We come to a new part of John's
Gospel today. And I want to ask you, have you
ever come to the opportunity to be in the Word of the Lord
and felt too grieved to do it? Have you ever come to, OK, I
know I need to read my Bible. I know I need to study. I know
I need to be intimate with God. I know I need to pray. But your
heart is too grieved to do it. And you think to yourself, now
what? Well, imagine if you were to be in my shoes and come to
the pulpit in your heart to agree to do it. It's an interesting dilemma sometimes. And in 21 years of ministry,
it happens a lot. It happens a lot when I consider
your lives and what you're burdened with. It happens a lot when our
own lives become overly burdened It happens a lot when we're,
what, tired or sick or stressed out. And it's a very, very problematic
thing for you and for me. But yet the faithfulness of God
through His Word is that no matter what is going on in here and
in here, our head or our hearts or our bodies and what's going
on around us, interrelationally, nothing can stop His Word. So
the work of God through the Holy Spirit will empower us to just
make that small step. Just open the Word. Just step
to the pulpit. While the devil is a liar and
a deceiver and a destroyer, he hates the church of Jesus Christ.
He hates each one of us who have the Spirit of God in us. He is
ever-present and ever-active, and he will be until the day
that Christ destroys him and casts him into the lake of fire.
And so, beloved, what we have to look forward to is continual
suffering, continual persecution, continual stress, continual ups
and downs, and small little pockets and seasons of what the world
will call normative things. The question is, do we recognize
the power of God through his word to give us the joy that
surpasses the understanding of our minds? Do we understand that God's word
rules over us? We are subject to Him, ergo His
Word. He is the Living Word, Jesus
the Christ. And when the Word is before us, we who are indwelt
with the Spirit of God, even when we hate what we hear, even
if for just a few minutes we just go, no, this isn't what
I want. This isn't what I wanted to hear.
This isn't what I want to do, which we are all there, right?
It's just a matter of time before the Holy Spirit resolves us to
that which is commanded to us. It's just a matter of time when
we have the comfort in the midst of the storm, when we have that
sense of peace and the torture of life. And the Scripture is
clear that there are many who will stay in the presence of
the church, produce the fruit of righteousness by confessing
the gospel, produce the fruit of maturity, and then fall away. Fall away from the faith. There
are some who are overly theological, and some who are doctrinally
sound, who do not profess the gospel of Jesus. My prayer this
morning is that that's not you. That your main hope is not in
the truth that you know in the context of its historical application
or historical title, but that the truth that you hold to is
Jesus Himself and what the Bible teaches about who He is. And that you understand that
the reason you're here this morning is that you're worshiping together
as you have been worshiping alone all week. We don't come to church. We are
the church. And if we are the church, then
the Bible holds power over us to be the people of God. You
might say, how? Because God divinely and supernaturally
teaches us through the hearing of his word. What have you learned
today thus far? What are you expecting to learn
before we're done? And to what end is it given to
you? Do you know what, beloved? It's
not given to you for the end of you. Nowhere in the New Testament
has a letter been written to an individual so that that individual
might be something. Everything written in the New
Testament is written to the collective church or to the elders, the
pastoral epistles of specific peoples so that they would display
the glory of God together in community. The enemy has made a mess. of truth. The enemy has made
a mess of intimacy. The enemy speaks into the minds
and whispers into the hearts of people, both believer and
unbeliever. The filter that protects us from
falling prey to his schemes is what, according to Ephesians
6? The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. We just got through several weeks
of looking at Nicodemus. We just got through several weeks
of this thing that the evangelist John, the apostle, says that
many people believed in Jesus, the end of chapter 2, but Jesus
Himself did not entrust Himself to them, for He knew what was
in man. No one had to tell Him what was
in the heart of man. Now there was a man. You see
the example. The example of what John was teaching from
God is that Jesus knows the heart of man. He knows the heart of
humanity collectively. And brothers and sisters, he
knows the heart of each of us individually. He knows everything. He knows the truth of our confession.
He knows the lies of our prayers. What does that mean? You know,
we lie to God when we pray. We lie to God because sometimes
when we pray we even change our vocabulary. Don't we? Sometimes we speak that which
is most, I don't know the word I'm looking for, we speak that
which is most normative in our praying speech, but we would
never say those things in the context of our dialogue with
each other. And I'm not talking about ascribing
to God what is due Him that we would never ascribe to each other,
but you know what I mean. And we think that if we come
with a formality to God, that somehow God is sort of appeased. What would that look like? Well,
Brother Jesse, a couple of weeks ago on Wednesday night, he preached
about the Lord's Prayer. And by the Lord's grace, I'm
going to have him do it in a couple of weeks here on Sunday morning
so that we can get that teaching. It's very important to us. break the mood and be comical.
Someone said years ago, back in the mid-80s, that sometimes
we pray like the King James Bible reads. We pray the King James
prayers. And we use this lofty language.
We use this lofty, drawn-out word. You ever heard me do that? And sometimes if we're not careful,
we can fall into the acting of our Christian faith rather than
the living in Christ. Let me say that again. If we're not careful, we can
fall into the acting of our Christian faith rather than the living
in Christ. Nicodemus was a man who was most
educated, most revered, most adored, with great power, great
political influence, great spiritual influence. He was very pious. He was very moral. He was very,
according to the world standards and the law of Moses, righteous. But he came to Jesus under the
cover of darkness so that he might not lose any of that good
reputation. And he came to Jesus and he confessed
something to Jesus in order to flatter Jesus, in order to get
a response from Jesus. And he confesses Jesus as one
that comes from God because of the evidence of Jesus' ministry.
