The title of this event is Extraordinary, the Weekly Gathering of the Local Church.
! And I don't know if when you saw that title, if you saw that title, you thought, yeah, he doesn't know my church.
Like, it's anything but extraordinary.
Like, maybe if you really, really ordinary, the weekly gathering of my church.
Or subordinary, the weekly gathering.
And what we hope through our time together is to see you return with fresh faith to your local congregation.
Because as you may have guessed, the Christian life is not about conferences.
It's not about events.
It's about what Jesus is building, which is the local church.
So whenever we do something, Sovereign Grace Music does something, we're always very aware that whatever we receive here is meant to serve you in your local context.
Tonight, I'm going to talk about what really matters in our gatherings.
And this is not a text message.
Only one of the messages I'm going to give is taken from a text.
I prefer to preach from a text, but this is a kind of a workshop-ish event.
And so we want to do the best, do all we can to make this a time where you go home with practical, specific tools that will serve you in your congregation.
So as you seek to serve your church.
So it begins with asking the question, like, what's most important about what we do?
I would imagine even in a group this size, we have a lot of different backgrounds.
You know, if you put our Sunday meetings next to each other and compare them, there'd be some real differences.
And that's been true throughout history.
You know, you have similarities and you have, sorry, differences.
You have formal and informal meetings.
You have word-oriented and sacrament-oriented meetings.
You have planned and spontaneous meetings.
You know, meetings that excel at planning and then meetings that just really love it when everything's by the seat of our pants.
Sovereign Grace has its own little history.
It's a liturgical history.
We began in the 1970s.
We were born out of the Jesus movement.
So if you've seen Jesus' revolution, that's us.
I mean, we were that era.
That was my era.
I got saved in 1972.
And they got it right.
All that stuff was happening.
And it was a crazy, crazy time.
So our meetings at that time looked like a lot of singing.
You'd have some people sharing some prophetic words and then preaching.
That was the liturgy.
And, you know, it worked.
People kept coming back.
And we thought, this is great.
Then we started reading our Bibles.
And started studying what the church had done for centuries.
And realized that not everything we were doing was helpful.
I mean, a lot of it was.
People did keep coming back.
People's lives were changed.
Not everything we did was wise.
And not everything we did was biblical.
So we started thinking about it more.
And trying to discern what's really important.
Now, when you read your Bible, you realize God doesn't give us this specific meeting structure.
Some people act as though he did, but he didn't.
You can't find it in the Bible where, you know, there's one way of doing things.
But there are better ways of doing things.
And generally, a meeting that you've thought about will go better than a meeting that you haven't thought about.
Generally speaking.
So here's the question we're going to seek to answer in this little time.
What are the, some questions.
What are the closed-hand, open-hand issues when it comes to our weekly gatherings?
Like, what should we have real convictions about?
And what things should we kind of lose or wrong?
Doesn't mean we can't have preferences and desires.
But what are the most important things?
What can help us plan?
What's biblical?
What's cultural?
What's context?
That's a good way of defining it.
Or separating the categories out.
What's biblical?
What's cultural?
What's context?
And we're going to seek to address those questions.
And rather than laying out a specific practice that you should follow,
what we're going to do is consider five values that should inform and direct the choices and decisions we make about our gatherings.
Now, you may not be in the position of making those decisions.
But that's okay.
Even if you aren't the one who makes the decisions,
you want to have these values in mind as you participate in your gathering.
Each of the five values has two priorities.
The first is an indicative value.
In other words, it's something that just is true about our gatherings.
So each value, there's something that this is the way God set it up.
The second value is something that we pursue as response to that first priority, that first value.
So here we go.
The first one shouldn't surprise you is God.
Our gatherings are God initiated and they're meant to be God exalting.
So there you have the indicative and the, not the imperative, but the fruit of that.
The indicative, what's true?
Our meetings are God initiated.
What should that mean for us?
We should seek to exalt God in them.
When we think of worship, as I mentioned in the call of worship, we usually start with ourselves.
I mean, it's sad, but we usually do.
You know, we're singing, we're praying, we're lifting our hands maybe.
We organize things, we read scripture.
You know, we're doing all this stuff.
But when God presents worship to us, it doesn't start with us.
He starts with him.
Because God is the one who initiates our worship.
He starts it.
He's the one who tells us what it should be like.
And we see that throughout history, throughout scripture.
God put Adam and Eve in the garden and said, I want this perfect relationship with you where you submit to me and you enjoy my presence and you will know the fullness of my love for you.
And Adam and Eve said, no.
No, thanks.
We can figure this out on our own.
You've got most of it right, God.
But in the issue of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we think this will be better for us.
And obviously it wasn't.
So who comes running?
Who comes after Adam and Eve after they sin?
Well, God does.
Adam, where are you?
It's God who, after the flood, establishes a covenant with Noah.
It's God who reveals himself to Abraham in the fields of Hebron.
