 Okay That took quite some time to get it started. Okay. I hope you all had a good one. Good break Thanks for joining back All right, let's continue with where we left off We looked at the first two points of from page 28 That Jesus as the perfect sacrifice in point one. We see that how He is our high priest and our sacrifice the offering and the Offer And then we see in second part in second point that as the royal priesthood because of the sacrifice of blood of Jesus We have unlimited access to the Holy of Holies. We've been invited to come to draw boldly To come boldly to the throne of grace, right? that invitation is so It's so beautiful that he's it's not just saying come But it's addressing the attitude and in the manner and the we can come he says come boldly To the throne of grace Amen, so that was the second point. That's where we stopped. So let's look at point three in page 28 We as believers are washed Redeemed and made righteous by the blood of the Lord Jesus Okay, can I read that again we as believers? Okay, that means you and me each and every one of you in this class We are washed We are redeemed Redeemed Right and made righteous Not by our own deeds Not by just not by our good deeds not by our righteousness for our righteousness I think like but filthy rags, but we are made righteous By the blood of the Lord Jesus To have access to enter the Holy of Holies anytime all the time To meet and fellowship with God however It is up to us Individually drawn near to him in worship just like the priests of the tabernacle drew near to the most holy place We as worshipers and priests in the new covenant have to draw near to him in worship So the invitation is there access is there but it all comes down to us will you choose To go deeper Will you choose to draw near to him? Because the word says if we draw near to him he will draw near to us, right? So when we draw near individually and worship God we call it personal worship So there are some practical guidelines for personal worship that can help us in our journey of becoming a worshiper All right. So first point is we draw near to God intentionally Hebrews 10 22 encourages us to draw near right. We draw near to God Intentionally that means we you have to be intentional. It's not going to happen by accident Okay, you have to make that resolve in your heart. I'm going to seek him Until I find him right, okay, so drawing drawing near to God intentionally and few points sub points in that point one is We draw near to him with a true heart Insincerity and wholeheartedly We draw near to him with the true heart with since insincerity and wholeheartedly and Sometimes ago we wrote something made note of you know Something that that's about coming to him and I'd like to read it for us if that's okay Says the furnace of intense desire the furnace of intense desire for Jesus burns up self It burns up self-interest Self-centeredness self-confidence self-glory It means when we come to him We are not here to ask for anything or getting him to do anything We are not there to gain power or favor or for people to know that we were there We are not there for the sake of our own consistency or For our own self-discipline. We are not there to prove our devotion to other people or ourselves But we are there to simply give him all our hearts up to him because he alone is worthy To give him all our attention adoration devotion and affection man So we are there not to gain any power or favor or to prove anything to anybody else not Not to gain and not for our own consistency sake Right, but we are there simply because he is worthy and that is drawing near to God with a true heart in Sincerity whole-heartedly knowing that he is worthy and so I'm going to draw near to him All about him he is the audience of one And I think that's something beautiful that we can learn from Luke chapter 10 when he talks about Mary of Bethany is that she makes the choice to sit at the feet of Jesus and to just adore him to you know just Lean into him and Hear him talk to her You know, so that invitation is there just to be like that Mary of Bethany for you know Don't get me wrong. We need Martha's as well Right, we need Martha's who will work who and whatnot But then there are times when we just need to be still and quite in our hearts come before him Sit at the feet of Jesus and hear what he has to say Okay, so that is drawing near to God intentionally with a true heart with heartful of love and sincerity and Then we draw near to him in faith Knowing that he is with us even though we don't see him or necessarily feel him We might there might be times that way but but we draw near to him in faith knowing that he is with us Now his word says he will never leave you nor forsake you taking Believing that verse that promise by faith right with a clear conscience It asking God forgiveness for repentance Being washed by the water of the word Okay, so many times in the Bible the scriptures is referred to Water where it cleanses us Right and then finally with boldness We draw near to God with boldness Okay, so just five points that we draw near to him with the true heart We draw near to him in faith with clear conscience Right asking for forgiveness or forgiving someone that needs to be forgiven. Okay Uh being washed by the word of God and we approach the throne of grace with boldness