So I'm eager to get back to our series in 1 Samuel. I love that book. I'm loving it more and more as I study it. But before I do, I would like to do what the Apostle Peter called, quote, stirring up your sincere mind by the way of reminder. 2 Peter 3, verse 1. Oftentimes in our life, no matter what we're doing, it's when we get away from the basics that we get ourselves in trouble, isn't it? I know when I sold for a living, was a salesman, one of the things I was taught was that you always must sell value. You can't sell price. Value. And if people value it enough, they'll buy it no matter what the price is. And over the years, I remember just going right to the price and losing the sale. Well, when it comes to Christianity, there are a few basics, all right? A few foundational truths. And what I'd like to do this morning is to return to some of those foundational truths. And the first foundational truth that I'd like us to look at this morning is what takes place during the Sunday morning worship service. Next week I want to talk about what it means to be a part of the body of believers. And then week after next, what it means to minister to and care for one another. So this week we're going to look at the Sunday morning worship. Let me ask you this question. What does God intend to be happening when we come together on Sunday morning? Have you ever thought about that? Does God have a plan? Does He have a desire that something happens within our lives as we gather together in the name of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ? When we come together in our regularly, consistent gathering together, what does God want to happen? Well, today's text tells us that we aren't to be too cavalier when it comes to this situation. Not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the near drawing near." So here's why, alright? Because God expects something to happen when we come together. He has a purpose. Things that He intends to take place. Now, this is not easy to say, but I must say it. If you are one of those who says, you know what, I'll be there when I can, but if I can't, well, that's not a big deal. If it's easy for you to miss the Lord's day in worshiping with your brothers and sisters in Christ, obviously there's something you're missing. You're missing out on what God's doing. See, when God gives us commands, God's commands are for our good and ultimately for His glory. When we put our faith and trust in Jesus, all of a sudden His law is not something scary to us at all. Now what? His law is His love letter for us. How we can grow and change and become like His Son, the Lord Jesus. He loves us and so He gives us His commandments, you see. God knows what's best and we don't. And left to ourselves, we're going to get it wrong. So God tenderly gives us instruction. Now, please do me a favor this morning. Consider where you are in this when it comes to Sunday morning worship. You say, yes, I know this is good, but I have other things to do as well. And you might even go and say this, if anyone challenges me on this, they're just being legalistic. Now, be careful with that L word. Legalism means something, doesn't it? And what is true legalism? True legalism is when you add anything to grace. Then that's legalism. Be careful not to mistake obedience with legalism to try to justify something that you want to do. So we need to be on the lookout for another danger as well. And you know what that is? That's being here physically but not truly being engaged. Being neglectful. Just going through the motions. It becomes just routine. We're not fully engaged. And isn't that possible to come to a place and go through the motions and not fully engage and understand what God's doing in your life? Remember, God has a purpose for us being here today. So you might ask, well, what is that purpose? What is it? Why do we gather together on Sunday? Well, I believe from today's text, we can boil it down to three simple things. Now let me just tell you, this text is loaded, alright? And I'm just going to touch it this morning. But what are those three things? Number one, we speak to God. Number two, we hear from God. And then number three, we encourage one another in love. We speak to God. God intends for this to happen when we gather together this morning. Look with me, if you would, back in our text, verse 22. He says, "...let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, our hope without wavering, for He has who has promised is faithful. Now listen, over and over in Scripture we are exhorted to speak to God. What does God want us to do? He wants us to confess our sins to Him. He wants us to pray to Him. He wants us to speak worship to Him. He wants us to be thankful or have gratitude in our heart. He wants praise. We are to bless God. And when we say we are to bless Him, we're to give Him weight. We're to say He's weighty. He's worthy of everything we have. Now, let's be careful. We aren't independently able to do this on our own, are we? Alright? We can only do this, why? Because He first loved us and gave Himself for us. God has revealed Himself to us so we can praise Him and worship Him and make much of Him, you see. Now look, this is what God has done for us. Look back at your text. Notice with me starting in verse 19. He says, Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that He opened for us through the curtain, that is through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, Let us draw near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from all evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." Now, what has God done for us in Christ? Well, according to this passage of Scripture, Jesus became flesh. Why? So we could have access to God. And it's interesting, this Old Testament This passage talks about