Tongues of Fire

SERMON: 2009-02-24--ac0914--tongues-of-fire SOURCE DURATION: 00:53:39.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 2 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The candidates [0] through [14] are all musical segments (hymns/worship songs), indicating the transition out of the sermon into structured worship. Candidate [15] is clearly non-sermon room audio (applause). Therefore, candidate 14 is the last segment immediately preceding the definitive non-sermon material. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the start and end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:00:29.600-00:01:55.360, 00:45:02.420-00:49:17.360, 00:49:42.960-00:53:32.860 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: start, end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:00:00.000; remove through 00:01:55.360] [CUT] I want to begin this morning by showing you a little video clip. I'll warn you ahead of time, it's a spoof, and it could sound kind of irreligious if you take it that way. But take a listen to it and look at it, and then we'll talk about it a little bit, because it's closer to the truth than sometimes we would like to admit. This clip is called "It's All About Me." ♪ It's all about me, really ♪ It is "All About You." Now, the greatest collection of me worship ever assembled on one CD. ♪ It's all about now I lift my name on high ♪ All 20 songs, "All About You." ♪ I exalt me ♪ This amazing collection is great to share with friends, if you have any. Everyone can join in the worship with you, for you, and about you, because you are unique, and you love you. ♪ There is none like me ♪ All this for only $19.95. Operators are standing by to serve you. ♪ And I am why I sing, and I am why I live ♪ If you order now, you'll also receive a second CD of Yule Tide favorites. ♪ And oh come let us all go on ♪ Call 1-800-ME-ME-ME, or order online at MeMyselfAndI.com. Call today, because no one can praise you like [CUT] you. [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:01:55.360; resume after this marked segment] So how do you like that? A little bit over the top, but you know, closer to the truth than we sometimes like to admit is it not. I mean, not too many of us would be so brazen as to word it so clearly, "It's all about me." But you know, at the end of the day, a lot, even in the Christian life, and a lot in worship, is really all about me, isn't it? I mean, we come to church when we feel like it. We measure the quality of a service on what it does for me. Do the songs reflect my preferences? Does the sermon speak into my need? Did my friends notice me? Did they celebrate me? Really, in a lot of ways, it's all about me. And it's not that all of that is wrong, because we are who we are, and we have needs, but you will recall that the whole purpose of redemption is to transform our lives from a place where it's all about me to a place where increasingly it is all about God. And when we sing, as we did a few moments ago, "Father, glorify your name," then the issue is not so much what can I get from God, though God is certainly interested in every last one of us, but the bigger question is, what can God get from me? And the big question in the Christian life and the big question in Christian history, then, is how can God take people who are inherently self-centered, for whom it's all about me, my loves, my likes, my dislikes, my comforts, how can he transform us into a people for whom it's all about God? And the key to that, as we have been seeing, is the baptism in the Holy Spirit, for we read in Scripture, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." And so far we have looked at Acts chapter 2, we have looked at the first phenomenon associated with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That verse reads, "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a mighty wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting." And I pointed out last week that wind represents the life-giving power of God's Holy Spirit. Even as we live by the breath of God in the natural, so we live by the breath of God spiritually. He's the one who makes dead bones come to life. He's the one who took Abram and changed him into Abraham, Sarah into Sarah, breathed his life into them, and gave birth to the nation of Israel. The wind is violent, why? Because it is unstoppable, it clears away every obstacle to the coming of the kingdom, and it's also unpredictable. Because as Jesus, in his conversation with Nicodemus put it in John chapter 3, "The wind blows wherever it pleases, you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going." So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit, which brings us this morning then to the second phenomenon associated with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and that is tongues of fire. Acts 2-3 puts it this way, "They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them." As we take a little time this morning