The Big Deal About Our Sunday Gathering

Good morning, everyone. If we could all start to return to our seats. Yeah If we could all begin to find our way back to our seats. Right.

It's great to see all that wonderful fellowship going on out there. But I have a very important announcement I'd like to make to you this morning. our ministry of the week this week is our child abuse prevention seminar, which is coming up on Friday, June 15th at 6:30. It'll be held here.

It is free and we're inviting all of our families here at Cornerstone to attend. this seminar is held by Camp Allendale. if you've never heard of Camp Allendale before, they're a Christian camp that ministers the gospel of Jesus to abused children and children that need the healing touch of our Savior. But they're going to be giving some guidelines, to families, some things that you can use to help protect your children from abuse.

this is gonna be a, a seminar that will include, group discussions. it will cover topics such as how to respond to the abused, and it will also help you to train your children to detect dangerous situations and to be able to give them guidelines that will keep them safe and that won't frighten them. So what I'd like to do is just invite you and I'd also like to encourage you to take one of these brochures. They're gonna be on the table outside when we leave and I'd like to challenge you, each family to invite 5 more families, personally invite them, so I don't necessarily wanna put these out on cars or mailboxes.

We want you to personally invite families that. We want to reach out to our community and help to protect our children. Thank you. Thank you, Steve.

Well, it's my privilege today to introduce a new series that we're going to, begin today that's gonna take us over the, the next 5 weeks from today to, to the first Sunday of July. And the title of the series is The Dearest Place on Earth that Mike made reference to earlier in our service when he asked his son, where would he rather be, Disneyland or At church, and he taught his son that church is the dearest place, on earth. I just want you to know that when I ask my children that question, They all said, I'd, I'd rather be with God's people, Dad.

On the Lord's Day So, no, I'm kidding.

I never asked them that. But the dearest place on earth, the expression, the dearest place on earth, we actually get from Charles, Spurgeon. listen to what he has to say about, the church and gathering with the people of God. He says, if I had never joined the church until I had found one that was perfect, I would never have joined one at all.

And the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I would have spoiled it, for it would not have been a perfect church after I had become a member of it. Still, imperfect as it is, it, the church is the dearest place on earth. Spurgeon talked about how Sunday of all days of the week is the greatest day of the week. It's the one.

That every other day of the week, we, with anticipation, long for, we look forward to the joy of being able to gather with the people of God and gathering with the people of God where the special presence of God dwells at this time in history is, of all places, the dearest place on earth. doing better than quoting from Charles Spurgeon. We have the psalmist in Psalm 84 expressing a similar sentiment. When he begins the psalm by saying, how lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts.

And as the psalmist is saying that, please understand, he's not commenting on the architecture and the beauty, the physical beauty of the dwelling place of the Lord. He's saying, how lovely are your dwelling places. In other words, how lovely are the places where you dwell. The thing that makes them lovely is that God dwells there.

That's where his presence. is found, enjoyed and experienced. And so when the psalmist was not in the dwelling places of God, he longed for it. Verse 2, my soul longed and even yearned for the courts of the Lord.

Why? Because the Lord is there. But as you read through the Psalm, you come to find out that it's not just the presence of the Lord there that drew the psalmist's heart to that location. It was also the presence of the people of God.

Who were gathered there. Verse 4, how blessed are those who dwell in your house. They are ever praising you. And so the psalmist says, man, I wanna be in your house.

I wanna be in your courts because you are there and your people are there, and I get to hear them praise you and join them. As we all praise you. Verse 10, a day in your courts is better than 1000 days outside. I would rather stand in the threshold of the house of my God than dwell in the tents.

Of those who are doing wickedness. Man, when, when you see that language in verse 10, you come to understand the value that the psalmist attaches to gathering with the people of God, where the presence of God is located. one day is better in the Lord's courts than a 1000 outside. That's, that's like a really strong statement.

In modern day terms, it would be like 11 minute. One minute in church. It is better than 16 hours, a full waking day doing anything else. One minute in church is better than a full waking day of playing golf.

Than a full waking day of watching golf. better than a full waking day of, of, watching your favorite movies and, and, just hanging out, doing nothing. better than a full waking day of engaging in your favorite hobby or some project that you greatly enjoy or boating on the lake. one minute.

