Worship

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Okay, well, so today we're talking about worship. And if you were here on Wednesday, I hope you'll be glad to know that I feel much better in my throat. So I'm not going to choke and cough a million times. I don't think we'll see. Maybe. Maybe things will change, but I feel a lot better. But anyway, to start. To start, I want to ask the question, when I say the word worship, what is the first thing that pops into your mind? Wars. Wars. Okay. Yeah, church. Church. Good, good. I like that answer. Yeah. Singing. Singing. Yes. You're going to say singing, too. Anything else? Okay. Oh, you have one now. Okay. God. God. Okay. Yeah, so we heard church and God. The church worships. Church should worship. God. Singing is one of the ways we worship. And even the word wars, which, you know, it's on the. The paper, but the term worship wars does refer to something. It's just a nickname given to a bunch of arguments people would have in churches about what style of music they would have, which is an unfortunate thing, but it nonetheless is kind of connected to the idea. Hopefully we won't get into any wars today over worship. Hopefully we can be at peace. I think we can. I think we can see a way to understand worship in a healthy way. So to start, let's review. What is theology? It's the study of God. That's right. And then what doctrine are we covering? Yes, the church. That's right. We're still doing the doctrine of the church. So today's included. What are the lessons we've done so far? Let's run through them real quick. Baptism in the Lord's Supper, Church offices. Offices, yeah. Elders, deacons. Right. What else? Yes. Church. Purity and unity. Purity and unity. That's right. That was one. Yeah. Church discipline was another. Yeah. Church government. Government, yes. Like marks of a church. Yeah, the marks of a church. That's all of them. Yeah, we've got them all. So, yeah, we did. The. The nature and marks of the church, it's purity and unity, its discipline, its offices, its government, its baptism and the Lord's supper. So now we're talking about worship. So the definition of worship or the summary sentence for worship is this. Worship is an act of acknowledging and acclaiming the majestic greatness of God in ways that he prescribes. I'll say it again. Worship is an act of acknowledging and acclaiming the majestic greatness of God in ways that he prescribes. So the first main point, the first affirmation that we want to make is that worship is what the church does corporately, or you could put together. But corporately is a word we use often to refer to the entire church. Corporate. But corporately means together. Worship is what the church does together. So let's talk about maybe what worship is to get to that point. So Psalm 19:1, you can write this down. I'll read it real quick. Says the heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. So what we see here is that the heavens declare his glory, the sky proclaims that he is the Creator. And so there's a very real sense, sense in which all creation is designed to worship God. We as people have a special place in that. But we see in many other places as well that all of creation glorifies God and brings him worship and praise that he deserves. So what are some ways that we worship in everyday life? What are some examples? How can you worship in everyday life, Lincoln? [00:04:50] Speaker B: Like praying? [00:04:52] Speaker A: Yes, you can pray. I would count that, Yes. [00:05:05] Speaker B: Like reflecting. What's it called? Like reflecting good to God. Like where you do something good and it reflects off God. [00:05:17] Speaker A: You're saying when you do something good, you are trying to show what God is like in your actions. Yeah. So you could say doing something in faith and obedience. Okay. Yeah. Any other examples, Caleb? Reading the Bible. Sure, yeah. Ezra? Like actively dedicating what you're doing to the Lord. Yeah, dedicating what you're doing to the Lord. That's right. Yeah. We could come up with a lot of examples, because I think it's fair to say that anything you do in faith and obedience can be considered worship. Because God created this world to worship Him. So when we are doing things faithfully in the created world, we can worship Him. So we need to have some category that understands worship is not just when we stand and sing four songs a week on Sunday and then one on Wednesday night. It's way more than that. It's something that does happen or should be happening all the time. When you do school, when you're at school or one day, some of you have jobs. Not even one day. Now, you currently have jobs. You could even worship God as you work. God created us to work. He wants us to learn. When we learn things at school, we are learning about the world that he has created. So there are all different ways that we can worship. But even that being said, we do want to think specifically about the church's worship today. So I just wanted to say that, to say worship is a lot, but we're going to kind of narrow it down to one particular kind of worship, maybe the most important kind of. And it's the worship that the church does together. And that's usually what we mean when we say worship, right? That we think about church. You know, Asher said church, we think about what we're doing there together. So application number one is engage in corporate worship. Engage in it. So corporate worship, again, that's just when the church is together, worshiping. That's what corporate means. And you should engage in it. Sing, pray. You know, someone might be leading a prayer. You can pray silently and in agreement. You can read aloud. When we're doing responsive readings, you can read along with readers. You can actively listen to sermons. These are all ways that you can actually engage in corporate worship. Rather than just being a bystander or someone who's just watching a movie or a play, you're doing more than that. You should think of yourself as a participant. So engage in worship. Now, if worship is anything you do in faith and obedience, then here's a question. What is worship for the church? Yes. [00:08:11] Speaker B: Doing something like. I guess, like, would it be like giving, offering to the church? [00:08:17] Speaker A: I think that could be considered worshiping, but not just that. [00:08:22] Speaker B: Like, doing, like, something good that helps the church and a way to help praise the Lord. