I'd like to spend a little bit
of time contemplating the allegation that was brought against the
Apostle Paul in Corinth. And he says, this fellow persuadeth
men to worship God contrary to the law. So I just wanted to
look As we said often that there are these two buildings side
by side, these two groups of people side by side, both of
them claiming to worship God. And so I wanted to look at the
whole issue of who worships God. How do we know we are worshipping
God? Did God give any clear instructions? We live in this age where tolerance
and pragmatism are the names of the game, aren't they? We
live in this age where worship is dancing around and getting
excited and emotional. Who worships God doesn't matter. Let me read some verses out of
the scriptures. It says in Psalm 29 verse two,
worship the Lord in the beauties of holiness. Give unto the Lord
the glory due his name. I love that phrase, the beauties
of holiness. The holiness of God is beautiful. The justice of God is beautiful. all of God's attributes have
this one thing overlaying them all and undergirding them all,
and that is the absolute holiness of God. His love is a holy love,
His justice is a holy justice, His faithfulness is a holy faithfulness,
the beauties of holiness. The beauties of holiness, of
course, are seen in the holiness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
as the Shulamite said, He's altogether lovely. He is the cheapest among
10,000. Give unto the Lord the glory
due His name. Give unto the Lord the glory
due His character, says Psalm 86 verse 9. He is worthy. That's what the word worship
means. It means worth-ship. He has a worth, our great God. He has an intrinsic worth. As the sovereign creator of this
world, He is due His worth-ship. Then Psalm 95 verse 6 says, So
come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the
Lord, our Maker. Give Him the glory due His name.
One day you can hold your knees right now, but one day those
knees are going to bow. You'll be bowing here or you'll
bow there. That at the name of Jesus, every
knee should bow of things in heaven and things in earth and
things under the earth and every tongue should confess that Jesus
Christ is Lord. That means that he's God. Jesus
Christ is God. To the glory of God the Father. So God has given him a name.
has highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every
name. The name that's above every name
is the name Jehovah. He's the name, that's the name
He has. O come let us worship and bow down,
let us kneel before the Lord our maker. O worship the Lord
in the beauties of holiness, fear before Him all the earth. Exalt the Lord our God and worship
at His holy hill, for the Lord our God is holy. We will go into
His tabernacles, we will go into the place where He meets with
people, dwells with people, and you go there with His blood and
by His blood, and we will worship at His footstool. I will worship,
says Psalm 138 verse 9, I will worship toward thy holy temple
and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and thy truth. We worship him. We worship him
because of his truth. We worship him because of his
character. And then he says, for thou hast magnified thy word
above all thy name. We worship him. We worship him. God's children worship him because
of his worth-ship. So the question in Corinth is
the question in Nauru in 2019, and it's the question in Lexington,
Kentucky, and it's the question in Kingsport, Tennessee. It's
the question in Great Falls, Montana, in London, and all over
this world. The question is, who is worshiping
God? Who is worshipping God? And the question that the Jews
raised before this court of the Gentiles is, can you worship
God and worship the law at the same time and be obedient to
the law? The Lord Jesus Christ dealt with
those lawmakers again and again to not worship God To be religious
and not worship God is an extraordinarily dangerous thing. You don't trifle
with our God without peril to your eternal souls. The Lord
Jesus spoke of these Pharisees when they came to him in Mark
chapter 7 and they looked around and they said, these disciples
aren't behaving properly. We religious Jews are much more
zealous and we wash our hands when we go to the marketplace.
Look how pious and righteous we are. And your disciples have
got dirty hands. The Lord Jesus did as he did
with Paul before Galileo, said he shuts their mouth. He never
ever expected his disciples to answer for them. He will answer
for his people in his own time. And he spoke to these people
who held on to their traditions and he says, Elijah prophesied
of you guys. He says you're hypocrites. You
religious people are hypocrites. I love the straightness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He just dealt with people as
they were. He saw their hearts, and he saw their thoughts, and
he saw what was going on inside them. He says, and Isaiah prophesied
of you hypocrites, and he's written, these people, they honour me
with their lips, but their heart is far from me. There could be no better description
of the religion of this world than that, is it? They honour
me with their lips. They'll talk about Him being
Jesus, and they'll talk about Him being Christ, and they'll
talk about Him being Lord. And then they'll deny all the
character of God by the things they say about Him and how He
saves people in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in
verse 7 of Mark 7, He says, Howbeit in vain do they worship Me. They honour him with their lips,
their heart is far from him, and there is empty worship. That's what that word means,
empty. There is a worship which is empty. What's worship? What's worship
look like? What's true worship look like?
