We're going to begin our second
service I'm going in the back. We're going to start by standing
and singing Rock of Ages 126. 126 Rock of Ages. Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let
me hide myself in Thee. Let the water and the blood from
Thy wounded side which flow, be of sin a double cure. Save from wrath and make me pure. Could my tears forever flow? Could my zeal no longer know? These were sin could not atone,
Thou must save and Thou alone. In my hand no price I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling. If you would, turn to page 283. Jesus yesterday, today, and forever.
283. Oh, how sweet the glorious message
simple faith may claim. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. Still he loves to save the sinful,
heal the sick and lame. Cheer the mourner, calm the tempest,
glory to his name. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to his name. He who pardoned Eric Peter never
needs thou fear. He who came to faithless Thomas
all thy doubt will clear. He who led the loved disciple
on his bosom breast Bids thee still with love as tender lean
upon his breast. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. Glory to his name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to his name. amid the raging billows walked
upon the sea. Still can't hush our wildest
tempest as on Galilee. He who wept in prayer, in anguish,
in Gethsemane. Drinks with us, each cup of trembling
in our agony. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. As of old he walked to may us
with and to abide. So through all life's way he
walketh ever near our side. Soon again shall we behold him
hasten, Lord, the day. But to still be this same Jesus
as he went away. Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus
is the same. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. Glory to His name. All may change, but Jesus never. Glory to His name. Thank you. Morning, everybody. I'm going
to read 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1. 2 Thessalonians, chapter 1. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus,
unto the Church of the Thessalonians, in God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace from
God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We are bound to thank
God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your
faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you
all towards each other aboundeth. So that we ourselves glory in
you and the churches of God for your patience and faith and all
your persecutions and tribulations that you endure, which is a manifest
token of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted
worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer. Seeing
it as a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulations
to them that trouble you and to you who are troubled rest
with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven
with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them
that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power.
when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired
in all them that believe, because our testimony among you was believed.
in that day. Wherefore also we pray always
for you that our God would account you worthy of this calling and
fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work
of faith with power. That the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you and ye in him according to the
grace of our God and Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we come to you today
and Lord, we just beg that you make us one of the people that
you've done the work for and the one that you've given the
faith to and the one that you'll bring home someday when it's
our time. Father, we ask that you You do
not leave us to be one of the people that will be punished,
one of the people that will face destruction. Father, it's entirely
up to you. And Lord, we just ask that you
watch over all of us and please make us worthy. And Father, we
ask that you watch over the pastor as he brings the message this
morning. And we ask that you open up our hearts to hear the
message that you're bringing to us. And Father, we just ask
that you watch over and care for us in Christ's name. All right, brethren. Let's turn to John chapter 4. John chapter 4, and we're going
to try to cover verses 11 through 26. John 4, 11 through 26. Now,
this passage It shows us again, it's revealing
to us again how it is that the Lord saves a sinner. And what we do know is that the
Lord always saves his people by one. It's always by the Lord
Jesus Christ and it's always in grace. Some people aren't
coming through works, some people aren't coming through this religion
