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A thought in my mind this morning, and ask that you pray, as Brother Elijah prayed, um, that the Lord would bless me with the recollection of scriptures. I'm very thankful whenever a prayer mentions that. Um, as we try to study in the Word of God, there's sometimes so much that um you look at, you pr and you say, Oh, this is a beautiful piece of this thought, and then it's just gone. You know, it can be just gone when I want it most. That's my frailties. Um, I trust what is the Lord is not only able to do, but is willing and will do, is when I fail and I have my faults and and I don't say the right things or find the right verses, that the Lord is able to take his message, which may not be necessarily what I'm even thinking, and apply it to your hearts. See, that's where the miracle of preaching really takes place, is when the word of God is understood and applied to the heart, which is not something I can do. And I know that, but I must, as Brother Elijah prayed, do the best that I can do. And I'm thankful for that prayer. It's not getting touched exactly what is my prayer this morning. Um so if if the Lord will be our helper this morning, I'd like to look at Psalm 48 with you. And I want to uh see something particular in Psalm 48 that I want us to be able to apply to ourselves in the Church of Jesus Christ today, the house of God. Um Psalm 48, the psalmist writes, and I believe it's David, but I'm not sure who wrote the psalm. But he uh he starts off Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. So we start off with what should be our focal point in all we do, especially what we do in the church. Great is the Lord. And then he goes, so because of that, because the Lord is great, then his praise should be great. Um I don't, it's not my focus this morning, but I would say this: the greater you see the Lord, the greater you will praise him, right? There is a correlation between how much praise we offer up to the Lord. We can't praise him as he is deserving. Um, no matter if we did, as Brother Elijah prayed, the very best we can do, our faults and failures, they make us fall short of the praise he's due. He is receiving the proper, appropriate praise for his greatness in the throne room of heaven right now, where there is nothing to hinder those that are offering praise to him, both the uh angels which he created that inhabit around the throne of God, to those saints of his that have gone on to be with him, the um those that have been his children elect before the world began, and now are in the very presence of God in their soul and spirit, and at least two people, body as well, Elijah and Enoch, and they are praising God for his greatness right now, and there's nothing stopping that or hindering it or dampening it. It's not diminished at all. It is the proper praise for his greatness. Well, we don't have the ability to offer that, but we do have the ability to offer up praise, acceptable to him while here in this world, and the greater we see him, the greater we would desire to praise, and the greater we will praise him. Right? Great is the Lord our God, and greatly to be praised. Then he says, where? Now we can praise the Lord and should praise the Lord everywhere and in all situations in our lives. That is proper. I mean, our lives should never be compartmentalized to where we only praise him Sunday morning, and then the rest of the time we are absent from him. He's absent from our thoughts. That should not be. We should center our entire lives around how our great God. I mean, he should be the foundation of everything we do. Um, choices we make in life, whether, where we will live, should not be made with church as an with the Lord, with I don't know, with God as an afterthought. But the I mean, we're gonna bring this to the city of God, so to the church. But first of all, God is the foremost foundation of everything. Build your life on that. Praise Him in all things you do, praise Him at work. Now, do I mean that like when you're at work, you should be singing songs that were in your head, you might need to. Sometimes I need that to get through the day. My boss would probably frown upon me not answering the phone so I can sing a hymn, but that does not stop you from praising him internally, and and that praise to him will comfort you, give you peace, the same way it does when we're together at church. You might need that. It's interesting the way the Lord will bless you to do that. Um, this morning, I woke up. I'm just gonna share this with you. I woke up, as soon as I woke up, uh, the hymn Nearer My God to Thee was on my mind. We were driving to church, and one of the last songs to come up on the radio, our because we're playing a streaming uh singing, and Near My God to Thee came on the on the car. And I said, Oh, I was I woke up to that. I told Ann I woke up to that. And then Brother Aiden picked that song beside. I looked at it and I said, Apparently, I need to be nearer to God today. And we do always need that. Um, no matter what we're going through, we need to draw near to him. But this psalm is saying where particularly he is saying the praise of God should be great. And he says, in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness. Now, the allusion to this, and of course, when the psalmist wrote this, this was a physical thing. Physically, the house of God, the temple that Solomon built, was in Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is on a mountaintop. So he goes on to say this beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. On the sides of the north, the city of the great king. God is known in