John chapter 4. We're going to be taking the next four weeks. I'm just going to be reading this text. I'm going to be, we're not going to be in this text this morning, but John chapter 4, verse 21 through 24. If you look at your program, you'll notice that on the bottom of the front sheet, there is fourfold vision of our church.

In the past, every beginning of the year, we would take at least one month to go over the fourfold vision because it's extremely important for us as a church, whether you've been here for 18 years or you're just joining us now, that these are things that we didn't just put this up on here on the program saying this is what our church believes in, but these are things that we're trying to pursue.

And so we want to remind the church that these are our doctrines. These are what we value and these are the reasons why we do what we do, why our worship is done the way we do, why we have certain people serve the way we serve. And so all of these things are foundational to our church.

And again, bringing community to church is not unique in the sense that we have this vision. This is not something that we just kind of sat in a circle and had the leader say, Hey, what do we want our church to be about? This is true of every single church.

We just decided to write this down and to be deliberate about trying to pursue it. And so we want to make sure that every person in the church, again, whether you're coming in or you've been here for a while to remind the church that this is who we are, this is what God has given us, and this is what we're pursuing.

And so every year, so we can be reminded and pursue this together as a foundation. So for the next four weeks that I'm up here, so this week and the next week, Pastor Alex is going to be here and week after that is Easter. But the next four times that I'm up here, including today, we're going to be going over the fourfold vision of the church.

So I want to read the fourfold vision again. And I know everybody who went through BCC goes through this. And if you've been here for a while, hopefully you have it memorized by now. But basically our vision is to glorify God by establishing one, a church that engages, engages in God-centered worship, not man-centered.

And so that's what we're going to be focused on today. Second vision, a church that equips every believer with God's inerrant word. Third, a church that builds a community through love and accountability. Fourth, a church that reaches out to its community with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so each one of these visions are things that we examine and evaluate the church.

What are we weak in? What are some things that we kind of drifted out in? Are we in need of a stronger community? Are we in need of better outreach? So last couple of years, we've been focused on missions and evangelism. A couple of years prior to that, we've been focused on prayer.

And again, we've been focused on evangelism missions for a while, but every year we try to evaluate and to see what areas of the church that we need to focus on. And so we evaluate this again on a yearly basis. And that's why we kind of project our retreats, our Bible studies and certain sermons to address some of these issues.

So again, so today we're going to be focused on worship. Why is God-centered worship so essential to our church? So I'm going to read the text. I'm not going to be in this text, but just to just kind of like a platform foundation for us to build upon John chapter four, verses 21 through 24.

Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You will worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and now is here when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

For the Father is seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning. We pray for your blessing upon this time that your word would go forth, Lord God, powerfully, that you would give us fertile hearts, Lord, that it may bear fruit.

We pray for your blessing and the power of your Holy Spirit to accompany the preaching of your word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. If you've ever read through the book of Judges, sometimes you can read that book and kind of get lost because you see sins being repeated and God restoring them back and forth and you see a cycle of this over and over.

But there's one theme in the book of Judges and it kind of captures the period of Israel's history where they were constantly just doing their own thing. In Judges 17, 6, it kind of captures the theme of the book of Judges and it kind of captures the attitude of the Israelites during that period.

It says, "In those days there were no kings in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes." So, that kind of captures the attitude of the Israelites during that period. So, if you've ever read the book of Judges, you know that there's a constant cycle of sinning against God, God bringing judgment through a foreign nation or a foreign God or some other power and they would be under their subjection, they cry out to God, He sends a judge to deliver them and then after they get delivered, soon after that they start to fall and forget about God and this cycle goes over and over again.

And at the end of the book it's just kind of like you get to a point where you just throw up your hand, when are these people going to learn? But again the theme of Israelites is that they just kept on doing what they thought was right in their own eyes.

It doesn't say that they came out and they decided, "Ah, we're not going to worship Yahweh anymore." If you were to bring an average Jew at that time and say, "You know, who is your God?" They would have told you, "Yahweh is our God. I'm a worshiper of Yahweh." They would have told you that.

But the problem with what they were doing was they just worshipped Yahweh the way they wanted to. And so they just kind of went along with whatever they thought was right in their own mind, they just went along and did that and then it incurred God's wrath upon them because of that.

