Jesus on Worship

Good morning. It’s a privilege to be here. And I am going to read three brief passages of Scripture, beginning with the Hundredth Psalm.

Psalm 100:

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!
 Serve the Lord with gladness!
 Come into his presence with singing!

Know that the Lord, he is God!
 It is he who made us, and we are his;
 we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
 and his courts with praise!
 Give thanks to him; bless his name!

For the Lord is good;
 his steadfast love endures forever,
 and his faithfulness to all generations.

And from Mark 14:3:

“And while [Jesus] was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, ‘Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor.’ And they scolded her. But Jesus said, ‘Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.’”

And then, finally, in John and in chapter 4, in the conversation with the lady at the well, the woman tells him, “I don’t have a husband.” She then says, “I can see that you’re a prophet. What do you think? Should we be worshipping in Gerizim or in Jerusalem?”[1] And then from 21:

“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’”

Father, help us now as we look to the Bible. May the Spirit of God control my lips and our minds and our hearts as we think about what an immense privilege it is that we, the children of men, should be able to bring our lives into your presence and declare your glory. We want to know how to do this and how to do it well, and we seek your help. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, my reason for turning to each of these passages, I hope, will become understandable and hopefully prove useful.

Spiritual Worship

We begin in John chapter 4, almost inevitably—it’s familiar material to all of us—in a conversation with a woman at the well. We have what we might refer to here, or what we might regard, as Jesus’ basic biblical instruction on worship. Indeed, I can’t think of another place where we have such a categorical statement made by the Lord Jesus himself.

He addresses the lady, “Woman…” And I’ve been thinking about it coming down here to Texas, because the commentators always wonder, “Why does he say that?” John chapter 2, he says it to his mother.[2] Once again, three years later, he addresses his mother in the same way.[3] I have a sneaking suspicion it’s like in the South: “Ma’am…” “Ma’am…” “Ma’am, believe me. I’m telling you the truth, ma’am.”

“The hour is coming when the question you’re asking will prove to be irrelevant.” That’s what he’s saying. Because the hour to which he’s referring, of course—and it runs all the way through the Gospel of John and elsewhere—is the hour of his passion and of his resurrection. And he speaks in this way proleptically. He does it in John’s Gospel elsewhere. For example, in John 17, he speaks about the future as being the present.[4] And here he does the very same thing: “The time is now here.” The validity of ceremonial worship will be dealt with and will be gone, because the Father’s plan, to which he refers, in seeking worshippers is implemented in the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

And it’s vitally important that we understand that: that when he says the Father is seeking worshippers, the way in which the Father’s plan is executed is in all that Jesus is now about to do in his death and in his resurrection. And we should remember that in the new Jerusalem, there will be no temple at all.[5] The question will be moot.

The time not only “is coming” but “is now here,” and it is “in spirit and truth” that this worship is to take place. That phrase—and it is one preposition for two nouns—that phrase is actually often misquoted. Frequently, before you go in to preach, one of your deacons or your elders will pray that whatever happens now might happen “in spirit and in truth.” That’s a misquote. It is one preposition covering both nouns: “in spirit and truth.”

It’s not only a misquoted thing, but it is often frequently misunderstood and misapplied. (Or maybe I have just discovered this, and it doesn’t happen anywhere you are.) But this is how it is often taken to mean—what it’s taken to mean. This: “Anyone can worship anywhere and anytime as long as they’re genuine and sincere.” That’s not what he’s saying. What is actually being said is that only those who receive the Holy Spirit can worship him at all. It is not actually within the capabilities of man—men and women—by nature. The very reality is a gift of God.

In other words, it is a supernatural dimension. We know that man by nature is able to see the details of God’s handiwork. But that doesn’t mean the fact that they are able to do that is that they somehow or another know what it is to do what Jesus is talking about here as he addresses this lady. Nicodemus needed to know, “You’ve got to be born again”;[6] the woman at the well needed to know, “You need life-giving water”;[7] so that it is only through the truth that Jesus embodies and the Spirit that Jesus imparts that any of us can know and worship God.