what? Christ being our priest. And what was the priest's job? Well, the high priest's job was one time a year was to do what? To go into the Holy of Holies where the mercy seat was and to sprinkle blood so our sins would be atoned for that year. And what this passage is telling us is that we can come in with great confidence Because our conscience has been cleared. How? By the fact that Jesus became sin for us so we could have access to God the Father. Isn't it interesting that when we read of the account of our Savior's death, burial, and resurrection, what happened? What happened to that veil that was between the holy of holies and the holy place? Well, according to Scripture, Torn in two. I still got the old King James in my heart. I want to say torn in twain, alright, just so you know. Why? Because of the ministry of Christ here on this earth, we have access with confidence, with a pure conscience into the heavenly places to God. Wow, that's some good stuff, isn't it? is the offering, the Lamb of God, and the offerer, the high priest who stands between sinful man and a holy God. And Jesus was willing to come and do that for us what we could never do for ourselves. Now listen, if God has opened your eyes and the seed of the gospel has been planted in your heart, If that is true in your life, what will happen? Well, let me quote a theologian. Here's what he says. Once the lyrics of the gospel has been planted in our hearts, the melody of the gospel breaks forth as a song of gladness and praise to our God. Now, don't you believe that? The gospel has been planted into our hearts. The melody of the gospel breaks forth as a song of gladness and praise to our God. Now, Dennis picks a song, and one of my favorite songs is Ann Cannabee. And you know if I picked a song, we'd sing that about every third Sunday. But why do I love that song? Because that's the song that God used to bring me to Himself. I remember standing in there singing that song and all of a sudden that made sense that Jesus was God and He died in my place, that Thou my God would die for me. In that very moment, I trusted Christ as Savior and He did it all. I remember going forward afterwards, that's kind of the custom that I grew up with, and a guy took me to the Bible and told me to pray this, but you know what? All he did was show me what God had already done in my life is what happened. Praise! All of a sudden I wanted to sing. Why? Because the seed of the gospel had been planted deep into the heart. Now, I mention here this for a reason, because that's a big part of the Psalms, isn't it? Come before the Lord with singing? Look, when we come together as brothers and sisters in Christ, it's our chance to speak to God with singing accompanied by the melody of the music. I want to read just a couple of Psalms to you. Psalm 47, verse 1 says, clap your hands, all peoples. Shout to God with loud songs A little farther down, verses 5-7, God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God. Sing praises. Sing praises to our King. Sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth. Sing praises with the psalm. Psalm 147. Praise the Lord, for it is a good thing to sing praises to our God, for it is pleasant and a song of praise is fitting. Verse 7, sing to the Lord with thanksgiving. Make melody to our God with the lyre. Psalm 95, 1 and 2, O come, let us sing to the Lord. Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving. Let us make a joyful noise to Him with the song of praise. And then just one more, Psalm 98. Oh, sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done marvelous things. His right hand and His holy arm have worked salvation for Him. The Lord has made known His salvation. He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nation. He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Break forth into joyous songs and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with a lyre, with a lyre in the sound of melody, with trumpets in the sound of the horn. Make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. But it's not just the message of the Psalms, is it? What does James tell us? To come with a heart of singing. What does Paul say? To have a melody in our heart. To let the Word of God teach us through song. David said, I will sing to the Lord. Why? Because He is good. And here, Hebrews tells us to draw near to God and to speak to Him. Now listen, the question isn't why we worship, but who we worship. Our worship is to be God-centered, God-focused, God-aimed worship. You know, even when we pick songs, we try to stay away from songs that make more of self than enough of God. It doesn't matter to me the genre of the music. What matters is the message of the music. Does it make much of Christ? Is it Christ-centered, you see? Now, let me ask you this question. Are you coming to Sunday morning worship ready to speak to God in adoration and confession and thanksgiving and supplication? Are you anticipating worship eagerly? David said in Psalm 122, 1, I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the house of the Lord. He was eager to join with one another and speak to God. You know, I'm thoroughly convinced it's not how good of a music program you have, it's how well the people sing from their heart when the visitors come in. When they walk in this door, do they think, you know what, those people believe that. Singing right from the heart, making a melody unto the Lord. But not only does God intend for us to speak to Him, secondly, He expects that we hear from Him. God expects this to happen when we gather together. Go back with me to the text, look with me at Hebrews chapter 10 verse 23. He says, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. Now we have to ask the question, what is this confession? Well, the answer is what? It's