her palaces for a refuge. I'm gonna pause the thing and look at this situation here. Well, situation. It's funny, huh? No pun intended. He says, beautiful for situation. The joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. Mount Zion is one of two kind of mountain peaks where Jerusalem would be built, where the temple would end up being built, where eventually, as we know, our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. One is Mount Moriah, and the other is Mount Zion. And the way that it's situated is it is on an elevated peak. It's around 2,500 to 2,700 feet, I think, if I got that right. But it's surrounded by valleys, okay? On basically three sides, but not on the north side. Okay. So you have Mount Moriah. Mount Zion is a little south of Moriah. So the way it's positioned, and then of two valleys, the valley of Hinnum and the Valley of Kedron. I don't want to get into significances of those valleys, but they have significances. But the main thing I want us to see right now is the steep valleys on three sides, and one side, not a steep valley. I mean, it only had one approach, that was from the north. Okay? And Zion is situated behind, a little bit behind south of Moriah, where the temple would end up being built. But God uses synonymously in Scripture Zion and Jerusalem and city of God. All of that is considered one, so he doesn't break it into two things. When he says Mount Zion, he's talking about where God chose to place his name among Jerusalem. Now they had been, remember back, they had been wandering in the wilderness after coming out of Egypt for like 40 years because of their disobedience. But during that time, God constantly promised them, you are going to go into the land I promised you. When you go into the land I promised you, God said, I'm going to place my name among you. I'm going to dwell among you. I will be your God, and you shall be my people. This was a constant promise that God made to them. He said, I'm going to give you a resting place, a place to stay, a place where I will dwell with you. And in Deuteronomy chapter 12, and again, I don't mean to go and read all of chapter 12, but I kind of, if you'll let me say I sign up for homework, read chapter 12. You'll see something repeated over and over again in chapter 12 of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is like the book that was written right before they go into the Promised Land. It's the last book of Moses, the last of the first five books. This is where he's telling the children of the original generation that came out of Egypt all of the things that he had told them originally. It's a repeating of the law, okay, for the people who are going to go into the promised land. And what he says in Deuteronomy chapter 12 over and over again, you know repetition is a great teacher. Repetition is something we use to really drill something in so that you can learn it. A lot of times with the younger children, we sing songs that have a chorus or something because it's repetitive. Repeating something helps you learn it, right? Okay, so also repeating something means it's really important. If the word of God says it once, it's important. If the word of God says it twice, I think we really should pay attention. Well, Deuteronomy chapter 12 says something multiple times. More than twice, I don't remember the number, but if you go and read it, here's what you'll find over and over. He says, in the um, when you get into the land, and I'm paraphrasing until I get to verse 5. But paraphrasing, when the when you get to the land that I've given you, you're going to destroy all the high places that they worshiped in their gods. And then he says, verse 4, he says, You shall not do so unto the Lord your God, but unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek. Okay, he'll say that again in like verse 11. Verse 11 he says, Then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there. Thither shall ye bring all that I command you. And again he says it in um verse 14, verse 13 he says, Take heed to thyself that thou offer not thy burnt offerings in every place you see. In other words, he's saying, You make sure you don't get you, Israel, you don't get to worship wherever you want to. He says, Israel, there's a place that I'm gonna choose. He says, but in the place, verse 14, in the place which the Lord shall choose in one of thy tribes, there shall you offer your burnt offerings, and there shall you do all that I command thee. And it goes on, and he I think he repeats it at least two more times. But when you go and read that, notice that repetition. God's saying that right now, as you're wandering in the wilderness, you don't have a set place. But when you get there, when you get to the promised land that I've given you, that I've promised you a place of rest, you're gonna do what as I commanded. You're gonna go to the place I choose, the place where I'll put my name, that's what you seek after. Now that became Jerusalem. It took a while, but when David became king and the and he conquered by God's grace and power all the enemies around Israel, and they were given peace. When David had won the victory through all of his battles, Israel had peace. Now David wanted to build a house to God now. At this point, it was in his heart to build a place for God, a place for his name. But David wasn't allowed. Now, there's a lot of history, so I'm not going to read it. I'm just paraphrasing, but there's a lot of history here. But David wanted to build a place for God, a place where they would settle the ark, because it had been in the tabernacle as God commanded when they were wandering around. A place where the