Now my text is going to be taken
from John chapter 4, but before I get there I want you to turn
back to Philippians chapter 3 one more time, as we did last week. I'm really, in dealing with these
messages that I'm preaching here in these weeks, dealing with
the subject of what is a Christian. And as I said last week, I believe
one, there's several texts of scripture obviously that we could
go to to define what a Christian is or even what a Christian is
not. But there's certain texts that kind of just stick out that
are just summations. Just passages that are just so
full of truth in their phrases that that it just kind of gives
you the whole Picture of what a Christian is and Philippians
chapter 3 and verse 3 is one of those I've dealt with this
last week on the first part for we are the circumcision and And
what Paul is speaking of there as he's inspired by the Holy
Spirit is the new birth, circumcision of the heart. We went through
the scriptures seeing much of that. A person who has been born
again by the Spirit of God, regenerated, converted, convinced of sin,
or as some of the old writers used to talk about being slain
by the law. You get that from Romans chapter
seven. where Paul said, when the law
came, I sin revived and I died. In other words, I saw that the
law brought me in guilty before God and showed me that I did
not have what God required. I did not have a righteousness
that answers the demands of God's law and justice. That if salvation
were to come for me, that it would have to be by God's grace
through an undeserved, unearned gift. And of course that leads
us to Christ, Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation and
righteousness before God. So when he says we are the circumcision,
that's we're the true Israel. That's another way of saying
we're the true Israel of God. His people, His elect, chosen
before the foundation of the world, redeemed by the blood
of Christ. Though we fell in Adam, ruined
by the fall, we're redeemed by the blood. And then in time,
under the preaching of the gospel, the Holy Spirit brings us to
the gospel and we're regenerated and converted. So we are the
circumcision, we're the spiritual Israel, the church of the living
God, the household of God. And then he gives three indications
here, or three things that identify those who are born again. He
says, we are the circumcision, number one, which worship God
in the spirit. Now that's what I want to deal
with today. We worship God in the spirit. We worship God in
the spirit. That's the title. And we'll talk
about that. And then we rejoice in Christ
Jesus. And these all go together now.
You don't have one over here who's worshiping God in the Spirit
and doesn't rejoice in Christ Jesus, and another over here
who rejoices in Christ Jesus but doesn't worship in the Spirit.
No, it's all together now. This is the identification of
the people of God. We're the circumcision. We're
the true Israel. We're the regenerated. We're
the circumcised in heart and ears. And how do you know I am? How do you put yourself in that
category? Well, I worship God in the spirit. And then he says, we rejoice
in Christ Jesus. That word rejoice means to have
confidence in Christ Jesus. It means to glory in him. And
I'm going to deal with that next week specifically. In other words,
the confidence of my salvation is totally wrapped up in the
glorious person and finished work of Christ. It's not my confidence. You know, I think about the experiences
that I've had. in being born again, in being
a Christian, in going through life, growing in grace and knowledge,
and being a pastor and a preacher. None of those experiences, even
though some of them, most of them are great and they're of
the Lord and they're good, some of them not so great. My experiences
I'm talking about. But those things that are of
the Spirit of God, those things that are pleasing to God because
they're washed in the blood of Christ, but they're not my confidence. My confidence is in Christ and
Him crucified and risen. My confidence, what confidence
do I have that my sins are washed away? Not in anything I've experienced,
it's in the blood of Jesus Christ. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood. What confidence do I have that
I'm justified before God? It's not in any experience I've
had, it's in the imputed righteousness of Christ. You see what I'm saying? That's what he's saying. We rejoice
in Christ Jesus. And then thirdly, have no confidence
in the flesh. No confidence in the flesh. That's
the best of the flesh or the worst of the flesh. No confidence.
So that's the base text for all of these messages. But what I'm
going to talk to you about this morning is we worship God in
the Spirit. And turn back to John chapter
4 now. Now one of the controversies
of scriptural interpretation and translation is in this this
fact or this question. Whenever I come to the word Spirit
in the Bible, do I capitalize this or do I leave it at a little
s? You say, well, that sounds silly. Well, no, it really doesn't.
Just like in that Philippians 3 passage that we just read.
