DM 620421

Turn your Bible to Exodus 20. I'm not going to read as much because we don't have time to read the whole thing. We're only on the first commandment still. So I'm just going to read the first couple of verses. Exodus 20, and God spoke all these words saying, I am Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

That's the first commandment. Pray with me. Father, please help us to properly open up your word. Work through weak vessels, in particular this one, to communicate to your saints your truth from your word. I ask your Holy Spirit to go before me and soften the hearts of people and to anoint me with the unction that only you can give that I may dispense your word truthfully.

We confess, Lord, that you are perfect. Your word is infallible, inerrant. It's sufficient for every good work. so we ask you to apply it to our lives today in Christ's name I pray amen the difficulty of preaching altogether is the admonition that you're supposed to practice what you preach and an honest man recognizes that he always falls short so it's extremely difficult to ever feel qualified to preach.

In fact, Paul, arguably the most qualified man that wasn't also God, who ever lived, said, who is sufficient for these things? And he answers the question that no one is, but God makes them sufficient. But in particular, when preaching about the first commandment, it is particularly scary, to be honest with you. And that's because I don't know if I've ever kept it for more than a few seconds.

We have a difficult time, particularly with the first commandment. And one of the reasons is that very much of it happens deep inside your heart. It happens between you and God, and oftentimes the evidence that you are not obeying the first commandment is so far down the road from where you began. and so I have I am trembling before the Lord as I talk about this I think about Bert trembling before the Lord in just the reading of scripture today and that is the posture we are supposed to have Isaiah 66 to all these things my hands have made and so all these things came to be But this is the one to whom I will look, he who is gentle and contrite in heart and trembles before my word.

And I have to confess that I spent a large part of this week asking myself if I ever tremble before the word. And I was extremely disappointed to realize that I don't do it anywhere near enough to actually think I even do it. and so that's something that God brought to my mind this week that I need to take that more seriously in the catechism and one of the reasons I have the books there for you was if you don't have the blue book with the confession the one that I have here this is the one that we get for free it's got the old English which honestly is probably good for you to learn and it has the catechism questions in the back the catechism questions complement the confession beautifully. There's a whole section of the catechism where it talks about the commandments.

It asks what's required in each commandment and what's forbidden in each commandment. Thank you. Helps us think through the commandments. Question 51 says, what is required in the first commandment? So all we read is, you shall have no other gods before me. The answer to the question in the catechism is the first commandment requireth us to know and acknowledge God, to be the only true God and our God, and to worship and glorify Him accordingly.

The commandment says, you shall have no other gods before me. That's actually the imperative statement you read. the first statement is declarative Yahweh your God have brought you out of the land of Egypt but inside the indicative the statement that indicates something about God there's implications if he's God we're required to know and acknowledge him and worship and glorify him accordingly what is forbidden in the first commandment question 52 The first commandment forbids the denying or not worshiping and glorifying the true God. As God and our God.

And the giving of that worship and glory to any other which is due to him alone. Which is all worship and glory. So, among other things that we could pull out of the first commandment. Last week I went through the first paragraph of chapter 2 of the Confession and we essentially listed a number of God's perfections and we talked about what a few of those were.

So among all of the things we could pull out of the first commandment to talk about this week I want to talk about the thing that called the regulative principle of worship If you look at our confession, we'll go here twice today at least. Chapter 2, we read paragraph 1 last week that talked about who God is. chapter 2 says God having all life glory, goodness, blessedness in and of himself is alone in and unto himself all sufficient not standing in need of any creature which he hath made nor deriving any glory from them but only manifesting his own glory in by unto and upon them that's why when we say we glorify God we don't actually add anything to God all we're doing is reflecting his glory which is a great thing to do that the glory doesn't come from you he alone is the fountain of all being of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things and he hath most sovereign dominion over all creatures to do by them, for them, or upon them whatsoever himself pleaseth in his sight all things are open and manifest all things are before him his knowledge is infinite infallible and independent upon the creature so as nothing is to him contingent or uncertain he is most holy in all his counsels in all his works and in all his commands. And now here's the last statement.

