The Way Of Worship Series

The Way of Worship

We worship in Truth

We worship in Spirit

We worship by Choice

Slide 1

Intro

Thanksgiving is over, our bellies are full and now our attention begins to turn to Christmas.

And even in the church,

with so many things to do in preparation for

getting together with family,

exchanging gifts with one another,

preparing holiday meals,

shopping,

it is easy to lose our focus on the reason that we are doing all of these things,

the birth of the Savior and worshiping Him.

Going back to that very first Christmas, the wise men were looking for the newborn Babe so that they could worship Him.

That is the real reason that we need to keep our focus on, worshiping the babe in the manger.

In light of that, over these next 2 weeks we are going to be talking about worship. We will talk about the Way of Worship, by which I mean,

how is it we really worship the Lord in a way that pleases Him.

Next week we will talk about the Way of the Worshiper, talking about the various ways that we express our worship.

Undoubtedly, whenever many of us hear the word worship, we think about music. And while one of the ways we worship is through music,

music is only an expression the way of worship.

To find out the way of Worship, lets see what Jesus has to say in His word.

Turn with me to

John 4:19-24

Slide 2

Jesus has been traveling with the disciples through Samaria and they have come to a well. The disciples go into town to get some food while Jesus rests at the well.

Now in the middle of the day a Samaritan woman comes out to the well to get some water. Jesus asks for a drink and they get into a conversation about Jews and Samaritans.

Jesus tells the woman about her past with her many husbands and then the conversation continues as follows.

John 4:19-24

19 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem."

21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

The first thing that we learn about the Way of Worship is that,

We must worship in Spirit

Slide 3

John 4:23

What does it mean to worship in Spirit?

I believe what Jesus is saying is that true worship emanates

from within us,

from our spiritual self,

from the part of us that was created in the image of God.

Paul writes in

Romans 1:9

9 God, whom I serve (latraeu – serve or worship) with my whole heart (pneuma – spirit) in preaching the gospel of his Son,

We need to be like Paul and worship with our whole spirit, that inner part of us that is created in God’s image, which is made up of

our intellect,

our emotions, and

our will.

We worship God in all of those aspects.

So what does that mean?

That is where our worship needs to begin from.

True worship starts in our spirit and emanates out to our physical self.

There are many that were caught up with the form of worship, and not that that is unimportant.

Jesus talks about the place of worship to this Samaritan woman and says that the Jews have it right at that time. They had some of the outward forms of worship correct.

The problem was where they stemmed from.

They did not come from the spirit, from their heart.

They were only external forms of godliness and worship.

Jesus in speaking to the Pharisees and religious leaders of Israel said this about their worship.

Matthew 15:7-9

7 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

8 "’These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

9 They worship me in vain;

their teachings are but rules taught by men.’"

(from New International Version)

They had all the right moves on the outside, but none of it stemmed from a heart or spirit of worship.

Sure they knew,

What to say at the right time

When to wash so they were ceremonially clean

When to fast