Theme: “Working the worth back into worship
Text: John 4:21-30
Pre – Introduction
From the passage of Scripture that was so eloquently read, John 4:21-30) kindly allow us to meditate together on the subject:
“Working the worth back into worship"
Thesis:
While the human heart desperately craves for the opportunity to express itself in worship, our Lord Jesus shows us that we can only put the value and worth back into a worship
- By accepting His Message of worship and
- By acting in His Mandate toward our God who deserves our highest devotion.
Let us pray:
Introduction
As we gather in this hallowed sanctuary, I believe it is truly a fitting prelude to the melodious reality which John the Beloved Disciple plays out for us in the text to which the Holy Spirit has assigned us today. That prelude is that we take a brief and spiritual, but imaginary journey back into time and our destination is the University of Christianity. As sit at that illustrious but imaginary institution, may it be our top most priority to learn some ultimate truths about what makes worship a valid and worthy experience... Are you with me?
You see church, it is important for us to do so because at the heart of every religious experience, there is the worship of something or someone. But just because we are worshipping something or someone does not necessarily mean that we are worshipping in a worthy and a valid manner, in so as far as the One who deserves our worship, the Lord Almighty is concerned.
But having said that, let me let you know that worship, like marriage, is the desperate cry of every human heart, and unless a person has some physical, physiological or psychological problem, s/he would one day hope to experience this thing called marriage. And yet like marriage, worship is a thing that many of us frequently understand little or nothing about.
In worship, like marriage we see many people, even Christian folks, so hastily jumping in and jumping right back out of it in a matter of weeks, months or years, because they are exhausted and frustrated and they want out of it… Similarly, we see even Christian folks jumping into a church building, shouting some words, shaking their bodies and jumping out of the sanctuary a few hours later, but far more empty spiritually than when they got there at first…
Why? It is because of what we believe and hold to be true about this precious thing called worship…
So, you see church, worship is like marriage in the sense that true worship is only a worthy and a valid experience when we work at it… am I speaking to somebody?
Turn to your neighbor, say neighbor… Worship works… But you’ve got to work… Turn to someone else and say neighbor… I don’t know about you… but I’m ready to work it… Halleluyah!
And so, my brothers and sisters, as we disembark from the spiritual jet that lands us on the shores of Christianity, I see:
- The author of this Gospel,
- I see John the beloved disciple of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ;
- The Prophet Isaiah of the New Testament;
- The Man unto whom was endowed the two dimensional view of Christ in His eternity past and His eternity future, and from that experience could later tell us that Jesus, not Mohammed, not Budda, not Confucius, but Jesus is the “Alpha and the Omega…”
- Oh yes, it is this same John who takes the liberty to give us a crash course in the subject: worship 101.
And lest we forget, be it known unto you that John is absolutely qualified to instruct, educate and edify us in this all-important course because when he peeped though the curtain of eternity past, based on what he saw, he said:
“In the beginning was the Word and Word was with God and the Word was God… and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:1-3, 14)
and when he glimpsed through the drapes of eternity future, exposes us to reality that, our Lord Jesus is so awesome that when He (Jesus) opened the sixth seal, “the heaven departed like a scroll when it is rolled together. And every mountain and island was moved out of their places. And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains. And they said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him sitting on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; (Rev. 6:12-16)
Oh Yes, church John knows what He is talking about as he reveals unto us the truths we are about to uncover in order that we too can add value to worship we offer up unto the King of Kings and Lord of Lord…
John, through the directive of the Holy Spirit is here teaching us so that the church of God, can get back into the place where her public and private worship will be truly pleasing unto the Lord our God…
As we meditate together, quickly allow me to share with you two truths about how we can work the worth back into worship and then I shall take my seat…
Firstly, John shows us that we can work the value and worth by into worship by what we know about Worship… and secondly, by what we do concerning worship…
I. Work it by what we know about worship, v. 21-24
As we meditate on verses 21-24, we see that the reason why this truth is very important for us to have is because there are lots of misconceptions, false impressions or erroneous ideas about what people believe worshipping God involves, and unless those false ideas are corrected, our worship will be paralyze at best and impotent at the very least. You see, it is best that we worship God appropriately or we do not worship at all, for as Bishop T. D. Jakes once said, “Jesus is either Lord of all or He is not Lord at all…”
A.So the first misconception John is trying to correct in us in this passage has to do with what we know about the time of worship… He quotes Jesus as saying, “The time is coming… and now is.”