The Westminster Confession puts it very clearly: “The acceptable way of worshipping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited [by] his own revealed will.”[8] That, of course, gives rise to the question that is often a debated question regarding the regulative principle of worship. And that is beyond my purview this morning. Let it suffice to hear Calvin on the subject: “It is not in the power of men to form … modes of worship [as] they please.”[9] “They … trifle with God” like “children … with their puppets,”[10] for “they are perpetually contriving new modes of worship.”[11]

I don’t know what he would make of many of our gatherings, and we don’t need to worry about it at all. What he’s addressing there, of course, is not the issue of style but the issue of substance. And at the very heart of worship is the awareness that it is about God and his glory, and it is not about man and his need. Worship is offered to God for his own sake, for his own pleasure, regardless of the impact upon the human worshipper. It’s not about us. It is about him.

There’s a wonderful record of one of the two Bonar brothers—Horatius and his brother—backpacking in the North of Scotland. And they had gone into one of the little churches up there in the Highlands, in the sea villages on the east coast. And they came out together, and one brother said to the other, “Well, I didn’t get much out of that.” And he said to him, “If you had been hungry enough, you would have got something to eat. And remember, it’s not about you.”

Worship is offered to God for his own sake, for his own pleasure, regardless of the impact upon the human worshipper. It’s not about us. It is about him.

Now, when the gathering that we have the privilege often of introducing begins, it begins very simply, doesn’t it, with an invitation? “Let us worship God.” I want to suggest to you that if it begins any other way, we can immediately send things in the wrong direction. I mean, the opening phraseology of a gathering of God’s people sets something of the tone and of the agenda. And so, if you like to begin like, “Hey, how are y’all doing this morning?”—you know, good on you, but I think you’re wrong. Because if everybody responds to that, regarding not as rhetorical but an invitation, you’ll be there for a very long time as they explain to you how they are. And how they are may not be addressed by what they think they need—but rather,

  Come, let us worship and bow down;
 let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
For he is our God,
 and we are the people of his pasture.[12]

I certainly am not a fan of “Bring your coffee, sit back, relax. Let’s see what we have for us today.” No, it should be “Sit up. Pay attention.”

Because the service of worship is actually framed by the gospel itself. We begin, “Holy, holy, holy! [You are the] Lord God Almighty!”[13] We confess our sin. We give thanksgiving to God for pardon. We then make use of the means of grace. “Assemble the people,” says God to Moses. “Assemble the people that they might hear my word, that they might listen, and that they might learn, them and their children and their children with them.”[14] In other words, the reason for gathering is in order that we might hear from God.

You say, “Well, wait a minute. This is about worship.” Of course! But what God has said to us is more significant than anything we might ever say to him. That is why we assemble to hear, to listen. I’ve often wondered whether we actually have the thing backwards—that we ought to go to the Scriptures together, and then, out of the fullness of the understanding of Scripture, then we give way to praise, then we give way to adoration—as opposed to the way that it is routinely done.

I’ve found it helpful to think along these lines, and I’ll just mention them. They may be routine for you. But I remind myself, first of all, that worship is spiritual. It is spiritual. Romans 12: “It’s your spiritual service of worship,”[15] or however you translate it. So in other words, in order to worship, a person has to be spiritually alive. Spiritually alive. We’ve all done a lot of funerals. Sometimes they put you in there with the coffins in that dreadful funeral home place—which, the only time I’ll be in it, I won’t know I’m in it, which is fine. But when I’m in it, knowing I’m in it, I don’t like being in it! But I never heard anyone singing. No one was singing. None of the dead were singing. Dead people don’t sing.

Correction: Dead people sing at sports events, but dead people don’t sing about the praise and glory of Jesus. You got to be spiritually alive. You have got to be spiritually assisted—the enabling of the Holy Spirit. And you’ve got to be spiritually active. Spiritually active. Sing! Sing! It’s spiritual.

