True Worship, Part 1 B

What does God want out of a believer? He wants acceptable, spiritual worship and it begins with a presentation of the body as a living sacrifice. The body here is all of us. It is that body containing that true self. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Where and when do you worship God? Does it happen primarily at church and only when the music is playing?

Is it an emotional experience, a rush of spiritual thoughts, a sense of closeness to God that's hard to predict and to sustain? To find out when and where true worship can happen and what it should look like, stay here today on Grace to You as John MacArthur continues his study titled, True Worship. And now with the lesson, here's John. The importance of worship. I want you to understand how important it is. And I want to lay it on your conscience so you cannot be indifferent to it without being directly in defiance of God. Now, worship is important for four reasons.

Four reasons. Reason number one, Scripture demands it. Scripture calls for it by the very volume of Scripture.

You might even use the phrase, Scripture is filled with it. Worship is important because Scripture is filled with it. Secondly, all of life is affected by it.

All of life is affected by it. Thirdly, it is the major theme of redemptive history. It is the major theme of redemptive history. And fourthly, it is commanded. It is commanded. And that's a more explicit way of saying number one.

Let's look at number one. The first reason that we say that worship is important is because Scripture speaks so frequently of it. The Word of God literally repeats hundreds and hundreds of times the emphasis on worship.

And we can pick out a few select portions. And these are simply selections out of a mass of biblical material. The entire book of the Psalms would be a good starting place. But let's go back to the 20th chapter of Exodus. And let's see when God began to lay down some standards and some principles and some guidelines, some commandments, statutes, ordinances, laws, propositions, what was it that was most important to Him? God gives the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, the priority of His desire for man's obedience, and here it starts.

God said, verse 2, Exodus 20, I am the Lord thy God who have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor serve them for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of them that hate me and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. Now the first commandment is to worship God and God alone.

That is it. In the thirty-fourth chapter of Exodus and verse 14, this is even more explicitly stated. And here it says, For thou shalt worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. Worship then is the first commandment.

That becomes for us the priority then. Now when God called out His people, He established in the midst of their life a worshiping place so that they might focus on that. Look at the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus for just a moment. And God gave them all of those instructions, you know, to build that place. Have you ever studied the instructions of the tabernacle?

Just really amazing. As they moved out of Egypt and they began to wander in the wilderness, God was calling them to worship. And so God put in the middle of the camp this tabernacle, this tent. It takes seven chapters in the Bible, 243 verses, for God to give all of the standards and all of the measurements and all of the furnishings that were to be a part of that place, 243 verses.

It's kind of interesting when you think that God gives the whole creation of the universe in just 31. God really is concerned with worship. And in giving that whole prescription for worship, the whole intent of it was that they might focus on God. And the camp of Israel was all around it and their whole life was looking in in focus on that tabernacle. In fact, when the tabernacle was completed, the glory of God came out of the sky and came right down and dwelt there. So that the people would know that the glory of God was there.

Now, in Exodus 25, 22, we read this. And there I will meet with you and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel. God gave them a worshiping place.

Worship was the priority. God met His people there. And if you read the book of Numbers in the end of the first chapter, the beginning of the second chapter, and you read how God laid out the people around the tabernacle, it's most fascinating. The Bible tells us in, I think it's Numbers 1, about 52 or 53 verse, that right outside the tabernacle, nearest to the tabernacle were the priests.

This is the campment of Israel. For all the 40 years they wandered, that the priests were the nearest. And then just beyond the priests were the Levites. Now, the priests were in charge of what? Worship. And the rest of the Levites were in charge of the service, the caring for the tabernacle. And so the priests were next to it, and then the Levites, and then on the outer ring, outside came all the 12 tribes of Israel. The whole focus of their existence was in regard to the matter of worship. That was the greatest proclamation God made in their midst.

I am to be worshiped. According to Numbers chapter 1 verse 3, a soldier was to be 20 years of age. When a young man reached the age of 20, he could serve as a soldier. In Numbers 8, 24, it tells us that a Levite could begin to serve the tabernacle and the temple when he reached the age of 25. But in Numbers 4 verse 3, it says that a priest had to be at the age of 30. A soldier at 20, a server at 25, a priest at 30.

Why? Very simple. Because worship was the priority and demanded the highest level of spiritual maturity because it was the greatest responsibility. Lots of people involved in the activity. A lot of people out there fighting the battle. Another level for those who served. The highest level for those who brought the people to worship God. You remember Isaiah chapter 6 where Isaiah says, In the year the king Isaiah died, I saw also the Lord high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple, and so forth. And do you remember that he saw above the throne of God the angels?

