Devoted to Spirit-Filled Worship, John 15:4

This sermon focuses on the importance of Spirit-filled worship as a marker of renewal. Pastor Aaron emphasizes the need for devotion to Christ and the role of the Holy Spirit in worship. True worship is Christ-centered and Spirit-filled, recognizing the worth of God and responding by praising him for all he's worth. Worship should be orderly and should not leave our emotions untouched.

Takeaways

• Spirit-filled worship is a marker of renewal and should be a priority in our lives.
• True worship is Christ-centered and recognizes the worth of God.
• Genuine worship includes both the truth of God and genuine emotions stirred by the Holy Spirit.
• Worship should be orderly but not dull.
• We should desire beauty in Christ and obedience in worship, welcoming the work of the Holy Spirit.

Creators & Guests

Host

Aaron Shamp

Lead Pastor of Redeemer City Church

What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?

Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.

Aaron Shamp (00:01.976)
Well, good morning once again. It's great to see all you guys here with us every day of this morning on Liberty Weekend. It truly is a joy and a privilege to worship with you guys, both in singing and in the Word. And so like Justin talked about, we do have renewed night of worship coming up on September 28th. We're investing a lot into this event in terms of people coming and everything else. It's gonna be a really, really great night of worship.

You guys, make sure you get that marked on your calendars that you're able to attend. We also have some really awesome flyers that are our own Jessica Sellers design. We have some awesome flyers for Renu, and we have 500 of them in a box back there. So what I wanna do is, before you guys go today, I wanna challenge you all to grab one or two of those flyers and then give them to someone this week. If you're feeling really ambitious, maybe you can grab five more, you can grab a lot.

If you know of maybe the office that you work at, they allow, okay, they'll do it without permission, but if they allow sharing or posting a flyer on like a community bulletin board, something like that, bring some to put it on that bulletin board at work if they allow that kind of thing, or at the school that you're at, or wherever else. But like I said, we have 500, and so I want to challenge you guys, let's use all of them. I want that box to be empty.

Grab a stack and go put them in mailboxes in your neighborhood. Just get creative here. Take as many as you want. And if we run out, we will happily order new. Okay? And so just wanted to encourage you guys to do that and challenge you to grab some before you leave today. And let's see if you can handle all the amounts over the course of this week. Another way that you can join us in preparing for a new is by participating in our career meetings that we're doing. These are every Sunday morning.

between now and renewed at 9 45 for 30 minutes. We're gathering together and we're spending time and very focused instruction prayer, preparing ourselves and also seeking God's favor over this event. We're seeking his blessing and direction over the plans that we have for renewing and beyond because we recognize the spiritual renewal is something that we don't plan. It's something that God has to bring. And so we plan

Aaron Shamp (02:23.534)
the opportunities, we plan the ministries for the warrants to bring spiritual rituals. So we are seeking him every week. If you want to join one of those prayer meetings, we have a sign up list on the back of it there. So you can put your name down on a week that you know you can make it, make that commitment to be here and then we'll be expecting you to show up. But look, if next Sunday you didn't think you could be here, but Sunday morning rolls around and you're free, you can get to church a little early, you are more than welcome to come and join us, okay? It's just a little bit earlier, you gotta get here 9 .45.

and join us in that prayer. So I really want to encourage you guys to do that. Our sermon last week was on the importance of devotion to prayer when we were seeking spiritual renewal. And so I hope that we don't just talk about that, that we live it out. Similarly today, all right, we are continuing in our series called Filled With All, which is also going along with this emphasis on spiritual renewal that we are doing for the next several weeks leading up to Renew. We are

Looking at the story of the first church in the book of Acts chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, when the Spirit came down and they began to worship, Peter preached the first sermon and we see the birth of the very first Christian church there in Acts chapter 2. And Luke gives us four descriptors of that church and so we can see these as like four markers of what happens whenever God's Spirit moves and he brings renewal.