It's God who gets Moses' attention through a burning bush that's not being consumed by the fire.
It's God who calls his people together at Mount Sinai to reveal his laws.
It's God who speaks to the prophets through the kings.
It's God who sent his son to redeem us.
It's God who sent his Holy Spirit so that we might know his love and be transformed by it.
God's done all this.
He's always the one who takes the initiative in our relationship with him.
I don't know how you came to the Lord, but when I look back on how I came to the Lord in 1972,
I think I did absolutely nothing.
Nothing.
I was raised Roman Catholic.
I was going to become a priest.
Went to a junior seminary in freshman high school.
It closed down at the end of that year.
Hopefully there wasn't any connection.
This is the kind of guys we're getting.
We're shutting this thing down.
I stayed.
Went to high school.
Freshman year in college.
I thought I was in.
I thought I was going.
And a guy from Campus Crusade, which is not crew, knocked on my door, kept knocking and said,
Hey, I want to get with you.
I want to get with you.
And I said, No, I'm good.
I'm good.
And finally I got with him.
And then there in the student building of Temple University, the fall of 1972, he explained to me how there was nothing that I could do to ensure that I would see God after I died.
And that he would welcome me into his presence.
That only what Jesus did was sufficient for that.
I wasn't looking for that.
God did all that.
And that's how he is.
That's what our relationship with him is like.
When Jesus sat down with the woman at the well.
John 4.23.
She says, The hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
For the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
He's coming after us.
We don't gather as a result of our own desires or planning or impulses.
We gather because God wants us to behold his glory and to be transformed by it.
That's why we gather.
He's initiated our relationship with him and he calls us to gather in his presence.
For what purpose?
To exalt him.
To make much of him.
So David says in Psalm 34.
I will bless the Lord at all times.
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the Lord.
Oh magnify the Lord with me.
Let the humble hear him be glad.
Oh magnify the Lord with me.
And let us exalt his name together.
Let's go after this together.
He doesn't want to do it just by himself.
He's found something so good, so amazing.
He says, let's do this.
Let's exalt God together.
That means when we are meeting, we're not gathering just to talk about God.
We're not just gathering simply to consider him or to share our feelings about him or to share our thoughts about him, to philosophize about him, or share our opinions about him.
We are gathering to exalt him.
We are gathering to exalt him, to magnify him in our minds and in our hearts and in our lives.
He is a specific God, not some vague deity, a God that we make up, a God of our own choosing, made in our own image.
We're exalting the triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit who rules history, the nations, and our hearts.
We lived in Philadelphia for 10 years, and I loved it.
We didn't end up in the city, but I love every time I'm in a city, just looking at the diversity of people.
We live in Louisville.
It's not quite as diverse as Boston.
We live in, I mean, Boston is a city where you just, different kinds of people everywhere.
And you know what I like to think when I'm looking at that?
Jesus is Lord of every one of them.
There's no one that he is not Lord of.
And I want them to know it.
I want him to be exalted because he is a certain way and not other ways.
And I want people to know him.
Ephesians 2.18 says, for through him, through Jesus,
we both have access in one spirit to the Father.
There is a God that we know who's not a single person God.
He's a tripersonal God, which is amazing because that means he loved,
he existed in love before anything existed.
And now he wants us to know that love.
He invites us into it.
So we exalt him for it.
And that exaltation one day will be universal.
Psalm 150, verse 6, let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Why?
Romans 11.36, for from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever.
Amen.
We read verses like that sometimes.
Just kind of read over them and just go, yeah, that's great.
Yeah, from him and through him.
That's earth shattering.
That should cause us to shake in our boots that we know this God.
So what I'm going to do for each of these points is draw some implications from it for our meetings.
If our meetings are God initiated and they're meant to be God exalting, what does that mean?
Well, although God is invisible, he's spirit, we can't see him.
He's to be clearly perceived in our meetings.
He's to be clearly preeminent and honored and heard and treasured.
There is a God that we have a relationship with that we love and we want to see exalted.
So people should get that.
We should get that.
It's not just a meeting.
We are exalting God himself.
We don't have to feel the burden of performance or production.
Meetings shouldn't burn us out.
If God initiated this, if he's the one supplying all the strength and all the ability and all the desire and everything that we need,
and our part is just to exalt him,
that means the success of the meeting isn't ultimately dependent on what we do.
It's dependent on what God has done, what he is doing, and what he will do.
And we are gathering to marvel at and to live in the good of the God who has called us to gather into his presence.
It's so unburdening.
Three, no one should be impressed with our plans and preparation and production as much as they are with God's word and worthiness and works.
Say that again.
No one should be more impressed with our plans and preparation and production than they are with God's word, his worthiness, and his works.
The most important thing about our gathering is not our creativity.
It's not our originality.
It's not our innovation.
The most important thing about our gathering is our listening and faithfulness and bearing witness to who God is and what he's done and what he's said.
