Worship!

I didn’t know what I was looking for, but God knew. And so to kind of continue on, I’m always wanting to let you know a little bit more of me as I get to know you. And as you can imagine, this world of worshiping God and this call for us to be worshipers of God, because of the way my life began with him, was such a significant part of me. But of course, being 20-something, and it actually continues today where the young people, I guess I’m sort of young, but there’s younger, right? I remember being in my 20s and the word worship was very much related to what we just did, right?

Worshiping God, lifting our hands up, singing praises and singing songs. And it absolutely is that. But we know church, that worship is not just singing, right? We know that. There’s a way in which we absolutely meet God and he meets us, and we’re called to worship him. We know that worship is not a place, and today we’re going to be going into John 4, and I’m sure most of you have already read the story about the woman at the well.

But the thing is, if worship is not simply just music, if worship is not just singing praises, if worship is not a physical place like we are gathering in this church, what is it? And I know you probably have some answers because, I mean, people always talk about it, and there’s biblical evidence. Romans 12, where Paul talks about how worship is a living sacrifice. Actually, the trendy word about a decade ago or more was that worship is a lifestyle. And I agree. It’s all true.

But the question is, what does that actually mean? What does it mean that we are to be living sacrifices, right? And so I’m hoping that as we dive into John 4, if not all of us, most of us again, that the Lord will bring some new light into what it means to worship him. 

It’s funny because I’ve read this text a lot, and the thing is, I’m always surprised at how awkward the story is. I don’t know if you know what I’m talking about. 

So basically, the beginning of chapter 4 talks about how we’re going to start reading at 16,

but I’m going to give you a synopsis of John 4 from kind of the start of the chapter. So we have Jesus walking with his disciples, right? And he noticed that he was getting too much attention from the Pharisees. He said, I’m going to divert. Let’s go back to Galilee. And on his journey back to Galilee, he goes through a place called Samaria. To the disciples, they’re just following him.

But as we know for Jesus, there’s more than one reason as to why he’s passing through. So he ends up resting at this well called Jacob’s Well. And his disciples go to the town to get food. And so he was intentionally alone. And this woman comes. And I find it fascinating because the first thing he does in Jesus’ style is what? He didn’t tell her, I know what’s wrong with you. He didn’t look at her and say, I know what you need. But yet this is Jesus. Is it not? What did he do? He asked her. He said, will you give me a drink? Very Jesus to ask a question, right?

But why this question? We can formulate all sorts of ideas. But it’s amazing how humble Jesus is. We often wonder why He asks certain things? How many times did he ask his disciples, like, who do you think I am? Remember those times? And they’re like, oh, mmm. And it’s interesting because at the end of the story, Jesus is very clear about who he is to this unnamed Samaritan woman. He asks her, will you give me a drink? He actually approaches her and says, you have something to offer me. Can you imagine what it’s like for someone who’s been displaced, who’s been judged by her actions for years, optically, socially, culturally, relationally? Whatever she was feeling, we can only guess.

But intentionally Jesus asked her for something, not because he needed anything from her. But in asking her a question, he gave something to her. He gave her a sense of dignity. She actually could offer someone something. And that’s why she answered. She’s like, how could I give you anything? Because why, Samaritans do not associate with Jews?

Interesting shift in conversation. Jesus in the next number of verses ends up talking about water. But there’s two conversations going on. He starts talking about this living water, but he is a little cryptic about it. He goes, if you only knew who it is that asks you for a drink, then it would be, then you would be the one asking him for a drink. He doesn’t mention, he actually talks about himself in the third person. I always found that really weird.

Who does that? Ask a person a question. Then say, if you only knew who it was. You know? So weird. And then she interprets it in her own way, which is, how are you coming to get water? You didn’t bring anything with you. You didn’t bring a jar. You didn’t bring a jug. And she doesn’t get it. She’s talking about literal water. She’s talking about a different type of water. Can you imagine how awkward this conversation is? Then he continues again, and then he gets a little bit more clear.

He goes, everyone who drinks this water will be thirst again. Then he calls upon himself. So instead of the third person, now he goes, I will give them something. I will give them the water that then will spring a water of welling to eternal life.

