The Fourth Sunday in Lent - Worship

On this fourth Sunday in Lent, let’s think a bit about worship.  In most church services I’ve participated in, people think of worship as the singing and music portions.  When a person leads the music they are called the “worship leader”.

Hmmm…interesting, if only for the realization that all of the other stuff, including the teaching, becomes the other-than-worship parts of the service. 

Do we really believe that when we gather together to worship God that the only part of it that really counts is the music?  I know I don’t think it is so.  

We must realize that worship encompasses everything and it’s not oriented to a place or the beauty of music.

Here’s Jesus in a conversation with a woman that eventually gets to the issue of worship.

John 4:4-24

⁴  And he had to pass through Samaria.
⁵  So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.
⁶  Jacob’s well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.
⁷  A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
⁸  (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.)
⁹  The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)
¹⁰  Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”
¹¹  The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
¹²  Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”
¹³  Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
¹⁴  but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
¹⁵  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”
¹⁶  Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
¹⁷  The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;
¹⁸  for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
¹⁹  The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
²⁰  Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
²¹  Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
²²  You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
²³  But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
²⁴  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

True worship is not a place, but rather takes place when the Father is worshiped in spirit and in truth.  

That is, our hearts, minds, souls are all in agreement on who God is and what he has done for us, and that is based on the truth that comes from God’s own word.

I love worshipping together with other believers, but some of my greatest worship times have happened in my office, or in the car, or watching a movie.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating a lifestyle of separation from believers in the traditional sense of a worship gathering...I love worshiping with others on Sunday at New Life Fellowship.  I look forward to being with other believers as much as anything during the week; but to be clear, we're not to limit "worship" to a time and place.  It's not time, place oriented, it's relationship oriented, and therefore the Person of God the Father, Son, Holy Spirit with the children of God is the fitting way to "worship".

The Apostle Paul said it like this:

Romans 12:1  I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

It’s Paul way of saying, “take your everyday life, your ordinary daily life of waking, working, playing, alone and with others, in the family and in the marketplace, and give it all to God…make it all an offering to Him and that will count as Worship, and God will count it as Holy and love every minute of your offering.”

I hope you have a great day of worship, and a great week of worship.

Peace