Secondly, it’s rational. It’s rational. In fact, in the Greek, it’s logikon. It’s logical. “It’s your logical service of spiritual worship.” Bernard, quoted in the Ten Commandments book by Thomas Watson, speaking in terms of rational and in terms of preparation for worship, he says, “So should we say to ourselves, when we are at the door of God’s house, ‘Stay here all my worldly cares, and wandering cogitations; I am now going to [hear] what the Lord will say to me.’”[16] Probably a good argument. I don’t think he’d be very impressed with people using cell phones to read their Bibles and simultaneously check the stock market and see whether the Cavs are actually winning or losing.

If it is rational, it demands preparation. I went to play at Pinehurst last week, courtesy of some fine Baptist friends of mine—and they gave me a fine Baptist beating as well. But what was impressive to me was how long the lead-up to it was. No, we didn’t lie there, you know, three minutes before, park the car, change the shoes, and go. Oh, no! We needed preparation. We’re on hallowed ground at Pinehurst, and we’re about to do something of great significance!

You take it for granted, don’t you? Your wife says, “Why are you going so early?” “Oh, we’ve got to be prepared. We’ve got to be prepared.” Do you show up to church on time, prepared?

Well, how were we preparing this morning? Well, my driver was preparing me by letting me listen to all these wonderful songs written by Boswell and Isaac Watts and everybody else, so that our hearts would be tuned.

Concentration. If it’s rational, concentration. “And when I think…” There’s the rub! “And when I think that God, his Son not sparing…”[17] “And when I think”! “No, I don’t want to think. I want to feel.” You can feel after you think, but not until you think. “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven; to his feet your tribute bring.” Think! You’ve been

Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven.
Who like [thee] his praise should sing?
Praise him! Praise him![18]

Thinking! As opposed to… And I hope the person who wrote this song is not here, but anyway—or can’t even hear this, because it’s naughty to say this. But I’m not good with “I just want to praise you, lift my hands and say I love you.”[19] Because the fact of this matter is: Most of the time, I don’t. I go to church, and I have to change the thing: “I don’t want to be here. I wish I was still at home in my bed. I...” So I can’t start there. I’m a wretched, sinful person. Pastor, direct my gaze in the right direction. You are the leader here. Whatever else you’re doing, you establish it—the tone, the framework, the element, all of it! It’s spiritual. It’s rational.

And it is also, clearly, biblical—biblical, grounded in the truth of Scripture. What does that mean? Well, it means that we daren’t be unduly influenced by our own opinions and our own preferences. There’s a wonderful illustration of this in the life of Sebastian Bach, you know—who was pretty good, wasn’t he? And he said that 1 Chronicles 25 was the basis, was the true foundation, of all God-pleasing music. First Chronicles 25 is the Davidic singers and players. He said that was there. When he discovered Luther’s three-volume translation of the Bible, the impact upon him was masterful. And he wrote St. Matthew Passion, which, of course, was transformative—and way beyond the walls of the church. He wrote it for the church. Nietzsche, in his writings—nineteenth-century radical, skeptical, atheistic Nietzsche—referencing Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, said, “One who has completely forgotten Christianity truly hears it here as gospel.”[20] “As gospel.” Why? Because it was biblical. It was the Scriptures. That’s why God gave us a hymnbook in the 150 psalms, incidentally. (And if you’ve come from some remote parts of Scotland, you know that that is regarded as the only hymnbook. But not all Scottish people are as bright as they need to be, so don’t worry about that.)