That's what we're called to do.
That's what we're called to exalt.
And then our gatherings are to be innately and expressly Trinitarian.
Trinitarian.
We come to the Father through the Son in the power of the Spirit.
We address Jesus as our brother and friend and King and Savior.
We address God the Father as the architect of the plan of salvation.
Although God, the triune God, has conceived of salvation, God the Father in the Bible is described as the one from whom all things originate.
Through Jesus in the power of his Spirit.
But we think about these things and it just makes God more glorious.
So that's part of what it means to exalt him.
But we can't spend any more time on that.
Second value.
Scripture.
What a surprise.
Our gatherings are Scripture governed.
The Word of God rules over, governs our gatherings.
And they're meant to be Scripture fueled.
They're meant to be Scripture fueled.
When people attend a concert of their favorite musician or band, they express their devotion in various ways.
They might bring a poster.
They might dress like them.
Or they might go crazy on social media.
They'll sing along with them.
Or they might shout or dance or try to touch them.
They'll do anything short of destroying property.
Well, sometimes even that happens.
But they're kind of free to do what they want to show their adulation of the musicians.
God's not like that.
He's not a rock star.
He's God.
So he's the one who gets to define what's appropriate and right and pleasing to him.
We can't say, well, God, I'm just being really sincere in what I'm doing.
Sincerity is not enough to make it pleasing to God.
It has to be what he has told us to do.
Saying, I worship God in my own way, on the golf course, by silent meditation, by waving flags.
That's how I do it.
That's not enough.
We're to worship God the way he has told us to.
So how do we know what constitutes God-pleasing worship?
Well, he tells us.
That's why he's given us his word.
A man named Herbert Bateman IV, in his book Authentic Worship, says this.
From the beginning, all records of worship, whether erecting altars or performing circumcision,
always express a response of submission, obedience, and trust in God's verbal statement of relationship,
his word.
So we see throughout the Bible that when people aren't submitted to, obedient to, and trusting in God's verbal statement of relationship,
his word, things don't go very well.
Adam and Eve didn't trust God's word.
Things didn't go very well.
Satan said, did God actually say?
Started to question his word.
In Genesis 4, God has regards for Abel's offering of worship, but not Cain's.
Something about Cain's offering wasn't in line with what God wanted him to do.
In the second commandment, God prohibits worship through images, which the Israelites rejected as they danced before the golden calf in Exodus 32.
Didn't go well for them.
Leviticus 10, Nadab and Abihu offer up strange fire, which we're not quite sure what that was, but God didn't authorize it, and God struck them dead.
This is serious.
In the New Testament, Jesus speaks of the authority of God's word in our worship when he quotes Isaiah 29.
This is in Matthew 15, 8 and 9.
This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
In vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.
Does that mean traditions are bad, like commandments of men?
No.
Traditions can be helpful.
But when traditions contradict, ignore, or minimize what God has clearly directed us to do in Scripture,
then they end up becoming idols.
And there are a lot of churches that started on a good path, seeking to obey God's word,
but those practices became mere traditions that weren't rooted in God's word,
and then have no life in them.
God cares about how we worship him.
And he governs our worship by his word.
And so that means his word is to fuel what we do when we gather.
Throughout history, God has maintained his relationship with us,
not merely through experiences or visions,
but through his word.
One of my favorite examples of this is in Exodus 33 and 34,
when Moses asks God to show him his glory.
And God says,
I'll cause my goodness to pass before your eyes.
So then in Exodus 34, we see what God does.
He says,
The Lord passed before him
and proclaimed.
The Lord.
A God.
Merciful and gracious.
Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
Keeping steadfast love for thousands.
Forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.
But who will by no means clear the guilty,
visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children
and the children's children
to the third and the fourth generation.
This is right after Israel had danced before the golden cow.
What did God want Moses to see?
He wanted him to see who he was.
How did he show him who he was?
By speaking to him.
And you can't imagine,
we can't imagine how
assuring those words were to hear.
I am the Lord, the Lord of God.
Merciful.
And gracious.
2 Timothy 4.2
We're commanded to preach the word.
Be ready in season and out of season.
Reprove, rebuke, and exhort
with complete patience and teaching.
In other words,
this is to continue
in our relationship with the Lord.
Hebrews 2.1
tells us we need
constant reminders of God's word.
Therefore, we must pay
much closer attention to what we have heard
lest we drift away from it.
It is so important
that we not build our gatherings
around our traditions,
our preferences,
things that seem to be working,
but around what God has actually said.
And then we do that in a way
that stirs people's hearts.
That causes them to treasure God's word
and not despise it.
And not ignore it.
Colossians 3.16 says
that it is the word of Christ
that is to dwell in us richly
as we sing psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs
with thankfulness in our hearts to God.
So, what are some of the implications
of a meeting that is Scripture-governed
and Scripture-fueled?
Well, one,
we should maximize in our gatherings
what is mandated or implied by Scripture
and minimize what isn't.
