What Matters Most

John chapter 4 is a place in the Bible where there are so many biblical themes that you could take and so many conversations that you could have that there's literally a series of sermons just in a few verses. But this morning, I want to pull out of this chapter what really matters most from heaven's perspective.

Not that I want to ignore any of the other themes that are present. For example, one of the things that jumps out to me comes from John chapter 4 and verse 4. There we read that Jesus needed to go through Samaria. Now, when you look at the place where Jesus is at, he's in the southern part of Israel and he's going back to Galilee where he lives in the northern part of Israel.

And rather than take the traditional route, he goes by a different way. And the reason he goes by a different way, this verse tells us that the Holy Spirit literally drew him out of where he was planning on going to a place where he needed to be. He needed to go through Samaria.

He takes a detour to the wrong side of town. Why? Because he needed to be at a certain well at a certain time to meet a certain woman who was in great need of a very real savior. To me, that's a wonderful encouragement that tells each and every one of us, no matter where you are today, God will go out of his way to reach you.

Aren't you glad that Jesus will go out of his way to come find you in your hour of need? I promise you, you may feel like nobody knows where you're at, but he does. You may think nobody knows what you need, but he has your answer. And whenever you can't find him, you need to know he's going out of his way to reach you.

Not only is the fact that he wants to be with us in this chapter, but here's another theme that jumps out in this chapter. Prejudice. Don't act like prejudice isn't present in the church. >> Here Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman. And the Samaritan woman in John 4:9 says, "Jews have no dealings with Samaritans."

You know, one of the things that you're going to be surprised about when you get to heaven is who God let in. You need to know that God loves people you don't even like. I think it's going to be really surreal whenever you walk around the streets of gold and people go, "You made it."

But what you need to understand is that the Bible is a book that says, "Who soever will let him come." >> Another theme that we read in this chapter comes from verses 17, 18, and 19. And this has to do with the Samaritan woman's scandalous past. She hasn't lived a sinful life.

She's the best sinner in town. She's living with a man who's not her husband. And the fact is she had five husbands. And whenever you read about her testimony of the conversation she had with Jesus in verse 39 of John chapter 4, she says, "He told me everything I ever did."

Aren't you glad Jesus doesn't have a social media account where he could tell somebody everything that you ever did? When this woman has her encounter with Jesus, I think it's very interesting because as religious people, we would look and go, "Oh yeah, she needs it. Get her. Just pull back the sheets and call her out.

Be delivered." Yet Jesus doesn't even go there. What does he talk to her about? And the answer, worship. Of all of the themes and messages and details and ideas that you could pull out of this encounter, the one thing that comes up more than anything is worship. Between John 4 20 and verse 24, worship is mentioned 10 times.

What Jesus is telling this woman and what Jesus is telling everyone here and everyone who's watching is that what matters most is worship. This woman's living in the wrong place. She's living in the wrong way. There are so many things in her life that are wrong. But Jesus says those are just symptoms.

If we can get this worship thing right, then everything in your life that's not right will get fixed when you put God where he belongs. You need to know that worship is for real people. It's for real people with real problems. It's not just for the super saints and the spiritual and those who have the courage to raise their hands in the sanctuary.

It's for people who are in need of a provider. It's for people who are in need of a healer. It's for people who are in need of a redeemer. It's for people who are in need of a deliverer. I don't care what's going on in your life today.

I don't want you to look at this topic and think, "What does that have to do with me?" If you understand what heaven sees when they find somebody who worships God in spirit and in truth, then you will with everything you have give God the praise that he's worthy of.

Because when you give God what he wants, God shows up with everything that you need and so much more. But in this passage, Jesus is very clear. There is a right way and there is a wrong way to worship. This is why Jesus says, "But now is the time when true worshippers."

Say that with me, true worshippers. Now, if there are true worshippers, then there must be false worshippers. meaning there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. And he says true worshippers will worship God with spirit and truth. They'll do it sincerely. They'll do it completely and they'll do it with authenticity.

