Sermon Tone Analysis

Lessons in Worship

Gospel of John, Part 1—January 27, 1991

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

17 “I have no husband,” she replied.

Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.

18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband.

What you have just said is quite true.” 19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.

20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.

24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”

25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming.

When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 26 Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.” 27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman.

But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” 28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Could this be the Christ?” 30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.

Here ends the reading of God’s Holy Word

You know, people analyze and are kind of amazed by the fact that the more high tech our country gets, the more scientifically advanced, the more emphasis on knowledge and cognition and intellect and information, the more people seem to be passionately running into all sorts of sects and cults and occult cults that promise deep, ecstatic experiences.

The more everything is able to be boiled down to facts and figures and procedures that can be packaged, moved around, and turned into a commodity, the more we get tech, the more we feel empty.

My generation of college students in the late 60s was one of the first ones to complain about this, though we weren’t really completely sure what we were complaining about.

Do any of you remember we talked about the “plastic” culture?

Do you remember that?

The plasticity: science, image, money.

Phony, we said.

Not human.

I remember very clearly our college generation turned to drugs not the way the poor turn to it now, out of despair, and not even the way the professionals turn to it now, out of stress.

We turned to it out of an inner spiritual emptiness.

I remember very clearly when we turned to the churches, the irony was that the churches back in the earliest part of the twentieth century, so many of them had discarded the idea of a supernatural Christianity.

So we turned to the churches.

We found for several years (a number of decades) they had been laughing at the idea of being born again through an encounter with the Holy Spirit.

They laughed at the idea of a divine book, God’s revealed Word, in which you could discover the very mysteries of his heart and his mind because it was written by him.

They laughed at all these ideas in the name of relevance.

That is what is so ironic, and yet when we turned to the churches we found it was as if they were as sterile as our culture.

There was as much awe and mystery about their services as there was about a board meeting, you know.

We turned to them and they weren’t there.

Why have so many Americans turned to drugs, to mysticism, to emotionalism?

The answer is (and we mentioned it last week and now we press it this week) because, though many people will tell you you’re made only of earth, you’re actually made of heaven as well, and there is a hunger for intimacy with the infinite.

Intimacy with the infinite.

You can’t live without it.

What is that?

It’s worship, and 10 times the word worship is used in this passage.

This chapter is about worship above everything else.

The word is used 10 times.

So we ask ourselves, “If this is what we most are hungry for, if this in some sense is haunting (not driving) our society today, the lack of intimacy with the infinite, then what is worship?”

We’re going to learn at least three things here from this passage: The what of worship, the why of worship, and the how of worship.

Let’s be real basic, all right?

What is it?

Why must we do it?

How do we do it?

Of course, all the answers aren’t here, but some very important ones are.

1.

What is worship?

Well, the word that keeps getting used again and again (at least the Greek word, if you were reading it in that) is proskuneo.

The word for worship originally and literally means to recognize someone or something of superior value.

The English word worship is right in line with this Greek word, because the word worship today, as you’ve often heard me mention at the top of the service, is a shortened version of the old, English word “worthship.”

Let me tell you about “worthship.”

You see, when we think of worship we just think of going to church, but “worthship” is something we do constantly.

Your grandmother gives you a set of jewelry, and, you know, it looks fine.

It’s nice.

It’s old.

It’s pretty.

You throw it into your top drawer.

But let’s just say one day for some reason a friend of yours who is a jeweler is in your home and happens to see it, and he goes crazy.

He goes berserk!

He says, “Wait a minute,” and he looks it over, and he assesses it, and he begins to say, “Listen.

What do you think this is?

This is unbelievably valuable.

Not only are these jewels precious stones that you didn’t realize, but this is obviously the work of a craftsman who lived in the seventeenth century whose works are highly prized and whose works are very rare.

This thing is worth hundreds of thousands or more!”

What happens to you?

Your entire attitude toward the jewelry changes.

Your stance of your whole being changes.

First of all, you begin to admire it in a way you never did before.

The jeweler, for example, points out beauties, things you didn’t see, but now that the jeweler says, “Look at this stone.

Look at how this shines.

Look at this,” you begin to see beauty as you never saw it before and you begin to fill your mind with the value of it.

Then you don’t just admire it.

You begin to think of the implications of that value for your life.

You begin to think how your life will be completely different now.

You begin to think of how many things there are so different you would be able to do that you couldn’t have done before.

You think of how the value of this thing is impacting you.

You draw out the implications of it.

Then, of course, you also begin to change your behavior toward it.

That night you don’t throw it into your top drawer, now do you?

You’re not casual about it, are you?

Oh, no.

You begin to invest.

For example, the first thing you do is buy a strongbox, or you put it in one.

Not only that, but the jeweler says, “Listen.

You need to repair it.

You need to clean it.

It will enhance the value double-fold, you see.

There is only one person in the world who can do it.

He lives in Switzerland.

It will cost a couple thousand dollars just to have him do it.”

Does that bother you now?

No!

You invest in it, you see.

What’s a couple thousand dollars?

Your whole attitude has completely changed.