Welcome to Truth for Life where today we begin a series where we'll take a look at true worship.
What is it? What makes our worship acceptable to God? Alistair Begg explores this important topic and explains why a man-centered approach to the gospel is no gospel at all.
I was mentioning this yesterday, so I thought I would just use it this morning. We'll pray together and then we'll turn to the scriptures. But this is the order for morning prayer, which is to be said daily throughout the year, and begins as follows. Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moves us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, and that we should not dissemble nor cloak them before the face of Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, but confess them with a humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart to the end that we may obtain the forgiveness of the same by his infinite goodness and mercy. And although we ought at all times humbly to acknowledge our sins before God, yet ought we most chiefly so to do when we assemble and meet together to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy word, to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul. Wherefore I pray and beseech you as many as are here present to accompany me with a pure heart and humble voice unto the throne of the heavenly grace.
And then the worship leader would lead the people in the statement of the general confession, which I want to read for you. Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against your holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us. But you, O Lord, have mercy upon us miserable offenders. Spare them, O God, who confess their faults.
Restore them that are penitent according to your promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant most merciful Father for his sake that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life to the glory of your holy name. Father, we pray that these ancient words may fuel our minds and stir our hearts to the awareness that in you we live and move and have our being. That if we made our journey to the highest point of the universe, still you would be there.
If we were to descend to the depths of the ocean, you would be there. You are the God who knows our down-sitting and our upstanding, the words of our mouths before we even speak them. And that you, the Creator of the universe, should take such interest in what you've made is an immense wonder. And even greater, that you should pursue us to the extent of Calvary in order that you might redeem for yourself a people that are your very own, ready to declare the praises of him who has called us out of darkness into your marvelous light. We pray that you would bless these remaining hours to us this morning as we thank you for the company of one another, for the encouragement we have derived from being even able to look upon one another and to hear of the way in which you are blessing your Word in a whole variety of contexts and places throughout the nation. We're humbled by this, and we long to see more and more evidence of the power of your Spirit through the Word of truth, multiplied to the salvation of men and women and to the strengthening of those who seek to follow you. To this end, we ask for your help now. In Jesus' name, amen. I had thought to start tangentially and move in with a vast file of information that I have on worship, to start by reading you some of the letters that I have received over the years that have told me just how unblest people are getting as a result of worshiping with me. And then I thought, no, it starts it off on the wrong foot.
And if I were to drop down dead in the course of it, I would have done nothing that was profitable or beneficial at all. Whereas if I fall down in the midst of the teaching of the Bible, at least you're all left with your Bibles open, and you can stay where we were. And you won't be any of the worse off for the absence of some of these glorious insights from the file, you know. So I know you're all intrigued by them now and can't wait to hear from them. But anyway, it's such a perverse group.
Such a perverse group. John 4 verse 19, in the course of this amazing dialogue with the woman at the well. This, if you read most manuals on personal evangelism, is used, and I think with helpfulness. But when you get to verse 19, which is where I want to begin reading, most of the manuals say that at this point, the woman tried to get Jesus off the track, introduced a digressionary tactic, and that what you see Jesus doing is masterfully making sure that he doesn't get caught up in a red herring. The more I've read John 4, and the more I've thought about this, and the more I recognize the response of the woman, I don't think that she's doing anything other than asking a fundamental question about the nature of where forgiveness really lies. And her soul has been so stirred within her that she begins to recognize that there's a phenomenal need in her life for forgiveness. That takes her, then, in her thinking to the place of worship. That raises the question which is confronting her inasmuch as she is being addressed now by a Jewish rabbi.
And so she says, Sir, I can see that you're a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. And Jesus said, Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming, and does now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming.
When he comes, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I who speak to you am he. Well, here in these few verses, in a context that is not immediately one that we would expect to look for instruction on worship, Jesus provides for us a certain timeless and definitive instruction. There can actually be no more vital theme for God's people to consider than the matter of worship. And we must make sure that we do not confuse singing with worship. Praise, vocal, musically accompanied praise, may be a constituent part of worship, but it is not the totality of worship. So, for example, to use the phrase, now let's just have a time of worship in the course of the gathering of God's people for worship, is actually to use terminology in an inaccurate way and in a way that divorces the whole dimension of what it means to be involved in the praise of God. Why can there be no more vital theme for the people of God to consider? Well, first of all, because worship is the constant activity of the church in heaven. When you turn, for example, to Revelation 7, into that glorious vision that is provided for us there, with this multitude in white robes, John says, and I looked, and there before me was a great multitude.
He says that no one can count. It came out of every context of the world. And what were the people doing? Well, they were holding white robes and palm branches, and they were dressed in white robes. They were holding palm branches in their hands, and they were crying out in a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. And the angels were joining in with this great cacophony of praise. The prospect of heaven will never be brighter. The reality of heaven will never be closer than when God's children are involved in acceptable worship. And just as an aside, I think I would have to say that the only occasions when I have felt the idea of the curtain of heaven just being pulled by ever so slightly for me, to get a little geek in through the corner of it and see it, has been within the framework of worship. And sometimes in a funeral service, interestingly, where you have this compelling realization that here in the resurrected Christ is the answer to the loss of this one. And when now we stand to sing, Crown him with many crowns, The Lamb upon his throne, Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns, All music but its own, Awake, my soul, and sing, Of him who died for thee.