And Jesus says, you cannot see me. You cannot enter into me,
except you be born again. So here in application is the
highest echelon of spirituality, the highest echelon of culture,
the highest echelon of power. And he was not saved. And he could not do anything
of his own accord to be saved. And the only thing that would
save him is that he was able to see and believe in Jesus who
stood before him and spoke with him. That's it. Even what the picture of the
Old Testament showed Nicodemus that as Moses lifted the serpent
in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man himself be lifted
up that whoever believes in Him would have eternal life. But
whoever believes not is condemned already. And as we saw last week,
the wrath of God remains on them. Now, the great contrast of Jesus
in Jerusalem is that He cleansed the temple and they rejected
Him. He spoke the truth of their own
text, of their own understanding, of their own myopic and selfish
and intrinsic theology of the Old Testament. And yet, they
did not understand when Jesus said, tear this temple down or
destroy it and I will rebuild it in three days. They should
have been able to see it, but they couldn't. And then Nicodemus,
the greatest teacher of Israel, the premier of the premier of
the spiritual gods of the world. Because who else had the oracles
of God but the Jews? No one. There weren't pockets
of God-fearing people anywhere. And there weren't pockets of
God-fearing people in Jerusalem. They feared God in the context
of His power and His judgment and they work like the devil
to work themselves out of it. And then so well that they work
themselves out of judgment that they put confidence in their
own works, knowing that they were secure because of who they
were and what they did. The gospel is that we are secure
not in who we are, for that's a death sentence, not in what
we can do, for that's a violation of the law, even when we obey
it, because it's not perfect. But we have hope in the finished
work of Jesus, who as a human being obeyed perfectly, and who
as a human being suffered the penalty of sin. You see what
Jesus has done. You see why that's called the
good news, why we've come up with a new word, gospel, for
that particular announcement, for that particular proclamation
that comes through the scripture. Nicodemus. There's no greater
example of a man in a higher place of authority at all than
Nicodemus. And now we're going to come to
chapter 4 of John and we're going to see the contrast to Nicodemus. As Jesus left Jerusalem, Nicodemus
did not believe that day. The Jews did not believe that
day. The righteous did not believe that day. The moral did not believe
that day. The religious did not believe that day. And they remained
condemned because they did not believe on Jesus the Christ.
But yet now we see Jesus leaving. Let's look at the Word of God
in John chapter 4. There's a lot of text here, 30 verses. By the
Lord's grace, I pray that I can get through it all in one sitting
and then we'll pick up in the next few weeks on things that
we might miss. Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had
heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than
John, although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his
disciples, he, Jesus, left Judea and departed again for Galilee.
And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria
called Saqqar. near the field that Jacob had
given to his son Joseph. 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. A woman from Samaria, unnamed,
came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a
drink, for his disciples had gone into town to buy food. 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 had no dealings
with the Samaritans. 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. The woman said to him, sir, you
have nothing to draw water with and the well is deep. Where are
you going to get this? Where do you get the living water?
Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and
drank from it Himself, as did His sons and His livestock. Jesus
said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty
again, 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 stream of water welling up to eternal life.
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. And Jesus
said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered
him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you have a
right in saying you have no husband, for you have had five husbands,
and the one now you have is not your husband. What you have said
is true. The woman said to him, Sir, I
perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this
mountain, Mount Gerizim. But you say that in Jerusalem
is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her,
Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain
nor Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what
you do not know. We worship what we know, for
salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and is
now here. when the true worshippers will
worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is
seeking such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those
who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman
said to Him, I know that Messiah is coming, who is the Christ,
who is called Christ. When He comes, He will tell us
all things. And Jesus said to her, I who
speak to you am He. Just then his disciples came
back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no
one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her?
So the woman left her jar and went away into town and said
to the people, come see a man who told me all that I ever did
can just be the Christ. They went out of the town and
were coming to him. Let's pray. God, Lord, I beg of You, if it be
Your will this day, Lord, that You would do a miracle. The miracle
of Your Word going forth into hearts and minds and ears of
human beings. Us. That we might be able to
hear with spiritual ears and understand with spiritual minds
and have an affection with a spiritual heart. Lord, that we would see
the power of this dialogue. That we would see the power of
Your Word. That we would see the truth here.
that would have full effect in us. Lord, there is nothing I
can do. There is nothing I can say. There
is no way that I can cause people to believe and to have joy and
to walk rightly and to submit to Your Word. But Father, You
can do that. We pray Your Spirit would do
those works in us. We pray that You would protect
us, protect us in our homes, protect us in our church, in
our fellowship, in our life. Lord, that You would protect
us from ourselves, from our thinking, from our disobedience, from our
unbelief, that we might truly see Your hand at work. And we pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen. So, let's take this very quickly,
one at a time. Jesus had learned that the Pharisees
had heard, that they had heard, that Jesus were baptizing more
people than John. Now, remember what we talked
about last week and the week prior, the last time we spoke
and taught out of John. is that the Pharisees were upset
because Jesus now, of course, just like John's disciples were
upset that Jesus now were what was receiving disciples. People were following after Christ.
And as people followed after Christ, what was happening? People
were no longer following after Judaism. When people were hearing
the words of Christ, they were coming out of the temples, out
of the temple worship, the temple. They were coming out of the synagogues.
