Strategy Statement #1: Congregational Worship, p.2

The mainstay of this pulpit is expositional preaching, verse by verse, chapter by chapter, through books of the Bible. But I do pause occasionally to address some things that are pertinent to where God has us. And that's where we are now, where I'm pausing in our study through 2 Timothy to deal with our purpose and strategy statements, as we are fine-tuning them to form what I'm calling the master outlines, which will be the core of our curriculum for our pastoral training institutes.

We hope that with the next year begin kicking off. Now, if you would, go to the will. For many, many years, I've had this will illustration to illustrate how we function, because our conviction here at Grace Life is to be Bible-saturated, both in what we believe and in how we function.

We don't want to do just what's clever, our novel, or what the last happening thing is. I've told you this many times, and now he's a dear brother, really a partner church up in Tennessee. Some guys came into our church one Sunday, and I didn't recognize them. I didn't think they were a pulpit committee, because no other church would have me.

But as they were leaving the church, he introduced himself, said, I'm so-and-so, we're from so-and-so in Tennessee. We wanted to see how your church worked. We're trying to build a contemporary church. And I said, we're trying to build one that's 2,000 years old, because that's when the Scriptures were written.

And long story short, he's come over completely to that conviction. But this represents what we believe. We've gleaned from a thoroughly scriptural perspective on church life.

The centerpiece strategy of church life is preaching the word in congregational worship. Nothing else matters if that hub isn't right. If that hub isn't right, you can do everything perfectly, and it just doesn't matter.

Everything stems off of that, just like in a wheel, the hub drives everything else. And then the top right spoke is every member ministry through small groups. We worked really hard at that. Several weeks ago, I looked at some of the statistics, and we are right now averaging 87% of church membership active in small groups week to week. Most people would say that's phenomenally good for a church our size, a church of any size. I say that's normal.

We're just acting like Christians ought to act. If you don't care about your brothers and sisters enough to meet in small groups to love, encourage, disciple, evangelize together, etc., then something's missing in your Christianity. I don't mean that to beat you up, but that should be a part of your heart.

I know it's insecure to some people. I understand that. But there's something in you. There's at least the germ that says, I want to be a part of the body and the work of the body of Christ. That happens through small groups. The top left spoke personalized strategic world missions.

A lot we can say about that. I will be saying a lot about that from the pulpit in coming weeks, where we have a thoroughly biblical strategy as to how we do world missions, and God's blessed that through the decades. Then family discipleship, the bottom spoke.

We don't put a lot of emphasis on specific structures there because the Bible doesn't, but it needs to be real at home. When you've got a church with strong preaching of the word and the power of the Spirit, congregational worship, every member is ministering through small groups. The church has embraced in totality a personalized strategic world missions effort, and it's real at home. If the Spirit will empower that, then the outside ring is true, a God-glorifying local church, a church God uses as a pattern for others. And that's what we're seeing in Anchored in Truth as these people continually contact us and say, would you help us learn what you've learned? Help us get where we need to go biblically.

And so that's why these training institutes are so important as sort of the next step. We're talking about the foundational strategy statement, congregational worship that's centered on the Spirit-empowered preaching of the word of God. Now here's the way the statement now reads. The church assembled to worship through the Spirit-empowered preaching of the word to strengthen the saved and convert the lost with singing that reinforces the faith and expresses, praise to God, our audience. Lot there, trust me, dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of hours of prayer and study and thinking went in behind that statement.

You might could say this part better or that part better. We don't think that's an infallible statement, but we've worked hard for it to be a balanced, biblically prioritized type statement for what we do. You see, we don't just get in here and meet together because that's what we've always done. There is a sacredness to the local assembly of God's church.

This is God's idea. And when we come together, we do not have the freedom to do what we like. Matter of fact, you know what the difference between a fake church and a true church is? There is a true church and a fake church. And I'm not saying in fake churches there are no genuine believers, there are no people who love Jesus. But here's the way, a fake church basically, no matter what they actually say outwardly, a fake church basically is striving to make people feel comfortable, to please people. A true church is striving to make Christ comfortable, to please Christ, trusting the Holy Spirit.

