Preparing, Participating, and Practicing the Presence of God

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you today we're gonna do something a little bit differently because last week

The sermon though in my heart of hearts thought was about 50 minutes long was about an hour and eight minutes and We didn't really get through everything.

So this week is the application on last week's message and As I was praying about this,

I thought maybe we should just go to the next topic in the true church series but then I was like The presence of God is such an important concept and us being in God's presence that we really do need to examine

What this looks like for you and I what this looks like for us as a church So I thought that we would do an application on that and we would really explore

What does it mean that we have been called into the presence of God? What's that going to require for our life?

Now I'll just tell you this concept of coming into God's presence at church Meaning like Matthew 18 20 says where two or three are gathered in my name there.

I am in your midst There's no reason why the Apostle would have said that if it wasn't something special That is happening in the gathering

Because we could have looked at Matthew who wrote it and said but dear Matthew He's promised to be with all of us always because we have the

Holy Spirit I have the Holy Spirit on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday What do you mean to say that that Jesus is going to be?

especially present in the gathering when we preach the word when we sing when we when we

Take the table when we baptize and we do all the things that the church does When the church does church stuff

What do you mean that your presence is there in a special way and I consider it to be a wonderful grace from the

Lord That when we gather together as his saints, we get to practice heaven every single week.

Have you thought about it in that way in? Heaven we're with Jesus all the time We're beholding his presence number 6 24 through 26 where we see the face of God shining upon us.

That's true for us in heaven But it's not true here every day

But it is on Sunday when you come here. We get a taste we get a picture

We get a little microcosm of what heaven is gonna be like We're here defiantly saying that we're not citizens of this world.

We're citizens of heaven and every week we get a day to live in that So that one day we'll be living in that for eternity

That if we could grab hold of that Just as Christians and as people and as a church if we could grab hold of that that would revolutionize the

Shepherd's Church if evangelicalism Could get a hold of the power of God's presence that would revolutionize

Christianity Would it not? We'd have revival. I Think the reason that we don't have revival is because God is not pleased to pour out his spirit

When we eke along in lackadaisical and languid timidity

It's a lot of big words there But when we're lazy when it comes to his presence when we have half -hearted devotion when it comes to his gathering when we have inconsistent or apathetic participation in The sacraments we have doctrinal infidelity when when these things occur within the church.

These are not periods of revival Those are periods of regression

God doesn't bring revival in that way Every single time you look in the history of the church every time revival has happened.

There's been three basic preconditions number one people are

Immediately confronted with the depravity and the awful stench of their sin and they repent before God Every revival that's ever happened in human history.

That's the case Second The Word of God becomes the most treasured possession for every

Christian. They cling to it. They read it. They're saturated in God's Word Just like the

Westminster Shorter Catechism teaching my kids this right now What's man's chief end to glorify

God to enjoy him forever? How has God given us? To do that by the

Word of God by the Word of God the third thing that happens in revival is that men and women

Grow hungry and desirous to participate in the local church. It's never been otherwise

There's never been in a revival that's happened where those three things did not occur and there's never been a revival occurred without those three things

So the reason That we're preaching these messages about the church

Obviously we want to see revival, right? We want to see God breathe life in this Culture we want to see

God save and redeem We want to see the sinking ship that is this nation be turned around for the glory of God We want to see men and women get saved instead of dying their sin, of course but even underneath all of that The purpose for why we're wanting to do this the purpose we want to see for why we want to see revival is not just so That our comfort level will grow up will go up Because we don't like the state of our country

The purpose for this is the glory of God We want to know how to glorify him in the church and we're preaching these messages so that we can

See how to live in his presence in a way that honors him now last week we showed how his presence is communicated dynamically and Effectively when we gather when we show up when we preach when we sing when we take communion when we do baptisms and when we

Make disciples all of those things we saw in the scriptures that God has shared his presence with us

That was enough to cover the what? This week. I want to talk about the so what what difference does it make?

Why does it matter that we are gathered in the presence of God? What is God calling? us to do what is this truth going to require of you and I because Let's just be honest here

To whom much is required or too much is given much is required, right? When you know the truth and you don't live in the truth

James says you're confused even in who you are You're like a man who looks in the mirror and then walks away and forgets what you look like We are not called to be hearers of the word alone

We are going to be doers of the word. So in fact, you can thank me after church for this by sharing these truths

I'm making it harder on you But by sharing these truths,

I'm sharing them for your joy. I'm sharing them for your joy Today what

I want us to cover is just three things and I figured since it was an hour and eight minutes last week. I would be gracious to you this week

It will not be an hour and eight minutes this week. I Want to cover three things, how do we prepare to be in the presence of God?

How do we participate when we are in the presence of God and how do we practice the presence of God to one another?

How do we get ready? To be in God's presence before we get to church the day before we come to church how do we think about our preparation for coming into the

Lord's house because that's important and Then once we're here, how do we participate in God's presence?

And then once the benediction has been read once the amen final charge to the congregation has been given

Then how do we practice these things among one another to the glory of God and to the building up of the nation's?

