Verses 23 and 24 says, the Lord
says, But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers
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. Now these words are the words
of our Lord in answer to the woman's response to being confronted
with her own sin. It has not been yet revealed
to her that the one that she speaks to is the Messiah. She hasn't got that yet. She
has been made to feel her sin and it has become uncomfortable
for her. Our Lord told her, you answered
right, you're not married, you don't have a husband, you've
had five, and you're shacking up with this one, but at least
you answered that truthfully. Her response to his declaration is a common response when sin
is pointed out in someone's life. She acts in a manner that is
common to folks who have been disclosed for what they are,
especially when there is no denying of the fact. The Lord's arrows
are swift and they have hit the mark, and her response is a natural
one. When folks who don't know Christ
are made to confront their evil ways, they immediately come up
with doting religious questions. You know that's true. They come
up with doting religious questions. Even a refuge of lies is still
a refuge to lost men and women. And religion is the safe haven
of the lost. And when the Word of the Lord
comes home to roost, the conscience kicks into high gear. The best
way to alter the course of the truth is to enter into religious
debate or denominational inquiries. or sacred traditions, talk about
something else other than what has just been disclosed about
what we are. And such behavior does not surprise
us. It is the way of the world. It
is the way of the world. Here was opportunity for this
woman to own her guilt. An opportunity. An opportunity
to confess her sins. to confess her need. But instead
of suing for mercy, instead of asking forgiveness, she says,
about to enter in a convenient debate. Thinking to gain some
ground with the master, she assumed that as a Jew, he might enjoy
a little religious debate on the difference between the worship
of the Jews and the Samaritans. I perceive thou art a prophet.
Well, since you're a prophet, since you're a religious man,
Our people say we worship in this mountain, and the Jews say
they worship in Jerusalem. Who's right? Who's right? The natural mind seeks the easiest
way possible of avoiding the truth. Instead of dealing with
the Word of God, fearful minds run to questions about places
that they think are holy. times that they have observed
as sacred, holy days, righteous deeds, long-held customs and
traditions, and prophetic schemes. All these things are subject
to debate in people's minds and therefore are used to avoid the
truth. They do all this so they don't
have to confront their own depravity. their own ruin. Imagine her surprise when the
Lord told her that those things that she spoke of meant nothing
at all. Think about that. Tell that to
a religious person and see how it works out. Jonathan was talking
with Debbie yesterday about telling folks about Christ Tell them
how salvation was completely of the Lord, that Christ had
finished the work and kept getting the response. But you've got
to be good. Did I report that right? You've got to be good.
You've got to be good. People have a debate on these
things. They have to debate. Imagine her surprise. Christ
has come. He is here. He stands before
this woman and these useless, infantile, religious dotings
are completely insignificant. Many years ago a judge who used
to attend here had a very deep voice, a very articulate man,
a smart man. He was a judge, had a law degree. His wife got sick and he was
a good husband and he took care of his wife. And he was of the
Congregationalist religion, which pretty much is a free will religion. But he liked to hear me preach.
He liked my style, I guess. And so he came most Sundays.
I'd tell him the truth and I could see it bothered him, it upset
him. I didn't really get how much it upset him until one day
I was at the hospital over in Bryson City and he had been taking
care of his wife over there because she'd got some horrible something
or other. And he sat down and very earnestly,
I mean he was a kind man, I liked the judge. Lived in Brazelton,
Florida. He said, you mean to tell me,
he said, I got to ask you, do you mean to tell me that what
I do for my wife, taking care of my wife, being a good husband
doesn't mean anything in my salvation? I said, that's exactly what I'm
telling you, Judge. You need to hear that. But then he started
talking about religious things. Religious things. This woman
had been confronted with a depravity and stood abowing Instead of
crying for mercy, she says, you're a prophet, let me ask you a question.
