Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #109： What is Biblical Worship？

00:00:00.000 Welcome to this episode of Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge, where each week

00:00:13.140 I offer 15 to 20-minute answers to tough theological and pastoral questions. This is

00:00:19.100 a 100% listener-supported audio ministry of relearn.org. And for those who don't know,

00:00:25.720 our mission at relearn.org is to educate and equip ordinary Christians to plant biblical,

00:00:31.860 confessional, and missional house churches. For more information, just visit relearn.org

00:00:37.580 forward slash house. When we think of worship, our minds typically generate images of hands in

00:00:46.720 the air, you know, singing Christian songs or people, maybe if you're thinking about worship

00:00:52.520 in another perspective from another religion, maybe bowing down, worshiping a particular object.

00:00:58.520 But what is worship according to the Bible? And how are we called to offer it to God?

00:01:06.560 We're going to be discussing this and more. But before we begin, I want to make just two

00:01:11.260 quick announcements. The first is, a few weeks ago, I released a written version of my testimony.

00:01:19.380 And I titled it, How God Saved, Freed, and Reformed Dale Partridge.

00:01:26.580 And that has shown to be a very helpful piece and article for many of you who have followed

00:01:32.600 our ministry and followed me for some time.

00:01:35.040 In fact, we actually had over 10,000 people read it in the first few days.

00:01:40.180 So if you're trying to sort out the gospel or when your conversion truly took place in

00:01:47.360 your personal story, this might be a helpful read for you. You can also just read it because it

00:01:54.720 might be just an encouraging read. I had several people mention that it made them cry. It made

00:01:59.880 them tear up. Other people were just fascinated by the story. And so if you'd like to read it,

00:02:04.940 you could just visit relearn.org forward slash testimony, and you can find it there.

00:02:10.700 The second thing is ultimatemarriage.com. This is a companion ministry of relearn.org,

00:02:17.680 meaning that it's a secondary ministry in kind of the outskirts of what we do, but

00:02:23.000 it's been a very helpful ministry for married couples. It's a great program for people that

00:02:29.180 are about to get married, are engaged, early married, and we have several couples that have

00:02:35.500 done it even 10, 20 years into their marriage as well. It's a six-week program. It's got six

00:02:42.620 45-minute videos. It comes with marriage challenge checklists to do together and have a discussion

00:02:49.620 after each video. We talk about theology, roles, children, sex, money, and more. And this program

00:02:57.940 has historically been $199. For a period of time, we just decided, hey, you know what? Let's make

00:03:04.400 this thing $99. So right now, it's $99. And we just wanted to do that purely for the blessing

00:03:13.420 of those who might not be able to afford it for $199. And so if that's you out there and you want

00:03:19.840 to invest in your marriage, you want to get your wife a really great gift. You want to get your

00:03:24.880 husband a great gift. You want to just start strengthening your theological understanding

00:03:31.240 and Perspective of Marriage so that you can build a biblical marriage, understand your biblical

00:03:35.640 roles, check it out, ultimatemarriage.com, and you can enroll there as well. All right, so today's

00:03:43.500 question is from Tabitha in Oakland, California, and she asks, Pastor Dale, I was reading John 4,

00:03:51.020 and verse 24 jumped off the page. In this verse, Jesus says, God is spirit, and those who worship

00:03:59.320 him must worship in spirit and truth. My understanding of worship is singing songs to

00:04:05.500 God. But is worship deeper than this? Is worship going beyond my emotion? Does worship go beyond

00:04:12.680 my physical actions? I guess what I'm really looking to understand is, what is biblical worship?

00:04:19.900 Hey Tabitha, this is a great question. In fact, I would say and I expect that many listeners have

00:04:24.880 had similar questions about this passage of Scripture and about this topic. So let me quickly

00:04:31.760 address the music portion of this question, and then we'll dive into the deeper theological

00:04:37.820 territory behind worship. We live in an era of the church where the grandeur of worship has been

00:04:46.160 reduced and confined to a small physical action, as what you talked about, which we all know in

00:04:53.320 our generation is singing songs. But they're not just songs, they're highly emotional songs about

00:05:01.000 Jesus. Now, I use the words highly emotional really as a way to contrast them against

00:05:08.440 being highly truthful songs about Jesus. And as many of you know, the vast majority of our

00:05:15.300 contemporary Christian worship songs sound beautiful. They have wonderful harmonies and

00:05:22.640 melodies and catchy lyrics, but sadly, they're really often not in alignment with Scripture.

