Experiencing the Presence of God in Corporate Worship

Usefulness and fruitfulness for the Lord. My daughter, Brooke is graduating, and yesterday I was out doing some yard work, and she comes walking out of the house with her cap and gown. And she's like, Dad, can you believe this? And when I saw her, I, I blinked a couple of times and I just had this instant flashback.

I saw myself graduating from high school. It was, it just seemed like it was that short of time ago and now there's my daughter. How does that happen?. But it really, and I was telling her, I don't, I don't feel sad.

I actually feel excited, about what your future holds. So if I could take just a minute to pray for you graduates, along those lines, I, I feel very privileged to be able to do so. Let's, so let's look to the Lord in prayer, pray for these two graduates and also all of the graduates that are in our church, family. Lord, we, We do thank you for the young people of of this congregation and for the the blessing they are, the unique contribution that they bring, our, our church would be greatly impoverished if we did not have these young people that that we can invest in and.

And whose investment in us we can benefit from. And so we just thank you for bringing them to this milestone in their life and pray God in a special way that your spirit would rest upon them. May the hand of God go with them wherever they go. Keep them from evil.

This is a time of transition. This is a time where they are going to be sorely attacked. The devil knows if he can get them to make unwise decisions right now in their life, he can leave them saddled with guilt. with the chains of, of guilt and consequences of those choices for the rest of their lives and so protect them from the evil one.

Give them a wisdom that is beyond their years, that they would make right choices. And our prayer ultimately, Lord, is that you would raise them up to be champions for Jesus who will stand firm in the midst of this darkened wicked world and do great exploits in the name of Jesus. May they live for Him. Not for themselves, may they live for something bigger than themselves.

And glorify you in the process. And thank you, Lord, for The shed blood of Jesus that gives us the privilege to come into your presence right now and to ask these favors for these graduates. We thank you for this, Lord. In the name of Jesus, we pray, and all God's people said, Amen.

Well, let's welcome Mike Berry. Woohoo. I have the privilege of continuing our series on the dearest place on earth. last week, Pastor Milton introduced this subject and the quote comes from, beloved Pastor Charles Spurgeon, where he speaks of the gathering of the local church as the dearest place on earth.

And last week, Milton's subject was why should we love to gather. In the dear, dearest place on earth. And then my subject this morning is experiencing God's presence in corporate worship. You'll remember that one of the verses that Pastor Milton looked at last week, Psalm 84, the psalmist says, how lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts.

My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. For a day in your courts is better than 1000 elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

One of the questions that I wanna ask this morning is. Would you, would I, would we rather be here in corporate worship than any other place on earth? And if we understand scripture properly, this is the best place to be, right here where you're at. In the presence of God, let me ask a couple other questions that could come up just as we think about the local church, we live in a day when church has fallen on hard times in people's minds.

it's not uncommon when I'm out, when I talk to someone about the gospel or evangelize for people to say, well, I'm a Christian, but I, I don't go to church or I'm not into organized religion. I can, I meet with God wherever I am. If I'm in the forest, if I'm on a hike, if I'm at the beach, that's how I worship God. And it can legitimately be asked, isn't God everywhere?

Doesn't the Bible tell us that God is everywhere? And we're gonna be looking at that in a moment. By the way, you should have an insert, I believe that has some notes. Do you guys have a little white insert?

There you go. And that's for everybody but particularly I wanted to have that out and available for the children so they could track and so the parents could quiz them a little bit later and encourage them to take notes during the message. I'm gonna try to help the kids fill out the the blank points in the in the outline. But we could ask, isn't God everywhere?

Can't I worship God wherever I am? Do we need the organized church in order to worship God? Well, there are some today, even Christians that would say, no, we don't need the organized church. We don't need the local church.

Listen to this quote from an evangelical Christian. When the Bible admonishes us to gather together, it does not imply that, that, that should be a church service or a congregational event. There's no verse in scripture that links the concepts of worshiping God and a church meeting. The Bible does not tell us that worship must happen in a church sanctuary and therefore we must be actively associated with a local church.

This quote comes from George Barna in his book Revolution, where he in fact says that there are many groups outside of the church that are doing a much better job and are being used of the Holy Spirit in a much better way than the local church. The last week, one of Milton's points, in fact, his final point in the message, why should we love to gather, his reason number 6 for why we should love to gather was this, because God's special presence is located in the gathering of his people.

