Heavenly Father, we once more thank you again that you have given us this written word that you have preserved and inscripturated down through time. Lord, we pray that you would illumine our minds and our hearts as we hear it expounded, Lord, as we hear your voice speaking through it. Lord, we pray that you would help us to understand and believe and trust you as you do just that, Lord, as you speak to us through the Spirit by this word. And Lord, help us as we pray, as we learn, and as we hear, as this word is preached. Lord, help us to learn and grow thereby. Change us by it, Lord. We thank you that the Spirit uses even this, the preaching and the teaching of this word, to encourage and to sustain our lives. We pray, Lord, that you would accept our thanks for this very truth. We ask now that you would give to us a great delight in you and a hunger for this word. Lord, arrest our attention that we would give our worship and our focus and our love to you at this moment, in this hour. We ask that all the meditations of our hearts would be pleasing in your sight. This is our prayer, Lord, and we pray it in Jesus’ name. And all God’s people said, amen. Amen. You may be seated.

I thought it was a good time, it’s the beginning of the year, as I’ve mentioned a number of times, we like to reorient or reframe or refresh our understanding of some of the main things and the foundational things that we do and why we do them. I know there are many of you who are new to Providence, and all of us, indeed, need to be reminded of why we do the things that we do, why we worship as we do, why we follow the liturgy that we do. I wonder if you have ever asked if there is a pattern of worship found in the Bible, right? There’s many debates and many wars about worship, right? The worship wars, hopefully they’re over, I don’t know, something that went on decades past. Is there a pattern of worship found in Scripture, right? If someone’s to ask you about the biblical pattern of worship, where would you tell them to look? What would you tell them that that was? Is there a pattern of worship found in Scripture, found in the pages of the Bible to where we can direct them. Worship, of course, is an amazing and a glorious gift from God to his people, as well as a command to his people. It is the center of our lives. It should be as God’s people. It is a glorious foretaste that God gives to us of what we will be doing for all of eternity, worshiping the Lord. worshiping the Lord. That should impact our attitude towards worship, right? So it’s important that we have some grasp on what we’re doing here. You know, I think it was John Owen who said, if you have no appetite or no taste for the things of the Lord in this life, why would you think you would have any in the next, right? And so this is also a barometer and a challenge to us as we reorient and reframe and answer the lies that we’re told about ourselves from the world and from our hearts all week long. It’s important to have a grasp on what we’re doing here in worship, corporate worship as the people of God. And so this morning, we’re gonna look at that once more, the divine pattern of biblical liturgy, the divine pattern of biblical liturgy. And I’m sure many of you hear that. For many, you hear that word liturgy, and the first thing that crops to mind for many is what? That’s Episcopal, or that’s Roman Catholic, or maybe Lutheran. It’s a dirty word to many, depending on the tradition and the history that you’ve lived in the church. But what is it? What is that word, liturgy? What does that mean? Why use that word? Why do we call this the liturgy? Well, liturgy comes from a word simply, the word is latria, which just means service. And it’s descriptive of the work of the priests in the Old Testament, their service to the Lord in the temple, for instance. It’s the word that crosses over into Romans chapter 12, our verse for this morning. The reasonable service, the reasonable worship, it’s a reasonable latria, right? It’s service on God’s behalf. Every church has a liturgy, right? To be clear, right, no church is without its liturgy. Some of them just don’t call it that or they’re very loose. But it’s merely what’s done in worship, right? It’s what’s done in worship. It’s become a bad word for many, maybe not in your experience, but in broader evangelicalism and other traditions fixed in certain times or geographies or reactionary impulses. It’s a dirty word. But many churches have a purposeful liturgy. right, a purposeful liturgy. And they are simply deliberate about it. They’re thoughtful and specific about it, right, and so this is what they’re referenced to, the structure, it’s what we do. But the question is, if that’s what liturgy is, what determines our liturgy, right, what determines our worship? And, of course, it must be the Word of God, right, it must be the Word of God. We must be able to point to Scripture to explain all that we do, right? That’s our claim as Reformed Presbyterian people. And indeed, it’s just biblical people faithful to Scripture. So what is New Covenant worship, right? What does that look like? What is New Covenant worship? Is there a pattern of worship in our Bibles regarding New Covenant worship, right? What is that pattern? Well, I’m gonna look at a number of things throughout this morning. And we’ll see what that is. I think we have pretty clear evidence, despite what others may have posited.

