The Person and Work, of the Holy Spirit lesson 28 Part 2

So, we are in Lesson 28, and I think I mentioned this last time, we'll start into Lesson 29 this week, but then when we're done with 29, that will be the end of Chapter 4 of Rideout's book, which means we've got three chapters to go. So Courtney and I were chatting a little bit and thought that we would do a review on the first four chapters just to kind of put it in perspective and then tackle the fifth. And Miles were thinking maybe you would take the first of chapter five. So I'll send you the stuff.

Okay, so we had worked our way all the way down to the last question. of 28, and we're talking about worship, we're talking about places of worship, RIDOP makes a big deal about architecture. where we as believers are to worship, and obviously it's not in a building on the earth, although we need a place to gather, because fellowship and being together is really critical. But we're not impressed with cathedrals, maybe is the way to say it. I grew up around cathedrals. They're kind of drafty and cold.

So in the question today, which is really, should be question five, but it's really question eight because we covered four questions in one go last week. What is the power of worship? Now I put in, I don't know if I put this in here. I didn't put in here. There are two verses that I want to put, sort of couch this around.

Philippians 3.3, somebody look that up quickly and read it.

And somebody look up John 4.24.

Those of you who are in on Wednesday night ought to know what John 4.24 is. We talked about it last week.

So Philippians 3.3. Go, go. Somebody. They all got their cell phones out, right? Good. But we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the King. So worship by the Spirit of God, okay, and we are the circumcision. What's circumcision a metaphor for? Separation. Yeah. Separation. Okay?

And then John 4, 24. We've got that God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. So there lies the trucks of the matter. In this verse in John 4, this is the story of the woman at the well. And the woman at the well was a Samaritan, which meant that she was half-Jewish and half-Gentile, and that she encounters the Lord Jesus at the well. And the Samaritans had created their own denomination, maybe is a way to say it. They had their own mountain, Gerizim. They had their own priesthood. They had their own everything.

And the Lord had just finished telling her that The only true worship place is Jerusalem. You know, and so she doesn't react really a lot to that. But then when he gets down to verse 24, he says to her, look, God is spirit. And they who worship him, they must do it in spirit and in truth. Talking about this on Wednesday night, we tackled the word spirit. It means what? Maybe go at it this way. In order to worship God in spirit, I have to be spiritually alive, don't I?

And so when previous to, in the chapter right before this, when the Lord Jesus encounters Nicodemus, he tells Nicodemus, Unless a man is born again, he won't see the kingdom of God. If he's not born of water and the Spirit, he won't enter into the kingdom of God. And Nicodemus is totally lost because he thinks, well, I'm a Jew, I'm in. And the Lord Jesus says, no, you're not.

You must be born anew, born of water and the Spirit. So you have to be spiritually alive in order to worship God spiritually. Agree with that? So, I think two things are in focus here. One is, I'm not the one who makes up my mind how I'm going to worship God. There's already 5,000 denominations or whatever that already do that. So if I'm going to worship him in spirit, I've got to kind of know what being spiritual is all about.

I don't have to be completely But how would you, when he says in John 4.24 that we must worship God in spirit, what does he mean?

What does he mean by that? Through the Holy Spirit? Yeah, but give me something practical. How is that done? Do I have to, like the Charismatic say, I've got to come up with a special language? gibberish that he'll understand. I don't understand what I'm saying, but he will. That's not spiritual, that's fleshly. So, what is the mark of worshipping God in the Spirit? Wow. Okay.

I was going to say something I always remind myself of when I'm talking about the Holy Spirit, sorry to keep yelling there, is that he always deals in truth and clarity, right? And that's, I mean, the verse says in spirit and truth, but I just had a thought recently in terms of, you know, God doesn't need our, our glory, but God doesn't need us to prop Him up with our words or something like that. We're the creature, He's the creator. we can only really glorify Him with what He has revealed to us of Himself. And when we recognize that, when we realize that, and we praise Him for that, it's Holy Spirit-based worship, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that's good. J.D.? ? Yeah, I was going to say something similar in the sense that spirit and truth is a combo there. And what's interesting is you find a lot of instances of worship where it's thought to be, like Miles said, certain words, certain songs, certain accompaniment of instruments or whatever that might be.

However, it's always founded in truth. And if it's spiritual, then what is it not? What's the opposite of spiritual here? Fleshly. That's right. It's not fleshly. It's a spiritual worship and it's always in truth. So the words are grounded in exactly what Maz was saying.

