2018 06 10 am The Word Gives a New Word on Worship John 4:19-24

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Have any of you heard of Messy church? No, it is not church when those rostered to clean the church forgot to do it J Messy church is about (and I quote):

Creating an alternative congregation … that has permission to be messy and not perfect. The evening gathering, which includes a shared meal, has a structure … but lets both adults and children express their creativity through craft. We experience worship and we sing action songs to CDs. There are no sermons; instead we have teachings from the themes in the Messy Church books, stories from the Bible that we make relevant to today, and contemporary prayer. There are plenty of messy families in the Bible and we need to show that God works with that too. One way is to create a service that fits families, not the other way around.

Now, I am sure you can hear the noble motivations behind Messy Church. Its creators want to attract people who might not usually come to church. And this way of thinking is why there are churches today that have bless your pet services, or let’s just sit and be silent for one hour services, or let’s watch Superman and discuss the theme of redemption services.

So what are we to make of all this? Should we ditch the sermon and have a puppet show instead? Our worship services are pretty much the same every week; is this just because we refuse to change? Does God really care about how we worship or who we ‘target,’ so long as we get people in? Bottom line: Is there such a thing as wrong worship?

Well, we can begin to answer these sorts of questions immediately by noting that v24 is the second of the two great ‘musts’ of John’s Gospel:

In John 3:7, Jesus said, “You must be born again.” There are many wrong ways to try and enter the kingdom of heaven; the right way is to be born again.
And the other is here in v24: “His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.” So it follows that it is possible NOT to worship in spirit and in truth; in other words, to offer wrong worship to God; right worship is worship in spirit and in truth.

Therefore, we need to know what right worship, worship in spirit and in truth, is.

And we are doubly blessed today in that we get ‘two bites of the cherry,’ so to speak. In the Lord’s providence, this afternoon we will be considering the Second Commandment. And the Second Commandment is about right worship. So hopefully these two sermons will compliment each other. And let’s begin with this passage in John 4 where the Lord Jesus gives a new word on Worship. And our approach will be to firstly consider the question of the Samaritan woman and then the answer of the Lord Jesus.

So first of all, from vv19-20, the question of the Samaritan woman.
1. As we saw last week, the Samaritans were part Jewish and part lots of other ethnicities. They accepted only the first 5 books of the Bible – Gen/Ex/Lev/Num/Deut. They had a temple on Gerizim. Do you know the biblical significance of Mt. Gerizim? Shechem, which was on the slopes of Mt. Gerizim, was where Abraham and Jacob built altars to God. In Deut. 27, Mt. Gerizim is where the covenant blessings were spoken to Israel just before they entered the Promised Land. So it was a historically significant place for Israel. And we read Deut. 12 earlier in the service. God is very detailed and specific there about where and how He was to be worshipped. He told Israel that when they came into the Promised Land, “Be careful not to sacrifice your burnt offerings anywhere you please. Offer them only at the place the LORD will choose in one of your tribes.” And for the Samaritans, the temple on Mt. Gerizim was that place.

Well, in v16, Jesus asked the Samaritan woman to call her husband but she replied that she had no husband. And He then proceeded to tell her about the five husbands she had in the past and the man she was currently living with. And as we see in v19, the woman recognizes that Jesus could only know this because He is a prophet.
1. Now, remember that the Samaritans only accepted the first 5 books of the Bible, which means they didn’t know about or accept Samuel and Elijah and Isaiah and Habakkuk, etc. In their view, Moses was the only prophet God gave to His people.
2. But in 18, Moses speaks of a greater prophet than Himself who is to come. So the Samaritans believed the next prophet would be the Messiah.
3. So do you see what is going on here? This woman is thinking, If Jesus is a prophet, then maybe He is the Messiah! And if you look at v29, notice what she emphasizes as she tells her fellow Samaritans about Jesus, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” And it is the same in v39, “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”” In their minds, prophet = Christ. They are convinced that Jesus is the Christ from God!

