INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• Why are we here today?
• When we gather together each Sunday, what to we hope to obtain or accomplish?
• This is a fair question to ask because the way we answer it will determine what we will expect out of this morning as well as each Sunday morning we come.
• How we answer the question will also determine what, if anything we bring with us and what if any preparation we will make before we come each week.
• When our time together is completed this morning, in your mind, what will determine if it has been a good morning?
• Will it be the song service? Will it be whether I wear a suit or jeans and a sports jacket? Will the message this morning be the determining factor?
• Maybe it will be how much your children enjoyed Children’s Church or Wee Worship?
• The simple answer to the introductory question, “Why are we here today?” is simple, we are here to worship God through His Son Jesus, with the assistance of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who God gives to you when you are baptized into Jesus!
• According to Bing Dictionary worship is defined as follows: the adoration, devotion, and respect given to a deity; the rites or services through which people show their adoration, devotion, and respect for a deity; to treat somebody or something as divine and show respect by engaging in acts of prayer and devotion
• We really need to understand that worship is about God and not us, BUT when we come together to worship God, we can have the opportunity for our worship to be something special.
• Our time of corporate worship, can help us to touch the eternal, it can help us to catch a glimpse of our eternity. PRAISE GOD!
• In Isaiah 6 when Isaiah found himself in the presence of God, it changed his life!
• When we come together for the purpose of worship, we want to experience God and His presence, we want to experience the joy of being closer to Him. In the book of Revelation we examined last week, we see that worship is a central theme of Heaven!
• It is nice to be able to practice now what will happen for eternity!
• Together let us ponder four thoughts that can help raise our level of worship the level of it being able to touch the eternal!
• Today we begin a short series entitled the Rhythm of Life we will be in John 4:7-24, Jesus is tired and thirsty, so He has a conversation with a woman, a Samaritan woman at the well in which Jesus was seated!
• SLIDE #2
• John 4:7–9 (HCSB) 7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. “Give Me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 for His disciples had gone into town to buy food. 9 “How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked Him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
For your worship to be able to touch the eternal you need to understand…
I. Worship is available to all people.
• This may be a strange thing to start off with, but it is important for us to understand so that we can fully grasp the heart of God.
• Jesus is doing something that was culturally unacceptable. Jews just did not talk to Samaritans, much less Samaritan women.
• Ever since the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC, the Jews and Samaritans have had an intense dislike for one another.
• Jesus, on the eve of talking about the subject of worship, opens the door to the Samaritans by simply having a conversation with this women. This was a social taboo.
• The Bible tells us that God desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:4!
• It will be difficult for our worship to touch the eternal if we willfully ignoring people we need to share the message with because of some prejudice or fear.
• It is my prayer that if look across this auditorium that we are happy to see each and every person who is here!
• Our desire should be to reach people of all races and from all economic backgrounds for Jesus! Believe it or not, not all churches feel that way!
• If we have people we are not willing to share the gospel with, it will inhibit our ability for our worship to touch the eternal!
• Jesus made sure that there were no social, economic, racial or any other barriers that would keep people from being able to worship Him! Anyone who wants to be a Christian can be a Christian.
• We can extend this thought to include if we have a problem with a brother of sister in Christ!
• Jesus as He spoke about the issue of the heart said this in Matthew 5:23-24
• SLIDE #4
• Matthew 5:23–24 (HCSB) 23 So if you are offering your gift on the altar, and there you remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
• God has a heart for all people and so should we! If we lack a heart to see people saved, our worship will never be satisfying or inspired because our heart is not linked with God’s heart!
• SLIDE #5
For your worship to be able to touch the eternal you need to understand…
II. The nature of the physical verses the spiritual.
• As Jesus speaks with this woman, He is there to get His thirst quenched.
• The woman has probably come from some distance to get water for herself. Getting water in those days was a real chore, but it needed to be done each day. Getting water was hard work.
• So Jesus says something that catches the woman’s attention.
• SLIDE #6
• John 4:10–11 (HCSB) 10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would ask Him, and He would give you living water.” 11 “Sir,” said the woman, “You don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do You get this ‘living water’?
• She is looking at Him and thinks He is crazy. What he says makes no sense to her because she is thinking about the physical.
• She does not see Jesus with any means of which He could get any water for her. She goes on to ask Him if He can give her better water than what Jacob provided by this well!
• Then Jesus retorts in verses 13-14
• SLIDE #7
• John 4:13–14 (HCSB) 13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”
• Jesus is offering her something totally different, living water! This would be water that was running or a spring of water verses stale water from a cistern.
• He says what He has to offer her will last forever! She will never thirst again!
