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[Kat]

Audio
http://bible-truths.com/audio/5-06-07_Part1.mp3
http://bible-truths.com/audio/5-06-07_Part2.mp3

                                             May 2007 Bible Study

                                         Worship In Spirit And Truth!
                                               [What is worship?]

I want to talk a little bit about worship, because you hear so much about worship. In every church their little marquee usually says ‘Worship Services.’ I don’t really know what their ‘worship’ services are like, I think they just sing, pray, and wave their hands a lot. I see them on TV and they have their arms up and they wave back and forth, then somebody says, ‘oh just worship Him, just worship the Lord, just worship.’ So when you sway back and forth to the music with your arms in the air….that’s worship? 

Well actually it is, you know, it is a form of worship. When you pay homage, reverence or humility to anything whether it be an object or a monarch or a pagan god or whatever, it’s worship, okay.  But there’s more to it then that.

Strong’s concordance, in the Greek, there are several words, but this is the most prevalent used; worship - to do reverence, to adore, like a dog licking his master’s hand. That the example he uses, like a dog licking your hand, that’s worship. Or you know, like a man bowing down or kissing the Pope’s ring, or whatever. These are signs of worship. 

Now in the Hebrew it‘s a little different, but same general idea; worship - to prostrate (that means to get down), bow down, humble, obeisance. That’s the definition of the word.

But isn’t it a little bit like marriage? I’ve went through this before and showed how marriage everywhere you find it mentioned in the Bible, it has to do with the ceremony of exchanging vows.  A little different from an oath, but I have explained that in my hell paper (D3-Hell).

A vow is like a promise, but you don’t necessarily swear on the name of God, when you do it. You just promise, that I’ll really do this for you or whatever. That’s a promise or vow. Although an unconditional vow can also be an oath, at least according to Mr. Green (Green’s Bible Dictionary). But I don’t want to get that technical.

So all these physical manifestations of bowing, like when the queen was in Kentucky at the derby and people had to learn to say ‘your majesty’ and give a little curtsy or bow. Because she is a sovereign leader of Great Britain and this is all showing respect. Not that they are necessarily worshiping her, but it’s the same idea, same general idea, bowing, humbling yourself. Of course when you do that before a king or a monarch and you’re a citizen of their domain, you are saying that whatever the rules of the land are, you will obey them and be humble toward it and all that. 

Examples of worship: We know this is an example of worship because it says so.

Matt 2:1  Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men came from the east to Jerusalem,
v. 2  saying, Where is He who is born king of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the east and have come to worship Him.

Here’s where the magi are coming to Him and how did they worship Him? Well they obviously bowed, they got down on their knees, they gave gifts to Him and they acknowledged that this was the promised Messiah and this was worship. I mean the child was not even old enough to acknowledge what they were doing, he wasn’t a baby in a manger, though he’s only about 2 years old when they came to the house. We know this because Herod wanted to kill everybody 2 years and under, to make sure he got the right child. He wanted to make sure he killed this one. Now a 2 year old does not understand, I mean he’s just an infant. But it was an example of worship. Then we go on and we find another example, and it’s the same idea.

Matt 4:8  Again, the devil took Him unto an exceeding high mountain, and shows Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
v. 9  and he said unto Him, All these things will I give You, if You wilt fall down and worship me.

What was the one thing He had to do to acknowledge this idea, that He is going to worship him? Fall down, get down and lower yourself beneath me. That’s a sign that you are subject to me, because you are lower, down low, you don’t stand up eyeball to eyeball with a monarch, you get down low. So you see Satan said that he would acknowledge that as being worship. Of course Christ told him to get lost.   

Now I don’t want to belittle the idea that worship includes these things, that if you worship you don’t want to do these things, like you should not get on your hands and knees when you pray. I am not saying that at all. I’m just showing you examples, that worship is a little bit on the superficial side, before I get into what it really is. That’s why the title is ‘Worship in Spirit and Truth.’ See there is all kinds of superficial worship going on.

