When discussing the regulative principle of worship - the concept that we are to do only that which God commands in his worship - the conversation often focuses only on Old Testament passages. This is understandable since much of the regulation of worship is spelled out in great detail in the Old Testament, however it is unfortunate because it can create the impression that the New Covenant may have a different standard for worship. However, when we look carefully in the New Testament we can see that God still regulates his worship and he has determined what worship is acceptable to him even in the New Covenant church.

The National Center for Family Integrated Churches welcomes Joe Moorcraft with the message The Regulative Principle of Worship in the New Testament. Now before I start, I need to know how many of you were not in our first session. That means the ones that were here left, so didn't come back. What does that tell you? But anyway, so since most of you were not here, let me quickly review.

We're talking about the sufficiency of scripture as it applies to the worship of God. And our basic premise is that everything that God wants you to know as to how we're to worship him is contained in the pages of Holy Scripture. And we last session talked about the, how the Old Testament addresses the subject. And we looked at several passages of Scripture and we saw that the Old Testament defines the regulative principle of worship. That is, how do you regulate worship?

That is, how do you determine what you should do and should not do in the worship of God? Do you determine it on the basis of how you feel, what makes you feel close to God, or is there some other standard? And of course, there is the objective standard of the Word of God. God's told us in the Bible how to worship Him. And He said in Deuteronomy 1232, which is the summarizing verse of the whole 12th chapter of Deuteronomy that deals with the subject of how to worship God in the Old Testament in terms in the tabernacle as well as in your own homes.

God says, whatever I have commanded you thou shalt do, do not add to nor take away from. Don't add to what I've told you to do. Don't take away from what I've told you to do. Just do what I tell you. That's the message of the regulatory principle of the Old Testament.

The Bible is completely sufficient to tell you everything you need to know as to how to worship God, particularly not only in your family and your own private life, particularly in congregational worship, because you know, God loves your private worship and God loves your family worship. In fact, in fact, family worship is one of the rarest things of our day, even among people like us and Reformed Christians. But what God really loves is congregational worship, more than anything else. There's that great verse in the Psalms that says, the Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwelling places of Judah. That is, God loves your dwelling place and God loves what goes on in your dwelling place as his covenant people.

And God loves the worship that goes on in your dwelling place. But God loves the worship that goes on more in the gates of Zion, that is in the tabernacle, the temple, where the congregation of the Lord gathered to worship him. So how do you know what you should do and shouldn't do in congregational worship? The answer, as we saw this morning, is to know the difference between the first and second commandment. The first commandment says thou shalt have no other gods besides me.

The second commandment says in essence, thou shalt not make any graven images and use them in the worship of God. For many years of my life, I thought both of those commandments were saying the same thing. I wouldn't tell anybody because they think I'm stupid, But I thought they were saying the same thing. Don't make any graven images. Don't worship any God but me.

And when I realized the difference between them, that was a major, major transition in my life and in my ministry. Because the first commandment means thou shalt worship and serve God alone. The second commandment means thou shall worship and serve God alone, God's way alone. God may be worshiped only in the way he has prescribed in the scriptures. The only way to reach God's goal is by God's methods and God's strategies.

That's the relationship between the first and second commandments. We studied how in Leviticus 10, how Aaron's two sons, Nadab and Abihu, simply added something to the worship of God It wasn't anything big big We don't even know what it was But simply because they added something in in their leading of Israel into worship that God had not commanded that God sent fire from heaven and burned them up. And his answer was, I will be treated as holy. Man will not put his words on par with mine and think that he can get away with adding to what I have commanded. And then we saw the story of Moses, the great mediator of the Old Covenant, who was so faithful in leading this complaining, murmuring people of Israel out of Egypt and at the foot of Mount Sinai and through the wilderness onto the promised land.

And at one point they said they were dying of thirst. And so God told Moses, he said, Moses, take your rod, which was the symbol of of authority. Take your rod and go to that rock and speak to the rock and tell it to bring forth water. And I'll look upon these people with mercy and provide him with water. So Moses goes over there and he takes this rod that God put in his hand.

That was a symbol of, of his divinely delegated authority and strikes the rock a couple of times and tells the rock to bring forth water and miraculously the water is brought forth. And God says, Moses, just for doing that, you don't get to go into the promised land. You just expressed unbelief in my word. I mean, he's just performed a miracle. Now, what did God tell him to do?

