The gospel of John chapter four.
This is going to be one of our backdrop
verses for what we're going to be talking about today. We just saw some three or four
hymns together. all dealing with the topic of
worship, all talking about how our desire is to meet together
and to corporately as one body, lift our praise and our prayer
and our worship to the Lord as we bow in reverence and acknowledge
his, not only his kingship, his headship over us, but his Godship,
he is the God of the universe. All things were made by him and
for him. There's not anything that's been
made that hasn't been made, that wasn't made by him. And we come
today and we worship and we honor our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And that's what we'll be talking
about today in John chapter four and some other verses that we'll
be looking at. We'll be looking at many verses
today, We'll start there, but let's bow and have a word of
prayer before we begin. Our gracious heavenly father, we
thank you today for your mercy and your grace. Once again, we
thank you for this congregation that you've gathered together
and we thank you father for the life that we have through the
Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you father for the way
you take care of us each day. You provide for us day in and
day out the things that we have need of, Lord, we thank you for
the many blessings that you've given us beyond our needs. We
thank you, Father, for another day to come and worship you.
We pray, Father, that already our hearts have been prepared
by the Holy Spirit to come and to lift up our praise and our
worship to you. Father, I thank you for these
brethren that you've gathered here today. Lord, we're thankful
that they're feeling better and that they've gathered today.
Lord, we've missed meeting the last few weeks together and It's
been good to see them this morning and to be able to, once again,
to lift our hearts in praise to you as brothers and sisters
in Christ, and to speak with each other, to encourage one
another, and to just be together, Lord. We're so grateful for that.
Father, we pray for our members that are not here today. We continue
to lift them up before you, Lord. We know that you have a purpose.
For all things, Lord, we don't always understand why you allow
some to wander away and to be gone. But Father, Lord, we just
pray that you would speak and minister to their hearts. We
ask, Lord, that you would draw them back to you and to the worship
here. Father, we pray for all those
that are out here in this town looking for the truth that's
found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that you
would bring them to us in some way. Lord, again, I pray this
morning that you would help me as I minister the word. Father,
that you would help through my infirmities, that you would help
through my ignorance. Lord, that you'd bring to recollection
the word of God, that you would open up the verses this morning
to the brethren, and that you would teach them by your spirit
this morning. And may it encourage and may
it be edifying to them. Lord, may it be pleasing to you.
And we can only do that, we can only do that, Father, if the
Holy Spirit is with us. And as we just say in that verse,
that hymn previous to this time, we need the unction of God, we
need the Spirit of God to meet with us. And if the Spirit of
God meets with us, whenever brethren meet together, we know that your
presence is here and that there will be a blessing among us.
And so, Father, Lord, we just ask but you just might speak
and minister and teach your people today and lift up your son and
glorify him through our worship. And it's in Jesus' name that
we pray, amen. John chapter four, let's begin
reading, if you would, in verse 20. This is the, just kind
of a quick backdrop here where we're dropping in in the context.
This is, the place where Jesus had went to Samaria and met the
woman of Samaria and is having a conversation with her. Matter
of fact, if you remember, Jesus said that he had needs to go
through Samaria. Normally the Jews didn't travel
through Samaria, they went around Samaria because they didn't consider
the Samarians Jews. They didn't consider them
even worth anything. They considered them dogs. And
so they would not even walk through Samaria. But here Jesus had commanded
or told his disciples to go ahead of him that he needed to go through
Samaria. And the reason for that is because
there was a woman there that he needed to speak to. And we
drop in now in verse 20, And the woman here says, verse 19,
I'm sorry. The woman saith unto him, sir,
I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this
mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where
men ought to worship. That's where the Jews were saying
that, you know, you need to go to Jerusalem to worship. And
the Samaritans are saying here in this mountain, this is where
we are to worship. Jesus saith unto her, woman,
believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain
nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship ye know
not what we know what we worship for salvations 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 a spirit and they that
worship him must Worship Him in spirit and in truth. We want to talk this morning
about, and we're back in our series on the church, and today
we're gonna be talking about the worship of the church. The worship of the church or
the church's worship. We wanna talk about what it is
to worship, what it means to worship, what the Bible speaks
of about worship, and the necessity that we have to worship. Too often today, we find in many
of the so-called churches around our area and around the world,
that people gather together, but the last thing they do is
worship. They go there for all kinds of
entertainment. They go there for some uplifting
message that tells them how good they are. They go there to hear
lively music. They go there for puppet shows,
for light shows, for nice movies, and for some sort of a celebrity
or something like that. They go for all those reasons. But brethren, even within Orthodox
churches, there are a lot of people that go because of tradition. I've gone to church all my life.
My mom and dad took me to church. I've taken my kids to church.
You know, their mom and dads took them and their mom and dads
took them. We've been going to church, all of our family, for
years after years. That's what we do on Sunday.
We go to church. It's a family tradition. We go to church. Or
you could be meeting here today as we were singing in that hymn.
We could be coming under the false pretenses of coming for
any kind of social activity to look good within our community.
Oh, that guy, oh, so-and-so, he's a good old boy. He goes
down to such-and-such church. You know, he's a faithful member
down at such-and-such church. Oh, well, he ought to be good
for the school council or the city council. You know, he's
a faithful member of such-and-such church, so he'll be a good council
member, you know. And so some may go to church
for social reasons, to look good within the community. Some may
go out of conscience to clear their conscience before God.
That if they come to church, then they feel better about themselves
before God and think that they've done a service unto God and God's
gonna be pleased with them and accept them and their lifestyle
because they've come and they've tipped their hat to God by coming
in to the time of worship and sang a few songs to him, listened
to a preacher sing, maybe even a preacher preach, and maybe
even said a few amens, maybe dropped a little bit of money
in the offering box, and even stuck around to eat lunch or
something with somebody, you know, and they feel better about
themselves. So they go home saying, hey, I feel better about myself
because I've done what the Lord would want me to do. We'll see
you guys again in, you know, six weeks. or however long, you
know. We come because it makes us feel
better. Then there are some that come that truly come because
their heart loves the Lord, and that loves the brethren, and
it wants to be with the people of God, and it wants to hear
the word of God, to learn of the scriptures, to be built up
in the faith, to serve one another, to come, and to serve one another
and edify each other. And we come for that reason.
