Worship and Revelation: A Guide to God-Centered Adoration

• Worship and the Sabbath (Lord's Day) [00:03:11 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor defines the Lord's Day as the Christian Sabbath, emphasizing its historical roots in the first day of the week and its theological significance as a day of new creation and redemption, distinct from imperial 'Caesar's Day'.
• Being 'In the Spirit' [00:05:57 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor analyzes John's phrase 'I was in the Spirit' through three lenses: habitual grace, heightened communion during worship, and extraordinary revelation, applying this to the believer's need for spiritual readiness.
• Practical Holiness of the Lord's Day [00:08:02 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor outlines a three-part method for keeping the Lord's Day holy: preparation before the day, active participation during the day, and reflection after the day.
• Worship as Dialogue and God-Centeredness [00:12:41 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that worship is dialogical (God speaks, we respond) and must be God-centered rather than man-centered or focused on personal feelings.
• Dialogical Worship [00:12:41 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that worship is a two-way communication where God speaks and the congregation responds, citing the pattern of pronouns in the Psalms.
• God-Centeredness [00:13:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > He contrasts man-centered worship (focused on feelings/experience) with God-centered worship, asserting that God's worthiness is the primary motivation for praise, not our emotional benefit.
• Repentance and Preaching [00:15:16 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor links the reading of Scripture to confrontation with sin, arguing that preaching must be experiential, leading believers to examine themselves and renew their covenant obligations.
• Fear of God [00:19:19 ▶️ 📄]
  > He lists seven reasons for fearing God in worship (otherness, perfection, glory, knowledge, judgment, fear of falling into His hands, and jealousy), distinguishing this holy fear from legalism.
• Assurance vs. Presumption [00:23:45 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor distinguishes true assurance (based on Christ and Scripture, acknowledging sin) from presumption (self-reliant, ignoring sin), linking this to the liturgical elements of confession and absolution.
• Assurance vs. Presumption [00:25:44 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor contrasts true assurance, which comes from the authoritative word of Christ, with presumption, which stems from the whims of man and lacks second thought.
• Liturgical Structure of Worship [00:26:36 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explains that confession (culmination) and assurance of pardon (absolution) are warranted aspects of worship found under the Word of God.
• Law and Gospel in Ministry [00:27:23 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor argues that the ministry of the Word must present both the Law (fear of wrath) and the Gospel (pardon in Christ) to be effective.
• Covenant of Grace vs. Works [00:27:52 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor applies the theology to daily life, urging believers to live under the covenant of grace with a disposition of pardon rather than the harshness of a covenant of works.

• Sermon Illustration [00:04:10 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor uses a historical analogy comparing the Christian 'Lord's Day' to the Roman imperial 'Augustus' Day' (Emperor's Day), noting that Christians adapted the existing term for imperial finance to honor Jesus as the true King.
• Sermon Illustration [00:08:15 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references the Old Testament practice of Israel gathering double manna on the day before the Sabbath to illustrate the necessity of physical and spiritual preparation for the Lord's Day.
• Sermon Illustration [00:24:42 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor references a bluegrass song lyric, 'me and God don't need a middleman,' to illustrate the error of presumption and the necessity of Christ as mediator.

• Pastoral Charge [00:11:01 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor explicitly commands the congregation to engage in extra prayer as a form of preparation for worship.
• Pastoral Charge [00:11:50 ▶️ 📄]
  > The pastor directs the congregation to engage in personal reflection and group discussion using specific questions about their observance of the Lord's Day.
• Pastoral Charge [00:18:26 ▶️ 📄]
  > Examine oneself diligently under the Word of God.
• Pastoral Charge [00:18:41 ▶️ 📄]
  > Repent based on the excellences of Christ rather than self-improvement.

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER SPEAKER_00]
[00:00:00] Revelation 1, 4-20. John to the seven churches that are in Asia. Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priest to his God and Father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
[00:00:30] Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierce him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.
[00:00:39] Even so, amen.
[00:00:41] I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
[00:00:48] I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on the account of the word of God.
[00:00:57] In the testimony of Jesus, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.
[00:01:17] Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and turning I saw seven golden lampstands.
[00:01:25] And in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest.
[00:01:34] The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow.
[00:01:39] His eyes were like a flame of fire.
