Seeing TBC Thru the Eyes of a Visitor, Part 1

Introduction: Seeing Ourselves Through the Eyes of a Visitor

0:04 The following is part one of a guided discussion with Pastor Albert N. Martin held on Sunday morning, January 18, 1998, in the Adult Sunday School class at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. The topic being discussed is seeing ourselves here at the Trinity Baptist Church through the eyes of a visitor.

0:29 Now what I'm going to do in the two weeks that I have this Lord's Day and God willing next Lord's Day, as I've already intimated, I want to lead what I trust will be a guided discussion and the subject that we're going to wrestle with, I've entitled Seeing Ourselves Through the Eyes of a Visitor. Seeing ourselves through the eyes of a visitor. And the reason for discussing the subject or the reasons are as follows. We have expressed publicly our gratitude to God that in recent weeks we have been able to do this.

1:03 We have seen an increasing number of visitors coming among us, some of them being brought in as a result of the broadcast, others as a result of your own personal contacts with people in the workplace and in other relationships that God has given to you. And as a congregation who profess to be submissive to the Word of God and under the guidance of Christ through the Word, in all of our life, our worship, our practice, not in any way, not in any way, not in any way, not in any way, professing to have attained, in the language of the Apostle, we have not yet attained, but this one thing we do, forgetting the things that are behind, we press on towards the mark, but professing to be subject to the Word of God,

1:48 visitors who come among us have every reason to expect that what they see and what they hear and what they observe will be to some degree an accurate reflection of what the Word of God says we as the people of God, ought to be doing and ought to be manifesting in our life together. And so hence our subject, what ought a visitor to see and sense in coming among us, particularly in our stated meetings of worship and ministry. And hopefully in the course of the two weeks, we'll consider that question within three broad categories in terms of these three circles.

Three Dimensions of Church Life

2:31 What ought they to see? To see and hear and sense in our life together in relationship to our Godward dimensions of life, that is, as a worshipping assembly. The W.A. stands for a worshipping assembly.

2:51 And for any of you who have not discovered it, you will soon discover I have the worst ability or the least amount of ability to print or write clearly on the board. It's something my mother never taught me, all right? But we're going to consider the dimension of our life as a worshipping assembly, which is primarily our life Godward, and then our life as a fellowshipping assembly, and that deals with our internal life, and then our life in its outward aspects or dimension, and we could call that our life as a witnessing or a confessing assembly of God's people.

3:34 And so this morning, we're going to focus on this, and hopefully, God willing, next week on the other two aspects. So we come to our subject, what ought a visitor to see and sense in coming among us, particularly now with respect to our identity and function as a worshipping assembly? And to guide our discussion, I'd like to break it down into two major categories. What ought they to see and sense with regard to our life as a worshipping assembly?

The Content of Worship: God-Centered, Christ-Suffused, Bible-Based

4:08 First of all, with respect to the content or the substance of our worship, and then the second category, with respect to the spirit or the character of our worship. All right, first of all, with regard to the substance of our worship, the content of our worship. Claiming to be subject to the Bible, to worship the God of the Bible, according to the directives of the Bible, and in the spirit of biblical worship, what ought to characterize the content or the substance of our worship? And to help getting us to think in terms that I've prepared, they're not inspired, but I found them helpful,

4:52 and I want to guide the discussion along those lines, I'm thinking particularly of three hyphenated words, or groups of words, to characterize any worship that is in any way approaching to the standard of the Word of God. A visitor coming among us, observing, listening, sitting among us, if he asks the question, what is the content of that which those people do when they say they are worshipping? What is the essential substance of their worship? What would you say should characterize our worship?

5:30 It ought to be, first of all, what? Now, you use any terms you want, and hopefully we'll guide it around to the terms I've chosen. Yes, George?

5:41 All right, Bible-based. That's one of the hyphenated words, but that's the last one. May I hold that off and bring it up, George, when we come to that, all right? Bill?

5:51 Ah, God-centered. Good, that's the first one. God-centered. The third one's Bible-based.

5:58 And if it's biblical, new covenant worship, what will be the second dominant characteristic of that worship?

