True Worship | Sermon 12/18/2022

Apologia Utah

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So starting in verse 20 of John chapter 4, hear now the inerrant and infallible words of the living and true

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God. But an hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the

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Father in spirit and truth. For such people the Father seeks to be his worshipers.

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God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him,

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I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ, when that one comes he will declare all things to us.

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Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.

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Thus ending the reading of God's holy inspired word, let's pray one more time.

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Father please, would you illuminate the scriptures by your spirit, the same holy spirit who inspired them.

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God, would you please reach me and your people today with your word.

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Would you edify us by your word? Would you teach us by your word? Would you give us encouragement by your word?

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And would you help us to take your word out of this place? God, please help me to speak in a way today that is helpful and clear and let it always be true.

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I pray this in Jesus mighty name. Amen. We are so easily able to throw around the word worship today.

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Worship has become a common term in the so -called christianese dictionary as some say.

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There is the worship center, there is the worship service, the worship leader, worship music.

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I might even give our elder candidate Andrew a notice and say hey we have baptisms in worship today or hey can you make this announcement at worship today.

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And so we're using this word worship and what does it mean? The worship center is just a building, the worship leader is just a man, and the worship music is made up of songs that we sing.

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Worship is worship when all of these things are centered around the object of your worship.

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And more importantly the thinking, the doing, the feeling, the actions people commit to are only as authentic and true as the object of their worship is authentic and true.

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Therefore I can firmly say that any other worship other than the worship of the one true and living

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God would be false worship, false worship. And so a hard line is drawn then and I'm doing that, drawing a hard line between the church of the living

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God and the rest of the world who worship other things. But as much as we ought to be concerned with who or what we worship, shouldn't we be considered with how we worship?

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In what way will God receive our worship? I think it's fair to ask the question,

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God of the universe, mighty and righteous, how do you want to be worshipped?

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And thankfully that one true God has sent his son and he sent messengers to pave the way so that we could walk confidently on that path and not stray into crooked side trails.

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In this passage today that we're going over, Jesus will show us where worship started and where it's going now that he's here.

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He will also give us a fuller picture of who the people should worship.

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So let's take a look starting in verse 20. It's already up there. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, she says, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.

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And Jesus responds, what do you mean by you people? No, I'm just kidding. I thought about that for too long.

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Last week we finished up with verse 19. As the

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Samaritan woman, remember, perceived Jesus to become some kind of prophet.

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If you remember last week, he was offering living waters to her. They come to this well. He looks like a weary traveler.

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He says, actually, you need what I got. And then he revealed her five husbands and the man that she is now with.

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And she sees some sort of spirit authority in this weary traveler now prophet. And I would argue that she's not changing subjects to evade conviction over her sin.

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I think it's something more like realizing his knowledge on spiritual matters causes her to think of one of the biggest points of contention between Jews and Samaritans.

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The two temples, okay. It's kind of like if you're making small talk at an event, okay.

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And you're meeting someone for the first time and they say, so what do you do? And you're like, you know,

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I'm a, I don't know, a rocket scientist. And they're like, what? I've always wanted to ask someone about the things that Elon Musk does with the rockets and blah, blah, blah.

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And you know what I'm talking about? How sometimes you can be in a discussion and when someone learns your kind of authority in some area that you have an intelligence or experience in this area, all of a sudden this lingering question that they've never found sufficient answers to, all of a sudden they go, hey, can you answer this?

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That's kind of how I think this woman is bringing these things up. She's always wondered about the fact that there's two temples, the

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Samaritan temple and the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. And so she brings that to him because he seems like some sort of prophet, okay.

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The Samaritans worship on their own mountain, but the Jews say that worship is only to take place in Jerusalem.

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Now regarding the temple, early on before they even got into the promised land,

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Deuteronomy 12, it says, but you shall seek the Lord at the place which the

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Lord your God will choose. So this is going to be a place that the Lord your God will choose from all your tribes to establish his name there for his dwelling.

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And there you shall come, there you shall bring your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the contribution of your hand, your votive offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock.

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So this is a singular place. He says, one day you're going to find a place and I'm going to make that my dwelling place.

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I'm going to choose it, okay. Now Samaria believed that this was scripture, but didn't think the words that were given later after Deuteronomy were the words of God.

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So when essentially the Lord had told

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David, yes, build me a temple here in Jerusalem, but it won't be you because you've had too much bloodshed, you've seen too much battle.

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We're going to have your son Solomon do it. Solomon's going to build me the temple here in this place.

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The Samaritans only believed that the first five books of the Bible were inspired. They didn't believe that the prophets and everything after was inspired, okay.

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That's key. I talked about that last week, but you have to remember that the Jews saw the whole

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Old Testament scripture, the Tanakh, as inspired. It's the word of God, but the

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Samaritans would have seen only Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy as scripture.

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So when God speaks to David, they're not hearing that. They're not hearing that, okay.

