Please turn within your Bibles to John 4, beginning at verse 19. John writes, “The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped 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. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in 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.’ This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you that you invite us to come to you, to enter into your presence, to worship you and glorify you. Help us to be faithful and incline our hearts and our minds and our strength so that we might always worship you truly in spirit and in truth. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Humanity was made to worship God. Worshiping him is our primary purpose, and everything we do is meant to be worshipful acts to the Lord’s glory. The human motivation to worship something is clearly observable as a universal fact of human nature because every culture and every people group in human history have engaged in some form of worship. Corporate worship has always functioned as a principal factor to unite any given community. Beyond any achieved divine appeasement or favor, the civic benefits of worship were considered a social good. Unity in religious worship promoted civic unity and created a civic identity.
Looking at the past, it should be no wonder that we see the character of our political system taking on so many overt religious overtones. Although few cultures ever became true theocracies being ruled by or in the name of some deity, many ancient monarchs were either considered to be divine, descended from the divine, or preparing to ascend into divinity. This later transformed into the European ethos of the divine right of kings, as they were considered to be ordained, established, and preserved in their position by the will of God.
So, it is universally accepted that humanity has a need to worship, but it is not universally accepted as regards to who or what is to be worshiped, much less how they are to be rightly worshiped. Even people who deny the very existence of divinity, those who claim to be atheists, end up worshiping humanity or intelligence or even themselves, for me, without that having been their original intention. Therefore, we truly are without excuse when the evidence for the one true God is so plainly and readily available to us.
However, the problem is that without some kind of special revelation from the divine, from the gods we purport to worship, we cannot know how we’re supposed to worship them, nor can we really know who it is we worship unless we are commanded and instructed in proper worship. Anything we might choose to offer would only be our own devises and the product of our own desire and imagination.
See, an act of worship is not worship merely because we intended to be worshiped, or merely because we have a worshipful spirit. Since no truly divine person is going to accept worship that is contrary to their desires and preferences, if a god is God and if they want humanity to worship them, then they must instruct humanity how they want to be worshiped because that is all that they will rightly accept.
No true God would accept generic worship. If they’re a true God, then they will want what they want and will not accept anything else or less, nor will they accept proper worship that’s directed elsewhere, accepting worship offered in the name of or to someone or something else. And no matter, for instance, what our pluralistic culture wants us to believe, a Christian cannot affirm that Jews, Christians, and Muslims each worship the same God.
I mean, Christians do surely worship the same God, Yahweh, as the Jews because they were entrusted with the oracles of God, which, along with the teachings of the apostles, are the foundation of our faith. But the Jews, through their continued rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, remain apart from the revealed fullness of God; they are incomplete. But if we are correct in our belief that Jesus Christ is the last fullest revelation of God as his son, then we cannot also affirm the validity of the Islamic religion because of their innovative claims about and denials of the deity of Christ, nor for their perversion of Moses’s words.
Based on the descriptions in the Bible and the Quran, Yahweh and Allah cannot be the same God. The character of Allah as expressed in the Quran does not reflect or display the same character as our God. The questions about what constitutes right worship are as old as people. Scripture goes back to the difference between the worship of Cain and Abel, where Abel’s worship was received and approved, but Cain’s worship was not. The difference between them was their heart and attitude in worship.
All of this teaches us two very simple facts: God made humanity for the purpose of worshiping through our activity, and clearly there are right, proper, and correct ways to worship the Lord. Just as clearly, there are wrong ways to worship. So, bearing that in mind, we return to Jesus’s conversation with the Samaritan woman.
The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.” Now, her confession here carries a greater and a different kind of weight than if she were a Jewish woman saying the same thing because Samaritans only accepted the Torah, the five books of Moses, as scripture. They did not know the Jewish prophets like Isaiah or Jeremiah, nor Elijah, Elisha, or even John the Baptist. Yet, while they held firmly to the testimony of Deuteronomy 34 that there has not arisen a prophet since in Israel like Moses whom the Lord knew face to face, they still were holding out hope in faith for the prophet that God would raise up like a second Moses.
