How is God best worshipped? With sermons on contemporary topics, with songs written in the medium of pop music. These indeed may catch the public's attention better and engage people's minds with the lyrics of the song, but the question is, how is God best worshipped? With what sacrifices is God pleased? I take up the subject of worship God's way again As we move away from the study of the book of Judges, God describes the period of the book of Judges as everyone doing what is right in his own eyes. Our text is taken in Deuteronomy chapter 12 and here we find God giving us two axioms or regular principles for governing the worship of God's people. And the first axiom, you think was intended to protect the people entering into the promised land for these 340 years of the book of Judges. What have we heard again and again in Judges? Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. And the first axiom that the Lord gives us in verse 8 is a warning against everyone doing what is right in his own eyes. It's, as it were, the trademark, the mark of the book of Judges. It's what we struggle with in the contemporary church. Because there is this tendency in our day for everyone professing to be a follower of Christ to tend to do everything in a way that's pleasing to them. Everyone's doing what's right in their own eyes. The Bible describes this, and these are the words of the Lord, as the way of the fool. Consider with me Proverbs 12, 15. The way of a fool is right in his own eyes. Again in Proverbs 16, 2. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart. You see, there is this propensity in fallen man that lived in the days of judges, that lives in our own day, including ourselves. There's that propensity to look at certain things from our own perspective and many times to think that certain things are right. They seem right to us, but when you look into the pages of God's Word, We see that it's folly. Again, in Psalm 36, beginning at verse 1, the Lord speaks of that oracle within the believer's heart concerning the transgression of the wicked, and then comes a description of the wicked. There is no fear of God before his eyes. for he flatters himself in his own eyes when he finds out his iniquity and when he hates. The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit. He has ceased to be wise and to do good. He devises wickedness on his bed. He sets himself in a way that is not good. He does not abhor evil." A description of the wicked heart, has no fear or reverence for God. When there's sin in the life, it's like the Bible describes the prostitute who wipes her mouth and says, I've done nothing wrong. The immoral woman, she enters into an affair of wickedness and it's nothing. I've done nothing wrong. The wicked flatters himself in his own eyes. I'm a good person. When he finds out his wickedness, his iniquity, he covers it up. He excuses it. When he hates someone in his heart, he justifies it. And the Lord is saying, this is the way of those who do whatever is right in their own eyes. This was a description of the day of the judges. I believe it's a description of our day as well. And the Lord, as he gives us an axiom for worship of himself, he says then that we are not to do. What is right in our own eyes? You shall not at all do as we are doing here today, Moses said, every man doing what is right in his own eyes. See, that's the problem of our day. Man is the standard of all things rather than God being the standard of all things. It's man's way, not God's way. There's this tendency then, amongst those who believe, to say, well, if God doesn't prohibit something in the scriptures, and it's the common practice of the people of God, surely it must be okay. Let us be mindful though, that because man finds a practice acceptable, does not make it necessarily so. Just because the majority of people are doing it does not make it so. Again, I remind you, as we've gone through the 340 years of the book of Judges, over and over and over again, we saw the people of God doing things contrary to the Word of God, and you would say the majority of the people were doing it. It didn't make it so. The question comes to us then, do we desire more in our relationship with God than what they were experiencing in the days of the judges? Because living in a path according to what seems right to you will affect terribly your relationship with God. And what we saw over and over and over again in the book of Judges is God at one point gets fed up with the disobedience of his people and he sends a time of correction. Now the beauty of it is he also follows that with a time of restoration. But is that the kind of living that the people of God desire? If everyone uses images to worship God as they did in the day of judges. God said you will not use any graven image to worship me. In the days of judges they went into the promised land and they went to the places where the pagan Canaanites had been worshiping and they used the asterith and they used the various implements of pagan worship to worship Jehovah. Even at Mount Sinai, what do they do? Moses is up on the mountain. The people think, oh, something's happened to him. It's been a long time, 40 days. And by the time Moses gets back down, Aaron has made a golden calf. Well, he didn't do that, he said. He just threw the gold into the fire and out popped a calf. And when you read the words there, They believe they're worshiping Jehovah by means of the use of a golden calf. That's what was happening in the days of judges. Do we then use images to worship God? Do we make that the norm? If everyone who professes to be a Christian generally uses God's name in vain, oh God this, oh God that, and they use God's name tritely, well, everybody's doing it. Let's just do it. I mean, they're