or that religion, and others coming by their own free will. It's always one way, it's always
in grace, apart from the works of man, apart from the will of
man, it's always the Lord's work, because salvation is of the Lord. if the Lord were to leave us
to ourselves, for us to figure it out, if this was for us to
do and accomplish, right, he did his part and now we've got
to do our part, what the scriptures reveal to us is that man left
to himself is always going to judge himself unworthy of eternal
life. And he's always going to to determine
that he himself is not worthy of the salvation that Christ
has provided. And that's not my words, that's
how Paul worded it to those Jews who heard him and Barnabas speak,
and they argued against and fought against what he was saying, they
contradicted what he was saying, and they were not pleased with
the gospel, the testimony of grace that Paul and Barnabas
preached. And Paul said, well, seeing as
you fellas judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we're going
to the Gentiles because that's whom God has sent us to. And
so that's what the reality is. Man likes to boast of what he
can do, likes to boast and argue about his free will. And what's
going to come down in the end of those who would argue for
their free will is I, you know what, I'm not worthy of this
salvation. I've got my own way of doing
it. It's going to fail, but I'm going to keep on doing it my
way. And they judge themselves unworthy of the life that God
has provided for his people in his son, Jesus Christ. And so
it's always through the gospel. That's our message, the gospel
of Jesus Christ. That is the good news for the
children of promise. for the saints of God, it's the
gospel. But what we do see is that the
providences or the experiences by which we come to know the
Lord, the challenges that we face, the difficulties that the
Lord uses to bring that dryness into our soul and that sorrow
in our hearts to see that we cannot save ourselves and that
we're coming to a destructive end in ourselves, those things
can differ, they can vary, right? There can be people that come
through different paths, right? Some grew up in more strict religion
than others, some a little more looser and freer, some came by
walking down an aisle, right? So they think they went through
this, they walked an aisle, they did various things, or they put
away certain sins and they thought that was salvation. And the Lord
delivers us from all those religions of man, all those dead ends and
foolishness, we come to see that's all of the flesh. And the Lord,
those things vary between us, but it's always through the gospel
that we come to a knowledge of what Christ has done for us. You look at Nicodemus, and he
was a religious man, a well-studied man. He was a well-respected
man and a moral man. And then you come to this Samaritan
woman here, and she was untrained and unlearned in the law of the
Jews. They worshipped down in a temple,
and she worshipped up on a mountainside. They trusted in the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and she was looking at some calves that represented
the hope that they were supposed to have, I guess, in Jacob, if
you will. With Nicodemus, though, they
both needed salvation. But with Nicodemus, the Lord
went right at him and said, ye must be born again, Nicodemus. You're coming to me for a little
bit of instruction. You're coming to me because I'm
clearly a teacher sent from God, you say. But the issue for you,
Nicodemus, is you must be born again. Now, was it any different
for the Samaritan woman that she not need to be born again?
No, she needed to be born again as well, but the Lord, he deals
with her differently. In a different way, he draws
her into himself and speaks to her about the gift of God. Both are the same, right? Being
born again is the gift of God, it's just he He instructed her
differently. The providence or the experience
was different for her in that way, but they were both saved
one way by the grace of God revealed in His Son, Jesus Christ. Now,
last week, we saw the Lord seeking out the sinner. And what we see
this week, more so as we look here in John 4, is that He does
this seeking out because all of us by nature are are spiritually
ignorant. In our Adamic nature, this flesh
that we come forth, born of our parents, it's corrupt, it's fallen,
it has no spiritual knowledge, and we don't come forth in fellowship
with the Lord. And so he's gonna make known
to us our need of him. He's gonna show us our sin, And
when we retreat to our refuge that we hide out in, that we
think is our safety, the Lord's gonna pursue right after us and
go right in there and draw us out of it and take it apart.
