Admonition Podcast

Good evening.

Running just a few minutes behind and I
appreciate ~ Justin stepping

in and starting us off with a song.

If you would take your Bibles and open
them to John chapter four.

We're going to be continuing our study of
worship and of the things pertaining

to worship as we've been doing for the
last few weeks.

And we're going to jump into the New
Testament to look at

a few principles that Jesus establishes
while he is on this earth.

But let's begin with a word of prayer and
then we'll get into our class.

Our gracious Father in heaven,

we come before the throne grateful for
your mercy,

your grace, your everlasting kindness.

We're grateful for your love that has
shown been shown to

us in sending your son to die on the cross
for our sins that we might have

the hope of eternal life.

Lord, we are mindful of the difficulties
that individuals face

on a daily basis. We're mindful of the
struggles that come with health,

the struggles that come with age,

the struggles that come with work.

Lord, we pray that in all of our human
endeavors you will grant us your mercy

and your grace, knowing that we strive in
these areas imperfectly.

But Lord, we are also grateful for your
word,

for its timeless nature,

for the revelation which teaches us both
how to live and how to serve you

in a way that is acceptable.

And Lord, we pray that we might strive
diligently to apply the things that

are in your word to our lives.

All this we pray and ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

In John chapter four,

we find Jesus and

he travels through Samaria. He goes

to the place where the text tells

us he needed to go, verse four.

He needed to go through Samaria.

So he came to the city of Samaria,

which is called Sichar, near the plot of
ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus
therefore,

being wearied from his journey,

sat thus by the well, it was about the
sixth hour.

A woman of Samaria came to draw water,

Jesus said to her, Give me a drink.

For his disciples had gone away into the
city to buy food.

Then the woman of Samaria said to him,

How is it that you, being a Jew,

ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?

For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

As you see this event transpire and you

see the things surrounding it,

Jesus is by himself at the moment that
this occurs.

His disciples have gone to buy food in the
city.

They have gone to acquire these things,

and the indication is they will bring them
back to him.

So as he sits there by the well,

a woman comes to draw water. Now,

the sixth hour of the day is not the
typical time for the drawing of water.

That's usually done in an earlier hour of
the day.

But she arrives to draw water,

and Jesus.

Requests of her when she arrives,

give me something to drink. As the text
tells us,

she is surprised,

might put it that way. How is it that you,

being Jew, ask of me a drink? ~

And the text tells us that the Jews had no
dealing with the Samaritans.

Now, who are the Samaritans?

Okay.

So ~ much like some businesses,

they'll figure out they've got one group
that is causing problems in their company,

and so they'll split up that group and
they'll put one of them here and

one of them here and one of them here,

and what they they they may not be able to
get rid of them,

but they could sure separate them.

Well, that's what the Assyrians' policy
was as a conquering nation,

is the people that they left alive,

of course. ~ they would cart away the
people who were originally from a
particular

Land and carry them off and split them up
and disperse them across

the entire nation. And then they'd take
people from other lands and they'd

do the same thing and disperse them across
the entire nation.

And so ~ the Samaritans were a half-Jew or
part Jew,

part Gentile, intermarried group of people
that were living in the land.

Now, when we say that.

Bear in mind, it's not as though the rest
of the nation were somehow,

shall we say, of pure Israelite stock.

Were they?

Now, if they had been obedient to God's
commandments concerning marrying within

the nations that were in the land and
intermarrying with them and

not giving their children to those nations
and not taking their children

for their sons and daughters ~ from those
nations,

they would have been. Except that's not
exactly how the nation operated,

was it?

So this is quite a bit the height of
hypocrisy that the Jews would have nothing

to do with the Samaritans because they
weren't a hundred percent Jews,

because neither were the Jews after they
had intermarried with

all of the nations that were around them.

Now, there are points in the Israelite
history where some of that is cleared out.