To him is due from angels and men whatsoever worship, service, or obedience as creatures they owe unto their creator and whatever he is further pleased to require of them. the implication is that because God's God and creator and he is who he is we owe him a certain amount of worship just as a result of that but he can actually require whatever else he wants that maybe to us would seem arbitrary or outside of the norm and that's okay so for example you wake up in the morning you know you should worship God because the sun came up It's obvious. This is why the scientific argument for atheism is so foolish, because actually it's the observation of science that should lead people to understand that there's a creator. Nobody's going to look at the scientist's textbook that he wrote and assume that it just came to be out of nothing.

He'd be insulted if he said that. Yet he looks at God's creation and he says it came out of nothing. So we should worship God for obvious reasons, Because he's so immense and his creation is so big and he's so obvious. But also God has given us specific things to do like the Lord's table and baptism. These are things we would have never woken up and thought of on our own.

That's the point of that last statement. We owe him the worship that he requires. So tune in. Chapter 22 now. chapter 22 of the Confession, then we're going to get into the Word of God. Chapter 22, paragraph 1. The light of nature shows that there is a God who hath lordship and sovereignty over all, is just, good, and doth good unto all, and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served, with all the heart and all the soul and with all the might.

But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself and so limited by his own revealed will that he may not be worshipped according to the imagination and devices of men, nor the suggestions of Satan under any visible representations or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scriptures. This is called the regulative principle of worship. It is what we hold to at this church. it is what we will teach you at this church it's what we will do in our worship service at this church what it means is that we believe our worship is regulated by God that we are not to do anything but what God has commanded us to do the other way of thinking about worship in a Christian context is called the normative principle so you have the regulative principle your worship is regulated by the word of God and you have the normative principle.

The normative principle states that as worshipers we ought to do anything that comes to mind as long as God's word doesn't forbid it. So basically you can't sin and worship God but otherwise probably just about anything ends up being somewhat open. I believe the scripture teaches the regulative principles so turn to Exodus 30 first I'll turn to Deuteronomy 12 we're going to jump around for a second this is the problem when I take notes I look down at my notes and I realize I had something in a different order before I want you to see a few verses first then we're going to dig into the text that I want to teach from today and then Lord willing if I find time I'm going to explain the whole thing with communion being earlier just never know with me do you Deuteronomy 12 29 to 32 I want to read when Yahweh your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess he talking to the Israelites and you dispossess them and dwell in their land take care that you be not ensnared to follow after them after they have been destroyed before you and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, how did these nations serve their gods, that I may also do the same? he's telling them how to worship him he says you shall not worship yahweh your god in that way in what way in the way that all the people around them worship god they go into a land they find out how those people worship their god and they decide well this is fun we'll just do it the same way but we'll just pick the right god and god's saying no that's not how it works the way that you worship God is important it's not just that you worship the right God he says for every abominable thing that Yahweh hates they have done for their gods for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire to their gods he says everything that I command you, you shall be careful to do you shall not add to it or take from it Exodus 30 now, verse 9.

I want you to see what we saw there, that you shall not add to it or take from it. God has a way that He wants it done. And that way is not going to be a way that pagans out in the middle of nowhere figured out on their own without His revelation. You understand? There's no accidental Christians out there. I know we like to think so.

I know we like to think that there's these little countries somewhere where there's all these really good people that wake up in the morning and if they only heard about Jesus, wow, would they worship Him and they'd do it in spirit and truth and they'd love Him so much once they heard about Him. The fact of the matter is that nobody's been there to preach Jesus to them yet. It's probably because God's judging those people.

Not having a preacher come to preach Jesus to you is God's judgment on your people. Still want to get in places because there are gods elect from every tribe, tongue, and nation. We know that. Let's not pretend that there's people all over the world trying to worship God and they just haven't heard His name. It's quite the opposite. In Exodus 30, there's a lot to look at here if you want to.

Go back and read Exodus 30. I just want you to look at verse 9. God says you shall not offer unauthorized incense on it, on the altar that he tells them to make, the altar of incense. He tells them to burn incense. But then he says, you shall not offer unauthorized incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering, and you shall not put a drink offering on it.

So there's a particular way that God wants to be worshipped on this altar. Now, turn to Leviticus 9. This is where we'll spend the majority of our portion. Okay, we're going to read through Leviticus 9. I'm going to try not to stop every verse and comment. So try to follow along with me.

On the eighth day, Moses called Aaron and his sons and the elders of Israel. And he said to Aaron, take for yourself a bull calf for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. So there's a burnt offering, right? I want you to listen for the burnings, the burnts, the burns. I want you to listen for how often God's actually prescribing that they burn something.

