Our text is gonna be, for the reading, Hebrews 12, 28, 29. Hear now the word of the triune and living God. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. And thus, let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Please be seated. And as we say, the word of the Lord stands forever. Amen. Father in heaven, We thank you for the opportunity to gather yet again. Every seven days, we thank you for the blessed gathering of the saints to encourage one another, to bear with one another's burdens, to weep with those who weep, to rejoice with those who rejoice. We thank you that you receive us in this gathering despite our sinfulness because we stand in the finished work of Christ. that our blood covers us, that we in the ark of the covenant with the broken law, the broken 10 commandments, we are covered by the mercy seat, the lid on top of that ark that's covered in the blood of Christ. That when you look down, you no longer see our sinfulness, but you see Christ and his perfect righteousness and his sacrificial blood covering us so that we come and then we gather. Lord, would you strengthen us? Would we see more of you? Would we see less of us today? Would you guide and direct our study in your word? Would we be blessed to be stronger, more faithful, more better equipped soldiers in the kingdom by having gathered today? And would you be rightly glorified in all that we do and say and think? And it's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Amen. Well, If you're just joining us today, we have been taking a bit of a break from our normal routine. What we normally do is we go verse by verse through the books of the Bible. We've been going through Luke. We ended chapter 7. We took a month hiatus, four weeks, to look at one particular doctrine, and then we're going back to Luke starting in June. The doctrine that we're looking at is ecclesiology. Ecclesiology just means the doctrine of the church. Ekklesia is the Greek word for church in the New Testament. And what that word means is the gathering, the assembly. So ecclesiology is the studying of what it is that the church. Now, I've said before, and I've said it every single week, and I'm saying it every single week on purpose, the reason why we need to do this is because it is sorely undertaught and poorly understood by just about everybody who would call themselves Christians. We just assume things. You just assume you know what church is and what you're supposed to do in church and what happens at church. Why do we need to talk about that? But this is a massively important doctrine that connects to so many other things in so many other ways. And what we're gonna look at even today is that it connects to an underlying just almost emotion, feeling, presumption that we have about church. Now, what we did last week is we looked at the ordinary means of grace, that when we come together, what we do is ordinary. Church is for Christians, and church is ordinary, and that's sufficient for us to just focus on the Bible, to pray, preach, read, sing, and see the Bible is enough that we are blessed and encouraged by that, that we don't have to export in our missions, efforts, anything but a translated Bible. And there will be faithful churches in the jungles and the middle of nowhere if they have that. They will know how to conduct themselves and they will also be able to be sanctified and grow in Christ's likeness and then be effective for evangelism. This week, we're looking at the vertical aspect of worship. Last week, horizontal, we as people, what do we expect and what do we participate with in church? But the vertical aspect is us towards God. Of the two, last week being horizontal, this week being vertical, vertical is more important for you to grasp. And if you grasp it, then what we did last week, it just flows logically from it. It's the most important, it's the most misunderstood aspect of ecclesiology, I'm convinced. Because there's lots of Christians that will instinctively seek out a church that is gonna feed them spiritually. Because if you ever hear good teaching, good preaching, discipleship, fellowship, meaningful songs, meaningful observance of the ordinances, you see that as a real believer and you're like, man, I want that, I like that. Because what I'm getting here is just drippings from a rusty faucet. I want the waters that flow from the mountain of God. And I see that, I want that. So you can instinctively move towards that because you are being nourished. However, we can still be that and remain hazy on the vertical aspect of worship. What am I doing here towards God? That we have to make sure that we get clarity on. Now, back in the 1900s, I gotta say 1900s because y'all, we got people that have graduated from college born after 9-11, okay? So back in the 1900s, I'm talking the 1980s, the 1990s. It's the 1900s and don't try to deny it. There's a thing, a phenomenon of a conflict that happened in evangelicalism in the United States that was loosely called the worship wars. Some of you will live through the 1900s, you know what those wars were like. Now, what those wars boiled down to was what kind of worship style are you gonna have in your church? Are you gonna be contemporary and sing in the secret? and in the quiet place which nobody sings at all anymore now? Or are you gonna be traditional and sing the old hymns? It was exclusively related to music. But some people got, some churches got very pragmatic and they were like, why don't we just do both? And we'll have a contemporary service. and then we'll have a traditional service. Now, the pastor, he's gonna wear a tie at the first one, but he's taking it off for the second one. Now you know he's with it. Now, these wars, there were many, many casualties in these wars, and most of them are all gone because nobody is doing both of those anymore. Let's do both, contemporary and traditional. Nobody even has that discussion anymore. What did that whole war convey? It conveyed this. Worship is a product that needs a consumer. We have warring factions of consumer bases. How do we get the most people to buy the product that we're selling? We're gonna either hardline it and say, we're gonna do it the old way, or we're gonna go get so with it and hip that we'll do it their