I’m going to warn you in advance that today’s message is going to be a little bit different than usual. I’m not going to exegete every word, or every sentence in this text. I’m not going to reveal a three point outline in the passage and expound on each subject. I guess I could. That is what I normally do. But today I want to focus on just a few points that Jesus makes at the end of this dialogue we have been looking at for several weeks and use them as a springboard for our own application here this morning.
Every week, I pretty much make a point of quoting a particular verse of scripture at some place during our service. Any guesses which verse that would be? Let’s assume that is a rhetorical question. The verse of scripture I quote almost every week is from John 4:24 "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Now I do that deliberately. Most of our signage says “Worship on the beach!” And so I would hope that is why you are here this morning. To worship God. I hope that is your purpose. But we are not the only people who are worshipping this morning. There are churches all over this city that claim to be worshipping God. And let me add something - there are a lot of folks that are holding worship services on the beach lately too. I know of several groups that are coming out on the beach to hold some sort of service lately. I guess we make it look to easy or something. So there are a lot of options out there for people who want to worship God.
However, I want to remind you that at the very beginning of the Bible, God makes it clear in Genesis 4 that He is not obligated to accept our worship, unless we worship Him as He desires. As He designed it. In Genesis 4, Cain and Abel come to present their offerings to the Lord. You know the story. Cain brought the fruit of his labor, the best of his crops, and Abel brought the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions. That means that he brought animal sacrifices, blood sacrifices. And it says that the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.
So that simply means that God did not accept Cain’s worship, but He accepted Abel’s worship. That was God’s prerogative, wasn’t it? But what was Cain’s response? He became angry, and in his anger he sinned and murdered his brother.
Now we find a very similar situation presented here in this passage today. The Jews were very religious, they had a system of worship by which they felt they could please God, by which they thought they could become acceptable to God, and yet Jesus said it did not please God. In fact He says that they are still in their sins, and so they become angry, and end up trying to murder Christ here at the end of this chapter, and then finally succeed in murdering Him 6 months later.
The question then is how do you worship God? How do you know that He accepts your worship? How does your worship make you acceptable to God? I’ve been speaking about this for weeks now to some degree or another. I would assume that most of us consider ourselves Christians. But if I were to take a survey of 100 Christians as to what they base their faith on, I would not be surprised to find that there would be dozens of different answers.
There are millions of professing Christians around this country that are attempting to worship God this morning. You happen to be here. But how do you know what is true? How do you know what is acceptable worship and what is not? Why should you believe what I am telling you? Does it really matter how or where you worship? Does it really matter if you go to church? Does the content of the worship service really matter? Won’t God just accept you if you are sincere? Does God really care how you worship Him?
Well, I would say that most of those questions can be answered by Jesus’s statement which I quoted from a moment ago, “God is Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Note that He says you MUST worship Him in spirit and in truth. It’s not optional, it’s not conditional. He is stating the requirements for acceptable worship. Yet I must say I don’t think most professing Christians really believe that. I think they have this idea that God is going to accept their worship however they may present it. And yet I would point out that illustration again of Cain and Abel. I believe that this was placed at the beginning of the scriptures for a reason, that we might recognize that God does not have to accept any worship that does not meet His requirements. And if God does not accept your worship, then I am afraid I have to tell you some bad news. It’s the same news that Jesus told the Jews in this passage three different times. Jesus said, “You will seek Me, but you will not find Me, and so as a consequence you will die in your sins.” And to add insult to injury, over and over again, particularly in vs.47 and again in vs.55, Jesus said you don’t know God. In spite of their worship, they didn’t know God, and as a result they would die in their sins.
Now why would Jesus say something so dreadful to these very religious people, who were in the temple worshipping God at that very moment? In fact, they had been there for a week, night and day worshipping God. And yet Jesus has the audacity to tell them that they are going to die in their sins. That their worship is useless. Why would He say such a harsh thing as that? These people were sincere. They were worshipping God. They were in church for a week. Doesn’t that count?
