20 September 2009 - Kim - John 4:21-24

‘The Divine Impulse to draw us to himself.’
Last week Bruce spoke about ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us’. Literally, he set up his tent among us, he tabernacled himself among us. We are meant to understand that all that was promised and foretold in the Old Testament stories has now been fulfilled in Jesus. That we are pilgrim people, travelling with God, and he delights to make his home not just among us but actually within us as we believe in him. Our whole lives are centred on him. Today we are talking about ‘The Divine Impulse to draw us to himself’. An impulse to worship Him in spirit and in truth.

In our gospel reading we encounter Jesus at Jacob’s Well. Tired and thirsty he meets a local woman from Samaria and begins to gently expose her need of God’s forgiveness by asking her for a drink of water. A little defensive, she tries to engage Jesus in a debate about the best time, place and style for worship.

"Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:21-25)

Jesus reveals that questions over where we worship are not as important as how and why we worship. In Hebrews 12:28 the writer calls us to be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him. That is our objective this morning. To discover from these words of Jesus how to worship God in a way that will please him. We can observe from this passage that the kind of worship that pleases God has four characteristics:
God is pleased when our worship flows from being saved, when our worship is scriptural, when our worship is spiritual and God is pleased when our worship is sacrificial.

God is pleased when our worship flows from being saved
“You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.” (John 4:22)
Worship is linked to salvation. This is the most profound truth we can learn about worship. Only those who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour can truly offer worship that is pleasing to God. Remember at this point the Samaritan woman did not recognise Jesus as her Lord and Saviour so her worship was in ignorance. Perplexed by Jesus’ reply, “The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he." (John 4:25-26). Jesus reveals himself to her. Amazed at his answers she runs back to her village to tell everyone she has found the Messiah. The whole village returns and urges Jesus to stay with them. The village people worshipped no more in ignorance. It now sprang from thankfulness for who Jesus is and what he has done for us. Worship that pleases God springs from a heart that is saved and will lead others to salvation. We pray in Jesus name. We proclaim in Jesus name. And we do both when we praise in Jesus name and this pleases Him.

God is pleased when our worship is scripturally accurate
“true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.” (John 4:23)

Worship that pleases God must be scripturally accurate not scripturally ignorant. Occasionally someone will say to me “I like to think of God as…” and then they go on to describe a god they have created in their own image that they worship. The bible has a word for this approach. It’s called idolatry. Worship must be based on the truth of scripture. Jesus acknowledged that there are two kinds of worshippers - true worshippers and by implication - false worshippers. “true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.”

“To ‘worship in truth’ means to worship God as he is truly revealed in the Bible.” The best way to worship God, therefore, is to use scripture in worship. The Psalms, for example, are a divinely inspired hymnbook without the tunes. Indeed our study of the bible should not only feed our worship, it should also shape our view of what true worship is. Our faith is based on God’s progressive revelation of himself. That is what Jesus meant when he said “salvation is from the Jews”. The Jews were intended to be a light to the Gentiles. But Jesus also predicted to the Samaritan woman that the time had now come when it was no longer necessary to travel to Jerusalem and enter the Temple or offer sacrifices to worship God. Much of our thinking about worship, however, is still shaped by obsolete Old Testament concepts. Our churches are seen as holy places, with altars and priests. That is why it is so important that our understanding of worship focuses on the teaching of Jesus and practices of the New Testament. If Jesus is your Lord and Saviour, your body is now the Temple of the Holy Spirit. This means we can worship God anywhere. No place is more holy than any other. If we limit worship to what happens in this building, the minute you leave, you will leave your attitude of worship behind like a crumpled-up news sheet.
So if we are to please God, our understanding of worship must be shaped by the Bible and He is pleased when our worship is scripturally accurate.

God is pleased when our worship is spiritually authentic
“true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:23-24)

“When Jesus said we must ‘worship in spirit’ he wasn’t referring to the Holy Spirit, but to your spirit.” Our innermost being. That is why only those who have been born again and made alive by the Spirit can worship in a way that pleases him. We are to worship with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind. “God wants all of us.” He doesn’t just want part of our life on Sundays. Jesus told us to give God, all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind and all of our strength. Rick Warren insists, “God is not interested in half-hearted commitment, partial obedience, and the leftovers of your time and money.” Spiritual worship therefore engages the whole person including our emotions. God gave us emotions so you could worship him with deep feeling - but those emotions must be genuine, not faked. God hates hypocrisy. He doesn’t want showmanship or pretence or phoniness in worship. He wants your honest real love. We can worship God imperfectly, but we cannot worship him insincerely. How ironic then that worship seems to be the most divisive issue in many churches today. Christians often differ on the most appropriate or authentic way to express praise to God, but often these arguments usually just reflect personality and background differences.
The Bible describes many different ways to praise God. These include, confessing, singing, shouting, standing in honour, kneeling, dancing, making a joyful noise, testifying, playing musical instruments, and raising hands. What is the best style of worship? The best style of worship is the one that most authentically represents yours any my love for God, based on the background and personality God gave you and me. We don’t bring glory to God by trying to be someone God never intended us to be. God wants us to be ourselves. God is pleased when our worship is spiritually authentic.

God is pleased when our worship is sacrificial and practical
What the Samaritan woman did involved great sacrifice. Sacrifice to her pride, to her self-esteem, a risk to what ever reputation she still had. She went to the villagers and said "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” Sacrificial and also practical. Indeed Jesus gently rebukes his disciples when they return and points to the Samaritan woman returning with her neighbours, praising her actions.
“Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.” (John 4:35-36) God is pleased when our worship is sacrificial.
When I come through the door of the church on Sundays, I ask myself ‘what am I bringing as my contribution to the worship?’ I do this because I could very easily forget the real reason why I am here. Ok on one level I’m here to bore you with my sermon! But it would become ‘what I can get out of it’; But it isn’t about me it’s all about God.
We could go through the motions, sing the songs, say the prayers, listen half heartedly to the sermon but our heart is far from him. We become connoisseurs of worship instead of participants of it. We could forget that we are ALL the performers of worship and that God is the audience. We could forget that sacrifice, the giving of ourselves is central to biblical worship.
I wonder what would happen if one Sunday we came to church and found that there was no clergy, no choir, no organist, no sidesperson, no order of service. With all the comforts stripped away. What would we do? Turn around and go home? Or would we sit down say the Lord’s Prayer and then go home? And what would we do if that happened Sunday after Sunday? Spending the entire time in silence, I think that would be very painful, learning not to rely on the music. How long would it take before we would bring our prayers, our readings, our thanksgivings, our praises and our songs? How long would it take for the excitement to come back as we worshipped from the heart and we met with God?
Unlike the Old Testament days we don’t need to sacrifice sheep and goats today and certainly no sacrifice on our part can earn God’s forgiveness or our salvation; the one perfect sacrifice of Jesus on the cross has done that for all time. Yet we ARE called to bring sacrifices in worship. We are called to offer our bodies as living sacrifices - this is OUR spiritual act of worship (Romans 12:1). We are called to offer our sacrifice of praise. Amen.
Questions:
How do you feel about be a participant in our worship and God being the audience?
What part/s of the service do you find helpful in your worship to God? (i.e. prayers, hymns, reading/s etc.)
What do you find unhelpful?
Is there something you would like to see included? Or happen more often?