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So David was authorized to help his son, to tell

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Solomon to build it. Then after the first temple was built, there comes the exile, and Zerubbabel comes back, and he rebuilds the temple in Jerusalem post -exile.

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And then in just before Jesus's time, actually when he was still a child probably, they were rebuilding, not rebuilding, they were renovating and expanding the temple

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Herod was, okay. Which we wouldn't consider that like the third temple rebuild. There's been two temple rebuilds.

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I'm sorry, one build, then one rebuild. Forgive me. So the

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Samaritans then didn't hear the words of God. They didn't heed them.

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They saw Mount Gerizim was the place that blessings were stated to covenant

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Israel. When they first got to the promised land, if you remember that, they entered the promised land.

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And then to affirm the covenant, half of the tribes went on Mount Gerizim. Then the other half of the tribes went on Mount Ebal.

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And from Mount Gerizim, the blessings of obedience of God, obeying

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God, would receive blessings. And they were shouted and declared from Mount Gerizim.

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And then on the other side, the other tribes would shout what curses they would receive if they disobeyed

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God. That happened when they first came into the land. And then the temple that the

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Samaritans built, which was on Mount Gerizim, was near Shechem where Abraham built his first altar to God.

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So what I'm trying to get at is Jews say you only can worship in Jerusalem.

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Samaritans say, well, Father Abraham built an altar to God first where?

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In Shechem near Mount Gerizim. And then they would say, the Samaritans would say, and look, the blessings were stated on Mount Gerizim.

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What other place should we build a temple? That's their rationale, okay? This is what she wonders about.

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This is the contention between the Jews and the Samaritans part of it. But I'll tell you the

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Samaritans were wrong. You read your Bible, you'll find out they're wrong. The Bible demonstrates that through David, through Solomon, that's where the temple ought to be in Jerusalem.

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The temple also needs Levites and priests of the lineage of Aaron, and they didn't have that in the north.

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And when the traveling tabernacle and ark of the covenant settled in Jerusalem, King David desired to make a permanent temple structure.

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And the Lord told him Solomon would be the one to build it. And it says after Solomon dedicated this new temple, it says, the

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Lord said to him, I have heard your prayer and your supplication, which you've made before me.

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I have now consecrated this house which you have built. God's blessing is on this temple, this one temple in Jerusalem.

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The Jews believed God was omnipresent, but they also believed that God would specifically dwell near them where the ark of the covenant was stored.

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Of course, the place where God had laid out all the plans and specific instructions to consecrate a place for his dwelling.

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Therefore, I can say we have no record of this. God never manifested himself in a theophany, which is an appearance of God on Mount Gerizim, nor did the

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Shekinah glory ever appear at the Samaritan temple in Mount Gerizim. We have no record of that.

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Those things happened only in Jerusalem. Their temple, the

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Samaritan temple, was built by evil kings, evil kings in the north that were in competition with Judah.

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They wanted the people to think that they possess God in their temple. Hey, we've got

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God too. Don't move down to Judah. Don't go to the south. Stay where you are. Stay with us.

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Stay with the other 10 tribes up north. God's in our temple too, but that wasn't the case specifically.

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You see, both Samaritans and Jews would one day realize that God is not contained to a building.

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From the beginning, God has laid out the instructions on how he is to be worshiped, and in this instance, where?

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Okay, the word worship here in the Greek is pros kuneo.

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Pros kuneo. Pros means towards. Kuneo means kiss.

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It literally means, worship literally means in the Greek, to fall down and kiss the floor in a prostrate position, to fall before God, to go so low, to make yourself so low that you're prostrate before God that you could almost even kiss the floor.

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That's what this word worship is showing. It's a bowing down. It's a reverence. Worship will be one of the main themes throughout the rest of their conversation,

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Jesus and the Samaritan woman. And you might think, well, isn't it mostly going to be about his people versus her people?

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But it's not. It's not. What is amazing is Jesus will demonstrate less of a separation between Jews and Samaritans, and what he's actually going to establish is there's a separation between a holy

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God and sinful humanity. It's not Jews versus Samaritans.

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He's going to establish that there's a holy God, and both of you need what

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I offer. It will be God versus all humanity.

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No matter who you are, what is said is how all people ought to worship God. But in the

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God versus humanity discussion, Jesus will also personally be inviting her to be a true worshiper.

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It's amazing. Go to verse 21. This is his response to her about the two places of worship, the two temples.

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Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the

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Father. If you remember John chapter 2, he calls this woman woman the same way he calls his mother

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Mary woman. It's possibly a familial type love that he's showing towards this

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Samaritan woman. That would make sense because I would say that all that propels the

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Lord Jesus Christ is probably his love. His love. Believe me here.

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He says believe me. This is in the imperative form. This isn't like believe me, you know, and someone's about to tell a lie.

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Believe me. Kind of the modern idiom or saying that we have now. This is in the way he's saying this is he's emphasizing that what he's about to say is true.

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That she ought to heed it. Okay. This is a statement of truth and fact.

