Alright, Theology of Worship 101. Let me start out first by asking you to define conceptually what worship is. I'm not talking biblically, I'm talking conceptually. So when you hear the word worship, you can give me some word analogies. What do you think of? How do you define worship? Praise. Okay, praise. That's a word that gets thrown around a lot as well. So what is a praise? Or what is the action of praise? Honor, okay, so giving honor to something, right? So what's the relationship in worship? Okay, so that would probably fall in line more with the biblical concept, right? But if we're just thinking, and it's hard because we're married to our understanding of the Bible, which is good, but I want us to think conceptually first about worship. So what is the action of worship? Idolizing, okay. That's a good word, probably. So we're setting something up. So the relationship is that it can be between a person and a thing. Adoration. Yes, there's a thing that happens. Professing? Professing. You're showing, whether it's through song or word, but you are vocal. I think a lot of times it's a vocal thing. It can be prayer, but I don't know. a manifestation of your heart and telling God. Yeah. That's the key, I think. That's a good phrase. Manifestation of the heart. So, worship kind of reveals what's in our hearts. And the reason I want us to think about this first in kind of more of a secular standpoint is because the reality is that we all worship. Worship is not confined to the walls of this building as a church. Everybody worships. Everybody worships something. Right, some things. There's a lot. So this is a bigger topic. You've either been to a rock concert or a Georgia football game. I mean, when you're there with... Yeah, is worship How King on a Saturday in Georgia and Athens? But you know, you're there with a lot of other people for a common thing that you're all intensely emotional about at the time. Yeah. Yeah. Probably the best way that I could define worship conceptually is to think about it as a value system. Because worship reveals the heart, whatever we worship is essentially the highest affection of our heart. If we're worshiping Georgia football, if we've set that up as the highest I'm not picking on you, Hal. Go Dawgs. But if we're setting Georgia football up as the highest affection, if that's what we think about, if that's what we organize our time and our schedule about, well, that reveals something about the preciousness with which we hold Georgia football. And that leads to, I think, conceptually, the idea of worship. That is, it's us adoring something. It's us placing value in something far above anything else. And so, our actions, related to the way that we feel about that thing, that's what worship is, I think, conceptually. Would you all have anything to add to that? Any questions? I would say that worship is a response to... a good response, a proper response to who God is and what He's revealed about Himself. Yeah, 100%. And if I had to add one thing, I think there's a difference. The difference in what goes on in Georgia football and what goes on in church is a huge difference. In churches, yes, where all the things we said about worship. In Georgia football, I think the reason the crowd gets so into it is encouraging the team. But that ain't what goes on in church. God doesn't need encouragement. We're not here to encourage God. God's going to be God. And we're thankful for that. So there's the difference. We're not praising anything. We'll get more into that. So my professor of worship, Dr. Ligon Duncan, he's the chancellor of RTS, he said this, and I think it's a good definition for worship. Again, it's combining a little bit of the conceptual and secular with the biblical, as we've already been doing, but it says this, worship is, in essence, declaring what we value most. So you have that, again, element of proclamation, of declaration. It's an action, declaring what we value most. As a result, worship fuels all our actions. It becomes the driving force of all that we do. And he says this, we're not just talking about the religious crowd. We're not talking just about the Christian or the churchgoer among us. We're talking about everybody on planet Earth. A multitude of souls proclaiming with every breath what is worthy of their affection. their attention, their allegiance, proclaiming with every step what it is they worship. You see, some of us attend church on the corner, professing to worship the living God above all other things. Others, who rarely darken the doors of the church, would say worship isn't a part of their lives because they aren't religious. But the reality is, is everybody has an altar. And every altar has a throne. So how do you know where and what you worship? It's simple, you follow the trail of your time, your affection, your energy, your money, and your allegiance. At the end of that trail, you'll find a throne and whatever or whoever is on that throne is what's of highest value to you. What is on that throne is what you worship. That's Dr. Ligon Duncan's definition. Well, let's ask this then. Do you all feel like you have at least conceptually a good idea of what worship is? I mean, again, it's a word we use, it's something we talk about, it's something we do, but I think it's necessary for us to understand what it is at the very base, the very foundation. Let's ask this then. What is the correct biblical answer for what worship is, in your opinion, in your mind? Having God on that throne. Amen. Having God on that throne. Yes. What else? Anybody else? So, and that theologically can get into some really cool areas where we talk about the fact that we have been given a new heart in Christ, right? It tells us in Ezekiel 36 that God promises that he will put a new heart in us, a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone. So there's some really cool theology there about the fact that God, when he calls us to himself, gives us that heart, and the outpouring of that heart is worship to God, back to God for doing that, yeah. What else? Anything else to add to that? I think Psalm 29 here gives a good answer. This is what I like to use in terms of defining what biblical worship is. Worship is ascribing to the Lord the glory due His name. Let's turn there together, if you would, Psalm 29, verses 1 through 2, if you have your Bibles there. Psalm 29 verses 1-2. It says this, Psalm 29 verses 1-2, Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength, ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. I think that really gets at the heart of what I think biblical worship is, and that is we worship God because He's due that worship. It's very much based on the character of who God is. If God is who He says He is, then the only appropriate response to that is worship. When we recognize and we come to know that it is God who has given us that new heart, as we mentioned in Ezekiel 36, the natural appropriate response to that encounter and that knowledge of God is to worship and adore God for having done that. And that's really what this word ascribe means. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Give Him, proclaim to Him the glory that is due His name. Because He's worthy of it. Worship the Lord in the splendor of His holiness. So I think that's a good biblical definition for us. When people ask me what worship is from a biblical standpoint, that's usually where I start. Psalm 29 verses one through two. But I want to go a little bit deeper today since we have the time to do it. As I've been studying the languages, particularly Greek, I'm just fascinated with etymology, the study of words and going back and looking at the construction of words. And Greek is really interesting and very helpful because of the way it's built, you can know exactly what the word is trying to communicate. English is a little bit more difficult, but Greek very, very specific. When you have, sometimes we have an English word, it can refer to multiple things because of the way Greek is formed. when it's used, a word is used in a specific form, you can know exactly what is trying to be communicated. So we're going to look at first the Greek words for worship, which are used in the New Testament. I'm not going to get into the Septuagint today, which is just the Greek translation of the Old Testament. But we're going to first look at the words used for worship in the New Testament, and then we'll go into the Old Testament and look at the Hebrew words for worship as well. So the first word that's used for worship in the Greek is proscunio. Let's see if I can write this out here. Proscunio. It's used 61 times in the New Testament. So this is the word, when we're defining worship in the New Testament, this is the word that's used. And this is fascinating. So the way that this word is built, first you have pros here. Pros means to or towards. And then you have here, the root of the word is quon. And kuon, interestingly enough, means to be like a dog licking the hand of its master. Now, how do we get worship out of coming to or towards licking the hand of the master as a dog? How do we get worship from that? Now, some of us here are dog owners, and some of us have good experience in this. So tell me, what is the dog doing when the dog comes beside you, licks your hand? He's worshipping. Well, he is, right? This would be great for the parable of the pooch as well. So if you want to steal some of this material, you're more than welcome to. But the dog is in full submission to its master. I think, I don't know much about animal behavior, but I think when animals are licking, that's generally a sign of submission. And so a dog coming and licking a master's hand, not only is he showing affection to the master, but he's also showing submission and a desire to serve. Now, I didn't really believe this at first when I saw it. I thought, what, really? because it seems like a strange way to define worship. But there's another aspect here that I think is helpful to understand. Proskunio is also where we get this action of prostrating oneself, of bowing down. And so, again, part of the reason why Kuan as dog is helpful is that, one, dogs are very low to the ground, and so there's this sense, too, in which we are that lowly dog that is bowing, prostrating ourselves before the Lord in worship. Now this word is used proscunio again throughout the New Testament, but there's one particular area in Scripture that I want to take you to in which it's most prevalent, and that's John chapter 4 when Jesus speaks with the Samaritan woman. So let's turn there together to John chapter 4. So it says this, I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit here. Jesus is interacting with the woman at the well. I'll start in verse 16, he says this. Jesus said to her, go and call your husband and come here. And the woman answered him, I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true. And she loved this response from the woman. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshipped, there's proskunio right there, our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship proskunio. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship proskunio, the father. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and the end is now here, when true worshipers..." Now, that's interesting there, too. Worshipers is the Greek word proskounetes, and this is the only time that it's used in the New Testament, is right here. So, if you're studying languages, if a word is used only one time in the New Testament, alarms should go off, and they say there should be something special about this word being used in this passage. The hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. Yes, Steve. As far as I understand, it's a different word. Yes. This is the only time proskounetis is used here. I'll have to go look at that and see which word he uses. Yeah, well, and there's actually, so we're about to see that there's another, I'm going to get into another word here as well for worship, which is, I think, used the second most time, which is latreou, which is, yeah, it's used 21 times in the New Testament. So that could be the word that he's using there. I'll look it up afterwards. Yes, Debbie? I think it's the only place that it's used in the New Testament. Yeah, the only place that it's used in the New Testament. Now, this passage here is the one that my professor, Dr. Ligon Duncan, went to to explain what worship is in the New Testament, and we'll get into this a little bit more later. But if you notice here, he says that the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers, and that's key for us as well, you want to know what true worship is, this passage here is about to tell us, and it says, true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. We'll get through and kind of go through and define that in just a little bit, but hold that onto your mind. John chapter 4 here is saying that true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth. We want to know what does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth. So that's proskunio. It's