Worship in Spirit and Truth

Over the centuries, the church has become the place that people go to worship. We can trace this concept back to our roots in the Jewish worship at the Temple. The Temple was the place where sacrifice and worship was performed and during the feasts, people came from all around to go to the Temple to worship.

John 4:20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman in John 4, she makes mention that the Jews worship at the Temple but the Samaritans worship at the mountain. In other words, you worship in that place and we worship in this place. What we are seeing is that for centuries and millennia, we can see that people have always looked for a place to worship. While this is natural and right, Jesus answers the woman in an interesting way.

John 4:23-24 “Yet a time is coming and has 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."

Notice Jesus doesn’t say that worshipping at the Temple is wrong. Nor does he say that worshipping at the mountain is wrong. In fact he bypasses that conversation. Jesus knows that God has put into the heart of man the desire to worship together. In fact, in Hebrews 10:25, we are told that we should not stop meeting together. So Jesus is going to let that go. But he teaches a new truth. Up until now, worship has been about rituals and sacrifices and ceremonial laws. It has been about prescribed places. It has been about doing something physical. Jesus gives us a new truth here. He teaches us that God is spirit and He is looking for a specific kind of worshipper.

God is looking for someone who will worship him in Spirit and in Truth. Notice Jesus says it twice. It isn’t a mistake. It is for emphasis. Today, when we want to emphasize something in writing, we underline, bold and italicize it. Back when the scriptures were written, they didn't have Microsoft Word, so they emphasized by repetition. When we see repetition in the Bible, it is God’s way of emphasizing its importance. In this case, God is emphasizing the importance of proper worship. It is in Spirit and in Truth.

So these are the kinds of worshippers God is looking for. He tells us we must worship in Spirit and in Truth. Can you see why Jesus gets so upset when the Jews are using the Temple for moneychanging. The Temple is supposed to be a place to worship, to come to God in prayer. Jesus knows God wants people to worship in Spirit and Truth. These men are worshipping idols, mammon, money, the sacrifice, the Temple itself. No wonder God destroyed the Temple. These things were all leading people away from worshipping Him in Spirit and Truth. That’s why Jesus gave us the Church. He built his church upon The Rock – The Boulder – that he is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

So Jesus built His Church to worship him in Spirit and in Truth. Are we doing this? How do we do this? What does it mean to worship this way?

First it’s important to recognize that it is BOTH in Spirit and Truth. It is not “Worship Him in Spirit.” Nor is it “Worship Him in Truth”. It is “Worship Him in Spirit and in Truth”. This is something that people aren’t getting today. We have entire movements in the church today that are all about the Spirit. They lose the truth and place experience over the Bible because they worship in Spirit. Others lose the truth because they place traditions over the Bible. But they have lost the truth! Then they become puffed up because they say they are more spiritual than everyone else. If anyone doesn’t do what they do or worship like they worship, then they are a lower form of Christianity.

On the other hand, we have those in the church today who will remove all aspects of the supernatural and the spiritual because if they can’t logically understand it, then it can’t be true. These people have become so fundamental and legalistic, that they have lost touch with the God who loves them. They have become dried up – a shell of the spiritual beings that they are supposed to be. Meanwhile, they are more than happy to continue to debate and argue over points of theology, regardless of the fact that people are moving away from the Christian faith in droves.

God knew all this was coming. We aren’t the first religion or the first nation to go through this. But we have the solution. Worship in Spirit AND Truth. Then we will not be puffed up but humbled by the great God who loves us and we will be living in the Truth, knowing those things that the world ignores or chooses to see as a lie. This is true worship. It’s all about Balance. It’s about BOTH.

So how do we worship in Truth? Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" Jesus answered that question even before Pilate asked it. In John 17:17, he says, "Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." Jesus tells us that God’s Word is truth. The Bible is Truth. We’ve already discussed several times how we can know the Bible is true, and we’ll do so again in the near future. Here we need to recognize that Jesus himself is testifying to the Truth of the scriptures. If Jesus tells us that the scriptures are true and that we need to worship in truth, that would mean that we need to worship using scripture. We need to be in the Bible as we study, as we sing, as we preach and teach, as we pray. In all these areas of worship, we need to have our Bibles open and know the Truth of God, His Son and His Holy Spirit.

