Sermon preached by Dr. John A. Huffman, Jr.
February 22, 2009
Copyright 2009, John A. Huffman, Jr.
All rights reserved

PURSUING GOD THROUGH WORSHIP
(Second in a series)
John 4:19-26

“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24)

A. W. Tozer was one of the great writers who has challenged us to creative, positive spiritual discipline.

Years ago, he wrote a little book titled Whatever Happened to Worship? In it, he tells a story, a story that he says could have happened anywhere and does happen with greater frequency than we realize. It is a story about a man suffering from amnesia. He had lost his memory. As a result, he had lost his identity.

Tozer describes sitting on a bench in front of City Hall in Toronto, Canada, waiting for a friend. Suddenly, a nicely dressed young man came over and took a seat beside him.

The man smiled a rather puzzled smile. Tozer asked, “Do we know each other?” “No, I don’t think so,” the man replied. Then he added, “I think I’m in some kind of a jam.”

The man went on to describe his confused memory, saying that he thought perhaps he had tripped and fallen somewhere in the city and bumped his head. He couldn’t remember anything for certain. When he woke up, he had been robbed. His wallet and all his cards and papers were gone. “I have no identification—and I do not know who I am.”

Tozer, not being quite certain what to say and do, said, “You must have a family somewhere. Don’t you have any recollection?”

The man responded, “I probably have, but I cannot recall.”

Tozer writes how he was about to tell this puzzled fellow that he would have to go to the police because he did not have any means of helping him, when he suddenly noticed a distinguished gentleman standing on the sidewalk near them. He, too, looked rather puzzled and uncertain. As that man glanced toward the bench, he let out a sudden delighted shout—almost a scream. He rushed over to them and called the bewildered man by his name. He grabbed him and shook his hand, emphatically questioning, “Where have you been and what have you been doing? Everyone in the orchestra is worried sick about you!”

The lost man was still bewildered. “Pardon me, Sir, I do not know you. I do not recognize you.”

The other man responded, “What? You do not know me? We came to Toronto together three days ago. Don’t you know that we are members of the Philharmonic and that you are the first violinist? We have filled our engagement without you, and we’ve been searching everywhere for you!”

“ So that is who I am, and that is why I’m here! But I still don’t know whether I can play the violin.”

Incidents similar to this are taking place all over the world. Families, helped by police and private investigators, continue to look for many amnesia victims. Doctors face this problem with occasional patients.

Tozer goes on to ask the rhetorical question, “Why have I told you this story?” Then he puts it out in as straightforward a way as possible, declaring that he has done it to remind us that our first parents in the human race, a man and woman called Adam and Eve, had a fall and received a terrible bump. When they tried to shake the fog out of their minds looking at each other, they realized that they no longer knew who they were. They did not know why they were alive. They did not know the purpose for their existence. And, since that time, men and women, alienated from God and trying to exist on a sick and fallen planet, have been pleading, “I don’t even know why I was born!”

Those of us who have followed the biblical revelation provided by the Creator God have accepted that God never does anything without a purpose. God had a noble purpose in mind when He created us. It was His distinct will that men and women created in His image would desire fellowship with Him above all else. His intention, His plan was that there be a perfect fellowship based on adoring worship of the Creator and Sustainer of all things.

You and I, with our Presbyterian backgrounds, may not remember all of the Westminster Shorter Catechism; but most of us remember the initial question, “What is chief end of man?”

The simple yet profound answer is based on the revelation found in the Bible. “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.”

That’s why we are here. The reason that there are so many people cursing their existence on earth, crying out in hopeless despair, is that they don’t know why they were born into this world. What needs to be stated again and again as a reminder to us in this day of rampant sin and violence, with subtle and not-so-subtle transgression, is the most universal denial of the willful and sinful fall of the human race as it is recorded in the Book of Genesis. Until we remind ourselves of the reason for our human predicament, we will suffer from spiritual amnesia. We will be as lost as that confused first violinist who had, for three days, been wandering aimlessly the streets of Toronto, suffering from amnesia.

Today, I would like to remind us of four straightforward facts.

Fact One: You were born to worship God 24/7.