And then one of the most gripping statements in all of the Bible for me is this. When Jesus says, "For the father is seeking." Think about that. God Almighty who holds the mountains in a scale and the hills in a balance. God Almighty who does not need anything from which to create because he's all sufficient within himself.

If he wants something, he just says it and it becomes a God with that much source, resource, and power. It says he's looking for something. He wants to find it. And the one thing he's looking for is worshippers. Whenever you worship God, you need to know that you invite him into your situation.

The Lord is enthroned, the Bible says, upon the praises of Israel. We talk often about Paul and Silas being in the jail cell and people say, "Well, the songs and the hymns that they were singing is what enabled them to be set free." No, that was the beginning of the process.

But what the songs and the hymns did is they invited Jesus Christ, the deliverer, into the jail cell with them. They were locked up in a place here on earth that no human being would care to go. And when nobody on earth was willing to reach them, they began to worship God and heaven came down into that cell.

What does that mean for every one of you here in this room today? It doesn't matter where you find yourself and what need you have. If others on the face of the earth don't want anything to do with you, you can worship God and he'll bring heaven down into that situation and that circumstance.

You may be watching this program today and joining us here, but you're laying in a hospital bed. You can worship the great physician right there in that hospital room, and he'll come and tend to your needs before the doctors can ever reach you. You may be watching and you're in great need of provision.

You don't have to count the things that you're lacking. All you have to do is give God who is a provider the opportunity to show up in that situation and he'll open up the windows of heaven and pour out blessings that you cannot contain. You may be watching IN A PLACE WHERE GOSPEL messages are not thought of to be good and you're going to be incarcerated if they catch YOU WATCHING CHURCH.

YOU MAY BE IN A NATION THAT has outlawed Christianity. It doesn't matter what their rules and regulations say. If you'll raise your hands and give the King of heaven the opportunity to come and be a wall of protection around you, HE'LL GIVE HIS ANGELS CHARGE OVER YOU. NO WEAPON FORMED against you WILL PROSPER.

AND GOD WILL SHOW HIMSELF FAITHFUL because he who began a good WORK IN YOU IS FAITHFUL TO COMPLETE it even under THE DAY OF CHRIST JESUS. GIVE THE LORD A HAND CLAP OF PRAISE. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, faith would have no meaning and hope would have no future.

But Jesus did rise and the same power that raised Christ from the dead now lives in every believer. Because Jesus lives, you can walk in victory today. >> With your gift of any amount, you'll receive an encouragement greeting card eight pack and a vial of anointing oil, tools to strengthen your prayer life.

And with your gift of $150 or more, you'll also receive two copies of Pastor Hegy's brand new book, From Tomb to Triumph, one to keep and one to share, plus a fruit of the spirit tumbler along with the cards and anointing oil. >> This leatherbound book contains that power that you need to experience. >> Call the number on screen, use the QR code, or go to jhm.org. org/victory. >> Worship is how you tell the Lord how much you appreciate what he has done and how much you're expecting from him in the future. >> Worship is where hope comes from. >> That's why the Bible says in the book of Isaiah, put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.

The world that we live in can be a pretty heavy place. All you have to do is saturate your life with network television and you'll find out just how heavy it can be. Heavy topics, heavy problems, all of them bad. When's the last time you got the news and it was good?

But the Bible says if you put on the garment of praise, if you choose to wear the attitude of gratitude towards God, whatever this world tries to put on you in form of a heavy burden, it can't stick >> because you have made it clear that your faith, your hope, and your trust is in the Lord. >> Worship announces to every enemy that you have that you can't be defeated. try as they might.

Worship is the way that you say, "Greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world." >> Worship is your public display of affection towards the Lord. >> How many of you are familiar with public displays of affection? Married couples, good time to raise your hand unless you forgot and you need a reminder.

We often chastise teenagers because they're giving public displays of affection. When a husband holds hands with his >> wife, thank God you answered that question correctly. It's a public display of affection. >> When you sit in a sanctuary and you put your arm around your >> Okay, good.