They were coming out and following after Jesus. So much like a holiday
or when people are absent here, we can see the empty seats. What
it must have been like for the Pharisees to have no one to rule
because many were believing. What it must have been with the
authority of the Pharisees that they had, even though they were
not free, they were under Roman rule, but they had their puppets.
They had their political platforms where they still had some power
over the people. And now all of a sudden, here
is Jesus drawing people away. Away from religion, away from
practice, away from this staunch obedience to a law that would
never bring righteousness into a position of grace whereby they
are justified before God, perfect before Him, forgiven before Him,
redeemed before Him, just through Jesus Christ alone. How damaging
that message is to the power of a religious empire. How damaging grace is to people
who can hold over someone fear. You better watch how you live. You ever had anybody tell you
that? Of course children, we're going
to tell you all that. You ever had anybody tell you that? You
better watch how you live. You better watch that. You better
watch your language. That's good advice. Watch how you live. But
when they tie that to your salvation, they have grossly erred. They
have grossly erred. And they have defamed the name
of Jesus. They have defamed the gospel of grace. We do not live
according to our own standards. We do not live in fear of rejection. We live in the celebration of
adoption. It's a big difference. A child
who is adopted is adopted because someone loved him and cared for
him and took him and made him or her their own. That is who we are in Christ,
beloved. And the Jews rejected it. And they got mad when they
started seeing that Jesus was drawing a crowd. How did Jesus
know this? The same way He knew Nathanael
was under the tree. The same way he'll know, as we
see in chapter 5 and other places, the heart of man. The same way
he knew the heart of man in John chapter 2, the same way he knows,
knew what Nicodemus was doing, thinking, and believing, and
the same way he knows what this woman from Sychar is thinking
and believing. The same way he knows that she
has had five husbands. He knows. Because he's God. We
cannot hide the truth from God. We cannot hide the truth of who
we are from the Lord. And eventually, in time, we cannot
hide the truth of who we are from each other. And sometimes
we get really mixed up in our culture. We've had decades and
decades, and as a people, when I say that, in our country, we've
had a century or more of corrupt theology and corrupt ecclesiology
and corrupt community and corrupt fellowship. I know sometimes when I say stuff
like that, it drives people aggravated, sideways. He's always got something
negative to say. Listen, if you think I'm negative,
you ought to listen to most people who speak on these things. I'm
probably, I'm not saying this from an arrogant way, I'm probably
one of the most humble men when I speak about those things that
I know of. Because there are a lot of friends
of mine who not only will rip it up, but will waste a lot of
pulpit time ripping it up and then go out into the streets
and make that their mission and their message. Beloved, we don't
have to make that our message. The gospel of grace is our message.
But the gospel of grace spits in the face of what we have become
in America in the name of Christ. I guess the question is, who
do you want to be? Do you want to be the status
quo? Do you want to be an American church or do you want to be the
children of God? Do you want to be the beloved of Christ?
Do you want to be a part of the body of Jesus? You can't do both. It's one or the other. And by
the grace of God, when we hear His Word, Jesus knows who we
are today. We've learned that just in this
introduction to this text. Jesus knew the heart of every
Pharisee, and He knows the heart of every one of us. So if He
could peel back the layers of what we put on and all pretend,
guess what? He'd love us anyway. There are
no layers. And if Jesus can love us, and
if God can love us effectually through killing His own Son,
In judgment of our sin, can we not love each other? The Jews
rejected Jesus. He goes then to Galilee, and
on his way he goes to Samaria, and he does so on purpose. He came to the town, as we see
there in verse 5, Sychar. And in or near the field that
Jacob gave to Joseph on his deathbed, there is a well that was dug
out. And the Bible says there in verse
six, it was about the sixth hour, which is noon, high noon, the
sixth hour. Hot, heat of the day. But let
me give you a little bit of information about the culture. Typically, all the women of a
village every morning, early, as the sun was just barely coming
out, would walk together with their water jugs and all go to
the well and assist each other in the acquisition of water that
they would need for the day. Okay? This woman, for some strange
reason, was out at a well where nobody really was. It wasn't
a well that was near Saqqara or in Saqqara. It was a well
that was near Saqqara. It'd be like walking maybe from
here to Hagan. Maybe it was a mile away. It
wasn't so far away that the disciples were probably thinking, well,
Jesus just wants to be alone. He's going to stay outside the city.
We're going to walk in. But here's this woman at noon
standing out in the sun by herself, which is an indicator that there's
something amiss, right? And so as we look at this text,
get this in your mind. Here is Jesus. He is sitting
at this well. And the disciples have gone into
town to buy food. And then as they leave, another
woman, this woman who has no name in the scripture, it's not
like Nicodemus who was a somebody, this is a woman who was a nobody.
It's not like Nicodemus who was a Pharisee, the creme de la creme
of Israel. This is a woman who is unnamed,
who is a Samaritan, who is hated by the Jews because they blaspheme
the very worship of Yahweh. sort of passing. Now, this isn't
told to us in the text, but I imagine that as the disciples were walking
into Sychar, that woman probably passed them on their way out,
on her way out. And I could say that if they
saw her, we don't know that they did, but if they saw her, they
would have done what most good and faithful Jews would have
done as they saw, number one, a woman, but most importantly,
a Samaritan woman walking, they would have done a good, huge,
long roundabout to get away from them. They would have crossed
the desert to not have eye contact with this unclean person of Samaria. But God Almighty, Jesus the Christ,
decided and decreed and purposed to sit at that well because He
knew that this woman would come there. Do you see that? When Jesus says that He came
to seek and save the lost beloved, He's not throwing out nets over
all people. He's finding each one of you.
