Woman at the Well (Pt 3)

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If you have your Bibles, please open them with me to John chapter 4, and we're going to begin reading a little earlier than where we left off last week.
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Just to bring us into the context of today's message, we're going to actually begin reading at verse 16.
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So with your Bibles open, turn again to John chapter 4, and we'll begin reading.
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When we read, we'll begin reading at verse 16. And we're continuing today where we left off last week in our lesson regarding the discourse between Jesus and the woman at the well.
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Jesus has left Judea, as his ministry had been called to the attention of the
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Pharisees and was beginning to get, we see
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John the Baptist getting arrested, and not in John's gospel, but in other gospels say it was the arrest of John that caused
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Jesus to move into Galilee. His hour had not yet come, the time of his interaction with them, which he's already interacted with them, but his time of battle, as it were, were not yet, his hour had not yet come.
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So Jesus heads back to Galilee, his home region. He passes through Samaria, as we mentioned in previous weeks, that was the direct route.
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He had to go through Samaria to get to the northern area, which was called Galilee, which is, of course, where he grew up.
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And while he is making that trek, he goes to Jacob's well, which is near a place called Sychar in the area of Samaria.
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It's the historic area called Shechem in the Old Testament. If we read about the city of Shechem, that is
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Sychar. And he goes to this place where there is a well of water, and he sits down and the text tells us he was wearied from his travel, he was tired, and a woman comes at the middle part of the day, at the noon of the day, and she is there to gather water, and Jesus asks her for a drink.
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And this begins an interaction, a conversation between Jesus and this woman, which is somewhat hostile from the woman, why are you talking to me, you're a
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Jew, I'm a Samaritan, our people don't have interactions with each other.
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And of course, by saying that, she is calling to attention the hostility which existed between the
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Jewish people and the Samaritan people, which actually goes well back into the time of the
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Old Testament, where we remember the Northern Kingdom separated from the
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Southern Kingdom after the death of Solomon, the Northern Kingdom being captured by Assyria, and began to be, after that, began to be intermarried with Gentile people, and so the
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Samaritans were racially mixed, and their worship began to bring in the worship of false gods, so they were compromised in their worship of God, and so the
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Jewish people saw the Samaritan people as the apostates, they saw them as those who were no longer a part of the people of God, they were separated from God's people.
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And so Jesus says to this woman that he asked her for a drink, she says, why would you ask me for a drink, and he says, if you knew who it was who was speaking to you, if you knew who it was who was talking to you and who was asking you for water, you would ask him, and he would give you living water.
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She didn't understand what he meant, and so they go into what I call the living water discourse, and I mentioned that in previous weeks, the first interaction between them is the living water discourse.
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Jesus talks about the fact that those who drink the water that he will give to them, it will well up in them a spring of eternal life, and the woman says, well, sir, give me this water so that I don't have to come back here and drink, or excuse me, come back here and gather water, if you give me this living water and I'll never be thirsty again, give it to me, give me this living water.
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And Jesus said, well, go get your husband. She said,
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I have no husband. And that's where we're going to begin today. That's where we left off last week was this interaction over the husband.
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And so we will stand together and read beginning at verse 16. John 4 and verse 16 says,
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Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him,
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I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying, I have no husband.
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For you have had five husbands and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true.
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The woman said to him, sir, I perceive you are a prophet.
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Jesus said to her, excuse me, I'm sorry. Verse 20, our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
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Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain or in Jerusalem will you worship the father.
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You worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know for worship is from the
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Jews. But the hour, I'm sorry, salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here when true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth.
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For the father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
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The woman said to him, I know the Messiah is coming. He who is called
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Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her,
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I who speak to you, am he. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you, Lord, that now that we have the opportunity to dive back into the message where we left off last week in this discourse between Jesus and the woman at the well.
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And Lord, as we have seen last week, the living water discourse,
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I pray this week that we would pay even better attention to the living worship discourse.
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As Jesus tells this woman in quite frank language that she is worshiping in ignorance.
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And Lord, we know that today and houses of worship all around our world, there are people who are worshiping in ignorance.