also used in Matthew chapter 4. I'm going to keep moving for the sake of time. But again, that's the most commonly used Greek word for worship in the New Testament. The second is latreou, which is used 21 times in the New Testament. And latreou means to serve or to be a servant, to render religious service and homage. So this is used a lot in Hebrews when it's talking about sacrificial language. So this word is used to describe Instead of kind of bowing down in prostration and that image of a dog licking the hand of its master, this is much more an image of service. This is a service-oriented word. This is latreyu. Again, used in Acts 27, verse 23, Luke 1, 74, particularly dealing when the context is presenting of sacrifices. So it's used a lot in Hebrews. Any questions about that so far? Anything unclear? Those are interesting words to describe worship in the New Testament, aren't they? Now, the Old Testament as well. This is really interesting. I'm going to go through three words specifically. There's more. I think there's six or seven that are used in the Hebrew. The first one is halal. Now, just out of curiosity, does that remind you of any word we have in English? Hallelujah. Yes. So hallelujah in the Hebrew is a combination of this word plus Yahweh. And that's where we get hallelujah. And this is really interesting. So the first time that the Hebrew word halal appears is when the Egyptians are admiring Abraham's wife. It says this, and when the princes of Pharaoh saw him, saw her, excuse me, they praised her to Pharaoh. Halal literally means to make a show or boast. In other words, to make some noise. So it's interesting that the first context in which that is used is when the princes of Pharaoh see, when Abraham comes into the land, they see Abraham's wife Sarai and they start making a bunch of noise about her and tell of her beauty to Pharaoh. It's also used in 2 Samuel 22 4 in David's song of deliverance. David says this, I call upon the Lord who is worthy to be praised, halal, and I am saved from my enemies. It's also used in Nehemiah 5.13, after Nehemiah rescues the poor of Israel from the hand of the wealthy. You can see some connections there with our home group study in Micah. The officials were manipulating and robbing the poor of their inheritance. Nehemiah rescues them from this and the people cry out in response. It says this in verse 13, the assembly said Amen and praised Halal the Lord. So this word, again, and this is where we get hallelujah, this word means to make noise, to make a joyful noise, to make a loud noise, a proclaiming noise. So that's one aspect of Hebrew Old Testament worship, halal. Another one is thilah. Don't quote me on that if I'm pronouncing it wrong. I haven't had Hebrew yet, just Greek. This is also actually a form of halal, it's just a little bit different. So thilal means laudation, praise, or commendation. This is particularly in reference to a hymn or a song. So this is used in Exodus 15, 11. Does anybody know what Exodus 15 is? Song of Moses. So Exodus 15, 11, in the song of Moses, Moses cries out, he says, who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Now remember, this is in the context of a song. This is in the context of a praise that Moses is singing. He says, who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, in the ESV. or in the NASB, praises. Who is like you, O Lord, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders. That's the word thilal there. It's used quite often in the Psalms as well. Psalm 22, 3, which speaks of God being enthroned upon the praises of Israel. That word praises there is thilal. That's a great imagery, isn't it, right? The praises that we give are crowned by God, that he sits enthroned above them, Psalm 22, 3. Psalm 66, 8 says this, bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard. It's also used in Isaiah 42, 10. It says, sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the earth. So halal is this kind of joyful exclamation and exploding of praise, very vocal. Filal is in reference to a praise or a song or a hymn as it's given in the Old Testament. Another word, and this one I think is probably one of the more important words that were given in the Old Testament, this is shakha. This is the primary word for worship in the Old Testament, shakha. Let me write that down for us. Shaka is the first this is the again primary word for worship here in the Old Testament. This word describes a posture of reverence, respect and honor. It literally translates to mean to depress to prostrate and includes the action, when it's used in an action form, it includes the actions of bowing down. The very first time that this is used is in Genesis 22 5, when Abraham is taking his son Isaac to be sacrificed. It says here in verse 5, Abraham speaking to those who came with him, he says, stay here with the donkey and I and the boy will go over there and worship and again come to you. So the Old Testament takes this word, meaning reverence, prostration, bowing down, and uses it as worship in the context of Abraham taking his son Isaac up to the mount to sacrifice him to God. Yes? Yes, I believe it is. Yeah, I think it's the same root. Oh, sorry, that's actually the third time it's used. Well, in that form and translated worship, that's what I meant to say. So Shekau, the first time that it's translated worship is in Genesis 22.5. Before that, it's used when Abraham, in Genesis chapter 18, is visited by the three angels, and it says that he bowed himself to the earth. So he bowed down to the earth. So it's not translated as worship in that context, it's translated as the action of bowing down. It's also used when those same angelic visitors come in chapter 19 to visit Lot and he has the same response. He bows down and prostrates himself before the Lord. So this word in describing worship, again, so if we go back through here and review, halal means what? Hallelujah. A joyful expression, a proclamation, an overflowing of praise. What does philah mean? Yeah, philah is used in the context of a hymn. And it can actually just mean, as a noun form, the word praises. And now what of shakah? What does shakah mean? Yeah, prostration, bowing down in reverence and in honor. And this is used throughout the Psalms. And Psalm 66 is a great example. Let's turn there together. Psalm 66. I'm going to start here in verse 4 so you can see the word. It says this, this is just a great call to worship. 