True Worship | John 4:19-26

Guest Speaker Justin Nash
John 4:19-26

• Introduction
  • Human beings are wired to worship. Everybody is a worshiper (Rom. 1:25) but because of sin many are blind and constantly put their trust in worthless objects. We will worship something. This leads to two questions: (1) What will we worship? (2) Will we worship in the right way?
    • Often when we hear the word “worship”, we think strictly in terms of music. “Wasn’t the worship great today.” Worship is more than music.
    • The worship wars of the last few decades have often created great division over not just what type of music is appropriate, but also forms, liturgies, dress, location and times.
    • One of the problems we face is that the New Testament does not prescribe worship practice with the same kind explicit detail and practice as the Old Testament.
  • The Samaritans were a mixed race, part Jew and part Gentile, that grew out of the Assyrian captivity of the ten northern tribes in 727 b.c. Rejected by the Jews because they could not prove their genealogy, the Samaritans established their own temple and religious services on Mt. Gerizim. Jacob’s Well is at the foot of MountGerizim toward which she pointed.
    • This is a key passage on worship in the New Testament as the word worship occurs 10 times in five verses.
• The Meaning of Worship
  • Worship Defined – Greek “Proskuneo”
    • The ancient custom of kissing the hand of a superior.
    • Used to convey the idea of bowing down, or prostrating oneself. The idea that you prostrate yourself before a superior being with a sense of respect, awe, reverence, honor, and homage.
    • We bow in respect and honor before God, paying Him the glory due His superior character.
    • Jesus begins, not by describing what worship is, but rather by describing what worship is not.
  • Worship is not about a place.
    • “²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.”
    • The worship of God will be emancipated from bondage to place. Both Jews and Samaritans are wrong as to the “necessity”
    • Coming to church does not equal worship.
  • Worship is not about a practice.
    • The temple inJerusalem would be gone. Its practices and procedures done away with as they were merely shadows of things to come
      • “To obey is better than sacrifice” – 1 Samuel 15:22
      • “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” – Hosea 6:6
    • Simply following a set pattern of ritual and behavior does not equal worship.
  • Worship then, is not about outward conformity to a place or specific practice.
    • True worship is not defined by a particular act or ritual.
    • True worship does require conformity to certain principles and characteristics which are defined in Scripture
  • Worship means giving God what He deserves and nothing less and honoring Him for who He is.
  • Worship is about bringing a sacrifice to God.
  • “Worship is ascribing all honor and worth to…God precisely because he is worthy, delightfully so.” – D.A. Carson
  • Jesus announces a paradigm shift from prescribed worship to principled worship.
  • Does your understanding of worship need correction?
• The Object of Worship
  • God is the One to be Worshipped
    • Worship is not about a place, or a practice – It is about a person: God
    • Your “God” is too “light”,- your vision of the church is too low; your view of your self is too high, and consequently, your worship is too shallow.
      • “The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men.”
      • American evangelical churches need to recover a sense of the holiness and majesty of God, and of the real, personal presence of the risen Christ in the midst of his people
  • He Is The Audience
    • Worship is not primarily for our benefit; It is for God’s benefit.
    • The issue in worship is how did God feel about it?
    • Unless God says, “well done” we haven’t worshiped.
  • Man is not the object of worship
    • Some people come to church for what they can get.
    • If you come to church for what you can get out of the music, or what you can get out of the sermon, if you come to church in order to be blessed, you have missed the point.
    • The way you forget about yourself is by focusing on God—not by singing about doing it, but by doing it.
  • True worship always focuses people on God.
    • Worship is the celebration of God for who He is and what He has done.
    • It is our joyful reflection of God’s worth, recognizing God as God.
    • When God is not being recognized as God, He is not being worshiped.
    • Worship means giving God what He deserves and nothing less and honoring Him for who He is.
    • We need to focus, with the eyes of faith, not on the human participants or leaders in worship, but on the unseen Living One who is truly present in the assembly, and who is the central and defining reality of every meeting in the church.
  • We should always ask, “Is this activity pointing people toward God?”
• The Value of Worship
  • God is seeking for something.  What? (Worshipers)
  • Why is worship so valuable? (God is looking for it.)
  • Jesus says the Father is looking for authentic worshipers.
    • The implication is that they are hard to find.
  • Why is God looking for worshipers?
    • (He deserves them.  He doesn’t need them.)
  • The Choice to Worship
    • Humans are the only group among whom God is seeking worshipers.
    • We are the only ones who can choose whether or not to worship.
    • For the rest of creation, worship is automatic. – Psalm 148:1-10
• Psalm 148:1–10
  • Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise him in the heights! ² Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his hosts! ³ Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all you shining stars! ⁴ Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens! ⁵ Let them praise the name of the Lord! For he commanded and they were created. ⁶ And he established them forever and ever; he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.⁷ Praise the Lord from the earth, you great sea creatures and all deeps, ⁸ fire and hail, snow and mist, stormy wind fulfilling his word! ⁹ Mountains and all fruit trees and all cedars! ¹⁰ Beasts and all livestock, creeping things and flying birds!
• Worship is a choice for people now, but a day is coming in which all people will worship. – Philippians 2:10-11
  • Philippians 2:10–11 (NASB95) – so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
  • Worship is something God desires and deserves.
    • It is not our duty to worship God – it is our privilege.
