Worship Wars

OK. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you that you are so pleased to dwell with sinners. Lord, you are the one that is called sinful men to be the leaders of this church, our pastors and elders, myself, we're all sinners, and you have called every person in this room that is called to be a part of your body.

We're all sinners, and we come and acknowledge that none of us worships you perfectly, none of us is perfectly balanced at all times. And yet you call us to grow in our worship, and we pray more than anything that we would be a people marked by humility, Lord, that when we come and worship you, that humbleness would just grip our hearts, that we would resist the devil in our worship and so be able to acknowledge and experience your presence in greater and greater ways. We pray, Father, that our church would grow in its sense of expression that people would not feel hindered or feel judged or, Lord, be tempted to judge others as they seek to express themselves in worship.

Lord, that we would, just have our eyes focused on you but also focused on encouraging one another and we thank you in the name of Jesus Christ.

All God's people said, Amen. OK. I count it a privilege to be able to share the word with you guys this morning. I'm still recovering from a cold I caught last Friday, so about 9 days ago, just hanging on so you can pray for me.

But open up to Isaiah 6. We'll eventually get to Isaiah 6. We've got a number of different passages we'll be looking at on the, The screen behind me as we lead up to that. Is it possible, Carl, to shut these top lights off?

Thanks, bro. Carl's our faithful PowerPoint and sound and everything else guy up there today. over the past couple of weeks, Pastor Milton has been exposing a portion of Ephesians 6 to us where we've been learning about our enemy, the devil. And we've come to realize that the devil is scheming against the church at large, and that certainly involves his scheming against this church, particularly.

In Ephesians 6:11, we see that we're going to put on the full armor of God, so that we may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil, this devil who is throwing flaming missiles at us individually, but he is also no doubt scheming against this body of believers. And brothers and sisters, we should not be ignorant of his schemes. The apostles were not ignorant of his schemes in 2 Corinthians 2:11, and his schemes, no doubt involve lies, as Jesus has identified him as the father of lies.

And when the devil comes and lies, we know that he doesn't just give us full on lies, but more often than not, he gives us truth, mixed with lies, correct?

The devil's lies more often than not involve half truths, and or misapplications of those truths, like when the devil was tempting Christ in the wilderness in Matthew 4. Verse 5, it says that the devil took him up to the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said, If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it's written, he shall give His angels charge over you and in their hands, they shall bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone. So the devil gives biblical truth to Christ, but then is wooing him to misapply that biblical truth by leaping off this pinnacle.

Jesus says, it is written, You shall not tempt the Lord, your God.

So Jesus brings in the whole council. The devil's job, a lot of times is to actually use portions of scripture to get us to do or believe false things or to misapply God's word. We see this is true in 1 Corinthians 8. Half of the truth or knowledge applied without love can actually result in pride.

When Paul's talking to the Corinthians, they knew that idols were just false. Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we have knowledge. We know that these aren't real gods. However, knowledge makes arrogant, but loves edifies.

If we apply this knowledge in an unloving way, if we misapply this knowledge lovelessly, then we fall into pride. And arrogance. So half truth or knowledge applied without love can result in pride. And so I want to propose to you that this morning that one of the devil's schemes, not his only scheme, but one of the devil's schemes against us here at Cornerstone, is to create pride in and among us through the use of half truths, or through the loveless misapplication of knowledge.

The devil has schemed this very morning, to work in you and me, proud hearts. Proud hearts that are based in portions of Scripture, or misapplied in unloving ways. Notice the connection in the two following passages between pride and the devil. James 4:6, God opposes the proud.

Do we want God to oppose us this morning? No, but God gives grace the humble submit, therefore, to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. What's the devil have to do with this? Somehow he's involved in this, as this proud, this pride of heart, draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord. If we humble ourselves in the presence of the Lord, we're going to enter into worship. But if we're proud, even if we have pride that's based in certain texts of scripture. Then the devil can enter in and kill our worship.

First Peter 5, you younger men likewise be subject to your elders and all of you clothe yourselves with humility towards one another. God's opposed to the proud, verse 7 or verse 8, be a sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. So the key point that I want you guys to get this morning.

