If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, call it what we will. It isn't worship. It isn't worship unless we come out of it with a greater commitment to obedience. As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. As we examine the aspects of God that should be the focus of your worship, you've seen where and when worship should take place and what it means to worship in spirit and in truth. And on today's broadcast, John pulls everything together by giving you four important results of worship.
He shows you what your life will look like if you're a true worshiper, and plus you'll get a handle on the required preparation for worship and the barriers that hinder your worship. So, to make sure you understand true worship, here's John with a lesson. Now, in our look at worship, we've tried, of course, not to exhaust the theme, but just to touch, as it were, the edges of it that the Spirit of God might begin to teach us. And we've looked at a definition of worship. We've talked about the importance of worship.
And we know it's important because it's God's priority. He seeks true worshippers, it says in this passage. We've talked about the source of worship, and that is salvation. We were redeemed to worship. We've talked about the object of worship, and the object is God as Spirit and as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. We've talked about the sphere of worship. We are to worship everywhere and at all times, and yet uniquely in the assembled presence of God's redeemed people. We've talked about the nature or the essence of worship. Now, the results of worship.
The results. We know where to worship because we've been commanded to do that. But all of us are result-oriented, and we naturally ask the question, if we really begin to worship, what will happen? And I believe this will happen in our lives and in our church. What are the results of worship?
And they're so simple and yet so far-reaching. Number one, God will be glorified. God will be glorified. You see, He will be glorified when He is worshiped. Psalm 50, 23, who so offereth praise glorifieth me. When we praise God, when we worship God, He is glorified. In Leviticus 10, 3, He says, I will be sanctified in them that come near Me, and before all the people I will be glorified. God wants to be set apart, and as we come to Him, He is glorified among His people. The supreme purpose of life is to glorify God, and if that's all there was, that would be enough. When we worship, beloved, when we worship God as God is to be worshiped, He is glorified.
And that's the reason we exist. That's enough, that God should be glorified. But secondly, I believe when we worship God as He desires to be worshiped, Christians are purified. Christians are purified.
There's no question about it in my mind. When you approach God to worship God, immediately you are faced with this reality, Psalm 24, that He that cometh into my presence must come with clean hands and a, what, pure heart. So that a worshiping church is a pure church.
It demands that. As we enter into God's presence, there is a recognition of our sinfulness, and there is a willingness to abandon that sinfulness. There is a consuming desire to be pure and to be clean. The closer we draw to God, the nearer we come to God, the more overwhelmed we become with our sinfulness and cry with David, Search me, O God, and know my heart.
See if there be any wicked way in me. So I believe that God is glorified in worship, and that's enough. I also believe Christians are purified. And I believe that the key to the sanctity of the church is the worship of the church. In worshiping God in the assembly of His redeemed people, as you're drawn into the presence of God by the music and by the message of the word of God and the truth that you hear, as you're drawn into His presence, there is an immediate facing of the reality of your sinfulness. That's the reason the Lord's table is so very, very important. That's the reason the early church so frequently engaged in the Lord's table, even daily.
It may be reason enough for you in your family, in your fellowship groups, to come to the Lord's table, that you might come face to face with the need to be pure. Thirdly, I believe that where true worship occurs, not only is God glorified and Christians purified, but the church is edified. The church is edified. The church is built up.
The church is transformed. You know, you read the book of Acts, and it's so marvelous that when the church was worshiping, they found favor with God. They found favor with everybody. And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. They filled the city with their doctrine. They turned the world upside down. They were winsome. They were attractive.
They were dynamic. I believe that a worshiping church is a church that's built up. And may I hasten to add this, please. By edified, I don't mean we feel better. I mean we live better. We live better.
That's the issue. We live better. The Lord purges, purifies, builds up the church. And it says in 1 Corinthians 14, 26, let everything be done to edifying. Let everything be done to build the church.
The church is built up in its worship. As you come together to worship the Lord, you become strong. You become transformed.
Let me just say this another way. Worship changes people. True worship. If worship does not change us, it has not been worship. I mean when you draw an eye into the presence of God, there must be change. You can't come back the same. Any more than Paul could when he was caught into the third heaven.
You can't. If worship does not propel us into greater obedience, call it what we will. It isn't worship. It isn't worship unless we come out of it with a greater commitment to obedience. As worship begins in holy expectancy, it ends in holy obedience. Or it isn't worship.
It can't be. It has to change us. And so the result is not only that God is glorified, Christians are purified, but the church is edified. Not better feelings, better living.
