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John chapter 4, verse 24 reads this like this. God is a spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth. The woman said, I know that the Messiah called Christ is coming, and when he comes, he will explain everything to us. Then Jesus declared, I the one speaking to you. I am he. I want to stop the reading of Scripture there and talk from this subject in our time together. Family. He's him. Clap your hands. 12:30. Let's give God a hand clap of praise, y'. All. Good. You feel like hearing some preaching? I want to start this sermon today by sharing a statement that is regularly repeated in many of my preaching presentations. And I say this frequently, not because I forgot I've said it. I say this frequently because I think it's important for us to continually hear it. So for my note takers, the statement is simple and it is as follows. The God you see, I thought I was at DeKalb. There it is. The God you see is the God you get. In other words, my perception of God affects my reception of God. My outlook on God affects my experience with God. The way I see God doesn't change him, but it does impact my experience with Him. And this is why I believe the Scriptures are regularly and consistently reminding us and reintroducing us to who God is. Because I believe, according to the creation narrative, that a strategy of Satan has always been to infect and to impact and to pervert our perspective of God. If you listen to the conversation that Satan is having with Eve in the garden, he is calling into question God's character. Did God really say, because the enemy knows that you live at the level of your revelation and sometimes, come on. Our revelation of God is producing some limitations in our life. So God, all throughout Scripture, keeps reintroducing himself to you and to me, because he knows the God you see is the God you get. And I want to pause in our time together today and inform some and remind others that the God of the Bible is not just a God of salvation, he's also a God of alterations. As a matter of fact, in Exodus 31:13, he introduces himself as Jehovah Makadish. He is the Lord who sanctifies. And that is good news for God's people. Because if we're honest and objective, all of us have some issues and some struggles and some challenges that seem to be constant and chronic. And what Jehovah Makadish reveals to us is just because. Because it hasn't been changed doesn't mean it can't be changed. And just because it hadn't been fixed doesn't mean it can't be fixed. And just because you can't adjust it doesn't mean I can't adjust it. If you learn how to bring it to me, I'll do what your eyes hadn't seen and your ears hadn't heard and your heart hadn't conceived. Because God is the God of alterations. He alters stories so he'll turn tests into testimonies. He alters situations so he'll turn your setbacks into setups. He alters seasons. He'll give you the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He even alters souls. Let me see if I can get a witness here. He turns sinners into saints. He alters character. He'll turn a deceiver like Jacob until a nation builder like Israel. He alters conditions. He'll turn the bitter water at Mara to sweet water for his people. He alters circumstances. He'll turn the Red Sea into a roadway. He alters careers. He'll turn fishermen into fishers of and he alters crosses. He'll take the instrument that the enemy wanted to use to assassinate you. And he'll take that same instrument and elevate you. What the devil meant for evil, God meant for good. He's the God of alterations. Now, I'm getting ready to test you here. I said I'm getting ready to test you here. I said I'm getting ready to test you here. Some people know how to praise God for alterations he's made in the past. That's important. But right along here, I'm looking for about 39 people that will give him a prophetic praise for some alterations he's getting ready to give. You see, some people can only praise him when he fixed it. I'm looking for people that appraise him. Because you believe he's getting ready to do it. Hallelujah, any day now. He's getting ready to do it. He's the God of alterations. It's one thing to know that he is the God of alterations. Did you hear what I just said? It's one thing to know that he is. Do you believe he's the God of alterations? You have to believe that. If you don't believe that you've assigned sovereignty to your struggles, your struggles are not sovereign. Did you hear what I just said? Yeah, come on. But if you're honest, many of us have gone through some seasons where it feels like struggles are sovereign. Like the struggles have the last say. Like the Struggles have the last words. You remember the story of an exorcism captured in the Gospels, when Jesus disciples tried to perform an exorcism and they couldn't. And then Jesus performed the exorcism and the disciples asked, why couldn't we do it? And Jesus said, these kind only go out by fasting and prayer. I'm not saying every issue is a demonic influence. But what I am saying is every issue is not equally impactful. There are certain things that we wrestle with and struggle with and try to get free from. And it seems like Pharaoh, when you get