He's gonna disassemble those things which we hope in in the
flesh. And not only does he save the
sinner, but he doesn't leave us in darkness. He makes himself
known. to his children he's going to
reveal himself as he did to this woman and so I titled this he
is greater he's he's greater and so let's first begin here
with our Lord he's he's engaged this woman he's asked her for
drink and it's it's it's to provoke her, it's to bring out that she
herself is thirsty, she herself needs the grace of God, and she
needs what Christ alone must give the sinner. He must give
her this life, this gift of God, otherwise she will perish in
her sins like all the rest of the world does, except apart
from God's grace. There in verse 10, let's just
look there. Let's begin there, verse 10. Jesus answered and
said unto her, if thou knewest the gift of God and who it is
that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest have asked
of him and he would have given thee living water. And so this living water that
he's talking about, this is the gift of God. This is something
that God alone can and must give to the sinner. We don't have
this flowing fountain of life and fellowship and knowledge
of God. It's not in us. It's not part
of us by our nature. And the way the Lord does this,
the way he accomplished this is he laid down his life for
the sheep. He's the one who gave himself
to the Father as a sacrifice to make atonement and to put
away the sin of his people so that God is no longer angry with
us. The sin is covered with the blood
of Christ and he's reconciled us. He's made us to know the
Lord. He's rooted out that enmity,
that hatred that's in us. By nature, we're all enemies
of God. We don't love Him. We don't want
to know the true and living God. We don't like what He has to
say to us. And it's called enmity in the
scriptures, meaning it's a deep-rooted, a deep-seated hatred that's within
us that Christ has to remove. You know, if you've ever taken
down poison ivy, I try to steer clear of it, but it It's very
apparent to me when I see it on a tree because I'm very allergic
to it. But I noticed that as you're
removing it off the tree, that's easy to find. But as you begin
pulling it up, that thing travels down under the ground and long
vines and it's hairy legs and everything. And it's it goes
on and on and it's hard to pull up. And, you know, it's or like
bamboo, if you've ever planted bamboo. It looks pretty cool.
It looks nice and tropical and gives you a nice feeling when
you're looking at it. But once you decide it's gone
too far, that thing's almost impossible to get rid of. People
burn it. They mow it down. They rip it
out. And it comes back every year.
And they put barriers around it. And they try and push them
in deep into the ground, and that thing still will crawl under
it and come up the other side and start growing in your lawn. And so it's a real nuisance.
Well, that's what our sin nature is. It's deep-seated hatred,
enmity against God. And only God can remove that. All the good works we do, all
the religion we get cannot remove or expunge or wipe out that hatred
that is in us through inheritance of our father Adam. We're all
sinners and fall far short of the glory of God and only Christ
can deliver us. And so we need that spiritual
life which the Lord does for us by forming in us that new
man, that new creation. Not a reformed creation, a new
creature, a new creation that is created by Christ. It's from his seed, not your
father's seed, not my father's seed, not the seed of Adam. That's
corrupt and vile and will never produce something that will glorify
God and please him. It's a seed of Christ whereby
that new creature is born and knows him and loves him and has
fellowship with him. Colossians 3.10 words it this
way, describing the believer that we have put on the new man
which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
him. And so this creation whereby
we now believe God and confess him before our brethren and before
men and women of this world It's the creation of Christ. He's
our father. He's our savior, our God, our
hope. And that's the gift of God, which
is given to us freely in grace, apart from our works or earning
it. We can't bribe him. We can't
negotiate with God. And there are people, believe
it or not, that think they're going to be able to negotiate
with God in that day. But what can you give to the
one who has everything and needs nothing from you or I? We need
Him. He doesn't need us. And so we
desperately need His grace and mercy. And so it's in this fellowship
that our Savior communicates with us. He's brought you here. He's drawn you here and declares
His Word to you freely in mercy, throwing the door of salvation
open that you should look and see and behold him who is our
salvation, our very hope of standing before the Lord. And so our God,
he speaks to us, he speaks to us through his word, he speaks
to us through his gospel, and through these providences of
light and darkness, right? These things that show us our
weaknesses and show us our great need of Him. He's the one that
puts in us that hungering and that thirst for righteousness.
It's not there by nature. It's there when Christ puts it
in us and reveals that thirst in us as He's doing for this
woman. She was ignorant of it. She was
spiritually dead and content to go on her way until the Lord
said, give me to drink. And then It began that opening
up of the Lord, revealing to her, you're the one who's thirsty.
