6 – what Jesus would say today about worship
by Jeff Fry
Darwin Park Community Church, UK
NIV John 4:16 He told her, "Go, call your husband and come back." 17 "I have no husband," she replied. Jesus said to her, "You are right when you say you have no husband. 18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true." 19 "Sir," the woman said, "I can see that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem." 21 Jesus declared, "Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." 25 The woman said, "I know that Messiah" (called Christ) "is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us." 26 Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he."
I. Intro
A. Review
B. Today
1. We must worship by the power of the Spirit focused on Jesus.
II. We must worship by the power of the Spirit focused on Jesus
A. State
1. Background
a) Jews held that all Samaritans were unclean
(1) Western Palestine was divided into 3 provinces – Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. The capitals of Samaria (city of Samaria) and Judea (Jerusalem) were only 35 miles apart.
(2) Jews did not talk to Samaritans because Samaritans were a mixed race (Jew and Assyrian) from the time the Assyrians settled the area in the past – 721 BC when they took over).
(a) Jews certainly did not drink from their vessels
(b) But Samaritans thought they had the true religion, not the Jews.
(3) A well in this area was documented since early Christian pilgrims used to go there in the early 4th century. When it was excavated in 1935 the well there was found to be 138 feet deep – just like this passage describes (a deep well –see 4:11)
(4)
2. “Sir”, the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.”
a) Because of His special insight – he, a stranger, just told her something no stranger would know – she has had five husbands and the man who is hers now is not her husband.
b) Something’s up
3. “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” (v. 20)
a) Notice that they had setup their special places of worship :
(1) Temple at Jerusalem
(2) On a mountain
(a) Mount Gerazim near Sychar had a temple at the top of it that rivalled the temple in Jerusalem.
(i) Jacob and Abraham had built altars in the vicinity of this mountain.
(ii) God’s people had been blessed by God from this mountain according to the Samaritans.
b) She is concerned with getting the place right – the externals.
4. Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.”
a) “Believe me”
(1) Jesus emphasizes his point meaning that he is going to say something really important
(2) Modern day “listen up!”
b) “a time is coming”
(1) The coming of Jesus has opened up a new era, a new time period in history
(2) Specifically I believe Jesus is referring to a time when, through Him, the Holy Spirit will come and reside in us
(a) In OT times the people did not have the Holy Spirit like we do now under the New Covenant in Christ (in us directing and empowering us)
(i) Covenant – loyal, committed, personal relationship between us and God ( I will be your God and you will be my people – Ezekiel 11:20)
(ii) New Covenant: Ezekiel 36:26-27 “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees.”
(iii) This is where Jesus is going – the Spirit’s place in worship.
(iv) Jesus has brought in a new reality in worshipping God – the Spirit’s direction
(v) When you become a Jesus follower you will receive the Holy Spirit.
(vi) Pentecost marked a new work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.
(vii) The Holy Spirit was at work in the OT hovering over the waters at creation, empowering people for service to God, etc. but it was a work of lesser power.
(viii) Little power over the dominion of Satan
(ix) Therefore little effectiveness in evanglising other nations
(x) No examples of ability to cast out demons like in the New Testament
(xi) In the NT Jesus comes out of the temptation in the desert w/ the devil “in the power of the Spirit” and there he casts out demons with a word, heals all who are brought to him and teaches with authority.
c) “when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem”
(1) geographic place isn’t important for worship, but the Spirit is
(a) amazing for a Jew to say that because Jerusalem was seen as the pre-eminent spot for worship, the holy city, the city of David, the place with the temple of God.
(2) requiring a specific geographic location for worship smacks of ritualism
(a) We need to be in a church to worship, go through a certain ritual
(i) Catholic church
(a) If you don’t come to church then you won’t be able to go to the confessional and get your sins forgiven and they you can’t take communion and receive grace (all of this is man’s system, not God’s).
(b)
(3) undermines the reality of the Holy Spirit which lives in us
(4) undermines the fact that all of life is worship
(a) Illustration 1 – When David heard that Solomon had become king he bowed in worship on his bed in thanksgiving
(b) Illustration 2 – When Job hears the story of his family’s death he responds by “falling to the ground in worship and confessing the sovereignty of God to give and take away (Job 1:20).
(c) Miriam and other Israelite women worshipped God by dancing when He delivered them from their attackers by holding back the water so they could cross the Red Sea. (Exodus 15:20)
(i) So worship was spontaneous and happened in everyday life events (not confined to a place/location.)
(ii) Do you or even you & your family ever celebrate marked occaisions with worship?
