Untitled Sermon (5)

How Do We Worship?

The Question tonight for all of us is: “How Do We Worship?”

All of us at one time or another have felt unworthy to Worship before our Savior. Maybe it was you who got cut off in traffic? Or just before leaving for service tonight you were select to bring refreshments to work tomorrow, or could it be that you were not paying attention when your wife asked you last night if you’d pick up a couple of things at the store on your way home, and oops! You forgot…

For whatever reason, we get into those moods where we really just aren’t in the mood for Worship. Well, that’s the time you need to change your attitude and sing some Praises unto Him. The woman caught in the very act of adultery was set straight by Jesus Himself.

John 4:7-26 New King James Version (NKJV)

7 A woman of 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 Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says 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 with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? 12 Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews.

23 But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” 25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

There are 3 ways we Worship the Lord. As we see from the previous text, we Worship in Spirit and Truth. Well, to Worship in Spirit and Truth, we need to open our mouth.

“But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” Romans 7:6 Freedom from the law does not mean license to sin, but servitude to God. In the newness of the New Covenant, the Holy Spirit gives power to obey God, a power the Law by itself could never give.

Spirit – (Greek) pneuma means Breath, breeze, a current of air, wind, spirit. Pneuma is that part of a person capable of responding to God. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, who draws us to Christ, convicts us of sin, enables us to accept Christ as our personal Savior, assures us of salvation, enables us to live the victorious life, understand the Bible, pray according to God’s will, and share Christ with others.

Truth – (Greek) aletheia is derived from the negative lanthano which means “to be hidden”, “to escape notice” Aletheia is the opposite of fictitious, feigned, or false. It denotes veracity, reality, sincerity, accuracy, integrity, truthfulness, dependability, and propriety.

So when we open our mouths and a current of air leaves us, which is spoken with integrity and truth, spoken to our Savior, it is Worship, and denotes the 3 ways we Worship. 1. In Spirit 2. In Truth 3. With our mouth

It is the believers responsibility to discover how the Lord wants to be worshiped and to explore and cultivate a relationship with Him out of which sincere, Holy Spirit enabled worship will flow. Jesus instructs it; worship in spirit that is alive through the new birth. John 1:12-13 says: “12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the [a]right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.” and aglow with Holy Spirit enablement. 1 Corinthians 14:15 says: “What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.”

This is not mechanical, or merely human activity, but dynamically capacitated spiritual action. “In truth” emphasizes biblical integrity joined to personal honesty, manifest in a heart of sincerity, a humble manner of transparency, and a relational integrity. Meaning and being what we say, as well as being spiritually energized in our worship, opens the way to that worship the Father seeks. Another example for us is in Psalm 95.

A Call to Worship and Obedience

95 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord!

Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.

2 Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving;

Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.

3 For the Lord is the great God,

And the great King above all gods.

4 In His hand are the deep places of the earth;

The heights of the hills are His also.

5 The sea is His, for He made it;

And His hands formed the dry land.

6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;

Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

7 For He is our God,

And we are the people of His pasture,

And the sheep of His hand.

Today, if you will hear His voice:

8 “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion,

As in the day of trial in the wilderness,

9 When your fathers tested Me;

They tried Me, though they saw My work.

10 For forty years I was grieved with that generation,

And said, ‘It is a people who go astray in their hearts,

And they do not know My ways.’

11 So I swore in My wrath,

‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”

Or you could check this out:

6 Important Key Elements in Worship

Isn't it amazing how differently people worship? Some are loud and expressive. Some are quiet and solemn. Some kneel, some stand the whole service, some dance, others just sit. Some sing praise songs, others sing hymns, others sing only psalms, others chant. Some read their prayers, others write their prayers, others tell God whatever pops into their minds at the moment, others speak in unknown languages. Some take Communion every week, others once a month, or even less often. Some worship in beautiful church buildings, others in storefronts, others in homes. For some, preaching is the centerpiece of worship, for others it's only a minor part.

Are there right and wrong ways to worship? Certainly. But what makes worship right or wrong is not your posture, your music, or whether you raise your hands, clap your hands, or fold your hands. When a woman asked Jesus about different ways of worshiping, Jesus replied, "A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth" (John 4:23, NIV).

Worshiping "in spirit" means that you mean it; that you're worshiping inside out, not just going through the motions.

Worshiping "in truth" means that you're worshiping the true God and not some idol you've created. And it means you're being truthful with your words and thoughts that you bring to worship; you're not trying to put on a religious act to impress someone.

Throughout history, Christians have agreed that several key elements are important in worship:

1) Praise. Giving honor and glory to God with words, songs or art.

2) Confession. Worship means acknowledging who God is (holy and good) and who we are (not so holy and not so good) in relation to him. This means admitting and confessing our sin, and accepting God's forgiveness.

3) Prayer. In worship, we speak directly to God about what's on our minds (our needs and the needs of others) and what's on God's mind (his desire for love and justice and redemption in the world).

4) Hearing God's Word. This means reading the Scripture. It also means listening for what God is saying to you through the music, the sermon and everything that happens in worship.

5) Remembering Christ's sacrifice. This is most clearly done by taking Communion. Thinking about how God saved us from sin is at the very center of our worship.

6) Responding to God's love. Worship doesn't end when the service is over. Worship means we leave the service so