 Let's pray. Father, we thank You for this day. We thank You for Your mercy and Your grace, for Your faithfulness that sustains us, Lord. We thank You that You're mercy that I knew every morning. We honor You today. We honor You in this place. We worship You. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. Great. So we've been learning about the presence of God in the last two classes, the importance of His presence, the origins of it, how we were separated in the Garden of Eden because of sin, and what Jesus has done for us on the cross to give us complete access to His presence. So we've learned quite a bit about that. We've learned about Moses, the tabernacle of Moses, a little bit about David, and how he pursued the presence of God. We've combined chapter seven and chapter eight. If you've forgotten, you're making those chapter seven and chapter eight as one big chapter about the presence of God. We learned that God is omnipresent. Omnipresent means He's not just geographically present everywhere. He's in our past, present, and in our future because He's outside of time. So we learned a little bit about that. So let's continue learning from the similar chapter, from the same chapter in your notes. Look at the section where Jesus Christ is the perfect sacrifice from chapter eight. Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice. Okay, so in the tabernacle of Moses, we learned that there is the outer courts, the inner courts, and the... What's the final section in the tabernacle of Moses? Holy of Holies, yeah, the most holy place, also known, right? So there's the outer courts, where there can be hundreds of people, and the inner courts or the holy place will have only just a few, 10 or 12 space for that. So you can praise God in a crowd. You can serve Him with a group of people, but you can only worship Him face to face. So we learned that, but in the New Covenant, we look at a few scriptures and see how God has made a way for us, okay? Hebrews chapter nine, I'm just reading all the scriptures from your notes, okay? It's in your notes already. Hebrews chapter nine, verse nine and verse 11 and 12. It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make Him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience. Christ came as high priest of the good things to come with the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is not of His creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, He entered the holy of Holies once and for all, having obtained eternal redemption. Okay, look at that verse 11. It starts off by saying, come as high priest, okay? And then you come down to verse 12, it says, not with blood of goats or calves, but with His own blood. So once again, last class we learned that Jesus is not only our sacrifice, He is also our high priest. He is not just our offering, He is also the offerer, yeah, okay? So He's a perfect sacrifice, Jesus Christ. And with His own blood, He entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption, eternal. There's no more sacrifice that is needed for us to make way into the Holy of Holies. Jesus has made a way once and for all. Are you with me? Okay, let's read some more scriptures. Verse 11, 12. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. What did we learn until Jesus came? Everything that was done until Jesus came was it was a covering, isn't it? It was a sacrifice that would cover the sins. Yes? Let's just think about it for a minute. Okay, now you know in the Tabernacle of Moses there was something called the Ark of the Covenant? Yes? Okay. So what was inside the Ark? The Ark of the Covenant is just like a big box. Inside the Ark of the Covenant, there was a tablet, that's a 10. Tablets means not dolo. Okay, the 10 commandments, right? That was written. It was inside that. And what else was inside that? I'm talking inside the Ark of the Covenant. Sorry, you were saying something, Etru? Yeah, it's a rod of Aaron. Okay, Aaron's staff? Yeah. Right? And what else? A pot of mana, bread. So there were three things inside the Ark of the Covenant that were kept. What was that? The commandments? The tablets of commandments? The rod of Aaron and mana, bread. Okay, a pot of bread. Now why were those inside the Ark of the Covenant? Now the root meaning for Ark, I'm getting a little sidetracked and being tempted to go a little deep but I don't want to because it'll be like I'm going down a rabbit hole. But basically, all of these three things symbolizes something. 