Theological term
Lord's Day Sabbath
4 sermons · All terms
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 5
The change of the Sabbath from the seventh day to the first day of the week rests not on explicit apostolic command but on authoritative precedent: Christ's resurrection, the post-resurrection gatherings He led, the apostolic practice recorded in Acts and the Epistles, and the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost. The Sabbath command remains morally binding in the new covenant, grounded theologically in Christ's rest from His re-creative labors (Hebrews 4:9) as the Creator's rest grounded the old covenant observance. Paragraph 8 of 2LCF Chapter 22 is then opened to address both preparation for the day — spiritual (repentance, the framing of the mind in prayer and Scripture) and practical (ordering common affairs beforehand) — and conduct on the day, distinguished between necessary cessations (vocational, commercial, recreational, and conversational) and wholesome operations (public and private worship, works of necessity and mercy).
2LCF Chapter 22 - Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day, Part 3
What does God require of his people in corporate worship, and by what means does he strengthen them in faith? Working through 2LCF Chapter 22, Paragraph 5, this session examines five constituent elements of religious worship: the Word of God (read, preached, and heard), songs to God, the ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper, the worshipper's disposition, and occasional worship. The regulative principle governs the whole: only what God has prescribed in Scripture may be brought into worship, and every element is to be engaged with understanding, faith, reverence, and godly fear. The practical burden is that corporate Lord's Day worship is not liturgical formality but God's ordained means of grace by which the Spirit strengthens and grows the faith of his people.
True and False Religion: Fasting
True religious fasting is assumed by Christ, not commanded as a merit-earning ritual, and is to be practiced in secret before God alone. Expounding Matthew 6:16–18 within the broader Sermon on the Mount context of exceeding Pharisaic righteousness, this sermon examines fasting under three headings: the assumption that the regenerate will fast, the warning against hypocritical display for human approval, and the corrective of ordinary, unannounced normalcy in one's daily conduct. The controlling application is that the believer's religious observances — almsgiving, prayer, and fasting — flow from justifying grace already received, not toward securing acceptance with God, which rests solely on the active and passive obedience of Christ imputed by faith.
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.