6:09 Rich? Spirit-driven. I'd like to hold off on the matter of the ministry of the Spirit as one of the overarching elements with respect to both the content and the Spirit, or what I've called the character of the worship. So the Holy Spirit will come into our discussion, but again, for the sake of trying to see the whole picture, if I may place these contributions, but we'll pick that up, all right?

6:35 If it's new covenant worship, yes, Cynthia?

6:42 Christ? Christ-mediated. Now that's a good hyphenated word, maybe even better than the one that I chose. I put, it ought to be Christ-suffused.

6:53 It ought to be permeated with Christ, presented through Christ. It ought to be permeated with the realities pertaining to Christ. So let's take those three things now and see if indeed, from the Scriptures, this ought to come, ought to characterize the content or the substance of our worship. It ought to be unmistakably, and I've used that qualifying word deliberately, it ought to be unmistakably God-centered.

Worship Must Be Unmistakably God-Centered

7:28 Now what characterizes so much of what goes on in the name of worship in evangelical churches today? What would one have to describe it? How would one describe it to give an accurate description? Instead of, instead of being God-centered, it is often what?

7:43 Man-centered, personality-centered, but you could go into many places that claim to be engaging in a, quote, worship service, and you could attend for a long time and never get the idea that the primary reason these people are gathered together in the place in which they are gathered, doing what they are doing, is because their hearts have been enamored with the living and the true God, and that they are committed to worshiping that God. Now, can you prove to me from the scriptures that our worship ought to be, whatever else it is, if it is biblical,

8:28 God-centered? Where do we get that notion?

8:37 I think I've sensed a general consensus that when it was mentioned, God-centered, and I didn't see anyone stiffen, and eyes get wide, or hands shoot up, and say, wait a minute, no, no, no. I think all of us had a sense, yes, that's right, it must be God-centered. Well, where do we get that notion? Is that just a tradition we picked up along the way?

8:56 Is that something we've absorbed by osmosis? Where in the scriptures? What principles of the Word of God mandate that the worship of God be God-centered, unmistakably God-centered?

9:11 All right? All right? The very structure of the Ten Commandments, when God gives us a summary of moral law, the first four relate directly to our relationship to God. We shall have no other gods before Him.

9:29 We shall worship Him only in the way of His revealed truth. We shall not take His name in a light or frivolous manner. We should mark out His day to be set apart to Him. All right?

9:40 Anything else that points in this direction? Jerry? Yes, this is one of the pivotal texts. Let's turn to that.

9:51 John chapter 4. Our Lord Jesus is evangelizing this immoral woman, and it's very interesting, in evangelizing this Samaritan woman, our Lord gives some of the richest teaching on the subject of worship under the New Covenant to be found anywhere in the scriptures. As a loyal Samaritan, she's ready to argue that Samaritan worship on Mount Gerizim is legitimate worship, and she knows that as a loyal Jew, Jesus believes that the proper place to worship is at Jerusalem. And so she enters, she enters into this discussion with our Lord about the place of worship.

10:33 Then verse 21. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father. You, that is you Samaritans, worship that which you do not know. We, we Jews, worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

10:53 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall be worshiped. They shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for such doth the Father seek to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. And among the very obvious truths contained in these words of our Lord Jesus is that the one true and living God, particularly as He is revealed as Father, is, is to be the explicit, the unmistakable object of the worship of the people of God under the new covenant.

11:38 That the one true and living God should always be the only object of worship, and that He should be loved and served in worship was clearly revealed in the old covenant. You remember in the temptation in the wilderness, Jesus quotes the verse, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve. But this passage is a watershed passage indicating that our worship under the new covenant ought to be unmistakably God-centered. And can you think of a passage in the epistles where the refusal to render God-centered worship lies at the heart of the apostasy

12:21 of the Gentile nations.

12:25 The refusal to worship the one true and living God lies at the heart of the apostasy of the Gentile nations. The refusal to worship the one true and living God lies at the very heart and is of the very essence of the moral state of the Gentiles. Bill? Alright, Romans chapter 1.

12:41 Let's turn there for a moment. Romans chapter 1. As Paul is about to demonstrate that all men, no matter where they are, what their religious background is, stand in need of the righteousness of God revealed in the gospel. He says this is so because, verse 18 of Romans 1, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress, who hold down the truth in unrighteousness.

