Introduction: There is no question that Americans are electrical junkies. Most of us have at least 100 items in our homes that require electricity. Many of those items are essential to our lifestyle. They have become so essential that we take them for granted. Most of us don’t think much about electricity until the power goes out and then we discover just how much our lives depend on it.

For that reason the electrical utility companies are working very hard to make sure that our service is not lost due to anything related to the Y2K problem. Backup plans in case of any glitches are being tested and retested in order to resolve any fears. We will know on December 31 at midnight if there is a problem or not. We will know there’s a problem when and if the power is goes out.

This raises the question: Are we as concerned about a loss of spiritual power? Especially a break in the source of our power in worship? Are we aware of the role of Holy Spirit, who is our source of spiritual power, in our worship? There is always a nervous twitch among Baptists whenever you mention Holy Spirit because of the excesses of others. Yet we can’t let the extremes of others remove us from the reality of the power of the Holy Spirit that is to be released in our worship.

As we begin our preparation to return to our sanctuary there are some things that we need to address. Last week we examined our need to be a sanctuary of worship. We were reminded that our purpose for gathering is to worship God. We also discussed the reasons and benefits of our need to worship. Today I want us to explore the idea of preparing to fill a sanctuary. We need to fill, physically, our renovated sanctuary. Yet more we need to be people who are filled ourselves, filled with the Holy Spirit, bringing our filled hearts to fill a place of worship, waiting for the Holy Spirit to fill our worship.

We come to celebrate Holy Spirit, who is the dynamic in worship. It is difficult to talk of Holy Spirit and His power within us without using illustrations of inanimate objects. He is not a thing or it, but the manifestation of God in one distinct presence. Without question Holy Spirit is what gives worship its power because that is His role in all phases of the life of the Christian. To have Spiritless worship is just as great a sin as Spiritless preaching, teaching or witnessing. His role in worship is not less important than any other phase of our lives. I want us to leave here today discovering personally His very real presence in worship, His power to change us and His ability to give life to our worship.

I. As you hear Paul’s words in these verses you realize that as a believer we have another presence living within us. That living presence is Holy Spirit. (I Corinthians 3:16a)

It’s not unusual to get confused about this. The Corinthian Christians had a problem also. They seemed ignorant of what they ought to understand. Paul told them, "Do you not know…." Well, what did they not know? He says, "that you are a temple of God". The word that he uses is the word for the Holy of Holies, the place in the Temple seen as the very dwelling of God. They were to understand that they were, as a believer, the most sacred of all locations of God’s real presence. That just as God’s presence filled that physical place so now they were that sanctuary. They were not empty though, Paul tells them that "the Spirit of God dwells in you". His words are the same for someone who sets up a tent. It’s the idea of a lasting, continual, abiding presence, someone that is going to be there a while. He is saying that God’s presence, Holy Spirit, makes His home in them.

We can go to two extremes in our understanding of what it means to have God living inside of us. Like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz we can act as if we need a brain imagining that having God within us is to be out of control without thought or reason. We can also go to the other extreme and be like the Tin Man who needed a heart thinking that God within us is only fact never feeling. We bring those same attitudes into our worship. Some of us see worship as something that is to be only emotion and very little thought. Others see worship as only thought and little, if any, emotion. God’s Spirit doesn’t relate to us on merely one level but with both our heart and our head.

Max Lucado describes the relationship we as Christians sometimes have with the Holy Spirit. "Let's imagine that you want to learn to dance. Being the rational, cerebral person you are, you go to a bookstore and buy a book on dancing. After all, a book helped you learn to program a computer and a book taught you accounting–surely a book can teach you how to shuffle your feet.

"You take the book home and get to work. You do everything it says. The book says sway; you sway. The book says shuffle; you shuffle. The book says spin; you spin. You even cut out paper shoe patterns and place them around the living-room floor so you'll know where to step.

"Finally, you think you've got it, and you invite your wife to come in and watch. You hold the book open and follow the instructions step by step. You even read the words aloud so she'll know that you've done your homework. 'Lean with your right shoulder,' and so you lean. 'Now step with your right foot,' and so you step. 'Turn slowly to the left,' and so you do.

"You continue to read, then dance, read, then dance, until the dance is completed. You plop exhausted on the couch, look at your wife, and proclaim, 'I executed it perfectly.'

"'You executed it, all right,' she sighs. 'You killed it.'

"'What?'

"'You forgot the most important part. Where is the music?'

"Music?

"You never thought about music. You remembered the book. You learned the rules. You laid out the pattern. But you forgot the music.

"'Do it again,' she says, putting in a CD. 'This time don’t worry about the steps, just follow the music.'

"She extends her hand and the music begins. The next thing you know, you are dancing–and you don't even have the book.

"We Christians are prone to follow the book while ignoring the music. We master the doctrine, outline the chapters, memorize the dispensations, debate the rules, and stiffly step down the dance floor of life with no music in our hearts. We measure each step, calibrate each turn, and flop into bed each night exhausted from another day of dancing by the book. Dancing with no music is tough stuff."

Trying to worship without recognizing the presence and power of the Holy Spirit is like dancing without music. We’re just going through the motions. Whatever we do in our worship it is to be done with the awareness that each believer has the abiding presence of the living God within them. All of God’s presence is within our ability to experience. Holy Spirit is God’s presence within us and particularly in our worship.

