John 4:4-30
4He had to go through Samaria on the way. 5Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. 7Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” 8He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
9The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”
10Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”
11“But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this is a very deep well. Where would you get this living water? 12And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his cattle enjoyed?”
13Jesus replied, “People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. 14But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
15“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to haul water.”
16“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.
17“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.
Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—18for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now.”
19“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. 20So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?”
21Jesus replied, “Believe me, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. 22You Samaritans know so little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. 23But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way. 24For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25The woman said, “I know the Messiah will come—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!”
27Just then his disciples arrived. They were astonished to find him talking to a woman, but none of them asked him why he was doing it or what they had been discussing. 28The woman left her water jar beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, 29“Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?” 30So the people came streaming from the village to see him.
[Thanks to Joel Smith’s sermon on this text and other illustrations in Sermon Central for helping to develop this message.
PowerPoint and audience outline available]
(Discuss results of recent worship survey)
Today I’m going to talk about the purpose of my worship. Do you ever wonder why you come here and do this thing called worship week after week? Just to get started I’m going to ask you to think a time something funny happened in worship. Does anything come to mind?
How about this story?
The Call to Worship had just been pronounced starting Easter Sunday Morning service in an East Texas church. The choir started its processional, singing "Up from the Grave He Arose" as they marched in perfect step down the center aisle to the front of the church. The last lady was wearing shoes with very slender heels. Without a thought for her fancy heels, she marched toward the grating that covered that hot air register in the middle of the aisle. Suddenly the heel of one shoe sank into the hole in the register grate. In a flash she realized her predicament. Not wishing to hold up the whole processional, without missing a step, she slipped her foot out of her shoe and continued marching down the aisle. There wasn’t a hitch.
The processional moved with clock-like precision. The first man after her spotted the situation and without losing a step, reached down and pulled up her shoe, but the entire grate came with it! Surprised, but still singing, the man kept on going down the aisle, holding in his hand the grate with the shoe attached. Everything still moved like clockwork.
Still in tune and still in step, the next man in line stepped into the open register and disappeared from sight. The service took on a special meaning that Sunday, for just as the choir ended with "Allelujah! Christ arose!" a voice was heard under the church shouting…"I hope all of you are out of the way ‘cause I’m coming out now!"
The little girl closest to the aisle shouted, "Come on, Jesus! We’ll stay out of the way."
Just for kicks I want to give you a little test this morning to see what your response would be Here goes: Imagine that you are standing on the edge of a lush, green forest. It’s a mild, Spring afternoon. It’s not too hot or too cold. Every once in a while a soft breeze blows over you and you breathe in the smell of honeysuckles in bloom. You enter the woods and delight in the sounds of birds singing and squirrels chattering all around you. As you travel through the forest you take note of the various types of trees – tall oaks, thick maples, scruffy cedars. You continue through the forest for some time until you notice just up a slightly sloping hill an open meadow. As you exit the forest you feel the warmth of the sunlight on you face and as you readjust your eyes you see a field of flowers in full bloom. Suddenly, you realize that you’re not alone. You turn and look to see who’s traveling with you. Who is it?
Who or what was the first image that popped into your head when you turned to look?
This is a psychological test. The person or the thing that came into your mind when you turned around in your imagination is the thing that you think the most about.
What’s the point of this little exercise? It’s to get you thinking about your main focus in life. What dominates your thoughts? Who or what does your imagination or daydreaming return to? People become like their focus. Whatever or whoever prevails in our thought life shapes who we are and how we live.
Donald S. Whitley, in Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, pp. 88-89:
“We emulate what we think about. Children pretend they are the heroes they dream about. Teenagers dress like the sports stars or popular musicians they devote so much attention to. But these tendencies don’t disappear when we become adults. Those who concentrate on “making it to the top” read the books of those “at the top,” then copy their business style and personal habits.”
In essence, we worship that which is at the center of our thoughts. To worship means “to give worth or esteem.” The process of focus and response is worship.
Jesus put it this way:
“‘You must worship the Lord your God; serve him only.’” Matthew 4:10 (NLT)
In other words, focus on God alone and respond or act accordingly. Here’s the way that life is supposed to work. “The more we focus on God, the more we understand and appreciate how worthy He is.” Then we respond with gratitude, with joy, with a willingness to forgive, with love for God and people created in his image.