New Covenant Worship is Covenantal

But first thing that we see is the new covenant worship is covenantal worship. It’s covenantal worship. God always deals with man by way of covenant, right? by creation. Indeed, creation in itself is covenantal, right? Adam is created in covenants. So we have the Adamic covenant. We look at the covenants in Scripture, right? We have the Abrahamic covenant, the Davidic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, and on and on. And so even for us, though, the New Testament, right, when we think about that New Testament worship, New Covenant we’re speaking of, really, the New Covenant church, what does that look like? How has God assembled the Old Covenant people, the New Covenant people in regard in relation to the Old Covenant, right? And so when we look at the Old Covenant people, we see clues that we are to follow. There’s a pattern that’s laid down. covenantal in nature, all right? And so remember in Exodus, okay? And it might be helpful to turn to Exodus 20. You don’t have to, but I would encourage you to read that chapter, Exodus 20, forward, right, and to see this pattern laid out perhaps later to fill up your Lord’s day or throughout this week reflect upon this pattern that we find there. But we see the comparison is made in Hebrews that what happens where God establishes this pattern of worship at Sinai, how does He do it? The comparison made in Hebrews is that that was a type. That was a type, right? What the book of Hebrews tells us. So Exodus 20, we look at this and we see there, what is the pattern that we see? Well, we see that first briefly in this pattern, we see God calls, right? He calls his people. God initiates this relationship always. He’s the initiator, right? He calls to worship. He calls to man. And he defines and he calls the assembly, all right? And again, this is coming from Exodus 20 and following text that I’ll refer you to. But even before that, in Exodus 19, God does what? He’s told them to get ready to meet with him. God is the Lord and he calls them to assembly. And then in verse two, God cleanses his people by delivering them from the old to the new situation. God cleanses them by deliverance. Exodus 20 verse two, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. This is what I did. Now you are my people. You’re walking forward into a whole new world as my people named by me into a new life. He initiates the relationship, the people in this relationship, and he cleanses them so they can partake with him in covenant, okay? And then in verse three, we see next, he gives his word, he gives his law to the people. Therefore, you shall have no other gods before me. And it goes on, right? We have the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. They are thereby consecrated as his people. And then next we see, and this is in Exodus 24, right after the decalogue is given and some explanation or some details about that. In Exodus 24, the 70 elders, at the conclusion of all of this, the representatives went up and did what? They ate with God, right? They ate with God, Exodus 20. They communed with him in a meal. And in Exodus 24, starting in verse 9 to 11, it says this, Then Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy of the elders of Israel went up, and they saw the God of Israel. And there was under his feet, as it were, a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness. And he did not lay his hand on the chief men of the people of Israel. They beheld God and ate and drank. What an incredible thing, right? He communes with them in a meal, and there was what? There’s not judgment. There’s not a flame throwing because of their dirtiness and their sin. There’s peace. There’s peace as a result of all this. And then finally, we see, as we read, if we continue reading Exodus, contributions are made for the tabernacle, and then they are commissioned to build, concluding with the benediction in Exodus 39 at the end of this event, and Moses blessed them, right? And so God commissions Israel, commissions them that they would be sent out in his name. We see a similar pattern. in New Covenant worship. It’s covenantal, right? It’s covenantal, right? So remember that pattern.