Heartfelt Worship

Now, mentioning the Psalms, I need to make an abrupt segue, because I told you there was a reason for turning to the Hundredth Psalm as well. Because probably the Hundredth Psalm is as good a call to celebrative worship as, really, any one of the other psalms. It’s brief, it’s just five, and so on. And long before William Kethe gave us the paraphrase “All people that on earth do dwell,”[21] so on—long before Kethe gave us that—this psalm was sung in the temple, and this psalm was sung in the gatherings of God’s people in the synagogues. This is one of the psalms that Jesus sang. Maybe when he went back to his own place in Nazareth there, before he read from Isaiah, maybe they sang the Hundredth Psalm. In the Anglican Communion, it is the Jubilate. The Jubilate: “Come! Let us enter! Let us go!”

You know, C. S. Lewis—in The Four Loves, I think it is—he talks about how men and women spontaneously praise things.[22] And when they spontaneously praise things, they spontaneously say to the people around them, “Let’s do this!” So they say, like, “Isn’t that fabulous!” or “Doesn’t she look terrific!” or “Wasn’t that tremendous!” And in the same way, when the people of God gather, when we are guided by, framed by, a worship that is meeting those criteria, then we will be able to follow the track that the psalmist sets for us.

In verses 1 and 2: praising God. Praising God. Three of the psalm’s seven imperatives come in that first two verses.

“Shout.”[23] Incidentally, that’s not to give freedom to some tone-deaf fellow who stands next to you. I was speaking at a conference earlier in the year, and I met the pastor—very fine fellow. I like him very much. I hope to get to meet him again. But we stood side by side when they had the praise. Now, brothers, I have never heard anything like it in my life. It wasn’t that there was sort of an intermittent intersection with the melody line. There was no connection with the melody line at all. I don’t know what he was planning on doing right there. And even when I tried to move away from him, he kept coming. It was just “No! No!” So the “shout” part—he should just shout. He shouldn’t even call it singing.

Shout, serve, sing. It’s praising God. That we sing is evidence of spiritual life, what we sing matters, and how we sing impacts one another. Praising God.

Verse 3: knowing God. Knowing God. We could spend time on this, but we won’t, because we’ve got a wonderful conference that is following once I get out of here. But we want to make sure that, as much as we have the privilege of leadership in whatever dimension, that we ourselves are consumed with the thought that God is the creator of the universe, that he is the sustainer of life, that he’s eternal, that he’s infinite, that he is unchangeable, that he is true to all of his promises, and so on—that we are his people, the sheep of his pasture; that we’ve been called out of darkness in order that we might declare the praises of him who brought us into this new dimension.[24] One of the hymn writers does it well: “’Tis what I know of thee, my Lord and God, that fills my [heart] with [praise], my lips with song.”[25] “’Tis what I know of thee.” “I know you.”

And that kind of knowledge is not theoretical. It’s experiential. It’s practical. Because the worship of God—and there’s a good conference on this (it’s called Doxology & Theology)—the worship of God is theological rather than psychological; that worshipping God involves declaring his greatness. Again, Calvin: “There is a great difference between music one makes to entertain and the Psalms, which are the songs sung in the church in the presence of God and the angels.”[26]

We can perhaps think it out as we have opportunity, talking to one another. We learn from one another. But the vehicle of expression of our praise is relevant to the message being expressed. You’re not going to play Handel’s Messiah on a kazoo.

The worship of God is theological rather than psychological.

Thanking God. What did I say? Praising God, knowing God, thanking God—verse 4. If in verse 2 it’s the intimacy of his presence, then here, in verse 4, it is the majesty of his palace. There’s a royal standard that flies from the battlements of Buckingham Palace when the King is present. And that masterful picture of the abiding presence of the living God gathered amongst his people is there on display—so that when you think in terms of 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 and 14, and the people come in from outside… And let’s say you invited your local bank manager to come to worship, and he only knows you as somebody who always comes in there and says, “Why can’t I get more five dollars when I’m getting my cash?” or whatever it is. In other words, he just knows you as a bit of a nuisance. And then he comes, and he sits along from you. And what you’re doing and what he’s experiencing are two entirely different things.

