The following message, the Regulative Principle of Worship, was delivered by Jason Dohm at the Uniting Church and Family Conference in Anderson, Indiana in August 2008. Well that passage was written from Paul to Timothy, his son in the faith, and the heart of the passage is the centrality of scripture for the church and that is that's the centerpiece of the sermon today that the Church of God would be based on the Word of God that we would constrain ourselves and all of our practices to what he has shown us clearly in scripture. This was one of the quotes from yesterday. It was from Alexander Venet, who was a Swiss reformer in the early to mid 1800s. And I won't read it again because most of us saw it yesterday.

But the point of it was is that Calvin and Luther were not the reformers. They were reformers, but they weren't the reformers in the sense that they reformed everything. And now if we just follow Calvin and Luther, we'll be fine. There's a need for every generation to return to the Word of God in our practices and have our minds, our hearts, our churches, our homes, our workplaces, everything reformed and conformed, reformed by and conformed to the Word of God. John Robinson was the pastor of the pilgrims who came over and founded Plymouth.

He was a faithful pastor to them and he really understood how central the Word of God was and our ongoing need for Reformation. And John Robinson said this, he said, I'm absolutely convinced that the Lord has other truths to impart to us through his holy word. Personally, I cannot sufficiently deplore the condition of these quote reformed unquote churches, which have acquired a certain degree of religion but do but which do not wish to go beyond their Reformation. The Lutherans can see only what Luther saw. They would die rather than accept certain aspects of truth revealed to Calvin.

As for the Calvinists, they cling to the heritage left to them by that great man of God, who nevertheless did not know everything. It is deplorable poverty, for even if these men in their time were lamps which burned and gave light in the darkness they had not yet entered into all the counsel of God. If they were living in our day they would be ready to embrace a light which was more intense than the one which at first enlightened them. So my prayer for this time is that God would impart this heart to us that says, yes, thank the Lord for the light that has been given to us by reformers of the past, whatever their names may be, but may God give us more light. May God allow our hearts and our practices and our homes, everything about our lives, to be reformed by and conformed to the image of Holy Scripture.

So how do we keep our worship God-centered and biblical? How do we do that? There always seems to be such a drift in every generation. So what would make our generation different? What should we do so that our worship practices are conformed to Scripture?

And I want to offer three keys to this. And I view these three keys as a funnel that start out broad and then and then they get narrower and then they get narrower. And the first key is the inerrancy of scripture. That in the original manuscripts, in the original writing, scripture was perfect. And it was truly the word of God.

It wasn't the Word of God in an obtuse way, but it was the Word of God in a very direct way. God spoke to men and they wrote exactly what he was speaking to them. And it's perfect and it's complete. Number two, the sufficiency of scripture, which flows naturally from the inerrancy of scripture. If you look at the evangelical world, you'll find relatively broad agreement on the first topic, the inerrancy of scripture.

But there's less people. As we go down our funnel, there's less people who would embrace the sufficiency of scripture. What the sufficiency of scripture says is that the Bible is all we need. That if we were on a desert island and we only had one book in the world and it was the Bible, We would have everything that we need for life and godliness. That the scripture needs no supplements, and the church shouldn't be taking practices from other things that we see clearly established for the church in commands, in principles, and in practices.

And thirdly, at the bottom of our funnel, is the Regulative Principle of Worship. Obviously, the number scheme is not cooperating, but it's the Regulative principle of worship. And what the regulative principle of worship says is that we are only allowed to worship God in the ways that he has explicitly commanded us or if there's a good and necessary implication from a biblical text. So we're going to take each one of these and attempt to establish the validity, the scriptural validity of each one of these in detail. First we begin with the inerrancy of Scripture, that it is perfect and without flaw in the original manuscripts.

And one thing that we must be able to prove that scripture says these things about itself, otherwise the church can't embrace it. Amen. We need not have a doctrine of the Bible that isn't established by the Bible. That wouldn't make any sense at all. So there's going to be lots of scripture today where I attempt to make an argument from scripture for these principles.

First, inerrancy. The flagship passage for this is Psalm 19, 7 through 11, where the psalmist says this, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them your servant is warned and in keeping them there is great reward." What we'll see as we go through the Scriptures this morning is that the Scripture has many, many, very bold statements about itself. It makes fantastic claims about its own purity, about it being righteous altogether, about it being all that we need, and Psalm 19 7 through 11 is certainly a good start in in making that case.