13:12 And then notice verse 25. For that they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. The one true object of worship the one worthy object of worship is the true and the living God Creator of heaven and of earth. Now, if our worship ought to be unmistakably God-centered, what ought the visitor to have of his impressions about the nature and the character of that God whom we worship?

The Character of the God We Worship

13:56 What impression should that visitor receive about the nature and the character of the God whom we say is the object of our worship? Should they have an impression that he's a very easy to get along with, never to be threatening God? Should they get the impression that he is sort of the essence of all that is found in the nearsighted, large-hearted, benign grandfather on whose knee all the grandchildren populate, pop up with confidence that he'll always have a quarter in his pocket and stroke their heads and never frown at them? Should they have some impression

14:41 that he is some distant, unapproachable deity so high above us, beyond us, that we can only tremble before him? What impression should they receive of God in our God-centered worship? Yes, Eli. All right, that he's worthy to be worshipped in reverence and fear.

15:06 You see how we're beginning to move over into the character of our worship. It should be marked by certain things. But we're asking now more about the character of this God. They should receive an impression that this God is what?

15:21 Oh, this God is like what? Norman?

15:29 Well, that's the God of the Old Testament, isn't it?

15:32 We don't worship the God of Sinai. All right, he's the God of Hebrews 12, 29. That's right. And we'll come to that when we come into the spirit and climate of our worship.

15:48 That it ought to be marked by reverence. And we'll look at a New Testament passage that is highlighting the glorious privileges of the New Covenant. And in that setting, he is called a consuming fire. Well, what I'm sure we'd eventually get, but I'm conscious of the clock breathing down my right elbow here.

16:04 It sits right down here. Some of you think that we never see it and never pay any attention to it, but we do. It's there and it constantly talks with its two black hands against the backdrop of its white face. It's racially mixed.

16:17 It has black hands and a white face. But anyway, surely people ought to receive something of the impression of those great worship passages in the book of the Revelation. The great worship passages that are found throughout the Scriptures in which God's holiness is seen not as one of many attributes, but as the foundation of His very character and His being. Isaiah 57, 15, Thus saith the High and the Lofty One whose name...

16:47 whose name... that inhabits eternity whose name is holy.

16:51 And you go through the book of the Revelation and you find those scenes of worship and you find these creatures and the elders bowing before the throne of God and saying, Holy, Holy, Holy. Isaiah chapter 6. So that those who come among us as visitors ought to be impressed that our worship is unmistakably God-centered, but that this God is holy and exalted, yet He is toward us in love and pity as our Heavenly Father. The same Heavenly Father whom Jesus taught us to address in what we call the Lord's Prayer.

17:31 And our first petition is Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name. You see, the initial impression that our Lord gives is that we are to regard our Father not as our indulgent buddy, but as one whose name is holy. He is our Father who is in the heavens enthroned in majesty and power and in unrivaled sovereignty. He is our Father, but His relationship to us in filial love does not neuter those elements of the character of God that viewed in isolation are legitimately intimidating and awe-inspiring

18:14 and breathtaking. Breathtaking. And that's the God whom we worship. Holy, exalted, loving, merciful, beautiful in all of the integration of what we call His attributes.

18:30 I love that hymn that's in our hymn book. My God, how wonderful Thou art. Thy majesty, how bright. How beautiful.

18:39 How beautiful in depths of burning light. You see, there's that wonderful combination of the various attributes. Well, our worship then ought to be unmistakably God-centered, but then the second thing you came up with was Christ-mediated, I think was the term that Cynthia used. I used the term Christ-suffused.

Worship Must Be Unmistakably Christ-Suffused

19:02 And I use that because that word says what I want to say, and then we'll look to the Scriptures. Suffused means to overspread so as to fill with a glow. When something is suffused with something, it spreads all the way through, percolates all the way through until it characterizes that which is suffused. Now, how do we know and where in the Bible would we be instructed that our worship under the New Covenant should not only be unmistakably God-centered, but unmistakably Christ-suffused?

19:40 Why would I assert that? On what biblical grounds would you dare to assert something like that? Alright, find a text which tells us that there is but one way to approach God, and that that way is Christ.

20:05 Cliff? Alright, John 14 and verse 6. John 14 and verse 6. Thomas said, Lord, we don't know where you're going.