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They're either worshiping a false God in a false way or they're seeking to worship the true
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God, but they're still worshiping in a way that you have not prescribed. And so today, oh
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God, I pray that we would begin to consider the value and immense blessing that we have in worshiping you in spirit and in truth, and that we would seek to be worshipers who do just that, that we would not try to impose our own wants and desires into worship.
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But Lord, that we would draw from you the way you desire to be worshiped and that we would not hold to traditions for tradition's sake.
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But God, that we would look to your word and find those things which you regulate for us in scripture and say, this is how
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I am to be worshiped. God, may it be that we not worship you our way, but we worship you your way.
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Father, I pray that as I preach your word, oh
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God, that you would give me your Holy Spirit. Fill me now for the preaching of the word. Let him take over in this service and speak through me.
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And may your Holy Spirit's power go out into the hearts of your people and may it reach their hearts,
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Lord, not just their minds and their ears, but Lord, their hearts. And Lord, may my words be kept from error.
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May my teaching be sanctified. And may I preach with a urgency as it was a dying man to dying men.
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And Lord, may we see today the very truth of the value of worship.
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And Lord, I pray for everyone here. I pray for the believer, God. Pray that they would see in this text the truths contained therein so that they might apply them to their hearts and be moved to closer conformity to the
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Lord Jesus Christ. But for those who are not believers, and Lord, we know there are those who are not believers here.
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I pray that you would open hearts, give new hearts, and grant them repentance and faith in the
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Lord Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name and for his sake.
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Amen. Last week in our examination of this text, we ended with Jesus calling the woman to go and get her husband.
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And as I mentioned in that particular message, in last week's message, I said that Jesus calling her to get her husband probably did not register with her that he knew everything about her in that moment.
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But in the very next sentence, he identified himself to her as a prophet.
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Because he said to her in verse 16, go and call your husband and come here.
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And the woman said to him, I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, you are right in saying
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I have no husband. For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.
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What you have said is true. So funny, I have people who send me messages, hear my sermons, and sometimes people will disagree with what
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I have to say, which is not entirely uncommon. And one of the disagreements that I heard this week was over something
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I said last week. I said that what we have here is we have the reminder that simply living with someone does not constitute marriage.
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But marriage is made up of vows and promises made before God and before witnesses. Simply living together does not make someone married.
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And someone online, having heard that, sent me a message and said, no, what constitutes marriage is the sexual intercourse.
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That's what constitutes marriage. Now, I understand that marriage is consummated through sexual intercourse.
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And this is where we understand that it does play a part in the union of a man and a woman.
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This is the very act that is supposed to occur on the night of the wedding is the honeymoon, the coming together physically, and that.
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But I responded to the man, I said, if sex produced marriage, then there would be no such thing as fornication.
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If all it takes to get married is to have sex with someone, then why are we commanded not to fornicate?
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Because there would be no such thing. As soon as you have sex, you're married. But that ain't the way it is.
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Marriage is more than just sexual intercourse. Marriage is a pledge, a vow, a covenant made between a man and a woman.
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That's why Jesus said, you've been married five times. You've had five husbands, five men at some level, whatever they did in Sychar, you did.
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You took the vows. But the man you're with now, he's not your husband.
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Oh, yes, you may be living together. Oh, yes, you may be engaging in sexual intercourse, but you are not married.
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You have not entered into a covenant with this man. So again, if there's any confusion about what
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I said last week, I hope that cleared it up. If you are in a situation where you are outside of the covenant of marriage and you are engaging in sexual intercourse with someone, that act does not make you married and you are sinning in the eyes of a holy
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God. That clear enough? All right, just to make sure.
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So that's where Jesus has brought this woman. He has brought her face to face with the reality of her sin.
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The man you're living with now is not your husband, is saying to her, you are living in fornication, continual, habitual, unrepentant sin.
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And the woman did not argue, but rather confirmed Jesus's prophetic announcement by saying, sir,
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I perceive that you are a prophet. Now, I am going to get to verse 20,
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I promise. But I just, I had just one more thing to say about this. This is a reminder to us of the importance in what we would call law and gospel in preaching or in evangelism, using the law and the gospel in sharing
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Christ with people. When we are bringing people the
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Lord Jesus Christ and his message, it is essential before a person can be saved that they understand what it is they are being saved from.
