WWUTT 827 Worship in Spirit and Truth?

Jesus said that a time is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the

Father in spirit and truth. We will know God and we will worship Him the way

He has said He is to be worshipped when we understand the text. You're listening to When We Understand The Text, committed to the sound teaching of the

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back again to our study of John 4 and this conversation that Jesus had with a woman at the well in Samaria.

As with yesterday, I'm going to start in verse 7 and read through verse 26. A woman from Samaria came to draw water.

Jesus said to her, Give me a drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?

For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered 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 woman said to him,

Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.

Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.

But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come up here to draw water.

Jesus said to her, Go, call your husband and tell him to come here. The woman answered him,

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 have now is not your husband.

What you have said is true. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

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 know, for salvation is from the

Jews. But the hour is coming and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for the father is seeking such people to worship him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

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

So as with yesterday, I mentioned that where this interaction is taking place is

Mount Gerizim there in Samaria, the place where the Samaritans declared that the true worship of God was supposed to take place.

And this belief has its roots in Deuteronomy. Remember that I said that the Samaritans had somewhat of the prophetic scriptures, but only the first five books of the

Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And it's there in Deuteronomy chapter 27 that there was this call and response between the children of Israel of blessings and curses.

In Deuteronomy 27 verse 9, Moses and the Levitical priests said to all

Israel, keep silence and hear O Israel. This day you have become the people of the

Lord your God. You shall therefore obey the voice of the Lord your God, keeping his commandments and his statutes, which

I command you today. That day, Moses charged the people saying, when you have crossed over the

Jordan, these shall stand on Mount Gerizim to bless the people, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin.

And these shall stand on Mount Ebal for the curse, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Naphtali.

And the Levite shall declare to all the men of Israel in a loud voice, cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image, an abomination to the

Lord, a thing made by the hands of a craftsman and sets it up in secret.

And all the people shall answer and say, Amen. Okay. So then they did this back and forth.

This is what was commanded of the children of Israel there in Deuteronomy 27. And recognize that some of the children of Israel stood on Mount Gerizim for the blessings.

And there were others that stood on Mount Ebal for the curses. Well, this was taken by the

Samaritans to mean that the place where God is worshipped is the mountain of blessing. And that's

Mount Gerizim. And indeed, there was even a temple that was built there. Josephus mentioned this particular temple, but it was destroyed in about the second century

B .C. So at this particular time, when this woman and Jesus are having this conversation, they are near the place where that temple once stood.

But it's no longer there. It was destroyed by the Hasmoneans. So in verse 20, the woman says to Jesus, our fathers worshipped on this mountain.

And that's what she's referring to that occasion back in Deuteronomy, when the children of Israel received the blessings of God there on Mount Moriah.

She's also referring to the fact that Abraham and Jacob built altars in that area and worshipped

God near to where they are. Those references are in Genesis. But all of this comes from those first five books of the

Bible, because that's all that the Samaritans received as having been given by God. They did not receive the prophets.

And that's going to play into Jesus' response to her coming up here in just a moment. But she says, our fathers worshipped on this mountain.

But you, referring to all Jews, not specifically Jesus, but you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

Now, what she's expecting is your typical Samaritan Jew argument regarding who is supposed to be worshipping where the

Samaritans say Mount Gerizim. She's expecting Jesus to say, well, we say it's on Mount Moriah.

But that's not what Jesus says. Verse 21, Jesus said to her, woman.

Now, let's stop there. That's actually a very respectful word to say to this woman.

I grew up in the South. I grew up being taught to say, yes, sir.

And yes, ma 'am. And you call all men, mister. And you say to women, miss or missus.

And that was considered polite. That was good manners when I was growing up. In this particular day and age, women or I'm sorry, woman was like saying missus in the

South. So Jesus called his mother that back in chapter two.

So he calls the Samaritan woman the same title that he called his own mother.

It's a title of respect for him to say to her, woman. He's showing his respect for her in his answer.

He is answering respectfully. Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father.

Now, that's not the answer that the woman is expecting. Furthermore, Jesus refers to God as father.

He is personalizing worship, personalizing this relationship that we will have with God.