How do we prepare? Practice or prepare participate in practice in the presence of God. So that's what we're going to cover today

And with that, let us pray let us begin father.

Thank you so much That you've given us your presence Lord, I think about the story in the

Old Testament of Obed Edom Where they dropped off the Ark of the

Covenant because they were afraid that all of them were gonna die and Then Obed Edom is probably in that moment like Well guys, it's gonna kill me too.

Why'd you put it in my backyard and Yet your presence there in Obed Edom's house

It says that he was fruitful and then he multiplied because of your presence because of your covenantal presence

Israel and Egypt even in slavery was fruitful and They multiplied because of your presence your people have grown strong and developed deep roots because of your presence

We are significant. You said to the Israelites on their way to the promised land

That I chose you as the most insignificant people on earth But when my presence goes with you, my presence will give you significance

Lord it's your presence that we want And Lord, I pray that us as your church would value that would love that would would come here ready and excited for that We're not coming here for music styles.

We're not coming here for preaching styles We're not coming here for for anything other than we want to be in God's presence so that we can glorify

God Lord I pray that that would be our heart. I Pray that would be this church's heart. We're not pray that churches in this area and in other areas across this country

Would stop viewing church Like a consumer commodity that we do for ritualistic tradition, but Lord it would be

God's house where we come and worship the one true God and spirit and in truth

Lord I pray that revival would begin in that very spot in Our way that we think about church

It's in Christ's name we pray Amen So again, this is not going to be a deep dive into a single passage or 57, which is per normal with all of the applications and and Supporting texts that I normally bring into it.

This is just gonna be practical practical truth applied today on last week's Concept that we live in God's presence when we come to the gathered church

So the first thing I want to talk about is how do we prepare for for this? How do we prepare to be in God's presence and let's use the whole

Bible to figure this out How do the Old Testament Saints prepare to be in the presence of God? Well, we've got several examples you remember

Moses God says God comes into Moses It's midst and he says the place which you are standing is holy ground.

So take off your sandals Why do you tell him to take off his sandals? Because Moses was a shepherd in Midian and he's walking around.

He's walking in all kinds of sheep boo and God says take off your sandals the place that you are coming in is holy

Moses would have immediately understood that God is different than me and I've got to approach him as if he's holy and righteous and set -apart

So Moses had to make a preparation before he got into God's presence. That's the point. What about Aaron? Aaron was told as we looked at earlier in Leviticus 16.

I can't even go into God's house unless I do preparations he had to wash and clothed and stack up these armors and he had to go in with a reverent attitude and and All of these preparations he's an elaborate preparations were not

Sort of God setting up this ritualistic Judaic religion, which is what it became by the time of the

New Testament He was not giving them religion. He was saying in order to come into my presence. You've got to prepare to be there

You've got to you've got to do certain things to show you and so that you can be there because I am holy and you are not

See, there's there's preparation and when you don't get that preparation, right?

It is deadly in the Bible You think about Nadab and Abihu Aaron's sons,

I don't know what exactly happened, but I know enough God had prescribed a way that they were to prepare fire to go into God's presence and It says that they tried to enter in with strange fire

Now what a strange fire? I don't exactly know. Maybe it glowed a hue of green.

I'm not sure but in some way they didn't follow God's prescriptions and they tried to go into God's presence in an inappropriate way and God did not say

Hey, no big deal My presence doesn't really matter fire came down from heaven and consumed them and Aaron the priest was told don't cry about it

Because my presence is so holy The real wrong that was done here is not that your sons were consumed

The real wrong that was done here is that you tried to that you tried to treat my presence as unholy

You think about the man Uzzah? Uzzah was a worship leader in Israel he was walking beside the ox cart when the when the

Ark of the Covenant was being was being driven from the land of the Philistines back to Judea back to Bethlehem back to Jerusalem and it they hit a pothole

Maybe they were driving and what similar to Massachusetts and in that the Ark kind of bounced it's starting to fall off the cart as it reaches up because he felt like that the

Ark would be more defiled if it touched the Dirt than if it touched his sinful hand and God struck him dead.

Why? Because he was treating the Lord's presence as if it were profane

They were commanded Don't they know there's never an ox cart in the scriptures

They were commanded to have golden poles that the priest would carry it the priest alone

They broke every rule they treated God's presence as a commodity as a trophy and God would not allow his presence to be defamed.

That's the Old Testament. What about the New Testament? Ananias and Sapphira? Ananias and Sapphira Lied in front of the

Holy Spirit and God struck them dead. It is a big deal To be in the presence of God and it's a big deal to be in the presence of God Flippantly the

Bible has much to say about it. Think about Cain I'm just bringing up kind of obvious examples

It says that he gave some of his vegetables to the Lord where Abel gave his best

There's this idea That Abel gave the very best that he had because God is worthy and Yet Cain gave some carrots some lettuce some things that he had grown

He treated the Lord as if he was common And the Lord told him that sin was crouching at his door like a roaring lion and that he would have to master it or It would master him and he did not

That's the negative examples But think about the positive examples of being in God's presence.

