Worship God: Where’s Our Bronze Altar? The Regulative Principle

Introduction

Tonight we continue our discipleship class: “Worship God!”

Ground we’ve covered:

John McLeod week 1:

Hebrews 12:28–29, "Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."

Acceptable worship has the right object (God), the right action, the right heart (sincerity), and is through Christ.

Philip Sasser week 2:

The “Sunday and everyday” aspect of our worship. There is both the everyday like Romans 12:1, where "the New Testament Christian is both the presenter and the present." And there is the deliberate and expressive side of our worship, like Hebrews 13:15, where we’re commanded, "let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God."

Tonight: What are we to actually do when we worship God. Are there right things to do and wrong things to do when we worship God?

In Revelation 22:8–9, John is in the last chapter of his vision. He has seen amazing things, been told amazing things.

He is simply awestruck by it all. He’s even awestruck by the angel speaking to him. He says,

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, 9 but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.” (Rev 22:8-9)

The apostle John, who had been with Jesus for three years, been baptized with the Spirit, had written a gospel and three letters, is here tempted to worship an angel!

And the angel says, “What are you doing?!?!?” And the angel commands him, “Worship God!”

That’s a good reminder that worshiping God rightly is not so automatic. There are a lot of ways to worship God wrongly.

Tonight our concern is, What are the things we should do to worship God rightly?

1. Worship Wars

I got saved in January, 1990. About that time, there was a phenomenon in the American Evangelical Church that was sometimes called “the worship wars.”

Should churches sing only hymns? Or should they add choruses? Should they use bands for their music or just pianos and organs and orchestras?

A lot of churches went for a compromise approach: An early “contemporary service” and a later “traditional service.” Or maybe an early “traditional” service—depended on who you were trying to reach!

Many people left churches when the songs or musical styles changed. New churches were started. Denominations like the Vineyard became known for their music—the songs and the style.

Both sides had a case to make: “We want hymns, because God is holy and it’s right to approach him in a reverent manner. We can’t be flippant. This isn’t a dance! This is church!”

But the other side had a case, too: “Jesus spoke in the language of the people. Music is a language. We need to speak the musical language of the people. Hymns at one point were new songs written to capture what God was doing at the time. God is doing something new, we need to write about it in song. God commands us to ‘sing a new song!’”

And then the really righteous crowd: “Bah! We sing the Bible! Only the Psalms in our church! If they were good enough for Jesus, they’re good enough for us!”

That third group was and is pretty small, so they weren’t part of the worship wars I encountered.

Many churches went for a hybrid approach of the first two view: Yes, God is doing something new, and we want new songs to capture it. But, many hymns are beautiful and capture God and his ways powerfully. So, let’s just sing the best of both.

Not the first time there was a “worship war.”

In the late 1600s Baptists in England had their own “worship war.”

Huge efforts were made to bring Baptists together in London at a time when being a Baptist meant enormous sacrifices. Many Baptists were fined, imprisoned, even killed for being Baptist at a time when the Church of England ruled the church landscape with the support of the King.

But then…when toleration was upon them and so much opportunity was open to them, they began to divide over the issue of singing: should singing be included in worship gatherings, or was this a formality carried over from the Church of England? Was it too emotional an activity to be included?

Some said any singing represented “carnal activities.” Others said if songs were to be sung, only the Psalms should be sung.

One figure at the time who said Yes, singing should be included and new songs should be written, was Benjamin Keach. He was a giant among Reformed Baptists in the 1600s. An earlier figure was Nehemiah Coxe. He also said Yes.

The Yes position won out.

So much so that when American Baptists in Philadelphia produced their own 1742 Confession of Faith, they added a new chapter on singing.

Interestingly, it was published in Philadelphia in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin.

The article on singing opens this way:

We believe that singing the praises of God, is a holy ordinance of Christ, and not a part of Natural Religion, or a moral Duty only; but that it is brought under Divine Institution, it being injoined on the Churches of Christ to sing Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs.
1742 Baptist Confession of Faith 23.1

Scriptures cited were Acts 16:25 (Paul and Silas in prison); Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16 (singing “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs”); Heb 2:12 and James 5:13 (singing in the congregation); Matt 26:30 and Mark 14:26 (Christ singing after the Last Supper). They could have added dozens and dozens more.