In 1978 a group of prominent evangelical scholars who had become concerned about the drift of the church in our generation away from the inerrancy of scripture met in the Hyatt Regency O'Hare Hotel in Chicago. And it was to form statements to contradict this drift away from the Word of God and affirm the inerrancy of Scripture. And they came out with quite a lengthy document, which I will not read to you this morning. But they did summarize it in five points. And these were some of the great men of faith in our time.

There were 300 noted scholars who worked on the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy. And Among them were James Montgomery Boyce, J.I. Packer, Francis Schaeffer, R.C. Sproul, and many other of their contemporary scholars. Here are the five summary statements.

Number one, God who is himself truth and speaks only truth has inspired holy scriptures in order thereby to reveal himself to lost mankind through Jesus Christ as Creator and Lord, Redeemer and Judge. Holy Scripture is God's witness to Himself." So what they were affirming here was that God has given us the scriptures directly and that This is how He reveals Himself to man. God has been so kind to us in giving us the Scriptures. He is revealing Himself in Christ to us directly through the Scriptures, and He always has been. Did you know that the Scriptures were always about Christ?

They always were. You see Christ in Genesis. As early as it gets in Genesis you see Christ. And of course there's progressive revelation where we see it fuller and fuller as we go from the left cover of the Bible to the right cover but he was always there. Jesus Christ was always a Word of God.

He's in every book of the Bible. Here are a couple of verses that we should consider. 1 John 17 17 where Jesus says, sanctify them, sanctify them, set them apart, make them holy by your truth, sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth. Jesus viewed the scriptures as the word of God. Luke 24 27, this is the road to Emmaus.

Though they don't know it, these two are walking with Jesus and Jesus begins to reveal himself to them not by showing them that he's someone that they should recognize but by proving from the scriptures who the Christ was. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, Jesus expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." Wouldn't you have wanted to be there for that sermon? To see Christ reveal himself in all the scriptures. We see the same thing for the Apostle Paul in Acts 28, where he is under house arrest but people are allowed to come to him and what is he doing? How is he revealing Christ to them?

So when they had appointed him a day many came to him at his lodging to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning until evening. Point number two of the summary statement from the Chicago statement on inerrancy is this, Holy Scripture being God's Word written by men prepared and super intended by His Spirit is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches. It is to be believed as God's instruction in all that it affirms, obeyed as God's command in all that it requires, embraced as God's pledge in all that it promises. So what this point is affirming is that the Bible is the very word of God, not words about God, not a lot of truth on religious things, but the word of God directly from his mouth. And that has implications in all that we do.

It means that it should be obeyed. It means that it should be carefully regarded that the words of it should be given greater weight than any other words. Consider 2 Peter 1, knowing this first that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation for prophecy never came by the will of man but by holy but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." Peter gives us insight into how the scriptures were given. It wasn't a private interpretation of man of some religious thing, but it was the Holy Spirit directly moving them and they wrote the scriptures and gave them to us. Psalm 119 says much about scripture.

We don't have time for all that, but we do have time for Psalm 119 verse 60. The entirety of your word is truth and every one of your judgments endures forever. You see when these 300 scholars met together, they weren't inventing something. They were establishing something that has clear footing in scripture and Psalm 119 tells us that. The entirety of your word is truth and every one of your judgment stands forever.

Proverbs 30 says much the same thing. Proverbs 30 verses 5 and 6. Every word of God is pure. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him.

Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar." These men gathered because they saw massive additions to the Word of God and they were calling the church to return to a simple trust in God's Word for all of our practices. The third point of their summary statement, the Holy Spirit, Scriptures, divine author both authenticates it to us by his inward witness and opens our minds to understanding its meaning. What they were saying was that the Bible is different than any other book ever written. It has no compare because it comes with a companion. It comes with a Holy Spirit for those who are called according to his purposes.

It comes with the Holy Spirit who will quicken our minds, who will establish the truth of it in our hearts, who will be our tutor to help us to understand. Hebrews 4 12 says this, for the word of God is living. How many dead books do we have on our shelves? Well there's one that isn't dead and it's the Bible. The word of God is living and Powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

And don't we know this to be true? Don't we know that when we read the Bible that it has a way of piercing the heart like no other book that we've ever read. The fourth point in their summary statement, being holy and verbally God-given, Scripture is without error or fault in all its teaching, no less in what it states about God's acts in creation, about the events of world history, and about its own literary origins under God, than in its witness to God's saving grace in individual lives. If it is the Word of God, if it is the Word of God, then it must be without error. If there are errors in it, then it wasn't God who was speaking it.

