Worship Directed By the Word

            Who determines how we worship God when we gather together each week? Is it the congregation? The unbelieving world which serves as our mission field? The pastor and the leaders of the church? A combination of all of the above? Is God’s only concern that we worship Him but not necessarily how we go about that worship? That as long as He is the center of our worship, He is okay with what we do? Well, let’s turn to His Word and see what He has said about it. He has not left us in the dark concerning His perspective of His worship by His people.

            When we come to Scripture and pay attention to how God has treated worship throughout the history of His relationship with His people, we find that He very much cares not only that we worship Him alone but also in regards to how we worship Him. This is the same God Who told the people specifically where they were to worship Him after He delivered them from Egypt. They weren’t to go wherever they wanted but to conduct their worship “at this mountain” (Exodus 3:12). He clearly called the shots with their worship. The second of the Ten Commandments prohibits the false worship of Him (Exodus 20:4; Deuteronomy 5:8-10). He told the people of Israel exactly how, detail by detail, they were to build the tabernacle and all its furniture where He was to be worshiped (Exodus 20-40). He did not leave it to themselves to decide. We have instructions in the book of Leviticus how their worship was to be conducted. And in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul laid out some principles that the Corinthians should put into practice in regards to their corporate worship together. 

It clearly appears that God does have a great concern in how He is worshiped by His people. In fact, He did not take it too kindly when Aaron’s two sons, Nadab and Abihu, decided that they could offer the incense for the altar differently than God had prescribed. That actually wound up being the last offering they ever made on this earth (Leviticus 10:1-3)! I fear that too many churches today are just as guilty of offering up “strange fire” to the Lord in their worship and it is only on account of the mercy of the Lord that they do meet the same fate as these two brothers. Or we can look at the case of Uzzah when he touched God’s holy ark (2 Samuel 6:5-11; 1 Chronicles 13:7-11). He was struck down on the spot! It all could have been prevented had they been careful to transport the ark the way that God had specified by His Word (Exodus 25:14; 1 Chronicles 15:13). In both of these cases, we see that God desires to be worshiped according to His Word.

What does this mean for us as a congregation whose desire it is to be obedient to God’s Word in all that we do? It means that God’s Word must direct or regulate our worship. (Some have called this the “regulative principle for worship.”) Yes, we are given freedom within the parameters that the Lord has laid out for us but we want to be careful that we don’t cross those boundaries. Our first concern must always be that whatever is done in our worship is done according to God’s Word. The simple principle is, “If God says or implies to do it, then we do it.” “If He hasn’t revealed that we should do it, then we have no business doing it.” We don’t want to be another Nadab and Abihu disregarding God’s clear commands as to how we are to worship Him. The question should not ultimately be “How do the members of the congregation want to worship God?” or “How is the church down the street conducting their worship?” But rather, “What has God said in His Word?” And since none of us are perfect, this means that we need to be open to changing things in our worship service as we continue to study God’s Word together seeing how He is directing us in our worship. One of the slogans of the Reformers was “always reforming,” the idea that the church continues to reform in conformity to the Word of God as they are shaped more and more by it’s teaching.

There are a few things that must be present in every gathering we have for worship that God has specified for us in His Word. For one thing, He tells us that the Word of God must be read to the assembly (1 Timothy 4:13). The Word of God must also be preached (2 Timothy 4:2), prayed (1 Timothy 2:4), sung (Ephesians 5:19), and shown (Baptism and Communion; the ordinances). The focus must continually be on God and His Word (Psalm 138:2). These are the boundaries that the Lord Himself has established for us. How we are to operate within those boundaries, we’ll look at next month, including the often contentious issue of what this indicates about the songs we are to sing together as a body.

Love in Christ,

Pastor Lee