You're the one who needs what I alone can give you. All right. And so he does that. And this gift, you know, we're
told the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And so his gift is to make
that known to you and to show you, you know, if you suffer,
disappointments and failures, and you see your sin, and you
see that you're not as righteous as you need to be to stand before
God, that's a mercy. And His grace will give you to
behold Him, to see that He alone is our salvation. Paul says, when we're here speaking,
when we're declaring these things, we're speaking the wisdom of
God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before
the world unto our glory. He's the one who must make this
known to us. And it's gonna be by effectual
power of Christ. I'm not able to make you hear
it. You're not able to make you hear it. You need the Lord to,
reveal this in you and convince you of your need. And it comes
to his people by power. It comes by his power. All right,
now this Samaritan woman here in the text, she naturally responds
in verse 11 and 12. It says, the woman saith unto
him, sir, thou hast nothing to draw with. You're talking about
this water that you can give me. You have nothing to draw
with. And the well is deep from whence then hast thou that living
water? And she asks, Art thou greater? He is greater. And she asks,
Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well
and drank thereof himself and his children and his cattle? Now, what she's doing is she's
relying on this well as though this well has some special this
to it, some specialty to it, right? She's relying on the fact
that this, Jacob dug this well, and this water that we're drinking,
this is holy water. This is good water. This is grace,
the grace of God in this. And so she's retreating back
to these traditions, right? And we've seen this in ourselves. You know, some people are trusting
in the fact that maybe their dad was a preacher, or their
granddad was a preacher, or I read from the Bible that my grandmother
gave me, or my grandmother was a Baptist. So, you know, I have
that in my heritage and in my lineage. And we do that, right? Spiritual ignorance will latch
on to anything, all kinds of traditions and the things that
the flesh looks to. And there's people that clutch
on to jewelry, right? They think that jewelry has some
special grace, some special power. You see it on a lot of famous
people. They'll expose the fact that
they have a cross on, right, as though they're Christian people
and they trust in that. They think that that's some kind
of a good luck charm or they wear a little angel, you know,
on a necklace or different things in their earrings. And so we
can attach ourselves to all kinds of of traditions and good luck
charms and various things that we think give us some grace or
open up some avenue of mercy from our Lord. And so what the
Lord is showing us is that man will trust in anything, but he
says in verse 13, whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. And that's what we're going to
see, whatever we retreat back to, whatever good work we've
done. I helped an old lady cross the
street, and on the same day I saved a puppy dog from drowning. And
we think that is our goodness, and that God will be merciful
to us for these things. I saw $100 sitting there, and
it was so-and-so's, and I could have taken it, and no one would
have known, but I didn't put it in my pocket. And so they think
that makes them a good person and able to stand before the
Lord. All right. Or, you know, I I've
told you this before, but, you know, when I was a teenager,
my parents and I, we just all stopped going to services at
the same time. I don't we just all stopped and
no one asked anybody why we stopped. Nobody seemed to care. It was
all just. indifference and we stopped going. But when I was later on in my
teenage years, I think around 19, I began to go to church myself,
to a church. I found a place and I just started
going and I really thought that I was a pretty good person then.