(d) At the dedication of the temple 20,000 cattle were sacrificed to God and 120,000 sheep and goats! Sacrifice!
(5) Worship = paying homage to God and honouring God
d) “the Father”
(1) she is focused on “the fathers” of the Samaritans and “our father Jacob” but Jesus turns her attention to THE FATHER.
(2) A father has children – are you a child of God? That is the most important question.
(a) John 1:12 “To all who received Him, who believed in His name, to them he gave the right to become children of God”
(b) Belief in Jesus makes you a child of God and nothing else
(c) Do you believe and trust in Jesus?
5. “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.” (verse 22)
a) worship must be based on true knowledge
b) The Samaritans believed only in the first five books of the OT. Therefore, while they worshipped the true God, they knew little about Him and their faith was deficient and esp. their knowledge of the Messiah.
c) Jesus is referring to himself - “salvation is from the Jews”
(1) The OT told of a Jewish Messiah who would come and save His people
(2) Jesus was a Jew
(3) Jesus was becoming known to the Jews as he came to them first due to the obligation of God to treat them as His chosen people.
(4) Jesus was the Messiah
d) Worship must focus on the Saviour, Jesus, who saves sinners like this woman who lives with her boyfriend, like you and like me
(1) There is no true worship without Jesus
(2) Hinduism, Islam and Judaism are inadequate to save because there is no Jesus there.
(3) John 5:23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.
(4) Luke 10:16 "He who listens to you listens to me; he who rejects you rejects me; but he who rejects me rejects him who sent me."
6. “yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit, and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.”
a) “a time is coming and has come”
(1) The new covenant as we described above – again Jesus makes reference to this and has said that it has already come thus referring to himself as the bringer of the new covenant reality .. But the more is to come (e.g. cross, sending of the Spirit, even the new heaven and the new earth when all will be made new).
b) “true worshippers”
(1) Here’s the big enchilada – what is true worship? Jesus is going to tell us.
c) in spirit”
(1) OT worship which is what this woman would have had in her mind via the word “worship”, is
(a) Temple worship on the sabbath – which is where the presence of God was supposed to be ( in the temple)
(b) God and life are represented by the temple, but death and sin are represented by a life outside the temple (or withhout God)
(c) Sacrifice was the means by which the sinful worshiper could approach God because by the shedding of blood he was making atonement for his sin and being cleansed.
(d) Sacrifice makes worship possible – ie. for the person to come into the presence of God because it symbolizes our dependence on God for life and freedom from death which sin brings.
(2) Jesus is the divine presence (takes the place of the temple) and therefore the Holy Spirit is the spirit of Jesus in us (the divine presence in us).
(3) Since the kingdom of God which Jesus is ushering in is the age of the outpouring of God’s holy spirit then we should worship according to that Spirit which God puts in us (the Holy Spirit).
d) “in truth”
(1) truth in the gospel of John refers to Jesus and so our worship of God must be through Jesus who is our personal saviour.
(2) John 14:6 Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
(3) John 3:6 says, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh”
(a) Until we are born of the Spirit all that we do is in the flesh and if we go to church, to synagogue, to temple we do it in the flesh, in sin until we are truly changed by God’s Spirit to believe on Jesus.
(b) We are dead spiritually until we are believe on Jesus and trust Him for forgiveness of all our wrongs and then we receive His Spirit which enables us to be children of God and worship God truly.
e) “for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks”
(1) did you realize that God is seeking worshippers?
(2) Have you ever thought of what God does all the time? One thing is that He is seeking true worshippers to give Him glory
(a)
7. Feelings based worship is dangersous because …
a) Feelings are not a reliable judge of what is true
(1) E.g. you are not feeling well because you have a meeting with your boss tomorrow morning and therefore you draw the conclusion that God doesn’t love you or that God has forsaken you
b) The Bible says that faith is not a feeling but that faith is believing and trusting God’s word
(1) Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. 4 By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead.
B. Illustrate
C. Apply
1. If we are not limited to a geographic location for worship, but only the indwelling Spirit then how does this help us see all of our life as worship?
2. How does this fact in #1 above cause you to think about your life differently now? How can you make the more mundane, routine things in your life like eating a meal an act of worship?
III. Conclusion
A. When we worship focused on Jesus by the power of the Spirit then we are the kind of worshippers whom God seeks!
B. How great it is to be the objects of God's seeking, searching will. We are then the kind of people He (God ) wants! So, let's focus on Jesus through the Holy Spirit who indwells us all day every day.