Kingdom Worship

“Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.  You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.  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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

The first question we must answer in our discussion of scripture today is what is worship? For we cannot comprehend how to worship without understanding what worship is. Worship is more than lifting your hands, it’s more than a song, it’s more than an action. True worship, kingdom worship is a heart posture. When you enter into the place of worship, you are stepping into a place of intimacy with God. In worship, you are stripped down of yourself and you enter into a place where it is all you and all God.

While I am explaining what worship is, I want to pause briefly and correct a common misconception as it pertains to our worship. It is not the responsibility of the worship leader to get you to the place of worship. It is not the responsibility of whoever is preaching to push you into the place of worship. Worship is a byproduct of your relationship with God and if you cannot worship Him then I have to question if you have relationship with Him.

The dictionary defines worship as showing reverence and adoration for (a deity). This is to say that as I worship, I am showing God my honor and my love. So, let’s break this down even further as we strive to define what worship is. We’ve established that worship is a heart posture and that worship is my way of showing God how much we honor and love him but for the sake of understanding and application let’s dive into those things deeper.

When we talk about the heart posture of worship, it takes us to a selfless place. The problem with a lot of our worship is that we cannot get beyond ourselves. When I enter into God’s presence in worship the first thing I must understand is that it has nothing to do with me but everything to do with God. Often times when we go into the place of worship our first thought is what we want God to give us as if we have forgotten that back on Calvary’s mountain when He sent His son He gave us everything for almost nothing. He snatched the power of sin, death, hell, and the grave on the cross and that alone at every moment should be a reason to worship him. He gave me grace and favor that I did not deserve and every morning that I wake up and my feet hit the floor and I realize that He put my name on the wake up list, there ought to be an eruption of Thanksgiving in my heart. That alone should turn my heart toward Him with nothing but love and adoration not a spirit of what can I get from him? When you come to the house of God to worship, you have to come with the intent to lose. How dare we come without expecting to get anything, this isn’t a country club. This is a place of sacrifice, this is an altar. That’s why some of you don’t want to serve because you think that church is supposed to give something to you but in all truth the worship experience forces you to give because you push yourself beyond the place of self.

Now, I am not going to pretend as though it is super easy to worship Sunday after Sunday. Satan in his ability to steal, kill, and destroy will do whatever it takes to keep you from getting into the place of worship. One of the biggest barriers to worship is the fact that we have a sin problem. I am not talking about perfection but a failure to repent. We have become so high and mighty because of a twisted and perverted society that we no longer value or talk about the power of true repentance. The Hebrew term for repentance is shub which means to make a 180 degree turn and walk in the opposite direction. However, we consistently find ourselves treating repentance like a 360 degree turn and we leave the altar going right back into what we just asked for forgiveness from. It’s a SIN problem. We’ve lost our conviction when it comes to sin. We think it’s okay to do whatever we want to and we still expect God to bless it. Paul admonishes us in Romans 7 that sin is connected to one thing and one thing only, death. Not just a natural death but a spiritual death because your sin and even more so your inability to ask for forgiveness keeps us from the place of worship. How can you even begin to worship when you have unforgiveness in your heart, how can you even begin to worship when you just went off on somebody instead of being slow to anger, how can you worship when you were just out there smoking, cussing, and drinking, how can you worship when you didn’t apologize even if you weren’t the person who did something wrong? It’s a SIN problem. I’m talking about kingdom worship. People of God, in order to worship Him in spirit and in truth we have to get back to repentance; truly turning away from our sin.

Another barrier to worship is people. Worship means getting beyond people. Often times in our worship experience, we get so caught up in what others may think of our style of worship or what they may think of what we have on or any number of things and in that we miss God. We are guilty of getting so caught up in the opinions of people that we have missed God in our worship. We can’t even tap into the presence of God in service because our focus is everywhere else. We wonder why we come into church bound and then we leave bound it’s because we aren’t pressing into the presence of God because of the barriers to worship. If you allow people to continually influence your walk as a believer then you’ll never be able to experience the true freedom that comes through life in Christ and thus the freedom that comes in worship. If we back up in our text for today, we see Jesus with the woman at the well and we know for a fact that she was concerned about what people thought. That’s why she came to the well when she did because she did not want to have to deal with the judgement of people but Jesus simply offered her His presence. When as a body of believers did we become so judgmental. People aren’t living holy because we never showed them how, people aren’t truly getting delivered because we never walked them through deliverance and yet we have the audacity to be judgmental? Look over at your neighbor and say their opinions don’t matter. Their opinions don’t matter. Because if the truth be told, the very people that are judgmental are the same people that if the curtain was pulled back on their life sin would come pouring out like running water because ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God. People don’t matter, their opinions don’t matter because when I come into the place of worship the only thing I care about is getting in the presence of God. Let me put this in your soup while I’m in your kitchen, some of us spend a lot of time calling out everybody else’s sin in an effort to cover up the mess that we’re in but the devil is a lie, you better work out your own soul’s salvation and make sure you’re right. What did that song say? Sweep around your own front door before you try to sweep around mine. We’ve got to stop being beholden to the opinions of others and we’ve got to stop being judgmental because the truth be told some of us have been the hang up to someone else’s deliverance. I’m gonna park right here just for a moment and I want to release you from the opinions of others. It doesn’t matter what they think, it doesn’t even matter what they think they know or what they think they heard about you. All you have to focus on is getting to Jesus and getting into the place of worship.

So, we’ve established that one barrier is sin and another is people and the final barrier that I want to deal with is the barrier of a lack of understanding. Many sections of the body of Christ have become experts at footwork and are still beginners at altar presence (repeat). We’ve put more emphasis on who can buck the best instead of who can get to the most sacred place with God. The Bible mentions the word worship upwards of 108 times, and the theme of worship is included in the Bible 8,629 times. In Genesis, we find worship with Abraham preparing to sacrifice the very thing that He had begged God for, in Exodus we see the children of Israel worshipping the God of their salvation for rescuing them from captivity, in Leviticus we see them setting aside a holy day and proper order for worship, and I could go on and on and on because in Numbers theres worship, in Deuteronomy there’s worship, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, at every turn, there is worship. So, why have we missed the mark? Because we have allowed society to influence our perspective and because my worship doesn’t look like theirs or it doesn’t sound like their’s..instead of going to the word and seeking understanding, we simply refuse to worship at all. I’m closing but can I admonish you that if you don’t know where to start, just start by telling God how much He means to you, tell Him how beautiful He is, tell Him how you’re grateful for everything that He brought you through, tell Him how amazing, matchless, and powerful He is and then just sit in His presence. Lift your hands, turn your heart toward Him, and hear what He has to say. Only you can determine what worship looks like for you, however one thing I can promise you is that true worship, kingdom worship requires action. It requires sacrifice: your pride, your ego, they have to die in order to get to pure worship.

One last thing and I’m done and we’re going to go into His presence in worship. If you have ever read about the Temple, in the outer court, there was a place to offer your sacrifice and to wash your hands as a symbol of cleansing your spirit then you go further and at every step you are responsible for sacrificing and cleansing. So, I ask you today what are you willing to give up to get into the presence of God? To build genuine relationship with Him? Are you prepared to give up sin and be cleansed by Him? Turn and run to Him today church, and worship Him in spirit and in truth....with a kingdom worship.