Person & Work of the Holy Spirit

Last week we closed with a cliffhanger ending and I could tell that you were all in such suspense that you came back. So the question that we asked last week before we closed was should we agree with Rideout, the author of our material, should we agree with Rideout's description regarding the manner of worship?

Or let's ask this question more broadly. Should we agree with Brad out on everything? Not necessarily. Then the next question is why? Well he said that we should, this may be a little, I brought that up. He said we should be breaking Brad every week. Would that be an issue of sin if we did that? What do you mean? Would it be sinful for us to break bread? No, no, no. But would it be sinful that we don't?

And that's the that's the thing is that there's an issue of liberty here. Right. I'm glad to know that not everything is. Yeah. So so we're asking that now. So so if if the answer is no, just what? Let's ask again why from a more philosophical perspective or rational perspective. Why is it that we shouldn't always agree with right out in this or any other issue? We should always agree with. She said something. OK. We think for ourselves. By the Bible. But it's the Bible and the scripture. Yeah. We want to we want to rely on what's revealed in scripture and take a look at that.

Well, I forget where, is this in 1 Corinthians, I mean, is it 11? Where it says, as oft as you drink this cup, or eat this bread and drink this cup, you do so forth Christ's death shall come. And that doesn't say, it doesn't say if you, you know, if you meet every week, it just says as often. So that can mean once a month. Twice a month or whatever. It's first Corinthians 1126. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

So so that's that's one one element of this. But yes, we want to submit ourselves to scripture and what's there. Another new one. I think we need to explain what right out say. He said that in worship, we are all priests, a holy and royal priesthood, for one or several persons to preside at the worship of an assembly of saints is to lose sight of the ever-sufficient presence of the Holy Spirit. We need not fear confusion. If faith and obedience are tested, that is always well. And who has tested the sweetness of simply letting the Spirit feed our praises through Whomsoever you will would return to the constant constraint of using but one man no matter how gifted and devoted under the plea of order.

His point is, which is the brethren method, that in the worship service it's kind of an open forum and there isn't a leader necessarily. If the spirit quote unquote moves you, you can say whatever you want. Now I've had discussions with Courtney about this because he came out of and with Roger and there's some really good things that came out of that but there's also some problems I would say. So that's basically what he's saying is that you don't need anybody to lead the worship service that you kind of leave it to the spirit of God to move whoever is in the audience.

So with the question of the enlightened scripture let's ask ourselves What was the context for the church when Paul was writing 1st and 2nd Corinthians? What was the church in size? And how did it function in the local community? Did they meet in a big building like we have at Holly Hills here? It was a house church.

So let's say you have four or five families gathered together. It's not that big of a deal if several people have a couple songs together, but when we go upstairs and let's say on a Sunday we've got a hundred adults in that room and every single one of you comes with a song. Now a few of you will have duplicates so you cancel each other out, but we still have statistically this problem where we're going to be doing worship for most of the day because everybody's come with a song and you better hope that person in charge of playing the piano or the guitar or whatever else actually knows the song. Otherwise they'll sound in an interesting fashion.

So there is some potential for that in a different context that we have here at Holly Hills, which I think is important to just kind of think about. What was the biblical scenario or the context or the culture that that was written? Well, you know, talking about that, you know, coming out of Brethren, you know, it was, you know, I actually miss that because it was a very nice time because it wasn't having to be led by a person. And there were, there were pitfalls to it.

I mean, we, we, you know. When I was, when I was a kid, my grandparents' church did that. And that was, I mean, every Sunday you'd come. Yeah, I mean, it was a nice song. It was prayer. Share scripture. There's a lot of good things. And, you know, the other which was more difficult coming here is not breaking bread every Sunday, you know, and going back to right after Pentecost and Acts 2 42, they were continually continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. That was the early church, which meant whenever, just what you're saying, there wasn't a building, whenever they met, they broke bread. But yeah, continuing on in that passage, they were meeting at one another's houses and having that fellowship and it was not. It wasn't just a Sunday morning thing.

