The life of a mature Christian is one that’s rich with praise and worship of Almighty God, privately, corporately and throughout the day.
Welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is Sanctification Monday, and my name is Andy Davis. In this podcast, we seek to answer the question, “What is spiritual maturity?” We believe that spiritual maturity can be broken into four main sections: knowledge, faith, character, and action. Now, today we’re continuing our study in the action section. We define action as things you do with your body, things that cause muscles to move, things that you do in space and time. These are the works that God wants us to do. Now, we need to understand the overall flow of the book and the presentation. We believe that biblical knowledge and knowledge that comes from creation, from living in God’s world, under the movement and the activity of the Holy Spirit produce faith. Faith being the eyesight of the soul, a sense of the reality of invisible spiritual things, past, present, and future.
The combination of biblical knowledge and genuine faith in Christ produces a transformation of character, of the heart.
A sense of our own sinfulness, of the great blessedness of the world to which we’re going, a sense of ongoing reliance on Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. This is the life of faith, of reception of spiritual guidance. All of these things are faith. The combination of biblical knowledge and genuine faith in Christ produces a transformation of character, of the heart. As we are changed from within, we love differently and hate differently. We love what Christ loves and hate what Christ hates. We also desire different things, things that we do not have but we want. We go after desires and we yearn for them, and we use our will, our ability to choose, based on what we love and also what we hate in conformity with Christ. We say, “Not my will, but yours be done.” We make actual choices. It affects our thought life.
So, we think differently. We have different thought patterns. We have the mind of Christ, and we think like Christ does. And it also affects our emotions. Our emotions. Now, I wanted to go over that and review it because today’s topic is Worship. Now again, we’re in the action section, but worship must begin within. It must begin in the mind and the heart for it to be genuine. We’re going to talk about that today. But I want to begin our study of worship as the actions of a sanctified Christian, a worship life, a robust life of worship, with the magnificent doxology at the end of Romans 11. Romans is the great unfolding of the gospel. The Apostle Paul goes through 11 chapters of deep doctrine on the gospel, on total depravity, on the sinfulness of the human race. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And of justification by faith in Christ crucified, faith alone.
Justification by faith alone clearly established at chapter three and on in chapter four. And then the implications of justification, having peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then the sanctification chapter, as I’ve said before, the best section on sanctification in the whole Bible is Romans 6-8. And we learn that we are to consider ourselves dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus, all of that. The fact that we have indwelling sin, and we’re going to have to battle that sin the rest of our lives, Romans 7. The fact that the Holy Spirit is given to us to enable us to live God-honoring lives in this world. And then there’s that sense of absolute certainty that comes from that. The fact that God is causing all things to work together for good for those who are called according to his eternal purpose, because those that God foreknew before the foundation of the world, he chose them in Christ to be conformed to Christ, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
There’s a sense of absolute certainty, that nothing in heaven or earth or under the earth, nothing in the present or the future, nothing in all creation can separate you from the life of God. And then he goes into the special topic of the Jews. Why is it the overwhelming majority of Jews are rejecting Christ as their Lord and Savior? If God is so sovereign, how can we actually have assurance of salvation if God just so easily, it seems, cast off the Jews and went over to the Gentiles? And Paul addresses that in a very powerful, deep way in three chapters, Romans 9, 10, and 11. Now at the end of all of that, the unfolding of the gospel of Jesus Christ at a deeper level than anywhere else in all of scripture, his heart is consumed with worship. Consumed.
He says very powerfully in Romans 11:33-36, “O the depths of the riches, the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments in his paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.” Now, you may wonder as you’re reading Romans, why does Paul do that? Why does he just burst forth in praise at that moment? And how does that section begin? Romans 11:33-36 begins with a single letter, word in the Greek, two letters in the English, O. Just the Greek letter Omega. “O, the depths, the riches, the wisdom.” Now, what is the purpose of that word? It’s a word of emotion. It’s a word of worship more than anything.
Paul is just blown away by the infinite majesty of God as displayed in the gospel. The word O is a word of awe, it’s a word of astonishment, it’s a word of self-forgetfulness. It is a word of worship. And so, worship begins with God’s self-revelation, and then it exists in our response to that self-revelation. Revelation and response, that’s what worship is all about. And that response is the culmination of all of the internal work that God does in us to bring it about. Knowledge resulting in faith, resulting in character, resulting in worship. That’s the flow. God reveals. We know, we believe, we love, and then we worship.