And Jesus here is speaking to this woman that sometimes worship
is a religious activity instead of a heartfelt work and service
to God. Whenever the church comes together,
whenever the congregation comes together as one body, it comes
together to serve the Lord. Service is in and through the
local church. And one of the ways we serve
the Lord is through worship of who He is. We serve the Lord
by proclaiming Him, declaring what He has said, and by praying
and praising who He is. And that is service unto the
Lord. If you remember back in the Old
Testament, the priest at the altar Day after day, they would
be doing all these sacrifices, all of these killing of animals
and the sacrificing of blood, and they would be doing all these
things. That was called service. That was the service of altar.
They each had to rotate in, and they had their time of service
before God at the altar, and that was their service to God.
Okay, well today in the local church, we have the service of
God by preaching the gospel, by teaching the word of God,
by praying together, by meeting together and serving one another.
And we do that corporately here. And it's not some type of entertainment.
That's why this church here, we don't have a huge youth center. We don't have a youth ministry.
We don't have a mama's ministry. We don't have a daddy's ministry. We don't have Karate for Christ,
okay? We don't have AA. We don't have those things. What
do we have? We have the preaching, the teaching,
and the declaration of the word of God and the singing of the
hymns and prayer. We come together and meet. We
don't split people up into several groups. Little kids over here,
big kids over here, middle kids here. Old people here, young
adults here. We don't segregate the people,
why? Because we're a congregation.
The very word church means a gathered assembly, not a gathered scattered
assembly. You know, gathered and scattered.
If you want gathered and scattered, go to Waffle House, okay? That's
where you can get some gathered and scattered. Okay? If you want to hear the word
of God being taught, If you want to hear the prayer and the preaching
and the singing and the ministry of the gospel whenever we come
together, then we don't need all those other things. Matter
of fact, the Word of God is all that we need. We don't need long
counseling services to each little individual faith and group. When
the congregation meets and the Word of God is being faithfully
preached, If a preacher preaches faithfully the word of God and
the whole counsel of God, then that is going to be enough for
people to receive what they need for their day-to-day life. Matter
of fact, doesn't the Bible tell us that in Timothy? All scripture is given by inspiration
of God. Isn't that what we're told? and it is profitable. What's
it profitable for? Well, it's profitable for correction,
for instruction in righteousness, for rebuke, for reproof, that
the saints might be thoroughly furnished and equipped. And so the Word of God is what
we need. We don't need all this other
stuff to fill the time here that we meet together. My churches
today, they're just packed full of events and programs. Programs
to get people to do stuff. Programs to get people involved.
Programs to get people to meet together. If you have to have
an entertaining aspect or some sort of a drawing card aspect,
to get people to meet, then they're meeting for the wrong reasons
and the wrong motives. The reason a congregation should
meet, and each individual in that congregation should meet,
is because of their love for God and their love for the brethren. That should be the only motive
that we need to gather together. If you come out of obligation
If you come out of duress, now children, you gotta come because
you're still our kids and we make you come, okay? You are
coming out of duress. You are coming out of, you know,
force. And until the Lord saves you
and gives you a heart to wanna come, then, you know, you're
gonna come because your mom and dad tells you. But for the child
of grace, the reason that we come, why the members of this
church should be coming, is because they love God and love the brethren.
They shouldn't come because the preacher is out there having
to whip them, you know, over the head all the time about missing,
by guilt tripping them, okay? And that's kind of been, and
I don't know, I may be wrong about this, other preachers might
be able to correct me on this, but I've never been one, ever
since I pastored here, I've never been one that I run after and
I chase after people. If they're not here, if they've
been missing, I tell them that I miss them, that we love them,
hope they come back soon or whatever and everything. Check in on them
if they've been sick or if they've been hurt or in the hospital,
we definitely do that. But if they just don't come because
they're just not coming and everything, I don't feel that's my duty to
run after them all the time and try to guilt trip them into why
ain't you in church? Why ain't you in church? Why
ain't you in church? Okay? That's the Holy Spirit's job
is to bring conviction. We pray for you. We'll pray for
you and we'll definitely send you cards and letters and let
you know that we still love you and we want you back. Same thing
with visitors, you know, I'll be glad to go visit anybody that
wants to be visited. I'll be glad to check in and
call on you and everything and sit down with you and visit with
you as much as you want to know about our church and everything
like that. But, you know, I'm not gonna
just chase after people. If they want to come, they'll
be led by the Spirit to come. And if they want to be here,
they will be here, and they'll come for the right motives, not
because they feel bad because they saw the preacher in the
grocery store late Saturday night, and now he knows, well, I feel
good now, so he's seeing me out and about. I better be at church
in the morning or I'll be wondering where I'm at, okay? It isn't
about a guilt trip, okay? It's not about a guilt trip.
Why do we come to worship? Jesus here says to this woman,
the place you worship as far as the location, whether it's
in a mountain, whether it's in a tabernacle, whether it's in
Jerusalem, see, that's not a set place. Now, where you worship
does make a difference because Jesus has designed for the child
of grace, the New Testament saint, he has designed worship to take
place in the local assembly. Okay, that is a prerequisite
to worship. Now that doesn't mean that we
can't have worshipful spirit at home whenever we're studying
our Bible together as a husband or a wife or a family or individual,
but the service of God has been made to be in the local assembly. We are to gather for worship,
okay? And Jesus here is basically saying
though, but it doesn't matter whether it's in a house, whether
it's in a building, whether it's in a picnic table outside in
the park, whether it's at your house, my house, their house,
wherever it might be, the point is, is that we gather together. That's the point. We gather together
for worship. If you look, In verse 23, Jesus said, but
the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers, plural,
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father seeketh
such to worship Him. God is a spirit and they that
worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. True worshipers shall worship
in spirit and in truth. That is a very strong statement
that doesn't seem like a strong statement. See, there are a lot
of false worshipers out there, and we can call them false worshipers
because we see that how they worship is not in spirit or in
truth. It's not in the spirit of reverence. It's not in the spirit of learning
and doctrine and preaching of the gospel. It's in a spirit
of, like I said, entertainment and all kinds of other things.
