Regulated by the Word: How God Tells us to Worship

Transcript

My name is Sean. I’m a member here and I get to serve as one of the pastors. Please join me again in prayer.

Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you speak to us, that you command us, that you instruct us in it, that you give us life as you speak. We ask this morning that by your Spirit you would illuminate your word to us, give us clarity in discerning the truths in it. And I pray that the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts would be pleasing to you, oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer and the one who is worthy of our worship. Amen.

I am a slow cook. Other than the fact that she’s a lot better than me at it, that’s one of the reasons that Sarah does most of the cooking in our household. I tend to spend a lot of time double-checking recipes, measuring, cutting, and then I just stare at the stove to make sure that I have everything I need before I start. And it may just be my personality, but I think that I spend a lot of time on a meal because I’m deeply aware of the consequences in my God-given role as a husband. When Sarah messes up on a meal, which isn’t often, I have to eat it. When I mess up on a meal, I have to eat it.

I think a generally accepted principle is that the more important something is, the more carefully you follow the instructions. The same person who hastily assembles IKEA furniture without directions will without a doubt check and double-check measurements on a critical airplane component. I’m fine with a little bit of wobble in my dresser, but at 30,000 feet, the engine had better not move.

What about when it comes to our worship of God? Has He given us directions for how He wants to be worshipped? And if He has, how closely must we align ourselves to it? What does our corporate worship communicate about how significantly we view His divine instruction?

Last week, we began a sermon series, a topical series, titled Living Liturgy, a series on worship with the goal of helping our church understand that Christian worship is revealed by God, regulated by Scripture, expressed through ordinary means, and lived out in everyday faithfulness. Andre walked us through the divine initiative of God calling us and inviting us to worship, and God alone is worthy as the one who creates, sustains, and saves us.

This morning, we move into a very practical aspect of worship in our churches. Whose recipe are we following when it comes to our corporate, gathered worship? What we’re doing this morning, and how much freedom is there in it?

If there’s anything you get out of this sermon today, it is that God must regulate our worship. If we are to worship rightly, it must be on His terms, according to His commands. We do not get to approach God on our terms. We should not worship God according to our imagination or innovation. God cares about how we worship, and so He defines our worship for us.

Churches, since the Protestant Reformation, have referred to this concept as the regulative principle. The idea that in our Sunday morning worship service, we are limited to do only what God has explicitly commanded in His word.

So that’s just a very high-level definition. Here are some caveats before we start.

First, I’m primarily addressing corporate worship, what we’re doing here on Sunday mornings. Worship is clearly meant to be an all-of-life activity. Romans 12 says, “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” 1 Corinthians 10

says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

Second, even though I’m using the term regulative principle, there are disagreements on even the way it’s defined and applied. So when you talk to other people, I want you to be clear; you need to define what you’re talking about so there’s no confusion. Like all things, there’s a spectrum. I want us to be very careful about how we use this language.

Some churches, even within the Reformed tradition, will take the regulative principle to mean that since we don’t explicitly see instrumentation in the New Testament, we shouldn’t have instruments, which we clearly don’t do. I’ll address this later. I want to say that using the term is helpful for us to have a category to think about. We just need to have clarity on what we’re talking about.

Third caveat, my goal is to argue for this as a principle derived from the whole of God’s Word and what He’s revealed about His worship. I’m actually going to spend very little time applying it. Lord willing, that’s what the rest of this sermon series will do. And what we’re going to see is that the prescribed worship elements within Scripture do need to be fleshed out more thoroughly in His Word.

Our hope is that you’re going to take this principle and the truths that we cover to have a more firm biblical foundation for why we do the things that we do. And in so doing, as a congregation, you can hold us accountable for how we’re stewarding the Lord’s day.

Fourth, the goal of all of this is the worship of the transcendent, almighty God. The goal is not to be picky or critical when it comes to worship style. God is the one who owns all of our worship because He created us, He saved us, and He’s transforming us into the image of Christ.

The goal of the regulative principle is that God is the final authority in how He receives glory, not man. When we submit ourselves to God in this way, we’re declaring to the world that God’s divine revelation is supreme over our preferences, over our opinions, over our creativity, and our sinful desire.

