Dennis Tuuri

saying, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last.” And what you see, write in a book, and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. And in the midst of the seven lampstands, one like the Son of Man clothed with the garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band.

His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters. He had in his right hand seven stars. Out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was like the sun, shining in its strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid.

I am the first and the last. I am he who lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of death. Write the things which you have seen and the things which are and the things which will take place after this.”

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your most holy word. We thank you for the indwelling Holy Spirit. We thank you for the work of the Savior that was the basis for the spirit being given to us. We thank you for his resurrection and ascension. And we thank you for our resurrection and ascension in him to your throne room. Now help us, Lord God, by your spirit illuminate this text and the others we will consider to our understanding to the end that our worship of you might be indeed in spirit and in truth. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated. The little ones may be dismissed to go to the nursery.

We’re in the midst of now what will be seven sermons where the seventh sermon will conclude on August 20th following our dedication on August 19th here at this facility. There’ll be a slight change in the sermon schedule as of this morning. We have decided that two weeks from now Mark Kamich will be here again in Portland. He’s with us today and taught in my Sunday school class. And two weeks from today, he’ll be preaching for us and also we’ll be having a presentation by him, maybe using slides, maybe not in Sunday school time.

So, please make your plans accordingly for that.

We’re in the midst of a series of sermons on worship. It seemed appropriate being brought into this new facility by God, coming out of worshiping in a gymnasium with tennis balls stuck in speakers and various other distractions to try to remind ourselves again what the corporate worship of God should look like and what we are maturing to in the providence of God.

The scripture I just read we use frequently in this church as a call to worship and as a confession of sin and absolution assurance of forgiveness. And hopefully after today you’ll know why we use this particular scripture and what this part of the worship service is like.

We have said in the beginning of this service that really, you know, it’s said that to the man who finds a hammer everything looks like a nail. And it is an occupational hazard of preachers that everything you preach on for you is the most important thing in the scriptures that week. And so you can tend to ultimatize everything you preach on. But I think that it would be difficult to ultimatize beyond what it really is the importance of our praise to God. We said last week and we say again this week that this is why the Lord God has brought the creation into being and redeemed us is so that we might be a praise to him.

We’re told in Isaiah 43:21, “This people I have formed for myself. They shall declare my praise.” The implication is he’s made us for the very purpose of declaring his praise of coming before him and worshiping him and calling all mankind to come together and worship God our creator, redeemer, and sovereign. 1 Peter 2:9 says that we’re a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may.

Now, why are we all these things? That we might proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. God brings us together, creates us, redeems us, rules over us to the end that we might worship him. And so, it’s important that we understand how we’re to do that.

Robert Rayburn in one of his books on worship says this about what worship is. Corporate Christian worship is the activity of a congregation of true believers in which they seek to render to God that adoration, praise, confession, intercession, thanksgiving, and obedience to which he is entitled by virtue of the ineffable glory of his person and the magnificent grace of his acts of redemption in Jesus Christ.

That’s what we do every Lord’s day trying to set a pattern for our lives of worship to God. We come together at the call of God at his behest, him sovereignly moving, initiating his worship, calling us before him, to give him worship and praise. There is no higher calling for us than to give worship and praise to our creator as we saw from Psalm 95 last week, our redeemer, the covenant God who we are his people and our sovereign, the king of kings and lord of lords.

We said last week that there is a different perspectives on worship. Worship can be seen as a diamond. It has various facets or perspectives. It is multifaceted in its beauty and relationship.

I have again this week a corrected version of the overview handout of what worship is. I am greatly saddened, shocked, dismayed, disappointed that no one pointed out my error last week. Maybe we just went over it so quickly. But hopefully by the end of this miniseries on worship, we’ll pick up these errors.

Last week I believe at least I think that my handout that is this worship as overview handout in the right hand column worship as three gifts glory the new man and underneath that I think I had mistakenly placed the peace offering both there and in relationship to the third gift of life and of course that’s wrong. The first portion of our worship really correlates to the purification or sin offering of Leviticus and that should be of course to us by the end of this series.

