Good morning. Let's go to Acts
chapter 13 for our call to worship this morning. In Acts chapter 13, Paul is giving
a history of the children of Israel. In Acts chapter 13 now,
now in verse 37, he says that Christ saw no corruption unlike
David. Verse 38, be it known unto you
therefore, because he saw no corruption, therefore be it known
unto you, men and brethren, that through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sins. The preaching of forgiveness
and the forgiveness of sins is through this man who was raised
again. And by him, all that believe
are justified from all things from which he could not be justified
by the law of Moses. By him and through him is everything. Let's pray. Our Lord, our gracious Father,
Lord, you freely, freely justified your children by the redemption
that is in Christ Jesus, Lord, and please show that to us today,
Lord. Lord, give us faith to believe
on you. Give us faith, God, to trust
all into your hands. We sin willfully, Lord, knowingly,
and always by leaning on our own understanding, God, please,
though, Give us a heart to trust you, Lord, and to hear the preaching,
to hear Christ in all the preaching today, God. We ask these things
knowing that this is easy for you, God. Is there anything too
hard for the Lord? And that you delight to show
mercy. God, please be with us today. It's in your son's name
we pray, amen. Let's stand together again. We'll
sing the hymn on the back of your bulletin. Precious is the name of Jesus,
Who can half its worth unfold, Far beyond angelic praises, Sweetly
sung to harps of gold. Precious when to Calvary throning,
He endured the cursed tree. Precious when His sin atoning,
Made an end of sin for me. Precious in His death victorious,
He the host of hell o'erthrows. In His resurrection glorious,
Victor crowned o'er all His foes. Precious Lord, beyond expressing
are Thy beauties all divine. Glory, honor, power, and blessings
be henceforth forever Thine. Please be seated. Let's open our Bibles to John,
the gospel of John chapter four. John chapter four. We've been looking at our Lord's
conversation with this woman at the well in Sychar. And in
verse 20, she says, by way of changing the subject from what
the Lord had just said about her. She said, our fathers worshiped
in this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place
where men ought to worship. And Jesus saith unto her, woman,
believe me, The hour cometh when you shall neither in this mountain
nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. You worship, you
know not what. We know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshipers shall worship the father in spirit
and in truth. For the father seeketh such to
worship him. God is spirit and they that worship
him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And when God says something must
be done, it must be done. Three times the Lord Jesus tells
us of something that must happen. In John chapter three, he told
Nicodemus, you must be born again. You must be born from above.
You must be born a second time. You must be born of the spirit.
You came into this world as flesh and the spirit of God must give
you spiritual life. He must be born again. Then the Lord Jesus said, the
Son of Man must be lifted up. Now often the Lord is referred
to as the Son of Man and then sometimes as the Son of God.
The truth is He's the God-Man, fully God and fully man. But
as a man, a man of flesh and blood, He died on Calvary's cross
and so whenever he's talking about his suffering in this life,
he refers to himself as the Son of Man. And he says the Son of
Man must be lifted up. He's talking about his death
on the cross. And I, if I be lifted up, will
draw all men to myself. As the circuit was lifted up.
the wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up." He must
be. There was no other way, no other
way for God to forgive the sins of his people than for the Lord
Jesus to make himself the sinless one, the sacrifice that God required
to satisfy divine justice. I must be lifted up. There's no salvation apart from
me being lifted up for anyone and there's no salvation for
you apart from you being born again. Thirdly, God is spirit
and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth. There is no worship of God apart
from worshiping Him in the power of the Holy Spirit, and apart
from worshiping Him according to the revealed truth that He's
given us in His Word and in His Son. No worship of God. Anything devoid of the Spirit
of God and the truth of God is feigned worship. It is man pretending to do something
that God's not involved in. I don't want to be a part of
that. I want to worship God. I've titled
this message True Worship, True Worship. And let me begin by
asking you to turn with me to Psalm 100 because I want you
to see from Psalm 100 that The worship of God is your purpose
for existence. Let me say that again. The worship
of God is our purpose for existence. Men spend their whole lives trying
to figure out what their purpose is. You know, we do, particularly
in our younger years, we do a lot of navel-gazing, don't we? Trying
to figure out who we are and what we're made of and what we're
supposed to be, what we're supposed to do. What's the world all about? What's life about? What's the
purpose of it all? And then waste their lives trying
to answer that question. I'm telling you right now, with
God's word as my authority, Your purpose is to worship God. That's your purpose. That's my purpose. Psalm 100,
make a joyful noise unto the Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the
Lord, he is God. It is he that has made us and
not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep
of his pasture. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving
and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless
his name. For the Lord is good. His mercy
is everlasting and his truth endureth to all generations. Any pursuit in life that falls
short of the worship of God fits into the category of what
Solomon said. When he did a lot of navel-gazing
and he did a lot of soul-searching and he did a lot of experimenting,
he did. He tells us. Thousand wives? Who could, thought maybe that'll
be it. Wine, the best wine to its abundance. Wealth? Not a man that lived
on the face of the earth as wealthy as Solomon was. Wisdom? God never made another man that
was wiser than King Solomon. And here's the conclusion that
Solomon came to. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. It's empty. There's nothing in any of those
things though enjoyed to their fullest extent. that satisfies
the need of my soul. Only the worship of God will
do that. Only coming into the presence
of God, only knowing God. That's why the Lord Jesus in
John chapter 17, he said, this is life eternal. that they might know thee the
only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. It is he that made us, not we
ourselves. We are the sheep of his pastures.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, into his courts with praise. It's the only Men will try to
satisfy that desire with everything else, but if God gives you, I love
it, I heard a man say one time, honest men don't go to hell. There's a lot of truth to that,
I mean, true honesty. Honest about who you are, honest
about who God is, Honest about how God saves sinners. Honest
about what your purpose in life is. Just agreeing with God. Just being honest. You see, it's
dishonest to think that I can fulfill my purpose in life somewhere
outside of the worship of God. That's a lie. It's Satan's lie. And men believe it. and they're
deceived by it. Go back with me to our text in
John chapter four. The worship of God is what life is all about. And if that doesn't satisfy your
soul now, what does eternity hold? What does eternity hold? What
is your life? It's a vapor. It's here for a
moment. It's gone. Yeah. I just turned 70 years
old. I was 30 yesterday. Yesterday I was 30 years old,
and now I'm in overtime already. Trust me. It's a vapor. God says it's a vapor. You don't
trust me. Believe God. It's a flower. It just flowers
for a moment. It fades away. It's gone. It's
gone. It's eternity. What are we gonna be doing for
eternity? Oh, we're gonna be in the presence of our God. Worshiping
Him in His glory as we desire to do now and as we ought to
do, we can't do because of the limitations of our flesh and
of this world and our sin. One day, one day. And David said, in that day I shall
be satisfied. I shall be fully content when
I'm able to worship God as I ought. And the closest thing we can
get to that, private and public worship, the closest thing we
can get to heaven is when God by His Spirit enables us to enter
in to a spirit of worship. If I'm to worship, I must worship
God as my father. Notice what our Lord said to
this woman at the well. Woman, believe me, verse 21,
the hour cometh and now is when you shall neither in this mountain
nor yet in Jerusalem worship the father. Worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. You know, in the Old Testament,
the reference to God as Father is only a very few times. The Old Testament, God is revealed
as Jehovah. He's revealed as the creator,
the self-existent one. The sovereign one, the all powerful
one. But the scripture tells us in
Hebrews chapter one that revelation, the revelation of God was made
complete in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because the
Lord tells us that God spake in times past speaking of those
Old Testament revelations that God made of himself, to our fathers
by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his
Son. The Pharisees were so offended
when the Lord Jesus referred to himself as the Son of God. You can't You can't presume to
have such a familial relationship with God as to call him your
father and that you're his son. That sort of intimacy was never
known in its fullness until the Lord Jesus came and said to us, go tell the disciples that I
go to my father and to your father. And when the Holy Spirit comes,
he's gonna put in your heart to cry, Abba, father. And when you pray, pray like
this, our father. And don't worry about what you
have need of. Your heavenly father, he knows
what you have a need of. He's provided for the lilies
of the field, He's provided for the birds of the air, does He
not love you more? You see, this loving relationship
with God as our Father is fully revealed in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ and now He is revealing to this woman at
the well and He's revealing to us because If the Lord gives us any understanding
of these stories, he will cause us to identify with these characters. I'm the woman at the well. I'm blind Bartimaeus. I'm the man at the pool of Bethesda.
