True Worship - [John 4]

Dear God, our Heavenly Father, as we open up your word, Lord, I pray that your spirit would be here to teach each and every one of us, Lord, what it is that you would have us learn. Give us hearts that are open to your word, changes by it, that Lord, when we walk out of this church, we would be transformed by the renewing of our minds and that our hearts and our wills would be submissive to what you have for us today.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So I have a question for you as we get started. And my sermon this morning is from John 4, it's on true worship. So the question is, what is worship? What is worship? I'm sure there's a lot of thoughts that race through your mind when a question such as that is asked.

And in contemporary churches today, the term worship is most often equated with the singing of praises to God. And that definitely is one of the aspects of worship. Among most Christians today, the term worship is closely associated with the church building and the activities that are held here, like the Sunday morning worship service.

So when you think of worship, we normally associate it with the church building and whatever goes on there. But today we are going to come under Jesus' teaching on worship and we will learn from his encounter with the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4.

So my desire this morning is that you will understand true spiritual worship so that the Holy Spirit will enable you to worship truly from your hearts and in all of your actions so that you will grasp in your mind what worship is and that you will fully submit in your heart and in all of your life in order to worship God as he deserves.

The Gospel of John and the Contrast Between Nicodemus and the Samaritan Woman

Now before we get into the text, I'd like to recount briefly what we know about the Gospel of John and specifically the context of this passage. As most of us know of the four Gospels, the Gospel of John emphasizes very strongly the aspect of Jesus being the Son of God, that here is God in the flesh as a man.

And John chapter 4, this passage with the Samaritan woman, just preceding it, we have an encounter that Jesus has with a man named Nicodemus. And when we study John 4, it is against the dark backdrop of what has happened in John 3 that we see this noonday revelation that we will now be studying.

So let's quickly look at the context of what has happened in John 3 and the contrast that it presents against John chapter 4. In John 3, we have Nicodemus, the doctor, professor, reverend, high standing man Nicodemus.

He has a lot going on in his favor. He was a Pharisee, and that meant that he knew the scriptures, he knew the traditions, and he wanted to follow the rules rigorously. He had a desire to worship God as best as he knew.

He was also a ruler. He was a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a very powerful man in the Jewish community and in the nation of Israel. And he was a very respected member of the people and someone that the people looked up to.

Now, by contrast, the person that we're going to look at, the Samaritan woman, she has a lot of things going against her. She was a woman, she was a Samaritan, and we'll find out soon she has a very dark past.

A woman, in this day and age that would seem odd, why would that be something that goes against her? If you are turning to John chapter 4, in verse 27, you find the disciples actually very surprised to see a woman talking to Jesus.

In fact, in verse 9, the woman herself is surprised that Jesus, a man, would talk to her. You see, the social standing of women at this time was very low, especially if you were not one who was of high birth.

And she definitely did not have the status that Nicodemus had. Secondly, she was a Samaritan. The woman here, in verse 9 again, strongly contrasts Jews and Samaritans. She was surprised why a Jew would talk to a Samaritan.

And most of us generally are familiar with some kind of a stigma that the Jews had with Samaritans. But most of the times when you think of Samaritan, the phrase that comes to our mind is the parable of the good Samaritan.

And if you think about the parable, Jesus specifically uses good and Samaritan because those two terms just did not go together in the Jewish mind. He had a lesson that he had to teach, and he brings two very contrasting terms as far as the Jewish people were concerned.

For us, it would be like the leader of Al-Qaeda to call the righteous Osama, or something like that. It would just shock you, and that was the point that Jesus was making. He had to teach something, and he used the Samaritan.

The Jews hated the Samaritans, worse than even the Gentiles because they were half-breeds. Now, there's one more problem that the woman has. And later in verse 18, we will find that the Samaritan woman is not only marginalized by society for being a woman, ostracized by the Jews for being a Samaritan, but she's also an outcast of her own people for being an immoral person.