ark would be, where the sacrifices would be taken, a place like God promised that they would go and worship. David wasn't allowed to build it because of his own sins and his own choices. Also, the fact that he had been a man of war and blood, but it said his son Solomon would be allowed to build this. Now I'm not going to fast forward into that or read all of that, but when God allowed Solomon to build it, he was saying something in a picture. It was like an illustration. Solomon's name means peace. David was the king who would win the victory by his power, and once the victory was won, the kingdom would have peace. There's something beautiful in that when we get to the church, which all of this is a picture of. Hold on to that thought. But while we're waiting on that, there was something Israel did that we could dangerously do now. Okay? This be um, but okay, I don't get ahead of myself. Beautiful for situation. This this way that Zion was built, that word situation there, it actually means elevation. It's beautiful for its highness, for the way that it's above the valleys all around it. Okay. And then it talks about how it's the city of the great king. God is known in her palaces for a refuge. What I want us to think about here is the danger of thinking that the beauty of Zion is only about its situation, its elevation, and not the fact that it is the city of God, and God is known in her. And God said, You're not, don't do like all of them, the heathens do when you get to the promised land. But even while they were wandering, God had prescribed the way for them to worship. And the way they were to worship was to come together around the place that God would be. Okay? Not wherever they see. Remember, one of the ones we read was, don't offer your offerings in every place you see, right? No, you come to the place that I choose to put my name. God says, Come to the place where I'm going to be. And I know God is everywhere. We should know that. We should take comfort in that. That God is everywhere present. There's no place that God is not. But God is not saying, because he's omnipresent, therefore you can just worship wherever, because he tells them, even though he is everywhere present, he says, I'm going to choose a place. And that's where you come together. In the Old Testament, it was called the congregation. In the congregation of the people. And in the New Testament, that same word is translated church. In one place where Christ, or in the Psalms, he says that in the midst of the congregation will I sing praises unto thy name. In the New Testament, in Hebrews, that same verse is quoted, but it says, Christ speaking, in the midst of the church will I sing praises to my Father. Same word, same, it's the same verse, literally. So what we see is church in the New Testament, congregation in the Old Testament, and what's a congregation? I mean, we think, well, you're a congregation, right? Why are you a congregation? Because you have congregated, you have come together. We are coming into one central focal point. And what's the focal point? It should be God, where his name is, where he's placed it, where he meets with us. Okay? The danger, though, to Israel was thinking that the sacrifices, the altar, the, and the ark itself, that that was the focal point. Samuel, this is a true event that happened to Israel, and I think it provides a good warning for us. 1 Samuel chapter 4. This is before David was king. This is when Saul, I mean, I don't know if Saul's even king yet. No, this is before Saul's even king. This is when they had no king yet. Um Israel, but he's not the high priest Eli is. This got this priest named Eli, and his sons are wicked priests, and they are doing bad things. And chapter 3 tells you that. And God's going to judge, judge them for this. And chapter 4 is when that will happen. Um, they go out to battle against the enemies of Israel. They had battled before, God had delivered them before. But in chapter 4 of 1 Samuel, um it says verse 2, the Philistines put themselves in array against Israel. And when Israel, when they joined battle, Israel was smitten before the Philistines, and they slew of the army of the field about 4,000 men. And when the people were coming to the camp, the elders of Israel said, Wherefore hath the Lord smitten us today before the Philistines? They're like, Why are we losing? Okay? That's what they're thinking, why are we losing? They're going to try to figure out what to do about this. And they said, notice it says, they said, Let us fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us. Let us go and get the ark of God, the ark where the sacrifices are made, the ark where we worship God, the ark where God said, He promised, that's where I will be. That's where I will meet with you. Something they're forgetting, though. When God said he would meet with them there, it was inside the holiest, behind the veil, once a year, when the high priest went in on the Day of Atonement. They're kind of forgetting that. And they're like, let's go get the ark. Let's get the ark and bring it, bring it here. But notice what it says. Let us go and fetch the ark of the covenant of the Lord out of Shiloh unto us, that when it cometh among us, it may save us out of the hand of our enemies. Where are they putting their trust? They're putting their trust in the ark. Let's go get the ark so it will save us. Now, when the people went to Shelah, they went to get it, they brought it. God had never told them to ever take that ark out of the temple out of the tabernacle and carry it around like it's some sort of like, well, idol. That's what they're making, the ark. And so when the ark