The Worship Experience

Propositional Argument

The Lord’s church primary purpose is to worship Him through intimate relationship and knowledge that transcends man’s denominations and borders.

Fresh from Talking with God

300 Sermon Illustrations from Charles Spurgeon Fresh from Talking with God (Ezekiel 3:17)

Facts vividly brought before the mind greatly influence a speaker. A sinner seen as lost touches the heart. Jesus seen as crucified affects the speech.

If I were to stand up in the council of a certain town to urge them to look to their fire escapes, I would do it with tremendous vehemence if I had just come out of the midst of that shuddering crowd that saw a poor woman hanging out of the window in the midst of the flames for lack of proper apparatus to reach her. Any man fresh from such a sight would plead with energy. His whole soul would burn as he thought of the poor perishing fellow creature in the midst of the fire. Would not yours?

It is just so when you come fresh from talking with God. The truth is vividly realized, an awe is upon you, holy zeal and sacred ardor inflame your breast. If you dwell away from God you do not feel the value of the gospel message, nor the weight of men’s souls. The grandest of all truths lose force when they cease to be realized facts, but their power returns when we come again under their actual influence.

What is Worship?

Worship is the external expression of an internal conviction based on his worth as God.

Worship is not bound by a place

After Jesus’ conversation with the “woman at the well,” and her perception of Jesus as prophet due to her current living arrangement, the real tension of his interaction with the Samaritan woman appears as she brings up where her ancestors worship in light to where Jesus say that Jerusalem is where people ought to worship. The plural pronoun “you people” is similar our context when people use it to characterize an entire race based on on a single person’s actions. The animosity between Jewish people is noticeable throughout Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well. The fact is that Jesus never said that Jerusalem is the only place where people worship, but through her statement, there is a sense of hostility based on how the Jewish community treated Samaritans. Yet, some scholars see this as a chance to deflect from herself and to an argument that needed some type of resolution concerning the correct place for worship. Both the Jews and Samaritans had places of worship on mountains, the Samaritans on Gerizim and the Jewish one on Moriah. Jews and Samaritans read from different version of the Pentateuch says that Moses instructed Joshua to build an altar on Mount Gerizim. Samaritan followed Deuteronomy 11:26-29 and Deuteronomy 27:1-8 in setting up a place to worship on Mount Gerizim. The Jews center of worship remained in Jerusalem staying in the pattern of David and Solomon. The Samaritan woman contrasts the separation of the Jewish race with “you people,” and “our fathers.” After the Assyrians captured Samaria in 721 B.C., they deported most of the Israelites and settled the land with foreigners who intermarried with the surviving Israelites. The Jews who returned to Judea viewed the Samaritans as racial half-breeds with a tainted religion. The Samaritans used only the Samaritan version of the Pentateuch and were ignorant of the rest of the Old Testament. Whereas, the Jews had the whole OT canon and had concluded that Jerusalem was the place to build the temple for worshiping God. Here is the microcosm of the church here summed up in this one statement here, “we worship here and you people worship there.”

Practical Application: “The church, like this Samaritan woman, deflects from the real issue to meandering around with something that God is not concerned about. Christians who seek to be ambassadors for Christ must always be wary of falling into the trap of arguing about the “right” place of worship or the “right” denomination.”

If Jesus had entered the age-old argument of which was the “right” temple (just like our arguments about the “right” church), the woman would not have had to face herself and her sin. Jesus did not argue with the presuppositions of Nicodemus (John 3:2) and the paralytic (5:7), Jesus did not argue with with the woman here. The point is not winning arguments but introducing people to the dimension of God in their lives. The model of Jesus is thus very instructive. He turned the conversation away from the place of worship to the nature of worship. In so doing, he modeled a correct evangelistic perspective. Jesus deadens the argument of the place of worship by deprioritizing the idea that worship occurs in a certain place, and reveals that worship will not occur on either mountain. His statement forces the woman to think about the God who acts in history. Jesus is speaking in eschatological reality that would affect all worship (4:21). T he God of history acted through people and not buildings, so he is not building-oriented. Jesus and John’s use of the word “hour” here refers to the moment of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection that transformed and continues to transform human reality.

Practical Application: “Don’t allow the excitement of “where” you worship exceed the God you are supposed to worship. True worship is a matter of how and what, the place does not matter.”