Now listen to me, don't tune me out. Trusting the Holy Spirit to enable us to begin to like what Christ likes. Trusting the Holy Spirit to change our affections to where we treasure and enjoy what Christ treasures and enjoys. So we, with our heart and minds, commit to the truth of what God wants the church to be. Trusting our emotions to catch up with the commitment to truth.

It's very inverted today. Most churches today are built for women and young people. You know why? Because they're more emotionally driven than men. And if you capture their emotions, you get everything then. But here's the problem with emotions. Emotions are all over the place. Emotions change every moment. Emotions are up and emotions are down. Therefore, we train our emotions to respond and follow truth, but we're committed to truth first.

Now I'm very emotional about what we sing, but it's because I'm very committed to the truth we're singing about. Well, I'm actually getting ahead of myself. That's over in the outline. But let's take this strategy statement one phrase at a time.

First of all, this is review. We talked about the church assembled. We pointed out that in the Old Testament, it was the pattern of ancient Israel to assemble the congregation of Israel and primarily to hear the word of the law. And then we went over to the New Testament and showed how that was the pattern from the very beginning of the church age. You might say in Acts chapter two, they were all meeting in Solomon's portico. There was actually no real need to discuss this as a doctrine because everywhere people were being saved, they would come together. Ekklesia church is God's called out ones, but it implies you're not even you're not just called out from the world. You're called together one to another. And so we see the thorough teaching of called out assemblies in the Old Testament and the New Testament. And then we say, not only are we assembled together, we're assembled to worship.

Roman numeral two. To worship. And almost, I would say, the great majority of people, if you mention the word worship, the first thing that comes to their minds. Oh, that's when we sing together in a church service.

Well, that's true. That's wonderful worship, but that's only a small part of it. As a matter of fact, it's maybe the second most important worship that happens on Sunday morning. The first most important worship that happens on Sunday morning is the preaching and the receiving of the preaching of the word of God. That's the highest form of worship. As Martin Luther said, the first mark of the church is the preaching of the word. So worship involves the totality of our lives as we obey and serve God. But it is also about what we do together when we come together as a church, when we do what Christ has ordered the local assembly of church to do together when they come together. So this is all about worship. I wrestle with how to just succinctly define worship, and you might come up with this idea.

It's when we obey and serve God because from our hearts we treasure Him more than anyone else. It's not this coercive drudgery of, oh, I got to obey God. Oh, I got to serve God. God doesn't want that kind of worship.

He doesn't want that kind of service and obedience. He wants your heart to have been changed under the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit so that from your innermost being, there is the germ and the growing sanctifying desire to obey and serve because from my heart I treasure Him most highly. That's behind worship. Roman number three, the church assembled.

Roman number two, to worship. Roman number three, through spirit-empowered preaching. Spirit-empowered preaching.

There's great emphasis here on spirit-empowered. You can dot all the I's and cross all the T's in your exegesis. You can be grammatically correct, culturally and historically correct in your exegesis of the text.

You can have the immediate and systematic context of the text perfectly down. You can enunciate doctrine to the nth degree of accuracy. But what matters is God using that truth.

And by the way, all that's essential. But is God using that? Is God's Spirit empowering that so that people who are lost are coming to Christ and those who are saved are being sanctified to treasure Christ even more? We need to teach our folks whom we're training for the pastorate to seek God's spiritual power. And I told you two key words about preaching in the power of the Spirit.

Every preacher should have believing prayer. I'm praying the Spirit will use my message. I'm believing He'll do it.

I'm believing He'll do it. Spirit empowered preaching, the next phrase, Roman numeral four, preaching the word. It's not just preaching. So much needs to be said here. And there's so much that needs to be enunciated about using the Bible in a sermon versus preaching the word. So be careful. I won't challenge and charge all of you fathers.

You're responsible for your household. Lead your wives and lead your children and lead your grandchildren and lead your great grandchildren to grasp the difference between an assembly where a man has used or has learned to cleverly use the Bible versus a pulpit where the word is preached. And again, the grammatical, contextual, historical context of solid expositional preaching is essential in preaching the word. We saw in the New Testament and in the Old Testament how weightily these men went out preaching, not just anything, but preaching the word of God.