It says, we worship God in the Spirit. And if you'll notice,
the King James translators, they left the Spirit a little s. Look
at it, beware when he talks about we worship God in the Spirit. Now some translators say that
should be a capital S referring to God the Holy Spirit, the third
person of the Trinity. Some say it should be a little
s referring to the spiritual life or the spirit of a true
believer, one who is born again from the dead. See, we're born
spiritually dead, fallen, ruined in Adam. We're born spiritually
dead. We don't have a spirit of God,
a spirit of life. We have the flesh. We have the
fallen sinful nature. But when we're born again, we're
given spiritual life. Spiritual life is imparted. And
so we have a spirit within. In fact, you find both words,
two-word spirit, in the book of Romans chapter 8 when he speaks
of those who are children of God, how the Spirit, the Holy
Spirit, capital S, witnesses with our spirit, spiritual life
and knowledge within us, that we are the children of God. And
so when you come to a passage like Philippians chapter 3 and
verse 3, well, over here in John chapter 4, when he says in verse
23, that the hours cometh and now is when true worshipers shall
worship the Father in spirit and in truth. Should that be
a little s or a capital S? Well, here's the point. Most
of the time, context determines which one it should be, but sometimes
it's not that easy. For example, in Philippians chapter
3 and verse 3, when it says, we worship God in the Spirit,
some translators say that should be, or we worship by the Spirit
of God. We worship by the Spirit of God.
But what I do on that one is I just take it both ways. Because
the Bible teaches both things. Now here's what I'm saying. When
we come to worship, true worship, and that's what we're going to
talk about. What does that involve? Well, when he says we worship
God in spirit and in truth, I believe you can take it, it means two
things for a believer. For one who's truly a child of
God. And that is number one, we worship
God as God reveals himself by the Holy Spirit in the preaching
of the gospel. In other words, we don't worship
God as we naturally think Him to be, or want Him to be, or
a public opinion. In other words, however the Holy
Spirit, through the Word of God, truth, reveals Him to us, that's
the way we worship Him. So that if the Holy Spirit says
God is absolutely sovereign, that's the way we worship God.
We don't gather together and deny His sovereignty. Now many
people do. If the Holy Spirit through the
truth, through the scriptures, reveals to us that God chose
a people before the foundation of the world and gave them to
Christ and conditioned all of our salvation on Christ, then
we meet together and that's the way we worship God. Many people
don't. They get together and they worship
a God who changes at their will. Well, that's not truth. That's
not worshiping God in truth. That's worshiping God as the
way they want Him to be, or think Him to be, or how they've been
taught by man. If God says that He predestinated
all things to be conformed to the image of Christ, then we
gather together and we worship God that way. As God reveals
Himself. If God says that He cannot save
a sinner based on anything But the shed blood and imputed righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's where we meet together,
and that's how we worship God. We don't come together and deny
that with our doctrine. The second thing that it means
is that we worship God from our spirit, the regenerated, the
new spiritual heart. Sincerely. Sincerity is involved. I hope you're here worshiping
God. I hope you're not just being a hypocrite. I hope you're not
just here because, well, you think, well, if I don't come,
then people are going to talk about me. I hope it's sincere. I hope it's honest. I hope it's
real. I hope you have a desire to do
it. Now, let me say something about the desire. It doesn't
mean that you're always going to jump up out of bed happy and
say, yeah, I get to do this, you know. That's not what I'm
talking about. But one thing a believer does
know that gives us that desire is we know that it's necessary
that we worship God, not in order to be saved, Not in order to
make ourselves holy and righteous. Because my friend, think about
it. What would we be without the grace of God in Christ? What
would we be without His grace in Christ? It's kind of like
going to the doctor. I know none of you, if you have
to go to the doctor this week, I don't think you'd be really
happy about it. I hope you're not. Honestly, some people are. I hope you're not happy about
it, but you know what you need. And God's shown it to you. So
that's where we're coming from. But let's go back and let's look
at this passage. You know the woman at the well,
she was a Samaritan woman. And you know the Jews and the
Samaritans, there was hatred, there was prejudice against each
other. The Samaritans were, you might say, they were half-bred
Jews, so to speak. They come from a race of people
that intermingled at the return of the Babylonian captivity,
and they mingled together with the Jews, and you just didn't
do that with the Jews. You remember Paul, the Apostle,
when he was talking about his life prior to his salvation,
his regeneration, one of the things that he boasted in as
making him righteous before God is that he was a Hebrew of Hebrews. In other words, there was no
mixed blood there. He was a purebred Hebrew, and so he was proud of
that. Of course, when he saw the glory
of God in Christ, he counted that but done. It meant nothing
to him. So here's this Samaritan woman.
And the Lord begins to speak to her of the living water. You know what the living water
is. That's the grace of God in salvation and the Spirit of God
that wells up within us to drive us to Christ for salvation. When we hunger and thirst after
righteousness, what does the Spirit of God do? He enters in
through the preaching of the truth and he drives us to Christ
for all righteousness and our hunger is fed and our thirst
is quenched. And that keeps on going. He said
it's a well of living water that springs up into you. We never
get tired of hearing that. Never get tired of studying that. That's our life. You know, you
drink physical water today, you're going to get thirsty again. But
this water continues, and he speaks of that. And then he revealed
himself to her as a prophet, because he's telling her, I know
your situation, I know you're a sinner. And that's the way
the Lord is with all of us. We're sinners, and He knows it.