I want everyone here little children. The book of Leviticus and the three basic offerings that are portrayed there are not too difficult for you. The scriptures say we should know these things and we should know the way this worship flows through. How it correlates to the offerings of the Old Testament. How it correlates to the pattern of God renewing covenant with us and how it relates to this dialogue back and forth as God calls us before him.

First sermon last week, his sovereign call, our first act in relationship to that call corporately, liturgically here is this confession of sin that we’re going to talk about. So in this left hand column, the dialogue back and forth that ends up with the tremendous giving to us of life through the sacrament, this unveiling of God’s face begins with this sovereign call to us to worship him. And we come forward and in response to who it is who calls us, us in response to the reflection that we do upon the nature and person of God who has called us to worship him.

Our first response must be the confession of our sin and our unworthiness. And in that dialogue, God then in a very important thing for our well-being as people, for our psyche, if you will, through our emotional state, God assures us that we’ve been forgiven. He uses the voice of a man, an officiant up here, one of your elders. pastors typically to assure you that as surely as you come to repent of your sins, God assures you indeed that confession is effectual through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and you’re forgiven.

You need to know that.

So, a little correction to that overview sheet and we’ll look at this overview sheet. We’re going to talk about the confession of sins and the assurance of forgiveness or absolution in relationship to each of these columns here in a couple of minutes.

Now, I’ve said that worship is exceedingly important for us as the pattern setter, the patterning device for all of our lives. And I’ve got one point of application from last week’s sermon that just to get you to think about this stuff and how it works.

We said that we don’t come together ultimately to get together and have a good time. We don’t come together to fellowship in the first part of the in the first in terms of most important thing we do. God calls us to worship him. And so we’re here not primarily to unite to one another. That happens. We know that’s what God’s going to do at the end of the service. But our first responsibility, our first concern should be to pay homage to this one who created us and redeemed us and rules over us.

Now, that works its way out in life. You see, Matthew 6:33, Jesus says to seek first the kingdom of God, and all these other things will be added to you. Years ago, one of the most important things that I learned was that community fellowship with one another is what Richard Lovelace in a book that he wrote calls a secondary aspect of renewal of the Christian church. We were involved in the church and we wanted community and we thought the way to get community is to have a newspaper, you know, or get a little newsletter and stuff and that’s going to get everybody united.

But see God, the Bible says that you got to begin with beginnings and the beginning is the person and work of God. And if we seek the kingdom of God, if we seek God and we come forward to worship and praise him and put him first in our set of priorities, then all these things which he knows we need in the context here, food, clothing, he knows we need these things. He’s going to provide those because he wants us never to be idolatrous with those things.

He never wants us wanting those things so bad that we circuit our worship and praise to him to get to them. What’s the point? The point is friendship. We all want friends and in this culture particularly people are isolated. One of the reasons people come to this church typically is because of the community aspect and we always have to tell them one sooner or later that community at this church is a result of focusing on the sovereign God who calls us forward to focus on him first and then he gives us these great gifts of friendship.

You want friends. I want friends. Everybody wants good friends. And it’s a good thing to want friends. The Bible says the way to get all of those great benefits that God has in store for us is to not seek him directly, but to seek him. You see, the call to worship is a reminder that it all starts with the person of God. And if we want friends, we want success, whatever it is, we got to seek that as a byproduct, secondary aspect.

Effect of renewal of our lives. You clutch for it and it goes away like that manna that disappeared in the next day. You know, it goes away like smoke image. It’s illusory if we grab for it first and foremost because God is gracious and will not let us embrace idols as a people of God unless we’re not part of his folks. So point is that worship is very practical. If you want friends in your life, then come and worship God.

If you want a good sense of community, focus on your relationship first to God. We come together corporately to seek his face and to worship him. So that’s how practical what we’re talking about here in worship.

Now just a moment just a comment about our approach to worship. There are some people that talk about the RPW the Regulative Principle of Worship and they’re very concerned to try to apply a model that says we’re to only do in worship what God commands us to do.