You know, suddenly you just say, Oh, maybe this is just a little touch of what this is going to be like. It's of vital importance, then, because it's the constant activity of the church in heaven. Secondly, because it is the chief business of the church on earth. That becomes clear from what Jesus is saying here in John 4. Jesus offers to the woman the water of life, which will quench her deepest longings. But as it were, behind that, God the Father is seeking worshipers.
And so the message to the woman about water is in accord with the fact that God the Father is seeking worshipers, and as Jesus explains to the woman the answer to the deepest problems of her life, it is in order that another might be added to the company that is described there in Revelation chapter 7. So as we share the gospel with men and women, it is in the awareness that other voices will be added to the swelling chorus of worship as we prepare on earth to do what we're going to do all of the time in heaven. And the psalmist says that man redeemed by grace has been created to praise. Psalm 102 and verse 18, he says, we have been created to praise.
The very reason for our existence is, as the shorter Scottish catechism tells us in answering number one, to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. So we go to our friends and neighbors and are able to say to them that God who made you is worthy of your praise. And it is a dreadful thing that you're praising yourself and loving yourself and glorifying yourself rather than glorifying God. It is a dreadful thing that your foolish heart has become darkened, and you've begun to worship created things rather than the Creator himself. And the good news is that he has sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to forgive you of your wretched sinfulness and to give you a new song and a new direction and a new identity and a new purpose. You've been created to praise.
You need the Lord Jesus to turn you upside down, which is really to turn you the right way up. And when you do, your lips will declare his praise. Very different from a very man-centered approach to the gospel, which says, when you like to come to God, he's just waiting for you, he's really feeling quite forlorn this morning without you, and he's just helplessly standing by in the hope that others might come along.
It's dreadful stuff. Now, there are three things concerning worship about which God is never indifferent. First of all, as to whether we worship him. Worship is an obligation in some sense.
It's not an option. We can't excuse ourselves by saying we're not cut out for it, because man, by his very nature distinct from the beasts, knows that there is one to whom he owes allegiance, one before whom he should bow in reverence. And the fact is that man is a worshiper.
Anthropology confirms this. No matter where people have gone in the world, no matter which civilization they have encountered, they have discovered that man worships. And the very essence of his sin is found in the object of his worship, which I've just referred to in Romans chapter 1. So God is not indifferent as to whether we worship. Therefore, we have a divine mandate to say to our people, in terms of Hebrews 10, you know, loved ones, you shouldn't be like those who forsake the assembling of themselves together. I mean, this isn't just the pastor trying to drum up a congregation. We apparently have reason by your testimony and by your baptism and by the things you've been declaring to believe that you understand that you've been created to praise. And that in the assembly of the worshiping congregation, we meet with God not exclusively but significantly. Therefore, loved ones, take seriously the immense privilege of this. You don't know what you've got till it's gone. If when I had left Scotland in 1983 somebody had sat down and told me how many times I would have the privilege of looking my father in the face and enjoying his company before he died, I'm not sure I could have made the journey and left him behind.
And now that he's gone, and others can identify with this—he's not at the end of the phone, he's not there to greet you, you have no access to his voice, you only have the memories of his heart—you say, Man, I wish I'd had another hundred times to be with him. Of course, we don't want to make our people think that the only place they're meeting with God is in some kind of holy place, because this is clearly not a holy place. There are no holy rooms in this building, and there certainly could never be one that was holier than another room. We do want to encourage our people to recognize that every day that they get up in the morning, God is not indifferent about whether they are worshiping him—worshiping him in the way in which they dress, worshiping him in the way in which they drive to the office, worshiping him in the way in which they greet their staff and their colleagues, worshiping him in the way in which they put rivets into a piece of plywood, worshiping him in every aspect of their lives. We understand that. But not at the expense of the gathered company of his people. So he is not indifferent as to whether we worship him, and he's not indifferent as to the object of our worship. It is God and God alone that we worship. John 5.23, Jesus says, that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Now, we don't need to camp there at all, do we?
In fact, I need to move on. God is not indifferent as to whether we worship. He's not indifferent as to the object of our worship, and he is not indifferent as to the manner of our worship.
And this, of course, brings us into the area where there's so much confusion in our day. I don't want to talk about the mode of worship. I want to talk about the manner of worship. Indeed, preoccupation with the mode of worship is one, I think, of the tactics of the evil one. And so people are getting so steamed up about the mode of worship, they don't give attention to the manner of worship.
And the manner in which we come to whatever mode is actually of fundamental importance. So let me say three things concerning the manner of acceptable worship. These are not new. I'm not going to belabor them.