Well, back to the Samaritan woman’s question in v20. She obviously knew that while her people claimed the temple on Gerizim as the place where God was to be worshipped, the Jews claimed the temple on Mt. Zion or Jerusalem as the place where God was to be worshipped. And to her credit, her question reveals that she understood how important it is to worship God the right way. So who better to ask about this than the Messiah! After all, as she says in v25, everyone knows that Messiah/Christ “will explain everything to us.”

So let’s look now at the answer of the Lord Jesus in vv21-24. And the three parts of His answer are the Significance of Himself, the Where of worship, and the How of worship.

So we start with the significance of Jesus.
1. Jesus begins His answer in v21, saying, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming…”
  1. Very recently, Jesus cleansed the temple. Do you remember that? And when He was asked about His authority to do this, He replied, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up again.” And we were told there that He was actually referring to His death and resurrection.
  2. Well, do you boys and girls remember what happened at the exact moment that Jesus died on the cross? “At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.” And that curtain tearing, as it did, from top to bottom, was a sign that the time of the Temple was over. The temple and the sacrifices pointed forward to Jesus, but when Jesus died and rose again, the temple would no longer be needed. And eventually, in AD 70, the Temple was completely destroyed.
  3. That is the time that Jesus says is coming, here in v21. His death and resurrection will be the decisive change from OT to NT.

But notice also that when Jesus repeats the “a time is coming” phrase in v23, He adds, “and has now come.” And He says this having just said to the Samaritan woman what we read in v22, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.”
1. So first off, He is telling the Samaritan woman that the Jews were right, not the Samaritans – Jerusalem is the place of worship and the whole OT is the Word of God not just the first five books.
2. But Jesus is saying more than that. When He says that “salvation is from the Jews,” He is talking about Himself. Way back in Gen. 12, God promised that Messiah would be a son of Abraham; in other words, that He would be Jewish. And Jesus was Jewish! And now He had come! He had not yet died on the cross, but He had come. The promised Saviour had come. The Son of God was here!
3. Some of the most important words in the whole Bible are found in John 14:6. I am pretty sure some of you will know those words by heart? “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Jesus is now the very center of worship; you only come to know and worship God through Jesus.
4. So the one who every aspect of OT worship pointed forward to had come. This meant that Jesus was well-qualified to speak a new word about worship.

And that brings us, secondly, to what Jesus says about the WHERE of worship.
1. And if you look at v21, where Jesus says, “…when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem,” the “you” is plural. What Jesus is saying here is not just for this Samaritan woman; His words here have implications for all who would be ‘true worshippers.’
2. And before we come to the main implication of what Jesus says here, let me quickly say something about a subject that we could talk about for hours. Just recently the whole word was up in arms because President Trump moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Many were angered and others were delirious with joy. Why? Well, some of this has to do with politics; I am not commenting about that. With many though, including many professing Christians, it is because they still think that Jerusalem is God’s special, holy city on earth. But Jesus is very plain in v21; it used to be, but it is not anymore. Before Christ came it was just the Jews and Jerusalem; after Christ it is people from every nation and the church of Jesus Christ all over the world. Jerusalem is not God’s special, holy city on earth
3. And that is the main implication of Jesus’ words in v21 – there is no longer one place where God is to be publicly worshipped. And this means that we may gather for public worship anywhere. The location/building is no longer important. It could be on a beach in PNG, in a cave in Afghanistan, in a cathedral in London, or here at 63 St Georges Rd, Avondale.
  1. After the CHCH earthquakes, one broken church had a sign outside that read, “The building is munted – the church is fine.” I also heard another person once say, “We are the church; the building is there to stop the church getting wet.” We call this building our church. That’s fine. Society calls the buildings that Christians meet together in churches. But we are the church – the congregation of the Lord’s people. If we met somewhere else next Sunday, this building would just be an empty building and we would be the Reformed Church of Avondale there.
  2. We now have the extraordinary blessing of being able to gather together to worship God anywhere!
4. So the question is, Are we using this blessing well? Are we, who have the freedom to gather in worship that many believers in the world can only dream of, using that blessing well? Jesus said, “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” That means that the Lord Jesus, by His Spirit, is here, with us, now, as a gathered congregation.
  1. Yes, we can worship God when we are alone. And yes, our whole life is to be a life of worship. But the author of Hebrews said to believers, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.” There is something very special, very beautiful, very profound, very needed, when a congregation comes together in the name of Jesus.
  2. And brothers and Sisters, because public worship happens when Christ’s elders call God’s people to worship, for us, this means at our morning service and our afternoon service. The Lord Jesus, by His Spirit, will come to be with us as a congregation also this afternoon.
    1. So while there can be legitimate reasons why we cannot make it to a public worship service, if we are physically able to attend, it is not good to choose to stay home every Sunday afternoon instead of gathering with the congregation of the Lord’s people.
    2. And I have to be clear about this: This is a matter of obedience to Christ. We saw earlier in Deuteronomy how important obedience is and that blessing follows obedience. It is not good for your spiritual health if you regularly choose not to be where the Lord Jesus is meeting with His people.

