If You're a Christian, You Just Gotta Worship - John 4:19-26
Pastor James Sheldon
February 1, 2009
Key Q: HOW TO WORSHIP God in spirit and in truth. 4 essential actions.
1. REMEMBER that God has completely deserves our Worship of Him.
2. REALIZE that God graciously calls & enables you to Worship Him.
3. RELATE to God, who personally invites you to Worship Him
4. REJOICE that God promises that you will eternally Worship Him.
Today I am starting a series of four, new messages. They are a call to be a Christian and do it right. I will be talking about four key actions that you and I must do, to live out our faith as a Christian.
Let me lay them out up front. Here are the four, essential actions god calls every one of us. The four words spell out the acronym "wife." (it is easy to remember, because Jesus calls the church --that's all Christians--his bride.) Now the letters in the word "wife" stand for four actions god calls of every one of us. He wants us to actively participate in: worship, instruction, fellowship and evangelism.
This morning's message is an invitation. [show card] it's an invitation to good worship. The complete title is: "if you're a Christian, you just got to...worship." Jesus in john chapter 4 called for us to truly "worship the father." not once, but 5 times he says it! He makes it very clear that there are steps at least 4-- we should take, for give good worship that is pleasing to him and the father. The four steps are laid out in the notes in the bulletin, so follow them along. I invite you to really worship well.
Realize something important right away. "Worship" is not a 1-hour ritual on Sunday mornings. We gather for worship, but just being here is not worshiping. Rather, the heart you have toward god determines your worship. The word "worship" is rooted in the word "worth" and "worthy." We worship god when our whole life --our attitudes and actions-- proclaim and reflect that god is worthy of our praise and service. Jesus puts it here that we are to worship him, "in spirit and in truth."
Keep one thing in mind as I do. Realize that worshiping is the one thing we will do forever! This world will pass away, and when Jesus returns in glory, the only thing that will go on is worship. John wrote about the end of time in rev. 7:7, "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our god for ever and ever. Amen!"
Again: "If you're a Christian, you just gotta..." worship!
Jesus commanded us to "worship the lord your god and serve only him." we are commanded to have real, right worship of god alone. I'll use an invitation card to lay out the four important steps to take for us enjoy real worship. Here they are.
I. Start with the first step: before I actually printed it, I planned the card out. I designed it, and then I printed it out.
In much the same way, when god invited us to worship him, he planned and designed the events that would happen way beforehand.
At verse 23, Jesus starts right off saying, "Yet a time is coming and has now come when true worshipers will worship the father...."
Stop and let that sink in. In the words "time is coming" Jesus is saying something earthshaking and amazing about time. He is saying that god started the call to worship back in genesis, on the first day. God laid out the steps of all history, including your life and mine.
The first call that Jesus gives us in order to have true worship is do this: remember. Remember right from the beginning, remember that god said,(Gen 1:26) "let us make man in our image, in our likeness...." us humans alone, different from any other creature, have a mind, body and soul. Remember: you are in god's image. Remember: you were made by his hands, made by his design and made for his purpose. Remember he breathed his spirit into the first man.
But remember too, how we responded. The first thing man did was when Adam decided to run his life by to his own will--and so messed up our lives with sin. We all do that! Solomon in Eccl 7:29 writes, "God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes."
Our fleshly drive is always to do things our way, by our will and our design. So first we need to stop and say, "wait! That's not worship of god. That's worship of man!"
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 "for I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ."
Paul is saying here, that to worship god, you have to remember what all god has done. Remember he has always called us to worship him.
At the communion table, Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me." He set up the invitation to come to him.
The first call for true worship is this: remember that god made everything, and so completely deserves our worship of him. God set it all up, literally from day one. Remember that, and you begin to worship him with the right heart.
II Now take another step to right worship. Take our invitation again.
God first designed the invitation according to his plan. He set things up. Then Jesus adds something else to this truth. He says in the second half of verse 23, "for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks." That is to say, god seeks us. He comes to us in Christ. Just like he walked up to the well and set up a real encounter with the woman, he does the same for us.
The second step that we need to take in worship this: realize what god wants of us now. Jesus seeks real worshipers; and we need to be the kind of worshipers god "seeks."
Realize this though: many people, whether they admit it or not, have this notion in the back of their minds that god is like a divine vending machine. They come to church, put in a few coins, push a few buttons by singing certain hymns and reciting certain prayers and words. Then they call that worship. Somehow god is going to tolerate this kind of worship or even reward them for it.
Others may say, "Oh, I worship god by going to the mountains and watching trees grow." they are really saying, "I will set up worship on my terms, with things I like and actions I choose."
But the Jesus says something different. His words here are "for they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks." What kind? the kind of worship that the bible consistently describes as people who are obedient to god's will, seeking god's way and mean it when they pray "thy will be done." if so, we are saying that worship is an active statement and living attitude that says, "I don't control or deserve god's way. Rather he controls and deserves mine."
