I would like you to turn your Bibles this morning to John chapter 4.
! And as we get started, thank you John.
I want to remind you that while I preach, you have a very important responsibility, and
that is of praying.
I mean, the Scriptures make it undeniably clear, and I am ample testimony to the reality of
the truth that we have this treasure in earthen vessels.
There it is.
And as a result of that, I am heavily dependent, as any man who preaches the Word of God is,
upon the enabling of the Spirit of God and the prayers of God's people.
I want you to pray for me this morning.
I want you also to pray for a friend of mine whose wife is dying of cancer who's a pastor.
He's preaching this morning, and as I texted him this morning and let him know that I pray
for him, there are a number of pastors that I pray for every Sunday.
I don't know how that would be.
I don't know how I'd do it, apart from your prayer.
I know of another pastor that is preaching this morning in a congregation that is torn
up because their senior pastor fell into sin.
And the associate pastor has received the responsibility of preaching for the next six weeks.
Can you imagine what that would be like to come to a wounded people?
I pray for him.
I have another pastor friend whose life has been challenged by family matters and not of
his own making.
So needless to say, I pray for him as well, right?
I can't do all that and preach.
So I need you to help me.
A random fact, I found out that in space, you can't cry because your tears can't flow without
gravity.
The only downside is in the absence of oxygen, I wouldn't have much to say for very long.
So we'll have to live with who I am until I get to heaven.
But let's go to the book.
That's why we're here, isn't it?
John chapter 4.
I'll tell you, I love the book of John.
I don't know about you, but I love it.
I remember reading it at one point in my studies.
And about a year before I began actually preaching on John, I spent the entire year
morning by morning spending about an hour reading through the scriptures and reading through
the book of John.
That's all I did for one year.
And studying on the side so that when I came to the book of John, at least I had some grit
in the system to work with.
And I remember one of the commentators said that John is a profoundly edifying book for the
believer.
In fact, you just can't read through the book of John and not end up thinking, as I do,
it's like, man, this is the best passage.
It's like every Sunday.
Yeah, it is.
It's great.
It's a good one.
And it's a profoundly evangelistic book.
You can't be in the book of John without sensing the heart of the Lord Jesus for lost
mankind.
And man, when we get fired up with who he is, we end up caring about the things that
he cared about.
Makes sense, doesn't it?
And so, as we get caught up with the person and the work of Christ, it means ending up
having a desire for the things that he cares about.
There's a passage in Galatians chapter 4, verse 19.
Just curious.
A little quiz here.
How many of you, without looking at it, know Galatians chapter 4, verse 19?
Anybody here have even the faintest idea of what Galatians chapter 4, verse 19 says?
My little children in whom I labor and prevail, in other words, I'm going through birth pains
again, until Christ be formed in you.
That's a shepherd's heart.
That's what a pastor cares about.
The thing that a pastor cares about is, number one, people coming to Jesus.
That makes sense, doesn't it?
And number two, that people grow to be like Jesus.
And Paul says, man, I am going through those birth pains again until I want to see you grow
to be like Christ.
And so, as I preach through the book of John, one of the desires of my heart is this, is that
the things you think about will begin to kind of migrate from where they are a little bit
to being kind of obsessed and kind of caught up with Jesus.
Jesus.
I am a Facebook lurker.
How many of you know what a Facebook lurker is?
I pay a lot of attention to your posts.
And it's all right to share recipes with me.
I don't mind that.
And I like to know about when your babies are born and, you know, all those good things.
They're all good.
Vacation pictures are instructive.
But you know what?
Honestly, the thing that I would love to see grow to be a characteristic of our fellowship
is that the thing we talk about the most is Jesus.
Do you follow that?
You won't talk about who you don't know.
And my shepherd's ambition is that our study in the Scriptures will give you a growing affection
for the lover of your soul.
Now, here's why I love him.
John chapter 4, verse 15.
The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here, draw water, and draw water.
Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and come here.
The woman answered him and said, I have no husband.
And Jesus said to her, You are right in saying you have no husband, for you have had five husbands,
and the one you now have is not your husband.