We used to sing about it as youngsters in Edinburgh. We used to sing a song:

Love is a flag flown high
From the castle of my heart,
For the King is in residence here.

So let it fly! Let it fly!
Let the whole world know
That the King is in residence here.

The bank manager looks along and says, “I don’t know what the heck is up with you, man!” He’s going to ask you when you go in next time, “What were you doing?”

“Well, I was praising God.”

“Do you know him?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you thankful to him?”

“Yes. ‘I was glad when they said to me, “Let[’s] go to the house of the Lord.”’”[27]

Trusting God is how it ends in verse 5: the declaration that “the Lord is good,” that “his steadfast love endures forever.” You can cue in CeCe Winans now, singing, “All my life you have been faithful, and all my life you have been so, so good.” Uh-huh. That’s what the psalmist is saying. (Incidentally, I’m not sure I like that “running after [you], running after [you]”[28] thing there, but it’s just my personal view. So…)

At our Bible class group, when we were young, we often began with a very simple little chorus. It went like this:

Jesus, stand among us
In your risen power.
May this time of worship
Be a hallowed hour.

“Jesus, stand among us.”

Well, of course, if we believe the Bible, we believe, in some immense dimension, not only of a “mystic, sweet communion”[29] between ourselves on earth and the heavenly body gathered in the presence of Jesus but a real communion with the presence of the risen Christ, no longer located in one venue but celebrating amongst the gathered congregation in the praise of God’s people. It’s Hebrews 2: “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.”[30] So there is some sense in which… Although sometimes we use this to cajole people, whatever. We don’t need to do that. But we need to realize, too, that Jesus actually—if “he walks with me,” if “he talks with me,” if “he tells me I am his own,”[31] and I’m here with you, then he’s here with me too. Therefore, what we just sang we sang in the presence of Jesus.

And there’s more than that. He is actually the worship leader. I’ve got news for you: You are not the worship leader. Jesus is the leitourgos. Jesus is the one who leads us in our praise. Jesus is actually the preacher. He brings forth the truth. The fact that he chooses to use some mechanism that involves you or me is a mystery of grace.

Extravagant Worship

Well, let’s go to finish it up with the lady in [Mark] 14. So, we’ve had one abrupt segue, from John 4 to the Hundredth Psalm, and then a second abrupt segue here to this lady.

What are we to do with the extravagant expressions of worship? Liturgy is not simply present in high Anglican churches. It’s present everywhere you go. Every congregation eventually takes on its own semblance.

I, again, was at another conference, and it was actually the pastor’s wife that I was standing next to on this occasion. So I got an upgrade. This is a different conference. But I can’t remember what we were doing, and I was trying to just be focused. But what was going on beside me was special—I mean, special in every sense of special. Because it wasn’t simply that this lady was raising her hands. This lady, she was doing all manner of things. And I thought, “Wow! That is extravagant! Why don’t I do that?” And then I switched to “Why are you doing that?” And I could hardly make it through. I mean, she is a lovely lady. I’m very sincere. But somehow or another, how it was working for her wasn’t working for me. So maybe Jesus was standing closer to her or something. I don’t know what that was.

But somehow or another, we’ve got to figure it out, because we’ve got to lead our people. And you’ve got people that—they’ve made an art of sitting on their hands. You’ve got another group of people who love to wave their hands. The fact that the people are doing the thing with the hands is always intriguing to me. They say, “Well, you know, it says… You don’t lift up your hands. That’s what it says in Timothy, you know.” I said, “No, it doesn’t say that. It says, ‘I urge that people would lift up their holy hands.’”[32] “Their holy hands.” Well, that got a few of the hands going down immediately, I guarantee. But there is a difference between emotion and emotionalism. Because one’s emotional response to the stimulus of worship is no sure indication of the work of God’s Spirit.