Now I’ve always liked this Psalm, it just has a nice ring to it, the way it flows. I’ve said for many years about the King James, that you’ve got to give them credit. If you look at it and take a interlinear in the Hebrew or Greek, it doesn’t matter which and look at the actual words, you notice how brilliantly the King James translators use, pretty much the precise words, they didn’t add a lot or take away or anything. Sometimes they got them a little bit in the wrong order and a few things, they changed the meaning. But over all they stuck to the words and came up with poetry almost. It amazes me, it really does. But you would think, well you would have to not translate it correctly or add a lot of words to get this sing songy rhythm that the King James has. But they don’t. 

Yet if you read it in the Concordant which is very specific, a little bit more so than the King James, it reads very awkwardly. Most of it is rather awkward in the Concordant, though it’s a little bit more precise. But boy it sure lost that musical poetic rhythm and rhyme. 

Psalms 150:1  Praise (which means pretty close to worship) ye the LORD. Praise God in His sanctuary: praise Him in the firmament of His power.
v. 2  Praise Him for His mighty acts: praise Him according to His excellent greatness.
v. 3  Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet: praise Him with the psaltery and harp.
v. 4  Praise Him with the timbrel and dance: praise Him with stringed instruments and organs.
v. 5  Praise Him upon the loud cymbals: praise Him upon the high sounding cymbals.
v. 6  Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.

That is majestic to me. That is the last Psalms.  Where it say praise, in my margin I have a little superior 1, it says in the Hebrew - halleluiah. 

I don’t want to poke fun at this, I just want to show that even when the church wants to sincerely worship God, they screw it up. There’s hardly anything more beautiful than Handel’s 'Messiah.' Probably one of the most recognized parts of the whole piece is the hallelujah chorus. The chorus just keeps singing repeatedly, ‘and He shall reign forever and ever…’ But the problem is, they are praising God and it’s unscriptural. Christ does not reign forever and ever, He reigns for a certain period of time. Then He gives up the reign to His Father and He does not reign any more. It’s unscriptural to say that He reigns for eternity, He does not.

So you have these beautiful pieces of music, but they are unscriptural, they are lies and it just takes something away.  Does God Really appreciate singing songs of lies, of falsehoods, of unscriptural things? Well I don’t think so. On the other hand, God does not get His feelings hurt. It just amazes me how you could sin, while worshiping God. How is that even possible? Well you know it is possible.

A very powerful statement that Christ says; 

Mat 15:9  But in vain they worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."

So Christ Himself acknowledges that much of the world worships Him in vain. The reason being, what they teach to be trues and wonderful spiritual lessons of reality, is the doctrines of man. It’s totally falsehoods, nonsense and even worse sheer paganism. 

So what are some of the doctrines of men?

1)  Immortal soul.

2)  Tithing money or be cursed and lose your salvation - Isn’t that a beautiful doctrine, you tithe 10% of your gross salary and if you don’t you will be cursed with a curse. Of course if you are cursed with a curse and you sin and you are a robber of God, well you will go to hell.
 
3)  Keeping days, physical rituals, and ceremonies in place of the spiritual - I don’t have a problem with people who want to keep the Lord’s supper, or wanting to assemble on the holy days and talk about the significance of these days. Even if they want to be water baptized or circumcised, I don’t have a problem with these things.  The problem is when they look to those things as being the symbols of obedience and worship to God. When they don’t fulfill what is behind it. 

When Steven got up on the day of Pentecost, he’s talking to all these Israelites. He said, you do always resist the Holy Spirit, you uncircumcised in heart, ( Acts 7:51). Now they were all circumcised, they were Jews mostly. They were circumcised and they did the rituals and they thought that a pretty important thing to do. When they paid their tithe and when they did their sacrifices at the temple and when they did all these things, they said we’re okay. They didn’t realize all those things represented something, of which they did not fulfill at all. Christ looked right in the eyes of the Pharisees and He said, you have the law of Moses, but you don’t keep it (Matt 23:23).

4)  Building beautiful churches and cathedrals full of dead men’s bones - I mean literally. A lot of the European cathedral, they are like a mausoleum, there really are dead people buried in them. But spiritually, they have dead peoples bones in them.

