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I'm somewhat familiar with the tune of that hymn of the month that we're singing now.
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And it's because some months ago I came across a website that plays 24 hours a day instrumental
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Christian music, hymns mostly, and I listened to it while I'm studying. I had it on for 10 or 12 hours yesterday on the internet and it's called wordoftruthradio .com
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I think it is. Our website of course is thewordoftruth .net but this is wordoftruthradio .com
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and it's a great station. You know I'm able to think and study and read and it's instrumental and so it's actually enhancing rather than than interrupting.
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Well today we'll consider further what our Lord Jesus taught this woman as they sat there at Jacob's well there in Samaria.
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This woman's life of course was transformed through her meeting and coming to know the identity of Jesus when she placed her faith in him.
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Jesus spoke to her, she believed his word and thus was transformed.
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And similarly of course the Lord speaks to you and me through these recorded words in John chapter 4.
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May we also believe his words and thereby receive blessing from him just as this woman did so long ago.
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One of the significant truths that our Lord revealed to this Samaritan woman was the nature and manner of worship as desired by God the
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Father. There's a lot that flies under the name of worship these days but you know the
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Bible tells us what true worship is and how it's to be done. And so we read in John 4 23 and 24 our
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Lord's words that the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the
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Father in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such to worship him.
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God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
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And today I want us to consider more carefully these words, what it is to worship
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God rightly and how we might become better worshipers of our God. This is something we can all improve upon can't we,
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Lord willing. Now we concluded last week with the woman's comment to Jesus that Jews and Samaritans worship
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God on different mountains, that's verse 20. And Jesus' response to her is found in verses 21 and following of John 4.
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Jesus said to her, woman believe me, and we pointed out last week that address of woman was actually one of courtesy and dignity and probably expressed to her a measure of affection, that's how she would have received it.
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Woman believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the
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Father. You worship what you do not know. We know what we worship for salvation is of the
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Jews. But the hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the
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Father in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such to worship him.
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God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
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Jesus gave the woman a command, believe me. She should believe him for she had been right in her assessment of him, sir
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I perceive you're a prophet. She was right, he was a prophet and he was revealing things to her that she had never heard before.
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In fact he had said some things to her that no man had ever heard before and he recounted to her of course the details of her sinful life.
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He knew her intimately, thoroughly but again as a prophet he spoke to her regarding more than just the details of her life and sin.
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He also recounted to her truths found in the Hebrew scriptures, the Old Testament and so he explained the scriptures to her in a way that no one before had ever understood and it's clear that she obeyed the
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Lord's command and that she did believe his word to her and she of course ran back to the city and began to spread the word.
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There's a man out here, he's the Messiah and they all came out and heard him themselves.
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Jesus said to her the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father and so through these few words our
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Lord indicated to this woman a major change in God's dealings with mankind was to take place.
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The hour is coming. God the Father would be worshipped by people irrespective of any place on earth and since the death of Jesus, resurrection of Jesus, there's no such thing as a holy place in this world except where two or three disciples of Jesus are gathered in his name.
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There the Lord is in their midst but there is no geographical place that is more holy than another, that is there's no place where you can go and you're gonna find
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God or meet with God more than what we are enjoying right now with the blessing of the
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Holy Spirit. He declared God the Father would receive her worship without consideration of a physical location.
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We pointed out last week that must have been a great boon to her. All right I'm a sinner you told me so but you know where am
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I gonna go to get my sins forgiven? Where am I gonna go to worship? Jerusalem? They're not gonna receive me there.
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I'm a sinner, I'm a woman. Gerizim here, the temple's up there but it's destroyed here and Jesus said doesn't matter the hour is coming it's here it doesn't matter where you are you can receive the forgiveness of sins and you can worship the
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Father in spirit and truth. That must have been a great joyous word to this woman, brought great relief to her.
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And so the Lord didn't overtly state it here he does elsewhere but it's implicit in his words he is the true temple and anyone anywhere can offer true worship to God the
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Father through him and no longer is the temple in Jerusalem the center of God's worship.
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He said the hour is coming when this would take place. He was alluding to his passion that is his crucifixion and his resurrection when he would die upon the cross be raised the third day.
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The removal of the physical temple in Jerusalem as the central place of true worship of God would be replaced by the temple of Jesus's body when he died on the cross to make atonement for sinners and rise again to be enthroned as king over the kingdom of God.
