Worshipping Jesus in Word and Action.

Steve Gentry

[0:07] Welcome to Village Church. [0:09] If this is your first time here, my name is Steve, one of the pastors here at Village [0:12] Church. [0:12] And as always, I am thankful and grateful to see each and every one of you. [0:17] If you have a Bible, go ahead and open it to John chapter four. [0:20] We’re going to be starting in verse 19 this morning as we kick off a five week summer

[0:26] series talking about the issue of goals, of setting a path for ourselves to get to where [0:34] God has designed us to go. [0:38] The key is that every one of you has some sort of goal, or you have at least at some [0:43] point in your life set goals, whether you’ve reached them or not. [0:46] That’s a different story. [0:48] But you will never get where you want to go until you measure where it is that you are

[0:54] going. [0:55] You will never be able to live the life that God has designed for you to live, to step [1:02] into the future that God has designed for you to step into until you realize where [1:08] it is that God would have you to go through faith in Jesus Christ. [1:14] When we as a team were being trained to start Village Church, when we were going through [1:19] what’s called church planter training, we spent a great deal of time talking about what

[1:25] our vision for the church was, and we had to go through all sorts of exercises to write [1:30] vision statements. [1:32] What these are are statements that kind of say this is what we believe the future is [1:39] going to be for our church. [1:41] So it’s always written with a future tense in mind as to where it is that you want to [1:47] go.

[1:48] And so in that, we also kind of were forced to develop these vision statements for what [1:54] would the lives of the people of Village Church be like if they committed to following Jesus [2:01] Christ? [2:02] So if you start at point A, which is really coming to faith in Jesus Christ, then you [2:06] define point B as a fully devoted follower of Christ. [2:11] What is the process going to look like for a person to get from point A to point B?

[2:16] And how do you know and can you know what it looks like for someone to get towards point [2:22] B? [2:23] And I believe that the scripture has given us great indicators and has given us great [2:28] vision as to what it looks like to become a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. [2:34] And so for the next five weeks, we’re going to spend some time kind of telling you what [2:39] our pastoral vision is for what you need to become as a follower of Jesus Christ, what

[2:46] it will look like for you to put into practice what a faithful follower of Jesus Christ would [2:53] look like. [2:53] And from your perspective, it’s going to look a lot like being in God’s will. [2:59] The way that a lot of people look at being in the will of God is they’ll ask questions [3:03] as to what type of career should I be in if I’m going to be in the will of God? [3:08] What type of spouse should I marry or who should I marry if I’m going to be in the

[3:13] will of God for my life? [3:15] And you kind of make all these indicators that measure your life from a very human centered [3:22] perspective, trying to find the will of God for your life, when in reality, the scripture [3:28] points us to measure the will of God in our lives very differently. [3:33] Being in the will of God looks like a life of obedience to the scripture. [3:39] It looks like a life of faith and following Jesus.

[3:42] It looks like having a passion and a pursuit in your life of giving God glory through the [3:50] gospel of Jesus Christ with everything that you have. [3:53] And if you’re pursuing those things, all that other stuff, quite frankly, tends to fall [3:59] into place. [4:01] The decisions that you make about things that you think are big in your life tend to be [4:07] more natural because your thoughts become more like the thoughts of Jesus.

[4:12] Your life becomes more like the life of Jesus. [4:15] And the power that you live under tends to be less about you and more about God. [4:22] And ultimately, we cannot start a series like this until we deal with the foundational [4:29] issue of a life of worship. [4:31] And so if you’re becoming a fully devoted follower of Jesus, quite frankly, you will [4:36] be worshipping Jesus in word and action.

[4:40] That is the future that God is calling you to step into. [4:44] But we have to ask ourselves very importantly, what does that actually look like in everyday [4:50] life? And I think Jesus, of course, helps us understand this. [4:55] And I think a great passage that helps us is John, Chapter four. [4:58] In John, Chapter four, Jesus has a conversation and it’s a very famous conversation with [5:03] the woman at the well.

[5:05] It’s a married woman. [5:05] And Jesus was thirsty. [5:07] And at that time, you went to a well to get some water. [5:11] Jesus goes to the well and a Samaritan woman happens to be at the well at the same time [5:15] he is. Now, at that point, a Samaritan and a Jew did not engage in conversation very [5:23] frequently and have it be less than contentious.

[5:26] It was not normal. These were two people groups that stayed away from one another. [5:30] The Samaritans hated the Jews. [5:32] The Jews hated the Samaritans for a whole list of reasons they were separated by a [5:39] lot of hostility. [5:40] And so it’s very strange that Jesus interacts with this woman more than just a hello. [5:46] But instead, he actually looks to her and begins to delve into her life.