Did you know that there's a section of Psalms? I think Psalm 122 through Psalm 134

These are praise songs in the in the Psalter and there's a purpose for these Psalms when you let's say you live in in a town

Like Caesarea Philippi and you're supposed to go to the temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover your job is that your

Spotify playlist is to sing through the songs of ascent because you are Ascending up towards the mountain of Jerusalem and you were going there to worship

God. You are Preparing to be in God's presence. You do not

Spend that road trip talking about what you want to eat when you get to downtown Jerusalem You don't spend that road trip thinking about what it's gonna be like when you rub shoulders with Jerusalem's elite

You are supposed to prepare Intentionally to be in God's presence by singing the

Psalter The feast all the preparations that you would have to make bring a lamb bring him into your house for four days after the four days

Sacrifice the lamb grab hyssop grab a bowl paint the blood all these things are preparing you to be in God's presence

There is never a moment that I can find in Scripture never not one

Where God wants us calls us or accepts us entering into his presence flippantly and half -heartedly.

I Can't find a single occasion Every single time we are called to enter into the presence of God we do so with preparation

It's in the Old Testament. It's in the New Testament Because it is an honor and it is it a privilege to be in the presence of God It's not a flippant thing

You can you can go anywhere else on earth and do anything else in the world and you can be flippant about it

But to be in God's presence It's not a flippant thing Do you know the same

Jesus who said he would dwell in our midst is the same Jesus when he pulled back? Reality and he showed his disciples his transfigured form and they fell down on their faces in holy terror and Petrine joy

It's the same Jesus who's here with us today. You think about it like that? That same

Jesus that John says in Revelation that his feet were like burning Brazen, like I think it's gold or bronze his face

Is like his eyes are firing like that. Jesus is the one that we come into Communion with when we're here, you see

I think that's one of the reasons why I've been so discouraged at the sorry state of American Christianity, I think that's one of the reasons why this church was planted because there were times when

Derek and I couldn't even sleep at night because the weight of just how much we were disrespecting

God with half -hearted watered -down Emotionally driven worship that had nothing at all to do with the glory of God and with his presence.

I think about Best I think about other examples right how we prepare for other things.

I remember my best friend asked me to be his best man and I went to best

I went to men's warehouse and got this get this nice Get this nice vest tailored and it was so tight whenever I got it tailored and I thought to myself, you know

I have to prepare for this because I'm gonna be up front and I don't want a button to pop off and hit someone's grandma and I So, what did

I do I ran I Drank tons of water. I didn't

I think like there were days where where I maybe have eaten like a cracker or something I was trying my best to do my best for my friend and That's just a wedding

That's just a wedding here on earth, what about for the Lamb's Bride, how do we prepare for that I Think about other examples

How many of us prepare to watch football? We're like no, no, we can't do anything at one o 'clock

Tell so -and -so they better come over later Kids quiet down go into the room.

I'm watching the game. I've done that a Whole Life revolves around a game with some guys who are wearing spandex

That's weird You think about a woman who's preparing for a date like a first date?

She's standing in front of the mirror and she's making herself beautiful She's doing all this preparation to be in the presence of this smuck

Who doesn't deserve her How much do we prepare for the presence of Jesus Christ to be in his presence

To be in his presence Church is

The most important thing that we do all week and it's not because of church.

It's not because the pews It's not because the paint color is called sackcloth. It really is and I think

I chose it for that reason It's not because you like so -and -so who's here or you like fellowshipping or it's not because you get some

Spiritual high because you did your checklist and you went to church those reasons are garbage church

It's the most important thing in your week because Jesus Christ has said he's gonna be here with you and you're gonna get to dwell in his presence

What a thing to prepare for You think about your favorite celebrity or your favorite politician or maybe

I don't really think like that, but You think about some important person some

King That you're gonna be able to have a meeting with and all the ways that you would prepare.

I Mean yesterday, I buttoned my top button for Lauren and Justin That's a sacrifice

What are we doing to prepare to be in the presence of Christ Where we hold court with the

King of Kings Where his word is preached over us where the songs of the Saints are sung on our way to battle

Where we dine at the Lord's table where we baptize and disciple We don't come to church

Just because God's happy that we're here We don't come to church just to do some sort of religious exercise we don't come to church to give

God our leftovers we come to church to be in the presence of the Almighty God and I believe that God deeply cares about how we are to come into his presence.

And again, that fact does not change in the New Testament Here's some questions that we should ask ourself.

How can we prepare today to be in the presence of God? How can we do that? Saturday night

Sunday morning How can you and I do things that New Testament Christians do to prepare to be in the presence of God?

I'm assuming you didn't wake up and there was a fiery bush Outside your yard and that you had to take off your sandals.

Like I'm assuming that's not the case I'm assuming you're not wearing a fad, right? But how can we?

Prepare to be here. What are some things that we can do? Well number one the fourth commandment says consider the

Sabbath day and keep it holy Consider the

Sabbath day and keep it holy and in case anybody's gonna say no, no, no, no, no, no, no No, that's Mosaic law Mosaic laws been fulfilled not the

Ten Commandments unless you believe Jesus Authorizes you to go murder someone and lie about them behind their back after you've done it The Ten Commandments are still operative

Sabbath goes all the way back to creation God patterned the world off of a seven -day week with a

Sabbath rest Sabbath is holy You have so many people today who will say

Jesus died to abolish the Sabbath point me chapter and verse point it It's easy.