And this begins to answer this question, what is the difference between me having a personal quiet time in my bedroom or out on a walk where I'm meditating upon scripture and just having a private time with the Lord, or even what's the difference when Katie and I and the kids sit down and have some Bible time at home? What's the difference between that and what we're doing right now?

And I believe as we look at the scriptures, what we're gonna expand upon this morning is Milton's 6th point. And that is that God's special presence is located in the gathering of his people. And so I wanna talk for a few moments this morning about what do we mean by the presence of God, as we gather for corporate worship? What, what are we really talking about when we talk about God's presence because God is omnipresent, and he can be present in different places, in different ways.

And so we're gonna talk about in what way is he uniquely present right now, as we worship the Lord. And so I, I believe you have 8 main points. And let's go ahead and bow in prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to assist us. Lord, we thank you for this time to be in your presence.

And we thank you, Lord, that you are the one that has ordained that we should gather together as your temple, as your tabernacle, and that you are the God that desires to dwell among us. We pray that you would manifest your presence this morning through the preached word as you promise. And we ask God that we would be willing to submit and obey, and put into practice these wonderful truths that we'll look at. We are utterly dependent upon your spirit this morning.

Christ's name we pray. Amen. Well, the first thing that we want to establish is that God is present everywhere. God is present everywhere.

And this is, if you've been reading scripture for a while, this is a self-evident truth. Jeremiah 23, God says, am I a God near at hand, says the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can anyone hide himself in secret places? So I shall not see him, says the Lord.

Do I not feel heaven and earth, says the Lord. God feels. It all heaven, earth, he is in every place. Psalm 139:7.

Where can I go from your spirit, says David, or where can I flee from your presence? Notice the parallelism, that presence and spirit are equated. We're talking about the presence of God. We're talking about God manifesting himself through his Spirit.

If I ascend into heaven, you were there. If I make my bed in hell or hall behold, you are there. And so God is what we call omnipresent, omnipresent. I want all the children to say with me, omnipresent, ready to go.

Omnipresent. Just the children ready? Real loud children. omnipresent.

That just means God is everywhere. And if we want to give a more extensive definition, I love this definition by our brother Wayne Gruden. God does not have size or spatial dimensions. We can't measure God with a ruler.

And he is present at every point of space with his whole being. So God is everywhere with his whole being. It's not like his toe is in this room and his fingers on Mars. He's everywhere with his whole being.

And yet God acts differently in different places. And that's what we're gonna focus on is while God is omnipresent, he acts differently in different places. And so in what ways is God uniquely present? Well, Roman 2, God is uniquely present in Heaven God is uniquely present in heaven.

I just want you to think about a couple of verses, one in Job. Remember Job, at the very beginning of the book, Satan comes before what he comes before the Lord, right? Let's read Job 1 verse 6 and following. Now, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord.

And Satan also came among them. And the Lord said to Satan, from where do you come? So Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it. So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

Now the devil is not omnipresent. He's going to and fro on the, on the earth. But if he wants to come before the special presence of the Lord, he has to come. And line up and have his conversation with God in heaven.

He has to come before the presence. Notice a couple other passages that indicate that there's a unique presence of God in heaven. Hebrews 9:24, for Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Wait a second, I thought God was omnipresent.

But he is uniquely present in heaven. Revelation 21 gives us the same idea when we see the new heaven, new earth. Verse 2, John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people.

God himself will be with them and be their God. The special presence of God in heaven comes down to dwell on earth among men. Now theologians, a lot of times we'll call this the immediate presence of God. Where is God manifesting His presence in the most special way?

And in the most special way, he's manifesting his presence in heaven. And so God is everywhere, but God is uniquely present in Heaven But you might be surprised to find out Roman numeral 3 that God is uniquely present in Hell, What? God is present in hell? God is uniquely present in hell.

Now, let me show you a verse that will sound like I'm contradicting myself. 1 Thessalonians 1:9. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. Like Mike, that doesn't prove your point.

Those that are being destroyed, everlastingly destroyed in hell are being removed from the presence of the Lord. And I, I just want to bring this verse up to show you that there is some texture here to this doctrine of God's presence in hell. He is not present to bless in hell. He is not presence to do good things, to demonstrate his glory in hell.

In that sense, these people will be removed and brought into everlasting destruction from the blessed presence of the Lord. But notice Revelation 14, a very spooky and scary passage. Revelation 14:9 and following. If anyone worships the beast in his image and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of his indignation.

And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. And they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast in his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name. God is uniquely present in hell.