10 commandments. The first commandment, Israel's broke. What is the first commandment? Love your God with all your heart. No, thou shalt have no other gods before you. That's the first commandment. Okay. So what do they do? They broke that first commandment by making an idol. So they broke that, they sinned. So why is Aaron's staff inside? In Moses, when God said, okay, Aaron shall be the leader, the people of Israel or some of the leaders of Israel said, why should we follow you? Why should you be our leader? So in that, when they did that, they were rejecting God's leadership. Are you with me? They were rejecting God's leadership. They sinned by disobeying or questioning. Are you with me? And then why is Manna inside the ark? Is they again despised the provision of the Lord? They grumbled, they murmured, they were not thankful for what God provided for them. Are you with me? So all of these supernatural things that what God was doing, people of Israel rejected. And so God tells Moses, put all of that inside that and then cover it with a layer of the mercy seat. So on top of the inside, the ark of the covenant, all of these three things were there. And then there was like a plain sheet like this. And then there were two cherubimms, isn't it? One cherubim was facing the other, the other cherubim on this side. Isn't it? And with the wings held up high, they were looking down. Okay, so the cherubimms are the archangels in a certain way. They were almost like the eyes of God. Okay, so that means every time they were looking down, they were reminded of the sins of people. Are you with me? Every time they were looking down, they were reminded, they rejected me as their leader or their shepherd. They had another God instead of me. They rejected, they were not grateful for my provision. So in God's eyes, he's always looking at the sin of Israel. Are you with me? So once a year, on the day of atonement, the high priest would go inside and put the blood of a goat or calf on the mercy seat. Yes? And so now that is like a covering of the sin that would buy them mercy for another year. Are you with me? So that was just a covering of the sin. Until Jesus came where John the Baptist says, Behold the Lamb of God who kicks away. So there was no more covering required because Jesus took it all away. Are you with me? Yeah? So that's what's being presented here in the Hebrews as well. And every priest stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices which can never take away sins. But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. And so because of what Jesus did, you and me, you and I have unlimited access. Say unlimited. Yeah. Have you gone to an unlimited buffet? Very happy, you know. Unlimited buffet means, oh, bindas. Limitless. Or is it bottomless? Something like that, you know. You can drink how much ever you want. But because of what Jesus has done, right? Because of the sacrifice, because of what he did for us, for you and for me, you and I have unlimited access to his presence. Unlimited access to the presence of God. He says, come boldly to the throne of grace. But that is not enough. Most of us as Christians, we are very happy to be the out-of-court Christians. Like, yes, I met Jesus as my savior at the cross. That is enough for me. More than happy. I'm very happy in the out-of-courts. Fresh air is there. I don't want to go all the way to the Holy of Holies. It's too much trouble. We are very satisfied in the out-of-courts. We don't want to go all the way to the Holy of Holies. Where Jesus has made a way, the veil has been torn. You with me? Right? Okay, let's read some more scriptures. Hebrews 10, 19 to 22. It says, therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of... By the blood of what? Jesus. By a new and living way which he consecrated for us through the veil that is his flesh. And having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near. With the true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Right? So what we are encouraged... What I want to encourage us this morning is just like how the high priest would draw near to the presence of God or to the Holy of Holies. Let us draw near. High priest only entered once a year. And, you know, the ancient culture of Jews, Hebrews says that the high priest would have a bell and a rope tied to his leg. That if the high priest that entered in was sinful, in the presence of God, he would die. And so other people can't go in and to bring him out so that rope was there to pull him out. Do you understand how dangerous that is? I don't think you'll understand what was happening. It was quite... Yeah. So the high priest had to have lived a holy life, a consecrated life. In the New Covenant, the Bible calls you and me as a royal priesthood. Are you with me? But yet there is grace and mercy. There's an invitation. It says, boldly come. Come boldly. Because of the blood of Jesus. Yes? So I want to share some of the tips or guidelines maybe on how we can enter his presence or personally worship him. Okay? So first thing is draw near to God intentionally. According to Hebrews chapter 10 verse 22, it says draw near. Draw near. That means come closer. That's what draw near is. Okay? Come closer. So how do we come closer? Or how do we go closer to God? First one, with a true heart in sincerity and wholeheartedly. With a, everybody say true heart. Yeah. So if you seek me with all your heart, you will. You will not find me. Yes. Very true. Okay? If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me. Yeah? So we