It was interesting last night, I spoke at GraceFest, at the Friday evening worship service there, and it was just a quick message. It was entitled Igniting a Heart of Worship and getting our hearts ready for worship and I just felt compelled to share the whole message tonight at Westside, not that it’s easier to prepare a sermon, you know, which that’s true, but I already have Sin in the Camp, Part 3 pretty much done, so it wasn’t really a matter of that, it was a matter of, “Okay, Lord, what have you put on my heart for this church and for this service?”
Igniting a heart of worship is one of the best things you can do to ignite that heart of worship. Now here’s the interesting thing. It does not come naturally. You will not have a heart of worship naturally. Your flesh will do everything it can to fight against igniting a heart of worship. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to John 4:24, but I’m going to read a little more than just that. But it’s that famous verse where Jesus says, “Those who worship Him must worship [God] in spirit and in truth.” And it’s interesting, you’ll see a lot of churches thinking they’re worshiping God, but they’re not worshiping God. Or a lot of people who say they have faith or religion, they say, “Yeah, I’m worshiping God,” but if they’re not worshiping God in spirit and in truth, spirit and in truth, they are not worshiping God. Jesus said that. And I’m going to look at John 4:11. To fill you in a little bit, this is that famous passage where Jesus comes to the well and there’s a woman there, and He said, “I need must go to Samaria, I have to go to Samaria,” and on His way He stops at this well. There’s a woman there getting water and Jesus says, “Can I have a drink?” She’s like, “Why are you asking me for a drink? You know, number one, You’re a Jew, I’m a woman, I’m a Samaritan, You’re a male, I’m a female,” and this whole cultural dynamic going on where she’s pretty much shocked. So I’ll pick up at verse 11:
“The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water?”
And I want to explain that too real quickly. Jesus said, “If you drink of this water I give you, you will never thirst again. It’s living water.” And so she doesn’t understand, “Where’s this water coming from, You have nothing to draw.”
We just turn on a faucet now, do you know how they used to get it? Forty, fifty feet down, by then if you had some money you could have the crank, and you’d roll it up, but a lot of times you’re just pulling that water up [manually], and she says, “But Sir, You have nothing to draw that water with.”
“Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, (yes, He is) and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water (that He’s giving) will…never thirst again.” (vv. 12-14)
And I don’t know why, but sometimes that Scripture chokes me up and just really makes me stop and think. Those who truly drink of Christ, and of course I’m using a metaphor here, but those who truly experience Him, they never thirst again. They never thirst again. Now there’s challenges, there’s some people, if you talk about drugs or alcohol or different things, they’ll say, “Man, Christ delivered me, I’ve never had that desire again.” Then there’s other people who have that desire again and it’s a lifelong struggle. But there’s something when you partake and you receive Christ and when you experience Him, you never thirst again for the truth. You never are like, “I wonder if there’s anything out there better than Jesus Christ.” You just don’t say that, because you know that there’s nothing that can compare to that.
So He’s saying, “Whoever drinks of this water (the water from the well) will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” (vv. 13-14)
And it kind of parallels that verse where Jesus says, “If you believe on Me, as the Scriptures say, out of your belly will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38) And isn’t this interesting, this verse begs the question in the church today, where are these rivers of living water? People either seem like they’re dead and in a cemetery or they seem like they’re dying and they have no passion for the things of God. So I want to say, where does that verse apply? Why is it not applying more? “He who believes on Me, out of their belly will flow rivers of living water.” Where is it at? The reason is it’s many times is being stifled, it’s being plugged up. That’s why we have to ignite a heart of worship.
[Jesus said, “I] will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”
Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”
Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.” (vv. 16-18)
Now this is just the Idleman paraphrase here, commentary, but I find it interesting that Jesus, and I’ll talk about this a little bit later, when she wants this living water, He’s dealing with the sin issue. I don’t know if you caught that, He’s dealing with the sin issue. “Well, go grab your husband.” And He’s walking her into fornication, probably premarital sex, maybe adultery if she’s not yet released from that fifth husband. And He’s dealing with the sin issue. And that’s a little bit about what I spoke about last night too, is sin is a big issue. When it comes to worshiping God, if you don’t deal with the sin issue, you cannot worship God.
Now, this is interesting as well, there’s so much to this text it almost made my mind explode this week because you could just take this in many different directions, but this idea of igniting the heart and worshiping God in spirit and in truth has a dual application, because that applies to unbelievers as well. I believe Jesus is saying, “Listen, if you truly want to worship God, if you truly want to worship Him, you Samaritan, you’re not going to worship Him unless you worship Him in spirit,” – receiving of the Spirit, being baptized into the body of Christ, being a Christian, and then embracing that truth. He is the only way, the only life, the only truth. Nobody comes to the Father except through Him. So that has an application to unbelievers. Can we say that the Samaritan woman was a child of Abraham, was on the right path? Or do we see Jesus here lovingly showing her she cannot worship God unless she’s in right relationship with Him?
Now it also has another application that those Christians, believers, who are truly going to worship Him, I’m not talking about playing church, I’m talking about truly worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth. And many churches can miss those two elements as well. So I want to make sure I clarify that there is a dual application here for unbelievers and believers that we’ll get to in a little bit.
