The Gospel & Salvation: Salvation Makes Us Worshippers

Salvation Makes Us Worshippers

Selected Scriptures

 As we continue our series on the gospel and the work of salvation we are learning about the difference the work of salvation makes in one’s life. We have been looking at this topic of the work of salvation rather extensively. We have studied the problem of sin. We have learned of the solution which is Jesus Christ and His sacrifice as the sinless Substitute. We have learned how this solution is received. We repent and believe. We have learned of repentance and faith. In this part of the series, we are learning of the things that result from the work of salvation. We have seen that we are born again. We are given a new heart. We have learned that old things pass away and new things come. The Bible is clear. The work of salvation is not without demonstrable results. It is not without evidence. It is absolutely life transforming.

Today I want to us to see that the work of salvation makes us to become true worshippers of God. As a result of our being born again, and receiving a new heart and God’s Spirit, we are made to become people who worship God. Before the work of salvation, we are essentially all idolaters. We worship ourselves as god. We are like those Paul described in Romans 1 who “exchange the truth of God for a lie, and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.” (Romans 1:25) This is true because unless we are truly saved, we live to please ourselves. We are the lords of our own lives. The work of salvation brings us under the headship of the Lord of glory.

When we are born again, we have learned that the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the truth about God and our sin. Salvation results from believing the truth of God, not exchanging it for a lie. We are made to become one who worships and serves the Creator, not the creature. The work of salvation awakens us to a right understanding of our relationship to God. When we have a right understanding of who God is, and who we are in relation to Him, we cannot do otherwise. We will worship.

The Anglo-Saxon word from which we get our English word “worship” is “weorthscipe.” This word emphasizes the idea of worthiness. Any definition of worship includes the idea of the worthiness or the worth of the One receiving worship. To worship is to consider the worthiness of God to receive worship and then to give Him the worship He deserves. He alone is worthy of worship. If we understand God’s worthiness to be worshiped, then what should we offer to the One so deserving?

There are two Greek words which are most often used in the New Testament to mean worship, or some concept related closely to worship. The word “proskuneo” literally means “to kiss toward,” “to kiss the hand,” or “to bow down.” It signifies humble adoration toward one worthy of such a response. The word “lutreuo” means “to render honor or pay homage.” Both of these words describe the response to the One who is worthy of worship. In essence, worship is a response. As we consider the truth about God, our response can only be one of worship.

Worship has been defined as simply as “honor and adoration directed to God.” Worship is the response of our hearts with praise, honor, adoration, and obedience to all God has revealed of Himself. Any time we are confronted with the revelation of God to man, our response should be praise, honor, adoration, and obedience. All proper consideration of God, who He is, and what He has done, will result in a response that is intended to exalt and glorify only Him.

William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury in the early 1940’s wrote this expanded definition. “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.”

My simple definition is this: Worship is all that we are responding appropriately to all that God is and all He has done. This requires me to understand accurately the nature and character of God, to see accurately myself as I stand in relation to Him, and to respond with appropriate responses to who I am in relation to Him.

Worship is the response of understanding His greatness and my smallness, His power and my weakness, His holiness and my sinfulness, His provision and my need, His awesomeness and my humility, His beauty and my flaws, His grace and my unworthiness. These are the things I understand about God and myself. When these drastic contrasts are considered, then I bow down and respond to God with praise, adoration, honor, thanksgiving, homage, love, and obedience.

Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well, “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers.” What do you think of when I say that we are to worship in spirit and truth? If we had to choose only one of these two words to describe our corporate worship at GBC, which word would we choose? Well, admittedly, I always put a strong emphasis on the truth. Is it possible that we are a church so focused on truth that we do not know enough about worshiping in the spirit? If it is important to worship God in spirit and truth, shouldn’t we make sure that we understand what it means to do so?

The best way to understand what it means to worship in spirit and truth is to go back to the passage where Jesus described these essential qualifications for worship. Turn to John 4. Read verses 1-26.

To understand what Jesus is teaching about proper worship, we need to understand the context in which we find these words. Both Jesus and the Samaritan woman to whom Jesus spoke understood the context. After Jesus demonstrated His divine nature by exposing the woman’s sinful lifestyle, the woman immediately changed the subject. She asked a question about worship. In verse 20 she said, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”

In this woman’s mind there were only two options for worship of God. The Samaritans worshiped in one place and in one way. The Jews worshiped in another place and in another way. Jesus let her know that both options were unacceptable. In verse 23-24 where Jesus uses the terms “spirit and truth” to describe the worship God seeks, He is referring to the problems with the two worship options spoken of by the woman. What was wrong with the two worship options in the context of John 4?