Pride kills worship. Would you say that with me. Pride kills worship. Worship can only come from sinners, humbled by God, desperately aware of their own need.

And it's one of the devil's schemes to cause pride to abound in you, in me, and among us, so that he can kill worship, and so that we will not be aware of the presence of God. And so the title of this sermon this morning, contrary to what's in your bulletin is half truths that divide us in our worship of God. We want to take every thought captive with the obedience of Christ this morning. We want to examine certain thoughts, even certain biblical thoughts, and see how that they could potentially be used in a prideful way and thus kill worship.

Now, there's a few presuppositions that I am, of having or buying into as I lay out these principles before you this morning. One of my presuppositions is that the New Testament is greater than the Old Testament. We have truth about God that we can get about the worship of God right from the Old Testament. And it's great stuff.

We're gonna be looking at some Old Testament passages, whatever worship expressions we have in the Old Testament, the new covenant, according to the Book of Hebrews is always what? Better. The old was good. The new is better.

And so we're going to be looking at some old covenant and some new covenant passages. Time and time again, the new will be better. A second presupposition I have is that worship is more than music. When we talk about worship this morning.

I'm going to be given a lot of examples from music, but worship is not music alone. It is much more than that. Worship is the preaching of the gospel, worship is the reading of the gospel. Worship is the seeing and tasting of the gospel and communion.

Worship is sharing of the gospel and fellowship and giving and in our prayers. This is all worship. But I, who am a pastor of worship music, I'm going to be talking a lot about music, but I don't want you to somehow think that music itself is worship. Lots of stuff, worship stuff happens that is, has nothing to do with music.

So what I'm going to give you is 5 truths from that I believe all come from Scripture, and there's going to be opposite polars or opposite ends of these 5 truths. We're going to talk about truth A and truth B, and both of them are true, but if we apply truth A in a unloving way or only talk about truth A, we could fall into pride and actually we can buy into the devil's scheme if we don't also consider truth B and apply truth B in a biblical way. So let's talk first of all about truth 1A.

This is a biblical truth, and that is that God is a holy King.

who must be worshiped with fear and reverence. Amen. God is a holy King, who must be worshiped with fear and reverence. Turn to Isaiah 6.

Many of you are, I'm sure very familiar with this passage, Isaiah 6. Isaiah's vision starting in verse 1, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up. The train of His robe filled the temple, and above it stood seraphim. Each one had 6 wings, with 2, he covered his face, with 2, he covered his feet, with 2, he flew.

One cried to another saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. In the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, woe is me, for I am undone because I am a man of unclean lips.

The God we worship is holy. He is awesome. He is to be feared above all gods. Isaiah in this heavenly vision must say, I am a man of unclean lips.

Hebrews 12:28 and following says, therefore, this is a new covenant passage. Since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. If God was a God of awesomeness, deserving of reverence, if he was a holy God in the Old Testament, Then our offer of worship should be so much more in the New Testament. It's not like in the Old Testament, we give him reverence and awe, and then in the New Testament that lesson.

If anything, it intensifies that we worship a holy, awesome God, who is a consuming fire. How in the world can such a wonderful truth be misapplied? By supposing that reverence and awe are opposed to joy and celebration. That somehow supposing that they are mutually exclusive.

And misapplication can lead to pride. We can walk into a service that in our estimation is not filled with enough reverence and awe and begin to judge the motives of others. And I sad to say, I've actually participated in almost every sin that we're going to talk about this morning. I've done it.

In my first church background, when I first got saved, I was saved and brought into a church that had a lot of joyous celebration. And there was a lot of lifting of hands and clapping and excitement about the salvation that we have in Christ. When I moved out to the Inland Empire in 1987, I started attending a church that was much more conservative and had much more focus on the reverence and awe of God. And when I first walked into that church, my thought was, where's the joy?

Where in the world is the Holy Spirit in this place? This place, they sing almost entirely hymns. The only time I, I sang hymns was when I went to convalescent home ministry. everybody was dressed pretty much in suit and tie.

Nobody raised their hands. They stood in one place the whole service. And my thought was, where is the Holy Spirit? And really, as I got to know those people and got to know the hymns and got to know the word of God better, the problem wasn't with the people, the problem was right here.

