Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today's Stewart tells us how we can make God smile by worshiping in spirit and truth. But before he begins, if you've ever struggled with the pain of betrayal or the weight of resentment, you're not alone. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we're called to do, but it's also one of the most freeing. That's why we want to send you Freed by Forgiveness, a four-message compilation from Stewart and Jill as our thanks for your gift today. Call now at 282-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks again for listening and for your support today.

Now here's Stewart with his message about worshiping God in spirit and truth.

Stuart Briscoe: One of the unique distinctives of Christianity as opposed to the other major religions of the world is that whilst all major religions have a primary focus, which is humanity is searching for God, Christianity is all about God seeking human beings. I want to reinforce that because there's a tendency in our modern culture to say, well, all beliefs are basically the same and they all lead in the same direction. That is at root not true. For when you look at what religion is basically about as demonstrated in the major religions, in one form or another, people are searching for God.

But scripture is abundant in fear that God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in Christ came into the world seeking the human beings. If that is true, then in my mind it raises an important question. As the Old Testament puts it, if God has his eyes running to and fro throughout all the earth looking for something, what exactly is he looking for? What is he seeking? What's he after? To find an answer to that question, I want to refer you to John's Gospel and the fourth chapter. In this chapter, we have an account of an encounter between Jesus and a lady who lived in a town called Sychar.

Ancient Sychar has now been swallowed up in a modern city called Nablus. It is one of the centers of conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. We don't have time to look into the whole conversation. I want to direct your attention to verse 19 where the woman to whom Jesus was speaking said to him, Sir, I can see that you're a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus declared, Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know. For salvation is from the Jews. Yet the time is coming and has now come when 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 him in spirit and in truth. Now there's the answer to the question. If it is true that God is seeking something in human society, and the question then is what exactly is he looking for? The answer is this. He is looking for people who will worship him in spirit and in truth.

The modern word worship comes from the old English and I'm very interested in the old English because I am one. But I'm not as old as the old English, but the idea of the old English word was that worship means to attribute worth to something or somebody that is worthy of it. To attribute worth to so to worship something is to acknowledge that this is a worthy person or a worthy thing and should be appreciated and it this appreciation should be articulated. What Jesus is saying here is that God is looking for people who will recognize his intrinsic worth.

And in recognizing God's intrinsic worth, they will respond appropriately to it. C. S. Lewis, the great Christian apologist, before he was a Christian apologist, in fact before he was a Christian, was an atheist and then he moved into agnosticism and then theism and eventually became a believer in the the Lord Jesus. And at some stage during this spiritual journey, he said he did not like the idea of God looking for worshipers. He didn't like to think that that God was sitting up there saying, I need to be appreciated. Why am I not being appreciated? He said it made God sound rather like a vain woman who needs compliments all the time or an author who needs people to be telling him what a wonderful book he's just written.

And this troubled him and sort of turned him off the idea of Christian worship. But then he thought to himself, that can't be right because surely God isn't like that. And so he looked at the whole idea of worship again and he came to this conclusion that worship is designed not to benefit God, but worship is designed to benefit human beings. And he reasoned this way basically. He said that when we enjoy something, we like to express that joy. And the fullness of enjoyment comes only when we're able to express it. So if we hear a very funny joke, what do we want to do?

We want to find somebody to tell it to. If we read a great book, we want to recommend the book to somebody. If we go to a ball game and something very very striking happens, we turn to people and say, Gee, wasn't that great? And there is a natural sense in which the appreciation within wants to be articulated and it wants to be shared. And if we can do it in in a large group of people, then there's a sense in which our joy is complete. And so what Lewis said was this, that he began to realize that what God was looking for was some people who would not only begin to understand who he is and appreciate who he is, but have a tremendous desire to articulate this enjoyment.

And in the articulation of it would find the fullness of joy themselves. And that is the essence of the idea of worship. Now the Lord Jesus said that God is looking for people who will worship in spirit and in truth. Now this is a very pointed remark and he said this in the context of what the lady from Sychar had said to him. She had said, Well, we are Samaritans and we worship this way. We think this mountain is the place we should worship and you're Jews and you think the mountain over there is where we should worship.

And the Lord Jesus said, The hour is coming. In fact, it has now arrived. And he was referring, of course, to the monumental moment in human history when he would go to the cross, die for our sins and rise again from the dead. The hour is coming, he said. And when that happens, men and women will begin to worship in spirit and in truth as opposed to the way you Samaritans are worshiping and to the way they're worshiping in Jerusalem at the present time. Well, how are these Samaritans worshiping? I'm afraid their worship was riddled with what we call syncretism.

