John 4:19-30
True Worshippers
Introduction:
Last week we began chapter 4 of John’s gospel and I challenged us to ask ourselves the question, “Am I a true worshipper?” I want us to ask ourselves this question because Jesus says in verse 23 that true worshippers are the kind of worshipers that God the Father seeks. And so we zero our attention in on this dialogue that Jesus has with a Samaritan woman because He teaches us traits of a true worshipper.
We made it through verse 19 last week and learned 3 things about true worshipers. First, they know the Source of living water. Jesus said to the woman in verse 10, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Jesus tells her that He gives living water, He gives eternal life, and if she knew Him she know that He is the One she must go to.
Secondly, true worshipers are Satisfied with the living water Jesus gives. Jesus says to her again in verse 13, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but, whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Jesus is the source of water that is superior in quality and satisfies the souls of men. True worshipers don’t search anywhere else. They have come to Jesus and have no need to look further. He satisfies us so we never thirst again.
Thirdly, we saw that true worshipers know they’re sinners. When the woman said she wanted some of the water Jesus was talking about, she thought He was talking about physical water. Jesus shows her He’s talking about spiritual water by pointing out her sin in verses 16-18. He turns her attention to her spiritual need, her spiritual thirst, so that she can see that she needs the living spiritual water that gives eternal life and that only comes from Him. True worshipers know that their sin is the cause of their spiritual thirst, and therefore believe in Jesus for their salvation and satisfaction.
Can you imagine at this point how she feels? The conversation just got very, very personal. How would you feel if a complete stranger (and remember that Jews and Samaritans hate each other she knows Jesus is a Jew), somehow knows the most intimate secrets of your life? How would you feel if the sins you’ve kept secret, the guilt you’ve tried covering over, the pain and failure you keep wishing you didn’t have to face was exposed by someone you have never even met before? I imagine a great embarrassment and fear exploded inside of her.
She did not know Jesus, but, she just found out that Jesus knows her. Do you know that Jesus knows you? That strikes one of two responses: Fear, or, comfort. It brings fear to someone who is still trying to hide. Do you remember chapter 3? Look back at verses 19 – 21, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” Fear of exposure for the things of shame in our lives.
But, that Jesus knows me is a very comforting truth. You know why? His love for me is unshakeable. As humans, we don’t like the idea of people getting to know the part of us that we keep hidden. “If they- my spouse, the people at church, my friends, etc - really knew me they would reject me.”
As humans, that’s our fear of humans. But, the greatest truth you can ever come to know is that God’s love is not human love. It is not performance-based. God knows you through and through and you know what? His love for you does not diminish one single bit.
So this Samaritan woman – did Jesus love her? Absolutely. He chose to go through Samaria and not around it because He was seeking her out. He risked great criticism for talking to her - a Samaritan woman with a bad reputation because she was worth the shame others would put on Him for it.
So when Jesus exposes her sin it is not to condemn her, but, to convince her that because of her sin she needs Him. Her sin is why He came to the world; her sin is why He came to Samaria, and her sin is why He came to that very well.
When you are confronted with your sin it is not to condemn you, but to convince you and correct you. “God did not send His Son into the world to CONDEMN the world, BUT, to SAVE the world through Him”, John 3:17. Condemnation is coming, but, salvation is right here, right now and the first step to having it is to accept your sinfulness. That is where Jesus was bringing her. Very personal. Very uncomfortable. Very painful. But, very necessary, and very, very worth it.
Reverting to Religion
How does she respond? Let’s look at verses 19 and 20, “’Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
Why does she say He’s a prophet? Because He knows things about her that could only have been revealed to Him supernaturally. She didn’t know Him. And as far as she knew up until then, He didn’t know her. There’s a progression here in how she sees Jesus throughout this passage. At first, in verse 9 she sees Jesus as another Jew who hates Samaritans like her and whom she and all Samaritan’s hate in return. She sees Him as an enemy. My, how true that is for an unbelieving world who does not know Jesus – He’s the enemy.
