`What is Christian Worship?’ Series: What is Christian Worship?
John 4:19-24
Q. What does it mean ‘to worship’ in its broadest sense?
Worship is showing regard with great respect, honour, or devotion. Worth-ship. Worthwhile-ness.
Q. Is it always used in a religious context? What are some examples of the different ways that we use the word or idea of ‘worship’?
I worship the ground he/she walks on; his God is his money; they worshiped the sun and moon; hero worship; an act of worship; his worship the king; New Age worship.
Q. And at No 1 it is . . . what? What do people consider worthy, important, worthwhile, or top priority in their lives?
Family, sport, money, work, a nice house, peace, power, environment, love, country, church, God
Q. In its widest sense, do we all worship something?
‘Whatever you value the most is what you will esteem, elevate, invest in and adore’. Matt 6:21
Reading - John 4: The woman at the well
A conversation that moves from a common request about water – something of worth to them both, on to other things of greater value.
Background: Jesus and his disciples are travelling through Samaria – whose people had a different cultural and religious outlook. Jesus is sitting on his own at Jacob’s well in the middle of the day, when unexpectedly a local lady appears to get water.
Read John 4 v.7-26, 39-42 or use this free paraphrase:
Jesus: Will you give me a drink?
Woman: Who do you think you are, a male Jew asking me, a female Samaritan for a drink?
Jesus: If you really knew who I was and the gift from God that I can give you, you’d be asking me for fresh, running water.
Woman: Well, that’s a joke, how are you going to get this fresh water when you haven’t a bucket! And as for who you are, you’re certainly not on a par with our ancestor Jacob who dug this well.
Jesus: As for water quality – once you’ve tasted this water I can give you, you won’t want or need another drink. In fact, the water I can supply satisfies forever.
Woman: Ok let’s have it! It’s a real pain having to get water every day!
Jesus: Well, first go and get your husband.
Woman: Don’t have one!
Jesus: True, You’re currently on your sixth relationship.
Woman: Wow, you’ve got some insight, are you religious, some sort of prophet? Anyway, we’ve got our own religion, we don’t need to go to Jerusalem like you Jews say.
Jesus: Before long you’ll be able to worship God as your Father without having to trek to a special holy place. The difference between our worship and yours is not devotion but truth - God has and is revealing his rescue plan through the Jews. And actually, it’s already the case that to worship God as Father, is not about places, but a spiritual relationship enabled by the Holy Spirit and anchored in truth and reality.
Woman: Oh, you’re talking about the coming of the Christ, the ultimate prophet, I’m sure when he comes, and we will all understand it better.
Jesus: Actually, I am the Messiah.
Narrator: Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I’ve ever done.’ And because of his words many more became believers. They said to the woman, ‘We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Saviour of the world’.
Q. What’s so special about ‘Christian’ worship?
Q. What new truth does Jesus highlight in v21 about where we worship?
Worship is not primarily about places or religious practices and will no longer be focused on the temple in Jerusalem. (See also Hebrews chapter 8-10. God not only dwelling with his people but God dwelling in his people, with no need for a physical temple.)
V.21,23: A time is coming’, ‘A time is coming and has now come’ (in other versions ‘the hour is coming‘) used elsewhere in John’s gospel, referring to Jesus’ death and resurrection (12:23, 16:4, 16:32, 17:1), the change from the era of the Old Testament to the New Testament.
Q. What physical aspects do we and others outside the church often associate with Christian worship?
e.g., Buildings, people gathering together, singing and music, liturgy, prayers, preaching.
Q. Given these words of Jesus about worship, do we too easily associate worship with something that we only do in church?
Q. What new truth does Jesus highlight in v21 about who we worship?
Worship will be focused on ‘the Father’ – a new and personal relationship with the almighty, holy God. Although the OT speaks much about God’s love, goodness and faithfulness, it is only Jesus who reveals and makes possible this close relationship. (e.g. the Lord’s Prayer, Romans 8:14, 15).
Although there is a sense that everyone is a ‘child of God’ because we are made in God’s image, the Bible reserves that relationship for those for have believed in and committed their lives to Christ (John 1:12, Gal 3:26).
Q. What difference does that make as to how we worship?
Speaks of a God who can be known, of love, engagement, personal relationship as opposed to ritual, achieving acceptance, an impersonal being or force.
Q. How does this compare with worship in the other world religions or philosophies?
None of them view God as a personal father who we can engage with like children.
- In Islam, father is not one of the 99 names of God.
- Worship in Hinduism involves invoking higher forces to integrate the body, the mind, and the spirit in order to help the performer evolve into a higher being.
