A Story of Worship - Leaders' Talks

I want to empower you to be able to walk in your true identity as a worshipper and warrior.

Embrace the power of God's word in the Holy Spirit.

Today be encouraged in the words from my guest speaker.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

So I'm going to speak this morning about worship.

And I asked the Lord what he wanted me to speak about, and this is the topic that he gave me.

But before we get into the text, as you know, I'm a writer.

So I just wrote a little excerpt that I'm going to read that may give you a little context of where we're going.

And I'm calling this sermon a story of worship.

A story of worship.

And it begins like this.

It was just an average day, nothing out of the ordinary.

The sun arose as roosters crowed, awaking the dawn.

The year was 32 AD, give or take a few years, in the city of Sikhar, where a woman woke up and started her chores.

While preparing her daily cleaning and cooking, she ventured outside to the water trough and realized there wasn't enough water left from the day before.

It was fairly early, and as the sun warmed her tan skin, she grabbed her bucket to head down to the well and suddenly she paused.

Instead of heading down to the familiar path towards the town center, her mind took her places that she didn't want to go.

Sitting down, she opted not to go just yet.

I'll make do, she thought, looking down at the bucket.

And several instances came back to her mind that made her glad that she decided against it.

She thought about how crowded the well would be at this moment, packed with many women from various homes around her community whom she'd encountered on occasion.

Many who in times past gave her the look.

At that, a chill ran up her spine.

She absolutely hated the look.

It was the look that said, What are you doing here?

You don't belong here.

The look that also conveyed very clearly, we know where you come from and what you've done.

We know where you've been and the slew of men you've been with.

The woman cringed inwardly, and a tired sigh leapt from her lips.

After sitting there in silence for several minutes and trying to shake the thoughts off, finally she decided, yeah, I'll just wait to go in a while and fetch some water.

Secretly she admitted, I'll wait until everyone is gone and I can sneak in, get some water with no one around.

Little did she know that decision would change your life forever.

So let's pick up in Scripture at John chapter 4.

John 4 · chapter mention

If you could turn your Bibles, grab your phones.

And in case you uh didn't pick up on where we're going, we're gonna talk today about the woman at the well.

And we're gonna start in chapter 4 of John, verse number 4.

Here's what it says in verse 4.

Now he, being Jesus, had to go through Samaria.

So he came to a town in Samaria called Sikr, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

Verse 6, Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well, and it was about noon.

Let me stop right there.

One of the reasons that I felt the Lord lead me to this passage is because how many of you have ever felt like you were in a situation that was uncomfortable and you just didn't belong?

How many of you have, maybe it's a work party or a work environment?

You're like, I feel that every day.

Um maybe it's a political gathering, um, maybe it's maybe even it's a church.

How many of you have been in an environment, even if like uh it's it's a group or you even know the people, you just felt at times like you didn't belong.

Raise your hand.

All right, I think most of us have.

Here's the thing: Jesus is all about reaching those who feel that way.

Point one number one is this Jesus will find you when you feel you don't belong.

Jesus will find you when you feel you don't belong.

Let's pick up at verse 7.

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink?

His disciples had gone into town to buy food.

Verse 9.

The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew, and I'm a Samaritan woman.

How can you ask me for a drink?

And then look at what it says in parentheses.

For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

You know, it's easy for us sometimes to feel that what we're facing in society is new.

You're like, yeah, you know, I mean, I know that there was, you know, uh stints in the past of racism, and and and I don't know, you know, if you look at, you know, just some of the banter that's going back and forth from different beliefs and stuff, um, how many of you would say that like when it comes to the whole racial, what you can say, what you can't say, how many of you struggle like me?

Like, I don't even know what to say anymore.

All right, I mean, I I would say probably you know, the majority don't see uh color as much, you know, as it was in the past.

And but it in fact, in the first service, when I asked that question, there was like a four-year-old girl who raised her hand.

She was shaking her head.

I'm like, if this four-year-old cat doesn't know what to say, it's there's it's we're doomed.

Like literally.

But you know, we think like, oh, but but but you don't understand, Brian.

You don't understand, Pastor Steve.

Like, like what we're facing in society has never happened before.

This is this is crazy.

You know, like what's happening?

