Sermon Tone Analysis

John 4:21-24

    Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.

[22] Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.

[23] But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

[24] God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

*Experiencing the Presence of God*

 

   A few years ago the Chicago Tribune ran a story about a New Mexico woman, who was frying tortillas when she noticed that the burn marks on one of the tortillas bore a unique resemblance to known pictures of Jesus.

Excited, she showed it to her husband and a few of her neighbors.

They agreed that there was picture etched in the tortilla.

And they all agreed that it bore a striking resemblance to pictures of Christ.

The woman took her tortilla to her priest for him to bless it.

She testified that the tortilla had changed her life.

Her husband agreed that she had been a happier, more peaceful, submissive wife, since the arrival of the tortilla.

Somewhat reluctant, because he had never blessed a tortilla before, her priest decided to go ahead and bless it.

She took the tortilla home and put it on a pile of cotton so it looked as though it were floating in air.

She built an altar; opened a shrine and in a few months, the paper said, more than 8 thousand people had come to her home and looked at her shrine to see the face of Jesus on a tortilla.

Almost everyone, perhaps except for maybe one, agreed that it did look like Jesus.

One writer said that to him it looked like the former heavy weight champion Leon Spinks.

But even until today people are going by the shrine to see Jesus on a tortilla.

IT IS INCREDIBLE WHAT PEOPLE WILL WORSHIP.

It is incredible what people will worship; until you look around this world and see all the strange things that people bow their knee to; Jesus on a tortilla.

And somebody quickly says, pastor, why do you poke fun?

Perhaps the woman did see Jesus on a tortilla.

Well your problem is not with your pastor!

Jesus in our text said, “God is a spirit…” And the last time I looked, tortillas didn’t fall into that category.

“And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

WORSHIP!

Although the bible is clear about whom we are to worship, how we are to worship and where we are to worship, it is amazing that very seldom does genuine biblical worship take place.

With all of these churches in town, seldom does worship take place.

I even would suggest that right here in this sanctuary, seldom does worship take place.

The bible talks about at least three kinds of worship.

* First of all, it talks about *false worship*.

* And then it talks about *vain worship*.

* And then it talks about *worship in spirit and truth*.

{You’re going to walk with me today?}

Just quickly, I want to talk about the first two, because I want to drop anchor on the last one for today and the next time that I preach to you.

*FIRST OF ALL THERE IS WHAT THE BIBLE CALLS FALSE WORSHIP*.

Now preacher what is false worship?

False worship is what the bible succinctly calls idolatry.

What is idolatry?

Idolatry is worshipping the wrong God.

Well who and what is the wrong God?

The wrong God is any other God other than the one that is in the bible;

* any other God other than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob;

* any other God other than the God of David;

* Any other God other than the Father of Jesus Christ.

* Any other God…I don’t care what you call it.

The first commandment is the Old Testament (check it out; Exodus 20), “Thou shalt have no other God…” {I wish I had time, I’d to talk to you!}

   Some people say it doesn’t matter if you call Him Allah—nowhere in this book does He ever call Himself Allah.

Well He’s still God, He just answers to another name!

Do you answer to another name?

That’s why you have a name that makes you distinctly different from all others in the world.

He tells you what His name is; He says “I am the great I am.”

If you want to talk to Me, call Me by My name.

{But I don’t have time to deal with all of that.}

Worshipping false Gods: and that can be a person; it could be a place; it could be a thing; …could be the wrong spirit.

*BUT THEN THERE’S WHAT IS CALLED VAIN WORSHIP*.

Ah, you need to se this; turn back to Mark 7: 6-7, “He answered and said unto them, “Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites {you know Jesus wasn’t scared of folks?}, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

Howbeit in vain do they worship me…” I told you the other Sunday that you can worship the right God in the wrong way.

It is not enough to worship the right God Jehovah.

God has prescribed how He desires His children to come before Him.

And if you come any other way it is vain worship.

He never said, come before Me and call Me the man upstairs.

I don’t know where Christians get that from.

The bible says that God is not a man…” Don’t try to put God in human terms, He is bigger than that.

He’s more reverent than that.

He says you worship me with your lips… What is He saying?

He’s saying they *praise* Me, and that’s good; they *pray* to me, and that’s good; they *preach* for me, and that’s good; but when you put it all together it’s vain worship.

Wait a minute preacher; *praise*, *prayer* and *preaching* are biblical.

You’re absolutely right.

But, He says the problem is that their hearts are far from Me. Vain worship is when you *praise*, *pray* and *preach* and your heart is not in it.

And then He brings us to this all important fourth chapter of John.

It’s amazing how much the Holy Spirit has packed into this chapter, because you can preach this fourth chapter so many different ways.

You can preach it evangelistically—because here Jesus witnessed to a sinner.

Then you can preach it dealing with racial reconciliation—because here was a Jew reaching out to a despised Samaritan.

And then you can preach it being gender inclusive—because here was Jesus (a man) talking to a Samaritan woman at a time when men didn’t talk with women in public.

There’s so much in this text.

It talks about how this woman came as a prostitute; left her water pot {you know we used to shout on that part; how when you come to Jesus you’ve got to leave some things}.

She left her water pot and went back as a missionary saying, come see a man that told me everything about my life.

So many ways you can preach this!

And as I perused over it this week it began to leap out at me that the essential thing this passage is about is distinguishing between right and wrong worship.

{Somebody ought to help me here.}

It’s about worship.

Now, this woman, she was trying to find the right way to worship God.

After Jesus had kind of busted her and hung all her laundry out, she tried to get straight.

She said how can I worship God; you all worship in Jerusalem, and we worship at Mt. Gerizim.

And Jesus let her know that her culture and her history had only presented to her two options, and both were wrong.

All she knew about was worship at Mt. Gerizim and worship at Jerusalem.

And Jesus said yea you’re right, they do worship at both those places, but you need to understand that the day will come that they will not worship at either place.

What He was prophesying about was, He would bring an end to ceremonial, ritualistic type worship.

And the day will come when you will have to worship God “in spirit and in truth.”

{Can I walk you through this?}

You see the Samaritan way was unacceptable, because they worshipped in ignorance.

{I didn’t make it up!} Verse 22; “Ye worship ye know not what…” They worshipped in ignorance.

The worship of the Samaritans was unacceptable because they worshipped in ignorance.

Now why would the bible say that they worshiped in ignorance or did not know?

…Because the Samaritans only accepted the Pentateuch, the first five books of the bible.

And even today if you go to Israel and find Mt.

Gerizim, you would find Samaritans there today worshiping through the first five books of the bible.

That means that they have not looked at sixty-one others.