And it's not just correct with regards to abstract spiritual principles, but in its entirety, in its history of creation and everything else. Here are two very interesting passages, because in these two passages we get to see Jesus and how he used scriptures and what we can infer from that and Paul and how he used scripture and what we can infer from that and it's breathtaking how these two men viewed the Holy Scriptures. We'll start in Matthew 22. But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God saying I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Here we have a theological debate going on. And Jesus is ready to make his argument and notice what he does and how he makes his argument. He makes his argument based on a single verb tense. How did Jesus view scripture? He viewed it as so pure, as so thoroughly the Word of God that he would make an argument against other experts in the law based on a single verb tense, and he would make his whole argument hinge on that tense.

Jesus Christ thought that the scriptures were the Word of God right out of his mouth and so when he made his arguments he felt free to make them on such a small thing as a verb tense. The apostle Paul does much the same. Galatians 3.16. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say, and to seeds, plural, as of many, but as of one, and to your seed who is Christ.

So Paul is making an argument that the promises of Abraham are promises about Christ. And how does he do that? He does that by saying that word's not plural, it's singular. Do you see how Paul viewed Scripture? He was so confident that it was God's word and that it had been transmitted to him in such a reliable way that he could make an argument about the promises of Abraham being fulfilled in Christ based on whether one word was plural or whether it was singular.

Paul understood that the Scriptures were the very Word of God. The last summary statement, summary statement number five of the Chicago statement on inerrancy says this, the authority of Scripture is inescapably impaired if this total divine inerrancy is in any way limited or disregarded or made relative to a view of truth contrary to the Bible's own And such lapses bring serious loss to both the individual and the church. These men were directly addressing something that has happened in the church, and they saw it creeping in slowly at first, but now it has come in like the flood of a tide. And that is that we would say, yes, some of this is God's Word, but some of this stuff we don't know about this or it's not relevant to today. And These men were affirming that scripture must hang together.

Brothers and sisters, it is the word of God or it is not the word of God. It must be one or it must be the other. And these men were affirming that it is the word of God. And we cast aside bits and pieces of the scripture at our own risk. Because if we're willing to cast bits and pieces aside it means that we have an inspired in spots theology and inspired in spots theology says that the scripture is inspired in spots and I'm inspired to spot the spots that are inspired.

Does that make sense? In other words, now I'm over scripture. I'd be happy to tell you which parts are inspired and which parts we may throw away. What poverty. Where does this lead the church?

Scripture hangs together as the infallible Word of God. 1 Thessalonians 2 says this, for this reason we also thank God without ceasing because when you receive the Word of God which you heard from us you welcomed it not as the Word of men but as it is in truth the word of God which also effectively works in you who believe." We must receive the scriptures as the word of God, not as the word of men. Isaiah says this, and when they say to you, seek those who are mediums and wizards who whisper and mutter, should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and the testimony!

If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. What Isaiah is saying in this passage is that for those people who seek God, we don't go to mediums and wizards, but we go to the law and to the testimony that God would give us, a mighty generation in our day that would rise up with these words on their mouth, to the law and the testimony. If we would know our God, we must know the God of the Bible. Not a God that we invent, that we're comfortable with, that we can manipulate, but the God of the Bible who has teeth and fangs and who's very frightening in many ways, but we must bow before this God because he is the true God. We don't go to those who whisper and mutter.

We go to the law and to the testimony. The inerrancy of scripture. Now we move to the sufficiency of scripture And what a treasure this verse is because it's the perfect summary statement. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. The first word in the verse says a lot.

All scripture is inspired by God, is given by inspiration of God, in another translation. Is God breathed in another translation? All scripture is God breathed. It was given by him through inspiration. It's inspired by Him.

And it says, so that the man of God may be adequate. It's profitable for these things, resulting in the man of God being adequate, or The New King James renders it complete. The man of God may be complete just with the word of God, equipped for every good work. Do you see what the Apostle Paul is doing here? He's using comprehensive language that leaves no wiggle room.

