It's especially special to me because in many ways it's the story of my life and it's the story of the life of every Christian, but very particularly this scene is very much like the scene that I experienced when I was growing up in Southern California. You know I was a long-haired surfer boy and there was a gigantic revival that took place in in Southern California and thousands, thousands and thousands of people were being saved and you know many of them were baptized in the Pacific Ocean probably thousands of them there you know in in Southern California. Deborah and I actually were baptized the same night. She was nine and I was 17. Our pastor baptized us, but it was really part of a gigantic revival that's very much like this where you had people, by the way mainly young people, they were cut to the heart just like it says in verse 37.

Look at verse 37 in Acts chapter 2, they were cut to the heart and they said what shall we do? Well that was me and then Peter said to them repent and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and and that happened and and you know there were just so many of us we gladly received the Word of God it became everything to us and And we continued steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine in verse 42, and in fellowship, and in the breaking of bread, and of prayers, and it was really remarkable, it really was a very remarkable time I think in the United States history it might have been the greatest revival that's hit in America since the Great Awakening I'm pretty sure that's true and we used to say you know for somebody to be saved at that time all you had to do was blow on them. I mean the openness to the gospel was so remarkable. Part of it was because there had been this massive rejection of God, you know, in the previous generation and there were young people that wanted something that was real.

And they, if they were going to go to church they wanted to be, they wanted to become like Jesus. And so that's what happened and so there's this picture here of you know those who believe together and in verse 44 they had all things in common and they sold their possessions and goods and divided them among anyone who had need. That wasn't communism, that was just people being generous and laying their resources at the apostles feet and they distributed it for the spreading of the gospel. That's what they did, they brought very much like the Old Testament they they brought the tithes into the storehouse and and then in verse 46 so continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house They ate their food with gladness and sincerity, simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who are being saved." So that was the scene, you know, that's really the scene of a local church here, but Acts 2 42 is particularly pivotal and everything I'm gonna say this morning is going to be an application of this passage of Scripture.

I'm going to give you four points of application from this passage of Scripture, and here's what verse 42 says, and they continued steadfastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and prayers and so it's that picture of the local church gathered and you know these are people who have recognized that they live in a perverse generation and they've recognized God's shown them that to escape that perverse generation is the best thing they can ever do because there's only degradation and harm and heartbreak in that perverse generation. That's all there is there. That's what happened to me. I just I remember just realizing that. I was in high school and I was looking around and I was looking at my friends and I thought, I don't, this is terrible, I don't want this.

God just helped me to see that, you know, at that time. And I wanted God. And so there was this repenting and gladly receiving the Word of God and steadfastly committing oneself to the teaching of the Word of God and the fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayers. This lifestyle is so powerful and profound but it's so simple and it's so unadorned. Well we were just talking about this just before the service began, Don and Tom and I were.

We really underestimate the power of what it means to gather as a church on a regular basis and sing together and hear the Word of God together and to speak to one another and to take the Lord's Supper together, but God has has provided this this slow unadorned way of taking care of you by reminding you of what's really good and bringing you together to sing and to pray and to you kind of have your mind shifted into what's true and everlastingly happy for you and that's what God has done and I guess that's why my pastor loved this passage so much. He brought me up on Acts 242. He would take me to conferences where somebody would be preaching on all these things that were happening. It was biblical ecclesiology, you know, and I'm so thankful for it. But here's the deal.

What is happening today is nothing new, it's nothing different than God has done. From the very beginning of time God has always gathered his people together in regularity. He always does that and he does it because it's good, it's good for the souls to gather together like that. I mean this started right at the beginning with Adam and Eve. You know where you have, you know the first pictures of worship in the Old Testament are the offerings of Cain and Abel.

Well guess what? Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were worshiping God. Well there weren't very many of them back then, but that continued on as in the tabernacle and it continued on in the temple gatherings of people together you know the the feasts of Israel week-long gatherings where all they did was praise God and eat it was fantastic and go camping how about that and You know the Feast of Booths were you know you know if you had a seven-year-old boy or girl and you went to the feast I think they would be some of the most excited to do that you know because you get to go camping and well I know in this palatial world that we live in everybody doesn't love camping but you get the idea but God has always gathered his people together it's such a good thing to gather in regularity and to center around these marvelous things and what God is doing as he gathers us together he takes us out of our own zones and you know week by week slowly in a real way he's just changing your mind, sweetening your heart, and helping you to think rightly about everything.

But he knows you can't take it all at once so he brings you keeps bringing you back to give you a little bit more. That's the patience of God. You know I shudder to think what I used to think when I was 17 years old you know as a young Christian in the church you know but guess what God kept bringing me to he kept bringing me around week after week, month after month, for 50 years. You know, God is really kind and He, I think the gatherings of the people of God are such beautiful manifestations of the patience of God for His people. He's long-suffering, you know, wherever you're at right now, you know, God's gonna keep moving you on.