I stopped some of the outward sins that I was doing and I thought,
now I can call myself a Christian. And so I was very confident in
that and thought I had just one or two troublesome sins that
needed to go. But other than that, I was a
really good guy. And the Lord in mercy broke me,
just destroyed that and showed me, no, you're a sinner in the
heart, right? I'm a sinner in my mind, my thoughts,
my heart. everything and and showed me
that I my trust and confidence was because I had done those
things and now I could call myself a Christian and he showed me
even still you're not a Christian you must be born again and and
I had a great need and so the Lord did that I thought he was
after me and pursuing me to destroy me and to expose my hypocrisy
and it was to expose my hypocrisy but he did it in grace mercy
and so when we go back to the works of the flesh when we go
back to that well of Jacob that those traditions and those things
that we thought were our comfort and our hope Christ says you
you'll thirst again with these things you you won't be satisfied
we need the water of life that Christ alone can give and that
he must give otherwise we'll continue to be thirsty right
he says verse 14 but whosoever drinketh of the water that I
shall give him," that true spiritual life, that refreshing of the
spirit, they shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give
him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting
life. And so that child of God, when
they've been given that water, it's not that we don't see the
sin that's yet in the flesh. It's not that we don't feel ourselves
ever needful of his grace. We'll still know that we need
his grace and love and mercy and forgiveness. But our eyes
aren't turned back to the things of the flesh to comfort ourselves
and to gain that confidence and assurance. That just proves to
be self-righteousness, which we're all good at. But the Lord
turns us to Christ, and to confess Him and Him alone, and seek mercy
from God based on Christ and Christ alone. Not saying, but
Lord, I'm trying, or go easy on me, or whatever it is that
we look to as this flesh. In this flesh, we look to Christ,
and we say, Lord, I have no hope but Christ. And He keeps us ever
looking to Him. He keeps us stayed upon the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so, with that living water,
we'll ask. The Lord will ask Him to reveal
Himself to us. And He says He'll ask. We'll
seek Him and we shall find Him. And we'll knock on that door
and the Lord will open it to us. But it's a spiritual work
that He must do for us. Otherwise, We're just groping
about the darkness in vain, in dead religion, and always coming
up and thirsting. I remember when I did start going
back to that first church I went, they would do sort of like an
altar call. And every time they asked, you know, if anyone wants
to give their life to the Lord and dedicate their life to the
Lord, just raise your hand. My hand was up there every time.
And, you know, come down to the front here. And I would go up
there every time because it never satisfied my thirst. I was always
looking at something I was doing and never looking to Christ and
resting in Him. And so, you know, the Lord, He
alone quenches that thirst and gives us that. All right. So
He's the one who's going to show us the darkness we're in when
He brings us out. We're going to see what we've
been delivered from by Him. All right. And what He does here
is He's got to seek them because they're spiritually ignorant
and He's going to make himself known to them, and here we see
in verse 15 that he's revealing our need, that we've been drinking
from the religious well, and we need to drink from Christ.
Verse 15, the water saith unto him, sir, give me this water,
that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw. And she's not
even sure what she's saying, right? I'm gonna leave Jacob's
well, I'm gonna go to the well you're talking about, because
I wanna have this this living water, but she's still thinking
of it in fleshly terms, right? She's still coming out with these
grave clothes, if you will, that yet have to be unwrapped from
her eyes. And what Christ does is he's,
again, she must be born again, and he's not going to save her
on her terms, he's going to save her on his terms. And so he says
in verse 16, go call thy husband and come hither. And the woman
answered and said, I have no husband. And Jesus said unto
her, thou hast well said, I have no husband, for thou hast had
five husbands. And he whom thou now hast is
not thy husband, in that saidst thou truly. And so here Christ
laid bare her sin. She was more than content to
keep that hidden and not bring that up to this man or anyone. I mean, it was a shame to her
and she really didn't want to deal with it. And it just, it
shows us that the Lord is going to root out that sin that is
preventing us from coming to Him. That thing which stands
in the way, that is a troublesome thing to us. He's going to lay
bare our need of that we're not righteous. He's going to expose
to us, not to everyone else necessarily, we're not going to air all our
sins before one another, but the Lord, He's honest with us
and we're going to be made honest before Him and we're going to
confess our sin to Him. And so The Lord's going to make
this known because men love darkness. They want to stay in the darkness.
They don't want to come into the light where their deeds are
exposed to the Lord. But the Lord's going to bring
us to that fountain of living water that we desperately need.
