What Spiritual Worship Is

We have walked through some general thoughts on worship as Sam led us through the Scriptures in our previous sermon. Now, at the lead of Charnock, we will continue our discussion on spiritual worship by discussing what spiritual worship is.

Like holding this piece of fruit, I can tell you that it is crispy, or juicy, or red, or shiny, or perishable. I can say that it is edible, nutritious, something grown worldwide. I can tell you that it contains trees within its case. I can tell you many things to describe it, or I could summarize it with the word apple.

We are dealing with spiritual worship, and what it is. What is involved in spiritual worship? What is required? How can one thing be spiritual worship and another thing not be spiritual worship?

In our churches today, many things occur that are called “worship.” People, upon leaving the service may say something like, “Wow, we really worshipped today!” referring to the stirring music. Or, after a hell-and-fire sermon, they may say, “He was really getting it, and I was worshipping!”

Or, in some churches, they may have choreographed dancing and people call it a “worship service.”

Building upon Sam’s foundation, we will now pull out the apple of worship and learn what it is, and by default, what it is not. If we are to be a people who worship the Lord, we must worship him in spirit and in truth, or, as Charnock describes it, “That the worship due from us to God ought to be spiritual, and spiritually performed.” (283)

What is worship? We answer that in two ways, by connecting worship and reason and then by connecting worship and grace. The first, Worship and Reason, involves our minds and understanding. The second, Worship and Grace, involves God as He aids us in practicing spiritual worship.

I. Worship and Reason

We are answering the question, “What is spiritual worship”, and to answer this question, we must also describe it, flesh out the necessary requirements and accompanying needs for spiritual worship.

Let me read Charnock’s words. He writes, “Worship is an act of the understanding, applying itself to the knowledge of the excellency of God, and actual thoughts of his majesty, recognizing him as the supreme Lord and governor of the world, which is natural knowledge; beholding the glory of his attributes in the Redeemer, which is evangelical knowledge; that is the sole act of the spirit of man.” (298)

There are two things that stand out. First, is natural knowledge. That is facts about God, his excellency, or his might, or his sovereign reign. These are intellectual truths that form our natural knowledge. But we can believe that and still not engage in spiritual worship. James tells us that the devils believe these truths, but rather than worship God their oppose him.

Spiritual worship involves natural knowledge, or intellectual facts, but it is not solely natural knowledge. As the psalmist writes in Psalm 47:7 “For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with understanding!”

With this two-fold knowledge of natural and spiritual worship, let us set out what Worship with Reason is.

A. Spiritual Worship is Worship from a Spiritual nature—you must be saved

“You must be born again”

Eph. 2:10 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Col. 3:4 “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”

“If the soul be habitually carnal, the worship cannot be actually spiritual.” (299)

“All worship issuing from a dead nature, is but a dead service.” (299)

B. Spiritual Worship is influenced and supported by the Spirit of God—he is our helper

“A heart may be spiritual, when a particular act of worship may not be spiritual.” (299)

“Without an actual influence we cannot act from spiritual motives, nor for spiritual ends, nor in a spiritual manner.” (299) We are hopeless without the help of the Holy Spirit.

“Never any great act was performed by the apostles to God, or for God, but they are said to be filled with the Holy Ghost.” (300)

Rom. 8:13 “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” ,

Romans 8:11 “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

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.”

Eph. 6:18 “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,”

C. Spiritual Worship is sincere worship—it must be heartfelt

Romans 10:10 “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Psalm 119:108 “Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me your rules.”

“A carnal worship, whether under the law or gospel, is when we are busied about external rites, without an inward compliance of soul.” (300)

“Sincerity is the salt which seasons every sacrifice.” (300)

“How can we imagine God can delight in the mere service of the body, any more than we can delight in converse with a carcass!” (301)

“We may be truly said to worship God, though we want perfection, but we cannot be said to worship him if we want sincerity.” (301)

D. Spiritual Worship is performed with a united heart—God must be a sole focus

Psalm 119:10 “With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!”

“A heart quickly flitting from God makes not God his treasure; he slights the worship, and therein affronts the object of worship. All our thoughts ought to be ravished with God, bound up in him as in a bundle of life.” (301)

“A carnal heart is seldom with God, either in or out of worship.” (301)

“Worldly affections are to be laid aside, if we would have our worship spiritual.” (302)

“He is a carnal worshipper that gives God but a piece of his heart, as well as he that denies him the whole of it; that hath some thoughts pitched upon God in worship, and as many willingly upon the world.” (302)

E. Spiritual Worship is performed with an active understanding and an engaged will—God is transcendent and glorious

Psalm 150:2 “Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his excellent greatness!”

“If we understand the amiableness of God, our affections will be ravished; if we understand the immensity of his goodness, our spirits will be enlarged.” (302)

“What strength of affection we naturally have ought to be as much and more excited in acts of worship than upon other occasions and our ordinary works.” (303)

“This activity doth not consist in outward acts. Strong spiritual affections are abstracted from outward sense.” (303)

II. Worship and Grace

We are dealing with spiritual worship, worship that is acceptable to almighty God. It makes sense, then, considering the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God, that we are in need, desperate need, for aid from this good God. Or, to put it another way, we cannot worship God in spirit and in truth without divine assistance.

A. Spiritual Worship requires confidence in God

Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”

“a spiritual worship cannot be performed without an evangelical confidence in him as a gracious redeemer.” (305)

B. Spiritual Worship requires love of God

Matthew 22:37 “And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

“In that one word love, God hath wrapt up all the devotion he requires of us.” (306)

C. Spiritual Worship acknowledges our weaknesses

Dichotomy: the closer we get to God, the farther we feel we should be separated.

