God’s Design for Worship
Don Johnson at the Annual Fellowship of the FBFI – opening service report
Dr. Gary Reimers preached the opening message of our Annual Fellowship meeting. Our theme is Declarations from our Designer, and bro. Reimer’s theme is that “God provides the design for worship.” Dr. Reimers first preached on this theme decades ago, his ministry reflects many years of study and application of the theme in his ministry. From the first mention of worship in the Bible, that of Cain (unacceptable) and Abel (acceptable), God demonstrates that reasoning for acceptable worship “just because I like it” is never enough of a reason to justify any worship, whether contemporary or traditional.
As Dr. Reimers worked through the first two of the ten commandments, he showed us that the command to have no other gods “forbids other objects of worship” and the command to make no graven image “forbids all human devised styles of worship.” “Sincerity,” he reminds, “does not make up for error.”
How important is worship to God? God tells us that he is a jealous God in Ex 20.5. He visits the iniquities of the fathers (in context, unacceptable worship) on their children. “Our wrong worship is not being fair to our families.”
From this foundation, Dr. Reimers listed five requirements of true worship:
- True worship requires preparation – Eccl 5.1
- True worship involves praise – Psalm 100
- True worship involves prayer – Mt 6.9
- True worship involves presentation (offerings) – Dt 12.5, 16.16ff.
- True worship includes preaching – Ps 95.7b-8a, preacher and people in a responsive act of worship
The meeting was a great challenge to our hearts, the music and prayers of the service moved us closer to our God, and the fellowship before and after rallied the saints in the cause of Fundamental Baptists.
UPDATE: Audio available here.
Don Johnson is the pastor of Grace Baptist Church of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.