Same answer. public display of affection. It is your way of telling others who are in the room, I'm with her, she's with me, we're together. This is what worship is. When you worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, you're giving the rest of the world a opportunity to recognize, I'm with him.

He's with me. We're together. Now, here's what it means to worship him in spirit and in truth. What happens when your public display of affection does not line up with the personal situation in your relationship? I mean, what happens when you and your wife are driving to church having one of those Sunday stressors?

You know what I'm talking about. I can't believe that you drove like that to church. I had to get here. Last week I had to park in the west lot and that lot always takes forever to get out. It doesn't matter what it is. Are we going to your parents for Thanksgiving?

No, we're not going to my parents. It's your year. Silly stuff that you just get to fussing at each other over and all of a sudden you pull into the church parking lot and the cloud of confusion disappears and you wave, "Oh, hi. Praise the Lord. blessed and highly favored and mildly irritated.

You come into church and you reach over and you grab your wife's hand because that's the public display of affection, but the public display of affection doesn't line up with the personal conflict you were just having a few minutes ago. Oh, she'll hold your hand, but she going to hold it different.

She might dig a nail in the back end of it and be like, talk about some things on the way home. You'll put your arm around her in the service, but if the preacher gets to preaching good, she'll take that elbow and just Do you hear him? Do you hear him?

That's for you, boy. It'll look like love, but it's the spirit of shove because what you're doing on the outside doesn't line up with what you're doing on the inside. And in just the same way, when God says, "Those who worship me must worship in spirit and in truth," he's saying, "Don't come to church and give me a public display of affection that is not present in your life the rest of the week.

Don't you show up on Sunday and act one way and then you go home and the conduct that you exhibit the rest of the week doesn't even act like you know me. >> Make sure that what you're doing in church complements what you're doing in your personal life.

Because whether you know it or not, everything that you do can be an act of worship physically. The Bible says 1 Corinthians 6:19, "Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?" What that says is the church is not a place. The church is a person and whenever you have Christ in your heart, the church is you. >> So how you keep your physical body is a sacrifice of praise to the Lord.

You say, "What do you mean?" I mean the choices that you make about your personal health. But as simple as it sounds, when you make a decision for your health and you would have preferred Blue Bell, God looks down and he says he's making the right decision because he realizes I'm the one that gave him that body and I'll take that as an act of worship.

The financial decisions you make, they're acts of worship. Proverbs chapter 3 says, "Honor the Lord with your possessions and the first fruits of all of your increase." Meaning that the things that you choose to do with your money, if you do them to honor God, their acts of worship, if you do not frivvily waste and spoil what God has blessed you with, he looks down and he says, "The discipline and the decisions that they're making, I'm going to take as a sacrifice of praise."

Yes, they wanted to do something different, but what they did, they did to honor me. So, the question is not what kind of church are we having on Sunday. The question is, what kind of church are you having when you're not here? >> Because you need to know, just like the Samaritans worshiped many other gods, you don't have to have a pagan altar in your house to pull God off the throne and put something else on it.

You will worship what you want, and what you want, you will worship. Some people worship money, which is why when they're not at church, all they're chasing is the next dollar. Some people worship status, which is why when they're not in God's house, they're doing everything they can to become known and become someone of status here in the society.

Whatever it is that you choose to worship other than the one true God, it's what you're bending your knee to. And the Bible's very clear. Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Is your personal church complimenting your public church or competing with it?

Do the things that you say in God's house on God's day sound like the things that you say every other day or do you have two different vocabularies and two different attitudes? When God sees you worship, does he say, "Yes, I know you love me." Or does he look down and go, "Really?"

Because the Bible says true worshippers worship him in spirit and in truth. Colossians tells us in Colossians 3 and:23, "Whatever you do, do it heartily." That means with enthusiasm as unto the Lord and not to men, which gives you the opportunity to take every act that you do in your life and make it an act of praise in your spirit.

Whenever you get up and go to work, say, "God, I'm going to work for you. I know I work for the company. I know I work for the boss. I know I work at this job, but the work that I do, it's you who gave me the strength to do it.

