Worship, Spiritual Disciplines Series

Rough Draft

John 4:23-24

In our series called, “Reaching for Him”. It answers the question, How can I get more of Jesus?

Illustration - Back when we could have covered dish lunches some people would bring some very good food. As a kid I would always be so impressed with the dessert table.

After, you filled your tiny plate with as many different desserts you could sample, there was always one dessert you had to go back for.

You wanted more of it.

All you had to do is go get it.

How do you get more of Jesus. How do you get more of the sweetest person in the universe?

Our series - “Reaching for Him” will help answer some of that.

We will look at Worship (today), Prayer, Scripture, Fasting, Money (Baptist - Stewardship)

We are encouraged by the fact that God promises that when we reach for Him we will find Him.

Jeremiah 29:13 ESV

13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

Transition - Pray

John 4:23–24 ESV

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.”

Today we are looking at worship.

When my youngest daughter Karis was 4 she watched a Christian Children’s Video Series with the weirdest name. “The Doughnut Man.”

The main character was called the doughnut man because his main theme was that our hearts are like Doughnuts.

There is a hole in the middle of them that we are always trying to fill.

That empty place in our hearts is always filled with what we worship.

??? What worship is not

-Great theological language. Big church words.

-Inspiring music

-A big and beautiful building and padded pews.

-A nice outfit to wear.

-A bulletin.

The early church in Acts that met in secret for fear of their lives and did not have any of these things, but they had the purest of worship.

What is worship?

(What does worshiping Jesus look like?)

When my heart & mind responds to God with the attitude of, “You are my king and I adore you.”

William Temple wrote, “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God.”

Transition - I want us to focus the remainder of our time today on our private worship. Our daily worship of God.

God calls me to worship Him everyday.

Psalm 5:3 ESV

3 O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.

Sunday is not the day of Worship. Sunday is the Day of rest.

Everyday is the day of worship.

Q. -Do you know what effects your Sunday morning worship experience more than anything?

How well you worship God daily during the week.

Your everyday worship effects your GATHERED worship on Sunday.

Why? Because your heart during the week has been focused and prepared.

Illustration - Fishing

If everyday of the week you fished by yourself, that would be good. Fishing is always good.

But if 1 of your 7 fishing days was fishing with friends, that would be one of the best days. You get to share together in the thing you love.

When you gather together to worship God on Sunday, after worshiping 6 days on your own several things happen:

You arrive with a heart prepared to worship, it’s been worshiping all week.

You are encouraged to keep worshiping by the worship of others around you.

Illustration - Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden of Eden. You and I are to daily walk with God in our lives.

-We are to daily take the attitude of, “You are my king and I adore you.”

Question - How is your daily worship? Do you have a time each day that is focused on God, where you adore Him?

Do you allow God to be part of your day where you talk to him and allow Him to lead you? Pause

Question - How do we worship?

We worship in Spirit.

John 4:23 ESV

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.

-What does it mean to worship in spirit?

There are 2 Spirits the Bible speak of:

1st, Your Spirit or Soul, that inward part of your being that is spiritual that make you more than an animal.

2nd, the Spirit of God. God is Spirit, vs 24.

Worshiping God is a both and spiritual act.

Your Spirit cooperates with God’s Holy Spirit - to lead you into “Awe” of Him.

God who desires to be worshiped, and desires to satisfy the hole in your heart empowers you by His Spirit to worship Him.

Your spirit and the Spirit of God Co-Mingle in “Awe” of His greatness.

We must worship with the Spirit of God.

Illustration - When you are watching a football game and you get excited, your spirit/your person is being lifted up and pulled along by the spirit of the game.

The game is effecting your heart.

When you daily worship God you ask God to empower you to worship Him.

He escorts your spirit/your spiritual person by His strength and His power (His Spirit) To be in Awe of Him.

Illustration - Sometimes on Tuesdays afternoon at Children's choir I’ll go downstairs during snack to say a quick hello. The younger children will run up to me and ask me to lift them.

-I grab under the arms & tell them to jump.

-I lift them high and then while holding them let them fall as fast as can down to give them that falling rush, and slow them before their feet touch.

-While they give a little jump at the beginning, they are depending on my effort to lift them up to the height.

This is similar to what God does with us in worship.

We cooperate with God, we invite God, but HE lifts you up to the heights of glorifying Him.

Question - Will you approach God? Will you ask Him to take you to the heights of seeing and savoring His greatness.

Of communing with Him in your heart and mind.

