Worship In Spirit And In Truth, Part 2

Last week when we left off, we were looking at how we could have a worshiping spirit. We went over the following things.

We must be yielded to the Holy Spirit.

Our thoughts must be centered on God.

We must have an undivided heart.

We need to be repentant.

Tonight we carry on.

The Main Hindrance

Self

We can make time to do the projects and other things that are important to us, why do we treat worship as something that is less important. When we get our priorities straight, we will find worship to be one of the things we must make time for.

The main hindrance is we must set ourselves aside and put God first.

Matthew 16:24 ESV

24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

We must deny ourselves and be lost in worshipping God. When we do this, we will know what it means to worship in Spirit.

Worship In Truth

Jesus said we must worship in truth as well. Our worship shouldn’t be wrapped up in emotions and song. True worship should be a response of adoration and praise prompted by truth that God has revealed to us.

Psalm 145:18 ESV

18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

Truth is an essential part of worship.

Psalm 86:11 ESV

11 Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.

When David is praying this psalm, he is asking for God to help him walk in the Lord’s truth.

Pilate asked Jesus in John “What is truth?” When he asks this, in Luke we see that Jesus remained silent. However, Jesus had prayed earlier to give us the answer to this question.

John 17:17 ESV

17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

“If we are to worship in truth and the Word of God is truth, we must worship out of an understanding of the Word of God.”

Preach the Word

The reason why expository and systematic preaching are important to the church. There are pastors who will preach and have a lot of nice anecdotes and stories to tell to get the crowd to react. They may also get people to cry at these stories as well. However, these stories and other things that get the crowd to react, really have nothing to do with our worship of God if they are not able to be backed up with scripture. Preaching in this way doesn’t help people genuinely worship God.

In 2 Timothy, we will see what the preacher’s primary duty is according to scripture.

2 Timothy 4:2 ESV

2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

The only truly effective ministry is one that teaches the Word of God.

There are a lot of evangelical churches who spend so much time on promotions of what is going on around the church and the preliminaries, there is no time left for the preaching/teaching from God’s Word.

Our worship must have substance and be based on the Word of God.

Preparing sermons with Jason.

There would be those who would wonder why the preaching of the Word would be so important to worship.

The challenge of the pulpit is to bring people to a place of worship as a daily part of their lives.

The following quote is from John Stott in the book Between Two Worlds.

“Word and worship belong indissolubly to each other. All worship is an intelligent and loving response to the revelation of God, because it is the adoration of his Name. Therefore acceptable worship is impossible without preaching. For preaching is making known the Name of the Lord, and worship is praising the Name of the Lord made known. Far from being an alien intrusion into worship, the reading and preaching of the word are actually indispensable to it. The two cannot be divorced. Indeed, it is their unnatural divorce which accounts for the low level of so much contemporary worship. Our worship is poor because our knowledge of God is poor, and our knowledge of God is poor because our preaching is poor. But when the Word of God is expounded in its fullness, and the congregation begin to glimpse the glory of the living God, they bow down in solemn awe and joyful wonder before His throne. It is preaching which accomplishes this, the proclamation of the Word of God in the power of the Spirit of God. That is why preaching is unique and irreplaceable.”

The powerful preaching of God’s Word is a must for meaningful worship.

When we have this in our corporate worship, it will help us when we worship our Lord individually.

These were Paul’s instructions to Timothy when he was exhorting him to preach the Word.

1 Timothy 4:6–7 ESV

6 If you put these things before the brothers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed. 7 Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;

1 Timothy 4:13 ESV

13 Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching.

The Corinthian church was setting external signs of worship and letting it replace the content and truth which are to be at the center of our worship. Paul tells them this type of worship isn’t building the body of Christ nor the church.

1 Corinthians 14:14–16 ESV

14 For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. 15 What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also. 16 Otherwise, if you give thanks with your spirit, how can anyone in the position of an outsider say “Amen” to your thanksgiving when he does not know what you are saying?

1 Corinthians 14:23–25 ESV

23 If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? 24 But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, 25 the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.

When services are based on emotion, people will leave the service with a good feeling. Truth is at the heart of true worship. Any good feeling or emotion that comes from a service must be related to the truth of God. If not, it is meaningless.

Where Spirit and Truth Meet

Truth and spirit must come together in worship.

Colossians 3:16 ESV

16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

This scripture has the perfect blend of truth and spirit.

Emotion regulated by understanding

Enthusiasm directed by the Word of God

Worship isn’t an emotional feeling with no content. Worship cannot be simply a good feeling that is separated from knowing the truth.

Worship must come from the heart toward God as He reveals himself to us through the study and preaching of His Word.

“The nature of worship, this, is to offer God worship from the depths of our inner being in praise, prayer, song, giving, and living, always based upon His revealed truth.

If you want to worship God, you must be committed to the study of His Word.

Worship is the overflow of our understanding of God as He has revealed Himself in Scriptures.

This is worshiping in truth and spirit.