January 22 Sermon: How We Worship

We find ourselves on the second commandment today. Imagine that the number two comes after number one. I'm no math wizard, but even I got that one sorted out. But we're here at the second commandment, and you might be thinking, this commandment doesn't seem that much different than the first. Well, you're not the first person to think that. In fact, if you look at the way some different Christian groups, some of our brothers and sisters in Christ, the way they actually number the commandments in the way that they sort out the commandments in the order or the way they number them, they actually group the first and the second commandment together. Instead of, You shall have no other gods before me, and you should not make for yourself an idol. Then the third command, you should not take the Lord's name in vain. They put one and two together, and everything after the, what we would call the first commandment, is instructions on the second commandment. Then they would have the third commandment, you should not take the name in vain. 

They put one and two together, and everything after the what we would call the first commandment is instructions on the second commandment, and then they would have the third commandment, you should not take the name of theMajor God in vain, as the second commandment instead. I did a little bit of research on this. I knew that Lutherans and Roman Catholics were the ones who put those two together. But I did a little bit of internet research this past week, and I actually found out that really those are the only two groups that number them that way. The majority of the other Christian groups number them in the same way that we do. I was even surprised to find out that Eastern Orthodox groups, they also number them the same way we do, and they even use icons in worship. They use images in worship. I was a little bit surprised by that. But we're not the only ones to number them this way, but we're also not the only people who've wondered why are these commandments so similar, but at the same time, why do we separate them? Why are they distinct from each other? 

Well, you may remember last week I said that the first commandment was about who we worship. Well, today you're going to consider that the second commandment is about how we worship. Real quick review before we're going to start looking at this second commandment, I want to refresh our memories on the two tables of the law or the two tablets of the law, the way we separate them. The first tablet is the first four commandments. Those are our duty to God. The second table is our duty to man. As we look at the first table, as we're going through the first four commandments together, we're going to find that these commandments are going to show us not only who we worship, but how we worship, when we worship things such as this, how we speak when we worship. As we come to this, we're going to consider how important it is that we let the Word of God regulate how we worship this God that we serve. Now, as we think about this commandment, we're going to be considering that maybe this isn't just about making images of false gods. Last week, we talked about the fact that in Egypt there was Paganism, and that Paganism is completely different than Biblical Christianity or even Judaism, because in our religious system, God is other. 

But in systems of Paganism, everything is one. We can become gods. Everything is united. There is no creator, creation, distinction. Everything is one. The teacher, Peter Jones, says that we need to understand everything that either there is one, everything is one, like in Paganism, or there is two, that there is creator and creation. As we consider this, we're going to remember that as we think about this, that they would have been making idolsles in the past. They would have been making idols towards these pagan gods, and there wouldn't have been this distinction between the idols and the rest of creation. It was all together. But as we look at the second commandment, we're going to remember that the command here is that you should not make any images. That the command here is saying that they're not going to have any aids to help you to worship God. The reason for this is, can God be shown properly in an image? Can the one who is all-powerful, can the one who is completely omniscient, the one who is full of Majesty and glory, can we ever properly, truly convey who He is in anything that you and I would carve with our hands? 

No, we never could. There's not any possible way that we could do this. As we think about all of this coming together of the commands and specifically the second commandment, we need to remember these two tables, our duty to God. Are we going to worship Him? Are we going to serve Him as He has called us to do? Are we going to then follow that up, our devotion to God with our duty to man? Now, I mentioned the two tables a second back. I got a second back. I got a little bit off track here, but I want to come back to the two tables of the law quick before we move forward. We know these two tables. Even if you've never heard of the two tablets of the law and the way that they're divided, you know it because you know the summary of the law that Jesus gives us in the New Testament. What does He say? He's asked, What is the greatest commandment? What does Jesus say? You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. First table, love the Lord your God. 

Second table, love your neighbor as yourself. We know this, and this also shows how we direct ourselves towards God We see Jesus giving this answer here that this helps us to know how we are to live. We love God, we love our neighbor. As we come to this passage today, I want us to consider something regarding the different ways that the commandment is viewed. Now, as I bring this up, I'm not standing in judgment over different views of how the commandments are considered, but I just want to draw out the differences between the view of the first and the second commandment. Just a few minutes ago, I talked about how Roman Catholics and Lutherans group the commandments differently, and this is reflected in their worship. You probably never thought about it before, but if you've ever been to a Roman Catholic church or a Lutheran church on a Lord's Day as a guest, or if you may have been to a funeral or to a wedding, what do you notice? What do they have that we don't? They have a crucifix. They have a cross. Instead of a barren cross like we have, they have a cross with an image on it. 