It's convenient for us to say. Oh, no. No, this doesn't apply to us anymore I can I can go to church or I don't have to I can

I can go to you know Whatever like show me show me where the Sabbath is no longer. Holy Unto the

Lord show me where God says that's my day, but I don't care anymore It's not that big deal to me because I'm not holy show me

The Sabbath is so important. It says it says consider the Sabbath Think about the

Sabbath ponder the Sabbath why because it's his day God in his grace

Gave you and I six days to do the stuff that we need to do six days

He's only asking for one of those days to be his with a line in the sand around it

We can't encroach upon and how quickly do we encroach upon it? How quickly do we say I'll give

God my hour I'll give God my second hour because I'm at Shepherds and they go longer here

But when I'm out the door, it's my time When I'm out there in the world, it's me.

I've had to think about this a lot lately For instance going to a store and causing someone else to work on the

Sabbath Is that okay something to think about? Going to a restaurant and having someone clean up after me and serve me and do my dishes

Something to think about I'm not saying I'm not weighing in on that right now. Maybe we'll do that one later

How do I feel about this being God's day because If we're honest, we don't treat it like it's his day

If I walked into your house and grabbed your China and started throwing it on the floor You'd be really mad at me because that's your

China But what about when we treat God's day like it's ours and it really is not

We got to consider this and also according to Other scriptures we have to inspire.

We have to encourage other people on how to consider the Sabbath. We'll talk about that in a moment But God has given us permission he's given us a grace to be here one day out of the week to focus on him to Focus on him all day long.

You may say to me. Can I don't have enough time this week to read my Bible Sunday? Do it. He gave you a whole day.

It's his day to do his things and it's a blessing to you It's it's for your grace after church go home read the

Bible and do it on the Lord's Day Maybe you say I didn't have enough time to evangelize anybody this week Guess what?

I've got some good news for you. God gave you a day to do his work You can pay your bills

You can go to open houses. You can do all the things that you want to do on those six days

But on the seventh day God has given you things to do for him We often say

I don't have enough time to disciple you have seven you have seventh day 24 hours. I Don't have enough time to do family worship.

You have Sunday It's God's day to do God's things you do have the time do you have the priority

That's the question God's not given us permission to steal from him and to expect that he will not notice and remembering this

Remembering this will help us It'll help us in so many ways because If you have the idea that God has commanded you to do things

To take from you and to make your life boring and stale then you'll you'll resist the

Sabbath You'll dig your heels and you'll say That's not what that's not what God means.

I don't believe what Kendall's saying here But if you believe that God's commands are for your blessings and that God's commands are for your joy

And that he's ordered life in such a way to make you happy It's actually a joy to obey what

God has said is it not We get more joy when we do what God has told us to do

I'm a living proof. I am the worst person here. I Started out with with the worst starting point you can ask my wife she married me because she's probably the greatest most gracious person on earth and yet I Can tell you that it's more joy in my life to obey than to do my own thing now knowing that God's presence is here.

The Sabbath is his it's it's holy and it's for our good What are some practical ways that we can approach the gathering of the

Saints? Well Wake up early Don't chafe at that I hate waking up early

My alarm clock goes off and I'm a snoozer. I Snooze it and snooze it and I hate it.

But when I wake up early before church today, I was up at four o 'clock and I was praying for this service.

I was praying for you. I was praying for this message I'm gonna tell you that time in God's presence prepared my heart to be here

And I think I'm getting I'm getting a lot out of this service. Just being here having prepared to come

Spend a few moments with God pray together if it's just you pray by yourself It's you and a spouse pray with your spouse

If it's you and your kids get together and pray with your kids Pray that the pastors would lead well and would not do anything stupid

We're human we need prayer to Pray that visitors who come would hear the gospel here pray that the gospel would penetrate our hearts pray

Have you ever prayed that Lord at church today? I want to hear something that's so good in your word that it changes my life

My life is going this way and then after that service I'm going this way because I heard the truth of the gospel

The word didn't return void and it did something to me. Have you ever prayed that before you get to church? pray

That God would show you something when you're here pray for revival that would break out in here pray that you and I Would love

Jesus with a greater affection because we came here than anywhere else

Confess your sins before you come to church How many times have we came in?

like Christian in John Bunyan's pilgrims progress with the weights of our sin weighing us down And we come and we sit down and we say

I'm here. That's the victory How about wake up early in the morning and confess your sins and lay them at the foot of the cross and say your grace

Is sufficient for me and then stand up in freedom and run to church to hear the gospel message

Proclaim that you're free What about your broken relationships Bible says don't

Don't sacrifice on the altar until you've made your relationships, right? This is leave your gift at the altar and go and make your relationships.

Right? Is there somebody in your life? You're alienated with is there somebody in your life that you have a brokenness with?

