All right, good morning. Not good morning. Good evening. All right. Again, as you can see, tonight we don't have any specific assignments for small group. You're going to be getting assignments for small group next week. So I can have somebody take this and pass this out. So for today, we're going to spend a good chunk of time on our orientation, and then I'm going to have an introductory study of BCC2.

And I want to explain to you guys what we are doing and why we are doing what we're doing. So you guys kind of get an idea. The format is going to be pretty similar. Those of you who've been to our Bible studies on Wednesday, we're going to have how we started our Bible study, just like we did today.

That's how we're going to be starting Bible study. And then we'll have a brief time of teaching, maybe about 30 or 40 minutes. And then we're going to break up into small groups for discussion time in small groups. Okay. So in on the paper, as you are getting it, if you can put your name and small group preference, okay, your name and small group preference, okay.

Because if you don't mind, if you can put your age on there as well, okay, so that we can, if you have a preference, like an older group, younger group, we don't want to put your name up there. Just say older group, younger group, no preference, married, not married.

And then those of you guys who are going to be alternating between husband and wife, say alternating husband and wife. So put that there as well. Okay. If you have a group and you say, you know what, this is a group that we must stay together. Okay. Make sure you put that, put it all on one paper.

If you say, I want to be in the group, okay. So you're going to have to put the names of the people and make sure you turn it in together or else I'm not going to know. And then there's some of you who are not able to come consistently and maybe you don't have a preference or you don't want to be in a small group.

You just kind of want to be floating around. Put that on there as well. We'll may have one table where we don't have a small group because of the inconsistency or for whatever the reason you have to leave early and you prefer not to be in a small group.

We'll have a table for that as well. Okay. So in a, in a large group like this, we have all different needs. So just make sure whatever your needs are or desire preference, put it on there and then we're going to assign the small group. So next week when you come in, the small group assignments will be in the back.

So as you're coming in, you'll be able to see which table are and we'll Mark each table by number. So when you come in, you'll know exactly where to go next week. Okay. If you know you're going to be inconsistent, please Mark that on there. So we don't put you guys all in one group.

So we don't want one group with like one week, six people in the next group. Next week we have one person in there. Okay. If you have every intention of being consistent every single week for the next 12 weeks, you don't have to put anything. But if, if you know you're not going to be consistent, please Mark that on there as well.

We do not have a coed group. Okay. So if that's your preference, don't put it on there. Okay. So it'd be all, all men and women. Um, but again, we have men and women who are alternating because of husband and wife situation with the children. We are still trying to figure out the, the childcare.

So we are planning to have it, but again, we're still trying to figure that out. So just be patient with that. Did I miss anything? Yes. Okay. If you have not registered, if you showed up today and you didn't register for the class, please go on to Facebook. If you have Facebook, if you don't have Facebook, get Facebook.

If you're not planning to get Facebook, ask somebody who has Facebook and register through Facebook or email us directly and we'll do it for you. Okay. That way we'll have your names all in one master list and that'll help us to put the things together. Okay. All right. So everybody put that on the paper.

Did everybody get that? You guys all done with that? Did everybody get the piece of paper to write your name and small group preference? Yes. Okay. Those of you guys who are sitting in the back, can you guys come up and fill this out? Unless you guys are planning to leave in the middle or something, there are seats up in the front.

Okay. And on the side here somewhere. Okay. As you were coming in, you should have gotten a piece of paper with the orientation, the class outline, and then we have the teaching outline for today. So class outline and teaching outline. Okay. So if you didn't get one, you should go to the back and it's on the table.

So again, every day when you're coming in, you should pick up. So we're going to have the handouts that we're going to be handing out where you were today. When you were coming in, it'll be right at the entrance. So when you're coming in, just pick one up as you're coming in.

Okay. So every beginning of the class, that's where it's going to be. So anything that we need to hand out is going to be in the back. So again, pick one up as you're coming in. Okay. All right. The structure of the class, if you look at it from the beginning, Breean's BCC2, September 21.

Let me go over the structure real quick. Do your best to try to come on time at seven o'clock. Okay. Usually we start out trying to get close to seven o'clock and then as each week goes by, it kind of gets looser and 710, 715. And then at the end, it's like 720.

We don't want to do that because that's 20 minutes wasted for somebody who came at seven o'clock. Okay. So please, please, please, if you're in a habit of grabbing dinner at 650, you know what I mean? You're, you're goofing around or whatever. And then 650, that we have 15 minutes and you're just kind of casual about time.

Please be as prompt as you can. I know some of you guys coming off of work late and you can't help that, but if that's not the case and you just kind of are really bad with time and I just want to give you some life encouragement. If that's a practice that you have that'll ruin your life at some point in your life, right?

At some point, somebody's going to say, this guy's not reliable. So if that's a practice that you have, or if that's a practice just at church, that's not, that's not good either. Right? If you're prompt at work and prompt at appointments, but not prompt at church, that's a, that's just a bad heart.

Right? So do your best to try to come on time. And this also relates to church on Sunday. Okay. Again, it's church on Sunday and we have to periodically remind you the church starts at nine and 11. So if you're in a habit of missing 10 minutes of church every single week, that adds up at the end of the year, you missed half the church according to my math.

All right. So I want to encourage you guys, you know, if you can be prompt as much as you can. So we're going to try to do, try to start closest to seven o'clock as possible. So if you look at the timeline, seven o'clock to seven 15 is going to be worship.

Again, about 15 minutes. And then after that, there's going to be a, we'll study, um, every week there's going to be a memory verse. And we're going to ask you guys to just take some time to meditate on that. Those memory verses are related to the teaching topic of that day.

Okay. So if you look at it, look at the bottom, look at the bottom and you know how it says Leviticus one, Leviticus 10, one through 11, the week, 61 through 16, all of these verses are related to the topic that pastor Mark is going to be teaching next week.

