If you can follow my sermons notes on this passage, they may hold some profit for you:

-though it was God’s will to be worshipped at Jerusalem for a time, the time is coming when true worshippers will desire to serve the Father in “spirit and in truth”
-for Christ having come and inaugurated the new and final age (covenant) by His death and resurrection, the church would enfold all who believed in His name for the forgiveness of sins
-the abrogation (end) of ceremonies marks us different than God’s people in the OT: this is entirely consistent with the NT focus on the mystery being revealed in the coming of the Messiah – far from saying that the Israelites never worshipped God properly, or in truth, this worship was only meant to be for a time until the full revelation of the gospel was brought forth (more? Turn to Hebrews: fulfillment)

-thus we are no longer restricted to a place of worship but only to the style or manner
-so Christ says “God is a spirit (spirit) and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit in truth”

-the first thing we may note is that true worship is according to God’s character Spirit: worship is defined by His being, His attributes not by our will or desire
-when we worship God we ought to see His immutability, omniscience, omnipresence, infinity, independence
-when we worship God we ought to see His grace, mercy, love, justice and wrath
-instead of making services appeal to our sinful hearts or to the demands of the world we ought to show and praise God: in our music, in our words our attitudes, everything
-if our services are half-hearted, irreverent or utterly without life then this is the god we worship, but then he is not the true God of the scriptures

-this point is supported by what our Lord tells us concerning the necessity of this type of worship: “must” anyone who truly worships God desires to do it as He pleases; and if they don’t then they ought to examine themselves whether they are in the faith, as Paul says
-and yet on the other hand, it does little good if we rant and rave about the fact that we must worship God according to His Word if we don’t examine His word and see what He would have us do

-practically, what does it mean to worship in spirit and truth?

1) Trinitarian: Father, Son and Holy Spirit
John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
John 16:13 “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”
-we cannot worship the Father without the Son, or the Father and the Son without the Spirit (as the Pharisees)
-many of the people to whom Christ addressed throughout His ministry would have thought that these men were true worshippers and yet they were white-washed tombs
-in a very real sense they did not know God because they did not believe in His Son nor receive His Spirit: salvation from God is our motivation!

2) secondly we must be very careful not to make worshipping in Spirit an invention of our imagination: not as we feel, as before, but in spirit and truth
-they go together: John 17:17 “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”

__________________
Rev. Daniel Kok
Pastor of Grace Reformed Church (URCNA)
Leduc, Alberta CANADA
Church Blog

"there is no creature, either in heaven or on earth, who loves us more than Jesus Christ"
Belgic Confession, Article 26

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