 Welcome to Foundations of Faith. Today I wanna talk to you about worship. The word worship means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And depending on your background or the tradition of the church that maybe you are in or you've grown up in, worship looks different or maybe feels different and there's lots of different expressions of worship that we could start with. But let's start instead with understanding what worship really is. The word worship actually means to ascribe worth or value. And it can mean to pour out our affections and our love and in the case that we're talking about upon God. So we're ascribing worship, we're ascribing worth value and we're expressing love, adoration, gratitude and thankfulness to God. That's what we mean by worship. And within that context, there are a lot of different forms, a lot of different styles, a lot of different traditions, a lot of different ways of expressing worship that over the years Christians and churches and denominations have established, have argued about, have debated and settled into. But what's the most important aspect about worship? You see, we make a mistake if when we talk about worship we focus only on our preferences upon our styles about what we're comfortable with or what tradition we find ourselves in. What's more important is the object of our worship which is God and his preferences and worshiping in spirit and in truth. In the Old Testament, God spoke through the prophets and he said that you worship me with your lips but your heart is far away from me. We never want to be people that worship God externally, appropriately, but our heart is distant. That's not a gift to God, that's a guise to cover up hardness of heart and actually speaks to a culture that is consumed with self. God has preferences and in spite of our different biases and preferences, the thing that matters most and should matter the most is what is God looking for in worship? In John chapter four, Jesus had an encounter with a woman at Jacob's well. She was a Samaritan woman and they had a conversation over the subject of worship and in this conversation, they were debating about should you worship in Jerusalem? Should you worship in Samaria? Should you worship in a certain style or a certain tradition? Is it the Jewish people or the Samaritan people that have it right? And Jesus cut right to the heart, right to the quick of the matter and he said this. Those who worship God must worship him in spirit and in truth because the father is searching for those worshipers who will worship him in spirit and in truth. Did you catch that? It says that God is searching, he's looking, he's longing for people to worship him in spirit and in truth. While you and I are searching for our preferences, God is searching for those who will worship him the way he wants to be worshiped. It has nothing to do with geographical locations. It's not on the mountain Jerusalem or Mount Garazim in Samaria or in a church building or in a mosque or any of those type of environments. God's looking for those who will worship from the heart. Jesus said in spirit and in truth. Well, what does that mean? It means the number one spirit. It means from the core of who we are. It means from the depth of who we are. Not just our intellect, not just our mind even though it includes that but he wants us to worship him from the depth of our soul where gratitude flows from where the Holy spirit is dwelling on the inside of us and there is an overflow of passion and affection towards the Lord. And the second thing is, he says he wants us to worship him in truth which means based on the truth of God's word what we know about God, the things that he has revealed to us the things that we have experienced and encountered the Lord. God wants us to worship him with our mind and he wants us to worship him with our heart. Jesus said, as the great commandment says in Deuteronomy chapter six, love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and with all your strength. In other words, the totality of who we are. Which means our body, soul and spirit are all involved in the act of worship. Bible gives many different ways that we can worship him. We can worship him with songs. The book of Psalms is full of all kinds of songs that the people of God have used for thousands of years to demonstrate gratitude towards God. We worship God with singing. We worship God with our prayers. We worship him with lifting our hands. The Bible says, lift up your hands in the sanctuary and praise the Lord. We worship God by bowing down and prostrating ourselves. It's the Hebrew word, Barak, which means to praise him, to bow low. We worship him with dance. We worship him with tears. We worship him with song. We worship him together. We worship him alone. What's the most important thing? The most important thing is not how we do it externally. It's not the style of the music. It's not whether we have drums, electric guitars, pipe organs, pianos, or acapella. The most important thing is that we realize that as human beings, God hardwired it into our very genetic code to be worshipers. That's why in spite of where you are on the planet, you can go to any culture. And even though they may not know Jesus Christ, even though it may not be a Christian influence culture, what you will find is that people are worshipers. We might worship trees, might worship rocks, we might worship idols. The reason why every culture worships is because God designed it in human beings to worship something. We must worship something. And as Christians, we believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. We believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And we believe that we have more to be grateful for than anyone else on the planet because we serve a good God. And what's most important is that we worship Him in spirit and in truth, the way that He desires to be worshiped. Let me encourage you today to challenge yourself in how you worship God. Wherever your comfort level is at in worship, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, I wanna challenge you to step over that line and up your game, worship Him to the point of your discomfort. Do what David said when he said, I will become even more undignified than this. Because in the act of expressing worship beyond the point of our comfort, we actually offered a God something that He's never had before, which is the honor that is due His name. You were created to be a worshiper because you worship a God who loves you so much and has given so much to redeem you to Himself.