Okay. So what we were asking you to do is each week's quiet time, our passages that are going to be, again, the topics are going to be covered for that week. So again, the quiet time, those are quiet time passages that we're asking you to take the five days to do.

And then the one verse to memorize. So when you first come in here in your small groups, we're going to ask you guys to take some time to keep each other accountable, right? And memorize those verses. Okay. And do your best so that you'll kind of have a system in your head.

In the, in the next 12 weeks, you'll have about 11 verses that you have memorized and it'll correlate with the topic that we are teaching that day. Okay. So that's for this week again, if, if you come and ask me where the quiet time passages, it means you weren't paying attention right now.

All right. So it's in the bottom of the orientation sheet. Okay. Leviticus it, um, those five verses plus the memory verse in the very bottom of the page. Most of you guys, I'm going to be adding on electronic copy for whatever reason. If your email is not accurate, um, it's not going to go to you or your emails outdated.

And if it doesn't come to you and you wanted one, you're going to have to email separately directly to me or pastor Mark. And we'll try to add you to that. Otherwise, um, we're just going to be adding everybody to the email list. We're going to also, we're going to have a hard copy, but we're also going to be sending out emails as well.

Okay. All right. Any questions about that? So after that, we'll have time of worship after worship, there's going to be teaching for about 30, 40 minutes. And then after that, there's going to be again, reflection worship. So we're going to have either probably about one song in the beginning, one or two songs, and then one or two songs at the end.

And then that'll lead you to the time of small group and small group will be about eight, 10 to about nine, 10. And then we're going to have snacks afterwards. Okay. All right. So that's the format. So those of you who are familiar with Wednesday Bible study, it's very, it's pretty much what we did before.

But for those of you who are new, that's the format that we're going to be following. Okay. Okay. Elements of the class each week, we will have devotional passages again. So we already went over that. And then there will be discussion questions at the end that we're going to ask you guys to take some time to discuss.

Okay. So next week, when you come in again, we're going to be pushing you to small groups. So look for that when you come in. So we'll try to minimize as much time as possible next week. Again, up to next week, it's going to be a little bit more hectic in the small groups because we're trying to get organized.

But after that, we'll kind of be in a system. This is a 12 week class. That'll take us to December, I think 14th. We have one week off during Thanksgiving. Otherwise, it'll be straight 12 weeks. Okay. And then after that, we're going to be taking Christmas and New Year's break, and then we'll come back for another class afterwards.

Let me give you a brief synopsis of why we're doing this for this particular class. BCC 2 is something that we've actually been discussing in leadership for many, many years. For the last maybe about five, six years plus, we've been discussing this because as our church started growing to a certain size, we started realizing that the core values of the church weren't translating into the rest of the church as organically as it used to.

Before, we would have small groups, and during small groups, we would read certain books, certain fundamental books about God's attributes, about the essence of what it means to be saved, gospel according to Jesus, and then the teachings about the church. What is the book's name? Master's Plan for the Church.

Sorry. So those are three books that every single member of the church read multiple times because those three things established a fundamental foundation upon which we build everything else at church. So if you have a wrong view of God or skewed view of God or incomplete view of God, then you're not going to really understand why we are a church that does what we do and why we do that.

Another book that we read is Gospel According to Jesus. If your understanding of the gospel or your salvation is superficial, again, is incomplete, then again, a lot of things that we do in the church is not going to make a lot of sense to you. And then the third is what is God's intent for the church, for the local church, and how did God establish it?

What are the essence of the local church and what we believe in it that the Bible teaches? And that kind of gives you the framework behind everything that we do at church. How do we how we do discipleship? Why we do teaching this way? Why is the church organized this way?

Right? And then when our church was smaller, when we were having small groups, basically, if you were at the church for more than five months to six months, you would have already kind of understood, oh, this is what our church is about. But as our church started growing, we realized that that wasn't happening organically.

And then these fundamental books were not being read. Okay. I'm assuming more than half of you in this room probably have not read any of those three books. There was a time in our church, I think up to about 200, where almost 100% of the church read that and probably read that multiple times.

Okay. The reason it's not that those three books are the only books that deal with that subject, but the subjects that those three books deal with are foundational to the church. So again, if you either don't understand it, or maybe even you don't agree with it, right after you've read it and said, I don't know if I agree with this, then you're going to have a hard time with a lot of things that we do at church because our teaching and everything else we do is founded upon that.

Right. So for so many years, we've been wrestling with, well, how are we going to reintroduce the church? And then we've been talking about having BCC too, but we just didn't have the manpower, you know, again, I'm not going to get into that part of it, but we didn't want to overload the pastors and the people who are already serving and then add another thing that we had to do.

So we thought that, you know what, why don't we take the time that we have on Wednesday and just do it with the whole church. And then the class that we're having now is going to be a class that we're going to continue to develop, you know, not change, but develop.

And it's going to be an ongoing class. So the future members that come to our church, we're going to have BCC one. And then we're going to have at some point after they become members, ask them to take this class. Right. So this is kind of like a large picture discipleship.

We want everybody at the church to come to the same page. And so if you have a lot of questions, if there are discussions happening in your small groups where you need help we want to do our best to kind of shepherd you in that way to we'll come over to the table, answer some of the questions, because like I said, everything that we're teaching at church, obviously we're doing it.

It's important because it's coming out of the scripture. But if fundamentally you don't get something or you don't agree with something or you need explanation of why this is so important, we really want to try to help you to do that. Because like I said, if these foundations are not there, what you are learning on Sunday and weekday Bible study, you're not going to have the container to hold these things.

Right. You're going to have questions and it's never going to be answered because you don't understand why we do what we do. Okay. So that's the reason why we have BCC two. So those of you who've been at our church for a long time, meaning if you've been here six, seven years or longer, a lot of the stuff that we're going to be talking about is review.

And I think it's beneficial for you too, because we want to bring the church back to the backbone of our church. The first 10 years of our church, this was our church, right? This is what we built on. This is what was taught. This is what was repeated. And every member of the church knew exactly why we did what we did.