Deuteronomy 18 says, “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.” Their expected Messiah, as mentioned at the end of their conversation, would be this Prophet.
See, the Samaritans expected their Messiah to be a prophet and priest like Moses, a mediator between God and men, a new lawgiver, instead of being a political hero, a godly warrior king who would deliver the people from external rule and religious oppression, as the Jews would. So, you see, the Samaritans might have actually had a more correct expectation.
Then she brings up a point of doctrinal division between the Jews and the Samaritans: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” She asked Jesus the fundamental question of where is the right place for us to worship God. This question stems from their shared understanding that they should worship in every place where Yahweh causes his name to be remembered because God promised them that he would come and meet them there, saying, “I will come to you and bless you.”
The Jews believe that the only proper place for worship was at the temple in Jerusalem, at the location designated by King David, while the Samaritans appealed to their version of the Torah, which actually has additional verses there in Exodus 20 that specifically declare Mount Gerizim as the prescribed site for worship.
So, you see, although both sides appeal to a form of sola scriptura (scripture alone), both also accuse the other of having a corrupted, erroneous text. Jesus answers her and solves the dilemma without affirming the interpretation of either one or the other. Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father.” The hour is coming and is now here. Instead of saying that one side was right and the other was wrong, he said that having one specific location doesn’t matter anymore if it ever really did.
When you consider and we read the stories about the patriarchs throughout Genesis, they built altars to the Lord all over the land of Canaan. Everywhere they went and everywhere they stopped, the first thing they did was build an altar because their desire to worship the Lord was so great. When God’s people were mobile, they worshiped God on the go first, as the patriarchs did, and then at the portable tabernacle. It was only after that they became settled in Israel that worship space became fixed.
Now that membership in God’s covenant people is open to all peoples in all places, our available space to worship has expanded. So really, the specific where of our worship does not matter because there is nowhere that the Lord is not. He is omnipresent. He has never been, nor can he be confined to one place. But what is more important is that we worship the Lord out of earnest love and desire.
So Jesus next explains what he considers the more significant difference between the Samaritans and Jews, saying, “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.” The first thing to notice here is that Jesus makes a firm claim to exclusivity: for salvation is from the Jews, expressly meaning that the knowledge of salvation comes from Jews, but also implying that Jesus himself, a Jew, will affect our salvation.
See, he declares that there is only one way to be saved, just like he will state later more clearly in John’s gospel that there’s only one way of salvation possible—that’s through the Lord, the God of Israel, through himself. The second thing to note is that Jesus divides their two peoples based on their understanding: “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know.”
Although he specifically applies this distinction to the Samaritans, it also applies to the rest of us, the rest of Gentile humanity. Because while in those days they did not get who the God of Israel was, they did not know or understand him; they were trying to worship the divine right. But the ancient Gentile pagans worshiped God wrongly because their worship was wrongly directed to idols and to demons. They tried to worship what they did not know, and they failed.
It’s not entirely their fault because they did not yet know who the Lord is, but they remain without excuse because they knew that the Lord is. Paul pointed out the same fact to the philosophers and the priests in Athens, saying, “For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: To the unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”
He tells them to worship what he knows. What did Jesus really mean by saying that the Samaritans worship what they do not know while the Jews worship what they do? When they share this common and most identical scripture text, again, the question is about their understanding of who God is and how he wants to be worshiped. The Torah reveals who the Lord is; it reveals his character and his quality to humanity.
It reveals him as the sovereign Creator Lord, as the good provider for his chosen people. The Torah also reveals God’s will for humanity—all of his divine precepts and commandments, including the regulations which explain how he wants to be worshiped. These revelations were shared by both faiths, but what the Samaritans lacked were the later progressively expanding revelations about God that are recorded in the historical books and by the prophets.
The histories reveal the Lord also as the Redeemer and defender of his chosen people. They reveal the Lord’s faithfulness to his covenant even when his people repeatedly break it. Both the histories and prophets reveal the depth of humanity’s sinfulness, our need for divine rescue, and the prophets reveal the Lord’s judgment and discipline against those who break his covenant, as well as merciful promises of restoration, preservation of a righteous branch, and a faithful remnant. They reveal the Lord’s agent of salvation, the servant of the Lord, the suffering servant, the true ultimate Christ.