Right. Whenever they met, they're breaking bread, they're teaching, prayer, fellowship, all those characteristics. And it's fine. Whatever the elders determine at that body is fine. There isn't a criteria that says every Sunday, every day, every time we meet, we go over to your house, we have to break bread. There isn't any criteria like that. It's up to the local elders to decide for this body how many times they want to do that. Let me ask this question. This is totally off script, so to speak, off the series of questions.

In your own homes, how often have you done communion just with your family? Well, not very often, but... Only a few times have I done it with my family, but I have. And it's really special to have that intimacy, whether it's just a husband and wife, or husband and wife and children, or... It's worth considering, you know, prayerfully consider that, you know, between you and the Lord. But consider that... Does that happen in your house?

I didn't even know you could do that. You can. You can do it. You have to ask your husband. Hey, Bruce, what are you doing? I've got some grape juice here. I always thought it would have to be the minister. And you need to have a Catholic priest there too. Thank you. I'm being sarcastic for the record.

But you can do that in your home. You know like the Messianic Jewish people, well the Jewish people they have that on Friday night, you know, the blood, the Messianic I know, the blood and the bread. to represent, and they do that every week. And even my kids in their home, occasionally they go to the Messianic Church and they do every Friday, they have the bread and the wine to represent. And different denominations do a different frequency.

But the point is, well, we should continue on with the questions because I think it will kind of hone in on the direction of where we're going. Steve, you had something you wanted to say? Well, going back on a couple of things right out of the road. The basic principles he's saying to avoid in the past were ritualism and getting away from the law.

When you stop and think about it, human nature being what it is, even today we can lapse into a law ritual oriented form no matter what we're doing. We can start out in a pure sense, but sometimes it can evolve into being a legalistic approach to things.

And that is a common problem if you look at a lot of hymnals. There's actually liturgies and things like that that are in some hymnals, and I don't know that our hymnals have those. I don't know if they do. But there's a lot of hymnals where there will be things where you recite this back and forth, and that's this thought out process of the church service and order. I know at some time we had the lesson first and the music, the majority of the music, after the lesson. In response to God's word, let's worship the Lord. in response to who he is, let's worship him. And the order doesn't really matter.

What matters? Based on what we learned last week. What did we learn last week about what matters when we're worshiping? The spirit leads us to what truth? About Christ. Remember from Hebrews, if we go look back at Hebrews 9, 24 and 10, 19 through 23, the believer enters the heavenlies through the identification with Christ. So when we go to worship, we boldly do so resting what is true of us. So it doesn't matter if you order the service. It doesn't matter if you like the song or not, right? But the words, we can focus on the Lord, right? And we will worship the same God. Monique, do you have a question? No, I'm going to zip it.

I've noticed over the years that in Sunday school class and Bible studies, if the forum is an open forum where questions are allowed to be and it's not a lecture, then you can really observe the Spirit of God moving the conversation where He wants it.

My first experience with that was way back when on Tuesday with the Men's Bible Study. I remember one day somebody in the study started going off on this tangent way, way out somewhere and I thought we are never, ever going to get back and I'll be darned, the Spirit of God brought it all back to where we were 20 minutes ago and we learned way out there and I think you can observe that the work of the spirit in a group where you're studying the word where he does lead it. You may have a plan but he's got it and you may not be in tune to his plan and you have to be sensitive enough I think to let him take it where he's going to take it. This class has definitely stretched me as a teacher because we do that and you do have to rely on the spirit directing and sometimes there's opportunities for you to trying to help connect the dots that wouldn't come up otherwise. So that's a valuable thing. Any other thoughts on why we can say that we disagreed right out?

I have one other thought about that and that is that in Paul's epistles several places he talks about giving gifted men to the Bible. And he states the reason for it, for the edification of the saints to prepare them for ministry and that kind of thing. And so from the time of Acts 2 to say Ephesians was several decades, the church had grown and was, well probably was a predominantly a Gentile church at that point, although there were a lot of Jews in it. And still it was, home churches so to speak, but now there are these people called elders, these gifted teachers and pastors and they were given the responsibility of directing the service and the worship and I think that's probably maybe more appropriate today than having an open forum. in the main worship service, that that's their job.

They're supposed to... They're shepherding. That's right. And they're protecting and feeding the flock, and so they're doing their job. And we studied that God had put the order in the church just before this lesson, and that definitely fits into the context.