out of Egypt, he keeps chasing you down, chasing you down, chasing you down. But I want you to know that I believe the Bible records how many years people dealt with certain issues to let you know that your Savior is sovereign and your struggle is not sovereign. I don't care if you've been struggling for 38 years like the man at the pool of Bethesda, or 18 years like the woman with the bent over back, or 12 years like the woman with the issue of blood. No matter how long you've been dealing with it, and no matter what it is, it does not change who he is when he speak to your whale, Jonah the whale got to let you go. I need somebody to get an attitude. Right in the middle section and tell the devil, let me go. This is God's property. This is God's mind. This is God's body. These are God's children. This is God's business. Take your hand off of God's property. He's the God of alterations. If I don't believe that, I'm going to treat my situation like it's sovereign. And there's a word that I like to use to describe seasons where situations seem sovereign. And the word is a word called the cycle. And the text offers us some insight into this reality. Because in this text we are exposed to an individual, a woman who is in need of an alteration. Because this sister from Samaria is stuck in a cycle. I thought I was at DeKalb. I said this sister from Samaria is stuck in a cycle. Pastor, what's the cycle? It's a reoccurring pattern of suboptimal or self destructive behavior. It's when the problem becomes a pattern. And when the problem becomes a pattern, then the problem becomes a prison. Did you hear me? It is a reoccurring pattern. It means I have seasons of liberation and then I have seasons of captivity. Now notice what I said. It is sub optimal and self destructive. Suboptimal it means then I can be in a cycle. And every time I'm in a cycle, it doesn't mean that I'm down bad. It just means I'm not where I should be. I'm underneath what's optimal. Am I making sense? And the reason it's easy to stay stuck there because in many cases we're comparing our position and our placement to somebody else's position and placement. When God does not compare people to people, he wants you to compare you to your potential. Because just because you're doing better than them doesn't mean you're doing everything you should be doing. Is this not what we see in Matthew 25 in the parable of the Talents, where Jesus tells this parable about this man who distribute five talents to one person, two talents to one person, and one talent to another person. The person that had one talent buried their talent. They didn't lose it. They buried it. They didn't lose it. They just didn't multiply it. They didn't lose it, they just didn't maximize it. And Jesus tells a parable about the owner returning and he called that man wicked and lazy. And then there's one man who has two talents, he flipped his two talents and made four. And the one that had five talents, he flipped his five talents and made 10. So one had one, he kept the one. The other one had two. He made two more, the other one had five, he made five more. Don't miss this. Let's say the one who had five talents did the same thing that the person who had one talent did with his let's say the one who had five talents buried his talent. He didn't lose it. Let's just say he buried it. He still would have more than the one who had two talents and flipped his. I'mma say that one more time. I said if the one who had five talents did nothing with his talent, he would still have more talent than the one who had two talents who flipped it and made it four. This is why you can't look at how somebody else is doing and gauge how you doing. Because God gave you so much. You still got more than some people and you're not even maximizing what you got. But I pray this over your life. I pray that God pushes you into flipping season. I'm not talking about flipping real estate. I'm talking about you getting ready to flip your potential. You're getting ready to flip your anointing. You're getting ready to flip your life. This woman is in a Reoccurring pattern of suboptimal behavior. Yeah. And upon first glance, I want you to see. Excuse me? I want you to see. Upon first glance, I want you to see. It looks like. Are y' all here? Decal. It looks like she's in a relational cycle. Is that the text? Five husbands. It looked like she in a relational cycle. That's what it looked like. But Jesus knows everything isn't what it looks like. It look. Come on now. If she was sitting down telling us her story, we'd be like, five. Come on. Come on. We be like, praise God. Five. All right. Amen. God is good. Amen. Five. Blessed Jesus. Five. Okay. Because it looks like, on face value, it's a relational cycle. Are you following me? But in Jesus dealings with her. I want you to see. Doctor. Jesus makes diagnosis before he writes prescriptions. Haya. Diagnosis must precede deliverance. And the reason some people stay stuck in cycles is because they misdiagnosed the cycle they're in. So you're fighting the wrong thing and applying the blood to the wrong thing. Because Jesus is a need assessor before he becomes a need meter. Is this not what happened in the Gospels when there was a man and I pray that you have friends