Hey, good morning, everybody. How are you?
Good, good, good. Glad you're here.
If you don't know me, if we've not met, my name is Gordon.
I'm one of the pastors here. I just want to say thanks for
coming and glad you're checking out Vita Springs and hope you
enjoy the morning. Go ahead and open up your Bible
to the book of John. We're in John for a while.
We're in chapter 4 by now. If you don't have your own
Bible, grab one from the seat in front of you and there's
actually the page up on the screen today will be in John
chapter 416 through 30, page 889 in the the hard black Bibles.
If you haven't been with us in the book of John, John has given
us a very specific purpose for why he writes this whole gospel
and why it's different than some of the other gospels.
He is showing us those signs and miracles and interactions with
Jesus that most help us see that he is God, He's the Christ so
that we can receive life. And it'll be really clear today
that the only way to receive true eternal life is through
Jesus. And so John is helping us see
that. Last week we went through Part 1
of the story of the woman at the well, if you weren't here last
week, we just put all our teachings on Spotify.
So it'd be really easy to go back.
And I would encourage you go back and listen because we
really need last week and this week to, to understand what
Jesus is saying. But if you're here and you
weren't here last week, don't worry, I'll, I'll, you know, try
to try to make it clear what's happened up to this point.
What we learned last week is Stanley's are bad.
Coffee is bad. If you were here last week, it's
an inside joke. If you weren't, you'll catch it
on Spotify. No, there are those things that
we go to for life that can't satisfy us.
And Jesus is the only thing that can satisfy us.
And so here's the things we learned from last week.
Jesus left Judea and went to Samaria, an unclean non Jewish
region. Also that he could have this
interaction with the Sumerian woman at a well and he knew she
was thirsty, like on a soul level she's thirsty.
And through this interaction he uses brilliant brilliantly.
He uses the idea of physical thirst for physical water to get
at this deeper hidden soul level thirst that only he can satisfy.
And so she's still stumped by the end of the teaching and not
quite getting it. And so we pick up in verse 16
and he gets a little more underneath the surface trying to
get at her heart against because Jesus loves the Samaritan woman
and he wants her to receive his living water.
So this last week the take away was only Jesus.
Jesus can satisfy our spiritual thirst.
This week the take away is that only Jesus can bring us into
true worship. Worship in the fullest sense of
the word, like not just worship through singing, but worship in
like how we honor God, how we live our life.
It's our thinking, it's our actions, it's our heart, our
motives. All of that is our worship to
God. And only Jesus can bring us into
true worship. Someone once said we're all
heretic somewhere, we just don't know where yet.
And the take away would also be only Jesus can show us where we
have imbalances in our thinking. We have contradictions between
our head and our heart, we have errors, we're flawed, we're for
the rest of our life, we're steadily trying to grow to full
knowledge, which then effects our worship.
So we're all heretic somewhere and we need Jesus to help us
today to know where. So before we start reading, I'm
just going to give us a moment to quiet our hearts, to tune
into God, to push away distractions, whatever you come
in dealing with which it might be different for all of us, but
just have those things come to mind and bring it to Jesus in
prayer. And then I'll read and pray for
us and teach. All right, verse 16 Jesus now
says to her, all right, go call your husband and come here.
And the woman answered him, I have no husband.
Jesus said to her, you are right and saying, I have no husband,
for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not
your husband. What you have said is true.
The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.
Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in
Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.
Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming
when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you
worship the Father. You worship what you do not
know. We worship what we know, for
salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is
now here, when the true worshippers will worship the
Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such
people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who
worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, He who
is called Christ. When he comes he will tell us
all things Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He.
Just then as disciples came back, they marvelled that he was
talking with a woman, but no one said, what do you seek or why
are you talking with her? So the woman left her water jar
and went away into the town and said to the people, come see a
man who told me all that I ever did, can this be the Christ?
And they went out of the town and we're coming to him.
Let's pray, Jesus, we don't want to just come to you today with
just our minds. We don't want to just worship
you with our actions. We bring you our hearts today.
