Transcription
Come see a man, they ask me all the time. And what is it about you that people follow you? I said, nothing. Nothing special about me. Just a country old hick boy from the hills of West Virginia, born on the side of a house. His daddy was a janitor, mama was a teacher. There's nothing great about me. Everything great is about the Word.
Because if you give the Word and you put out the Word right, if you put out the kind of Word that causes people to see themselves, or see hope for tomorrow, or see healing for themselves, then you don't have to beg them to come. You never have to beg birds to eat bread if you put the bread out. The birds are going to come on their own. You don't have to drop bread in the sea and say, "Hey, little birdies, come! Birdies, come! Come on, little birdies, come on, little birdie, come on, little birds!" No, shut up and just throw the bread out. If you throw the bread, the Word said they'll come. The birds will come. The Bible said the Word increase and the disciples multiply. Where the Word increases, the disciples will multiply.
And who would have thought that this, forgive me, this [ __ ] this woman of ill repute, this husband-snatching [ __ ] of a woman, who would have thought that the Word would hit her too? That she would be a disciple? That she'd be a disciple? A woman that all the other women were whispering about, a woman that she didn't even want to encounter other women. "I don't even want to be around. I'm going to come in an hour." That other women were not down at the well, that kind of woman would become a disciple. Because the Word don't care who it infects. Whoever opens up to receive it, the Word will come in and get you. He touched her with the power of His Word, like He's touching somebody right now. He's touching you right in that house, right in that situation, with the Word of God. If you would just lower your pride and admit, "Give me that water that I thirst." Not some of us are so proud, and some of us have been hurt so bad, and we use that as a camouflage not to come to church. But I know people who got beat up in the club, but they still went back. Come on! I know people got ripped off, we left the dope deal, but they still smoking reefer. But when it comes to church, you're so hurt you can't come back to church. I know people got ripped off in the steering cup, but they still went back to the club. But you say, "Church hurt has kept me from church." Well, guess what? The church is closed now. You got to meet Him at the well.
So if church hurt is your excuse for not accepting Jesus, guess what? The churches are closed all over the country. But they could not close out Jesus. Because Jesus doesn't wait to come to a church. Jesus will come down to the well, have a conversation with you about water, and bring the Word into your life. Oh, y'all don't hear me, but I feel like preaching to somebody in this place right now. I don't need no church building to preach the Word. I preach the Word on the back of trucks. I preach a Word on the front porch of housing. I preach a Word on basketball courts with a megaphone in my hand. I don't need a crowd to preach the Word. I don't need anybody to help me preach what God called me to preach. I can preach it by myself. Somebody shout, "The Word!" Yeah!
You see, Jesus didn't need a pulpit or microphone. He sat by the well and preached a Word that was the beginning of the transformation of the entire city of Samaria, that ultimately would break the hexes and the spells of Simon the sorcerer and liberate Samaria from witchcraft. It started with a woman at the well who humbled herself enough to say, "I'm thirsty." This woman was the beginning of the reformation of the whole of Samaria. It started with the woman. This woman was a seed. She was a seed He sowed that Philip would harvest well later. In Acts chapter eight, verse one, the Bible says, "When persecution arose in Jerusalem, Philip went down to Samaria." Why did God send him to Samaria? To harvest on the seed Jesus had planted about ten years before.
So I talked a little bit about the well, and I talked a little bit about the water, and I talked a little about the Word. And my fourth one, and I'll be finished, is I want to talk about the worship. Because I really didn't read in my text about the well, and I didn't read in my little text about the water, and I didn't use the part of the text about the Word. I only use a part of the text about the worship. Because the argument she's having with Jesus is, "How do we worship?" It's an argument we still have today. We don't wash them with instruments in our church. We watch it with instruments in our church. We have a Hammond in our church. You can't have church if you don't have a Hammond B3. We have a pipe organ in our church. Let me tell you all, all this, all the mechanics of worship, that's not the issue. Your people worship in the mountain. You know, not "How long can ignorance worship and not be caught?" Your people have been worshipping in the mountain for years and never knew who you was worshipping. Yeah, ignorance can clap its hands. Ignorance can dance and sing. Ignorance can run up and down. Now, just because you're making noise doesn't mean you are a true worshiper.