So he goes from asking a question to talking about himself in a third person, then claiming that I am the one who will give you something. Interesting.

And she still doesn’t get it. She’s like, that sounds great. You mean you can actually help me by giving me this water so I never have to come to this well again? Help. Before we read the next parts, I’m stopping here for a moment because every time I read up to this point, I’m reminded of how we are as humans.

And this interaction represents so much of what it’s like no matter how long we’ve journeyed with God, where God is up to something. You know what I mean? God is up to something. He’s gently trying to get there with us. And here we are going, yes, God, please make my life easier. Or, yes, God, please take care of the circumstance.

And I am not saying that he cannot and will not change your circumstance. He absolutely can and will. But often that’s where it stays because our lives, when we live in this world and life, is riddled with circumstance, situation, right? Problems. Arons that you have things that you just have to do and do it again and again and again. And someone came and was offering her something and she was like, you’re offering me to make my life just this much easier? Yes, please. Thank you very much. And you think that that would go somewhere and it does, but not in the way that we would think because this is where there’s another flip in the situation. The water conversation ends. How does it connect with the other half?

We’re going to read from John 16 to 26. He told her, go call your husband and come back. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her, you’re right. When you say you have no husband, the fact is you have had five husbands and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.

I’m going to stop here. We’re not going to pull out the story of her husbands even though we could go there. The point that we’re going to look at today is the fact that in context of what he just said and how they’re talking, he went straight in and said, go call your husband and ask him to come back. And then her response, I try to put myself in her situation. If someone I didn’t know was kind of doing what he did, and then all of a sudden kind of hits me with this, go do this. It’s a nerve, right? In a place where you’re kind of like, how do you know this? I’m not sure I would have been able to say what she said, which is the truth. I have no husband. Clear, concise, true. I think I’ve underestimated the power of this interaction for many years because it

is profound, so profound that Jesus says to her, you are right. So he affirms her and then he goes, what you said is quite true. So we said to this woman, you are correct. You are being truthful. And then she said, I can see that you’re a prophet. Something began to switch in her at this point. Our ancestors worshiped on the mountains, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. Woman, Jesus replied, believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritan’s worship, what you do not know, we worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews. 

Yes, it’s from the lineage of the Jews. Yet he says here, the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in the truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

God is Spirit and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth. From a question to water to her private life and then to worship. Friends, you cannot tell me this is a weird conversation, right? Not tell me this is not a weird conversation. But if this is a point in which Jesus is intentionally specifically talking about worship, it has to all connect and it does.

And he specifically says here that worship is not a place, even though it was at one point. He says worship is not a place. But does he give the answer here? Sort of. He says that the type of the worshipers the Father seeks are those who worship in spirit and in the truth. I think we know this.

We pray this. We desire this. I go back to the question of if it’s not a place, what does it mean? What does it mean for us to become the type of people who are the type of worshipers that the Father seeks? Who worships in spirit and in truth? The reason why I wanted to bring us into the fullness of the story today is because the entire encounter between Jesus and this woman illustrates and encompasses worship. What do I mean by that? I’m going to give you three P words to help remember. It is encountering the person of Jesus that brings you into his presence and then re-orients your posture. 

When the person of Jesus draws you back to himself, when you’re looking at his face, like we were just saying this morning, it shifts what we look at and our priorities from merely the situations that seem to hold our life and the things that we cannot change or seemingly can’t fix. It re-orients us back to him. Know that that day, this encounter, that woman was doing only what she knew she was going to do, which is what? Go to the well and draw water. That was her scope.

That was her purpose. That was why she was there. But this encounter was not initiated by her, was it? It was initiated by Jesus. The very fact that she even encountered him was by his doing. Amen? It’s so subtle, but so true is that even the ability to worship him and to come into his

presence requires his initiation. So that it is the person of Jesus that draws us back to him and takes everything and re-orients us back to him so that we can then go postured with our eyes fixed on Jesus. What does that mean with this woman? Is that she came that day doing what she always had to do multiple times a week probably in order to fetch water. 

