By Pastor Benjamin Glaser - Posted at Thoughts From Parson Farms:
Learning to Take Seriously Our Praise Unto the Heavens On the Lord's DayTo close out August and to put off the start of our walk through the directory of church government to September as I have a bit of OCD. I need to start on the first of the month when beginning a fresh part of the Westminster Standards. To accomplish that I want to say one more word about worship and what we do and why we do it. In order to help us keep the pattern here for our Thursday confessional teaching time we are going to go to the twenty-first chapter of the Westminster Confession of Faith, section one particularly.
The WCF Ch. 20:1 says:
The light of nature showeth that there is a God, who hath lordship and sovereignty over all; is good, and doeth good unto all; and is therefore to be feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart, and with all the soul, and with all the might. But the acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by Himself, and so limited by His own revealed will, that he may not be worshipped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.
Key to understanding what we believe at Bethany and in the Reformed faith in general about what is required of us as human beings is that the whole creation, both that which we see with our eyes and we read in the bible, tell us that God alone is worthy of worship. That tells us that any matter, person, or activity that we put in front of the worship of the Lord is an idol that is the source of God’s displeasure with us. All people worship something. It is evident in what they give time to, what they sacrifice for (both literally and figuratively), and spend their money on. The opening sentence of the section also reminds us not only of what the light of nature shows us, what we can learn from the mountains, the ocean, and the bounty of the earth, but it also reminds us that we can also learn from these visual testimonies that God loves us and is good, and therefore is to be . . . feared, loved, praised, called upon, trusted in, and served with all the heart.