Tag: psalms

PSALMS #2: THE WAY OF THE BLESSED.

On By Pastor TomIn Podcast, psalms, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

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PSALMS#2: THE BLESSED WAY. PSALM 1:1-6

1 Blessed is the man
          who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
          nor stands in the way of sinners,
          nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

2 but his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water
          that yields its fruit in its season,
          and its leaf does not wither.
          In all that he does, he prospers.

4 The wicked are not so,
but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,
nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

6for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked will perish.

Last time we did an introduction to the book of psalms. We considered what it is, and how the book was formed, and who wrote it, and when. We also looked at the structure of Hebrew poetry. Without being too technical, the thing to look for in Hebrew poetry (and songwriting) is parallelism. The poets group thoughts in parallel to one another. Sometimes they are parallels that reiterate an idea. At other times, the parallels are set in contrast to one another. As best as I could, I tried to format psalm one (above) to show the parallels, and how they are grouped.

Psalm 1 is a “wisdom” psalm. It is a poem, or song that was made to help us vividly picture something wise that we should remember, and, especially, that we should put into action.

With that in mind, let’s dig in to the psalm.

It starts with this overall thought: Blessed is the one who does not find himself, or herself, in the company of those who reject God. Notice the poetic triple-parallel about these godless ones: walk, stand, sit. In other words, we are talking about all of life.

Notice also, if you use a good translation, the blessed one is, in fact, one person, where as the godless ones involve three groups of people. The implication is that to be blessed, to shape your life around God’s Word (which is here called “the law”), means that you might feel alone against the crowd. It’s easy to find people walking in the counsel of the wicked, or making their stand with sinners, or sitting and mocking those who are different from them. The one who meditates on God’s Word looks strange and alone in comparison. This reminds me a bit of what Jesus said:

13 “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. 14 For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. (Matthew 7:13-14, ESV)

Walking in the counsel of the wicked implies behavior. Those who shape their behavior based upon the advice of godless ones around them are not blessed. They are listening to people who refuse to listen to God, and acting accordingly. Standing implies declaring allegiance. Some people choose to stand with a sinful lifestyle, to persist in ignoring God’s revelation (the Bible) and to commit themselves to a way other than God’s way. Sitting gives us a picture of someone settled into a position. These are so settled that now not only do they behave according to the advice of those without God, not only do they take a stand with wickedness, but they openly mock, insult and deride those who do follow God.

In a way this seems to paint a picture of a process for someone who has turned away from God. It starts by listening to those who do not listen to God, taking their advice, behaving accordingly. It continues as a person commits more and more to godless ways, and identifies him/her self with those who reject God’s word. It ends up with the person openly insulting and mocking those who do follow God.

Let’s consider the opposite picture, the one who is blessed. The primary thing that sets this person apart is that he/she delights in the law of the Lord, and meditates on it constantly.

It is worth taking time to think about the word “law.” It is used quite frequently in the psalms, and it usually has the same meaning in most cases. But it is not exactly the meaning we typically think of for the word “law” in this day and age. When we hear “law” we usually think of rules and regulations. The law (we think) is something we must obey, or we will get in trouble with the authorities.

However, the Hebrew word is “torah,” and one primary meaning of that is “instruction.” Most particularly, the law/torah is the special, divine revelation given to the people of Israel by God himself through Moses. In other words, for the ancient Israelis, “the law” meant “the Bible.” So, for Christians today, if you read the word “law” in the psalms, it is usually appropriate to think “God’s Word,” or “the Bible.”

It is certainly true of psalm 1 that we should think of “the law” as “God’s Word.” So the thing that makes someone blessed and sets her apart from others, is God’s Word. The blessed person shapes her life around what God has revealed to human beings. She thinks about it throughout the day. She builds her life upon it. She is like a tree by a constant water source.

Here in Tennessee, a generic tree is not a particularly impressive picture. I can see literally hundreds of trees from the windows of my house, maybe thousands. But when we read this psalm, we should remember that to those in ancient Israel, a large tree was something unusual and impressive, and no tree would reach any kind of large size without a regular supply of water. Much of the climate of Israel was (and still is) quite dry. Some of it is outright desert, and other areas could maybe be called semi-arid. There is only one major river in the whole country, the Jordan, though there were (and are) various smaller streams. Some of the streams only flow when it rains. Even as far back as the time of Abraham, large trees were so rare in some areas that they were used as landmarks.