- Worship in Buddhism includes meditation, mantra recitation, making offerings to images, or gurus; activities all focused on self-awakening, enlightenment and exploration of the mind and spirit.
Q. What alternative views of worship did the woman raise?
v20: Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship’. The background to this is given in 2 Kings 17 27-34. Samaritan religion had become a synthesis of the Jewish and the many pagan practices of surrounding nations and had developed its own identity, focused on worship at Mt Gerizim.
Q. How does Jesus respond?
v22: ‘You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.’
Q. Is that an arrogant claim? Is ‘knowing’ and ‘not knowing’ the difference between ‘God’s revelation’ and ‘man’s own seeking’ after the spiritual?
Is it an indication that the God of the OT had revealed his character and purposes, rather than the mixing together of human ideas, seeking after some form of god or gods?
Across the world there are many different views of God and ways to worship - how do we know the nature of God, to be able to worship him, them, or it?
Q. Are we like one of the seven blind men all feeling a different part of the elephant and each claiming it to be the whole truth? Or is there the possibility of someone who can see describing and revealing the total reality to us?
Q. What does Jesus say is changing in v23?
‘True worshippers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth’
Q. What does it mean to worship the Father ‘in truth’? How do we establish truth?
- Evidence from multiple sources
- Authority and reliability of witnesses
- Consistency of facts
Anyone can say that they have a ‘revelation’ of what God is like - many have!
Q. How do we apply these tests of truth when considering the Christian faith?
Later in the passage, v26, and throughout the gospels (John 14:6, Mark 8:27), Jesus goes onto claim that he is ‘the Messiah’, ‘the way, the truth and the life’ – the ultimate revelation of God to man. As CS Lewis so famously argued Jesus was either liar, lunatic or Lord.
Q. If Jesus’ claims are true, so what? How does that impact our worship?
It stops us inventing (and worshipping) God(s) made in our own image.
Jesus’ words and the Bible as a whole show us the nature of God and what he has done and will do for us.
Q. Is a comprehensive theology and ritual good enough on its own? (See Isaiah 29:13)
Q. What does ‘worship in spirit’ (or ‘in The Spirit’), v24, mean?
Q. How would you define ‘spirit’?
A dimension of our experience that is beyond physical - the mental, moral, and emotional characteristics that make up the core of our identity, the soul.
A personal, ‘heart’ response, Eph 5: 19b,20
‘Worship in the Spirit’, i.e. Holy Spirit, is also a helpful understanding. When Jesus spoke with the Pharisee Nathaniel, who was strong on truth and theology, Jesus said ‘No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit’. Paul also says in 1 Cor 12:3b ‘No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit’.
Q. What might be the opposite of ‘worship in spirit’?
A focus more on an outward orthodoxy, ritual, or behaviour, rather than an inner response to a personal and living God.
Q. What can be the positive and negative expressions of ‘Spirit’ and ‘truth’?
Spirit: Passionate, expressive worship that to others may appear ‘over the top’. Guidance and insight from God that may be out of character with what the Bible says.
Truth: Comprehensive theology and liturgy that to others may appear academic or archaic and, in its expression, seems to lack any sense of God’s reality and presence. Matt 6:5-7
Jesus calls us in our individual and corporate worship to both truth and spirit, not either/or. John 16 13: ‘But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.’
‘All Word and no Spirit, we dry up; all Spirit and no Word, we blow up; both Word and Spirit, we grow up.’ (David Watson).
Q. What do you find helpful in your personal worship? How do they relate to ‘in spirit and in truth’?
Conclusion:
Paul spells out in Romans 1-11 the great truths of God as creator, our need of Jesus as our saviour, and the presence of the Holy Spirit with us. He then goes on to say (ch12:1) ‘therefore, in the light of all this . . . present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.’
This isn’t worship constrained by location, or atmosphere, at its core worship isn’t about liturgy or worship songs. It is a response to the true and living God, and all He has done for us, as a child to a Father and creature to creator. Worship is a response of our whole being - body mind and spirit - in which God meets us and in which we experience the ‘living water’ of His presence and life.
Let’s worship!
Use whatever you feel is appropriate for your group to encourage each one to worship.
You may find one of these songs helpful (YouTube videos, but they really only require audio):
- O Lord my God, https://youtu.be/Cc0QVWzCv9k
- Worthy, O worthy are you Lord, https://youtu.be/yR9lu0Ak_OQ
- I stand in awe of you https://youtu.be/Ejv9L8V9xOE
These notes are not intended as having the “correct answers”. They are given to help facilitate discussion.