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So, right off the bat, let’s get this elephant out of the room.
There will be some who will say, why do we need to have a sermon on worship?
The simple answer to this is, we all at least need a tune-up on worship.
If we ever think we have arrived at how we worship our God, He is going to humble you very quickly.
For some, this may be a gut-punch.
I remember when I heard what I felt was a wake up call to the way I came into worship, and my attitude towards it.
I had it all backwards.
I was coming into the worship service thinking about what I could get out of it instead of what I was bringing to God.
Pray
We must realize our worship must be God-centered.
If we come to God with anything less, our worship is in vain.
This morning we will be taking a look at this by looking at what happened in the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well.
There is so much ground here to cover, but what a great example of how to worship our God.
We will be going back and forth through their conversation to get a clear picture of what our worship needs to look like.
So, let’s set the stage for our text.
Worship for the purpose of Godliness
As we read here, we see that Jesus and his disciples were leaving Judea to go to Galilee.
Normally Jewish people would take an indirect route to avoid going through Samaria.
The Samaritan people were actually originally part of Isreal.
However, when the Jews were taken into captivity and were forced to leave Isreal, the forces left a group of people who they felt would slow them down on their journey and wouldn’t be any worth to them in exile.
This group was left in the land to fend for themselves.
As different groups came through and took over this section of land, this small group began to marry into those groups.
They not only did this, but they also began to infuse some of the religious practices into their own faith.
There were many different groups that came through the land during this time, so there were a lot of other influences and a lot of marriages outside of the Jewish faith.
Because of this, the Samaritans were highly despised by the Jewish people when they returned to the land of Isreal.
The Samaritans were not welcome within their community.
They were not welcome at the temple in Jerusalem for any of the festivals, feasts, or sacrifices.
As a matter of fact, the religious leaders wouldn’t even help them get back to doing these rites either.
They were more or less on their own.
So, when Jesus asked this woman for a drink, she was shocked He would even talk to her, much less ask her for help.
She knew how her people had been treated by the Jewish people, so she was in utter shock.
In order to actually worship our Heavenly Father, we must have a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
How do we do that?
Worship is done in spirit and in truth
Jesus begins a Gospel conversation with her.
He is trying to get her to recognize who He is.
In order for us to be able to actually come and worship our God, we must have a personal relationship with Him.
We have to have accepted the gift of salvation.
Jesus through His conversation with the woman begins to tell her of the living water He can supply her with.
He also tells her of some of the sins she had committed in her life including currently living with her boyfriend for lack of a better term here.
We’re going to get back to the middle part of the conversation here in a minute.
When the conversation started getting a little personal and difficult, she did what we all do.
She tried to divert the conversation in another direction.
Jesus, instead of taking the bait used it to continue the conversation.
He continued this conversation with her to help her see who He was to the point, we end the verse with her speaking of the coming Messiah, and Jesus tells her He is the Messiah.
Jesus brought her to the point where we will see she accepts who He is.
We have to have accepted the gift of salvation and received the Holy Spirit to worship our Father.
The first step in actually worshipping our God is to have this personal relationship with Him.
Worship is done in spirit and in truth
Please notice there is a second part to this.
We won’t get into specifics this morning, but we talked about how the Samaritans had infused other religions within their practice of worshiping God.
Their worship had plenty of spirit within it, but there was no substance to it.
Let’s take a look at the verses where Jesus was talking about this.
The Samaritans were worshipping God out of what they could remember from the past.
They had no leadership to guide them.
They were simply coming and going through all of the motions, but once again, they had no knowledge of what they were doing.
They had plenty of feeling in their worship, but it was all misdirected.
The Jewish people had plenty of knowledge, but they had no feeling in what they were doing.
They knew what they were supposed to do.
They came in and filled out the requirements of what they were supposed to do and left.
The rites they performed had no outward effect on their lives whatsoever.
The tale of two different types of relationships
Going out with someone and enjoying the time together immensely, but never really getting to know the person.
Going out with someone and doing things out of duty, not out of love.
This describes the two types of worship which were going on.
There must be a balance between Spirit and truth.
These two elements should complement each other.
Worship is focusing on and responding to God
Within these same set of scripture, God has to be in the center of it all.
The Samaritan woman flat out asked where it was appropriate to worship God.
The Israelites worshiped God at the temple in Jerusalem while the Samaritans worshiped God at Mount Gerizim.
They were so hung up on where to worship, they were missing the point of worship.
They put more emphasis on the actual place of worship and what went on during the worship, they never truly worshipped.
They were too busy noticing pastor was wearing this Sunday.
They noticed there was one person sticking out in the Praise Team while they were singing.
The sound man missed a cue and the computer guy couldn’t keep up with the slides.
They noticed this person wasn’t there, and they wished they could have heard the sermon because it was directed straight at them.
Even the priest was busy noticing there were people gone and wondering where they were.
When we come to worship, we must do our best to leave everything else out to focus on God and focus on what the Spirit is trying to do in our lives during this time.
This is a battle.
It doesn’t come easy.
Satan will do everything he can to distract us from what we are supposed to be doing while we are in worship.
If Satan can keep us from focusing on God, and get us distracted, that is huge.
To me even more than that, if Satan can get our minds of off focusing on what the Holy Spirit is trying to either convict us of in our lives or show us a better way of living during a service, he has won a battle.
Pray yourselves up before you enter the worship center.
Be an active participant during the service.
The only way you are going to stay focused is through an active participation within the service itself.
What I tell kids about classes they don’t like.
Responding to what the Spirit is doing is a testimony to others around you as well.
What did the Samaritan woman do once she and Jesus had finished their conversation?
When we share what God is doing either by going forward in response, or even sharing with those at the dinner table when we get home, it does two things.
You are sharing what God is doing in your life.
What a great way to show the power of the Holy Spirit by sharing what He is doing in your life.
For those of us who have been in the faith longer, what an encouragement to those who are younger in the faith to know that God is still shaping you.
Once again, there were things which happened when the woman shared with the people of her town what had happened.
It also holds us accountable.
Another great thing about sharing is we now get to demonstrate what He is doing in us as well.
Responding is such an important part of our coming to worship our Father as well.
Worship is expected both corporately and privately.
While we can get so hung up on where we worship, there is importance in meeting together as a body of believers.
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