Recognizing that we are the righteousness of God through the cross Okay, so all of that Is key for us to draw in near to God intentionally Amen, and then the second point there is Express thanksgiving and praise in spoken words or in a song Remember guys, we are talking about some practical guidelines for personal worship. Okay, just in case you've lost track You know, we are talking about some practical guidelines for personal worship. So the second point is Expressing thanksgiving and praise. Okay. It has to be verbal, right? You're expressing gratitude, uh, you know And there's a court, uh, if I may paraphrase it it says If you're feeling gratitude towards someone and if you do not say it or express it, it's useless Right. So if your heart is filled with gratitude and thanksgiving and praise and to God and if you're not really saying it You know or expressing it. There's no point Right. So express thanksgiving and praise in spoken words, right? Um, I'm just reminded by this Brilliant court again. Um says, um If we enter his gates with thanksgiving Whose courts are you entering when you complain? If God is enthroned on the praises of his people, then who is being enthroned on the complaints? right I just thought that's just an awesome court. Um So expressing thanksgiving is you enthroned God and it has God is enthroned in our hearts The the enemy is dethroned everything that is not of God and of his kingdom is being dethroned when we express Thanksgiving and praise and express and pour out our gratitude unto the Lord right And then the third point says worship with the word Worship with the word Okay, use script passages to express adoration to God All right, um Very often what I would also encourage is to sing the scriptures. Okay, that's Actually, I mean just just another word for Worshiping with the word. Okay is to sing the scriptures And that's just a wonderful exercise That I've been doing It's been very helpful as well and we encourage all our worship team members to do that as well And so I'd like to play as a video Where it talks where shows demonstrates this person demonstrate how singing the scripture Can be powerful Okay So he's going to be singing from Psalm 27 So I'm going to encourage you to just turn in your bibles to Psalm 27 as we watch this video and let and as you watch it Let this let what they are singing minister to you as well. Okay, so here it is We're going to introduce verse one and I'm going to sing through it and then they're going to sing around you And this is this is I think one of the best ways to study the bible to get the spirit to To cultivate the spirit of prophecy. So let's try it. I'll actually introduce it Is Wait a week, we just simply touched the light of god we can sing about his light all day long I didn't have to write a whole song. We simply open the bible saying one verse And this is what I'm telling you from this little exercise. This is what I want to encourage all of you to begin to go home and do I want you to sing the word because you see the word is powerful enough. I love poetry But the word can do what poetry cannot And I don't want to just sing songs and rhyme. I want to sing his heart I want to sing his nature. I want to sing his character And this was just a tiny example. It's a simple chord progression. It didn't have to be fancy Simple simple chords simple melodies Simple thoughts simple phrases and what happens is these spontaneous chords just bubble up. They come out of nowhere This is how songs are written This is how we sing the prophetic song of the lord. This is how we Um You guys like that there's so much to jesus, isn't it? So much to jesus from his word and the beauty That his word reveals of who he is is unparalleled Um And so some of the key points that he mentioned in the video is What do you say this is so many things? Um, one of the things he said is he likes poetry But god's word can do what poetry cannot singing words that rhyme Is not more important than singing the word of god Or singing his heart. That's that's what he says, right? Singing his heart is more important than singing words that just rhyme and Yes, Divya, I'll share the link Here john if you can get the link All right Thanks john. So it's just uh Hey Thomas Look for that on youtube when you can j thomas singing the scripture. So As he was encouraging, uh, you know and Sing just if you just open up a bible and sing the scriptures Sing the scriptures It does something it did something now, right and I've I've seen that video I've heard that Many times many times but every time The god's word is being sung It does something right and he sang from sound 27 and just one verse There's a song from one verse on the light of god and he said that they could sing on the light of god all day and Yes, it's truth. Isn't it? It's true, isn't it? We could sing of the light of god all day um It's interesting because in that same psalm psalm 27 verse 4 david goes on to say one thing I ask of the lord and that will I seek That I may dwell Or tabernacle or pitch a tent in the house of the lord All they all the days of my life and to gaze upon the beauty of the lord and to seek him in his temple Amen, so there's this seems to be like this progression Right, uh david is going past the outer course in the uh to the holy place and to the most holy place And there