Teach Me to Pray - Week #5

Chapter two is entitled "The True Worshipers," in which Andrew Murray takes a look at John 4:23,24:

"Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and truth."

The author points out that in this conversation with the Samaritan woman, Jesus spoke of three kinds of worship:

1. The unlearned worship of the Samaritans (vs. 22)
2. The intelligent worship of the Jews (v. 22)
3. The new spiritual worship (v. 23)

Because of the context of Jesus' teaching on true worship in this passage, we can rightly deduce that He's not talking about earnest, sincere prayer and worship. Jesus is contrasting worship that is done in spirit and truth with earnest and sincere worship...

"The Samaritans had the five books of Moses and some knowledge of God; there was doubtless more than one among them who honestly and earnestly sought God in prayer. The Jews had the full revelation of God in His Word as had until then been given; there were among them godly men who called upon God with their whole hearts. But worshiping 'in spirit and truth' was not yet fully realized...it is only in and through Him that the worship of God will be in spirit and truth."

Murray goes on to say that in today's Church can be found three "classes of worshipers":

1. Those who pray earnestly but receive little; in their ignorance they hardly know what they are asking.
   
2. Those who pray with all their mind and heart and with earnestness but don't attain the full blessing; they have more knowledge than the first group related to God and prayer.
3. Those who have been taught by Jesus how to worship in spirit and truth.

To worship "in spirit" means two things (as Jesus teaches in this portion in John 4):

• First, worship is not confined to a certain place or time. "His worship must be the spirit of our life. Our life must be worship in spirit as God is spirit." While we are creatures of time and space and must practice prayer and worship in time and space, it's critical that we grasp the reality that true worship of God is "the spirit of our life." Our set-apart times in certain places should be the overflow of our worship of God throughout the duties of life; but those set-apart times are also meant to strengthen us to worship Him all the time and in all places.
• Second, to worship in spirit means that worship must come from God Himself. God gave us the Holy Spirit for this very purpose - to empower us to love and worship God..."It was when He had made an end of sin and entered into the Holiest of all with His blood, that He there on our behalf received the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33) and could send Him down to us. It was when Christ had redeemed us and we in Him had received the position of children that the Father sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts to cry 'Abba, Father.' The worship in spirit means the worship of the Father in the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of sonship." Mike Bickle says it this way, "It takes God to love God." In other words, we cannot worship in spirit without the Spirit of God worshiping in and through us.

The author completes the chapter by saying that to worship "in truth" doesn't mean to worship only in sincerity nor only in accordance to the truth of God's Word. It is much more than this because it's bound up in the Person of Jesus who is the Truth. So simply worshiping with right information isn't what is meant by worshiping in truth (although we must study and learn truth about Jesus by the Spirit)..."So worship in the spirit is worship in truth, actual living fellowship with God, with a real correspondence and harmony between the Father, who is a spirit, and the child praying in the Spirit." In other words, if we are truly worshiping in spirit (in union and harmony with the Father), then we are worshiping in truth.

Again Murray calls us to the place of humility and teachableness if we are to learn from Jesus how to pray.

This chapter underscores again the author's primary contention in this book which is that if we are to take hold of all that God intended for His children in prayer, we must be taught how to pray. We can't be content to simply be earnest and sincere in prayer but must ask Jesus to enroll us as students in His school of prayer; and the desire to learn to pray and to keep learning at whatever stage of our journey in God requires an awareness of our need to be taught and deep humility on our part:

"Let there be the deep confession of our inability to give God the worship that is pleasing to Him, the childlike teachableness that waits on Him for instruction, and the simple faith that yields itself to the breath of the Spirit."

Father, what a wonder that You seek worshipers! That leaves us speechless as we pause before You...You own everything and yet You are seeking something: the love and worship of true worshipers! Lord Jesus, once again we ask You to teach us to pray.
"Teach me that spiritual worship is not of man but comes from you; that is not something of times and seasons but rather the outflowing of a life in you. Teach me to draw near to you in prayer with a deep awareness of my ignorance and of my having nothing in myself to offer, and at the same time of the provision that you, my Savior, make for the Spirit's breathing into my childlike stammering. I bless you that in you I am a child and have a child's liberty of access, that in you I have the spirit of sonship and of worship in truth. Teach me, above all, blessed Son of the Father, how it is the revelation of the Father that gives us confidence in prayer. Let the infinite fatherliness of God's heart be my joy and strength for a life of prayer and of worship. Amen."