Now, if there's anyone who has problems, here is one. And as they come together, as Jesus meets this woman, you're going to see how Jesus talks to this woman and teaches her a very important lesson. Now, there's one more thing that is in common that Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman have.

Now, they have very stark contrasting backgrounds, but they both have one common problem. They are lost sinners in need of a savior. And in fact, as the conversation progresses, you will find that the woman actually has something going for her.

The woman gets more actively engaged with Jesus as he starts teaching her about worship, while Nicodemus is not really open to his claims. You find that Jesus came to seek and save the lost. The gospel is a slap to the face of the self-righteous, but it rescues sin-dirty people from the muddy and dark marshes of sin.

Unbelievers Want to Worship but Cannot Truly Worship God

So let's dive right in to John chapter 4. In verse 1, we will go from verse 1 through verse 42. We will stop at different places to study it in more detail. Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples, he left Judea, which is in the south, and departed again for Galilee in the north.

In verse 5, so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son, Joseph. We have a few references in the Old Testament, one of which is Genesis 33, 19. And this town of Sychar is probably the modern city of Ascar.

And verse 6, Jacob's well was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour, which is around noontime. If you are ever tempted to think about Jesus being somehow magically protected from all the hardships of the earth, you need to think again.

Here we have Jesus, who is indeed fully God, but is also fully and completely a man. He has just finished a very tiring journey, and he is here in the midday heat, resting by the well. Now, as we get into verse 7, we are going to see the first aspect of worship that Jesus teaches us.

And the first aspect is that unbelievers want to worship, but they cannot truly worship God. Unbelievers want to, but cannot truly worship God. We are going to learn here that mankind has some needs that are universal.

Just as we cannot survive without water, and we get thirsty without it, so also we are created to worship. And all mankind faces this universal need. It's a spiritual need, and the need is to worship God, and we find ourselves parched without God in our lives.

You want to notice how this passage first is going to begin with a physical need, and then it moves on to a spiritual need. The Gospel of John, as you read it, you'll find it is filled with many misunderstandings, and this passage has one very good example of how Jesus is misunderstood.

And verse 7, there was a woman from Samaria, there came a woman from Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink. And John explains in verse 8, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

So when Jesus says, give me a drink, he reveals his physical thirst. And what he's asking for is for water from the well to quench his thirst from his weary travels. Now, when the woman hears this request, which would be rather natural and common for anyone to ask, her first response, you'll find, is to check, show social protocols.

In verse 9, the woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? And again, John explains it for us. He says, for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Having understood this conflict between Jews and Samaritans, we should understand this response, what the cultural norm of the times was.

And Jesus here is going to not respond to her question right away. He is instead going to go to a deeper need that she faces. And in fact, he's going to talk about a deeper source that is able to fulfill her need.

In verse 10, Jesus answers her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. The gift of God, the gift of God is the eternal life that is found in the son of God.

The person who is speaking with this woman is the source of that eternal life. Jesus is using a term, living water. Living water in those days meant water that was flowing, not stagnant water. But here he is using that same term to speak of a spiritual satisfaction that God alone is.

God alone can provide the true satisfaction that nothing else can. Water here, as in various passages in the Old Testament, refers to God. And in the rest of the Gospel of John, you will find the water being referred to the Holy Spirit.

Most of us are familiar with Psalm 42 verse 1, where the psalmist speaks of panting or thirsting after God just as a deer pants for flowing or living water. And Jesus here is now exposing the woman's need for true worship.

That is going to truly satisfy her. If alone, she would believe that the object of her worship is standing right in front of her, who is able to, and yes, even about to fulfill her need. However, we find this misunderstanding theme creeping.

The woman does not understand what Jesus has done. He has switched the context of the word water from the physical to the spiritual. And so she is dubious and she asks the obvious question in verse 11.

The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with. And the well is deep. Where can you get that living water? And then she challenges him, Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.