The next question we have here is, under the law, what was the material for worship? And Ryan says he doesn't like to use the word material, but he wasn't sure what else to describe it. It was a sacrifice. Yeah, under the law, the material for worship was a sacrifice. Ritual. Okay, it was definitely a ritual. Forms, incense, robes. parts and other instruments. I got that out of here somewhere.

Yeah, that's right. Why is it so significant that we recognize the Old Testament context for those and then consider when we look at the New Testament that it might be different now? Well the focus in the New Testament is Christ and And Christ was the sacrifice. And the whole structure of the temple was set up where man came to meet God in one place. When we talked about last week, what is the structure now? How is it set up for the believer to interface with God? Anytime, anyplace. Anytime, anyplace. But it's in the heavenlies, right? It's not man coming to God in one place. It's man coming to God in one place that's heavenly, not earthly.

Let's take a look briefly at 1 Corinthians 10.18. We're actually going to move backwards through this passage, because the next question is going to address that.

But 10.18 says, Look, the nation of Israel are not those who eat the sacrifice, sharers in the altar. Israel was participating in the system that was focused on the altar and the sacrifice that was earthly.

And when it came time for the annual feasts and the annual sacrifices that were there, the blood ran out of the temple down the streets. And we don't have the drainage for that in Denver. So we can't even deal with the rain. So we have this situation here where we can look under the law what the material for worship is.

But it's a whole system that involves a certain set of rituals and practices that reflect a lack of purity. So all of the Old Testament rituals under the law reflect a lack of purity for the nation of Israel, don't they? And does that fit in with our context for what we learned last week when we talked about boldly going before the throne of God? Does that sound like a lack of purity? If we were as impure as Israel reflected through their methods of worship.

If we boldly went before the stone of God, we'd also boldly and quickly be killed. Right? Because God's holiness demands that unholiness not come around. So let's, as I said, we're going to go through this backwards. The next question says, in 1 Corinthians 10, 16-17, Ridock closes the material for our worship. Explain what he means. So I'll read 16 and 17, and then you have to tell me what he means. 16 and 17.

Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ? Since there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. What does that mean?

It's material for our worship. I finished saying our joy centers around our Lord's one finished work, the sacrifice. Can you say that again? I'm sorry. Our joy centers around our Lord's one finished work, or the sacrifice. So our joy centers around the Lord. Uh huh.

And it's participation in Christ's blood and not the blood of animals. So it was a once and for all sacrifice rather than the perpetual sacrifice. You just kind of already said it, but the distinction was Israel's was sacrificed repetitively and ours is the one completed sacrifice of Christ. Mike has brought this out before, but I will bring it out again in this context.

When you go to the Catholic Church, what does the cross look like? Jesus is on it. He's still suffering. He's not quite done. Maybe it's a remembrance of what he did. But is he still on the cross? Or are we positionally in the heavens with him right now? Yeah, we are. And when we break the bread, it is a remembrance of what was done, but looking to the present, to what position that affords us. It would be easy to... Because what happens is if you look and Jesus is still suffering, What is the fleshly response to that? What's your emotional response in the flesh when you see that you made Jesus suffer? You're sad. Guilt? Sadness? And it isn't that we shouldn't have a sense of reverence for the work that Christ did on the cross, but it's simply that it went beyond that point.

When you're taking the bread and the... It was such a relief to me, I guess. to have it come out in that poem of the suffering servant in Isaiah when it said that when we make his soul an offering for sin he will see the travail of his soul and be satisfied and you know we were there was such a focus on the blood and the suffering and so forth in our church and I think that that we see that he is satisfied, that he is happy about what he did because we've become saved. There's a tendency I think for us to want to spend some time feeling sorry for our sins. or dwelling on, you know, and I think the Lord's idea is to, when we do sin, he wants to restore us to fellowship with him as quickly as possible. I remember I taught a class one time down in Parker, and I asked the ladies, and it was all ladies, and I said, ladies, does God forgive you quicker if you're more sorry for your sins than the person next to you? and half of them raised their hand and said yes.