You know, today there's so much confusion as to what is the purpose of the church. You know, there's all kinds of conferences going on, how to grow the church, how to reach our generation, how to be effective. You know, there's all kinds of conferences and meetings going on about that.

But the central part of what the church must be, scripturally, not what you would make of it, not what I make of it, not what our generation wants the church to be. What does Jesus want the church to be? Why did He establish the church first and foremost? What does the scripture say?

Today, if a church down the street is growing large, it has 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 people, automatically we look at that and say, "Well, what are they doing? What are they doing right that they're attracting all these people? What is that doing? How are they preaching? How is their church organized?" And immediately that gets duplicated and then it just kind of gets multiplied.

Not just locally but nationally and oftentimes internationally. And the only criteria as to duplicating that is it's growing. It's huge. It's attracting a lot of people. And there's a lot of people saying good things about it. But we know from scripture that at the peak of Jesus' ministry, when He fed the 5,000, the actual number probably closer to 20,000 people and it could have kept on growing.

But Jesus straight up says, "You have to eat my flesh and drink of my blood." And He says something very strange. It would have been, if they misunderstood what He was saying, it would have actually been blasphemous for Him to say that. Yet He deliberately does that because He says He knew what was in their heart because what Jesus was looking for was true worshipers.

Just like Jesus said to the Samaritan woman. He's not looking for the crowd. He's looking for true worshipers. What God desires is not to fill the church. Not that He doesn't care about the multitudes because He sends us to make disciples of all the nations. But His greatest desire is to have genuine worship.

A. W. Tozer says this about worship, the importance of worship in the church. He says, "Worship is the reason why Christ came. Worship is the reason He was crucified and worship was the reason He rose again." Now you can't exaggerate what he's saying. Basically he's saying Christianity is about worship.

The reason why He was incarnate was for the purpose of worship. The reason why He died was for the worship. The reason why He was resurrected was for the purpose of worship. Our modern day, our more recent writing from John Piper in Let the Nations Be Glad, and I'm sure many of you have read that book, and he says, "Missions exist because worship doesn't." So he says it in a little bit more concise manner.

Basically what Piper is saying is the same thing that A. W. Tozer is saying. That the central thing about Christianity, the central thing about my walk with God is about worship. Without worship, if we get worship wrong, or if it's superficial, or if it's a worship that God rejects, everything that we're doing here this morning, everything we've done up to this point, everything that we will do from this point on would be for nothing.

So it's extremely important for us. What does God mean by that? In fact, if you look at the beginning of the nation of Israel, when Moses comes back to God and says, "God, if you send me to Pharaoh," and they say, "What do you want from me? What do I say to him?" And this is what God says to Abraham in Exodus 7, 16.

"Then he said to him, 'The Lord, the God of Hebrews, has sent me to say to you, 'Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert.'" In the NIV, it says "worship." In some of your other translations, it'll say "serve." But the Hebrew word for that word is also translated "worship" or "serve." It's the same word.

But he repeats that phrase over and over again. Why does the nation of Israel need to have freedom? Why they need to be delivered? He says that same phrase, "so that they may come out and worship me." He says it in Exodus 7, 16. He says it in Exodus 8, 1, in verse 20.

Chapter 9, verse 1. Chapter 9, 13. Chapter 10, verse 3. Chapter 10, verse 7. Chapter 28, verse 41. Chapter 29, verse 1. And I could go on and on and on and on. He repeats that phrase multiple times, over and over again. That this is why the nation needs to be set free.

It is so that they may come and worship me. If you look at the Ten Commandments, what is the first of the Ten Commandments? "You shall worship no other gods." So if you were to turn that and to understand it properly, biblically, what is he saying? That we ought to worship God and God alone.

So the first commandment of the Ten Commandments is about worshiping Him. But it's not just the first commandment. If you look at the first four commandments, it relates to our relationship with God. If you look at the second six commandments, it's about our relationship with one another. But all four commandments of the first, the Ten Commandments, is about worship.

One is that you will worship no other gods. Second, that you will have no graven images of me. In other words, you won't worship me in the form of another thing. The third one is not to take His name in vain. Meaning that you don't approach God and you don't use His name in worship in the wrong way.