There's a fourth result. The lost are evangelized. The lost are evangelized. The profound testimony of a worshiping community has a greater impact probably than any single sermon does. Did you hear that?
It has a greater impact than any single sermon. Never forget the Jewish lady who went down to the temple down the street to get counsel. Her marriage was breaking up and they told her she hadn't paid her dues and so they couldn't counsel her until she paid up her dues. And she was very upset. She came out and happened to be on a Sunday. And she got onto the sidewalk and got caught in the crowd and wound up in Grace Church during the worship service. I baptized her a few weeks after that and she said, I don't remember anything you said. In fact, I couldn't even tell you what the sermon was about, but she says, I was absolutely in awe of the joy and the peace and the love that was going on among the people as they worshiped.
I had never seen anything to come close to that. As a result, she became a Christian, just seeing the worshiping people. The results of worship, God is glorified, Christians are purified, the church is edified, and the lost are evangelized. Now, I want to give you a test right here. And I want you to stay with it.
Don't leave me. For the next 10 minutes, this is the crux of pulling it all together. Some of you are saying to yourself, John, I understand worship now. I understand the importance of it. God seeks worshippers. I understand the source of it, my salvation. I understand the object is God. I understand the sphere is everywhere at all times, especially in the corporate assembly of the redeemed people. I understand the essence of worship.
It must be perfectly balanced between spirit and truth, the word of God and the heart. And I'm ready. And you got me slammed against the wall now. What do I do? How do I really prepare myself to worship? Are you going to get up on Sunday? What are you going to do? How are you going to prepare yourself to worship?
How can it happen? One verse can be your test. You got to write this verse in the front of your Bible in these four little points I'm going to give you and use it as a worship preparation. Hebrews 10 22. Hebrews 10 22.
To me, it is the greatest summation of preparation. The issue here, people, listen now. The issue when you come here to worship is not how well-prepared the choir is. The issue is not how well-prepared the preacher is.
The issue is how well-prepared are you to worship God. Now, begin with verse 22. It says, Let us draw near.
And you can stop there. This is a call to worship. Draw near. To whom? To God.
Come on. It's time to worship. Let's draw near.
Let's move toward God. You see, that's what I want to do, John. I understand it now. I see it. I want to draw near.
But there are some conditions. Four checkpoints. First one. With a true heart. I call that sincerity.
That's the first test. Sincerity. Are you really sincere?
Is your heart fixed? Are you worshiping with your whole heart? Are you praying with David, Unite my heart, O Lord? Are you really sincere and undivided?
Second. Draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. Now, that's what I call fidelity. You see, he's writing to the Hebrews, and they were very used to the Old Testament. They were very used to the Old Covenant. The New Covenant had come. The New Testament had come. The new revelation in Jesus Christ.
The mysteries were unfolding. And in order for them to worship God, they had to say no to the Old Covenant, right? No more ceremonies. No more sacrifices.
No more symbols, pictures, types. And the old was gone. It was set aside.
It was over. A new and better covenant had come. And they had to be willing to say, I am coming to God in full confidence of the revealed faith in the New Testament. In full assurance that it isn't a work system, it isn't a ceremony system, it is that which is revealed in the faith of the New Covenant.
You have to come fully by faith in that revealed in Jesus Christ. That's fidelity. So you worship not only with sincerity, but you worship according to the truth.
That's what fidelity means. The truth revealed in the New Testament in full assurance that it is saving truth. That you don't have to hang on to any of your own works, any of your own worthiness, any of your own self-righteousness, any of your own rituals.
You're fully assured that you can come to God simply and only through faith as revealed in the New Covenant. Thirdly, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. This is humility. You come to God knowing you have no business being there because your heart is filled with an evil conscience.
And you've got to be sprinkled from that. And it was the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross that took care of our sin. So you come to God knowing that you're unworthy and that in order to even be there, you had to have your evil heart cleansed.
That's humility. So as we worship, there's a sense of unworthiness, a sense of the cross making provision for our sin. Knowing, Lord, I have no business being here except that you washed me, you sprinkled me clean from the evil that was in me. And so to worship God, you must pass the test of sincerity.
You must pass the test of fidelity. You must come strictly and only on the terms that God's revealed in the New Covenant with none of your own goodness and none of your own worth at all. You come strictly by faith in full assurance that that's all that's needed.
Thirdly, you come knowing you have no right to be there. That's humility and you're there only because you've been washed. And fourthly, and our bodies washed with pure water. I call this one purity. Sincerity, fidelity, humility and purity.
