In my introductory talk yesterday I made a distinction between thanksgiving and praise on one hand, and worship on the other. I explained that thanksgiving and praise are primarily utterances of our mouths, whereas worship is primarily an attitude of our body.

However, this is not the whole truth because it deals only with that which is external. To be acceptable to God and to conform to His holiness, there are essential conditions that we have to fulfill in the inward attitude of our heart.

In my talk today I’m going to deal with the inward attitude of the heart which alone can make our worship acceptable to God.

The conditions of the heart that alone are acceptable to God are stated by Jesus in His conversation with the Samaritan woman that’s recorded in John chapter 4. Jesus met the woman at the well and they entered into conversation, and the woman began to talk about the rival claims of Jerusalem and Samaria as centers of worship. The Jews, of course, worshipped in Jerusalem; the Samaritans in Samaria. But when the woman began to discuss the rival claims of these two physical, geographical locations, Jesus turned the conversation in a new and unexpected direction. Here we read John 4:20-24. The Samaritan woman said:

“Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship that what you do not know; we worship that what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.’”

I want to draw you attention to certain points in that conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

First of all, the words of Jesus to that woman were prophetic. Within a hundred years of that conversation the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed and it had been rendered impossible for the Jewish people to worship there. However, before the Temple was destroyed, God made alternative provision for His people to worship Him. He transferred the requirements from a physical location to a spiritual condition. The spiritual condition that Jesus stated was “in spirit and in truth.”

The third point is that God actually seeks worshippers of this kind. This is to me one of the most exciting and amazing statements of the Bible, that Almighty God is seeking for people to worship Him. Jesus said, “The Father is looking for worshippers of this kind, the kind that worship in “spirit and in truth.”

Let’s look at these two spiritual conditions, the inward conditions of the heart that Jesus states “in spirit and in truth.” I want to begin with the latter requirement, “in truth.”

Let me point out to you eight kinds of persons who are excluded from God’s presence. The list is given us in Revelation 21:8:

“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.

Thanksgiving, Praise, and Worship

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