We are wired for worship and for us to rightly worship requires the right object of worship...

This week, we are looking at an event from history involving an encounter between a woman who was an outsider who was fare from God and far from others that is recorded for us in a section of an account of Jesus life in the Bible called the gospel of John. Instead of responding to the animosity of the Samaritan woman by ignoring her, Jesus chooses to engage her.

We looked on as Jesus offered the Samaritan women water that was living and active and could produce the life that she so desperately needed and was lacking. The Samaritan woman however, was not focused on receiving the water that would produce life. Instead, she was solely focused on meeting her immediate personal needs to maintain life. While Jesus offered water that would remove even the deepest thirst, the Samaritan woman missed the point and was focused on her pressing immediate needs. The Samaritan woman was focused on attempting to satisfy her deepest thirst from the wrong source, from the wrong object.

The Samaritan woman was focused on satisfying her deepest thirst from the well of relationships with a man. The Samaritan woman lived a life that viewed a relationship with a man as being of ultimate value. And as a result, the Samaritan woman lived her life as a response of worship by placing as the object of her worship the man that she was in a relationship with.

However, the men who she was in relationship with always seemed to fall short of being the right object for the worship. So the Samaritan woman went from relationship to relationship, hoping that she would eventually find the right man who would prove to be the right object of worship that would satisfy her deepest thirst.   However, those repeated relationships were empty wells that held no water and could not satisfy that thirst.

And now the Samaritan woman had a story. A story of being a home wrecker; a story of being an adulterer; a story that left her far from God and far from others, ostracized and isolated; a story that you might relate to. The Samaritan woman did not respond to Jesus by being offended and bailing on the conversation. Instead, the Samaritan woman did what we all tend to do when we find ourselves vulnerable after being exposed for who we truly are. The Samaritan woman attempted to change the subject.

Exposed for attempting to satisfy her deepest thirst from the wrong well, exposed for placing as the object of her worship the man that she was in a relationship with, the Samaritan woman attempts to change the subject to a theological debate on worship. However, while the Samaritan woman was attempting to change the subject, she was actually going to the subject that Jesus wanted to deal with in her life. What the Samaritan women kept missing in her conversation with Jesus was the core issue in her life, which was what object she was ultimately going to worship in her life. We see this reality revealed in how Jesus responded to her in John 4:21:

 Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. "You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. "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."

Now Jesus response, if communicated in the language we use in our culture today, would have sounded something like this: “That is a great question and what I am about to tell you is 100% true and worthy of trust. You see, a time is coming where location will not matter when it comes to worship. The reason that your worship is wrong is because you really do not know the object of your worship. Since you have rejected most of what the Old Testament says about God you really do not know who God is so that you can worship Him. Jewish people, on the other hand, know who the object of their worship is supposed to be, because they have accepted what the Old Testament say about God. And because the Jewish people have accepted all of the Old Testament, they know that God has promised a rescuer, a deliver, a Messiah, who God had promised would bring them back to God. But, here is the thing; the time has come where those who worship God will do so because the Spirit of God has awakened their spirit to the truth of who God is. Those are the worshippers that God truly seeks. God is Spirit; and those who truly worship Him must do so by the power of the Holy Spirit awakening their spirit to the truth of who He is”. John then records for us how the Samaritan woman responded to Jesus answer in verse 25:

 The woman said to Him, "I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us."

The Samaritan woman basically says to Jesus “Well one thing about theology that I do know is that God promised a rescuer and a deliverer and when He comes, He will be able to proclaim and teach us what the right answers are when it comes to the worship of God.  And when He comes, we will find out whether I am right or you are right”. However, what the Samaritan women was not prepared for, is what happened next, which John records for us in verse 26:

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

Now can you imagine what must have been running through the mind of the Samaritan woman at this point? Can you imagine the look on her face? After all, she had already acknowledged that there was something different about Jesus. Jesus seemed to know her life story, even though he had just met her. Jesus seemed to be a person that was inspired by God and knew a lot about God. And Jesus engaged her in a way that was so different than what she was used to by religious people, or irreligious people for that matter.

While Jesus called her on her sin, Jesus did not judge her. Instead Jesus seemed to be calling her to something else. What Jesus was calling her to was what the right object of her worship was to be. What Jesus was calling her to do was to place as the object of her worship the right object, which was Jesus.

And it is here, in this event from history, that we see Jesus reveal for us the timeless reality that we are wired for worship and for us to rightly worship requires the right object of worship. You see, the issue is not whether or not you worship. The question is “what is the object of your worship”? The question is “What is the object that you value supremely that drives your choices when it comes to how you live out your day to day life?” 

And every day, the object that we value supremely will drive where we are going to leverage our time, our affection, our energy, and our loyalty. And regardless of what we say, the object of our worship is more about what we do than what we say. Often what we say about what is the object of our worship is betrayed by what we actually worship with our time, talent, and treasure.

So here is a question for us to consider: What is the object of your worship? What do you value supremely in your life? Is that object position, possessions, pleasure, or pride? What does where you spend your time, talents, treasure reveal about what is the object of your worship?

Because, the reality is that we have been wired for worship. However, for us to rightly worship requires the right object of worship. Right worship requires the right object of worship. And that right object is the Lord. The Lord is the right object of worship because every other object of worship will fall short of satisfying our deepest thirst for worship.