Does the Bible Tell Us How to Worship God?

So one of the things I'm really passionate about as a pastor is worship and liturgy. Liturgy is kind of an intimidating word, but when I'm using it, I'm just referring to the order of a church's worship. Every church has a kind of liturgy.

Some churches are more liturgical, maybe high church, other churches tend to have announcements, a few songs, a sermon, maybe communion, maybe not. But there's a question about whether or not God's word tells us how we should worship him. Does God reveal to us in the scriptures the way in which he wants to be worshiped or not? There is debate about this in the Christian church.

That's what I want to be talking with you about. And I want to highlight one distinction that's really, really important for understanding properly ordered worship. So the first thing I want to say is that God does not just care about the fact that he is worshiped, that he's being worshiped sincerely. He actually also cares about how he's worshiped. And I want to share a story from the Bible with you that really illustrates this. It's in the Old Testament in the book of Leviticus, in Leviticus chapter 10, the first few verses, you have these two priests, Nadab and Abihu, and they're offering incense before the Lord, but the way in which they offer this incense is displeasing to God.

Actually, he ends up killing them. He strikes them down with this holy fire. And there's debate about what exactly they did wrong. There are some people that think, well, we think Nadab and Abihu were drunk when they offered this worship to God. They entered into the temple courts intoxicated. Other people think maybe they wandered too far into the temple, into the Holy of Holies, and so God struck them down.

Others think, well, maybe the incense that they offered wasn't up to Levitical code. We're not entirely sure, but what we do know is that it wasn't worship according to how God had prescribed, and so God judged them. Throughout the Old Testament in particular, you have these clear instructions for how God wanted to be worshiped, especially in places like the Book of Leviticus. Now, in the New Testament, and for us as believers under the New Covenant, as Christians today, we don't have a Book of Leviticus that tells us this is exactly what your worship service should look like in this particular way it needs to be offered. But we do have really clearly displayed, I think, in the pages of the New Testament, throughout the pages of the New Testament, what we sometimes refer to as the elements of worship. Now, before I get to the elements of worship, I just want to highlight the fact that, actually, even for believers in the time of the New Testament, God still cares about how he's worshiped.

He wants to be worshiped with reverence and awe. It's not like God cared about how he was worshiped in the Old Testament. Now, in the New Testament, it's like we're making it up as we go or just we can worship God however we want. Listen to two passages from the New Testament that clearly demonstrate this. The first one is in Hebrews chapter 12, and I even think there's some allusions there, too, that's seen in Leviticus chapter 10. At the very end of describing New Covenant worship for the believer coming before the heavenly Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem, the author to the Hebrews says this, Hebrews chapter 12 verse 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.

Of course, that's what Nadab and Abihu learned. They didn't worship God with reverence and awe, and so God consumed them with fire. God still today, right now, wants to be worshiped with reverence and awe. He's still in the business of judging us when we fail to do that. The other passage I wanted to bring up for you was one in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, and there, again, Paul is talking about what takes place in the context of worship, in particular, when Christians are taking the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion, and he says this in 1 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 29, for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died, but if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged, but when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. Now, this is really remarkable. Essentially, Paul is saying the way you are worshiping God, the way you're partaking of Holy Communion in church is leading some of you to fall under the judgment of God.

Some of you, he says, have even gotten sick and died. God still cares about how he's worshiped today, and in the New Testament, he's given us the various elements of worship. Now, what's that distinction I was talking about that's really important for understanding how to properly order a worship service? It's sometimes what we refer to as the distinction between the elements of worship and the circumstances of worship.

The elements of worship are those things that throughout the pages of the New Testament we see as making up the worship service, the key pieces, the key elements of a Christian worship service. Circumstances of worship are those things which we use human wisdom to determine for the gathering together of the saints. You think of a circumstance of worshiping something like the time we meet. The church that I pastor, we meet at 9 a.m. Some people would like a little bit later.

Some people would like a little bit earlier, but that works for us. That works for our congregation. We wouldn't meet at 6 a.m. or at 5 a.m. or at 12 p.m., let's say, because that just wouldn't work for our congregation. It's one of those circumstantial things that's important to the worship service but isn't a core element. In other words, we can meet at different times, and that doesn't change whether or not we're having a worship service. You have to be able to distinguish between the elements of worship, those key elements that make a worship service that's pleasing to God, and the circumstances of worship that are ordered according to just wisdom and wanting to make sure that we're serving the people well as we're gathering together. Now, what are those elements of Christian worship?