Fourth commandment, "Thou shalt keep the Sabbath holy." What does it mean to keep it holy? To set it apart. That it is a day of corporate worship. So all four commandments given to us in the Ten Commandments is about giving proper worship to God. So it is no surprise to us when Jesus has this encounter with the Samaritan woman.

The Samaritan woman says, "You know, you seem like a prophet. You seem like you have the truth." And then she says, "Well, you Jews say that you're going to worship here and we worship in this mountain. And who's true?" Jesus' response to her is, "If you're asking for who's right and who's wrong, right, who has the truth and who doesn't have the truth, the Jews have the truth.

They have the law of God." So if you're trying to see like are the Jews right? Are the Samaritans right? They have the law of God. But a time is coming and has already come that God is not looking to see who has the right doctrine only. That whether if you worship at the temple God is pleased and if you worship on this mountain that God is not pleased.

The time is coming and has now come that true worshipers will worship Him in spirit and in truth. Meaning you may have the right heart but you don't have the truth. The Jews may have the truth but they don't have the right heart. What God is looking for are people who will worship Him in spirit and in truth.

And so it should be no surprise to us that worshipping God is at the center of what we're doing. You know there was a time where I thought that the primary reason why we got together is for the purpose of discipleship and evangelism. And I realized as I was studying through scripture that that is not it.

Without proper worship evangelism is fruitless. Without genuine worship our prayers become frustrated. Without genuine worship our service eventually becomes a burden. Without proper worship our fellowship eventually becomes old. It just becomes a bunch of religious duties that we have to check off and do. And some people happen to be better at others.

Some people are more disciplined than others. Some people are better at reading and studying than others. They just have interest in it. Some people are more sacrificial than others. But true fruit always comes as a result of true worship. And that's why the first of the four visions of our church is really all-encompassing.

Because if we don't have the first one, the second, third, fourth thing that we're trying to pursue we pursue out of our own strength and eventually they'll get frustrated. And again that kind of lays the foundation for us as a church. Why do we do what we do? Again I know you took BCC and I know you've probably heard this before but I think it's important for us as a church.

You know again whether you've been you're new to our church or whether you've been here for 18 years that as Jen was talking about every few months she says she's re-evaluates what's the big picture? Why are we doing this? That if we lose focus of this big picture we can just easily get caught up in the growth of the church and oh I love these people they love me and you know and as long as there's a positive vibe in the church the church will grow.

As long as you're surrounding yourself with friendly people and you know then and oh I love being with these people I want to raise my kids you know with your family and the church will grow. But that doesn't mean that God is honored. That doesn't mean just because the church grows in size that we're bearing fruit.

Fruit always comes as a result of genuine worship. So this morning I want to focus on three specific words there in fact if you did a study of the word worship in the New Testament Old Testament there's more than two dozen different words used. But some of the words are only used once or twice in the whole Bible.

But there's three words that really are prominent that captures the meaning the theology of worship in the scripture and out of the three the first one is the most significant because the other two meaning flow from the understanding of the first one. So I'm going to be going through these three words for you this morning and again to re-establish the foundation for the church.

The first word in Hebrew is shakha. It means to lay down or to prostrate oneself. That same word that's translated again the equivalent word in the New Testament the Greek word is proskuneo. It means again to prostrate oneself in some translations but the literal understanding of that is to go forth and kiss.

It means adoration to love but the root word the root understanding of the word proskuneo when that word is used in the New Testament is what is that when they encounter God they end up prostrating themselves falling down in worship. So the understanding of this word and the most important understanding of what true worship is true worship is what happens when we are in the presence of something we are awed by.

Let me say that again. True worship is what happens when we are in the presence of something we are awed by. Worship is not something that we generate. I can't just put this up here okay now we're going to worship this this morning right and just put that up there.

Worship it. You're so good you know. You could you could describe you could fake it right but real worship happens when you actually believe this is awesome. When you encounter something awesome it's kind of like when you go to some of you guys who are watching March Madness and there's some crazy stuff that's happened UCI almost beat Kentucky you know what I mean and you guys were worshiping it up to that point until he missed that shot right.

Some of you guys who are watching and we have a lot of UCI alumni's here right. Like that's worship when you get so like engrossed in it you forget you know you forget what time maybe you guys some of you guys are watching it in at work and you forgot what time it was and you know what I mean and you got in trouble because you weren't paying attention to anything else.

