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Jesus Seeks the Woman at the Well, Part IV - John 4:19-24
We rejoin this scene at Jacob’s well as Jesus continues his conversation with the woman of Samaria.
His first words to her were, Give me to drink.
Not wishing to immediately respond to our Lord’s need to quench his thirst the woman engages Him in a discussion relative to how Jews and Samaritans have no dealings with each other.
And I would assume that in her mind lack of dealings even extended to giving a thirsty soul a cup of cold water.
Jesus ignores her desire to engage in this controversial subject for he responds with an introduction to her to what he calls living water.
Her interest again goes, not to what living water is, but to how he will get that living water seeing he has nothing to draw with and the well is deep.
Jesus again keeps the conversation on living water, in other words himself who is the only living water, for he tells her that whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.
She wants this water but in her wanting she again connects the living water to the water in Jacob’s well saying that when she has living water she will never again have to return to this well.
She has moved somewhat in her knowledge but she is still stuck in the only world she knows and that is the physical world.
So it is here that Jesus asks her to go and call her husband and return to the well with him.
Our Lord Jesus is aiming her toward her sin for she admits to having no husband which moves Jesus to face her with her sin of having had five husbands and living with another who is not her husband.
So how does she respond? She moves the subject to religion and says in:
Verses 4:19,20, ……Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.
She had begun this conversation by calling Jesus, a Jew, then she called him, Sir and now, astonished by his ability to know her past, she calls him a prophet.
She said I perceive.
Her eyes are beginning to open but her heart warns her to be careful.
The flesh steps in and wants to close the door, wants to shut off the light.
He had spoken directly to her conscience, he had been convicting her of her sin.
And when a sinner's conscience is disturbed, by instinct, by the original sinful nature, the sinner seeks to have it stopped.
She uses a tactical diversion to steer the Lord away from the sin question in her life.
So she raises a religious question.
She thinks: Let's talk about generalities.
We don't want to dwell on anything that will get the job done.
Let's divert our attention away from direct involvement in my life and have a polite discussion about important questions like where we ought to worship.
This is a typical occurrence when talking to people about personal things, things like sin, and where will they will spend eternity.
For the heart does not want to face itself.
The deceitful heart asks, Where did Cain get his wife? or Are the heathen who have never heard still lost? or other irrelevant religious issues.
The heart loves darkness like a cockroach loves darkness.
If light comes on the scene the heart scurries about to find a place of darkness.
Darkness is comfortable for now, but what about later?
The heart loves to sacrifice the permanent on the altar of the immediate.
So she brings up the great controversy of the place of worship.
Please, she says to herself, let's get off this personal line of conversation.
Let's talk about something other than my situation.
Does not the sinner of today use this same tactic?
Where to worship, not who to worship.
We find all the diversions we can to hide from the one with whom we have to do.
There are those who will always bring up the differences, the distinctives, those who wish to make a point.
She tries to hide behind this age old question of where to worship.
The Samaritans worshipped on Mt. Gerizim and the Jews worshipped in Jerusalem.
The Samaritans had strong reason to worship at Mt. Gerizim for this is the mountain associated with Abraham, Jacob, and Joseph.
Here the children of Israel had rehearsed the law's blessing and curses.
Here Joshua had given his last address to the tribes and the mountain had been important when Israel set up its rival kingdom.
Also the Samaritans had added to its luster by believing that it was the site of the Garden of Eden, that its dust was used to make Adam, that the ark of Noah came to rest on its heights, and that Abraham had offered up Isaac on the mountain.
But the Lord ignores her tactic, and instead confronts her with a truth.
It is the lesson we must learn if we are to lead souls to Jesus Christ.
The devil wants you to get involved in meaningless and doubtful disputations.
He wants you to go down all the rabbit trails that take you away from the main purpose.
Talk about religion and generalities all you want but don't talk about sin and the fact that the sinner will have to face the Lord Jesus Christ as his judge.
He confronts the lady at the well, and her question about place of worship is turned to who can worship and what they must be in to worship the Father.
Let's read in: Verses 4:21-24, Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Jesus announces to the woman a new order of things.
Her question is meaningless and out of date.
Jesus tells her that the important thing is not where people worship God but how they worship him.
And part of worshipping him, Jesus tells her, is worshipping him as the "Father."