[00:01:42] His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace.
[00:01:45] And his voice was like the roar of many waters.
[00:01:48] In his right hand he held seven stars.
[00:01:51] From his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword.
[00:01:54] and his face was like the sun, shining in full strength.
[00:01:58] When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
[00:02:01] But he laid his right hand on me, saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one.
[00:02:09] I died, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades.
[00:02:15] Write, therefore, the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.
[00:02:21] As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
[00:02:36] All right.
[00:02:37] We have considered thus far in our study of Revelation 1 Trinitarian theology, this chapter, Christology, Doctrine of Christ, Ecclesiology.
[00:02:47] We spent three weeks on Ecclesiology.
[00:02:50] Tonight we're going to look at worship and how Revelation 1 is instructive to us in worship.
[00:02:56] And we'll look at this in five headings.
[00:02:58] We'll look at worship as it relates to the Sabbath, worship as it relates to praise as a category of what we do in worship, worship and repentance, worship and fear, and worship and pardon.
[00:03:11] But first, worship and the Sabbath.
[00:03:13] verse 10 says this, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day. And here we see the Lord's Day as the Christian Sabbath. This is where we get this term. The Lord's Day, everywhere else in the New
[00:03:28] Testament, it talks about simply the first day of the week. And that is emphasized in all four of the Gospels. Jesus appears to the saints morning and evening on that first day of the week.
[00:03:43] and we see him again the next first day of the week, the eighth day, the next first day of the week.
[00:03:50] Pentecost is on the Lord's Day.
[00:03:52] It's on the first day of the week.
[00:03:55] We see throughout the Book of Acts the saints gathering the first day of the week, 1 Corinthians 16, again, first day of the week, so on and so forth.
[00:04:04] And then John here just calls it simply the Lord's Day.
[00:04:06] We're to assume this was the common parlance of the day.
[00:04:10] And Kenneth West, who is a New Testament scholar in the early 1900s, he writes this just in one of his reflections, his book of reflections on the Greek New Testament.
[00:04:21] He says this, the expression in the Revelation has a counterpart in first century documents.
[00:04:27] This form of the word Lord was in common use for the sense imperial as imperial finance and imperial treasury.
[00:04:37] There was an expression, Augustus' day.
[00:04:41] It was the first day of the month.
[00:04:44] It was Emperor's Day, on which money payments were made.
[00:04:48] It was natural for the Christians to take this term already in use and apply it to the first day of the week in honor of the Lord's resurrection on that day.
[00:04:57] Thus, the designation the Lord's Day is the scriptural name for the day on which is commonly called Sunday or by some, Sabbath.
[00:05:07] The Lord's Day is this, you know, the true Caesar, the true emperor, right?
[00:05:11] The Jesus is Lord, not Caesar.
[00:05:14] He is the real king.
[00:05:15] This is just adapting that language to the Lord's Day.
[00:05:20] And the Lord's Day is the Christian Sabbath.
[00:05:24] It is the weekly commemoration of new creation, which is creation being emphasized in Exodus 20 in the Fourth Commandment, and it is the commemoration of our redemption, which is what is emphasized in the Fourth Commandment in Deuteronomy.
[00:05:37] Five, the resurrection is the accomplishment of those two things, new creation and redemption.
[00:05:44] Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath.
[00:05:46] And so we have the Lord's Day on this first day of the week.
[00:05:50] And so the question then has to become, well, what does it mean?
[00:05:53] What does John mean when he says, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day?
[00:05:57] James Durham provides three kind of ways we should understand this, I was in the Spirit.
[00:06:03] He says it means to be spiritual, to have the habits of grace and a new nature.
[00:06:08] So he says, I was in the Spirit.
[00:06:09] He's saying, I was in the state of grace.
[00:06:12] I was united with Christ.
[00:06:13] I had the habits of grace.
[00:06:15] I have a new nature.
[00:06:16] I have a new spirit.
[00:06:17] I've been given the spirit of adoption.