When they came to the land of Canaan, 6 Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moreh. (Genesis 12:5-6, ESV)

A large tree would be an inviting sight, offering shade, shelter and sustenance to travelers.

So, the one who builds his life on God’s Word is like a great tree, alone in a dry, hot land. He can only thrive there because he is constantly tapped in to refreshing and life-giving water: the Word of God. Like a big tree in that part of the world, the one who builds on God’s Word is different from others, and obviously so, and because he is rooted in God’s word, he can become a source of comfort to those around him.

Such a person, planted and rooted in God’s word yields fruit in season. That means that God uses this person’s life to accomplish his purposes. She becomes a blessing to others. It is wise to pay attention to the little phrase: “in season,” also. In other words, there is a time for fruit to show up on the tree, and there is a time when fruit is being created through all sorts of internal processes, but cannot yet be seen. I think a lot of Christians put pressure on themselves if they do not see constantly some concrete way in which God is using them. But there are seasons when God works on us internally, and fruit is not yet visible externally. Fruits have seasons, and so does the Christian life.

 The one who builds his life on God’s word does not wither. The Israelis lived in a climate that sometimes included harsh, desert-like conditions. So too, the person of faith might have to live at times through very difficult things. The idea is not that such a person will have no difficulties, but rather, that the difficulties will not destroy him.

Finally, the one who builds on God’s Word prospers. This is another word that I think has changed over time in our culture. Mostly, we think prospering means getting rich, or, at the very least, that things are going well for us. But that is only one possible shade of meaning from the Hebrew word. It means to move forward purposefully, to prevail against hinderances. Honestly, I think a much better one-word translation into English would be “thrives.” The one who builds on God’s word thrives, whether things are going well, or not. For those who build on God’s word the momentum of their lives is moving in the right direction, through difficulty and through good times. God’s direction prevails in their lives. I think we need to be realistic about this, also. It doesn’t mean we always feel good, or feel like God’s will is prevailing in us at each moment. But looking back, we find that today, we are further along, closer to God’s will than we were a year ago, and five years ago. On any given individual day or moment we might go backwards or forward, but over time, the prevailing direction is toward God.

In verse four, we again contrast this to the wicked. Instead of like a giant, immovable tree, slowly growing, bearing fruit in season, thriving  spiritually, the wicked are like chaff that the wind drives away. Let me explain “chaff.” In the days that this was written, the Israelis, like all people at the time, were farmers. In Israel, they grew a lot of grain, like wheat and barley and oats. When the grain had been harvested, farmers would beat the heads of the plants (where the grain kernels are attached) to loosen it up, and knock the kernels of grain loose from the rest of the plant. Now they had a kind of dusty mess in which there were grain kernels, but also the inedible pieces, which were called “chaff.”  Then they would go to a windy hilltop, and throw it all up into the hard-blowing air. The kernels of grain were heavier than the chaff (the inedible parts of the plants), and they would fall back onto a cloth laid out for that purpose. But the chaff was as light as dried leaves and dust, and would be whipped away by the wind.

The picture is that the wicked amount to nothing. For all of their standing against God, for all of their mocking, they come to empty dust in the end, whipped off into the wind. There is meant to be a huge contrast between a mighty oak, rooted deep into the soil by an everlasting stream, and dust that blows away in the wind and is gone. There is almost no comparison. The wicked are no-account, meaningless, just dust that blows away to reveal the good grain that is kept.

The psalmist adds:

5Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

The point here is that the wicked will not be able to endure God’s judgment. When God calls people to account, the wicked will come to nothing, their schemes will crumble to dust. They will not be found anywhere, and only the righteous will be left.

And then, the final parallel thoughts:

6for the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish.

Although the ESV which I’ve just quoted, is most true to the literal Hebrew, other translations capture the sense of it a bit better. When it says the Lord “knows,” that word contains a wealth of meaning. In this context, it means that the Lord watches over the righteous, guiding, guarding and protecting them. It is a very comforting thought, a picture of God actively caring for, and looking out for, the righteous ones.

