Worship: What is it and How is it done?

“Worship: What Is It And How Is It Done?”
John 4:1-24
February 18, 2001

Introduction: Boris Nicholayevich Kornfeld was a Russian Jew who found himself in the famous Soviet gulag for reasons that were never clear to him. Perhaps he had unknowingly offended someone of importance and power. Perhaps he was just the victim of a society that had little room or respect for his Jewish beliefs. He didn’t know. There was no clear purpose for his imprisonment.
And that uncertainty contributed to the dryness and shriveled condition of his soul, for Boris Kornfeld was the possessor of a parched soul. Life was miserable at best in this famous Russian prison system and full of despair all the rest of the time. Unbeknownst to Mr. Kornfeld, the God of heaven had arranged a divine appointment for him with a nameless Christian also caught in the gulag. The God of heaven, Who is constantly seeking worshipers, had made arrangements for Boris to be introduced to Jesus Christ, his Messiah. Living water flooded his parched soul, and though Kornfeld was now free on the inside, he was still very much a prisoner on the outside.
In the course of time, the One Who seeks worshipers arranged for Boris to be the conduit of this living water to another prisoner confined in the same gulag. Just before his brutal murder for standing for righteousness in his prison, Boris Kornfeld introduced Alexander Solzhenitzen to the Savior. Solzhenitzen, a recovering cancer patient, then had the same experience of living water flowing into his shriveled, parched soul. Jesus Christ, sent to earth to search for worshipers for the Father, took up residence in the heart of this gifted writer, speaker, and modern-day prophet.
The heavenly Father’s search for worshipers continued on.
Dr. Charles McCoy had been the pastor of a Baptist church in Oyster Bay, New York, for many years. Now, on his 72nd birthday, he must retire, for that was a denomination mandate – pastors must retire at 72. Dr. McCoy wrote of being depressed. “I just lay on my bed thinking my life’s over. I haven’t really done anything yet. Yes, I’ve pastored this church for many years, but now no one really wants me much. I guess I’ll retire to a home for the elderly in Florida.”
But Dr. McCoy’s heavenly Father, the seeker of worshipers, had other plans, and He arranged another divine appointment. While Dr. McCoy was considering the details of his retirement plans, he invited an Indian pastor to preach in his church. The pastor from India came, and then, according to his customs and culture, insisted on a reciprocal visit. Dr. McCoy just must come and preach in his church in India!
McCoy agreed. When he notified the chairman of his deacon board of his plans, the chairman was horrified. “What if you die in India?” McCoy’s response was reasonable: “I reckon it is just as close to heaven from there as it is from here.” On the appointed date, Dr. McCoy left for India. Arriving in that vast land of our own Ray and Christa Eicher, he suffered the loss of his luggage, his passport and wallet were stolen, and perhaps worst of all, he couldn’t find the Indian pastor who was to be his contact.
He was able to make connections with some missionaries who befriended him and helped him along his way. In the course of just a few days, Dr. McCoy was able to get an appointment with the mayor of Bombay. The mayor was impressed; here was a man with seven earned doctorates. And we all know how much education is valued in Asia.
Through the mayor’s contacts, the old Baptist preacher was invited to speak at India’s equivalent to our West Point. Thus began, at age 72, a 16 year ministry circling the globe, preaching the Gospel, being used by God to seek worshipers, bringing living water to parched souls, glorifying God in his own worship, seeing his ministry transformed.
Charles McCoy died one afternoon in Calcutta, resting up for a meeting he was to preach in that evening. He surely found that heaven was just as close from Calcutta as it was from New York.
Anyone here today with a parched soul like Boris Kornfeld and Alexander Solzhenitzen before they met the Savior? Anyone here this morning depressed and despairing like Charles McCoy? Is there anyone here today who has been drinking at the wells of this world system and finding one’s soul still parched? Might there be some here today who are looking for a divine appointment with the Holy One of heaven Who is seeking worshipers?
Come along with me into the Gospel of John. We want to meet one more individual this morning who unknowingly has a divine appointment with the Seeker of Worshipers. As we begin a new series this morning on the topic of worship, we must start with the preeminent New Testament passage that addresses the issue.