Now, worship really is God’s ultimate goal in his work of redemption. John Piper wrote a book about missions entitled Let the Nations Be Glad, and he’s talking about the transforming work of the gospel. And he says, “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.” He says that in Desiring God. That’s his greatest book, Desiring God. And he takes the Westminster shorter catechism statement and kind of adds a little word or changes a word. “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.” And then Piper has this one slogan that he uses again and again, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” So, the whole direction and purpose of the Bible in all of redemptive history is to transform us, body and soul, so that we will actually eternally enjoy God, eternally glorify him by being perfectly satisfied with God.
As Psalm 16:11 says, “You made known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” That’s a heaven verse. That’s where we’re heading. The final destination of the internal journey is this, perfect happiness in the presence of God. Perfect happiness at his right hand in the new heaven, new earth. Well, that’s also the destination of the external journey of missions. Piper’s book, Let the Nations Be Glad and begins with this statement,
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church, worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate not missions because God is ultimate not man. When this age is over and countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It’s a temporary necessity, but worship abides forever.
What a great statement, isn’t it?
So, the external journey of gospel advance from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. Evangelists and missionaries taking the gospel to those who have not yet believed in Christ, their goal really should be to create worshipers. To be instruments in the hands of God through the Holy Spirit to create worshipers, people worshiping God. So, we can see how centrally important worship is. It is the fulfillment of both the internal and external journeys. That’s where we’re heading. We’re going to spend eternity in heaven worshiping Almighty God. And so therefore, when we think about the life of action, of activities, we must see the importance of worship, that it is vital for us to do certain actions of worship. But before those actions can be considered genuine worship, they must flow from a transformed heart.
God hates formal worship. He hates hypocritical worship. It really isn’t worship. He says this in the Book of Isaiah, and Jesus quoted this Isaiah passage in Matthew 15:7-9, He quotes Isaiah, he said to the Pharisees, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they worship me in vain.'” So, you look at that worship- that’s hypocritical, that’s just an outward show, but doesn’t flow from a transformed heart that’s on fire is not worship. God does not accept it. It’s essentially hypocritical. By the way, the Greek word hypocrite means actor. So, you’re putting on a mask, you’re acting like you’re worshiping, but you really aren’t. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder how many people go to Christian worship services every Sunday morning and they assemble together, and they have no heart toward Christ or toward God.
They’re putting on a show, they’re there to please a family member, or they’re there to make business connections or they’re there out of habit. They are nominal. They’re Christian in name only, but they don’t have a heart of worship toward God. That does not glorify God. That is not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a heart that’s transformed by sovereign grace through faith in Christ. And then it just flows out in body actions, in words and in songs and in assembling on Sunday morning and all these things we’ll talk about in a moment, but it is the actions of worship. If they are genuinely to be accounted by God as worship, must flow from the heart, they must flow from the heart.
It is only by the Holy Spirit that we can, as imperfect sinners here in this world, offer up worship that is pleasing to God.
Now, we also must see the importance of the role of the Holy Spirit in all of this. It is only by the Holy Spirit that we can, as imperfect sinners here in this world, offer up worship that is pleasing to God. The Spirit is the one who moves us to worship. It is the special glory of the Holy Spirit to move his people to worship God and to worship Christ. So, the indwelling Spirit takes the scripture that he himself inspired in the prophets and the apostles, the perfect word of God, and he presses it into our minds and hearts. And illuminates it and causes it to glow with truth. And then our hearts are kindled and moved and warmed, and then we are enabled to worship God by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:3, “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.” We Christians are those who genuinely do worship, and we worship by the Spirit of God. The Spirit moves in us to love God, to cherish him, to trust fully in Christ. And then to approach Almighty God and present a spiritual sacrifice of worship. The Spirit is the one who enables us to worship in spirit, little s, and truth. I think in John 4:23, Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman says, “Those are the kind of worshipers the father seeks, those who will worship in spirit and truth.”
I think in interpretation, the best way to interpret that is not in the capital S, Holy Spirit, but to worship passionately, to worship with your own spirit. By the way, I know that that’s at least a possible interpretation because Romans 8 says, “The Spirit,” capital S, “The Holy Spirit testifies with our spirits,” lower case s, “That we’re children of God.” So, there is a human spirit, and I think that’s what Jesus means. True worship is a combination of, we would say, the heart, the heart and truth. I think we would reverse it. The truth comes in first, we know what the truth is about God, the doctrine, exegesis, the scripture and all that. Then our spirits get kindled and moved, and we worship in that combination of spirit and truth. That’s what God wants.
