GOD WANTS YOU

This was the second message in the Heart of Worship Series, preached September 23, 2007.
One of my main objectives during this series was to emphasize the gospel; and that only through a relationship with Jesus Christ can you be a worshiper in the first place. I could not think of a better passage about a relationship with Christ being the foundation for a discussion on worship than the passage of the Samaritan woman in John 4.

GOD WANTS YOU
John 4

One of the get to know you kind of games I enjoyed playing as a youth pastor was to ask the question Would you rather do this or that? Let’s play it for a few moments. I will give you an either or scenario and the rule is that you must choose one of them. It’s against the rule to abstain from voting. Are you ready?

Would you rather?
· Be able to fly OR be able to read people’s minds
· Get bitten by 100 mosquitoes OR stung by 10 bees
· Walk on the moon OR be President of the United States for a week
· Drink coffee in the middle of a scorching desert OR drink a slurpee in the middle of a snow storm
· Climb a mountain OR read a good book
· Be able to always remember OR be able to always forget
· Lose your ability to smell OR your ability to taste
· Have multiple personalities OR no personality at all
· Be living 2,000 years in the future OR be living 2,000 years in the past
· Consistently arrive 30 minutes late OR 60 minutes early

Now, answer these in your own mind.
Would you rather?
· Sit in a candle lighted church with stained glass windows OR a bright church with no windows
· Hear the organ OR the guitar
· Listen to the choir OR the worship team
· Sing hymns from a couple hundred years ago OR songs written in the past couple of years
· Wear a suit and tie to church OR jeans and a tee shirt
· Use the King James Version OR the New International Version of the Scriptures
· It be too warm OR too cool in the worship center
· Give 5% in the offering OR give 15% of what God has given you
· Serve once a month in a ministry or once a week
· Sit in pews OR chairs in the worship service
· Have Greg preach a boring sermon for 30 minutes OR an interesting message for an hour
· I didn’t ask any more questions like this?

These are some of the differences that we as believers have as we come together for corporate worship. In fact, these are some of the disagreements that have caused believers to separate from one another , leave churches, change churches or split churches. We tend to look at choices like the ones I just gave you and determine that one is better than the other and that if worship is going to be the way we think it ought to be, then there is only one choice. But, we are going to see in our passage of Scripture today that things are not always the way they seem to us. We will see that God’s perspective is different from ours, and that what God is looking for in worshippers means we will have to change the way we look at worship and maybe even the way that we worship. Are you ready? Let’s look at:

John 4:1-6 – “Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 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.

John 4:7-9 – “There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 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.)”

So, Jesus is going to Galilee for his next ministry stop, but decides he needs to hit a rest area in Samaria. About noon, he sits beside the famous Jacob’s well. We might easily miss something very important here if we don’t understand the relationship in those days between the Jews and the Samaritans. They hated each other.

In his book: Radical Reformission , Mark Driscoll states:(page 35ff): “In Jesus’ day, the tension between Samaritans and Jews was intense. The Samaritans still claimed to believe in the first five books of the Old Testament, though they had cut themselves off from the riches of the rest of the Old Testament; they claimed to be children of Abraham, though they continued as a blended religion filled with pagan and occultic beliefs and practices. The Jews were so disgusted by the Samaritans that they rarely traveled through their land. .When they did, it was not uncommon for Jews to be detained and harassed merely for traveling through Samaria.”

[map of Judea and Galilee and Samaria]

Samaria was right in between Judea and Galilee. The shortest route was on the high road that went straight through Samaria, but most Jews would go out of their way to go around Samaria, because they believed they would be defiled if they traveled there. Jesus could have led his disciples to travel in a different direction. He didn’t have to go through Samaria. Most Jews wouldn’t have done it.

In fact, when Jesus wanted to stop by the well for a rest, what did his disciples do? Verse 8 tells us they went into the city to get some lunch. If you gave these disciples a Would you rather, it might be: Would you rather stay here with Jesus and potentially have to talk with the Samaritans OR would you rather go out for pizza? No question: we are out of here – see you later Jesus – have fun! When Jesus was walking on the water, his disciple Peter wanted to walk on the water with Him. When Jesus talked about suffering and dying, all the disciples said they would go with Him. But, hang out with Jesus at a rest area where the Samaritans will frequent? Forget it.