There's one passage of scripture I would like you to turn to and
it gives a wonderful description and no doubt when the Jews in
Jerusalem heard about this they thought, there goes that man,
he is proving He's proving to us that he's not a child of God,
because there he is, he's gone to this dirty Samaritan village,
and he's dealing with those people that we will not have anything
to do with. Because they worship on a mountain,
they don't come and worship in Jerusalem with us, and he's got
no right having anything to do with them whatsoever. John chapter
4, let's turn there and listen to the Lord Jesus Christ dealing
with this woman. You can read all the story, and
it's a remarkable story isn't it, how she is drawn there. She's
had five husbands and now she's living with another man. So she's
had six men. So no doubt she is notorious
and famous and she's been around long enough and she's a wily
old girl. challenges the Lord Jesus Christ,
that He has brought her to Himself. I want you to notice the verse
in chapter 4 of John. He says, He must, needs, go through
Samaria. The first thing that's going
to happen when there is true worship is that God is going
to must needs go somewhere. And he must needs go when he
brings his gospel to his people. When he brings his true gospel
he brings himself and he goes. He must needs go through Samaria
because this woman was there. She was his. She was one of those
like Sosonis in Corinth. He says, I have many people in
this city. I have many people in this city. He had people in
this town in Samaria and he must needs go there. And she has a discussion about
her. And she, in verse 19, says, Sir,
I perceive that you are a prophet. Because he said to her, bring
your husband. And she says, well, I've had five. And he says, I
knew that. I perceive that you're a prophet. And then she talks
about worship. She said, our fathers worshiped in this mountain.
And you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought
to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me. She did, this woman, that he
must go and see. Believe me, the hour cometh when
you shall neither worship neither in this mountain, nor at Jerusalem,
worship the Father. So worship is not going to be
about a place. And then he speaks of the worship
that they do have, these Samaritans. You worship what you know, not
what. You have no idea of what you're worshipping. You're worshipping
in ignorance. There was ignorance. Jeroboam
set up those cards up there and he wasn't going to have the northern
tribes of Israel going all the way down to Jerusalem because
he'd lose their loyalty. So he set up a worship centre
up there. And this was on this mountain. Jesus says worshipping
is not about a place, but worshipping is not about ignorance either.
The Athenians were ignorant worshippers. It's meaningless, isn't it? People
these days, there's so much ignorant worship around, isn't there?
There's no real worship of God without the knowledge of the
true and living God. They can call it whatever they
like, but we'll worship Him according to His name and in His place.
Let's go on, verse 22. We know what we worship. We know what we worship. for salvation is of the Jews. Salvation was going to come through
that child that we read about in Isaiah 9, that child was born
that was unto us, was given that child who was going to be the
seed of David and was going to be David's king, David's son,
David's lord. And he was going to sit on a
throne and he was sitting on a throne that's an eternal and everlasting
throne. He is the one that was promised.
Salvation. Salvation is Him. That's what
His name means. Jehovah saves. The great I Am
God, that I Am says, God, I will save. It's Jehovah. I will save
in the way that I will save, it can be translated. You'll
save in His way and you'll worship in His way. So salvation, he
says to this lady, salvation and worship are intimately linked.
23. But the hour cometh, and now is, there is an hour now,
when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. Both those words, spirit and
truth, are nouns. So you can put a capital letter
beside them and not be doing any injustice to the text whatsoever. They worship God in spirit. They
worship God spiritually. They worship God as God is revealed
to them by the Holy Spirit of God. They worship God in truth.
Who's the truth? Lord Jesus Christ says on the
way the truth and the life. You're going to worship the Father.
You're going to worship God. You're going to worship Him in
spirit and in truth. You're going to worship Him who
is salvation. You're going to worship Him in
spirit and in truth. And I love what the next verse
says, verse 23, the end of verse 23. And this is the because,
isn't it? Because the Father seeketh such
to worship him. Does God get what he seeks? Does he get what he seeks? He
always gets what he seeks. Does he ever seek blindly? Like
we are searching for things in this world and we can't find
them. I've lost the keys. I've lost the keys to the house and the
church and all that. I can't find the jolly things
anywhere. Someone knows where they are. God knows where they
are. and maybe one day he'll return
them to me and maybe one day they'll be in the rubbish where
they may have well gone. But he knows, doesn't he? Our
God, he never searches for anything and not finds it. He never seeks
for anything and not finds it. He always, the Father seeketh
such. So if you're a worshipper of
God, if you're a worshipper of the Father, you're not going
to do it in ignorance. If you're a worshipper of the Father, it's
going to be salvation. If you're a worshipper, you're
going to worship the Father in spirit, as the Spirit of God
brings new life and new light to your life, and you're going
to worship Him in truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as the
Father seeks them, the Father seeketh such to worship Him.