• Of course the woman is still focused on the physical. In verse 15 she asks Jesus for this water so she will not have to make the trek back to this well again!
• SO here is what we need to grasp so that our worship can touch the eternal.
• We MUST understand the difference between the spiritual and the physical. We must understand that what each does is fundamentally different.
• The things of the physical world will NEVER satisfy. You can never get enough to bring you eternal life or temporal joy.
• You will never have enough money, food, water, possessions. The physical will never satisfy your soul; whereas, the spiritual will be eternally satisfying.
• The reason the distinction from the physical and spiritual is important to understand is this:
• If you come to worship all wrapped up in the physical, your worship will be focused on the physical. It will never leave the physical realm.
• If your focus on just on the trappings of the worship time instead of the substance of the worship time, you will leave empty, frustrated, and upset because what you were focused on was not the way you liked it!
• I know in our society appearance is important, we recognize that so we do what we can to make sure our facilities are not a hindrance to your ability to connect with God.
• But IF we are here for the right reason, we can praise God in a stinky barn!
• I would encourage everyone here to focus on Jesus when you come, focus on wanting to connect with Him, focus on experiencing the JOY of the LORD!
• Instead of the focus of our time together being on you/me, entertain me, feed me, serve me, recognize me, put the focus on the spiritual, and put it on Jesus!
• True JOY is found in the acronym for JOY! Jesus Others You!
• SLIDE #8
For your worship to be able to touch the eternal you need to understand…
III. Your need for God.
• In verse 15, the woman asks Jesus for the water, now one would think Jesus would say, Here you go!
• But instead Jesus makes a request of her.
• SLIDE #9
• John 4:16–18 (HCSB) 16 “Go call your husband,” He told her, “and come back here.” 17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered. “You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
• Why does Jesus ask her to get her husband? To humiliate her? To make her feel like a terrible person. The chances are that she did not have a good reputation in the community by the fact she was at the well alone.
• Why did He ask her, she asked for the water, was that not all she needed to do?
• The call for the husband was the first strike of the hammer on the veneer that all was ok with her. Once Jesus broke through the thin veneer, once it was broken, it exposed her true self.
• This woman did not need to be humiliated, she needed to be convicted of her sin so she could fully grasp her need for the living water Jesus was offering!
• See, if we do not understand that we NEED Jesus, our worship will be empty. I have seen people come to worship half-heartedly, and that is a true indicator that at that time, the person was not aware they NEEDED Jesus!
• When you KNOW you NEED Jesus nothing will stop you from praising Him!
• If you do not need Him, then you will go through the motions, or you will enjoy the music, you may even enjoy the message. OK THAT WAS PUSHING IT
• You may or most likely will come back, but you will miss the point, you will miss the joy.
• Worship is not about our music, or even about my message, it is about Jesus, so our music and message should reflect that, in turn drawing you to the point where your worship touches the eternal!
• SLIDE #10
For your worship to be able to touch the eternal you need to understand…
IV. The heart of worship.
• In verse 19 the woman appears to either change the subject or she is really seeking an answer to a question.
• SLIDE #11
• John 4:20–21 (HCSB) 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, yet you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.” 21 Jesus told her, “Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
• Because of time, I will not dig deep here other than to say that she wanted to know where the proper place was to worship, Mt .Gerizim as the Samaritans thought or Jerusalem as the Jews thought.
• Jesus tells her a time is coming where location will not be important! Then He goes to verse 23-24
• SLIDE #12
• John 4:23–24 (HCSB) 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
• Jesus says to her the time was NOW where worship was going to change,
• Jesus cuts to the heart of worship.
• Instead of worship being centered on the temple, ceremonies, sacrifices, and other external things, the heart of the worshipper is what is important.
• The heart of worship is that was worship in spirit and truth!
• Worshipping in spirit stands in opposition to the external trappings of the Old Testament system. This refers to the heart, minds and soul of the worshipper being in tune with God!
• Our hearts and minds must be engaged in order to be able to worship God.
• Our worship is also to be based on the truth of God’s Word. Worship is based on the truth of God’s word, not the musings of man! In 1 Timothy 2:4 in a passage referenced earlier we are told that God wants all people to come to a knowledge of the truth.
• WE cannot make up our own visons of who God is and properly worship Him.
• The heart of worship is our hearts being knit together with the heart of God!
CONCLUSION
• As we go through the rhythm of life, worship is an important part of our life. Worship is something that must flow from the heart, mind and soul.
• When we come to God understanding what we covered today, our worship can rise dare I say to a higher level!
• I pray that we look forward to worshipping our awesome God together!
• You can worship Him daily by living for Him!
• As hard as it may be to picture, your worship can touch the eternal!