20:22 How know we the way? Jesus said unto him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes unto the Father but by or through me. All approach to the Father is through the mediation of Christ.

20:37 And under the New Covenant, is it possible to know God without knowing Christ? Yes or no?

20:46 Alright, find me a text that says that to know God is to know Him as revealed in Christ. Knowing the Father and knowing the Son are inseparable realities under the New Covenant. Alright, Bill?

21:05 Alright, no man has seen God at any time. The only begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared Him or exegeted Him. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good, that's a good text. But I'm thinking of one that even nails it down more explicitly.

21:16 Kelly?

21:19 Alright, 1 John 5, 10.

21:22 1 John 5 and verse 10. I'm not sure I can quote that from memory. He that believes on the Son hath the witness in him. He that believes not God hath made him a liar.

21:34 He's not believed in the witness God is born concerning His Son. There are some other more explicit statements in John, yes.

21:43 John 6, 44. No man can come to me except the Father, the Father which has sent me draw him. That emphasizes more that in coming to Christ there must be an activity of the Father. Frank?

21:57 Ah, that's it. Yeah, Frank came up with the text that, again, there are many and maybe my selection of certain ones is a little bit arbitrary, but at least I believe they are clear. John 17, 3.

22:09 This should be familiar to us in the light of the recent expositions. Our Lord is addressing the Father and says, You gave Him authority over all flesh that to all whom you have given Him, you have given Him, He should give eternal life and this is life eternal, that they should know you, the only true God, and Him whom you did send, even Jesus Christ. Eternal life is the possession of those who have come to know the Father and the Son. And then, of course, we have the emphasis that Cynthia mentioned that all of our work, all of our worship is mediated through Christ.

22:52 And one of the clear texts that underscores this is Hebrews 13 and verse 5. There are many other passages, but this is one of the clear texts. Hebrews 13, I'm sorry, verse 15.

23:08 Through Him, that is, through the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the Him in this verse, through Him then let us offer up a sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of lips which make confession to His name, so that our praise is mediated through Christ. All of our worship of God is mediated through Christ. We come to the Father through the one appointed mediator. And one ought not to belong in any of our services of worship without, if they're listening at all and they're perceptive at all, recognizing that it surely, as our worship is unmistakably, God-centered as opposed to

23:53 man-centered or personality-centered, it is also unmistakably Christ-suffused. These people do not worship some innocuous deity who can be approached in many ways, but they worship the one true and living God who can be approached and worshipped only in and through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the, the praise that we offer, the prayers that we offer, and in the proclamation of the word of God, all of the components of worship should be unmistakably Christ-suffused. And then coming to George's point,

Worship Must Be Unmistakably Bible-Based

24:37 it ought to be unmistakably Bible-based. And here we go back, of course, to that basic text in John chapter 4. The hour comes, and now is, when true worshipers, will not be found worshipping primarily with respect to a geographical location, but the climate of their worship, it shall be worshipped in spirit and in truth, in the realm of truth, so that we are not engaging in will-worship. We've decided that maybe God might like us to do this in this way, in His worship, but we come, we come to the God

25:22 who's revealed Himself in the Scriptures, and we ask in the words of Paul, what will you, Lord, have me to do? What is it that you have appointed as a medium of expressing desire and petition and praise, so that our worship, if indeed it is God-honoring, is to be unmistakably Bible-based, regulated by the word of God. Now, as we think of our life together as a congregation, with all of our sins and failures, with all of the ground we yet need to gain, do you believe any visitor

26:05 who comes with a fair-minded disposition to get a sense of who and what we're about would, after a couple of times among us, have the conviction that with respect to the content or substance of our worship, it is unquestionable, unmistakably God-centered, Christ-suffused or Christ-mediated, and Bible-based? Do you believe that they would get that impression?

26:41 Not so sure?

26:43 Well, to the extent that they would, then we're doing what would please God. To the extent that they would not, then all of us have some work to do. Those of us in leadership, those of us who sit among the people of God and have input with your leadership, but I want to underscore particularly the fact that in the days to come, to maintain that simple, three-fold, dominant characteristic of our worship will cost us increasingly as a congregation.