That’s right. All of your life, both public and private, functions best the way it was designed to function.
That’s right. Your primary purpose for being here on earth is to enjoy God, take advantage of all God is and all God has given to you and to glorify Him forever. God is the center of the universe. God is the One who has created all that is. You are central to His purpose, and He wants to be in relationship with you. You and I are privileged to put the Creator Sustainer God on the center pedestal of our lives, bowing down and worshiping Him literally and figuratively 24 hours of each day, 7 days of each week.

I ask you a question. “Do you have a life of worship that extends beyond Saturday night or Sunday morning here at St. Andrew’s?” If you don’t, you’re missing out on life in all of its fullness. Worship is central to all you and I are and do. It is not a liturgical act confined to a public hour and a half each week.

Fact Two: Worship conveys what is really important.

I love to read. I am interested in politics. I enjoy sports. I would be dishonest with you if I didn’t say that I enjoy having enough money to live comfortably. A good meal and fun entertainment with great friends means a lot to me. I enjoy wearing reasonably in-style clothing. In particular, I have a thing for my family. I love Anne, my wife. Our daughters, their husbands and our grandchild are very important to me. And so are my friends and church.

I say all this to convince you that it is quite easy for me to shift my focus from the Creator Sustainer God, whose name is Jesus Christ, to all these creatures, both inanimate objects and living persons, that God has entrusted to me. Although I would never think of bowing down before a Buddhist altar or a Shinto shrine, I find it quite easy to shift my focus from the cross of Jesus Christ and His empty tomb, those historical symbols of what God has done for me in His gift of salvation, to these creatures and that part of the world that is important to me.

What I need to do is increasingly realize that the importance of those to me who are part of His creation is not antithetical to my worship of God, as long as I see that part of my worship is to be a good steward of all of His creation and to be a positive emissary of the upbuilding of His Kingdom on earth. It’s when I shift my attention from God and my worship of Him in a way that elevates His creation to a place of substitute worship that I mess up the very essence of who I am.

The word “worship” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word weorthscype, which later became worthship. To worship someone or something is to ascribe worth to it. To worship God is to give Him the praise, the honor, the glory of which He is worthy. The writer of Revelation, in that great apocalyptic statement, paints the picture of the great heavenly hosts surrounding the throne of God, declaring (Revelation 4:11),

“‘You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.’”
As John watches this heavenly scene more carefully, he observes an angel calling out with a loud voice, “‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seal?’” (Revelation 5:2). No one in heaven or earth is worthy. John declares that he wept, because no one is found who is worthy to open the scroll and to look inside, until suddenly he sees the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb of God, standing in the center of the throne. Suddenly, the heavenly hosts sang a new song (Revelation 5:9-10),
“‘You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slaughtered and by your
blood you ransomed for God
saints from every tribe and language
and people and nation;
you have made them to be a kingdom
and priests serving our God,
and they will reign on earth.’”
Then John looked and heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands and ten times ten thousand, circling the throne of God. And all the living creatures and elders sang with a loud voice (Revelation 5:12),
“‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!’”
What a graphic scene! Worth of the highest nature is ascribed to God our Savior Jesus Christ.
Fact Three: Worship that focuses on and responds to God is to be done in spirit and in truth.
Remember the woman at the well? Jesus told her, “‘God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth’” (John 4:24).

It is so important for us to remember that worship is all about God, not all about us. It involves us. We are an important part of it, but we are not the center focus.

That’s not easy to remember. We have our individual likes and dislikes about worship. I don’t know anyone who would say, “Worship is all about me.” But if you watch us closely enough, it might look like that’s what it is.
Worship focuses on God, not on us. And we’re reminded by Jesus that true worship is to be done in spirit and in truth.
This means that it is only by the Holy Spirit residing in us that we are able to worship God. It is the Holy Spirit who gives us the energy and the spiritual vitality to participate in this worship.

And it is the Holy Spirit who is the Source of that inspiration that enables us to know the truth as it is revealed in Scripture and as it has been observed and illuminated to us in objective, concrete meaningful ways.
Jesus lamented hypocritical worship that did not focus on God but focused on the worshiper. He quoted Isaiah several hundred years before, who prophesied (Matthew 15:8-9),
“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”
A week ago Saturday was Valentine’s Day. I brought home a dozen roses for Anne. She thanked me for them. Imagine what her response would have been if I had said, “Oh, think nothing of it. It is simply my duty and obligation to do this for you.” Or, on the other hand, how phoney would be my sentimental gift of roses honoring her if, behind her back, I was unfaithful to her.