Now, for many years verses like this about “the righteous” in the Old Testament bothered me. I know myself, and I know there is a lot of unrighteousness within me, even still today. I used to wonder if I really would be in the congregation of the righteous, or if maybe I would be blown away with the wicked. But this is an example of where it is helpful to ask “Where is Jesus?” in this psalm. It is true, I am unrighteous within myself. But through Jesus Christ, God has declared me righteous. This is not because of anything I have done, but solely because of what Jesus has done.

21 But now God’s way of putting people right with himself has been revealed. It has nothing to do with law, even though the Law of Moses and the prophets gave their witness to it. 22 God puts people right through their faith in Jesus Christ. God does this to all who believe in Christ, because there is no difference at all: 23 everyone has sinned and is far away from God’s saving presence. 24 But by the free gift of God’s grace all are put right with him through Christ Jesus, who sets them free. 25-26 God offered him, so that by his blood he should become the means by which people’s sins are forgiven through their faith in him. (Romans 3:21-26, GNT)
21 Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21, GNT)

Through Jesus, and through him alone, I am called “righteous” by God. Through the Holy Spirit, as I trust him, God imparts the righteousness of Jesus to me. He brings me into spiritual union with Jesus. I don’t deserve it, but God offers me that righteousness even so. So, when I read any psalm, and I read “the righteous” I think first of all of Jesus, who is ultimately the only truly righteous human being to have lived, but I can also include myself in “the righteous” because of Jesus. I can’t claim my own righteousness, but I can, through faith, claim the righteousness of Jesus. And so because of Jesus, all the promises given to “the righteous” are also given to me. And they are given to anyone and everyone who puts all of their trust and hope in Jesus. Through Jesus, these wonderful promises are ours.

Through Jesus, we can be like a mighty tree in a dry land, secure in faith, watched over by our loving Lord.

PSALMS #1: INTRODUCTION

On By Pastor TomIn Jesus, Podcast, psalms, Religion, Sermon, UncategorizedLeave a comment
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The psalms invite us into fellowship with Jesus in every conceivable frame of mind, state of heart, and situation in life.

To listen to the sermon, click the play button:

For some people, the player above may not work. If that happens to you, use the link below to either download, or open a player in a new page to listen.

To download, right click on the link (or do whatever you do on a Mac) and save it to your computer: Download Psalms Introduction

PSALMS: INTRODUCTION

Today we will begin a new sermon series on the book of psalms. My goal is to have these sermons continuously available, so you might be reading this years after I wrote it. In my present time, however, I have just finished a sermon series on the book of 1 Peter. It took us 33 sermons to cover the five chapters in that book, or approximately 6.6 sermons per chapter. There are 150 chapters in the book of psalms. If we go at the same rate as we did for 1 Peter, it will take us 19 years to finish the psalms – and that’s if I never miss a single week!

Thankfully, I am planning to approach the psalms a little bit differently. In the first place, I will not preach a sermon on every single psalm. Secondly, there is a large difference between the genre of Psalms and the genre of 1 Peter. 1 Peter is an epistle, and it aims to teach us truth that applies to Jesus Christ in a straightforward, and theologically dense way, which means there is a great deal of meaning packed into every phrase and verse.

The book of Psalms is something else entirely. We will begin this time by considering what it is, and what that means for how we should read the psalms.

Let’s start with the name. “Psalm” is basically a Greek word that is a translation of a Hebrew word that means “song,” or “poem.” There are two other Hebrew words associated with the book of Psalms: one means “prayers,” and the other means, “praises.” The book of psalms, then, is a collection of songs and poems that have been used for many centuries by God’s people for prayer and praise. To reiterate: a psalm is a song or poem.

In a book like 1 Peter, each verse and chapter builds upon what was written before. If you read chapter three without reading chapter two, you will not fully understand what Peter intends to say. In the psalms, however, each “chapter” is actually a self-contained unit. This makes Psalms one of the only books in the Bible where it doesn’t really matter if you read it in order. You don’t need to read psalm 22 in order to understand psalm 23. You could flip to almost any chapter in the book of psalms and find it meaningful without reading the preceding chapters.

There are just a few exceptions to this. It appears that psalms 1-2 are meant to go with each other. It is likely that is also true of psalms 9-10 and also, perhaps, psalms 42-43. The reason for this is that although scholars can be confident about the content of the book of psalms, there has been some confusion, in just a few places, about how, exactly, it is to be divided into separate psalms.

