3. New Year's Eve Conference | The Worship of the Church

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Pastor Jeff Rice of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church presented at the New Year's Eve Conference Dec. 31, 2023

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4. New Year's Eve Conference | Equipping the Church

4. New Year's Eve Conference | Equipping the Church

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So I'm normally expositioning a text, which is not what's going to happen tonight.
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Tonight I aim to prove a point, right? And I'm going to take this point and shove it down the throats of the hearers.
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And sadly for you, it's you guys, right? So if you would open your
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Bibles to the Gospel of John chapter 4. This is just going to be where we jump off into the deep end.
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And the message that I'm about to bring is very controversial. And if what you hear tonight hurts your feelings,
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I do not apologize. I am going to give it the way
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I believe it should be given. So the Gospel of John chapter 4, let me get my timer going, beginning in verse 19.
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Let me open in prayer. Oh God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Lord, we know that you are here.
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We know that you walk among us. We know that you are in us. You have sent to us the
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Comforter. He fills us. He is the down deposit. He is the everything that we need.
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And you gave us everything that we need, Lord. And Lord, we come to you on the behalf of the name of Jesus Christ.
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Lord, we thank you for so many people who are gathered here tonight to worship you in this conference, to hear your word, to hear what you have for the church.
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Please, in Jesus' name, use me in this moment to speak to your people, amen.
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So let's read real quick what's going on in this text. Let me get my pointer. Okay, here we go. John chapter 4, beginning in verse 19.
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This is a very familiar story to us all. Jesus is thirsty.
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He's sitting by a well. A Samaritan woman approaches him.
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She's there to get water. Jews don't normally talk to women. If a
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Jew was walking through Jerusalem and his daughter was with him, he would not be allowed to speak to his daughter.
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And so what Jesus is doing here is not supposed to be happening.
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It's not supposed to be taking place. Jesus speaks to this woman. He asks for water, and she is amazed that him, a
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Jewish rabbi, is speaking to her. Just to give some context, verse 19, the woman said to him,
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Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worship on this mountain, and you people say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
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Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the
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Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the
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Jews. But an hour is coming, and this now is when the true worshipers will worship the
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Father in spirit and truth. For such a people the
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Father seeks to be his worshiper. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.
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Our theme for tonight is the worship of the church, which is why it's so problematic.
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It's funny that Austin is here from the Holy Note. If you watch his shows that he has, and he goes, and he has these videos of him walking into different worship services, and he's like, nope, and he walks out.
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Worship is something that is being abused. Worship is one of these things that we as true
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Christians need to take back. My proposition is this.
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If God told us how to worship, then we as Christians should worship the way in which
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God has told us to worship. Imagine if you were to invite me to your house, and you sent me a link of your address to where I can have directions to get to your house.
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Now imagine if I did not use the link to get to your house, and I just get into my car, and I say,
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I know the person's name. I know the person to where I'm going. I just don't know how to get there, but I'm going to go to that person.
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And listen, I have people in this congregation, such as the Peace Family, who invited me over to their house, they gave me directions, and I still didn't make it.
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Right? I didn't make it. Because I didn't want to hit the link there and have someone to tell me how to get there.
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Right? I'm bad about that. I have this man problem, right? I just have this thing, like when
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I open something, it has directions. Forget that. Don't need it.
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I've got this. I'm a man. But just imagine that, right? You invite me over to your house, you send me a link.
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I refuse to click on the link to get to your house. And guess where I don't end up at?
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Your house. Now, take that analogy and apply it to worship.
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My fear is when it comes to worship that most people, most churches, most people in churches today, their worship is not making it to God.
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And it's not making it. Because it's not in spirit and in truth.
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They're not worshiping God the way God commanded His people to worship
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Him. In our outline today, this evening, we're going to see
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God has told us in His Word how to worship Him. We're going to see that we're called to praise
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Him, to pray to Him, to preach for Him, and to partake of Him.
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Now, doing this in 30 minutes, my congregation is going to be like, why do you normally do an hour, right?
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You did four points in 30 minutes. What's going on here? Well, I haven't done it yet, so give me a break.
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In corporate worship, we are to praise, pray, preach, and partake.
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Praise, pray, preach, and partake. And as we transition,
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I believe in order to worship God in spirit and truth, we must praise, pray, preach, and partake the way
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God has prescribed for us to do so. So our first point is praise.
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And to that, I want to look in the letter to the Ephesians.
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And after Ephesians, we're going to go to Colossians. In Ephesians 5, beginning in verse 15,
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I'll give you a second to turn there. Verse 15,
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Paul writes, Therefore, look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.
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On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the
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Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dispersion, but be filled with the
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Holy Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the
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Lord. Always giving thanks for all things in the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the
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Father, and being subject to one another in fear of Christ.