And this is not the same as the prior one. This is that daily washing, you know? This is where before you come to worship, you've got to deal with the sin in your life. Sin confessed, sin purged. Yes, your heart has been cleansed at the cross, but your feet picked up the dust of the world, didn't they?
And there must be a confessing of sin. Every time you worship, beloved, I suggest that this is the test you have to go through. Am I sincere? Is my heart fixed? Is my whole heart devoted to God?
Am I focusing on Him? Am I seeing Him in the Word and discovery and meditation so that my hungering desire in totality is to draw nigh unto Him? Am I assured that I can come simply and only on faith and have the full assurance that it is sufficient as revealed in the New Covenant? That we are saved by faith and we have a new and living way by faith? And am I coming knowing that I have no reason to be there except for Christ coming in humility? And am I coming in purity having dealt with any sin in my life?
I dare say that if you would just take an extra little time in the morning on the Lord's day and open your Bible to that verse and just check your way through, you would do more to prepare your heart for worship than any other thing I know. And then you can come unto me, he says, by the new and living way through Jesus Christ. Are you sincere? Are you committed to the truth of the New Covenant? Are you placing all of your right to access on the finished work of Christ? And are you pure having dealt with the sin in your life? If you are, you can say, let us draw nigh unto God and he will what?
Draw nigh unto us. Now all this will work in your life. All this will change your life.
I believe that. Unless you're hindered. And I want to close with this and listen very carefully. Some of you have been coming to church for years but you've never really drawn nigh unto God. You don't have the sense of the nearness of God. Even in your life, in your own private devotion and prayer and so forth, you don't have it. And it may be that there are some things you need to do to prepare your heart for worship.
There are all kinds of worship modes. But I'm going to suggest three barriers that will prevent this from working in your life and this is where I'm going to finish. And I want you to listen very carefully. You've got to start somewhere and you can't just walk in here and open your mouth and let the praise pour out. If you've got some things in your life you haven't dealt with. The first one is what I'll call the worship of repentance. The worship of repentance. If there is sin in your life that's not been dealt with, you've got to deal with it.
And you've got to accept the responsibility for it and confess it. In 2 Samuel chapter 12, we find David. David had sinned a great sin. Oh, what a great sin. He'd sinned with Bathsheba, committed adultery, and then had her husband murdered. And then David, who had sinned so greatly against God, saw the little child born of that union dying. And he knew God was punishing him.
And this is what he said. This is what the Scripture says. David arose from the earth, washed, anointed himself, changed his clothes, came into the house of the Lord, and worshiped. You know what that is? That is the worship of repentance.
You say, what do you mean by that? I mean that here he was in the midst of the saddest tragic situation, the loss of his little baby son. And yet he worshiped God because he knew he was receiving what he deserved. In the midst of his chastening, he worshiped. In repentance, the soul says, I have sinned, and I deserve these calamities. I have erred against the truth, and I have most of all sinned against God. The worship of repentance means that right in the midst of chastening, you pour out your heart to God, and you confess your sin, and you say, I'm getting what I deserve. Some of you can't get to the praise part because you've never dealt with your sin, you've never poured out your heart in repentance to God.
You may even be angry or bitter over some of the things that you've been chastened by. It's going to have to start, for some of you, with the worship of repentance over your sin. David did. It says he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. He could worship God even while God was smiting him. So committed was he to worship.
Secondly, I call this the worship of acceptance, the worship of acceptance. In the familiar words of Job, when Job heard the news that everything he loved was gone, his possessions, his animals, his children, all gone. You know what the Bible says? Job arose, rent his clothes, shaved his head, fell down on the ground, and listen to this, and worshiped. Did you think he might have cursed God? He just lost everything, all of his children, all of his crops, his animals, everything. And he worshiped.
I call that the worship of acceptance. He hadn't sinned like David. God was just doing this for his own purposes.
And Job said, look, naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord had taken away, what? Blessed be the name of the Lord. That is the worship of an unquestioning acceptance. And some of you people have never been able to worship God because you're still unable to accept some circumstances God has brought into your life, and they've made you bitter, and you can't worship. And until you get to the point of acceptance, you're never going to be able to worship God.
You see, George Mueller put it this way. He said, there came a day when I died. I died to the praise and the criticism of men. I died to everything but the will of God.
And may I suggest that that was the day he began to live? Job said, he knoweth the way that I take, and when he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. It's the worship of acceptance, to be willing to accept your circumstances, to be willing to accept your place in life, your job, your career, your partner, your children, your whole circumstance, and say, God, you knew all of this, the loss of your loved one, the loss of your child, the loss of your job, the pain of illness, and say, I can worship you in the midst of it all. You see, sin will hold you from worship, and so will bitterness, and an inability to accept what God has brought. And keep in mind that when God does bring those things into your life, He has a purpose, doesn't He? And then lastly, the worship of devotion or commitment. And it just hits me that in Genesis 22, Abraham went up to Mount Moriah and he had Isaac.
