The ability to see, to perceive with the eyes. A field of vision. Sometimes we see clearly, sometimes we don’t. When we worship God we surrender our lives to His will. And in doing so, the fog begins to lift and we see clearly. What object has become the focus of your attention these days? For most of us the object of our attention is us.
“How will my financial needs get met.” “How will I meet my deadlines at work?” “When will my relationships get fixed?”
But what if it were never meant to be that way? What if God were really the only Object worth focusing on? What if our focus on His beauty made our problems pale in comparison? What if we were never meant to be the actors on center stage? What if we were meant to be the audience members, watching Jesus on center stage? Is that what true worshippers do? Is that what true worship is all about? So how’s your eyesight?
I don’t know about you, but there seems to be a never-ending supply of things that blur my vision; a continual bombardment of my senses that leave me with a foggy view of God; a siren call off of the high ground and back to the low. Ever since the fall of man, Satan has been devising ways and means to blur or distort our picture of who God really is. And he’s gotten very good at it.
He starts when you are very young, and utilizes adults in your life to distort your view of God: An abusive parent; A sexual predator; An impatient and harsh teacher who is supposed to be a Christian. Satan has endless ways or people to mess up your picture of who God is and what He is like because He knows that if he can mar the image of God when you are young, you will reject God as the answer to your search and you will look to any number of ways to fill the longing deep in your soul. And your vision grows blurry.
If he can’t succeed by marring the picture when you are very young, he’ll work on you in your teenage years through peer pressure, pop culture and hurtful relationships, all the while utilizing all of the tools he may have used earlier in life. He knows if he can derail you here, he can lead you down a road from which many never return. And a fog descends.
In young adulthood, he will continue to use relationships, work associates, your new-found legal status and freedom from parental restrictions to entice you, oftentimes out of curiosity, into places and situations where no Christian should find themselves. And the picture is marred still more.
And if that doesn’t work, if he can just marry you off to someone with a distorted picture of God, then they can work up close and personal on your picture. This human relationship often becomes paramount for how we view ourselves, and we take our eyes completely off of God and place them on our spouse and ourselves. And if one or the other isn’t refocusing on God on a consistent basis and helping the other to do the same, your world will shrink to just you and your immediate circumstances. And your picture of God goes more out of focus.
Later, when things just aren’t working out and you find yourself the victim of a cheating spouse or an abusive spouse or an admiring co-worker, your gaze shifts yet again, seeking a solution to the mess you find yourself in. Add young children to that mix, and you will suddenly become a tool in the hands of Satan to mar the image of God for the next generation. And on and on it goes with seemingly no solutions or way out of your predicament, because Satan has done a masterful job of hiding God from your view.
John Piper has observed, "Worship has to do with real life. It is not a mythical interlude in a week of reality. Worship has to do with adultery and hunger and racial conflict." True worship is a way out our predicament.
Craig Brian Larson reminds us of the time not long ago, when “the world watched as three gray whales, icebound off Point Barrow, Alaska, floated battered and bloody, gasping for breath at a hole in the ice. Their only hope: somehow to be transported five miles past the ice pack to open sea. Rescuers began cutting a string of breathing holes about twenty yards apart in the six-inch-thick ice.
"For eight days they coaxed the whales from one hole to the next, mile after mile. Along the way, one of the trio vanished and was presumed dead. But finally, with the help of Russian icebreakers, the whales, now named Putu and Siku, swam to freedom.
"In a way, worship is a string of breathing holes the Lord provides his people. Battered and bruised in a world frozen over with greed, selfishness, and hatred, we rise for air in church, a place to breathe again, to be loved and encouraged, until that day when the Lord forever shatters the ice cap." (Craig Brian Larson, Leadership, Vol. 11, no. 2)
The problem is, we have gotten a distorted view of worship as well. We’ve made it “me-focused” instead of Christ-focused. In Experience God in Worship George Barna observes the contemporary Christian's view of worship: "Most adults will contend that a Christian has a responsibility to worship God. However, when asked to define what worship means, two out of three are unable to offer an appropriate definition or description of worship.
"Even among the people who consistently attend Christian worship services, apparently for the purpose of worshiping God, the majority does not consider worship to be a 'top priority' in their lives. It need not be the top priority; but most of them do not even include it among a laundry list of top priorities."