And I hope, you know, even in these words here in this passage, that this will just maybe take you another little bit. You know, the thing about growth in this world is it's slow, like these trees, you know, you don't know they're really growing if you look at them every day you can't tell at all where they're growing but now look at this now you got a tree that's 30 feet tall you didn't even notice it how did that happen Well that's how God works with us and he uses the gatherings of his church and it's real. You know, people want what's real and what God has done in the gatherings of his people is to do something real and long lasting and to make you wiser than you ever could have been, happier than you ever could have been, and he's gonna do it by degrees. Because he knows that you can't take the shock treatment of going you know from zero to a hundred miles an hour in one second so he takes you there. You know in in Deuteronomy Moses says that God carried his people through the wilderness like a father carries his son.

For 40 years. For 40 years. Well anyway, that's God. Okay, I'm going to give you four applications from this passage of Scripture. There are more that we can make but I want to dial in on four and I the reason I want to do this is I just I want to glorify the beauty of the Church of Jesus Christ and what he's called us to do and I'm gonna name four things that really ought to characterize church life because God is the one who designed church life and it's not for us to make up our own life or our own church.

We go to God and there are really specific things that God told the church to do, but I just want to highlight four of them. There are more that we could highlight, but I just want to do four of them and I'll tell you what they are right now and then we'll just take them one by one but just understand all of these are applications of Acts 2 42 of this picture of the people gathering together in gladness and sincerity of heart, they're being washed in the water of the Word, they're rejoicing together, they're bringing their offerings together to go do work out in the world. That's what this is all about. So I'm going to give you four things. First, the centrality of the Word of God should be the centrality of the church.

And what I want to say in making this point is that it's so important that any church grow the affections of her people on the Word of God because here's the deal, whatever whatever you grow affections for is the thing for which your affections will lean. You always grow in what you're doing, right? And you know here's maybe a ridiculous illustration of this. A long time ago, I owned an automobile dealership that sold old cars. And but I had somebody else running it, I don't really know much about it but what I noticed is I would see all these cars these these gorgeous cars with brand-new chrome you know cars from the 50s and the 60s and the 70s and these guys you know they love chrome they love chrome more than they love their wives, most of them.

But I realized you know I'm seeing all these cars you know go into this showroom and I'd go in and I'd look at them and I thought you know what, after a while I thought you know I started liking chrome more. Well it's because I was seeing it all the time. That's why, you know, you always grow in the direction of what you see and what you hear. Your affections are always drawn by what you're given. So in a church, give the Word of God so people have an affection for the Word of God, when you come together your chief desire, hunger, satisfaction should be the Word of God.

Build a church on the Word of God. So that's why we gather together. I mean, we know the fellowship is really wonderful, you know, all the sort of the accouterments, the relationships, but get the church so that what they care about the most above everything else is the word of God. And then you know what? They'll be nicer to each other because they really care about the Word of God.

The fellowship will be better but because they care about the Word of God. If they care too much about the fellowship and not the Word of God, the thing will go haywire. Everybody's gonna be worried about, oh how are we relating, how does somebody treating me, how did they look at me, you know, am I feeling connected? You know, they're gonna go way astray, but if the Word of God is the center they're not going to be thinking about that very much. Okay?

Number two, prayer. The church gathering together in its outpourings of the heart before God laying our problems and our you know our concerns before God, our hopes, you know the things we want to do, the things we're risking maybe everything on praying as a church, then thirdly giving, you know, because in this passage, you know, they were bringing their resources into the storehouse and they were distributing, I'm going to talk about giving and stewardship of resources in the church, the priorities of your checkbook and the centrality and the prioritization of gathering into the storehouse and not individualistic, not thinking individualistically first, but thinking corporately first about how we handle the finances in the church. Fourth, singing. Singing. Now, here's a secret.

Yesterday I said, Tom what would you like me to preach on? He said, could you talk about singing? I said, I would love to talk about singing and I'm going to talk about singing. So I can't wait to get to the part about singing. You know, whenever you're preaching through something, you know, there's always somewhere you just can't wait to get to.

Well, there you have it. I'm going to give sort of a biblical theology of singing and what it's really all about, and when we sing the last two songs, I just want to challenge us to think really, to sing really thoughtfully, because God actually makes singing something far more rich and complex and emotional and intellectual and relational than you can even imagine, and I'll walk you through the passages that prove that. So and then you know and then when we come back tomorrow I'll finish the sermon, you know, because it's gonna go for about ten hours. Okay, I've really actually just given you the sermon, I probably should just quit right now, but okay, so here we go. The Word of God, the centrality and the prioritization of the Word of God and all the affections of the church dialed into the Word of God.

This is so important and I want to take us to, you don't need to turn there, but in 1st Peter chapter 2 the Apostle says therefore laying aside all malice, all deceit, all hypocrisy, all envy, all evil speaking, okay, as newborn babes desire the pure milk of the Word. That's what the church should do. By the way, this chapter is really all about how the church functions together. But this section here is about the Word of God. As newborn babes desire the pure milk of the Word that you may grow thereby, if indeed you've tasted the kindness of the Lord coming to him as a living stone rejected indeed by men but chosen by God and precious.

You also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. This is a picture of the living stones, the people in the church coming together and they have the word of God before them and that binds them together through the blood of Jesus Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. But here's what I want us to consider from this passage as newborn babes long, long for it. Just long for it. You come to church on the Lord's Day, make it your first affection to come to hear the Word of God.

