The Elements of Worship | Acts 2:42-47 & Colossians 3:16-17 | Worship by the Book

Leave the yeast out of the bread and you don't get bread. Some things in a recipe are essential, and no amount of seasoning can make up for them. Worship works the same way. In Acts 2:42-47 and Colossians 3:16-17, Scripture shows what the early church devoted itself to when God's people gathered: the ministry of the Word, the breaking of bread, the prayers, and singing. God did not leave it to us to figure out what belongs in worship. He gave His church these ordinary means because this is how He meets with us, shapes us, and holds us together across time, distance, and differences. They are not decorations we can take or leave. This is Week 2 of our series Worship by the Book.

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Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon from First Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota. Each week we dig into God's Word, trusting that the Holy Spirit will continue the good work of sanctification in us.

Well, I have no problem making myself or even some other folks something to eat in the kitchen. I am far from a chef. I stick to a recipe as closely as humanly possible. I think I'm getting creative in the kitchen when I use one of those fancy pepper grinders and salt grinders for my eggs instead of a shaker. That's when I think I'm getting really creative. Like I said, I follow a recipe closely because I'm concerned I would miss a fundamental part of the process. I don't want to be making bread and forget the yeast. That's a significant part of making bread.

Recipes are put together in particular ways for a reason, and I know some of you are really great with improvising a little bit with a recipe. You can add a little extra taste or maybe even add another ingredient that will draw out flavors, but I know that even the most gifted of you know that there comes a point where if you change the ingredients too much, it ceases to be what the recipe intended you to make. Sure, you can mess around with some of the lesser ingredients and you don't notice change. You leave the chicken out of a chicken entree and it's a completely different dish. There are things that are essential and things that are not.

So as we come to our second week in our series Worship by the Book on the Regulated Principle of Worship, we find ourselves considering the elements of worship. We saw last week that God commands our worship. He is the one who dictates how we worship. We saw that this is a very gracious thing. God is holy and He blesses us by telling us how we as fallen creatures are able to approach our righteous Creator. And we looked at the story of Nadab and Abihu and Leviticus and we saw how they didn't take what God had shown them about worship seriously and they perished.

And we looked at that story not to strike fear in us about how we are to worship God in a certain way or we might be we might perish as well. We're not trying to strike fear in us. The reason we looked at that story is to understand how God is gracious and shows us how to worship Him. We're not going to be struck down dead if we get something wrong in worship. That's not the point of that story in Leviticus for us.

The point is that God is holy and He graciously brought us to Himself through Christ and He shows us how to worship Him and understanding His love for us that should motivate us and move us with a deep desire to worship Him as He calls us to worship Him.

You know even if I know that God isn't going to strike me down I still desire to worship Him correctly because I don't want to trifle with the holiness of God. He has been merciful to me. I want to worship Him as He has commanded.

Now as we think about worship we remember that worship in the Old Covenant was centered on the temple. The worship in the Old Covenant was centered on animal sacrifices. As you've heard me say several times before, worship in the Old Covenant was a bloody smelly mess. But the worship of God's people in the New Covenant doesn't require sacrifice anymore because the blood of Jesus was shed once and for all. He was our sacrifice. It doesn't need to be done over and over again. Our worship is not centered on what a priest is doing. Our worship is centered on what Christ has done.

So we land in the last few verses of Acts 2 this morning and we see that the focus of the disciples and the early church was on some particular things. We find here that they devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching the breaking of bread and the prayers. These are all things that are pretty straightforward and yet they are things that we can easily forget or lose our focus on. And so we need to be deliberate to understand them and we need to be certain that we have them as a part of our worship.

And the first element that I want us to look at this morning was the ministry of the Word. We read that the early church was devoted to the teaching of the Apostles.

And Luke doesn't tell us here in Acts 2 what the teaching of the Apostles they were focusing on was. But we can look to the numerous sermons in the book of Acts. We can look to the letters in the New Testament and we can see what the focus of the Apostles was. The focus was on the work of Jesus for his people. Their preaching and their teaching pointed to how Jesus was the Messiah and that he is the way by which both Jew and Gentile are made right with God. They taught that his sinless life made him the once and for all sacrifice for the sins of humanity. They emphasized how his resurrection won victory over sin, death and hell for the people of God. And they also taught of his ascension to the right hand of the Father where he was their mediator. This is what they taught.

