A Time for Worship

We’ve been out of church for nine weeks now, what have you missed most?

While talking with a number of you, worship has been at the top of that list. There is something about being together as the Body of Christ and worshiping Him through prayer, song, and study of the Word. It is almost like a release for us. We can go and release everything that has weighed us down, and then be filled back up.

As we join the Samaritan woman and Jesus at the well, we encounter a very strange dialogue that seems out of place. Jesus has just lovingly called her out on her sin, and she completely changes the subject. She basically asks where people should worship and Jesus gives her this response:

Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Worship is our expression of reverence and adoration of God. Notice how Jesus doesn’t give a location for worship. Instead of telling her where she should worship, He tells her how she should worship. Up until this moment, worship had always been linked to a physical location.

“Abraham, the wandering nomad, built altars and offered sacrifice wherever God appeared to him. In Moses’ time the tabernacle served as a portable sanctuary for the Israelite tribes journeying through the wilderness. Solomon founded a lavish temple in Jerusalem which lasted more than three centuries until its destruction by the Babylonians. When the Jews returned from exile they built a new temple which, though less splendid than its predecessor, at least until Herod the Great renovated it, has served as the center of Jewish worship to this day. Though all the temple buildings were destroyed by the Romans in AD 70, the foundations remained, and by the western (wailing) wall the Jews still pray. If the form of worship changed with times and situations, its heart and center did not.”

Jesus came and changed the way we view worship. Instead of connecting worship with a physical location, He established worship in the heart of every believer. He stated that true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth.

John: An Introduction and Commentary ii. Jesus’ Conversation with the Samaritan Woman (4:7–30)

This is a reminder that worship is not restricted to what we do when we come together in church, but about the way we relate to God through the Spirit and in accordance with the teaching of Jesus, and that touches the whole of life.

Worshiping together is very important, and I can’t wait until we get to do it again. Until then I want to challenge you to truly worship God in the privacy of your home.

What does it look like to adore God? I have had some of the most powerful worship experiences sitting in my living room and worshipping to songs on my TV. Or letting worship music play while getting ready for the day. We’ve played fun worship music in the mornings before our devotions, and quiet worship at night before bed. Most worship songs have scripture weaved through them and those scriptures become deeply ingrained in our minds when we put them to music and use them for worship.

Worship can lead to the renewing of our minds as we allow ourselves to dwell upon the truth of who God is and who we are in Him.

God is still looking for true worshipers. People who are willing to look foolish to the world in order to show Him our adoration and reverence. The word for worship used in this text literally means to bow down or lay prostrate before. I don’t know what keeps you from showing God this kind of worship, but if it’s fear of being judged or ridiculed by others, you don’t have to let that hold you back in the privacy of your homes.

Go into a room by yourself, listen to a worship song, let it wash over you, and let your mind and body respond in a demonstrative way. Clap, raise your hands, bow down, fall prostrate. Whatever it is, do it!

As we worship God reveals things to us. Things about His character, and things about what He’s doing on earth.

In Acts 16 While Paul and Silus were in prison, they worshiped. While they were stuck and locked up, they worshiped. While they were chained to the ground for proclaiming Christ, they worshiped. And as they worshiped the foundations of the prison quaked and the prison doors flung open. Not just their doors, every prison door. Their worship brought freedom to all the prisoners. Everyone stayed in place but they experienced a powerful move of God that day and I am sure their lives were changed. God moves in our worship. He can fling open the prison doors for others while we worship Him in spirit and in truth. This is important for us to realize because as the harvest comes, many people who are being held captive can be set free as we worship because God shows up in the praises of His people.

When we come back together, I pray that our worship will be even more powerful than before because during this time of seclusion we have been worshiping God like never before.

Let us worship God as people who know Him personally and let the power of our worship free those who have been imprisoned for so long. Oh God, find us to be true worshipers as we reap an eternal harvest.

Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Worship. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 2164). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Worship. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 2164). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

Elwell, W. A., & Beitzel, B. J. (1988). Worship. In Baker encyclopedia of the Bible (Vol. 2, p. 2164). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.

The New International Version. (2011). (Jn 4:21–24). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.