Directives for Ordering Public Worship #2

The point: Cultivate a sense of propriety, fitness, and cohesion in worship, developing an ability to integrate elements and make meaningful transitions.

The term 'taxis' (order) is compared to a military troop marching in proper rank and unison, illustrating the structured and orderly manner required in worship.

Uskemonos, with dignity and proper decorum and toxis, in an orderly manner. Colossians 2.5, Paul speaks of beholding their order and the steadfastness of their faith in Christ. It was the term you would use if you would be describing a military troop marching, marching in proper rank and in unison, you would say that they manifested good toxis, good order.

4:56 - 5:26 Read in full sermon

The point: Have announcements of a general nature before the service of worship proper.

The need for distinct heads, smooth transitions, and a meaningful conclusion in sermon construction is used to illustrate the need for propriety, fitness, and cohesion in leading a worship service.

Just as you've been instructed in the matter of sermon construction that you must have distinct heads that are hung together by smooth transitions that move in a certain direction. You must move toward a meaningful conclusion and application while that sense of homiletical propriety and fitness and cohesion must enter into the whole realm of how you lead a worship service. And God has not given us a manual of some 600 pages with a complete index to tell us how to do that. So, to be specific, have the announcements of the general nature before the service of worship.

6:05 - 6:48 Read in full sermon

The point: Avoid introducing unknown concerns into congregational prayer, as it profanes prayer.

The example of someone making an announcement within a prayer is given as an offensive practice that profanes prayer and shows a lack of propriety and order.

If there are legitimate dynamics, diaconal concerns, obviously it's not wrong to introduce them into the stated worship, for the assumption is that the letters of the apostles were read in the gathered assembly. And when one of the elders or readers was reading 2 Corinthians, the diaconal matters of the collection for the saints would have been introduced into the worship. But certainly it shows a sense of propriety and dignity and decorum and orderliness to state, now before we commence our worship, there are concerns of this body that need to be brought before us. And so you take care of tho...

6:48 - 8:08 Read in full sermon

The point: Use brief homilies at the outset of a service to explain the rationale behind the selection of hymns, scriptures, and prayers, especially during congregational crises.

The example of a church facing a crisis is used to show how a brief homily at the outset can provide rationale for structuring the entire service (scriptures, hymns, prayers) around that concern, demonstrating propriety and order.

Well, that's to profane prayer. So in developing this sense of propriety, this sense of orderliness, of dignity and decorum, you must cultivate that art of giving proper information, what some of the old writers would call brief homilies, by which the various elements of the worship are brought together. There may be times when there's a, a crisis in the church and all of the passages of Scripture and the ministry of the Word and the hymns are being chosen with that crisis that is so weighty in the life of the congregation, central to congregational concern. The whole worship service may be st...

8:25 - 9:46 Read in full sermon

The point: Exercise a sense of decorum and order in the use of personnel during worship, avoiding a chaotic 'collage of activity'.

A lack of decorum and order in the use of personnel is described as 'everybody jumping up, doing his thing,' like 'fast clips hung together in a collage of activity,' illustrating the absence of 'uskemonos'.

In the matter of the use of personnel, some people have very little sense of decorum, and of order. And it's everybody jumping up, doing his thing, and you can't keep track of the whole thing. It's sort of like fast clips hung together in a collage of activity. An absence of that sense of what is us caemonos, what is orderly.

9:47 - 10:13 Read in full sermon

The point: Learn how to lead worship by observation, assimilating principles rather than woodenly imitating, allowing for personal expression.

The training of men in a church context is described as learning by observation, picking up principles of worship leadership not by wooden imitation but by assimilation, which then expresses itself uniquely.

If there is a variation in the normal order of the service, the presence of an honored guest, a peculiar congregational or national, or a national concern, all of these things, brethren, in the planning and leading of a worship service, we must seek to arrange the God-ordained elements so as to secure a maximum measure of these God-ordained ends. And I do trust that with all of our faults and failures and what I would call our sins of the sanctuary, that you men are learning how this is done by observation. That's why you're being trained in a church context, so that you learn by observation. ...

10:13 - 11:16 Read in full sermon

Driving home: It is with a view to the cursoriness of the allusions to it in the New Testament that it has been remarked that the doctrine of the Trinity is not so much heard as overheard in the statements of Scripture.

A quotation from B.B. Warfield's essay on the Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity is used to demonstrate that the New Testament presupposes, rather than inculcates, the doctrine of the Trinity, which should inform the pervasively Trinitarian nature of new covenant worship.

God has always been Trinity in His being. But as Warfield has masterfully demonstrated in his essay in Biblical and Theological Studies, The Biblical Doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of God as one in three and three in one, was brought to full light in the religious consciousness of the covenant community only after the coming of the incarnate God and the sending of the Holy Spirit as the life-creating,

13:20 - 14:03 Read in full sermon

The point: Consciously seek to be pervasively Trinitarian in the substance, selection of hymns, preaching, and language of worship, reflecting the general framework of approaching the Father through the Son in the Spirit.

