Power Walk Ministries

Guest (Male): This is the Power Walk Ministries broadcast with pastor and speaker Reverend Paul Cannings. Our current series is based on Jesus's encounter with the Samaritan woman. Now, if you're familiar with this exchange, you'll know that there are many issues that surface which were so critically a part of this lady's life.

Jesus, in this short encounter, exposes the most crucial aspects of her life and background. And when she brings up worship, he leads her to an understanding of what true worship really is. Christ becomes greater than all of her life. Let's listen now to the final message in this series titled "Be a True Worshipper."

Dr. Paul Cannings: I must admit, it's difficult as a pastor to design worship because it's so easy in our world to let the cultural pressures structure worship: time, how long the sermon is, what kind of music is played, the environment in which people come into as to whether or not it's inviting. All these different things can make worship more conducive and stimulating as people come through the doors.

But at the end of the day, is it the culture that made the worship worship, or is it Jesus that made the worship worship? Because our culture dominates how we address worship. The culture we live in drives us to be selfish. You don't have to depend on anybody. To the point where now, when you try to get people to fellowship, it's hard because they're texting, they're doing Facebook and all these different things. When you actually tell people to interact, you just created a storm.

We are even losing the ability to relate to one another in which the culture is driving us when Christ is telling us to love one another. Love is selfless. To follow Christ as a disciple is to deny ourselves and to pick up the cross. The cross could be an irritating person at the church, or at the house, or at the job. The cross could be trying to serve God and time is constantly a pain. Trusting God when health is going all over the place, giving to God when the bills are already tight, denying ourselves, picking up a cross is not something that our culture even encourages us to do.

The whole process of sanctification is moving from selfishness to selflessness. And that's why it's easier for us to worship a team, a sport, an activity, whether it's shopping or whatever we love to do, decorating or cars, or whatever it is, because when it's done and we give all this time to it, it makes us happy.

Many times when we come to church, the same issue that the Samaritan woman has in John chapter four, verse 20, is the same issue we have. This is what she's saying, "Our fathers worship in this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship." In other words, you are a Jew. You do Jew. We do Samaritans.

And then you came and destroyed our temple because we built one here and you couldn't stand it that we actually decided to come build a temple up in the northern kingdom, while Jerusalem is the place of worship and as the place to where God's theologically will establish the new Jerusalem. And all of these different things dominate you. So you just came and destroyed our temple.

So as far as I'm concerned, even if I transition my life from all this immoral activity that I've gotten caught up in, I can't worship him anyway because this cultural situation messes us up. And I like coming to my cultural experience. I like being a part of this. I don't care if you don't want us there. It hurts me because she keeps bringing it up. It obviously brought up some resentment. But I'm going to do my thing here. Your fathers do this. We do that.

How in the world am I going to ever be changed? Well, we started yesterday to explain how Christ used this since she's now focused on the flow of the Holy Spirit called the living water, the spring in her life that will cause her to never thirst again. So Jesus Christ now, because of that interest, moves her to the centrality of what worship is because once that is done, like we explained yesterday, her life finds its position, its focus, its emphasis.

And when it does, it allows her to experience God for who He is, not for what she needs because "I need to pay my bills," "I need to get water," "I need to deal with my husband and my live-in boyfriends," "I need to deal with this." No, he becomes greater than that. See, when Christ becomes the center, the world becomes irrelevant. So now that the world is irrelevant, Christ for the first time brings up this Jewish thing.

He didn't bring it up before. He just kept moving along to get her to this focus. When he brings it up, it is not racial, it's theological. In verse 22 he says, "Ye worship, ye know not what: for salvation is of the Jews." He's not being racist now. God, not because Israel was better than anybody and Israel was a great nation, so holy, so righteous and all this other stuff. No.

The Bible repeatedly shows that Israel was not any better than anybody else. As a matter of fact, when he does the story of Hosea and Gomer, he talks about this adulterous nation that keeps worshipping gods. In Deuteronomy, it says, "You are not better than anyone else. I just choose to pick you through Abraham." So it has nothing to do how special they were. It's just that he chose to pick this nation to develop his redemptive plan.

So when he picks this nation to develop the redemptive plan, he is saying I can't ignore the Bible. The person that you're speaking to, I am he. And you didn't know I am he because you kicked out the historical books and the prophetic books. So as a result of that, you wouldn't know where I was born like Micah will tell you, to see that, "Oh, this man must be the Christ," like Nicodemus found out. You wouldn't know what Zachariah is talking about because you don't read it. You wouldn't know what is going on in Malachi about the coming of the forerunner because you didn't read it. You don't have any relevance to any of those things, so you wouldn't even know you're talking to Christ.

So you don't know. They know. Because salvation comes from them, not because they're any better than you. He says, "But the hour cometh, and now is." I love that. And now is. Oh, you got to look at the word "is." He's saying, "And now is" meaning while I'm standing here, it is. When I leave and go to heaven, it is. And when the apostles are gone, it is. And when the New Testament Church continues to spread throughout the world, it is.

