Julie at podcast listener writes and asks this. Hello, Pastor John, I have a simple question

for you. So what does it actually mean to be a worshipper? Pastor John, what would you

say? The key text for me is Matthew 15, 7 and 8, you hypocrites. Well, did Isaiah prophesy

of you when he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from

me in vain. Do they worship me? So from that, I see first that worship is about honoring

God, a worshipper is one who honors God. This people honors me with their lips in vain.

Do they worship me? In other words, they're failing in what they're attempting to do

rightly. So it's right to want to honor God. That's what worship should be to show God

to be of highest honor in the universe, highest value, highest worth, highest worthy of

praised, worthy of most admiration. That's what God is and worship shows them to be that,

reflects that worship is an echo of those excellencies of God would be a way to think

about it. And then the second thing I noticed in that text besides honor God is the prominence

of the heart. This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me in

vain. Do they worship me? Their worship is empty because they're doing it with lips

without heart. There is no authentic worship where the heart is not engaged. It's empty

worship. It's a vain worship. So the essence, I'm going to argue in answer here that the essence

of worship is not the movement of your lips, not the movement of your hands, not the movement

of your knees, not the movement of your tongue. The essence of worship is the movement of your

heart that is your affections, your spiritual emotions, and those other acts of outward acts

become worship when they are expressing what the heart is authentically feeling. And what is that?

Well, it's not mere willpower because these folks had enough of that because they were doing

this lip moving. This people honors me with their lips. They had the willpower to go to church and

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