Jesus also told us that he is the Truth. John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. We can only truly worship God if we know Jesus. If we do not know Jesus, it is impossible to worship in truth because he is the truth. We must understand that the Bible teaches us that Jesus is God, who came down from Heaven to become human – Immanuel – God with us. He did many things when he was with us – he taught, performed miracles, healed. But these were not the reason for his coming. He came so that he could shed his blood. He came so he could become the final sacrifice. He came because he knew that only through the blood could there be forgiveness of sins and so he gave His blood as a sacrifice and took our sins away. But we need to accept that free gift. We need to trust that there is nothing we can do to come to the Father and that the only way we will get to heaven is by trusting that Jesus’ sacrifice was enough. Once we do this, we can learn and have the Truth.

The next question is, how do we worship in Spirit? I think there are several aspects to that. First, we need to worship God wholeheartedly. We cannot just give a partial effort when we worship Him. We can’t be thinking of other things that are going on in our lives as we worship Him. We can’t be thinking about how others view us as we worship Him. When David worshipped the Lord when they were bringing in the Ark to Jerusalem, his wife Michal was so embarrassed at his behavior – jumping up and down, dancing around dressed like one of the guys. This was not proper behavior for the King! But David’s response was that he would be even more undignified than this! He knew that the right response was to worship with your whole heart, exuberant, excited and in recognition of the Truth of God (after all, the first time, they didn’t follow the Word of God and Uzzah was struck dead – David had learned that you can’t only worship in Spirit but it also must be in truth!) Psalm 111:1 says"I will praise the Lord with my whole heart, in the assembly of the upright, and in the congregation" Again, notice, this worship is done in the congregation, in the assembly. Going to church is an integral part of worship. Within the assembly, we each must worship with our whole hearts. Can you be more undignified than David? It would be pleasing to our God!

Let’s remember that worship is not for entertainment. It also isn’t to satisfy ourselves or for our own glory (“Look at him – wow! He’s undignified – what a great worshipper!” - Wrong!). When we worship, we should be glorifying God.

When Paul was rebuking the Corinthian church, he said in 1 Corinthians 14:15: "I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also." Paul recognized that proper worship was spirit and truth and he recognized that this meant that we need to have understanding of what we are doing when we worship. Do we understand the words to the songs we are singing? If we are singing songs and we don’t understand what we are singing, it would be better to stop singing and understand the words. Then we can go back to singing once we understand. The same is true in the study of the Word, listening to the message, and even in our prayers. Are we just saying prayers by rote, that we were taught to repeat or are we saying our prayers from our heart? This is worshipping in spirit and understanding.

One thing we do recognize we should be when we worship God is respectful. We innately know that when we come before God, we should show respect.

Psalm 89:7"God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him" This idea of having reverence when we come before God is worship is ancient and it is right. Reverence doesn’t mean that we act all solemn and quiet and afraid to say anything. It means to remember the vastness of God, the greatness of the Creator and to humble ourselves before this. To be in awe of Him. This doesn’t mean that joyful celebration is not reverent or that it is disrespectful. But whether we worship in celebration or in silence, the reverence comes from our attitude of who God is. When we respect who God is, we are worshipping in Spirit.

God is pleased when His church comes together in worship. However, the worship must be in Spirit and in Truth. We need to be Bible-based and accept Jesus as the only way to God. This is how we worship in Truth. We need to give ourselves wholeheartedly to God, even unto being undignified, that we should be glorifying God, we need to worship with understanding and we need to do all this respectfully and in awe of God. This is worshipping in Spirit. When we do all these things, we are worshipping in Spirit and in Truth. This is the worship that God is seeking.

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Last modified: Feb 21, 2009