How I would love to revisit that, but I won't do that for time's sake. Roman numeral five, new material now. The church assembled to worship through the Spirit empowered preaching of the word to what ends? Well, first of all, to strengthen the saved. And here's why I think churches get backwards sometimes. Now, look, nobody can look at Grace Life Church and say, you guys are soft on evangelism. Nobody can look at Grace Life Church of the Shoals and say, you guys are weak on going after souls.

I don't know of anyone that still has hundreds of people going out on visitation. We still do that. We still want to urge all men to repent and believe the gospel. However, our primary motivation about the worship service should be that the word of God is strengthening to the assembly of God's people.

Now, we'll get to this in a moment. It will, at the same time, be evangelistic to the unconverted who are attending the service. But it ought to be a strengthening.

Now, you could use a lot of different words. I use the word strengthen here, maturing, sanctifying, edifying, building up, equipping, all of those words. I use the word strengthen here in that very broad sense. But just a few cross references to see how the New Testament leaders use the Bible or preaching the word in strengthening the congregation. Colossians 1 23, if indeed you continue in the faith, firmly established in steadfast, not moved away from the hope of the gospel that you have heard. That's the preaching which was proclaimed. That's preaching and all creation entered heaven, which I Paul was made a minister. So standing firm in the faith is connected to having heard and hearing the proclamation of the word of God. I've told you this many times, but you need to sit under preaching to stay strong in your faith. Matter of fact, dad, you move your family to a weak church where the pulpit is kind of secondary. And you watch your faith start to dwindle.

Your spiritual vitality start to wane. It's essential for the strengthening of the children of God. Colossians 1 25, Paul says of this church, I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God, bestowed on me for your benefit that I might what, fully carry out the preaching of the word of God.

Fully carry out what Paul? He says the main means God's ordained for the building up of his church, preaching the word of God. Colossians 1 28 and 29, speaking of preaching again, and we proclaim him. That's his preaching, admonishing every man. That's through preaching, teaching every man. That's through preaching with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ. Acts 20 32. Now I commend you to God rather and the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among those who are sanctified.

The word of his grace was primarily communicated through preaching. And then Romans 16 25, now to him who is able to establish you, the same idea I use when I put strengthened in my outline, to establish you according to my gospel and how and the preaching of Jesus Christ, establishing you from the moment you believe on Christ for justification and the further establishing of you as you believe on him further in sanctification. Brothers and sisters, the moment you believe on Jesus, you're not through. You just began.

You did get saved, but from that moment on, you are also being saved. We need faithful preaching of the word, i.e. preaching of the gospel to continue all of us on in sanctification.

We're just weak. It's an old, silly, corny illustration. But you remember the story of the man who came down during the revival meeting. He came down to the steps. By the way, this isn't an altar.

Catholics have altars. These are steps. Not very good steps. Matter of fact, our custodians told us, you do understand, pastor, this is a temporary platform. It's got little weak legs. It's going to fall one day.

If I keep jumping on it like I do sometimes, it may fall sooner than later. But the guy came down to the steps. And the church had learned he does this every revival meeting. And he's pleading at the steps, Lord, fill me, Lord, fill me, Lord, fill me.

And one little lady said, Lord, don't do it. He leaks. Corny little illustration, I understand. But you know what the truth is? You leak and I leak.

But here's what I'm saying. Satan suddenly uses all of this stuff around us to pull our affections and pull our heart other places. We get into the preaching of the word of God and we're genuine, regenerate, born-again child of God. And once again, the word with the power of the Spirit draws us back and re-strengthens us to say, oh, that's where my treasure is. That's where my joy is. That's where my confidence is. These other things are okay, but they come and go.

He never changes. And I need the preaching of the word to get me back there. Roman number four, we said the church assembled to worship the Spirit-empowered preaching of the word, the primary means of worship in the church, preaching the word, to strengthen the lost and at the same time to convert the lost. You want your children to be converted and stay strong? Make sure, make sure, make sure they're in a sound local church in the regular, faithful, Spirit-empowered preaching of the word of God.