In the end, the Bible won out over personal preference.

2. Worship that Pleases the Lord

What we’re wrestling with here is worship that pleases the Lord.

This is a huge issue throughout the Bible. Just two examples.

First, King Saul.

In the war with Amalek, King Saul was given specific instructions. Even the animals were to be killed. After centuries of patience on the part of God, this was the moment of God’s judgment on this wicked city, and Saul was God’s messenger to carry it out. Saul decided on his own to keep back certain animals and offer a sacrifice to God for it.

In other words, he disobeyed God to do something he himself wanted to do to worship God. God was not pleased.

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. (1 Sam 15:22)

The punishment? “Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king” (1 Sam 15:23).

Second example from Jesus’ ministry.

Jesus with “the Pharisees and scribes” (Matt 15:1) who are more concerned with their self-made hand-washing ceremonies than the commandments of God.

He quotes Isaiah 29:13 against them:

You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: 8 “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (Matt 15:7–9)

So, from 1 Samuel 15, we know that OBEDIENCE matters.

But from Matthew 15, we see also that OUR HEART matters.

Keeping those two things together is vital: OBEDIENCE (1 Sam 15:22) and OUR HEART (Matt 15:7–9).

Both are essential!!!

3. The Regulative Principle

“The Regulative Principle” is a Reformed principle on worship. It is the reflex to worship God according to what he has commanded in the Bible. God defines true and holy worship. Not us!

From the beginning this reflex was part of the Reformation project.

John Calvin at one point wrote a tract called “The Necessity of Reforming the Church” to be read by Emperor Charles V at a Diet in 1544. Charles V needed soldiers to fight King Francis I of France, and the Protestants needed relief from persecution.

Calvin’s part was to explain what the “Reformed” Christians were doing and why. He said their whole effort could summarized as this, to define from the Scriptures “a knowledge, first, of the mode in which God is duly worshipped; and, secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained.”

He explained that all “Luther” and others were doing was to recapture “the pure and legitimate worship of God” and the truth about the doctrines of “the salvation of men.”

Here’s what he said about true worship:

The rule which distinguishes between pure and vitiated [useless, spoiled] worship is of universal application, in order that we may not adopt any device which seems fit to ourselves, but look to the injunctions of Him who alone is entitled to prescribe.

John Calvin, The Necessity of Reforming the Church

“Prescribe” means “command” or “order.” God alone can tell us how to worship him, and he does this in his Word.

And then a century later in the Westminster Confession of Faith we find we call the Regulative Principle, which is saying just what Calvin said::

The acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the holy Scripture (WCF 21.1; cf. TCOF 24.1).

That wasn’t the only word on worship in the Westminster Confession. Another important statement is in the first chapter on Scripture and Revelation:

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture (WCF 1.6; cf. TCOF 1.6).

You have to start with what God COMMANDS. But then it’s also necessary to DEDUCE from God’s Word.

In other words, SOME ASSEMBLY REQUIRED!

4. The Elements of Corporate Worship (Sunday Gathering)

When we think about “the things we are to do in our gathered worship,” these are sometimes referred to as “elements of worship.”

There are a lot of things we’re commanded to do in our gathered worship.

A summary in the Trinity Catechism

Q88. What has God commanded the church to do when it gathers for worship?
A. A church is to read and preach the Word; partake of the sacraments; sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs; pray; fellowship; practice the whole array of spiritual gifts; and be equipped for mission. (Acts 2:42; 20:7; 2 Tim 4:1–2; Eph 5:18–19; 1 Tim 2:1–2; 1 Peter 5:14; 4:10–11; 1 Cor 12:7; 14:26; Matt 28:19–20)
Trinity Catechism

The corporate worship of the local church contains many elements that are to be regularly a part of our services. These cannot be included in every service, but they are to be included on a regular basis.

The list of the elements of our corporate worship includes the list below..

With each element, there’s the COMMAND. But then there’s PARTICULARS we DEDUCE, discern.

Reading, preaching, teaching, and hearing the Bible (Deut. 31:10-12; Neh. 8; 1 Tim. 4:11, 13; 2 Tim. 4:1-2; James 1:22-25). Because this is a primary activity throughout all eras of the people of God in the Bible, it must always remain a priority for Cornerstone Fellowship Church and its leaders.