What Is Worship? | Week 4
God is Spirit
To end this series of posts about worship, I want to expand, a little bit, the passage that we’ve been looking at. Rather than focusing only on what some specific words or phrases mean, I want to end this by looking at the grand scope. I want to look at the big picture—to see if, after digging deeper into the different thoughts within the passage, we can then get a clearer picture of what we’re meant to take away from this interaction we see.
“Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:21–26, BSB).
In this conversation, Jesus lays a few things out. It doesn’t matter where you worship, it matters how you worship. He claims that true worship will be done with the spirit and with the truth. And Jesus says that this is what God truly wants. Why? Because God is Spirit, so therefore it HAS to be this way. This is so logical and yet so poetically beautiful.
Location vs. State of being
Let’s discuss some of these things then. First, the location has absolutely nothing to do with our worship. It is so rampant in church culture today to call the church building “the house of God.” And I get it; it seems innocent, but what we don’t want to perpetuate is this idea that God rests in a building. That’s literally what was broken with Jesus Christ, and I believe it should no longer have a place in our Christian language. We care so deeply about our buildings—almost to an unhealthy level.
And if you think this sounds sacrilegious, think about what it would have sounded like for Jesus to say that there was a time coming that they wouldn't be worshiping God in Jerusalem. I can only imagine the questions that ran through the head of the woman in the above passage. Again, I understand: having a building makes it easy to identify where we go to worship. That’s why temples were erected, and that's why church buildings were created. But it feeds the wrong mindset, assuming you believe Jesus Christ to have the right mindset, since he is the one saying this.
Jesus lays out the alternative: the reality. True worshipers will be those who worship in spirit and in truth. This is a state of being that is embodied and made evident in the life played out. Touching briefly on what I wrote about in the previous posts, worshiping with your spirit refers to literally worshiping with the very essence of your being. And to worship in truth refers to embodying truth in your every waking moment, not to simply speak it but to live it. This picture is then of a person, not bowing in a temple or singing in a church, but giving honor and glory to God with their very being.
Physical vs. Spiritual
Secondly, physical expression is not the source of our worship. Typically, you would be able to identify someone who is worshiping by the physical state they’re in. Bowing, raising hands, closing eyes, making noise with our voice, etc. are all normal, physical expressions of worship that we would all be used to. Certainly, this is what Jesus and the Samaritan woman would have been familiar with as well. As I look at the Hebrew and Greek words to see how they describe certain terms, the word “worship” is usually defined or described with physical postures, i.e. to crouch or prostrate oneself in homage. The physical, bodily posture of “worship” was what identified worship. In church terms today, we could say that the marks of a worshiper were these physical postures.
But Jesus says, no. True worshipers, the true marks of a worshiper, can be found in their spiritual posture. A person who aligns their spirit with God’s and aligns their actions with the truth and reality that God provides is sitting in a true, worshipful posture. And this should ring true for us Christ-followers. We know that God doesn’t care about our material or physical offerings. We could paint him the best picture, sing him the most beautiful song, or bow our face to the ground until our nose bleeds. He is seeking the deeper things.
So yes, if we have natural skills, we should give God honor and credit for these gifts and make sure we use them in the full awareness that we aren’t the source. But we don’t worship God with our natural, materialistic creations. And this plays into what this whole series on worship has been about. Music is beautiful, but no matter how much I appreciate and give honor to God when I’m engaging in music, it’s not the true worship he is seeking. God is looking for deeper things from us, from our spirit, because God is Spirit.
Therefore, we must
Lastly, Jesus gives the logical conclusion. For God is Spirit, and so therefore we must worship in spirit and in truth. This doesn’t need much explanation. The reality of God’s spiritual nature then necessitates the way we give honor and glory to him.
Jesus came to talk a lot about God the Father and about our relationship to him. This is one of those moments. This revelation breaks down denominational traditions, cultural expressions of music, architectural significance and plenty of other things. This should simultaneously make us feel free and sick to our stomach. It frees us up from having to feel like we need to maneuver our way into right worship through physical postures and natural expressions, but then also brings a higher call to action and accountability with how we’re giving God honor and glory with the vitality of our very being.
This is not a suggestion. Unlike music, this is not something that each church will do differently based on their particular culture. This is what true worship IS, period. The God we worship is Spirit, and we must worship with our spirit, walking in his truth, in order to rightly give homage to our Creator. This is our life. Our life is our worship. That’s what worship is.
—Luke Soliwoda