The
Father Seeketh Such To Worship Him
By
H. David Edwards
"Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at
Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the
hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh
such to worship Him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:21-24).
How
many times have we heard someone – perhaps a young person – say, “I have to find myself.” Unfortunately,
what usually follows is some sort of adventure that is more closely related to losing than to finding oneself. But there is
an activity that will result in the finding of oneself, and that activity, not likely to be encountered by our worldly-minded
adventurer, is worship. Revelation occurs in worship. There are times when the revelation is of God or some aspect of His
being, but more often, I believe, it is a revelation of something about oneself that is precipitated by being consciously
in the presence of our Lord.
Proper
worship, I believe, is never initiated, it is incited. That is, it is not man in search of God. Worship is as independent
of man's initiative as is man's awareness of God. Man didn't invent God, nor did he discover Him. God was and is revealed.
Similarly, man does not initiate worship. Worship is man's proper response to God's self-revelation. Worship is response,
not invitation. In worship we are not inviting Him to come, rather, we are responding to Him who has come and comes of His
own initiative.
Worship
is personal, but is not necessarily individual. It presupposes an object of worship and a worshiper. I also suspect that worship
is both end and means. It is what God calls us to ultimately and it is the means that He uses currently to transform us so
that we will be able to discharge fully, ultimately, what it is that He has in mind.
In
worship I find myself. I not only seek to worship what is revealed, but worship becomes an occasion for and of revelation,
both of the worshiper and the worshiped. That is, if my worship is of God in spirit and in truth, I know Him better in consequence
of my worship and I know myself better. I believe that if you will tell me what it is that you worship, I can tell you who
you are. I think that in worship something happens which is like what happens in electric welding, inasmuch as there is a
transference from the object of our worship to ourselves. We become like what we worship. That is what I mean when I say,
“tell me what you worship and I will tell you who you are.”
Jesus
said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “Ye worship ye know not what,” and I have asked myself repeatedly whether
or not that might still be true of us. While it is not true of us in the way this it was for the Samaritan woman, I still
believe that it is true for us to say we worship we know not what. We see Him, but we do not understand Him. We recognize
Him, but we do not comprehend Him. God is undiscoverable. If He is to be known He must reveal Himself in His entirety to us:
it is inconceivable that He could. Therefore, to the extent that we have an incomplete revelation of God, we worship we know
not what. We see His works. We know that He is spirit and that is hard for us to conceive of because we have no acquaintance
with spirit. For example, it is hard for us to think of God seeing without eyes, or hearing without ears, or speaking without
a voice. In all probability, we conceive of spirit of matter which has been refined. But spirit is not like matter at all,
refined or otherwise. It is so different from all that we know that it is impossible for us to conceive of it. We do not know
what spirit is and yet God is spirit. We see what it is that He does and we marvel. We see how God works and we reckon back
to Him. Because we see His works, we say that He must be there, but we do not adequately understand Him. We worship we know
not what. “Canst thou by searching find out God?” Job was asked by one of his friends, and we might ask ourselves.
Do
you suppose that a baby knows his mother? I don't know when it is that a baby recognizes his mother, but there are indications
that he does. When she comes into sight he waves his arms and legs and his eyes light up and there is an awareness on the
part of the mother which responds to the awareness on the part of the child. In what way do you suppose a baby knows his mother?
Probably as a comfort station: the mother is a source of food, of warmth, of comfort. But, does the baby know his mother in
the way that a husband knows his wife? Similarly, we know God as one who provides our food, gives us comfort, and soothes
us. But we don't know Him adequately.
Perhaps
a child has shown you a drawing and you recognize that it is meant to be a person, so you ask, “Who is that?”
and the child responds, “Well, it's Daddy, of course!” For him it's obvious. For you it is not. The drawing represents
what the child knows, but you will never get to know his daddy by studying the drawing. I'm reminded of the story about the
little boy who was making a drawing during Sunday School. His teacher asked, “What is it that you are drawing?”
and he answered, “I'm drawing God.” The teacher responded, “But nobody knows what He looks like.”
“They will when I'm finished!” the boy said with confidence.
Just
as the revelation of God is progressive, and thus the maturation of our understanding of God is also progressive, so, it seems
to me, our way of worshiping God might also undergo improvement. When my children were tiny, I can remember getting them to
giggle by noisily vibrating my lips on their bellies. It was perfectly appropriate when they were three years old, but it
would hardly be appropriate now that they're in their thirties. I wonder whether or not, when we get to heaven, we will look
back at what it is that we used to do and recognize that, in the light of what we then do, our former worship was little more
than merely making funny noises with our mouths. We worship ignorantly; in our ignorance we worship. When we've heard Handel's
“Messiah” done well, don't we sometimes feel as though we have stood briefly inside heaven's portals? Yet, I suspect
that compared to the worship we will one day enter into with the vast host of the redeemed, we will come to look upon Handel's
masterpiece as just silly noises. What we do in worship now may be appropriate for our understanding now, but I believe that
both will progress as God shows us more of Himself.
Unless
God had chosen to reveal Himself to us, we would never have found Him. Perhaps you remember the report of the Russian cosmonauts
after a considerable trip through space who said, “We looked for God, but we didn't find Him.” That wasn't new.
It's like the scientist of another generation who said that he had swept the heavens with his telescope in vain looking for
God. In response, a simple believer told him that he might as well have swept his kitchen with his broom looking for Him.
“Still to the lowly soul He doth Himself impart, and for His dwelling and His throne chooseth the pure in heart.”
I'm
told that in a Paris art gallery is a famous painting depicting the crucifixion, which appears distorted until you view it
by getting down on your knees. Then you can see it with all the perfection that the artist was able to put into it. I want
to say to you that it is when we kneel in worship that we really get to know God.
"The Father seeketh such to worship Him." The word “seek” is the word used in the parable that Jesus
told of the woman who lost a piece of silver, and of the shepherd who lost the sheep. It is the word that is used when Jesus
talks about the spirit that is cast out of a man and who goes through waste places seeking rest. And it's the word that is
used when the high priest and the Pharisee look for Jesus to arrest Him and crucify Him. With the same exclusiveness of purpose
as the woman looking for the coin, or the shepherd looking for his sheep, or the evil spirit looking for a place to rest,
or the high priest looking for Jesus, so “the Father seeketh such to worship Him.” It's not because worship has
already marked them out for who they are and He knows them because they worship Him. He seeks them, not because of what worship
will do for Him, but because of what worship will do for them.