Also, because we are talking about poetry, we won’t necessarily be analyzing each verse the way we do when we look at a letter, or the teaching of Jesus. In general, the best way to approach a psalm is to look at the entire thing, paying attention to the overall emotion and message. There are, however, a few psalms that are too long to do that with. In fact, the longest single chapter in the Bible is psalm 119. I guess we’ll see how it goes as we proceed, but the way we approach the psalms should be somewhat different from how we look at other parts of the Bible.

A quick word about how we talk about the book. The book overall is called “Psalms.” When we talk about a single chapter, however, we are speaking about a single psalm. So I might say “the book of Psalms.” But, about one single chapter I would say: “psalm 10 (no ‘s’).” Again, this is a reflection of the fact that normally, each chapter is its own, self contained poem or song (psalm).

Speaking of poems, at first glance, the psalms don’t appear to be very, well, poetic. This is because Hebrew poetry is a bit different than what we call poetry in English. In English, poetry often has rhyme. Even when it doesn’t, it still usually has meter – in other words, a poem conforms to certain rules about how many syllables should occur in each line of the poem. So there is a kind of obvious rhythm to most English poems. There is also a kind of English poetry called “free verse,” which has basically no rules.

Hebrew poetry – the poetry of the psalms – does not normally use rhyme, rhythm, or meter. Unlike “free verse,” however, It does have a typical form, and that is parallelism. In Hebrew poetry this means that ideas are set up “in parallel.” A parallel consists of the same idea that has already been written, but is now re-stated in a slightly different way. Just as in geometry, you can have a virtually unlimited number of parallel lines, so in Hebrew poetry, parallels might come in groups of two, or three, or even more. There is an almost infinite number of ways to combine parallels. They might be set up to repeat an idea, or to contrast other ideas, or to play off one another, or to highlight certain thoughts.

For an example of one kind of parallelism, look at Psalm 43:1

Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause
against an ungodly people,
from the deceitful and unjust man
deliver me! (ESV)

In the ESV, this is formatted to help us see the four parallel thoughts. The first line, “vindicate me and defend my cause” is parallel to the fourth line, “deliver me.” They are two different ways of expressing the desire of the writer, and he puts them in parallel. The second line: “Against an ungodly people” is in parallel with the third line “from the deceitful and unjust man.”

You can also see that these parallels are organized into a structure with an “outside” parallel (vindicate me/deliver me) containing an “inside parallel” (ungodly people/unjust man). To map it out in an overly simple way, the structure looks like this:

First thought: Help me O God!

Second thought: save me from ungodly people

Second thought in parallel: save me from ungodly people

First thought in parallel: Help me, O God!

But of course, the poet uses more interesting words and expressions to express these parallel thoughts. Besides being ingenious and beautiful, this particular poetic expression has a way of highlighting what is most important. God’s vindication or deliverance are the first and last thought; the ungodly people, though a problem, are contained within thoughts about God’s salvation. In other words, the main point is the writer is praying for God’s help. Though he is in trouble, his main focus is not on his problem, but on God’s help.

By the way, I didn’t spend a lot of time looking for a verse to help me demonstrate this. My Bible app was bookmarked to Psalm 43, and I just picked the very first verse to show us how Hebrew “parallel poetry” works. It’s all over the psalms, though it has many different types of configurations. We’ll consider those different configurations when we encounter them in the psalms that we study.

By the way, when it comes to the psalms, I think it pays to be picky about the Bible translation you use. Not all of them capture the beauty and poetry of the psalms equally well. For instance, I checked a few other English versions, and they did not really capture the inside/outside parallelism I just described for Psalm 43:1. To make sure, I double checked the Hebrew, and the ESV did indeed portray it as it was originally written. Other English translations changed the word order to make it easier to read, but then they lost the underlying structure of the poetry.

By the way, though I know just enough Greek to be dangerous, I am basically incompetent with Hebrew. However, I have been trained in how to use various tools designed for incompetents like me, and so I know how to find the information we need when it comes to that language.

Now, at this point, I know that some of you are thinking, “I’m sorry Tom, but I’m not going to spend hours analyzing ancient Hebrew poetry.” Don’t worry, you won’t have to. But I want you to start with the psalms by understanding that, in fact, they are made out of a very intricate, complex and beautiful poetry. In fact, it is no exaggeration to say that the psalms contain some of the world’s greatest literature of all time.