What a what a blessing on Saturday night or Sunday morning to call them and say, you know what? I don't want to go into God's house until I've made this right with you.

I don't want to be in God's presence Flippantly I Apologize for what

I did if it's their issue You can't apologize for them, but you can say

I want to make things right with you and I forgive you Come into God's house with a clear heart and a clean conscience

What about singing we talked about Spotify earlier? The Shepherd Church has a Spotify playlist where you can sing the hymns and the songs that we sing here on church what a way to prepare and Unless unless I Ruin the slides and then they're all out of order

But which I think is what happened because I sang over a thousand tongues to sing last time and I think that was on me

What about doing family worship in the morning? I'll tell you my family's not been the best at this, but we're working on it

We're growing in it Spending time together as a family and the Word of God is one of the best things that we do my children

Get to hear their father talking about Jesus like he's real and like he matters and then we come into God's presence together filled up Do that you don't need permission

Prepare for the presence. Well, what about arriving at church early?

Now? I know we're in New England And I know our our history is

We start at 1004 sometimes most times But did you know in the history of the church?

the modern era is one of the only times where where church didn't start at least right on time and There's something that happened before that in the old times

People would come into church and they would get their seat They would sit quietly and they would pray so that they could prepare for service fellowship didn't happen before church began

Fellowship happened after the benediction Wouldn't it be amazing? If next week we're all in here in our seats praying that the

Lord Would teach us and show us and his presence would be powerful here and that we would learn About him and his gospel and that our lives would be changed

We're just sitting here praying for the service before it begins and when we call the church into worship

We've baked it in prayer. Wouldn't that be amazing? Now this is not an exhaustive list on how to prepare

There's so many other things that you could do and you can be creative with it But the question is are you doing something are you preparing for church on your ride into church?

Are you preparing to be in God's house? I'd say it's Satan's best scheme is to is to sidetrack you on the way to church and get you arguing about something the kids are in the back fighting and calling each other in the face and you're worried that people are gonna think you did it when

You got to church when they got red marks all over and you're you're screaming you're going off the road And then as soon as you walk in here, you're like, oh, what a brother

So so good to see you Use your car ride as a holy moment to prepare to be in the house of God Again, not an exhaustive list, but remember we don't do this to perform

We don't do this because we think that this will make God happier at us We don't do this because we think that if we do these things then other people will think better of us

We do these things because God is worthy Because for the joy set before him he endured the cross and scorned at shame because on the cross he was nailed there for our joy

He took the wrath of God So that you and I could have the pleasures of God forever more we prepare because he's beautiful We prepare because he's worthy.

We prepare because he's glorious we prepare because we love him If your heart right now is is is is in this place where you're like,

I don't really care It's a really good opportunity to ask. Do I really love this

Christ? Because he's our greatest treasure.

The Bible says that He's the one that we would sell everything we own to have

Is that how you feel if you do prepare for the Lord's gathering That's the first thing the second thing that we're going to talk about is how do we protect ourselves?

How do we participate in the Lord's gathering once we're here once we've prepared our hearts once we've opened up the scriptures once we've prayed once We've we've made our car ride a holy and sanctified moment instead of what it used to be after we've done those things

How do we prepare or how do we participate in God's presence once we are here? And I think the very first thing that we can do is be here

If you want to participate in the Lord's gathering you got to be here I'm telling you the enemy is such

So sly in the way that he attacks the church Because when 50 % of people are in churches every week

Then they're not in God's presence and Satan has lured them out of community. He's lured them into isolation

He's lured them into a place where he can divide and conquer Hebrews 10 24 through 25 says let us consider how to stimulate one another

To love and good deeds not forsaking our own assembling together as is the habit of some

But encouraging one another all the more to as you see the day drawing near there's two things here

We must not neglect the gathering because God is here and and it even says some are prone to do this, but don't do that Because it's not gonna end up well for you.

It's for your joy that you would be in the Lord's house in the Lord's presence The second reason is that or the second thing we need to see is that we need to encourage one another

This is really practical. If you look around and you see someone who hasn't been here in a few weeks call them

Reach out to them see how they're doing Maybe maybe they have hurt feelings over something.

Maybe they've been traveling and they're out of town. Okay But check on them.

It says here in the scriptures Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good works, which is going to the gathering

If you see someone who's struggling love them encourage them help them

Because we're a family Again, I said this I think last week if your uncle's not a

Thanksgiving you call them if Someone you were expecting is going to be at your wedding wasn't there you call them

Why is it that when we're talking about the presence of God that people fall through the cracks in church Where they feel like nobody cares about me.

They haven't even reached out to me We all have part in this it's another way that we can participate in the gathering attentive listening

Just actually paying attention to what is being said what a lost art that is You Know Tick -tock is a great microcosm for this

App developers believe that we have so little potential that now videos are under 60 seconds because that's all we can take

Give me a break Give me a break the people of God or to lead the world in this being able to sit

Attentively and pay attention to the deep things of God when no one else on earth can Here's one talking about practical turn your phone off Turn your phone off that game that you like to play during church as you're sitting in the pews

Play it later Play it later That person that you like to text because you're bored text them later.

