John 4:4-42
Deeply immersed in meditation during a church service, Italian poet Dante failed to kneel at the appropriate moment. His enemies hurried to the bishop and demanded that Dante be punished for his sacrilege. Dante defended himself by saying, "If those who accuse me had had their eyes and minds on God, as I had, they too would have failed to notice events around them, and they most certainly would not have noticed what I was doing." We begin a series on worship and because worship is so important it often comes with a load of baggage. We can reduce worship to our favourite songs, its good worship if we sing what we liked, it’s bad worship if we had to struggle through what we didn’t like. Yet the true worshipper will sing any song, even enjoying silence, because worship is so much more than the songs we sing. Dante would say if you are lost in worship it does not matter, you’ll sing anything because you want to worship. We reduce worship to our posture, whether it is stand up and sit down or other expressions. We feel threatened if people don’t stand up with us or raise their hands next to us because we are not caught up in worship. If we are immature we will accuse them of spiritual pride, of “them” thinking they are better or more holy because they stand, or kneel, or raise their hands. We have to affirm what Dante observed, if we are lost in worship we’ll never notice how our neighbour expresses their worship. We reduce worship to what we do on a Sunday when worship is so much more, We describe it in our values as a church as worship being a lifestyle. So as we begin this series let us recognise that we can come weighed down by a load of rubbish. Let’s get rid of that rubbish and take a fresh look at worship and what it should be.
Created to worship
The first thing I want to look at is that we were created to worship. God creates man and places him in the Garden of Eden. It is a place of worship. It is a place of fellowship particularly as God walks with Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening. It is a place of authority as God gives them dominion over the earth. Eden is a picture of what true worship looks like. When Adam fell his spirit became dead to God. He was no longer joined in relationship to his creator. Instead he hid. His mind was opposed to God. His body began to deteriorate. It was diseased – in other words it was no longer in harmony and this dis-ease made it susceptible to aging and all illnesses and premature death.
Even though we have fallen we have not fully lost that desire to worship. Perhaps the most potent images we can draw of worship is in the sporting stadium or at a music concert. Voices raised, arms waving, banners unfurled. Deep down we have not fully lost the desire to worship yet we so often channel that desire in the wrong direction. Wherever we are this morning we need to recognise that we were created to worship.
Called to worship
The second thing I want to look at is that we are called to worship. Part of Christ’s mission was to recover our ability to genuinely worship. 1 Corinthians 15:45 says, “So it is written: The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.” Jesus came to redeem us and restore our intimacy with God and authority over the enemy.
As we have indicated worship is sometimes hard to describe. Worship is measure by the value, regard or importance that we put on something. Worship demands the attention of one’s life. Jesus has this amazing encounter with a Samaritan woman who is the victim of six failed relationships with men (five failed marriages and a cohabitation which is a failure to live in a properly formed relationship). What she worshipped was male companionship. What she needed was a man that would change her life. At last she met a man that really could and he introduced her to the idea that a relationship with God was based on worshipping Ham as a father.
Jesus wanted to give her a new life based on a relationship with God. She was challenged to transfer her worship of men onto God. To become a true worshipped she had to respond to this call on her life. Both the Old and New Testaments say this is the key to life. Love the Lord your God with all you heart, and soul, and mind and strength. We are called to make God the object of our affections.
Changed by worship
The third thing I want to look at is that we are changed by worship. The first thing this Samaritan woman does after she encounters Jesus is go into the town and tell the men she would never be the same. Jesus did not share what he was about with the religious leaders but someone who was willing and open to be changed by worship. God is looking for people who will be transformed or changed by worship. If we are looking for and expecting nothing to happen in worship we will not be disappointed – it wont. But if we are willing to be transformed, worship will be a place where we encounter God and are transformed through that encounter.