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Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life is not the gospel. Now if you want to tell someone
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Jesus loves them, go ahead, because that's true. And if you want to tell them
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Jesus has a plan for their life, tell them, and you can even use the word wonderful.
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Just remember that they may end up a missionary in Burma, so it may not be what they think wonderful is, depending on how, but hey, that's a wonderful life to die on the battlefield of the
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Lord's army. That's a wonderful thing, but you hear that, you say Jesus loves you, has a wonderful plan for your life.
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When you hear that, you think, you know, you think differently than dying in a mud pit in Burma, right?
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The reality is, and we teach this, because we do teach evangelism here, and we try to, not only teach it, but we try to give examples of it.
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Mike and I were talking the other day, just about how life shifts and things happen, and sometimes it's different seasons, but we used to do more open air evangelism.
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We haven't done as much recently as life has been, just shifted some, but it's something we both enjoy, going out, preaching the gospel in the open air.
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But when you preach the gospel in the open air, or when you're evangelizing, when you're sharing the gospel with people, you have to tell them what it is they're being saved from.
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Jesus loves you is a true statement, but it means nothing to the person who doesn't understand that he shouldn't be loved because he's an enemy of God.
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God should not love us. You see, everybody today thinks God is,
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God loves me because I deserve it, and I am, God's lucky to have me. No, you are an enemy of God.
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You are one who spit in the face of God, and your sin has separated you from a holy God, and yet he loved you still.
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For while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Not understanding the law means we really don't understand the gospel.
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Not understanding what we're saved from means we don't understand how we were saved at all.
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And so Jesus has laid before this woman the very reality of this sin that makes her separated from her
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God. See, she thinks she's fine. In a moment, we're going to see that. She's worshiping on the mountain that her father's worshiped.
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And by the way, she's not wrong. This is the mountain that Abraham worshiped on in Genesis chapter 12.
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This is, well, this is the area, if you will, Shechem is the area, right, where Abraham was. And then later, this is the area
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Jacob was, right? She said, this is where our fathers worshiped. What am I doing wrong?
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And we'll talk a little bit about why it wasn't right at that time. Because God had sanctified
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Jerusalem. But in the grand scheme of things, what's wrong is your heart.
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What's wrong is your heart. Because before God, you have not recognized your sin and need to repent.
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And therefore, we must be willing to lay before people the guilt of their sin so that they will recognize the blessing of the remedy that Christ provides.
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J .C. Ryle says, no one values the physician until he feels the disease.
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No one values the physician until he feels the disease. This is something
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I readily admit. I learned a lot from Ray Comfort in the mid -2000s, man. I used to drink living waters,
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I mean, like I was just, I would imbibe because I love to see this man go out and share the gospel so clearly with people.
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And he would be very honest and say, if we have not shown a person that they are lost, how in the world can we tell them how to be saved?
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If we have not taken them through the law, how can we provide them a saving gospel?
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The reformers in their writings about the law of God said the law has three purposes.
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One of the purposes is simply in governing the world and recognizing the fact that there is right and wrong and building laws and things like that.
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Another is showing us how to live a life that is pleasing to God. But the most important part of the law, we would say the first use of the law, is to show us we are sinners in need of a savior.
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That is what the law does. Paul calls the law a schoolmaster, which leads us to Jesus Christ, a tutor.
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So that's where Jesus has left this woman in verse 19 when she says, Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.
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She has shown herself understanding of her own guilt. And now, as I mentioned at the end of last week's sermon,
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I believe she's trying to change the subject. Some people take it a little differently. Some people don't see verse 20 as her trying to change the subject.
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Some people say, well, she's now convicted in her heart and she's going to ask some theological questions for clarification. If that's the way you want to take it, that's fine.
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Again, some of this requires a little bit of sanctified imagination. But I do think that in my experience, and I know experience is a dangerous thing through which to interpret the scripture.
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Experience is not the lens. But in my experience, I have found this. In general, when
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I bring the gospel to bear upon someone, particularly the law of God, the very first thing they want to do is find anything else they can to talk about.
