Worship in Spirit and in Truth - John 4:16-30

This week, we’re continuing to look at Jesus's interaction with the woman of Samaria, or as it’s commonly called, “the woman at the well.” Last week we looked at verses 1-15 and a lot of the issues we discussed last week will be relevant once again this week.

Typically what people highlight when they discuss the differences between Jews and Samaritans is their ethnic or racial differences which is true. But as we noted last week, it’s more than that. The differences were and still are cultural, political, and religious.

When the kingdom of Israel split between the north and the south the Samaritans remained in the north which was bad because true worship took place in the south in Jerusalem where the temple was located. But King Jeroboam of the northern kingdom encouraged false worship in the north and southern portions of his kingdom in order to prevent the people from going to the southern kingdom in order to worship in Jerusalem. When you read through the lineage of Kings in 1 Kings and elsewhere when the Biblical writers wanted to describe bad kings they’d describe them as “being in the way of Jeroboam,” or “like the house of Jeroboam.” And obviously, that means they were bad kings.

This is extremely relevant because the Samaritans were citizens under the rule of the northern kingdom. They intermarried with pagan people and adopted false worship practices. You might say, the Samaritans had the wrong politics, the wrong ethnicity, and the wrong religion.

I made this point last week, but pretty much every war that’s ever been fought could be put into one of those categories: politics, race, or religion!

The Samaritans were on the wrong side of everything!

This passage is steeped in the history of Israel, and yet, the message is simple, straightforward, and incredibly relevant.

Your sin needs to be confronted. It needs to be addressed head on. But it’s never easy to confront sin or have it confronted. Confrontation is unpleasant and often really awkward. So, we’d just rather avoid difficult conversations altogether.

We see a familiar progression in our passage: The Lord convicts us of sin (vv. 16-18), we seek forgiveness (vv. 19-24), and in Christ, we are forgiven (vv. 25-30).

The Lord convicts us of sin (vv .16-18):

One of the things that makes Christianity difficult is that God in his Word is very clear that sin separates us from God and the wrath of God is upon the unrepentant. And He’s very clear about what sin is: as the Westminster Shorter Catechism says: “Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.” The desire for sin is sin along with violating what God tells us to do.

Talking about sin is difficult. I don’t think anyone enjoys talking about sin. But sin is real and the truth matters.

I’m sure you’ve been disappointed just like me when someone who lives in the public eye and professes faith in Jesus Christ fails to call sin… sin.

There’s immense pressure to make exceptions for sins that are culturally acceptable. Let’s be honest, there are two categories of sin: sins that the world hates, and sins that the world permits.

It requires no courage to renounce sins that the world hates. But it requires incredible courage to renounce sins that the world accepts.

It’s already difficult, but it’s even harder when you have to look someone in the eyes and say, that’s wrong. What you're doing is sinful.

But as we see in our passage, the Lord Jesus was able to navigate the complexities of sin and human nature with such grace while never compromising the truth.

Notice how Jesus confronted the Samaritan woman over her sin.

Look at verses 16-18 with me:

“Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.””

It was a natural question for Jesus to ask her to get her husband, because as we discussed last week, it was not only culturally inappropriate for a Jew to converse with a Samaritan… It was even worse that he was conversing with a Samaritan woman.

So his question was very natural. Call your husband so I can bring him into our conversation. But she tells him she “has no husband.”

Obviously, she doesn’t offer her martial situation up to Jesus. Rather, by saying, “[she] has no husband” she is trying to avoid the whole discussion. Clearly this is a sensitive area of her life.

But notice how Jesus gently broaches the topic of her marriage status. He begins by acknowledging her half-truth. He says, “you are right in saying you have no husband…”

Because technically, on paper, she wasn’t married. But her martial situation was much messier and complex than she initially led on.

And Jesus knew this, because, he was Jesus. He had supernatural knowledge of her situation and he reveals it in verse 18. You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.

It’s unclear whether her previous husbands are deceased or divorced.

It seems very unlikely that all of her previous husbands passed away, but regardless, she has a very messy past.

And most importantly, as Jesus points out, the man she was currently sleeping with isn’t her husband.