My attitude. I was walking in with half of the truth and judging this whole congregation. Based upon how they were approaching and the forms of worship that they had. I was at that church for probably about 6 years.

We sang wonderful hymns, rarely that were beyond or later than the 1700s. As time went on, The God of Abraham praised. Have you ever heard that song? Almighty Fortress is our God.

That's the type of worship that I was nurtured in for about 67 years and loved it. And then I came to visit Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church in '93 over, over on Adams Street. And to be honest with you, my first impression was, where in the world is the reverence of God? The first service I walked into, they were singing a song in my heart, there sings a melody, there sings a melody.

I feel like getting up and marching around the, it's like this sounds like carnival music. Where is the fear of God? And I did the exact same thing, the cornerstone that I had done to my previous church. We can misapply truths and the sad thing is, is God resists the proud.

I killed worship in my own heart. When I judged those believers as I walked in to these different worship experiences. There's a, there's an opposing truth. Truth 1B is this, that God is a close friend who must be worshiped with joy and celebration.

God is transcendent. Yes, but he is also imminent. Psalm 100, shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth, serve the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful singing. Hebrews 4:15 and following, we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness, but one who has been tempted in all things, yet without sin.

Let us therefore draw near with confidence, boldness to the throne of grace. There's all kinds of expressions in the Psalms of joyful, celebratory, clapping, excitement. We'll talk about David a little bit later as he danced before the ark. But can this wonderful truth be misapplied?

Yeah. I did it. By supposing that joy and celebration are opposed to reverence and awe, by asking questions, where's the joy? Where's the Holy Spirit?

And we can kill worship with such pride. So the full truth is that God ought to be worshiped with fear and joy. In fact, there's several passages that end that throw both together. Psalm 2 verse 11, worshiping the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.

You can rejoice with trembling. Apparently so. Psalm 47:1, clap your hands, all you people. The idea here is applaud.

Shout to the Lord with a voice of joy. Is that acceptable in the new covenant? Hope it was a good thing in the old. It must be better in the new.

Praise God. Is that opposed to fear? Verse 2, for the Lord Most High is to be feared, a great king over all the earth, not mutually exclusive, they go together. Matthew 28:8 and they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy.

The Bible takes sometimes what we want to do, we want to divide everything up. The Bible puts them right together. Both and not either or. So again, we need to look at both and ask the Lord, Lord, help me walk in humility and worship, and find your presence, you are here, but God resists the proud, gives grace to the humble, pride, what pride kills worship.

Let's look at a 2nd truth. Truth 2A. Worship is to God and for God. Amen.

Worship is vertical. We talk about the vertical aspect of worship, it should be God-centered, should be Christ-centered. When we come into a service, He is the ultimate, he is the audience. We sing to the triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, right?

It's not about what people think. We're not trying to please men, we're trying to please God. Psalm 66 2 singing the glory of His name, make his praise glorious, not to us, oh Lord, not to us, but to thy name. Jesus says, you shall worship the Lord and him only shall you serve.

Can this wonderful truth be misapplied? And can it devolve into pride? Yes, if we don't understand the opposite and opposing balancing truths, here's one way that this can be misapplied is we do want our worship to be focused on God to be God centered. Once in a while you'll hear people say, I'll read articles where people will criticize various hymns or worship music and saying, the, the music of today, it all, it's all about I and me.

It's got a bunch of eyes and knees in it. Do how many times in the Psalms you have the word I? How many psalms have the word I? Over 2/3 of our salser has the word I.

If you add the word me, almost all of our psalms have I or me. It's I, me, or we. It's, it happens everywhere. You can find some great old hymns of the faith that use the word I and me, and you can find some great contemporary stuff that use I and me.

The, the, the issue we ought to be thinking about is, is this content reflective of good biblical truth and expressing what's in our hearts, we can get proud and say it should be God-centered and it should be focusing on my needs, or the people that should be focused on who God is. That's, that's a partial truth and we can judge and, and lay a judgment over the congregation. We can kill worship. Truth to be, there's a balancing truth to this.

