Person & Work of the Holy Spirit

Well, let's get started with our questions. We've got only 10 questions. With our current pace, that means it's only a month. The first question on 18. Well, actually, let me ask this. We're going to be talking about worship in this lesson. When we use the word worship, I always like to define it. Obviously, I have a vast interest in my own activities in the church to have an understanding of what worship is. But what does the word worship mean, and where does it come from?

Anybody know? Isn't it from worth? It comes from worthship, as Cheryl said. It is a compound word, and it talks about ascribing worth or saying that somebody is worthy of honor or respect. So when we talk about worshiping the Lord, we're talking about describing how worthy he is of our adoration and of our attention and of our being and of our drawing.

So the first question now that we've established what worship is, is what are the five features of worship that write out lists? Place, power, man, material, and time. Did everybody hear that? No, you didn't. Place of worship, the power for worship, the manner of worship, the material for worship, and the time for worship.

Again, this is talking about the church. So we're going to actually go over those five things as we go through the lessons. So we won't delve into them now, but I want to make sure everybody's aware of these five things. I'll say them again just for fun.

Place of worship, the power for worship, the manner of worship, the material for worship, and the time for worship. So the next question is, we just got to go there because that's the important first of our of our list, where is the proper place for worship according to Hebrews 9.4 and 10.19-23? Is it in heaven itself? Is it in heaven itself? Are you asking because you don't know? I'm asking because that's what I've got here. Christ has entered not a sanctuary made with hands.

If someone will turn to Hebrews 10 and be ready to read 19 and 23 and I'll read Hebrews 9.24 right now and then we'll talk about it.

Hebrews 9.24 says, For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. And if someone could read 10, 19 through 23. Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is a So you weren't uncertain if heaven is the answer, but that is the right answer. If we look at Colossians chapter 3, what does Colossians chapter 3 tell us from the identification truths where we are at that position?

We're in the heavenlies. What are the barriers that keep us from worshiping the Lord with a heavenly perspective? Worshiping the Lord from our position. What prevents us from doing that? Lack of fellowship? We might not be in fellowship. But what does it take for us to restore that fellowship? Resting in what is already true. We might confess to the world that we know that we've been not abiding. But we restore that fellowship by abiding in it.

And we're immediately able to be positioning with our condition, our position, our line, and we can worship the Lord. Now, when I was, this is just me, and I know that most of you don't have the same background that I have, but when I was coming from a charismatic background, I really, really wanted to confess all of my sins on my way to church to make sure that when I would worship the Lord, that he might have blessed me with some kindred feelings. But I thought that my proper place of worship was here on this earth. And I think it's really important as we as a body come together corporately that when we worship we realize that we are together aligning our condition and our position to be worshiping the Lord in heavenly places.

This scared the poo out of me. I don't know how else to describe it. When I was charismatic to read verses that talk about worshiping the Lord in the heavenly places. Because I wasn't worthy. I didn't understand my position, I didn't understand who I was in Christ, and I didn't understand that the Holy Spirit had directed me to worship the Lord from my position. So, when we talk about the place of worshiping in the heavenlies, does everybody feel really good about that?

No. No? You're being honest, I appreciate that. I mean I just thought the proper place for worship is anywhere you are. I was thinking of it more like if I'm shopping, if I'm driving a car. Conditionally that is true. But we're talking about corporately as a body. We gather together. It's not about the sanctuary. It's not about the building. If we were out in a park, that would be just as good as if we were upstairs. We could be in the supermarket. That would be kind of a fun place. Let's go worship some fruit.

Well, when it says when we worship, that doesn't mean that you have to be with a group of people. No, no. It doesn't mean you have to be, but the focus of our lesson today is right out, right out is Yuri Lisp. section 2, the corporate body. But yes, we should understand that we do worship the Lord anywhere and everywhere.

Paul talks about being thankful in all things. That's part of that mindset and that lifestyle. Any questions about the proper place of worship? Everybody feels really good about that? That's good. So what I expect in an hour's time when we're in the main sanctuary and I'm leading worship, I want to see some people just...