way, or we want all their money, so we're gonna do both. What they said was worship is a commodity that people consume. This is what the 1900s were like, y'all. You didn't know that, but that's how bleak it got. Now, really what it boiled down to, it was a battle of preferences. Old people wanted this, young people wanted that, that's it. Nobody, at least in my experience and the vast majority of what was going on, nobody considered what does God want And what does God require? It was just, I ain't gonna sing those newfangled songs, or I ain't gonna sit there and listen to Sister Mary Martha pluck it out on the organ. Nobody thought, what does God want? Is he happy with either of these? This is the reality of where we're coming to, and it's exclusively about music. Aside from the pastor's tie, it was all about music. That's the era when worship became synonymous with music, which is a problem in and of itself, because everything we do on the Lord's day is worship, everything. Now, we're gonna dig further into that in just a second, but what does it say about your worship if it could become outdated? How old is our Bible? If our worship can become outdated, that means that we have made many compromises along the way, and we gotta freshen it up. Why? Because God changed? Who is the same yesterday, today, and forever? Oh no, culture changed. The consumer base changed. So we gotta keep up for them. If your worship can become outdated, that means you're selling it to people and not to God. Because everything that we do on the Lord's day is worship. Hey kids, I want you to listen to me for just one second. I mean, you're supposed to be listening the whole time, but listen to me right now for this part. Y'all ever heard of Bigfoot? Yeah, you heard of Bigfoot. You ever heard of a Sasquatch or like an abominable snowman? Y'all ever heard of the Cowboys being in the Super Bowl? Y'all ever heard of a worship pastor? Those are all things that people think are real, but are not. All four of those things. When James is ordained, next Lord's day, Lord willing, we all make it to that day, he is not going to be the worship pastor. And if you call him that, I'm going to flick you in the ear. And if you hear somebody else say that title seriously, then just flick them in the ear. We're gonna get used to changing our...there is no such thing in the entirety of the New Testament called a worship pastor. There are pastors, synonymous with elders, and deacons, and that's it. If one primarily is leading the music, then he's leading a portion of the worship, but the elders of the church altogether are the worship leaders of the church. The body of elders are the worship leaders. Because everything we do, when we read, when we take communion, when we have baptisms, when we preach, when we pray, when we sing, all of that is worship. All of it. So who oversees that? Who's in charge of directing that and guarding that? The elders of the church are. So we're gonna change our vocabulary. I'm warning you today, if you say it around me, I'm gonna flick, unless you're a girl, I'm gonna flick you in the ear. All right? We're gonna change our vocabulary today. Because think about the insanity of what happened in the 80s and 90s of worship music becoming a sub-genre. That now you have people making money off the church. I don't charge, just so you know, I don't pet charge anybody to come in here and listen to the preaching. But if somebody wants a CD of the music, then you gotta buy it. And if we're gonna sing the songs that they wrote, we gotta pay a licensing fee, because those people are making money off the church. And if we don't pay the licensing fee, then we're gonna get in trouble. But you don't have to pay a dime to download a single sermon. Doesn't that make no sense? Aren't we all just glorifying God? And then you have the insanity of a worship concert that you gotta pay to get into. So unless you have money, you can't worship God. Doesn't Isaiah 55 say, come and buy without money and drink even though you can't pay for it, eat bread even though you have no money. a worship concert, and that's an abomination that people pay for. That's like if somebody's out the door taking tickets to come into church, buy your ticket to come on in. The insanity of what's popped up around all of this is crazy. Clearly, evangelicals lost their way on lords they worship back in the 1900s. But the reformed tradition has had it nailed down since the 1500s because the Bible has had it nailed down since it was written. And we can follow the Bible and understand what we are to do with worship. And the primary thing that we do with worship is we recognize that we have an audience of one. We have an audience of one. What we do in worship is primarily this, we are giving God what he deserves. We are paying to God what we owe. Romans 121 says that these kinds of people are condemned because even though they knew God, they did not honor him or give thanks. Everybody on the face of the planet owes God worship and praise. It's what you owe. It's the only reasonable thing that you could owe. There is a creator-creature distinction. Everything that's not God is a creation. And all of creation owes God, the creator, worship. His divine essence demands the worship of everything within the universe. That's why when we get up front to begin the worship service, nobody says, thank you for showing up today. What are you conveying when you're at church and the first thing that comes out of the guy doing the announcements says, thank you guys so much for being here today. What are they saying? They're saying everything that when your plane hits the tarmac at your destination, thank you for flying Delta today. We know that you have your choice of airlines and we thank you for choosing us. They want your business. We don't thank you for giving God what you owe. Why would I thank you for that? You owe it to him, not me. Not to any of the elders of the church, you owe it to him. So we don't thank you for giving to God what you owe to him. Think about when Jesus is coming in triumphal entry, Luke chapter nine, verse 39, or Luke 19, 39 and 40, when they say, rebuke your disciples. They say, make them stop worshiping you. And then Jesus says, look, if they stop, the rocks