In Jason Dohm's sermon on the regulative principle of worship, he explores the concept that worship should be guided strictly by scripture, as opposed to the normative principle which allows for practices not expressly forbidden by scripture. He emphasizes the importance of adhering to God's instructions for worship as outlined in the Bible, arguing that the church is the 'house of God' and should not be treated as a place for human innovation. Dohm draws on passages from Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and the New Testament to illustrate that God has always been specific in defining how He should be worshiped. He warns against adopting practices from other religions or cultural innovations that are not grounded in scripture, highlighting historical examples and theological perspectives to support his stance. Dohm concludes by encouraging the congregation to trust in God's timeless practices as sufficient for achieving the ends of worship, evangelism, and discipleship.

Please turn to Psalm 19. Our topic for sermon today is the regulative principle of worship. So to preface that we'll read Psalm 19. Please follow along. Psalm 19, to the chief musician, a Psalm of David.

The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tabernacle for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoices like a strong man to run its face.

Its rising is from one end of heaven, and its circuit to the other end, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wives 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.

Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me from secret faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless and I shall be innocent of great transgression.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer. Let's pray. Lord God, we do pray that you will send your spirit on us God that you will bless Mr. Dome give him your words to speak to us the congregation open up our hearts to hear and receive this message. In Jesus name, Amen.

Well this isn't the sermon yet, just an update from the conference. Number one, yesterday I preached a sermon to a whole bunch of people about the glory of being a keeper at home. Just what an exalted precious calling that is. I think as a result I've become the favorite preacher of hundreds of mothers. And that's a good thing.

You always want the mothers on your side. God above all others and then you want the mothers if you can get them to be for you. So I think that was accomplished yesterday. Number two, last night we had a missions meeting. It was me and mostly Paul and Michael and Poojan Mershahi, who's a pastor in England, but he's a native Iranian and has a ministry to Iranians.

Last year, we had the same meeting Saturday night after the conference last year. The room was busting to the seams and we were saying, please help us with turkey. This year it was really just a celebration that people have helped us with turkey. Paul started the meeting by saying, this is not a commercial for Turkey, but here's what God has done in the last year, and then the rest of it was just about, it was really, it was a who's next meeting. What other churches will band together to pool their resources to send the next family.

What other churches will give birth to the next family to be sent out. So it was a special time. I had the feeling that a significant thing was happening in the room last night. I was even more busting at the seams. The seats were filled.

The walls were filled with people standing too deep most of the way around. I bet there were 200 people in the room. And so after the conference when a lot of people have gone home, just a tremendous, tremendous Showing of people. It was a great time. Third, what happens every NCFIC conference to me happened again this time which is I relate with pastors all over the country, all kinds of congregations, and I come home really happy and thankful for you.

It's tough out there. And I pastor a church who's able to support me full time. Very few churches either can do that or do do that or whatever. And so you afford me the hours to work on studying the Bible when the sun is shining. Many pastors rarely study for Sunday sermons when the sun is shining.

I get to do that on my porch often. And you're nice to me and you're nice to my family. To the point where I can take that for granted until about now. But the fact that you have such a spirit of grace towards me and my family is different than what a lot of pastors experience. So I praise God for you and the life that God has given us together.

Praise the Lord. Now the sermon. The regular principle of worship. Listen to what Paul writes to Timothy. Just listen at this point.

We won't come here later. Listen to what Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3, 14 and 15. Paul says, these things I write to you though I hope to come to you shortly. But if I am delayed, I write so that you know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the Church of the Living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. He doesn't leave to chance that Timothy would understand exactly why he's writing.

I hope to come to you in person, but if I'm delayed, I'm writing you so that you know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God. When the people of God meet, there's a way that we ought to conduct ourselves. The argument here is that because of what the church is, the house of God, the house that God owns, and the pillar and ground of the truth where the whole world should be able to look to as the repository of truth from heaven because the church is that. There is a particular way that we ought to conduct ourselves in the house of God. In other words, we don't just get to make it up as we go along.

It implies that not everything is appropriate, but who gets to decide and how? You know the answer to that question. The scripture speaks. The Bible tells us. And the answers matter a lot to our corporate life together.