The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where [we] ought to worship.”
Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither [worship Him] on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem. [You will worship the Father in spirit and truth.] You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers… (here’s the key, true worshipers, this is when you cut through all the garbage, you cut through all the play, you cut through all the playing church) …[but true worshipers] will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (vv.19-24)
And it’s interesting here, He says God is Spirit. God was not a man, like the Mormon religion believes that God was once a man like us, and that through a process He evolved and we’ll develop into gods someday too. That’s blasphemy. It says God was never a human, He was never a person, God is Spirit. And those who worship Him must worship Him according to His nature, according to His character, in spirit and in truth.
So that’s the context of that Scripture. When I talk about igniting a heart of worship, let’s define the word ignite real quickly. Have you seen all these fires going on? Did something ignite those? Eighty percent of the time, I believe, it’s lightning that causes a lot of these, but when you’re close to where man lives, a lot of it can be caused by men and women, by cigarette butts and leaving flames exposed and little fires not completely out, and different things, but something is igniting these fires. Something is causing that. So the same thing with igniting a heart of worship, something has to cause that, it won’t come naturally. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to have to ignite a heart of worship. It’s not going to come naturally. Tonight after the service, you’re going to have to ignite a heart of worship because it’s not going to come naturally. The flesh does everything it can to bore you, to have you just fall asleep, and to not ignite that heart of worship.
So igniting, something causes that flame, let’s talk about that. First though, let’s take a quick test. Are you all into tests? I feel like I’m still in Texas or something. Take the test, here’s a good test if you aren’t sure if you need to ignite a heart of worship or not. Do you have regular extended times of worship? Yes or no, that’s the question, right? Yes or no? Do we have extended times of worship? And I can often go back to this being the problem in the case of many lives, in the case of many believers who are struggling to know God, struggling in their walk, they’re being led of the flesh, they’re falling back into this, they’re making wrong choices. Tell me about your extended times of worship. “Yeah, I need to do that, I think.” Yeah, I think you need to do that – because that’s where the whole heart changes. That’s where you get direction from God, that’s where you hear that still, small voice of the Father speaking through His Word, and through worship. That’s where the heart’s transformed and changed. Without that, you’re just saying, “Here enemy, hit me with your best shot.” That’s why everybody is too busy. Isn’t that the number one excuse? “I’m too busy.” So if there’s no regular extended time of worship, there’s a good indication you need to ignite a heart of worship.
Here’s another test. Do you look forward to sitting quietly and waiting on God? Or does that just sound boring? “I’d rather go to the dentist or the DMV.” That’s a good indication that the heart needs to be ignited. Think about this because when the heart is ignited, igniting a heart of worship, when the heart is ignited, it’s on fire, right? For God. There’s a, “Yeah, I look forward to those times of worship.” It’s on fire already. For here, Saturday night, fortunately for me, I get to go to both services. I get to hear ten songs of worship, and the by the time we get to the second service, at the end of the service, that’s sometimes when it finally breaks through. So we’re so in a hurry to get out and get going, but that quiet time when the heart’s on fire, I’m like, I can’t wait to get home and get to bed so I can get up at 4:30 in the morning and worship God again. Why? Because I already ignited it. You started the fire, you can’t put it out now.
So see, sometimes it’s not boring. Now do I feel this way all the time? No. When the heart’s not ignited. When the flesh comes in and the cares of this world. Oh, that’s a verse there. The cares of this world come in, they creep in and they pull us away from that time.
How many people wanted to go home and create a war room when they saw the movie? Or how many people said, “I’m going to pray tonight or tomorrow.”? What happened? You ignited a heart of prayer. Something did it. You ignited a heart of worship. If you haven’t seen the movie, I’d really encourage you to do so, that better ignite something. That’s why, see something has to ignite, so when we put on CNN and Fox and we’re watching the debates and watching Shemitah, you know, the four blood moons, and the world’s coming to an end, and the stock market’s going to crash, and we better have thirty days’ worth of food and everything’s falling apart and “Oh, Lord is me,” – worry – and that’s what we’re filling our mind with? You’re not going to ignite a heart of worship, you’re going to ignite a heart of fear and anxiety and panic. And especially as men, I believe, leading your family, your family will follow your tempo. They’ll follow what you’re feeling. My kids say, “Shane, there’s a guy in Iran that wants to blow us off the planet?”
“Yeah, we’ll just get to see God quicker. Don’t worry about it.”
God sets up one king, He pulls another down. Hey, that’s one way to go. Nuclear bomb hits here, or do I want to sit and die of cancer for three months? I’m way off track here, but my point was, I can ignite a heart of fear, or I can ignite a heart of worship. And I get the emails, weekly. How much food should we save up? How much water should I have? If it gets to that point, where am I going to put a thousand gallon water tank in my backyard? There’s a point where you should be prepared, I truly believe that we should be prepared. You [should] have enough things, you have enough water, you have food, but you don’t sit and focus and concentrate on those things. Because when we do that, we’re igniting a heart of fear. Here’s how I know. It takes you away from a heart of worship. I have never seen a heart of fear and a heart of watching all this stuff and doing all this stuff and then have a heart of worship at the same time. Because a heart of worship goes against those things. So are you looking forward to sitting quietly and waiting on God?