are gonna start, because I am who I said that I am, and all of creation owes me worship. So if they stop, it's gonna happen. Either way, God will be praised by all of creation. And we read for our call to worship, Psalm 29 verse two. Did you catch verse two? When it says, ascribe to the Lord the glory due to his name. You owe God worship. worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. And then when Jesus is talking about with the woman at the well, John 4 verse 24, he says that everyone who's acceptable to God must worship in spirit and in truth, must. Not should, not it'd be great. must worship in spirit and in truth. Lord's Day worship is primarily about our obligation to glorify God, not Him blessing us. We started last week with the blessing that we get, and it's a real blessing, but it's a byproduct. I've used this illustration before, so if you have heard it, just tune it out. It's gonna be good still, though. When tennis was becoming a sport, turn of the 1900s, this is the first part of the 1900s, kid, but I know that y'all all think it's all the same. So we were all there for it, I guess. The turn of the century in the 1900s, tennis is kind of becoming a sport. And then one guy who is working at a beef processing plant realizes that if you take the intestines of these big old cows and you string it out and pull it tight, keep it a little bit moist, then you can run that through the racket head and you can play tennis with a bouncier strings. That's what's called natural gut tennis strings. Now, what sense would it make to endlessly slaughter cows just to get racket strings? No, you slaughter cows to feed people, and then at the end of the process, you realize this stuff we thought was worthless, we could play tennis with that, and that's pretty fun. That's our benefit of worship. We're not here primarily for tennis strings. We're here for the whole cow. We're here to give God what he deserves, and by his grace and by his mercy, we are blessed. We are uplifted. We are encouraged. We are rebuked. We are instructed in the word. We are sanctified into the image of Christ as a secondary byproduct, not as a primary product. And since worship is God's due, then we must strive to please him with it. Who cares if people like your worship style, but God hates it? Who cares if people are flooding in and they can't get enough of it, but God says, stop it. Isaiah 1, he says, stop sacrificing to me. I hate the smell of your sacrifices. Who cares? We have an audience of one. We're trying to please God. If we please God and nobody else likes it, then praise be his name. If we please God and nobody else shows up for it, but God is satisfied and God is glorified, then that's all we're here to do. That's what we exist to do. Now, when you exchange heartfelt praise for performance art, this is when you get in trouble. Somewhere along the way, prior to even the worship wars in the 1900s, what Lord's Day worship started becoming was partial performance art. If you have a talent, you have an ability, you got something to do, then come do it for everybody, everybody will like it. But that's no longer heartfelt praise. When Lord's Day worship becomes a performance venue, then what you're doing is pleasing men and not pleasing God. Let me just give you a few illustrations. These are all true. These are all illustrations that I have been a part of, or I'm one person removed, a friend has been a part of. Y'all ever heard of churches paying unbelieving musicians to play on Sunday mornings? My roommate in college was one of those guys. Hammered drunk on Saturday night, bleary eyed, but he was in the drum cage in the corner, so you couldn't even see his eyeballs, and he got 100 bucks a set, and you played three, so 300 bucks is hard to turn down, and he could play drums hungover, and he's just fine. What about this? Y'all ever heard of having a very pretty, beautiful young lady sing, but then turn her mic all the way down? That happens all the time. She's pretty, can't sing, turn her all the way down. All the time. My friend Matt has been a part of that. James has been a part of that. Paul's been a part of that. What about this one? Hey, I know it's crunch time, but we need a confetti cannon by Sunday. When somebody told me that, I thought it was a joke. He was dead level serious. Pastor told him, we need a confetti cannon by Sunday. And it was Tuesday. Unbelievable reality. I mean, this is what happens and what things are called churches. We read 1 Samuel 15, the whole thing on purpose. Because what did Saul say? Ultimately in his heart, he was given a directive from God. And then he said, you know what, God, instead of worshiping you by obedience, I'm gonna worship you in a way that I think that would be better. I'm gonna innovate and get a little bit creative. Instead of just killing King Agag like you told me to do as a righteous judgment from God who is sovereign over all life, what I'm gonna do instead is I'm gonna parade him around so that everybody knows how great I am as a king. Because I got this other king and he's tied up and being dragged by a horse. I'm gonna worship you that way. Oh, instead of killing all the animals, we're gonna keep some back. But don't worry, our reason for doing that is at least in part because we wanna worship you with those animals. And what did Samuel say from God to Saul? To obey is better than sacrifice. You don't get to edit and get creative upon the commands of God. You don't get to give him what you think he wants. God rejects Saul entirely, not just his sacrifices, him entirely. Here's the lie that we believe. God will accept whatever worship that I give. Whatever I give, he's gonna accept it. Why? Because we've believed the concept that God is just a grandfather who collects art from his grandkids. No grandfather goes, this macaroni paper is terrible. What were you thinking using the Tiny Mac? You need to use the big Ziti pieces. This is awful. That's not going on the fridge. No, whatever garbage those kids give to their granddad, he says, I love it. Thank you for this. I'm gonna put it on the fridge. I'm gonna buy more fridges so I can put them all over them. That's what grandfathers do. And they're good and right to do that. But that's not who God is. He will say