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And of course as king one of the first edicts that he declared as the enthroned king was the giving of the gift of the
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Holy Spirit to his people on the day of Pentecost. And so from the cross onward and particularly with the giving of the
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Holy Spirit to his people true worshipers would be able to worship God the Father through Jesus Christ who is the true temple, the true sacrifice, and the true high priest of his people.
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Significant transformation that took place. So let's examine a little more closely in a little more detail what our
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Lord taught us regarding worship. First let's acknowledge that all people everywhere are worshipers at heart.
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There's no one accepted here. Our Lord spoke with concern for this woman but he also spoke truth directly to her.
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She had stated the Jews and Samaritans differed in their understanding where God should be worshiped but Jesus said to her you worship what you do not know.
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We know what we worship because salvation is of the Jews. Both the
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Samaritans and the Jews were worshippers. People are inherently religious by nature.
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This is the nature of humanity. Anywhere and everywhere in the world nearly everyone is a religionist.
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They are worshippers. People are God worshippers by nature. It's an essential part of being a human being.
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It's what distinguishes us from the animals. Animals are not worshippers of God. Animals don't pray to God.
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Animals don't reflect on God and who he is and how to relate to him. That's unique to human beings.
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God made us to be worshippers. Only people are and all people are.
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Yes there are many who are secularists in their worldview but if they were in a pressure difficult life situation their propensity to religious belief would surface.
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The old adage there's no atheists in foxholes is the truism isn't it? Even atheists are worshippers at heart.
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They will devote themselves to some cause perhaps world peace or the environment more often themselves as the object of their worship but they must give devotion to something or someone.
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That's our nature. All people everywhere are worshippers. You are, I am.
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It's what we are as human beings. It's what we do. God created us as worshippers.
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What is it for people to worship? Well generally speaking people worship that to which they show the highest regard and importance in life.
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The thing they value most in life that they worship. In this broad sense people worship their gods that may be in the form of their possessions or perhaps health, their power or wealth, their appearance or performance or they worship those persons they think have arrived or achieved what they'd really desire for themselves.
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They just lift up that person or that thing as some lofty standard. False worship is also called by another name in the
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Bible idolatry and idolatry is rampant. We all struggle with idolatry one degree to another.
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There's several aspects to the sin of idolatry that should be considered at the core of the issue at the core of the meaning of idolatry is this.
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We commit idolatry when we set up something other than God to which we devote our hearts. That's what idolatry is in a nutshell.
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Paul admonished the believers at the Church of Corinth. They were Christians but they had a problem with idolatry.
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Do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it's written that people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
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Talking about the Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai and that play of course was just egregious sin.
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Idolatry therefore is much more than merely using images in the worship of God. Idolatry is very common.
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It's a broad kind of sin that we commit. Sadly we however are all too ignorant of the idols that we set up in our hearts.
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Os Guinness is a great writer. He's actually a what you'd call a Christian sociologist but he's written some wonderful books about culture.
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He wrote, idolatry is the most discussed problem in the Bible and one of the most powerful spiritual and intellectual concepts in the believers arsenal.
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And yet for Christians today it's one of the least meaningful notions and is surrounded by ironies. Perhaps this is why many evangelicals are ignorant of the idols of their lives.
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Contemporary evangelicals are little better at recognizing and resisting idols than modern secular people are.
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There can be no believing communities without an answering eye to the detection and destruction of idols.
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We should all be in the business of casting down idols in our minds, in our hearts.
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We mentioned not long ago John Calvin who famously said the human heart is a factory of idols.
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Every one of us is from his mother's womb expert in inventing idols. That's what we do.
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One can say that much of the Christian life is taken up with our resistance to set up idols in our hearts to which we become more devoted than even our devotion to God and they have to be cast down by us when we discover we've set them up.
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And so the problem of idolatry is extensive, pervasive. The sin is present to the degree really that we do not love the
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Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. Idolatry is a sin of worshiping the wrong
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God or the right God in the wrong way. Idolatry. Jesus said to this woman you worship what you do not know.
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She was a worshiper but she was worshiping in ignorance and error. The Samaritans were worshipers but all of their worship was false worship.
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We didn't have time but we can turn to Isaiah chapter 1. Even the people of Israel thought they were worshiping
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God, coming into the courts of the temple worshiping God and God rebuked them. Who commanded you to come treading like that into my courts?
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Wasn't I. And he condemned them as being as wicked as the people of Sodom and Gomorrah because they were idolaters.
