Pastor John, last Friday, in episode 263, you said that the essence of worship is not

what we do with our lips or hands or knees or tongues, but what happens in our heart?

Affections for God that correspond to the truth he reveals about himself.

So what about times when we don't have those affections?

Are you saying then that when we feel no emotion, we cannot be truly worshiping God?

Just remember the text, first of all, from yesterday, it's Matthew 15, 7, you hypocrites.

Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, this people honors me with their lips, but their heart

is far from me, in vain, do they worship me?

So this is a text that says it is empty, it's vain, it's non-worship, if it's only lip

worship, and I argued that that's just willpower religion.

They had the willpower to move their lips, go to church, sing the songs, but it's not

worship, to just move your lips, there needed to be emotions like contrition, sorrow, longing,

desire, fear, awe, gratitude, joy, hope, these are essential to be a real worshipper.

So now the question is being raised, what do you do if those emotions are absent?

Can you worship? Should you even go to church? What do you do if you're sitting in the

pew and those emotions aren't there? Should you get up and leave?

The answer to that question is very delicate. It has to be handled, I think, with pastoral

care and biblical faithfulness. Our emotions are spiritual affections, and when I say

emotions, I'm not talking about physical things like sweaty palms or fluttering eyelashes

or wobbly knees or butterflies in the stomach or anything like that. I'm talking about

real spiritual affections rising in the heart. Now they rise and fall. We are seldom

the same in the morning that we are in the evening. We are affected by many things in

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