He said, Moses, take the rod so that everybody see it's a symbol of authority and then speak to the rock. He didn't say anything about striking the rock. What does Moses do? Strikes the rock. And then he tells him to bring forth water And God says that adding to my word shows unbelief and the sufficiency of my word and so you will die before you get into the Promised Land.

So you see how seriously God takes this thing of worship, of worshiping him according to the way he has commanded and not in ways that we think are appropriate. And then the last text that we looked at was in Jeremiah 7 where the people of Israel had so degenerated in their apostasy that they were offering their little children in sacrifices to false gods burning them up and murdering their little children. And God says that he will wipe out their whole nation because they sacrifice their children in fire, which I have not commanded. He said, I didn't even think of such a thing. So in our way of thinking, the most heinous thing involved here is the murdering of little children and putting little children in fire.

And that's, that's the most heinous thing in our mind. And it's heinous to God, but what that's secondary, what's even more heinous to God is that they were trying to worship in ways he had not commanded. I didn't command you to put your children in the fire. Now, that's not our set of priorities. And it's because we have too low a view of worship.

So those are some of the things we looked at in the Old Testament. Then if the Bible says that we may only do what is commanded we looked at what is commanded What has God commanded us to do in the Bible? I think 11 or 12 13 things. I can't remember and that's it And we may not do anything else, no matter how close to God it makes us feel. It doesn't make us close to God.

We just feel close to God. If God hadn't commanded us to do something in worship, and we do it, like I said the other day, genuflecting or saluting the Christian flag or saluting the American flag in a worship service, or an altar call, or any other things that are so a part of our custom, but which are not commanded in the Bible, regardless of how useful you think they are, if they're not commanded, they are forbidden. And so we saw that there's three principles that summarize what the regulative principle of the Old Testament is. And that is whatever God commands is required. If God has commanded you to do something, you're required to do it in the worship of God.

Whatever God has forbidden is prohibited. If God says you may not do this in a worship service, then you may not do this in a worship service. But then we said it's the third principle that separates the men from the boys and the women from the girls. And that is if it's not commanded, it's forbidden. Now most of your friends in your friends churches don't have that last principle.

They may agree with you on the first two, but the last one they don't agree with. They, they live by the principle. If God hadn't forbidden it, it's permitted. If God didn't say, we can't do it. We can do it.

God didn't tell you. You couldn't genuflect. There's nowhere in the Bible that says thou shalt not salute a Christian flag in the worship of God. So if God hadn't forbidden it, we're allowed to do it. Well, what is that?

Why don't we have that opinion? Because that's adding to the word of God. We may not add to the word of God. We may not transgress what God has commanded. And that's why the principle is whatever is not commanded is forbidden.

Because if we do something in worship that God hasn't commanded us to do, we're adding to what God commands. And that is a basic denial of the sufficiency of scriptures. Pretty cocky too, don't you think? To think that God forgot something, that he should have put in his elements of worship that really is meaningful to you and that you're audacious and high enough and lofty enough to dare put your suggestion on par with the commands of Almighty God. Well, now we come to the New Testament.

And as we study the New Testament, I hope you have a Bible there, we're going to look at three or four crucial passages. Crucial, by the way, is a great word. You know what the word crucial comes from? Crooks, cross. That just as the cross is vitally important and essential to Christianity.

So this point is crucial. That's a great word. But turn with me to Mark Chapter 7. I want to read a story of Jesus encounter with the Pharisees who were jumping on him for not commanding his disciples to do something that they were doing. You know the Pharisees were always looking for opportunities to justify themselves and to set themselves forward as better than anybody else.

And so they developed a ritual that they would practice in their home. And that is when they came back from the marketplace, they would wash their hands, and sometimes their pots and dishes, and sometimes their couches and chairs and tables not to get rid of germs but as a pure symbolic act of impressing everybody with their superiority. They are cleaner than anybody else and this washing of our hands not concerned with hygiene is simply a way that we can impress people with the fact that we are cleaner than anybody else. So there's nothing wrong with washing your hands. In fact, I had a Sunday, a school teacher in my church who was teaching this kindergarten class and this Christian school was very strict at requiring things to be memorized and they were very Christ centered.

And this little boy comes home from school, hungry as can be and his mother's a nurse and he sneaks up to the table to get some food off the table to eat and his mother the nurse says, Johnny, don't you eat your food. You've got germs all over them. Go and wash your hands. Johnny left the room, uttering under his breath, germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus. That's all I ever hear and I've never seen either one of them.