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Jesus said to this woman you worship what you do not know. They thought that they were worshiping the true
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God. We had the wonderful opportunity to speak the gospel the other day at Kevin's dad's funeral and I don't know if I received it from someone who is there but I received a nice note from a
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Jehovah's Witness with a couple links to some articles. Please read these.
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I'm going to do it. Interestingly one of them was touching on idolatry. I'm going to read through them and I'll write back to this person whoever it was.
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This person is very devout, is a very you know zealous worshiper.
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That person worships, I think it's a woman, that woman worships what she does not know and Jesus would say that to her today.
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They thought they were worshiping God in the true way but actually this woman and the
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Samaritans were ignorant even while they were very religious. Most people are religious in nature.
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They're as this woman. They worship God in ignorance. They pray, maybe go to church.
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They want God at their wedding ceremonies, at their funeral services and times of difficulty, times also a blessing.
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They think they're worshiping but they're either ignorant or error in the manner that they worship.
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Many of course worship false gods, gods who do not exist and the Bible is replete with exposure of this kind of sin.
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The prophet Isaiah was actually quite sarcastic with regard to idol makers.
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I wanted to read the entire passage but time would prevent that but he wrote of the ignorance of these idol makers.
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Those who make an image, all of them are useless. Their precious things shall not profit.
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They are their own witnesses. They neither see nor know that they may be ashamed.
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In other words, they're making a God just like themselves. They don't see, they don't know and they make a God who doesn't see, doesn't know.
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Who would form a God or mold an image that profits in nothing. Surely all his companions would be ashamed and the workmen, they are mere men.
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Let them all be gathered together. Let them stand up. Yet they shall fear. They shall be ashamed together.
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They do not know nor understand for he, God, has shut their eyes so that they cannot see and their hearts so that they cannot understand.
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And no one considers in his heart nor is their knowledge or understanding to say, I have burned half of it in the fire.
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Yes, I've also baked bread on its coals. I roasted meat and eaten on it. Shall I make the rest of it an abomination?
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Shall I fall down before a block of wood? Greatly sarcastic here. They'd go out, cut down a tree and half of it, they'd use a firewood.
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The other half they'd carve an idol and then they'd bow down and pray to it. And he's just talking about how absurd this is.
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Just think about it. It's just absurd. He feeds on ashes. Deceived heart has turned him aside and he cannot deliver his soul nor say, is there not a lie in my right hand?
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He can't even perceive just how far afield he is. But that's the nature of idolatry.
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The fact is, in the world there are billions of people. How many are there? Eight or nine billion, they say, and I don't remember now the population.
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But there are many people who worship many gods who are no gods. They are idolaters because they worship idols, gods that do not exist.
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The gods of Hinduism does not exist. There are about a billion people who practice Hinduism, probably more.
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There's a billion people in India now. The scriptures, the Hindu scriptures, and they have scriptures, they claim, claim there are 330 million different gods.
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When Keith and I were there a few years ago in India, there were gods on every block. And some of them were quite ornate and then they would be enclosed in a, you know, in a fenced off area, some with iron bars.
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And you could go up and some of them were really bizarre, you know, an elephant head with a human body.
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It was very common. There was one in the lobby of our hotel and they were burning incense to it continuously all the time we were there.
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But they have all kinds of gods. The Lord Jesus would tell them, you worship what you do not know.
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The gods of Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Christian science and all other Christian cults are no gods, but they're worshipped.
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Have you heard about that woman in Pakistan? She's been in prison for 10 years.
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It's because she was out getting water with some ladies 10 years ago and they got into some kind of argument about Islam.
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Oh, they accused her of defiling the well because she was a Christian that drank from it.
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And she responded, what has Muhammad ever done for your soul? She's been in prison for 12 years for blaspheming
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Muhammad. And she has been sentenced to be executed by hanging a mother of five in Pakistan.
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That's coming down soon, unless the Lord delivers her. Because they worship a false god.
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The god of Islam does not exist. Allah as defined by Islam does not exist.
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He's not the same God as a Christian God. There are 1 .2 to 1 .5 billion Muslims in the world.
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Fastest growing religion, largely because there are more children born to Muslim couples than any other religion in the world.
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Jesus would say to them, you worship what you do not know. The gods of Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian science, and all other
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Christian cults, they're gods or no gods. They are fabrications of the originators of those religions.