It's in a spirit of, you know, whatever your other motive is
besides love for God or love for the brethren, that you're
there. And by the way, you can't have love for the brethren if
you don't have love for God. And if you have love for God,
you will have love for the brethren. because the love that's spread
abroad in our hearts by the Father, okay, that love that is shed
abroad in our hearts is a love that is not a human love, it's
not a friendly love, it's not an erotic love, it is a agape
love, it is a divine love, it is a love that comes from outside
of us that's given to us whenever we are quickened of God, made
alive in the Spirit, That kind of love is shed abroad in our
hearts that causes us to love God and to love the brethren.
And so you can't love one and not the other, okay? You can't
say, well, I love God, but I can't be around those people. There
ain't no such thing. And there ain't no such thing
saying, well, you know, me and the brethren are here, but I'm
not too sure about God, okay? You don't find that really too
often, but nevertheless, if there's anybody out there that thinks
that it's all about the brethren, and not about God, if you truly
love the brethren. Now, you can have a friendship
with people. You can have a friendly love for people and just like
to get together. Hey, I'd like to get together
with everybody, but not have a true love for God. See, it
comes in both, a love for God and a love for the people of
God. And whenever that love is given
to us, then we come to worship in the spirit of worship. in
the spirit of gathering together. The reason that the Bible tells
us, and that's what we'll get into, the reason that the Bible
tells us to get together for worship, that's the reason why
we'll come. And Jesus says here that the
true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Now, we have a lot of people
out there that think that they're worshiping the Father and the Spirit, but
there is no truth behind anything they're saying. There's no truth
in the way that they're conducting the church and its activity or
its service. There is people that do not have
the doctrine of Christ. There's people that are doing
things in churches, you know, these people that flop on the
floor and babble and do all kinds of crazy things that you see
on TV and things like that. They're not only worshiping not
in the spirit, but not in truth either. But yet their main purpose
is saying, oh, we're worshiping in the spirit, you know, Matter
of fact, they call it being slain in the spirit. We're so in deep
in worship that we are overcome by the spirit to the point that
we don't have any control over our body. And we just start flopping
on the floor. We start running around the building.
We start hollering, barking like dogs, acting like we're drunk.
And listen, I'm not exaggerating on any of this. I can back every
bit of that up with video proof and audio proof, okay? I can
back every bit of that up. They do this, not to mention
I've seen it firsthand myself, being in some of their services
or some of their assemblies. That is not worship. True worshipers
worship in spirit and in truth. Not an overly spirit thing, but
in truth. See, that's one of the reasons
why we have the word of God as our only rule of faith. because
if we come in here, somebody could be saying, well, you know,
I'm really wanting to worship in the spirit, and they might
start doing something that they, to them, feels like this is a
spiritual act of worship, but if it goes against what God's
word says, then we have to have the truth here to rein us back
in and say, whoa, wait a minute, that's not worship unto God.
Okay? That's not worship unto God.
This is what worship unto God is. You know, the Bible says
that the spirit of the prophets is subject to the prophets. That
means that I don't get out of, whenever I'm worshiping God,
that the spirit doesn't cause me to get out of control. Okay? But yet, if you see a lot of
these Pentecostal assemblies, whenever they gather together,
it's a lot of out of control. There has to be the word of God,
the truth, to guide us in what is spiritual worship. But yet
we have to be spiritual to know what truth is. It takes both
spirit and truth to worship God. So the worship of the church
is worship that is in spirit and in truth. True spiritual
worship and true spiritual worship that is based upon the truth,
not based upon man's traditions, not based upon entertainment,
and not based upon some sort of esoteric, some sort of a new
age feeling, okay? I can't believe how, what I'm
seeing, even within, you know, I grew up Southern Baptist, you
guys knew that. I can't believe the new ageism that is showing
up in so many Southern Baptist places now. A lot of the youth
camps are having transcendental meditation, that they're teaching
kids to have transcendental meditation, that they're teaching Yoga, and
you know, I'm not against people stretching, okay? But if you're
getting into the philosophy of this mind and all this meditation and everything,
there's good meditation. The Bible tells us to meditate,
and there's good meditation. But then there's wrong meditation.
You gotta know the difference between that, brethren. And to
some people, it's just, oh, well, that's just harmless. Yoga's
just harmless. Not really, if you get down to the philosophy
of what yoga is about. And I don't know how many churches
across this country have Christian yoga. Okay? There's a lot of stuff that people
are unaware of because they are not aware of the truth. They're
involving themselves in a lot of paganism, a lot of false worship
because they don't know the truth. And they think they're being
spiritual, but the fact is, is the true worshipers have both
the spirit to understand the truth and the truth to guide
them in spiritual worship. That is the worship of the church,
is to be worshiping in spirit and in truth. Let me read a few
verses to you guys here. You don't have to turn if you
don't want to. If you wanna write them down, you can, but I got just
a list here that I'm gonna read, and then we're gonna get into
looking at some more aspects of this here in just a minute.
But in Psalms, The word says, in Psalms 5-7 it says, but as
for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy
mercy and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. And I'll
tell you today, we have lost the fear or the reverence in
worship. That word fear there doesn't
mean scared. I'm scared, you know, I'm frightened,
you know, That word fear there means a reverence. Matter of
fact, the word worship, I guess before I get too far in here,
let me just define that. The word worship does mean to
have reverence. It means an act of reverence.