And it's important that we remember this was a ministry of the Word. They were telling the story of Jesus but they were telling it in light of his fulfillment of what was promised in the Old Testament. And we see this same emphasis of the Word being richly and rightly taught and received in what we read from Colossians 3 this morning as well. We see that worship is deeply connected to the Word and that worship is a ministry of the Word. Paul tells his readers to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. The Word of Christ is not just the red letters in our Bibles. The Word of Christ is the whole witness of Scripture. We're called to not only teach it but also to admonish one another in all wisdom.

Now as I've gotten older and as I spend more and more time being in front of you doing the reminding and the admonishing, I have come very deeply to appreciate the idea here of admonishing one another. When we gather together to worship and we sing and we recite Scripture, we confess our faith together, I have come to truly understand the significance of doing this in worship together. It does me good to hear your voices reminding me of the gospel. And I hope you're blessed by the voices around you as we gather here. And I hope that you know that someone around you is blessed to hear you confessing Christ and reading Scripture and singing praises to God as well. We admonish one another here together in worship.

And the ministry of the Word was an essential element for the worship of the early church. It wasn't optional but it wasn't the only element of worship that the Spirit gave the church to gather around. As we slide back to Acts chapter 2, we see that they were also devoted to the prayers and the breaking of bread. Now these were essential elements of their worship. It was something they participated in on a regular basis.

Now there's some question here on whether Luke is referring to the early church taking the Lord's Supper together or whether this was larger fellowship meals. Well I think we need to remember that the statement is probably covering both. They were gathering in households. They were obeying the command of Christ to break bread for the Lord's Supper. And then they would likely continue together in fellowship with one another. The Lord Jesus commanded His people to participate in the meal and so we know that they would not have taken that command lightly.

And so they're participating in the breaking of bread is another reminder for us of not only their obedience but also their emphasis on the gospel. We know very well that the Lord's Supper is not just about eating to fill our stomachs and it's not just a reason to get around a table and have conversation with other people. The bread and the cup point to the new covenant that was accomplished by the broken body and shed blood of Jesus.

Now their worship and our worship is not the same as the worship of sacrifice in the temple because Jesus was the once and for all sacrifice. We don't sacrifice Jesus again as some teach. What we're doing is we are remembering what Jesus has done. We're being reminded of what He has accomplished and how He has set us free from sin.

But the Lord's Supper does more than just point backwards. It also points us forward to the day when the people of God will feast in the house of Zion together. When we participate in the Lord's Supper we are remembering the past, yes. We're also realizing how Christ's work affects us in the present but we're also looking forward to the benefits of Christ in the future.

And we see here in the way that Luke mentions this that they were committing themselves not only to the breaking of bread but to the prayers and they were doing it consistently. You've noticed I've been emphasizing the definite article "the." It's important. It's in the original language as well. The mention of prayers here isn't random moments where they stop to pray for say brother Nathaniel because he's struggling with persecution and imprisonment for the sake of the gospel. Surely they prayed for others. I'm not saying they didn't. Don't get me wrong. But when it says the prayers here they were doing some particular praying.

Remember the early church was primarily made up of Hebrew people. They would have known the Psalms very well. It was not only their hymn book, it was also their prayer book. They would have prayed the prayers of Scripture together. Remember what I emphasized last week. Worship is more than something we do. Worship does something to us. Who we worship deeply shapes us. Praying the prayers of Scripture not only lets the Word of Christ dwell in us richly so that the Holy Spirit can work in us, it also teaches us how to pray. The Psalms covers the full range of human emotion. There's moments of fantastic proclamation of God's splendor and His holiness and then we have prayers from the psalmist in the deepest depths of despair. The Psalms teach us about God. They teach us about ourselves and they also teach us to pray.

Now before we move on to the element of worship most associated with worship in our minds, singing, I want us to consider the way that these things that we've talked about are a regular part of their fellowship. For Luke to tell us this is what they were doing, they wouldn't have been things that they were doing haphazardly, right? These weren't things that they were doing every so often whenever the mood hit them. The Word, the breaking of bread and the prayers were regular and essential part of gathering to worship God. And the fact that these were regular things should shape how we feel about our own worship.