Why? Because the coming has to do with the Holy Spirit, who is the living water, who is the spring of water. He is the one because we looked at John chapter 7, verse 37 through verse 39. He's talking about the Holy Spirit when he talks about water. And water is a huge commodity in their day because it's a dry climate. So that's why he would pick that to draw their attention to understand the Holy Spirit.

So he gets this analogy going because they can gravitate to it a lot easier and know about the refreshment when they finally get water. It's refreshing. It's energizing. This becomes like life. So when he talks about water and he talks about the Holy Spirit, they can gravitate to it quickly because it's life to them. Holy Spirit is life.

The Spirit of God has to be in our lives for worship to ever happen. Has to be. It's not that we worship the Spirit only. We don't come to worship to worship the Holy Spirit. When I accept Jesus Christ into my life, salvation is to be delivered from sin and to be in a deliverance process through sanctification from the influence of sin. In order for that process to happen, the sanctifying influence in my life is the Holy Spirit who is the Spirit of Truth.

So that's what drives it in the direction that it goes. He says, "When the true worshipper shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such a worshipper." I wish this verse would become real to us because it'll be a shame for us to arrive into the presence of God where worship is truly worship and never had done it before we got there because we let all the cultural influences, our biases and what we want in it, to dominate how we worship God and it has nothing to do with us. Nothing.

Worship is the most selfless place to be in. In order for Christ to get us to this place, he had to die to create worship for us. So when the Spirit of God comes, he says, now you have a true worshipper because the Spirit is a Spirit of Truth. And when that true worshipper is experiencing God because they now know him, the Spirit is going to guide us into truth (John chapter 16).

When we abide in him, we bear much fruit (John chapter 15). And when we continue to abide in Christ, he answers our prayer (verse 7 through verse 10). So he says when we come and now have this Spirit dominating our spirit—that's why it's a small 's' here—dominating our spirit, now we are true worshippers.

So I can't technically worship God if I am not committed to live out his principles. Because I have to have him at the center of my life, the focus of my life, the Lord of my life, so that when I come to worship him, the reverence he's calling for—worship—the worth he's requiring is easy to do because I've been denying myself obeying him each and every day as a true disciple of his.

Loving others will happen because I've loved him with all my heart and the soul and the mind. I love my neighbor as myself because I'm loving God and he's directing how I love everybody. So now I got a true worshipper. So when you came and your life was what it was, even though you were on Jacob's mountain, lots of history, doing things the way the Samaritan do, lots of culture, you never worshipped me. You never did.

This transformation of this living water has to happen first. And he says, that's who I seek. I love that. Sometimes, you know, we get mad that churches are this size or that size. The Bible says he's not going to reward us because of the size of our church. He's looking at quality, not quantity. God is spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

They that come with this heart to value him, give him reverence, give him praise, he says, they must come with their spirit in tune with his. They must come with a commitment to surrender to his divine will. When the word of God is preached, they're already ready to do what it says. This is who truly worships me. No one else does.

The issue is Christ, not whether or not we can worship. The issue is can we worship Christ as a true worshipper that worships him in spirit and in truth. Because the Jews had the truth, they didn't have the spirit. They came with this mundane, stoic way of worshipping. The Samaritans, they're up on the mountain energetic, jumping up and down, but they had historical books and the prophetic books gone. They kicked out the part of the Bible that they didn't like.

So you had two people going in two different directions and still not worshipping him. The Jews supposed to know all of this and nailed him to a cross. The Samaritans, the one leper that came back is a Samaritan. They have a heart for him, but no messenger. And they welcome him into their village. When the time comes, there's no racial issues, there's no Jew and Gentile, bond or free. It has to do with Christ. Stay focused.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Dr. Cannings, for bringing this series to all of us. There's so much in this lady's life that we can all relate to: the sin issue, lapsing into legalism, facing racist issues, and being marginalized, sometimes even unjustly. Let's engage with Christ today and allow his Holy Spirit to have his way in us so that we too can worship in spirit and truth.

Please give us a call at 281-260-7402. Again, that's 281-260-7402. Our web address is powerwalkministries.org. If you happen to live in the Houston area and you don't have a church home, then please know that you're always welcome to visit Living Word Fellowship Church.

Dr. Paul Cannings: Power Walk Ministries seek to support itself by the books and the materials that God has blessed us to be able to use to strengthen and to equip you spiritually to be productive. And that's the way we develop support for this ministry. We feel that if we touch your life, then that will lead to us touching other lives. So go to our website at www.powerwalkministries.org and participate in our ministry because when you do so, it goes to serving other people, not just on radio but around the world in conferences in terms of equipping pastors and their wives, etc. So join us, partnership with us and be blessed at the same time by going to our website and becoming a part of our ministry.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Dr. Cannings. Once again, our web address is powerwalkministries.org. Our mailing address is PO Box 920517, Houston, Texas 772092. Now, as we leave you, remember, just like this woman, your focus can also be shifted from your past failures and present struggles to where Christ takes center stage in your life.