Good evening, everybody. Would
you turn with me to John chapter 4? So this is a fairly familiar
story. I want us to look at Some parts
of this that maybe, I guess, it jumped out to me other than
the meat of the story that you know. We'll read a little bit
at the beginning and touch on the end of it, and I'll talk
through the middle, but I want you to take note of who are the
Samaritans. So John chapter four, when therefore
the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus had made
and baptized more disciples than John, Though Jesus himself baptized
not, but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again into
Galilee. And he must needs go through
Samaria. Then cometh he to a city, Samaria,
which is called Sychar, near to the parcel of ground that
Jacob gave to his son, Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus,
therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the
well, and it was about the sixth hour, and there cometh a woman
of Samaria to draw water. And Jesus said unto her, Give
me to drink, for his disciples were gone away into the city
to buy meat. Then said the woman of Samaria
unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest a drink of
me, which am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings
with the Samaritans. The Jews have no dealings with
the Samaritans. Who were the Samaritans and why
did the Lord pass by that way? Just to give you a little background
as to who the Samaritans were, because I think it's a word that
we've heard, and we all know the story of a good Samaritan.
But I really thought, well, why is it that they don't have anything
to do with them? That doesn't make sense. Samaria
was part of the northern king of Israel. And Judah was the
southern. This came after Solomon's son,
Rehoboam, had got them into a problem and then the kingdom split. And
so you had Israel in the north, Judah in the south, and the north
part contained the land of Samaria. But the northern kingdom got
themselves into trouble and eventually fell to the kingdom of Syria.
So the Assyrians took them over. They were taken captive and then
they eventually intermarried. So the Samaritans were half Jew
and half Syrian. They were a mixed race. And so
the Jews despised all of those who were in Judah. So if they
didn't hate them already before because they were Judah and Israel,
they hated them even more now because they were of a mixed
race with the Syrian and half Jew. So the Jews felt themselves
to be superior because they were a pure blood. They looked at
the Gentiles or the Samaritans as Gentiles. That's how they
viewed them. In Matthew 10, just a few examples
in the scripture of this without having you turn, Matthew 10,
5, the Lord tells the disciples, go not into the way of the Gentiles. and enter not into any city of
the Samaritans." So notice how he ties those together. So not
only in the way of life of the Gentiles, which is to say that
it's different than that of the Jews, but don't even go into
the city of the Samaritans. He's telling them to keep away.
We've all heard of, and I think this is funny, the story of the
Good Samaritan. So it's this man of Samaria who
finds a Jew who is hurt. He's half dead by the side of
the road. He puts him in the inn, leaves money for him to
be cared for as he heals. And Jude going from Jerusalem,
which is the lower kingdom of Judah, to Jericho, which is in
the upper kingdom. So history calls this Samaritan
good. And this is the Jewish side telling
the story. That is to say that the rest
of the Samaritans are bad. But they found one example of
a good one because he took care of a Jew. So the way they describe
it I thought was kind of funny because that's something, and
it doesn't really write it that way in the scripture, but it's
the way the story is told, the good Samaritan. And the rest
of them were bad or evil. We'll flip over a few pages to
John chapter 8. You'll see some more here of
this. John chapter 8 and verse 46,
which of you convinces me of sin? This is the Lord speaking. And if I say the truth, why do
you not believe me? He that is of God, heareth God's
words. You therefore hear them not,
because you are not of God. So this is the Lord's words to
them earlier in this passage. He says, you're of your father,
the devil. and the deeds of him you'll do. So he's telling these
Pharisees, you're not even of God because you don't hear his
words. And so look at how they answer him. Say we not well,
the first insult that they have, say we not well that thou art
a Samaritan, has the devil. So the way the point of this
is is the way the Samaritans are described here. That's their
first insult to the Lord and tying that together with you're
also possessed. So that's how they viewed the
Samaritans. So it was not something that
I I guess saw when I went into this. So now that I've had spent
some time looking at it I realized they really hated Samaritans.