He's saying the Bible is enough. All scripture is given for this and it will make you complete, equipped for every good work. There are not good works that you need an equipping for outside of the Bible. They don't exist. All scripture was given for us that we might be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So this is the desert island challenge. If you were stranded on a desert island and all you had to guide your thinking was the Bible, how would you live? This is what the church should be asking ourselves. Every day we should put ourselves on that desert island with just one book and say, now that we cleared away all the things we grew up with, we clear away all the other books and all the other wisdom out there. Now, how should we have our practices be?

We have but one book, it's the Bible. What shall we do? Jesus has been in the desert. It's been 40 days he's had no food. He's really hungry.

And this is what he says. His eyes are not on his hunger at all, he says. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And he's quoting Deuteronomy 8. And his eyes aren't on his hunger at all.

But he knows that our life consists in the Word of God. Bread be damned, give me the Word of God. We hang on his every word, It's how we sustain our life. Deuteronomy 32 says this, Moses finished speaking all these words to all Israel and he said to them, Set your hearts on all the words which I testify among you today, which you shall command your children to be careful to observe. All the words of this law, for it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life.

And by this word you shall prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess." We may honor scripture, but I think for all of us there's room for us to say more than we ever have this is our life. This is our life. We'll bet the farm on Scripture. We'll bet everything that Scripture is true. We can do that.

It's solid. We can put our feet upon it. Here are the five solas of the Protestant Reformation. And they were affirming, only this, only this, Only this, only this, only this. And they were trying to boil things down to an irreducible group that could never be compromised.

Sola fide, by faith alone, by faith alone, nothing else will get us to heaven. It's only faith alone. Sola Christo, by Christ alone. Only Christ. Only faith in only Christ.

Sola gracia, by grace alone. Only by grace. All these things have built up leading into the Reformation. And Christianity had become a workspace Christianity And here are the Reformers with these refreshing words, only faith, only Christ, only grace. The fourth one, soli Deo gloria, glory to God alone.

Not to Mary, not to the Pope, but glory to God alone. And lastly, sola scriptura. By scripture alone. By Scripture alone. Scripture is the gold standard that we measure everything by.

Scripture is the plumb line that tells us whether the building is straight or crooked. The sufficiency of Scripture is our spiritual heritage. Psalm 1, I love Psalm 1. If I was preaching on something else I probably would have figured out a way to put Psalm 1 in there. This is fantastic.

Psalm 1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly nor stands in the path of sinners nor sits in the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night he shall be like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. Don't you love this picture here? There's a man who has put aside the counsel of the ungodly and he won't stand in the way of sinners, he won't sit in the seat of mockers, but he has one focus. His day and night are given to meditation on the law of God, on the words of God. And what is he like?

What does he lack? He is like a tree planted by a stream of water. A tree planted by a stream of water lacks nothing. Everything is there that it needs. And this is us as we place our feet on scripture and say we'll bet the farm on scripture, we'll bet it all that these are the words of God and then it's true.

It makes us like a tree planted by a stream of water whose leaf does not wither. Whatever we do will prosper. So now we turn our thoughts to the Regulative Principle of Worship at the bottom of the funnel. And it's interesting, Most people don't know much about the Regulative Principle of Worship, but it shapes how you view what we ought to be doing in church life or what we shouldn't be doing. It's so foundational.

I can't believe it took me 35 years of life or close to 35 years before I really understood what this was. Because these are the lenses through which we see what's appropriate and what's not appropriate in the church. There are two competing principles and I want to preface this by saying this is a household fight. This is a household fight. There are some things where we're fighting with people who are outside of the household of God and you know things like is marriage a man or a woman?

What we might be fighting with people who are technically in denominations, but they have no regard for the scripture when they say that the Bible doesn't speak against homosexuality, because the counsel of scripture is so clear that I would say this is not a fight, an in-house fight, because here are people who have the total disregard for scripture. But this is definitely an in-house fight. We're arm wrestling with brothers here, so I think we should acknowledge that, because what we're gonna see as we define the terms is that Luther is on one side of this debate and Calvin is on the other. And I'm on the Calvin side of the debate, but you know what? I like having Luther for a brother.

I think Luther's a good brother. I'm thankful for Luther and I'm very glad that God put him where he did at the time that he did. And I think we should embrace him as a brother and we should take much of the good that Luther delivered to the church. Alright, two competing principles. One, the Regulative Principle, and this is the one I'm arguing for this morning, Regulative Principle, and it says simply this, whatever is not warranted by scripture is forbidden.