Samaritan worship took place on Mount Garizim. That was the place where Jesus stood to talk with this woman. She said, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain.” The problem with the worship of Mount Garizim was that it was done in ignorance. The Samaritans had limited knowledge of spiritual truth. They acknowledged only the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, as the true revelation from God. They rejected the rest of the Old Testament. This is why Jesus said, “you worship what you do not know” in John 4:22. Yet, what the worship of the Samaritans lacked in truth, it made up for with enthusiasm. The Samaritans were sincere, enthusiastic, and aggressive in their approach to God. The problem was that their worship was sincere, enthusiastic, and aggressive, but it was heresy. It was not acceptable worship. The worship of the Samaritans had spirit but lacked truth. The human spirit was fully engaged, but not in accordance with the truth.

The Jews, on the other hand, had the truth, all the truth about salvation. Yes, there is more than enough of the Gospel message in the Old Testament for a person to find salvation. The Jews had the truth but lacked spirit. What does it mean that their worship lacked spirit? We know the answer to that because of all the criticism the Jews received about their worship from Christ Himself. His criticism was that their hearts were not in their worship.

In Mark 7:1-13 there are the words of Jesus containing a specific criticism of the worship of the Jews. It is summarized best in the quote from Isaiah. “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.” The worship of the Jews lacked spirit because their hearts were not in what they were doing.

The worship of the Jews was barren and lifeless. It was orthodox – meaning it was based on the truth – but it did not embrace the spirit of the truth. I am sure we all understand the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The letter of the law says, “You shall not commit murder.” If you only embrace the letter of the law you consider yourself guiltless unless you actually murder someone. But Jesus explained the spirit of the law when He said that a person who is angry with his brother is guilty of murder. (Matt. 5:21-22)

The Samaritans denied the truth, the Jews missed the point of the truth. The Jews did not take the truth to heart. Therefore their worship was lacking in spirit. For this reason Jesus described the religious leaders, the worship leaders of Israel, as blind guides of the blind. He called them whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones. He exposed their hypocrisy and revealed them to be dangerous phonies because they embraced God’s truth from the head but missed it with the heart.

To worship in spirit is to worship from the heart. The “spirit” in John 4:24 does not refer to the Holy Spirit but to the spirit of man, or the human spirit. This is a reference to the inner person. It is often referred to as the heart of man. To worship in spirit is to have our hearts, our inner being, respond appropriately to the revelation of who God is and what He has done for us.

To worship in spirit is not necessarily to worship with a lot of emotion and enthusiasm. I’m not saying that worship should not be enthusiastic, but the measure of true worship is not the level of excitement. Neither is the true measure of worship the level of the engagement of our emotions. The true measure of authentic worship is our response to God’s truth. This is why Jesus said that the true worshipers whom God seeks are those who worship in spirit and truth. To worship in spirit and truth is to worship with a sincere heart which responds appropriately to the truth God has revealed of Himself to the heart of man.

Worshiping in spirit and truth is the proper response of man’s spirit to God’s truth. This is borne out throughout the Bible. To emphasize this I am going to show you several Scriptural references that illustrate the proper response of man’s spirit to God’s truth.

• Matthew 5:3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” I have preached this enough that hopefully we all understand it. To be poor in spirit is to realize how spiritually impoverished we truly are when we consider God’s righteous requirements. Poverty of spirit is the appropriate response of man’s spirit to the biblical truth about our spiritual bankruptcy. To be poor in spirit is to simply recognize and acknowledge God’s truth. Poverty of spirit is the appropriate response of the human spirit to God’s truth. The poor in spirit are well on their way to becoming worshipers because of the humility produced by our spiritual poverty. God gives grace to the humble.

• Luke 1:46 – “And Mary said; ‘My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” Mary’s spirit has responded appropriately to the truth God has revealed. Was Mary an acceptable worshiper of God? Yes, because she is worshiping in spirit and truth.

• 2 Corinthians 7:1 “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” This verse may be the closest thing we will find to a practical definition of worship – especially worship in spirit and truth. There is an explanation of truth – these promises we have. There is a description of the appropriate response in the human spirit – cleansing ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, and perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

There are many more verses we could look at but I think these are sufficient to make the point. To worship in spirit and truth is to worship with sincerity, to be genuine in our heartfelt responses to what God has revealed of Himself and His work. Will this be emotional? It might be – if you are by nature an emotional person. Will it evoke a physical response? It might. When I get emotional I cry. Crying is an emotional response. I often try to carefully consider the reality of God’s love for me, His work of salvation on my behalf. My response is one of awe and wonder. Why would infinite God care enough about this finite speck of nothing enough to save me? Never has the careful, sincere, heartfelt consideration of that magnificent truth made me want to get up and dance. It has often made me want to fall on my face in humble gratitude. Often the tears flow when I consider such magnificent truth.