of the covenant, verse 5, of the Lord came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great shout, so that the earth rang again. And when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, notice what they said. They said, What meaneth the noise of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews? And they understood that the ark of the Lord was come into the camp. And the Philistines were afraid, for they said, God is come into the camp. And they said, Woe unto us. And basically I won't keep reading all this, but so the Philistines, like the Israelites, were thinking, Oh, no. They went and they brought God to the battle. But if you when we keep reading, what we're going to find is the Philistines win easily, like handily, they route them completely, and they killed the two sons of Eli, who God had said he was going to judge, and slot, slot, slew, sleep. They were going to die because of the judgment of God. I don't know, slot, slew them, slay them. And they took the ark. The Philistines took the ark and carried it away to their land. And it would be there for a while. God would judge them for that. God wasn't going to let them take the ark. It was going to end up back where God would have it be. But the whole point, what's the whole point of this? The Israelites had got it in their head that the thing that facilitated worship was what mattered rather than the God who they worshiped. Let it save us. Let's go bring that. And they thought they're bringing God to them. They can carry God around, they can move God around. And rather than go into where God is, they tried to bring God to them. You can't do that. God will not be mocked and he will not be worshipped, however, we choose to do it. And he's um God was like, you will go where I put my name and where I said I will be with you. We had to do it his way. So when we realize what they're saying there is, what made the Mount Zion so beautiful? Was it the elevation in the sense that it was higher than anywhere else? No, actually, it wasn't that high. I mean, Mount Zion's situation, its elevation was higher than all that was around it. It certainly was beautifully situated in its local geography, but I mean it wasn't Mount Everest, right? It wasn't about its elevation in the sense that it was so much higher than anywhere else. It also wasn't, it's not that it was the most defense, it was definitely defensible. Physically speaking, in a military sense, uh with those steep valleys around it, there's only one way to approach. They built good walls there on the north, and it was a stronghold. It was a stronghold that seemed impenetrable, and yet David conquered it. And then it became the city of David, and where he built his palaces, right? But it it wasn't still, it seemed inconquerable once they built the good walls there, but we know it was conquered multiple times. Why? Because God allowed it for judgment against Israel. But it so it wasn't beautiful because of its elevation in a natural sense only. I'm certainly, I'm sure that it was a picturesque thing. But what the psalmist really says, and what we need to remember, especially as the church today, which this is a picture of, the city of God, Paul calls it in Timothy, he says, the house of God, which is the city of the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. But what we have to understand is the church is beautiful, it's elevated, it's higher than all that's around it, it's higher than this world, because God is there. Now it says God is known in her palaces for a refuge. That's the focal point. That's what we come together to. When we have, when we come to worship God, it certainly isn't about this physical building. I think we all know that intuitively, that we can meet wherever we meet, and the Lord, if the Lord's there, then we have church, right? Because church doesn't mean the building. We do call this the church building. I do. I'm not saying you shouldn't either. I'm not saying like it's wrong to say, well, I'm going to go to church today to mow the grass when there's no one else here. You're mowing the grass at the church. The property, the building is owned by the church. It's where we meet in the church. But we know that it's not the church, right? The church is you, the people of God. You're the building of God. And talk about recollection of scriptures that I need to remember where they are, so I can tell you to go look at them. Uh Ephesians chapter 2 has this verse where he says about the Jews and the Gentiles both, that they both, chapter 2, verse 18, um, how they uh both, we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone. So we see how we got Jew, Gentile, how we're all one accessed by one, coming together into like we're bottlenecking into one focal point, and it's built on a foundation. He's talking in metaphor, like, but he says, you are this building. Not the building you're in is the building, but you are the building, and you are built as a church on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, but Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone that everything points to him, that he's our focal point. When we come together as one body, we are not trying to come together based on our secular enjoyments, though I enjoy some times with brothers and sisters, and we're talking about things that we enjoy a movie or a music thing we like. That's not what brings us together. That's not what that's not the focal point that we're all gathering together under. Or, nor is it even like the hymns we like. We may be like some of us like certain hymns, don't like others, or maybe a kind of hymn versus another kind of hymn. That's