I usually don't answer people when they say, let me ask you
a question, because I know they don't really want to ask me a
question. They love to do that to preachers. They say, preacher,
let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. You know what I've said? A fellow
did this to me up in Pennsylvania, not Pennsylvania, but West Virginia
not long ago. He sat down. A very serious fellow says, I
want to ask you a question. Here's what I said to him. I said, well,
let me ask you something first. Are you asking me this question
so you can give me your opinion after I give you my answer? And
he sort of hemmed and hauled around. I said, well, do me the
courtesy that I've just done you. I will answer your question
because you asked. But if I don't ask for your opinion,
don't give it to me. He didn't ask the question. because
he wanted to give his opinion. He wanted to get me in some type
of religious debate over a doting question. Think what she must
have thought. What went through her mind when
the Lord as much as told her, The hour cometh, yea, and now
is, when all the external practices of religion, all the holy days,
all the Sabbath keepings, all the sacrifices, the priests,
the laws, the ceremony, the temple, They're no more. They mean nothing. Think about that. What do you
have confidence and hope in? Would to God I could strip you
of everything this morning. Everything. Save Jesus Christ. You might enter into true worship. They will be, our Lord said,
replaced by true spiritual Worship now men do not like it whenever
when even their empty hopes are dashed and their sacred fancies
are counted as nothing All true worship however all true worship
is spiritual worship It's spiritual worship and all carnal legal
ceremonial worship is idolatry and is to be discounted all together
completely discounted And the two verses of Holy Writ, our
Lord Jesus describes a thoroughly instructive synopsis and vital
description of the necessity and the character of true worship. 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. There are two things clearly
set forth in this passage of Scripture. The first, and the
most important, is that worship is essential. Is essential. We have private
worship if we're children of God. There are times when we're
alone with Christ, we worship Him in prayer, in study, we worship
Him. But generally speaking, when
you find the word worship in the New Testament, it's talking
about community, congregational worship, the family of God gathering
together to worship, and it is essential. Where there is no
worship of God, there is no spiritual life, no knowledge of God and
no salvation. All who are born of God are worshippers,
true worshippers of God. Paul said, we are the circumcision. We are the true Israel who worship
God in the Spirit, who rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence
in the flesh. We are the true worshippers.
We're true Israel because we worship God. He didn't say we
were believers first. He didn't say we went to church.
He didn't say we prayed. He said we are the circumcision,
speaking to the Philippian church, who worship God in the Spirit. Verse 23 says, God is Spirit. And they that worship Him must
Worship Him in spirit and in truth. Notice that little word,
must. This matter of worship is not
optional. There is no choice here, no decision
to make. This message carries with it
great gravity because there is so very little true worship in
the day in which we live. Worshipping God is the most important,
most urgent, highest, noblest, and most glorious aspiration
any human being can have, to worship God. Worship is the creature
ascribing greatness and praise to the Creator. However, most
of what passes for worship in these days is anything but that. What is called worship today
is intended for the pleasure, entertainment, indulgence and
gratification of the flesh rather than the celebration of God's
excellence and His praise. The services that are called
worship today are even more vile than the religious exercises
of days gone by. What is called contemporary worship
would be better rendered contemptible idolatry because this is so We
as believers need to know and to understand what God declares
about worship, because I know this, you lie to me and I'll
lie to you, but God won't lie to either one of us. I know that's
the case. So what he says is true worship
should peak our ears to hear. The one who can truly define
and describe true worship is the one we must worship. We must
worship. In this passage, our Lord Jesus
Christ teaches us five things about this wondrous thing called
worship. First of all, our Lord distinguishes
or makes a distinction between true worship and false worship. When this woman began to opine
about worship, our Lord immediately shut her up. He just shut her
up. He told her that she did not
know anything. You don't know nothing. You don't
know nothing about the matter of worship at all, he said. You don't even know what you
worship. You worship you know not what. In other words, he
said, and say this to a religious person, you don't have a clue
about worshiping God. That's what he said. You ain't
got a clue. You're a rebel without a clue. And this is no small
thing because he is also stating that the Jews know nothing about
worship also. Because he said it ain't in Jerusalem
and it ain't in this mountain. Old Testament worship employed
carnal, typical, outward ordinances of divine service, but there
were inward truths that were generally disregarded. You read
Isaiah chapter 1, you find that they did everything they were
supposed to do, but they were heartless, mindless, repetitions. They were robotic automatons
in the matter of worship. And the Lord says, I hate your
feasts. But didn't He ordain them? Uh-huh. I hate your moon
days. I hate your solemn oblations.
They make me sick. Tired of them! Away with them!
