WORSHIPING IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH
John 4:19-24
At this very moment, there are people all over the world in hot pursuit of the ultimate experience. People who will do anything in order to feel truly fulfilled, truly exhilarated, truly satisfied, truly alive; who will try anything in order to chase away the pain they feel inside. And try anything they do, from jumping out of airplanes, to hooking up with new sexual partners, to devoting themselves to the newest spiritual guru, to surgically altering their bodies, or medicating their bodies with the latest designer drugs. And what futility it all is! What chasing after wind! Because after all is said and done, with all of the sophistication and technological innovation that men and women in the 21st-century enjoy, you still can’t fill a God-shaped vacuum with anything but God. Because the only answer to the emptiness and the longing and the guilt and the pain that sinful men and women feel is still the freedom and forgiveness and redemption that can be found only in Jesus Christ.
Beloved, there is no place on earth I would rather be than right here, and nothing I would rather be doing than what we’re doing right now. Because there’s no experience known to man, no experience under the sun that’s more fulfilling, more exhilarating, more satisfying, or more life-giving than the true worship of Christ, than coming into His presence and rejoicing in His salvation, and singing praises to Him, and glorifying Him as our Creator and our Redeemer and our King. When you consider what He’s done for us who belong to Him, that He’s saved us from the futility of living out our lives in sin and hopelessness, that He’s given us new birth and new life, how could we not run joyfully into His presence and thank Him? What could keep us away? We’re having the ultimate experience right here, right now; worshiping the Father, worshiping His Son Jesus Christ!
Turn in your Bibles please to John chapter 4, to the passage we just read. In context, it seems like Jesus almost inadvertently says something very important about worship. Most of us know this story pretty well, that of a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well who has an unexpected encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. She’s a sinful woman – much like ourselves – and in the course of their conversation she finds, to her surprise, that Jesus somehow knows all about her many sins, all about her many husbands and sexual partners. And so she says, abruptly changing the subject, verse 19 of John 4, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship."
The Samaritans were so called because their population centered on the city of Samaria, which had been the capital of the kingdom of the northern tribes of Israel before it fell to the Assyrians in 721 BC. What the Assyrians did was to exile many of the Israelites out of their land and settle in their place peoples they had conquered from other lands. So the Samaritans of Jesus’ time were the end product both of the interbreeding of different ethnic groups, and the intermixing of different religions. And at some point, the Samaritans had built a temple on Mount Gerizim, where they worshiped a god of their own imaginations.
Verse 21 "Jesus said to her, ’Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father.’" . . . Soon, very soon, her question would become moot. Because the external forms of Old Covenant worship were about to be fulfilled by the Messiah. And that included the existence of a permanent central place of worship, the temple at Jerusalem where God Himself was present, in the Holy of Holies. Verse 22 "You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
What does it mean to worship God in spirit and in truth? Well, what happened when Jesus died on the cross and rose again, and ascended into heaven to be seated at the right hand of the Father? The prophesied and anticipated central act of God’s plan of redemption was now complete, and all of the types and shadows of Old Covenant worship were fulfilled in Christ. . . . Because Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice for sin, there was no longer any need for the temple sacrifices of bulls and goats. Because Jesus is the ultimate priest, the great intercessor between God and man, there was no longer any need for the ministry of temple priests. And because Jesus is Immanuel, God with us – John 1:14, the Word which became flesh and dwelt among us – there was no longer any need for the Jerusalem temple at all. So at the death of Christ, the veil of the temple, Matthew 27:51, which had always separated God’s people from God’s glorious presence, was torn in half from top to bottom.
But does that mean that there is no longer a temple of God? Turn if you would please to Ephesians 2:19. God still dwells among His people, but now in the fullness of the New Covenant. In both Matthew 12 and John 2, Jesus referred to Himself as the temple of God. And in Ephesians 2, Paul said, starting at verse 19, "Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole building, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, 22 in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."
Paul calls the body of Christ – the church – a holy temple in the Lord, and the dwelling place of God in the Spirit. God is still very much present among His people, only now His presence is mediated directly to each believer by the Holy Spirit. Is there temple worship today? You better believe it. And when the body of Christ gathers to worship – no longer in a centralized physical place, but wherever it is that we gather, even if it’s just one Christian worshiping in his or her prayer closet – when the body of Christ gathers to worship, if it is to be true worship in the presence of God, we must worship in the strength and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit of God.
