The Second Commandment: Pure Worship Required

What this episode covers

At the end of 2011, my wife and I went to church planting assessment. Then, for the next two years, I attended several cohort meetings and training where I learned the model that other churches successfully followed. Some of the information was truly invaluable, but some of it was disconcerting. Certain topics provided direction, while others were misleading. Unfortunately, many church planting strategies are market-driven techniques that any business might follow. They are oftentimes not adequately grounded in Scripture. Church Planting Strategies One of the approaches I learned about was “finding a person of peace.” The idea comes from Luke 10:5-7. A passage where Jesus encouraged his disciples to receive hospitality from folks willing to provide it has become a crucial missionary methodology. In fact, some advocates of this approach go so far as to say that a pastor or missionary should not even begin preaching or sharing the gospel until they have found a “person of peace” through whom to get connected to others. The point was to find people who were well-connected in the city who would be willing to promote the church to their circle of influence, even if they themselves were not interested in Christianity. While that might be a good marketing strategy it is a far cry from a biblical model for church planting and mission work. Another approach was to interview as many people as possible. Ask them about their own experience in churches. Do they currently attend somewhere? If not, why not? What kind of church would they want to attend? These questions might be informative in understanding the context in which you are planting, but they should not inform the kind of church that is established. Pure Worship Is Biblical Worship The culture does not have the authority to dictate what the church should look like. And, maybe more importantly at this moment in time, neither does the government have the authority to tell the church what they can and cannot do in a worship service. It is nothing more than a worldly compromise to allow the culture or civil authorities to dictate our church model. We did not plant Grace Clovis in order to accommodate the felt needs of our city. Nor did we plant the church in order to allow the “community guidelines” of YouTube and Facebook to dictate how we would preach and worship. We have seriously lost our way when the core principles that drive our mission is derived from the world rather than from God’s Word. If the first commandment is about worshiping the right God, the second commandment is about worshiping the one true God rightly. This command is about maintaining pure worship. God has revealed the parameters of pure worship and the consequences of violating His will. Read Exodus 20:1-6 This morning we will consider how the Second Commandment emphasizes the pure worship that is required by God. Next week, we will see how the Second Commandment teaches us about the false worship that is forbidden. I. Pure Worship That Is Required Although the commandment is given in a negative form, like last week, I want to begin with the positive implications of the command upon how we worship God. This commandment points to the foundational importance of Scripture in the way we worship the one true God. Worship God in Spirit and Truth Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well: But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.John 4:23-24 (ESV) This is the passage Ray Sanchez addressed in God’s Blueprint for Worship. We learn the fundamental principle that worship must be in spirit and in truth. As he concludes, pure or true worship must be whole-hearted and whole-minded. It involves a vital relationship with the Holy Spirit and it is derived from a true knowledge of

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