What God, our Creator, has already revealed about Himself. We're not finding new... we find new aspects of how we were made in His image. And then our response is to worship Him. But it's things that He's revealed about us, and how do you find out what's spiritually true about you? Well, once you find those things out, that's the center of your worship, is the intimacy that that spiritual union with Christ and with other believers has brought into place.

And that's the environment in which it happens. It's not an auditorium. It's not, you know, at the river. It's not... I mean, so, spirit and truth, there's a lot that can be said there. But what it's not is some of the things that we just talked about there.

So both answers, I think, contribute to the question, which is, what is the power for worship? Rideout makes an interesting point. He said the Spirit not only introduces us to the heavenly sanctuary by faith. So here's the conversation about, that's why I think the previous questions have a lot to do with the sanctuary, where we worship, and the Spirit of God is the one who introduces us to that. by faith. So through the study of the Word of God we start to find out about these things and our job as usual is just to believe Him. Believe what He reveals to us in His Word about the Lord Jesus Christ. And then from the power to worship God in the Spirit cannot come from us. It's got to come from Him.

See that? I haven't gotten back to her yet on this question, but Karen Jenkins texted me after our meeting on Wednesday night. She said, in essence, what is the role of the Holy Spirit when we are in glory? What's he going to do? You know, here we are as a body of Christ in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. What's the Holy Spirit going to do? Is his job over and he's just going to sit down?

I think the answer is right here. I think the answer is that He is the power for worship. So for all eternity, we will worship God in spirit and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the power to do that is the Holy Spirit. Does that make sense? We can't just sit there and be, oh, I've got to come up with something cool to worship to worship God, and yeah, it'll be, I think, an awestruck kind of a thing, but we have a life that's the resurrected life of Christ, and that life is generated by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that will be the life that is generated through us to worship God in spirit for all eternity.

You think the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from all eternity past, which is an oxymoron, worshipped each other in spirit? You think the Father worshipped the Son? You think the Son worshipped the Father? You think the Holy Spirit worshipped the Lord Jesus?

Or the Word at that point? What do you think? Worship, interesting word, huh? Were they doing that? What were they doing? Have you ever asked yourself, what were they doing before they created? They were all equal. They were what? They were equal, in essence. So they were sitting around looking at each other saying, hey, guess what? We're equal. Well, no. That's a really interesting question, mate, because I never... Oh, sorry. Well, that's okay.

The word worship comes from worthship. They're worthy of worship. Worthiness of each one of them. Are they worthy of it? Of course. Sure they are. Go ahead, Miles. I was just going to say, the connection between the word glory and worship is something I was kind of mulling over. And you know, Jesus does, you know, with the glory with which the Father glorified me before, you know, they do glorify one another, right? Yeah, they do.

But we tend to think of worship as from the lesser of the greater, which is not the case within the Godhead. However, there is this interesting role within the triunity of God and the triunity's involvement in our worship to Him. So I wrote down a question. How is prayer and the Holy Spirit's role in prayer different from the Holy Spirit's role in worship? What do we say? That's a question. That's a good question. So I think in order to answer it, you have to sort of expand on the word prayer a little bit. What is prayer? Is it only solicitation?

But I think the answer's in Romans 8. In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness. We do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. That's what the Holy Spirit does in prayer.

But the second half is in worship. one in the same different Maybe that's your question because yeah, it's interesting for you Because prayer is supplication right it definitely has that we do not know what we need to pray for sometimes But if you're worshiping in spirit and truth, you know what to worship right because it's in truth So that's revealed the answer to a prayer may not be revealed and that requires a different a different kind of conversation within an intimate environment, right?

But it's interesting for me because I think that there's a lot of similarities there. One is more around the circumstances I'm dealing with, and the other is beholding the glory in his word and his truth. I mean, that's essentially what worship is, is beholding him. the Word, because that's spiritual. The source is the Spirit, and the content is the truth of God's Word.

So there's kind of, interestingly enough, I think, between worship and prayer, it's an interchange that goes back and forth. Sometimes you may not even know when you're in a spiritual posture of prayer versus a spiritual posture of worship, because they all are upward. They're abiding in what is true of us spiritually. and true of who God is as our creator. And so I think that that attitude of prayer and worship is very similar, although I don't say, OK, I'm beginning my prayer and now I'm going to begin my worship.

You know, it's a relationship. It's an intimacy with Christ that these things take place. And when you do it, when that same experience, and I'll use that word specifically, experience is had by those in the body around you, then there's something even more unique about that. And you get into that aspect of corporate worship.

