“Worship: In Spirit and In Truth”

John 4: 23

April 1, 2001

Introduction: When the prophet Isaiah sat down to pen what we know in our Bibles to be the book of Isaiah, he must have done some prior study in ornithology, the study of birds. When he penned those marvelous words we know from Isaiah 40, about ‘mounting up with wings like eagles’, he had something special in mind to communicate. Isaiah wanted to convey truth with an excellent word picture, and he used what he knew about the eagle to do it.
While most birds fly by flapping their wings, the eagle is a bit different. She is built more for soaring and less for flapping. Thus she is able to travel farther with a whole lot less energy, and that seems to be God’s design for the eagle. Isaiah understood that the eagle has an uncanny ability to find the thermals that are a part of God’s creation of planet Earth. Thermals are invisible columns of hot air that rise here and there from the surface of the earth.
When Suzie and I flew to Pittsburgh on Monday for her connecting flight to Dallas, we got into some of these thermals in a small Saab 340, a 30-passenger plane that Toby flies for US Airways. I leaned over to tell Suzie that I felt like we were back in Indonesia where I hold the missionary record for filling those airsick bags found in the seat pocket in front of you. Many of our flights there in the tropics were in planes like the Saab, or smaller, and I often paid the price of turbulent weather. And on Monday I had already checked to see that there was one of those bags available nearby. I was not made for thermals!
Anyway, the eagle flies into these invisible updrafts, stretches out her wings, and soars higher and higher into the sky as though ascending on an elevator. She may rise as high as 14,000 feet, higher than we can see her with the naked eye from here on the ground. At whatever point she wants, the eagle slips out of the thermal with her wings still spread wide and soars for miles with little effort exerted at all. She coasts downward and sideward, covering great spans of territory, hardly breaking a sweat!
It’s not hard to see what Isaiah had in mind, is it. God is the invisible, upward lifting thermal current. When we have a personal relationship with Him and we claim His promises and trust His word, we are like the eagle, spreading our wings of faith and soaring to a higher plane. We mount up with wings like eagles. The strength we need for holy, effective, victorious living comes not from frantic flapping in our own efforts, but from gliding in the currents of God’s grace. (Robert J. Morgan, From This Verse)
Moses must have known something of ornithology, too. In Deuteronomy and Exodus, he makes reference to the same image of eagle wings. “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that hovers over its young, He (God) spread His wings and caught them (the children of Israel), He carried them on His pinions.” (Deut 32:9-11) As eagle parents catch their falling young on their wings, so God acted toward the children of Israel. When God spoke to Moses from the mountain, He said, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to Myself.’” (Ex 19:2-4)
Fascinating truth, wouldn’t you say, from the writing of Moses? Fascinating truth, wouldn’t you say, from the pen of Isaiah, a grand passage and a marvelous word picture?
As we come today to our final study in our series on worship, it is so very important that we understand the place that truth occupies in our efforts to worship God. I would guess that most often when we think of worshiping God, we think about church services, sacred music, various traditions of our particular church, prayers and sermons, and communion. But if we go back to where we started five weeks ago in this series on worship, we see some different elements that are critical to all our efforts to worship God in ways that please Him. And we do want to please God, don’t we? We do want to honor God for Who He is and what He has done for us, don’t we? We do want to reap the blessings of being rightly related to Him, to know the sense of well-being that comes from walking rightly with Him, don’t we?
So, in the discussions of worship, of contemporary services and traditional services, of styles of music, of hymns and choruses, of suits and ties and golf shirts and jeans, is there room for the issue of truth?
We started this series in the Gospel of John, in chapter 4, where we find the Lord Jesus in an encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Here is what the text says: (John 4:19-26) “The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain (Mt. Gerizim), and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.’
Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.’ The woman said to Him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He.’” (John 4:19-26)
In that exchange with this sad and soiled woman, the Lord Jesus made a simple and very short statement about worship. He said, twice, “God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
Though what the Lord Jesus said was short and simple, it is profound and essential to all of us who want to worship God in a way that is pleasing to Him. What role does truth play in genuine worship and what part does spirit play? If our worship is in spirit and in truth, then we are on the right track.
To worship in spirit means, at its basic level, an activity of our spirits, within and internal, whereby the Holy Spirit enables and guides us in the honoring of God. If worship is going to take place, in a Biblical sense, there must be affinity between the worshiper and the worshiped. God doesn’t have a body; He is spirit and if we are to worship Him, we must do it on the level of spirit.
Paul will write to the Philippians, “Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord… for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh…” The Spirit of God enables and guides us in the worship of God.
There are several observations we can make and several conclusions we can draw from this understanding of worshiping in spirit.