And so again, as our church is getting, getting larger, we want to make sure that we bring our church back to that. Right. So again, even though it is review, I think it's worthwhile. We want to try to get the church back. So our hope is that in the future, if somebody new comes to church and they ask, why did the church do this?

And why does the church do that? How come evangelism is done this way? That every member in the church who's been here for a while, we'll be able to explain to them, right? Because you, you yourself understand what's going on. All right. So that's what's going on. That's the reasoning behind our BCC two class.

After this session, it will probably offered either on Thursday or even on Sunday, we may have a Sunday afternoon, BCC two class, and we may have various people teaching that. Okay. Um, if you happen to miss this, it is going to be recorded. So there's, I think there's one group in particular that's meeting out in Hacienda and they have a group of 10 or 12 that that's meeting.

And, um, if you, if you are, if you happen to be way out there and you cannot make it here, um, the recordings are going to be recorded and uploaded sometime this week. So I think on Thursday or Friday, it's going to be uploaded. So they're going to be a week behind us.

So if you say, you know what, I'm coming from LA and it's too far and we can't make it. And if you, if you create a small group over there that can watch the video, uh, we encourage you to do the same thing and we'll get the materials out to you and the recordings will be there so you can follow one week after we're done.

Okay. All right. Any questions about that so far? Okay, good. All right. So if you look at the description of the course, I'm not going to go through all of it. The outline of the course is very similar to BCC class. Those of you who've taken BCC, I believe probably about 70, 80% of this, this room has probably taken the class.

When we first developed BCC, um, our pre-membership class is 10 week course. First week is an introduction. Last week is review. And then the eight courses that eight classes that we have are divided into two visions. The first vision is God-centered worship, not man-centered. So the two days of class, we go over God's attributes, God, Christ, Holy Spirit.

Right? And then as we do that, we go, we introduce, um, our church philosophy, why we do this, and we introduce our church as we're talking about that. The second two weeks is, is the vision of, you know, to equip every Saint with God's inerrant word and why inerrancy and the word of God is so important and how that affects what we do in our church, right?

Ministry philosophy. Third is the building a local church based on love and accountability and how that affects the church, right? And then fourth is reaching the lost locally and globally. So each of the eight weeks that we have, two weeks dedicated to each vision and each of those two weeks, we talk about the vision of the church.

Now, so the topic that we have is similar, but we're going to go a bit further than what we're able to do on those eight weeks. Okay? So if you notice here, the outline is similar, but we spend a little bit more time on some subjects than we do the other.

So the first three is going to be, again, God-centered worship, high view of God. And we're going to get into that today and I'm going to start it and pastor. So pastor Mark and I are going to be alternating teaching. So I'm going to do one and the next week he's going to do his part and I'm going to do, I'm going to do the week after that.

When he leads, I'm going to be, I'm going to be leading worship. And then when I'm teaching, he's going to be leading worship. We're going to, we're going to help each other that way. And then, um, so the four or five and six and seven, we dedicated four weeks to a high view of scripture, high view of scripture and what that means.

And we're going to be talking about the essential principles of hermeneutics. Like I said, it's going to be reviewed for a lot of you, but I hope that you will have a lot of discussion and opportunity to practice fundamental hermeneutical principles. Again, not just how to do it, but to, to encourage you to do it and to establish daily disciplines of coming to the word of God yourself.

And so that's the point of what we're doing there. And then high view of church three weeks and then the philosophy of evangelism and why we do evangelism the way we do at church. Okay. All right. So that's, that's how it's broken down. Um, one more thing, one more housekeeping thing before we get started.

Um, we are going to have snacks and because of the large group and there's 12, I don't know how many groups we're going to end up having. So we have, so most likely we're going to have maybe at least two groups bring snacks together. Possibly three are going to, are going to be teamed up together because of the large group.

The number in here I think is somewhere between one 60, uh, one 50 to one 60, maybe one 70. So those of you guys who are doing snacks, just keep that in mind that you're not doing it for 30 people. You're doing for a hundred. That's why we're gonna have two people, two groups together.

So starting next week, we don't have a sign small group. So if you know that your group, um, is going to stay together, your group probably may be the best group to start next week. So please let us know ahead of time. And then I think today we're not going to have you sign up because you're not in your small groups today.

Right. But if you do know, if you have two groups that know that, you know, these are the groups that we want to stick with, please come and let us know so that we can assign you for next week. And then after that we'll have other groups do this, do the snacks.

Okay. All right. Any questions about any of that? Okay. All right. Good. Now we can get going. Okay. Oh, you're going to, I guess I could do it. Yeah. Can you guys see with me standing right in the middle right here? You guys can't see. Okay. So I was debating whether to put slides up or not today because of this.

Um, all right, let me pray for us and we'll jump in. Heavenly father, we ask for your grace. We ask for the Holy spirit to lead and guide us. We pray father God that the subject matter that we're covering would sanctify the church, unite us together, Lord God, to understand the fundamental things, Lord, that are essential in your heart and in your word.

I pray that you would open up our ears, that the things that we're learning would cause us to grow and understand who you are in a deeper way. So we pray for your blessing over this time in Jesus name we pray. Amen. So you'll see on the back that there's an outline here.

Okay. Okay. Look at the back of the orientation. Look at the back, back side of it. Okay. So you guys are, I have no idea what I'm talking. Yeah. Look at the backside here and there's, it's an outline where you can take notes. Okay. So just follow along with that.

And when you see it up here, you can just fill it in as we're going. Um, but I don't want you guys to spend so much time taking notes that you're not really paying attention because I'd rather have you pay attention to what's, what's being taught today than for you to take good notes because I really want us to be united together.

Okay. First vision of the churches. We said God centered worship and not man centered. Why is this vision so important in the church, especially today in our generation where, you know, every once in a while somebody would ask me, you know, um, if we do this, more people will come.