She first challenges Jesus' physical inability to draw water. He doesn't have a rope. He doesn't have a bucket. And then she challenges Jesus' earlier statement. If you look back at verse 10, Jesus said, the one who is standing before you.

So she says, OK, let me throw this back at you. Jesus, I'm sorry, Jacob was the source of this well. And I don't see any other source of water or any means for you to get any other water for me. So are you greater than Jacob to provide something that I cannot see?

And that's a question. And she's really not engaging with Jesus and trying to say, OK, let me try to figure you out. She's more like making a comment with a chuckle and saying, OK, I know you are just making up some stories and I'm going to dismiss you with this.

And here, Jesus, again, does not answer her challenge. He will actually come back in the end and explain who he is. And that's going to blow her world away. But right now, he goes on to explain the enduring nature of the gift that is there.

In verse 13, Jesus says to her, everyone who drinks of this water, this physical water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Jesus now clearly shows how this water that he's talking about is unlike the physical water that she's used to. All of our bodies need water to live. No water can quench man's thirst as long as we live and breathe and walk on earth.

However, the spiritual water that Jesus is talking about is going to satisfy man's needs completely. No longer is the one who drinks from this fountain that Jesus is going to give going to be parched and empty and looking for another source to fulfill his needs.

But the source of this fountain that Jesus is going to give is going to indwell that person. It is going to indwell that person, and it is going to be a source which is going to burst forth with all spiritual goodness.

And I can see some of you smiling. You know what it means to have this fountain within you. But again, in this passage, that statement gets more misunderstanding. And the woman takes Jesus' words literally, and she says in part amusement in verse 15, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.

Now, as much as the woman has still misunderstood the true meaning and the import of Jesus' words, her statement reflects the need of all mankind. And that is the fact that we have a nature that is longing for true and complete satisfaction.

And it is true for all of us because we are creatures who have a dependency on our creator. Every child, as we know, especially today on a Father's Day, we know how much we value our fathers and our parents.

And we have a relationship with our parents that satisfies and makes us whole, as every child knows that. And Augustine, in one of his books, said of God, You made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.

Our hearts are meant to find satisfaction in God. We are meant to worship God in whom we find fulfillment. However, in our sinful separation from God, we have found other objects to try to satisfy our desires to worship.

We have found and formed idols to replace God. As Jeremiah would say, we have hewn broken cisterns that would hold no water. And how do we do this? We worship money. We worship fame. We worship power.

We worship our jobs. We worship even our homes, our relationships. And all these things which have a place in our lives become alluring, and they try to take the central place which only God can take.

They cannot fulfill the ultimate need of our heart. And they can be filled only by worshiping God. The unbeliever, my friends, without faith in God, you cannot worship God. The Bible says that if you do not believe in Jesus, if you do not have the source of water within you, you cannot truly worship God.

So if there's any of you who have come here this morning to worship, and yet do not have a saving relationship with Jesus, you may not really understand what this worship is all about. You all know the need of your heart.

There is something that it's longing for, something that it needs fulfillment. But you are not yet aware of the source of its fulfillment, which is Jesus Christ. And you may ask this morning, what prevents me from worshiping God?

So far we have seen that everyone wants to worship. But now we will see why unbelievers, those who do not know God, cannot worship God. In fact, no one can worship God on their own. And there is a universal problem that prevents worship.

So let's get back to the text. And here Jesus, having established the need and the desirability of having that need fulfilled, is now going to take her response at face value. And then he tells her in verse 16, Go, call your husband and come here.

Very simple statement. And the woman replies in very simple terms, not elaborating too much. The woman answered him, I have no husband. You see, the issue of worship is not an intellectual problem of the mind.

It's not just knowing all the facts about God. Nor is it a perceived need or felt need of individuals. I have something that I need to be filled, so I can just go and take care of it myself. It has to do with the condition of our hearts.

Here we are going to see Jesus. He's now taking her statement, what she made, and he's going to explain the problem that prevents her from worshiping. In verse 17, when the woman said, I have no husband, Jesus said to her, you are right in saying, I have no husband.

