Worship

Intro

OPEN – Review “TELOS”

In our modern society we have nearly unlimited resources and information and yet what we are still constantly and desperately searching for? People are looking for the answer to the meaning behind it all. Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? This can be heard on a global level, but it also echoes in the hearts of each and every one of us. For the next few weeks we are going to unpack this tension and refer to it as “TELOS”.

“TELOS” is the philosophical Greek term for “the end, purpose or goal.”

Last week we learned that our purpose, our TELOS, begins at Creation:

“All Creation Points To God…Yet His Purpose Is Wrapped Up In Us.”

Our Primary Purpose

“What is the meaning of life?” It’s a great question to ask. However, we can easily be misled to believe that getting an answer to that question should be simple and quick. And once we download this nugget of intellectual goodness we will be set for life, right? Today we are going to dig into one of the most important purposes of our existence. And we are going to discover that our TELOS isn’t just intellectual… it’s PERSONAL. Let’s start in John, chapter 4. Here Jesus, if you remember last week – He is God, and He chose to come live among us – has an incredible conversation with a woman at a well.

Scripture

John 4:4-8, 16-24

John 4:4-8 [NIV] “Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’ His disciples had gone into the city to buy food.”

This is an extremely strange scene, although to us in present day America it might not seem to be too weird. You see, Jesus was a Jewish man, which meant that he had no reason to be talking to ANYONE from Samaria since they saw Samaritans as basically the scum of the Earth. To make it even worse, as a religious person (“Teacher”) Jesus definitely should not be starting a conversation with a Samaritan WOMAN. It’s kind of like a New York Yankees fan and a Boston Red Sox fan hanging out talking about sports. It is not a really great idea, and things are probably not going to end well. But, Jesus dives in anyways and the conversation gets very interesting in verse 16.

John 4:16-19 [NIV] “Jesus said to her, ‘Go, call your husband, and come here.’ The woman answered Him, ‘I have no husband.’ Jesus said to her, ‘You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.’”

Whoa! Now it is not too likely that Jesus was using a microphone in this passage, but His response totally would have earned a “DROP-THE-MIC-AND-WALK-OFF-WITH-LOTS-OF-SWAG” right here! It does seem kind of strange, though, that He would almost “bait” this woman into sharing this information with Him. Let’s see where He’s going with this. Interestingly, the Samaritan woman immediately responds with a DEEP question about…worship…?

John 4:20-22 [NIV] “‘Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but You say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.’”

So in verse 18 Jesus basically proves to her that He knows everything. She responds by calling Him a prophet, and then asks Him a strange question about worship. Why in the world is this very specific question about worship so important to the woman? At this point in the conversation Jesus could have done what most of us would have done: point out how all of her ancestors are wrong and basically cause a major division, likely making her feel really small and insignificant. Instead He jumps into the most important part of their talk:

John 4:23-24 [NIV] “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in SPIRIT and TRUTH, for the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. GOD IS SPIRIT, AND THOSE WHO WORSHIP HIM MUST WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH.”

Pray

Help us to worship you

Story

Me playing on worship team for first time

Knew chords, but didn’t know how to play with the band

Application 1

What The Woman Knew

Before we try to unpack Jesus’ response to the woman, we’ve got to first figure out why WORSHIP was so important to this woman! Honestly, if you were in the presence of a real prophet, wouldn’t you ask something more along the lines of “Who’s going to win the Super Bowl this year?” or “If I ask Jenny out will she say yes?” or “Why do they call it a boxing ring when it is in the shape of a square?” or even something along the lines of “What is the meaning of life?”

No, instead this woman asks Jesus about the correct way to worship. This shows us two awesome things about this woman:

SHE ALREADY KNEW THE MEANING OF LIFE. This may seem bizarre, but she already understood the “why” behind life. Her focus was not on WHAT to do with her life, but WHERE and HOW she should do it! This makes more sense when we see that…

SHE UNDERSTOOD THAT WE ARE ALL WIRED FOR WORSHIP. If we boil everything that we do down to its core concept, we are all about WORSHIP. From the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we go back to sleep at night, we spend all day, every day, just worshipping. How we spend our time, our money, our focus and our heart REVEALS WHO WE WORSHIP, but none of us ever really stop worshipping! It’s what we do!

When it comes to our TELOS, our purpose in life, God designed us for ONE major, primary reason: TO WORSHIP. Worship, in its basic form, has nothing to do with music or instruments or even singing. Worship is all about FOCUS. It is all about aiming your life at something or someone and giving everything you have to it. Worship happens when we OBEY or LOVE or SERVE someone or something. Unfortunately for most of us, we worship all the time…but it is completely unintentional. And therefore we end up worshipping the WRONG THINGS while still searching for PURPOSE.

How To Worship

Thankfully for us, Jesus gave an incredible answer to the woman at the well on HOW we are to worship, and we get to rely on this answer to understand our own struggle with “why”. This is what our lives are all about. This is where we begin to find our purpose, our Telos: Jesus told the woman, twice in fact, that the true worshippers were those who worshipped the Father in Spirit and in Truth.

1. WORSHIP IN TRUTH. What is the truth to which Jesus referring? The most basic truth about life that we happened to discover last week: God is God and I’m not. All Creation points to God as our Creator…that is the TRUTH with which we worship. And it is by further understanding this truth, not just intellectually, and not just by agreeing that it is true, but also by living in a way that reveals to the world Who we have placed our faith in that we discover how to really and truly worship God in TRUTH.

2. WORSHIP IN SPIRIT. As Jesus points out to the Samaritan woman, God is Spirit…and in Genesis 1 we see that we were made in God’s image, so we are spiritual beings, too. What is spirit? This concept encompasses our emotions and our soul. It is who we are. Our spirit is the unshakeable dynamic of each of us that defines us and determines who we are to be. So to worship in spirit we must worship not simply as a process, but as the purpose of our identity! Standing up when the singer says to stand, and clapping on beat when we are supposed to clap is not the definition of worship. Those are some of the components of corporately worshipping God together in song, but they are not the true essence of worshipping God in spirit. Worshipping in spirit is more fulfilling than that because it taps into the purpose for which God has created us: to align our souls with Him and re-focus our hearts to line up with His heart.

Story 2

Me trying to reveal the secret, but being super excited

Supporting Scripture

Luke 19:37:40

37 As he was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, 38 saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” 39 And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” 40 He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Application 2

The End Purpose Of Creation Is That We Would WORSHIP God In Spirit And Truth.

We were created to worship God. If you are worshipping or focusing your life on anything else, including yourself, you will NOT experience PEACE and FULFILLMENT. You will not experience the joy of living out the PURPOSE for which you were created.

While it would be a crazy sight to see the rocks and trees singing “Shout to the Lord” it seems that our worship and their worship is probably a bit different. God created the earth and everything in it for His glory. But I don’t get the sense that the rocks have a purpose struggle going on about Who they should be honoring, do you? Yet we experience this struggle every day! It seems that if God designed us with the capacity to worship and placed us in a world full of things that He created that are also worshipping Him, His goal is for this whole planet to be wrapped up in honoring Him! It is our purpose to worship God, and He is the only Being worthy of our worship!

God is God, and He will be worshipped. So, Whether we are SINGING or just LIVING our lives…

Let’s WORSHIP HIM as PEOPLE who understand our PURPOSE.

Conclusion

Ending question:

Do you know the meaning of life?

Are you worshiping correctly?

Pray

God help us to worship You