Here actually, our Lord Jesus is fore – telling or prophesying into future that it would an era of the unhindered flow of true spiritual worship.
But you see, if Jesus takes the time to mention time, I believe it is of absolute importance; hence I asked the Holy Spirit, what does time have to do with worship…
And Holy Spirit taught me that the misconception of the time of worship that many people hold is that, many of us think that worship begins at 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning…
Actually, worship began from the time you and l left church on last Sunday…
Umm…, you don’t seem to be impress…
But let me tell you why you should be impressed…
You see, according to the Boyd’s Pastor Manual, worship is defined as “recognizing the value of God in the life of the believer which may be in public or private.” In other words, it is the public or private expression of our gratitude to God for the value and worth He has brought to our lives…
So if this be the case, then by the fact that:
- God Spared and sustained you when you were unfaithful all last Sunday…
- By the fact that God Mandated you to be bless on Monday,
- By the fact that God Treasured you on Tuesday and called you His very own dear child… letting you know that you may not mean anything to the world, but to God you mean the world to Him…
- By the fact that God Wept with you on Wednesday and at the same time wiped your tears away, when your friends turned their backs on you and your family members frustrated you…
- By the fact that God Touched your brokenness on Thursday and watered your dry and thirsty spirit…
- By the fact that God Fixed your frustration and your failures on Friday,
- By the fact that God Sanctified you on Saturday and set you up to be blessed…
It tells me that by the time you come into this sanctuary, having remembered where He took you from… you ought to be saying like our old folks used to sing,
“When I think of the goodness of the Lord my God, and all… He has done for me, not just my lips, not just my hands, not just by body, but my very soul cries out… Halleluyah…
You see, my soul cries out because it is possible to praise God with our lips while our hearts are far from Him…
But watch this... real worship is not just one that celebrates God for what He has done (praise you for my car… my job, my education… my car…, my influences... my contacts... by bank account...)
But real worship celebrates God for who He is. Hence,
- Even if there is no food on the table, my soul can say to Jesus, Lord I worship…
- Even if the rent and bills are due to be paid… my soul can say, Lord I worship…
- Even if my kids are about to be put out of school for tuition… Jesus you are Lord…
- Even if I am threatened on my job… You are my defender…
This is worship church… Real, fulfilling and satisfying worship.
But some would say, pastor why should I stress myself by keep all that in my mind… when I’ve got better things to be thinking about…
May I submit to you our God is the One who upholds all things by the Word of His power… (Heb. 1:3). Now this tells me that the reason why you haven’t lost the mind you are boasting about it is because He kept you from loosing it and if this is a value He has added to your life, you ought to heed the advice of the Psalmist, when he says,
“Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits…” (Ps. 103:2)
And this you cannot truly do until you have asked yourself the question, “What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?” (Ps. 116:12)
The question is, when did your worship begin? Just this morning? I stopped by to urge you, to appeal to change the way you use and understand time as it relates to worshipping God because He is the reason for the season of successes and satisfactions we are enjoying in our lives today… He is the reason for the season of strength you still have even though all hell is breakout around you today...
B.But notice quickly that we there is another misconception that we need to change in order for our worship to meaningful. And that has to do with our understanding of the place of worship… John quotes our Lord Jesus as saying, “You will neither worship on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…”
What is he really correcting about our theology of worship?
You see, many of us have been led to think and believe that church and worship are one and the same… I am sorry to disappoint you but they are not…
I heard the apostle Paul saying, our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit… (I Cor. 6:19), meaning we are church, the ekklesia, the called out ones, the priesthood of believers…
Hence, we do not “come to church,” as we normally say… rather, “we come to worship…” and when we get out of this sanctuary, we carry the presence of God with us wherever we go...