Both without blemish, and offer them before Yahweh. And say to the people of Israel, Take a male goat for a sin offering, and a calf and a lamb, both a year old, without blemish, for a burnt offering. And an ox and a ram for peace offerings to sacrifice before Yahweh. And a grain offering mixed with oil, for today Yahweh will appear to you. There's a special circumstance going on.

And they brought what Moses commanded in front of the ten of meeting, and all the congregation drew near and stood before Yahweh. And Moses said, this is the thing that Yahweh commanded you to do, that the glory of Yahweh may appear to you. Then Moses said to Aaron, draw near to the altar and offer your sin offering and your burnt offering. Is that probably...

Alright, so that was interesting, but there's a sermon illustration in there in that once we got outside, and I'm not trying to mock anybody here, but we immediately went into random conversation about other things. We're so easily onto other things than just focus on the Lord. And I don't mean that as an indictment on anybody at all. That's just how we are.

We need to stay focused. We need Him to keep us focused. So thank the Lord there was no fire. And we know the fire department works. We know how to get a hold of them. So pray for those guys.

We just got tracks. So we're in Leviticus 9. regular principle of worship is going to be displayed for us. In fact, we're going to see the consequence of not following it. We'll go back in verse 8. So Aaron drew near to the altar and killed the calf of the sin offering, which was for himself. And the sons of Aaron presented the blood to him, and he dipped his finger in the blood and put it on the horns of the altar and poured out the blood at the base of the altar. but the fat and the kidneys and the long lobe of the liver from the sin offering he burned on the altar as Yahweh commanded Moses So there a burning He did it as Yahweh commanded The flesh and the skin he burned up with fire outside the camp Then he killed the burn offering and Aaron's sons handed him the blood and he threw it against the sides of the altar and they handed the burn offering to him piece by piece and the head and he burned them on the altar.

A lot of burning going on that God is not mad about. It's exactly what God told him to do. And he washed the entrails and the legs and burned them with the burnt offering on the altar. Then he presented the people's offering and took the goat of the sin offering that was for the people and killed it and offered it as a sin offering like the first one.

And he presented the burnt offering and offered it according to the rule. Now pay attention here because God's actually very gracious to us because we are thrill seekers. And one of the reasons why worship gets boring, one of the reasons why we start going through the motions, is we have a desire for the excitement. And that's why there's churches that are always doing more exciting things.

And this is like point four in my sermon, so I can't go there yet. But I just want you to see that God's very gracious. And if you actually read the Bible with your eyes open to what's going on, some pretty exciting stuff actually just happens right there in scripture. I heard a preacher this week say that God has a flair for the dramatic. And I think the problem is, we think so many things in this world are exciting and dramatic that we lose sight of how amazing God is.

17, Leviticus 9, 17, he presented the grain offering, took a handful of it and burned it on the altar besides the burnt offering of the morning. So that's the incense offering. Then he killed the ox and the ram. The sacrifice of peace offerings for the people. And Aaron's sons handed him the blood. And he threw it against the sides of the altar.

But the fat pieces of the ox and of the ram, the fat tail and that which covers the entrails and the kidneys, and the long lobe of the liver, they put the fat pieces on the breasts. And he burned the fat pieces on the altar. More burning. Lots of burning. It's all good. God's pleased.

We're going to see. But the breast and the right thigh, Aaron waved for a wave offering before Yahweh as Moses commanded. Then Aaron lifted up his hands toward the people and blessed them. And he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting. And when they came out, they blessed the people.

And the glory of Yahweh appeared to all the people. don't miss the significance of that. But listen to how it's described now. And fire came out from before Yahweh and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces, which is the right response to observing the glory of God, which is the right response to understanding God's fiery judgment. okay so this whole chapter was all this stuff being done including a whole bunch of burnt offerings including the one that Exodus 30 told us about which is a morning and evening one where there's like a constant fire of incense burning on the altar okay there was a separate altar for this where there's just a non-stop fire the priests were supposed to make it it was their job to make it now continue into chapter 10 an unfortunate chapter break I think now Nadab and Abihu the sons of Aaron the sons of the great high priest the first priest each took his censer a little bowl and put fire in it so they did exactly what everybody else was doing they may have even used the same substance the little incense and they laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire or strange fire before Yahweh, which he had not commanded them.