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I think we also have a problem with that, but I can't get in that tonight. Turn with me to Colossians. Colossians chapter 3, beginning in verse 12.
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Colossians 3, beginning in verse 12. So as to the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing, listen, bearing with one another and graciously forgiving each other.
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Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord graciously forgave you, so also should you.
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Above all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.
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And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.
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And be thankful. Verse 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with gratefulness in your hearts to God.
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And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the
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Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
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We see here in both of these readings, redeeming time.
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Our worship to God is redeeming time. Praise to God, that which is prescribed to us is redeeming time.
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It's taken back what the enemy has stolen from us. When we praise
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God corporately, together, we are redeeming what was lost.
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And when we do that as Christians by paying attention to how we walk, understanding the times, having a heart of compassion, being kind, having humility, having gentleness and patience.
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With who? One another. I say this quite often in service, that sheep bite.
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Right? I've bitten before, and I'm now in a position to where I get bit.
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If you know me, I'm from the streets, and I don't take kindly to teeth.
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Right? We always talk about how messed up we can be, even now, by looking at us.
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Right? We don't have it together, but Christ does. And this is why we gather together and praise him.
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If you're not praising him, redeeming this time by paying attention to how you walk, understanding the times, having compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, what are we even doing here?
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Because that only makes us gathering together and praising him to redeem time only makes sense if these other things are taking place in our lives.
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I say this as we've been reading through the book of Acts and walking through it, trying to find out what revival looks like.
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That I don't want to read about it. I want to be about it. How sick are you of reading the words and they're not true of you?
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I'm fed up with it. I want the move of God to fall in such a way that Pentecostalism is destroyed because it will show its false fruits.
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I want a true move of God. And it's not going to happen if we're not being about it.
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If we're only reading about it and not being about it, it's not going to happen. I want the power.
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We do this by bearing with one another and forgiving one another.
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That's where it starts. And in case you're not listening, I'm speaking about the body of Christ. I'm not speaking about lost people.
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The heathen has no clue why we're here tonight. It's been my heart desire as a
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Christian to have something for Christians to do on nights like this. And this right here is just a dream.
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As Will and as Jared was preaching, it took everything I had to not cry to see something come together.
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The conference I had last February, the one that's coming up this coming February. To see
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God, to have this vision in my head of the church gathering together that are not even on the same page most of the time.
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Presbyterian. Baptist. What denomination are you?
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Misfits. Well, y 'all fit right in. Holy Nope. Austin.
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Reformed Baptist, correct? Correct. I wanted something to where a bunch of people to gather together as the church.
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That we can break down walls at least once a year. To have true koinonia fellowship.
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Bearing with one another. We are to love one another because that's the perfect bond of unity.
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I love everyone in my flock. But that's not the perfect bond of unity.
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I have to love those I disagree with. Will, I love you, brother. I do.
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He's a Presbyterian. I love him. I want the perfect bond of unity displayed in my life.
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I want it. If this is not taking place, the peace of Christ is not going to rule your hearts.
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Listen, if you are not fellowshipping with the church because of the name on the building, the perfect, what did
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I say? The peace of Christ will not rule your hearts. You are being ruled by someone else.
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I do not want to be ruled by anyone but Jesus Christ. This is why corporate worship is important for the body when we gather together.
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Why? Because sheep bite. They bite each other. Corporate worship is important.
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Corporate worship, excuse me. This is why corporate worship, when we gather together, we sing.
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It says that when we sing, that we're speaking to one another in psalm, hymns, and spiritual songs.
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Notice that. It says that we're singing to God, but we're speaking to one another in psalm, hymns, and spiritual songs.
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When we sing to him, we are speaking to one another. And listen, ladies and gentlemen, having hate in your heart for your brother or sister whom the
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Lord dwells in, worshiping the
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Lord together while hating your brother, that's not a hand in the glove.
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That's your life in sin. You're going to come to the house of the
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Lord. You're going to worship Jesus sitting beside someone you hate. You're not worshiping
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God. You're not worshiping God. Not the way he has prescribed.
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He's called us to love one another. To love one another. That means to bear one another's burdens.
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1 John 3, verse 15 says this. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer.
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And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
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We are to love one another, and we are to be known for our love for one another.
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When we gather together to praise, we sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God with love for our brothers and sisters, or it's not praise to God.
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It's not. We are called to praise God together. You guys, people that are part of this church, when
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I begin to open the service, I pray for this service as well as every true service taking place.
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I pray that the Lord is meeting with you. That he's there for you. That he's taking care of your needs.
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We're in this together. Point number two, pray. For that, I want to look at Acts 2 .42,
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and we're going to stay in Acts 2 .42. This is where it gets controversial. Acts 2 .42.
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So if you ask me what church looks like, and you want it one verse, this is the verse that I would send you.