our professed belief about the Word of God, about the apostolic doctrine, about the Scripture. And the way we do this is to hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And what God wants to do this morning is He wants us to be taught by His Word. We need His Word, our spiritual food. Jesus said, Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth We're being made for something much more important than bread, aren't we? We live and flourish only by receiving the Word of God. One of the books that I have on how to pastor is written by Alistair Begg and a Scottish guy that he grew up with, I can't remember his name, Alexander's in there somewhere. But anyways, in that book he gives an illustration about a young man that grew up in Scotland with him, but then had went off to England for school. And when he was in the big city of London, he had for eight weeks in a row tried to find a church where his soul could be nourished. And after eight weeks, he writes his pastor and said, Pastor, today I rode a bus for two and a half hours to get to church. And they had great music. And the pastor talked about some wonderful things. But where in the world am I going to get my soul fed? Listen, God wants to teach us. He wants us to and faith, believe what His Word tells us. We have got to preach and teach the Word of God week by week by week. Do you remember what Paul's admonition was to his young protege Timothy? Let me read this passage of Scripture out of 2 Timothy chapter 4. Verse 1 says, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead. And by His appearing and His kingdom, preach the word, be ready in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. Why? For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into mists. As for you, always be sober-minded. Endure suffering. Do the work of evangelists. Fulfill your ministry." What does Paul say? Timothy, as pastor of the church at Ephesus, this is your job. Preach the Word. Be ready in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. Why? Because that's the only thing that's going to make a difference. And listen, who better than Paul to know that it's through the teaching of the Word of God that things change? Hasn't it been exciting going through the book of Acts and how he comes into a town and he begins to proclaim the gospel, and then all of a sudden a few people get saved, and then there's problems, and then he moves away and some more people get saved, and he begins to disciple folks, and then the church begins, and then he moves on. But why? Through the power of the Word, you see. Listen to what J. I. Packard says about preaching. He says this, Preaching mediates not only God's authority, but also His presence and power. Preaching affects an encounter not simply with truth, but with God Himself. I'm not just telling you truth. I want you to have an encounter with the God of the Bible. And only preaching can do that. And I personally know this to be true. Why? Because sometimes I hear preaching and it's like a hammer pounding at my heart, heart, heart. Other times I hear preaching and it's a sword that penetrates the thoughts and intentions of my heart. And God brings me to that place. Oh, that's really what you want, bonehead. A little confession time, a little repentance time. Or it's like a seed that's planted deep into the heart and then the rain comes and nourishes it so it grows. Folks, there are many things that God intends to get done through the proclamation of the Word of God. But here's the question. Do you personally benefit from it? Do you come Sunday morning asking God to speak to you? Asking God that you might understand. Asking God what He wants you to believe. Now every Sunday when I come, I have this anticipation that God's going to speak to us. Not in some revival of historic proportions, right? But folks, listen, the night before Sunday morning worship, ask God to give you a heart of humility and a heart of faith. Tell Him that you want to hear from Him. And He'll respond. Listen. This is God's intention when we come together. Not only does God intend for us to speak to Him when we come together, not only does God intend that we hear from Him when we come together, but thirdly, God intends that we share together of God. We encourage in love. Now you know something? We share together of God. I went through all my English books and what I just said is grammatically correct. And that's the way I would like to say it, but we don't understand it that way, do we? So what I want to say is that we are to encourage one another in love. Now folks, you know that I am a great believer in preaching. And it's one of the most important things that you should look for in a church. Write faithful proclamation of the Scripture. Nehemiah 7, read the Scriptures, give the sense, make the application. And one of the best compliments I've ever got is when someone leaves this church and moves to another area and then they say, look, pastor, it took us forever to find someone that does expositional preaching so we can grow. However, I have no illusions that preaching is enough for the believer. There needs to be a mutual ministry, this mutual ministry of encouragement in which we all anticipate and participate in. Look with me in our text. Would you look at chapter 10, verses 24 and 25? And let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some, but encouraging one another in all the more as we see the day drawing near. Can I ask you a question? When we look around this world in which we live, do you ever think to yourself, you know what, God can't be long, right? It can't be long before He turns this thing back and He brings Himself here and everything gets right as it's supposed to be. I mean, I'm excited. I think this might be the year. But what is this? and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near." What is this, this encouraging of one another? Well, listen, it's not just saying nice things. You see somebody and on their way out the door you say, have a nice week. What is this encouraging of one another? Well, it's actually this. It's depositing something. It's implanting something in someone else or to one another. And what is it that God wants us to implant, impart in one another? And the answer is God's grace. God's good things from Himself. Strength, comfort, courage, Hope. He wants us to motivate others to love, to motivate others to good deeds. Now you say, Pastor, where are you getting all of this? Well, would you do me a favor and turn to the book of 1 Peter chapter 4 and verse 10. Listen to what this says. