Faithful in Worship

Known for his unique ability to simplify profound truth so that it can be applied to everyday life, Adrian Rogers was one of the most effective preachers, respected Bible teachers, and Christian leaders of our time. Thanks for joining us for this message.

Here's Adrian Rogers. Now we have been studying with you what we are calling the six factors of faithfulness. If you would be faithful to God's family, and faithful to your faith, and faithful to your family, and faithful to the fellowship, there are six wonderful factors.

We talked about one of them, that's faithful in Bible study. Today, faithful in worship. And I pray God that God the Holy Spirit will give me the power, the spiritual unction, to take what is in my heart and mind today, and place it in your heart and in your mind.

So please, give me your heart, give me your mind, and listen today. I want you to learn today that worship is the ultimate privilege. I want you to learn today that worship is the greatest duty. I want you to learn today that worship is your deepest need.

The ultimate privilege, the greatest duty, the deepest need, is for you to learn to worship God in spirit and in truth. Now why is worship so important? Simply this, we become like what we worship. The Bible tells us that when a man makes an idol and worships that idol, he himself becomes like the idol that he worships. But the Bible tells us that when we worship the Lord Jesus Christ, and behold, in His face, as though we were looking in a mirror, and rather than seeing ourselves, we see Jesus, then we're changed into the same image from glory to glory. To put it down simply, we would be better people if we worshipped better. Now, there's a story here, I think the finest story in all of the Bible that tells about worship is here in John chapter 4.

It's about a woman who had a wasted and a ruined life, a woman who was the finished product of the devil's art, a woman who was on the trash heap of life, a woman who had unsatisfied desires, a woman who had been going from affair to affair, from marriage to marriage, trying to find satisfaction, and she never found it until she found it in biblical worship. Begin reading with me here in John chapter 4, and I'm going to read beginning in verse 3, he left Judea and departed again into Galilee. Now, the he refers to Jesus, and he must needs go through Samaria. Now, Samaria was a city where they hated the Lord Jesus and they hated the Jews, and when the Bible says he must needs go through Samaria, it wasn't geographically that he must needs go through.

As a matter of fact, it was the more dangerous and the more difficult route. He went through, I believe, to meet this woman and to tell her about himself. Then cometh he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now, Jacob's well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied with his journey, set thus on the well, and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink, for his disciples were gone away into the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, asketh drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria?

For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman said unto him, Sir, thou is nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou that living water?

Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I give him shall be in him a well of water, springing up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. Jesus saith unto her, Go call thy husband and come hither.

The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou hast now is not thy husband. In that saidest thou truly, the woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. And then she takes up the subject of worship.

Listen. She says, Our fathers worshipped 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 worshippers 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. Now, again I remind you that worship is the ultimate privilege, the greatest duty, and the deepest need. You know what is wrong in many churches in America today? They're telling us that the way to reach people is to try to get the service more man-centered and less God-centered. They're saying talk less and less about theology and talk more and more about people and their needs, and then you will have what they call a seeker-sensitive service. That is, tell people about their needs.

Tell them how to understand self-esteem and self-fulfillment, how to enjoy self-love, and that's the way to pack them in. Well, friend, let me tell you that our first responsibility is not to fill the pew, but to fill the pulpit. And we have gone from theology to me-ology in America. And Americans today want to use God rather than worship God, and much of our worship is self-centered rather than God-centered, and that's the reason that people are so miserable. Here was a woman who was a self-centered woman and a miserable woman.

Why? She had not understood true worship. Now, look at me and let me tell you this. You will never be what you were intended to be. You will never know true joy. You will never know true fulfillment. You will never understand what life is about until you learn to worship. I say that with no stutter, no stammer, no hesitation, no equivocation, no apology, without one's scintilla of a doubt when I say that you will never understand life, you will never have fulfillment, you will never have true joy until you learn to worship.

Believe me, I'm telling you the truth. That's what God created you to do. God made a fish to swim in the sea, God made a bird to fly in the air, and God made you to worship Him. You take a fish and put him in a tree, he's an unhappy fish.

You take a bird and put him under the water, he's a miserable bird. You take a man and let that man fail to worship and he will never have true fulfillment, never have true joy, for the apostle Paul said in Acts chapter 17, speaking to those Athenians who were so ignorantly worshiping, he said, don't you understand that it is the true God that you don't even know that we must worship? And then Paul said this, for in him we live and move and have our being. That is, he is our element. And just as the water is the element of a fish, just as the air is the element of a bird, God is the element of a human being. In him we live and move and have our being and until you learn to worship Him, to know Him intimately, not just know about Him, but to know Him, to love Him and fellowship Him, you'll be like a bird in the water. You'll be like a fish in a tree.