One of those was that they were devoted to prayer. We looked at that last week. Today, we're looking at the third thing that he says, or actually we're doing it in a reverse order. We're looking at the third thing that Luke lists there in Acts chapter two, which is that he says that they were devoted to being on a strange day. They were devoted to the table, or they were devoted to the bread and wine. What he's referring to there is not necessarily that they were devoted to eating, okay, although that was.

something that they would do together, they shared meals, but what he was specifically talking about there was worship. He was talking about them gathering together in worship, which is he was referring to with the bread and the cup or the table. Them joining together and celebrating communion, the Lord's Supper, and worship together. And so today we are continuing by looking at devotion to spirit -filled worship as one of the markers of renewal and one of the things that we pursue when we pursue renewal.

Aaron Shamp (04:45.358)
Today I want to look at John chapter 15 to be our vibe for worship as we think about worship. So John chapter 15 verse four is going to be our key verse. I'll go ahead and read that paragraph just to give you all the context. I didn't tell Troy I was going to do that. So if we don't have the words up there, that's on me. He might have verse four. I don't know. He's got verse four. OK. But I'm going to read one through maybe.

So I invite you to turn there and if you can't find it, worries, I'll use my best reading voice so everyone can follow along. We're gonna get John 15, I'm gonna read verses one through eight, verse four is really what we're meditating on.

Aaron Shamp (05:33.262)
So in John chapter 15, sorry, verse one.

Jesus says, I am the true vine and my father is the gardener. Every branch in me that does not produce fruit, he removes. And he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself,

Unless it remains on the vine, neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit. Because you can do nothing without me. If anyone does not remain in me, he has thrown aside like a branch and he withers. They gather them, throw them into the fire and they are burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you

and it will be done for you. My father is horrified by this that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples.

Like I said, verse four is the focus of where we're at today. Whenever Jesus says, remain in me and I in you, this magnificent invitation from Christ that our lives can be so united with him that we can abide in him as some translations say, or remain in him as he remains in us. What is this that he's talking about? Well, in short,

Aaron Shamp (07:13.366)
I'll tell you and it will explain it. In short, what he's talking about is worship. You see, we were actually the things made for worship. The fall broke that. Sin separates us from God. It breaks our union with Christ, our fellowship with the spirit. so sin is directly opposed to worship, calling us to worship other things other than God the Father through Christ filled by the spirit.

But what the gospel does is it restores God's intention for creation. He made us to worship, sin broke that, but the gospel comes in and it restores that. What that means is, it's kind of a big idea I to start off with here, is that in worship, we are able to experience a restoration of what we're created.

We have that opportunity every time that we go before the Lord in scripture, that we go before him in our prayer time, individually, to be experienced a restoration of our created purpose. When we gather together as a church and we sing, we have the opportunity to together as the spirit fills us and we respond in real time, listening to our voices to experience what you were made for, which is to worship God. Yes, even with

singing, with lifting our voices. We not only experience the restoration of what God intended in creation, but we are acting as a parable of what the future will look like. What does Revelation say about the church in heaven? Whenever we, where heaven and earth are reunited and we are living in the presence of the Father, where there's now no more son because the son of God is our, is the light that fills the new heavens and the new earth. What does it say we will be doing?

worship them. Therefore, whenever we gather together as a body and we sing not as individuals but we sing with one another, we are both experiencing a restoration of God's good creation and a parable, a glimpse of what the future will be. Now, whenever we came in this morning, is that the anticipation you had for worship? Is that how we thought about it this morning? Is that,

Aaron Shamp (09:32.294)
Did we realize that there was that much potential? Do we realize that there was that great of an invitation in worship this morning? We're gonna become half -hearted with little to no anticipation or expectation of what God has for us when we gather together and we sin.

We're gonna get three things. We're gonna look at how we are redeemed for worship, how we are sanctified by worship, and then lastly, how we were made for worship. Once again, why are we here? Why are we here? What is the point of us being here? What is the point of this life? The Bible's answer is worship. The Bible's answer is not just so that we can have a good time here.