Whatever is not warranted by scripture is forbidden. Calvin took this position along with John Knox and many other of the Reformers, and in our view it's the right blending of inerrancy of Scripture and sufficiency of Scripture, and the Regulative Principle must follow from these two principles. The second principle is the Normative Principle. The Normative Principle. And it says, whatever is not specifically prohibited by scripture is permitted.

Whatever is not specifically prohibited is permitted. And Luther took this. And he did bind it. Luther said, as long as it is agreeable to the peace and the unity of the church. So on the normative side, there is a recognition that you can't just open up the door to anything that's not specifically prohibited.

There's lots of things that aren't specifically addressed that the people who embrace the normative crowd would say, no, that's not appropriate for church life. So there is some bounding on that. Mark Dever is the pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., and he wrote a book called The Deliberate Church and he defines the Regulative Principle this way. Briefly, the Regulative Principle states that everything we do in corporate worship gathering must be clearly warranted in Scripture. Clear warrant can either take the form of an explicit biblical command or a good and necessary implication of a biblical text.

So those who subscribe to the regular principle, when we decide what's appropriate to do in the meeting of the church or not appropriate to do in the meeting of the church, we're looking for one of three things. We're looking for a command to do it or we're looking for a clear pattern where those who went before us and were godly did it. And when you get down to looking at the particulars, it sounds so cut and dried, but there's lots of arguments even within our camp about what this really means, and the hinge point is about what is a good and necessary inference of the text. But at least, At least the argument has a baseline of scripture and we have the debate with a reverence for scripture and an acknowledgement that scripture should be our plumb line. And we look at the scriptures to answer the question, what must we do?

That's the focus. We're looking to the scriptures and the question is what must we do? And then we restrict our practices to these things. Once we have it clear in our mind from the scriptures what we must do because we either saw a command or we saw a principle or we saw a pattern, we say these are the things that deserve our time and our energy and our money. Then we push everything outside of that circle and we say we're going to do these things.

These things get our time and our energy and our money. These are the things that we must do. Said another way, a more positive way, we preserve all of the best of our time and our energy for these beautiful practices that have a clear foundation in scripture. So in one way we would say, well this is about all the things we can't do. But I would say we should affirm that we should say that the most beautiful things for the church have a clear warrant in scripture.

We should look at it from the other way to say we're preserving ourselves to give the best of these things that we see have a clear footing in Scripture. And this has to do with both the ends and the means. Now this is a very important point And this is where the road starts to fork and diverge. Because there's broad agreement on what the ends are. The ends are the Word of God.

The ends are evangelism. The ends are prayer, reaching the lost, discipleship. But a regulative person is very, very concerned about the means. We not only want our ends to come from Scripture, but we want the means to those ends to have a clear warrant in Scripture. The Second London Baptist Confession of 1689 says this, The light of nature shows that there is a God who has lordship and sovereignty over all, is just and good and who does good to all.

Therefore he is to be feared and loved and praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart and all the soul and with all the might." And to this point in the quote, the regulative people are nodding, the normative people are nodding, and everybody's happy. The unhappiness comes here. But the acceptable way of worshiping the true God has been instituted by himself and therefore our method of worship is limited by his own revealed will. He may not be worshiped according to the imagination and devices of men nor the suggestions of Satan. He may not be worshipped by way of visible representations or by any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures." A similar quote from the French confession of faith.

We believe that the word contained in these books has proceeded from God, speaking of the Scriptures, and receives its authority from him alone and not from men, and inasmuch as it is the rule of all truth containing all that is necessary for the service of God and for our salvation, it is not lawful for men nor even for angels to add to it or to take away from it or to change it. Whence it follows that no authority, whether of antiquity or custom or numbers or human wisdom or judgments or proclamations or edicts or decrees or counsels or visions or miracles should be opposed to these holy scriptures. But on the contrary, all things should be examined, regulated, and reformed according to them." That is it. All things should be examined, regulated, and reformed according to them. John Knox says this, all worshiping, honoring, or service, invented by the brain of man and the religion of God without his own express commandment is idolatry.