I'm Zacchaeus. You see, you just go on and on
and on. These stories are given to us so that the Holy Spirit
will cause, and this is part of what the Holy Spirit does
in worship. He causes me to identify with
this adulterous woman. She'd been married five times
and the man she's living with wasn't her husband. Are we not
spiritual adulterers? Have we not multiple times a
day looked away from our husband and tried to find satisfaction
in the arms of another? Are we not guilty of that? Spiritual fornication? Spiritual
adultery? And God says, if you look upon
another woman with lust in your heart, you've committed adultery
with her already. How many times we've looked upon something else?
to try to find it. This is us. We're the adulterers. And the spiritual adultery that
we're guilty of is so much worse than anything that this poor
woman ever did. And the Lord's saying to me and
you, you want to worship? There's
a father in heaven. He is my father. And by virtue of your union with
me and my accomplished work of redemption on Calvary's cross,
he's your father. People say, well, everybody's
a child of God. That's not what the Bible teaches.
Maybe by creation, I guess you could say that everyone's a child
of God and that all men are created by God. But the Bible tells us
that he, the Lord Jesus, came unto his own, the Jews, and his
own received him not. But to as many as received him,
to them gave he the power to become the sons of God. Not everyone's
a child of God. Not everyone can call God their
father. Only those that are found in Christ can look to heaven. and cry out to a sovereign, omnipotent,
all-powerful God as a loving, heavenly Father. And we have
confidence. We have confidence when we come
before Him because He loved His Son. And the scripture says, as he
is the Lord Jesus, so are we in this world. God sees all of
his children in the person of his son. No, all men are not
the children of God. Those in Christ are. Another thing I see in this thing
about worship is that the Lord tenderly, lovingly shuts this
woman up to himself, although her first reaction was to change
the subject. When he said, go get your husband,
and she said, well, I don't have a husband. And he said, you spoke
the truth. For you've had five husbands,
and the man you're living with now is not your husband. And
she said, I perceive that you're a prophet. And then she tried to change
the subject. She wanted to get the heat off herself. Isn't that
what we do? When the Lord first says to us,
everything about you is sinful. You're a sinner. What do we do? Well, yeah, but. Yeah, but. You know, something good in me.
No, God says in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
The only good thing in me is Christ. It's the only good thing. Why do you call me good? There's
none good but God. You see, we measure goodness
based on a pretty low standard, don't we? We compare men to men.
We compare ourselves to others. And we say, well, there's good
people and bad people. You ever stand in the presence
of a holy God and you will see that everything about me is bad.
Everything about me is sinful. But when the Lord first makes
that clear to us, there's some resistance to that. And at least
a desire to just change the subject. And she puts it off on something
theological. I have this all the time. As
a preacher, people wanna discuss theology. Well, you know, our
fathers say that you should worship here on this, that we should
worship here on this mountain. But your fathers say we should
worship in Jerusalem. Which way do you think it is?
You know, the Calvinists say this, the Armenians say that.