So let’s dive in. I’m going to start by reading Deuteronomy 12, verse 32. You can turn there with me. This is a short verse that I hope will frame our time, although since this is a topical sermon, we’re going to be jumping around to different parts of Scripture. We’ll have references on the screen, but I’d actually encourage you to follow along in your own Bible. There should be a few Bibles in the seats around you if you don’t have one, and if you don’t own a Bible, we’d love to give that one to you.

This might be because I’m a visual person, but I do like and encourage reading from a physical Bible because it helps remember where passages are on the page or in the book. And so to that end, I’ve committed to, instead of copying the Scripture references into my notes, I’m going to turn with you guys throughout the Bible in this sermon.

Deuteronomy 12:32: “Everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do. You shall not add to it or take from it.”

This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

I have three points for us. First, consequence: how we worship matters. Second, conscience: there’s freedom in the regulative principle. And third, commands: what does God actually require of us?

Let’s look first at consequence: how we worship matters.

Those of you who are theologically astute or who’ve grown up in church will notice that this verse in Deuteronomy does not address New Testament corporate worship. And honestly, in context, it doesn’t even prove the regulative principle to us. And you would be right. God is speaking to the Old Covenant people of God, specifically those who are under the Mosaic Law. And this was to govern their life and their worship.

Now, this isn’t to say that the principle behind this verse—that God cares about how we worship and prescribes our worship—isn’t biblical. We just need to do more work to actually come to that conclusion.

So my goal in this section is to provide a high-level overview of some examples in Scripture that should inform the way that we think about worship. As always, if you want to discuss further, any of the pastors or elders would be happy to meet with you. Or I’d encourage you to grab another member of this church and go through a book or a topic or a study on your own time in God’s Word. Come find me after the service if you want some book recommendations on corporate worship.

Here’s the argument I hope to make in this section: God cares about how we worship. Worship is not a time for me to express myself. Worship is not a time for me to be creative. Worship is not about me. And to undergird this argument, I want to make a single point using six examples: there are wrong ways to worship God.

There are wrong ways to worship God. And there are consequences to worshiping God the wrong way.

Example one: Cain and Abel. Turn with me to Genesis chapter four. I’m going to go through these pretty quick. I’m just going to make an observation about each one. Again, happy to talk more at length about any of these passages and their implications. But my goal is just to convince you that because there are wrong ways to worship, we need to be cautious of how we approach God in worship. We need to stick to what He has prescribed for us in His word.

Genesis 4, starting in verse 3:

“In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering He had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell.”

The following verses, Cain will go on to murder his brother Abel as a response to this issue.

Now it’s not clear what the distinction is in this text between their offerings. It may be intentionally ambiguous. Perhaps Cain had the wrong heart posture. He also described this later on as a failure to worship God in spirit. Or maybe it could be a rejection of what God had clearly dictated for him. That would be a failure to worship God in truth.

We do know from Genesis 2 and 3 that God gives clear commands to humanity. In either case, or both, God was clearly displeased with Cain’s offering. Cain did not worship God the right way.

Something to note is that this example precedes the Levitical and sacrificial system. This isn’t limited to the Old Covenant. Moses intends not for a theology of sacrifice according to the law. This is a general principle, a general truth and warning to people across all time.

Example two: turn to Exodus chapter 32. This is the golden calf incident.

The people of God are at Mount Sinai. Moses is on the mountain of God receiving the Ten Commandments and the law. They have just seen God deliver them supernaturally through the plagues of Egypt and the Exodus. And yet, in their impatience, they take matters into their own hands.

Exodus 32, starting in verse 1:

“When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, ‘Up, make us gods who shall go before us. As for Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’”

So Aaron said to them, “Take off your rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives and your sons and your daughters and bring them to me.”

So all the people took the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who has brought you up out of the land of Egypt.”

When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.”

And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, for your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They have made for themselves a golden calf and have worshipped it and sacrificed to it and said, ‘These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’”

And the Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people. Now, therefore, let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them, and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”

Now, this text deserves a lot more time, maybe even several sermons, but there are implications here even about impatience, about mediation, about the way we picture God, about the way that false worship leads to immorality.