John Knox viewed anything, any practice that would be embraced by the church without a crystal-clear scriptural warrant from the scriptures as idolatry, as making up another God to worship. Now let's speak more of the normative principle. Again, the summary statement is whatever is not specifically prohibited by scripture is permitted, and the hinge point on that is the phrase not specifically prohibited, and instead of with the regulative group looking at the scriptures to say, what must we do? And then when we have the answer to that, pushing everything else outside of the circle, the normative group looks at the scriptures to answer what must we not do. There are clear prohibitions in scripture, and they're very fixed on that, and they desire to know what that is, to say what must we not do, and then they say everything that is not in the group of what we must not do is inside the circle, is inside the acceptable range.

With the normative method, we're looking for what is explicitly off-limits according to Scripture, and then we see ourselves as having a large degree of freedom outside of those explicit prohibitions. And the intended ends are usually the same evangelism, discipleship, worship, but there's a massive proliferation of the means because it's viewed that a lot more freedom exists there as to the means. So we're still aiming at the same ends, evangelism, discipleship, missions, worship, But the number of means branches out exponentially. Here's a quote from Fred Malone, who pastors First Baptist Church in Clinton, Louisiana. And he wrote some things on the Regulator Principle on the Founders website.

He says this, obviously the normative principle invites invention, creativity, and new elements of worship which are never commanded or mentioned in Scripture. It also permits practices which are prescribed in Old Testament worship to be used in New Testament Christian worship by good and necessary inference, even if these practices are not prescribed for Christian worship. This accounts for the traditional differences in worship between those from normative versus regulative backgrounds. It also explains the normative additions of pageantry, altars, priesthoods, vestments, prayer books, Mariolatry, Mariolatry is exactly what it sounds like, it's idolatry of Mary, it's worship of Mary, prayers to saints, and other practices not instituted by scripture for gospel worship. Others today add drama, dance, puppets, clowns, movies, magicians, comedians, weightlifting, high pressured altar calls, entertainment, and whatever else their heart desires.

When one holds to the normative principle, another must ask, where will it end up? Where will it end up? And the answer to the question is, There's not a place where it'll end up. As long as people have new ideas, there's never an end to it. The means to the end will always keep expanding.

The motive is often a desire to be relevant, to connect with the existing culture so we can have an impact for Christ. I do not question the motive of our brothers. I do question the theology of our brothers. Clearly I'm strongly advocating for the Regulative Principle. Why?

Well, I want to offer three scriptures that I think get to the heart of the matter. The first comes from Deuteronomy 4. Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I teach you to observe that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers is giving you. You shall not add to the word which I command you nor take it from you, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." I see this freedom of means and not insisting on having a clear warrant for our means in the scriptures as as taking undue liberty in the worship of God, as adding on to the things that God has commanded. I believe that the scriptures directly address this and forbid us from doing it.

Colossians 2 8 says this, beware lest anyone cheat you, literally plunder you or take you captive. When it says cheat you that's literally what it means beware lest anyone plunder you or take you captive through philosophy and empty deceit according to the tradition of men and according to the basic principles of the world and not according to Christ We must ask the question if our means don't have a clear scriptural warrant in in scripture if they don't have a clear warrant in scripture where is the warrant? If it doesn't come from scripture what does it come from? Is there some neutral territory where we can pull ideas from? Is that what scripture teaches, that there's a neutral territory?

No. It's not what the scriptures teach it. It's basic principles of the world. It's philosophy, an empty deceit. Lastly, 1 Timothy 3.15.

Paul writes to Timothy. And he says, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and the ground of the truth. Paul is affirming to Timothy here that there's a way that we ought to conduct ourselves in the house of God. There are many who wouldn't admit to it today, but there are many in the church who are offended by that, that there is a way that we ought to act in the house of God, who think we ought to have complete freedom in what we institute in the worship of God. Brothers and sisters, the church is not our playground.

It is the house of God. It is the church of the living God. The pillar and ground of the truth. It's God's church. And he's still quite engaged actually.

He's told us how he desires to be worshiped and he expects his people to seek these things out in the scripture and to conform their patterns to them. God has always been very explicit and very specific about how he desires to be worshiped and yet over and over and over in Scripture we see that man knows better and he wants to try other things and do it other ways. And I'm getting ready to give you a litany of scriptures very quickly, they won't be on the screen, you won't be able to take notes fast enough, but it's just to heap up the examples. And these examples answer the question, does God care about the means? Does God care about the means or only the ends?

Exodus 20 the Ten Commandments the first four are about how he may be worshipped. That's a short list of Commandments there's only ten and four of them have explicitly to do with how he desires to be worshipped. Does God care? He cares. Exodus 25 through 30 is excruciating detail on worship, Exactly what to do and when to do it.

