I think, wow. I look back over
my life, and I see a sinner that God's been merciful to. I just
can't imagine the fullness of the grace and mercy that he showed
me. And I'm unworthy of it. I look back, and oh, my. Lord,
how good thou art. How great thou art. I want you
to turn with me this morning to the book of John, chapter
four. John, chapter four. You know, sometimes I think it takes old age to see some of
these things as you get weaker in life. You see the mercy of
God. I'm gonna look at one verse in
John chapter four, but in order for us to understand this verse,
I think we need to read a few verses to put the message in
context, because I think it's very important that any verse,
you have to understand the context behind what's written. So I'm
gonna be reading in John chapter four, I'm gonna be reading Starting
at verse three. And the scripture says, excuse
me. He left Judea and departed again
unto Galilee, and he must needs go through Samaria. Then cometh
he to a city of Samaria, which is called Sychar, near to the
parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's
well was there. Jesus, therefore, being wearied
with his journey, set thus on the wall. And it was about the
sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria
to draw water. And Jesus saith unto her, give
me to drink. For his disciples were going
away into the city to buy meat. Then saith the woman of Samaria
unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of
me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto
her, if thou knowest the gift of God, and who it is that saith
to thee, give me to drink, then thou wouldst have asked of him,
and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith
unto him, sir, Thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is
deep. From whence then hast thou that
living water? Art thou greater than our father
Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and
his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto
her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. and
he began to witness to the Gospels to her here. But whosoever drinketh
of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing
up into everlasting life. The woman saith unto him, Sir,
give me this water that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw,
Jesus saith unto her, go, call thy husband, and come hither. And the woman answered and said,
I have no husband. And Jesus said unto her, thou
hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had five husbands,
and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband, in that thou
saidst thou truly. The woman saith unto him, sir,
I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this
mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where
men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman,
believe me, the hour cometh when thou shalt neither in this mountain
nor yet at Jerusalem worship the Father. Ye worship ye know
not what. We know what we worship, for
salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship him. And this is my text in verse
24, God is a spirit and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and truth. Verse 24 begins with God is a
spirit And I'm not taking this scripture out of context if I
say, what does it mean when it says God is? Now I know italics,
the is is in italics, it was added. But God is, what does
that mean? Is it something that I'm just
picking up and just, it says God is a spirit, but it says
God is. Well listen to Hebrews 11, six.
but without faith it is impossible to please him, speaking of God,
for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that
he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So what
does it mean when it says God is? Well, it means that God is
who he says he is in his word. This book is the only way we
have of knowing God. We read of him there. We know
he's holy, we know he's true, he's just, he's righteous, and
most of all, he's sovereign. We know he's sovereign. This
who God is. And I equate this, and the reason
I'm bringing this up that God is, and I'm not taking it out
of context, but you remember when the Lord met Moses on the
back of the desert when Moses was still in Egypt, in the burning
bush, and he told, you go tell Pharaoh to let my people go. And Moses asked the question,
he said, if they ask me who's your name, what am I to tell
them? And he says, you tell them that I am that I am. And I see this, God is, that
he is, he is what he says he is. Now this does not mean a
mere belief in God, the world believes in God, everybody believes
in God, and I'm gonna read about that here in a minute. If you
ask anybody, religion is worldwide. Listen to what Romans says, 1
9, because that which may be known of God is manifest in them,
he's talking about the world, for God has showed it unto them,
God showed every man in this world that he exists. We have
a conscience, we know right from wrong. For the invisible things
of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power
and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Every man knows
there's a God. Look at all the religions in
the world. Even those that claim to be atheist. I'm telling you
right now, there's no such thing as an atheist that truly believes
that there is no God, for if he believed there was no God,
there would be no reason for atheism. I was thinking about
that, how silly that is. It would be like saying, well,
Superman doesn't exist, so let's start a group against it, you
see what I'm saying? God has to exist for an atheist
for this organization, it's worldwide. People profess to say, and the
scripture says in Psalms that the fool will send his heart,
there is no God. He's a fool because he knows
there is a God, that's what he's saying. Now, God is, the scripture
says, our text says, is a spirit. In other words, spirit And here's
where I'm getting it over my head. I'll be frank to admit
that to you. The word spirit means a breath
or breeze. Breath or breeze. Remember when
the Lord formed Adam, he made the body out of the dust, and
then he says he breathed into him the breath of life, and man
became a living soul. But I can't explain the spirit. Every one of you sitting here,
myself, we all have a spirit. This body lives because God has
fused the body with the spirit. And when we die, the body goes
into the grave, there's nothing there, but God says the spirit
returns to the Lord. So I can't even explain the spirit
in my own body. How that works, I don't know.