66 verse 4, all the earth worships you. That's the word shakah right there. All the earth worships you and they sing, and sings praises to you. They sing praises to your name. This one, and I have to go back and look, but I'm pretty sure Psalm 66 is one that basically combines all these words together. It basically brings all these words together here in the verses one through four. But all the earth worships you. All the earth bows down before you. All the earth, shaka. It's also used in Psalm 99.5. It says this, exalt the Lord our God, worship at his footstool. Now that imagery makes a lot of sense for using the word shakah, right? That idea of coming and bowing down at the feet of God. And it also says here, in Isaiah 44, so this is used negatively, this is used in regards to idol worship as well, which is contained in the Bible quite a bit. It says this, speaking of the house, the people of Israel, it says, the land is filled with idols. They bow down or prostrate themselves to the work of their own hands. Same word, shaka. They bow down to what their fingers have made. So we see there are negative example of that word Shaka used in regards to idol worship. There's a couple other words. I'm going to move quickly through this. Another word is Yadakh. Yadakh means to literally hold out the hand. or revere, or worship with extended hand. This word also means to know, and to know in the most intimate form. So this is the word that's used when they talk about a husband and a wife knowing each other in scripture. The word yedach is used. But it's also used in the context of worship, and how interesting is that, right? And it literally means to hold out the hand, to extend the hand and to revere in that way. There's also barak, which barak means to kneel in worship, And there's also todah, which is an acclamation or a loud expression specifically of thanksgiving. So it's a specific kind of, it's different from hallelujah because of the content of what's being expressed. Hallelujah is kind of more that just overflowing of praise, whereas todah is more of an acclamation of thanksgiving, giving thanks for something specific. So what can we learn from all this? Is it just cool to go back and study words and to pronounce the Hebrew? There has to be something more important than just studying these words, right? And here's what I've concluded from studying these. The Bible tells us exactly what worship is. It makes it abundantly clear. It gives us a very accurate definition of what worship to God is supposed to look like. But here's the key, right? Where do we understand, where do I get these words? Where did I get these words from? Where's the source? Yeah. It comes from God's Word. This has to be the key in our understanding of what worship is. And this I think is what, as we'll get into a little bit later, I think this is what a lot of people are forgetting in this day and age. What is the guiding principle for worship? It has to be God's Word. We all want to understand how God desires to be worshiped. We have to understand the way worship is defined according to His Word. So we want to know what worship is, we can go and we can look at the word, and that's where we find these definitions. And again, I think these definitions give us a very, very specific view of what worship is supposed to look like. I mean, just roll back through those images in your head. In the New Testament, proskunio, the idea of bowing down and prostrating, the image of a dog licking the hand of its master in submission and love and affection, latreyu, to serve. to serve God. You have halal, just this blossoming of praise, and you have phila and songs and praises and hymns. All these words give us a clear definition of the way that God desires to be worshiped. Now, there's two areas of worship that I want to talk about today, or two places where worship happens. And that's here, in the context of gathered worship, but it's also worship in all of life. If we're worshippers, then no matter where we are and no matter what time it is, we're going to be worshipping something. So there's a worship that occurs outside of, it's not like we come into here and this is the only place of worship, but when we go outdoors, we are also worshipping something or someone as well. So there's two areas of worship. There's worship in all of life, and there's gathered or corporate worship here. And so I want us to go through and kind of understand what those are, again, according to the Bible here. Now, let me say this. You have to have both. You have to have both corporate communal worship and you have to have personal private worship. If you leave one out, then worship is incomplete. You see, we're commanded in Scripture not to do both. And so if we're going to ignore the command to have personal and private worship, well, that's going to then affect our gathered worship. Likewise, if we ignore our gathered worship, that's going to affect our personal worship. So these two things have to go together. So let's look at the Scriptures and try and define, first of all, what all-of-life worship is. If you would, turn with me to Romans chapter 12. Romans chapter 12, verse 1, Paul says this, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies or the compassion of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. And some translations will render that spiritual worship as reasonable service. So let me ask y'all, what does that mean? What does it mean when Paul commends us, appeals to us by the mercies of God to present our bodies as a living sacrifice? What do y'all think? Giving it up to God. Giving what up? Your physical body, everything that you are. Okay, so go ahead, Bonnie. Okay, so doing the right thing according to what God has laid out, right? Doing the right thing. Hal, you mentioned, there's two aspects there that you mentioned. You said, one, that we're to present our physical bodies, right? Because all those words that you talked about a while ago, there's a lot of physical actions. Yeah, that's a great point. A lot of them are actions that require the work of our, that require us to bow down and to prostrate ourselves, yeah. And so there's very much a sense in which he's speaking to the physical nature of what we are to do with our bodies as well, when he says, present your bodies, your physical bodies, as a living sacrifice. But there's also another sense in which he's speaking about this from a spiritual perspective, too, which you said that we are also to worship with our whole being, right? Now, what does that mean? Not just part of it. Not just the physical. Yes, Steve? Deuteronomy 6, where God says we're to love Him