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And I mean, back when we had the fishing hole, and those of you who don't know, we did that for years, 10 days of evangelism at the fair.
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And we'd go out there and we'd hand out gospel tracts. And every once in a while, there'd be a person who'd be willing to stop and listen to us talk to them.
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And we would talk. And almost inevitably, they wanted to talk about anything but the gospel.
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So the woman says, verse 20, our fathers worshiped on this mountain. But you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
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All right, so let's for a moment just try to understand the theological argument that she is bringing up to the
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Lord Jesus Christ. She said our fathers. Now she has already said
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Jacob is her father, referring to the patriarch Jacob, the grandson of Abraham.
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And again, Abraham worshiped in Shechem, Sychar, which is this place we're speaking of.
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And she says our fathers worshiped here. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain.
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But you say, meaning the Jewish people, you say that Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
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Pop quiz. Don't answer out loud, but in your mind, when is the first time
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Jerusalem is mentioned in the Bible? Maybe let me ask it differently.
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Was Jerusalem the center of worship when
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Abraham was in the land? No.
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It wasn't even called Jerusalem then. It was called Salem. Now who do we know was the king of Salem?
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Melchizedek. So Abraham did, in fact, go there. And we know that he did, in fact, give an offering to the king of Salem, which we believe is a type of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews tells us that Jesus comes according to the order of Melchizedek, right?
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Some people believe he was a pre -incarnate Jesus. I tend to think he's a type of Jesus, but some people believe that Melchizedek was actually the pre -incarnate
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Christ. But that's the first time we hear of this place called Salem. Salem means peace.
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It's where we get the Hebrew word shalom. And even in Arabic, assalamu alaykum, salam, peace, right?
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That's where that comes from. So all those words, Semitic, similar sounding words, refer to peace.
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So Melchizedek is called the king of Salem, the king of peace. This is the first time we read of this place.
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It's mentioned again in the book of Joshua, but its prominence does not arise among the people of God.
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The prominence of Jerusalem does not arise until the time of David, where it was captured from the
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Jebusites and ended up becoming the capital city, or known as the city of David.
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We read about this in 2 Samuel chapter 5, the capturing of Salem from the
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Jebusites. In fact, they called it Jebus. And some people believe that Jerusalem is the combination of Jebus and Salem, meaning
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Jerusalem or Jebusalem. I don't think that's actually correct.
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Looking at some of the etymology, Urusalem means city of peace, and that's probably more likely where the word
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Jerusalem comes from, the word city of peace. But the idea, Jebusalem, some people believe is where the term
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Jerusalem comes from. It's also referred to as Zion, the one of the mountains there, one of the, if you will, more like a hill, but the area there called
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Zion. It became a poetic or symbolic name for this place. Zion, the city of God.
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And in Psalm 132, verse 13, it says,
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The Lord has chosen Zion, meaning this area, this place.
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The Lord has chosen Zion, for He desired it for His dwelling place. This is my resting place forever.
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Here I will dwell, for I have desired it. That's the words of the living God, Psalm 132, verses 13 and 14.
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I chose this place as my resting place. Now why? What is that talking about?
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Well, you'll remember the people of God had the tabernacle, which went with them wherever they were, and during the time of the wilderness wanderings, the house of God, which was the temple, would move about with the people of God.
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And the Levites would be the ones who were responsible for taking it and setting it up and taking it and setting it up.
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But when we get to the time of David, there is this discussion that arises about building a permanent structure.
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And you'll remember that was one of the things that David wanted to do, was to build a temple, one that didn't have stakes and pegs, but one that had foundations, one that would be there.
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And where was it going to be? Jerusalem. This place.
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For God has chosen this as His resting place. That's what
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Jerusalem is. The mountain in Jerusalem, where the temple was, is traditionally the mountain where Abraham offered
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Isaac, Mount Moriah. In fact, today, do you know what sits on that mountain? A mosque.
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The dome of the rock is erected on top of that place where tradition says
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Abraham offered his son Isaac. So this place has tremendous theological significance, but it does show a distinctly different, if we will, geographic change among the people of God, where the woman says, our fathers worshipped here in this area of Shechem.
