Now children, I don't have candy to offer you. Jim stole my thunder on that one. But here's what I have. The Scriptures describe the Word of God as meat and as food for mature people to fill them, to strengthen them. That's what we have in front of us today. The Word of God, which is better than food. The psalmist describes it as sweeter than honey. More precious than gold. Because in the Scriptures we have the Word of God. He speaks to us. So let's go before God's Word in that way. Understanding that this is God Himself and His Son Jesus Christ speaking to us. Matthew 15 verses 1-20. Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. He answered them. And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, Honor your father and your mother. And whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. But you say, if anyone tells his father or his mother, what you would have gained from me is given to God, he need not honor his father. So for the sake of your tradition, you have made void the Word of God. You hypocrites. Well, did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, 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. And he called the people to him and said to them, hear and understand. It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. This defiles a person. Then the disciples came and said to him, do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard the same? He answered, every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone. They are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit." But Peter said to him, explain the parable to us. And he said, are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone." And thus ends the reading of God's perfect Word. Let's pray. Lord God, our desire is to hear Your voice and to obey. But we recognize, Lord God, that we are weak and often foolish, unable to understand. And so, Lord, we pray that You would give us not only Your Word, which we have, but that You would give us Your Spirit as well in such fullness that You would remove Anything that would distract us. Anything, Lord, that would close our ears to hearing Your Word. Anything that would blind our eyes to the truths of the Scriptures. And Lord, would You give us hearts ready to believe and to obey. Lord, this is Your work. We pray that You would do it now here in this place. And we pray it in the name and for the sake of your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. This is a good thing that we're doing tonight. I don't know exactly where to put that when I'm just doing this part of the service, but I want us to know that this is a wonderful thing. The scriptures describe the unity and the fellowship of believers, that it's a good thing for brothers and sisters to dwell together in unity. And we come tonight to do that, to celebrate what we have in Christ. That's what's in front of us in the scripture, the glory of Christ. And so as we come together before God's word, we celebrate. What unites us? That's really the issue. In play in Matthew 15, there are a lot of issues, of course, in play in this passage, I can't open all of them up tonight while I could. But I won't. There were three girls from our church that drove with us here, and one of them asked, how many sermons are there going to be tonight? My wife told him there was one, and I said, that means I can preach really long. But no, we don't have time to open all of it. But we have for us here in this passage instruction from our Savior. calling us to direct all of our attention, our desires, our joy to our Heavenly Father. John Calvin wrote a book called The Necessity of Reforming the Church, and in this book, he's writing about the importance of the issues that make up the Reformation. or at least the ones that he thinks are most important. And I want to read a short quote from that because I think it's interesting what he says. This is what he wrote. If it be inquired then by what things chiefly the Christian religion has a standing existence among us and maintains its truth, it will be found that the following two not only occupy the principal place, but comprehend under them all the other parts and consequently the whole substance of Christianity. And then notice the two things. He says, a knowledge first of the mode in which God is duly worshipped and secondly, of the source from which salvation is to be obtained. Isn't that interesting? When we think of the Reformation, what do we think of? Justification by faith alone. But John Calvin in writing about the key issues before the church that make the church what it is, he says, the first is the knowledge of the mode in which God is duly worshipped. Only second is the source from which salvation is to be obtained. He goes on to say, when these two things are kept out of you, though we may glory in the name of Christians, our profession is empty and vain. Children, vain means useless. If we don't understand the right way to worship God and the source from which we obtain salvation, our profession is useless. And isn't that what we find in Matthew 15? Notice what it says in 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. Their worship is useless, because they honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." It's important for us to understand the proper worship of God, not only because the Reformation emphasized it and those who led the Reformation saw it to be so important, but because as well, the Scriptures Emphasize it. Isn't that what the Psalms are about? They call us over and over again to sing a new song to the Lord. To praise His name. The Scriptures end in that way in Revelation. By looking to God and to the Lamb and saying He is worthy to receive glory and honor and wisdom and power. We must understand a right way of worshiping God. And the only way for us to understand that is to find what God says in the Scriptures. That's the conflict in which Jesus finds Himself in Matthew 15. The Pharisees and the scribes are chasing Him. Understand that. We're told in verse 15 that Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem. He wasn't in Jerusalem. He wasn't near Jerusalem. But they were so threatened by what He was teaching and doing that they followed Him. They pursued Him. And they think that they're setting a trap for Him, a question that He can't begin to answer. In verse 2, they ask, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat. Now, we've caught Him. But Jesus, always quick to answer with a question, responds to them in verse 3. And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? Now, isn't it interesting how Matthew recounts for us this story in that he places two things in opposition to each other and he makes it so clear