Seraphim. And he saw them there and it says that they had six wings, with two they covered their face, with two they covered their feet, with two they did fly. How interesting that they had four wings related to worship and two related to service. Worship is the priority. They covered their feet because it was a holy presence. They covered their faces because they couldn't look upon his holy glory.

With just two they took care of the activities. Worship is the priority. No wonder the psalmist says in Psalm 95, Oh come, let us worship and bow down. Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for He is our God.

And that just triggers your thoughts into psalm after psalm after psalm. You say, but John, that's all the Old Testament. Okay, let's go to the New Testament. Romans 12, 1 and 2, a very familiar Scripture. Paul has given 11 chapters of the marvelous gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, His redemptive purpose and plan for the world, the mercy that He has had on sinful men. And then he says in verse 1 of chapter 12, I beseech you therefore, brethren, based on these mercies of God, I beg you.

Here's what I want you to do. Based on all of the truth of the first 11 chapters, what is God going to ask? Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your...listen to this...spiritual worship.

Now listen to me very carefully. Eleven chapters of doctrine. Paul has been defining the Christian and all of his benefits. And now he says in response, what does God want? What is it that God wants from you? This is what He's done. What does He want? What He wants is spiritual worship.

See it there? That is acceptable unto Him. And that word acceptable is a very important word. It is a word of sacrifice. It is a word of worship. Anyone who ever worships any God seeks to bring to Him that which is acceptable. It is in the vein of worship. And the word appears again at the end of verse 2, the acceptable perfect will of God.

What does God want out of a believer? He wants acceptable, spiritual worship. And it begins with a presentation of the body as a living sacrifice. It begins with a presentation of the...and I think implied in the body is the whole person, a living sacrifice. Because if it...people say, well, it's just the physical body. It can't be because giving the physical body is not an act of spiritual worship. The body here is all of us.

It is that body containing that true self. Now let me say it simply. The reason God saved you and me was in order that we might truly, acceptably worship Him.

That's the point. Now let's go to another passage, 1 Peter 2, 5. 1 Peter 2, 5.

And you have a similar setting here. In chapter 1 you have the wonders of redemptive grace. You have the great statement in verse 19 of the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish, without spot. Verse 18 talks about our redemption. Verse 23 talks about our new birth being born again.

Verse 2 of chapter 2 talks about newborn babes who have tasted that the Lord is gracious. Now we have been saved is what he's saying. And as saved individuals, verse 5 says, we have become living stones making a spiritual house. We have become the living house in which God dwells. God doesn't live in a house made with hands. God doesn't live in a building made of bricks and mortar.

He lives in the living stones of His people. So we have become the house of God, a holy priesthood. And what is our call? We as holy priests are to offer up, here it comes, spiritual sacrifices. That is an act of worship acceptable to God.

And again, the term acceptable has inherent in it the concept of an offering, spiritual worship. Acceptable, true, spiritual worship is offered on the basis of God's transforming work in Christ. So you can see, and that's just a look at a brief way that worship is important. Number one, because Scripture speaks so often of it.

Number two, and I'm just going to introduce the second one. The second reason that it's important to worship is because all of life both now and forever depends on it. Worship is not an addendum to life. Worship is at the core of life. You see, the people who worship God acceptably enter into eternal life.

The people who do not worship God acceptably enter into eternal death. So worship then becomes the crux. Worship then becomes the core.

Time and eternity are determined by the nature of a person's worship. How you worship is reflective and determinative in your destiny. Now there are only two kinds of worship you can offer, really. You can either offer acceptable worship or what? Unacceptable worship.

The mass of the world offers unacceptable worship. God will not accept it. The Bible is explicit on this, and there are people today who want to tell us that ultimately everybody's going to get saved. Ultimately everybody's going to be acceptable to God. That is not true.

That is not true. The Bible does not say that. The Bible says there is acceptable worship and there is unacceptable worship. Let's talk about unacceptable worship.

There are four kinds. First, the first kind of unacceptable worship is the worship of false gods, the worship of false gods. That is unacceptable. People say, well, all those poor people over there worshiping their gods, they'll be all right in the end because they were sincere.