You're in the presence of God Turn your phone off What about you do you like to take notes

Something that helps me so much is taking notes Whether it's written

I I'll even be honest with you I will I have probably wasted an entire tree worth of paper taking notes that I've never read a second time but just the act of taking a pencil and a piece of paper and Handwriting my notes increases my saturation with the material that I've just listened to Take notes get a journal if you don't have one.

I'll give you one But take notes on what's being shared here. What's being shared? Here's from the scriptures

Here's one Get a good night's sleep If you're coming to church tired and falling asleep, and you can barely keep your eyes open

Get some sleep The Lord has given you you're a body to take care of wake up and eat a good breakfast drink a cup of coffee

God's grace to you that coffee was discovered Like I think about I think about coffee and beer

What a miracle it is that someone put those those items in a cup Now don't abuse them, you know

I don't walk around wired out of your brain off of like, you know It's 10 gallons of coffee and you're ready to pounce on somebody

Okay, like moderation same thing with alcohol, but what I don't drink before you go to church.

That's not what I'm saying But if it's coffee If it's coffee have a have a class of coffee come to church ready to receive

Come to church ready to listen ready to hear I think about a kid If I were to take

Graham to the Lego store That kid would be up all night with all of his

Lego books researching exactly what pieces he wanted to find when he got there He would probably be asking me for the website so he could find the item number and Ben number

He would prepare to be in Lego store, why can't we prepare to be in the presence of God Here's one dress like you're meeting someone important you are

God's here if you're coming in in a snuggie And you're so comfortable that you're laid out following us, okay, nobody's done that but that's probably not great

This was challenging to me because I love casual like I'm not stuffy

I don't like to dress like you know I don't I get it But dress like you're meeting someone important.

It will change your attitude if you wake up anybody who works from home can can immediately

Resonate with what I'm getting ready to say if you wake up, and you go to work in your pajamas You're gonna have pajama workday your productivity is gonna be at the pajama level

There's something about when you put on pants And you put on a shirt and you fix your hair and you brush your teeth

And you don't have swamp breath like there's something about that that makes you better at what you're doing

So dress like you're gonna meet someone important sing loud You will not believe how?

impactful it is to actually participate in the singing until you do it I I Only do it because I know what it what value it is like in the military when they would ask us to sing these

Cadences about blowing people up and stuff you would just get so motivated. You're like yeah

I want to blow someone up, and you're like I'm a horrible person But singing loud as a gift

God has given us to inspire us and motivate us when we sing about the right things We sing the gospel

Singing loud is a wonderful way that God stirs our affections and our hearts listening to my kids sing the

Westminster Shorter Catechism and Singing it and knowing it Song is a powerful tool that we can have here to participate in the presence of God if we know

God's real Wouldn't that make us the happiest people on earth? I'm not asking you to fake it

But something else you could do is to meditate on the gospel before you come here to where it warms your affections

You ever heard the story about how fire gets into iron, I think Spurgeon was the one who said it

But iron is hard and and black and and it's unbendable in its current format

But if you put that fire or you put that iron into the fire And you let it sit and you let it sit until the fire gets into it

Then you can bend it you can shape it to anything that you want to shape it into You and I are as hard -headed and as unbendable and as unmovable as iron in our sin

So sit at the fires of Holy Scripture pay attention in the service So the fire gets into you so that God is bending you according to his purpose.

That's a way you can participate participate in the liturgy

Did you know that we purposely design our liturgy here in order to tell a gospel story?

We purposely do that every church has a liturgy that's not just high church and we're not high church again the button

Every church has a liturgy we begin with a call to worship Why because in the very beginning of God's story he called

Adam and Eve into his presence to worship him and Then we begin with God's greeting because we believe

God welcomes us into his presence. And then what do we do? We sing and then after that we confess our sin because in the gospel story things didn't go quite right, did they?

They were called into God's presence. They were worshiping him They were greeted by him and then all of a sudden they break fellowship with God They break commandment with God and they sin

So every week we confess our sin because the gospel is not just the good news of what

Jesus has done for you It's also the bad news of why it had to happen And then we confess our sin Because we're sinners so we confess our sin and then we celebrate pardon through Christ every single week because the gospel never grows old

And then we declare these truths in the sermon then at the end After we've celebrated the

Lord's table, which is another picture of heaven At the end. What do we do? We say the benediction

We say the commission that God has given us to do every day of our life until we go home to be with the

Lord and all of us With hopeful hearts stare towards heaven on the day when

Christ calls us home Every service tells this whole story of the Bible and we do that on purpose

Because we want you to know the gospel From beginning to end and Everything that we do so think about the liturgy when when we're in the call to worship celebrate

When we're in God's greeting whisper a quiet prayer and say God. Thank you so much for welcoming me into your presence

When we're at the Lord's table Thank him that you get to sit with him and dine with him when we're Preaching the sermon listen and pay attention to the truths that are being

Being delivered when you're doing confession of sin Don't just sit quietly and and take that as an opportunity think about what you're gonna do after service or or what your kid said

Or use that time to say search me God and find the parts of me that are still

Offensive to you and when when that moment of quiet is there take that time to confess those things to Christ When we get to prayer in the service if you have something raise your hand if you don't pray silently with us

There's ways that we can all participate in this service because we're participating not in a religious activity

We're participating in the presence of God when we do baptisms Remember your baptism when you look back and you think about God gave me his sign on my life when

I was 10 years old and God marked me out to be a member of his kingdom.

