Worship in Unity
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Opening Recap / Transition
Last week we started something new. We started asking a question that I think a lot of us have felt but never had language for: what is this? What is happening when we gather in here?
I told you that for two years, God has been doing something at the Shed that a lot of you can't quite name. You walk in and something's different. You feel a peace, a weight, a presence — and you don't have words for it.
So we opened up Scripture and started asking: what does the Bible actually say about worship?
Here's what we have found so far. Worship isn't a genre of music. It's not the slow songs around the sermon. Worship is our response to what we believe is most worthy.
We saw it in 2 Chronicles — the praise team marching out in front of the army, and God fighting the battle for them.
We saw it at the dedication of the temple, where the glory of God got so thick the priests couldn't even stand up to do their jobs.
We saw Paul and Silas singing in a jail cell at midnight, and the foundations shook loose.
And here's the thing — none of that was about the singers. It was about who they were looking at and singing to.
We talked about David dancing before the Ark, stripped of his kingly robes, undignified in front of everybody — and his wife despised him for it. But David said it plainly: it wasn't about him. It was never about him.
Worship strips away the image we're trying to protect and lays it down before the One who's actually worthy of it.
So last week, the foundation we laid was this:
Worship begins with beholding Him.
Worship begins with beholding Him.
It starts when your eyes land on His glory and you finally see something — Someone — worth more than your own image, your own comfort, your own control.
But here's what I didn't get to say last week, and I want to make abundantly clear:
If worship begins with beholding Him... it's also sustained by beholding Him.
Worship is sustained by beholding Him.
Worship is sustained by beholding Him.
And that's not just true for you individually. It's true for us collectively — as a church, as a body, as a family that gathers in this room every week.
Because the moment we stop looking at Him and start looking sideways at each other — comparing, judging, criticizing how somebody else worships — the whole thing falls apart. Not just personally. Corporately.
In John 4, we have one of the most profound statements about worship in all the Scriptures, spoken by Jesus to a woman whose name we are never given:
1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John
2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples),
3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.
4 And he had to pass through Samaria.
It’s interesting that the biblical author is so insistent that Jesus “had to pass through Samaria” because while passing through Samaria was the most direct route, it was not the only option, nor was it the preferred option for most Jews.
The route through Samaria typically took about three days and it was common practice for the Jews to avoid Samaria altogether, especially on a multi-day journey, so they would either cross the Jordan and travel on the other side of the river or head to the Mediterranean coast and travel the coast, either way avoiding Samaria.
But Jesus “Had to pass through Samaria.”
Even though it was against the accepted practice… Even though it was outside the norm… Even though it was dangerous… Even though these people didn’t even like Him, Jesus “Had to pass through Samaria.”
And you might wonder, why were the Samaritans and the Jews so against each other? Why were they so despised?
And the truth is, it all started with a church split:
They (Samaritans) contended that Mount Gerizim was sacred because it was the site where the patriarchs made sacrifices, and where the Israelites made the first sacrifice upon arriving in Canaan.
In fact, the Samaritans saw the Jewish temple in jerusalem as illegitimate because the Samaritans were largely made up of the group that was allowed to stay during the exile…
That’s why when the Jews come back from exile in Ezra 4, the samaritans are opposed to the building of the temple in Jerusalem…
The Samaritans claim to be the true inheritors of Israel’s tradition because the rest of Israel was dismantled by the Babylonians and taken to another land. When they came back, they tried to restore things the way they were, but the Samaritans claimed they were the ones who were left and should carry on the traditions…
So the Samaritans offered to help rebuild saying:
2 they approached Zerubbabel and the heads of fathers’ houses and said to them, “Let us build with you, for we worship your God as you do, and we have been sacrificing to him ever since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assyria who brought us here.”
But the Jews who were exiled, then allowed to return to rebuild their way of life rejected their help saying…
3 …“You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God; but we alone will build to the Lord, the God of Israel, as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.”
4 Then the people of the land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build
In other words, the Samaritans had a different understanding and the Jews had their understanding, and the Jews decided we don’t need your help, so the Samaritans said, “Fine, we will do it ourselves.”
And from that point on, the Jews and the Samaritans worshipped separately. They had their own priesthoods. They had their own sacrifices, and they even had their own temples.
This went on for hundreds of years by the time Jesus shows up on the scene and it had become so contentious that the Samaritans were to the Jews a caricature of the evil person and the Jews were to the Samaritans the caricature of the religious snobs.
In fact, at one point the Jews were talking to Jesus and said,
48 The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?”
Somehow in their mind, Samaritans and demons were on the same page.
And this is exactly what happens when we are more concerned about having it our way rather than living in unity with those around us.
It starts with “I don’t need their help” and it turns into “Don’t they have demons?”
This is the background of the scene when Jesus shows up.
5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
6 Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
This divide is so deep that the biblical author includes it in the Gospel letter!
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;
18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
So through this interaction, Jesus is trying to get to a place of communication with the woman and the woman is being combative.
Rather than recognize what Jesus is saying or who He is, or the authority He is claiming, she immediately goes back to the divide:
20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
Now Jesus in His divine wisdom could have given her a history class or broken down the Jewish law, or dove into the argument and split the hairs of who is right and who is wrong, but He doesn’t do that.
Right here is where we would do well to take a lesson from Jesus. There are entirely too many people who spend all their time debating just like this woman.
“Well I think it should be this way, and no one else is right.”
Do you know someone just this last week we have had one comment that told me to get a haircut and another comment that says I’m breaking God’s law because I shave the sides of my head.
