YOU NEED TO GET IT RIGHT

excerpt from the pulpit
John 4:19-26
Jesus reveals that questions over where we worship are not as important as how and why we worship. Toward the end of the Book of Hebrews the writer explains, let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him (Hebrew 12:28 TEV)    .
That is our objective this morning. To discover from these words of Jesus how to worship God in a way that will please Him. We can observe from this passage that the kind of worship that pleases God has our characteristics:
- GOD IS PLEASED WHEN OUR WORSHIP FLOWS FROM BEING SAVED
- GOD IS PLEASED WHEN OUR WORSHIP IS SCRIPTURAL
- GOD IS PLEASED WHEN OUR WORSHIP IS SPIRITUAL
- GOD IS PLEASED WHEN OUR WORSHIP IS SACRIFICIAL


 GOD IS PLEASED WHEN OUR WORSHIP FLOWS FROM BEING SAVED, John 4:22
Worship linked to salvation. This is the most profound truth we can learn about worship. Only those who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour can truly offer worship that is pleasing to God.
Fast forward to John 4:39-42, you will get the clearer subject of discuss, the Samaritans of that village worshiped no more in ignorance.

GOD IS PLEASED WHEN OUR WORSHIP IS SCRIPTURAL, John 4:23
Worship that pleases God must be scripturally accurate display of ignorance. Occasionally someone will say to me ‘I like to think of God as..’ and then they go on describe a god they have created in their own image that they worship. The bible has a word for this approach, its called idolatry. Worship must be based on the truth in the scripture.
Jesus acknowledged that there are two kinds of worshipers - true worshipers and by implication false worshipers. They do so in spirit and truth, extreme conviction of whom God is based on the understanding of His words.
Our faith is based on the progressive revelation of the person of God to us daily.

GOD IS PLEASED WHEN OUR WORSHIP IS SPIRITUAL, John 4:23-24
When Jesus said we must worship in Spirit, he wasn’t referring to the Holy Spirit, but to your spirit, our innermost being. That is why only those who have been born again and made alive by the Spirit can worship in a way that pleases Him. We are to worship with our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind.
Rick Warren wrote ‘God is not interested in half-hearted commitment, partial obedience, and the leftovers of your time and money.’
Spiritual worship engages the whole persons including our emotions.

 GOD IS PLEASED WHEN OUR WORSHIP IS SACRIFICIAL, John 4:28-30
What the Samaritan woman did involved great sacrifice. Sacrifice to her pride, to her self esteem, a risk to what ever reputation she still had. ‘Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Romans  12:1 established this act as the best God required from Christians.
God bless you.