The Ways Of Worship

The Ways Of Worship

The Presence of God

7/18/04

I. Introduction

More than 250 years ago, George Handel was a musical composer living in England. He accepted an assignment to write the music for a new collection titled Messiah. A unique aspect of this collection was that all the words were taken directly from Bible passages. As he began writing the music for Messiah, composer George Handel became consumed with his task. He was so caught up in the worshipful activity of creating this masterpiece that he often simply forgot to eat or sleep. The finale to Handel’s musical was titled, “The Hallelujah Chorus.” Using the words of Scripture, this song is approximately five minutes of powerful praise to Jesus and has become Handel’s most remembered work. Just after George Handel finished writing “The Hallelujah Chorus,” his servant came in the room. He found Handel sitting at a table with tears streaming down his face. Handel said, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself.”

What a powerful time of worship, and today I’m going to share with you how you, too, can experience for yourself powerful times of worship.

Now, the term worship is really a very religious-sounding word with a lot of different meanings. And worship is displayed all throughout the Bible, there are different styles of worship, methods of worship, principles of worship, but since we live in the new covenant that Jesus established when He came to earth, it’s very important for us to see what He said about worship, and so we’ll begin in the book of John chapter 4.

II. Understanding God’s Love

John 4:23 23But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

God is seeking true worshipers. And that’s exactly the reason we need to know what it means to be a true worshiper. Now, Jesus gave us a great revelation of the attributes and characteristics of a true worshiper when he was talking to this Samaritan woman.

Now, the people of Samaria were a mixed race of mostly poor people who had built a temple on Mount Gerazim to worship the God of Israel. But they built their temple “in competition” with the temple in Jerusalem. The Jews (God’s covenant people) of Jerusalem hated the Samaritans because they considered the Samaritans idolaters.

However, it was to one of these “idolaters” that Jesus chose to give His revelation about worship on a hot day at noontime at a well in foreign territory.

John 4:5-26 5So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

7A woman of Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." 8For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

9Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?" For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

10Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, "Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water."

11The woman said to Him, "Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?"

13Jesus answered and said to her, "Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life."

15The woman said to Him, "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw."

16Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here."

17The woman answered and said, "I have no husband."

Jesus said to her, "You have well said, "I have no husband,’ 18for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly."

19The woman said to Him, "Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship."

21Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. 23But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."