Jumping up and down. Just disappear. No, I'm just kidding. I don't want it to be rapturous. But understanding what your position is and that you're worshiping from that position. The Hebrews verse seems to be a conditional verse to me. Okay. Because it says we're to enter in with boldness. That's not position. That's encouraging us to enter into the heavenlies. And so it's I think it's one thing to have the rhetoric down in terms of positioning.

I should worship God in the heavenlies, but I don't think if I It would be difficult for me to understand how I would understand what worshipping him was if I wasn't there conditionally. If I didn't understand. We think worship is music. I'm not so sure.

Music is a little tiny part of it, but it's a result of, not a causative thing. You know, that's a good point. Music, I obviously have invested a fair amount of time into doing musical things when we talk about worship, but the truth of worship is that it is the Holy Spirit working through your heart, communicating to the Lord. And music can be part of it, but it does not have to be part of it.

And that's really an important thing. And Mike's point to condition, where the condition, the conditional response He's talking about a conditional sense. That we confidently go to the Lord knowing that He hears us. And we are entering spiritually into the heavenlies. And that's a conditional sense.

Do we feel even more comfortable about that? Or do we like that even more? It used to scare me a lot, but at this point in time, I've grown to know who I am in Christ, so this isn't scary because I know that Christ has, as the author of Hebrews said, He's given us, He's sprinkled us and cleaned us and cleansed our conscience and our bodies and made us pure so that we can just go before the Lord.

The flesh wants to come up with excuses why we can't do that. That's not what we're here about. Alright, so the next question It kind of delves into the issue of us being conditionally on the earth. It says, but we are on the earth, how can we enter the holiest?

We're in Christ and we enter by the sanctuary, by his blood and through his flesh and with true heart and full assurance of faith. That's just by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. So it is by the power of the Spirit of God this comes down and makes real for faith all that Christ has secured for us. So when you enter into the Holy of Holies you do it by the power of the Spirit. Everybody feels confident about that? Well I almost feel like that I need to picture this. So you don't have to picture. It's not about the picturing, it's about your attention.

In 2 Corinthians 3.18 it talks about beholding the Lord, and the illustration that I, and I've used this here before, but I'll use it again just for the sake of continuity.

In 2 Corinthians 3.18 it talks about beholding the Lord, and my own personal illustration is from my wedding. When I was getting married to my wife, Jessica, she was coming up the aisle, and my grandpa was doing the ceremony, so he says, who gives this woman to be married? I just remember watching my wife the whole time. Then I got to go down and take her and bring her up on the stage, and my grandpa kept annoying me and bothering me by asking me all these questions, because I wanted to be beholding my bride.

And the Lord wants that same relationship with us, that we're beholding Him, And so it's not about picturing, but it is our focus and our attention is on the Lord, and not distracted. Partially why I get, as I've been leading worship, why I get concerned about the slides working or the music not being distracting, is I want to play the right notes, so that when you are worshiping, the last thing that you're thinking about is, is my guitar in tune? Are the slides right? That you're beholding the Lord, and you're singing about him or to him. Let me ask you a question. Sure. What about moments? About what? Moments. Moments? Moments that I personally have had.

When I see the creation of our Lord in the mountains, it is so beautiful. I sit in my backyard, the wind softly going through the trees, and you know, I'm just praising the Lord, and I just want to sort of die and just be part of it. I feel his presence so strongly.

Is that right or wrong? Well, if you're worshiping the Lord, I would have a hard time saying that it's wrong. If the Spirit is to direct our worship and that seems like a reason. Even in the Spirit, without saying a word, you could just If you're driving your car through the mountains and you get lost, that's a problem. If you run into another driver, that's a problem. But if you're beholding the Lord and you're out in His creation, that's fine.

Just to concentrate on His creation. We listened to some hymns while we were driving through the Grand Canyon and I would assume that that's probably a similar sort of experience where it's amazing to sing to the Creator for the amazing creation. I have to put the water under fire. Please do.

