 recording. Okay, the class is in session and we are recording. Welcome once again, guys. Let's get started right away. Can I request any one of us to just start us off with the word of prayer, get into it. Pastor, can I pray? Yes, please. Go ahead. Okay. Heavenly Father, we are grateful once again for this morning and for this opportunity to bring us all back from our various nations and our tribes and our homes. Father, we praise your holy name for your grace that has abound with us throughout our holidays. Father, we commit ourselves into the gracious hands once again. As we are beginning a new academic semester, we pray that your grace continue to be sufficient with us in the name of Jesus. Father, we pray that, Lord, you supply all our needs according to your glorious riches in the name of Jesus. Father, we commit, Lord, our first, our teacher, pastoration into your mighty hands of God. Continue to keep him and guide him in the name of Jesus. Father, whatever that you inspire him to teach us may it be a blessing unto us in the name of Jesus. Father, I pray that you grant him the utterances that each day when we encounter him, we will understand him and he will also be able to pour out whatever you have deposited in him into us in the name of Jesus. Father, I pray, commit my colleagues into your global mighty hands again, oh God. Father, I pray for understanding. I pray for the ability to be able to comprehend whatever you will be taught in this class and we can put it into practical ministry in the name of Jesus. We thank you for an answered prayer, oh God. In Jesus' mighty name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Elisha. Thanks, everyone. Once again, as mentioned, it's just lovely to connect with you all. I think I saw you somewhere. Good to see you. Right, so this course, let me go ahead and share the screen. We can all see the screen. So this is BC 311, a worship ministry. It's the third year course and just to give you a brief overview of what this course is all about. It's going to be, it's going to provide a very important and practical, you know, on how you organize, lead, develop and pastor the worship ministry in a local church. A lot of the experiences and some of the methods will be shared from how we do things at APC here in Bangalore, India. But this is what the course is all about is... Yeah, it's all about giving us a more of a practical understanding of how we can, you know, approach this worship ministry as we call it. So, but we will be just starting off from where we left off with regards to appraisal and worship from our first year course. You know, we, towards the very end, we learned the importance of corporate worship and also the regional worship, right? So just for us to start us off is to go through the course outline. We'll be looking at worship ministry in the Bible. To start off, we will learn a little bit, once again, about worship and how it was organized in the Bible. The Old Testament and in the New Testament. And then we'll go through a brief journey through time and see how worship movement or the sound or the expression of worship and singing has evolved through time. And then get more deeper into the practical aspects of worship ministry. You know, what are the roles and the responsibilities, how the organizational aspect of it and the spiritual aspects, what is expected of every team member in the worship ministry and team. The technology that is used in worship ministry, what can be used and some suggestions for you to take. Maybe if you're leading a church or any ministry, you can hoping that it would be helpful and some of the technology that will be suggested as well. And then developing a local community as a worshiping body and the importance of regional language expressions of worship. Okay, so this is what this course is all about and most of you are expecting already and so let's get right into it. Right, so the first chapter we look at is worship ministry in the Bible and one of the people that I'd like to start off by looking at is Abraham. Abraham was known many things. He's known as the father of faith and whatnot. And one of the things that he is known for very popularly in the Christian circle amongst worshipers and churches is that he was the man of altars. So that's what we're going to look at briefly today is the altars of Abraham. The altars of Abraham. But so before we just dive into it, when you hear the word Abraham, the person and then his name Abraham, what stands out to you? What is the first impression of Abraham for you? Okay, let me know in the chat section. Can I say something? Sure, sure. Yes. Yeah, my first impression about Abraham is faith. Yeah, that he's a man of faith and the majorly and then I hear of him beginning altars from nowhere. He had never seen any canonite or what? That was being altars, but he begins altars and then remember he's coming from a family which was serving other gods. Maybe he was basing on the altars of their gods. I don't know, but that's what comes in my mind. Thank you. Thanks Charles. Yeah, thanks guys for sharing in the chat section. I see lovely surrendered to God, father of faith, man of faith. It's called to be a friend of God, man of faith and prayers. A man of radical faith, obedience. That's interesting. Air of the world. Okay. Yeah, I mean, there's so much that can be spoken of about Abraham, isn't it? About our father of faith. There's so many things and if we have to do a character study on his life and the revelation is amazing and it never ceases to amaze us