Like when you are so awed by what you see that you completely forget about anything else but that right. That's genuine worship. Now we never worship something that is plain and pedestrian. We never worship something that we can relate to and say I could do that. You know I mean if I can relate to that and if it's common we don't worship it.

We worship things that are above us. We worship things and we say whoa did you see that. So worship the word proskuneo is when we encounter something above us. Something that we can't possibly imagine and we are affected by it. That's what genuine worship is. You can tell a difference between somebody who is a true worshiper of God versus somebody who is self-righteous.

A self-righteous person always talks about what they've accomplished. A self-righteous Pharisee is somebody who is always talking about this is what I've done. This is what I did and this is what I didn't. These are the accomplishments I have. Versus somebody who is genuinely worshiping God they are lost.

They're all they do is did you see God. You know what God did for us and they're constantly talking about the awesomeness of the God that we worship. That's the difference. That's the meaning of this word. In fact every time this word is used it's used to describe somebody who is prostrate before God.

Isaiah chapter 6 1 through 7 you know that encounter that Isaiah has. Isaiah sees a picture of a holy holy holy God and as soon as he is in the presence it says he falls down says woe is me woe is me. This is a righteous man in anybody else's definition Isaiah was a prophet among prophets.

He was being prepared to speak on God's behalf and go speak to the nation of Israel. Well when he sees this holy scene he's on the ground. He's like woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips from a people of unclean lips. He all of a sudden recognizes his filth in the light of this holy holy holy God.

We see the same scene in Ezekiel chapter 1 28 when Ezekiel is shown the vision of God he says he describes this vision of God this way like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain. So was the appearance of the brightness all around such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord.

And when I saw it I fell on my face and I heard the voice of one speaking. Ezekiel in the presence of God he prostrates himself shakka and he completely loses himself. You know we talk about how humility we try so hard to try to be humble you know on your own.

You know I mean it's so fake. I mean when we try to be humble with each other it comes out fake. So oh no I'm no good you must so much better than me. You're so much better looking than me. You know I mean it's it comes out so fake.

Humility happens when you genuinely recognize somebody is greater than you. You're not just saying it's not just your word. That's what you believe. And when you're in the presence of this holy God you can't help but to lose yourself. There's nothing to brag about. There's nothing to point at.

Once you've seen the glory of God you can't look at that and then look at yourself and say look at me look at me. It just you just get lost. See that's what worship is when somebody is in genuine worship they forget who they are. That's what happens in Matthew 17 5 through 6.

At the scene of the transfiguration the three inner disciples are given a glimpse of Jesus' true identity his true glory. Because Jesus needed these three to be the inner witness that he's about to go to the cross and they need to know who he really is. So that after he dies and resurrects that these three people will go out and say I saw his glory I heard the voice of God.

So they were given the privilege to see a glimpse of the glory of Jesus not simply his humanity. And this is what happens. He was still speaking talking about the father behold a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice from the cloud said this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.

Listen to him. And when the disciples heard this they fell on their faces and were terrified. Proscenio. They fell down they completely lost themselves. Revelation chapter 117 when John is given a glimpse of the glory of Jesus he says when I saw him I fell at his feet as though dead.

The same response of the disciples same response of Isaiah same response of Ezekiel when they were in the presence of this glorious God they're in awe and they worship. Oh my gosh. Did you see that. The same reason why we pay hundreds of dollars to get the best seats to watch these athletes do crazy things.

You know they catch crazy catches that they do things that physically it is impossible for an average person to do. You don't pay money to go see Little League baseball. You know you privilege them by your presence. See we pay big time money to go watch things that are beyond us.

And why do we do that. Why are we paying money so that they can play basketball because you and I have been created to worship. The problem is we worship the wrong things. We find temporary life in the wrong things. You and I feel alive in the presence of this holy God.

And when we feel the most alive is when we are examining and being affected by the all of our God when the scripture says that because Adam and Eve sin we've been separated from God. And because as a result of that we died we died from being in the presence of which brings life.

When you watch these basketball and for temporarily you paid all that money something spectacular happens. Do you not feel alive at that moment. Do you not forget about the distance that you travel. Do you not forget the money that you paid and how ridiculous expensive that hot dog was that you bought to eat.

