We Worship Him in Truth

John 4 (TNIV)

21 "Woman," Jesus replied, "believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.

Romans 12:1-3 (The Message)

 1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

 3I'm speaking to you out of deep gratitude for all that God has given me, and especially as I have responsibilities in relation to you. Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it's important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God. No, God brings it all to you. The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.

Worship in TruthWorship is the believer's response of all that they are to what God is doing.  (Paraphrased from Warren Wiersbe).  Authentic response.  That's worship in truth.  It is a response that is grounded in grace.It is not necessarily, or just, responding to correct or accurate data, but responding in genuineness to what God is doing in our lives, every day in all aspects of our lives.  It is perhaps less living "right" (all the right answers in our data bank), but living with authenticity, being fully genuine in our response to God's presence in our lives. 

This week, Yami Bazan shares a bit of her story of what it is like to move from a life that is all about being right to one that is about being authentic and responsive to God.  These are not the same.  The difference is huge.  Her story is compelling.  If you would like to listen again, or perhaps for the first time, you can do so by clicking here to access our sermon library.

What does this look like?  It may look different in the details in how it plays out in your story than it does in Yami's, but the authenticity is the same - regardless of the details of the story line.  As you listen to the story and the text(s) to the right, think about your own story and how it is told (and lived) differently depending on whether or not our "worship" is in truth.