Of being in Awe of Him in your heart and mind.

-You place your arms out in willingness, and He picks you up takes you to His Glory.

Q - Let me ask you a question.

-Are you daily humbling yourself before God? Are you asking Him to help you worship, both on Sunday morning and during the weekdays?

You say, Jonathan, I don’t even have a desire to worship. I get so distracted and so overwhelmed.

-Let me encourage you with this...

-God wants you to worship Him.

-If you are a Christ Follower His Spirit is in you.

-There is no greater prayer, that God has promised to answer, than God help me desire and learn to worship you.

-Will you right now say, “God please help me desire and worship you.”

Transition - We not only worship in Spirit, but we worship in Truth.

Worship is in Truth

What does that mean? Worship in Truth?

-God desires me to worship Him as He is.

-As He has described Himself clearly in the Bible.

Illustration, Catfishing - When you start a dating relationship online. One person in Georgia and the other person in Texas.

They send you pictures of what they look like. They tell you all about themselves.

-Catfishing is when you finally meet, that person has lied to you. They gave you a description that wasn’t them. They said they were short, but they were tall. They said they had brown hair, but they have red hair. They said they were rich, but they were poor. You fell in love with someone who didn’t exist.

Leads to huge disappointment and hurt.

-God is the opposite of Catfishing.

From the very beginning of the Bible. God has told you all about Himself so that you know who He is. He has made his whole self known to you. He has been transparent.

-Can I be completely honest with you. There are parts of God that I don’t really care for. There are parts of God that can seem harsh and dark.

-Parts that sometimes I don’t always understand.

-It is easy to ignore those parts and pretend God isn’t like that.

-When we pretend God is something different than He is, that’s called having a God of our imagination.

-God is a God of truth. He wants you to know & worship Him in truth.

-God wants me to worship Him the way He tells us.

-Notice that in our worship service we don’t have a huge fire pit with giant fire coming out of it. Fire is not part of our worship, but if it were left to me - it would be.

-Notice that we don’t have big metal bars in the ceiling arking giant electricity between them.

That would be so amazing to have in worship, if it were left up to me it would be.

-Notice that we don’t have a giant indoor waterfall and an indoor stream running through or sanctuary. That would be so soothing. If worship were up to me, we’d have that too.

God has told us how to worship Him. We worship Him the way He has instructed us.

-We are instructed in the Bible to: sing, pray, reading the Bible, preach and celebrate the Gospel together.

-We worship in Truth.

Transition? You know what the problem with truth is?

There is not only a right, but a wrong.

-There is the God of the Bible & there is a God of lies.

-God wants us to worship Him in specific ways, other ways don’t glorify Him.

-It makes me uncomfortable to tell people they are wrong.

All other worship besides what God has instructed us is false worship.

-Our Hindu, and Muslim friends that we love do not worship in truth. Although we love these people, their worship is false. It is not based in truth.

-Our friends who take personal meditation too far and use that as a form of worship. This is false Worship.

-As a Christ Follow in the United States you must come to grips with the fact that you have a narrow definition of what true worship is. It is unpopular.

“When all our efforts to be gentle and sensitive and respectful of another person’s religion are done, the time eventually comes when you have to say: biblical worship is true worship and all other worship is false.

Why? We believe that there is truth and that it deeply matters.

Transition - And Finally

Only True Worshipers can worship the God of the Bible.

John 4:23 ESV

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.

What is a true worshiper?

A true worshiper is someone who has had their life transformed by Jesus.

A true worshiper is someone who has come to fully believe that their sins wrecked their relationship with God.

That their sins, must be paid for by Jesus.

That Jesus paid for sin on the Cross by His blood.

That Jesus is the King of their life.

Because it take the indwelling of God’s Spirit to worship, only the saved can worship. Only the saved have the Spirit of God.

In God’s great kindness, His is calling you to be a true worshiper of Him today.

He is calling you right now to surrender yourself to Him...

Let me remind you my friend that the whole context of John 4, If you will take time to read it, is a conversation with a woman what has had 5 husbands and had 5 divorces and is now living with a man.

-She is alone, friendless, and broken.

-Even on her worst day, Jesus loves her and invites her into a relationship with Him.

-With Jesus, your life is never hopeless.

-Today, right now, even on your worst day, Jesus is inviting you into a relationship with Him.

Jesus invites you to have your sins forgiven and follow Him as you King.

Will you say “yes” to Him, and fully trust Him as your Savior and King?

Pray