Build your life on the Word of God. Moses said, it is your life. How about that? The Word of God is your life, and God has designed his words so that you would be carried along, you know, by his Word, And it's so important that your chief longing when you come here is for the Word of God. And the chief attractional offering of the church must be the Word of God.

There are so many attractions that you can put in a church. Forget them. The attractionality of the Word of God is the most important thing. And you taste it and you want it. And here's, you know, people come to me when they come to our church and they say, hey where's this church going?

What's the vision? I love that question and people always ask it. Here's what I always say, I said, you know, God leads his church by his word and right now we are in John chapter 10. That's where God's leading our church right now. We're gonna open up John 10 and God's leading our church to understand I am the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. That's where our church is going. That's what we want you to think about. Well then we're gonna be in John chapter 11 and God's gonna lead us. He's gonna lead us all together and He's just gonna keep shepherding us.

You know, do we really know where we're going? Well, here's what we want. Here's where we want to go. We want to go where the Word of God takes us. And that's sufficient.

That's why we always say, you know, Scripture is sufficient. That is such a critical thing. Is Scripture enough, you know, for you? And you know, this is so critical to God that he actually commands the church to set aside men for the Word of God in prayer. He prioritizes that and he speaks of prioritizing that to such a degree actually to command the church to honor their elders and to give them freedom to labor in the Word of God.

1st Timothy 5 17 and 18 says this, Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and in doctrine." That's prioritization. God prioritizes the setting aside of men to labor in the Word of God. Verse 18, for the scripture says, you shall not muzzle the ox while it treads out the grain and the labor is worthy of his wages. Well what's that? Are you saying our pastor is like an ox?

Well sort of, He kind of is, you know. Here's how he's like an ox. He needs food if he's gonna do his work. He's got to have what he needs to do his work. And so it would be so wrong to treat an animal by depriving him of food so he doesn't have enough energy and focus to do his work, even more so with a man.

It's wrong to have a man so scattered and diversified that he can't actually shepherd. So it's prioritization, right? That's exactly what he's saying here, and especially quote-unquote those who labor in the Word and in doctrine. He has to have the bandwidth in order to labor in the Word of God. It's so critical that the church makes sure that that happens, okay?

But why? It's because of how important it is to have a people who long for the pure milk of the Word so that they're fed carefully, systematically, heartfully, right? But if a man is so, you know, diffused into so many things it's hard for him to do that. But all of this has to do with the centrality of the Word of God in the church and how God has designed to accomplish it, and he's designed to accomplish it by forming the consciences of the people so that their affections are for the Word of God, but when they come, their affections are built carefully, diligently, by a man who has been set aside by that church. So the centrality of the Word of God is so critical for the sweetening of the people of God.

And I pray that this church and, you know, all the churches that name the name of Jesus Christ, that they have one passion, one holy passion, and that is to bring the Word of God. You know, whenever a pastor brings the Word of God, he's always talking above his own head, always. You know, but he, this is part of God's design. You know, whenever you preach, you're always so aware of your own inadequacy and your own short-falling in that area that you're preaching on. It's good for the man, but it's also good for the people because they feel the same way, but it takes them just another step in this long life of sanctification.

Day by day, year by year, month by month, God is transforming His people into His image. He's caring for them, He's being patient, He's moving us one step at a time, He's so kind, He's carrying us through this wilderness like a father would carry his son, you know. Okay, the prioritization of the Word of God to build the attractional affections by the Word of God alone. Okay? Number two, prayer.

Now, I've struggled with trying to develop this point of prayer. It's very clear that the early church was founded on prayer, and there's so much to say about prayer. By the way, just I want to recommend a book that Joel Beakey wrote a while back called Taking Hold of God. It's about prayer. Some of the most heartwarming things about prayer said in that book.

But the church prioritized prayer instantaneously and we know that from Acts chapter 1. Right at the beginning, the church gathers in Jerusalem in Acts 1 verse 12 they return to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives and they entered into an upper room and there and and what did they do they prayed That was the inaugural moment for the church and verse 14 says in Acts 1, these all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers. So they had a they prioritized prayer when they returned from Jerusalem, they set that in order, they gathered together to pray and you notice their unity, they were gathered together in one accord, in prayer and supplication. There's about three-fourths of a doctrine of prayer right there in that phrase, okay? But their prayers were lifted up before God in unity.

You know, when you pray together, we, You know, we pray our Father, we pray we. Corporate prayer is different compared to private prayer. Private prayer says, Lord I. Corporate prayer says, Lord we. That's why when the disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, He said pray like this, our Father.

In other words, our, all of us together are praying. You know, I tell our church when we gather to pray, one of the ways that God has designed that we are all able to concentrate, because it's easy to kind of zone out, it's easy to go to sleep. Have you ever gone to sleep in prayer? Don't say it. I have.

But, You know, sometimes you go to sleep in prayer. It's bad to do that. It's so terrible. But one of the ways that God has designed you not to go to sleep in prayer is that when we pray, we affirm the prayer by saying amen. Now, you don't have to say it out loud.