now to look at that verse, there are a number of things that I want us to notice about what it says. And the first is this, the fire is not a physical fire. For notice again what it says, "They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire." And you might have caught it last week, the same thing is true for the wind, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven. It wasn't really a wind that you could discern with your senses, and it wasn't really a fire that was a physical fire. In fact, I pointed out last week, talked about the Indonesian revival and similar phenomena that happened in that outpouring of the Holy Spirit back in 1965. If you will recall, when the fire brigade saw the flames of fire coming out of that little Presbyterian church building and tried to douse it with water, they couldn't put it out because the wind and the fire are not physical phenomena, they are a spiritual expression that is geared to indicate the character of God's Holy Spirit as he is poured out upon the church. Which then of course immediately raises the question, what is the significance in the Bible concerning fire? What does fire represent? And fire represents, I think, at least three things. The first, the holy presence of God. All through scripture, whenever God shows up in power and majesty, he is pictured as being enveloped in fire. The first reference you find already in Genesis chapter 3, Adam and Eve have just been kicked out of the garden. How did God make provision so that they couldn't get back to the tree of life? You'll know the story. He placed cherubim to guard the way back to the garden. What were the cherubim carrying? Flaming swords. The fire of God that would exercise judgment on any unholy person trying to draw near to the blessings of God. Then later on, of course, in Exodus, when God comes to Israel and enters into covenant with Israel in Exodus 19 and chapter 20, we read here, "Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace. The whole mountain trembled violently, and the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder." There you've got that shofar again, the blowing of the trumpet, announcing the coming of the king. And the book of Hebrews, of course, in Hebrews chapter 13 picks up on this idea of God and His holiness when it says, "Our God is a consuming fire." And if you read the book of Revelation, you'll notice repeatedly when God shows up to exercise judgment, He is accompanied by flashes of lightning, by rumblings and peals of thunder. God is surrounded by fire. "Fire goes before Him," says the psalmist in Psalm 97, "and consumes His foes on every side." And in Psalm 50, the psalmist says, "Our God comes and will not be silent. A fire devours before Him, and around Him a tempest rages." Our God is a holy God. He is a consuming fire. And wherever God goes, there goes His fire. And His fire burns up everything that cannot stand in His presence. He is too holy to allow unholiness to survive in His presence. So that's what fire represents. But here's what's interesting about this fire. In Acts chapter 2, it doesn't consume the church. There is this ball of fire that, as we'll see later on, comes down from heaven and then splits into all these different elements on top of people's heads. But nobody gets burned. As best as I can recall, there are only two Old Testament stories where you have something similar happening. Do you remember them? There's Moses in the wilderness with a burning bush. And then there are Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the book of Daniel in the fiery furnace. And the fire is not consuming them. Now, in order for the fire not to consume you, you've got to be in a place of holiness and righteousness. And what happens here in Acts chapter 2 is the early church is unified in its relationship with the Lord, and it's unified in its relationship with each other. It is covered by the blood of Jesus, and therefore it has the authority to step into the very presence of God. The writer to Hebrews puts it this way. He says, "Since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith." And earlier in Hebrews 4:16, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." God's people don't have to be afraid of the all-consuming presence of God if by faith in Jesus we have been made right with God and we're walking in repentance and in faith. And if you're a child of God this morning and you by faith in Jesus are seeking to live that out in union with the rest of the body of Christ, you carry with you in your heart the fire of God. And wherever you go, that fire will radiate from you. And there will be those who are repulsed by that because it exposes their sin. But there will be others who are drawn to it because they know that God is in your heart and in your life. And ultimately, what converts people in places like this is not just the songs that we sing or the messages that we preach or the way that we embrace or love each other. It is the reality