[5:52] And Jesus begins to tell her everything about her personal life. [5:56] He just lays it right out in the open for her. [5:59] And then in verse 19, we get her response to what Jesus has said. [6:03] And here’s what Jesus and the interaction with Jesus looks like. [6:07] The woman responds to Jesus and says, Sir, I perceive that you’re a prophet because [6:13] he told her things that he told her things that he shouldn’t have known without

[6:18] knowing her. [6:21] And Jesus looks to her and says, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on [6:27] this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. [6:32] You worship what you do not know. [6:33] We worship what we know. [6:35] For salvation is from the Jews.

[6:38] But the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the Father [6:43] in spirit and truth. [6:45] For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. [6:48] God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth. [6:53] The woman said to Jesus, I know that Messiah is coming who is called Christ. [6:59] When he comes, he will tell us all things.

[7:03] Jesus responded to her and said, I who speak to you, am he. [7:09] The central point that Jesus lays down in this passage, number one, this morning is [7:13] that the Christian life is about worship. [7:16] The Christian life is about worship. [7:19] Worship, then, is the ultimate goal of the Christian life. [7:25] If you are going to understand what it means to follow Jesus, what it means to live a

[7:30] life in relationship with God, you have to begin with the issue of worship. [7:36] The simplest definition of worship is actually the definition for worship. [7:40] It means to ascribe worth to something. [7:43] To put it very simply, it means living out how much something is worth in your life. [7:50] You make value judgments every single day. [7:55] You invest your life, whether we’re talking about money, whether we’re talking about

[7:59] time, whether we’re talking about energy or talent or anything, whatever it is that you [8:06] invest your life in, that is something that is worth something to you. [8:11] And everything ultimately boils down for most of us to one chief thing that we are [8:18] putting the most investment in. [8:21] If I were to look into your life and I were to measure the things that you invest all [8:26] of your life in, I could very quickly find out what matters to you.

[8:32] I could very quickly find out what’s the most valuable thing in your life, because [8:37] it’s the thing that you invest the most in. [8:40] Well, when you do that, you’re making a value judgment. [8:43] You are judging that one thing is more valuable than another thing. [8:48] If I choose to invest my time in this rather than that, what I’m saying is this is more [8:56] valuable to me than that is.

[8:59] And you spend every single day of your life making value judgments. [9:06] Well, worship is the issue of what is the most valuable thing in your life. [9:14] And the question that all of us need to be confronted with and will ultimately, by the [9:18] end of this sermon, be confronted with is if you are a follower of Jesus, you have [9:24] already made a verbal statement, a profession of faith saying Jesus is the most valuable [9:32] thing in my life.

[9:33] The question, though, about worship is, does your life actually reflect the faith that [9:41] you profess in Jesus? [9:42] If I was to look at what you spend the majority of your life or motivation is concerned [9:49] investing in what I walk away saying, Jesus Christ is the most important thing to that [9:56] person, because the foundation upon which every goal of the Christian life is built [10:02] on is worship.

[10:03] The reason that you obey the commands of God is because you believe it’s worth obeying [10:09] the commands of God. [10:10] The reason that you came to church this morning, it was a value judgment. [10:13] It’s better than not going to church, even if you came here because you misunderstand [10:19] what it is that we’re doing here or because someone made you come here this morning. [10:23] You believe that something is worth actually being here for.

[10:29] It is a value judgment. [10:31] Some of you, your kids are going to make you make a value judgment as soon as you walk [10:36] out of these doors because you have a decision. [10:38] Do I want my child to be miserable or do I want to stay and let them jump in the bounce [10:42] houses?

[10:44] I’m hoping you’re going to do the right thing, mom and dad. [10:48] I know there’s a dad in here. [10:49] You’re going to try to make the wrong decision. [10:52] There’s something at home that you think is more valuable. [10:54] Don’t do it, friend. [10:56] Stay.

[10:57] Trust me. [10:58] Just eat some Pringles, drink some soda. [11:01] Watch him jump in the bounce house. [11:03] It’s a value judgment. [11:05] And in John chapter four, Jesus has a conversation with the Samaritan woman and he [11:09] actually is dealing with the issue of location of worship.

[11:15] The Samaritans and the Jews hated each other to the extent that there was a kind of a [11:20] culture in both places where you would say no one in Samaria can worship God in Samaria. [11:28] You can’t do it. [11:29] And then the Samaritans believed because they hated the Jews. [11:32] No one in Jerusalem can worship Jesus in Jerusalem. [11:36] It just can’t be done.

