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Worship is holy.

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Hi, my name is Leanne Friesman and this is Restoring Word.

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And today I just want to talk a little bit about the holiness and the sacredness of worship.

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I love contemporary worship and I've spent many years training and teaching praise and

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worship leaders and a few years back I wrote a book called The Heart of Worship which is

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available on Amazon.

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And this has truly been kind of my life's work.

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I love the Word of God, I love Jesus, I love the Holy Spirit, and I love how he moves in

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praise and worship services.

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I was reminded of something this week when my beloved daddy, Edwin Lucard, passed away

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Sunday morning at 8 o'clock, about 8.30 in the morning, and the night before I had spent

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some time with him in worship and prayer and the experience was holy.

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And so I just want to talk a little bit about that.

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In Psalms 116 verse 15 it says, How precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his

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saints.

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You know, when you talk about death it can often be something that's morbid or sad, but

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when a believer that loves Jesus steps into eternity and he's consecrated himself and

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his life unto the Lord, it's a beautiful and holy thing.

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It's hard.

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Yes.

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It's hard on the family.

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Watching suffering is very hard.

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And I'm still kind of wrapping my head around everything that's happened in the last four

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or five months and honestly it's been different, but what happened to me in those moments with

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him was truly sacred.

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I love this scripture here where it says, and this is Psalms 111 verse 9, He has sent

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redemption to his people.

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He has commanded his covenant forever.

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Holy and awesome is his name.

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He is holy.

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His name is holy.

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Do you know when we sing and we worship God, we are to do it in spirit and in truth?

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Yeah, the whole point of this book was, hey, praise and worship leaders, let's go back

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to our biblical foundations.

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Why are you doing what you're doing?

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Are you doing it like a Levitical priest?

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Are you doing it unto the Lord?

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God is holy and we must worship him in spirit and in truth.

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And one of the portions of scripture that I enjoy so much is out of Revelations 4.

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And when I would teach the book of Revelations to my Bible students, we would get up pencils

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and papers and crayons and I would make a big deal out of it and we would bring in snacks

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and we put on praise and worship and we would take Revelations 4 and the kids would draw.

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And we would draw a picture of what the throne room of heaven looked like.

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Some of you might remember that.

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Anyway, I love, you know, the four beasts and the crystal floor and the rainbow over

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the throne that's green.

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But when you get down to verse 11, there are these 4 and 20 elders and they fall down before

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the Lord in the throne room and they worship him who lives forever and ever saying, you

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are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.

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For you created all things and by your will they exist and they were created.

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And later, well, actually in a previous verse, these creatures, these 4 living creatures

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that are so curious because they have eyes within them and around them.

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They don't rest day or night.

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Go look at the scripture, don't take my word for it.

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And these 4 living creatures are saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was

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and is and is to come.

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When we sing holy, holy, holy, we are worshiping him in spirit and truth.

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Why?

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Because that's what's happening in the

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throne room of heaven and many of you know that and you know I know that like intellectually but

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the night before my dad passed I went over and you know things were very crazy. My daughter's

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overseas and my husband was down in Houston taking care of our infant twin sons and he was coming

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back and I had to pick him up at the airport. I'd spent the day with him and my son had come and

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spent time with papa and we had a beautiful time of talking and sharing and just being with him.

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You all know how difficult that is at the end of life when someone is preparing to go and

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it's very hard because you know the body and the spirit man is strong but the body is is

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shutting down and it's it's very very hard to watch and and so I had had a busy day with Josiah

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my son and we had spent time with papa and Josiah had prayed for papa and he had he had taken off

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and I had run some errands and come back and sat down it was just dad and I and dad had been

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reading this bedside at his apartment every night as well as his beloved book A Common Prayer from

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the Episcopal Church. He was Anglican and he which was he was part of the founding of the

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the original Anglicans tradition and back to the old prayer book of 1928 and he was a man that

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loved to study the word he he loved men's bible study he loved scripture he loved his opportunity

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to teach every six weeks he took it very seriously he would prepare for weeks getting ready to teach

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he he took it all so seriously and so there's things that we both have known about worship

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and about singing and about prayer but there was something that that night that happened that was

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was so remarkable that it kind of shook me to my core. I try to walk with a humble heart I

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you know I always try to check myself and judge myself and repent of what I you know what I

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know is off and you know when someone is transferring to heaven you begin to judge

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yourself you know you begin to look at everything and you pray and and anyway in the middle of all

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of that I just started singing all by myself just daddy and I and I was holding his hand

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and I was singing and I was praying in the spirit with my prayer language in English and in tongues

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and then I was just going back and forth singing songs I knew he knew songs I knew

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songs we sang with my mother and then I would pray and I would talk to the lord and I would

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sing another one and I would go back and forth and this went on for quite a while

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and then something shifted I went in and as those of you that love to pray or in intercession I went

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into holy holy holy are you lord and when I when I did that and I just continued to worship in

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in god in that moment and and remind god of his goodness his greatness his worthiness his holiness

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when I started to sing that something came in the room and dad's body shook actually and he was

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squeezing my hand he couldn't speak at that point he wasn't opening his eyes or anything at that

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point but when the presence of god came in the room and I've had some pretty amazing

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encounters with with the lord in my classroom over the course of my teaching career

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that was always my heart was to empower and train people to step into ministry and to lead worship

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and the only way to learn to do it is do it okay so you got to practice his presence so I've I've

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had some amazing moments but this one was different because when I went into holy

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it was so holy it scared me now I don't mean that in a bad way but it was so holy I knew that what

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Whatever was in the room at that moment, I was not worthy to be in the presence of that.

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I was glaringly aware of every fault, just like in a flash.

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And my dad jerked, he squeezed my hand, his eyes flew open and I didn't want it to lift

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so I just kept going, holy, holy, holy are you Lord.

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God is holy.

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He wants to be worshipped in spirit and in truth.

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We can get to the point in our worship that it becomes very casual, me too, or you can

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get so busy thinking measures and intros and tempos and pitch and all those other technical

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things that you have to do in order to do something of excellence and he is worthy of

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excellence, don't get me wrong there, but he is also holy.

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And you are to judge yourself lest you be judged.

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You are to get yourself right before you go up to the platform and you take that microphone

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and you become a priest ministering unto him.

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Because really in praise and worship, it's not so much about the congregation, in fact

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it really isn't about the congregation at all.

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Your job is to worship God so that his presence falls and so when his presence comes, people's

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hearts and their spiritual eyes and their spiritual ears can be open to hear what the

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Lord is saying.

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I'm going to continue on this again next week or the next broadcast.

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Take time to worship him.

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He is holy.

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He wants to be reminded of his greatness and his worth when we worship him.

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Don't take it casually.

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He is a good God.

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He loves you and he has a plan for your life.

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It is for good and not for evil.

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Share this message with those that it would encourage today.

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Please subscribe and share the channel.

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It helps me grow it and I hope this is a blessing for you today.

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Thanks for listening.