Fathers, you will be held accountable to that. Cleverness, creativity, new fads and wonders, not all of that's evil, but that's never promised in the Bible to convert your child's soul. But the preaching of the word is the primary means God has ordained to reach your children's souls for eternity. 2 Corinthians 5, 17 through 20, Paul says, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation, a new creature. The old things have passed away, and behold, new things have come. Now, all these things, the new things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So Paul says, as his preacher, I have this ministry of reconciling people to God through the gospel of Jesus Christ. He elaborates further in the next verse, verse 19, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he's committed to us the word of reconciliation. Here Paul is, he says, I have this ministry of reconciliation.

God's given me his word that I'm to give others so that they might be able to be forgiven of sins and reconciled to God rather through Jesus Christ. He elaborates further, verse 20, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us. Paul says, as I go out faithfully preaching in the power of the Spirit, it is actually God who's appealing to men and to women and to young people. Come to Christ, come to Christ, believe on him. Turn away, repent from all of the notions, all of the viewpoints, all of the avenues to find God and embrace Christ alone as your hope of salvation. He said, that's what I'm doing in my preaching.

I'm actually God's agent, God's ambassador. He says, making an appeal through us, God's making an appeal through us, we beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. Preaching to convert the lost. Romans 10, one, Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for them is their salvation. This is talking about his fellow Israelite brethren who were immersed in religion, the true law of God, Judaism. But they had put their hope in the law and not into the one who fulfills the law, Jesus Christ.

So Paul's burdened about his fellow countrymen who are lost. Then he says, how are we going to get them saved? Coming on down to Romans 10, 11, for the scripture says, whoever believes in him will not be disappointed. Further on down, Romans 10, 13, and 14, for whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Don't take this out of its context. It's a quote from the Old Testament. And the idea doesn't mean a one-time hoop jump of calling on the Lord. Well, I called on the Lord or I asked the Lord to save me. It may include that, but it means you've been changed so that now you have become one who is a caller on the Lord. You didn't just repent, you started being a repenter. You didn't just place your faith in Jesus, you began being one who faiths Jesus. It becomes a new pattern of your life.

Not in perfection, but it's the new pattern of where you're going. I'm now a repenter, I'm now a faither in Jesus Christ. It's not a hoop jump I went through. I'm not under the Jewish law to do what the priest says and I'm okay. I'm not in Roman Catholicism to do what the priest says and take the sacrament and I'm okay. I'm not in shallow Baptist life where I walk the aisle and jump through the hoop and do what the Baptist say and I'm okay. No, I want to become one who calls on the Lord, my heart's changed, now I look to him and him alone. That's my hope of salvation. Question is, how are we going to get people there?

How are we going to get people to the kind of people who has a pattern of their lifestyle, are repenters of looking to anything else? They turn from looking to anything and everything but Christ and become faithers. They begin to be a people who continually says, Christ, if you don't save me, if you don't keep me saved, if you're not my all in all, I'm sunk, my hope is you.

How do they get there? What's God's ordained means? Romans 10, 13, 10, 14. Well, how will they call upon him and whom they've not believed? How will they believe in him and whom they've not heard? How will they hear without a preacher? Now, the Apostle Paul was a very well-educated man, a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he called himself, very learned.

He was very aware that the Gentile culture they were in, Rome, Greece, Corinth, Ephesus, had lots of great entertainment venues, dramas, but he never in the tiniest way said, let's go find these allurements that are in the world and let's bring them into the church service so it might help us get people saved. He said, no, we need preaching. Preaching. The greatest thing you can do for the good of your family and the good of your family's eternal soul and the good of the church is pray for and support the preaching of the word of God.

Nothing can take the place, not Jeff Noblitz preaching. I may be gone next week, but a God called man used by God's Holy Spirit to faithfully preach the word of God. So there's proclamation as the pastor preaches, and there's appeal to come to Christ as the pastor preaches. But remind yourselves, brothers and sisters, that the Bible does not save us. It is Christ that saves us. But it is the spirit empowered preaching of the Bible that reveals the Christ who saves. Now, you either believe that or you don't. Now, just stop right there.