No, they won't. It is unacceptable to God to worship a non-god because there is no other god, and God is a jealous God, and He will not tolerate the worship of another. He says, my glory will I not give to another.

And yet the world worships false gods. Look at Romans 1, verse 21. When they knew God, speaking of the human race, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful. Now frankly, that just means they wouldn't worship Him. They wouldn't give Him glory, they wouldn't give Him praise, they wouldn't give Him thanks, they wouldn't give Him homage and adoration, they refused to worship God. And God said, that is unacceptable. So in verse 24, God gave them up to their uncleanness and their vileness and their sinfulness was unacceptable.

In fact, what happened? When they refused to worship God, it says in verse 23, they began to make images like corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. They turned to idols. Now listen, everybody worships somebody. Everybody worships somewhere. Even an atheist worships. Who does an atheist worship? Himself.

He is ultimate. Everybody worships. And when men reject God, they then very often will worship false gods. They'll concoct gods. And of course, this is that which God forbade in the first commandment, that there should be any other gods, but men do that.

And basically, there are several kinds, two kinds. The first is what you'd call material gods or earthly gods. They are not specifically thought of as deities. Men just worship the material world. I think this is wonderfully illustrated in the book of Job in verse 24 of chapter 31. And it says this, if I have made gold my hope, or have said to the fine gold, thou art my confidence. Now here's a man who worships gold. He worships money. He worships his material wealth. If I rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because mine hand had gotten much, if I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness, and my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth has kissed my hand, this also was an iniquity to be punished by the judge, for I should have denied the God who is above. If I worship what I possess, if I worship my little world, if I go around kissing my own hand, I've denied God.

But men do that. They worship the gods of their own making, the gods of the material world. And then some of them will formulate supernatural gods, deities, supposed deities. And God has said, this is unacceptable. In Deuteronomy 4.14, and the Lord commanded me at that time to teach you statutes and ordinances, says Moses, you might do them in the land which you go over to possess. God told me what to tell you. Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves. He says, now I want you to be warned about one thing. Listen to this.

Most interesting. For you saw no manner of similitude on the day the Lord spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire. Now you remember the day that God spoke out of the midst of the fire on the Mount Horeb? You saw no similitude. In other words, you saw no form for God. You saw no representation of God. You saw no image of God. None at all. Why? Because God does not ever wish to be reduced to any image.

Never. And He says when God appeared, He did not appear in any manner of similitude because He didn't want you to perceive Him in that way. Now if in your mind you think of God as an old man with a beard sitting in a chair, that's bad. Somebody said idolatry does not begin with a hammer.

It begins with the mind. And as you begin to conceive of God in improper terms, you will ultimately cause God to be made in improper terms. And the idolatry who takes his hammer and his chisel and forms a God out of wood forms the God that's in his mind to begin with. When I think of God, I do not think of Him in any image. I have no mental image of God.

People have asked me that. When you think of God, what is it you visualize? Absolutely nothing. I do not have any mental image of God whatsoever. I have no visual conception of what God is. And I say that by the grace of God, that I should not reduce God to some image. And so He says, don't allow yourselves to think of God in those terms. Verse 16, lest you corrupt and make a carved image.

And that is exactly what they did. Some image out of a male or female likeness or a beast or a winged fowl or a creeping thing or a fish. And you know, all the nations around them had these kind of gods. Did you know that the Philistines had a God that was half man, half fish?

It was a mermaid in reverse. Very typical. Don't do that. Lest you should lift up your eyes unto heaven and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars and the hosts of heaven, you should be driven to worship them.

And they did that. They worshiped the sun and the stars and the angels and He says, don't do it. So there was no place for that. In the New Testament it says that the things the Gentiles sacrificed, 1 Corinthians 10, they sacrificed unto demons. If you make those kind of gods, you're going to wind up worshiping the demons that impersonate those gods you think exist. So there is unacceptable worship to God.

And the first kind of unacceptable worship is the worship of false gods. And throughout the Old Testament, this is condemned. I just want to draw our thoughts to conclusion by having you turn to Isaiah chapter 2, verse 6. And here is Isaiah's commentary on what was happening among his people.

They had forsaken the people, the house of Jacob. They had become, verse 6 of Isaiah 2, filled with customs from the east. They had allowed the false philosophies and religions of the east to come in.