For that moment you forget everything because of what you're watching. That's how the Bible describes genuine worship. That's how it illustrates for us every time these holy men are in the presence of this holy holy holy God they completely lose themselves. Whether it's a revelations 513 whether it's the four beasts that are flying around declaring who he is.

Twenty four elders they fall down again prostrate themselves and they worship him. Revelations 7 11 through 12 even the angels the picture of heaven that we see are all these holy angels are surrounding the throne worshiping him night and day. Anybody who's ever experienced the ecstasy of worshiping God know exactly what that is.

If you've never been in the presence of this holy God. You would have no idea why would we go to heaven is such a burden you know. Imagine I listen to this guy 40 45 minutes every day and then if he goes off 50 minutes you know we go to heaven we're going to see this for eternity.

Like that's what we think what worship is. Worship is in the being the presence of this God and you can't help but to celebrate him. And the more we celebrate him more we're in this presence the more we desire more we feel alive. We encounter this God sometimes in creation we look at the awesomeness of creation and we see his imprint in creation we say wow God is so awesome.

You know the more we see I see that you know I talk to students and you know people who are studying science you know like more advanced we get it kind of makes me question God and you know I think exactly the opposite. The more advanced we are with technology it causes me to take a look back and say if human beings are capable of this I think about all the stuff that's kind of like the 3D printing you know.

Recently we've been talking about people who lost their limbs and they can attach it and they can control their limbs you know open their hands you know with just their thought. We look at all the stuff that's coming out that are already here and think about the self-driving cars can't wait till that happens right.

Supposedly Google is going to come out with that pretty soon and more advanced this technology becomes it's like well maybe we just created God because look what we're capable of. I think exactly the opposite. The more that we're capable of more that a computer is capable of doing do you take a step back like that computer is awesome.

Don't you take a step back like who created that right. Because more complex more powerful that computer is the more it reflects on the creator. It's the creator it's his genius it is his intellect that caused him to do that. It's man's foolishness to look at look at the technology advancing and look at that all human beings are so awesome.

You we can encounter God in his creation we can encounter God in his word. Why the preaching of the word is so important you know we can we can dress up our church to make it more attractive. I know the tons of stuff that we could possibly do we just don't have time to do it you know it'll cost a lot of money but I know people will come right.

Build a gym people will come right. Give good food people will come. Have a great singles retreat people will come. There's all kinds of stuff that we can do keep my sermon shorter people come. I've had plenty of people saying like I love the people at your church but your sermons are too long.

I cannot go to your church right. So if I shorten my church sermon just a little bit I know at least four or five people that I talked to in the last year that they would they would be here right now right. There's tons of stuff that we can do to to tweak it to make make it more attractive to people right.

But you don't encounter God because of how I articulate things you don't encounter God because you met some people who who do certain things and oh they're so nice they reach out to me and you know and none of these things are bad. But if that's why you choose church at one point you're not going to choose church for the same reason.

Have you ever met anybody anybody in your life who consistently never let you down. Anybody. Liar. Nobody. Your best friend your mom your dad your your soul mate in life right. There's nobody. We're all sinners we're all selfish and at some point it comes out right. The only place where we find true life is in the presence of his glory.

And the scripture says my sheep they will hear my voice and they will follow me. And the mistake that we make at church sometimes is that we want them to follow us. We want them to follow Berean. We want them to follow me. And that's the mistake we make because because if people start following me they will stop not following me.

If we get them to love Berean at some point they're not going to love Berean. And whatever we present to them outside of Christ at some point they're going to be disappointed. So there'll be periods of growth and periods of disappointment. The only one who can give this true life is Christ and Christ alone.

And he said if they're truly my children they're going to hunger for my word. We encounter God primarily through his words. Through what he says and that's where we saw his glory that's what we saw his love. That's how we understand life. That's how we understand church is through his word.

It is when we encounter God we find life. You look at the book of Job. I mean you're talking about somebody who suffered all his life. I mean this guy has excruciatingly painful life. Not only does he lose all his money he loses all his family and then he loses his health.

Like everything that we hold on to dear life every decision we make is to protect that. Protect our wealth. Protect our family. Protect their health. Right. Think about it. Everything that we do we're so afraid we buy insurance for this and we buy houses there because we want to be safe.