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Something is about to happen very soon that will make this contention between Jews and Samaritans not matter anymore.

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The debate will be over. Both sides will come up short and Christ will come in with the only solution.

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He will appear victorious. He says an hour is coming and every other time

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Jesus makes this statement, the hour is coming, those things typically happen shortly after.

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And it's not so much about the fact that the temple will be destroyed in AD 70, which it did. The second temple, the one that Zerubbabel made that Herod expanded and renovated is about to be destroyed in less than a generation.

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But it's not about that. It's that progressively God has come closer to us. He was the

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God in the heavens. Then he was the God on the mountain. Then he was the

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God in the temple. Now he's the God who walks among us. And what is being promised is now

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God is going to inhabit you. He's going to come progressively closer. God has come from heaven.

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He's come down and now he's going to dwell inside of you. And for that reason, we will not need a physical temple building to worship the

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Father. She won't, we won't. Mount Gerizim in the temple in Jerusalem will be obsolete.

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Mount Zion will be spiritual. You won't need to climb to the top of the

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Andes to worship God. You won't need to go on a spirit walk in Africa. No pilgrimage to Jerusalem is needed.

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You're not going to find Jesus there unless someone gives you the gospel. No need to build an altar or craft a golden temple to get closer to God.

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It reminds me, before the Lord saved me, we went to this megachurch for a little while.

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I was trying to clean myself up. And they had good funds.

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They had a lot of money. They were able to build this multi -million dollar prayer house or something.

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And it was right into this beautiful mountain. And every wall was made of glass.

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So you could see like the Sonoran Desert and like cactuses. And it was very beautiful.

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And they would play this soft music and stuff. And it was, you know, maybe they are, I don't know if they had incense or something.

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It was just, it was hyper spiritual. Okay. And it's funny because I would even think that that's the place that you go to get closer to God.

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It's going to be in that glass building. And people would go there. And they would, I could feel the presence more than I can feel

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Him wherever. X, Y, Z, whatever. So that's not true.

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That's not what Jesus is saying. We have instant access. This is unheard of in a time where in the ancient

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Near East, every deity was a local deity. It was a regional deity. It was the

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God of this. The God of that. The God that represented some sort of creation item.

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But now we're talking about a God who doesn't need a temple. He doesn't need to be made.

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He doesn't need to be carved. He doesn't need to be crafted. He doesn't need to be made out of molten metal.

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This is something unique. Worshiping God whenever, wherever. Because anything else would be too small.

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Be way too small. Worshiping God in any other way would be too small.

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He's omnipresent. He's omnipotent. He's omniscient. That kind of God is bigger than anything that we can make.

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He's too magnificent and expansive that a wooden pole could represent him. It's almost absurd to think of.

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This was prophesied too. Malachi chapter 1 verse 11 says this,

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And get this, he says, For my name will be great among the nations.

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It's going to be in every place. When Malachi said this, the Jews were probably going, what is this prophet of God saying?

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In every place, incense, every place, every nation will say my name is great?

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Paul said in the Sermon on Mars Hill, Acts chapter 17, he says this,

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What's crazy is Paul said that while the Jerusalem temple was still standing.

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And Paul said that being surrounded by towering temples of the

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Greeks. And they said there's gods in these. There's deities in these.

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Pay homage. Pay honor. And he's like, there's one God. There's one.

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And he is not in a place, a temple that is made with human hands. It's amazing.

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How could he say all this? Because of what Christ has said. Because of what Christ is saying now.

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One commentator states, It is ironic that as the Samaritans stood beside the well, located neither in Jerusalem nor on Mount Gerizim, she had never been closer to the place where God is worshipped.

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For she was standing in front of the true temple of God, the true revelation of God, Jesus Christ.

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She had never been closer. Jesus continues answering in verse 22.

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You see it there. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know. For salvation is from the

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Jews. By the way, the you here, see that? You worship what you do not know.

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You is in the plural. So he's saying you Samaritans and we Jews. Okay. Keep that in mind.

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Here's the background to this statement. Second Kings 17. It details in Second Kings what occurred after Assyria had captured

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Israel and taken Israel into exile. Foreigners, I think

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I told you last week, all these Israelites were taken out of Israel and all these foreigners were brought in.

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And the foreigners then intermarried with remaining Israelites and that's why they were considered half -breeds, right?

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But what immediately happens when these foreigners come in, they're sent in by the king of Assyria to occupy and live in the land of the northern kingdom.

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What happens is all of a sudden all these lions are sent by God to eat them.

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Lions are sent to eat the foreigners and the Israelites who were remaining. And so these foreigners go to the king of Assyria and they say, what do we do?

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These lions are eating us. They're killing all of us. And he says, got it.

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You need one of the old priests who we took from the Samaritan temple.

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We're going to send a priest back to you and you just need to learn how to respect this local deity,

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Yahweh. You need to learn how to worship their God. Okay. And then the lions will stop.

