The Distinctive Qualities of the True Christian, Part 4 A

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To you with John MacArthur, I'm your host, Phil Johnson. You hear the word worship a lot, but what does it really mean? Well, in a typical church these days, you might assume that worship happens when instruments are playing, and someone is leading the congregation in song. In short, music equals worship. So what do you think? When the Bible talks about worshiping God, is that a reference to music and singing? Does that definition miss the mark?

Maybe a little, maybe a lot. It's an important message today on Grace To You. John will show you what true worship is, and how worshiping the right way is one evidence that you're avoiding the road to nowhere.

That's the title of John's current study, and with today's lesson, here's John. May I invite you to take your Bible and turn to Philippians, chapter 3, as we return again to this wonderful portion of Scripture, verses 1 through 3. The Scripture says, Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord.

To write the same things again is no trouble to me, and it is a safeguard for you. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision, for we are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. We come in our study now finally to verse 3, that great, great definition of a Christian, as one who worships in the Spirit of God, glories in Christ Jesus, and puts no confidence in the flesh. We've been looking at this portion of Scripture from the vantage point of discerning the distinctive qualities of the true Christian. We have looked at some implicit qualities in verses 1 and 2, and finally now we come to the main point of the text, the explicit qualities in verse 3.

These are the things that identify a Christian as a true Christian. Paul says we are the true circumcision, meaning that we have a circumcision that is inward. We have a cleansing that is inward, not just outward. The false circumcision has an outward mark and you know well that the Jews thought that their outward external physical circumcision gave them special privilege with God. He says that is a false circumcision, that which is outward is meaningless. It is the circumcision that is inward that marks the true Christian.

So we are the true circumcision, not cleansed on the outside by surgery, but cleansed on the inside by the power of the Holy Spirit. So the Apostle Paul here then is contrasting in verses 2 and 3 the false with the true. I pointed out last time that that is a rather common thing in Scripture. The New Testament is very concerned to compare the false believer with the true believer. Now you might think that that is something that occupies our church and this time and my ministry and not everyone's or every time or every ministry, but that's not the case. Throughout the history of the church since the New Testament, it has been a major thrust to speak to the matter of who is a true Christian and who is not. And so I speak to you in continuity. I speak to you as one coming out of a long line of those who speak for God, pastor, teachers and spokesmen for the Word of God who must affirm to you the distinctions between a true and a false believer.

The false believer we have already considered in verse 2 and now we consider the true believer, but before we look specifically at the characteristics, let me share a little bit of background. I received a letter inviting me to write the foreword to a book. That in itself is not unusual. I receive letters like that all the time. People asking me to write a foreword to a book is not at all unusual. But what was very unusual about this request was that the book was written in 1661.

Usually when I receive a manuscript, it comes from the author and the author asks if I would be willing to write a foreword. In this case, the author is long in the presence of the Lord, over 300 years. So to receive a book written in 1661 and be asked if I would write the foreword was a unique experience. And as I proceeded to read the book, peruse it, scan its great truths, I became very excited about it. It was written by one of the Puritans by the name of Matthew Mead, M-E-A-D.

The title of it is, The Almost Christian Discovered, typically archaic Puritan language, The Almost Christian Discovered. He wrote the book because he wanted to address a very significant problem. The problem he wanted to address was the fact that there were many people who thought they were saved and weren't. There were many people who claimed to be saved and weren't. So he was addressing the problem 300 years ago that Paul was addressing nearly 2,000 years ago that we are now addressing today.

Because as I told you last time, in the New Testament where the gospel is presented, it is often followed up by instruction as to how to tell a true respondent to the gospel from a false and deceived one. I had occasion recently to receive the book with my foreword in it, and I re-read it. And I was fascinated as I went through the book, and I want to share just a couple of things with you that came out of it, more than a couple, a list.

In fact, I want to distill 120 pages into a brief few words. Matthew Mead has a long section in the book of about 120 pages in which he addresses how far a person can go and still not be a true Christian. How far a person can advance toward heaven, toward Christ, toward God, and still not truly be saved.