And that is worship is for us, as we receive from God. This is what we call the horizontal aspect of worship. God really doesn't need Anything from you or I. He calls us into his presence, he receives worship from us, but he wants us to worship him because he knows that there's going to be some good stuff that happens to us when we worship Him.

God wants us to worship Him, because it's going to do something good for us. Psalm 37:4, this is a worship passage, delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart, because, does God want to bless your desires in the midst of a worship service? Does he want to fill you with good things, Yes. 2 Corinthians 3:18, but we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are becoming transformed.

The Lord is transforming us through the reading of His word, transforming us through the preaching, transforming us through the prayers, transforming us through the psalms. 1 Corinthians 14:26, when you assemble, each one has a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. Who's being edified in this worship service?

God. This is talking about edifying one another. There is a horizontal element to worship. Yes, it should be God-centered.

Yes, it should be Christ-centered, but it's God, it's Christ Himself who talks about the horizontal aspects of worship. And yet this can be misapplied by ignoring the previous truth. And so as you bring them both together, worship is for God. And it's for us.

Notice what Ephesians 5:19 says. We've talked about this verse in the past, speaking to one another. Who are we singing to part of the time? to one another, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart too.

Who? The Lord, it's both. There's times when, when we sing a song like, oh, worship the King, all glorious above, who we singing to? I'm not singing to God.

I'm singing to you, you're singing to me. We're singing, oh worship the King, all glorious above. We're speaking in the third person to each other. We're singing, let's worship the king.

There's lots of songs like that. A mighty fortress is our God, a bulwark never failing. Who am I singing to? I'm saying unto you, and you're saying unto me.

That's the horizontal aspect of worship. That's one of the reasons why it's perfectly appropriate to close your eyes during certain portions of a service, but if all you do is close your eyes during the whole service, you've missed the horizontal aspect of worship. There ought to be a, you ought to be sensitive to the children sitting next to you that your worship impacts them. My worship impacts you and vice versa.

I get so blessed sometimes I look out, I'll be up here leading worship. A lot of times when you're, when you're in the congregation, you think you're in this invisible thing and no one can see you. And, but we see you when we're up here. And, I'll look out and sometimes, somebody will just stand up and praise the Lord or somebody will raise their hands or I see someone crying over here, someone smiling over there, and I just get built up and encouraged.

I hear just the, the voices of the congregation just well up and man, all of a sudden I'm like, wow, that's awesome. And that, that motivates me. but once in a while I look out there and I see someone doing this. They're just sleeping and I got to tell you, I don't get too motivated.

it's just, it happens. But in other times you see someone and I don't want to judge people because maybe they've got something on their mind, but sometimes you look out there and you do see someone just, you're like, what's going on? Did they leave the garage door open or before they left or, I, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time, I'm not getting encouraged, I'm like trying to work. I'll be like sometimes I'll be up here just totally under the Lord and I look out and I see someone just really looking mean and I'm like, whoa, I'm not going to look at them anymore.

And, that doesn't lift me up. We have an impact on each other as we worship the Lord. Psalm 34:2, my soul will make its boast in the Lord. The humble will hear it and rejoice.

There's an effect on people around us. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together. OK, so, those are the first two truths. The third truth that we want to look at is that worship is internal in a matter of the heart.

Got a spirit. Those who worship Him must worship him in spirit. We'll talk at a Another time, all the full aspects of what that means. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, when you give your alms, do not let your left hand and what your right hand is doing.

Verse 5, when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues on the street corners in order to be seen by men. Truly, I say they have the reward. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, and when you have shut your door, pray to the Father who is in secret and the Father who sees you in secret will pray, will repay you. There is no doubt an internal aspect of worship where there ought to be an authenticity in our heart.

We don't want to just come. And as the Pharisees put on displays of worship in order to be seen of men, so that people will look at us and say, Man, Pastor Mike is a man of prayer. Wow, what a prayer. If that's my motivation for leading the congregation in prayer, then Jesus would say, pray in your closet.

Don't pray publicly. But is that all there is? Is that all there is? If, If, if I get up here and pray publicly, am I suddenly now filled with pride?

If you, if I see someone out there lift their hands to the Lord, look at them, they think they're so spiritual. Is that what's going on? Should we all just keep this little personal, private thing going on, so no one wonders what our motives are? Now, let's look at the, the other half of this is that worship should find external expression.

