John 4:1-26

Worship in Spirit and in Truth

Listen

Transcript

Welcome to God's Word for you, a ministry of Sharon RP Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today and we pray that you'll be blessed by both hearing God's Word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart. 

Please turn in your Bibles with me to John chapter four. This is a break from our series through Philippians. John chapter four. We’ll be looking at verses one through 26. You can find that on page 941 of your Pew Bibles. John chapter four beginning at verse one. This is God's Word. It is holy. It has no errors and converts sinners. Pay attention. 

“Therefore, when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John (though Jesus Himself did not baptize, but His disciples), He left Judea and departed again to Galilee. But He needed to go through Samaria.

“So He came to a city of Samaria which is called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied from His journey, sat thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

“A woman of 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.

“Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

“Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says 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 then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?”

“Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst again. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”

“The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.”

“Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

“The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.”

“Jesus said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly.”

“The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship.”

“Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such 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.””

Let's pray. “Oh Lord, we thank you for your word. God, we pray now that as we seek your face in your Word that you would be pleased in teaching us. Lord, draw us to Yourself. Work your Holy Spirit in our hearts to apply these truths. We pray in Jesus's name. Amen.”

Well, in a previous life, previous meaning before September, Olivia and I, when we lived in Beaver Falls, outside of Pittsburgh, we were full time wedding photographers. That's what we did. And we went to weddings almost every single Saturday. And when you go to weddings, there are three important things that you're always waiting for, right? When you go to weddings, one of the important things is the look of the groom's face when the bride walks down the aisle. Priceless moment. The other is when the minister finally says, “You may kiss your bride.” And you never know exactly how that's gonna turn out. But one of the key things, the core of that marriage ceremony, of that covenant, is when the bride and groom are making vows to each other. And everybody is trying to listen as closely as possible, if they've written their own vows, or are they using the standard vows? What is this covenant they're making with each other? Because them saying these things, these promises is what that covenant of marriage is. And it's always interesting. Some people can barely get the words out. Some people have them rehearsed because, well, they just, they can't think of anything else. They just have to think of the words. 

But imagine if you went to a wedding, and at that point where the bride and groom are saying their vows, the groom says, “I will love you and I will cherish you in sickness and in health, for better or for worse.” And he explains what that means and how much he loves her, and he's going to care for her through everything in life. And then the minister turns to the bride, and he asks her to say her vows, and she says, “I love you. And I know you're going to bring in a minimum income $50,000 and that'll be okay. And I think you're okay.” You would know something's wrong. Hold on. That's not how a wedding vow is supposed to be. That's not how you're supposed to act at the wedding. Something is wrong here. How can this bride be stone faced? How can she not have any excitement about what's going on? Why is she so cold? 

And yet often this is how we come to the Lord as His bride. We come to the Lord with cold hearts and with formalism, and we forget that we're to be those who worship in spirit and in truth. And so your call this morning is exactly that, to worship in spirit and in truth. And the first place to look at that is in verse four. Look with me at chapter four, verse four. “But He needed to go through Samaria.” 

That's your first point. Jesus needed to go through Samaria. Jesus needed to go through Samaria. I'm not sure how often you've thought of that. Jesus is God. But here it says God needed to go somewhere. What can control God? What can control God? What does it mean that Jesus needed to go there. Well Jesus needs to go there because He knows that when He goes to Samaria, there's going to be someone He needs to talk to. The Father and the Holy Spirit are leading Him, by His providence, to the well at Sychar. Because this woman is gonna be there. And Jesus needed to be there to talk to this woman. 

This doesn't make any sense, okay? We think of, “Oh, Jesus had to go through Samaria.” But maybe a little bit of history will help you here. See, Jews hated Samaritans. And I don't just mean like, they didn't like them. You know, like you have a neighbor you don't really like, so you just kind of avoid them. No, this is like they hated them. 100 years before, the Jews had gone up to the temple in Samaria and had destroyed it completely; flattened it with fire. Samaria was right on top of Judea. And instead of going through Samaria to get up to Galilee, instead, they would cross all the way across the Jordan River and go up the King's Highway to get into Galilee. Because they didn't want to have to go near the Samaritans. The Samaritans were so bad to them, that if you ate the food a Samaritan would give you, the Jewish Talmud says that it was as if you ate swine flesh. You were unclean. They were detestable. 