But all right, let's look at that. But this hand washing was not for hygienic reasons. All right, Mark 7. The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered together around him when they had come from Jerusalem and had seen that some of his disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is unwashed. For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders, rabbis.

And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves. And there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots. And the Pharisees and the scribes ask him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders? Not why did they not walk according to the word of God? But why do they not walk according to the tradition of the elders?

And but eat their bread with impure hands. And he said to them rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me. But in vain do they worship me teaching as doctrines, the precepts of men, neglecting the commandment of God you hold to the tradition of men. He was also saying to them, you nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. 13, thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down, and you do many things such as that.

And after he called the multitude to him again, he began saying to them, listen to me, all of you, and understand there's nothing outside the man which going into him can defile him. But the things which proceed out of the man are what defile the man. If any man has ears to hear, let him hear. And when leaving the multitude, he had entered the house. His disciples questioned him about the parable.

And he said to them, Are you so lacking in understanding also? Do you not understand that whatever goes into the man from outside cannot defile him because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach and is eliminated? Thus he declared all foods clean. And he was saying that which proceeds out of the man, That is what defiles the man. For from within out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts, fornication, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness, all these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.

Now that's Jesus answer to this innovation. To this man created right and ritual of washing his hands to symbolize his superiority and his spiritual and moral cleanness above everybody else. And Notice the words Jesus says that all these man-made things you worship me with your hands With your lips, but your heart is far away from me in vain Do they worship me teaching as doctrines the precepts of men? Neglecting the commandment of God you hold to the tradition of men. You nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

Thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you've handed down and you do many things such as this. Now, what's the presupposition that Jesus is making here? He said, you remember, he said, I did not come to abrogate or annul any of the moral demands of God in the Old Testament. I did not come to weaken the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture taught in the Old Testament I came rather to confirm it and to put it into effect and these Pharisees have totally denied the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture by thinking that they need to add the traditions of men and new rights and new rituals to the worship and service of God to make everything more spiritual and more complete, which is basically insulting to God, who says that everything you need to know in the Bible, how to worship God, you have completely in the word of God. So Jesus is presupposing that when it comes to the worship of God, the church has no discretionary authority as to what it may and may not do in worship.

It has no discretionary authority. It must do what it is told. And that if you add the traditions of men, you eventually drive out the Word of God. You invalidate the Word of God by your traditions. Now, Why did Jesus reject these rabbinical traditions?

I mean, washing your hands, fairly harmless. Why did he make such a big deal about it and say such strong words about simply washing your hands as a religious symbol? Several reasons. Man is never to put his word on par with God's word. And that's what we do when we try to add any new rights or rituals or traditions in worship to what God has commanded.

We're putting our puny little pathetic word on par with the sovereign word of God. The second reason he rejected these rabbinical traditions is because man-made traditions are not from God. They originate with fallen man and for that very reason are rejected by Christ. You remember what Jesus said in Matthew 15 13, every plant which my heavenly father did not plant, shall be rooted up. Because man made traditions in worship, subvert, subvert and supplant God's word as Jesus said, they drive God's word out of worship.

That is, once you start innovating in worship and adding new rites and rituals, you can't stop. You just keep on going until the Word of God is driven out of the worship service. And then the reason Jesus rejected these traditions of men as a part of the worship of God is because man's heart is evil. So that the regulative principle of worship, the sufficiency of Scripture as it pertains to worship, is an inference from man's total depravity. Man, being totally depraved, is not competent to tell God how God is to be worshipped.

All man does is infected by his own sin. And Therefore, if man is to know how God is to be worshiped, God has to graciously reveal that way because fallen man in his depravity is totally incompetent of revealing any way to worship God. And so all man does is defile. And for that reason, unacceptable by God, whether it's human traditions or whatever it be. Have you ever noticed the interesting little verse in Exodus 20-25?

This is a great verse on the regular principle of worship and the sufficiency of scripture in worship once you understand what's going on. In Exodus 20-25 it says, the Lord says, and if you make an altar of stone for me, you shall not build it of cut stones. For if you wield your tools on it, you will profane it. It says, now I want you to build an altar of sacrifice because that's how I've commanded you to worship me on the basis of shed blood. I want you to offer animals on that altar.

