And the sermon text this evening is from John's Gospel, chapter 4, verses 19 to 26. John 4, verses 19 to 26. Part of the account of the Lord Jesus Christ's visit to Samaria and the woman whom he addressed by the well The woman saith unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped 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 ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet in 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. God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him. in spirit and in truth. Thanks be to God once more for this reading from His own inspired and inerrant Word. Now we are coming this evening, congregation, to one of the most necessary subjects, I believe, to which the modern church of our 21st century should give its great and earnest attention, the subject of Biblical worship. And I propose this evening to begin a short series of expositions of various passages of Scripture on the subject of how should we worship God. The first one being this evening from the very text that we have just read together in John's Gospel chapter 4 verses 19 and following, The Principles of Biblical Worship. Now as I say, I believe that this is one of the most important subjects to which the church today should be giving its whole attention. It is of paramount importance for every believer and every congregation to be sure that the worship of God is being conducted according to his own mind and his own revealed will. And in a very real sense there is no subject more important in the Christian life. Even the great, late Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones on one occasion asked a question to an assembly of ministers gathered in London? What is the highest and most important activity that any company of God's people may ever engage in?" asked Dr. Lloyd-Jones of these men. And he answered his own question, to worship God and to offer to Him the praise which is acceptable to Him. And you may be aware that the great John Calvin in the 16th century also placed the worship of God as the prime and most important area to which we should give our whole attention. And therefore I come to you this evening in these words of introduction to say without any qualification that worship is not an optional activity for God's people. It is not simply one interest, for instance, that they have a man among many other interests. It is not something that we might think appeals to some, but does not appeal to other people in the church. It is not something that some may specialize in, and others may neglect, and so forth. It is a universal obligation upon all who profess the name of Christ. It is a commandment of the living God Himself that He is to be worshipped in the way that He alone has appointed. We, of course, are reminded of this in different ways in the Bible, especially by the Lord Jesus Christ, as you may remember in His temptation in the wilderness recounted in Matthew chapter 4 as Satan came to him and tempted him in answer to one of those great temptations of Satan the Lord Jesus answered that it is our duty to worship the Lord our God and to serve Him alone and you may remember that the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3 and verse 7 when he describes the nature of true believers in the Lord Jesus and the nature of a true Christian church put worship as the first of three great marks of God's people when he wrote, we are the true circumcision who worship God in the spirit who rejoice in the Lord Jesus and who have no confidence in the flesh. Worship being the first and primary mark of a true and faithful and living Christian and of a Christian assembly. And so therefore I am saying to you this evening that this subject is not optional. It is of the greatest importance for each of us and the earlier in our Christian experience that we begin to grasp the importance and the wonderful nature of biblical worship, the more glorious will be the living of our Christian lives. So we come this evening to the question of the principles of biblical worship. Now there are many sources of course to which one could go on the subject of worship. Many passages of scripture Many good and even excellent books have been written on the subject of worship and many of course but are far from good and helpful. We could go to the Puritan John Owen for a definition of true biblical worship or to John Calvin whom I've already quoted this evening or even to A. W. Tozer, a man who lived within the generation of some of us here this evening. But I have chosen to turn to John chapter 4 one of the most important passages in the whole of the Gospels on the subject of the principles of Biblical Worship. Where the Lord Jesus Christ, we will notice this evening, gives crucial teaching about the basic nature of what constitutes Biblical Worship. And what He taught, the woman of Samaria, we will see this evening, enables us to steadily build up a definition of the basic biblical framework of worship. Now I'm suggesting to you this evening that there are at least four principles in these great words of the Lord Jesus to the woman of Samaria that we read earlier in the service here. And the first is this, that worship is a fundamental concern of the Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 19 of John 4 and following. Now you remember the context where Jesus was speaking with the woman of Samaria at the well of Syca. And as the conversation goes on you remember she is amazed that he a Jew is speaking to her a Samaritan for the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans. in the time of Jesus. And perceiving the woman's great spiritual need, she was an adulterous