Originally preached at the Charnock Conference at Warrior Creek Baptist Church on October 8, 2022.
I want to thank Warrior Creek Baptist church for hosting this conference. I want to thank Pastor Bobby Howell for the invitation. The Lord has gifted Bobby with great intelligence and pastoral convictions. I know he uses his gifts to bless his family and serve his church. God has blessed Warrior Creek in many ways, but one of the best gifts He has given is a good pastor.
Who here has ever visited another country? In some countries they worship idols and created things. If you ask them why they offer sacrifices, they will tell you. They’re afraid of not doing it. But if you ask a modern Christian why he worships God on Sunday, what will he say? Because my wife makes me. Because my mom made me. So, I can get a burial plot.
The title of my sermon today is “Why We Must Offer Spiritual Worship.” Charnock Gives 6 Reasons.
God is the best being.
Psalm 18:30 30 God—his way is perfect;
Now, there are two ways we can contemplate someone being the best. The first way is that of the best within a given category. For example, if you were to gather all the basketball players who ever lived and measured their abilities and achievements, there would be one player we would recognize as the best. But this way is not the way we should think about God. God is not the best basketball player because He has the best vertical jump. God doesn’t need to jump.
That’s why we should think of God as best in the second way—He is outside all categories. God is independent. He doesn’t need the say-so of His superior for permission to do, say, or think anything. Instead, everything else exists because He says so (Acts 17:25; Romans 11:36).
God is unchangeable. Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time. But he also improved and changed as a player. There was a time Jordan wasn’t as good as he later became. Now, he’s not as good as he once was. God doesn’t retire from being God because He cannot change (James 1:17).
God is eternal. Alexander the great conquered the known world, then died. The Roman empire lasted for hundreds of years, then it didn’t. God cannot be measured by time because He is outside of it. But because He is sovereign over every moment of time, nothing happens absent of His divine will (Psalm 90:2).[1]
God is the best being because He is the only being like Himself. He is uncreated, unmoved, and unchanging. He is all knowing, all powerful, and all present. He is ever loving, ever holy, and ever righteous.
Because God is best, we must give him our best in our worship.
Matthew 5:48 48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
When a celebrity visits your home, you put out the best China and you prepare your best meal. When you finally get a date with the best looking girl in school, you put on your best clothes. This is why in Exodus 29:13, a worshipper was to offer fat from their offering to God. God is the best, so He commanded His people to worship Him as the best.
By nature, we give our best to what we believe is worth it. But sinful man, born in rebellion against God, eagerly worships counterfeits. Calvin famously mentioned in his institutes that the heart of man is a factory of idols.[2] Man is born a worshipper. So, he wants to give his best. But since man is born a sinner, he hates the God he was made to worship. Instead, he will worship anything and everything else. For instance, people give their best years to the worship of their career.
But as believers, our spiritual worship to God shows He is best.
Stephen Charnock said, “The nature of God informs us what is fit to be presented to him; our own nature informs us what is fit to be presented by us.”
God made us physical and spiritual.
Genesis 2:7 7 Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being (lit. Living soul).
God formed man from the dust of the ground. God made man from physical stuff. We have a physical body because God made it. God also formed man with the breath of life so He could be a soul. Man is a body and a soul. He made us to be both. An interesting way to illustrate this is to figure out the difference between mind and brain. We can touch a brain with our finger but not a mind with our finger. But when I read a play from Shakespeare, I’m not picking up pieces of his brain and inserting it into my head. My mind interacts with his mind because we are both souls. To be human is to be body and spirit.
We have an obstacle in our spiritual worship. But God is not body, He is spirit. That is why we worship Him in spirit. This means our flesh, by itself, cannot worship God.
John 4:24 24“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Because God is Spirit, we must worship God spiritually. This leads us to a second obstacle, sinful man is born spiritually dead.
Ephesians 2:1 1And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
This means man cannot worship God in his natural state. Working in our bodies, flesh, and strength cannot replace the work of spiritual worship. No amount of tithes given, Sunday school classes attended, or smiles given can replace spiritual life. This is why Jesus says in John 3.
John 3:3, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
John 3:6 6“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
These obstacles are real. But God overcomes these obstacles to create worshippers. Christians can only worship spiritually because the Holy Spirt worked in us spiritually.
Titus 3:5 5He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
And we receive this gift because of what Christ our savior did on the cross.
1 Peter 3:18 18For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
We follow Christ’s example and fulfill His work when we sacrifice our flesh and worship in the Spirit. Let me summarize this point before I go further. God is spirit. God made us physical and spiritual. Being born a sinner means we are born spiritually dead. Being spiritually dead means we cannot worship God in spirit. Jesus death on the cross paid for our penalty of sin. His death also purchased the new birth of our spirit by the Holy Spirit. Now, our lives are little crucifixions. We take up our cross daily. We die to our fleshly desires and enjoy a resurrected spirit.
I mentioned in the last point that God requires spiritual worship.
John 4:24 24“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
This means that physical displays of worship alone do not satisfy God. For example, in the book of Amos, God told Israel who has spiritually rebelled against Him the following.
Amos 5:21–23 21“I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. 22“Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. 23“Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps.
Merely looking like worship is not enough to be worship. So, what does spiritually worship mean? Is spiritual worship something we do with our minds? Should we sit in a sensory deprivation tank and mediate on Psalm 119? Should we sit in a dimly lit room, burn incense, and chant?