And they were involved in soothsaying like the Philistines, the mediums and consulting familiar spirits and all that. And they pleased themselves in the children of foreigners. Instead of staying isolated and pure, they had allowed all the foreigners with all their foreign gods to invade their thinking and their worship. Their land is full of silver and gold, neither is there any end of their treasures. Their land is full of horses, neither is there any end of their chariots. It isn't because they weren't blessed by God.

It isn't because they weren't prosperous. Their land is also full of idols. And they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made.

And the common man bows down and the great man humbles himself. Therefore, forgive them not. Then he warns them, he better crawl in a rock and hide in the dirt for fear of the Lord and the glory of His majesty. They were idolaters. Ezekiel 8 says they worshiped the Son. That's the people of God. The pagans, they worshiped anything they could think of. Gods proliferated everywhere.

And it's true today. Every single religion that doesn't rightly discern God worships false gods. And every materialist, every irreligious atheist agnostic who wouldn't darken the door of any religion worships some material god of his own invention, even if it is himself. It's unacceptable to God.

It damns the soul. You read in the book of Acts that marvelous statement by Paul in chapter 17 verse 29. He says, how could you possibly think that God is made of silver and stone and wood when you are from God?

You're not silver, stone and wood, are you? How could you think that your originator would be such? Don't you know like produces like?

It seems basic to philosophy. And you can read in Revelation chapter 13 about how they will worship the beast and the false prophet and later on they'll worship the great whore riding on the beast. And later on they'll worship the false economic system called Babylon.

They'll worship their economy and their money and their politics and it'll all come crashing down. So, how you worship affects your eternity. And the first unacceptable kind of worship is the worship of false gods. You're listening to John MacArthur, pastor of Grace Community Church, chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and the featured speaker here on Grace to You. His current study is looking at true worship. Well, John, you first preached this series about 40 years ago, and as I said yesterday, when I heard you teach this for the first time, it revolutionized the way I looked at worship.

You could see even then that the church was moving away from biblical worship, and so I'm wondering, in the four decades since you first preached this series, do you still see the same need? Yes, monumentally. Monumentally. It's gotten worse.

It's definitely gotten worse. Now church after church after church is trying to create an emotional experience that has little or nothing to do with worship. And if you have a sound and light show and loud, thumping, hard-driving beat that moves the emotions, and the words are almost immaterial.

They're sort of lost in the thunder of everything. That's a superficial church. That's a superficial theology. So where you have superficial theology, you have to induce kind of a false worship. Where you have sound doctrine, where you have deep theology, where you have a rich understanding of divine truth, all you have to do is give the people the opportunity to praise the Lord. Just give them a hymnal.

Give them good words, good lyrics to sing, and their praise will come from deep within. Doctrine is the foundation of all true worship. I'm going to suggest a book to you today that may be the biggest book you've ever purchased in your life. The book is titled Biblical Doctrine, a Systematic Summary of Bible Truth. It is a systematic theology.

A thousand pages, by the way. It covers everything in the work of Christ, the Holy Spirit, the fall of man, the sufficiency of Scripture, the cross, salvation, end times, the doctrine of the church, much, much more. And everything about the nature of God, sections on worship. And all the way through the book, at the end of a section, you'll find hymns to sing that are reflective of where we would worship and how we would worship in light of this great truth. This is all the doctrines of the Bible in one volume, readable, accessible, powerful, transforming.

Again, the title, Biblical Doctrine, a Systematic Summary of Bible Doctrine. You can get a copy from Grace to You, reasonably priced. You ought to have it. It'll be the resource of your life to inform your worship.

That's right. This is an important book, and there's great benefit in it. And friend, maybe you think that studying doctrine is an activity reserved for Bible scholars, but studying doctrine is all about knowing God better and worshiping Him fully. And every Christian needs that. So I encourage you to order a copy of John's book titled Biblical Doctrine when you get in touch today.

You can call our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website, gty.org. Biblical Doctrine is a great reference tool. It covers every important biblical truth and answers questions you probably have or will be asked about the Christian faith. To get a copy of Biblical Doctrine, call 800-55-GRACE, or go to our website, gty.org. And while you're online, remember you can download any of John's 3500 sermons, including the one you heard today for free. You can also download the Grace to You app. It gives you access to all of John's sermons wherever you take your smartphone. And don't forget about the Grace to You blog. Every week John and the staff write about some of the most discussed issues in the church today, and all of those resources and much, much more are available for free at gty.org.

That's our website, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for tuning in today, and join us tomorrow when John looks at the most common forms of false worship and how to avoid them. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You. .