Walking in the Truth: Notes from Sunday School

Each week I want to provide some notes and reflective thoughts about the lesson God gives our Friends and Family Sunday School class, most importantly to reflect on the truth of His holy scripture. Also, I hope those who could not attend can read these notes and reflections and still remain connected to our class as we together grow closer to God (Important Note, as one member mentioned this morning: this does not take the place of Sunday School:))

We have been studying John Piper's Desiring God for the last couple of weeks. This week's lesson centered upon Worship. The subtitle of this chapter is "the feast of Christian Hedonism." I just love that: Isn't worship all about feasting on God--every thought, God centered; every action, God centered; every word, God centered. We began with these two definitions of worship:

Worship is to feel in your heart and express in some appropriate manner a humbling but delightful sense of admiring awe and astonished wonder and overpowering love in the presence of that most ancient Mystery, that Majesty which philosophers call the First Cause, but which we call Our Father Which Are in Heaven." (A.W. Tozer)

And secondly,

"True biblical worship so satisfies our total personality that we don't have to shop around for man-made substitutes. For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose -- and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin. (William Temple, quoted in Warren Wiersbe, The Integrity Crisis)

Our main text of study today came from Jesus's conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4:3-24, particularly verses 21-24. What was Christ's main purpose in His pursuit of this woman? Listen to how Dr. Piper sums up His intent, providing a glimpse into the thoughts of Christ: "Yes, even now, just now, I will seek someone to worship the Father--a Samaritan adulteress. I will show my disciples how My Father seeks worship in the midst of real life from the least likely. She is a Samaritan. She is a woman. She is a harlot. Yes, i will show them a thing or two about how to make true worshipers out of the white harvest of harlots in Samaria."

Her response to Christ as he confronts her with her sin is to change the subject to a more "religiously appropriate subject": the "where" of worship. Isn't that what we do when it gets too hot in the kitchen? We hedge; we dodge; we redirect. But, Christ immediately turns the subject to something by far more important: the "how" and "whom" of worship. He says in verses 23-24, "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." It isn't about the "where" of worship, but the "how" and "whom." So, when Christ talks about worshiping in Spirit, He is talking about the "how," the heart, and emotions of worship; when he talks about worshiping in Truth, He is talking about the "whom", the head, and thought of worship. Dr. Piper says that "worship must have heart and head. Worship must engage emotions and thought . . . .But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine" (81-82).

Worshiping in Spirit (John 4:23-24):

Think of the actions involved in worshiping: singing, kneeling in prayer, lifting of hands, reading of scripture, performing a drama, preaching the word. I posed this question today: Do the actions themselves have meaning? Some said "yes"; others said "no". One said with such emphasis and clarity, "only if the heart is right" Bingo!!! Remember, Christ said in Matthew 15:8-9 (Quoting Isaiah 29:13): "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.'" How does "honor me" define worship? Recognizing the honor of God by feeling the worth of it. Dr. Piper repeatedly offers in this section the following phrase: "gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of His worth." Isn't that awesome? Take a moment to read and reflect upon Psalm 96:2-8. The Psalmist uses words like "sing to the Lord," "praise his name," "proclaim His salvation, " "declare his glory," "for great is the Lord," "Ascribe to the Lord." Honor indeed.

So, what does worshiping in vain mean? As directed this morning, we looked at several translations of Isaiah 29:13, and then talked about vain worship. The phrase that strikes me first is, "their hearts are far from me." Or as the Message renders it, "their hearts aren't in it." Have you ever been in a worship service and you are singing and following the words either in the Hymnal or on the video screen, hands are lifted, and then you start thinking about something else? Or you are praying and your mind starts to wonder? Or you look around to see how others are worshiping or worst yet, you are judging whether your neighbor is even worshiping at all. Our hearts are far from him. This reminds me of an illustration told about the Italian Poet Dante Alighieri: "Deeply immersed in meditation during a church service, Dante failed to kneel at the appropriate moment. His enemies hurried to the bishop and demanded that Dante be punished for his sacrilege. Dante defended himself by saying, 'If those who accuse me had had their eyes and minds on God, as I had, they too would have failed to notice events around them, and they most certainly would not have noticed what I was doing.'"