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And she's not wrong. But under the Davidic reign, there was this shift to Jerusalem.
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But God affirmed that in the psalm, saying, this is my resting place. This is it.
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And this woman is asking a question that was, in one sense, I don't want to say legitimate,
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I don't want you, when I say it's a legitimate question, I don't want you to think I think she's right, but what I'm saying is I understand the question.
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Hey, if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob worshipped here, why do you guys say we have to worship over there?
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And the next natural phrase is, she doesn't get to ask it because Jesus interjects, but the next natural phrase is, who's right?
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You know, we believe our fathers worshipped here, and we believe we're supposed to worship here, but you all worship over there.
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And so the natural question is, who is right? We can both be wrong, but we can't both be right.
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Somebody's got to be right. So then we get to Jesus' response.
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Verse 21. Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the
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Father. Now, he uses this phrase, the hour is coming, he says it again in verse 23.
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The hour is coming. He's referring to the fact that the hour of change is upon them.
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And I want to say this in a way that I hope makes sense. There is theology in geography, very much in the
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Old Testament specifically, that places and names and all of these things had meaning. And there was a theology of geography in the temple where we truly believe the
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Spirit of God inhabited the temple of God, that this is where the dwelling place of God was. But Jesus said the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the
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Father. At this point in history, geography mattered.
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But there's coming a time when it won't matter. The temple in Jerusalem was the place where God's presence dwelt and the sins were atoned for through a priestly sacrifice that was instituted and ordained by God.
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But there is coming a time when the temple system would be done away with, the veil will be torn, and the time of the temple will be no more.
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Geography has mattered, but there is coming a time when it won't. And so he says to the woman, you worship what you do not know.
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Just stop right there. I mean, I know it's a longer sentence because he goes on to say we worship what we do know, salvation is from the
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Jews. But before we even get to that phrase, he says to her, you are worshiping an ignorance. You are worshiping what you don't even understand.
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Something to consider from this text. Jesus is not an ecumenist or an ecumenist.
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That word ecumenism is the idea that there can be a variety of ways in which we go to God, and that there can be a variety of ways in which we can go to heaven.
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You've heard the idea of there being many roads all leading to the same top of the same mountain.
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No, Jesus tells us in this passage, there are people who worship in ignorance.
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And that ignorance comes in one of two ways. Either they are worshiping a false
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God in false worship, or they are claiming to worship the true
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God, but still false worship. Either way, this is not worshiping the true
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God. Applying that to today. If someone were to say, ask me, well, what do you think of Buddhists?
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And I would say, well, first of all, Buddhism is not even a theistic religion.
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It's what's called a dualistic religion. It doesn't believe in a personal
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God who can be spoken to, reasoned with. But they believe that the world is governed by energy, positive and negative energy.
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If you've ever seen the yin and yang symbol, which is that, looks like the letter S with the black on one side and the white on the other, and there's a dot in between.
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And that represents the balancing of energies in the world. And the goal is not that positive would overcome the negative.
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But the goal is that the positive and negative would be found to be in balance. When you go and have the people stick the needles in you.
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The idea of that is based on the belief that your body runs off of yin and yang energy.
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And that energy needs to be kept in balance. And why you hurt in your arm or your leg or your chest or your back is because that energy has gotten out of balance.
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Therefore they stick a needle in to try to open up the chi channel or the meridian so that the energy will flow better and you will feel better.
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Buddhists will say, there's no personal God. Our desire is to reach a level of enlightenment wherein we experience nirvana.
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Nirvana basically means a state of nothingness. You want nothing, you have nothing, you are nothing.
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That's the goal. And if there was ever a worship in ignorance, that's it.
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That's just worship in ignorance. And beloved, you could walk down the line.
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Muslims will say, there is one God. But they will also say that God does not have a son and cursed is the one who says
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Allah has a son. Therefore they worship in ignorance.
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The Mormon will say that God, whose name is
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Elohim, was once a man who lived on a planet that surrounded a star called Kolob.
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And because of his adherence to the teachings of Mormon doctrine, he was able himself to rise to the position of Godhood and therefore he became the
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God of this universe. And he through spiritual procreation has created a race of spirit children of which we are all part of that spirit race of children.