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Maybe that's a little general, but I think you're on the right track. Let me kind of help. I think the questions may be a little confusing. So worship is how we glorify God's greatness. So how the church does this is when we come together. What we do, we do in faith and obedience. So we worship by faith. If we are worshiping without faith in the church, that is not good. And if we worship disobediently, worshiping however we want, doing whatever we want in worship, then that's also not good worship. So the church worships in faith and obedience. And the way we do this is called liturgy. You guys ever heard that word liturgy? I said it kind of slow so you could spell it. What is that? What does that word mean? Or you could just say, what do you think of when you hear that word? That might be more helpful. Yeah, Literature. You think of literature. Okay, fair enough. Sounds similar. And, yeah, it's like, this is random, but I think liturgy was used in, [00:09:46] Speaker B: like, an Andrew Peterson album title. [00:09:48] Speaker A: I'm sure it was. So you think of Andrew Peterson. Yeah. Okay. Not bad. Yeah. Anyone? What do you think of? Or what do you think it means? Are there any church denominations that you think of and associate with that word? At all, or is this a new word to you guys? Pretty new. That's okay. That's okay. In other Christian traditions, it's really not new, which is kind of interesting. Kind of tells us where we are in terms of how different churches think of this. Liturgy is just an order of worship. It is the order of worship. It is what you do in worship. People think of this, they associate it with Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, the Church of England, Anglicanism, Lutheranism, because these churches just are known for that. So as we talk about this, before we, like, get into all of that, let me ask, do you guys think our church has a liturgy? [00:11:01] Speaker B: Yes. [00:11:03] Speaker A: Why? [00:11:07] Speaker B: I guess because you said, like, an order. Well, like an order of, like, worshiping to preaching the Bible. Like, it starts with this, and we go to the big youth area. The big area, the church area. Then we sing, like, praises, and then we read the Bible. Would that be it? [00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah. So you're kind of getting it. This wouldn't count, I don't think. This is not part of this morning worship because this is not the church gathered. You know, this is. Some of us are church members. Some, you know, we're all students or you. Students. Yeah. We're just not with the whole church. So I wouldn't count this part. This is something extra we do for fun and for learning. But you're right. You're kind of noticing the order. We do similar things every week. So here we get to affirmation number two. Worship is liturgy. Is that the blank liturgy? L, I, T, U, R, G, Y determined by God's word. So worship is liturgy determined by God's word. I don't remember which was the blank, but if it's a new word, you probably need help spelling. So kind of talking about these other traditions, some churches, like the ones I mentioned a minute ago, Catholicism, so on, they're called high churches. I don't know if you've ever heard that term. They're called high churches. It's kind of a nickname and the mark of a high church. Sometimes it's beautiful cathedrals and buildings, but it's really just extremely structured liturgy. And it's consistent across all the various churches or parishes in that tradition. So every day of the year, it wouldn't matter which cathedral or parish you walked into, you would be hearing the exact same thing at everyone around the world, somewhat. Some of them are actually liberal and they pretend not to be or whatever else. It's not as unified as they portray it, but they do. Church of England, you know, they're all Reading the same passage from the Book of Common Prayer. So that's kind of what a high church is like. It's very rigid and structured. What, low churches, which. I hate the term. It's not a ranking, so don't think of it like that. But low churches, it's more loosely structured. We would fall into that category for better or for worse. But I want to ask, do you think it is good or bad to have a structured worship service at all? Is it good or bad to have a structured liturgy? Yeah. [00:13:47] Speaker B: Well, what do you mean by that? Like, do you mean, like, would it be good to have a church to. Like that is like, a church to worship in? Is that what you mean? [00:13:57] Speaker A: I'm just saying, is it good or bad for a church to. Or what would be better for a church to be really structured or for another church to allow a lot more spontaneity, more spontaneous type of worship? You know what spontaneous means? Not at rant, maybe at random, kind of out of nowhere. Yeah. You know, you'd imagine someone stands up and they have, like, a prophecy to share or whatever else, you know, and each week would be different. You know, it'd just be different. You have an answer? Liturgy, Spontaneous. Okay. So you think we can follow the word better with spontaneous? Okay. Can