The Apostle Paul was really clear about the right for us to come to worship. Listen to what he says in Ephesians 2:8: "for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of god (9) not by works, so that no one can boast. (10) for we are god's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which god prepared in advance for us to do."
God did what? He prepared it. He set it up, he designed it.
Make sure that you get this second point clear: worship is about god and for god. It is god who graciously calls & enables us to worship him. His invitation is just like an invitation to a wedding. It does not, "we want to please you at the wedding of our daughter." no! It would say, "I invite you to come to the wedding and enjoy what we plan to happen there."
So again be sure that worship is set up by god. It's for god. Then god graciously calls & enables you to worship him. Jesus says here, "they are the kind of worshipers the father seeks."
III. Next, let me point out another essential truth about worship. In order worship to him, Jesus next calls us to have a real and right relation with god.
This ties in to what I said about some people setting up their own standards and style of worship, but now Jesus goes a step further and says in essence, "now get personal and have a real relation with me." that's a clear call Jesus has for us in worship.
It reminds me of the time when little bobby came home from church and said, "Dad, today we learned the actual name of god."
This piqued dad's curiosity, so he asked, "What is it?"
Bobby said, "God's name is Andy. The song we sang is "Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, and Andy tells me I am his own."
The joke is silly; but it's also profound. Jesus here says we have to worship him in "spirit and in truth." our spirit is the core of our being. It what sets apart form any plant or animal. God breathed the his breath and spirit into Adam, and we have that same spirit in us--the very presence of god in us.
1 John 1:5-7 johns describes your relation like this: "god is light; in him there is no darkness at all. (6) If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. (7) but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin." fellowship is a relation. God invites us to walk with in a personal relationship.
If you have a rough time --and we all do at times-- the 23rd psalm says, "he prepares a table before me in the presence of my enemies" that is to say, god gives a special, unbreakable relation with you that cannot be broken by enemies--human or otherwise.
You need turn to him in your relationship and say, "thank you, Jesus. I worship you, because you are the god who became flesh and chose to have an eternal relation with me--starting right now.
John in the Book of Revelation says there is a book of life. There he makes it clear that only those who have a personal relation with Jesus have their names in that book. And if you do, no one can remove you. You are absolutely secure in your relation with Jesus.
So I'll say it again to worship god, you must have a right, personal relation in Christ. To be a worshiper Jesus says you "must worship in spirit and in truth." that's starts now. //
Here are the steps so far. God created everything and guided all the events of history. So first you remember that all of history is laid out by god. We worship him literally from the beginning. Next you realize that god uses everything to make gracious and call you to him in worship. Third, he takes you into a personal relation with him--which is a must of worship.
iv. Now finally here's a 4th truth Jesus gives us about worship.
The woman at the well is now more than curious. She says in v. 25 here, "I know that messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." Jesus looks her in the eyes and answers in, "I that speak unto thee am he." he is saying, "[woman,] I am that one; and I am speaking to you now." (cev)
Jesus takes his invitation to you and signs it personally! He says you will be with him personally, worshiping him for all eternity.
Worship needs to be a time when God comes and speaks to you. He calls you, encourages you, corrects you with his word, heals you, strengthens you, and helps you and more.
In turn you come to Jesus, talk to him in person, which is what you will be doing for all eternity.
So our 4th act in worship is that of rejoicing. Rejoice, because god promises that you will eternally worship him.
Here's one way I would illustrate this truth: have you ever met someone really famous--someone you deeply admire? I have.
[Story] in my 20's I was a musician in a band. One weekend we were doing the warm-up set for a concert by a truly great musician, the singer Ella Fitzgerald. Before the concert I went backstage to set up, and in the hallway, coming towards me was the lady herself. She smiled at me and said something like, "Hi." I almost melted into my shoes. I was in musicians' heaven."
But you know what? "That ain't nothin'!" someday I am going to sing to Jesus with the angels around the thrown of god. I say, "Pop groups, eat your heart out!" (football teams, eat your heart out too.)
I say to you: "Christians, we are already singing. The heavenly concert has already begun. Today we are praying and adoring and calling out to our true, loving lord. We start to worship eternally.
One early church writer by the name of Ephraim the Syrian, nutshelled the story of the woman at the well this way: "at the beginning of the conversation [Jesus] did not make himself known to her. First, she caught site of a thirsty man, then a Jew, then a rabbi, afterwards a prophet, last of all the messiahs. She tried to get the better of the thirsty man, she showed dislike of the Jew, she heckled the rabbi, she was swept off her feet by the prophet, and she adored the Christ."
Personally to you Jesus says, "I am that one...and I am speaking to you." as a Christian, I want you to adore me.
You need to. I will say it one last time: "if you are a Christian-- and I pray you are!-- you just gotta worship and adore him the lord.
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