Worship

John chapter 4, please. It's certainly good to be here in Ontario again. And I'm not sure what time this meeting ends, but I do anticipate sharing the time with another brother.

I want to look at a portion of this section of Scripture that we're very familiar with. And the subject on my heart is worship, as is the subject of our Bible study. Certainly we'll not be stealing from our brother Gene's outline.

There's plenty of material there to keep us busy this afternoon. John chapter 4, we're going to break in at verse 19. The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet.

Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought 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 salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipper 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 I trust that God will bless this reading of His word to us. I want to look at several things relative to the subject of worship this morning.

I want to look first of all at two things that worship is. Secondly, at two things that worship isn't. And lastly, at six scriptural aids to worship, to borrow that phraseology.

First of all, two things that worship is. I want to notice in these words of the Lord Jesus Christ, to this woman of Samaria, as He spoke to her by the well. Two things that are very significant to us, and yet they're very simple.

First, that it was spoken to a woman. Second, that it was spoken to a person who was not yet saved. Now it seems so elementary in the text, and yet, I believe there is a great amount of significance in regards to both of those.

For if this had been spoken to a man, we could take it very wrong when we linked it with other scriptures. Especially relative to the silence of a woman. And if it had been spoken to a believer, we could also take it wrong.

Relative to what my first point is, and that is that worship is a fundamental call of every person. And I am saying that very comprehensively. It's God's desire that every living human being worship Him.

It is God's intention and purpose that every living human being be a worshiper. Now we know that masses of humanity have come and gone from the face of this earth, never worshiping God. Spending eternity alienated from Him.

That's not God's purpose. And these words were spoken by the messenger from heaven to a sinful, unbelieving woman. He could have said, God wants you to labor for Him in such and such a place.

He could have said, God wants you to go back to the city and speak to those people who know you so well. She did that. There are so many things He could have said.

But He said, God is seeking worshipers. Let me just put it in a nutshell and then move on. I don't know what your calling is relative to spiritual labors.

And in a certain sense, it's none of my business. I know this so. Every one of us, every one of us is included in this.

The Father seeketh such to worship Him. There is not a person in this room, saved or not, who is excluded from that call. We need that impressed upon us as believers.

Could I also encourage us, especially those of us who publicly declare the gospel, we need to impress that even upon unbelievers. God seeks worshipers. Now He's going to qualify that, isn't He? Look at that, certainly.

So it's a fundamental call of every person, includes the men, the women, and it includes every one of us regardless of what our other call is in spiritual things. We could go on with that, but we'll pass on from it. The second thing that it is, is it is a spiritual exercise.

They that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. That immediately abolishes the flesh. There is much that this world, especially Christendom, has labeled as worship, that is nothing more than the activity of the flesh.

And some of it may even seem very well. The emotions are involved and all that kind of thing. Worship is a spiritual exercise.

And the Lord Jesus used the imperative here. It's not an option to do it spiritually. They must do it in spirit and in truth.

We could go to Philippians 3. That is on our brother's outline. Paul says, We are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit. Rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.

Dear brother and sister, old and young alike, there's no place for my flesh or yours in spiritual worship. And you know as well as I do, we don't have to criticize one another. We only have to search our own hearts.

There's many a time that we have carried out what we thought maybe was worship, and there's been an awful lot of the flesh involved in it. And as a brother, one who is responsible to publicly and audibly worship, maybe I can't quite comprehend what that means for a sister, but I believe it's very true. This was spoken to a woman.

Remember that? We worship in spirit. We worship in truth. We could take 45 minutes on these two things, and we won't do that.

But we draw near to borrow the words of Hebrews 10. We draw near with true hearts. We have been searched by the spotlight of the Holy Spirit of God.

If that hasn't happened at one time in our life, we're not saved. We just as well face that. And there is a time when in contrition and in repentance before God, we acknowledge the truth.

We are nothing but guilty, lost, helpless sinners needing divine grace and mercy and salvation that only comes from God. And we come with true hearts. We worship in spirit.

We worship in truth. It's a spiritual exercise. You can fool me, and I can probably fool you.

But let's just note this once again. We cannot fool God. We can't do it.

And whether it's our personal private worship, whether it's in the home, whether it's on a Lord's Day morning, we can't fool God. And we come with truth enshrouding our hearts, God knows, whether I am worshiping in truth or not. Let's move on.

Two things that worship isn't. We've touched on this already last year in the readings. I think it was mentioned in the reading in Mt.

Sterling, at least in passing, and I'm sure it will come up today. Worship is not a gift. Worship is not a gift.

