TD Jakes - How to Be a Disciple of Christ (05/06/2025)
In a powerful exposition on John 4's woman at the well, the preacher declares that true disciples multiply where the Word increases, drawing even unlikely people like the Samaritan woman whose encounter with Jesus' living water transformed her into an evangelist for Samaria. He culminates by emphasizing that God, as Spirit, thirsts for worship in spirit and truth—not noise, mechanics, or crowds—but genuine, broken-hearted communion from grateful worshipers.
“Come see a man,” they ask me all the time. “What is it about you that people follow you?” I said, “Nothing. There’s nothing special about me; I’m just a country boy from the hills of West Virginia, born on the side of a house. His daddy was a janitor, and his 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.
The Word Draws Disciples
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 birds!” No! Just shut up and throw the bread out!
If you throw out the bread, the Word says they’ll come. The birds will come. The Bible says the Word increases, and the disciples multiply.
Where the Word increases, the disciples will multiply. And who would have thought that this, forgive me, this woman of ill repute, this husband-snatching woman, who would have thought that the Word would hit her too?
That she would be a disciple, a woman that all the other women were whispering about, a woman who didn’t even want to encounter other women? “I don’t even want to be around them! I’m going to come at a time when the other women are not down at the well.”
The Unlikely Disciple
That kind of woman would become a disciple because the Word doesn’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.” Some of us are so proud, and some of us have been hurt so badly that we use that as a camouflage not to come to church.
But I know people who got beat up in the club, and they still went back.
Come on! I know people who got ripped off in a drug deal but are still smoking reefer. But when it comes to church, you’re so hurt you can’t come back?
Jesus Meets Us at the Well
I know people who got ripped off in the nightclub but still went back to the club. But you say your hurt has kept you from church? Well, guess what? The church is closed now!
You have to meet Him at the well! So if that’s 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 and have a conversation with you about water, bringing the Word into your life.
Oh, you all don’t hear me, but I feel like preaching to somebody in this place right now. I don’t need a church building to preach the Word; I preach the Word in the back of trucks!
I preach the Word on the front porch of houses! I preach the 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!
True Worship in Spirit and Truth
You see, Jesus didn’t need a pulpit or a microphone; He sat by a 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 all of Samaria.
It started with the woman. This woman was a seed He sowed that Philip would later harvest.
Well, later in Acts chapter 8, verse 1, the Bible says when persecution arose in Jerusalem, Philip went down to Samaria. Why did God send him to Samaria? To harvest 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. 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 used a part of the text about the worship.
Worship Beyond Mechanics
The argument she’s having with Jesus is about how we worship. It’s an argument we still have today. “We don’t worship with instruments in our church.” “We worship 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 of this mechanics of worship—that’s not the issue! Your people worship in the mountain, and you know not what.
How long can ignorance worship and not be caught? Your people have been worshiping in the mountain for years and never knew who they were worshiping!
Yeah! Ignorance can clap its hands; ignorance can dance and sing; ignorance can run up and down. 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 is of the Jews.”
The Hour Cometh and Now Is
He said, “We had it right; we were worshiping the right God.” He said, “But the hour comes, and now is.” Look at that phrase, “The hour comes and now is.”
How could it be coming and now is? Jesus said, “The hour comes and now is.” He was saying it was coming because a 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.” The hour cometh and now is that 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!
God Thirsts for Spirit Worship
The hour cometh and now is that they that worship God 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 I got didn’t come from the pews! It didn’t come from the crowd! It 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 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 hands! You can praise Him with your feet! You can praise Him from the high-sounding cymbals in the heart!
So, you can praise Him with earthly stuff, but if you go to worship Him, worship goes beyond the dimension of the physical.
Worship Is Exclusive
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 into His courts with praise! But in order to worship, you gotta go 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 is I was used to people shouting! But in my church, where 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 nobody’s saying anything! 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 when nobody’s saying anything?
The Father Seeks True Worshipers
What is that thing that makes them run up and down the aisle when nobody’s singing anything? What is that thing that sweeps over the church and starts in the corner with a church brother talking about “Holy Ghost!” and it’ll run all over…
You don’t know nothing about that!
Ah, it’ll run all over the church until everybody’s in the corner shouting and slain by the Holy Ghost! And the preacher didn’t even preach, and the choir didn’t sing!
But something swept the place! God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him 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 I got didn’t come from the pews! It didn’t come from the crowd! It 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 has breath praise the Lord!” But worship is exclusive! Worship is exclusive!
Worship has a criteria! They 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 gotta give Him what He is! Come on! Come on! Come on!
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 and in truth!
For the Father seeketh such! What would make God seek?
God is omniscient! I’m listening! God knows everything! He’s the all-knowing God! He knows everything at the same time!
And yet He says, “The Father seeketh such to worship Him!”
God Thirsts for You
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 rent 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 seeks 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 frying chicken then—don’t worry! And the earth and heaven-bound committee is meeting on Friday, and then the fried 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 is splitting into fragments! 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 to be a chicken!
So now we’ve got all of these churches, but that’s not what He’s seeking! 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 rises up in your soul, and tears start running down your face, and nobody’s preaching, and nobody’s shouting, but you just had an encounter with God?
Have you ever been walking around your house and just started shaking your head because all of a sudden the presence of God came right there in your house?
It didn’t have to be a nice house; it could be a one-bedroom apartment—you ain’t got no furniture yet! You just got the mattress lying on the floor in the back!
Have you ever had God make a house call? He’s looking for you!
All this hoopla and all this noise, and all these headlines—shut down all the restaurants, closing up the libraries, shutting down all the bars, sending everybody in the house—because He’s looking for you!
He’s thirsty 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 are isolated. You aren’t suffering with your TVs, air conditioning, and dishwashing machine.
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 this 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 gleanings—residue, pieces, parcels, and fragments, gleanings from the well.