and intercessor as well. But so the one aspect we'd like to look in this session is that he was the man of altars as well, right? He built altars. So yeah, let's get started. So when God calls Abraham and we know it's the very famous chapter where we all know that it's almost I'm preaching to the choir here, but teaching to the choir. I'm preaching. We know Genesis chapter 12 until Genesis 11. Genesis 12 takes a such a drastic 180 degree turn per se from all of a sudden from all the failures of human and humans and human history and so many people and generations. And suddenly in Genesis chapter 12, the focus is turned to one man, right? It's just brilliant. It's just so interesting. And God calls Abraham. He tells him leave his land, his relatives, his family, his father's house and go to the land that he will show. That's what God says, right? Go to the land that I will show. So that means he didn't fully have a revelation of the big picture Abraham did not have. This is where I'm going to go. Google Maps from here to there. How many kilometers? How many restaurants in the middle? Where can I take my break? Where can I stop for? Where can I fill fuel? Nothing, right? Yeah, we've all traveled and we've all used Google Maps. So you know what I'm talking about, right? You plan your travel, you plan your breaks, you know, and whatnot. Sometimes not all of us plan, but right. And so throughout his journey, Abraham built four altars and they represent the stages of his experience as you can see in your notes and growth in the faith. They represent the stages of a different stage of his experience, his walk, his progress and growth in the faith. They show how he behaved himself in a manner that not only commended him to the Lord, but that clearly demonstrated his commitment to a walk of faith with his God. Okay, but what we have to remember when God calls Abraham, he was coming from a polytheistic religion. Polytheistic means you have many gods, right? And he was an idol worshiper. He comes from a region and from amongst people was an idol worshiper, right? And so that's the background, the setting that God calls him up and asks him to go on a journey. Okay, I just want to stop sharing the notes for just one quick second and share a tab here for us to... Okay, so we can see this map here, right? So this is where he was, Ur, right? This is where Abraham used to live. It was the land of the Chaldeans, right? The meaning of Ur, some say it was the moonlit city or light, so city of lights, something like that. But this is where he was. And so you see here the red line shows Abraham's journey. So the journey of Isaac, Jacob, we... let's ignore the purple, blue and the brown. Okay, let's look at the red line. So it goes all the way from here. It's going, Babylon is coming, it's coming, it's going, it's going. Okay, this is brown, but he's going up north again to Haran and then takes a diversion. It's down south, it's coming all the way down, all the way down here to Damascus and then he comes here and shake him. Now you... as we go, you will see this is where he first builds the altar, okay? But we'll see. We'll read the scriptures as well, but I just wanted us to just have a picture of this. Shake him to Bethel, coming down. If you come down south, Hebron, Kadesh, and then Shur, and all the way to Egypt, okay? So we will... you all know that Abraham went to Egypt as well. This is the land of Goshen just for our understanding. This is where during the time of Exodus, Moses, this is where the Israelites were in Egypt. This is the land of Goshen. Once again, you all know, we are aware of that, right? It's quite an incredible journey, isn't it? I mean, just looking at a map, it gives us a different perspective altogether. Yeah, okay. I think I'll leave that map as it is just for us to have a picture of. But in the meantime, also, I'm also hoping that you have your notes open on your screens just so we can follow along, right? Okay, so Abraham, in this chapter, what we're learning is that he was the man of altars. And as most of you have expressed that he was a man of obedience, he trusted God and obeyed. He was a father of faith, man of faith, friend of God, et cetera, et cetera. And now we know that he was a man of altars. And when you hear the word altar, what's the first thing that comes to your mind? What is your understanding of the word altar? Can I say something? This is Charles. Charles, go ahead, yeah. An alt, a place where humanity meets divinity. Humanity meets divinity. Sacrifice and prayer, sacrifice, right? Covenant, yeah, thank you, Saddam. Place of sacrifice, thanks, Avani. Yeah, a place of surrender, a place where you draw divine power, yeah, ransomed. Okay, reminder that you're ransomed, redeemed, yeah. In the very, one of the first times that you will come across the word altar is after the fall, when the narrative turns towards Cain and Abel worship. The first thing we see is that they built an altar, right? So as Charles also said, the altar initially was a bridge, it was a common place. It was a meeting place to bridge the great divorce that had happened because of sin. It is, again, to, I can't say better than what Charles said, it's where humanity met with divinity, or divinity met with humanity. Right, it was a common place. It was a meeting place. That was the altar. And then we know that, you know, humans populated, the population increased and whatnot. And then in the scripture, if you look at the notes, the word altar in scripture means a place of slaughter and sacrifice, where