And how can I explain the spirit of God? But we know it's the
spirit. So let me read you, I looked this up in a commentary, and
let me read you what the commentary said. It said, God is a spirit,
for he is an infinite and eternal mind, an intelligent being, incorporeal,
which means no physical matter, immaterial, invisible, and incorruptible,
it is easier to say what God is not than what he is. A spirit has not flesh and bones,
but who knows the way of a spirit? If God were not a spirit, he
could not be perfect, nor infinite, nor eternal, nor independent,
nor the father of spirits. and we live and move because
of his spirit. We know that, the scripture in
Acts tells us that. The spirituality of the divine
nature is a very good reason for the spirituality of divine
worship, and that's what we're gonna talk about today. If we
do not worship God, who is a spirit, in our spirit, we neither give
him the glory due to his name, and so do not perform the act
true worship. Then our text says, they that
worship him. This tells us that there are
some that are going to worship the true God and in the right
way. Look at verse 23 again. I think that's the right verse.
Let me look here a minute. But the hour cometh, and now
is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. For the Father, listen to this,
the Father seeketh such to worship Him. That seeking is a deliberate
act. Remember the parable of the 99
sheep that the shepherd left to go out to find that 100 sheep,
one of them was lost. It was a deliberate act of the
Lord going out and finding his sheep like this shepherd did.
He's looking for that one sheep and he's gonna bring him back.
And we have this example here with this Samaritan woman. That's
why the scripture says he must need to go through Samaria because
he was about to find that sheep that was lost. Now the world teaches, and this
is sad, all religion apart from apart from the true grace of
God is printed in his book, believes that God is up there in heaven
wringing his hands, hoping somebody will believe in him. He's seeking,
but he's waiting for somebody to accept him. Well, that's a
lie. That's a big lie. That's the
biggest lie that's ever been told. God seeks his sheep that
he's everlasting loved. He loved them before the world
ever was, and he's gonna bring them to himself in time. And
we thank God for that. Like I said a little bit ago,
I look back at my life, and I see nothing but sin, disobedience. And even right now, I'm inconsistent.
I'm very inconsistent. I'm weak. I have no ability. And that's the main thing that
needs to be taught today in religion. The man has no ability, we have
no ability within ourselves to whip it up. How do I know that?
Experience, I've tried that and I'm sure you have too. You try
to do this or try to do that and without God's help, that's
an impossibility. Now continuing in verse 24, it
says, must worship him in spirit. Now this Samaritan woman, Let
me give you a little bit of history here, because I think this is
important. This woman was an Israelite.
She was a Samaritan. Let me go back a little bit.
When Solomon, in his old age, started building temples for
his heathen wives, God was displeased with him. and he was gonna punish
him, he was gonna do something. And what he did, not during Solomon's
time, but when Solomon's son took the throne, God split up
Israel into Judah and 10 other tribes, two separate groups.
Well, you say, Neil, that's only 11. Well, Benjamin, the tribe
of Benjamin, as you read through the text a little earlier, Benjamin
was destroyed because of sin, destroyed by their, the other
tribes actually destroyed. And over time, the tribe of Benjamin
was generally assimilated into the tribe of Judah. So what's
known now is if you read through the book of Kings and the book
of Chronicles, there were two dealings God had with people.
He had Judah and the other 10 tribes, which he called Israel.
And if you read through those two books, Kings and Chronicles,
you'll see that God gives a lineage, the king lineage for Judah and
also for Israel. And so over time, the 10 tribes
being north of Jerusalem and Judah became part of the norm,
what was called the Northern Kingdom. they were over time
mixed with the Gentiles. So the Samaritans, the Samaritans
was basically a mixture of Jews and Gentiles with a capital at
Samaria. But this woman was an Israelite
because we can read that in verse, let me see, verse 20, look at
verse 20. She says, our fathers worshiped
in this mountain. She's talking about Jacob and
his descendants. That's who she's talking about, our fathers. And you say that in Jerusalem
is the place where men ought to worship. What they did was,
when they split the kingdom there during Solomon's son, they actually,
in Israel, that northern 10 tribes, they set up a temple themselves
in place of the one in Jerusalem. So they had two temples, and
they pretended that they were worshiping God there, The Lord
says, you don't know what you're worshiping. He told this woman
here later on that we read, you don't know what you're worshiping.