Don't think about the roast. Listen. It's preaching to the Holy Spirit that reveals Jesus to people, makes him real. I've seen pastors, and bless their hearts, I think many of them were sincere, but they were in their pastorate with people as much looking to them as to Jesus. And with benevolent hearts, they wanted to endear themselves to the people and this and that, and I understand that, but I would rather, I hope this isn't true, but I would rather say, well, he had a snotty personality. He wasn't any fun to be around, but he so preached Christ to me, I began to love and embrace and treasure Jesus Christ. And you know, I have found through the years, maybe a little defense of me, that some of the strongest, best preachers who revealed Christ didn't have the greatest personalities.

They weren't Slappy on the Back, Happy Jack, Glad Handers. And part of that's because a lot of times our hearts and minds are places you don't know. This is a weighty responsibility. And I want you to know, I take it very seriously that every single one of you know him and treasure him. And I can't do that through my personal winsomeness. That's not God's means. I must do that through faithfully preaching the Word. I don't want you to leave this building saying, what a splendidly wonderful, winsome, caring, sweet pastor.

I hope you can say that sometimes. I want you to leave saying, what a Savior. What a Christ. What a glory. What a love. What a forgiveness.

If you can grow old in this church and say, I wasn't very impressed with Jeff, but I was very impressed with the Christ he preached. I'm happy. Now, please like me. I don't want to be disliked.

I'm not saying that. But I want you to know him. That's why many, many years ago, amidst a lot of opposition, I pulled myself away from many, many things in the church to immerse myself in study and preaching. And I believe you would say, those of you who've been here a while, pastor, that was the right move.

Roman numeral seven. The church assembled to worship how through the Spirit-empowered preaching of the Word to the end of strengthening the saved, converting the lost. Now we come to singing. With singing that reinforces the faith. Singing that reinforces the faith. Roman, A in our outline, we sing to teach and admonish one another. This word admonish is in Colossians 3 16. Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you.

Notice, it's got to be in you first. In other words, that means you've got to be a truly born again, regenerate one, where Christ is real to you. He's in your heart. Then, then, Colossians 3 16, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another.

How? With psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. So we are singing in here partly so that we might strengthen and encourage one another to go on with God. Now, while it's not all absolutely evil, special lighting, special effects, smoke machines, fantastic boards with multicolored stuff on them, stirring loud rock-like music, none of that, now listen, none of that is promised to aid in strongly encouraging the brethren to go on for God. But give me three or four brothers and sisters who love Jesus and sing biblically sound songs because they love Jesus and put me next to them and I'm strongly encouraged to go on in the faith. I'd rather be in a barn with one guy who can halfway play a guitar, but the guys in there, the ladies in there love Jesus and sing like it. That'll help me live for Jesus the next week a lot better than tons of creative, clever stuff, allurements added to the service and a weak and carnal congregation who came for the show. As I've said before, I just do not understand designing the church service to resemble a bandstand or a nightclub. I've talked to many people who come to a church and they come out of that. They've been saved out of that. And all that's associated with drunkenness and carousing and immoralities and they're fighting and repenting and they come into the church and it puts me right back into that mold again. Who told us that's what the gospel needs?

I could almost run through a wall right now and run back in. Jesus needs no help doing His work. You proclaim Him and turn Him loose. He'll do it just fine. Quit dressing Him up in worldly garden to make Him attractive.

He's beautiful just like He is. Ephesians 5 19 says we're to make melody in our hearts to the Lord. And what that means is as we from our hearts are worshiping genuinely, then it also has the secondary purpose of admonishing and encouraging of the brethren around us. Matter of fact, we're going down to that word admonish for the Tommy. Colossians 3 16 where he says to admonish one another with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

It simply means to strongly encourage. But first, the heart. Our individual hearts have to be treasuring and loving Christ and singing doctrinally true songs and then those around us are strongly encouraged. Yes, let's stay with the faith. Yes, let's hold the sound doctrine. Yes, let's continue on faithfully for Christ. By the time we have to have this kind of singing. Look at Chronicles 29 29 in the Old Testament.

