaven and earth have now been given to me now therefore go and make disciples. As soon as he saved them He gave them a task as soon as he did the work and he obeyed for them.

Now He's calling them to obey. If you think the gospel stops at Jesus's obedience and does not flow into a life of Living faith and obedience in us then you've only understood half the gospel. He not only redeems us.

He commissions us. He not only saves us. He sends us and he sent us for the last 2 ,000 years so that we've been on Commission to the nations to see the kingdom of God New Jerusalem and Christendom built in our spaces and to the glory of God.

The church will be about that mission until Jesus says it is finished and He calls us home to glory. That is the story of the Bible from creation.

To the fall.

To redemption to commission to glory. And yet. If you pay attention every single week in church. This is exactly what we do. This is exactly the flow of our service from Genesis to Revelation. You'll see these themes, but you'll also see them in our liturgy.

Like Adam and Eve we were called.

Here.

Out of the draw out of the dry and stale and pagan world. We were called here to assemble in the paradise of his presence. Not his creation but new creation. And like Adam and Eve who who had to face their sin and had to be clothed with the With the skins of an animal you and I have to reckon with our sin every single week in confession.

When we confess our sins to God and Christ Robes us not with the skins of an animal anymore, but with his own royal righteous robes. Every week we celebrate the fact that he has consecrated on us unto himself through sacrifice to cover our sins, but also through our singing and through our preaching and through our celebration he is Consecrating us to himself.

He is building us up in order to have us commune with him at his table and Commission us to the nations. That's the story of the Bible. We're called in forgiven of our sins we rest in the finished work of Christ where we feast at the table.

We're commissioned to the nations and then we do that to the glory of God until the end Comes that is the redemptive historical story of the Bible in liturgy.

Call to worship.

Confession of sin consecration communion commission. All five of those elements are there. There's another theme in the Bible the end and there's so many of these there's so many that we can't even go through all Of them, but I want to tell you a couple of them just to kind of apply them.

There's this theme of like urban.

City.

Theme in the Bible and trust me like I'm the least likely person to rejoice in a theme like this, but I see it in the scripture and I love it. And The reason I say that I'm the least likely because I'm a country boy.

Living in Massachusetts, which is sort of a funny joke. I Grew up in in rural America. The last place on earth that you would ever find me is in New York City, I Mean I might visit there. But I would.

It would not go well for me to live there. Boston is way too crowded. The city that I live in is way too crowded. Like give me ten acres porch swing Pipe tobacco smell in the background. I don't need to smoke it.

I just like to smell it. Give me that with a little creek that runs right through the middle of my property. Some goats some chickens like I. That may sound cliche to you. But like that is what my heart.

Wants.

And yet Story the Bible is a story of urbanity a story of people gathering and population density. In order to worship God the Bible begins with a city, you know that right. Eden. Now, I mean it has a low population in the beginning.

It's it's only two. I'm sure there's some places in Montana or Wyoming that you can find that has population less than ten. I've read past cities that have population eight. That's the lowest I saw. But what's the definition of a city.

A City has a government. A city has leadership and has centralized government and has access to health care. Well, that is exactly what Eden has. It has God as king. It has two governmental officials called Adam and Eve has centralized health care at the tree of life and has borders that Can be extended by annexing new property.

Eden's a city.

And.

The Commission that God gave them is to fill the city. So now you have population density and Then when the city is so full then they'll do what Charlotte did to Mecklenburg County. I grew up in North Carolina and Charlotte basically what they did is they just kept annexing the county into it.

So the whole city is just as big as the county basically. Eden was supposed to annex the world and yet When humans fell into sin They were cast out of that first archetypal prototype the prototypical city and they were cursed to wander in isolation in the wilderness and Yet the story of the Bible really is the story that urbanity.

That the dream of city-building really doesn't leave humans it's now polluted though by sin. We see Adam and Eve being cast out as rulers and We see them being cast out into the world, but they don't forget that they want to make cities because their ancestors we see Nimrod.

Which is not an insult in the Old Testament. I'm sure it was a fine name now. It's it's sort of an insult when you call someone. Hey Nimrod. It's probably a fine name back then but Nimrod was the first city builder and he used his city not for God's glorious purposes.

But he used the city to abuse people and to subjugate people in slavery. Perhaps the most antithetical Antitypical city that we can imagine is right there in the very beginning the first 11 chapters of Genesis where Babel Instead of gathering to spread out to the nations They gather there to avoid the nations instead of gathering there to make much of God together to make much of themselves and the point of Babel is that it's the anti type of God's design.