And this is right off the heels of God’s detailed description of the tabernacle of worship. He spends six chapters talking about the worship of the tabernacle and the priesthood.

But if I could make one clear observation, it’s that we can worship the right God the wrong way.

We can worship the right God the wrong way.

Let me explain. The people here are not creating some kind of idol to a pagan god. What they’re doing is taking matters into their own hands. They’re attempting to worship on their terms, according to their convenience or preference or desire.

I do think a more accurate translation based on context would be Aaron saying, “This is your God, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” This is how the NASB renders it.

Israel’s failure here is not necessarily that they’re worshiping the wrong God. Israel’s failure here is that their understanding of God, though it may be flawed, leads them to take matters into their own hands and worship God without waiting for Him to prescribe exactly how He ought to be worshipped, which is exactly what He’s doing with Moses in that moment on the mountain.

We can worship the right God the wrong way.

Example 3: you can flip to Leviticus 10. Right after God has finished prescribing again in detail the priesthood and the sacrifices and the offerings, we come to the story of Nadab and Abihu.

Leviticus 10, verse 1:

“Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire on it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.”

We don’t know exactly what these guys are doing, what they intend with this unauthorized or strange fire, but notice the language in verse 1. It says, “unauthorized fire, which He had not commanded them.”

What’s described here is not that God had prohibited what they’re doing. There’s no verse in Leviticus that says, “Do not offer unauthorized fire.”

This is—they’re doing something outside of what God had clearly and explicitly commanded for them to do.

Our worship can’t be an anything-goes system. We cannot have the benefit of the doubt when it comes to what God has commanded. We need to be cautious, more cautious than not when it comes to our worship, especially when God has clearly communicated what He has expected of His people.

And lest we limit this idea to the Levitical system, Hebrews 12 actually picks up on this imagery. It says, “Let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”

The same God that we worship in our corporate gathering is the same God who consumed two men with fire because they did something that He had not commanded them to do.

Example 4: King Saul. Turn with me again, 1 Samuel 13.

1 Samuel 13 is a turning point in Saul’s reign where God rejects him because of his disobedience. And specifically, it’s because of his worship practice.

1 Samuel 13, verse 13:

“And Samuel said to Saul, ‘You have done foolishly. You have not kept the commandment of the Lord your God with which He has commanded you. For then the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever.’”

Now turn the page to chapter 15, verse 22.

1 Samuel 15, 22:

“And Samuel said, ‘Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.’”

Two times, Saul had offered or attempted to offer worship of sacrifices to God. First, by offering a sacrifice that the Lord had not prescribed. And then second, in direct disobedience to what God had commanded.

And the prophet Samuel’s response is scathing: “Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has rejected you.”

While it’s true that God has no regard for heartless worship, we’re going to see that shortly, but the heart doesn’t matter when you’re disobeying God. Your desire for piety, your best intentions even, do not make your act of worship acceptable to God when they’re out of line with His word.

Example 5: Matthew 15. You can turn there with me.

Jesus here is condemning the Pharisees for elevating the traditions of men above the commandments of God.

Matthew 15, verses 8 and 9:

“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”

I want to make two observations here.

First is the clear teaching that our hearts do matter in our worship of God. We need to take seriously that when we’re doing what God has commanded us to do, our heart posture is equally important as what we are doing. But never at the expense of going against what God has commanded.

Second, and we’re going to come back to this in our second point, is the idea that the Pharisees and their misguided worship are actually teaching something to the people that are participating with them. They’re binding the consciences of those who worship with them by demanding that their worship include elements that God had not clearly defined. We’ll come back to that.

Example 6: You don’t have to turn here, but we’re going to look at the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians.

Now, regardless of your interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12 through 14, the fact that Paul spends three chapters addressing issues related to corporate worship means that it is important. What we’re doing on Sunday mornings has weight. We need to think deeply and study diligently how it is that God desires to steward this time.

I’m not going to read it, but what’s happening in the Corinthian church is the overabundant use of gifts, which, while they’re good, should not necessarily be used freely in the context of corporate worship.

Here is that just because you’ve been gifted, even by God, even by the Holy Spirit, does not mean that your gifts were designed to function in gathered worship.