Lord, we need you to change us from the inside out.
We can try and try and try to worship you in a way that is
honoring and still fall short without your help.
And so help us from the least mature to the most mature this
morning. Help us, let me, even as I teach
Lord, not just speak truth things from a a clear head, but
also let it be rightly affected by the truth.
I pray, Lord, that all of us would experience more of your
living water, be brought into greater, fuller, more abundant
life and anything else you want to do on us today.
Lord, we give you permission, we pray all these things in your
name, Amen. All right, so we start out and
again, the woman was not getting it.
She's still thinking of physical water at a physical well.
And so Jesus changes subject and he says in verse 16, they've
been talking about water. They haven't said a thing about
a husband or her life or and he just goes for it.
Go call your husband and come here.
The woman answered him. I have no husband.
Jesus said to her, you are right.
You've actually had five husbands and the man you're now
with is not your husband. And the way that's read, he's
not just simply like you're dating a guy that's not your
husband. You've been seeing a guy.
The way he says it, she is romantically, physically
involved. You could say she's she's living
with her boyfriend, a man who is not her husband.
And so Jesus cut straight to her heart and he exposes her sin
quickly. The Bible teaches pretty clearly
that all sexual contact outside of a marriage between one man,
one woman, is sin. That's something that God has
deemed wrong. And so for the woman to be
called out by Jesus as living in a sexual relationship with a man
who's not her husband, immediately he's cut to her
heart and she knows it. I don't think she's fighting on
him. It's probably why when he first
mentioned go call your husband, she held back.
She just said, well, I have no husband.
She didn't share any other details, just just that.
But the woman's busted and Jesus calls out her sin.
Now why would Jesus, meek and mild, call out a woman's
sinfulness? We like the sight of Jesus, that
is forgiveness and grace, and he is all of those things, yes, and
yet all of us squirm when someone starts to like, poke at
those hidden areas that we try to keep buttoned up.
And Jesus, even though he is meek and mild, he is full of
justice and he is holy, and he knows that sin holds us back
from life. And so in order to get to living
water, sin has to be dealt with. It has to be exposed.
And so you, I, I see this as Jesus's kindness to the woman.
Now he went all the way from Judea to Samaria, compelled by
God, I believe, to interact with this woman.
And so it's not coming to condemn you.
Remember a few weeks ago, John 316, He did not come into the
world to condemn the world, but in order to save it.
Jesus is coming. He's kindly exposing sin so that
he can apply his forgiveness to her personally, individually.
The first application for today. Until our sin is dealt with, we
cannot receive living water and we cannot become God's true
worshippers until our sin is dealt with.
Now, to help us today with where we're going, I want to show a
grid up on the screen. Go ahead and put that up there,
David. So to be God's true worshippers,
we need to worship in spirit and truth, and we're going to kind
of steadily work through these different quadrants.
This was just what was helpful for my brain.
So I was trying to figure out like, wait, so where's the
Samaritan woman in all of this? And why is she not a true
worshipper yet? And where are we?
And I think Jesus is saying there is one quadrant that is
true life, that is living water. One quadrant, all the others are
false worship. Until our sin is dealt with, we
cannot receive living water. And we're going to learn about
what is true worship and how to get there.
But as I was making this, I was thinking of the verse in Matthew
7. Jesus talks about broad is the
path that leads to destruction, but narrow is the road that
leads to life and only if you find it.
And if you just looked at that graph, it's a small portion.
There's a lot of people that either, well, I'll, I'll get
into explaining, but there's a lot of people that fall in the
truth, no spirit. There's a lot of people that
fall in the spirit, no truth. And Jesus is helping expose,
reveal what is true worship. So the first category we're
going to look at, go ahead and show us the bottom left.
This is no spirit, no truth. This is where we all start out
as Christians. The Bible teaches us we're full
of sin. Jesus here is getting at her
sinfulness because this is where we have to start.
