From Wounded to Wondering to Worshiping

John 4 19-24

There is a saying that all that wonder are not lost.

This qoutes to me means that there are times in our life when we actually see and know the will and call for our life, however in order for us to reach and get to those places we have to often wonder and step out on our faith often times we need confirmation of it. Just because you ask dont mean you dont already know.

My brothers and sisters, i believe we are living in a very different era.

Different in a sense that our worship is not confounded or limited by, how it’s always been. It’s not confounded by what kind of building you’re in or what kind of shoes you wear.

Truth of the matter is that our worship should not be conformed or confounded by any of those factors.

We are living in a time now when majority of our place of worship 🛐 is on ouri phone, iPad or computer.

Rather it be because of Covid or not we are living in age where there have been a major change. coming to church just to come to church has gone out of style.

I truely believe You didn’t come just to be in attendance but you came to worship God.

You look cute but you didn’t come to be seen you came to worship God.

My brothers and sisters truth is because you came to worship God i searching for you. How I know that because the Bible says in John 4 that God seeketh Genuine worshippers who worship in spirit and in truth.

He is not seeking perfect worshippers, he’s not seeking nice dressed worshippers(nothing wrong with swagg) he is not seeking worshippers who worship in the pew or the pulpit.

But he is seeking those who will worship in spirit and truth.

In other words those who worship God from a place of truth.

Those who bring their entire being to God as an act of reverence to his name.

Is there anyone in here that can say out of all the things I’ve been through. Out of all the things I’m going through I still have a praise, I still have a worshipper in me.

I came to even speak to those who knows what it feels to worship while wounded.

Worship while wrestling, to worship while hurt.

Your worship is not predictable

Or predicated on how you feel but you worship him because who he is.

The song says “Because of who you are I give you glory., because of who you are , I give you praise, Lord I worship you because of who you are”

My brothers and sisters neither one of us are the same but we have learned in church that we must worship the same.

Neither one of us will worship God exactly the same.

That’s why I think we should create an atmosphere of worship that’s not judgmental or bias.

Truth of the matter I can’t judge your worship because I don’t know what all you’ve been through.

I must admit my brothers and sisters that we confounded worship to how we think it should look act or think. We have created atmospheric worship.

Where we want our worship to be received by people, but we must get to a place where we want or worship to be received by God.

“Lord receive my worship”

Some us may cry, some of us may lift our hands, some of us may dance,

The old song says some folk run, some folk, shout.

Bishop aTrotter said it like this you don’t know my story,

All the things that I've been through

You can't feel my pain,

What I had to go through to get here,

You'll never understand my praise

Don't try to figure it out

Because my worship is for real

Because my worship is for real

Your can speak when you don’t have the words to peice together.

Romans 8:26 explains likewise

We not not what we should pray for as we ought but the spirit maketh intercession for us with groaning that can not be uttered.

Some may ask the importance of worship

6 Reasons For The Importance of Worship:

1.  Worships Involves Surrender of Our Lives

“I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.” Rom 12:1

2.  Worship Is Putting Our Focus on Him

True worship is based on the desire to honor God. It requires a personal revelation of God as found in the Scriptures. Worship is not based on my likes or dislikes. It is not based on my personal preferences or priorities. It is a focus on Him.

3.  Worship Involves ‘Getting Out of the Way’

We have to learn to remove our worries, our opinion, our questions and ourselves—so we can worship with appropriate honor. It’s letting go. Sometimes, we get in the way of our own experience of genuine worship.

4.  Worship Involves Personal Sacrifice

Praise can be easier when times are good or we have had the big victory.

It requires a sacrifice of our own feelings and fears so we can give Him the focus He deserves.

“Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess His name.” Hebrews 13:15

5.  We Must Worship in the Face of Pain & Loss

King David demonstrated what it means to worship in the face of loss and pain. His baby died. He prayed and prayed, but the baby died. I can’t imagine the pain that would come from the loss of a child. The loss of loved ones is too great to bear.

After the baby died, the Bible tells us—

Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the LORD and worshiped. 2 Sam 12:20 NIV

It is so important that in times of pain and loss, we move toward God rather than ‘away’ from Him. David showed us that we have to say, “I feel so much pain, I’m in agony, but I’m going to go toward God because I need Him more now than ever.”

6.  Worship Is Celebrating Who God Is and What He Has Done

1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the Earth.  2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs.  3 Know that the LORD is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His      people, the sheep of His pasture. 4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name.  5 For the LORD is good and His love endures forever; His faithfulness continues    through all generations.

Psalm 100:1-5 NIV

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My brothers and sisters we are in a season of worship….

Christmas is really about worship……

Hebrews 1:6 (NLT)

6 And when he brought his supreme Son into the world, God said, “Let ALL of God’s angels worship him.”

We know the story of the wise men when Jesus was born……They sought him for the sake of worshiping him…

Sometimes some of our cultural Christmas traditions can actually kind of cloud our true worship of the Savior – can’t they? We’re caught up in the hustle and bustle of some of the things we’ve come to call Christmas and we can easily begin to lose focus of the almost indescribable eternal significance that Christmas represents. Our vision of the true significance of that morning can easily begin to get covered up by the “culturally driven traditions” of this holiday.

For us to regain focus here is my encouragement to you. WORSHIP. Worship is how you regain the awe, the significance, the amazement of Christmas. When we worship, we take out all the stuff of the world. It’s the antidote for that slow poisonous death of the world, of the culture watering down and watering down Christmas. Worship cuts through the haze of everything else that has been pressed into Christmas. Worship refocuses our hearts and our minds on God, and worship puts Jesus Christ back where he was on the first Christmas – at the center of our focus. It should cause us to be joyful and to respond when it happens.

When we make Christmas about worship it brings the love and the power of God back into correct proportions. In worship God’s love and God’s power become bigger and bigger and the struggles of this world become smaller and smaller.

Worship allows God’s plan and God’s purpose for our lives

to take center stage

to occupy our hearts and our minds

and to restore our soul AS we magnify the Lord.

Mary worshipped as she sang her “song of praise” to Elizabeth in Luke Chapter 1 when she sang “My Soul Magnifies the Lord . . .

Text:

John 3rd Chapter Jesus speaks with Zacheaus

In John 4th Chapter 19-24…..

We see a conversation between two Jesus and someone who according to the religious standards was not even supposed to be bothered with…..

(I was like this woman in a sense of worship)

The woman recognizes her background…..

Jesus introduced her current situation and she tried to come to him with half of the truth…

Jesus tells the reals story….

We must bring all of our emotions, our feelings, our being into submission to who God is and what he is doing in our life

The time will come when Worship as to location: “Jerusalem or on the mount”

Jesus:God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth….,

Two requirements: Spirit-

Truth……

True worship must be placed on true knowledge of God…Samaritans pentiuch…Jews were means in which Salvation came….Samaritans were half Jew and half Gentile..

The first 5 books of the Bible the Samaritans had their own interpretation pen……