And this is hard for us to take. Your skills as a ballet dancer, or gymnast, or painter are not building up the body of Christ in the gathered assembly any more than they would as an electrician or an engineer.

Certainly, all of these things can and should be used for the worship of God. Yes and amen. They’re not just to be used for yourself. They should be used to serve the body, but not in the context of the gathered church on Sunday mornings.

All of these things, any way that we exercise the gifts that God has given us, should be used for His glory. They’re probably most effective as we engage with the body of Christ and the world during the week.

First Corinthians tells us that Sunday morning is just not the place to be showing off your gifts. It doesn’t matter how spiritual they may seem. We gather for the entirety of the church to be built up, and not just us as individuals.

God cares about how we worship.

So what do we do with this?

Well, on an individual level, you and I are in every way like Cain and Abel, like the Israelites, like Nadab and Abihu, like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, and like the Corinthian church. All of us sinfully approach God on our terms. We define worship because at the end of the day, our goal is not to worship the one who has created us. Our goal is to worship ourselves, to satisfy our desires, to set ourselves up as authoritative.

As we see in the biblical storyline with the example of Israel, it’s actually not enough that God tells us how to worship. He actually needs to enable our worship.

This is how biblical theologian David Peterson defines worship: Worship is an engagement with God on the terms that He proposes and in the way that He alone makes possible.

In order for us to worship Him the way that He commands, we need new hearts that desire Him. We need our sin, our unholiness, our impurity dealt with so that we can rightly approach Him. We need someone to mediate our worship, to perfect it for us. We need a perfect example of worship to emulate and imitate.

And this is what was accomplished for us in the gospel of Jesus Christ. He sent the Son of God in the flesh to live in perfect alignment with God’s will, to sacrifice Himself on the cross, to atone and pay for our sin, to rise from the dead, and to ascend to the Father in glorious triumph.

Because of what Jesus accomplished, the Spirit of God can give us new hearts that actually desire proper worship. Jesus dealt with our sin. He took the punishment for us. Jesus perfects our worship. Because when we turn from our sin and put our faith in Jesus, God looks at us and sees His work, His righteousness, His merit, and His obedience.

Jesus, who is at the right hand of the Father, is the perfect mediator. He is interceding on our behalf. He is sanctifying our worship through the Holy Spirit. And Jesus not only becomes our example of how to worship, He actually becomes the object of our worship.

The fact that He has saved us should cause us to respond in thanksgiving for everything that He has accomplished for us in Christ.

Our worship becomes what Brian Chappell calls the reflex response to divine encounter.

And if you’re not a Christian, we hope that what you see on display this morning in our worship service is this truth of the gospel. Everything we do revolves around Christ through the means that God has prescribed in His word.

And you, too, can join in this joyous and life-giving worship by receiving the gift of salvation that is offered to you today in Christ.

Simply coming to church or doing good works or even reading the Bible will not save you. It will not make your worship acceptable to God.

Hebrews 11

is very clear: “Without faith, it is impossible to please Him. For whoever would draw near to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him.”

Only by faith in Christ can you join the family of God in true worship.

God cares about how we worship. Because there are wrong ways to worship God, we must then receive from Him the proper way to approach Him.

So we’ll turn now to point two: conscience. There is freedom in the regulative principle.

I want to start off this section by saying that this is not a new idea. The modern evangelical church promotes something we refer to as the normative principle. It’s this idea that anything goes as long as it’s not forbidden by God.

But a clear definition of the regulative principle goes all the way back to the Protestant Reformation. It’s been articulated in Christian confessions since then.

I’m going to go through a couple.

This is what John Calvin says about worship: “God disapproves of all modes of worship that are not expressly sanctioned by His word.”

The 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith, the Savoy Declaration of Faith and Order in 1658, the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689, and the Philadelphia Baptist Confession of 1742 all use this language:

“The acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by Himself and so limited by His own revealed will, that He may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in the holy scriptures.”

Heidelberg Catechism, question 96:

“What is God’s will for us in the second commandment? That we in no way make any image of God nor worship Him in any other way than has been commanded in God’s word.”

And then this is the Belgian Confession of the Christian Reformed Church, Article 32:

“Therefore we reject all human innovations and all laws imposed on it in our worship of God which bind and force our consciences in any way.”