What you've said is true.
The woman said to him, Oh, sir, I perceive that you're a prophet.
Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
There are a couple things that I want you to see in the passage here this morning that we are going to study together,
beginning there in verse 19.
And I read the earlier portion just to kind of frame it for you a little bit.
But I want you to understand that this passage gives us a picture of the heart of Christ that earlier in chapter 4,
we read where it says that he must needs go through Samaria.
His affection and his interest in lost mankind led him to this well where he ended up having a conversation with a Samaritan woman who had come at noon.
Very unusual time to go draw water in the heat of the day.
We understand as the text outfolds or folds out before us that here was a woman who was not well liked by her community,
whose lifestyle was one of sinful, self-serving sexuality.
And here is Jesus who relies upon that little question, Hey, go call your husband, or a little statement.
And she says, I have no husband.
And Jesus says, You're right.
You know, basically you've been involved in serial adultery.
Living with a man, marrying him, leaving, marrying, leaving, marrying.
And now you're just kind of shacking up.
And the result of that was that she was convicted.
She felt uncomfortable.
Now when we're uncomfortable in the face of sin, guess what happens a lot of times?
Probably nine out of ten times we've had to just dodge away from the discomfort.
I remember having a person come to our church.
I'd had conversation with this individual.
In fact, they called me out of the clear blue.
Clear blue.
Picked up the phone and called Maranatha Baptist Church and got me as a pastor.
And they wanted to talk to me.
And they said, I'd like to be baptized.
That was the starting statement.
And I said, Man, I'm glad you asked.
I love to be part of baptizing people.
I said, Well, the obvious question is, Do you know Jesus?
Well, I'm hoping that getting baptized helps me know Jesus.
I said, Hold it, hold it, hold it.
Let me explain something.
Baptism is a little bit like a wedding ring.
I'm getting mine off here.
This wedding ring does not make me married.
But it lets everybody know I'm married.
Baptism is a public declaration of a work that God's already done in a person's heart.
Make sense?
And this person, conversation played out.
They showed up to church the next two or three weeks.
I ended up in their home.
Had another opportunity to share the sweetness of the gospel with the individual.
And in our course of conversation, they said something to me that was very, very instructive.
They said, You know what?
I've been coming to church week after week.
And every week I feel worse.
I said, I'm not trying to do that.
It's not like, you know, when I wake up Sunday morning and I do wake up.
And I pray Saturday night.
I pray Sunday morning for the opportunity of preaching the gospel this morning.
And I don't lie there in bed and think, Oh, today.
I really want to make people feel bad.
But here's the truth.
You know, a doctor that loves you says to you, You have a nasty skin cancer there on the side of your face.
You may not have seen it, but there it is.
And I've got good news for you.
I can cut it out and save your life.
Well, you say to the doctor, Thank you.
Thank you.
Go ahead.
Chop it off.
And this guy was saying, You're really making me feel very bad every Sunday.
Well, Jesus said, Go call your husband.
Oh, and didn't feel very well.
And so here's what you can learn.
You can learn.
Expect diversions.
As soon as Jesus had finished reflecting on this Samaritan woman's sin, she did her very best to change the conversation.
Now, if you look back and we find her conversation in three pieces.
First, be careful with this, but I think there is a kind of a flirtatious tone when the Samaritan woman thinks Jesus is kind of hitting on her.
And then when Jesus says, Go call your husband, her conversation suddenly goes right down to just, I have no husband.
Now, after Jesus says the next part, she says, Oh, sir, I perceive that you're a prophet.
Now, the implication is you know things that the normal people don't know.
I mean, here you're a Jew just hoofing it on your way up to Galilee, and you stop at this well, and we have this first-time encounter.
And out of that, you're the one who says to me, Go call your husband.
And then you say, You had five, and you're living in sin with somebody else right now.
And you see, here was this woman who had grown quite accustomed to her sin and her manipulative lifestyle.
And when her sin was brought into the white hot light of the holiness of God by Jesus' question or statement, she was very unsettled.