of God's holy fire that convicts us, drives us to our knees, and makes us call out for God to demonstrate his love and his mercy. And if you'll study the history of revivals historically, then you will discover again and again what happens is that God brings people to the end of themselves. They become dissatisfied with their spiritual condition. They become troubled by the gap between what scripture says ought to be happening and what they are experiencing themselves. They are driven to their knees by the circumstances and by the events of life. They begin to call out to God for mercy. They lay hold of what God has provided for them in Jesus. And then when the time is right, God moves. And God sends forth his wind. And God sends forth his spirit in power. So the fire represents, first of all, the consuming presence of a holy God. But secondly, it represents spiritual vision and understanding. We live, of course, in a day and age where you walk into a darkened room and to turn the light on, all you need to do is flick the switch. And most of the time, if the power is there, the room lights up, and we forget that until the advent of electricity, most light had to be generated by fire. And so you either had to make yourself a torch, like you see in old time movies, or you had to make yourself a lamp maybe of olive oil that you could light, or maybe later on a little candle that would cast light into the darkness. But fire, historically, is the way of light. And so even as a literal fire lights up the darkness, literally, so the Holy Spirit is God's fire who lights up our world spiritually. Because fact of the matter is that by nature, we're lost in darkness. That is to say, we don't know who God is. We can't find him. We can't relate to him. We are like a radio station tuned to the wrong station. We can pick up hell, so to speak, and all of its whispers and all of its temptations. But we have such a hard time bringing the reality of God into our lives, even as God's people. The rest of the world is often so much more real than the things of God. And the tragedy of that is that when you're blind, you cannot make yourself see. In fact, you don't even know that you're blind, because if you knew that you were blind, you wouldn't be blind, if you get my drift. By nature, we're prone to hate God, and we're prone to hate our neighbor. And we don't even know there's anything wrong with that. And so it's not until we come to Jesus, repent of our sin, get united to him, and he pours out his Holy Spirit upon our lives, then all of a sudden, one of the first things that happens is that our eyes are opened spiritually. I'll never forget many years ago, when my hunger for more of God led me to a place where I invited people to pray for me to receive a fresh anointing and a baptism in the Holy Spirit. And I'd heard all the stories about the marvelous things that happened to people, and none of those have ever happened to me. But you know what I noticed after a little while? My perception of spiritual things was increasing and sharpening. God became more real. Jesus became more real. The Bible became more real. The things of God began to make sense in a way that in some ways they had not made sense before. And Jesus, of course, talks about that to his disciples in John's gospel when he says, I have much more to say to you, more than you can now hear. But when he that is the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. That's also why Paul in Ephesians chapter 2 prays this prayer for the Ephesians. He says, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and the incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, for above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. I read that prayer many years ago, and I said that prayer is too good to miss out on. And for years, I made that a part of my own prayer life. And if you're the kind of person who longs for more of God, not necessarily bigger miracles, not necessarily bigger outward manifestations, but a heart that is more in tune with him, a heart that is more passionate about serving him, a heart that is more passionate about doing his will, then I suggest you make that prayer a part of your life too. And you will discover, as I have and as many others of God's people have learned, God's Holy Spirit will give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation. And God will become more real. Jesus will become more real. The Bible, when you read it, the songs that you sing, you will know better of what it is that you're singing. And you'll have those moments where the veil is pulled back, and all of a sudden you know that you know that you know that God has spoken into your heart. He has spoken into your spirit. And you see things that you did not see before, and your life will never, ever be the same. Because when God speaks, he also gives you the grace to step into it and learn how to follow him. So the Holy Spirit imparts the presence of a holy God, not only. And