So these guys, they got a little excited. They saw the glory of God revealed. They saw their dad go through and do all this stuff, and boom, some exciting stuff happened. And they wanted a taste of being able to do that with their own strength and their own power. so they did the things that God would even told Aaron to do and fire came out from before Yahweh and consumed them and they died before Yahweh now it's implied in the text here we'll see in a second that they may have had a little bit too much to drink which is what caused them to act so foolishly but don't miss the point here they weren't doing something that was outside of the ordinary.

They simply weren't the folks authorized to do it. And God consumed them. It means he killed them. Then Moses said to Aaron, this is what the Lord has said, you know, Yahweh. He says, among those who are near me, I will be sanctified. And before all the people, I will be glorified.

And Aaron held this peace. Moses is like, don't you dare speak a word to God as if God misjudged your sons here. There's a whole other sermon in here about dealing with victims and stuff here of some difficulties, but we won't go there right now. But the point is, is that God desires those nearest to him, his priests, his pastors, fathers of households heads of countries these are the ones that are supposed to be closest to God in some sense he desires holiness so Moses called Mishael and Elphabit and the sons of Uziel, the uncle of Aaron.

So this is these guys' cousins, right? And said to them, well, it's Aaron's cousins, so the uncle of the kids, come near, carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary and out of the camp. So he says, carry them out. So they came near and carried them in their coats out of the camp, as Moses had said. And Moses said to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his sons, do not let the hair of your heads hang loose, and do not tear your clothes lest you die and wrath come upon all the congregation.

When he says do not tear your clothes, he's saying don't mourn right now. This is not the time for you to mourn what's going on. You have a job to do and your job is far more important than anything that's happening on this earth right now. He says, but let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, bewail the burning that Yahweh has kindled. he says and do not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting lest you die why for the anointing oil of Yahweh is upon you and they did according to the word of Moses these guys had the anointing oil of God on them the symbol of the Holy Spirit being upon the man of God in the Old Testament and he didn't belong with the common folk he belonged in the tabernacle, which was the only place where God was meeting with men.

And Yahweh spoke to Aaron, saying, drink no wine or strong drink, you or your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting, lest you die. Some commentators think Nadab and Abihu had had a little too much to drink, and that's why they made such a foolish choice. It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. He says, you are distinct, listen, here's the key, you are to distinguish between the holy and the common and between the unclean and the clean.

And you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that Yahweh has spoken to them by Moses. Moses spoke to Aaron and to Eleazar and Ithamar, his surviving sons. Take the grain offering that is left of Yahweh's food offerings and eat it unleavened beside the altar, for it is most holy. You shall eat it in a holy place because it is your due and your son's due from Yahweh's food offerings, for so I am commanded.

There's a lot that goes on here, but in particular what I'm trying to focus on and get your attention on is the fact that these guys did something that in the eyes of God was utterly wicked, even though in the eyes of men they may have appeared to be doing the same exact thing that other good men were doing at the time. The way you worship God is meticulously important. You must be precise.

It's not good enough for us to just say, well, we're just going to try to worship Him the way we think makes sense. He has prescribed ways to be worshipped. And just like if you told someone how you wanted to be served, you would expect to be served in that way. God even more so deserves proper service. We can't go to Wendy's and get the wrong topping on our burger without complaining.

And yet we think God's supposed to be happy with the way we worship Him, even though it's nothing like what He asked for. Or even though it's just slightly like what He asked for. Or even if it's 99% like what He asked for. He deserves 100%. That's the first commandment. That's what He deserves.

And we don't mix what's holy and uncommon. Or holy and uncommon with what's common and unholy. we're not going to bring things into a worship service that are worldly things that can be defined by worldliness so if you want to obey the first commandment one of the ways you obey the first commandment and again I'm going to repeat this if what you hear from me is you must be in perfect obedience to these things in order to be in right standing with God you're not listening and you haven't listened You are in right standing with God if you have believed that Jesus Christ perfectly obeyed these things for you and he died and rose again on your behalf. If you believe you're going to obey God's law perfectly even after Jesus saved you, and that when you don't, God's somehow now unhappy with you, you're denying the sufficiency of Jesus Christ to cover all your sin.