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Okay. And so they do. They send this priest back and he teaches the

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Samaritan people what they ought to do to worship God. But it says in 2nd

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Kings 17 that they feared Yahweh and serve their own God simultaneously.

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It says that they set up their idols in the high places of Samaria. And at the end of this scripture detailing what happened to the northern kingdom, they are warned to only worship the

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Lord their God and nothing else. But it says that their children, their grandchildren, and we can see even unto the day of Jesus Christ that they mixed worship.

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That's what syncretizing means. Sync is with and working together.

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They're mixing worship of the living God and false gods. They continue to do it.

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God is saying, through Jesus Christ, you worship what you don't know.

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We worship what we know, he says. What Jesus is saying is the Samaritans don't regard God's word.

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We've already talked about that. They have never heard or read his words from the time right before the occupation of the land until now.

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And it's not that God has been silent. It's that they won't listen. They won't listen.

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They know God, but they don't truly know him.

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They know of him. To know him, one must know what he says. And this flies in the face of every person who says, yeah,

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I worship God. Do you read the Bible? No, I don't. Then you don't worship God. You don't know how to worship

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God if you've never opened the Bible. I worship God in my own way. Well, your way is a false way.

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He will only be worshipped the way that he says so. There's no truth or knowledge in their worship because they deny

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God's revelation. That's what the Samaritans did. They denied God's revelation after Deuteronomy.

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Therefore, Jesus says, you worship what you don't know. You don't know

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God. You don't know his word. You know of him. Nevertheless, there is still hope.

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How? Because Jesus is there. He's at Samaria. There's hope. Despite denying

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God's revelation, he won't just deny them even though he has the right to deny them eternal life.

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He comes to her. He's going to offer anyone who asks to drink of the water of life.

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In you worship what, okay? You worship what in verse 22. The what is in the neuter.

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So there's masculine, feminine, and then there's neuter. And so although the

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Jews know what they worship, they don't know who they worship. It's a what. They know the steps.

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They know the rules better than anyone else. But they don't know the

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God who it's all for. It's a what. And what did Jesus say?

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He's come to the father and they need him. So they need him to know how to worship

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God. Jesus then gives a little credit to his side. He says salvation is from the

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Jews. And it's not really credit to the Jews because it's all from God anyways. Carson says that the

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Samaritans stand outside the stream of God's revelation while the Jews stand in the stream of that revelation.

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Jesus says salvation is from the Jews, but it hasn't to this point gone to anyone.

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It's from them, but it hasn't gone to anyone yet. And he's alluding to his own mission.

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The completion of his mission will bring salvation to every other nation and tribe. Because think about it.

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What is the blessing of the Abrahamic promise? In Genesis 12 it says, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.

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Genesis 22, in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. You see the

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Jews loved and adored the Abrahamic blessings that said they will be numerous and they'll get the land.

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They loved those blessings. Okay, keep saying that God. But you know what they didn't do? It says that through them all the other nations will be blessed.

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They have yet to bless the other nations. They have not yet thought of everyone else.

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The Jews have not cared for everyone else. The Abrahamic blessing is both a blessing to them and to everyone else.

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Notice though that Jesus says salvation is from the Jews and it doesn't say in or by the

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Jews. That's important. Neither is the last statement one in which

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Jesus is saying all Jews will be saved. Some will argue that though this means that all

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Jews will be saved. But Jesus has made it clear. Those who don't believe in him will not be saved.

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He says that there are some who don't know him even to this day. Talked about that in the prologue.

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But we have a twofold thing going on here. First the Messiah of the world would come through a single nations people group going from one nation to the whole world and Jesus is a true

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Jew. How is Jesus a true Jew? Because he receives the Abrahamic blessing to himself and then he actually gives it to other people.

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That's what a true Jew does. He's going to give it out. One through whom the whole world will be blessed as it should have been from the beginning.

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And secondly, Paul says in Romans chapter 3, what advantage has the

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Jew? Or what benefit is those of the circumcision? And he says great in every respect.

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First of all, he says that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. God's revelation came through these people.

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That's a privileged group of people. That's a wonderful thing.

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So I guess you could say salvation was from the Jews in that both the written logos, which is the word that's that means the word, the written logos, and even the divine logos made flesh came through them.

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But as we will find as much as the Samaritans didn't observe the scriptures as they didn't believe them, the

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Jews observed them. They believed them and yet they didn't follow them.

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They both need a savior. Go to verse 23. But an hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for such people the father seeks to be his worshipers.

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As much as salvation is from the Jews, a time is now here when the privileges of God will go to all types of people, all types of people saved by Jesus.

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The hour in most of Jesus's statements is the cross. When he says the hour is near, it's typically the cross.

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That means that true worship of God is interwoven with the death and resurrection.

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The hour that is coming is the death, burial, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ.

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But he says that hour is now and it is also coming.

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So I would say that the hour that is now is his incarnation. It's his original coming. The fact that Jesus is here is the catalyst to a full -blown change to their worship.