They're there to surplant God. Which is what most modern cities today do which in fact is what most cities of the ancient world did in fact I can't think of a single city other than at times Jerusalem which did not gather to undermine the sovereignty of God did not gather to To make much of themselves instead of much of God did not gather to make much of sin and Make very little of righteousness.

The Old Testament story is the story of one failed city after another. At one point it's Babel and Another point it's a city in Egypt at another point. It's a Canaanite city. That's attacking the people of God and another point.

It's Babylon and then it's Assyria and Nineveh and then it's some great city in Greece or then it's Rome or that you can just keep going on and on and on the story of the Bible is cities in rebellion against Almighty God and as I said There's only one city That very rarely because of the Lord's kindness and mercy got it, right there's only one city that became a four type a type of the city that was to come and Yet it was that city that fell into the gravest of all sins a sin far worse than Babylon.

Sin far worse than Rome and Athens and Sparta. Because this city is the city that turned on God's Son And crucified him, but the biblical story does not end there. It doesn't end with God washing his hands of the city.

In.

Fact.

From that moment on you see the Bible talking about a new kind of Jerusalem. You see the Bible talking about a city of God that Jesus himself died to purpose purchase a mobile city a Borderless and unwalled city as a city that would be a house for the Lord God who he was building for himself.

That would come down like it says in Revelation from heaven like New Jerusalem. And it would reach and bless the nations we've. We basically see from Genesis all the way to Revelation the story of a city in.

The beginning it's Eden and a garden in the end. It's New Jerusalem in a garden city but the point is God has called people to gather together and worship to him in population density bordered cities with with Faithful governmental leadership to the glory of God.

That urban theme works itself out in the entire Bible. You don't find heaven looking like Montana. You find heaven looking like a very sanctified God glorifying perfected curse. Cleansed city now, how does that apply?

To the church because you and I have been called out of the cities of man. We've been called into the city of God. We've been called and We've not only been called to to show up. We've been called to confess our tendencies towards Babylon like rebellion.

And we've been called here. To mobilize ourself to go out and build the city of God. We've been consecrated to our king. Approaching his royal throne coming through his gates singing and listening to his decrees.

We've we've moved from from humble orphans to humble servants. Listening to God's servants the elders and teachers teaching us the Word of God. And then we've moved from there into his own living room.

Dining at his own table at Communion. Do you see how every aspect of this is oriented towards the city? We come from the dusty parts to gather here together. We enter through God's gates singing. We listen to his decrees we enter into his house.

We sit at his table and then we're commissioned to go build Christendom in the nations. That's the story of Eden to New Jerusalem. And we reenact that theme every single week in our liturgy. See, it's not enough.

I don't think to preach the gospel in our sermons. We are reenacting the gospel in our liturgy from Eden to the fall to Commission consecration all the way to New Jerusalem. We are reenacting the gospel and.

And we believe that our church services need to follow that sacred pattern, let me tell you another one. I'll do this really quickly. The Bible has a clothing theme. We begin in the Bible with a with a couple who is naked and ashamed.

No clothing next thing that happens. They reckon with their sin God sacrifices an animal and he clothes them with the skins of an animal and those animal skins, although not perfect and although not permanent were the covering the Temporary covering that God's people had all throughout the Old Testament then in the New Testament, you've got three layers of clothing that happen.

I don't know if you guys have ever watched the movie The Christmas movie where the little boy is dressed up in so many layers. Ralphie's his name that that he can't even move. He like falls down in the snow.

He can't even get up because his mom dressed him in so many layers. Well in the New Testament, we see God dressing us in multiple layers of clothing and there's three of them. In fact, the first one is we're clothed with the undergarments of Christ.

We're no longer we're no longer naked and ashamed. We no longer covered with the skins of animals and bulls and goats in the blood of all of that we are covered with the royal undergarments of Christ and The second layer of clothing that he gives us as he puts on the festal wedding garment so that we can come into his Presence and we can dine with him at the table we are dressed for the wedding and then even further than that he puts on the armor of God on us the helmet of salvation the sword of truth the belt of righteousness the shoes that speed us off to Build gospel communities all over the world.

We are armored up to leave this place and go out to the nations. You see the theme. Every single week you and I come in from being attacked by the world attacked by the devil attacked by our flesh and our clothes.

Are shoddy they've got holes in them. We look naked and ashamed at times. We feel naked and ashamed at times and we come into the house of God and he reclothes us every week. He reclothes us when we're here.