But the Grand Canyon is not in heaven. It isn't in heaven. No, and neither is... The issue here, I think, is where we worship. And it's not in my backyard watching the wind go through the trees. I don't mean to be disrespectful. But he's talking specifically about where the Lord Jesus has gone, into the heavenlies, and we are to go there by faith, depending on the Spirit of God to take us there. Now, he either means that or he doesn't. But it's either pious platitude or it's reality. Okay, so what I'm saying is not contrary to that. I'm not trying to be contrary to that.

Instead, I can look at what the Lord has made and that draws my focus to the Lord. When I look at God's creation, and it shows his character and who he is and his creativity, and it moves me to worship him, then I'm entering in to the heaven. What I am doing is worshiping what the Creator has done and not the Creator himself. Because entering into the Holy of Holies is to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

That's a different thing than... Courtney and I have had this discussion about scuba diving all the time the Lord's in the reef and I'm not arguing that that isn't real, but that's not the same thing as this. Beholding the Lord Jesus, his glory in the heavenlies is a different thing than admiring his creation and seeing him in his creation.

That's my point. What I thought I was talking about is that his creation might draw my focus on him and then my focus is on him. I'm perpetually focusing on the creation and staying there. Creation is growing. That's the thing that I think is amazing, is from Romans 8. As beautiful as this is, this is the fallen creation. This is the ugly stuff.

I think about something I told the class just before, driving over Red Mountain Pass. in our little car, my mother sitting beside my husband, I'm sitting back and we're on the top of Red Mountain Pass and my mother just shouts glory and flings her arms out and slaps him on the head, you know?

And he said, Ma, why did you do that? She says, I couldn't hold it in. She says, unbeholding all that our Lord created and his spirit was community with mine. She said, I just couldn't hold it in. So, I mean, was that... OK, so I think if we're going to address this head on, our focus is to be on the Lord when we're worshiping. The Holy Spirit may use God's creation to draw our attention to Him. But true worship is on Him and not on the creation. So as long as we understand that something that is earthly may catch our attention and remind us of our creator. The worship is up in the heavenly places.

There's kind of a similarity between what the both of you are saying. It's a matter of what's directing your attention to the Lord? Is it being in a nature setting or is it making sure your D string is in tune? When Mike's saying where his focus is, so my question would be in that instance, what is driving your focus? What's helping, and not driving it, but what's helping direct your focus?

It's the Spirit of God. It should be the Spirit of God. But it could be so awe-inspiring whatever you're looking at. You know, you're just beholding of all of what God created for us. There's a place for admiring God's handiwork. But as Mike pointed out, true worship is focused solely on the person of Christ. So focusing on the Godhead, it doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit won't use creation to bring glory to his name. It just means that true worship is when the believer is conditionally focused on Christ.

Because you don't want to bring glory to the tree. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with being in awe over God's creation. We live next to the Rocky Mountains. I think it's hard not to be in awe of that. But true worship is focused on the Lord and not on the creation.

I think it fits what you're talking about. Because in Colossians, when it talks about the preeminent glory of Christ, it says that he's the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. put by him all things were created and God puts himself in his creation and whether they are in the heavens or in the earth visible or invisible etc. and then in chapter 2 he says that talking about the Lord Jesus that in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge see my thought is that beholding the Lord Jesus in the heavenlies You're in on the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. You are overwhelmed by the fact that he is before all things and that all things consist. All of that kind of language would be descriptive of beholding him where he is in the Holy of Holies. Yeah. Okay. Courtney, hold on. You were going to say something.

Well, this is just an impression that I had, but I enjoyed that series that was recently on the National Parks and the focus on John Muir, I think, who was such a nature lover and was the founder of the Sierra Club, I believe. But, you know, his dad was, they made the point that his dad was a Presbyterian minister and very strict and required, was requiring him to memorize the whole Bible. And he memorized all the New Testament, I think, and a good part of the Old Testament. And I just kept thinking, as I saw that, how he loved nature and how he talked about God. And I felt that his being, as hard as that must have been for him, the fact that he was so filled with the Word. that he just brought his mind to God all the time in God's creation.

