The Worship of God, Part 3

We talked last week about the element of what it means to worship God in spirit, how it centers around the heart, how there must be a contrite heart or a clean heart, and that heart must be clear. Completely focused upon God. It must be connected solely to God and to nothing else. And it must be compliant to the ways of God once He examines your life and looks deeply into it and probes your life. Christ said it similarly in Matthew chapter 5, verse number 8, when he said, Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

It was Solomon that said in Proverbs chapter 4, guard your heart, for out of your heart flow all the issues of life. There's something about the heart of a man. That needs to be watched over, that needs to be clean, that needs to be compliant with God's purposes, that needs to be connected to God and God only. And so the Bible says a lot about the heart.

So to understand what it means to worship God in spirit is to understand the inner part of a man and what God wants us to do on the inside so that we are right with Him, that we might worship Him in spirit. In truth, we moved on to that to talk about the second element, and that is worship God in truth.

And we just covered the first or four points there. We talked about the responsibility of the preacher. The preacher has a great responsibility to give the truth to people. People ask me often, how much time do I spend preparing a sermon? How much time do I spend studying for a sermon or a topic or whatever it is I'm going through that week? And my answer always is the same. I don't do anything but study. That's all I do. I don't do anything else. I can't do anything else. I'm completely inept. I am computer illiterate.

You know, I'm too old to play baseball and football anymore. And so I don't do anything but study. People say, What's your hobby? Well, my hobby is to read. Well, what do you read? I read about what I'm preaching on. That's all I do. I live a pretty boring life. I don't have much excitement in my life. I've got six kids and a wife, and they keep me hopping and going. But outside of that, I have. no, as you would call it, excitement in my life. The greatest joy in my life is to sit down and study.

I love to preach, but I love to study more than I love to preach because there's something about being in the Word of God in order to learn about God. And what he has for me, and what he has designed for me. And when I come and preach to you, I just give you a little bit of what God has taught me. If I was to give you everything that God taught me pertaining to every sermon, you would never go home. You would stay here, you would sleep here, you would eat here. Because God just keeps pouring things into me that are so important.

And so my job as a preacher is to study the word of God that you might understand the truth of God so that you can worship God in spirit and in truth. So the first point we covered was the responsibility of the preacher.

The point number two is the receptivity of the people. Turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 33. Ezekiel chapter 33, verse number 30, reads as follows. Ezekiel 33, verse number 30. But as for you, son of man, Your fellow citizens who talk about you by the walls and in the doorways of the houses speak to one another, each to his brother, saying, Come now.

And hear what the message is which comes forth from the Lord. And they come to you as people, come and sit before you as people, and hear your words, but they do not do them. for they do the lustful desires expressed by their mouth, and their heart goes after their gain. And behold, you are to them like a sensual song by one who has a beautiful voice, and plays well on an instrument, for they hear your words, but they do not practice. Then God says to Ezekiel, when you stand at the preach and give forth the word of God, people admire what you say, they like the way you say it.

You're like a sweet song to their ears. And they go and they tell everybody, Man, have you heard our preacher? Man, our preacher is really good. You ought to come hear him, man. He can really lay it on the line. He has got passion. He has got enthusiasm. He has got conviction about what. He says, Oh, yeah, really? Well, let's go hear him. So they all come and they all gather together and they would sit before him and they would listen to him, but they would not do what the word of the Lord said. In order for us to worship in truth, the receptivity of the people is very important.

Third is the relevance of God's word. The relevance of God's word. If you're going to worship God in spirit and truth, you need to understand the relevance of God's word. People say all the time, you know, God's word is just so irrelevant, I don't get anything out of it. And I scratch my head and I ask myself, what Bible are they reading? You know, I don't understand that. God's word is so relevant. Turn with me to Psalm 19 for a moment.

Psalm 19 is so good. And I wish we could go through each and every one of these, but. Because of time, we're not going to do that. But I want you to notice how precious God's word is.

It says this: Psalm 19, verse number 7: The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring. The soul. God's word is whole. God's word is completely complete. God's word is sufficient. It's perfect. And because it is, God's word. Is that one thing that converts, that transforms, excuse me, that refreshes the soul. Only God's Word can do that. And the psalmist tells us that the law of the Lord is perfect and restores the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the sim. The scripture is a divine witness.