Christians, right? If everyone's turning the Lord's Day into family day, will we too? Will we get to the place like they did in Canaan? And sadly at times, among the people of God, in Canaan land, where they burnt their children in fire to Malak. Will we come to that place? Where in the name of worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ, we would do the same. Saying, it's acceptable to the Lord. It's pleasing to Him. I don't speak to us per se. I speak broadly regarding the church of the Lord Jesus Christ in our day. Are we not entering a spiritual dark ages like unto the days of the judges? Where everyone's simply doing what's right in their own eyes. You see, the problem is it not that God's way of doing things has lost credibility in many people's minds because it's not in vogue. It's not what the church is practicing in this day. People tend to be pleasing themselves rather than pleasing the Creator. When we gather for worship, God's saying that His axiom is, you don't do what pleases you, what's right in your own eyes. But typically what happens in the contemporary church is, let's do what will be popular with the people. What will be pleasing to the people. What will draw the most people. It's interesting that the Septuagint, the Old Testament Greek version, translates that phrase. A man doing the pleasing thing before his face. A man doing what's pleasing to himself. That's not worship of God. That's worship of self. When we follow this loose kind of interpretation of God's Word, where we think that we are allowed to follow our feelings and do whatever seems right to us when we worship God, we're walking in the way of the fool. Because there's a way that seems right to man, but the way thereof is death. The only sure way we have of pleasing God as to follow in the paths that he's prescribed. So it's folly if we take the approach that we can do whatever we want, we can use all the creativity that we desire as long as we don't do something God has prohibited. That's folly. We see over and over again in the scriptures, beloved, that God doesn't prove that a kind of worship. Very early on in the book of Genesis, the issue of the first murder is an issue regarding worship. Why does Cain kill his brother Abel? Because God accepted able sacrifice from the flock of the field, and God did not receive with favor Cain's offering from the garden. And God even in Genesis 4 reproves Cain and tells him, if you'll change the way you do, you will be accepted. That's my paraphrase. And in spite of God admonishing Cain to make the change, what is Cain's essential response but to make an offering that's pleasing to Cain? God, I want you to change to accept my offering. Later on in Leviticus 10, Nadab and Abihu Aaron's sons, who were priests, were told offered a strange fire on the altar of the Lord, and what was the result of that? Fire comes out from the Lord and destroys them. We are not told what it was that they offered, how they varied, but what is absolutely clear from this passage is they did the worship of God in a creative way. They took and offered in a particular fashion an offering to God that was not as God had prescribed. And God burns them up. We could go on with a number of other examples. Let me give you one more example here. You remember David? Who's David? He's described in the scriptures as the man after God's own heart. And on one occasion, David, in his zeal for the Lord, goes to Kiriath-Jerim, where the Ark of the Covenant has been deposited during the reign of King Saul. And David has this processional service, as it were, with all the people gathered, there's big crowds, there's a cart, and they put the Ark of the Covenant on the cart, and they're making their way back to Jerusalem so that David, in his zeal for the Lord, can put the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle that he's erected in Jerusalem for the Ark, for a place for the dwelling of God. And as the story goes in 2 Samuel 6, they're on their way to Jerusalem and partway there they come to a particular location where the cart hits a bump in the road or in the field and it tilts, as carts will do, and the Ark of the Covenant begins to slide off the cart. And one of the Levites, the priests that are accompanying the cart, Uzzah, in his zeal for the Lord, reaches out to catch the Ark of the Covenant so it will not get damaged by falling off the cart. And he puts his hand on the Ark of the Covenant And God strikes him dead. Didn't he have good intentions? Didn't it seem right to him? And was he not seeking to serve God? Was David not seeking to serve God when he brought with all this pomp and ceremony the cart with the ark on it to go back to God, to Jerusalem to set up the house of God there? Yes, there was zeal among the people. But it was contrary to the word of God. The Ark of the Covenant should have never been on the cart to start with. The pole should have been through the golden rings on its side, and it should have been carried by the Levites from one location to another. God's will was ignored when they began the trip, and God's will was ignored when Uzzah reached out and put his hand on the ark which God had forbade him to touch. And God strikes him dead. And David is so upset that God messed up his celebration and his ceremony to take the ark to Jerusalem that he calls it all off. And the ark is left there at the home of Obed-Edom for three months. until everybody begins to notice that Omedetim is prospering in everything that happens in his house. It's such a distinct difference because of the presence of God in that place that all of a sudden David's zeal is restored for, let's get the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. What's the point? God forbids the worship of himself in a manner of