The Uses of Spiritual Worship

Bobby Howell

Charnock Conference • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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The Uses of Spiritual Worship

We come now to the practical part, though we could certainly say that the rest of the sermons have been practical, at least in part. The typical structure of the typical sermon by the typical Puritan was: doctrine, exegesis, and application. So far in our Charnock Conferences we have examined Charnock’s sermons on Divine Providence, God’s Goodness, and this weekend on Spiritual Worship.

Each of these three sermons have followed the same pattern: doctrine, exegesis, and application. In each of the sermons, our speakers have displayed the doctrine and the basis (i.e., exegesis) for it. Now, in our last sermon, we will see the application. What benefits should we take away from this conference? What warnings should we heed? How can we worship in spirit and in truth?

I hope, with Charnock’s sermon and with the help of the Word of God and the Spirit of God, to answer these questions this morning.

There are four uses of this knowledge: information, examination, comfort, and exhortation.

I. For Information

Information is key to all aspects of life, but particularly to the Christian. As we learn more about ourselves and about our God, we are able to be more like Jesus Christ. That is, after all, the exhortation offered by Paul in Romans 12:1–2 “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

A. So Many Neglect Spiritual Worship—not in public, but private

None who have attended this conference will be able to plead ignorance about spiritual worship. However, though numbers have certainly decreased over the years, what Charnock focuses on here is not public but private spiritual worship. We gain the following information:

1. Worship is a duty of every human being

Psalm 100:1–5 “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”

2. Not to worship is “a high degree of atheism”

Psalm 14:1 “The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.”

Psalm 14:4 “Have they no knowledge, all the evildoers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the Lord?”

“Not to worship him with our spirits, is against his law of creation; not to worship him at all, is against his act of creation; not to worship him in truth is hypocrisy; not to worship him at all is atheism, whereby we render ourselves worse than the worms in the earth, or a toad in a ditch.” (322)

3. False or idol worship is less a sin than a perpetual neglect of spiritual worship

“Though it be directed to a false object instead of God, yet it is under the notion of a God, and so is an acknowledgement of such a being as God in the world; where as the total neglect of any worship is a practical denying of the existence of any supreme majesty.” (322)

B. Spiritual worship is more than outward show

“A pharisaical diligence in outward forms, without inward spirit, had no better a title vouchsafed by our Saviour, than that of hypocritical.” (323)

Matthew 15:8 ““ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;”

Let us remember these truths, these principles, every single time we engage in spiritual worship. We need this information.

But we also have the use of examination.

II. For Examination

Charnock offers four questions for us to use in examining our hearts. I have rephrased these a bit to make them a little easier to remember.

A. How therefore are our hearts prepared to worship?

Charnock begins this section asking, “Is our diligence greater to put our hearts in an adoring posture [i.e., spiritual worship], than our bodies in a decent garb?” (324) There are two ways that we can prepare our hearts for worship (though many more could be discussed).

First, Charnock asks, do we prepare by exciting our hearts and spirits to worship? Psalm 27:8 “You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.””

Second, Charnock asks, do we approach God in spiritual worship with expectations?

Psalm 62:5–8 “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Selah”

“Or do we design nothing but an empty formality, a rolling eye, and a filling the air with a few words, without any openings of heart to receive the incomes, which according to the nature of the duty might be conveyed to us?” (324)

Prepare your hearts for worship, more than you prepare your bodies. Come expecting to be filled to the full by our Gracious God!

B. How are our hearts fixed upon him, how do they cleave to him in the duty?

Charnock asks, “Oh, do we not willingly admit carnal thoughts to mix themselves with spiritual duties, and fasten our minds to the creature, under the presences of directing them to the Creator? Do we not pass a mere compliment on God, by some superficial act of devotion, while some covetous, envious, ambitious, voluptuous imagination may possess our minds?” (324)

Love the Lord with your whole heart, but we love the Lord. He is the object of our entire focus, everything else passes from our view.

C. How do we act our graces in worship?

Hebrews 2:15 “and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

2 Corinthians 5:14 “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died;”

Has the grace of Jesus Christ changed our acts in worship? Do we worship in terror, or reverential fear? Let us worship in the wonder of God’s grace!

D. How do we find our hearts after worship?

After engaging in spiritual worship, what changes? When you engage in true spiritual worship, there will be fruit. Charnock says, “Spiritual fruits are a sign of a spiritual frame.” (326) Do we have increased appetites for God and holiness, and a concurrent distaste for worldliness and sin?

So use these questions to examine yourself, to determine if you are in deed worshipping in spirit and in truth.

How therefor are our hearts prepared to worship?

Are we prepared, and are we expectant?

How are our hearts fixed upon him, how do they cleave to him in the duty?

How do we act our graces in worship?