That things are just getting worse and worse and worse.

How do we cope with a culture that is, you know, headed in this direction, like we we don't even know what to do?

Like, no, well, let me let me back up here and say this if if you thought that.

Solomon made this statement.

He said, There is nothing new under the sun.

There is nothing new under the sun.

It happened in Jesus' day.

It says it in the Bible.

Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

How many think that's racism?

All right, racism! That's it.

It's in the Bible.

Yet we see that Jesus crossed racial boundaries.

Isn't that amazing?

Jesus actually helped us understand that every every issue, everything that we're facing in society right now, you can you can go to the Bible and you can find it.

You're like, not abortion.

This is new.

This has only been in existence for 60 years.

Um I beg to differ.

Because back in the Bible days, there was this idol that was worshipped named Molech.

And you know how they worshiped Molech, which is really it was a demon, the demon of Molech that they were worshiping.

And the way he wanted to be worshipped was offer your firstborn child on the altar.

So, no, no, it was yeah, yeah, we're talking about innocent children being sacrificed.

Nothing is new under the sun.

But point number two is this aren't you glad Jesus' acceptance goes beyond cultural boundaries?

In fact, Jesus fell right at home with the lowliest of society.

He was even called a friend of sinners.

He hung out with prostitutes, he hung out with drug dealers.

I don't know if there was drugs back then, but I can tell you.

He'd probably fit in right here in Colorado, wouldn't he?

I'm just messing.

A little too close to home.

Okay.

No, he he hung out with tax collectors.

He felt right at home with murderers.

He felt right at home.

He his vibe, he vibed well with cheaters, with liars, people that stole.

You know who he had a hard time with?

Church people.

He didn't vibe with the church community.

In fact, he called them a brood of vipers.

He called them snakes.

He's like, you brood of vipers, you think you think you're up here, you know, and all everybody else is down here.

You goody two shoes, you pious people.

In fact, about um, I don't know, a month ago or so, I I've been doing a series in our young adult um group on Tuesday nights.

And I've been going through uh the parables of Jesus.

And um one of the parables that I talked about was the parable of the great banquet.

And uh all almost all of the parables um they make this statement to start.

The kingdom of heaven is like, and then he'll tell a story, and some of them are long and some of them are short.

He might just say, you know, like a treasure that was in a field, and a man found it, sold everything that he had, and went back and bought the field, and so that he could have the treasure.

I mean, that's that's the whole parable.

Um, there's the parable of the sower, there's all kinds of parables.

But one of the parables that I talked about was the parable of the great banquet.

And I made this statement, and I think it got everybody a little nervous.

I said, Who do you think is the most unlikely person not to go to heaven?

And then we just started talking about it.

And some of the things that we talked about were like, you know, people, you know, that make porno videos.

You know, I mean, just the porn industry.

Those people are bad, bad, bad people.

Pimps, bad people.

Um drug dealers, bad people, people that kill people, bad people, people that cheat on their taxes, bad people.

And then all of a sudden it kind of, when we went back to the parable, I said, okay, so let's look at the people that the master who symbolizes God invited to the party and said, Come celebrate with me.

Come come to the banquet and come dine with me.

Just like Jesus said, Come to me, all you that are weary, come, come and feast with me, come, come, let me sustain you, let me have a relationship with you.

Say, come into my fold.

I'm the good shepherd and I'll take care of you.

And then he goes out and he sends.

How many of you have ever sent like an invitation with an RSVP and nobody RSVPs?

Isn't that frustrating?

You're like, how am I supposed to plan?

How am I supposed to plan for all these people that I don't know that are coming?

So he sends somebody in person.

Next time you want to see if people are there, go in person.

Are you coming?

That'd be a good one.

And one by one, the Bible says that these people started making excuses.

And here's the thing the excuses were not sinful.

One said, I had a bus, I have a business transaction on that day, and I can't I can't attend.

One of them said, I just bought a tractor and I have to go plow my field and make sure that the tractor's okay.

It was oxen, but I'm just making it current, okay?

I need to I need to go plow my field.

Then the other one, the last one, he says, I'm getting married on that day.

How many think that's a pretty good excuse?

Like, I'm getting married.

I'm going on my honeymoon.