our own choosing. There's a second axiom and it's somewhat related to the first. You find that in verse 32 of Deuteronomy 12. Verse 32. We hear these words, Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it. We need to remember, as we read earlier, the intervening verses are all describing the worship of God. We hear words and statements very similar to this elsewhere in the scriptures. You find very similar words at the end of the book of Revelation. You find them elsewhere throughout the Old Testament. Similar statement at the end of Malachi. But here, specific to God's commands for worship, we have a statement. You do what God commands, you do not add to it, you do not take away from it. This is frequently referred to as the regular principle of worship. The regular principle of worship is that God institutes in the scriptures everything he requires for worship of himself in the church, and that everything else is prohibited. If God doesn't direct be done, then it is prohibited. There is no creativity in worship. The regular principle is often contrasted with what's called the normative principle of worship, which teaches that whatever is not prohibited in scripture in worship, as long as it's agreeable to the peace and the unity of the church, is acceptable. There are two conflicting viewpoints. One says we can only do what God prescribes. The other one says, well, if God doesn't say you can't do it, and it doesn't offend other people who are Christians as well, and it's not contrary to the general practice of the church, then you're free to do it. Well, in the book of Judges, they had a problem because God had prohibited most of the things they chose to do contrary to his will and worship. However, on the other hand, what they were doing was not offensive to the church. For most of them were practicing this in those days. You see, that's the dilemma we have. And we mustn't look very nearsightedly at the circumstance, because remember, God allowed this to continue for 340 years during the book of Judges. So when we look at a little narrow window of 50 or 100 years where certain practices are being promoted in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ in our day, We might think, well, everybody's doing it. It isn't acceptable. Well, what you see in the book of Judges, every so often God becomes furious with them and He does act to bring His hand of discipline against them. But there are periods of time where God does nothing. He simply is long-suffering with His people. G. I. Williamson argues that the Apostle Paul actually follows this regular principle in the New Testament because some might be tempted to say, well, aren't we reading from Deuteronomy chapter 12? That's the Old Testament. But Williamson makes a helpful comment with regard to a similar kind of practice within the New Testament. His comment is this, he says, this is the This is clear from what the Apostle Paul wrote concerning the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. This is in 1 Corinthians 11.23. I received from the Lord, he writes, that which I also delivered to you. Since he was careful to pass on exactly what he had received from his Lord, it is not surprising that he spoke authoritatively again and again about what was and what was not to be allowed in the worship practice of the apostolic churches, as described in 1 Corinthians 14. Women, for example, were not permitted to speak during public worship, 1 Corinthians 14, 34 and 35. Men likewise Even those who had received special regulatory gifts by the laying on of the hands of the apostles were subject to strict regulation. It is described in 1 Corinthians 14, 27-32. And since the apostles boldly asserted that he had taught the whole counsel of God in Acts 20, 27, it is not surprising They issued on this warning to any who were of a mind to disregard his authority. In 1 Corinthians 14.37 he says, If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. Essentially what GI Williams is saying is Paul is making the claim that he doesn't give them anything other than what God has given him. The Lord commanded him to do this and he precisely, exactly conveys it to the church. So what we have in terms of the patterns for worship that are declared to the New Testament church are not a matter of what seemed wise or the principles of the apostles as they were trying to convey their mindset to the church, but rather that this was the will of God for the people of God. And we might ask ourselves when God gives us this axiom that we should neither add to nor take away from what he has commanded, we might say, well, why would someone add to the Word of God? Well, obviously, in some fashion, they think that the Word of God is insufficient. It can be done in various ways. One example of it would be the Pharisees in Jesus' day had a practice they called Corban. It was adding to the Word of God. And it was a prescribed offering you could do whereby you could offer up to God your wealth. And you would give it to the Lord, it's devoted to the Lord, and then when your aging parents came up and said, hey, I need some help financially, you'd say, oh, I'm I'd love to help you, but I've devoted everything I have to the Lord. It belongs to Him. However, the person who had made Corman his wealth was able to continue to use it during his lifetime. It was simply an addition to the Word of God that enabled the people who did it to circumvent the will of God for the care of people in their family. adding to the Word of God. There's this danger that we would go about worshiping God in a different way than it would add to what he said, and certainly Corbin fit that bill. But there's also the problem that someone would take away from the Word of God. In other words, they would hear certain