It is a testimony to that which is true. And the Bible says that the testimonies of the Lord are sure.

That is, they are un Movable or immovable, and they are unwavering. They are unmistakable. And the text says that those testimonies Make wise the simple. Now, the word simple is from the word that means open door. It deals with someone who is extremely naive. Someone who doesn't know when to shut his mind to false or impure teaching. He is non-discerning. He is ignorant. The Bible says if you fall into that category, if you are an ignoram, then the scriptures make you wise.

You can go to all schools you want to. You can take all the philosophy classes you want to. But there's only one thing that's going to make you really, truly wise. Those of you who are naive, those of you who are undiscerning, it's God's word that makes you wise enough to discern between what is good and what is evil. God's word is extremely relevant. So to worship God in spirit and in truth, we must understand the responsibility of the preacher to give truth, the receptivity of the people to accept.

truth, the relevance of God's word that we might apply truth to our lives. And lastly, if we're going to worship God in spirit and truth, there must be a reverence for God's wor. Psalm 138, turn with me there if you would please.

Psalm 138, verse number 1 and verse number 2. It says this, I will give thee thanks with all my heart. I will sing praises to thee before the gods. I will bow down toward thy holy temple and give thanks to thy name for thy loving and thy truth, for thou hast magnified thy word according to all thy name. Do you understand how powerful that is? That I have magnified thy word. Thy word is magnified even as thy very name. And one day at the name of Jesus, every knee is going to bow and pay homage to the one who is the King of kings and lord of lords.

And the psalm says that as high as your name is, so is your word, because your word tells us who you are. God 's word is supreme. There needs to be a reverence for the Word of God. And without that reverence, then we won't be able to worship Him in spirit and in truth. But there are some deterrents to worship God in spirit and in truth. I want to give those to you. Some are practical, some are theological. Let 's go through the practical ones first.

Deterrent number one, under the category practical. And these are really practical. One of the things that keeps us from worship the Lord in spirit and in truth is the lack of sleep. That's pretty practical, isn't it? We love to sleep, some of us more so than others. Some of you are asleep right now, I can see. So, this point really relates to you. But a lack of sleep. The Puritans understood this very well, and one of their great preachers, George Swinnock, expressed it this way. Prepare to meet thy God, O Christian.

Betake thyself to thy chamber on the Saturday night. The oven of thine heart, thus baked as it were overnight, would be easily heated the next morning. The fire so well raked up when thou went to bed, Would be the sooner kindled when thou shouldest rise. If thou wouldst leave thy heart with God on the Saturday night, thou shouldest find it with him in the Lord's Day morning. I've always wondered about why people come to church tired on Sunday morning. I don't understand that. And I don't want to step on anybody's toes or, you know, but people use Saturday night, you, as date nights and getting out nights and everything.

They stay up late Saturday night. They'll watch Saturday Night Live at Jay Leno or whatever else is on. Say it to 12:30, 1 o'clock in the morning, expect to get up on Sunday morning and worship God. You know, one of the ways we prepare ourselves for worship on Sunday morning is to go to bed early enough on Saturday night so that we can get up on Sunday morning to get to church. Right? Some people don't like to do that. Say, man, Saturday night's my date night, man. It the only night I got to go out and do whatever it is I'm going to do.

Well, that's good, but just don't spend all night doing this. Go home and go to bed. Can you think of the testimony you would have with your friend and say, you know what, I'd love to be out tonight, but you know what? I've made a commitment to God that I'm going be in bed on 10 o'clock on Saturday nights because I want to give up to be refreshed to worship Him on Sunday morning. People think you're a fool. They think you're crazy. They say, oh man, you don't have to do it. Stay up another hour. Stay up another hour.

Stay up 11, 12, 1 o'clock. But I'm amazed. Second of all, a lack of preparation. A lack of preparation. Number one is that if you haven't been worshiping God privately all week, don't think that you can come and worship Him publicly on Sunday morning.