Some places do. If you go down to Jeff Pollard's church and you pray with those guys, when you finish your phrase, everybody's gonna say, Amen. I was in Romania one time, there were probably 3, 000 people in this church, and they had a time of prayer and people would stand in this gigantic auditorium. I don't know how we could hear everybody pray, no microphones or anything? And after the end of every prayer the whole crowd would go Amen!

Like that. Well that probably doesn't happen here that much but the spirit of it should. That when someone prays it's our prayer, like we're all piling in, it's as if they're saying what we're saying, we're praying in one accord, that's prayer. You know if one person prays everybody's piling on saying in their heart, Amen, Amen. You know and whether you say it out loud or not I'm not so not confident it's necessary but it's wonderful when it happened you know and Amen.

Yeah, you know what, One of my favorite churches to preach in the whole world is that Calvary Revival Church in Chesapeake, Virginia where Carlton McLeod is a big black church. I'm telling you when you preach, there is feedback. You get help. I mean, you don't just get help from heaven I mean you get help from everybody you know and they're spurring you on I love it but that's the spirit of prayer we all pile on you know when the you know it's just such a beautiful thing to be involved in that kind of a one accord, and notice the word, they were steadfastly. You know, this is a compound verb and it is where there's this idea of a face toward God, steadfast, you know, pressing toward God in the prayers.

You know, I remember this story, there were men who traveled to go observe the ministry of Charles Spurgeon, thousands of people were coming, and they came to him, you know, the pragmatists, there were pragmatists everywhere, there were pragmatists, you know, in the 1860s too, in Spurgeon's Day, and men came to say, what's the secret of the power of this ministry? Like they wanted to learn the secret of the power of the ministry, And so he waved at them and they followed him down two flights of stairs and he flew open the door of the basement and there were 200 men on their knees praying. He said, there it is. This is the boiler room of the church. This is everything.

It's the prayers of the Saints that lift up the work of God in the world. You know, prayer is so good. Prayer admits our weaknesses. It's an acknowledgement of our vulnerability. It's really a declaration that we're not sufficient for anything, but God is.

You know, prayer is just throwing yourself on God who made the world. You know, if you're really able to do that, you know, there's nothing more comforting than to just rest in prayer, to be able to just exist under the shadow of his wings knowing that he cares for you. So there's this one body in prayer. And you know through the prayers we, you know we're supporting one another, we we care for the sick through our prayers, we you know we groan, we groan in the pain that we have. Guess what?

Life is full of pain. God has given you a way to deal with your pain. You know, you don't have to just suck it up. You actually are able to cast your cares on him, you know, for he cares for you. I remember the story of Hezekiah, he got this really threatening letter from the king of Assyria saying, we're going to crush you.

185, 000 troops outside the city wall ready to crush them and he went into the temple and he spread out his prayer. He spread out the letter. He spread out the letter. You know I don't know how many letters I've spread out before God. Threatening letters, you know.

But God is able to take care of you, you know. You know, you have a threatening letter. Everybody has a threatening letter on them. Everybody's fearing something in this room right now. People are fearing different things, you know.

You know some of you are fearing whether you're ever gonna get married. I did. You know, I married Deborah when I was 28. I thought nobody was ever gonna say yes to me, you know. Finally somebody did, but you just don't know what God's doing with your life.

But God gives you this way of casting your cares upon him. You know, every man in this room has some threat, some financial threat on his life. And I don't care how much money you have, there's always a threat. It doesn't matter. So you have these letters, these fearful letters, you know.

I don't know what it is for you, but whatever you're afraid of, God has given you a way to cast your cares upon Him. And the fears of your church and the cares of your church, you know, everybody gets to lay them out together and to bind your hearts together, you know, to pray about those things that concern you. So prayer, it's such a it's such a life-giving thing and God gives us a way not to just stuff our problems or or to try to do, you know, to try to satisfy our longings in some other way. He gives us himself, we get to go to him. The source of everlasting wisdom.

And you can talk to him, you know. Prayer. Let's talk about the next thing. Giving. We noticed that the church was gathering into the storehouse the means to accomplish much of the work of God and this all has to do with the priorities of the checkbooks of the people in the church, the gathering, the giving, and then the flowing of the goodness of the Lord, you know, out in to the ministry.

So the church is meant to be a flow through of blessing, you know. Well guess what, this church just put on a conference. How, I don't, you know, you fed a lot of people and you bought a facility to gather people together and, you know, you took resources to be a blessing to people all over this state that's what you did and you know this is just the beauty of the gathering. You'd not know, but none of you could have done this by yourself probably. You know, even the labor that it took.

If you had to hire a caterer to do all that happened, what do you think that would have cost? I'll tell you right now, $50, 000. Okay. For all those meals served like that, it would have cost maybe not that much, but it meant a lot of money. So, and they the the early church prioritized the corporate gatherings to bring the ties into the storehouse to give through it and you know the in 1st Corinthians 16 verses 1 through 3 there's actually a picture of this where there was an intentional setting aside of resources of the people in the church to to bring together for the care of other people.

In this case it had to do with a famine that was taking place. There was a real need and so what what we read in 1st Corinthians 16 is each one set aside according to his income, there's a lot said right there, each one set aside So each person in the church allocated something, you know, in a premeditated way, in a calculated way, and everybody couldn't give the same amount so it was according to their income. And by the way, this is the way giving is talked about all the way in the Old Testament. It's always according to what you've been given. And in verse 14 of 1 Corinthians 16, even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel.