[11:37] Those people are so despicable. [11:40] They’re the worst. [11:41] You can’t possibly do that. [11:43] And so the woman at the well engages Jesus and she says, where can you worship God? [11:49] My people say we have to do it on this mountain. [11:53] But you believe and she confronts Jesus with his Jewish identity up against her Samaritan

[11:58] identity. [11:58] She says, what you believe is that you have to worship God in Jerusalem. [12:04] So where is it? [12:05] What she’s doing is she’s drawing a line by saying, can you and I interact with one [12:11] another? [12:12] Because you’re going to have to do it according to my rules.

[12:16] And that is the value judgment that many of you put on your worship of God. [12:21] You believe that God has to cater to your will. [12:25] You believe that God has to make worship palatable to what your preferences are, to [12:32] what your senses are. [12:34] And so sometimes you’ll go to a church and you’ll be like, oh, the music wasn’t hitting [12:37] it.

[12:37] You know, I didn’t feel it. [12:38] I didn’t have this emotional tug on my heart. [12:41] And so I’m going to go to this other church and I’m going to try to feel worship at that [12:44] church. [12:44] And if I don’t feel worship right at that church, then I’m going to go to this other [12:47] church.

[12:48] And I’m at that church for a minute. [12:49] Man, I felt it. [12:51] But then a new worship pastor came that I didn’t really like. [12:53] And so I’m going to go try this other church. [12:56] So that’s what the Samaritan woman was doing. [12:58] She’s confronting the Son of God.

[13:01] Now, imagine this. [13:02] God is right in front of you and you’re trying to tell God, here’s my preferences. [13:08] Here’s where I’ll worship. [13:09] Here’s how I’ll worship. [13:10] Here’s the people that I’ll gather myself with for worship. [13:14] Tell me I’m right or we’re just going to have to part ways.

[13:17] What was worship about to the Samaritan woman? [13:20] It was about her. [13:22] This man centered philosophy in her life is how she measured what worship was. [13:29] But the deal is that many of you have convinced yourself that that’s not how you [13:34] measure worship. [13:35] But the fact of the matter is, is when we’re measuring what worship of God is, you

[13:40] have to ask yourself how much of it is based on what God has said and how much of it is [13:45] actually based on what I simply prefer because of what I like. [13:51] The key is when you reduce worship to topics other than who God is and what God is doing, [13:59] you reveal that your definitions of worship are man centered rather than God centered. [14:04] And the scriptures as a whole from Genesis to Revelation drill down the reality that [14:09] the issue of worship is about the human posture toward God before it is about anything

[14:14] else. Psalm 29 to does a great job of summarizing really the entire Bible where worship is [14:21] concerned. Here’s what it says. [14:22] Ascribe to the Lord the glory do what my preferences? [14:27] No. His name worship the Lord in what the splendor of holiness or his holiness. [14:35] It’s about God rather than us. [14:37] Worship is about understanding God’s greatness, God’s glory and God’s holiness.

[14:43] Worship is about aiming your life in the direction of what God has done and what God [14:49] is doing in this world through you, not for you, but through you. [14:57] The Samaritan woman was wrong because she assumed worship was centered on her identity. [15:04] She assumed worship was centered on her ethnicity and she assumed worship was centered on [15:09] her preferences. But in John 421, Jesus reveals that God is not limited by location. [15:17] His he didn’t rather and doesn’t just own Samaria or Jerusalem.

[15:23] God is the God of every square inch of this world and beyond. [15:26] And this is why Jesus came. [15:30] Jesus came on a mission to redeem us from our inability to worship. [15:36] Jesus came to redeem us from all of the obstacles we put up to worship. [15:40] Jesus came to redeem us from our wrong instincts about how worship needs to be more about [15:47] our love language and our feelings more than it does about his glory, his holiness and

[15:54] his righteousness. [15:56] Worship is you reflecting on God. [15:59] It is not God submitting to you. [16:02] But for many of you, you can’t imagine a God that doesn’t think exactly like you think. [16:08] For many of you, you can’t imagine that God is not exactly like the person that stares [16:13] right back at you in a mirror.

[16:15] You can’t imagine that God would call you out of your preferences. [16:19] You can’t imagine that God would call you out of your routine. [16:22] You can’t imagine that God would call you out of what comes natural to the life that [16:27] you have built. And you certainly can’t imagine a God that would call you out of all of [16:32] the bad habits that you have formed in order to show how great his glory is, how great [16:38] his righteousness is and how great his holiness is by changing the core of who you

[16:45] are. When Jesus looks at the woman at the well and he says God is looking for true [16:50] worshipers, Jesus is confronting her with the reality that the core of who she is and [16:57] everything that she finds natural in this world is going to need to change if she’s [17:02] ever going to spend her life in pursuit of worshiping God. [17:07] Friend, the reality is, is that in redeeming us from our inability to worship, and I don’t [17:12] think this is an overstatement to note that the root of our inability to worship is in