After visiting churches in many parts of the world, author Philip Yancey asked, "why do so few Christians appear to be enjoying themselves in their worship?"
The question is worth our attention. For while worship is considered to be a form of work (liturgia=work), it was always intended to be the highest form of work, an exhilarating, renewing form of labor that leaves people filled, not depleted, renewed, not more deeply trapped in dissatisfaction, more internally certain, not confused.
Thus my goal for our worship services is that they are times that help remove you from the worries and struggles of your everyday life—to try to lift you up into the presence of god. Don’t you need these times? Isn’t life rotten sometimes?
So we are doing this series of messages to help you understand what worship is, how to participate in worship and today I’d like to help you think about the purpose of worship.
People often confuse singing or praying or shouting praise or raising hands or reading the Bible as worship, but they are not. They may lead us to worship, but they are not worship in and of themselves.
Worship is intentional focus on God and response to him.
You get out of worship what you put into it. You may or may not like the music, you may or may not like what the preacher says some Sundays, but to the extent that you focus properly to that extent you will get something out of worship.,
Thus if you desire God’s character you must intentionally make him your focus and respond accordingly. I think it’d be best to see how this worked out in the life of a woman who experienced the presence of God, but it took her a while before she focused and responded appropriately.
Like most people in our world today, this lady had an unfocused mind.
An unfocused mind …
On this occasion Jesus was traveling from southern Israel back up north to his own homeland, Galilee. To get there he and his disciples had to pass through an area known as Samaria. Jews like Jesus and his followers were supposed to hate Samaritans. They were viewed as religious compromisers and racial half-breeds. The rabbis taught that to dine with a Samaritan was like eating pig’s flesh which was a detestable practice to the Jews. This is the cultural clash Jesus entered into when he met the lady with the unfocused mind.
He had to go through Samaria on the way. Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her,
“Please give me a drink.” He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” John 4:4-9 (NLT)
Get the picture. Here’s God in the flesh on earth. He’s sitting at your favorite watering hole engaging you in conversation. You respond, but in a stupid way. You haven’t focused on who he is, so you treat him like any other Joe off the street.
That was the case with this woman. She was in God’s presence, but she couldn’t respond appropriately because her mind was unfocused. All she could see was that he was a Jew and she was a Samaritan. At that point, Jesus was worth very little to her, so she treated him contemptuously.
Like so many of us, her mind was just somewhere else. She was focused on her own agenda, too preoccupied with carving out a life the way she thought it ought to be. She never took the time to assess her own thinking. The woman was too focused on traditions and cultural differences.
Some of you are like that. You bring thought patterns to the table, hang-ups from your past experience, undeveloped ideas about God, cultural biases … God has initiated conversations with you on numerous occasion through various circumstances and people, but you respond inappropriately because you’ve never seriously assessed the focus of your mind. Your thinking is lazy. It’s in default mode. If you’d just focus you’d see what God’s up too. God is constantly communicating, but most of us have unfocused minds and can’t hear him.
This goes for religious types too. If you’re unwilling to think outside of the box -- “the way things have always been,” you won’t grasp the new thing God is leading you to.
That might not seem like a big deal to you, but it is. You see, an unfocused mind …
… leads to an unfocused life … GET IT?
Notice how Jesus keeps drawing this woman’s attention to himself. He keeps calling her to focus. When she finally does he reveals the devastating results of her unfocused mind.
Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”
“But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket,” she said, “and this is a very deep well. Where would you get this living water? And besides, are you greater than our ancestor Jacob who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his cattle enjoyed?”
Jesus replied, “People soon become thirsty again after drinking this water. But the water I give them takes away thirst altogether. It becomes a perpetual spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
“Please sir,” the woman said, “give me some of that water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to haul water.”
“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her.
“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.
Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband – for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now.” John 4:10-18 (NLT)
What we worship is always revealed by the way we live. Jesus cut to the heart of the matter and spoke directly about the state of this woman’s life. What was her focus? Sex? Security? Acceptance? We don’t really know. But it certainly was not God.