So, why did Jesus stop there? Why did he decide to hang out there? Because he had an appointment to keep. We will see that he, atleast in God’s perspective, had an appointment to keep with a woman – that in itself was bad enough. Men were not to seek out spending time alone with women in public. Women were viewed as inferior. It gets worse. He was looking for a Samaritan woman; and you could imagine what most Jews would think about that. Would you believe it gets worse? He was looking for a Samaritan woman who was a whore (a harlot; a prostitute)! She was a sexually promiscuous woman. Jesus was there to meet her; and you’ll never believe what he was out to do. He was there to recruit her – for what? To be his worshipper. Jesus was seeking a worshipper.
God seeks for worshippers. God wants you.

From this brief encounter between Jesus and this Samaritan woman, we learn some very important things about worship and what is important to God.

1. Worship is an issue of the heart

Let’s continue to read about this conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman, and pay special attention to what is most important to Jesus here:
John 4:10-15 – “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. 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? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty of have to come here to draw water.”

At the very beginning of the conversation, Jesus goes for her heart. And the whole idea of worship begins with the whom of worship. God was seeking a worshiper to worship Him, because He is the only one worthy of worship. And the whole issue of worship begins with the heart of each person. And the heart is revealed by what a person believes and has personal committed to concerning Jesus Christ. It is not hard to see in these beginning verses that this woman had no idea what Jesus was really talking about. She thought he was talking about physical water and he was talking about spiritually living water. She thought he was talking about something temporal and he was really talking about something eternal. She thought he was talking about something she could see, touch and taste. He was talking about something that is invisible - faith in Jesus Christ for salvation.

The Apostle John had just quoted Jesus’ words that He had spoken in Jerusalem:
John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Then, He went to the Judean countryside, and is now traveling through Samaria to get to Galilee. And as He stops and speaks to this sinful woman, He is offering to her what is promised in John 3:16 – eternal life. And He uses the imagery of living, lasting water to point her to Himself, the only one who could bring her to God and eternal life.

You see – Jesus gets right at the heart of the issue. It is not about religious people, it is about what an individual heart does with truth; and in particular, the truth about Jesus Christ. When Jesus lived, and still today, the main argument between religious people and even irreligious people, for that matter, is the issue of who you believe Jesus Christ to be and what you believe you are to do about it. The religious leaders of Jesus’ day believed Jesus Christ was a phony, a fake, a blaspheming Jewish carpenter from a worthless town. He was a liar and a trouble maker. That was the religious leaders’ viewpoint.

Most people who knew Jesus thought he was a good guy – a prophet – a moral man who could perform some amazing feats – the best magician of his day. But, when it came to whether or not Jesus was who he claimed to be, that is where most people decided not to follow Him. He claimed to be God in the flesh. He claimed to be deity – the Son of God. He claimed to be the only way to God. He claimed the ability to forgive sin. Most in that day, and most people who live on planet Earth today – do not accept His claims. They may accept some of His claims, but not all of them.

This Samaritan woman didn’t understand, but Jesus was dealing with the heart issue. And today, that is where worship begins for you. It doesn’t begin with religion. It doesn’t begin with church or a “worship” service. It doesn’t begin with singing hymns. It begins with a decision of the heart. You cannot be a true worshiper of Jesus until you have taken this step. And although we could talk more about the Samaritan woman’s need to understand and believe, it is much more important for me to ask you:

Would you rather remain a religious person who believes in God OR become a true follower of Christ who has eternal life.

Have you ever trusted in Jesus Christ alone for salvation? Do you believe EVERYTHING Jesus claimed to be? Have you turned from your sin to your Savior and master, Jesus Christ? If you are not 100% sure that you have done this; if there is any possibility that like the Samaritan woman, you might have misunderstood what Jesus was talking about, then I encourage you to deal with this today. Accept the same living water from Jesus that He offered the Samaritan woman 2,000 years ago. The Bible says that this beginning act of worship is an issue of the heart:

Romans 10:9,10 – “Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified…”

This is how you become a worshipper in the first place. You believe in your heart that Jesus is God, that He died for your sins, that He rose from the dead, that you are a sinner and are in need of eternal life that only comes from Him. You can do that by simply telling God that you believe all of these things, that you are trusting with your heart in Jesus alone, and that you are giving your life to Him. If you need any other questions answered or help in doing this, please let me know.
It was important for us to take the time to consider this issue, because you cannot be a true worshipper without it. Nothing else about worship makes sense unless your heart is dedicated to Jesus Christ. It is an issue of the heart.