So, we would say light and heat like in a fire, light and heat. I love that image of light and heat. For me as a preacher, I always want a combination of light and heat. Light is truth, Biblical truth, heat is passion. I can’t be bored or distant or as though I don’t care. My heart should be kindled by the things that I’m actually preaching on. And so that combination of light and heat. Picture, and this is an illustration that’s in my mind, picture you go down in a plane crash in the Yukon or in Alaska, and you’re in a remote area. You and a couple of survivors and you’re going to freeze soon if you’re not able to get to shelter or something like that.
And as you’re moving through and it’s not totally dark, but it’s very dark that time of year and you’re just trying to find some shelter where you can survive, it’s so bitterly cold. Then off in the distance, you see the dancing flames of a campfire, you see the light and you’re drawn to the light. And as you get closer and closer and closer, you’re excited that you’re going to survive. And sure, enough there are some hunters there and they’re camping there. And the light of the fire has drawn you out of the darkness.
And then as you get closer and closer and then you are standing close, they welcome you in and they urge you immediately to stand by the fire because they can see how cold you are. And you put your hands over the flames, and your body starts to feel the heat. That’s a picture I have of preaching or of good Bible study. The light draws you. And as you get closer and closer, then the heat of that warms you and causes you to respond with passion. That’s a picture of worshiping in spirit and in truth, the light and the heat. So that’s what we want.
Now, when should we worship? I want to give you three patterns of worship that should be happening in your life if you’re a mature Christian. Three main categories. First of all, private worship, secondly, daily life worship, and then corporate worship. And all three of these have certain actions connected with it. So, this is the action section. Obviously the most important part of worship you do in the mind and the heart. In the first three categories, we talk knowledge, faith, and character.
But now we’re talking about actions. So, what are the actions of private worship? What are the actions of daily life worship? And what are the actions of corporate worship? First, the actions of private worship. So, let’s just say it straight out. You should have a daily quiet time. You should be in God’s word and in prayer every single day. And so, if you’re mature, you’re going to do this pattern, this habit pattern of a quiet time. But I must tell you, it’s got to be based on worship. You should be reading scripture to find out how your own heart can be drawn into a lively activity or sense of active fellowship with God. That’s what you’re seeking in your quiet time. You’re not trying to find some tidbits of knowledge that you can impress your friends with. Or for me, even as a preacher, to find some exegetical insights I can use in a Bible study or sermon.
Now, the purpose of my quiet time is to get my soul happy in the Lord, to kindle my own heart in worship to God. That’s the goal. And so fundamentally, I go, in my daily quiet time, to find reasons in scripture, why I should love God and praise him and worship him so that my heart might be warmed and kindled. So those are the actions. So, every day I’m going to prepare my heart by reading God’s word, by kneeling in prayer, by singing perhaps in a hymnal. I use that in my quiet times. Anything that might help. The Puritan Prayer book, which is Valley of Vision, I find helpful because it’s language is so different than the language we use. And it stimulates me to worship. So that’s private worship in its actions.
Secondly, daily life worship. By this I mean the worship that happens as you walk along in your life. When you walk along the road, when you see things, when you realize that every good and perfect gift comes from God, and therefore you’re able to see a friend’s newborn baby girl, and you look in her face and say, “I praise you, Lord, because she’s fearfully and wonderfully made.” Or perhaps you’re walking through the forest in the fall, and you look at the radiant foliage. And it’s one of those pristine, those beautiful fall days in the vivid blue sky and the beautiful foliage. And you look at this and you just say, “Praise you God, that you made such a beautiful world.” Or maybe you’re into astronomy and you can look through a telescope and see the rings of Saturn, or you just look with the naked eye, and you see all of the cluster of stars in the Milky Way.
If you’re up on a mountain where you’re away from human light. And you can just look through the cold night air and you see the Milky Way with all of its thousands and thousands of stars, you’re able to worship God and say, “I know Lord, you made all of these things and the world is beautiful the way that you made it.” You are praying continually, praying without ceasing. And as you move through, as you walk with your children, perhaps if God gives you children or you have them and you’re able to talk about the goodness of God in everything you see around you and all the things that happen to you. So those are the actions of daily life worship.