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And yet people have embraced them. Jesus would say, you worship what you do not know. All of these people worship their gods in ignorance and yet with great zeal and devotion, perhaps outstripping you and me in our own devotion to the true
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God. The fact is, all people everywhere are worshippers at heart. Secondly, God created people, however, to worship him only.
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This of course is a bedrock truth of scripture. All other worship is false worship.
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It is idolatry to worship anything or anyone other than the true God. And God has commanded us to worship him as he is prescribed in his word, the
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Bible. What then is biblical worship, the nature of true worship for which
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God has created us? And I posit here a definition. This is my own so I don't know how complete it is, but I think it's correct.
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Biblical worship is when people render unto God heartfelt praise and thanksgiving while proclaiming through their words and thoughts who he is in his essential and manifested glory.
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In other words, who he is in essence and what he has done and is doing in history, particularly through Jesus Christ.
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But there are many who claim to be worshiping the true God but they do so in a false way, in ways other than that which is prescribed in his word.
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And apparently that's what this woman at least thought here at the well. The Samaritans claimed to believe in the
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God of the Old Testament. They held to the five books of Moses, but they believed of course
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Mount Gerizim was the holy mountain, not Mount Zion in Jerusalem. They had the five books of Moses, they had their own priesthood in a substitute temple, and they thought they were worshiping the same
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God as the Jews, only worshiping in the right way. The Jews were wrong. But Jesus made it very clear to this woman, you worship what you do not know.
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We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. But the
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Lord made clear to this woman that the manner in which true worshipers worship God changed fundamentally with the coming of the
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Messiah. The hour is coming when it's no longer going to be that way, this mountain or that mountain.
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Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. You'll worship what you do not know.
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We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews, but the hour is coming and now is.
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When true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth for the Father is seeking such to worship him.
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God is spirit, those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. Before the coming of Jesus Christ, God had prescribed the manner and the place where he was to be worshiped.
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For example, God told Abraham, you take your son Isaac, you go off to the land of Moriah to a mountain,
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I will show you, and there you offer Isaac. He was told a particular place where he was to offer his son as a sacrifice.
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Mount Moriah would be the very temple mount in Jerusalem today, the dome of the rock, that golden dome, that Islamic mosque is sitting over the rock where supposedly
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Abraham brought his son to offer him to God.
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It was a particular place. Later, of course, under the law of Moses, the tabernacle was established.
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That was a movable place of worship and wherever God led the Israelites, they would take the tabernacle and wherever the tabernacle was set up, they would worship
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God rightly. But of course, God restricted very much who could come into his presence.
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Moses could come into his presence and so could the priesthood. The Levites were not allowed to come into the presence, although they managed a great deal of the facilities of the tabernacle and gathering the sacrifices and whatnot, but it was really the sons of Aaron who were the priests who were allowed entrance into the presence of God to worship him.
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And then, of course, later on when God raised up Solomon, the son of David, Solomon built a permanent temple in Jerusalem.
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Moses had foreshadowed or foretold of those days that God himself would declare a place where his name would abide.
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He repeated over and over, particularly in the book of Deuteronomy, and that place ultimately was Jerusalem.
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And there the temple was built, and so Israel was to worship in that place, only that place, and even when they were thousands of miles away perhaps, they were to turn and face the temple at that location because that's where God met with his people and they worshiped
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God at that place. The temple was destroyed, however, in 586
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BC, served Israel for about 400 years, was destroyed 70 years later, rebuilt 536
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BC. But again, the temple only foreshadowed and proclaimed the manner in which
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God would be worshiped, when he would send the Messiah into the world to save his people and restore them to a full and true relationship to himself.
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And so with the coming of the Lord Jesus, the place and manner which God prescribed how he would be worshiped changed forever.
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True worshipers would no longer be required to worship God in a particular physical location or in the outward visible manner that he had required formerly of his people.
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It's spiritual worship under the new covenant. And so Jesus told this woman, the hour is coming, not in Jerusalem, the hour is coming now is when people will worship
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God in spirit and in truth. And so this was a new and glorious reality that the
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Lord Jesus revealed to this rather fallen woman, Samaritan woman, here at the well, very profound.
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Let's consider who the true worshipers of the true God are. First, true worshipers of God are
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Trinitarian in their worship, with their primary focus of worship directed to God the
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Father. Jesus made that clear. Jesus indicated to the woman the worship of God's people should be principally offered to God the
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Father. We're Trinitarian. We believe in our triune God.