In meeting Jesus in a way that only he does, gently with a question, but to mirror mortals like us and humans, we read a literal transcription of his conversation and it seems awkward and fragmented, but that actually only goes to show us that God has every intention when he speaks to us and meets us, to know exactly how to get to our hearts. He refuses for us to leave things just on the outside. He refuses for us to think that all we need is bread and wine and the tangible things that sustain us. And that is all this woman has lived like.

And in fact, she was the recipient of so much that we might not even understand in terms of not being a Jew, not being a Gentile, not being accepted in any way. And on top of that, the way she has lived, she has been defined by her story or the stories that people have made for her. And do we not do that to other people and do we not live that by that ourselves sometimes?

And here’s Jesus knowing what she needs when she doesn’t know. He told her what she needed and she was like, I don’t understand. So because she didn’t understand, he helped her understand by showing her that he sees her, he knows her, and he’s calling her. And even when it comes to her limited understanding of, okay, but if I’m to follow you, like, do I have to go to that mountain to worship, do all this stuff? And he’s saying, the time is coming and has now come. Meaning he’s standing right there before her, the person of Jesus, and saying, I’m here. This entire interaction is a story that helps us see one thing.

That Jesus is always revealing himself to his people. Do you see how he did that? From making the interaction exist when she didn’t know. He turned her day and her story. And what we read on is that he changes her life because he goes from a question to talking about living water, even though she didn’t understand what that was, then goes, I know your story. And then reframes her understanding of worship to not a temple and a building, but the temple of the heart. And then he says, I, the one who’s speaking to you, I am he. Because she goes, oh, I’m starting to believe this. You know, there’s a messiah coming, right? And again, in her limited understanding, she thought, you must be talking about that guy that we’ve all been waiting for.

And he straight up tells her, I’m the one that you’re thinking of. He wasn’t even that straightforward with his own disciples when it came to who he was. He claimed right here that he is the messiah to this woman. And so she came that day with only what she knew and what she had to do and who she was. And by the time she had some conversations with Jesus, she turned around, she left her jug and she went back and her testimony began. And it wasn’t like she flipped the switch and said, everything is different, 180 degrees.

She went back and she said, could this be the messiah guys? He just told me everything about me. He knew me. And that it says later in the text that many, many came to know the name of Jesus because of the woman’s testimony. Friends worship is not a place we know that. But worship is something that’s initiated from God himself where he, the person of Jesus, draws us into his presence and then re-oreans our posture. And I’m not talking about those of us who have met Jesus and was like, well, I’ve already met Jesus, you know, but it’s the time and time again as we journey with God. If you will, picture your metaphorical well even now in your season and in your life. If you were invited to a place right now with Jesus at the well, what would you be bringing? What is your jar? 

What are the things in your life that you’ve been doing, holding, waiting for, wanting or the things that have been burdensome or the pieces of your identity that you can’t shed and you want to submit and where are the places in your heart that you feel like God, I don’t actually want you to see this part. When I was preparing this, I was brought back to a moment with my oldest daughter Brooklyn that some of you all, like no. There was a period half a year ago where she kept kind of taking chocolates from our house and these rappers started appearing everywhere and I had an inclination but I kept

asking her, hey guys, who did this? And naturally, everyone said not me. And then one day I found some in her bed shelf. So I pulled her aside. I said, okay, it’s been a couple weeks. And then she just, it was me. And then I remember pulling her aside and praying to God and when God.

I didn’t grow up in the church. I don’t know what being a good Christian mom means. We’re all just trying to do our best. But one thing I learned from Buddhism, which is what my mom was, a Buddhist, is that parents, like my parents, taught me a lot of morals and ethics, right? So naturally and logically lying is bad, right? And so I had this innate fear in myself when I was trying to talk to her.

What I did not want was to merely teach her morality or ethics and the black and white of right and wrong. And I didn’t know how to do that. And so in my heart, I was just praying as I walked into my room, sat her down. And I can only say that a moment like John 4, I think that’s what happened, where the person of Jesus drew me back to him and through his power, he gave me a question. Because she sat there thinking I was going to ask her, why did you eat the chocolates

and then lie again and again and again and again? That’s probably what she was thinking, right? But instead I asked her, Brooklyn, you remember the story in Genesis 2 and 3 where Adam and Eve ate the fruit. And then in chapter 3, God walked through the garden and asked, where are you? And she’s like, yeah, I remember that. 