While the whole assembly worship, the singers also sang and the trumpet sounded. That's the wrong verse, isn't it? It is. Take that down. That's wrong.

That's what I gave him, but it's wrong. Anyway, the congregation of Israel would get together and they would put great choirs and great singers together. But again, it was not in the greatness of those things. It was in the hearts of the singers that makes it admonition. Being our outline under singing that reinforces the faith is instrumentations must complement the lyrics.

Instrumentations must complement the lyrics. In other words, when you leave a worship service, if Brother Tom and I have given you a song service where you said, wow, that guitar, wow, that screen display, wow, those special effects, boy, they killed it today at church. I read that online recently about a church.

Boy, they killed it today. Killed what? Where's that in the Bible? Make sure you kill it this Sunday at church. Kill what, the fatted calf?

What are you killing? That's not our goal. That's not what we're trying to accomplish. We want the music, the instrumentation to flow with the truth that's in the song so that it complements the doctrinal truth and not crowded out, not get in the way of it. Brother Tom will be first to tell you that's hard to know every time, brother, but we're striving there.

Brother Tom's with me 110%. He's the first music guy I've had that is, but he is. Because the key element in our singing is not tune but truth. The key element in our singing is not style but substance. Large churches are spending a fortune today on hiring men to do the creative arts. And what they mean is we're going to put on quite a show this Sunday at church. Here's what I want to say. Have you ever gotten a good glimpse of Jesus as the word was faithfully preached?

You can have all the strobe light machines and smoke machines and special effect machines. Now, I'm not saying every bit of that's wrong, but what happens is you begin to depend on that instead of the long, hard work of preaching Jesus to He's revealed to people and real in their hearts. And I will not allow this church to do anything that in any way begins to crowd out Jesus being revealed to God's people. So while these things, again, in and of themselves, these extra allurements are maybe not necessarily evil, they become evil because they drown out the essential. A man who joined our church some time ago and he was in another church and he said, the song guy, the music minister, said one Sunday, you know they don't come here to preach and they come to hear my song service. And this brother said, yeah, and that's the problem.

You're drowning out what matters. And by the way, you build it on that and pretty soon the church across town has better strobe lights than you've got. Pretty soon the church across town has better smoke machines than you have.

They've got better instrumentalists and bands than you have. And all of a sudden, here they go, the church hoppers. Then they go to the next one. Aren't you glad some decades ago we left the church hop cycle? You don't come here to hop, you come here to know Jesus and serve Him.

And by the way, if you're not perfect at it, you're just like me. We're all striving together, humbling ourselves together, repenting together to go on for God. Roman numeral eight, and expresses and to express or expresses praise to God, our audience. At the end of the day, we want God to be pleased.

He's the audience of all that we're doing here. When the children of Israel were in captivity, the Babylonians had heard because they were musicians and singers of renown all over the world. And they said, sing us one of the songs of Zion.

We've heard what kind of singers you guys are. Hebrews 13, 15 speaks of us lifting a sacrifice of praise to God. Not that it's this woeful thing we do without. It replaces all the works and the rituals of bringing actual sacrifices. Now God just wants hearts that love Him and praise Him.

He's not looking to that other stuff. Two sub points here and we're done. A in our outline, we worship and praise Him for all He has done for us. You know, the Bible says in Psalm 40, verse 3, He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.

Now wait a minute. He put it there. In other words, He's changed me through His gospel. He's changed me by the power of the Spirit, bringing me to see my sin and bringing me to see the glories and the wonders and the forgiveness of Christ. And since He's changed my heart, there's a new song on my lips. I mean, you can't keep singing some of this stuff the world sings, and not all of it's wrong, but have you ever been listening to the radio and one of these songs come on and you think, is that all you've got to sing about? Is that it? Human love is beautiful and God-given. That's not all wrong, but sometimes I want to say, is that all you guys got in emotional feeling and sexuality? Is that all there is?