Everything that we do God strips everything away from him. For what reason? Because he was righteous. See but his friends didn't understand that. His friends came to him and said well that's happening to you because you must have something wrong. Doesn't make sense. Why would God put you through that you know if you've been good.

And so his friends would come and take turns. I mean even if they were coming and encouraging him it would have been difficult. But in the midst of all that one by one you know one guy's done the other guy would come. Another guy's done another guy would come.

And then you have three separate cycles of this with these three friends. He finally cracks at the end of his life. But he doesn't curse God. He just says God why? Why are you doing this? I've remained faithful to you and and he did. All his life he was the one defending he's like no you know I've been righteous and God's still good.

I'm still going to worship him. But at the end he's like oh my gosh enough. Why are you doing that? I don't get you God. Then God finally shows up. And it's so interesting the way he says it. And I'm not going to read it for the sake of time but at the end of his life God shows up and he says put your pants put your pants on basically as a modern translation.

You're going to take it like a man. Okay. Don't take my word for it. Go read it. That's what he says. Gird up your going like a man. You're going to take it like a man. Okay. And then he says did you put the stars up? Did you make this creation?

Did you do this? And and so you know as God is showing him you know you think you understand you don't know what you're talking about. And you can just see Job just like wah wah wah. And then he finally encounters this God. My ways are above your way.

You don't know. And this is how he responds to God in Job 42 1 through 6. And this is the lesson that he learned. And Job answered the Lord and said I know that you can do all things. And that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?

Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand. Things too wonderful for me which I did not know. Hear and I will speak. I will question you and you make it known to me. I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear. But now my eyes see you.

Therefore I despise myself and repent and in dust and ashes. He encounters this holy God. He forgets about everything. He said I was speaking things I could not understand and I was asking you. I was questioning you because I didn't understand why you were doing this. But I've heard of you now that I've seen you.

It is enough. And just like every other person who encounters God, he falls down in worship. Proskeneo. Saka. That's what genuine worship is. And why our corporate worship is so important is not because oh we check off a lesson. If we check it off, oh I did my part this week.

But because this is where we meet Christ. Why do we do quiet time? It's like oh if I do, good Christians do quiet time. They read the Bible. Why do we emphasize going to the Word of God? Because this is where we encounter Christ. And when we encounter him and when we are in worship and when we are in awe, all of a sudden.

It's not you encounter him all of a sudden you find money. You encounter him all of a sudden you are sick and now you're healthy. You don't encounter him and all of a sudden all your problems are gone. But in light of who he is you forget. It doesn't seem as important in the light of his glory.

Our financial concerns don't seem as big in the light of who he is. And all the problems, anxieties that we have about paying bills and raising children and all of that stuff. We still have it but it doesn't seem as tremendous in the light of his presence. And we feel alive.

We may still be sick but we feel alive. We may still have interpersonal relationship issues but we feel alive. Because that's where we find life. That's why he says we're seeking for people who are worshipping him in spirit and in truth. He's not just asking or looking for people who are going to submit and do the right things.

Because God created us for worship. It is when we feel worship, it is when we are worshipping God and we are in awe with him we feel alive. Isn't that why how you became a Christian in the first place? That your eyes got open. What you did not understand at one point.

Your eyes got open and you saw the glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ and you were all by him. And your sins were justified. Sanctification isn't different than that. Sanctification is a continual, continual experience of his all. It is when Christ becomes mundane. When the word of God becomes a chore.

When serving becomes a duty. When Christianity becomes drudgery. So first and foremost, are we meeting God? Are we meeting God corporately? Are we meeting God privately? Are you pursuing God or are you pursuing a religious set of duties? On the surface it may look the same. But the fruit of that is night and day.

See along with that, and again the other two I'm going to go pretty quickly because it's related to the first one. The second word is sublimi. True worship happens internally. The word means to revere internally. To have sense of all. So when Jesus says he's looking for people who worship in spirit and in truth, he's talking about in your heart as well as the truth.

Not just, oh I read the Bible and I'm doing the right thing. But is there genuine worship happening? Right? You guys have been, most of you guys have been in church long enough to know just checking in on church Sunday and checking out on church Sunday doesn't mean that you've worshipped God.

True worship in this room is happening in your heart. Are you meeting God or not? Are you in awe with him or not? See Jesus described in Matthew 15, 8 through 9, these people honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain.