He knows it better than we know it. That we're a sinful people,
even the best of us. And that by nature and by practice,
we cannot. We cannot save ourselves. We
cannot wash ourselves clean from the dead of sin. We cannot make
ourselves righteous before God. We're sinners. We always come
short. We can improve ourselves. We
can try to do our best, but we can never do well enough to make
ourselves righteous. I think about when the Lord told
Cain, if you do well, you'll be okay, Cain. Well, what is
it to do well? Do what Abel did, plead the blood
of the Messiah, plead his righteousness alone. That's the only way we
can do well. Can't do well by our works. Should we try? Yes, but not in
order to be saved because we're not saved that way. So he showed
her that she was a sinner. Well, then she goes back to her
religion. Now, that's what people do. You
know, whenever a false hope or a false ground of salvation is
exposed, what do people do? They go back to their religion.
Most people today will go back to their experience. Well, I
know I'm saved. I was joined the church when
I was 12, you know, all that stuff. You know how it goes.
All right. And so people go back to their religion. Well, this
woman who was an adulterous Samaritan idolater, of course, she didn't
think she was an idolater, but this woman who was an infamous
sinner, in fact, that's the reason she came to the well at this
time of day because she wasn't allowed to do it amongst the
common people. She was an outcast. And so this
woman, she reverts back to her religion. Look at what she says
in verse 20. Our fathers worshipped in this mountain. Now she's referring
to the mountain in Samaria where they had built another temple
under one of the northern kingdom's kings. And it was a temple that
they built and they said, well, we worship God there. And she
said, and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought
to worship. That was the place where God planted the temple
through Solomon. And that was the dwelling place
of God, in a sense, the Shekinah glory of God above the mercy
seat. And of course, as you know, at
this time in history, there was no mercy seat there in that temple. It had already been taken away.
It was taken away in the Babylonian captivity and never returned,
that physical mercy seat. But that's where God told Israel
back in Exodus 25 that He would dwell above the mercy seat. In
other words, God's Shekinah glory, God's presence The revelation
of God among men would be found at the place where the blood
was shed. And of course, that's all a picture
of how God can be just and justify the ungodly. That's the God of
redemption, the God of salvation, the God of grace who saves sinners
by the blood of a substitute. Assurity and all that's a picture
of Christ in the words what he's what what that means when you
say men ought to worship here We can only worship at the place
of sacrifice the sacrifice that God accepts and that's the Lord
Jesus Christ in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily and Well, look at verse 21. Jesus saith unto her, Woman,
believe me, the hour cometh when you shall neither worship in
this, neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem worship
the Father. There's coming a time when all that's gonna be over,
that physical. There'll be no temple in Samaria, there'll be
no temple in Jerusalem. I think that tells, that says
a lot about what people believe today, isn't it? Well, verse
22. You worship, you know not what. Now, here's the thing about it.
Now, we're going to talk about worship. Worship God. Now, first
of all, we worship God in the Spirit. We worship God as we're
motivated and guided by the Holy Spirit as He reveals the truth
of God in Christ. You cannot worship God under
the lies of men. Remember Matthew chapter 15,
the Lord say that the, talking about the Pharisees and their
followers, he said, they worship me in vain, teaching, in vain,
they teach the traditions of men. They're not teaching the
word of God. They're not saying what God's word says. They're
either ignoring it, hiding it, or perverting it. And it was
always salvation by works. You cannot worship the true and
living God coming to him like Cain, pleading your works, pleading
your efforts, claiming that you've met the conditions. And you cannot worship God in
ignorance. Remember in Isaiah 45, I think it's verse 19, it
says, they have no knowledge that set up the wood of their
graven image. They don't know God. Paul stood on Mars Hill
and he talked to the Athenian philosophers and he said, he
said, I'm going to teach you about this unknown God whom you
worship ignorantly. You can't worship God ignorantly.