And you're more focused on what you can do, and sometimes what you can't do, than you are on what he's done. And your problem is pride, if that's the case. But, we are promised by God's grace to have the desire to obey His law and the strength to do some of it and the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us even to the point where we'll repent when we fail.

So here's some ways that you know that you're not worshiping the true God. Literally breaking any of the other commandments. Makes it real simple. I could give you this huge list of things we do, right? There's all sorts of things, you know. If you break another commandment, you are disobeying God.

It's just that simple. Because He's God, He's authorized to tell you what to do. He's authorized to give you any command He wants. He can tell you to do something different than He tells somebody else. Now, He has it in His Word in this sense, but Adam and Eve were given a special law. Not to eat from a particular tree.

He had the right to do that. And Adam and Eve had no right to ask, well, why not that tree? And so you are not worshiping God if you break any other commandment. Turn to 1 Samuel 15. I want you to read these verses with me. It's very important that you turn in your Bible with me.

Sometimes I know I go quickly. Sometimes I quote things without turning first I want you to see the verses so that you will be motivated by God and by His Word to do the things that His Word tells you to do So this is the chapter where Saul goes and disobeys God. It's a longer story, but basically Saul did almost what God told him to do. He did a bunch of the stuff God said, and then Saul actually did some things that by any human estimation actually looked like good ideas. but it wasn't what God told him to do.

Sometimes God tells us to do things that we don't understand the wisdom behind. And we think we have better ideas than God. So Samuel says to Saul, Has the Lord, has Yahweh, has great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of God? As in obeying the voice of Yahweh? He wants obedience, not the sacrifices. He says, Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.

Now here's the key verse for you. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Some of your versions might say, For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, what God is saying is that when you choose to do things your own way you're no different from a witch trying to cast their own spells trying to control things the way that they want to control them presumption that's when you presume that the Lord is going to either be pleased with you or at least forgive you even though you step right into doing something you know is wrong the Bible calls that iniquity which is one of the really really bad words that describes sin and idolatry but you can't obey the first commandment and commit idolatry at the same time because when you decide I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to go do this thing I know the Lord doesn't want me to do But you know what?

We'll put it in the New Covenant context. I've already been forgiven. Jesus died and rose again. I prayed that prayer. I believed the thing that the preacher told me about him. I got baptized.

I'm good. I've got fire insurance. I'm going to heaven. I'm once saved, always saved. All the things we tell ourselves, some of them true. And when you say to yourself, I'm going to go ahead and do the thing that I know God doesn't want me to do because I'm going to be forgiven because of Jesus.

God calls that idolatry. And no idolater is going to inherit the kingdom of God. God promises to cause us to turn from idols. God promises to keep us faithful. So if you find yourself having trouble remaining faithful, when you find yourself having trouble saying no to your temptations, it's time to get back to basics it's time to go back to the gospel itself and to ask yourself, have I really repented? am I born again? ask for help, get forgiveness come on in I don't know who's here thanks Elijah okay so familiarity can make things a little bit mundane at times okay we're human and humans fail and so one of the reasons i moved communion to the beginning of the service is that we do the same thing every single week and routine is good and i don't want people every week confused and And, you know, not able to worship because they're so distracted by what seems like a chaotic service.

So we have what's called a liturgy. It's not a bad word. We have an order that we do things in. But doing the same thing every week can actually tend towards it becoming commonplace and mundane for you. You can sit in your chair and just know what's going to happen next and not take it seriously anymore. so I mixed it up a little bit just to make us think about it also just so you know we can do it in any order we want if somebody has a great idea we'll reorder it next week so I think we should have a little bit of consistency but I don't want things to be so mundane that you lose sight of the awe of God while you're here you should tremble before his word Psalm 119 verse 120 says tremble before your judgments I'm afraid of them so we can slip into that easily there's also a ditch on the other side of the worship path so when you're trying to worship God let's say we're going down a narrow path and the ditch on one side is it can become boring not because God's boring not because worshiping God is ever boring in fact there's historical evidence that God could kill people at church if he wanted right we haven't seen it in a while but all sorts of exciting things could happen that would make week to week a little bit different.