with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Amen. This has to do with our whole being. Yes. And it even talks about the next verse being transformed by the renewal of our mind. It has to do with our way of thinking, our way of seeing everything, our perspective. That's right. Yes, Debbie? So your mind, your actions, your time, your money. Yes, everything. Yeah, I think this verse, when we're looking at worship and all of life, this is where people go, because it includes both the physical, the sense in which our bodies are to be a temple for the Lord, right? I'm not going to get into temple theology, but that's also used throughout the Bible, particularly in Ephesians, that we are being built up into a dwelling place for God, and so that we are to In other words, maintain the temple. We're to take care of it. And he's speaking about the temple of our bodies. So there's very much a physical sense there. But Steve, I think you're, in bringing up Deuteronomy 6, is really kind of the driving force behind this. That is, we're to love the Lord with absolutely everything we have. Our mind, our heart, our soul. And to do so with all of our strength. With everything that we have. That's all of life worship. And so you can see under that definition then that worship doesn't cease when we walk out the doors of the church, right? If we're to worship God with our entire being, that means that has to continue when we walk out those doors. This is worship in all of life. I'm going to give you a couple other examples quickly. This is really interesting. In Jonah chapter 1, when Jonah is fleeing from the presence of the Lord, and the sailors are freaking out because the storm is getting crazy, and they basically come and they cast lots and it lands on Jonah, and they ask him basically who he is. Who are you? What do you do? And his answer is really interesting. He says, I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord. Jonah's identification is that he worships the Lord. And immediately that sets off in their mind, holy smokes, get him off the boat, because something's got to be going on with him and this God that he worships. But it's really interesting, isn't it, that he identifies himself, he's not in the context of gathered worship, he's not in community with other believers, he's actually fleeing the presence of God, but when confronted His identification, the way he identifies himself is, I worship the Lord. Another verse here, this is really cool, we don't have as much time to get into it, but in Genesis chapter two, the Lord gives the command to Adam and Eve to work and to keep the garden. Now the two Hebrew words there used are abad and shamar. Now, what's interesting is the way that Abad and Shamar are formed as words doesn't match the way that the garden is formed. So the words work and keep don't actually, according to my Old Testament professor, John Currid, those words actually don't refer to the garden. That kind of blew my mind the first time I heard it. John Currid argues that when these two words come together, abad and shamar, they always mean worship, and particularly all of life worship, but also gathered worship. This is used in Numbers chapter 3 when the Levites basically are coming in to perform the sacrifices at the tabernacle. I'm going to read this quickly. It says this, bring the tribe of Levi near and set them before Aaron the priest that they may minister to him they shall keep guard over him and over the whole congregation before they tent as they minister that's the word Abad at the tabernacle they shall guard all the furnishings of the tent and keep guard over the people of Israel as they minister again Abad at the tabernacle so these two words In Genesis, chapter 2, are not referring to what Adam and Eve are supposed to be doing. Well, I would say this, it's not only referring to what Adam and Eve are supposed to be doing in relation to the garden, but it's actually describing a posture for their whole life. That is, that they were placed in the garden to worship God. They weren't placed there simply to till the ground. to make sure that the vegetables and the fruit stay nice and pristine. Although, before the fall, I guess that's kind of interesting. Would vegetables go, become rotten before the fall? Maybe that's a question for Travis. I can't answer that question for you. But I just found that to be really interesting. The commands that the Lord gives Adam and Eve in the beginning include all of life worship. And this makes sense, right? Before the fall, what were Adam and Eve doing with the Lord? What does it say that they were doing? walking with Him in the cool of the garden. That's all of life worship. It's walking with the Lord. It's also used, that same word is used in Psalm 100, serve or worship the Lord with gladness. Again, abod there. Let me give a couple more. 1 Corinthians 10, 31. So whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. So again, worship is eating and drinking. Think about that the next time you sit down to a meal. We can worship God with the food that we eat and the things that we drink. It's amazing. Colossians 3.17, and whatever you do, there you go, here's the final stamp. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Everything. This is worship in all of life. Our whole lives are to be dedicated to the Lord in worship. Now, we also need to talk about gathered worship, right? We're here, we're gathering for worship, and so we should understand, right, where do we get that from? Where do we get gathered worship from? Where do we get communal worship from? Again, I gotta go quickly because we are running out of time, but let me say this. I think the first time that we see gathered worship is actually in Genesis with Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel are bringing their sacrifices to the Lord. They're doing it together. They come together to offer sacrifices to the Lord. And interestingly enough, when we talk about acceptable worship, that is the first instance in which we see acceptable worship and worship that is not acceptable. Abel's sacrifice was upheld by the Lord. Cain's was not. This is, I think, the first instance that we have gathered worship. Two people coming together to offer praises to the Lord. At the end of Genesis chapter 4, it says this too. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. So you have their people, plural, come together to call upon the name of the Lord. So at the end of Genesis chapter 4, very, very early on in the book, we have instances in which people are gathering together to worship God together. We also have, and again, I don't have time to get into all of this, but we have the whole system of tabernacle worship. We have tabernacle worship, we have the institution of the sacrificial system, the clan of the Levites who are dedicated to serving in the temple. We would have congregational gathering where the Israelites, people would come together at the tabernacle to worship God collectively. That's gathered worship. And these were all done, right, the Day of Atonement, these were done on the Sabbath day in accordance with God's command to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy. These were commands given to God's people as a whole. Not just individuals, but God's people as a whole. Here's another great one. The whole book of Psalms. You want to know why we have gathered worship? Or you want to know a scriptural proof for gathered worship? The Psalms. The Psalms are designed for corporate worship. Now, not to exclude the fact that there are individual psalms and individual laments, but a large portion of the psalms are actually to be used in corporate communal worship. So that in itself shows God preserved in his word a whole psalm book for us so that we can gather together and sing his word. It's pretty cool. You also have Nehemiah 8. Let's turn here together. Nehemiah 8, verses 1-6. And this is probably the main text that people go to show gathered worship in the Old Testament. Nehemiah 8, verses 1-6. This is awesome. This is Ezra here reading the law. It says this, And all the people gathered as one man, all the people coming together as one body, they gathered into one in the square before the water gate, and they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. Notice the importance there of the word of God being exalted. So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could understand what they heard on the first day of the seventh month. And Ezra read from it facing the square before the water gate from early morning until midday in the presence of the men and women and those who could understand. That sounds a lot like what we do here today, isn't it? We come together, we gather together as one body to hear the proclamation of God's word. Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform. Wooden platform. You see it? The board's kind of in the way. Ezra stood on a wooden platform that they had made for that purpose. I'm not going to go through and read these names. You see again there that idea of prostration. You see all those things coming together. You see loud exclamations, Amen, Amen. This is gathered worship of the Lord. This is the section of text that people go to when they want to show gathered worship in the Old Testament. You also can go for the New Testament to 1 Corinthians 13 and 14, where Paul talks about the people of God as being one body. That is, we're to come together, as it says in Nehemiah, as one man and worship together. So you see here that we have both elements. You have to have both. We have all-of-life worship, where we love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. But we also have specific commands that we are to gather, right? People also use in Hebrews as well where it talks about, don't neglect to gather together as some do. And so we see positive commands for us to come together and to worship as well. Now let me ask you this, why do we worship? Why do all this? Why go through the trouble of understanding this? Yes, great. I don't know if you could get a better summary than that. That's a good simple statement, right? It pleases God. It is something that He desires us to do. What was the second thing you said? Well, that was the first one. He desires it. He requires it. He commands it. So he desires it. That's a good way to remember it. He desires it. He requires it. And what was the third one? He commands it. Pleases it. Well, that was the first one. Anyways. Desires requires. Yes. Yeah. God has commanded it. Remember Romans chapter 12, 1? I think that that translation of offering reasonable service makes a lot of sense. Ascribing to the Lord the glory due his name, we worship him because he's worthy of it. We worship him because it pleases him. We worship him because he requires it according to his word. But we also worship for the benefit of our own souls. Right? It does. Well, it's enlivening, right? We often sometimes think that what we do when we come to worship is we actually come to give, but we don't. in many respects. Yes, we are giving praises to the Lord, but it's much more about what we're receiving than we're actually giving. Do you think what we do here is great or is just this mountain of praise? No. We're very humble here in this small little church in Albany, Georgia, a 55-member church, right, offering up praise to God. It's not about what we're offering. It's about who we're offering it to, and it's about what we receive when we offer it to Him. And also, of course, because that's what we were made to do, it's what we will do. In returning to you, I didn't have any hits on. You mentioned earlier a couple things, like one is the Old Testament genesis. Absolutely. Yeah, and you mentioned too there that We know the end of the story. I'll close out with this at the end. But we know what the end of time looks like. It looks like us before the throne of God worshiping. That's what we're going to be doing. That's the trajectory that life is moving towards. Now, I bring up again 1 Corinthians 10 31, a good verse to understand why we worship. Whatever we do, we're doing all to the glory of God. That is, worship is for the glory of God. What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. You see both benefits there, right? You see the action of glorifying, but then you also see that what we receive is enjoyment. And that's truly what worship is meant to be, right? When our souls are in tune with the Lord, there is a joy there that is just unbelievable. When we recognize how much he has done for us, when we look back at his faithfulness, I mean, you just see again and again, praises erupting from that. Now, we're gonna go a little bit over here probably, but this is the only time I get to teach Sunday school, so it'll be okay. I want to talk about how. How do we worship? This is the area where we experience the most controversy. This is the area where people get into catfights over what color the carpet is. This is the area where we fuss and we talk about instruments. Should we have drums in this church? By the way, I'm bringing in a drum set next week. This