I’ll tell you why Jesus said that. First He said it because He loved them. If He didn’t love them, He wouldn’t warn them of their impending doom, would He? But because He loved them, He told them they were still in their sins. We hear all the time, love the sinner, hate the sin. But the Bible teaches that if you love the sinner, you will expose their sin. People get offended though when you tell them that they are a sinner. Just like Cain, the natural man gets angry at the idea he is a sinner. But God’s desire is to save you from the condemnation of sin, and He cannot do that unless you first recognize that you are a sinner.
But there is another reason that Jesus said that they were going to die in their sins. And that is because they did not know the truth. Jesus said in vs 32, “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Some people think that freedom means that they can come to God any way they want, just as they are. But that is not what Jesus is teaching. The freedom Jesus is speaking of is freedom from their sins. In other words, if they knew the truth, it would set them free from the penalty and enslavement of their sins. But these Jews didn’t accept the truth, because it did not fit into their paradigm of religion. So Jesus said in vs.40, "But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.” So just like Cain, they plot to murder Jesus, because they didn’t like the fact that God had rejected their worship.
So verse 32 then where Jesus said “you will know the truth and the truth will make you free” correlates to the quote from chapter 4:24, "God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” If you neglect the truth, or reject the truth, or ignore the truth, then your worship of God is in vain. It doesn’t matter how sincere it is, it doesn’t matter how emotional you may be about it, it doesn’t matter how beautiful you may think the service may be, or how inspiring it may seem to you. If it is not truth, then it is not accepted by God, and as such you are still in your sins.
Do you understand that folks? I’m talking to you here today right now. I’m not talking about the Jews 2000 years ago. I’m talking to 21st century Christians right here in this community. I’m telling you by the authority of God’s word that if your worship of God is not according to the truth, then it is worthless and you will die in your sins.
So what is truth? That’s the logical next question, isn’t it? Well, Jesus has the answer to that question as well. First of all, right in this passage He says that His words are truth. Vs.31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” Back in vs.14 at the beginning of this dialogue, He says, “My testimony is true.” In John 17:17, Jesus says, “Your word is truth.” And note another tremendous verse, which connects truth and the spirit together as we saw earlier that both are required. In John 6:63 Jesus says "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
So we know the truth by the word of God. And the word of God is spirit and life. So if we are going to do what Jesus said, and worship God in spirit and in truth, then we must worship according to the word of God, which is the gospel of Christ. So God reveals how we must worship Him in His word.
There is an important principle that we find in hermeneutics, which means the interpretation of the Bible, and it’s called the principle of first mention. How that works is that you find the first time a word or phrase is used, and that becomes a template for how you are to understand that usage throughout the Bible. Do you know the very first time that the word worship is used in the Bible? That’s another rhetorical question. But you need to know these things. Because your eternity depends on it. Your life depends on whether or not you get it right. The first time worship is found is in Genesis 22. Abraham has been told by God to offer up his son Isaac on the altar. To sacrifice his son. And so He gets up early in the morning, and his servants and Isaac go to the mountain that God has appointed. And seeing the mountain in the distance, Abraham says to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.”
Can you imagine that? God told him to sacrifice his son, he has a knife to slit his son’s throat, he has the wood to make the fire, and his plan is to sacrifice his son in order to please God. And Abraham calls that worship. Now that’s heavy. Think about that for a moment. And compare that definition of worship to most concepts of modern worship today. There is no comparison. There is no correlation. Listening to music and clapping hands does not equate to sacrificing one’s own son whom you love with all your heart. There is no comparison.
Actually there is a comparison. And that is in Genesis 22, As Abraham bound his son on the altar and raised the knife to kill his son, God provided a ram caught in a thicket at the last moment. God pointed out the ram which was provided to be Isaac’s substitute. And that was a picture of the sinless substitute that God would provide for the sin of the world so that sinners condemned to death might be made acceptable to God. So that their sins might be taken away.