Listen to how the CEV translates this passage: "but they never really think about me." How much or our day is consumed with thoughts of God? How much of our day do we spending communicating with God? You see, "far away hearts" equals vain worship. It is meaningless and it dishonors the only One worthy of our affections. Dr. Piper adds as a note in his text, "worship is first and most essentially an act of the heart. It is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus" (83). Remember the account Jesus tells of the Pharisee and the tax collector as both men approach God in prayer? Whose worship was accepted? Whose worship was authenticated? The Tax collector's of course, but why? He worshiped without any pretense. He was broken and contrite. His heart was rightly and vertically aligned. He worshiped in spirit.

Read Psalm 63:3-4:

Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you.

I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.

The Psalmist's lips honored the Father and his heart drew near. Dr. Piper discusses the affections that make worship authentic (86-87): "stunned silence (Psalm 46:10), "awe and reverence and wonder at the magnitude of God (Psalm 33:8), "holy dread of God's righteous power" (Isaiah 8:13), "brokenness and contrition and grief for our ungodliness" (Psalm 51:17), "longing for God" (Psalm 42:1-2), "gladness and gratitude" (Psalm 30:11-12).

Is worship a duty or a joy? Duty implies obligation, doing because we have to or because we are forced to. duty suggests that it is just one more thing to add to my already busy day that I must check off when completed. Joy on the other hand is passion, is desire, is happiness, or delight. Imagine if I bought flowers for my wife to commemorate our anniversary and she really took delight in them and thanked me, and I replied, "Oh it was nothing; it was just my duty." It is going to end badly for me, I assure you. Duty dishonors her; it belittles her, just as duty dishonors and belittles God. I need to be moved by just being in her presence, to delight in her company, not because I have to, but because I want to and desire to. How much more then should I desire and delight in God's presence? "If God's reality is displayed to us in His Word or His world and we do not then feel in our heart any grief or longing or hope for fear or awe or joy or gratitude or confidence, then we may dutifully sing and pray and recite and gesture as much as we like, but it will not be real worship, " writes Dr. Piper (92). This is what is meant by worshiping in spirit.

Worshiping in Truth (John 4:23-24)

First, we need to see that God is our ultimately reality; we must have a right perspective of God; we must know Him. What does John 17:3 say? "Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." Secondly, he is worthy of our worship. Worship comes from Old English word which means "worth-ship", so we worship a God who is worth it. Hebrews 13:15 reads, "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name." Remember that Dr. Piper says that worship is a way of "gladly reflecting back to God the radiance of His worth." Thirdly, we should worship God not because we are in the mood but because he has asked us to and has everything in control. He is God and we are still not. Case in point, let's turn our attention to Job for just a moment. Is it safe to say that Job probably didn't want to worship the Lord? I know he is an Old Testament saint, and it just seems wrong to think that he would ever think or act like an ordinary person. But he was, and I am sure he struggled with the same doubts and feelings we struggle with during trials and suffering. After all he had the worst season of life imaginable. If anyone had the right to be angry, turn his back on God, have a pity party, it would be Job. Yet what does the Word proclaim?

"At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised"

He was humbled; he was broken; he was thankful; he counted it all joy; he worshiped. Do you see that? He worshiped. He had a right perspective, a truthful perspective of God, the "whom" of worship. Worship in truth therefore is a complete focus on God, the object of our desire.

I close with a few final thoughts from Dr. Piper's Desiring God. First, he writes, "The Christian Hedonist knows that the secret of joy is self-forgetfulness. Yes, we go to the art museum for the joy of seeing the paintings. But . . . . set your whole attention on the paintings, and not on your emotions, or you will ruin the whole experience. Therefore, in worship there must be a radical orientation on God, not ourselves" (95). Secondly, in worship, he continues, the issue is not the form, but whether the excellency of Christ is seen" (107). How will your life reflect the image of Christ this week? How is your life a daily picture of worship? What will you do this week to demonstrate God's radiant worth to others?

Next Week's Lesson: "Love: The Labor of Christian Hedonism"