One passage I like to go to in order to point them out is found in the book of Acts in Acts 2. Right after Peter had preached his famous Pentecost sermon, we read in verse 42, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Right there, we have at least three elements of Christian worship. First and foremost, the apostles' teaching. That is, Christian worship centers around the proper teaching, preaching of the word of God. There needs to be the proclamation of the word, the law and the gospel, God's word coming to us from heaven to encourage us, to exhort us, to build us up in the faith.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, Paul says in Romans chapter 10. If you don't have the word being proclaimed, you don't have true Christian worship. It's so interesting to me as a pastor because a lot of times when people talk about worship today, they say, well, what's the worship like at your church? What they mean is, well, what kind of songs do you sing?

What's the style of the music? But the reality is the entire service, the taking of the Lord's supper, communion, the preaching of the word, the prayers is a part of the worship. First and foremost, one of the most key elements of worship is preaching and teaching the Bible. This is something that we see throughout the book of Acts.

It's also what Paul charges Timothy to do in 2 Timothy chapter 4, preach the word. But you don't just have preaching there in Acts chapter 2, you also have the breaking of bread or that could be translated the breaking of the bread. Holy communion, like we saw in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, this meal that Jesus instituted for the good of the church to be offered up in thanksgiving for the gracious work of the gospel on our behalf. So you have the idea of the ordinances of the church, baptism and the Lord's supper.

Of course, on the day of Pentecost, many people had just been baptized after they heard the preaching of the word and they joined this community of faith that is centered around the apostolic doctrine and the breaking of the bread, holy communion. You also have prayer. Prayer is a key element of properly ordered worship. The entire service in one sense is a prayer that's offered up to God. We as a priesthood of believers are offering our prayers to the Lord corporately in Christian worship.

So Christian worship is characterized by prayer to God, to the Father, through Jesus Christ our great high priest and by the power of the Holy Spirit. We also have collecting of tithe and offerings and there is a debate. Maybe we'll do a video on that sometime about whether or not Christians are obligated by those commands to tithe in the Old Testament. But one thing we do see in the New Testament is that on the first day of the week, that is Sunday, Christians would gather together for preaching and teaching and that one of the things they did on that day as well was they collected an offering for the needs of the poor, for the needs of the saints. You see this in places like 1 Corinthians chapter 16 verses 1 and 2 and so caring for one another.

That might be even the idea of fellowship that we saw back in Acts chapter 2 verse 42 certainly. Lastly, you have singing and again like I said that's many people think is the most important element of worship or the only thing that they think about when they think about worship. You know the music, the singing and certainly it is an element of Christian worship. Paul in Ephesians chapter 5 talks about singing to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. You know 1 Corinthians chapter 14 talks about singing to the Lord. This is a part of Christian worship and so what are the elements of Christian worship? We have first and foremost the preaching of the word of God, the right administration of those ordinances that Jesus left for the church, baptism and the Lord's supper. We have fellowship you know gathering together resources for the needs of the saints, for the need of the ministry of the word and the advancement of the gospel in the world, praying and singing. These things are of the essence of Christian worship and look we can differ on some of the circumstances of worship. You know how long does your pastor preach for?

At what time do you guys meet? What about the style of the worship? There can be debate about that but we can't get rid of these elements. There needs to be the faithful preaching of the word of God. We're gathering together to hear from God and to call upon his name and if we aren't doing that then we're not worshiping him. This month at SOLA we're offering our listeners the booklet Law and Gospel by Michael Horton and Bob Hiller. This booklet offers a much needed exploration of the two distinct words God speaks. His law which commands and reveals human sin and his gospel which proclaims Christ's saving work. This booklet explains how confusing these two leads to spiritual harm causing either pride or despair. This resource is designed to guide readers through what many have called the heart of reformation theology and its practical implications for faith in the Christian life. The best part is you can get a copy of Law and Gospel completely free. Simply go to SOLAMEDIA.ORG forward slash offers and request your copy today that's SOLAMEDIA.ORG forward slash offers.