Now, they say that because they know and believe, these people that state this what I just said that worship’s the most important thing. If we begin our worship service by all getting together and having a good time and then invite God in to be with us, you see, we put the whole thing on its head and he’s going to judge us. He’s going to bring curses. But we start with the call to worship because that’s where it starts in scripture.

So, that’s an example of how these people who talk about the regulative principle, they know the importance of worship as a patterning device for the rest of our lives whether you understand it or not. It’s not necessary that you understand a ritual. Now, it’s good if you understand it, but as you go through the process, you start to become informed whether you know it or not because God works at you at a deeper level than just your intellect.

He works at you in terms of your liturgy, your actions, your ritual actions. Well, so it’s very important. And so some people want to say only what the scriptures command explicitly can we do in worship. The problem with that is is God doesn’t command a lot of things. Nowhere are we really commanded to have a sermon. And yet we know Jesus by example preached in the synagogue, but that’s Old Testament stuff.

Is it really for the New Testament? We don’t know. So that whole model of things breaks down pretty quick because you can’t find a lot of instruction in God’s word that says do this, do this, do this.

Now, on the other hand, there are folks who say, well, since God never says this is the way the service should work, this is what you should do when you get together to worship me is not important. And if God doesn’t give us clear direction, then what we should do is just what makes people feel good.

And this is what most churches do today. They say, “Well, there are good Presbyterian churches, at least good denominations that have churches that send out a flyer. Go get a new church like this. Go out to, you know, 10 square blocks around here. We ask people what they want. What would make you come to church?” And whatever it is they want, we collate those answers. We say, “Okay, here’s sort of worship we’re going to do if you want Dolly Parton, we’ll try to get her here.

That’ll bring you in to make you come to church better. We’ll have that kind of thing. If you think it’d be neat to have the pastor get up one day and talk about baseball, wear a baseball cap and maybe have everybody have baseball uniforms on. If that’ll get you to church, we’ll do it. See, cuz they give up on these regulative principal guys. They say, “Well, that isn’t clear. So, we can do whatever we want to do.” And the problem with that is that’s very explicitly demonstrated. We have an example of that in the Old Testament.

We have an example of one church saying, “Well, that church down the road has a lot more people at it than we do.” And you know, if we move into Oregon City and there churches that are close that are sort of like us, maybe our folks go to that church. So, we need to do something really jazzy here to jazz up the worship service at RCC so that folks will keep coming here. And that’s what churches tend to do.

They start to compete on this on this making people happy.

Well, that’s exactly what happened in northern Israel after north and south after Israel was split into the north and south, the northern tribes and the southern tribes. The king up north said, “Well, you know, I know the Bible says that they got to go to Jerusalem to worship, but that’s down there in the southern kingdom, and they’re going to start to want to be part of that southern kingdom again.

They’re going to want to be united with those gods. And so, what I need to do is keep worshiping up here in the north. So, we’ll take one of those jazzy golden calf things that people really seem to like that and we won’t worship the gods in Egypt. We’ll worship Yahweh, but we’ll use this golden calf to do it because they don’t have golden calves down in Jerusalem. So, that’ll keep people up here with us and keep them coming to our church and hanging out with us.

That was the idolatry of the north that began the judgment of God on the northern tribes and why they ended up going into captivity. So, if we want to end up as a captive people in the context of God’s judgment and curse. That’s what we should do is figure out ways to jazz our worship service up.

So you got people out here that say just make it fun. People here that say, “Well, you can’t hardly do anything in worship unless God explicitly says it.” And yet we don’t really have a lot of explicit statements from them.

And what we say is there should be a biblically regulated worship, but not this insistence on a specific command. Rather, the scriptures give us all kinds of information about worship. We want the scriptures to inform the way we worship because it’s so important as a pattern maker and God’s judgment against ill worship is so strong as pictured in the northern tribes. You know, we want to do it right and we want to look at biblical patterns for worship.