Then she sees Him as someone who has something to offer in verse 15. But, she is misunderstanding what He’s offering. How often we see people trying to get from Jesus things He’s not offering. One example – but certainly not the only – is TV preaching who say Jesus will heal you if you have enough faith, and, if you plant a seed by giving money Jesus will bless your bank account. You’ll get that raise, that promotion, that stock will go up and blah, blah, blah.
Jesus offers salvation from sins. Jesus offers deliverance from the wrath of God that is coming on the world because of sin. Jesus offers freedom from the guilt and penalty of our sins. His name means that much: “Jesus”, is the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Joseph”, which means “the Lord saves”. He is the Savior of men and there is no other salvation given under heaven by which men must be saved.
Now, here in verse 19, she sees Him as a prophet. Prophets know things because God tells prophets things they wouldn’t otherwise know. Her view of Him keeps elevating as the conversation goes on. Here’s an application – the more you interact with the Word of God the more your view of Jesus will elevate. The more you know Him by His Word, the more you will hold Him up in your estimation of Him and the more confidence you will have in Him to turn to Him.
But, she still at this point only sees Him as a man, a prophet, but, a man. She will soon see Him as He truly is as we will see coming up.
I want you to notice something else here too: Jesus got too close. She doesn’t want to look in the mirror so she does two things here to deflect Jesus: she flatters Him “Well I see that you are a prophet”, like she was saying, “I can see you are a very religious person.”
What an understatement. That’s like saying, “I can see Mr. Bill Gates that you are a good provider.” Yeah, foods on the table in the Gates home every night. Oh, by the way, I am the 2nd richest person in the world because I missed first place by a slim $500M margin. To say Jesus is a prophet is such an understatement. In fact, whenever people try to explain who Jesus is apart from what Scriptures say He is, it is an insulting understatement.
She flatters Him, and she also wants to talk about religion. Remember that the Samaritans are not pure Jews, they are a mixed race and so the pure Jews hated them. The Samaritans were not allowed to worship in Jerusalem by the Jews so they set up a temple in Samaria on Mount Gerizim and worshiped there. She reverts to talking about religion. She doesn’t want to go there.
It’s much like Adam and Eve when they sinned. They hid. They covered themselves. They avoided God when God came. When God found them and asked them why they were hiding and if they had sinned, they blamed someone else so that they could avoid facing up to their own guilt.
We do that. That is what we do as sinful humans. We display the literal truth of the existence of Adam and Eve and the Fall by our own similar actions. We hide our sin. We avoid God. We do everything we can to cover up the shamefulness and to make an image of ourselves that others will see and not reject. But we also do it so that we don’t have to see that part of ourselves that we would reject.
That is being spiritually thirsty, and this Samaritan woman, and people still today, refuse to recognize that their sin is the cause of spiritual thirst, and so they will turn to religion. Talking about religion doesn’t bring us face-to-face with our guilt. Religion allows us to set up and follow practices and rituals that make us feel like we’re religious and therefore good people, but all the while never addressing the issue of sin.
(Need to tell the significance of why Jerusalem is the place to worship)
Location, Location, Location
Notice verses 21, “Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
There are several things I want to point out from these two verses. First, Jesus tells her to believe Him. Believe what He says, accept as the truth the word that He speaks.
Secondly, He says a time is coming when. Now this is important because Jesus is declaring that a change is coming. Things used to be one way - they are going to be different. You Samaritans have been worshipping on this mountain and the Jews have been worshipping in Jerusalem. That’s going to change.
Location was crucial to Jewish worship. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 12. Location was the issue. The Jews were to perform all their worship to God at the place that He would choose. So, the question is what place did God choose? (Remember, the Samaritans accept only the first 5 books of the OT, and Deuteronomy is the fifth book. They did not accept anything beyond this book). The answer is found in 2 Chronicles 6:6 where God says, “But now I have chosen Jerusalem for my Name to be there, and I have chosen David to rule my people Israel.” And when Solomon finished building the temple and dedicated it, he prayed, “May your eyes be on this temple night and day, this place of which you said, ‘My Name shall be there,’…” It is the place that God chose for the nation of Israel to come and worship Him. Location was crucial.