Like this, this is I please, regretfully, tell tell tell the master I'm I'm just I'm just I just can't make it.

A devil and his three little you know, confidants, little demons, came to the devil and they said, Hey, we're we're trying to figure out the best way that we can come against Christians and we can tear this thing down.

And like you've been doing it all these years, and like help us.

We've we've got some ideas of how we can bring people down and and really just tear the church apart.

And so one of them said, Yeah, we got these this idea.

Let's tell them that there's no hell, that you can live however you want because there's no consequences.

And the devil looks and he goes, Okay.

Then the other one steps up, he goes, No, no, no.

He goes, how about this idea?

Let's tell them that there's no heaven, that there's no reward.

You know, they can live however they want because it doesn't matter.

And the devil stands up and he says, No, no, no.

He goes, I've tried all that.

He goes, the best strategy against believers is not no heaven, no hell.

Let's just tell them that there's no hurry.

You have plenty of time.

So in this sermon that I was speaking to our young adults, I said, you know who the least likely candidate to not make it to heaven is the church.

And it may not even be sin.

Our excuses may just be I'm too busy.

The longer you live around this thing, you might have grown up in church your whole life, never missed a Sunday service.

But we have to be careful because if not, we're just checking a list.

We're just checking the box.

I went to church on Sunday, I'm good.

In fact, Jesus goes on in another passage to say that someday we'll stand before God.

And God will sit on his throne and he will judge us, the real us.

We'll have no way to hide anything.

We can't wear a mask.

We can wear a mask here.

You may live your whole life and nobody really knows who you are.

I've met a lot of people that way.

Like that they they really will not let anybody, including God, really into the inner recesses, the deepest places of their life.

Said they'll stand before God and they'll say, What have you, what is your case?

Plead your case.

Well, I cast out demons in your name.

I uh I healed the sick.

I raised the dead.

Anybody raise the dead in this room?

No.

I mean, how many think that this is like a super Christian?

I raised the dead, and Jesus goes on to say, I will look at that person and say, but I never knew you.

I never knew you.

You can be doing all the right things on the outside and not yielding completely on the inside.

Why is it that Steve's always talking about being wholehearted?

I mean, you're like, man, get on another topic for goodness sake.

Like, come on.

But don't you realize it's everything?

Do you know how rare it is to find someone that allows you to see their whole heart?

When I counsel people, I mean, I can tell you the moment that they leave my door, sometimes I'm like, they're not gonna change.

They came in and conveyed because of my gift of discernment.

Like I'm a pretty discerning guy.

Like I'm sitting across and I'm talking now, none of you are gonna want to counsel with me, right?

You're like, I'm not going to that guy, I'm finding somebody else.

But I sit there and I'm like, this is just hot air.

Like, like you, you are conveying to me the person that you want me to see.

I'm not seeing the real you.

But Steve, all the time as he's saying, Hey, why don't you pull it back?

Why don't you open up your whole heart, even the troubled things?

And Jesus was constantly finding the whole hearted people.

He went met with the prostitutes, he met with the murderers, and they were like, he met with Zacchaeus.

Remember Zacchaeus?

He's like, Yep, I've cheated everybody.

I mean, can you imagine?

Like talking to somebody and they like literally give you all their dirty laundry.

He's like, Yep, I cheated everybody.

Yep, I killed people.

Yep, I'm a prostitute.

Yep, I'm those people are the people that Jesus vibed with because they were not concealers, they were real.

There's a story of the person that comes and he says, Lord, thank you that I'm not like that, you know, drug dealer over there, and thank you that I'm, you know, living a holy life.

And then the person comes in right after and he says, Lord, just help me.

I need your help.

I'm not doing so hot.

Can you can you please forgive me?

Can you help me?

Jesus loved those kind of people.

And that's why he went to this woman at the well.

He crossed the cultural boundaries.

So let's continue.

Verse 10.

Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God that was who and who was asking you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

Don't you hate it when people talk in the third person?

We had this uncle named Uncle Steve, and he's like, Yeah, Uncle Steve, he's got that good little jump hook, you know, and when we go play basketball with him, like, why don't you just say, like, I have a good jump hook?

Like, why do you have to say Uncle Steve has a good jump hook?