But what happens is oftentimes we come together to have an attitude of worship, but we're not centered on the same truths of God's Word. And so where does that leave that? And what does God intend for us to be in terms of worshiping in spirit and truth? So just some thoughts on prayer and thoughts on the fact that we center our worship around the truth. which is something that is being attacked in every single respect, everywhere. But worship is centered on the truth, and it's empowered by the Holy Spirit through us.

And that's an intimate thing, and it produces an intimate outcome with us because we are beholding Him. Similarities between what what the spirit does in prayer and the spirit does in worship. It's still all he's He is doing is focusing us on on Christ and God and you know, yeah, what where's that the dividing line between worship and prayer and a lot of a lot of it is yes Self-centered or whatever, but that's when the spirit takes whatever our groanings are like I need this tomorrow And he filters that with what God wants for you. I guess I'm thinking that it's similar in that, and we've been going through this, what has the job of the Holy Spirit been?

To convince us and convict us of what's true of us and what Christ has done for us. Ultimately conforming us and transforming us and then at that point Our intimacy and our worship, you know our time With Christ is worship. I think you know the intimacy that we have with him that that I think is more than Kind of the Oh God be great and wonderful and you know The the kind of outward worship that we may do in a big auditorium or something like that, you know what? both of what All three of you said, all revolve on one issue. What's the issue? Knowing Christ.

I was going to say, in truth is the key in that verse 24. It's the truth Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. He is the truth. Yeah, and so it's interesting, the other thing we've looked at in John, in that chapter was, is that this is the only place that the Lord Jesus admitted to a human being that he was the Messiah. She said, when the Messiah comes, we know that he's going to answer all of our questions. And he said to her, the one standing in front of you is he. Right?

So Paul's experience on the road to Damascus with all of the disciples when they In every case, their intimacy with Christ grew, and ours is to grow. I can't imagine, I could probably come up with a formula for worship, put the tenets down, one through seven, and as they say, fake it until I make it. But if the Lord Jesus, through his word, began to show, the Spirit show me Christ face to face or as in a mirror, I automatically, because I have his life, respond with worship. I can't respond any other way. Any intimacy with Christ that's generated by the power of the Holy Spirit causes worship.

You know, I was reading about Paul and the Lord Jesus. This guy said, I think it was Coates or maybe Kelly said, you know, Paul and the Lord Jesus were interesting guys. You either hated them or you loved them. Nobody ever said about Jesus, meh, or about Paul, meh. You either love them or you hate them.

So here we are, growing in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus, and through his word, the Spirit of God shows us a greater intimacy through what is being revealed about him in the word. We respond in worship. The problem you find with the whole idea of cathedrals and all of that is that men read the word of God and say, well, we've got to get this worship thing going because God expects it. Better have a building. Get some statues up. It's got to be magnificent. I mean, if you read any of the Middle Ages, it took two, three hundred years to build one of those cathedrals. They did them a hand at a time with these craftsmen. How long did it take to build the temple in Jerusalem? I built it twice. The point is everything about worship in my mind goes to knowing Christ. So here we are in glory with the fullness of Christ in front of us, a man, glorified man.

Are you going to be able to say, No way. No way. See? And that is all by the power of the Spirit. And I think, you know, if the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are totally satisfied with one another, is satisfaction worship? Or is worship awesomeness way beyond satisfaction? You know? I think too that, like Courtney was saying, I don't know how to pray as I should.

When the Spirit of God opens up my understanding, a lot of times what I solicited him for becomes secondary. It's like Paul and the thorn in the flesh. He went to the Lord about it three times and at the end of the third time he said, hey, you know what, this is really a blessing. I'm glorying in it and I'm not, you know, His whole attitude and frame of reference had changed because he'd been to the Lord about it. And I think that happens to us a lot of times. And I think that's a spiritual event and it may take some time.

All of that generated by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's one of the coolest things that he does. He reveals Christ to us through his word. He shows us things and we get to see and understand things that someone outside of Christ never gets to see because they don't have the capacity to see it. One of the great blessings of newness of life, resurrected life, is this whole entering into how this new life works and the fact that through that process we are able to Behold the glory of the Lord Jesus.

Okay. Going back to the Romans 8, I think that two things in a day in verse 27, he who searches the hearts. So that's God. But the interesting part I always liked in this when we studied it was knows what the mind of the spirit is. It didn't say what our mind is. He searches what we want. He searches the mind of the Spirit.