things said in the Bible that they don't think are necessary, or they don't agree with. And so they would delete it, as it were, from the Bible. A Gallup News Service poll in 2011 gives these statistics. The statistic is about 30% of the American adult population believe the Bible is the actual Word of God and should be taken literally as the Word of God. About 30%. Seventy-five percent of American adult population who had postgraduate education in the universities would disagree. Now, you might draw a conclusion. These people are better educated, so they're smarter than these other people. without education and so therefore they have rightly concluded that not everything in the Bible is gospel. There's only a problem with that though. It's not really a matter of education because whenever these scholars in the universities are unable to persuade someone from a biblical background of what they are teaching Their normal practice is to force compliance. If you're a professor and you believe in a six-day creation, you lose your job. If you're a student working in a master's program, all of a sudden your committee disappears and you can no longer pursue your education. It's not a matter of scholarship, it's a matter of the fact that many of these viewpoints, contrary to the teachings of the Word of God, are developed in the minds and hearts of those who start with a premise, there is no God. Or if there is a God, He does not communicate as he says he does in the Word of God. But there's another statistic I would share with you and that is the Gallup poll discovered that about 54% of the people who go to church every Sunday believe the Bible to be literally the Word of God. However, about 90% of the people who go to church every Sunday would describe the Bible as the Word of God. Did you catch the distinction there? About 45% actually believe it is the Word of God, literally. There are an additional group of people who would call it the Word of God. So that you might, if you ask somebody whether they believe the Bible is the word of God, 90% of the people might indeed say, who are church attenders, would say that it is the word of God. The problem lies in the fact that many people who profess that the Bible is the word of God don't really believe that the Bible is divinely inspired. among those who would actually testify that the Bible is divinely inspired, you have a problem as well. Many would disbelieve the literal six-day account of creation described in the scriptures because they don't believe in the sufficiency of scripture. When they sit down with their Bible to study and to discover the answers for life, They interpret the Bible in light of what they've learned in the science classroom. And therefore they conclude that the right way to understand what the Bible teaches is it had to be a long day. And so they go through a contriving of, oh in the Bible there are ages. And an age is described as a day and therefore the six days of creation are really very long periods of time. How did they get to that conclusion? They started with an assumption that what they learned in the secular classroom was right. And therefore, we have to make the Bible fit with the secular classroom. They don't believe in the sufficiency of Scripture. There are also those who don't really believe that the Bible is literally the Word of God who would then be much more apt to compromise the teachings of the Bible. because they don't really believe that it's all divinely inspired. And so, connecting this with the previous axiom God gave us, it seems right to them that certain things are wrong in the Bible. Therefore, they must be wrong. It's only when things in the Bible seem right to me that then it must be of God. So many in mainline churches, for example, approve of homosexual behavior because secular sciences are declaring that people are born with a disposition towards this behavior. Make the Bible fit with science, right? But there's not a consistency, beloved. There's not a consistency. Because you know what? Many people are born with the propensity to lie. Many people are born with the propensity to steal. But I haven't heard anybody telling us yet that stealing and lying are normative. That that's the way we were born. That's just lying and stealing. What does the scripture teach us? That iniquity. My mother conceived me. I was born in sin. Someone's born, yes, with an inclination towards homosexuality. Scriptures teach that. Someone's born with an inclination to lie. Someone's born with an inclination to steal. You see, whether you have A view that the Bible is the word of God, but it's not sufficient. You've got to interpret in light of what you learned in the science classroom. Or whether you don't really believe that the Bible is all the word of God, and therefore you can take the parts that seem right to you. Either way, you end up with the rejection that God has taught. You subtract In many places, what God has taught is true. Quickly then, let's look at two things that are given to us in Deuteronomy chapter 12 that were the issues of that day that the Lord was addressing regarding their worship. In verse 11, and it's stated in other places in the chapter as well, He speaks of when they enter into the promised land that there will be a place where the Lord your God chooses to make his name abide. And he's alluding to the fact that in that particular day in which this was given to the people that they were each one doing what was right in their own eyes. But the day would come when they got into the promised land where God would expect of them that they wouldn't do what was right in their own eyes, but they would do what God required of them, and that was to meet with Him in the place that He appointed. And you see, that was a problem