And so I said, do you really think that God didn’t know where they were when he asked the question? And she said, of course not. He is God, obviously he knows. And so I told her, do you think that I didn’t know it was you the whole time? When I kept asking all of you who ate the chocolates and she just stood there with her eyes like huge. And I told her every time I was asking you the question, it was an opportunity for you to tell the truth. And she was like, oh. And I told her, you know, we’re not so different from Adam and Eve. And she asked why? I said, well, they disobeyed God with the one thing he asked them not to do. And when sin came into the picture, something else came along, they experienced shame for the first time.

And because of shame, they hid. And she was, well, I wasn’t hiding. I’m like, what do you think lying is, Brooklyn? You hide the truth. And she was like, oh, I didn’t realize that. And I was like, why were you so afraid to tell me the truth? And then she said, it’s because I really didn’t want you to be mad at me.

And it’s a very normal reaction of what shame does because of the disconnect of relationship that happens in sin. We make choices to hide deeper and deeper, to cover up more and more because we’re so afraid to tell the truth, assuming that the result would be rejection because that is what we deserve. But that is the profound good news we have in Jesus is that that is not what he does. And when we look at what happens to this woman is that when he confronts her with the truth and confronts her because he is the light, he is the way, and in light of who he is, she is able to see who she was. And then she responded with honesty. She didn’t hide probably for the first time. She came in with the burden and shame of all the things that she thought she was. And there is this man that she didn’t know was giving her the freedom she didn’t know she needed.

That love doesn’t give up because you make a mistake. That love came to redeem all the mistakes from the beginning of time to the future. So friends, as we desire to be a people of worship, a church that worships in spirit and in truth, to become the worshipers that the Father seeks like he says here. My invitation for all of us is will we go here with God?

Will we allow him, the person of Jesus, for him to draw us back to him so that we can see ourselves more truly in light of who he is?

And for each one of us, only you will know, and that’s between you and God. And when we enter that space and allow him access to our deepest fears, our deepest concerns, all our worries, all our doubts, even our unbelief that we are afraid or ashamed to admit, that’s where he will do his work. And he then re-orients our posture from the things that we keep trying to cover up to being lifted up and we walk through differently. It changes the way we see our daily life, the purposes that we’re disturbed, the things we do are the same and probably are the same. But some of them might change, but the thing is how you see yourself and how you see others changes because you have been with Jesus. Amen? 

And so as we close, I will only do what I do because I know that I have to give this voice up to the Lord himself. So I want to just play a few songs and give you space to invite God to go to a place where it is your well with Jesus, where he has met you and see how he’s going to draw you to reorient your posture so that the thing we pray about all the time saying, God, may we walk out of here different than we came in, only he can do that. And that’s what I pray that will happen right now as we enter into a time where we’re seeking God’s presence and allowing him into the places of our hearts as worshipers. Amen? I’ll bring you more than a song.

You’re looking into my heart, into my heart. I’ll bring you more than a song and more than a song, Jesus. You’re looking into my heart, into my heart.

I’m coming back to the heart of worship when it’s all about you. It’s all about you, Jesus. I’m sorry for the thing I’ve made when it’s all about you. It’s all about you, Jesus.

If you’re able to stand, would you stand? I’m coming back to the heart of worship when it’s all about you. It’s all about you, Jesus. I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it when it’s all about you. It’s all about you, Jesus. What a beautiful name it is. What a beautiful name it is.

The name of Jesus Christ my King. What a beautiful name it is. Nothing compares to this. What a beautiful name it is. The name of Jesus. What a beautiful name it is. What a beautiful name it is. The name of Jesus Christ my King. What a beautiful name it is. Nothing compares to this. What a beautiful name it is. The name of Jesus. What a beautiful name it is. The name of Jesus.

The name of Jesus. Your worship. Your worship. Your worship. Your worship. Church, as you leave, I pray the words of Paul over you. Therefore I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is. His good, pleasing, and His perfect will. And all of God’s people said, amen.

Blessings my friends.