But, that is going to change and worship will no longer be in those places Jesus said. Worship isn’t going to be about location. And so now, at this point the Samaritan woman has to be baffled because if worship is not about location then what is it about?
Before Jesus explains He sets the table. He goes on in verse 22 and says, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews.”
They don’t know who or what they are worshiping. Not a clue. That’s not true worship and they are not true worshipers. And when Jesus says “we” He means the Jews.
Worship in spirit and truth. What does He mean, “in spirit and truth”? Spirit and truth are directly related to the previous verses about location and knowledge. By spirit, Jesus means that it’s not the external, outward, environment or geographical location that constituted worship, but, the inward worship of God from the spirit within a man. She was focused on where she should be at in order to worship, but, Jesus was telling her worship takes place from within and comes out.
God sees what’s inside us and wants worship of Him to be from the heart. “Man looks at the outward appearances but God looks upon the heart” He told the prophet Samuel. In Mark 7 Jesus rebuke heartless worship, “These people honor me with their lips (outward), but their hearts are far from me (inward).”
Worship in spirit and truth. What does He mean by truth? Considering that Jesus just told her that she doesn’t know what she worships, “truth” means knowing what and “who” you worship. Knowing God according to His truth.
True worshippers of God worship God for who He truly is. God has revealed the truth about Himself: the truth of His identity, His character, His promises. And when true worshippers worship Him, they worship Him according to what they know to be true about Him as revealed by Him. God says “This is who I am” and we are to worship Him with the true knowledge of who He is in our minds.
These are the kinds of worshipers that God seeks. …
True Worshippers
Introduction:
Last week we began chapter 4 of John’s gospel and I challenged us to ask ourselves the question, “Am I a true worshipper?” I want us to ask ourselves this question because Jesus says in verse 23 that true worshippers are the kind of worshipers that God the Father seeks. And so we zero our attention in on this dialogue that Jesus has with a Samaritan woman because He teaches us traits of a true worshipper.
We made it through verse 19 last week and learned 3 things about true worshipers. First, they know the Source of living water. Jesus said to the woman in verse 10, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” Jesus tells her that He gives living water, He gives eternal life, and if she knew Him she know that He is the One she must go to.
Secondly, true worshipers are Satisfied with the living water Jesus gives. Jesus says to her again in verse 13, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but, whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” Jesus is the source of water that is superior in quality and satisfies the souls of men. True worshipers don’t search anywhere else. They have come to Jesus and have no need to look further. He satisfies us so we never thirst again.
Thirdly, we saw that true worshipers know they’re sinners. When the woman said she wanted some of the water Jesus was talking about, she thought He was talking about physical water. Jesus shows her He’s talking about spiritual water by pointing out her sin in verses 16-18. He turns her attention to her spiritual need, her spiritual thirst, so that she can see that she needs the living spiritual water that gives eternal life and that only comes from Him. True worshipers know that their sin is the cause of their spiritual thirst, and therefore believe in Jesus for their salvation and satisfaction.
Can you imagine at this point how she feels? The conversation just got very, very personal. How would you feel if a complete stranger (and remember that Jews and Samaritans hate each other she knows Jesus is a Jew), somehow knows the most intimate secrets of your life? How would you feel if the sins you’ve kept secret, the guilt you’ve tried covering over, the pain and failure you keep wishing you didn’t have to face was exposed by someone you have never even met before? I imagine a great embarrassment and fear exploded inside of her.
She did not know Jesus, but, she just found out that Jesus knows her. Do you know that Jesus knows you? That strikes one of two responses: Fear, or, comfort. It brings fear to someone who is still trying to hide. Do you remember chapter 3? Look back at verses 19 – 21, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” Fear of exposure for the things of shame in our lives.