Through the account of the woman at the well, we will see once again that God is looking everywhere for parched souls who will accept His gift of eternal life and worship Him in spirit and in truth. Worship, and our proper understanding of it, must begin here.
Let’s read John 4:1-24. Follow along as I read. “Therefore when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus Himself was not baptizing, but His disciples were), He left Judea and went away again into Galilee. And He had to pass through Samaria. So He came to a city of Samaria called Sychar, near the parcel of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph; and Jacob's well was there.
So Jesus, being wearied from His journey, was sitting thus by the well. It was about the sixth hour. There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, ‘Give Me a drink.’ For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, ‘How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?’ (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.’ She said to Him, ‘Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?’
Jesus answered and said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.’ He said to her, ‘Go, call your husband and come here.’ The woman answered and said, ‘I have no husband.’
Jesus said to her, ‘You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in 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. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.’” John 4:1-24
Now this account of Jesus, on His mission to seek worshipers for the Father, can be seen structurally around four W’s. There is the well, the woman, the water, and the worshipers.
The well is Jacob’s. It is hundreds of years old, and it is close to a 100 feet deep. It is a magnificent well, providing water for families and livestock for many generations. It is situated at the mouth of a narrow valley that ran between Mt. Gerizim and Mt. Ebal. The village of Sychar is nestled at the foot of Mt. Ebal, and in the background where Jesus sat at the well loomed the slopes of Mt. Gerizim (the mountain of verse 20).
You may remember from Deut. 27 that Moses placed some of the tribes of Israel on Mount Ebal and some on Mount Gerizim when he desired to proclaim to them blessings and cursings from the Law. I share these details with you because they are impor-tant to our understanding of this story.
Also, regarding the well, this famous watering spot was a testimony to the greatness of one man, that man being Jacob. We see the woman asking Jesus in verse 12, “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?”
This well had witnessed the development of the Samaritan religion with its alternative system of altars and sacrifices, alternative to Jerusalem, that is.
Now, today, this well is the resting place of God, the God-Man, the Lord Jesus, who has come to seek and save that which was lost. This well supports the travel-weary Lord Jesus who has come to seek those who will be worshipers of God.
While resting there on His trip from Judea to Galilee, Jesus sees a lone woman coming to the well, her water jar mounted securely on her head. If we put our imaginations to work, we can visualize Jesus watching for this person to come. Though He is weary and exhausted, He is not dozing. He has sent His disciples off into town to buy food, and He is waiting for His divine appointment, an appointment that may lead a parched soul into a relationship with God as a worshiper.
Keeping our imagination caps on, we can deduce several things about this woman. She is poor. No woman of any social standing would draw her own water. She is Samaritan, half Jew, half Assyrian, and thus despised by all self-respecting Jews. She is thirsty, first for water for her body, as evidenced by the water jar, and secondly, thirsty for something to satisfy her soul. After all, she’s been married 5times, and now she’s living with a sixth.
And because she is a figure in John’s Gospel, we can deduce she is representative. So much of John is full of metaphors and images, and this woman, without a name, represents every thirsty person, every person who is still looking for satisfaction, purpose, and meaning in life. She represents every person who has not yet become a worshiper of God. She is a modern day Boris Kornfeld, in prison before meeting the Messiah.
She is a business person, making thousands of dollars, and desiring to make even more. She is an affluent American, wealthy on the outside but too often poor on the inside. She is a baby boomer whose ideals have not yet been realized, who is searching for real relationships, who is looking for something to give herself to. She is the religious person who is going through the motions of church but finding no reality in those motions. She is the college student looking for something in studies, activities, the opposite sex and not yet satisfied in what she’s found.
She is you and me in our disenchantment, frustrations, fear, confusion, and dissatisfaction with our current circumstances in life.
And there is one more thing we see about her. She is surprised. Jesus asks her in verse 7 for a drink. (He probably has already had a drink. Every traveling band had a ‘skin-bucket’ to draw water with, and the disciples may have already served the Master. But for the God who is seeking worshipers, this request is a natural point of contact with this woman.)
But this woman is surprised and she expresses her surprise by the phrasing of her question. Though Middle Eastern hospitality would have made it normal for this sort of request and a kind response in turn, this type of thing just didn’t happen be-tween Jews and Samaritans, especially between opposite sexes. Her question is this: “You, Who are a Jew, ask of me, who am a Samaritan woman??? You’ve got to be kidding!” In her mind, she may be asking herself, ‘What is he really asking for?’
This woman at the well is now intrigued with a new concept of water.
The water in our passage has a two fold significance. First, the water of the well is water to quench a person’s thirst. It is water from the earth, and every drink has only a passing effect. Before long, the one who has had a drink is thirsty again. This water from the well, from the earth, is a picture of worldly fountains men and women drink from. It represents (in the symbolism of John’s Gospel) the fountains of love, sex, success, wealth, fame, security, significance, prestige, power, and many other fountains. The outflow from these kinds of fountains have only a transient effect. Before long, we are thirsty again.
Jesus says, in verse 13, “Whoever drinks this water will be thirsty again.” And who among us hasn’t found this to be true?
The second meaning of the water in our passage is that of water, living water, that wells up to eternal life. The living water of verse 10 was probably understood by the woman as ‘flowing water’, water that flowed underground and feed the well. Her misunderstanding is clear from verse 15: if she could avoid the daily inconvenience of coming out here to this well, that would be a nice blessing. She decides to test His offer. Why not?
But, of course, Jesus had a different meaning in mind. The water that He is thinking of would become in the one who accepted God’s gift a spring of water welling up to eternal life. This kind of water would satisfy the heart! This kind of water would make one secure from the thirsts of the heart. This kind of water would become an inexhaustible fountain of life. This water would never run dry. This water would continuously meet needs, quench thirsts, and satisfy longings.
This water would produce the experience of eternal life, not just something in the sweet bye and bye, but a quality of life here and now. The experience of this life would include expectancy, challenge, purpose, meaning, gratitude, thanksgiving, imagination, satisfaction, contentment, peace, joy, quiet, and security!
What an offer the Lord Jesus has made!! At a famous well, a solitary woman has been offered living water! How was she to understand it? How could she appropriate it? How could it become hers?
We come now to our final W. Jesus has lead this woman to the issue she really desires. Wow, living water! The Lord Jesus invites her to go call her husband and come back. We saw earlier how she responded. “I don’t have a husband.”
“Well said,” says Jesus. You’ve had five, the sixth is not your husband.
At this point, many commentators think the woman took a turn to change the subject. But I don’t think so. Here is a man from God. “Maybe this matter of living water can really solve my problems. How do I make contact with this God? How do I worship Him? There is a Samaritan way (vs. 20). There is a Jewish way (vs. 20). Neither one seems right to me. I’ve not had any solutions from either to this point. What’s the answer?”
Jesus responds: “Neither the Samaritan way nor the Jerusalem way is what I’m offering with this living water. Worship of the Father is not in those places, and worship of the Father is not according to those forms. Worship is not according to lists of do’s and don’ts. Worship is not according to the traditions of men. Worship is not according to the letter of the Law.”
True worship of the Father is a matter of spirit and truth, and God is seeking these kinds of worshipers. He is not looking for worshipers known for pious prayers and religious cliches. He is not seeking hypocritical phonies who worship in lavish structures like those in Jerusalem. Neither is He seeking worshipers who are focused on a material mountain like Mt. Gerizim nor who are just dutiful in their church attendance.
The Father is seeking worshipers who operate at the spirit level of man, the communion level of man, in honesty and transparency, in the truth. Jesus is saying His Father is not satisfied nor pleased at what is taking place in Jerusalem and on Mt. Gerizim. And He is not pleased with the soiled, barren life of this poor woman either, and so He desires, He seeks to give her His gift of eternal life so she might also worship Him spiritually, truthfully.