So, some of you are probably familiar
with the regulative principle,
which is in this camp,
in this area.
The problem with the regulative principle,
which says that we don't do anything
in our gathered worship,
apart from what God has commanded
or inferred,
is that it leaves a lot of space
for, like, wisdom issues.
And so, I won't go any more on that.
So, yes to preaching.
Yes to praying.
Huh?
When we're together.
Yes to congregational singing.
Praying is one of the things
that we realize we weren't doing
when we gathered together
in Sovereign Grace.
We prayed sometimes,
but it wasn't a conviction.
Like, yeah, we're to pray together.
That's something we're supposed to do.
Yes to spiritual gifts.
All of them, I would say,
as a continuationist.
The Lord's Supper.
Greeting.
Reading Scripture.
No to performances.
Movie clips.
Painting.
And other things.
Musical hype.
We want to maximize
what God has told us to do.
Minimize everything else.
Two, we're to sing the Bible.
Pray the Bible.
Read the Bible.
Preach the Bible.
See the Bible.
One of the things we changed
when we planted a church
13 years ago
in Louisville, Kentucky
was to begin in our ending
and our meetings
with the Word of God.
We've never done that before.
But wow,
what a difference it makes
when you tell people,
hey, God's calling us together.
God's sending us out.
I used to connect the,
I used to plan the meeting
with just picking songs.
You know, I'd pick five songs.
And there you go.
I've planned the meeting.
I've done my part.
Now, when we do our planning,
we don't even pick the first song
until we've got the call to worship.
Because that song
is coming out of that call to worship.
And we want that to make sense.
We want there to be progression.
So another part of having your people
see that the Scripture's fueling the meeting
is by explaining things theologically,
which I'm going to do a whole session
on that tomorrow,
on transitions.
So I'm not going to spend time on it here.
Three, preach expositionally.
Say what the Bible says
and the way God said it.
Obviously, that's one way
the Bible fuels our meetings.
Four, seek to move people
more by the word than by music.
Music is a very powerful emotional motivator.
It affects our emotions.
The word of God
is meant to affect our emotions.
This is why when we started tonight,
you know, we just read the Bible.
We didn't have to have.
Is this a song?
Just want to welcome everybody tonight.
Thank you so much for coming.
Just help your souls at peace this morning.
It's an end.
You know, music can communicate emotions,
but a lot of times it can be manipulative.
And we can start to think that
really, unless music's playing under the Scripture,
it's not that good.
Don't let your people think that.
The word of God stands on its own.
Is it wrong to play music under Scripture?
No.
Is it needed?
No.
Let's put the emphasis in the right place.
Number five, evaluate responses,
people's responses,
more by Scripture than your culture.
So I've been all around the world
and seen different congregations
respond in different ways.
I put this as a mixed crowd right here
from what I observed earlier.
Some of you are just ready to let it all out!
And others are like,
who's this person around me?
A little nervous about what they're going to do.
And I would say,
we want to let our responses
be evaluated by Scripture
and not our culture.
It was up in the Northwest years ago.
It was in the early 2000s,
and it was a hip culture.
Maybe it still is.
Hip, cool culture.
So this particular church
was really hip and cool.
And I was talking to them about,
you know,
people don't seem to be very happy.
Well, yeah, it's just the culture.
Well, you know,
you know,
I don't think our culture tells us
how to respond.
I think it's the Word of God.
So I picked this passage
in Nehemiah 8, 5 and 6,
because I think it's so instructive
as to what affects us.
Ezra opened the book
in the sight of all the people,
for he was above all the people.
And as he opened it,
all the people stood.
Well, there's a response.
And Ezra blessed the Lord,
the great God,
and all the people answered,
Amen, Amen.
Lifting up their hands.
There's nothing about music there.
And they bowed their heads
and worshiped the Lord
with their faces to the ground.
Just showing reverence for God's Word.
I mean, there are other passages
that we could look at,
but let's let the Word of God
evaluate our responses
rather than our culture.
All right, number three.
The gospel.
So we've got God,
we've got Scripture,
and now we've got the gospel.
Our gatherings are gospel-grounded
and meant to be gospel-driven.
So this is,
oh, it's just,
you know,
gospel-centeredness
in some phases,
some areas of the church,
you know,
is popular at times.
You know, gospel-centeredness,
gospel-centeredness.
You know what?
To God,
the gospel's always popular.
It's always popular.
Throughout Scripture,
God has called His people together
to celebrate His acts
of deliverance and salvation.
Psalm 96, verses 1 and 2.
Oh, sing to the Lord a new song.
Sing to the Lord,
all the earth.
Sing to the Lord,
bless His name.
Tell of His salvation
from day to day.
So for the Israelites,
that meant when they gathered,
they were to thank God for,
sing about,
and remember the way
God had delivered them
from the bondage of Egypt
and brought them
into the promised land.
