John Bevere - This Is Not True Worship
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Hey everyone, welcome to lesson six. Wow, we’re cruising through this drawing near to a life of intimacy with God. The title of this lesson, and it’s probably one of my favorites, is called «True Worship.» Alright, let me read this: deception awaits those who lack the fear of the Lord, while intimacy is for those who draw near in holy fear. The outward evidence of holy fear is unconditional obedience to the desires of God. Not only do we obey, but we have the heart to fulfill His will. We see this repeatedly in the lives of those who walked with God. If you look at Enoch, his testimony was that he pleased God. Remember, he walked with God for 300 years. What did Clement of Rome write? Clement of Rome was one of the early church fathers. He said, «Let us take for instance Enoch, who, being found righteous in obedience, was translated, and death was never known to happen to him.» Obedience is the earmark of God’s pleasure.
Listen to Noah: «This is the history of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless man living on the earth at the time. He consistently followed God’s will and enjoyed a close relationship with Him.» That’s Genesis 6:9-10. Obedience, once again, we see, is the earmark of God’s pleasure. Remember, the fear of the Lord is what causes us to obey. Paul made the statement to the Philippian church: «As you have always obeyed, not only in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.» He didn’t say work out your salvation with loving-kindness; he said work it out with fear and trembling.
Now what does it mean to work out your salvation? It means to mature your relationship in Jesus with fear and trembling. But listen to the words prior: «As you have always obeyed in my presence, now much more in my absence.» This isn’t just Paul writing to the Philippian believers; this is God speaking to us. He’s saying, «Hey, as you obey in my presence—when we’re in the conference, when we’re among believers in a church service—it’s easy to obey God. But what about in the middle of the night when you happen to stumble online onto that porn site? Are you going to say no? What about when you’re on a trip and your wife has been a little grumpy lately, and you’re traveling with a business partner who’s the opposite sex? Are you going to give in to her invitation to come to her room?» These are the things that keep us from sin because, the Bible says, by the fear of the Lord, one departs from evil.
If you look at David, the Bible says in Acts 13:22–23, «God raised up for them David as king, to whom He gave His testimony and said, 'I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will.'» So there again you see obedience is the earmark of God’s pleasure. I will never forget, I was in a worship service in conference, and I was just singing the songs that we were all singing. The Holy Spirit asked me a question: «John, do you know what a religious spirit is?» I remember thinking, okay, I have preached on what a religious spirit is, I’ve read books about it, I’ve heard sermons on it. But I know that when God asks me a question, He’s not looking for an answer; He’s not looking for information. So I knew the very fact that God is asking me if I know what a religious spirit is means that I probably don’t know what a real religious spirit is.
So I remember just saying right in the middle of the worship service, «Holy Spirit, I guess I don’t know what a religious spirit is. What is a religious spirit?» He said this to my heart: «Son, a religious spirit is one who uses my word to execute his own will.» A religious spirit is one who uses my word to execute his own will. If you examine the lives of Abraham, Moses, Joshua, David, Esther, Daniel, and all the others in Scripture who walked closely with the Lord, you will find this common denominator in their lives: at the very core of their intimacy with God was a genuine heart for obedience to His desires.
God’s heart cry to every single person who had a covenant with Him in the Old Testament was this: Jeremiah 11:7, «For I earnestly exhorted your fathers in the day I brought them up out of the land of Egypt until this day, rising early and exhorting, saying, 'Obey my voice! '» Has it changed in the New Testament? Listen to what Jesus says in John 14:21: «He who has my commandments and keeps them is he who really loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.»
In the Old Testament, you obeyed God’s voice trying to keep the law to earn a relationship with God. That’s the way people who lived under the law did. David and some of these others I just named realized that God wanted a relationship, and out of that relationship they had a desire to obey. But the law said you had to keep all of God’s word to have a relationship. In the New Testament, Jesus said, «I’ve come, and I’ve changed your nature, and now I’ve given you the ability—the nature—to obey me.» So in the New Testament, that new nature empowers us to be able to obey God. They didn’t have that in the Old Testament.