We're reminded in the call to worship. That we were naked and ashamed. We remember in our confession of our sin that he reclothes us with his royal robes. We're reminded that he consecrates us With his righteousness we're reminded that he dresses us for the wedding at the table of Communion and we're Reminded that he armors us up for the battle through our Commission call confession consecration communion and commission all five elements follow the story of The redemptive historical gospel.

They follow the story of the theme of New Jerusalem. They follow the theme of clothing and and there's we go on and on all of these different themes are Not only indicative of what Christ has done for us on an individual basis.

All of these themes are showing us What God has done for us as a church. We meet and we gather. Intelligently and I'm not saying that we gather because we're so smart. No, no, no. We look at what the Bible says and we look at these themes and We see that this is how God's people have always gathered.

He pursues them in call to worship. He requires holiness of them in confession. He gives them his righteousness and consecration. He calls them to the table in Communion and he sends them to the nation's in Commission.

These themes are all over the Bible. And our church services ought to replicate them for instance. Two weeks ago. We talked about the covenant structure. How there's five elements of every single covenant.

God takes hold of something. He separates it out and makes it new. He gives the stipulations and the laws the signs and the seals and he provides for their future. Our church services replicate that structure.

He takes hold of us by calling us to out of the world and into worship. He separates us and makes us new through our confession of sin and our declaration of pardon. He Gives his stipulations to us through consecration.

He gives his signs and seals to us through baptism and communion. He provides for our future through discipleship evangelism and the Great Commission. Do I hope you're noticing? That all of these biblical elements the stories the themes the metanarratives the gospel every bit of it.

We've intentionally put in the worship service. Because you and I are people who need to be reminded every week of the gospel not just in the sermon but in everything we do. Which leads to our sort of second part of our sermon today?

Because last week we really talked about the call to worship and how that how that Looks especially in the midst of the Sabbath. Well today. I want us to look at confession of sin. I want us to understand why do we do the second part of our worship service?

Which is every week we come and we confess our sins together. Why do we do that? And I was and I would say That over the series as we thought about God being present and our gatherings and him being holy and us Not being holy that the reason that we confess our sins Is not because we have to do a work in order for God to forgive us.

That's not why we do it. We confess our sins because we know That at the heart of the matter God is covenant keeper and we are covenant breaker. He's the one who's faithful to the promises of the covenant and we're the one every week who break them and Who spurned them and who neglect them.

This understanding helps us see that our greatest need. Obviously apart from the gospel. But our ongoing need that we have every week now that we're saved now what? Our greatest need is that we need to be reconciled back again and again and again to God.

You and I heard in the covenant. We need to be renewed. We need to be strengthened. We need to be built up. We need to be reminded. I love Martin Luther so much in his 95 reasons why the Catholic Church was wrong on the topic of indulgences.

The very first one that he stated was That all of life is repentance. That means according to Luther and I think Luther was right that when you've repented you haven't finished because you still need to repent.

Tomorrow you'll need to repent again. And then the next day you'll need to repent again. And should you ever believe that you don't need to repent then you really need to repent. You probably need to repent of your repentance because your repentance is too shallow to be any good.

You and I need confession. Because we're not holy. And we need to be reminded of who we are, but I'll tell you the truth that is Such an anathema in modern-day Christianity. Because we don't like to be reminded of our sin.

We don't like being told that we're a sinner and that we're in desperate need of repentance. That concept chafes us. We like placations and excuses. We like to people to tell us that we're a good person and that we're more they're better than the average bear and then and Then we're God's special little snowflake and then he loves us just the way that we are.

But that's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that we're depraved down to the core of our being even as believers. We need the ongoing confession and repentance. Because we still sin and we still fall short of the glory of God and sin still Damages our relationship to God.

I don't know if you ever noticed this or not, but When you give yourself over to sin There are certain things that happen in your life every single time and as a pastor I've began noticing that this happens in the life of the believer.

When you begin sinning and living in your sin and making excuses for your sin you will hide in Patterns of guilt and shame like Adam. You will isolate yourself from God and Christian community. You will avoid prayer.

You will close your Bible. You will live in feelings of unworthiness. And then eventually that will turn into anger against God and then apathy towards God. This is Satan's game plan for your life and the antidote for it is confession and repentance.

Today.

Confession at best has been relocated to a private act on an individual level and yet when I look at the pages of Holy Scripture, I see that confession is public corporate and it's healthy for the entire body.