like this, or God send you friends like this? There's a man who's dealing with some issue, and the issue made him immobile. Because that's what some missions would do. They'll make us immobile. The Bible says his friends loved him enough to carry him to where Jesus was. When they got to the house that Jesus was in, there was a crowd there that was so great they couldn't get into the house. So they carry this man on a roof, tear a hole in the roof, let the man down in the hole. Jesus looks up and says these words, your sins are forgiven. Wait a minute. Thank you, Jesus. But I didn't carry this man all of this way for his sins to be forgiven. He can't walk. I need you to fix his legs. You're trying to. I want you to fix his sickness, but you're fixing his soul. Because God will use what you think you need to drive you to him so he can show you what you really need. God will use what. What you think is the real issue to get him to you. And then he says, now that we here, let's talk about the real issue. I can fix the legs. Let's talk about your soul. So it seems like this woman has a relational cycle. Can you say yes if I'm preaching truth, but if you notice the text? Jesus never talks to her about a relationship. Read text. He never says, you need to pick this way next time. He never says, you need to stop assigning value to people who can't value you. Y' all missed that. He never says that your issue isn't your value, your issues, their vision. Sometimes it's not a value problem, it's a vision problem. And some. Sometimes people don't get the vision right to the value. Gone. Now I'm gone. You ain't text me this much when we was together, but now let me go. I'm gonna go to this side over here. Where's my real section? Yeah, you just. We was together. I barely heard from you. Now that the value's gone, you got vision back. But Jesus says nothing to her about relationships. He talks to her about thirst. Did you hear what I just said to Cap? He doesn't say a word about relationships. He didn't say a word about her relational choices. He talks to her about thirst. He says, because you think your issue is your choices, so you keep trying to fix your choices. But the issue is not your choices. The issue is your thirst. Because your thirst keep affecting your choices. Come on here. So if I can fix your thirst, you can fix your choices. Because now you're choosing from a fulfilled place. And you're not choosing from an empty place. And you're not going to wrong places to try to get what only I can give. I'm gonna give you this water. And if you get this water, you will never thirst again. It's dangerous to choose when you're thirsty. Discernment is diluted when you're thirsty. Hallelujah. I said, discernment gets diluted when you're thirsty. Faith gets suffocated with fear when you're thirsty. Because you'll believe that if this door closes, it is the only door that can give me access to where God wants to take me. But I came to tell you that when God get ready to get you in a room, if they close the door, he'll open a window. And if they close the window, he'll open the roof. The woman was thirsty in those days, probably for security, love, acceptance, and protection. And Jesus said, I'm him. You missed it. He said, when you get this man, then you'll know how to get the other man. I'm here. He never deals with her relationship. He deals with her thirst. Because the thirst keeps perpetuating the cycle. And until he fixes the thirst, he can't stop the cycle. Because cycles have cycles. I call it the anatomy of a cycle. There's the trigger. So that's when something happens that activates our automatic responses. Then there's a response when we fall back into familiar patterns instead of choosing freedom. Then there's a result when we experience the same disappointment, damage, or defeat we've seen before. Then there's the reset where we convince ourselves this time it's gonna be different. Then there's the repeat when we begin the same cycle again with more intensity and less hope, because the longer we stay in it, the less hope we have that we can get out of it. But we can't fix the cycle until we fix the thirst. And I am what fixes the thirst. I am what fixes the thirst. I want to give you living water, which is a metaphor for my spirit. And my spirit. Come on. Here. Quenches your thirst. My spirit quenches your thirst for love. My spirit quenches your thirst for acceptance. My spirit quenches your thirst for protection. My spirit quenches your thirst. So now you're choosing out of want, not out of need, out of discernment, and not out of desperation. So the question is, how do I get access? I'm almost done. I got six minutes. Y' all good. How do I get access to this living water that he's talking about? How? How do I get access to this spiritual well that he refers to in the text? Are you following me here? Yeah. Here it is. The answer. The answer is in the text. I said the answer is in the text. I thought I was at the camp. 12:30. Come on. The answer is in the text. Here it is, Deshawn text says she leaves her water pot and goes into the city and starts telling people, come see a man that told me all I ever did. Don't miss it. She says, is this not the Messiah? Let me tell you why this is important. Because