bloodshed and death took place. It symbolized acknowledgement of or approach to and appreciation of God. In other words, worship. Right, so it was a place of complete surrender, you know, have no control. It was a place of slaughter and sacrifice. I mean, when you place a lamb or, you know, sheep or goat on the altar, it was dead, you know, and then that where blood was shed, death took place. It symbolized, that's where you acknowledged who God is, who God was. And some more pointers there is primarily an altar was a place of worship, where God was adored for who he is and what he has done. Okay, it was a place of worship to adore him for who he is and what he has done. Only burnt offerings were offered to him in the days of the patriarchs since the law of Moses was not yet given. Okay, and altar was also a place of testimony to the only true God in the midst of widespread idolatry. So fast forward to the days of, you know, Abraham and all the way from this land of Ur and also in the land of Canaanites, Canaanites here, right, there were all idol worshipers. That means they had also learned that, okay, one way of worship or expressing worship is to build altars. So they had also built altars for their idols, false altars of worship, as we call it, right. And also was a place of communion between God and the worshipper where instructions were often given by the Lord and received by his servant. Okay, and everything else what you guys said, okay, so please know that in every point that is there, it's not the end of the list. Okay, it's not an exhaustive list. Everything that you've mentioned, like Thanksgiving table of sacrifice, ransom prayer and worship, place of sacrifice and covenant and whatnot. All of that is true. Okay, so now that we have understand who Abraham was, his background, his journey. Sorry. Christopher, yes, sorry, go ahead. Yeah, just a question, I mean, just a bit of curiosity over here. In those days, what really sort of motivated the people to sacrifice an animal, shed blood and kill a living animal? Yeah. And what sort of, how did that sort of translate to worship? Just sort of just curious, I mean, just curious why that, how that actually happened? Because I mean, just from a modern day perspective, when you talk about people who are not to eat animals and they don't, they feel that it's an ethical sort of reason that, you know, why people should not do that. Yeah, it's in many ways, partially an apologetic kind of a question, partially. But then I say that because we'll have to explain sin, right? Biblically, as when what is sin, the price of sin, the seriousness of sin, it basically, it means the wages of sin is death. And because of what had happened, because of the fall, everybody deserved death, we all deserve to die, right? But until and unless an innocent blood was shed, it had to be shed for us to live. And it was a reminder that I'm supposed to be on that altar, but instead of me, an innocent lamb or an animal is taking my place. So that's just a reminder of the seriousness of sin, of what and how serious God takes what, you know, that sin is serious. You know, it simply means death. And that's why, and also in response to Charles's questions, so the cross was an altar in a way that Jesus had to shed his blood and it is an altar, right? That Jesus was, as we read in Isaiah, he was an innocent lamb, a lamb with a blemish, a falseless, a perfect, sinless lamb of God. And then in the book of Hebrews, we see that Jesus was not only our offering, but he was also our offerer, right? He was not only our sacrifice, but he was also the high priest, right? With his own blood, he made a way for us by tearing the veil. So that's what it is. And like I said, you know, just how the practice of building altars was initiated. The first time we read in the Bible was with Cain and Abel, and then I'm sure as humanity grew, populated, they all understood, okay, the altar means it's a place of worship. And it's not like only until the first Jew, which is Abraham, the first Hebrew, rather, so to say, there was sacrifices happening with other religions as well and with other, you know, with false altars of worship. So yeah, I hope that explains just very briefly, but then about to explain that fully, Christopher, we need to explain sin and the person needs to understand the seriousness of sin. Right, thank you so much. Yeah, you're welcome. Hey, so I'll stop sharing the map. Actually, I'll just let the map be there so we can follow the PDF in your systems. Okay, so in page five of your notes, we see the first altar. In the notes, I'm calling it the altar of obedience. Okay, now there are, you can call it whatever you want to. I mean, depending on your perspective, what God reveals to you, you know, and if you look up online, there are a lot of people call the altars very different things, you know, according to their revelation and their perspective. So from as I was preparing, from my perspective, this seemed like the altar of obedience. So I'm calling it the altar of obedience. Okay, so the first altar, let's see. But after Abraham arrived in Canon, the Bible tells us that the first place he went to was Shechem. And as you can see in the map where Shechem is. The Bible tells us that the first place he went to was Shechem. In Shechem, he built an altar. It is an altar associated with the proof of obedience, you know, proof of faith that Abraham took and whatnot. But very quickly, let's go to Genesis chapter 12 in your Bibles. Genesis chapter 12. Yeah, and I just want to read it for us. So it says, the lot said to Abraham, leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land. I will show you. Okay. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. And verse four. So Abraham, Abraham left. As the Lord had told him and lot his nephew went with him. Abram at this point was 75 years old when he set out from Haram. He took his wife, Sarai, his nephew, Lord, all the positions they had and accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haram. And they set out for the land of Canon. And they arrived there. For six. Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moray at Shechem. At the time of Canonites were in the land. So he took his wife, Sarai, his nephew, Lord, all the positions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haram. They set out for the land of Canon. And they arrived there. For six. Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of great tree of Moray at Shechem. At the time of Canonites were in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring, I will give this land. So he built an altar there to the Lord who appeared to him. Okay, verse six and seven. Pretty key. It's amazing how the narrative there stresses on the land at least three times. So they set out for the land of Canon. He traveled through the land. And then at that time Canonites were in the land. So land is pretty important. So verse seven, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your offspring, I will give this land. So that is the land. God is promising Abram saying, okay, everything that you see. Okay, this is what I promised you. And this is what you and your descendants are getting. And there Abram's response was that he builds an altar. Okay, this is, and it's in line with what Hebrew chapter 11 verse eight says. It says, it was by faith that Abraham obeyed. When God called him to leave home and go to another land that God would give him as his inheritance. He went without knowing where he was going, right? He went without going where he was going. Sometimes we just need to pause, right? When we read things like this, although we are familiar with the life of Abraham and what he's done. And although we know that he is a father of faith, I think it's always good for us to slow down and pause and ask question ourselves here. Would we do that? When God says go, the natural tendency is what, where, when, why, how, who. All those philosophical questions will come up, isn't it? You know, I was talking about this land of Goshen here, right? You know, that you see, what was the challenge? What was one of the things that was making the Israelites uncomfortable, uncomfortable through their journey in the wilderness is the land of Goshen was a plane. Geographically, it means that you can see for a long distances. Like, you know, you can see people walking from a kilometer of variance because it's a plane, right? You can see what is ahead, what, where's the turn and whatnot. But when they came into the wilderness, as they were going through the wilderness, all of a sudden they don't know what's ahead. All they can see is these big hills and mountains in front of them. And they have to come to a certain point to turn. Okay. And this is where it turns left. This is where it turns right. And that's how we are in many cases, isn't it? We like to know what is ahead. As soon as there's like a hill or, you know, block in front of us, we don't know what's ahead. We get very anxious. We get very restless. It's like, okay, you know, oh my goodness. Okay, what's happening? What's happening? What's going to come tomorrow? You know, what tomorrow is going to look like? I don't know. But look at Abraham. Abraham, God told him to leave. He said, he left. He'll, you know, just took his wife, every, all of his cattle and whatnot, and he left. And then when he reached a certain place, God showed up to him and says, I'm going to give you this land. And there as a response, remember, guys, Abraham, right, is coming from a religion of a polytheistic religion. And then for him to leave all that, he was father's household, everything. And just come to a land as a foreigner, a stranger in a strange land as they say it. There he stops and he recognizes, okay, all right. This is, things are getting very real. And then as a response, he's building an altar. And remember, altar is just a place of worship, right? And in verse seven, it says, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your offspring, I will give this land. So he built an altar there to the Lord. Now, if you remember, one of the things that we learned in praise and worship class is worship is a response to an encounter with God. Remember that? Worship is a response to an encounter with God. What's happened here? Abraham is having an encounter with the Lord. He appeared to him and he's saying, you see this land? I'm going to give you this land into your descendants, to your offsprings. And so as a response, Abraham is building this altar. So we like to call this first altar as the altar of faith and obedience. And then as we go on, we see the second altar. Let's go to Genesis chapter 12 verse eight from there. Oh, just as a side note, guys, sorry. So this land of Shechem is a pretty important one in the history of Israelites as well. Just as a side note, I mean, there's a lot of references to it. But then very quickly, let's go. If you don't mind, if you can go to Joshua chapter 24, just remind it. Joshua chapter 24, where is it? Are you guys there? I feel they just say, yes, I'm there. I have arrived. I hope you guys are still with me. Okay. Joshua chapter 24 verse one onwards. It says, then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. Okay, look at that. Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. Now, that means before Shechem, where were they? Like through the Exodus, the land of Egypt. So they come to the land that was given to them that God promised Abraham. Right. Finally, Joshua is the one who's led the Israelites after Moses into the promised land. And a lot has happened from Joshua chapter one to Joshua chapter 24. Then he says, then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, judges and officials of Israel. And they presented themselves before God. I'm just going to read a little bit. I hope it's okay because I just feel like it's important. Joshua said to all the people, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, long ago, your forefathers, including Tara, the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the river and worshiped other gods. They lived beyond the river. That means that another reference to the land of Ur is... So it was a city between two rivers. It was a city between two rivers. So that's the reference there. They lived beyond the river and worshiped other gods. But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the river and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Sire to Esau. But Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. Then I sent Moses and Aaron and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there. And I brought you out. When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, you came to the sea and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and the horsemen as far as the Red Sea. But they cried out to the Lord for help and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians. He brought the sea over them and covered them. Just a very long passage short and come down all the way to verse 15 with me, please. Actually, let's go to verse 14. Now, fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away other gods. Your forefathers worshiped beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. Whether the gods, your forefathers served beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Okay, if you pay close attention to the narrative, there's so many things to pay attention there. How many times he mentions, you know, your forefathers and the land beyond the river. Forefathers, gods, they worshiped and the land beyond the river. I mean, he's talking, being very intentional about their journey. And I'm sure the story must, they knew that, okay, hey, this is where our forefather Abraham built his first altar of worship as a response to God's promise. Right? The place, the first altar that Abraham builds in this land called Shechem is a very important one. That he wouldn't know that his descendants would eventually one day meet at the place and talk about everything that has happened in his own life. Right? I'm not sure if that's interesting or beautiful to you, but it's just so beautiful. Right? But anyways, let's just move on to verse eight, Genesis chapter 12 verse eight. That's where he builds the second altar. I'd like to call this the altar of intimacy and of the pilgrim walk. Right? So Genesis 12 eight says, and he moved from there to the mountain east of Bethel and he pitched his tent with Bethel on the western and I on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord. Right? He just built another altar. So if you look at the map, he comes down from Shechem to Bethel. And there he builds another altar. Okay. Now this was an altar of increased familiarity with this God that he's that he's been listening to that he's been obeying. And then he's growing in intimacy. This Abraham's walk is so symbolic of our walk of faith as Christians, isn't it? That as we walk day after day, after day, after day with him, as we, as we choose to obey his voice, as we choose to obey the leading of his voice, as we choose to trust our God. And then the more he responds, what happens? We grow in our faith, isn't it? We grow in our intimacy. Right? And if you look at the journey of Abraham from where he left, and he's come a long way, we can say metaphorically in his walk with God, that he builds his first altar, then he builds his second altar, the altar of increased familiarity and intimacy. Right? He was living a life of pilgrim. And this kind of this altar is corresponding to the verse in Hebrews chapter 11 verse nine. It says, And even when he reached the land, God promised him, that is the land of Shechem. He lived there by faith, for he was like a foreigner living in tents. And so did Isaac and Jacob, who inherited the same promise. I just want to pause here at this, at this point before we take our break. Is that one thing that we get, you know, we can learn is that as we walk and as we walk and journey through life, we can never become over familiar with this God, but we can only increase enough familiarity and intimacy. That's that's the key there. And another gentle reminder is that, Hey, we are also pilgrims in this world. We are just passing through like the famous books that says pilgrims progress. Right. It's just a beautiful reminder for us is that an encourage ourselves just like Abraham did is that we are also passing through this world. This is not our home. Our home is with the Lord. Yeah. I hope you're still with me. I'm going to stop the recording now for this session. We'll take a break and we'll resume next session in 10 minutes. Okay.