The Samaritans are very interesting group of people. They were originally Israelites. They were members of the tribe of Ephraim and Manasseh. But then when the Assyrians overcame Israel, they took the leadership of Ephraim and Manasseh, the two tribes, back to Assyria. And in their place, they brought some colonists from Assyria. And as time went on, some of the Israelites married some of the Assyrians and they became a mixed race. Not only did they become a mixed race, they brought some of their Israel beliefs and some of their Judaistic beliefs and some of their Assyrian beliefs in and they began to try and synchronize these things.

They began to try and bring them together. And in the end, they finished up with a religion that was part truth and part error. There was part right and part wrong. There was part good and part evil. It was syncretic. And as a result was not worship in truth. Now it was an entirely different situation in Jerusalem.

Guest (Male): Don't go anywhere. There's more life-giving truth from the Briscos headed your way. tellingthetruth.org and the tellingthetruth app are great resources to help you grow in your spiritual life. Packed with videos like Ask the Briscos, articles from Stewart and Jill, and encouraging audio teaching content, you'll find a treasure trove of resources to encourage you and others in your faith. And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource when you give a gift to help more people around the world experience life in Christ. So visit us online or download the app today. We look forward to connecting with you.

We're going to return now to Stewart Briscoe's message on worshiping God in spirit and truth.

Stuart Briscoe: Now it was an entirely different situation in Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, they were still pretty orthodox as far as their belief and their practices were concerned, but unfortunately they were simply going through the motions. And the word for that is formalism. In other words, they were dotting all the right ecclesiastical t's and they were crossing all the correct theological t's, but there was no heart there. They knew how to do all the churchy things, all the worship things. They knew how to behave if you like as we would put it on a Sunday, but it had no relevance whatsoever to what happened Monday through Saturday.

And not only that, they were proud to call themselves believers, but their belief was not moving into behavior. And the word for that is nominalism. And so there were three basic problems that Jesus was referring to here. There's a problem of syncretism, the problem of formalism, and the problem of nominalism. And he says God is not looking for that kind of worship. That kind of worship he can't tolerate. In fact, he'd spoken loudly and clearly to the Jewish people through the prophets about this. In fact, God had actually gone as far as to say, Please stop worshiping me.

Stop doing it. Stop bringing your sacrifices. Stop going through all this stuff. It is absolute meaningless ritual. I can't tolerate your formalism. I can't tolerate your formalism. And of course, he had no time for the syncretism of the Samaritans either. What God was looking for was people who had worshiped in spirit and in truth as opposed to these other things. Well, what does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth? The Lord Jesus spoke a lot about truth and John records a lot of it for us in the fourth Gospel. In the eighth chapter of John's Gospel, John has that wonderful quote that people take out of context.

Remember, the truth will set you free. They even carved that into libraries and things like that. The truth will set you free. Well, put the thing in its proper context and this is what it says. If you become my disciples, then you will know the truth. And if you know the truth, then the truth will set you free. So what's Jesus saying? He said the truth that is going to be the basis of worship is the truth that leads you to discipleship. The truth that liberates, the truth that emancipates, the truth that fills you with delight and becomes the stimulus for worship is the truth that Jesus has come, is our has come, has died on the cross, has risen again from the dead.

And in the power of the Holy Spirit, he wants to impart his resurrection life to you and he calls you to be his disciples. And if you come to a position of discipleship, you will know the truth. Now then, if you know the truth, then you begin to worship out of that and you worship in truth. When you worship in truth, you also worship with a sense of reality. There's none of just going through the motions. There's not of just, Well, I guess we've got to go to church this morning. It's Sunday. There's none of this kind of thing.

Oh, well, I guess we better go because that's what we're supposed to do. No, this is the truth thing. This is a reality thing. This is something that springs from the inside of you and has a tremendous impetus, a tremendous driving force within you. That's why it's in spirit and in truth. It isn't just an external activity. It's an external activity that we see as worshipful activity that stems from a spirit that is being gripped by truth. And a human spirit that is being gripped by truth will be controlled by the Holy Spirit. John records what Jesus had to say about the Holy Spirit in the upper room discourse further on in this Gospel.

So we put all this together and we say, Okay, what is it that God's looking for? And the answer is God is looking for some people who as opposed to those who into syncretism and formalism and nominalism have a realistic desire to express and articulate their appreciation of all that they have discovered through becoming disciples of Jesus of God himself. That is what he's looking for. In Colossians, the apostle Paul is speaking to the slaves. And they're in a very very difficult position. And as a result of that, they can become very resentful. They can say, We don't want to be slaves.