New Covenant worship is Temple Worship

Notice again, secondly, the New Covenant worship is temple worship. It’s temple worship. Not physical, at a place with blood, but there was this, that was a picture of what was truly taking place, right? Moses is given a pattern. And the temple has a pattern, same as the tabernacle. And what was that pattern? What was that blueprint that we see in Scripture? because Hebrews 8, 4, and 5 tell us that that pattern was a heavenly pattern, was a heavenly pattern, that the priest served as a shadow of the real thing. We don’t go to the old, but to the true temple, because Jesus is the true temple. He’s the fulfillment and the satisfaction of all these things. And when we come to worship, We come in Christ. We come in Christ. We don’t just come to the temple. We come as the temple because God presents us just as that. And his presence doesn’t just dwell in Christ, but it dwells in us because we are in Christ. You are now the temple, Paul tells us in Ephesians 2. We are assembled as the temple of God, being built into the holy house of God, the temple of the Lord. New covenant worship is temple worship because you worship in Christ and you are the temple. And so let’s see the pattern of the Old Testament temple. When we look at this, again, you could look at 2 Chronicles 5, right? Maybe write that down. Read this along with Exodus 20 and following later this Lord’s Day for your devotions. 2 Chronicles 5, at the completion of the temple, what does this look like? What is this pattern that we have there? Because of all the Old Testament, what they did and built was a pattern of the heavenly. Let’s look at what that type was, that shadow was, and see what we can conclude from that, right? 2 Chronicles 5, verses 2 and 5. We have God calling them to assembly. He’s assembling them by his word. And God cleanses them with sacrifices so that entrance could be made by the priests. And then in verse seven and following, the priests enter into the presence of God. The people sing praises outside. They magnify his name as the cleansed people of God. And then in 2 Chronicles 5, God preaches his word through his king. The Word of God comes to the people, and the people respond in prayer and song. And God sends, what, fire from heaven to consume the sacrifices set before Him, and they are taken up to Him. And it’s God’s way of saying that He is there to commune with them, that He accepts their worship, their sacrifices. You are in me, and I am in you is the picture that we’re given. And the people eat from the altar and take in the sacrifice, and God breathes in the smoke from that sacrifice, and he takes it in. And there’s communion between God and his people. This is what the picture is of that we’re given in the Old Testament. There’s communion between God and his people by way of these sacrifices. And God ultimately dismisses his people then in what? Commissions them back into the world for service to him, to their homeland. The pattern has reverberations, that is, echoes into the New Covenant, into the New Testament, because it was all preparatory of the New Covenant. You know, it’s a good way of looking at your Bible. It’s preparatory Word, and then the Word happens, the Gospels, Jesus Christ, the complex of what he did does, and then you have explanatory Word, right? And so this is all preparatory of the substance of what is to come. And remember what Peter tells us in 1 Peter chapter 2. He says, you are being built into a spiritual temple, spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer what? Spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. And so what is he saying there? You’re being built into a spiritual, the word is bait or oikos in Greek, and it means temple or dwelling. If you live there, it’s called a house. If a king lives there, it’s called a palace. If God lives there, it’s called a temple. It’s the same word. And Peter says that you are being built up into a certain type of house. It’s a house where there is a royal priesthood, one where you may offer up spiritual sacrifices to God through Christ. And he says there are living stones that are being assembled and built into that temple. And God’s Spirit is truly with you now. And you’re before God’s throne. Imagine that. This is the testimony of Scripture. It’s the testimony of Scripture, therefore, it’s the testimony we are to believe and trust that it is true. You are before God’s throne even now, and it is your duty and it is your service, it’s your job right now to offer up to him spiritual sacrifice. That’s his call, even as Paul, in Romans 12, we have just read. tells us to do. And so we see this pattern, right? We see this pattern of worship in the covenant, and we see it in the temple, right?

New Covenant Worship is Sacrificial

And then next we see, thirdly, the New Covenant worship is what? It’s sacrificial. It’s based on sacrifices. We’ve already read some of this. We’ve seen it in what we’ve looked at. But New Covenant worship is sacrificial worship, sacrificial worship. And that’s really strange for most people to hear, sacrificial. Doesn’t that go away with Leviticus? or it seems strange because we read in Hebrews and we see Christ’s sacrifice is what? It’s once and for all sacrifice, right? So how can worship be sacrificial? We believe that Christ’s sacrifice was once and for all. We believe it and we confess it. We praise God for that. And it’s a gross offense to assert that Christ is re-sacrificed or re-presented as a sacrifice again and again and again. That’s blasphemy and truly gross. But because of this, we think that because Christ is the once and for all sacrifice, that sacrifice is therefore done away with, it’s no longer a category for us as the people of God. But what did Paul just tell us in Romans 12, right? Paul just told us to offer our bodies as what? As a living sacrifice, as a living sacrifice, right? certain type of sacrifices are over for sure, right? We know this without question. No more bloody animal sacrifices. I read Leviticus 1, so we can get just a small, right, dropper full of all that that meant, all the sacrifices. and the blood and the cutting and all the graphic nature of what the sacrifices were that were required. Those sacrifices are gone. No more bloody sacrifices, because that’s never what God wanted, ultimately, anyway. He says what? He says, you offer up