So it wasn't just like, “Oh, I didn't really like them.” Jesus goes someplace where people are hated. And it's not just that He goes there, but for Jesus to get from Jerusalem, where He is down south, up to Galilee, up north, where He's going, that's the switchbacks. There's a range of mountains that go along the west side of the Jordan River, and this is the long road. Have you ever been in the mountains before, where you've been hiking, and you have to do all the switchbacks? And even though, as the crow flies, it is only five miles, you feel like you walk 23. That's what Jesus did. Why would Jesus want to walk all the way through Samaria when it was a lot more time efficient, a lot more culturally accepted, to just cross over to the King's Highway on the other side of the Jordan, walk the valley and get up to His home area? Why would He go there? Why did He need to go there? He needed to go through Samaria to get to Sychar to see this woman. And there was nothing that was going to stop Him. Not His exhaustion. I mean, imagine if you were a disciple. Would you not push back against Jesus? Right? Wives, think about your husband's driving. Don't you push back when you know there's a faster route to get somewhere? The disciples, “Why would you go through Samaria? Why wouldn't we just go over to the King's highway? Why are we going all this hard way up through the ridge road to get up there? That doesn't make any sense, Jesus.” 

But Jesus needed to go through Samaria to get to the woman at the well. And He's exhausted when He gets there. He sits down on that well. This is the way the Lord works. See, when the Lord is moving Jesus, when the Father is moving the Son to go to that well, that's not just an occasion of Jesus. This is what God also did with the Ethiopian eunuch. Think about it. Philip had to go and talk to that Ethiopian Eunuch. The Holy Spirit led him there. This is the same way that Paul is led to go to the Gentile house. The Spirit says, “You're gonna go to that house.” 

It's the same way, even today, when some of our friends, some of the people we know are called to leave their homes and go to foreign countries and to tell the gospel of Jesus Christ to those in faraway lands. You can’t explain it. It doesn't make any human sense, does it? One of our best friends, Nick and Theresa Bloom they’re in Germany, he gives up an engineering, an electrical engineering job, where he's doing great work, to go to Germany to do what? To tell people about Jesus. Why would you give up a cushy life? You went through four years of engineering school to do what!? It doesn't make sense humanly. It doesn't make sense that a pastor in Syracuse would write a letter to a left wing crazy fundamentalist, Rosari Butterfield, lesbian, and to challenge her on her views of Christianity, and then to meet with her for months upon months. But yet that's what God used to bring Rosaria to faith. 

God doesn't use what we think is rational, or the best plan, or the most laid out way. It's the Holy Spirit who lays on our hearts to go talk with someone about that living water. Jesus needed to go to Samaria. And you know also in your own life, that family member who the Holy Spirit has pressed on you. “I gotta go talk to that person. I gotta go speak to them.” You know it's going to ruin a friendship. You know it's gonna cause a little bit of enmity. You know it’s gonna be rough, but that's okay. It's okay. It's not gonna be easy to go, but we must go. 

And when you do go, your second point is be ready for resistance. Be ready for resistance. We see this resistance all throughout when Jesus is talking to this woman at the well. And the first type of resistance He faces with her is cultural resistance. Look with me at verses seven through 10 

“A woman of 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. Then the woman of Samaria said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.””

You need to read that with a little bit of snarkiness in her voice. “How is it that you, a Jew, asked me a Samaritan woman for a drink?” She's not asking nicely here. This is like, “How dare you come and talk to me?” Because what would she expect? This is a trap. This is a trap! This pompous Jew with his blue tassels hanging off, looking like a Jew, walks up here an asks a Samaritan woman for a drink of water. She's gonna draw the water and what's he gonna do? “I can't drink that, you're a Samaritan.” That's what she's waiting for. That's what the cultural pushback against him is. 

But then there's even more in verses 10 through 15. I want you again to read this with a little bit of sass in it. “The woman said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where then do You get that living water? Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well, and drank from it himself, and his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.””

This idea of living water, when Jesus says, “I'll give you living water.” You need to think of a stream. You need to think of flowing water. If you were a Jew, you would want to drink flowing, living water. But where is He at? Where's Jesus? Jesus is at a well. You all are familiar with wells. I'm from California, we don't have too many wells, it comes from the Colorado River. But well, it’s water that’s just there. And in her mind it's, “How dare this Jew look down on us for our well water. Who gave us this well? Jacob gave us this well. Guess who drank from this well? Jacob drank from this well and not just Jacob because he was in desperation, but also so did his sons. It was good enough for them. And so did his cattle. So did his livestock. It was good enough for them, so how dare you come here and tell me you'll give me living water. Where do you get it? Where's it from?” 