Why do you say that about the stuff he had ordained? Because
they were doing it without any recognition of what it meant
or who it was toward. They felt like the repetition
of these acts was enough to set them in a right condition before
God. This is essential if we learn
about true worship. Outward religious work. Ritual, ceremony, formality,
or service is not worship. It's not. Our Lord declared that we must
carefully avoid being satisfied with any way of making a show
of religious service. We must be really careful here.
Matthew 5, 6, and 7 in the Sermon on the Mount, all true worship
is principally set forth as inward worship. All true service to
God is and must be primarily inward and not outward. Humility,
faith, and repentance are inward graces, not outward shows. They weren't. Read the Sermon
on the Mount, Matthew chapter 5, verses 1 through 12 sometimes.
Show me something outward there. It's just not there. Prayer is
done in secret. You know what he said? When you pray, don't sound a
horn and say, look, I'm getting ready to pray, bye bye your head
now. Prayer should be done in secret. My wife and I have been
married 36 years. When was it? The 27th. This last
week we've been married 36 years. Wonderful. I can count on my hand the times
we've seen each other pray. Really. See, the family that
prays together stays together. I tell you what, when I pray
with Debbie, I'm trying to impress her. I'd just rather pray alone. And she would too. When I pray in public, I can't
help myself. I'm trying to impress folks with
my words. I'm just that way. So are you. You just can't help
it, because that's what we are, we're sinners. Well, how does anybody know you're
praying? Nobody that's supposed to know you're praying. Pray in secret. God said, I'll
reward you openly. Giving is to be done privately.
Not obviously. When you give your alms, don't
let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Some
of you will remember this. Maybe not many, but some of you.
Probably the first or second year I was here. Y'all remember
back that far? Some of you might. We went to
sing at a place down in Robbinsville. You remember that? They was taking
up an offering to get a new panel for the church, I think. That's
before I knew better. I was still dumb as a box of
rocks. I hadn't improved a whole lot. We went down there. They was taking up an offering.
They was singing. They had gospel singing. Sequoyah
got up and we sang a couple of hymns. At least we sang good
hymns. I think he asked me to preach that night, didn't I?
I preached Philippians chapter 3. He didn't know me from Adam. I said, I've got to preach the
gospel. But afterwards, they had the service where they took
up the money. The preacher, he stood up and
he threw a $50 bill And they showed everybody. And there were
people out in the parking lot that were listening to the singing. And all of a sudden, through
the back door, Mick, was you there that night? Harley, was you there? I know
Loretta Crowe was there. Ralph, was you with us that night? This
guy out in the parking lot, he comes walking down the aisle.
There's no kidding. Waving a $20 bill. He comes walking
down the aisle now, patting himself on the chest. Put that $20 bill in that thing. Everybody knew he was a giver.
It wanted everybody to know. I'm giving up. I'm sacrificing
my $20. So these folks can have a P.M. I almost got sick right there
on the pew just watching that. You know why? You're not supposed
to give like that. You're giving is supposed to
be in secret. God will reward you openly. fasting, denying
yourself is to be conducted without anyone being aware of it. You're
never to look like you're suffering. Just you and the Lord. That's
worship. Secondly, true worship is born
of a familial relationship with God. Our Lord Jesus Christ introduces
a never before spoken aspect of worship in the Old Testament.
He talks about men and women on earth worshiping the living
God as their Father. Their Father. They that worship
the Father. The Father seeketh such to worship
Him. Father. In the Old Testament,
the Lord was honored as Adonai, the Lord. He was reverenced as
Jehovah God. He was praised as El Shaddai.
But nowhere in the Old Testament do you find men approaching God
this way. Our Father, which art in heaven. You don't find them
doing that. Our Father. The Lord taught us to pray in
this manner. Our Lord has given His elect access to the house
of the Father, access that no one imagined before, before He
came into this world. Nobody imagined this kind of
access into the presence of Almighty God. You see God's face, you
die. You don't mention His name. And
truly, there were people who never said Jehovah. They never said it. They felt
unworthy to say it, and they felt like it was some kind of
mysterious, superstitious thing. If they said it, they'd be killed
just saying His name. But here, our Lord talks about worshiping
God as our Father, coming into His presence. He has made access
through the blood of the cross. He has made access through His
flesh. Through His flesh, it says. We
have access to the Father in Hebrews chapter 10. We have received
the spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba Father. As believers, we've been given
the privilege The authority and the right to be called and to
call ourselves sons of God. What a thing. Children of God. We worship the Lord God as our
Sovereign. We worship Him as our Creator.