It's not just so that we can know God and he might shower some blessings on us, but that we don't actually have a deep relationship with him. No, the Bible's answer to why are we here? The big answer that goes beyond the specifics of like what career am I supposed to have, what city am I supposed to live in, what kind of family am I supposed to have. The Bible's answer is that we are here for worship. Whenever we read the story of Genesis and it describes God's creation of the world,

But then his fashioning of the garden and him placing Adam and Eve in the garden to be in relationship with him. Some scholars point out how it sounds almost like God is designing in the Garden of Eden a sanctuary. He's designing a sanctuary in the garden where he and his people meet with one another in relationship. We were made for this relationship, this intimate relationship, the pinnacle of God's creation.

in Genesis is the creation of mankind, the fashioning of mankind. Now why is this the pinnacle? Why is it what everything is working towards? Well, in God's creation of mankind, he does something unique. He says, let's create man in our image. And by being created in the image of God, we have this special design. We have a unique position among, above the rest of creation, and that we can know God in an intimate relationship.

Aaron Shamp (11:46.538)
And the nature of that relationship is worship.

When we we say we are invited to relationship with god, we are not just saying that we are invited to something transactional. Where we give god something in exchange he gives us something else where we give god faith maybe where we give god good works where we give god some moral obedience in exchange he gives us forgiveness of sins. This is not what we mean when we talk about having a relationship with god.

No, yes, there is an exchange of the cross where our sin is nailed to the cross. Christ does away with it. We are now brought into new freedom, redemption. But what is the point of that redemption? Is the point of that redemption in the gospel just so we can have that transaction? No. The relationship that we're talking about is not transactional. It is where we are brought into union with Christ so that we might worship Him. Worship is the nature of our relationship with God.

Whenever the New Testament talks about worship, for example, in John chapter four, whenever Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well and they begin to talk about worship and he says how true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth. Whenever he talks about worship there, the Greek word that he is using is proskeneo. Proskeneo is a Greek word that if it was translated literally, means to bow down. It means to prostrate yourself.

before someone who is a superior. And so what we see here is that worship is something that has two components to it if we're gonna understand what it means. The first one is this, when we worship, we recognize the superiority of God. We recognize his holiness, his glory, his worthiness. And then if we recognize his worthiness, then secondly what worship means is we are assuming a stance that is appropriate to him.

Aaron Shamp (13:47.458)
This is where that idea from Presquenio of bowing down against him. Worship means we recognize God's worth and then we give him what he is worth. Has my worship been giving God what he is worth?

Aaron Shamp (14:06.786)
Have you been worshipping to such a degree that shows how much God is worth? Or if we were to evaluate your worship, would you say that, would we discover that you've been giving him very, little worth? True worship is...

Seeing his worth and giving him what it's worth. It is assuming that posture that is appropriate for him. Imagine we're sitting in here and maybe you're kind of slouching, maybe you're kind of leaning forward, maybe you're just kind of relaxing your chair. But let's say someone really important walked in. I don't care whether it's a politician, a celebrity, whoever it Let's say someone really important walked in. What would happen is the logs would straighten up. You would straighten up and sit up.

when you were in school and you were in the classroom and you weren't really sitting at your desk, you're not paying attention, but then the teacher walks in, the principal walks in, and all of sudden everybody sits up straight, right? Because you are recognizing that the superiority of that person, in this case, you know, in the classroom is the authority of the teacher or principal, and then you're taking a stance, a posture that is appropriate to that. Think about how we act with a baby. With a baby, we give it all.

We give it all, are gentle, we soft, we adore the child. In this case we're not talking about someone who is a superior necessarily, but what we are still doing is we are taking the posture that's appropriate to that person, that being, with giving it adoration and awe and sweetness and gentleness, holding it softly, protecting it and so on. Worship is recognizing the worth of God, the superiority.

of God, the glory of God, the mercy of God, the vast wisdom of God, and then we give him what he is worth for all those things. But as I said before, sin comes into the picture and it disrupts God's design for our relationship with him by separating us from him and then bringing us to worship other things instead of him.