that worship is unacceptable. But we have it in our minds that he doesn't. What was Moses' big sin? Why didn't Moses get to go into the promised land? Numbers 20 verse 12, because you did not believe in me to uphold me as holy. You did not treat me as holy. So one time doesn't get to go in the promised land. Gets to go all the way up to the border and then doesn't get to go in. We have an audience of one and we're seeking to please one because we owe him worship because of what he has done for us and even above that is because of just who he is, who he is. Now secondly, here's the concept we gotta get to. We gotta get to acceptable worship. The category of unacceptable worship, that's making some brains glitch in here, I understand that. But let's go back, Genesis chapter four. Verse one, now Adam knew Eve, his wife, Adam and Eve had been kicked out of the garden, knew Eve, his wife, as she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep and Cain, a worker of the ground. In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell." We read that and we just see like, oh yeah, Cain's a bad guy. And we just kind of skip to he's got to kill his brother. But do you see what's happening there? Cain and Abel were both being called to come to worship. Cain says, I'm gonna give God from what I do best. My specialization is plants, is farming. Abel says, I'm gonna give God what he asked for. which happens to be what I do as a vocation. I take care of animals. It wasn't that the sincerity was off. It was because of the object. You did not give God what he wanted. I mean, think about how many times we do that. I'm not good at these kinds of things like preaching and singing and praying or whatever, but I'm really good at painting. So at church, I'm gonna come and set up an easel and just paint in the corner and that's gonna worship God. He didn't ask for that. This is Cain and Abel. He has no regard for it. And then just go a few books to your left or to your right. Go to Leviticus chapter 10. Leviticus chapter 10 is right after Aaron's offering in chapter nine being accepted, and that his son's being consecrated as priests in chapter eight. Chapter 10, he's got two sons, and their names are Nadab and Abihu. Now, these are the sons of Aaron. Each took his censer, metal pan made to have fragrance things burned on it, hanging from a chain. and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord has said, among those who are near to me, I will be sanctified, and before all the people, I will be glorified. Consider, Nadab and Abihu are the right guys. They are consecrated Levitical priests. They're in the right place. They're in the holy of holies. They're wearing the right clothing and they have the right tools and implements, but yet their worship is wrong. So wrong that God kills them for it. And what does he say? It says, this is unauthorized or strange fire, which he had not commanded them. He didn't command him to do it. You don't get to interpret and do what you want, how you want. Among those who are near to me, I will be treated as holy, unacceptable worship. Now you hear that and you go, okay, yeah, yeah, that's all Old Testament stuff. We don't live in the Old Testament anymore. Colossians 2, 23 is in the New Testament. Let's follow along and read that. It says, These have intended, or these have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they have no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. What was before was a bunch of made up things for worship in verses 20, 22, or 21 and 22. And what does it have? It's promoting self-made religion. It doesn't take a genius to think, I don't know if God's gonna accept self-made religion. And if you look at the real, the King James translate that as will worship. Worship according to your will. What it can literally be is self-imposed worship. This is unacceptable worship. So across our Bible, end to end, we see examples of unacceptable worship. Now, you hear that and you're like, that sounds too severe. My God would never do that. But is not God free to set parameters around his worship? Is your spouse free to tell you exactly how they are blessed on their birthday? Are they free to do that? They are. Now we can be divas and say, well, you didn't do exactly what I want, all that. I'm not saying that, I'm saying this. Can they tell you this is what actually is a blessing to me? This is what actually encourages me. This is what actually makes me feel loved. Of course they're free. And if you love your spouse, your husband or your wife, then you're trying to figure out all the time, what are those things? What actually does make you feel blessed and loved and encouraged, supported, all the rest? You're wanting all of that. What does it tell your spouse when you buy for them what you want for yourself? Honey, it's your birthday and I got you this sweet fishing pole. I'm gonna teach you how to use it, but I'm gonna take it out and break it in and you know, get, that's for you. Honey, I bought you this new DeWalt drill with a big old battery on it. You'll eventually, you know, you hang one or two pictures every 10 years, but this is gonna be good. She'll know this is for you. This isn't for me. So don't try to pass it off as if it's for me. Why do we do the same thing with God? Let me say something that I mean to be as blunt as it is. Why is there not more fear of God in church today? Why? Why aren't we thinking, will God accept this? This sermon, these songs, my heart, this reading, this communion, the way that I've come in, the way that I prepared, will he accept it today? Why isn't there any of that? Think about young men who are trying to propose to their girlfriends and they're trying to buy a ring. What are they obsessed with? Is she gonna like it? They're more afraid of her than Christians are of God. Is he gonna like it? Is he gonna accept it? No, pastor, that's getting too far. We have new covenant freedom. Try to take us back to the old covenant. Oh, Hebrews 12. 28, therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire. What are we, because we've been given so much, because we've been given a kingdom that cannot be shaken, you've been taken out of the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Your citizenship has been changed from being under Adam and son of the devil to being under Christ and a son of God. Because you've been given that, it can't be shaken, rattled, moved or broken. What should you do? Offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe, because he is a consuming fire. God is still rejecting self-imposed worship. Self-made religion will worship. It is incumbent upon all the redeemed to determine if their worship is acceptable to God. So then you should be led to a panic point. How will we know if our worship is acceptable to God? Enter in what is called the regulative principle of worship. We are not the first people to read this Bible. We are not the first people to come down to Christian life, come to these realizations. People have been doing this for thousands of years. If it's new, it's not true. If it's true, it's not new. The regulative principle of worship is a principle that helps us regulate worship. And how is it regulated? Here's how it's regulated. What God does not command to be present in worship, He forbids to be present in worship. If he didn't ask for it explicitly, it's wrong to do it. That's what the regulative principle says. Versus another side that is at least wrestling with these things called the normative principle of worship. If God doesn't forbid it, then we're free to do it. Now that really goes back to the Reformation. Calvin is regulative, Luther is normative. That's why Lutherans have all that extra stuff in their worship service. But if you went to a Calvinistic church, so like the Presbyterians, the Dutch Reformed, those kinds, they got simple, plain, Bible-regulated worship. Now, our confession is of a regulative principle persuasion. Chapter 22. Paragraph one, I'm just gonna read you a sentence from it. It says this, but the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men or the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. Now, the Westminster Confession of Faith says the exact same thing in chapter 21, verse one. So the reformed tradition has always held to this. Here's what the normative principles offers. It offers you no assurance of acceptability. God didn't forbid this, but does he want it? Is this what I owe to him? The regulative principle does give us assurance. God says he wants it right here. So I'm gonna give it with all my heart, knowing that he will receive it and he will take it. A problem for all normative principle churches is where's the line? We know that it can get crazy weird on stuff you're doing on Sundays. But how do you know you've stepped over into weird? Because what was weird 10 years ago is not that weird now. And what was weird 100 years ago looks weird now. How do you know? What's your gauge for doing this? Think about this. The Bible doesn't forbid the live birthing of a calf on stage during worship. So could we not have that happen? and just say, kid, this is nature, this is God's creation. See that, hear that, smell that. You know, I don't know if we should be doing that in worship. Or puppet shows. Bible doesn't forbid having a puppet show, but doesn't that seem just a bit silly and maybe irreverent, but it doesn't forbid it, so technically, you can't tell somebody they're not free to do that. Now, the regulative principle, what it does is it gives us clarity. There are five things that we have to do. We have to sing God's word, the gospel. We have to preach God's word, the gospel. We pray God's word, the gospel. We read God's word, the gospel, and we see God's word, the gospel, in the ordinances. Five things. When we sing, we're looking at Colossians 3, 16, Ephesians 5, 18. Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, sings to one another. When we read God's word, it's commanded, 1 Timothy 4, 13. When we pray. 1 Timothy 2, 1 and 8. When we preach, 2 Timothy 2, 4-2. When we take communion, 1 Corinthians 11. When we baptize, Matthew 28-20. All of these things, we have chapter and verse to say, this is what God wants. This is what pleases God. And we can have confidence in that. And somebody asks you, why do you do it that way in your church? And we go chapter and verse, even our confession of sin and assurance of pardon. Why do you do that? Because we're supposed to, we're commanded to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. And the principle reality of the word of Christ that needs to dwell in us is that I am a great sinner, but Jesus is a greater savior to all who have been, who put faith in him. So all of that, we can point to, this is what we do and why we do it. It's pleasing to God. And the grace of it all, going back to last week, is it's all simple. None of that is dependent upon money, or talent, or expertise, or location. You got a Bible, you can do all of it so that you're edified, but more importantly, God is rightly glorified. And the simplicity of it all. Now, what are the results of rejecting the regulative principle? There are two roads to get to the same place. You can either go the road of megachurch or you can go the road of Rome, Roman Catholic Church. Two roads end up at the same place and they say, the Bible is insufficient. You reject the regular principle, what you're saying ultimately is the Bible is insufficient. Now, Rome does that in this way. We gotta have ceremonies, we gotta have talismans, we gotta have smells and bells, vestments, special clothes, statues, all of these things because the Bible is indeed insufficient. We need all of those things. Mega churches, we need dirt bikes jumping over the pasture, we need subwoofers bigger than a car, we need paid musicians, and we need a water slide that goes into the baptismal because The Bible is insufficient. People won't come for just plain old Bible. They won't stick around if all you do is show them Bible. They won't grow, they won't be connected, they won't make friendships, they won't be worshiping people because the Bible is insufficient. You gotta add some other stuff in there. All under the motto, you can do both those things, both those roads end up in that same place, all under the motto, the Bible doesn't say we can't. in worship. We all know there's a line that's crossed. When you got a water slide going into your baptismal, at some point, you done crossed the line, and it was before the slide. So we all know that line is there, but the normative principle people, that's why pastors burn out. Y'all know that the average, 80% of men who graduate from seminary are out of the ministry in five years. 