You'll be like a round peg in a square hole. Listen for your welfare and for God's glory. Pay attention to what we have to say and learn with me today the importance of worship. Now, here was a woman. You have to feel sorry for this woman. She'd been blinded by Satan. He had promised her so much and she had gone from husband to husband and from affair to affair, but her burned out life was a monument to the lies of Satan. She had become a slave of sin and now she's like a faded flower thrown away in the garbage can. She has become the dirty plaything of a dirtier man. Like so many today, we call it the new morality.

It's not new. It's very old and it's certainly not moral, led by Hollywood and these actresses that have faces like angels and morals like alley cats. This woman today, married five times, maybe today they'd give her the Academy Award. She had been blinded by Satan. She'd been broken by sorrow. She's discarded, thrown away. She's filled with emptiness, disillusionment.

She has to come out to fill her water pots even at a time when other people are not there in the middle of the day because she doesn't want to be seen. She's a social outcast and she's bound by sin. She's tried religion. She knew religion. She wanted to talk about religion, but she didn't know God. Jesus said, what you worship, you don't even know. Her religion had not worked. She's like so many today who have a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof. And to this woman blinded by Satan, this woman broken by sorrow, this woman bound by sin, Jesus taught her. Listen, what we need to learn today, the wonder of worship.

Three things. First of all, we must learn the meaning of true worship. Look in verse 22.

Look at this. Jesus said to this woman, you worship, you know not what. And there are a lot of people today who worship, but it is vain worship because they don't understand the meaning of worship. What they worship, they don't even really know. For example, there is idolatrous worship.

There's a lot of modern day idolatry. Exodus chapter 34 verse 14, for thou shalt worship nor the God, but the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God. Have you ever thought about God's name being jealous?

That's one of the names of God. Well, you say, I thought jealousy is a bad attribute. It is for you, but not for God.

Why? Because there are many humans, but only one God. No athlete can be jealous of another athlete. No singer jealous of another singer. No preacher jealous of another preacher because there are other preachers, other athletes, other singers. There is one God, one and only, and His name is jealous. God says, I will not give my glory unto another. What is an idol?

Anything you love more, fear more, enjoy more, praise more, spend more time on, serve more than you serve. Jehovah God is to you an idol, and no man can serve two masters. Some people have made a God of themselves. They call themselves a self-made man.

Douglas was debating with Lincoln. Douglas said, I'm a self-made man. Abe Lincoln said, well, I'm glad to hear you say that because it relieves the creator of a fearful responsibility, that you're a self-made man. Man says, I'm a self-made man, and then he worships his creator. He worships himself. There's idolatrous worship. There's insincere worship. Jesus said in Matthew 15, in vain do you worship me. This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, but their heart is far from me. We glibly sing, take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold, and we hold it with all of our might.

Isn't that true? We sing all to Jesus, I surrender, all to him I freely give, and then we live for self as if Jesus Christ had never lived, never died, and never risen from the dead. We sing faith of our Father's holy faith. We would be true to thee till death. And then we're ashamed to bow our head in the restaurant and thank God for the food.

True to him till death and don't even get back to prayer meeting. This people honoreth me with their mouth and with their lips, but their heart is far from me. We sing all, all that thrills my soul is Jesus. Then we find ourselves in the back alley eating tin cans with the devil's billy goats, trying to find our thrills in the things of this world. There is idolatrous worship. There's insincere worship. There is iniquitous worship. That is trying to worship God with unconfessed, unrepentant of sin in our hearts and in our lives.

I was looking at this passage in Amos chapter 5 verse 21. God says, I hate, I despise your feast days. I will not smell in your solemn assemblies. Though ye offer to me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them. Neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beast. Take away from me the noise of thy songs, for I will not hear the melody of thy vials.

That is your instruments. But let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. Do you think that you can ascend to the holy hill of God today with a double heart and filthy hands?

You can't do it. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, when you come to bring your offering to the Lord, and there remember that your brother has anything against you, leave your offering there. And first go be reconciled to your brother and then come and make your offering. If you're here today and your heart is headquartered for hate and you make your offering to God, that's vain worship.