[17:17] the sin that grows from pride. [17:19] Friend, if you really think about what sin is, all sin is ultimately rooted in pride [17:25] because pride is ultimately an attempt to steal glory from God for yourself. [17:31] When you disobey God at any level, it is a statement that you know better than God [17:37] knows. And that is pride. [17:40] When the Samaritans, when the Jews, when any other people group in the world sought

[17:46] to reserve worship for themselves based on who they were instead of who God is and what [17:52] his mission in the world is, they robbed God of worship. [17:56] That is why ultimately, when you believe that your lived experience, when you believe [18:02] that your lifestyle or when you believe that your experience as a person is how worship [18:09] should be defined or you think that you have a greater understanding of what worship [18:13] should look like because of the life you’ve lived, friend, that is nothing more than

[18:18] pride. No form of any type of critical theory is ever going to help you grow in your [18:22] worship of God because he has made worship about himself, not about us. [18:27] And he’s already given us the explicit instructions as to what his worship is to be [18:33] like and what his worship is to be for. [18:35] And faith in Jesus then reorients our worship away from ourselves and towards God. [18:43] Jesus gives you the ability to aim your worship in the right direction.

[18:48] Friend, when Jesus died on the cross for your sin and then he rose from the dead to [18:53] give you a new life, he showed truth. [18:56] He also gave us the power of his spirit. [18:59] Therefore, everything that we get wrong, we can now get right. [19:03] Every wrong direction that we have aimed to worship and stolen from God and stolen from [19:09] his glory can be pointed in the right direction.

[19:12] But how? Number two, you can only worship a God that you know and love. [19:17] You can only worship a God you know and love. [19:19] It’s not complicated. [19:21] It’s difficult, but it’s not complicated. [19:24] It’s a very simple formula as to the type of worship that God is looking for, the [19:29] type of posture that I have to make.

[19:31] But it requires a deep change in the core of who we are. [19:36] And it begins with understanding your relationship with God to grow in worship. [19:41] You can only grow in worship at the level that you know God and love God. [19:47] I mean, think about it. [19:48] Relationships are built on knowledge.

[19:51] Primarily, imagine I’ve been married for a number of years, coming up on 16 years as [19:59] married. And the reality is, is that the first date that I went on with my wife, I [20:04] remember we went out for coffee. [20:06] It’s a very simple evening. [20:08] And I knew right then and there that I wanted to go on another date. [20:12] I’ll be honest.

[20:13] Wasn’t this moment in my life where I was like, we’re going to get married. [20:17] I’m smarter than that. [20:19] Some of you aren’t. [20:20] That’s why you’ve had a lot of problems in your life. [20:23] But I knew I liked her. [20:24] She’ll tell you this.

[20:25] She’ll tell you the same thing. [20:26] She’ll agree with me. [20:27] I knew I liked my wife. [20:28] I knew I wanted to spend another time with her. [20:30] I knew that I was attracted to her. [20:32] I knew that I liked her.

[20:33] I knew I wanted to get to know her more. [20:34] I didn’t know anything beyond that. [20:36] So I set out on a mission to get to know her by spending time with her, having [20:43] conversations with her, having a background check run on her, hiring a private [20:49] investigator to look into her past. [20:51] No, I’m just kidding.

[20:52] Or am I? [20:54] Some of you should do that. [20:55] All right. [20:56] The older you are, the more there is to know. [20:58] All right. [20:59] Just saying.

[21:00] I’m just saying some of y’all are a little late in life in the dating pool and a [21:04] private investigator wouldn’t be a bad investment. [21:07] Amen. [21:08] But if on that first date with my wife, I had made the decision, I like the way I [21:19] feel about her right now. [21:21] I don’t want to get to know her any more than this, but I’m going to be with her

[21:25] forever. [21:27] We would have run into a lot of problems in the future, wouldn’t we have? [21:30] Of course we would have because I would have just been projecting onto her what I [21:36] want her to be like rather than actually getting to know what she is like. [21:43] Some of you though have done that in your relationship with God. [21:47] You came to him.

[21:49] You liked all the benefits that he had to offer. [21:52] Who wants to go to hell? [21:54] You like that. [21:56] But whereas investing and actually taking the time to to receive his revelation [22:01] from his word, whereas taking the time that it would actually take to actually [22:05] experience the movement of God through the power of the Spirit in your life.

[22:10] You’re just going to live your Christian life based on the way that you felt at [22:14] first. [22:15] But then, as you know, that’s how a whole lot of false doctrine can come up in your [22:20] life. [22:21] But the Proverbs tells us that zeal without knowledge leads to ruin.