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The hour is soon and now it is God's time which is he's beyond and his man's time which is linear.

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But there will soon be a day when the apostles and the disciples of Christ, that is to say

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Christians, they'll be kicked out of the temple and they won't be able to worship God there.

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However, even though they don't get to be in the temple, they'll be considered the ones who are true worshipers even without one.

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And the rest of the people in the temple who reject Christ, they'll be considered false worshipers.

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Those who have truly participated in the worship of God by faith in the old covenant will become new covenant participants.

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Because Jesus doesn't say that everyone before him was a false worshiper and everyone after him is a true worshiper.

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He doesn't say that. Those glorious aspects of the atonement will be applied to those who believe by faith in the promise that is to come.

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True worshipers won't be called Jewish believers or Samaritan believers or Gentile believers.

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They will be called true worshipers, Christians. And they won't be identified by their correct association with a particular building structure.

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They will be identified by if their worship is in spirit and truth. And if you remember in John chapter 2,

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Jesus revealed that he is the true temple. He is the better temple. You don't need to go to Mount Gerizim or Jerusalem anymore.

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Everyone has to go to Jesus to properly worship God now. That's why it's spirit.

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It's no longer a physical building. Worship through sacrifice will be complete once for all through Christ.

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And other sacrifices won't be necessary. The Father will accept our worship, our good deeds sacrifices, and love through Jesus.

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Jesus will be our high priest mediator through whom the Father will receive our worship.

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And it will be presented to the Father by the heavenly eternal high priest in the heavenly tabernacle.

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Our prayers will become incense now. Our good works like drink offerings and our singing will be done by every

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Christian and not only performed by Levites. Hebrews 9, 11 through 12 says,

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But when Christ appeared as the high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect temple, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, he entered the holy place once for all, having attained eternal redemption.

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So you have to think about it this way. Jesus mediated the love of the

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Father to the world. So the love came down and through Jesus, the love of the

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Father came to the world. And likewise now, the love that we have for the

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Father will come up from us and come into Jesus and be given to the

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Father. He is the one who gives us access. He is the mediator.

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He is the eternal high priest. We can boldly approach the throne room of grace because of Christ.

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Notice it's truth as well as spirit. In the prologue it said,

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Grace and truth, eganeto, that is came into being was through Jesus Christ.

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Jesus is what the way, the truth, and the life. So can you see the trinity in verse 23?

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Because the what's from the statement, worship what they know or don't know, is now a who.

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It's far more personal than ever thought possible. You will worship the

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Father. You see the Father is listed there, and it'll be by spirit and truth.

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And so I think there's possibly a connection to the fact that the Holy Spirit is considered here, and then truth,

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Jesus is called the truth. So this is trinitarian in nature. It's become far more personal now.

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That's the only way God will receive worship is by his spirit and by his

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Son. For such people the Father seeks to be his worshippers. The Father is actively looking for these people.

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He will acquire them. There's probably people who worship God by faith, someone like David before the temple was even built.

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Then there's a type of person who only worships God through the physical temple. In other words, it has to be born out of the heart and spirit, and it's never been about ritualistic devotion.

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If we come here for some sort of ritualistic devotion, even here at this place, we are missing what

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Jesus is saying. Above the door of every local church should virtually say, come worship all those who love

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God with sincerity in spirit and truth. So the question is, is your worship authentic today?

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There's also some reality to the fact that God has to seek true worshippers because none truly seek him, according to the

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Bible. No seeking is done apart from his sovereign drawing. So today you and I, right now at this moment, as we worship

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God, we worship him by spirit and truth. That's what's happening here today. Now you may even point out, probably even a kid might even point out to their mom or dad, hey he kept saying we were gonna worship in spirit and truth, and he said that it doesn't matter about buildings anymore, but I'm pretty sure we were in a building all day, right?

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So you guys might bring that up to me, okay? And I'd say yes, we're worshiping

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God in a building. But the thing is, the building is just a place to assemble and stay out of the elements, okay?

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This building, okay, this building right now has no direct connection to God.

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It's not. This building, if we were to leave, would be empty, and God would not be here in that sense.

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Of course, omnipresent, all those things, but that's not the point. This building isn't a direct connection to God.

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We are the ones with the direct connection to God through Jesus Christ, so that when we assemble together, when each one of you fills the pews every

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Sunday, we become the temple of God. Why?

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How? Because we are the body of Christ, it says. And what was the body of Christ in John chapter 2?

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The body of Christ was the temple of God. So by extension, because God dwells in all of us, and because Jesus purchased us, and he is the true temple, and we are his bride, and we are the body of Christ, right now, right here, it is us.

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We make the New Testament temple every time we assemble, okay?

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The priest would have had to sacrifice animals to consecrate themselves for worship to God.

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Today, the Lord looks to the Lamb, Jesus, and he sees the sacrifice was given, his life, atonement was given, and so our worship is consecrated.