You know, we're so committed, and I praise God for this, we're so committed to sequential exposition. John 1, John 2, John 3, and then of course we're subdividing up the chapters a little bit at a time working our way through books. I'm so glad that that's the steady diet of the church. But really, you could come here and be here a long time and not know that we actually subscribe hook, line, and sinker to the regulative principle of worship because we don't preach topically. So I'm really glad that we have the opportunity to just look at this topic because it explains what you see on a Sunday morning.

It explains why we do what we do here on a Sunday and why we don't do what many many churches do on on Sundays. This is not coincidental, This is on purpose. We're living out theology on Sundays and our theological beliefs on Sunday Let's let's pray as we come to the topic Our God you're worthy of all worship It would be impossible for us to gather together and worship you too much. That's unthinkable, impossible. I pray that you would be worshiped, but not according to the dictates of our own inclinations and thoughts, but you would be worshiped in the way that you've said pleases you.

O govern us God. Govern us. Make us happily governed people, satisfied with what is set forward in your word in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, the regular principle of worship is a foundational Reformation doctrine, meaning that the Reformers, they didn't invent it, but they recovered it.

The Catholic forms of worship had become so far from the patterns of scripture that they were just filled with the inventions of man. Things that you can't find grounded in scripture at all, so the reformers said enough. We need to be limited to God's Word. We need to be hemmed in by what we find in scripture in our worship. It's based on the proposition that worship is a special category.

Worship is not like all the other categories in life. It is more closely regulated than the rest of life. God cares very much how he is worshiped. And so he's not left it to our thoughts and innovations and inventions how we'd worship Him. He actually says this is worship that pleases me in His Word.

The heart of it is this, God rules His people through His Word. He is King, He expects to be King, He expects to be treated as king. He's given us a book to regulate us and to tell us how he wants to be worshipped. And so we should humble ourselves before God not exalt our own thoughts or tastes or inclinations but satisfy ourselves with what we find in God's book. Regarding the regulative principle of worship, there are two competing principles within the Lord's people.

So I'm talking about a family fight here. I'm not talking about pagans and atheists and agnostics. We'll leave them out there for the time being and we'll say within real, live, Bible loving, warm hearted Christians there is a family fight here over which is right. Between number one, the regulator principle of worship which says that whatever is not warranted by scripture is forbidden. If you have a thought of something to do to worship but you can't ground it soundly, firmly in God's book, it's off limits for you.

That essentially is the regulated principle of worship. Now what would give us warrant? What would say, okay, we've properly grounded this and tied this in a sound way to Scripture? Well, obviously commands. God commands you to worship in a way you should worship in that way.

That is warrant. Or a clear principle from scripture. Scripture teaches this principle and this is the implication of that principle for the worship of the people of God and we're handling the Bible correctly when we bring forth this principle into worship. Or a clear pattern. Hey, the New Testament church under apostolic leadership and authority worshiped God in this way.

That is sound grounding of practice of worship. Now, you can tell already within the regulative principle of worship, you've not cleared away all argument or all debate by saying those things. Because now, we have to hash out within the people of God, okay, you say this is a clear principle. I am not so sure about that. You say this is the New Testament pattern.

Well, because of this, I would call that into question. So it does not end all debate, but it grounds the debate in a view that if you can't tie it in a sound way to scripture, it is off limits. And then we debate from there as the foundation for the debate. The competing principle, again within the household of faith, is the normative principle. The regular principle of worship and then the normative principle of worship.

It comes at a view of what's appropriate in worship from a different direction. It says whatever is not specifically prohibited by scripture is permitted. So there's overlap between those two things but you can tell that's not exactly the same thing. The people who subscribe to the normative principle find themselves having to add phrases like this. I didn't take the time to look it up, but I think this was a phrase that Luther added.

As long as it is agreeable to the peace and the unity of the church. I believe Luther added that. It's within the bounds of what's reasonable as long as it's not specifically forbidden in scripture, as long as it's agreeable to the peace and the unity of the church. That has to be added because otherwise you end up with all sorts of crazy things that Luther would never want in the church. So with the regular principle of worship, we look at the scriptures to answer the question, what must we do to worship the God of this book.