And this one time he had surgery, and we the whole family came around and he's like, Yeah, Uncle Steve.

Three hours after surgery, he got up and did a lap around the hospital.

And I'm like, you're such a dork.

Like, seriously, I'm like, why don't you just say I took a lap around the and what I began to realize, and maybe you've made this observation as well, people that talk about themselves in the third person most of the time think more highly than they ought to, right?

Okay, if you're one of those people, I'm sorry.

But I'm just saying, just talk about yourself in the first person, please, for the sake of all of us.

But here we have Jesus talking about himself in the third person.

He says, if you knew the gift of God, and who it was that asked you for a drink, you would have asked him, meaning Jesus, you would have asked him, and would have given, and he would have given you living water.

Here's Jesus talking about himself in the third person, but let me tell you, Jesus had every right to talk about himself in the third person.

What he was doing in this moment is he was conveying who he really was.

He was saying, you don't even realize that somebody more than a human is sitting before you right now.

In fact, he goes on at the end of the story, this is verse 25.

The woman says, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming.

And when he comes, he will explain everything to us, which is what Jesus has been doing in this whole conversation.

Then Jesus declared, I, oh, we've switched to first person, I, the one speaking to you, I am he.

I am he.

Wow.

This is incredible.

Absolutely astounding.

I am, why is it so so incredible?

Because through the bulk of Jesus' entire ministry, he never would tell anybody who he was.

In fact, just one chapter previous, he meets with a man named Nicodemus.

And Nicodemus, who's this religious leader, he looks at Jesus and he says, You gotta be him.

Come on.

Like, tell me who you are.

I mean, I look at the signs and I look at the wonders, I look at the healings.

You gotta be the guy.

And Jesus completely ignores him.

He says, Well, let me tell you, if you want to have life eternal, you must be born again.

Deflection.

All right.

In fact, he did it all the time.

People would get healed and he'd say, Don't tell anybody.

Don't tell anybody who did this.

He was always vague.

He was always deflecting.

He he never would come out and just say, I am the one.

I'm the guy.

If you believe in me, I'm the one.

The majority of his ministry, he was always telling parables.

Oh, you want to know who I am?

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that was buried in a field.

And somebody who found the treasure sold everything he had, and then went back, bought the field because he realized that he had just found everything.

Talking about himself.

Jesus is constantly deflecting.

But here's the crazy thing.

In Samaria, in a little village at a well to this little broken, down, messed up, troubled woman.

He sits alone with her and he says, I am the Christ.

I am the Christ.

I'm the one you've been looking for.

I'm the one that you've been longing for.

I know you found it in all these other, you tried to find it in other men and different relationships, he said, but but I'm the real deal.

I'm true love.

And I can give you water where you'll never thirst again.

And she's he's opening her eyes in a way that she's never experienced before.

She's like, what are you talking about?

That's what I've been missing.

Remember the rich young ruler that comes to Jesus, he said, I'm missing something and I don't know what it is.

He said, Obey the commandments.

He said, I've I've done that.

I've been in church my whole life.

I've been in church, I've done all the right things.

He said, But see, the problem is that there's a hook in your heart called money that you're unwilling to deal with.

You love money more than you love God.

The Bible says he went away sad.

But this woman, this little woman, looks at him and says, Wow, he is the Christ.

Point number three is this in dry and arid, and I'd also like to add weary times, Jesus will reveal to us who he is.

How many of you by raising your hand would say this?

Probably the deepest and most powerful encounters that I've had with the Lord was in a time where things were the darkest.

Things were the most difficult.

Raise your hand if that's you.

Isn't it amazing in those times how we we come to the Lord broken and he says, I still love you.

Even with all that you've done, even with all those bad decisions, even with all those mistakes, I still care for you.

I still have a plan for you.

And all of a sudden, the light bulb goes, you're like, well, I've heard all my life he'll never leave us or forsake us.

But it's in that moment that it comes on.

The light comes on, you're like, he'll never leave me or forsake me.

We focus on the leaving part, don't we?

He'll never leave me, he's always with me.

What about the forsaking part?

He'll never forsake me.

He'll stand by me even in the midst of my ignorance.