And on the flip side, it is good for us and it pleases the Lord when we choose to be where the Lord Jesus meets with His people.

So, the where of NT worship is anywhere; it is no longer just in Jerusalem. As Jesus said, “Where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.” But thirdly and lastly, from vv23-24, Jesus also goes on to discuss the HOW of worship with what He says about “worship in spirit and in truth.”
1. And we begin with in Spirit. What does it mean to worship God in Spirit? Well, this has to do with who God is and how we approach Him.
  1. Jesus says, “God is spirit.” Some of you boys and girls might have learned the children’s catechism. Question 9 asks: What is God? The answer? God is a spirit and has not a body like men. Yes, Jesus took to Himself a human nature, so that He could be the Saviour we need, but we cannot physically see Jesus and the essential being of God is Spirit.
  2. And we were created as physical and spiritual So worship is when the Holy Spirit connects our spirit with God who is spirit.
  3. Your body at church is not worship. Just physically being here and folding your hands and singing with your voice does not mean God is being worshiped.
  4. And similarly, worship is not some sort of emotional A person can have feelings of joy or tears streaming from their eyes. But this does not mean that God is being worshiped.
  5. Jesus spoke about this once when He criticized the ‘worship’ of the Jews, saying, “These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is in vain.”
  6. One author explains it like this: “The true, the genuine worship is when man, through his spirit, attains to friendship and intimacy with God … True worship is when your spirit, the immortal and invisible part of you, meets God and hears God and praises God, who is immortal and invisible.”
  7. Now, none of this is to say that our bodies and our emotions have nothing to do with worship. We must be physically present at a worship service, and we must use our bodies in worship – ears, eyes, voice, etc. And anyone who has read the Psalms knows that they are full of emotion. But we worship when our spirit meets God and hears God and praises God.

Well, that brings us next to worship that is in TRUTH. What does to worship God in truth mean?
1. And the first thing we have to do is connect worship in truth with worship in spirit. Our worship must be true and sincere and honest. I told you about the words of Jesus, “These people come near to me with their mouth and honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is in vain.”
  1. Again and again in the OT God rebuked the people of Israel for worshiping Him on the Sabbath and then offering sacrifices to the Baals and committing injustice and immorality the rest of the week. That made their worship insincere and untrue.
  2. And if we would sing in here and then go out there and spend hours and hours on video games or at work, to the neglect of our families or our other duties, and/or we lie or lust or gossip or disobey our parents or our teachers or the law, without really being bothered by it, then that would make our worship insincere and untrue. We must mean what we say and do in here. That is worship in truth.
2. But worship in truth also means worship with Jesus Christ at the centre. This is a major implication of this passage, as we have noted. Acts 4:12 says this of Jesus, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
  1. Sometimes you read about what are called ecumenical services, where part of the service is led by a minister/Rabbi/Imam/Priest/JW, because, you know, we all worship God, right; we just call on him by different names. Uh uh! True worship has Jesus Christ at the centre. We must not participate in a service where Jesus Christ is not acknowledged as the Son of God and the Saviour and the only way by which we can know God.
3. But think also about the context of Jesus’ discussion with the Samaritan woman. Why were the Samaritans wrong about where to worship? Because they did not have the complete revelation of God at the time, which was the whole OT. So to worship in truth is worship guided by God’s complete revelation, which for us is the OT and NT together; the whole Bible.
  1. This is the reason why we do not treat the OT as pretty much irrelevant for us as NT believes. It too is the Word of God. It too reveals Jesus Christ. It too is a guide for Christian living. “All Scripture (which includes the OT) is God-breathed and is useful for teaching…” etc.
  2. And that is why we usually read a passage from the OT and a passage from the NT in every service. We want to see how the two Testaments work together to reveal Christ.