That was huge.
And then after the exile,
they celebrated God
delivering them from Babylon
and restoring them
to the promised land.
For Christians,
we have something greater
to celebrate
that those things pointed to.
It means that our fellowship
with God is grounded
in Him reconciling us
to Himself
and assuring us
of His eternal purposes
for us
and for creation.
So 1 Peter 3.18 says,
For Christ also suffered
for sins,
the righteous
for the unrighteous,
that He might bring us
to God.
If Jesus,
through His substitutionary
sacrifice on the cross,
did not bring us to God,
we would have no ability
to approach Him.
It would be impossible.
We have no expectation
that He should hear us
or bless us
or draw near to us.
But because of the gospel,
we can draw near
to the living God.
There's a passage in Hebrews 10
where after chapters and chapters
of explaining why Jesus
is a better high priest
of a better covenant,
a better mediator,
offering better sacrifices
and saying He can do
what the old priest
couldn't do.
The old priest
could just go
into the Holy of Holies
once a year,
bearing the sins
of the people.
No one else
was ever allowed in there.
Ever.
And so in verse 19
of chapter 10,
after He's shown clearly
that Jesus
is a greater high priest,
He said,
therefore, brothers,
since we have confidence
to enter the holy places
by the blood of Jesus,
by the new and living way
that He opened for us
through the curtain,
that is,
His flesh,
and since we have
a great priest
over the house of God,
let us draw near.
He says,
come on.
Before it was,
don't draw near,
don't draw near.
Now in Jesus,
draw near,
let us draw near
with a true heart
in full assurance
of faith
with 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.
Why?
Because He promised
His faithful.
It's the best news.
That's the gospel
that grounds us.
That's what our meetings
are grounded in.
Paul didn't hesitate
to remind those
who was writing to
of the gospel.
1 Corinthians 15.1,
I would remind you,
brothers,
of the gospel
I preached to you
which you received
in which you stand.
He goes on to say
it's of first importance.
Colossians 2, 6, and 7.
Therefore,
as you have received
Christ Jesus the Lord,
so walk in Him,
rooted and built up in Him,
and established in the faith
just as you were taught.
In other words,
keep doing this.
Keep doing this.
Don't go somewhere else.
Don't think there's something
better to give people
than the gospel.
David Pryor
in his 1 Corinthians commentary
says,
we never move on
from the cross
only to a deeper
understanding of the cross.
It's amazing.
So that means
the gospel should drive
our meetings.
You could say
the gospel should fuel
our meetings,
but we had to pick
another word.
So it drives our meetings.
Sometimes that's
through the structure.
You know,
some churches are built
around a gospel ark
where you start
with the adoration of God,
then the acknowledgement
that we are not like God,
that we have sinned,
so we acknowledge our sin,
but then there's
the assurance of pardon,
that God has done something
for us in Christ,
and then a response
of thanksgiving,
giving and hearing His word
and communion.
That's one way
of doing that.
But there are other ways
of doing it.
Just making sure
that people understand
when we gather,
hey, you know what?
Apart from Jesus Christ,
we're all in a lot of trouble.
Just never forget that.
Never forget that.
Apart from what Christ has done,
we are all damned
in hell for eternity.
But because of what
Jesus Christ has done,
we get to enjoy pleasures
as His right hand
forevermore.
Forever.
That's amazing good news.
The gospel is the power of God,
he says in Romans 1, 16.
That means technologies,
technologies,
techniques,
and good transitions
can never replace the gospel,
which alone
is the power of God.
That's why we sing
songs like we sang earlier.
When Satan tempts me
to despair
and tells me
of the guilt within.
Has that ever happened to you?
Have you ever felt
despairing of your sins?
Well, here's what you do.
Upward I look
and see Him there
who made an end
of all my sin.
What?
What do you mean
He made an end
of all my sin?
Well, here's what happened.
Because the sinless
Savior died.
Okay, He's sinless.
My sinful soul
is counted free.
Well, what, what, what?
Free from what?
Well, free from the
penalty of sin,
free from the power of sin,
one day free from
the presence of sin.
Well, how did He do that?
Well, for God the just
is satisfied
to look on Him.
Pardon me.
And pardon me.
It's no news like it.
That's how we come.
That's how we can come.
That's why I celebrate
the Lord's Supper.
We proclaim His death
until He comes.
So, what are some
of the implications
of a meeting
that's gospel-grounded
and gospel-driven?
Our songs and prayers
and preaching
are meant to be
gospel-exalting
and expanding,
not drawing attention
to something else,
not unclear,
not vague.
They are pointing
to Jesus Christ,
who He is,
and what He's done.
Two, we emphasize
what God has done
over what we have to do.
In other words,
the indicative
of the imperative.
People shouldn't leave
our meetings every Sunday
with a lot of shoulds
and a lot of musts.
They should leave with,
I can't believe it,
and a lot of get-tos
and want-tos.