draw near to God intentionally with a true heart in faith with clear conscience. Ask God for forgiveness and repent with a clear conscience with a pure heart and with boldness. So we can't enter his presence with sin in our hearts with unrepentant sin. We can't enter his presence with bitterness in our hearts. Are you following? Right? I can't be bitter against an individual and then come in to his presence. We come in with clear conscience. Ask God to sanctify us and wash us and make us pure through his word. You know, God's word has different images in the Bible. Jeremiah says God's word is like a hammer. Do you know that? Jeremiah says God's word is like a hammer. And James refers to God's word as a mirror. Right? Where you look at a mirror and you will not walk back the same. You will do some adjustments. Isn't it? So God's word is like a mirror that reflects and tells you what's wrong and correct yourself. And God's word also says is like a river or water that purifies us. Are you with me? Right? Joshua chapter 3 verse 5. You don't have to turn, but okay. Joshua chapter 3 verse 5 says, Consecrate yourself today so tomorrow God will work among you. Is that what it says? I hope it's okay. Joshua chapter 3 verse 5, it says, Consecrate yourself so tomorrow God will do wonders among you. So if we consecrate ourselves today, we go before him and ask him to wash us in his word, wash us with the power of the Holy Ghost. Then we are being ready, we are being prepared for God to do something in us and through us. Yes? Okay, so we draw near to God intentionally with a true heart. We draw near to him in faith with clear conscience, with pure water, with washed with pure water. That's the word of God and boldness. Second guideline for personal worship is express thanksgiving and praise in spoken words in song. Express thanksgiving and praise. In the last class, we learned that words attract presence. Isn't it? Words attract presence. You could either attract the presence of God or the presence of the devil. Words of thanksgiving and praise attract the presence of God. Words of complaining and murmuring and not being grateful attract the presence of the devil. Why do we say that? Because if God is enthroned on our praises, who is enthroned on our complaints? If we enter God's gates with thanksgiving and His quotes with praise, whose gates are we entering when we complain and murmur and when we are not grateful? There we go. Express thanksgiving. That's how we draw near to him. Worship with the word. Worship with the word. That means simply open up your Bible and start singing. If you can sing or not sing, that is irrelevant. Open up your Bible. The Bible says, He has put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Just do that. Cyril is there to help. Can you play the pads in E major? I say, I don't have an instrument, so I'm going to use pads as an instrument. I'm just going to randomly turn to Psalm 27. I'm just using that as an instrument because I don't have a guitar. Worship God with the word. That means simply open up your Bible and start singing. Can they hear the pads online? Okay. Something as a reference is to be on pitch. I've just opened Psalm 27 and I'll just start singing. I'll try and sing only from verse 1, maybe verse 4, I don't know. You can turn to Psalm 27 just for your reference. It says, The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, whom shall I be afraid? Okay. Let's worship. Let's sing. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Oh God, you shine. You're my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? The Lord is my light. The Lord is my light. The Lord is the light of my life. There is no shadow of turning in you. There is no shadow of turning in you. You shall like the sun. You shall like the sun. Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? One thing I seek of the Lord and that will I seek is that I may dwell in the house of the Lord for all the days of my life. One thing I seek of the Lord behold his beauty, his glory, his wonder that I may gaze upon the beauty of the Lord. Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid? Okay, so that's just an example of how you can simply open up your Bible and sing and worship. Okay, thanks, Zero. Okay. I love poetry. Rhyming words. I love poetry, but God's word can do what poetry cannot. His word can do what poetry cannot. So if we simply open up our Bibles and just begin to sing and worship, we just sang one verse. The Lord is the light of my life and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? Whom shall I be afraid of? And as you're singing, you begin to get other revelations of what light can do. He shines like the sun. Revelations one says, his face was shining like the sun in all its brilliance. That's what it says, right? And what it says? The Bible says that in his presence there is no shadow of turning. Heaven needs no sun because the light of his face lights up all of heaven. You think heaven has a sun? Why does it need a sun? The glory