The Presbyterians say this, the Methodists say that. The Baptists
say this, the Catholics say that. The Muslims say this, the Jews
say that. And what do men ultimately want
to do? They want to get the subject
changed from their own sinfulness and get bogged down in some sort
of theological debate that will divert the attention away from
the real problem. The real problem is not theological. The real problem is me. It's me. I'm the problem. I'm my own worst enemy. The only reason I can't worship
God is because of me. When, and all men do it, they
shift the subject, change the subject. And it's too uncomfortable. So let's engage in an unanswerable
question. A question that's been debated
from the beginning of time. And that way we can all just
go about and do our own thing. And no one really has any absolute
truth to it. The Lord's gonna tell this woman,
the only way you can worship God is to worship him in spirit
and in truth. And I love it when Pilate asked
the Lord Jesus, are you a king? And the Lord Jesus said, for
this cause came I into this world. For this reason was I born. To
bear witness unto the truth. The truth. And then he went on
to say, they that are of the truth hear my voice and they
follow me. And in our Bibles, Pilate in
John chapter 19 says, what is truth? But I'm not sure that was just
saying it like, I think Pilate was saying truth, truth, you've
turned this city upside down over something that can't be
had? Don't you know that truth is
not an absolute? Don't you know that truth is
relative? Don't you know that everybody has their own truth? Truth. And he walked away. What is truth? What is truth? And Pilate tried to wash his
hands clean of the guilt. that he was bearing for he had
just turned the truth over to be crucified. And sadly, I fear that for the
last 2,000 years Pilate has been incessantly,
desperately trying to wash his hands Inhale. Why? Because you did not bow
to truth. There's only one truth. This
idea that everybody's got a truth and everybody's got their own
truth and that there are no absolutes. Relativism is nothing new to
our generation. Relativism is what's been around
from the beginning. Well, you know what's It all
depends on the circumstances. There are no absolutes. Yes,
there are. The Lord Jesus said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. And all truth is in Him. He's
the truth. If we don't have Him, we'd have
no truth. Groping in darkness. And most men who will Do what
this woman did, the Lord will just leave them to themselves.
We sang that hymn in the opening of the service. That God is sovereign
in salvation and some he calls and others, God doesn't have
to do anything to send a man to hell. All he has to do is
leave him to himself. That's all he has to do. Just
leave him to himself. Just let him come to his own
conclusions. Let him have his own opinions. Let him live his
own life uninterrupted by God. And he will depart this world
into a godless eternity. You see, if we're going to be
saved, God has to intervene. God has to arrest us on our road
to self-destruction. Just like he did Saul of Tarsus,
he knocked him off his high horse. He arrested him and he spoke
to him from heaven. That's what you and I have to
have. We have to have God stop us in our tracks and speak to
us. And this is what worship is.
And it can only be done by the power of the Holy Spirit. They
that worship God, they that worship the Father, must worship Him
in spirit and in truth. And what a blessing it is when
the Lord will not allow us to wiggle our way out of the truth.
If He just leaves us alone, we'll find another path. We'll find
another way. But when He shuts us up to Himself
and doesn't give us You see, that's why coming to Christ is
never a choice. I know you've heard me say this
many times, but it's so important. It's not a decision, it's not
a choice. No one has ever come to Christ
until he was the only thing they had. And if you offer something, well,
one thing, The one thing needful, there's no choice in that. Well,
I could have this or I could have that. If God ever gives
us a choice, we're always gonna take our own choice. We're gonna
choose. Yeah, man has a will and his
will will always choose against God, always. God has to shut
us up to where we don't have any choice.
Lord, I've got no place else to go. And that's what he's doing
to this woman at the well. Why? Because this woman was one
of his. I must needs go through some
area. I've got some lost sheep there and there's a woman that's
going to meet me at the well at high noon and I'm going to
reveal myself to her. She's going to try to wiggle
out of it, but I'm not going to let her. I'm going to persist
with her and I'm going to pursue her and she's going to believe. I will be her God and she shall
be my child. You know, men get that reversed,
don't they? In religion, we hear, well, I will. I'll make a decision for God
and he shall save me. Men putting themselves on the
throne of God. Goes all the way back to the garden, doesn't it,
Jeff? That lie. The lie. God doesn't want you
to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because he knows
in the day in which of it you eat of it, your eyes will be
open and you'll be like God and everybody's wanting to be God.