So that's the question for the book. Book from heaven? What must we do as the people of God to worship the God who gave us this book And then we restrict ourselves to these practices. We won't have anything to do with worship practices that don't come out of this book as an answer to that question, how must we worship this God? To state it positively, we preserve the best of our time, the best of our energy, the best of our resources for Bible practices.

So we will not divert our time, our energy, our resources to practices that aren't coming out of this book. We reserve it for Bible practices. We allow ourselves to be limited. We allow ourselves to be regulated by what we find in the book. Both with the ends, the objective that we're shooting for, and the means, the pathway to get to that objective.

Now both both people who subscribe to the regulative principle of worship and people who subscribe to the competing principle, the normative principle of worship, all have the same ends. Worship, evangelism, discipleship. We should gather to worship this God who has saved us. We should proclaim Christ as having come and died and risen again for the salvation of sinners. And when there are converts we should disciple them so they are growing in grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus.

But the regular principle is focused on how. How do we worship this God? How should we do evangelism? How should we disciple converts? Not just that we value worship evangelism and discipleship, but we value how God has told us to go about worship, to go about evangelism, to go about discipleship.

John Knox said this, John Knox was the great Scottish reformer who made the Queen tremble with his prayers. He said this, All worshiping, honoring, or service invented by the brain of man in the religion of God without his express commandment is idolatry. Knox is saying that true worship is only worship which is commanded by God. The object of worship. Knox is arguing that the object of worship gets to say what the worship ought to be, not the worshippers.

The object of worship prescribes how he desires to be worshiped and so then false worship is anything not commanded. He actually calls it idolatry. He says when you invent worship practices that have no sound grounding in the Word of God, God ceases to be the object of worship. It's actually self-idolatry. You're worshipping yourself when you come and say, God you must accept this.

You didn't command it. You didn't give us principles for it. You didn't give us a pattern of it in New Testament life, but we like it anyway. You're worshiping yourself. Many of the great confessions of faith articulate this, including our own.

Listen to this from chapter 22 of worship and the Sabbath day in our confession, the 1689 confession of faith. 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 worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men. He may not be worshiped by way of visible representations or by any other thing not prescribed in holy scriptures.

Now you go to the 1689 confession and do a search on regular principle you'll not find it anywhere but that's the definition of the regular principle of worship and it actually bleeds into the whole confession. Now that I preach this sermon when you go and look at various parts of the confession, you'll start to pick it out and see, oh, this is what's driving them here, this is what's driving them here, this is what's driving them here, is an underlying foundation that it's God who tells His people how to worship. It's the sufficiency of Scripture that the Scripture speaks to everything that we need to concern ourselves with and that it tells us all that we need to know, but it's more than that. The worship of God has always been a special, carefully prescribed category. What do I mean by that?

Well, the sufficiency of Scripture would say, when you get the job offer, and to take the job offer you move to Denver, Colorado. When you're in that decision making process that the scripture gives you a grid of principles from heaven That will allow you to draw on those principles to make a wise decision about should I take the job in Denver? But that the worship of God is actually a much more narrowly prescribed category It's not just looking at general principles to decide how can we proceed wisely, but that it actually hems us in much more tightly than that. You definitely see that in scripture. Worship as a special category, more tightly prescribed than many, many, many other, probably any other category of life.

God cares intensely about his worship and how he is worshiped and so he prescribes it so much more specifically than many other categories of life. The normative principle of worship, on the other hand, seeks specific prohibitions from scripture. So I said the regular principle, you come and you ask the book a question. Book, what must we do to worship the God who gave you to us? The people who subscribe to the normative principle of worship are asking the book another question.

Book, what must we be careful not to do in the worship of this God? It is a good question. We should absolutely answer that question. The people who subscribe to the regular principle of worship are not pushing back on that as a legitimate question. If the book says you shouldn't worship God in this way, you better not worship God in this way.

We just say that's not enough. With the normative method, you are looking for what is explicitly off limits, out of bounds according to the Scriptures, and then having almost complete freedom outside of that. The intended ends are the same. Worship, evangelism, discipleship. We should meet to worship this God who saved us.