We don't want to work for this guy. Why should we put out for him? And so they cut corners and they rip him off, etcetera etcetera. The apostle Paul says, No, that's not the way you operate as a Christian. Even if you're a slave as a Christian, this is how you operate. Whatever you do, you do it heartily as unto the Lord, not to please your slave master. He isn't particularly relevant. You work for the Lord Christ, but the word that he uses there, you serve the Lord Christ is douleuo, another word for worship. What is he saying?

He is saying that when you slaves go to work, you don't go to work. When you guys go to work, you go to worship because you serve the Lord Christ. Now think of this for a minute. We're now a long way from praising, aren't we? We're now on the factory floor. We're now on the university campus. We're now in the high school locker room. We are now in in doing the housework and we are saying to ourselves, I have got an ordinary mundane job to do here that is ordinary mundane. I don't like it very much, but now I've realized something.

I am going to do this as unto the Lord. That will transform your workday. It will transform your workplace and it's called worship. One of my jobs as a boy growing up in my home in England was to clean the shoes for the whole family every night. And my mother would often inspect them after I'd done them and express disapproval. My mother was very good at expressing disapproval without saying a word. And this is how she would do it. She would take these shoes and she would say, And then she would put a new layer of polish on them and she would attack them.

And she would rub those things as if she hated those shoes. And she would buff them in the end until you had to wear dark glasses to look at them. They were so brilliant. One day I said to her, Why do you hate shoes? Why why do you attack shoes like that? She said, I don't hate them. I don't attack them. She said, When I first became a believer, she said, I went to a leader of the church and I said to him, I have nothing to offer the Lord and I'm so grateful to him.

And he said to me, Oh Mary, don't say you've nothing to offer to the Lord. Just go about your daily job as if you're doing it for him. So she said, I decided that ever afterwards I would clean shoes as if they were going to be worn by Jesus. It's called worshiping as you work. You see the dimensions of worship? What it's all about is this, a revelation of God that you're taking the trouble to understand, that you're allowing to seep down into your emotions and touch your will. And as it touches your will, it begins to change your attitude to him.

And as it changes your attitude to him, you want to praise him and you want to serve him and you want to go about your daily job as if you're doing it as unto him. What he's looking for is worshipers who worship him in spirit and in truth. What he's looking for is worshipers who worship him in spirit and in truth.

Guest (Male): Now Stewart, you said that the apostle Paul even told slaves to work diligently. But isn't slavery wrong?

Stuart Briscoe: There's no question about it that slavery was a huge issue in in the days in which the apostle Paul lived and ministered. And I think it's very exciting to see that he was able to have an impact on all echelons of society, not least in the the community of people in slavery. The the slavery that he was encountering in his day was was quite different from the slavery that we're familiar with, either from the terrible days when the the African slaves were brought over or even from contemporary white slavery in in the sex trade. What was happening in in those days was that people were were often brought to the point of bankruptcy.

And what they would do then was they would actually having sold all their possessions, they would sail sell themselves into slavery. Other people were born in that situation. Some were prisoners of war. And there was something there was something fundamentally wrong about it, but it was more benign in many ways than the slavery that we're familiar with. But yes, it is fundamentally wrong and it was not going to be eradicated immediately. So what the apostle Paul is saying is is this, slaves and slave owners, what we've got to recognize is that there's something fundamentally wrong about this relationship.

We cannot eradicate it immediately, but what we can do is this, we can treat each other Christianly in this situation. And there are many many many stories of that precisely happening. So sure, slavery is wrong. It couldn't be eradicated instantaneously. If that would have created an incredible poverty, it would have brought about economic collapse, etcetera etcetera. I don't have time to get into it, but there was a change of heart and a change of attitude which led eventually to the doing away of the whole wicked system.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to telling the truth today. We're so glad you've joined us and want to encourage you further with a powerful resource from Stewart and Jill Briscoe. If you've ever struggled with the pain of betrayal or the weight of resentment, you're not alone. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we're called to do, but it 's also one of the most freeing. That's why we want to send you Freed by Forgiveness, a four-message compilation from Stewart and Jill as our thanks for your gift today. In it, you'll discover how you can break free from bitterness and step into the healing and freedom Jesus offers.

So request your copy of Freed by Forgiveness when you give today, knowing your support helps more people around the world experience freedom in Christ, many for the very first time as they hear God's truth thanks to you. Call now at 282-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks again for listening and for your support today. Thanks so much for listening today. Tune in next time for more encouragement straight from God's word. Experience life right here on telling the truth with Stewart and Jill Briscoe.