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's varied grace. As each has received a gift. What's the gift he's talking about there? What's the spiritual gifts? Found in Romans 12, found in 1 Corinthians 12, found in Ephesians chapter 4. And what does he say? That none of us are exempt from doing this. Why? Because we've all been given a gift by Him, and that gift that He's given to us, He expects us to minister to one another, you see. So listen, every Sunday morning, a whole network of this is supposed to be happening. Us ministering to one another with the gift that God has given us. Us encouraging one another unto more love and to good works. As we listen to and share with one another, God uses us to encourage others to love and good works. And you know what? Sometimes it could be just as simple as a warm welcome and a big hug. I'll be better at that. I remember when I was a teenager, I loved that verse that says, greet one another with a holy kiss. Mrs. McNutt, I always think that was the one I should do it with. Her name was Arlene Phelps back in those days. You got to remember, I was seventh grade when I got smitten with her. Well, folks, listen. The spirit of God wants to be active in this room right here after the service. And God wants us to get out of our comfort zones and go and have a conversation with someone we don't know and find out where they're at so we can encourage them to love and to good works. Now, you heard me say I believe in preaching, but that's not the only thing. And if a church comes in and speaks to God well, sings praise and adoration, and a church comes in and hears expositional preaching and it's faithful to the text, but this network of encouraging one another to love and good works is not happening, we're not getting what God's intended for us on Sunday morning. So stick around and expect God to arrange some conversations with your brothers and sisters in Christ. Come this morning looking for opportunities to share the grace of God with others. There are three things on Sunday morning that God intends to happen. We talk to God, we hear from God, we encourage in love. Now folks, it's easy for me to be tempted to be very diplomatic this morning. Maybe a better way of saying it is easy for me to be tempted to be very cowardly. But if that's not happening, then what God intends to do here this morning is not working. The other day I was talking to somebody from the Jerseyville Church. They were saying, Pastor, you know, you've been a real blessing to me. And there was a possibility of them calling a pastor, a guy's going to candidate the last Sunday of the month, be in prayer for that. He said, you know, I came in and I was just kind of going through the motions and I got caught up into my everyday work. I'm working a lot of hours. My family's needy. And I was sitting there a couple of Sunday mornings and you were preaching and all of a sudden it hit me that I had lost my spiritual moat. I wasn't doing the things for God that I was doing. And it wasn't that I wasn't doing bad things, it was just that I got caught up in doing other things. Pastor, I want you to know that God's Word hit me right between the headlights. And I've made some changes and I'm getting my mow back. I want to serve God in 2020. I missed that fervor. Now, can I ask you, what do you think that did for me? I mean, I just want to preach harder the next Sunday, right? Study more. We've got people all around us that need to be encouraged. That's what God intends to happen every Sunday morning. Listen, there's something good happening when we meet together. Let's make our Sunday gathering a priority for ourselves and for our families. Give yourself wholeheartedly to speaking to God. hearing or listening to God and then sharing the grace of God with one another. Let's not waste any Sundays in 2020, huh? Let's pray together. Father, we're thankful for Your Word. We're thankful that You make it so easy for us. We're thankful for the ministry of the Savior, the Lord Jesus, who became flesh and came and died and made a way to heaven. Father, if there's someone here today that has never repented of their sin and put their faith and trust in Jesus' complete work at the cross of Calvary, His death, burial, and resurrection, help them to see that they have a need for a Savior and that Jesus is such a Savior. so they might repent of their sin and put their faith and trust in Christ and Christ alone. But then, Father, I pray for those that know You and love You. It's easy sometimes to just go through the motions. But You intend for something to happen here this morning that we might sing praise to you, that we might listen and hear from you, and that we might build one another up in love and good works. We're thankful, our Father, that you've gifted us to be able to do that. Father, we know it's going to be awkward, but help us to get out of our comfort zone. Get our spiritual mold back and serve You with all that we have. Father, we thank You for what You do now in Jesus' name.