And these are the things he suggests. A man may have much knowledge about Christ and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may have a great and eminent gift yet be but almost a Christian.

He means by that a speaking gift, a leadership gift. A man may have a high profession of religion. He may be much in external duties of goodness and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may go far in opposing his own sin and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may hate sin and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may make great vows and promises, strong purposes and resolutions against his sin and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may maintain a strife and a combat against sin and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may be a member of the church and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may have great hopes of heaven and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may be under visible changes, altered life and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may be very zealous in matters of religion and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may be much in prayers and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may even suffer for Christ's sake and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may outwardly obey the commandments and yet be but almost a Christian. A man may perform external worship yet be but almost a Christian. And a man may have faith and yet be but almost a Christian.

Amazing list, isn't it? In fact, if you were to kind of reverse the list and read it another way, it would sound like you were describing a Christian. Someone who has the knowledge of God and Christ, someone who has great and imminent gifts, someone who professes true religion, who does duties of goodness, someone who opposes his sin, hates his sin, makes great vows and promises strong purposes and resolutions against his sin, a man who strives in combat against sin, a man who's a member of a church who has hopes of heaven, whose life has had some visible changes, who is zealous in matters of religion, who prays, who may even suffer because of his association with Christ, who outwardly seems to obey the commandments and performs external worship and believes.

You might say, well, that's got to be a Christian. Matthew Mead is right in assessing, however, that you can have all of those things and be but only almost a Christian. These are not enough. These are not enough.

Well, what does it take? What is the evidence? What is the mark of the true Christian? Well, we go from the outside to the inside when we come to verse 3. And let me just share with you these three simple statements that identify the true Christian. They have nothing to do with his outward conduct, his outward profession, his outward goodness. They have nothing to do with his church membership. They have nothing to do with his religious duties. They have nothing to do with his external professions. They have nothing to do with the fact that he might not like sin in the world.

He might not even like sin in his own life. They have to do with what is inside. They have to do with his character, with his nature, with something that no one sees but eventually that everyone sees because it works its way out.

And that's what I want to share with you. I want you to understand it very, very thoroughly, so listen carefully. Number one, a true Christian is one who worships in or by the Spirit of God. That is to say, his worship is supernatural, not natural. His worship is generated by the Spirit of God, not by his own will, his own desires, or by some ceremonies or some ritual or some liturgy or some structure or some code. He is a worshiper of God, but his worship is that which is produced from the inside by the indwelling Holy Spirit. And thus it is transcendent worship.

It reaches a plane beyond the external. The world, frankly, folks, is filled with people who worship. But their worship is not prompted by the Spirit of God dwelling in them. It is prompted by culture. It is prompted by tradition. It is prompted by guilt. It is prompted by fear. It is prompted by a desire to be accepted. It is prompted by self-righteousness.

It is prompted by a desire to be a popular person. It could be prompted by a myriad of things. It is prompted by the desire to expiate sin, to remove guilt, to solve problems, to gain blessings.

It could be prompted by many, many things. But the only true worship is that which is prompted by the Spirit of God indwelling and the only people the Spirit of God indwells are Christians, therefore they are the only ones who worship by the Spirit of God. The first then quality that marks a true Christian is worship. There is deep within the true believer a longing to glorify God, a longing to worship God, to serve God. Now let me see if I can't dissect this term worship a little bit for you so you'll get an understanding of it. The first quality then that marks a true believer is worship. We should not be surprised by that.

That is our character. Go back with me to John chapter 4, and I would just put you in touch with a passage of Scripture that really does elucidate this point as well as any in Scripture. Jesus in John 4 is confronting a Samaritan woman. She has discovered by what He has said about her life that He knows everything about her and that that knowledge was not available to Him through normal means, so He must be a man of God. He told her all about her dissolute life, all about her immorality, all the men she's lived with, and so forth. And she understood that He was speaking on a supernatural level, so in verse 19 she says, I perceive that you're a prophet. She knows that He has got some supernatural source for His information. Now that she knows He represents and speaks for God and that He's plugged into the supernatural, she wants some information herself. So she wants to know about worship.

