Ministry Resources

Worship In The Spirit

“God is spirit,” Jesus said, “and His worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). He was speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well in Sychar. Earlier He had told her,

“If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10).

Near the end of His ministry, Jesus shed further light on the meaning of the living water. He said,

“If any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him” (John 7:37-38).

The apostle John explains that Jesus was referring to the Holy Spirit, whom His followers would receive following Jesus’ glorification (v. 39). With the Spirit’s coming, wellsprings of worship would flow forth from within the believer as a ministry of the Holy Spirit unto God. True worship manifests itself by a holy reverence or fear of God which results in exaltation of the Lord, obedience to His commandments, and a desire to give oneself in dedicated service to the kingdom of God.

Of all God’s creation, only mankind has been given the capacity to receive God in the Person of the Holy Spirit and to have fellowship with Him through the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is now preparing a company of redeemed people who will be joined to Christ in perfect communion at the close of this present age and for eternity. Because His Spirit is within us, we desire to worship Him and live for Him until that day comes. What a privilege we have to glorify the One who gave Himself for us that we might have eternal life! He has given us the power to worship Him through the Holy Spirit, the living water that dwells within us! Worship Him, reverence Him, and serve Him!

Fearing God

Biblical Definition

The wise man said, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). Someone else has expanded on this by saying that the fear of the Lord is a reverence that exalts God and that is the beginning of all wisdom. The Holy Spirit helps us to recognize who God is and what He has done. When we see the awesomeness of God, His might and power, we recognize that He is indeed fearful.

Fear of God includes the idea of deep reverence, awe, and respect, which leads one to show devotion, honor, and obedience to Him. It is illustrated in the worship experience of Isaiah.

The Bible speaks frequently of the fear of God as something necessary and to be desired. This is true not only in the Old Testament where Israel lived under a relatively impersonal theocracy but also in the New Testament where one’s relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is more personal. This is true because God wants us to reverence Him and to give Him the place He deserves in our lives both for what He is and for what He has done. Never should we view our relationship with Him as commonplace nor should we approach Him with irreverent familiarity. He is the Sovereign of the universe; He deserves our unending praise, worship, and respect.

A Growing Reverence

The ministry of the Holy Spirit in the early church brought fear and awe to the hearts of everyone as He worked wonders and miraculous signs among the people (Acts 2:43). As the church grew, it was strengthened and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, and it grew in numbers while living in the fear of the Lord (Acts 9:31).

Let’s take a closer look at the fear of the Lord to see what is included in this concept. Fear of the Lord comes from our conception of the living God. There is a holy fear in us which helps us reverence God’s authority, obey His commandments, stand in awe or respect for His majesty and holiness, and turn from evil. (See the following Scriptures: Genesis 22:12; 1 Samuel 12:14, 20-25; Job 28:28; Psalm 111:10.) Those who would fear God as they ought may see in Jesus’ example that godly fear produced “reverent submission” (Hebrews 5:7). The apostle Paul admonishes believers to let their fear or reverence for God issue forth in conscientious, holy living (2 Corinthians 7:1; Philippians 2:12).

The example of Ananias and Sapphira was a warning to the early church of the necessity to reverence God and show Him the respect that is due Him. Because they lied to the Holy Spirit and their fellow Christians, God’s judgment came upon them and they fell down and died (Acts 5:1-11).

The apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

“Dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).

He also told the Ephesians to submit to one another out of reverence for Christ (Ephesians 5:21).

The desire to be in God’s presence and give Him the honor due Him is completely foreign to the flesh. When Isaiah saw himself in relation to Almighty God, he was filled with fear because of his uncleanliness. But when he was touched by the coal from the altar of God, his fearfulness changed to yieldedness as he worshiped his Creator (Isaiah 6:5-8).

In the same way, our desire to give honor to God is born in our spirit when we are touched by the Holy Spirit, and it develops as we yield ourselves to Him. Those who minister to God around His throne delight to be in His marvelous presence and cry, “Holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8).

Isaiah speaks of the sevenfold Spirit which would rest upon the Messiah, and which includes the fear of the Lord:

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord— and he will delight in the fear of the Lord. —Isaiah 11:2-3

The Spirit of the Lord now dwells within us, and we can experience His manifestation of wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, and knowledge. We also learn to revere and respect God through the help of the Holy Spirit. The intimacy with God that comes through the communion of the Holy Spirit will cause us to respect God more and more as we draw closer and closer to Him.

The Need for Reverence

Paul speaks of the wicked as having no fear of God (Romans 3:18). Yet, Almighty God should be feared above all other powers. Read what the writer to the Hebrews says about this:

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot . . . and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? . . . It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God (Hebrews 10:26-31).