I doubt that she would have appreciated my response. It is true that it is my duty and responsibility to honor her love and faithfulness for all of these past 45 years. But it is more than that. It is my privilege to take joy and to celebrate these four and a half decades together, not with just head knowledge but also with my heart and my emotions in a joyful, energetic, loving way.

False worship of God is simply that which emphasizes truth. It can be cold, analytical and grim. It can be coldly, icily predictable. If we worship too much just by spirit, we will be mushy and soft on the truth. Worshiping according to feelings can lead us anywhere from what Donald Whitney describes as “. . . a sleepy tolerance of anything in worship at one extreme to uncontrollable, spiritual wildfire on the other.” We need the balancing of these so as to worship healthfully in spirit and in truth.

Fact Four: There are various legitimate styles of worship.

This would become quite apparent if we simply took a tour of a dozen or so churches here is Orange County today. It would become even more apparent if we could, in the course of this day, visit a dozen or so churches in other places in the world.

Whether here in Orange County or on a worldwide observation trip, we would, at one extreme, see high liturgical worship, carefully streamlined to the church calendar with preset readings, homilies based on scriptural passages predetermined by a lectionary with formal hymns sung or chanted—all of this worship leading to the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. There would be a heavy emphasis on tradition. At the other end of the spectrum, we could observe free-flowing worship styles with people with outstretched hands to God, jumping up and down in ecstacy and even rolling in the aisles. It could involve the speaking of tongues, a highly emotional observance, spontaneous in nature, short on formal thought but high on emotional intensity. And we would observe a great variety of worship styles between these two extremes. Frankly, if these people are men and women who have genuinely repented of sin and put their trust in Jesus Christ alone for salvation and with sincere, honest and concentrated intention are desiring to worship God, whatever their style may be, what they are doing is legitimate, bringing joy to the heart of God. If it’s just some inherited combination of formality or spontaneity, designed to bring personal pleasure to one’s self while impressing others with one’s piety, it is emptied of its meaning.

Take the whole area of music. Most churches I know here in the United States have been struggling with this problem of what we call “the worship wars” during the past several decades. Some prefer their worship with the choir and organ. Some prefer it with a praise band with a single leader backed by a small group of musicians. There are many variations on these two particular manifestations.

You’ve heard me in the past describe how my friends in Scotland worship in their two churches north of Inverness in the towns of Tain and Hilton. They have no musical instruments. They simply line out the Psalms in metric cadences. This to them is authentic worship. Or I can take you to All Souls Anglican Church in London where worship involves the whole choir, organ and an orchestra. Or I could take you to village after village in Africa, where brothers and sisters worship God with the only instrument being a drum that provides the rhythm cadence for their songs of praise. Is one any better or more authentic than another? No way. As long as they are worshiping in spirit and in truth, their individual and corporate worship has real integrity.

I think it’s important to realize that the worship wars have always been with us. Individual taste and styles is something that is a reality. Some people prefer singing what they refer to as “the great hymns of the faith.” And they fervently dislike “praise choruses.” And there are those who much prefer the latter to the former.

I was surprised to hear that, several centuries ago in England, a young man walking home from church complained to his father, the pastor, how bored he was with lining out the Psalms the way they did it in worship each week. His father suggested, “Why don’t you write some hymns that we could sing that you would find more helpful in worship?” The young man did. His name was Isaac Watts. Some loved his hymns. Others were resistant to this new approach. Even in one of his hymns, he refers to them as “those who refuse to sing.” So those of us who may prefer his kind of hymns need to be sensitive to those of a younger generation who have come up with new ways, which we find a bit repetitive but they find even more transporting than our way into the presence of Almighty God. One is not right and the other wrong. There are various legitimate styles of worship and music expressions!

