Would you turn with me to Acts chapter 9, verse 31. Acts chapter 9, verse 31. I remind you this is God's holy, inerrant, and infallible word. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up And going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. Let's pray. Our Father and our God, we thank you for this word this morning. We pray that you would help us to receive it, to hear it, to believe it, to treasure it up in our hearts. And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You know, most people attending worship services on any given Sunday have forgotten that worship is actually the worship of God, is to be comprised of, is to be offered to the living God. People gravitate to the practical, lively, relevant, production-level lighting and sound, pastors who are relevant, who are hip, called to be the stewards of the mysteries of God, themselves have become entertainers, comedians, orators who appeal to the masses, ordinary men, to use the words of G.K. Chesterton, without chests, who have no courage for the faithful proclamation of the word of God and a life set apart unto holiness. Edward Farley, writing upon this, says that contemporary worship in the modern church is casual, comfortable, chatty, busy, humorous, pleasant, and even at times, and at times, even cuts. If the seraphim assumed this Sunday morning mood, they would be addressing God not as holy, holy, holy, but as nice, nice, nice. It's a relevant quote. And I just said cuts, I think, a moment ago. But what I meant was in the words that he said, cute. that God is in some way cute. And I think that that flows out of a modern sensibility that wherever we go, whatever we do, whatever we purchase, whatever we consume, whatever we observe or are entertained by, all of it is intended to and it must ultimately meet our needs. and please us, give us a pleasurable experience, and make us happy. But the question we ask in worship is not whether or not you are happy, whether or not I am happy with the various elements of the worship service. Rather, what we are to offer is, do you think, and even recently I've been asked about various elements and various statements regarding the church and its work, but let me ask this question. Do the various elements of the worship of the church, is the worship of the church as a whole pleasing to God? Is it relevant in the sense that is it biblically derived, any given element of the scripture? or any given element of the worship service? Is it scripturally derived? Is it pleasing to God? That's the question we should be asking. Is God pleased with this particular exercise? Is God pleased with this kind of language? Is God pleased with what I offer personally on any given Sunday to Him? That's the question. Is it pleasing to God? Is it pleasing to the God who, for the sake of sinful human beings, who were destined for, who were worthy of, who had earned the wages of sin, which is death? And that because of that reality, it was necessary that he, in order to rescue us from both his wrath and judgment, that he give his only begotten son so that Jesus would die, so that by his blood, by his stripes, we would be healed. Do you think, therefore, that the God who goes to such extremes to save sinners for himself, that he doesn't have a single thought about what type of worship you and I offer to him or how important worship is? If he sent his only begotten son into the world to save us, that we might not be condemned but rather he be condemned in our place, doesn't that say something about the importance of what God then calls saved redeemed people into and that is a saving relationship with himself and that whereby God's people continually and always worship him and do not neglect the gathering together of themselves according to Hebrews chapter 10 together in solemn assembly, worshiping God, observing all that he has written. Christian worship must be distinct in its reverence for God. Christian worship should be marked by the enjoyment of God, yes, because the believer understands that God is to be enjoyed. That catechism question, what is man's chief end? Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. Now, to enjoy is a little different than maybe what you and I are thinking this morning. When we enjoy a television program, what we mean is that it has appealed to our sensibilities, it has moved us, it has pleased us in all of our faculties that key into our personal entertainment. But the enjoyment of God is to appreciate, to know, to love, to adore, to enjoy. To enjoy the God with whom we are in relationship to and with. Certainly worship involves a full range of human emotion, passionate appeal and response, but the God who is to be enjoyed and is to be worshiped is also to be respected, not casually, not indifferently. Christian men and women have to understand they can't come to God apart from the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Wasn't it told to Old Testament saints, you cannot approach God without the shed blood? New Testament saints understand the same principle. I cannot approach God apart from the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I certainly cannot be reconciled to that God and then welcomed into a relationship of personal enjoyment of the Godhead and all of the blessings and perfections of God unless the blood of Christ first intervenes and is interposed between myself and him. It says in Hebrews nine, but when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands. That is to say, not of this creation and not through the blood of goats and bulls, but through his own blood, he entered the holy place once for all having obtained eternal redemption. Well, in this one simple verse, in verse 31, we see what the church does and how it responds and how it worships and how it survives in a hostile world, not by offering an indifferent approach in worship, not by offering a complacency with the expectation, come, come and fill me, come and entertain me, give me