So there's this whole context of caring for the poor because the church was able to corporately prioritize bringing the tithes and offerings into the church, and then they were able to help other churches multiply and survive and be fed, and then it also helped those who preached the gospel to be able to live by the gospel. That's actually back to the whole matter of setting aside elders. And it was cheerful giving. If you go to 2 Corinthians chapter 9, boy Don should talk about this, he's preaching through the Corinthian letters, but in 2 Corinthians 9, have you got to St. Corinthians 9 yet?

There you go, well why am I up here? He knows this text better than I do, but there's these marvelous, oh they're so encouraging statements about giving in this passage. I mean, if you're not giving after you read this passage, you need to just keep reading it because it's so encouraging. You know, he says, now considering the ministry, ministering to the saints, It's superfluous for me to write to you, in other words, you're already doing this, you're already gathering. And then he says in verse 2 that what you're doing is stirring up other people to give, like the giving of a church stirs up other churches to give.

And he says, he says, I know your willingness about which I boast of you to the Macedonians that Achaia was ready a year ago. In other words, they were prioritizing this a previous year ago. And he says your zeal has stirred up the majority. You have this giving spirit in this church that Paul was going around boasting about, you know, and their zeal stirred up everybody else. And verse 5 tells us that it was it was premeditated and joyful generosity.

Therefore, I thought it necessary to exhort the brethren to to you ahead of time to prepare your generous gift beforehand. So the Apostle was telling them, prepare it beforehand so that the gift might be ready and so that your generosity was not grudging, not a grudging obligation, but it was just part of the overflow of your desires. It was premeditated, you decided to set it aside and it was a joyful thing and you went ahead and did it. But he says what kind of gift it was. It wasn't sparing giving, it was bountiful giving.

Verse 6, but this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. So this is not the prosperity gospel, this is the prosperity of the gospel working in a person's heart, and when the gospel works in power there's a spirit of generosity not withholding, not holding back, and not grudging at all, not sparingly, that's the word he uses, but bountifully. And in verse 7 he says that your heart should be the force for directing you. So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loves a cheerful giver." In other words, you know, the the apostles weren't going around and saying, have you given your 10% yet? They weren't doing that.

They were just challenging people to give out of the abundance of their heart and to give sacrificially. And their giving, you know, resulted in the worship of God. You see that in verses 11 through 15. And you know, you see a picture of this in the ministry of Jesus of the widow who came and gave, you know, her the widow's might, and Jesus says to his disciples, I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all those who have given to the Treasury, for they put in out of their abundance but she gave out of her poverty. She put in all she had, she put in her whole livelihood, and she really becomes an example of generosity.

Now all of this that I've read about the New Testament was really set forth in the Old Testament. The New Testament and the Old Testament are very consistent on this matter of giving, and it really begins with the commands of God for Israel to tithe, and there are three tithes in the Old Testament. There was the Levitical tithe which was designed to support the Levites, and then there was the festival tithe, and that tithe was brought in to finance the festivals for the feasting. A church should always ask, are we feasting enough? Okay, actually God wants the church to feast.

I mean look at yeah I mean we think the the Old Testament feasts certainly are not required today, they were really fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but they have something to say to us and that is the church should feast. The church should set aside its resources to feast. Well that's what you did this last weekend, you set aside resources and you fed a whole bunch of people. It was a great time. It was a really happy time.

That's what you did. And then there was the tithe of the poor for the poor. You can read about this in Deuteronomy 14 and this was offered every third of the year and so there were actually three ties one was 10% and another was 10% and the other was about 3.3% so 23% was what they were gathering in the Old Testament to support the work of the in the temple and the ministry of the Levites and the caring for the people and the feasts and also dealing with the poor. This tithe that was collected I believe three times a year was for the poor, so 23%. That's what they were doing.

Is the tithe for today? Well I don't know. I really don't. I've preached on Deuteronomy 14 and the tithes of the Old Testament, I preached on these passages. Here's what I think right now, it doesn't matter, God says to give generously.

You know, so I mean I think most pastors say start with 10% and do as much as you can, you know, don't start with nothing, intentionally set something aside, just like the New Testament says. Intentionally, proactively set something aside. Bring it into the storehouse for the support of the ministry of the Word and the blessing of the people of God. Prioritize that. Now you know people give resources to all kinds of things, I think that's a good thing.

Here's what I think the Bible teaches. We first prioritize corporate giving and then secondarily to consider individualistic giving. That's just my perspective. I think the Bible sort of presents that picture to us. It's interesting, you know, a research organization a while back said that six percent of Christians tithe.

Six percent? How about that? And nine, so okay let's say it another way, ninety-four percent of the people who say they're Christians don't tithe. You know what that means? There's a lot of non-christianity hanging around out there.

You know what it is? It's the people that either haven't read their Bibles, they just don't care. Or they're all wrapped up in their own prosperity and success that they've missed it. 32% say that they do tithe, but only 6% really do tithe, how about that? They lie.