II. Holy Spirit is God’s real presence within us to create our worship but He is also the source of God’s transforming power within the worshippers of the church. (I Corinthians 3:17)

Paul was aware of those in the church at Corinth who for one reason or another were causing divisions in the church. To do so was to destroy, meaning to corrupt or to deprave, the temple—the abiding place of God’s Spirit. The reason for this concern was because of the way God’s Spirit had transformed them initially. Paul will write later of this transformation in I Corinthians 6:9-11. There he refers to their past lifestyle that some of them indulged in sexual sin, idol worship, adulterery, male prostitution, homosexuality, theft, greed, alcohol abuse, abuse of other kinds, and swindling. Then he says, " but now your sins have been washed away, and you have been set apart for God. You have been made right with God because of what the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit of our God have done for you."

God’s work of transforming persons will only occur through the inward power of the Holy Spirit. Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson, who in the 70’s were some of the architects of what was called the Moral Majority, have authored a recent book declaring the inability of politics to truly transform people and culture. They have recognized correctly that it is Holy Spirit that transforms people not ballots or parties. The same is true in worship. People are changed not by the music, sermon, prayers, architecture, lights or sound. The Holy Spirit within them changes them.

That transformation is something that is continual. Paul refers to this change as something that is ongoing. He says, "…and that is what you are." What He has begun He continues doing. We are always being shaped and molded into the likeness and vision of Christ. The Holy Spirit never tires of such an activity.

When worship occurs, then it is done by those whose lives are not only stamped with His work from the start but each week they come back to the place of worship with a fresh testimony of some new work God is doing in them. That gives worship its freshness and its vitality.

There is a warning here that we are reluctant to hear. Paul advises us that we are to take the residence of God’s Spirit seriously. He is telling the Corinthians that hindering the presence of the Holy Spirit is to court disaster. He says, "God will bring ruin upon anyone who ruins this temple. For God's temple is holy, and you Christians are that temple." (1 Cor. 3:17) While it is true that worship is a celebration, it is also true that worship is to be a sobering experience. Paul will write later that when true worship is occurring that people who come into worship, "will be convicted of sin, and they will be condemned by what you say. As they listen, their secret thoughts will be laid bare, and they will fall down on their knees and worship God, declaring, ‘God is really here among you’" (I Corinthians 14:24-25). To treat worship casually is to offend the presence of Holy Spirit. Whatever we do must be done to insure He is released to transform the lives of unbelievers and believers alike.

III. Holy Spirit is God’s real presence within a Christian, transforming us continually to prepare us for worship but he is also the source of inspiration for our worship.

Since the moment of Jesus’physical absence His Holy Spirit has been the source of inspiration for the Christian. He said, "But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power…"(Acts 1:8a).

Paul would later teach that every event of worship was to be under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Listen to what He says, "… let the Holy Spirit fill and control you. Then you will sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, making music to the Lord in your hearts. And you will always give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph.5: 18-20). He would say elsewhere that not only is our singing to be inspired by the Spirit but our praying, teaching and preaching were to have that special touch of His power.

The power or source of inspiration within a person is our brain. The power locked within our brain to create and control is still an amazing science. Researchers in Germany have developed a way to enable patients who are victims of Lou Gehrig’s disease to communicate. Normally a person with this disease is unable to move or speak. They become a powerful brain locked within a body that is not capable of responding. Scientist’s now have created a "thought translation device" that can, through electrodes placed on the scalp, pick by sheer brainpower letters on a screen that then in turn become sentences. They are not really sure how the brain does it! One researcher said that, "If someone can learn to control the amplitude [of his brain wave]…that response can operate any aspect of the environment a programmer can hook up." In other words, the electronics can be wired so that the brain wave controls light switches, or window blinds, or a wheelchair. Even more visionary is the possibility of going wireless. If the electronics are sensitive enough, they might be able to grab brain waves out of the air. (Newsweek 4/5/99 p.64)

If God can do that with our brain then what can He do to inspire our worship through the power of the Holy Spirit? He is able to take all the elements of worship-songs, words, sounds, ideas--and use them to cause us to worship God in ways we never dreamed. The source of inspiration is there. We need to connect to the creative, inspiring power of Holy Spirit within us.

Conclusion:

One evening Jeanette Cantu, an operator for a long-distance company, got an unusual customer service request. She was told that the man on the line was urgently asking for a Spanish-speaking operator. When she answered the call, she was surprised at what the man, who spoke perfect English, wanted her to do. It seems he had been a missionary in Guatemala and while there had met a Guatemalan young lady and fallen in love. Then because of his work, he had had to return to the States. Now he realized that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her, but because of the language barrier he had no way to express his love to her. He asked Jeanette if she would arrange a conference call and act as interpreter. He mentioned that this long-distance company was always advertising that they were there for the customer 24 hours a day, seven days a week to help the customer in any way. Now he wanted to know if it was really true.

Translating a marriage proposal seemed a bit beyond the call of duty, but Jeanette was willing. She got the supervisor's OK and then set up the call. After introducing herself to the young lady, the two lovers exchanged the only word they both understood--"Hello." Then Jeanette began translating. The man explained he was sorry that he had left her behind and that he really wanted to marry her. The young lady said yes. Jeanette said later, "I was crying all over the place. It was just so romantic." [Touch 1 (promotional magazine), Nov 1997. Page 20.]

As people we need desperately to connect with God in worship. Sometimes it seems that we don’t speak the same language. We need some one to interpret our needs, hurts, and struggles. That is what Holy Spirit does. It all starts with "hello", Holy Spirit takes it from there.

Let’s reflect back on what we have said and tie this together with three pointed questions:

If Holy Spirit is God’s personal presence how sensitive am I to His presence in worship?

If Holy Spirit is God’s transforming power is He transforming me as I worship?

If Holy Spirit is God’s source of inspiration how inspired is my worship?

As a sanctuary are you prepared to be filled with Holy Spirit for worship?

Sunday, April 18, 1999

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org.