I Remembering how good God has been to me over the last 29 years Remember these things that's another way you can participate you can say amen you can say amen

We're getting ready to join a Presbyterian denomination there is no it's not outlawed to say amen even if we're

Presbyterian I Am very different than some of my

Presbyterian brothers say amen raise your hand during worship if you want to don't make it a show

But between you and the Lord if you want to acknowledge his kingship and his divinity in your life And you want to do that like this?

I don't care do it if your parents teach your children how to sit and listen in the service

Teach them how to how to hear the gospel message ask them questions after you leave

There's ways that we can participate in the Lord's gathering What about serving most churches answer to this question is serving.

Did you know that? Most churches answers is how do you participate? We'll stick you on a door

Get your smiling face on is that what that means? go in the parking lot and direct people to where to park or You know go do some other vacuuming or whatever else is

That what that means I? Don't think so Because I think

When we're called to participate in the gathering we're called to be here present with God who's present

And if we're a church that has got everyone running a hundred different directions trying to do a hundred different things

They're missing out on God's presence. I was at a church that had 200 volunteers for one ministry the kids ministry and Every week

I would talk to those volunteers, and they would say I really I really do miss being in the in the gathering

I really do miss worshiping, but but I'm doing the Lord's work Are you are you

I would be thrilled if this church had not a single volunteer and Hopefully in one day we can get to that point

Because the most important thing that we do all week is we sit in the presence of God We participate in the presence of God and your volunteering pales in comparison now

Does that mean I don't think that we should serve Jesus served? What are you saying? No? I don't think that's what that means. I think we should serve.

I just don't think we should serve right now in This moment when the church is gathered, and we are declaring the gospel

Don't busy yourself Martha with all those things be merry sit down in Jesus's presence

And that's the better portion during that time, but when church is over serve

When church is over use the gifts that God has given you to edify and build up his church

I Believe that's why Paul says So also you since you are zealous of your spiritual gifts seek to abound for the edification of the church

Jesus knows and Paul knows that all of us want something to do Especially if you're a man and you're like my identity is wrapped up in what

I do We've had men who don't make it at this church because I didn't give them a job

I get it we want to do things Just don't do it now sit in God's presence

Pay attention to what's being communicated and when you have heard these truths Stand up to the glory of God and take these truths into your life and serve people for Christ Use it to edify the church

Use it to build up your brother use it to build up your sister use it to to minister in your small group use your

Gifts for the building up of the body just don't use it when the church gathers Don't be distracted by dishes and waiting tables focus on what's better and that's

God is here and After church take all that grace that you forgot and Love your brother and sister to the glory of God if you have the gift of hospitality invite us over and cook for us.

Amen If you have the gifts of encouragement you see one of us down encourage us

Whatever gift the Holy Spirit has given you use it to build up the church But don't think that your service to Jesus is standing at a door and smiling

It's not You don't come to church to go to a ministry

You come to church to be equipped for the work of ministry and the work of ministry is

Building up the church being a witness in the world and seeing Jesus's kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven

Let us not pretend with such shallow things that standing at a door and being a greeter is accomplishing what

Jesus means by service That's why we don't do that There's other ways and better ways for you to participate in the gathering.

That's the second thing Again, not an exhaustive list But if we prepare to be in God's presence and we participate in God's presence

I'm gonna tell you it's gonna change this church and it's gonna change you and I It'll change us and let's go to the last one practicing and you'll notice how these things build upon each other

We prepare to be in God's presence because we have to do that before we come we pray we participate in it and then we practice

We don't practice first and then sort of try to participate. We do the practice after we have been inculcated in The gospel in the moment we take what we've learned here and we put it into practice

There's too many things here for me to list read if you want to get an idea of what we're supposed to do as Christians I think

Matthew 1 to about Revelation 22 is probably a good place to start, right?

But I can't do all that in one sermon So I just want to take a few moments to just talk about several things we can do and there's a list in the

Bible called one another passages that I love these passages and And what do

I mean every one of them has the word one another in them So for instance, what's something we can do after benediction after the church is dismissed.

What can we do? well, we can love one another a novel concept John 12 34 a new commandment

I give you that you love one another even as I have loved you that you also will love one another well after service as Christians, let's love one another in such a way that the world is envious

They have to take notice Do you know that as the Christians were being thrown to the mouths of lions? The pagans cried out look how they love one another

One of the evidences of true Christian faith is that we love one another Be devoted to one another

Man, are we are we getting practical or what? How many times has someone left the church over some silly reason?

