Video Transcript: The Church is God's Family Home

Welcome to lecture four of the practical ministry skills series. This is the church.  Is God's family home, taken from chapter two of pastoring the nuts and bolts.  Our key verse for this one is I Corinthians 3:16, don't you realize that all of you  together are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God lives in you, all of you  together. There's another verse that says that your body is the temple of the  Holy Spirit, and that's true, and that's a different way. That's not a contradiction.  Paul wrote both of those, and he's obviously not contradicting himself, but he's  talking here about all of us together are the temple of God. James talks about us being built together. Or Peter, I think it's I Peter talks about us being built  together as living stones into the temple of God. All of you together are the  temple of God, and that the Spirit of God lives in you. The church is God's  family, home. God's desire, as we saw last time, has been from the beginning, to dwell among his people when He created Adam and Eve he came down to walk  with them. He had Moses build a tabernacle so he could be with his people as  they traveled. He had Solomon build the temple so he could have a center of  residence for being among his people. At the end of time, we will all be together  in the new heaven and new earth in the Church Age, the church that's all of us  together who believe in Jesus. We are the temple of God and the Spirit of God  lives in us. We are intended to be God's family home, Jesus gave an amazing  promise in Matthew 18:20 he said, Where two or three gathered together as my  followers, I am there among them, where two or three gathered together as my  followers. That's the New Living Translation, making a little more clear what the  more literal wording is, where two or three gathered together in my name. I am  there among them. I am in their midst. Jesus says, What does that mean? Isn't  God everywhere? Jesus is God, and so Jesus is everywhere. If there are more  than one little group of people gathering in Jesus name at the same time, he  doesn't have to choose between them. He can be everywhere. He can be with  them all. But this is talking about what Taylor just called a difference between the omnipresence of God, his characteristic of always being everywhere all the time, and the manifest presence of God, where God makes His presence manifest,  makes his presence known, makes his presence felt or sensed, if you will, in a  special way when two or Three Christians come together with the intent of being together as Christians in the name of Jesus, gathered as his followers. Jesus is  there among us in a special kind of a way. You could see the manifest presence  of God, this special presence of God in the dedication of Solomon's temple. One of my favorite stories, the priests all they built the temple. They had it all set, and they were ready to dedicate it and invite God to move in. I remember when my  wife and I built our retirement home, and it was built from scratch, we were still  living in a different state, and my wife's father had left us a piece of land, and we were able to build a house on that land, and the builder built it for us, and it was  finally all done, and we moved from Maryland to Missouri, 1000 miles. And I  remember when the builder was there to show us this new house that he had 

built for us, and say, Here it is. It's ready for you to move in. That's what  happened with the dedication of Solomon's temple. They built it, and then they  gathered a big celebration and invited God to move in. And the Bible says when  they blew their trumpets and started singing and praising the Lord, he moved in  in such a way that the glory of His presence knocked them flat. They couldn't  stay on their feet. They couldn't stand to minister. That was a manifest presence. God isn't present with us to that degree of glory all the time, we wouldn't be able to walk around. But that happened then. That's not the only time. In the 1800s in America, there was a revivalist named Charles Finney, and he had the presence of God with him, sometimes to such a degree that the stories are told that when  people were riding their buggies to come to his his meetings, sometimes when  they would cross the line from one county into another, they would be struck.  They would they would fall over. That has interesting things to do about territorial principalities and powers and everything that we might look into with that. But  that's a different issue I don't want to get into, because I don't know very much  about it. I just think it's interesting when they cross the county line in the 1940s I  think it was 1920s 1940s when the revival was in Wales under Evan Roberts,  sometimes the spirit was so strong that farmers out in their fields near the  church where the preaching was going to be just fell down, under the influence  of the power of the glory of God fell to their knees. I heard a pastor tell me this  story. Personally. It was at a city in Maryland. There was a church where God  was visiting. There was revival going on, and this was one of the pastors  associated with that church, and he had a brother or brother in law, I forget  exactly who was extremely skeptical of all of this. Didn't believe it. But this  brother or brother in law came to visit, and this pastor went to pick him up at the  airport, and had to stop by the church for some business on the way home. Had  to stop and get something. And said, once you come on in, look around. And so  the brother in law, total skeptic, started to come in the church with him. The  moment he stepped across the threshold of the door, he fell to the ground,  overcome by the manifest presence of God, the glory of God. Now the manifest  presence of God is usually much less dramatic than that. That doesn't happen  every time two or three gather together. If it did, they wouldn't be stories. I'm  telling you. I'm telling you because they're unusual, but it's just as real. God's  presence is just as real. That's how he wants us to recognize him. He wants to  appear to us many times, not every time, maybe not most of the time, but he  wants us to be open to that, and he wants us to learn to move from where we  have to be knocked on the ground before we recognize it, to where our senses  are trained. Our sensitivity is trained to the point that when we come together  with other Christians in the name of Jesus, when we gather together as his  followers, we can sense that he is among us in a special way. The thing that  usually brings that most powerfully is worship. Psalm 22:3 says, You are holy,  enthroned on the praises of Israel, speaking to God Lord, we worship you. We 