You will know him as father, and he will receive you as children.

Jesus is the first to do that. He is the first to call God father. Now, there is an occasion in the

Psalms where God is referred to as a father, but it's very metaphorical. It's not actually calling him

God the father. Jesus is the first to call God that and show us God the father because he came to reveal the father.

In Matthew 11, 27, we read Jesus saying, all things have been handed over to me by my father, and no one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son and anyone to whom the son chooses to reveal him.

More often than not, in the Old Testament, whenever someone was interacting with God, it was the son,

Jesus Christ, the son person of the Trinity whom they were speaking with.

Jesus came to show us the father, and by what he did on the cross, he made it possible for us to have a relationship with the father.

John 1, 18, no one has ever seen God. The only God who is at the father's side, he has made him known.

That was what we read at the start of John. Remember what we read in John 3 at the end of John the

Baptist ministry. This is John 3, 31. He who comes from above is above all.

He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all.

And that's contrasting Jesus with the other prophets. There were things that Jesus knew about God that the other prophets did not.

So there were things that Jesus was going to show us about the father. And he's doing that with this woman here.

He is so graciously telling her about how God is truly to be worshiped. But he even says something to her about the father.

She gets to know something else about God through these words that Jesus is saying.

Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father. You worship what you do not know.

That's verse 22. We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews. Now, this is an indictment against the

Samaritan people. Because Jesus is essentially saying to her, you worship the way that you want to worship.

And you worship the God that you want to worship. But we, the Jews, we know more of God than you know.

Because we have received the prophets, what the prophets have said, which is the word of God.

And these prophets, the Samaritans had rejected. Furthermore, Jesus is saying that salvation coming from the

Jews means that the Messiah is coming from the line of Judah. And you don't accept that. You don't accept the things that have been given to the

Jewish people that have been ordained by God concerning the way that he is going to reconcile his people to himself.

You've rejected that. You've taken the first five books of the Bible and made up your own kind of religion.

And you don't actually know God. You don't even know the right way to worship God. But we worship what we know for salvation is coming from the

Jews. Salvation is from the Jews. And he goes on in verse 23 to say, but the hour is coming and is now here.

So now he's even revealing more than he just did a sentence ago. Before he said, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father.

And now he's saying, but the hour is coming and is now here. When the true worshipers, contrasting with the

Samaritans who were not true worshipers, the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth.

For the father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.

Now, what does this mean to know that God is spirit? And what does it mean for us to be told that we must worship him in spirit and in truth?

Well, to say that God is spirit means that God is not a man of flesh and blood.

He is not like man. He is not corruptible. He is not material.

He's not visible. He is the invisible God. A lot of times it's easier for us to describe what

God is not rather than it is to describe what God is. And it's because God is spirit.

It is so difficult for us to wrap our minds around who God is simply because he's spirit and we are not.

Now we have souls within us which are spiritual and we can somewhat conceptualize these things because God has placed it in our hearts to think about them.

That's in the book of Ecclesiastes where it says that God has placed eternity in the hearts of men, but they cannot fathom what he has done from beginning to end.

So there is a sense of us in which we try to reach. We try to grasp the infinite, but we can't truly get there because we're still finite and we exist in fleshly bodies.

Just take the concept of the Trinity and wrap your minds around that one and you understand the infinite complexities of God, or at least you understand that God is infinitely complex.

How can God be one God and yet three persons? And whenever we talk about God, we're talking about the what of God.

And whenever we talk about Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, we're talking about the who of God. So God is one what and three who's whenever we say he's one

God in three persons. Now, we are human beings just as God is a being, and then we're also individual people.

But God is not broken up into individual people. Each person of the

Trinity is still the one God. So it's and that's complicated.

Okay, we're not making sense now because we're trying to think about this in physical corporal ways.

And we can't do that. God does not fit in that box. He is spiritual.

He exists in a realm that is different than ours. If we could truly wrap our minds around the concept of the

Trinity, then we would be God. And we are not. We are individual people in individual fleshly bodies.

And there are things about God that we simply will not know until we get to the other side. But we have a responsibility to worship him the way he has said he is to be worshiped.