in that day. And it's a problem in our day today, in a day when everyone does what's right in their own eyes. Oftentimes, people professing love for Christ. will choose to excuse themselves from the assembly of God's people. Many a person professing to be a Christian say, you know, I can worship God just as well out in the pasture field watching my cows. Another person could say, I can worship God in the grandeur of a mountain as I'm skiing down the slopes on the glistening white snow. Certainly the majesty of God is there. Another can say, well, I could really worship God as I'm sitting on my boat on a Sunday afternoon casting my hook into the water and trying to fish. Certainly the glory of God is all around me in creation. But God says to his people that you are to assemble in the place that God has appointed. In our New Testament lesson, We hear that discussion brought up, this woman at the well. She was a Samaritan. She and her forefathers worshipped in Bethel and Dan and various places that God had not prescribed for them to worship. Their kings didn't want them to go to Judah and worship in Jerusalem lest the people abandon them and serve the king of Judah. And so they worshipped in the mountains of Ephraim. But the worship at that point in time was in Jerusalem, in the temple. And God was telling them in the time, as we've read here in Deuteronomy 12, that there would come a time when God would set a particular place where He was to be worshiped. And that was Jerusalem. That was the place where the people of God were to go up. To fail to go up to Jerusalem for the annual feast was to fail to obey God. But Jesus said, there's a day coming when you will not worship here in the mountains of Samaria or in the mountain of Jerusalem. But those who worship me will worship Worship the Father will worship in spirit and in truth. And see, some people have misunderstood that to think, well, there's no specified place to worship God now. And at face value, it would seem that that's what Jesus was saying. But keep in mind that Lord Jesus also taught in Matthew chapter 18 at verse 20, that where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them. God has always specified that in the place where he has appointed to be present and to put his name, that's where the people of God are to assemble themselves. And just like in the days of the judges in the early church, there were problems with believers not following through with God's desire and design for worship. And in Hebrews chapter 10 and verses 24 and 25, the church of God is admonished because they are forsaking the assembly of themselves together. How? We got up late this morning a little bit, and it'll be a real rush to get to church. Let's just have worship at home. After all, it's where two or three are gathered in my name. Sounds reasonable. Surely if you're late. And sometimes we're prohibited from worshiping God in any other way, so it's not condemned. Everything. But the point that God clearly makes in His Word, He desires to be worshipped in the proper assembly of His people. The place that He's appointed, where two or three are gathered in His name. Psalm 107 verse 32 says, Let them exalt Him also in the assembly of the people, and praise Him in the company of the elders. You know what, when you have worship at home, you don't have any elders present. The church is not properly assembled. Now, there may come a Sunday when everybody is sick and you stay home and you worship God at home and praise the Lord. But when it is adopted as a practice, well, I can worship God out in the field, I can go boating, I can go to the mall and worship God when I look at all these crazy people around and I say, praise God, look what He made. But that's not worship. Also, in this chapter, God deals with them regarding proper procedure for offerings. He tells them how they are to proceed with their offerings. During the time of the Exodus, whenever they wanted to eat meat, they went and sacrificed their animals at the tabernacle and bled the animals. And the blood was put on the altar as a sacrifice to the Lord. And then they took their portion of the meat home and they ate it. And that's the way it worked. God said that when you move into the promised land, you're not going to be all gathered together, assembled all the time like they were in the wilderness. And he's saying sometimes you're going to be too far to take your lamb or whatever it is that you're going to sacrifice to Jerusalem or whatever the appointed place is. And so you can sacrifice at home. But you're never to eat the blood of the animal with the meat. The blood is the Lord's. The life is in the blood. And so he gave a prescription for how they should carry out their sacrifice to the Lord. He made it clear that they were to sacrifice their children to the Lord. He made it clear elsewhere in the scriptures that they weren't to sacrifice blemished sacrifices to the Lord. He made it clear that they weren't to sacrifice unclean animals to the Lord. You couldn't offer a pig or a dog instead of a sheep or a goat. God prescribes how he would be worshipped. We need to be careful that we worship God, not as we design, but as God has designed. I close with one illustration here then, regarding what we practice in the free church of singing psalms only. God does not prohibit the singing of uninspired songs, does he? It's not there anywhere. But God does not command the singing of uninspired song in the worship. And I challenge every one of us to find any place in the Word of God where a song that was not authored by the Holy Spirit working in a person prophetically to produce the Word of God was ever used in the worship service of the people of God in all the Scriptures. You will not, to my knowledge, I've searched the