No, that's not all there is. There are higher joys. There are higher pleasures. And we begin to taste these and grasp these as God has saved us and changed us, and it makes us want to sing something new, because there's a greater love than man's love one for another. There's a greater pleasure than sexual pleasure, and that's a gift from God, and it's wonderful, but there's higher pleasures. There's higher joys. There's higher things to sing about. So when we come into church, I'm aghast at churches that bring secular music into their Sunday morning worship to, quote, draw a crowd. We've got better stuff to sing about.

Why? Because He's done something for us. We praise Him because He's changed us, and it's changed what we want to sing about. He's put a new song in my mouth.

Let's go to B in our outline. Not only do we consider Him our audience and praise Him because of what He's done for us, but because we know Him. And I've really said that a thousand times in diverse ways already this morning, but He's not some distant object of power and woe to me. He's the God I know. I know Him because His words revealed Him to me through His Son, Jesus Christ. And you can't know Him.

Listen to me. You can't know Him and not praise Him. Now, I'm not saying everybody's got to sing the same in the worship.

That's not what I'm talking about. But if you know Him, there's something in you that says, oh, He I deem worthy of all praise. To know Him is to praise Him. Paul and Silas are in prison, the Bible says, in Acts 16, and they start singing hymns to God because they know Him. He's real in their hearts. Ephesians 5, 18 says, do not get drunk with wine.

That's always a good idea. But that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Filling with the Spirit is something of a mysterious thing, but whatever else it means, it means I'm in sweet harmony with Christ with no unrepentant of sin between us. There's a sweet fellowship with Christ. Then Ephesians 5, 19 says, speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. You know what the best thing about or the most important thing about Ephesians 5, 19 is?

Is that it comes after Ephesians 5, 18. Be filled with the Spirit, then your singing comes out as it ought to. We, I don't know if it's still going on today, but years ago, we had people that would go around and teach churches how to worship and praise. I remember we had a guy here come in, he told us to get up on our toes and sing. Well, I can do that before I'm saved.

Now, I'm not saying that's all bad. Some of you need to straighten up and sing a little bit. But I'd much, much, much, much, much rather faithfully preach the Word of God and the power of the Spirit so that more of you are more walking, filled with the Spirit, and then the singing takes care of itself. Because he's our audience that we're praising. The unregenerate cannot praise him. The unregenerate, the unsaved man can't praise him. Not in any genuine, not in any way that he's welcoming it or pleased with it. They don't know what he's done for them.

And they don't know him. I remember Dr. Jimmy Milliken, my theological professor at Mid-America Seminary, this is good night, 37 years ago, close. He said, there's a new thing going on that's teaching us to design our church services for the unchurched. Design our church services for those who don't know Christ. He said, how can you design a worship service for the unregenerate? That's the oddest thing. That's like designing a car for a non-driver.

You can't do it. It don't fit. We don't design church for those who don't know Christ. We design church for those who do know Christ, hoping we can bring more and more people who don't know Christ and they'll be drawn to the attractiveness of Christ as he's revealed in the Word and revealed through our genuine worship. If you design a church for the unsaved, the unregenerate, then it's a non-spiritual church. It's a non-service church. It's a non-preaching church. It's a non-Christian church. It's a non-praise church. It's a non-worship church because all that requires regenerate people who know God. So it's not, now an evangelistic campaign could be a little different, but the body of believers, the local church is for God's children to be strengthened and at the same time to be reaching as many lost as we can.

I think, well, I want to be quick here because I can get started on something like this and your roast will be cold. But I think what happens when guys, and I mean sometimes sincere guys begin to talk about these things, that we need a church that's attractive to the worldly man, the unregenerate. But what they're doing, they're missing both God's means and God's ends. They're trying to reach the end, which they say is converting the lost, and they'll say, if we change these means, these methods, we can convert more of the lost. But there's a great, great error, and I want you to remember this from your pastor.

Let me give this preface statement. A great and strong motivation for all of us should always be to reach the lost with the gospel. However, that's not our greatest end. The greatest end is not getting folks saved. The greatest end is the glory of God.

I don't want people getting saved because Jeff and Tom were clever and creative and could draw a lot of people. That gives us glory. I want people to be saved under the church, being the church biblically, and then when people are saved, God gets the glory. Because we did it through what the Corinthians would call the foolishness of preaching. The world will say, that's a foolish way to get it done. That's an antiquated approach.

