|
WEEKLY
Volume 1 Number 33
14 January 2007
True Worshippers
(Message delivered by Pr
Hien Nguyen at the Sunday Worship Service, 2 pm, Jan 7, 2007)
Text:
John 4:21-26
In this world, there are so many religious groups,
and all claim that their religions, their “gods,” their books, their
beliefs and practices are true. Then what are the criteria or standards
to help us discern and judge which group is true or who are the true
worshippers of the living and true God? The criteria must come from the
Holy Bible, the very Word of God that God has perfectly inspired and
perfectly preserved and given to mankind, without which we have no
truth, no true light, no true standards, no true hope, no true
salvation, nor true worship. The Bible confirms, “Thy word is true
from the beginning” (Ps 119:160), “These are the true sayings
of God” (Rev 19:9), “for these words are true and faithful”
(Rev 21:5). Only through God’s Word can we know the truth about the
living and true God, the corrupt and sinful nature of men, the glorious
Heaven, the righteous Judgment and Hell, God’s salvation for mankind
through His only begotten Son Jesus Christ, God’s will for men to live
and how to worship Him.
We have been taught from God’s Word to seek God and
His will, His kingdom and righteousness, His grace and strength, His
guidance and blessings first. Today, we are reminded that God is also
seeking, seeking “the true worshippers” who worship Him in spirit
and in truth, “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true
worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth:
for the Father seeketh (is seeking) such (true
worshippers) to worship him” (John 4:23). Then are
you and I true worshippers of God? What does it mean to worship the
Father in spirit and in truth? May God graciously help us understand and
be sure that we are true worshippers of God.
Worship the Father in Spirit: Be Born Again
How can we worship the Father
in spirit? The Bible says that we “were dead in trespasses and sins”
(Eph 2:1). A physically dead man can’t see, can’t hear, can’t
communicate, can’t understand, can’t move, etc. Likewise, a spiritually
dead man can’t see God, can’t hear His voice, can’t communicate with Him
and can’t join any activities, especially, can’t worship God properly.
If you and I ask an unbeliever, “Do you hear, read, understand, and obey
God’s Word, and do you pray to God in Jesus’ Name, etc?” They will be
surprised at or upset by such questions. Why? They are spiritually dead
(separated from God). Through God’s Word we know
that God created the first human beings, Adam and
Eve, in His image and likeness, and they had eternal souls with their
will, power of reason, conscience, concepts and acts of worship,
intelligence, and so forth. Sadly, they disobeyed God and were cursed.
Then sins and death came into the world: physical death (separated from
soul), spiritual death (separated from God), and eternal death
(condemned to Hell forever on the Judgment Day). Separation from God
means separation from His truth, spiritual light and life. With the
concept of worship in human beings, Satan has deceived them and misled
them to worship all kinds of false “gods” and idols, even to worship him
without awareness, “But I say, that the things which the Gentiles
sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not
that ye should have fellowship with devils” (1 Cor 10: 20). That is
the reason why there are all kinds of religious groups, even cults and
occult groups in the world.
However, because of God’s love, grace and mercy, He
completed His plan of salvation by sending His only begotten Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who came to die for sinners and rose again to save
anyone who will repent and receive Him as his Lord and Saviour in order
to be born again and become God’s children (John 1:12), crying to God,
“Abba, Father” (Rom 8:15). “That which is born of the flesh
is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John
3:6). Then the first condition for a true worshipper is to be born
again. How can we worship God the Father properly if we are not His
children and “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4)? Our
Lord Jesus says, “Except a man is born again, he cannot see the
Kingdom of God.
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God”
(John 3:3, 5).
My dear friends, are you and I born again to be God’s
children and true worshippers?
Worship the Father in Truth
We must be born again to
worship the Father in spirit. How about in truth? Many simply think to
worship the Father in truth means to worship God with a sincere and
honest heart. That’s right, but not enough as
many others are “sincerely” worshipping their false “gods” and even
willing to die for their beliefs. Then what does it mean to worship the
Father in truth?
Worship the Father in Jesus’ Name.
Our Lord Jesus says, “I am
the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6) and “For
where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them” (Matt 18:20). Our Lord confirms with the
Samaritan woman, “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall
neither in this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem, worship the Father” (v 21).
Then the focus is not the place of worship, but God Himself and the
spirit of worship, “worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”
Thank God that as He is the Divine “Spirit” (v 24) all-knowing,
all-mighty and present everywhere, we can worship Him wherever we are in
spirit and truth without any statues, images, or pictures which He
forbids (Exo 20:4-5). Paul and Silas even worshipped God in the prison,
“prayed, and sang praises unto God” (Acts 16:25).
God is holy, righteous and
glorious. Then how can we sinners stand before Him and worship Him
worthily, and how can our worship be acceptable unto Him? The Bible
tells about the worship and offerings of Cain and Abel in Genesis
chapter 4. God accepted Abel and his blood-shedding sacrifice but
rejected Cain and his offerings although he offered the best of the
fruit of his labour. Why? Because he trusted in himself and his merits
and did not offer a blood-shedding substitutionary sacrifice for his
sins. That Substitionary Sacrifice is the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who came to die for our sins and rise again for our
justification (John 1:29; Rom 4:25; Rev 13:8). Without the Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ, we ourselves and our worship will surely be
rejected. Then we are to humble ourselves, acknowledge our sins, and
accept the Saviour Jesus Christ as our Substitute before God. When we
gather together to worship God, we are to humbly look unto our Saviour
Jesus Christ and trust in His Name and merits so that our worship may be
acceptable unto God, “to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable
to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).