And you know how he brought that whole message to a conclusion
in verse 31 when he talked about God commanding all men everywhere
to repent because God hath revealed, He's chosen a way of judgment
that comes through righteousness. You cannot worship God without
righteousness. You cannot worship God in that
way. And worship is not just gathering
together in a church service. Worship is not just simply getting
on your knees and praying. Worship is not just singing hymns. Worship is not just hearing a
message. Now, these things are included in true worship, but
worship is a living of our lives in the light of God's revelation
of Himself by the Spirit, serving Him as He commands us. We must
worship God not as we imagine, but as He is. When He, in Isaiah, spoke of
those who worshipped Him ignorantly and had no knowledge, how did
He reveal Himself to His people? Just God and a Savior and he
said look unto me and be you saved all the ends of the earth
for I'm God and there's none else Look over at Psalm 96 that
I read in the opening of the service today There's a lot of
phrases in the Bible that are equivalent to worshiping the
Lord and here's one of them When he says in verse 8 of Psalm 96
give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name God deserves
glory And what is His name? Well, His name is His honor.
It's His dignity. It's His power. It's that which
identifies and distinguishes Him from everything and everyone.
He's the only true and living God. There's none like Him, none
to compare Him with. His glory. Look at it in verse
7, Give unto the Lord, O ye kindreds of the people, give unto the
Lord the glory and strength. Now when we give that to God,
we're not adding anything to Him. This giving has to do with
two things, acknowledgement of and submission to. We acknowledge
God as He reveals Himself. How do I know God is like this
and not like that? The only way I know is because
God says it. As I said before, if God says He chose a people
before the foundation of the world, that's how God is. How do I know it? Because He
said it. If God said, I hate Esau and love Jacob, how do I
know God hated Esau? God said He did. And I'm not going to water that
down just to make it feel better or hear better in your ears.
If He said He loved Jacob, how do I know that? He said He did. If he says, I hate all workers
of iniquity, he said he did. Somebody asked me one time, said,
well, if he hates all workers of iniquity, how can he not hate
me? Because I'm a sinner. Well, the workers of iniquity
there refer to those who don't have Christ. Now, we're all sinners. And if God gave any of us what
we deserve or what we've earned, it'd be eternal damnation. But
in Christ, I have no iniquity charged to my account. In Christ,
my iniquities have been taken away. Read it in 1 John chapter
3. He was manifested to take away
my sins. By His death on the cross as
my substitute, my iniquities are taken away. God doesn't charge
me with my sin. He charges me with the righteousness
of Christ. And that's the only way we know
God's love. He says in verse 8, give unto the Lord the glory
due unto his name, and then what? Bring an offering. Well, what
offering are you going to bring? Well, I'd bring what Abel brought,
the blood of the Lamb. Now, we don't have a literal
Lamb. We don't need that. We have Christ, the Lamb of God.
We come to God worshiping Him in truth. And he says, oh, worship,
come into his courts. Did you notice that in verse
eight? His courts, come into his court. That's where justice
is satisfied. That's where the blood is shed. Verse 10, or verse
nine, oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Now,
where are you gonna see the beauty of holiness? In yourself? No, in Christ. Fear before him
all the earth. That means give respect and regard. Worship is giving unto the Lord
glory due unto His name, and His glory is in His truth. It's
calling upon the name of the Lord, both for salvation in prayer,
for help in worship. What did they do in the Old Testament
when they called upon the name of the Lord? They built an altar
and shed the blood of a sacrifice. Worship is having confidence
of salvation in Christ by God's grace and not in the flesh. Worship
is serving the Lord with gladness, willingly, lovingly, as bond
slaves of Christ, not trying to make ourselves righteous,
but recognizing that our righteousness is of Him. Worship is acknowledging
the truth of God and who we really are in light of His truth. What
am I? I have no right to be here this
morning to worship God except Christ and Him crucified and
risen. I have no qualifications to come
here and worship, let alone be standing up here preaching, but
Christ and Him crucified and risen. I have nothing to recommend
me unto God, whether I was sitting in the study reading the scripture
or whether I was out doing something I shouldn't be doing. I have
nothing to recommend me unto God this morning but Christ and
Him crucified and risen. We're sinners and we can have
no approach to God except through sacrifice. Look back at John
4. He said, He said, The hour cometh,
verse 23, now is when the true worshiper shall worship Father
in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship
Him. Scripture represents our Savior as a seeking Savior. He
seeks His sheep, not because He doesn't know where they are.
He does. He must needs go through Samaria.
He knew one was there. But she didn't know Him. We're
lost by nature. He finds us because He knows
where we are. And when He finds us, He brings
us to Himself And what does He do? He makes us true worshipers
by His Spirit. Verse 24 says God is a Spirit.
You can't worship God in physical representations of God. That
brings us to the second point. We worship God in the Spirit.
We worship God as He reveals Himself by the Spirit of God.