praise you. You are holy. You are enthroned on the praises of Israel. Now, what  does it mean to be enthroned? Well, a throne is just a fancy chair, right? And a  throne is where a king or a queen sits. So to be enthroned means to sit. You are  holy sitting on the praises of Israel. When do you sit, when you're tired of  standing, when you intend to stay a while, when you want to be there and rest  and relax? We want our worship to create an environment, to create a place  where God wants to rest and relax and be present with us and stay a while. We  don't want God just to worship and drop off a blessing. We don't want just to  touch from God. Tommy Tenney says, we don't want God just to be like the  delivery man that brings us a package and we meet him at the door and thanks,  and then he's gone. We want God to come in and rest. It's his family home. We  want him to come in and enjoy this place. Say, this is a house that I could like.  These are people I could live with and come in and rest and stay. So what kind  of worship creates that resting place for God, creates that family atmosphere for  God, free worship, the 150th Psalm. I don't have that one on a slide, but I'm sure you all know it. But let me see if I can find it. Praise God in his sanctuary, praise  him in his mighty heavens. Praise Him for His acts of power, praise him for his  surpassing greatness. Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him  with the harp and lyre. Praise him with the tambourine and dancing be that  tambourine dance around. Praise him with the strings and the flute. Praise him  with a clash of cymbals. Never heard cymbals that loud. Praise him with the  resounding cymbals read everything that has breath, praise the Lord. Praise the  Lord. This is not sit back, silent, sedate worship. Now that's not saying that's  how all worship needs to be, but we're encouraged to do that. David dancing  before the Ark of the Covenant. You remember the stories brought back the Ark  of the Covenant from the Philistines. He's built the place for it in in Jerusalem.  He's had the problem once when he didn't do it right trying to bring it back in,  didn't the people carrying it didn't honor the holiness of the ark. And so he's  figured it out all right. Now he's got it coming back into Jerusalem, and he's  dancing. David took off his outer robes and danced so wild and crazy in front of  the ark of God for the joy of the Lord, that his wife was very embarrassed and  upbraided him for it said you really embarrassed yourself. Now let me make  sure you understand this is not specifying a particular style or format of worship,  a traditional liturgy of written prayers and responses can be expressed with  tremendous joy and enthusiasm. On the other hand, if you're in the kind of a  church where dancing and weeping and crying is raising your hand and shouting hallelujah is the normal thing, it can get to the point where that same thing is  done, that same way, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, and it just becomes a  dry repetition of expected responses. So the issue is not style. The issue is  passion. God wants free passionate worship. He wants us to love him. He loves  us. He wants that love to be reciprocated and exchanged, and he wants us to  express that love to him as freely as he expresses his love for us. So God wants