It means to bow, to prostrate yourself before one. Matter of
fact, the first occurrence of the word worship is found in
Genesis 22 five, where Abraham has taken his son Isaac and he
says, You know, leave the donkey here, me and my son, we're going
up here and we're gonna worship God. That's the first occurrence
of the word worship in the scriptures. And that word worship there,
that Hebrew word worship there, actually means to worship, to
bow down, to show reverence, to fall down, to stoop or to
crouch down before. But the word actually comes from a dog licking. A dog licking
someone's hand. That Hebrew word actually comes
from licking, as a dog licking one's hand. If you ever had a
puppy and stuff, and the puppy will sit there and lick, we have
a little bitty lap dog, and sometimes that dog will sit there and if
my hand's close enough, he'll just start licking my hand. Or
he'll be on the floor and he'll start licking my leg or something
like that if I have shorts on. And he's just licking that there.
what that dog is doing is showing affection and showing reverence
to you. How does that translate into
today's society or how we understand things? You don't see it very
often today, but it may have been, I don't know, brother Ed
and sister Loretta, it may have been popular in your days, but
I definitely know it was back older, in older days, even before
your time, that it was a custom that whenever a man and a woman
would meet that the man would bow and kiss a woman's hand,
a little kiss on her hand, okay? That's kind of the same thing.
It's showing honor, it's showing reverence to that person, okay? That's what this word worship
means. It means to show reverence to, acknowledging the fact that
this person is way more than me, I'm way less than that person,
that person is deserving of worship I must bow myself because I am
unworthy to even be in the presence of this person. That's what we're
talking about. To have reverence. And the word
worship means to have reverence, and that's why it says here,
in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. The psalmist
is saying here that out of reverence to you, I will bow and prostrate
myself toward thy holy temple, and I will give you honor that
is due to you, I'll give you a worship that is due to you. In Psalm 29 too, the scriptures
say, given to the Lord, the glory due unto his name. Worship the
Lord in the beauty of holiness. See, whenever we come before
the Lord to worship, we come and we worship in the beauty
of holiness. in the beauty of holiness. Now,
what does that mean? Well, whenever I look at that,
I come up with a couple of thoughts, and I might be wrong, and I'm
always open to instruction on it, but the beauty of holiness
can mean a two-way street, okay? We come and we worship in the
beauty of holiness, looking at God for who he is. He is holy,
and because he is holy, We give reverence to him because we are
unholy. And so our worship comes from
the fact of knowing that God is holy, we are unholy, he deserves
all worship and reverence, we do not. But it also can mean
this, out of the beauty of holiness that has been given to us by
imputation, we come to the Lord and give gratitude and worship
to him for imputing that holy righteousness to us that we did
not deserve, that we do not have in our own. So whenever we come
to the Lord, and the scripture says here, give unto the Lord
the glory due unto his name. Well, he definitely is to have
glory given to his name for the fact that he is holy. But he
also has glory due to his name in the fact that he has given
us grace and imputed holiness and righteousness to our account. And so one thing about worship
that we have, that true worshipers, if they're gonna worship in spirit
and in truth, is gonna come and is gonna fear God or reverence
God in that worship. But second of all, they are going
to give God the glory due unto his name. See, we're not giving
glory to the preacher. We're not giving glory to the
choir. We're not giving glory to the solo singer, okay, or
the song leader, or the band leader, or the, you know, praise
group. That's not who we're giving glory
and honor to. Who should be the focus whenever we come into the
worship of God? It should be God, right? And
if the preaching And if the singing, and if the praying, and if the
fellowship together is not pointing and being directed to God, and
particularly Christ, then our worship is miscued. It's off. In Psalm 66, four, we see that
in the end, there'll be a time where all the earth shall worship
thee and shall sing unto thee, they shall sing to thy name. The psalmist also tells us, there
shall no strange God be in thee, neither shalt thou worship any
strange. God, now this goes along with
what Exodus tells us that we are to worship God and no other,
okay? Psalms 86, nine, all nations
whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord,
and shall glorify thy name. Psalm 95, six says, O come, let
us worship and bow down, let us kneel before the Lord, our
maker. We should worship him because
he's our maker. Psalm 96.9, oh, worship the Lord
and the beauty of holiness. Fear before him all the earth. That's almost identical to what
we read back in Psalms, what was it? It was Psalms 5.7. Let us worship and bow down.
Let us kneel before the Lord, our maker. Oh, worship the Lord
and the beauty of holiness. Fear before him. all the earth. Psalm 95, or 99.5 says, exalt
ye the Lord our God and worship at his footstool for he is holy. What is your motive for worship? It should be because God is holy. Psalm 132.7 says, we will go
into his tabernacles we will worship at his footstool. Have you ever wondered what the
footstool is? The Bible says that he's created
the heavens and the earth. The earth is his footstool. We
know that's true. But there's also a passage of
scripture that talks about Jesus, that he shall reign until he
has made all of his enemies his footstool. The footstool was
the place of service. The footstool was the place of
service. And who were his enemies that
he made his footstool, his servants? It was us, right? We're his footstool. And so it's saying here, worship
at his footstool. Whenever we come together, this
is speaking of the church. It's speaking of the church,
the church, whenever it gathers together as the congregation,
is the footstool of God. It's the place of worship, the
place where reverence and honor is given to his name. And we,
his enemies, have been made his servants. We who were at enmity
with God have been made friends of God, lovers of God, and servants
of God. And we serve at his footstool. So this tells us we will go to
his tabernacles we will worship at his footstools. Where is the
proper place to worship? Well, it's here in the Lord's
church. Again, Psalm 138 says this, I will worship toward thy
holy temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for
thy truth, for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. I will worship toward thy holy
temple and praise thy name for thy loving kindness and for thy
truth." What is the motive that we've come to worship? Because
of God's loving kindness and for the truth that he has given
us. And so we see that we are given
to worship him. Now, in John chapter for, as we read
already, we see the definition of worship. Worship should be
worship or reverence or a bowing down or prostrating, a reverence
in spirit and in truth. Now, in 1 Chronicles, if you'll
turn with me here now to 1 Chronicles, chapter 16. We've already read several passages
in Psalms that speak to this. But look with me. One Chronicles. Yeah, first and second Kings. And then first and second Chronicles. So if you. If you hit Kings, keep on chirping
to the right. It says, 1 Chronicles chapter
16, look with me if you would, verse 25. Well, I'm sorry, 23. Sing unto the Lord all the earth,
show forth from day to day his salvation. Declare his glory
among the heathen, his marvelous works among all nations. For
great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He also is to
be feared above all gods. And you notice that the word
gods there is in lowercase g, and the Bible tells us that there
are no other gods. He is the only God. So the gods
that would be in mention here would be manmade gods, false
gods, gods that don't really exist, okay? For all the gods
of the people are idols. There you go. He explained it
for us right there. But the Lord made the heavens. Glory and honor are in his presence. Strength and gladness are in
his place. Give unto the Lord, ye kindreds
of the people. Give unto the Lord glory and
strength. Give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name. I can't stress that enough. Due
unto His name. This worship is due unto Him. He deserves this glory. And if
you don't find in your heart a place to give God that due
glory, something's wrong. The child of grace who is born
from above has within their heart the love of God to give Him the
glory due His name. Jesus said it. True worshipers. Who are the ones who are true
worshipers? The ones who have been born of the Spirit. They're
the only ones who can worship in Spirit. That which is of the
flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit
is Spirit. The only ones that can worship
in Spirit are those who are born of the Spirit. And those who
are born of the Spirit shall worship in Spirit and in truth. And the Spirit that we have been
given to us is going to cry out to God of a father. It's going
to cry out to our God. It's going to recognize our maker.