I will dwell I will seek I will gaze I will behold the beauty of the lord um And then in that same psalm psalm 27 if if you go down to verse eight It says my heart says of you seek his face And your face lord, I will seek Amen, um, so all of this uh happens when we just you know What if if we can just follow this one of these guidelines that is singing the word worshipping with the word Beautiful things happen. Amen. And the fourth point mentioned is fourth guideline is praying and singing in tongues So the third point was all about singing the word worshipping with the word and the fourth point is just taking it up a notch saying praying and singing in tongues You know, so those are some practical guidelines to draw near to god intentionally okay, um So just continue looking at jesus as the perfect sacrifice in point four It talks about with our identity as priests. Each of us have a responsibility to offer up spiritual sacrifices Okay, uh, we looked at this in the previous chapter as well and we where we see that You know priests never went empty handed before the lord in the tabernacle or in the temple Priests never went empty handed before the lord Okay, so uh, we now being uh in the new covenant being called as the royal priesthood Each of us have a responsibility to offer up spiritual sacrifices Right and the fifth point there is one of the spiritual sacrifices that we are called to offer as we draw near to him is praise And how many times have you addressed this in this course? Therefore by him let us continually offer up the sacrifice of praise to god That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name Giving thanks to his name right, um And so we've emphasized enough On learning about the power of praise the importance of praise and And it seems like it can never it can never be enough for us to understand the power of praise, right? It's like a portal that opens up heaven and for god's kingdom to invade our situation our circumstance And that's what praise and thanksgiving does it it's like magnet. It attracts heaven heaven cannot listen to our praise And not do anything about it Heaven the kingdom of god has to respond When it hears our praise and our thanksgiving amen, it has to respond. It's like One of the laws of physics right like the laws of gravity what goes up has to come down Isn't it and so the praise and thanksgiving in the kingdom of god is almost like a law Okay, if this happens, we have to respond Know ifs and buts about If my son or my daughter is offering praise and thanksgiving i'm going to go And all of my kingdom Is going to come with me amen um So that's what happens and just let's look at a few more examples of what happens when we personally Praise him when we personally praise god God the king inhabits our praise his presence his power his kingdom rule and reign Invades our circumstances and situations Praise causes divine deliverance Do we remember this passage from second chronicles? And now when they began to sing and praise the lord said ambitious against the peoples of amon moab and monsayer I hope you remember this passage and we learned about the power of praise Okay, so the first thing what happens is god the king inhabits our praise he dwells Okay, that's his address. That is the atmosphere that god dwells in Right, and then that is being released into our situation when we praise him Point three says praise stops the enemy Praise stops the enemy and from some aid verse 2 it says out of the mouths of babes weak Babies infants nursing infants that cannot defend themselves Out of their mouths he has ordained It's his strength And because of your enemies that you may silence the enemy and the avenger Without praise guys god has silenced Our enemies And praise prepares our heart to receive from god Praise prepares our heart to receive from god and hosier 10 11 simply says juda shall plow Simply means the praise a plowing of the field is what a farmer that plows the field is preparing To sow the seed and waiting for the rains to come And so when we praise him we are preparing the soil of our heart For god to come and rain and bear fruit in us Amen, so those are the four Points, you know just to remind us once again of what really happens when we praise him personally Is that god takes a seed on the throne? He's causes divine deliverance Praise stops the enemy And praise Prepares our hearts to receive from god Okay So are you all with me so far? Hope everything is good all as well Okay Thank you So now we are moving into a different section. So until until this point we've spoken Or learned about personal worship the importance of it And how there is an invitation to for us personally to enter the throne room of god To enter his presence with with praise and thanksgiving to enter his throne of grace boldly So there is an invitation for us and what it comes down to us is if we are going to make the choice to go deeper Are we going to stay in the outer courts or are we going to go all the way to the holy of holies? It's up to you Right and some practical guidelines that goes with it to help you You know push you and encourage you to go that extra mile and Now we will discuss about corporate or congregational worship Corporate worship or congregational worship okay, uh, so just Before we just look at the notes. There's a couple of things