At Grace Covenant Baptist Church, we seek to worship God in a way that honors and glorifies Him. The purpose of worship is to honor God the Father and exalt His Son, Jesus Christ. Of course, this can be accomplished only as the Holy Spirit leads our worship “in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). All of our worship is a product of the work of the Godhead in our lives.
The bedrock of worship is the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ as set forth in Scripture alone, which is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God. We stand with the Protestant Reformers who battled for the gospel against the traditions of men that had distorted the truth of the gospel and permeated the church in the sixteenth century. From this battle came what has come to be known as the five sola’s regarding the gospel alone for salvation. The saving gospel is:
- SOLA SCRIPTURA – according to Scripture alone
- SOLUS CHRISTUS – in Christ alone
- SOLA GRATIA – by grace alone
- SOLA FIDE – through faith alone
- SOLI DEO GLORIA – for the glory of God alone
These truths are clearly set forth in the entirety of God’s Word. Therefore, we believe that the faithful proclamation of God’s Word is central to worship. We hesitate to label worship as “traditional,” “contemporary,” or “blended” because this focuses on music style or dress code for worship rather than on the preaching of the Word, which in our day is excluded by some as even being an element of worship, much less the primary element. To counter this misunderstanding and in hopes of proclaiming the whole counsel of God, our focus in worshiping “in spirit and truth” is the expository preaching of Scripture. Expository preaching is defined as “a sermon which takes the point of the text as the point of the sermon.” 1 It really is that simple. It is to “keep the main thing the main thing” both as it relates to worship and to the text of Scripture itself.
Another heart cry of the Reformer’s was semper reformanda, “always reforming.” Expository preaching and expository listening are crucial to fulfilling this task in the local church. May we be a people of God’s Word!
1 Mark Dever, http://marks.9marks.org/Mark1/LessonB/Slide1of6