THE FATHER SEEKS TRUE WORSHIPERS
April 24, 2022
John 4:19-26
INTRODUCTION:
As we talk about living a life of worship I’ve thought about one of the most under-preached and misunderstood conceptions of God. 99.9% of us here this morning are familiar with John 3:16, “God loved this world so much that he gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
We have at least an understanding that Christianity believes and teaches that God interrupted history with the birth, life, death and resurrection of His perfect son. This is the Gospel, the foundation on which the church is built. Long ago, 2000+ years ago, God’s plan for salvation came about.
But here’s the part I believe is so under-preached and misunderstood: God is still interacting. God is still involving himself in our lives. The cross and the empty tomb are the foundation for every person’s salvation. But God is still actively seeking people to worship Him. He is still aware of people who are separated from Him, and He works like a heavenly magnet to pull these people to Him. He is still the shepherd seeking the lost sheep, and doing everything He can to save them.
That’s why John 6:44 says, “No one can come to me (Jesus is the speaker) unless the Father who sent me draws Him.” God is the magnet, the one from whom the energy to draw comes. We, all people, are the lifeless chunk of metal being pulled toward the magnet.
Every one of us was created to be in relationship with God the Father, and God the Father is still seeking that relationship of worship. He is still seeking true worshipers.
I. Do Not Ignore the Divine Appointments
Our text starts right in the middle of a conversation between Jesus and a Samaritan woman. Our text involves a discussion about worship. How Jesus worships. How Samaritans worship. Where Jesus worships. Where Samaritans worship. What true worship is and what it ain’t.
But let me give you just a tiny bit of background. Jews hated Samaritans and Samaritans hated Jews. Jews considered themselves the pure children of God and the Samaritans were half-breeds, part Jewish and part Gentile. This hatred is what makes the story of the good Samaritan so powerful. A person who is supposed to hate gets off his donkey and loves. He was a neighbor, regardless of skin color or race, because he showed mercy.
Right before Jesus has this conversation with the Samaritan woman John the Baptist introduces Jesus to the world. It seems that more people are going across the river to be baptized by Jesus’ disciples than were now coming to John and his disciples for baptism.
Here’s what John the Baptist says: John 3:27-36
The groom’s here! I was just sent to announce his entrance. I was the best man, I attended to the groom. My job was to get things ready for his arrival. The bride belongs to Him. He’s here for his bride. I’ve done my job. I’m joyful because the wedding can begin.
But this groom is from heaven. He’s God’s son. He’s from God, has God’s authority and God’s inheritance for eternal life. Accept Him and live forever, reject him and God rejects you.
When Jesus hears about this and the argument between the Pharisees and John the Baptist, he leaves Judea and goes back to Galilee (verse 3).
And John 4:4 says, “Now he had to go through Samaria, so he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar.”
Why did he have to go through Samaria? No other Jews did. The Pharisees considered Samaritan dirt like walking in a cesspool. Most Jews walked around Samaria instead of going through it. So why did Jesus have to go through Samaria? Because it was shorter? I think not.
The Groom is here. It’s time for a wedding. The groom is perfect, spotless and without sin. The bride on the other hand is a mess, soiled by life, dirtied by relationships, bruised by the world. But the groom loves her enough to die for her.
Jesus the groom knew exactly who would be at that well. A woman hiding from the crowds by coming in the heat of the day to draw water. A woman who’s been married five times and now is shacking up with a guy.
She was coming for water. But Jesus knew she was dying of spiritual thirst. Maybe she’d given up hope for anything better.
Here’s my news flash: She is exactly the kind of worshiper the father seeks. She’s not ready to worship yet but Jesus is looking for her, not the other way around.
This is His divine appointment.
Jesus is still keeping those divine appointments today. His Spirit still offers living water to modern day women of Samaria, a money hungry businessman like Zacheus, and zealots like Simon. He knows right where you are and He’s still seeking you.
Jesus promised his disciples that it was for their good that he was going away (to die). They didn’t believe him at first, but they would after the resurrection. Here’s what Jesus promised:
John 16:7-16
God’s spirit is that living water Jesus promised to this woman. This water would become a spring welling up in people’s hearts providing eternal life. This spirit would convict of sins, but become a counselor of truth. This spirit would be the author of scripture taking the words of Jesus and making them known to all who seek Him (who met me in my lostness when I was 17 and convinced me there was a Savior, who gave me hope for forgiveness and a life of abundance. Who cares about 17 year old high school dropouts with a rebellious heart and an old army jacket. Who seeks people like that. The God who had to go through Samaria. The Savior who makes divine appointments).
Jesus doesn’t just give a thimbleful of water to those who are dying of spiritual thirst. His spirit is the river of life.
Please, please do not ignore the divine appointments with Jesus, whether they be at a well, a water cooler, a river or an intersection. God is still seeking true worshipers in the most unlikely of places.
And here’s the most important truth concerning worship:
II. We can only worship the one we know.
Worship is about relationship. You cannot truly love someone you don’t know. You can have a conversation with an acquaintance, but you cannot love someone unless there’s real intimacy.