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Therefore God was once a man and you as a man can one day be God. And that is worship in ignorance.
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And we could do this all day. The spirit of ecumenism says you can be right,
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I can be right. God doesn't care what you think. God doesn't care how you worship.
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God doesn't care how you do it, just that you do it. It doesn't matter if you're correct.
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What matters if you're sincere? Well I will tell you something, those terrorists on 9 -11 were very sincere.
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Sincerity does not equal theological accuracy.
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Jesus said you worship what you don't even know. Now that can be a tool.
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Paul uses that. In Acts 17 when Paul goes to the Areopagus in Athens and he sees a statue and the statue says what?
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To the unknown God. Paul says you have a statue to an unknown
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God, the God that you don't know, let me tell you about this God, the God you don't know. So it can be an evangelistic tool.
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And in a sense that's what Jesus is doing here. He's saying you don't even understand the God you say you worship.
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You're saying you worship here and I worship here, who's right? I'm telling you you're worshiping in ignorance. You're worshiping in ignorance.
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You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, Jesus now speaking of the
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Jewish people. And I have to say this, Jesus is not saying in this statement that all the
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Jewish people had everything right. Jesus is not saying in this statement that the
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Jewish people, especially the Jewish leaders, were right with God because this is the same
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Jesus who's going to later say that they are whitewashed tombs, that they were sepulchers full of dead men's bones.
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He wasn't saying they were all right, but what he was saying is they did have the right scriptures and the right system because it had been given to them by God.
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God had established for them the regulations of worship. And by the way,
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I might as well go ahead and say this now. Once we get to verse 42 of this text, which will probably be next week, maybe.
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Don't laugh at me, John. I heard it from the back. When we get to verse 42, which will end this interaction with Jesus and the people of Sychar.
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Because, you know, the woman's going to go get them, come back, and there's going to be that interaction. We've still got to get to all that. Once we get there,
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I'm going to take a Sunday, at least one, and I am going to preach on the regulative principle of worship, which means that we worship according to God's way, not our way.
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We worship according to his standard, not our standard. And what has God commanded us to do in worship?
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That we not be like Nadab and Abihu who offered up God a strange fire. So I'm going to do a sermon, and like I said, it may be one, maybe two, but we're going to talk about why we do what we do in worship at that point.
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Because we ought to do this. We ought to evaluate our worship from time to time. We ought to ask ourselves why we're doing what we're doing.
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So we don't end up like this woman from Sychar who was worshiping in ignorance.
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So she said, so Jesus said, what you don't know, we know, for salvation is from the
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Jews. And the word salvation there, most of the English translations do not have the definite article, but it actually has the definite article.
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The definite article would say it this way, for the salvation is of the
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Jews. He's referring specifically to the work that he is accomplishing in the salvation that he is providing.
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Because the role that Jesus fulfills is the role of fulfilling the promises given by God through the
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Jewish people. You realize everything Jesus did on the cross, and everything
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Jesus did in his life, was bringing about the fulfillment of all the promises of the Old Testament.
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When we think about the role of Christ, Christ is keeping every law given.
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We call that the active obedience of Christ. He lived a perfect life.
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But then he goes to the cross, and he is in himself receiving the punishment of our sin, like the
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Old Testament sacrifices who stood as a vicarious placeholder for the people of God.
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They received the death that the people should receive, and the sacrifice was killed so that they could live.
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Jesus becomes that vicarious sacrifice, and he fulfills in substance what was given to them in the
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Old Testament in shadow. Paul tells us this.
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This is in Colossians chapter 2. He says, don't let anyone judge you when it comes to a new moon or a feast or a
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Sabbath day, for these are a shadow of that which is to come. But Christ is the substance.
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The Jewish people were given the shadows. They were given the pictures. They were given the images. But every one of those images pointed to the
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Lord Jesus Christ. And when he came, he fulfilled them all. You know, this is why there's not a temple in Jerusalem today.
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I'm convinced in my heart, many of you have heard me and Mike and Andy talk about this, because we all hold,
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I believe, the same view on this, that the destruction of the temple was a fulfillment of Christ's own prophecy.