I had a friend who visited our church and they felt uncomfortable. Could we do this over that? The reason why we have man, God centered worship, not man centered is that we believe that primary need of man is God, right? That first and foremost, the church does not exist for me or you.

First and foremost, church is a place where we come to honor God. The scripture says in Colossians 1 16 that all things were made by him and for him. Therefore, all truth and action must, must have God as the center, right? Let me make that absolutely crystal clear because there is a confusing message in our generation, right?

How does, how do we make the church work? How do we make the church feel more connected? How do we make newcomers feel better? Like all of these things are not unnecessary questions. They're good questions, but the most fundamental question of every church ought to be, what does God desire, right?

What should the church be? What does, what is God made the church for? Right? So first and foremost, the greatest question that we need to ask is how do we worship God better if all things were made by him and for him? So he doesn't exist for us. We exist for him.

So the fundamental question of what can God do for me is a wrong question. There is no answer for that. Okay. Or the answer is already done because Christ has already done, right? Has given us eternal life. So the rest of our life is to be lived for his glory.

So first and foremost, God centered worship refocuses our attention on him and not us. God's very nature demands it. The fact that we call him God and that we are creation in and of itself teaches us fundamentally that we exist for him and not him for us. If, if that orientation is not changed correctly, you can miss the church or you can miss Christ.

You can miss scripture, right? You can be a church and be discontent because God or the church is just not doing, it's just not doing it for me. Right? Fundamentally, the fact that we call him God requires us to be the worshiper of him. And we have to be careful that we don't turn around and make him a worshiper of us.

Like these are my needs and what is the church and what is God going to do to meet my needs, right? A right and proper view of God changes everything that we do. It changes everything because if everything is made by him and for him, all things, then he's the head of the church, meaning right understanding of who he is, is going to be the starting point of the philosophy behind everything that we do at church.

How we handle the Bible, how we look at fellowship, how we do evangelism. And we're going to be talking about that on our third session, right? So today we're going to be talking about his, his core nature. Next week we're going to be, Pastor Mark is going to be talking about how that core nature was revealed to sinful men and how we ought to approach him through the Levitical system.

And then on the third week, we're going to be talking about how does that, a right view of God affect church, fellowship, evangelism, prayer, even the gospel, how we view sin, right? How we view discipleship, how that reorients everything that we see, right? So right view of God affects everything.

This is not just the way you think, but it affects everything that you value. What you consider to be good, how you evaluate what's bad, all stems from a right view of God. So wrong view of God will cause you to even evaluate what is good and what is bad.

What, how you consider a church to be good, a church to be bad, right? Can be skewed based upon how you view who God is. So again, that's why this is the first and the most important part of our worship. Our church ministry philosophy is a right view of God, God-centered worship, not man-centered.

The sins of Israel can be, can be divided into three parts. One is idol worship, and that is a straight breaking of the first commandment. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." And so there are periods in Israel's history where they strayed so far away from God, they were guilty of Asherah worship, or Baal worship, or worship of Molech.

And at one point was so corrupt in their sins that they were offering up their children for sacrifices to God of Molech, right? That's idol worship. And that's clearly, you know, there's a clear line between right and wrong with that. Idol worship, I mean, there's no way to defend that.

But the sin that tripped Israel up more than anything else were the next two. The second was that they made graven images of Yahweh and worshipped it. And that's the breaking of the second commandment, where God said, "Thou shalt have no graven images before me." There are two examples.

I've only given one, but two examples of this where the first one, I don't have it here, but the first one is Aaron. When Moses is up in the mountain, he doesn't come down for a while. Remember what Aaron does, he makes a golden calf, and then he presents it to the nation of Israel.

And when he presents this golden calf to worship, he presents it to them and says, "This is the God who delivered us from Egypt." So in his mind, he's not introducing a new God to Israel. He's introducing these calves in replacement of Yahweh. They were waiting for God to come.

And because he can't be seen, Aaron has a bright idea. Moses goes up and he's not here, and people are getting restless. What do we do? Who do we follow? And so Aaron has this bright idea, and I'm going to make an image of this God and present it to them.

Right? So in his mind, this is not idol worship. This is just a graven image. Right? We see the second, oh, I do have it here. Sorry. The second is Jeroboam. Okay? When the kingdom of Israel split into two, Jeroboam, who rebels against Israel's kingdom, takes the ten tribes and he goes up to the south.

And that's when the Israel splits. And he's afraid that because he's taken ten tribes and gone up to the south, and Jerusalem is in the north, sorry, north, and Jerusalem is on the southern part, he decides that he's going to create another way for people to go. If they go down to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh, he's going to lose their loyalty.

So he decides to set up worship in Dan and Bethel, two separate places. And he also makes golden calves and presents it to Israel. And he says the same thing in 1 Kings 12, 28. Here is God who led you out of Egypt. And he says the exact same thing that Aaron says in Exodus 32, 4.

And this is a breaking of the second commandment. Right? Now, the reason why this commandment, this was so dangerous, all throughout the northern kingdoms' sin, there are, one of the primary sins that continues to penetrate into the northern kingdom is this particular sin. They will continue to worship God with the golden calves, saying that this is Yahweh.

This is the God who delivered us out of Egypt. How this sin is manifested today is where we're worshiping God, but the God that we worship is a God that we've created in our own head. We can call Him Jesus. We can call Him God, Yahweh. We can call Him all that we want.

But if that's not the biblical God of the Bible, that's no different than the golden calf. Right? The God of the, the God of the, the, get rich, huh? Prosperity Gospel, okay, Prosperity Gospel, sorry. Get rich quick, seminar God. Okay. The prosperity, the God of the prosperity gospel is like the golden calf.

They call Him Jesus, and they can call the word gospel, and they can sound similar, but that is not the God of the Bible. Right? So they made a God in His image and worshiping it, thinking that they're worshiping Jesus, but they're not worshiping Jesus. The Jesus that they worship is a Jesus that they've created out of their own mind to get what they want.