See, the Jews knew more about God than the Samaritans; it’s a reason they should have understood him better. The Jews had everything necessary to know and recognize the Christ when he appeared, but they did not. Yet this Samaritan woman was beginning to.
Please notice that Jesus did not condemn her or the Samaritans for their lack of understanding without also pointing out the Jews’ deficiency. Jesus continued, “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.” Effectively saying that although the Jews knew the way of salvation through faith in the only God who saves, too many prefer to lean upon their own understanding rather than trusting the Lord with their whole heart, mind, and strength.
They relied upon their works of religion instead, their acts of worship and devotion as the source of their hope or salvation and eternal security, instead of resting on God’s faithfulness to his gracious promises. So you see, Jesus compares and describes them both by this binary of spirit and truth, as if the Samaritans were worshiping the Lord in spirit but not the other, and as if the Jews were worshiping the Lord in truth but not the spirit.
Jesus implied that they were both part right and part wrong; that both of their worship practices were incomplete and so not rightly acceptable. Here and throughout his ministry, Jesus condemns the religiosity of the Jews in their temple cult, their man-made traditions of the elders, and their rote adherence to the forms of worship without having a right, contrite heart for worship. They followed the letter of the law and ignored the spirit of it.
But here it also seems that Jesus may have been affirming the heart of the Samaritans’ worship while critiquing their failure to practice both. They both were close, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Jesus is not a piecemeal religion, but He is the complete revelation of the Lord to mankind. Period! As the evangelist wrote, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
Jesus makes God known. Jesus, God the Son, came to reveal God the Father to us so that we would truly understand who we worship and how he wants to be worshiped. Jesus, like Moses before him, came to reveal our heavenly Father in truth and to teach us how to rightly relate to him in a relationship framed by certain forms and by an appropriate attitude of heart—things which are contrary to the natural inclination of sinful human hearts.
The Father sent the Son because the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit. The only way he finds such people is by transforming our hearts and minds into living hearts and minds of flesh that prefer to love and obey him, by the work of the Holy Spirit through our being born again.
So now, in the church age, as modern followers of Jesus Christ, we need to understand that everything about our worship matters. It is because we love the Lord and we want to please and honor our heavenly Father that the ways, whys, and hows of our worship matter.
This forces us to make an important choice. Do we choose to worship God in the way he commands, by worshiping in the way he says he wants to be worshiped and by following the examples of acceptable worship in scripture? Or do we choose to worship God according to how we want to worship him, assuming that because something might not be expressly prohibited by scripture, it is a valid, right, or an acceptable option for worship?
Considering who we know God is and who we are, does one of those options sound presumptuous and selfish? Which of those options seems more certain to be God-honoring and acceptable, and which one risks provoking his displeasure and anger?
These two choices reflect the two different attitudes that Christians have held at various times in church history, known as the regulative principle and the normative principles of worship. Both are based on how we assume scripture works—whether we think that it is prescriptive or merely descriptive; whether it commands what we must and must not do, or if it merely gives a short list of do-nots along with a few examples, where anything else not specifically listed is fair game.
So, because we want to obey God rightly, to love him and to worship him with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, we try to follow the regulative principles in our worship. Because we want to do what God says he wants, and not what we think he ought to want, that’s the reason why we worship the way we do.
That’s why our worship service is structured the way it is and contains each of the elements that it does. Everything in our worship service is either commanded or exemplified by sacred scripture. We want to worship God in the right ways. The Lord’s word helps guide our hearts into the right attitude for worship.
We worship this way because we want to worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, as Jesus commands. So by following God’s word and practice, we worship him in truth. We pray and sing psalms, hymns, and other spiritual songs, and we use stringed instruments as accompaniment.
Our music is God-centered, focused on and directed towards him, instead of being man-centered and emotivist, instead of being about us, or trying to fabricate a felt spiritual experience. We engage with the ordinary means of grace of prayer, the word, and the sacraments because we believe that through them, the Holy Spirit works in our lives, communicating the benefits of our redemption in Christ.