It is God Himself. It is the Lamb, Jesus Christ that upholds hell. It is God that has created hell. And it is God that will order His angels to cast people into the lake of fire.

So God is uniquely present in heaven, but he is also uniquely present in hell. He's not there to bless, but he is there to punish. And so we have the unique presence of God. So when we talk about hell being a place where we're separated from God, in a sense, that's true, we're separated from his pleas, his presence to bless, but we are not separated from his presence to punish.

Those that are in hell. Roman 3. We know that God is everywhere. God is uniquely present in heaven.

He's uniquely present in hell. But fourthly, he's uniquely present on earth. He's uniquely present on earth. And we're gonna look at a number of different ways in which he is uniquely present on earth in the Old Testament, we've got, God walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the garden.

We have God manifesting his presence in the burning bush with, Moses. He says to Moses, take off your sandals, you are standing on holy ground. And it's the reason it was holy was because of the presence of God, the unique presence of God. You have the pillar and the cloud, the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire in the book of Exodus.

In fact, Moses says, actually, the Lord says in Exos 33, and he said, My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. Then Moses said to him, if your presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. And in context, the presence is the fire in the cloud. God had manifested his presence in a very special way in the fire in the cloud.

Later, in Mount Sinai, you see the special presence of the Lord. And then God is the one that directs Moses and directs the people of Israel to build a tabernacle. To build quite literally a dwelling place. God wanted to have this dwelling place of meeting, this tabernacle of meeting.

It's called over and over again. Tabernacle. Think of that tabernacle of meeting. God wanted to meet with his people.

And he gives them all of these instructions about how to build the tabernacle, how to build the tent. And there's the holy place where there would be the special presence of the Lord, and particularly the ark between the cherubim, there would be this special unique presence of the Lord. And once Moses and everybody does everything they're supposed to do, and they offer all the appropriate sacrifice. and everything, all the blood.

Then finally in Leviticus 9, and Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of meeting and came out and blessed the people. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people and fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat and the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. I would have done the same thing.

to get the impact of this verse, you almost have to start like an Exodus and just read through the Book of Exodus, read all the way through Leviticus. We've been reading through, believe it or not, Leviticus with our children, which is a real joy. And they just get the, boy, there's a lot of blood, yeah, there's blood. sinful, but they did get this point that we've, we've been going through all these intricate details of what you gotta do.

And then finally, what is the big point here? It's Leviticus 9. God wants to dwell among his people. He comes down and licks up the offering and his presence comes down and dwells there in the tabernacle.

Leviticus 26 in the, this is the, the blessings and cursings chapter, the first time the Lord speaks of the blessings and cursings. I will set my tabernacle among you and my soul shall not abhor you. I will walk among you, be your God, and you shall be my people. And again, Psalm 99 speaks of how the Lord dwells between the cherubim.

Now, as they had made the tabernacle, they're getting ready in Deuteronomy, Moses is preaching to the people of Israel trying to prepare them to go in and take the land. And God says, I'm gonna put my presence in a special place, wherever that place is, that's where you're gonna come. Notice what Deuteronomy 12:5 says, but you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses. At this point, they don't know what place that's gonna be.

Out of your tribes to put his name for his dwelling place. And there you shall go. At first, it was Mount Ebel. Later it was Shechem, it was Shiloh, and eventually, in the time of David and Solomon, it became Jerusalem, that special place.

And it's in Jerusalem that Solomon comes along and builds the temple or the sanctuary or the house or the courts. When we say better is one day in your courts, we're talking particularly about the temple, the Old Testament temple. And notice what the Lord says after Solomon had prayed the dedication prayer for the temple, God says to him, I have heard your prayer, Solomon, your supplication that you have made before me. I have consecrated this house, which you have built to put my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart will be there perpetually.

God, the omnipresent God says, my eyes and my heart are gonna be in that location. In other words, the unique special presence was gonna dwell in the temple. And notice as they, as the priests actually had gone through and, and done all the appropriate sacrifices in 1 Kings 8:10, and it came to pass when the priest came out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord so that the priest could not continue ministering because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

So here we have the transfer of God's special presence from the tabernacle to The temple.

Children, everybody say temple. Excellent. Boy, that's great. So now God's unique presence is in the temple.

So while God is omnipresent, if you wanted to meet God, meet with God at this time in history, you would have had to have gone to the temple. If you were up in Babylon, if you were in Nineveh, if you were anywhere else in the earth, and if you want to come and meet with God, there was a locale that you had to put yourself in. And that locale was what it was. The temple If you don't come to the temple at this time in this dispensation, you don't get to meet uniquely with God, right?