We worship Him as our Lawgiver. We worship Him as our Judge.
All with utmost reverence and all of this, in all of this we
worship Him as our Father. Behold, what manner of love is
this, that we should be called the sons of God? You reckon John
was worshiping when he said that? I think he might have been. of the Savior's family. We're
in that number. We worship God as Father. Our
Father. Thirdly, true worship is a work
of grace. It's a work of grace. The words of the Lord make it
clear that those who worship God in spirit and truth are those
whom God has sought out. Has sought out and calls to worship
Him by His grace. That's who. I wasn't seeking
God. God sought me. He sought me and
bought me with His redeeming blood, we say. Our Lord's words are, For the
Father seeketh such to worship Him. This intimates that man
would never truly worship God if we were not sought by God
and taught by His grace to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Psalm
65 verse 4 said, To be envied, happy, is the man whom God chooses
and causes to approach unto Him. In Isaiah chapter 62 and verse
12, it speaks of a people who are forgiven and called sought
out. Sought out. In other words, worship
is not something man does for God, it's something God works
in man. By His grace, it's the work of
God's Spirit in us, turning us to God. That's what worship is.
Worship and prayer are not things which arise from the hearts of
men, but things wrought in the hearts of men by grace. If we worship God, it's God working
it in us. We have come here to worship
God, truly worship God. It's because He's put it in our
hearts to worship Him. Over in Hebrews chapter 13, And it speaks of the glory of
Almighty God, of Christ. It says in verse 20 and 21, ìNow
the God of peace that brought again from the dead the Lord
Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood
of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good
work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing
in His sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. Working in you that which is pleasing in His sight.î
Fourthly, true worship is spiritual. Now I feel as if I'm casting
my tiny little bark onto a vast rough sea right here. For a poor
sinner to try to explain worship as being spiritual is difficult
because I'm going to use natural language to do so. Two English words make up the
word worship. They are worth and ship. Worship is ascribing God His
true worth. His true worth. Worthy is the
Lamb that was slain, that has redeemed us by His blood out
of every kindred, nation, tongue, and people, and made us kings
and priests under our God. Ascribing to God His true worth. I can't imagine, can you? This can only be done in the
Spirit, I know that. It can only be done from our
hearts because it requires us to remove ourselves from the
equation of worthiness. We can't ascribe worthiness to
God and believe we are worthy in ourselves. So worship has
to do with us being downplayed and taken out of the seat. The
Greek word for worship, proskuneo, that's translated worship or
worshiping in scripture, means hound dog licking. It's my favorite.
It's literally what it means. Hound dog licking. It means to
kiss the hand like a dog licking his master's hand. That's what
that means. That's called worship. And it's
really suggestive, isn't it? It's really graphic when you
think about it. Because all of you have had dogs.
And you know how dogs approach their masters. One of two ways,
they approach them joyously, happily, bouncing around, just
full of joy. But when they are afraid or revenge
their master, They come in as low, it's amazing how a big dog
can get so low to the ground. I mean they can get way, they
can just rub their belly. They can walk forward without
ever lifting their body off the ground. Just scrub. And they'll
come up and lick their master's feet. That's what that's all
about. That's worship. That's worship. What we see today in this world,
in religion, that ain't worship. That's a hullabaloo. For those
of you who went through the 60s, you know what that is. It's a
concert. It's a rock concert. Designed
that way. People hollering, jumping up
and down, waving their hands, acting like fools, laughing,
being silly. Neither one of those things are
worship in Scripture. First of all, worship is ascribing
God's worth, true worth to Him. Secondly, it's being like an
old dog, licking the master's feet. It's to get low to the
ground, way low, all the way down, like a snake in a wagon
rut. That's how low, all the way down.