In the presence of God with the people of God is better than a full day of doing anything else. Now, you may respond to that by saying, Pastor Milton, in all honesty, I'm not there. That's not my value system. It should be, but I am not there.

I'm not even close to there right now. My mind is racing with other places I would rather be. Listen, if your value system is not what's expressed in Psalm 84. Then you're in the right place because that's what this series is all about.

Our intent is not to beat you up if this is not your value system. Our intent is over the next 5 weeks to encourage you and to make the case for you of why it is so precious and so valuable for us to gather together as we are doing this morning to experience the presence of God, and 5 weeks from now that we will all be closer. To being able to express more honestly these values that are expressed in Psalm 84. And so we've got some work to do over the course of the next month in this what we call a topical series, but to me it's misnamed because normally here at Cornerstone, we do expositional series through books like we just finished up Ephesians last week.

this is a topical series, but the way I like to think of it is, it is an expositional series through tons of passages that we're going to be looking at over the course of the next 5 weeks for the edification of God's people. Now, my job this morning, we're gonna be dividing up. This the messages, as I'll explain later at the end of our time together this morning my job this morning is to, essentially answer this question, and that is why should we gather or why should we love to gather?

Why should our value system be such.

That the thought of gathering with the people of God in the presence of God is like so highly prized and it's something that we not only do, but we love to do this and we yearn, we long to gather with the people of God in a setting like this. That's the question I want to answer. I want to give you 6 reasons for why we should love to gather. Before I do that real quick, let me just kinda throw this at you.

there are a lot of people in our culture and even in the church that do not love to gather with the people of God. it seems like our society is increasingly being engineered to where there's more and more to compete with really setting aside the Lord's Day and making it as the Puritans called it, the market day of the soul. It's the day the soul goes to market. It's the day that we unshrivel our souls.

And are blessed in the presence of God's people and in the presence of the Lord as we gather together. just the mentality of many people, even outside the church and even some who claim to know the Lord is that they lowly esteem. They, they might say that they highly prize religion and good works, but they place very low value on even what you're doing today and gathering with the people of God. In fact, let me just give you a couple of examples of this.

Bill Gates, the great theologian from Microsoft, says this. He says, just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more that I could be doing on a Sunday morning. And so he would say, better is one day doing anything else than 1000 gathered on a Sunday morning with God's people in church.

And that's the value system of many people, that there's so many other things that they would rather be doing and that they would view as being more useful than doing what we're all doing this morning. Also, Elijah Wood, the Hollywood actor. when he signs his autographs, he always writes the words, God bless you, along with his signature and to such a degree that an interviewer back in '97 asked him about that and said, I noticed you say God bless you, whenever you give your, sign your autograph.

Are you a religious person?

To which Elijah Wood replied, he said this, well, I'm a Christian. I was raised a Christian, but I don't go to church. He wasn't even asked about church attendance, but he just had to throw that in. I'm a Christian, I was raised a Christian, but you need to know this about me, and that is that I don't go to church.

He goes on to explain the rationale behind this. He says, it's not that I've made a choice saying that I do not want to go to church. It's more circumstantial than that. But since our family has not been to church in so long, it's not really something we've considered doing.

I don't feel that in order to be a good Christian, that you have to go to church. You can be religious without going to church by just praying and living your life for God and living your life by God's teachings or the Bible. Interesting. and by the way, if you wanna know his level of understanding of the Bible from which he speaks, right after he says this last sentence, he then says, and I quote, it's interesting.

All the Bibles of every religion say basically the same thing. Which was a shock to me. I did not know that the Quran said that Jesus was the only way, the only truth, and the only life, and that no one can get to the Father except through him. But I throw that in so that that when Elijah Woods says this, he's not speaking from a great understanding of the Bible.

If he can't tell the difference between the Bible and the Quran and the Hindu scriptures, then he doesn't understand the Bible. But the dichotomy is this, he says, you don't have to go to church. All you have to do is live your life by the teaching of the Bible. Well, what I want to submit to you is that the Bible teaches us to congregate with one another.

We did not make this up. When you do look at what the Bible says, objectively, honestly, overwhelmingly, voluminously, the Bible teaches that God's people congregate. Together. They gather together.

And so we want our value system to be informed by scripture, not by Bill Gates, not by the likes of Elijah Wood, but by the word of God. Amen. And so let's look at scripture and let me give you 6 reasons why we should highly prize gathering together with one another. Reason number 1, we should love together because God commands us to gather.