I promise to meet you there and to bless you, but I want you to make this altar out of raw stones that you go get out of the field. I don't want any carving on them. I don't want them, you to smooth off the edges. I don't want you to square off the edges. I don't want you to do anything to the stones that you make this altar from.

I just want you to make the altar out of raw stones. Why? Because anything you do from those stones originates with you. And I want you to understand that you contribute nothing to the worship of God. You do just what you are commanded to do because being totally depraved and being a sinner in rebellion against God, you're completely incompetent to offer any suggestions as to how God may be worshiped.

I love what John Knox said in his typical mild way. All worshiping, honoring, or serving God invented by the brain of man in the religion of God without his own express commandment is idolatry. You have the courage to say that to your preacher? I hope when you all go home some of you get in trouble. I hope some of you call your preacher to account.

Say we learn something about the sufficiency of scripture with reference to worship. Why are we doing this in our worship service? Can you tell me where God commanded it in the Bible? I'll get you in trouble, but that's okay. By the way, let me ask you a question before we go on.

This is just sort of on the side. I suppose that if I ask this question, do you believe in situational ethics? That every single one of you without exception in this room would raise your hand and say, no, we do not believe in situational ethics, which means that it all depends upon the situation as to whether something's right and wrong. That premarital sexual activity, it all depends on the situation. I presume none of us ever practice or believe in situational ethics, right?

But I wonder, how many of us believe in situational worship? It all depends on the situation as to what we do in our worship service. What what's meaningful to our people? What's the background of our culture? What makes us feel closer to God?

You see we don't believe in situational ethics. Why because we believe there's a set of absolutes that govern every moral decision we make in life. And just so there's no such thing and should be no such thing as situational worship because the Bible contains these absolutes as to how God wants us to worship Him. Well, let's go on to John 4. John 4 is that great story about the woman at the well.

I love this story. It shows Jesus tenderness, his love, his firmness, his insight into people, his unswerving loyalty to the word of God. So let me read this story. John 4, we'll read a few verses. Verse 1, when therefore the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were, he left Judea and departed again into Galilee and he had to pass through Samaria.

So he came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. And Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a, about six o'clock in the evening, there came a woman of Samaria to draw water.

Jesus said to her, give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman therefore said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask me for a drink, since I am a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans, much less women. Jesus answered and said to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, give me a drink.

You would have asked him and he would have given you living water. She said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? You're not greater than our father Jacob, are you, who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?" Jesus answered and said to him to her, everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again, But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. But the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.

The woman said to him, sir, give me this water. So I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw. He said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, in so many words, I know.

Or you have well said, I have no husband for you had five husbands. And the one whom you now have is not your husband. This you have said truly. The woman said to her, sir, I perceive that you're a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father. You worship that which you do not know. We worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshiper shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For such people the Father seeks to be his worshippers.

God is a spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Now this passage has a great deal to say about the regulative principle and about the worship of God. You notice Jesus' statement in verses 23 and 24, which are so important to understanding worship. He's saying that in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, worship is regulated by the same principle. That's important.

Because you have people that want to drive a wedge between the Old Testament and the New Testament as if there's two gods. There's a mean old god of the Old Testament who is a consuming fire. There's a loving god of the New Testament. Of course, the phrase God is a consuming fire is found in the book of Hebrews. That's in the New Testament if you didn't know it.

But anyway, They drive a wedge between the two. Two gods, two covenants, two laws, two ways of salvation, two ways of worship. And Jesus is telling this woman, there is a unity in Old Testament, New Testament. The worship of both is regulated by the same principle. And our is coming and now is.

When the true worshiper shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Jesus said when it comes to the worship of God I am not stating a new principle. There is one regulating principle of worship. It is the same in both Old and New Testaments. It hasn't changed because it reflects the unchanging character of God.

And so Jesus taught this woman at the well that the foundation of all worship is the revealed truth that God is spirit. What did he say? Look down there in 23 and 24. But an hour is coming and now he is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For such people the Father seeks to be as worshippers.

God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth that is the The worship that God's people offer to him must reflect who God is. And God is spirit. He does not have a body like man. You remember after God gave the children of Israel the 10 Commandments of the Old Testament, he said, now don't make any graven images. Don't try to picture God in your mind.

Because biblical religion is more a religion of the ear than a religion of the eye. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So he was very strong in his prohibition of creating any kind of images. One time my wife and I were in Zurich, Switzerland and we saw all of what we thought were these gigantic, gorgeous, medieval Roman Catholic churches. But even though I knew they were medieval, they looked a little differently.