And what we’re talking about now, the confession of sin, the assurance of forgiveness, this is one of those patterns that happens from beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible.

And let’s look now then in terms of this worship is dialogue with Roman numeral one on the outline.

Now the biblical liturgical model of presence, presence of God be with us. Confession, we confess our sins as soon as we see them. Absolution or assurance of forgiveness and service.

Now when I say absolution, you know, we’re not using the Roman Catholic sense. The officiant cannot pardon sins. Only Jesus can pardon sins. But he calls on an officiant to tell you that your sins are pardoned, to assure you of your forgiveness. And that’s what the word absolution means in a lot of circumstances. It’s just that assurance of forgiveness.

It’s a shorter word, easier to say. If I say absolution, understand that I’m saying the officiant is supposed to announce to you that your sins are forgiven. I can’t make it happen. Chris can’t make it happen. But we’re announcing to you what God says has happened in heaven. And it’s important for you to hear it through men. Okay, let’s look at a few models of this. And these are familiar to you.

Isaiah 6:1-9. Listen to this. Isaiah 6:1-9. In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne high and lifted up. So Isaiah starts with the presence of God. The Lord high and lifted up. Train of his robe filled the temple. See, he goes into worship in the heavenly temple. Hebrews tells us that’s where we go and we worship. We go to be with God in the heavenly temple. And then he talks about the Seraphim, we talked about this last week.

One-third of their wings are used for moving around and two-thirds to cover themselves, you know, because of their reverence and fear and humility before God. Post the door, shaken, etc.

What happens after the presence of God to Isaiah? Verse 5. So I said, see, he said, I said, God said, here I am. Here’s my presence. I’m with you. I’m glorious. My robe, my train fills the temple. They’re all worshiping me. So God says to us, here I am, his presence.

And Isaiah says, “Woe is me, for I am undone. Because I’m a man of unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.” Everybody wants to see Jesus. Everybody wants to come and worship God in his presence. But Isaiah understood that when you come in the face of the holiness of God, if you understand this God that we’re coming to worship. If the heavens could split open and you could see what’s really going on, so to speak, and God comes down to be with us and he’s got all those ministering angels who, you know, kind of like in that Raiders of the Lost Ark, they’re ready, they’re ready to bless you or they’re ready to curse you at his bidding.

They’re ready to shoot lightning bolts right through the center of your being. God is the one who before whom all men are open and obvious. And God sees everything that you are, all your thoughts of this last week. All your deeds, all your motivations. And if we understand what happens in worship, we will want to as soon as God calls us and we come forward, we’ll want to fall down and say, “I’m dead because I have an unclean lip.”

What does it mean? The lip is the confession. The lip is the doctrine that Isaiah had, his confession of faith. And he understood that even in his confession of faith, he was not, you know, an atheist or he didn’t worship astral poles or nothing. He was a good solid guy, more solid than you or I. But he knew that his confession of God falls short. It’s tainted with human sin since the fall. And he understood that his sin meant that he should die in the face of God.

He was dead in the presence of God. This dialogue, presence, confession, death.

Verse 6, what does God do then on his side? Well, he sends one of those angels, those ministering spirits flew to me. Heavenly, and his hand a live coal she had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it. And he said, “Behold, this has touched your lips. This touched your confession. This has touched what you say in terms of your profession of God.

Your iniquity is taken away and your sin purged.” See, the altar fire represents the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you come forward and you understand who God is and you say, “Forgive me, God. I’ve sinned and thought word indeed I’m dead if you don’t forgive me and the application of the altar work of the Lord Jesus Christ is administered to you by one of now not an angel but a different kind of angel you know in the New Testament angel can mean a pastor it can mean an angel like we think of angel it means messenger well the messenger came to you today in the person of Chris W. didn’t have six wings or but he was the messenger of God to bring that assurance that the work of Christ has been made effectual for forgiving your sins once for all and to assure you that you’re forgiven.

So this pattern presence confession assurance that you’re forgiven and then finally service heard the voice of the Lord saying whom shall I send who shall go for us? I said here am I send me God brings you here to receive your worship and praise then to give you a message to reform your life and we’ll talk more about that in the later weeks.