[22:27] You need to spend your life in pursuit of knowing God for who he is the same way [22:35] that every successful marriage at least has in it two people who are desperate to [22:42] get to know one another more. [22:46] The key to your relationship with God and the key to worship is that you can only [22:50] worship a God that you know. [22:53] Jesus looks to this woman and he says true worshipers worship in two ways in

[22:58] spirit and in truth. [23:01] The spirit we’re going to get to but we have to start there. [23:03] The spirit is about the core of who you are. [23:07] It’s about the bed of affection in your life. [23:11] It’s about what really matters to you. [23:14] It’s about what you value.

[23:17] Truth is where that knowledge piece comes into play. [23:21] You can know someone and not love them. [23:25] Did you know that? [23:26] I know a lot of you. [23:28] I don’t love all of you. [23:31] All right.

[23:31] I know a lot of people and I know a lot of people pretty well and I love some of them. [23:38] I love all of them. [23:40] But here’s the deal. [23:42] You cannot begin to love anyone that you’re not also growing in knowledge of. [23:48] That’s not the way love works. [23:50] Love is about affection for who someone actually is and making the decision making the

[23:57] commitment. [23:58] I will grow in my knowledge of who you are because knowing who you are brings me great [24:06] joy and choosing a path of getting to know that person. [24:12] Knowledge of God friends protects you from believing lies about God. [24:19] Fact of the matter is that there have been so many people in my life that have decided [24:23] that they love someone.

[24:24] And then once they got to know them, they said, I’ve made a terrible mistake. [24:29] Some of them are pretty serious and some of them are pretty comical. [24:32] I remember when I was in college, I was in dorm leadership at my college. [24:36] So every year a new crew of freshmen would come in. [24:40] Have you ever noticed that the freshman class is like 10 times bigger than the [24:44] graduating class?

[24:45] There’s a reason for that. [24:47] So one of the things that I was tasked with in dorm leadership is kind of helping [24:51] freshmen kind of kind of acclimate to a university atmosphere and helping them not [24:57] fail miserably at college. [24:59] And didn’t always work, but sometimes it did. [25:02] And oftentimes people would come to me.

[25:04] It’s like it’s day one, semester one, class one, lunch one, you know, and they come [25:11] and they say, I’ve met the one. [25:15] Without fail, every semester there was at least one guy. [25:21] That would say, she’s the most incredible woman I’ve ever met in my life. [25:26] And you’re like looking at them and just to look on their face, you start to wonder if [25:30] they’ve ever met a woman in their lives.

[25:33] It’s like, it’s a look. [25:34] You’re making me uncomfortable by the look on your face, bro.

[25:39] But without fail, by the end of the week, they were repenting of everything, saying [25:46] she ain’t the one. [25:48] She’s nuts. [25:50] All right. [25:50] Every time without fail, that was the experience. [25:53] Friend, you cannot immediately love someone that you don’t know the truth about, because

[25:59] if you just feel a certain way, you will lie to yourself about who that person actually [26:04] is. Isn’t it great that in God’s grace, he doesn’t leave us in the dark about who he [26:10] is. He has not been secretive at all about who he is. [26:15] He gave us his word. [26:17] He’s given us his son. [26:18] He has been so abundantly clear about who he is and a Romans one.

[26:23] The apostle Paul says, go outside. [26:25] Look at the wonder of creation that screams to you. [26:29] There is a God. [26:31] But more than that, he’s been specific. [26:33] He told us his name. [26:35] He’s told us what he cares about.

[26:37] He’s told us what he loves. [26:39] He’s told us about his future. [26:42] But more than that, he sent us his son to live the perfect life we can’t live, to die [26:47] the sinner’s death that we deserve to live and to raise up from the dead so that we [26:52] could have a new life and relationship with him. [26:55] We don’t have to be in the dark about who God is because he’s been so abundantly

[27:00] vocal and knowledge of God grows as your love of God grows. [27:07] Some of you might think that you love God, but you love him because of what you think [27:11] you can get out of him. [27:13] So long as your relationship is just built on a quid pro quo, it’s never going to be [27:19] as healthy as it could be where you just are for that person. [27:24] And some of you have kind of a cosmic quid pro quo going with God, where it’s just like,

[27:28] OK, God, you give me what I want and I promise I’ll give you what you want. [27:33] That’s not love. [27:34] That’s the type of love that Satan tried to tempt Jesus with in Luke chapter four. [27:39] Look at what Satan tried to tempt Jesus with in Luke four, starting in verse five. [27:43] The devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment in time [27:47] and said to Jesus, to you, Jesus, I will give all this authority and their glory, for it

[27:53] has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. [27:58] If you then will worship me, it will all be yours. [28:01] You might think to yourself, that doesn’t sound right. [28:04] That’s because Satan’s a liar. [28:06] Verse eight, Jesus confronts him with his lies. [28:09] Jesus answered him and said, Satan, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your

[28:15] God and him only shall you service from Deuteronomy. [28:18] You see, this is the God that people without Jesus love and worship. [28:24] Satan offered Jesus the things of this world in exchange for worship. [28:29] Jesus responds with the truth. [28:32] You see, friends, to exchange the worship of God for the worship of this creation [28:35] reveals that you don’t know the truth about God.