When the Samaritan woman was not able to comprehend what Jesus was saying, He went for the most sensitive area of her life:

John 4:16-18 – “Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband, and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You are right in saying, I have no husband; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

Jesus went right for her heart. He had shared the truth about Himself and now He was sharing the truth about her. This is where she was the most vulnerable and Jesus went right after it. You may have noticed that God does that quite a bit. Whether before you became a Christian or after, God seems to go for that one area of your life that you struggle with the most to give completely to Him. You struggle with it on your own and cannot overcome it. You may have even learned to accept it and /or hide it. But, God knows you and your most intimate issues and he wants to be Lord of those as well.

The woman thought she was clever in responding that she had no husband, but Jesus revealed that he knew everything about this woman. She responded with the obvious:

John 4:19 – “The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.”

Pretty perceptive. There was something going on here. But, instead of dealing with her most sensitive issue or dealing with her heart issue of who Jesus was, she did what many non-believers and what many believers do who are not willing to deal with their own hearts: she went on a rabbit trail of diversion and asked Jesus to comment on what to her was just a matter of theology:

John 4:20 – “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

She brings up the old argument between the Samaritans and the Jews. When the Assyrians came to Samaria, they brought with them their own gods and they combined their worship of Baal and Yahweh in a mixed religion. When the Samaritans offered to help rebuild the wall in Jerusalem in 450 B.C – the Jews refused their help. So, the Samaritans built their own worship center at the foot of Mount Gerizim. Where is the place to worship – There on Mount Gerizim, at the foot of which they were now standing; or in Jerusalem, where the Jews believed worship took place?

Would you rather worship where the Samaritans say to worship or where the Jews say to worship?

And, once again, Jesus cut to the real heart of the issue of worship.

2. Worship is an issue of life

Listen to Jesus’ answer to her would you rather question:

John 4:21-23 – “Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…”

She was trying to divert attention from her sinful life and wanted to talk about the temporal places of worship. Jesus went right back to the heart issue and basically said: It’s not about the temporal place of worship. It is about people. It is about the heart. It is about a life. Worship is about the right things taking place within people.

In the Old Testament days, the tabernacle, and in particular, the temple, with the Holy of Holies was the place where sacrifices were given and the presence of God was seen. Here, in John 4, the argument in those days was about whether the Samaritans were right about worshiping on Mount Gerizim or the Jews were right about worshiping in Jerusalem.

Today, people might argue over whether we are to worship in a beautifully ornate building or just a cement structure with four walls, or just at home. Some might argue whether God is in the inner city or suburbs, in a traditional or contemporary style and the arguments go on about temporary settings.

But Jesus made it clear. Those temporary settings are just that. And the time was coming, in fact, He says, the time is now. It is about worshipers, people, not places. That does not diminish the importance of people meeting for worship in a local church; but the issue of true worship is in a person’s life not in a place. This is not a sanctuary where the presence of God dwells. This is a worship center where people, within whom God dwells, come to corporately worship.

And this is where our working definition for this message series comes in:

“Worship is responding to who God is and what He has done by giving ourselves completely to Him.”

So, don’t think that you are going to church to worship. You have already been worshiping, long before you arrived here at church. Yes, come to corporate worship on Sundays, but recognize your life worship on Monday through Saturday is just as important as this hour of corporate worship.

How are you doing with that? Have you gotten so caught up with your Sunday worship, with your church worship, that you have ignored your every moment of every day life worship? If so, you can take care of that sinful attitude today: you can ask God for forgiveness and begin to look at your daily worship in a new way.

In Jesus’ response to this woman, he tells us about the kind of worshiper that God is looking for:

John 4:23,24 – “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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Yes, God is looking for worshipers, Jesus said, but not just any worshiper. He is looking for people to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let’s break this down and especially consider what it means for us today.

3. Worship is an issue of the mind

When you come to God to worship, the mind must be engaged in the truth. The mind and heart are closely related in Scripture. Jesus said:

Mark 12:30 – “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

Jesus engaged the minds of those in His day. He was asking them to comprehend and believe who He was. This was something the Samaritan woman could not get her “mind around”. Consider the woman’s response to these words and how Jesus answered back:

John 4:25,26 – “The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.”

Again, Jesus drew her back to the key person she needed to believe in. She said: yes, I know there is a coming Savior and he will make all things clear someday. Jesus tries to engage her mind to understand: Lady: It’s me. I’m the Messiah. I’m the Savior. I’m already here. This is a truth she could not comprehend with her mind at the time. It is a truth most Jewish people today will not accept. Even those who claim to be Christians don’t necessarily hold to the truth.