First, the place of worship has moved. It is no longer in Jerusalem at the temple with its regulations and sacrifices; it no longer takes place on Mt. Gerizim where the Samaritans worshiped with their practices and clearly defined rules. The place of worship has moved and is now in the realm of a person’s spirit. At heart, that means that we can worship God anywhere. Before there was a tabernacle, before there was a temple, before there were New Testament churches where worship took place, those who walked with God worshiped Him in all kinds of places.
I’m impressed with Abraham in Genesis 22 when he responds to the call of God. God says, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.” So Abraham gets his things together, takes his son, and after three days of heart-breaking travel, he sees the mountain in the distance that God has appointed.
Abraham says to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.” Worship would be in a place that God designated for this man on this day. God can be worshiped anywhere.
Our second observation is that worship, in whatever geographic place, begins and ends in a person’s spirit. In this same Genesis 22 passage, God gave Abraham a mission: Worship Me on a mountain in Moriah with the sacrifice of your son. Abraham went to the mountain, a specific place, but in his spirit, in the place where he did his thinking and made his decisions, Abraham chose to worship by being obedient. He began to worship before he ever left home! That he has decided in his spirit to worship by being obedient is crystal clear from the actions he takes. According to Gen. 22:9-10, “Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.”
We don’t see Abraham hesitating. We don’t see him looking around to his right and his left for some relief. What we do see is that he has decided in his spirit to obey, and the knife is ready to make his son the sacrifice that God has called for.
In his spirit, Abraham has already made the sacrifice! And more than Isaac has been sacrificed in this old man’s spirit. Abraham has sacrificed himself, his understanding, his wisdom, and his will with regard to this boy. He had thought that this boy was the fulfillment of the promise God had made to him about descendents and a destiny. And he was! That had been God’s promise to him. But now God is calling for the sacrifice of this very son. How God could promise one thing and then seem to destroy that promise with a call to worship and sacrifice made no sense. Abraham didn’t worry about the contradiction. James Crenshaw, in his book, Whirlpool of Torment, says, “For some people, true worship means to walk alone into God-forsakenness, or worse yet, to discover the Lord as one’s worst enemy.”
Abraham couldn’t reconcile God’s plans (1) to build a future around Isaac and (2) His plans to have him sacrificed, but in his spirit he could decide to obey what God had told him to do. He proved himself a true worshiper of Jehovah. He worshiped in spirit and in truth. The whole experience turns out to be a test of Abraham’s faith and commitment. God halts the sacrifice, the boy Isaac is replaced with a ram caught in a thicket, and the boy and his father return to the servants, having worshiped God acceptably. (With Easter just around the corner, how interesting that Isaac experiences two resurrections: figuratively, he is brought to life from Sarah’s dead womb, and figuratively, he is brought back to life from atop the altar on Mt. Moriah!)
So, the place of worship can be anywhere geographically, and worship must begin and end in one’s spirit.
And Jesus had said that God must be worshiped in spirit and in truth. Worship in truth means that our focus in worship is upon objective truths about God, His world, His will, and His ways. To worship in truth means that we will respond to truth as God’s voice and God’s word address us.
When the Lord Jesus asked the woman at the well to go and bring her husband, she said she didn’t have a husband. Jesus responded that she had spoken truly. “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” I suppose the Lord Jesus asked this woman that question to test her, just as God had sent Abraham on his mission to test him.
The Lord Jesus was looking for truth in the spirit of this woman. Though she wasn’t fully forthcoming about her circumstances, she was technically correct in her answer. Of course, Jesus took her farther, and she came to the point of receiving Him as her savior. When she understood that He was the Messiah, the Christ, she became a worshiper, because she responded to truth. She worshiped in spirit and in truth.
And that is what we saw Abraham doing in Genesis 22. God’s word came to him, he saw it as God’s direction, God’s way, God’s will, and he responded. He knew that this would be the most difficult sacrifice he’d ever make, far tougher than the sending away of Ishmael in Gen. 21. But he also knew that no sacrifice was too difficult when God required it. So he was committed to being obedient. He would worship in truth on the mountain of his sacrifice. When he had bound the boy, he came to his moment of truth. His instructions had been to worship, and God would be the provider, perhaps of a resurrection experience, for they were going to return to Beersheba together!
The Psalmist had said, (15:2, 51:6), “Lord, who may abide in Your tabernacle? Who may dwell in Your holy hill? He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, and speaks truth in his heart…” “Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts…,” in one’s spirit!
We cannot be worshipers of God, friends, if we do not see compliance with His word, no matter the cost, as being our primary responsibility. For His word is truth, and it calls for our response. And we can respond because God always provides for what we need! Abraham had said to his son in verse 8, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And after the ram is seen and sacrificed, “Abraham called the name of that place The Lord Will Provide, as it is said to this day, ‘In the mount of the Lord it will be provided.’”
