So you believed on Jesus, what now?  What is the Christian life all about.  What does the life of a believer look like?  What is our liturgical practice; what is Christian worship meant to be about?  When we gather, what is it that shapes our time together?  Do we worship through our service?  Do we worship through sacraments?  Is the life of a believer; someone who is a follower of the way, about performing sacraments & observing holy days & holy people?  Serving & having sacraments aren’t evil in and of themselves.  But it can be a slippery slope if that’s how you define Christian worship.  You can very easily end up of worshipping the traditions of man instead of being a worshipper of God.  Where your Christian tradition becomes about something other than the hearing of faith, and the unity of the faith.  

Traditions are a powerful thing with people.  Human beings love traditions.  There’s a semblance of safety and security in traditions.  You know what to expect.  You know what you’ll see.  That’s why once something is established as tradition it becomes very difficult for people to walk away from it.  The tradition becomes a god to them.  The tradition becomes the giver of life and the taker away of life.  Thats why Jesus says the traditions of man make the word of God of none effect.  Jesus came to a people who were given the word of God through Moses and the first 5 books of the Bible.  But, their worship became so much about the traditions, it made the word of God of none effect.  Well Solomon says in Ecclesiastes there’s nothing new under the sun.  

Jhn 4:19  The woman said unto him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Jhn 4:20  Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and you say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
Jhn 4:21  Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour comes, when you shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
Jhn 4:22  You worship you know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.
Jhn 4:23  But the hour comes, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeks such to worship him.
Jhn 4:24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Jesus is contrasting what worship looked like prior to his coming, and what it will look like after his coming.  Prior to Jesus, in the Old Testament, and in the old covenant, their idea of worship; their gatherings and assemblies were centered around the physical location.  It was about a specific place.  You had to be in the correct mountain, or in the temple.  There were also carnal ordinances; outward observances; physical sacraments.  There were feasts, and baptisms, and holy days, and sacrifices and rituals, and meal offerings and drink offerings, where you ate and drank specific things.  

So there was all these outward things concerning worship and Jesus says the hour is come where worship will no longer be about those things.  He says the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.  He says the Father seeks people to worship Him in Spirit an in Truth.  He says God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.  The apostle Paul says in Acts 17 God is not worshipped with men’s hands.  You cannot worship God by outward observances, or what you do with your hands.  

Example of worshipping in Spirit and truth …. Sabbath you don’t observe a day, but you observe the work of God to prepare a table for you to serve you with His life, and that puts your flesh to rest.  For the feast of firstfruits you don’t bring a firstfruit offering.  Christ is our firstfruit, meaning that since Jesus was the firstborn from the dead, we have a certainty we will also be raised from the dead.  

So if that’s not the kind of worship God desires, why all the physical rituals and carnal ordinances in the law?  

Mankind was carnal sold under sin.  The carnal mind cannot comprehend God or His nature; or His workings God is invisible to the carnal mind.  The carnal mind is blind when it comes to God …. How do you worship someone you can’t see, or handle, or touch.  How can you experience someone you don’t know is there?  So the carnal ordinances and outward observances in the law were implemented to give form to the invisible God.  Mankind couldn’t comprehend God.  Mankind couldn’t see Him; we couldn’t touch Him.  The apostle Paul says the carnal ordinances and outward observances contained in the law were there as a school master.  Keeping us shut up in the faith, but only, until faith would come through the promised seed, which is Jesus.   

So the sacraments in the Old Testament; the worship there, was all about being able to see the invisible God; those things painted a picture of the God who was invisible.  They were meant to give sight; to give form to the invisible God, so the people could see the workings of God, and His nature, and through that be able to touch him and handle him, and through being able to experience God, commit the care of their lives into His hands; live as His people … a people served by the self existent one .. but only until Jesus would bring faith, and we can see the God who was invisible in His face.  

What is a sacrament? The term sacrament refers to a theological understanding of how the divine is made present within creation, and specifically to a Christian rite which is recognized as being particularly important and significant. There are various views on the existence, number and meaning of such rites. Many Christians consider the sacraments to be a visible symbol of the reality of God, as well as a channel for God's grace

Worship is about experiencing God.  It’s about coming to an experiential knowledge of God because you see Him; you’ve touched Him; You handled Him.  The purpose of Christian worship is to be persuaded of Gods love for you, to the end you live in the world as a people served by God.