Researcher George Barna found that:
· 10% of those who say they are evangelicals agree with the statement: “The Bible, the Koran and the Book of Mormon are all different expressions of the same spiritual truths.”
· 40% of those who say they are Protestants believe that protection from eternal condemnation for one’s sins is earned rather than received as a free gift from God
· 52% of those who say they are evangelicals agree with the statement, “When people are born, they are neither good nor evil – they make a choice as they mature.”

Just because someone goes to church or says they are a Christian, it doesn’t mean they worship in truth. So, a very important issue in worship is truth and we must deal with truth in our minds. We must worship God in truth. That is why our first core value here at Grace has to do with God’s Word – the truth. Listen to how important it is to our worship:

GOD’S WORD
The Bible is our final authority of faith and practice. We believe it contains the answers for this life and the life to come. It is our desire to preach and teach from the Word of God; as well as use it as the primary resource of all our ministries. We believe the Holy Spirit uses His Word to change us; and that it is an on-going, needed process in each of our lives.
[Joshua 1:8; I Thessalonians 2:13; II Timothy 3:16,17; Hebrews 4:12]

If you want to worship God, you must use your mind to read, study, meditate on and understand the Word of God – the truth God has given us by which to live our lives. This includes learning the teachings of Scripture – doctrine and theology. It’s not just for missionaries and pastors or seminary students. The truths of the Word of God are for every true worshiper.

The Apostle Paul was concerned for his fellow Jewish people. Why?
Romans 10:2 – “I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.”
Paul said: These are religious people and they have a lot of emotion to give toward God. They sing out and they emote when they speak of God. The problem is: their devotion and religion is devoid of truth. They have not accepted Christ for who He said He was, so they do not have a true relationship with God, which means they are not true worshippers.
So, if you have found yourself dealing with God basically out of your emotions, this point is for your application. Do as the Apostle Paul urged:

Colossians 3:2 –“Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

Use your mind to seek God and His truth. Give yourself to it. At Grace, we will teach the truth, sing the truth, and encourage all to live out the truth.
But, that is not the full extent of what Jesus said. He said, in verse 24, that those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. What does he mean by spirit?
Although the Holy Spirit is certainly involved, as He indwells all true worshiper, the emphasis here is on the human spirit. Not only must we worship God with our minds, but also:

4. Worship is an issue of the emotions
This is where many of us get a little nervous. The truth part? No problem for us. No problem for me. I was brought up on truth. It invaded my mind at a very early age and I love the truth. I have sung songs of truth from the hymnal since I was a kid. Although not every song in the hymnal is true, most of them use biblical truth to uplift our Lord and Savior. This has always been a part of my worship experience, personally and corporately. But, the spirit part is where I have struggled. Why? Because it is much more difficult to define, to see and to fully explain.

What did Jesus say in verse 24: “God is spirit.” That should tell you something right there. We cannot see God, he is hard to explain and we constantly try to put him “into a box” so that we can understand Him. But, God is beyond our full understanding. We must relate to Him with the truth that we have, but also with the emotional response of our hearts, even when we don’t fully comprehend it.

There are times when, touched by something extremely personal and moving, we break into laughter or shouting or crying. We aren’t just thinking about the birth of a new baby, we are emoting over it. We aren’t just stating the fact that we just won the championship, we are shouting for joy. We aren’t just rehearsing how the doctor explained the disease we have, we are crying about the news. In the same way, we are not to just state the biblical truths: [in a monotone voice]
· God is good
· Jesus died for my sins
· Because I have trusted in Him, I will be in Heaven for ever
· The Bible is God’s gift to me, to direct me in life
· I am so grateful for who God is and what He has done

Come on – Let those truths affect your heart emotions, not just your mind. These truths should cause us to sing and shout, clap and dance, in response to them. But, many of us struggle with that. Churches like ours that have been known for teaching the truth over the years many times struggle with this aspect of biblical worship.

A.W. Tozer said: “The word feel has crept in here and I know that you may have an instant reaction against it. In fact, I have had people tell me very dogmatically that they will never allow feeling to have any part in their spiritual life and experience. I reply, too bad for you! I say that because I have voiced a very real definition of what I believe true worship to be: worship is to feel in the heart. In Christian faith, we should be able to use the word feel boldly and without apology.”

Let me give you an example of how the response of emotion leads to worship, which includes truth:
This story comes from the book: My Heart’s Desire by David Jeremiah. Don Moen is a Christian songwriter and worship leader. Late at night in a remote part of the Texas panhandle, his wife’s sister and her husband were traveling with their four children. They never saw the approaching truck, and its driver never saw them. The children were thrown from the van.