It is important to understand the role of emotion in worship. The proper role of emotion, as I understand it, is for my emotions to respond to my spirit. Truth touches the spirit which in turn often triggers the emotion. Much of what happens in unacceptable worship is aimed at the emotion in an attempt to manipulate the human spirit. Much of what happens in many contemporary churches today is wrongly aimed at the emotions rather than the mind. It is intended to encourage worship in spirit at the expense of truth.

Years ago I showed a video of a man who was training the members of a praise band. He was showing them how to use the tempo and intensity of the music to move the people toward the desired emotional response. The lyrics were so shallow. “In my life, be lifted high. In my world, be lifted high. In my love, be lifted high.” These were the words, the same words being sang over and over again. The only thing that changed was the intensity. Consider the truth in those lyrics. On the surface they sound spiritual. The song lyrics are shallow and empty of theological truth. Much of the music employed in the contemporary church is “truth lite.” This doesn’t matter. It isn’t aimed at the human mind, it is aimed at the human emotion. It is an attempt to manipulate the human spirit by engaging the emotion. The result is confusion. Those who “feel” the emotion are deceived into believing it is appropriate worship. It is nothing more than the worship of Mount Garizim. It is enthusiastic and heartfelt, but it isn’t based on truth.

To worship in spirit and truth is to have the human spirit respond to the revelation of truth. This may or may not trigger the emotions. The worship God seeks is worship of the human spirit as a response to the truth He reveals of Himself and His great work on our behalf. To worship in spirit and truth is to have the truth touch my spirit and for my spirit (mind and emotions) to respond appropriately to God’s truth. If we come to church and our hearts have not been stirred by the truth, we have not worshipped in spirit and truth. Our hearts might have been stirred by some stimulus, but if it is anything other than the truth of God’s word, we must be careful what we call it.

Truth revealed to the heart/spirit of a person demands a response. God’s word does not return to Him void. It will accomplish the purpose for which He sends it forth. Our response is either worshipful or worthless. A worshipful response will be humble confession, eager embrace of His truth, thankfulness for His revelation, or praise for His amazing love.

Why is there so much confusion over worship in the church?

I must tell you why I believe there is so much confusion in the church over the issue of worship and why people have started taking so much liberty in the expression of worship in the corporate worship setting. This issue is the predictable result of a preoccupation with self. We live in a culture that has embraced self-esteem, self-gratification, and self-exaltation. These influences have taken the church by storm.

The trend toward emotionally uplifting music in the church has been accompanied by another undeniable trend. At the same time we started the trend toward emotionally charged music, we started trending away from confrontational preaching from the pulpit. Preaching designed to confront people’s sin so they might repent and conform to the righteous requirements of a holy God has been rejected because it makes people feel “condemned.” Feelings of condemnation are counter-productive to a fulfilling life. Rather than confront sin, preaching has been completely redesigned to build people up. The influence of humanism in the church has convinced us that we don’t need teaching that lowers our self-esteem or damages our self-image. After all, don’t we really need to learn to love ourselves before we can truly learn to love others? And shouldn’t we work on forgiving ourselves so we can experience true joy and peace.

These are teachings of the doctrine of self-exaltation and self-gratification. This doctrine is the inevitable result of a preoccupation with self. God has been removed from the focus of worship. Man is actually the focus of worship. Much of the church worships the creature rather than the Creator. God was removed from the focus when the needs of man and the desires of man – actually man himself has been enthroned. 

Self-focus, self-exaltation, self-gratification were the evil motivations behind the fall of Satan, the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis, and they were the focus of Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness at the beginning of His earthly ministry. This preoccupation with self is reaching an apex in our world in these last days because it is obvious that men have become lovers of pleasure and lovers of self more than lovers of God. Read 2 Tim. 3:1-4. Unless we think Paul is describing the people of the world, look at verse 5. The world knows nothing of God and His truth and it holds to no form of godliness. The people Paul describes in verse 5 are people in the church. The descriptions of verses 1-4 are true of anyone who develops an unhealthy preoccupation with self.

Man’s duty toward God is to humble himself before God and listen to and obey His truth. No person who will not start by humbling himself will ever worship God acceptably.  God simply resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humility is the opposite of self-exaltation. Why is humility so critical to acceptable worship? Because our hearts are extremely deceitful and desperately wicked, more so than we can possibly understand. This is the testimony of God concerning our hearts. “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Jer. 17:9

Unless our hearts and spirits are focused on the truth and nothing but the truth, they are so easily led astray. Our deceitful hearts, unless confronted consistently with God’s truth, are so desperately sick that we will easily fall for the deception of Satan who delights in leading us down the destructive path of self-exaltation. The path of self-exaltation is always a destructive path.

The work of salvation makes us to become God’s children who will worship in spirit and truth. For such people the Father seeks to be His worshippers. The real test of true worship is not how the experience makes me feel. The real test of true worship is how it makes me live my day to day life.

Let’s pray.