If you're here today and there's somebody that you've wronged and you've not made it right, don't think that you can bring your money and buy God or bribe God. God says leave your gift there. He doesn't say take it with you. He says leave it. He doesn't say go spend it. He says leave it, go make it right with your brother and then come and make your offering. It's tainted money.

It taints yours. But God won't receive it until you make things right with somebody else. You see, Jesus spoke of vain worship, idolatrous worship, insincere worship, iniquitous worship is wrong. What is true worship? What is true worship? What is the meaning of worship? True worship is the adoring contemplation of God through Jesus Christ. True worship is all that I am responding to all that He is. My body, my soul, my spirit responding to God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

My mind, my emotion, my will, my whole heart lifted to Him in praise, adoration, and thanksgiving. Our English word, worship, comes from an old English combination, worth-ship. That is, our worship is because of the worth that we see in our Lord. We worship what we consider to be worthy. Revelation chapter 5 and verse 12 speaks of those in heaven worshiping, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.

May I tell you something? If you want to measure the way you value God, you'll see it in your worship. How and what a person worships is an indication of what is valuable to him. Now, if you miss the worship service easily, it's because worship is not valuable to you. If you today feel that worship is boring, what that says is something very terrible about your heart. If you have no desire to worship, it is because God is of no value to you. Many times we confuse the prayer of petition and the prayer of thanksgiving for worship.

These are elements of worship, but they are not the heart of worship. I told you before of a woman who was in an apartment building. That apartment building caught fire. The fireman came. A woman stood at the window, this woman, and called out for help to be rescued. A strong fireman, a brave fireman, went up an extension ladder, took that woman who was ready to perish in his arms, and brought her down and set her on the pavement in safety.

Everybody cheered. He was a hero. Later, she went to the firehouse and found that man and thanked him. They got acquainted, began to date, fell in love, and got married.

And I trust lived happily ever after. Now, when she was standing in that window saying, help me, help me, save me, that's like a prayer of petition. And many times we cry out to God, oh, God, help me, and thank God he does.

But we need to pray those kind of prayers. When he had delivered her and she went to the firehouse and she thanked him, that's like praise and thanksgiving. And we ought to praise God, shouldn't we? We ought to thank him that he has delivered us. But when they fell in love and got married, she not only was asking him and thanking him, she was loving him not for what he had done, but for who he was. And when she gave all that she was to all that he is, then that's akin to worship.

Worship is loving God, just loving God giving all that there is of us to all there is of him. Yes, we can say save me. Yes, we can say thank you. But, oh, do we say, my God, I love you.

You are more precious to me than silver, more costly than gold. Worship is all that I am responding to all that he is. Now, that is the meaning of worship. Let me speak to you for just a moment about the method of true worship. Jesus in this passage said in verses 21 through 23 that we must worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

Now, he said that in response to her question. She wanted to get a theological debate going as to where the true place of worship was. She said, our fathers worship in this mountain. She was in Samaria at Mount Gerizim where there was a rival altar to the altar built in Jerusalem. She said, you say that you ought to worship in Jerusalem. Now, which is the right place to worship? In Jerusalem or in Samaria? It's like some people when you go to tell them about Jesus to get them saved, they want to say, well, who's right, the Baptist or the Methodist?

She just wanted to start a kind of an argument about religion. Well, what's the right place? Who has cornered the market on worship? Where is the right place to worship?

Now, what's the significance of these two places? Well, in Samaria and Mount Gerizim, those Samaritans who worshiped there had jettisoned most of the Bible. All they had done was to accept the first five books of the Bible. We call that the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, and they didn't believe the rest of the Bible, but they had a very fervent worship. They didn't know what they were worshiping. They were worshiping in ignorance. They were ignorant worship. Now, the Jews in Jerusalem, they believed it all. They believed Moses, the prophets, the Psalms, they believed it all. And they knew how to cross every T. They knew how to dot every I, but they couldn't spell love because while they were theologically straight, they had the truth. They didn't have the Spirit of God in them. They had dead orthodoxy. Now, in Samaria, they had spirited worship, but it was ignorant worship. They were worshiping.

They didn't even know what. In Jerusalem, they said, well, we have the truth, but they didn't have the Spirit. Jesus said, the hour is coming and now is when you're not going to say there or there, but you're going to worship God out of your heart in spirit. And in truth.

One is not a substitute for the other. We must worship God in spirit and in truth. Now, what is the meaning of true worship?