He goes on to reveal the true motivation behind many American Christian's attendance at worship services. He says it's to "satisfy or please them, not to honor or please God" (p. 15).
We must be cautious of turning our worship and religion into a man-centered selfish pursuit. Worship has always been and will always be about God - whether we recognize it or not. For in the end "at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:10-11). -Preaching September/October 2002
Which brings us to this passage in scripture where Jesus talked about worship.
John 4: 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) 9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” 11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?” 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I 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 won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” 16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” 17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” 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.” 25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
Here’s a woman who has so had the image of God marred by bad choices and relationships that she has to come to the well in the heat of the day, instead of the morning or evening when it is cooler. When Jesus engages her in conversation she is stunned, and even more so when He tells her about her current living arrangements. But Jesus simply points out the obvious so that she will be open to seeing what is truly important. He is trying to restore to her a better picture of what God is like, and in so doing, gives us a very good picture of what God is looking for. True worshippers. Look again at verses 23 and 24.
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.”
Have you ever wondered what that meant? What does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth? In his book The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren notes, "Since worship is delighting in and enjoying God, it engages your emotions. God gave you emotions so you could worship him with deep feeling -- but those emotions must be genuine, not faked. God hates hypocrisy. He doesn't want a show, or pretense, or phoniness in worship. He wants your honest, real love. We can worship God imperfectly, but we cannot worship him insincerely.
"Of course, sincerity alone is not enough; you can be sincerely wrong. That's why both spirit and truth are required. Worship must be both authentic and accurate. God-pleasing worship is deeply emotional and deeply doctrinal. We use both our hearts and our heads.
In another place, in the same book, he says: “In our competitive world we’re taught to never quit trying, never give up, and never give in - so we don’t hear much about surrendering. If winning is everything, surrendering is unthinkable. Even Christians would rather talk about winning, succeeding, overcoming, and conquering than yielding, submitting, obeying, and surrendering. But surrendering to God is the heart of worship.
“Offer yourselves as a living sacrifice to God, dedicated to his service and pleasing to him. This is the true worship that you should offer.
“True worship -- bringing God pleasure -- happens when you give yourself completely to God.” (from Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Life)
Inspired author Ellen White, in her book The Desire of Ages, page 189 writing about this story says: He (Jesus) desired to lift the thoughts of His hearer above matters of form and ceremony, and questions of controversy. "The hour cometh," He said, "and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." {DA 189.1}
Here is declared the same truth that Jesus had revealed to Nicodemus when He said, "Except a man be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3, margin. Not by seeking a holy mountain or a sacred temple are men brought into communion with heaven. Religion is not to be confined to external forms and ceremonies. The religion that comes from God is the only religion that will lead to God. In order to serve Him aright, we must be born of the divine Spirit. This will purify the heart and renew the mind, giving us a new capacity for knowing and loving God. It will give us a willing obedience to all His requirements. This is true worship. It is the fruit of the working of the Holy Spirit. By the Spirit every sincere prayer is indicted, and such prayer is acceptable to God. Wherever a soul reaches out after God, there the Spirit's working is manifest, and God will reveal Himself to that soul. For such worshipers He is seeking. He waits to receive them, and to make them His sons and daughters. {DA 189.2}
will give us a willing obedience to all His requirements. Romans 12: 1,2 says:
1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern 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 perfect will.
True worshippers are those who don’t just offer a praise song. They don’t just throw a buck at the offering plate. They offer themselves as a spiritual act of worship. They become consumed with a passion for God. They are ones who are no longer being squeezed into the world’s mold. They don’t allow Satan to mar their picture of God through looking at the things of the world. Instead, they are being transformed through worship that renews their minds. How do you know if that’s you?
Pastor, author and speaker, Louie Giglio writes: "Follow the trail of your time, your affection, your energy, your money and your allegiance. At the end of that trail, you'll find a throne; and whatever, or whomever, is on that throne is what's of highest value to you. On that throne is what you worship." (Louie Giglio, The Air I Breathe)
What if God were really the only Object worth focusing on? What if our focus on His beauty made our problems pale in comparison? What if we were never meant to be the actors on center stage? What if we were meant to be the audience members, watching Jesus on center stage?