What about this – during worship are you engaged or are you bored? Maybe we should call this the truth test. Because is a person engaged in worship or are they bored? Now this is interesting, too, because your flesh doesn’t want to be engaged. Your flesh says, “I want to yawn, I’m hungry, I want to get up…” so to develop a heart of worship, you have to fight against those things. You have to engage your heart. The Scripture is full of exhortations of putting on this, taking off that, the armor of God, putting on this, let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, do not be conformed to this world, flee these things, make no provision for the flesh, and it’s a battle. And sometimes we forget that. But once the battle lines are drawn and God begins to press through, worship is not boring, you’re engaged, you want it to continue.
And the final test – do you prioritize worship? Have you ever thought about that? Many times we’ll fit it in if we get around to it. I mean Saturday church is a perfect example. So many times it’s like, “Well, if it fits…” You know, if the ball game’s over and the football game’s over and we can get out of that birthday party early and we don’t have this going on, I don’t feel moody and I’m not in a bad mood and the kids are already dressed, and we didn’t go swimming, and all these things, then I’ll go. Then I’ll worship. But to engage that heart of worship, to ignite, I know I’m not talking to everybody, but I’m talking to those who truly want to ignite a heart of worship. Not those who just say, “That’s a good idea but I don’t really want to do that.” I’m talking to those who want to do that. You have to prioritize it. You have to. Because what is prioritizing? You’re putting first things first. That’s prioritizing. We’ll put everything else first, but when it comes to worshiping God, we have a hard time prioritizing it. So that’s a good way to take a test and say, “Okay, well, I’m way off track here, I do need to ignite a heart of worship.”
But let’s talk about the first point. Those who worship Him in spirit. So those who are truly worshiping God have to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Now let’s talk about what this is not. Worship is heart engagement, that’s really what it is. When I’m talking about worship, I’m talking about the heart is engaged. I’m not talking about jumping up and down, running down the aisles, doing all kinds of stuff, but I’m also not talking about sitting stone cold face – you know, Stone Cold Austin, the wrestler – you know, we’re sitting in church stone cold, we’re like a statue. You know, I’m not talking about that in any way, because sometimes if you talk to Baptists, they have one idea of worship, if you talk to Pentecostals, they have a much different idea of worship, and then there’s groups in between.
But what I’m talking about with worship is the heart is engaged, it’s about being filled with the Spirit, really. When true worshipers will worship God in spirit and in truth, they are filled with the Spirit, they are walking in the Spirit. That’s how you worship God in spirit. Walk in the Spirit and you will not carry out the deeds of the flesh. Because we can act like we are worshiping and not really be worshiping. People act like they are worshiping and not really be worshiping. We see it all the time, especially with the young adults. They can come to church but they’re already planning the next party. I’ve had people come and they’re worshiping and then somehow the sermon convicts them and they break down and they’re on their way to their heroin dealer after this, or pick up an eight ball, or a dime of marijuana, they’re already planning their next thing – do you realize you’re not worshiping? You know you’re excited and God’s moving and there’s energy and this, but that’s not worshiping. That’s not a heart of worship. Remember what the lady said that talked to Jesus, “Our fathers worship on this mountain,” and Jesus said, “You worship what you don’t even know.” So these people think they were worshiping. And throughout the Old Testament they thought they were worshiping God as they sacrificed their children, as they bowed their knee to Baal. Remember when Elijah was about ready, he feared for his life and he said, “Lord, just take me,” and God said, “I have seven thousand people still, Elijah, who have not bowed their knee to Baal nor kissed his image,” which means idolatry was taking place, they thought they were worshiping God.
So many people think that they’re worshiping God. I drive by churches, if you go through Palm Springs, or East Coast or different things, they’ve got a nice big rainbow and they’ll tell you that they are LGBT friendly and this and welcoming. They’re not worshiping God. That you cannot reject His truth, reject the inerrancy of the Word, glory in sin, and say you’re worshiping God. It doesn’t happen. Now that statement’s going to get me emails, I already know. But that’s the truth. That’s the truth. You can see how they’re “worshiping” God and they’ll wear big robes – well, if you’re rejecting what He’s clearly revealed in His Word, and you’re actually glorying in it, and there’s pride about that, that’s not worshiping God, you’re just going through the motions.
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Shane Idleman ( - )
Shane Idleman is the founder and lead pastor of Westside Christian Fellowship, in Lancaster, Ca. His sermons, books, articles, and radio program have sparked change in the lives of many. Today, as we continually drift away in a current of moral decline and relativism, many believe that the battle is too advanced and that we cannot make a difference. Shane, however, believes that we can, and offers his books as contributions to that commitment.Shane’s ministry has sparked change in the lives of many. He’s calling families, marriages, and the country back to the biblical principles that once made America prized among nations. His bold stance has led to speaking engagements at some of the largest churches in the nation.