FINDING PURPOSE
Part 4 – Worshipping God
SCRIPTURE READING
† John 4:23, 24
“23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
PRAYER
Today we are going to examine how we are to worship God. We see from the scripture here that Jesus says God is looking for a certain type of worship. Although that type of worship may come in many different forms such as poetry or music especially our prayers, the worship MUST have these two elements; spirit and truth.
One of the areas the church has failed in is establishing what it is that God is looking for from us when we worship.
If God is looking for something specific, then it is our duty to make those details known so that we may worship God in the way He wants us to worship Him.
A few years ago there was a gathering that was supposed to be believers who were going to put on a concert with a few supposedly Christian bands and it was to be a night of music and worshiping God.
I had the opportunity to hear the headlining band, and let me tell you, just because we are Christians, does not mean anything we do in the name of Christ is worship, quite the contrary.
Death metal with screaming and crying like you’ve been set on fire while jumping around on stage dressed in all black with crosses painted on your foreheads is not worshiping God in spirit and truth.
We can say that what we are doing is done in the Lords name, but
Remember, on the last day many will say to Him, Lord, Lord. But they had no relationship with Him. So He did not know them.
Our worship of God must meet His standards. It must be under His conditions if we want Him to seek us as the scripture says.
† In Kingston Ontario, there is a man who is hoping to make a bit of money by auctioning a fish stick he says has a burn mark on it that looks like Jesus.
Fred Whan, who has kept the fish stick in his freezer since burning it at dinner a year ago, decided that it was time to thaw it out so he could sell it on eBay.
A Florida woman recently sold a decade old grilled cheese sandwich with an image of Mary for $28,000 on eBay to a casino.
They build little shrines for these images, and worship them in the name of God.
Does this qualify as worship though?
It’s done in the name of the Lord.
Why wouldn’t it please God then?
Some may say, and do say, that we have no right to judge how anyone worships God.
Different strokes for different folks?
We should just let everyone worship God in their own way, right?
Wrong.
We are to worship in Spirit and Truth. Jesus Says So.
Did these people forget Exodus 20:4?
† Exodus 20:4
“You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
That pretty much covers everywhere.
5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
Have they forgotten Exodus?
Can you worship God however you want?
How about the fact that it’s a cheese sandwich and a fish stick!
Is this what God’s glory and magnitude has been reduced to in our culture and society?
God has been reduced to a lunch special.
Are we so far off track in this country that we have degraded ourselves to worshipping fish sticks?
Psalm 29:1, 2
“Ascribe to the LORD , O mighty ones,
ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
2 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
worship the LORD in the splendor of his [a] holiness.”
God create us to worship Him. If we don’t worship Him, we will end up worshiping something else because it is built into us to worship.
Some worship cars, sports, collections, and even other people in our lives.
There are many artifacts that become idols and then are worshipped today in the name of the Lord.
† There is a statue of St. Peter at the Vatican where pilgrims from all over the world travel to touch the foot of the statue for healing. The foot has been worn smooth from the centuries of visitors. This IDOL which has become a focal point of worship was originally a statue of the Pagan God Jupiter which was removed from the Pantheon which was a Pagan temple and it was renamed St. Peter.
If you go to see it today, you can still see the sun wheel above his head which was the Pagan symbol of Baal.
That’s not a halo.
The shroud of Turin is on tour right now.
And so are the Dead Sea scrolls.
Now, there is nothing wrong with going to see a REAL artifact from the Bible. This would exclude fish sticks and cheese sandwiches. In fact I wanted to see the Dead Sea scrolls but didn’t get to go last year. I think Chuck and Sherri Blust got to though.
But don’t go if you are expecting to be healed because you touched it.
Don’t build a shrine to it.
Don’t make an artifact of God the focus of prayer and praise instead of the God it came from!
A lot of these Pagan practices were adopted by the 1st century church with the influx of Pagan converts into Christianity but because of the lack of truth exercised through discipline in the church; these rituals carry over into the worship of the true God.
This is why the Catholics pray to Mary. No where in the Bible are we instructed to pray to anyone other than God. We will cover that in my Paganism in the Modern church series, right before we get into Church discipline.
So, to those who say we don’t have a right to judge,
† Matthew 7:15-23 - A Tree and Its Fruit
“ 15“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ “
We are to judge. The judging of others that we are NOT supposed to do is judging weather they are going to Hell or Heaven. That’s God’s place, not ours.
By their fruits, they will be known.
So what is true worship?
What does it mean to worship in Spirit and Truth?
† To worship in Spirit.
To worship in spirit removes anything we can hear, see, taste, smell or feel. We remove the five senses and rely only on our spirit.
If you are to communicate with another person, you speak with them in their language.
If you are to communicate with God, you need to speak with Him in His language.
To worship God in spirit is to connect with God, one to one offering ourselves up to Him in praise.
Expression is an important part of it. What we feel for God must be expressed.
But that goes both ways.
What we express to God MUST be felt.
If you don’t feel it, God doesn’t want it. There is nothing that displeases God more than someone putting on a show.
† Psalm 51:15
“O Lord, open my lips,
and my mouth will declare your praise.”
Formality without feeling is not pleasing to God.
Worshiping in Spirit begins when we come face to face with who God is and what He has done.
