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Thoughts of a saint and slave
by Sam Isaacson
This week we begin an exciting new mini-series about an area which is very close to my heart: worship. I have been leading congregational worship in my local church for several years now and have developed a love for seeing God’s people declaring His sovereignty, power, majesty, glory, holiness, worthiness, love, mercy, grace, justice and honour among many other characteristics. There is a problem, however. The word ‘worship’ has fallen into shorthand, incorrect usage in that people now, when they say, ‘I love worship,’ actually mean, ‘I love singing Christian songs’, and they are not the same thing! Hopefully you will find this little series useful as we discover together what true worship looks like, beginning with some of Jesus’ own words:
‘God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’ (John 4:24)
If we want to worship God then we are told that we must worship him ‘in spirit and truth’ – but what does this mean?
Worship that is ‘in spirit’ makes us realise that worship is more than just going through some motions. We could arrive on a Sunday morning and sing, dance, clap and shout our way to tears but never be worshipping, because (perhaps) our spirits were not engaged. Similarly, we could be the quiet one who does not sing the songs or become as physically involved as other members of the congregation yet still be worshipping if our spirits were fully engaged.
Essentially the message from this is a simple one: God doesn’t really mind what our actions are, so long as our heart is right. During Jesus’ ministry some very religious Jews were talking to Jesus. They most likely knew their Bibles off by heart and, to the best of their efforts, were following every letter of the law. As far as an observer was concerned they were worshipping God as best as anyone could, but Jesus’ issue was that their spirits were not engaged.
Rather than congratulating them on their obvious zeal for the law he rebukes them and even takes the Mickey out of them! He calls them ‘hypocrites!’ (Matthew 23:23) saying that they ‘tithe mint and dill and cumin’; they were carefully weighing out ten per cent of their herbs and spices, yet their spirits were not engaged. The Message translation adds an analogy to Jesus’ words, saying that the Jews had written a ridiculously awful book but were spending time ‘nitpicking over commas and semicolons’!
Worship must involve our full engagement.
The word truth is important also. According to biblical thinking truth is not subjective but absolute; this idea is due to be expanded upon in another mini-series at some point in the future – watch this space… In addition truth is not simply knowledge, but a person; truth is not something that you know but something that you know as you would a person. The analogy to remember at this point would be this:
I could read a book about Anna, my wife, and could learn all sorts of information about her, all of which could be true. The difference between knowing a potentially infinite amount of information about her and spending time with her and getting to know her is astronomical!
Jesus said, ‘I am…the truth’ (John 14:6). If we want to worship God ‘in truth’ then we must worship ‘in Jesus’. The concept of being ‘in Jesus’ is repeated several times by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans and is summed up wonderfully when he writes that ‘the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Romans 6:23, emphasis mine).
This gift of God, the gift of eternal life for all who put their faith in Jesus, is the focus of being ‘in Jesus’. Those who are ‘in Jesus’ are those who have received the free gift of eternal life by God’s grace.
Therefore, to declare that ‘those who worship God must worship in…truth’ is to declare that those who worship God must worship from a position of one who is ‘in Jesus’. In other words, worship of God is founded only on a relationship with Jesus.
Worship must be borne out of God’s gift of eternal life.
To sum up, if we want to worship God then we must worship God in a manner which fully engages our spirits, and our attitudes and actions must be founded on gratefulness for the life-changing truth of Jesus’ person and work in our lives.
I really look forward to expanding upon this next week!
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