yourself as a living sacrifice. You’re here in the temple, and sacrifices are about to be brought. And what is that sacrifice? It’s you, right? You’re the sacrifice. You’re to come this morning as a sacrifice to God. As Hebrews 13 tells us, the praise of your lips is a spiritual and reasonable sacrifice to give to God, the praise of your lips. So if New Testament worship is sacrificial worship, what is the pattern of the sacrifices? What is the pattern of the sacrifices? We’ve seen the pattern of the covenant, we’ve seen it in the temple, but what are the Levitical sacrifices in the Old Testament that were a shadow of the reality, right? Is there a pattern there? Indeed, there is, right? Think again, Leviticus 1. We see, notice the repetition, right? The first thing that we read about is God calls the worshiper near to them. They come, they must come in an appropriate way. And God is the one who initiates. He’s the one that calls. He’s the one that tells them how sacrifices are to be given, right? They’re not to make this up on their own. They’re not to have a, you know, a flight of fancy and think, well, this is what I’m gonna do because it feels good. The Lord calls, initiates, and he commands how this is done. And the next thing we see after this call, is a confession of sin, right? The worshiper is to die in the animal that he brings, right, representatively. So as he’s entering into worship, the first thing he does is bring the sacrifice, and he puts his hand on his head, and it is accepted on his behalf as an expiation for him, right? This is what will be that will cut away the enmity between him and God. It’s this sacrifice. on his behalf. And he identifies himself and his sin with this sacrifice. And he knows he is to be the sacrifice for God. But this animal, mercifully and graciously, the Lord accepts in his place. And notice now, how Paul isn’t saying anything different. He says, you are a living sacrifice. You’re a living sacrifice. In Leviticus, they knew and said the same, but they did it by way of the animals. They knew because of sin, they were the ones who needed to be sacrificed. But they put their hands on the animal, and the animal substituted for them, stood in their place. And the animal was put to death on the offerer’s behalf, and he received atonement from the animal’s death. And then the next thing that happens is what? That the animal is cut up. It’s cut up and it’s prepared on the altar on the wood to be consumed by God. Verse six, he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces. And so the animal is prepared to be consumed by God for communion with God. But first it’s cut up, right? It’s cut up. And it’s no accident that this is the very thing that we read in the New Testament. We read in Hebrews, where it says, the word of God is living and active, sharper than what? Than the two-edged sword. And the two-edged sword is so sharp, it can divide between soul and spirits. And what is the language that’s used there? Notice what comes next. What else does it divide? Joint and marrow. We don’t all have to be butchers to recognize what this is talking about. It’s not just a metaphor, right? Paul uses terms of sacrifice and service language coupled together. And Hebrews says, when you come unto the word of God, it does that to you. It cuts you off. It prepares you to stand before God rightly. It exposes you for who you are, naked before him. And why is that? So that you may commune with him and be at peace with him. And he shows you who you are, and you respond in obedience. Leviticus 1.7-9 says the sacrifice is burned and consumed, right? It says, and it should become a sweet-smelling aroma before the Lord. They’re burning the sacrifice so they can get it up to God, right? So it can reach the Lord. They know that God dwells in the heavens and that the earth is his footstool. And so this is what is given to them. They burn the sacrifice so the smoke, the sweet smelling aroma will go up to the Lord and he will take it in. And again, what is the sacrifice? It’s the worshiper, not the animal, right? It’s never the animal. That was a picture. The worshiper is what it was stood for. The worshiper is upon, altar. The worshiper is the one who’s taken up to heaven because he’s been prepared rightly, and God breathed that worshiper in, and he’s pleased. It is a sweet-smelling aroma to him. And then the worshiper is blessed, and he’s renewed. We could look at other patterns that occur in Leviticus. They have a similar pattern, a similar pattern that takes place. And this pattern reminds us that if you’re going to offer a series of sacrifices to God, what’s the first thing you have to offer? It’s a sin offering because there’s distance between you and God. There’s enmity because of sin. There’s enmity. There’s estrangement. But that sin offering takes that away, cuts it away, expiates it, if you will. And it’s followed by a burnt offering, which is an expression of the complete giving overness, the complete person that is being cleansed by the Lord. And the burnt offering shows that that person, just like that whole animal, is going to be chopped and cut and offered to God and to reach the Lord. And we are to give our whole selves entirely to God, whole-souled, with whole life’s sacrifice. And I hope you feel the weight of this in our lives, not just one added piece of datum as to who you are. This is entirely who you are. And it must impact, and you must feel the weight of that, because then you will feel the glory of that. and the safety of that. And I hope this sounds familiar, this wholeheartedness, this whole life sacrifice, right? Where do we hear this in the New Testament? Perhaps Roman chapter 12 that we began with. You are to present yourselves a living sacrifice. This is your reasonable service, your reasonable worship, your liturgy to God. And why is that? It’s because he forgave you your sins. He showed you mercy. And then lastly, we have the peace offering, right? It’s given in its expression of thanksgiving, this peace offering, thanksgiving, right? And that indeed is what the word, the old-fashioned word, Eucharist means, thanksgives, a thanksgiving meal. We call the Lord’s Supper. It’s a meal of Eucharist, thanksgiving. It’s a thanksgiving, and it’s also a seal to them of the covenant fellowship with the Lord because he is willing to sit to eat a sacramental meal with them.