It ain't going to happen. Can't happen. Can't just waltz in here thinking you can put an hour and a half in for God and be done and worship Him and leave and live the way you want the rest of the week. It's just not gonna happen if you're not worshiping God privately throughout the week. It prepares you to worship Him publicly with everybody else. I mean you can't wait to get in here and begin to sing praises with everybody else. You've been singing in your shower, you've been singing alone in the morning by yourself and you're tired of hearing yourself sing.

You can't wait to get alongside somebody in the church who can carry a tune so you can sing even louder with them. You want to get together and sing praises and adore your God. But if you can't worship him privately, don't think you can come and worship him publicly on Sunday morning. We need to prepare ourselves. And most of us are unprepared to discipline ourselves to worship God. Another one is the lack of time. A lack of time. We try to put our worship into a time frame. But in reality, as we talked about last week, Christ said a new hour, John 4, to the woman in Samaria.

There's a new hour coming. We're going to usher in a whole new way of worship. It's not going to be located to Mount Geriz. It not going to be located to the Temple in Jerusalem. Why? Because I'm going to ind man. And people are going to worship me in spirit and in truth. And they're going to get to understand me. And they're going to be able to worship me at all times. But sometimes we use a lack of time as an excuse for not worship God. There 's not enough time to worship God. Understand this, that there's always enough time to do the will of the Father.

There always is. Christ always had enough time to do the will of the Father, and he was extremely busy. And if we are ready to set our priorities straight, then there will always be enough time to worship the Lord. And lastly, there's a lack of discipline. A lack of discipline. Psalmist said, You be still and know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God. Sometimes we forget. That we need to be still and worship God. But outside the practical, I want to look at some theological deterrence.

And we'll close with these. Four of them. One is this. There is no true worship with ignorance. There is no true worship with ignorance. Over in Acts 17, if you have your Bible, I would encourage you to turn there with me if you would. Acts chapter 17. Paul's at Athens. The people in Athens were worship. Incorrectly ban a shrine to the un god. Historians tell us that there were around 10,000 people in Athens at this time who lived there. They also tell us that there were 30,000 Shrines, thirty thousand statues of gods.

And they had one to an unknown god. And that would provoke Paul when he walked into the city there of Athens. Now you must understand that the Athenians were people who prided themselves on brilliance. After all, they had Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, they all had lived there and lectured there. These people were great philosophers of the time. And so because those men were there, men of great renown, these people prided themselves on their great intelligence. And they would worship all of these 30,000 gods, and they would have an unknown god that happened to be there.

And Paul would address that in verse number 22 when he said, As he stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription to an unknown God. What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he him gives to all life. and breath and all things and he made from one every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation that they should seek God, if perhaps they may grope for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us, for in him we live and move and exist. Paul says, you have a statue to an unknown God. You worship in ignorance.

You need to know who your God is. Let me tell you who he is. He is the originator of the world. He is the sustainer of the world. And he is the one. Who takes care of those who live in the world? And he is not far from each and every one of us because he lives. He's a living God, not a dead God. He would go on to say that you need to repent down in verse number 30 and 31. God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent. Because he has fixed the day in which he will judge the world in righteousness through a man, whom he has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising him from the dead.

Paul says, it's not good enough for you to worship God in ignorance. It's not good enough for you not to know who He is. You must know Him. For if you don't know Him, you must repent of your sins and get right with Him, because one day He will judge your life. There is no true worship with ignorance. You must know God. There is no true worship, number two, without substance.

No true worship without substance. We talked about what that substance is. You worship God in spirit and in tr. If you were to read Deuteronomy chapter 4, verses 12 to 19, verses 23 and 24, Paul, the Lord God, would say, You know what? You can't be involved in looking at any graven images or making images after my name. You can't look up at the sun and the moon and begin to. Wors that either because that would be idolatry, that would be wrong. And Job would say, over in Job 31, these words. Verse number 24, if I have put my confidence in gold and called fine gold my trust, if I have gloated because my wealth was great and because my hand had secured so much.

If I have looked at the sun when it shone, or the moon going in splendor, and my heart became secretly enticed, and my hand threw a kiss from my mouth, that too would have been an iniquity calling for judgment. for I would have denied God above. And thirdly, there is no true worship without reverence.