But, that Jesus knows me is a very comforting truth. You know why? His love for me is unshakeable. As humans, we don’t like the idea of people getting to know the part of us that we keep hidden. “If they- my spouse, the people at church, my friends, etc - really knew me they would reject me.”
As humans, that’s our fear of humans. But, the greatest truth you can ever come to know is that God’s love is not human love. It is not performance-based. God knows you through and through and you know what? His love for you does not diminish one single bit.
So this Samaritan woman – did Jesus love her? Absolutely. He chose to go through Samaria and not around it because He was seeking her out. He risked great criticism for talking to her - a Samaritan woman with a bad reputation because she was worth the shame others would put on Him for it.
So when Jesus exposes her sin it is not to condemn her, but, to convince her that because of her sin she needs Him. Her sin is why He came to the world; her sin is why He came to Samaria, and her sin is why He came to that very well.
When you are confronted with your sin it is not to condemn you, but to convince you and correct you. “God did not send His Son into the world to CONDEMN the world, BUT, to SAVE the world through Him”, John 3:17. Condemnation is coming, but, salvation is right here, right now and the first step to having it is to accept your sinfulness. That is where Jesus was bringing her. Very personal. Very uncomfortable. Very painful. But, very necessary, and very, very worth it.
Reverting to Religion
How does she respond? Let’s look at verses 19 and 20, “’Sir,’ the woman said, ‘I can see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
Why does she say He’s a prophet? Because He knows things about her that could only have been revealed to Him supernaturally. She didn’t know Him. And as far as she knew up until then, He didn’t know her. There’s a progression here in how she sees Jesus throughout this passage. At first, in verse 9 she sees Jesus as another Jew who hates Samaritans like her and whom she and all Samaritan’s hate in return. She sees Him as an enemy. My, how true that is for an unbelieving world who does not know Jesus – He’s the enemy.
Then she sees Him as someone who has something to offer in verse 15. But, she is misunderstanding what He’s offering. How often we see people trying to get from Jesus things He’s not offering. One example – but certainly not the only – is TV preaching who say Jesus will heal you if you have enough faith, and, if you plant a seed by giving money Jesus will bless your bank account. You’ll get that raise, that promotion, that stock will go up and blah, blah, blah.
Jesus offers salvation from sins. Jesus offers deliverance from the wrath of God that is coming on the world because of sin. Jesus offers freedom from the guilt and penalty of our sins. His name means that much: “Jesus”, is the Greek form of the Hebrew name “Joseph”, which means “the Lord saves”. He is the Savior of men and there is no other salvation given under heaven by which men must be saved.
Now, here in verse 19, she sees Him as a prophet. Prophets know things because God tells prophets things they wouldn’t otherwise know. Her view of Him keeps elevating as the conversation goes on. Here’s an application – the more you interact with the Word of God the more your view of Jesus will elevate. The more you know Him by His Word, the more you will hold Him up in your estimation of Him and the more confidence you will have in Him to turn to Him.
But, she still at this point only sees Him as a man, a prophet, but, a man. She will soon see Him as He truly is as we will see coming up.
I want you to notice something else here too: Jesus got too close. She doesn’t want to look in the mirror so she does two things here to deflect Jesus: she flatters Him “Well I see that you are a prophet”, like she was saying, “I can see you are a very religious person.”
What an understatement. That’s like saying, “I can see Mr. Bill Gates that you are a good provider.” Yeah, foods on the table in the Gates home every night. Oh, by the way, I am the 2nd richest person in the world because I missed first place by a slim $500M margin. To say Jesus is a prophet is such an understatement. In fact, whenever people try to explain who Jesus is apart from what Scriptures say He is, it is an insulting understatement.