Aaron Shamp (16:19.116)
But this is what the purpose of the gospel is. The gospel is not just that we get a ticket to heaven and then we're sent on our very way. The gospel is not about moral improvement. The gospel is not about any kind of transaction with God. The gospel is about being brought back into that intimate relationship with Him, which is characterized by worship.

Aaron Shamp (16:45.55)
turning rebels, turning orphans into children, rebels into citizens of his kingdom, idolaters into worshipers of the true God. This is the point of the gospel, and Jesus says it here in John 15, four, remain in me. He is inviting us into what the gospel is all about, what you were created for, and what the point of history is going towards.

being in a deep intimate relationship with Him, which is worship. So our first point is this, is that true worship is Christ -centered.

true worship is Christ -centered because he is the one who through his atoning work in his life, death and resurrection restores us to God. He reconciles us to God the Father. If we were not for the work of Jesus Christ, we would not be able to worship God because we would remain in our sin, unable to pay the debt, our minds remaining darkened by our sin. But because of Christ's work, he restores us and reconciles us to God the Father. So true worship is Christ

sinner because this is what the gospel is all about taking us from being idolaters to worshipers of the true god abiding in christ as christ abides in us that's intimate that is that is a union that is so close that it's hard for us to even wrap our minds away but abiding in christ as christ abides in us

That's the restoration. That's worship. But here's the thing. He tells them, Abide in me as I abide in you. And then in a few verses after this he says, and by the way, I'm about to leave. I'm about to go away. Whenever they were doing ministry together and the 12 disciples, the apostles were with Jesus all the time, abiding in him, with him.

Aaron Shamp (18:44.398)
That makes sense. It's easy to do. They were always together 24 seven doing ministry traveling around. But then he says, and by the way, I'm about to go away. you see me now, he says, but in a little while you're not going to see me anymore. Okay. So how are they supposed to keep obeying the abide part if he's about to go away? How would they do that? Well, Jesus gives me two explanations. First, it tells him this.

He uses this metaphor that we read in that paragraph about the vine and the branch saying, he is the vine, we are the branches. So what he's telling them is that as Christians, our very life, the life of our spirit is so deeply connected to the life of Christ that without him, we would have no life in us. disciples probably couldn't really grasp that at this point, fully what he was meaning here. But he was saying that our life is going

to be deeply, intimately connected to him, where we require his life as much as the branch requires the vine to live, because he is the vine. So our lives are going to be connected deeply. That's his first explanation. But then how is this going to be maintained? How is it going to work? He goes on and he tells them of the spirit.

He tells them about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, who is the one who, even though Christ is away from us now, we are able to remain in as He remains in us because it is the work of the Spirit.

to bring this to Christ. is through the Spirit that we remain united to Christ and that we are, that our minds are open to the glory of Christ and that we experience fellowship with Him. The Spirit who lives in perfect unity with the Father and Son and comes into our hearts, illuminates our minds, brings our spirit alive, and He is the channel through which we learn about Christ, we love Christ, and we worship Christ. The Spirit

Aaron Shamp (20:48.782)
He describes as a counselor at the end of chapter 15. In 26, he says, when the counselor comes, the one I was sent to you from the Father, the spirit of truth you received from the Father, he will testify about me. That's how they're going to continue to remain in him, because the counselor is coming. A lot of people describe him as a counselor. The spirit is how we know Christ.

Because he teaches us the truth. shows us the truth. He is how we know Christ. He calls him also in chapter 16, the spirit of truth, who will reveal Christ to us and teach us true knowledge about God, not just opinions or guesses, but true knowledge about God the Father and about Christ. As he reveals this knowledge to us, it magnifies the glory of God in our hearts.

And then we respond in worship, giving God what he is worth. Does this sound like our lives?

Aaron Shamp (21:57.43)
many of us lacking a life of Christ -centered, Spirit -filled worship. Because we have not opened ourselves to the counselor, his spirit of truth, who magnifies Christ in our minds, who shows us the truth, and who moves our heart in response to glorifying Christ, who reconciles us to God the Father.

So our second point is that true worship is spirit filled. We cannot expect to come to church. We cannot expect to in our quiet time devotional time to experience true worship just with ideas.