you explain that a little more? Okay, Well, I see what you're saying. I don't know that I would call that spontaneous. Maybe I'm just not explaining what I mean well, because I think what we do here is not spontaneous. I think we are liturgical, just not, you know, we're not doing the same thing that every Baptist Church does, and we're able, you know, in prayers and in sermons to, you know, interpret into relevant events and ideas and struggles that people are having. Does that make sense? So I would still call that structured. Spontaneous would be more like every week. Like, is there songs or prayers or preaching? I don't know. It'll be different every week. And there might be some of this, some of that, and, you know, little structure, like, think very Pentecostal Church. Those are very. It's kind of like that. Very spontaneous. Yes. [00:16:11] Speaker B: Is it coming straight from, like, a book? [00:16:16] Speaker A: I see what you were thinking. I see what you were thinking, and I agree with you. I don't think it's very helpful to just be reading something. That's what got the Roman Catholic Church into a lot of trouble, especially as they were reading in Latin. The priests didn't know Latin. They didn't even know what they were saying. They're just reading a Script. And that's certainly an issue. I just mean in terms of how we would schedule a worship service. Like, how do you decide what we do? That's what I mean. Yeah. [00:16:44] Speaker B: This makes a lot more sense now that she starts talking about it with her. [00:16:48] Speaker A: Okay. [00:16:48] Speaker B: So I think it would be, like, probably not the spontaneous one, but, like, what you were talking about, the other one. Structured to. Where it would be like, the structured is like the one we do, right? [00:17:07] Speaker A: I think so. [00:17:08] Speaker B: So it would be like, where it would be less, like, less complicated and less. So you like less like. So where you have the we go to. That we go to. So it would be a. Make more sense and make more. Like, it'd be less. Like. What's it called? Trying to think of the word. It'd be less not irritating. Less not irritating. [00:17:40] Speaker A: If you need to think about it more, I can come back to you. [00:17:42] Speaker B: Okay. I just forgot the word. [00:17:44] Speaker A: That's okay. Because we need to go to First Corinthians 14. Now, I think we've kind of understood what I'm trying to mean here, so I appreciate y' all's questions and answers. Helps me clarify. Yeah. 1 Corinthians 14. Look at V26 when you get there. 1 Corinthians 14, 26. Paul says, what then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, a. Or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. And then go down to verse 33. For God is not a God of confusion, but of peace. So what is Paul saying here? I know we skipped a lot of the context, but what's he saying in these verses 26 and 33? Yeah. Liturgy is better with its structure. Right. Because what he's. He's trying to paint this picture. This is what was happening in the Corinthian church. You know, they'd all get into the room where they're going to worship on the Lord's Day, and someone would say, let's sing this hymn. And someone said, oh, I have a lesson. Okay, I have a lesson, too, to share. Oh, God has revealed something to me, so can. I'll share that maybe like, between those. You know. And someone said, oh, here's something in tongues. You. It was just chaos. Right? That's what it looked like. That's what I mean by kind of spontaneous. Just people coming together, and everyone's just, like, adding whatever they've decided to add for the week. And you could imagine it'd be far more chaotic, even at a church of our size, than at the Corinthian church, which would have been much smaller. Yes. [00:19:35] Speaker B: I just removed the word. It would be like, less confusing. That's what it was. [00:19:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Confusing. Yeah. [00:19:39] Speaker B: You had this. Because it says in the Bible somewhere. I'm pretty sure that the pastor is what preaches. Right. Does it say that? [00:19:51] Speaker A: I. I don't know what it is. Would you say it? [00:19:53] Speaker B: I don't know if this. I don't know if the Bible says it, but it would be like the pastor's time to. Because if the people were just shouting out words to the pastor. [00:20:06] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what Paul's talking about in this part. [00:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was meaning by when I was trying to talk. [00:20:11] Speaker A: It was like, it's confusing. [00:20:13] Speaker B: Yeah. A lot less confusing if the pastor would just say it all instead of people shouting it out at random times. [00:20:21] Speaker A: Yes. So God is a God of order. He created the world in an orderly manner. He made things work. You know, your body works when it's healthy. It functions perfectly. The earth grows. You know, there's water cycles and all this other stuff. I'm not a genius at all that. But we see order in the world, right? We can do math because God has made it make sense. We can logic and reason because God makes the world make sense. Therefore, God is not a God of confusion and chaos. He's a God of order and peace. And that's what Paul is saying. He's saying that the way we worship should be structured in such a way that the liturgy, the things we do in the church, builds us up rather than distracts us or even discourages us. So here's the first error to avoid. We should not desire complete spontaneity in worship. Yes. S P O N T A N E I T. Ya got that? Now, people do think this. They say, no, we need to be spontaneous. We need to let the Spirit guide us. However. But I think Paul just disagrees with that. And I think the Spirit can guide us as we structure our liturgy