We don't come together on Sunday morning hoping something spontaneous and crazy will happen. We aren't gathering hoping someone can devise something new that will evoke a new emotional experience that we've never had before.

Of course there is freedom in how we participate in these prescribed elements of worship and what they look like. They can be something that you enjoy or something that you feel good about. For example, this morning you probably didn't wake up and weren't expecting Dana to be here playing the viola. That was not something you knew was going to happen. But at the same time the harmonies her instrument added to the songs may have stirred something in you. But that's simply instrumentation. We played a psalm and a spiritual song. We didn't add anything to worship doing this and we didn't leave out anything that God has commanded. We didn't change the recipe. We just changed the seasoning a little.

And so that with that in mind that brings us to the element most people think of first when they hear the word worship. Singing. Now when many people refer to worship we know they're primarily thinking about the singing. Yes we do worship God with singing and it's an essential part of worship but it's not the only part of a service that is worship. The proclamation of the word, the prayers, and the Lord's Supper are all just as much worship as the music in. That's important to understand.

This emphasis on music though isn't just a modern thing. Music is powerful and so it easily becomes something that we equate with worship because of its ability to create an emotional atmosphere. But the temptation becomes to think that our singing is a mood setter and that's really our worship and that that is just a warm-up for the sermon.

So I want us to consider these words from Paul. It's important that we brush that idea aside that that the music is just a warm-up for the sermon or it's a mood setter. We have to think about what singing in worship is. There's multiple elements to this. Singing is vertical. We address our singing to God in praise, in confession, and in supplication.

But singing is also horizontal, right? We sing to God but also to one another. I'm not just talking about how I like it when somebody behind me is singing the bassline so I can sing it more easily. That's not the only part of it. I'm talking about the praise coming from the mouths of our fellow believers and how our voices join together in worship to our great and holy God.

Singing also teaches and trains us. And again this isn't new. Music has always been a powerful thing. It does something in us and it is used for good purposes. But it's also been abused to manipulate emotions.

I think we're probably more aware of the power of music than most people before us because of the way that TV shows and movies can hit us right in the feels with a particular chord progression, right? Suddenly something is happening. The music changes a little bit and all of a sudden you're like, "What's this salty discharge coming from my eyes?" We know how it works. I've always thought it would be fascinating to watch an emotionally charged movie scene without the music. I wonder how hollow would some scenes feel without it? Without the movie music moving to a minor key at just the right moment, how would I feel about what was happening? And honestly if I asked you to imagine a particular movie scene without the music, you might not be able to even do it. That's how deeply it affects our emotional responses. And that's my point. Music moves us.

And so this is why we should be very mindful of Paul's words about what we sing here. Before we look at what he says, I want us to go back to the beginning of the verse again. Notice what he says, "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." The word of Christ doesn't stop after the teaching and the admonishing. What we sing in worship should reflect the word of Christ. It should express to us the glory of God, the saving work of the gospel. It should express to us his commands and his kingdom.

And Paul tells us that we're to be singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in our hearts to God. Now notice that these are elements that we here are deliberate to do in our worship. We sing psalms not only because God commands us to, but because we believe in the power and sufficiency of God's Word. If we want to hear God's Word and have it in our lips, what better way than to sing it and have it for us in a rhythmic meter that we can remember easily?

You can probably remember on more than one occasion I have forgotten to add the slides for the Song of Response. And you all sing it anyway. You sing Psalm 117. And what do I say? I bet you didn't know you had Psalm 117 memorized. But you do. You know Scripture. Singing the Psalms gets it deep down in us. And that's just one benefit of singing psalms.

But Paul also tells us to sing hymns and spiritual songs. The Psalms are inspired songs. Hymns and spiritual songs are words that we sing that are response by the church throughout the ages. They're the people of God speaking of God's grace and His mercy and His power that He has shown to us as His people. And faithful believers throughout the ages have put pen to paper and fingers to instruments to help God's people teach, confess, and give voice to what Scripture has revealed to us. Good hymns, good spiritual songs, while not inspired, will point us to the God of Scripture and they help us to remember the truths that we've learned.

