Brothers and sisters, since we are a church under the commission of Christ to go and make disciples of all nations, we aspire to be a church that is growing in number. We do so not just to be larger, but to honor Christ and to see sinners saved and saints preserved within this world that is passing away. And because we want to grow in number, So we might wonder what visitors think as they join us in worshiping God each Lord's Day. The way we worship is quite unique. That's the nice way to put it. We are weird in the way we worship God. Maybe the better word, somewhat in between unique and weird, might be different. We are quite different in our worship of God, but whatever word we use, this we are because we seek to follow faithfully the instructions of God's Word. And we need to be careful, I think, when we say and acknowledge this, because the point is not to boast in ourselves. Neither should we mean to stand in harsh judgment upon other churches that preach Christ and the gospel, yet while worshiping God in ways that we do not, as if that keeps them from being a true church. But at the same time, we do practice what is called the regulative principle, which means that we approach God to worship Him in no other way than He has commanded in His word. These are the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, question and answer 96, that God's will for us in the Second Commandment is that we in no way make any image of God nor worship Him in any other way than He has commanded in His Word. One of the practices that then flows out of the regulative principle is the practice of not using instrumentation in our worship of God. It's not that we ignore the Old Testament as we seek to be instructed in how to worship him. But as we look at the early church described in the Book of Acts, and as we read the instruction of the apostles in their in their letters to the church, we we hear nothing of the use of instruments to accompany the singing of the church. Perhaps we should point out by way of review, I think this is review, that the reason there are five main elements to Reformed worship is because we find each and all of them in the practice of the early church in the Book of Acts, including, number one, the preaching of the Word, number two, the observance of the Lord's Supper, number three, prayer, four, singing to God, and five, bringing offerings to God. Again, we do these things because we see the early church not only doing them in their worship of God, but persisting in doing them. There are other things that we can see the Church doing at first, but we can see in Scripture that these practices did not continue, including miracles of healing and speaking in tongues. But these five things did continue, preaching the Word, the Lord's Supper, prayer, singing to God, and bringing offerings to Him. And so our visitors may find it unique, different, or even weird that we do not use instruments to accompany our singing to God. Our hope then is that they will take their time with us and return long enough to find out the reason. And that's what I want us to think about this evening. And specifically by asking this question, Why do we sing to God about instruments even while we sing without instruments as we do in the Psalms? One rebuttal that might come when we point out that instruments were not used in the New Testament church is that they were certainly used in the Old Testament church, which the Psalms make clear. So how should we understand it, especially as we sing Psalms like Psalm 150, where quite a number of instruments are not only mentioned, but even called for in the worship of God. Looking at Psalm 150, the first point is the call to praise God, which is what we hear in the opening words, praise the Lord. Remember that the words praise the Lord offer little actual praise to God, except that they serve as the call to praise the Lord. If it helps, think of the grammar of it. It's an understood you, as we say. So that to say praise the Lord is really to say you praise the Lord. It's the same as when you say, come here or hand me that flashlight or pick up some pork chops on your way home tonight. What you are really saying is you come here, you hand me, you pick up some pork chops in the same way to say praise the Lord is to say you praise the Lord, you there, whatever you're doing. I have something better for us to do together, which leaves much to be offered in actual praise to God. Although hopefully there will be at least two together rather than just one declaring God's mighty deeds and His glorious character. Even more, Psalm 150 is a somewhat rare psalm that is composed almost entirely as a call to worship. For a total of 13 times, we hear the call to praise God, even as the various aspects of God's praise are mentioned, including the location of His praise, the reason for His praise, the instruments to be used, and finally, who it should be. Praising the Lord. In the end, the only bit of overt praise to God in Psalm 150 comes in verse two, when it says, praise him for his excellent greatness. Only in that statement is something actually said about God, which is what praise always is, no matter who is being praised. Even as we praise our children, we might possibly say, though probably not, I praise you. But even if we did start out with, I praise you, we would go on to say, you got an A on your math test. Or you sure are growing up to be a fine young lady. And so it is with God that to praise him is to declare certainly to him, but also to others with us and even to ourselves to declare what he has done to reveal his glorious character to us. Next, as we already mentioned, the location of praising the Lord. The rest of verse one reads, praise God in his sanctuary, praise him in his mighty heavens. And that's really two locations. So that by the two together, it conveys both the nearness of God, as well as the highness of God. Or it could be said both the gracious condescension of God to dwell with his people as well as the sovereign power and supreme authority of God as he reigns from on high overall. This is one way that the temple in Jerusalem prefigured Christ. Under the old covenant, God condescended to draw near to his people and to dwell in a temple And just so, even more so, God condescended in the person of Christ to draw so near to us as to take on our flesh. John writes, And the word became flesh and dwelt, that is, tabernacled among us. And Jesus even referred to his own body as the temple of God, saying, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. But by naming the sanctuary of God as the location of his praise, it makes it clear that here is a psalm to be sounded at the temple. Perhaps it was even a psalm to be sung by the people on their way to the temple to worship God. The call is to come to to join in the throng of God's people going up to the temple to worship their God. And by naming as well the location of his mighty heavens as Psalm 150 or so, Psalm 150 acknowledges that God is not like the pagan gods who are confined to a temple. He is the God who reigns over and above all creation. Upon the dedication of the temple, King Solomon put it this way in his prayer. He prayed, "'Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you, how much less this house that I have built.'" Then in Psalm 150, the reason for praising the Lord. Verse 2 says, "'Praise Him for His mighty deeds. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.'" Here we have opportunity to review two lessons that we have heard in the past. First, that the true worship of God, of the one true God is always a response, a response to what He has done. We must not think to worship God voluntarily by the sheer choice to do so for only some spiritual experience. I believe there is too much of this error in the church today. It's not so much that God has done something to draw the praise of His people, but people just think it fitting to worship. At times, it almost seems like it doesn't really matter what God is worshiped, so long as the experience of worship is felt. We see this in the church today and how the praise of God often does get reduced to the expression, praise the Lord, or we glorify You, or we exalt You. While such expressions do arise from the Psalms, yet they are mistaken for the praise itself. So that often little gets said beyond those expressions. And there is little actual real witness to the world of the mighty deeds that God has done in history recorded in Scripture. Instead, such expressions get repeated over and over again in song, maybe even with tears running down cheeks. But where are the tears coming from? Are they coming from the knowledge of God who, by the sacrifice of His Son, gave hell to Him and heaven to us? Or are the tears coming from the experience? We shouldn't be against experience, but the emotions of worship must arise from the words that we sing, not from the music or from the lighting or from any other external means of generating the experience, dare we say, manipulating the experience. One modern scholar recently made this point in an article that he entitled, Is It Worship? Or is it dopamine? It's a good question, I think, to consider. We also see this error in the scorn of doctrine within the church. The word doctrine is a biblical word, so that no one ought to throw it out at face value. But we should be even less inclined to throw it out when we understand that doctrine simply means teaching. The doctrine of God is what the Bible teaches about God. The doctrine of sin is what the Bible teaches about sin. The doctrine of salvation is what God's Word teaches about our salvation in Christ. And yet there are those who seem to say, don't give me doctrine, I just want to worship. We need to see that that makes no sense, at least not when it comes to Christian worship, biblical worship of God. Psalm 150, verse 2 says, praise Him for His mighty deeds. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. And this is why the reading and preaching of scripture is also how we worship God, because as God's word is read and preached, the mighty deeds of God are being proclaimed. The character of God is being revealed. The preacher isn't singing when he preaches. And you should be glad of that when I'm the one preaching. And the congregation may only be listening But the preaching of God's Word is all about proclaiming the mighty deeds of God for the revealing of His praiseworthy character as the one true God. That leads to the second lesson to review, that God is indeed revealed to us by what He has done. Verse two is a good example of parallelism in Hebrew poetry. Two statements, one following the other, saying much the same thing. Therefore, as the words mighty deeds are replaced or we might say restated by the words His excellent greatness, the connection is made for us. The mighty deeds of the Lord are or have revealed His excellent greatness. Our catechism asks, what is God? And it answers, God is spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. But have you ever thought about it? If God is spirit, and therefore invisible to us, then the question is raised, how do we know all these further attributes of God? Maybe we should just say, God is spirit. But we know God, we gain the knowledge of him by what he has done. We trust him and worship him, proclaiming what he is revealed by his mighty deeds. And so we come to the instruments of praising the Lord, and it's about time, right? I mean, wasn't this sermon supposed to be about instruments in worship? But what I would have us to see is that the first part of Psalm 150 really does help us understand the numerous references to instruments in verses three through five. It says, praise him with trumpet sound, praise him with lute and harp, praise him with tambourine and dance, praise him with strings and pipe, praise him with sounding cymbals, praise him with loud clashing cymbals. If you were counting, there is reference here to seven instruments to be used in worshiping the Lord. Trumpet, lute, harp, tambourine, strings, pipe, and cymbals. And there it is, right? Here is the clear prescription for the use of instruments in worship. And every reference to an instrument, sometimes two instruments together, but every reference comes behind the words, praise Him with, so that we could read it as a call, even a command from God that we should use instruments in worship. But there is a problem, which is this, that we have already heard in verse one, the call to praise God in His sanctuary. which is a clear reference to the temple in Jerusalem. So does that mean that we must have a temple to worship in? Does it mean that we must travel to Jerusalem to worship God? I don't think there is anyone who would argue that Psalm 150 is calling us to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. In fact, Jesus even taught us in John 4, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. So unless there is a contradiction in scripture, which there isn't, Psalm 150 cannot be teaching us to worship at the temple in Jerusalem. And at the same time, is Psalm 150 calling for the use of instruments in worship? It certainly was at the time that Psalm 150 was written and sung in ancient Israel. These were the instruments that were used for worshiping God at the temple. But even as we do not worship at the temple in Jerusalem, even as we do not bring animal sacrifices, so we do not take the liberty to use instruments in worship without seeing such practice in the early church or hearing instruction for it from the apostles. Now, someone might ask, well, doesn't that make an entire