You could say step one is repentance.
Ephesians 2, one through 3 says about all of us.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you
once walked, following the course of this world, following
the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at
work in the sons of disobedience.
That's what we were before Jesus, among whom we all once
lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires
of the body and the mind. And we're by nature children of
wrath like the rest of mankind. Until sin is dealt with, we
cannot become Jesus's true worshippers.
And so a real quick application for us, whether you're Christian
or not a Christian sin holds us back from life.
And so where are you hiding sin? What does Jesus need to expose
in order that you can receive life?
And it could be all kinds of things.
Maybe it is sexual sin. Maybe it's holding on to
bitterness. Maybe it's been lying to a
spouse or a friend. Maybe it's a harsh word to a
kid. I mean, anything we let Jesus
expose what he says is sinful and we turn from it so that we
can have life. And so just a quick moment for
any of you that Jesus is catching in sin and maybe he's
using this moment to expose it. What are you going to do?
You going to hold on to it, keep it hidden and hold yourself back
from life? Or are you going to bring it to
Jesus and ask for forgiveness? Let him deal with it.
So let's go on in the verses, Jesus shines light on her
sinfulness and then also he shines light on what is false
worship and true worship. So verse 19, she says, Sir, I
perceive that you are a prophet. You think he's just called out
something that no one else that he could not have known.
He's she's never met this man in her life.
Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.
And then she brings up a theological question, a question
of worship, true worship. Our fathers, the Samaritan
people, our fathers worshipped on this mountain.
But you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to
worship. And so which one is true?
Please help sort it out for me. You seem like a prophet.
I trust what you say. She's not ready to call him God
or Messiah yet, but she recognizes that He could
probably help sort this out. 1st, we need to realize what
mountains were in this time. Mountains represented this place
that you go up to to meet with God.
You're closer to Him. You're drawing near to Him.
And for the Samaritan people, they would have recognized Mount
Jerusalem as the mountain where you go to worship.
And the Jews would have recognized Jerusalem that is up
on a hill in the temple at the top.
That's where you go to worship, and worship here literally means
to kiss the hand. Have any of you seen the old
animated Robin Hood movie? I was a 90s kid and so I don't
remember when it came out, but I just remember that was like one
of my favorite movies where Robin Hood, the Little Fox and
his guys, they like go to King Louie and they kiss his hand and
they steal his rings while they're at it.
But it's it's the sign to kiss the hand to worship.
It's the sign of coming to pay your respects, bowing in
reverence, acknowledging he's king, he's authority.
It's honoring him as he deserves.
That's worship. We could define it simply as
worship is bringing honor to God.
So each group believed the other was engaging in false worship.
And I think by her asking this question, actually bringing it
up, it shows that she's seeking what is true.
She's trying to sort out, I want to be a true worshipper of God.
Show me, is it this mountain or that mountain?
Possibly even it's maybe her asking which mountain am I
supposed to go to, to sacrifice for the sin that you just
exposed, Which altar would bring me back into right relationship
with God at this point? That's how you dealt with your
sin. You sacrificed an animal and
that blood paid for your guilt. And so is it the Jerusalem or
Mount Jerusalem mountain? Jesus said back to her, woman,
believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain
nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.
You worship what you do not know.
We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews.
So in response to her question, Jesus says a few things here.
One, believe me, she does not know who she's talking to right
now. But do you realize who she's
talking to right now? She is looking God in the face,
asking what is true, honoring worship.
And Jesus is saying, woman or Madam, believe me, Jesus is the
perfect one to sort out what is true worship and who are God's
true worshippers. Chapter 1, John, the apostle
John who writes this, he introduces Jesus as the true
light and lights reveal or expose.
They show what's hidden and they shine light on what's real,
what's true. And so Jesus here has exposed
sinfulness, and now he's exposing, revealing what is
false worship. He doesn't shy away from saying,
like, OK, soon the mountains are going to be irrelevant.
It's not going to matter if you go to Jerusalem or here.
