September 16, 2002
LifeWay Explore the Bible Series for Sept. 29
An encounter with God is starting point of worship
___John 4
___By Robert Creech
___University Baptist Church-Clearlake, Houston
___The contrast between Jesus' conversation partners in John 3 and 4 could hardly be greater. Nicodemus, a man, was a respected Jewish leader. She, an unnamed woman, was an outcast Samaritan peasant. Her morality was questionable; his was irreproachable. He was a teacher of Israel; she held a head full of theological questions. Despite their differences, however, both desperately needed the life God was offering through Jesus Christ.
___As Jesus made his way from Jerusalem to Galilee, he "had to" pass through Samaria (4:4). In the original language, the word is "dei," and often refers to a moral necessity. Jesus used the same word in 3:7 when he told Nicodemus, "You must (dei) be born again." Despite the hostility between Jews and Samaritans (4:9), salvation was not for Jews alone (4:42). Jesus' passing through Samaria was a moral necessity, not a geographical one.
___Other routes between Judea and Galilee were available. Jesus' journey was not simply between Judea and Galilee, however. He journeyed between human need and divine compassion, a road that passed even through Samaria.
___Near Sychar, around noon, Jesus sat down beside Jacob's well to rest from the morning's travel (4:5-6). His traveling companions left to find food in the nearby city. Shortly, a Samaritan woman approached the same well.
___What follows is the most extensive dialogue recorded in the Gospel. Jesus and this woman discuss water and wells, racial and gender relations, eternal life, moral failure, the nature of God, the experience of genuine worship and the identity of the Messiah. She is intelligent, but cynical. Yet her very real thirsts are evident.
___Being thirsty is no sin. God created our physical thirst so we would quench it, providing our bodies with the much-needed water that sustains our physical life. In the same way, we experience a kind of "soul thirst," intended to send us to him. We long for love, acceptance and security. In our brokenness, however, we attempt to quench that soul thirst in illegitimate ways, apart from God.
___Through Jeremiah, the Lord charged the people of Israel with this same behavior: "My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water" (Jeremiah 2:13).
___As Jesus spoke to this woman about his own physical thirst, he led her to reveal her soul's thirst. In her quest for love, acceptance and security, she had turned to relationships. She had sustained five marriages and was now with a man that was not her husband (4:16-18). She longed for the water that quenches the deepest thirsts of her life. Jesus offered that water to her, the water of eternal life, God's kind of life (4:13-14; see 17:3).
___The conversation turned to the issue of the worship of God (4:19-20). Jews and Samaritans differed over the proper location for true worship. The Jews were confident they were to worship God in Jerusalem. Samaritans, on the other hand, were certain the place for true worship was Mount Gerizim (4:20; Deutero-nomy 11:29; 27:12).
___Jesus took the discussion to another level. "God is Spirit," he told the woman. "So the worship of God is not about a place. It is about a relationship." Jesus taught her about worship in spirit and truth (4:24).
___Worship in spirit cuts across the grain of all our worship wars, whether those between Jews and Samaritans in the first century or between the advocates of "contemporary" or "traditional" worship styles in the 21st century. Worship of God transcends place, style, ritual and format. People can genuinely worship God in a variety of forms, just as we can blaspheme him with empty worship by those same forms (Isaiah 1:10-18). Worship in spirit involves an encounter between God and his people. It is not a matter of correct form or proper place.
___Worship in truth calls us to know the God we encounter. The Samaritans, Jesus said, were limited in their understanding of the God they worshipped (4:22). The Scriptures recorded God's self-revelation, but the Samaritans accepted only the Law of Moses. They had not met the God of the prophets and the Psalms.
___However, God also was revealing himself in his Son (1:18). Jesus spoke to the woman about God as "Father" (4:21-22). Worship in truth involves encountering God with a growing awareness of who he truly is. The Father, Jesus told her, is seeking people who will come to him in worship in spirit and truth (4:23).
___The conversation wound down about the time Jesus' disciples arrived with food (4:27). The woman returned to the city to tell everyone about this man. Ironically, she left her water jar behind (4:28). She had found in Jesus something that quenched her soul thirst. She had found eternal life.
___Because of this woman's testimony, many people in the city experienced this same soul-quenching water (4:39-42). The opportunity for ministry there was so great that Jesus stayed on in Samaria for two more days, pouring out the water of eternal life for the thirsty souls of Sychar.
___Questions for discussion
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