The Priority of True Worship (John 4:23-24)
Jesus’ words about worship to
this unnamed Samaritan woman occur in the context of His witness to bring this
woman to saving faith. We might not think that witnessing is the right context
to talk about the priority of worship. But Jesus takes her implicit question
(4:20) about whether Samaritan worship or Jewish worship is correct and uses it
to zero in on the aim of the gospel: to turn sinners into true worshipers of
God. We learn:
Since God is seeking true
worshipers who worship Him in spirit and truth, we should make it our priority
to become such worshipers.
Jesus tells this woman that a
significant transition is about to take place (4:23), “But an hour is coming,
and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and
truth.” Jesus’ presence began this change from the old covenant to the new.
Under the old way of worship, place was significant: all Jewish males had to
appear before God in Jerusalem for the three annual feasts (Deut. 16:16). But
in the new way which Jesus inaugurated, He is the new temple (John 2:19-21).
Believers are being built into a holy temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:21; 1 Pet.
2:5). Thus where we gather to worship is secondary. How and whom we worship is
primary.
Unbelievers, such as the
Samaritan woman at this point, often mistakenly think that if they go through
the proper externals of “worship,” then things are okay between them and God.
As long as they go to a church building and go through the weekly rituals, they
figure that everything is fine. But they haven’t dealt with God on the heart
level. They haven’t repented of their sins of thought, word, and deed. So Jesus
tells her that it’s not the externals that matter as much as the internal. We
must make it our priority to become true worshipers of God in spirit and truth.
Note three truths from these important verses:
God is seeking true
worshipers.
As Jonathan Edwards argued,
God created the world for His own glory (see John Piper, God’s Passion for His
Glory [Crossway Books]). Everything, including the salvation of His elect and
even the damnation of the wicked, will result in glory to God. So God now is
seeking worshipers who will bring Him glory, not just for an hour on Sunday,
but every day through all their activities. We can’t properly worship God on
Sundays if we’re not worshiping Him throughout the week. You begin that process
by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord.
You grow in that process as you bring every thought, word, and deed under His
lordship. Note two things:
A. The fact that God seeks
true worshipers implies that there are false worshipers.
False worshipers either
worship something other than God or they may attempt to worship the true God,
but do it in ways that actually dishonor Him. But either way, sincerity is not
the only criterion for measuring true worship. All true worshipers are sincere,
but all sincere worshipers are not true. For example, there are devout, sincere
worshipers of Allah or Krishna or Buddha or the Mormon god or the Jehovah’s
Witness god. But they are sincerely wrong, because they are not worshiping the
only living and true God, who has revealed Himself in the Bible.
There are also Christians who
are sincere, but their worship is man-centered. Sometimes it’s patterned more
after the entertainment world than after the Bible. It draws attention to the
performers, but not to the Lord. Or, on the other end of the Christian
spectrum, some go through ancient liturgies week after week, but their hearts
are not in submission to God. They mistakenly think that because they went
through the rituals, they’re good for another week. They’re like the Jewish
leaders of whom Jesus said (Matt. 15:8, citing Isaiah 29:13), “This people
honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.” So we need to
be careful not to fall into the category of false worshipers.
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