It's about worshipping in truth and in your heart.
OK, that's coming. But still he's saying there is
such a thing as true and false worship.
He doesn't shy away from saying look up until this point the
Jews have actually been God's true worshippers.
The Samaritans. You guys got it wrong.
Someone interpreted the Bible incorrectly as that future place
that God would choose to bring him worship.
It's not Mount Jerusalem and Jews are actually the ones who
have salvation. And so I, I just think that's
important for us cuz we live in a day where truth is up for
grabs. OK, people would say, well, it's
great that you have your religion.
I love that for you, but don't tell me what I'm supposed to
believe or I love that you have that belief.
I don't quite, it's clearly stated in the Bible.
I don't quite agree with that. It doesn't feel right for me.
OK, truth is all up for grabs and this is important for us.
The Bible lays out objective truth.
It just makes sense that if God created the universe, the
heavens and the stars with a word, and He created us to be in
relationship with them, that He's the one who defines how we
honor him. We go to him and say, God, what
do you require of me? What do you require of me?
Not What am I willing to bring to you?
What am I not willing to bring to you?
I'll do this, but I won't do that.
Jesus is the one who shines light on what is true worship
and the fullest sense of the Word.
So God's defined truth, including the true object of
worship. And Jesus tells the woman you
worship what you don't know. You don't quite have the right
object of worship. You don't quite have the right
way of worship. You worship what you don't know.
Now, I love bow hunting and so I need to practice to get better
at shooting my bow and arrow. If I don't know what to aim at,
there is no shot. I'm going to hit the target.
Right, it starts with what you know.
You could say belief guides, practice.
If you don't know what is truth and what to worship, there is no
chance that your life is going to be lived in honoring worship
to the right object. If I don't know the right thing
to be aiming at, well, here's a story not about bow hunting, but
it's just a fun story from my childhood.
I came home one time with dad and it was dark and I saw an
armadillo. And we lived out in the country,
and anytime we saw an armadillo that tore up Mom's garden, we
killed it. And so dad ran in to get the
gun, and he gave it to me. And I was like trying to find it
and couldn't. And so he just snatches the gun
and tries to get the armadillo. And I'm like, pointing out like,
no, it's over there. It's like, OK, I think I see it
boom. And he shoots and my football
goes flying up in the air. He was aiming at the wrong
target there. It was unclear.
He was aiming at what He didn't know, and he didn't hit the
right thing. And so for us, if we're going to
live our lives in true worship to the right object, we have to
know the right object, and we have to go to objective truth
about what He lays out for us. God, who are you?
Who do you say that we are? What do you say is sin?
How do we deal with sin? What do you require of us?
What is worship? What do you want from me?
OK, I'll give it. True worship must be informed by
God. Worship that is not informed by
God is false worship. This category, if you put the
second one up here with the woman, this is where she's at.
She's not in true worship. She has some spiritual
practices. She does go to an altar.
She does sacrifice, presumably, and yet it's not.
It's worshipping what she doesn't know, and so it's false
worship. So where do you get your truth?
Who's told you how to worship the Internet, the world, the
culture? Did you know, by the way, that I
learned this on the Internet? The world's smartest man said in
a few years AI will confess that Jesus is the Christ.
He just reasoned out that it's the most supported logical
conclusion about who is truly God.
And so he, I think his name, his name, I wrote it down.
Young Hoon Kim believes that AI will eventually believe in Jesus
Christ. But who do you get your truth
from? Is it another person?
Joseph Smith can't tell you true religion.
Buddha can't tell you true religion.
Muhammad can't tell you true religion, only Jesus Christ can
lead us into true worship. Let's go on.
In the story verse 23, Jesus says the hour is coming and he
adds, and it's now here I'm bringing it, it's through me
when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and
truth, for the Father is seeking.
Think about how the Father sent Jesus from Judea to Samaria to
interact with this woman. The Father is seeking such
people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who
worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
So Jesus adds the hour's coming and it's now here to hint to her
about His death and resurrection, which is still
hidden, but He knows it's coming.
