REAL WORSHIP

John 4: 23-24

“ Real Worship “

THESE words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria are His first recorded teaching on the subject of prayer. They give us some wonderful first glimpses into the world of prayer.

Mind if I share with you that…The Father seeks worshippers; our worship satisfies His loving heart and is a joy to him. Matter of fact He seeks true worshippers, but finds many not such as he would have them.

John’s Gospel tells us, True worship is that which is in spirit and truth. Listen, Jesus The Son has come to open the way for this worship in spirit and in truth, and teach it to us.

And so this morning we enter the school of prayer because it must be to understand what it is to pray in spirit and in truth, and to know how we can attain it.

To the woman of Samaria our Lord spoke of a threefold worship. There is first, the ignorant worship of the Samaritans: “You worship that which you know not.” The second, the intelligent worship of the Jew, having the true knowledge of God: “We worship that which we know, for salvation is of the Jews.”

And then the new, the spiritual worship which He Himself has come to introduce: “The hour is coming, and is now, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth.”

From the connection it is evident that the words “in spirit and truth” do not mean, as is often thought, earnestly, from the heart, in sincerity.

The Samaritans had the five books of Moses and some knowledge of God; there was doubtless more than one among them who honestly and earnestly sought God in prayer. The Jews had the true full revelation of God in His word, as thus far given; there were among them godly men, who called upon God with their whole heart.

And yet not “in spirit and truth,” in the full meaning of the words. Jesus says, “The hour is coming, and now is:” it is only in and through Him that the worship of God will be in spirit and truth.

Among believers one still finds the three classes of worshippers. Some who in their ignorance hardly know what they ask; they pray earnestly, and yet receive but little. Others there are, who have more correct knowledge, who try to pray with all their mind and heart, and often pray most earnestly, and yet do not attain to the full blessedness of worship in spirit and truth.

However, It is into this third class we must ask our Lord Jesus to take us; we must be taught of Him how to worship in spirit and truth. This alone is spiritual worship; this makes us worshippers such as the Father seeks.

In prayer everything will depend on our understanding well and practising the worship in spirit and truth.

The Bible says “God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.”

The first thought suggested here by the Master is that there must be harmony between God and His worshippers; such as God is, must His worship be.

This is according to a principle which prevails throughout the universe: we look for correspondence between an object and the organ to which it reveals or yields itself.

The eye has an inner fitness for the light, the ear for sound. The person who would truly worship God, would find and know and possess and enjoy God, must be in harmony with Him, must have the capacity for receiving Him.

Because God is Spirit, we must worship in spirit. As God is, so His worshipper.

And what does that mean preacher? The woman had asked our Lord whether Samaria or Jerusalem was the true place of worship. He answers that henceforth worship is no longer to be limited to a certain place: “Woman, believe Me, the hour comes, when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father.”

As God is Spirit, not bound by space or time, but in His infinite perfection always and everywhere the same, so His worship would henceforth no longer be confined by place or form, but spiritual as God Himself is spiritual.

This is definitely a lesson of deep importance. How much our Christianity suffers from this, that it is confined to certain times and places?

Listen, anyone who seeks to pray earnestly in the church or in the closet, spends the greater part of the week or the day in a spirit entirely at variance with that in which he prayed.

His worship was the work of a fixed place or hour, not of his whole being. God isn’t looking for mechanical worship….. God is a Spirit; He is the Everlasting and Unchangeable One; what He is, He is always and in truth.

Our worship must even so be in spirit and truth His worship must be the spirit of our life; our life must be worship in spirit as God is Spirit. “God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.”

The second thought that comes to us is that this worship in the spirit must come from God himself. God is Spirit; He alone has Spirit to give. It was for this He sent His Son to fit us for such spiritual worship by giving us the Holy Spirit.

It is of His own work that Jesus speaks when He says twice, “The hour comes,” and then adds, “and is now.” He came to baptize with the Holy Spirit; the Spirit could not stream forth till He was glorified.

John 1:33 I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.

John 7:37–38 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’

John 16:7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you

It was when He had made an end of sin, and entered into the Holiest of all with His blood, had there on our behalf received the Holy Spirit

Acts 2:33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

that He could send Him down to us as the Spirit of the Father. It was when Jesus had redeemed us, and we in Christ had received the position of children, that the Father sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts to cry, “Abba, Father.”

The worship in spirit is the worship of the Father in the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Sonship. This is the reason why Jesus here uses the name of Father.

Listen, We never find one of the Old Testament saints personally appropriate the name of a child or call God his Father. The worship of the Father is only possible to those to whom the Spirit of the Son has been given.

The worship in spirit is only possible to those to whom the Son has revealed the Father, and who have received the spirit of Sonship. It is only Christ who opens the way and teaches the worship in spirit.

And in truth. That does not only mean in sincerity. Nor does it only signify, in accordance with the truth of God’s Word. The expression is one of deep and Divine meaning.

Watch this, Jesus is “the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” “The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” Jesus says, “I am the truth and the life.”

In the Old Testament all was shadow and promise; Jesus brought and gave the reality, the substance, of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen…

In Jesus the blessings and powers of eternal life are our actual possession and experience. Jesus is full of grace and truth; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth; through Him the grace that is in Jesus is ours in deed and truth, a positive communication out of the Divine life.

And so worship in spirit is worship in truth; actual means I’m living in fellowship with God, a real correspondence and harmony between the Father, who is a Spirit, and the child praying in the spirit is taking place!!

What Jesus said to the woman of Samaria, she could not at once understand. Pentecost was needed to reveal its full meaning. So, Let us only begin and take the lesson as He gives it.

We are carnal and cannot bring God the worship He seeks.

But Jesus came to give the Spirit; He has given The Spirit of Christ to us. Therefore, Let the disposition in which we set ourselves to pray be what Christ’s words have taught us.

Let there be the deep confession of our inability to bring God the worship that is pleasing to Him; with the childlike faith that waits on Christ to instruct us; the simple faith that yields itself to the breathing of the Spirit.

Above all, let us hold fast the blessed truth—we shall find that the Lord has more to say to us about it—that the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God, the revelation of His infinite Fatherly affection in our hearts, the faith in the infinite love that gives us His Son and His Spirit to make us children, is indeed the power of prayer in spirit and truth.

This is the new and living way Christ opened up for God’s Children to have Christ the Son, and the Spirit of the Son, dwelling within us, and revealing the Father, this makes us true, spiritual worshippers.

the song writer said.....

We’re gathered here.. the time has come

to praise the Father, Spirit and the Son

hearts that are ready,,, free to respond

we join the everlasting song

we will worship YOU in SPIRIT and TRUTH

HOW we love to WORSHIP YOU

let YOUR name be praised again and again

LORD we love to WORSHIP YOU......