God commands us to gather. He's the one whose commands we obey. And so if God tells us to do this, then it is in our best interest to do this. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse 24, the writer of Hebrews says, let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking the assembling together of ourselves as is the habit of some.

Clearly in this church, there were some who were developing a habit, and the habit was of non-church attendance. The habit was of not assembling together. These believers felt like they didn't need other believers, and they did not need to assemble, and the writer of Hebrews is literally saying stop forsaking the assembling together. In other words, that's a command.

We need to assemble together. So God commands us as believers to assemble together. That's the first reason why we should gather and love to gather. A second reason why we should gather and love to gather is because the early church's example teaches us to gather.

One of the things that. that is a wise step to take is that if you're wanting to know how should I live my life, how should we do church, how should we behave as Christians, you wanna go to the word of God and even books like historical books like the Book of Acts and just observe, are there some. Broad patterns here that that can inform us in terms of what we need to do today and one of the notable patterns that you observe in the book of Acts is that the Christians throughout the book of Acts, they seem to be getting together all the time, all the time.

In fact, observe this with me.

In Acts 1:6, talking about the followers of Jesus, it says, when they had come together, Acts 2:1, the day of Pentecost, the birthday of the church, they were all together in one place. Acts 2:44 and all those who had believed were gathered together. Acts 2:46, day by day, continuing. With one mind in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.

Acts 5:12, they were all with one accord in Solomon's portico. Acts 6:2, so the 12 summoned the congregation of the disciples. So it's summoning them together. Acts 12:12.

There many were gathered together and were praying. Acts 14:27, they gathered the church together. Acts 15:6 and the apostles and the elders came together. Acts 15:30, having gathered the congregation together.

Acts 20 verses 7 and 8, on the first day of the week, we actually have a time reference here, which is Sunday. On the first day of the week when we were gather. Gathered together to break bread and when you look at the context, clearly it's talking about the celebration of communion. Paul prolonged his message until midnight.

So actually we have in this verse a number of things. We have the time of this meeting. It was the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, Sunday. They gathered together, they celebrated communion, which is what we practice either here the first Sunday of the month in this service or in our care groups every other Sunday of the month that we don't celebrate it here.

And another thing we can infer from this passage is Paul prolonged his message until midnight. That's where folks' long sermons have come from. We have this pattern from scripture, all right? also, if you go beyond the Book of Acts and you observe in 1 Corinthians, you see that there's a lot that is said in 1 Corinthians, verse 11, verse or chapter 11, verse 17, when you come together, verse 18, when you meet together, chapter 14, verse 26, when you assemble, chapter 14, verse 23, as the whole church.

Symbols together. 1 Corinthians 14:19 in the church assembly. I desire to speak 5 words with my mind, then 10,000 words in an uninterpreted tongue. 1 Corinthians 14:28, he, the tongue speaker, if there's no interpreter present, must keep silent in the church assembly.

1 Corinthians 14:34, the women are to keep silent in the church. Assemblies. And by the way, we saw back a number of years ago, what this means is that the women are not to engage in unsubmissive speaking when you look at the full context there, that's how we interpreted that. But the point is in 1 Corinthians verse or chapters 11 through 14 are all devoted to regulating believers' behavior when they gather together in the church assembly.

So when you observe the Book of Acts and see sections in 1 Corinthians. that are given over to this, you observe clearly that the early church, the believers, just, they gathered together, they congregated. This was an important part of the life of the body of Christ. Christians didn't just get saved and just go their separate ways and never one have anything to do with the other.

They converged, they were drawn together, they assembled together over and over and over and over again. A third reason why we should gather together and love together is because God delights in the gathering of His people. God delights in the gathering of his people. what, when you love somebody, Don't you want to know what delights them, and then do what delights them?

Is that, isn't that, is that not what all of us did, if you find out that your girlfriend likes chocolates or Twinkies or whatever, or your wife loves chocolates or whatever, you, you observe that and then you do what will delight them so that when you do that, it brings a smile to their face. That's the way you love someone. You do what will delight. And bless them.

The same is true in our relationship with God. We want to delight him. And so if we are interested in delighting him, then we want to know what it is that does delight him, right? And how do we find that out?

