Slideshow image

Teaching Outline for June 27, 2021

Text: John 4:1-24, Jesus and the Woman at the Well

Key verses:  "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24 (ESV) 

 

Reflections on Worship

“Worship” appears in this text 10 times. It translates the Greek word “proskuneo”. This word literally means

“to kiss toward”

"to kiss the hand of a superior"

"Worship” comes from the old Anglo-Saxon word “weorthscipe”.

weorth means "worth" or "value"

scipe means "to ascribe"

Worship is to acribe value to God!

Worship simply means that we humble ourselves and give glory, honor, reverence, awe, respect and homage to God.

Worship is the absolute non-negotiable of the Christian life.

Worship is a concept that defies adequate definition. it is something that is better experienced than it is defined. 

 

“Definitions” of Worship

A basic definition: Worship is giving honor and respect to God.

Worship is about giving TO God, not getting FROM God. Genuine worship is about pleasing God, not having God please you. 

William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury:

For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose—and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin     

Warren Wiersbe:

Worship is “the believers response of all that they are—mind, emotions, will and body—to all that God is and says and does.” 

Sam Sasser:

Worship is “the overflow of a grateful heart, under a sense of Divine favor.”

See Psalm 45:1 and Psalm 23:5.

Unknown author:

Worship is “the outpouring of a soul at rest in the presence of God.”

Ref: Eph 1:3, 6.

AP Gibbs:

Worship is “the occupation of the heart, not with its needs, or even with its blessings, but with God Himself.”

See  2 Sam. 7:18–22 and Rev. 5:9–14.

Worship is “the upspring of a heart that has known the Father as a Giver, the Son as Savior, and the Holy Spirit as the Indwelling Guest.” 

See John 4:13-14 and 1 Cor. 2:14–15.

Re: The Hydrological cycle as an illustration of worship.

 

Conclusion about Worship 

Everybody worships someone or something. 

Alexander Paterson Smith:

“To worship God is to make Him the supreme object of our esteem and delight, in public, private, and secret."