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Before you came in here, you guys didn't need to slaughter an animal and give it to God as a guilt offering to worship

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God. Today, when you have your focus on God, and you worship individually, all of you worship

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God in spirit and in truth, God then looks to his Son and sees that the sacrifice was given, and your worship is then consecrated.

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Some of you have come in here with things on your mind, some of you have been dealing with sin, and you're repentant, but you feel defiled, you feel unclean, but then you sing songs in here, and you lift up your voice, and you start to feel better, and you're encouraged, and you're emboldened, and you worship

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God, and you don't have to worry that he won't receive it, because he then looks to his

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Son and says, sufficient, I will receive it. It's a game changer.

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It is received. Then you get to drink of the drink offerings of wine and sacramental showbread, but they represent something that is far better,

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Christ's body and blood. We're doing what the Israelites sought to do for all time in God's presence, who was in the temple in which they did these things, but we get to do it in spirit and truth.

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And I would argue that we're doing it in its fullest realization, because now God dwells in us.

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But it should make you think about how you come here. What is your attitude in coming here? I think there's a level of reverence.

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Yes, Christ paid for our sins. Yes, God looks to the one who was slain for us, and our worship is consecrated, but I think we ought to consider how we enter here, how we ought to put our every focus on him.

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This isn't just a worship service at 4 p .m. on December 18th. This is an earthly gathering of heavenly proportions.

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Amen. This is a representation of what occurs every day in the throne room of heaven.

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You're simply practicing. You're practicing for what's to come.

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Jesus continues in verse 24, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

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So he's giving us a reason. God is spirit, therefore true worship is in spirit and in truth.

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It's not physical, it's spiritual. That's his nature. God is spirit.

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But Jesus isn't going to go into a full explanation of the metaphysical properties of God who is spirit.

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That's not the point. God is spirit is meant to be a contrast from humans.

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Men are flesh, God is spirit. Men are visible, God is invisible.

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Men are natural, God is divine. And then we're supposed to even remember with spirit those

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Old Testament texts that we went through in John chapter 3, that the spirit is regenerating. The spirit is involved in creation and even recreation.

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And cleansing. We saw in John chapter 1, we can now know the

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Father through his greatest self -disclosure, the one and only Son. So how does one worship in spirit?

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Jesus says he will baptize us in the Holy Spirit. That's how. Here is another must statement.

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Do you see that? Verse 24. Another must statement.

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You must be born again. The Son of Man must be lifted up. Jesus must increase.

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John must decrease. And then now this, those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

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We see that worship then is a command. I'd argue it's a command that obviously fulfills us too.

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You see, you're not even, you're not just giving an offering of worship to God today. I think

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God is filling you too. I believe that when you offer him worship.

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Now it's wrong sometimes some people come just to be filled instead of offer to God, but I think he does both.

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And you can only worship God if you are a citizen of his kingdom, the new Zion. Paul says that those in the flesh cannot please

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God. Philippians 3 .3 says, for we are the true circumcision who worship the

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Spirit of God, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

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You see, this is how sometimes the Pharisees were able to do things that looked like they obeyed

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God. They followed his law. They worshiped God in their actions, but they didn't actually do it truly in their hearts.

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And we can do that too sometimes where you can go to a soup kitchen and feed some homeless people and then you can post all about it on Facebook and maybe take a picture of you with the local homeless guy and make sure everyone knows that you did your good deed for the year.

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And you can give yourself a pat on the back and everyone's going to say, look at what you did, Johnny. And what does it matter at that point?

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That's not true worship. That deed was not wrought in the Spirit. It was done in the flesh.

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Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of truth. Later in this gospel on multiple occasions, we then must possess the

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Spirit of truth to worship God in Spirit and truth. And again, it comes back to the

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Word of God. Where do we find the things of the Spirit? Where do we find truth? You can only discover how to worship

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God in his Word. Any other way that we have cooked up or how false religions have detailed worship of God will not do.

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He won't receive it. Both the Samaritans and the Jews need to know the

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Word of God and they need to know the Word of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ. And so the

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Jews knew the written Word. Do they know the Word Jesus? The Samaritans didn't know the full written

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Word. Will they turn to the Word Jesus that is coming? By the way,

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I have to say in Spirit and truth are not separate processes. They are one unit together.

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You can't just know the Spirit, know the truth, but not have the Spirit. You can't say you have the

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Spirit, but neglect the truth. They're not divorced from each other. Mahatma Gandhi, a man the world seems to love and adore and they seek his wisdom.

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Gandhi says this, I worship God as truth only, but I have not yet found him, but I'm seeking after him.

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Truth only, but it's Spirit and truth. And it's not a truth of the worldly wisdom of men.

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It's not a so -called truth of the empty philosophies of men. It is a truth and Spirit of God.

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Don't we see this kind of unbalance in hyper charismatic churches too? The whole cessationism and continuationism argument aside, these churches will have the whole congregation speaking in tongues and say that it is the

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Spirit. But the truth says that only two to three are allowed to speak in tongues and there must be an interpreter.

