Central Christian Church
St. Petersburg, Florida
January 2002
True Worshippers Do So "In Truth"
We started this series on the spiritual life with this text:
John 4:23 "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.
John 4:24 "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."
We have examined the "true worshippers" and what worship is and last time we looked at living a life controlled by the Spirit of God and not the sinful nature or the flesh and tonight we are going to look at this word "truth."
Truth- According to my College Standard Dictionary is: Conformity to fact or reality.
The bible has a great deal to say about truth it shows up 202 times in the NASB translation.
But our question is what does it mean to worship in the truth
What is it or maybe even better yet who is it?
Pilate asked the same question to Jesus didn’t he?
You remember when Jesus was before Pilate after he had already been before Caiphas and Annas. In John 18 v 33 Pilate asks Jesus are you the king of the Jews?
Jesus told Pilate "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."
John 18:37 "You are a king, then!" said Pilate. Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
John 18:38 "What is truth?" Pilate asked.
Truth is whose side you are on. The Good News is there are only two sides from which to choose. The bad news is if you are not being conformed to the Truth, by living in the truth, you are on the Devil’s side.
As far as I am concerned it was Pilate who was on trial that day, along with Annas, Caiaphais, all the high priests, Sanhedrin and all other Jewish sects. Today the world is on trial for the same truth.
Jesus told Caiaphais "if I tell you the truth why do you strike me." But he told Pilate even more, He had already answered his question He said" I am the King, I testify to the truth and everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
That is how you know whose side you are on, do you live by the truth or by the lie. If you live by the truth God is your Father. Jesus told the Pharisees:
John 8:42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me.
John 8:43 Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.
John 8:44 You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
And what Jesus is really saying is what the apostles finally realized, the truth is Jesus and Jesus was testifying before Pilate, that He came into this world to testify about himself.
To tell the world that He is the Son of almighty God. To tell us that He is the way, the life, the light and the truth. If we are on His side we will listen to Him and obey him and testify to the Pilate’s, Annas’ and Caiaphais’ of this world that He is the truth and our lives will reflect that we listen to Him and that we are on His side. Because He is the King of the Jews and the truth is He died for us the church and not just for us but for all men that they might be the church as well.
Jesus said 78 times I tell you the truth, why did Jesus tell the truth because He is the truth and He cannot deny Himself. Why should we also be truthful in all things, because if we testify that He is the truth we accept Him, listen to Him, obey Him and desire to be just like Him.
We cannot tell part of the truth or live in the shadows of the darkness and be conformed to the reality of Christ. That means there are times when each of us as Christians must admit we have sinned and we are wrong.
Truth must permeate all of who we are, every action, every thought, every deed.
When it does we are truly free until then we are merely held captive by the lie.
John testified this way:
What John is telling us is the Word (which I hope we all agree is the truth) became flesh. So the truth became one of us.
John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Remember Webster’s definition? Truth is conforming to a reality. e.g. you lost your job, you conform to the truth of that fact, you do not show up everyday and sit at your desk ( I hope) take orders from your boss. No you conform, you do not go to work there any more, and you begin to look for a new job. You begin to conform to the reality of the fact that you do not work there any longer. You need another job!
We Christians are to be continuously conforming to the truth that Christ is who He said He is. We do that conforming by understanding Him, the Word who became flesh, by studying the scriptures.
The Greek word for the noun truth is aletheia and it has this meaning of absolute certainty or most certainly. It is the evident essence of a matter. The evidence that cannot be refuted, Evidence as Josh McDowell writes That Demands a Verdict.
It is the veritable or genuine truth that the word describes. Not a half-truth or a counterfeit truth an imitation thereof, like you would buy an imitation fur coat, but genuine truth, not a phony truth like evolution or the Koran or Mormonism or Jehovah’s Witnesses. But it is a word for the real, exclusive, no other, unabridged, no omissions complete and total truth of a matter, that is what aletheia means.