That's what a gospel-driven
meeting will produce.
Three,
the gospel should,
we should be aware
of the gospel
in terms of the structure
of our meetings.
There's a story we're telling.
We'll talk about that tomorrow.
We should regularly observe
the Lord's Supper
and baptism.
And then,
another effect is
diversity is seen
more as a fruit
than a pursuit.
If our meetings
are gospel-ground
and gospel-driven,
we will see people
of different ethnicities,
age brackets,
financial states,
educational backgrounds,
we'll see different kinds
of people coming.
Why?
Because we're gathering
around what unites us,
and that is Jesus Christ.
All right,
fourth value.
And these will,
and then we'll sing
another song.
Spirit.
Our gatherings
are spirit-empowered
and meant to be
spirit-dependent.
Our gatherings
are spirit-empowered
and meant to be
spirit-dependent.
Just as God initiates
our worship,
he empowers it
by his spirit.
Thinking back again
to Jesus
and the woman
at the well,
he assured her
that whoever drank
of the living water
he offered
would never thirst again.
A few chapters later,
he says that
whoever believes in him
out of his heart
will flow rivers
of living water.
And John says
in John 7, 38,
now this he said
about the spirit
whom those
who believed in him
were to receive
for as yet the spirit
had not been given
because Jesus
was not yet glorified.
So when Jesus said,
the father is seeking
those who worship him
in spirit and truth,
he's saying
we can't worship God
apart from
the spirit of God.
So everything
we experienced
in the meeting
is empowered
by the spirit of God.
Anything good
of lasting value,
it's empowered
by the spirit of God.
Do we believe that?
It's not empowered
by our incredible planning
and ingenuity.
It's empowered
by the spirit of God.
That's what Paul says
in 1 Corinthians 12, 11.
All these are empowered
by one and the same spirit
who apportions
to each one
individually
as he wills.
Because our gatherings
are spirit-empowered,
our worship of God
is lifeless,
insufficient,
and unable
to bring fruit
apart from
the spirit's work.
It's the spirit
who brought
our dead spirits
to life
through the life,
death,
and resurrection
of Jesus
according to the plan
of the Father.
And he empowers
what we do
when we gather.
Now if we're aware
of that,
that will make us
spirit-dependent.
Which means
that Paul says
in Philippians 3,
verse 3,
for we are the circumcision
who worship
by the spirit
of God,
there it is,
worship by the spirit
of God,
and glory in Christ
Jesus
and put no confidence
in the flesh.
Put no confidence
in the flesh.
What does it mean
to be dependent
on the spirit?
Not putting confidence
in what we're going
to do
to impress
the people
who come
or to inspire
the people
who come.
We can't do that.
The spirit can.
And we want
to be depending
on him
to do that.
The spirit works
in a surprising
number of ways.
Paul lists
in 1 Corinthians 12,
verse 4 through 6.
He doesn't listen,
but he says,
there are varieties
of gifts,
but the same spirit.
There are varieties
of service,
but the same Lord.
There are varieties
of activities,
but it is the same God
who empowers them all
and everyone.
In other words,
every aspect of our meeting,
we are depending
on the Holy Spirit
for it to bring fruit.
This is extremely important
what happens
behind a pulpit.
It's just not the only thing
going on in the meeting.
And the spirit's empowering
everything else
that's going on
and we want to ask
for the spirit's help
in those things.
Our singing,
just like it's to be filled
with the word of Christ,
our singing is to be characterized
by the spirit's work.
Ephesians 5, 18,
do not get drunk with wine
for that is debauchery,
but be filled
with the spirit,
addressing one another
in psalms and hymns
and spiritual songs.
Our prayers
are a sign
of our dependence.
Jude 20 says,
but you, beloved,
building yourselves up
in your most holy faith
and praying
in the Holy Spirit,
which leads to
what are the implications
of seeing our gatherings
as spirit-enabled,
spirit-empowered,
independent.
One,
it will increase
our prayer life dramatically.
Like,
if we're not praying
for our meetings,
we don't really believe
that our spirit-empowered.
It doesn't just happen.
And it certainly doesn't happen
because of our planning
and gifting.
It happens because
the spirit of God works.
Two,
it will increase
our faith,
expectation,
and anticipation
that God will work
in our midst
when we gather.
You know what?
The spirit doesn't look
at how many people
are in our congregations
attending on a Sunday morning
to determine
whether or not
he's going to show up.
Aren't you thankful
for that?
And yet,
we can begin
subtly to think,
oh no,
if I have a big congregation,
if we have big attendance,
then the spirit's
really there.
That's not how he,
that's not how he works.
I mean,
there's 120 people
in the upper room
and that was a pretty big,
a pretty big event
that happened there.
God doesn't need
a lot of people.
He needs people
who are trusting him
and depending
on what he can do.
We'll begin to see,
three,
we'll begin to see
how many ways
the spirit is actually working.