And she was the common path.
What did she do?
She then asked a theological question to this Jewish prophet.
That's who she thought she was dealing with.
And it really had to do with this business of where people worshipped.
Worshipped.
Should we worship with our hands folded and kind of very staid?
Have you ever been around people that worship like that?
I mean, you know, they're just, you know, it's like they're almost room temperature.
And they're just really kind of holding it all in.
You know, it's like.
Now, the same people when they're at a basketball game and their kids are playing, you have to have them tamped down a little bit, right?
But that's because they're not worshipping there.
Anyway, here's this girl, and she's uncomfortable with Jesus getting into her life.
And so she says here, look at the passage, verse 20.
Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
She imagined that this Jewish prophet would go after that little theological question like a dog after a bone.
In Deuteronomy chapter 12, and we don't need to go there, just kind of track with me.
God had made it clear that Old Testament worship was to take place in a particular place, in a particular way that he had appointed.
You go to Jerusalem, and there you offer sacrifice.
And the Jews understood from clear indication of many Old Testament prophecies and statements about the significance of the Levitical system of sacrifice, etc.,
that Jerusalem was the place to worship.
And so here was this Samaritan woman saying, hey, let me see if I can get you sidetracked here, Jesus,
from you're making me feel uncomfortable about my nasty heart.
But let me see if I can take you aside on this one.
Where should we worship?
You know, my family, we'd be doing this thing in Mount Gerizim, and you Jews, you're all about Jerusalem, but where's the real place?
See, after released from Babylonian captivity, many Jews had returned, or not many, but a remnant had returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple.
And when they came back, the Samaritans in the area, there were Jews who had stayed behind and had intermarried with pagans
and had kind of gone off on their own and not really walking with God or His law.
When the Jews came back to build the temple, they came back and said, hey, let us help you.
And they said, no, you have nothing to do with this.
And they were really irritated, and they marched off to a mountain over in Samaria, Mount Gerizim,
and they built their own temple, and they did their own thing, and they worshiped their own style.
Have you ever heard the idea that we all get to heaven just doing our own good?
I mean, you're doing the best you can.
No.
Jesus made it very, very clear.
I am the way, the truth, and the light.
Can anybody help me with the rest?
What?
Nobody gets to the Father but through me.
There's only one way.
Now, either Jesus was a pathological liar, and He was not telling the truth when He said that,
or there is only one way to God.
And so we hear this girl trying to sidetrack Jesus a little bit, and He doesn't go for it.
So I want you to understand something.
When we are engaged in ministry, and we're really bringing the sweetness of the gospel to people's hearts,
the first part of the gospel is bad news.
I'm a sinner, and I can't save myself.
And I'm in trouble.
And when that reality touches the heart of people, it's understandable that they're uncomfortable.
And what she thought she'd do is kind of divert attention.
So sin makes sinners uncomfortable and prompts attempts to change the focus.
Can I tell you good news?
Sometimes when you're engaged in ministry with people, and the conversation gets to the point where they're uncomfortable
and want to change the focus, sometimes it's just a good little signal that the Holy Spirit is at work
doing a convicting work that you can't do.
Can I convict people of sin?
The answer is no.
All I can do is say, here's what God says.
The Holy Spirit is the one who does the convicting.
And don't be surprised if diversions happen in the process of ministry.
Just bear with it.
Let's look at a second lesson we want to learn from Jesus here.
Be clear.
The woman says to him, hey, our fathers worshiped on this mountain.
Jews worship over there.
So what's it going to be?
I love the fact that Jesus is not PC.
Now, you got my...
Well, you know, just so long as you're doing your best,
I remember a TV interview.
I forget who it was.
Larry King, I think it was.
You know, he's of a different generation, I suppose.
Now he's gone and gone.
But, you know, I remember when Larry King interviewed Joel Olsteen.
I mean, he's got 23,000 people that come and listen to him week by week.
That must be an affirmation of the guy's success and of the significance of his ministry.
Well, anyway, Larry King said to Joel, I think this case, he said, hey, so are Hindus going to heaven?