This is the attitude, the cultural pushback she has against Jesus, sass and offense. This is nothing uncommon when you share the gospel. When you go out, you will also face this pushback when you start talking to people about that true living water, Jesus Christ. When you talk to people about that water that will well up into them as a fountain of living water that they will never be thirsty again, you better believe there's gonna be people who push back. “Puh! Middle class. That's just what you think. That's good enough for you. But it ain't what I believe. You just want me to do that because you want me to be like you.” I remember a man evangelizing one time and pleading with people to come to the gospel, and the man was ridiculed because his shirt was tucked in. Cultural pushback. Just pushing back because you think you just got it all together. Expect cultural pushback when you talk to people about Jesus Christ. 

But Jesus goes deeper than when she finally says, “Fine, give me that living water. Where do I get it from?” What does Jesus do? He puts his thumb on her. Puts a little bit of pressure on her. Look with me at what happens after that. Verse 16, “Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have said well, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband; in that you have spoke truly.”” 

Jesus presses on her with some moral pushback. Why is she there? What's the sixth hour? Every day in the Middle East you would need to go and you would need to get water. It would just be expected. If you're gonna live, you have to walk to the well. When do you walk to the well? They're farmers here. This is great. Do you go out in the field without an air conditioned cab and go work at noon, one, two o'clock? Or do you try to get your work done early in the morning or in the evening time? You don't wanna work in the field in the middle of the day! Again, growing up in Southern California, which is a really similar climate to Palestine, where Jesus is at in Samaria, no sane person goes running at noon, the sixth hour of the day. No one does it, because it's the hottest time of the day. You don't go there because it's hot. 

So why is she there? Because she knows if she goes when all the other women culturally would go, at the first, second, or third hour of the day, all the other women are there. All the stares. All the whisperings, “Can you believe she's here?” All that muttering under their breath. “Can you believe she came here? She's not even living with her husband.” She doesn't want the shame. She knows what she's doing is wrong. She's living with a man who's not her husband. And whether the previous five men she's had as her husband is her fault or a matter of them who have cast her aside, like Jews were common to do at the time, which Jesus abhorred, it was not right for her to be living with that man who is not her husband, and Jesus puts his thumb on her. Puts her under pressure. 

And what does she do? What's her response when Jesus lays out this sin right in front of her face? Well, she does what most people do. She pulls a Jesus juke. She sidesteps. She calls a red herring. Look with me at verses 19 and 20. “The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where we ought to worship.””

This mountain or that mountain. You want to know the number one way, if your pastor is drilling down on you about a sin in your life, pick up their theological hobbyhorse. And for Jews and Samaritans, she thought, “If I talk to Jesus about which mountain,” because that's what every other rabbi wants to harp on the Samaritans about, “he'll stop talking about me.” “Which mountain? Sir, I perceive you’re a prophet. Which mountain do we worship? There, in Jerusalem, or here, on Mount Gerizim? Which one do we worship at?” 

Don't fall for it. Don't fall for it. But we've experienced this in our own lives. It's really funny. Some people have a way of pulling these red herrings, these Jesus jukes in really funny ways. I mean, it'll be like mid-conversation. I remember talking with people and they'll do things, I mean, mid-sentence, when I'm asking them a question about themselves, they'll say, “Hey, do you think Paul wrote Hebrews?” No, no, no, no. We're not gonna talk about that. We're dealing with this. Or, “Hey, what do you think happened first? God electing people or the fall?” No. No, we're not talking about that. Let's get back on point here. “What do you think is better? The red Psalter or the blue Psalter?” That's not we're talking about. That’s a Jesus juke. That’s a red herring. That's a, “Pay attention to this over here and don't deal with my heart. Don't deal with my sin. Don't deal with me. Don't deal with what I need to work on and how I need to be reconciled with God.” But you know how to do this in your own life. Don't dodge the question. Don't try to squirm away from the pressing of His Spirit. There's Jesus, living water, and He's being offered to you that you might have life. It might well up in you. That you might never thirst again, that your soul might be completely satisfied. Don't try to wiggle out of the pressure that’s put down upon you by the Holy Spirit. When He presses you, put your moral resistance to the side. Put your cultural resistance to the side. Come to Him.

So, you don't push Him away. So what? What do you do now? You worship Him in spirit and in truth, that's what you do. Your third point, worship Him in spirit and truth. Look with me at verses 21-26. 

“Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father is seeking such 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” (who is called Christ). “When He comes, He will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.””

