Worship/Lords Supper

John 4:24

If you would please open your Bibles with me to John chapter four. As you are turning there I would like to share with you a little thought experiment that I like to do as a pastor that I believe can be beneficial to all of us. What if Paul were able to write one more letter addressed to the American churches? Just simply all who represent Christ within the USA. How would that letter go? Are we so arrogant as to believe we would receive a glowing review from Paul and he would have nothing but positive things to say about us? No I do believe that some of the most terrifying words the American church might could here would be greetings from Paul a bondservant of Christ. There are many things that I believe Paul would call us into correcting through his letter to us, but I truly believe that near the top of his list would be worship. I believe that Paul would tell us that we have lost the heart of worship, the theology of worship and replaced it for feelings and preferences. You see I love theology, in seminary the two classes I have dearly loved the most have been Systematic Theology one and two. Within theology though one of my favorite areas to study has always been the theology behind worship, what it is, who it is to, how it should be done. All of these are so very important in order to properly worship God and yet the American church has seemingly tossed all depth aside to either push into trendy directions, or cling to nostalgic feelings. Which is why we must know then, what is true worship to God and who better to answer that question than our Lord Jesus as He explains it to the Samaritan woman.

John 4:19–24 “The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.””

When looking at this story there have been many who take it to mean that God neither cares about style nor location when regarding worship. The great commentator of scripture Matthew Henry notes here though that clearly Jesus had preference as He attended synagogues regularly and worshipped in the Jewish style. This shows that there is some importance in the style and location of the worship. What this verse does do though is tell us the importance of the issues. We can split these into categories such as primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary being matters of salvation, secondary being matters of serious false teaching but not total corruption, and tertiary being issues to address but not hills to die on. We can place styles and locations somewhere in the tertiary marker, while important there is a deeper issue that Jesus is trying to present an that is that true worship is that of spirit and truth.

First allow us to tackle the simpler of the two adjectives which describe proper worship to God and that is truth. God intends for our worship to be in total sincerity. Worship unfortunately can often be a time for Christians or at least people in the visible church to try to prove how religious they are. They sing songs the loudest, they’re the first to stand up, they get all excited and start to move, they post about their quiet times with God continually, and talk about God regularly. All these things are fine and good, but they are nothing if done for the approval of man rather than the approval of God. Jesus is instructing us to have a heart of sincerity with our worship praising God not out of a sense of duty to what people think of us but out of genuine awe that we feel when we think of God.

Next is the one that requires more consideration and that is that worship is to be done in spirit. What is meant by this is related to worship being in sincerity in that the outward actions that we call worship are not where the true worship happens. The true worship happens within the believer on a spiritual level as we align ourselves with God and He makes us more like Him. We have sadly within our culture today disregarded even our own spirituallity as Christians in hopes of being more “logical” or “scientific” but when we boil it down we as human beings are spiritual creatures meant to serve and worship a Spiritual God. The spiritual level of our lives is no less real simply because it is not tangible on the contrary since it is God who is Spirit then the “realest” sense of our lives is our spiritual connection to God.

Now with worship being done in spirit and truth this begs the question of when worship is to occur. Is it something meant simply for two days a week at most or is it more?

Romans 12:1 “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”

What Paul tells us here is that our entire lives are meant to be lived in worship to the Father. Christianity has simplified the meaning of the word worship to simply mean that time in the service when we sing but a believers entire lives aught to be lived in worship to the King. From the moment that my eyes open until I lay my head at night my one goal should be how might I glorify God today? How can I be used by God today to make His name great among the people? All moments of our lives private and public should be lived in such a way that it is worship to God, every word we say and every action we take should be done in service to God. Worship does not just happen in this building but is an all encompasing life style.

This being said though there is still a reason that we gather together today to praise God and hear His word preached.

Matthew 18:20 “For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.””

Again referring to the words of Christ we see that when we gather together in His name then He is joining us. Now many may take this to be nothing more than a comforting statement on behalf of Christ however this is not what Jesus is intending here. No again, as we gather here this morning Christ is present with us spiritually.

An excellent theologian by the name of David Marin Lloyd Jones recorded a peculiar story in a book I was reading by him a while back that relates to this. He was preaching in a city on Sunday evenings and a new lady began showing up on a regular basis and eventually professed Christ and wanted to be baptized as a member of the church. David of course wanted to know the story of the lady to here her testimony and she had a rather interesting one. You see prior to this she had been a spiritist. Her job was to meet with a group of men and she would commune with demonic forces on their behalf and guide them in what they should do. One Sunday evening she was not feeling well and so she did not go to her meeting as usual and from her window she could see people walking down the streets. She decided she was curious enough for a walk and wound up in Davids church. When she entered the building she immediately knew she had to come back the next week because she told David that she could sense a spirit in a similar way to the demonic forces that she sensed before, but this one was a total different being. Where the demonic spirits were evil and filled her with saddness and hatred she said when she entered that church she felt the goodness the love the joy. She felt a perfect spirit within that church and had to feel His prescense again. This lady felt the prescense of our Lord Jesus Christ and as real as He was filling that church on that day He sits here with us as we worship His holy name together.

As we sit here as a body of believers Christ sits next to us though we cannot see Him that does not make His presence any less real. This being the case then should we not take great concern with what we do within this sanctuary? If you could see Him there before you would you not ensure that only the finest messages were brought from the pulpit and the finest worship we could provide? So what then are we some of the forms of worship that we are to do as a congregation on Sunday morning? We haven’t the time for me to address all aspects of corporate worship, but I would like to address one in specific as we prepare ourselves to partake in it and that is the Lords Supper or Communion.

As Baptists we hold to two Sacraments or ordinances depending on word preference and belief on the efficacy of the act. I would like to argue today that Sacrament is a word that we as protestants tend to shy from in order to avoid sounding too Catholic, but is an accurate description of the act. By definition a sacrament is a religious ritual that bestows grace upon the participant. While a Catholic view would argue for what is called a salvific grace within the sacrament we can suppose a sanctifying grace is bestowed upon us during the sacrament. What I mean by that is that grace is not a one time dosage upon justification but is something that God continually pours out to His people to stengthen them and help them to overcome challenges. There are many ways in which this grace is poured out into the Christian and Communion is one such way. Let’s look to God’s word to see this.

1 Corinthians 10:16–18 “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread. Observe Israel after the flesh: Are not those who eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?”

First what we see here is that it is referred to as a blessing. This sacred act that we are soon to participate in is meant to bless us, not solely in rememberence but through grace given to us by God. How does this work? As the verses say here it is through communion with Christ. What is meant by this is Christs spiritual presence within the Lords Supper that when we partake it we are spiritually norished by His sacrifice and stregthened by His grace.

It is not only spiritual blessings though as we see in chapter eleven Paul goes on to warn of the spiritual consequences for taking the Lords supper when we are not meant to. By this I mean when we are living in a life of unrepentant sin Paul warns us there will be consequences for having communion with Christ. This is simple to grasp as God cannot stand the presence of sin and does not wish to be unified to sin. This is why as we go into this time of Communion I would like to take just a moment if you would to bow your heads and pray with me. Let us call out to the Lord of mercy and ask for His forgiveness and ask that He prepare us to partake in Communion today. I would ask that we take a brief moment to pray silently on our own before I lead us in a prayer to take us into Communion.