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Now Christians are monotheists. Islamists accuse us of being tritheists, that we believe in three gods.
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No, we are monotheists. We believe in one God. But this one God, of course, is eternally manifested as the
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Blessed Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Our 1689
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Baptist Confession states it quite well. In this divine and infinite being, singular being, one
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God, there are three subsistences, the Father, the Word, or Son, and the
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Holy Spirit, one of substance, power, eternity, each having the whole divine essence, not one -third, but the whole divine essence, yet the essence undivided.
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The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding. Here you have the
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Trinitarian distinctions set forth. The Father is never described as being of the
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Son or of the Holy Spirit, and the Father is never described as having been begotten or proceeding from the
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Son or the Holy Spirit. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father, the
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Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son, all infinite without beginning, and therefore but one
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God who is not to be divided in nature and being, but distinguished by several peculiar relative, in other words, the way they relate to one another, properties and personal relations, which doctrine of the
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Trinity is the foundation of all our communion with God and comfortable dependence on Him.
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In other words, as we understand how the Blessed Holy Trinity of persons relate to one another, it teaches us and instructs us on how we are to relate to God as well.
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And so we believe in our triune God. Christians are monotheists. We believe in one
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God, and although each of the persons of the Holy Trinity are together the subject and object of our worship, our primary focus in our worship is toward God the
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Father, and that's what Jesus declared. The hour is coming now when the true worshipers will worship the
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Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship
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Him. Years ago I heard a cassette tape of D.
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Martin Lloyd -Jones speaking about this matter. He was, of course, a great Reformed pastor of the 20th century, pastored in downtown
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London, and he had a way of setting forth truth that was so clear, relevant, and practical.
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It was just amazing. And in this sermon he was giving, he was emphasizing the need for balance and order in the
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Christian life, and how belief and practice of Trinitarian worship will preserve balance.
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And if you're not balanced in your understanding of the Trinity, you're going to have problems in your
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Christian thought and practice. And so he told a psalm who emphasized the second person of the
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Godhead, Jesus, to the neglect of the Father and the Holy Spirit. He says they will be in danger of becoming too informal and casual in their worship and manner of living the
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Christian life, as though they say, Jesus is my buddy, and he walks with me, talks with me, even in my sin.
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And that's what happens if you focus on Jesus to the exclusion of the
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Father and the Holy Spirit. They will see the imminence of God. Jesus is with us.
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He's our Emmanuel. But they will fail to see the transcendence and holiness of God, and therefore they will become weak.
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However, Lloyd -Jones pointed out there are others that emphasize the Holy Spirit to the exclusion of the
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Father and the Son. They will tend towards subjectivism and experientialism in their worship and practice.
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Experience is what really governs their thinking. There will be little concern and attention to doctrinal knowledge or relevance in their worship.
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It's what they feel is all important. They emphasize experience to the neglect of truth.
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But there are those that emphasize God the Father to the exclusion of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
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They will tend to view God only as a holy, transcendent, and perhaps unapproachable God. The worshiper will not easily feel forgiven or accepted or close to God.
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But then Lloyd -Jones emphasized the way to preserve truth and balance is to direct worship to God the
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Father through the merit and work of his Son, Jesus Christ, by means of the power and the presence of the
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Blessed Holy Spirit. And of course we would say as directed and guided by the Holy Scriptures, the
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Word of God. And this is what our Lord Jesus affirmed to this woman here. The hour is coming now is when the true worshipers will worship the
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Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship him. And we when we gather in Jesus name on Lord's Day morning, that's what we're principally doing.
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We've got the Trinity in our mind, but we're directing our worship principally to the Father, to God the
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Father. And then we read the true worshipers of God worship the
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Father in spirit and in truth. True worshipers of God worship the Father in spirit.
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When Jesus said this, he was not speaking directly of the Holy Spirit, although there are some
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English translations that capitalize that s in the word spirit. Most of the
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English translations have the lower s, lowercase s, in spirit and in truth.
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He probably was not speaking directly of the Holy Spirit. He was saying the true worshipers must worship
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God in the spiritual realm, not within the physical realm. However, certainly it's true that to worship in spirit necessitates knowledge of the person in the presence of the
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Holy Spirit, obviously. And when he said that true worshipers must worship the
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Father in truth, he was not speaking directly of himself, who is the truth. I'm the way, you know,
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I'm the truth. No. But to worship in truth necessitates knowledge of the person, work of Jesus Christ, the
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Son of God, obviously. And so as one wrote, such worship therefore will not only be spiritual instead of physical, inward instead of outward, but it will also be directed to the true
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God as set forth in Scripture and is displayed in the work of redemption. And this was new and profound, an emphasis that was present in the
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Old Testament, but really central now to worship. It's not external, it's not through what you do.