I don't think I don't have to know. There's nothing wrong with observing God's work in creation, but that's not where true worship is. I think that's where we want to make that delineation. him and the people who also that came in such close contact with him. They really thought about God and the spirit and so forth. And Mike's right in some respect. I go back to Romans 1 and verse 24.

Since creation in the world is invisible attributes, its eternal power and divine nature have clearly been seen, being understood through what has been made, so they are without excuse. That tells us about God. That tells us nothing about Christ. And so it doesn't point at... these verses tell me it can focus me on God's eternal power, who He is, His creation. What I think is God uses that to help us focus on our worship for Christ. By seeing that or by doing something, when I'm scuba diving, when I get beat up on scuba diving, I look at God could have made this black and white, terrible, but He made all these fantastic And what that does is begin for me to focus on the Lord and His attributes. And so I think that God uses that in A Beautiful Sunset or something like that to take us off the worldly things, the politics, the work here, whatever, and to at least focus us on His eternal powers and his divine creator, his divine nature. And that's what focuses us back to focus on the Lord. So I think the Lord, God uses that to help us focus back for worship.

So we beat ourselves up routinely on this. We've got like three people. Well, my thought was is that from reading with Rideout, we have an incredible creation where we can behold the Lord. I think what he's focusing on is that because of what Christ did and renting that veil, we have this incredible ability to go through that veil and behold Christ in the heavenlies, which is where we are also. I think that's his focus here.

Go ahead. I want to say that I have read and I'm sure all of you have read stories of how people in prison, even in the dark and everything, have found and had the wonderful heavenlies in prison and in the dark with the Lord Jesus Christ. There are guys who live in basements without windows. We're going in circles, aren't we? What were you going to say? We need to remember that this world is passing, that God is going to destroy it, and our focus needs to be on, you know, it can be on Him through this maybe, but we also have to remember this is a cursed world, He destroyed it once, and He's going to do it again, and so it's a passing thing, and our focus needs to be on what is not passing, what is forever, eternal. Alright, we have more hands. Marla, go ahead.

Isn't Christ creative? His deity is creation. That's only one of his attributes. The rest of it we have no... There's so much of it we don't know. Yeah. Well, there's... Yeah, he's infinite, so... Putting it in the scope of mankind's words is limited. Steve, you had something to add. I think Mike will probably say the closing statement. I'm wondering if it's a matter of the reverse.

If, like Mike says, we're, and Donna just mentioned, we're beholding Christ and the heavenlies. Set music and everything else aside over here. Yes. We're beholding Christ and the heavenlies. Then is it a matter of backing up from that point and creating the song. What I'm asking this to, I've heard in other conversations, Mike really gets into the lyrics and really appreciates the lyrics as his whole church does. Well then somebody came along and set that lyric into any number of types of musical styles to enhance that theory and that thought and cast it in a sound picture. I'm just sitting here wondering about it.

Is it a matter of first focusing on Christ and the heavenlies, and then you're backing up realizing all these other things that complement that, rather than starting there and those are projecting you into appreciating Christ and the heavenlies. Okay, that's a really good point. So let me restate it in terse terms.

Because of what is said in Hebrews, I can walk upstairs and not need a bunch of psychological or emotional or musical things to reset me so that I can have a worship experience. Instead, I go up there knowing confidently what is true of who I am in Christ, that I'm told by the author of Hebrews to boldly go into the heavenlies and worship the Lord. focusing on him and the heavenlies, without any concern about the music. Now, I'm going to say that, and I just said a dangerous fragment of a sentence, without any concern about the music. The music has to fit. The music needs to fit. But what if it's not your favorite song? You've changed the channel. If you can look at the words and you can either say or meditate on the words or think about the words, the melody is of less concern. I have a lot of things that I've invested my energy into to learn about music theory and learn about how to tie things together so that theoretically everything is nice and smooth during the service.