27:16 And I say that for a number of reasons, not the least of which I've been trying in recent days to concentrate some of my reading in reading men to whom God has given some very perceptive insights into what, philosophically and theologically, is called post-modernism, post-modern epistemology, and post-modern perspectives on life and worship. And the bottom line of the reality is that as we more and more under God are enabled to reach into this present generation, we are going to be reaching people who have been brought up thinking that there is no objective truth and that everything in this world exists,

28:01 for their satisfaction. You've heard about the church growth movement and the whole consumer mentality that has dominated in many churches, and there are whole churches and whole movements of churches that are geared on the basis that you don't approach the matter of the worship of God from the perspectives that we've spoken about this morning, but you say, how can we frame the worship so as to make it marketable to today's consumer? The question is, the consumer is king. And if you don't market what he wants, you fold as a business, right?

28:40 You just can't say, I'm going to produce a product because I'm convinced it is a good product, it's the best in its field, and I'll have a sense of satisfaction. If you can't market it, you've gone out of business. And unless you've got a grant that has a bottomless pit to it or a rich uncle who's pouring money into your account, if you don't sell it, you can't produce it. And that mentality, has dominated many segments of the evangelical church.

29:06 So that the thought of those who lead the worship is not to look out and say, oh God, may that visitor sense in this place today that we're having dealings with you, the living God. May that person come to the conviction that he or she is ever to have dealings with you, they're going to have dealings with a God who is majestic and awesome and exalted and holy and loving and merciful. And that the, the only way they can have dealings with the God who really is, who's not the projection of our emotional frame, we've discovered some God within us that's made us feel good, but we are worshipping the God who is. That if the whole world were to be sent back into the abyss of nothingness, not one thing would change in Him.

29:52 He's utterly, utterly independent of all that He's made, including you and me. And that need us.

30:02 And to have that sense that coming among us, they know that our conscience is riveted to our Bibles. It is going to cost us increasingly to maintain that perspective in this place. And I'm calling upon you as the members of this church to pray that these perspectives will not be things that you simply accept because you feel comfortable with them, but that God will make them visceral convictions for which you're prepared, if necessary, to spill your blood. Because God is worthy, He is worthy of being worshipped as He directs in His Word.

30:41 And we ought to be prepared to pay any price short of sin to maintain a content and substantial worship that is marked by its unmistakable God-centeredness, its unmistakable Christ-suffusedness, and its unmistakable Bible-basidness, if I may change the words around. But now very quickly because we've just got 17 minutes left.

The Spirit of Worship: Reverent, Joyful, Enthusiastic

31:12 As these things are in direct contrast to man-centered, psychologically-suffused, and market-based approaches to worship, what ought to be characteristic of the worship in terms of its spirit? If it's God-centered, Christ-suffused, and Bible-based, can we come up with three more things now that ought to dominate the spirit or the climate of worship? And if so, what ought to dominate the spirit or the climate of that worship? We've already addressed one of them.

31:41 It ought to be reverent. And the passage that Norman cited was Hebrews chapter 12. It ought to be reverent. Reverent is defined in our dictionary as an attitude of deep respect, love, and awe.

31:58 Deep respect, love, and awe. If I come into the presence of a dignitary chewing and popping bubble gum when my child is half down on my hips and my hands in my pocket and three days stubble on my chin, my appearance and demeanor is not commensurate with the dignity of the person in whose presence I'm being presented. When we come into the presence of the living and the true God, then everything about that approach to Him should bespeak something of the dignity of the God to whom we are coming. And in Hebrews 12, we have a very wonderful statement of this reality.

32:43 The writer has been contrasting what we come to now under the new covenant as it is set against the backdrop of what God's ancient people came to under the old covenant. Look at verse 18 of Hebrews 12. You are not come unto a mountain that might be touched and burned with fire, etc. You have not come to that.

33:05 Verse 22. But you are, come unto Mount Zion, city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem, innumerable company of angels, general assembly. Verse 24. And to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel, you've come unto all the substantial realities of the new covenant.

33:28 In the light of that, He gives a warning. See then that you do not refuse Him that speaks. If those who treated lightly the Word of God, the Word spoken from earth, received the judgment they did, how much greater will be our judgment if we refuse Him who speaks from heaven. Now verse 28.

