THINK TOGETHER.
How do you worship God?
READ TOGETHER.
John 4:23-24. 23the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. 24For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.
This is part of a conversation between Jesus and a woman that he met while hanging out at a well in a place called Samaria. The woman was a Samaritan and Jesus was a Jew. Samaritans and Jews didn’t like each other very much. In fact, they kind of hated each other. The fact that Jesus is in Samaria, at a well, talking to a woman is pretty surprising. But Jesus usually is pretty surprising.
While Jesus and the Samaritan woman (we don’t know her name) were talking, she brought up the fact that the Samaritans and the Jews worshiped in different places at different temples. She said, “So tell me, why is it that you Jews insist that Jerusalem is the only place of worship, while we Samaritans claim it is here at Mount Gerizim, where our ancestors worshiped?”
Jesus isn’t worried about WHERE they worshiped, but he was worried about HOW they worshiped. And he cares about how you worship God too. How should we worship God? Jesus says, in Spirit and in truth. What does that mean?
God is a Spirit. God has a spirit, the Holy Spirit (who is also God and a person).
You have a spirit too. Yes, you have a body, an outside part, but you also have a spirit, an inside part. When we worship God, he wants us to worship him with both parts, our body and our spirit. We can worship God with our bodies when we sing to him, or bow our head, raise our hands, kneel down, or even when we do things to serve him or help others. But God wants us to also worship him from our spirit, from our inside part. From love and trust. You can DO all the right things in church with your body while your heart doesn’t really care. This is not real worship, is it? It’s not spiritual and it’s not true.
And don’t forget truth. Jesus wants us to worship God with BOTH spirit and truth. Did you know that you can worship God while believing lies? Well, that’s not real worship either. We have to make sure that all our worship of God matches what the Bible says and that it exalts Jesus who is the Truth.
The good news is that the Holy Spirit lives in us, in our spirit, and he is helping us to worship God in spirit and in truth. He helps us to know the truths about God and Jesus. He helps us to trust God to save us through Jesus. The Holy Spirit also changes our spirit so that we want to worship God. He fills our hearts with love for Jesus as he reminds us of how much Jesus loves us. And the more we let the Holy Spirit do these things, the more we will worship God in spirit and in truth.
Because of the Holy Spirit worshiping God is possible.
With the Holy Spirit we want to worship God and Jesus.
DO SOMETHING TOGETHER
Practice worshiping God in spirit and truth. Go around and have each person say a truth about God or Jesus, but have them add a bodily motion to it. (Ex: God is strong while making a muscle). Talk about how what we do with our bodies must reflect what we believe in our spirit.
PRAY TOGETHER
Father, I want to worship you in spirit and truth. I want to love you and trust you. Amen.
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