And that's what golden calf was. Right? In the name of God, they were worshiping it, but it had nothing to do with God. So, if we don't have a biblical understanding of who God is, the way He presented Himself, we can easily be in danger of creating a God in our own head, just because we call Him God or Yahweh or Jehovah or Jesus, doesn't make that the right God.

Right? So, this is the danger that we have in our culture, when you have people who don't know what the Bible says. I think one of the most dangerous places to be is to be committed, at least in theory, be committed to the Bible without knowing the Bible. Right?

It's kind of like being committed to the idea of marriage while hating your husband and hating your wife. Right? You can be committed to the Bible without knowing the Bible, and you could be worshiping the false God and not even knowing it. Right? That was the second sin of Israel.

The third sin of Israel is the sin of the Southern Kingdom, and where they were better than the Northern Kingdom, but the Southern Kingdom kept on tripping over that they were worshiping in high places. Right? And the reason why this was a sin that kept on being repeated over and over again, that even when they would have revivals, He said, "You know, this was a good king, except they didn't put away the high places." The reason why God told them, again, I'm not going to go through these passages for the sake of time.

In Numbers 33, verse 52, it talks about how God detests worship in high places because this is typically where the pagans gave worship to idols. So God gave very specific prescription of how and where that they ought to worship God. And again, next week when Pastor Mark speaks on the subject of Leviticus and how we ought to approach God, he's going to give us a little bit more clarity as to why this is so important.

The sin on the third of the Southern Kingdom is that they were worshiping Yahweh, but they were worshiping Him in the manner that the pagans did. Right? And that's again, that's just something that we need to be careful about. That we may have the right God in mind, but even in the manner in which we worship that we have to be careful that we don't do it like the world does.

Right? Even if we have, even if we are preaching the right gospel, even the way we worship and how the church is organized and what we do, what activities we engage in, that this is not for us to just pick and choose. You know, this makes a bunch of people at our church happy.

It brings more people and the church grows when we do this. That that's not how we approach worship. That's not how we approach church. First and foremost, if it's God-centered, if everything is made by Him and for Him, the most important question is who is He? And what does He desire?

And how does He want us to worship Him? Right? So that's the fundamental question that we're trying to establish in this class. Okay? First and foremost. So this is this important. The next question is how did God then present Himself to Israel? God demanded to be regarded as holy to the nation of Israel.

And you're going to see that there are many attributes of God, but the holiness, His character of holiness stands out above every other nature. And we're going to be talking about that. Okay? First and foremost, the death of Nadab and Nebihu gives us a glimpse. Again, again, Pastor Mark is going to be speaking about that.

This is part of your, I think, quiet time passage. I think maybe your first day, I think. Right? The death of, I'm not going to go into it, but I want you to take a close look at the death of Nadab and Nebihu. And if you are reading that for the first time, it'll probably be a bit shocking to you.

Right? Because their only sin is they didn't do exactly what God told them to do. Nadab and Nebihu were the first two priests who gave the sacrifice to God, but they didn't follow directions. And because they didn't follow directions, fire from heaven come down and consume them, and they are punished.

Right? They die. So, in our natural human paradigm, we're going to look at that and say, "Wow, God is very vengeful. Was that really worthy of death?" Okay? And again, when you have a worldly paradigm and you look at the stories of the Old Testament, it's not going to make much sense to you.

But this is the reason why knowing who God is is extremely, extremely important. Okay? And at the end of that, he says, "The reason for their punishment," he says, and again, it's going to be in your quiet time this week, that he said, "They did not consider me as holy." Right?

If you have an ESV, it says the word that is used there is sanctified, but it is the same word in Hebrew for the word holy. So, if you have an ESV or NIV, or NASV or NIV, it'll say, "It's because they did not consider me holy." Right? So, that was their sin.

That they didn't see him as holy. Right? Moses, if you know this story, at the end of the 40 years of Israel's journey, again, they're complaining to Moses. "Why did you bring us out here?" And they're whining and complaining. And so, God says, "Give them the water that they're demanding." And he goes there and he strikes the rock and he says, "Here's your water." Remember what happens to him?

He doesn't die, but he gets punished, and as a result of him doing that, he's not allowed to go into the Promised Land. Moses waited 40—he endured with these stiff-necked people for 40 years, thinking that, "If I just endure, I can get into this Promised Land." But because of this one sin, and this sin of Moses was that he struck the rock.

We're not exactly sure what he did wrong. But the way God describes his sin was that you didn't consider—you didn't show me as holy to the nation of Israel. Now, we don't know if it was because he struck the rock or whether he was angry, but God says, whatever he did do, that he didn't present himself—present Yahweh as holy.

Right? That was the sin. And that sin was so hideous before God that he was not allowed to enter into the Promised Land. If you look at the Lord's Prayer, again, you don't need to turn there, Matthew 6, 9 through 13, when Jesus says, "Pray this way," and He begins, right?

"Our Father, which art in heaven," and how does the next part go? "Hallowed be thy name." The word "hallowed," again, either reverenced, or another way to put it is holy. Right? Holy is thy name. So the way that Jesus tells His disciples to address the Father is as a holy God.

Right? Holy. Now, I can give you example after example after example, but there's one attribute that absolutely stands out above every other attribute. In fact, we can say that the history of Israel is to present to the nation of Israel and to the world the foundation of His nature of holiness.

Right? Two separate places in the Bible where His attribute is repeated three separate times consecutively. "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty." It's mentioned in Isaiah 6, 3 and Revelations 4, 8. Right? No other place in the Bible where any other attribute of God is repeated in this way.

Again, those of you guys who know, who've been here for a while know that whenever you see a repetition in the Scripture, you're supposed to stop and consider deeply what is being said. So when Jesus would stop and say, "Peter, Peter," or "Truly, truly, I say something to you," and He would do it in repetition, it is meant to be highlighted, to pay attention.

