Worship in Spirit and Truth

English Standard Version Chapter 4

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.

What does it meant to worship in spirit and truth?

The Message Chapter 4

But the time is coming—it has, in fact, come—when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.

23–24  “It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That’s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”

What a powerful translation!

To start off by saying what you are called, and where you are going doesn’t matter has two ways you could take it:

Negatively, that you don’t need to the local church

Positively, to worship through the Holy Spirit and the spirit man[who you truly are.] This is a reminder that worship is not restricted to what we do when we come together in church, but about the way we relate to God through the Spirit and in accordance with the teaching of Jesus, and that, touches our whole life.

This isn’t just for any person in the world. This is specifically talking to the believer.

Believer: any of the elect, the saints, the believers in Christ.

English Standard Version Chapter 5

25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

English Standard Version Chapter 3

3 For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh

How freeing it is that to truly worship the Father, we get to put NO CONFIDENCE in our flesh!

English Standard Version Chapter 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.

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.

Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament based on Semantic Domains 25.145 συστενάζω

25.145 συστενάζω: to groan or to sigh together with someone else—‘to groan together, to sigh together.’ οἴδαμεν γὰρ ὅτι πᾶσα ἡ κτίσις συστενάζει … ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν ‘we know that … up to the present … all of creation groans together’

To Groan: to groan or sigh together with someone else; all of creation groans together.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

So although the scripture tell us the importance isn’t in meeting in a certain place, there is HUGE significance in worship along side of all creation.

To truly worship in spirit and truth, you must worship in unity with believers

Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel according to John (p. 225). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.

More commonly the ‘spirit’ in the Old Testament is renovative, creative, life-giving, where what is ‘spirit’ cannot itself be fully apprehended, but its effect cannot be denied.

English Standard Version Chapter 3

8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Your spirit has a sound!