Well, we open up the Bible, and we read the words of God that reveal the heart of God, and that tell us what it is that delights him. And one of the things that we learn in Scripture is that God delights in the congregation of his people, in the congregating of his people. In Psalm 133. The psalmist says in verse one, behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

Now, that's not just some, OK, it's just great. I'm just gonna write a psalm about unity here. You need to understand something about the context of this psalm. In the psalter, there's 150 psalms, right?

Inside of the psalter, there's a smaller psalter, there's a smaller hymnal called the Songs of a sense. OK. In other words, they were the songs that the Jewish people would sing on their way to Jerusalem to assemble for worship. And I believe it's Psalm 120 through Psalm 134.

So, a modern day equivalent is imagine you come to church and there's a hymnal under your seat and that's what we sing from, but imagine that in your vehicle, there's a smaller hymnal, and it's the songs that you and your family sing on your way to church. And as you're leaving your home, there's a song that you guys always sing as you're driving out of your driveway. And as you, as you're approaching the church parking lot and you're seeing the cars pulling in and people getting out of their cars, there's a certain song that you sing when you reach that point, and then you get out of your car and you're actually coming into the building.

Imagine that there's a song that you sing there.

Well, understand the location of this particular song in that smaller hymnal, the song of a sense. In Psalm 134, which is the one right after this, the Jewish people are actually singing to the servants of the Lord who work in the temple, in the temple complex. And so, in Psalm 133, this is the song. That would come to the mind of the Jews and the song that they would sing as they were converging on Jerusalem and they're looking around and there's just people from everywhere converging on the city and even in the city, everyone's converging on the temple, and it's that second from the last stage of their journey to Jerusalem to congregate with the people of God.

That they would sing this psalm and the psalm began, Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. This is a celebration of the congregating of the people of God to worship God. Do you understand that? How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to congregate, to assemble together in unity.

Now, this is not only the psalmist who's expressing his pleasure and delight at this site, but this is an inspired psalm, so the Spirit of God is inspiring these sentiments, which means that we learned something here, not just about the psalmist, but we learned something about the Spirit of God and hence about God Himself and what delights and pleases him. When God sees his people congregating and assembling together, God says, behold how good and how pleasant it is. For my people to congregate together in unity when God observes us doing that.

He thrills at that sight.

It delights him. Are you interested in delighting your God? If you are, you will do this, amongst other things, that brings pleasure to his heart. There is a 4th reason why we should gather and love together.

Number 1, God commands us to gather. Number 2, the early church's example, teaches us to gather. Number 3, because God delights in the gathering of His people and we want to delight Him. Reason number 4, because gathering provides an opportunity for much needed mutual ministry.

Much needed mutual ministry. God has so designed the Christian life so that we actually need one another in order to fully be what God wants us to be. And so we have to congregate, we have to assemble, we have to be with one another so that this ministry back and forth can take place. In 1 Corinthians 14:26, Paul says, when you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching.

has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation, and no doubt Paul could have continued that list, but he's established his point. And his point is that when you guys assemble, everybody brings their contribution to that time of assembly. Whatever their gifts, however God has been working in their life, everyone comes, everybody has a contribution to bring. And Paul says, make sure that all things, when you assemble are done for edification.

Everything I say, everything I do should be for the edification of the people of God that I am gathered with. And we know what that word edify means, right? It, it's literally the word build and the word house. It's, it's, it means to build a house.

And the idea is that we are all unfinished construction projects. I attend a church full of unfinished people. Unfinished people, and you attended church, the pastor of which is a desperately unfinished construction project. How are we going to get finished and further edified and constructed?

We congregate. And one of the values of congregating is that we can help finish each other. Minister to others, edify them, receive ministry and edification from others, and it goes back and forth. You should not come to church on Sunday thinking, well, I've got a contribution to bring and I don't need anything from anybody, but boy, does this church need a lot from me.

And, and you come and that's your mentality. No, you need to come with an open heart ready to receive. And if that seems a little too humbling for you, think about Paul, the apostle Paul. This guy wrote scripture.

This guy had been to the third heaven and back. He saw stuff he could never even talk about. This man, if there ever was a strong Christian who experienced the depths of the love and the power of God, it was the apostle Paul. And yet look at how he speaks to the Roman Christians.

He says in Romans 1:11, I long to see. You, so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you that you may be established. Now, we would expect the great apostle Paul to say that, but now look at verse 12, that is, that I may be encouraged together with you, while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. Look at that language there.