woman very clearly. The Lord Jesus offered her water, the living water of eternal life. As one has said, she asked of him, she was amazed that he would offer her water. She wanted water from the well. He offered her water that was not in the well. and perceiving his authority and his divine perception of her own condition and need she said to him in verse 19 Sir I see you are a prophet our fathers worshipped on this mountain and so forth now what is happening here is an underlining for the second time you notice of the gulf that separated between the Samaritans and the Jews Earlier on, you remember, when Jesus asked for a drink, she said, I am a Samaritan, you are a Jew. Jews have no associations with the Samaritans. And here, she chooses to expand the subject into the area of worship, very significantly. We say one thing about worship, you Jews say something different. We say that we are to worship in Mount Gerizim and this is where the temple is to be honored. You say that worship should only be conducted in the city of Jerusalem. Now we need to remember that the gulf between the Samaritans and Jews was deep and important. It was based on three things. that the Samaritans had become racially a mixed race following their captivity into the land of Assyria and then spiritually there were profound differences but above all theologically there were great differences between the Samaritans and the Jews for instance the Samaritans did not accept much of the Old Testament scriptures but only the five books of Moses they rejected the Psalms and the Prophets and the historical books and they believed as we have seen that the temple should be built on Mount Gerizim where they had indeed their own temple and that Jerusalem was not the place that had been chosen for the center of God's worship and so on there were great differences and the great point of the discourse in verse 19 is whether Gerizim across from Shechem where Abraham and as she reminded Jesus many of the fathers Abraham Isaac and Jacob had lived and conducted much of their lives whether Gerizim should be the right place for the worship of God or Jerusalem now we see Jesus response now do you notice what he says that worshiping God is not about these issues of place and circumstance and he goes on to expand his teaching on worship as he says in verse 21 you notice woman the hour is coming says Jesus when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem worship the father And again in verse 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. Now do you see what Jesus is doing? He is taking the woman's thinking a great step forward. She is interested in the place and the circumstances and the ritual or the lack of it. he is interested in the essence of worship itself. And I want you to notice that. Now it's a very interesting word of course the word worship both in Hebrew and in Greek and it has its root meaning in our term and word worth or value or quality We could almost render the word in our modern parlance, WORSHIP. What we do when we worship God is to recognize the great worth of the object whom we are worshipping. His rightful place, His sovereignty in our lives, and a great emphasis upon the glory and the majesty, the worth of this great God who is the object of our worship. And Jesus' central focus, do you notice? His fundamental interest, as I said, is not in the place and the circumstances, but in the act of worship itself. Now, that is my first point from this passage. Worship is of prime importance to the Lord Jesus, and should be of prime importance to us. What concerned the Lord Jesus about this woman is not the place, important as that was, where God was to be worshipped, for his word is always to be followed, not the Samaritan's own ideas, but the centrality of his concern is in that great act of worship. self-humbling of the worshipper, putting the worshipper, as it were, in the lowest place so that God is exalted to the highest place. And we can say at the beginning of our definition of worship this evening, to worship God is to humble ourselves before the great majesty of God and bring him the honor and praise which belongs to him alone. Jesus emphasis on the sensality of worship itself. Now the second thing I want to bring to your attention is that worship is to be offered through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again, verse 21 and verse 23. Jesus brings the woman to the point of all Christian worship. In other words, and what is central to it. Now this is very interesting because you know some of the modern translations of these verses, verse 21 and verse 23, do not do justice to the original Greek text. For instance, the New International Version does not accurately render these verses. it says believe me woman a time is coming when you will worship the father neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem in other words a time is coming in verse 23a similarly a time is coming and has now come now I believe with very good authority but the King James version is far better and far more accurate when Jesus says believe me the hour cometh and verse 23 the hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship and so forth the hour and why I emphasize this is that the hour in John's gospel is used in a very special and almost technical sense throughout the gospel you may be aware Jesus says my hour is not yet come as in John 2 when he spoke to his mother and rebuked her at the marriage feast at Cana my hour is not yet come he said and you have this all through John's gospel until finally in John chapter 17 Jesus says Father the hour is come now I emphasize this you see because what Jesus is doing