And then there are the actions of corporate worship. And here a key text, Hebrews 10:25. It says, “Let us consider how to stir one another up toward love and good deeds, not neglecting or forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” And so, we must not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. I think few of us will ever forget the effect of the coronavirus and COVID-19 in actually preventing people from physically assembling.
Many services did live-streaming, and we were able to do some kind of virtual assembling, but it’s not the same. And I think we all knew that, and we couldn’t wait to get back together and be in physical fellowship with one another. But there are actually some people that make a conscious choice, though they’re physically able to do so, to not assemble together, to not worship together.
And for me, this is a very significant and bad decision that people make. I’m not talking about shut-ins, people that can’t get out of the house for anything. I mean, just those that make a choice not to go to corporate worship. Mature Christians know that they must get together. And as Psalm 34:3 says, “Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt His name together.” So, we gather together with other Christians. And we’re actually able to stimulate one another toward love and good deeds by our facial expressions when we’re singing the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. By our eager, rapt attentiveness to the preaching of the word, to the informal moments of worship that happen in the halls before and after the service. All those things are important in corporate worship.
We need to have a lifestyle of worship, of just praising God every moment, private worship in your quiet time, daily life, worship as you move along in your life, and then corporate worship, especially on Sunday morning with the people of God. Now, what kinds of active worship should we do? There’s all kinds of bodily postures and physical things we do to show worship. The Bible has people standing in worship, kneeling in worship, bowing down in worship, falling prostrate before God in worship, shouting for joy, speaking words of praise, speaking words of thankfulness, lifting hands, covering the face, leaping for joy, dancing, playing musical instruments, and of course singing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. All of these things are actions or activities of worship.
So, the life of a mature Christian is one that’s rich with praise and worship of Almighty God. We’ll be spending all eternity doing that, but we should do it day by day now. So, as we conclude today, go into your week knowing that God has gone ahead of you and will be using everything you experience this week to sanctify you and bring you more and more into conformity to Christ.
Welcome to the Two Journeys podcast. This is Sanctification Monday, and my name is Andy Davis. In this podcast, we seek to answer the question, “What is spiritual maturity?” We believe that spiritual maturity can be broken into four main sections: knowledge, faith, character, and action. Now, today we’re continuing our study in the action section. We define action as things you do with your body, things that cause muscles to move, things that you do in space and time. These are the works that God wants us to do. Now, we need to understand the overall flow of the book and the presentation. We believe that biblical knowledge and knowledge that comes from creation, from living in God’s world, under the movement and the activity of the Holy Spirit produce faith. Faith being the eyesight of the soul, a sense of the reality of invisible spiritual things, past, present, and future.
The combination of biblical knowledge and genuine faith in Christ produces a transformation of character, of the heart.
A sense of our own sinfulness, of the great blessedness of the world to which we’re going, a sense of ongoing reliance on Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. This is the life of faith, of reception of spiritual guidance. All of these things are faith. The combination of biblical knowledge and genuine faith in Christ produces a transformation of character, of the heart. As we are changed from within, we love differently and hate differently. We love what Christ loves and hate what Christ hates. We also desire different things, things that we do not have but we want. We go after desires and we yearn for them, and we use our will, our ability to choose, based on what we love and also what we hate in conformity with Christ. We say, “Not my will, but yours be done.” We make actual choices. It affects our thought life.
So, we think differently. We have different thought patterns. We have the mind of Christ, and we think like Christ does. And it also affects our emotions. Our emotions. Now, I wanted to go over that and review it because today’s topic is Worship. Now again, we’re in the action section, but worship must begin within. It must begin in the mind and the heart for it to be genuine. We’re going to talk about that today. But I want to begin our study of worship as the actions of a sanctified Christian, a worship life, a robust life of worship, with the magnificent doxology at the end of Romans 11. Romans is the great unfolding of the gospel. The Apostle Paul goes through 11 chapters of deep doctrine on the gospel, on total depravity, on the sinfulness of the human race. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” And of justification by faith in Christ crucified, faith alone.