5)  Discarding the resurrection of the dead as a useless doctrine - They take a doctrine like the resurrection of the dead, where Paul said,  this is so important. If there is no resurrection of the dead, well just throw out your faith, throw out this whole idea of Christianity. You know just eat drink and be merry, because tomorrow you die and it’s all over (1 Cor 15:32).   

Now what does Christianity do with a marvelous subject and doctrine like the resurrection from the dead? They throw it away! They trample it under foot like it was worthless. Why do you need a resurrection of the dead? They don’t! They try to put it together and say, ‘yea it’s great.’ Well why is it great? If you’re a Christian and you die, do you have to be resurrected from the dead? NO! Why? Because you go to heaven. Well if you are already in heaven for years or centuries, maybe thousands of years, why is it you need a resurrection? Well they hem haw around and come up with this stupid asinine thing like, ‘oh you need a body.’
 
You mean Paul has been in heaven for 2000 years with no body, how embarrassing. You might say, can he talk, and they would say, ‘well of course he can talk.’ How can he talk, he doesn’t have a mouth or a tongue, you know. How can he do any of these things, you got to have a body or how do you get about? How do you do anything? Well you know they don’t like to think about that. Did they ever think, ‘wait a minute this stupid religious belief of ours, contradicts the scriptures.’ No they don’t think about that for one second. They will sell out the resurrection of the dead, so that they can die and go to heaven. They change the scripture too. If you read the ‘Apostles Creed,’ it says;

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.

I believe in “the resurrection of the body.” What? Where does that doctrine come from? There is no doctrine in the Bible called the resurrection of the BODY. It’s resurrection of the DEAD. God is going to resurrect ‘dead’ people. 

It’s just like this person said to me in an email, ‘is there one principle in Christianity that you don’t have scriptures, that you can contradict it’? No, not that I know of.

Somebody thought they came up with one and said, ‘well all Christians believe Christ died for our sins, surely you believe that, don’t you Ray?’ Yes, I believe that, but they don’t. Christians don‘t believe it. ‘Oh yes they do, I believe Christ died.’ You believe Christ died? ‘Well yes, I believe Christ died.’ I say, you mean you believe when Christ died, He was dead. ‘Oh I didn’t say that, Ray. Oh no I didn’t say He was dead, I said He ‘died.’ Of course He wasn’t dead, because He was preaching, someplace, to demons or something.’
 
So His body died, oh I see, then the Savior of the world is a cadaver? Jesus Christ is not the Savior of the world, a dead body is the Savior of the world. You see how stupid it gets. It’s very stupid when you contradict God. Stupid people can’t contradict God and come out sounding intelligent, you just can’t. Your going to come out looking dumb.

6)  Sentencing and punishing sinners before judgment - Sentencing sinners to be punished before they are ever judged guilty. Now there is a beautiful doctrine, that is a commandment of men. They say, when you die, you go to hell. Then a thousand or two years later, you have a judgment to see whether or not you should have been there for 2000 years or not? They say, ‘well God doesn’t make mistakes.’ Well then you don’t need a judgment, it’s already taken care of. ‘We are now going to find you guilty and you should be in hell.’ You’ve already been in hell for 2000 years. You see how stupid it gets. You deviate from the scripture and you come up with nonsense, total nonsense.

7)  Salvation is ONLY accomplished through self, free will - Where do you find that in scripture? No where. Yet this is the pinnacle thing of Christianity. They got to get people to, on their own free will, decide to accept the Lord or this or that or the other thing. All scriptures that talk about this, is all the work of God. But they think, oh yea, but only if you let Him, only if you agree with Him, only if you permit Him to do it, and all of that. So you start adding words that aren’t there, you see. These are all the doctrines of men.

08)  Most of humanity will be tortured in literal fire for all eternity - Of course the worse of all of these things is the idea that God is going to torture most of humanity for eternity. I mean that is just really the one that is over the top. 