about the congregational worship Question Do you think corporate worship is important? If yes, why do you think corporate worship or congregational worship is important? John says yes, okay Everybody else know Two is better than one Yes, why why is it better? Okay two one is two is better than one. Okay Why is it important? What's the significance of it? To honor Jesus as his people right Yes, it helps in encouraging each other Yeah Encouraging each other Yeah, corporate worship is important. I think in Hebrews it mentions about the assembling and gathering together not to neglect The gathering of each other. Yes Also ensuring the word of God come on guys. What else? How many of y'all are part of a church? How many of y'all have missed going to church in the last Year and a half almost two years How many of y'all have missed the fellowship of being around people In your congregation. Yes Yeah, thanks prayer. We are the body of Christ body has many parts each one has its own function together. Yeah, we make the full body. Yes Interestingly enough yesterday sermon by pastor Ashish was about us being one body for guidance and counseling purposes. Yeah. Yeah Awesome. So I think we are all in the same page. Uh, at least we don't need to have a debate or something. Oh, yes, Divya. Please go ahead. Yeah Yeah, I just wanted to share something that happened today for for our Sunday service So like we were late for the church and we were sitting in a different room So in that room, we do have screens where they project The worship from the sanctuary. So we were trying to worship But there were only few people and everyone is you know sitting on the couch relaxing some looking on the phone Some were drinking coffee and we were like, okay Okay Then we couldn't sit there for long. So we and one other elderly person we came out Because in the screen we could figure out that in the sanctuary. There were many seats So we just went inside the sanctuary and it was so different And yeah, we were like, oh, how much we missed Uh, we should have gone in the beginning. So yeah, even in during covid time. Yeah Yeah, we missed a lot. Yeah, and I should say apc Uh, so this is the one thing that we grab hold of during this Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks Divya. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah Uh, yeah, I mean so many things this code has taught us What I think what definitely one of the things is not to take for granted. Uh, just to coming together uh, you know Of worshiping Jesus as one body, isn't it? It's just beautiful. It's just beautiful Right, so a corporate worship or congregational worship So we're gonna just look at the section very briefly about the importance of it, right? Because the congregational song In the new testament was congregational Okay Uh, we repeatedly, you know find singing taking place among people who had relationships, uh, you know shared joy or any corporate purposes. Okay, there was singing involved, uh, you know Very often and every time and um, so this is caught by Ralph as the person called Ralph Martin Uh, he says that christian church was born in a song By the christian church a corporate church, right was born in a song. This is a very interesting code, right? And so and And when we look at this notes, we see there are two aspects to it. Oops, sorry One is the vertical aspect and the horizontal aspect, so we will just quickly take a look at that When we come together as one body as his church, okay The vertical aspect what happens there is we are to minister to god That is one of the main purpose Again, okay emphasis is to exalt god That is the main purpose a main objective To bless and glorify him Which is our primary purpose in worship not to get something for ourselves Okay, we are not the recipient once again to remind ourselves that we are not the recipients of our own worship Right, but god is The question is not whether the worship service blessed me, but whether it blessed god Did you minister to him before you can receive something from him? Yes, we go to church, uh, you know And that also happens we get fed. That's also the reason why we go to church You know, we we are encouraged and whatnot But the primary purpose is to minister to god Okay, we minister to the lord not to the ulterior motive of receiving a blessing But rather with the motive of blessing him whether he blesses us or not Right, we worship to better realize the presence of god the main difference between a church service and a meeting of a social Organization is the presence of god, isn't it? Right, uh, where jesus emphasizes again, he says where two or three are gathered I am in their midst Right, and we have so many get-togethers and whatnot. What is the difference between that a family get-together friends get-together school reunion college reunion all of that and Um, and as as believers coming together Simple difference is the presence of god his annoying thing Amen, it's the same thing. That's the same difference Between the music of the world and the music that is played unto the lord C major is the same three notes c e n g that Hill song about the we play it's the same notes when metallica iron maiden All these secular bands play but what is the difference? uh Is that the is the holy spirit breathing over those notes breathing over those chords