The voice of God has tremendous power. The creation account in Genesis 1 teaches us that “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” Everything God made was made by His voice, He spoke and things that did not previously exist suddenly existed: light and darkness, land and sea, grass and trees, stars, planets and galaxies, animals, insects, fish; everything that God made simply came to be because He told it to. Then, on the final day of creation, God did not simply speak man into existence, He had a conversation. The Father, the Son and the Spirit together, said “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness”. The creation of man wasn’t as simple as the creation of all the other things. God expressed His purpose and plan for man in the conversation that led to His creation, “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” The Godhead discussed our creation, planned our creation and expressed purpose for our creation. We were created in, from and for conversation. Fast forward from Genesis 1 to John 4. Jesus, the Son of God, the active agent of Creation according to John 1 and Colossians 1, had to go through Samaria, weary Himself to the point of thirst so that He could sit down at a well and have a conversation with a woman that was more weary in her spirit than He was in His body. Jesus’ request for water was an invitation to conversation but how did it turn into a teaching on worship? In one conversation Jesus confronted the culture of racial prejudice, disrupted this woman’s thinking about herself and others, revisited her rejection and offered her uncompromised acceptance—what does any of it have to do with worship? We hear the word worship and we immediately think of music, of the songs we sing together on Sunday’s and privately in our homes and cars. We think of worship as our experience with and response to the presence of God. Depending upon our background we can think of worship in many different forms but for us the definition and idea of worship has become our musical response to what God has done and our request for Him to do more. This morning as we close out this passage of Scripture I pray that we will see that everything that Jesus talked to this woman about is intertwined in worship. For her to be free to worship in Spirit and in truth, the culture of racial inequality would have to be exposed and dealt with, her incomplete understanding about herself, others around her and God’s nature and character would have to be disrupted and transformed, her rejection that had largely formed her identity would have to be revisited and her complete acceptance by God would have to be embraced. I pray that we will begin to see that worship is not when we sing to get God to move, it’s when we hear God speak and we lower our defenses and fears and we join Him in the conversation that we were created from and created for.