Or maybe they just think they that you know we're self flattering, we are self flattering beings, you know, so we always think more highly of ourselves than we are. So maybe we would like the idea of tithing and so we say we're tithing but when you look at our checkbook we're not really tithing because we're just flattering ourselves when we take the survey. This organization said that the average is two to three percent of their income, two to three not ten, that's the average two to three percent. So anyway that's kind of the state of you know the Union, well but it's well let's just talk about you know regions of the country. Southerners, of whom we are chief, give 1.5% of their income compared to the Midwest and the Midwest is 1.4 percent.

So if you live in the South you're you know you're bigger givers by a tenth of a percent you know than the Midwest but you know but if you go to the west and the northeast it's 0.7%. 0.7%, how about that? So that's just a reality. Let this just be a challenge, bring the tithes into the storehouse, be generous, you know, look at the patterns of the Old and the New Testament and lay your heart before God and say, Lord, what can I, what should I give? And inspire everybody around you to give even more sacrificially than you do now.

You know, there's a remarkable story in Exodus chapter 36 where God is designing the worship of the tabernacle. You remember that story of Bezalel the craftsman? It's such a marvelous picture of spirit-directed craftsmanship in a man's life. Well they were building the tabernacle place to gather people to worship like we are gathered here now and the people begin their their hearts are stirred and they bring their freewell offerings and they brought so much the leaders finally said stop we can't even count it stop stop giving you know what if that happened here in this church? You just had such an overabundance.

You know, I pray that happens in our church. You know, I pray that, you know, so much comes in we don't even know how to deploy it, you know. That was the situation in Exodus 36. It's amazing what happened there. You know, Malachi says, stop robbing God.

He says, can you rob God? That's what he says here in Malachi chapter 3, he says, will a man rob God? Verse 8, yet you've robbed me, but you say, how have we robbed you?" That's what the people are saying, how have we robbed you? And God answers, in tithes and offerings, that's how, And he said, you've robbed me. And then he says, it's so amazing, again we're way back to the patience of God here and the kindness of God.

Listen to how God responds. He says, you've robbed me of tithes and offerings. Well what is God gonna do? What is he gonna do? Well I'll tell you what he's gonna do.

He says, bring all the tithes into the storehouse that there may be food in the house." In other words, it ain't over yet. And try me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough for you to receive it, and I will rebuke the devourer for your sake." In other words, I'm gonna take care of all the stuff that's sucking all the money out of your financial system. I'm gonna rebuke the devourer so that he won't destroy the fruit of your ground nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field says the Lord of hosts." The Lord of hosts says this. They're not giving, they're robbing God and God says, you know what, just try me. Try me.

I'm gonna take care of you. Try me." Isn't God, he's so patient, he's so kind, it's unbelievable, It is unbelievable. Oh well, let's talk about singing. So we've talked about the centrality of the Word of God, we've talked about the pivotal nature of prayer, and we've talked about how important it is to be a sacrificially giving church that brings the tithe in the storehouse and prioritizes that giving and now we talk about singing. Now turn to Colossians chapter 3 verse 16.

The Bible actually teaches us how to sing and again this passage in Colossians is about church life, it's about how the church should function together, there's all kinds of relational commands about how we should treat one another and how we should live together in the church when we gather together, you know, to sort of have our adjustments, you know, week by week. And in Colossians 3 14 he says, But above all put on love, which is the bond of perfection, and verse 15, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which you are also called in one body and be thankful." And then we get to verse 16 and 17 and that's the heart of this matter. This passage of Scripture I think is a seminal summary passage of Scripture that instructs the church about singing. And you know, there are hundreds and hundreds of places that singing is referred to in the Bible, and I think this is, it's kind of a summary statement of what the Bible says, but let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

So you know when the church gathers she always sings. I don't know where else this happens where when people get together they sing well that's what we do you can hardly help Christians from singing you know try to think of a time when you got together and you didn't sing it almost never happens I fail to even think of a time when we got together as a church and didn't sing. Well that's what the church does. Why? Well the church sings because God commanded it to sing.

That's why we sing. Like we didn't just make this up. I mean it you know I don't know if you remember when you first walked into a church after you were converted and these people were singing and you felt so awkward. You had never done that before. You'd never sung, you young people you grew up singing, you don't know what I'm talking about, but you've never done that, except maybe in your car or something, you know, but not like this.

But the church sings because it's commanded to. You know there are a lot of pastors that they say, I can't sing worth nothing, but their churches still sing. Because God commanded them to sing, not because it's their gift, you know. We sing because God called us to sing and we sing because Scripture is sufficient. We sing because we want to do what God told us to do in the church.

That's why we sing. It's really simple. We didn't make this up, you know. So it's a matter of the sufficiency of Scripture, but the Scripture does not only tell us to sing, And this is what I really want to drive in. The Bible, God tells us how to sing, how to think while you're singing, who to sing to, how to feel while you're singing.

The Bible tells you all this. It's awesome. And I pray that when we sing the last two songs, after I preach, that you'll sing very intentionally and thoughtfully about what you're doing. Who you singing to? What are you doing?

