Now Is The Time Of The True Worshipper

Now IS The Time Of The True Worshipper

John 4:23-24

23But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 24God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Prayer

Introduction

How Often have I heard a comment like this. Can you believe what they were doing in Church? Sometimes it seems that people are more worried about what the church is doing in the building than what the church is doing for the Lord. That is why many people say they don’t go to church because it is full of hypocrites. I know at one time that was an excuse that I used. We need to become the true worshippers of Christ and not be concerned with whether or not someone is chewing gum in the building. I think back to my childhood to a time when I was going to Pine Bluff. They met twice a month no Sunday school and evening services were at 2:00. One day a little old lady was eager to tell Brother Gilder that I was chewing gum in church and Brother Gilder replied no sister the Church is chewing gum in the building. And that is right. You should have seen her face she was expecting him to come down hard on me for chewing gum in church. But in reality she was being a hypocrite because she was more concerned with what was going on around her than what God was being preached. According to the Chicago Tribune a man named Joe from Rockford Illinois, ran a live internet sex site called Video Fantasy. Now Joe had a ten-year old son. On his home computer Joe installed filtering software to limit the surfing that his son could do on the internet.

Joe explained, “It’s not that I keep him sheltered, but my wife and I pay close attention to what he reads, what he watches on TV and what he does on the computer because we have a responsibility to him to be the best parents we can.”

Joe’s sense of responsibility to his son is commendable. Joe’s sense of responsibility to the children of other parents (and parents themselves) is deplorable.

Now that is a hypocrite. Some one who thinks more of themselves than everyone else. Too many of us think more of this building than we do the church. This is just a building made of wood and some concrete and some wire. There is nothing permanent about this building and in fact I can assure that one day this building will be destroyed. This building is not a factor in God’s plan. This building is not what is important.

What is important is the church. That is you and me and ever single believer here and across the world. Now some have here have gotten mad because the truth has been preached and it has hit close to home. They have stopped coming because their toes were stepped on. They don’t want to hear the truth. In fact some may say it is opinion and the only thing I can say is this it is the truth of God’s word. If something in you life is more important than coming to God’s church and serving God that something has just become your God. You have just as surely created yourself and Idol (another God) to worship as if you had molded or carved a figure to place on a table to bow down too.

God is a jealous God. He says in His word that we are not to have any other gods. And too many are placing other god’s first in their lives. For some it is money, others it is popularity or appearance, some place things or hobbies as being the most important in their lives, others make sports or entertainment the most important things in their lives anything that this world has to offer that we place before God is an Idol that we have just created and God is jealous. These become more important than serving God and God becomes jealous when one of His servants wonders off to serve another.

Now John 4:23-24 tells us that now is the time of true worship. It also tells us that true worship is the worship in the spirit. One of the Great doctrines that is taught in the Bible is that God is Spirit. He is not limited to time or place by a physical body. Many people try to limit Him to what we are able to do with physical bodies. God is spirit. Because of this God is ever where and every when at all times. God is not limited to the here and now by time. Time does not exist for God and He lives in the eternity past, now, and the eternity future.