She was shown to her seat by a man in a good jacket who called her sister and meant it, and she has not moved from it since.
She is here for her niece. It is a two hour drive and it is not her congregation and she does not know one hymn they have sung this morning. Everyone has been warm. Somebody found her a bulletin, somebody else made room, and a woman on her left has quietly told her when to sit down twice.
And when the invitation came, she stayed exactly where she was, and she would tell you why without hesitating: you do not walk to the front of a house you were invited into. It is not her building. Those are not her people. Whatever is being offered up there is being offered to a congregation she is visiting for one morning.
That is good manners and it is genuine. What sits underneath it is not manners at all.
Underneath it is a thing she has carried for a long time and has never had a good place to put down, and she noticed this morning, with some surprise, that she has been carrying it into every building she has ever sat in and out again, and that she has always had a reason.
If you are somebody's guest this morning, come and eat with us in the yard. Nothing about that room or the people who filled it is going to be criticized here.
The courtesy is right and it is not the whole story
Let us separate the two things she has been treating as one, because one of them is doing her a service and one of them is not.
The courtesy is right. A visitor should not make herself the event in a room that has its own morning to get through, and her instinct to sit still and receive their hospitality gracefully is exactly correct.
But underneath the courtesy is an assumption that access runs through membership: that what God does in a room is distributed through the people who belong to that room, and that a guest is therefore outside the distribution for the day. That has never been in any bulletin she was handed.
You are not a visitor to God this morning. Nothing about sitting in a building that is not yours has ever put you outside what He does in it. I am not saying that to make a guest comfortable. The written word says the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth (John 4:23), which was spoken to settle exactly this kind of question, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes it hold in a woman two hours from home.
The question He answered was about a place
Here is the part that turned this for me, and it takes nothing off the building she is sitting in.
Read what the woman at the well asked Him, because her question was about geography and about whose place was the right one.
But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.John 4:23
He does not tell her that places are unimportant, and He does not run down the temple. What He does is move the question off the ground entirely: the hour cometh, and now is, and the qualifier He gives is spirit and truth rather than an address.
And then He adds something that has nothing to do with her standing: the Father seeketh such. The initiative is on His side, and it goes looking, which is not a posture that waits for somebody to be in the correct building.
You are sought after in a room you are only visiting, and Scripture puts the seeking on His side rather than yours. That is written into the verse itself, and it is the Holy Spirit who carries it to a woman in a borrowed seat with a bulletin she cannot follow.
Nothing here is against your hosts
Something has to be said plainly, or this becomes a strange page about a congregation that has been nothing but good to her.
They welcomed her properly. The man in the good jacket meant sister, the woman on her left has been kind twice without being asked, and what happens at the front of that building is real and belongs to them and is not diminished by one word here. If she wanted to go up, nobody in that room would have thought it presumptuous, and if you want to go up, go.
The relief is not that their front is only for them.
You can ask from the seat they showed you to, and asking there takes nothing off one person in that congregation. Scripture says the Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him (Psalm 145:18), where nearness is His position and no membership is attached to it anywhere, and it is the Holy Spirit, and not the name on the building, who carries what a woman asks.
And if what you have been carrying into buildings has gone past what a person can hold, if sleep has gone, if you are frightened, please talk to somebody real: your doctor, a counselor, a crisis line, and the emergency services if there is danger to anybody tonight. That is not a detour around God. It is one of the ways He keeps people.
So here is the turn, and it is not a promise about this congregation or the next one.
This is for the people in the seats. You do not have to get to the front to be met. The written word says whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13), where the whosoever is wide on purpose and no membership and no address are attached to it, and it is the Holy Spirit, not the name over the door, who carries what you ask.
I cannot tell you what God does when you ask, or when it comes. Nobody honest would. What I can tell you is that the Father is described as seeking worshippers rather than waiting for them in a particular building, and that the thing you have carried in and out of every room you have ever sat in can be put down in this borrowed seat.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, in your own voice. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the standing under these words is His rather than your own. You speak under His will and not yours, and what God does next, and when, is His to decide, however He answers.
- Manners that keep me seated in a borrowed room, you are courtesy toward my hosts and you are not a limit God has placed on me. John 4 says the hour comes and now is when true worshippers worship in spirit and in truth, so the qualifier He gave was never an address, and the Holy Spirit has never once checked a name over a door. In the name of Jesus I take you off my asking.
- Assumption that access runs through membership, you are not what God says about me and you are not sitting beside me in this row. John 4 says the Father seeks such to worship Him, so the initiative is His and it goes looking, and His Spirit was seeking me two hours from home. I am asking from this seat.
- Father, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, and Romans 10 attaches no membership at all to that calling. I thank You that You met a woman at a well who was asking about the right mountain, and gave her something better than an address, and Your Spirit was in that row the whole time. This is for the people in the seats, and I do not have to get to the front to be met.
John 4:23
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