Because I'll just give you a little tip here, we'll get to it in a few moments here, but the Bible teaches the church to sing in different voices, and you notice songs are written in different voices, some songs are sung directly to God, some songs are declaring doctrine, like the whole church is just declaring, you know, a doctrine. Some songs, and by the way, many songs are like this and you should be really observant when you sing a song. It's really clear a lot of songs are sung in the voice of everybody singing to each other, Like you're actually singing to one another You know Like the first song we sang crown him with many crowns Everybody was saying crown him with me. I was crown him with many crowns crown him with many crowns that's what we were doing. We were singing, we were just like challenging one another to do something.

Lots of songs are like that, and when you sing you should think like that, you should think in the voice of the song. It's really, when you think that way, it just transforms the way you sing because there's this there's this really wrong idea that's in people's heads that when you sing it's between you and God it's you know before an audience of one right Well some songs are written that way, but you know what? Most songs aren't. Most songs are about the majesty of God that you declare, and lots of songs you're just singing to each other. And like when you go home you can say, they sang to me.

All these people sang to me. How about that? It was awesome. Go home and tell your cousin. Yeah, they sang to me.

Sing like four songs. It was great. I loved it they're telling me to you know crown him with many crowns so anyway the Bible makes it really clear that the church is a singing family. And when we sing, we're declaring what kind of God we worship. When we sing, we're declaring what kind of gospel we preach.

When we sing we're proclaiming what's the basis of our unity and we're proclaiming what kind of feelings we have about God, what kind of thoughts we have about God, what we think about each other. Singing is really very complex and multifaceted. It isn't just before an audience of one, forget that, get that out of your mind. Except there is this connection with God and one another, there's this fellow, the word fellowship in the Bible is actually a very complex, has a very complex meaning, and it has to do with, you know, you are with one another but in the presence of God and his Son and his Spirit and you're also together all together. Fellowship is this multifaceted thing where there's truth and love and relationship, communication, I mean that's what fellowship is.

It isn't just, you know, having a fellowship meal. It's bigger than that and singing is like that too. Singing is like a vocal fellowship meal in a lot of ways where God and the Spirit and the Word of Truth and one, you're all together with one another when you sing. And it's a marvelous gift. Do you know why I said I can't wait to get the part about singing?

You get that? Singing also is so important because it declares what kind of church we want to be and what kind of doctrine we want to embrace and what kind of relationships we want to have together. Singing does all that And I'm sure that's why, you know, we're commanded to sing. You know, I love the sound of all the voices, you know, the children's voices all mingled with the adult voices. It's one of the great things about having children in your services.

Didn't it crack you up yesterday when I said have all the kids stand, almost the whole crowd stood? How about that? I love that, you know, and I especially love it. You know, it seems like when a child is maybe, you know, four or five, six, seven years old, you know, they don't really know how to carry the tomb but they want they want to belt it out you know I just love that and it reminds me that Isaac Watts hymn that he wrote Jesus Shall Reign you know and in that song Isaac Watts is, he's actually, the lyrics of the song just assume that babies are in the church and the song goes, people and realms from every tongue dwell on his love with sweetest song.'" And then the words that always just melt my heart, "'And infant voices to proclaim their early blessings in His name. A child singing about their earthly blessings in the words to a song.

To me it's the most beautiful thing to hear. You know, Here's where I've ended up about singing. My favorite sound in the whole world, I don't care what sound, I love the sound of a river, I love the sound of wind blowing through trees, I love the sound of thunder, you know. My favorite sound in the whole world is the sound of the church singing. I love it.

And I often just want to stop and listen. And then I start feeling kind of, well, you should be singing, you know. I almost feel guilty that I'm not singing, but I want to hear at the same time, you know what I mean? And so I start singing again, but I could just, I could just lay down, I could just lay down on the floor and listen to the church sing and go home, I'd be so happy." You know, I love that sound. Especially the infant voices who are proclaiming their early blessings in his name.

Well that's why, you know, singing is one of the battle lines for the preservation of the church. It's a cleansing agent for your emotions, it really is, and you know, there are songs that carry you through different parts of your life. There are almost always times of crisis, but songs have carried me through, you know, for many many years. There are certain songs that when we sing them it takes me back maybe 30 years, maybe 20, maybe five years, maybe, you know, there are songs, you know, that carry you through. So it's good for your soul to sing the songs and to sing with all your heart, especially when you're going through a time of difficulty.

And you'll find that that song will carry you through for the rest of your life. And that song will remind you of how good God was to carry you through, because remember, he's carrying his church through the wilderness like a father carries his son. And one of the ways he does that is through the songs that he has commanded the church to sing. It's such a good thing to sing. It's interesting too about singing, you know, what we sing in the church, it ends up affecting us.

It works with our hearts, it refocuses us and things like that, but the singing that we do in a congregation doesn't usually stop there, and you know, what we sing at church we end up humming in our hearts and what we hum in our hearts we end up singing in our homes what we sing in our homes we end up belting out in our cars. You know my daughter Claudia is really famous for this. She'll walk through the house and she'll be humming some song and two hours later everybody's singing that song, you know. It's infectious. You just you catch it, you know.