00:05:30.340 And I'm not going to offer examples of this. We actually did that already in an episode. It's

00:05:35.400 episode number 58. It's titled, Is Your Worship Music Teaching You False Doctrine? However,

00:05:42.380 I will give you an example of the alternative, a song that is faithful to Scripture. And many of

00:05:48.100 you have sung this song before. It's titled Great is Thy Faithfulness, and it's a highly truthful

00:05:53.320 song because it's in accordance with God's revealed character in Scripture. And what I mean by that is

00:05:59.180 Great is Thy Faithfulness is a worship tool that not only reflects accurately the doctrine of God

00:06:05.180 in the Bible, but it teaches Christians a correct theology of God. It's also a really great song.

00:06:11.400 So I'm going to read you guys just the first two stanzas to give you an idea of what I'm talking

00:06:16.940 about. It says, Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee.

00:06:24.360 Thou changest not, thy compassions they fail not. As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be.

00:06:30.340 Great is thy faithfulness, great is thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see.

00:06:35.900 All I have needed, thy hand hath provided. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me.

00:06:40.660 I guess when you basically build a contrasting environment of the richness of these biblical

00:06:48.600 truths in this song, and many others that are like it, against the plethora of poetic

00:06:54.260 garbage that's out there that's being sung in our churches today, you start to quickly 0.79

00:06:57.960 realize that many churches are actually shepherding their flocks into false doctrine by way of 0.99

00:07:03.080 musical worship.

00:07:04.300 On the relearn.org Instagram account, the team recently posted a quote where I said,

00:07:10.080 quote, a worship leader who brings an unbiblical song should be treated the same as a pastor who

00:07:16.960 brings an unbiblical sermon. They need to be called out, asked to repent, and required to

00:07:21.880 correct the false doctrine. False teaching, whether by harmony or by heresy, is deadly to

00:07:26.580 the church, end quote. The late James Montgomery Boyce, if you don't know who he is, you should

00:07:32.840 you should know who he is. He once said,

00:08:02.840 of the songs. The old hymns expressed the theology of the Bible in profound and perceptive

00:08:08.760 ways and with a winsome and memorable language. Today's songs are focused on ourselves. They

00:08:15.700 reflect our shallow or non-existent theology and do almost nothing to elevate our thoughts

00:08:21.340 about God. Worst of all songs are the ones that merely repeat a trite idea, word or phrase

00:08:28.320 over and over again. Songs like this are not worship. Though they may give the church-goer

00:08:34.980 a religious feeling, they are mantras, which belong more in a gathering of New Agers than 0.90

00:08:40.740 among the worshiping people of God." So one thing I want to make clear is that singing 0.63

00:08:48.480 Christian songs is not worship. It's the result of worship. It's the outpouring manifestation

00:08:55.760 of worship. The source of worship, however, really begins in the heart. And the point I'm making here

00:09:02.780 is that spiritual activity doesn't necessarily equal spiritual sincerity. And let me explain

00:09:08.900 this another way. In Matthew 15, 8, Jesus said in regards to the Pharisees,

00:09:15.260 these people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. In vain do they worship me.

00:09:21.300 In other words, they are doing the right thing the wrong way.

00:09:27.140 They're doing the right spiritual activity in the incorrect manner, right?

00:09:31.720 Physical worship and the singing about God without sincerity of the heart is vain, which

00:09:38.780 is just a word that means it has no effect.

00:09:42.100 Basically, you can go and sing all the Christian songs and do all the Bible studies and be

00:09:48.100 a religious person all day long. 0.58

00:09:49.460 But if your heart isn't given over to the Lord, you're just like the Pharisees.

00:09:54.240 You're an empty, waterless cloud who worships Jesus the way that you want to worship Him

00:09:59.700 and not the way that Jesus actually accepts worship.

00:10:03.320 Which leads us to the passage that you used, Tabitha, in John 4 about what type of worship is accepted or not.

00:10:11.800 But before I touch on what Jesus deems, quote, acceptable worship, let me first offer just

00:10:19.360 a warning about false worship.

00:10:22.320 So false worship is more common than we might think.

00:10:25.980 And in this generation, it's worshiping God according to who we want him to be and not

00:10:31.680 according to who he is.

00:10:33.340 And this isn't a new problem.