Our king. It says given to the Lord, ye
kindred of people given to the Lord, glory and strength given
to the Lord. Glory do unto his name. Bring an offering and come before
him. Worship the worship, the Lord
and the beauty of holiness. fear before him all the earth,
the world shall be stable, that it be not moved. Let the heavens
be glad and let the earth rejoice, and let men say among the nations,
the Lord reigneth. Let the sea roar and the fullness
thereof, let the fields rejoice and all that is therein. Then
shall the trees of the woods sing out at the presence of the
Lord, because he cometh to judge the earth. O give thanks unto
the Lord, for he is good. The Lord is good. And we should
praise and give thanks to him because he's good. For his mercy
endureth forever. And say ye, save us, O God of
our salvations, and gather us together, and deliver us from
the heathen, that we may give thanks to thy holy name, and
glory in thy praise. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
forever and ever. And all the people said, amen
and praise the Lord. Does that describe your worship
church? Does that describe your worship? See, we've read in the Psalms
and we've read here in Chronicles that we're commanded to give
praise due to his name. We've been commanded to praise
and worship God. But there is a way that we are
to do that. And we see here we're to worship
him in fear. We're to worship him in Thanksgiving.
We're to worship him in gladness. We're to worship him in love
and honor. Let's do his name. We're to worship
him in the beauty of holiness, giving thanks unto him for his
mercy that endures forever. Blessing the Lord for all that
he has done. But yet, brethren, that can be
corrupted. That kind of worship can be corrupted. Look with me
if you would. In Romans chapter one. Romans chapter one. In fact, I think I'll go back
and start reading in verse 18. Romans 1 18 says for the wrath
of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. See, that's not holding the truth
in spirit and righteousness. in the spirit and in righteousness,
okay? It's holding it in unrighteousness.
There are men who hold the truth in unrighteousness. They hear
the truth and they discard it. They hear the truth and they
say, that's not true. How many of you have ever tried
to share the gospel of sovereign grace and imputed righteousness
of election and predestination to somebody and they despise
that? but yet they turn around and
they want to take a form of the truth that Jesus died, was buried,
and was resurrected, but apply that to everybody, and they hold
that in unrighteousness. See, for Jesus to die for everybody
and not save everybody is unrighteous. It's unrighteous for Jesus to
die for somebody and not come through in the covenant that
he made with the Father and bring those to God. He made the promise
that I will bring them to you. And so if he died for everybody
and yet doesn't save everybody, that is unrighteousness. There
are people that hold the truth and unrighteousness, the fact
that Jesus died, but they hold it that he died and failed in
bringing all that he died for. They hold it in unrighteousness
in the fact that they despise it and they, they, So they devise
their own system of belief in religion. Look at verse 19, because
that which may be known of God is manifest in them for God has
shown it unto them. See, they know the truth about
who God is. They know that God exists. They
know that God has made all things and that he should be worshiped
as God. That's not the gospel, by the way. And God has shown that He exists,
but yet they suppress that in their unrighteousness. That's what this is specifically
talking about here. For the invisible things of Him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood
by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse. See, we just read that we should
be giving God the glory due His name. for all the things that
he made, the trees, the animals, everything should be given praise
to God because they had been made. Verse 21, because that
when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were
thankful. See, that was one of the things
that we just read in Psalms and in Chronicles, that we are to
glorify God and we are to be thankful. But what did they do? They became vain in their imaginations,
and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds
and four-footed beasts and creepy things. That's why you see these
things today. You go into every ethnic group,
no matter how small or how large, And somewhere in there, there
is some kind of a religious belief system or some sort of a idol
that they respect. India has hundreds of them. You got the Buddhists, you got
the Muslims, you got the, you know, the people down in Africa
that, you know, or worshiping some sort of a stick or something,
some sort of a thing, whatever their tribe is. I don't know
what their tribes worship down there, but there's some kind
of a worship to something. Here in the United States, the
Native Americans, they worship the spirit. They have all kinds
of idols in the American Indian culture. In the Eskimo culture,
In every part of the world, in every ethnic group, there's some
kind of understanding that I should be looking to some higher power
or something that did something outside of me, and to that, I'm
gonna worship them. But the thing is, is everything
outside of God, we've made in our own mind, and we make them
in a way that we can manipulate them any way that we want. Just
like the God of Baal. How did the people manipulate
the God of Baal? Well, they appeased Him with
sacrifices. How did they appease Him with
sacrifices? They give their kids. They killed their kids and offered
the kids to Him to be burned. It says, they changed the glory
of an uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible
man and to birds and to four-footed beasts and creeping things. Wherefore,
God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lust of their own
heart to dishonor their own bodies between themselves, who changed
the truth of God into a lie and worshiped and served the creature
more than the creator who is blessed forever, amen. Now, brethren,
that's the context of verse 18. Now, I said there are men who
suppress the truth in unrighteousness as it pertains to the gospel.
