The Pattern of Worship, Part 2: Truthful Worship

JOHN 4:21-24

Once again, this morning we’re focusing on these few verses in the account of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well.  You remember that as Jesus was presenting the Gospel to the woman, He showed her her sin.  And as He showed her her sin, she was convicted.  Of course, when she felt that conviction, she wanted to get away from that as soon as possible.  So she changed the subject.  But she really wasn’t changing the subject as far away as she thought she was.  She asked Jesus a question about worship.  Who was right?  Were her people right in the way they worshipped?  Or were the Jews right?  Jesus answer is summed up in the words of verse 23 and repeated in verse 24.  True worshippers worship God in spirit and in truth.  Last week we focused on what it means to worship God in spirit.  This morning we’re going to look at what it means to worship God in truth.  Next week, we’ll finish our time in this passage by focusing on the “and”.  There is a danger in preaching through this passage the way I’m doing it.  And that is that some of you will only hear part of it.  Some were here last Sunday that aren’t here today.  Some are here today that weren’t here last Sunday.  I certainly pray that everything I said last week and everything I say this morning are biblically true and beneficial.  But I know that if you only get part of it, you’re not getting the full, balanced, biblical teaching on worship.  I don’t usually mention this from the pulpit, but if you miss one of these three weeks, please get a copy of the CDs and get the full teaching.  Last week when we looked at spiritual worship, we saw that spiritual worship is liberating.  It is not tied to a specific physical location like the tabernacle or the temple anymore.  Instead, spiritual worship is tied to the heart of the believer.  Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and as such, your body is where worship flows from.  Spiritual worship is also animating.  It is life-giving.  Just like God breathed into Adam the breath of life and he became a living soul… Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit into believers when He brings them into new life in Him.  And as believers, when we have breathed in the blessings of the Holy Spirit in salvation… we can’t help but breathe out praises and worship to Christ.  Finally, we saw that spiritual worship is also sustaining.  It is sustaining in that it is a display of our love relationship with Jesus.  Just as marriage involves emotional, outward displays of affection, so does our relationship with Jesus as our bridegroom.  Our relationship is created and sustained by His worthiness and our outward displays of affection show Him exactly how worthy He is to us.  So spiritual worship is liberating, animating and sustaining.  But Jesus said that spiritual worship is just part of it.  Worship is not just an exercise of the heart.  It is also an exercise of the head.  Even though we’re looking at them separately, it’s not just about one or the other.  As a matter of fact, you can’t truly have one without the other.  But I’m getting ahead of myself to next week.  This morning we’re looking at the second part of worship.  Jesus said that true worshippers will worship the Father in truth.  So, what does that mean?  What does it mean to worship God in truth?  This morning we’re going to answer that question by looking at four characteristics of truthful worship.  Truthful worship is centered, it’s grounded, it’s focused, and it is evidenced.  First, truthful worship is centered.

Truthful worship is centered.  The sad fact is, that many things that people call worship today aren’t.  I remember last year that the TV show American Idol had a special fundraiser.  I don’t remember what they were raising funds for, but I do remember one of the things they did.  They had a group of American Idol finalists get up and sing a contemporary Christian praise song.  The song is a very good song called Shout to the Lord.  But here’s what they did.  In order to make it more acceptable to the TV audience, they changed the words.  Instead of singing the words, “My Jesus, my Savior, Lord there is none like you…”, they sang, “My Shepherd, my Savior.”  Of course, after that happened, the Christian media was jumping.  There were many comments that came out over the first few days that talked about what a wonderful thing it was.  People commented on what a great thing it was to see all those people up there worshipping on TV.  Is that worship?  Of course it’s not worship.  And it has nothing to do with the style of the song.  It has to do with who the song is being sung to.  In order for worship to be truthful, it has to be centered on the truth.  In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father but by Me.”  In our passage this morning, Jesus said that those who worship the Father will worship Him in spirit and truth.  So if you are going to worship God, your worship is going to be centered in the One who is Truth.  If your worship isn’t centered on Jesus Christ, it isn’t worship.  You know that I have no problem with contemporary styles of worship.  I have no problem with them because what we call traditional is just an older version of contemporary.  As a matter of fact, at one time, having a piano in church was scandalous.  It was scandalous because pianos were barroom instruments.  Only organs were suitable for church.  You hear the same arguments today for other kinds of instruments.  The issue is not style.  There is no such thing as a sanctified style of music.  We all have our preferences.  That’s fine.  But don’t try to justify your style preferences by saying that other styles are somehow less than worship.  Truthful worship has nothing to do with style.  It has to do with content.  And is that content centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ.  One thing I will say about some of the contemporary praise music.  Some of the choruses sing praises directly to the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is a personal being just like the other members of the Trinity.  He is just as much God as the Father and Son are.  Three persons—one God.  But even though that is the case, the Holy Spirit is not who our worship is to center on.  Because every place that the Holy Spirit is mentioned in Scripture, He never points to Himself.  He is always pointing to Christ.  The person and work of Christ is the center of our worship not the Holy Spirit.  Certainly not personal preference or style either.  Truthful worship is centered on the One who said that He is the way, the truth and the life.  When we worship in truth, Jesus is the center of our worship.  Truthful worship is centered.  Truthful worship is also grounded.