Luke 18:13 “But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’”

“When the eye is spiritually fixed upon a spiritual God, the heart will mourn that the worship is no more spiritually suitable. The more we act love upon God, as amiable and gracious, the more we should exercise grief in ourselves, as we are vile and offending.” (306)

“It is a part of spiritual duty to bewail our carnality mixed with it.” (307)

D. Spiritual Worship requires an insatiable desire for God

“A carnal worshipper is taken with the beauty and magnificence of the temple, a spiritual worshipper desires to see the glory of God in the sanctuary (Ps. 63:2).” (307)

Psalm 63:2 “So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.”

Psalm 119:10 “With my whole heart I seek you; let me not wander from your commandments!”

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

“To desire worship as an end, is carnal; to desire it as a means, and act desires in it for communion with God in it, is spiritual, and the fruit of a spiritual life.” (307)

E. Spiritual Worship includes thankfulness and admiration

Revelation 5:13-14 “And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped.”

“The praise of God is the choicest sacrifice and worship, under a dispensation of redeeming grace.” (307)

“The consideration of God’s adorable perfections discovered in the gospel will make us come to him with more seriousness, beg blessings of him with more confidence, fly to him with a winged faith and love, and more spiritually glorify him in our attendances upon him.” (308)

F. Spiritual Worship is performed with delight

Psalm 118:24 “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

Psalm 118:28–29 “You are my God, and I will give thanks to you; you are my God; I will extol you. Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever!”

“Since we are freed by the death of the Redeemer from the curses of the law, God requires of us a joy in spiritual privileges. A sad frame in worship gives the lie to all gospel liberty, to the purchase of the Redeemer’s death, the triumph of his resurrection.” (308)

“Where there is no delight in a duty, there is no delight in the object of the duty. The more of grace, the more of pleasure in the actings of it.” (309)

“A heart filled up to the brim with joy, is a heart filled up to the brim with the Spirit.” (309)

G. Spiritual Worship is performed with deep reverence for God

Jesus is not your boyfriend, nor does he want you to have a “crush on him,” as noted speaker and author Beth Moore tweeted on 29 July 2022.

“God requires of us an awe of him in the very act of performance.” (310)

“Before him the angels tremble, and the heavens melt; we ought not, therefore, to come before him with the sacrifice of fools, nor tender a duty to him without falling low upon our faces, and bowing the knees of our hearts in token of reverence.” (310)

“The higher apprehensions we have of his majesty, the greater awe will be upon our hearts in his presence, and the greater spirituality in our acts.” (310)

Hebrews 12:28–29 “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.”

Deuteronomy 28:58 ““If you are not careful to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, the Lord your God,”

H. Spiritual worship is performed with humility

1 Chronicles 29:14 ““But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able thus to offer willingly? For all things come from you, and of your own have we given you.”

Psalm 51:16–17 “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

“When we have right notions of the divine majesty, we shall be as worms in our own thoughts, and creep as worms into his presence.” (311)

“As the gospel affords us greater discoveries of God’s nature, and so enhanceth our reverence of him, so it helps us to a fuller understanding of our own vileness and weakness, and therefore is proper to engender humility.” (311)

“The Greek word to worship, προσκυνειν, signifies to creep like a god upon his belly before his master, to lie low. How deep should our sense be of the privilege of God’s admitting us to his worship, and affording us such a mercy under our deserts of wrath!” (311)

J. Spiritual Worship is performed with holiness

Hebrews 12:14 “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

“As without this we cannot see God in heaven, so neither can we see the beauty of God in his own ordinances.” (313)

K. Spiritual worship aims at the glory of God, not the advantage of ourselves

Revelation 4:11 ““Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.””

“No worship can be returned without a glorifying of God; and we cannot actually glorify him without direct aims at the promoting his honour.” (313)

“It is natural for man to worship God for self. Self-righteousness is the rooted aim of man in his worship since his revolt from God; and being sensible it is not to be found in his natural actions, he seeks for it in his moral and religious.” (313)

“To pretend a homage to God, and intend only the advantage of self, is rather to mock him than worship him.” (314)

“A spiritual worshipper performs not worship for some hopes of carnal advantage; he uses ordinances as means to bring God and his soul together, to be more fitted to honour God in the world in his particular place.” (314)

L. Spiritual worship is offered to God in the name of Christ

1 Peter 2:5 “you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

“As the altar sanctifies the gift, so doth Christ spiritualize our services for God’s acceptation; as the fire upon the altar separated the airy and finer parts of the sacrifice from the terrene and earthly.” (314)

“If we consider God out of Christ, we can have no other notions but those of horror and bondage.” (315)

This is why we pray in Jesus’s name.

“God is a Spirit infinitely happy, therefore we must approach to him with cheerfulness; he is a Spirit of infinite majesty; therefore we must come before him with reverence; he is a Spirit infinitely high, therefore we must offer up our sacrifices with the deepest humility; he is a Spirit infinitely holy, therefore we must address with purity; he is a Spirit infinitely glorious, we must therefore acknowledge his excellency in all that we do, and in our measures contribute to his glory, by having the highest aims in his worship, he is a Spirit infinitely provoked by us, therefore we must offer up our worship in the name of a pacifying mediator and intercessor.” (315)

John 4:24 “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.””

Now that we know what spiritual worship is generally and specifically, tomorrow morning we will look at why we should engage in spiritual worship and then examines some uses (or the how to’s).