True Worshipers
Randall Caselman
9/3/97
True Worshipers
At Jacob's well, Jesus gives us insight into what God expects as we worship Him. Using this well known narrative, let's examine what constitutes acceptable worship.
God desires to be worshiped.
God seeks those who will worship Him. Did you catch it?
God seeks. God is not just sitting around with His arms folded, drumming His fingers hoping that we will find Him and come to worship Him. God has intervened in human history:
• He sent his Son to save us.
• He gave us His word so that we can know Him and what
pleases Him in acceptable worship.
• He providently provides us opportunities to worship and
serve Him.
God continually pursues people. Will God run? Read the narrative of the prodigal once more.
Worship must be in spirit. Worship has more to do with what
god is like than with
what we like.
God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit. You see, God deals with us:
• In the realm of the mind,
• In the heart,
• And in the soul.
True worship is not some mindless ritual we go through...
True worship comes from the heart. Jesus said,
the first and greatest command is to love God with all the heart, mind, soul. So true worship will be in that realm,
In the spirit, in the place of the heart, in the mind. Folk,
mindless worship is neither true nor pleasing to God.
Worship is to be in the realm of TRUTH. There are three ways for us to understand what Jesus is saying here about what constitutes worship in truth.
• One is that our worship must be according to truth,
accord-
ing to what is right. We pay honor and respect to Him when we
worship according to truth, His truth from the Word.
• A second understanding of the word that is translated truth
is genuineness... Honesty. You see, true worship is be genuine,
honest, from the heart worship, and not hypocritical.
• Thirdly,
in truth worship, can also be understood as,
in Jesus
worship. Scripture tells us, Jesus is the way, the truth and
the life. Jesus said, there is no way to the Father except by Me.
Acceptable worship must be in the name of Jesus.
Worship takes priority of other activities. She came to the well to draw water, an important task. However, when she discovered Jesus, that task was delegated to second place.
Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? Come this Sunday, what will take priority over our worshiping Him in spirit and truth?
True worshipers are motivated to serve. When we understand that Jesus is a prophet, priest, king, savior, God in the flesh; we will serve Him by telling others.
They said to the woman, We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world.
Jesus is telling us that
true worshipers, worshipers that God seeks, are those who will place a priority on worshiping Him from the heart and in truth, in genuine honesty through His Son Jesus.
—
Randall Caselman