But it should be exciting to you simply to walk in this room and recognize that today we're celebrating that a man died and raised himself up again. This is more exciting than the preseason football. It's more exciting than the Super Bowl. This is more exciting than the birth of a baby. this is it this is what should be most exciting to you and for some of you it's not exciting because you spend your week pouring garbage into your eyes that excites you more I not talking about pornography that would be a huge problem Just even watching too much TV programs and exciting movies You know what, I'm never going to get up here and be as neat as the Hulk, I promise.

I hope I'm never as angry as he is. He's the personification of anger. The Christian probably shouldn't like the Hulk as much as I do, because it's not a good thing. But the point is, we have all these exciting things. You go to movies, why? Because they excite you.

They make you laugh, they make you cry. I like roller coasters. I'm not ashamed of it. It's not bad to do things that are exciting. It's not bad to have fun and blessing in this life. But we start to become so desensitized to what becomes a little bit of the routine mundane things, like just showing up at church, singing a few songs, hearing some scripture read that you've already read, and then listening to the same guy get up and just yell at you or whatever it is you think I do sometimes. it can become a little difficult because in our flesh we're not actually as excited at the prospect that right now you're meeting with God in an extremely special way it's either a bad theology, you don't even understand what we're doing here or you're simply in the flesh and you need to get out of it but there's also a ditch on the other side of this worship path we can try to be too novel all right and so this this almost uh destroyed my sanctification just looking up some examples of this um so there's churches all over that have recognized that people get bored now i'm going to guess most of these people are what we call apostate but these churches have people that get bored at church so they've created excitement to get people to come to church right you know like next easter if you want to wake up early we have church at three if you want to wake up early, you could head over to World Harvest and see like 30,000 Easter eggs dropped from a helicopter.

So I don't know. And they raffle off a car. And when I say you could do it, what I mean is don't do it. But pastors have ziplined into worship services, right? And the one he was really clever about it because he did it gracefully. And then that's what the sermon was about, right?

This stuff Sounds crazy to us right now in this room, but churches didn't start doing that overnight. There were little things they started changing. Where it's like, well, let's do this a little different. Hey, let's, you know, and I'm not against instruments. I think we should have them and I can't wait till one day we do. But pretty soon it becomes we need to have basically a rock concert instead of church.

There's churches that give you earplugs when you walk in in case it's too loud for you. and they have like a senior citizen section outside of the main sanctuary or auditorium because they can't stand the loudness of the music but for some reason it's still their church. There's churches that have put stripper poles in church and had girls dancing scantily clad on them and they've justified it by saying we are enjoying the beauty of God's creation. Let me just say, I'm hesitant to call them churches.

They're called churches, but I would guess those places are just houses of pagan worship. There's churches that have done all sorts of weird dance routines. I'm not against dancing if it's appropriate, but to have these dance routines up on the stage in place of a worship service. The former president of the SBC, which we're not of, let's be clear here, and we're not going to join it, but the former president, J.D.

Greer, our guy, there's a video of him on stage at his church back to the audience bent over shaking his backside for them. Which wouldn't be appropriate if he wasn't a pastor. But at the very least it disqualifies him. These are the kinds of things that people do because they've moved into the world. And instead of listening to what God told the Israelites in Deuteronomy 12 do not worship me the way they worship their gods we're adapting the things of the world and we're calling it church.

And you know what? There isn't a whole lot of nations on earth where it would make... Try going to North Korea and planning a stripper church. You probably can't even say the word church there. We live in this place where God for some reason is letting millions of non-Christians call themselves Christians without apparent persecution at this point. And they're building these houses of worship and they're not worshiping the one true God.

And some of them, maybe in their hearts, they are worshiping the one true God and they're doing it very wrongly. They're not following the regulative principle. And you won't stand before God one day and use the excuse, well, I was just following the leadership of the church. There's all sorts of things. Ungodly music. There's churches that exegete movies.

So instead of a sermon from the Word of God, they would just pick movies and they would tell you what the movie was about. and they try to put a Christian spin on it because every movie basically has some story of redemption or forgiveness in it. Like, let's face it, I'd hate to spoil every movie for you, but... Yep. Every movie, that's how it goes. Guy has a hard time, overcomes all obstacles to win the girl in the end.

That's every movie, I'm sorry. They're boring. Some people even exegete really bad movies. I'm hesitant to quote movies because I've seen so many movies in my past There's a few movies that I wouldn't want you to even think about because I wouldn't want you to go watch it if you haven't seen it. Most people are just chasing some kind of experience. That's what it comes down to.