That's God is a God that wanted to dwell among his people. And he developed all this so that he could dwell among his people. However, even though you have the temple, Solomon knew. They all knew.

That just because God was manifesting His presence uniquely in the temple did not mean that God could be contained by the temple. Notice in Acts 7 in Stephen's speech in Acts 7, he says, but Solom build him a house. However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says, Heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool. What house will you build for me?

says the Lord. Or what is the place of my rest? Solomon knew that, Isaiah knew that Stephen knew that. And yet, there was a unique presence of the Lord in the temple.

And so we have that while God is omnipresence, he uniquely has manifested himself and made himself known in heaven, his immediate presence. Everybody say heaven He has made himself uniquely known in hell. Everybody say hell. He has made himself uniquely known on Earth.

Everybody say Earth And then number 5, God is uniquely present in the God man. Everybody say God man. Excellent. John 1:14, the word became flesh and dwelt in the Greek word here quite literally is tabernacle, tinted among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Any Jew reading this. This verse would have caught the metaphor, would have caught the concept of the glory, the special presence of God, that now the special presence of God was residing in this tabernacle. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ comes along. And as the Lord, And as the one who has the Holy Spirit upon him foretells of a new place of worship.

Remember, he's having this conversation with the woman at the well. And the woman at the well says in John 4, our fathers worshiped on this mountain. She's a Samaritan, but you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship. And in Jerusalem, in the Old Testament context, that was the place if you wanted to meet with God, Jesus goes on to say Jerusalem, salvation of the Jews, Jerusalem was the right place to be.

But Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship him. in spirit and truth.

And so we have a change, we have a change going on. God's immediate presence or God's special presence is now moving locale as it were. And so where is The spirit and truth to be found today. We had the tabernacle, we had the temple, Jesus, the, the Spirit in a special way resided on the God man.

And today, what do we have? Roman numeral 6. God is uniquely present. In the local church.

Everybody say local church. I want you to think about the images that we've looked at up to this point. God was uniquely present in the tabernacle, right? God was uniquely present in the temple.

And I'm proposing to you that God is uniquely present. Right now, And right here This is where God is manifesting his presence. In this age Milton read to you guys a few verses last week, Ephesians 2:21, in whom Paul says, the whole building. This is pointing us towards temple imagery, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord.

Paul's not pulling these images out of a hat. It's coming right out of the Old Testament, in whom you also are being built together. Into a dwelling of God in the Spirit. You and I gathered together are the dwelling of God.

Notice, where's the Spirit? In the Spirit, the Spirit of God is here. Those who worship Him will worship him in spirit and truth. Where do we find the Spirit?

It's in the dwelling. It's in the temple. And where is the temple? Are these walls when we walk into this room, do we say, this is the temple?

This is the sanctuary. No, this is not the sanctuary. You and I gathered together. are the temple are the building are the sanctuary.

1 Corinthians 3:16, do you not know that you plural, are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you, plural? The Spirit of God dwells here, as we are gathered together in a unique and special way. And notice what Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:15. But if I'm delayed, he says to Timothy, I write, so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself.

Notice the terminology here in the house of God, he's picking up temple, house, sanctuary, courts, terminology. Which is, what is the house? It is the church, the ecclesia, the gathered ones of the living God. And it's this gathering that is the pillar and ground of the truth.

Those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Where do we find the Spirit? Where do we find the truth in this dispensation? It's in the gathering of the local church.

Now let me just say something I forgot to say when we, when we look at Ephesians passages, when Paul says, in whom the whole building being fitted together in a holy temple and so on, in whom you also are being built together in a dwelling, he's talking to A local church. He's talking to the Ephesians Church. And if this was a circuit letter, then when it was talking to the Ephesians, it was for that local church. When it went to the Colossians, it was for that local church.

First Corinthians, he says to you, Corinthians, do you not know that you right there in Corinth are a temple of God? This local church, not just the church universal, but this local church is spoken of as the temple, the dwelling place. Of God Any local church that is gathered together underneath the preaching of the gospel, spirit and truth is the dwelling place of God. Now, remember, in 1 Timothy 3, the context here, and this is just a side point for free.

I won't charge you for this., when, when, when he says that he talks about the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of truth. What does he just got through talking about in the verses above in 1 Timothy 3? Anybody know? Somebody's turning their Bible to 1 Timothy 3.

