So it all begins then with the resident Holy Spirit, thoughts centered on God, which come out of prayer and Bible study and discovery. And out of that discovery comes meditation, and out of that meditation worship. And may I make it very simple, no discovery, no meditation, no meditation, no worship. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Sober faces in the pews, centuries-old hymns from the choir loft, a sermon from the pulpit that's more Bible than storytelling, and that same routine week after week. Does that sound like a church service you'd want to attend on a regular basis? Where's the joy, the energy, the worshiping in the Spirit as Scripture commands?
Well, it could be that there are plenty of people worshiping in the Spirit in that very church. Today on Grace to You, John MacArthur looks at some of the myths surrounding worship in the Spirit, and John identifies the sort of things that stifle worship. It's all part of John's classic study called true worship.
So follow along now as John begins the lesson. The Gospel of John, chapter 4, and our text, verses 20 through 24. Jesus here is in conversation with the woman of Samaria, the woman that He met at the well, and in the middle of their conversation, the matter of worship comes up, so she speaks in verse 20. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jesus saith unto her woman, believe me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews, but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. In verse 23 and 24, it says we must worship the Father in Spirit. Now if Jesus says we need to do this, then we need to do it.
And if we're going to do it, we need to know what it means. How do you worship the Lord in Spirit? First of all, you must possess the Holy Spirit. You must possess the Holy Spirit. Look at your heart. If you have trouble worshipping, maybe you're not saved.
I mean, maybe the reason you get bored in church and maybe the reason you're ready to leave in a half an hour, maybe the reason you just soon miss church altogether is because you just can't get into the thing and the reason you can't get into it is because the Holy Spirit isn't in you prompting your heart. It's a fair question, isn't it? And you need to ask it of yourself.
Let's go to a second one. The second principle, and I think this is so important, is that thoughts must be centered on God. Thoughts must be centered on God.
That's very simple, but it's a very profound thing. Worship is an overflow of a mind renewed by the truth of God. Contemplating God is the trigger that sets off worship.
It's the motor that turns the flywheel that energizes the emotion. You must be thinking thoughts of God. Now, I can translate that into a very familiar word, and that's the word meditation. True worship comes forth out of meditation. Meditation. Now, forget everything you ever heard from the world about meditation, transcendental or any other kind. Let me tell you what meditation means.
You ready for this? Focusing your whole mind on one subject. That's basically it. Focusing your whole mind on one subject.
That's a MacArthur definition, but I think it works. To meditate is to focus your whole mind on one subject. Now, if you find that hard, it's fairly normal. It's hard to do that, isn't it? Boy, we live in a distracted world. A distracted world. You know, we have today, just because of our exposure to media and everything, more stuff in our brain than I think any civilization ever had. I mean, we are exposed to so much stuff that the thing is so cluttered up that our attention span is very limited.
Very limited. But to meditate is to concentrate your whole mind on one subject. And let me tell you something. That is the key to effective worship.
Without question. Your reason, your imagination, your emotion, are all concentrating on one reality. If we go back from that one step, maybe you'll get even a deeper insight.
Are you ready? Meditation is based on information. If you're going to be thinking on one subject, you've got to have a subject to think on, right?
That seems basic to me. You've got to have something to think on. So listen, I'm going to give you a word, and it's a word you ought to write down somewhere, right in the front of your mind so you never forget it. The best, the purest, the truest, the most wonderful and blessed meditation is based on discovery. Discovery.
Discovery. In other words, you discover a great truth about God. And then you begin to meditate on that truth until it captivates every element of your whole thinking process. And what it does is begin to build into you this worship. And when somebody gives you an opportunity and you gather with God's redeemed saints and they pry your lips open, it just comes out. But it doesn't come out if it isn't in there when you arrive or when you begin to seek to worship.
So we can go back a step before that. Worship is a response to meditation. Meditation is based on discovery.
And discovery is based upon, you ready for this? Time spent with God. Time spent with God in prayer and in the Word. In prayer and in the Word.
Feeding, feeding, feeding. Sadly, we see prayer as a way to get things. And we have long ago, I think, lost its communion element of just living in the consciousness of God's wonderful presence and communing with Him there. You see, Jesus chided His disciples.
He attacked His disciples this way. He said, You have eyes, but you do not see. And you have ears, but you do not hear. In other words, your thinking is so shallow that you're dull. I mean, if you come here and are bored, may I suggest to you that that is not a commentary on the sermon or the music.
That's a commentary on your heart. For you just to pick up the truths about God that come through and meditate on them should be the most exhilarating time of your life. You see how far we are from that?
That hits us right out of left field like something we never thought of. Now, we want to do all we can to present the Word of God in a way that is meaningful. I mean, the worst sacrilege you can do is bore people with the Bible. If you're going to do that, then don't teach the Bible.