I believe that event is what Jesus is referring to in vs.56. Jesus said, ”Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” I think that Abraham was given the insight at that moment, that there would be a Lamb of God who would die in our place, so that we might be saved from the wrath of God against sin. Abraham saw Christ’s day prefigured in the ram that he slew and laid on the altar. And Abraham rejoiced, not only because Isaac was spared, but also because he understood the fulfillment of the prophecy given before Isaac was born, which was that through his seed would come One from whom the whole world would be blessed.
So before you can begin to worship in spirit and in truth, your sins have to be dealt with. And God has provided a substitute to pay the penalty of death that we all deserve because all have sinned, and none of us are righteous. So that is the first step in worshipping God. Believing who Jesus is, and what He came to do, and accepting His sacrifice for your sins.
Listen, that is the basis for our salvation. We cannot come to God without a sacrifice. Because the penalty that God requires of sin is death. Romans 3:23 says “the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” There are two essential elements in obtaining that salvation which Christ paid for. Two essential elements; faith and repentance. Faith is believing who Jesus is; the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, and repentance is confessing and turning from your sins and asking God for forgiveness. In the book of Acts, we see that the apostles taught faith and repentance were necessary, Acts 20:21says they were “solemnly testifying to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul instructs Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:25 “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.” Jesus and the disciples went about preaching repentance and the necessity to believe in Christ. So repentance and faith are the twin pillars of our faith.
Now I will tell you what most modern worshippers get wrong. They emphasize faith, but not repentance. They say believe in God, but they don’t say repent of your sins. I would suggest that the word sin is an anathema in most churches today. They don’t want to offend someone. Instead, sin is accepted, it’s even condoned in many churches. But I will say this, without repentance from sin, there can be no salvation. And without the appropriation of Christ’s sacrifice to cover your sin, there can be no worship. There can be no fellowship with God. There can be no acceptance from God.
That’s why Jesus kept emphasizing to those Jewish religious leaders that they would die in their sins, because they would not accept the One who came to pay the penalty of their sin. Now how do you know what is sin? It must be found in God’s word. God’s word defines sin. Not society, not the culture, not some religious figurehead. No one defines sin but God. Sin is anything that does not conform to the nature of God. And God has written His word that we might know sin, that sin would become even more sinful.
Yet how many churches today are trying to accommodate society’s definitions of lifestyle, of behavior? In their efforts to appeal to the world, they accept the world’s definitions of marriage, for instance, when it is in opposition to God’s definitions in His word. I have to say that if they are changing God’s definition of sin then they are not worshipping God in spirit and in truth. They are worshipping God in vain. They are still in their sins.
Notice how Jesus keeps refocusing on this aspect of God’s word is truth, and His words are God’s words. John 8:43-47, "Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me. Which one of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me? He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”
So the bottom line is that He says, you don’t believe my word because you are from your father the devil who is the father of lies. So instead of believing my word, you believe a lie. Since you are not of God, you don’t accept My word. I would suggest this is evident in Christianity today; that those that do not believe God’s word is the truth, have no use for God’s word. That is why many churches today rarely refer to the word of God. They rarely preach the word. They rarely teach the word. Instead they sing some songs, watch a couple of videos, maybe watch a skit, and then the pastor ends up telling a couple of funny stories at the end, and everyone goes home feeling vaguely entertained.
So I will summarize so far; if the church does not preach faith and repentance, then they are not worshipping God in truth. And if the church does not preach the word, then they are not of the truth. I don’t care how entertaining it is. They have forsaken the truth, and as such are apostate.
Here is what the religious apostates believe: that God is love, and that sin is ok. That God loves them in their sin. And so they hate anyone who preaches against sin. This is the difference between true religion and false religion. False religion does not deal with sin and claims all that is necessary is a relationship with God, and true religion recognizes that sin must be dealt with in order to have fellowship with God.