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The animal sacrifices, the priesthood, that which was visible, but rather it's spiritual in nature.
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And so since the coming of Jesus Christ into the world and the accomplishment of his mission, all outward carnal forms of worship are no longer the proper way of worshiping
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God. There's only two ordinances the Lord gave us, and that's the Lord's Supper and Baptism.
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All others are superfluous, man invention. While under the law of God as a covenant, the people of God worship
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God in a specified physical place, using specified physical means, true worshipers are no longer to use these means to worship
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God. There's no such thing as a holy place. And please forgive me for my directness here.
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Roman Catholicism, the Eastern Orthodox, many Protestants who have forgotten their Protestant heritage in teaching are raw in teaching, promoting places as holy places of veneration, places in which
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God may be worshipped better than in other places. And as you well know, no official
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Roman Catholic cathedral is regarded as a holy place. And they say what makes it a holy place is because there is a relic that is consecrated that place.
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A relic by definition is a piece of clothing or a piece of a human body of a saint.
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They regard holiness as something physical. So you take that holy thing and put it in this church cathedral, it becomes a holy place.
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And so if you go in there and do veneration to that saint, that holiness comes back on you.
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That is not biblical. The Lord Jesus' words to the woman completely discredited that.
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And yet this is commonly thought, understood, if I can get there, go on this pilgrimage to that place,
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God's going to receive me more fully and I'll feel closer to God.
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That is false worship. That is not true worship in spirit and in truth.
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Again, the only places that are holy places in the world today is where and when true worshippers gather together to worship the
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Father in spirit and in truth. Can you imagine again how the degree of attention in the
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Middle East could be alleviated if all would simply believe and act upon the words of our Lord? Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the
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Father. Much of the conflict in many parts of the world has to do with these so -called holy places that some people venerate more highly than others.
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Our Lord's words suggest that the true worship of God is no longer performed by using carnal means. Again, prior to the coming of the
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Lord Jesus, there was a particular place and there were priests of a physical lineage qualified by stipulated clothing, procedures of preparation of cleansing.
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But true worship in spirit negates all those carnal, fleshly, worldly ways of worshipping
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God. We would say that this is false worship whenever this is employed.
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And many of the early reformers, Protestant reformers, and certainly the Puritans, a lot of Baptists by the way, were persecuted terribly because they foresaw this, they saw the carnal things that were used in the worship of God and they rejected them.
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There was a great issue in the 17th century
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England entitled the vestment controversy where preachers were required to wear clerical vestments and the
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Puritans refused to do so. Baptists refused to do so and they were persecuted terribly for failing to wear clerical clothing.
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But they took a stand on that and many were jailed, some were banished out of England because of their stand against these carnal inventions of men that were used to worship
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God. Carnal means of worshipping God is what sustains religionists in their so -called worship long after they've departed from worshipping the
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Father and Spirit and Truth. Their religion goes on, unabated, unhindered, because it's through their own will worship, through means and ways that they have created for themselves.
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You worship what you do not know. And so when Jesus said to this woman the hour had arrived when true worshippers were to worship in the
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Spirit, he meant that the attitude and condition of the heart was essential to true worship of God.
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Not because you're here and you dress a certain way or the very fact that you're here, but it matters the condition and attitude of your soul.
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Jesus said to some hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy about you saying these people draw near to me with their mouth, honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
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They thought they were worshipping God, they weren't. Their hearts were far from God. We're not worshipping
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God unless our hearts are in it. And so we should always pray as a psalmist, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight,
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O Lord, my strength and redeemer. We're to worship God in spirit, it needs to be sincere, devout.
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But true worshippers of God are to also worship the Father in truth. We'll just make a couple of comments about this.
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It means that our worship must be informed by the Holy Scriptures. Zeal without knowledge is not spiritual, it's carnal.
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And there are many that get very excited and they go to church and they think that they are worshipping God. They're stirred by the music, perhaps the manner and the content of what's being preached, but if you listen to what's being preached and if you listen carefully to what's being sung, there's no substance there.
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There's no content there. The people believe that they are worshipping God and that God's pleased with them and they're getting a lot from it, but it's not spiritual.