Something that I'm going to be saying to you is extremely, extremely important. Twice in the Scripture, in the book of Isaiah and book of Revelation, where a prophet of God sees a glimpse of the throne of God and at that throne the creatures surrounding Him are declaring, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty." So that alone, even if I didn't mention anything else, but that alone should cause anybody to take a step back and see that this is a nature of God that is singularly singled out above all the others.

And I know that again, in our generation, if there's any aspect of God or attribute of God that is singled out, it's probably His grace, His mercy, and His love. It is important. It's absolutely essential. It is talked about. But no other place in the Bible where it talks about God is love, love, love, grace, grace, grace, mercy, mercy, mercy.

And we don't want to diminish any one of those things. But this aspect of His holiness is at the foundation of understanding of every other attribute. If you don't understand His holiness, you're not going to completely understand His love. If you don't understand His attribute of holiness, you're not going to understand His attribute of mercy.

Because all of these things are connected. There's a reason why two-thirds of the Old Testament is dedicated to make sin utterly sinful. Basically, if you were to summarize in a nutshell the essence of what was happening in the Old Testament, which is two-thirds of the Bible, He says that the law was given and we see a history of the nation of Israel who is constantly sinning and coming before God, and God is being merciful.

But it's curse, after curse, after curse. And He says, as we've been talking about on Sunday, it's to make sin utterly sinful. But the reason why sin is utterly sinful is because we have a progressive revelation of His holy nature. Sin is never utterly sinful when we compare it, when we don't compare it to Holy, Holy, Holy God.

The more we understand who He is, the more utterly sinful sin becomes. Sin is not sinful when you compare it with other sinners. We can always find sinners who we think are worse than us, and it kind of makes our sin a little bit better. We don't feel as bad about our sins.

See, but two-thirds of the Old Testament is sin in the presence of this Holy God. So, again, this aspect of His holiness is at the foundation of understanding of everything that we do. So if God reveals Himself as Holy, if His nature is at the core of everything that we do, if at the core of His nature God emphasizes and highlights His holiness, then what does it mean to be holy?

What does the Bible mean by holiness? There's two definitions. One is to be morally perfect or pure. In Habakkuk, chapter 1, verse 13, it says, "You who are purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong." But let me emphasize here. This is typically, when we think of holiness, we think about this aspect.

It's pure, He's perfect, He's morally, there's nothing wrong with Him, right? Which is the correct definition, but we have to understand when we think about morally perfect, it's different the way that you and I understand perfection. Because you and I understand someone who is morally perfect, the closer and closer that we are to His nature, to who He is, right?

God is not morally perfect because He keeps a standard of right and wrong that is independent of Him. I hope you're following along. God is morally perfect because He Himself is holy. What is right and wrong stem from who He is. If He says to kill, that's the right thing to do.

If He says eat, then that's the right thing to do. If He says not to eat, then that's the right thing to do. So His nature of perfection and morally being upright is different than us. We have a set of right and wrong, and the closer we keep that, we're morally perfect, right?

So typically, when we think of God being holy, that's the first definition that we have. But the definition that really encompasses all the other things is related to the second part, okay? It's to be set apart. To be set apart. R.C. Sproul, and I'm just going to read that part to you, he says, "The primary meaning of holy is to be separate.

It comes from an ancient word that meant to cut or to separate. Perhaps even more accurate would be the phrase, 'a cut above something.' When we find a garment or another piece of merchandise that is outstanding, that has a superior excellence, we use the expression that it is cut above the rest." Right?

It is different. There's nothing like Him. Right? That's the word holy. So you can take an object that was common, and you would dedicate it to the Lord, and what would happen to that object? It became holy. Right? Because now, it was for His use. The holy temple, before it was just a bunch of dirt, and they put it together, and it was bricks, but if you made the house for you to live in, it would be common.

But if that temple was dedicated to the Lord, what did it become? It became holy. Right? So the second definition of it is not simply to be morally upright, but anything that is separated for Him. It's cut above. Right? It is different. Now why is this definition so important?

Because when something is related to God, it takes something that is common, and then it becomes something weighty. Right? Sorry. This part, I don't think it's in your notes, but I'm going to jot it down. I encourage you to do the third part. To be set apart. To say He is holy means that He is not meant to be considered as common, or anything associated with Him to be common.

The word used to describe expression of holiness is glory. Right? So when His holiness is declared and is expressed, we say that we are glorifying Him, or we see His glory. Right? Basically, His glory is an expression of His attribute. Right? You follow? The word glory itself means to be weighty.

Heavy. Right? Or something serious. Not to be taken lightly. So what that means is, the very essence of the definition of holiness means that there's, again, that He is perfect, that He is cut above, there's nothing like Him, and that there is a weightiness. Right? That we are not to take it lightly.

Everything that He says is holy. Everything He says is holy. It's not meant to be talked about lightly. Everything that He says was to be treasured and taken seriously. When God shows up and He's in His presence, what does He make Moses do? Take his feet off, shoes off.

Because what? What kind of ground is it? It is holy ground. So when it is holy ground, what does He mean? That you are not to stand here like you're standing in the presence of just any bush. This is where God is. Right? Whenever anything was related to God, it was meant to be taken seriously, because there are serious consequences.

Right? That's the definition of holiness. There's a weightiness of what it is. So again, let me step back and we're going to be talking about this more on the third session. The very essence of who God is requires us to search His Word carefully to figure out who He is.

Today, the way we worship God has become more and more adjusted so that more and more can feel comfortable exactly the way they are. That is not worship. Worship is common people coming before a holy, holy, holy God and being changed in the presence of His glory. Right? That's worship.

So fundamentally, our idea of making, adjusting the church and adjusting everything that we're doing so that more and more things can become more and more common to attract more and more people. And then we have to diminish less and less of the definition of holiness. We can say the word holy, but if we don't understand the meaning of holiness in the way that Scripture describes it, then we're going to miss the whole point of why we gather together.