I'm reminded of the passage in Psalms that said this when my spirit was grieved and my heart embittered, I was senseless and ignorant.

I was a brute beast before you.

All right?

When I when I saw red and I flew off the handle, when I was just an animal, it says this, you were always with me and you hold me by my right hand.

Isn't that incredible?

He never leaves us, he never forsakes us.

He holds us in that image of a right hand.

Hold me by my right hand, that's what it says.

The image is that he pulls us close and he holds us this way.

He holds us, he holds us steady in that moment.

In our dry, in our arid, in our weary, in our most troubled times, that's when Jesus will reveal to us who he is.

Verse 11, Sir, the woman said, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

Where can I get this living water?

Are you greater than our fathers, Jacob?

You gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock.

Verse 13.

Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Verse 15.

The woman said to him, Sir, please give me this water so that I will never thirst again and have and have to keep coming here to draw water.

He told her, Go call your husband and come back.

Uh-oh.

Have you ever had Jesus call you out on something?

He just called out this woman.

Go call your husband.

And she replies, I have no husband.

Jesus said to her, and by the way, let me just say, I don't believe that he accused her.

He didn't have an accusatory tone in his voice.

I believe that he spoke in a tone of love and compassion.

You are 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 said is very true.

And then the story takes a turn.

Very important turn for where I'm talking about in the realm I'm talking about today.

And this is why I picked this passage.

Because he starts talking about worship.

Where did worship come from?

Well, you'll find out.

You know, a lot of people come in, they'll say, Yeah, I really love it.

I had this businessman at my church in San Diego.

He said, He said, Pastor, he goes, I really love when you like speak.

I love hearing you speak and everything.

I just I just can't stand that music part.

I'm like, really?

That's that's the part of the service that God enjoys the most.

That's the part God looks forward to.

When we actually stand and we don't look at each other, we look at him.

And we we worship him and we adore him and we thank him for what he's done.

That that's the part that God looks at, that looks for you.

That's that's when God comes to church.

That's when we invite him in.

Say, God, come join us, is in that part.

So this story takes a turn.

Sir, the woman said, I can see that you are a prophet.

Our ancestors worshiped, huh?

Our ancestors worship on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.

Verse 21, listen very closely.

Woman, Jesus replied, Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

The Samaritans worship what you do not know.

We worship what we do know.

For salvation is from the Jews.

Listen to this verse very closely.

Yet a time is coming and has now come on November 13.

Am I right?

2022, a time is here.

We can accept this as now.

When the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

For those are the kind of worshipers our Father seeks.

God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.

How many have heard Steve say this?

We're a spirit and word church.

Spirit and word church.

This is it.

We worship in spirit, but then we also worship in truth.

He said, worship and word, church.

One and the same.

Truth, the word.

We worship in the truth of God's word and with our spirits.

The last class to our graduates, I spoke a message about worshiping the Father, and I told the story of when I lost my father six years ago.

And um grabbed my phone, scrolled down, saw my dad's number, and realized I don't have a dad anymore.

I can't just call him up and ask him advice.

I can't just call him and see how he's doing.

God spoke something to me in that moment that I'll never forget.

He said, Brian, he said, let me be your father from now on.

He said, Let me father you.

So I asked the students at that last class, I said, What is the point of all this?

Why do we do this?

What is the point of the Bible?

What is this all about?

And then I told that story.

I said, you realize that from Genesis to Revelation, it's about one thing.

Adam and Eve are walking alone in the garden, and you realize Adam and Eve had no father.

They didn't have an earthly father.

But God the Father would walk alongside them.

He said, Let me tell you a little bit about who I am.

And then let me help you discover who you are, too.

But then all of that went away when they sinned.

And then all of a sudden, they're locked out of this relationship with their father.

And then from Genesis through Revelations, it's about how can I restore this relationship with my Father?

How can I know who He is and all He represents and all He does?

Number five is this God chases worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth.

Let me read this verse one more time.

Yet a time is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

Let me tell you something.

How many of you would say this?

I've had times in my life where I've tried to seek God and it seems like I didn't hear a thing.

I couldn't find him.

Raise your hand if that's true.

I think we've all been there.

Let me tell you, become a true worshiper, God will chase you.

Thank you for listening to the Warful War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

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