[28:39] But this is the faulty journey that many of you pursue every day in your life. [28:45] You believe that you will get ultimate satisfaction if you just get one more dollar. [28:51] You believe that you will get ultimate satisfaction if you just get that spouse. [28:56] You believe that you will get ultimate satisfaction if you just get that degree, if [29:00] you just get that job, if you just run that race, if you just reach that goal weight, [29:05] if you just if you just if you just.

[29:07] But every indicator of satisfaction that you think will give you the life that you’ve [29:12] always dreamed of is always something of this world. [29:17] Friend, don’t you understand? [29:19] That’s exactly what Satan tried to tempt Jesus with. [29:22] But Jesus looks back at him and Jesus doesn’t just correct his theology about God. [29:27] He’s also making a statement as to what you were designed for.

[29:31] The reason that when you pursue the things of this world and all the pleasure that it [29:36] promises you, you ultimately will come up bankrupt is because you were designed to be [29:42] in a relationship with God primarily above absolutely everything else in this world. [29:48] In Exodus 3, 14 through 15, God reveals himself to Moses and notes that people need to [29:54] know the history of God. [29:55] So starting in verse 14, God said to Moses, the Tetragrammatron, I am who I am in

[30:00] English, that’s Yahweh. [30:02] And he said, say this to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to you. [30:07] God also said to Moses, say this to the people of Israel, the Lord, the God of your [30:12] fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you. [30:17] This is my name forever. [30:19] And here it is. And thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

[30:25] Ever wondered why in the Old Testament, God frequently says that he’s the God of [30:29] Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. [30:31] It’s because God wants you to know his history. [30:35] God wants you to know who he is. [30:38] God wants you to know what he has done. [30:40] And in light of all of that, he wants you to reflect in worship of who he is.

[30:46] Worship is built by remembering the move of God in this world, as well as in your [30:52] own life. Friends, never forget the history of God’s work in this world and also [30:58] build a resume of exactly how he has worked in your life. [31:03] And that will build a life of worship. [31:06] We worship through remembering what God has done. [31:11] We grow in our knowledge through the memories that have been passed down for

[31:16] thousands of years. [31:17] Therefore, knowing scripture is vital to worship. [31:21] But for some of you, you look at that second part where you build a resume of how [31:26] God has worked in your life and you might respond and say. [31:31] But I don’t have anything. I’ve never experienced a move of God. [31:36] I’ve never really looked and seen God do anything that I didn’t have another

[31:40] explanation for. And the key to that is what are you investing your life in? [31:46] If you believe that the God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, the God of [31:50] Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God who parted the Red Sea, the God who slew Goliath, the [31:55] God who built his kingdom, ultimately for Jesus Christ to be born out of the people [31:59] of Israel to redeem humanity from sin. [32:04] You look at that God and you say, I want to know him.

[32:08] Then you must make the decisions to put yourself in environments to experience the [32:14] life of God. But so many of you are making decisions and making commitments that take [32:20] you out of those environments where you can grow in your relationship with God. [32:26] Worship reflects what God is worth in your life. [32:30] And for some of you, he is not worth your time. [32:34] Therefore, you don’t invest your time in discipleship.

[32:37] You don’t invest your time in the word of God. [32:39] You don’t invest your time in prayer. [32:41] And if anything comes up before Sunday morning, you don’t invest your time in the [32:45] life of the church. [32:46] When you don’t invest in God, the key is you’re not going to get to know God and [32:51] you’re not going to put yourself into environments where God has actually worked.

[32:58] You have to spend time getting to know God just like you would have to spend time [33:03] getting to know someone else. [33:05] If you’re married, you probably wouldn’t have gotten to the point of marriage if [33:09] every time there had been an opportunity to go out on a date or to spend time with [33:13] the person that is your spouse. Now you look at them and said, no, I’ve got [33:16] commitments that are keeping me other places.

[33:19] That’s not how a relationship is built, but that’s often how many of you treat [33:23] your relationship with God. [33:25] And on the other end of it, you complain that you’re not experiencing the life of [33:28] God. Well, you’re not going to experience him if you’re not giving any time to him. [33:33] Number three, this morning, the reality is that your choices determine your worship. [33:38] Some of you realize that you have to choose your way into a life of worship, but

[33:44] unfortunately, many of you are choosing your way out of a life of worship. [33:50] A life of worship demands commitment. [33:53] In John 4, 24, Jesus states that God must be worshiped in spirit and truth. [33:59] He doesn’t say one avenue of worshiping God is spirit and truth. [34:04] No, he says this is the way. [34:06] This is it.