In the terrible darkness, the parents followed the sounds of crying to their wounded children. But Craig Phelps’s nine-year-old son wasn’t crying. His neck was broken upon impact, and he was dead. Craig, a doctor, quickly tried to revive his son. But God’s voice cut through the chaos: Jeremy is with Me, God seemed to say. You deal with those who are living. It took forty-five excruciating minutes for the ambulance to arrive at this desolate little patch of wilderness.

The next day, on his way to the funeral by plane, Don Moen opened his Bible…His eyes were directed to Isaiah 43:19 – “I will make a road in the wilderness” Don read, “and rivers in the desert.” A song immediately welled up within him, as if fully formed. It was one of those moments when divine inspiration over-powers an artist.
After a mournful service, Don embraced the bereaved parents; their tears mingled with his own. He managed to tell them that God had provided a song especially for them. And with a lump in his throat, he sang this song: [Andy and Linda]

God will make a way where there seems to be no way,
He works in ways we cannot see.
He will make a way for me.
He will be my guide, hold me closely to His side,
With love and strength for each new day,
He will make a way, he will make a way.

By a road in the wilderness he’ll lead me,
And rivers in the desert will I see;
Heaven and earth will fade,
But His Word will still remain,
He will do something new today.

God will make a way where there seems to be no way,
He works in ways we cannot see.
He will make a way for me.
He will be my guide, hold me closely to His side,
With love and strength for each new day,
He will make a way, he will make a way.

Out of the emotion that this type of tragedy brings, the heart responds to God in worship, which includes incredible emotion. As you sing truth of a hymn or of a song written not so long ago, that truth that we accept in our minds must be communicated and received with the worshipful part of our emotions. Emotion in worship is unpredictable. The word for spirit is connected with the wind. Jesus said:

John 3:8 – “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

The emotions of our worship cannot be manipulated or forced. They will be somewhat unpredictable, and that is o.k. But, they must be allowed to flow, if we want to be true and full worshippers.

In his book: The adventure of worship, Gerrit Gustafson quotes:
Proverbs 20:27 – “the spirit of man is the candle of the LORD” He says:
“Our innermost being is like a candle’s wick. As we fellowship with God, our human spirit is set aflame with God’s Spirit.”

Would you rather worship in spirit or in truth?
Well, we know now that the correct answer is BOTH. But, I think we would all admit that we tend to lean to one extreme or the other in most areas of life, and the same can be said of our worship. We normally lean more toward the truth part or the spirit part. We get so caught up with our minds in worship and are so detailed on the exact words, that we lose the heart part of worship. Or, we get so caught up in the emotional side, that we don’t even recognize the truth that we are saying or singing.

I grew up learning that the truth part, the mind part was the most important. In fact, if people worshiped in spirit, with great emotion, we criticized them and even questioned whether or not they had the truth – like we did. When the issue of emotional response in worship came up, most people were concerned that if we showed emotion, then we might be accused of being like another group of Christians who showed extreme emotion in worship; and we wouldn’t want to mixed in with them! So, because of our fear of going to extremes, the churches I grew up in tended to emphasize the truth of the mind apart from the emotions of the heart. But, I agree with Warren Wiersbe, who states in his book: Real Worship:

To those worried about extreme emotions – “If our hearts are sincere, if we know the Word of God, and if we are yielded to the Spirit, we will experience just what God wants us to experience, and he will be glorified.”

I have begun to learn and am still learning to use my emotion in worship. I use the truth side, the mind side often and that is very comfortable for me. The emotion part, which God also wants, is more of a struggle. My application for today’s message is to work harder on my emotional response to God in worship – privately and corporately. I will ask Him each day to help me to respond as He leads, with my emotions as well as with my mind.

John Piper, in his book Desiring God, said:
“Worshiping in spirit is the opposite of worshiping in merely external ways. It is the opposite of empty formalism and traditionalism. Worshiping in truth is the opposite of worship based on an inadequate view of God. Worship must have heart and head. Worship must engage emotions and thought.

Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy and a church full of artificial admirers. On the other hand, emotion without truth produces empty frenzy and cultivates shallow people who refuse the discipline of rigorous thought. But true worship comes from people who are deeply emotional and who love deep and sound doctrine. Strong affections for God rooted in truth are the bone and marrow of biblical worship.”

Would you please stand with me and read some Scripture before we sing and go this morning. These are prayers that emphasize the use of our emotions in worship. Please read them out loud with me:

Psalm 42:1,2 – “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, o God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God…”

Psalm 73:25,26 – “Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Greg