How do we find out hearts after worship?

III. For Comfort

We engage in spiritual worship for comfort. Charnock writes, “It is very comfortable to consider that the smallest worship with the heart and spirit, flowing form a principle of grace, is more acceptable than the most pompous veneration.” (327)

Sometimes we derive comfort from the truth of knowing our worship, when engaged in spirit and in truth, are accepted to our gracious God. But other times, and in Charnock’s sermon, he reminds us that even negative aspects can be comfortable.

It reminds us of our starts (distractions), those times where our hearts turn away from focusing on the delightful Trinity to the degraded world.

A. Distractions are normal

“There will be starts, and more in our religious than natural employments; it is natural to man.” (327) writes Charnock.

It is a comfort, because we all are prone to “starts.” But how can we rid ourselves of these starts? Well, God has in His wisdom allowed us to undergo the process of sanctification, an “irreconciliable war” as the Westminster and London Confessions of Faith state. What comfort, then, do we have? We are comforted because distractions are normal, they happen to every believer, be they the Apostle Paul or Bobby. Why?

1. Because of our natural corruption

Galatians 5:17, Romans 7:19 both testify to the inner flesh, the natural man, the man of the flesh, as the Scriptures use various phrases.

Charnock writes, “All duties of worship tend to the wounding of corruption; and it is no wonder to feel the striving of sin to defend itself and offend us, when we have our arms in our hands to mortify it, that the blow may be diverted which is directed against it.” (328) In other words, don’t be surprised when you flesh fights against your desire to worship in spirit and in truth. It’s natural. It is also a reminder that a war is waging. Unsaved and unregenerate people do not have this fight.

2. Because of our notorious enemy

We have an indwelling enemy: our flesh. We also have an outward enemy: the devil. He hates God with a hatred that we cannot understand, and He hates human beings made in that God’s image. He hates even more those humans who do not worship him but the Triune God. Job and David are perfect examples of those who undergo Satan’s starts, distractions from worship in spirit and in truth.

“As the Spirit bings good thoughts and divine promises to mind, to quicken our worship, so the devil brings evil things to mind, and endeavours to fasten them in our souls to disturb us.” (329)

B. Distractions are beneficial

Without excusing our starts (that is, starts from our own faults), we can, through the providence of God and the instruction of His Holy Word, see these as beneficial.

1. Because they humble us

They remind us of our dire need for Christ, daily and moment by moment we are afflicted within and without. What better motivation to besiege the throne of grace Hebrews 4:16 “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

2. Because it enhances our worship

These starts remind us of the glories of spiritual worship.

Psalm 116:11 “I said in my alarm, “All mankind are liars.””

Psalm 116:12 “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?”

Charnock writes, “It is indeed a ground of wondering at the patience of the Spirit of God, that he should guide our hearts when they are so apt to start out; as it is the patience of a master to guide the hand of his scholar, while he mixes his writing with many blots. It is not one or two infirmities the Spirit helps us in, and helps over, but many, Romans 8:26 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” (331)

INFORMATION

EXAMINATION

COMFORT

IV. For Exhortation

These are commands, warnings, encouragements to inspire us from this day forward to worship in spirit and in truth. These would be great to write on a paper to keep in your Bibles for regular review.

Charnock phrases these as “motives” for us to engage in spiritual worship, and I believe they are excellent for this.

A. Not to give God our spirit is a great sin

Romans 1:28 “And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”

“The heart must be purged, as well as the temple was by our Saviour, of the thieves that would rob God of his due worship.” (333)

It is not an option, in other words.

1. It is a great sin when we have low thoughts of such a great God

Ecclesiastes 5:1–2 “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil. Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.”

2. It is a great sin when we worship the living God in a dead manner

Hebrews 9:14 “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.”

Dead worship will not do.

“If we did believe him to be the living God, we durst not come before him with services so unsuitable to hum, and reproaches of him.” (334)

3. It is a sin against God’s infiniteness.

We must worship in spirit and in truth,

“For us to come before God with a light creeping frame is to worship him with the lowest finite affections...” (335)

4. It is a sin against the spirituality of God.

Isaiah 66:2 “All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

“A mere carnal service implicitly denies his spirituality, which requires of us higher engagements than mere corporeal ones.” (335)

5. It is against the supremacy of God.

Think of the very first commandment: Exodus 20:1–3 “And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me.”

“It is as if a princess should commit adultery with some base scullion while she is before her husband, which would be a plain denial of his sole right to her.” (335)

6. It is a sin against the wisdom of God.

Ecclesiastes 5:1 “Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.”

“God, as a God of order, has put earthly things in subordination to heavenly, and we by this unworthy carriage invert this order, and put heavenly things in subordination to earthly.” (336) And according to Jesus, we must worship in spirit and truth because our wise God has determined it to be so.