00:10:35.160 In fact, Jesus warns against this earlier in Matthew 7, 21 through 23, when he says,

00:10:41.800 Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does

00:10:46.240 the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not

00:10:53.000 prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name, and do mighty works in your name? And then

00:10:58.060 I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. Now, we don't 0.59

00:11:06.080 have time to fully exposit this text, but the essence of this passage teaches us that doing

00:11:12.180 spiritual things is not sufficient to save. Singing emotional spiritual songs are not

00:11:19.020 sufficient to save either. And if these activities are not really anchored by a heart that's yielded

00:11:25.900 to the Lordship of Christ through genuine repentance and belief, then it doesn't matter

00:11:30.240 how high you raise your hands or, you know, how loud you sing during worship, it's insincere and

00:11:36.420 unaccepted by God. So let's look real quick at this verse that you brought up, Tabitha,

00:11:43.100 John 4, 24. It reads, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

00:11:51.640 This passage is taken out of the correspondence between Jesus and the woman at the well in

00:11:55.600 Samaria. He just got done being in Judea. He's making his way up to Galilee. He could have gone

00:12:01.900 up the coast, or he could have gone across the Jordan, but instead he goes through Samaria,

00:12:08.100 has this interaction with the woman at the well. But first and foremost, we learn here in this

00:12:14.680 passage that the only way to worship God is through Christ. That's kind of the main point

00:12:21.060 that's going on here, the only way to worship God is through Christ. This is the only channel

00:12:28.520 or agent by which God has made worship possible. And Jesus affirms this in John 14, 6, when he says,

00:12:37.360 I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.

00:12:42.060 So secondly, in worshiping God by way of Christ, we must worship Christ by way of who he truly is

00:12:52.020 and not who we want him to be. And what I mean really is that the sin-affirming Jesus of the

00:13:01.340 progressive church is not worshiping Christ in truth. The perverted Jesus of the Mormon church 1.00

00:13:08.160 is not worshiping Christ in truth. The distorted Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses is not worshiping 1.00

00:13:15.280 Christ in truth. The false Jesus of the health and wealth prosperity gospel is not worshiping 1.00

00:13:21.140 Christ in truth. And this again, this is why doctrine and theology are so important. We're

00:13:28.840 called to worship God from the heart according to truth. Years ago, people yelled at John MacArthur

00:13:36.400 and said, theology and doctrine are divisive. I love his reply. He said, yeah, they are divisive. 0.52

00:13:42.080 They divide the truth from error. So bottom line, Tabitha, worship is the natural result of

00:13:51.460 gratitude for our salvation. In fact, every time you worship, it's a result of revelation.

00:14:00.720 Revelation always comes before worship.

00:14:04.340 It's this beautiful concept.

00:14:06.220 Imagine those days that you're reading the scriptures and you see something that's so

00:14:10.420 beautiful and you just go, oh Lord, you're so good.

00:14:13.180 Or after a sermon and a truth was revealed to your heart that just overwhelms you, you

00:14:19.400 want to worship.

00:14:20.340 So worship is the result or reaction to revelation, and that could be your salvation

00:14:28.360 in that very moment. It could be a remembrance of that salvation. It could be just further

00:14:34.700 sanctification revelation of the scriptures that the Lord is teaching you and conforming you to

00:14:39.480 his image. But basically, it's the adoration of God that really stems from his infinite value to us.

00:14:47.440 Jesus is worthy of our praise. He's very valuable. He has chosen us. He has redeemed us. He has

00:14:57.280 revealed himself to us. He has given us new hearts, and he's done all of this because he

00:15:03.220 loves us. And if you don't feel like worshiping, it's simply because you have forgotten who he is

00:15:10.640 and what he's done for you. And we all get to those places. This is the fallenness of our flesh

00:15:18.020 that we get to a place where our salvation, our story, our redemption goes out of view or out of

00:15:25.680 focus. And instead we replace our focus with other carnal things. It might be our own desires and our

00:15:31.780 own needs. But when we see the work of salvation, when we see the work of sanctification, when we

00:15:40.420 see the love of God conforming us to his son, and we see it clearly, and again, we usually see this

00:15:47.620 almost exclusively actually through the reading of scripture or the hearing of scripture or the

00:15:52.000 hearing of preaching, it really should cause us to fall back to our knees, stripped of our pride

00:15:58.420 and rebellion, and shouts of love should really begin to pour out of us. We should begin worshiping