Teach Mother Goose and bore them with that. But don't bore them with the Bible. That's a sacrilege. It's amazing how many people can do that. How many teachers and preachers can bore people with the Bible?
What a horrible thing to do to the Bible. It's the most fabulous thing in the world. I mean, I get excited about it, as you well know. I don't understand how people can prevent themselves from having that excitement. But the excitement comes to me in the process of discovery.
Discovery. And when I go to the Word of God and I spend time talking to the Lord and I open my heart to Him and I start to look at a passage and look deeper and show me, Lord, what you want me to see and go into there and you begin to meditate and you begin to think about that, and all of a sudden you discover some tremendous truth that saturates your mind and out of that comes the overflowing of joy and praise to God. Spurgeon says, Why is it that some people are often in a place of worship and yet they're not holy? It is because they neglect their closets. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it. They would have the corn, but they will not go forth into the field to gather it.
The fruit hangs on the tree, but they will not pluck it. And the water flows at their feet, but they'll not stoop to drink it. You see, we've been rooted and grounded in Christ, but how deep our roots grow and how beautiful our fruit appears has to do with how we meditate in the process of discovery of God's wonderful truth.
That's the joy. It's hard for us to meditate, isn't it? You know, one of the things you learn as a preacher is that people don't listen to everything you say. They tune in and out. Some of you just came back.
Welcome. I mean, you know, you're redecorating your living room or walking through the aisles at May Company, seeing what you want to wear, or you're figuring out how to make that big business deal next week, or you're thinking about the trip you're going to take, or you're fishing somewhere, playing golf, or you're just doing all kinds of things in your imagination, and every once in a while something hits you. Either your wife pokes you in the ribs or something comes out that startles you, or you sort of tune back in, or maybe I've said something that's tracked you onto a thought, and the Holy Spirit sort of chased you down a little thought, and you're thinking that thing, and then all of a sudden you come back and you plug in again. That's why I repeat myself because I have to keep you up to speed.
I just keep welcoming people back in the whole time I'm speaking. See, it's very difficult for us to meditate. It's very difficult for us to isolate our minds on a subject, and it's a discipline.
You have to train yourself to be able to do that. And I think about these that learn how to sit in the middle of a teeming mass of humanity in India and contemplate their navel for days at a time in an undistracted fashion, and I wonder why Christians can't think on God without being distracted. So it all begins then with the resident Holy Spirit, thoughts centered on God, which come out of prayer and Bible study and discovery, and out of that discovery comes meditation, and out of that meditation worship, and may I make it very simple, no discovery, no meditation, no meditation, no worship. And if you come here with a heart filled with discovery and you've got it in your own study or you've learned it from somebody and you've meditated and you've made it your own, you're going to find that when your mouth is pried open it'll gush with praise. Now there's one other principle. You start with the Holy Spirit in your life, your thoughts centered on God, and then you must learn to have an undivided heart, an undistracted heart. Psalm 86, I want to take a moment to have you look at Psalm 86.
It's just a beautiful insight into a principle. In verse 5, David begins to worship God, and he says in Psalm 86, 5, for Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive. And that's so good because it doesn't mean He'll just forgive. It means He's eager to do it.
It's not reluctant, but eager. You're ready to forgive, plenteous in mercy. He doesn't just have mercy. He's got plenty of it. He's really just extolling the virtues of God for all who call upon Your name.
You're good. You not only forgive, you're eager to forgive. You not only have mercy, you have plenty, and you've got it for everybody. So Lord, would You listen to me? Verse 6, give ear to my prayer, attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I'll call upon Thee, for Thou wilt answer me.
He says, I know you'll hear me. Among the gods there's none like unto Thee, O Lord, neither are there any works like Thy works. And there you have the heart of worship, glorifying God for who He is and what He has done, for who He is and what He's done.
Oh, there's no one like You, and no one has ever done anything like You've done. All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord, and shall glorify Thy name. For Thou art great and doest wondrous things, Thou art God alone. Now David's into a definite worship expression here, pouring out his heart to God.
He's just extolling the wonders and the virtues of God. And we all can identify with that. We want to do that.
We long to do that. But David faces a problem in his humanness that we face too, and it comes in verse 11. First of all, he says, Lord, I have a basic problem. My worship is hindered because I am lacking the truth. So teach me Thy way, O Lord. I will walk in Thy truth. You see, the missing ingredient David says is, I want to discover, and I want to... the thrill of discovery, and I want to know what Your Word is saying, and I want to see You.
And sometimes discovery isn't discovering something you never knew before, it's discovering something you knew before and forgot, or it's discovering something you knew before and remembered but never saw with the same clarity. But he's saying, I want to know Your way and I want to understand it, but I'm ignorant and You have to teach me. And so I would just suggest to you that when you find it difficult to worship, when you find it difficult to meditate in the Word of God, to go through the process of discovery and let God open His Word to touch your life and your heart and bring out praise, you need to stop and ask the Holy Spirit to be your teacher. Because we all have that problem. I get distracted just like anybody else. And I struggle.