still not the focal point, but what the hymns are teaching, what the songs are saying, should be our focal point. It certainly should never be that we all gather together around a minister. Um, that's definitely never right that we have become a church because we have all centered around the preacher. That would be the worst church, like ever. Because that would be like taking the ark that was supposed to be the place that the high priest went to where God was and taking it out of where it's supposed to be, thinking it's the thing. Your minister is nothing more than another child of God trying to worship God, but by being blown bless, to be able to facilitate the preaching of the gospel to and with us all. But the focal point that we all gather around and together and congregate together or become a church is around Jesus Christ. He's the chief cornerstone. Now, it's the next thing you must say, it says, in whom all the building fitly framed together. Again, this isn't a physical building. This is you, the church of Christ, the called out from this world and assembled to worship. Okay, you are a building fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye are also builded together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. Now again, each and every one of you in your own individual selves, you're born again of God, you have God dwelling in you. Well, you could say, so you're a habitation of God through the Spirit every day of the week, but this is not talking about each of us in our individual capacities. He's talking to the church at Ephesus how you are all built together. He's talking about the house of God, the city of the living God that's built up on the mountaintops. You are that building, each of you as a church, when we come together to worship. Wherever that may be, it's when we're together to worship. It's not even necessarily when we're together to mow the yard or when we're together to eat dinner. Some of us would like we had quite a bit of the congregation together at dinner last night. Um, that wasn't church. That wasn't us assembled to worship. Now, each of us were the indwelling of the Spirit was with us, and we were um God was with us. I trust He's never absent from us at all. But but this is built together. It's come together around the focal point, right? That is the difference. Um in Micah chapter 2. This is a prophecy that Micah chapter 2 says. Um it's not chapter 2, it's chapter 4. Isaiah chapter 2 is almost the exact same words. That's where I got confused. Isaiah chapter 2, Micah chapter 4, we'll just look at Micah real quick. But in the last days, he says, the prophet says, in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains. And it shall be exalted above the hills. Now he's saying that there's something that's going to be different in the last days. Now, a lot of people will read this and say, see, this is something coming down the line from us in the future. And John, the Apostle John, in his writing says, Beloved, now is the last days. That John tells us plainly, in his time, while he was writing, that he was in the last days. So when you read anything about the last days, I want you to understand that it's not talking about future for you. It's talking about the days since Christ rose from the dead. There are two basic days in this world. The days before Christ rose from the dead, and the days after Christ rose from the dead. Okay? The days before Christ rose from the dead could be broken up into some phase, some eras also, the pre-flood days, the post-flood days. There's a word for that, deluvian, anti-deluvian. You know, but but the main thing was there was the world before Christ died and rose again, and then there's the world after it, and that's it. There's not going to be another age. When he comes again the second time without sin unto salvation, that's it. That is the end. Uh the finale. That's the end of this world and this time. Because Paul says, Then cometh the end when Christ he shall have delivered up the kingdom. We will be in heaven where we will be offering perfect praise, centered around the throne of God. These are the last days. We're in them. Thanks be unto God, we're in the last days. I don't I don't really want another. I'm looking forward to going home to be with the Lord forever. But in the meantime, I'm thankful that in these last days, he has set his house, as he calls it, the mountain of the house of the Lord, will be established in the top of the mountains. And he's not saying physically that he was going to put a mountain on top of a mountain. He's not talking anymore about even going to that physical mountain where Jerusalem and Mount Zion is still today. You can go over there, you could see it for yourself in a natural sense. And I'm sure that it is breathtaking. I'm sure it's uh awe-inspiring. I haven't gone, I'm not saying I wouldn't like to go. But he is not prophesying that that's something that's going to be important anymore. He's saying that there's a spiritual sense in which the house of God is going to be elevated above the things of this world, but it will always still be the place where he is with his people, and they come together to him. Because read the way that it reads. It'll be established in the top of the mountains, it'll be exalted above the hills, and the people shall flow unto it. Almost like a metaphor of a river of people going upward to the mountaintops where the house of God is. The people will flow unto it. That looks like a congregation, right? But then he goes on to say, and many nations shall come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob. Many nations will say this because, he