the Holy Spirit not only gives us spiritual wisdom and understanding, but he also gives us spiritual passion and energy. Think it through with me. What's our calling as Christians? Well, on the one hand, it's to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. It's to love our neighbor, even the cranky ones, like we love ourselves. And it is to be able to verbalize the praises of God so that we can bear witness to the nations that our God is God. Now, you know just as well as I do that when you try to put that into practice, that's easier said than done. I mean, loving the Lord our God with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our strength, all of our mind, that's pretty high up there. And loving our neighbor, even the ones we like, we have our moments with, let alone the ones we don't like. And bearing witness to the broader world, talking to my friend at work or my girlfriend when she and I sit down and we have coffee together to declare the majesty of Jesus and the power of-- you know how hard that is? You believe me, I don't have to persuade you about that, I suspect. So how do we get transformed? How do we get to a place where we cannot but speak of the things that we have seen and heard? Where worship and loving God above all is the greatest delight of our hearts and where God has grace flowing in us so that we could even love those that naturally we're prone to dislike or to hate? Well, it's all in the baptism of the Holy Spirit who imparts to us spiritual passion and energy. I love that one hymn that we have in our hymn book that says, "Look how we grovel here below, fond of these trifling toys. Our souls can either fly nor go to reach eternal joys. In vain we tune our formal songs, in vain we strive to rise. Hosanna's languish on our tongues and our devotion dies." And the answer? "Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, with all thy quickening powers kindle a flame of sacred love in these cold hearts of ours. Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, with all thy quickening powers come shed abroad the Savior's love, and that shall kindle ours." You see, when God pours out His Spirit upon us afresh, we not only become keenly aware of God's presence in all of life and in all of the world, we not only get our eyes open so that we understand spiritual realities, they become as real, if not more real, than the things that we see around us, but with that comes a baptism of love deep within our hearts that stirs up a passion, and that makes us want to love God and love our neighbor, and that makes us want to see the rest of the world come to a saving faith in him. Most of us have moments like that, don't we? I mean, there are those moments where we reach out to God. There are those moments of revelation, those moments of passion, those moments of energy, those moments of power, but we so easily lose them. Somebody asked Dwight L. Moody many years ago, famous revival preacher in North America and in Europe in the middle of the 1800s. He said, "Why are you always talking "about the need to be filled with the Spirit?" And he said, "It's because I leak." (audience laughing) And I think that's a pretty apt description of most of our lives. And so the Apostle Paul put it this way. He said, "Never flag in zeal. "Be aglow with the Spirit. "Serve the Lord." You've heard me tell the story of the skeptic who lived across from church. And he would watch people coming in, going into this church all the time. And he was often invited to church, but he always resisted the temptation. Until one Saturday night, the church caught fire. And of course, he joined the crowd of people that were standing around that church building, watching the fire trucks and the firemen trying to put out that fire. And the preacher who had often tried talking to him sort of waddled over to him and nudged him between the ribs. And he said, "I never thought I'd see you at church." And the man said, "That's because your church has never been on fire before." (audience laughing) Imagine what would happen if we are filled with the zeal of God and our hearts blazed with passion. That's what happened to the early church. They turned the whole world upside down in their generation. And these were a bunch of people who were cowards. They were afraid, they were behind locked doors, they were timid, they were ordinary folks, they were uneducated folks. The Holy Spirit came with fire, lit their fuse, and out they went, blazing, turning the world upside down in their generation. Well, here's how Charles Spurgeon put it many years ago. Spurgeon was a very famous, well-known preacher in England in the middle of the 1800s. And in his message on this particular passage, he puts it this way. He says, "Oh, for fire to fall again, fire which shall affect the most frozen. This is a sure remedy for indifference. When a flake of fire falls into a man's bosom, he knows it. And when the word of God comes home to a man's soul, a man's