It's you in whom I live and move and have my being. So, I'm going to go to work today and I'm going to make my work a demonstration of excellence so that others will see evidence of the fact that you're real in my life. And whenever they see me, they'll glorify you because your word says that if you'll do it the right way, if you'll let your light shine before men, they'll glorify your father in heaven.

So God, today, Monday morning, it's going to be a sacrifice of praise unto you. Don't wake up and go, "Oh, God, it's Monday." >> Tell you what, if you wake up breathing, you should be thankful. God deserves your worship privately and he deserves your worship publicly. Whenever we get together and we worship God in a service, our public worship is a way to encourage one another.

This is where we're reminded that he's our father, not my father. That he's the maker of us all. This is a place where breakthrough comes from. Because the Bible says one of us can put a thousand to flight and two of us can put 10,000 to flight. I say this in closing.

If God is looking for it, it must be pretty hard to find. Jesus said, "For the father is seeking." Say that with me. For the father is seeking those who would worship him. If God's looking for it, it must not be as available as you think it is.

Go look at Psalms 148. And what you find in that passage of scripture is a declaration of praise. The psalm begins, "Praise the Lord." And then it begins to list in the following verses all of the things that do not have a choice. It says, "Praise the Lord you heavens and you heights and you angels and you hosts.

Praise the Lord you son and moon and stars and water and land." It says the mountains have no choice but to praise the Lord because God created them and put them on the earth. And then it says, "The creatures who walk across the land have to praise the Lord."

And all of the creatures that are in the deep praise the Lord. And then it talks about storm clouds that form, how they have to praise the Lord. And winds that blow and snow and rain and hail, all of these things have no choice. They have to worship the God who created them.

And then it gets down to mankind. And it says about mankind, you kings of the earth, let you praise the Lord. You see, we get a choice. Are we going to give God what he's worthy of >> or are we going to keep it for ourselves? God is looking for people who want to worship him, who want to thank him, who want to honor him and give him glory.

He's looking for people who don't just want to show up at church, but who want to be the church where he can dwell each and every day. So, here's how I want to end this service. I want you to stand right where you are. And for just a few moments, we're going to give God what God's looking for.

We're going to give God the thanks and the praise that he and he alone is worthy of. Just like there were a multitude of issues in the life of the woman in John chapter 4. I'm sure that there's a multitude of issues here in this sanctuary today. I'm certain that there's a multitude of issues from those of you who are joining us today.

But we're not going to go into heavenly places and talk about our needs. We're going to go into heavenly places and worship the God who meets every need. >> So, right where you are, I just want you to lift your hands and raise your voice and begin to give God thanks. >> Thank you, God, for every breath that I breathe.

Thank you, God, for the health and the strength to be in your house. Thank you, God, that you have once again been faithful to keep your word. That where two or three of us are gathered, you're in our midst. We don't deserve it, God, but you're here anyway.

Thank you for your mercy that's renewed every morning. Thank you for your grace that is sufficient. Thank you for the sweet gift of redemption, for washing away our sins and making us whiter than snow. Thank you for being a God who understands and gives strength and gives peace that surpasses all understanding.

Thank you for being a protector and a defender for keeping us from harm that we didn't even know existed. But because your angels were watching and your hand was upon us, we've been sustained. Thank you for being a healer when we were sick. Thank you for being all that we need.

Now God, we come into heavenly places offering you a sacrifice of praise, saying that you and you alone are worthy. Anything that we've ever placed above you, forgive us and let us always look to you through the eyes of worship, giving you praise and glory in Jesus mighty name.

So often we have a list of things and priorities that we believe matter the most. In heavenly places, what matters most is worship. It's what the angels are doing around the throne right now. It's what all of the saints who are gathered there are going to do for eternity.

And it is what you and I should focus on doing on a daily basis. Because from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, the name of the Lord is great and greatly to be praised. God bless you and thank you for being a part of this program. >> In a world filled with noise, one message still brings peace.

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