She flatters Him, and she also wants to talk about religion. Remember that the Samaritans are not pure Jews, they are a mixed race and so the pure Jews hated them. The Samaritans were not allowed to worship in Jerusalem by the Jews so they set up a temple in Samaria on Mount Gerizim and worshiped there. She reverts to talking about religion. She doesn’t want to go there.
It’s much like Adam and Eve when they sinned. They hid. They covered themselves. They avoided God when God came. When God found them and asked them why they were hiding and if they had sinned, they blamed someone else so that they could avoid facing up to their own guilt.
We do that. That is what we do as sinful humans. We display the literal truth of the existence of Adam and Eve and the Fall by our own similar actions. We hide our sin. We avoid God. We do everything we can to cover up the shamefulness and to make an image of ourselves that others will see and not reject. But we also do it so that we don’t have to see that part of ourselves that we would reject.
That is being spiritually thirsty, and this Samaritan woman, and people still today, refuse to recognize that their sin is the cause of spiritual thirst, and so they will turn to religion. Talking about religion doesn’t bring us face-to-face with our guilt. Religion allows us to set up and follow practices and rituals that make us feel like we’re religious and therefore good people, but all the while never addressing the issue of sin.
(Need to tell the significance of why Jerusalem is the place to worship)
Location, Location, Location
Notice verses 21, “Jesus declared, ‘Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
There are several things I want to point out from these two verses. First, Jesus tells her to believe Him. Believe what He says, accept as the truth the word that He speaks.
Secondly, He says a time is coming when. Now this is important because Jesus is declaring that a change is coming. Things used to be one way - they are going to be different. You Samaritans have been worshipping on this mountain and the Jews have been worshipping in Jerusalem. That’s going to change.
Location was crucial to Jewish worship. Turn with me to Deuteronomy 12. Location was the issue. The Jews were to perform all their worship to God at the place that He would choose. So, the question is what place did God choose? (Remember, the Samaritans accept only the first 5 books of the OT, and Deuteronomy is the fifth book. They did not accept anything beyond this book). The answer is found in 2 Chronicles 6:6 where God says, “But now I have chosen Jerusalem for my Name to be there, and I have chosen David to rule my people Israel.” And when Solomon finished building the temple and dedicated it, he prayed, “May your eyes be on this temple night and day, this place of which you said, ‘My Name shall be there,’…” It is the place that God chose for the nation of Israel to come and worship Him. Location was crucial.
But, that is going to change and worship will no longer be in those places Jesus said. Worship isn’t going to be about location. And so now, at this point the Samaritan woman has to be baffled because if worship is not about location then what is it about?
Before Jesus explains He sets the table. He goes on in verse 22 and says, “You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know for salvation is from the Jews.”
They don’t know who or what they are worshiping. Not a clue. That’s not true worship and they are not true worshipers. And when Jesus says “we” He means the Jews.
Worship in spirit and truth. What does He mean, “in spirit and truth”? Spirit and truth are directly related to the previous verses about location and knowledge. By spirit, Jesus means that it’s not the external, outward, environment or geographical location that constituted worship, but, the inward worship of God from the spirit within a man. She was focused on where she should be at in order to worship, but, Jesus was telling her worship takes place from within and comes out.
God sees what’s inside us and wants worship of Him to be from the heart. “Man looks at the outward appearances but God looks upon the heart” He told the prophet Samuel. In Mark 7 Jesus rebuke heartless worship, “These people honor me with their lips (outward), but their hearts are far from me (inward).”
Worship in spirit and truth. What does He mean by truth? Considering that Jesus just told her that she doesn’t know what she worships, “truth” means knowing what and “who” you worship. Knowing God according to His truth.
True worshippers of God worship God for who He truly is. God has revealed the truth about Himself: the truth of His identity, His character, His promises. And when true worshippers worship Him, they worship Him according to what they know to be true about Him as revealed by Him. God says “This is who I am” and we are to worship Him with the true knowledge of who He is in our minds.
These are the kinds of worshipers that God seeks. …
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