But I didn't get it right off. And then we go inside and here's this massive cathedral-like structure except for one thing. There are no crucifixes. There are no images of Mary or any of the apostles. There aren't even crosses.

I mean this is one great big sanctuary. It used to be a Roman Catholic Church in the Middle Ages with all the frills and fancies and all the smells and bells. But when God brought reformation to Switzerland under people like Zwingli and Bulliger and the rest, they took over these Roman Catholic churches and stripped them of all of their idolatrous images where the Word of God could be preached faithfully. And it was a great blessing, even though the church is now probably liberal, to think about how these men that have shaped the mindset of this country until recently, these old reformers of how they understood worship and that the foundation of worship is that God is a spirit and therefore he must be worshiped in spirit and in truth, that we don't come to church for what we can see. We come to church for what we can hear about the preaching of the word of God.

Because God is a spirit, worship must be spiritual. It must be in spirit and in truth. In spirit means it must be in accordance with the being and essence and character of God. Thus God is a spirit and we must worship Him in spirit so that our worship must not contradict but rather reflect the spirituality of Almighty God. And it is, must be done in truth.

Because God is a Spirit, God is to be worshiped in Spirit and in truth. The only way we know that God is Spirit is by his self-revelation in the word of God and therefore worship that is in accordance with the essence of God must be according to the truth of his word. That's what in spirit and in truth has reference to that there is this one regulating principle of both testaments and it hadn't changed. There are some symbols of the Old Testament that have been done away with. We'll get to that in a minute.

But the underlying principle of worship is the same and the foundation of worship is who God is and therefore everything in worship must reflect who God is. It must be in spirit and in truth, in accordance to his character and in accordance to the revelation of his will in his holy word. Now there's one little word that I want you to notice here in verse 24. It says that all of the true worship of God must be done in spirit and in truth. That's a teeny little word in Greek, just three letters.

It must be done. It can't, It may not be done in any other way. It must be done according to God's character and in accordance with his truth set forth in biblical revelation. The word must denotes a necessity that is due to God's own nature. And that has always held and always will hold to be true.

Nothing else may be done. Everything in the worship of God must be done because of who God is and inconsistency with who God is in spirit and in truth and then you have verse 23 For such people the Father seeks to be his worshipers what kind of people Those who worship Him in spirit and in truth because they know who He is and they want worship that's in accordance with who He is. And God seeks, desires such people to be His worshippers. Now we're not talking about any person, any human being. We're not talking about ourselves.

There's a lot of things we desire we don't get. There's a lot of things that we seek that we don't find. But when God, the sovereign almighty God does what he pleases, he gets what he desires. And if God desires people to worship him in spirit and in truth, guess what, beloved? There will be people on this earth who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

The point is that what man wants, now listen to me, what man wants in worship is irrelevant. Absolutely irrelevant. You say preacher, but I want this in the worship service. Who cares? All that matters is what God wants and what God desires.

And the regulative principle of worship is that in worship we do God's desires and nothing else. And our worship must be consistent with what God desires and with what God commands and with what God seeks. So let me ask you a question before we go on. It are your worship services, seeker friendly with a capital S. Now, if they're seeker friendly with a small s and you're talking about unbelievers, there is none who seek after God.

The only people who seek after God are those whose hearts have been regenerated and they've been been made new people in Christ and God has given them the faith to believe in him. Those are the people who seek God. There's no unbeliever out there that seeks God. And one of the most loving things you can do in your worship service is to not worry about whether your service is appealing to unbelievers in the midst and pray that unbelievers will come. But that everything is done according to the word of God so that that dear unbeliever there that you want more than anything else to be saved will feel left out.

And will feel like what's going on here I'm not a part of. And then before and after church love the daylight's out of them. Because you want them to feel. It's only through Christ and through faith in him that they can enjoy the great mysteries of the worship service. But make sure your services are seeker with a capital S, friendly.

And that everything you do is faithful to what the living God seeks and desires. Well, let's look at another passage in Colossians chapter 2. See what Paul thinks about this thing of the sufficiency of Scripture and the worship of God. And let's read verses 6 through 10 and then go down to verse 20, chapter 2. Colossians 2, verse 6.

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed and overflowing with gratitude. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form and in Him you have been made complete and He is the head over all rule and authority. Verse 20. I want to start with verse 16.