For instance, in I believe the book of
Nehemiah,

where Nehemiah will have them put away
their ~ their ~ families that

are ~ not from Israelite descent because
as he brings back

~ or returns back to the land,

he discovers what is going on,

says, Listen, this is exactly what got us
put in Babylon to begin with,

and now you're going right back to your
old ways.

~

The fact of the matter is the Samaritans
were considered to be worse than dogs.

They were considered to be the people you
would absolutely not spend any time with.

And to the the perspective of that,

the Jews would cross the Jordan River to
go up on the other side of

the Jordan River and then cross back over
the Jordan River a second time

to go to Galilee, so they wouldn't go
through the land of the Samaritans.

That's how much they disapproved of the
Samaritans.

So the woman is noticeably surprised when

a Jew asks of her, a Samaritan,

for a drink of water.

Going back to the text, Jesus answered and
said to her,

If you knew the gift of God and who it was
~ and who it is,

who says to you, Give me a drink,

you would have asked him, and he would
have given you living water.

The woman said to him, Sir, you have
nothing to draw with,

and the well is deep. Where then do you
get that living water?

She she i i i is confused,

first surprised, then confused,

because he says he can give her something
to drink,

and that the gift that he could give her
would be the gift of God.

But he doesn't have anything to draw the
water with.

Now I don't know in her mind what she had
imagined that somehow he would draw

up water with some other method that would
be better water than what

she could draw up out of the same well.

Didn't make a whole lot of sense there.

But the fact of the matter is she sees an
obvious problem.

You have no utensil to do this with.

How are you going to do that?

by the way, that that should probably tell
us a little bit about the nature

of the well and how it was ~ structured in
that you had to bring your

own tools to bring the water up.

it wasn't just that ~ the well was there
waiting for you to you know,

you see the old West idea of a well and
it's got the bucket and

the bucket goes down, the bucket comes
back up,

there's water in the bucket. That wasn't
it,

because otherwise Jesus could have got his
own water and the woman wouldn't have.

made that the the statement. So not that
kind of well.

Now notice further, we we see

in the text she says, Are you greater than
our father Jacob,

who gave us the well and drank from it
himself as well

as his sons and his livestock?

So who is she holding to as a as a
ancestor from the past?

Jacob. It's interesting that

the description here is of Jacob,

but the text earlier tells us that Jacob
gave the well to who?

Joseph. Now the reason why I point that

out is Joseph's descendants who would have
actually possessed

the land, because you remember Joseph
didn't,

right? Joseph was in Egypt from probably
age 18 until he died.

So Joseph personally never possessed the
land.

But Joseph's descendants would have,

except Joseph's descendants lived
underneath what law?

The law of Moses. So Joseph's descendants
lived under

the law of Moses. Did the Samaritans claim
to live under the law of Moses?

Shake your head this way.

So under the law of patriarchy that Jacob
lived under,

where could you put an altar?

Think back to the days of Abraham,

Isaac, Jacob. Correct.

You could put an altar,

so you go look at Abraham. What did it
what was Abraham's practice when

he left Ur of the Chaldees and God said
you go here?

Wherever Abraham went, what do we read in
the text that Abraham did?

He built an altar. So under

Principled descendants of Jacob,

they could have their altar where they
wanted it.

They could say, Hey, our father is Jacob.

We don't know about this whole Moses folk,

but our father is Jacob, and this well
originated with him,

and where we worship is going to originate
with him.

In contrast, you have the Jews who say,

No, you have to worship in Jerusalem.

True or false? All people,

everywhere, from every nation,

during the time of the law of Moses,

had to worship God, in order to worship
him faithfully,

had to worship God in Jerusalem.

True or false. All people everywhere from
every nation had to worship in Jerusalem.

False. Okay? It's important as we go
through the text that

we do not take what

we often envision about the Old Testament.

And more what actually was the case in the
Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, and Paul deals with
this significantly in the Book of Romans,

there are two parallel laws going on.

One law for who? The Jews.

For the Israelites, for the descendants of
Abraham,

through exclusively Isaac,

and through exclusively Jacob.

And through exclusively his sons.