This is amazing, that I may be encouraged together with you, while among you, each of us by the other's faith, both yours and mine. Paul's like, I, I, I wanna come to church in Rome. I want to congregate and gather with you, so that when I am among you and gathered with you, I can. Impart some spiritual grace to you, and you can impart a spiritual grace to me, and we can both be a source of ministry and mutual encouragement to each other.

Going back to Hebrews 10. The writer of Hebrew says, let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds. He, he's saying, guys, premeditate this. Premeditate, contemplate, premeditate how you can stimulate your brothers and sisters to love and to good deeds.

So think about that. Develop a plan. Your plan should be, I want to stimulate my brothers and sisters to love and good deeds, and so I'm developing a plan here, and the writer of Hebrews says, let me give you the first thing on this plan. Stop forsaking the assembling of yourself together.

In other words, a symbol. That should be step one of your plan, and that is to gather together with your brothers and sisters, and then not just gather your presence is a blessing to your brothers and sisters, but when you gather, your thinking should be, I want to say things and do things and set an example that will stimulate my brothers and sisters to a life of love and good deeds. Let me ask you this, when you drive home or are driven home today. Will you be able to say to yourself.

Somebody Was stimulated to love and good deeds today because I was here. I, I ministered while I was here. We live in a consumer society. It's all about us, and what we get, and there are people that go to church only because of what they get.

And yes, we should get and receive, but people don't think about what they need to give. And when you leave church today, will you leave behind people that were stimulated to love and good deeds? the writer of Hebrews says to not just do this on the fly, but to premeditate this, to contemplate how you can do this. And so, as you're praying through the week, and part of why you long to see your brothers and sisters is because you want to encourage them and stimulate them to a life of love and good deeds.

And so let's, let's think this way. We should long to be with each other because of the opportunity it provides to bless our brothers and to be blessed by our brothers and sisters also. There is a 5th reason why we should congregate and love to congregate, and that is because gathering together provides us a God-ordained context in which to worship. Gathering together provides us a God-ordained context in which to worship.

When you look at what the Bible teaches, we are to worship God all the time, right? No matter what we're doing in the car by ourselves or at home or when we're having our private devotions, but the Bible also teaches that we are to worship God in the congregation. That's one of the locations where we are actually commanded to worship God. In Psalm 149:1, the psalmist says, praise the Lord, sing to the Lord a new song and sing His praise in the congregation of the godly ones.

What the psalmist is saying is you need to praise God. But when you praise God, include in the locations where you praise God to be amongst the congregation of the godly ones. Be with God's people, worship God from there. the heart of a true worshiper.

It is a heart that wants to worship God in all places, all the time, everywhere. But it's also a heart that longs to worship God in the company of other people. In fact, look at the heart of this worshiper in Psalm 34. The psalmist says, I will bless the Lord at all times.

His praise shall continually be in my mouth. God, I'm gonna, I'm gonna worship God all the time, every day, and everything I do. His praise is gonna be continually on my lips at all times. But then verse 2, my soul shall make its boast in the Lord.

The humble shall hear it and rejoice. Well, suddenly, now the, the, the camera backs away and now we see people. Who are hearing him and what's interesting is the psalmist is contemplating the fact that others are going to hear his worship and others will be caused to rejoice. They will be blessed by the praise that he offers to the Lord.

It's actually biblical to contemplate the effect that your worship will have upon. Other people. We don't just come and gather for worship, and it's a bunch of individuals worshiping God, not even giving any thought to their brothers and sisters. No, we need to think, man, I'm gonna worship God and what, my brothers, my sisters are gonna be blessed by the worship that I am offering to God.

And we need to realize that when we worship God, we do affect other people. Other people are watching, and that's, it's not unbiblical to contemplate that. In fact, this morning in the first service, I was sitting right over here and Joshua Berry was sitting here on the front row. And during some of the songs, I, I tend on some of the songs, if I'm sitting down, I just, I beat out the tune on my lap, it's just, I don't know why I do that.

But, so I'm doing that on, like the resurrection hymn. And I noticed that Joshua Berry, he, he kept looking over at me and he started like pounding on his lap. And then I would stop and he would stop. And then I'd start again, and then he would start.

