John chapter 4, beginning in verse 20. Hear now the word of God. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you, people, say, that in Jerusalem is a place where men ought to worship. And 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. We've been in a series on worship for almost a month now, five weeks. And just really wanting to look at what is it, specifically corporately, what is worship? What does it look like? And last time, we were in this passage last week, and John recording these words of Jesus to the woman at the well, the woman from Samaria, and telling her that the Father is seeking worshipers, worshipers who will come and worship in spirit and truth. And we focused last time on what is worship in the spirit. That which comes from the very depths of our being, the very core of our heart, our spirit, our soul. And it's understanding that the main hindrance to worship in spirit, the main hindrance to that is self. It's you. It's me. Stephen Charnock writes this. To pretend a homage to God and intend only the advantage of self is rather to mock him than worship him. When we believe that we ought to be satisfied rather than God glorified, we set God below ourselves. Imagine that he should submit his own honor to our advantage. We make ourselves more glorious than God. This is one of the biggest roadblocks to worshiping in the Spirit. To set your needs, your wants, your blessings above God. To think that Sunday morning is for you. And I look for a church that's going to meet my needs or going about it the wrong way. That's not what it is to worship in Spirit. When I was pastoring a young adult group, Many of you know Justin Halbgewachtz who came and spoke and played for us. Justin was very gifted in music and playing. And so when the young adult, he led our worship time that we would have, he led our singing in that time together. And so he and I and another guy by the name of Matt Stoeckle would get together to practice some of the songs. And I can honestly tell you that in my heart, it was more about the harmonies and sounding good and having somebody say, boy, that sounded good than it was about worship. It was all about self. It was all about feeling gratified and do I like that song? Do we sound good with that? Just how easily it is to get caught up into that. Jesus said, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. That we must die to self, and until you die to self, and Christ becomes everything to you, you will not be lost in worship. And what I mean by that is that as I come before Him, and as I come in His Word and before Him, and He begins to reveal not only sin in my life, but attitudes of the heart, and He begins to show me the areas of my own heart that I need to confess and to die to and be rid of, in order that He would fill it with Himself. And there's times when that begins to happen and I'm having that time of meditation and God is just really dealing with my heart and emptying of my heart and all of a sudden I find myself lost in worship of just praise and adoration because He has so filled my heart. It's not until we die to self and Christ becomes everything that we will know what it is to worship in spirit. And so let me just ask you, What's been your focus this morning as you've come to church? What's been your focus? I mean, there's a lot of things to focus on. There's a lot of things of desires of being together, of coming together, of seeing people that we haven't seen for the week and getting to see them and spending time with them or even a gathering such as happened yesterday with the Bjorklunds. But we come together to corporately do that which the angels are doing in heaven, to worship. And if my focus has not been there, I'm not prepared. And we do a preparation of worship on a Sunday morning. But let me just tell you, a preparation of worship really begins even tomorrow. and your walk with him and this will be something that we'll talk about later in our own personal lives. But even specifically Saturday night of preparing everything so that there won't be any surprises in the morning. So that you can prepare and have the proper focus and the proper attitude of knowing the reason I'm coming is to worship. to know that we have opportunity to enter into the very presence of God and to worship Him. What distractions have stolen your heart away from that this morning? What's stolen your heart away to being focused upon God and Him alone? Jesus said that the Father is seeking worshipers who are going to worship Him in spirit. But he also said, in truth. Worship's not just in spirits, not just in our hearts. Worship must be in truth. And we live in a, really a growing, me-oriented society. Right? We live in a time when there's nothing more sacred than self, and see that with these movements of believing lies concerning what I can be or who I am, and I can choose to be whatever, and it's all about me, and we see that, and not just that they demand acceptance of that, they demand that we celebrate that with them. It's really an aspect of worship of self. It's me-centered. And this me-centeredness has not only infiltrated a church, or infiltrated our nation, it's infiltrated the church. It's beginning to take over