is where worship wars happen. Most people are going to agree with you on the 48 minutes that I've been speaking. Most people are going to agree on what worship is. They'll agree with the words and the etymology of worship. They'll agree with the purpose of worship. But when we get into how to worship, that's where people really get prickly. So it's a good thing for us to understand how. How are we to worship? How are we to do these things? True. Yep. And let me ask you this first. What has to be our guide when answering this question? Exactly. We're going to talk briefly, very briefly, about the regulative principle of worship as it developed. And I would say that the reason it developed out of the Reformation was because of an intense desire to know and understand what the Word of God says about worship. Dr. Duncan has this great quote that I would love to just hear repeated. I'd love to put it up on a banner somewhere, but it says this, it says, sing the Bible, pray the Bible, Read the Bible. Preach the Bible. That's what worship is. The how of worship is all governed by Scripture, and not only is it governed by Scripture, but it's filled with Scripture. Every aspect of the service should just be bleeding Scripture. We worship according to God's standards, upheld. And here's the thing, you have to believe this is inerrant. You have to believe it's infallible. Otherwise, you might as well just throw it out. If you're not going to accept all of it, just throw it out. But if we're going to understand how to worship, we need to see this as the inerrant, infallible Word of God. That's the foundation, right? And this makes sense. If we want to know how the Supreme Being, the Uncaused Cause, the God of the Universe, the Alpha and the Omega, if we want to know how He desires to be worshipped, shouldn't we ask Him? Doesn't that just make sense? Shouldn't we ask Him? And he's revealed, he's given to us, as we've seen today already, he's given to us a very specific definition of what worship is and how to worship. Now, the Westminster Confession states this in better and more eloquent words than I can, so I just want to quote this for you here. It says this, the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself. So God decides. If I'm going to worship something, that makes sense to me. If I can control something and I can manipulate it, it makes no sense why I should worship it. I should be worshiping me. And this is what Isaiah 44 talks about, the folly of idolatry. It makes no sense to cut down a tree, use part of it to burn a fire to warm your house, and then shade the other part into a little idol that I then bow down and worship. Makes no sense. I'm the one who cut the tree down. I might as well worship myself. So if we're gonna worship God, then we should worship according to the way that he wants to be worshipped. He gets to decide. And this is what the Westminster Confession is saying. 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 of men or the suggestions of Satan, not holding back any punches, under any visible representation or in any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. So this is where we get the regulative principle. The regulative principle simply states, in other words, we may only worship in exactly the way that God has commanded in his word. Now this is contrasted with the normative principle of worship, which the normative principle of worship says, anything that's not forbidden in scripture, we are free to do. The right way to worship is to worship in exactly the way that God has commanded. And that's the heart of the regulative principle. Yes, Alex. You mentioned earlier about the etymology of some of the words found in the Psalms and elsewhere about the physical acts that accompany them, that are being indicated by them. By the way, for example, one of them mentioned prostration. Following the regulative principle is the absence of performing some of these physical acts that are explicitly commanded by scripture, something that results in a deficit in our worship, or we lose something by not, for example, prostrating ourselves in the process of singing certain psalms or hymns and such. Is that something that we need to actively do? That's a great point. Not anticipated a question like that. Let me answer it first this way. I would say that in terms of while the physical action is important, more important than the physical action is the heart. So can we and should we prostrate our hearts before the Lord? I would say yes, absolutely. In terms of the actual physical bowing down, I'm not sure. That's a great question. Why don't we bow down in worship if it's commended in Scripture and if we see examples in Scripture according to the regular principle? That's a question I'm not sure I know how to answer. That's a great question though. And I think again, When you see those physical actions and you see the systems that were put in place, it was never about the actions or the systems themselves. It was about the attitude of the heart. It was whether or not you're loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. So can we then prostrate ourselves in reverence of heart? Yes, I think so. Again, about whether or not we're to bow down, I'm not sure. But great question. I've got to go quick. It's from the regular principle that we developed three important categories for understanding how we are to worship. These help us with the nitty gritty of worship. There's a lot of nitty gritty in worship. There's elements. Elements are defined as all the components or specific parts of the worship of God that are commanded or positively warranted in Scripture. In other words, if there is a specific command about something, then we are to do that thing, and that's considered an element of worship. These the Christian must do. The elements of worship are these, the reading and explanation, preaching of the Word of God. We see that in, we saw that in Nehemiah, right? The proclamation and the preaching of God. Prayer. Jesus teaches us the Lord's prayer, that we are to pray. He says, pray this. Singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Now I'm not gonna get into all the categories of what those are, what are psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, but we can see that these are positively warranted in scripture. And in fact, interestingly enough, in, I think it's Colossians, let's see here. Yeah, Colossians 3.16, it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Interestingly, that it uses the language teaching and admonishing one