with this woman is speaking about himself that chiefly through his life and ministry and above all his death through worship will become possible will come into its fullness into its great orb it is his work in other words on the cross supremely which makes both Gerizim and Jerusalem now redundant it's no longer the place or the ritual attached to either Gerizim or Jerusalem that is important All of these considerations, says Jesus, are shortly to become obsolete. And the reason is, the place where every redeemed sinner from now on will meet with God in true worship is through me. My life, my ministry, my death, my resurrection must be risen and ever living Savior. and that of course is what Jesus says in John 14 verse 6 one of the best known verses in the Gospels I am the way no man comes to the Father except through me now do you see what I'm saying to you that Jesus is teaching that He is the true temple He is the only effective and efficient sacrifice He alone is our true priest who gives us access to God. Worship is to be offered from now on through the person of the Lord Jesus to the Father himself. So we can add to our first definition of worship and now say to worship God is to humble ourselves before his great majesty and bring him in and through the Lord Jesus the honor and praise which are his alone. The second thing. So we come to the third thing. Worship is informed and directed by God's Word. Verse 22. Ye worship, that is ye Samaritans worship ye know not what. We Jews, that is know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews now again it's interesting that the better translation even better than our King James Version should be at the end of verse 2 for THE salvation is of the Jews there is the definite article in the Greek original before the word salvation for THE salvation is of the Jews and Jesus is clearly by that statement pointing the woman to the great hope of the Messiah who of course Jesus was himself the salvation both of Jews and Gentiles which he was and which he represented. Now then Jesus then is adding another truth as I say to our definition of worship. Worship is to be informed and directed by God's Word. I love the words of Stephen Charnock, one of the great Puritans. He wrote, it is impossible to honor God as we ought, listen, unless we know Him as He is. in other words it is quite impossible for a company of people even such as ourselves this evening to bring the great God of earth and to have an honor and worship and praise if we do not know him as he is ye worship ye know not what we know what we worship for the salvation is of the Jews in other words the knowledge of God must always precede the true biblical worship of God now we need to realize that what Jesus was doing with the woman here in verse 22 was not making a racial remark but emphasizing that worshiping God is not a matter of speculation by men's minds but of revelation of God's mind. Let me say that again, the true biblical worship of God is not a matter of the speculation of men's minds as it was with the Samaritans, but of the revelation of God's mind supremely in the holy scriptures of his word. we know God, Jesus says, we Jews know God because he has revealed himself to us in the scriptures of his word many of those scriptures Jesus is implying that you Samaritans reject and will not give attention to and will not recognize as the inspired word of God now let me say that we owe an eternal debt under God indeed to the Jewish Scriptures because God has been pleased to reveal Himself in the Old Testament and in the New Testament how He has sent His Son and how through Him the Gospel has spread to all the Gentile nations and how He has revealed in the Jewish Scriptures of the Old Testament and in a sense Much of the New Testament is also by Jewish writers, though not all of it. He has revealed there what his mind and will is concerning his own worship and the obedience that he expects from us. The Jews, Jesus is saying, stand inside the stream of divine revelation. The Samaritans, Jesus says, stand outside of that stream of revelation. You remember how the writer of Psalm 76 that we sometimes sing in our congregation puts it in verse 1, in Tudor, God is known. Comparing that great privilege to the outcast heathen nations around them. That Revelation congregation is in the Scriptures of God's Word which Jesus would have known intimately, we believe, have memorized much of the Old Testament Scriptures and the connection between biblical worship and the teaching of the Scriptures cannot be over-emphasized and over-stressed. They reveal the nature of God and the requirements that bring pleasure to his own heart now let me pause and say this it's a common thing amongst us today isn't it to hear people say well I don't come to church to hear a preacher I just come to worship God and of course it reveals a profound misunderstanding of both things doesn't it because we need to hear the preacher if he is faithful in expounding the Scriptures of God's Word teaching us what God is like, what He requires even in the area and especially in the area of our worship of Him in order that we may worship and serve Him as He desires and commands In other words, worship involves taking the content of Holy Scripture and turning it into the worship of the God who is there revealed. Even John Stott, who has wider views of worship than we would have in our Reformed church and congregation, in one of his writings says this, Our capacity to worship God truly is measured by the place Scripture occupies in our lives. And he could not have put that more accurately. Our capacity to worship God truly is measured by the place Scripture