======================================================================== WORSHIPPING GOD IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH (VIDEO) by Zac Poonen ======================================================================== Summary: This sermon focuses on the concept of true worship in the New Covenant, contrasting it with worship practices in the Old Covenant. It emphasizes worshiping in spirit and truth, highlighting the importance of genuine, heartfelt worship over external rituals. The message delves into the significance of man being a trinity - spirit, soul, and body - and the call to worship in the spirit, enabled by the tearing of the veil through Jesus' sacrifice. It concludes with the encouragement for believers to seek God diligently, embrace the new covenant life, and exercise authority over Satan through worship in the spirit. Topics: "True Worship", "New Covenant Life" Scripture References: John 4:23, 1 Thessalonians 5:23, Hebrews 10:19, John 8:32, James 4:7, Hebrews 4:16, Matthew 7:7 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sermon focuses on the concept of true worship in the New Covenant, contrasting it with worship practices in the Old Covenant. It emphasizes worshiping in spirit and truth, highlighting the importance of genuine, heartfelt worship over external rituals. The message delves into the significance of man being a trinity - spirit, soul, and body - and the call to worship in the spirit, enabled by the tearing of the veil through Jesus' sacrifice. It concludes with the encouragement for believers to seek God diligently, embrace the new covenant life, and exercise authority over Satan through worship in the spirit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENT ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Now I want to talk about another aspect of the New Covenant, which was not possible in the Old Covenant. And Jesus said that in John's Gospel, in chapter 4, John 4, when he was talking to the woman of Samaria, he said to her, these amazing truths which are not found anywhere else in the New Testament, verse 23 and 24. It's about true worship. This is the new subject I want to talk about in relation to the New Covenant. Worship in the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant, you read in the Psalms, worship was clap your hands, raise your hands and get the instruments and trumpets and all types of trumpets mentioned in the, towards the last few Psalms, and that's how the emphasis was on that. But in the New Covenant, the emphasis is not on instruments. We don't read about instrumental worship in the New Covenant, not against it, but I'm saying that's not the main thing. And it's not with the hand and all that, I clap my hands, I raise my hands, it's all very good. But that's not the main thing. The reason why I mentioned that is because a lot of what is called worship and praise today in Christendom, in so many particularly charismatic Pentecostal circles, is all external. It's not worship in the Spirit. Jesus said, the true worshipers, listen to this, John 4, 23, the hour is coming, which is the New Covenant. It's coming means it'll come on the day of Pentecost, it's not yet come. The hour is coming, and now is means there's one person here already living that, that's Jesus himself. And the true worshipers, so there are false worshipers and true worshipers, the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. If you want to worship God, here is the verse. In your spirit and in truthfulness, and such people, listen to this, this is the thing that challenged me years ago to understand what worship was. The Father seeks for such people to be worshipers. Can you imagine Almighty God in heaven looking down at Christians on earth and eagerly looking to see who will worship me in spirit and in truth? That's the meaning of that. I said, Lord, if you're looking for, let me be one of those who will worship you in spirit and in truth. You don't have to play a single instrument, even the word Hallelujah, which is frequently found in the book of Psalms, you never find it in the New Testament, except in the book of Revelation, where it says, Hallelujah, Babylon is destroyed, Hallelujah, Babylon is destroyed. Well, that's a good thing to say Hallelujah for, corrupt Christianity is destroyed, that's what Babylon is. But in the New Testament, the emphasis on worship in spirit and in truth. So let's try and understand that. Truth means it must be genuine, it must be real, it must not be words. For example, our songs that we sing, many of those songs are worship. But you need to ask yourself whether you mean it from your heart. I've often been convicted, after singing a song, we worship you, O Lord, and at the end of the whole chorus, I think back, boy, who was I saying that to? The Lord says, where two or three are gathered together, there I am in the midst, and I wasn't thinking of the Lord. My mind was wandering here and there, and I was, I knew the tune by heart, so I enjoyed the tune, but I wasn't talking to the Lord. When you sing a song like, thou art worthy, O Lamb, thou art worthy, O Lord, are you conscious that Jesus is here and you're talking to him? I was, many times I've been convicted, oh, I just like the tune, and I know the tune, so I just sing it. And if you're honest, you'll admit it too. And we have to make an effort, I found I had to make an effort to remind myself, I'm talking to the Lord now, he's here, where two or three are gathered together, I'm here. And then I say, thou art worthy, O Lord, I want to speak to you, Lord Jesus, you're in our midst, I want to say to you, thou art worthy. Not just sing a song along with everybody else. Let everybody else sing as they like, I want to talk to the Lord. I've said this before, when you're talking to somebody, you don't look here and talk to somebody here. And that's how it is, the Lord is here and we are thinking of somebody else and singing the tune. There is so much of, it's not real, it's not worship and truth, it's unreal. And we have to discipline ourselves because for years and years and years and years, we have gone the wrong way. Many habits that we have acquired, bad habits, because your preachers in the churches you went to never taught you these things. We've got to correct them. It'll take time to correct, you know, bad