Alright, so let’s break this down further. Jesus makes this statement in John 4:23–25: «But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.» Now listen to this: «For the Father is seeking—seeking, listen to this—he’s seeking, he’s searching; the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.» I’m going to tell you another little encounter I had with the Holy Spirit one day. The Father is seeking those who are going to worship Him in spirit and truth.
Now, I think I was just at my desk, I was in prayer, and I heard the Lord make a statement in my spirit. He said, «Son, worship is not a slow song.» I remember, I sat back in my chair, I pushed my Bible back, and I said, «Okay, worship is not a slow song?» So I started going through the way I see worship. I had always, prior to that, seen worship as the time when we as a church sing songs to God. To get a little more specific in my mind, praise was the fast songs and worship was the slow songs. That was my mentality. The Holy Spirit almost shouted this on the inside of me: «Worship is not a slow song.» I remember I just said, «Okay, what is worship?» The Holy Spirit said, «It’s a life—a life of obedience.»
I’ll never forget this. He encouraged me. As an author, you have to understand, when I’m writing a book, if I’m introducing a term that people don’t know, I’ve got to give the definition of that term or use it in a way that they’ll understand when I introduce it for the first time in the book. Well, I felt like the Holy Spirit said, «Go back and look at the first time I introduce worship in the Bible.» I had no idea where it was, so I got on my computer and did a word search for worship. What comes up but Genesis 22. This is the first time worship is mentioned in the Bible, and that is when Abraham looked at his servants and said to his servants, «Isaac and I are going up on that mountain, and we are going to worship, and we will come back to you.» If you remember, this is when God said to Abraham, «Abraham, I want you to offer up Isaac as an offering, as a sacrifice. I want you to kill him,» right? He goes two and a half days, looking at the mountain. He looks at the servants and says, «We’re going to go up to worship.»
And the Holy Spirit, when I saw that, said, «Abraham didn’t go up on that mountain to sing a slow song, John.» I went, «Wow!» He said, «He went up to obey me. He went up to do what I asked him to do.» Okay, so whoa, let’s just stop and think this through here. There weren’t any slow songs—no slow songs. He obeyed simply what God told him to do. That’s true worship.
Okay, this is why God makes this statement in the Book of Amos: «Away with your hymns of praise; they’re only noise in my ears. I will not listen to your music, no matter how lovely it is. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, a river of righteous living that will never run dry.» God’s saying, «I want a consistent obedient life, and I don’t care how beautiful your songs are. If you’re not living that beautiful life, or if you’re not living that obedient life, that obedient life is my true worship.»
Okay, so God is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and truth. Alright, we’ll talk about spirit in a future lesson; let’s talk about this word «truth.» God is seeking those who worship Him in truth. Alright, now the Greek word for truth is the Greek word «aletheia.» Vines defines it as this: signifying the reality lying at the basis of an appearance, the manifested veritable essence of a matter. He is showing basically here that true worship is found at the base level of a human being, which is our heart.
Okay, so to help explain this, there are three levels of communication. To explain, I’m going to elaborate on these three levels of communication. The first level, and the lowest level of communication, is verbal—verbal communication is the lowest form of communication.
If you look at the parable of the two sons, Jesus tells a parable: a father looks at one son and says, «Hey, go work in my field.» The son goes, «No.» He looks at the other son. He said, «Son, go work in my field.» The son goes, «Sure, Dad; I’ll go work in the field,» but that son doesn’t do it. Jesus said, «Which one did the will of his father?» signifying that actions are a higher level of communication than words.
Okay, so verbal is the lowest form of communication. John the Apostle makes this statement in 1 John 3:18–19: «My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and truth.» Now, we see all three levels of communication here: the first word is word and tongue, that’s verbal, the second one would be deed or action, and the third one is truth, and the Greek word is «aletheia» again.