enjoyment or I'm not coming next week. One way or the other, they didn't come as consumers. They came as men and women who were practitioners in all the gifts and graces of God and who sought the Lord and found him as they enjoyed peace and were built up. I believe there's something here in this one little verse this morning that should direct us as a church as to how to worship God and what future ministry as a congregation should be like. Now the church we know has been enduring through a period of great and deep persecution. They have endured through the persecution that has been afflicting them to such an extent. Many have been expelled from Jerusalem. Many believers have left. In fact, we are told in an earlier portion that James and Peter are alone the only apostles that are still in Jerusalem proper. Many others have pressed out into the surrounding communities. We also know that The church has been experiencing or will soon experience a season of famine. They have endured through persecution, not the least of which was Paul or Saul's participation in the same. Saul was breathing venom against the church. He was, to use the language of scripture, ravaging the church. He was persecuting. He had gone into homes and dragged out mothers and fathers, children, He had sought under the auspices of the authority of the religious elite in Jerusalem to have the same permission to go into Damascus. And on that road, the Lord Jesus met him and proclaimed, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It's not that Saul was the only one, but in fact, he was at least a piece of it. It seems also at that time that government forces were also at work and they were distracted not dealing with the Christian question. How do we deal with these Christians who don't own Caesar as God but rather affirm Jehovah as God? Well, in this very simple, small verse, there's a lot that's said about the church there throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. If you remember, Luke has recorded for us here in Acts that Jesus had given a commission to the apostles and to the church. You were to go into Jerusalem and Judea and into Samaria and into the outermost parts of the earth, making disciples in my name, proclaiming the gospel. Now we hear that that is, in fact, taking place. That has been begun. The gospel is made inroads throughout Judea and Galilee and Samaria. And Paul, or Saul, presently, is being prepared and set apart for this very task of going into the outermost parts of the earth. Well, the church in Judea and Galilee and Samaria, they enjoyed peace. They were being built up. How did this take place? They were being multiplied. Well, they are worshiping the Lord and they are working for the Lord and they are walking according to the last half of the passage and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit and continue to increase. They are walking and they are working, they are laboring, but there is something else that's taking place here. I want us to see three points, the first of which is this. the Godhead working for the blessing of the church. We'll see the church walking. We'll see the church also going on. But the first thing that we see is the Godhead working and ultimately for the blessing of the church. What we are told is that the church has peace. They're enjoying peace and being built up. They're in a season of peace. God has worked and he holds in his hand the hearts of rulers and kings and despots. And in fact, he has brought a season of peace. There is a distracting season amongst the governors of the Caesar of Rome. He must deal with warfare and the raising up of difficulties in other places. And in fact, for a season, the church has enjoyed peace. Something else is taking place here, too. They are being built up. They're being built up. It's a word I think many of us are familiar with. It's oikos, or in its particular use in this passage, oikodomoumenai, which means to be built up. It's passive. We talk about drinking a soda. If I say I am drinking a soda, I am active in picking up that soda and drinking it and swallowing it. If I say that soda is being drunk, it means that that soda has something being acted upon it. It isn't drinking itself, something else is drinking it, so the activity is by the person who has taken that soda and drunk it. Well, what we were talking about here is they are being built up. It doesn't say that they are building up. It says that they are being built up. There is a passive tense. They were being built up. And then at the very end, it says it continued to increase. It continued to be multiplied is, in fact, the sense there. So again, there's another passive tense. There's an imagery of building. There's an imagery of a house being constructed. Who is the one that is constructing this house? Who is the one that is building up? Who is the one who is multiplying? In its simplest sense, God builds his church. The Lord multiplies. The Lord brings peace. The master constructs. God is the author of the church. God is the one who makes the church able and willing to do all his holy will. What this passage teaches us is that whatever the threats against the church may be, and we have seen a lot already in the first nine chapters of Acts. We've seen demonic power, satanic deception, seeming defeat, confusion, the death of a leader, the death of a fellow servant, the immoral behavior of fellow servants, Judas and Ananias, Sapphira, satanic opposition from the world, the world's hatred, persecution, death, Ravaging government agents, explicit government opposition, ridicule, families and friends leaving for good reasons, oftentimes because of the persecution in Jerusalem. They therefore went out from there. They had been expelled. There's distrust. There's youthfulness in the church. There are disputes. There's so much in the first nine chapters of Acts. You might think this is overwhelming. How can the church survive? How can God's people survive in such an antagonistic