He finds each one of you. Now, I may preach to every set
of ears in here, but Jesus must give you life.
And that is an individual, supernatural work of God. But it's so easy,
isn't it? Why don't you just get it, church?
As a pastor, I've said that before. Don't you just get it? No, you
don't just get it. You know why you don't get it?
Because there's nothing in us to just get it. We cannot comprehend
that which we have not given the ability to comprehend. We
cannot sit here and understand theoretical physics, if there
is such a thing, and understand how to measure the distance of
an atom inside itself if we don't understand what any of that means.
We haven't learned it. We don't have the aptitude. Much
less can we understand the riches and the magnificence and the
mystery of the work of God in redeeming a person who is unable
to not only see and believe, but hates Him with the core of
their being and doesn't even know it. That's a mystery. It's a powerful thing. And the
way it happens is that Jesus has an appointment with us and
He preaches the truth to us. Now is it starting to make sense?
No one had to tell Him what was in man. No one had to tell Him
what was in the heart of man. There was a man named Nicodemus,
rejected the Gospel. Jesus told him plainly what the
Gospel was. And now He goes to Samaria, the
unclean people, He gives the gospel to a woman who does not
deserve it. Nicodemus thought he deserved
it. We know, we know, Nicodemus said, and Jesus said, you can't
see it. You can't enter it. You don't
comprehend earthly things. How can you comprehend spiritual
things? Nicodemus' conversation on the
way home and later that week was much different than the woman
at Sycharth. This unnamed, unclean, hated person sitting down with
Jesus. And what does Jesus do? Do you
know in some places historically we see that it was a crime for
certain people to talk to women in public? It was a crime. You could be arrested Because
in some sense, if you talk to another man's wife, you could
be in big trouble. Oh, how times have changed. Here's Jesus sitting there, a
Jew, waiting for this woman. That's his purpose. The God of
the universe sat there and waited for her. She shows up, and what
does he do? Not only does he talk to her,
he says to her, give me a drink. Now, I want you to think two
ways about this. I want you to think the first
way is that Jesus is not... He is, but He's not. He is just
opening the conversation relative to the circumstances. What else
shall He say there? He's not supposed to be talking
to her anyway culturally. It makes no sense. There'd be
no discourse. How are you doing today? I love those sandals.
Are those last year's sandals? I mean, you know, how superficial
is that stuff? Did you see the game last night? Wow, I'll tell
you what. The Philistine team, man, they just ran all over those
Sakharians. Sorry y'all lost. Maybe next
year. I mean, how silly are those conversations? But in the context
of where they were, this woman came to the well with her jar
at an odd time to escape the peering eyes of the people in
her own culture. who hated her because she was
a very sinful person, publicly. So Jesus uses the natural purpose
of this woman's presence there and he says, would you give me
a drink? Makes sense, doesn't it? And not only that, but Jesus
was going to teach her about what true thirst was. and teach
her about what her true thirst was. It had nothing to do with
the fact she needed water for her household that day. Nothing!
She wasn't there because she needed water. She was in a physical
sense, but she was there because she didn't want the ridicule
of what came along with getting the water she needed to drink
for the day. And that's what happens. We know that we have
guilt. We know that we have shame. We
know who we are. How dare we ever say that we're
not in a place of guilt? in our flesh, but how dare we
ever mock the gospel of grace and say that we are guilty before
God when Christ has taken our sins on Himself. We're not guilty
anymore. We have been forgiven. The guilt
is gone. And so because God has forgiven
us our guilt through Jesus, how much more then are we to forgive
the guilt of each other? Do you know what's the litmus
test of truth? Affection for Christ is that
we have true affection and forgiveness for each other. We must be very,
very conscious of this. And here this woman sits there,
and she's puzzled, and she asked, verse 9, and it tells us there
in the parenthetical of verse 8, that's the parenthesis, not
the parenthetical, the disciples had gone to the city to buy food,
which will be important next Sunday. Samaritan woman said
to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman
of Samaria? For the Jews had no dealings
with Samaritans. How many of you just by a show of hands drink
after anybody? Just, you know, you'll pick up
a cup sitting on a table and just drink after anybody. How
about, will you drink out of a cup holder in a movie theater
that's there when you get there? I have a friend who will do that.
Not only will he do that, he won't buy a drink or popcorn
at the movie theater. He'll go and he'll find the fact
somebody paid $46 for the big bag of popcorn. They only eat
half of it. He just takes it out of the top of the trash can. And he just eats it, that's nasty.
So if you're ever with him, he doesn't live here, but if you're
ever with him and he's like, you want some popcorn? Just go, no thank you.
And he'll go around and he'll find like big gulps that are
about that full and he just, oh here's, I don't like Dr. Pepper.
He'll go until he finds one he likes. Save himself, you know,
a thousand dollars when he goes to the movies. I would never
do that. I've never been thirsty enough
or hungry enough or needed a snack so bad that I would go around
eating out of the trash. And there's some of us that would
drink after each other in our homes. And there's some of us
that would drink after ourselves if we sit the cup down too long.
