Theological term
Elements of Worship
7 sermons · All terms
Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
What is the acceptable way to worship the triune God, and who determines it? Working through paragraphs 1–6 of chapter 22 of the Second London Baptist Confession of 1689, this study establishes that while the light of nature discloses that God exists and is owed reverence, only special revelation determines how he is to be worshiped — the regulative principle. Religious worship belongs to the triune God alone, comes through the sole mediation of Christ since the fall, and consists of elements appointed by God himself, not devised by men. The Roman Catholic errors of saint-veneration, Marian intercession, and priestly mediation are examined and refuted at length, with particular application to the first element of worship: prayer offered in a known tongue, in the name of Christ, by the help of the Spirit.
The Second Commandment - Deuteronomy 5:8-11
The Second Commandment (Deuteronomy 5:8-11) prohibits both the making of images to represent God and the worship of those images — two distinct but related offenses against the infinitely simple, spiritual, and incomprehensible God. Because God cannot be captured in creaturely form, any visible representation of Him, including pictures or films of the Lord Jesus Christ, violates the commandment: the hypostatic union cannot be depicted by an artist's rendering, and Christ is to be set forth through preaching, not imagery. The positive demand of the commandment is worship regulated strictly by divine command — the regulative principle — which restricts the church to the elements God has prescribed in Scripture, excluding both the inventions of men and the traditions of Rome.
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day
The regulative principle of worship — the claim that God alone determines the acceptable manner of approaching Him — is the organising doctrine of 2nd London Confession of Faith Chapter 22. This session works through all eight paragraphs, distinguishing between the divinely commanded elements of worship (prayer, Scripture reading, preaching, singing, the sacraments) and the circumstantial matters left to Christian prudence, while also setting out the confession's Sabbatarian position: a creation-grounded, morally perpetual fourth commandment whose appointed day shifts from the seventh to the first day of the week at Christ's resurrection. Hearers are pressed to submit their worship preferences to divine prescription rather than personal taste, and to pursue Sabbath observance in its full rigour while resting in Christ's atonement when they fall short.
The Regulative Principle of Worship, Part 3
Deuteronomy 12:32 commands that nothing be added to or taken from what God has appointed for worship — a principle this sermon grounds in covenant theology and traces from the moral demands of natural law through the abrogation of the Old Covenant into the simplicity of New Covenant worship. The shift from Old Covenant to New Covenant is not a loosening of God's requirements but a fulfilment: the ceremonial positive law governing tabernacle, priesthood, sacrifice, and feasts has been abrogated by Christ, leaving the New Covenant church with the elements Christ himself has appointed — prayer, singing, Scripture reading, preaching, and the sacraments. The elements-and-circumstances distinction closes the argument: only what the divine Lawgiver has commanded in the New Covenant may govern the church's worship, and nothing may be added or taken away.
The Third Missionary Journey, Part 4
Acts 20:1–16 narrates Paul's closing movements on his third missionary journey — through Macedonia and Greece, into Troas where Eutychus falls to his death and is raised, and then south toward Jerusalem. The passage is used to argue that the early church's pattern of worship is not merely descriptive but carries prescriptive force: the Lord's Day (the first day of the week), corporate assembly, the Lord's Supper, and the preaching of God's Word are the God-ordained elements of Christian worship, regulated by Scripture alone. Cessationist and confessional commitments frame the reading throughout, and the sermon closes with a direct call to sinners to trust in Christ's imputed righteousness and atoning blood as the only ground of salvation.
The Importance of Acceptable Worship
Malachi 1:6–14 records God's indictment of Israel's priests for offering defective, stolen, and contemptible sacrifices — worshipping with the form but without the heart. This sermon examines three movements in the passage: God's accusation, the people's oblivious response, and the implications of unacceptable worship for the covenant community. The preacher presses home that careless worship is not a minor infraction but a major sin that provokes divine wrath, and calls every hearer to come before the great King with regenerate hearts and faithful, Scripture-ordered devotion.
The Marks of a Spirit-Filled Church
Acts 2:40–47 presents the most Spirit-filled congregation in redemptive history — the church at Pentecost — and the marks it bore were not spectacular innovations but simple, steadfast worship: the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. This sermon examines the convicting, converting work of Peter's Pentecost sermon and the fourfold pattern of New Covenant worship that followed, arguing that genuine Spirit-filling produces ordered, Word-centered, corporate devotion, not experiential novelty. The regulative principle of worship, as confessed in 1689 LBCF chapter 22, frames the application: God himself prescribes the acceptable elements of worship, and any departure from that prescription — however creative — is a departure from Scripture. The closing exhortation presses both the converted and the unconverted: those in Christ are called to continue steadfastly in these ordained means; those outside Christ are called to believe the gospel and enter true worship for the first time.