Truthful worship is grounded.  I want to go back to those American Idol finalists for a minute.  After they sang that modified song on that first night, their switchboard lit up.  They normally like it when people call in, but this time they were calling in to complain.  It seems that a whole nation full of Christians called in to complain about them changing the words to the song.  Well, to their credit, the people responsible for the show responded.  When the show came on the next night, they sang the song again.  But this time, they sang the right words.  They sang, “My Jesus, my Savior, Lord there is none like you.  All of my days, I want to praise the wonders of your mighty love.”  That’s great, right?  They got the words right—now they were singing to Jesus.  The song was now centered on the person and work of Jesus.  Now it was worship, right?  Not hardly.  You see, it wasn’t worship, because most of the people singing had no relationship with Jesus.  They had no idea who Jesus really is.  Truthful worship is grounded in who Jesus is as revealed to us in His Word.  If Jesus is the truth, like He told us He is… then He can’t just be anything we want to make Him to be.  The truth has to have content.  And the way that God has chosen to give us the content about who Jesus is, is through His Word.  The Bible is our source of truth.  Worship cannot flow from ignorance.  In verse 22, when Jesus told the woman at the well, “Ye worship ye know not what, we know what we worship,” what was He talking about?  He was talking about one of the biggest problems the Samaritans had.  The Samaritans rejected most of the Bible.  As a matter of fact, the only books they used were the books of Moses.  They didn’t use any of the historical books.  They didn’t use any of the poetic books.  They didn’t use any of the prophetic books.  All they used were Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.  And even the versions they had of those five books had been corrupted by some of their scribes.  They had been changed to match some of their theology.  The Samaritans had rejected large parts of the Bible.  And when they did that, they rejected their only infallible source of truth.  As Jesus closed the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, He told a parable about two builders.  Starting in verse 24, He said, “Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.  And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.”  Jesus said that whoever hears His Word and does it builds his life on a solid foundation.  But if you refuse to hear and do what God’s Word tells you to do, you’re building on sand and your life will collapse.  Truthful worship is grounded in the Word of God.  It doesn’t collapse with the change of emotion or circumstance.  Throughout the Psalms, we see time and time again where the psalmist was able to worship the Lord even while he was being attacked by his enemies.  Job was able to worship the Lord as he was sitting on the ash heap.  After they had been beaten, Paul and Silas were able to worship the Lord at midnight while they were in the inner prison, fastened in stocks.  Stephen was able to worship as the stones were pelting the very life from his flesh.  The only way those men were able to do that was because they were grounded.  They were grounded in the Word of God.  Worship cannot flow from ignorance.  The source of truth is the Word of God.  That is what truthful worship is grounded in.  Truthful worship is grounded.  It is also focused.