worship that is free, but God also wants worship that is. Are true, and where did  I dare we are? God has once worship that is true. Jesus said, John 4:23-24  talking to the Samaritan woman at the well, he said, The time is coming, and  indeed it's here now, because I'm here now, Jesus is saying, The time is coming. Indeed, it's here now when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and  in truth. The father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is  Spirit. So those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth, the kind of  worship that God is seeking combines true teaching with the freedom and power of the Holy Spirit. See, if you don't have the true teaching, then you may be  worshiping a false idea of what God is. If you don't understand who God is, then  you're worshiping your misunderstanding instead of worshiping the true God. So God wants us to understand him. He wants us to know Him. Because the better  we know him, the more we can be blessed, the more we can become like him,  and that involves truth, knowing the truth about who he is. So worship in spirit  and in truth. If somebody says, okay, if I'm going to be true, I'm going to be  honest, then what about when I don't feel like worshiping? What about the times  that I'm just tired and things are going wrong, and maybe I'm mad at God,  maybe I'm mad at somebody else, isn't it untrue? Isn't it hypocritical to sing and  praise the Lord in those times? It sounds logical, but it is not. That's not  hypocrisy. God commands us to worship Him, and so worshiping Him is an act  of obedience. And obeying God when you don't feel like it, that's not hypocrisy.  Obeying God when you don't feel like it, when you're scared, when you don't  know what's going to happen, obeying God when you don't want to that's called  faith. That's faith, and this is particularly true of praise, of praising God. Listen to  this verse, and I did get this in my notes, even though I didn't get a slide for you  from the prophet Habakkuk. Habakkuk 3:17-18, even though the fig trees have  no blossoms and there are no grapes on the vines, even though the olive crop  fails and the fields lie empty and barren, even though the flocks die in the fields  and the cattle barns are empty. This is a farmer, okay. He raises figs and grapes  and olives, and he raises sheep and cows, and they're all dead. Maybe there's a famine, maybe there's a drought, who knows what? But he says, even though  this is happening, yet, I will rejoice in the Lord. He doesn't say, I feel like  rejoicing. He says, I will. It is my will to do this. I choose to do this. I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in the God of my salvation. When your body just wants  to sit and your mind just wants to sulk, your Christian spirit still wants to praise  God, and your Spirit is the one that should be in charge. So let your spirit have  its way. Obey God, praise God. And you know what the amazing thing is. As you do that, usually, your mind, your attitude and even your body will fall into line and start feeling like praise and start feeling. You'll feel better for it. Now, one other  quick word on worship should be true, and that has to do with worship leaders.  You may be a worship leader. You may be in charge of a church that has  worship leaders, whatever, but worship leaders. I'll be talking about this more 

later, but your worship leaders should be your lead worshipers. The primary  qualification of a worship leader is not their ability to sing or to play an  instrument or those kinds of things. They're important and they're good, if that's  music like that is an element of your worship. But the main qualification is they  should know how to worship. They should worship God themselves. You can't  lead somebody to do something you don't know how to do yourself. God wants  worship that's free. God wants worship. That's true. God wants worship that is  shared. Another verse that we'll be looking at a lot in future weeks that I didn't  get onto a slide, I Corinthians 14:26, Paul says in chapters 12-14 of I  Corinthians talk about worship, describe worship more or less, or I should say,  more than, pretty much any place else in the New Testament. Describes New  Testament gathering of Christians and what should happen. And so he kind of  sums it up in this verse in 14:26, of I Corinthians. Well, my brothers and sisters,  let's summarize. When you meet together, one will sing, another will teach,  another will tell some special revelation God's given. One will speak in tongues.  Another will interpret what's said. But everything that's done must strengthen all  of you. Okay, that's five different kinds of things that are going on there with at  least five different people. As you go on, you see that each of these things can  happen more than one for different people. But the point is, all of the people,  and the Greek word means each for every person who is there should be  actively involved in expressing worship in whatever the Holy Spirit leads them.  In whatever way the Holy Spirit leads them, and as the the pastor or the worship leader or one of the elders or other leaders of the church, one part of your job is  to train your people to recognize the Spirit's leading and respond properly. We  talked about that already with hearing the word from the Lord through the Holy  Spirit also in guiding how to do this. But the point is not that everybody's there  has to do something each time, but that everyone who is there can if the Lord, if  the Holy Spirit is leading. So be sure, the structure of your church service  provides an opportunity for people to participate in these ways. And again, we'll  talk more about it later. There is only one person in the audience of a worship  service, and that is God, we so often feel like the pastor, the worship leader, the  band, the choir, whoever is up front, they're leading it, they're there. They're kind of doing the service, and all the rest of the people in the pew, they're the  audience. That's not the case. That's a performance mentality. And sometimes,  yes, there will be a performance that other people can just listen to, but they  listen to by entering into it to offer it their listening and participation and silent  amens to God, they are still being worshipers. They are not being worshiped at.  It's not for their benefit. It's not a band concert. There's only one person in the  audience of a worship service, and that is God. So be sensitive to the flow of the Holy Spirit, so that, as these things begin to happen, you can be sure that  everything is done in a fitting and orderly way. That's I Corinthians 14:40, and we talked about that a couple lectures ago. God wants things in order. He wants 