Everybody wants to be God. And what's the gospel do? Puts
us in our place. Strips us. naked before God and
all those fig leaves of excuses that we've used to try to cover
our nakedness. That's what this woman's doing.
Well, our fathers say, your fathers say, let's get into a debate.
I want to get off of the real problem. I don't want to talk
about my sin anymore. And what a blessing it is when
God strips us of that fig leaf apron. and puts the fleece of
the Lamb of God over us and covers our nakedness with the righteousness
of Christ. He's got to do it. He's got to
do it. It's the only hope we have. And He will do it. I'll not lose one, not one. My works can't save me. My religion
can't save me. My belief in theology and my
ability to debate dead theologians, that's what she was doing. She
was debating dead theologians. Our fathers say and your fathers
say. True worship has nothing to do
with where we worship. The religion of men is always
more concerned with the when, the where, and the what of religious
worship than they are with the why and the how. Why is that? Because when, where,
and what can be observed by the eye of flesh. And the scripture
says, they that are of the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. The scripture says that the flesh
profiteth nothing. That which is of the flesh is
just flesh. And most of religious activity
that goes on in this world concerns itself with things that can be
observed by the eye of flesh. The wind of worship. Well, you
know, our Muslims friends, they worship on Friday. The Jewish
friends, they worship on Saturday. Other people worship on Sunday.
When do we worship? Well, that's on the calendar.
You just see when they're gathering. You can see that. The where we
worship? Well, some people say, well,
you know, you need to worship in this church and in this denomination
and in this religion. How we worship? Well, you know,
some people say, well, you have to abstain from this and you
have to do that and you have to wear these clothes and you
have to eat this food and you have to go to this place and
not go to that place. And you see all of those, the
when, the where and the how, I'm sorry, the what of worship
can all be observed by the eye of flesh. And so fleshly men
manufacture man-made false worship based
on what they can see. And the Lord Jesus is saying
to you and me, the Father, he is spirit. And they that worship
him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And this isn't gonna be something
that you're gonna flaunt before another man. You're not gonna
go about trying to impress others with how religious you are and
how spiritual you are. That's why there's so many religions
in the world. It goes back to the Tower of
Babel. When men built, let's build for
ourselves a city and we'll build a tower that goes up into heaven. And God tore it down and confused
their speech. We had some friends with us this
morning, Youp and Anna, who've been traveling all over the world.
They've come here to spend a few days with us and then they're
going back to Great Britain and Holland, I assume. and they've
heard a lot of different languages, and they've seen a lot of different
religious edifices around the world, I'm sure, temples and
all sorts of things. All that goes back to the Tower
of Babel. When God confused men's speech, and ever since, men have
been trying to build a city and a tower up to God. You can't
get to God. He has to come to you. Everything in religious worship
that attracts the flesh distracts from the Spirit. That's why we don't have stained
glass windows and statues We try to create an environment
that was comfortable and unobtrusive with things that would catch
the eye. Because anything that catches
the eye distracts from the heart. This is a worship that can only
be done in the heart. And this is a worship that, it's
a work of grace in the heart. It's not something we can do.
Well, I'm gonna, we don't tell our friends come worship with
us. I've met a friend in our parking
lot this morning. He's gonna help get some of the limbs off
our building before the hurricane this Wednesday. And his name
is Rick. I've known him for years and
he's done some work at my house and I met him here just this
morning. And I said, Rick, why don't you stay and hear me preach?
I didn't say come worship with us. He wasn't interested, but maybe
he will be. You say, well, doesn't God desire
a beautiful place? No, men desire a beautiful place.
Men desire a beautiful place. Wasn't Solomon's temple beautiful?