But, the Lord has a great sense of humor, so if something goes or could go wrong, it will while I'm leading. So that I can't focus on it, I have to just focus on the Lord. And that goes for every single believer that worships. I've got a quote I want to read. Before I read the quote, I want to say that if the word of God tells us that we are to enter in, and we don't have the faith to do it, so we're going to go to some secondary source, it would seem to me that we should trust God when he says, here's what I'm doing, and I set my spirit to accomplish this. We should trust him to do what he says he's going to do rather than settle for something that isn't exactly what he said. Having that in mind, let me read this quote.

Yes, such a happy privilege of every saint. It is by the power of the Spirit of God who has come down and makes real for faith all that Christ has secured for us. But what a priceless boon is this, boldness to enter into a place of worship where Christ has gone for us to enter into the presence of God by the Holy Spirit. Yes, such is the happy privilege of every saint. I think this is one of those issues where, gee, do I have the right to go to heaven?

This is language that is beyond my understanding, but I'm convinced that God wouldn't put it in his words. and wouldn't tell us that his spirit intends to take us there if he didn't intend to do it. Our job is just to believe him. This is definitely not a recitation.

Go ahead. Well it plainly states in there that we have each one of us been baptized into Christ. So you can enter into heaven anytime you feel like it. You don't need music or anything else. That should be normative. That's the bottom line. You've been baptized into Christ. And he's there.

You're seated with him. You can't change it. focus on the Lord and worship of him. I'm the first one on intimacy with Christ. We have the intimacy to come before him and say, Abba, Father, Daddy. That's the end point is to focus on him beholding. Mike's favorite verse, 2 Corinthians, beholding the Lord.

I think that's it. I think what we've gotten distracted on is how we get to that point. I think any of these things to help us focus on Him. The end result is what we're talking about. The result is worship, which is focused on the Lord and entering into the heavenlies, the holy of holies, the intimacy with Him.

I think what we've kind of distracted is we're one level below on how maybe we get to that point. And I think that's, as Mark read that quote, And that's fundamentally the answer. It says, who's come down to make real for faith all that Christ has secured for us. Do we believe God's word? Does it say I can enter into the holy of holies and worship him? All of the theory I've learned about how to lead worship and make it less distracting for people. And I've spent months of my life studying that.

Went out the drain one summer, or one fall, when I had to help my friend. He had a college class he'd signed up for that he couldn't participate in something in his church. So he talked to the leadership of the church, and he said, can I have my friend Randy come step in and lead worship?

And so I agreed to do it, and the elders of the church said that was OK. And I went there, and they told me, hey, here's an Excel spreadsheet. We've got these 12 songs, and they're randomized. and you're going to just leave these 12 songs and the youth group came together and I told them, I bluntly said, this will not work.

And then the Lord, again because he's got a great sense of humor, said, no these people are going to come here and these youth are going to walk in faith and they can know that they're going to enter. And they worshipped the Lord. And it didn't matter that I was there, it wouldn't have mattered if Ben was there, it wouldn't have mattered anything because they came there to worship the Lord. They responded to God's word being taught and they worshipped the Lord. They believed what was true and all the things that I wanted to do to make worship easy to enter, or this thing that was the inspiration, didn't matter.

Because if we walk by faith, we can enter it. Yeah, you first give credence to God and then you can say, what a wonderful something. I mean, He gave us a wonderful globe and we're the ones that destroyed it, but He created it. But first you give credence to God, right?

Always. And then everything else follows. But you can look in the sky at night and say, my goodness, everything up there is perfectly in rhythm with the waves and whatever else is happening. But he created it. So you are in awe of what he created for us, but he comes first. Sure. And if you're in awe of it, where does that put your focus? and you can stay there and be worshipping him and have been inspired by his creation.