Here it is. In order to worship truly, you must be regenerated by the Father. You must be regenerated by the Father. Jesus said you're to worship the Father. Now, how does God become the Father when you're born into his family?

Jesus over 70 times called God Father. God is not like a Father. God is Father.

That's God's description. He is the Father. But how does God get to be your Father?

You must be born into his family. God is not your Father merely because you're a human being. Jesus said in John chapter 8 and verse 44 to these Pharisees who worshiped at Jerusalem, you are of your Father the devil and the lust of your Father you will do. How does God get to be our Father? Well, again Jesus said in this same gospel of John, it says of him, he came unto his own and his own received him not, but as many as received him to them gave he the power to become the children of God. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life that comes unto the Father but by me. And so when the Word of God comes into your heart like a seed to impregnate you, you are born again of the Spirit. You are born into the family of God. And then because you are born into the family of God, you have the nature of God and the Spirit of God in you Christ as a Father. Now, so number one, you must be regenerated of the Father. To worship, you must worship the Father. And to worship the Father you must know the Son, the Messiah that this woman met this day.

To know the Lord Jesus Christ who is the living water, who is the water of life, who regenerates you so that you can know and worship the Father. Now, question, answer it truly. Do you know the Father? Have you been born into the family of God?

Do you have a new birth? Can you bow your head and pray it and say it and mean it? Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. You must be regenerated by the Father. Number two, you must be activated by the Spirit.

For Jesus said you must worship the Father, how? In spirit and in truth. Now, it is necessary that you be born again but you must also be Spirit-filled. The Bible says in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 18, be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. And then when you're filled with the Spirit, here's the result, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, not in Jerusalem, not in Samaria, but in your heart. You see, it is the Holy Spirit of God that energizes your worship.

Again, let me tell you this. If you have no desire to worship, you're not saved. You're not saved because you don't have the Spirit of God in you.

Well, let me put this caveat here. Let me say that you just may be saved but you're so terribly backslidden, you have no right to believe you are. I mean, God sends forth His Spirit into our hearts crying, Abba, Father, you want to praise Him.

It's one of the birthmarks of the believer. You have a desire to worship the Father. If you today think that worship is boring, incidental, unnecessary, you don't desire to worship God, you better get alone and check up and find out if you know the God of heaven. And if you do, you better say, well, I must not be Spirit-filled. Friend, when you get saved and filled with the Holy Spirit, you'll have to backslide to keep from worshiping.

I mean, you can't be silent. You want to praise Him because you will be worshiping Him in spirit and in truth. You say, well, how are you filled with the Holy Spirit?

Well, I want to ask you this question. What is the purpose and the desire of the Holy Spirit? Jesus said He will not speak of Himself. He'll take the things of mine and He'll show them to you. He will glorify me. Do you know what the office work of the Holy Spirit is?

To glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. When the desire of your heart is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ, when the one consummate burning desire is to glorify Christ, the Holy Spirit of God will fill you and flood you and enable you to do that. You must be regenerated by the Father. You must be activated by the Spirit.

Thirdly, you must be regulated by the Word. You worship the Father how? In spirit and in truth.

Now, one is not a substitute for the other. Some people just want all spirit worship. They want to come together and they want to sing and they want to praise and they want to clap their hands and they want to testify and they want to share, but they don't study the Word of God. That's the reason that when we come to worship service an integral part of our worship service is to open the Word of God and study the Word of God.

Why? Because Jesus said we're to worship in spirit and in truth. And if you worship in spirit and not in truth, you'll become a fanatic. If you worship in truth and not in spirit, you'll become a Pharisee. If you worship in spirit and in truth, you will become a worshiping Christian when you worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

Dr. Vance Havner spoke of those who are legalists and those who are fanatics. And he said, thank God, we don't have to freeze in formalism or fry in fanaticism. We can just simply worship God in spirit and in truth. So to be filled with the Holy Spirit of God is the way to worship and to be filled with the Word of God is the way to worship.

Psalm 145, verse 18, The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth. That's the reason we spoke about one of the very fundamentals and factors of faithfulness is the Word of God. That's to worship in truth. Today we're talking about worshiping in spirit.

Now let me give to you the third thing that I have to say very quickly and I'll be finished. First of all, we said we must know the meaning of true worship. Secondly, we must understand the method of worship, the method to worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Now thirdly, I want you to think about the motive for worship and how important this is. Look in verse 23. There it says, The Father seeketh such to worship him.

May I ask you a question? Did you come to church today seeking something? Did you?