You know,
as we look around
and see people standing
at the door greeting,
oh,
why there's a gift
of hospitality.
We don't pass
the plate anymore,
I don't know,
but as you see people
getting out their phones
to give,
you see,
there's a gift
of generosity.
As you see people,
someone praying for someone,
there's a gift of faith.
You just see the spirit
working all around
your church.
And then we'll expect
to be emotionally engaged
and physically affected
because it is the spirit
who's doing the work.
It's not dependent
on our personality,
our background,
our experience.
It's dependent
on the spirit of God
and what he's seeking to do.
And what is he seeking to do?
He's seeking to exalt
Jesus Christ
in us and through us.
All right,
last one.
Church.
We've got God,
we've got scripture,
gospel,
we've got the spirit,
and the church.
Our gatherings
are church defined
and meant to be
church engaged.
church.
Anybody here with a church
of more than 500
on a Sunday morning?
Okay,
300,
is everybody 300 or less?
Let's see.
Okay,
someone around there.
We can be tempted
as small,
our church is between,
it's just a growth spurt,
so we're between
500 and 600 right now.
We have been between
300 and 400 for years,
a long time.
But here's the temptation
to think that,
you know,
somehow we've got to
perform something.
We've got to do,
we've got to get
something going here.
You know,
if we're going to grow,
we've got to make
something happen.
So let me just say
a few things
that the church is not.
Sunday gathering.
Sunday gathering
is not a production company
offering a weekly event
defined by lighting
and video and staging.
It's not.
Sunday gathering
is not a theological lecture
filling people
with head knowledge
but doing little
to affect or shape
their passions
and desires.
Sunday gathering
is not a business venture
or a fast food franchise
driven by principles
of pragmatism
and marketing
and financial success.
Some churches
are very much that way.
Sunday gathering
is not a place
to push the boundaries
of creativity
for the sake
of doing something new.
The Sunday gathering
isn't a theater performance
where actors
whose words and actions
bear no resemblance
to their daily lives
get up in front of people.
Our Sunday gatherings
are extraordinary.
extraordinary.
They're extraordinary.
It's the church
redeemed from every tribe
and language
and people and nation
redeemed from sin's bondage
!
in God's wrath
and God's wrath
by the blood of Christ
gathering
to bear witness
in the presence of God
and to each other
of his greatness
and glory
and goodness
in Jesus Christ.
Our gatherings
are defined
by the reality
of what Jesus
came to do.
In him,
Ephesians 2.22,
in him
you are being
built together
into a dwelling place
for God
by the Spirit.
That's what he's doing
in that group of people.
Building a dwelling place
for God.
We're not being built up
into an emotional
or spiritual
and musical experience
but into a spiritual house.
1 Peter 2.4 and 5.
As you come to him
a living stone
rejected by men
but in the sight of God
chosen and precious
you yourselves
like living stones
are being built up
as a spiritual house
to be a holy priesthood
to offer spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God
through Jesus Christ.
Christ.
The church has insiders
and outsiders.
Paul talks about
in 1 Corinthians 14
where he says
when the church
comes together
and outsiders
or unbelievers
enter.
Church is not just
made up of the people
we see in the room.
It's made up
of God's people
past, present,
and future
and when we
gather
we are
experiencing
a foretaste
of the marriage supper
of the Lamb
at the end of time.
And we're gathering
with all those
who have gone before
and all those
who are presently
around the throne
and all those
who will one day
be around the throne.
Paul talks about it
in, I'm sorry
the writing of Hebrews
talks about it.
If you believe
Paul wrote Hebrews
then it's Paul
but if you don't
then that's fine.
You have come
to Mount Zion
this is Hebrews 12
22
you've come
to Mount Zion
to the city
of the living God.
This is what's
happening every Sunday
morning.
We're coming
to Mount Zion
the city
of the living God
the heavenly Jerusalem
and to innumerable
angels
in festal gathering
and to the assembly
of the firstborn
who are enrolled
in heaven
and to God
the judge of all
and to the spirits
of the righteous
made perfect
and to Jesus
the mediator
of a new covenant
and to the sprinkled
blood
that speaks
a better word
than the blood
of Abel.
That's who's gathering.
It's the church
as God
has defined it.
That means
that our meeting
should engage
the church.
We are the household
of God
1 Timothy 3 15
which is the church
of the living God
a pillar
and buttress
of the truth.
In other words
we're not oriented
towards a performance
we're not oriented
towards a production
or people on the stage.
We're not
seeking to build
a bunch of spectators.
who are part
of an audience.
We made a very
conscious effort
I don't know
if this has ever
been a temptation
for you
but not to refer
to the people
in the congregation
as the audience.
They're the congregation.
We are all members
of the congregation
being led by Jesus
in the praise
of the Father.
Every member
is involved.
We're welcoming
one another
instructing one another
greeting one another
we're comforting
one another
serving one another
addressing one another
admonishing one another
encouraging one another
church is engaged
church is meant
to be engaged
so what does
that look like?