Upon my death and then my raising myself back to life,
worship and the nature of worship will forever change.
It'll be different. He's saying there's a new era in
salvation history. The Jews have had it right up
until this point. But everything's going to
change. And if you just think about one
example, when Jesus said it is finished, what happened to the
curtain in the temple? It tore in two and the temples
irrelevant. It's not about this mountain or
that mountain. And then Jesus becomes our
temple. He sets up resident in us
through the Holy Spirit. And now it doesn't matter where
we are. We can come to God and honor him
from our hearts. It's irrelevant this place or
that place. So that's what he's telling the
woman. So if you want to receive living
water and be a true worshipper, here's how.
Worship in truth and worship in spirit.
And so let's go to quadrant 3 and let's just talk about what
it would look like to be all truth.
But let's assume for now, no spirit.
What would this be? Worship and truth.
It's having the right object, maybe even the right manner of
worship. You know what you're worshiping,
and maybe you even know how to do it.
You do the right things. This is knowing the one true
God, but with a cold, lifeless, unregenerate heart.
It's dutiful religion. It's lukewarm Christianity
without a heart that's engaged. That's not what God's seeking.
That's not true worship. This is the Pharisees that we
see characterized all through the New Testament.
They follow the law to a tee. They memorize the whole Old
Testament. You look at them and you're
like, man, you are packed full of truth.
You, you certainly know your stuff, and yet they miss the
point, they miss the heart of it, they miss God's intentions,
everything that a Pharisee would do, it's unpleasing to God.
Maybe everything is too extreme, but I I think it's what's saying
it's going to be void at the end of your life if you don't also
come to God in your heart. This is Nicodemus from a few
weeks ago who's wrestling to try and figure out Jesus.
What are you saying born again? You remember that week?
Just like unless you're born again, unless you have a
spiritual rebirth, you will not inherit eternal life.
You do not have living water. This is the story of the rich
young ruler kept coming to mind as I was thinking about these
verses. And again, if you're not
familiar with Christianity or the Bible, that's OK.
These are just they're stories that Jesus and interactions that
Jesus has that inform us, tell us so much about the nature of
worship. If you do know the story of the
rich young ruler, he comes to Jesus and he says, teacher, I've
followed all the commandments from my youth.
He was blameless. He was religious.
What must I do to inherit eternal life and Jesus tests his
heart. He says go sell all your
possessions and come and follow me.
Follow me with your heart. And at the end it's it's
troubling for him. He leaves sorrowful.
He's not willing to do it. You can do everything right and
you can have the correct object of worship that today this would
be. You can give a credible
profession of faith. You can tell me about the
gospel, and yet that alone does not equate to true worship.
This one's hard. This was hard for people in
Jesus's day who were morally good and did all the right
things, and this is hard for us today.
What do you mean a good person doesn't have eternal life?
What does God lay out for true worship?
This was really frustrating for the disciples.
After the rich young ruler, he went away and Jesus says
something like how difficult it will be for a rich person to
enter the Kingdom of God. And the disciples are like, well
they literally say who then can be saved?
If it's not the rich guy who followed all the commands from
his youth, then who can be saved?
And if I look back on my life, if you don't know me, I grew up
in church. My great grandpa moved from
Delaware to Florida to be a part of a Mennonite church planting
movement. He helped establish a healthy
church in the Panhandle of Florida and that's how the
yoder's got there. And then my grandpa grew up in
that church. He was even an interim pastor
for a time and heavily involved my whole life.
My dad, my family heavily involved my whole life.
I'm pretty sure I was born and then like a week or two later
I'm in church and we did not miss a church service and I love
the church. It was a great experience.
I served in youth when I was old enough you couldn't serve until
you were in 6th grade. So as soon as I became 1/6
grader, I started helping in the nursery and then youth group.
And then I would sit there for all three services and be behind
the camera and put the thing up on the screen.