And that is why we usually have a sermon series from a book in one of the Testaments and then we follow it with a sermon series from a book in the other Testament.

So worship in truth is worship that recognizes the whole Bible as the Word of God.

But worship in truth as worship by the Bible is important also because it is in the Bible that God reveals Himself. You know, the word worship was originally worth-ship. True worship is to recognize the true worth of God and to give Him the honour and praise that He is worthy of (Repeat).
1. And it is in the Bible that we learn that God is one God in three persons; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
2. It is in the Bible that we learn that God is Creator/Loving/Holy/Gracious/Just/ Forgiving/Wise/Patient/Good. 3 Os – Omnipresent/Omnipotent/Omniscient.

It is in the Bible that we learn that Jesus came to save His people from their sins.

It is in the Bible that we learn that God is our loving Father in heaven who causes all things to work together for our good.
And so, to worship in truth is to respond to the revelation of who God is and what he has done with worth-ship.

But finally, in connection with worship in truth as worship by the Bible, true worship is worship that is obedient to the Word of God.
1. We will say more about this point this afternoon, but the Samaritans thought they were right to worship on Gerizim and they may have been very sincere in their worship. But the fact is they were disobedient to God. So their worship was wrong worship.
2. It is not up to us to invent how we think God might like to be worshipped. God knows that when we do that will get it wrong. Our task is to study Scripture and see what God requires of us in worship.

Now, we could spend hours on this topic. But we only have time today for a few words. This does not mean that the Bible tells us how many songs to sing or what time to have a worship service. Those things are guided by common sense for us as human beings, Christian wisdom, and the general principles of God’s word. But the Bible is plain that worship in truth must include and should only include the reading and preaching of the Bible, song, prayer, the sacraments, and offerings.
- And the preaching of the Bible means a spoken sermon, not a movie or a puppet show. Can we learn truth from a movie or a puppet show? Of course we can. Do that all through the week if you like. But in public worship, God’s servant, the person in the pulpit, is to carefully unfold the truth of God’s Word; to “correct, and rebuke, and encourage – with great patience and careful instruction,” as we read in 2 Tim. 4:2.
- And this is also why we sing hymns and Psalms with substantial truth content rather than repeating a single line chorus, over and over again, as the lights are dimmed and the music gets softer and the person up front calls on us to feel God moving among us – that is not worship in truth.

Brothers and Sisters, young people, and boys and girls, worship in truth is worship that is sincere, Christ-centred, guided by and filled with the whole Bible, and obedient to the word of God. Worship in spirit is when our Spirit connects with/meets with/responds to God who is spirit. And we are free to gather for public worship anywhere.

We began with questions like: Does God really care about how we worship or who we ‘target,’ so long as we get people in? And is there such a thing as wrong worship? I hope we have answered these questions.

But more than that, I hope that we now have a better appreciation of just how special and profound and beautiful and important public worship is. In here, Jesus Christ is with us and by the Spirit we are in the very presence of God!

Before we begin our worship services we have a moment of silent prayer. In view of all we have learned, make good use of that moment. By all means pray this at home also but make use of those few moments of silence to pray, Lord, lead my spirit into your presence. Help me to truly know and experience and adore you as you are. I pray this in the name of your Son and my Saviour, Jesus. Amen.