“Thirsty hearts are those whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them.” – A.W. Tozer
One of my favorite movies my wife and I can still remember going to see in the theater was the movie Shadowlands, starring the venerable and brilliant actor, Anthony Hopkins. It remains as a particularly powerful memory because of the emotional connection we both made to the story. In one hopeful, yet almost overlooked scene, happened when Hopkin’s character, C.S. Lewis, received some good news concerning his wife’s cancer treatment. One of his friends who had been a mentor to him encourages him with the thought that God was now answering his prayers.
Lewis responds with this unforgettable and genuinely sincere realization of someone who is truly a worshipper of God. He said,
“That’s not why I pray. I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God…it changes me.”
I can’t think of a more brilliant and concise definition of what it is to really worship God than this.
What this demonstrates is that worship is not so much what we do, as it is, what we are. We might be surprised to learn that genuine worship is not necessarily found in the reverberating halls of marbled cathedrals nor in the rehearsed liturgies that can be recited verbatim almost without thought. True worship only happens when we come to God, out of a genuineness of heart and out of our need for him, when we pour forth from ourselves, an inexpressible longing for him. Like Lewis, we begin to “pray because we’re helpless” not because we’re trying to impress anyone; we worship because it flows out of us…waking or sleeping.
Would you be surprised to learn that worship; I mean, real, genuine spirit-filled worship, more than likely happens far more often outside of the walls of the church building than inside it? Think about it?
How often and how easy is it for Christian people to sing the same repeated songs; recite the same memorized Christian mantra’s over and over; and yet never seem to engage the heart? Often, we are in the same vicinity where worship is occurring but in actuality, we’re a million miles away?
Such was the world into which Jesus came.
In an earlier post, we were privileged to witness a conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan woman who had come to draw water from the city well near the city of Sychar (the ruins of which are near the modern city of Nablus) in central Israel, (which today is located in the West Bank). Now, as well we might remember, this conversation began with Jesus asking this unnamed woman for a drink of water; which Jesus then used as a springboard to discuss the source of true spiritual life.
For centuries, the Samaritans had been getting it wrong when it came to the worship of God; for their worship was out of ignorance. “You Samaritans worship what you don’t understand!”, said Jesus. (v.22)
Part of that had to do with the fact that the Samaritans only accepted the first 5 books of the Bible as Scripture. So their understanding of God was incomplete which, in turn, affected their worship of God! To them, the worship was more about the place; where you worshipped, and less about the person; whom you worshipped.
The resulting dilemma of all of this was a spiritually thirsty and spiritually confused person, like this woman at the well, whose life was an absolute mess but who had no clue as to how fix it!
At the heart of her problem was her understanding of God. In verses 23 and 24, Jesus addresses her need both through theology and practicality. He said to the woman,
“…a time is coming and has now come when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is Spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
Worship is a funny thing in human society. Anthropologists and historians will tell you that there has never been a time nor a society in human history where people weren’t found worshipping something. In every human culture and community throughout human history, there exists both archeological as well as literary evidence of human worship practices.
The Russian novelist and philosopher Feodor Dostoevsky in his famous novel The Brothers Karamazov wrote,
“So long as man remains free, he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.”
Yet, this undeniable truth continues to confound the atheistic world. For you see, if man evolved without the aid of divine intervention in the process of creation, then why does man still have an innate need and compulsion within him to worship something?
If God doesn’t exist and mankind evolved, then why is man hopelessly religious?
Neither atheism nor evolutionary theory has yet to come up with a competent answer! Even today some will tell you that many problems in the world could be solved if mankind would simply quit being religious! But the problem is not that man is inherently religious.
The problem is that throughout the course of history, man has been “getting it wrong” in relation to the worship of God just as this woman had been getting it wrong all of her life. These misconceptions were borne of ignorance passed down by tradition from one generation to another.
Here’s the Problem: People often never question centuries-old religious traditions, even if what they’re doing is wrong because they have a tendency to assume, if it’s old then it must be right. Which is why given the choice, people will defend their traditions to their dying breath. This explains why Satan is so adept and so successful at keeping people blinded to the truth. He uses centuries-old religious tradition to deceive them and keep them bound to the deadness of religious ritual.
For once a habit becomes a tradition; over time that same tradition can set like concrete causing thinking, rational people to discard even God himself in favor of what they’ve always known.