But here in Romans, he's talking about those who suppress the
truth, who hold the truth of who God is in unrighteousness
by this. Although they know that God exists
and he should be worshiped, they have made for themselves a God
of their own making, and they worship that, whether it be a
man or whether it be a beast, whether it be something that
they carved or whether it's something that they molded together, whatever
it might be, they are following after that idol and they look
to that idol instead of God. So this is about the worship
of God as God, as maker, as creator, as the ruler of all things, okay? Yes, there is truth in unrighteousness
as it pertains to the gospel, but in the context here, as we've
been reading in the previous scriptures about worship, we
are to be worshiping God for who he is. And here we see that this worship
can be corrupted by idolatry. Turn back into the Old Testament
again, if you would, to 2 Kings. Back to where we was in Chronicles. Keep going back to 2 Kings. 2 Kings, look with me if you would,
chapter 21. 2 Kings. Chapter 21. Starting verse one. Manasseh was 12 years old when
he began to reign, and reigned 50 and five years in Jerusalem. And his mother's name was Hephzibah. And he did that which was evil
in the sight of the Lord, after the abominations of the heathen,
whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel." I won't
go into all the detail about Manasseh, but you can read through
and know Manasseh was a wicked king. He was a wicked ruler. And he followed after, as it
says here, he followed after those things the abominations
of the heathen. And brethren, listen, we have
a lot of churches today who follow after the abominations of the
heathen in their worship. And here it says, the Lord cast
out the children before Israel that were doing those things.
Look at verse three. For he built up again the high
places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed, and he reared
up altars for Baal, and made a grove, as did Ahab, king of
Israel, and worshiped all the host of heaven and served them. And he built altars in the house
of the Lord, of which the Lord said, in Jerusalem will I put
my name. And he built altars for all the
host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the Lord. And
he made his son pass through the fire and observe times and
used enchantments and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards.
He wrought much wickedness in the sight of the Lord to provoke
him to anger. And he sent a graven image of
the grove that he had made in the house of which the Lord said
to David and to Solomon, his son, in this house and in Jerusalem,
which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, would I
put my name forever. Neither will I make thee feet
of Israel, move any more out of the land which I gave their
fathers, only if they will observe to do according to all that I
have commanded them, and according to the law that my servant Moses
commanded them." Now let me stop right here. Notice what Manasseh
did. He began to incorporate the worship
of pagan idols into the worship of God. He began to do worship
in places that God said that's not where worship is to take
place. See, that's one of the reasons why we don't believe
in parachurch organizations. It's not their place to do the
service of God, it's the churches. And for those people who do worship
through that and outside of that, they're worshiping in the wrong
place. They have set up altars that were not supposed to be
set up. Places of service that are not supposed to be set up. And also if you'll look here,
what did he do? He made his son pass through
the fire and observed, he observed times. A lot of the churches today, what
do they do? They observe time. They have all these holidays
that they celebrate in their churches. And used enchantments and dealt
with familiar spirits. They called upon the spirits
and used enchantments and wizards But look in verse seven, and
he set a graven image of the grove that he had made in the
house of which the Lord said to David, in this house and in
Jerusalem, which I have chosen, out of all the tribes will I
put my name forever. So he made a graven image of
what he was worshiping, and he put it in the place that was
supposed to be for God's name. Now, has Christians done that
today? Well, we definitely know, and I wouldn't say Christian,
I would say that the Catholic Church is not Christian, but
the Catholic Church has definitely done that. They've put all kinds
of graven images in their places of worship. But what about Evangelical
Orthodox Christianity? Well, we see people putting up
statues of Jesus. We see people putting up crosses. All this kind of stuff that they
put is graven, they're graven images that they use or that
they display that to them is part of what worship is all about.
We worship Jesus through the cross. You know, we look to the
cross because it reminds us of Christ. We look to that statue
or that picture of Jesus and it reminds us of who Jesus is.
But what did he say? He said the place of worship
is where I've put my name. Said I didn't put my cross there.
I didn't put my image there. I put my name there. I put my
truth there. Look down if you would to verse
21. And he walked in all the way
of his father. walked and served the idols that
his father served and worshiped them. And he forsook the Lord
God of his fathers and walked not in the way of the Lord." So whenever you are worshiping
and you think you're doing good, you think you're worshiping God
and you're incorporating all these false worship tactics into
your worship, you're really not worshiping God in spirit and
in truth. And Manasseh, while he thought
he was worshiping God, was doing evil in the sight. The Bible
says he was doing evil in the sight of the Lord. You mean to
tell me that there is actually Christian, quote unquote, Christian
worship that can be done that is evil in the sight of God?
Absolutely there is. And I know a lot of people who
continue in those things, and you know what they say? Well,
I don't know about that, but I know that the Lord knows my
heart. He sure does. And that's deceitfully wicked
above all things. Deceitfully wicked. That means
it deceives you to do wicked. And one of the things to do wicked
is to worship God wrongly. One of the things is to pervert
the worship of God or corrupt the worship of God. And how do
we do that? By bringing in things that God
has not said to worship him by. Doing things that God said, that
is not how I desire to be worshiped. While you're there in Kings,
go to 1 Kings chapter 18. 1 Kings chapter 18. Live with me if you would down
in verse 21. And Elijah came unto the people
and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him,
but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not
a word. What's he saying? You need to
make a decision. Are you going to worship the
pagan gods or are you going to worship the true God? Why you
keep trying to incorporate paganism into your worship of God? When
God has told you to keep that junk out, you're wanting to bring
it in. So Elijah says, how long halt
you between two opinions? And the people answered him,
not a word. Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet
of the Lord. But Baal's prophets are 450 men. Let them therefore give us two
bullocks, and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and
cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under
it. And I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood,
and put no fire under it. And call ye on the name of your
gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord. And the God
that answereth by fire, let him be God." And all the people answered
and said, it is well spoken. Now, let me just stop and say
this. Elijah is calling them out for
mixing idolatry and true God worship. He says, you can't do
that. You either got to give up one
and go to the other or go to the other and give up one. OK,
you got to make your choice here. You can't have to hold you between
two opinions. He said it's either God or idols.