But because many of did not know this or perhaps because many of us have forgotten this truth, it is so embarrassing and even despicable to mention the places we carry the presence of God… but that is subject for later…
For now, the truth Jesus is here giving us through John is that whether we are
- at work,
- at our job site,
- at our businesses establishments,
- at our school, wherever we are, there ought be somber, sacred and solemn atmosphere because of the presence of God that we carry inside of us…
So Jesus says, “you will neither worship God on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…”
Meaning the place of worship is not intended to be static but mobile because we are the living, breathing, functioning temple of God…
The question is, how big is your God and what is the size of your sanctuary? Is he only as big as the edifice of your church? Is He only alive when you are in the presence of other believers or perhaps some pastor or church leader? If that is how big your God is, I am here to recommend mine to you…
For Isaiah quoted him as saying…
“Thus saith the Lord, the heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool…” (Isa. 66:1; Acts 7:49)
1.The third misconception that needs to be corrected is the what of worship… what do you worship?
He said, “you worship what you do not know…”
This is ironic because if worship is giving God the worth that is due Him, how can anyone claim to be truly worshipping Him, when in fact they do not know Him? It is almost like saying, “I want to tell something that I know nothing about…”
It is just not possible… And Jesus shows us how we can know the true God in order to worship God appropriate by saying, “salvation is of the Jew…”
He does not mean that just because one a born ethnically as a Jew, s/he automatically is able to worship appropriately… for this same John tells us that
“He came to His own (Jews) and His own received Him not but as many as receive Him, to them give He the Power to become the sons of God… (John 1:11-13)
Do you know the Lord Jesus Christ for yourself? Has He become your personal Lord and Savior? For Jesus is showing us here that unless we are truly born again, we cannot really worship God…
You see, I wanted to leave this point but my soul got happy… and I feel like preaching… Let me let you in on a little secret…
You see, worship is the responsibility of children of God… You ask me how I know, I know because I head the Psalmist say in Psalm 8:1-2,
“O LORD our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth! Who hath set your glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of children and babies you have ordained praise that you might silent your adversaries...”
How many of you know that the enemy of God (Lucifer) was the archangel in heaven responsible for praise and worship? But when pride filled his heart and God cast him out of heaven, he may have been saying something… we don’t know what he may have been saving but God enforced a strategy to silence this enemy…
What was the strategy… God ordained praise to come from the mouths of babes and sucklings…
Who are these children? They are the children of God… You see, Satan worshipped because he was created to worship. It was his job to worship but for us, we worship because God has become our father and we love to worship Him… therefore, if you do not know God for yourself, you cannot worship with the kind of value it ought to have… Are you with me?
1.The last misconception we need to change and that Jesus is here teaching us has to do what we know about God’s priority for the worshipper…
He said, “hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such to worship Him”
Do you know that God’s priority for worship is to get the worshipper first before the worship? Many of us think that the emphasis here is the on the manner of the worship as being in spirit and in truth… As important that that is, God is first seeking those of us who have become born again but who will be desperate enough to say from their heart, “God I can’t get enough of you…”
Like the Hymn writer, we ought to be saying to God… “Bread of heaven, feed my hungry spirit till I want no more…”
With this kind of attitude, God can fill us and bless us beyond our wildest dreams? You ask me how I know, I know because Jesus said, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness… for they shall be filled… (Matt. 5:6)
What is your motive for congregating this morning? Is it to meet new friends? Is it so that you will not be home alone? Or is it so that you will be conditioned and prepared to have God find you and feed you and fill with the ability to worship Him in a manner that is acceptable to Him?
We have looked at what need to know about worship but…
1.II. The Second and final truth in this message has to do with how you act concerning worship, v. 25-30
Your action and my action must…
A.Move from a legalistic faith to a living faith, v. 25-26. “The woman said to Him, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ. When He has come, He will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I AM, the One speaking to you.”
You see, God wants us to get something substantial out of every worship experience… How many know that it is one thing to shout, “God is good all the time and all the time God is good” when in the midst of fair weathers and calm winds, which even an unbeliever can do, and quite another to say like Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego, “Our God is able to deliver me, but even if He doesn’t
- Give me that job,
- Let him marry me,
- Let me get that money I was promised,
Even if he doesn’t I will not bow… what the difference? One choice is: and the other is
Arbitrary Attitude
Reaction Resolution
Random Reality
You see, the church of Christ today does not have a scarcity of people who have a legalistic knowledge of the Bible… We can quote scripture here and there, but can we convert the truths of scripture to come to bear in our daily lives?