In the New Testament scriptures, in the letter to the Hebrews it says we see the invisible God by faith, and it tells us this faith is Jesus Christ Himself; the express image and brightness of Gods person; it’s not just the Son we see in Jesus, we can also see the Father through Him; and we can see the Spirit through him … Faith is the image of the invisible God.  Faith gives form to the family in heaven.  By faith we see Him who is invisible to the carnal mind.  By faith we see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  By faith we see the nature, and the workings of the Godhead.  It’s by faith we see their ministry to us.  It’s by faith we see them serving us with their life.  Faith gives form to the invisible God, so we can have an experiential knowledge of God; that in being able to touch and to handle and to see God through the faith that is of Jesus Christ; we live as His people; a people served by Him.  A people He serves by providing Himself as our lamb, pouring out his life for us by shedding His own blood.  

Hebrews 11 says by faith, it doesnt say by the physical sacraments.  Hebrews says its by faith, not rituals, or observing holy days, or holy people, that we see and experience, the invisible God.  Hebrew’s 12 says looking unto Jesus the one who authored faith in the earth, and the one who perfects faith in our hearts and in our minds.  Jesus is our temple worship.  It’s by the hearing of faith we worship God.  We behold the Christian sacraments in the body of what God has done; is doing; shall do in Christ …. The image of what all the rituals and sacraments were pointing to are now written on our hearts through the Holy Spirit.  Jesus didn’t come to give us better rituals.  He didn’t come to give us better carnal ordinances to perform as part of our worship; that through these new carnal ordinances we can now know God; experience Him.  The author of Hebrews had every chance to give the people he wrote to a new set of sacraments to perform but they didn’t …. What they did when they came upon people professing belief in the Lord Jesus, but whose worship was still centered around physical sacraments and rituals, what they did is they revealed how all those things were realized in the Faith revealed in Jesus.  This is what brings forth true worship.  As its written in hebrews 8 I will write my laws on their hearts and in their minds, and I will be there God and they will be my people.  

True worship is to call upon the name of the Father.  Whatever we want to say about Christian worship it would by necessity have to be about the crucified God; about God providing Himself as the lamb; to prepare a table; that in partaking with Him in His body; we would be perfected once for all time from sin and death, entering His rest.  We don’t worship through our service or through sacraments although we may enjoin those things at times … we worship by crying out Abba, by living as little children; looking to the table God has prepared … taking no thought of adding one cubit of stature to our lives.  

Col 2:6  As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: *did you receive by performing sacraments or by the hearing of faith?
Col 2:7  Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.  The Christian tradition is the faith revealed in Jesus Christ, and it’s about being rooted and grounded in that faith.  
Col 2:8  Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Col 2:9  For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Col 2:10  And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
Col 2:11  In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
Col 2:12  Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
Col 2:13  And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
Col 2:14  Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Col 2:15  And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Col 2:16  Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Col 2:17  Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
Col 2:18  Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,
Col 2:19  And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.
Col 2:20  Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
Col 2:21  (Touch not; taste not; handle not;
Col 2:22  Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
Col 2:23  Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.

The purpose of Christian worship is for the faith that was revealed in Jesus to be fully formed in your hearts, in your minds, and in your lives.  When you think about Christian worship and what it’s meant to look like you should look at its origin.  Christian worship originates from the life and fellowship in the Godhead.  The Godhead doesn’t have sacraments and carnal ordinances … why not?  Because their fellowship is centered around the Spirit of faith they share together in themselves.  They live and move and have their being within the Spirit of faith … 

Our worship; our gatherings.  Whatever our traditions may be, they are meant to be in the likeness of the fellowship that has always existed between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.  Christian worship is about the Spirit of Faith persuading people’s hearts and minds of the love of God, as seen in the death and resurrection of Jesus, that we be knit together with each other, in the same love and fellowship we see in the Godhead.  The Christian tradition is about the faith that came in Jesus Christ being perfected in your heart and in your life.  Hebrews 10 says not to forsake the assembly of yourselves together, exhorting one another, by looking unto the faith authored by Jesus.  Hebrews 13 says to exhort one another to love?  Whose love?  The love of God(connect love to I will be there God, and they shall be my people).  The Christian tradition is about gathering together to encourage one another in the faith; in the love of God.  That’s what gives birth to a community of people knit together by the same life and love the Godhead is knit together by.  There’s a unity that comes from the faith.  It’s by faith we are knit together in love, just like the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, ourselves receiving nutrients from the head, which head is Christ. 

You might ask is it contrary to true worship if we have physical elements in our worship?  Not necessarily.  It’s not evil to have sacraments or to take the physical elements of communion.  But physical sacraments are only so good as they stir you up by way of reminding you of the faith revealed in Jesus.  

Prayer