And you know the rest of the story. She responds. When the Lord Jesus says that He is the Messiah, she doesn’t say another word. As one commentator puts it, “Like the sun bursting forth from behind the clouds, the light of truth had flooded her soul.” She leaves her water jar by the well and rushes off to spread the good news to the people of her town before He passes on by. She had come empty, she leaves full. She had come ignorant, she leaves enlightened.
And like the Boris Kornfelds and the Charles McCoys who would come after her, she goes off to seek more worshipers, and God uses her to accomplish that very purpose.
So, what conclusions can we draw this morning in our initial investigation into this issue of worship?
It seems clear from this passage that worship is the response of a person to the experience of eternal life. The one who finds cold water for his thirsty soul is in a position to worship God. The one who has found refreshment for a weary spirit has footing to worship God. The one who was depressed and is now joyful has a reason to worship God. The one who was stressed and burdened and now is at rest is in a position to worship God. The ones who had been deceived in a dark and corrupt world -- who can now see clearly -- have a foundation from which to worship the heavenly Father.
Those who had longed to take this job and shove it -- and now have been transformed -- have a reason to worship God. The one who was addicted to the fountains of this world and now has found real satisfaction… he is the one who can worship. The one who had been victimized and wounded and now is restored is a worshiper of God. The ones who were bitter and angry -- that have now found peace -- are in a position to worship.
True worship is solely the privilege of the one who possesses eternal life! This church is a great place. It is called home by many fine individuals who love the Lord Jesus deeply. But there are no doubt some who attend here regularly who have not yet tasted the living water of eternal life. Ones presence here, ones singing here, ones offerings here, ones service here without the taste of eternal life is not and cannot be worship. It is only Jerusalem and Mt. Gerizim all over again!!
Real worship is the sole privilege of possessors of eternal life.
One other lesson we learn from this passage is that the worship of the saints is the treasure of God. He actively seeks those who will worship Him. Can you imagine that? The God of creation, the Lord of heaven, looking for something? In our wildest mind’s eye, can we visualize God searching for something? Think with me back to our passage. The Lord Jesus, sitting alone on the stone edge of the well, has His eyes on the path from the town where His disciples have gone. He has a diving appointment with a woman who has a reputation for a parched soul. He no doubt sees her before she sees Him.
Worship is so precious to Him, He is involved in the search! The worship of the saints is the treasure of the kingdom of God.
So, what are we to do? For those of us who don’t know the experience of eternal life, the hour has come to make a decision. The Lord Jesus says in verse 23 that the time is coming AND NOW IS when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to break the bonds of the base things of life and spring free into a new life? Wouldn’t it be great to forget the wreckage of years of bad decisions and find the emptiness of our hearts filled with the sweetness of a relationship with the God Who already knows everything about us? Wouldn’t today be a good day to experience living water? Water that spouts up into eternal life? Water that just keeps on refresh-ing us day after day? Water that keeps on satisfying all our thirsts week after week? Water that keeps on washing away the parchedness that likes to creep into our hearts? Water that gives us the capacity to worship the God of heaven?
The Lord Jesus offers in this hour the gift of eternal life to anyone who wants it. ‘…whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.’
Real worship can have no meaning to anyone who has not received the free gift of eternal life. Worship on Sundays and worship during the week is empty and meaningless to us -- and unacceptable to God -- without our possessing eternal life. Receive Christ, receive eternal life. Invite Christ into your life and experience life that is worth living every hour of every day.
For the rest of us… if worship is the treasure of heaven, we ought to recommit ourselves to partnering with God in finding more worshipers! In our workplaces, on our campuses, in our neighborhoods are parched souls that God wants to reach with the gift of eternal life. What kind of plan could we make that would make us better seekers of those for whom Christ died? Worship is the treasure of heaven, and worship is for sinners reached by God through His servants.
(I'm deeply indebted to Mr. Zane Hodges and his little volume, Winning the Wealth of the World to Come, for many insights into the experience of the woman at the well.)


DISCLAIMER: These messages are offered for your personal enrichment. There is no legal copyright on this material. You have my full permission to use any of this material as long as you cite the source for any substantial amount used. Enjoy!