God doesn't give a damn how sorry you are because that isn't why he forgave you. He forgave you because of what Christ did on the cross and he desires that we be in fellowship with him all the time and not spend any more time dealing with sin than is absolutely necessary. and when he restores us to fellowship, the fact that even in entertaining the thought that Jesus is still on the cross doing his work keeps your focus away from beholding him in the glory, because that's really who he is now. Set your mind on things above where Christ is seated in the heavens rather than set your mind on the and feel really sorry for it. When you do something that you're sorry about to another Christian, there's nothing wrong with going and asking their forgiveness, is there?

No, you should. Asking forgiveness is different than saying you're sorry. Because if you say you're sorry, it may or may not be believable. But if you say, will you forgive me? You've moved the ball to their court because you have now stood on the finished work of Christ and asked someone to forgive you for what you've done. And if they don't, it doesn't make any difference. Yeah. You see that? Yeah.

Because you have to be sorry almost before you ask forgiveness. I mean, you're going to feel sorry in order to ask forgiveness. Why am I forgiven? Why does Christ forgive me? He forgave me based solely on what he did on the cross. So if I'm forgiven, there's no reason why I wouldn't forgive somebody else. So when you say forgive me, it assumes that if there was any reciprocal forgiveness coming back this way, it's already been accepted before asked for. What I mean is you almost have to get to the place to be sorry to ask the person for forgiveness.

And you might just use the word convicted. There's a difference between guilt and conviction. When the spirit moves on you, he will convict you. And you will likely feel sorry. Guilt comes from a place of fleshly attitude towards something. Conviction comes from the Spirit that draws us back to fellowship. Guilt lets us dwell on it. We wallow in it for a little while.

Make sure that like a pig stuck in the mud, we got it all over. And then God will be really, He'll know I'm really sorry because I felt guilty long enough. As Mike pointed out. Whereas when the Spirit moves, He's going to convict you, you realize your sin, and then He moves you right, He restores you right back to fellowship. How much mud wallowing is involved with being instantly restored into fellowship? None.

And so anytime you find people wrestling with guilt, it's not resting in the finished work of Christ, is it? You can't worship from a place of guilt, can you? But you can from a place of restored fellowship due to conviction. What do you do when you're sorry? about something and the person's already dead. That doesn't, okay, if it is behind you. You know, but you still feel, you still feel guilty about it. Well, what you need to do is you fill out a check and send it to a televangelist. No, what do you do? You go to the Lord, you confess the situation to the Lord, if you feel the Spirit moves you to that, and then it's done, it's dealt with. If that person is a believer, they're in the heavenlies, the last thing on their mind is, oh, that rotten, stinking rain. The last thing on their mind is anything earthly. They're beholding the Lord face to face. That's pretty cool.

I don't think they care. Listen, I'm only 36, but I have a whole lengthy history of doing stupid things with my mouth or otherwise that I can feel guilty for. And sometimes my flesh wants to really make me feel really sorry for that, because apparently I need to be wallowing, right?

But that's not resting in who I am in Christ. It's not worshipping the Lord. It's not walking in the Spirit. So if anything comes as a distraction from that, what's our response to that call of distraction? Typically, I'm dead to it. We reckon ourselves dead and we say that's not my history.

My history is in Christ. I'm justified. I'm perfected. I'm seated in heavenlies. I'm a child. I'm called. I'm adopted. I mean all of the things that are true. We have the list of the 34 things or the 33 things that are true of the believer. Those things, we rest in those things, not self-pity, not wallowing in the would it, could it, should it. OK. OK. Straighten me out.

No, but this week has been just and it's the cause of what I'm learning here and then it's the cause of a book that I was asking, I don't know, my high school friend that I emailed with talking about Andrew Murray and then Mary says I have this book and I wrote it down and it's the holiest of all and through that and it's all about Hebrews and I, because last week I said well I can't picture being in the holy of holies and I was just off on the wrong track and so now I just understand that well I went to Christian bookstore used Christian bookstore and I said to the man that runs that he's a pastor and we were talking about the Lord's Prayer and I said well and that was written for the Jews and he said who told you that? come in here and said that and I said well I learned that at Hollywood. It's been a wonderful week.