So Christ said, you teach all of these commandments of men as though they are doctrinal truths. That’s worshipping in vain. Vain of course means useless - worthless - nothing. So your worship is useless, if you are going to teach lies and not only lies, but evil lies. I don’t care how much singing the ‘Halleluiah Chorus’ or singing ‘Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,’ it doesn’t amount to anything. Worship in this physical outward show of waving of hands and all this gyration, means nothing unless there is something different about you, in your heart and mind. 

Now in the OT we come to the first place the word worship is used. This is where Abraham is going to sacrifice his son. He said to those with him, we are going over there, you stay here, we will go over there and ‘worship’ God. Of course he was going to sacrifice his son. You know this is pretty hard to think about, sometimes you just think this is a little story of Abraham sacrificing his son. No, he really was going to do it... but only because God said to do it. I’m sure he was not cherishing this idea at all. But it did indicates he knew that God could bring him back to life again, you know. But God was going to take him to the very edge and when he was willing to actually do it, then the angel said no. No you don’t have to do it, just testing your faith, okay. Then they provided a lamb.
 
But that was a sign of worship. So what do you see in that that’s different from say, waving your hands? Did Abraham go out there to wave his hands, have a little chorus of people singing the Hallelujah Chorus or something in the background? He went out there to do something serious, but it was a sign of being obedient. 

There is only one time it’s mentioned in the whole book of Genesis, all 50 chapters. This is the first couple thousand years of human existence and we only find the word worship one time. In the book of Exodus it’s found twice. We are going to look at the second one.

Exodus 34:14  “For you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God:”

Now if you look at the word jealous, there is any number of carnal humanistic definitions for the word jealous, none of which apply to God. But there is one that applies to God and that is, intolerant of disloyalty or infidelity.  He is totally intolerant to anything that is disloyal or any infidelity.

Jealous means - intolerant of disloyalty or infidelity. 
Loyalty means - steadfast and faithful. 
Infidelity means - lack of loyalty.
Faithful means - worthy of trust, reliable, consistent with TRUTH. 

God is a jealous God in that He doesn’t tolerate anything less than this in disloyalty and infidelity. 

We’ve talked about infidelity in marriage, if you cheat on your mate, that is infidelity. There is no sexual connotation with God, but with God it has to do with being loyal with what He says you should do or shouldn’t do. 

Now one of the biggest ways that Israel showed worship towards God was the whole sacrificial system with the tabernacle. They had all kinds of offerings; animals, baked goods, oil and all kinds of things and this was a great deal of their worship. It’s all physical, I’m not saying none of these people had any understanding, that this represented other deeper things, but for the most part they did not. We read something very profound in Hebrews concerning this whole thing of sacrifices and you know it went on for hundreds and hundreds of years. First they had the tabernacle, then they built the temple, then the temple was destroyed and they built it again. They went through all those temple rebuildings, but then we read this;
 
Heb 10:5  “…Sacrifice and offering you  would not, but a body did you prepare for me;
v. 6  In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure:”

Why? Why would Israel worship God with this tabernacle and temple and all these sacrifices and all these offerings - free will offerings, meat offerings, and burnt offerings? Why, if He had no pleasure in them? Why didn’t He have any pleasure in it? 

Well lets ask our self… did Jesus ever do any of this stuff? Did Jesus offer animal sacrifices for His sin? Why did they do it for hundreds of years, if God had no pleasure in it? Well He’s showing them something. Why, if they were God’s people did they wander around for 40 years before they could go into the promised land? Why did they live in the promised land for centuries and then God sends them into captivity? I mean that’s not a very good ending, is it.

Israel is taken into captivity by Assyria in about 721 BC, then in 595 Judah, by the Babylonians. Under Ezra and Nehemiah, some of them came back, the priests and some of Benjamin and some of the Jews of Judea. They rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, built the whole thing back up again. But it never went back to it’s glorious days, like under Solomon. Because they were always under somebody else’s rule, I mean Assyria, Babylon, then Rome. They thought, we can do this, when Moses gave them the law. He said here are the rules and regulations and they said, ‘all that God has said WE WILL DO,’ ( Exo 19:08). No you didn’t... they just couldn’t do it. 