chapter of the Bible obsolete? But Psalm 150 does have much to teach us. There is the call to praise the Lord, a call that is certainly given to the covenant people of God under both the Old Covenant and the New. There is the simple and yet always profound reference here to the Lord, Yahweh, the covenant name of God, the same God of Scripture throughout, whose promises of old have now been fulfilled for a new covenant in Christ's blood. Also, even the call to praise God in His sanctuary can be heard as how we now worship God in Christ. Last Sunday we heard the Apostle Paul in Romans 1 exclaim, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you. So this reference to continues as we understand it under the New Covenant and by way of the teaching of the apostles that we enter into Christ by faith. so that we praise God in his sanctuary, which is to say we praise him and we thank him and we worship him in Christ. Further, the call to praise God for his mighty deeds still belongs to us, even as the Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians one, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. And Paul goes on in Ephesians one to to be very specific about how God has blessed us in Christ. What specifically are the deeds of God in Christ? He chose us. He predestined us. He redeemed us. He forgave us. He united all things in Christ. He sealed us with the Holy Spirit so that he might guarantee heaven to us. Therefore, the praise of God continues in our day, even as we have the knowledge of God through the fullness of the mighty deeds of God in Jesus Christ, our Savior. As we make these applications of Psalm 150 by way of the teaching of the apostles, it makes the silence of the apostles on instruments all the more conspicuous. The apostles teach us much that can be traced back to Psalm 115, 150. And yet they say nothing, conspicuously nothing of instruments in worship. At the same time, it raises the question, why? Why didn't the practice of using instruments to accompany the church's singing to God continue into the worship of the early church? It's hard, but I believe the best answer is a very good answer. And we can draw this from Psalm 150 as well, because there is yet another instrument mentioned in Psalm 150 that we haven't identified yet. And it's the instrument that is even the main instrument, the most important instrument in Psalm 150. It's the voice of man. It's the voice. Of the believer who is who is being called to declare the mighty deeds of God and to join his or her voice with the one voice, that's why I read Romans 15, 1-7, because it speaks of that one voice singing. As a congregation sings of God's mighty deeds, even in our own day, clearly the voice of the believer is called for in verse 2. Praise Him for His mighty deeds. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Instruments alone cannot declare the mighty deeds of God in Christ. The sound of an instrument is beautiful if it be played well. The sound of an instrument can be moving if it be played with skill and emotion. But there is no more beautiful sound to God than the voice of his people singing his praises. It is arguably the main point in Psalm 150 that despite the reference to all these temple instruments, yet the point is that the people of God would sing. Because look how Psalm 150 ends. The psalmist finally departs from the pattern he has been following. Praise the Lord, the psalmist starts out. Praise God, he continues. Praise Him, he writes another nine times over. But here then is the conclusion. In the end, let everything that has breath praise the Lord. And this act of worship must certainly, most certainly continues in the teaching of the apostles. Going back to those five elements of worship, those five ways that we worship God yet today, they are found all together in Acts 2, where we see the church praising God. And if we doubt that they were praising God in song, We need only hear the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 15, as he writes, I will sing praise with my spirit. I will sing praise also with my mind. And in Colossians 3, verse 16, Paul instructs the church, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God." The true and faithful church has always been the singing church, exactly because God has always called the church to sing to Him. Even in Psalm 150, the songs of the people are the main point. Actually, if we drop back a step, the main point is the worship of God. But how is God to be worshipped? What will give Him glory? Let us ask God that question and expect that His answer will come by His Word. From the beginning of the world, God has always regulated His worship. from the seventh day of creation in which He rested and thereby called all mankind to rest in the knowledge that He is Creator God, to the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, one which pleased Him while the other did not, to the tabernacle where Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, were struck down for their strange fire, To the temple, where again, every detail of Israel's worship was regulated by God. And finally, to the worship of the new covenant in Christ's blood, as the Holy Spirit sent by Christ gave form and content to the worship of the early church as a model and a prescription for us still today. God has always regulated his worship. So that still today, we do not worship God by deciding for ourselves what would be interesting to do. We do not take a survey to find out what people would find meaningful. Instead, we seek to worship Him in no other way than He has commanded in His Word. And even still, we do nothing perfectly. Even our best effort, our worship, must yet be mediated by Christ, so that He, by His merit, makes our worship worthy. But that does not give us license to be careless. Neither are we free to be creative, no matter how zealous our creativity. As John Calvin wrote, and I'll close with this, he wrote, Whatever we undertake from zeal to His worship, if at variance with His command, what do we gain by a contrary course? The words of God are clear and distinct. Obedience is better than sacrifice." Amen. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank You the joy and the delight of worshiping you in such a simple way and yet a way that is profoundly moving for us and meaningful to you. We sing to you and we thank you that indeed through Christ our weak effort is always made perfect. And we do pray that You would give us the humility to ask of You how You would have us to worship You. And help us to be satisfied with that. And do give us the experience of joy and peace as we worship You. As we praise You, return to us that powerful reminder of what a great and mighty God you are, and that you are our God through Jesus Christ. In His name we pray. Amen.