New Covenant worship is Gospel Worship

And there’s that pattern once again, the pattern that we see. So we’re seeing that the New Testament worship is covenantal, it is temple worship, it is sacrificial worship. And finally, it certainly is gospel worship, right? How does this relate to the gospel, right? We talked a lot about the Old Testament. How does this impact in onto the gospel impact this? Well, New Covenant worship is indeed gospel worship because that flow, the logic of all of those things is the logic of the gospel, as we’ll see, right? We’re gathered here today through what? Through the gospel as God’s people. We have believed that Jesus Christ has brought us together. And how does that gospel work? We don’t just stroll up to God in our own initiative, right? No, God calls the sinner. He calls the sinner out of their deadness and out of their rebellion, right? As we read about in Romans 9 and Romans 8, it tells us God calls the sinner, and when he does, the sinner’s heart is made new. And he confesses his sins, and he repents, and he believes. And then God makes pronouncements about that sinner, that newly saved sinner, that saint, He’s a justified sinner. After he’s converted, he says, you are justified in my sight, you are holy now. There’s no longer enmity between you and I. And after God has made the sinner holy, what is the sinner’s duty? It’s to be changed and to be sanctified by God through the spirit, working through his word, working through sacraments, through the means of grace. That’s what he has to do. And why does God do that? Why does God continue to do this throughout our lives? Well, God does it to prepare us for glory when he will commune with us forever and ever and ever. And in this lifetime, we get just a foretaste of that in the Lord’s Supper, right, the elements of the supper that he gives us, just a foretaste of that, our communion with him. And the pattern again, even in the gospel, is that God calls us, we give confession, he cleanses us, and he consecrates us to himself, he communes with us. He comes and he communes with us. And then notice, he doesn’t just save you for yourself. What does he do, rather? He sends you back into the world in his service, in his commission to you, to be a blessing to the nations. And so all those components are recalls, confession, cleansing, consecration, communion, and then commission, right? And all of these things, the pattern of the Bible inform our order of worship, what we do in worship, our liturgy, our service. God has given no other pattern. He’s given no other order. Not in the tabernacle, not in the temple, not in the sacrifices, not in the covenant or in the gospel. It’s always the same order. And that should be a clue to us that we should follow when we come. It should be according to the pattern. That’s why our liturgy follows that pattern. Again, first God calls us to worship, just as he did at the mountain, just as he did in the sacrifice, just as he does in the temple worship. He calls you in the gospel, calls you. So God calls you at the beginning of the service through a minister to come and to worship in an appropriate manner and offer acceptable worship. God calls us to worship. It’s a command. It’s not a suggestion. It’s not an offer. God says, you come, you come on my appointed day in my appointed way. And then second, God cleanses us once we are called. Once there’s a response to the call, he cleanses us. And that’s why immediately after we give praise that God has called us into his presence, we come with thanksgiving and we realize we shouldn’t really be here in his presence, right? We really shouldn’t be here. And I wonder if you’ve had that thought or realized that recently or ever when you come, that we don’t really belong. God has shown his grace to you, and you recognize the holiness of God, and we should reflexively feel we don’t really belong. There’s a discomfort because of our sinfulness. You’re not holy. You’re not fit to be in God’s presence. None of us are. Notice in the Bible, when people come before his presence, what do they do? They admit their unworthiness. They reflexively confess that. Even we, too, do this in our worship. When we approach God and his infinite holiness and perfection and power and majesty, we truly should be overwhelmed. We should be overwhelmed by his holiness. And we see examples, think of Isaiah. Isaiah wasn’t the most wicked man in Israel. He’s not described as that dirty Isaiah, that wicked rebel. Not how he was described, how was he described? Not the worst sinner, but the holy man of Israel. And how did he, the holy man of Israel, respond to being in God’s presence? He fell on his face. He fell on his face, he said, I am undone. What does God do to Isaiah? God calls him, and Isaiah confesses. I’m man of unclean lips. And God sends an angel with a burning coal to cleanse his lips. And he pardons his sins. And he lets him come and fellowship before him. Right? Isaiah 6, you know this. And then God commands him his assignment, and he sends him out. He commissions him into the world to serve the Lord. And there’s that pattern again, a calling, a confession, a cleansing, and a commission. And even you, brothers and sisters, you come into his presence every Lord’s Day at his call. And the first thing you should and what we must do and have to do is to praise him and to confess