God is not going to be served. Both God and idols. He's not
going to be served in idolatrous worship. No matter whether you
think you're pointing it to him or not. Well, it's just the object
of our worship that counts. It doesn't matter how we worship,
long as the object of our worship is what we're worshiping. That's
not true. That is false, false, false. How you worship is exactly what
is being hit at in these verses. How you worship. We've already
talked about who you're to worship and that he's due that worship.
Now we're talking about how you worship. And one of the ways
that you do not worship God is by incorporating pagan, heathen
idolatry into it. And so what is he saying here?
He gets down and he says, we're going to put a bull over here
and a bull over here. We're going to load it up with
wood and get it ready for an offering, but we're not going
to light it on fire. You guys, 450 of you guys get to pray to
your God and I'll pray to the Lord and we'll see whoever lights
up, whichever one is lit up, then that's the true God. And
you know what? This is what's sad, that in verse
24 at the end, it says, and the people said, all right, well,
that makes sense. You know what that tells me? That they didn't
love God. They didn't care about worshiping
God. They just cared, okay, well, all right. Well, if the idols
win, then we'll worship the idols. That's how, you know, they didn't
care. They had nothing grounding them to the truth. They had nothing
grounding them to worship the one true God. Why? Because they
weren't of the spirit. Those who are of the spirit,
true worshipers, shall worship in spirit and in truth. And these
people here were ready to give away the true worship of God
for a false worship of a false God if there was a sign of some
kind. Now look what he says, verse
25. And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, choose ye one
bullet for yourselves, and dress it first, and ye are many, and
call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under. And they
took the bullet which was given them, and they dressed it, that
means they slayed it and put it on the altar, and called on
the name of Baal from morning even until noon, saying, O Baal, hear us. But there was
no voice nor any that answered. And they leaped upon the altar
which was made. And it came to pass at noon that
Elijah mocked them and said, Cry aloud, for he is a God. Either he is talking or he is
pursuing or he is in a journey or perventure, he sleepeth and
must be Oh, wait, he's making fun of them. Well, maybe yell
a little bit louder. Maybe he can't hear you. Maybe
he's sleeping. Maybe he went to bed. Or maybe he went frolicking
off on to a journey somewhere and forgot about you. And they cried aloud and cut
themselves after their manor with knives and the lancets till
the blood gushed out upon them. This is how frantic these people
were. They were so frantic to worship this God and believe
in these false things that they were willing to jump up on the
altar and slash themselves with knives and bleed on themselves
to get their God's attention. Verse 29, and it came to pass
when midday was passed, and they prophesied until the time of
the offering of the evening sacrifice, Sorry, I lost my place here.
That there was neither voice nor any to answer nor any that
regarded. And Elijah said unto all the
people, come near unto me. And all the people came near
unto him. And he repaired the altar of the Lord that was broken
down. And Elijah took 12 stones according to the number of the
tribes of the sons of Jacob, unto whom the word of the Lord
came, saying, Israel shall be thy name. And with the stones, he built
an altar in the name of the Lord, and he made a trench about the
altar, as great as wood contained two measures of seed. And he
put the wood in order and cut the bullock in pieces and laid
him on the wood and said, fill four barrels with water and poured
on the burnt sacrifice and on the wood. And he said, do it
a second time. So there's eight barrels of water
that is poured on the sacrifice. And they did it a second time.
And he said, do it a third time. So there's 12, 12 barrels of
water was poured on top of the sacrifice on the altar and the
wood that was around it all the way down into the trench that
went around the altar. And they did it. And the water
ran about the altar, and he filled the trench also with water. Okay,
so he made the trench completely full of water. And it came to
pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that
Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham,
Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art
God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have
done all these things at thy word. Now listen to me, before
we go further on this, I want you to pay close attention to
how he worded that. He said, let it be known this day that
thou art God in Israel, that I am thy servant, and that I
have done all these things at thy word. He wasn't just showing
off to show off. He did them according to God's
word. God had told him to do that. So Elijah wasn't worshiping
wrongly. Elijah was worshiping exactly
the way God told him to do it. He said, all these things I did
at thy word. Now, what does this tell us about
our service? Well, number one, whenever we preach and whenever
we worship in spirit and in truth, what does that say to everybody
out there? It says that this is the God
of Israel or the God of his people. We're talking about spiritual
Israel now. This is the God of his people. Okay, whenever we
preach God, whenever we teach God, whenever we worship God,
and people see that, they see that we are worshiping the true
God. And then they see that we are
his servants. Whenever they see us serving
the Lord and serving each other, then they see the servant of
God. But look, we need to be doing
it the way that he has told us to do it. That we have done all
these things at thy word. Our worship should be at the
word of God, not at Southern Baptist program committee, okay? Or not of any other committee,
of anybody else, not just picking on the Southern Baptist, but
that's what I'm familiar with growing up. See, we don't do
it according to that. We do it according to God's word.