For you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is quite true. Jesus here takes her life. He exposes it. And then he lays it bare for her to face up. You can just imagine the startled and astonished woman acknowledging Jesus' supernatural power.

Here she was trying to make a dismissive statement and walk away from this aspect of her personal life. And here, her whole life is laid bare, and she has to face up with her situation. And in verse 19, the woman says to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Obviously, something that he could not have known otherwise. My brothers and sisters, the chief deterrent to worship is sin. You cannot worship God when living in sin. Before you can raise your eyes to this thrice holy God in worship, you must first acknowledge your inability to even look up to him.

And without that, there can be no worship. You see, this woman, the Samaritan woman, has a very dark past. Maybe many of us here may not have such dark past. We may not have murdered somebody. We may not have committed adultery.

But the Bible says in Romans 3 .23 that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And only when you have a conviction of your own sin, and you recognize the need for cleansing from its dark stain, can you repent, receive forgiveness, and turn away from sin.

And this conviction that we need so desperately is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is only possible, we will learn, by Jesus' death and his resurrection. It is by God's work in our hearts that we are made right with him.

It is only then that we can see him and worship him as we should. You see, it is all good for us to want to worship God. But we must first deal with the problem that separates us from him. And the only way to deal with this problem is to receive that free gift that Jesus gives us at his cross.

So if any of you are an unbeliever here today, I would urge you to believe in Jesus and receive this gift of eternal life and that enables you to worship this great God and Savior. So the first aspect of worship that we've seen is that unbelievers want to worship but cannot truly worship God.

Believers Must Worship a Personal God in Spirit and in Truth

So let's go to the second point of this message, which is that believers must worship a personal God in spirit and in truth. Worship is just not about any place or actions that take place in that place.

Believers must worship in spirit and in truth. In verse 19, you now see the woman saying, I perceive you are a prophet. And then she goes on in verse 20 to say, our fathers worshipped on this mountain.

But you say in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. So here's a dialogue that continues and you may ask yourself the question, is the woman really trying to give honor where it is due by calling Jesus a prophet?

Or is she just trying to quickly change the subject because this is an uncomfortable one for her? Now, while she's definitely trying to wriggle out from under the piercing gaze of a creator, she picks a subject that becomes the key to answer her problem and not just hers, but also ours.

You see, Jesus is now going to expose and explain the meaning of true worship by first taking what she knows. And then he is going to reveal something that she has not known before. In 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 father.

You worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know for salvation is of the Jews. And in verse 23, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and in truth.

For the father is seeking such people to worship him. Now, what the woman may have picked as a point of spiritual debate or even distraction becomes the launching pad for Jesus to teach the true meaning of worship.

Now, Jesus here is going to take the concept of worship from its rituals. That is what this woman was familiar with. And he's now going to focus it on a person. Worship of God occurs primarily in our relationship with him as our father.

Jesus is soon going to disclose how you can worship this God as our father. And it is through the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Now, there was a common data who made the statement. And I think it composes this truth for us.

He said that true worship is paternal in focus. It is towards God, the father. It is personal in origin. It is initiated by a relationship with Jesus Christ, the son of God. And it is spiritual or pneumatic in character.

It is through the Holy Spirit. And before we can understand this, Jesus breaks down all illusions that worship is limited to a place. He predicts a very near future where his death and his resurrection is going to provide a new way to worship God.

You see, in the old covenant, God had ordained sacrifices. And he had ordained worship at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus very clearly affirms this revelation of scripture when he talks about the Samaritans not being aware of the truth.

The Samaritans had only the Pentateuch. And they did not believe that Jerusalem was the place where they had to worship as God had ordained it. But soon, Jesus is saying, even the temple in Jerusalem is going to be leveled.

It is not going to be built up again. The old forms of worship are going to be obliterated. And there is going to be established a new and a powerful means of worshiping God, which is a spiritual exercise through the person of Jesus Christ.