Those who would worship God in spirit and in truth must be committed to obedience for God’s word is truth, and that truth calls for response. Abraham considered that having his son was the will of God! And when God called on him to give up what was God’s will for him to have, Abraham obeyed. Truth allows no rival loyalties, and truth allows no holding back.
To worship God requires the Spirit of God enabling our spirits to respond to truth with commitment and obedience.
Bottom line, then, it is in our spirits where we decide to follow and obey God. It is in truth that we decide what we are going to do by way of following and obeying. Where we make the decisions to worship God is in the realm of our spirits. What we decide we are going to do to worship God takes place in the realm of truth.
So, practically speaking, what are we to do to be worshipers of God?
In the arena of our spirits, we need the aid and enabling of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us an affinity with God, a spirit-to-spirit relationship that makes worship possible. This is how Paul said it to the Romans: “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh -- for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God…” (Romans 8:10-16)
This is how he said it to the church at Corinth: “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” (I Cor. 2:10-14)
Some of us are not worshipers of God because we have not come to the point of making a decision about Christ as our savior. Without Him, we do not have the Spirit of God to enable our spirits to do all that we just read from Romans and I Corinthians. Like the woman at the well, we need the living water of a personal relationship to Christ to enable our spirits to worship God who is spirit.
Some of us who do have a relationship with God through the Lord Jesus do not worship well because we are more led by our hearts, our feelings, our moods, and our tastes than we are by our spirits. The theologian David Peterson asks these questions: “Is worship then essentially an experience or feeling? Is it to be identified with a special sense of the presence of God, or with some kind of religious ecstasy, or with expressions of deep humiliation before God? Are there special moments in a Christian meeting when we are truly worshiping God? Are church services to be measured by the extent to which they enable the participants to enter into such experiences? Such a subjective approach is often reflected in the comments people make about Christian gatherings, but it has little to do with Biblical teaching on the matter.”
Feelings can and ought to be a part of our worship but they should never be the conclusive evidence of true worship! Surely Abraham knew no ecstasy in the anticipation of sacrificing his son! But what he was going to do was called worship. Worship takes place in our spirits, according to truth. Emotions may have a part, both joy and grief, and our bodies will play some part as well, offering a sacrifice, raising a knife, picking up a wounded person on the road to Jericho, etc. But worship begins in our spirits.
Worship will become more our experience when God is more of our focus. When God spoke to Abraham, Abraham said, “Here I am, Lord.” When the Samaritan woman went back into town, she told everyone, “Come meet a man who told me all I had done.” Both people were caught up with God, Who He is, what He had said. They had a focus that gave direction to their spirits. Out of a focus on God came an experience of worship.
They that worship God must worship Him in spirit.
In the arena of truth, we could start acting more like eagles than sparrows! For, if the truth be known, we were made to soar on the thermals of God’s grace. Frantically flapping our ‘wings’ doesn’t become us. “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:5-6)
What we know to be true is that if we confess our sins, He is faithful to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)
What we know to be true is that it is more blessed to give than to receive. (Acts 20:35)
What the Scriptures say is truth is that the way up is down. The one who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the one who is the servant of all. The one who would really live is the one who dies to himself. The one who would save his life is the one who surrenders it to the Lord. “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.” (Luke 17:33)
It is truth that the borrower is servant to the lender. (Proverbs 22:7)
It is truth that to spare the rod is to spoil the child. “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of discipline will remove it far from him.” (Proverbs 22:15)
Worship in truth calls us to recommit ourselves to obeying what we know to be true. Remember the fellow called Noah? For 120 years he labored to build a boat in an era where it had never rained. He was called a preacher of righteousness, and he had not a single convert! But when it started to rain, everyone knew that his message had been right on the money. He was a genuine worshiper of God. In his spirit, he decided to do what God called him to do.
“God is spirit, and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
As we go this morning, there are some among us who need to accept Christ as their savior so that the Holy Spirit can be an enabler of their spirits, so they can begin to worship God at the spirit level where He is. As we go this morning, there are some among us who need to recommit themselves to truth and to the obedience of truth so they can once again be worshipers of God.
If we take care of the issue of spirit and if we take care of the matter of truth, everything else we associate with worship will fall into its proper place. Music and kinds of music, organs, pianos and synthesizers, brass and strings, worship styles and church forms of liturgy, casual and formal dress of worshipers, spontaneous prayers and written prayers, sanctuaries with stained glass windows and storefront churches, carpeted worship centers and dirt floor shacks…. These matters are peripherals, for God is spirit and they that worship God must worship in spirit and in truth.


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