There is no true worship without reverence. Leviticus chapter 10. Turn there with me if you would, please. And the words of Leviticus chapter 10, verses 1 to 10 are extremely diff for most of us to grasp when you understand what God is doing. Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took their respective firepans, and after putting fire in them, placed incense on it, and offered strange fire before the Lord. Which he had not comm them. Key phrase. They did something that God had not command them. Nadab and Abihu did something deliberately, will, in defi to God, because God had not told them to do this.

God had told them as to the manner in which the incense was to be lit, the time in which the ritual was to occur, and the place that it was. to happen in which Nadab and Abi were prohibited from entering. Yet they offered strange fire, that is, unacceptable fire to God. And fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them. And they died before the Lord. You say, wow, that's kind of harsh. Couldn't God have given them a warning? Couldn't God come out of heaven and say, Hey, don't do that.

He disobeyed me. Why did God have to consume them? Why did he have to kill them? I mean, they're right in the midst of a celebration. The nation of Israel is understanding the holiness of God and the priestly worship of God. It says in verse number three, then Moses said to Aaron, It is what the Lord spoke, saying, By those who come near me, I will be treated as holy, and before all the people I will be honored.

Wow. Remember Leviticus is about being holy. And Nadab and Am acted in an unholy manner. They did not revere the king of kings. And therefore, he killed them. But it gets more perplexing. Read on. So Aaron therefore kept silent. Moses called also to Mishi and Az, the sons of Aaron's uncle, Uz. And said to them, Come forward, carry your relatives away from the front of the sanctuary to the outside of the camp. So they came forward and carried them still in their tunics to the outside of the camp. As M had said.

Now think about that for a moment. Here 's Aaron. His two boys are cons. Yeah, he doesn't get to tend to them. His nephews do. Or Nadab and Abi's nephews do. You'd think that Moses, Aaron, would want to do that. I'm sure he did. But as you read on through the story, he was prohibited from doing that. In fact, you know what? He couldn't even shed a tear. Got you, don't cry. Because if you cry, people get the wrong idea about my holiness. So don't even think about shedding a tear on behalf of your boys who treated me irreverently.

He is to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and there is no worship with ignorance. There's no worship without substance. And there is no worship. No worship without reference. And lastly, there is no worship without excellence. There is no worship without excellence. Proverbs chapter 3, verse number 9: Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all your increase.

There is no worship without excellence. None. And yet, so many times we come to church giving God second best.

Now they figured, man, that's a sick animal. It's going to die anyway. Just give it to God. It's crippled. It's no use to us. Just give it to God. How do we do that? 2 bucks, it's no use to me, just give it to God. We don't give God excellence. The first fruits of our increase.

The best of what we have. The greatest of what we have. My mom used to always tell me, son, you're a child of the king. If you're a child of the king, you better dress like a child of the king. My parents, you know, when they went to church, man, they got dressed up, man. I mean, they got dressed up. Nothing top church. No banquet. Nothing. I was doing a wedding one time and it was a Saturday night and all the guys had tuxes on, man. They were all dressed up and they were talking about what were in the church today, the next day.

This guy's going to wear jeans and a t-shirt. And I said, wait a minute, you're going to wear a tux to a wedding? Want you to wear t-shirts and jeans to see God? There's something wrong with this picture here. I don't understand that. You're more concerned about how you look at a wedding than how you look when you go to worship God?

You say, well, Pastor, come on, man. God looks on the inside. He's not caring about what we look on the outside. And folks, that's true. He is. He is. And quite frankly, I don care how you come to church. I mean, you can come to church naked as far as I'm concerned. Just come. Just show up. Just be here. That's the only thing I care about. But you know what? There's something about excellence. When it comes to God, God deserves your very best in everything: your best attitude, your best dress, your best financial giving, your best of everything.

Because he's God. Do you give him excellence? Do you give him the best of all that you have? Or do you give him leftovers? If I time at the end of the week, I'll go see God and worship God. If I got money at the end of the month, I'll give him some money. Those are leftovers. You give him the best of what you have. I trust that you do. Because there's no worship without excellence. God demands our very best, He demands excellence. No one else does. No one else should receive more than what we give to God.

I trust that you would not tip your waitress more than you would give to God out of your income. That would despise the name of God, would it not? Think about it.