Untitled Sermon (2)

In case you haven’t guessed yet, this morning as we continue in our series on The Spiritual Disciplines, as we begin to look in to the Spiritual Discipline of Worship.

So far, as we have been going through the Spiritual Disciplines, we looked first of all at the Spiritual Discipline of our Time in God’s Word. This is the most important off all the disciplines, as this is the area where God Himself speaks to us the most. Then we moved into the Spiritual Discipline where we plug into the power source, that is the Spiritual Discipline of Prayer. We now move into the 3rd Spiritual Discipline, the Spiritual Discipline of Worship.

Worship is, perhaps, the most misunderstood of all the Spiritual Disciplines. There is really: Next Slide

2 Reasons why worship is misunderstood:

First,

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We often equate worship to one specific activity-Singing.

In too many eyes on Sunday mornings at church, we move from worship into the prayer time, from worship into the offering, from worship into Communion, from worship into our time in God’s Word. But when you really drill down, all of these things are a part of worship, and worship doesn‘t stop there as we saw in the video earlier.

The second reason worship is often misunderstood is the Next Slides

We often limit worship to one specific location: Church.

Worshipping in one specific location is not something that is new to our culture today, it has been going on since Biblical times. We see this illustrated in John 4. Go ahead and turn there, as your turning, let me set the scene for you. Next Slide

John 4-Page 1131 in the pew Bibles

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Add map of Samaria later

Jesus had just spent time ministering in Judea, and was now ready to head back to Galilee. The quickest way to Galilee, was to go through Samaria, which is the direction Jesus chose to go with His disciples. Once in Samaria, they arrived to the town of Sychar. Jesus sent His disciples to Sychar to get some food, or at least that is what appears to be taking place. The real reason was that He had a divine appointment.

Weary from travel, Jesus sat down by a well. It was right about noon, the heat of the day, when a Samaritan woman came to the well to draw water. Now there are a couple key things to note here, one, there were several wells closer to town that this woman could have drawn her water from, and two, no one came to draw water in the heat of the day. Generally they came towards the evening hours when it was much cooler. The Samaritan woman had come during the heat of the day, and to a well off the beaten path for some very specific reasons. She was an outcast. In the eyes of the Jews, all Samaritans were outcasts, but this woman was also an outcast in the eyes of her own people.

With this as the back drop, let me read part of the passage to you:

John 4:7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and Who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” 11 The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” 15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered Him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

At this point in time it dawns on her that this was no ordinary Man. Wanting to move the topic from her life of sin to something else, she said to Jesus:

“Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but You say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

So you can see that questions about where worship ought to take place has been around a long, long time.

But something else is about to take place in this passage that is very important, look at the very next verse, verse 21: Next Slide

John 4:21, 23 & 24

John 4:21 ESV

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.

He goes on to add in verses 23&24: Next Slides

John 4:23–24 ESV

23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Now there are 3 keys I want you to notice in these verses. The first key is that now that Jesus was on the scene, worship as it was known, had changed. Up until He appeared on the scene, location was a key part of worship, and the Temple in Jerusalem was where most worship was to take place. But now that Jesus was on the scene, worship was changing from an external conformity to ceremonies and rituals, into an internal move of the heart. I guess you could say that location was still very important, but the desired location had changed from a physical one to a spiritual one.

The next key I want you to take note of from these verses is extremely important: Next Slides

God seeks our worship.

Look at the end of verse 23: “ for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

Did you pick that up? The Father, the God of the universe is seeking worshippers. Now I want to make sure you understand something here, God, being all powerful, could force all created beings to worship Him. If He wanted you on your knees before Him right now, it would take nothing more than a thought from His mind and you would bow before Him. But that wouldn’t mesh with what Jesus goes on to say to the Samaritan woman. Next Slides

“those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

God seeks our worship in spirit and truth.

So what exactly does this mean? First, let’s look at what it means to worship in spirit. This is a big part of why God doesn’t force us to worship Him, even though He is perfectly capable of doing so, you see God desires that our worship of Him be completely authentic in your spirit, not forced.

John Piper says; “Mere outward movements of the body, is not worship. Not prayer, not singing, not bowing down. Those are not of the essence of worship.”

Dallas Willard says; “Worship is the active engagement of our whole being.”

The apostle Paul addresses what it looks like to worship in spirit in Colossians 3:16-17

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Colossians 3:16-17 Page 1253 in the Pew Bibles

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Colossians 3:16-17

Colossians 3:16–17 ESV

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

The word Paul uses for “dwell” means “to live in” or “to be at home”. John MacArthur writes:

Paul calls upon believers to let the Word take up residence and be at home in their lives.

MacArthur, J. F., Jr. (1992). Colossians (p. 159). Chicago: Moody Press.

In reference to the word “richly” MacArthur goes on to write:

“(richly) could also be translated “abundantly of extravagantly rich.” The truths of Scripture should permeate the believer’s life and govern every thought, word and deed.”