But Jesus also said, John 4:24, that those who worship Him must worship Him in truth. Think about it: when does the Spirit ever operate apart from truth? Just because the worship of God is no longer ordered by the Old Covenant temple regulations, does that mean that that the worship of God is no longer to be ordered at all? 1 Corinthians 14:40, Paul writing to the Corinthians about their practice of New Covenant worship said, Let all things be done decently and in order. And Jesus makes it clear that this order is not merely a humanly arranged order, but a spiritual order that must be regulated by unchanging divine truth.
What does it mean to worship God? Over the past weeks,from (Pastor Young’s teaching) we’ve seen that worshiping God means assigning worth to Him – demonstrating to a watching universe His worth, His value to us – by our being satisfied with Him. By coming to Him and finding in Him, the sufficient answer to all of our needs. Are we weary? Then we come in worship to rejoice in His strength. Are we lonely? Then we come in worship to celebrate His faithfulness. Are we confused? Then we come in worship to glory in His wisdom. Are we persecuted or victimized? Then we come in worship to triumph in His justice and His righteousness. And are we struggling in the guilt and the grip of sin? Then we come in worship to revel and to exult in His boundless grace, and in His infinite mercy in Christ.
In the true worship of God, we draw near to Him and He draws near to us. In the true worship of God, we delight in Him and He delights in us. And in the true worship of God, mediated by the Holy Spirit, we bring to Him our needs, and our cares, and our very lives, and we lay all of ourselves on the altar, and He ministers to us His perfections; and we are filled, Ephesians 3:19, with all the fullness of God.
That’s worship. And worship is absolutely vital to the life of every Christian and central to the life of every church. But exactly what constitutes true worship – worship in spirit and truth – has become one of the most divisive and troubling issues in the evangelical church today. The real question is, Is God always pleased with what men bring to Him in worship? In other words, are we free to worship God, to pursue our joy and satisfaction in Him, in any manner that we see fit, to include in our worship anything that we desire? Are we free to decide how we prefer to approach Him and to be ministered to by Him? Or is our worship, as New Covenant worshipers, to be regulated and ordered, as was Old Covenant worship, by God’s revealed truth?
I have been in evangelical churches that chose to worship God by screening clips from Hollywood films, and screening videos that promoted the church itself. We’ve been in evangelical churches that chose to worship God by putting on skits and puppet shows, and by producing extravagant musical entertainment, and even by dimming the lights and putting out on stage a young lady and a back-up band to sing a purely secular song. We’ve been in evangelical churches that, instead of a call to worship, chose to send out a stand-up comedian in order, I guess, to loosen up the crowd. It seems that some churches, like some people, will try almost anything under the sun in their pursuit of the ultimate worship experience.
But is God always pleased with what men bring to Him in worship? Not, beloved, when they ignore His revealed truth. Turn please in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 4. We have here in Genesis 4 the earliest recorded acts of worship. Only not without some significant problems as to the manner of worship. Genesis 4:1 "Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, ’I have acquired a man from the LORD.’ 2 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. 4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the LORD respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not respect – or regard – Cain and his offering."
Why did God respect Abel’s offering, and not Cain’s? Because Abel brought what God had required, what God had prescribed, but Cain brought what he himself desired to bring. But why did God require what Abel brought? Abel brought a lamb and sacrificed its life, spilled out its blood before God. . . . Think about it: that lamb foreshadowed the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Which is the only way a sinner such as Abel could approach a holy God. Here’s a hint, a living being…nothing dead.
Did Cain and Abel comprehend the reason why one offering was accepted, and one was not? No, how could they, living thousands of years before Christ? But their lack of understanding didn’t prevent God from requiring simple obedience to His commands concerning worship, and regulating by His truth how sinful men could approach a holy God. Cain’s basket of oranges or pomegranates or whatever it was that he brought was undoubtedly a wonderful gift, freely given. But it did not carry with it the necessary reminder of the guilt and seriousness of his sin, while at the same time foreshadowing God’s only remedy for sin. God is not always pleased with what men bring to Him in worship.
