Calling All True Worshipers

April 5, 2026|Calling All True Worshipers| John 4:1-26

JD Cutler

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So much of life is built around ‘going somewhere’, isn’t it?

If you want to experience something meaningful, you go to a place.

If you want to meet someone important, you go to a place.

If you want to encounter something sacred or significant, you go to a place.

For most of human history, that’s how people thought about God. If you wanted to worship, you went to the right mountain…the right temple…the right location.

Even today, many people think that way—even if they wouldn’t say it out loud.

You go to church on Easter.

You sit in the right seat.

You participate in the right songs.

And maybe—just maybe—you feel like you’ve connected with God.

But what if that’s not actually how it works?

What if worship isn’t ultimately about ‘where you go’?

As a church we have been working through the gospel of John and this morning we come to John chapter 4. In this chapter we find Jesus having a conversation with a woman who is asking that exact question. She wants to know: “Where is the right place to worship God?”

It’s very similar to another conversation that we saw Jesus have with a man named Nicodemus who was asking “How can I be right with God?” In the same way we saw him answer Nicodemus, Jesus gives this woman an answer that would have been shocking then—and I think is still shocking now.

He tells her that a day is coming when worship will no longer be tied to a place at all. Not this mountain. Not that temple. Not any specific location.

Because something is about to happen that will change worship forever.

That “something” is what we have been celebrating today. We have sang together ‘He arose, He arose, Hallelujah Christ arose’, we have sung together about that moment when we sang, ‘Then bursting forth in glorious Day, Up from the grave He rose again’, and we have sang ‘The Lion of Judah who conquered the grave’. All of it pointing to that glorious moment when Christ rose from the grave in the resurrection.

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is not just proof that He is alive—it is the reason that anyone, anywhere, can truly know God and worship Him.

So this morning, from John 4, I want us to see this: The Father is seeking true worshipers—and more importantly, because Jesus is risen, you can be one.

Let’s begin this morning by reading this encounter together and then we will look at four simple statements concerning true worship. If you haven’t already, please open your bibles to John chapter 4 at verse 1.

As you turn there, if you are not familiar with the story, it is by all accounts, a very short recorded conversation. In seven statements Jesus goes from asking for a drink of water to declaring that he is the Messiah.

Verses 1-6 open the story and set the scene for us. Let’s read those together now.

John 4:1–26 ESV

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.

For context, the sixth hour is the 6th hour since sunrise, so it is about noon, one of the hottest parts of the day. The other important note is that the Bible says he had to pass through Samaria. Geographically, that is not true. There are other ways to get from where he is to where he is going. Socially, that is opposite of true. Most Jews would take the longer route because they considered the Samaritans to be half-breeds and wanted nothing to do with them. So in what way, must Jesus pass through Samaria? As the story unfolds we will see that the only constraint on Jesus to pass through Samaria was his compassion towards the people here. Once he spends two days there and many believed in him, he continued on his way to Galilee. We get a glimpse into what motivated Jesus to pass through Samaria when he tells his disciples immediately after his encounter with the woman at the well, Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest. From here we come to the most unlikely encounter, let’s pick up in verse 7.

John 4:1–26 ESV

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, “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.”

This conversation is rich in imagery and there is so much here, but for this morning I want to focus in on verses 19-26 in particular under the heading “Calling all true worshipers”. The first thing Jesus teaches us about true worship is that…

I. TRUE WORSHIP IS NOT GEOGRAPHICALLY RESTRICTED

This is the first challenge the woman makes to try and put some distance between here and this man who has completely exposed her sinful lifestyle. Make no mistake, that is exactly what Jesus has done. After transitioning the conversation from the physical realm to the spiritual realm, he exposes her life with one command. “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

To us this may sound abrupt but culturally, it would not have been. Jewish men did not talk to women in general, but especially a Samaritan woman. So for Jesus to ask her to ‘go get your husband’ so that the conversation could continue would not have been culturally out of place and Jesus knows that.

But he also knows that this woman has a reason that she does not want to come here to draw water. Jesus knows something she is trying to hide.

He knows why she is here alone, at noon, in the heat of the day.

Women usually came together in the cool of the morning. For her to be here alone likely means one of two things: She is avoiding others—or she is not welcome among them.

When she answers, “I have no husband,” she is telling part of the truth—but not all of it. And Jesus presses in: “You are right… you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband.”

In a moment, He brings her face to face with her sin. And just like many of us would do—she changes the subject. She pivots to a theological debate: “Where should we worship?”

At first glance, that may seem like a strange shift—but it’s actually very familiar.