of his presence is enough to light up all of heaven. So as you begin to sing, the Holy Spirit will begin to reveal the different aspects of just... We were just singing one verse. Light. That's the first thing he said. Let there be light. Are you with me? So something powerful happens if you just open up your Bible, any language, and you just begin to sing. And you just say, okay, Holy Spirit, what does this passage sound like to you? How does this sound to you? Ask him. And just start singing. Are you with me? So this is one of the ways and how you can draw yourself closer to God, worship with the Word, and praying and singing in tongues. It's connected to the previous point. Okay, praying and singing in tongues. Again, I would encourage you to do one of the best investments I've made is 10 rupees. Go to OM Books or ELS. Buy a thousand praises book. Okay, I'm sure it's available in Hindi as well. It's there, right? Yeah. So I think that's 10 rupees. Maybe it's become 20 rupees now. It's still 10? Okay. You can get it for free on the internet as well. So can it, right? Let those praises be in your heart. Be ready to praise. You know, when trouble comes, you might not have the Bible with you or the books with you. Let your heart be a library of books. Understanding? Let your heart be a library of books so that your spirit can tap into that and say it's ready to erupt in praise. Are you with me? So those are the simple guidelines for personal worship. Draw near to God intentionally. Intentional means you have to plan, okay? You have to be intentional. Make up your mind and express thanksgiving and praise. Worship with the word. Pray and sing in tongues. So I'll give you a little bit of secret of how I if I'm spending time, if I have one hour. This is just an example. One hour has how many minutes? 60 minutes. So I will divide that into three sections, 2020, 2020. For the first 20 minutes, I will read the word. Second 20 minutes, I will just worship. I will worship either. I will either listen to a worship music or I will worship by myself. Listen to songs or sing. And then the last 20 minutes, pray. Pray either pray in tongues. Just get more intentional. Pray in tongues. Pray requests. Pray requests. Yeah. So I would divide my personal time into these three things. If it is two hours, everything will just become double. Right? Yeah. 20 minutes will become 40 minutes. 40 minutes of word, 40 minutes of worship, 40 minutes of praying, praying in tongues. This is a very simple thing. This is a short glimpse into how I approach one hour. Okay? Very quickly, we look at what happens when we worship. Again, these are points that we've already gone through. When we worship, when we personally praise God, God is enthroned on our praises. Praise causes divine deliverance. You're looking at your notes, right? It's there in your notes. God inhabits the praises of his people. Praise causes divine deliverance. Praise stops the enemy. And finally, praise prepares our heart to receive from God. Praise prepares our heart to receive from God. Hosea chapter 10 verse 11, it simply says Judah shall plow. Judah shall plow. Plowing is what? It's related with farming. You plow the field, isn't it? You make it ready. And then you put the seeds and you wait for the rain. So it says Judah shall plow means with praise you prepare your heart. Judah means praise, right? When you prepare your heart with praise you are making yourself ready to receive from God. Are you with me? When I was leading when I was the youth pastor for four years one of the things what young people come to me and said a lot was how do I hear God? How do I hear God? How do I know this is the will of God in my life? Yeah. Pastor, I read the Bible but I don't understand anything. Pastor, I I read the Bible but I don't understand anything and then I don't remember anything. This is the constant thing. I used to hear from young people okay how many of you here remember what you had for breakfast two weeks ago on Monday two weeks ago, not two days ago do you remember last two weeks ago Tuesday anybody else? Monday no, okay so Tuesday also you have a set schedule hahaha right but usually if you didn't have a schedule maybe some of them must not remember even with the schedule but I don't remember what I had for breakfast two weeks ago on a Tuesday morning but it still satisfied me it kept me alive yes or no you might not remember what you ate two weeks ago but you still it kept you alive isn't it it still satisfied your hunger yeah, okay how many of you love Biryani? okay yeah okay so I love Biryani but I don't understand Biryani there's a difference no I love Biryani I don't understand everything that goes into it okay especially if you're in India there's like 10 different ways on how you can make Biryani Amber Biryani Tindical Biryani Kerala Biryani I don't it's not really Biryani but okay it's a very controversial statement I just made there I'm going to be in very deep trouble hahaha but okay the point is I love Biryani and