It's beautiful. It's so good to sing. Sing in your home, sing in your car, take the songs of this church and hum them, you know, as you go on. So, okay, singing Christianly is to sing with the depth of understanding, with feeling, with self-consciousness and intentionality of the voice that the song is written in. Christian singing is emotionally rich, it's intellectually deep, it's theologically sound, it's relationally connected, and Romans 15 says it's evangelistically self-conscious because Romans 15 says when you sing you're also singing to the unbelievers in the church.

How about that? You know one of the most heartbreaking things to me is when people come into it an unbeliever comes into the church and the people are just sort of mouthing the words. They should be singing to the unbelievers with all their heart, with loving kindness and truth, to woo them through the singing. Romans 15 says that we sing to the Gentiles when we sing. So in other words, not an audience of one, we're singing to one another about God, declaring doctrine, and we're also singing to the unbelievers, you know, who are among us.

So it's such a self-conscious activity. Now, you know, in Colossians 3 you get this idea that we are singing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We're admonishing one another, so remember the voice is this the voice of the song. Is this song meant for us to admonish one another? Like am I gonna admonish you or you in this song?

Are you admonishing me? You know, isn't that amazing? You know, you got a hundred people admonishing you in a song. That's what God meant it for! He wants to admonish you, he wants to teach you.

You know the word admonishment that's used in Colossians 3? It's the word that we get counseling from. Nuthateo, okay? The term nuthatic counseling, you know, counseling with the Word of God, that's what that term has come to mean to you, but it's a Greek word, but God uses singing to counsel you, to carry you through. Singing is counseling.

You're counseling one another, you're counseling your own soul when you sing. You know, there's a remarkable thing that I didn't realize it until just recently. There's something happening when we sing that I didn't really realize. Go to Hebrews chapter 2, open to Hebrews 2. You know, as you get to Hebrews 2, I'll just sort of give you the background.

The Bible says that Jesus is always walking among the lampstands of the church. Whenever his people are gathered, he's there. In Hebrews chapter 2 and 5 verse 10 he tells us that Jesus is he's bringing many sons to glory, he's bringing many sons to glory, and he's standing in the congregation and he's not ashamed to call us brethren, and he's singing. He's singing with us and to us and to God all at one time. And there he is, verse 12.

Jesus is in the congregation and here's what he says, I will declare your name to my brethren. So he's in the midst of the assembly, I will sing praise to you. Jesus is in the congregation and he's declaring the name of God to the church and he's singing praises to God. Verse 13, and again I will put my trust in him. That's what he's singing.

And again, here I am and the children whom God has given me." So there's Jesus. It's like He's standing in the congregation whenever you sing, and He's saying, here I am! I'm bringing many sons to glory, and I'm not ashamed of them. That's what's happening. Jesus Christ, the Savior of your soul, is not ashamed to call you brethren, and he's with you in the congregation, and he's singing to you and he's singing with you, And he's praising God and he's singing his name to you.

But what I love more than anything about that, this part in Hebrews is that he says he's not ashamed to call us brethren. I don't understand that. I really don't understand that. But that's what he does with his people, Week after week, slowly sanctifying them, caring for them, walking with them, singing to them, singing with them, having them sing to one another, having them sing to the unbelievers. And Jesus is singing to the unbelievers too, by the Holy Spirit whenever you're gathered together.

He's always at work. You know Zephaniah 3.17 I think is an Old Testament picture of this where the prophet says, sing O daughter of Zion, shout, O Israel, be glad with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord your God is in your midst. The Mighty One will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness.

He will quiet you with his love. He will rejoice over you as singing." How about that? This has always been that way in the Church of Jesus Christ. He's rejoicing over us with singing. I'm just so stunned about the whole doctrine of singing.

We could talk for a long time About singing. A while back I started to do a biblical theology of singing from Genesis to Revelation. I was stunned by what I learned. It's unbelievable. I wish I could do it right now.

Okay, Here's the summary. Christian singers engage in spiritual activity. Christian singers are conscious of the message they're singing. Christian singers are intentional. They are teaching one another.

They are admonishing one another, they are emotionally engaged, they're singing the truth, they are singing from a genuine heart in spirit and in truth. Christian singers are intellectually deep, they are theologically sound, they are relationally connected with one another, they are evangelistically self-conscious, and they're thankful, and they're being cared for by the one who's not ashamed to call them brethren. Well, I pray that these things, These four things, which are applications of Acts 2 42, would find great traction among all of us in the church. A longing for the Word of God, like newborn babes desire the pure milk of the Word. Dedication to prayer, being fitted and held together by every joint according to the proper working of each part, praying together, Flowing our resources to spread the Word of God, bringing the tithes into the storehouse, doing more work than we ever thought we could do because we prioritized the storehouse of the church.

And then finally, singing together, letting the Word of Christ dwell richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. May the Lord bless his word among us. Would you pray with me? Lord, I'm so thankful that you are Lord, that your word brings us into every good thing. Thank you for this patient care for our souls.

Thank you that while you're sanctifying us, you're not ashamed to call us your brethren. And you do bring us everything we need for life and godliness, every joy or trial falling from above, every fear meant to be laid out before you, everything laid at your feet when we gather together so that we might cast all of our cares upon you, and to remember every Lord's Day like no other day that you care for us. Amen.