Your temple's not true. And then so in verse 21, the Lord tells this woman, she
says, our father's, back in verse 20, she says, our father's worshiped
in his mountain. Jacob worshiped in his mountain.
And she's saying, well, this is where we worship. And you
see that in Jerusalem is a place where men ought to worship. You
Jews say it's in Jerusalem. Our fathers worshiped in this
mountain. And the Lord says this in verse 21. Woman, believe me. The hour cometh when ye shall
neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the
Father. Now this worshiping, I'm gonna
get back here to the worship in the spirit. I'm getting a
little bit ahead of myself. What is it to worship in the
spirit? That's what the text is about.
We're to worship in the spirit. It's not about a location. It's
not confined to a location. We thank the Lord that we've
got this place to meet. But if we think that somehow
we become more spiritual by coming here, that's just not right. We ought to be spiritual before
we come here. We ought to be spiritual throughout
the day. And I'm going to get into that here in just a minute. But this woman, she was placing
her own worship in this mountain. And the Lord said, time's coming. He said, it's not going to be
here on this mountain. It's not going to be in Jerusalem. Philippians 3.3 says, for we
are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit. and rejoice
in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. But what is it
to worship in the spirit? It is the response of the new
heart given by God, whereby we know that he has eternally loved
us who are unworthy to be loved. That's what the response of the
heart is. It's a daily thing. It's an hourly thing. And I'm
gonna talk about that here in just a minute as we go through
this verse. In Acts 17 it says it's for us to fully realize
that in him we live and move and have our being. Now let that
sink in. I'm standing here breathing and
I'm moving because God is personally doing that to me and he's doing
it to you. Seven, I think they said it's
almost eight billion people now in this world. And the Lord is keeping every
one of us alive. We move, we go through our lives
daily because he's there, he's the one that's doing it. In Proverbs
3, 6 it says, and this is very important, I think about this
verse every day. In all thy ways acknowledge him
and he shall direct thy paths. All, it says all thy ways. Now you think about that. all
day long as we're going about our lives. And especially as you get older. I've seen over the last few years
myself getting weak. And you often wonder just how
long you can continue to do it. I go out to mow the grass and
it'll take me an hour and a half, two hours to mow my grass. And I get tired, not like I used
to. But, you know, strong back when I come in, I sit down, I
rest a little bit, and it comes to my mind, the Lord's allowed
you to do that, Neil. Acknowledge it. He's allowed
you to do that. Not only that, but just get up
in the morning. We're here this morning because
he's allowed us to do that. And that's very important. The
older I get, the more I see that in all my ways, I need to acknowledge
him. Not to do so is, that's the world's
way. The world, as far as they're
concerned, for the most part, people get religious on Sunday,
get religious on Wednesday night, maybe go to church two or three
times a week and that's fine. Never think about God the rest
of the week. But we ought to be thinking about him every day,
every minute of the day. Lord, you've allowed me to do
this. Thank you for that. Drive to town and back. Thank
you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you. You see how big of
a sinner we are. See how bad this world is. See
how bad this nature is, this old nature is, this old man,
how forgetful we are. And Marvin points this out a
lot, and I agree with him. If he left me alone, I'd just
go do my own thing. That's the way it is. We don't
see, and this is the truth, we don't see the depth of sin, this
thing called sin is. It lies so close to us and it
lies so close to me, I just don't see the depth of it. Sometimes
I get to thinking about him. And you just say, Lord, what
grace you've shown me to such a sinner. Isaiah 107.22 says this, and
let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his
works with rejoicing. The Old Testament required sacrifices. Not anymore. Thanksgiving, that's
the sacrifice. ever thankful, acknowledge him
being thankful, be thankful all day long, every minute of the
day. So the true worship of God is
the constant offering up of thanksgiving throughout our day, every day,
realizing that it is his mercy and grace that sustains us every
moment. I just took a breath, he gave
it to me. Continuing on in our text, scripture
says, worship him in truth. Here we come to the heart of
it. There's a lot of people this morning worshiping what they
think is God. They think they're worshiping
God. They're worshiping to their own dregs, their own works. But what is truth? Somebody ask
you, what's truth? Could you define it? Well, I
looked it up. I'm not smart enough. I have
to look something up. Truth is the property of being
in accord with fact or reality. That's a good definition. We've