just as much as if we were spontaneous, probably even more so. We shouldn't desire complete spontaneity. You know, if the sermon does get interrupted, like we were saying a minute ago, because someone has a word to say, and if songs drag on forever and ever so that everyone's exhausted before the. The sermon starts or the old people aren't able to stand any longer, then we're not getting the most out of worship. If we have no structure, we run the risk also of actually ignoring some things that need to be there as we worship. You know, if everyone's coming up with their own revelation or a hymn to sing and they want that hymn to go on and on and on for 20 minutes, well, then maybe we don't get to the sermon or maybe we skip a baptism. Then we're missing things that we can't miss. So we need to have liturgy because we worship with more than just our minds. We worship with our bodies, too. You know, think about this. This is why we do stuff like this all the time. Not just with our minds or our words. We do things with our whole bodies. You know, this is why we stand. Maybe take off your hats, put your hands over your hearts during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner. You're doing more than just singing. You are doing a whole ritual. And so what we do in the church is like that, but far more significant. Sitting, standing, singing, responding, raising our hands, bowing our heads, all are ways that we are participating in worship. This is something we do together. The whole body and soul is engaged, and it needs to be ordered. So my question is, what elements of worship? When I say elements, those are just the things we do in worship. So what elements of worship does Arrow Heights have in its corporate worship? What are some. Just shout them out. Singing. Yes, that's right. Singing, responsive reading. [00:23:32] Speaker B: Be considered one. [00:23:32] Speaker A: Yes. Responsive reading. So, yeah, the Scripture reading, responsive reading. Prayer. Yes. There's a benediction. That's right. [00:23:47] Speaker B: A sermon. [00:23:47] Speaker A: A sermon. That's right. Yeah. Preaching baptisms every now and then. Baptisms. Yes, yes. Yeah. I think we've kind of covered it. So I wrote down Scripture reading. This is kind of the order it happens. Scripture reading, call to worship, prayer, singing, responsive reading, corporate prayer, preaching the word, more singing and a benediction and sometimes baptism in the Lord's Supper. That's what I wrote. And those are the elements. We do those things, and we need to do those things. Now, how do you think we decide what belongs in or out of worship? Well, let's answer that. Aside from Pastor Nathan kind of just deciding, usually he's the lead guy of that, but. Oh, do you have some. [00:24:32] Speaker B: If you like to take it. Like. Like they take it from the Bible. [00:24:38] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. He takes it from the Bible. So there are two ways that people or churches decide what belongs in the worship service. There are two principles. So the first one is called the normative principle. So norm A T I V E Normative principle. I think I maybe wrote that out. This means that we can do anything in worship. And as long as the Bible doesn't say you can't do that. So the Bible doesn't have a forbid or a circle with a cross through it. Then you can do it in worship. Now I think this is a bad option. Why do you think I think it's a bad option? What do you think might be wrong with this? Yeah, Owen, That's okay. Yeah. Do you have an answer? Yes. [00:25:31] Speaker B: Because the Bible can't name everything. You can't bring some random thing that's from this era that the Bible has never even heard of. [00:25:41] Speaker A: Exactly. The Bible had no idea what TikTok was. I'm sure it would have been banned. Just joking. Yeah, that's a really good answer. Any other reason? I was just going to say what comments you said just because the Bible says not to do it doesn't mean you should do it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And that's what I think. So you can hear some examples of things that have been done in worship services. I'm not making any of these up based on this. Skits, interpretive dance, poetry. Like poetry slam type poetry, rap battle, painting, solos, ribbon choreography, ribbon twirling. And I think all those things can actually distract from what we're doing. And they struggle to build up and edify the church. I'm not saying any of those things are sinful to do like in your life. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm not saying there's nothing beautiful about painting or wrapping or whatever else. I'm just saying these are not going to be beneficial. They're not, I think, biblical enough. So error number two is this one. We must not add elements to worship without biblical warrant. So then we get to option number two, which I think is the preferable option, which is regulative. The regulative principle. R E G U L A T I V E Regulative principle of worship. This means that God regulates what we do in worship. God regulates. In other words, we only include in worship what God has commanded us to do in the Bible. This is why in Leviticus 10, Nadab and Abihu, Aaron's sons were struck dead because they offered a sacrifice to God which he told them to offer sacrifices. Right. They were priests, but they did it in a way he did not tell them to do it. Says they authorized or they offered unauthorized sacrifice and they were struck dead for it. This is because God cares how we worship. So application number two. We should only do what God commands and worship. So does our church do this? What do you guys think? Hopefully yes. I would say yes. And definitely for the most part, you know, we can, we would probably have people disagree on, you know, should