It is a matter of the heart, but our hearts should move us towards external expression. 47 1, clap your hands, all you people, shout to God with voice of joy. Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

Is that an acceptable form of worship in the new covenant? Is that acceptable? Have you ever, that's a humbling position to be in. Have you ever just got on your knees before a bunch of people?

Just lift your hands. You're worshiping the Lord. I, I feel very humble right now. Not in the sense I want you to think I'm humble, but, This is a humbling position to be in, right?

Well, I am desperately needy. You lift your hands up, Lord, I just. I need you. is this an appropriate expression of worship to the Lord?

It must be. It's in the Bible and, and the new covenant is better than the old covenant. It's not like you had all this passion in the old and now in the new we're all supposed to. did everything go backwards when we came into Christ?

I don't think so. First Timothy 2, Paul speaking to a pastor, he says, therefore, I want men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands without wrath and dissension. I hear Paul's talking about the, probably talking about the pastoral prayer, so to speak. But I think it can be applied generally speaking.

We know that women in First Corinthians 11 are called to pray and prophesy and, And so, it seems very natural when we sing, what are we doing? A lot of times what we're all we're doing is, is we're musically praying. And so to lift up holy hands as we pray to the Lord, it's interesting to me that, the Lord hits men here. And I've noticed that gals seem to be less worried about raising their hands to the Lord and wondering what people are going to think of them.

Us guys we're kinda It's a little more, pride thing going on there. But the Lord singles out men as being the leaders in worship. Lifting up holy hands to the Lord in prayer. Is that a biblical thing to pray and lift up our hands to the Lord?

Well, I guess so. It's right there in chapter 2. And when we sing our prayers to the Lord, is it OK to lift my hands up and say, Lord, I, I need you. We're, we're needy people.

Please pour your blessings upon us. And yet that can be misapplied, right? I could walk into a service and, and I don't see people worshiping the Lord the way I think they ought to be worshiping the Lord. Man, where's the spirit of God in this place?

Nobody's, nobody's lifting their hands. We can go back and forth. You could look over and see a couple of people, a few rows in front of you and you could be all, man, they just want to be spiritual. Or you could yourself could be lifting your hands, you could be like, how come people aren't worshiping like I'm worshiping.

there's all kinds of traps, right? Or you could be like, oh I don't want to lift my hands because I don't want people to think I'm trying to be spiritual. It goes every direction, right? Thing is, is, it's whatever's in the scriptures, we know, we want to just as much as we can try to be authentic in our hearts and express it and just leave all that baloney to the Lord, right?

He's the judge of motives in men's hearts, not us, right? So the, the full truth here, worship should, should be internally authentic and externally expressive. Worship is internal and a matter of the heart. Worship should find external expression like Psalm 63.

I think Joe read this earlier. Oh God, Thou art my God. My soul thirsts for thee. Am I flushing earrings for thee?

Because thy loving kindness is better than life, my lips will praise thee. I will bless thee as long as I live, I will lift up my hands in thy name. You have both and you think of the story of David. he's bringing the ark into Jerusalem, and he's like excited.

And he's out there dancing in front of the ark and leaping and jumping up and down. And his wife peers out through the window and says, look at that guy. Who does he think he is getting all jazzed about the Lord. Micah, Michael killed worship in her own heart when she looked out and judged David's motives.

He was just, he was pumped up. what's really crazy about that passage is 3 months previous was when Uza died, got killed by the Lord for touching the ark. David's bringing the ark. Uza reaches out and touches it.

Lord kills him. David backs up and says, Oh, I'm afraid of God. I'm going to leave this thing here. Three months later, he's out there leaping and jumping in front of the ark.

What in the world's he thinking, man? God just killed a guy 3 months earlier. I, I think David had a good healthy sense of God's fear and joy, and he's expressing his heart before the Lord. Worshiping Christ.

Let's look at a 4th point. A 4th truth that we could see in scripture is that worship should be rooted in historical tradition. We've got hymns. We've got Things that have been passed down to us from Churches of years past.