When we recognize Him as the great creator and savior, our spirits filled with awe and wonder and gratitude which lead us to worship and expressing what we feel in our spirit.
How does this take place?
It takes place in the heart, not in a building. Remember;
† John 4:21
“21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”
Jesus told us, it isn’t about the place.
There is no appointed place or time, but a humble spirit is required.
Unfortunately some of the coldest unmeaning worship can take place in the church.
How many of us have ever bowed our heads during prayer and praise time just to wait until whoever was praying up front to finish?
How many of us are thinking about what we are going to have for lunch when we get home?
How many of us are day dreaming right now?
To worship God in truth and spirit is like anything else we do in our lives. It takes discipline.
Discipline is simply doing something a certain way long enough until you can do it without thinking.
Working out is a discipline. You can’t walk into a gym and bench twice your body weight the first time you sit down. Or if you do it will be the last thing you do for a while. It takes discipline to condition yourself.
So does your worship and prayer life.
Some of the most meaningful worship can take place in the strangest of places like a prison cell in Philippi where Paul and Barnabas were being held prisoners.
It’s not this building that houses God’s spirit. It is us. We are His temple.
Because of this, true worship can take place anywhere.
I saw a plaque that you hang over your sink in the kitchen that read “Worship conducted here three times daily”
Long drives, quiet walks, if you have kids maybe your only quiet time is in the shower.
There are many different ways to express what you feel in your spirit for God. Don’t wait until Sunday, do it always!
Miriam composed and sang a song after God delivered the Hebrew nation across the Red Sea.
David danced before the Lord when God made Israel victorious in bringing the Ark of the Covenant home. (2 Samuel 6:14).
When Peter and John healed the lame man in the name of Jesus, he went walking and leaping and praising God in the Temple.
Mary broke a vase of expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet and washed them with her hair.
Interesting how others in the room objected to this expression of worship. But she worshipped in spirit and truth, and Jesus was pleased.
In each mode of expression, what was happening was something that started in the heart and overflowed from the heart into outward expression.
The expression itself is not the key here. But the fact that it was coming from the heart!
We could all stand in line to break a vase of perfume on Jesus’ feet, thinking “It pleased Him when Mary did it, so that must be how you please the Lord. Let’s all do that.”
This is why most church growth programs do not work. Because it’s not WHAT you do but where it is coming from.
What works for them may not work for us.
Remember the widow and the mites? It wasn’t how much she put into the offering, but the fact that it was all she had and she gave it with the right heart.
We don’t tithe because God is broke and needs our money.
We give in obedience to Him and discipline to keep ourselves in a mode of understanding that it ALL belongs to God and we only have what He allows us to have in our lives. The Lord givith, and if you don’t remember where it comes from through tithing, the Lord can take it away. Because it ALL belongs to Him.
God desires anyone who will worship Him in Spirit. But we must also worship Him in truth!
Truth is the second part to this formula of proper worship of God.
Truth involves accuracy of who God is.
Not our idea about God, but the truth of who He is and what He has done.
Creator
Ruler
Redeemer
Savior
This is where the Samaritans got it wrong. (John 4:22)
They were sincere about their worship, but they had bad information about God to base it on.
Sincerity alone does not make acceptable worship.
Just like the band I saw, they may have been sincere about playing music for God, but without the truth of God to base their sincerity on, they ended up a mess up there in their dark noise.
The Jewish leaders on the other hand were the exact opposite.
They had all the truthful information about God, but they lacked sincerity of heart.
BOTH are critical for worship that God desires from us.
The person who makes a shrine to the Jesus of the Fish Stick has missed something, the truth.
But the person who knows the Bible forward and backward but feels nothing that moves him to express his love to God has missed something just as critical.
It must be authentic
Not hypocritical
What is a hypocrite? You say someone who says one thing but does another.
To be more accurate, a hypocrite is one who gives an impression of virtue or sincerity.
They are acting what they don’t feel in their heart.
† Romans 12:1, 2 – We are to be Living Sacrifices
“1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual[a] act of worship. 2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.”
Do you want to know what God’s will is for you and this church?
Then we need to worship God in spirit and truth as a church. We need to make sure we don’t conform to this world, but be transformed by renewing our minds or our thinking.
Sometimes we limit our worship to God because we have conformed to patterns that have been taught to us by this world and it’s standards.
It’s time to break that mold, and discover God in the process.
Worship happens when we LIVE what we speak and believe.
Worship should happen in church, but continue after you leave.
Worship is watching your language at work.
Worship is when you take time to visit someone who is lonely.
Worship is loving your husband or wife.
Worship is when you share your faith with someone.
Worship is when you decide NOT to watch that movie that mocks a pure lifestyle.
Worship happens when you present yourself as a living sacrifice to God because of who He is and what He has done.
That is why the greatest commandment is “You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind and with all of your strength.
That is worshiping in spirit and truth.
PRAYER
May we Glorify and adore you Father.
May we be examples of you in our lives, worshipping you in this way.
May we edify the church body through our worship.
May people see us and wonder at the reflection of you and your Holy Spirit Lord.
May we draw them unto you through our worship of you in truth and spirit.
May we be the pleasing people who offer themselves to you, sacrificing what the world offers, and clinging to what you offer.
Change our minds Lord, renew them to be like yours.