Justification by faith alone clearly established at chapter three and on in chapter four. And then the implications of justification, having peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then the sanctification chapter, as I’ve said before, the best section on sanctification in the whole Bible is Romans 6-8. And we learn that we are to consider ourselves dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus, all of that. The fact that we have indwelling sin, and we’re going to have to battle that sin the rest of our lives, Romans 7. The fact that the Holy Spirit is given to us to enable us to live God-honoring lives in this world. And then there’s that sense of absolute certainty that comes from that. The fact that God is causing all things to work together for good for those who are called according to his eternal purpose, because those that God foreknew before the foundation of the world, he chose them in Christ to be conformed to Christ, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
There’s a sense of absolute certainty, that nothing in heaven or earth or under the earth, nothing in the present or the future, nothing in all creation can separate you from the life of God. And then he goes into the special topic of the Jews. Why is it the overwhelming majority of Jews are rejecting Christ as their Lord and Savior? If God is so sovereign, how can we actually have assurance of salvation if God just so easily, it seems, cast off the Jews and went over to the Gentiles? And Paul addresses that in a very powerful, deep way in three chapters, Romans 9, 10, and 11. Now at the end of all of that, the unfolding of the gospel of Jesus Christ at a deeper level than anywhere else in all of scripture, his heart is consumed with worship. Consumed.
He says very powerfully in Romans 11:33-36, “O the depths of the riches, the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments in his paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor? Who has ever given to God that God should repay him for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.” Now, you may wonder as you’re reading Romans, why does Paul do that? Why does he just burst forth in praise at that moment? And how does that section begin? Romans 11:33-36 begins with a single letter, word in the Greek, two letters in the English, O. Just the Greek letter Omega. “O, the depths, the riches, the wisdom.” Now, what is the purpose of that word? It’s a word of emotion. It’s a word of worship more than anything.
Paul is just blown away by the infinite majesty of God as displayed in the gospel. The word O is a word of awe, it’s a word of astonishment, it’s a word of self-forgetfulness. It is a word of worship. And so, worship begins with God’s self-revelation, and then it exists in our response to that self-revelation. Revelation and response, that’s what worship is all about. And that response is the culmination of all of the internal work that God does in us to bring it about. Knowledge resulting in faith, resulting in character, resulting in worship. That’s the flow. God reveals. We know, we believe, we love, and then we worship.
Now, worship really is God’s ultimate goal in his work of redemption. John Piper wrote a book about missions entitled Let the Nations Be Glad, and he’s talking about the transforming work of the gospel. And he says, “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.” He says that in Desiring God. That’s his greatest book, Desiring God. And he takes the Westminster shorter catechism statement and kind of adds a little word or changes a word. “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever.” And then Piper has this one slogan that he uses again and again, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.” So, the whole direction and purpose of the Bible in all of redemptive history is to transform us, body and soul, so that we will actually eternally enjoy God, eternally glorify him by being perfectly satisfied with God.
As Psalm 16:11 says, “You made known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” That’s a heaven verse. That’s where we’re heading. The final destination of the internal journey is this, perfect happiness in the presence of God. Perfect happiness at his right hand in the new heaven, new earth. Well, that’s also the destination of the external journey of missions. Piper’s book, Let the Nations Be Glad and begins with this statement,
Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church, worship is. Missions exist because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate not missions because God is ultimate not man. When this age is over and countless millions of the redeemed fall on their faces before the throne of God, missions will be no more. It’s a temporary necessity, but worship abides forever.
What a great statement, isn’t it?
So, the external journey of gospel advance from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. Evangelists and missionaries taking the gospel to those who have not yet believed in Christ, their goal really should be to create worshipers. To be instruments in the hands of God through the Holy Spirit to create worshipers, people worshiping God. So, we can see how centrally important worship is. It is the fulfillment of both the internal and external journeys. That’s where we’re heading. We’re going to spend eternity in heaven worshiping Almighty God. And so therefore, when we think about the life of action, of activities, we must see the importance of worship, that it is vital for us to do certain actions of worship. But before those actions can be considered genuine worship, they must flow from a transformed heart.
God hates formal worship. He hates hypocritical worship. It really isn’t worship. He says this in the Book of Isaiah, and Jesus quoted this Isaiah passage in Matthew 15:7-9, He quotes Isaiah, he said to the Pharisees, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; they worship me in vain.'” So, you look at that worship- that’s hypocritical, that’s just an outward show, but doesn’t flow from a transformed heart that’s on fire is not worship. God does not accept it. It’s essentially hypocritical. By the way, the Greek word hypocrite means actor. So, you’re putting on a mask, you’re acting like you’re worshiping, but you really aren’t. I wonder, I wonder, I wonder how many people go to Christian worship services every Sunday morning and they assemble together, and they have no heart toward Christ or toward God.