Then a true worship must be the Christ-centred worship. Christ must be
glorified alone, not anyone else. Christ must increase and we must
decrease (John 3:30), and “we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus
the Lord” (2 Cor 4:5), and “For I determine not to know any thing
among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2). Only
then will we be truly satisfied, nurtured and blessed by our Lord Jesus’
presence in our midst as He has promised. Truly, “But whosoever
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but
the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water
springing up into everlasting life” (v 14).
My dear friends, is our worship the Christ-centred
worship all the time? If not, our worship will not be acceptable to God
and no one nor anything in this world can make us spiritually satisfied!
Worship the Father
according to His Word.
Next, we are to worship the
Father according to His word, the Holy Bible. The Lord Jesus says, “Thy
Word is truth” (John 17:17). The Bible confirms, “all thy
commandments are truth” (Ps 119:151), and “Of his own will
begat he us with the word of truth” (James 1:18). God’s Word
must be the foundation of our worship, our faith, our doctrines, our
practices, our preaching, our teaching etc. Only when we worship the
Father according to His word will He accept our worship. David
worshipped God properly, saying, “I will worship toward thy holy
temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth:
for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name” (Ps
138:2). We are to magnify God’s Word in our worship. Our worship must be
Word-centred or Bible-centred worship. Paul charged Timothy, “Preach
the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke,
exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine” with this warning,
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but
after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having
itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and
shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim 4:2-4). Sadly, nowadays many
“Christians” do not magnify God’s Word, but
blindly follow “scholars” or “scholarly leaders” who criticize, question
and cast doubt on God’s Word! They like to hear quotations from “great
men” and interesting stories rather than God’s Word! How can we discern
a true preaching of God’s Word? We should have the right attitude like
the brethren in Berea when they heard the preaching of Paul, “they
received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the
scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts 17:11).
We worship God according to God’s Word not only in
our preaching and teaching but also in singing and praising God with
reverence and thanksgiving, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord”
(Col 3:16) “And be not conformed to this world” (Rom 12:2).
Disappointedly, many churches are pleasing and drawing young people to
their churches by entertaining them with contemporary music and
performances regardless of the worldly music and unbiblical doctrines of
the songs! But God is seeking the true worshippers who “worship the
Father in spirit and in truth.” How about you and me?
Worship the Father through the Holy Spirit.
“The Spirit is truth”
(1 John 5:6) and “the Spirit of Truth”
(John 14:16-17). It is the Holy Spirit, who convicts us of our sins
(John 16:8), teaches us all things (John 14:25) guides us into all truth
(John 16:13), helps us understand spiritual things (1 Cor 2: 10-16),
regenerates us and sanctifies us (John 3:5; Rom 15:16) and helps us
worship God and serve Him properly, “For we are the circumcision,
which worship God in spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and
have not confidence in the flesh” (Phil 3:3). Our Lord Jesus
confirms, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth
nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit,
and they are life” (John 6:63). Without the presence of the Holy
Spirit, our worship, our prayers and our preaching and our singing are
dead! It is the Holy
Spirit who teaches us to pray, tunes our hearts to sing praises to the
Lord meaningfully, illumines our hearts to understand the message and be
edified. Realising this, we must humble ourselves always and trust in
the Holy Spirit, not in ourselves nor our strength nor our ability. For
example, if I preach this message the first time before a big
congregation, surely I must pray earnestly for the guidance and
illumination of the Holy Spirit as well as for His anointing and
blessing upon my preaching. But if I am invited to preach this same
message to a small congregation and if I have more confidence in the
flesh and I do not seek the Holy Spirit and His help earnestly, I am
finished! My preaching may be more fluent but it is dead. The hearers
may understand with their mind but their hearts are not touched by the
Holy Spirit and their lives are not transformed! Why? “It is the
spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing.”
Paul shared his experience, “I was with you in weakness, and in fear,
and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching was not with
enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and
of power: That your faith should not
stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God”
(1 Cor 2:3-5). Many “great speakers” nowadays have much confidence in
the flesh, in their credentials and scholarship, thinking that they are
qualified to preach God’s Word with their arrogant textual criticism!
They are not in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling like the
apostle Paul! But this is the truth, “the flesh profiteth nothing,”
and “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble”
(James 4:6).
Then are you and I worshipping the Father through the
Holy Spirit?
Conclusion
God is still seeking the true worshippers
who worship Him in spirit and in truth. Are you and I the true
worshippers of God? Then we must be born again to be the true children
of God, and our worship must be the Christ-centred and Word-centred
worship through the help and ministry of the Holy Spirit. We are to
humble ourselves and magnify the Lord Himself and His Word alone.
Remembering that “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh
profiteth nothing,” we trust in the Lord and give Him all the glory.
Top
/ Back
|