Pastor Marc Quote: “God closed the doors of ministries on the mountain and those mired in the valley nearly three years ago, but he still commanded the church that we worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

During the time Jesus ministered, the place of worship had importance, but only for a time being. We are supposed be in the season where the “place” does not matter, yet its clear that the “place” does matter when it comes to worship. It may have become so that people are excited about the edifice and less about edifying the God over the edifice. 2 Corinthians 6:16 Paul argues that we are temples of the living God. Yes, people need a place where they feel free to express themselves in worship, not engage with toxic Christians and leave the worship experience knowing they met God. But I would say that if your haven’t met God privately, then it is highly unlikely that you’ll experience him publicly. Too many times people look for exciting places to worship, with the hot praise leader, the strobe light stage, the greeters at every door, announcements on the jumbotron, and the excitement of a word that tickles rather than transforms. Secular artist want to be gospel singers...Gospel singers want to be secular artist....motivational speakers want to be preachers, and preachers want to be motivational speakers...Psychics want to be prophets and prophets want to be psychics....it leaves the church in a state of chaos no one knows where they’re supposed to be. True worship is a matter of how and what, the place does not matter. Jesus reminded here that salvation is directly related to God’s working in history.

Worship requires knowledge of God

Worship is the word proskyneo, meaning to prostrate oneself before someone as an act of reverence, fear, or supplication. Worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His Holiness; the nourishment of mind with his truth; the purifying of imagination by his beauty; the opening of the heart to his love; the surrender of will to his purpose--and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin. Yes--worship in spirit and truth is the way to solution of perplexity and to the liberation from sin.

The Greek neuter pronoun ὃ is translated what, that, something, whom, and the one. The pronoun refers to a personal, working knowledge of God For the Samaritans, the pronoun asserts they too believed in Yahweh, but lack a personal connection with Yahweh. The what refers to God’s essence and character. Because of Samaritans disdain for Jews, they adhered to only the Pentateuch while rejecting the other books of the Old Testament, so without the complete revelation of God, their worship was unknown even to them. They worshiped a creature of their own imagination, but the Jews worshiped God as he is revealed in the whole Old Testament.

Jesus makes a strange, yet accurate assessment of the woman’s perspective of God and worship. The Samaritan woman lack the knowledge to understand how God would reveal his divine purpose in history. Worship devoid of understanding God’s activity in history operates within a vacuum. Knowledge is the most critical aspect of true worship because worship requires submitting someone or something greater than yourself. Their version of the Pentateuch was incomplete, while the Jews enjoyed the blessing of the entire Old Testament writings.

Jews had a working knowledge of how God would bring salvation through the Jews, but the Samaritans did not understand that due to only accepting the first five books of the bible. Real worship embraces the full revelation of God through Jesus Christ, and believes that Jesus is the Christ, the pre-existent, co-existent, and self-existing one according to John 1:1. Jesus seemingly includes himself in the “we” because by all accounts he is a Jew by birth and seed of Abraham by promise. Paul in Philippians 2:6-11 recounts how Jesus would leave The Old Testament spoke in Genesis 3:15 that the seed would bruise his head while the serpent would bruise his heel...he would step down through 42 generation and 52 to borrow a human body so he could be born in another man’s stable...he borrowed another man boat and turned into a pulpit...he borrowed a colt to ride into Jerusalem, and borrowed another man’s room to institute his supper...he borrowed another man’s cross and tomb so that we can be saved. Deuteronomy called him a “prophet like unto Moses” and Joshua called him the “captain of the Lord’s host.” He was Ruth’s kinsman-Redeemer and David’s song. He was the suffering servant who would be counted as

Practical Application: “You never know what God is worth to you if you don’t know what God is worth.”

Worship requires being “in” the Spirit and “in” the Scripture

A letter was written where a convert from Islam gave his impression of Christian worship:

A Christian convert from Islam gave his frank impression of Christian worship. “The Christian worship I saw was unclean, irreverent, arrogant, idolatrous and immoral.” He then explained: “You neither wash yourselves nor take off your shoes before entering God’s house. You gossip irreverently and never cover your heads when you pray. You put so much furniture in the place of prayer that no one can prostrate himself before God. You make pictures of Christ--something God has forbidden. And you mix women and men, making it impossible to have a pure thought life or concentrate on God.”

