Sermon: "Truth In Worship"
Two weeks ago we considered the concept of “Keeping a Sabbath”. We learned among other things:
- A Sabbath is a day a week when we can stop our regular activities.
- God gave us a Sabbath to refresh our bodies and souls.
- Keeping a Sabbath is a sign of our special relationship with God.
- Keeping a Sabbath includes Believers gathering together for a ‘sacred assembly’ where they remember, celebrate and worship the God who created the heavens and the earth.
LEVITICUS 23:3 – There are six days when you may work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, a day of sacred assembly. You are not to do any work; wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to the Lord.
My concern is that many of us have grown so busy with out schedules and activities that we are getting out of the habit of gathering regularly for worship – one of the activities most appropriate for observing a much needed Sabbath.
Does this mean we should just come to church because we’re supposed to? Is this what God wants? NO.
There is a story in John’s Gospel in which Jesus tells us what God wants. It’s a story about … The Woman at the Well.
JOHN 4:5-10, 19-26 – 5So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
19“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
When we say we gather here for worship, and we do what we do – greet each other, sing songs, pray, receive offerings, listen to a sermon – is this what God wants?
Verses 23-24 tell us what God wants.
JOHN 4:23-24 - 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
God actually seeks true worshippers. True Believers, real Christians, are called to be worshippers. Of all the things we do for God, worship is the most important.
The type of worship Jesus was talking about is an experience we participate in that will turn our hearts toward God. When Jesus says we must worship in spirit – he is talking about something that comes from inside of us – something that involves all of us – our minds, our emotions, our will – everything. It is when our spirit meets with God’s Spirit and there is a connection. It doesn’t depend on a particular place (here at church) or a style – contemporary or traditional. It’s much deeper than that. I will admit it is a difficult concept to grasp – but I believe the second part of the statement will help us understand it. Worshipping in truth or truth in worship … this is what we want to focus on this morning.
I. A BEGINNING – ACCEPT JESUS
Worshipping in truth, or worship that is acceptable to God the Father, must begin with accepting Jesus for who he is – God and Savior. Here is what John writes …
JOHN 1:1-5 - 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
Jesus said of himself …
JOHN 14:6 – “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
The woman at the well knew that the Messiah would explain everything to them – i.e. He would tell them the truth.
JOHN 4:25 – The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
Jesus declared himself to be that one – to be the Messiah. So our worship must begin by accepting that Jesus is God’s Son and that his words are God’s words – and that belief must affect the way we live. Without that acceptance of Jesus, we are just making noise – putting on an act. Jesus says in …
JOHN 3:20-21 – 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.
“Lives by the truth” means literally “does the truth.” To “do the truth” means to act faithfully in our relationship with God and other people.
So true worship begins with believing Jesus is God’s Son, but it also involves living according to the standards that Jesus set. In other words, it means acting or living like Jesus, as well. So it won’t just involve what we do on Sunday morning. Worshipping in truth will involve our whole lives – each and every day.
But what about when we gather for worship? How do we know we are worshipping in truth? I believe it involves three areas. The first is …
II. PURITY IN THE SPIRIT OF WORSHIP
Here holiness and purity are the main concern. Paul wrote …
ROMANS 12:1 – Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.
We no longer offer animal sacrifices when we come to worship. Today our sacrifice is ourselves. We come to offer ourselves to God. Worship is not about “what can I get out of going to church?” Or “I wonder if I will like the music or sermon today?” Worship is offering ourselves to God, and true worship is offering a holy sacrifice.
Sometimes we think that if we come to church, we will get closer to God and we will feel more holy and pure. But look at Isaiah’s experience.
ISAIAH 6:1-2a, 3b, 5 - 1In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2Above him were seraphs, calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.”
5“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
Seeing God made him aware of how defiled he was. But he also confessed his sinfulness and God cleansed him – made him fit to meet with God.
ISAIAH 6:6-7 – 6Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
David understood this – particularly after he committed adultery with Bathsheba. In Psalm 51 we find the cry of his heart as he came to meet with God – to worship.
PSALM 51:1-3, 5-7, 9-12 – 1Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. 2Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.
5Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me. 6Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place.
7Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. 9Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.
10Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
Notice how he recognized his own sinfulness. Notice, too, how he asks God to create a pure heart in him. In verse 17 David describes the heart or spirit of a person that is a true worshipper.
PSALM 51:16-17 - 16You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
We cannot truly worship God until he has cleansed our hearts and made us pure inside. God gave practical applications of this to the Israelites in …
LEVITICUS 19:17-18 – 17Do not hate your brother in your heart. Rebuke your neighbor frankly so you will not share in his guilt. 18Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
Peter gives instructions about the need of a pure heart and the love it produces.
I PETER 1:22 – Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.
True worship comes from a pure heart. Love for God and love for other people also comes from a pure heart. We can worship God in truth when we confess our own sinfulness and when we allow God to purify our hearts.
This will result in genuine love for God and true love for other people and it will motivate us to live holy, obedient lives all week long.
Sin that we hide in our hearts will hinder true worship. Grudges, anger and bitterness towards other people will also hinder our worship – even if we come to church and sing and pray and listen to a sermon.