the average church service around our country. So many services around our country this morning are catered to the perceived needs of the people. Because polls have been been given. And we can look at the polls or we can even send out, some churches even send out questionnaires themselves and stuff like that of what would you like to see in a church. Then they begin to design and create and cater to those needs and they call it church. And so they want sermons that are beat. They want them using the newest and latest technology. And in the technology, it's having graphic design that is professionally done so that it's good and it's appealing to the eye. And it stirs the heart as you see those things flashing and having the right types of things. But even within the message, I mean, if I want my message to go viral, it needs to be 18 minutes or less in order for it to go viral, because otherwise it won't keep the attention of anybody. Well, I don't think we'll hit that today. We have churches that are offering all types of programs to meet the needs, the perceived needs of families. And it's all about family and what this church has to offer my children and what this church has to offer me or whatever, instead of we gather together as a church to worship. We don't want our services boring, so we need to have energy that's manufactured. Whether it's by music, whether it's by technology, whether it's by stage decor that they have, or whether it's by smoke machines, or fog machines, or whatever. We do have a worship service in scripture that really was that. We have a worship service that happened in Scripture that was really created by the people. Designed and created all by them. Turn with me to Exodus chapter 32, verse 1. Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, Come, make us a god. who will go before us, as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him." Isn't that interesting? Let's make for us a God, that you're gonna fashion this God, because we don't know what happened to the man. Right away, their thinking is off. And so Aaron says to them, All right, well, the pole's been thrown out. This is what they want. All right, tear off your gold rings, which are in your ears of your wives, your sons, your daughters. Bring them to me. Then all the people tore off their gold rings, which were in their ears, and they brought them to Aaron. And he took this from their hand, and he fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf. And they said, this is your God, O Israel, who brought you up. from the land of Egypt, a golden calf. So that was what was in that fire that came down from heaven and the smoke that was there that was leading them along, right? Then look what he says. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. Notice what he uses, to Yahweh. As they come and worship this golden calf. That's Yahweh. So the next day, look what they do, they rise early. How many of you rose early in order to prepare yourself for worship today? They were excited. They rose early. And they offered burnt offerings, and they brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play. Talk about enthusiasm. Talk about excitement. This was their worship, meeting the felt needs of the people. How do you think that went over? I mean, think about it. They were worshiping, right? At least they were worshiping, and God doesn't really care how we worship as long as we worship. Well, look at verse nine. The Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. I don't think we want to be called an obstinate people. Now then, let me alone, that my anger may burn against them, that I may destroy them, and I'll make a great nation of you. He's ready to destroy all of them. That didn't go over too well. So if it's true that when we worship, that we are coming before and meeting with God. And that is true. That's what we're doing. Then shouldn't that mean that God runs the service? God sets the agenda? God designs the worship? I mean, he is God, we are not. If you were summoned by the CEO of your company, the head honcho, and he wants to meet with you, are you gonna go walking into the office, kick your feet up on their desk, and begin to talk and set the agenda? But that's exactly what we do when we come to meet with God. He's God. We're not. Turn over to Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes chapter five. Right after Proverbs. Verse one. The preacher says this, guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools. For they do not know they are doing evil. Guard your steps. You're coming before God. Be prepared to listen to Him. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. You don't take the agenda. You may be nervous coming before Him, but don't begin nervous chatter. For God is in heaven and you are on earth, therefore let your words be few. We come to listen. We come to do His bidding. We come to hear from Him. This is what worship is in truth. What is truth? Pilate asked Jesus that question. What is truth? We know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. He proclaimed that. He is the living word. But Jesus answers that question, what is truth? In John 17, 17, in his high priestly prayer, he prays, Father, sanctify them by your truth, or by the truth. And then he says, your word is truth. His word is truth. Not my word, His word. His word is truth. So therefore, all worship then must be biblical, right? All worship, if we've come to do His bidding, if we've come to meet with Him and He is the one who's in control, then we must be silent and allow the word to lead and guide and direct us. To guard our steps. a warning to the people to be very careful how we approach him and how we worship. Because it's very serious. We've looked at that. It's very serious to worship God. He takes it very seriously. And know that God is immutable. He's unchangeable. So the same God who has these standards in the Old Testament is the same God today. He hasn't changed his standard of worship. and how we approach. He takes it very seriously. And some may balk at this. Because we want to invent creative ways to worship. After all, right, God created us to be creative. And so he would enjoy us to be creative in our worship. I mean, as long as our heart is in it, God is happy with it, right? Do you see how arrogant that is? That is so arrogant. And arrogance is pride. And God hates pride. James 4 verse 6 says, God is opposed to the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. I don't want to be in opposition to him. See, the arrogance of this thinking, it places us above God. What it does is it suggests that I am so important, I am so great, I am so valuable, that God would be ecstatic that I would worship Him, that He is privileged that I would even think about Him. When the truth is, I was created from dust, and to dust I'm going to return. Scripture says that we are nothing but a vapor, nothing but a withering piece of grass, Nothing but a worm. And God doesn't need us. In fact, I would tell you this morning, God doesn't need our worship, but that's what he created us to do. And in our sin and in our depravity, and in our rebellion, like those who worshiped at the foot of Mount Sinai, the golden calf, our hearts are the same. Sinners, depraved. not seeking after God, not doing deeds of righteousness, not doing any good, not even understanding. And yet in the midst of my sin, God demonstrates his love for us. And that while we were yet sinners in rebellion against him, Christ died for us. He took the penalty of my sin. all of my sin, every single sin I would ever commit, Jesus took it that day on the cross and paid the penalty of that sin, appeasing the wrath of God. And God in turn takes the perfect righteousness of Christ and he imputes it into my account. and sees me as perfect and holy and righteous, even though I'm not. But he sees me because of the righteousness of Christ, adopts me as his children, in order that I might be set free to come and to glorify him and to enjoy him forever, to worship him, what he has created me to do. And so since we are created to worship, since God has redeemed us through the blood of Christ, we're all going to worship something. But since he's created us and redeemed us, then we better do it properly. We better do it God's way. And God's way is in spirit and truth. And the only way we can do this is through the precious blood of Jesus Christ who's redeemed us, made us new, that we are a new creation in Christ Jesus, the old passed away, the new has come, that we are filled with this Holy Spirit who's dwelling within us, that we can then worship him in spirit and truth. We need to understand as we come this morning that our worship is not just an emotional exercise with the right music, with the right spiritual words, that induces the right feelings, that maybe causes me to shed a tear, that that's worship. It's not. Our worship must first engage the mind. It must first engage that by the truth of God. Psalm 145 verse 18, the Lord is near to all who call upon Him. To all who call upon Him in truth. That we call upon Him, we draw near to Him in truth. That it is the truth that we engage first with our minds. And that truth then begins to infiltrate and lead and guide and direct our spirit how to worship. Because any worship apart from the truth is simply man-centered idolatry. We call on Him in truth. Our worship is prompted by truth. that God has revealed. We don't have time to look at it today, but if you went into 1 Corinthians in chapter 14 and you begin to see, here is this group of people from Corinth who their pagan society, they knew how to worship and zeal and all those types of things. And so they clung to those types of gifts of prophecies and tongues because those were the ones that were ecstatic. Those were the ones that could be seen and shown. But Paul rebukes them when he says, I could sing with the Spirit, but I'm gonna sing with my mind. I could speak in the Spirit, but I'm gonna speak with my mind. Because that's what we understand. We understand truth. And if there are those who are in this congregation at Corinth, and all they hear is that which is the spiritual gifts of tongues and prophecies, they will not know the truth. They will think you're mad. We must first engage the mind. We must first engage truth and doctrine. that God has revealed. If you walk out of here today and all of a sudden you hear an audible voice from heaven, from