Charnock helps us. He said, “The posture of the body is but to testify to the inward affection of the mind.” I’ll say it another way: You can’t physically move yourself into spiritual worship. But spiritual worship does move physically. Because we’re human, our spirit and body are connected. So, when we spiritually worship, it should be physically seen. For example, Paul instructed Timothy to lead the Ephesian church’s spiritual worship to pray for civil leaders.
1 Timothy 2:1–2 1First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men, 2for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.
But notice how he ends that exhortation in verse 8.
1 Timothy 2:8 8Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.
The spiritual action of prayer can be seen when men lift of their hands to God. This is one of those cart and horse things. The cart belongs after the horse, not before. Physical obedience alone does not mean your spiritually worshipping. But if your spiritually worshipping, it will look like physically obeying.
Worship does not begin with God in need but with God giving
Psalm 50:5 5 “Gather My godly ones to Me.”
When we worship on the Lord’s day each week, we are accepting God’s call to worship him. He sets the terms, not us. God invites us to worship Him like a man invites friends over for supper. He prepares the meal for us beforehand. He sets the table for us. He gets the board game and dessert ready to serve. When we worship God, He gives to us.
Don’t get this backward. When God sends us an invitation for supper, He is not inviting us to go into his house to serve Him. He has the roast in the oven. But if we think we serve Him, then we will throw out the roast and fix sandwiches instead. Yes, spiritual worship does something, but we only do what God has told us to. Spiritual worship does what God has given us to enjoy.
So, why should you worship God? Because He is good and gives good gifts. Because when you worship Him, you are receiving a handmade gift from God. Worship will ignite your passions, calm you anxieties, inspire your will, and embolden your heart. When we worship God for who He is, we find comfort in Him making us who we are.
God gives good gifts. A notable sign of the spiritually dead is they do not want the good gift of worship. God’s people gather together each week to accept God’s good gift.
The reason we worship God is because He redeemed us.
In the scriptures, God reveals His plan to save sinners. The 1689 Confession begins in chapter 1, paragraph 1: “The Holy Scripture is the only sufficient, certain, and infallible rule of all saving knowledge, faith, and obedience.” What that means is if you want to know how God is going to save lost souls, its in the Bible.
Think about this: The Bible could have ended at Genesis 3:13. Adam fell and threw humanity into rebellion against Him. But God was not forced to redeem humanity. Remember, God doesn’t have a boss that forced Him to save us. But He did it anyways because He is good. And because God redeemed humanity, we have an entire library of revelation declaring God’s love for His people. And I agree with Charnock, the aim of redemption was to make spiritual worshippers.
We were all born spiritually dead in sin. Jesus brought us to God.
1 Peter 3:18 18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
God gave His best, His one and only son, that we might sacrifice ourselves to God. As I mentioned earlier, God gives us a new spirit so we can offer spiritual worship. God makes us alive in Christ. God also builds us on Christ, the corner stone.
1 Peter 2:5 5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Spiritual worship is built on the redemptive work of Christ to make a new humanity.
When we gather for worship for those few moments on the Lord’s day, we are doing more than taking notes. We prove the schemes of Satan were powerless against the plan of God (Hebrews 2:14; Colossians 2:15). We prove the old humanity is dying and decaying while the new humanity is growing (2 Corinthians 5:17). We prove that the kingdom grows like leaven through a loaf of bread (Matthew 13:33). We prove that the spiritual powers who plague us will one day stand in judgment under us (Romans 16:20). We prove that the lamb that was slain is worthy of his suffering and He will get what he paid for (Revelation 5:1-14). We prove the love the second Adam has for the second Eve is a kind of love that fights the serpent and crushes its head (Ephesians 5:22-33). We prove the glory of the Lord will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14). God’s redemptive work focused on making worshippers. And He finished that work (John 19:30)
This point is pretty much a summary point of the entire argument.
John 4:24 24“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
But that does lead me to a corollary point that must be made. Undirected worship is judgment.
Romans 1:24–25 24Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
God made us to be worshippers. Our sinful nature doesn’t turn the worship setting off. Sin does turn us in the wrong direction. What unbelievers need is the direction of their hearts changed. They need worship God. That will not happen if God’s people worship unbiblically. If our worship of God burns hot, then God may use some that heat to ignite our neighbors. Because only Spiritual worship is acceptable to God.
Allow me to conclude with an application and charge to spiritually worship our Great God. The point of this conference isn’t to make egg heads. It’s to build one another up to love and good works. I can think of no other way to love my neighbor and I can think of no better work than to encourage growth in worship.
1. Find the areas of your life where there is no worship. Is it Marriage? Do you and your spouse pray and worship the Lord together? Do you disrespect your wife or husband? Do you go to the word on what to do with your household’s money? Is it raising kids or grandkids? Do you spend time each day studying the word with your child? Do you complain about your kids to people at church or on Facebook? Does your child see a spiritually alive person or a spiritual zombie? Is it your work? Do you grumble over your boss to your coworkers? Do you set an example of work for the Lord?
2. Bring worship into those spheres through regularly worshipping with the saints. Increase biblical worship as a church and watch it affect all the other areas. Certain objects have a vibration frequency. Have you ever noticed when you’re driving that something in your car stars rattling and buzzing? In my old car, the stereo nob would buzz when I drove 40 miles an hour. From what I remember in my physics class, it’s because the engine was vibrating at a certain frequency as the nob on my stereo. Because my engine was humming, other things that were tuned into that same beat, started to join in. Corporate worship is the engine of the kingdom. When the engine starts running, other things tuned toward worship start humming. Let’s be a people that tune every area of our life toward the worship of God. Then every week we get to rev the engine and hear the music.
[1] Herman Bavinck, The Wonderful Works of God, 119.
[2] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.11.8.