Worship is holy.
Hi, my name is Leanne Friesman and this is Restoring Word.
And today I just want to talk a little bit about the holiness and the sacredness of worship.
I love contemporary worship and I've spent many years training and teaching praise and
worship leaders and a few years back I wrote a book called The Heart of Worship which is
available on Amazon.
And this has truly been kind of my life's work.
I love the Word of God, I love Jesus, I love the Holy Spirit, and I love how he moves in
praise and worship services.
I was reminded of something this week when my beloved daddy, Edwin Lucard, passed away
Sunday morning at 8 o'clock, about 8.30 in the morning, and the night before I had spent
some time with him in worship and prayer and the experience was holy.
And so I just want to talk a little bit about that.
In Psalms 116 verse 15 it says, How precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his
saints.
You know, when you talk about death it can often be something that's morbid or sad, but
when a believer that loves Jesus steps into eternity and he's consecrated himself and
his life unto the Lord, it's a beautiful and holy thing.
It's hard.
Yes.
It's hard on the family.
Watching suffering is very hard.
And I'm still kind of wrapping my head around everything that's happened in the last four
or five months and honestly it's been different, but what happened to me in those moments with
him was truly sacred.
I love this scripture here where it says, and this is Psalms 111 verse 9, He has sent
redemption to his people.
He has commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and awesome is his name.
He is holy.
His name is holy.
Do you know when we sing and we worship God, we are to do it in spirit and in truth?
Yeah, the whole point of this book was, hey, praise and worship leaders, let's go back
to our biblical foundations.
Why are you doing what you're doing?
Are you doing it like a Levitical priest?
Are you doing it unto the Lord?
God is holy and we must worship him in spirit and in truth.
And one of the portions of scripture that I enjoy so much is out of Revelations 4.
And when I would teach the book of Revelations to my Bible students, we would get up pencils
and papers and crayons and I would make a big deal out of it and we would bring in snacks
and we put on praise and worship and we would take Revelations 4 and the kids would draw.
And we would draw a picture of what the throne room of heaven looked like.
Some of you might remember that.
Anyway, I love, you know, the four beasts and the crystal floor and the rainbow over
the throne that's green.
But when you get down to verse 11, there are these 4 and 20 elders and they fall down before
the Lord in the throne room and they worship him who lives forever and ever saying, you
are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.
For you created all things and by your will they exist and they were created.
And later, well, actually in a previous verse, these creatures, these 4 living creatures
that are so curious because they have eyes within them and around them.
They don't rest day or night.
Go look at the scripture, don't take my word for it.
And these 4 living creatures are saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was
and is and is to come.
When we sing holy, holy, holy, we are worshiping him in spirit and truth.
Why?
Because that's what's happening in the
throne room of heaven and many of you know that and you know I know that like intellectually but
the night before my dad passed I went over and you know things were very crazy. My daughter's
overseas and my husband was down in Houston taking care of our infant twin sons and he was coming
back and I had to pick him up at the airport. I'd spent the day with him and my son had come and
spent time with papa and we had a beautiful time of talking and sharing and just being with him.
You all know how difficult that is at the end of life when someone is preparing to go and
it's very hard because you know the body and the spirit man is strong but the body is is
shutting down and it's it's very very hard to watch and and so I had had a busy day with Josiah
my son and we had spent time with papa and Josiah had prayed for papa and he had he had taken off
and I had run some errands and come back and sat down it was just dad and I and dad had been
reading this bedside at his apartment every night as well as his beloved book A Common Prayer from
the Episcopal Church. He was Anglican and he which was he was part of the founding of the
the original Anglicans tradition and back to the old prayer book of 1928 and he was a man that
loved to study the word he he loved men's bible study he loved scripture he loved his opportunity
to teach every six weeks he took it very seriously he would prepare for weeks getting ready to teach
he he took it all so seriously and so there's things that we both have known about worship
and about singing and about prayer but there was something that that night that happened that was
was so remarkable that it kind of shook me to my core. I try to walk with a humble heart I
you know I always try to check myself and judge myself and repent of what I you know what I
know is off and you know when someone is transferring to heaven you begin to judge
yourself you know you begin to look at everything and you pray and and anyway in the middle of all
of that I just started singing all by myself just daddy and I and I was holding his hand
and I was singing and I was praying in the spirit with my prayer language in English and in tongues
and then I was just going back and forth singing songs I knew he knew songs I knew
songs we sang with my mother and then I would pray and I would talk to the lord and I would
sing another one and I would go back and forth and this went on for quite a while
and then something shifted I went in and as those of you that love to pray or in intercession I went
into holy holy holy are you lord and when I when I did that and I just continued to worship in
in god in that moment and and remind god of his goodness his greatness his worthiness his holiness
when I started to sing that something came in the room and dad's body shook actually and he was
squeezing my hand he couldn't speak at that point he wasn't opening his eyes or anything at that
point but when the presence of god came in the room and I've had some pretty amazing
encounters with with the lord in my classroom over the course of my teaching career
that was always my heart was to empower and train people to step into ministry and to lead worship
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
had some amazing moments but this one was different because when I went into holy
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
Whatever was in the room at that moment, I was not worthy to be in the presence of that.
I was glaringly aware of every fault, just like in a flash.
And my dad jerked, he squeezed my hand, his eyes flew open and I didn't want it to lift
so I just kept going, holy, holy, holy are you Lord.
God is holy.
He wants to be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
We can get to the point in our worship that it becomes very casual, me too, or you can
get so busy thinking measures and intros and tempos and pitch and all those other technical
things that you have to do in order to do something of excellence and he is worthy of
excellence, don't get me wrong there, but he is also holy.
And you are to judge yourself lest you be judged.
You are to get yourself right before you go up to the platform and you take that microphone
and you become a priest ministering unto him.
Because really in praise and worship, it's not so much about the congregation, in fact
it really isn't about the congregation at all.
Your job is to worship God so that his presence falls and so when his presence comes, people's
hearts and their spiritual eyes and their spiritual ears can be open to hear what the
Lord is saying.
I'm going to continue on this again next week or the next broadcast.
Take time to worship him.
He is holy.
He wants to be reminded of his greatness and his worth when we worship him.
Don't take it casually.
He is a good God.
He loves you and he has a plan for your life.
It is for good and not for evil.
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It helps me grow it and I hope this is a blessing for you today.
Thanks for listening.