Rodney Buchanan shares this powerful truth:
Our natural tendency is to cover up and conceal the truth. We hide the truth from ourselves and others. We put on our mask and go about our make believe world. We play the pretender, just as the woman at the well did with Jesus. She presented another self to Jesus, the one she wanted him to see, and hid her true self. That is, until he removed her mask by confronting her with the truth, and made it impossible to be an imposter any longer. But what was just as unnerving was that when she realized Jesus saw the real her, she did not feel in any way condemned. Jesus saw through her façade. He knew all about her sin—and he loved her. She felt his pure love for her because she was drawn to him. If she had felt condemned by his words she would have left him. But after she encountered Jesus, she went to the others in her town and said, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (John 4:28-29)
Jesus revealed the complete truth about her and completely accepted her at the same time. The saving factor in this woman’s life was that she did not deny the truth. If that had happened, it would have been the beginning of the end of her relationship with Jesus. Jesus will forgive our sin, but only if we face it and admit it. He will not tolerate our deceitfulness. He will not allow us to play the imposter. The truth must be understood and owned. But it is through truth that we experience the love of God. We do not find God by pointing out our strengths, but by admitting our weaknesses. Brennan Manning quotes Sister Barbara Fiand as saying, “Wholeness is brokenness owned and thereby healed.” Wholeness is not the absence of brokenness. Wholeness is facing the truth of our brokenness and finding healing in that act of honesty. It’s denial and dishonesty that give sin its power. It is in trying to hide our sin and push it down that it has the most power to exert itself in our lives. Admitting who we are and what we have done seems frightening, but in reality it is freeing. There is no other way to find God.
Marriages that work require this kind of courageous intimacy. Friendships that are deep and lasting require this dynamic. And if we are to worship and love God in “spirit and in truth,” this honesty and reliance on His grace must be present.
But the second thing we learn when Jesus encounters us is: We are confronted with the truth about who he is. When Jesus revealed the truth about her, this woman realized that he must have had some kind of supernatural ability. They had only spoken a few words and he saw right through her. She assumed that he was a prophet or something, so she asked him a religious question. This is always a good technique for getting the spotlight off of yourself and onto something more comfortable, even if it is controversial. There was a running argument between the Jews and Samaritans about where the real place of worship should be—on Mt. Zion, the mountain in Jerusalem where the temple had been built, or Mt. Gerizim, the sacred mountain in Samaria. She was trying to turn the spotlight off herself, but when she did, she encountered another truth that was just as difficult for her as the truth about herself—she came face to face with who Jesus really was. She wanted to argue religion, but Jesus wanted her to face reality. She learned that the great question of faith is not about mountains or doctrines, it is the truth about who Jesus Christ really is.
Jesus said to her, “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. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21-24). What was this truth which Jesus spoke about? She was about to find out, and the truth would be shocking. She said to Jesus, “I know that Messiah (called Christ) is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:25-26).
You see, Jesus wasn’t just concerned about the false way she was living, or the false way she was believing. He introduced her to the real truth…Himself, and then let her decide what to do with it.
Your worship will not be real because it’s done in the right place, or in the right way. It will only be real if you intimately know Jesus and realize he knows you. He knows your past, He knows your sin, He knows it all and He’s still standing here. He’s still offering himself as the Messiah. He’s still lovingly offering the living water of hope because he knows you’re dying of thirst.
The Bible tells us, “She left her water jar and went back to the town and said to people, “Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”
That water jar, sitting there by the well, says a lot. She had brought it to the well in the heat of the day to avoid people and now it sat there forgotten so she could run back to the people she’s tried to avoid.
John 4:39-42
I left my water jar by the well on Jan. 17, 1978. I met Jesus by divine appointment. He came looking for me. He showed me the truth of who I was and who He is on that day. And I went back to LaFayette High School to say, “Come see a man who told me everything about myself. Could this be the Christ?”
I love it when Jesus becomes more important than the water jar. When we’ve encountered him in such a powerful way, telling others about the encounter becomes more important than the shame of our past. Our relationship with Him in this intimate moment becomes worship and He is more important than any past shame because His presence has provided real living water. And the stuff we’ve been drinking in the past becomes so unimportant we even forget it by the well.
Mike Yaconelli (Messy Spirituality) The Power of an Unchanged Life
“After her conversation with Jesus, the woman at the well is just beginning a whole new way of living, but none of the facts of her life have changed. She is still living with a man who isn’t her husband. She has still been divorced five times, her reputation is still a disaster. Jesus often told people not to talk about their encounters with him, but not this woman. Her faith is only a few minutes old and already she has become an evangelist, already she is having a huge influence on her community. What does she say? Not much. “Uh…come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.” Everyone in town knows what this woman has done. Big deal. What she says is underwhelming. But the fact that she publicly talks about her shameful past is overwhelming.
Her words are few and seemingly insignificant, but her saying them at all is very significant. In effect she says, “I know you know who I am, but I just met someone who liberated me from my past, from my reputation, and I am no longer the person you think I am. I am no longer a hostage to my bad choices. I am free. I am free.” Still, nothing has changed. But everything has changed. Her neighbors can hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes. Her words are all they need to race to the man she describes. For reasons they don’t understand, who this woman is now seems more relevant than who she was then.
The implications for us are overwhelming. Those of us who want to move on from our past, those who have come to the end of the road, can start with our unchanged life, now. We don’t have to wait until we are “mature.” We don’t have to move to a new town or convince others we are serious; we simply start. We begin. We take the first bumbling, stumbling, teetering steps toward the spiritual life, even if we’re not very good at it.”