world? And yet God's power and his truth abideth still, for his kingdom is forever. God is greater than all that afflicts the church. We need to recognize that. We need to reaffirm that. We need to extol that. We need to praise and hold that out before God. God, all that affects the church, you are more powerful. Of all that can afflict the church, you are more powerful. False doctrine that might seep into the church, Lord God, you and your truth are more powerful. Conflict that might arise, Lord God, you are more powerful. Immoral behavior that affects the congregation, Lord God, you are more powerful. Discouragement, lack of faith, Lord God, you are more powerful. our own personal unfaithfulness. Lord God, you are more powerful. The Lord God is powerful. The Lord is pleased to bring peace, to build up, to continue and increase. And yes, the Lord is placing board upon board, having set the cornerstone who is Christ. He is building block by block the house that he intends. that when the Lord Jesus comes, there will be a household of faith one way or the other because nothing that Satan can throw against the church will prevail ultimately because God is the one who keeps her. Not because she's so very talented, not because of the excellence of the preaching, but because God keeps her. God sustains his church. He blesses his church. The Lord is pleased to do this through his methods and his administration, always through the word. And it will always be exhibited in the church, walking, moving forward, daily practicing, practically living in his ways. And the Lord often deals proportionately and make sure you hear this. The Lord often deals proportionately with his church in meeting out blessings as they obey him and walk reverently with him. Maybe we might say, well, we don't see the blessing of the Lord in our private lives and. Pastor, you tell me that that I'm supposed to be growing and I'm supposed to be encouraged and the Lord is to be alive in my life and in my conduct, and I'm to be. Near and close to the Lord, and my question to you is, are you making use of the means that God has provided to you? Daily reading. daily consistent prayer, pursuing reading the word of God, memorizing scripture. We think if I just read the Bible, I'm good. I read a psalm or two, I can go on with my day. No, what the language of scripture says is that we are to read and to study the word of God. That means that we go a little bit deeper than only reading. We read, we meditate on, we mull over, we consider, we ask questions, we pray about and ask God to help us to understand its meaning. We might even seek counsel with another, and we might even talk about it amongst ourselves, and we might even take that concordance off of our shelves and or open a small commentary to read something edifying about the passage that we've just read. I know there are some who have said recently even that Christians don't have need of any other scriptural help, that they are not in need of any other teaching. All they need is the word. If we have the Bible, they'll be led into all truth. That is true in one sense. In another sense, it is not true. It is true in the sense in which God, through his word, leads us into all truth. Yes and amen. There is also another sense in which Christians can read into scriptures what their own personal priorities of faith are. They can make assumptions about scripture and even misinterpret scripture, not seeing it as a whole. Sometimes people lack hermeneutical skill. Sometimes people have a certain predilection. Others have a personal bent or direction toward heresy or gnostic understanding. So we need teachers, pastors, men and women of God who know and understand the Bible, to whom we can go as mature believers and say, I've been reading about this passage, can you tell me what you understand this to mean? Or who gather together on Sundays in a meal and then talk about what they've learned about Christ that week, who seek to actually obey the scriptures and edify one another. to use their gifts in service to each other and to explain what God has led them into in the riches of his word that we and they might together be blessed in that word. Yes, the Godhead is working for the blessing of his people and the Lord will deal proportionately with you, with his church, with me, inasmuch as we walk obediently and reverently and take up and read what God has given to us and practice what God has commanded, we should walk as the church did. The church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace being built up and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. You see, there are two things that they're doing. They're walking and they're working. They're doing two things. And this is where the rubber meets the road for us. Yes, the Godhead is working, but also the church is walking in the fear of the Lord. You see what it says? And going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. I think the fear of the Lord is something lacking from our present generation, at least here in the West. What we mean by the fear of the Lord is respect and reverence and awe. As you think about God, as your thoughts of God, as you meditate upon God and his character, are your thoughts filled with a sense of the awe, fullness of God? Do you reverence God in your thinking that leads you ultimately to praise him, to almost figuratively, but at the very least, perhaps even physically, to put your hand over your head and say, surely, oh God, you are mighty in all that you say and do. Do you ever come to a position where you've got nothing left to say about yourself and all you can do is sit in prayer and say, Lord, you are good, you are awesome in all your mighty works? Lord, you are glorious and majestic in your being. Lord God, you are perfect in all your ways. If there is any sin or any fault, it is mine. Where I come up short in the Christian life, it's my fault. Where I have lacked in obedience or I feel the absence of