By Michael A. Milton
Remember His covenant forever,
The word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, The covenant which He made with Abraham,And His oath to Isaac,And confirmed it to Jacob for a statute,To Israel for an everlasting covenant. (1 Chronicles 16:15-17)
Beloved, our worship should be a week-to-week renewal of the covenant in our lives. Each Lord's Day, we should come before the Lord and not leave until we have thanked Him and praised Him for His salvation wrought in Jesus Christ.
3. Living Worship requires a Living Faith.
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Note a third defining feature of living worship.
In verses 23 and 24, Jesus speaks of true worship as being in "spirit and truth." Focus on spiritual worship, first. This tells us that "Living Worship requires a Living Faith."
Not only does spirit speak of the fact that our worship is not bound by props and buildings and such, but it shows that only those who are filled with God's Spirit can relate to God in Worship, for God is a Spirit. To have this Spiritual Worship, this Living Worship, you need a Living Faith.
Paul would write in 1 Corinthians 2 an important passage for this consideration: "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). You cannot worship aright unless the Spirit of God has moved upon you, and you have repented and received Jesus Christ by faith. Only then can you relate to God in worship.
Today, there may be some of you who are going through worship and doing it quite nicely. You sing nicely and know the words and so forth, but if your spirit is not transformed by Christ, then your worship is not Living Worship, but dead. God will not accept worship from a person who is not coming to Him in the Name of Christ.
Today is the day for some of you to move from pretentious worship to Living Worship by yielding your life to Christ.
4. Living Worship must be based on the Living Word.
Now in verse 23, the Lord teaches us to worship not only in spirit, but also in truth. This leads us to see the fourth feature of a true worship, a living worship, that "Living Worship must be based on the Living Word."
Our worship should be grounded in the Word of God. There is much talk about worship today, about preferences and what I like and what you like and so forth. But, we err if we do not begin by asking not "What do I like?" but "What does God require?" Again, expressions vary, and we have seen that the argument need not rest there, but we should move to ask, "How Biblical is our worship?" Is it filled with Scripture? God's Word is Truth, and this must be the basis for worship.