Disciple: What It Means to Follow Jesus

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Disciple: What It Means to Follow Jesus 360 Worship * John 4:1-26 Introduction Let’s take our Bibles and turn to the Gospel of John, chapter 4. This morning I am pleased to tell you that I have some encouraging words for you. I recognize that the last two weeks have been kind of heavy, to say the least, and this message will be at times as well, but it will also provide some much needed encouragement. In fact, I’d like to begin by taking a moment to rejoice with you about what God is doing in and through Harmony Bible Church. In just the last week or so I know of four people who have made professions of faith in Christ through our members sharing the gospel with them. One of these by the way, was a man who attended our Sportsmen’s Dinner way back in February and has been attending a Bible study with one of our men ever since. And I want to encourage you that this is a great way to do it; build a relationship with someone, start studying the Word with them, and let the Spirit do the rest. Once again, I will just remind you that the 12:1 Run is coming up and offers a great opportunity to begin to introduce someone to Christ. At the same time, not only are we seeing transformation in the lives of those in our community, we are also seeing God do some great things in the lives of those within our church. I heard a number of stories just this past week about how the Spirit is working in big ways and so we can be excited and thankful to the Lord for what he is doing right here. Amen? Review Ok, today we arrive at message number three in our Disciple series. But before we get to that, let’s do a quick review of what we have learned so far. Two weeks ago we kicked off the series by answering two foundational questions. And let’s see if you have grabbed hold of this. What is God doing? God is building his church through the proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah. And what is our role in this; what is the church called to do? We are called to make disciples. That was week one. We followed this up last week by beginning to discuss what it means to be a disciple. If we are going to make disciples, we first need to understand what a disciple is. And so we turned to Matthew 16:24 where we learned that a disciple denies himself, carries his cross, and faithfully follows Christ.

This all brings us to our message today, a message in which we are going to start getting specific about what discipleship looks like. Think about it like this. Last week we discussed the general characteristics of what it means to be a disciple; over the next six weeks we are going to get into the details. In other words, we are going to get down to the nitty gritty. And let me be clear that there are two primary things we want to accomplish. One, we want everyone to personally comprehend what it means to follow Jesus. And not just in theory, but in real life. We want each of you to clearly understand what the Christian life is all about and how to live it. At the same time, we also want to teach you how to make disciples, as well as lay out a plan for how we will attempt to do that as a church. So, you get that? The goal for the next six weeks is for us all to learn how to be a disciple and how to make disciples, specifically through the ministry of Harmony Bible Church. And to kick us off, let me give you a summary statement for the rest of the series, one that we will return to over and over again. We can say this: A disciple is someone who worships Christ in all of life, lives in community with other disciples, and lives on mission to make more disciples. As you can see, there are three key words in this statement. They are worship, community, and mission. When you think about being a disciple and making disciples, think worship, community, and mission. And today we are going to talk about worship. 360 Worship Right now I want everyone to take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Everyone calm? I want everyone to take it easy because I know that when we hear the word worship most of us think that we are going to talk about what? We think music, right? And there is perhaps nothing that has caused more conflict in churches than music. But let me say right from the get go that I am not going to talk about music at all. That’s because while music can be a part of worship, there is much, much more to it than that. We also need to recognize that worship isn’t just what we do here in this room once a week. Again, worship is much more than that. Since there is a lot of confusion on this point, I think it would be good to begin with a definition of worship, which would actually be much easier if we lived during the days of the formation of the English language. Back when the English language was being formulated, in the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare, they used the word worthship instead of worship. It was worthship because it meant assigning to something its true  

