Here are some questions based on last Sunday’s sermon text (Psalm 133), in case they’re helpful to you for personal growth or group discussion…

• [1] As a “Song of Ascents,” this Psalm is best understood as celebrating the unity of Yahweh’s people in corporate worship. Karl Barth said, “The church service is the most important, momentous, and majestic thing which can possibly take place on earth.” Does that make any sense to you? From your experience, does your church believe this? Do you resonate with the celebration of unity that you find in this Psalm?

• Some Christians insist that corporate worship is not a central feature of Christian spirituality, that it is like an elective that one can take or leave out of the Christian life. Many Christians live that way, whether they would articulate it that way or not. Why do you think that is? What would you say to someone who said, “I’m a Christian, but I don’t go to church, I feel closer to God in solitude”? Can you think of Scriptures that would apply to that conversation?

• [2] The holy anointing oil poured on the head of the High Priest, then running down over his body, is a beautiful picture of the Holy Spirit poured out upon Jesus Christ (the Anointed One), then flowing from him as our Head down to us as his Body, the church. The Holy Spirit given to sinners by the mediation of Jesus is the source of our unity. The Holy Spirit has united us to Jesus, to God, and to each other in the church. We are not called to attain this unity as if we did not already have it, but to maintain it in the way we live together in the church (Ephesians 4:3). Do you believe that you are truly and forever united to Jesus, to God, and to his people? How does that thought influence the way you participate in the church? Does it comfort, encourage, energize, or soften your heart toward your brothers and sisters?

• What would you say to someone who said, “This church is full of such bad people that I just can’t stand it anymore, I need to go somewhere else”? Are there conditions that, were they to exist in your particular church, you would find intolerable and you would feel justified in leaving the fellowship of the Holy Spirit there?

• [3] The Holy Spirit is, in a sense, the “lifeblood” of the Trinity: he is the One who unites the Father and the Son, he is the blessed Being of the living God. With him, spiritual life, eternal life, is life together. And God has “commanded the blessing, life forevermore,” to be in his church. What does the New Testament have to say about the life of the Spirit being lived out in the church? What kinds of people are called to live in the Spirit together? What kinds of things are to characterize our relationships? Do you see the life of the Spirit being lived out in your church? What do you think you should do if you don’t?