They will be straightforward. I hope most of you just be nodding your heads. But first of all, that acceptable worship is biblical, being grounded in the truth of Scripture. Says Calvin, all our so-called good intentions are struck by this thunderbolt, which tells us that men can do nothing but err when they are guided by their own opinion without the word and command of God. Men can do nothing but err when they are guided by their own opinion without the word and command of God. Now, in the little passage that we have turned to, it is clear from what Jesus says in his conversation with the woman, that worship in spirit and in truth is the outcome of the final revelation of God in Christ and of his saving work on the cross. So Christ's references here in verse 21 and verse 23 are to the time and to the hour.
The time is coming and has now come. To what does he refer? Well, clearly to his death and to his resurrection. Jesus exercised his ministry all the time, as it were, gazing into the face of individuals and, not least of all, to the face of this dear woman, recognizing that in a relatively short period of time, the veil in the temple would be torn from top to bottom, and the validity of ceremonial worship would actually be eroded, would depart.
And this lady's question about, Is it up here or is it down here?, was a realistic question for somebody coming from a Samaritan background. But he says, Actually, the real issue is not going to be a spatial geographical issue. Now, how is he able to say this? Because he knows that all of a sudden the temple curtain will be torn and access to God will be available through his atoning work upon the cross. And that's why worship that gets off from the centrality of the atonement, that gets off from an emphasis upon Christ. And the gospel is getting off. So by his death, the Lord Jesus procures the worshipers the Father planned.
Isn't that what has happened? The Father says, Now, Jesus, I want you to go, because I have planned to have worshipers. We're going to put a wonderful group together. We're going to call them out of darkness into marvelous light, and they will declare the praises of the one who has called them.
They will declare my glory. And so Jesus said, Well then, Father, let me go to that task. So what the Father plans, the Son by his atoning death procures. And what the Son by his atoning death procures, the Holy Spirit who is then sent applies to the lives of men and women. So God the Father plans it, God the Son procures it, and God the Spirit applies it. And in redemption, he is creating worshipers.
You see, this would be a tremendous change in many of our testimonials, wouldn't it? If in the baptism service, for those of us who come out of a context in which a word of profession of faith would be given—and I recognize that not all do, but it would follow later, for those of you who come from a Presbyterian or an Anglican background, when in moments of confirmation or in becoming communicants within the church, our people were standing up and saying, The remarkable thing is this, that what God has done is he has made a worshiper out of me. He's taken me out of a mighty pit, and he's set my feet upon a rock, and he's put a new song in my heart, a song of praise to my God, as opposed to the average testimony, which is something along the lines of, Well, I was going along, and I didn't feel so good, and I got Jesus in my heart, and I'm so glad he's in my heart, because he wasn't in my heart before, but now he's in my heart. And the average person is sitting out there saying, When the world is all that mean? And they go home, and they buy a Bible, or they steal a Bible from under the pew, and they go all the way through from Matthew right through the Revelation, and they can't find Jesus in anybody's heart at all. So it must be something. It must be a special term or something, or something they made up, or whatever it was. You see, it would be very helpful if, in terms of our declaring our understanding of what God has done for us in Christ, we actually use language that the New Testament can count on us.
Because then the people listening can then look and say, Oh yeah, that makes sense. Come meet a man who told me everything I did. Can this not be the Christ? So the testimony is, I used to worship myself, and now I worship Jesus. Now, as Jesus makes that clear there, it's equally clear in verse 20 that there is a measure of confusion on the part of the woman. And the woman here speaks in a way that has a kind of contemporary ring to it. So she said, How do I make sense of this?
Where do I go? Because up on Gerizim, they seem to be really into it. But it's sort of shaky. Down in Jerusalem, it's really solid, but they don't seem to be into it. One of my friends in London refers to the two extremes as the carnival on the one hand and the crematorium on the other. So you go one place and it's a carnival.
You go other places, a crematorium. And the great journey is to try and settle neither for the chaos of the carnival nor the deadness of the crematorium, but for something that is actually grounded in the scriptures and yet is expressive of the pulsating work of God, the spirit in the lives of men and women. God is seeking true worshipers.
We're listening to Truth for Life. Alistair Begg has more to say about acceptable worship tomorrow. As we learned today, we're called to worship God in every aspect of our lives.
And that includes when we come together as God's people for corporate worship. Today, we want to recommend a book to you to help you understand what this looks like and why it's necessary. The book is titled Gather, Loving Your Church as You Celebrate Christ Together. As you read this book, it'll help you fully understand that your in-person presence at church feeds you, prepares you to face the week ahead, and nurtures you in your relationships with others who in turn can help you stay strong in your faith. Ask for your copy of the book Gather today when you donate to Truth for Life using our mobile app or online at truthforlife.org slash donate.
Or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we'll learn more about acceptable worship. We'll find out how to go from merely attending a church service to experiencing an encounter with God. I hope you'll join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.