said, in these last days, the prophet is saying here, it's not going to just be the house of Israel anymore. It's not going to just be the congregation that can that is allowed by God to come together and worship as the children of natural Israel. It's going to be all nations. This is prophesying of the bringing in of Gentiles. This is prophesying of our blessed privilege that we have to go into the house of God, to go up to the house of God. That we can climb the mountain of God in a spiritual sense and go to the place where God placed his name. Go to the place where God said he'll dwell. Go to the place where we'll feel his presence and we can circle around him. We can center around him. And our worship, though, cannot and must not be worshiping the church instead of the God of the church. Just like they should never have been worshiping the Ark of God. It should have always been about the God of the Ark. Our church is so precious, it's so beautiful, the privilege we have to come together. We love each other. That should be something that is permeating our our church, our congregation, our the house of God. But what if not if that is our focal point, I promise you, this the building will fail. Like if our foundation is us, if it's family, if it's friends, if it's people, if it's the songs we sing, if it's uh the location we're at, or anything else than God, that foundation is not going to hold up. The foundation must be Jesus Christ and His doctrines and His teachings and His practice. And we flow to it. When we do that, we're going up. When we do that, we're elevated above the world because He is high, because He is elevated. Right? So He says that let us go up to the house of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways. We will walk in His paths. That's, if you'll allow me to say it, another way of saying doctrine and practice. That God will teach us His way, of His ways, His salvation, His love for us, that all the things that we should focus on in worship are His ways. And then it says we will walk in His paths. That's an activity. And all our activity in the church should be His activities, not what we would design for ourselves. You know, there's many people that would make church about what they do, and then they would accuse us of not doing anything, and that should never be the case. We should be active in the service of God, but the church activity should be what's focused on worshiping Him. Okay, when we come together, it should be for worshiping the Lord. When we go away from the congregation, it should be for the individual service we do in this world to shine a light to this world that the light of Christ is shining in us. We shouldn't compartmentalize our praise and worship of God to where we only do that at church. But the way that the church worships is singular, it's particular, it's got a scope that's focused. The church is focused on worshiping the Lord. Our service to this world and to each other in the good deeds we do is important. It is Christ shining out in us, but that's the work of each and every one of you as a child of God to serve, to love your neighbor as yourself. The church, when we come together, is for the worship of God. So that's what I want us to keep our focus on as a church is that what makes the church beautiful is the Lord is there. And we should pray always that we are congregating with him where he is and not gathering together and then asking him to come to be where we are. Okay? In a spiritual sense. Understand we do want him to be where we are, but that's because we're going up to where he is. Again, that could be in this building, it could be in a home if we've come to worship there. People, many people have worshiped in homes before. It could be in uh when we go and gather together at another church, a local church. It could be when we go visit a church that's not our home church. We're still always going up to the house of God. And when we do that, and I've said this at many meetings when we have visitors that come together, that once we start worshiping, I pray we forget that we're five different churches represented, and we just become one house of God. One church that's congregated around Jesus Christ, worshiping him in spirit and in truth. Because Christ told the woman at the well that very thing. Remember, the Old Testament was all about Jerusalem. That's where God said he would put his name. He says, You don't get to worship. Deuteronomy chapter 12. You don't get to worship wherever you want to. He says, Israel, don't just worship wherever you are. You come to the place that I said to come. Jerusalem would become that place. God says, I'll put my name here. Then you fast forward all those years, and what happens is the nation of Israel gets split into two, and ten of the tribes end up being called Samaria. And they worshiped up in their mountains, up in northern the nation of Israel. There were still some of them that would go down to Jerusalem, but as a whole, they worshiped up there. And when you get to the woman at the well, that was a Samaritan woman in Samaria, right? Jesus said, I must needs go through Samaria. He meant, I have something to do there, and I want to talk to this one woman at this well. Jesus was particular and on purpose about that. So Jesus goes to the well and he meets this Samaritan woman and he asks her for a drink. And she said, you know, basically, like, why are you a Jew asking me for a drink? The Jews and the Samaritans, we don't we don't even talk to each other, basically. But when he says, Jesus says, if you knew who asked you to drink, you would have asked of me, and I would have given you