“God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” – John 4:24
DO YOU BRISTLE at this Scripture, supposing you can worship God in any way you please, and that He will accept this worship as legitimate as long as you are sincere? Then you are mistaken. Men do not decide what constitutes God-pleasing worship; God does. And unless He approves of what worship you bring him, it will not please Him, regardless of how much pious sincerity and well-meaning religious devotion you possess. This is not a matter of opinion or personal liberty in doctrine, for no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20). If you are to truthfully worship God, you must do it His way. Anything else is “will worship” – worship done to satisfy the flesh, rather than to please the Almighty – and will worship is always reproved, rebuked, and summarily rejected.
In the first place, God is a Spirit. This neutralizes any absurd claims that Jehovah is an energy, or a life force, or a statue, idol, icon. It likewise dispels the myths that He lives in a manmade structure, such as a cathedral or shrine, since the earth is His footstool, and He dwelleth not in houses made with hands. Proverbs 15:3 tells us “the eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” After all, He is before all things, and by Him all things consist (Colossians 1:17).
My text provides the only two conditions under which God can be worshipped – in Spirit and in truth. To worship Him in Spirit, you must first have the Holy Spirit. Unless you have trusted Jesus Christ to save you from spending eternity in Hell – not made Him the “Lord” of your life, not turned from your sins, not started a relationship with Him, not invited Him into your heart, not been sprinkled or baptized or confirmed into a church – but only trusted Him for salvation, you cannot worship Him, because you do not have His Spirit. You are yet in your sins and in the flesh, and they that are in the flesh cannot please God (Romans 8:8). Let us perform a thought experiment by supposing you are an evangelical who is trusting your discipleship of Christ to save you. You attend your neighborhood non-denominational church for a “worship service”, where, you are told, you will be “worshipping God.” But this is of no use, for so long as you remain unsaved, whatever efforts you make to worship God will be futile, for He must be worshipped in Spirit. Until you receive His Spirit by receiving His Son as Savior, you will never, ever, be able to biblically worship Him. But you say, “My church teaches Lordship Salvation, and I always feel the spirit working during my our services.” Ay, the spirit of Satan, to be sure, but certainly not the Spirit of God.
Yet, even if you are saved, you cannot simply worship God in the power of his Holy Spirit; you must also have the truth, and this is not to be found at an evangelical “worship service.” The carnal religious rock, the sycophantic religious fervor, the preposterous religious gestures are not the truth – they are idolatries, absurdities, and mockeries of the Gospel of Christ and the King James Bible. You may believe in your heart that God approves of and accepts your unbiblical method of “worshipping” Him, but if this method violates His Word, He cannot possibly approve, because this would require contradicting Himself. And of those unregenerate sinners who suppose they can please God by disobeying Him, Christ said, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching for commandments the doctrines of men” (Matthew 15:8-9).