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I meant to include this in today's message and I failed to do so. I thought about it this morning.
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We should certainly understand that when we talk about worshipping God, it's a verb that we do toward God.
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Worship isn't something that we receive from God, although certainly we'll receive something from God, hopefully peace, encouragement, instruction, but worship is something that we render to God.
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The reason I say that is is Jason and I know somebody that we're trying to help and assist and he's always calling us, you know, willing and desirous to help him, but he won't come here and it's because of the nature of your worship service.
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We don't get anything out of that. We need contemporary worship service.
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As though the determining factor is what I get out of it. That's not worship.
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Worship is what we do, what we offer to God. The question is, is God pleased with what we're doing here?
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That's the issue. Not whether I like it, if I get something out of it. It's immaterial.
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Is God getting something out of it? That's the bottom line. It's 180 degrees out of the way most people think.
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And the church philosophy of today, of course, it caters to people to try and feed them into receiving something and they go out thinking they worship
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God. Worship God is what we render to God, not what we receive from God, although certainly we receive blessing from God when we worship.
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Again, Jesus said, in vain they worship me, teaching the commandments of men.
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I want to close, but I really want to hit at the bottom of page 7, this matter of the need for preparation on our part for the worship of God.
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I'm afraid that some of us maybe just walk in here on Sunday morning and haven't given much thought to preparing ourselves for the worship of God.
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I hope that's not the case, but I'm afraid it is. And I do the vast majority of my studying on Saturdays.
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I start in about noon and go until 11 or 12. With our series on John, I'm usually, you know, about seven or eight hours into it on Friday.
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But I tell you what, by Sunday morning I'm ready to come. I'm ready to worship God. It's on my mind.
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It's on my heart. I'm prepared. And yet I realize, you know, somebody mentioned at my
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NERF meeting the other day, you know, the reason God called us as preachers is because we wouldn't do very well if we weren't as Christians in the pew.
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And that's probably so. In other words, you know, I realize we're greatly privileged, but we all, you know, have a responsibility to prepare ourselves for worship.
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And I've had a book in my library for quite some time. It's a classic. It's a Puritan book republished by Soli Deo Gloria.
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Don Kistler reprinted it. It's by Jeremiah Burroughs, and it's called Gospel Worship.
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And I make a number of references of it here, and I would recommend it. And he talks about true worshipers and how to prepare ourselves for the worship of God.
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And you and I are worshipers, but we ought to be able to develop our ability to worship
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God in a more informed and devout way, and that takes preparation.
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And so one of the ways in which our worship may be improved or enhanced is in the preparation of our soul to worship
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God in spirit and truth. So whenever we come to worship
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God, whether it be, you know, on this principal occasion of the Lord's Day or when we come to the
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Lord in prayer to read the Word, we ought to, you know, prepare our hearts, put ourselves in a right frame of mind, a heart in a right condition.
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It's vitally important. And so let's consider that we, first of all, are, we are greatly honored by God to be invited to come into his presence to worship him.
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God honors you. I won't read those passages, but I've got three of them here, where it talks in the
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Old Testament as the people are about ready to worship God, you need to prepare yourselves. God's coming down on Mount Sinai in three days, prepare yourselves.
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Samuel told the people of Bethlehem, I'm coming down to sacrifice, prepare yourselves.
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And everybody was admonished to prepare themselves for worship, and we ought to prepare ourselves also.
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Is it a small thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel to bring you near to himself?
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That's what God is doing when we gather together on Sunday morning. God is bringing us near to himself. We ought to be prepared for such a thing.
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I've used the illustration in the past, you know, we ought to be in a frame of mind that when we walk through those doors on a
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Sunday morning, it would be like we're walking into the very throne room of God. Can you imagine that?
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We would be sober in our thinking, wouldn't we? We'd be attentive about where we are and what we're doing.
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We're in the presence of a holy God, and that should be our frame of mind. The psalmist wrote, it's good for me to draw near to God.
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Jeremiah Burroughs wrote about David and how he expressed a great delight in being able to worship
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God. There you may see how the prophet David highly esteemed the great honor that the Lord put on him in his being near God.
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But it's good for me to draw near to God. Mark how he speaks, it is good for me.
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Why? Verse 27, for lo, they that are far from thee shall perish. Thou hast destroyed all of them that go a whoring from thee.
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That's the wording in the King James Version. Base hypocrites, base apostates, they are gone a whoring from thee.