Five husbands is a lot and it really reveals something about her character and sin nature doesn’t it? Perhaps she’s afraid of being alone or she believes that men, relationships, and marriage will make her happy. And she’s bought into that lie her whole life - to the point where she’s had five husbands.

It helps us understand Jesus’ “living water” metaphor even better from verses 10-15. Whoever drinks from his water will never thirst again because his water overflows into eternal life.

Because the waters of this world will only leave you thirsty. They’ll only dehydrate your soul even more. I made this comparison last week, but it’s still relevant: Worldly pleasures are like drinking ocean water. It might satisfy your thirst for a brief second, but it dehydrates you. If you drink enough ocean water it’ll eventually kill you.

But the Lord Jesus will quench the thirst of your soul.

The woman at the well was drinking the ocean water of relationships, marriages, and men believing that would quench her spiritual thirst.

In our oversexualized culture this point is just as relevant. The lie that she believed is probably more pervasive now than it was then.

The lie that continual relationships, hook-up culture, pornography, and licentious living will make you happy. That it’ll quench the thirst of your soul. And when you believe this lie, it simply requires more and more and more from you.

But it’s ocean water. The more you drink, the faster it’ll destroy your soul.

The relationship carousel, hook-up culture, pornography, all of these things will ultimately leave you a depressed and broken person. If you genuinely believe that those things will make you happy - it’ll eventually destroy your life. It won’t quench the thirst of your soul. But the Lord Jesus will.

Christ can provide an anchor to your soul.

You see that’s fifty percent of what’s happening in these verses. But the other fifty percent is having the courage to tell someone that!

This lie is so pervasive. We all know people just like the woman at the well. Believing that relationships, marriages, sex, licentious living is the key to personal happiness and fulfillment. This is cultural propaganda. We’re told these things will make us happy daily. Watch any TV for 30 minutes, browse the internet for 5 minutes.

But so many that believe this lie are unhappy, dissatisfied with life, and depressed.

You and I need to pray for the courage to tell the truth to that friend or relative when they start telling you about another broken relationship.

They need to stop drinking ocean water and start drinking living water! Amen?

We seek forgiveness (vv. 19-24):

Look at how she responds to Christ’s confrontation in verses 19-20.

“The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.””

She doesn’t deny anything that Jesus said. She doesn’t dispute anything. She doesn’t even correct him with, “you don’t have all the facts!”

Or perhaps we’d expect her to deny or minimize it. “It wasn’t me!” or “It’s not as bad as you think!” But the Samaritan woman chooses a different tactic.

She acknowledges Jesus’s supernatural knowledge by referring to him as a “prophet.”

Obviously she knows that Jesus is Jewish, but look again at what she says in verse 20.

She says, “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

She highlights the differences between Jewish and Samaritan worship. Remember how I said that the Samaritans had embraced the false worship of King Jeroboam?

Mount Gerizim (the mountain she’s referring to) was established in the northern kingdom as a place of worship to rival the temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Isn’t that an interesting response? How do we understand this shift in the conversation?

If Jesus is a prophet from the Lord then he should be able to help settle a major point of contention between the Jews and Samaritans: where is the true location of worship? Is God to be worshiped in Jerusalem or on Mount Gerizim?

She moves from her particular sin to a much broader theological question.

There is something profound here. Our sins and troubles should drive you to ask broader, existential, and theological questions. Because what you believe in the core of who you are will determine the way you live your life.

In essence she’s asking Jesus, who she perceives to be a prophet, “if my lifestyle is sinful, how can I please God? How do I worship and glorify him?”

Seemingly innocuous theological questions have real world implications. The theological is always practical.

There’s something quite instructive for us here. The sin that Jesus just pointed out to her drove her to ask theological questions.

When things are going poorly, when life is particularly difficult, do you ever search for spiritual answers? Do you ever turn to God’s Word? Do you even lift it up in prayer? Or do you just Google it?

Or do you exclusively seek the counsel of friends?

Look, I’m not saying if you just read your Bible all of your problems will miraculously melt away. Or that there’s no place for a Google search or never receive counsel from friends! Of course not!

Rather, what I am saying is that too often we assume there is nothing spiritual about the ordinary components of our lives.