What’s not immediately apparent is how shabby this woman’s life had become. Don’t make the assumption that she moved from man to man because she was promiscuous. In those days women normally didn’t initiate divorce proceedings. Only husbands were allowed to do that. This woman had been rejected by at least five men. We don’t know why. The man she was living with obviously found some use for her, but wasn’t willing to commit to a serious relationship.
Another intriguing detail is that fact that she’s coming to the well at noontime, in the heat of the day, all alone. The usual custom was to go in the morning with the rest of the women in the village. The implication is that she was a social outcast. Something about this woman caused men and other women to reject her. To make a guess at what it was would be purely conjecture.
The point is that her unfocused mind led to an unfocused life. She was focused on something other than God and it was slowly destroying her. Her worship was misplaced and she was reaping the terrible consequences
An unfocused mind leads to an unfocused life …
… and we settle for an unfocused faith.
This issue is worship -- focus and response. Notice how the conversation turns.
“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet. So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?”
Jesus replied, “Believe me, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father here or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know so little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews.” John 4:19-22
Not only was she messing up this life she was forfeiting the life to come because she refused to focus and respond accordingly. There are grave consequences to not responding to God’s presence.
Jesus makes this point---these are the purposes of worship as we learn from this story:
• To focus on God in order to discern the truth about God . Only focused people can discern the truth about God.
“But the time is coming and is already here when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for anyone who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit an in truth.”
The woman said, “I know the Messiah will come – the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” John 4:23-25 (NLT)
What does all this mean? In his book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard Foster writes:
“Worship is the human response to the divine initiative. …Worship is our response to the overtures of love from the heart of the Father.” (pp.158 and 159) John Wesley called it prevenient grace—God takes the initiative and comes looking for you while you didn’t even give God a thought.
Once we intentionally focus on God his Spirit touches our spirit. We get a glimpse of who God is and what he’s done for us and that vision compels us to respond.
The woman in this story was getting closer and closer and closer. Because of Jesus’ initiative she was moving to a greater understanding of who he was. Which leads to the next point
The purpose of my worship is:
• To make a decision in response to God’s disclosure.
Then Jesus told her, “I am the Messiah!” John 4:26 (NLT)
Boom! There it is. She finally focused, God was revealed and she had to decide what to do with it. Did she respond appropriately? Did her mind and her life and her faith come into focus. You’d better believe it. Spirit touched spirit and she responded. She forgot what she came to the well in the first place. She disregarded the shunning of the village and here’s the rest of the story.
The woman left her water jar beside the well and went back to the village and told everyone, “Come and meet a man who told me everything I ever did! Can this be the Messiah?” So the people came streaming from the village to see him. John 4:28-30 (NLT)
This woman’s life was transformed because she finally focused and responded to God. She became renewed by the transformation of her mind and sttitude.
No matter where you are in your faith journey. Here are some avenues you can take to rivet your focus on God. Don’t forget that focus is not enough. When his Spirit touches your spirit and he discloses himself you’ve got to make the choice to respond. Worship—FOCUS AND RESPONSE—GET IT!
Ways that I can achieve my purpose for worship
1. Focus on God daily.
Make it a habit to begin the day sitting on your heavenly Father’s lap through daily prayer and Bible study. We have classes here periodically to teach you to do that. Right now On Sunday mornings we have “How to Get More From Your Bible.” On occasions I will teach Class 201—Developing Habits for Spiritual Maturity.
Setting aside this quiet time is a way of intentionally focusing on God. Begin the day with him and then don’t let him out of your sight.
Pray without ceasing, 1 Thessalonians 5:17
Is this possible? Not if you think prayer is all about posture and recitation. You pray without ceasing when you start the day with God in prayer and leave off the “amen.” Leave your prayer time open-ended and focus on his presence throughout the day. Imagine that he’s with you in every situation, in every conversation. The reality is that he never leaves us. We must focus to remember his presence and respond properly.
2. Experience different forms of worship.
Another way of saying this would be to use different tools to help you focus. Singing is one tool to focus our minds and hearts on God. It’s only one way to come in contact with his Spirit. Prayer is another form. You can try shouting, dancing, and verbally expressing thanksgiving. You can try various postures like standing, kneeling, lifted hands, clapping hands, bowed head, or lying prostrate on the floor. Then there are more traditional forms like liturgy, responsive readings, the Lord’s Prayer, Psalm 23 and the Lord’s Supper. While visting one of our shut-ins recently she asked me to read her 1 Cor. 13. I pulled out my Palm Pilot, clicked on my Bible. And we also marveled at how God has given man the ability to create tools like this that can carry so much information. It was a worshipful experience—reading God’s word and looking at me calendar and address book—all on this little gadget.