It’s fascinating when I’m in different contexts. Like, I was in California earlier in the year, and we were doing the sort of standard songs that they do. And during those standard songs, the people did what they did in this particular congregation. And the guy that I was with—I was a visitor. And then we segued from that to “What is [my] hope in life and death?”[33] And the people didn’t know what to do with that. They didn’t have the hand motions for it, or whatever it was they were supposed to do. And at the end the fellow said to me—he said, “You know, that was really interesting!” He said, “That was like a hymn!”

I said, “Yeah! Yeah, it was a hymn!” You know, there’s an actual progression of thought. You can actually follow the line along. You can think!

“Oh!” he said. “Whoa!”

One’s emotional response to the stimulus of worship is no sure indication of the work of God’s Spirit.

I was at a thing years ago, in my olden days, in Shropshire in England. Went to a charismatic Baptist church. And in the course of the night, the fellow who was giving the prophetic exhortations—and this is the point at which I left the building—but he said, said, “The Lord is telling us this evening, ‘Whoop it up!’” That’s what he said: “Whoop it up.” I said, “Thank you! Yes, that’s…”

But this—and I’m going to leave you to do your own Bible study on this—this is an expression of extravagant worship. What this lady does here is unique in its thoughtfulness, it’s costly in its bestowal, it’s timely in its provision, it’s challenging in its impact, and it’s lasting in its memory. If “sacrifice of praise”[34] is emblematic in this at all, then perhaps we can learn from the extravagances of some who do things a little differently from ourselves and from whom, perhaps, we need to learn more than we’re prepared often to accept.

Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for the opportunity to begin the day thinking through the wonders of worshipping you, the living God. And we pray that you will continue to stir our hearts and guide our thinking. And we humbly pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

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[1] John 4:17, 19–20 (paraphrased).

[2] See John 2:4.

[3] See John 19:26.

[4] See John 17:1.

[5] See Revelation 21:22.

[6] John 3:3 (paraphrased).

[7] John 4:10 (paraphrased).

[8] The Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1.

[9] John Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets, vol. 1, Hosea, trans. John Owen (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1846), 366.

[10] Calvin, Commentaries on the Twelve Minor Prophets, vol. 2, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, trans. John Owen (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1846), 291.

[11] John Calvin, Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, trans. William Pringle (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1845), 2:245.

[12] Psalm 95:6–7 (ESV).

[13] Reginald Heber, “Holy, Holy, Holy” (1826).

[14] Deuteronomy 31:12–13 (paraphrased).

[15] Romans 12:1 (paraphrased).

[16] Thomas Watson, A Body of Practical Divinity […] (Philadelphia: Thomas Wardle, 1833), 285.

[17] Carl Boberg, trans. Stuart Keen Hine, “How Great Thou Art” (1885, 1949)

[18] Henry Francis Lyte, “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven” (1834).

[19] Arthur Tannous, “I Just Want to Praise You” (1984).

[20] Friedrich Nietzsche, quoted in Hannsdieter Wohlfarth, Johann Sebastian Bach, trans. Albert L. Blackwell (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 96.

[21] William Kethe, “All People That on Earth Do Dwell” (1561).

[22] C. S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (1958), chap. 9.

[23] Psalm 100:1 (NIV).

[24] See 1 Peter 2:9.

[25] Horatius Bonar, “Not What I Am, O Lord, but What Thou Art” (1861).

[26] John Calvin, “Preface to the Psalter” (1543). Paraphrased.

[27] Psalm 122:1 (ESV).

[28] Jenn Johnson, Jason Ingram, Ed Cash, Ben Fielding, and Brian Johnson, “Goodness of God” (2019).

[29] Samuel John Stone, “The Church’s One Foundation” (1866).

[30] Hebrews 2:12 (ESV). See also Psalm 22:22.

[31] Charles Austin Miles, “In the Garden” (1912).

[32] 1 Timothy 2:8 (paraphrased).

[33] Jordan Kauflin, Keith Getty, Matt Boswell, Matt Papa, Matt Merker, “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death” (2020).

[34] Hebrews 13:15 (ESV).