I wanna see if off the top of your head. It's about, say it again. OK, but above that in the whole context is he's leading down to this verse. Say it again.

OK, close, yeah, faithful man. It's about qualifications for deacons and elders. In other words, it's about the organization of the church. It's about leadership.

It's about pastors. It's about elders. It's about deacons and how this, this is going. And he says, I want to write to you how you should conduct yourself in the house of God.

And so as a sideline, what I want you to see is that this temple, this house has organizational structure to it. That by God's design, just like you had the priesthood, you had all this organization, the Old Testament. In the New Testament, we've got the, all of you are priests, we have, we have the priesthood, the believer, but we also have the structure of leadership, elders and deacons, and so on. And so we do have this organism that is filled with the Spirit also has an organization.

I'd like to say that there's an organizational aspect to what God wants to indwell. If you and I just say, let's just go out in the mountains and just read our Bible. OK, we haven't technically. Met the biblical qualifications of a local church.

Yeah, God is, he'll be with us as we're out there reading the Bible. Obviously, the spirit's there where we can sing. But there's something unique about what's going on right here, that's very different than you and I just out in the mountains reading our Bibles. There's, there's an organizational aspect to this baby.

Now look at. Number 7, Roman 7 here. We know that God is everywhere. Everybody say everywhere.

God is uniquely present in heaven. Say heaven. Uniquely present in He, God is uniquely present on the earth. And God is uniquely present in the God man.

God is uniquely present in the local church. And then this leads us. To this key point, and that is God is uniquely present in our corporate worship. When we come together to corporately worship.

The living God. There is something special and unique. That happens In respect to God's presence. 1 Corinthians 14, Paul says, therefore, if the whole church assembles together, And all prophesy and an unbeliever, and gifted man enters, he's convicted by all, he's called to account by all the secrets of his heart are disclosed.

And so he will fall on his face and worship God, declaring that God is certainly among you. When we gather together to worship the Lord, God is uniquely present in such a way that at times, even an unbeliever can discern. That there's something going on here. Now, this is not, is not necessarily, I wanna qualify, this does not necessarily mean that there's always gonna be a tremendously explosive, emotive experience.

It doesn't mean that every time you and I get together that we should expect. That all of us are just gonna fall on the floor and start barking or. Laughing or weeping. it could be that, that there is an overwhelming move of the spirit to convict of sin.

We should expect at times there to be conviction of sin. It could be that there is a movement of, of just explosion of praise and joy. It just who God is, as we're, as we're experiencing afresh the gospel through the, the word being sung and preached. there's lots of ways in which we do emote.

But the idea here is that God is present by faith. God is present here by faith as his word is going out as we sing to the Lord, as we pray to the Lord, next week is Milton talks about the preaching of the word, and as, as we take communion, as Carlos talks about communion, there is a unique presence of God in the local church and in the corporate gathering for worship. And so this leads us back to our original question, and that is, Since God's everywhere. What's wrong with me just staying home and just listening to John MacArthur on the radio?

We're just being up in the mountains with my family and us just having a little Bible time. There's great value to me having personal quiet times. It's very, it's obvious from Scripture. There's tremendous value to me teaching the Word of God to my children.

It's obvious from Scripture. But if I understand what the Bible's saying from Genesis to Revelation about God's desire to corporately dwell in this thing called the tabernacle, the temple, God's house, there is something, there is a unique display or a unique desire on God's part to make his presence known, to manifest himself in this gathering that is different from any other place on earth. In the New Testament sense, why can we say better is one day in your courts than thousands elsewhere?

It's because this is where God is pleased to uniquely manifest his presence in this dispensation.

In the Old Testament, if you wanted to find God's unique presence, you had to go to the tabernacle or the temple. Well, in the New Testament, the tabernacle in the temple is the gathering together of God's people in the local church. If we want to experience the most powerful display of God's presence on the earth, the most powerful display of the gospel on the earth, it's going to happen. In the gathering Of God's people And so it, it begs the question.

Like for me, if I want to grow in my relationship with God, where do I want to be when God's people are gathered providentially, and that's providentially hindered. Where do I want my children to be when God's people gather? I want them to be where God's presence is located, where God's presence, where God is manifesting Himself. it's funny, I've been talking about this, this subject with my children.

And Anne is at the age where she doesn't quite get everything, but Josh's things are clicking with him a little bit and I think it was last week they departed and went off into children's church and he went in there and he was talking to Ms. Kim and he says, Miss Kim. Is God's presence in here the way it is in there? Because if it's not in here, if he's not here the way he is in there, I want to be in there.