Therefore let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or new moon or Sabbath's things which are a mere shadow of what is to come. But the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of angels taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees such as don't handle, don't taste, don't touch, which all refer to things destined to perish with the using in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men. These are matters which have to be sure the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.

Now the reason Paul wrote the book of Colossians is because there were people in that day, just as there are today, who were trying to blend Christianity with various other world views and philosophies of life and religious practices. We call that synthesis. That's always been a deadly sin in the life of the church. You can trace it throughout the Old Testament, of trying to synthesize, blend together the pure revelation of scripture with other philosophies and other ways of worship and other ways of life. You have it, for instance, in the all the way back in the Genesis, where the sons of God, the covenant line of faithful people intermarried with the daughters of men that is the children of Cain and they synthesized and that accelerated violence in the world that led to Noah's flood.

In the days of the prophet like Elijah you have the false prophets trying to blend the worship of Jehovah with Baileism. In the New Testament, you have books like Colossians and others written to protect the church from such sensifists of trying rather than keeping the revealed truth pure and unmixed, of by making it more palatable and more agreeable and more attractive and more convincing to other people to blend Christianity with various forms of Greek philosophy and asceticism and all kinds of religious practices. And what is Paul's answer in the book of Colossians to that synthesis tendency? It is this. Listen.

Christians are complete in Christ. All the direction and power we need for understanding God and His will, life, ethics, worship, salvation, living for God's glory. We have in Christ and we do not need to go beyond Him to the opinions and traditions and practices that originate with man. As Romans 832 says, He who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not also in him freely give us all things? That is if God did not spare his son, but delivered him up on the cross for all of us as people, then surely God is going to provide for us in Christ, everything else we need to live for his glory in every area of life.

And once this is firmly grasped, that we're complete in Christ, we cannot be seduced or enslaved or defrauded by false teachers. What is it to be complete in Christ? Let me tell you three or four things we find in the Book of Colossians. One, we do not need to go beyond Christ and his redemptive work for salvation from sin. We are to receive by faith alone what Christ has accomplished for us without addition or subtraction.

Because Christ's atonement was so perfect, once for all, he secured everlasting redemption for all those for whom he died, when he died. So that our salvation was completely accomplished in the Lord Jesus Christ and we need not go beyond him at all for salvation and add anything to it by our own good works. I like what one old theologian said in the 19th century. He said, though good works are important in living Christian life. When it comes to justification, that is when it comes to having your sins forgiven and being adopted into God's family.

Good works are good for nothing. For good works don't bleed. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. The second thing it means to be complete in Christ is that we do not need to go beyond Christ's Holy Spirit for the power and motivation to live godly and loving lives as those being renewed into the image of God by the Spirit. We certainly do not want to subtract from his regenerating sanctifying work within us and we obviously can do nothing to add to it.

But what we can do and what only we can do is work out with fear and trembling in our everyday life what the Holy Spirit works within us which is the desire and the ability to live for God's pleasure. Thirdly, we do not need to go beyond Christ's written Word for our worldview and our philosophy of life. This is the sufficiency of scripture. Colossians 2 says we're complete in Christ because in Him is deposited all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. And therefore we are to let the word of Christ dwell within us richly.

And lastly, being complete in Christ means we do not need synthetic worship. We do not need to go beyond the written word of Christ regarding how we should worship Him. Everything we need to know as to how we are to worship God is contained in the pages of Christ's Word and His directions for our worship of Him are complete. They need no additions or subtractions. I would simply remind you of Paul's word in 1 Corinthians 4 verse 6 where he says, Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that in us you might learn not to go beyond what is written.

Is that clear enough for you? Don't go beyond what is written in order that no one of you might become arrogant in behalf of one against the other. So when it comes to the worship of God, the counsel that Paul gives is don't go beyond what is written. Why? Because we are complete in Christ.

Returning to man-made philosophies and religious practices and worldviews and ethics. After knowing the liberating gospel of the all-sufficient Christ is nothing less than a return to slavery, to sin, Satan, and this present world system of evil around us. It is a return to thinking the way unbelievers think who are confident that they are all competent to determine good and evil for themselves. Non-Christians believe that their reason and their experience are the source and standard of truth and religion in worship and ethics. Therefore, we must not go back into the world and think as the unbeliever does.