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They divorce Spirit and truth. Some churches are stiff and people are there simply to do rituals.

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They read from the Scripture and they give truth, but it is clear that the Spirit is void there.

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There's an unbalance. To this, another commentator says, the worshipers whom

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God seeks worship him out of the fullness of the supernatural life they enjoy, which is in Spirit, and on the basis of God's incarnate self -expression, who is

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Christ Jesus himself, through whom God's person and will are finally and ultimately disclosed.

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That is the truth part. And those two things make an indivisible unit.

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So go to verse 25. The Samaritan woman finally gets to respond after Jesus says all this.

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The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming. John the Apostle says, he who is called

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Christ. He does that often. She says, when that one comes, he will declare all things to us.

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We are not certain how much the Samaritan woman understands what Jesus said, but no doubt with this response, she has at least picked on some of the messianic implications of Jesus's statements.

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She associates some of what he said potentially with the Messiah. Maybe she's even thinking, hey, this

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Jewish prophet could be right in what he's saying. This Jewish prophet could be right, but thankfully the

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Messiah is coming. He's going to declare to us all things. Samaritans typically called this figure the

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Messiah, the tahib, which the tahib means the restorer or the one who returns.

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And Samaritans thought the tahib would teach the people and reveal truth. But the

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Jews believed that the Messiah would come to be the king of Israel, and his reign would take over the earth with the people as his benefactors here in a physical way.

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But Jesus will exceed both of their expectations infinitely, infinitely.

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Yeah, he's come to be king. Yeah, he's a warrior, and he's going to cover the whole world with his reign and kingship and lordship, but it's not in the way that they thought.

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And yes, Jesus is going to come, and he's going to declare all things, and he's going to exegete to us the that is true.

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It's beyond what they could even think. It reminds me of John 1 18, which we went over.

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Jesus said here that God is spirit. She responds saying the Messiah will explain this.

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But then the actual verse from the prologue says no one has seen God at any time, right?

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That is the spirit part of God. And then it says the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the father, he has explained him.

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He has exegeted him. That is the explanation part. But isn't it ironic, and I found it to be so, that this

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Samaritan woman is explaining to the Messiah what the

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Messiah will do, right? Hey, this is what he's going to do, and he's like, I know, and I'm doing it now, right?

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Final verse, verse 26. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am he.

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So this woman, in a sense, is placing faith in this coming restorer, this

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Messiah. He will set things right. But Jesus makes it clear whatever faith she possesses needs to be now placed in him.

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The one who you speak of, I am he. This is a correction and a revelation.

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It's a correction because he's like, I'm that one, I am he, and it's a revelation because he's declared it openly.

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By the way, see that word he? That should be in italics. That word he at the very end is not in Greek.

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This is the first of many statements of what is called the

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I am statements. Ego eimi. I am. And if you know, that is the name of God.

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I am. And she only knows the Pentateuch, she only knows the first five books of the

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Bible. This should raise an alarm in her head. This is from Exodus chapter three, the burning bush passage.

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God stands in front of her, and Jesus is so humble. He announced he is the divine savior,

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God in the flesh, to a woman outside of Samaria by a well. I wonder if the rocks and trees were pulsating when he said,

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I am. Right? He didn't go to the town center.

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He didn't go on top of a roof and say, I am. I'm the

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Messiah. He's out in the wilderness, almost outside of a city with a woman who, by all accounts, doesn't deserve any grace.

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She's a sinful woman, but he announces it to her. It's amazing.

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It's just like how God himself will be born in a stable with animals. We see another role reversal here.

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Okay. Think about it this way. Jesus said salvation is from the

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Jews. They've had this privileges. The oracles of God have come through the Jews.

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But now we have a role reversal. How? Because I'll tell you what, if you look at it, if you pay attention, if you guys read not only the synoptic

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Gospels, that is Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but you read John, what you'll find is that almost every time

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Jesus heals, or removes a demon, or brings the gospel, or reveals that he is directly the

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Messiah, and he does that to a Gentile, he lets them go and declare it to everyone.

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But every time, almost, that he heals a Jew, removes a demon, or reveals that he is divine in some way, he says, don't tell anyone.

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You'll notice that when you read the Gospels. Right? They don't get the announcement yet.

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The one through whom the Messiah has come, they don't get the announcement yet. But this woman, out in the middle of nowhere, gets the announcement.

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It's a role reversal. And in many ways, the

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Gentile God -fearers, those who worshiped Yahweh, but they were

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Gentile, they couldn't come into the temple, they could only be out into the Gentile outer court, they longed for God.

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They longed for God the way that God interacted with the Jews. They saw the covenant blessings of God toward the

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Israelites, and Gentile God -fearers longed for it. And so it made their faith in Jesus simple.

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It made it easy. Because if you already have nothing, then something is everything.