Paul says in Philippians 4:9, the things which you have learned and received and heard and saw me, these things do, and the God of peace will be with you. 2 Thessalonians, therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold to the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or epistle, whether through my apostolic preaching or through apostolic writing. Hold to these traditions. 1 Corinthians 11, be imitators of me just as I am of Christ.

Now I praise you because you remember me in everything and hold firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you. And then he goes to talk about the tradition of head coverings and then the tradition of communion. Now, I've actually heard people say, why do we do this dead ceremony of communion? Not in this church, but I've heard people say that.

Why do we do this? Lord's supper thing, isn't that just a. Dead ceremony. Well, something that Christ instituted 2000 years ago and, told us to do it ever since.

The church has been doing it for 2000 years until recently. There actually are some churches that won't practice communion because they just see it as some dead ceremony. Now we're supposed to hold fast to these traditions that have been passed down. A couple of quotes from some people that would emphasize this tradition aspect of the truth.

Jeffrey Meyers, the right use of the knowledge of historical forms of Christian worship could assist the 20th century American church by helping us to break free from the bondage to our own culture. It's a good statement. Another writer says tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.

Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth. Tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Hey, it's a good statement.

just because Isaac Watts is dead, do we just say forget Isaac Watts. the great father of our hymnity. Just because these great hymns of the faith are no longer around or these writers are no longer around, we just throw them out. It's because these people have been dead for 2000 years, we say, well, it's out with the old, in with the new.

Is that what we do? Yet this truth can be misapplied. By supposing that somehow anything new and contemporary is dishonoring to the Lord. Look at the second truth, worship should be culturally relevant and contemporary.

Psalm 40 3, and he put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord. There's a lot of new songs in the Psalms. Every psalm was at one point a new song, right?

There was a day when a mighty fortress is our God was a new song. There was a day when someone got up and introduced a brand new song. Got a new song for you guys. It's called Amazing Grace.

what, there was probably somebody in the congregation that said, oh, no, not another new song. Whatever happened to the great hymns of the faith. And decried the introduction of Amazing Grace. Yeah, by the way, Amazing Grace and Mighty Fortress is, is our God.

Both of those were hymns, the tunes were actually stolen from the bars of the day. Amazing Grace was a very common popular tune. Mighty Fortress is our God. That tune was actually sung in German bars with different words put to it.

Oh, pass me another beer, oh, Bob, whatever. Martin Luther takes the tune, writes some incredible lyrics to it. He starts singing it in church. Now it's a great hymn of the faith.

Worship should be culturally relevant and contemporary. 1 Corinthians 9:22. Paul says to the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak, I have become all things to all men, that I might all by all means save some. Look at what Jesus says to the Pharisees of his day who misapplied the application of tradition.

He says, the Pharisee said to Jesus, why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread. And he answered and said to them, Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? You invalidate the word of God for the sake of your tradition, you hypocrites.

Rightly did Isaiah prophesized of you saying, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching his doctrines, the precepts of men. You have to be careful. there's certain traditions, apostolic biblical traditions that have been handed down to us that we dare not set aside.

And yet there are certain traditions that just come down to us, extrabiblical traditions that aren't bad, they don't contradict any part of scripture. They're the skin or the form of worship, and we should be willing to embrace things that have been handed down to us, the hymnity, the creeds. But yet We dare not put those over apostolic teaching. Notice what one writer says on the side of contemporary worship, Joel Horne, at its best, contemporary worship was born not simply out of a desire to swap the organ for a guitar, but out of an intense longing to somehow move from the casual decentric reciting of creeds and singing of hymns into an authentic time of loving and grateful interaction with the one who shed His blood for us.

I think there's some truth in there. But the full truth is both and. We can summarize truth number 4 this way worship should honor legitimate forms of yesterday. While embracing legitimate forms of today.

We should honor the forms of yesterday. We should honor our fathers and mothers. And yet embrace and recognize the fact that every culture, every time is going to have new and legitimate forms of worship. It's interesting when you look at the Old Testament, look at how much prescription there is under the old covenant.

you're told where, To worship, what, when to worship, what feast to hold. You're told exactly how to handle the sacrifices, what all of the priests should be wearing, what the high priest should be wearing, every last detail down to the jewels that are in, the breastplate of Aaron. you've got all this prescription in the Old Testament. When you get to the New Testament, You get some principles prescribed like preaching, reading of the word, prayer, communion, fellowship, giving, singing, and beyond that, it's like, there is virtually no specific prescription in the New Testament.