90% are out in 10 years. Do you know why? Because they're all balancing all that nonsense, or trying to keep up with it, and you never grow, you never get enough money, so you give up. because you're trying to please people who can't be pleased instead of just pleasing God and resting in that. Now, you go into it and they go, well, you, you pastor, you are a hypocrite. You're saying all this stuff, it's not in the Bible, but you got a microphone on your head, and you have chairs, and if we could, we'd have hymnals, all these old things that you think are so good, those aren't in the Bible either. Well, I was like, well, I can do you one more. English is not in the Bible. So then what do we do with that? Well, this is the reality of inside worship, biblically regulated worship, there are two categories, elements and circumstances. Elements are the things we talked about before, that we sing, read, pray, preach, and see God's word, the gospel, in church. We do those five things. Circumstances are the things that support those five things. Elements are things that we are morally obligated to do for the God because he has given us a kingdom that cannot be shaken. We must give those things. So we are in sin if we don't pray, if we don't read the God's word, if we don't take communion, if we don't baptize, if we don't preach, if we don't read his word, we're in sin. If we don't have microphones, we're not in sin. If we don't print out our lyrics on paper, we're not in sin. If we don't have a building, we are not in sin. If we don't meet at 1030, we're not at sin. If we don't preach for 45 minutes, we're not in sin. All of those things are the circumstances that support the elements. So let me give you an example. We have to preach, right? Commandment, 2 Timothy 4.2, preach the word, can't get by it. Now, how long do you preach? What language do you preach in? Do you go sequentially through books of the Bible or do you hop around? All of those things are circumstances that support the thing that we must do. Do you preach with an amplified voice? You can or you can't, it doesn't matter, but you have to preach because there's lots of ways to faithfully support that. You can preach faithfully for 20 minutes, you can preach faithfully for 90 minutes. Y'all are probably not wanting that 90 minutes, but it could be done. Puritans did it, but they also had nowhere to go. You can preach in English, you can preach in Spanish, you can preach in a language that only 14 people speak in some jungle in Papua New Guinea. And that's fine. You can preach sequentially, verse by verse, through the Bible, which is our normal practice, but I can't show you where in Scripture it says you have to do that. Spurgeon never did that. And his preaching was very much Bible-centered. It was preaching the word. So elements and circumstances, they help us negotiate that. And our confession lets us know that that's a reality. Our confession, if you don't know what I mean when I say that, the London Baptist Confession of Faith made in the year 1689, we just call it the 1689 for short. In the first chapter in paragraph six, it says this, there are some circumstances concerning the worship of God and government of the church common to men, actions in societies which are to be ordered by the light of nature and Christian prudence according to the general rules of the word, which are always to be observed." So there are things that you gotta just be prudent and wise about. That's why God gives us a plurality of elders to oversee. Pastor, you're preaching too long, or we don't have enough songs, or we should take communion at this frequency. We should meet at, actually meeting at 11 would be better for most of our families. Or some people in some cultures, meeting in the evening is better because we gotta keep the fields going and the farms going in the mornings. You have elders, we have to meet, but when? Those kinds of things. Now, let me get to this, we're building towards the end here. I wanna almost end with this, the motivations and blessings of the regulative principle of worship. This isn't just cold, hard facts that have no blessings and they don't motivate us in any way. The motivation for this is obedience to God's word. Let me say that again. Any motivation that we have to be obedient to God's word is always singular. Why do we obey God? Because we're grateful for what he's done. Hebrews 12, 28 says, therefore, let us be grateful. Gratitude, that's what motivates us. Why do you not sin in any number of ways? Because I love the Lord God. Why do I read his word? Why do I examine my heart? Why do I die to myself and live to my brothers and sisters in Christ? Why do I go and do things that are scary, like share the gospel with my neighbor or friend? Because I'm so grateful for what he's done. He's given me a kingdom that can't be shaken. He's made it to where I am permanently His child, permanently a citizen of this kingdom. My motivation to give God the worship that He commands is because I'm just so thankful. I'm so thankful. And I just wanna give Him what He wants. When somebody does something amazing for you out of it, you ask them, what can I do for you? And they're like, no, no, no, no, I don't know, don't worry about it. No, no, tell me exactly, explicitly, what would be the best thing that I could do for you? Is it a gift card? Is it a night out? Is it going to a ball game? I wanna do exactly what you want because of what you did for me. That's our motivation for God. But then there's also blessings. The blessings of the regulative principle, the first blessing that came to my head was peace. My first full-time pastorate, larger church down in Houston, got there in December, and then you go through a few things, honeymoon-ish type period, all that stuff, And then Mother's Day came in May on the day we always forget. Nobody knows what Mother's Day is. It just shows up. It was last week. That's why we didn't do that sermon last week. Didn't want to make it look like I was picking on Mother's Day. But Mother's Day is