But we must bring all our thoughts into captivity to Christ. For in him is all the wisdom, knowledge and power we will ever need. In knowing how to worship him and in knowing his will for his life, for our lives. Now there's one last issue that I want to deal with this afternoon because I've heard this objection to the regulative principle of worship so many times given by liberals, reformed people, evangelicals, and they all think they sound so intellectual when they say this. We are often told in objection to what I've been telling you now for two hours that The New Testament does not have a book of Leviticus with a detailed system of do's and don'ts for worship.

Okay, the New Testament doesn't have a book of Leviticus, but there is a book of Leviticus in the Bible. But what's the conclusion they draw from this? Well, in the Old Testament, they had a book of Leviticus that just went right down the line and ordered all the details of worship. There is no such book in the New Testament that orders all the details of worship therefore, they conclude, Christians today have greater freedom as to what they can do in worship than the believers in the Old Testament did The Old Testament believers were strapped by the book of Leviticus. They couldn't do anything other than what the book of Leviticus commanded.

But there's no book of Leviticus in the New Testament, praise the Lord. And therefore, they say, that's not me, praise the Lord, it's in praise the Lord. And they say, and that means that Christians have more liberty. We can do more things. We're not tied down by the detailed commandments of God.

Forget the regulative principle. You feel like standing up and saying something right in the middle of the worship service when the preacher's preaching, go right ahead. I mean, hey, salute the American flag. Salute the Israeli flag for all I care. Because we have more freedom now In what we do in worship since we don't have Book of Leviticus.

Well, that conclusion obviously contradicts what the New Testament teaches about the sufficiency of scripture for worship. We saw what Jesus said in Mark 7. We saw what he said in John 4. We saw what the Holy Spirit Apostle Paul said in the book of Colossians. And it's the same regulating principle of worship that we saw in the Old Testament.

We may do only what is commanded. We may not add to nor take away from. God will not be worshiped by the traditions of men. And when you try to introduce the traditions of men, however beautiful they may be, into the worship of God, you nicely set aside the word of God and you invalidate it by your traditions. So the New Testament is clear that you can only do what is worship of what God has commanded in worship.

But at the same time, that view that says now we have more freedom to do what we want to do in worship contradicts the unity of the Old and New Testament You see people are always trying to do that. They're always trying to drive a wedge bring a dichotomy In the Old and New Testament, there's just too many laws in the Old Testament There's just too many threats and warnings in the Old Testament I like the New Testament and all the sweet things that it says whoever says that's never read the Old Testament nor the New Testament I Can remember when I was a young man raised up in a dispensational background and I was taught that the Old Testament wasn't for me That it was for another day. It was for the Jewish people. It wasn't for the church and When I read the laws and the threats I said, yeah, I believe this I'm going to be a dispensationalist when I grow up But then when I started reading the promise of the Old Testament, I thought well, yeah I sure wish I had a little drop of Abraham's blood in my body.

And then I didn't realize what a racist I was. Because you see, somebody that interprets the Old Testament in terms of race and that the promises and laws and threats and commands of God are according to race. These are racist. They say well it's for the children of Abraham. I say you're right but who does Paul say are the children of Abraham in Galatians 3.

If you belong to Christ through faith, you are a descendant of Abraham and an heir of the promises whether you be Jew or Greek So the real seed of Abraham are those who belong to Jesus Regardless of ethnic origin and Brother when I read the book of Galatians chapter 3 the whole Bible exploded. I mean, I love the laws I love the promises I trembled at the threatenings and the warnings the whole book of the Word of God is for you all 66 books beloved don't let anybody rob you of one word of Holy Scripture. And so those who say there's no book of Leviticus in the New Testament are driving a wedge. They did things. God was worshiped differently.

People were saved differently. God's will for his people was different in the Old Testament that it is in the new. Not so. What's the name of Jesus? Immanuel.

Jehovah with us. There's only one God in the Bible. He is Jehovah the Old Testament incarnate in the Lord Jesus Christ Jesus said when you read the Old Testament, it's about me in Acts 7 Moses is said to be the member a member of the church in the wilderness and in Romans 4 where Paul gives the two best examples he knows of of what it means to believe in Jesus and be saved by faith alone he picks David and Abraham who just happened to live in the Old Testament So we can't buy their Leviticus deal because we believe there's a unity and a continuity between the Old and New Testament. At the top of the list is the same regulative principle. So what are we to draw from the fact that there is no book of Leviticus in the New Testament.