So there's three things that he says about fake worship. One, it's done simply by lip service. It's just what we say. It's just what we acknowledge. Well these are a set of doctrines. I believe that. These are things that we believe. I believe that. It's all words. It's only words.

Second thing he says, their hearts or desires are far from me. It's fake worship. We check in and we check out. This is not where we find life. We don't go there. We go to the world for pleasure. We come to church to do the right thing. But there's no pleasure in our heart to meet God.

He says one, it's just lip service. Second, their hearts are far from me. Why is our heart far from God? I mean the Bible says where your treasure is there your heart will be. Sometimes we come into worship with no appetite for the things of God. If I'm invited for a wedding and I know that there's going to be filet mignon, right, like it's at 12 o'clock and the wedding's at 10, 12 o'clock there's going to be filet mignon, 10 o'clock I'm not eating cup ramen.

Because I know that when the good stuff comes I won't have an appetite. So I save myself. I might eat cereal or something or yogurt in the morning, you know what I mean, but I know filet mignon is coming. So I save myself. Sometimes we get so filled with things that don't matter and then we say, how come I don't have the same heart?

There's no appetite. We feel, and I think as John Piper said, we nibble at the table of the world, right, I don't know who said it, but we nibble at the table of the world that there's no room for the things of God. So we only have enough to just hear it.

It's kind of like if you've ever tried to feed somebody who's full, it doesn't matter how great the food is. If you've come to the table already full, I mean, you can have the best steak right there. It's just not going to taste the same. So you go through the motion of eating.

We don't want to offend the person who made it. It's an expensive steak. They put a lot of money and thought and work into it. So we just go through the motion, take a bite, eat it. How is it? It's good. It's good. Because we don't want to offend that person.

So we're eating and we just kind of take it, and we just do what we absolutely need to do to not to offend them. Like, is this enough? If I stop here, they're going to be offended. So maybe I should eat just a little bit more, you know. And so what do we do?

We do, we eat just enough to satisfy the person who created it. It's not, I'm not eating it for myself. I'm eating it to satisfy you because you did so much work to do this. See, that's religiousness. That's legalism. That we're not coming to God because I want to be fed.

We're not coming to church because I want to meet Christ. We're coming to church to appease the people, the people who are watching us, the leaders. So we do just enough, not so that I can be satisfied, but that the people can be satisfied. And we never fully are satisfied with this.

So when the church is done, we talk about things that we're excited about. Fantasy football. Certain games that we're involved with. Trips that we're taking. Is this too close to home? But that's the reality, isn't it? That's the reality. And I'm not saying this to say that we can't enjoy certain things.

I mean, I think we should enjoy it. There's nothing wrong. It's not sin. But we need to take a step back and look. Am I worshiping God? Am I worshiping something else? What am I awed by? What's going on in my heart? He says, it's just lip service. Heart's not really there.

And they worship in vain. It's fruitless. How many farmers do you think will be able to go out to the field and work six months to plant seed, water it, cultivate it, and then when it's time for the harvest comes, there's no fruit? I screwed up. This year it's no good.

Next year you come back and you work, plant seeds, you harvest, and you do everything. Harvest time comes, boom, there's no fruit. How many times do you think that farmer is going to keep doing that and find no fruit and just keep...two years? Three years? Five years? You think five years they just cultivated, worked hard, woke up early in the morning, went to sleep late, took care of it, and then come back, no fruit.

That's what happens to a lot of Christians. They go through the motions and go to church and do this and then there's no fruit. And so after a while, they're like, man, doing all this stuff, serving the church and doing all this stuff, there's no fruit. And then you internally just give up.

You just, oh, I guess you're not supposed to bear fruit. I guess this is normal. And every once in a while we look at other people bearing fruit or we read about other people bearing fruit and it's like, oh, okay, that's an anomaly. That's not normal. Christian life becomes a drudgery when there's no fruit.

And he says there is no fruit in superficial worship. There is no fruit. There's a lot of work, a lot of labor, a lot of sacrifices, a lot of reading, a lot of working, a lot of discipline, but no fruit. Because true fruit always is an outcome of true worship.

When there's life in us, when Jesus is our treasure, when Jesus is our life, coming to Jesus and coming to church is going to the living water. Like a deer panteth for the water. It's my favorite song. I pant for thee. Like a thirsty human who wants a drink of water.