So for this woman, as you can see, for us 2 ,000 years ahead, we can look back and say, yes, I know this. But here for this woman, this is totally new. Now, worship is not something done at some place.

And when we understand this truth, that it essentially flows from a relationship with a person, how can we worship by just doing things in rote? It is a spiritual exercise. It is your spirit in sweet fellowship with God.

And that is exactly what Jesus is driving to. So if someone, if you somehow equate worship with a building or with a place, when somehow sanctity is assigned to a location, even this building, however transcendent or noble that thought might have been, you ignore God as a person who is near you and intimately imminent.

And instead what we do is to create a false God. And instead of a transcendent God, we now have an imaginary God, who we think is just too far to approach, and therefore a consecrated place is what is worship instead.

Now, if you think of pilgrims, why do pilgrims go to sacred places? In other religions, people go to Mecca or Lodz, and they think they can somehow seek God's favor. But when you are in an intimate relationship with God, nothing of that sort can replace, supplement, or take the place of genuine spiritual worship.

You cannot be satisfied with any ritual that just symbolizes something else. You cannot be content with a format of just saying and doing things mechanistically or in rote. You cannot go through the motions of worship, no matter how sincere you are and how genuinely you want to do these things, because you just don't do these things with a person.

You can do it with a system, but you cannot do it with a person. No, when you worship a personal being, one who is nearer than your dearest friend, who is your God, you cannot but exult joyously in your spirit.

Here is your friend and your king, your comforter and your savior, and here you have a deep and personal relationship with him. And your spirit rejoices in this relationship, not through any actions, not through any deeds that you come to perform once in a week or once in a year.

Now, that is what spiritual worship means. Actually, the word spirit here doesn't refer to the Holy Spirit. It refers to your spirit, that it communes with God in your inner being. And, of course, it is enabled by the Holy Spirit, but spiritual worship is primarily internal.

Now, we are also going to see what it means to worship in truth. We have seen what it means to worship in spirit. What does it mean to worship in truth? In verse 24, Jesus says, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

So what does it mean to worship in truth? The obvious answer would be it is not to worship in falsehood. So if someone were to come here today and then say, okay, here you know I've got a new and nice way to worship God.

Let's go and start a church. Obviously, that's not the right way. You just can't make up a way to worship God. But on the flip side, it doesn't mean that, oh, just because my parents and my ancestors were worshipping God in this tradition, that must be the right way to worship, just because everybody has done it this way.

Oh, you know, if I do this kind of worship, it makes me feel really good. And therefore, this must be the way of worship. Worship is not about feelings. It's not about emotions. Yes, emotions have a part to play, but true worship is based on objective truth.

A simple example, just to kind of fix your mind when we dive deeper into what this true worship means. Think of a coal miner, you know, a guy who's dusty, worked 10, 12 hours under the mountains. He's coming out, and here is a nice clean shower for him to wash up and soap himself and go home.

And instead he says, oh, you know what? All that water is fine. I like my Gatorade with sticky Gatorade, and I have a half a bottle of it. I've kept it open. It's got a lot of coal dust in it, but I think this will take care of the job.

And, you know, just sprinkle myself a little around it and say, yeah, I'm good to go and go home. Sadly for us, we live in a sin-contaminated world. And many a time, we come out and we want to feel clean.

We want to go and worship this God. There is a need in our heart that we want to satisfy. And we say, okay, you know, I'm going to meet this king, and I will just find a way that I think makes myself acceptable before him.

My friends, we all know that is not possible. If you have to meet a king, you need to meet that king on his terms. And that is what true worship is. God has given us this means of worshiping him. And we find this means of worshiping in the scriptures, in the Bible.

God has told us how we can approach him. And that is worship in truth. And that is how we must go to him. And to worship in any other means is to worship in falsehood. It is to worship a lie. You see, the Bible constantly decrees the nations and even the nation of Israel for coming up with devices and trying to please God and ignoring the means that he has provided in order to worship him.