approaching and I start getting emails upon emails upon emails. Pastor, you're not going to do that thing where you have all the moms stand up. and say which one's the oldest, because my dear sweet granny is so embarrassed of being 90 years old, if you do that, it's gonna ruin church for her. Or you're not gonna do that thing where you call out who the youngest is, because that couple is emotional about having a baby so young, and they don't know what they're doing, and they don't wanna stand up and everybody know that. So you better not do that, pastor. It's like, oh, okay, what's your name again? Didn't even know him. And then you go, pastor, you're not gonna do that on Mother's Day and acknowledge mothers because what about all those women that have had miscarriages? That's just gonna be a thorn in their eye. Why would you ever think about doing that? They wanna be a mom and they'd never been a mom before and they want that. Or you're not gonna bring up Mother's Day because have you ever thought about how many people are abused by their moms? How on earth could you possibly bring that up on a Sunday and make us live through that? And the list went on. and on and on. So I became regulative principle and I didn't even know what it was. Because I was like, we're not doing any of this. Because no matter what you do, you're gonna make somebody mad. What is being conveyed in that moment? There, if you do not have a regulative principle, God's worship being regulated by his Bible, primarily for him, you have competing interest groups that demand to be served. on plus or minus, on Father's Day, coming up, same church, month later, why didn't you sing Good, Good Father today? Well, because it's a terrible song. And it sounds like it was made for five-year-olds. But just why you didn't do it? Because that's what I wanted to experience when I came. Competing interest groups, what kind of church is that? That is a church that does not know any peace. because everybody's interest group is not being represented and connected. You can't do this, you can't do that. So then you go, you know, wait a minute, actually, what if we didn't do any of that stuff, and that's what we were supposed to do, and that's what pleased God, and we all knew that and accepted that, and you could celebrate moms and dads on your own when church is over? What if that? What a blessing that would be. And then you can add anything. You can get at Christmas, you can add Easter, you can add Veterans Day, you can add all that stuff. If you don't have a regulated principle, then it's just the pastor versus everybody else. And that leads to chaos and that leads to no peace. What brings peace is regulated worship. The other blessing that it brings is confidence. Confidence. All of us feel at some time, Am I being pleasing to God? And we wrestle with our security of salvation. Am I even saved? Does God even want this? Am I living in a way that is honoring God and how I work and how I live at home and how I have conversations and going on that vacation and buying this nice thing? Is God happy with me? Is he pleased with me? We're not the first person to ever go through that. Look in Scripture, Psalm 19. At the very end, David says, who can discern his errors? He's like, wait, I don't even know how wrong I am. Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins, doing sins I didn't even know were sins, and let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and innocent of great transgression, verse 14. "'Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart "'be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.'" God, let my words, let my internal thoughts be acceptable to you. David can stand assured that he can have that prayer answered because he's living, verses seven through 11. He can pray that, he can express those deep concerns in verses 12 and 13, pray that prayer in verse 14, that let them be acceptable, and he can stand confidently that they will because he's living seven through 11. And seven through 11 says this, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, in keeping them there is great reward." The confidence that you can have when you give a gift to whether it's your kid, your spouse, a friend, and you know that they love it. You know it. There's always those moments at family Christmas where you have to go, oh, thanks, I like it. But when you see them and they can't talk, or they cry, or they're just over the moon, think about how small that is, and ultimately, eternally meaningless that is, aside from the relationships with the believers that are built or encouraged through that. But when you give God what he wants, What kind of, what blessing would he withhold from us? He's given us his own son, and then we give him what he asked for. Man, I can stand in confidence every Lord's day. You're pleased by this. You love this. You want this. The meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth, they are acceptable to you. They are pleasing to you because I'm only giving you back what you gave to me in the Bible. Now, Hebrews 12 and 28, we conclude with this. Hebrews 12, 28, it says that we also do, or 29, rather, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. You see, it's attached with a warning. We give him acceptable worship with reverence and awe. Why? Because our God is a consuming fire, not a warming fire, not a cooking fire, a consuming fire. And Hebrews 10 31 says something similar. It is a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God. We forget too often who God is. John Calvin said it like this, he said, first, it, meaning the regulative principle of worship, it tends greatly to establish God's authority that we do not follow our own pleasure, but depend entirely on His sovereignty. And secondly, such is our folly that when we are left at liberty, all we are able to do is go astray. And then when once we have turned aside from the right path, there is no end to our wanderings until we are buried under a multitude of superstitions. Do you see that? We love having our worship regulated by the Bible because it shows us and everybody else we don't do anything on our own authority. All of this is given to us by God. And secondly, we are kept from wandering into irreverence and