If you did, I'm glad you did. But God came seeking something also. God came to this service seeking something. The Father seeketh such to worship him. See, God is a God of love. What good is it being a God of love if there's no one to love and not to be loved by anyone?

How can love express itself? That's why we're here. You say, why did God create us? You say, well, God created us to serve him. Well, angels do a better job than we can. No, God created us not primarily to serve him but to know him and to love him and your love and your worship meets a great need in the heart of God and a great need in your heart and so God seeks such to worship him for what worship will do for the heart of God and for what worship will do for you when you come into the king's chambers and to have that intimate fellowship with the Lord.

That's the great motive. Soren Kierkegaard, whose theology I don't buy completely, told a story that I completely agree with. He said in many services that people think like it's a great play and somehow the preacher on Sunday morning is the actor in this play and he's on the platform and the people sitting out there are the spectators and they're like critics to acclaim or to criticize and so they critique the music. They critique the service. They critique the sermon because they are the critics. He is the actor and they're watching him perform. But Kierkegaard said that's not the way that worship is.

If you make it analogous to a play, the people sitting out there are the actors. The preacher is the prompter behind the wings and God is the audience. You see, you don't come to church to hear a sermon primarily. You don't come to church to criticize or critique a solo. You come to church to worship God and if this music helps you to worship God, then it's fulfilled its purpose. If the preaching of the Word has encouraged you to worship God, then I fulfill my purpose. But my friend, you have come to worship. And more than that, not only did you come to worship, you brought your worship when you came because it's very hard to come to worship service on Sunday when you haven't been worshiping six days a week.

We come in here and we bring our praise into the house of the Lord. One of the most tragic stories I ever read was this. In a wealthy Boston suburb, they were having a christening party for a little baby and they invited the guests after the christening and they were all there in this wealthy, beautiful apartment. They were eating and drinking and enjoying themselves when somebody said, by the way, where is the baby? The mother's heart jumped. She ran to the back bedroom where she had put that baby in a huge, expansive bed knowing the baby could not roll off. But in the darkness, the guests had come in there and thrown their heavy winter coats on that bed. Frantically, she dug through those coats and brought out the suffocated and dead body of that little baby whose christening they'd come to celebrate, smothered beneath the coats of a guest. I have to say that's a tragic story.

I'd hate to tell you that. But I tell you, in the spiritual realm, I believe it's almost as tragic when we have assemblies and we come together theoretically to worship and give him praise and he himself is smothered under our activity. We slap backs and drink coffee and talk about ball games and come in here and do everything except give him the glory and the praise. Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the God we love and all is vain unless the Spirit of the Holy One comes down.

We are to give him praise and give him glory individually and corporately. We are a worshiping community and a factor of faithfulness is that you worship. When you miss the worship services, you're saying, God, you're not very important to me. But when you come and when you truly worship, you're saying two things. You're saying God is important to me and my brothers and sisters in his family are important to me. Let me talk to you just a moment about how to make God your Father.

You make God your Father when you repent of your sin and receive Christ as your personal Savior and you're born into his family. And you can pray right now where you are this moment and God will save you instantaneously and forever. Not only will he save you, he will keep you and he'll put his Spirit in your heart where you can worship him in spirit and in truth, which is your deepest need and your greatest privilege.

Would you pray a prayer like this if you're not certain that you're saved? Dear God, I know that you love me and I know that you want to save me. Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God. I believe you paid my sin debt with your blood on the cross. I believe God raised you from the dead.

And I believe that salvation is a gift and I receive it right now. I repent of my sin. I'm sick of my sin. I turn from my sin. I receive you as my Lord and Savior. Come into my life, take control of my life.

Begin now to make me the person you want me to be. Save me, Lord Jesus. Pray that. Save me, Lord Jesus. Save me, Jesus.

Did you ask him? Then by faith, pray this way. Thank you for saving me, Jesus.

Thank you. And Lord Jesus, you're now my Savior, my Lord, my Defender, my Redeemer, and my friend. And Jesus, because you died for me, I'll live for you.

You hung naked on a cross for me. I'll confess you openly. I'll do it, Lord. I'll make a public profession of my faith. I'll not be ashamed of you, Lord. You died for me. I'll stand up for you. In your name I pray. Amen. If you would like to learn more about how you can know Jesus or deepen your relationship with him, simply click the Discover Jesus link on our website, lwf.org. For a copy of this message or additional resources, visit our online store at lwf.org or call 1-800-274-5683. Thank you.