scriptures, you will not find any place in the scriptures where uninspired psalm was actually sung to the worship of God. You will find in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 people with spiritual gifts, that supernatural gifts that were given during the days of the apostles who have a psalm Whether that psalm was them selecting one from the book of Psalms in the Old Testament, or whether it was a psalm that they wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which is a possibility, we don't know. But nowhere is there anywhere that a psalm simply written by any of the members of the church was adopted and made to be a part of the psalm book of God. Now, the problem that we have in this area is the fact that in the days of the judges in which we live, we've had a many, many year go by where uninspired song is actually used by Christians to worship God. And we know many godly people who use uninspired song to worship God. But the question is not whether it has acceptance in the church. That's one element, perhaps. But the question is, was it ever commanded of God? And if you believe what Deuteronomy 12.32 says, that you're not to add to as well as take away from the word of God, you're left with a challenge. to find anywhere in the Bible where God tells us to sing uninspired songs. And I don't mean inspiration like, oh, I feel like God is telling me something, or I feel. I'm talking about inspired in the sense that you would include it in the Word of God just like you did the Psalms of David. Beloved, I don't know any place you'll find it. Isaac Watts was a godly man in many ways. We can look to him and learn many things from him as a brother in Christ. And yet, he wrote 600 of these uninspired songs. He began under a challenge from his father because he noted in his day that he thought that the metrical psalter was horrible. And his dad challenged him and said, well, improve it. And so he went about improving the Psalter. Except the problem was Isaac Watts didn't hold to the regular principle of worship. He began by taking the Psalms and trying to interject places where legitimately the Lord who's being spoken of is the Lord Jesus and he put Jesus into the Psalms. But then gradually his songs became just songs that expressed biblical truth and in that sense they were good. The question is, should they have been used for the worship of God? Did God prescribe such a worship? What he set out to do, or at least what was he challenged to do according to the historian that I read, was he was challenged by his father to improve on the Psalter. And certainly I think he could do that. There could be a better translation, metrical translation of the Psalms. The language is supposed to be in the language of the people. Sometimes we read our metrical Psalter and we don't understand what it's saying. It could be improved upon. Nowhere are the tunes that we sing ones that we say are ordained by God and so you could improve perhaps upon the tunes that might better communicate by music the content of the words. And had Isaac Watts done that, he certainly would have been serving the regulative principle of worship and the command of Deuteronomy 12.32 The problem was, in essence what he did was produce a hymn book that was better than God's hymn book. Is that true? He sought to improve upon the song book that God gave his people. That was wrong. People might enjoy seeing Isaac watch songs. And the content is, as far as I know, his songs were biblically faithful. Except, they were written for a design to replace God's songbook with his songbook. Contrary to the Word of God. So in conclusion, beloved, what principles does God give us? He gives us a principle that we are not to do whatever is right in our own eyes. It seems right? No. That's not the justification for worship. The only real justification for worship is doing what God has prescribed. Do not add to it. Do not take away from it. By the careful application of these divine principles, what will we do? We'll honor God. There won't be any question. What we do is well-pleasing to the Lord. And the real issue for all the churches in our day is this. Will we worship God in a way that is pleasing to us? Seems right to us. Or will we worship God in a way that He is clearly prescribed in His Holy Word? Shall we stand for prayer? Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your love and Your mercy, Your patience. We see it displayed in the Scriptures as You deal with Your people in the days of the judges and all their waywardness the ways they've offended you, and Lord, you as a Father, discipline them over and over and over again, but you never forsake them. Lord, we see the imperfections of your church today. We see it in the church generally, and at times, Lord, we sadly see it in our own selves. Lord, we ask that you would again show mercy to us. Lord, we thank you for the tender kindnesses that you have not dealt with us as we deserve. Lord, you've patiently borne with us in our sin and our disobedience. And yet, Lord, you have afflicted us at various times, Lord, to correct our misbehavior. Lord, we plead with you. You continue to perfect your church. that the work that you've begun in us in bringing us to embrace the Savior might be continued on, Lord, as you work in us to cause us more and more to reflect the likeness of the Savior, to grow in grace and in knowledge of Him and more and more be able to come to a point where we truly no longer serve self, but Him who loved us and gave Himself for us, that we might worship You as He did. And that whatever was well pleasing to You was the delight and the joy of His soul. Lord, we pray that we might come to that point where our will is to do your will. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.