freedom, but not chaos so be sensitive to the flow of the Holy Spirit. God wants  us to be good hosts and hostesses each week. As you plan for church next  Sunday, prepare yourself. Whatever your role is. You're going to be leading or  helping to lead a group of people who are inviting the God of the universe to  come in and rest a while. So your job as a pastor or leader is to equip your  people to do that. We don't want God just to visit us now and then. We want  God to dwell with us, to live with us. It's kind of like being a real estate agent for  God, Lord, you're going to love this place. The people are so nice and friendly,  just kind of your kind of people. You're going to feel right at home. They're your  family. Come on in. Sit down. Stay a while. So you need to preach and teach  and lead your people to divine hospitality, how to welcome God in and how to  celebrate the signs of God's presence, how to recognize and celebrate when  God does show up. And again, this is learned, Preach it and teach it when,  when the praise and worship seems especially welcoming to God. Point it out,  let the people know when they're doing well and gently correct them when  they're not gently because they're learning it. Discerning the presence of God is  a learned sensitivity. Hebrews 5:14, in the ESV says solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment, trained by constant practice to  distinguish good from evil. Powers of discernment, and that is not just good and  evil actions, good and evil wisdom, but good and evil spirits, good and evil  atmosphere, the presence of God. We learn it. It's by training and practice that  we learn to discern in the spirit. I was at one church that had a wonderful  worship band, and we were at a men's retreat, and the band was there and had  led us in worship and so on earlier in the day, but this was the evening after we  ate, and they were just kind of hanging around having fun, and they decided to  start playing some old Beatles songs, and who were a good band, and they  were good at singing these old Beatles songs. And we got into it. Everybody's  having fun. And people came in to listen. And there were two men that sat in the  back and were listening and talking and laughing and joking and so on. And as  the band played, they began to sense that God was enjoying this. He was  having fun with them, too. And so the band started moving into worship songs,  and they began playing more and more worship, and there became this strong  sense of God's presence. It was, it was a powerful sense of the presence of God among us. But in the back, these two guys, now good Christians, long time  church goers, leaders in the church, but they were still just talking and laughing  with each other, and had no idea. Didn't notice this shift in the atmosphere,  didn't recognize what was going on, and it got to the point where that kind of  just, it was too much. We couldn't move more into worship without that. Maybe I  should have stood up and said something. I wasn't leaving the retreat. I could  have but I didn't. But anyway, let God do what God wants to do. That's the  wrong oops, wrong button. There we go. Here we go. That button, that button.  Do not stifle the Holy Spirit. I Thessalonians 5:19, if God wants to do something 

different that you're not used to recognize, let him if somebody, if you're being a  gracious host or hostess, you have a guest in your house and they want to do  something you're not comfortable with or you're not used to, as long as not  some terrible thing. You generally let him do it right. You'd be you'd be  hospitable. Same with the Holy Spirit. Don't stifle the Holy Spirit if he wants to  shift up the worship order or do something. And the last point, teach your people not to offend God, worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness three times  repeated there, don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed by  the day of redemption. Another translation puts it this way, do not bring sorrow to God's Holy Spirit by the way you live. Whoops, did I miss one? Oh, I didn't quote that one. Okay, worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. There we are. Don't grieve the Lord by God. God likes holiness. He doesn't like sin. So if we sin, it  grieves God. He doesn't he's not going to stick around. The way to be hospitable to God is the way to be hospitable to anybody is don't do something that offends your guest. We're out of time. We'll pick it up again next time. I'll see you. Then,  God bless you.