[00:06:19] He says, but even furthermore, there are those who are habitually in the Spirit to be actually and in a more eminent measure in that spirit, be in a holy repute and ecstasy be in a more special frame
[00:06:33] at more special times so it's not just this ordinary even going farther of I walk in the spirit but we all recognize by the light of Christian experience there are times in which our communion with God
[00:06:47] is more heightened just in our ordinary life there are times in worship and worship every Lord's day in a sense is that it is a more heightened communion with god we make preparation for the lord's day like we we prepare for it and it's
[00:07:05] it's something that um you know the lord blesses that work of preparation each and every week and then he says thirdly even going a step further especially for here for the apostle john that to be in the spirit in an extraordinary manner and measure the spirit revealing something
[00:07:22] extraordinarily and this is exactly what's going on um john is um you know not only a new creature in christ he certainly is that not only has he obviously made uh the the lord's day to be a set
[00:07:36] aside time where even though he's by himself in in exile on the isle of patmos he recognizes this day especially um i'm going to do things on this day that i wouldn't on the other six
[00:07:49] but the Lord has chosen also to bless him by the work of his spirit to show him further the Lord Jesus.
[00:07:56] So some applications as it regards this, when we think about worship and the Lord's Day, the first is very simple.
[00:08:02] We need to keep the Lord's Day holy.
[00:08:04] Now, how do we keep the Lord's Day holy?
[00:08:06] We can think of before, during, and after.
[00:08:09] We keep the Lord's Day holy before the fact by preparing for it.
[00:08:15] Israel was to prepare physically for the Sabbath day.
[00:08:18] They were to take two extra loads of manna on the night before the Sabbath in order to, or the day before the Sabbath, in order to actually prepare for the Sabbath.
[00:08:31] There are ways in which we should be making regular preparation.
[00:08:35] Preparation for the Lord's Day is not just for special seasons or special events, right?
[00:08:43] Each Lord's Day is the same.
[00:08:45] We don't have a calendar other than 52 first days of the week, sometimes 53, even last year.
[00:08:53] But we prepare beforehand.
[00:08:57] And preparing beforehand by recognizing, okay, this is a holy day.
[00:09:01] I have to get ready for this holy day.
[00:09:04] We are keeping the day holy.
[00:09:05] The second way we keep the day holy is during the day itself by actually making good use of the day, by doing those things which promote godliness, by spending the day in the public and private exercises of worship,
[00:09:21] by being around the Lord's people, by doing that which is necessary and merciful towards others.
[00:09:27] In these ways, we keep the Sabbath holy.
[00:09:30] And then the third way that we keep the Lord's Day holy is afterwards, by a reflection on the Lord's Day.
[00:09:39] So reflection, improvement upon the means of grace is one of probably the most neglected of the means of grace.
[00:09:48] It's true of communion.
[00:09:50] It's true of all the ordinances, the preached word.
[00:09:53] And we often think more about that, but the whole day is to be remembered and is to be made use of throughout the week.
[00:10:02] And in that way, we are keeping the Lord's day holy.
[00:10:05] We are keeping it set aside, sanctified in our hearts, minds, and minds.
[00:10:10] The second application here is not just keep the Lord's day holy, but be in the Spirit, in the worship of God.
[00:10:17] I'll keep it.
[00:10:18] Thank you.
[00:10:21] How is it that we are to be in the Spirit, in the worship of God?
[00:10:29] Two things.
[00:10:30] Again, there's a general preparation of just perpetual godliness.
[00:10:34] just by walking with the lord we are more apt to be ready for communion with god but then secondly again by particular preparation for partaking of the ordinances of god by this this phrase like i
[00:10:50] i'm harping on this a little bit of preparation i'm not saying that it has to be this rigorous you know set out kind of new liturgical thing i'm just simply saying get yourself ready um think
[00:11:01] about it. Take time for extra prayer. I'm not telling you how much. Just do it. And you'll find the Lord will grow you in that, that you will be in the Spirit and the worship of God, not just by
[00:11:14] general preparation of perpetual godliness, but by particular preparation for partaking of the ordinances of God. Third, the Lord's Day, we see here in the text, the Lord's Day is a day of great blessing. The Lord's Day, what John experiences extraordinarily, is true for us ordinarily.
[00:11:36] This is a day, the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, is a day for being given a fresh sight of Christ. And we should think of it thus. We should expect of it thus.