A quotation from Sandé is used to highlight the 'silent and imperceptible way' the doctrine of the Trinity took its place in Christian thought, reinforcing its foundational nature for new covenant worship.

There is nothing more wonderful in the history of human thought, says Sandé, with his eye on the appearance of the doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament, than the silent and imperceptible way in which this doctrine, to us so difficult, took its place without struggle and without controversy among accepted Christian truths. And then he goes on to demonstrate that. People like Peter, steeped in Judaic, monotheism, have no problem referring to the one that they walked with, slept with, ate with, as our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. No problem whatsoever.

15:43 - 16:24 Read in full sermon

The point: Avoid flippancy, planned humor, or relaxed informality in worship, recognizing the presence of the living God.

The apostle John, who leaned on Jesus' breast, falling as dead before the exalted Christ in Revelation 1:17, illustrates the solemnity and awe required in the presence of the living God, contrasting with flippancy.

The John who leaned his head upon the breast of his Savior in the days of his flesh when he had a vision of that same Savior in his exalted state Revelation 1.17 When I saw him I fell at his feet as one dead. And we worship the exalted Christ the God who is a consuming fire no flippancy no planned humor no relaxed laid back in the formality. We are in the presence of the living God.

23:20 - 23:51 Read in full sermon

The point: Ensure new covenant worship is suffused with filial liberty, reflecting that it is a company of God's sons and daughters coming into the presence of their Heavenly Father.

An extended quotation from William Taylor's 'The Ministry of the Word' is used to emphasize that a 'filial heart' is the indispensable qualification for leading public worship, leading to refreshing and stimulating services.

But the question which I now have to deal with is this how should we conduct the service that service which is generally adopted among us so as to secure that it should be most acceptable to God and most refreshing and stimulating to us and the congregation. Now here it is pertinent to remind you that the first grand indispensable qualification for the leading of public worship is a filial heart. The true worshipper is he that worships the Father. Sonship will attune the heart to spirituality.

27:20 - 27:57 Read in full sermon

The point: Regulate new covenant worship with sensitive but sanctified flexibility, avoiding both total unpredictability and rigid, unwritten liturgies.

Living at the base of an active volcano is used to illustrate the uneasiness and threat caused by total unpredictability, arguing against completely unstructured worship services.

such as prayer praise preaching the giving of our substance those simple elements that come within the orbit of the regulative principle but how much prayer what relationship between prayer and praise how many expressions of praise in those things there is very little to give us authoritative directions in terms of a rubric of worship that we can impose all of our time upon our people let alone impose upon all of God's people in all places throughout all time but the word does command us quench not the spirit 1 Thessalonians 5 19 and as you know that verb would be the one you would use when yo...

33:09 - 34:38 Read in full sermon

The point: Regulate new covenant worship with sensitive but sanctified flexibility, avoiding both total unpredictability and rigid, unwritten liturgies.

A metronome's tick-tock regularity is used to illustrate how excessive predictability can lull people to sleep, arguing for sanctified flexibility in worship order and elements.

uneasy and threatened some people think the only way to maintain the liberty of the spirit is to have no forethought of the service you just free wheel it and people never know what's coming they feel threatened thinking people do and uneasy if they don't know what's coming all of us are so made that predictability some semblance of structure and order is essential to feeling comfortable and unthreatened on the other hand if we were to put a metronome up here and wind it up tick tock tick tock tick tock after a while we would be we would be we'd have to make conscious efforts to keep from drif...

34:38 - 36:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Regulate new covenant worship with sensitive but sanctified flexibility, avoiding both total unpredictability and rigid, unwritten liturgies.

The unchangeable laws of the Medes and Persians are used to illustrate the danger of an 'ironclad unwritten but very real liturgy of habit' in worship, advocating for flexibility.

uneasy and threatened some people think the only way to maintain the liberty of the spirit is to have no forethought of the service you just free wheel it and people never know what's coming they feel threatened thinking people do and uneasy if they don't know what's coming all of us are so made that predictability some semblance of structure and order is essential to feeling comfortable and unthreatened on the other hand if we were to put a metronome up here and wind it up tick tock tick tock tick tock after a while we would be we would be we'd have to make conscious efforts to keep from drif...

34:38 - 36:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Do not introduce anything into worship for which there is no mandate in the Word, but exercise God-given wisdom in the order and time given to mandated elements.

The observation of graduates leading worship services with unique elements but adhering to biblical principles, 'smothered with their own fingerprints,' illustrates the assimilation of principles over wooden imitation.

and beyond those principles the specifics in their application here you're a part of them week by week and I hope you're absorbing and learning but as we said last week it's a delight to me when I get out among the church of our graduates to see that because they are in a different set of circumstances I don't know that I've gone to one church of our graduates where there is a point for point rubric reproduction reproduction of the rubric of our worship here I don't think I've been in the one there are elements that are totally unique but I have not had to suffer through one situation where I ...

37:34 - 39:03 Read in full sermon