disrespect. Because we wander off that path, we're just gonna go further that way. And then when you see when Calvin said, we'll be buried under a multitude of superstitions. I've sat in pastor's gatherings where they're literally saying out loud, men in our area, you just gotta pay your musicians because nobody else is gonna show up to do it. You just have to. So you hear that, you got a small budget, you're buried under a multitude of superstitions. Or if the guy up front doesn't have a collar, and he's not dangling a sensor with stuff in it, or a big hat, and we don't have these kind, then you're buried under a multitude, we don't have that, God's not happy with us. We gotta have all these things buried alive under a multitude of superstitions. And have you guys been around any disenfranchised or disenchanted young people who grew up in those kinds of churches? And you know what they do? They all leave and they go to become Anglican or Lutheran or even Catholic. I know a guy who grew up in the same church as me, then he became Reformed and then he just became Catholic. Now, most of the time what's happening when that is going on is it's just a slow road to apostasy. They're just deconstructing and stopping along the way. But their reasons for leaving, there's even a little book called, Why Do Protestants Convert to Roman Catholicism? And the reasons for leaving is like, there's no reverence, there's no awe, there's nothing holy, there's nothing different, there's no otherness of God. It's just the same junk that I watch on TV and experience every day in my life. I wanna go somewhere where it's different, where it's meaningful, where it's reverential, where it's even historically grounded. And they leave and they go to that. Now, they are most of the time just on their way out the door of Christianity altogether. Nevertheless, that criticism is fair. What we hold to this, the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ is enough. It's enough. And the regulative principle, what it does is it keeps us focused on that which is sufficient, that all who believe will be saved. Where is the power of God put? Romans 1, 16 and 17, where did he put it? In the gospel. So we center the gospel, the saving work of Jesus Christ, that if you have not repented of your sins and turned from them and embraced Christ in faith, you are not saved and you are destined for hell. But if you have turned from those sins and you have embraced Christ in faith, you have no hope in anything else, you've let go of every other rope that you're trying to hold to keep yourself up, you've cast yourself totally on Christ, then you will be saved and you can now glorify him. We say that, that's enough, that brings reverence, that brings all. Through the blood of Christ, we come to worship in spirit and in truth and reverence and awe. There should be a sense of the holiness of God that's present in our gatherings, amen? There absolutely must be. Even though we come into that gathering, like Isaiah comes into that throne room experience in Isaiah 6, and he says, woe to me, I am a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips. I'm a sinner and everybody I know is a sinner. I'm undone. I'm gonna disintegrate. I'm gonna come apart at the molecular seams. But then what happens? An angel comes, gets tongs, goes to the altar, brings off a coal, and touches it to his lips, the primary motive or place where we sin, and he's cleansed. from his sins, and then now what can he do with those cleansed lips? He can join the angels that are flying around the throne saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. And his praise and worship to God is acceptable now because he has been redeemed, he has been cleansed from his sins, and he's worshiping in the way that God's creatures must worship. Amen? Let's pray. Father in heaven, being stricken by the gracious simplicity of your worship. You could have demanded so much from us, Lord. Even looking at the old covenant, what you demanded from them, the gold, the fine linens, the particular dimensions of the altar and the Ark of the Covenant and the big basin of water and the lampstand, all of those things. You gave us so much grace in how we worship you. The simplicity of worshiping in spirit and in truth, with reverence and in awe. Lord, may we never despise the simplicity because it's your grace to us, it's your grace to all of the redeemed, all of the elect that you're calling to yourself from all over the world, that no matter what resources they have that they can offer to you, acceptable worship. You've been so good to us in that, Lord, and we have to ask your forgiveness for all the times that we have come to the gathering with impure motives or distracted minds or... or just unrepentant of sin, or reluctance of not wanting to be here, not wanting to give what you deserve, or when we leave, Lord, and we're disgruntled because it didn't happen our way, or these kinds of things, Lord, forgive us. Forgive us for not being jealous for your name. Create in us a great zeal for your name. What compelled David to run into the teeth of Goliath was that you were being blasphemed. you were being blasphemed and he couldn't stand it. Or may that be our motivation for worship. We cannot stand your name to be blasphemed, to be made little of, but Lord that we would. long to make much of your name, all that we have to burst forth in the simplicity of singing your word, seeing it in the ordinances, preaching it, reading it and praying it, Lord. Would that be acceptable to you? And would we delight to give to you what we owe? You have asked so little of us. You gave your son for us when we hated him and you. And now that we have been made to love him and you through your spirit dwelling within us, we're inconsistent in giving such a small offering, a small, tiny requirement of worship. Lord, help us to grow in that. Help us to zealously skip, sprint to the gathering of God's people to give what we owe because we love you and we just can't wait to give you the gift, or not the gift, the requirement that you've asked. Lord, you are good to us. You are exceedingly good to us. Stir in us hearts of worship in everything that we do. on the gathering of the Lord's day. We pray this all in Christ's name.