Going up, Singing and Rejoicing — Living Out the Songs of Ascent
THE CHURCH IN TOLEDO·MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2020·7 MINUTES
https://www.facebook.com/notes/the-church-in-toledo/02-going-up-singing-and-rejoicing-living-out-the-songs-of-ascent/1594420800716922/
For the chosen people of God, the celebration did not start upon their arrival at Jerusalem, three times a year. No, actually, they had been preparing for the whole year, a long time before they came together—that season of celebration came after a season of anticipation and laboring. Their life, purpose of living, and produce of their labor were all for that. They lived in the vision day by day, so when the time came, their being inside was bubbling. There are many Psalms in the Bible that talk about the singing of the chosen people: the Songs of Ascent [Psalms 120-134]. They were very joyful and very driven. The people wanted to go up to celebrate God. They craved to see each other. They wanted to see Jerusalem be manifested on the earth for God Himself. This is the definition of “meeting.” The meeting can never start when 9:30 A.M. comes around. It should start way before that—you should have a condition to celebrate to be with the saints.
Today, when you come to the meeting, you need to be excited first. If you don't have the excitement inside of you, there's something wrong. It’s not a hyper emotion, but something in you that you cannot hold. It’s a powerful force, like a great locomotive—you just want it to come out. Just like when you want to see your family—there is a craving, a force, a power that compels you to them. There is reality in that power—without any outward pushing. Spontaneously there is care, there is love, there is serving inside of you. When the opportunity comes to speak, there is excitement, there is a burden. In this way, our churching can never be a routine. Churching cannot just be our coming together because it’s a certain time on a certain day and we need to join the meeting. No, this is not us—we do not follow a schedule, especially among ourselves here in the church in Toledo. We follow an invisible move, not an outward move.
In the past, we have practiced using many tools to help start the meeting, to provide a particular atmosphere for “worship.” We should appreciate that there have been a few mature ones among us who have had the boldness and insight to challenge these practices to bring saints into the reality and purpose of meeting together. We cannot call songs or offer up prayers just for the sake of keeping a format or performance. We need the true constitution and substance to satisfy the Lord when we come together. To take care of the Lord is very important, and there's no easy way or formula to do this.
Celebrating Christ as our Produce
1 Cor. 14:26 What then, brothers? Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.
1 Cor. 14:26 footnote 1 [2] “This is like the Feast of Tabernacles in ancient times. The children of Israel brought the produce of the good land, which they had reaped from their labor on the land, to the feast and offered it to the Lord for His enjoyment and for their mutual participation in fellowship with the Lord and with one another. We must labor on Christ, our good land, that we may reap some produce of His riches to bring to the church meeting and offer. Thus the meeting will be an exhibition of Christ in His riches and will be a mutual enjoyment of Christ shared by all the attendants before God and with God for the building up of the saints and the church.”
In the above footnote, we read about how God’s chosen people came to meet. This three times-a-year celebration was centered on the testimony of God and it happens in Jerusalem, which was the city that the Lord chose to put His name. In the Old Testament, when the chosen people of God came to Jerusalem three times a year, they brought their harvest and they celebrated the oneness among the people of God. Although they were all scattered on the good land, there was an expression and a testimony of that oneness. If you study the nature in which they came together to uphold that oneness, where the testimony of the people of God was—that is the key for us today. It was foreshadowing our coming together today as a typology. This picture gives insight for a proper understanding of how and why we meet.
For the chosen people of God, the celebration did not start upon their arrival at Jerusalem, three times a year. No, actually, they had been preparing for the whole year, a long time before they came together—that season of celebration came after a season of anticipation and laboring. Their life, purpose of living, and produce of their labor were all for that. They lived in the vision day by day, so when the time came, their being inside was bubbling. There are many Psalms in the Bible that talk about the singing of the chosen people: the Songs of Ascent [Psalms 120-134]. They were very joyful and very driven. The people wanted to go up to celebrate God. They craved to see each other. They wanted to see Jerusalem be manifested on the earth for God Himself. This is the definition of “meeting.” The meeting can never start when 9:30 A.M. comes around. It should start way before that—you should have a condition to celebrate to be with the saints.
Churching - Testifying the Oneness as the Living Truth-Mingled Sphere
When we come together to meet, how do we start? For sure, starting the meeting—who, how, what, and when to start the meeting—is always a challenge. However, it's not about what you say. Sometimes, we might say all the right things, but it doesn't carry out what you want to express. Sometimes calling a song is wonderful and other times calling a song can be a problem. In our experience, we have seen how calling a song at the wrong timing will change the entire flow of the Lord’s speaking. The same applies to sharing a testimony. We may easily say, “I'm sharing this—although it's not what we're talking about today, I still want to share.” You can say that, and no one will stop you. However, if you really share far away from what the Lord is doing among us, then your sharing is not really related to the testimony or the oneness. This is very critical. It's not that we are required to share with the body or what the body is experiencing. But if we are talking about God's economy, for example, and then suddenly you start to talk about how we can prepare a love feast—it doesn't really match. You are bent on talking about a love feast, and then suddenly what the Lord wants to speak is diminished—the flow stops.
The sensitivity from the oneness is not what you say; it's how your spirit is mingled or attached to the oneness, the testimony, the household, the whole—instead of our own portion. It's not about right or wrong. For instance, I don't think there's anything wrong for the saints to talk about and enjoy their dishes. But there is a very fine line in between one testimony and another testimony. Some testimonies are a testimony for a whole; some testimonies are a testimony for themselves. There's no very specific definition of “testimony” to define a testimony for the whole and a testimony for the individual. What kind of testimony you give depends on your nature and your condition. There's something inside that will be personified because whatever you do or say is an expression.
The testimony or the oneness is not based on an effort but a sphere. And the church life is the sphere of the testimony. This is why in Ephesians 4:3 Paul wrote that we must “guard” the oneness. It's not just how you “keep” the oneness—the footnote further clarifies that we need to “guard” the oneness [Eph. 4:3, footnote 1]. The difference between keep and guard is that with “keep” you might not have it. However, to “guard” means that you already have it. To guard that oneness is guarding a sphere.
All of these things will be clear when you come to the sphere of the truth. The church is the incarnated truth, the living truth. It's not a social gathering. The church is the personified Christ, the expression of Christ. Christ is God—which is “the Word.” He is the living Word of God, the expressed Word of God, the outpoured Word of God—and that's the church. The church is definitely not an organization, institution, building, religious entity, gathering, or social group. The church cannot be defined by a group of people—how they follow the Lord or how they love the Lord. The church cannot be defined by that, even though those things are wonderful. The church can only be the church because it is hosting or holding the ground of the oneness of the truth. So that's what the celebration behind the Songs of Ascent is really about.
When we say celebration, it may seem kind of cheesy, but it's not. How can you celebrate? You have to be absolutely reigning. How do we reign? We reign in life. We reign because of the ground that has already been laid by the Lord for His people so that we can celebrate Him in His accomplishment and this organic union with Him. This is the position that we have been granted as His church and the condition that we carry as a result of living in this sphere day by day. Today we are reigning — we are continuing the Songs of Ascent until His return.
-Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 4/12/2020, not reviewed by the speaker.