soul, he knows it too. And oh, that such fire might first sit upon the disciples and then fall on all around." Again, Paul, never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord. I want to say to you, if you find your heart cold, as we all do by times, if you know that the gap between what God says in his word and what you're experiencing is too huge, then cry out and say, "God, send the fire again." Let me know the reality of your presence. Let me know the reality of your illuminating grace. And take my cold heart and light a fire under it. Make me so passionate that there is nothing more important in life than honoring you and serving you, not because I have to, not simply out of a sense of duty, not because somebody's going to hold me accountable if I don't do it, but because I want to do it because you are worthy of everything that I can give you. So you see, the fire is not a physical fire. The fire represents all of these three things that we've just been talking about. And then, interestingly enough, this fire in this passage is described as tongues of fire. For notice again how Acts 2 verse 3 puts it, "They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them." Now, I don't want to make too much of that. It's possible that the use of the word tongues here is simply a metaphorical way of talking about flames, as in, you know, the flames were like tongues of fire licking at the roof. We talk that way sometimes about a building that's on fire. But I rather think there's more to it than that in this particular passage, given the emphasis, as we'll see later on, on speaking the message of Jesus. I think the use of tongues is not merely coincidental. I believe it refers to the ability that God wants to give to the church to speak and proclaim the name of Jesus. Because again, what is the mission that the Lord Jesus has given to the church? You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses where? Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost ends of the earth. And so the fire not only gives us light and passion, but the fire is also intended to set our tongues free so that we can glorify the mighty acts of God. And so in that way, bear witness to Jesus. Now, Lord willing, we'll talk a lot more about that next time when we look in more detail at how this comes to expression. But for the moment, what I want us to know is that throughout Scripture, when the Holy Spirit falls on people, there is a liberating power set free that enables them to declare the mighty acts of God prophetically. And let me give you two illustrations, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. The one from the Old Testament is an unlikely illustration because it happened in the life of King Saul. You'll recall how God had wanted to rule over Israel by means of his prophets that he raised up, and the judges, as the need arose, the people of Israel didn't like that very much. They said, "We want a king." So God chooses Saul, a good-looking man, a head taller than everybody else. And in 1 Samuel 9 and verse 10, we have the story of how Saul is looking for his father's donkeys, can't find him, ends up by Samuel, who is the seer or the prophet, and then Samuel anoints him to become the king of Israel. And here's what Samuel says to him in 1 Samuel 10 verse 6. He says to Saul, now listen carefully, the spirit of the Lord will come upon you in power, and you will prophesy with them, that refers to the band of prophets that are going to meet him, and you will be changed into a different person. Then as you read on in the rest of the story, that's what happens. Samuel has set a number of signs in place, all of which get fulfilled. He runs into this band of prophets, and the Holy Spirit falls on Saul in the presence of those prophets, and here's what Scripture says. When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked each other, what is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets? And a man who lived there answered, and who is their father? And so it became a saying, is Saul also among the prophets? And the point is, Saul was a very unlikely candidate to be speaking prophetically, but when God called him to be king of Israel, and Samuel anointed him, as in the Old Testament, only kings, priests, and prophets were anointed, and the Holy Spirit came upon him, the initial demonstration of that in his life was an ability to speak prophetically. Later on, we'll see how that ties in to the Pentecostal phenomenon then of speaking in tongues. So the Holy Spirit falls on Saul, and Saul begins to declare prophetically the mighty acts of God. Very unlikely story, but an Old Testament illustration of this very thing that we're talking about. And then, of course, when you get to the New Testament, you get to the story of Zechariah in Luke's gospel. You'll recall his mouth had been shut because he had not believed the angel of the Lord that his wife Elizabeth would conceive and bear a child. But then when the child