And I thought that was pretty cool. That was pretty cool. there is, God is present here when we gather together on a Sunday. But what it is, it is my desire that.

Long term, I do want Josh eventually to be. In here through the whole time. I want him to experience the preached word from our senior pastor. I want him to experience the full or blessing of being with the full gathering of God's people.

Now, there are some conditions here. Of God's manifested presence. Merely because we show up and happen to be human beings does not guarantee the special presence of God. There are some conditions that seem to be pretty apparent in Scripture.

I'm gonna list a few there, there actually are probably more than this. But let me just list a couple of the obvious ones. The first condition of God's manifested presence is salvation. That there's at least 2 or 3.

There's at least. A group of people in this gathering this morning that are indeed saved, as Hebrews 10 says, therefore, brethren, the writer of Hebrews says, having boldness to enter the holiest. By the blood of 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 a true heart in full assurance of faith.

I want you to focus on the fact that this. Having a boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus Christ. We have to have believed that Jesus Christ shed his blood for us. We deserved to be in God's unique presence in hell.

And yet, if we believe in Christ's death for us, we get to enjoy his unique presence here. And we can enter as it were, the holiest, the holy of holies, where is that? The church, the tabernacle, the Church of God, we can enter into his presence, if we have believed that Christ has shed his blood for us, and we can draw near. We can draw near to God.

What does that mean? If God's omnipresent, what does that mean to draw near to him? It has reference to a special, unique presence. We can draw near to God, and he desires to draw near to us in a special way, assuming that, Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

If Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you can enter into a gathering like this, and, and enjoy the presence of God, God's presence to bless you. If you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ this morning, a lot of times coming together for church is just like, When is this going to be over? Because there's nothing, there's nothing here for you. The things of the Spirit of God are spiritually discerned.

The natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit of God. The natural man may come in and and recognize, wow, God is among you. But to actually enter into that experience, you got to be born again. And if you're not born again, then coming to church for you is very likely a very dull experience.

Again, the natural man does not. Partake of the things of the Spirit of God. Jesus says in Matthew 18, for, foretelling or prophesying this future. Entity of the church for where 2 or 3 are gathered in my name, I am there in the midst of them in my name.

This means coming in the, in the authority of the name of Christ, the fact that he has authority to stand, we have authority to enter through him because he has died for us. If 2 or 3 are gathered in His name, Then Christ is there with a special presence. Now, this is particularly talking about his presence as we carry out church discipline, but I think it can be applied in the general gathering of the church. If we come in his name, if we are saved.

Then we have met one of the key conditions for God's manifested presence in corporate worship. There's a second condition, I believe, as we see in James chapter 4. And that is submission Submission Submit yourselves, therefore, to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you, plural, corporate.

Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double minded. We need to submit ourselves corporately to God. This, this implies that submission to his word, humbling ourselves before God's word. Understanding that we have a powerful enemy.

And so we humble ourselves and say, Lord, deliver us from the evil one. We flee from the devil, and then we draw near to God in the submission. Drawing near to God implies what? There's something that we need to do.

We can't just show up and expect to experience his presence. We need to thoughtfully, purposefully draw near to God. And if we draw near to God, He will what? Draw near to us.

The reverse seems to also be the case. If we do not submit ourselves to God, if we do not resist the devil, If we do not draw near to God, then what? He will not draw near to us. You and I have a part to play in the experience of God's special presence in corporate worship.

God is omnipresent. God desires to manifests himself in a special way in the gathering of the local church. But if you and I, if we as a body, come before God in this gathering with stiff necks, hard hearts, proud, rebellious, sinful, without confession of sin, And then we expect God to draw an nigh unto us. It's not gonna happen, folks.

It is not going to happen. And no doubt, Cornerstone is not a perfect church. I, I, I praise God for this church. I think there's an incredible move of the spirit going on here, of God's presence.

But no doubt at some point in our past, I have no doubts that there's been times where we as a body have come together. And have not as a body come submitted and ready to draw near to God and probably did not experience the special presence of God the way God would have desired in any particular service. That's probably happened with every local church. But we can be instructed this morning, by posturing ourselves to say, God, when I come to gather with your people on the Lord's day, when I come to gather on that day, I wanna, I wanna come and submit myself to you.

Lord, help me resist the devil this morning. Lord, may we draw near to you corporately that you may draw near to us. Lord, may you cleanse our hands. Lord, may you purify our hearts.