If you want to, you can spend time analyzing the parallels, but you don’t need to do that in order to appreciate the psalms. The biggest thing is to understand that the psalms are expressed in poetic, emotional language. Enter into the thoughts and feelings that are expressed here. Let them move you. If you find you are not being moved, try a different Bible translation.

 On the other hand, if, with any given psalm, you are having trouble understanding what the poet is trying to say, you might want to try to see the parallels he uses, and how he groups them. For that, you probably want a version like the ESV.

I say “he” about the poet, because in every instance where we know who wrote a given psalm, it was a man. However, there are many psalms for which we don’t know the author, and some of those could have been written by women.

So, for those we know about, who did write these psalms? A number of them say, in Hebrew “of David.” In some cases, it is almost certain that King David himself wrote them. He was definitely a poet and musician, and a couple of these same psalms also appear in 1-2 Samuel. In other cases, “of David” might mean something like “in the tradition of David.” The same is true for the psalms attributed to Asaph, or the Sons of Korah. It could mean that they were written by those actual people, or that they were written in the tradition and style of those people, or, more likely, sometimes the first, and in other cases, the second. One psalm says it is “Of Moses” but it isn’t clear whether Moses himself wrote it, or it is about Moses, or in the tradition of Moses.

Generally most of the psalms were probably written during a six hundred-year period, going from the time of David in 1000 B.C. until after the time the people of Judah returned from exile in Babylon, around 400’s B.C.. It is likely that many of the older psalms were well known and used in worship by the people of Israel for many centuries.

Some time after the return from exile, in the 400’s B.C., prophets and priests organized the psalms into the order that we now find them. They gathered them into five “books,” which were probably originally, five scrolls with the psalms divided up between them. Certainly, having them all together would have made for a large scroll that would be difficult to use, so it makes sense that they would  be divided up into smaller scrolls. Most Bibles indicate these book divisions somehow, usually just by a bold heading saying “Book II” and “Book III” and so on. Also, If you pay attention, you will notice that the last psalm at the end of each book contains a kind of blessing that uses words like: “Blessed be the Lord forever! Amen!” or something similar, and then some other phrases.

It appears that someone (probably a group of people) deliberately organized the psalms within the five scrolls into a certain order. The majority of psalms of lament, and cries for help, are within the first two and a half books. The majority of the psalms of praise and thanksgiving are found in the latter half of the collection.

There are several different types of psalms. Some of them are laments. A lament is an expression of pain and grief, or a cry for help and deliverance, or a cry for God to punish enemies. Others are psalms of praise, which I think is pretty straightforward. There are wisdom psalms, which are poems primarily written to teach us something. There are psalms that seem to be intended for specific worship occasions – some of which are, even today, typically used during the Jewish festivals of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles (Sukkoth). And there are several psalms that seem to be focused on Israel’s king.

When I preached through Matthew a few years ago, during part of that time I happened to be re-reading the psalms for my daily devotional. I was deeply impressed to realize that Jesus quoted from the psalms constantly. Sometimes, he used direct quotes. Other times, he just used the language of the psalms to express something he was saying, without declaring it as a quote. Since Jesus clearly loved this book, and it was in his heart, it is well worth studying.

Therefore, the very first way we interpret the psalms is to remember that they reveal Jesus to us. Sometimes, they show us his character, what he is like. Sometimes, they remind us what he has suffered for us, and a few of them even prophesy about his sufferings, or prophesy other things about his life. In other places, the psalms show us the types of things Jesus does for us. Many of them can be used to praise Jesus. So, first and foremost, as you read the psalms, ask yourself: Where is Jesus in this psalm? You might be surprised and delighted as the Holy Spirit shows you.

The psalms are also a tool for prayer. Sometimes I simply read a psalm out loud, and with my heart I agree with the words, as a kind of prayer. There are other ways to use the psalms in prayer and worship, and we will talk about those more during this series as we engage with individual psalms.

Another helpful idea in interpreting the psalms is this: they reflect and direct our experiences of living in faith. Through the psalms we can engage with all of life: with suffering, with hope, with joy, with anger, with disappointment – virtually every human emotion can be found in this book. But it is not merely emotion on display. It is emotion, and life experience, combined with faith. There is despair in some of the psalms. But it shows what despair looks like in someone who still has faith. It invites us, when we despair, into fellowship with others who walked through similar experiences while maintaining their faith.