[00:11:50] So some questions just for your own reflection throughout the week. How have you grown in keeping the Lord's day holy? How do you need to grow more in keeping the Lord's day holy? And how
[00:12:01] have you experienced the Lord's day to be a great blessing? These are some good questions to help us either in our discussion or in our reflection. So the second thing here is worship and praise. We
[00:12:12] see in this text what John is doing on the Lord's day. He is adoring God for his attributes, the one who is, who was, who is to come, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of
[00:12:24] kings on earth. He is adoring God for his acts. The one who loves us has freed us from our sins by his blood. He made us a kingdom. Priest is God and father. To him be glory and dominion forever
[00:12:35] and ever. Amen. What does this show us about the way that we approach God in our worship?
[00:12:41] It shows us first that worship is dialogical. How does John know these things? It's because they've been revealed to him god has spoken to him and john speaks back uh so too in our worship
[00:12:57] god speaks to us and then we respond back it's interesting how many of the psalms um actually have that pattern where the lord speaks directly to the people and then the people respond and the lord responds back when people respond um and you see that in the change of
[00:13:15] pronouns, from I to the we to the you, throughout the psalm. So worship is dialogical. Secondly, worship is to be God-centered. Worship isn't meant to be man-centered. It's not about us. It's not about our feelings. It's not about even
[00:13:31] our experience of, you know, how does this make me feel? Worship is not meant to do that. That is a tangential effect and benefit. It is not the primary motivation.
[00:13:43] the fact is that we should come to the worship of god focused on god simply because that's what he tells us to do now the fact that god is gracious and chooses to bless us uh should make
[00:13:55] us praise him all the more it's an encouragement to you but it's not actually the grounds of why we do this the grounds of why we do this is because god is worthy of worship your chief
[00:14:04] is first to glorify god but also you will enjoy god um he is enjoyable he he is a delight he is good and gracious and loving and kind and merciful, and we experience that in worship,
[00:14:18] we get a greater sense of that by the grace of God in his worship. But worship itself is to be God-centered. It's focused on the Lord. Third thing we see here is that adoration is a most
[00:14:32] appropriate response to the word and works of God. Not just confession of sin, not just petition.
[00:14:41] You know, Lord, you're great.
[00:14:42] You've shown how great you are.
[00:14:43] Please help me.
[00:14:44] But actually adoration.
[00:14:47] We must see that God is worthy of praise.
[00:14:49] And so for reflection, are you, do you grow in the knowledge of your God through worship?
[00:14:56] When you leave worship, do you ask yourself, what have I learned about God?
[00:15:01] What was I reminded of about who God is?
[00:15:05] And how does that lead you to a deeper and more earnest praise of the Lord?
[00:15:12] Third thing here, repentance, worship and repentance.
[00:15:16] This comes about through the reading and proclaiming of the Word of God.
[00:15:22] So John is told this in verse 11, Write what you see, send it to the seven churches.
[00:15:28] And as we'll see in a couple weeks, when we do an overview of the seven churches, there's a lot of confrontation.
[00:15:34] and that confrontation of sin is meant to the repentance one of the things that sin are one of the things that the word in worship does is confront us with our sin and bring us
[00:15:47] to repentance this is the work of the grace of god and in fact not only when the word is read and proclaimed but here for john in an extraordinary manner but for us in an ordinary manner
[00:15:57] when we get a sight or a sense of that word the living word the lord jesus christ we will have no choice but to fall before him and repent in repentance he says when i felt
[00:16:10] when i saw him i fell at his feet as though dead um that is a sign of fear but also it is a sign of repentance john is saying whatever i was doing before here is the thing that is much more
[00:16:23] meaningful and uh and this is what we do when we get a fresh sense of christ and his holiness when we get a sense of God and his grandeur we should be moved to repentance
[00:16:37] when we think about who he is, what he's done this should move us by the spirit of Christ to a deeper repentance to a greater sight for sin, sorrow for sin hatred of sin, shame of sin
[00:16:51] but also a true turning away from sin a repentance that's not to be repented of some applications, two applications from the text. First of this, the thing about worship and repentance shows us that preaching is not only to be expository,
[00:17:05] it's also supposed to be experiential.
[00:17:08] The scriptures principally teach not only what man is to believe concerning God, but also what duty God requires of man.