That's not current or cultural or clever in any way. Yes, but when God changes someone, then God gets the credit because we didn't do any of the things we thought were effective. We gave you God's truth and God converts the lost. The end is the glory of God. And the means to reach the end is, quote, doing church in the, quote, God's way. Talking about the fact that we know Him and how it evokes praise.

I'll never forgive you. It's one of those things that happens in your life and it just kind of makes a reference point. Pam and I had not been married long. I hadn't been in the ministry very long. And we were at the amusement park in Nashville, Tennessee. And it's been gone a long time.

I don't know. We might've been with the student group there. And as we're walking through the park, a priest walked by. I knew because he had the priestly collar. And I poked Pam.

And tongue in cheek, I said, Pam, watch yourself. That man's a priest. That man intercedes for men before God. That man is the intermediary that connects people to God. Now that's what their doctrine teaches.

I'm not saying I believe that. And then all of a sudden it's as if I could have put both hands in the air and started shouting because just this powerful, clear confirmation came into my soul that says, your priest is standing at the right hand of the Father. Your priest is Jesus Christ. He's not walking through an amusement park unless he's walking through it in you. He never fails. He never sleeps. He's never weak. He never misses anything. He's always on the job.

He's ever faithful. And those who he saves, he keeps saves all the way home to glorification. And I thought that's something to sing about.

It just disturbed me afresh. We have so much to sing about because we know him. And because all that he has done for us. So we want this to be a part of our overall curriculum, teaching pastors, that the purpose of congregational worship is to assemble the church, to worship, the spiritually empowered preaching of the word, to strengthen the saved, convert the lost, reinforce the faith through song, and lift praise to Christ our audience. If we can get pastors there, we've done a bunch.

And we can get them just holding that in their hearts, believing it. And here's where you come in, Grace Life Church. If you don't believe this, then I'm a hypocrite and God's word is false.

We've had too much time together. If you don't embrace this, then I need to cancel those tickets to Brazil and those pastors I'm going to teach. But if you do, and you'll walk in it, and you have, but walk in it even more, then who knows how much God might choose to use us to impact so many others to the end that many, many, many, many are saved. And that sound glory of God focused, Christ honoring Bible saturated local churches are scattered all over the globe for God's glory. The people of their communities would have to look at them and say, this isn't a clever thing. This isn't their ingenuity or their creativity.

They're not bringing in worldly amusements. God must be doing this. And therefore He gets the glory. There should be no explanation for the success of this church, but God's doing it. God's just doing it. And I'll just be honest, and I'm being very honest. There's no way in the world you would have put up from it with me for four decades, unless God was doing something in your heart. And I'm looking at some of you, and there's no way I'd put up with some of you this long, unless God had done something in my heart. But the fact that we persevere and love each other and go on, look, here's what I'm saying. The glory of God is worth it.

Brother Tom's music program is not worth it. Brother Jeff's pulpit ministry is not worth it, but the glory of God's worth it. Now I bet you I can get a unanimous vote, standing vote. If you'll affirm these things the best you understand them, that we will continue to want nothing here new at all.

This is decades-old stuff for us, just sharpened up a little bit. If you'll affirm, pastor, let's keep walking in this truth. No matter what else goes on in the world of Baptist or evangelical life, this is what we're gonna stay with. If you will affirm that with your preaching, pastor, this morning, would you please stand?

Told you I'd get a 100% vote on that. If not, you stay here, we're gonna talk after the service, all right? I love God's Word. Isn't the truth of God's Word wonderful?

It is just wonderful. But here's my last word to you. Come, you sinners, seek His grace, whose wrath you cannot bear. Flee to the shelter of the cross and find salvation there.

He will save you. You say, pastor, you've preached a doctoral message on the church, hadn't been very evangelistic. You know when our first church discipline case here many, many years ago, it was the ugliest, most horrible, most painful thing I've ever been through in my life. A staff member was removed from him, it was awful. You know there was a man converted in that service? And I still hear from him through a member of our church today. You never know, this might be your time to come to faith in Jesus Christ.