33:46 Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace whereby we may offer service. And though the words used here can mean more broadly any kind of service offered in the name of Christ in the spirit of a disciple, it has the overtones of religious service. Hence, some of the other translations have it, let us worship, offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe. Now notice, for, here's the rationale, not our God was a consuming fire

34:30 in connection with Sinai and the old covenant, but now this God is much softer and much gentler and much less intimidating as He's revealed Himself in Christ and in the blessings of the new covenant. No. What God has done in the revelation of Himself in the new covenant magnifies all of His glorious attributes more fully than they were ever magnified under the old covenant. God's holiness is nowhere seen more clearly than in the cross of Christ.

35:06 God's holiness is seen when inactivity, anger, He consumes those who dare to touch the ark, who were not qualified to touch it. But that was God consuming the creature who was a sinner. On the cross, He consumes His well-beloved Son, plunges Him into the darkness of abandonment until He cries, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? His justice, His holiness, His righteousness, as well as His love and His mercy and His peace all of His attributes receive their fullest revelation in the realities of the new covenant and they should all be calculated to impress upon us

35:51 who draw near to this God that He is to be approached with reverence and with awe. Not with flippancy. Not with laid-back, relaxed indifference. With reverence and with awe.

36:09 So our worshiping, worship with regard to its spirit or character, it ought to be reverent. But then secondly, what ought it to be?

36:19 If you can think of something that's sort of at the other end of the spectrum but is just as legitimate and necessary if our worship is to be biblical worship.

36:31 See?

36:33 Liberty, freedom, joy, any of those terms. Liberty, freedom, and joy. Turn to Psalm 100.

36:43 It's a wonderful distillation of what the scriptures teach about the Lord. It's about our approach to God. Particularly when we gather in concert with others to worship. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord all you land.

36:59 Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God. It is He who has made us and we are His.

37:08 We are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Give thanks. Send to Him and bless His name for the Lord is good.

37:21 His loving kindness endures forever and His faithfulness unto all generations. Or we could take Psalm 2 where you have a wonderful conjunction of these two elements that we're highlighting. In the light of God's purposes with respect to His Son and His commitment to give Him the nations for His inheritance, God calls upon the great ones of the earth to be instructed now, verse 11 of Psalm 2. Serve the Lord with fear.

37:53 Now notice, and rejoice with trembling.

37:59 There is to be reverence and awe, but reverence and awe suffused with joy. There is to be joy, but joy suffused with reverence and with awe. These are not contradictory. Or we could take Romans 14 in verse 17 where Paul is sorting out problems of things indifferent.

38:19 And primarily, he's trying to get people to see that they should not be preoccupied with these issues. They are peripheral to the central issues of the kingdom of God. And in verse 17 of Romans 14, he says, For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. So our worship then ought to be characterized not only by its reverence, but its joy, its liberty, its freedom.

38:50 We could take the passages that indicate one of the crowning or the crowning blessing under the new covenant is the gift of the Spirit who is given to us as the Spirit attesting to our sonship. And it is His ministry to enable us to cry, Abba, that is, Father, to approach this intimidating God, not to pare Him down to where we feel comfortable with a God other than the Bible. But in the light of what we are in Christ, that we can be joyful and have the liberty of sons and daughters in the presence of this great and glorious God. So the character of that worship ought to be reverent.

39:35 It ought to be joyful. But then there ought to be a third thing that characterizes it.

Worship Must Be Joyful and Enthusiastic

39:42 David? All right. Then it ought to be, it ought to have structure and order to it. Good.

39:57 That was a dimension that I hadn't, but that certainly is there where they had been enriched with all of these various gifts, but because they were not done with sanctified decorum, let all things be done decently and in order, edification was undermined. So that someone coming among us should sense that there is decorum that lends itself to edification. That's a good point. We could have said, these are just seminal thoughts.

40:24 They're not exhausted. I'm fishing for a third thing. So reverent, joyful. Yes, Pete?

40:34 All right. That's the effect it would have upon us. All right. But now we're talking about the thing itself.

40:40 As a visitor is watching our worship, sitting among us, listening, hearing, seeking to be sensitive. He should sense, hey, these people aren't playing games. There's a solemnity. There's a law.