In the first century world of Pharisaic Judaism, ordinary people were choking on the oppressive religious worship rituals and traditions expected of them. Legalism with all of its rules and regulations laid upon the people by these religious elites had blocked the ordinary person’s view of the beauty and the remarkability of God. And as a consequence, worship had become an obligation; a religious duty and nothing more. And then Jesus, walked into the room, as it were. Like a breath of fresh air, he made God, perhaps for the very first time, accessible, loveable and available even to the most wretched. For the first time, people felt free from the yoke of sin and obligation laid upon them by the law, by legalists, and by their own convicting consciences.
But what has the Christian church at large done with that same freedom throughout history? What have we done with the gospel handed down to us?
We’ve done with it what had been done to an old desk I used to own. It was a desk I’d just happened to purchase at a garage sale for almost nothing. Determined to refinish it, I began to strip one layer at a time of old paint and grime that had once covered it. Layer after multi-colored layer was stripped away until finally, the original grain of the wood became visible. As I painstakingly stripped away each layer of paint and spied for the first time the original beauty of the wood; I couldn’t help but wonder why it was painted in the first place. The paint only served to mar and obscure the beauty of desk in its original form.
As I think of that desk, this is what we’ve done to the gospel; to worship itself.
We’ve laid layer upon layer of tradition, lifeless ceremony and paganistic preference upon it to the point that once again, many cannot see what God is really like.
Many today have the same misconception about God as this poor Samaritan woman had: They believe that all God is looking for is external compliance to a religious ritual. No, he’s not!
God wants genuine worship! And Jesus tells us quite plainly what that is: It’s worship that is done “in spirit and in truth”!
But what does that even mean?
Well, we must understand, Jesus is not referring to the Holy Spirit although, certainly the Holy Spirit is at work in worship. Nor is he referring to some charismatic catharsis that often takes place in some contemporary churches. In other words, what is needed is not a kind of charismatic emotional enthusiasm.
We hear a lot today about “excitement” in connection with “worship”. And although, obviously, when it comes to God, there’s a lot about which to get excited; worshipping “in spirit” is not necessarily about having some emotion-soaked ethereal experience. It’s deeper than that! Simply because “it’s exciting”, doesn’t make it worship.
For when God says he desires to be worshipped “in spirit”, he is referring to the place from where genuine worship proceeds; i.e. – the “human spirit”. That is, genuine worship proceeds from, the immaterial inner being within each person; a God-breathed entity that corresponds to the nature of God himself, who is Spirit.
Let me explain further: True worship begins in a place deep inside you (mind, will, emotions = heart). It is that immaterial part of who you are on the inside. It begins in a place you cannot see with your physical eyes; in a place created by God himself when he created you in his image.
Therefore, genuine worship proceeds from the inside out, not from the outside in! It’s is about loving God with a human heart that’s fully engaged in living out what we are on the inside.
But God doesn’t just want spiritual worship; he’s looking for mindful worship, as well. Although truth in the inward parts is a key component to God’s acceptance of our worship, worshipping in truth means having a clear and definite knowledge of his person, derived from the study, interaction and application of his Word. For genuine worship cannot be divorced from Biblical Theology!
For how can you worship God, if you don’t know who he is and what he’s like? Yet, the only place I can go know who he is and what he is like is to go to the place where he has revealed himself: The Word of God.
Take a look at your own relationships? How did you fall in love with your spouse? You spent time with them and got to know them (talking, share activities, letters, etc. ) In other words, you began to share who you are with them and they with you. And soon from this knowledge, love grew. The same is true with God.
If worship is truly about loving God; how can you love him unless you know him?
Very simply, worship begins like a deep mountain spring in the heart of a person and flows and bubbles forth to the surface as the expression of truth; the truth of a God I know…and who truly…knows me. And as I come to him in spirit and in truth; it really doesn’t matter where it is that I think I’ll find him; GPS doesn’t matter…here or there; in this temple or that one. All I know is that my thirsty heart can be filled and satisfied by the One I’ve longed for all along.
And guess what? Like the Samaritan woman, I didn’t find that in a temple built by human hands. I didn’t find it where I thought I would. No, the extraordinary part of all of it…is that I didn’t find him at all…he found me; for he’s been sitting and even now he sits at the very well-spring of my life.