You know, I mean, well, you know, Joel with his southern accent.
Well, I don't know, you know.
Yeah, they're doing their best.
You know, here's the truth.
This girl tried to get Jesus sidetracked and he wasn't PC.
He didn't waffle.
But he mixed grace with truth.
And I want you to pay attention to this.
Because I think the order is important.
Okay?
Look at his answer there.
Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
And what he was saying is this.
When he says the hour, the hour, the hour.
And if you were to kind of track through the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
you would find this issue of the hour referring over and over again to the fact that there was an appointed time when Jesus would become the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
He would die on the cross in our place.
And that was the hour.
And he says, hey, I've got good news for you.
The hour is coming when this business of worship will neither be on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
And he was referencing the fact that the day was coming when at his death, the Old Testament system of sacrifice and the Old Testament instruction of sacrifice would be taken away.
And Jesus Christ would be the once for all offered sacrifice for sin.
I want you to turn in your Bible just for a moment to a very interesting little text in Luke 23, verse 45.
Luke 23, verse 45.
In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we have the same account, interesting, that all the gospels spend most of their time talking about the crucifixion week
and particularly the crucifixion of Christ because in the scope and plan of history, it is the defining moment of redemption.
When God sent his son to be the sacrifice in my place, Jesus died my death.
He died your death.
And there is no better news in the world.
And when Jesus died, here's what happened.
The curtain of the temple was torn in two.
Now I want you to understand what the temple curtain represented.
It represented the division between the rest of the temple and the Holy of Holies where the high priest, only the high priest, went in once a year to offer sacrifice for the sins of the people.
And he would go in to the Holy of Holies to represent the broken hearts and the sinfulness of all of the nation of Israel.
He would go in having, first of all, offered sacrifice for his own sins.
And if we were to step over into Hebrews, which we're not going to do this morning, we would find that in Hebrews, the author of Hebrews hammers home this point that Jesus offered once for all the sacrifice to pay for all of our sins.
How in the world?
Let's kind of play this out.
If I back into your car and after we're done with all the social courtesies, oh, I'm sorry, it's not a problem, pastor.
Don't worry about it.
Then what we do is what next?
We ask a polite question.
Do you have insurance?
Do you know why we ask that question?
Because we would like a remedy for our injured car.
We want restitution.
Isn't that right?
Don't worry about it.
I'll take care of that myself.
It's all right.
You know, $1,800 for the bumper, you know, tire change.
There's all kinds of things going on with even the minors little scratch.
And so every time I back into your car, you're probably going to ask me the same question.
Now, about three or four times in, you can be sure that the insurance company won't give me a good answer to give you.
Go find someone else.
But here's the point.
Every sin deserves some kind of payment.
And Jesus, being infinitely God, paid for all of the sins of all of the world.
And when he died on the cross, he satisfied the judgment of God against all sin.
All sin.
And the curtain was torn from top to bottom announcing the debt is paid.
Pretty good news, isn't it?
Why do I have confidence that when I die, I'm going to heaven?
It's not because I've been a pretty good person.
It's because Jesus died in my place.
And I have confidence that his death accomplished the work of redemption and satisfied the judgment of a holy God.
And I know that because he rose from the dead.
Amen.
See?
It's victory.
And so Jesus here, he says, hey, listen, it's not about a place.
Because the day is coming.
And look at what it says there in verse 20.
21.
The hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
Now, that you is plural.
A little tricky business here with Greek.
But it's announcing that it's not just this woman, but it's all of her tribe.
She was a what?
Samaritan.
And Jesus was saying, good news.
It's not just the Jews who are going to be saved.
It's the Samaritans who also believe in Jesus.
And I want you to understand that what is being said here is that the privilege of relationship would be for all believers of all races because of Jesus.
Why is it that I can share freely the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ with every person in the world and have confidence that they can receive the gift of salvation?
It's because Jesus died for all mankind.
I want you to notice, secondly, however, that Jesus didn't soft sell the truth by dodging the woman's question.