Now, that's because they would see that that instruction, and what we would call the Second Commandment, is for images that are not God, that they would not see that the same way. Now, if you're like me, I'm the confessional reform guy who goes to those service. I go to do Lutheran worship sometimes when we're on vacation, and I make note of where those things are, and then I make a game out of not paying attention to them because that's what reform pastors do, I guess. But if you were to know that I was doing it, you'd probably think it was funny to watch me do this, but that shows us how the first commandment is viewed differently between different groups. Again, not sending a judgment over it. This is an open discussion that Christian groups have, but I just wanted to draw out how this manifests itself, how we see this played out in the different ways that this commandment is used. As we begin to look at this, what I want us to consider is how the story of the golden calf actually informs our view of this commandment. You'll notice we did something outrageous. 

We read two things from the Old Testament from two different spots. I'm glad you all survived. But that is a well-known story from the Old Testament, isn't it? Probably maybe, what, a top 20 story in the Old Testament? It's one of the better-known stories in the Book of exodus, and definitely the most well-known story in the second half of the Book of exodus. We know this story really well. Moses is on the mountain. The people get a little bit antsy. Is Moses ever coming down? What do we do without Him? How are we going to worship God? There's flashes of light on the mountain. All these things happening. They want a mediator. Moses has been acting as this mediator between them and God, and now Moses is gone. What are we going to do? They decide to go to Aaron and they ask him to make this image. We know what happens. They throw the gold into the fire, it comes out, and Aaron crafts it into a calf. We know the details really well as we look at this story, right? Like I said, arguably one of the absolute, most well-known stories in the Book of Exodus. 

But have you ever thought about what the purpose of this image was? Have you ever thought about why this was such a big deal, why this is a story that we know? Well, I just went through the details of how the image was made, but have you ever thought about what the name is that they were planning to worship as they had this golden calf? As we move forward here, we look at this passage, and we see here that they took off the rings, they gave this, they brought them to Aaron. Then as the story moved forward, they said this, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. If you weren't disturbed by the fact that these people of God, these people who've been rescued by God were making an image to begin with. What we read here is it's unsettling, isn't it? These are the gods who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. What did we see in the first commandment last week? When God identified Himself to His people, how did He identify Himself? I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the house of slavery, out of the hand of bondage. 

God is the one who brought them out. Now they're attributing the work of God to this thing that's sitting in front of them that they carved with their own hands. God is not simply identified by His name in Scripture, is He? He's identified by what He does because what He does is He rescues His people. He is the one who does this. They can't do this themselves. They need God to come and rescue them. But what do they do here? They attribute the work of God to this golden calf. Notice the name that they give to this calf. Aaron made a proclamation. What did he say? Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. Now, this is not, for some reason, the software here, as we did this, did not do this correctly. It did not do Lord right. The word Lord there should be in all capitals. If you look in your Bible and you look at that verse, be verse 5, you will see that it says, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord, capital L-O-R-D. That's what it says there. As we've talked about before, when we see all capital letters referring to the Lord, this isn't like, this is a feast to the Lord. 

They're not trying to yell like you do when you send a text with all caps. That's not the point. When we see all capital letters saying Lord in the Old Testament, what we have is that this is the proper name for God. The proper name for God was Yahwey. This was God's name, and that name was so holy, and the people were so with violating the third commandment of taking the Lord's name in vain that they would not say Yahwey during the time of the Old Testament. They wouldn't even dare to say it. They would say the word in Hebrew, Lord, which is Adonai. Now, continuing that tradition of reverencing God's proper name, in our Old Testament, when we see that word in the original Hebrew, they translate it into our Bibles as Lord, capital L, capital D. Not only are they attributing to this calf that it has done this work of bringing them out of slavery, they are also saying this is going to be used for a feast to the Lord, a feast to Yahwey. They are using this calf. They're not replacing God. They're not saying, Hey, God hasn't been good enough to us. 

