GUIDELINE #2: WORSHIP GOD TOGETHER IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH

SERIES: “GOD-GIVEN GUIDELINES FOR GROWING A GREAT CHURCH”
(Material taken from Bob Russel’s When God Builds A Church)

TEXT: JOHN 4:21-24

TITLE: GUIDELINE #2: “WORSHIP GOD TOGETHER IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH”

INTRODUCTION: A. After attending church one Sunday morning, a little boy knelt at his bedside that night
and prayed, “Dear God, we had a good time at church today. I wish you had been
there.”
--How sad but how true that statement is in our time
1. The primary purpose for attending a church service should be to worship God.

2. Ps. 95:6-7 – “Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD
our Maker; for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under
his care.”

3. Worship is more than just singing a few songs, performing a few rituals, and
enduring a sermon. We come to experience the presence of God, to acknowledge
his authority in our lives, and to worship him as our Creator.

B. What worship is not:
1. To some people, worship is ritual: a regular routine that they go through once a
week

2. They come to a building, sing a few songs, listen to a prayer or two, eat a stale
cracker and drink some grape juice; put a couple of dollars in the offering plate,
listen to a sermon, and go home.
--Nothing of any importance happens but they have done their religious
obligation for the week (or month or even year)

3. Several years ago Barna Research Group did a survey of adults in churches across
North America. 71% of the adults who regularly attend church said, “I have
never experienced the presence of God in worship. Never.”
a. Sad to say, but worship to many has no connection with God.

b. It’s rote; it’s routine
--In reality, it’s irrelevant and empty, and boring

c. But it’s not worship.

C. So, what is worship?
1. It’s a declaration of the “worth-ship” of God

2. Worship is when you see God and you go, “WOW!”
--It’s responding to all that God is and all that He has done, what He is doing, and