Sometimes, and I think, you said, you talked about trials, was it Courtney, that you mentioned trials? I think sometimes trials are the times when the Lord gets my attention and I realize I haven't been worshipping, I've been really focused on me. And then I can walk in faith and walk with him.

And so that's a valuable thing where it doesn't have to be just creation, it doesn't have to be You already said something about the world will be destroyed. Now, you know, I grew up on that. Oh, you know, it's going to be fire and we're just all going to, you know, whatever. The hellfire and damnation? Yes, that.

What about when Christ returns? There will be a thousand year reign and we will reign with him. And you will radiate that glorious essence of Christ. and then God's going to institute the ultimate recycling program. He's going to make a new heavens and earth that have not had any Adam and Eve falling. That's new creation though. It's not recycling. Who's going to speak it into existence? It isn't recycling. That's correct.

Do you feel better about that now? Let's ask the next question because I think at our current rate it will actually What is the tendency of all this church architecture? Does it make us more heavenly? Does it suit our Pilgrim profession? Does it impress the world that we go to the holiest for worship?

I don't know if that's a great series of questions, but I'll throw it right out. Probably the answer is no, no, no. I think man's tendency to impress not only the world, but perhaps he thinks it impresses God. Yeah. Mankind likes to come up with all kinds of cool creations that they think are inspiring. That's novel, but it's not the purpose.

That write-out says, the beauties that attract us are seen by the eye of faith alone. And they are the glories of a sanctuary which no human hand has built. Let nothing mar our thought of that. Let the places where we assemble for worship be simple and unpretentious. and which can in no way convey the impression that there is such a thing as an earthly sanctuary.

How about the Sistine Chapel? You guys know that painting of the hand of God coming out of the clouds and Adam reaching up? Compare that, the two fingers, and the beautiful architecture, versus boldly entering the throne of God, where you're not just seeing his fingers. Which one is the biblical model?

But that is beautiful. It's beautiful, but it's an earthly structure designed to make people think that it is a sanctuary for God, an earthen tabernacle, if you will. It's not that it is evil. It's something that would be beautiful or architecturally exciting. But the purpose of our worship is to focus on heavenly things, not be surrounded by earthly glitz and glamour. Yeah, you don't go there to worship, you go there to admire the work that was done.

Yeah. Perfected. It really didn't have much to do with God. Yeah. I mean, listen. People. We are created in God's image to be creative. The Sistine Chapel definitely reflects creativity. Right. But if it draws glory to mankind, it says, but Lord, that's not the purpose. You know like what Mike says, it all depends on what controls you. So is the Sistine Chapel going to control you or is it God, Christ? Well, that's a good point. It's what? What controls you. If you went to the Sistine Chapel and you were obsessed with the art that was there and you thought that you had to have that to be able to worship, that would be an earthly distraction.

Wayne? I was thinking of a particular college that we went to and visited one time build a magnificent kind of concert hall and then it would be converted to a church. But the students there lovingly called it the Golden Calf. I have never gone to a pretty church before so I've just always been blessed enough to go to some pretty hideous But nothing had become a golden calf.

That's funny. So let's ask these questions here. What is the tendency of all this church architecture? To distract. And maybe to develop pride in yourself that you have contributed to this magnificent thing. We were part of a church in Reno that actually had a pretty rough sanctuary. As the church grew, they decided they needed a building project so that they could have a pre-year sanctuary that overlooked the Sierra Nevada mountains. So they put together a bunch of money, and they raised up the funds, and they built this awesome sanctuary that was off another part of the building that overlooked the Sierra Nevadas, and the church collapsed. Because their focus was on the wrong thing. Literally, it was like a tennis court. That was because of how much money. It was a pretty pricey A-frame glass fronted thing. I didn't really look all this up.

What I recalled was about when God gave the plan for the tabernacle in the wilderness. He gave Moses the plan and said of the tabernacle that was in heaven and everything that was in it pertain to what we say facts of the faith. I mean you had the altar, you had the bread and the candlesticks and the gold into the holy of holies. And so it just seems to me that it's saying that what's there is purposeful and it should be that.