Yeah, and not one stone was left upon another. The beautiful place of worship
that God requires, to these the Father seeketh after. Isn't that
what we just read and what the Lord said to this woman at the
well? These are the ones the Father seeketh after. They that
worship him in spirit and in truth The beautiful place that
God looks for to worship is the place that He built. It's the
new heart. It's the heart of faith that
He gives to His people when they're able to believe on Him. To believe on Him. The Bible says it like this.
We are the true circumcision, not circumcised in the flesh
with the hands of men, not the cutting off of the flesh with
a man's hand, but the circumcision of the heart done by the Spirit
of God. Now, what does that mean? That
means that, well, actually, it's defined in the rest of this verse.
Let me quote the whole verse. We are the true circumcision,
which worship God in the spirit. How do I know that I'm worshiping
God in the spirit? And rejoice in Christ Jesus. How do I know
I'm rejoicing in Christ Jesus? Because I have no confidence
in the flesh. I have no confidence that God
would receive me based on anything that I've done in the flesh,
based on anything that I see in the flesh. I have to be given
the eyes of faith to look upon the Lord Jesus Christ to rejoice
in Him and to believe on Him because He's the one that the
Father's pleased with. And only if God puts Him in me
will there be a place beautiful enough for God to worship, for me to worship God and for
God to reside. No confidence in the flesh. That's
what the cutting off of the flesh by the Spirit of God. The circumcision
of the heart is that I have no confidence in my flesh. I can't
find any hope or any peace or any comfort or any assurance
of my salvation by anything that I've done or by anything I see. I've got to have, I've got to
have Christ and you can't see him. Not with these eyes. and you can't hear him, not with
these ears. These ears will hear my voice,
but if all you hear is my voice or one another's voice, you haven't
heard from God. Lord, take what that man's saying,
if it's true, and make me hear it. Make me believe it. People talk about being spiritual. There's only two spirits, only
true. The Bible says that we're to
try the spirits to see whether they'd be of God, for many false
prophets have gone out into the world. So if a person tells you
that they're spiritual, there's only one of two options. Either
the Holy Spirit of God lives in them and they are believers
and the children of God and your brothers in Christ. Well, they're
following an evil spirit. Because there's no other way
to be spiritual. Being spiritual is not some mystical
or philosophical place for deep thinkers. That's not what being
spiritual is. Being spiritual is either you're following the
spirit of God or you're following the spirit of Satan. So be very
careful when you say, well, I'm spiritual. Make sure that it's
the right spirit you're referring to. People say that in pride, pretending
to be deep, esoteric kind of thinkers. We're delving into the unknown,
into the mystical things of life. That's not what being spiritual
is. And if that's your definition of spiritual, then I fear that
the spirit that you're following is not the Spirit of God. Now, the Spirit of God is the
one who opens the eyes of our understanding. He's the one who
opens the windows of heaven. He's the one that opens the scriptures.
He's the one that opens our hearts. He's the one, turn with me to
John chapter 16. John 16. How do I know if I have
the spirit of God? John chapter 16, verse seven.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. The Lord Jesus speaking
to us right now, nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is expedient
for you that I go away. It's necessary and it's good
for you that I go back to my father. For if I go not away,
the comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will
send him unto you. So the Lord Jesus is calling
the Holy Spirit, the comforter. One of the reasons I know I have
the Spirit of God is I'm comforted. I can rest. I'm not running to
and fro trying to earn favor with God. I'm not trying to look
for something that can't be found. I'm resting in Christ. And when he has come, there's
three things he's going to do. He's going to reprove, and that
word reprove means to convince. And the word world here is used
in the same context that it's used in John 3, 16. For God so
loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. God's love is not for everybody
in the world. Christ didn't die for everybody in the world. Father,
I pray not for the world. I pray for them which thou hast
given me out of the world. The word world here is used for those
of God's people who are in the world. And we know that's true
because the most of the people in this world are not convinced