What does our “worship event” look like to believers and non believers alike? At first glance, it would seem that Christian worship is an event rather than an actual experience from an Islamic perspective. But looking deeper, the former Muslim was referring to the mode and ritual of worship and nothing to who they came to worship. Yet, he makes a valid point that there is too much in the way that prevents one from laying prostrate before God. Laying prostrate is not limited to a particular denomination, but every believer should practice laying before God. Too often, worship is done on our feet when worship should done on our faces… Abraham worshiped, Israel worshiped in Egypt and the wilderness, Joshua fell on his face and worshiped, Gideon worshiped, Samuel worshiped, David worshiped and other worship, and at one point they laid prostrate before the Lord of host. If worship is found 192 in your bible, then, it must be important to God to mention it that many times. What is worship to the modern believer? How do we determine what is worship and what is performance? How do we tell the difference between authentic worship and religious exercise? It is a sad indictment that worship has become an event for spectators instead of an encounter with the eternal and everlasting God. “Worship has become more a public viewing and less of a divine visitation from God.”

Karl Barth: “Christian worship is the most momentous, the most urgent, the most glorious action that can take place in human life.”1

What sets apart the worshipper and what constitutes genuine worship? Jesus uses two terms that define true, biblical worship and that is spirit and truth. God’ idea of worship is not an abstract idea or unattainable by the believer. Just as people have standard for life, love, and friends, God has a standard for how he desires to be worshiped. The verse can be translated as “the Father is looking for those who will worship him like that, those are the kind the Father is looking for to worship him. The significance of Jesus describing the new relationship of the true worshipper to God. This relationship is characterized by an unheard-of-intimacy with God as Father. Only those who are given birth by God’s Spirit and who possess God’s Spirit can worship God as Father. True worshippers are people who worship in the right way, the way God wants to be worshiped. Believers are moved to worship God by the Spirit of God, or the pure inner worship of God, that has nothing to dow with holy times, places, appurtenances, or ceremonies. The true place for worship is in one’s human spirit of believers and it is there one can genuinely worship. The word “in truth” point to worship based on a knowledge of God gained from his Word. True worship can take place in the human spirit since only the human spirit is conformed to God’s nature. Man’s spirit is the part of him that associates him with God so to worship in spirit means to worship God in harmony with his Spirit. There are many translations and interpretations, but what is important is that people worship in the right spirit or heart. The word in is a prepositions that governs the two nouns spirt and truth indicating they belong together and further that a person’s worship needs to completely sincere and genuine. Worship in truth is worship that harmonizes with the character of God. Worship in truth is worship that is in agreement with reality.

Practical Application: “Don’t allow your worship to only value God’s work while devaluing God’s worth in your life.”

Pastor Marc Quote: “Worship has become more of a public viewing and less of a divine visitation”

What does God is “spirit” mean?

This means that God’s intrinsic nature is spirit. God is a spiritual being not a physical being. It is not much different from saying that God is invisible. God is holy and transcendent, not earthly or human. He is not to be thought of as material or bound in any way to places or things. Being invisible, God is unknowable except by his self-revelation. God is not physical and therefore needs no temple. This statement refers to God’s omnipresence. He is not limited to any specific locality. People can worship him anywhere.1

What does it mean to worship God in spirit/Spirit and truth?

1. It means the worship is done in one’s spirit and truth . Real worship centers on the worshiper’s own spirit and spirit nature, moved of course by God’s Spirit. If there is to be true worship, there must be a similarity between the worshipper and God. Since God is spiritual he requires spiritual worship. ‘God is spirit’ refers especially to God’s omnipresence. So a person can truly worship him only in a way that corresponds to God’s nature. When a person’s spirit has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit he can worship God anywhere [CH]. Since God is spirit, man must be transformed by God’s Spirit in order to acceptably worship God.

2. It means the worship is done in the Holy Spirit and truth: ‘only by the power of his Spirit can people worship him as he really is’. God is spiritual not physical and therefore all who worship him must do it through the gift of God’s Spirit. God is the source of life, and men can only worship him as he really is when his Spirit enables them to do so by giving them new life.

1 Ronald Trail, An Exegetical Summary of John 1–9, Exegetical Summaries (Dallas, TX: SIL International, 2013), 179–180.

1 Ronald Trail, An Exegetical Summary of John 1–9, Exegetical Summaries (Dallas, TX: SIL International, 2013), 179.

1 John Stott, The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott, ed. Mark Meynell (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2018).