As you know, the sermons preached throughout this term have been ‘by request’, and tonight is no exception. In looking through the list of topics nominated by members of this congregation, the one that stuck out to me was, ‘Worshipping God in life’. I spent some time reflecting on what the topic was supposed to be about, and concluded that I was expected to talk about how Christians need to worship God not only on Sundays but every minute of every day. I might have preached such a message from any number of Scriptures, including the passage Rod preached on last week (Romans 12), and it would have been good to do so. However, the more I meditated upon it, the more I realised that the fundamental problem for Christians is not that they don’t worship enough, but rather that they worship the wrong things, or in the wrong way.

A young woman buys another pair of shoes she doesn’t need. An audience sits enthralled by Beethoven’s 6th Symphony. A middle-aged man buys the Lamborghini he has always dreamed of. A man spends his evenings buried in internet pornography. A new mum and dad greet their baby boy. A tour group gaze upon Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’. As many and varied as all of these things are, each one is an act of worship.

Worship is an act of response to someone or something’s worth.¹ Thus, any time we are provoked to wonder by an extraordinary sunset, or sacrifice to save up for a guitar, or just can’t wait for the new John Mayer album to be launched, we are worshipping. Everyone worships every day, whether they recognise it or not.

The Bible has two categories for worship: acceptable and unacceptable, which is called idolatry. Acceptable worship is worship directed to the God of the Bible. Idolatry is placing anything else – good or bad – ahead of God, and this is unacceptable worship. Everyone falls into one of these two categories.

Tonight we’re specifically interested in acceptable worship. We will focus primarily on John 4, where Jesus teaches that Christians must worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. But what does that mean? And how do I do it? Let’s turn to John 4 and find out!

At first glance, a discussion between a wandering Jewish rabbi and an unnamed Samaritan woman at a well in a rural town is probably not the first place you would look for a profound discussion. The conversation seems to start out conventionally enough: Jesus asks for a drink of water.² Pretty soon, however, the discussion turns in an unusual directions. Jesus, the one asking for a drink of water, tells the woman that she should be asking him for a drink!³ She asks for the living water that Jesus speaks of and is told to fetch her husband.⁴ She replies with a half-truth – “I have no husband”⁵ – and is absolutely blown away when Jesus shows that he knows the whole truth, for she has had five husbands and is now shacked up with a guy who is not her husband.

This is where we pick up our story:

“Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.⁶ Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” (4:19-20)

The Samaritans were enemies of the Jews. They claimed to worship Yahweh, but chose to do so in their own way, rather than in the way God had commanded; they set up their own temple in opposition to the temple at Jerusalem.⁷ This was a source of great bitterness between Samaritans and Jews: the Jews had destroyed the Samaritan temple,⁸ whilst the Samaritans in return had attempted to desecrate the Jerusalem temple.⁹ So there are two conflicting temples, each claimed as the location of God’s presence. Each of these temples was built on a mountain: the Jewish temple on the imaginatively named Temple Mount, ¹⁰ and the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim (where this story takes place). Mountains in Scripture consistently represent places where people meet with God, and where God reveals himself.¹¹) The conflict between the Jews and Samaritans came down to this: where is God found, and to whom has he revealed himself?

It is not a surprise, then, that this woman should choose this issue as the litmus-test for establishing the identity of this ‘prophet’. She wants to know where she should go to find and worship the true God.

This is a quest that many today undertake. A 1998 survey found that 74% believe in a God, although only 35% believe in a personal God.¹² People seek god in many places, some physical but most not. For example, the same survey showed that in the previous twelve months 18% of Australians ‘often or occasionally sought direction from a horoscope’, whilst 9% practised Eastern meditation and 7% used psychic healing or crystals. How can we know the right ‘place’ to find God?

Once again, Jesus surprises us with his answer.

Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. (4:21-23)

The woman wants to know which is the right place to worship: Jerusalem or Gerizim. Jesus says, in effect, “Your location doesn’t matter.” It is true that he asserts the Jewish position as being the correct one when he says, ‘You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we [Jews] worship what we do know’ (4:22). Doing so, however, is not so much about claiming that the Jews got it right but rather that God has the right to dictate the way he is approached.¹³

The only way to worship acceptably is in obedient response God’s revelation. The Samaritans had chosen to ignore a large portion of this revelation by throwing away all except the first 5 books of the Jewish Scriptures, those written by Moses.¹⁴ The Jews, whatever their other faults, had not.¹⁵ Yet Jesus declares that something new is happening: ‘A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth’ (4:21, 23). Jesus shifts the focus from the where of worship to the how of worship. True worshipers of God will worship in spirit and truth.