But what happens is when you grow in your knowledge of what is already true of you in Christ the natural response is to want to worship him. The natural response isn't the wallowing in the guilt it's the in the fellowship and beholding the Lord. My dad when he talks about marriage, he was the first person I heard use the illustration, but he said his relationship with my mom is the living out in front of the rest of the world, the eternal romance of Christ in the church. When we grow in who we are in Christ, we suddenly realize that deep intimate relationship that we get to be part of, that is with the Lord. And that's moving. If that doesn't move you into a position of wanting to just worship Him, and as you learn that, that's really cool.

I'm not familiar with that book. Mike, are you familiar with that book? Is that book Safer? No, it's Andrew Murray, the holiest of all. And it's all about Hebrews. In fact, that's printed in the book. Were you guys here about 45 years ago? Huh? Was this church here 45 years ago? That's the way he knows. Yeah. I was here 45 years ago.

I sure wish I could have heard about you then. You know, from Helen, you know, feeling sorrow for somebody who's passed or whatever, you know, or even any of the sins. I was trying to remind people that if I sin tomorrow or if I sin today or if I sin yesterday, it is God done with that. position that even if you've done something wrong to somebody in the past who's gone to be with the Lord, it still goes back to the, you know, the first John confessed, it's not who I was, I wasn't acting as I should be in Christ. And understand that and then back to fellowship. But all of the sins have been taken care of. Tomorrow if you sin, today if you sin, Just saying, yeah, that's not who I am in Christ.

And it's the flesh that gets the sorrow, the guilt, all these things. And when you start realizing, it's the flesh that's the one that's making you feel guilty. Because every sin that you've done, past, present, and future, has been paid for and taken care of. And the longer we wallow in that is wallowing in the flesh.

And we're missing out on the fellowship with the Lord, rather than my wicked, terrible self and how bad I am. The sooner we get to the point where, yeah, that's not who I am as Christ. I was an idiot yesterday, and that's not who I am as Christ, done. Because our sin is already paid for, that's the thing. And no matter how little or how great, it's already paid for.

And it's the flesh that wants to keep reminding you about that. And, you know, when we get to the fellowship of, you know, yeah, he's done with it, why am I messing with it? And so to somebody who in the past I've done something, who's been gone with the Lord, like I said, I don't think they really care about it right now. And why am I still in it?

So, I mean, I just, in any of those things, if I, you know, I sin and it breaks fellowship and there are consequences. If I do something really stupid, if I shoot somebody, I can't just say, oh, forget it, Lord, you know, I'm, you know, I may still get picked up and thrown in jail and executed or whatever. There may be consequences, but that sin is already paid for. Done. You know, today, tomorrow, any day. And it's the flesh that dwells on that. Yeah. Monique?

Well, you know, I think it's human nature because I was a nut when I was a young kid and I think back and I think when I'm raking out in the garden, I think, what the heck was wrong with me? How could I have ever done this? Not that I'm asking God to forgive me because he did, but I think sometimes we just think about it and I'm thinking, God, I was nuts. Are you stealing newspapers again?

No. But the thing is that we need to recognize when our mind waters to those things where we have a sense of guilt, There's a reason why it's written that we should take every thought captive. Because our mind can stray to all kinds of things that are not true. Let's just put it this way, when Satan went to Eden the garden, what was his tactic? It was to distract her about what was true and start to question the things that were true. So when something comes into our mind, and trust me, I have an overactive imagination. This happens to me on a regular basis.

We take into account, is this true? Is the thing I'm feeling guilty about true in light of who I am in Christ? Is it dealt with? Is it not dealt with? Should I feel sorry about it for longer? Should I feel sorry about it with more intensity? Do I need to, you know, go light some candles and say certain prayers X number of times and confess it to somebody? No, it's already dealt with. Who am I in Christ? And resting and reckoning.

See, that's where I see the distraction of the flesh in all that is that If I'm worried about all the things I did, that's the flesh bringing you back to who you were when you say you're old, you know, for what you said, my human nature. Well, the human nature is flesh.