And I, I think of like what Paul says at one point, the apostle
Paul, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. I was a non denominational
Christian of non denominational Christians.
I did everything right. And if you looked at me from the
outside, you'd say, oh, certainly Gordon's a true
worshipper. And it bugged me because I had
people that would come up to me and they would look at the
outside and they had no clue what was going on in the in the
inside, but they would look on the outside.
Oh, Gordon, you're so mature for your age.
And it went to my head and all I can tell you really love God.
And that's the part that bugged me because I knew what was going
on in the inside. And you would say, like the
disciples in frustration, if they can't make it into eternal
life, then who can be saved? It's frustrating, It's hard.
The conclusion that Jesus gives to the disciples in that story,
he looks at them and said with man it is impossible.
He confirms their theory. Who then can be saved with man?
No one. No amount of your efforts, no
amount of your good deeds. You can spend your whole life
doing all the right things to the right person and it's still
impossible to be saved. But Jesus adds thankfully, but
with God all things are possible.
Only Jesus can bring us into true religion.
The frustration is good because it gets us to a point where
we're just like I'm at the end of myself.
I OK Jesus. I give up, I surrender, I'll
quit trying to do it myself. I know that I can do everything
perfectly and yet still my heart has selfish motives.
I do things just for me. I lie, I cheat, I steal, I lust,
I can't fix my heart. It is Jesus indeed impossible.
Help me. You exhaust yourself just trying
to do it yourself. And it's really good when Jesus
gets us to a breaking point where we come to him and say,
Jesus, please help me, what must I do?
And then Jesus adds the second part of true worship.
Show quadrant 4. In order to receive living water
and become God's true worshippers, we must worship in
truth and and spirit. We need both.
All the other quadrants are false worship.
Only this one's true. We have to worship in truth.
We have to know the right object and we have to worship in a way
that He is laid out as truly honoring to Him.
And this word spirit, it refers to that inner part of us, our
heart, our soul. It's why He brings up the fact
that God is spirit. Have any of you seen God the
Father? He's spirit.
He's everywhere He's felt, but you can't see Him.
It's like God, like Jesus saying to Nicodemus a few weeks ago,
it's like the wind. You sense that it's going, but
you don't know where. God is spirit, He's immaterial,
He's invisible. And in the same way God created
humans in his image with the spirit, we're more than just
skin and bones. We're more than just a mind with
reason. There is a inner hidden
spiritual reality to all of us. All of us have a spirit.
When our flesh and our bone and our brain dies, we still have a
spirit. And so Jesus is teaching us, you
can't just worship God with part of you.
You can't like compartmentalize and break it off.
And I'll give you my mind, I'll give you my even my actions, but
you can't have my heart, Jesus saying you need both.
Now that inner part of us, we've already made clear it's full of
sin. Our thoughts, they come out of a
perverse heart. Our actions, they come out of a
prideful heart. Our behaviors, they come out of
a selfish motive. And so until he fixes our heart,
we cannot be worshippers in spirit.
Listen to what Ezekiel 36. This is a word that God spoke
through the prophet Ezekiel long before Jesus came.
It says, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be
clean from all of your uncleanness or sin and from all
your idols. I will cleanse you.
And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put
within you. And I will remove the heart of
stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
And I will put my spirit, capital S spirit within you and
cause you to walk in My statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Now we're getting somewhere. If you trust in Jesus, if you
get to the end of yourself, Jesus, it's impossible, please
save me. And he gives you a new spirit.
He takes out that sinful heart. Now that new spirit causes you
to worship in a way that honors God.
Now you can worship in spirit and truth, but you need both.
And until that happens, you are not God's true worshipper.
And this is what he's bringing the Samaritan woman to.
It's why he goes after her sin. It's why he highlights her
thirst. And when she's still just
thinking physical thirst, he's like, no, your sinful heart is
thirsty. And it cannot be satisfied
without me. It's impossible without Jesus.
Only Jesus can lead us into worship in spirit.