Same pattern goes on in Ezekiel in Ezekiel’s ordination service in Ezekiel 1:24 going into chapter 2 and he describes the firmament in verse 26. He describes the appearance of a sapphire stone the appearance of a man high above. He sees in verse 28 the appearance of a rainbow and a cloud. He gives this description of the presence of God in terms of his throne room. And then he says in verse 28 like the appearance of a rainbow and a cloud on a rainy day so is the appearance of the brightness of all around it.

This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. This is the presence of God, the glory of the Lord. And no small candle, big, bright, 10 zillion jillion watts of power going through this rainbow of fire and light coming out reflecting the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And what does Ezekiel do in verse one of chapter 2. When I saw it when the presence of God is made manifest, I fell on my face.

He dies. He lays down. And what is God’s response then? What’s God’s next step in this dance? God leads us by calling us. We respond by confessing. And then the verse goes on to say, “And he said to me, son of man, stand on your feet and I’ll speak to you.” Then the spirit entered me when he spoke to me said, set me on my feet and I heard him who spoke to me and he said to me, “Son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel.” And then in the next few verses, he’s given a book and he eats the book just like John does the book of Revelation and he regurgitates the book and he goes back Ezekiel’s being ordained as a preacher to Israel and he goes then sends forth the message.

But you see it’s the same pattern presence of God. He dies liturgically. God assures him of forgiveness and interestingly it’s the spirit enters into him. When you raise up, you’re a new person after you’ve confessed your sin. That’s what God wants us to see here. He breathed the breath of life into Adam. He breathes the breath of life into his disciples. The Savior does in the Gospels. And the spirit enters into you and causes you to have confidence that your sins are forgiven.

And more than that, glory of glories, God’s going to work through you to take a message to the nations to reform your life and the life of Oregon City and this valley here and the state and the nation.

So Ezekiel same pattern Daniel chapter 8 Daniel’s seen a vision he was seeking the meaning suddenly there stood before me one having the appearance of a man and I heard a man’s voice saying Gabriel make this man understand the vision he came near where I stood and when he came I was afraid and I fell on my face here the presence mediated through an emissary Gabriel.

But the presence of God comes to Daniel to explain the vision. And when the presence comes, Daniel’s response in this dance, he falls down right on his face. He said to me, “Understand, son of man, that the vision refers to the time of the end.” Now, as he was speaking with me as this presence of God comes, I was in a deep sleep with my face to the ground. I was in a deep sleep. There’s this word. Remember, it’s the same expression used of Adam.

When God brings forth Eve out of Adam, Adam goes into a deep sleep. When God makes covenant with Abraham, Abraham is put into a deep sleep. It is a deathlike decreation recreation model that’s being pictured for us here. Is not just, you know, sort of laying down and saying, “I’m sorry.” It’s knowing that God has decreated you, puts you into a deep sleep, and raises you up with the newness of the spirit in the declaration of your forgiveness.

So, presence, confession, and what happens next? But I was in a deep sleep, my face the ground, but he touched me and stood me upright. We can’t even stand upright. He’s got to come into us and empower us in terms of our resurrection and in terms of this assurance of our forgiveness of sins. And then he says, “Look, I’m making known to you what shall happen in the latter time. I’m giving you the message.

You’re going to be my servant. You’re going to go forth from this place after we’ve had a time of worship. and I’ve given you some wisdom from the preaching of the word and I’ve given you life through the sacrament. You’re going to go out of here and you’re going to reform your life.

Same thing in Daniel 10:5 and following. Daniel lifts his eyes, looked. Behold, a certain man clothed in linen whose waist was girded with gold of Uphaz. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished bronze in color, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude. And I, Daniel, saw the vision. Therefore, I was left alone. Verse 8, I saw this great vision, and no strength remained in me, for my vigor was turned to frailty in me, and I retained no strength.