him and to confess our sins before him. We don’t go through the confession of sin because we want to be old-fashioned or dour or self-flagellating or think it’s cool or makes us feel better than someone else. It’s not why we do it. Rather, we do this. It should expose who we are week after week after week and remind us of how far we’ve fallen and how far we’ve missed the mark from His Word. And you may not realize this, but some people will avoid churches like this. There are people who have avoided this church because we confess our sins every Lord’s Day. They don’t like it. Some people don’t like to read, don’t like to think about it. I can’t do this every week. I’m not that bad. This freaks me out. I’ve sinned by what I’ve done. They don’t want to hear things like that. I’ve sinned by what I’ve done and what I’ve left undone and by my thoughts, words, and deeds. This is uncomfortable to lots of people who deny the reality of those very things. They don’t wanna come in here. I don’t wanna, I wanna come here to feel good. I come here for me. But we confess those things, our sins, because they’re true, right? Because they’re true, they’re true. That’s who we are before God. And that fits the pattern that the Lord gave us in his word. We don’t obey like we should. We don’t do the things that we ought to do. We do the things we ought not to do. But just as God showed mercy to Isaiah, he shows mercy to us, his covenant people, as we come and we answer his call and we’re cleansed by his word. As we confess, he cleanses us in Christ. Not only does he cleanse us, but he pronounces to us verbally through a minister, you are clean, you are accepted in my sight, come and worship, be free and be justified because of what I’ve done in Jesus. So there’s a gospel logic, if you will, to our liturgy, to our worship. We are told again and again and again because we need to be told and we need to hear again and again who we are and how we are who we are. And God is praised and he’s magnified and he is worshiped. And so we come at God’s call and we confess our sins because we need to be cleansed. Even us who have been forgiven in Christ. Those talons of sin have not fully dislodged themselves from our souls, brothers and sisters, and we have to remember that. They don’t bind us. We’re free from the shackles of them, but we bear the scars of those things, the lingering reality of sin that clings to our bodies. The gospel is not some once-needed remedy, right? We have to remember. It’s not a once-needed remedy. We do this every week. because this is what you need to do every day, right? What we try to pattern here in our worship is something that we should be, you should be doing in all of your lives, right? You’re a new believer, or you wanna, what should I do in my devotion to the Lord, my bearing myself before Him, praying before Him? Well, you can follow the pattern given in Scripture, right? You need this every day of every week, because every day the gospel is for you. It’s for every moment of your lives. You need to be converted, if you will, again and again and again. And you need to know that Christ forgives sinners over and over and over again. That is his promise to you as he renews the covenant that he took upon himself to save you and to be yours, to make you whole and pure for him, with him for all of eternity. And after God has cleansed us, he consecrates us. He consecrates us. just like when his people covenant with God on the mountain, that pattern, right? He gave them his law, his word, like that. After we confess our sins, we sit under the word of God, right? We are prepared to come, we confess, we hear the law, we know our brokenness, we confess our failing, we’re made whole, and he consecrates us by his word. That’s what we’re doing every Lord’s day. because we are now his people, and he’s going to tell us, now that I’ve forgiven you and cleansed you, you are not to be like the world anymore. You are a new man. You are different. Remember who you are. I’ve recreated you for good works in Christ. Therefore, hear my word and believe and respond rightly in your lives. Live for me. Be consecrated. You be chopped up like that sacrifice, and let the word of God expose you for who you are. Stop with the pretense and the acting, right? You are naked before the Lord, right? You’re bare before him. And we as a response say, Lord, whatever you say, I will do. I’m your servant. I have nothing but you. And after he has done that cutting and that chopping with his word, after he has exposed our hearts, He expects a proper response. And that’s why after we preach, we pray the congregational prayer, the prayer for the congregation, and we sing, and then we confess our faith. And when we do, we’re saying, we’ve heard your word, Lord, and we believe it. We believe it. We believe in you, that the God that brought that word, right? We believe in you. We believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. We remind ourselves of who he is as we confess before him. confess our faith, and we bring our offerings, and we say our whole selves are now yours. We are living sacrifices for you. Take us. And that’s where we respond to that word of God. He communes with us. He blesses us with the communion of himself. He’s told us what he desires for our lives, what he desires of us, and that he’s forgiven us. And then at the