when. When Jesus gave this woman the logos, gnosis, a word of knowledge, talks to her about those five relationships. She said to him, I perceive you're a prophet. Is that what she says? And so watch this. She says, I perceive you're a prophet. See if y' all follow me. Five minutes left. Now. I perceive you're a prophet. Is that what she says? But in our text, in verse 25, she says, I know that the Messiah called Christ is coming, and when he comes, he will explain everything to us. So she saw him as a prophet, but she said, the messiah is coming because she saw him as a prophet. But she didn't see him as a Messiah. And Jesus has to tell her, I'm him. I'm not just the prophet. Cuz the God you see is the God you get. And if you only see a prophet, you can get a word. But if you see the Messiah, you can get salvation. I'm him. And when she got a revelation that this is the Messiah, she left her water pot. She came to the well thinking she was getting one thing. But when she got a revelation that Jesus was the Messiah, she left her water pot and went back into the city. This is an expression of worship. I'm leaving something I value for something I value more. I came thinking I wanted one thing, but now that I had an experience with you, I value this more than that. Are you hearing what I'm saying? She is personifying. Are you. Are you here? Are y' all following me? Yeah. So? So what I'm challenging us to do is to see her actions, is to see her actions as worship. But we can't do that if we're limiting worship to the expressions of worship. Worship begins with affection first, and my actions are an expression of my affection. So leaving the water pot was a picture or an example of affection. It is a powerful picture of what Jesus says. The Father is seeking when he says in verse 24, God is a spirit. Two minutes. And his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth. Okay, so this woman experiences an alteration because she has an authentic encounter with Jesus, not an emotional experience in church. See it. She has an authentic encounter with Jesus, not just an emotional experience in church. Okay, y' all following me? Okay. And so the question becomes, how do we have authentic encounters with Jesus and not just emotional experiences in church? That only happens with verse 24, when the kind of worship we're offering is worship done in spirit and in truth. See, this whole series is about reframing worship from something we do on Sunday in here together to what's called a spiritual discipline that we do. Watch this. Not just on Sunday, but on Monday. A spiritual discipline is what Dallas Willard calls a means of grace. It is something God uses to give you something you don't deserve. And he says, I'm going to give you grace, but I want to use some spiritual exercises as a catalyst for your spiritual growth. Now here's the issue. The issue is some people go to the gym and they don't understand the importance of not just doing the exercise, but doing it correctly. I can be working hard and not working right because I not only need to do the exercise consistently, I need to do it correctly and in the text, Jesus is teaching the correct way to exercise the spiritual discipline of worship. You follow me? Prayer is a spiritual discipline. But only praying and never studying the Bible is like working upper body and never working legs. And when the wind blow, you get knocked down because you don't have legs. Come on. So all the spiritual disciplines serve our spiritual growth in different ways. And worship is one that must be done consistently and correctly. How do we do it correctly? It's in the text we done. Jesus says it must be done in spirit and in truth. What does this mean? What does it mean? So worshiping in spirit can mean worshiping spiritually, not just emotionally, purely, not just passionately. From the heart, not just from the hurt. It means that the human spirit is expressing adoration and appreciation to God utilizing the human faculties. Did you hear what I just said? See? Okay. Okay. Give me truth. Give me truth. Give me truth. We have time here. Give me truth. Truth. Truth can mean worshiping the God of the Bible in the way the Bible prescribes. Now, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about this next week. But God, listen to me. Not only instructs us to worship him, but he tells us how he desires to be worshiped. So when we look in the Bible, we see all of these different expressions of worship. Not because everybody's supposed to do everything, but there's something for everybody. I'm not talking about. Are y'. All. Y' all follow me. There's something I taught last year called spiritual temperaments. It is the way God. This is the way you have been wired by God to respond to God and to seek and pursue God. So the Bible says, praise him in the dance. That doesn't mean everybody's gotta dance, but it means it's okay for somebody to dance. Are y' all following me? So when he says, I want you to worship me in truth, I want you to. You need to worship me as I reveal myself in the Bible. Cuz sometimes we're worshiping the God we created. I'm done tired, y'. All. Not the one that created us. God said so you stop worshiping me when I didn't give you what you