living water. And the woman's like, Wow, you know, like this this is an intriguing conversation. So basically she says, I perceive you are a prophet. And when she perceived that, she had a question in her mind. She had a question that I think was burning in her heart that God had placed there in the Spirit, because she says, Our fathers worshiped in this mountain. But ye say, meaning Jews, you say that Jerusalem's a place that men ought to worship. Now that she didn't really ask a question, right? Jesus knows the question, though, like he often did. He's like, she's asking, what's the right way to worship God? Because she's desiring to worship God. That's my take. I fully believe she desired to worship God in the best way that God would be pleased. But she grew up in Samaria. And we're talking a thousand years of worshiping up there. They hadn't forgotten the God that led them out of Egypt. Understand the Samaritans still traced their worship to God. They still had Levites around. They still had the law in a sense, but they had totally messed it up to where they thought they could offer their sacrifices in their mountain. So she says, our father. Worshiped in this mountain. He's like, Jews, you guys say that Jerusalem is the only place where you ought to worship. See, Jesus answers and says, You worship, you know not what. He says, We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. So first thing he says to her is, okay, as of right now, the Jews do have it right. God had said, worship where I say to worship. And he's like, you're worshiping. And I missed this when I was younger, and I hope I never forget the lesson I think God showed me. He did not say you don't worship. He didn't say that what you're doing is fake. He didn't say that what you're doing is false. He actually credited her with worship. He says, You worship, you know not what. He says, we know what we worship, Jews, meaning, for salvation is of the Jews. Or in other words, the Jews still had been at least going to the right place. Trust me, Jesus had, I mean, you can read and see where he had criticized the Pharisees and the Sadducees because their worship was lip service only, was not in their heart. They had taken the commandments of God and had overturned them by bringing in their traditions. They had done so many things that oppressed the poor and the weak when the true, true religion, undefiled before God, is to visit the widows and orphans in their afflictions and to keep yourself unspotted from the world. So the Jews didn't do it right. Jesus wasn't saying to her that the Jews worship in a way that pleases God, but he was saying that, yes, God had said there's one place you ought to worship. And it is true that his that a big problem that Israel faced and all of their kings was the because they had forsaken the worship of God. I believe when you read through the Old Testament and you read phrases like, This king of Israel, of the kingdom of Israel, walked in the footsteps of his father, of Jeroboam, who made Israel to sin. When he said that, he was referring to a specific thing that the king Jeroboam had done, where he set up idols in the north and said, Jerusalem's too far for you, Israel, you worship here. In other words, worship of convenience, worship of the way that it pleases you. I've heard people say, God only cares about your heart. So he doesn't really, God isn't concerned with how you worship, as long as you have a heart to worship him. Jesus seems to be telling the woman at the well that that's not entirely true. God is concerned about your heart. It is the most important thing is that your heart is sincerely worshiping, however, a heart that says, God doesn't really care. It's what he's like, whatever I like, whatever. That's a heart that is not focused on God, it's focused on self. Okay? Just like if my heart were to say, God doesn't really care how much I study the Word of God, as long as I'm sincerely trying to preach, none of you would accept that, and God wouldn't accept it. He also wouldn't accept any kind of offering up. It's like if we sing, or let me put it this way: it is absolutely not important whether we all sound like really well-trained professional singers. I do not have a pretty voice. I sounded like I was drinking water through a song earlier. God's not concerned about whether the ear, whether we sound like some choir. But if I said that since God doesn't care about how pretty I sing, that I shouldn't, I don't have to try to sing better, then what my heart actually says is I don't want to try. Right? So God is concerned about the heart, the contrite heart, the worshipful heart. But the real worshipful heart is always striving to serve better, to worship better, to know more, to do better, right? Um, the woman at the well, he says, You worship. You know not what. We know what we worship. But then Jesus says this but the hour is coming, in which they that worship God will, and neither, neither in this place nor yet at Jerusalem will worship. In other words, Jesus is saying that like because he's here on earth, the hour was coming. And that hour would be, when he raises from the dead, the importance of the physical place of Jerusalem would cease to be. There would no longer be sacrifices and offerings to be given at the altar in Jerusalem. That would no longer be the way to worship God because they pointed to Christ, and that would be over. He'd be fulfilled, the law is fulfilled. Now and from now on, Jesus says, God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And we need to remember that it's not however we are pleased to worship, but whether we're worshiping him in spirit and in truth.