It’s like when your child is in his hay day of rebellion or whatever it is. They will say, ‘yea I’ll do whatever you say.’ But they just can’t, it is not that they don’t even try. Sometimes they try, they just can’t make it up to these rules. Well we are just children, you know. He calls us children all the way through the Bible. John is one that liked to refer to the church as little children, not even just children, but ‘little’ children.

[Kat]

So Jesus never sacrifices for His sins. Although some say that He was sin, not in acts, but in facts. How you can be sin, in fact, but never commit a sin, in act, is a total impossibility... it’s just total nonsense. It’s laughable, idiotic and nonsense and of course it is unscriptural to boot.

But I put this in here, because I want people to see this... if you say, ‘well no, Christ didn’t actually commit a sin, but His body was sin, His human body was sin itself.’ I even entertained that thought for a while, because somebody lead my mind in a particular way. 

But our body is corrupt. I mean if you don’t wash it, it stinks, if you don’t feed your body, it gets diseases, it gets decayed and it dies, then it rots. That’s kind of like sin. Until I found out that the scripture do not say anything like that, nowhere is our physical body likened to sin. 

So the members of our body are used for sin, but that’s not the body’s fault. That is the heart and the mind, you see. No hand ever went into a store and stole a candy bar... no hand ever did. Would you grab it and say bad hand, like a clerk that caught a little kid stealing a candy bar. Would that kid slap his hand and say bad hand, you bad hand, I didn’t do it, honest I never would it was my hand, and you would smack your hand for stealing a candy bar. You see it’s laughable. Yet there are people teaching this nonsense.

One definition gave of worship by Dr. Strong in the Hebrew; ‘obeisance’ and it comes from the prefix ‘obeir’ which means to obey. That’s pretty easy. So worship is obeisance and the prefix obeir means to obey. Now we are getting down to what real worship is OBEY. It’s not the only definition, obedience is not the only definition of worship. But here’s the point, if there is no obedience, then there is no worship! All the other stuff is just nonsense. 

It’s kind of like… let me give you an analogy that you can understand, because you have seen it in movies and plots and everything else. There’s this one where the telephone gets disconnected and this company says it gets less dropped calls. So this girl gets these flowers and she is talking to her girl friend. She says, there is a note that says ‘beautiful flowers for a beautiful person. You don’t think that he sent those because…?’  There is silence….the call got dropped. But the other girl is still talking and probably saying, ‘oh no he wouldn’t’ or something like that. But she doesn’t hear that and the more silence there is, she is thinking, I’ll bet that’s the reason.

So here is the thing, is it a good thing to give your wife flowers, a box of candy or a present or something, because you love your wife? Absolutely it is. Are they good things to do, if you are doing them because you’re covering up for a guilty conscience, because you’ve fooled around with another woman? It loses all it’s value, doesn’t it. Then there is no value to those flowers at all, none. 

If you are faithful, true and love your wife and you are obedient to the vows you took, to love each other. Then if you give her flowers or buy her a present or take her out to dinner, then it has value, you see. But if that bigger thing is missing, that’s infidelity. 

You know that God is a jealous God for those that worship Him. You got to realize that He is a jealous God, that He does not tolerate disloyalty or infidelity. So if that’s not there, all this singing and all this other stuff, it’s just like sending your wife a bouquet of flowers, when you cheated on her. It has no meaning whatsoever. In fact it’s a slap in the face to say I love and adore God by teaching everybody that He’s going to torture most of His children in fire for all eternity. That’s a slap in the face to teach and believe something like that, then sing a gospel song or something to God. It’s just nonsense.

I want to show you what Jesus Christ did and how we can understand what worship is. We looked at Matt. 4:9, now let’s look at verse 10. I left that off because I wanted to bring it in at this point here. After Satan says, fall down and worship me and I’ll give you all this. 

Matt 4:10  Then said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou you WORSHIP the Lord thy God, and Him only shall you SERVE.

There are two things here, worship and serve, they go hand and hand. Worship and we say obeisance (the definition of worship) and obeir (the prefix meaning obey). So when you serve God you are obviously obeying God. So Jesus said you shall worship and serve God ONLY. Did Jesus live by His own words? Verse 4 same chapter.