was born, the Bible says in Luke chapter one, his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit. And guess what is the next word? And he prophesied, "Praise be to the Lord the God of Israel, "because he has come and redeemed his people. "He has raised up a horn of salvation for us "in the house of his servant David, "as he said through his holy prophets of long ago, "salvation from our enemies "and from the hand of all who hate us." And there again, you have an example how being filled with his Spirit demonstrates itself in a liberated tongue, a liberated personality, that somehow or another can declare the mighty acts of God. And Paul put it this way in the words that we used this morning as our call to worship. He says in Ephesians chapter five, do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead be filled with the Spirit, speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Later on, when we get to the place where scoffers are telling us that the early church was drunk, we'll look more closely at the relationship between being under the influence of alcohol and being under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Suffice it to say today that when God gives a fresh anointing, a fresh baptism in the Holy Spirit, one of the things that happens is that new life begins to bubble forth and you want to speak prophetically. Now that can take many different ways. It may mean you're awake in the middle of the night and you just get some insight into spiritual things that stir your heart passionately. And you know you want to write it down because you know this is straight from the heart of God. It may happen in the context of sitting down with somebody and they're sharing their struggles with you and all of a sudden it's like something takes over and you have an insight and a courage and a boldness to speak into their situation that is far above and beyond your own natural skills and your own natural interests. It may be you sit in a service like this or a Bible study or some other group, you're driving your car and all of a sudden there bubbles up within you a desire to proclaim God and to praise him and to speak his name. It may be if you're the songwriter kind of person that all of a sudden as you're caught up in worship, songs come to you and everything inside you wants to give voice to that. And most of us are too cowardly to worry about what other people think, to unsure about our own heart and our own motivation to step into that. But you know if the church is gonna come alive and if the church is to experience the unprecedented power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, we've got to take that kind of risk with each other. And we've got to make space wisely and prudently but freely in the Holy Spirit that we can celebrate the gifts of the Spirit of God as they're manifest in the body of Christ because you will be amazed at how much wisdom, how much power, how much insight, how much blessing you and I can be to other people all around us because to each is given the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. And for most of us, it isn't that he isn't already there, it's just that he needs to be stirred up. As Paul wrote to Timothy, he said stir up the gift of God that is in you. And I just want to encourage you this day. If there are those moments when God speaks prophetically in your heart, if there are those moments where you just want to worship with everything that is within you, if there are those moments when you feel the Lord calling you to sit down and write a new song or to otherwise express the reality of his presence, then by faith learn to step into that. And yes, there are rules later on in scripture as to how that is to happen in the context of Christian community because all things in those places are again not about us, they're about edifying the body of Christ but the gift of tongues of fire poured out upon the church means that God will set a fire in your belly. That is in keeping with a particular gifting and anointing and the calling of God on your life. And you know how I can make it any plainer than I can this morning. We need to step out into those places and trust that God's life, God's wind, God's fire blowing in us and through us will bring light and life and healing to the nations. And so as in a few moments, we close the service and we enter into a song of worship because we've chosen that very deliberately. Let her rip. Let her rip. Let her rip. (audience applauding) Don't worry about the guy next to you. If you're the kind of person that sits in the back row and you stand there like this when we sing songs, then repent. (audience laughing) Repent. God has given you a voice and you can make a joyful, you know, I can't sing where it piddly beans (audience laughing) but God has given us a voice to lift up his name and we are called, if nothing else, to make a joyful noise to the Lord and the Lord will teach us how to do that. So stand with me for