God has never, ever and will never be satisfied with cold dead mere, formal worship. Jesus said it himself in Matthew chapter 15 verse eight. “Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. And their fear of me is a commandment taught by men.” Therefore behold, I will again do wonderful things with this people. With wonder upon wonder and wisdom of their wise men shall perish and the discernment of their discerning men shall be hidden. 

You cannot, you must not, come to worship just to hear the words of men. You cannot, you must not allow rules, regulations, formalities or tradition substitute the worship of God. You cannot., you must not allow your hearts to become calloused and hardened to the beautiful truth that God tells us here. That He wells up in us as living water and that we worship Him in spirit and in truth. Do not be deceived, Christian. Do not be deceived. If you come here, to the formal worship of God, and think that He is going to accept you because you just came here, said the words, sang the songs, all the while, your heart was as dead as a rock. He won't accept that. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about sentimentalism here. I'm not saying you need to sit in the pew and cry every week or say amen at every good point. But if you don't find your heart warmed by the good news of Jesus Christ, you need to be doing some heart surgery. You need to get an EKG for your soul. What's wrong? Something's wrong. “God work in me.” 

Does your soul yearn for Christ? Do you long for His holiness? Does your heart stand in awe as you think of God's works? Do you marvel that He is infinite? When you look around you, do you see how short our lives are and how old the universe is? And do you sing out with praises that God is from everlasting to everlasting? There's no one like Him. When the world is always changing and there seems to be nothing stable in your life, are you able to look to God and say, “There's my rock!”? He's never changing. Does your heart find joy and comfort in His wisdom and power that you can sing with confidence Psalm 147? “Great is our Lord and abundant in power!” That is your God! Do you sing out that from the bottom of your soul? He has all power. Does your heart find joy when the Spirit presses on you? How amazing and majestic and totally pure God is that in His presence, all the angels cover their faces and cry out, “Holy, holy, holy!” Does that impress your soul at all? It should. It must. This is who our God is. As you read about the mighty acts of the past, does your heart sound like, “great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord the Almighty. Just and true your ways, oh King of the nations.” That's what the saints in Revelation 15 sing out. That's what you're going to sing in heaven. Do you realize that? When you pick up the Book of Revelation and you see the praises of the saints, of the angels in heaven, that's your song for eternity? That's what you're going to be doing is worshipping in eternity from the day you die till the end of never, you'll be worshipping and spirit and truth. This is who your God is. The Lord God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness; keeping steadfast love for thousands; forgiving iniquity and transgression for sin but who will by no means clear the guilty. Visiting the iniquities of the father on the children and the children's children to third and fourth generation. 

Do you praise God that He has been merciful to you? Do you come to His worship? Do you come to His table this morning, that He has shown you mercy? God, who put the stars in their place, has looked down upon you and has called you His child. Do you worship Him? Are you in awe of God? Are you stuck in dead formalism? Do you come to a living God who seeks your soul? Or do you satisfy yourself with the things of this world and harden your heart to His Spirit? We cannot, we must not be those who worship God by rules and by formality while our hearts are far from Him. This is a hard thing to say in an RP Church, but the regulative principle of worship has never saved a single person, only the blood of Jesus Christ has. And if we get so worked up about our distinctives that we forget that our distinctives are about Jesus Christ and His grace and His mercy and that that is a God we worship and serve, we've missed the point. Will you come to Him and worship Him with awe and reverence? Will you come to Him with fear and trembling? Will you come to Him with love and admiration knowing that He is the only place you can go to have your soul satisfied. You’ll never, ever no longer have to seek anywhere to be nourished. When you're parched and your soul is dry, you know that you can go to the Son and that you can worship Him and He will well up in you a fount of living water. Worship Him in spirit and truth, Christian. He is our joy. He is our hearts’ delight. He is our eternal refuge. And He alone deserves your worship. Worship in spirt and in truth. 

Let's pray. “God, forgive us. Lord, our hearts are so often far from you. Lord, we plead with You that You would draw us to Yourself. Lord, that your promises would be near to us. Lord, that your Spirit would be active in us and that You would indeed cut off the calluses of our hearts that we might bleed for you. Lord, we pray that You would work in us your Spirit, Lord, because we know that we can't just muster this up. Lord, it’s your Spirit that works in us that we would worship you in spirit and in truth. Draw us to yourself. We pray in Jesus’s name. Amen.” As we come to the Lord's table now, let us stand together and sing Psalm 24 selection A.

Thank you for listening to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. We pray that you would be blessed as you grow in your love for God, your love for His Word, as well as your love for His people. Until next week, God bless you.