your presence for me, it's on me. Because Lord God, you have been merciful and tender and abundant in all of your thoughts towards me. The church is walking in the fear of the Lord. There's a calculation in their mind and in the way in which they behave in the way in which they worship the Lord is a calculation of the smallness of of themselves in comparison to the greatness, the immensity of God. Make no mistake, one of the most significant things they did was not that the church began to institute a series of church programs. You know, having a worship group and a fellowship group for the bright minds, or having a worship group or a fellowship group for the divorced, or having a worship group or a fellowship group for the youth. They didn't do any of those things. They simply came together consistently and worshiped the Lord. You might think, well, a church will never grow unless it has a lot of vital programs, a lot of programs in which people can get plugged in. They need to get plugged right in to the life of the community. What we really need is for them to discover their hidden purposes and get it plugged into the subsequent levels of the church so that they can get into that intimate group that actually carries out things and does stuff. I'm referring to the the Rick Warren view of what is it, the 39 days, the 40 days, whatever it is, all to determine what our hidden purposes are before God and the purpose-driven church and the purpose-driven life. The church simply gathered together and they worshiped the Lord. And they saw value in that. How is it that we in our present generation do not see the value of gathering together in the assembly of God's people? Are we not edified when we come together? Are we not provoked, at least in some small sense, that I should edify these fellow believers sitting around me? I'm supposed to be using my gifts for their edification, and I have a wealth in them of their edifying, glorious, gracious gifts, an example of the Christian life. And if I would just participate with them and be drawn into the fellowship with them, I would be blessed. But we keep ourselves negligibly apart from and at a loss. whatever reason we are content to go through the Christian life poor, slovenly, in complete spiritual poverty, but what we want to do is go through life rich, wealthy, reaching a point where we're able to enjoy the life and the wealth that we have accumulated. But in the Christian life, we don't see the Christian life with the same desire for a spiritual wealth. You know, the words which Jesus used, do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, but rather store up for yourself treasures in heaven. store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth does not corrupt nor rust destroy. We don't do that. We neglect that part of things. We make a calculation and we think that we may say, we may say with our own mouths in our mind, I really think that spiritual things are of greater value to me. And yet the way in which we live is we demonstrate that our material things are of far greater value. And we do that in small and subtle ways. We do that by simply deciding arbitrarily, I won't go to church today. Or we decide that by a life of consistency and says, I really have no need of God. And we continue in that same strain. But the Christian needs to calculate carefully. In working out our salvation with fear and trembling, we are to calculate very, very carefully that God is of greater value than anything this world contains. That God is worthy to be pursued with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, not like we pursue money, not like we pursue wealth, but rather in our own comfort, but rather like we understand that God is infinite, eternal, the one being who has always been, and the one with whom we must have to do at the end of our days. We will enter into the presence of our God one day soon. We will give an answer for what we have prioritized, what we have made our souls pursuit. Are we pursuing the Lord? The early congregation did. They understood that they were saved by grace through faith. They marveled that God had been merciful to them, even though they, according to earlier passages, had actually put to death a son of God. But they had experienced mercy. They had received salvation. According to grace, they were justified by faith through the one whom they persecuted. And so God. gave them peace, and he built them up as one piece into the household of God, and they went on in the fear of the Lord. They humbly recognized who God is, and they humbly recognized who they are, and so they approached God appropriately as one approaches divinity, and so to us must we. When you enter into the service, do you train your children? Do you explain to your spouse? Do you preach to your own soul? I am entering into a humble space, an imperfect space, but one where God has promised to gather with his people. The infinite and eternal God, the Lord of hosts, the one who blesses and keeps his people, the one who dwells in unapproachable light, who moves amongst eternity, is the one who has deigned to come down He is going to rend the heavens and come and dwell amongst the praises of his people. Do we enter into the sanctuary with such an approach? He is holy, just, righteous, good, perfect, kind, merciful, awful in all his judgments, all-searching, all-knowing, so there must be a recognition in our conduct of God's displeasure in our sin, of our need of his kindness and mercy. We need to recognize that there is a fatherly discipline that he will wield in the life of a believer. Even though exercised in love, it's a fearful thing to endure, and so we should fear the Lord, reverencing God our Father. This does not mean simply being scared or filled with terror or dread or horror, which prevents any approach to God, but but rather it's exactly what Hebrews chapter 12 says. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe for our God is a consuming fire. This is consistent with the Old Testament text in Deuteronomy chapter 10. Verse 12 verses 21 and 21, fear the Lord your God, serve him, hold fast to him, take your oaths in his name. He is your praise. He is your God who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. Now we have not seen any great and awesome wonders, but we have beheld by faith the Son of God hanging upon a cross hung there for our relief, hung there for the forgiveness of our sins. The blood spilled out and by faith we understand we know it to be true and we have received and we have seen the word of God and by it we have come to a seeing knowledge and understanding that what we have read there is true. Therefore dear brothers and sisters in Christ fear the Lord. live reverently with him, with an eye to God's good pleasure, an examination of all of our thoughts, intentions, works, and actions, and attitudes when we enter into the presence of God on the Lord's day. And don't throw off worship for some ridiculous excuse. You don't need a break from worship. You need a break from work and your own pursuit of your own appetites and minds. What we need is the vacation, the relaxation, the blessing of what coming into the presence of God in the assembly of his people actually brings. And we need that more than anything else. John Murray says, an all-pervasive sense of God's presence, adoration springing from the apprehension of God's majesty. Where this is, there must be reverence that is godly fear. Here again, much of our worship falls under the charge of irreverence. And therefore, under condemnation, there is a place in life for jollity and jollification. Two big words for today. But how alien to the worship of God would this be in the sanctuary? So dear friends, when you come into the worship of the Lord here at this place, come in with a sense of sobriety. Don't make a joke. Don't talk about your dog or your cat. Don't talk about your new clothes and your new purchases. Come in proclaiming, singing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. to one another. Come in and talk about what the Lord has taught you in his word. Come in and speak of the goodness of God. Come and tell us about God whom you have known and in whom you believe. Tell us what you have read in scripture that week. Come and enter into the presence of the Lord with a song on your lips, being prepared, having prepared at home for the assembly of God's people in his presence. The church feared the Lord, but the Lord walked in the fear of God, but the church also went on, the Godhead worked, the church walked in the fear of the Lord, and the church went on in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. The church went on in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. There's language here that go on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit it continued to increase. The Greek language is just simply this, paraklesai to hagiou pneumatos. They went on in the consolation or the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Now, maybe you notice that there is a word paraklesai or paraclete. Maybe we're familiar with that, that title given to the Holy Spirit and more than that given to Jesus Christ. He was the first paraclete. or helper, or intercessor, the first one sent of God to bring us into reconciliation with the Godhead. But Jesus told his disciples, I will send a second one to you, a second comforter. He is the second paraclete, the Holy Spirit. The word means one who is called alongside of, one who is a legal advisory. The one who helps weak Christians, who makes intercession for us with deep groaning and indiscernible but divine language, and all according to the will of God. The Holy Spirit helps Christians in so very many ways. He helps Christians to speak, and he brings to their memory the things of God which Christ has spoken into their lives, and he brings the right words at the right moment when they are speaking to an unbeliever. Mark chapter 13, 11, whatever is given to you in that hour, speak that for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. There's more that the Holy Spirit does, John chapter 16, and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment of sin because they don't believe in me of righteousness because I go to my father and you will see me no more of judgment because of the ruler of this world is judged. When you first came to faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit is the one who led you there. You would not have come to faith in Christ if you hadn't if you didn't have the Holy Spirit. When you were first convinced of the truth of the Word of God, it was the Holy Spirit who brought you to that understanding. When you passed from death to life, when you moved from unbelief to belief, to the struggle of the mind that said, could it be? Could it possibly be true that God himself, the Son of God, the Lamb of God died for me and for my sin? It was the Holy Spirit who led you there. And when you first came in faith to Christ, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit. You cannot be lost. That faith that you had at first cannot be lost. It may be buffeted, it may be tried, it may at times be weak, but it cannot be lost. Why can it not be lost? Because of your great strength and power? No, the power of the Holy Spirit of God. You've been sealed, set apart. Language of scripture is that you've been cut off, cut off from the world and set onto God, given to him. You are a spiritual heritage that belongs to Jesus Christ. He died for you. You cannot be taken from him. You cannot be separated from him. Nothing can get between you and him. You may do damage and harm to yourself by engaging in sin. Satan can harm us in a temporary basis on the basis of our own participation in sins and becoming discouraged or losing a sense of our own assurance. But you cannot be lost because of the power of God to keep you. You are weak, but God is strong. There is a paraclete, to use that