She is a Samaritan. The Samaritans had set up worship on Mount Gerizim. They were half-breeds, half-Jew, half-Gentile. They had been rejected by the Jews who were very zealous of their racial purity, and these intermarrying half-breeds were hated and despised by the Jews. Therefore, they were not given access to the temple at Jerusalem nor to the worship that was conducted there, so they had to develop their own system of worship which they did in Samaria on Mount Gerizim. Since they also did not have the Scripture, they accepted only the Pentateuch, not the whole Old Testament.

They were limited as to what they knew. So they had developed a high-bred kind of independent worship on their own mountain according to their own rules. She then says to Jesus, she knows He's a Jew and a prophet of God, verse 20, our fathers worshiped in this mountain, Mount Gerizim. And you say that in Jerusalem, you Jews, you people, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. In other words, she's saying, what place do you worship? You're a prophet of God.

I've been confused by this. The Jews say it's Jerusalem. Our fathers say it's here. What is the right place to worship? Now that I'm being confronted by this man of God, I want to deal with my life. I want to worship God.

I want to make my life right. Which mountain do I go to? In effect, verse 21, Jesus says to her, woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father. He's simply saying that the hour is very soon to come when you will see that it is not relevant which mountain you worship in. It is not an issue of where in the sense of geography, it is an issue of spirit.

It's what's in you wherever you are, not where you are. And so what He is saying to her is that worship is a way of life. Worship is a way of life in total. He's saying, lady, the time is going to come very soon when it will be eminently clear to everyone that worship is not in a place.

And of course, it wasn't long until the destruction of Jerusalem ended worship there. And so, He is simply pointing out to her that worship is something on the inside, not at a place. And the second thing He says about worship is in verse 22. He says, you worship that which you do not know. He confronts the fact that Samaritan worship was ignorant. They only accepted the Pentateuch, therefore they were limited as to their understanding of the Old Testament and of God's revelation and therefore of God. So they had developed their own kind of hybrid worship and it had a lot of paganism mixed into it.

So He says to her two things. One, I want to make this clear. Worship is not in a place, it's in spirit. Two, worship isn't done any way you desire to concoct it, it's done according to truth. So He says in verse 22, we worship that which we know for salvation is from the Jews. In other words, God has brought revelation about salvation through the Jews. The writers of Scripture were Jews, to the Jews was given the Scripture, the oracles of God, as Paul says in Romans chapter 3 and chapter 9.

So the Jews then had the truth in Scripture. The Samaritans didn't have that, so they were worshiping in ignorance. The time was coming when no place would be the place and worship was to be in spirit and truth. Now that is the essence of worship.

It isn't where you are. There are a lot of people who go to church to worship, go to temples to worship. We got temples up and down this block, as you know. In the middle is a Jewish synagogue that is in a sense a substitute for the temple which no longer exists for Israel. On the other end, you've got a Buddhist temple where people go to worship. On this end is Grace Community Church where I'm sure there are some people who think they go there to worship. You don't go anywhere to worship, you worship as a way of life because worship is in what?

Spirit, in spirit, in heart, it's internal. All we do here is collect all of you worshipers for corporate expression. You don't have to come here to worship. You can worship anywhere you are.

I hope you do. Worship is in spirit and worship is according to revelation, according to truth, what God has revealed in this book. Not any way you want to do it. It isn't being done right anywhere else on this block, by the way, because it isn't being done according to the Word of God. A lot of people who worship in ignorance, the world is filled with them. And who worship in a place, that's not true worship. So He says in verse 23, an hour is coming and now is with My arrival, the Messiah, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth. Now notice this, for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.

Let me ask you a question. Why did God save you? To be what? A worshiper.

That's what it says. You were saved to be a worshiper. God is spirit, verse 24, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.

You see, God saved you to be a worshiper. So what is the truest thing about a Christian? A Christian is a what? A worshiper. That's exactly what Philippians 3, 3 said.