They’re putting on a show, they’re there to please a family member, or they’re there to make business connections or they’re there out of habit. They are nominal. They’re Christian in name only, but they don’t have a heart of worship toward God. That does not glorify God. That is not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a heart that’s transformed by sovereign grace through faith in Christ. And then it just flows out in body actions, in words and in songs and in assembling on Sunday morning and all these things we’ll talk about in a moment, but it is the actions of worship. If they are genuinely to be accounted by God as worship, must flow from the heart, they must flow from the heart.
It is only by the Holy Spirit that we can, as imperfect sinners here in this world, offer up worship that is pleasing to God.
Now, we also must see the importance of the role of the Holy Spirit in all of this. It is only by the Holy Spirit that we can, as imperfect sinners here in this world, offer up worship that is pleasing to God. The Spirit is the one who moves us to worship. It is the special glory of the Holy Spirit to move his people to worship God and to worship Christ. So, the indwelling Spirit takes the scripture that he himself inspired in the prophets and the apostles, the perfect word of God, and he presses it into our minds and hearts. And illuminates it and causes it to glow with truth. And then our hearts are kindled and moved and warmed, and then we are enabled to worship God by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:3, “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.” We Christians are those who genuinely do worship, and we worship by the Spirit of God. The Spirit moves in us to love God, to cherish him, to trust fully in Christ. And then to approach Almighty God and present a spiritual sacrifice of worship. The Spirit is the one who enables us to worship in spirit, little s, and truth. I think in John 4:23, Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman says, “Those are the kind of worshipers the father seeks, those who will worship in spirit and truth.”
I think in interpretation, the best way to interpret that is not in the capital S, Holy Spirit, but to worship passionately, to worship with your own spirit. By the way, I know that that’s at least a possible interpretation because Romans 8 says, “The Spirit,” capital S, “The Holy Spirit testifies with our spirits,” lower case s, “That we’re children of God.” So, there is a human spirit, and I think that’s what Jesus means. True worship is a combination of, we would say, the heart, the heart and truth. I think we would reverse it. The truth comes in first, we know what the truth is about God, the doctrine, exegesis, the scripture and all that. Then our spirits get kindled and moved, and we worship in that combination of spirit and truth. That’s what God wants.
So, we would say light and heat like in a fire, light and heat. I love that image of light and heat. For me as a preacher, I always want a combination of light and heat. Light is truth, Biblical truth, heat is passion. I can’t be bored or distant or as though I don’t care. My heart should be kindled by the things that I’m actually preaching on. And so that combination of light and heat. Picture, and this is an illustration that’s in my mind, picture you go down in a plane crash in the Yukon or in Alaska, and you’re in a remote area. You and a couple of survivors and you’re going to freeze soon if you’re not able to get to shelter or something like that.
And as you’re moving through and it’s not totally dark, but it’s very dark that time of year and you’re just trying to find some shelter where you can survive, it’s so bitterly cold. Then off in the distance, you see the dancing flames of a campfire, you see the light and you’re drawn to the light. And as you get closer and closer and closer, you’re excited that you’re going to survive. And sure, enough there are some hunters there and they’re camping there. And the light of the fire has drawn you out of the darkness.
And then as you get closer and closer and then you are standing close, they welcome you in and they urge you immediately to stand by the fire because they can see how cold you are. And you put your hands over the flames, and your body starts to feel the heat. That’s a picture I have of preaching or of good Bible study. The light draws you. And as you get closer and closer, then the heat of that warms you and causes you to respond with passion. That’s a picture of worshiping in spirit and in truth, the light and the heat. So that’s what we want.
Now, when should we worship? I want to give you three patterns of worship that should be happening in your life if you’re a mature Christian. Three main categories. First of all, private worship, secondly, daily life worship, and then corporate worship. And all three of these have certain actions connected with it. So, this is the action section. Obviously the most important part of worship you do in the mind and the heart. In the first three categories, we talk knowledge, faith, and character.