God. There's times I want Him to do that for me. God just tell me what I need to do here audibly. Just tell me. All right, so if you hear this audible voice from heaven, and you know, man, it's him speaking to you, would you not listen? Right, wouldn't you listen? But the truth of the matter is, we should listen much more to the voice of God through his written word that he has inspired. Let me give you scripture to back that up. Turn to 2 Peter chapter 1. Peter is talking about, referring back to when they are on the mount and this transfiguration of Christ before them. And then the voice from heaven comes and speaks to them. And so we pick it up in verse 17, he says, for when he received honor, when Jesus received honor and glory from God the Father, such an utterance as this was made to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. And we ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on that holy mountain. I mean, what a glorious event that must have been to hear the voice of God speaking to Jesus. Right? And He's speaking of that. And we can get all caught up into that. But look what He says in verse 19. So, We have the prophetic word made more sure to which you do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place. What's he saying? Let me tell you what is more sure than a voice from heaven, this. This is God's Word to you. This is the inspired Word of God by His Holy Spirit who dwells in you, who reveals the truth as you spend time in the Word. He reveals Himself. He shows Himself. He speaks to us through His Word. And it is more sure than a voice from heaven. It is more sure than prophecies or tongues. It is more sure than any vision that you would ever see, or if you died and went to heaven so that you could come back and say, heaven is for real. None of that. compares to this. This is more sure. This is the truth. This must be what guides and directs us. In our faith, but in our worship. The matters of the word are great things of God. They contain the greatest counsel of God. They've been kept hidden from all eternity, but now the Spirit has opened it up to us, and here it is at our fingertips, revealed to us so that we can see, so that we can know, so that we can understand God. Here it is. And so I don't need voices from heaven. I have the word spoken, inspired by the Holy Spirit. And as I read it, as I meditate on it, as I study it, what happens is God begins to do a work in my own heart. And what happens is, And I'm sure you've experienced this. All of a sudden you find yourself praying. All of a sudden you find yourself in worship. That's what the Word does. That's what the Holy Spirit leads us to. Look at David's in Psalm 119. You know, Psalm 119 is all about the word of God. And I just thought, you know, I'm just gonna go through there. I'm sure I didn't catch all of them. I just wanna go through there and see how the word and the meditation on the word stirred him to worship. So Psalm 119 verse 38, establish your word to your servant as that which produces reverence for you, that which produces awe, that which produces fear, that which produces worship. Verse 48, and I shall lift up my hands to your commandments, which I love, and I will meditate on your statutes. Worship. 62. At midnight, I shall rise to give thanks to you. Why? Because of your righteous ordinances. Verse 92. If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. And even in my affliction, it became my delight. Your word became my delight, moved me to worship, brought me through the affliction. So, verse 143. Trouble and anguish have come upon me, yet your commandments are my delight. Even in the midst of trouble and anguish, your word becomes my delight. 151, you are near, O Lord, and all your commandments are true. He's near to us when we come to worship. He draws near, he draws nigh. And all his commandments are truth. 161 and 62, he says, Wow. 164, seven times a day I praise you because of your righteous ordinances. 171 and 72, let my lips utter praise for you teach me your statutes. Let my tongue sing of your word for all of your commandments are righteous. 175, let my soul live that it may praise you and let your ordinances help me to do that. Nehemiah will probably be in this passage. I don't know yet for sure, but when we're talking about one of the elements of worship, which is the preaching of the word, we'll probably refer to Nehemiah chapter eight. I want you to turn there, Nehemiah chapter eight, verse five. We went through Haggai, they rebuilt the temple, right? Nehemiah comes to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. And now they're gathering. And the book is brought out. And Ezra's standing behind a wooden podium above the crowd. Much like this. And Ezra opened the book, verse 5, in the sight of all the people, for he was standing above all the people. And when he opened it, all the people stood up. That's why we stand when we read the scripture. That when he opened the book, the people just stood up in reverence to the book. This is the truth. This is the word of God. And then notice, then Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered, amen, amen, while lifting up their hands. Then they bowed down