This is a revelation.
We call God "Father" but this was rarely done in the Old Testament times.
Jesus tells her that worship of God can be compared with the father/son or daughter relationship.
Each son or daughter appears before the father individually and naturally trusts and obeys the father.
Jesus is telling the woman that God is properly worshipped by individuals.
He is not worshipped by groups.
You cannot hide in a group and think you get credit for worshipping God.
Groups or numbers of people do not impress God.
The bigger the group united in so called "worship" is not relevant with God.
Nor is the place relevant either.
Ye are his temple, not we are his temple.
He deals with you, not your group or your church.
He touches on the shaky ground that she and the Samaritans based their faith. "Ye worship ye know not what."
This is the case of all unbelievers.
They try to worship but they have confused and distorted ideas based upon all kinds of errors and falsehoods.
God had chosen the Jews to bring salvation to the world and not the Samaritans.
All the faults and failures of the Jewish people could not annul or alter the divine purpose of God.
But he tells her the important revelation that true worship had to be "in the spirit."
The hour is here, Jesus says, that true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
The one who worships in spirit and in truth, no matter where he may worship, he and he alone is the true worshipper.
True worship is not in rites, rituals, forms, and ceremonies, sacrifices, and offerings, feast days, fast days, circumcisions, and Sabbaths.
All this was to be set aside in favor of a spiritual form of worship.
Much of what is called worship today is fleshly instead of spiritual, external and spectacular, rather than internal and reverential.
Do we worship with fancy and ornate church buildings?
Do we worship if we assume a particular prayer position?
Or do we worship with much weeping and wailing and emotion?
Real worship has to be in spirit and in truth.
What she needed was a regeneration so that it was possible for her to worship in spirit and a full revelation of the Son of God, so that she could worship in truth.
Jesus said that God is Spirit.
They that worship, they that have true worship, are those that have a spirit given of God with which to worship.
It is only they who have been regenerated by God the Spirit, and justified by the atonement of God the Son, who can worship God the Father.
Proverbs 15:8, says that "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord." Why is this?
Because any sacrifice performed by one who has not been given the ability to worship is a sham and hypocrisy.
Any sacrifice by the wicked is not true worship because without a redeemed heart any reason for the sacrifice is self-serving.
God will not allow the un-redeemed to worship him.
Jesus said that they that worship him must, not may, but must worship him in spirit and in truth.
There are three "musts" in this gospel.
Jesus said, Ye must be born again, a work of the Spirit.
He said, The Son of man must be lifted up, a work of the Son, and here he says that God must be worshipped in spirit and in truth.
This of course refers to God the Father.
This order of things must take place in order for worship to be accomplished.
It is only those who have been born of God the Spirit, and justified by the atonement of God the Son, who can worship God the Father for only those have a spirit with which to worship.
What is worship?
Arthur Pink, in his exposition of the gospel of John, says that true worship is the action of the new nature seeking to return to the source from which it came.
He says that worship is a redeemed heart occupied with God, expressing itself in adoration and thanksgiving.
Worship, then, is the occupation of the heart with a known God; and everything that attracts the flesh and its senses, detracts from worship.
Jesus says you must worship in spirit.
There is no choice in the matter.
He will not receive worship, and worship cannot be performed in the flesh.
It has to be in the spirit. Worship is not from the eyes or the ears, or the mouth or the hands but in the spirit, that is the new nature that God has given to his own.
If singing is to be worship it has to come from the new heart and directed toward God.
A beautiful voice or a beautiful choir does not guarantee worship.
Music that makes one feel good or singers whose aim is to produce an atmosphere for "worship" and are designed to appeal to emotions are not spiritual at all.
Does the voice sing to God?
Does the choir sing to God, or to the people?
If the individuals singing in the choir are redeemed individuals singing with their heart to the Lord with a desire to please God then worship is taking place and true born again people who are listening will also be blessed.
The music that reaches the Lord as worship is that which is sung by born again people, who sing with grace in their hearts unto the Lord.
True worship is quiet, reverential, activity that occupies the worshipper with God himself and that leaves him with a peaceful heart and a rejoicing spirit.
God’s word is clear as to who can worship Him.
John 3:6, That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Romans 8:16, The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: |