Okay? There was a law given to them.

And that law said that they were to
worship wherever

God put his name. Now,

when they initially came into the land of
Israel,

where did God put his name? Shiloh.

Who did God tell?

that he was going to put his name there
and that they would worship there,

if you remember back to your old testament
history.

Right? so even before that though,

you remember when Jacob has taken the
birthright?

And Jacob Jacob leaves for fear of his
life from his brother,

and Jacob goes to a place called Bethel,

and Jacob lays his head down and sleeps
and puts his head upon a rock.

And what does Jacob see in the vision
while he is sleeping?

Angels ascending and descending from this
place.

And God will tell Jacob, when he returns,

he will build an altar there. The
indication,

at least from what I have studied and what
I understand,

is that the location, basically,

that the tabernacle will be built,

will be in Bethel, in Shiloh,

where Jacob saw that vision.

That is the first settled location for the
tabernacle in Israel.

It is a returning to a place where

God said, I'm going to put my name there.

Now the tabernacle will remain in Bethel,

in Shiloh, until the occasion where the
Ark of the Covenant is taken,

is possessed by the Philistines because of

the actions of Eli and his sons.

They carted it off to war and they lost
it.

It remains in the Philistines until the
Philistines return it back into Israel,

although it doesn't go back to the
tabernacle.

In one individual's house. It remains
there all the way up until the days of
David.

And it is during the moving of it back to
Jerusalem,

the new location where now the tabernacle
has been moved by David from Bethel

to Jerusalem, that now you find Jerusalem
being the location of worship.

So from the days of Moses all the way to
the days

of David was Jerusalem the place of
worship.

No. Matter of fact, till the days of
David,

Jerusalem wasn't even an Israelite city.

It was a city that belonged to

the Jebusites until ~ David essentially
told his man,

one of you go take it. And they did.

So Jerusalem wasn't the place of worship
in Jacob's day,

wasn't the place of worship in Moses' day.

Wasn't the place of worship in Joshua's
day,

wasn't the place of worship in the days of
the judges,

wasn't the place of worship in the days of
King Saul.

It is only towards the end of David's
reign,

middle towards end, last half,

that Jerusalem becomes the place of
worship.

And it is only culminated as the place of
worship when the temple

is built by Solomon, the next king.

But, here's the interesting piece that
matters.

And it's going to matter for the remainder
of the discussion.

It was the place of worship where God
said,

in the days of David and in the days of
Solomon,

I am putting my name here.

In the days of Jacob, God said to Jacob,

you can worship me here. In the days of
David,

God said to David, You can worship me
here.

In the days of Solomon,

God said, You can worship me here.

The reason why I bring this up is it's
important to realize that throughout

the existence of the Israelites,

who

Gets to decide where the place of worship
is.

God. We went through this discussion a bit
last week,

and that is this core principle of God
gets to decide.

God gets to determine what is acceptable

and what is not in worship. Now,

notice

As the woman asked, Are you greater than
our father Jacob,

who gave us the well, and drank from it
himself,

as well as his sons and his livestock?

Jesus answered and said to her,

Whoever drinks of this water will thirst
again.

But whoever drinks of the water that I
shall give them will never thirst.

But the water that I shall give him will
become in him a fountain

of water springing up into everlasting
life.

The woman said to him, Sir, you Sir,

give me this water, that I may not thirst.

Nor come here to draw. Jesus said to her,

Go call your husband and come here.

The woman answered and said, I have no
husband.

Jesus said to her, You have well said,

I have no husband, for you have had five
husbands,

and the one whom you now have is not your
husband in that you spoke truly.

The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive
that you are a prophet.

Now

As we move into this part of the
discussion,

bear in mind that she is observing these
things.

She is hearing what he is saying.

She is trying to comprehend, though she is
working from a different mental model

than Jesus is.

So first she wants to know how you can do
this physical thing,

get down in this well and get water.

Second, she wants to know, are you greater
than Jacob,

who gave us the well, and his sons who
drank from it?

