Thank you for joining us this morning as Pastor Steve continued our series about the “First Things” of the Christian Life, things we do together as a church. Today our focus was on worship.

As followers of Jesus, the notion or idea of worship is often linked to singing in church. While singing is certainly one of the ways we express worship, it's also more than that. We can worship sports, our careers, family, hobbies, money, even politics. While none of those things are bad, the place it holds in our lives, matters. What we worship shapes us; it is what we wrap our lives around and is the place where our identity is derived. 

In John 4, Jesus talks about worship and says "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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

What did Jesus mean when He said we'd worship in Spirit and in truth and what does that look like? There are three observations Pastor Steve highlighted as we looked at John 4. 

True worship is available for everyone in Jesus. Through life, death, and the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus dissolved all confines of who can access God.

True worship involves our entire being. True worship brings our heart, mind, body and soul into alignment with our Father, bringing what is true about God into our daily lives. It reminds us of what is true when we lose sight of who God actually is.

True worship connects us to community and reorients us to the eternal. True worship brings all the awe and wonder in our lives and directs it towards God, drawing us to the reality that this is what heaven is like and what we'll have for all eternity. 

The question for each of us - How we can take a next step to ascribe ultimate worth to God? 

For some of us, it may be reflecting and repenting where it’s needed – maybe there's something we've put our time and treasure into that's been given a greater value than our Heavenly Father. For others of us, it may be laying down our preference for what we're looking for in a worship service and determining in advance that we will arrive at church with a predisposition of grace; that whatever happens in service, our God is worthy of our praise. 

Whatever it may be for you, we invite you to take that next step.