Secondly, we worship God sincerely, humbly, from the new heart, cleansed
by the blood of Christ, not in physical representations, pictures,
statues, trinkets. But He's Spirit. You can't define
God with a physical representation. These pictures of Jesus, I wish
I'd never seen one because they're not pictures of Jesus. Nobody
knows what he looked like. But Paul said it this way. He
said, we don't worship him that way. We worship him as he reveals
himself in his word. Somebody says, well, we don't
put any spiritual significance on those pictures and statutes.
And I say, bull, they do too. They're just trying to convince
themselves. God is a spirit. How do we know God? Through His
Word as it leads us to Christ in whom all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily. God is a righteous judge. God
judges according to truth. And yet God forgives sin? How
am I going to know God as a loving, merciful, gracious, heavenly
Father? How can God be just and justify
the ungodly? When you find the answer to that
question and acknowledge God as such by the power of the Spirit
and submit to His way, then you'll begin to worship God from the
heart. It's not outward form and ceremony.
It's not man-centered. It's not God-centered. I mean,
it's God-centered, but not man-centered. It's not emotionalism. Even though
emotions may be involved, that's okay. But it's not emotionalism.
In other words, you don't judge the truth of it or the power
of it or the spirituality of it because of emotions. And even sincerity, it's not
sincerity per se. Again, I hope we're all sincere,
but sincere, you can be sincere in a lot. Idolaters are sincere
in their idolatry. It's not physical, it's spiritual.
And the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God is present in power when
Christ is preached, when Christ is lifted up. True worship from
the heart is founded upon and centered around the person and
finished work of Christ. Now turn to Hebrews chapter four
with me. You know, the Lord told the woman
at the well there, He said salvation is of the Jews. Now He didn't
mean by that that salvation is in the Jewish nation or the Jewish
people. That's not what that means. It means that God is going
to bring salvation to His people through the Jews. And how does
he do that? He brought Messiah through that
nation. He was born of the seed of David according to the flesh. His holy humanity was Jewish. And so salvation, which is literally
Jehovah or Yeshua, Jesus, comes through that nation. He comes
to us through that nation. And He, as our great High Priest,
did all that was required. To worship God aright, there
must be the revelation of a right standing before God in Jesus
Christ. I must know, I must have confidence
that I am justified, that I am righteous before God, before
I can worship God. Let me show you that. Look at
verse 14 of Hebrews 4. Seeing then that we have a great
High Priest. Now you know what the High Priest
does. He brings an offering unto God. He brings a sacrifice. He
makes propitiation, satisfaction of law and justice, which represents
righteousness before God through the blood of the Lamb. And we
have a great high priest, Jesus Christ, the righteous he's called,
that is passed into the heavens or passed through the heavens.
In other words, what he's saying here is that Christ By His obedience
unto death accomplished everything necessary to bring us to God. That is, passed into the heavens,
Jesus the Son of God let us hold fast our profession, for we have
not in high priest, which cannot be touched with the feeling of
our infirmities, that's the infirmities of the flesh, but was in all
points tempted or tested like as we are, yet without sin. He
was without sin, we're not. Let us, therefore, come boldly
unto the throne of grace." Now, most people equate this with
prayer, and that's okay, but it has to do with all of our
approaches to God. Worshipping God, seeking acceptance
with God, seeking to be blessed by God, any of our dealings with
God, he says, let us, therefore, come boldly, confidently, unto
the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to
help in time of need. You see, worshiping God has to
be based on the fact and the confidence that I have a right
standing before God in the Lord Jesus Christ. That I am righteous
before God by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the foundation
of all worship. Turn over to Hebrews chapter
10. Look at verse 19. He says, having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter the holiest, how? By the blood of Jesus. That's
just another word for His righteousness imputed. By a new and living
way which He hath consecrated, He made it, He did it, He accomplished
it for us through the veil, that is to say His flesh. And having
a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with
a true heart, that's an honest heart, a sincere heart, a convicted
heart. in full assurance of faith, in
full assurance, looking unto Christ for all my salvation,
for all righteousness, for all forgiveness, having our hearts
sprinkled from an evil conscience, that's a legal conscience, a
condemned conscience, no condemnation in Christ, and our bodies washed
with pure water. That is sanctified unto God through
Christ. There must be a God-given desire
to thank the Lord for His grace in order to worship Him. There
must be a right motivation, God honoring, to serve Him and worship
Him. There must be a willingness to learn and bow to God's Word
to worship Him. We worship God in the spirit.
We worship God as the one who justified us, who sanctified
us, who keeps us, who blesses us, who'll bring us to glory
by his grace all based upon the righteousness of God in Christ
freely imputed and received by faith. There's no other way to
worship God. No other way. There's no other worship of God.
It's all in vain apart. from seeing His grace in Christ. All right.