They did not like this people. So that you're a Samaritan and
you're possessed. To take this a step further,
even after this event, the disciples and the Lord are walking along
the road and they come to the city of Samaria. Even after this
event with the woman at the well, where they have this great experience
with the Samaritans, you'd think this would change their view.
the disciples out of this experience and later on they say they weren't
received in the manner that they thought they would be received
in the city of the Samaritans so they didn't lodge there and
they moved on but in the process of doing that they said because
they were angry that the Samaritans didn't receive the Lord in the
manner they thought they should they said you know Lord I it
would be a good idea if you do like Elijah did and call on God
and burn all these people up. So that's how they viewed the
Samaritans, as worthless, they thought that they should be burned
up, even after this experience. So this tells us something even
about the disciples and their view of them, and I think will
frame the picture of what they're saying later in the story. So
in John chapter four, if we look verse 24 the Lord is speaking
to her after she's told him he's told her yes you've had five
husbands and the one you're with now it's not even your husband
and he's revealing who he is to her he says God is a spirit
and they that will worship them must worship in spirit and truth
and the woman said unto him I know that the Messiah cometh which
is called Christ and And when he has come, he will tell us
all things. And Jesus said unto her, I that
speak unto thee, am he. He tells who he is. And then
upon this came his disciples and marveled that he talked with
the woman. Yet no man said, what seekest
thou? Or why talkest thou with her?
So right here we see the apostles, Peter, James, John, the rest
of them, they came back from town, they were sent there to
buy meat. To find what? Him talking with a woman and
talking to a Samaritan woman. And their first reaction is,
what do you want with her? Why are you even talking to her?
That's their reaction, because even her reaction when the Lord
spoke to her was like, why are you talking to me? We don't have
anything to do with each other. Yet he's asking a drink from
her. Yet no man, none of the disciples,
said any of these things out loud. How do we know this? Because we were told here that
they didn't say it out loud, but this is what was in their
hearts. And the Lord perceived this. And what's interesting
here is we have no evidence that they knew her backstory because
they were in town during this time when the Lord told her,
I know you've had five husbands. They just walked up after all
this exchange. And we can't presume that they
felt the way they did for any other reason than she was a Samaritan. And they're saying, what do you
have anything to do with her? So they didn't even know what
she'd done or perceive the things that who she was as a person
outside of being a Samaritan. They just judged her for being
a Samaritan. So she was a half-breed. So what
do you even want with her? It was who she was, not what
she'd done, was the reason that disturbed them so much. And in
the same way, You and I have a sin issue with God. Yes, it's
what you did. It's more so who you are. And
the sins that we've committed within the last hour are enough
to banish me from the presence of God. And the love of God eternity. We talk about sin and we live
and breathe sin and everything we do in our lives and we don't
really don't think much of it. At times we're burdened by it
more than others where there's something specific we've done
that's on our heart but by and large we forget about it and
in our minds it's kind of gone and done with. The things that
maybe I felt very burdened with ten years ago well I don't feel
those today it's not here but the things maybe I did yesterday
I'm still can think about. But if I die tonight, die outside
of Christ, I will be found guilty of a crime worthy of death. I
will be sent by God the Almighty to a place of unspeakable misery,
torment, darkness, and pain forever, with no hope of it ever getting
better, or letting up, or getting closer to the end. So this is
how serious sin is. And we say this to the extent
that we deserve every bit of it. If you have any idea who
God is and who you are, you deserve every bit of it outside of Christ. The problem doesn't stop there.
What you do is as a result of what you are. So kind of what
I was saying is when they were looking at this woman, it's not
what she had done that disturbed them so much. It was who she
was. And so, as an illustration here,
Adam, when he died, spiritually, he didn't die, but his nature
died. And so he became fallen. His nature was evil, and it was
corrupt. You see, I was watching a little
bit of TV the other night, and they were showing these people
that had exotic animals as pets. which is interesting, and when
you get close to them, they're pretty, and you look at them,
because you know they're powerful and big and dangerous, but these
people have them as pets, and they're letting them near them,
and giving them hugs, and a tiger touching somebody, you think
about that, it's huge, the animal. Lions, tigers, they're big, sweet,
furry cats, as long as they're in a cage or on a chain. You
can get close, and they make noise, and they ooze and ahs. But still, you wouldn't let your
child in the yard with it, would you? If it was loose in the yard,
would you let your child with it, even if it was someone's
pet? Absolutely not, you wouldn't. Why wouldn't you? You wouldn't
because it's a wild animal. And its nature is such that we
can condition them to behave. You see that in the circus. They
do something, tiger jumps on the box, he jumps off. And so
we can condition them to behave, to do tricks, to roar, or even
on our command. But in their hearts, what they
are, if you let them alone, they're still a wild animal. And every
now and then, you see some horrific thing where these wild animals,
so there's pets, they revert back to their nature. The conditioning
that they've been through doesn't work. They go back to who they
are. And somebody gets hurt. They'll
eat you because they're wild. In the same way, millions are
trying to gain ground on what they believe is holiness through
how they live, through what they do, how they act, what they believe
God would want. This act of doing this is no
different than what's going on with the animal. You are conditioning
yourself to do something you wouldn't do otherwise had somebody
told you not to do it. You're trying to make yourself
do or be something that you're not. That's what this conditioning
is with the animals. And it's no different with trying
to live a life of holiness. The law was not given to save
anyone. And anyone who is trying to live
according to the law, all they're doing is showing that's not your
nature. You're doing something that isn't
your nature, because if it was your nature, you wouldn't be
having to give the law and live under the law to try to be it
anyway. So the Lord's words in this case are given to expose
sinfulness. You can't do it. The words to
the Pharisees he gave over in Matthew 23 and 25, and just for
time's sake, I won't make you turn there, he tells them to
cleanse not the outside of the cup. And that's what people see. He's saying to cleanse the inside.