of sin. So has the Holy Spirit failed
in his duty? I'm sorry I even said that. That's blasphemous. But the Holy
Spirit didn't come to convince the world of sin. If that's what he came to do,
then everybody would be convinced that they're sinners. He can't
fail. When the comforters come, he's
gonna convince, reprove the world of sin, of righteousness and
of judgment. Now what the Lord said? Of sin,
why? Oh, I'm gonna convince them that
doing those things is bad. You don't need the Holy Spirit
for that. You have a conscience. All men come into this world
with the law of God written on their hearts. We know right from
wrong and we know when we do wrong and our conscience convicts
us. Now you can do wrong so much
and lie to yourself to where you sear your conscience as with
a hot iron, the Bible says, so that it loses its feeling. But
we have a conscience to convince us of right and wrong. And so
what'd the Lord say? Of sin because they believed
not on me. Now that's the work of the Holy
Spirit that's done only in the child of God. Lord, there's my problem. My
problem is my unbelief. And it's the root cause of all
of my sin. Lord, if I could believe you
like I ought and trust you as I ought, I'd never have a sin
problem. The Holy Spirit convinces us that our faith, though it's placed
on the Lord Jesus Christ, is mixed with unbelief all the time
because of this old man that we carry around with us. of sin because they believe not
on me. of righteousness because I go to my Father. The Holy Spirit
convinces us that all of our righteousness is in the person
of the Lord Jesus Christ who's seated at the right hand of God
and who is presenting himself to the Father on our behalf.
I have no righteousness outside of him. I've never been able
to achieve one level, one bit of righteousness before a holy
God. Christ is my righteousness and he's all my righteousness.
And all of my righteousness is the best thing I've ever done,
are filthy rags before God. And of judgment, because I go
to my fault, because the Prince of this world has been judged.
The Holy Spirit has convinced us. Number one, we're sinners. Number two, we have no righteousness
outside of Christ. And number three, What the Lord
Jesus did on Calvary's cross was a finished work. He destroyed the works of the
devil. He delivered his people from
death. He satisfied the requirements
of God's justice and wrath and righteousness on behalf of everyone
for whom he died. The prince of this world has
been judged. Verse 12, I have yet many things
to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. How be it when
he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth,
for he shall not speak of himself. These people who want to pretend
that they have the Holy Spirit because they speak in tongues
and they do all sorts of foolish things to impress one another
about how spiritual they are, that is not the Holy Spirit.
That's not the Holy Spirit, that's an evil spirit. The Holy Spirit speaks to the
heart about not himself. The Lord Jesus just said that.
He shall not speak of himself. He's not going to draw attention
to himself, but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak
and he will show you things to come. He shall glorify me for
he shall receive of mine and shall show it to you. True worship is offered in faith to our Heavenly
Father. And it's offered by the power
of the Holy Spirit and according to the truth of who God is and all that he's
revealed in his word. And anything outside of that is just pretended, man-made,
imaginary religion. That's all it is. Our Heavenly Father, thank You
for Your Word. Thank You for this table and all that it means
in our attempts to worship You We pray that you would bless
the wine and the bread to our hearts. Lord, that you would
give us an eye of faith, enable us to look to the Lord Jesus
who shed his precious blood and laid down his life. Lord, might we do this in faith
and in truth and in spirit in worship to thee. Thank you, Father. Amen. Tom? The first hymn is to sing
176. 176, and the harp back to him. Two hymns. We'll stand for 176,
and then we'll sing another hymn for the Lord's table. As Thou didst break the loaves
beside the sea, Throughout the sacred page, I
seek Thee, Lord. My spirit prays for Thee, O Living
Word. Bless Thou the truth, dear Lord,
to me, to me. as thou didst bless the bread
by Galilee. Then shall all bondage cease,
all fetters low, and I shall find my peace, my home in awe. Thou art the bread of life, O
Lord, to me. Thy holy word, the truth that
saveth me. Give me to eat and live with
thee above. Teach me to love thy truth, for
thou art love. O send thy Spirit, Lord, now
unto me. ? That he may touch my eyes and
make me see ? ? Show me the truth concealed within thy word ? ? And in thy book revealed I see
the whole truth ? Please be seated.