Many of us think that all we need is to have some good ideas, right? Maybe through a sermon that is eloquently delivered, maybe through a passage of scripture that we read, and that the idea alone will lead us into worship. No, we need nothing less than the truth. We need nothing less than those true ideas about God. But we also need the Spirit. I confess, my lack.

of emphasis in this, my blind spot in this area. Something that I think God convicted me of this week. We need the truth and we need the spirit who illuminates that truth. Listen to this quote from Calvin, John Calvin.

He says, yet since we see that not all indiscriminately embrace communion with Christ, which is offered through the gospel, what he is saying is we have the truth available to all. have scripture available to all. And we see in numerous cases where people hear the truth and yet they don't embrace the promises. He says, how can that be? Right? If that was all we needed.

Aaron Shamp (23:53.122)
How can that be? He says, well, reason itself teaches us to climb higher and to examine into the secret energy of the Spirit by which we come to enjoy Christ and all of his benefits. So even Calvin there says that scripture without the Spirit

It's paper -y.

Aaron Shamp (24:18.722)
emotions, right? And excitement even without the scripture is a false experience. We need truth in the spirit. That's Jesus said in John four. True worshipers will worship in the spirit and in truth.

friends. We must be to the work of the The theologian Gordon Smith said the primary work of the spirit is to draw us into the fellowship of the holy trinity. If we have been missing out on the holy trinity, it's because we have been neglected in the spirit. He says through Christ and the glory of Christ, we are brought into fellowship with the father through the spirit.

He says in the primary evidence of the spirit in the life of the church, how do know that the spirit is here? He says the primary evidence is that Christ is lifted up to the glory of God the father. Thus, true Christian worship is Christ centered, as we said before. In worship, we meet Jesus. In worship, we have an encounter with Jesus in the power of the spirit into the glory of the father.

has our worship been dull and dry? Has your worship been lacking in power? It is because we have been neglecting the promise of the spirit. If the spirit is present, then he brings us into true worship and in that true worship, we are united with Christ and what happens when we are united with Christ, we are transformed. The spirit reveals Christ to us and we behold his glory. We receive the

blessings of his grace and then what happens there as I said before we experience purpose. This is what I was made for.

Aaron Shamp (26:07.436)
human liking purpose, human liking worship. We experience the restoration of our creative purpose and we are transformed not via good works but by beholding the grace of God through the word of the spirit. So can we be a people of the word truly without the spirit? No.

How dare we ourselves people of the word if the spirit is not active in and through the word. We cannot be a people of the word without the spirit. And yet, we cannot be a truly filled, a truly spirit -filled people or a truly spirit -filled church without the word. We need both. Guys, as I said before, I confess my life this planet here. I confess it personally, and I confess it as your leader. And I hope...

that God might be gracious enough to visit us with his spirit to greatest renewal, restoration of our purpose, and that we might experience true worship. Know what happens if God answers that prayer. If he hears our confession and he responds by sending his spirit, what will happen? Whenever we are filled by the spirit and we behold Christ.

Here's what I don't think it will be. I don't think it will be dry. I don't think it will be emotionless. I don't think it will lack singing, real singing with our voices. I don't think it will be boring whenever the spirit comes.

we read before in Psalm 47, in the call to worship this morning, in Psalm 47, let me see if I still have it pulled up, it is quite descriptive in what worship to God sounds like. He says, your hands, shout with a jubilant cry. Right? That is not born. In verse five, he says, God ascends among shouts of joy. Is that what our worship sounds like? Singing praise to God, sing praise, sing praise to the king, sing praise, sing us.

Aaron Shamp (28:18.096)
worship. Guys, he is not speaking metaphorically here. He's not saying you can go to church and just leave your mouth shut while someone on the stage sings for you. That's disobedience. He says, sing, sing, sing, shout for joy, clap your hands. And I look at my own worship against that and something's off. So, the spirit comes and if Christ's glory is revealed to a people,

is going to be white hot. That's what John Piper says. He says true worship is white hot. That's my last point. True worship is white hot. I take this next section from Piper.

first of all, recognize this, that we were designed to worship. Now, I've said several times up until now that we were created for worship, this was our purpose. But now I'm speaking about something even more practical now. I'm saying that we were literally designed for worship. God gave his hands to clap as the Psalm shows us.