for us to see and to understand. Verse 2, where the Pharisees and scribes saying, why do you disobey the tradition of the elders? And Jesus, on the other hand, in verse 3 says, why do you disobey the commandments of God? The choice is clear. Do you serve men? Or do you serve God? Isn't that the issue in play and worship? Do we serve ourselves? Our own selfish desires? Our own worldly passions? Or do we serve God who is worthy to be praised? Jesus places in conflict the traditions of men with the commandments of God. Or maybe more simply, we can understand that Jesus places in conflict Do you serve man or do you serve God? It's simple, the question that he places before them. What's at stake is the very authority and the nature of God, who He is, what He's done, and how we must respond to Him. It's interesting, too, that that's why he moves so quickly to worship. Now, you might say, well, the Pharisees were talking about worship. They talked about ceremonial cleansings. But no, they weren't talking about worship. They were talking about ceremony. But Jesus turns it to worship. The Pharisees are concerned about what? How do you wash? When do you do it? How often do you do it? Jesus was concerned about the glory and honor of God. That, according to Jesus, is ultimately what's at play in this event. It's an issue of worship. Not ceremony, but worship. Now maybe you're seeing this passage and thinking about the Reformation and saying, okay, he's about to move to the regulative principle. You know what the regulative principle is? There are two different ways to think about worship. One is to say that if God doesn't forbid it, it's okay to do it in worship. That's the normative principle. And then there's the regulative principle that we only do in worship what God commands. the principle that we believe that our confessions and catechisms uphold. And certainly that's at play here. The Pharisees are taking traditions of men and elevating them above the Word of God. And in fact, Jesus goes so far to say in verse 6 that in doing this very thing, they've made empty not only their worship, but the very Word of God. They don't care about the Scriptures. They don't care about God's will for how He should be worshipped. The principle of how we decide what to do in worship is in play. But there's more to it. I consider titling this sermon beyond the regulative principle, because if that's where we stop. We're no different than the Pharisees. If all we do is look in the Scriptures and say, OK, these are the elements of worship, let's put them in a certain order and lay them out and every week we'll come and do the same thing over and over again. Isn't that the Pharisees? What Jesus gets at is beyond simple following of the commandments of God, but hearts worship. John Calvin, in that same book, describes worship in this way. He says that the chief foundation of the worship that God deserves is to acknowledge Him to be, as He is, the only source of all virtue, justice, holiness, wisdom, truth, power, goodness, mercy, life, and salvation. And in accordance with this, he goes on to say, to ascribe and render to Him the glory of all that is good, to seek all things in Him alone and in every want have recourse to Him and Him alone. That's the issue. Jesus is reminding us that not only are we called to worship God with certain forms that are laid out in the Scriptures by God Himself, But that in worship, we're reminded that God is ultimate. And that to put anything else in a place where God belongs. Is idolatry. I want to turn and look at Psalm 98 just for a moment. I mentioned that the Psalms remind us of this over and over again, the importance, the centrality of worship in the life of the believer. And Psalm 98 is one of those songs. We're going to sing it. A little bit later, but I think it reminds us in how worship is described. But there's a difference between the creator and the creation. Psalm 98 begins in this way. This part sounds familiar. It says, O sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things. His right hand and His holy arm have worked salvation for Him. The Lord has made known His salvation. He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. We heard earlier and were reminded that part of what we do as we gather for worship is to remember the things that the Lord has done. That's what He calls us to do here. New songs even. that declare marvelous things about the salvation of the Lord, that He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel, so we are called in worship to remember His faithfulness and to praise Him for it." But what's interesting is that if you read simply verses 1-3, you might think that he's simply calling people, men and women, to sing a new song to the Lord. But notice what he does beginning in verse 4. The picture is beautiful. He says, "...make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Break forth into joyous song and sing praises." And who is he speaking to now? He's speaking to the whole of creation. Break forth into song and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre. With the lyre and the sound of melody, with trumpets and the sound of the horn, make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. He's describing an orchestra. Voices and instruments joined in a loud, glorious worship of God. But then notice the picture in verse 7. Who is in this orchestra and this choir? Let the sea roar and all that fills it, the world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the hills sing for joy together before the Lord, for He comes to judge the earth. The sea roars. The rivers clap their hands. The hills sing for joy. This is the purpose of the creation, to give glory to God because He's worthy to receive it. All of creation is called to acknowledge God as ultimate. That's what we do in worship, we acknowledge God to be the beginning and the end of all things. And therefore, worthy of praise. That's the issue that Jesus addresses in Matthew 15. The Pharisees have turned worship into something very different. Worship becomes about them and not about God. They make commandments. They create traditions that have something to do with the commandments of God, but become something utterly unto themselves, taking on a life of their own. And in raising up their own commandments to be followed and obeyed, they become ultimate. And God becomes secondary. Although Jesus says it even stronger. God doesn't become secondary. They simply erase Him. Isn't that what it means in verse 6? So for the sake of your tradition, you have made empty or void the Word of God. You simply erased Him, removed Him from the picture. And now worship is about you. It's not just idolatry, it's rebellion.