Turn now please to Exodus 32, the golden calf incident. Israel had been slaves in Egypt for the better part of 400 years before God delivered them through His mighty acts, the ten plagues. The people then traveled to the base of Mt. Sinai, received the ten commandments directly from God, and then waited at the foot of the mountain while Moses went up into the thick darkness to receive more instructions and laws from God, mostly regulations for the temple or tabernacle worship.
But the people grew restless waiting for Moses to come down. So they told Moses’ brother Aaron to make them an image of God that they could see, that could go before them, that they could bow down to and worship. That they understood this golden calf to be a representation of God, and therefore their worship to be offered to God, I think is beyond dispute. Pick it up at verse 4, Exodus 32:4 "And he (Aaron) received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, ’This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ 5 So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, ’Tomorrow is a feast to Yahweh’" . . . the original Hebrew has Aaron using the LORD’s proper name here. That’s important, because we need to recognize that their sin wasn’t that of worshiping another god; no, they were worshiping the true God. Only problem was, they weren’t worshiping Him in the manner in which He had prescribed. They weren’t worshiping Him in truth.
Go on, verse 6 "Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play." . . . I can’t help but see a parallel here to contemporary worship services. What’s our natural inclination as human beings? To play, to have fun, to enjoy ourselves, to amuse and entertain ourselves. So it’s no wonder we’ve all had to sit through comedy routines in the place of worship, oftentimes from the pulpit itself, during the sermon! No wonder we’ve all had to sit through funny skits and entertaining musical numbers in the place of worship. I know, many of us miss those entertaining musical numbers. But when did God ever instruct us to make entertainment or humor or play a deliberate part of our worship?
Verse 7 "And the LORD said to Moses, ’Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. 8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, "This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!" ’ " . . . Why is God angry at His people? Because they have turned aside – verse 8, out of the way which I commanded them – they have stepped outside the bounds of His truth concerning worship. And do you remember to which commandment God was referring? Turn back quickly please to Exodus chapter 20, to the ten commandments.
Exodus 20, verse 1: "And God spoke all these words, saying: ’I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’" . . . Verse 3: "You shall have no other gods before Me." . . . That’s commandment number 1, Worship Me only, worship only the true God. Now verse 4, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God." . . . That’s commandment number 2, worship the true God correctly. Don’t make an image of any created thing and bow down to it, as if it were God.
And why is that? How does this command make number 2 in the big list of ten? Because images are deadly to true worship. Beloved, no single image of God could ever adequately represent the fullness of God, the many perfections of His nature. When the Israelites focused their eyes and their minds on that single image of God as this powerful being – a calf – who had forcefully delivered them from their bondage in Egypt, they were teaching themselves, as a part of their worship, a caricature of God. What of God’s holiness could they see in that calf? What of His sovereignty, or His goodness, could they see? God restricts our worship at this point, commanding that we make no images of Him, because He is a jealous God – because He doesn’t want His people to worship a God of our own imaginations. Because a God of our own imaginations could never be our only source of true joy and satisfaction.
Why do we not have as part of our worship an image of Jesus dying on the cross, or of Jesus praying in the Garden, or of Jesus welcoming and embracing children, all of which, again, we have seen in the sanctuaries of evangelical churches? Because besides knowing Jesus as a loving Man and as a submissive Son and as a dying Savior, we also need to know Him as a risen and reigning King, and as the Head of the church, and as the self-existent Alpha and Omega. No image could ever do justice to the Person of Jesus Christ!
Just as Cain had done, the Israelites were worshiping God. But also just as Cain had done, the Israelites failed to worship God in His prescribed manner, according to His revealed truth. So while they had indeed approached God to worship Him, He was not at all pleased with what they brought to Him in worship.
If we had time, we could go to many other Scriptures to show the same thing. Think back to Leviticus 10, to the strange fire of Nadab and Abihu, who were proper priests, sons of Aaron, faithfully serving in the Tabernacle. But who one day decided that they would take it upon themselves to burn incense to the Lord, strange fire, says Leviticus 10:1, which He had not commanded them, and were themselves devoured by fire from God.