And this last one is one of the reasons that the regulative principle came out of the Reformation. It’s this issue of conscience.

Christians sometimes use the phrase “bind the conscience.” That just means to obligate someone to a duty or belief.

As Protestants, we believe that only God has the final authority over conscience. That the church must not demand of people other than what God has commanded.

A prime example of this in Scripture is in the Galatian church where some people are demanding circumcision as an act of obedience necessary for salvation. Paul refers to this as a different gospel and condemns it.

As a side note, this idea of binding the conscience is incredibly important for anyone in authority. And especially to those of you who have an authority to demand obedience of others. I’m thinking of parents especially.

When you’re calling your children to obedience, what are you teaching them? Are you calling them to obedience based on what is clearly outlined in God’s word? Are you giving them principles of wisdom, of fearing God, of truths to live by, and then teaching them how they should be applied? Or are you making blanket statements and only teaching your application of those principles without reason?

It may be out of convenience, it might be out of impatience, or it may be unintentional. But how many of you have heard or said something like, “Jesus wouldn’t want you to fill in the blank.” “Jesus would not be happy with that.” “Jesus wouldn’t want you to speak in this way.”

Worst case, those of us with weaker consciences are pushed towards legalism, where we need to do everything explicit that our parents command in order for our salvation to take effect. Or those of us with strong wills will begin to rebel against the disconnect between what they’re hearing and what they see in Scripture. Or those who find it easier to obey will begin to look down on other people with pride.

At best, we’re not setting up our kids to be able to learn and apply Scripture for themselves. We’re not teaching them that Scripture has principles of truth and wisdom, and we need to do the hard work by the Holy Spirit to apply those truths to our lives.

So it might be worth reflecting on how you’re calling others to obedience and how you might be unintentionally binding their conscience.

But what about corporate worship? I think this is equally as important.

As we engage in the worship of God, what we’re teaching people in our church is what God requires of them. And when we only do what God clearly commands, Christians are bound in obedience to what God has actually revealed.

We’re not bound in our worship to be circumcised. We’re not bound in our worship to receive indulgences or speak in tongues or worship God through an image or dress a certain way.

We do not teach as doctrines the commandments of men, and so make people stumble.

Let me make a personal example. As someone who has participated in church music for most of my life, I’ve actually spent a lot of time thinking about congregational singing.

This unintentionally becomes one of the most hot topic issues when it comes to worship style and regulative principle, even though I’ll talk about later, it doesn’t actually, yeah, it doesn’t apply.

But when we are singing together, we’re communicating to ourselves and to God truths.

At risk of offending somebody, I’m never gonna sing a song in a worship service that speaks of God’s love being reckless. Because I would never, in my own private worship or prayer, tell that to God.

So for me to sing that as a weaker-willed person would be to bind my conscience on something that I don’t think is true about God. For me to do so would be irreverent, it would be theologically untrue, and then to some degree, I think it would be sacrilegious.

So this is why we have a burden for the type of songs that we sing here at Trinity, in part because we do want to positively sing true things about God, but also in part because we don’t want to teach or cause people to sing things about God that they’d believe to be untrue.

If there’s a chance, due to lack of clarity or implication, that we can bind the conscience of a Christian in our service based on something that’s not clearly articulated in Scripture, we should not do it.

And I think this actually is the freedom of the regulative principle. It may seem more restrictive, but for the believer and church member, we are free from man-made rules, we are free from the abuse of church power.

We believe that according to Hebrews 10

, attending the gathering of the church is the duty of members. I might even go as far as to say that habitual non-attendance, what the verse calls neglecting to meet together, is sinful.

The church then can only require of its members what Scripture requires of them.

Since we believe that obedience as a Christian means to commit faithfully to a local assembly, then these local churches should not force Christians to do anything in their worship that God Himself does not command.

The regulative principle also protects us from novelty, from the culture shaping our church.

Some of you who are older may be familiar with the emerging or emergent church movements from the early 2000s. It’s this idea that over time, people saw that there was nothing unique in the church, and so it began to fail.

If the church is just a social gathering, if it’s just a place of spirituality, if there’s no doctrine, if the church champions relativism and subjectivity, then it no longer has anything to offer the world. It’s no longer unique.