Right? We're not here to just listen to some words. We're not here to make friends. Ultimately, we're here to approach a holy, holy, holy God. Right? So even when we talk about approaching the throne of grace with confidence, it's a throne that we're approaching. It is a throne of grace, but it is a throne.

It is a king that we are approaching. So oftentimes, even when we talk about grace, we don't have this concept of His weightiness, of His glory, and we kind of have this image of like this grandpa that we're kind of coming to embrace. Nowhere in the Scripture do we see that.

That's an image of God that we've created in our own heads. Search the Scriptures anywhere, New Testament or the Old Testament, any illustration, anywhere in the Bible where you see where God shows up and people run to embrace Him. Right? That is not the image that we see in the Scripture.

That is an image that we've created in our culture to accommodate the masses, but that is not what we see in Scripture. Right? Everything associated with God is holy. Instances, again, and I'm going to end with this for today. If everything stems from His nature, at the core of His nature is His holiness.

The definition of His holiness is to be set apart, to be weighty and serious, and there's nothing like Him. So it relates to His love. The love that He talks about is holy, is cut above. It's different than any other love that you know. His judgment is holy. It's different than any other judgment that we know.

So even though we use illustrations like, "Well, His love is like the love of the mother," no, it's not. There's nothing to compare with. That's what it means to be holy. Right? When we talk about His power, "Oh, His power is like the nuclear bomb," no, it's not. There's nothing that we can compare it with.

That's what it means to be holy, that He is set apart. There's a weightiness of everything that we're doing. So I'm going to give you some examples of Scripture. And again, we can comb through all the way from Genesis to Revelation, and I can give you countless numbers of examples of people encountering God.

And it is not this picture that, again, in our generation that we've drawn of who God is. 2 Samuel 6, 1 through 11. And I want to, I know it's a little bit lengthy, but I want to read to you. Some of you guys know the background behind this.

And this is one of the books that we used to have the whole church read. And again, if you haven't read this, we highly, highly encourage you to get this book and read it and read it carefully. If you're in a small group that, you know, you don't know what to read, read this first.

Okay? Again, for the sake of time, I'm not going to go too deep into it, but the story behind this is that the Ark of the Covenant was stolen by the Philistines. And this is a scene where David conquers, again, wins the battle over the Philistines. And they're bringing the Ark of the Covenant back to Israel.

But in this scene, they put the Ark of the Covenant on a cart being pulled by an ox. And Uzzah, who happens to be a priest, when the cart stumbles and it's about to fall to the ground, he reaches out and he saves it from touching the ground and he brings it back up.

And at the end of that, you would say, "Wow, he did a great thing. He prevented the Ark of the Covenant from crashing to the ground." But in God's eyes, he sinned. His sin was so horrible that he ends up dying. Right? In that passage, there's no explanation. When we read that passage, we can look at that and say, "Wow, that was pretty random.

Instead of being rewarded for saving the Ark of the Covenant, God actually punishes him." And I think R.C. Sproul does such a great job describing this. So, I know it's a little bit lengthy, but I want you guys to pay attention to what he says. Uzzah, probably a Kohathite.

Kohathite is one of the tribes of the priests. He knew exactly what his duties were. He had been trained thoroughly in the discipline of his calling. He understood that God had declared that the touching of the Ark of the Covenant was a capital offense. No Kohathite under any circumstance was ever permitted to touch the Ark.

No emergency was grounds for breaking that inviolate command. The elaborate construction of the Ark, complete with golden rings through which the long poles were inserted, was so fashioned as to make it clear that the Ark itself was not to be touched. The men commissioned to transport the Ark could touch only the poles and the rings.

Then it was the task of the Kohathites to carry the Ark by these long poles. No provision was made for hurrying the procedure by transporting the Ark via an ox cart. We must ask the question, what was the Ark doing on an ox cart in the first place? God was so strict about the holy things of the tabernacle that the Kohathites were not allowed even to gaze upon the Ark.

This too was a capital crime. God had decreed that if a Kohathite merely glanced at the Ark and the Holy of Holies for an instant, he would die. Not only was Uzzah forbidden to touch the Ark, he was forbidden even to look at it. He touched it anyway. He stripped out his hand and placed it squarely on the Ark, steadying it in place lest it fall to the ground.

An act of holy heroism. No, it was an act of arrogance, a sin of presumption. Uzzah assumed that his hand was less polluted than the earth. But it wasn't the ground or the mud that would desecrate the Ark, it was the touch of man. The earth is an obedient creature.

It does what God tells it to do. It brings forth its yield in its season. It obeys the laws of nature that God had established. When the temperature falls to a certain point, the ground freezes. When the water is added to the dust, it becomes mud, just as God designed it.

The ground does not commit cosmic treason. There is nothing polluted about the ground. He goes on and on to give us perspective. Again, Pastor Mark is going to take some time to go over the book of some parts of Leviticus to explain this further. But when we have a superficial understanding of His holiness, it completely disorients how we understand worship, how we understand our personal relationship with God, how we understand expectation from the Church, how we understand expectations from the world, how we understand the Gospel, our salvation, our hope in Christ, all of this, right?

All of this diminishes everything that we have when we have a diminished understanding of His holiness. And that's why God spends painstaking time to teach the nation of Israel and us about His holiness. And why the nation of Israel, in this particular example, was given to us. Why He couldn't even touch, He couldn't even gaze at it, because any man who saw the face of God, what did He say?

He would die. He would die. He doesn't gaze upon a loving face, a God that's waiting to give us embrace. First and foremost, that is not the picture we see in the Bible. Isaiah chapter 6, 1 through 7, again, for the sake of time, we're not going to read that, but where Isaiah sees a vision of God, and what's Isaiah's first response?

"Lord, I missed You. I wanted to see You." That's not the first response. He falls to his face and he says, "Woe is me. I am done. I'm a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips. And I have seen God." So Isaiah was expecting to die because he saw God, because the Israelites understood.

