(Begin speaking while in the back, out of sight!)
Have you ever wondered how we can worship a God we can’t see? I mean, I’ve never actually seen God. Have you? For almost everything we do, seeing is believing. First, we see something, then we are a little more willing to take action.
We want to actually see the fine print before we sign on the dotted line. We want to see exactly how the clothes fit before we buy them. We want to see how an employee performs before we hire them long-term. It’s no good having someone else’s word. We need to have visible proof. Perhaps some of you here have never really heard me preach. You have always seen me preach. How can you trust someone you can’t see? And what about when it comes to God?
On the December 6th, 1999 cover of Time Magazine, ran this picture. “Jesus at 2000”
Who was Jesus? From Biblical scholars to people in the street, people are asking this question. None of us have ever seen Him. At least no one that is alive today. How can we worship someone we can’t see?
(Come Into The Sanctuary!)
Before we move on, let’s begin with a word of prayer. Let’s Pray!
Seeing is believing. Who was Jesus? All of those who actually saw Jesus of Nazareth with their own two eyes have been dead for centuries. But what if we were able to hear from one of them? What might they tell us about Jesus from their own eye-witness testimony? And what might their encounter with Him teach us about worship? This morning we’re going to explore just such an encounter. An encounter between Jesus and a woman whose understanding of worship was based on a very shaky foundation.
Go ahead and turn with me to John 4:1-26. Here in this passage, we are reading about Jesus Talking With A Samaritan Woman. Listen to this story. John 4:1-26 says, “1”
“God is spirit, and his worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
How do we worship in spirit and truth? What did Jesus teach this woman? He gently but firmly steered the conversation back to her real needs. And her greatest need was in her ignorance and confusion to really know God. Now the Samaritans were the remnant of the northern Jewish Kingdom who had intermarried with foreigners after their leaders had been carried into exile in 729 B. C. They had built a separate worship place on their own Mt. Gerizim. They rejected all of the Old Testament except their version of the first 5 books of Moses. The hatred between Jews and Samaritans was centuries old. So the cultural walls dividing these 2 people were high.
But Jesus’ desire in this encounter was to break through and to give this woman a new understanding of God. An understanding based not on rituals of worship; either Samaritan or Jewish. But based on a personal encounter with Himself. The Christ, the very Messiah for whom she waited.
And that remains Jesus’ desire for people today. So, let me ask you again, how do we worship in spirit and truth? Jesus’ desire for us is that our worship comes out of an understanding of the truth of who God is. And that understanding can only come through an encounter with Jesus Himself. Only then can it be what Jesus called “worship in truth.” And this can only happen for us, as it did for the Samaritan woman, when we encounter Christ.
Most people today are confused by the variety of religions on our nation’s pluralistic menu. By and large, most of them have rejected organized, formalized religion. But many of them can’t find anything to give meaning to their lives. The woman of Samaria saw only 2 possible options for worship. One Jewish, the other Samaritan. The first she could not embrace because it was foreign to her. And the second no doubt had failed to meet the deepest needs of her heart.
A heart which no doubt ached all the more because of her relational failures. 5 failed marriages. You see, this woman chose to draw water during the blazing noon-day because she knew that no one else would be there. There would be no taunts or sneers to endure. But to her surprise, there was someone there. And it was Jesus.
It was there that Jesus revealed to her a third option. Worship which was neither Jewish nor Samaritan. She had spoken about the location of worship. Jesus was concerned about something much more important. The object of worship. In verse 21 He explained that there will come a time when the location for worship will be irrelevant. But then He added the time had now come when God was calling forth true worshippers. Worshippers in truth. Those who would worship God not so much in this place or that place, not with this worship style or that, but in spirit and in truth.
While most people are confused by the variety of religions today, they go on searching for something else. The tragedy is they don’t know that Jesus wants to offer them that third option. Himself. Jesus’ conversation with the woman reaches its climax at the very end of our text, in verse 26. Where, in a moment of revelation, He says “I who speak to you am He.”
You see, God does not play “hide and seek” with us. Ever since the moment humankind first spurned God’s loving will and hid from His presence, God has been seeking to restore communication with us. Over and over again, He reveals Himself to the people He created. In creation itself, in Scripture and ultimately in Jesus. And it is in responding to this encounter with Jesus that we can worship in truth. At our communion service, we take the elements from the table. They reveal who God is. In taking them, we encounter Jesus afresh. In the cup, we encounter His absolute forgiveness. The kind of forgiveness and acceptance the Samaritan woman must have physically felt.
In Jesus, she encountered a man who knew her intimately. Jesus knew her sin, her failings, but yet did not reject her. A man who offered her hope, where other men had simply used her.
How many of you know people who are searching for meaning and purpose in their lives? Some of these people might even admit that they’re seeking after God. Perhaps this morning you are on that journey yourself. We cannot worship a God we don’t know. We cannot know God unless He reveals Himself. And the truth of the matter is, He has, in the person of Christ.