Now, this appearance is very similar to the appearance of our Savior to John in the book of Revelation in chapter 1 because it’s Jesus. And Jesus has this brightness of his appearance and presence. Daniel understands. You know, normally we think of Jesus differently, but when you see the full revelation of who he is, the way Daniel did, the way John did, the way we’re called to meditate upon as we come forward to worship God, we have no strength left in us. We are frail.

Yet, I heard the sound of his words. And while I heard the sound of his words, I was in a deep sleep. Same term here, decreation, with my face to the ground.

You know, I mean, George yesterday, Mr. Scheubin He was in that deep sleep for a little bit there. You know, how we all sort of die every night that Chris W. was telling me that movie Journey to the Center of the Earth, the old version, the bad guy, you know, the bad guy is told by James Mason to lay down and sleep. And I guess his response is he hates those little pieces of death.

And you know, the Bible correlates death, calls it sleep in the New Testament. That doesn’t it’s not to lessen our understanding of the horrors of death coming as a result of sin. It’s given to help us understand what sleep is. I think that when we sleep, it’s really a death-like deal. And God raises us up in the morning, Lord willing. And then sometimes people have these medical situations. They go into a deep sleep and they come close to going through to the other side.

And God comes, you don’t know, is God going to call them to worship for the last time in terms of bringing them directly into his throne room. or will he leave them here and hear a different call of worship as they awaken out of the deep sleep. Well, that’s kind of what this is here. God brought George back, calls him back to worship him here. But one day for everyone here, you know, the call to worship we talked about last week will come and it will be a call to worship directly in the throne room of God.

And that’ll be the big test of our understanding of the salvation affected through our Savior. George yesterday before he had his heart stopped a couple of times while at Meridian when I was there with him. Talked about how, you know, he was so pleased that when he knew it was a heart attack, he wasn’t fearful of dying. You know, he was concerned about the family he’d leave behind. You see, may God grant us that assurance of the forgiveness of sins we’re talking about today that when he calls us to worship and begins to sound the alarm and the train will starts to blow and you know that he’s coming to take you into that heavenly worship that we have this assurance of the forgiveness of sins that we’re talking about today.

And as we liturgically practice this before God, as we confess our sins, die as it were of our own abilities and are raised up by him, that prepares us for the final trump for each of us individually. So verse 10, Daniel says, “A hand touched me which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands. He said to me, oh Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you.

While he was speaking this word to me, I stood trembling. Then he said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, humble yourself before God, your words were heard.”

So again, God’s response to our appropriate confession of sin as he lifts us up. Again, in verse 16, suddenly one having the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips. Then I opened my mouth and spoke, saying to him who stood before me, “My Lord, because of the vision, my sorrows have overwhelmed me and I have retained no strength.”

Now, that’s interesting because it tells us that the very confession of sin, the very statement we make to God that we have no strength in and of ourselves as we are confronted with his presence, that itself is the work of the Holy Spirit moving you to make the confession. You really have no ability or strength in and of yourself to make that confession of sin. The call to worship means that the sovereignty and spirit of God undergirds the entire worship service here.

So don’t think of it that this is our part completely. It’s the spirit of God moving you through your part of the dance to respond to his presence with confession. And then he says be assured of your forgiveness.

Daniel said no strength remains. Again verse 18 he touched me and strengthened me and he said oh man greatly beloved fear not I peace be to you. Be strong. Yes, be strong. When he spoke to me, I was strengthened. I said, “Let the Lord speak. You have strengthened me.”

Jesus, you know, the most repeated thing he says after the resurrection is, “Don’t fear. It’s all right.” See, the elect are moved by the spirit of God to a great knowledge of their sins as they come together to worship him. And Jesus says, “You need to hear that you are greatly beloved of God because you’re covenantally in the beloved son. Do not fear, oh man, greatly beloved.

And when and when Pastor Wilson or myself or the other designates do it and read to you the assurance of forgiveness, understand that’s God saying, “Don’t fear, dearly beloved. Know that you’ve confessed your sins. We know you have no strength, but we’re raising you back up in the power of the spirit.” And all of that is the context for Revelation 1:10-19 where the same thing happens. John sees the presence of Christ.