The word ‘spirit’ in these verses is strongly contrasted with the idea of place. Jesus was asked where worship was to happen and his answer is ‘in spirit’. In other words, worship is no longer to be tied to a place – at least, not a physical place.¹⁶ ‘God is spirit,’ we are told, meaning, at the least, that he is not approachable in the physical sense. How then are we to approach him? The Apostle John doesn’t spell out the answer to this question here, but he doesn’t need to for he has already done so.

In chapter 3 Jesus tells a man named Nicodemus that he must be born again. ‘I tell you the truth,’ he says, ‘no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit’ (3:5-6). So for us to worship in spirit, we must first be born again, born of God’s Spirit; only then will our spirit be enabled to worship.

How may we receive God’s Spirit in order that we be reborn? It is only by the gift of God; more specifically it is only by the action of Jesus. This is the meaning of the early part of the conversation with the Samaritan woman, the discussion about living water. Jesus often uses symbols and metaphors of himself – he describes himself as ‘the bread of life’,¹⁷ ‘the gate’,¹⁸ ‘the Good Shepherd’,¹⁹ ‘the way and the truth and the life’,²⁰ ‘the vine’,²¹ etc. Yet here, in chapter 4, Jesus is not the living water, but the giver of the living water (4:10). Instead, this living water is the Holy Spirit,²² who John refers to as the Spirit of Truth.²³ It is the transforming presence of the Holy Spirit that enables us to worship in spirit. Only Christians can truly worship God, for it is only through Jesus that the Spirit comes.²⁴ Once the Spirit is at work in us our worship is no longer tied to places or times. It is, instead, ‘a spring of water welling up to eternal life’ (4:14). And when the Spirit of Truth enters you, ‘he will guide you into all truth’ (16:13).

That being the case, what does it mean to worship in truth?²⁵ First, we must approach God truthfully. This means being honest with God; don’t try and hide from God your anger, sadness, fear or hope. If you are happy, be happy; if you are suffering then bring it to God rather than pretending you’re not.

Second, truthful worship must be according to God’s revelation of truth. Jesus prays for his disciples, ‘Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth’ (17:17). The Samaritans had rejected much of even the partial truth that they had been given, in throwing away the prophets and the Psalms and so on, leading Jesus to conclude that they worshipped what they didn’t know. We, however, are fortunate to have God’s word written down for us to learn from and to be sanctified by. Practically, this means reading, meditating on, praying and, finally, living the Scriptures.²⁶ These stages are described by a 12th Century monk called Guigo the Second:

Reading… puts the solid food in our mouths, meditation chews it and breaks it down, prayer obtains the flavour of it and contemplation is the very sweetness which makes us glad and refreshes us.²⁷

The Samaritans and Jews had only a fraction of the truth that we have, for we have been given God’s ultimate revelation in Jesus. ‘No one has ever seen God,’ John writes, ‘but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known’ (1:18).

Spirit and truth are both necessary all the time. They are like the map and compass of the Christian life: having one without the other is not sufficient. The map, God’s Word of Truth, gives us direction and purpose, and outlines the world around us. Yet without a compass, we have no way of orienting ourselves and applying the map to the surrounding landscape. Such worship ends up in dry religion, with God’s Word being an object for study but never application. The compass, God’s Spirit, allows us to be certain of the way we are facing and the direction we’re travelling, but without the map we are still lost. This kind of worship is full of passion and fire but lacks the deep roots of Truth, the strong foundation of bedrock, that will allow it to stand in the sun and the storm. ‘Our churches can’t be Spirit-led unless they’re Word-fed.’²⁸

Put both spirit and truth together, however, and you’re in business!²⁹

Worship in truth without spirit or in spirit without truth is not true worship, but rather idolatry. If either of these describe you, you must repent, and ask God to supply what you lack. It is only together that compass and map, spirit and truth, work together to provide navigation through this life and into the next.

And the only ‘place’ to find both spirit and truth is in Jesus. To worship in truth we must be in the one who says ‘I am the Truth’ (14:6). To worship in spirit we must be born of the Spirit, who can only come from Jesus. In previous chapters, Jesus is presented as the true tabernacle³⁰ and the true temple;³¹ here he is presented here as the true holy mountain where God can be encountered.³² The tabernacle, temple and mountain that we must go to if we are to offer acceptable worship is Jesus Christ. Spirit and truth are no longer found in a place but in a person.