[00:17:16] And our reflection of the Word, the preaching of the Word, and our receiving of the preaching of the Word is not only supposed to be like what we had last time or, you know, what did you learn about God? We should be leaving
[00:17:31] asking ourselves, what sin should I be repenting of? In fact, that's a part of discerning the body of the blood of Christ. When you think about the tie between the audible word and the visible word,
[00:17:43] when you are discerning the body and blood of the Lord, that means that you are seeing this is the Jesus presented before me in red wine. This is him signified to me of his death for my sins.
[00:17:54] Why do I need this?
[00:17:57] What sins do I need to repent of in coming and renewing my obligations of the covenant of grace to him?
[00:18:04] As I take the blood of the covenant and I say through that testimony, all that he said, this I will do.
[00:18:10] What have I heard in the preaching of the word that causes me to have to renew that covenant with him?
[00:18:19] And so we should be diligent in examining ourselves under the word of God.
[00:18:26] And a further thing to that is this.
[00:18:29] When you think about this, do you repent not just because you want to be a better person, but because you have a greater sense of the excellences of Christ?
[00:18:41] When you hear, you know, you should do this, you ought, right, a glorious word, you ought to do this.
[00:18:49] God commands you to do this.
[00:18:51] Do you go, I should do that because, man, that would make my life a lot better?
[00:18:56] Or do you walk away going, I need to do that because God is holy and this is the kind of holiness he calls me to?
[00:19:05] And how have you seen that work in your life?
[00:19:07] How have you seen God's work of grace?
[00:19:10] Have you grown in repentance through the means of grace?
[00:19:14] Fourth thing here, fourth component of worship is fear.
[00:19:19] Fear is to be involved in our worship, the fear of God.
[00:19:21] It says, verse 17, When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
[00:19:29] That is a proper response to the sight of God's holiness.
[00:19:34] It is not legal obedience.
[00:19:37] It is not the language of the law or the covenant of works.
[00:19:40] It is a proper response to who God is.
[00:19:45] Follow your feet as though dead.
[00:19:47] Why should we be motivated to fear?
[00:19:51] There are tons of reasons.
[00:19:53] Here's seven.
[00:19:54] The very first is the otherness of God.
[00:19:57] When you simply stop and think about who God is, how other he is, how everything in this world can be lumped into one bucket called creature, and that there is only one being that could be called creator,
[00:20:14] and that this creator is so greater than the sum totality of the vastness and majesty and terror and horror of all the rest of the creation combined.
[00:20:29] And that is the God who calls us into his presence to worship him together on the Lord's day.
[00:20:38] We would fall in his feet as though dead.
[00:20:41] There would be a great fear of God.
[00:20:44] We think about his otherness.
[00:20:45] We think about his perfection, how he, God, has been, is, and always will be the greatest to the infinite extent of all of his attributes, and that they can never be diminished or added to, ever.
[00:21:05] That should cause us to fear, because that is, again, totally other.
[00:21:12] That is incomprehensible.
[00:21:14] We think about his glory.
[00:21:15] we would go blind from looking at the sun we would die from looking at the face of god when we think about the radiance of his majesty when we think about the fact that god knows not
[00:21:32] only our words and deeds but he knows all of our thoughts and he knows all of our affections and then like in a sense like adam he says where are you come to me he summons us to himself
[00:21:49] we would fall at his feet as they did.
[00:21:52] When we think about the fact that God is not only perfect, he is also the judge.
[00:22:00] So that not only does he have this standard, but he has the authority and place to judge according to that standard.
[00:22:10] And because he's just, he will.
[00:22:13] We would be moved to a fear of God.
[00:22:15] When we think about how it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of this living God, You know, all the examples in Scripture about how fearful it would be, not just for the reprobate,
[00:22:28] how fearful it is for the elect to fall into the hands of a living God.
[00:22:32] Some of you were weak, sick, and dying.
[00:22:36] We would fear God.
[00:22:37] And when we think about particularly his disposition towards the church, that he is jealous.
[00:22:43] The jealousy and how fierce a husband's jealousy is for his wife.
[00:22:48] Justly so.
[00:22:49] that should give us a greater fear of God.
[00:22:54] Worship should impress us with the fear of God.
[00:23:00] Grace does not negate the holiness of God, just as love does not negate the fear that we should have of God.
[00:23:07] We can love him.
[00:23:10] We can have that familiarity, but he's also our Father in heaven.