It's not about what goes on on the outside. Those things that
proceed out of the mouth, it's because they're coming from the
hearth. What's coming out of your mouth is offensive, and
it's wrong. But what is even more offensive is what's in here.
This is speaking to the nature of what the problem is. Now,
many of the Lord's rebukes did not come from what was said or
what was done. He forgave them. You see people
came to the Lord who were presented to Him as sinners. Oftentimes,
in those cases, those people asked for forgiveness and they
were given it. Everyone that came to Him for
forgiveness was forgiven. And so it's not those that came
to Him that were caught in the very act that were the Lord rebuked. But it was those whose thoughts
betrayed them. How many times do we read about
the Pharisee thinking something in his heart or in his head or
the Pharisee that went up into the temple to pray? All of these
things are going on in here. He can see into the heart. The
sickness is one of the heart. And this is where the wickedness
and the source of his evil comes from. So if I'm someone who has
not seen this, that I presently, in my flesh, am evil, then it's
likely that I am unsaved. Because until I see that, I will
have no appreciation of God being holy or for Jesus Christ and
his law keeping and what he came here to do. Apart from me seeing
that I in and of myself, I can do nothing to please God. I'm
to ask the Lord to show it to me. Lord, show me that. And when
we ask for something like that, I'm fearful in asking often,
Lord, show me my sin. Because in truth, I really don't
want to see it all. Because it frightens me to know
the degree and extent in which he may reveal that to me and
how he may reveal that to me. But yet, I still ask because
I know if he doesn't, then I will have no need for Christ, I will
not love him, I will not appreciate him, and I will have no desire
to seek his face. And so it's a frightening thing
to ask the Lord for that, but I know apart from him showing
me that, I will not seek his son. So we're to ask the Lord
to show it to us, just like he did Isaiah. You've read in the
book Isaiah, the first five chapters, it's woe is you, woe unto you,
oh islands, woe unto you. He's got something bad to say
to everybody about what they're doing, until he sees the Lord,
and then he realizes it's woe is me. I'm undone, and I'm a
man of unclean lips." That's the first thing he found out.
Not that, yes, he saw the Lord was holy, but only in seeing
the Lord was holy he could see how unclean he was. But until
we see that, until the Lord shows you your sin, we won't seek unto
him. And so we're to ask the Lord
to show us that. So here the Lord reveals to this woman in
the word, in chapter 4, where he's saying, I know the Messiah's
coming, which is called Christ, but when he's come, he'll tell
us all things. I that speak unto thee am he. And then something
amazing happened. And this is something that I've
read over probably 50 times and never paid attention to it. In
verse 28, and then after the disciples came up and said, what
do you even want with her? The woman then left her water
pot and she went her way into the city and said to the men,
come see a man which told me all the things that I ever did
is not this the Christ. Something amazing happened. She
left her water pot. There's some significance to
that, and I want us to examine what that is. This was not just
a water pot. The water pot is what the water
pot actually represents. Consider this. The water that
she came to draw on that day was at an extremely ill-opportune
time, noon. It was hot in that region, desert
region, not the time you go outside. But yet she came anyway because
the condition that she was in. She was ashamed of who she was,
or the people were mean to her, we don't know. But we know that
she came when she thought nobody else would be there. Because
the water was that important that she got there. So she had
to go to get the water. It was needed. There was somebody
at home waiting on it. Somebody at home needed that
water, so she went to get it anyway in the heat of the day.
