Worship in Spirit and Truth 11 - Worship the One True God
Worship In Spirit and Truth • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 36:11
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· 9 viewsMorning 15th June 2025
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1 We give thanks to you, O God; we give thanks, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.
1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. 7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. 8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labour, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. 12 “Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. 13 “You shall not murder. 14 “You shall not commit adultery. 15 “You shall not steal. 16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour. 17 “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.” 18 Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off 19 and said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die.” 20 Moses said to the people, “Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin.” 21 The people stood far off, while Moses drew near to the thick darkness where God was.
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1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
Introduction
As we have sought to understand and apply the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman in John 4:24 “24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth,” we have considered a number of different aspects of worship in the Scriptures. The false worship offered by Cain, Nadab and Abihu, the deep cost of worship offered by Abraham. The glory of worship in heaven, the unseen reality of that as we worship. The foolishness of those Jewish Christians who wanted to go back to the old forms of worship.
I want now to turn to a more theological understanding of worship and we begin by looking at the Ten Commandments.
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1. The Living Scriptures
1. The Living Scriptures
a. Authority
a. Authority
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16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
b. Practice
b. Practice
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16 For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For when he received honour and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,” 18 we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.
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19 And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
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2. Interpreting the Scriptures
2. Interpreting the Scriptures
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a. Testing
a. Testing
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15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.
10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. 11 Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
b. Principles of Interpretation
b. Principles of Interpretation
There are two main ways of interpreting the Scriptures which are known as the Normative Principle and the Regulative Principle, these relate to the application of the Scriptures in all we believe and do with particular relevance to our worship.
Briefly stated, the regulative principle teaches that God has set forth in Scripture the only acceptable ways of worshiping him and that it is a sin to attempt to worship him in any other way. The opposite view, the normative principle, teaches that we may worship in whatever way we wish as long as it is not forbidden in Scripture. Reisinger, E. C., & Allen, D. M. (2001).
We hold to the Regulative Principle.
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3. The Law of God
3. The Law of God
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a. Grace Does Not Negate the Law
a. Grace Does Not Negate the Law
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14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. 15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
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b. Jesus and the Law
b. Jesus and the Law
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17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
21 “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ 22 But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.
Matthew 22:34–40 “34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 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. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.””
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4. The Law and Worship
4. The Law and Worship
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a. The Ten Commandments
a. The Ten Commandments
18 And he gave to Moses, when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.
If the law comes from God, then the best place to begin understanding the law is with God himself. This is precisely where the book of Exodus begins its presentation of the Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue, meaning “ten words”: “And God spoke all these words” Ryken, P. G., & Hughes, R. K. (2005).
The Commandments give clear directions on how we must worship and live.
1-4 Worship
One True God
3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
Worship Rightly
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Worship Reverently
7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Worship Regularly
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
The Remaining 6 are living a life of worship.
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1 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. 2 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.
5. Worship the One True God
5. Worship the One True God
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1 And God spoke all these words, saying, 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
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a. One God
a. One God
This is the fundamental commandment, the one that comes before all the others and lays the foundation for them. Before we learn anything else about what God demands, we need to know who he is and who we are in relationship to him. “Now get this straight,” God is saying, “I am the one and only God. And since I am the only God, I refuse to share my worship with anyone or anything else.” Ryken, P. G., & Hughes, R. K.
We do not worship a god but the God, and he wants to have an exclusive love relationship with each one of his people. Obviously in order for this relationship to work, it is essential for us not to share our love with any other god. We must be faithful to the only true God. We must give him our total allegiance, honouring, adoring, and revering him as our Lord and Saviour. Ryken, P. G., & Hughes, R. K.
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b. All or Nothing
b. All or Nothing
14 “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
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21 And Elijah came near to all the people and said, “How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the people did not answer him a word.
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24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
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John Calvin said that the first commandment requires us “to contemplate, fear and worship his majesty; to participate in his blessings; to seek his help at all times; to recognize, and by praises to celebrate, the greatness of his works—as the only goal of all the activities of life.” So the command tells us whom to worship as well as whom not to worship.
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c. Fear of the Lord
c. Fear of the Lord
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The attitude of devoted loyalty to God, expressed in worship and service according to his Word, is the fear of the Lord (reverence, not panic!), which the Bible sees as the beginning and indeed the essence of wisdom . Heart-loyalty is the soil out of which holy living grows. Packer, J. I.
28 And he said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’ ”
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
Conclusion
God does not simply lay claim to one part of our life and worship; he demands that we dedicate all we are and all we have to his service and praise. Thus the Ten Commandments begin by asserting the great theological principle of soli Deo gloria: glory to God alone. Ryken, P. G., & Hughes, R. K.