In fact, the psalms invite us into fellowship with Jesus in every conceivable frame of mind, state of heart, and situation in life.

If you are using these sermons in a house-church setting, here is your assignment for this week. In addition to reading this sermon, please pick one psalm (any psalm, although psalm 119 might be challenging) and read it. Come to church prepared to talk about your experience reading the psalm.

WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH

On By Pastor TomIn Bible Teaching, Podcast, Religion, Sermon, Uncategorized1 Comment
worship
Worship in spirit involves giving ourselves wholly over to God and abandoning ourselves to his mercy, grace and joy. Worship in truth means our worship is based upon the revelation of Jesus in the Bible.

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Experiencing Life Together #9. Worship

Worship is central to what we do together as a church, and therefore it is central to what house churches do together. Unfortunately, the average, modern-day American Christian has become somewhat confused by the bewildering amount of information about worship. “Worship” can now refer to a style of contemporary Christian music. “Worship” has also been artificially distinguished from something else called “praise.” For many people, worship is synonymous with singing. For many others, worship involves litanies, bowing, sitting, kneeling and standing. For some, worship is something that we do for God. For others, worship is something God does for us. It is time for some clarity concerning worship in general, and hopefully this clarity can lead us to a practical way to truly worship God in our house churches.

What is worship? At the risk of muddying the waters even further, consider this simple definition of worship: Worship is our response to God’s presence and activity in our lives. This is a very basic, obvious understanding of what worship is; in fact as you read the scriptures it becomes almost self-evident, although sometimes it gets lost in the commercialized “worship movement” of our day. The book of Psalms is sometimes called the “hymnal” of the Bible. Throughout the Psalms you see various calls to worship and almost always the pattern goes something like this:

Sing joyfully to the Lord you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him.

Praise the Lord with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.

Sing to him a new song; play skillfully and shout for joy.

For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. (Psalm 33:1-4, emphasis added)

What we have here is the psalmist calling believers in God to worship. He is in essence calling them to respond to the goodness and faithfulness of the Lord. And that is what worship is. Here is another example from the Psalms:

Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. (Psalm 98:1)

There are far too many references of this sort to list in full. Again, the point is that worship is an interaction between God and us. God does something for his people, or he reveals a certain attribute of his nature, or he makes his presence known or felt in some way and then his people respond through singing, praying, kneeling, playing instruments, dancing or in a variety of other ways that are all exhibited in Scripture.

We also find in the book of Psalms people crying out to God for help. This too, is a form of worship, and it involves the same elements of worship. When we cry out to God for help, we are actually exhibiting faith in his goodness and his power to help us.

So how do we worship? As mentioned briefly above, there are a variety of ways described in Scripture in which people worship the Lord. Singing, dancing, playing instruments, lying flat on the ground, clapping, raising hands, giving tithes and offerings — all of these are ways (recorded by Scripture), in which God’s people worship him. It seems safe to say that if we use Scripture as our guide there are many possible activities and styles by which we might respond to God in worship. Jesus, when he speaks about worship in John Chapter four, appears to be more concerned with what is going on in the heart when people worship than with the external expression of worship:

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. (John 4: 23-24)

What exactly did Jesus mean by this? When Jesus said we must worship in truth, he meant that worship must proceed from an acknowledgment and acceptance of the truth about ourselves, God, and this world. And the truth about those things comes from the Bible. The Bible says the only way we can have a relationship with God is by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2: 8-9). Therefore, true worship cannot take place without faith in Jesus Christ. Without faith in Jesus Christ we are “dead in our transgressions” (Ephesians 2: 1), that is, spiritually dead. To truly worship God we must be reconciled with him through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we do have this faith and we are reconciled with him then true worship is possible, and it is based, not on correctly performing external ceremonies or singing certain kinds of songs, but rather on the truth that we are sinful people who have been saved by God’s grace through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on the Cross. In addition, worship must have at its heart the central truths and themes of Scripture: God’s goodness, our need for him, his love and joy, and so on.