Oh, well, I don't think that would really hurt. Verse 37, hear me, O Lord, hear
me, that this people may know that thou art the Lord God and
that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of
the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice and the wood,
listen, and the stones and the dust and licked up the water
that was in the trench. God sent down a fire so hot that
it burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the rocks, and the dirt,
and all the water that was in the trench. And when all the
people saw it, they fell on their faces and they said, the Lord,
He is the God. The Lord, He is the God. And so then what did he do with
the false prophets? Say, now come on back in here
and let's all be friends. See, it's all better now. See,
God showed who he is, so now just step up here and start worshiping
God. Or did they just let him go and
say, all right, now go back to y'all's own churches and have
your own mess. The ones who believe are gonna
stay here. Is that what happened? Now look at verse 40. And Elijah
said unto them, take the prophets of Baal, let not one of them
escape. And they took them, and Elijah
brought them down to the Brook Kishon and slew them there. And Elijah said unto Ahab, get
thee up, eat and drink, for there is a sound of abundance of rain. And Ahab went up to eat and to
drink, and Elijah went up to the top of Carmel And he cast
himself down upon the earth, put his face between his knees,
and said to his servant, go up now, look toward the sea. And
he went up and looked and said, there is nothing. And he said,
go again seven times. And it came to pass at the seventh
time that he said, behold, there arises a little cloud out of
the sea, like a man's hand. And he said, go up and say to
Ahab, prepare thy chariot and get thee down, that the rain
stop not thee not. And it came to pass in the meanwhile
that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was
a great rain. And Ahab rode and went to Jezreel. And the hand
of the Lord was on Elijah, and he girded up his loins and ran
before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel." See, we think, well, God doesn't really
think bad about those people that are, you know, they're doing
a good job. They're doing good things. There
are hearts in it. God wasn't pleased with that.
Matter of fact, he told Elijah, take every one of those prophets,
not let one escape, and slay every one of them. That's how
God feels about worship to him, right worship to him. So we are to worship God in spirit
and in truth and not incorporating the things of the world and pagans
and pagan worship into our worship. I think I'm gonna stop right
there. We got more things to talk about about the worship
of God, but it's 1130, we haven't taken a break or anything. And
so before I go into the next section of what I wanna talk
about, I think we'll just stop there and we'll pick back up
with the Lord willing next Lord's Day. Anybody got any questions
or any comments that you'd like to make about worship? One passage of the scripture
says that it's a serious thing, it's a mighty thing, it's a dreadful
thing to fall in the hands of the living God. There's not enough
reverence in worship today There's not enough proper worship. People just think, you know,
hey, we can just willy-nilly come and do whatever we want
and worship any way that we want. Now, brethren, I'm not saying,
you know, we have to be in suits and ties and have liturgy and,
you know, have choir robes and, you know, all this kind of stuff
and, you know, swing tassels and enchanted candles and all
that kind of junk. That's not what I'm talking about.
What I'm talking about is we come together and our hearts
come with the right motive, a love for God and a love for the brethren.
And we come desiring the Word of God, not programs, the Word
of God. And we worship the way God designs
for the worship to be. We don't need all the other stuff. All the other stuff that's out
there is because we're bored with God. All the other stuff
is out there because God's not enough for us, and His Word's
not enough, and His people's not enough for us. What God has
designed for the church is not enough. We have to have the world.
And see, that's what we've seen here this morning, is the worship
of God and the worship by the way of the world doesn't intermix. God is not gonna accept the worship
the way the world worships, in the way the world worships. He's
only gonna worship have worshipers that will worship him in spirit
and in truth. And those who are of the spirit,
born of God, they will be true worshipers and they shall worship
in spirit and in truth. So don't lose heart, brethren,
that are out there. The Lord has his churches that
are raised up that worship the way that he does. Why? Because
they are true worshipers. And there's a lot of false worshipers
out there, and you can find their churches on just about every
corner. but there are true churches out there. And if you desire
those things, I would suggest that don't let anything on earth
keep you from it. Whether it be moving, whether
it be, you know, stopping what you're doing and starting something
else to do what God calls you to do, do that, do that. You're gonna find that you'll
be blessed once you get there and do that. All right, let's
pray. Father, we thank you again for
this day, and we thank you, Father, that you've given us another
time to gather around your word and to share forth your scriptures,
share forth of who you are. And Father, Lord, we thank you
for those who are gathered here today. And once again, I pray,
Lord, that you minister to their heart that what's been said has
been edifying to them, that has built them up in the faith, Lord,
that's been honoring to you. Well, Father, we ask that you
might help us to keep us in true worship, Lord. We know that it's
only by grace that we come and worship you in spirit and in
truth. And we pray, Lord, that we might
not deviate from that, that we might not be deceived in our
mind and in our heart to follow another path because of what
we see surrounding us and all these other big churches. Father,
let our hearts be content to worship you as you have declared
in the scriptures. and that we will find that Jesus
is enough. We know that he is enough for
us. The Bible says that your grace is sufficient for us. That's
all we need. And in this life, Lord, that's
filled with complexities of problems and sorrows and heartaches and
joys, tribulations and trials, Lord, you've prepared us and
you've told us that we're gonna experience these things, but
that your grace would be sufficient for us. and that your word would
be enough for us. And that the meeting and the
congregation of the Lord and serving one another and hearing
the scriptures being preached and taught would be for the building
and the preparing and the equipping for all of what life might bring
for us. And so Father, we look to that.
So often people wanna run to psychiatrists and psychology,
to man's wisdom, tradition, They want to run to what makes them
feel good or makes them feel even wanted or needed. Places where they can shine and
be seen. But Father, the worship of God
is not about that. Because if we're truly worshiping
you at the footstool, then we're worshiping in reverence with
our heads bowed, not looking back and forth to who all is
doing what. But our hearts are being lifted to you So help us,
Lord, to remain in that faithfulness of worship. I pray that those
that have listened today via Facebook or audio, Lord, I pray,
Lord, that it has been challenging, that it has been encouraging,
edifying to them. Lord, I pray that if there's
any that's out there that doesn't have a church that teaches the
truth, Lord, that you would take them, that you would draw them,
get them to a church, Father. that they might be edified. We
thank you again for this day, and we ask you to bless this
food that we're about to eat. The fellowship around the table
together may be not only a joyous time, but it might be pleasing
to you as well. We thank those that prepared the food, and we
ask, Lord, that you just might bless it all. In Jesus' name
that we pray, amen.