Do how many, how many, verses in the New Testament actually talk about the subject of music itself? You can count them on basically one hand. You've got Jesus singing a hymn in the upper room. You've got Paul and Silas singing a hymn in prison.

You've got Ephesians, the Colossus passage, and then you've got a slew of Revelation passages. That's it. Of prescriptive information for music. Why did the Lord give so much prescription in the old?

And so little prescription in the new. Maybe in the old, you've got worship being had by one nation. As the Lord was teaching them about who he was. And as the gospel goes out, the Lord knows this is going to many nations, many cultures, many times.

Here's the principles that are eternal, but the form is going to be ever flowing and changing. This may be hard for us to reckon with, but if we were to go worship with some brothers and sisters in the high Sierras of Mexico, they wouldn't be worshiping like we are today. I know that's hard to swallow, but our brothers and sisters worshiping right now in the high Sierras of Mexico have a different form of worship. They're singing totally different songs from us.

And what? That's OK. The worship that we have today is different from the worship that we had 20 years ago. The worship that we'll have here at Cornerstone 10 years from now will be different from the worship today.

The same principles should be there, but the form will be always evolving. Look at what Isaac Watts says. Now he's talking about prayer, just the prayer aspect of worship. But I love this statement in a book called Guide to Prayer.

He says, though the limiting to a constant set of forms of words is justly disapproved, just always saying the exact same words in your prayers. Serious, pious, and well composed patterns of prayer. May yet be greatly used in order to form our expressions and furnish us with proper praying language. And I wish the assistances that might be borrowed from these were not as superstitiously abandoned by some persons as they are idolized by others.

That's a great statement. See what he's saying there? There are for prayers that have been passed down throughout the ages. Isaac Watts has written some great prayers that I use at times here at Cornerstone.

Katie and I, we, we take our kids to a book called Leading Little Ones to God, and at the end of each chapter, there's a prayer that's written out for you that you pray with your kids, and I love just having them recite this prayer back to me. It's a great thing to do. I've noticed that my kids are more substantive in their extemporaneous prayers since we've been reading formed prayers. They're learning how to pray to God.

But the thing is, is we can, some of us want to just get rid of all the forms and formalism, but others of us want to idolize and say this is the only way it should be done. In certain parts of the church. Isaac Watts says, let's, let's just recognize the value without idolizing him. Let's look at a 5th and final truth.

Worship is for the edification of the church. I hope you agree and understand this. 1 Corinthians 14, seek to abound for the edification of the church. This is in a context of worship where everybody's using their gifts to worship.

It's pretty plain that as we gather together for worship, that part of the idea is that the people of God would be edified through the preaching, through the prayers, through the reading, through the singing, to the giving and fellowship and communion. But the Bible also indicates that worship ought to reach the lost. It's not exclusively for believers. Our worship ought to reach unbelievers.

For instance, in 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says, but if all prophesy, he's just got through saying if everybody speaks in tongues, uninterpreted tongues, and unbeliever walks in, he's going to make you crazy. Verse 24, but if all prophesy and an unbeliever and gifted man enters, he is convicted by all. He's called to account by all. The secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so he will fall on his face and worship God.

So Paul is calling the Corinthians to be aware and cognizant and even plan for the fact that unbelievers are going to be present with them. So our worship should have the believer in mind, but our worship should also have the unbeliever in mind. We want our worship to have an evangelical edge to it. Psalm 67:1 says, be gracious to us and bless us and cause a face to shine upon us.

Why? That your way may be known on all the earth, your salvation among all the nations, we're singing, but we want everybody to be singing all over the earth. On April 8th, we're going to have, we're having a special service where we're trying to invite as many unbelievers as we can. And, and the question that we can duly ask is, what will nonbelievers who visit Easter morning learn about God, about Christ, about the gospel from you in your worship?

As they show up on a Sunday. And they observe our God. What are they going to see? Are they going to see people that are just enthralled with their Christ?