We should proclaim Jesus as the Savior of sinners and when there is a convert we should help them to grow in grace. It's the exact same ends, But the pathways to the ends explode with the normative principle of worship. There can now be a thousand paths to get to your end point. Some of the manifestations. Comedians in church.

I've seen that. Weightlifting teams in church. To demonstrate the power of God. You know, sort of a word picture, bringing the weight lifting team. I've not seen that.

I thank God. Skits in the Worship service. I wonder how many skits I've actually actively participated in in worship services. As a cross dresser. But that's a separate story for another day.

It's funny, but I'm not proud of that. I look back on that now with horror. The things that I've done in my past. Because I honestly believe that it was outside how God tells us to worship and dishonor the Lord. I'm sorry I did that.

And the question then becomes, where will it end? I mean, you got comedians and weightlifters and dramas going on to engage the people to make sure that they're drawn into the other things that you're doing. Where will you end? It never ends. It never ends.

It ends when people stop having ideas. And that is never. And you are At the mercy of the person with the next clever idea. Clearly I am strongly advocating for the regulative principle of worship. I believe in my heart of hearts in the regulative principle of worship.

Why? I will offer four scriptures that I think get us to the heart of matter. Obviously, if you can't ground this in scriptures, and this is about being grounded in the scriptures, that would make no sense. To me, these four scriptures are so compelling. Turn to Deuteronomy 12.

We look at the very end of the chapter, Deuteronomy 12 verses 29 through 32. Listen, follow along. Deuteronomy 12 beginning of verse 29. When the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their God, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? I will also do likewise.

You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. For every abomination to the Lord which he hates they have done to their gods. For they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it." This is so clear to me.

What's happening? The people of God are about to be brought into the promised land. It's not an empty land. It's a land full of pagans. They are going to be dispossessing the pagans.

It's not a religionless land at all. It's a religion-filled land. People are busily engaged in worship there. False practices defaults gods. And what is being said here is that you better not take those practices to worship this God.

You can't be borrowing their religious practices and then just stick it onto this God. Now you know that's exactly what happens with the golden calf, right? The golden calf is not another God. They made those golden calves, and then they said, this is the God that brought us out of Egypt but borrowing you know it'd be nice to have something we could see and touch really help us in our worship We'll make it out of gold so that it'll be glorious and we'll say this brought us out of Egypt God brought so many sorrows on them for doing this this is what's God God This is the essence of what God is saying here. Don't you take those religious practices from people who are worshipping false gods and say, oh we'd like to adopt this, we'd like to adopt that, and bring it into the worship to me.

And verse 31, you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. Don't you borrow their practices to worship me. And then, verse 32, whatever I command you, Be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it, nor take away from it. When you add, when you say, okay we got the book, we got the practices of the book, but we'd also like to do this, Catholic worship is full of that.

You are not carefully observing what's in the book. When you subtract, when you say we like all this, we're going to drop this off the back end, You are not carefully observing what's in the book. It is the regular principle of worship here in Deuteronomy chapter 12. This is not invented by the Reformers. This was recovered by the Reformers as so many of the things.

You shall not add to it nor take away from it. Secondly, Deuteronomy 12, 29-32 is a good place to start. Secondly, 1 Timothy 3, 15. I read it in the introduction. Timothy, 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 ground of the truth.

If you have something that is that, God's house, God's church, how did he get that? He bled for it. He bought it with blood. So is it his? You bet it's his.

Who can lay claim to it if God bought it with the blood of his son? It is God's church. It is God's house. And if it is the pillar and ground of the truth, if it is designed by God to be able to look at it, at this and say, this is fashioned by truth from heaven. This is the repository of truth from heaven.

Then you can't just do what you want. There is a way that you ought to conduct yourself in this Church of God. The Church is not our playground. This is the message. The Church is not our playground.

It is the house of God, the pillar and ground of the truth. God has always been specific in defining worship. If you come away from reading Exodus and Leviticus without getting the point that God cares very much about the way in which he has worshiped, then you have just skimmed over the top and you've missed the whole point. Think of all the minute details that you find in Exodus and Leviticus. Has worship changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament?

Undoubtedly. God meant it to change. God changed it. But has God changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament. Undoubtedly, God meant it to change.

God changed it. But has God changed from the Old Testament to the New Testament? Never. May it never be. He is immutable.