You can say only Jesus can bring us into the 4th quadrant which
is spirit and truth, true worship.
I kept thinking of Jesus talking about I am the way, the truth
and the life, or even I am the door.
Like if you see that, can you put that last image up again?
We all start at the bottom and we're all trying to get to the
top, and Jesus is the only way to get in.
You can be so close. You can be the Samaritan woman
right there at the gate. You can be Nicodemus so close
right there at the gate. And unless you go through Jesus,
you do not have living water or eternal life.
Now I want to close with the woman's response, how the story
finishes. And then I want to come back
around to what it looks like to worship in spirit and truth for
the Christians. But first I hope that if you
realize I do not have living water, I am not a true
worshipper, but I want to be in your heart.
Come to Jesus and ask him. Jesus, would you cleanse my
sinful heart? I realize it is impossible to be
satisfied and impossible to know you unless you do it.
Put your trust in Him. It doesn't mean you have to go
to Jerusalem or Mount Jerusalem. You can do it right there in
your seat. Come to Jesus in your heart and
ask for salvation. Verse 25 the woman said to him,
I know that Messiah is coming. He who is called Christ.
When he comes he will tell us all things and Jesus said to
her, I who speak to you am he. You are looking at the face of
God. This whole conversation about
true worship, it prompts her to think about Messiah.
Like I think she's realizing what just came out of his mouth
and how this feels right now. This is, this is not just a
prophet. This might be the prophet, the
prophet, promised prophet who will come and tell us all
things. And so she like, I think she
fishes for something from Jesus. I know that Messiah is coming
and when he comes, he's going to tell us all things.
And then Jesus takes the bait. I know it's me.
Just then the disciples come back.
They marvel that he was talking with a woman, but no one said,
what do you seek or why are you talking with her?
So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said
to the people, come see a man who told me all that I ever did.
Can this be the Christ? And they went out of the town
and we're coming to him. The woman does three things.
First, she leaves her water jar. She throws her Stanley away.
I think, I think it's a double meaning from John.
I think he's trying to tell us like she left those things that
would not satisfy her. She didn't care about the water
anymore. That's number one.
Number two, she she's working out.
Is this the Christ? She is in the process of being
saved. She doesn't flat out say it, but
you can hear it from her heart, right?
Her proclamation, Can this be the Christ and she goes in and I
and she ends up there. I have to believe she ends up
there and she goes into the town and she tells that's the third
thing and we'll see in the next couple weeks or next week, I
think that the the Samaritans are coming to him and it results
in an unclean city seeing Jesus and receiving living water.
Wow, wow. The disciples wanted to stay in
Judea. Let's talk about worshipping in
spirit and truth. How do these come together?
I want to read a quote from a guy we all know and love.
His name's Tony Randestel. Tony.
Tony's our lead pastor. And we were working out.
We were talking about this teaching.
And he had just read a book about worship and truth and
spirit and had his own thoughts written down.
And I kept trying to come up with my own way to say it.
And this was just super helpful. So, Tony, can I read your
scribbles? OK.
Worship in spirit and in truth. Here's I think a summary of what
we've been talking about. True worship is not about a
location. It's primarily a spiritual
action that depends on truth. Example, you could be in an
ornate cathedral in Jerusalem, bringing bars of pure gold to
God, believing that that is what will please God because it is
not rooted in truth. It's it won't please them.
It's not true worship. Or you could also be in the most
theologically sound church in all the world, singing the most
theologically tight lyrics, but without any faith or spirit,
without your heart engaged. It's not worship to God.
True worship is not about a location or a style.
It's about one, a person. And Jesus says I am he.
Two, it must be rooted in truth. It's not just a feeling or an
experience. Three, it must be in spirit.
It's a soul activity that comes from a regenerate heart.
Doesn't that pretty much sum up what we learned?
And so how do we come together in spirit and truth?
Christians, I'm just going to keep throwing the graph up
there, David. Christians, our goal through our
whole life, we're in the 4th quadrant.