      • It is an act of God’s grace that He allows us to rightly worship Him.
• The Essence of Worship
  • True worship must be authentic, coming from the inner man, the spirit, reflecting the truth about God.
  • Worship is Trinitarian: We worship the Father through the Son as we are led and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
    • Through Christ Alone
      • True worship includes a spiritual sense of the object worshipped, and a spiritual communion with it;
      • Worship of God can be done only through the One (Jesus) who expresses God’s invisible nature (1:18) and by virtue of the Holy Spirit who opens to a believer the new realm of the kingdom (cf. 3:3, 5; 7:38-39
      • (Holy Spirit) He bridges the gap we cannot cross. The Holy Spirit only comes to live within us when we come to know Christ. True worship comes only through Christ.
      • When I walk through the doors of the church, I need to change my mindset and consciously remind myself: This is not like driving my car; I am not in control; I will go where God wants to take me; this is not a trip to the mall; this is not about “consumption,” this is not about “entertainment,” but about the praise and presence of God-the God who is more lastingly real than the car in which I drove to get here.
    • Out of the Heart Alone
      • True worship must arise from within.
      • You can have the body of a worshiper and not have the heart of one.
      • If all God gets from our worship is our bodies, we are not worshiping Him.
      •  Unless our spirit is moved, it doesn’t matter what our bodies do.
    • The True God is Truly Present
      • In truth, as distinguished from the false conceptions resulting from imperfect knowledge (ver. 22).
      • To worship in truth is not merely to worship in sincerity, but with a worship corresponding to the nature of its object.
      • To worship in truth is to worship God through Jesus. He is the “Truth”.
      • The Father is seeking true worshipers because He wants people to live in reality, not in falsehood. Everybody is a worshiper (Rom. 1:25) but because of sin many are blind and constantly put their trust in worthless objects.
      • Rather, the fundamental issue is the recovery of the centrality and reality of God in the worship and life of the evangelical church generally: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead; Jesus is still alive today, and is present here with us in the power of the Spirit to enjoy communion with his people.
      • When the church worships “in spirit and in truth,” ordinary space and time become kingdom space and kingdom time.
  • True worship engages the emotions and the mind.  It includes both heart and head.
  • Although there are things that can be done to enhance corporate worship, there is a profound sense in which excellent worship cannot be attained merely by pursuing excellent worship.
  • In the same way that, according to Jesus, you cannot find yourself until you lose yourself, so also you cannot find excellent corporate worship until you stop trying to find excellent corporate worship and pursue God himself.
  • We must have the right attitude.
    • Humble – Reverent – Fearful – Focused – Selfless
  • Two Extremes
    • Spirit without truth  = Empty emotionalism
    • Truth without Spirit = Dead orthodoxy. (Straight as a gun barrel and just as empty)
  • Both spirit and truth are essential for worship that is pleasing to God.
    • “God is spirit, and those who worship Him mustworship in spirit and truth.”
• Becoming A Better Worshiper
  • Practice private, daily worship
    • Corporate worship may be stultified by church members who never pray at home, who come to church waiting to be entertained, who are inwardly marking a scorecard instead of participating in worship, who love mere tradition (or mere innovation!) more than truth, who are so busy that their minds are cluttered with the press of the urgent, who are nurturing secret bitterness and resentments in the dark recesses of their minds.
    • There are no longer any sacred times or sacred spaces. Under the new covenant Christians are thus to worship all the time—in their individual lives, family lives, and when they come together for corporate worship. Corporate worship, then, is a particular expression of a life of perpetual worship.
    • Because worship is a way of life, you cannot worship corporately on the Lord’s Day if you haven’t been worshiping throughout the week—apart from repentance!
  • Learn the truth of God’s Word.
    • We must have the right information.
      • The more you know about the God you are worshiping, the better your worship is going to be.
      • Many of us worship little, because we know little of God.
  • Ask God to create in you a worshipful heart.
    • That we may worship out of sincere love, not dutiful obedience.
    • True worship only begins when one surrenders his or her autonomy and control, and waits receptively in the presence of God for God to speak, to act and to love.
    • Husband and roses analogy.
  • Prepare for Worship
    • Be well rested – Give God your best physical self.
    • Be of a pure mind – Matthew 5:8 –
      • Don’t pollute your mind on Saturday night with things that are contrary to God.
    • Be focused – Expect to meet with God in the service.
      • “in each particular act of worship the chief actor is not man but God … his divine action consisting in the presence of Jesus Christ in fulfillment of his promise, `Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age’ (Mt 28:20) … his presence is an event, renewed again and again…. The risen and exalted Lord comes again and again in fulfillment of his promise to be with his church.”
      • If our expectation is anything less than being in the presence of the Living God, our worship will not be worship the Father desires.

Discussion Starters:

1) How do we evaluate the “success” of a corporate worship time?
2) What is the primary objective of worship?
3) What does it mean to worship God in spirit and truth?
4) What role do expectations (both good and bad) play in our worship?
5) What attitudes should accompany our worship?
6) What is the role of each member of the Godhead in worship?
7) What are some things we can do to become a better worshipper?
8) What role does our everyday worship in private play in our corporate worship on Sunday? (Analogy: How well would a football team play on Sunday if they don’t practice during the week?)
9) If God is really present in our services, how should that change them?

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