Mat 4:3  And the tempter came and said unto Him, If thou art the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.
v. 4  But He answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

Alright, so Jesus Christ said, you don’t live just on food. I mean you need food to keep your body alive. But real living, that is the reason why you keep your body alive, to live. You need other food than just bread. So you worship God only and you don’t live by bread alone. Well what kind of food do you eat then? Let’s notice what Jesus said He ate. Here’s what His food was and we’ll nail this worship thing down real tight, real fast. 

John 4:34  Jesus said unto them, My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.


                                ONE GIANT PARABLE 

The more I teach the more simple I’m going to make this Bible. It’s all one thing. You don’t have to know what all those words mean individually and in a technical way, I mean it’s good if you do, but you don’t have to. The point is, before you have to know all that, I’ll show you what all these words mean. Then if you want to take your time and study all of them out, you can. But you'll already know, you say, ‘Ray how can I know what all those words mean if I don’t understand all the definitions of all of them?’ I’m going to show you (in future articles), and you’ll be amazed. Because it’s like I’ve been saying for so long, all this, it’s all one thing. I came up with this, maybe seven years ago, the Bible is one giant parable, so all you have to do is understand the one parable.

Jesus Christ taught many parables, we have about 40 in the Bible. But there are many more that He taught that are not in there, probably hundreds of parables. On one occasion He said how is it that you don’t understand this parable? How then will you understand all parables? (Mark 4:13).

Oh what a key that was! You mean if I understand this one, I could understand the others too? Well why is that? Because they are all the same. All the parables are the same parable, they are all the same. Oh they come at it from different angles and so on. 

It’s like you go to the Grand Canyon, it’s all one canyon, you know. You can take pictures at sunrise or at noonday or take pictures at sunset. You can go down into it with the mules or you can go from the edge or you can go from the north side or the west side or from an airplane or helicopter. Now they even have a glass bottom floor, where you can walk out and look straight down. 

But it’s all the same Grand Canyon, is it not. So you can view it from many different angles. Once you become familiar with the Grand Canyon, you can look at pictures from a helicopter or from this end or that end, from the bottom looking up or from the top looking down and you will know that it’s the Grand Canyon. Even if all the pictures are angled differently and there’s different lighting, you’ll still know it’s the grand canyon. 

So the more we study this Word of God, the more we see it’s all one thing. There is one giant parable and it is this.

Gen 1:26  “And God said, Let Us be making man in Our image…”

There it is! You know the teaching is, that that has already happened. No it didn’t! That is why they don’t understand the Bible, because it didn’t happen back then. Only the physical aspect was back then. 

First the physical then the spiritual, that’s the principle. If you don’t believe that principle, how can you believe the Bible? Why do you think the Bible teaches principles, if they aren’t true. If it is true, why don’t you believe it? Does the physical come first and then the spiritual? Yes it does. That’s the principle of God and so He’s making man into God’s image. Are we spirit? No. Is God spirit? Yes. Well if He is making us into HIS image, don’t you think this stinking, rotten, carnal minded body is going to have to change, if we are going to be made into His image? We know it hasn’t happened yet. That’s why people kill each other and hate each other and all the misery and stuff we have among society, because they are not in His image. These people are not in the image of God! But one day they will be. 

It doesn’t matter what subject we study it always goes back to that one thing. What is it that God is doing? He's changing us from what we are, into what we are going to be. That whole thing is what we call life, creation, existence, the plan of God. It’s all that ONE thing, all of it. You’ve got to relate everything that there is in the universe to this one thing that God is doing. He’s changing humanity into His own image!

John 4:32  “But He said unto them, I have meat to eat that you do not know of.”
v. 33  “The disciples therefore said one to another, Hath any man brought Him aught to eat?”
v. 34  “Jesus said unto them, My meat (food - What did we just read in Matt. 4, you worship God and God only do you worship and serve, you don’t live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.) is TO DO THE WILL OF HIM THAT SENT ME…”

There it is. Obeisance. What is worship? Obeisance. What does obeir mean? Obey. Jesus Christ obeyed, “the will of Him that sent Me and to finish the work.” Finish means to complete perfectly. It’s not just to bring it to a conclusion, but to complete it 'perfectly'. 