It means to get low to the ground, to bow to, to prostrate oneself. And all these things suggest
an act and an attitude of the inward man. We're really not
talking about posture here. We're talking about the heart
and the mind, the will and the emotions. It has to do with something
hearty and spiritual. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto
us give prayer, but unto thy worthy name. Our Lord is telling
us that there is no true worship except that which takes place
in the inward man. Worship is not physical, bodily
function. We must not mistake acts of the
body for worship. Bodily exercise profiteth little,
saith the Scriptures. Worship is not an emotional,
sentimental thing. Though it might involve weeping,
sometimes it might involve laughing, it is not based anyway on feeling. Worship is spiritual, it's mental,
it's intelligent, and it comes from the heart. We don't worship what we do not
understand, what we do not believe, what we do not grasp. What does
that mean? Spiritual worship means no images. If it's spiritual, it's invisible. It means no images. If we would worship God, we must
discount and disallow any religious images, crosses, symbols, pictures, statues,
or supposedly physical representations of God in any way, shape, or
form, even if it's burnt into a piece of toast or on an egg
McMuffin. You just can't worship. Spiritual
worship is singular, it is plain, it is unadorned. The brazen serpent
was a pretty thing. It was a beautiful thing. Beautiful
to look upon and a great help for people. Five hundred years
later people were worshiping the brazen serpent. Hezekiah
took the brazen serpent and ground it to powder. and said, don't
you know, it's nothing but a piece of brass. It's nihushtan. Nothing
but a piece of brass. It means nothing that religion holds
as holy things, days and places. None of them are involved in
the worship of God. None of them. All true worship comes from the
heart and is vital and comes from God-given faith. We worship
God believing. All worship of the Father is
centered in the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is all to
the believer, and He is all and in all. Christ is our altar and
our sacrifice. Christ's blood is the labor in
which we are cleansed. Christ is our bread, our table
of shewbread, our bread of life. Christ's substitutionary intercession
is our incense before God. Christ is our ark of testimony. Christ is our Passover. Christ
is our great high priest. Christ is the apostle of our
profession. Christ is God with us. And worshiping
God in the Spirit is calling upon Him from the heart of trust
in His dear Son. Look over Romans chapter 10 just
for a moment. Romans chapter 10. Verse 9 says, that if thou shalt
confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine
heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be
saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the
Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed,
confounded. For there is no difference between
Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord over all is
rich unto them all in the call upon. For whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Why is this singular
spiritual worship such a rare thing? Why is it rare in these
days for men to speak of God in terms of His worthiness? Why is it so rare? Fallen men want a God they can
see. They want a God they can feel. They want a God that they can
display to others. A fallen man wants a God that
he can impress. He really does. He wants a God
that if he sings long enough, or prays long enough, or prays
through, or does something, or hits an altar, or does something,
that God will be impressed with him and will act upon what he
does. He wants a God that he can move
and motivate and obligate by his gifts and his works. You see, the fact is it is far
easier to go through a form or a ceremony, or a ritual, or read
a liturgy, than it is to worship God in the Spirit. In fact, it's
impossible to worship God in the Spirit, apart from a work
of sovereign grace. If we worship God in Spirit,
we must acknowledge, confess, and seek the forgiveness of our
sins. For we worship in the Father, and that Father has a Son. And
that sun is the bread of life and the water of life. It is
impossible. And I say this as plain as I
can. It is impossible to traffic in
religious contraband and worship God spiritually. It's impossible
to do that. No idols, no icons, no trinkets. No play pretties. No priests
to serve in fear. No holy places to reverence.
No rewards to win or lose. Christ only. True worship. Christ only. If we would worship
God, we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Worshiping God
in truth means that we must worship Him truthfully. Sincerely. honestly and with rectitude. To worship in truth is to worship
without deception. We cannot worship God until we
come clean with God. We've got to come clean. Strip
off the false faces. Shuck all the pretense. Whether
in the public assembly of God's saints or on the steel of the
dark night upon our beds, if we would worship God, we must
worship Him according to revealed truth. We must worship Him as naked
before Him. We must worship Him according
to the Word of Truth, according to the Bible. This means that if we worship
God We must worship Him, confessing our sins like the publican, and
say, Lord, put the blood on the mercy seat for me. We must worship trusting Christ's
blood and righteousness as our substitute. And here's the wonder of it.
I think this whole passage Our Lord speaks to this woman. He
says, you know, the Father seeketh such to worship Him. Seeketh
such to worship Him. The man, the message, the method,
the music, all of it have to be about God and His truth. That's spiritual worship. I pray
God will give it to us always, as we gather here in this place,
because that's why we're here, to worship God. Father, bless
this strong understanding, we pray in Christ's name, Amen.