7. It is against the omnisciency of God.

Hebrews 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Hebrews 4:13 “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”

Charnock, “To carry it fair without and impertinently within, is as though God had not an all-seeing eye that could pierce into the heart, and understand every motion of the inward faculties.” (336)

8. It is against the holiness of God.

Proverbs 21:27 “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination; how much more when he brings it with evil intent.”

When we fail to worship in spirit and in truth, it is a great sin against the holiness of God.

9. It is against the love and kindness of God.

Psalm 5:7 “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you.”

“It is a condescension in God to admit a piece of earth to offer up a duty to him, when he hath myriads of angels to attend him in his court and celebrate his praise; to admit man to be an attendant on him, and a partner with angels, is a high favour.” (336)

10. It is against the sufficiency and fulness of God

Psalm 73:25 “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.”

Psalm 16:11 “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

B. It provides opportunities for self-reflection

It can demonstrate corruption in the heart.

Charnock writes, “A strength of sin is evidenced by the eruptions and ebullitions of it in worship, when they are more sudden, numerous, and vigorous than the motions of grace.” (337–338) In other words, when you struggle with sin during worship, take note, because that sin has more pull in your life than it deserves.

It can demonstrate a great love for the earthly than the heavenly.

Isaiah 2:20 “In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats,”

“Carnality in worship is a kind of an idolatrous frame; when the heart is renewed, idols are cast to the moles and the bats.” (338)

It can demonstrate our hypocrisy.

Matthew 15:8–9 ““ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ””

C. It displays the danger of carnal worship

Carnal worship is worship that is not in spirit and in truth.

“God hath no obligation upon him by any word of his, to reward us with himself, when we perform it not to himself.” (339)

1. We lose the comfort of worship.

“He that only licks the outside or the glass can never be refreshed with the rich cordial enclosed within.” (339)

2. It renders our worship not only unacceptable, but abominable to God.

Psalm 66:18 “If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”

“Lukewarm and indifferent services stink in the nostrils of God.” (339)

V. Directions to Engage in Spiritual Worship

Considering all we have heard up to this point in our conference, our last moments together will offer Charnock’s directions on how to worship in spirit and in truth.

A. Keep up spiritual frames of worship

“To avoid low affections, we must keep our hearts as much as we can in a settled elevation.” (340)

Irregular passions (both good and bad)

Bad company

Be much in prayer

B. Excite and exercise particularly a love to God

“Love is a commanding affection, a uniting grace; it draws all the faculties of the soul to one centre.” (341)

Is it no wonder, then, that God commands us to love Him with our entire being?

C. Nourish right conceptions of the majesty of God

We are to renew our minds, Paul tells us in Romans 12:1-2, and part of that renewal is having and maintain right conceptions of the majesty of God.

“Low thoughts of God will make low frames in us before him. If we thought God an infinite glorious Spirit, how would our hearts be lower than our knees in His presence!” (341)

D. Kill inordinate desires after this world

Matthew 5:29 “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.”

Matthew 5:30 “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

Whatever would rob you of spiritual worship, or keep you from spiritual worship, kill it.

E. Use your frailties to drive you to God

“A beggar that is ready to perish, and knows he is next door to ruin, will not slightly and dully beg an alms, and will not be diverted from his importunity by every slight call, or the moving of an atom in the air.” (342)

“We must be sensible that the life or death of our souls depends upon worship.” (342)

Cry out, God I need you! It will enhance your worship, it will spiritualize it.

F. Cast out anything that would choke spiritual worship out

“A man that is running on a considerable errand, will shun all unnecessary discourse that may make him forget or loiter in his business.” (343)

Philippians 3:12–16 “Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.”

“Consider what you are about; and if anything interpose that may divert you, or cool your affections in your present worship, cast it out.” (343)

G. Take advantage of private times of worship

Psalm 27:8 “You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.””

“When we find our hearts in a more than ordinary spiritual frame, let us look upon it as a call from God to attend him.” (343) When your hearts burn in you as they did in the disciples on the road to Emmaus, spend more time with the Lord.

“One blow will do more on the iron when it is hot, than a hundred when it is cold.” (343)

H. Examine yourself after every opportunity for spiritual worship

Psalm 42:5 “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation”

Examine why our hearts are cold toward spiritual worship.

“Daily examination is an antidote against the temptations of the following day, and constant examination of ourselves after duty is a preservative against vain encroachments in following duties; and upon the finding them out, let us apply the blood of Christ by faith for our cure, and draw strength from the death of Christ for the conquest of them, and let us also be humbled by them.” (344)

The worship due from us to God ought to be spiritual, and spiritually performed. Will you worship in spirit and in truth?

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