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worth. Specifically related to God it meant giving him the praise and glory that he deserves, something we see repeatedly in the Psalms. For example, Psalm 96: Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength! [8] Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name. (Psalm 96:7-8 ESV) In other words, give to the Lord what he is worthy of. That’s what worship is. So, right from the top let’s make sure that we get this straight: worship is not confined to a type of music, a specific activity, or a specific location. Worship is giving God his due all the time, in all locations, in every activity. The title of this message is 360 Worship, because worship is all of life. With that said, let’s go to John 4, the foundational passage on worship in all of Scripture. Start in verse 1: Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John [2] (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), [3] he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. [4] And he had to pass through Samaria. [5] So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. [6] Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. [7] A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” [8] (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) [9] The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) [10] Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” [11] The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? [12] Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” [13] Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, [14] but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” [15] The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” [16] Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” [17] The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; [18] for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” [19] The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. [20] Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” [21] Jesus said to her,  

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“Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. [22] You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. [23] But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. [24] God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” [25] The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” [26] Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” (John 4:1-26 ESV) So, this is a fascinating story. And while we could probably do three or four messages from this text, I simply want to point out four things we can learn about worship from Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well. 1. Worship is about real life.1 Number one, worship is about real life. When Jesus decides that he wants to teach us about worship, he does so by crossing racial, gender, social and religious boundaries. In the day and time that Jesus lived, there was absolutely no way that he should have interacted with this woman. First, Jewish men in the 1st century wouldn’t even speak to their own wives in public, let alone a stranger on the street. That’s why verse 27 says the disciples were amazed when they found Jesus talking to the woman. Second, the woman was a Samaritan, and the Jews absolutely hated the Samaritans. The Jews hatred had to do with race and religion and is highlighted in verse 9 when Matthew says that Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. The point here is that the Jews considered the Samaritans unclean, and so Jesus was crossing a huge boundary when he asked the woman if he could drink from her jar of water, because according to Jewish tradition this would make him unclean. Finally, this was a very immoral woman. Verse 18 tells us that she had been married to five men and was currently shacking up with another. And the fact that she shows up at the well at noon tells us that she was very likely an outcast in her town, because women normally went to the well in the morning and evening, not at noon during the hottest part of the day. The woman was probably the pariah of her town, and the last thing a Jewish Rabbis would do would be to socialize with an immoral woman. Here is the point. For some reason we tend to think of worship as something that is disconnected from real life. It’s something resigned to Sunday mornings and for pastors and super-spiritual people to worry about. But let me ask you, what is more                                                                                                                 1  John  Piper  (1986,1996,2003,2011).    Pg.  77.    Desiring  God  –  Meditations  of  a  Christian  Hedonist.     Colorado  Springs,  Colorado:  Multnomah  Books      

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real than sexism, racism, divorce, sexual immorality, and broken relationships? Aren’t these the kinds of things we deal with on a daily basis? I think they are. And you know what? They all have to do with worship. This woman has a lot of issues, but her real problem isn’t one of race, sex, or relationships, but of worship, which we are going to see Jesus make clear to her in just a minute. Before we move on, however, I want us to consider this. Jesus was willing to cross social, racial, gender, and religious boundaries to rescue hurting people. And I think we need to ask ourselves if we are willing to do the same. Are we willing to put aside our sinful biases, cross over the lines, and love people the way he did? Listen friends, if we are going to be serious about this disciple making stuff we are going to have to get out of our comfort zones and love people who don’t look like us, don’t think like us, don’t worship like us, and don’t live like us. That’s what Jesus did for us, and so we need to be willing to do it for others. That, my friends, is what it means to be a disciple. 2. Worship is a matter of the head and the heart. The second thing we need to see here about worship is that it is a matter of the head and the heart. The key section of this passage is verses 19-24. Look at it with me: The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. [20] Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” [21] Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. [22] You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. [23] But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. [24] God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman is bringing up the fundamental argument between the Jews and the Samaritans, the disagreement over the correct location for worship. The Samaritans said that it was a mountain called Gerizim, the Jews said it was Jerusalem. Jesus responds by saying that its’ neither. In verse 23 he says that true worship is worship in spirit and in truth. He says that worship is no longer about where but about how and whom. Now, what exactly does Jesus mean by this? I think perhaps the best way to understand it is to use the terms head and heart. To recognize that worship isn’t about  