Sometimes I say, I look at a passage again and again, I say, Lord, I'm over and over and over this thing and I still... it's not coming through. Teach me. And that's why you can claim the promise of 1 John that we have an anointing from God and the Holy Spirit who teaches us all things so that we don't need to depend on human wisdom, right?
Because He's our teacher. That's what Jesus said when He said He's going to send His Spirit who would teach you all things in John's gospel. What a promise. The resident Spirit is there. And so David says, teach me the truth, Lord. Let me see it.
Let me discover it. Let me meditate on it. And so the first problem you have in worship is you've got to know the truth and we'll get into that more next time. And in order to be able to see that, you depend on the Holy Spirit. I know you've said, well, you know, I'm going to go to the Bible.
Boy, I'm going to start my Bible study and all of us have made those commitments, right? I'm going to get into the Word. And you read a little bit and you say, this isn't very exciting. I mean, I'm trying to discover but I'm not discovering anything except that I don't understand this. It doesn't seem to hit me.
I better get a book or a taper and people will often say to me, you know, when you do it, it's so exciting. Well, it can be that way for you. The Word of God can touch your life too. You may not have all of the tools that I do and I hope there's a place for me in the kingdom somewhere that I can fill a need in that regard. But you can discover the truth of God because the Spirit will be your teacher if you'll ask Him. There's a second thing in verse 11.
And this is the thing I want you to really see. At the end of verse 11, He says, I have another problem. I need you to unite my heart to fear thy name.
Now, fear thy name would be a euphemism for worship. I want to worship you, but I need you to unite my heart. Now, what is the opposite of a united heart? Very simply, what is it? Divided heart. The first problem you have in worship is you don't know the truth.
You're not, you can't discover it. You don't have the thing you need to meditate on. So Holy Spirit, teach me the truth. The second problem in worship is you're distracted, right?
And you tend to have a divided heart. And you maybe sit down some time and you know when you say, I'm going to pray. I'm going to just spend time with the Lord. And you sit down and you're just, you prayed for about a minute. And stuff floods your mind. Junk, you know, where's Alice? It's after so and so time. She's supposed to have delivered the, and you know, and the kids come blasting in the door at the moment of your greatest discovery and interrupt your meditation.
And then we just are, it's so difficult for us to concentrate. And so David knew that. I mean, after all, he was a king. And wouldn't you think a king had a little responsibility? I mean, he had a few things to worry about. And he worried about them. And they weren't only the things going on in his kingdom.
They were a lot of the things going on in his own life that weren't right. And so he was diverted and he said, God, I need two things. I need the truth and the Spirit. I need the undivided heart to go along with the right instruction.
I want to discover and I want to be able to meditate without being distracted. That's really the heart of what our Lord is saying in John 4. We must be able to set our heart on God and on His truth. And I've asked the Holy Spirit many, many times for that same thing that David is asking for right here.
Lord, teach me, teach me, teach me. I was studying and I found a passage in Jeremiah. And I never understood the phrase there.
The phrase says, in effect, Moab has not been poured from vessel to vessel. And I thought, what in the world is that? So I started to try to find out what that meant. And I did. And I got so blessed.
But that was discovery for me. And I went home out of my car. All I could think about going home was that great truth.
Oh, what a great truth that I've discovered. I began to meditate on it and my heart became filled with praise. I don't know how you do, but I find myself singing when I do that. I turn the radio off and sing in the car.
I don't try to move my lips too much because people think I'm, you know, arguing with my wife when she isn't there so I can win, you know. But I really believe that discovery is the key and it demands time with God, time with God, communion with Him in His Word and in prayer, and then the wonderful joy of an undivided heart. I want to close with a thought. There will be a hindrance to this when you try to focus your spirit on worship. In fact, somebody said to me, you've covered the importance of worship, the source of worship, the sphere of worship, the nature of worship, and all this stuff.
Have you thought about doing the hindrances to worship and list all the hindrances to worship? I thought, boy, that would be great. So I sat down. I got my pencil and my piece of paper. And I thought, and I thought.
I got them. And I wrote down one word, self. And then I began to think, now, what would be number two? I couldn't think of anything.
And I sat there for a long time and never thought of anything else. There's only one hindrance to worship. That's when you get in front of God. That's all.
I mean, it could come in all kinds of packages. But what hinders your worship is when you get in front of God. You see, when you have got to do what you want to do to fulfill your desires and that's why you don't have time for discovery or time for prayer or time for meditation or time for worship. And you can't really have an undivided heart because you are always thinking about your projects and your activities and your needs. You see, it's always self, isn't it? You see, there's only two. You're only dealing with two things. You're either dealing with God or you.