And we are to worship who he says he is. He is holy. He is infinite.

He is incorruptible. He is immaterial. He is perfect. He is intelligent.

He is independent. All of these things apply to God as spirit.

If he was a God of flesh and bone, then he would not be perfect. And so to know

God as spirit is to is to worship him rightly.

Now, we as flesh and bone creatures, we would not even be able to worship God in a right way.

If we as fleshly creatures were trying to worship a spiritual God, our worship would not be worthy of the righteousness that God possesses, his holy, incorruptible character.

We would not be able to worship him as mere flesh and blood people. So how is it possible for us to worship

God in such a way that is actually pleasing and acceptable to God? The only way that we can worship

God in an acceptable way is that we have his spirit dwelling within us.

And then our worship of God is good. Only then is it received by God.

As flesh and blood creatures, our worship would never be good enough. It is only when we worship a spiritual

God in a spiritual way with the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. Do we offer something up to God that is actually received by him as acceptable?

It's in first Corinthians chapter two, verse 12, that Paul says, we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

And later on in chapter six, verses 19 and 20, Paul says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the

Holy Spirit within you whom you have from God? You are not your own for you were bought with a price.

So glorify God in your body. It's because we have the

Holy Spirit dwelling within us that we can now understand the things freely given to us by God.

Paul said that also in first Corinthians chapter two and offer up a pleasing sacrifice to God that we know is received by him because we have his spirit within us that has been given to us by God.

And when it comes to worshiping God in spirit and truth, this is what that means.

We worship God for who he is and the way that he has said that he is to be worshiped.

Contrast that once again with the fact that the Samaritans do not truly know God, nor do they worship him the way that God has said that he is to be worshiped.

And because Jesus is saying this to the Samaritan woman after this back and forth, after this arguing that they've been having, she finally gets sort of fed up with the whole thing and realizes we're not going to get anywhere with me arguing like a

Samaritan and you arguing like a Jew, even even though she doesn't quite understand what it is that he is saying about worshiping the father in spirit and truth.

And this kind of worship is going to happen everywhere. And there's going to be people all over the place that are worshiping

God. Yeah, sure. Whatever you're talking about, whatever you say. So then she goes on into verse twenty five and twenty six to say to Jesus, I know that Messiah is coming.

He who is called Christ. So at least we can agree on that. Right. The the savior who is coming, the one, the salvation that is coming from the

Jews. That was the the the comment that Jesus made. We worship what we know for salvation is from the

Jews. So on that point, at least she somewhat agrees. I know that the

Messiah is coming. He who is called the Christ. So I tell you what she says to Jesus when he comes, he will tell us all things.

He'll tell us who's right here, whether it's me or whether it's you. And she's saying that as if to say, but it's me.

I'm the one who's right here. And then Jesus says to her, verse twenty six, I who speak to you, am he.

What I'm saying to you is exactly what it is you're waiting to hear. The Messiah is going to come and he's going to reveal all of this to you.

Well, I am that Messiah and I am revealing this to you. And how does this woman respond to him?

Well, she goes back into the city and says, I think I've found him. Could this be the Christ and brings the whole town back with her to hear the message of this man who claims to be the promised

Messiah? And we'll finish up this story talking about that tomorrow.

Let's conclude with prayer. Our wonderful God and precious savior, I pray that we do indeed know who you are, according to how you have revealed yourself in your word, according to who

Jesus says that you are and the way that we are to worship God. I pray that we follow those instructions.

It's laid out for us in the Bible. You have shown us who you are through your prophets and apostles, and even more than that, through your own son,

Jesus Christ. And so I pray that we would be awed by you.

We would revere you. We would look to you as our loving heavenly father received by you because of what

Christ has done for us and the righteousness that he has given to us. His spirit, whom he has poured into our hearts, receive these prayers from us now.

Forgive us of our sins. Lead us in paths of righteousness for your name's sake.

May we offer up a sacrifice that is holy and pleasing and acceptable unto you.

And this is our spiritual act of worship, presenting our bodies as living sacrifices unto

God, as you have called us to do in an act of worship. We worship you today.

May it be with everything that we say and do, be honorable and pleasing unto