Truthful worship is focused.  If there is one area that I could put my finger on that most of us lack in worship, it is this area.  Most of us don’t have a problem keeping Jesus as the center of our worship.  Most of us don’t have a problem knowing that our worship is grounded in the Word of God.  Some churches do, and we can point to any number of ones on the TV that have those problems.  That should not serve as a point of pride.  It should serve as a reminder and a warning as we move forward.  How easy it can be to move off of center and forget our grounding.  We must always be vigilant to keep Christ as our center and stay grounded in His Word.  But if we have an area we need to work on right now, it is this area of focus.  Truthful worship is focused.  As most of you know, we homeschool our kids.  The Bible speaks of a great judgment day at the end of history as we know it.  Homeschool parents have a great judgment day every spring.  It’s called testing.  It usually takes three days.  Testing is when the government assesses how well we’ve been teaching our kids all year.  If they don’t score up to a certain level, there are certain steps we have to take.  And ultimately, there is the possibility that the state could use the results of those tests to make us send our kids to public school.  So, as you can imagine, test week is very important.  Just like SAT week is important when you’re in high school.  Except the difference is, you can retake SATs if you blow it.  So what do you think happens at my house during test week?  We have friends over to spend the night.  We watch movies and play PlayStation till all hours of the night.  That morning, we sleep till the very last possible minute and grab a Mountain Dew and candy bar on the way out the door.  Then we come racing into the test center as the door closes.  We sit down and realize we forgot our #2 pencils and note paper.  Do you think that’s what happens at my house?  If it did, I can guarantee my kids would be in public school.  And we might be in jail.  In reality, during test week, our house is focused on one thing.  It affects bed time.  It affects getting up time.  It affects play time.  It affects meal time.  It affects everything.  Everything that we do that week is focused on giving them the opportunity to do the best they can on their tests.  If you think about it, we do that with all kinds of things in our life.  If there is an inspection at work—that is where our focus is.  If there is a big game or match at school—that’s where our focus is.  If there is a new account or evaluation or event—that’s where our focus is.  Why don’t we have that same kind of focus with worship?  True worship is focused.  It is an activity of the mind.  Wouldn’t it stand to reason that our mind should be sharp?  How can your mind be focused on worship if you stayed up half the night on Saturday night?  How can your mind be focused on worship if you filled your stomach with sugar and caffeine as you were rushing out the door?  How can your mind be focused on worship if it takes you till the offertory to catch your breath from running late?  Truthful worship is focused.  It requires concentration.  Some of us have minds that naturally wander.  If that is you, you might need to take notes.  They don’t have to be good notes, but they can at least keep your mind on worship.  Focused worship requires preparation.  Get to bed at a decent hour.  Get your clothes and your Bible ready the night before.  Get a pencil and notebook ready.  Don’t be running around in a panic at the last minute looking for your tithe envelope.  Get all that stuff ready ahead of time.  I know it’s difficult when you have kids to get ready.  But you know that going in.  Plan for ample time.  Plan for ample rest.  Truthful worship is focused.  Focus requires concentration, it requires preparation and it requires anticipation.  Do you look forward to worshipping?  Do you anticipate what the Lord is going to do when you meet Him here on Sundays?  Do you anticipate standing with your brothers and sisters in Christ and lifting your voice in praise to Him? Do you eagerly anticipate worshipping as you hear His Word preached?  That is all part of the focus you must bring to worship.  Focus in concentration.  Focus in preparation.  And focus in anticipation.  Truthful worship is focused.  Truthful worship is centered.  Truthful worship is grounded.  And truthful worship is focused.  Finally, truthful worship is evidenced.

Truthful worship is evidenced.  You can be the first one in the church building on Sunday mornings.  You can be here Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night.  You can study your Sunday School lesson.  You can faithfully pay your tithes and even give offerings on top of them.  You can sing louder than anybody else.  You can even throw your hands up in the air and shout amen every once in a while.  But do you know where real truthful worship shows itself?  It can show itself in all those areas.  But it will really show itself when your hands go down.  It will really show itself when the music stops.  It will really show itself when the church doors close behind you after you leave.  Truthful worship is evidenced by the way that you live your life.  Do you live your life centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ?  Do you live your life grounded in God’s Word?  Do you spend your life focused on concentrating on, and preparing for, and anticipating the next time we can gather together and worship Christ?  If you do, that’s how you can know that you’re worshipping in truth.  Jesus said that you will know them by their fruit.  Some of that fruit is evident in here.  Most of it is evident out there.  So, I want to ask you—how is your worship?  Are you worshipping the Lord in truth?  Is your worship centered on the person and work of Jesus?

If you’ve never trusted Him as your Lord and Savior, it can’t be.  You can’t worship someone you don’t know.  The good news is that you can know Him today.  Verse 23 says that God is seeking you to worship Him.  When Jesus spoke those words to the woman at the well, she hadn’t trusted Jesus as her Lord and Savior yet.  She was still lost just like you might be.  But Jesus told her how to worship.  And then in verse 26, He told her who to worship.  And she believed in her heart and confessed with her mouth.  And she was saved.  Do you need to do that this morning?  If you do, the altar will be open. I encourage you to come as the music sounds.