Now when there was a difficult situation, Christ always worshiped God. He always did the right thing. I’m just hitting the high spots, so you will get an idea of what true worship is.

Matt 26:42  Again a second time He went away, and prayed, saying, My Father, if this cannot pass away, except I drink it, Your will be done.

Even when it came down to life and death and something just very painful and very difficult, He worshiped God, He served God. He knew what He was sent here to do. He said, I’ll do it. That’s worship. That’s what worship is, it’s not waving your arms. I mean you can wave your arms if you wanted to, and you can sing a hymn or you can get on your knees when you pray. But none of that is of any value unless you obey and serve God. That’s what true worship is. Worship is obedience.

John 19:30 …It is finished…

Jesus started: “being tempted in the wilderness” (Matt 4:1). 
Jesus said: “you worship and serve God only” (Matt 4:10).
Jesus said: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Mat 4:4).
Jesus said: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work” (John 4:34). He would say, that’s what keeps Me going, that’s what makes Me get up everyday, that’s what makes My life worth living.  I serve and obey God, My Father.
Jesus said: “It is finished” (John 19:30).

What did Jesus have that those in the Old Testament did not have?

Deu 5:29  O that there were SUCH A HEART IN THEM, that they would fear Me, and KEEP MY COMMANDMENTS ALWAYS, that it might be well with them…

Well Jesus had such a heart in Him. That’s the difference, we just saw it. It said you live by every word of God, you worship and serve God only. Jesus would say, the real food to Me is not this fish and bread we’re going to eat, but serving and obeying God and doing what He wants Me to do.

He completed that work under the worst and hardest circumstances and that’s because He had that heart in Him and He said, “… that they would keep all my commandments always…” Well that’s what Christ did! The commandments - the law, is spiritual (Rom. 7:14).

So worship has got to be spiritual. It isn’t that you don’t do physical things in life that are right, but those physical things are motivated with your mind. I mean you don’t get up to walk until your mind says to get up and then to move your legs. It starts with your mind. Your body is totally useless without our mind. I mean our mind is what motivates every action of the body. Even when you’re sleeping and your heart is beating, it’s all motivated by the mind. 

So the law is spiritual, but you have to have such a heart in you and Christ had such a heart in Him. That’s how He worshiped God right and properly. 


           FIRST COMES THE PHYSICAL AND THEN COMES THE SPIRITUAL

1Cor 15:46  Howbeit that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; then that which is spiritual.

Why is the spiritual better than the physical? Well in this life if you are carnal minded, physically minded, materialistically minded, you will think that the natural is better than the spiritual. Try to tell a 12 or 13 year old that the spiritual things mean more than physical things. I mean come on, you know they are into toys and fun and games and sports and clothes and TV. But it’s just so so with the spiritual things. 

But the reason that the spiritual is better than the physical is, it’s the only thing that’s going to last, right. The physical is temporary, the natural is temporary and only the spiritual is eonian. But eonian of course leads into eternity. First eonian then eternity. 

Again we come back to the idea that Christ was the only perfect example that shows us how to worship God and how to live. The fact is that this image - this one parable that hasn’t been fulfilled yet, making humanity into the image of God, is not yet complete. So do we have an example of what this final ‘Image’ will be like?  Yes, we do;

Rom 8:29  For whom He foreknew, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son…

It would be pretty silly to say we are already spiritually formed into the image of God and now all we have to do, is be conformed into the spiritual image of Christ, it’s nonsense. They are one in the same. Jesus Christ said, I and My Father are One. You can’t be in the spiritual image of GOD, but say, I’m working on the spiritual image of CHRIST aspect. They are One and the same. “I and My Father are One” (John 10:30). This is a progression ‘to be’ conformed into the image of His Son, right? That He might be the first born among many brethren. Look back at 1 John 3.

1John 3:2  Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.
v. 3  And every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself, even as He is pure.