For instance, “We can quote, “And my shall supply my needs according to His riches in glory…” but when you look in the rice bag and see it empty, can you gather your family and remind God of this promise, watching God bring it to come to pass in our lives? That is one way that we make worship a worthy experience… It is not the hearers of the word that are justified but the doers of the Word… (James 1:22)
But we also need to act by
B. Learning to avoid the silent criticism (of religious folk) and accept the Savior’s commendation, the text says in v. 27, “His disciples came and marveled that He talked with the woman. However, no one said, What do You seek, or why do You talk with her”
How many of you know that when your leave the level of a legalistic faith to the level of a living faith, that kind of resolution can attract a kind of divine energy that draws God closer to us…
But guess what, it could also bring out a snarling and nasty attitude in others, especially religious folks. And while some may be very vocal, other may simply shoot a snarling look but murmuring in their hearts…
- What is she trying to prove by kneeling?
- What is he trying to prove by dancing like he is some kind of babe?
- What are they trying to prove…
In spite of this, you’ve got to learn to know that once you are acting out in response to the prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit, ignore their sarcastic comments… because man looks at the outward appearance, but our God is looking at the heart… (I Sam. 16:7) and it is He who will say unto you, “Well done that good and faithful servant…” (Matt. 25:21-23)
C. Drop something, v. 28, “Then the woman left her water jar”
Church, I hope you know by now that no one can encounter God and not see how truly messed up they are. Isaiah said after an encounter with the Almighty God, “woe is men; I am undone… for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips and my eyes have seen the Lord… (Isaiah 6:1-6)
And the natural result of such experience should be that we will make up our minds to drop those weights and sins which doth so easily beset us…
But instead of doing that, some of us use camouflaging comments during a sermon every now and then, like “tell them preacher” to cover up the real battle of what the Holy Spirit has been trying to yank from our lives… instead of asking yourself, what is God saying to me…
Not every time but sometimes the loudest praises in worship are full of empty emotionalism, insincerity and insecurity, why?
Because, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me… So church, when was the last time after a worship experience with Jesus, did you drop something? What is God pointing your heart to now that you need to drop?
But notice that the water pot can also represent that may be the source of your livelihood… People today often have the tendency to put the things that bring about physical satisfaction before the things of God that gives eternal satisfaction… We need to drop something because when we come to worship, God is ready to also give us something in return but how would we take possession of it when our hands are already full of stuff? Think about it…
Finally, as we act concerning worship, we need to
1.Draw someone to Christ, v. 29-30, “She went back to the town, and said to the people there, "Come and see the man who told me everything I have ever done. Could he be the Messiah?"
How many times do we congregate for worship and see the same old faces? How many times don’t we dress up Sunday and only greet our neighbors while coming to worship? How many times done we pacify our consciences when we fail to invite people to worship by saying, “they know where the church is and they hear us sing…” Just because your church building there is simply information and not information.
What does that say about the depth and value of our worship… Are more people coming to Christ after our encounters with Christ in worship?
If not, I guess the real reason why people are not coming to worship with us is because we are not going out to them; and if we do go out, we try to impress them by how much we know and by what we can do instead of finding a way to talk to them about who we know and what He can do…
The hymn writer says “We’ve a story to tell to the nations, that shall turn their hearts to the right… a story of peace and life… for the darkness shall turn to dawning and dawning to noon day’s bright and God’s great kingdom shall come on earth…
We can tell people about Jesus because He is an all time sophisticated and yet simple savior. And if we are truly fired up enough by a deep conviction of what the Lord has done for us and we dare to talk to others about His love, He has a way of convincing them that what we have testified of Him is true… and they will come…
They all may not come but let us keep telling them and drawing them to the savior’s love… church, for then and only after we have accepted our Lord Jesus’ teachings about what we need to know about worship and his teachings about how we need to act concerning true spiritual worship, then we will tap into the divine promise made to Israel when he said,…
“Then the Lord your God shall put you high over all the nations of the earth:
And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you make it your business to obey the voice of the Lord your God.
Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and
blessed shalt thou be in the field.
Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.
Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.
Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.
The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before your face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.
The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that you set your hand unto; and he shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.
The LORD shall establish thee an holy people unto himself, as he hath sworn unto thee, if thou shalt keep the commandments of the LORD thy God, and walk in his ways.
And all people of the earth shall see that you art called by the name of the LORD; and they shall be afraid of thee.
Brothers and sister, if you work the worth into worship, I guarantee you as a servant of the Lord that you also shall harvest at the blessings of the Lord…. God bless you…