[00:23:17] It's a throne of grace.
[00:23:19] It's also a throne.
[00:23:22] So do you have a sense of the fear of God when you come to worship him?
[00:23:26] So how would your, when you think about not just holy worship, when you think about your common life, how would your common life be different if you were to increase further in your sense of the fear of God?
[00:23:39] What would look different about your life?
[00:23:43] The last thing we see here is pardon.
[00:23:45] Verses 17 through 18.
[00:23:48] When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.
[00:23:52] But he laid his right hand on me, saying, Fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one.
[00:23:57] I died, and behold, I'm alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades.
[00:24:06] This is a true pardon from the Lord Christ.
[00:24:11] And assurance of that pardon is different from presumption of pardon.
[00:24:16] Those are two different categories.
[00:24:18] What's the difference between assurance and presumption?
[00:24:22] Well, assurance has an actual site of sin.
[00:24:27] Presumption says peace when there is no peace.
[00:24:30] The person who has a true assurance says, I have sinned, but I've been forgiven in Christ.
[00:24:36] The person who is presumptuous just goes, yeah, me and God are fine.
[00:24:40] We're fine.
[00:24:42] There's this bluegrass song, me and God don't need a middleman.
[00:24:48] And that is, no, Christ is our mediator, which literally means that's the middleman.
[00:24:54] That's the go-between.
[00:24:55] and so no, we're not fine we're not fine with God, that's why we need Christ that's the difference between assurance and presumption, assurance has a side of Christ, presumption just looks at oneself assurance says yes I've sinned but here is
[00:25:11] the Savior, presumption again it just says I'm not that bad I'm doing just fine assurance is something that is tested presumption is something that comes without difficulty Our true assurance of salvation and of pardon is something that waxes and wanes in our life.
[00:25:35] It's something that we often have to wrestle and go through God's promises and continue to wrestle with God until we attain.
[00:25:44] But presumption is just something that you just instinctively have.
[00:25:48] There's no second thought.
[00:25:51] And then lastly here, assurance comes from the authoritative word of Christ.
[00:25:56] Presumption comes from the whims of man.
[00:25:59] The person who has a true assurance can tell you, this is why I have an assurance, because God has said this.
[00:26:07] Presumption says, well, why wouldn't you?
[00:26:12] Why wouldn't you?
[00:26:13] Look at me.
[00:26:15] And that's what presumption says.
[00:26:19] Worship provides for us or should provide for us a true pardon or show us, point us to the true pardon that is in Jesus Christ.
[00:26:27] And for this, we'll have two applications briefly, a liturgical application as it applies to worship, and then a theological application.
[00:26:36] But liturgically, thinking about worship, confession and assurance of pardon, or the old school terms for them, culmination and absolution are warranted aspects of worship being found under the categorical element of the Word of God.
[00:26:53] Culmination is an old term that just said, you're under where where passage of scripture is read and then there's something like this if this is you you are under the wrath of god and um and then absolution is a passage is read and it says
[00:27:11] if this is you you are forgiven of all of your sins both of those things are warranted in worship and then there's a theological application when we think about the lord when we think about
[00:27:23] particularly reading his word, we need the law and the gospel present in the ministry of the word of God and the worship of God. We need both of these things. We need fear falling on our faces
[00:27:38] of dead. We also need pardon. We need Christ to come and say, don't be afraid. We can't say that to ourselves, but Christ does say that to us. And we think about how this applies to your own
[00:27:52] meditation on the word your own prayer but also your own life it's very easy to live as if you were under a covenant of works particularly you're dealing with other people where you're just harsh
[00:28:03] and you're belligerent and you are nitpicking every little thing and maybe you could justify it um but we're to live life under the covenant of grace doesn't mean we are licentious it doesn't mean we're antinomians but there is a difference in disposition uh where even when someone sins
[00:28:21] and we confront them with that sin, we say, you know, there is pardon in the Lord Jesus.
[00:28:25] There is actual repentance to be found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:28:30] And in him, this is as cast as far as the east is from the wind.
[00:28:35] Both of those things are needed, and we see that in this text.
[00:28:40] So there we have worship as it relates to the Sabbath, praise, repentance, fear, and pardon.
[00:28:46] Any thoughts or questions on this?