40:52 There's a reference. But at the same time, it's evident. As I look over here, I see this brother's face glowing when he's singing, Jesus, thou joy of love, Jesus, thou joy of love, in hearts, thou fount of life, thou light of men, great is thy faithfulness. It's joyful.

41:07 All right, Dwayne?

41:10 All right. Thankfulness and praise. I would put that under the rubric of joyful. All right?

41:18 Pardon?

41:20 All right. Coming from godly men and women. Yeah. But we're talking about the thing itself.

41:26 All right, Bill?

41:28 Wholeheartedness. That's what I was fishing for. I'm using the word enthusiastic. And I'm using that word because I like the dictionary definition of it.

41:35 And it says, that's what I want to say in capturing some biblical concepts. Enthusiastic is defined as intense or eager interest, zeal and fervor.

41:47 Intense or eager interest, zeal or fervor. And a visitor coming among us and getting an accurate assessment ought to be able not only to say that in the character our worship is not only reverent and joyful, but it's enthusiastic. You see, you can be reverent and joyful and be carnally restrained. It ought to be enthusiastic.

42:12 Now, where in the Bible do you get any notion that our worship of God ought to be enthusiastic? That used to be a bad word back in the 17th and 18th century. People who went wild with excesses in revivals were called enthusiasts. But in its present meaning, it's a good word.

42:30 Our worship ought to be enthusiastic. Where do you get that notion from the Bible?

42:36 What large section of the Bible records enthusiastic worship again and again and again? Tim? Yeah, in the Psalms. Now, not all the Psalms are reflective of enthusiastic worship.

42:50 Some of them are enthusiastic mourning. Why go I mourning all the day long? Has the Lord cast off forever? Why art thou cast down, O my soul?

42:58 Why art thou disquieted within me? But some of them reflect a disposition of worship that is nothing short of abandoned in its enthusiasm. Quote some verses to me. Familiar words, yes.

43:15 All right? All right? Psalm 111. I will give thanks unto the Lord with my whole heart.

43:25 And how do you know when someone's heart is in something? Can you see someone's heart? You watch some kid out there on the soccer field and he's just sort of lumbering up and down once in a while and you say, hey, that kid's something wrong. His heart's not in it.

43:38 Well, you can't see his heart. How do you know his heart's not in it? Because his hand's in his feet. The rest of them are in it.

43:44 If it's got his heart, it's got the whole, the whole kid. And the whole kid is in the game. So we say, oh, his heart's not in it. You never saw anyone's heart, but you and I have said that.

43:54 Well, his heart's not in it. So when the psalmist says, I'll praise him with the whole heart, he means that from the inside to all the extremities, I will be engaged in the worship of God. What about our familiar Psalm 103? What is the psalmist telling himself to do?

44:09 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless, his holy name. And you go through the Psalms and you find reference after reference to this. And we could say the example and the exhortations of the Psalms, particularly focusing on the matter of worship, point to the fact it ought to be enthusiastic.

44:31 What other biblical lines would converge and underscore that the worship of God ought to be enthusiastic?

44:42 Mark?

44:46 Okay, the first and great commandment, Mark 12 and Matthew 22, 38 and I believe it's, no, 36 and through 38, which is the first and great commandment. Jesus answers, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.

45:07 Or we could take Paul's word. Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all of your might as unto the Lord. And surely in the noble engagement of worship, if there is anything that is worthy of the engagement of all of us, of all of our powers, surely it is the worship of our great and our glorious God. So it ought to be reverent, joyful in all of its attendance, and enthusiastic.

The Holy Spirit Produces True Worship

45:34 Now, in the three minutes that remain, I want to ask this question. If by the grace of God our worship is characterized in its content by its God-centeredness, it is unmistakably Christ-suffused and Bible-based, marked by reverence, joy, and enthusiasm, is that something that we can create in and of ourselves?

46:04 Can we create a poor imitation of it? Sure. Many places do. All right, everybody, now.

46:11 Let's sing it out now. Oh, come on now. You have a cheerleader up there stirring up the truth. Carnal pressure upon carnal hearts to produce carnal worship.

46:24 Does that mean we don't need gracious, Bible-based, biblically-framed exhortations to worship? No, God uses that. That's why we read through portions of the Psalms on the front end of our worship to seek to be stirred to worship by the Word of God. But there is a carnal way of producing a carnal kind of at least joyful and enthusiastic.