And that's me. What flew over this cup? How
long has this cup been open on my desk? I went out of the room
for like 20 minutes. A lot could have happened. I'm not drinking
after myself, you know? Much less go to a well and drink
after somebody who is unclean in your eyes. So it blew this woman's mind
that Jesus would ask her to drink out of her jar. Could you give
me something to drink? Please? Why would you ask that? She says, I'm a woman of Samaria,
why would you ask me these things? And Jesus answered her very clearly
in verse 10. I could preach the rest of this
time on verse 10, but I want to get the whole context of that. He says,
if you knew the gift of God, You see that? If you knew the
gift of God, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that
is saying to you, give me a drink. So there's two things he says
that you should know. If you knew the gift of God and if you
knew who I was, you could ask me and it says, and he would
give you living water. See, Jesus is the gift of God.
Jesus is the living water. That's the point. And we see
that very clearly in John 6. We see it very clearly here,
but it comes in like pops. It goes, whoa! I see what John
is trying to teach us here. He would have given you living
water. The prophet Isaiah, we heard from that text this morning
through Brother Trey. Isaiah 65 says, I was ready to
be sought by those who do not ask for me. I was ready to be
found by those who do not seek me. I said, here I am. Here I am to a nation that was
not called by my name. And that's what Jesus is doing
right now in Samaria. That's what Jesus did in you,
beloved. Listen to me very carefully. That's what Jesus did in you
when you heard the gospel and you believed a people who were
not called by his name. He called you to be his people. And if He had not shown us this,
we would have not known the gift of God, and we would have not
known the One who had living water. Let's keep going. Verse 11, the
woman said, You've nothing to draw your water with. See what
happens? If you're at the fountain place over there at Parker's,
you get yourself the fountain drink, and somebody behind you
says, Hey man, could you fill one of those up for me? Not,
Can I have yours? Can you fill one of those up
for me? Oh yeah, no problem. I'll put it the other way around.
Let's say you ask somebody to fill up a drink for you. And then they're walking up there
and they're about to fill up the drink and you said, you know
what, if you knew who it was who was asking you to fill up a drink,
you'd ask me for a drink and I'd give you a drink you can
never forget. What would you think? You'd go, okay then, move very
slowly. You'd fill them both up and have
them hold them so their hands would be tied up. So you could
at least have them back away slowly. or slish them on them
and just run out the door. Because it's a little weird.
Jesus just said something a little weird in the flesh. I mean, for
the flesh to comprehend, didn't he? If you knew the gift of God,
hey, can I have some water? Why would you ask me for water?
If you knew the gift of God and who I am, you'd ask me for water
and I'd give you living water. What? And it'd well up to eternal
life. It's a spring. You know what
a spring is? It never stops! It's not just a cistern waiting
for rain to fill it up. A spring never stops flowing. It fills up and it wells up. You know what a well is? A spring
in the well keeps the well full all the time. And so the picture
now that Jesus is saying is that if you knew who I was, I am the
gift of God, I would give you water that's a spring that wells
up to eternal life, not just satisfaction of your physical
thirst. but to the ultimate joy of your
thirst, to the ultimate soul that you have. Church, listen
to this truth. Listen very carefully. Don't
leave this out of your heart today. And what did the woman say? I
mean, what would you say? What are you talking about? I
don't understand. Explain it a little bit. We can't
even fathom what we'd say because we have the Holy Spirit that
gives us somewhat of an understanding about what Jesus was even doing
here. We at least know He was talking in a spiritual manner,
right? But she did not. She says, Sir, how in the world
are you going to give me magic water and you don't even have
a bucket to draw it with? What is she doing? She's being
condescending. She's being sarcastic. And she
rebukes Jesus. Who do you think you are? You're
greater than Jacob that gave us this well. You got some water
that's better than this? You got water that's better than
this? You know, I think you're the town drunk. I think that's
really who you are, Jesus. I think you're a crazy guy. She
didn't even know his name at the time, but you know what I'm
saying. I think something's wrong with this guy. If she'd had a
cell phone, she'd have been texting people, man, I met a man that's
the craziest man I've ever met. He's telling me he's going to
give me some magic water and doesn't even have a bucket. How
are you going to do this? We've drank from it. Jacob's
drank from this. Who do you think you are that you're better than
Jacob who gave us this well? And Jesus responds, everyone
who drinks of this water Everyone who drinks of this water will
thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water
that I give him will never be thirsty again. The water that
I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up
to eternal life. And this woman then should have
had some type of bearing in her conscience to know that this
man was speaking in a spiritual sense. Eternal life. But she's still thinking, wow,
you know what, if I don't have water, I die of thirst, dehydration. I'm sick and tired of the ridicule
of coming to this well with the women, coming to the regular
well, so I come to this well at the heat of the day when everybody
else is in their home fixing food and are staying out of my
eyesight. I don't want them to see me.
See, this woman's thirst was to escape her shame. But this
woman's other thirst was to dive into lasciviousness and sexual
living that was unholy. Because she felt like that would
give her the joy that she looked for. Nowhere was there a common
law marriage during this time that was acceptable. And you'll see that. Where do
you get that? Jesus brings it out. He brings it out. He says, the water that I'll
give, she comes back in verse 15 and says, sir, give me this
water. Now see, a lot of times when we're sharing the gospel,
we hear somebody, oh, give me the water. Give me the gospel.
Give me Jesus. But see, this woman at least
was honest enough to say why she wanted this water. It wasn't
for eternal life. It wasn't to be forgiven. It
wasn't for the sake of the glory of God. It was so that she would
never be thirsty again. or that I would never have to
come out here and draw water again. You see, she could continue
to hide in the thirst of her lusts and continue to hide from
the peering eyes of the self-righteous. Oh, how we are like this woman. You see, here's the broad end
of the spectrum of humanity, isn't it? Here's this high ruling
Jew, theologian, educated, rich, powerful, esteemed. And here's
this forgotten, nameless woman of Samaria who's living a very
filthy life. And you know what we know between
these two chapters of John? They stand equal before God.