And this young boy was watching. His pastor worship And trying to mimic what he saw. I don't know if that was a good example for him to follow, but the thing is, we even as adults, we, we observe others and we're inspired, we're blessed by what we see in others as they worship. There have been times I've been worshiping here and my heart's not been in it, and my heart was cold and And maybe I couldn't wait to be done with a particular song, so I can sit down, my feet are tired, and, and then I look over and there's one of you, and man, you're just, your heart is so into the worship, tears are coming down your face.

And I'm like, wow, this must be a great song. And I better pay attention. And your worship instructs me. And inspires me.

So don't underestimate the effect that we have on each other, just by the worship, and it's actually good and healthy to contemplate the effect. That your worship will have upon other people. Is your worship this morning, did it inspire anybody around you to think greater thoughts of God and what He has done? In fact, look at the heart of this worshiper, verse 30, magnify the Lord with me.

Let's exalt his name together. Let's congregate together and let us worship the Lord. The heart of the true worshiper will worship God anywhere he finds himself, but man, he doesn't. he, he longs to be with others, and he calls others to him so that they can worship the Lord together.

In Psalm 35:18, the psalmist says, I will give thee thanks where in the great congregation. Psalm 40, I would encourage you guys to meditate on this Psalm. It's a psalm I've recently, come in contact with and there's so much that's here. It's just, that, that's so instructive for us.

Look at this. Psalm 40:9. I have proclaimed glad tidings, or literally the gospel. I have proclaimed the gospel of righteousness.

You say where? To the, to the lost? No, I have proclaimed the gospel of righteousness in the great congregation. Amongst your people, Lord, I have proclaimed the good news.

What you have done. Behold, I will not restrain my lips, oh Lord, here's a psalmist contemplating gathering with the great congregation. He's saying, I am not gonna hold back my lips. I will not restrain my lips.

Verse 10, I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart. I have spoken of your faithfulness and of your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your truth from the great congregation, talking about the people of God. Sometimes there are people.

Who they're, they're, when they worship, like they don't even sing or whatever, and you might say something to them and they say, well, I'm worshiping God in my heart. And that's good as far as it goes. But can you say with the psalmist, I have not hidden my worship in my heart. It's been on my lips.

Can you go home today? After worshiping here and say I proclaimed the good news in the great congregation. Can you say, Lord, I did not restrain my lips. Can you say I did not hide your righteousness inside of my heart?

Can you say I spoke of your faithfulness and of your salvation? Can you say I did not conceal your loving kindness and your truth from the great congregation? Can you say that as you leave from Sunday to Sunday? Think about your worship.

when we sing the songs we sang this morning, we are proclaiming, we are speaking the gospel of God's righteousness and His loving kindness, His grace and His truth. Don't restrain your lips. Don't hide it in your heart to where none can see it, and we have to accept by faith that something is going on inside your heart, but it's not visible. Psalm 40 is the anthem of a true worshiper.

It's, it's the burning heart desire and the passion of a true worshiper. God, I want to proclaim the good news. God, I wanna worship you. God, I want to proclaim your loving kindness, your righteousness, your grace and truth in the great congregation.

As I assemble with the congregation of your people. Where there's a 6th and final reason why we should gather and love together. Number 1, God commands us to gather. Number 2, the early church's example teaches us to gather.

Number 3, God delights in our gathering. Number 4, gathering provides an opportunity for much needed ministry. Number 5, gathering provides us a God-ordained context in which to worship Him together. And reason number 6, and I believe the most important reason.

is why we should gather and love together is because God's special presence is located in the gathering of His people. You, you read through the Old Testament, you find Adam and Eve in the garden, God walked with them in the cool of the day. Adam and Eve sinned, they were driven out from the presence of the Lord. They enjoyed the presence of God in the garden, and so they lost the enjoyment of the presence, the special presence of God.

years later, God calls together a people for his name, and he has, them build a tabernacle. God's special presence dwelt in the holy of holies of that tabernacle, and God tabernacle amongst his people, and they were all around him. He was in the middle of the camp. then Solomon had the temple built, and he dedicated the temple, 1 Kings 8, and after that prayer of dedication, the glory of God came down and just smoke filled the whole place.

it had to have been an incredible scene as God's glory, God's special presence came down and took its place in the holy of holies. You continue reading through the prophets and you find that because of Israel's sin, In fact, I believe it's Ezekiel who talks about the moment that the glory of God left the temple, just going above the temple, hovering briefly over the temple and then disappearing into the sky. God's presence left, but then Jesus came. And John says, and he tabernacle among us, the presence of God is back amongst his people.