We seek forgiveness of our sins through means that cannot atone.

What I think we see from our passage is that the Samaritan woman thought that knowing the right location for worship would somehow satisfy God. That he would be pleased with her if she just knew exactly where she needed to go for worship.

But what you and I need isn’t more information. What we need is the grace and mercy of the Lord.

In Christ, we are forgiven (vv. 21-30):

Whenever I’m asked a theological question my natural reaction is to tread lightly. But Jesus takes a very different approach here to the Samaritan woman’s question.

Have you ever heard the somewhat popular illustration about different religions being like blind men feeling an elephant? One blind man is feeling the elephant’s trunk, one is feeling the elephant’s leg, another is feeling the elephant’s tail and so on. And the basic idea is they’re all feeling a different part of the same animal. Obviously, it’s supposed to be analogous for the universal truths of world religions.

But the problem with that analogy is that the narrator, the person sharing the illustration, is the only one that can see. Everyone else is blind except them.

And the underlying assumption is no one’s wrong. But Jesus reminds us that there are right and wrong beliefs. There is good and bad theology.

Jesus responds to her by doing something most of us would be uncomfortable with. He deliberately corrects the Samaritan woman’s theology. He straight up tells her that what she believes is wrong.

Look at verses 21 and 22.

“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.”

Initially, he doesn’t get into the technical differences between Jews and Samaritans. Rather he tells her where one worships will be obsolete. The Lord will be worshiped everywhere. The Lord cannot be contained on one mountain! He’s greater than Mount Gerizim and the temple mount in Jerusalem! In other words, your vision for God is too small!

And then he gets into the technical differences between the Jews and the Samaritans because he says in verse 22, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.”

He literally tells her that she “worships what she does not know” and that “salvation is from the Jews.”

In other words, the Messiah, the Christ, the one to take away the sins of the world will indeed come from the Jewish people.

But he gives her incredible hope. That she can indeed worship the Lord too! Because true worshipers worship the Lord in both spirit and in truth.

Jesus delivers that famous line here in verses 23 and 24. Look at what Jesus tells her:

“But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.””

Through Christ, worship will not be restricted to one particular location, rather, God will be worshiped everywhere. The location of worship is no longer relevant, rather, it’s the manner in which you worship the Lord that matters.

There are two things Jesus says in order for you to be able to worship rightly: first you need to worship in spirit. You need to have love and affection for the Lord.

And at the same time, you need to worship in truth. There is content to Christianity. It isn’t just a vibe or a feeling. There’s substance. Christians should study it, know it, and love it.

Christian worship is both spirit and truth. It’s not one or the other. It’s both and. You cannot worship in the spirit without the truth and you cannot worship in truth without it stirring your spirit.

But this lends itself well to a modern phenomenon.

For some, Christianity is all about generating an emotional experience and we’re sometimes led to believe the bigger the emotional experience the better the worship. But our emotions should not drive our relationship with the Lord.

We arbitrarily experience good and bad moods. Have you ever just woken up on the wrong side of the bed? Our emotions lie to us all the time! We need to be grounded in the truth of God’s Word.

And at the same time, Christianity isn’t merely information to be consumed. Yes there is content and information, but the reality of the gospel should stir you in your soul.

But Jesus doesn’t simply instruct her in appropriate worship. He reveals himself to her.

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.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

Her hope for pleasing the Lord and for forgiveness wasn’t in knowing the correct worship site. It was in knowing Jesus Christ.

In verses 27-30 the whole conversation that Jesus has with the Samaritan woman shocks his disciples for all the reasons we’ve discussed - she’s a Samaritan woman.

But it’s this woman that runs into her town to tell everyone about Jesus Christ. What she needed, she wasn’t even looking for!

Worshiping rightly begins with a knowledge of sin! Because without knowledge or awareness of your sin, you’ll never see your need for a Savior!

This is why Christians confront sin! Not because we want to make anyone feel bad, or to hurt someone’s feelings, or to flex our superiority or any of that!

We talk about sin so that you can see your need for a Savior! Because on a fundamental level without knowledge of sin, and seeing your need for a Savior - you’ll never worship the Lord properly!

Let’s pray together.