Think about a hymn or a spiritual song you know by heart. And then think about how God has used that to shape you. What an important part of your spiritual life that has been. And as you think about that, notice what Paul says this is about. The primary purpose of this is thankfulness in our hearts to God. The posture we are to have as we sing is gratitude. The point of singing isn't to generate a feeling or to fill time before the sermon. We're singing because of what God has done for us in Christ and we're showing our thankfulness because that's the natural response to knowing the truth of God's mercy and His grace.

And I want to talk about one more important part of singing before we move on. Because I think it's something that we have lost in an era where so much of our music is on demand. It used to be singing was a way that Christians had a common language with each other. We knew the same songs and many of them we knew by heart. But now there are so many styles of music, so many different arrangements, and we can pull up pretty much any song at any time. It used to be that most Christians who spoke English had several songs that we knew in common and we've lost a lot of that. But when you do see it, it's a beautiful thing to observe.

So at the end of RYM youth conferences, there's a closing time of worship and then someone comes up and gives thanks and farewells and all that. And the final song that we sing together is the doxology. Now generally speaking, at a youth event, I try to sit behind the youth for obvious reasons, right? I want to keep an eye on them. But during this last session, I'm really deliberate to be behind them for another reason. I want to see their reaction when we sing the doxology. One person at the front starts it singing a cappella. There are no words on a screen. They don't have a book in front of them with those words. And suddenly several hundred middle school students break out singing the doxology in praise to God.

And the reason I love being behind the students for this is to see the students who are experiencing this for the first time. They start to sing it and they look around like, "Wait, other people know this too?" They look around and they're like, "I know this song from our worship." And those people over there from a completely different part of the country, they know these words too. They must sing it in worship as well. Now even though they probably wouldn't be to tell you what this teaches them about Christian unity, I can tell you the look on their faces means they understand. It's such an amazing thing to observe when Christians can praise God with one voice, knowing that fellowship of believers.

I started out this morning talking about recipes. Leave out the yeast and you don't get a easier recipe for bread, right? You don't get bread, you get something else. No matter how good the rest of the ingredients are, you're not getting what you expected to get. Well, worship works the same way. The word, the table, the prayers, and the singing aren't ingredients that we get to swap out for something that suits us better. God didn't leave it up to us to figure out how to worship Him. He gave His church these four things and He commanded His people to devote themselves to them because that's how He meets us. That's how He forms us. This is how He holds His church together across time, across distances, and across differences.

And that's what was happening under the surface in the story about singing the doxology at RYM. God has been building one people through the same ordinary means for 2,000 years and that shared song by those middle school students is simply proof of it.

God commanded us these things in worship because He knows exactly what we need. We need to be drawn out of the world. We need to gather to hear the Word. We need to be reminded of His grace in words, sacrament, prayer, and song. That we might be shaped to be agents of His mercy in a lost and dying world sent from this place where He has gathered us out into the world to proclaim His glories and His salvation.

The fact that these ordinary means that God has used to build us up in faith and worship, that He uses these to unite Christians who've never met, it's just another gift that comes along with worship. Our unity together isn't the reason for worship, but it comes out of it. When we get that recipe right, we're united across time, differences, and distance.

So as we come to worship, it's important that we don't treat the Word, the table, the prayers, and singing as boxes that we have to check to get to the sermon or as decorations that you could take or leave depending on how you feel on a particular day. These means that God gives us, they are appointed as the way that God meets with us as His people. They're how He sanctifies us. They're how He reminds us of His grace. This is the means by which God shepherds us because He knows exactly what we need. Amen.

Let us pray. Great and merciful God, we praise you for the gift of your Word that it not only tells us of your mercy and your grace that you've shown us in Christ, but that it shows us how we can gather to worship you. We pray, O Lord, that as you use these means in us, that we would be built up in faith, that we might live lives that are holy and sanctified before you, and that share your love and your mercy with a lost and dying world. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.

Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon. For more information about First Reformed Church, head to our Facebook page or website, edgertonfrc.org.

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