He falls down dead. Jesus lifts him back up and then he gives him a message to reform his life and the life of the world.

So this is a biblically informed perspective on the basic flow of the worship service and particularly informing us on the beginning of our worship service. And that’s why I point out here in the outline in point B that when the Reformers got around to the reformation that they were doing in the 16th and 17th century and they started to reform their liturgy.

You know, there’s not a lot of talk about that. You hear a lot about the reformation of politics and the reformation of theology and all that stuff, but they messed with the liturgies. They took the accretion of the ages of the Catholic liturgy. They didn’t totally chuck it. They weren’t revolutionaries. They were reformers. And they began to reform the liturgy. And so, Cranmer, for instance, 1552 in the ongoing reformation in England and made a very bold step.

He took the confession of sin which was normally later in the service just before communion and he pushes it all the way up to the start of the service. Big innovation, big change. Why did he do it? Because he saw these patterns and he said, “We’re not going to worship according to the traditions of men. We’re not going to despise the traditions of the fathers, but we’re going to look at them biblically and Biblically, the first thing you got to do when you see God and come into his presence is confess sin.

So, Cranmer moves it up.

The Strasbourg liturgy at Geneva, the Palatinate, they changed their liturgies to have a very simple call to worship at Geneva. At first, it was instead of a scripture verse, it was our help in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. Amen. That was the call to worship. At the Palatinate Church, that’s the area where the Heidelberg Catechism came out. They preferred texts such as 1 Timothy 1:2, grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.

That was their call to worship. And then as soon as that simple declaration was made, instead of all the other things the churches had built up over the years, the Roman Catholic Church, they then went immediately to a confession of sin because they understood this is the biblical pattern. So when Calvin gets to talking about the liturgy that happened in Geneva, he says, “We begin with confession of our sins.” Does even say we begin the call to worship.

That’s implied. But he says we begin actually by confessing our sins, adding verses from the law and the gospel. In other words, words of assurance of forgiveness from the law and the gospel. And after we are assured that as Jesus Christ has righteousness and life in him and that as he lives for the sake of the father, we are justified in him and live in the new life through the same Jesus Christ. We continue with psalms, hymns of praise, the reading of the gospel, the confession of our faith, etc.

etc. So, see, we’re doing just what the Reformers did. We’re saying that the liturgy of the church should reflect this basic biblical pattern should be informed by what happens when you see the presence of God. The law of God is frequently used in this regard in the churches. The ten commandments were used and sometimes they were used to bring people to confession. Calvin in his liturgy altered the confession and confession, excuse me, brought the ten commandments in after the confession of faith and the assurance of forgiveness because the commandments are given to a forgiven people.

So he would bring in the he’d have confession of sin, assurance of forgiveness, and then they would read the first set of the ten commandments, the first half of it leading people to worship God. He saw the first four commandments as telling us we should worship God. Number one. Number two, we should worship God according to how he tells us. No idolatry. Number three, it should be a full-fledged worship to God.

No vain taking God’s name in vain. And four, it should happen on the Lord’s day, the Sabbath, the Christian Sabbath. So, he’d read those first and then you’d go into the praise of God. And then as you went to the worship or the ministry of the word, he would then have the second part of the Decalogue read, which is more instructing us how to live out our lives in relationship to this life that God has given to us.

More about that in a couple of weeks as we get to the sermon. But anyway, our biblical pattern is based upon the Reformation. It’s based upon the biblical patterns of liturgical pattern of God’s presence, our confession, his resurrection of us, and then we’re being prepared for service. That’s the dialogue.

Well, we’ve talked about worship as covenant renewal. And we said that when God calls us to worship, it’s an assertion of his sovereignty. He is the Lord. He is the sovereign. He is the master. He is the one who takes makes covenant with us. We don’t make covenant with him. He makes it with us. He’s the initiator. But this second part of our service when we confess our sins and he assures us of forgiveness. This moves us to the second part of covenant renewal which some people call hierarchy. I don’t like that word a whole lot because it sounds so official and kind of structured.