Then Jesus validates the Jews and says, "My people know who we worship." For salvation of the Jews, He said, "We, we had it right. We were worshipping the right God." He said, "But the hour cometh and now is." Look at that phrase. "The hour cometh and now is." How could it be coming and now is? Jesus said the hour coming and now is. He was saying it was coming because of new Pentecost, powerful experience was coming. But He had to say, "Now is," because He is my Pentecost. He is my Feast of Unleavened Bread. He is my Feast of Weeks. He is my sacrificial Lamb. He is my Day Star. So He couldn't say He was just coming because He is. "I AM THAT I AM." The hour cometh and now is. That they that, oh, I feel the Holy Ghost, that they, they that worship Him, they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. They must worship Him in spirit because God is a spirit. And I told you at the beginning, you thirst for what you are. And if I am water and yet I thirst for water, then God is spirit and yet He thirsts for spirit. The hour cometh and now is. Today, that worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth. If I must worship Him in the spirit, and yet God is a spirit, I thirst for what I am. Your God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.
Now you can praise Him. You can praise Him. Now you can praise Him. You can praise Him with your hand. You can praise Him with your feet. You can praise Him from the high sounding cymbals in the heart. And so you can praise Him with earthly stuff. But if you go worship Him, worship goes beyond the dimension of the physical. Worship isn't a sound or a noise or a jump or a clap. All of that is how you enter into the gates. You enter into the gates with thanksgiving and the courts with praise. But in order to worship, you got to go in into the place where no sound is needed, into the place where no harps are played, into the place where your spirit communes with God.
The thing I couldn't understand when I got around homeless people. I was used to people shouting. But in my church, I grew up, we shouted because somebody sang or somebody preached us happy. But in a good old-fashioned Pentecostal service, they can start shouting and ain't nobody saying nothing. They just go to shouting, and it'll sweep all the way across the church, and ain't nothing going on. And I couldn't figure out, what is that thing that makes them shout and nobody's saying nothing? What is that thing that makes them run up and down the aisle and ain't nobody singing nothing? What is that thing that'll sweep over the church, and it'll start over in the corner with a church brother talking about "Holy, ow!" and it'll run all over. You don't know nothing about that. Ah, it'll run all over the church until everybody will in the corner shouting, "Saved by the Holy Ghost!" and the preacher didn't preach, and the choir didn't sing, but something swept the place. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him, shunned, must worship Him in spirit and in truth. In spirit and in truth. And that's why we can preach in an empty room and not be bothered, with a handful of people and not be disturbed. Because what I got didn't come from the people. What's up? What I got didn't come from the pews, didn't come from the crowd, didn't come from the noise of the tambourine. What I got came from the Holy Ghost.
God is a spirit, and they that worship Him. Yes, this is an elect group of people. It's not like praise. Praise invites everybody. "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." But worship is exclusive. Worship is exclusive. "They that worship Him" means it's not everybody. Must worship has a criteria. Must it's not about breathing. Now, "they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit." Why? Because God is a spirit. And in order to worship Him, you got to give Him what He is. Come on, come on, come on! If you, if you're going to quench His thirst, you got to give Him what He is. You need water because you came from water and you are water. But God is a spirit, and if you're going to quench His thirst, you have to worship Him in spirit.
[Music] And in truth. For the Father seeketh such. What would make God seek? [Music] God is omniscient. I'm listening. I'm not science. All science. Science. See, I knowing all knowing. God knows everything at the same time. And yet He says, "The Father seeks." The seeking God. I gotta quit. I gotta stop. Oh, I gotta stop. The seeking God. The first thing Genesis teaches us about God after He had created man is that God is a seeking God. Adam. [Music] [Laughter] [Applause] [Music] The omniscient, all-knowing, all-wise, Ancient of Days, beginning of wisdom, the God who knows the end from the beginning. It's found seeking in Genesis. He's still seeking in the Gospel of Saint John. "For the Father seeketh such to worship Him." He's searching from the annals of Calvary, laying on Calvary, looking up toward heaven, with the ground shaking and the sun refusing to shine, and the veil in the temple went from the top to the bottom. Jesus still says, "I thirst." What does He thirst for? That the woman at the well didn't give Him. He's sick of such me and you to worship Him in spirit and in truth. He doesn't seek for you to come to church more. I'm sorry, I'm a pastor. He doesn't need you to come to church all week long. Monday night, we got this, and the honeybees are meeting on Tuesday, and they're willing to fried chicken is me. Don't worry. And the earth and heaven bound his meeting on Friday, and then the Friday chicken committee is meeting on Thursday, on Saturday morning. He's not seeking more church. He's not seeking more church. We got churches on every corner. Every church splitting into fragments. Everything I'm called to start a church, I'm leaving your church so I can start a church. It's like I'm leaving the chicken so I can be a chicken. So now we got all of these churches. But that's not what He's seeking, right? That's not what He's thirsty for. The Father is seeking somebody who will worship Him in spirit.