got this book here. It's fact. It's fact. It's reality. You know, this
world, This world we're living in isn't
reality. It's temporary. It's not reality. It's a facade. It's vanity. It's
what the scripture says. It's all vanity. Truth is found here. It is to worship God in the way
he declares in his word. Well, what way is that? Well,
it's found in John 14, six. Here it is. Here's the bottom
line. Take it to the bank, write it on your heart. Jesus saith
unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. Thus there is only one way to
salvation. Hebrews 9.22 says this. And almost all things are by
the law purged with blood. And without shedding of blood
is no remission. You think about all the religions
of the world, past and present, how many of them, how many of
them use the shedding of blood, killing of animals? Used to,
they sacrificed their children. So there's something inherent
in this belief in God that it's gonna take blood to put away
sin. I looked it up. I got to think
about it, I thought, I wonder how many, how many religions
are there in the world? Would you have a guess? 100,
200, 300? Oh, here it is. There are 4,200. 4,200 recognized
religions in the world. And out of that 4,200, there is but one
truth. There can only be one truth. There's not 100 truths,
there's not 4,200 truths. There can only be one truth. Everybody can't be right. That's
a fact. People don't believe that. This
is sad, but this pope who recently died, who pretends to be the
representative of Christ himself. I was watching TV one day and
he was at a meeting of world leaders of religion, all these
religions. And he got up when it came time
for him to speak. In order to make himself look
good, he said, well, every one of us have our own way to get
to God. Now, this is a pope who said
he represents Christ, and in saying that, he denied Christ.
He was saying all these false religions You're fine. You got your own way to go to
heaven. And what falsehood? What lies? And sadly, you watch on television,
you see with this new pope and all the crowds and people are
so deceived with this fault, all these religions. I mean,
there's one truth. Let's just face it. Let's settle
this in our hearts this morning. that this gospel that is preached
in this facility, in this building, is the truth and the only truth. The only reason that people have
for rejecting the truth, and why so many religions? Why 42? Well, here it is. Man by nature
wants to be in control. He thinks he's his own god. That's
a fact. That's what's occurred in the
Garden of Eden. And we're all born that way.
Don't tell me, don't tell me that I have to be under God's
law. Don't tell me I have to be subject
to a God. I can make up my own mind. That's
what Satan told Eve. You'll be able to make up your
own mind about what's right and wrong. That's what he told her. How many times have I heard people
say, well, what might be right for you or what might be wrong
for you is right for me? Well, that's because every man
thinks he's his own God. 1 Corinthians 2.14 says this,
but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God. That's why there's 42 false religions. They're natural. They're never being converted.
These religions have never been converted. But the natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him. Neither can he know them, because
they are spiritually discerned. God has to do something. The Holy Spirit has to do something
for a man to believe the gospel. That's a fact. And the older
I get, the more I see that. I have no ability. I mean, as
I said earlier, I've got no ability. And you think about that. You
think, well, I'm going to read my Bible a little more. I'm going
to study. I'll pray a little more. God's not in. It's not going
to happen. You're not going to worship God. I'm not going to
worship God in that manner. Second Thessalonians 2.13, Marvin
likes to quote this scripture a lot. But we are bound to give
thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord,
because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through
sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth. That's the truth. We have to
believe, and it has to come from a new heart, and that new heart
has to come from God himself. That's it. That's a fact. That's
the truth. So that's what true worship is.
That's what true spiritual worship is. We've got a place here we
come Sundays and Wednesdays, and we love it. We love the fellowship. But if somehow we think we're
more spiritual by coming here, that's just not true. It shouldn't
be true. Our worship ought to be minute
by minute, day by day. Let's remember this. In closing,
I'm going to wind down. God is in heaven and we're here
on earth. Let us keep silence. Let us be
quiet. Let us listen. Let us pray for
the Lord to settle our hearts. We need our hearts settled. We
need some rest. We look inside and we see that
old nature. And it's like Paul, oh, wretched
man that I am, how can I get free from this body of death?
I can't until the Lord decides that it's time for me to go. So we ask, we pray, let us pray,
asking the Lord to show us that everything does in fact work
together for our good, Romans 8. And with that, I'll close
and say amen.