Third thing she wants to know is,

can you give me the water? You're offering
it to me.

I'm all right, I'm a buyer. Give it,

give me some. And Jesus immediately turns
to the question of go call your husband.

She answers appropriately that she has
none,

but Jesus said, You're correct,

you don't. You've had five, and the one
you have now isn't your husband.

She immediately realizes as she's gone
from you have

no physical tool to you have not you can't
possibly be of greater stature

to now.

Y you must be a spokesperson for God.

The moment she comes to a realization that
he is a spokesperson for God,

some things start to change. And she says,

I perceive that you are a prophet.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain,

and you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the
place where one ought to worship.

If you're a prophet, if you speak on
behalf of God,

then I want to bring up the age-old
question that us and your people argue
about

all the time.

She makes a statement. Have you noticed
sometimes statements are questions?

She says, I perceive you are a prophet.

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain,

and you, Jews, say that in Jerusalem is
the place where one ought to worship.

Period. Not question mark.

Have you ever heard the question?

or the statement, ~ you're from the Church
of Christ.

You're those people who believe you're the
only ones going to heaven.

It's not a question, except it is.

So the woman says,

Hmm, you know what you Jews always say?

You Jews always tell us we're worshiping
in the wrong place.

Now, as we get into the discussion.

And Jesus' answer, ask yourself one more
time,

was the place where all people

of all nations everywhere were commanded
to worship in the days of

the law of Moses, Jerusalem. And the
answer is no.

Could a Babylonian who was born

and raised in Babylon

Who met Daniel in the period of his exile

was taught concerning Jehovah and began
worshiping and being obedient

to Jehovah in the land of the Chaldeans,

a place where Abraham came from.

Could that Babylonian worship

God faithfully in Babylon? Yes.

Yes he could.

The law of Moses was given to what people?

The Israelites.

It pertained to them. Now, it also
pertained to all those

who converted to their nation.

Give an example of an old testament person
who converted to become an Israelite.

Take I heard two different answers and
Rahab.

Ruth by nature of marriage,

Rahab by nature of being obedient to God
and I guess eventually through marriage.

~ a New Testament example.

The Ethiopian eunuch. All indications
because he was going or coming from
Jerusalem

where he had gone to worship is that the
Ethiopian eunuch was a proselyte.

He was one who had converted to the
religion in the nation of Israel

in the religious sense, though he was
still an Ethiopian nationally.

Okay?

So for those individuals who bound
themselves under the law,

to use Paul's terminology, where were they
to worship three times a year?

In Jerusalem. They were not to build
places of worship all over the land,

all over the place. They were not to build
altars to God and offer sacrifices

on every high hill, as the Old Testament
says.

They were to worship in Jerusalem,

where God put his name. Okay?

But everyone who wasn't an Israelite.

So if you think about the world's
population,

how much of the world's population lives
in Palestine,

Israel, ~ and was of the twelve tribes of
Jacob?

Pretty small amount.

All those people were never given a
commandment to worship in Jerusalem.

And yet, if they worshiped God faithfully,

their worship was still accepted.

Their worship was still in accordance with
His will.

Under a different law. Okay,

so bear in mind as the discussion moves
forward,

Jesus is fully aware there's two laws.

But these Samaritans,

are they Israelites or are they not?

And that's where the rub is. Because the
Samaritans wanted

to be Israelites, go all the way back to
the days of Nehemiah.

The Samaritans wanted the position of
being considered part

of the nation, but being distinct at the
same time,

they refused to go worship in Jerusalem.

No, we can worship here, where our
ancestors worshiped.

So notice what Jesus says. Woman,

believe me, the hour is coming when you
will neither on this mountain

nor in Jerusalem worship the Father.

Jesus immediately responds with,

There's something coming you don't
understand.

Jesus immediately tracks her forward to
the truth of

the kingdom that He came to establish.

But he then says, You worship what you do
not know.

We know what we worship for salvation is
of the Jews.