“Well I don’t think the preacher should have long hair.”
Well how long is too long? If I’m asking that, I’m asking the wrong question because if it’s really sin, we don’t flirt with the line we run head long the other way, so maybe I should go bald!
Maybe the only righteous men we have are the bald brothers!
But then according to this other guy, we shouldn’t shave the sides of our head because the Levitical law says so, so that wont work!
So is the hair important or not? Is the materials of my shirt important or not? Is the location of the worship important or not?
Here’s what Jesus says,
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
In other words, the time has arrived when the location is no longer important. What you think you know is no longer important. Because worship is not about what you know, it’s about WHO you know…
23 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.
24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
If we could get this one concept, we could make more strides for the kingdom than all the debates of the pharisees.
Those who spend more time arguing about fringe peripheral theology are just like this woman, focusing on the divide rather than keeping her eyes on the one who is worthy of worship.
It is a strategy of the enemy to keep you distracted and focused on anything other than the Glory of God and His Kingdom.
But in order to worship in Spirit and in Truth, we must first keep our eyes on Him!
that’s why the daily prayer taught by Jesus begins like this:
9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Let the first things be first! Your worship depends on your focus!
And if we are so divided by the menial little things that don’t really matter, it is because we have shifted our focus from beholding Him first to gazing on those around us in a spirit of comparison and judgement!
It’s no wonder why your worship is dry and falls flat, when it isn’t God’s glory you’re gazing on, it’s your preference!
That’s the real tragedy of the divide between the Jews and the Samaritans. They became so focused on their preference for their way that they found themselves divided in their own land of promise… brother against brother…
And this is the downfall of worship in the church. The moment a congregation is seated in divide, the worship suffers.
When churches can’t worship together and congregants can’t worship together and the generations can’t worship together, it is a sign of divide!
But when we worship in Unity, all focused on the same God, headed in the same direction, Psalm 133 says,
1 Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!
2 It is like the precious oil on the head, running down on the beard, on the beard of Aaron, running down on the collar of his robes!
3 It is like the dew of Hermon, which falls on the mountains of Zion! For there the Lord has commanded the blessing, life forevermore.
Here's the thing — this isn't a psalm about niceness. It's not "wouldn't it be sweet if everybody got along." David is describing the anointing oil poured out on Aaron the high priest — the oil that consecrated him, that set him apart to go before God on behalf of the people.
And David says unity looks like that oil. It doesn't just sit on your head. It runs down. It covers the beard, it soaks the collar, it gets on everything. Unity isn't a private experience. It moves. It spreads. It touches everybody standing next to you.
The oil represents the anointing of God, the blessings of God, and the presence of God, and this psalm describes the oil coming in UNITY!
And look at the last line — "for there the Lord has commanded the blessing." Not might. Not could. Commanded. Where there is unity, God has already decided that's where the blessing lives.
So if that's true — if the blessing is commanded in the place of unity — then it's no accident that every single time we saw worship carry power last week, it wasn't a soloist. It was a people, moving together.
Go back with me.
In 2 Chron 20, when the worshippers were sent out in front of the army, it wasn’t a solo singer on his own…
It was the singers and it was those who praised the Lord in the beauty of holiness, going out before the army together, singing the same song, at the same time. Unity of voice preceded the ambush God set.
in 2 Chron 5 when the temple was dedicated and the glory of the Lord came down like a cloud where not even the priests could stand to minister, the action that came before was all the Levitical singers, all the musicians and all the priest blowing trumpets:
13 and it was the duty of the trumpeters and singers to make themselves heard in unison in praise and thanksgiving to the Lord), and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud,
14 so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.
In Acts 2, when Spirit fell, it was recorded:
1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
In Acts 4 after Peter and John are threatened with persecution for the first time, they don’t isolate and try to do this separate:
23 When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.
24 And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God ….
And look what happened:
31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
Even Paul and Silas in the midnight hour weren’t alone in their worship!
25 About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them,
26 and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened.
Here's what I want you to see. In every single one of these — the pattern isn't just "worship has power." The pattern is "unified worship has power."
Take the unity out of any of those stories, and you don't get an earthquake. You get a guy singing to himself in a cell.
Which means the enemy doesn't have to stop our worship. He just has to divide it.
So here's the question. Not "do you like the way people around you worship." The question is: is your worship about your preference or about His presence?
Because if you've reduced worship to your mountain, your style, your way — you've done exactly what the Samaritans did. Exactly what the Jews did. You've picked a side of a divide that Jesus already died to tear down.
He didn't say worship in Jerusalem or worship on the mountain. He said worship in spirit and in truth. One Spirit. One truth. One body.
We are going to explore what that Spirit and Truth looks like over the next several weeks.
But here's what I'm asking you to do this week.
Stop watching how the person next to you raises their hands, or doesn't. Stop deciding what real worship is supposed to look like based on what you grew up with.
Pour your oil out. Let it run down and touch the next person, because that's what unity does.
If we want what happened in 2 Chronicles, if we want what happened in Acts 2, if we want the kind of glory that shakes foundations, it's not going to come from a room full of people worshiping next to each other. It's going to come from a room full of people worshiping with each other, with one accord, with our eyes on the same King.
Would you stand with me.
If there's a divide in your heart — with a brother, a sister, someone in this room, someone outside these walls — I want you to let that go right now. Not tomorrow. Now. Because you cannot carry a grudge in one hand and lift up holy hands in the other.
Father, make us one. Not one in preference — one in Spirit. Pour out the oil. Let it run down until it touches every single person in this room. In Jesus' name, amen.