Well first
we'll be conscious
of the uniqueness
of what's taking place.
There's no meeting
in your city
in your town
in your village
in your whatever
it is you live in
that's like your
Sunday meeting
on Sunday morning.
There's nothing
like it.
A lot of big
important meetings
happening
business meetings
political meetings
education meetings
nothing like
what's happening
in your church
on Sunday mornings.
Two
we'll involve
the congregation
in various ways
we'll look for ways
to involve them
of course as the church
grows bigger
that becomes
more complicated
a little more
challenging
still can be done
through serving
through prayer
through ministries
through scripture
readings
through music
three
the sound
of the congregation
will be our priority
when we sing
we want
people to be able
to hear their voices
and we want
when the music
drops out
the instruments
drop out
for people
to sing louder
I've been in
different contexts
where when you
drop the instruments
out people
sing softer
because they
aren't used to
not being supported
by the instruments
oh no
we're supporting you
these instruments
are supporting
the congregation
doesn't mean
you can't hear them
you need to
hear them
to lead
in some
meaningful sense
but you do
allow space
for people
to hear their
voices
number four
pastoral care
will be the
forefront of our
planning and
preparation and
leadership
we're not just
running a meeting
we are caring
for people's souls
you can't run
the meeting
without the people
that's part of
what it means
to shepherd the
flock
we'll be
historically
aware
number five
mining
liturgy
songs
and teachings
of the past
just
finding out
what's there
that Christians
have been doing
for centuries
that we would
benefit from
someone said
tradition
is the living
faith of the
dead
traditionalism
is the dead
faith of the
living
I think that's
a great way
of putting that
so we want
to be committed
both to
reforming
the dead
faith
and reclaiming
the living
traditions
of the past
aren't
Sundays
extraordinary
when you put
all those things
together
we've covered
a lot of ground
tonight
but those five
values are true
of every church
no matter the
size
age
the denomination
the leadership
the geographical
location
the ethnicity
or musical
style
those five
values are
true
of every one
of those
churches
God himself
calls us
together
he speaks
to us
he brings us
near through
the redemptive
work of Christ
he's present
with us by
his spirit
and he glorifies
himself
through our
unity
and while you
may not need
to change
everything
and you
shouldn't
change
everything
about what
you're doing
on your
Sunday
meeting
it's worth
asking
questions
about
everything
it's worth
asking
questions
is God
really being
exalted
do we really
believe he's
brought all this
together
does scripture
really govern
what we do
or are we just
doing what
has been
passed down
is the gospel
really the
grounds of
what we
are doing
every Sunday
and are people
aware of that
do we believe
that the spirit
is empowering
everything we do
and are we
dependent
do we feel
our need
for the spirit
to work
in our midst
every week
or do we
just assume
because we've
been doing
this for like
four years
we're good
to go
it's not
how God
works
Jesus said
you gotta be
part of the
vine
you can't
be cut off
and expect
to bear
life
you gotta be
always part
of that
vine
and then
finally
are we
aware
that
what God's
doing
is not
just
through us
it's
through the
whole church
that's what
defines us
we're a body
we're a temple
we're a building
we're a field
we're all doing
this together
it's amazing
my prayer
is that
these values
will guide us
in terms of
what we might
need to add
what we might
need to take
out
we might
need to change
or what
we might
just to give
greater emphasis
to
because I doubt
if you're here
that any one
of these
would come
as a shock
to you
especially
governed by
the word
of God
what a surprise
it's just
how we apply
it
and how we
think about
it
and it's
amazing
just to
think that
what we do
every Sunday
is just a
foretaste
just a foretaste
of what we'll be
doing
in eternity
not singing
necessarily
but endlessly
receiving
and celebrating
the love
of the triune
God
for our
eternal joy
and his
eternal glory
that's what's
happening
every Sunday
morning
it's worth
our attention
it's worth
our careful
planning
it's worth
our eager
anticipation
so let's
pray
and then
we're gonna
sing one
final song
the band
can
come on
Father
we thank
you
that you
have given
us the
privilege
of gathering
with your
people
every Sunday
what
what an
amazing
thing it
is
we
we pray
that it
become more
amazing in
our eyes
that we
see
the way
you see
we see our
meetings the
way you see
them
not as simply
us getting
together
but your
presence
in our
midst
calling us
together
to experience
your goodness
the riches
of your grace
the immeasurable
riches of your
grace to us
in Jesus
Father we pray
that we would be
more
dependent on
your spirit
we pray that
our meetings
would be fueled
by your word
that we would
treasure your
word we'd
esteem and
value it that
we'd be affected
by it
we pray that
every member of
the church would
feel more and
more a part
of what you're
doing to bring
glory to your
name through
Jesus Christ
and the power
of your spirit
we thank you
Father for doing
all these things
in Jesus name
amen