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And they continually devoted themselves to the apostles' teachings, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and prayers.
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Let's read that again. And they, Paul has just got done, Pentecost has taken place.
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Paul has just preached the gospel message. Three thousand people repented, started trusting in Christ, and were baptized.
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And it says that they, those who had repented, put their faith in Christ, and were baptized.
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They devoted themselves to the teachings of the apostles, to fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers.
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Now personally, when it comes to pray, I see prayer done three ways.
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The first way is us knowing one another.
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Knowing one another to truly pray for one another. If I told you to pray for me, and you knew nothing about me, how are you going to pray for me?
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Especially if I said unspoken. You know nothing about me? I say, I need prayer, but it's unspoken.
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What are you going to say? I've had such a hard time in my Christian walk praying for unspoken prayers.
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I don't know what to say. Now if I know the person, and they give me an unspoken, and I know what's going on in their life, it's easier for me to pray for them.
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But this one, this first point has to do with knowing one another.
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And if I'm honest, this is the hardest one, because this is where you have to be open, you have to be honest, you have to be transparent with those that you're around.
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It means that you have to invest with one another. You have to invest yourself, and they have to invest themselves into you.
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You have to invest yourselves into their lives for them to trust you with their cares, their hurts, and their struggles.
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You just don't tell people your cares, your hurts, and your struggles that you don't know.
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And if you do, stop. You don't give everyone all the information about you.
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If I give you my cares, my hurts, and my struggles, it's because I trust you, and I know that you're not going to gossip about me.
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I know you're going to pray for me. And let me tell you something. I know every pastor in here can say amen to this.
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Who ministers to the ministers? You know how we have sin too.
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We have sin too. We have cares, we have hurts, and we have struggles.
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And so often there's no one to talk to because everyone puts us up on a pedestal.
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Brother, I don't belong on one. The second way prayer is done is in the
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Lord's Prayer. We as a church, we recite the Lord's Prayer with one another every Lord's Day.
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But also in this prayer, it gives us a pattern for prayer.
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Jesus said pray then like this. Matthew 6, verse 9 speaks about the identity of God.
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It says, Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name.
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That when you pray, you are to acknowledge who it is you are speaking to.
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You are speaking to a holy God, Yahweh. And this holy
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God, Yahweh, has revealed himself to us in three persons, the Father, Son, and the
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Holy Spirit. When you pray, acknowledge who it is that you are praying to.
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Verse 10 speaks about the sovereignty of God. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
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You're telling God, Lord, I trust you. And I know that everything looks like it's falling apart, but I trust you.
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And Lord, I'm going to submit myself to your will. And whatever it is that's in my life that's happening,
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I know that you are right here with me, leading and guiding me through it. That's what it's talking about with trusting
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God, knowing that he is coming. And that one day he's going to wrap all this up at the resurrection of the dead, and we're going to be like he is.
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And we're praying for that day. Your kingdom come, your will be done.
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God, I know your kingdom's coming. And I know right now your will is being done in my life.
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And I'm not going to tell my story. Don't have that much time. But every one of us should be able to look in our life.
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Hindsight is beautiful. Hindsight 2020, we should be able to look in our life and say,
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I wouldn't have made it if God didn't pick me up. I wouldn't have made it if God didn't send that brother of mine to help me in that fall.
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God always has his will in your life. And as Christians, when we pray, what are we to do?
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We're to recognize the will of God in our life. Verses 11 through 12 talk about the provision of God.
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Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us of our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
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Ladies and gentlemen, when you pray, you thank God. Every time we eat, we pray and thank
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God for the meal. Our daughter Trinity says, Dad, why do we thank
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God for our food? You have a job. You provide. You sell
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Bibles. You make the money to buy the food. Now to quickly let her know that I wouldn't have a job if it were not for God.
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I wouldn't have anything if it were not for God. Everything that I have comes from the
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Lord. And so no matter what it is, you thank him for everything.
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You thank him for the hardships. We have nothing without God. But this verse tells us that we thank him in provision.
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He says, give us this day our daily bread and forgive us of our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
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We thank him for our bread. We thank him for our drinks. We thank him for our salvation.
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And we pray for the salvation of our enemies. Verse 13 talks about the protection of God.
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And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.
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We don't rely on our own protection. We rely on God's sovereignty.
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Him making a way. Him providing for us. Him protecting us.
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We are in his hands. And since we're all a bunch of Calvinists in here, let me just say this.
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If God has predetermined for you to burn with fire, trust me when I say, you will not drown.
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He is the one who protects us.
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The Lord's prayer teaches us how to pray. If you ever pay attention to me when
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I pray, you'll see that I'll acknowledge who God is. I'll acknowledge his sovereignty. He's holding all things in his hands.
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I'll thank him for providing for me, and I'll ask him to continue to protect me.
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The third way prayer is used is in corporate prayer of confession.