Because of what God has done to the nation of Israel, because of His teaching, they knew, inherently they knew, that a sinful man could not even gaze upon God and live. In fact, the Israelites were so afraid of using His name in vain that they wouldn't even pronounce His name.

So whenever you see in the Scripture the word "Lord," capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, in the Hebrew Bible, it has His name, Yahweh. But the Jews were so afraid of mispronouncing or misusing His name that they never pronounced it. And the reason why today, we're not sure if the Hebrew words are meant to be pronounced Yahweh or Jehovah, because they didn't pronounce it for so long, by the time they translated it into Greek, they didn't know which vowels belonged to where.

So all we have in the Hebrew are the consonants, and we don't have the vowels. So if you put the vowels in a different place, it's pronounced Jehovah. If you put the vowels in a different place, it's pronounced Yahweh. That's how they were scared. That's how much they were scared to even pronounce His name wrong.

Think about, and again, they didn't create that. That came as a result of their encountering God. God taught them this, right? God taught them this. They were doing what God taught them to do. "Do not approach me, or you will die." Ezekiel 1:28. Ezekiel sees a vision of God.

What happens to him? He falls to the ground in terror. When we talk about fear, fearing God, because it's hard for us to understand, because we've been given this picture of a God who is so tame and so loving, so gracious, that we can get away with almost anything that we want, that it's hard for us to understand, why would we fear God?

I thought we would go and run and embrace Him and sit on His lap, because that's the typical picture that we have. So even the way that we interpret the word fear, "Oh, He's not talking about terror. He's talking about reverence, honoring." No. Take a look at the word fear in Hebrew and in Greek.

It means terror. To be terrified of God. That's exactly the word that is used. In fact, it's not just the word itself. Look at the way people respond when they're in the presence of God. There is terror. The disciples, right, at the transfiguration, when they hear the voice of God, how do they respond?

They fall to the ground in terror. In Revelation 1:17, when John sees a vision of God, what happens? Terror. Even in Revelation 5, 14, even the four beasts and 24 elders in the scene of heaven, when they're in His presence, what happens to them? They fall to the ground in terror.

Even the angels in Revelation 7, 11, it describes them in the presence of this Holy God, and they are face down, covering themselves. Remember the scene with Moses, when God is calling him to lead the nation of Israel, and Moses says, "I only ask one thing, let me see you." And remember what God says to Moses, "If you see me, you will die." So what he says is, "I'm going to bypass you and I'm going to cover you, so that you don't see a full picture of who I am." And he covers him, and he says, "As I am passing, you will see my backside, as I am passing." So Moses simply gets a glimpse of God as he is passing, covered and protected by God Himself.

The glory that was remaining on his face as a reflection of Him just passing was so terrifying, that when He came down from the mountain and He began to speak to the nation of Israel, they were so afraid of that glory shining off of His face, they begged Him to cover themselves.

So He puts a veil on, and He actually enters and hides in the temple just to have conversations with the nation of Israel. That was a glimpse of His glory as it was passing by, protected by God Himself. That's why when we talk about the cross, when it says it goes dark, when Dr.

Harris talks about it going dark, it makes perfect sense to me that He makes it dark because He was approaching the cross to lay our sins upon Him. Because sinful man can't gaze upon His presence and live. Why is this so essential? If we don't understand the nature of His holiness, it disorients everything that we do.

The sin of man is to place ourselves where God belongs. Where we want to be worshipped, we want to be loved, we want to be, and we place ourselves where He's supposed to be. So when we don't recognize who He is, at the core of our heart, and every single person in here, I don't care how humble we are, how long we've been a Christian, every single one of us struggles with us putting ourselves at the center.

And this is why until God is established and recognized and worshipped as the God of the Bible, everything that the church does will be wrong. Everything. Even when we think we're right, we'll be wrong. And that's why, again, this is, from the very beginning of the church, this was fundamental to the church because until we have a church filled with people who recognizes that this is God, and that when we come to worship, that we're coming to worship this Holy God, that the God who sent His only begotten Son to be crucified for our sin was this terrifying God, that the God that we come to pray and to have relationship with is this Holy, Holy, Holy God.

And it is in the presence of this glory that we are changed. And we make Him any less than what the Bible presents. We will be guilty of either breaking the first commandment, the second commandment, or the third commandment. So I'm going to leave it here, and then if this is all we knew, if this is all we knew, we would be dead.

If we were left at the state that who He is, left the way we were at, we don't have to come before God and say, "Well, let's look at your sin." And that's typically the illustration that we are given. "Let's look at all the sins that you've committed and say, 'Oh, you're guilty of this, now you're going to go to hell.'" I don't think that's how it's going to be.

I think the minute that a sinner stands before a Holy God to be judged, he will be destroyed. There is no need for a list. There's no need to go down the list of what you did, because the minute a man stands before this Holy God without the protection of the blood of Christ, we would be destroyed.

So this is the foundation in which everything that we understand about church, about the Gospel, about the Bible, about discipleship, evangelism, like this is fundamental. So I'm going to pray and end it, and then I have some discussion questions to discuss. Pastor Mark, next week, is going to take—so if this is who God is, what did He tell the nation of Israel, how to approach Him?

Okay? And so he's going to go over that in the Book of Leviticus next week. So let me pray for us, and then I'm going to ask you guys to take some time in your small group. Again, next week, I'm going to give you a little bit more time, but today, because we had orientation, we're going a little bit further.

Okay, let me pray for us. Oh, sorry, we have worship right after this. Sorry about that. Okay. Heavenly Father, help us, Lord God, to have a biblical view of who You are. And I know each one of us, in our own way, have strayed, Father, from keeping You as the Lord of our life.

I pray, Father God, that through this class and through the things that we discussed, that You would help us to be properly oriented of who You are, that our hearts, our affections, all of it, Lord God, may be surrendered to You. Help us to see a vision of Christ and what He has done, and who You are, Lord God.

And Your mercy, that we would have different perspective of everything that we have. So we offer this time to You, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. No.