It's like my thirst can only be quenched by you. Not you, not my children, not my wife, not a bank account, not him. And if that's what's drawing us to him and we are giving him our heart, he says fruit comes. That's why he says you can bear no fruit if you don't abide in me.

That's why he says you have to abide in me. You want to truly bear fruit? Abide in me. Let me wrap it up with the third and final word. The word is "Letruo" and the word means to serve. That you encounter God and as a result of encountering God, there's a radical change that takes place in your heart.

And when your heart is changed, then you serve. In that order. The word "Letruo" in some places is translated worship, some places translated serve. But it means to worship. Romans 12, 1 it says, "I urge you brothers in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your spiritual act of worship." You notice here he says your spiritual act of worship is not in light of how beautiful the people are. In view of all the needs of the world. He says in view of his mercy. 11 chapters Paul expounds about the details of the mercies that we received in Christ.

How we were once slaves to sin, now we're slaves to righteousness. How we've been set free and the Holy Spirit is interceding on our behalf. Nothing can separate us from this love of Christ. For 11 chapters he's been presenting us with the glory of Christ. What he has done.

So at the end of this, once you encounter this God in view of this mercy, he says give your bodies as a living sacrifice. Letruo. And this is why, again, in the book of Acts when they're choosing deacons, why they choose men who are filled with the Spirit with good reputation to pass out food.

Because they're looking for people who will worship Him. What we do, our worship doesn't end with me stop, you know, if I talk, stop talking, then our worship stops. Right? What people do before the service, that's letruo. That's act of worship. What people do after service, that's act of worship.

You know some of the people who are the most bitter about church are the people at one point who were the most committed. You know, they gave everything. They sacrificed their homes, they came in and served night and day, and they cooked and cleaned, and at the end of all of that it's like, these people are not worth it.

I sacrificed so much for them and they didn't give it back to me. They're not worth it. And so you meet some people out on the streets and you say, yeah I used to be at church, I used to be a deacon, I used to be an elder, you know, I used to serve, I used to go out to missions, do all of that, but I hate the church.

I still believe in Jesus, but I hate the church. Got burnt out. Because it was an act of worship. Anytime we serve, anytime we sacrifice and give, for any other reason other than an act of worship, you're going to be disappointed. You're going to be disappointed. If you come to church because people are nice, you're going to leave because people are not nice.

If you come to church because, oh there's a lot of people my age here. You know, I know people who say, I don't want to go to church with people my age. I want to go somewhere where there's a lot of old people where I can learn from. Then there's some people who come and say, I want to go where there's a lot of young people I can influence.

You know? Only thing that this core of what we need to be looking for in a church is, am I encountering God? Am I meeting Christ? Am I coming to the river of water, the living water, that if I drink of it I would not thirst again? But all these other stuff the world can provide through different channels.

But there's one thing, and one thing only, that the world cannot compete with is Christ. We can't compete with Hollywood. We can't compete with sports. We can't compete with money. We can't compete with that stuff. If that's the reason why you come here, there are much better organized people.

There's people who are nicer. I've met plenty of people who weren't Christians, who were so nice, so generous. We can't compete with any of that. The only thing that stands out in the church that the world cannot even possibly begin to imagine competing with is the glory of Christ.

And that's why worship has to be at the center of the church. And that's why the reason why you come, the reason why I come, and the goal that I have on every single Sunday is first and foremost for me, before I even think about you, for me, am I worshiping God today?

And then the second goal I have is are you worshiping God today? And like I said, everything else that we talk about in our second, third, fourth vision is founded upon that. So if we get that wrong, everything else that we do, we do in vain. Would you take a minute to close your eyes?

I'm going to ask the praise team to come up and take a few minutes to come before the Lord in prayer. Again, ask honestly. If Christ is what we want, we need to hunger and thirst for it. To come before the Lord in prayer. Lord, I desire to have you.

I've been coming to church and I've been going through the motion, but you are not what I was pursuing. That this morning we come before the Lord, honestly confess, Lord, search me and know me, see if there's any hurtful ways in me. It is you that I want, not the people, not the circumstance, not even health.

It's you. And I pray that this morning that we would hear his invitation and to honestly confess, Lord, help me. Help me come to you. So let's take some time to pray. you