I eat it I don't necessarily understand it but it still quenches my hunger is it satisfied my hunger isn't it so it's the same thing with the word of God is that you don't need to remember it it's if you remember it amazing right but don't don't use the excuse of remembering or understanding to not read it at all so most of the young people they say because I can't understand it I'm not going to read it because I can't remember it I'm not going to read the Bible I would make and so that is creating a space to not receive anything from the word of God Bible says faith comes from hearing and here's the thing a lot of us make a mistake of by reading that very differently we're saying faith comes from hearing hearing the word of God no faith comes from hearing Alma hearing comes from the word of God so the more you read you train yourself how to hear from God are you with me the more you read his word here's the word you train yourself how to hear him isn't it so all of that happens in worship everything what we just spoke about happens in worship are you with me so everything what we've just spoken about happens in personal worship let's speak a little bit about congregational worship how to combine worship congregational worship okay congregational worship or is the first point there is the vertical aspect of it we come together to minister to God okay minister to we minister to God okay we worship to better realize the presence of God and the main difference between a church and a church service and a meeting of a social organization is the presence of God okay I don't know how many of us I don't know if this is even going to work but let me risk it okay this group can you make a sound sir can you play a C major sorry sir you can all sing no I want you to just hum a note okay can you hum a note yes no okay let's play C major sir let's try that out I hope you're not too shy to just hum a note okay this side hum hum hum little loudly little loudly okay this side Joseph and you hum hum come on come on damn little louder hum keep humming don't stop hum keep humming keep humming hum hum okay thank you so that was just that was just an example of a C major chord so you were singing a different note you were singing the note C you were singing a humming the note E and I was humming the note G these three notes three different notes or pitches come together to make one chord that's a C major chord but you see we were singing different pitches or different notes but we still sounded as one isn't it that's what a choir does is choir has sopranos altos tenors bass right they are singing different notes different harmony but they still sound as as one isn't it and that's the significance of corporate worship or congregational worship is we are all different individuals different people from different backgrounds people from different states yes but we still come together we are gathered together in the name of Jesus and so when we come together in his name from all these different backgrounds and worship corporately that becomes very powerful are you with me right the unity in worship is very powerful you know we are reading the Old Testament time and time that it says when they worshiped in one chord when they worshiped in unity when they lifted up their voice in one voice God showed up his glory would come down as a cloud and fill the temple are you with me right and so in corporate worship we minister to God that's the vertical aspect of it and when we come together in unity that is the horizontal aspect you know is that we bless one another Ephesians chapter 5 says sing to one another Ephesians chapter 5 was 1819 and 20 onwards when you read it it says don't be filled with don't be drunk with wine but be filled with the spirit and sing to one another in Psalms hymns and spiritual songs so that's what happens in corporate worship is we are just ministering to God first but at the same time we are encouraging one another we are singing to one another we are building we are edifying one another are you with me right Psalm 133 Psalm 133 says how wonderful how beautiful it is when men come together in unity it is like an oil that flows down Aaron's head down his beard all the way down his cloak okay so as in probably I will stop here as a summary as a conclusion of this chapter let's look at that summary in congregational worship we minister to God in corporate worship it brings about a sense of unity within the church the songs we sing as congregation enable us to learn teach and reinforce spiritual truth corporate worship prepares our hearts and provides the atmosphere for the preaching of the word of God it facilitates us to express the feelings of our heart and unheimated worship okay so we've spoken about the presence of God we've spoken about the personal worship and corporate worship and the power of it alright that's about it for today then I'll stop here thank you for joining Viki I see a question I'll answer it in the chat section alright thank you God bless you guys