occupies in our lives. In other words, it is the living Word of God, energized by the Holy Spirit, but is the great promoter of true, pleasing, biblical worship, and who is its chief inspiration. So our definition, you see, of worship can be enlarged. Again, can it not? As we have seen already, the two parts of worship to worship God is to humble ourselves before his great majesty and bring him in and through the Lord Jesus Christ the honor and praise which are his alone to which we now add according to the teaching of the word of God according to the scriptures Now the fourth and final thing I want to say this evening about our passage is this, that worship must be in spirit and in truth. Not only is true worship fundamental in the teaching of Jesus, not only is it, as we have seen, to be offered through the Lord Jesus Christ, where it comes truly into its own, not only is it to be informed and directed by God's Word and not men's thoughts, and inventions. But fourthly, the constant note of worship is that it should be in spirit and in truth. Verse 23 at the end. For the true worshipper shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. There is the emphasis then by the Lord Jesus on the way in which we are to worship God. Now there is a certain kind of worship that God the Father is seeking. The Lord Jesus says there is only one kind of worship in which God the Father takes pleasure. He is seeking the most vital thing from any believer who has submitted himself or herself in worship before. the Lord, and our basic consideration is what the Father seeks, what pleases Him. Now we're living in an age, aren't we, when the very opposite so often characterizes many assemblies of so-called Christian worship. it's no longer a priority it seems to me to ask what is pleasing to God what is taught in his word what is required and commanded by him but instead what pleases me what sends me out of the service with a glow inside what I find exciting or innovative and there is little regard it seems in our day for the great fundamental question which Jesus addresses what is the kind of worship that is pleasing to God? Stephen Charnock again, when we believe that we should be satisfied says Charnock in worship rather than that God should be glorified we put God below ourselves as though he had been made for us and not we for him which is to say that biblical worship is never to become a means to our own ends designing a service that brings pleasure and joy to our senses or sensual natures and it needs to be said and thrust into our consciousness and be made one of the deepest convictions of our lives but there is a worship specified by God which he has authorized and which brings pleasure to his own divine and holy heart Biblical worship is never to become a means to the end of our own sensuality but for God's glory. Now having said that, of course I'm not implying for a moment this evening that we should not be delighted and satisfied in the worship of God. Of course we should if we are worshiping biblically. The Psalms are replete, they are full with God's promises that those who draw to near to Him in an acceptable way will find blessing multiplied upon blessing. in their lives, but this in a sense is a by-product of Biblical worship, it is not the central driving force of it. Worshipping in spirit and in truth is. Well what does it mean, what did Jesus mean that the Father seeks such to worship Him in spirit and in truth. By the way, there is clearly a contrast here as Jesus mentions the Father, you notice, twice over in these verses. worshipping the father and what the father delights in. There's a contrast between his reference to the father and obviously the woman's reference earlier on when she says our fathers, verse 20, worshipped in this mountain and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship our fathers. And you notice Jesus emphasizes Your concern should not be about the fathers, great as they were who preceded you, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and so on. But when we come to the subject of the worship of God, it is the Father's concern that should be before our eyes. He desires worship in spirit and in truth. Now what does it mean, as I say? Worshipping in spirit, and by the way I think our translation is correct in keeping a small s, it does not mean, I believe, a reference to the Holy Spirit here, although some have thought so, but it means spiritual worship, a small s, worshipping in spirit, as opposed to merely outward practices and professions. This is something, says Jesus, that is inward, certainly inspired by the Spirit of God, but nothing outward and external merely. You remember how he taught in Mark chapter 7 of the unacceptability of the Pharisees and scribes' worship. as they thought this constituted the washing of pots and vessels and so on and ceremonial cleanness or uncleanness and he said of that kind of worship this people draws near to me with their lips but their hearts are far from me what he is mentioning here then is the inward worship of the heart and then his expression in truth is a reinforcement of what we've already seen in this passage this evening that our worship is to be regulated by God's Holy Word of Scripture rather than by any human inventions whatever we worship in truth in other words in accordance with the teaching of Holy Scripture itself So then our definition once more grows, to worship God is to humble ourselves before his great majesty, to bring in and through the Lord Jesus Christ the glory due to his name according to the scriptures by inward and spiritual worship. And this encapsulates, I suggest to you, as we draw to a close