So what does she do? She changes the subject. She
kind of retreats back to a controversy. if you will, to get the spotlight
off of her. It says, verse 19, the woman saith unto him, sir,
I perceive that thou art a prophet. And then she says, our fathers
worshiped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the
place where men ought to worship. But if you notice, Christ isn't
interested in settling this dispute for her. Who's right, the Jews
or the Samaritans? Should you be down here at Jerusalem
worshipping or up on this mountain? Is that okay? And Christ doesn't
even deal with that, because once he does bring salvation
into the heart, all those questions which we're stumbling over and
using as excuses not to come to a knowledge of the truth,
to put up and prevent ourselves from coming into the light and
looking to Christ, all those things fall away once we hear
Christ, right? Even doctrine that causes us
to stumble, that all falls before Him and everything's just laid
bare and set right by the Lord. And things that maybe we don't
understand fully or get confused about or troubled about, all
that just smooths out. because we rest in Christ, and
we know that He's God, and we may trust Him wholly, because
He does not fail, and He's perfect in all His ways. All right, so
she's going for a refuge, and the Lord goes right in there
with her, and is drawing her out, He's helping her, He's drawing
her out. Verse 21 through 24, 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." Meaning
that we don't have to become Judaizers to be saved. He's just
saying that the Messiah is coming. The Lord's going to reveal himself
to the people beginning at Jerusalem, beginning with Christ coming
to the Jews and then it going out from there. The gospel will
be revealed to them and then spin out from there and go further
into the world. But the hour cometh, he says,
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. And so what he shows is that
all these vain confidences of the flesh, all the things that
we in the flesh are very confident in, that it's our righteousness.
Well, I used to speak like this, and now I speak this way. And
I used to delight in know these things but now I delight in Christ
and people will hope in that and they'll put their confidence
that you know now I'm I go to services regularly or now I've
I've been baptized or now I've you know made a confession right
and they think that is their salvation right but the Lord
has shown us that's not your salvation I am your salvation,
the Lord Jesus Christ himself. We must have a personal relationship
with the Lord Jesus Christ, else we cannot be saved. He must be
our savior, not we ourselves, saving ourselves by doing religious
things. Christ is the one who put away
the sin of his people. He's the one who died for his
people, was buried and was raised again for our justification.
Christ did that work, and so we desperately need him. And this salvation that he speaks
of is a spiritual salvation. It's not accomplished or improved
upon by the works of this flesh. And so our Lord, he delivers
us from these vain confidences and these retreats that we that
we run into to hide ourselves and it's because he himself is
spirit and So we've got to worship him and in spirit and in truth
He's gonna make it known to us in that sense now in Philippians
3 it actually gives a good commentary of this passage in Philippians
3 look there in verse 2 and 3 Paul says, Philippians 3, 2,
beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. And what he's saying there is,
you know, men in religion are going to cut your flesh. They're going to slice and dice
and cut out those things that you shouldn't be doing. And they're
gonna do these works that they may glory in your flesh. That
in that day when they stand before God, they may point over to you
and say, look, Lord, did not I in your name cast out demons
and do many wonderful works and miracles in your name, Lord?
Didn't I do all these things for you and for your kingdom?
And the Lord will say to them, I never knew you. Depart from
me, you workers of iniquity. You have no part in me. And so
that's what religion is going to do. And Paul says, beware
of those dogs. Beware of the concision. Beware
of those that cut the flesh and work this in you. And then verse
three, for we are the circumcision. That's circumcision of the heart,
where only the spirit of God can reach. Man can't reach there. Even we ourselves can't reach
into our own heart, but the Spirit of God can and is able. And he
says, we are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit
and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. And that's what our Savior is
talking about to the Samaritan woman. He's saying, ye must be
born again. It's a gift of God. Only he can
affect that in the heart. Only he can can create spiritual
life in a dead sinner. Only he can bring life where
there is nothing and nothing but death. And so we have no
confidence in the flesh. We have no confidence in our
religion and what we do or don't do. Our confidence is in Christ
himself. Now, this work here, that he