[34:08] If you’re going to be a worshiper of God, first, you have to be a true worshiper. [34:13] And to be a true worshiper, you have to worship God in spirit and in truth. [34:19] You can know God, but have no zeal for God. [34:23] And that is dangerous as well. [34:25] That spirit, that core of who you are, that bedrock of affection in your life. [34:32] When you come to faith in Jesus, God infuses the core of who you are with the power of

[34:39] his Holy Spirit. [34:41] Therefore, the spirit of your life is energized to live a life towards God, not away from [34:48] God. And so for many of you, you don’t want to be confronted with the reality that the [34:54] reason that you’re making decision after decision after decision that takes you away from a [34:59] relationship with God is that your spirit isn’t for God. [35:04] You know God, you know all the facts about God, you know who Jesus is, you know that

[35:08] he died on the cross, you know that he rose from the dead. [35:11] You might even have enough knowledge to say, I think he did it for my sin, but I want to [35:14] go to hell. I want to go to heaven. [35:17] Truth. But true worshippers don’t just worship God and truth. [35:24] It has to have spirit. [35:26] It has to have the core.

[35:28] It has to have the bedrock of affection in your life. [35:32] Worship emerges from the core of who you are and it affects every part of who you are. [35:39] It comes out of you and changes why you do things. [35:44] And yes, it will also change the things that you do. [35:48] It is anchored in truth always, but you must learn who God is in order to grow in that [35:53] relationship aspect.

[35:54] Look at what Paul says about this in Romans 12. [35:57] He says, I appeal to you, which means I beg you or I ask you emphatically. [36:03] Therefore, because the first 11 chapters of Romans is true, because of all that God has [36:10] done in the gospel, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living [36:15] sacrifice, wholly unacceptable to God, which is what? [36:18] Your spiritual worship.

[36:21] I believe Paul is writing a commentary in this passage about what John 4 lived out looks [36:26] like. What he’s saying is that since God has been so good to us by his mercy, by his [36:33] gospel, through Jesus, he’s given us so much through the gospel that we give our whole [36:40] lives to him. [36:42] That is what it means to present yourself as a living sacrifice. [36:46] Some of you think sacrifice and all you think about is death, all that you think about is

[36:51] But Paul isn’t saying that God is requesting that you come and die for him. [36:56] That is what Jesus has done for you. [36:59] Jesus has done the dying part. [37:02] He calls it a living sacrifice because God is inviting you to come and live for him. [37:11] That’s the only acceptable way. [37:13] And what does Paul call that?

[37:14] He calls it worship. [37:16] What God demands in response of what he has given is worship, and that worship will not [37:22] happen by accident. [37:24] You must make the decision to give your life to Jesus Christ. [37:30] Nobody goes to bed at night, selfish and just magically wakes up the next morning. [37:38] Says, my goodness, I’m a living sacrifice.

[37:43] I went to bed selfish, woke up a living sacrifice. [37:46] I have no idea how it happened, but I’m glad it did. [37:49] I didn’t have to do anything to make that happen. [37:51] It just happened. [37:51] Change of mind, magical overnight. [37:53] That’s not the way it works.

[37:55] You have to make a decision. [37:57] You have to make a value judgment. [37:59] You have to have a value judgment in your mind. [38:01] Jesus is so great and he has done so much. [38:05] And I treasure his grace through the gospel at such a level that I will gladly give. [38:12] My life to him.

[38:15] There’s a key word in that text, and it’s the word present. [38:20] Friend, you have to present your life to God. [38:25] You must present yourself to God. [38:28] You must choose this. [38:29] Worship is about a choice, and you will either choose your way toward a life of worship [38:35] or you will choose your way away from a life of worship.

[38:38] Again, the apostle Paul in Colossians three, verse 17 says it this way. [38:42] It says, whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, [38:48] giving thanks to God the Father through Jesus, through him. [38:52] Paul submits that in everything that we do, if we’re worshiping, we will do it for the [38:58] name of Jesus as a thank you to God. [39:02] Doing something in the name of Jesus is an idea of representation.

[39:07] The way that I live shows the validity of my worship for Jesus. [39:11] Every choice I make matters. [39:13] But notice the text does not say and whatever you want to do in word or deed. [39:20] See, I think that’s how many of us read it. [39:24] And so we just go about our lives naturally, instinctively with all of the habits that [39:29] we formed apart from Jesus, all of the goals that we have apart from Jesus, all of the

[39:33] patterns that we have apart from Jesus. [39:35] And then if it works out, if we get success, then we just kind of brand it in the name [39:40] of Jesus. Lord, it worked. [39:42] Thank you. In the name of Jesus. [39:44] It’s like an entertainer that has no concept of Christianity. [39:47] I think first off, I got to think Jesus.