Peter wrote, “Fear God, honor the king” (1 Peter 2:17). This is the way it should be. This does not mean that we live in dread of God, not knowing how He feels about us or what He might do to us. He has been revealed to us by the Holy Spirit as a loving heavenly Father, but a Father that we draw close to with deep honor and respect. Spiritual worship begins with reverence for God, a reverence that will cause us to exalt the Lord and give ourselves in obedience to Him.

Glorifying God

In Spirit and in Truth

Jesus’ discourse to the Samaritan woman, which we mentioned at the beginning of this lesson, set the pattern for worship in the church.

This is what He told her:

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 (John 4:23-24).

Later, Jesus told His disciples that when the Spirit of truth would come, He would guide them into all truth. Then He said,

“He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you” (John 16:13-15).

Giving glory to God is essential in expressing our worship to Him. The Holy Spirit has come to help us glorify the Lord. He assists us in our worship by revealing the beauty of the Lord to us. We need His help in this because the beauty of the Lord is the beauty of holiness. When we worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, we praise Him for His moral excellence and purity, for holiness embraces every other attribute of God. As the rays of the sun, combining all the colors of the color spectrum, come together in the sun’s shining and harmonize into light, so in His self-manifestation all of God’s attributes come together in holiness. He alone is holy (1 Samuel 2:2), utterly separate from evil; therefore, what He does in all His works is right, for His works are the expression of what He is. Having chosen to bring us to Himself through the sacrifice of His Son on the basis of His grace alone, we may approach Him daily with reverent confidence, knowing that He inhabits the praises of His people and is pleased to give them the desires of their hearts. We have no concept of true holiness unless it is revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.

In my early experience as a Christian I was very shy, and the thought of public ministry terrified me. I played my accordion quite well at home alone, but when I tried to perform in even a small gathering of people, I could never finish the song.

Then I was baptized in the Holy Spirit. The night the Holy Spirit came upon me, I felt I could perform before a thousand people, so I agreed to play and sing during the Sunday morning worship service.

When the time came, the boldness that I felt when the Spirit came upon me was gone, and I was shaking. Failure faced me, but I claimed the power of the Holy Spirit and walked to the pulpit. As I began to play the accordion, once again I could feel the Holy Spirit’s power upon me and I was able to sing and play. However, as I finished the song I realized something was different—no one seemed to be interested either in my singing ability or my accordion playing. Most of the people in the congregation had their eyes closed and their hands raised in worship to God. The Holy Spirit had been using me, but the Lord was receiving the glory!

As we stated in our last lesson, David is one of the few Old Testament characters upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rested continuously. The psalms of David reflect the Spirit moving upon him, helping him to glorify God. The Psalms are filled with praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God, who is the Provider of all good things. They illustrate how the Spirit can move upon us to lift our voices in praise and exaltation of our Lord and Savior, as we consider His beauty and His sacrifice for us.

In The Language of the Spirit

When the Holy Spirit gives believers a revelation of the beauty of holiness, words utterly fail them. Sometimes it is impossible to find words in our human tongues that express acceptable worship. Again the Holy Spirit helps us by giving us the language of the Spirit.

Praying in the Spirit. A dear friend told us how for many years he resisted the language of the Spirit. Yet he greatly desired the fullness of the Holy Spirit and confessed his lack of ability to worship God the way he desired. “Give me the fullness of your Spirit, Lord,” he prayed, “but I’d rather not have a language I do not understand.” When he received no satisfactory answer, he finally recognized that he must yield himself completely to the Holy Spirit.

After his first experience of worship in the Spirit, he testified that he felt as if a fountain were opened in his spirit that poured out all he had been trying to say to God. For the first time he was satisfied that he had worshiped God in spirit and in truth.

Singing in the Spirit. Singing is an important part of glorifying God. Someone has said, “Music is the language of the soul.” We are exhorted to sing “spiritual songs” unto the Lord:

Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:19-20). Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God (Colossians 3:16).

Singing psalms and hymns together edifies the whole church and is a witness to the unbeliever (see 1 Corinthians 14). Singing in the Spirit, which is implied by “spiritual songs,” helps us to express our innermost feelings of joy, praise, and adoration in the language of the Spirit. Both are important and necessary elements of our worship and both are anointed of the Holy Spirit. The apostle Paul said,

“I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my mind” (1 Corinthians 14:15).

Serving God

Some of the Greek words translated worship can also be translated service. An example is found in Romans 12:1:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-which is your spiritual worship.

Another translation concludes this verse with these words: “. . . which is your reasonable service” (KJV). Thus, one of the ways the Holy Spirit helps you to minister to God is to enable you to make a total dedication of yourself to God.

The same word is used by Paul in his letter to the Philippians where he says, “we who worship (serve) by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3).