Look at verse 22.
You worship what you do not know.
Now, is that a very political way to answer the question?
I mean, how many of you have ever listened to a politician?
I mean, turn on the news.
It's almost more than I can bear because it's an exercise in how best can I not tell the truth about my emails or whatever else is happening in the moment.
You know, it's like, well, you know, and off we go.
And so here's Jesus.
He cuts right to the chase.
You worship what you do not know.
What's that sound like?
What you're doing is not good.
You're not just ill-informed.
You don't know who you're worshiping.
I mean, if you had asked a Samaritan priest, do you know who you're worshiping?
When they were, you know, whatever they were doing, they were bowing and they were clapping and they were waving incense or whatever else.
Do you know who you're worshiping?
No, not really.
No, they would have said, of course I do.
Jesus says, you don't know what you're doing.
And he was very pointed in making it clear.
Look at this passage.
We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews.
In the Old Testament, listen to me and understand this.
In the Old Testament, the only way a person could come to faith that was of eternal significance was to believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and to become a Jew.
One of the arguments of the early church in Acts chapter 15, there were a lot of Jews who, after Jesus died and went back to heaven and the apostles began their ministry,
They were pretty upset when the apostle, Paul, began ministering to Gentiles.
These are people that were uncircumcised, right?
These are people who didn't have the right haircut, right?
These are people who didn't wear the right clothes and they ate the wrong kind of food.
You know, it's like really off the charts.
And the Holy Spirit made it clear that you didn't have to become a Jew to be a believer.
Prior to the coming of Christ, the only way a person got to heaven was by following in faith the commands of God in the Old Testament.
And so what you find here is Jesus made it very clear that he is the only way to heaven.
When he says, look at verse 22, it says,
In the old time, salvation is of the Jews, 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.
And so what we need to understand as we look at this passage is here is Jesus.
Jesus, the woman asks him a question to kind of dodge conviction and he deals right up front with it.
I want you to know good news.
The day is coming when you don't have to be a Jew to have faith.
But he says, at this time, it's still a matter.
Hey, the matter of the Old Testament law and its expectations of sacrifice in hopes of what Jesus would some days do is a responsibility that the Old Testament saint had.
So let's look at the last statement that we find there in John in relationship to the matter of salvation.
You look there in verse 23, it says,
The hour is coming and now is here.
It's now.
When true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.
So let me help you understand that what Jesus did, he dealt with the diversion, he answered her theological question,
and now what he did is lift up God's grace.
He lets her see the hope of salvation.
So look with me and notice several things in verses 23 and 24.
Number one, now's the right time.
Now's the right time.
Now's the time.
And I want you to understand it's still the right time.
I have no doubt that there are some of you sitting here today that need Jesus every bit as much as the woman at the well did.
In fact, that's one of the things that fires me up about preaching about Jesus.
Do you know that?
I know that we live in a messy and broken world all over.
And the truth of the matter is that on occasion, there's some that God brings into this fellowship and gets to hear us just sing our hearts out.
Isn't that nice?
Sing our hearts out.
And then gets to follow us as we open up the book.
And always when we're talking about the story of Jesus, we can't help but get around to the fact that Jesus came to save sinners.
And there's some of you sitting here.
By the way, the main reason, well, not the main reason, but one of the reasons, one of the things that I hope happens as a result of preaching the gospel is that most of you don't sweat a lot about getting people to come here to hear the gospel.
Can I say that slowly?
I know this is a little edgy.
But I am not so interested in you dragging people here to hear the gospel.
Can I say that again?
I am not so interested in you dragging people here to hear the gospel.
I'm interested in you being the gospel out there.
And all God's people said, amen.
So when you walk out of here, what are you going out there to be?
Everybody smile.
Everybody wake up.
Everybody think I'm talking to you.
I am.
You're going out there to be Jesus' representative, right?
That's what I breathe for.
Okay.
Now, the right time.
Secondly, the Father is seeking worshipers.
Now, I love the fact that Jesus came looking for us.