God gave us voices to sing. He gave us breath in our lungs so that we might sing to him. The vocal cords that sing. He gave us bodies that can raise our hands, that can bow. He gave us eyes that tear both in conviction over sin but also joy and grace. Friends, we were made to worship. God made us for this. Once again, if your worship lacks singing,

If your worship lacks giving your body to him in worship, then it is not spirit -filled. It is not white hot. We are missing out on something. Authentic, spirit -filled worship, guys, is a matter of our emotions just as our intellect.

Aaron Shamp (30:20.578)
We were designed to worship. God did not make us as robots. God did not make us as brains on a stick. Once again, I confess that I have often assumed that authentic worship cannot include emotions because we don't want to fall into emotionalism. But that denies our creativeness. It denies how God wires and designed us.

He gave us emotions. He gave us a heart that can be stirred.

we react and lifting our hands in football games. We react and shout some joy when someone tells us good news. But then we come to church and we act like we're

Aaron Shamp (31:13.89)
The authentic spiritual worship will be white -hot, which means including our emotions as well as his life. Secondly, what this means is that a lack of earnestness and zeal in worship is minimizing the beauty and worth of God.

If worship is recognizing God's worth and then giving Him glory for all His work, then how dare I give Him anything less than what He is worth.

Aaron Shamp (31:46.808)
Has our worship been testifying to be far surpassing the worth and glory of Jesus Christ the God Father?

Thirdly, scripture once again calls us to white -black worship. In Romans 12 -11, Paul says, not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in the spirit. The word for fervent here, literally translated, is boil.

That's how hot it should be. We want to boil for the Lord in our spirit. In the book of Matthew, Jesus says that whenever false teaching comes in or a false spirit comes in, that people will grow cold. Once again, coldness being a sign of a lack of the spirit and of a lack of giving God his worth and full commitment to him. In Revelation, whenever Jesus confronts the church in Laodicea, he confronts them for their

warmness. He says you are neither hot nor cold. Scripture calls us to wipe out worship. It is very descriptive. Read Psalm 47 again. It's not speaking metaphorically. It is saying that worship of God the King will include shouts of joy, clapping our hands, and singing, singing, singing. Now you might say, but how do we discern genuine worship from emotionalism? That is an important issue.

That is an important issue that we have to confront. Some of you guys grew up in denominations or churches, know, from wherever else you were, you look back and say, you know, I saw some spiritual talk that was far from being biblical. And I agree. I grew up in places like that too. And I think that we need to...

Aaron Shamp (33:35.91)
So how do we discern genuine white -hot worship from just false emotionalism? The first thing we want to recognize is that physical actions are not necessarily reliable indicators of spiritual intensity or genuine worship.

they're not necessarily a reliable indicator of that. So what that means is, is whenever we go in worship, and if we lift our hands, if we jump, if we shout, if we do all these things, without...

a a our mind truly being filled with the glory of christ without that union with christ then we might just be falling into a impact a little bit of a performance rather than genuine worship okay but once again emotionalism without

a true visitation of the spirit is as just as much false worship as cold worship is. Okay, secondly, we need to remember that Jesus calls us, he says, he's worshiped in spirit and in truth. So emotions in worship must be emotions that have been stirred up by the truth about God, not just by music. Now, once again here.

worship in scripture, especially corporate worship, every church gathers, the people of God gathers, it always includes music. Now why is that? Because music does move us.