I? Don't like the guitar I'm sorry. I'm not trying to mock but that's silly

You preach too long Okay But we are to be devoted to one another in the gospel

We're to consider ourselves More than who were considered the other person more than ourselves Paul says in Romans 12 be devoted to one another and brotherly love give preference to one another in honor

We're supposed to live in harmony with one another be of the same mind toward one another Do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly do not be wise in our own estimation

You see the point is is that after we've said amen There's many things that we get to do

To care for each other and love one another. I got a chance to share this with Haley and Graham yesterday You didn't know it was coming

Haley and Graham were arguing and that's normal their kids and their brothers and sisters and And I I asked them a couple questions and I followed the sermon outline to do it

I Asked them some preparation questions Hey, let me ask you a question

Before you went into this moment. Did you prepare your heart to love your brother and to love your sister? Did you prepare that you were going to be kind and gentle and you were gonna have unity with your brother and sister?

No, no, we didn't. Okay So you were reactive instead of proactive. I get it

Second thing participate You know Jesus You know, Jesus loves us so much and he gave us his gospel that he died for all of our sins

Do you know that? Yes Do you know that he gave us his Holy Spirit so that we will also do the same things and that we will obey as well

Yes, do you know that Jesus says that if you love me, you'll obey my commandments. Yes So where's the disconnect and then we went to the one another passages.

I'll read them to you and I just said guys If we prepare to live this out like it really matters and if we if we participate

In these things and let the gospel go deep down into our hearts. These things will be true of us Check it out.

Christians love one another John 13 34. Why do we do that? Because he first loved us

Christians be devoted to one another Romans 12 10 because he was devoted to us Christians live in harmony with one another

Romans 12 16 build one another up first Thessalonians 5 11 being like -minded Towards one another

Romans 15 5, you know, Jesus prayed that we would all be in unity and John 17 as His father and he have always been in unity

Accept one another Romans 15 7 Admonish one another Colossians 3 16 greet one another

Romans 16 16 care for one another Romans 12 or 1st Corinthians 12 25 serve one another

Galatians 5 13 bear with one another's burdens Galatians 6 to Forgive one another when we sin against one another

Colossians 3 13 be patient with one another that was one we dealt with yesterday with the kids

Ephesians 4 to Speak the truth and love to one another Ephesians 4 15 be kind and compassionate to one another

Ephesians 4 32 Submit to one another in humility first Peter 5 5 Consider others better than yourself

Philippians 2 3 and look to the interest of others. Not just yourself verse 4 Christians teach one another

Colossians 3 Comfort one another first Thessalonians 4 18 encourage one another exhort one another stir up one another show hospitality one another

Employ God's gift for the benefit of one another pray for one another confess your sins to one another labor alongside of each other until this world is filled with the glory of God to And all the nations have surrendered and earth been discipled we do this until that And when

I shared this list with them, I said out of those How many of those did we fall short in?

Graham who's my glass half -empty. He said I think all of them Haley who's my glass half -full.

I think I got a couple of them, right? and I said, you know what if we published this on our refrigerator and we reminded ourself of the implications of the gospel and Because Christ has done this for us now we get to do this to one another and every time we fall short of this

We revisit this list not not to condemn ourselves But to challenge ourselves to lean into the gospel more and to live out the gospel more.

Do you think it would change our family? absolutely, so It's getting published today on the refrigerator and we're gonna look into it

We're gonna get to the point to where we memorize this list Because we want the gospel to come to bear on our not just our practice.

We're not just our participation But also in our practice So let's come to a close.

Let's let's lay on the plane There's three things we can do when it comes to being in the Lord's presence because God is here.

We can prepare to be here We can prepare our hearts in Various different ways we can participate while we're here.

But as James says don't just be a hearer and not a doer We don't do in order to be accepted by God, but because we've been accepted by God therefore we obey and We can do these things to love and care for one another and do you just ask yourself this question?

What do you think the church in New England? what do you think the church in America and what do you think the church in the world would look like if We were people who knew the gospel so well and live the gospel so well that we did these things for one another

It revolutionized everything wouldn't it? Let's pray Lord thank you

Thank you for the ability that we have to gather here in your presence Lord we pray for our brothers and sisters in Nigeria and Somalia and North Korea Maybe even in Russia Afghanistan We pray for them

Lord not because They're neglecting the gathering But because in route to the gathering they are being persecuted

In China, they're having to meet the true church at least is having to meet in houses and in homes and underground and in secrecy and Yet Lord as we lift up our brothers and sisters we pray that the freedom of meeting together would not poison their minds in the way that it has the

American church where we think meeting is optional Lord I even pray for us that we would have the heart of the

Chinese Church That we would have the heart of the North Korean Church That risks their lives to be in the presence of God Lord I pray for each and every one of us here

I pray that the gut -check moment would happen where if we're not willing to die for you and We're ashamed of you and we only come here because we want to do church or have a tradition

Lord I pray that we wouldn't bother with that sort of superficial religiosity But Lord I pray by the power of your

Holy Spirit that you would captivate our hearts for the beauty of Christ and that we would be here That we would be here with a heart wide open to see it and to receive it

Lord I pray that our affections would be inflamed to the glory of God and Lord I pray that this church would be set on fire for a passion for your beauty and your glory