[39:50] But the key is that that phrase, whatever you do in the original language, it is a [39:57] limiting phrase. [39:59] It is a phrase that carries with it a deep set of presuppositions from the totality [40:05] of all scripture that has this idea. [40:09] God has a definition of what it is that he wants us to do. [40:15] And when we form our lives around what it is that he wants us to do, then in word or

[40:22] deed, we are living for the glory of God. [40:25] There’s this presupposition there that there is a type of lifestyle that has word and [40:31] deed that God feels is a big thank you to him, because we all know that there are certain [40:37] decisions and certain lifestyles that cannot give God glory. [40:42] Therefore, there must be specificity to it. [40:45] To worship God in spirit and truth means that we live our lives pursuing the vision that

[40:50] God has given us in scripture. [40:52] It means that in the core affection of what we are passionate about, our greatest desire [40:59] is to know God and to love God by obeying him in every single way. [41:06] Worship is no trivial matter. [41:09] Worship takes intention. [41:12] Worship is not a flippant action that we do as we just walk through life, living as

[41:18] we see fit. [41:19] Worship means that the core pursuit of what we want and what we commit to is so that [41:26] we can live out the memory of what God has done so that we will walk into the future [41:32] of what God desires to do through us. [41:36] You have to choose it. [41:39] And Jesus points us to the path that we must choose for application points.

[41:47] First, you become like what you worship. [41:51] You become like what you worship.

[41:56] Are you intentionally seeking to build a life in which you are becoming more and more [42:00] like the Jesus Christ of scripture? [42:03] If you are not, you will not become like him, but you will become like something. [42:08] You may even become like the most successful person in the world, but becoming a success [42:13] does not guarantee that you will become like Christ. [42:16] Becoming a nice guy does not guarantee that you will become kind like Christ.

[42:22] Secondly, your affection for God is related to your knowledge of God. [42:27] Your affection for God is related to your knowledge of God. [42:30] Some of you desperately need to commit time to getting to know the truth of God at a [42:36] deeper level. [42:38] Thirdly, your commitments reveal what you are worshiping. [42:42] Your commitments reveal what you are worshiping.

[42:45] The key for all of you to understand is that you can lie to me. [42:49] You can fool me. [42:50] Many people have. [42:52] But ultimately, you’re not going to stand before me in judgment. [42:56] God knows the truth of your heart. [42:59] God knows where your affections are.

[43:02] And the great tragedy of our day is that many of us have convinced ourselves that we [43:08] have affection for Jesus while we live a life that shows we have no affection for Jesus. [43:13] The tragedy is you will stand before Christ one day and he knows the truth of who you [43:18] are. [43:20] Fourthly, Jesus redeems us to a life of worship. [43:24] He redeems us.

[43:26] All of you have failed and will fail. [43:29] All of you have sin in your life. [43:31] The good news is that Jesus Christ paid the ultimate penalty for you robbing God of his [43:38] glory. [43:39] Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for that. [43:41] And then he rose from the dead to empower you to become a true worshiper.

[43:49] The great question is, is that the life that you want? [43:53] Every Sunday, we reflect on all that Jesus has done for us through what’s called the [43:59] Lord’s Supper or communion. [44:01] And the seat back or in the seat as you came in, there should have been a packet on the [44:05] top. [44:06] There’s bread that represents the broken body of Christ.

[44:09] And the cup is juice that represents his shed blood. [44:13] When you eat and when you drink, you profess to everyone in this room, I believe the gospel [44:19] of Jesus Christ. [44:20] He is my Lord and Savior. [44:22] I am following him. [44:24] Friend, if that’s not you this morning, if you’re not a follower of Jesus or you’re

[44:28] sitting there, you’re like, I don’t know if I’m a follower of Jesus. [44:31] Don’t feel bad about this, but but don’t eat and drink. [44:34] I don’t want you to feel like you have to lie this morning. [44:37] Instead, I want you to consider the truth of who Jesus is and what he’s done for you. [44:43] Fact is that you have sinned against a holy and righteous God. [44:48] And God loves you to the extent that he sent his son to die on the cross to pay the

[44:52] penalty for your sin. [44:53] And then he rose from the dead to reconcile your relationship with the father and to [44:58] give you the life that God has designed for you to have for eternity. [45:02] If you will turn from your sin and put your faith or trust with your life, Jesus [45:09] Christ, he will save you right here and right now, forever. [45:15] Give your life to Jesus Christ.

[45:18] But if you are a follower, eat, drink, proclaim your faith.