The fasting and praying Anna did in the temple are called both serving and worshipping in different translations. When Paul speaks of serving the Lord with great humility and tears, the word serving could just as well have been translated worshipping (Acts 20:19).

It is not so difficult to associate fasting and praying and weeping with worship, but worship is more than that. The writer to the Hebrews said that Jesus offered Himself by the eternal Spirit so that we could be cleansed of our sins and serve (worship) the living God (Hebrews 9:14). In other words, the life that we live daily in the Spirit is an act of worshipping God. Everything we say and do can be a means of spiritual worship! That is what the apostle Paul meant when he wrote these words to the Colossians:

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men . . . . It is the Lord Christ you are serving (Colossians 3:17, 23-24).

Jesus taught His disciples the meaning of spiritual worship through service in His parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25:31-46). He has sent us into the world to minister to the needs of others. We are to give them to drink of the living Water that we have received from Him. We are to share the living Bread, the eternal Word, with those who are lost in sin. We are also to minister to their physical needs as though we were doing it unto the Lord. This is spiritual worship put into action!

Praying to God

Your prayers will be more effective if you follow the New Testament pattern of praying in the Spirit. Paul said to “pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18). This is a broad concept that also includes what he calls praying with the spirit. Paul says,

“If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful [I do not understand what I am praying]. So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind” (1 Corinthians 14:14-15).

Both of these can and should be praying in the Spirit. You will notice that in this context praying includes both praising and thanksgiving (v. 16), in addition to petition.

Jesus taught us the meaning of spiritual worship in prayer, in what we call The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13):

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

We will look at the beginning phrases of this prayer and see how they relate to what we have said about spiritual worship.

Hallowed Be Your Name – Reverence

The Lord’s Prayer begins with recognition of the sacred respect that should be given to the name of God. When God gave His standard for holy living in the Ten Commandments, He emphasized that His name must be reverenced:

“You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name” (Exodus 20:7).

Go out into the street and listen for awhile to the conversations of the world. It will help you to understand the importance of reverencing the name of the Lord. Everywhere you turn, you will hear people misusing the sacred name of God the Father and His Son Jesus.

His name is holy. Demons tremble at the sound of the name of Jesus (see Luke 10:17; Acts 16:18). Salvation comes only through the name of Jesus (Acts 4:12). Philippians 2:6-11 explains why we must respect and honor the name of Jesus above every name:

Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

One congregation of believers was worshipping the Lord recently, and the power of the Holy Spirit came upon them all as they began, one by one, to express the meaning of the name of Jesus. A godly man began by speaking aloud, “Wonderful is the name of Jesus. His name is Immanuel, God with us.” Another responded, “His name is Counselor, Prince of Peace.” And another, “His name is Savior, Baptizer, Healer.” On and on it continued, as different persons expressed what His name meant to them. Truly His name is worthy of our devotion! Hallowed is His Name!

Your Kingdom Come – Glory

The theme of the preaching of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew is the kingdom of Heaven. He taught that it was “like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field” (Matthew 13:44).

Jesus was the man in the parable; the field was the world; and the treasure was His kingdom. Jesus bought the world with His own precious blood, but He has not yet taken possession of it. The treasure that is hidden from the eyes of the world is the kingdom that the Holy Spirit is now perfecting in the hearts of believers. He is preparing them for rulership when Christ comes back to set up His kingdom.

Paul, under inspiration of the Spirit, says of Christ’s coming glory, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). He adds, “But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit” (v. 10). While our minds may drift on occasion to the blessedness of Christ’s presence and the bliss of associating with the redeemed of all ages, God has drawn the curtains aside to give us a preview of the glory that shall be revealed (Revelation 21 and 22). No wonder we yearn for the consummation of God’s redemptive program.

What a day that will be, when Jesus establishes His kingdom, and we can sing with the angels around His throne:

Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise! . . . To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever! (Revelation 5:12-13).

Until that day, let us continue to pray under the anointing of the Spirit, “Your kingdom come”!

Your Will Be Done – Service

The third thing Jesus told us to pray was, “Your will be done.” Who knows the mind and will of God better than the Holy Spirit? In 1 Corinthians 2:9-11 we are told that God reveals His will to us by His Spirit. He can most effectively help us to pray for God’s will to be done and then, when the Word is preached, answer our prayer.

The life of Jesus is our example that the greatest way to serve God is to do His will. The passion of Jesus was to do the will of the Father (see Luke 22:42), and the Holy Spirit was always present to help Him (see Luke 4:1, 14, 18-19). You can live as Jesus lived. Your life will also be a blessing to God if you let the same Spirit help you to do God’s will.

Romans 8:27 tells how the Holy Spirit will help us: “He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” Even when we don’t know how to pray, the Holy Spirit does, and he will intercede for us for the will of God to be done in our lives.

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