| Beloved, Massive tomes could be written to explain all the nuances of our second core principle – God-ordered worship. The worship of God is one of the primary themes of Scripture and it is our most important vocation as redeemed image-bearers. There is a sense in which we cannot think or talk about it too much! But for our purposes here, we will limit ourselves to one final principle. Here is what we have seen so far: The Regulative Principle: we believe that the Lord whom we worship is the Lord of worship, and thus His revealed will must regulate the elements/ordinances through which we exalt Him. The Assembly Principle: we believe that biblical worship necessitates the public, embodied assembling of God’s people in His holy presence, and that such gatherings are essential, not optional. The Calendar Principle: we believe that Sunday is the Christian Sabbath and is to be devoted to God which is best carried out through morning and evening public worship. And now we come to one final principle which we could call the heart principle. You see, if we assemble together on the Lord’s Day and approach God through the elements He has ordained, but we do it without enlivened, enlarged, and engaged hearts, then we actually fall short of worship as God desires it. In my Bible reading this morning, I read the first half of Amos’ prophecy. In chapter five God says, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.” Those are sobering words. God’s people are engaging in the right elements of worship at the right place and at the right time. But God despises it! Why? If you read the entire prophesy, it is clear that the reason is because their hearts are far from God. They don’t love God. Their lives evidence that they are not set apart unto and devoted to God. We can hold doggedly to the regulative principle, frown upon livestream, be strict Lord’s Day observers, and yet be void of the smile of God. For all of those things are vanity and hypocrisy, if God doesn’t have our hearts. True worship is affectionate exaltation of God. Without holy, God-ward affections, our singing, our praying, our partaking, and our hearing is not worship. The heart is absolutely vital! And so our fourth principle is this: We believe to carry out the right elements in God’s worship without affections that are reverently, attentively, and lovingly engaging with God is idolatry. To be honest, there is rarely a Lord’s Day that goes by where I do not find myself at some point in the service asking God for forgiveness and help because I recognize my praying or my singing or my preaching has been void of whole-souled, heart engagement. I presume that all of us struggle here. Let me encourage you that when you find yourself lacking reverence, attentiveness, and love toward God in public worship, to bring your heart to Him immediately, asking for forgiveness and for Him to overtake your heart in His renewing power unto His worship. When your heart is lagging, even if it be in the middle of the sermon, cry out to Him for grace! He loves to meet us in our weakness and sin. And there are few prayers He delights to answer more than the prayer, “Renew a right spirit within me!” Friends, let us prepare our hearts for this coming Lord’s Day so that with the whole of our redeemed humanity we might give ourselves to God’s elements in God’s house on God’s day to the end of glorifying and enjoying Him. See you Sunday! Yours in Christ, Pastor Nick |