Aaron Shamp (35:12.182)
I don't think we should fight against that. That's how God made us. He tells us to include music in our worship. in a way that even I don't fully understand yet, like he designed us to work that way, okay, because music stirs us and it helps to stir us for the Lord wherever it is filled with the spirit, okay? But music alone or some kind of other external stimuli or even dare to say manipulation at times, this was out the truth.

truth of God is not true worship. A genuine worship will include the truth of God and will include our hearts being stirred. Piper says, for emotions to have spiritual significance, they have to be stirred up by truth about God, not just music or hype. In Romans 10, verse two, Paul referring to the Israelites who have rejected Christ. He said, they have a zeal for God, but not

to knowledge. But they're not for us. We don't want to be a people of knowledge without zeal. We don't want to be a people with zeal without knowledge.

Lastly, one way that we discern the difference between genuine worship and emotionalism is that there's order. Corporate worship should not be chaotic. Corporate worship should not be something that people walk into and say, what happened to these people? Right? It is odd and chaotic and in no shape or form is giving glory to God because it is people who have just lost control. Rather, worship should be orderly.

We ought to avoid confusion. We ought to remember what Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. He talks about speaking in tongues. He says, first of all, I speak in tongues more than any of y 'all. But then he follows it with this. He says, but I would rather speak five words of clear truth than speak in all the tongues of angels. Because they had started to get so out of control that it was false worship. It was not spiritual.

Aaron Shamp (37:22.798)
So that's order in worship. These are some of the ways we discern genuine worship from just emotionalism. Let me close with this. Do you guys, do we desire beauty in Christ? Do we hear Jesus' invitation to abide in him as he abides in us? And do we desire to obey that?

Maybe you desire to desire to obey because you see that even within you there isn't enough desire yet. So you want more desire. Do we desire to obey that? Do we look at our life this past week and see either evidence that we have experienced that and lived it out or evidence that we have not?

The answer to experience union with Christ and to abide in him is through spirit -filled worship. Spirit -filled worship that includes the truth of God being brought to life through the work of the Spirit in our hearts. So the question is this, will we welcome the Spirit's work to reveal the glory of Christ to us with inner?

Will we welcome the Spirit's work? Will we respond in obedience, opening our hearts to him so that he might fill our minds and stir our hearts with the glory and the far surpassing worth of Christ and of God the Father? Will we obey him by raising our voices and singing? What if the reason you have not been experiencing the Spirit is because you have not been obedient in singing and worship?

Aaron Shamp (39:01.654)
Maybe sometimes he calls you to obey and worship him, sing to him, and then he moves with his spirit.

Will we welcome the Spirit's work, Redeemer? Will we welcome it today? Will we welcome it every week over here? So if we walk in on a Sunday morning and we are anticipating God to move, we are anticipating to experience the promise that we can abide in Christ because the Spirit is going to move. Will we welcome His work as we prepare for renewal?

We ask that he move to renew our hearts and to bring those who are still lost home, those who are still dead and he bring them alive. This is my desire as your pastor and hope you join me. If you do join me up there. Lord we come before you and we confess that our worship has very frequently been more cold or lukewarm than it has been right now.

Lord, we confess that we have been dependent on ideas alone and not based and not depending on your spirit to be the source of our spiritual life. have depended upon.

filling our minds rather than union with the sun to be what transforms us. We have thought that the power comes from practicing good works rather than being in deep fellowship with the sun who is abiding in us and we therefore abide in him. Lord, we confess that we have so often desired other things. We have so often come in with our ideas of what we think church ought to be and not.

Aaron Shamp (40:48.098)
Instead, have our agendas placed to the side so that we can receive what you desire our church to be.

Aaron Shamp (40:59.16)
Moral.

Would you work in my harbor?

Aaron Shamp (41:06.478)
to make all other desires small and my desire for you great. Lord, because that is all I want. Lord, make us a people who all we want and desire is you. That we recognize we cannot live this life without you. We cannot be cut off from the bond.

We confess we try to do it in our own strength. We try to do it in our own wisdom. So we need your spirit.

Aaron Shamp (41:40.768)
If we have been cold, it is white hot. If we have been distant, you chase after us and meet us here. Or maybe some of us have never known the spiritual person of his life. So would you surprise us?

I'll be

Aaron Shamp (42:01.698)
So would you send your spirit so we can know that you pray this in the name of Jesus the king

Let's say we begin.