So let’s talk about action: the second level of communication is action. Paul said this in 1 Corinthians 13: «Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.» So I can’t think of more loving actions than giving everything I own to the poor and even my body to be burned, but Paul said I can do those actions without love being at the base level of my heart.
So that leads us to the highest level of communication, and that is the heart. That is what John was referring to when he said, «Let us not love only in word and tongue, but in deed and truth.» We should certainly love in word; we should certainly love in action. But all love is void if it’s not done from the base level. All worship is void if it’s not done from the base level because the Father is seeking those who will worship Him from the base level, from their hearts.
Alright, this is why God said to His people, «If you’re willing and obedient, you’ll eat the good of the land.» I remember there was a time in my life when I just wasn’t getting fed. I wasn’t getting anything from the Bible; I wasn’t getting anything from my pastor preaching. Yet I was obeying; I was doing everything I was asked to do by my boss, by the people that were over my life. One day I said, «God, I feel so dry; I’m not getting fed at all.» The Lord said, «Read Isaiah 1:18–19.» I went over and read, «If you’re willing and obedient, you’ll eat the good of the land.» He said, «You say you’re not being fed; you’re not eating the good of the land.» I said, «But God, I’m obedient; I’m doing everything I’m asked to do.» And God said, «I didn’t say if you’re obedient you’ll eat the good of the land; I said if you’re willing and obedient.»
See, «obedient» is action; «willing» is heart. So willing is actually a higher form of communication. You see, you can do everything you’re asked to do by your parents, by your boss, by your pastor, and you can do it. But if you don’t do it with the right attitude, you just negated your worship. Because you’ve done it with a complaining attitude. I remember when God spoke to me one day; I realized I was reading my Bible and I realized complaining kept the children of Israel out of their promise. God said, «That’s what complaining does with believers.» I remember I said, «Oh my gosh, I’m not going to complain; I’m not going to complain.»
I refrained from complaining with my mouth; I made sure I didn’t complain. I told my wife, «Lisa, let’s discipline our children; if they complain, we’ll discipline them for rebellion.» Because complaining says to God, «I don’t like what you’re doing in my life, and if I were you, I’d do it differently.» So, man, I almost got to the point where I was proud that I never uttered a complaining word. One day, I was on this fast during this time period, and I woke up and the Holy Spirit said, «I hear the complaining in your heart.» Oh, I’ll never forget that! I didn’t get out of bed that morning; I rolled right to my knees and said, «God, I repent.»
Let me tell you something. In Christianity, it comes from that base level. From there comes our words, from there comes our actions, and if we don’t have that, everything is void. Everything’s void. I mean, you could be doing all these things for God and think you’re going to get rewarded eternally, but if you’re doing it with an attitude that’s wrong, your worship, God says, «Get rid of the songs; I don’t care how lovely they are. I don’t want to hear them. I want a flow of righteous living; I want obedience from the heart.»
Which means our attitudes and the submission of our heart are so precious and important to God. John 14:19–21—I’m going to read it again out of the Amplified Bible; it’s so important. These words are in red: Jesus said this: «The person who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who really loves me; and whoever really loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and will show—now listen to this—reveal (manifest) myself to him; I will let myself be clearly seen by him and make myself real to him.»
Why are there so many Christians who attend churches, Bible studies, professing Christians, that Jesus isn’t real to them? I’ll tell you why: because they’re out worshiping in spirit and truth. Obedience is not their priority. Obedience is only recommended when it doesn’t interfere with their schedule, their agenda, or their pleasure. I hope with all of my heart you see that the Father is seeking out those who will worship Him in spirit and truth, and I want you to be one of those people who worship Him from the base level of your being—from your heart. When you do this, the outward becomes so much more simple and in line because your inside is what drives your outside. That’s why the Bible says to guard your heart with all diligence, because out of it flow the forces of life.
Now we have talked about so much in these first six lessons. In the next lesson, we’re going to talk about something very crucial to our dwelling in the presence of God. It’s one more crucial aspect before we actually go into the dynamic of having a life of intimacy with God. You don’t want to miss the next lesson.