Don’t discount the form just because it’s doesn’t suit your particular taste or style.
“What we must see is that the real question in worship is not, ‘What will meet my need?’ The real question is, ‘What kind of worship does God call for?’”
Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, p. 170
I’d encourage you to especially try things that you don’t find appealing or that you don’t fully understand. One spiritual practice is an ancient form of prayer where you repeat a phrase from the Bible or a spiritual truth over and over For example, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me” for ten minutes. Try it see how it focuses your thinking.
3. Be prepared.
Look over the words to the songs that we’ll be singing before the worship hour starts. Read over the words to grasp the full meaning. If you can internalize the songs great! Spend time in prayer before hand. Pray for the musicians and the speakers and everyone involved. Then pray for yourself. Ask God to help you focus and make your heart responsive. Invite him to have his way with you.
4. Learn to let go.
What does this mean? When you are in group worship let go of the fear you have of other people and what they’ll think of you if you lift your hands or shout a word of praise. Let go of what the person in front of you is wearing or how bad their hair looks. Let go of that grudge you’re holding against the kid who keeps distracting you. Bless them and go on.
Let go when you’re out in the world – at work, at school, shopping recreating. As you stay focused on God respond in those difficult situations. I feel certain that corporate worship in the church is preparation for personal worship in the world as we live out our faith. You’re practicing here in worship for a daily lifestyle. Learn to let go.
5. Look at worship as an offering to God.
Remove the desire to “get something out of it” when you gather with God’s people to worship or when your alone with God. Worship is what we give not what we get. If you ever leave a worship service or personal prayer time and say out loud or to yourself, “I just didn’t get anything out of it,” guess who was the object of your worship. Look at it as your offering to God.
With Jesus’ help, let us continually offer our sacrifice of praise to God by proclaiming the glory of his name. Hebrews 13:15 (NLT)
You get out of worship what you expect—to the extent that the focus is upward as well as inward. Give God your focus and response. Offer Jesus your thoughts and your actions and you’ll find his heart developing in you.
That is the purpose of my worship and your worship. We are playing to an audience of one—it is not what I get out of it but what God gets out of—I’ll be talking in depth about what God receives in worship in 2 weeks.
John Westfall tells about a visit to Ben and Jerry’s. How many of you have eaten Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream? I had some for dessert one night while on vacation in Montreal. Yes I confess—I sinned against my usual practice to eliminate sugar from my diet.
You will enjoy this story.
Westfall writes, “On our last day in New England, we stopped for the tour of the Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream factory. We heard the fascinating story of Ben and Jerry, two college dropouts who sent away for a five-dollar mail order course on how to make ice cream. After only a few short years they were the third largest producers of gourmet ice cream in the world.
As their company grew, it became apparent to the two partners that their jobs had ceased to be fun. Work and its ensuing responsibilities were robbing them of their zest and creativity. According to the tour guide, they began to assess their company and determined that they were not in business to sell ice cream but to create joy.
Realizing their purpose, they hired a person to serve as Director of Joy for the company. The job consisted of fun activities and celebrations for the company and the community. Large stereo speakers were mounted in the factory so that loud party rock and roll would blare over the assembly lines. Believing that they were in the joy business, they set aside 7 1/2 percent of pretax profits for charities, festivals, community service, and special causes.
If Joy is our product, we are free to find new, creative ways to serve and encourage one another. When the stock market plummeted on Black Monday, panic and desperation were everywhere. Ben and Jerry were on the sidewalks of Wall Street scooping out free bowls of “economic crunch” ice cream. (Westfall, 100-101)
Maybe Christians can learn something from these two ice cream producers. We so often miss the joy of worship and everyday living.
So true worship has nothing to do with buildings or places, it has nothing to do with style, contemporary or traditional. True worship happens when first we are connected and focused on God, and we respond to that focus.
Are you worshipping this morning? Our praise team is going to lead us in singing some worshipful songs to help you focus. How will you respond today?