This explains the apparent paradox of Jesus’ words: ‘a time is coming, and has now come…’ (4:23). How can something be coming and here at the same time? Jesus uses the same language in chapter 16, where he speaks of a pregnant woman whose ‘time has come’ giving birth. The child in the womb can be considered to be both ‘coming’ and ‘here’. Clearly, however, this implies a momentous event, a ‘birth’, that will signal a transition from one stage to another. What is this event?

In John’s Gospel, the word translated here as ‘time’³³ regularly refers to the events of Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection and exaltation.³⁴ At the time he spoke these words, Jesus was the only true worshiper. He was the one upon whom God’s Spirit came down and remained,³⁵ whereas the Spirit had not yet been given to anyone else,³⁶ for that could only happen by means of his death.³⁷ Without wanting to push the image too far, there is a sense in which the true worship of God is conceived in Christ, and given birth by his work on the Cross. The result is that we can also be true worshippers. More than this, we must be true worshippers, for that is what the Father seeks (4:23). ‘God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth’ (4:24).

There are three main occurrences of the word ‘must’ in John, and together they outline the gospel.³⁸ First, Jesus instructs Nicodemus: ‘You must be born again’ (3:7). This is the first step, the source from which a life of faith and worship springs. If you are not a Christian, this is where you must start, for flesh can only give birth to flesh and not to spirit; if you want to worship God in spirit, as he requires, you must first be born again. Jesus knew that this could not happen unless he was obedient to his Father, submitting himself to his Father’s will even though it meant death. This is the meaning of the second ‘must': ‘Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert the Son of Man must be lifted up’ (3:14). Walking through the desert, the people sinned against God, and his wrath was turned against them; only those who looked to the bronze snake that the LORD told Moses to make and lift up on a pole were saved.³⁹ The message is clear: we must be born again, but cannot because we are sinful and God’s wrath is against us… yet God has provided a way by ‘lifting up’ Jesus, so that anyone who looks to him can be saved. There is only one proper response to this, the third ‘must': ‘God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth’ (4:24).

Don’t miss the importance of this. Worship is not an additional extra to the Christian life; it is not something the Christian chooses to do, or not, according to their preferences, plans or passions. It’s not just that God accepts worship in spirit and truth, God seeks it! (4:23) Worshipping God is the responsibility of all believers. ‘God is spirit, and his worshippers’ – all of us! – ‘must worship him in spirit and in truth’ (4:24).

Bibliography

“A Question of Beliefs.” National Church Life Survey, http://www.ncls.org.au/default.aspx?sitemapid=2336.
Boice, James Montgomery. The Gospel of John : An Expositional Commentary. Pbk. ed. 5 vols. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2005.
Bruce, F. F. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1983.
Carson, D. A. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1991.
Josephus, Flavius. The Works of Josephus : Complete and Unabridged. Translated by William Whiston. New updated ed. Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1987.
Kauflin, Bob. Worship Matters : Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2008.
Morris, Leon. The Gospel According to John. Rev. ed, The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1995.
Peterson, David. Engaging with God : A Biblical Theology of Worship. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992.
Peterson, Eugene H. Eat This Book : A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2006.
Piper, John. Desiring God : Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. Updated [i.e. 3rd] ed. ed. Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 2004.
Thettayil, Benny. In Spirit and Truth : An Exegetical Study of John 4:19-26 and a Theological Investigation of the Replacement Theme in the Fourth Gospel, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology. Leuven ; Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2007.