You come to church because you want to experience something. You want to feel something. You've been taught that you should feel something. And it should be a good feeling to you because if it's a bad feeling, then it was a bad church. than the pastor guy screwed up or the other people didn't love enough or whatever it is. And so people chase experiences.

And so churches everywhere are happy to give them to them That just the way the world is What did Spurgeon say There will come a day that we will see more pastors entertaining the goats than feeding the sheep You entertain goats by being a clown. Here's some keywords. Okay, so I did a little internet search today. And I actually just searched churches in our area.

And I was just trying to see what you'd get if you went to another church. Here's some keywords of churches that these are keywords. They're not 100 percent. OK, but here's some keywords where people use these words or church websites use these words. It's probably a church where they're not worshiping Jesus. It's probably a church where they're not following the regulative principle.

Let's see if they call themselves relevant. That was a little self-explanatory. There's relevant magazine. That was a little self-explanatory. but you can be relevant in one sense but usually what people mean by it is hey, we're just like the world. That's what they mean. They're actually bragging.

You can have as much fun here as the bar down the street. What did the King of the Hill guy said to the Christian rock star guy? He said, you're not making Christianity better. He said, you're just making rock and roll worse. don't try to adapt worldly things to Christian things just be Christian do not mix what is holy with what is common the command from Moses in Leviticus 10 here's some more words for you a faith journey, when people talk about a faith journey that's usually a sign that they're trying to use some kind of weird language that's modern and different just to be a little different from what church is meant to be non-judgmental, that's a big one non-judgmental, and I dare you Walk into a non-judgmental church and start preaching Jesus Christ and see how quickly they judge you.

You tell them what you believe. I bet you you'll get judged real quick. So they're even hypocrites. The word tolerant is thrown around a lot. Loving. You go to a lot of churches where it's just like loving God, loving people.

It just feels like you're not saying anything. You're just using a keyword. You're not actually saying anything. I don't know what you mean by that. It doesn't mean they're wrong. Maybe they do it real well, some of them. but I don't know I'm not trying to brag but you go to our church website it literally tells you what we believe right there I'm shocked when people show up and they don't quite know I guess we haven't had that many but it's like here's what we're about contemporary contemporary is another word for relevant it just means hey we're not we ain't your grandma's church well why not grandma's church actually was pretty good People sung songs.

They worshipped the Lord. A lot of people died in the Lord there. They fed people. They took care of one another when they were sick. The world wasn't the way it was when every church was more like Grandma's church. Real life.

I like that one. We do real life here. Oh, wow. Here we are doing fake life at Covenant Bible Church, right? Jesus-centered. I love being Jesus-centered.

But that's another one of those terms that's just so, like, meaningless until you know what people mean by it. Okay? What I found is most people that say Jesus-centered, what they mean is we say that word a lot, and we don't do anything that Christ would have us do. Authentic's another one. I hope we're authentic. I hope we're genuine with one another.

I hope we open up to one another. I hope we share truth with one another, confess sin to one another, admonish one another, love one another, pray with one another, address one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. I hope we're authentic. But again, it's a buzzword. It's a buzzword that just attracts people to your website. First commandment tells you to have no other gods and to worship God only.

Turn to Matthew 4. It's important for you to understand something. I can beat you all day if you want. I can tell you how much you don't obey the first commandment. I could actually go through all of them and I could tell you you don't obey it. honestly it's not that hard. I could probably with everyone in here find specific examples of how you've broken every commandment just this week.

I could probably figure some of it. It's not that hard. We're all that bad. But what's important is that Jesus Christ obeyed all the commandments. And Jesus Christ obeyed this one. So that means that you can go through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and you can read every single thing that Jesus ever said or ever did and you can draw the conclusion that every single thing he did fell somewhere in the Ten Commandments.

He was either doing what was commanded and he was never doing what was forbidden. So when Jesus Christ yells at these guys and calls them a brood of vipers, he wasn't being unkind. He wasn't violating some principle of not hating your brother. when Jesus Christ sat and ate with his disciples and fellowshiped with them he wasn't missing out on the first commandment by not loving God with all his heart and soul and mind and strength at the time sometimes the way you love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength is by loving your brother at that time if there was a real fire here getting you guys out of the building that was the most important loving thing to do and it wouldn't be loving if we didn't.