There's none of us that are excused or exempted from the responsibility, the call of worship, because it's not my gift. We cannot say that. In the four or five lists of gifts in the Scriptures, depending on how you want to look at them, there's no mention of worship.

Every believer is responsible to worship. The men, especially audibly. The sisters, silently.

We don't come just in a practical way. We'll touch this in a bit. But we don't come just to kind of hook our little wagon to somebody else and let them pull us through the meeting, so to speak.

We come with our hearts prepared to worship. And it's not because I have a gift to do it and another doesn't. Not part of it.

It's not a gift. The last thing is it's not dependent on external aids to worship. And again, I borrow that term from Christendom where it is so prevalent you cannot hardly pick up a catalog of Christian material without there being a section on aids to worship.

And whole aspects of their gatherings together are around aids to worship. What are they? One of the most prominent ones is music and musical instruments. In fact, it's gotten to the place where that is almost exclusively the label of worship in most Christian circles is their music output.

And it becomes very elaborate. And you and I both know that it doesn't take very long and music affects our emotions. You can sing a certain song and it will reduce you to tears in just a few stanzas.

On the other hand, songs have become battle cries that arouse anger and fervor. That's the ability of music. And Christendom has taken that and made it into an aid to worship.

And so we have to have this to put us in the atmosphere and the environment of worship. That has nothing to do with spiritual worship. Nothing at all.

I'm not speaking of our singing. That's almost an entirely different subject. Very scriptural.

It's not the music that man and his flesh has brought into holy things. So it's not dependent on such things as that and ornate buildings and dress that sets some apart from others and all of that that supposedly puts a person into the mood, so to speak, for worship. It's not dependent on external aids to worship.

Very quickly then, let's look at six scriptural aids to worship. Number one, these aren't in any particular order. Holy hands.

That's mentioned in 1 Timothy 2 and verse 8 and it's relative to the brethren and their public prayer. It is a principle though that runs throughout Scripture. Holy hands.

And I would ask each believer, brethren and sisters alike, how's our conduct? What are we doing? How are our hands kept busy throughout the week, throughout the rest of our life? It's pretty difficult to worship when I have defiled hands. And you can think about that in a practical sense. If you just come in off the barnyard and your hands are all contaminated, well, you likely wouldn't give your wife a hug, would you? In fact, she likely wouldn't take it.

And just take that on practically from that, you wouldn't remove a splinter from your child's finger either, and you wouldn't pull something out of their eye. You'd wash their hands. You'd wash your hands.

Brethren and sisters, we need holy hands, especially in the defiled world that we live in. We need to keep our hands clean. It's becoming more and more of a, I was going to say a requirement, but it expends more of our energy just to do that because of the defilement of the world round about us.

We can't have our ears open or our eyes open half the time without bringing defilement upon ourselves. We need holy hands. Secondly, a pure conscience.

Paul again speaking to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3 as he gives qualifications of the overseers and then the deacons. And they are men of pure conscience. Maybe that even in a sense can go deeper than holy hands.

For if I have dirty hands, you can see that. But if I have a defiled conscience, you may not be able to see that. And so we allow, again, the spotlight of the Holy Spirit through the Word of God to search our consciences to tell us if there is any defilement there that must be attended to and taken care of.

And with a pure conscience, we can worship God. Thirdly, a full basket. Go back to Deuteronomy and the mentions of the feasts, the festival occasions, and the coming together and the offerings and so forth.

Time and again, God reminds him of this, let none appear before Me empty. Well, you know how to fill a basket in a practical way. If you go to the strawberry patch, you don't just set the basket on the side and beckon the strawberries to come and leap into the basket or the blackberry patch or whatever.

It takes work. It takes energy to be expended. And along the way, there's thorns and there's insects that bite and all the rest of it.

But you're after the fruit, so you go for it. And some things we search long and hard for to put in the basket. I wonder, would we do that for content to bring in worship so that we don't appear before the Lord empty? Maybe it's easier just to go to the store and buy the strawberries right off the shelf, huh? But they're not as good as the fresh ones.

We know that. There's an aspect about that that affects our worship as well. Sometimes we want to put fast food in our basket.

I haven't had time this week, and I've been really busy. And listen, I'm not being critical. I know what it is to be busy.

And so, just at the last moment here, I'll slam-dunk something into my basket so I'm not empty. Let us put our call to worship first in our life. And I believe that Scripture teaches us that God will bless that and meet our needs.