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Their hearts are carnal. They did not find that contentment and satisfaction in thy worship as thy saints do.
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Therefore they are gone a whoring from thee. But it's good for me to draw near to you. We ought to have that kind of desire and that kind of delight when we are called into the presence of God.
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And so we should prepare ourselves for our worship. How do we do that? Well we are to guard our steps when we come before God.
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That's what the scriptures declare in Ecclesiastes 5. Guard your steps when you go to the house of God.
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To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools. How many today are offering the sacrifice of fools and they think they're worshiping
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God? We're to be careful and cautious when we come into the presence of God.
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The New Testament says let us draw near to God with a true heart. We ought to prepare our hearts for the right worship of God.
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And again I hope you'll take the time to read the notes. We'll conclude with this.
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How then do we prepare ourselves to worship God? And Jeremiah Burroughs put forth five matters that we should address as we prepare ourselves.
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First in possessing the heart with the right apprehension of God before whom we are coming to worship.
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And he argued meditation is a good preparation to holy duties. Meditating on the attributes of God.
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Meditating upon this God we know and we worship before we come to worship him.
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The second matter in our preparation for true worship is to put away from our heart every known sin.
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As the scripture say if I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear. How many of us you know are not being heard by God because we've got known sin.
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Now we all sin but there are some that harbor sin they refuse to deal with and repent with.
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They are not going to be worshiping God as they could be. The eyes of the
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Lord are on the righteous. His ears are open to their prayers but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.
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Deal with sin in your preparation for worship. And the third way we may prepare ourselves for the worship of God is the disentangling of the heart from the world.
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This is one of the most important things and I appreciated his words here. We are to disentangle our hearts from the world and from all occasions and businesses of the world.
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And so Burroughs posited this self -analysis. He was writing of himself. I am to worship
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God but how is my heart ensnared and entangled in this and the other business. Now when
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I come to worship God I must lay aside all. He wrote there is the preparation of the heart separating it from such a work.
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That's the nature of sanctification separating a thing from common use. I am to worship God. Now I must labor and set my heart for the worship of God.
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Now I must labor and separate my heart from common use. At other times God gives me liberty to let my heart to common uses but when
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I come to worship him I must separate my heart from all common uses so that my heart may be holy for God.
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Every one of us have distractions. You know business, relationships, things pressing upon us and we need to set those aside at the most important matter at hand and that's to worship
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God. And then fourthly in our preparation we should watch and pray. We should watch our hearts.
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We should prepare our hearts for prayer. We shouldn't allow pleasures or duties to distract us from our preparation to worship our
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God. My Sabbath day begins about noon sometimes one o 'clock on Saturday and continues until mid afternoon
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Sunday afternoon and that's devoted to the business at hand. And you know we'd be in a world of hurt you know if it was otherwise and all of us you know are experiencing some deficiency if we're not preparing ourselves for the right worship of God.
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And lastly our preparation involves our readiness and dependence on the grace of the Holy Spirit to enable us to worship
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God rightly. We cannot worship God apart from the Holy Spirit. We must prepare to worship in spirit by the power of the
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Holy Spirit. You know we're to ask our Savior Lord to fill us with the Holy Spirit. You know we some of the men pray up here every
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Sunday morning before church and that's that is the that is the common thread every Sunday.
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You know Lord we need the blessing the power of the Holy Spirit nothing good is going to come out of this.
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And so we humble ourselves and yield to you and give us grace that we might worship you rightly.
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And so we are to thank God that he's blessed us with the privilege to worship him in spirit and truth.
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But again with the privilege comes responsibility doesn't it? We're accountable let's do it rightly.
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And again there's great blessing that comes from that. And the greatest blessing is we know that it pleases
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God. God the Father is looking for such to worship him. May the Lord enable us to do so through Jesus Christ.
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Amen. Let's pray. Thank you Father for your word.
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Thank you for the great privilege we have of living in this gospel age. And the privilege we have to be in your presence through Jesus Christ.
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Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit Lord who reveals truth to us in Jesus Christ.
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Help us to take these matters to heart. Help us our Lord to look forward to and prepare ourselves for a proper biblical worship of you each and every
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Lord's Day morning. Help us our Lord in our quiet times each and every day.
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And as we pray to you in our family worship in our individual quiet times and certainly in our corporate worship as a church.
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And we'll praise you our God when we know and we're affirmed from your word that you're pleased with what we offer you.