I want to point out another statement Jesus made in vs.50 "But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges.” This is another way that they should have recognize that Jesus was speaking the truth. He did not seek His own glory, but He sought to glorify the Father in all that He did.
And I would suggest that this is a way that Christians can discern those who speak or teach the truth. If a church or a worship service is geared so that it brings glory to the people who are conducting it, then you need to be suspect of whether or not they are of the truth. I’m going to be very candid with you for a moment. I don’t do this to bring glory to myself. I don’t do this for fame. I don’t do this to bring some sort of honor to myself. To be frank, I’m often humiliated as a pastor. But I think that is the method God employs to able to use me.
There was a time in my life when I had a certain amount of fame. There was a time when I was recognized in my career wherever I went around the country. I used to be an antique dealer, and I was on a national television show about antiques for a few years. And I received a lot of notoriety from that at one time in my life. I made good money from that career. But God took me down more than a few pegs in my pride in order to be able to use me for His glory and not my own. So I didn’t chose this ministry because I thought it would make me popular or well liked. If anything, the more people listen to me, the more enemies I seem to make.
But I will say this. I am in good company. Jesus said inJohn 15:18 "If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” And I believe that is because I preach the truth of God’s word. We obviously don’t have a whole lot else to offer you folks here. I don’t tell jokes very well. We don’t have a cool band. We don’t have skits or interpretive dancing. But what we do is preach the truth of God’s word without apology and as the central theme to our worship. And I believe that the word of God is truth, and that only the truth will set you free. Some people are offended by that. And as a result they get mad when I preach on sin, and the need for repentance. But I would also hope that there are going to be some that will believe, and will respond to the truth, and will commit to this church. I hope that some of you are here today.
Quite often lately I find myself praying the prayer of Elijah as he contended with the priests of Baal in 1Kings 18:36. He prayed, ““O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, today let it be known that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant and I have done all these things at Your word. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O LORD, are God, and that You have turned their heart back again.” I pray that God will show that I have done these things according to HIs word. And that God will turn the hearts of His people back again.
Well, I warned you that I was going to go on a bit of a tangent today. And so I’m going to wrap this up with one last point. And that is the principle found in vs.51, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.” So you want to worship Him in spirit and in truth? Then you will keep His word. Jesus emphasizes this over and over again. This key principle is found in vs.31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Listen,1 Samuel 15:22 says, “to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams.” To obey is better than coming with songs and hymns. Isaiah 29:13 says, “Then the Lord said,’Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote.” And because of that false worship, God says He will turn away from them. God wants obedience from the heart. To obey is to love the Lord. Jesus said in John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”
I don’t have a lot of time to show you every reference this morning, but over and over again Jesus says “continue in my word”, or “keep my word,” or “keep my commandments.” In fact, as an example to us, Jesus Himself keeps the word. That was the measure of His truthfulness that the Jews should have recognized. He says in vs55 “and you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.”
And I would suggest that this is the way we know that someone knows the Lord as well. They keep the word of God. If they don’t keep the word of God, then they don’t know God. 1John 2:3, 5 “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” ... 5 “but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him.”
That’s the reality of true worship. It’s laying down your prerogatives, your rights, your purposes, to obey the word of God. It’s putting Christ first in your life. True worship requires that you bring to God the offering of yourself. Romans 12:1-2 says, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”
That’s all I have for you this morning. Worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. Nothing else counts. Anything less than the truth is a lie. God desires truth in the innermost being. And we do that by being conformed to God’s word. Simply lay the template of the gospel over your life, and follow the commands of God as He laid them out in His word. It starts with a sacrifice, Jesus substitionary death on the cross, and it ends with another sacrifice, presenting your body as a living and holy sacrifice. Acceptable to God. That is your spiritual service of worship. That is how we are made free. Let us pray.
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