His name is Emmanuel, which means God with us. God is among us. John says, we beheld his glory, the glory is of the only begotten. Father, full of grace and truth.

But then Jesus was crucified and Jesus was raised, and then Jesus ascended to the right hand of God. And so Jesus is not here like he was 2 1000 years ago, and so where is the presence of God now? That's the question. We know from the New Testament that there is a sense in which the special presence of God inhabits each individual believer, our bodies individually, our temples of the Holy Spirit.

But we also know from the teaching of the New Testament that when we congregate together we plural come together and form a temple, a house, a dwelling place in which the special presence of God inhabits. Isn't that awesome? In Ephesians chapter 2. Paul says, in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also plural, are being built together into a singular dwelling of God in the Spirit.

When we gather, we become the house of God. This building is not the house of God. We the people are the Stones that compose this house of God. And so when we gather, God's presence is here.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 16, Paul says, do you not know that you plural are a temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you, plural. So all of us come together, we are a plurality, but we come together, we become a single entity, a temple of the living God, in which God Inhabits what excites me about this is that It gives you the sense that when we congregate, we're not just congregating to talk about what God did 2000 years ago. Like, like nothing's happening now, but hey, isn't it great?

2000 years ago, the Lord did this and this and this, and Let's talk about that.

No, when we assemble, we form a temple. God's special presence is amongst us. And if God's presence is amongst us right now in this moment, we can expect God at the present time to move and to reveal Himself, and to do a work in our hearts. And to reveal His glory, and we can expect that just as Moses beheld God on the mountain and came down and his face was aglow, we can expect that if we are encountering the very special presence of God as we assemble here, that we will go forth from here with deposits of the very glory of God, having attached themselves to our person.

And we become a little more glorified every time we assemble and experience the presence of God. The last verse I want to show you is this 1 Corinthians 14. Look what Paul says. Therefore, if that should be if the whole church assembles together.

Look at that. If the whole church assembles together, if the whole church, if all of the body of believers in this particular city, the city of Corinth, if the whole congregation assembles together, and all Prophesying. In other words, everyone is speaking biblical truth to one another, and an unbeliever or an ungifted man enters, what will happen? He is convicted by all, he is 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. Not just God is among you, but God is certainly among you. There's an intensifier here in the language. God is indeed among you.

Yes, God is everywhere. I experience God's presence everywhere I go, but when this unlearned believer comes in or even a nonbeliever, he's able to notice that God is indeed. Among you in a special way that God was not over there where I was 5 hours ago. God seems to be here.

God is certainly indeed. God is truly among you, and he experiences the presence of God as we all gather together. Assemble and minister. To one another And worship our God.

Well, what we're going to be doing over the next few weeks is focusing. On this theme, and let me just, just tell you real quick before we close in prayer, this is what, the month will look like. Next week, Mike is going to preach on experiencing God's presence in corporate worship. The following week, I will preach on experiencing God's presence in the preached, the preaching of the word.

Carlos will be preaching the next Sunday on experiencing God's presence. In our celebration of the Lord's Supper, and then I, on the first Sunday of July will preach on experiencing the grace of corporate giving, which is something that we also do when we congregate. with one another, so we have much to learn. And let's just go to the Lord and just ask the Lord, what, God wants to do great things in this church.

And, and what, he wants to do great things when we assemble. We're not just here to talk about what he used to do. We're here to experience His presence and experience his working right now, today. And so, we need to learn about this and how we can enjoy the presence of God, and grow in our appreciation for the value of assembling together.

As a congregation, especially as we are doing now on the Lord's Day, let's pray together and ask for the Lord's guidance. Lord, we are a needy people. We Have an awesome God, and we are blessed to be able to congregate. To experience your presence.

And not just be passive enjoyers of your presence, but to actively participate in your presence and to be changed in the presence of a holy God, to be changed in the presence of a gracious God, to be changed in the presence of a loving God. We have so much to learn, Lord, so much to experience. And so help us as we seek to learn of this important issue. That we might know the height and the breadth, the length, the depth.

With all the saints together with the saints that we would come more fully to know of the love of Jesus. We present ourselves to You, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said.