46:47 I've never seen carnality producing a reverent worship. But there is a quietness and a sedateness that has nothing to do with true reverence. A cemetery is a very quiet, sedate place. But there ain't no life.

47:04 So quietness does not in itself indicate. And who is it that alone can produce these things in us? Here's where the ministry of the Spirit comes. Philippians 3 and verse 3.

47:18 And the successor to Dabney, teaching in a southern seminary, has a marvelous chapter in his book on the gifts of the Spirit, on the Spirit in public worship, which I had time to just read reams of that chapter. But he bases his whole essay on Philippians 3 and verse 3 where Paul says, We are the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit or who worship by the Spirit of God. Exegetically, it could be rendered either way. We are the true people of God who worship by the Spirit, who worship this one true and living God revealed in Christ, but we worship Him in the dynamics of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

48:03 The Spirit who makes real to us the being and the nature of God as revealed in Scripture. Who reveals Christ to us. Who enables us to be subject to the Word. Who creates in us that sense of the wonder of who God is and the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, as well as peace.

48:27 And who enables us working in us to willing to work for His good pleasure to throw ourselves into the worship of God with sanctified, holy enthusiasm. How is such worship made actual in our experience by the presence and operations of the Spirit? And you see then how crucial it is that when we come to worship we are not grieving or quenching the Spirit with an ethical controversy with God or with our fellow men. To the extent that we grieve and quench Him, we inhibit His ministry in enabling us to worship this way.

Impact on Visitors and the Danger of Grieving the Spirit

49:03 And then my second and final question is what ought its impact, this worship to be upon the visitor? Saved or unsaved? The unconverted. And here we go back to 1 Corinthians 14 where Paul is sorting out some of the aberrations in the public services at Corinth and he says if these things are sorted out in order as they ought to be and God is present in His own institutions, then he says the unlearned, the unbeliever, the ignorant comes among you.

49:33 He falling down upon his face will say God is of a truth among you. And there will be that sense that what we are doing is not just some little thing of our own, but God will attest to the heart of those who come among us that this is indeed an activity of worshiping the God who is. I was speaking to someone the other day who was trying to describe their first visit to our assembly toward the end of our time when we met in the phase one upstairs is our auditorium and he was trying to describe that for the first time in what was called a worship service he sensed the presence of God. And I didn't help him out.

50:13 I just let him sort of waffle around trying to describe it and I was inwardly smiling. How can you describe what it is to sense the presence of God? But it's real and we need to plead with God, dear people, that we will do nothing to grieve or cry. Quench the spirit.

50:29 If some of you wonder why at times when as your elders if we become aware that there are unresolved tensions and rumblings of grousing and disaffection, this is not a matter of our personal reputation. It's a matter of jealously desiring that we not grieve the spirit of God. Because if he leaves us, we've had it. We've got no backup system.

50:51 We have no super personalities to stand up and put the troops. And if ever any should emerge in this place, I hope you'll shout him down and run him out on a rail. I don't care what his name is. I don't care what his supposed credentials are.

51:05 And if something should flip in my brain, in my heart, that I should be such a person, I hope you'd kindly run me out of town as well. Because without the presence of God and without being able to confront this generation with the reality that we're not playing church, this is not just our own subjective religious thing. We are worshipping the God who is. The God before whom they will stand in judgment.

51:29 The God with whom they can have dealings in Jesus Christ. And that's what's desperately needed in this confused, utterly disjointed generation that doesn't know its left hand from the right. And may God grant that in this place that will ever characterize us as a worshipping assembly.

Concluding Prayer

51:49 Is it too much to pray that that be true until the Lord returns? Well, let's pray. Our time is gone.

51:58 Our Father, we thank you for the privilege of having this time together to think and wrestle with these very vital and basic questions. And we pray that by the enablement of the Holy Spirit, you would help us as a congregation, as a worshipping assembly, to engage in the kind of worship that we have reflected upon this morning. May it ever be centered in yourself, suffused with dependence upon and faith in and devotion toward the Lord Jesus, ever fraying, and shaped by the Bible. O God, may our worship indeed be reverent and joyful and full of sanctified enthusiasm.

52:42 Help us even in the coming hour that we may know this reality to your glory and to our good. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.