And ours is, you know, I think that keeps us from entering the holiest of holies. And that's what the flesh is trying to do. Trying to remind us of all those stupid things we do. So we're not really worthy enough to go into the holy of holies. The flesh is always trying to distract us And I think when you start realizing that, that helps in the growth and the intimacy and your time with the Lord, is you start realizing, that's the flesh when I'm thinking about all those stupid things I did. You start realizing, that's the flesh. And it attracts you, well, am I really worthy to go into the Holy of Holies if I'm kind of that schmuck? And the flesh is trying to tear us down and get us away from the Holy of Holies. that intimacy that we can have with the Lord.

And you start recognizing that that's who is the one reminding you of all those bad things that you did or guilt and sorrow and all these things that kind of knock us down. We should be in the Holy of Holies and that we are there and we are able to be there and God recognizes there by the finished work of Christ on the cross.

That's who we are in Christ. Mike wants to read something. After last week's class, I read the Hungry Hearts every day. The one from Monday last week was really appropriate. It said, we are to settle down to live and grow precisely where we have been reborn in Christ above.

Do we not often harbor the thought that something yet remains to be done either by ourselves or by him in order to draw our drawing near? Do we not often thus become occupied with the circumstantials of worship rather than the Lord Jesus, the substance? Are we not often false to him in questioning our title to draw near because we find distance in our own hearts as if it were the warmth of our affections instead of the blood of the Lord Jesus which brought us near? Our being perfectly cleansed by the blood of the Lord Jesus, the holiest of all, is our place before the Father and it is so simply upon the ground of what his sacrifice has effected, our dwelling places and the like, not by reason of our subjective condition, but because the Lord Jesus has made the position ours by putting away our sins and by bringing us to the Father.

The heart must enter into something more than the look behind into those waters of judgment out of which the Lord Jesus rose, having left our sins and death and judgment forever. Such a joy would never carry us through the desert where faith and patience are tried and tested every day.

It needs that the heart be carried into the glory of Canaan beyond in the present sense of peace with the father and the consciousness of standing in his presence, his present favor, the favor that is better than life. And that is actually pretty much a longer statement of what Rideout says when he talks about the material worship. It's focusing on the Lord. He puts it this way.

The Lord's Supper is not the means of grace we should selfishly make of it, though most blessedly does it ripen and mature the Christian character when rightly entered into it. Nor is it in any sense the sacrifice ritualism would make of it. It is the only feast of Christianity. We have set before us the emblems of our Lord's death. As we recall that death, we have Him before us, His person, His love, His grace, and all the infinite fullness of Himself.

It's the same principle. Hey, there's more than two guys that get it. Yeah, cool. I hope I can eventually add myself to that list in a complete capacity. So when we look at this, what is our material for worship? We summarize this all back down, focusing on the question. The Word. The Word. Okay, and it's looking at who Christ is, generally through His Word, and worshiping Him, and recognizing that our worship is centered around Christ, and who He is, and what He's done.

The next question we have here is, when should we be together to worship? And Rite Out has a specific answer, but I think this is an area where we disagree a little bit. What does Rite Out say? Well, I'll ask that first, and then let's talk about what scripture says.

The first day of the week. The first day of the week. And it's gathered around the Lord's table is what Rite Out says. So communion every Sunday. Based on what Courtney said, actually, earlier out of Acts, how often should we be breaking bread together and worshipping the Lord? Within the body, not necessarily corporately with every single person in the presence. Continually. Maybe it's lunch break, maybe it's dinner with family, maybe it's when you have fellowship with other brothers and sisters in the Lord, or you have a Bible study, but it's continually. We can worship the Lord all the time, huh? It's not just ritual at one location, because of who we are in Christ, it can be just constantly, as brothers and sisters, So again, consider that communion at home. Let's do the last question so that next week we can start with another lesson. Would and should the Holy Spirit lead our worship?

Yes, absolutely. Nobody disagrees? Good, because I'd hate to have to say no, no, you're wrong. It's interesting that right out says, let us more ever seek the Lord's mind as to these things. I think it's important that we do that very thing, that we go to him and say, you know, I seek your mind and how this worship goes, how it would be and how would you want me involved in expecting him to teach us and show us and lead us. Yes we will. I participate in various capacities with worship in the musical side of things at Holly Hills. But it is my prayer that the world would grow and develop that in this body as a whole.