Worship in spirit means that we are responding to God in a way that goes beyond simply thinking about him with our mind or going through external motions. Worship in spirit involves giving ourselves wholly over to God and abandoning ourselves to his mercy, grace and joy. It means that we have allowed the truth of God’s word to penetrate our lives to such an extent that our will and emotions respond. Worship in spirit is relational as we truly interact spiritually with the living God. To worship in Spirit also means that we allow God’s Spirit – the Holy Spirit – to direct our hearts and minds as we respond to Him.

Worship without Spirit is dead formalism. You may have experienced such a thing at times, where it felt to you like you were simply going through the motions with no enthusiasm. Worship without truth is empty emotionalism. This too is an experience some people have. You may feel like all the hype and excitement is really empty and pointless. Real worship involves both Spirit and truth.

We need to remember that worship is not a neutral activity. One way of looking at it is that worship stirs things up in the spiritual realm. Worship can help us feel closer to God, it can lead us to a place of repentance and it can often release spiritual power. The devil does not want these things to happen, nor does our sin-riddled flesh. Therefore, when we set out to worship it is normal to expect a certain kind of opposition. We need to recognize this and rebuke the devil and resist the impulses of our own flesh.

Following are four steps to take to help us worship more fully in spirit and in truth:

1. Kill the flesh (sinful nature) – eliminate the opposition. This is an act of Will. Practically, this might mean an internal dialogue like this: “I don’t feel like worshiping right now. I’m distracted by all sorts of other things. But I am making a choice to ignore my feelings and other distractions. I make a choice to give God the honor and glory that he deserves.”

2. Remember and Think about the greatness of God. This involves recalling the truth, reading and listening to Scripture, and it is an act of the mind. This means, we don’t just sit around and wait for some worshipful emotion to strike us. We actively read and listen to scripture, we actively think about God, who he is and what he has done.

3. Experience and visualize (enter in to) His presence. This is an act of emotion. In other words, let your emotions get engaged, if you can. God’s love is truly overwhelming. Many people have no trouble getting very excited at a sports game, but allow themselves to feel nothing when they come into the presence of the God who created the entire universe. When emotion is guided by a will and mind for worship, it is a good thing. Sometimes it is useful to use your body to help focus your emotions on worship. When I am not playing guitar, I often lift my hands in worship. I almost always do that, not because I feel tremendous emotion, but because I know that if I honor God with my body (the lifting of hands, or lying or kneeling) emotions of worship often follow. And that is what often happens.

4. Release the Spirit to lead. This is a spiritual act. It is also an act of faith. To let the spirit lead is to consciously invite him to lead your thoughts, will and emotions. When you get a little idea or picture or feeling that you think might be the Spirit, go ahead and follow it. The great thing about house-churches is that you can do that, and if you make a mistake, it’s okay. You and your church will figure it out. So maybe, at the Spirit’s leading, you suggest singing a song, or repeating a verse, or praying.

Here’s a practical example of letting the Spirit lead. Last Sunday, I did not pick the songs for worship. For various reasons, I didn’t even know what the songs would be until about an hour before-hand. I’m sorry to say, I was busy getting ready for church, so I just printed them out. But during our singing time, one of the songs was “Surrender.” As we were singing it, I felt the Lord prompting me to pause and invite people to name things that they wanted to surrender to the Lord. So I did that. The great thing about house-church is, it doesn’t have to always be the worship or music leader who does this. Anyone can be prompted by the Holy Spirit.

When we approach worship this way, we find that style becomes far less important. It is true that some people prefer contemporary praise songs, while others prefer litanies and hymns. There is nothing wrong with these preferences as long as we are willing to subordinate them to the greater cause, which is to worship the Lord. The main thing is what we’re doing (worshiping the Lord), not how we’re doing it.

By the way, that last paragraph is a challenge for me. When I visit other churches, or attend conferences, I often find myself not appreciating the style of worship. I’m not much for liturgy, but a lot of contemporary worship seems to me to be performed too loudly, and in musical keys that are far too high for the average person to sing comfortably. I get the message that my singing is not really intended to be part of the worship service, because I can’t even hear myself, let alone the people around me, and often the band will go off into a solo while the rest of us just sort of stand around.

Now, as a pastor and theologian, I have issues with that approach to worship. However, as a worshiper, I have learned that I can worship in that environment anyway. Because worship is more than singing, and more than style. If I apply my will, my mind, and my emotions to worship, and follow the Spirit, I can worship in Spirit and in Truth, even when the style bothers me a little bit.