In order for the church to function as a lampstand in the world, it must be set apart, it must be distinct as the gathering of God’s people who are formed by His word. It needs to be empowered by the Holy Spirit.

No amount of novelty or creativity or innovation, however polished or produced, can replace the transforming work of the gospel that is on full display in the gathering and lives of God’s people.

And so we cannot replace the power of the Holy Spirit working in us with novelty.

So what is it that God has commanded for us? What does the regulative principle actually look like?

I’ll close with this briefly as a way to prepare for us the rest of the sermon series. I’m not gonna go through them in detail.

What does God clearly expect us to do in our worship service?

Number one, read the word publicly. This is from 1 Timothy 4

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Number two, preach the word. This is 2 Timothy 4

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Three, sing, Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5.

Number four, pray, Acts 2 and 1 Timothy 2.

Number five, display Christ’s death in the drama of the Lord’s Supper, 1 Corinthians 11.

And six, baptize Christians into the church, Acts 2 and Matthew 28.

One final note, not only does the regulative principle free us from the binding of conscience, there is actually freedom in how we worship.

The fact that God defines our worship doesn’t mean that the worship of God in all situations and churches looks exactly the same.

I do think that by the Spirit, God gives us the opportunity and ability to exercise wisdom in how we steward this worship.

1 Corinthians 14

, Paul tells the church that all things should be done decently and in order. There’s no explicit command there. There is actually a level of prudence and wisdom that goes into organizing our worship service.

To that end, let me clarify some categories for how we should think about our worship service.

So when it comes to applying the regulative principle, Christians have referred to these categories as elements, forms, and circumstances.

The elements would be non-negotiable fixtures that are clearly defined in Scripture. These are the things that are clearly commanded that I just listed. All faithful churches should read and sing and pray and preach and see the word in the ordinances. These aspects of the service that are limited to explicit scriptural command.

But these elements may take different forms. For example, it may be more like classical music than jazz. In classical music, there’s no room for improvisation. Each note must be present. The expressiveness then comes not from a deviation in the music itself, rather in the way that it’s played, how loud or soft each note is, how we slightly pull or push the tempo in order to add or relieve tension.

This is how the same piece might feel differently depending on the musician, but it is functionally the same song.

And now it’s these kinds of form questions that often come up in our churches. Do we sing with instruments or without? Do we preach systematically and exegetically through sections of Scripture or topically? Do we read Scripture corporately, responsively, or just listen? Do our recitation of scriptural truths extend to including historical creeds and confessions, or are we limited to the exact words of Scripture?

I think all these things do require an exercise of wisdom and discernment, depending on the context that God has placed us in. But beneath all of that, the elements are still clearly visible. The church is singing and reading and praying and preaching and seeing the ordinances.

But the forms do matter, because they do affect the clarity of how the elements are communicated.

And then the third category would be circumstance. These are parts of the service that don’t directly affect the elements themselves, but can detract or distract from the worship of God if they’re done improperly. This would be like microphones, lighting, bulletins versus projection, announcements.

And again, there’s importance here, but also freedom in maintaining a service that is done decently and in order.

So what I mean to communicate with all of that is that we need to take very seriously the elements of what we are doing in our service. The form can certainly look different across different churches, and certainly there are circumstances around our service that are different.

But what we need to care about is what we are commanding people to do in our worship service.

Our prayer is that the elements, the core and explicit commands of Scripture, regardless of the forms and circumstances around them, are present and visible, and that we don’t go outside of what God has clearly outlined in His word.

And anything that we do to support these elements should make them more clearly visible and not become distractions or elements in and among themselves.

God cares about how we worship, and so God’s word must regulate our worship.

And so our prayer is that our church would be marked by faithful obedience to God’s revelation so that He alone might receive all the glory and all the praise and honor and thanksgiving.

Amen?

Let’s pray.

Lord, we pray that you would be exalted in our worship. Guard our worship according to your word. Protect us from worshiping you outside of the bounds that you have defined for us. And we pray that in our obedience, you would grant us joy and encouragement and maturity as we seek to honor you faithfully.

We pray in Christ’s name, amen.

Amen. Amen.