Have you asked God to purify your heart today so you can worship? A second aspect of true worship is …
III. SINCERITY IN OUR ACTIONS
Here we go back to Genesis. Cain and Abel were brothers. They each brought an offering as an act of worship to God.
GENESIS 4:3-5 – 3In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4But Abel brought fat portions from some of the first-born of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
We don’t know exactly why God favored Abel and his offering. Hebrews 11:4 sheds some light.
HEBREWS 11:4 – By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.
There was something amiss in Cain’s motivation and heart attitude that made his act of worship unacceptable. We already read these verses in Psalm 51 …
PSALM 51:16-17 - 16You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Actions can be deceiving – we can act as if we’re sincere but God knows our hearts.
Psalm 50 also offers some insight.
PSALM 50:8-15 – 8I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are ever before me. 9I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens 10for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.
11I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. 12If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.
13Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood or goats? 14Sacrifice thank offerings to God, fulfill your vows to the Most High, 15and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me.
God’s primary concern is not the sacrifices the people offered. He did not need the people’s resources so he could accomplish his plans.
God was interested in the sincerity of their hearts. God wants his worshippers to bring expressions of thankfulness, the kind that come from being delivered in the day of trouble.
Suppose you are driving somewhere to an important appointment and you have a breakdown in a rather isolated place. You have no cell phone service and it is too far to walk to a phone. You are stewing about missing your appointment, getting the car fixed, and paying the garage bill. And having someone pick up your child from sport’s practice – and hardly any other cars are moving on that road.
As you see it, your whole day is ruined. Suddenly here comes a car. You think you recognize it and sure enough it’s your good friend. You tell them everything you’re worried about. They say, “Well, get in and I’ll take you to your appointment. While you’re there I will take care of getting your car fixed and have it delivered to the parking lot so you will have a ride home. I will pick up your child from practice and bring her home, so you won’t be worrying about that all afternoon.”
When you come out of your meeting, there is your car. The bill is on the front seat, but there is no amount written in. It just says, “Paid in Full.”
You arrive home and your daughter greets you at the door safe and sound. Now tell me, how would you feel about your good friend? What would you want to do for them?
That, I believe, is a picture of …. “bringing expressions of thankfulness, the kind that come from being delivered in the day of trouble.” Would you be sincere when you baked your friend a big plate of cookies with a thank you note attached? Of course you would.
That is the sincerity God wants us to have as we gather to offer praise, to clap, to raise our hands, to stand in respect, to bring our money, to learn about and care about the needs of each other. Every time we gather together we must remember …
II CORINTHIANS 5:17-21 (New Living Translation) – 17This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
18And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. 20So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 21For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
We can just go through the motions of doing church and our offering will be no more acceptable to God than Cain’s was.
True worship is sincere because we remember what God has done for us through Christ. A third aspect of true worship is …
IV. AUTHENTICITY IN OUR WORDS OF WORSHIP
That is being real in what we say – to God and to each other.
We read in Genesis 4 of a man named Lamech. We don’t know much about him but we do know he was a proud, self-reliant man.
GENESIS 4:23-24 - 23Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. 24If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”
His proud, self-reliant attitude is contrasted with the attitude of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, and his son Enosh.
GENESIS 4:25-26 - 25Adam lay with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Abel, since Cain killed him.” 26Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord.
These men, instead of being self-reliant, began to “call upon the name of the Lord.”
In Romans, Paul talks about the faith that saves a person and he says …
ROMANS 10:10-13 – 10For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11As the Scripture says, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” 12For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile – the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Calling on the name of the Lord is at the core of true worship. An unbeliever calls on the name of the Lord for salvation. A believer calls on the name of the Lord for help in the middle of life’s circumstances.
Calling on the name of the Lord is bringing our concerns to God so God can help us work through them.
Sometimes we tell people to shut out the concerns of the week just finished or the week coming, so they can concentrate on God – and we think this is true worship.
While we do need to limit distractions, our life problems are not distractions to God. They are the very things he wants us to call on him for help with. Look at a few verses from …
PSALM 88:1-4, 13-18 – 1O Lord, the God who saves me, day and night I cry out before you. 2May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry. 3For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave. 4I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength.
13But I cry to you for help, O Lord; in the morning my prayer comes before you. 14Why, O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me? 15From my youth I have been afflicted and close to death; I have suffered your terrors and am in despair.
16Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me. 17All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me. 18You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend.
The Psalmist is calling on the name of the Lord. He is being totally open and honest with God about what’s happening and how he feels about it. He also knows that God is the one he should talk to about his situation.
This is being authentic in our words of worship. No sugar coating, no pretense, just blatant honesty as we meet with God.
One author has said … “Authentic worship is seeing God, while looking life squarely in the face.” (Averbeck)
Putting on appearances is not what God desires from us as we gather for worship.
CONCLUSION
So how can we worship in truth? It must start by …
- Accepting Jesus as the way of salvation
- Seek God’s cleansing so our hearts are purified and holy.
- Be sincere in our actions because we have been delivered.
- Be real in our words – to God and each other.
No playing games, no pretending, just worshipping in spirit and in truth. This is what God is seeking from us.