did for the woman, it was made effectual to her. Her refuge
was knocked down. Her questions were removed, right? He didn't necessarily address
every point that she had. He showed her her need of salvation,
that she had to be born of the spirit, that she needed what
he alone could give to her. Now verse 25 and 26, the woman
saith unto him, I know that Messiah's cometh, which is called Christ. And when he has come, he will
tell us all things. And Jesus saith unto her, I that
speak unto thee, am he. And so that's what our savior
does when he pursues a sinner and he in grace and mercy draws
them out from their vain refuge of the flesh and does this work
for them, giving them spiritual life, He's going to reveal Himself
to them. He's going to make it known to
them who it is that saves them. He's not going to leave them
in darkness and entrusting the flesh. He's going to effect His
grace in their hearts and make them to know who it is that did
it. for them and who their Savior
is. And so that's what he does here for this woman, right? He
spoke to her differently than how he spoke to Nicodemus, but
the result was the same, spiritual salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. And so you that are here, that
come to seek the Lord, don't trust in these things. Don't
trust in these outward things. rest in Christ, look to Him,
because He alone is our salvation. It's a spiritual work that only
He can do, and all who are bitten, all who are afflicted with sin,
and know themselves to be the sinner, and in need of His grace,
we are assured that when they look to Him, All who look to
Him shall be saved. They shall live when they look
to Him. And so, our Lord has promised
this work of salvation in us, and I pray that He encourage
your hearts and turn you to look to Him alone who is salvation
and the hope of the believer. I pray you bless that word to
your heart. Let's close in prayer. Our gracious Lord, Father, I
pray that you have Mercy upon us, Lord. My words are so feeble,
and Lord, I struggle to say what I want to say at times, and Lord,
I just pray that you would bless your people, that you would affect
your work in the hearts of your children, that you would indeed
bring that spiritual life, that spiritual work that you alone
can do. that you would bless and comfort
your struggling child. Lord, give us peace and hope
in Christ, and deliver us from the vain trappings of this world,
that we might find our all in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord,
we pray that you bless now the fellowship with one another,
that you would bless the food that we're about to eat, and
that you would Bless our time together that it would be a joy
and a gladness for us. Father, we pray that you would
set our hearts upon our Savior, that we would look to him as
we take this wine and this bread, and that we would remember our
Lord who gave himself, that laid down his life for our life, and
that reconciled us to the Father, that we might have fellowship
with you, Lord. It's in Christ's name that we
pray and give Thanks. Amen. All right. So Levi and Scott, if you two
could give out the bread and the wine. And then since we heard
from Scott, Levi, if you would pray. I appreciate it. Father, we pray that you'd bless
this time of fellowship Look to your Son, Lord, and be
thankful for Him, Lord. In your name we pray. Amen. I'm going to read from 1 Corinthians
11 and we'll just read through the whole thing and then I'll
sit down and we'll take the bread and wine together and then just
close this with a hymn after a minute about. All right. So 1 Corinthians 11, 23, Paul
says, for I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered
unto you. that the Lord Jesus, the same
night in which he was betrayed, took bread. And when he had given
thanks, he break it and said, take, eat. This is my body, which
is broken for you. This do in remembrance of me. And after the same manner also,
he took the cup. When he had supped, saying, this
cup is the New Testament in my blood. This do ye as often, as
often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat
this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till
he come. Let's all stand and sing a closing
hymn. 332, my Jesus, I love thee. I don't think we sang this much.
I think Dave Edmondson sang this song to us on the piano back
in the Nixa Senior Center. 332, my Jesus, I love thee. ? Good Jesus, I love Thee ? ? I
know Thou art mine ? ? For Thee all the follies of sin I resign
? ? My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou ? I love Thee, my Jesus, tis Thou. I love Thee because Thou hast
first loved me, And purchased my pardon on Calvary's tree. I love thee for wearing the thorns
on thy brow. If ever I love thee, my Jesus,
tis now. I'll love thee in life, I will
love thee in death. And praise Thee as long as Thou
lendest me breath, And say when the death do lies cold on my
brow, If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, tis now. In mansions of glory and endless
delight, I'll ever adore thee in heavens so bright. I'll sing with a glittering crown
on my head. If ever I love thee, by Jesus
dispel. Thank you. Lilian, here, Lilian.