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a location, but rather about what goes on here (head) and here (heart). Let’s talk about each, starting with the head. • Head (truth) In verse 22 Jesus tells the woman that the Samaritans have a truth problem, that their understanding of God is incomplete. At the same time, when he says that salvation is from the Jews, he doesn’t mean that the Jews are saved, but rather the one who provides salvation is a Jew. And who is the one? Jesus makes is clear in verses 25-26: The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” When we put this all together we recognize that Jesus is telling the woman that the only way to worship God the Father is through understanding that he is the Messiah. Later on in John Jesus will be explicit about this: I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6 (ESV) Now, this might seem elementary to many of us, but we need to be very clear on this point. It does not matter how sincere people are in their faith, or how committed they are to what they believe, if they don’t believe the truth about Jesus they are not worshiping the one true God. The Samaritans were very sincere in their faith, but since they weren’t worshiping in truth their worship was empty. Let me give you an example that is very relevant right now. A few months ago the pastor of America’s largest church said on CNN that Mormons are Christians. He said that although Mormonism isn’t traditional Christianity, it does fall under the Christian tent.2 The problem is Mormons don’t believe what Jesus says in verse 26. They don’t believe that He is the Messiah. And therefore, they aren’t Christians because that is what it means to follow Christ. You have to believe that Jesus is the Messiah. Now, I don’t say this in order to malign Mormons but rather to point out that we can’t be fooled into thinking that because people are sincere that they worship the same God that we do. In order to worship the true God, you must believe the truth, specifically the truth about Jesus. Now, let’s come at this from a different angle. For those of us who do worship the one true God, we also need to understand that the depth of our worship is dependent                                                                                                                 2http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/24/osteen-­‐romney-­‐is-­‐a-­‐christian/    

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upon the depth of our doctrine. What I mean is that the deeper our grasp of truth, the deeper our worship will be. The more that we know about God, the more we will be able to reflect back to him how truly worthy he is. I really believe that one of the reasons we have such a lack of true worship in the church today is because we have a deficient knowledge of the Word of God. That’s why we take pains to dig deep with you into God’s Word every week. You know, we joke quite a bit about how long the messages have been, but it’s really hard to get deep in 30 minutes or less. And the problem is if we don’t get deep, we don’t really see whom God is, and if we don’t see whom God is, we won’t worship him as we should. Now, all that said, head knowledge alone isn’t enough. That’s because it is possible to know truth about God but to worship him in vain. Jesus was clear about this in regards to the Pharisees: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; [9] in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. (Matthew 15:8-9 ESV) You see, the Pharisees knew their doctrine. They spent their lives studying the Scriptures. The problem is that it never made it to their hearts. You see, worship must not only be in truth, it must also be in spirit. • Heart (spirit) When Jesus says in verse 23 that true worshipers worship in spirit he is not referring to the Holy Spirit, but rather to the inner spirit of man, to what the Bible often calls the heart. Note what Puritan Stephen Charnock has to say on this point: Without the heart it is no worship; it is a stage plan; an acting a part without being that person really which is acted by us; a hypocrite… is a stage-player…We may be truly said to worship God, though we lack perfection; but we cannot be said to worship him, if we lack sincerity. We have talked about this at length before. God is not first and foremost concerned with what we know or what we do on the outside, but with whom we are on the inside. And by the inside I am referring to our affections and passion for him. This is clearly seen in Psalm 51:

 