She is trying to use her experience as a means of shielding her from conviction. She figures that she can quickly build a wall between her and this Jewish man by bringing up the racial tension that exists. Racial tensions that have separated them not just geographically and socially, but religiously. In essence, she says, you and I can’t even agree on where we should worship so I don’t think we should have a religious conversation about sin. She is trying to build distance, trying to move from personal conviction to abstract discussion. She is trying to avoid dealing with her heart.

Something we do as well.

So she brings up the long-standing divide: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that Jerusalem is the place…” In other words: “We don’t even agree on where to worship—so how can you speak into my life?”

But Jesus doesn’t take the bait. He doesn’t argue for Jerusalem. He doesn’t dismantle her history.

He goes deeper. 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.

This would have been shocking.

For the Samaritans, Mount Gerizim was sacred. For the Jews, Jerusalem—and especially the temple—was the center of worship.

Everything revolved around that place: The sacrifices, The priesthood, The presence of God

And Jesus says: A day is coming when none of that will define worship anymore. Why?

Because God is bringing that entire system to its fulfillment.

And this is where Easter speaks directly into this moment. When Jesus rose from the dead, He proved that He Himself is the true temple. The place where God and man meet is no longer a location—it is a Person.

With his death, the veil that separated man from God was torn and the place to meet with God was no longer geographically restricted. Because Jesus walked out of the grave, you no longer have to walk into a specific place to meet with God.

That’s what Jesus is pointing to here. And that leads us to the next truth about worship…

II. TRUE WORSHIP IS NOT RELIGIOUSLY RESTRICTED

Jesus, having moved beyond the question of location, now addresses the religious systems themselves, and what he says may even be more offensive than what he revealed about her personal life.

verse 22. John 4:22 “22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.”

In other words, Not only is your life disordered, your worship is misdirected.

You should be able to feel the tension in this moment. This conversation just went from awkward to tense. But Jesus wasn’t just pointing out what she had wrong…

Jesus is affirming something very important: While the Jews were wrong for excluding the Samaritans, in their desire to establish their own religion apart from the temple, they have acted ignorantly and outside of God’s revealed religious system.

In establishing their own place and pattern of worship apart from the temple, they had stepped outside of God’s revealed truth. This encounter is about Jesus confronting their whole system in a stunning way, with a conversation with a immoral woman at a well.

God’s plan of redemption is moving through the people of Israel—and ultimately through the Messiah who would come from them. In all reality, the Samaritans did not have a right to expect the Jewish messiah to come to them in the midst of their disobedient worship, and yet…here he is in Samaria, talking to this Samaritan woman about true worship.

But he doesn’t stop there, he continues. 23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth…

Jesus explains that a moment is coming that it will not matter what your ethnic background is, Samaritan or Jew, and it will not matter your religious system or heritage, Jerusalem or Gerizim. This is a massive shift.

Jesus introduces a new category of people here into the discussion. Not Samaritan, not Jew, but true worshipers. The true worshipers of God.

How will they worship? What will define them? They worship in spirit and truth.

Don’t miss the radical nature of what Jesus is saying. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God who chose a nation for himself and through which to reveal himself to man, through which he was to be worshiped has brought the hour when true worship will not be confined to one religious system, the same system, by the way, that he had put in place.

Not because it was wrong, but because it was temporary and was pointing forward to something greater.

This is what the author of Hebrews means we he says, 13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

In Christ God is going to expand access beyond one nation, one system, one heritage, to all who will come to Him as true worshipers. This is where Easter becomes essential. The reality is that the resurrection breaks open access to God for all people- regardless of ethnicity or religious heritage.

Easter means access to God is no longer guarded by a system, but found through a Savior. And that leads us to the next truth.

III. TRUE WORSHIP IS NOT PHYSICALLY RESTRICTED

John 4:1–26 ESV

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.”

What is Jesus saying here?

Remember the question, at least the implied one in her statement. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

Where people ought to worship- the idea being that which is necessary, that which is right in God’s eyes. Is it here on this mountain or is it there in Jerusalem?

Remember this is not just geographical, but both places had their own physicality to their worship. In Jerusalem, we know in great detail what that looked like: The temple, the sacrifices, the priests, the procedures, the blood, the offerings. Everything was carefully prescribed. We do not have these kind of biblical records for the worship at Mount Gerizim, and by this time when Jesus is speaking to her, their temple has been destroyed, but they still had some kind of system by which to worship otherwise her question wouldn’t make any sense.

So the assumption on both sides was this: Right worship is defined by the right external actions in the right place.

Jesus says that true worship is not about merely external rituals, it is not dependent on temples, sacrifices, and physical presence in sacred places. Those things no longer define the reality of worship. He says true worship is spiritual.

Now, what does that mean?

Some take “in spirit” to mean the Holy Spirit directly—and while the Spirit is certainly involved, that is not Jesus’ primary emphasis here.

He is speaking about the nature of worship itself. It is not merely outward—it is inward. It is not merely physical—it is spiritual. It is not merely activity—it is reality.