And I think that is the same, maybe, J.D., this is getting back a little bit, on prayer and worship. He knows the mind of the Spirit. The Spirit is the one who is directing us to worship Him. And I think it's still, as we've said, it's the Holy Spirit that directs us for both, you know, helps us in prayer and intercedes for us, but then He also, I think, directs us in worship.

Because He knows the mind, God searches the mind mind, but searches our hearts. That's one. So he knows where we're at. But He knows what the mind of the Spirit is individually in each one of us. And I think that's where either prayer or worship. He knows what we need to worship and is directing us through the truth, through the Word, to that position of worship. And I think it's kind of, like I said, it's a fine line, but one's kind of more focused on us. But the other is I think He knows the mind of the Spirit. The Spirit is the one directing us to worship Him.

Do you think at any given moment Yeah, that's your favorite, 2 Corinthians 3.18. You know, we're being transformed. We're looking at Him, and in the same time, we're being transformed.

Yeah, and I think that, you know, one of the cool things about the writers of the New Testament is they all had this intimacy. I don't think any of them had it like Paul had it. How I would love to go out in the desert for three years and be taught of Christ. How cool would that be? But it meant, but the resulting, the result of that kind of intimacy was a group of guys that were sold out to Christ.

It didn't matter. Nothing else mattered to them. And I think that he would have us that way. I really do. that we're growing into the point where nothing matters but Him. So when we get the glory, is anything else going to matter other than Him? I mean, we can't imagine that. You mean I'm not going to be important?

I said to Roger this morning, I said, you know, I'm going to do some verses about idol worship. this morning, don't be unequally yoked. So I said, Roger, if I came up to you and said, hey, Roger, don't be unequally yoked. And you say back to me, well, I have a sin nature in me and I've got Christ in me. Who am I yoking up with today?

Okay. All right, we've got a few minutes. Let's jump over to 29. Everybody have 29? And this is going to get a little controversial, I think, because it's interesting that Brethren have a view of some things that are sometimes a little challenging. The first thing I want you to notice on the handout is I really like the poem. What Rideout would do at the end of the chapters, he puts a poem in there. The end is really good. I'm going to read it.

The holiest we enter in perfect peace with God, through whom we found our center in Jesus Christ and Jesus and his blood. Though great may be our dullness in thought and word and deed, we glory in the fullness of him that meets our need. Much incense is ascending before the eternal throne. God graciously is bending to hear each feeble groan. To all our prayers and praises, God adds his sweet perfume, and love the censer raises, those odors to consume. O God, we come with singing, because thy Pentecost priest our names to thee is bringing, nor ever forget the least. For us we wear, for us he wears the mitre, where holiness shines bright. For us his robes are whiter than heaven's unsullied light.

I really like that. Kind of cool. So, right off the book, in the first question I said, Should we agree, and this assumes you guys all read it, should we agree with Rideout's description regarding the manner of worship? So, knowing full well that you haven't read it, let me give you some highlights.

Rideout says, no mention is made of one presiding There's the brethren for you. Nobody's in charge. Everything is left free for the Spirit of God to use whom he will. Ever been to a brethren service? Imagine a whole room full of Courtney's. That's a real scary thought. There's no provision for ordaining a special class of men for ministry. Still less is there for worship. We are all priests, a holy and royal priesthood. For one or several persons to preside over worship in an assembly of saints is to lose sight of the ever-sufficient presence of the Blessed Spirit.

We need not fear confusion. If faith and obedience are tested, that is always well, And who that has tasted the sweetness of simply letting the Spirit lead our praises whomsoever He will, would return to the constraint of using but one man, no matter how gifted and devoted, under the plea of order." Okay, question. Should we agree with what Rideout is saying? In other words, he's saying, no clergy. Well, speaking from the brethren's side... I've been waiting for you to talk. You came out of them. I mean, that really is...

We would have a first service, which was the worship service. And that was to be led by the Spirit and no one person directing that meeting. But it was as led by the Spirit. People would share from scripture, would pray and praise, and it wasn't a time for prayer requests or anything like that. It was solely focused on worship, worshiping Christ. And so, yeah, there would be Scripture read, there would be hymns that would be brought out. Including that one, the holiest we honor. So, I mean, it was to be Spirit-led. That was the intent, that there wasn't a clergy or one person leading the worship. It was to The intent was to be led by the Spirit. And how'd that work out? It was great. I really appreciated that.