We're going to make some idol and we're going to worship that. That's not what they're doing. What they're doing is worshiping God, Yahwey, through this image. This is a worship aide. They think that this is a way for them to understand God. This goes back to what I was talking about earlier. This is why we see this commandment as being about not only images of false gods, but there's no images to be used in the worship of God together because this is what our hearts will do. While it is so easy for us to look in condemnation of the people of Israel here and say, How could they do this? They have seen the work of God. How could these people think that the God who did the plagues, that the God who rescued them in the Passover, that the God who brought them through the Red Sea on dry land, that the God who gave them manna from heaven to eat and water from the rock to drink, how could these people possibly think that this calf represents this God who is this powerful and this mighty? But we know the condition of our hearts. 

We know that we like to be able to see things and touch things and be able to understand things in a particular way. We will naturally disobey this commandment. We will find ourselves creating images, whether that's in our mind or hopefully not with our hands, but we are prone to create images to worship God. As I said before, there's no way any image that we would make would ever be able to show us the magnificence and the power and the Majesty of God. Nothing is able to confine who God is in that way. We go back and we take a look at exodus 20 once again, and we see all this instruction that is here. You should not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is heaven above. We don't want to make a image of God or of an angel or of anything like this, or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. It's covering everything. Basically, it's saying no images. You don't bow down to the creation because anything that you would make out of an image is ruining that creator creation distinction, right? 

It's taking away. It's putting everything together. This worship of idols, of images is inherently pagan. We're not supposed to do that. God really drives this home here with some strong language, doesn't He? He says, You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord, your God, am a jealous God. Visiting the iniquities of the fathers and the children of the third and the fourth generations of those who hate me. Now, we read that and we think, boy, God is a jealous God. That doesn't sound so good. Well, that's because from our perspective, jealousy is usually irrational, right? When we get jealous, we say, Stop being so jealous. You don't need to be jealous. The person who tells us that is right, 9 times out of 10, right? But when God is jealous, it is founded. Is there anyone who can replace God? Is there anyone that has paid the price for His people other than God? We are the bride of Christ because He paid the price for our sins. He bore the wrath of God for us, and He has united us to Himself. Anytime that we are looking to anything other than God, God has every right to be jealous because He is the one who has made us. 

He is the one who has bought us. He is the one who keeps us. We understand that the jealousy of God is about His love for us and the price that He has paid to rescue us. But we also understand that while God is rightfully jealous for His people, we also can see why the consequences of this is so severe. It says it visits the people to the third and the fourth generations. Of course, it's going to. Of course, it's going to. Because if we don't get who God is, if we don't understand who He is, His character, His person, and we worship Him incorrectly, are we going to transmit the faith faithfully onto the next generation? Are we going to be able to say, This is who God is. He's revealed Himself in Your Word, and then have some image and have our children thinking that somehow God is contained in this? Are they going to have a real understanding of who God is? Well, the God who is worthy of all praise, the God who has saved us, the God who has rescued us, can't be shown to us in any type of thing that we would worship. 

He's only revealed to us in His Word, and He shows Himself to us clearly. But this can be hard. Like I said, we are prone to wanting to understand better. We are prone to wanting to have something in front of us tangible that we can touch. We are prone to this. It's also a hard commandment because we think we got this one. I am not going to go out to the shop and cut a piece of wood and then bow down and worship it. I may struggle with the rest of the commandments, friends, but I ain't going to struggle with two. Isn't that our mindset? We're not going to go, most of us don't have enough gold to make a golden calf with, but if we did, that's the last thing we do with our gold. We use it for something else. We're going to keep this commandment. This one isn't a difficult one. But yet at the same time, as I said, we're prone to wander. We're prone to want to make gods in our own image to think that God somehow looks like us. We forget this commandment. We blow it off. Now, I have a little story that I think proves the point that we blow this commandment off way too easily. 

A few years back, I was preparing for catechism on a Wednesday morning. Normally, I just go from the catechism and I make my lessons from the catechism itself. But I was teaching on the Trinity, and a lot of times I'll go to a curriculum book on the Catechism to help me get some discussion starters or maybe an activity because I'm not necessarily good with that. I go to the books, the curriculum books that we have for the Catechism. I opened it up, and on the lesson on the Trinity, the opening activity that was suggested for the kids was to draw what they think God looks like. Of course, me being a little high strung, I got up out of my chair and went to tell Nancy and Chris, who were talking in the other room, By the way, you don't pay Nancy or Chris, well, now Katie, you don't pay them enough because they got to put up with me. Okay, but anyway, so I go in to talk about it, and they were just like, Really? This was an activity to make an image of God? That was an activity? I said, Are you familiar with Hidalberg Catechism question and answer number 98? 