another. When we sing, we're teaching one another. We're admonishing one another. we're participating in worship by singing to one another. This is why, if you're gonna ask me, is Northgate ever gonna have a big stage with smoke machines and big lights and a big production, I'll say absolutely not. Are those things wrong in and of themselves? No, but yes, if they detract from the worship of God and the participation of the congregation. Worship was always designed to be communal When we come together to gather, it's designed to be communal and something that we share with one another. It's very difficult to share worship with one another when the lights are dimmed all the way down and all you can see is the stage and a bunch of musicians blasting music. It is very hard to feel in community with the people around you. The governing principle, again, is scripture. And when we talk about things like instruments, when we talk about things like color of the carpet, when we talk about whether or not to have drums, all this should be done in consideration first with scripture and then to the point of asking, does this edify and encourage participation from all those who are there and gathered together? I don't think there's anything wrong with instruments. No instrument is in itself evil. There might be some that disagree with me, that think drums are used for pagan worship. To me, it's the person in the heart behind it. The reason I would not bring a drum set into Northgate is I do not think it would be edifying for this congregation. I don't think it would be edifying for this congregation. It would distract from what's being sung. You probably wouldn't be able to hear each other, and there'd be less participation. So when we look at worship and when we try to understand how we should do these things, we need to first, again, look at scripture and then consider, is this being done in a way that edifies the congregation? Is this being done in a way that encourages communal participation? I kind of skipped around a little bit. Those are what we call forms and circumstances. So not all aspects are explicitly governed by scripture, again, the nitty gritty kind of gray areas, but all can be ordered according to the light of scripture. And these are what we call forms and circumstances. Forms are the way in which the elements are carried out. So forms are like the order of service, which we don't have time. I'd love to keep going, but I wanted to hand out our order of worship and just go through it together and look at these things and why we do them. Because I hope that you'll see, and I hope that as you're participating in the service today, you'll be able to see that all these things are positively warranted in scripture. There's a good reason for why we do them, and the reason is scripture. Why do we have a call to worship? Because it's God who calls us into worship and initiates that worship in our heart, and we respond to him. That's what a call to worship is. Why do we have a prayer of invocation? Because worship has to be done through the spirit. And so when we pray, right, we worship in spirit and in truth. So when we pray a prayer of invocation, we're asking the Holy Spirit to come and to then take our worship, that is, worship of the Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father through the Spirit. That's our prayer of invocation. Why do we confess our sins? Because confession of sin is all over the place. Day of atonement, huge issues there that we could see in Scripture. Why do we confess our sins? Because Scripture calls us to do it. Why do we confess our faith? Because we are to proclaim together what we believe in and why we believe it. And the purpose of all this is so that we do it together. Worship is meant to be communal. It's not about the individual's experience. It's about the community gathering together. And lastly, I will say this. All these things should point to the proclamation of this. Whatever we do in worship, it needs to point to this because this is the way that we hear from God. You know, in some churches they're removing the pulpits completely, which I think is a poor choice. Not because it's wrong to not have a pulpit, but because I think it communicates something. It says there's something else more important than what's going to be said from there. Make way for the stage. Pull the pulpit out of the way and make room for the musicians. The reason that the Reformers and so many of the Presbyterian churches have these, you can't see it, have these pulpits, and generally have actually very large pulpits, is because they were trying to exalt the Word. They were trying to make sure the word could be heard, as it says there in Nehemiah, right? So that it could be proclaimed so that all the people could hear it and understand. So again, let me go quickly back through these, and then we'll end. Elements are preaching of the word, prayer, singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, the administration of the sacraments. Jesus institutes these to be done by all who proclaim his death, resurrection, and his coming again. The forms and circumstances are all these things which are not positively warranted in Scripture, but which we can understand by the light of Scripture and done for the edification, the building up of the congregation and those who are participating. Okay, here's the thing. All that theology, all that knowledge is great, but if it doesn't turn to application, it does us no good. So when we worship today together, let's consider why we're worshiping, let's consider what worship is, and let's consider that what we're doing and how we're doing it is the way that God desires us to do it. If we have the theology, but we don't have, remember that this is about a relationship, it's about our relationship with God. If we have the theology without the relationship, this is nothing more than a ritual. We're just going through routine. So let's remember as we worship today, that it is God who's called us into worship. We're worshiping in response to him and an outpouring of hallelujahs for his grace. And as we worship our Lord Jesus Christ through the spirit to God, the father, let's look around. Let's look at one another worshiping together and realize this is something we're supposed to be doing. And it's something that we're gonna do for all eternity as well. As we see the final image and revelation of all people who call the name who call in the name of the Lord coming together and worshiping in the splendor of God's holiness. Let's pray.