He never changes from eternity past through eternity future. The God who gave the minute prescription for his worship in Exodus and Leviticus is the God of Jesus' church today. He still cares. Most of those minute details were just summed up wrapped up Fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we don't need them at all That doesn't mean that God doesn't speak as to how we ought to worship. The worship of God is not something to be reinvented in every generation.

God and His Word and His ways is relevant in every generation. It's The chasing of relevancy. We cannot be relevant unless we have smoke rising out of the band, and weight lifters, and comedians, and skits. We cannot be relevant unless we have those things. The word of God is always relevant.

The gospel is always relevant. Preaching is always relevant. Raising our voices together in song is always relevant. The people who say, if that's all there is, I'm not coming, are not believers. There might be people who say I prefer other things and I embrace the normative principle.

I'm not saying that everyone in a normative principle church is an unbeliever. Don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying if you can't be satisfied with the ways that God says you desire to be worshiped, you cannot have a new heart. You cannot have a new heart.

Number three, Leviticus 10. Leviticus chapter 10. I'm doing pretty good on time. I have a chance at having three sermons in a row on time, so I'm going to hustle. Leviticus chapter 10 verses 1 through 3.

It Might not be a world record, but it's probably my record. Leviticus chapter 10 verses 1 through 3. Follow along. Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them and they died before the Lord.

Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord spoke saying, by those who come near me I must be regarded as holy. Before all the people I must be glorified. So Aaron held his peace. When God killed his sons for this, Aaron held his peace when God spoke. Verse 1, they offer profane fire.

What made it profane? What made it unworthy? The next phrase, which I had not commanded them. Now notice, this is really important, this is a detail of the text, but there's no wiggling out of it. They didn't violate a specific prohibition.

You cannot find a verse that says, don't do what they're doing. God simply says, you did this profane thing, I never told you to do that, and He consumed them with fire from heaven. The wages of sin is death. He paid the wages right on the spot. We get so used to God being so patient that It's a shock to the system to see this.

As if God was in a mood. God wasn't in a mood. God's holy. God can pay the wages anytime he wants to. He determines the timing on paying the wages of sin.

We don't determine that timing. We don't have a claim on his patience. We find him to be so often patient. Look at this. By those who come near me, I must be regarded as holy.

Holy means separate, other. Don't treat me like I'm another man. I told you how I want to be worshiped and you came with something else as if I were like you As if I were your peer I'm the God who made the heavens I Must be regarded as holy. Second Kings verse 16. Just jot this down.

If you're taking notes, I'm not going there, but I'll tell you what's there. Go back and look at it later. It's a fascinating account. 2 Kings chapter 16 verses 10 through 16. 2 Kings 16 verses 10 through 16.

A has a wicked king, goes to Assyria, a wicked pagan place, and he visits a temple that has an awesome altar. More awesome than our altar. Way better than our altar. Bigger, blingier. So, he sends the specs, the specifications back to the priests.

Make us one of these. This is great. Now, they bring that into the temple? Yeah, they bring that into the temple. Do they throw out the altar that God prescribed?

No way. Nobody is bold enough to do that. They moved it and relegated it to secondary little things. He didn't have the guts to throw it away altogether. He just put it in the corner and gave it a secondary place to make way for the bling altar.

This is how it works. This is how it works. We still like preaching, but we're going to bring in the other stuff. Guess what happens to preaching? We still like singing the hymns of the faith or songs of faith.

We're gonna cut one of those to add the skit. It will engage people for the sermon. You see how this works? It is the moving of what God prescribed into the corner and given second class status to make way for our inventions and our innovations. Adding always displaces.

You take time and energy and resources that God would have pointed at what he's given to his people. They're the good things, the best things, and you take away from it. Move that off into the corner and give time and energy and resources to your innovation. To your innovation. Finally, verse number four, Jesus in Mark chapter seven.

I hope you notice, I picked two Old Testament and two New Testament. This is not Old Testament theology. This is Bible theology. I think 1st Timothy 3, there is a way that we ought to conduct ourselves in the house of God is as clear as it gets. And I think Mark chapter 7 verses 5 through 13, Jesus Himself is as clear as it gets.