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When he said, when the people said, look at the glorious temple, and Jesus said, not one stone is going to be left upon another, but it will all be torn down.
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This generation will not pass away until these things take place. This is what's going to happen. Jesus dies on the cross.
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And when he does, the veil of the temple is torn from top to bottom. And in that moment, the
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Old Testament system was obsolete. And God allowed it to limp along for another 40 years before he finally said, no more.
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No more. You'll hear a lot of people say, oh, I believe there's another temple coming. You are the temple of God.
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We don't need a temple made with hands. The believers are now the ones indwelled with the
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Holy Spirit of God. But again, salvation is from the
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Jews. The salvation is from the Jews. This is what the whole Old Testament is about. The whole
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Old Testament is Christological. And that's why we are unashamed here.
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We hold a Christ -centered view of the Bible. Because it's all about him.
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It's all about him. All right, I have to move on. So, the hour is coming, and now here, when the true worshippers will worship the
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Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.
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Now, when I do my message on the regulative principle, I'm going to really unpack that idea of worshiping in spirit and truth.
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So, if you feel like I'm going to it a little quickly today, understand we will come back to that. Because that's really what the heart of that regulative principle of worship sermon is going to be about.
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But for now, let us just keep this in mind. What does it mean to worship God in spirit and truth? There's some debate over the use of the word spirit here.
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Is it saying that we worship in our spirit, not in a physical place? Because that seems to be the context
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Jesus is saying. We're not going to be worried about geography. We're going to be worried about spiritual worship, not geographical worship.
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It's not going to be where you worship, but how you worship. And I think that's true. But I also think if we study the gospel of John enough, we will find that it's also a worship which is through the spirit.
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Because the spirit comes to live in us, and therefore we are worshiping with our spirits through the
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Holy Spirit. So, I don't think it's an either or. I think Jesus is saying it's going to be a spiritual, not geographical worship.
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It's not going to be about where you go, but how you worship. Now, in that I'm not saying that we shouldn't have church buildings.
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And I'm not saying there's nothing special about this place. I do believe there is something special about the place we come together and worship.
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But I will tell you this, if this place burned down tomorrow, we could do what we're doing today in a field.
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And it wouldn't change that the presence of God would be among us by his spirit. Because it is not the geography that creates worship, but the presence of the spirit in us that creates spirit -filled worship.
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But it must also be in accord with truth. A lot of people want to be spiritual, but their theology is quite askew.
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And as much as I said earlier that you can be sincere and incorrect, you can also be excited and incorrect.
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I've heard many people, many pastors, who boy, they're going back and forth across the pulpit like a lion in a cage.
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And they're saying stuff that would make the apostle Paul faint. But they're saying it with a lot of gusto.
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Energetic preaching does not make right preaching. The scripture makes right preaching.
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Now, the scripture ought to cause us to shout. A bunch of Baptists? Yes, the scripture can cause us to shout.
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And we should say amen. Thank you. But we worship in spirit and truth.
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And not one to the neglect of the other. We don't allow us to be so focused on the truth that we are all intellectual and it's nothing in our spirit.
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But we also don't allow ourselves to be so spiritually engaged that we leave out the truth of what we're saying and don't learn anything.
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I remember hearing a guy one time, he said the way that he studied for his sermon was that he'd open his
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Bible, he'd put his face in his Bible, and he would just sit there and put his face in his Bible. And I said, the word of God does not enter us through osmosis.
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You've got to read. In fact, if you've ever taken our class on hermeneutics, which is the art of studying the
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Bible, you know what we say the very best way you can become a better Bible student? Learn to read better.
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Tell me what you said later. I don't know what you said, but I don't want to get sidetracked. But that's because it's spirit and truth.
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Faith comes by hearing, and hearing through what? The word of God. Not one to the neglect of the other.
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Spirit and truth. All right. Let's end with this 25 and 26.
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For the woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called
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Christ. And when he comes, he will tell us all things. Now, this is interesting.
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Because she actually says, I know Messiah is coming. How did she know?
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Well, the Samaritans, they had the Pentateuch, the first five books of Moses. Walter Kaiser argues that they would have known just from that that there was a
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Messiah coming. He argues there's at least five major prophecies of the Messiah in the Pentateuch, and they would have known there was a prophet who was coming, a great prophet.