And this is so amazing. God has said, you go up there and you slay Isaac. You kill him as an offering. You know what it says in Genesis 22? Abraham came to the place that the Lord had spoken to him of, and Abraham said to his young men, the ones traveling with him, Abide ye here with the ass, I and the lad will go yonder and we will worship. Incredible. To me, that's incredible. The fact that he could see that as worship to God when it was going to take the life of his own son? You see, that's devoting yourself to worship no matter what the cost is, you see? I mean, seeing beyond the pain, seeing beyond the difficulty, some people can't worship God because they can't bother to get out of bed. How far is that from being willing to stick a knife in the chest of your own beloved son and calling it worship if that's what God said? Let's go, He says, in worship. He didn't use the word sacrifice.
Why? He saw past that. He saw beyond that. He saw beyond the giving and the offering. He saw beyond the price and the cost to the worship. Some people, as I say, can't be free to worship because they got to start with the worship of repentance or the worship of acceptance or the worship of devotion, and they're not willing to deal with their sin, they're not willing to deal with their circumstances, and they're not willing to pay the price.
But may I suggest to you that if you worship, you'll receive the promise of God that through your life He'll pour His awesomeness. I close with this. A.W. Tozer asked an interesting question. He said this, Are we losing our O? Are we losing our O? When the heart on its knees moves into the awesome presence and hears with fear and wonder things not lawful to utter, the mind falls flat and words previously its faithful servants become weak and totally incapable of telling what the heart hears and sees. In that awful moment, the worshiper can only cry, O, are we losing our O?
I pray not. Father, thank You for our time this morning. We pray that You will meet us at our need, make us true worshipers.
For Christ's sake, amen. John MacArthur That's John MacArthur helping you identify what you're doing right and maybe some areas where you could improve in your worship. Practical goals of this series that John calls true worship.
Along with teaching on grace to you, John's also chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary here in Southern California. And John, as you wrap up this study on worship, is there one common misunderstanding about worship that you're hoping you've helped our listeners identify and avoid in their own lives? If you asked me for one common misunderstanding about worship, it's probably that people think worship is some kind of an experience.
In other words, it's some kind of emotional experience tied to music and maybe staging because that's what's being thrown at people in the contemporary evangelical movement. But worship is really the contemplation of and expression of all that is true about God. And if you don't know all that is true about God, who He is, what He's done, and what He commands, you can't worship Him in the way that He desires to be worshiped. We are to worship in spirit, yes, with every faculty that we have, but in truth. If you have nothing but the spirit and the emotion minus the truth, that's not worship. If you have the truth without the expression, without the joyful expression of all your faculties in glorifying God for who He is, that's not worship either.
It's the combination of knowing God, knowing Him through the revelation of His word, and giving Him glory for who He is, what He has done, and the delight of obeying His commands and seeing Him fulfill His promises. We've been talking about the book on worship, still have some. We would encourage you, get in touch with grace to you today, because for one thing, tonight ends the 25% discount sale. And if you want to get a copy of Worship at the discounted price, you need to order it today. And there are many other things, including the CDs that are this series.
If you don't want CDs, you can also download the series on MP3, downloads from GTY.org. Remember now, get a copy of the book on worship and use it with family and friends. That's right, friend, glorifying and worshipping the Lord is what you and I were created to do.
And when we do it biblically, it brings joy to our Savior and blessing to us. Make sure you're growing in this all-important aspect of Christian living. To pick up John's book on worship, get in touch with us today. The toll-free number here, 855-GRACE, or place your order at the website GTY.org. Again, to order your copy of Worship at 25% off the normal price, call us toll-free at 855-GRACE, or log on to GTY.org. With our current sale prices, this is an ideal time to fill your library with sound biblical resources, or to bless those you love with spiritually encouraging gifts. You can get our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible, as well as books by John, including the trio of books on biblical characters, 12 ordinary men, 12 extraordinary women, and 12 unlikely heroes, all for 25% off the regular price. You can shop online at GTY.org, or you can call our customer service staff at 800-55-GRACE. And remember, the sale ends tonight, so order soon. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to watch Grace to You television this weekend with your family. You can go to our website to see if it airs in your area. And join us next week when John looks at why your church, and every church, should faithfully preach God's Word. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Monday's Grace to You.
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