Wow, look at that. So we are called the sons of God. But it does not yet appear what we shall be. But notice that the only ones that shall be, are the ones who purify themselves. They have to purify themselves even as He is pure. See it all comes back to Jesus Christ. We’ve got to conform to His image. 

So here is the Samaritan woman, she comes and Christ immediately asks her for water. Then Christ said He could give her water that she would never thirst again. She said, I want some of that water and then she ask about worshipping. She told Him, we worship here in Samaria and You say over in Jerusalem is the place to worship. Christ said in John 4.

John 4:23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father  seeks such to worship Him.

True worshipers... that’s what we want to know about, true worship. We have already read where Christ said they worship Him in vain, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. TRUE worshipers, worship in spirit and TRUTH. What is truth? 

John 17:17  …Thy Word is truth.

You have to worship Him according to the scriptures, because it’s true. I found this to be interesting, John says, Your Word is truth, and in the OT in Isaiah 8 it says;

Isa 8:20  To the Law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this Word, it is because no light is in them.

So we have the spiritual law of God (Romans 7: 14 says, the law is spiritual), and we have the testimony. The testimony that we are familiar with is the testimony of Jesus Christ. Because He’s the Logos, He’s the One that does the speaking. If they don’t speak according to this Word, it’s because there is no light in them. 

Strong says that ‘light’ means the Dawn or Dayspring. 2 Peter 1:19 talks about the “Day Star in your hearts.” Rev. 2:28; 22:16 says Jesus is the Day Star or the Morning Star. The One that comes with the dawn, the shining of the new light of the day, that’s Jesus.

So if we speak NOT according to the law of Jesus Christ and the testimony of Jesus Christ, there is no light in us. Well who is that Light - that Morning Star - that Dawning Light - that Day Star? It’s Jesus Christ! So what it is saying is, if you don’t speak and live and obey according to this Word, guess what? There is no Jesus Christ in you. He is that Light. If you don’t obey like Jesus Christ did, in spirit and truth, there is no Jesus Christ in you. Now to really nail this thing, this statement of Christ, in Luke is one of the most profound scriptures in all the Bible.

Luke 6:46  And why call you Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?

Why call Me ‘LORD, LORD’ - that is an acknowledgement of somebody far superior. That is an act of worship, like when you say, your majesty - your highness, you bow, you curtsy, that’s an act of worship. “Lord, Lord”  double Lord, that’s an act of worship and acknowledges that this is your Master Master, your Teacher - your Master - your Lord. Christ says, why do you worship Me by calling Me Lord Lord and do not the things which I say (paraphrased). Lord Lord is worship. But if you don’t do what He says it’s useless, it’s worthless. 

So you only need to take one thing away with you here today. WORSHIP IS OBEDIENCE TO GOD’S WORD, which is Light and that Light is Christ. If you don’t live by it there is NO Light in you, there is NO Christ in you.  It all comes down to obedience. Now think about this for a minute. I mean our judgment is now, we are before the judgment seat of Christ now, judgment is upon the House of God now (1Peter 4:17).

Let’s look at this judgment the way the church does. They say, 'you know it’s coming a day when all, one by one, will go up and you will tell your life story. Every idle word is brought into account and for 50 billion people.' How many thousands of years would that take anyway? 

But can you imagine God saying - ‘you know (calling anybody by name) you really were obedient to Me, you always did what was right, no matter how hard it was, you did what you knew was right and that is commendable. However you didn’t wave your hands, you didn’t fall over backwards and foam at the mouth, I’m so upset with you.’ It’s just nonsense, that He would say, ‘yes you always obeyed Me, even in hard times, you did the right thing. You did right by Me, you did right by other people, you were obedient, but you didn’t wave your hands.’ 

Can you see what is important in worship? Forget about the waving hands. If you got to do it, well then do it. But you know the big thing is OBEDIENCE and that goes with family relations… husband and wife, you’ve got to be obedient to those vows. If those vows were good and Godly, you’ve got to be obedient.

But obedience, that is where it is at. Sometimes we come short, I know. But there is no doubt in my mind, that's what it’s all about, and I know what it’s all about.