A preschool teacher watched as a three year girl sketched something on her paper. “What are you drawing?” she asked. “I’m drawing a picture of God,” was the little girl’s reply. “Oh, you can’t do that,” the teacher said, “Nobody knows what God looks like.” Without looking up, the girl answered, “Well, they will now.”
One day, a little boy asked his mother, “Is God a boy or a girl?” The mother replied, “Well dear, he’s not really a boy or a girl.” The boy considered this for awhile and then asked, “Is God black or white?” The mother answered, “Well dear, he’s kind of both races.” The boy thought about this for a long time. Then he asked, “Mother, is God Michael Jackson?”
Have you ever wondered what God looks like? I suspect that most of you have. What types of ideas and images enter your mind? If you have seen some of the great religious paintings from the high renaissance, you know that God is usually depicted as an elderly man with large muscular form, long white hair and a matching white beard, draped in a white cloak with a stern look on his face. That is how God appears in Michelangelo’s famous fresco The Creation of Adam, which adorns the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. Or if you have ever seen the movie Bruce Almighty, you might think that God bears a remarkable resemblance to the actor Morgan Freeman. Or if you have ever read William Young’s novel The Shack, you might think that God the Father looks like an overweight African-American woman named “Papa.” But does God actually look like any of these?
The reality is that no one knows what God looks like! The Bible never presents us with a physical description of God. Why not? Simply put, because God is Spirit! God’s very nature and essence is spiritual. Even though he is a living and personal being, he is an immaterial substance and therefore is invisible. In today’s sermon, we will reflect on the spirituality of God and consider some implications of it for our lives.
God is Spirit (John 4:1-26)
The clearest biblical statement of God’s spiritual essence is found in the well-known story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well in John 4. Now Jesus needed to travel north from the region of Judea to Galilee, but instead of taking the normal route around Samaria (which most Jews did to perpetuate their prejudice against the mixed race Samaritans), he went straight through Samaria.
When he came to the town of Sychar, he rested by Jacob’s well. He was tired and thirsty from walking in the heat of the day. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water from the well, Jesus broke the racial and gender barriers of Jews not speaking to Samaritans and men not speaking to women by asking the woman for a drink. The woman was startled by Jesus’ forthright neglect of social customs and this precipitated a conversation about Jesus’ identity. His offer of living water represents spiritual life. Moreover, Jesus reveals the fact that he knows that she has had five husbands and that the man she was currently living with was not her husband. (I would love to have seen the look on her face when Jesus when Jesus said this.)
The woman immediately recognized that Jesus was a prophet and she was willing to hear what he had to say. Jesus had worked the conversation around to spiritual things and was responding to the woman’s comment about where people ought to worship:
“Woman, believe me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall you worship the Father. You worship that which you do not know; we worship that which we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers” (John 4:21-23).
Jesus was telling her that true worship of God does not require a person to be physically present in Jerusalem or Samaria, for true worship has nothing to do with physical location, but it has everything to do with one’s inner spiritual condition. Unless a person comes to the knowledge of the truth about God and his/her spirit is regenerated, it is impossible to worship God. It was at that point in the conversation that Jesus said something about God which had never been clearly stated before. The truth was apparent from what had been revealed in the Old Testament, but it had never been put into plain words. “God is spirit,” he declared, “and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).
God is spirit. There is no article in the Greek text before the word “spirit,” and that emphasizes the quality or essence of the word. Furthermore, the word “spirit” occurs first in the sentence for emphasis. Jesus did not leave any doubt about this truth. God is spirit! But what does that mean?
1.) God Is Immaterial
First, it means that God is immaterial—he does not have a body. Jesus reaffirmed that fact to his frightened disciples shortly after the resurrection. When he entered the room in his glorified body, they thought they had seen a spirit. He calmed them by saying, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). Spirits do not have bodies.
This may seem to be a problem, however, since Scripture does refer to God at times as though he has a body. For example, it mentions his hand and his ear (Isaiah 59:1), his eye (2 Chronicles 16:9), and his mouth (Matthew 4:4). Theologians call these “anthropomorphisms,” a word meaning “human form.” They are symbolic representations used to make God’s actions more understandable to our finite minds. But God has no material substance and he is not dependent on any material thing. He dwells in the realm of spirit.