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For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. [17] The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (Psalm 51:16-17 ESV) This means that we must avoid the tendency to think that we can come to church on Sunday, put in our time, get our heads filled with knowledge, and think that we have worshiped. God not only wants our minds, he also wants our affections. I love the way that Jonathon Edwards describes the balance between the head and heart aspects of worship: If a minister has light without heat, and entertains his [hearers] with learned discourses, without a savour of the power of godliness, or any appearance of fervency of spirit, and zeal for God and the good of souls, he may gratify itching ears, and fill the heads of his people with empty notions; but it will not be very likely to reach their souls. And if, on the other hand, he be driven on with a fierce and intemperate zeal, and vehement heat, without light, he will be likely to kindle the like unhallowed flame in his people, and to fire their corrupt passions and affections; but will make them never the better, nor lead them a step towards heaven, but drive them apace the other way. – Jonathon Edwards So, let’s try and put this all together. This is how it is supposed to work. Worship starts with the truth proclaimed and understood. It starts with comprehension. But it doesn’t stop there. The truth has to go from our heads to our hearts. And when the truth gets to the heart it stirs our passions and affections for Christ. And once it does, it will flow out of our hearts and transform the way we live. In fact, we can picture it this way: true worship goes from the head, to the heart, and finally to the hands. This naturally leads to the third point about worship in John 4: all of life is worship. 3. All of life is worship. That’s what Jesus is trying to tell us here in John 4. Worship isn’t a location, it’s not an event, its’ our entire life. Romans 12:1 tells us this: I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. (Romans 12:1 ESV) Paul has just spent the first eleven chapters of Romans writing the richest section of doctrine in all of Scripture. And then he comes to chapter 12 and says therefore, or because of what God has done, now respond by giving your life in worship. You see, in the Old Testament believers had to go to the temple to worship. But when Jesus died on the cross, God tore the veil of the temple in two, giving us direct access to his  

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presence anywhere on the planet. In the Old Testament the sacrifices were bulls and goats. But Paul tells us here in Romans 12 that today our lives are the offering. The way that we worship God today is through our lives. Let’s push this ball down the court a little farther by taking a look at 1 Corinthians 10:31. Paul writes: So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV) Two keys words in this verse, both pointing to the same truth. Can you guess what they are? Whatever and all, including eating and drinking, are to be done to God’s glory. In other words, the point of everything we do is worship. Here’s one more passage. Colossians 1:18: And he [Christ] is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. (Colossians 1:18 ESV) The word preeminent means first place. Jesus Christ is to have first place in everything we do. Now, these are easy truths to affirm. But my experience is that most Christians have a very difficult time actually applying them to everyday life. And I think the reason for this is our tendency to compartmentalize our lives. I have found the church isn’t too helpful with this either. One of the primary things I was taught in Sunday school growing up was an acronym called JOY. This acronym is sometimes used to instruct believers on how to prioritize their lives. You remember what it stands for? Jesus, Others, You. So, Jesus is first, others are second and you go last. Which in and of itself isn’t necessarily a bad idea. Unfortunately, I have found that a lot of us use this to compartmentalize our time. We give Jesus some time – say Sunday, the first day of the week. And then we check him off the list. And then we give our family some time, and then we check them off the list. And what do we do with the rest of our time? We consider it ‘me time.’ We think that we can do whatever we want with that portion of our life. The problem is that this is very clearly not what the Bible teaches. The Bible says it’s all God’s time. This being the case let me suggest for you a different way to look at life. For the sake of simplicity, let’s divide life up into four different categories, something like this.

 

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Most of us have an occupation or a career. If you are a student put school in there, if you are retired put retirement in there. A second category would be family. A third would be church. And a fourth we will label hobby, what we might call ‘me time’. I know for some of you this might simply be TV, but that’s ok. Whatever you do with what you call free time. Now, I realize you might come up with a few other categories, but let’s just use this for simplicity. In my opinion way to many Christians view only a portion of their life as God’s time. They very simply compartmentalize their life like this and while they might not admit it, they view church time as God’s time and rarely if ever bring Him into the other categories of their lives. They really don’t see God as having much to do with their family, they rarely see him having anything to do with their occupation, and they definitely don’t see him as having anything to do with their ‘me time.’ But I hope that you can see from the passages that we just looked at that this is not the way that God sees it. In fact, I would suggest that the way God sees it is much more like this.