But in Matthew 4.10 and I'm in John 4.10 so give me a minute. In Matthew 4.10 Jesus is responding to Satan himself and he says to him Be gone Satan for it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And I'll submit to you that Jesus' entire ministry his entire life, even from his infancy, was one of non-stop obedience to the first commandment.

He never had any other God before him. And what that means is that although we can never find an act that he committed in his life that contradicted that, And also know is that in Jesus's heart, in the recesses of his mind and heart, where we cannot actually see every moment of his life, he never once disobeyed God in this way. And praise the Lord. One day you'll be like that.

One day. A lot of people don't get this. One day you're going to be given a new a new body. everyone gets a new body we read that in chapter 20, 32 yesterday in the confession, you're going to get a new body either fit for hell or fit for heaven but one day you saints are going to get a new body and that new body will no longer be predisposed to ignore God it'll no longer you'll no longer have a heart a heart that as Calvin said is an idol factory so praise the Lord because Jesus Christ died and rose again you will get a new body that will be unable to sin anymore and that is your hope I know some of you hope for that body that won't ache anymore and you won't have this disease anymore and maybe you'll look young your whole eternity or whatever it is you think or whatever you think heaven is going to be heaven is going to be great for two primary reasons God is there and you get to be with him and the second reason is that you will be like him.

You will be like Jesus because you shall see him as he is. You will no longer be a sinner. Right now you're simultaneously a sinner and a saint. One day that will be no more Spurgeon regarding novelty in worship says listen he says this boastful 19th century and I just warn you it only gotten worse This boastful 19th century demands a new God, a new Christ, a new heaven, a new hell, a new gospel, and everything else new except a new heart.

And then concerning amusements, which I think some of us are just amusing ourselves to death. There's a book I think by Neil Postman called Amusing Ourselves to Death. Non-Christian author, non-Christian book, highly recommended by a lot of Christians though. He says, the man who is all aglow with love to Jesus finds little need for amusement. he has no time for trifling.

He is in dead earnest to save souls and establish the truth and enlarge the kingdom of his Lord. So you come to church, and we try to create an environment where the regulative principle of worship is followed. You can turn to Romans 12. We try to create a place where you won't have stumbling blocks in front of you. so you will worship with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs you will hear prayer you will be asked to pray you will do weekly communion we will have baptisms lord willing we will preach the word and we will read the word we have incidental things going on like bread and chairs and lights and things that people don understand have nothing to do with the regular principle but we worship god the way he has told us to We try to create an environment for you to worship him in this context In Romans 12, verse 1, Paul says, I appeal to you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. holy.

And he says, which is your spiritual worship. Every moment of your life all week long is worship. It's different from the corporate worship but every moment of your life is worship. Everything you do, you're either worshiping God rightly at the time or not. God's very gracious. You can worship him while just enjoying a great steak with your family. you can worship God through fellowship next door with other saints where you just have fun the kids can play and a Christian kid can worship God in his heart but you are worshiping God every moment and so my admonition to you when we talk about the regulative principle in church what I want you to think about is how am I worshiping God all week long as well do I do everything to the glory of God is my love for God make me appear to hate my own father and mother and wife and children and brother and sisters if so need be.

That's a misunderstood verse sometimes, but the point is that God always comes first. And if you don't love God first, you will never love other people properly. But offer your body holy to God and remember the commandment to Moses and the guys in Leviticus don mix what uncommon with what holy He who draws near to me, I'll be sanctified. And so you are a holy vessel.

You carry the Holy Spirit and you don't mix yourself with worldly things. Don't adopt worldly practices in your worship, whether it's at church or at home. Father in heaven, I praise you today that you have kept us here. We had this interruption of our service and it distracted me, it distracted the people, but Lord, you can bring us back to you. So I pray, Lord, today that you would fill our hearts with love for Jesus Christ, that we would be so committed to him that the outpouring of our life would be obeying his commandments, that our love for Jesus would manifest itself in obedience to His revealed will.

I pray that You give us strength, Lord, and be with us as we worship You in song and in our fellowship that You might be glorified in all that we do, that we may be prepared, Lord, as much as possible for even suffering to come, as Jason prayed for people elsewhere. that we may be the type of people who will remain faithful and that we would rely on you for all of our strength and that we would trust you to help us to obey your first commandment. In Christ's name I pray. Amen.