But now we’re talking about actions. So, what are the actions of private worship? What are the actions of daily life worship? And what are the actions of corporate worship? First, the actions of private worship. So, let’s just say it straight out. You should have a daily quiet time. You should be in God’s word and in prayer every single day. And so, if you’re mature, you’re going to do this pattern, this habit pattern of a quiet time. But I must tell you, it’s got to be based on worship. You should be reading scripture to find out how your own heart can be drawn into a lively activity or sense of active fellowship with God. That’s what you’re seeking in your quiet time. You’re not trying to find some tidbits of knowledge that you can impress your friends with. Or for me, even as a preacher, to find some exegetical insights I can use in a Bible study or sermon.
Now, the purpose of my quiet time is to get my soul happy in the Lord, to kindle my own heart in worship to God. That’s the goal. And so fundamentally, I go, in my daily quiet time, to find reasons in scripture, why I should love God and praise him and worship him so that my heart might be warmed and kindled. So those are the actions. So, every day I’m going to prepare my heart by reading God’s word, by kneeling in prayer, by singing perhaps in a hymnal. I use that in my quiet times. Anything that might help. The Puritan Prayer book, which is Valley of Vision, I find helpful because it’s language is so different than the language we use. And it stimulates me to worship. So that’s private worship in its actions.
Secondly, daily life worship. By this I mean the worship that happens as you walk along in your life. When you walk along the road, when you see things, when you realize that every good and perfect gift comes from God, and therefore you’re able to see a friend’s newborn baby girl, and you look in her face and say, “I praise you, Lord, because she’s fearfully and wonderfully made.” Or perhaps you’re walking through the forest in the fall, and you look at the radiant foliage. And it’s one of those pristine, those beautiful fall days in the vivid blue sky and the beautiful foliage. And you look at this and you just say, “Praise you God, that you made such a beautiful world.” Or maybe you’re into astronomy and you can look through a telescope and see the rings of Saturn, or you just look with the naked eye, and you see all of the cluster of stars in the Milky Way.
If you’re up on a mountain where you’re away from human light. And you can just look through the cold night air and you see the Milky Way with all of its thousands and thousands of stars, you’re able to worship God and say, “I know Lord, you made all of these things and the world is beautiful the way that you made it.” You are praying continually, praying without ceasing. And as you move through, as you walk with your children, perhaps if God gives you children or you have them and you’re able to talk about the goodness of God in everything you see around you and all the things that happen to you. So those are the actions of daily life worship.
And then there are the actions of corporate worship. And here a key text, Hebrews 10:25. It says, “Let us consider how to stir one another up toward love and good deeds, not neglecting or forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” And so, we must not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. I think few of us will ever forget the effect of the coronavirus and COVID-19 in actually preventing people from physically assembling.
Many services did live-streaming, and we were able to do some kind of virtual assembling, but it’s not the same. And I think we all knew that, and we couldn’t wait to get back together and be in physical fellowship with one another. But there are actually some people that make a conscious choice, though they’re physically able to do so, to not assemble together, to not worship together.
And for me, this is a very significant and bad decision that people make. I’m not talking about shut-ins, people that can’t get out of the house for anything. I mean, just those that make a choice not to go to corporate worship. Mature Christians know that they must get together. And as Psalm 34:3 says, “Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Let us exalt His name together.” So, we gather together with other Christians. And we’re actually able to stimulate one another toward love and good deeds by our facial expressions when we’re singing the psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. By our eager, rapt attentiveness to the preaching of the word, to the informal moments of worship that happen in the halls before and after the service. All those things are important in corporate worship.
We need to have a lifestyle of worship, of just praising God every moment, private worship in your quiet time, daily life, worship as you move along in your life, and then corporate worship, especially on Sunday morning with the people of God. Now, what kinds of active worship should we do? There’s all kinds of bodily postures and physical things we do to show worship. The Bible has people standing in worship, kneeling in worship, bowing down in worship, falling prostrate before God in worship, shouting for joy, speaking words of praise, speaking words of thankfulness, lifting hands, covering the face, leaping for joy, dancing, playing musical instruments, and of course singing psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. All of these things are actions or activities of worship.
So, the life of a mature Christian is one that’s rich with praise and worship of Almighty God. We’ll be spending all eternity doing that, but we should do it day by day now. So, as we conclude today, go into your week knowing that God has gone ahead of you and will be using everything you experience this week to sanctify you and bring you more and more into conformity to Christ.
