Worship that pleases God. Expressions of the heart. Do we mean what we say?
Matthew 15:7-9
You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you,
when he said:8 “‘This people honours me with But what is Jesus actually saying here? How was their
their lips, but their heart is far from me; heart far from God? They were doing the things of men!
9 in vain do they worship me, teaching They were saying they were honouring God, but they were
as doctrines the commandments of men.’” in fact honouring men.
Hebrews 8 tells us God has put his laws on our hearts and in our mind. I.e., we must want to keep them!
God has not made a covenant in which he forces us to obey. It is up to us to put our heart into it.
Worship has two key elements addressed by Jesus in Matthew 15:
1. Are we offering lip-service instead of heart-service? That is, are we saying things but not meaning it? and
2. Are we substituting man-made ideas for God’s teaching?
It is vain to claim to be worshipping God, when we do not mean what we say in our prayers and songs, but also if what we do in our worship is based on man-made substitutes for God’s commandments. Just as to claim to love God with all our hearts, mind and strength, is hypocritical if our claim to love does not come from deep within our soul, or if our claim to love God is contradicted by sinful attitudes and actions. Note Romans 12:9-13.
Jeremiah 32:37-42
Behold, I will gather them from all the countries to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation. I will bring them back to this place, and I will make them dwell in safety. 38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God. 39 I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever, for their own good and the good of their children after them. 40 I will make with them an everlasting covenant, that I will not turn away from doing good to them. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts, such that they may not turn from me. 41 I will rejoice in doing them good, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul. 42 “For thus says the Lord: Just as I have brought all this great disaster upon this people, so I will bring upon them all the good that I promise them.
Covenant and heart. God’s covenant and God’s heart. God makes the arrangement for relationship, and we conform. God puts his whole heart into everything He does, and so should we in return.
How big is God’s heart? How big is your heart? David is described as a “man after God’s own heart.” Read Psalm 96 to see this.
Worship is not a spectator event, as though we come along to watch someone or listen to others. Worship is a heart in love with God.
Do not eat the bread of a man who is stingy; do not desire his delicacies,
for he is like one who is inwardly calculating.
“Eat and drink!” he says to you, but his heart is not with you. Proverbs 23:6-7
He says to come and eat, but he doesn’t really mean it!! This is what we are talking about regarding our worship.
I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship … Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
Romans 12:1,11.
In other words, put your whole heart into it. Really mean it!
Jesus said we are to love God with all our heart and soul and strength. So in worship we demonstrate our adoration
with all our heart. We want to worship God. We want to adore God. So we do it! We don’t just mouth it.
For you have not come to what may be touched … But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12
Who and what have we come to in worship?
In worship we must concentrate on who we are coming to – whose presence we are in - when we come together as a church! We have not simply come to watch a spectacle, like going to the cinema. We have not simply come to meet our brethren and socialise. Meeting our brethren is important, but remember we have come to worship God!
In John 4:20-24, Jesus said that worship is not about location, infrastructure, temples, candles, clothing, musical instruments – external matters. No, worship is about your spirit coming face to face with God. Spirit to Spirit.
Lord’s Supper
when you come together as a church … it is not the Lord's supper that you eat. 21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. 23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. 27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. 1 Corinthians 11
When we come to worship we do not come to be spectators, or to be amused; we come to participate - to prostrate ourselves before God. In the Lord’s Supper we come together to participate in the sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus. Yes we remember Him; yes we proclaim Him; but yes we participate or fellowship in everything God is for us, and everything Christ did for us. Roman Catholics speak of their eucharist in terms of what a blessing it is to partake. And yes it should be a blessing. But it cannot be a blessing if we are only going through the motions and not entering into the sacrifice of Christ with Christ from the depths of our hearts.
Participating in the body and blood sacrifice of Christ each Sunday is an opportunity to experience Christ’s suffering and death – not because we sacrifice Him again, as Catholics teach, but because we participate or fellowship in that once-for-all sacrifice of 2000 years ago. In the last few Sundays of remembering Jesus’ death in the Lord’s Supper, I have tried to think deeply of what Christ must have experienced in his scourging, and in his crucifixion, as well as what was happening when he presented his sacrificed body and blood to God in the Most Holy Place in heaven.
Hebrews speaks mightily in depth about it:
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) 12 he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. 13 For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God … 24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. Hebrews 9:11-14,24-28
Hebrews 10:8-10,19-22
“You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), 9 then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. 10 And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all … 19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our
bodies washed with pure water.
Brethren, Hebrews here is describing regulations for New Covenant worship, as distinct from those of Old Covenant
worship (see 9:1)!! The writer is telling us what is happening when we come to God’s throne in worship and the
Lord’s Supper, and where our hearts and minds should be focussed, as he fills out Matthew 26 and 1 Corinthians
11 with more detail.
When we sing …
1 Corinthians 14:15
I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the understanding
Hebrews 2:11-13
For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call
them brothers, 12 saying, “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.” 13 And again, “I will put my trust in him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given me.”
How encouraging to know that Jesus sings with His congregations, and doesn’t always advise, as in Revelation 2-3.