end of it, he comes down from on high, truly by the power of the Spirit, and he comes and he sits at table with each one of us at the supper with us. And he feeds us the body and blood of his Son that we might live when we receive by faith. And he tells us that table. Everything is okay with me and you. I’ve done what needed to be done. I’m at peace with you. I’m at peace with you. I love you. Go in peace. Live for me. I’m your father. You’re my child. I love you. And we have fellowship one with another, and we will forever and ever and ever have that fellowship, dear child. So if you doubt it in the middle of the week, doubt it no more. Doubt it no more. I am your loving father and I’m willing to sit at the same table with you and call you my child, my son, my daughter. And then finally, after we have sat and supped with God, he is our father and we as his children, he commissions us according to the pattern, right? He sends us out with his blessing and he does all these things for us. He breaks us down and he rebuilds us here in order that we might go out there as living sacrifices again, living truly for him and give ourselves as Christ did, give our lives for the life of the world. But we won’t have the power to do that if we don’t know the gospel here in worship, right? This is what feeds and strengthens and empowers that. And the only way we can give ourselves freely to those out there, to those who are dying and in need and truly hating us and hating Christ, is if we have experienced the gospel in here. Only then can we say, all that I am is yours, Lord. I am undone. You have remade me. You put your name and your claim upon me. You’ve created a whole new world. I’m a whole new man. I’m walking forward as a new man into a new world. My life is for you. I am yours. Take my life. Let me give it to my family, give it to the world outside to my vocation, all dear Lord, that you may be glorified. And so God puts his name on us and in the blessing and the benediction, he sends us out and he says, now go serve me in the world. This is part of being who you are. This is who you are. Now go be who you are. And you see in all of this, the liturgy is really nothing less than the pattern of your whole life. It’s a reenactment. It’s a dramatization of what has happened to you week after week after week as a reminder. It’s not just a liturgy for you, but it’s your life’s liturgy. Just like the Passover, right? Remember the Passover. When they sat down for it, they weren’t just pretending, right? It wasn’t just like, you know, their play acting, like, you know, at an elementary school or something. They were going through what was really the reality of their life. It happened back then. And therefore, they would reenact and dramatize what happened so that they would know who they really were and not forget who they were or what the Lord had done to make them who they were. They were God’s people who were delivered from Egypt, and He is for them. And you do that very thing, brothers and sisters, week after week after week in this building, you reenact what God has done for you. He’s called you, he’s cleansed you, he’s consecrated you, he communes with you, and he commissions you. This is your life. This is our life as his people. It’s your life on Sunday, but it’s also your life on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and the rest of the week for every day. This is your call. This is your life. And if you learn this pattern and it is ingrained into your core here through worship, then it will make sense to you on Monday morning when all of your sins come flooding back before you again. And you say, what do I do? What do I do? And what do you do? What do you do when that happens? But you remind yourself that God has called me out of darkness to live in light. So I’ll confess my sins, and I will believe the gospel again and afresh. And I’ll live under his word, and I’ll commune with God day by day by day through prayer. And I’ll give myself to him as a living sacrifice, whatever he calls me to do. That’s what you do. That’s what you do. In all of our gross imperfections, that’s our reaction is to be. That is what we’re to do in our lives. This isn’t just for like this hour, right, or this day. This is our life always. But in this hour, we are assembled as we are. We do, we remember, we reenact, we dramatize that reality, that truth, and we do it in the very presence of God who has done it on our behalf. Notice the words of Paul once more. You are to give a reasonable service. in order to give yourself as a living sacrifice. Again, this is very difficult language for us, even looking over what we already have. It’s a very different sentiment than that trite, you know, that trite sentiment of so many. He says, I go to worship at church because I like this or that music style. You see how trite and minuscule these things really are once you realize what’s really going on in worship. I don’t like the carpet. The window treatments are kinda eh. I don’t like this or that music or how it makes me feel. If you understand and you get just a glimpse of the depth and weight and the glory of what’s going on in worship, you’ll experience a taste of the heaven reality week by week by week, despite all of those nonsensical trite minutia. And as you give yourself up, you see that paradox of the gospel. God will always