this evening, the biblical principles of worship. Now let me summarize what we have tried to say this evening in spirit and in truth. Nothing could, I think, indicate more plainly the essentials of the attitude that God is seeking among his people as they draw near to him. When this and these things are absent, all else is in the end in vain. Now let me summarize five of these principles that we have seen this evening as we prepare to close. First, the precondition of acceptable worship is that it must be offered to the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. we've seen that great revelation that Jesus is beginning to unfold to the woman of Samaria remember his expression the hour is coming and now it is repeated again in verse 23 the hour cometh referring to his own great fulfillment of his ministry that he might become the true temple and the true high priest and the great sacrifice and so forth as I have been sharing with you, the precondition of acceptable worship that it must be offered to the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it rules out, doesn't it, the acceptability of all other false worship. Jesus implies this, that it will no longer be a case of Gerizim or even Jerusalem where the true worship of God had been conducted up to this time Both would become redundant. And likewise in our day and age it is totally and biblically untrue to say that in other religions there can be the acceptable worship of the true God. It rules out the acceptability of all other false worship. And the second principle that we've adverted to this evening is that the focus of acceptable worship must be on the one we are worshipping and not upon ourselves. The great question, Jesus says, is not what is acceptable to you, not your concern, lady, to honour the fathers of bygone ages, even as great as these men of God were. The focus of acceptable worship is to be upon the Father Himself and His greatness and His glory and His worth in our worship. Thirdly, the test of acceptable worship is how much it magnifies and honors God in His glory. And I wonder today If we applied that test to many so-called worship practices and worship services of many denominations, I wonder in my heart how that worship would stand up to this great test of magnifying and honoring God in His glory. when so much, it seems to me, focuses upon the needs of men and what is acceptable to them and what might draw in others from society around us rather than the great concern of worshipping and magnifying and honouring the Lord in the way that He has appointed. The fourth of these principles is the quality of public worship is closely related to the spiritual condition of the worshippers we must worship in spirit and in truth Jesus says teaching us indeed that the nature of a worship service is very much affected by the state of heart of those who come to it there must be no divorce between our lips and our lives between our speech and our heart and one of the ways you know in which we can test ourselves is the preparation for worship on a Saturday evening as we say to ourselves and our families the great day of the Lord is coming again the queen of days When we draw near to God in this special and wonderful way under the ministry of His Word and Spirit, let's prepare our hearts already for coming into His house that we might be in a fully receptive disposition and demeanor. Do we prepare on Saturday evenings? Do we honour the Lord with silence in the auditorium as we prayerfully anticipate? the ordinances of worship, and are bowed in prayer that God may bless us in those ordinances? Do we wait after the service, bowed in prayer for a few moments at least, seeking again that God's Spirit may apply to our hearts the truths that He has brought from the Scriptures of His Word? The Spirit in which we come to worship and engage in worship has a great influence on the quality of those services of worship in which we participate and even the minister can sense whether is that expectant and receptive and worshipping congregation or otherwise. And the fifth principle is of course the nature and content of our worship will be determined like everything else in the Christian life by the teaching of Holy Scripture. what is called traditionally in Reformed theology the regulative principle of worship. Not what pleases me, but what God has commanded and required and is pleasing in his sight. Well, as I finish this evening, it is in that framework Jesus taught the woman of Samaria that God is seeking worshipers of this disposition. that is what must be true for us as well on every occasion when we assemble for worship remembering that God the Father by his spirit is present and he is seeking worshippers of this kind alas so often our attitude today is often like the woman's our focus on the kind of things that she focused on the place, the externals, the forms of worship, and ignoring what is the central issue in all that we have seen this evening. The biblical emphases of inwardness, a work of grace in the heart, the primacy and centrality of the Word of God in worship. These are the essential notes and where they are neglected or absent, all our so-called worship will be in the end in vain. May God give us grace to be more and more worshipers in spirit and in truth. Thanks be to Him. We rise for prayer. Our Father in Heaven, we thank you for this passage and its great principles from the lips of the Lord Jesus regarding the worship of God. May our hearts be searched this evening. May we also be encouraged to know that still the Father above seeks such to worship Him. And may we have that grace more and more to worship in spirit and in truth.