Worshipping God HIS way

How would you feel if we had a service for our pets here in Hillhall. I mean, God has given us animals and he has asked us to rule over them. And we have pets and have a love for our pets and a great affinity for pets.

So why not have a service where we bring our pet and let them participate in worship of God as a thanksgiving to him for giving us the pets in the first place?

Or how about introducing the waving of flags during worship? Some churches do this - why don’t we have a place where people can grab a flag and wave it as an act of worship to God?

Pause

Before you decide that these are good ideas or bad ideas, let me ask you this...

How do we know what is not allowed in worship and what IS allowed?

Well, in the Presbyterian Church, we subscribe to what is called The Regulative Principle.

And what the regulative principle of worship says is this...

That only those things that are explicitly given in the bible as a means of worshipping God is allowed in our worship services.

Now, we’re talking worship SERVICES here, not everyday life.

So what that means is that whatever God tells us in his word that we should do in worship - that’s what we do. In other words, we worship God in the way HE tells us to worship and not in whatever way we THINK we can or should worship.

Pause

Now, there is another school of thought that other denominations use, whether they know it or not, and that’s called The Normative Principle.

And what the normative principle states is that as long as God doesn’t explicitly FORBIT it, anything goes in our worship services.

Pause

So if we take my suggestion about a service for pets. The regulative principle states that God doesn’t ANYWHERE in the bible state that pets should be part of our worship services and so we don’t have a service for pets. End of...

Similarly with flags - nowhere in the bible does God say that we should worship him with flags in corporate worship and so we don’t have flags.

That’s why we don’t see flag waving or pet services in the Presbyterian Church - at least we shouldn’t.

But if you subscribe to the normative principle, then it doesn’t say anywhere in the bible NOT to have a pets in a worship service, so let’s do it…same with flags.

Pause

Where am I going with this, you might be asking.

Well, in our study on Moses, we’re at a scene where the Israelites do what is right in THEIR eyes. They worship God in THEIR own way and not in the way God tells them to worship.

And it has major consequences.

Pause

Moses is gone 40 days…hardly a lifetime, but the Israelites think that he’s gone for good. God’s stuck him down and there goes our representative to Yahweh.

So they go to Aaron and tell him to make another god that will replace Moses as representative. And Aaron gives in and makes a golden calf which is worshiped as an image of Yahweh. It’s not worshiped instead of Yahweh - it’s not the first commandment that the Israelites are breaking per se....but more the 2nd commandment.

Exodus 20:4 NIV

4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

And the reason why they aren’t so much breaking the first commandment is because Aaron says, ‘tomorrow we’ll feast to the LORD.’ Tomorrow we will worship Yahweh…VIA this golden calf.

Exodus 32:6 ESV

6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.

They rose to play…and the word ‘play’ is loaded with sexual connotation…They were essentially having a big party, indulging and having an orgy - in other words they were worshipping Yahweh in the same way the other cults worshipped their gods - sex and indulgence.

Pause

Now, as you can imagine, Yahweh wasn’t happy with this. He says to Moses...

Exodus 32:10 NIV

10 Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

He’s about to wipe them out. But Moses pleads with the Lord to relent, which he does, but when Moses sees what’s happening it’s HIS turn to burn with anger.

Down he comes with the two stone tablets, he’s furious and he throws the stone tablets on the ground and then he smashed them.

He didn’t throw them in a fit of rage and they smashed accidentally. He was in a fit of rage, and so he purposefully smashed these tablets.

Now why did he do that?

Because the tablets were the written terms and conditions of the covenant that God made with his people. And by smashing them, Moses was symbolising that the covenant was broken.

‘Come on guys - you couldn’t last 40 days without breaking the conditions of the covenant?’

Pause

Now, thankfully God was merciful - he didn’t wipe out the nation of Israel which he could have done and was well within his rights to do.

Exodus 32:14 NIV

14 Then the Lord relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.

But at the same time, the people were punished for their sin...

Exodus 32:35 NIV

35 And the Lord struck the people with a plague because of what they did with the calf Aaron had made.

But thankfully, God decided to make a NEW covenant with his people - a renewed covenant, and he sends Moses back up the mountain in chapter 34 to receive a new copy of the tablets...

Exodus 34:1 NIV

1 The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.

Pause

Now, what happened here is also repeated through the bible…because the Israelites couldn’t even keep this new covenant. And they broke it again and again and again.

But thankfully God is merciful and he made a new covenant in Jesus Christ, which we talked about last week - and that new covenant is a covenant of grace through faith in Jesus and not through obeying terms and conditions.

Pause

But here’s the thing…While God is merciful and gracious - he’s also a God of wrath. He asks us…commands us…to do things HIS way, and when we don’t he’s not happy.

We see that in our text.

And you can see why, because these guys were blatantly disobeying a command from God not to make any graven image and worship it.

Pause

But what about today in our services of worship?

Do we worship God in the way he has laid out for us in scripture - i.e. follow the regulative principle?

Do we ASSUME that God is happy with our worship by doing things the way WE think WE want worship him, as long as he doesn’t tell us not to - i.e. the normative principle?

Pause

Let me tell you what scares me....if God tells me how to worship him and I don’t worship him that way, then I’m not pleasing him.

And I also don’t want to base anything that I do as an act of worship to God on ASSUMPTION…that’s a really dangerous game to play.

‘I’m doing this, assuming that God is happy, but I don’t know for sure.’

See, I’d rather KNOW that God will accept my sacrifice of worship than simply GUESS that he MIGHT be happy with it.

I mean, if he burned with anger at the people in Exodus 32, I don’t want to do anything that would make God anything other than happy and pleased with my sacrifice of worship.

Pause

Which is why, in the Presbyterian Church, we subscribe to the regulative principle of worship. Let’s not assume that God is happy with our worship - let’s KNOW that he is because we are worshipping him the way HE has told us to worship him.

Pause

Now, some may say - you’re using PowerPoint in church. That’s not mentioned in the bible…True, it isn’t…but it’s the written word, and whether it’s written on stone tablets, papyrus, paper, or displayed on the screen, it’s still the written word.

And even within reformed traditions, there are different levels to which people will go. We have musical instruments - the Reformed Presbyterians don’t, because they believe that the use of musical instruments as described in the Old Testament and the Psalms were a way of worship in the Old Covenant and there’s no mention of that in the New Testament.

And the danger is that we can tie ourselves up in knots and lose creativity and dynamism in worship.

But the point is - if God tells us how to worship him, let’s worship him THAT way. Let’s not add what WE think might be a good idea, because the way we think is sinful and the way God thinks is perfect.

So let this enhance your worship of God…because as you sing to him and read his word and hear his word preached, you can be in AWE that this is how God wants you to worship him. You’re doing what he is asking of you and he is happy with that.

Worshipping God should be much more reverent than we realise. Let’s remember that every time we worship him.

But let’s also remember that God hasn’t left us to guess how we should worship and please him - he’s told us in his word.