breathing over your instrument or what you're singing What you're declaring what you are playing? right, so the presence and his annoying is is Is a differentiating factor To provide the atmosphere for the expression of the gifts of the holy spirit God waits till we are ready to receive his word To provide the atmosphere for the expression of the gifts of the holy spirit and god god waits till we are ready to receive his word the prophetic word Okay, uh, can you all think of any other uh, you know examples from the bible? Uh, how god showed up when people gather together corporately or congregationally Any other examples that you can think of? The one is from x chapter two Again, it says when they were all gathered together In one accord in one heart Right, then The holy spirit came isn't it Many battle strategies in the whole testimony. I'm reading your comments in the chat section and Priya says in the family get together The father loves to see his children loving each other and coming in unity That makes him much happy. Yes extending this to the heavenly family that magnitude became. Yeah Yeah, it's just intense isn't it? Uh, and again, you know this theme It just resonates even in revelation which is Every tribe and every tongue People from every nation Will come together there is What is happening in revelation? Is the worship song being you know, it's rising corporately congregationally Right So another characteristics in the new testament corporate song is uh, is the manifest presence of the holy spirit itself right in Ephesians chapter five You know, we know the popular scriptures 17 and 19. It just clearly Says that singing of the early christians was an overflow of the spirit at work in their hearts Right and encourage one another sink to one another. It's what it says, isn't it? Um All right, so, uh, let's look at the horizontal aspect of it The horizontal aspect is one is to enhance the sense of unity within a body Enhance the sense of unity Within a body. Okay, so i'm 133. It says how wonderful and how beautiful it is Brothers come together in unity All right, so All believers have this one thing in common that they love the lord jesus christ and express their mutual faith together in song Uh, even if you just take the Uh, the church factor out of it, right? How many of us have come together? Uh, you know, how many of us have uh come across relationships or friendships You know and where the common factor was jesus right, uh There's so many people in my world that have come across And the only reason seems to be jesus and it is because of jesus of what we were doing for jesus Or because of our love for him We met uh, you know So many friendships and relationships like that, isn't it? Um to minister to one another To teach and reinforce spiritual truth re-emphasizing efficiency 519 and colossions 316 Um paul again encouraging let the word of christ rich dwell in you richly Okay Point four to provide believers the opportunity to profess their faith before others and to declare the glories of god before unbelievers To provide the atmosphere for preaching of the world Also to prepare the pastoral leadership for the delivery of the word Okay, uh, it's just so many things that is happening in corporately when we come together one just to remind us Let's look at the summary in page 31 This is incongrigational worship one we minister to god Incorporate worship brings about a sense of unity within the church The song we sing as a congregation enables us to learn teach and reinforce spiritual truth And corporate worship prepares our hearts and provides the atmosphere for the preaching of the word and how important is that Amen It facilitates us to express the feelings of our heart in uninhabited worship So that's the summary of the corporate worship and the importance of it. So in conclusion It simply means god is eager to help us as we prepare But he wants us to ask him for that help. We don't simply plan for meetings. We plan for people Right, we don't simply plan for meetings or events Everything that we do is we plan for people and ask god for songs that will serve those you are leading Rather than ones you like or the ones that will make you look good Every person walking in on sunday morning has unique needs Specific since he or she is battling blind spots and a tendency to forget the gospel We have the awesome privilege Of pointing everyone To the greatness goodness and the grace of jesus christ We need the holy spirit's power to be effective and as we'll never outgrow our need for his help Okay, so coming together as a church as one body There's more than actually what meets the eye. There's so much more happening spiritually Amen So with that we'll end this session about personal and corporate worship Right Is there any questions or is there anything that you would like to share? Or is everybody doing all right all clear? Okay Great. Once again, I hope that you could take away something of today's class both the session session one and session two God bless you go back home and reflect on everything that you learned Let the practical guidelines help you in your journey in becoming As becoming a worshiper as you go deeper and deeper Amen Thanks guys. Thank you all for joining in god bless you all Have a wonderful day and stay safe. See you all once again next week. Bye. Bye