The truth of the matter is, is the Bible makes it undeniably clear that every one of us, we're walking in the darkness of our own hearts,
willingly engaged in our own sin, doing our thing.
And by the way, when you're just doing sin without any check in the hard work of the ministry of the Spirit of God,
do you know how dark and deep things can get?
It can get messy, can't it?
And here is Jesus seeking out this woman.
It says, he must needs go through Samaria.
And he met this woman at the well, and he reached out to her.
And what he said to her is, listen, the Father is seeking.
I am a person who believes in the sovereignty of God, drawing people to salvation.
But at the same time, I also believe that Tim Knoyer, with his mouth, ought to be saying,
Jesus is looking for you.
And my job, I don't know who's going to be saved, but I do know what my job is.
It is letting people know Jesus loves them.
Listen to what it says there in the last part.
God is Spirit.
I want you to put your finger on that.
Go ahead.
Put your finger on that statement.
God is Spirit.
What does that mean?
It means he's bigger than you.
He's not localized.
It's like God's out in our parking lot.
There he is.
You want God?
He's moving.
You better go.
God is Spirit.
I mean, God's big.
He's bigger than you can imagine.
God is Spirit.
God is awesome and glorious and supremely worthy of all of our adoration and affection.
I want you to think about that just for a moment.
God is supremely worthy of all of your affection and adoration.
Here's how it is.
1 Corinthians 10, verse 31 says this.
Whether you eat or drink.
How many of you understand that eating and drinking are pretty basic things?
Do you follow that?
There are some of you thinking right now, eating is important.
I hope pastor will stop in the next four and a half minutes because my stomach is talking to me.
Forget it.
But Paul says this, whether you eat or drink.
Getting down to the very basics, he says, do all to the glory of God.
In other words, I breathe to make Jesus look good.
Is that why you breathe?
If you're a child of God, he saved you, not just to give you fire insurance, but to help you become a living, breathing representative of the Lord of glory.
And there are people that you bump into every day that are desperate.
Some of them know the mess they're in.
All you have to do is say, how are you doing?
And it just kind of, what happens?
Oh.
And so I want you to understand that the fact of the matter is, is that God is spirit and those who worship him, those who worship him, must worship in spirit and in truth.
True worth ship.
That's what the word worship means.
Showing the worth of God must be in spirit and in truth.
And I want to just press this together and make two statements about it.
Well, three.
Number one, true worship involves our spirit.
And what it's saying is that it's not just, it's just talking about all that we are.
How many of you, I'll just use this as an illustration.
No, I won't use that as an illustration.
I'll go over on this side.
No, I won't go there either.
Here we go.
How many of you, when you're watching a very important football game, find yourself kind of leaning in?
How many of you do that?
Or, you know, we're caught up in the moment of the event and, you know, or the other day someone was playing the piano and they were just putting their heart into it and I hit a little spot and my body got kind of tense.
How many of you, you know what I'm saying?
And, you know, especially when you care about saying, you're there.
You know.
What it's saying is that I'm connected.
And the point is, is that if you are worshiping God, all that you are is really engaged in that process.
Agreed?
Years ago, Howard Hughes died.
He was an early billionaire.
He was a mess.
And when he died, he owned a lot of casinos in Las Vegas.
And the business manager for Howard Hughes came to the casino owners and said, listen, in respect to Howard Hughes, I want a moment's silence on the pit, on the floors.
And they grumbled, but they did it, you know.
And here's how it happened.
And as the pit boss was watching his watch, all right, everybody be quiet, no gambling.
The hands went around.
And when the big hand got over to the top, the pit boss leaned in and said, roll the dice.
He's had his minute.
That's not worship.
If the only time you engage in the supremacy of God is when you arrive here and you let him have one hour, you're fooling yourself.
True worship means that who he is consumes and controls who we are.
Hmm?
I worship all the time.
Sadly, sometimes it's me.
The other night, I'd come home from a very full day.
Of course, that's an excuse for being godless.
I mean, I understand that, just so you understand.
I'd come home from a very full day, and my wife, you know, she wanted me to carry some things.