Let me say that again. Nicodemus
and the Samaritan woman stand in the exact same place. In judgment,
they're guilty. And they'll be judged accordingly.
And according to Scripture, Nicodemus would be judged more harshly
because he knew the truth. But yet he trusted in himself. She says, I want this water because
I don't want to come out here anymore to draw water. See, the
confession of her need was that she wanted some special water
rooted in the reality that she came alone at noon to this well. She could not fathom that this
water existed. And even though it was a special
type of water, she wanted to escape the shame of her reputation. In verse 16, Jesus calls out
what He knows. Look at this. He's not shaming
her. He's telling her exactly what
she's saying without saying it. Well, I really do want this work. If it exists, oh, could you give
it to me? Because I'm so tired of coming out here. Why is she
tired of coming out here? Because she's not going to stand
under the shame and the persecution of her lifestyle. She doesn't
want the ridicule. So Jesus speaks to the very thing
that's on her mind that never comes out of her mouth. Remember
when I talked about sometimes we pray, we like to lie to God.
We're not going to confess that sin because if we confess it,
God might know we've done it. He knows. And Jesus says, then
go call your husband. Why would he say that? Because
it makes sense culturally that the husband is who he needs to
be talking to. Secondly, and most importantly,
in the purpose of Jesus saying this, just like he said, can
you give me a drink? He said, go call your husband. And she says, I
have no husband. And Jesus said to her, you speak
the truth in saying this. I have no husband. But you have
had five husbands. And do you know, let's say they
all died. The Jews frowned on getting married after your third
marriage, even if it was legitimate. No more. That's enough. You just
remain a widow. But he says, not only have you
had five husbands, but the one you now have is not your husband.
What you said is true. So all of a sudden, for the first
time in this conversation, this woman's speaking truth. No, this is what
you're looking for, Jesus is saying. You're looking to hide
from the thirst of your flesh. You're looking to fill up this
emptiness with the water of debauchery, with the water of relationships,
with the water that would drown out these things. Cause had she
been in a respectable relationship and married to a man that was
respected in society, she could go around and laugh and be giddy
with the other women every morning to get her water and live in
a community that would never be looked at. And then she would
be in that party to look over there and go, Oh, look at, Oh,
look at that woman. See Betty, she's running up there to the
well over there where Jacob's well, that old well. And what
would they think if they could see her now from Sychar as she
sat there with this man, whether they could tell he was Jewish
or not from a distance, I don't know. But they could sit there
with this. She sat there with this man. What are they thinking?
Oh, look at her. Up to her old tricks again. We
know now why she's going to that well midday. She's got another
boyfriend. You see? And what is her response in verse
19? The woman said, Sir, I receive that you are a prophet. So she automatically continues
in the conversation, but she does so for two reasons. She responds this way for two
reasons. One is probably. Now the text doesn't give us
this. The second point that I'm going to make is what the text
gives us. But probably, isn't it better to discuss theology
than it is to discuss our sin? So how's things going? Can somebody
ask you? Well, let's talk about eternal
functional subordination. Let me show you what I learned
in such-and-such reading this week. Let me show you this. Let
me show you that. I mean, that could have been somewhat motivation,
but I think the woman actually all of a sudden realized that
Jesus had some divine gift, had some prophetic ability. So she
realized that this man has just told her something all about
herself, as she'll say in a minute, a man that told me everything
I've ever done. And so she wants to answer the
conundrum. I have a Jewish man who is a
prophet talking to me. I have this question that's been
bearing down on my life, my entire life as a Samaritan. We have
a replica of Solomon's temple on Mount Gerizim. A complete
replica. We worship, we hold to the Torah
as the Word of God. We believe in the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. We hold to this, but we're a
little bit different. We worship over here. We have a little bit
of different way of worshiping. But you Jews worship in Mount
Jerusalem. So she's thinking, now I can
actually get the answer I'm looking for. Because I'm working my whole
life to make sure my religion honors God, to make sure my worship
honors God, to make sure that the way I do things in life honor
God, and I've forsaken the very truth of what the Bible has taught
me, and she didn't know this, about how God is pleased with
His people. He says, you're a prophet, our
fathers, verse 20, worshiped on this mountain, but you say
that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. In Deuteronomy 34, we see in
verse 10, there's not arisen a prophet since in Israel, like
Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, Jesus was God face to
face. And while Jesus was the one and
only prophet, this woman did not perceive him to be Messiah.
She did not realize that he was from God. But she did realize he was from
God, like Nicodemus, because he had a deep understanding of
her internal thirst. And Jesus replied to her, verse
21, this way. Woman, believe me. He's not being
forceful there. He's saying, what I'm saying
to you is true. I want you to believe what I'm telling you. Are you
listening? Something like that. Believe
me. The hour is coming when neither
on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father."
Now what did that say? Jesus, from the beginning of
His ministry, began to dismantle Judaism and show the shadows
and the types of what it pointed to, which was Him. It pointed
to Him. He dismantled the liturgy of
Israel. He dismantled the formalism of
worship. He dismantled all these things
that people put their trust in. He removes the debate that she
wants to engage in and he focuses what is vital. Friends, we can
learn something from that. There are some things we just
need to stop talking about. Stop debating and get to the
gospel. Get to the truth. Does it matter? Jesus says it doesn't matter
who worshiped correctly because there's only one way to worship
correctly. He's about to tell us what it looks like. He says, you worship what you
do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from
the Jews. See, you do not know God. See, you say you worship
God, but you don't know God. You don't know him at all. You
worship your worship. You worship your experience.