And so obedience to the truth is at the heart of worship. We know in the incident with Saul where Samuel rebukes him and says obedience is more important than sacrifice because at the heart of worship you need to do what God wants and not what you want to do for God.

And I have a question here just to make you stimulated as we dive deeper into this. So if I would ask you a question, let me say I have a choice before me. I want to take all my money, give it to all the poor people in Africa because there is a genuine need here.

And that is the way I want to worship God. Or I am going to come to this church and I am going to pray for half an hour. Which of these two deeds do you think would be worshipful to God? Some of you are smiling because you know that is not a good question.

It is a trick question. Because either of these actions can be genuine means of worshiping God or each of these can be an abomination in God's sight. You see when it comes to worship, the service that we bring to God must come from our heart.

This service comes to express the adoration and the exaltation that we want to give through prayer and praise. It first begins in our mind and then it goes out in our words. It also becomes of a life that is lived out in a single-minded purpose of seeking to serve God in all that we do.

You see the word worship is commonly defined as one that ascribes worth to the one who deserves it. The biblical words used for worship, there are many, but two of them are falling down before God or to serve God with all of our lives.

Those are two terms that are used to define worship. As we come to the conclusion or the climax of this passage, we find that in verses 24 to 26, when Jesus has just said that God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth, the woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ.

When he comes, he will tell us all things. And then in verse 26, we have Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, am he. You see in verse 24, Jesus has given a profound truth about spiritual worship and the woman counters by saying, you know, all that is fine, but I know when the Messiah comes, he will explain these things to us.

And then here we have the greatest shock this woman could have ever received. We have the greatest and most profound truth and revelation of all of time and history. And he says, I who speak to you, am he.

In fact, the words that are used there, it says, it's I am. It's one of those declarative statements about the personhood of God. You remember she asked earlier, you know, who are you? Are you greater than Jacob?

And of course, he is greater than Jacob. Here we have the Messiah himself right in front of her face. Someone whom she thought was just thirsty and asking for a drink of water is the source of eternal life.

She gets it. It is only through the person of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, the king, the son of God, the savior of the world, that we can know God and we can worship him in truth. Now, I'm sure some of you are still thinking, OK, you know, I know worship, but can you can you spread it out a little bit more for us?

And I want us to kind of understand the context of worship. So let's think about how God or Jesus enables you and I to worship God. You see, if you think about what worship meant to the people of Israel at the time when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman, worship meant either going to for the Samaritans, this Mount Gerizim or to the temple in Jerusalem, because that's where they could go and they could do all these sacrifices and give these offerings and show how they try to conform to God's revealed will.

But if you look in John to 19, which is just two chapters before Jesus goes to the temple and he says, you know, this temple will be destroyed and in three days I will build it up. He's already telling the people that there is a new way of worshiping God.

And that way is through me. You're no longer going to have these buildings and forms that you need to worship by. But it is through a person. It is not through a place. And if you think of the old covenant, we had the temple.

And before that, we had the tabernacle and the sacrifices and offerings that were there. We're all pointing forward to a time where the perfect sacrifice will come. Who alone can fully atone for sin? And all of us know this in Hebrews 10 for it is impossible for bulls and the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin.

But with Christ, we have the perfect sacrifice. We now have access by grace into the throne room of God. We have restored fellowship with him. And we have, in fact, even Jesus praying and interceding for us before God continually.

We have several verses that talk about it. I'll just point to them if you want to take them down. Hebrews 926 talks about the once and for all sacrifice Jesus has done. Romans 834 talks about how Jesus death and his resurrection, his presence in the very right hand of God interceding for us enables us to worship God.

And this enabling helps us to exalt God because we now have opened eyes. We can now see God for who he is. And not only that, it now helps us to fall on our face figuratively before God in our hearts.

Just as Isaiah did in Isaiah 6, literally, when we come before God, we know who God is. We know who we are. And we are able to humbly fall before him. And Hebrews 924, it talks about what Christ has done.