Have you ever had the worship experience that had no music? Have you ever been driving your car and glory just rise up in your soul and tears start running down your face, and ain't nobody preaching, ain't nobody shouting, but you just had an encounter with God? Have you ever been walking around your house and just start shaking your head because all of a sudden the presence of God had come right there in your house? It all had to be a nice house. How it can be a one-bedroom apartment? You ain't got no furniture yet. You just got the mattress laying on the floor in the back. You ever had God make a house call? He's looking for you. All this hoopla and all this noise and all these headlines, and shut down all the restaurants, closing up the library, shut down all the bars, send everybody in the house 'cause He's looking for you. He's thirsty for you. Adam, I'm gonna shut everything down until I find you. I'm gonna close out all your hangouts till I find you. I'm gonna close down the gym. I know you got a membership. You got. I'm closing down the gym until I find you. I'm looking for you. I'm looking for you. I'm gonna shut out all the noise in your life until I find you. I'm gonna bring you off your job till I find you. I'm gonna make you sit in the house with nothing to do but think about me till I find you. 'Cause I want you back. I want your praise back. I want your attention back. I'm gonna shut out all your investments. I'm gonna close down your 401k. I'm gonna shut up your stocks, and I'm gonna close it all down 'cause I'm looking for you. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. Because I'm thirsty for what your soul would give me if you would come home. The kind of praise that would come out of you, it's the praise that I want. I don't need no more noise. I don't need no more workshops. I need somebody to worship me in spirit and in truth. I need somebody grateful. I need somebody who's been a [ __ ] and a [ __ ] and a whoremonger and a dog. I need somebody who's been locked up in jail. I need a pervert and a freak who'll come in and throw themselves down on the altar and say, "I'm not even worthy to be here, and I'm just grateful that you'd let me lift my hands up." He said, "That's, that's what I thirst for." I thirst for the broken and the wounded and the hurting and the fragmented and the forlorn and the molested and the raped and the abused and the criticized and the ostracized. Because there's something that comes out of a broken vessel that prepares my body. There's something when a vessel is shattered that gets my body ready. There's something that when a vessel cracks in my presence. And I close this Sunday morning message to tell you, He's looking for you. The Father is searching. [Music] For you. I came to tell you, He's [Music] He's thirsty for how you used to love Him and how you used to praise Him and how you didn't need all the accoutrements and all the attention in order to just, just, just. This is [Music] I appreciate all the stuff you do and all the people you're helping. What a nice, kind person you are. But I, I am thirsty for true worshipers. And if He forgave you for anything, if He brought you out of anything, if He washed you and gave you a second chance, if He put shoes on your feet or gave you a job you never thought you'd have, or opened up a door that other people would be envious to be here, if He ever did anything for you, hey, and you really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really appreciate it. If He ever did something for you that you couldn't pay for, that you don't deserve, that you didn't get there by yourself, if you really, really, really understand the words that are coming out of my mouth, He told me He thirsts for you. [Music] He thirsts for you like you thirst for water. He thirsts for you to talk to Him in the car on the way home. It used to be just you and Him riding together. He thirsts to be company in your house. You say you're suffering because you, you, you in isolation. You ain't suffering with your TVs and your air conditioning and your dishwashing machine. [Music] You know why you're suffering? You're suffering because you're not fulfilling your purpose. God gave you time off to worship Him. And while you seek the attention of people, God is trying to get your attention. Now do with what you will. Play me off if you want. Ignore it if you want. It's not even a real message anyway. These are just gleanings, just, just gleanings, residue, pieces and parcels, fragments, gleanings from the well.