Which is why the Lord Jesus Christ had gone on this journey, brothers
and sisters. He came here, didn't He? He was sent by His Father
to this world. He's sent by the Father into
this world because He had a people. He had a people that the Father
had given Him for all eternity and He was going to save them.
He'd come for them. The Father seeks such to worship
Him. Verse 24, God is spirit. See,
true worship is spiritual. It's in spirit and in truth,
and it's intimately linked to salvation. True worship is spiritual. It's true worship, as he said,
as the Lord Jesus said to those Pharisees, true worship is a
hard activity. True worship is the worth-ship
of him as he reveals himself. God is spirit, and they that
worship him... See, there are some in this world
that worship him. He says, they that worship him.
Not they that might worship him. They that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth. They must worship him in spirit
and truth. If you read the rest of the chapter,
you'll see that the Lord Jesus Christ goes on to say and declare
to this woman that he's Messiah. What he's saying is, I'm the
Christ, I'm the anointed one of God. I am God's Messiah, I
am God in human flesh, is what he was saying. And he rejoices
when the apostles come back, this man, this Lord Jesus Christ
who was weary from his journey and thirsty and hungry, was rejoicing. Why was he rejoicing? He was
rejoicing because he was back in the presence of his bride
and she'd been brought to him out of a life that all of the
world would have said was the most unworthy and worthless thing
you could possibly imagine. There she was, five husbands
and another fellow living with her. No doubt, none of it had
gone well. But what did they do? What does
worship look like? The Lord Jesus Christ had discussed
worship with her. What does it look like? Let's
turn down in the passage to verse 39. What does worship look like?
And many of the Samaritans of that city, they believed on Him. They believed on him. So true
worship is believing on him. Verse 40, so when the Samaritans
were come to him, true worship is coming to him. And true worship,
true worship, if you've been in the presence of he who is
worthy, you're wanting to stay longer. What did they do? They besought Him that He would
tarry with them. And true worship is having Him
with them. True worship. That's what He
said to Paul. He said, I'm with you, Paul. I'm with you here.
He says that to all of His children, doesn't He? He says, I'm with
you. I who rule and reign over all things, I'm with you. And
He abode with them their two days. And what happens when he's
there? Verse 41, and many more believed. What did they do? They believed
because of his own word. See, true worshipers, they believe
in him, they come to him, they beseech him to stay with them,
he abides with them, and they believe because of his own word. So they'd heard, hadn't they,
they'd heard the words of a woman, but now they'd actually heard
the words of him himself. See, true worship, true worship
is when God reveals himself and God speaks personally, personally
and powerfully to you. We've heard him ourselves. True worship, has a testimony
and has a confession in this world, hasn't it? They said under
the woman, verse 42, now we believe, not because of our saying, you
don't believe because of the words of a man, for we have heard
him ourselves and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour
of the world. That's worship, isn't it? That's
worship. The saviour of the world. True worship is when God shines
a light. So that's how Paul was saved,
wasn't he? The first thing that happens The first thing that
happens in salvation is that God shines a light, and that
light illuminates His Son. That light illuminates His Son
so that we can see His glory. One of the remarkable things
is that Paul describes the new creation, that creation that's
made by God in the hearts of his people, as he puts the Lord
Jesus Christ in them and reveals that the Lord Jesus Christ is
there. by the work of the Spirit. He likens it to the light, doesn't
he? says light. The Lord Jesus Christ,
John says that in him was life and that life was the light of
man. And the light shines in the darkness. We walk around
in darkness, in a fog. It doesn't matter how much religion
or how much experience or how much of anything we've had. We're
walking around in a fog of darkness and all of a sudden the light
comes. And if we shut all this down so there wasn't a single
bit of light in here and I just lit one little tiny match up
here, what would happen? The darkness is gone. The darkness
is gone. I don't know where it's gone,
but the darkness is gone. When the light comes, the darkness
is gone. That's what happened to Paul
on the Damascus Road. He had a light from heaven. And he couldn't see because of the
glory of that light. And that light was above the
glory, the brightness of the sun. When the Lord Jesus Christ
said, let there be light, It's remarkable, isn't it, in Genesis
chapter one, he says, the first words of God in the Bible are,
let there be light. It was four days before there
was a sun. It was four days before there
was a star. It was four days before there
was a moon. What's the light he's talking about? It's the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And it's a light
that shines in the hearts of God's people. That's what he
