Worshipping For Change
Part of Discipleship 101
January 25, 2023

WORSHIPPING FOR CHANGE

Text: Mat. 15:1-9

1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying ,
2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.
3 But he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
4 For God commanded , saying , Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.
5 But ye say , Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me;
6 And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.
7 Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying ,
8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

1. Worship Is Focus And Response

  • The word worship comes from an English word,
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    .

  • To worship God means to ascribe the proper worth to God, to magnify His worthiness of praise, or better, to approach and address God as He is

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    .

  • As the Holy and Almighty God, the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, the Sovereign Judge to whom we must give an account, He is worthy, of all the worth and honor we can give Him and then infinitely more.

  • The more we

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    on God, the more we understand and appreciate how worthy He is.

  • How is God revealed to us so we can respond to Him?

    1) Revelation through
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    (Rom. 1: 19-21, 25)

    1] Nature (v. 20)

    • The creation declares the reality of God. Creation reveals the majesty of God, the awesomeness of God, the worthiness of God.

    2] Man (v. 19; cf. Ps. 139:14, Gen. 1:26)

    • The reality of God is manifest in us.

    2) Revelation through
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    (2 Tim. 3:16)

    • The Word of God reveals God: His mind, thinking, person, purpose, plans, will, desires, His truth. (cf. Jn. 17:17, 14:6)

    3) Revelation through
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    (Jn. 1:1, 14; Col. 2:9; cf. John 1:18)

    • God is most clearly revealed to us through the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

    • Jesus is God Almighty robed in flesh.

    • Worship is focusing and responding. Since this is true, regardless of what else we are doing we are not worshiping if we are not

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      about God.

    • Worship includes words and actions, but it goes beyond them to the
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      of the mind and of the heart.

2. Worship Is Done In Spirit And Truth (John 4:23-24)

  • 1) In Spirit

    • To worship in Spirit, we need two things: the

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      of the Spirit, and the
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      of the Spirit.

      1] The residing of the Spirit

      • Before we can worship in Spirit and in Truth we must have within us the One whose name is Holy Spirit, who happens to also be the Spirit of Truth. (Jn. 14:17)

      2] The presiding of the Spirit

      • To worship God in Spirit and in Truth is to worship God from the
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        out.
      • This means that we are led of the Spirit to worship, not we are just going through the motions of worship.

    2) In Truth

    • We worship God as He is revealed in the Bible, not as we might want Him to be.

    • Spirit and Truth are the boundaries to worship. If you get outside of these boundaries you worship in vain.

    • Spirit and Truth balance one another so that our focus is proper.

    • We must worship in both Spirit and Truth, with both

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      and
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      , with both emotions and thought.

    • The real duty of worshiping God is not the outward duty of worshipful actions, such as singing, praying, reading, listening, etc.

    • The real duty is the inward duty to “Delight thyself in the Lord.” (Ps. 37:4)
    • This duty honors God, while the empty performance of ritual does not.

3. Worship Is Expected Publicly And Privately

  • We were created to worship. We were purposed to worship. (Ps. 95:6)

  • We are expected to worship. (Mt. 4:10)

    1) Public worship (Heb. 10:25)

    • The primary purpose of our assembling together is to
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      the Lord.
    • It is to come and focus on God and appropriately respond to God through worship: listening to His Word, singing praise to His name, or coming to the throne of grace in prayer, etc.

    2) Private worship (cf. Lk. 5:16)

    • Jesus participated fully in both public worship (via the synagogue) and private worship as he withdrew himself to private places to worship or seek His heavenly Father.

    • Matthew Henry – “Public worship will not excuse us from

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      worship.”

4. Worship Leads To Godliness

  • People
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    like what they focus on. We are influenced by what we focus on. We imitate what we focus on.

  • Truth: If we would look like God, we must focus on God.

  • Worship is a discipline insofar as it is both an

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    and a
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    .

  • The worship of God is an end in itself because worship, as we’ve defined it, is to focus on and respond to God.
  • There is no higher goal than focusing on and responding to God.
  • But worship is also a means in the sense that it is a means to
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    . The more truly we worship God, the more we become like Him.