habits that you have, can sometimes take years to correct. But if you work on it, one day you'll come to worship and truth where everything you say will be real and you'll mean it. Take a song like, Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee. That's a song where you can tell the maximum number of lies. If you don't believe me, take that song sometime and read it. Take my silver and my gold, not one mite will I withhold. Oh, this looks like the greatest saint on earth singing. Absolute lie, most people. You think all those people who sing that song really mean it? Are they really telling Jesus, take my silver and my gold, not a mite will I withhold? Take my voice and let me sing always, only for my King. Is that what we are teaching our children to sing? There's so much of unreality. Worship in truth. In the old covenant, it didn't matter. Clap your hands, raise your hands and bang the cymbals and get the trumpets and make a loud noise exactly like in these charismatic churches. It's all old covenant. I don't despise it. I only say it's old covenant. But the Father is seeking for those who will worship in spirit and in truth. And I want to satisfy the heart of the Father. I hope you want to do that too. So that's why I'm saying this. Some of these things are so new to us. We should have known it from the time we are born again. Every church we went to should have taught us this. But how can a teacher teach something to the students who has not learned it himself? That's the problem with a lot of preachers today. They have not gone to the Word. They have not been filled with the Holy Spirit. They don't earnestly seek to obey God's Word. So they ignore all these things. They don't know anything about Satan. So it says here one more thing. Worship in truth and worship in the spirit. So in that connection, let me turn you to 1 Thessalonians 5 and verse 23. Worship in the spirit. I told you what worship in truth is. This is what the Father is looking for, those who will worship in the spirit. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 23 is the only verse in the Bible which tells us that man is a trinity. Not three persons like Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is three persons. But we are three parts in one person. And the three parts are mentioned here as spirit, soul, and body. The spirit is often referred to as the heart in the New Testament. Soul is our mind and our feelings, our emotions. And then body, of course, we know. So when it says that we must worship in the spirit, then only the soul and body. In other words, soul and God created man and breathed into him. Animals don't have a spirit. When God breathed into man, man got a spirit. And God's purpose was that that spirit must control his soul and body. God does not live in our body. He lives in our spirit. He does not live in our soul. He lives in our spirit. It's like in the Old Testament tabernacle, there were three parts. Outer court, which everybody could see, which is like the body. And the tent of the tabernacle, two hidden parts that you could not see. The two hidden parts inside is soul and spirit. It was an exact picture of man as the tabernacle of God. Body and soul and spirit, those hidden parts of the tabernacle. And inside the tabernacle, between the holy place and most holy place, was a thick veil showing that you could not go in there. So if that is body, soul, and spirit, the message of that was, you cannot worship in the spirit now. You cannot go into the most holy place. That's the meaning of the veil there. But when Jesus died, that veil was rent, saying, now you can worship in the spirit. Go right in. So worship in the body and worship in the soul, stirring the mind and emotions, is old covenant. The veil has been rent. We can now worship in the spirit. We can go right into God's presence and worship in the spirit. So when I'm emotionally excited about a song that I sing, it's not necessarily, you feel very nice, but it's not spiritual. That's not worship in the spirit. It's worship in the emotions. I'm not against it. It's an old covenant thing. But the Bible says God is eagerly looking for those who worship in the spirit. And I want to be in that category. The veil has been rent. We can worship God in the spirit now. That means I use my mind, I use my emotions. Of course, I use my tongue, I use my body. But it comes out from the spirit in the presence of God. And that veil being rent, we are told in Hebrews 2, is the rent flesh of Jesus. His self-will was rent. It is the way of the cross. It's called the new and living way into the most holy place. So I learned from that, that if I want to worship in the spirit, I have to take up the cross and die to myself. That's why we make the message of the cross central in this church. The more I die to self in the different situations of life and I'm tempted, the more I can worship God in the spirit, because I'm going through the veil into the most holy place. And I can worship God. So when you think about all this, you see how little people have understood the new covenant. You shall know the truth. The truth shall set you free. And God wants us, every one of us, to live and dwell in the most holy place. To fight against Satan. Never to be afraid of Satan. I'll tell you, I was really afraid of Satan until I understood that he was defeated on the cross, and until God baptized me in the Holy Spirit. I could never cast out a demon until God baptized me in the Holy Spirit. But once I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, if I encountered a demon, I could cast him out immediately. Every time, with one single sentence, every demon I've ever cast out in my life, one sentence and the demon is gone. Dear brothers and sisters, that's not just for some people. Every one of us can have authority over Satan. Every one of us can worship God in the spirit. God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. Seek Him diligently, and we can also enter into the new covenant life. Amen. ======================================================================== Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/xAMYd2A29wI.mp4 Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/zac-poonen/worshipping-god-in-spirit-and-truth-video/ ========================================================================