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This is when the church corporately prays and confesses their sins together as the body of Christ.
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To go back to the first point, it is impossible to hate someone that you're ready to forgive, and you're in constant prayer for.
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Try hating someone you're praying for. Point number three.
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Crap, I got two minutes. Sorry, I knew I would fail. To preach.
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Acts 2 .42. And they continually devoted themselves to the apostles' teachings.
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The duty of the preacher is to understand the book, which is the Bible. We are called to understand it in a way that when we preach, we're able to give the understanding of the apostles.
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If you're called to preach, you better understand this book. Because when you stand up here and preach, you better have the understanding of the apostles.
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I mentioned this today. When we go to the Old Testament, we better take Jesus with us. That's what the apostles did.
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When you go to the Old Testament, you better take Jesus with you. We are called to know and understand this book in such a way it is as if the apostles themselves were saying it.
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In corporate worship, our main focus of the pulpit should be systematically going through books of the
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Bible, theme by theme and verse by verse, drawing out from the pages of Scripture and allowing the
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Scriptures to interpret the Scriptures. My opinion means nothing to what the book says.
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The apostles, and as the apostles did, we are to preach
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Christ and Him crucified. That's the gospel message. He lived the life that we cannot live.
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He suffered the punishment that we deserve to suffer, was buried, and on the third day rose again according to the
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Scriptures. He ascended into heaven. He's sitting with the Father. He's putting all of his enemies under his feet, and he's coming back to judge the living and the dead.
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If you as a preacher are not preaching that message, stop preaching today.
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Stop preaching. Number four, partake. Acts 242. They continually devoted themselves to the teachings of the apostles, to the fellowship, and to the breaking of bread and prayers.
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Now, this, in my opinion, is speaking of the
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Lord's Supper. Now, I don't want to ruffle any feathers in here, but I'm going to,
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I guess. I believe that this should be done every Lord's Day. I believe that the
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Lord's Supper should be taken every Lord's Day, and here's why. Imagine a Lord's Day service without, where there, excuse me.
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Imagine a Lord's Day service where we didn't sing and praise, sing praises to God.
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Can you imagine that? There were no psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs sung to God and speaking to one another.
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Imagine that. We had a Lord's Day service. We're not praising God. Imagine we had a
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Lord's Day service and we don't pray. Or imagine we have a Lord's Day service and no one opens the book and gives you
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Christ. Though most of us can imagine a service without the Lord's Supper.
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What? Are you kidding me? Now, just imagine if we only did one of those three every quarter or once a year.
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We're only going to preach every quarter. We're only going to preach once a year. We're only going to sing every quarter or maybe once a year.
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We're only going to pray every quarter or once a year.
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Acts 2 .42 tells us that when they gathered, they broke bread. They had the
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Lord's Supper. And if I wanted to be a real stickler about it, I would say they also had a full meal together.
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It wasn't less than the cracker and wine. Right? They had the bread and the wine.
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I'm saying it was something more. They had a full meal together every
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Lord's Day. I'm not challenging you to do that. I would be happy if you just had the
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Lord's Supper, the bread and wine every week. The Lord's Supper is a picture of the gospel,
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His body broken for us and His blood shed for us. But it's also pointing us to the second coming of Jesus Christ.
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First Corinthians chapter 11 verse 26 says this. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the
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Lord's death until He comes. Why would we leave out such a means of grace that gives the gospel and points us to a future return of Jesus Christ?
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Why would we save that for once a quarter? Why don't we only do that once a year? All four of these points are summed up in fellowship.
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Notice they devoted themselves to these things. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer.
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They devoted themselves. They devoted themselves to meeting together.
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The body of Christ is devoted themselves together to do these things.
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When we gather, we are to listen to someone open the book.
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We are to fellowship. We are to pray. We are to praise. And if you're a
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Christian and these things should be important to you, The worship of the church is to worship
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God in the way that God has prescribed for us to worship Him. We are to worship
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Him in spirit and truth. With the spirit that God has given us, we are to worship
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Him and the truth that He has given to us, His word. God tells us that those of us who have
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His spirit, how He wants us to worship
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Him. God tells us, those of us who have His spirit, how He wants us to worship
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Him. And in scripture, He gives us the directions.
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The question is, is your worship making it to God? He tells us that we're to worship
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Him in spirit and truth. Here's the link. Have you clicked on it? Devote yourselves in fellowship to the praise, prayer, preaching, and partaking.
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35 minutes. Let's pray. Father, Lord, You are our
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God. And we're so thankful for Jesus. I'm thankful that You have gathered us together.
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I'm thankful that You love us. And I'm thankful that You have caused us to love
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You. For we love You because You first loved us. Lord, please continue to bless our night and our fellowship together.
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As we grow in unity, different churches gather together with one accord to worship