They're like, No. I said, so I tootled back into my office and I got my blue catechism off my desk. Hidalberg Catechism question and answer 98. But may not images be permitted in churches in places of books for the unlearned? Answer, no. We should not try to be wiser than God. God wants the Christian community instructed by the living preaching of His Word, not by idol that can't even talk. My point here is not to stand in judgment over the curriculum writer. Trust me, in 20-plus years of teaching youth, I have probably made bigger gaps than this one. That's not the point. The reason I bring it up is we just blow off the second commandment so easily. We don't even think about it. Even when we're writing a curriculum that has this clear instruction at the end of the catechism, we do something that's in violation at the beginning. We just don't even think about the second commandment. It isn't even on our radar. But yet this is the commandment that shows us how we are to worship. It shows us how we are to worship God. We want to hear His word. We want to hear Him preach. 

Now, we're almost done here, but historically, reformed churches have held to what is called the regulative principle of worship. Now, what this means is that we believe that God's word regulates or shows us how we are to worship Him. That is what we're going to do. We're not going to do anything in worship that is not clearly told for us, told that we should do in worship. Now, the Regulative Principle has fallen on very hard times. Very hard times. It's very rare to see churches that are actually Regulative Principle churches anymore, even in some of the most staunch reform circumstances. But I wanted to bring this up because I think this is where the Second Commandment really helps us to understand how this commandment applies to our lives. Because we have the regulatory principle of worship, we want to worship God as he has told us to do. We want the word of God to regulate our worship. Wasn't that true of all of our lives? Shouldn't we want the word of God to regulate how we live? Shouldn't we want the word of God to regulate how we do church, government even? Shouldn't we have God's word being over all areas of our lives? 

Shouldn't we be desiring and seeking to see what God's word has to say and then conforming our lives to it? Not only in our worship here corporately together, but in our worship, in our lives, we want to know who God is and what He looks like and what He does for us. We want to know that revealed to us that has been revealed to us in His Word. As we think about our application from this, that's the number one thing I want us to have as a guiding point. We want the Word of God to regulate us that this second commandment shows us how we are to not only worship, but also God's Word shows us how to live. As we think about this real quick, I'm going to try and do as often as possible as we go through here, and we'll close up really quick here. But the second commandment and the second use of the law, remember, the second use of the law is a mirror. It shows us our sin. Some of the questions that this commandment causes us to ask about ourselves, and these can be hard questions, do we desire to worship God as He has commanded us to do? 

Where are... Where are our hearts at when we worship God? Are we content with what God has commanded us in His word regarding worship? Are we okay with that? Or do our hearts desire that we would make something that would make it more tangible for us? Are we really, truly trusting that God has given us enough in His Word? Like I said, this can be difficult. This drives us to ask these questions, and it may convicts us of our sin. But the beauty of all of this is that we get to the third use of the law, that idea that God's word is a map for us. We see that, once again, even though I have broken the second commandment so many times, God shows me His grace, and as His child, He gives us so many graces that help us to follow him and to worship him correctly. That greatest grace is that he gives us His Word. When I fail to worship God as I ought, I can go to His Word, and He shows me how I can worship Him correctly. Then what does He do? He uses that same word to grow our faith, to sanctify us, to help us to continue in faith with Him. 

As we consider this command this coming week, may we seek to know God as He has revealed Himself in His word that we might worship Him in spirit and in truth to the glory of His most holy name. We often desire, as the Israelis did, some easier way. But God has given us clear instructions in His Word of who He is. May we continually seek God out and get to know Him better so that we might worship Him as He desires to be worshiped. Amen. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the grace that you have shown to us in Your Word. That you not only forgive our sins, but that you give us the grace of showing us the path, of giving us that map of holiness. As we pray, Lord, that our worship would be pleasing to you, not just our worship here today, but our worship of our lives. That we would desire to let Your word be our path that is well lit by the truth that you give us of who You are. We pray, O Lord, that we would worship You in spirit and truth, that all honor, glory, and praise might go to Christ alone for who He is and for what He has done.

This message was delivered on January 22, 2023 by Pastor Mark Groen at First Reformed Church in Edgerton, MN. First Reformed is a congregation in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.