give you more. will always give you more. It will be an experience, not because you had some inner deep feeling about the music or mood you in a right way or sentimentality, but because you gave yourself up to God in his pattern and remembered the gospel and relived the gospel. And God was here to tell you that you are his and he is yours forever. Lord’s day by Lord’s day in all of your sin, when you are beleaguered and lied to and beaten down throughout the week by the world in your own heart, this is the reminder that you were given week by week. And it’s a reminder you to remind yourself of every day. And that should give you enough power from here as we receive this corporately as his people. give you enough strength and grace to make it six more days until we can come again and visit here as his people and have a taste of that eternal rest one more time where you’ll be with him forever and ever and ever. And we give ourselves up to him in sweet praise for the rest of our days. This is our worship because this is our community life. This is the covenant community, and this is the worship of the covenant community, right? Do you know what binds us together as that community, as the covenant community of God? It’s that God is called. He’s cleansed, and he’s consecrated. That’s what made you One loaf, Paul says, and one body. So we go through this again and again, and we rehearse this again, and we remember who we are in Christ, and God recommunicates those realities to us, and he presses them upon us, and we know and should know beyond a doubt as we walk out of these doors that Christ has died and risen, and he lives for us, and therefore we are at peace with God, and we can now live in this world and into the next for Him. What a glorious Savior we have. What a glorious providing King. What a gracious King. And so remember this always, brothers and sisters. Remember and give praise as you live your lives whole-souled and completely for Him, as you remember the pattern, as you live the pattern, and it empowers you even throughout all of this life into the next. Amen.

Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you and praise you for your mercy and your grace. We thank you for instructing us in your word. And we thank you that despite our foolishness and our false starts and our mis-attempts and our stumbling, Lord, that nevertheless, you provide us the balance for our life, the plumb line, the straight way, Lord, and we thank you. that you’ve not left us to make things up on our own or not left us to grope around and invent from our own idle factory hearts, but that we can truly follow truly your word, particularly in regards to your worship. So Lord, we pray that you would help us to believe what we have heard. Help us Lord to trust the gospel. Yes, every Lord’s Day, every time we gather together, every day, every moment of every day, as we seek the face of our Savior through the Spirit, as we walk through this life, Lord, and we thank you that our true home is not any geopolitical land that we know here, but our true home is in glory, Lord, and we praise you as we await a better country. Lord, we pray for this church particularly, The members and the visitors here, we pray, Lord, for the children of this church. We pray that you would protect each one. We thank you that you bless our families with children. We thank you that you love covenant families. And Lord, we praise you that you indeed have called them into this community, Lord, to be raised and to, by godly parents, those who love you and those who will set them before the preaching of the word and the benefits of this community, Lord, we pray protect them, Lord, spiritually to be sure, but physically and emotionally, relationally, Lord, we pray that you would Be gracious to them, Lord. Comfort them as they walk through this life, and even as they fall and stumble again and again, that they would look to Jesus, and that he would become all the more real to them, and they would embrace him as their Savior, and they would live for him for all of their lives. We pray that you would bless the parents of this congregation, that they would facilitate this reality, that they would be tools in your hand, living for you, being bare and honest before their children, raising them in the truth, raising them in confession, seeking reconciliation and forgiveness, Lord, as they look to Jesus as their mutual Savior. Lord, we do pray that you would bless all of us in this church, whether young or old, married or single. Whatever station, Lord, we pray that you would continue to guide us through this life, give us a hunger for your word and a longing to be with Jesus, a longing to be in your word and with your people. Lord that we would be blessed Lord and we pray that you would indeed comfort us help us to know despite the despite the many things we are afflicted with a Body is particularly in the special needs that you know each one Lord We pray that you would help us all to remember that you are indeed the resurrection and the the God of the resurrection of the dead, and that we would all one day be made whole, free from mourning and crying and pain forever. Lord, we thank you for the things that you lead us through in this life. Help us to rejoice, help us to bless one another, help us to glorify you. We ask all this in the mighty name of Jesus, amen.