When the Word of God dwells in us in this way, permeating our life, it transforms who we are, it’s like the mind of Christ begins to permeate us. We begin to act like Him, love like Him, lead like Him. It so affects us, that the rest of verse 16 becomes the natural outflow of who we are, with a heart of love....can I repeat that....WITH A HEART OF LOVE, we begin to teach and admonish one another. Now let me explain why I repeated the phrase with a heart of love. Here’s the deal, I can’t properly teach and admonish without a heart of love. If I attempt to, great damage can take place. A heart of love removes pride from the equation, I’m not teaching to lift myself up in the eyes of those I am teaching. The only thing I want to lift high is the name of Jesus. The word “admonish” means “to caution or reprove gently.” I’m sure you immediately see why a heart of love is so important to any act of correction within the body of Christ.

The bottom line is, everything we read in Colossians 3:16-17 is worship. Next Slides

Letting the Word of Christ dwell in you richly is worship.

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Teaching and admonishing in all wisdom is worship.

As I mentioned earlier, our tendency, at times, is to only see the next items as worship; Next Slide

Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs

But worship includes everything in both verse 16 & 17. Next Slides

We are to worship in “whatever” we do, “in word of deed”.

All of this is what it means to worship God in spirit.

But what does it mean to worship God in truth?

Jesus gives us a pretty clear picture of what it means to worship God in truth in Matthew 15:8-9, when He is being challenged by some of the religious leaders of His day: Next Slides

Matthew 15:8-9

Matthew 15:8–9 ESV

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

These religious leaders worshipped God pretty much every day, and they had memorized large portions of God’s Word, but everything they did, they did for the eyes of man, to be seen by man, to be honored by men, for adulation and praise and pats on the back. All they were doing was checking off items on their religious boxes, but nothing they did penetrated into their hearts. There was no real truth to their worship. As a result, Jesus said of them:

“their heart is far from Me”

“in vain do they worship Me”

This brings us to a very important question this morning. To narrow this down, let’s consider this question only as it relates to our time here on Sunday mornings in corporate worship.

Now if you are a visitor here this morning, if this whole church thing is kinda new to you, you get a pass on this question. Consider this sort of a team meeting that you have the opportunity to listen in on.

So what’s the question?

Is there any similarity between you and the religious leaders Jesus is addressing in Matthew 15:8-9? The verse is still up on the screen, look it over......decide for yourself where you are when it comes your worship of God. Pause for a moment before moving on.

AW Tozer says; “Worship is admiration to the point of wonder and delight.”

John Piper says; “True worship is evaluating or treasuring God above all things.”

I’ve got to be honest with you, there are Sundays when my heart is far from God as I enter into our worship service. Times wonder and delight and treasuring God above all things is absent from my worship. Am I the only one here this morning that this happens to?

Can I tell you what transforms my heart pretty much without fail when I start our time with my heart..,..and quite frankly, my attention, in the wrong place?

For one, I pray and ask God to transform my heart, but the tool God uses over and over again to bring me to the point of wonder and delight, to the point of treasuring God above all things, is thinking through the words we are singing. As I dwell on those words, my heart changes.

My challenge to you is to do the same thing. Think through the words we sing together. Steve doesn’t throw darts at a song sheet with worship song titles to come up with the songs we sing each week. He pretty much always knows what I am preaching on and he picks out songs that fit well. Think through what you are singing, and see if your heart, like mine, doesn’t change.

I pray that our time singing worship songs together we will always move us to the point where we “worship in spirit and truth.” When we worship in this way, our worship is authentic.

So: Next Slide

What does authentic worship look like?

First: Next Slides

1. In authentic worship, there is always a sense of Awe towards God.

In his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Donald Whitney writes;

“To worship God means to ascribe the proper worth to God, to magnify His worthiness of praise, or better, to approach and address God as He is worthy. As the holy and almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, ... He is worthy of all the worth and honor we can give Him and then infinitely more...The more we focus on God, the more we understand and appreciate His infinite worth. As we understand and appreciate this, we can’t help but respond to Him. Just as an indescribable sunset or a breathtaking mountaintop vista evokes a spontaneous response, so we cannot encounter the worthiness of God without the response of worship.

Whitney, Donald S.. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (pp. 103-104). NavPress. Kindle Edition. ”

We will look more at this next week. Next Slide

2. In authentic worship, there is always a sense of conviction.

When we see in Scripture, individuals having an actual encounter with God, whether it is Isaiah in Isaiah 6, Ezekiel in Ezekiel 1, of John throughout the book of Revelation, their encounters always opened their eyes, not only the the holiness of God, but it also opened their eyes more fully to the utter wickedness of their own hearts. Keep in mind that each of these men was way more blameless than we are. Yet they were always brought to the point of confession of sin as conviction filled their hearts. The holiness of God put the spotlight on their sin. Authentic worship will always bring with it conviction for unconfessed sin.

We will also get a better look at this next week. Lastly, Next Slide

3. In authentic worship, there is always a sense of Joy in God’s love and generosity.

As we confess our sin to God, and receive His forgiveness, it invariably brings with it a great sense of joy at how deeply God loves us and how amazingly powerful His forgiveness is in our lives. As if that were not enough, Donald Whitney adds:

“The more we truly worship God, the more—through and by means of worship—we become like Him.” Whitney, Donald S.. Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (p. 114). NavPress. Kindle Edition.

To help us in our pursuit of authentic worship, next week we are going to take a deeper look at the object of our worship.