We're not to this yet, but what happened in the Old Testament that made that earthly place unique. What was inside of that town? The Shekinah Glory. God came down and met man. And it was a place where all of man could humble themselves and come to God.

What does Hebrews tell us that we're doing that's opposite of that? We approach the heavenlies, we approach the throne room, so that there is no earthly representation of things where God comes and meets man, and because of Christ meets God, and accesses him correctly. So all the earthly materials, as glorious as I'm sure they were and blew the Jews' minds, were still insufficient to represent the purity and perfection of what was happening.

But we don't have anything that hinders us from approaching that now. That being said, one of the announcements today is there's going to be a church building project. We need a better sanctuary. Our time is up, I think. Let's ask this next question, and you may not answer it all today, but I think it's important because it will take us to the crux of the next section. What is the power for worship? The Holy Spirit.

Let's take a look at John 4.24. In John 4 what's happening? Christ is speaking to the woman at the well, the woman of Samaria. And of course the Jews and the Samarians disagreed strongly about who the people of God were and what they should worship.

So in John 4.24 Christ is speaking to the woman at the well and he says, God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.

That's a pretty loaded and hefty statement if you meditate on it. What if you really like the melody to a song, for example? If we think worship is musical, I've been in churches where we have church splits over songs. I'm not joking, because I was part of it. People said, this song blesses me. But it wasn't true. But it moves my spirit. It makes me feel good. That's an oxymoron. But it's not true. But it makes me feel good.

So you can't have just one of those two, can you? Are you glorifying the Lord if you're singing things that are not true of Him? If you're meditating on things that are not true of Him? You can't do it. You have to have both. The Spirit will move you, the Spirit will direct you and guide you, but He will do it in truth. He's not going to bring about funky, goofy songs and move you with the garbage.

Did I have to take my bumper sticker off? It says, music is life. I would say that's not technically accurate, but I understand the sentiment of it. I wondered whose car that was, but it was my mom's car. I thought, oh, okay. From an earthly perspective, that's not my dad. I don't like music.

The Spirit empowers us to worship the Lord in truth. He moves and embarks the truth. And where do we know that something is true? Where do we learn what is true? true in his word, and impress them upon us, and we'll find ourselves worshipping the Lord as if they still remember him.

So the woman of Samaria, let's wrap this up. The woman of Samaria, she came to the Lord at an off time, because she was the town woman that all the gossip was about. So she didn't want to come around at the watering well during the morning, because they were all going to talk at her and point to her and say, you know, she's the town heart.

But she comes and Christ interfaces with her and he talks about what is real and true worship. And he says it is directed by the Spirit. It comes in truth. And he gets her attention because he loves her. And she can worship him. And she tells everybody in the town, hey you have to come meet this guy because he's real. He's somebody who is worth worshiping.

And so the living Christ on earth drew attention to the Father. And the Holy Spirit now draws our attention to Christ and the Father in us. He does it through truth and he does it empowering us by his Spirit. Then the next question is one that I'm going to ask and it's a cliffhanger question.

Are you ready for this? It says, should we agree with Rideout's description regarding the manner of worship? Well, if we do, we're going to have communion every Sunday. I just said I'm glad that you put this question in here because I had trouble with that being something wrong with having the designated people to do things all the time. And we're going to talk about that next week because it's important that we discuss it. spirit or not. But lesson 19 is here. And I got this accordion file because your mom told me I was too messy. So they're all in there and most of them are in there so if you need one just go in there and look through. They're from first to last.

Family father thank you that you have sent your son and that he came down and fulfilled all of the things that you required He would be the redeemer and that we can worship Him and send your spirit that can focus our attention on you and your son and we may worship you and glorify you. We thank you for who you are and who you've made us and we pray that we would grow in our understanding of opportunities and places and truth that we can worship you in. We thank you in Jesus' name.