And the same goes for us here at St. Andrew’s. In all the visioning process and all the work that’s been done, as the decision has been made to, next fall, bring an alternative form of worship to one of the service times on Sunday morning, this is legitimate. What a privilege it is to be a church that is committed in its core values to being intergenerational. We can’t be everything to everyone, but to reframe Sunday morning at St. Andrew’s to offer two different styles in worship expression does not need to minimize the integrity of our worship but can enhance it, as we recognize the variety of tastes and felt needs of those for whom it is not just about them, but about how they can most meaningfully focus their attention in worship of God.

James Melton will be saying more about this in his message next week. He will be more specific about the nature of corporate worship, as I’ve been trying to paint a general message, emphasizing both the public and private aspect of worship. The reality is you can’t authentically worship God in public in the corporate setting for an hour or two one day a week if you are not genuinely worshiping God in the rest of your seven-days-a-week activities.

Here’s an interesting piece of research done by an unknown author. It’s titled How You Spent It.
It reads:
If God granted you 70 years of life. . . You would spend:
24 years sleeping.
14 years working.
Eight years in amusement.
Six years at the dinner table.
Five years in transportation.
Fours years in conversation.
Three years in education.
Three years in reading.
Three years at the television.
If you went to church every Sunday and prayed five minutes every morning and night, you would be giving God five months of your life.
Five months out of 70 years?

You and I have the privilege of a life in which we prioritize, placing at the very center of our being a lifestyle of worship, both public and private, both corporate and individual, of the Creator Sustainer God, whose name is Jesus Christ, who is present with us in the Person of His Holy Spirit. When we take this privilege seriously, our lives will be transformed in their entirety. They will become lives not with little compartments of worship here or there, defined primarily as public time in a church sanctuary once a week and private times in a quiet place alone once a day, but an integration of all of life. Sense this great privilege we have of creature to honor, celebrate and worship the Creator, as men and women redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, transformed to be His kingdom-builders 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!
I know no better way to summarize what I’ve been trying to say than the personal story related by Donald Whitney in his book titled Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. Listen as I read his tale of a sad childhood experience.
One of the saddest experiences of my childhood happened on my tenth birthday. Invitations to the celebration were mailed days in advance to eight friends. It was going to be my best birthday ever. They all came to my house right after school. We played football and basketball outside until dark. My dad grilled hot dogs and hamburgers while my mother put the finishing touches on the birthday cake. After we had eaten all the icing and ice cream and most of the cake, it was time for the presents. Honestly, I can’t recall even one of the gifts today, but I do remember the great time I was having with the guys who gave them to me. Since I had no brothers, the best part of the whole event was just being with the other boys.

The climax of this grand celebration was a gift from me to them. Nothing was too good for my friends. Cost was immaterial. I was going to pay their way to the most exciting event in town—the high school basketball game. I can still see us spilling out of my parents’ station wagon with laughter on that cool evening and running up to the gymnasium. Standing at the window, paying for nine 25-cent tickets and surrounded by my friends—it was one of those simple but golden moments in life. The picture in my mind was the perfect ending to a ten-year-old boy’s perfect birthday. Four friends on one side and four friends on the other, I would sit in the middle while we munched popcorn, punched each other, and cheered our high school heroes. As we went inside, I remember feeling happier than Jimmy Stewart in the closing scene of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Then the golden moment was shattered. Once in the gym, all my friends scattered and I never saw them again the rest of the night. There was no thanks for the fun, the food, or the tickets. Not even a “Happy Birthday, but I’m going to sit with someone else.” Without a word of gratitude or goodbye, they all left without looking back. So I spent the rest of my tenth birthday in the bleachers by myself, growing old alone. As I recall, it was a miserable ballgame.
I tell that story, not to gain sympathy for a painful childhood memory, but because it reminds me of the way we often treat God in worship. Though we come to an event where He is the Guest of Honor, it is possible to give Him a routine gift, sing a few customary songs to Him, and then totally neglect Him while we focus on others and enjoy the performance of those in front of us. Like my ten-year-old friends, we may leave without any twinge of conscience, without any awareness of our insensitivity, convinced we have fulfilled an obligation well.

My challenge to you and to myself in our worship is that we always lift up the Lord, honoring Him in everything we say and do in pure worship. May God never say about us those words of Isaiah quoted by Jesus in Matthew 15:8-9,
“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’”