Instead of being restricted to one category of our lives, God desires for Jesus Christ to be at the very center of every area of our life. This means that the reason I work is not simply to provide for my family or to make a lot of money, but rather to bring glory to  

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God by working hard and being a witness to the people I work with. Let me say this. God cares much more about your work than most of you think. It doesn’t matter what kind of job you have, whether you clean toilets at the local high school or are a doctor at the hospital. Your job isn’t just a job; it’s an opportunity to make much of Jesus. This also means that the primary reason that you have a spouse is so you can honor God through that relationship. Listen friends, God gave you your spouse so that together you might give a demonstration to the world of the beautiful relationship that Christ has with his church. That’s why you are married. Parents, why do you have children? Some of you might say it was an accident. There are no accidental children. God gave you kids so that you might raise them to worship him as well. And, let me ask you, what is the purpose for your hobbies? Listen, there is nothing wrong with golf, or hunting, or scrapbooking, or sports, or even video games. These are all gifts from God for our enjoyment. If you have a hobby you enjoy, you should thank the Lord, because he is the one who gave it to you. But just remember, the reason that he gave it to you is so that as you enjoy it you might bring glory to him. Now, I know that some of you are struggling to understand how exactly this works. So let me give you an example that maybe will bring it home for you. You all know that I like to hunt. So let’s talk about how hunting can be worship. How do I bring glory to God when I hunt? First, I recognize that it is a privilege and not a right. I’m not talking about a right as an American citizen, so settle down and don’t go all 2nd amendment on me. I mean that the opportunity to live where I do in the time I do and have the resources needed to hunt is a gift from God. It’s a privilege that he has given to me. So I begin by being thankful. Second, I make sure that I don’t take it too seriously. That I realize it is simply a sport and it is not a life or death issue. Perhaps for the game, but not for me. If I don’t get to go or I am not successful, I don’t flip out about it. Third, I participate in moderation. This means that in participating I don’t neglect my primary responsibilities, including to the Lord, my family, and the church. And finally, as I participate I am continually looking for the opportunity to praise the Lord and share him with those I participate with. Now, I have just applied that to hunting, but I would suggest that you could apply it to just about anything, including eating and drinking. And let me say this; when we don’t take this approach, then whatever we are doing becomes about us and not about Him. You realize that right? It’s really not a question of if we are worshiping, but rather of whom we are worshiping. The truth of the matter is that we are either worshiping Christ, or we are worshiping ourselves.

 

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Here’s the summary point: a disciple is someone who makes Christ the center of absolutely everything. That ultimately, all of life is about worshiping him. 4. God is seeking worshipers. (v. 23) All right, one more point to finish up. And for this I want to take us back to John 4. Here is the most encouraging truth in this message. God is seeking worshipers. Look at verse 23: But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God does not expect us to come to him, and that’s a good thing, because we can’t. But he is willing to come to us. He was willing 2,000 years ago and he is still willing today. My friends, this is the reason that Jesus came. He came because there was no way we could get to God on our own. And so Jesus came to bring us to the Father. For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10 (ESV) So, if you are here today and you are lost, please know that Jesus is in this room today seeking you. He desires for you to worship Him. And the way to do that is to recognize that he is the Messiah, the Son of the living God and to place your faith in Him as the only way to the Father. That said, I imagine that most of us today would claim to be followers of Christ. We would say that we are disciples. And if this is true, I want to remind you that we were lost at one time ourselves. And when we were lost, Jesus came looking for us. Are you thankful for that this morning? Are you thankful that when you were lost and couldn’t find your way to God Jesus came and showed you the way? But let’s not miss the fact that he did so for one primary reason: so that we might worship Him with all of our life. Do you get that? Jesus didn’t save you so you could worship him for 90 minutes a week. He saved you to worship him 360 - every single minute of every single day. Not just now, but for all eternity. So, what does it mean to be a disciple? It means to worship Christ in all of life. In closing, I want to leave you with one more passage: Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, [20] for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 ESV)  

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Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. © 2012 by Chris Carr. You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that: (1) you credit the author, (2) any modifications are clearly marked, (3) you do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction, (4) you include Harmony Bible Church’s website address (www.harmonybiblechurch.org) on the copied resource.

 

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