That's all. And you can't really free yourself up to worship God until you can kill yourself, slay yourself. You just have to get rid of self in the process and be lost in worshiping God. Self is always in the way. And I think maybe the biggest problem that we have with our self is that so very often we who are committed to the right things, it really comes down to the fact that we just are too lazy to make the effort. We're so self-indulgent at our ease that we won't expend ourselves to dig deep, to scoop up the water as Spurgeon said, to pluck the grain.
And that's why we lose. One of the great experiences of my brief life has been to read Steven Charnock's book called The Existence and Attributes of God. It's a book of about 700 or 800 pages.
It takes your whole lifetime to digest it. All it is is all of his thoughts about God, rich, profound insights. And at one point he says in that book, to pretend homage to God and intend only the advantage to myself is rather to mock God than to worship Him. When we believe we ought to be satisfied rather than God glorified, we set God below ourselves and imagine that He should submit His own honor to our advantage.
End quote. And that's the hindrance to worship. You set yourself and your needs and your advantages and your blessings and whatever above God. Beloved, let's be free to come and worship God. And when we come together in the assembly of His redeemed people and our mouths are open, may the gushing of praise come out because of the meditation and the discovery so that our inner spirit offers worship to Him.
Let's pray. We've faced some practical thoughts in our Lord, and we know that You never reveal us Your Word to keep at arm's length or to muse about or to contemplate, but always to act upon. And so we pray, Lord, that approaching this from a practical viewpoint might help us to refresh the commitment to find ourselves in the closet, the closet of prayer and study, the closet of meditation and discovery, that the praise might rush from our filled lives boiling over, bubbling up, that the Lord's Day fellowship may be only the bursting forth of all that is there. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, showing you some practical steps you can take to cultivate complete devotion to God with an undivided heart of worship.
John's current series here on Grace To You is titled True Worship. Well, friend, to have that undivided heart of worship that John talked about today, that's particularly hard today because of technology. It's probably easier than ever to get distracted and to stay that way. And that said, John, what are some practical ways believers can make sure they stay focused and undistracted when they're worshiping?
Really practical? Turn off your phone. Turn off your iPad. Yeah, you've got to divorce yourself from those things that are the distraction. I think that's a starting point.
If you're going to study the Word of God, you're going to read the Word of God, you want to spend some time in prayer and worship, put your phone somewhere or turn it off so it can't disturb you. And that's just sort of an obvious beginning point. But I think there's another way that you have to approach this. I think the Scripture has to be for you more attractive than the junk in the world.
And I think that is the problem. We have so-called Christians who have trouble concentrating on worship, prayer, the study of the Word of God, because they have more interest in the junk that's available to them on their electronic media. You ought to do an inventory of honesty in your heart. Which would you rather do, spend a half an hour reading the Word of God and praying or spend a half an hour watching video or video games on your phone? The answer to that question is going to be very defining in terms of the priorities of your life. We've been talking about a book called Worship, and the subtitle of it is The Ultimate Priority. If worship is your ultimate priority, as God says it must be, then you're going to choose that over any other worldly attraction. Look, this is the priority for every believer. We are called to be true worshipers. And you can pretty well tell whether you're following the path of the ultimate priority in pursuing worship or whether you would rather be attracted by the things that the world puts before you that are novel and seductive. It's a pretty good test for the depth of your spiritual commitment. And I want to remind you again about the book called Worship.
We've been talking about it now for a number of days. It will instruct you as to how to worship, what worship is and how the Lord expects you to worship Him. Order a copy today. Enjoy a 25% discount. By the way, a discount that applies to nearly everything we sell. But the sale ends Friday, so order soon. Yes, do order soon.
That's right. So, friend, to make sure you are worshiping God as you should, pick up John's book, simply called Worship, available now at 25% off the normal price. Contact us today. You can purchase this book at our website, GTY.org, or call us toll-free at any time, 855-GRACE. It's a great resource for your own devotions or for a small group or for someone you know who wants to better understand the priority of worship. Again, to order John's book titled Worship, log on to GTY.org or call us at 855-GRACE. And keep in mind, that 25% discount applies to nearly everything we sell, including books like The Glory of Heaven, Divine Design, Anxious for Nothing, and also our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible, as well as all 34 volumes in the MacArthur New Testament commentary series.
All of that and more is 25% off the regular price right now. Place your order at our website, GTY.org, or call us at 800-55-GRACE. That's our toll-free number.
It translates to 800-554-7223. And now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember, Grace to You television airs this Sunday on Direct TV, Channel 378, or you can check your local listings for Channel and Times. And then be here tomorrow when John looks at one of the greatest barriers to true worship and what you can do about it. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