When Jesus says that salvation is of the
Jews and that they know what they worship,

is he indicating that at the time that he
was walking this earth everyone

who could possibly be saved was a Jew?

No.

Rather, his point is a historical one.

That the origination of salvation,

that is, the one whom God was sending,

because you're going to watch the
conversation immediately,

head straight towards the Messiah.

The one through whom salvation is coming
is of the Jews,

is essentially what he's saying.

Jesus says, You worship what you do not
know,

we know what we worship, for salvation is
of the Jews,

but the hour is coming and now is when the
true worshipers will worship

the Father in spirit and in truth,

for the Father is seeking such to worship
him.

God is spirit, and those who worship him
must worship

in spirit and truth.

The woman said to him, I know that the
Messiah.

Now notice she she she understood what he
was saying.

When he said salvation is of the Jews,

she said, I know you're talking about the
Messiah.

She says, I know that the Messiah is
coming,

who is called Christ. When he comes,

he will tell us all things.

Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am
He.

So a few things we want to gather from
this in regards to worship.

Number one, Jesus reveals the nature of
the kingdom.

That the kingdom was not like the law of
Moses.

That the thing that God was bringing in
the days of

the Messiah was not like the Old Testament
law of Israel.

Turn to Jeremiah chapter 31.

Jeremiah chapter thirty one, a passage
which the Hebrew writer in making

the same line of argumentation concerning
the old and the new law will argue from is

And we'll quote in detail. We read in
Jeremiah 31 and in verse 31,

Behold, the days are coming, says the
Lord,

when I will make a new covenant with the
house of Israel and with

the house of Judah. Not according to the
covenant that I made with their fathers

in the day that I took them by the hand to
lead them out of the land of Egypt.

Notice God tells Israel through Jeremiah,

When I make this new covenant,

it's not going to be like the old one.

It is going to be inherently different
from the law of Moses.

Now they're not going to fully appreciate
that,

but Jesus is telling this woman:

the thing that God is doing through the
Jews,

through the Messiah, is inherently
different from what

you have always known as what the Jews
worship.

But he goes on to say in Jeremiah chapter
31,

verse 32: not according to the covenant.

That I made with their fathers in the day
that I took them by the hand

to lead them out of the land of Egypt,

my covenant which they broke, though I was
a husband to them,

says the Lord. Now notice something else.

Jeremiah accuses

the Jews of breaking the covenant.

Jeremiah makes it clear that it is not the
Lord

who is breaking the covenant.

That it was the Jews who had done that.

So when Jesus says to the woman,

We know what we worship, you don't know
what you worship.

He is not arguing that the Jews have
always done it right.

He is in no way arguing that the Jews have
it all figured out.

Rather, he is establishing that there was
a God.

Given command that was being followed in

the worship in Jerusalem. That God had
said for them

to do this, and that with the Samaritans
their worship

was not ordained by God.

It was not commanded that they worship
there in that mountain.

They were not given that instruction by
the mouth of a prophet or by

the mouth of the Lord. So Jesus is
establishing the source of authority.

The Jews know what we do because God said,

Do this. You have no such command.

You are arguing back to your forefathers.

Well, Jacob did, therefore it's okay.

Now notice what else.

We find in Jeremiah. Verse 33.

But this is the covenant that I will make
with the house of Israel after those days,

says the Lord. I will put my law in their
minds and write it on their hearts,

and I will be their God, and they shall be
my people.

Where was

the law written previously?

In the days of Moses.

All right, initially Ten Commandments on
tablets of stone,

and then Moses wrote down

The Pentateuch, Genesis through
Deuteronomy.

The law was in written form.

Now, the point Jeremiah is making is not
that there won't be a written law.

Rather that the nature of the covenant is
going to go from one where it's

a law that you could go in and open the
the Ark of the Covenant and pull

out a scroll, or go into the tabernacle,

or go into a storage place and pull out a
scroll.

In contrast to that,

you have God saying, No, I'm going to put
it in their heart and in their mind.