It is a matter of the heart. But we cannot separate that from the work of the Holy Spirit.

Because the kind of worship Jesus is describing is not natural to us. By nature, we are spiritually dead—not true worshipers.

So how does this kind of worship become possible?

Jesus answers that later in John’s Gospel. In John 7, He says: “Whoever believes in me… out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” And John tells us clearly: “He said this about the Spirit… who had not yet been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

That’s the connection.

This kind of worship—spiritual, internal, life-giving worship—becomes possible only after Jesus is glorified. Only after the cross. Only after the resurrection.

Because when Jesus is raised, He pours out His Spirit on His people. And the Spirit does not just change where we worship— He changes who we are.

He makes us alive. He transforms us from the inside out. He makes us into true worshipers.

So worship is no longer something you attend—it is something you engage in because of who you have become.

But we need to be careful here.

The fact that worship is not tied to a place does not mean God is unconcerned with how we worship. Scripture is clear: We are not to neglect gathering together. Corporate worship is not optional—not because it is the only place we can worship, but because it is the primary place God has appointed to shape and sustain our worship.

Our gathered worship fuels our scattered worship. So yes—you can worship God alone, anywhere. But you were never meant to worship Him in isolation. Because the same Spirit who makes you a worshiper also places you in a people.

And that leads us to the final and most important truth…

IV. TRUE WORSHIP IS POSSIBLE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST

Jesus’ last recorded words to this woman are simple-but staggering, “I who speak to you am he.”

What we miss in the English is that when John records what Jesus says here, in the Greek it is the statement ‘I am, who is speaking to you.’

In the original language, it is emphatic- “I am- the one speaking to you:” This is not just identification—it is revelation.

Jesus makes an emphatic and impressive statement with the carful choice of words. He is declaring in no uncertain terms that although she may not fully understand who the Messiah is going to be, she is standing face to face with the Word made Flesh. Immanuel, God with us.

One commentator said it this way, the woman claims to be waiting for someone who will explain everything, she is waiting for a ‘what’, yet Jesus says she is talking to the ‘who’. She is looking for answers, and Jesus tells her you don’t need a what, you need a who.

Everything in our understanding of true worship flows from Jesus.

Through Jesus, we are made alive in our spirits.

Whereas we cannot worship in spirit if we are spiritually dead, Jesus and his resurrection brings new life to us so that we can genuinely worship in spirit, by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Through Jesus, we understand the truth.

True worshipers worship in truth. Truth is not abstract or subjective, it is revealed in Christ. Jesus is the light of the world, the life of man, the word of God, the eternal son who was with God and who was God. Jesus claimed to perfectly represent the Father, so that whoever has seen him has seen the Father. Jesus claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one could come to the Father except by Him. Here is the reality, the resurrection of Jesus validates everything Jesus claimed. Easter reminds us that Jesus is alive and because he is alive, we can know and understand the truth he came to reveal.

Through Jesus, we are able to worship. He is not just the example of a true worshiper, he is the mediator of all true worship. Through Jesus we have access to the Father, Jesus is the true expression and fulfillment of the temple, of the sacrifices, of the priesthood. He is the high priest of the better covenant, sealed by his blood and signed by his resurrection.

Just like the new birth is only possible through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, becoming a true worshiper is only possible through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

And that means this: True worship is not something you achieve. It is something you receive—through Jesus. And that brings us to the question every one of us must answer…

Have you come to Him—or have you only come to a place?

At the beginning, we said that most of life is built around going somewhere.

If you want something meaningful, you go to the right place. If you want to meet someone important, you go to the right place. If you want to encounter something sacred, you go to the right place.

And many people still think that’s how it works with God.

Go to church. Show up on Easter. Sit through a service. And maybe you’ve done what you’re supposed to do.

But Jesus says something very different. The Father is not looking for people in the right place. He is seeking people with the right heart. True worshipers.

And the reason that kind of worship is even possible… is because Jesus did not stay in the grave.

On the cross, He dealt with our sin—the very thing that separates us from God. And in the resurrection, He opened the way for us to truly know Him.

So now, worship is no longer about: a mountain, a temple, or a building. It is about a Person. The question is no longer: “Did you come to the right place today?”

The question is: “Have you come to the risen Christ?”

Because you can sit in a church and still be far from God. Or you can come to Jesus—even right where you are—and be brought near in a moment through Jesus Christ.

The Father is still seeking worshipers. Not perfect people. Not religious experts. But people who will come to Him through His Son.

So whether you’ve followed Jesus for years, or this is all very new to you…

The invitation is the same: Come to Christ. Receive the life that only He can give. And become what the Father is seeking—A true worshiper.

Because Jesus is alive…you can know and worship the living God today.

Let us pray.