low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. It moved them to worship. Just the opening. the truth, the word of God. When the early church gathered and all the people were coming and the services of that day, they were continually devoting themselves to what? To the apostles' teaching, to doctrine. That's why it's so important that if you go to a church or desire to become a member of the church, you need to know what they believe. You need to know their doctrine. You need to meet with a pastor and see, do they really believe their doctrine? Do they really have solid doctrine? The apostles' teaching, they devoted themselves to it. And they devoted themselves not only to the teaching, the doctrine, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer, all elements of worship. You notice anything that's missing there? In all of these that we've looked at, anything missing? Music. Where's the music? You mean you can worship without music? I mean, in many churches today, music's the main thing. In fact, even on our Christian radio station, they call this is their worship Sunday. You know, Sunday's their time of worship, but it's all music, as if music is it for worship. Now, no offense to the Bjorklunds who love music. I'm not saying that music isn't important. Because we're gonna see that music is a part of what God has ordained for worship. But it's not the main thing. No, it's just a small portion of it. The scriptures must guide us. The scriptures must lead us and move us into worship through the help of the Holy Spirit. that they must regulate what we do. God must be the one who determines what we do for worship. If worship was left up to us, we would fashion it into something like Exodus 32. We would fashion it into something, because of our sinfulness and our passions and our desires, We will eventually turn our worship into worship of ourselves instead of worshiping God. We would eventually set up our worship to be that of something that is bigger and better, a bigger, better version of us. A little bit better than a molten calf. But God is not a bigger, better version of you and I. He's not. God is holy and other. There's none like Him. And He spells out what worship is. He spells out what it is to look like. And He's given us that in His Scriptures. And so if we cannot find evidence of the way we worship in the Bible, And so we do something and we can't find evidence of that in the Bible, then we are obviously worshiping wrong and God will reject it. So therefore it needs to change. And how does it change? How does it change? I think he's telling us. We must have Bible-filled services. Must be saturated with the scripture. That when we gather to worship, that we must preach the Word. We must read the Word. We must pray the Word. We must sing the Word. We must give according to the Word. Celebrate baptism and communion by the Word. that the Word leads and guides and directs everything we do. Because everything we do must be according to His Word, led by the Holy Spirit who inspired this very Word. That's what will move us into worship. Into worship of the true triune God, Father, Son, and Spirit. Genuine worship will flow out of a heartfelt response from the word. It's a heartfelt response from the depths of our spirit to the truth that God has revealed to us. And as that truth is revealed to us and we understand it, it moves in our hearts and it wells up into worship. To worship in spirit and truth. We need to understand that the spirit's subjective, truth is objective. and the two must come together in order to truly worship. I think there's a passage of scripture that clearly shows that. In closing, let's look at Colossians chapter three. Colossians three, verse 16. Paul says, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you. That is, to take up residence in abundance. The word of Christ, this would take up residence in your life in abundance. That means I'm doing it more than just a Sunday morning. That means I'm doing it every day of the week. That it would become welling up within me, an abundance and dwelling within me. And then what does that do? with all wisdom, meaning with all wisdom and understanding that is given to us by the Spirit, so that we can teach and admonish, first of all, truth. All scriptures are inspired by God, right? And profitable for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness. That the man of God might be adequately equipped for every good work, which is worship. And as we teach and admonish, it moves us with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in our hearts to God. That's what happens when we worship in truth. Scripture regulates and guides our emotions, guides our enthusiasm, guides our singing, guides every element of our worship, so that all of it is worship, our praise, our song, Our prayers, our giving, our communion, our baptisms, our fellowship, our living is always based on God's revealed truth. And so as we are committed to the word of God and we understand him through his revelation of himself in his word, then it moves us to worship. And this is what it is to worship in spirit and truth. And those are the type of worshipers the Father seeks, is those who will worship in spirit and truth. May that be us.