But the idea of the second part of covenant renewal is God after telling us who he is, commanding us to come forward, he then tells us who we are. We’re his people. And central to our identity is the second aspect of covenant renewal. We say, “We’re sinners.” And God says, “That’s right. You are sinning. You are dying. I saved you. You’re mine. You’re my people. I’ll be your God and you’ll be my people.” That’s covenant.

And that’s the second part of the covenant is identifying who we are before God. And we can never forget that our central identity as a worshiping congregation is as redeemed sinners. We can never forget how great our sin and misery is. But we also must never forget how we are redeemed from all our sins and misery. And that will lead us to that third part of the Heidelberg Catechism question number two.

How we’re to be thankful to God for such redemption. Do you see how the doorway to praise is through a recitation of this liturgical order that is this summation? again of this Heidelberg Catechism question two. How do you live and die happily in this comfort? How do we maintain a happy joyous state before God? And what we’re doing in this part of the worship service is the key. We never forget our identity that we’re his people.

He has saved us. We are sinners. But we must always remember that we’re forgiven of our sin so that guilt doesn’t overtake us. And that is the portal by which we come through reminded of who we are as the people of God. And then what can we do but to sing forth glory be to the father and to the son and to the holy ghost who affected our salvation. You see it’s the pattern maker. It’s what happens here and it’s the pattern for the rest of our lives.

Worship is offering. We said this correlates to the purification offering in Leviticus. Now there were five offerings but the one they did when they first went to present their sacrifices, it was not at first the whole burnt or ascension offering because here’s what happens. Old Testament, you got a temple or you got a tabernacle and it’s sitting there and you’re going to go the next day and do your sacrifices.

The problem is that you’re not perfect. Problem is you sin maybe inadvertently. You’ve touched something dead and didn’t even know it. You find out later, oh, I’m unclean. You did something and You’ve defiled yourself. You’ve gotten a little dirt on you. Your sheen is kind of rubbed. You’re not glorious. And boom. Soon as that happens to you out living wherever you live, a spot appears on the tabernacle or a spot appears over there at that temple altar.

There’s mud on it. You did something over here. Not a huge sin, but a sin nonetheless. You fell short somehow. As soon as you did it, man, the offering table is unclean now. Now, it didn’t literally have mud on it. But that’s the correlation that was set up as God trained his people how to worship in the Old Testament. Because remember what we said last week, we’re the living stones of the temple. Yes. We’re talking about that this candle of the presence.

The sanctuary is an important place when we’re here and we should keep it nice when we’re not here so that when we come in, we remember that this is where the special worship of God goes on. But the presence of God is always in the midst of his people. The tabernacle and temple were architectural representations of the people of God encamped around him. They were the stones like Peter says were living stones, you see, built into this holy temple.

And so when you sin, the worship environment, which is you as a convocated host, it was dirty, you see. So this first offering that you would go before you could do your ascension offering, that whole burnt offering, consecrate yourself totally to God. You had to bring a purification offering because you needed the altar to be purified. You needed to wash it off. Otherwise, you couldn’t put that next offering on which represented you going into the heavens.

But the whole burnt was an ascension offering. The whole thing went up because you’re going up through Jesus. You get to go into heaven. But see, that doorway is closed through your sin. Can’t do that offering until you clean off the altar and you clean the temple and tabernacle up. So when you come forward, you got to do a purification offering in the Old Testament and then boom, the door appears.

You put the next bull on there son of the herd Jesus on there. He goes up and you go up with him, worship God. So it’s the same thing here. We come together wanting to ascend into the throne of God and praise his name, get make sense of our lives from the preaching of his word, have life given to us in glory so that we can go out joyous and reforming the world. But we can’t get up there until the purification happens.

The confession of sin correlates to this Old Testament purification offering. Our sin mars the presence of the convocated host. And God always wants us to remember that while Jesus died to bring us into his presence, Jesus.