The Bible tells us that we become what we worship. Psalm 115:4-8 particularly makes this point clear. Whatever idol we erect we become like. Last Sunday we were looking with the young people at people they most admire. We looked at people we admire, biblical characters we admire, even people in church we admire. I asked them what influence these people had on their lives. The general consensus was little compared to their peer group. They recognised how dangerous that can be. Who really wants to pay £50-£70 for a Jack Willis hoodie but when peer pressure says that is the “in” item of clothing, you can be influenced to make foolish decisions. Idol worship is not sitting in front of wooden objects chanting or praying. It is allowing whatever we worship to control and transform our lives. It may be money. It may be possessions. It may be your peers, Or a career. Or hobby. Or in this i-obsessed world, it may be getting your own way. Worship has a power to transform us. We need to make a deliberate choice. Jesus gave the Samaritan Woman that choice and gives us that choice. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 brings home the importance of that choice, “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”
Challenged by worship
The fourth thing that I want to look at is we are challenged by worship. If worship has the power to change us it will also challenge us. The key verse in this passage is verse 16. This is where the challenge comes. It exposes the deep-rooted need for a lifestyle change. In that moment the Samaritan woman has a choice. She chooses to admit what she is really like. The deepest needs and desires of the human heart can be exposed in worship. God longs to reveal more of himself to us but often before he can do that we have to reveal ourselves to him. Worship always has the possibility of opening our hearts further to God. It’s a place where we can be ourselves and it is the place where we can begin to experience healing.
Yet, if we are being honest, this challenge can be easily resisted. We sing safe songs that have good theology but little emotion because we do not want to expose the wounds we carry in our hearts. We justify it with a “good theology” tag. We want songs that are emotional with little content because we do not want to go too deep for fear it will expose our spiritual immaturity. We resist silence because in silence we have to pause and we might encounter pain and it is better to keep making a joyful noise and hope the pain goes away. We resist ministry in the Holy Spirit because it challenges our theology, exposes the limits of our experience, produces fear that we are not in control, something might happen that might leave me exposed. We build walls of resistance and deny others their healing because we ourselves do not want to be challenged to change. We want safe worship but true worship is not safe worship. However, when it challenges it will always bless us in the end.
Creative in worship
The fifth thing I want to look at is we are to be creative in worship. To the Jewish and Samaritan mindset worship was synonymous with the Temple, Law, tradition and religious ceremony. Jesus tried to change the way the Samaritan lady thought. Worship could now take place anywhere and at anytime. Worship was no longer dependent on geography but on relationship. So-much-so that Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your body.”
We can worship God on our own. Yet we recognise the importance of also being together where an increased revelation of the character of God happens. We no longer have to stick to set forms and patterns of doing things but we can be as creative as we can imagine to deepen our relationship with God. You should have been given a sheet of paper when you came in. It is for you to reflect on over the week. We have one word for worship but Hebrew has over 50. As you look at the words ask God if he wants you to be more creative in the way you worship.
Credibility to worship
The sixth thing to look at is that there is to be a credibility to worship. The song, “When the music fades” perhaps captures how we need to respond to God. The chorus says, “I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it, When it's all about You, It's all about You, Jesus” As we opened this sermon we recognised that we can make gods of approaches to worship, traditions in worship, even people involved in worship, when we should be worshipping God the Father. There is often much dismantling that needs to take place in our lives before we can worship in Spirit and truth, It’s often people on the outside who can sense how dead and lifeless our worship has become. They may have no language to describe God but they know the real thing when they see it. Our churches are emptying and people are refusing to come because worship is often not authentic, there is no mystery, no real sense of the presence of God, because we don’t expect God to turn up and do anything. And if he did that would be resisted.
We live in a world that is hungry for the presence of god and one of the ways the world should experience that is through the way we worship. As we live our lives they encounter God in the workplace because we are the presence of god. As they meet our Christian friends a greater sense of the sweet aroma of Jesus becomes attractive. As they come to church they see the power and majesty of God in our worship. If people want good signing they can listen to an opera, if they want eloquent speaking they can listen to a debate, if they want a slick presentation they can turn on the television, but the church is the only place where the presence of God should be so powerful that people sit up and take note and see that God is very much alive and living amongst his people.