Because it's not about a certain method or a certain style or a certain setup. Again, ritual or those kinds of things. It's about the spirit working in the body. And I'm excited. I think this class has been great. I'm excited to see how the spirit, as we learn these things, applies his truth in the life of the Holy Hills. For us it's a bond. Whether it's in worship or in other capacities. It's really cool. Yeah, I think that's one thing that we've all noticed as we've come to this church was the fact that there isn't all this dissension.

I mean, everything seems to gel and go together. It has to be the Holy Spirit working. I mean, for the first time I think a church is really on the right track I have to say that I have loved that at Holly Hills the elders, you know Mike and my dad and when Hal was alive, Hal would participate in the same attitude of God is growing this body and it's constantly in need of the Holy Spirit directing it.

They're never done. Until a rapture happens, there's growth. There's change. There's new people that are coming. There's people that stop coming sometimes. Sometimes people have to be asked to address doctrinal things and then they stop coming. There's all kinds of things that have happened over time.

And yet, if the Spirit is leading us as a body, I can't wait to see how He grows us. I can't wait. to see what he does and of course I pray that the rapture would happen and that we'd have to stop wandering. But it's really neat to see the spirit working in the body. I mean we're just about done here.

Any other thoughts and questions? Things you wish I hadn't said? Well you know in so many churches there is always this thing about music as you were just talking about you know and I don't find that here. I mean I think old people like, whatever you're offering, and vice versa.

There didn't seem to be a division in the music. Which is good. The funny thing about music is that it's very subjective. But, as several things that came out of this lesson, if you know that you are to go before the Lord and worship in the heavenlies, How much energy is required to be really concentrating on the musical styling and seeing if it really tickles your musical senses? And Frank just said it, none.

I love music. I'm a musician. I play music. I've played music for a long time, since I was 15. I've been asking for a recording studio, and my parents still haven't gotten me one. My mom's in the back of the room, so I'm just joking. But all of that doesn't matter. If you were a missionary and you went out and you could bring a few simple Christian songs to another nation and you're out in a small tribe and they don't have the musical technique that we have. Can they worship the Lord? Yes. Can they boldly go to heaven? Yes. And that is the thing for For me, my heart and my prayer for this body as I participate in the worship has been, Lord set their minds on things above.

Because then I don't matter, then the piano being in tune doesn't matter, then the guitar string breaking doesn't matter, the bad notes that come out of this vocal that I have, they don't matter. Because he matters. And that's really cool. Alright, you brought up music. I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord.

No tender voice like thine can I afford. What does that mean, afford? No tender voice like thine can I afford. Can peace afford? Okay, I don't know. I won't pretend to fully understand that hymn, so I'm not sure that I can answer that, but I always also look at hymns as being written by humans, and sometimes poetry gets in the way. Even if it is, can peace afford? What does afford mean? I know we have to go. Let's get a hymnal out after we close and then we'll take a look and see what it says.

We'll close in prayer and you know we can keep discussing. 30 seconds, one second. The one thing is just what Nita was saying and I think about this a lot when we get lost in the forest through the trees. When we get to, we've already gotten this point in worship. conviction.

He's the one who takes our prayers. He's the one. And look back at all the things that the Holy Spirit is doing and then apply it to where we are now, walking us through to where worship is. Just go back through, you know, all that we've learned and start thinking about how we worship now. He's the one who convicts. He's the one who's indwelling. He's the one who teaches. He's the one who takes our prayers. He's the one, you know, who brings the music. He's the one And so you start looking back. We're kind of in the forest and we're looking at one tree. Look back at all the ones we've gone through and see where we get to where we can worship. And why? Because of the Holy Spirit. Alright, let's close in prayer. And then we'll probably still keep talking, right?

And you'll just miss it on the recording. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would just focus our hearts and minds on things above as we apply the things that your Spirit would direct our attentions. We just pray for the various prayer requests from earlier, and we lift those up to you. We thank you that you have a plan on those things. And Lord, I just pray that as we go upstairs and we do worship you in a musical form, that our mind and focus will boldly be gone before the throne, rather than being distracted by notes and tones, and that we would just lift you up in our lives. We thank you, we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.