says, isn't it? Light has come into the world. Light has come
into the world. True worship is seeing in that
light the worship of our God. the worth ship of the Lord Jesus
Christ. See, saving faith has an object. It's faith in His blood. It's
seeing Him on Calvary's tree. As Paul said, the Son of God
loved me and gave Himself for me. It's seeing Him on Calvary's
tree. with the spiritual light as his
word illuminates him, as his gospel holds him up in all of
his glory. That's what they said, didn't
they? We beheld his glory. It's the beauties of holiness
we read about in the Psalms. He's altogether lovely. He's
full of grace and truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. So to worship
is to be still and know that I am God. It's to quit working
and trust that God is extraordinarily pleased with the work of His
Son. And that work is your work. He is Emmanuel. He's God with
us. So all of the power and all of
the worth and all of the efficacy of His shed blood and all of
the work and worth and efficacy of all of the promises He's made
are all dependent upon the person that makes them, isn't it? I
can make promises and you can make promises. They're not worth
a bean. He makes a promise and the promise is on the basis of
His name and His character. That's why. That's why he's precious. He becomes precious. Precious
in his true character as God. Precious in his true character
as man. Precious, that's why Peter described
it as precious blood. It's precious blood. It's the
blood that flowed from Emmanuel. It's that fountain that was opened
for sin and uncleanness. It's that flow of that blood
that washes away the sin, isn't it? That blood that flowed way
beyond the dirt of Calvary's hill. It flows into the hearts
of God's people and it purges your consciences. It cleans your
consciences. We who know that we are nothing
but sin can stand before the holy, holy God of this world
and know that we are accepted, not because of anything that
we have ever done. That's what he says, isn't it?
Let us reason together. Even though your sins be as scarlet,
they'll be as white as snow. We're accepted in the blood. So what do you say? What do you
say to people that tell us or tell others that you've got to
do something? You've got to do something. You've
got to now show it by your works. We take them as the Lord Jesus
Christ did. They believed in him and they
worshipped because of his word. What's his word? Romans 8, there
is therefore now. Now, right now, no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and
death. The law of God, all it ever does
is say guilty, guilty, guilty to all humanity. But there's
a law of the spirit in life that's made me free from the law of
sin and death. For what the law could not do
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in
the flesh. All of the sins of all of God's
people got exactly what they deserved on Calvary's tree. They
were punished until the justice of God says enough. They are
punished to the extent where God can say they're gone. That's
what it is, to be justified. Your sins are gone, brothers
and sisters in Christ. It's condemned sin and it's a
just activity. And now the justice of God pleads
for His people. The very character of God that
should have caused us the greatest concern is now one of the characteristics
of God that causes us the greatest comfort. God cannot punish sins
in the Lord Jesus Christ and punish them again because He's
holy and just. He's condemned sin in the flesh.
my sin in the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit." We don't walk in terms of what
we do in this world. We worship God in spirit. We worship God in truth. We worship our God who has satisfied
the law of God perfectly for us. And what do we do regarding
the law? We establish the law. That's
what it says in Romans 3, verse 31. Do we void the law through
faith? God forbid. We establish the
law. We stand and say that the law
of God is perfectly satisfied for me, and I'm going to worship. I'm going to worship. I'm going
to be like the Samaritans, despised by the world, living in the midst of all that
wickedness that I am justly responsible for, like that lady. I'm going
to believe him. I'm simply going to believe Him. And I'm going to want Him to
be with me, as He's promised. And I want to hear from Him,
and not from men. And I'm going to worship Him,
because He alone is worthy. Let's pray. Now Heavenly Father,
we pray that You might grant us the extraordinary privilege
of simply being given your faith in the faithfulness of your dear
and precious son, that we might see his worth through the eyes
of faith as you fulfil your promise as Heavenly Father, and we might
find ourselves at his footstool, gazing upon him being overwhelmed
and overcome by the wonder of who he is. Heavenly Father, you
cause us and you call upon us to take our eyes off ourselves
and off this world and fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the author and the finisher of faith. He begins it, he's
written it, and he's finished it on Calvary's tree. Heavenly
Father, you alone can make his broken body and his shed blood
precious to us by your work in your hearts. We praise you, our
Father, that you seek people to worship you in spirit and
truth. Please find us, Heavenly Father,
and keep us. simply looking to your dear son. In his name we pray. Amen.