Well, it certainly is not that we have more freedom to do in worship than what the people of God did in the Old Testament. We have, if anything, less freedom for to whom much is given, much is required. The more you know, the more light you've seen, the more responsible and accountable you are to obey the living God, not less accountable. And if we're to learn anything from the fact that there's no book of Leviticus in the New Testament with all of its rules about sacrifices and priesthood and the like. It is simply this, that New Testament worship, though it rests on the same foundation and is performed by the same principle, is more simple than it was in the Old Testament, but more powerful in its ordinances.

I want to read to you from the Great Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 7, paragraph 6. Now listen, because this is good theology. And I have seven minutes to preach another hour of sermon on this. So listen. I'll pull a Doug Phillips.

Under the gospel, When Christ the substance was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments of baptism of the Lord's Supper, which though fewer in number and administered with more simplicity and less outward glory, like the temple. Yet in them it is held forth in more fullness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy or power to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles. And it's called the New Testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace differing in substance but one and the same under various dispensations. In other words there is a difference between the way they worship God in the Old Testament the way they did in the New.

The principle is the same, only do what's commanded. In the Old Testament there was all this ornateness and embellishment in the temple with the gold and the precious stones and the high priestly garments and the sacrificial system and the rites and rituals that went with it. They were shadows. They were symbols that taught the Old Testament people what to believe about Christ. When Christ came, the Old Testament shadows disappeared in the light of the reality, in the light of the substance who is Christ.

So we don't have all those embellishments and ordinateness. I don't stand up here with some kind of priestly garb. We don't sacrifice animals. We don't have buildings made out of gold and silver with all kinds of tapestry and all those things. All of which had symbolic import and pointed to Christ.

We have the real thing. And now that we have the real thing we don't need those shadows and those rites and rituals of the Old Testament that came to a conclusion in the Lord Jesus Christ. We learned a great deal about them. But now our worship is more simple and yet more powerful. I mean, can you imagine how powerful it would be to go to worship in the temple in the Old Testament with all of those God commanded rites and rituals and tapestry and gold and everything?

I mean, that would be powerful. I'm gonna tell you something. I'd rather live today than in the Old Testament as much as I love the Old Testament. What are the ways by which God dispenses his blessings today? The preaching of the word and the administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

Not very ornate. The bread's usually dry. The wine's too sweet, they don't give you enough. And the water's too cold. And the preaching sometime is not the best in the world.

But brother, in that preaching of the word of God, the faithful ministration of the sacraments, we have far more spiritual power and efficacy than they ever saw in the Old Testament. That's the conclusion for not having a Book of Leviticus in the New Testament. It's not that we have more freedom to do what we want. We don't have any more freedom that they had. I don't want any more freedom.

I want the Word of God. But it's more simple. Because All those symbols have come to an end in the Lord Jesus Christ who is present in person at every, every worship service that we participate in in our churches. Not just symbols of his presence. We have Him.

And in the fewer and more simpler rites and rituals and ordinances, we have life and culture and world transforming power. In the Bible there is one great overarching covenant. Overarching and unifying the whole Bible from Genesis to Revelation. That covenant is about a bond of eternal and intimate friendship that God has established with his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. In that covenant, God is our sovereign friend and we are his servant friends.

In that covenant, that bond of friendship, we enjoy fellowship with, fellowship of life with God. And in that covenant, God has given us an all sufficient, sovereignly dictated order of life and worship. And we are complete in that covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ. Every book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation contributes something to help us understand that one overarching covenant. But that one overarching covenant, the blessings are the same in the Old and New Testament.

The laws, the promises are the same. The only thing that's different is that the blessings of the covenant, the Old Testament were dispensed through these ornate, symbolic rights and rituals. Whereas the same blessings are dispensed today through fewer, but more powerful ordinances of God, like the preaching of the Word and the administration of the sacraments. So you can see in conclusion that our view of scripture and our view of the sufficiency of scripture and our view of the unity of the two Testaments is inseparable from our view of worship. If you hold the wrong view of how the two Testaments relate to each other.

If you hold a less than biblical view about this one great covenant of God overarching the whole Bible with two dispensations, one ornate, one simple, you will be faulty in your view of worship. So we live in a, we have more simple worship. But praise God because the sufficiency of scripture, the sufficiency of Christ, the sufficiency of the Holy Spirit. Our worship is filled with far greater spiritual power. God bless you.

For more messages, articles and videos on the subject of conforming the Church and the family to the Word of God and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches, where you can search our online network to find family integrated churches in your area, log on to our website ncfic.org. You