You worship your feelings. You worship your palm. You worship
your circumstance. You worship all of these existential
things. You worship in such a way that
you're an idolater. That's what Jesus said. You're
not worshiping God. You're worshiping the stuff you
do and saying that you worship. Church, what about us? What do
we worship? Where do we find our joy? We
find our center while our ears hear the Scripture? Or are we
focused on some other element that must be present in order
for us to worship? Oh, how our brothers and sisters
in Kabul this day have people who are listening
and watching as they huddle in small spaces to hear the reading
of the Word. And they dare sing hymns of praise. See, if I was going to die for
my faith, I would just keep the singing to a nil. You know, we'll
sing in our spirit. Why? Because you can't hide singing. Oh, our friends, and I have friends
that are in Turkey, and I haven't spoken to them in three years.
I don't know if they're alive or not. Their heads are probably taking
off their bodies. And they're worshipping. The
church is worshipping all across the world. And we're all worshipping
exactly the same if we're truly worshipping. See, that's the
kicker. We don't need chairs. Some of you with bad backs, I
wouldn't do this to you, but I mean, it gave me thought when
I was moving these chairs one day. I'm like, let's just throw
these things away. and sit on the floor. Now, I know we've
got some back problems. We don't have to do it, but we
don't have to sit in chairs and say we worship. We don't have to be clean to
worship. We don't have to have a piano to worship. We don't
even have to have a songbook. We don't even have to have singers.
I've heard some horrifying stuff in the name of music before going,
ooh, No Juilliard in there, but they were singing truth. I had a great aunt that sounded
like Mr. Haney off of the Green Acres. Haney walked with me,
Haney, you know. Not going to get an award for
that, but boy, she loved Jesus. She'd sing the praises. You worship what you don't know,
we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. See, we worship sometimes the things
of our senses, the ornate, and even the Jews in their worship
were wrong. They had the oracles of God,
and salvation is from the Jews because they have been given
the promise of Messiah. That's what Jesus means there.
Jesus is Jewish. He is Messiah. Salvation is of
the Jews. But he goes on to say in verse
23, but the hour is coming. When you talk about timeframes,
the theological word for that is eschatology. Eschatos, time,
last things, end times, whatever,ology. It's not a serial, it's a study.
This is an eschatological statement. The time is coming. Look forward
to it. See? But immediately, what does
Jesus say? It's now here. It's now here. The time is coming and is now
here. That means right there at this
particular time when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit
and in truth. Do you worship in spirit and in truth this morning?
Because if not, see, the father is seeking those worshipers who
worship him, seeking such people to worship him. See, the Jewish
standing as the proclaimers of the gospel, they stood as the
proclaimers of the gospel, but they didn't do it. Has no bearing
on them. Just because they were the messengers,
it doesn't mean anything about their election or their salvation.
They did not worship rightly in the place where they worshiped.
They followed the rules which were given to them by God for
a purpose, but it wasn't the rules that made their worship
true. There were many false worshipers
who donned the apparel of liturgy. We don the apparel of right practice,
but it didn't matter. And Jesus said it right now.
Here's the time. It's here. And it doesn't matter
how you worship on this mountain or how you worship on this mountain
or that you worship on this mountain or that you worship on this mountain,
because that location and that practice and that way doesn't
matter. That's not worship. True worship
is only in spirit and truth. So I guess the question is, are
we true worshipers? Are we true worshipers? How are
we to worship? Jesus says it. You must worship
in spirit and in truth. The hour is coming, it's here.
Jesus, then, is the true object and conduit of worship. Did you
hear that? Jesus is how we worship God. It is through Jesus that we worship. How do we know Jesus? Through
the Scripture. Can you chew gum and worship?
Some people can. Some people can't. Do you have
to put a hat on to worship? Some people need to, I guess.
But if there's anything we must have apart from Scripture, the
truth of Jesus Christ, Spirit and truth, if there's anything
we must have to worship, we must ask ourselves, why? This woman's mind was blown.
They worship through Jesus. We worship through Jesus. The
gospel of grace provides the platform for worship. Spirit
and in truth. These are not two things, by
the way, in this context, in the grammar. It's one thing.
True worshipers must worship in spirit and truth. Spirit and
truth. Spirit, because God is spirit,
verse 24. Therefore we must worship in
spirit. What's that mean? People have a big misunderstanding.
It's very simple. God is Spirit, so therefore we
worship in our spirit. We don't worship because we're
in the right place. We don't worship because we're
wearing the right clothes. We don't worship because we're
singing the right songs. We don't worship because we have
the right music. We worship in spirit. That means
everywhere we are, internally, we can worship God. It's internally. Some of the best worship you
can get sometimes is driving in the car. Some of the best
worship you can find for some of you mothers who have children
all the time is in the bathroom. You know? Sometimes you just get away.
It's worshiping in spirit and truth. It's not in the flesh,
it's in the heart, it's in the mind. We don't worship God in
location or on location, we do it in the Spirit as He is Spirit.
