John 4:16-26
Have you ever noticed that everyone seems to have a mission statement. You see it in schools, hospitals, restaurants, even government agencies seem to have a mission statement. Of course I am sure that your church has a mission statement but how about you? The Bible outlines what our mission is and at the head of that is the worship of God. In the garden we saw the test of worship, Moses received the commandments of worship, and the Israelites set up the tabernacle in the middle of their encampment for the centerpiece of worship. When we read the book of Psalms we see that this book also functions as a book of worship. We also see in the life of Christ that worship of the Father was central to His mission. In revelations we see that we will be rejoined the purpose of worshiping God.
In the above text we see this discussion of worship is not between a Bible college professor, or a preacher, or an elder of the church but it is between Jesus and a fallen woman. She is the one that brings up the topic but when Christ changes the subject and ask her to go call her husband she was forced to face herself before facing God.
Notice in the Scriptures what worship is not. Is not about geography or race or enthusiasm. Christ is telling us here that worship has to be done in the spirit, (Philippians 3) it has to be done in truth as a matter of heart, and that has to be genuine. Worship is a state of the heart and not a matter of location.
Notice how in this text that the discussion of worship leads even further to completing the mission that was given to us as Christians by Christ. Worship leads to further evangelism and spreading of the Gospel which identifies Christ as the Messiah. This discussion of worship brought this woman into understanding of who Christ was and caused her to go out into the community and proclaimed that he was the Messiah.
So I am saying here is if we concentrate more on our worship of our Lord evangelism will take care of itself.