Now have those things carried over into the New Testament era? No, that is not the argument. Christ has fulfilled many of these things and many of those things were there. They pointed forward to Christ. But the point is, God had told his people exactly how he wants to be worshiped.

Do we have a different God today, or is there a way that he desires to be worshiped, And has He instructed us in those ways? Leviticus 10, verses 1 through 3. That one's worth writing down, actually. You might want to go back and look at this one. Leviticus 10, verses 1 through 3.

The death of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron. And God struck them dead for offering profane fire, and it says this, which he had not commanded them. In other words, they brought fire forward as an act of worship, and God says, who told you to do that? Which he had not commanded them. 1 Samuel 13, Saul offers sacrifices that Samuel as the priest was to have offered and it cost him the throne, It cost him his kingship.

2 Samuel 6, Uzzah reaches out to steady the ark. By the way, they were carrying it on our cart. There was a way you were supposed to carry the ark and it wasn't to put it in the back of a cart. It's teetering. The ark of the Lord is about to fall into the mud and Uzzah reaches out to keep the ark from falling.

And he's praised by everyone and thanked for his good service. No, he is struck dead by God. Why? Because He wanted to keep the ark out of the mud. No, because God had said how to handle the ark.

And Uzzah was a Levite and had been trained by this. Uzzah knew. But his motive was pure, and he thought he knew better. He thought this was a reasonable exception and he reached out and he touched the ark and it cost him his life. Second Chronicles 26, the leprosy of King Uzziah for offering incense, only priests were to offer incense.

He thought he was an exception. Mark 7, 6 and 7. Jesus rejects the Pharisees form of worship and Christ says that they worshiped in vain because their doctrines of worship were the precepts of men. Gotta wash our hands you know why aren't you washing your hands? We gotta wash our hands.

It's very important to wash our hands. And Jesus says, and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. God has said how he desires to be worshiped and he doesn't want us adding. Here's my final quote and it's from the missionary martyr Jim Elliott who was a missionary for a very short period of time because the people he's going to take the gospel to killed him on the beach. He says this, the pivot point hangs on whether or not God has revealed a universal pattern for the church in the New Testament.

If he has not, then anything will do so long as it works. But I am convinced that nothing so dear to the heart of Christ as his bride should be left without explicit instructions as to her corporate conduct. I am further convinced that the 20th century has in no way simulated this pattern in its method of churching a community. It is incumbent upon me if God has a pattern for the church, to find and establish that pattern at all costs. This is from Jim Elliott's journal.

May we have a heart like him who says, it is incumbent upon us to find and establish that pattern at all costs. So in closing, I pose a question. Are the practices of Scripture really enough to get the church where she needs to be? Are the practices of Scripture enough? Can we really be successful by constraining ourselves to just these practices?

You know what the answer is? The answer is it depends. It depends if we're willing to let God define the terms, To let God define what success means? Is faithful and obedience to the Word of God the target for us, or are we looking for something else? Do we have the stomach to trust God's revealed word for the ends and the means?

Or do we think we need something a little slicker to win and then disciple our target demographic. What poverty! Ultimately this is about our view of God. Is He still active in a way that we can simply abide in timeless principles that He's given to His people, trusting Him to accomplish His own ends with His own means? Or is He waiting for us to engage our best thoughts and creativity to make it happen.

What kind of God are we serving? Is He waiting on us for a good idea? Or is He waiting on us for us to wait upon Him? God is still alive and well. He's active in His church.

He has given us glorious ends And He's given us means that are sufficient. And here's why they're sufficient. Not because they're glossy, not because they're slick, but because the power of the Holy Spirit is there in His means. And he's active in his own church and he will accomplish the work himself. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father thank you for your word. Help us help us to bet the farm on it. Lord give your church more affection for your word than we've ever had. I believe we could all confess this morning that regardless of what side of the debate we have been in the past or will be in the future, there's room. There's room for more affection for your Word.

That we would meditate upon it day and night, that we would be like trees planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Thank you for the promise of Scripture. Thank you for the testimony of Scripture about its power, about its perfections, about its sufficiency. We pray that You would print these things on our heart, that You would stamp them on our heart. Mark us, Lord, to be Your people, a holy people, who desire You and Your truth above any other thing.

We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.