And in the truth of that, the worshipers from whom God seeks,
worship Him out of the fullness of the supernatural life they
enjoy, which is in the Spirit. We worship in our spirit. the
fullness of our spirit. And on the basis of God's revelation
through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, this self-expression
given through Christ makes these two things indivisible. So that
spirit and in truth are one and the same thing. Because of the
truth of who Jesus is revealed to us through the scripture,
we know who God is because we've seen the face of God. So therefore
we worship in the truth of who Christ is. He is the way and
the truth and the life. He is the truth. And our place
of worship is not external, it's internal. That's what it means
in the spirit. How is it that Paul and Silas
worshiped when they were incarcerated? What did they have to do externally
to produce worship internally? Nothing, because they can worship
in spirit and truth. And the outcome of that was they
just began to sing. Not lament, not complain, sing praises to
God. The woman said to him, after
all of this, she says these words. I know that Messiah is coming.
You see what she's looking to now? What was she looking to?
Her husband's escaping the shame of her life, trying to find a
way to get water easier. Thirst of her soul was bound
up in her religion. The thirst of her soul was bound
up in what she did to please God. And she continued to try
to fight it. And guess what? Nothing would
have ever worked for her. A discontented people could very
well be a person without the Spirit of God. I want you to
listen to me. A discontented people. Well,
we're all discontent sometimes. But there are some people that
are just discontent. It's their character. Is that
you? What's the remedy for that? Just
be thankful! See, that's what people say.
That's what the Bible says. For what? The truth. So what if it costs us our lives?
So what if the world takes everything we have away? So what if our
neighbors or our family or our even own children or our spouses
hate us? So what? And I'm not making light
of the gravity of those things. Friends, we're not promised anything
else. We are promised the grace of God, the love of God through
Jesus Christ. And if that's not enough, then
Jesus isn't enough for anything. You see? Hear these words and believe. This woman, out
of all the things that she processed during this short dialogue, she
finally resolves to this truth that she knew. I know that Messiah
is coming and when He comes, He will tell us all things. And amazing things happen. Jesus says, I who speak to you
will be. I who speak to you am He. I am
Messiah. That's what Jesus just said.
I am the Messiah. I am Emmanuel. I am God with
you sitting on this well. Beloved, I believe that the Spirit
of God rebirthed this woman whereby she confessed Messiah is the
only one who can teach us these things. Her hope left from her
life and her religion and her piety and her sin and cleaning
up or hiding it and went only in the person of Jesus. Did you
hear that? Her hope transferred. She repented. Her mind was changed. She'd been born again. There are two words that make
me sick to my stomach when I'm counseling someone. And I teach
them a truth of Scripture, and they come back with, yeah, but. I said demonic utterance. And
I hate to use that term that way. It is. Yeah, but. If when we hear the gospel of
grace, we have to come back with a yeah, but we hadn't gotten
it. Now we could say, but what about
this? We can inquire, we can grow, we can seek understanding,
but we never exclude the gospel as, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
got it. Folks, we don't got nothing. I know that's bad English and
it probably contradicted what I'm trying to say. We have nothing
if we don't have the grace of God. We have nothing if we do
not have Christ. All I have is Christ. All I have
is Christ. I, who speak to you, and He,
and the very people that she wanted to avoid, that she did
not want to be seen by, that she did not want to interact
with. What does she do? She leaves her jar. And she runs
to Sychar. And she, in all of her sinful
glory, as a redeemed woman. I say sinful
glory as a joke. She didn't care what people thought
about her anymore. She didn't care that people looked at her
and said, you know, there's no way she could be a cross follower.
She's living with a guy. She didn't give evidence of any
kind of fruit of anything except that she proclaimed and confessed,
behold, I've met a man that told me everything I've ever done. Could he be the Christ? Come
and see. And as we'll see, she brought
him back. Are you serious? This woman that
everybody hated and despised, now all of a sudden has gone
into her town and bore herself before them and says, I have
met Messiah. Come and see. Come and see. But what did the disciples do? They were thinking, actually.
What do you see? Why are you talking with her?
And they're going to ask Him some more questions. But ultimately,
this is a matter of evangelism that Jesus goes into this area
to meet with this woman who deserves not even His attention or His
talk. And He saves her and multitudes
from her city. While the whole of Israel and
the echelons of Jews rejected Him. He did not entrust Himself
to them. They knew that He was from God.
but he knew what was in their heart. This woman couldn't seem
to save her life, and he revealed himself to her. Beloved, if we want to see transformation
in the lives of those people that we love, we must point them
to Christ. Why did John write this right
on the tail end of it? I must decrease that he may increase. so that we could see what it
looks like. So that we could see the grace of God for what
it is and its power to save and its power to seal us and sustain
us in this incredibly stressful life. Do you believe in the gospel
of Christ? Are you holding fast? No matter
what you see before you, no matter what you think is waiting for
you when you leave here, the gospel of Christ is enough for
you. And I pray that you can truly find that. I pray that
you would believe on Jesus Christ alone as your only hope for salvation. And then let Christ do the work
in you as he's willed for his good pleasure in the time that
he's permitted it. Quit trying so hard to please
God and just believe in the work he's done for you. Let's pray. Father, I have not much to say
except that I stand in awe of You. I stand in awe of You, Lord. I stand in awe of Your presence
and awe of Your Word and awe of Your Spirit and awe of Your
Gospel and in awe of Your Son, Jesus Christ, Lord, who came
and paid the way for us, paid the debt for us so that we would
be Your righteousness. God, I pray that You would sustain
us that You would grow us, that You would cause us to walk in
Your ways of faith by faith for the sake of Your glory. Save
those who do not know. Open their ears that they might
believe. Save our children. In Jesus' name we pray.