What Is Worship? | Week 3
Worship In Truth
What is truth? What is THE truth? How does it connect to our worship? These are heavy thoughts. These thoughts weigh me down, often. They should. How we interact with worship and with truth defines how we interact with the world. So it makes sense that Jesus combines these elements when he’s talking with the Samaritan woman in the passage of the Bible that I’ve been referencing for the past several posts.
“But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23–24, ESV).
It’s in our bones
As you may have guessed, I’m focusing on the “worship in truth” portion of Jesus’ words here. It’s been said before that we all worship something. As human beings, it’s in our bones to worship. And it’s funny, when we talk about it this way, we almost never talk about a human being’s natural instinct to sing or play music. Rather, when we talk about the fact that it’s a part of a person’s design to give worship to something, we always are referring to the way in which someone gives homage to and lives their life for something. And I would agree with this.
So … worship God in truth. This then takes on a different flavor, right? Let’s run with this tone for a little bit, and bear with me as I ramble on. Because we’ve established that when we are talking about worship, we’re not talking about singing songs or playing music but are instead referring to a person giving honor and glory to someone or something with the fullness of their own life, then there’s something that we can establish is NOT being said here.
What is actually being said?
When Jesus refers to “worship in truth,” he is not talking about singing songs that are theologically or doctrinally sound. Now, right off the bat, I’ll say the obvious. It’s not a bad thing to make sure that any and all songs we sing together as Christians are full of complete and true thoughts about God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit’s interactions with the Church. But I’m making this clarification for a reason.
From what I can see when reading through what most people say when they talk about these particular words of Jesus, everyone talks about the “truth” portion and emphasizes the importance of doctrinally and theologically sound songs. I think this is horribly misleading. And I also think I said something similar to this in last week’s post, but this is just a shallow explanation of something that JESUS spoke of. Really? You think Jesus was referring to your cute little four-song setlist on Sunday morning?
It’s about the actions, not the words
So what does this mean? Truth, especially seeing that it’s something we worship God in, is something we embody, not something we simply speak (or sing). We know this, right? We know that living out Christ’s commands on this earth is not done by knowing what things to say. It’s about your actions, the decisions you make on how you will live your life.
Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God (Romans 12:1-2, BSB).
Words are important. I can’t agree with that more. But what I want to point us to is that our true worship of our heavenly, spiritual, truth-bearing Father is for his creation to walk as his Son did.
Whoever claims to abide in Him must walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6, BSB).
The true foundation for our worship is this
Jesus is the Truth (John 14:6). Engaging this world in the way that Jesus did is our worship. It always will be. Singing songs can be great. And when done, they should point us to the truths that we see in the story of Jesus’ life, yes. But it’s not what we should pursue. The foundation for our worship can only ever be our lives, plainly displaying the reality of God’s existence.
Can you imagine convincing the atheists of the world of the existence of God without ever saying a word, but rather doing so with our lives? Can you imagine combatting the dark ideologies of this culture without a single Facebook post? Can you imagine changing your city without a single speech?! Truth, as it’s so woven into the fabric of our (God’s) reality, is not merely spoken. Jesus’ words are forever remembered and cherished—but also remember, he never wrote anything down. It is his life that changed the course of human history. Let’s see if we can walk as he did.
—Luke Soliwoda