So the Lord ordains elders under shepherds, but he would have them just be quiet and ring the bell and we're starting and whoever wants to say something or worship or read a scripture, then that's what they do? I'm not being critical, I'm just... Yeah, no, we would meet, and then usually somebody would open in prayer, and then it would be led by the Spirit. People would share scripture, praise, or prayers that would be led to worship and praise God. There was a fear that somebody would stand up and say something that was off or whatever, and occasionally that would happen, but on the most part, it was focused on glorifying God.

And then every Sunday we would break bread. And so there would be, you know, communion at the end of all of those services we'd have. So what were all the services? Because, I mean, obvious, right out is the Brethren. So we'd have that as the first service and then we'd have a teaching or Sunday school, we'd actually have three. We'd have a Sunday school and then we'd have a main teaching. So we'd have three meetings usually. How long would that worship service last? An hour.

It's quite uplifting, actually, and it was amazing how the Spirit worked in those meetings, just things that the Lord's bring upon your heart and then some man would bring up. you know, that aspect of scripture. And then, you know, the hymns, that was kind of the funny part, was the black hymnal and the red hymnal. The black was for the worship service and the red was for, you know... That's a little... That was a little, you know, there were some legal people who, you know, The unlegal people would pick for me either one, but a lot were the stricter brethren where you pick out of the black.

So what happens if Alan stands up and he has something he says is spiritual, and I'm sitting over here and I'm thinking, nah, I've got to correct him about that. Did that happen? No, typically that was after elders would address that. If there was something that was off, or something more self-focused than doing that, you would talk to him afterwards.

But it was an open, spirit-led meeting. And the focus really was the cross, because it ended with the Lord's Supper every week. It was a good service. We have enough Bible studies around here, which are open forums, where we're tracking down the Word of God.

But this is different. This is focusing on worship. I mean, this is like worshiping. I mean, maybe back to that. It was to focus on Christ, the cross, God. Would you say that these people that participated in that were spiritual under the parameters we just talked about? Or are they just expressing feelings? No, I think spirit-led. I mean, it would be The Lord is leading me in this scripture and he would share a scripture. And it was to focus on Christ and focus on glorifying God. That was the intent of the meeting was to glorify and to worship.

So you just naturally assume that the people that were participating in that worshipping God in spirit and truth, but then when you go to Bible study or sermon you weren't spiritual? No. Maybe you were, maybe you weren't? No, it's just the focus was on worship and focusing on Christ. Teaching is a different one. I mean, it's like now we're focusing on Christ, but it's a different aspect of it. It's teaching. It's bringing God's Word to edify the body.

This was, this is, the meeting was to focus on Christ. I'm not, I'm just asking, I'm thinking to myself, what would keep believers from their flesh interjecting and intercepting what's going on there and make it, you know, because I've heard people say, well, you know, Joe over here every Sunday in the worship service, he goes on and on and on. I was going to say one thing, if you've been to a charismatic service, that's how they operate, but it goes to more of the spirit focus as opposed to Christ. And that's where it's in tongues and all this other stuff, and everybody speaks. But it does go flesh very fast. And there are those times where people go on and on, you know, and it'd be more, you know, is that really being led?

The intent was to have the Spirit lead the meeting and to prompt men to Share and and go to scripture a lot of scripture readings. No, you know just praising God You know for who he is what he's done, you know, it was solely for focusing on him That was the intent of that meeting and then like said the end was was always, you know What was accomplished on the cross? We'd have communion every Sunday, okay, and so it was it was you know, it was for worshiping him and you know lead, you know, we We could have anything in a class, too. I mean, opening up a class of Bible study, anybody could go off on left field and do that.

So, what you do, you address them afterwards or whatever. We do the same thing as elders. We would, you know, end up, you know, if somebody was off saying... Well, you know, I've read enough brethren, brethren writers and material to have, and a lot of them will say, the Lord gave me an understanding about And I could see how, oh, and so I got to share that on Sunday. I can certainly see that. And that was it. That happens all the time, I think. Yeah, and that was the intent of the meeting.

You know how the working and how it you know again the focus is back on God Yeah, you know here's the scripture that you know really portrays God or whatever or Christ and what he's done And what he's you know he opened up to me And and that was what the sharing was and you know some really good hymns that were done that focused on him You know that would be brought out Again, kind of the black book was thinner. By design, that was intent to focus on Christ, focus on God. Those hymns were not as much about answering prayer or these kind of things. It was more solely for worshiping.

You guys got to go sing. Let's close. We're over. Father, how we thank you for your Word, and we thank you for your open forum to discuss. And as we grow in the knowledge and grace of your Son, the Lord Jesus, we learn more and more about what it means to worship you in spirit and truth. We thank you and we pray in your Son's name. Amen.