Hebrews 13:15-16
Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.
Ephesians 5
be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
God putting His laws on our hearts means that we must put our hearts into everything we do, including every aspect of our worship. We must mean every bit of it. No pretence. No hypocrisy. I cannot conceive of David not singing those Psalms with all his heart!
On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. 8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Psalm 62:7-8
Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works!
3 Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!
4 Seek the Lord and his strength; seek his presence continually! Psalm 105:2-4
O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether …
… Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting! Psalm 139:1-4,23-24
God is listening. Put your heart into it!
When I go to Blacktown, one of the highlights for me is the congregational singing that lifts the roof off. It’s singing that really encourages me to sing. At Blacktown I can’t hear myself sing. But that’s the way it should be because in singing we’re speaking to one another so that we can hear each other – not ourselves – and God can hear us!
“The ‘acts of worship’ need to be expressions of what is in the heart, because the actions on their own are not worship.” (Ted Paull) This statement from Ted was the motivation for my study.
When we pray … we pray in the Spirit in the name of our Lord Jesus. In the Spirit not the flesh. Ephesians 6:18; Jude 20. We pray not to impress men; we pray in the realm of the Holy Spirit, who intercedes for us to make our prayers better for God. How about that. When we pray, the Father is listening, the Spirit is listening, and since we pray in Jesus’ name, the Son is also listening. That’s the audience we should be focussed on. So put your heart into it.
I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding. 1 Corinthians 14:15
The prayer of Jesus in John 17 is a heartfelt prayer. Jesus isn’t trying to impress his disciples with fancy words.
This is the prayer of a man in deep love with His Father.
You can see what Jesus was getting at in Matthew 6 and Matthew 15. Parroting the traditional words of men is not worship. Worship is of the heart. This means it is something of the mind and the will. Worship is something we want to do because we are in love with God and want to approach Him and come into His presence. It isn’t just another ritual event that we do out of a sense of duty. As you see in the Psalms in the Old Testament. These are heartfelt examples of worship. Hebrews 8:10 must be understood in the sense that God’s laws of worship are on the heart and mind.
Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer … Contribute to the needs of the saints
… Romans 12:12-13
Adam Clark said:
Making the most fervent and intense application to the throne of grace for the light and power of the Holy Spirit;
without which you can neither abhor evil, do good, love the brethren, entertain a comfortable hope, nor bear up
patiently under the tribulations and ills of life.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Saviour, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth … 8 I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarrelling 1 Timothy 2:1-4,8
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. Mark 11:24.
This isn’t prayer testing God to see if he can perform Herculean feats; it’s praying something from your heart, that you deeply believe is possible.
When we preach we are sharing God’s word. We must do it from our hearts as God preaches through us.
What then is my reward? That in my preaching I may present the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel. For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified. 1 Corinthians 9:18-27
The more we grasp his greatness, his power, his love, his character, the more we understand his worthiness, the better we can declare his worth – the better we can worship. We preach to save souls, and we preach to keep the saved saved! Romans 1:15-16; 1 Timothy 4:16
Our worship is a response to what God has revealed himself to be, not only in who he is, but also in what he has done and is doing and will do in the future. Worship includes all our responses to God – including a response with our mind, such as our belief in God’s worthiness, our emotions, such as love and trust, and our actions and our words. Our heart expresses itself in words and songs; our mind is active when we want to learn what God wants us to do, and our bodies and strength are involved when we obey and when we serve.
Worship is worth-ship.
We worship God because He is worth everything to us. Worthy is God. Worthy is the Lamb.
Revelation 4 and 5; 14:7-13; 19:5,10; 22:8-9
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!” 13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might forever and ever!” 14 And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” and the elders fell down and worshiped. Revelation 5:11-14
Worship in Revelation reminds us that we are always being tempted to worship the wrong God. In Revelation, it is the Roman Emperor and angels. In chapters 19 and 22, an angel tells John not to worship him; worship only God.
Jim McGuiggan, in his commentary on Revelation, wrote:
We need to remind the world that there is a throne in heaven … We praise everything else under the sun. We couldn’t do worse in praising God. We exult in our business acumen. We bask in the warmth of our intellect. We gaze adoringly at our achievements. We are like pigs eating the acorns and refusing to look up.”
Revelation is largely a fulfilment of Daniel 2, 9 and 7. When you look at what God prophesied 500 years beforehand, and then in Revelation that what he predicted would happen “shortly” – including his judgment on Emperor Domitian in 14:8 – you have to stand in awe of God and shout: He is worthy of our worship from the depths of our heart!! God makes history happen for the salvation of His people to the praise of His glory!!
“All is well. The world is under the control of the Creator Father and the Lamb. To these and these alone must worship be directed. Emperor worship is out of place in light of such revelation. Uncontrolled fear or panic is out of place in light of such power. Believe in God. Believe also in me.” (Jim McGuiggan)
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28-29
Jimmy Jividen wrote:
True worship is my seeking communion with God’s spirit in praise and thanksgiving. Our wills, as well as our words, become living sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving to God. These are the only things we really own. True worship is giving ourselves to God.