Jesus and the Gospel writers are telling us that to worship in spirit and in truth we must come to the realization that Christ is the truth and we conform to that reality by living in the truth.
What do we need to be truthful about to be worshippers who worship in spirit and in truth?
1. John 3:21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."
We need to seek the truth of who we actually are and who that is fall shorts of who He made us to be. So we bring into the light that we are flawed people and we give credit to God that He through the truth of the person Jesus Christ has done a good work in us.
We do not boast about what we have done or what we have, because all we are talents or spiritual gifts and abilities He has given, all we have or do not have He has provided. When we complain brothers and sisters we complain about an all knowing all providing God. We walk in the light of knowing without Him we are powerless and without hope. Is there anybody here tonight who can make salvation possible or create their own resurrection?
We understand that our salvation came not by any good work that we could do, but it came through the person of Jesus Christ who testified that He was the light and the life of the world and we accept Him and His work as our own.
2. John 5:33 "You have sent to John and he has testified to the truth.
We must be like John the Baptist and steadily decrease as individuals while all the time the presence of Christ is increasing in us. As we discipline ourselves to godly living and testify to others in word and deed that Jesus is the truth.
3. To worship in truth means: John 7:18 He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him. We must spend our lives, our resources, our energies expanding His kingdom not ours, we work for Him, not for us.
4. John 8:31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples .John 8:32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." We must know the truth, we must know Jesus through the Word, through teaching, through fellowship, through relationships, through prayer. We must hold to that truth by living it, in our churches schools and families. In every segment of our lives. When we do we will be worshipping God in spirit and in truth. We will experience a sense of freedom from guilt and shame, a freedom from the burdens of everyday life, a freedom from the suffering of persecutions like the world has never known nor ever will know, until they know Jesus. A set free life is a joyful life.
Will you testify? Will you testify to His love? Will you do it even when life is hard? He testified as He suffered.
5. John 8:34 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.
We must understand if we are spiritual worshippers that the truth is all men, I repeat all men are either a slave to sin or a slave to Jesus. There is no middle road in truth, there is no room for sin management, or the acceptance of a little bit of sin in our lives. Genuine truth chooses to be a slave to obedience, a slave to Christ.
6. We must understand that even as we try to be a slave to Christ and live obedient lives we will stumble into sin. Now listen Christians we should never choose or plan to sin and count on God’s grace for protection. But one who worships in spirit and in truth develops attitudes and behaviors and discipline to keep him from sinning.
7. And yet when he does stumble and sin the worshipper in spirit and in truth falls toward God, Listen to these words from the 1st epistle of John:
8. 1 John 1:4 We write this to make our joy complete.
9. 1 John 1:6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
10. 1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
11. 1 John 1:8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
12. 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
13. 1 John 1:10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.
14. 1 John 2:1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense--Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
15. 1 John 2:2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
16. 1 John 2:3 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.
17. 1 John 2:4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
18. 1 John 2:5 But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him:
19. 1 John 2:6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
20. 1 John 2:7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard.
21. 1 John 2:8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.
22. 1 John 2:9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness.
23. 1 John 2:10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble.
24. 1 John 2:11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
25. 1 John 2:12 I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.
The worshipper in spirit and in truth understands these things he knows these words from John 8:51 I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death."
Keep Jesus, stay close to the truth his word, apply it to your lives, keep a very short list of unconfessed sin and be a practicing growing Christian. Moving who you are every day closer to the truth and being what God created you to be.
People ask me what do I think the mark of the beast really is, well I tell you I think we wear the mark of the beast when we have attitudes and behaviors that reflect the sinful nature and not Christ. Then we serve self and when we serve self we serve satan and we wear his mark.
Now that we better understand true worship and the role of the Holy Spirit and our own spirit in worshipping God in spirit and in truth, we focus in the weeks ahead on how this life manifests itself in the believer
How w e should be known by our fruit. So I will begin next time after we look at the sinful nature with the fruit of a Spirit led life from Gal.5
Let’s pray.