What is the true circumcision? Those who worship in the Spirit of God. And if you worship in the Spirit of God, how are you going to worship? You're going to worship in spirit and in truth. You see, you were saved to be a true worshiper. So how can you tell a true worshiper?

How can you tell a true Christian? They worship God from the inside according to the Word of God. The Word is filled with people, now mark it again, who worship in a place according to a design that is not biblical. They're not true worshipers. They are the false circumcision, not the true.

They are deceived. Now let's take the word worship for just a moment. Going back to Philippians 3, the word worship here is the word latruo. It means to minister, to serve, to worship. It's a big encompassing word.

Let me give you what I think might be the best way to define it. It means to render respectful spiritual service. Some people think worship is just saying things that praise God, singing things that praise God, thinking things that praise God. That's worship, but that's not all it is. Worship finally comes down to how you live.

It does. It finally comes down to how you live. In Hebrews it says, do good and share.

Why? For with such spiritual sacrifice, such worship, God is well pleased. You see, every part of your life is worship. The word latruo means worship, but it also means service. It isn't just ethereal. It isn't just cognitive.

It's immensely pragmatic and practical. It does mean that you render from the heart, homage, glory, honor, praise, adoration, respect to God. It does mean that you pray and extol his virtues, but it doesn't end there. It also means that you serve him. That's worship too. In fact, the priest of the Old Testament, when he led in worship, led by doing deeds of sacrifice. So this is what we've been saved to do, to worship God.

That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. The title of his current study here on Grace to You, The Road to Nowhere. John, early in the lesson you talked about the Puritan Matthew Mead and the list he came up with, the many ways a person can move toward God and still not be a Christian. And along that line, we heard from a woman who took steps toward God some time ago, but today she has doubts about those steps. So let's hear her question, and then John, back to you.

Hi, this is Toni. I came to know the Lord when I was young and was baptized. And then as I grew, looking back, there were so many times that I failed in my walk, and how could I have done some of the things that I did, yet at the same time I saw areas that I was growing. Should I go back and be baptized again, knowing that I'm who I am in Christ now? Thank you.

Toni, that's a very good question. That is very, very common. We have baptisms at Grace Community Church every Sunday night, and invariably, week in and week out, someone comes to be baptized and says, you know, I was baptized when I was a kid. I thought I was saved. Subsequently in my life, I began to doubt that.

I realized that perhaps I wasn't even a believer. I now understand myself to be a believer in Christ, and I want to be baptized as a believer. And in situations like that, I encourage those people to be baptized. I don't think you can get back to your young self and know necessarily the reality of your faith at that point. So if you have any doubts, if you have any questions about whether that was a real baptism of a true believer, I think it's wonderful to be baptized again, when you know you belong to Christ.

I wouldn't hesitate on that at all. In fact, again, we encourage people to be baptized when they know, when they're confident about being in Christ. And that's a very common thing in our church life. It isn't to say that you weren't a Christian, but it is to say there are doubts in your mind that you were a Christian because of certain behaviors in your life. Now, that doesn't mean that if you sin, you have to be re-baptized again. But if there's any doubt about your conversion and the original baptism, I think it's wonderful to be baptized again.

Thanks for that, John. And friend, if what you're learning on Grace To You is clearing up questions you have about baptism or the gospel, worshiping God, or anything else, would you let us know? Drop us a note when you have a moment. Our email address is letters at gty.org. That's letters at gty.org. And if I could make one more request, let the people at this radio station know that you tune in for Grace To You.

That would be a big encouragement to them and to us. Get this station's contact information from their website and thank them for erring grace to you and other programs that have helped you learn the Bible. Also, be sure to visit our website, gty.org, and take advantage of the thousands of resources there, including our sermon archive with more than 3,600 of John's sermons free to download, another resource to consider, John's commentary on the Philippians.

It looks in-depth at how to find true contentment and how to know joy in any circumstance and much more. The Philippians' commentary costs $19 and shipping is free. To order, go to gty.org or call 800-55-GRACE. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Watch Grace To You television this Sunday on DirecTV channel 378. And then be here when John considers the character traits that you and others should recognize in your life if you're a Christian. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Monday's Grace To You.