prayer. Praise team is gonna come up and then let's practice what we preach and not wait for some magical, mystical moment. Step out into it. The admonition of scripture is be filled with the Spirit. You can do something about it because we can obey when God speaks. Lord God, we are here in your presence this day because we are your people. And by faith in Jesus, you have made provision in the Holy Spirit, not only for the wind to blow away all the dust and the garbage and to create new life and to lead us in unexpected ways, but Lord God, you have given what seem to be tongues of fire that rested on each one and we receive your presence. Because of Jesus, we don't have to be afraid of you anymore because he's already paid the price. You're not gonna fry us. You just wanna light our way and you wanna light our path. And so Lord Jesus, give us revelation. And in those places where our hearts are so dead and where they are sometimes so cold and where the things of this world are so much more important than the realities of your kingdom, oh Lord God, light our fire. Give us passion to love you above all, to love the unlovely and then give us words. Words, Lord, to worship you, words to serve you, words to speak on your behalf. Give us bodies that will respond to the thin filling of God's Holy Spirit in ways that delight you and in ways that will make the world know that our God is alive and he's here and when he is here, things just happen because we are the people of God. So give us faith, give us expectation, give us the knowledge, Lord, that as we gather in your name, you're here. And when you are here, oh, the deaf hear, the blind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised and the poor hear good news. So we worship you now as our Holy God who in Christ has become our Father. Thank you for hearing us, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. [PROPOSED CUT 2 START at 00:45:02.420; remove through 00:53:39.000] (gentle piano [CUT] music) (gentle piano music) ♪ Holy ♪ ♪ Holy ♪ ♪ Holy is the Lord God Almighty ♪ ♪ Holy ♪ ♪ Holy ♪ ♪ Holy is the Lord God Almighty ♪ ♪ Who was and is ♪ ♪ And is to come ♪ ♪ Who was and is ♪ ♪ And is to come ♪ ♪ Lift up His name with a song of praise ♪ ♪ And a singing ♪ ♪ Lift up His name in all the earth ♪ ♪ Lift up your voice and give Him glory ♪ ♪ For He is worthy to be praised ♪ ♪ Holy ♪ ♪ Holy ♪ ♪ Holy is the Lord God Almighty ♪ ♪ Holy ♪ ♪ Holy ♪ ♪ Holy is the Lord God Almighty ♪ ♪ Who was and is ♪ ♪ And is to come ♪ ♪ Who was and is ♪ ♪ And is to come ♪ ♪ Lift up His name with a sound of singing ♪ ♪ Lift up His name in all the earth ♪ ♪ Lift up your voice and give Him glory ♪ ♪ For He is worthy to be praised ♪ ♪ Lift up His name with a sound of singing ♪ ♪ Lift up His name in all the earth ♪ ♪ Lift up your voice and give Him glory ♪ ♪ For He is worthy to be praised ♪ ♪ For He is worthy to be praised ♪ ♪ For He is worthy to be praised ♪ ♪ Holy ♪ ♪ Holy ♪ - Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be in abide with each of us, now and evermore, and may it flood the nations with glory and power. And all God's people said, amen. (upbeat music) ♪ Lord, the light of your love is shining ♪ ♪ In the midst of the darkness shining ♪ ♪ Jesus, light of the world, shine upon us ♪ ♪ Set us free by the truth you now bring us ♪ ♪ Shine on me ♪ ♪ Shine on me ♪ ♪ Shine on me ♪ ♪ Shine Jesus, shine ♪ ♪ Fill this land with the Father's glory ♪ ♪ Raise Spirit, raise ♪ ♪ Set our hearts on fire ♪ ♪ Glorify ♪ ♪ What the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ He shows with grace and mercy ♪ ♪ Set forth your will ♪ ♪ Lord, and let there be light ♪ ♪ Lord, I come to your awesome presence ♪ ♪ From the shadows into your radiance ♪ ♪ By the blood I may answer your brightness ♪ ♪ Touch me, try me, consume all my darkness ♪ ♪ Shine on me ♪ ♪ Shine on me ♪ ♪ Shine Jesus, shine ♪ ♪ Fill this land with the Father's glory ♪ ♪ Raise Spirit, raise ♪ ♪ Set our hearts on fire ♪ ♪ Glorify ♪ ♪ What the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ He shows with grace and mercy ♪ ♪ Set forth your will ♪ ♪ Lord, and let there be light ♪ ♪ As we gaze on your kingly brightness ♪ ♪ So our faces display your likeness ♪ ♪ Ever changing from glory to glory ♪ ♪ Mirrored here, may our lives tell your story ♪ ♪ Shine on me ♪ ♪ Shine on me ♪ ♪ Shine Jesus, shine ♪ ♪ Fill this land with the Father's glory ♪ ♪ Raise Spirit, raise ♪ ♪ Set our hearts on fire ♪ ♪ Glorify ♪ ♪ What the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ He shows with grace and mercy ♪ ♪ Set forth your will ♪ ♪ Lord, and let there be light ♪ ♪ Shine Jesus, shine ♪ ♪ Fill this land with the Father's glory ♪ ♪ Raise Spirit, raise ♪ ♪ Set our hearts on fire ♪ ♪ Glorify ♪ ♪ What the name of the Lord Jesus Christ ♪ ♪ He shows with grace and mercy ♪ ♪ Set forth your will ♪ ♪ Lord, and let there be light ♪ (applause) [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 2 END at 00:53:39.000; resume after this marked segment]