Endnotes

1. In fact, the English word ‘worship’ is derived from an older word ‘worth-ship’ – words and actions that demonstrate worth.
2. Actually, this was highly unusual for the culture of the day; for a Rabbi to be alone with a woman was scandalous, and for a Jew (especially a Jewish Rabbi) to talk to a Samaritan was unheard of (cf. 4:9).
3. 4:10
4. 4:15-16
5. 4:17
6. The Samaritans interpreted Dt. 34:10 to mean there were to be no other prophets until the coming of the great prophet promised in Dt. 18:15, 18. On this basis, they rejected all the Jewish Scriptures except for those written by Moses. Thus, if the Samaritan woman is serious about thinking Jesus a prophet, she is already on the verge of concluding what she is later told: Jesus is the Messiah. [F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1983), 108.] The Samaritan name for the Messiah was Taheb, which means restorer, although the evidence for this is from a 4th Century Samaritan text (Memar Markah 4:12) cf. Benny Thettayil, In Spirit and Truth : An Exegetical Study of John 4:19-26 and a Theological Investigation of the Replacement Theme in the Fourth Gospel, Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology (Leuven ; Dudley, MA: Peeters, 2007), 185ff.
7. The justification for this rests on their rejection of the other Scriptures, for the Pentateuch only speaks of the place where God would place his name (e.g. Deut. 12:5, 11, 21; 14:23; 16:2 etc.), and not specifically Jerusalem. However, Josephus’ account in Ant. 11.306-312 suggests that the temple was set up by a high-priest who was censured for marrying a foreigner. Perhaps the theological position was taken to justify an action already performed?
8. Josephus, Ant. 13.275-81.
9. According to Josephus, the Samaritans ‘threw about dead men’s bodies in the cloisters’ (Ant. 18.30).
10. Whilst Mount Zion is traditionally associated with Jerusalem and the temple, particularly in eschatological literature, it was not the location of the Temple. It is, instead, a mountain just outside of Jerusalem.
11. The most obvious example is the meeting at Mount Sinai, where God gave the law to Moses (Ex 19:3ff.
12. “A Question of Beliefs,” National Church Life Survey, http://www.ncls.org.au/default.aspx?sitemapid=2336.
13. cf. Boice, who writes, ‘Salvation is always of God’s grace, not of human merit; and since grace was offered to the sinner on the grounds of the death of an atoning sacrifice and since in Christ’s time that sacrifice could only be offered at Jerusalem by a legitimate priest, a descendant of Aaron, it is obvious that there could be no salvation for anyone except through the Jewish priesthood which in turn was available only to a circumcised member of one of the tribes of Israel. Jesus was impressing this upon the woman, thereby reasserting the right of God to establish the means of approach to him and encouraging her to turn from any trust in human religions.’ James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John : An Expositional Commentary, Pbk. ed., 5 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2005), 290.
14. See note above.
15. Thus ‘salvation is from the Jews’ for they were the people chosen by God to bear his name and receive his self-revelation.
16. Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, Rev. ed., The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1995), 240. fn. ‘Cf. G. S. Hendry, “[John 4:24] has commonly been taken to mean that God, being Spirit, is present everywhere and can be worshiped anywhere; the important thing is not where men worship, but how they worship.” This he vigorously denies. The saying “means the precise opposite; it means that God is present in his own realm, to which man as such has no access. To worship God in spirit is not a possibility that is always and everywhere open to man… But this is just the gospel of Christ, that this possibility has now been opened to men… The meaning is that the location has been redefined, and God is now to be worshiped in the place where he is present, i.e., in Him who is the truth incarnate”.’
17. 6:35
18. 10:9
19. 10:11
20. 14:6
21. 15:5
22. 17:38-39
23. 14:17; 15:26; 16:13
24. 7:39; cf. 16:7
25. Adapted from James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John : An Expositional Commentary, Pbk. ed., 5 vols. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 2005), 298.
26. Eugene H. Peterson, Eat This Book : A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2006), 91.
27. Ibid. fn.
28. Bob Kauflin, Worship Matters : Leading Others to Encounter the Greatness of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2008), 89.
29. ‘The fuel of worship is a true vision of the greatness of God; the fire that makes the fuel burn white hot is the quickening of the Holy Spirit; the furnace made alive and warm by the flame of truth is our renewed spirit; and the resulting heat of our affections is powerful worship, pushing its way out in confessions, longings, acclamations, tears, songs, shouts, bowed heads, lifted hands, and obedient lives.’ John Piper, Desiring God : Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, Updated [i.e. 3rd] ed. (Leicester: Inter-Varsity, 2004), 82.
30. 1:14
31. 2:19
32. David Peterson, Engaging with God : A Biblical Theology of Worship (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1992), 97.
33. Gk. hōra = ‘hour’.
34. 2:4; 4:21, 23; 5:25, 28; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 16:2, 4, 21, 25, 32; 17:1. cf. D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1991), 223.
35. 1:32-33
36. 7:39. cf. 14:16-17; 15:26-27; 16:13ff.
37. 16:13
38. Actually, there are 10 occurrences of the word dei in John (3:7, 14, 30; 4:4, 20, 24; 9:4; 10:16; 12:34; 20:9). The three under consideration here, however, are the so-called ‘divine imperatives’.
39. Num. 21:4-9