Welcome back to the S. Pastor John podcast. We're going to end the week with a simple question

and often the best ones are Pamela Khan, a listener to the podcast, simply asks this. Pastor

John, what is worship? Let's start with the inner essence of worship and then work out

to the more public expressions of worship services or daily acts of love which Paul calls

our spiritual worship. The reason I make the distinction between the inner essence of worship

and the external expression of it is because I think Jesus did in Matthew 158. This people

honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me. In vain, do they worship me? So for

Jesus worship amounts to zero. That's what vain means. In vain, they worship me. Zero, it's not

worship. It's a zero worship. It's zero if there's no heart dimension to it. So you can do as many

deeds as you want and go to as many church services as you want and never be worshiping if it's

all external and nothing is happening in your heart toward God. So all true worship is in

essence a matter of the heart. It's more, more, but it's not less. So then the question becomes

what is this inner authentic God word experience of the heart that we call the essence of worship?

And Jesus pointed us toward an answer in John 4.23 and 24 when he said the hour is coming

and is now here. He's here. When the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth

for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must

worship in spirit and in truth. Now notice that worshiping in spirit is not contrasted with

worshiping in the body or with the body. Instead, it's put alongside worshiping in truth. So what

would that mean that we are to be spirit worshipers worshiping from the spirit and truth driven by

truth? Well, I think the point is that when we worship, right worship, good worship, pleasing

worship depends on a right mental grasp of the way God really is truth. If we worship an

idol of our own creation, we're not really worshiping God. And secondly, worship depends on a

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