This is one of the reasons why it's become, become a growing conviction of mine that not only do we need to confess our sins individually, but there's great value to us confessing our sins corporately. That's one of the reasons why we're trying to in our services have more opportunity for corporate confession where we can confess our sins before God. And ask and plead with God to draw near to us. If we don't come.

With this corporate sense of drawing near to God, then there's the danger of remaining with impure hands and impure hearts and being double minded. And hypocritical as we try to live out our individual life. There's a 3, I think, condition of experiencing God's manifested presence in corporate worship. The first condition is that we're saved, at least that there's a, a percentage of saved people.

It doesn't mean that there aren't gonna be young believers that visit us, but that congregationally that we've got a saved, membership. We're submitted. And then thirdly, calculated involvement. Now notice this Hebrews passage that we're going to read.

Come in this house of God context, Hebrews 10:21, and having a high priest over the house of God. The church, let us draw near. Here's the concept. We, we've got a decision to make, draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith.

Now notice verse 24, verse that we've all heard. Let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching, the day of the Lord, this day of judgment. If you and I are going to experience the special presence, the unique presence of God. In corporate worship.

We've got to be there First of all, you and I have to make a decision. That I'm gonna be where God's presence is. Where God is uniquely manifesting His presence. I want to be where God.

is uniquely manifesting his presence in this dispensation. I want to be there. But not just be there. any child can just go because your mom and dad say, you're going to church.

That's a great thing to make your kids go to church. But children, you can be there and still not experience God's manifested presence. You need to come with calculated involvement. Children, you need to consider.

Take consideration. Of how you can stir up others around you to love and good deeds. That means your parents are gonna help you have forethought about Sunday morning. Mom and dad are going to help you either Saturday night or Sunday morning to help you give due consideration and calculated strategy on how you can enter in and stir up those around you.

Because the experience of God's special presence in this corporate worship service, while the preaching of the word is very important and unique, It's not enough just to sit and listen to the preached word. God is calling you to enter in and do something. Children Teenagers, adults. We need to have calculated involvement.

If you come to church. And I've done this in the past. So I'm not harping on anything I've done myself. If you come to church, and it's just you're just coming to hear a good sermon, have some nice singing, and go home, then you will not experience the special presence of God, the way he is designed.

You need to give due calculated consideration on how you can get involved in this tabernacle in this house. Parents, you need to help your children prepare for Sunday. Help them by asking them how can you stir up someone to love and good works? How can, how can you go up to that senior citizen and give him a big hug and say, I've been praying for you.

How can you go up to so and so who's sick and has cancer, and, and one of your children gives them a, a little card that they've made out for one of our, Cindy or someone that's struggling with cancer? That takes forethought. To enter in and experience God's presence in that way. To think about how can we stir up?

How can we exhort? Well, first of all, we can't forsake the assembly, and we need to be calculated in our involvement. In the assembly. Amen.

And so those are, those are 3, there's more conditions that we can probably think of, but at, at, as far as I can think of, those are 3 conditions that will affect our experience of God's unique desire to manifest his presence in this tabernacle, right? In this gathering of corporate worship. We gotta be saved. We gotta be submitted, and we gotta be calculated in our involvement, calculated.

Involvement. Now, why does this matter? And we'll end. On this, why, why are we talking about all this?

What is the big Deal I don't know. I just, I, I get paid to do this and. They told me I had to preach. Is that why?

No, But first, I hope that you see this, that it has been God's design from Genesis to Revelation to dwell with his people. In this dispensation, God dwells in the New Testament temple, the Church of God. This is not to deny that God dwells with you individually and that he abides with you, that the Spirit abides with you. But the overwhelming emphasis of the New Testament, the overwhelming emphasis of God's desire to dwell, is corporate.

In the Old Testament, God said, I will be their God. And they shall be my people. 2 Corinthians 6:6, Paul says, for we corporate are the temple of the living God. And God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

That phrase, I will be their God, and they shall be my people happens in Genesis, Jeremiah 31:32, Ezekiel, all these new covenant passages, Zechariah, 2 Corinthians, Hebrews 8, it happens over and over and over. God from Genesis revelation has wanted to dwell among his people. And in this age, he's dwelling among his people. In the location.

Of his church And so it's been God's design and so we should want to enter into God's design, but there are those today, and this is not unique. The quote I'm gonna give you is not something that's just this is the only person out there that thinks this. There are those today that just think the local church is not. It's not all that.