How do we worship in spirit and truth? To worship God in truth this morning means to know Him through Christ. To truly encounter Jesus. He’s here. Just as He drew out that woman by the well almost 2000 years ago, He’s drawing us today. Worshipping God in spirit and truth requires that we know God through an encounter with Christ. But it requires something else as well.
Jesus, in verse 23 says that God the Father seeks those who will worship Him in spirit as well as in truth. In spirit. What can this mean? There are only 3 times in the Scriptures where God is described in a single word. 2 of them are in I John. I John 1:5, “. . . God is light. . .” I John 4:8 – “. . . God is love. . .” And the third is here in John 4:24 – “God is spirit. . .” Those who worship God “must worship in spirit. . . .” What does Jesus mean? This is tough enough for those of us who have the entire New Testament in our hands.
But to a simple peasant woman it would have been completely baffling. Except for one thing. Jesus had already led up to it. He had used an intriguing illustration just moments before. In verse 10 He had aroused her interest by offering to provide Her with what he called “living water.” And then, in verse 11, He upped the stakes by promising that, if she drank this water, she would never thirst again. Finally, in verse 14 He made an even more amazing statement: That this water would become a spring bubbling up within her which would put her in touch with eternity.
What Jesus was offering was astounding. He was holding out the opportunity of an experience of God that focused on the inside of the worshipper rather than the outside. On the spirit. And so, instead of having to come to a particular place to be in touch with God, Jesus offered the woman a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit.
Like us, this confused Samaritan woman needed to have her understanding of God profoundly changed by an encounter with Jesus. But also like us, this thirsty Samaritan woman needed to have her relationship with God changed to the level of spirit to Spirit. Worship in spirit and in truth requires not only Knowledge. It also requires a Relationship. A love relationship with God through the Spirit. Like many people today, the woman was thirsty. Thirsty for more than life offered her.
“Where can you get this living water?” “Show me this living water.” It’s the same today.
For the woman, as for all other Samaritans, the place where they stood, Jacob’s well, was a sacred site. It was an ancient source that had been supplying them with life-giving water for almost 2000 years. And the woman’s respect and adoration for it is revealed in her response, in all probability said with sarcasm, in verse 12. “Are you greater than our father Jacob?” In his conversation about water, Jesus was giving the woman a clear choice: Would she rather come all this way in the heat every day to draw water from a bucket? Or would she rather receive living water that would quench her thirst forever? Would she prefer to move on from her past habits and take Jesus’ present offer? The choice boiled down to would she rather rely on old wells or new springs?
And this is the choice facing each one of us this morning. Many people in the world today have not taken Jesus up on His offer. But even for those of us who have given our lives to God, there are still some improvements that can be made in the way we worship Him.
The woman in this encounter was thirsty. Craving far more than physical water, she was spiritually and emotionally parched. What about us? Are you thirsty? How do you draw the water you need to make it through your day? So often, too often we are content with our old wells. Worship in spirit means we acknowledge our thirst to God and invite His Holy Spirit to fill us. God’s desire is to fill us up, but not just so that we can enjoy Him. As wonderful as it is to be overflowing with the love of God, we will have all eternity to experience that in Heaven.
But while we are here on earth, God fills our thirsty hearts to overflowing in order that others may drink from that overflow of our lives. If our worship does not result in an overflow of the living water of God’s spirit into thirsty lives around us, it is not worship.
People around us worship many things. Some may say they even worship God. But true worshippers worship God In spirit and in truth. To worship God, we must have the eyes of our understanding continually opened to know Him more deeply. In the midst of a spiritually confused culture, God calls us to the adventure of Knowing Him through Christ and of following Jesus more passionately each day. In the midst of a relationally thirsty culture, God offers us the living water of his Holy Spirit to fill us to overflowing.
2000 years ago, a woman in a small Samaritan village responded to that call, she accepted that offer. The end of John chapter 4 tells us that the overflow of her encounter with Jesus resulted in many other Samaritans believing in Him as well. Jesus’ call today to us at Fly Branch Church Of Christ is no different. Many of us are saying “God, we’re thirsty! Send us that living water that Jesus promised!”
Perhaps this morning, you have never before tasted this living water. Maybe you feel thirsty. Then I would encourage you to respond to Jesus’ offer today. I would love to pray with you after the service about the decision to be baptized.
Or maybe you follow Jesus but you long for a renewed filling of the Holy Spirit. Paul urged the Christians at Ephesus “Keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit.” God sees the thirst in your heart. Again, I would love to pray with you.
This morning God wants to flow in us and over us. The Father seeks True worshippers. Those who worship in spirit and in truth. Knowing God through a life-changing encounter with Jesus, and loving Him through the new springs of His Holy Spirit is how that is done.
Let’s Pray! |