We offer prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication to train our hearts to preserve a right attitude towards God and guide our intentions in worship. Because of our remaining sin nature, which inclines each of us to neglect one or more of these forms of prayer, while it might be easier to ask God for things, we might then forget to thank and acknowledge him for his providence afterward.
Or we might find it easy to shout and sing God’s praise and glorify him, but it’s harder to confess our sins before one another, finding it challenging to acknowledge our own faults and repent of our wrongdoings.
We hear God’s word read and expounded for our instruction, edification, and for the conviction of our sin, and for our encouragement, so that we may become complete and be equipped for every good work. We celebrate the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper because they feed us and strengthen us in our union with Christ.
We hear assurances of God’s promise to forgive us for Christ’s sake because we often need to be reassured of his great love for us by his pardon and his cleansing us with the blood of Jesus. We publicly reaffirm together what we believe, confessing our shared faith in Jesus Christ, supporting one another and encouraging each other to remain steadfast in our confidence in him.
But not only do we follow these forms in our Sunday worship to train our spirits to be in close communion with Christ, our attitudes and our outward expressions of faith are also part of how we worship him in spirit. Our acolytes light our candles to symbolize the light of God’s presence entering the sanctuary and as a reminder that he comes to meet with us, just as he promised.
Then, for many churches that also use acolytes at the close of worship, they carry the light back out as a reminder that when we leave worship, we also carry the light of Christ with us everywhere we go. The coming of Christ, the priests wore special and particular vestments as a sign of being set apart for the Lord’s service.
But now, although I am not a priest, I wear this robe and stole as a symbol of our ministerial office—a sign of my being set apart for God’s purpose during this time of worship. Not only is the robe a reminder that I have a certain authority and responsibility to speak and preach God’s word faithfully and truly, it’s also a reminder for me that I serve under Christ’s authority and therefore I am being held accountable to him.
All of these different elements, aspects, and attitudes in our worship are sourced in scripture, which gives us confidence that our worship is acceptable to Christ. We are confident because they are all ways that God has commanded us to worship. But while we cannot say with absolute certainty that the worship of those who follow the normative principles will not be accepted by God, the testimony of scripture offers no confidence that it should be.
Remember Nadab and Abihu when they offered their unauthorized fire before the Lord that he did not command? We hope and pray that God will accept their worship.
Finally, after Jesus explained to her that proper, God-honoring worship is the combination of our activity and the attitude of our heart, thereby worshiping the Lord in spirit and truth, the Samaritan woman’s conversation concludes with Jesus’s self-identification. The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming, the one who is called Christ, and when he comes, he will tell us all things.”
Again, this woman shows us that her expectation and the expectation of her people of the Christ is that he will be a great prophet like Moses. He would tell them all things, explaining everything that they need to know and understand about God and their relationship with him. So when Jesus told her, “I who speak to you am he,” he was admitting to or claiming his office and role as a prophet, just like he does elsewhere in the gospels—an anointed office and one that is rightly afforded the title of Christ.
Jesus affirms to her that he is the expected prophet, the Christ, and unlike in Judea, here in Samaria, Jesus is able to accept that title without being concerned with them misunderstanding or twisting it into something other than what he intends.
So to conclude, we have been created to worship, and as Christians, we are responsible to worship our Father in heaven in spirit and truth. Our worship is not tied to any one single location, but we’re free to worship everywhere, provided that we worship.
However, worship is not about the things we do, at least not just about them. Worship is not religiosity, but it’s more important about our heart. Our heart should both be leading us to want to worship and to worship God right—to worship the Lord the way he wants, as exemplified by scripture. Lastly, Jesus has the authority to command us and to expect our worship to follow this form because he is the prophet greater than Moses.
So, because we earnestly desire to love him and thus desire to worship him in spirit and truth, we gather together every Lord’s Day to worship him. Since we believe that scripture is the best and only guide and rule for our earthly lives, we also know that it is the best and only guiding rule for our heavenly lives and our worship.