I think so. I think that's the general tenor of our church, don't you? But there is There is. The danger that they could see people that are like, oh, I don't know if I want to express myself so someone might judge me or man, who are they to lift their hands or, man, I don't like this song.

The Lord hasn't made us, gathered us together each Sunday so that we can be worship Siskel and Ebert's and just say, has the pastoral staff put together a proper worship service? That's not to say that we don't invite your humble input. We do. We love the input that we get every week, the encouragement, the corrections, the advice, we love it.

But once we show up on Sunday, what? We're here. Let's worship the Lord. what, I don't like every song that we sing each Sunday.

I picked some songs that I don't like because I know that person does. you might think that every song, every list of songs is something that I absolutely love. Believe me, I, I would mention a few, but I don't want to, There are some songs I don't like, but we do them. They glorify the Lord and, and I take great joy, in looking out and seeing those of you out there worshiping with those songs.

The, So all I have to say is that, As we put this truth together, worship is for the growth of the church and the saving of the lost. Worship is for the edification of the church. Worship can be used to reach the lost. Now again, if pride enters in, The devil moves upon us to grab one truth and misapply it in a loveless way, or to not focus on the whole counsel of God when it comes to Scripture, and worship.

Pride what kills worship. It kills it. Not only does it kill it for you, but you have an effect on this whole body. You have an effect on our experience of the presence of God, because God resists the proud, right?

If we walk in on a Sunday morning, And a percentage of us are just welling up with pride. And we will not enter into this worship. Then you have killed worship. Do you want to be a worship killer?

I don't. I want to be someone. That is coming humbly before God and saying, God, I recognize I'm a sinner and Pastor Mike up there, he's a sinner and, and what, we're gonna come and we're gonna worship you this morning and there's two songs Pastor Mike selected this morning that I can't stand, but what, praise God. Because there's unbelievers, there's children, there's people all around me, they're looking at me to see who is my God.

And what, who my God is this morning is more important than the fact that I don't like two songs on the list. Right? I'm going to display his glory. By showing the unity that I have with my brothers and sisters in Christ all around me.

Let me give you just a couple closing qualifications and we'll end. With the things that we said this morning, I don't want you to get the impression that every prayer, every song, every scripture reading, every sermon, Every one of these things, We don't believe that they all have to reflect the full balance of systematic theology. It may very well be that the Spirit takes us through seasons where we'll focus on heaven for a while, and then we might focus a little more on hell for a while, and then we might focus a little more on grace, a little more on works, might focus on different aspects of the gospel.

When we look at the whole tenor of our ministry, there should be a sense of balance here at Cornerstone, and we invite you to give us input on how you're perceiving the balance at Cornerstone.

But any given service, you'll notice like on a communion Sunday, for instance, a lot of times, I'll select songs that start us off on God's holiness, justice, wrath, and our sin. Because I want to set us up to be thinking about those thoughts as we come in to visually and taste the gospel, wow, this is what I deserve and this is what I get. As we come through communion. for me, a lot of times I start off communion Sunday on a bummer note, like this last Sunday, terrible thought, Charles Wesley, wonderful hymn for children, that's purposeful.?

Anyway, secondly, each and every church will not have the exact same emphasis. the New Testament allows for a lot of freedom. Change of form is to be expected. Change of scriptural mandates is not.

You're going to, as you go and visit other churches, you see, when I visit other churches, and when I'm on vacation, I don't walk into those churches and think that they've got to do it exactly the way we do it at Cornerstone. I walk into a church, Katie and I love to visit at Calvary Chapel in Norco, and, they do things a little differently from us. We just, we love going there and we just get into it and we appreciate their form of worship. Other times we'll visit, Reformed Baptist Church over here, total other end of the spectrum.

And, and we love it. We get over there and sing some of those wonderful hymns that they're doing over there. We just get in and, and just go for it. We're not expecting everybody to do it exactly like us and.

And so we want to be very gracious. So the final thing we just want to remember is pride kills worship. Again, God opposes the proud, gives grace to the humble, submit, therefore to God, resist the devil, he'll flee from you, draw near to God. He will draw near to you, humble yourself in the presence of the Lord, and he will exalt you.