Think back also to Numbers 16, to Korah’s rebellion, when a group of men who were not priests at all decided to take it upon themselves to burn incense in worship to the Lord, and the earth opened beneath them and swallowed them up. . . . And 1 Samuel 13, when King Saul, rather than waiting for Samuel, took it upon himself to present a burnt offering to the Lord, and God stripped him of his kingdom. . . . And 1 Kings 12, when the house of King Jeroboam was judged after he had taken it upon himself to set up his own golden calves, and his own altars and his own priesthood, which, 1 Kings 12:33, he had devised in his own heart, in order to worship God. . . . Time and time again, throughout the Old Covenant record, men drew near to God to worship Him, and God was not pleased with their worship, because rather than following the commandments of God, rather than regarding Him as holy, rather than worshiping Him in truth, they had devised in their own hearts how they preferred to worship Him.
And lest we be tempted to think, in the transition from Old Covenant to New, that God has somehow lost interest in the manner by which He is approached in worship, turn with me please to 1 Corinthians 11. Paul sets up his discussion of the Lord’s Table in verse 18 by saying, “when you come together as a church”, so there is no doubt that the statement we’re about to see has everything to do with corporate worship. 1 Corinthians 11, starting at verse 23: "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ’Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ’This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes."
This is not lunch at McDonald’s. Nor is this play time at church. As is all of worship, the Lord’s Table is meant to be profoundly reverent, to reflect both gladness and gravity. It’s joyful stuff, to be sure, recalling Christ’s atonement for my sin; but it’s also serious stuff, remembering the incredible cost of that atonement. Verse 27 "Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body. 30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep." . . . Cain once failed to bring to worship a sacrifice that properly foreshadowed the body and blood of Christ. Now some of the Corinthians, thousands of years later, were failing to bring to their worship the proper reverence for His now broken body and His now shed blood. And the result was the same: God is not always pleased with what men bring to Him in worship.
Hebrews 12:28 says, "Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire." . . . Beloved, we sinners who have been justified by grace must not imagine that we may approach our holy God in just any way that suits us, in any way other than His truth. Shall we who have been granted access by Christ to the Father now burst into His throne room in order to worship Him on our own terms, bringing into our worship that which He has not commanded? I hope we all can see by now that that is a very dangerous thing to do.
So how will we preserve the joy of our worship without falling prey to the futile devisings of our own hearts, and our own fallen imaginations? How shall we worship in both Spirit and truth? I’d like us all to turn to one last Scripture, to Deuteronomy chapter 12. . . . On the eve of Israel’s entrance into the Promised land, what was uppermost in the mind of Moses was the danger that awaited his people. But not the danger of the sword of the enemy, but the danger of their false practices of worship. Deuteronomy 12:29 "When the LORD your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess, and you displace them and dwell in their land, 30 take heed to yourself that you are not ensnared to follow them, after they are destroyed from before you, and that you do not inquire after their gods, saying, ’How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ 31 "You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way; for every abomination to the LORD which He hates they have done to their gods; for they burn even their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods. 32 ’Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.’ "
Look very carefully at verse 32. Because that is basically the principle of worship that the Reformers called the Regulative Principle of Worship. They called it that because they believed that Scripture alone – Sola Scriptura – should regulate our worship. We asked the question just now, how shall we worship God in Spirit and in truth; how shall we please Him with our worship? Well here’s how, verse 32: "Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it." . . . Beloved, whatever Scripture commands that we do, we must do. But whatever Scripture does not command that we do, we certainly must not do.
Jesus said, Matthew 15:8, quoting Isaiah 29: " ’These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. 9 And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ " We must not bring to God the baskets of fruit and the golden calves that so many of our neighbors are calling worship. We must not rely on our own instincts, or on our own imaginations, or even on our own traditions as we draw near unto God, to guide our approach to God. Because we will never find true joy or satisfaction in a worship that’s displeasing to God, that does not exalt Christ as Lord and as Redeemer, and that does not find its authority and basis in God’s holy Word.
SO THEREFORE,MY BROTHERS AND MY SISTERS,BY THE MERCIES OF GOD,THAT YOU PRESENT YOUR BODIES A LIVING SACRIFICE,HOLY,ACCEPTABLE UNTO GOD,WHICH IS YOUR REASONABLE SERVICE.AND BE NOT CONFORMED TO THIS WORLD,BUT BE YE TRANSFORMED BY THE RENEWING OF YOUR MIND,THAT YE MAY PROVE WHAT IS THAT GOOD, AND ACCEPTABLE,AND PERFECT,WILL OF GOD.(CLOSE)