Mark chapter 7 beginning in verse 5, And The Pharisees and scribes asked him, asked Jesus, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? He answered and said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, you hypocrites, as it is written, this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, and in vain they worship me. Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men for laying aside the commandments of God you hold the tradition of men washing of pitchers and cups and many other such things you do. He said to them, all too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, honor your father and your mother, and he who curses father or mother let him be put to death but you say if a man says to his father or mother whatever profit you might have received from me is korban that is a gift to God then You no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect by your tradition which you have handed down and many such things you do." What's here?

The Pharisees and scribes come and find Jesus and his disciples ignoring a tradition. Not ignoring scripture, ignoring a tradition. Not doing the things that you can't find anywhere in scripture, but not doing the things that have become a part of the worship. And add on. Adding.

This is about worship. He makes it very clear in verse 7. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. So this hand washing thing is not about hygiene. This is not hygiene.

This is about worship. This is about ceremonial uncleanness. Only they had gone beyond what God said about ceremonial uncleanness and added all sorts of washings that are nowhere to be found in the Word of God. They added them. God said don't add.

Meanwhile, God says honor your father and your mother, Provide for your father and mother if they need it as an expression of your honor to them. But you've said, instead of doing that, you can just give to the temple. You can just give resources to worship. You can divert that money that would have gone to honoring your father and mother to this other thing. So they subtracted.

They subtracted. You don't have to provide for your parents anymore. You can divert the funds over here. When we elevate our own practices, we end up discarding the Bible. No way around it.

It's just like Ahaz's altar. When we elevate our own practices we end up discarding the Bible, minimizing the Bible. We have a martyr who was a missionary, Jim Elliott, who was martyred in 1956. He says this, the pivot point hangs on whether or not God has revealed a universal pattern for the church in the New Testament. So let's stop there.

Where are we? So there's a pivot point. It swings on this one thing. Has God given a universal pattern for the church in the New Testament? He continues, if He has not, then anything will do so long as it works.

There's not a universal pattern. Anything will do as long as it gets the results. 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.

To that, The leaders of this church say, Amen. I hope you say Amen with us. If God has a pattern for the church to find and establish that pattern at all costs, it is incumbent upon us to do that. He follows his logic. There's no universal pattern.

As long as it works, you can do it. But we're the bride. We're the bride. Can it be that Something so precious to the Lord is as bright as a left with no explicit instructions. Just do what works.

It's unthinkable to Jim Elliot, the martyr. It's unthinkable to us. In conclusion, I pose this question. Are the practices of scripture really enough to get the church where she needs to be? Can we really be successful by constraining the overwhelming bulk of our energy to just these practices?

The answer is it depends What are you shooting for how you defining success? Is faithfulness and obedience to God the target for us or are we looking for something else? We want to fill the building. You want to get the church to a thousand? Find me a regular principal church that has a thousand people in it.

I bet you can count them on fingers and toes, probably in our country. Brothers and sisters, are we willing to trust God's words for the ends and the means? We know about the ends. Worshipping this God, evangelizing the lost, and discipling converts. Amen.

We stand right beside our normative principle brethren, say amen to those ends. Now how are we going to get there? The book tells us. That's how we answer that question. We come, we ask a question of the book, what must we do to worship this God?

Ultimately, it's about our view of God. God is still active so we can simply abide in His timeless practices. God's still alive and well, you can just abide in His timeless practices. He knew all about current circumstances in eternity past. So we don't have to worry about his practices becoming irrelevant.

He knew all about 2019. Nothing about 2019 unknown to God from eternity past. He is not waiting for us to engage our best thoughts and creativity to make it happen. He is not. He is not.

He is not. May we be satisfied with the simple yet beautiful practices of scripture. God, thank you. Thank you for your word. Oh, to be hemmed in by it.

To be regulated by it. To be blessedly limited by it, limit us God. We believe by trust in you, but also by experience in life, the words of Isaiah 55, that your thoughts are as high above our thoughts as the heavens are above the earth that your ways are as high above our ways as the heavens are above the earth we want to be brought up to you your thoughts in your ways by your word let it be so God Let us be such a trusting people, such a happily satisfied people in the things you set forth in your word. We pray in Jesus name, Amen.