That has some pertinent implications for our lives. If we know, love, and serve a God who does not have material substance, it should diminish our obsession with material things. And that would make us different from the people around us, wouldn’t it? We live in a culture that continually tries to feed its desire for the things money can buy and the security money can provide. But yesterday’s luxuries become today’s necessities! And the more we get, the less it satisfies. If we ever get everything we want, we will find that none of it brings any real contentment! Are you still searching for contentment in material things or have you embraced God’s spirituality?
2.) God is Invisible
Spirits are not seen—we cannot even see a human spirit. The most intimate of friends cannot see each other’s spirit and none of us can see God. The Apostle Paul called Him “the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), and “the King eternal, immortal, invisible” (1 Timothy 1:17).
John assured us that “no man has seen God at any time” (John 1:18). Mortal men have seen visible manifestations which God used to reveal Himself to them and to communicate with them, as when God the Son took human form in a Bethlehem manger. But they have never seen Him fully in His spiritual being. There is no way they could. Spirits are invisible.
Rather than creeping us out, this can be a very comforting truth. Because God is invisible, not only can we know him, but we can know him apart from our physical senses. We do not have to see him or feel him to know him. We have spirits too, you see. God is spirit, but we have spirits housed within our physical bodies. And when our spirits are made alive toward God through the new birth, we have the capacity to commune with him in our spirits, anytime, anywhere, and under any circumstances.
It can be difficult for us to grasp this truth since our spirits live in physical bodies and our physical bodies inhabit a physical universe. Our preoccupation with the physical makes us try to put our relationship with God into that same realm. We want to be inspired to worship him by lavish cathedrals, great art, pleasant sounds, lovely aromas, and beautifully worded liturgies. Our human nature cries out for religious symbols, images, and pictures to help us create a mood for worship. We think we have to be in a church building and follow certain prescribed procedures. But God says, “You cannot reduce me to physical things that can be experienced with your senses. I dwell in the realm of spirit and that is where I want to meet with you.”
Physical things may help direct our attention to God, particularly things he has made. But we meet with him in our spirits. We can enjoy him riding to work in the car, pushing the vacuum cleaner through the living room, walking from one class to another, (watching a New England Patriots’ game), or anywhere else. We can know him and enjoy him in the spiritual realm, apart from the physical senses.
3.) God is Alive and Personal
It is quite obvious that a spirit is alive. Our God is not an inanimate object, like a pagan idol with a mouth that cannot speak, eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, and hands that cannot accomplish anything (cf. Psalm 115:4-7). He is alive. The very word “spirit” also means “breath,” and breath is the evidence of life. Throughout Scripture He is called the living God (e.g. Joshua 3:10; Psalm 84:2; 1 Thessalonians 1:9). But a spirit is also a person, not an impersonal force which acts without purpose or reason.
God also has the basic characteristics of personality—intellect, emotions, and will. He thinks, feels, and acts. And that is good news. Because he is a living person we can get to know him personally and communicate with him freely. If he was an inanimate object or an impersonal force there would be no hope of a personal relationship with him.
Do you have a personal relationship with the living God? Has your spirit been regenerated so that you can interact with God, who is spirit? Do you love, worship, pray, and serve him with your spirit?
God is spirit—that is why he must be worshiped in spirit and truth! Our worship of God does not depend on external, material, or physical things because it takes place internally in the spiritual part of our being. Worship is not primarily a matter of physical location, surroundings, form, ritual, liturgy, or ceremony. It is not a matter of creating a certain kind of mood or atmosphere or playing a certain type of music. It is a matter of spirit. Worship is the response of our spirits to God’s revelation of himself. God is spirit, may we worship him in spirit and truth together!
(Some of the material for this sermon was taken from Richard L. Strauss’ excellent sermon God is Spirit which was published on May 18, 2004 at https://bible.org/seriespage/god-spirit)