want. But if you look in the Bible, I give you what you need. Listen to what Jesus says. Somebody say spirit, truth. Talk to you about this next week. Gary Chapman wrote this book on love languages. And the saints need to know God has some too. Listen to me. I know what we mean when we say this. I know what we mean. And it's okay. What we mean is, okay, but technically, you're never instructed to worship God in your own way. You have a unique way to worship because you are drawn to certain expressions of worship in the Bible based on your temperament. So some of us are more prone to hands raised, some of us are more prone to dance, and some of us are more prone to reflection. Like, that's fine as long as that's in scripture. But what happens is sometimes people, I don't have time Christian, they step outside the bounds of scripture to unapproved, non biblically sanctioned expressions of worship. And the Old Testament would call that strange fire. But when we worship God in spirit and in truth, you have regular encounters on a daily basis with the manifest presence of God. You live a presence driven life. You're not spiritually dry. And some people are studying scripture but dry and praying, but dry. Because you're not completing the circuit. The circuit. Come on, come on. Some of y' all going to gym. No, the circuit. You're not completing the circuit of disciplines. And he says, now, when you worship me this way in spirit and truth, here's what happens. Number one, you start experiencing more of God. It means I can experience his presence to degrees. There are greater degrees, greater measures of his presence. And so when my worship aligns with spirit and in truth, and when I practice it as a spiritual discipline and not a corporate expert exercise boy church, you really learn. Okay, Your practice should really be in private because it's harder to learn here. It's too distracting. Somebody behind you. Come on. It's. So you got to bring it. You perfect it in private and you express it in public. You. It's hard to. Because you might have a temperament and somebody else got a temperament that's getting in the way of your temperament. So you perfected in private. You express it in public. But I want more of God. I want to experience increased degrees of his manifest presence because I'm a different person when I'm in it. Fish need water. Birds need the sky. Cattle need land. You need Him. You need Eden. Unbroken communion and fellowship with. Life's too hard to not have more of him. You get more of God. Number two, you get messages from God in Acts 13. The Bible says there are prophetic gifts and teachers, apostles who were worshiping at Antioch. It says they were worshiping. They were worshiping and fasting. And it says that while they were worshiping and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me. Set aside for me Paul and Barnabas for the work that I've assigned them. They're in the presence, and they get a message. Because sometimes the word is in the presence. Boy, I don't have time. You do know in Acts 13, Elijah, Paul had. Paul was already prepared. He was competent, but preparation doesn't mean permission. And when he was in the presence of God, God says, go time. Sometimes we need answers. We need guidance. We need direction. And it's in the presence. This is also seen. Elder. This is also seen in the Ark of the Covenant. Piece of furniture that represent the presence of God in the tabernacle of Moses. The ark was almost like a box. And the ark had items inside of it. Had Aaron's rod that was no longer collected. It was rod that. But it. But also there was manna. Oh, that'll preach God Almighty. Manna was in there, and the Ten Commandments was in there. So a miracle was in there. Manna was in there, and a message was in there. The Ten Commandments were inside of the ark. It's a metaphor that sometimes the word from God you need is in his presence. The words in the ark. So if I'm missing the ark, I'm missing some words. I'm missing some. Don't sign that. I'm missing some. Back out of that deal. I'm missing some. Started now I'm missing some. Write it now I'm missing some. Do it now that word's in the ark. More of God. Message from God. Oh, God, I don't have time. See, here's why you need. We need a message from God. Because so much. There's a large degree not anxiety, but some of our anxiousness is tied to a lack of clarity. I'm not talking about anxiety, but anxiousness. We anxious because we're not clear. But I don't know what to do. Should I do it? I don't want to do it. I don't want to mess it up. I need a word from God. I don't. After you get through talking and texting, after you get through consulting people, you got to hear from heaven. More of God. Message from God and a move of God. Acts 16. Paul and Silas were in a Philippian prison. And the Bible says, and at midnight they prayed and sang praises unto God. And suddenly there was a great earthquake. So that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bands were loose. If you don't need doors open, be quiet. Immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's bands were loose. When you start worshiping, God starts moving. Doors start opening. Freedom starts happening? Somebody take 15 seconds and worship him.