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And this may be what she's referring to. Others believe that what she's referring to here is that among the
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Samaritans, there was a rising hope during this time of a coming Deliverer or a coming
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Savior. In fact, so much so that Josephus even talks about one of them who claimed that he had hidden relics from Moses hidden, and he knew where they were hidden.
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And he was going to expose them and distribute them to the people. Remember, we read about false
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Christs and false Messiahs. It was a real thing, and they're documented in historical documents.
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But she knows at least enough to say, we know Messiah is coming. The word Messiah means the anointed one. It's where we get the
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New Testament Greek word Christ or Christos. It means the prophet, priest, and king. The one who's going to tell us all things, who's going to deliver us, who's going to bring us the true knowledge of God.
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See, she asked Jesus a question. Are we supposed to worship on this mountain or that mountain? Jesus said, there's coming a time when it's not going to be about geography, but it's going to be about what's in the heart.
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It's going to be about spirit and truth. That's coming. And the woman says, well,
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I guess we'll know when Messiah gets here. I guess we know when he comes, he's going to tell us everything.
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So I guess we'll know when he shows up, he'll tell us the answers to the question.
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And Jesus says to her, I am. Now, in the
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English translation, it says, the one who speaks to you is he.
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It says, I who speak to you am he. That's the ESV. But as is often the case, the
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English is missing a little bit of what is in the Greek. Jesus often uses the simple phrase, ego eimi.
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Ego eimi is the phrase I am. The most powerful place it's used, as far as I'm concerned, is
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John 8, 58. When the Pharisees are talking to Jesus, and Jesus said,
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Abraham, long to see my day. And they said, you're not even 50 years old, and you've seen
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Abraham? Jesus said, before Abraham was, I am.
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When Jesus walked out on the water, Peter says, is it you,
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Lord? One of the translations, I think it's in John's gospel, he says, fear not,
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I am. Most of our translations say, it is I. But it's, fear not, ego eimi,
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I am. And here, the woman says to him, when the
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Messiah comes, he's going to tell us everything. And Jesus says, the one who speaks to you,
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I am. This is the first time in John's gospel that Jesus has identified himself plainly as Messiah.
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And he doesn't do it before the Sanhedrin. He doesn't do it before a large crowd of people.
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But he identifies himself as Messiah in front of a sinful woman, next to a well.
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And they were all by themselves. Jesus told this woman, if you will drink of the water that I give to you, it will be in you a fountain that will spring up to eternal life.
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And she did not understand what he was saying. So he has now brought to her a simple truth.
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The one who speaks to you is the one you've been hoping for. The one who speaks to you is the one you've heard about.
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The one who speaks to you is the Christ, the
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Messiah, the Son of the living God. My friends, this morning, we have gathered together to worship
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God through his Son, Jesus Christ, by the power of the
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Spirit. But to do that in spirit and in truth, we must believe that Jesus is who he said he is.
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We must believe I am. Not me and not you, but him.
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He is the I am. What does it mean to worship in spirit and truth?
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First and foremost, it cannot be done apart from knowing
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Jesus. You cannot worship the true God in any other way except through his
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Son. For he himself said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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And no one comes to the Father except through me. Are you trying this morning to worship
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God in a way other than through the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you come here today seeking to worship
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God your way rather than his way? Beloved, I would call you to repent and turn and seek after Christ.
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For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved than the name of the
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Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Father, I thank you for your word this morning.
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I thank you that in the midst of this time of study, Lord, that we have been able to hear the very words of Christ who calls us to worship in spirit and truth and who tells us that he is in fact the
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Messiah, that he is the Christ. Lord, if there are those here today who have not trusted in the
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Lord Jesus Christ, if there are those today who have not believed on him, Lord, may it be in your mercy that you would grant them life and life eternal through faith in your
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Son. And for those who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, as we now gather around the table to be reminded of his work and what he has done,
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Lord, may it be that we truly understand who it is that we are lifting up when we lift up this bread and this cup, who it represents, what he has done for us, and what it means to be his people.