Could I impress that especially upon young believers? It is so easy to allow the world to take over your life, even in legitimate things. And the things of God get relegated to the final moments if there are any left. And we come on a Lord's Day morning and we're as empty as an old drum.

We have nothing. Let us put God's things first and come with our baskets full. And brethren and sisters, you know if we did that, our remembrance meetings would be something else, wouldn't they? Fourthly, a fresh appreciation of Christ.

Paul says when he's speaking to the Philippians, he says in chapter 3, I believe it is, that I may know Him. Listen, here's a man who had revelations and visions far beyond any other likely. And yet it was his constant endeavor to know Christ more.

Will you ever plumb the depths of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ? Will you ever reach the last thing that you can learn about it and be able to say like you can about so many other things? I've learned it all. I've read it all. Never.

Never ever. Eternity will not even in its vast extent reveal to us all the riches and the depths of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. And why I say that is just for this.

Brethren and sisters, there's enough in Him that we can have a fresh appreciation of Him every day of our lives. And we come on a Lord's Day morning, and I'm just speaking of that because that's generally speaking where we think of worship, although it's something we should do continuously, but we come on a Lord's Day morning and a brother rises and he gives thanks to God for his son and he speaks in the ears of the Father about the Lord Jesus Christ and we say, oh, it's fresh. It's wonderful.

And how often do we get up and it's almost like you could hit the button, play, and it's the same old thing week after week. It's not fresh. It's not wrong what we're saying.

I'm not saying that it's not wrong, but it's certainly not fresh. We need a fresh appreciation of Christ each and every day. And let's understand that as a benefit to that, that will change your life.

As a believer, that will change your life. Give you a whole new set of glasses so to speak. You'll see this world entirely different if you have a fresh appreciation of Christ every day.

Fifth, an examined life. 1 Corinthians 11. How are we doing? Not me examine you.

Not even me examine my wife, but me examine me. And I get into the presence of God. And again, I allow Him to search me and His holy Word to do its work in my life.

Let me say again, dear fellow believer, we're not fooling God. We cannot do that. And we just say, well, let Him examine us through His Word.

And if there is that which needs addressed, whether it's in private or whether it's something that needs addressed in a greater way so to speak, I just get it taken care of. And a man examines himself. And Paul says, so let him eat.

And I come and my life has been open and scrutinized by His Word. Nothing hidden. And I am fit to worship.

Lastly, number six, this is very difficult to do, but a rested body and a rested mind. You'll remember in Mark 6, the Lord Jesus took His own disciples. And it tells us that there was much coming and going.

And don't we know what that is? And it says He took them apart into a desert place to rest a while. Have you been there? Have I been there this week? Or have I been so caught up in the coming and going? So much of it is legitimate and needful, and yet I'm caught in just like a whirlwind and it throws me this way and pulls me that. I just need to come apart into a desert place in the presence of Christ and rest a while.

And that's not advocating laziness in spiritual things. It's not advocating let's go to the beach and kick our feet up and sit there for three weeks. No, when He took them apart into a desert, He was there.

And they rested from the whirl and it's false ways. And dear brethren, I speak to the brethren, sisters as well though, but especially the brethren, as those who are responsible, especially in your households, for the comings and goings. I wonder how many things there are that need to go and go and not come again.

And we have brought upon ourselves even in the busyness of the world, we have brought upon ourselves more busyness than is necessary at times. We have involved ourselves in things and some of them we call them relaxing and maybe they do that for us in a sense. And yet they have caused that there is more coming and going and more to do and more to tend to and more to be responsible for.

And again, we end up, not only are we left with no time for the Lord, but we're left with no energy either physically or mentally for Him. And it comes time to sit down and spend a little time in the Word of God and in the presence of our blessed Savior. We can't even keep ourselves awake because we're so wore out.

A rested body and a rested mind. We would do well to give attendance to that and to heed the words of the Lord Jesus and come apart and rest in His presence. Again, you and I do that.

I can tell you this, there's other benefits to that than worship and we'll experience them. A contentedness in the things of God and with what He has given us. Paul says, Godliness with contentment is great gain.

The world says it's great loss. It's great gain, God says. We learn to be content with what He's given us and what He will provide for us.

There are so many other Scriptures that could bear upon that. And we learn to be quiet in His presence and to allow Him to fill our souls with Himself. And brethren and sisters, when we do that, when we come together to worship, our baskets will be full, our hearts and our consciences will be searched and pure, our lives will be examined, our hands will be holy, and we'll be fit to worship the One who is so worthy.

The Lord bless His Word.