we have someone in a pre recorded video pray or not? You know, some of these are kind of up for debate. It's a little bit confusing. It's prayer, but they're not here with us. But for the most part, the things we listed that we do regularly every week are so Scripture commanded. Well, I can't read all of these for the sake of time, but you should write these down. So Scripture reading is commanded in 1 Timothy 4:13. Prayer is commanded in Acts 2:2. Singing is commanded in Ephesians 5:19. Preaching is commanded in 2 Timothy 4:2. And then we have baptism in Matthew 28:19, 20, the Great Commission and the Lord's Supper in First Corinthians 11:23 26. So all of these are things that we do. And if you look, you can look through all of those, we see commands and it's more than just these one verses. We kind of just see patterns and other commands through Scripture kind of open. But these are good examples of commands of them. If you need any more, just let me know. But all those things that we're doing we can find warrant for in the Bible. Now some people object to this regulative principle. They say, well, the Bible doesn't tell us to use pews or chairs or AC or have announcements or have amplifiers or have lights, yada, yada. And I wish I could give more time to that, but that's just not what that means. The regulative principle doesn't mean that because those are circumstances of meeting. Right? So these principles are helping determine the elements. That's the word, what gets included. What are the elements of worship, what are we doing to worship, but the circumstance of coming together. Those are not things that are elements of worship. They are just helping us to worship. So they are a means by which we practice the elements. So we need chairs so that especially older people have somewhere to sit and they don't have to stand for an hour and a half. We need amplifiers so everybody can actually hear what's being said. Sometimes, especially in Oklahoma in the summer it gets really hot. We need AC so people don't have heat stroke. So there are all sorts of reasons, announcements, those kind of happen before we actually start worshiping. But that's so that we know what's going on, we know that we're going to meet next week. We know these things, so we have to do those things. But those are not parts of Worship themselves. It's what we're actually doing in worship. Those are what need to come straight from the Bible. Does that make sense? Cool. All right, last affirmation. Main point number three is, worship is for God's glory. Worship is for God's glory. Habakkuk 2:14 says, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. What this tells us is that God's glory will be known all over the earth one day. And that will happen because churches are being planted all over the world. And those churches worship God together. And it's those churches all over the world that will bring God's glory all over the world. Psalm 29:2 says, Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. Romans 12:1. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. So it is clear. We could read many more Scripture, but it is clear that the church must worship God for His glory. Does this mean that God needs our worship? What's the answer to that? No, he doesn't need our worship, but he supremely deserves our worship, and worship belongs to Him. It's not about how we feel in worship. It's not if we feel fulfilled. It's about who deserves our worship. Recently, I heard another pastor, he had someone come up to him and said that they didn't really care for worship that day. And he said, that's okay. You weren't the one being worshiped. I think that's kind of a pithy way to say it, but we should just remember when we're dissatisfied. And, you know, I've struggled with this many times in my life. When we're dissatisfied with maybe a style, or maybe this sermon wasn't exciting enough, or we don't like these songs or whatever it might be. The worship is not for you. It is for the Lord, and it's for his glory. So again, he supremely deserves worship. But this leads us to a third error to avoid. So error number three on your papers. We must not think of worship as an attempt to appease or gratify God. We're not trying to appease him or gratify him. What is the problem with that? Well, the problem with that this confuses empty religious practice, which with genuine worship, we're not trying to get on God's good side, make him feel good about himself, so that he's less angry at us. That is not what worship is. And that really just becomes empty religious ritual. We just go and we do the Mass because we're supposed to do the mass. Well, John 4:23, 24 says, Jesus says this, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father and in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. So we need to worship God as he is. We need to worship him in the truth and in spirit, not just by practices and rituals. Finally, because God's glory and worship of him will and must cover the whole earth, we have one more application. This is application number three. It's this. Worship drives missions. Worship drives missions. The reason there's missions, as John Piper says, is because there are places in the world where there is no worship of God. The goal of missions is to bring worship all over the globe. And we'll discuss that more in a couple of weeks when we have a lesson on missions. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. And we pray that we would be fully engaged in worship today. Lord, we ask that everything we do would be to glorify you. But even so, Lord, we pray that you would build us up and encourage us in our faith. You have called those who do not believe to repentance and faith as well, even as we magnify and glorify your greatness, O God, we pray all of this in your son's name. Amen.