Notice this quote from a local radio host. This is a nationalwide radio program. God has shifted the final task of world evangelism to individual Christians who are outside of a local congregation in obedience to these biblical teachings family radio, which is completely outside of any church institution and which is supported administered by individual believers, does teach that today as we are heading for the end of the world's existence, we should not be a part of a local church.

That's a Christian radio host.

And that is a growing. Belief, there are those that, I don't know the, the house, the Bible study movement that's gone on over the past 50 or 6 years is great stuff. But there are those that would just say that as long as I'm having a home Bible study, I don't really need to be a part of a local church. As long as my family are listening to good Christian radio, I don't need to be a part of a local church.

As long as it's me and Jesus, I don't need to be a part of a local church. And be involved in corporate worship. I notice what this comes from the elders of Little Rock. Bible Church, the pastor of which is Lance Quinn, who used to be the assistant to John MacArthur, and I love his summary of the importance of the indwelling of the spirit in the local church.

Notice what the elders of Lance Quinn's church, they, the way they summarize their teaching there, he says there is a significant and unique ministry of the Holy Spirit, which only occurs when the church functions as a gathered body, which simply cannot occur with lone believers. If a professing believer in Jesus Christ is not a part of a local church, he or she will forfeit the corporate dimension of the Holy Spirit's ministry and presence, and therefore will experience irreparable harm to their own individual spiritual growth, to say nothing of their lack of spiritual support for others within the body.

That's an excellent summary statement by the assistant to John MacArthur Lance Quinn, former assistant John MacArthur, Lance Quinn. Better is one day in your courts.

Then thousands elsewhere. If we're understanding God's desire to dwell among us from Genesis to Revelation. Then When Sunday comes. There should be something that wells up within our hearts that, man.

We've had a great week of personal devotions, or maybe not. We've had a great time of family devotions. But tomorrow, we get to go to the tabernacle, to the house. To experience God's unique presence in this age.

And this is, this is a challenge. This has been a challenge to me personally. I have not always thought about gathering together with my brothers and sisters in this way. And I'm a pastor I have not thought about you in this way that God wants to manifest his presence to me through you.

We're going to talk As we move forward. About how God is manifesting his presence. Through our prayers and praise, the fellowship and sharing of spiritual gifts. Next week, Milton will talk about the preached word.

the Lord's Supper. But I just want to challenge you guys, and I want to challenge me with this. That God has given us all kinds of means of grace. He's given us His word, He's given us prayer.

He's given us evangelism. but one of the key means of grace that God has given you is the gathering together with your local brothers and sisters. God wants to manifest his presence in a very special way. And I believe, and I challenge you to search the scriptures to see if this is true.

I believe that when I bring my children to this local church and this local worship service, that they will get an experience of God's special presence that they will not get at home, even though I'm a pastor. I can stand up before my kids and preach through Leviticus and play my guitar, and we can be in there and just go for it. Holy, holy, holy. But yet if I don't get my children here.

There is something significant. That they will miss in their Christian life. And so I want, we have made a decision that this place in this day. Is this is where we're gonna be.

When things come up, Joshua's recital comes up and the teacher says, well, he's got a recital that right in the middle of care group, right in the middle of, the morning service. Well, if you can. If you can move it to a different time, then he'll be there. But what, we, I want Joshua to be where God's special presence is, and it's not at the piano recital.

That's, that's what I the convicts I'm coming to from the word of God. I want to be where God's special presence is dwelling in this present age. I would challenge you to search the scriptures to see if these things are so. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for the presence of your spirit, through your preached word in your presence, Lord, because your people are gathered here this morning. Lord, you have been, we pray present in our Prayer present in our. Fellowship In the preaching, we pray God that you continue to be present with us. And Lord, that we would long to be in your courts each Lord's Day, that we would long to be in your presence, and that we would draw near submitting ourselves.

Lord, if there's any here this morning that are not saved, Lord, that they would, your spirit would fall upon them so they could get it. So they could understand the blessed presence of your spirit and the gathering of your people. Lord, help us to give due consideration. Lord, each of us has a responsibility to this corporate church, Lord, to prepare ourselves for worship, to prepare our children for worship, so that when we come, we are all blessed by God's, your, your spirit and your, and your presence, God.

We thank you for your goodness to us, help us grow in these things. We lay it before you in Christ's name, and his shed blood. Amen. Why don't we, stand together and, close the, the service with, singing, his forever.

We are his forever.