Our goal is to get to the very tip top.
That's where Jesus is. He's our Good Shepherd who leads
us through this life to full maturity.
And it's not just one or the other.
We get that mixed up. We look at someone who is full
of truth and they can spat off Bible verses and they do all the
right things. And we say, whoa, he's so
mature. Or we look at someone that is
they're on fire, they're running hard, they do everything.
They've got all these stories and if it's not grounded in
truth, we we call that maturity. Maturity is both.
God is seeking worshippers who have truth.
They have a good foundation. They love the Bible.
They know what he says. Till their last day, they are
scouring the pages of Scripture. Jesus form me, shape me, teach
me, help me. And we are constantly checking
our heart to make sure that it's engaged and alive, not letting
it fall behind. And you could say even with the
Holy Spirit in us, we're not just working on our own physical
strength. We're constantly asking the Holy
Spirit to be our help, our power, our strength.
It's both. And so where do you fall?
If you put yourself somewhere on that graph, where are you?
Jesus wants us in the middle, balanced up and to the right
till we reach full maturity. Now, if I was to talk to some of
you who are new Christians, you're new in your faith
typically. Typically there's a lot of fire.
You're on a high, everything's exciting, and you just want to
run hard. You want to go do everything.
And that's great. Keep all of that.
And yet you need to pack yourself with truth.
You need to develop good Bible habits.
You need to make sure you're aiming at the right target,
you're doing the right things. Otherwise your arrows are going
to end up all over the place. And then I think typically,
typically for mature Christians who have been at it for a while,
it's hard to keep a fire stoked, isn't it?
You ever tried to keep a fire stoked?
It's hard. It's like constant putting more
wood and fuel on the fire to keep it hot.
And as older Christians, it it feels hard.
We can kind of depend on our knowledge or our truth or our
foundation and forget that what's pleasing to God is that
we come to Him in humility, with a heart that's alive.
We need both. Our whole life is journeying to
the top and we're constantly catching where where there's
lack. Let me try to figure out what
else to say and wraps up. I had examples of what those
look like, but I guess my point, I'll just trust trust on it.
Jesus is the only one that can lead us into true worship.
I would encourage you during prayer ministry, reflect on
where you're at in your Christian journey and where does
he want to help you grow and mature?
Do you want to help your heart? Have you been in a rut?
Are you experiencing apathy? Are things dry?
Seek Jesus. One of the best things for me
was people giving me good books, like good books from people,
like biographies of people who lived a life on fire.
And it inspires me. It wakes me up.
One time Kurt gave me a book called Gospel Wakefulness.
I think he could tell that my heart was a little cold.
Gospel Wakefulness, I forgot it on a plane and never finished
it. But sorry, Kurt.
Thankfully Jesus helped my heart to come alive.
But Holy Fire by RT Kendall, man, was that helpful for my
spirit to come alive. And are you maybe your spirits
alive and you, it's been a while since you've been in your Bible.
You had a good habit for a while and it's kind of falling through
the cracks. You feel like you could use some
meat again. It's kind of just maybe that's
what it is, but only Jesus can lead you into true worship and
only Jesus can lead you into maturity.
So seek him, ask him for help. At Vita, we want to strike the
balance of both because this is the kind of worshipper that
God's looking for. And so we teach from the Bible
at every gathering. We open up and we go straight
verse through verse and our small groups.
We love the Bible and we want as a people, we want to love the
Bible. And then even in worship through
song, we want truth packed songs, not just the ones that
tickle our emotions. If our emotions are tickled, we
want it to be because of the truth that we sing.
Does that make sense? We don't want smoke and hype.
We don't want to like woo you to worship God.
We want a truth packed songs and authentic from the heart
worship. And so I want to challenge all
of you to do that now. What a great time to like seek
God and ask Him for help that He would engage our heart and our
mind through song. So why don't y'all stand with
me? We're going to worship to a few
songs and then I'll come up to lead us through prayer.