00:16:06.300 him. This really is biblical worship. It's the result of the revelation, the salvation, the work

00:16:15.040 that God has accomplished in us. So it's an external thing. We got to look at the fact that

00:16:21.360 there's music, and really historically that was called praise, right? Praising God with music,

00:16:27.020 but it's a way to worship Jesus. But worship begins and is inaugurated in the heart,

00:16:34.520 and it flows out of us in different manifestations. Some may be in their knees in their bedroom

00:16:40.940 with tears in their eyes. Some may be outside looking at the grandeur of creation. Some might

00:16:48.300 be quietly on the side of a bed of a family member who's passing away in confidence of their

00:16:57.600 salvation and the revelation of that and the beauty of God. Some, it might be in the middle

00:17:04.700 of singing hymns or singing worship songs. These are all different opportunities and manifestations

00:17:09.740 of biblical worship, but again, the worship itself starts in a heart that's yielded to God.

00:17:15.200 So hopefully that answers your question, Tabitha, of what is biblical worship.

00:17:19.620 I wish we had more time to discuss this, but I am going to leave you guys with a few resources,

00:17:24.080 three resources that I think are going to be very helpful for everybody who's listening

00:17:27.860 here, and you can find these on the post page for this episode at relearn.org.

00:17:34.420 This is episode number 109, What is Biblical Worship?

00:17:39.860 And so you can just type in what is biblical worship, you'll find it there.

00:17:42.400 The first resource is a documentary called Spirit and Truth, and it's probably 90 minutes.

00:17:51.420 It's covering the definition of biblical worship in detail.

00:17:54.140 It's a really good documentary.

00:17:55.780 I highly recommend you watching it.

00:17:58.840 It gives you a healthy biblical doctrinal exposition of what is worship far more extensively than what we discussed today.

00:18:10.320 The second is a book called Sing.

00:18:15.480 And this is written by renowned worship leaders, Keith and Kristen Getty.

00:18:20.320 If you don't know Keith and Kristen Getty, you definitely know their songs.

00:18:24.740 And they wrote a really great book.

00:18:26.680 You can get it on audio or you can get it in print.

00:18:28.780 I've actually listened to it on audio.

00:18:30.780 And it was just really encouraging.

00:18:32.780 It also reminds me that I can sing, even though I'm not necessarily a singer.

00:18:37.660 but if you have a voice, if you have a mouth and you can talk, then you can sing, and about the

00:18:43.020 importance of congregational singing. So that was a really good book. The last thing I'm going to

00:18:48.480 share is I'm going to put a link to my personal Spotify playlist called Biblical Worship, and I

00:18:54.560 have a collection of songs that I've put together over the years, and it's a really great—and I

00:19:03.480 keep adding to them. So if you guys are a Spotify user, you guys can find that there. And hopefully

00:19:08.340 that'll be edifying for you. If you're a regular listener to the show, thank you. We just passed

00:19:14.040 2 million downloads a few weeks ago. So over 2 million times this episode has been downloaded

00:19:20.320 to some device. That's just amazing and humbling. Would you guys that are regular listeners consider

00:19:27.620 doing something for me? Would you guys leave a review? If you haven't left a review, all I'm

00:19:32.980 asking for is just for you to tap the stars. You don't need to write anything. But if you do write

00:19:37.940 something, I'll read it. I actually read every single one of them, even the critical reviews.

00:19:42.880 And they are helpful, even for those that are writing these critical reviews. I'm trying to

00:19:47.860 take those in with a humble spirit and bettering the show because of it. But we'd love those

00:19:54.580 reviews. You can also remember to check out the testimony that I wrote my story. Again, that's

00:20:01.440 available for you at relearn.org forward slash testimony. And again, ultimatemarriage.com

00:20:07.060 for our six-week marriage program. That's it for this episode, guys. My name is Dale Partridge,

00:20:12.960 and we will see you next week.

00:20:31.440 donate and for those looking to explore the idea of joining or planting a church in your home

00:20:35.680 you can download our free pdf ebook titled the basics of biblical house church by visiting

00:20:40.720 relearn.org forward slash house lastly do you have a theological question you would like answered on

00:20:46.740 the show submit your question at relearn.org forward slash question thanks for joining us

00:20:52.240 on this episode of real christianity we'll see you next wednesday

00:21:01.440 Thank you.

Dale Partridge - September 08, 2020

Real Christianity #109： What is Biblical Worship？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript