“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 4:23–24
Opening
Many theologians, preachers, and Christian authors have attempted to capture the idea of humans longing for something other than this world, something else, something better. C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity postured it this way, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” St. Augustine, in multiple writings, described how human beings aren’t just made of earth, but are made of heaven as well. This deep desire and longing creates a hunger for intimacy with the Infinite. The Infinite being God, with the only possibility of a relationship coming through Christ Jesus, and not from us, as the Apostle Paul wrote, ‘so that no one may boast.’ (Ephesians 2:9)
But, as we read about longings and hopes, and even being ‘made of Heaven’, we should naturally wonder, what can satisfy these deepest of desires? The answer lies in the word used 10 times throughout John 4:1-42: worship.
Biblical Reflection
As you read John 4, specifically verses 1-42, you see the word, or a derivative of the word ‘worship’ utilized ten times. Jesus is speaking to the woman at the well in John 4:1-42 and in doing so He describes to her how the Father seeks out worshipers who worship God in spirit and in truth. We ultimately see Jesus bring salvation not only to the Samaritan woman, with whom he was speaking, but to many others in the town of Sychar. The end of this portion of scripture (John 4:42) essentially ends in worship to Jesus for salvation, “They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.” In Greek the word for worship is προσκυνέω, or proskuneo. This word means, “To recognize someone or something of superior value.” The Old English word for worship is similar to the Ancient Greek in terms of meaning. The Old English word for worship is, weorþscipe, or as we would say it now, worth-ship.
Worth-ship is what happens, in some sense, in every episode of the American television series, “Antiques Roadshow.” The premise of this show is that ordinary people bring heirlooms of unknown value, finds at garage sales, or items discovered in attics to have them appraised, often for alarming valuations. One such episode found a Wisconsin man bringing a pocket watch, which was passed down from his great-grandfather. The watch was a 1914 Patek Philippe pocket watch, which the family had previously valued at $6,000. An appraiser and jeweler by trade, Paul Hartquist, acted as host for this portion of Antiques Roadshow. When he was presented with the watch, he called it the finest watch he ever held. He estimated it was worth at least $250,000. In fact, in a later update episode of this show they described how this pocket watch was later purchased through a Sotheby’s auction, by and for the Patek Philippe Museum in Geneva, Switzerland for a staggering, $1.5 million dollars. $6,000 dollars is a lot for a pocket watch, but it is nothing compared to the staggering purchased value of $1.5 million.
What if you owned a pocket watch worth $6,000 and a jeweler told you, you must have it cleaned and repaired every few years to maintain the watch and that this service would cost you $3,000. Would you pay to have this service performed? The answer is probably, no. Within two services of the watch, the value has zeroed out. Perhaps there is value in holding it as a keepsake, but it is not worth performing maintenance on that item multiple times for that amount. Now, let’s say you know the pocket watch was worth $1.5 million, like the one from Antiques Roadshow, and it needed to be cleaned and maintained for $3,000 once every couple of years. Would you make that sacrifice? The answer is most certainly, yes. What if the only way to sell the watch was to fly to Europe on a trip totaling close to $10,000? Would you find a way for the end result, the sale of the watch? Yes. The valuation of the pocket watch changed this man’s life forever. This is worth-ship.
Encouragement
Seeing the worth of something, the ascribed value of that thing, and our belief in how life-changing a thing might be, makes all else fade away. Your entire attitude changes. Your stance of your whole being is transformed by your valuation of an item or thing.
Dare I say, that if you owned that pocket watch, it would no longer live in a drawer with other odds and ends but would reside in a top of the line safe or even better, a safety deposit box inside a secured bank. The jeweler, who gave such a high value to that pocket watch, led the owner to understand there was a reality in the midst of his life that he did not recognize. Because he did not recognize the value of it, he was not living properly, did not have the right attitude towards the thing, or understand the implications for his life.
We find ourselves as Christians, often living like the man before he knew the true value of the pocket watch. We ascribe to being Christians, yet we often live like we do not recognize the absolute value of the thing. We treat the gracious gift of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, as an item to be tossed away. We often throw this gift into the odds and ends drawer, along with everything else in our lives. Worship is placing God where he belongs on His throne, recognizing the implications of Him loving us first, His gracious gift of Jesus, and our need for Jesus as our savior from sin and death. If our entire life’s trajectory would change for a pocket watch, how much more should it be for the ‘Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?’ (John 1:29)
So, what is worship of God? I heard a preacher once say that worship is, “Doing what you do all the time, to almost everybody, but God.” To worship God, you appraise God much like with the pocket watch, but instead of assigning God ‘High Value’ you assign Him, ‘Ultimate Value.’ Instead of investing ‘Much More’ you invest ‘Everything.’ How much more would God demand than a high-priced watch? How much more in awe of God should we be than our most valuable possession? How much more joy should we have from our relationship with God than any personal possession or desire? How much less casually would we treat God than our possessions we throw into a junk drawer? How much differently should we live, as people who are in a relationship with God, considering we would change our whole lives for a possession?
A few weeks back Dr. Burden preached from the text of Isaiah 6. Isaiah had this great vision of the Lord and sees the Lord, “High and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1). Suddenly, Isaiah had this vision, and he saw the greatness and majesty of God. What does that mean? Isaiah worshipped. Isaiah always knew God was great, but he suddenly saw and understood the worth of God. What happens? Isaiah is a changed man. In this chapter of Isaiah, God asked for a volunteer for one of the worst job offers on the planet. God needed someone to go and proclaim his words to a people who would NEVER listen to them. Yuck. Yet, what does Isaiah do? He jumps up and says, “Here am I. Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8) Why does Isaiah respond this way? Because Isaiah suddenly saw the ultimate worth of God. Isaiah elevated God to the highest level in his life and worshipped him fully. Isaiah put God first to the point that he no longer needed a ‘successful’ life as measured by man, because knowing a God like his was worth more than anything the world could offer. This is worth-ship. This is worship.
We oftentimes struggle in worship with the sense of proportion, or even more bluntly, our child-like character next to God’s. As the book of Isaiah says in Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
As a parent I have seen my children ascribe GREAT value to things that really have none at all. Think about your own children, or when you were a child, and the great value they place on their special blanket, or stuffy, or toy. To them, those items are seemingly invaluable. If someone walked up to one of my kids and offered them a house for their favorite toy or stuffy, they would waver. Maybe my slightly older boys would take the deal for the home, but my four-year-old daughter is choosing any one of her 50 plus stuffies every day of the week, over the home. Why? She has no perspective on the absolute value of the item. She cannot see the worth of the items and she has no perspective on proportion.
Stephen, an early church disciple and the first Christian martyr, is called, “A man full of God’s grace and power” in Acts 6:8. Stephen understood the worth of God and worshipped Him, by aligning his whole life towards the will of the Father. In Acts 7 as the religious leaders are about to pick up stones and kill Stephen the Bible says, “But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:55-56) What was God requiring of Stephen? His life. Yet, Stephen remained courageous, when most of us might falter. Why? Stephen suddenly understood his sense of proportion. The worth of the object before Stephen was far greater than his life. How often do we look like our children who would never trade their old, ragged blankets for something of infinite value before God? How often do we cling to tattered stuffies, in comparison to the infinite richness and grace of God’s goodness? Stephen looked at God and found his life was worth far less than knowing his Savior. Stephen worshipped and God was his focus and ultimately, his reward.
In a very real sense, God asked Isaiah to be a total and utter failure, according to the standards of men. And God asked Stephen to completely give up his life in a very real and painful way. So, how did Isaiah get his liberty to live without need of man’s approval and Stephen his courage to give up his life entirely? Both of these men placed God as the ultimate thing in their lives. Both men treated their whole lives as tattered blankets or ragged stuffies, in comparison to the greatness of knowing God. These men aligned their whole lives so that nothing even came close to the worth-ship of God the Father.
Prayer:
God I am in desperate need of you, as Savior and Redeemer. Help me to orient my life, where I might worship you in spirit and in truth. God, replace or remove all things in my life that hold preeminence over you. May you be the center and the ultimate thing that dictates how I live every day. God, let my life fully and totally reflect you in all that I say and do. May I grow to a place where I worship you so fully that my response might be like that of Isaiah’s or Stephens or the Samaritan woman’s.
Thank you, Jesus. Amen.
Reflection Questions:
What is true worship?
How is worship, or rightly orienting your life toward God, reflected in your worship on Sunday mornings?
When you rightly orient your life in worship towards God, do you think things like preferences and styles become more or less important?
What things attempt to dethrone God in your life? How does your life change when focusing on those things as primary instead of God? What can you do to keep God rightly oriented in your life?