wonderful Greek word. He intercedes and he assists you. He protects you and he keeps you. He consoles you when you are discouraged. And when you pray, he helps you to pray because we never ask for the right things perfectly. Our language is not sufficient to draw near to God and to speak. We ask for the wrong things. We approach with unfeeling hearts so often and we approach with a presumption upon God that he owes us certain things. Thanks be to God that the Holy Spirit asks and repeats words that are more acceptable and he takes our words and he molds them and he sanctifies them and he presents them with words of groaning undiscernable to a human ear. Do you know the Spirit helps you when you pray? You're not alone in prayer. And so the early church, it's walking in the fear of God, reverencing God as their savior, as the infinite and eternal God, and walking with a full consolation of the Holy Spirit in their hearts that they are children of God. He gives comfort. He consoles. He helps. He advocates. He counsels. He befriends the Christian. He encourages. He supports. He assists. He cares for you. We underestimate the significance and the power of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives. We reduce it to a physical phenomenon of speech that doesn't begin to explain the work of the Holy Spirit. He dwells within the Christian such that we are never alone. He always fills us with his presence. So there is always, always, always a consolation to the believer, especially those who are struggling, whether in loneliness or pain or suffering or discouragement or depression and doubts and fears. The Holy Spirit is with you. He lives within you. He lives in your heart. He consumes your life. There's not a cell in your body that does not in some way participate in the presence of the Holy Spirit living within you. John Owen says this, the first thing for which the comforter is promised to believers is so that he would dwell in them. This we ought firmly to believe, though we cannot fully conceive the manner of it. You see, there's the limitations of our own minds and our faith. But we can firmly in our hearts say, I know it's true, because God has stated it to be. He also works in us a love for truth, making the word of God our chief joy, the delight of our hearts, enabling us to be compliant, moldable as the word of God molds our minds and our hearts, making us more acceptable in God's sight. The greatest consolation for these believers, though, was that however they were rejected by the world, and we've listed, what, 30 things? discouragements and the persecution of Satan and all the things that they had endured, they were accepted though by the infinite God. Even though in the reverence and awe with which they held God, walking in the fear of God, they knew him to be infinite and eternal, extraordinarily beyond any understanding of the human mind, infinitely beyond, whose ways are past finding out, they knew this. And yet, there was no small consolation in their understanding that God had given them a spiritual dignity by virtue of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit bringing us Jesus Christ, dwelling within us, living perpetually in us, In fact, scripture even goes so far in the Corinthian church. Paul is saying, you know, if you participate in sexual sins, you are making Christ the spirit of Christ to participate in that same sexual sin by virtue of the fact that he dwells within us. Take that from the good position, the good aspect of that very same statement. Christ dwells in you. The Holy Spirit dwells in you. Stop denying the indwelling, sealing presence of the Holy Spirit by neglecting the things which He internally is telling you, prompting you continually. Take up the Word of God and read. Take it up and read. Pray, I'll help you to pray. I'll be with you when you pray. Take up the word, go to church, be edified, go and use your gifts for the glory of God. Go and do, go and serve, go and minister, go and worship. We have been consoled with this reality that God himself was within us. And therefore, because of that, we are accepted by God. Even though kings and priests and governments would seek to oppress the people of God across the globe. Have you not seen it? It's not just Sudan. It's not just India. It's in America too. Share your biblical opinions in your college classes. Share your perspective on God's truth in your grade school classes. Go to the work cooler at work and talk about how God has created all things, men and women, in the image of God. See whether that does not offend. I'm not encouraging you to do that per se, but do you not hear it? I'm a chaplain in a religious setting. And there is a continual oppression against the truth that I experience in that religious setting. There is a staff of, a large staff of people. I'm one of the few, if not the only Christian in that entire staff. Now I understand there's a very broad use or description of that word Christian, but I mean Bible believing Christians, men and women who take the word of God seriously, who have believed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, who understand and believe in the atonement of Jesus Christ. We believe in the reality that we must be regenerated and born again. And if we are not, then we are cursed and damned. We have no Christ and we have no promise of eternal life. And our sins are not forgiven. We believe in these things. Basic to the word of God. The world is against you, dear friends. How can the church thrive? How can you thrive in the Christian life? Follow their example. Follow their example. Go on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And if you do, and in so much as you participate in these things, the Lord will build you up. He will give you peace. He will multiply you. May God be pleased to help us, that we might respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit of God and live for Him and follow Him all our days. and see his blessing. Let's pray.