Is going to be something internalized and
not just externalized.

But he goes on to say, he says,

My law shall be in their minds and be
written in their hearts,

and I will be their God, and they shall be
my people.

This is an interesting contrast to,

by the way, the writer Hosea, who will
describe Israel

as not my people from God.

He says, No more shall every man teach his
neighbor,

and every man his brother, saying,

Know the Lord, for they shall all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest of
them,

says the Lord. For I will forgive their
iniquity and their sin I will remember

no more. God says,

Here's how you've always had it.

You're born in the covenant.

You are birthed into a nation,

and by blood you are a part of the
covenant.

After you're born, somebody's got to teach
you what the covenant is.

Because you didn't have any sake.

You were born an Israelite. So now you
have to be taught the covenant.

He said, That's not how my kingdom's going
to be.

This new covenant, everyone who's a part
of it will know.

The covenant. They will all know me.

In other words, the knowledge will come
before the birth.

They're not going to be born into this
covenant by physical birth,

but rather they're going to be born by
spiritual birth.

Interestingly, back over in John chapter
3,

Jesus and Nicodemus, just in the prior
chapter,

before Jesus heads to Samaria,

has have had a discussion on this very
topic.

Because Nicodemus comes to Jesus in John
chapter 3 and says,

This man came to Jesus by night and said
to him,

Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come
from God,

for no one can do the signs that you do
unless God is with him.

Jesus said, Most assuredly I say to you,

unless one is born again. That's the point
of Jeremiah.

You've got to be born into the covenant.

And it's not by physical birth.

Unless one is born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God.

Nicodemus said to him, How can a man be
born when he is old?

Can he enter a second time into his
mother's womb and be born?

Jesus said, Most assuredly I say to you,

unless one is born of water and of the
Spirit,

he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus says, You you're going to have to go
through a new birth,

and it's not going to be your mother's
birth canal.

You're going to have to go through a new
birth in water and the Spirit

in order to enter the kingdom of God.

Because my covenant, God said,

is a new covenant. And everyone who's in
my covenant will know

me. So as you examine and kind of piece
these things

together, understand something about
worship.

Under the Old Testament law, there was a
set of laws

and ordinances for the Israelite.

There was a set of worship commandments
for the Israelite.

There was a set of commandments inside
that Old Testament covenant.

And the Israelite was obligated to keep
those laws,

those ordinances, those commandments.

Those same commands were not given to
Israel.

all of the Gentile world. And so they
lived under a different set

of laws and ordinances. Jesus' point to
this woman is,

that's not going to be the case moving
forward.

There's going to be one set of laws and
one set of ordinances.

And that all those who worship God are
going to worship

Him in spirit and in truth.

Because they're going to be a part of a
new covenant.

They're going to be part of a new
relationship.

And they're all going to know God.

You're not going to go around saying,

hey, you're part of the covenant,

but let me introduce you to who God is.

It's not how it's not how it's going to
work.

It's going to begin, let me introduce you
to who God is,

so you can be a part of the covenant.

Okay? We need to understand that under the
Old Testament.

Jesus makes it clear God got to decide
where worship happened and where

it was acceptable. Under the New
Testament,

God gets to decide where worship's going
to happen and where it's acceptable.

But one last point,

and that is this. Go back to what we read
in verse 23.

But the hour is coming and now is when the
true worshipers

Will worship the Father in spirit and in
truth.

For God is seeking such to worship Him.

The last thing I want you to hold on to

is this God

is actively seeking true worship.

God is looking for a people

For individuals throughout the world who
are willing

to worship him in spirit and in truth.

And we have to look at ourselves and
examine ourselves and wonder,

not wonder, but examine ourselves and
consider,

are we?

Do we worship God in spirit and in truth?

And can we sit down and evaluate whether
or not we do?

Because we are responsible for our end of
the covenant,

just like the Israelites were,

and just like the Samaritans were.

We're responsible for our part and for
making sure we're

in accordance with God's commandments.

Okay? Thank you for your attention.