At 66, I liked to carry things less than I did at 56.
And I got a little surly, a little crabby.
And my wife said to me, that's unbecoming of a saint.
I was like, what?
You're talking to the pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church?
What are you doing?
I mean, can you understand that?
That's unbecoming.
What she was reminding me of is that, hey, for a guy who talks about worshiping Jesus, suck it up and carry that chair.
And do it with a smile.
Right?
True worship means that who he is consumes and controls who I am.
Finally, true worship involves his truth.
There it is.
There in the passage, it says, those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.
Were it not for the revealed word of God, we would be doomed to worship the ill-formed imaginations of our wicked hearts.
Do you understand that?
Isaiah chapter 50, verse 20, the psalmist says this.
He says, you thought I was exactly like you.
Do you know why we have such a hard time believing that God loves us despite who we are?
Hello?
It's because we struggle with doing that with everybody else.
What have you done for me lately?
God loves us unconditionally.
And that just kind of blows our little pea brain mind because we're struggling with,
God's got to be something like me.
A jerk most of the time, you know?
And so, if we are worshipers in truth, we worship the truth that he tells us about who he is.
And so, any place that professes to worship God and doesn't rely heavily upon this book to inform what true worship is.
Remember what I said earlier?
That our singing is informed by the word of God.
Right?
It's like musicians who say, standing around, you know, orchestra.
Where's Jeff?
Jeff, where are you?
There you are.
Jeff.
You know, it's like orchestra members who stand around saying, I love Beethoven.
Man, Beethoven is, he is a phenomenal, he's a, what a musician.
And I love his music.
And you have never played a note of Beethoven.
You're just a hypocrite.
You're a phony.
If you love Beethoven, guess what?
You play his music.
Make sense?
If you love Jesus, you play his music.
Am I right?
And by the way, listen to me.
When you're playing the music that Jesus wrote, other people notice.
Because they can't figure you out.
I mean, everybody, everybody understands bad Mondays.
Everybody understands the broken world we live in.
And when you, because you've had your heart touched by the glory of the cross, you've had all your sins forgiven, you know for certain that when you slip from this place of heartache, you are going to see Jesus face to face.
You live with the hope and the expectation of the promises of Christ.
And other people know it.
And so let me close.
Let me close.
The answer is repentance.
And trusting in Jesus.
There are some of you here today that for the first time you hear the gospel that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
And where you sit, you are convicted of the darkness and the burden of your soul.
And I want you to know Jesus died to pay that price.
And he offers you everlasting life.
Do you know what?
Truth of the matter is, gospel preaching is intent on putting people on the spot of saying yes or no to God.
Let's pray.
Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord.
Lift up the glory of Christ.
That the redeemer of lost and fallen mankind would be exalted among our midst today.
By decisions that we make that reflect the fact that we have heard the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the word of God through an earthen vessel.
And Christ has been lifted up as the hope of a fallen world.
In Jesus' name, amen.
John is going to lead us in our singing.
And as we are singing, let me encourage you.
There are some of you here today that may be prompted by the Spirit of God to say, hey, this is where God wants me to connect.
Stand.
This is where God wants me to be part of the family of God.
And you need to be part of a family.
I can't tell you this is the place, but you've got to be somewhere.
Remember, there are some of you here today that need Jesus as your Savior, and today is the day of salvation.
Remember Jesus said, now is the hour?
This is the time.
You don't need any more persuading.
Your life doesn't need to get any nastier for you to be convinced that you need someone else to help you.
And here's the truth.
Here's what the Bible says.
Whosoever believeth in him shall not be ashamed.
I can't think of a better verse in the Bible.
Romans chapter 10, verse 11.
Whosoever believes in him shall not be ashamed.
You want to walk out that door having confidence that there's no reason for you to be ashamed the rest of your life.
It won't happen if you don't trust in Jesus.
Now, we're going to sing.
And don't let your pride stand in the way of what you need from Jesus.
Let's sing together.
By the way, lift it up and blow it out, right?
Let's sing together.