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That's what's happened. The Jews expected a warrior king to overthrow

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Rome. Many of them, especially the Pharisees and Sadducees, also felt entitled.

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The Messiah was owed to them, they thought. But out in the desert, by a well, a

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Samaritan woman comes face to face with the most anticipated being in all of history.

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God in the flesh. So let me conclude this, church. I know many will use this section of Scripture, Spirit and Truth, and they'll give a,

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I think even MacArthur has a great sermon series, maybe about five. He does five sermons out of this one section,

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Spirit and Truth, and it's on wrong worship practices. I think there's great application there.

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Regulative principle of worship opposed to normative principle and other wrong or other wrong practices.

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But I'll just make a quick declaration, okay? Woe to those who engage in holy laughing, dog barking, and spiritual seizing on the floor, warning to the churches who say we must all speak in tongues lest we're not saved, and they make their people do it and provide no interpretation.

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I declare a lamentation for those churches who worship in just rite and ritual and lifeless devotion, and I speak a word of correction to those who want another temple built.

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That's right. As Christians, we ought to weep at such error.

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I would argue eschatologically the final temple was built, and we are it in Jesus.

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We should see the words Christ spoke here in John chapter 4, that it's no longer about buildings and hope to God that another temple is never built again.

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Because if another sacrifice was ever done in a Jewish temple again, it would certainly bring down judgment.

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It would be the highest form of blasphemy to sacrifice another animal in a Jewish temple when

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Jesus has come to become the sacrifice once for all. And it was efficacious, and it was done that day in Christ.

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So may we pray that all people worship God only by spirit and truth, because that is the only way he will receive it.

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And I know I didn't touch a lot on those things, but I wanted to keep the sermon about the text meaning.

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You'll notice that I really want to teach you the text, and I like a lot of these opportunities to go into something else in the application, but I think that's for another time.

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We can address those things, but I wanted to list that off for you, but I'll end it here with the three main points of our passage today.

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Three things. Salvation was historically from the Jews. They were given the oracles of God.

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All that they received and were promised were types that became ultimately fulfilled for the church now.

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What Jesus is saying should be such a relief and a cause of joy for us. Salvation has gone beyond the borders of Israel, has gone beyond the blood of Jews.

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It spread to the Mediterranean, then to Europe and Africa and Asia Minor, and to this day, settlers came here with the gospel because Christ is king.

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It needed to be announced in every part of the world, and we are fulfillment of what Jesus has promised.

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Number two, the Samaritans tried to worship God in their own way.

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They made their own temple. They mixed worship with false gods, and they ignored the rest of God's word.

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The Jews knew his word. They tried to follow God's law and in their worship of him, but they too mixed their worship with false gods.

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The point is, they each tried to worship God in their own way, but he will only accept worship his way, in spirit and truth.

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And that's the way we worship him, brothers and sisters, today. Number three, and lastly, Jesus is expressly authorized to explain the

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Father to us. He will explain to us all things, and he has. There are so many things we struggle with.

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There are so many things we want answers for today. You have questions here that I know you want answers to, but don't be like the

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Samaritan woman and deny the scripture. Hopefully that's changed now that she's encountered the living

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God. Don't be like the Samaritan woman who did not read the rest of God's revelation or regarded as inspired, but also don't be like the

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Jews who had God's word, knew it, but ignored it, disobeyed it. So take

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God's word, church, store it in your hearts, know it intimately, go to it daily, heed it, use it, treasure it, and build your life off of God's word.

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Because if you're feeling lost right now, you'll be found in God's word. If you're feeling some sort of despair today, you'll find the joy of the

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Lord in God's word. If you're ensnared in any particular sin, there in God's word is where you'll be cut free from the snares of iniquity.

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So I'm so thankful to God for what has taken place here today in our service, because our service has contained true worship by true worshipers.

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The coming of Christ allows us to worship here. Salt Lake City is 7 ,000 miles, almost exactly away from Jerusalem.

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7 ,000 miles away, we can worship God right here. Praise him today because we can praise him in this place.

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The prophet Habakkuk said, what would happen at the coming of Christ when the worship of God would happen in spirit and in truth?

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And it says this, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the

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Lord as water covers the sea. He did it and he's doing it now.

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It left Israel and it's come here. The knowledge of the glory of the

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Lord is filling the earth and let's participate in spreading it. Let's pray.

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Father, please bless the message that went out today for your glory. God, I thank you that I can't imagine

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Lord having to do everything so perfectly, having to follow everything to the

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T and only one man could enter the holy of holies. He got to witness it.

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But we, by your spirit, have experienced the holy of holies.

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We can come into your presence. We can enter the throne room of grace all by Christ.

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You've consecrated our worship. It's in spirit and in truth. Thank you for allowing us to participate in it.

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Thank you for receiving it. Because at the end of the day, all of us here who are true worshippers, that's our highest desire for all eternity, is to give you praise, honor, and glory, and worship in all that we do for all eternity.