Maybe it was to cook for the family. You know that water is
vital to drink. You have to have it to live.
We're made of water. We have to have it. Maybe it was to wash
clothes or to even water plants. They live in a desert region.
The water that she drew out of there maybe kept her family being
able to eat. So there was a purpose in her
being there to get that water. Water is vital to life and to
everyone that is dependent on it. It was dependent because
there was a well there. That's the only reason there
was a town there. Because Jacob dug a well 1,700 years before
she and her family were there. That's why they were there. And
it sustained life for generations that this woman needed. She needed
that water from that well at that time from that place, and
the only way she was gonna get it is with that water pot. And
so she came there with that water pot for all those reasons, and
she left it. What was it? Something happened. Something happened that stirred
her up in a way to where she walked away from her water pot.
And you could say that this was seemingly all her earthly cares,
all her earthly responsibilities were wrapped up in that water
pot. Everything that she was there to do and would do after,
but were because she came to get water and was gonna do something
with it, or for someone. What was it? What was the reason
that she walked away from that water pot? Well, I know what
it is. You know what it is too. She
saw the Lord for the first time. She saw him, the Messiah. She saw somebody that she heard
about that was coming. His words weren't just words
to her, they were good news. As soon as she heard him, she
dropped the water pot and she ran off into town. She had to
tell somebody, I found the Messiah. This is the one that we've been
waiting for, the one that's got the good news, who's here to
save us, and I think I found him. And so she wanted to tell
everybody that she could. I've got to tell somebody that
I found him. And then, says she left her water
pot. Now if the Lord ever shows you
who he is, you'll leave your water pot too. Some of the greatest
experiences that I have ever had in my life, truly, are communion
with the Lord. I've done a lot of things in
my life that are forgotten. But the things that make me forget
about everything that's going on, that I don't care about anything
else, is when I feel like I'm the Lord's and He's mine. And
when He speaks to me in my heart, and I feel that my sins are forgiven,
I'm accepted before the Father, and I can come to Him, ask Him
for anything I need. And those times when we hear
the gospel preached, it truly becomes good news to us. It's
not just a message. It's not words. There's times
I sit there and I'm dead, and I don't hear. I'm heart of heart.
But there's times when the Lord softens my heart, and I'm able
to hear. And it's those times where you forget your water pot. It's I forget what I came in
here for, all these things that I came dragging with me, and
then I'll pick up as soon as I leave here. But there's times
where the Lord allowed you to feed, and feed on his word. The
feeling of knowing everything is alright. That my sins are
actually forgiven. And we don't really even know
what that means. I mean, I say I forgive somebody, but do I
really? You know, I still remember it. Like, yeah, I might not be
mad about it, but I still remember it. But that's not the way the
Lord is. Not only does he forgive, he
actually forgets, meaning it's not something that's ever gonna
be held against me, and not just in gesture only, it's not being
held against me because it's been taken away. It's been purged
from me, I have no more stain. It's not like a stain underneath
my garment that I'm hiding and I hope nobody ever sees it again,
it's gone. That's what the blood of Christ
does for the believer. My acceptance, the feeling of
knowing that my acceptance before God, who demands perfection,
is actually secure. You know, there's a verse in
Ephesians 1 that talks about the earnest of our inheritance
that we're given. And it's speaking about the work
of the Holy Spirit in us. The earnest of our inheritance
is a down payment. A down payment is towards something
in the future. Now I can't see the new nature
and new birth in me in terms of you looking at me, but I know
the new nature and the new birth is the only thing that enables
me to believe. And that's the evidence of the
down payment, the earnest of what I will inherit later. Inheritance
is some big payout that you're getting later. So when we die
and go to heaven, we will understand what that inheritance truly is,
the full value of it. We don't get it here. We just
get a little snippet of it. You get a moment where you can
believe and then 23 hours and 58 minutes of not being able
to believe. And that's the way you feel. And so that's being
able to feel that and the peace of knowing that my faith will
stand firm to the end because I'm in his hands. He's not going
to let me go. If I look at my faith, it wavers
every minute. But if I look to do it, my faith
is not based on how I feel about God, because that's going to
change every moment. If I start examining it now,
I'll find no reason that he should even have anything to do with
me. My faith's in him and what he did. When it comes to me,
I have all questions. But when it comes to me looking
to him, I don't question whether God's pleased with him. I don't
question whether he did what his father told him to do. I
don't question whether when he died, everyone he died for was
forgiven and saved and was risen with him. I don't question that
for a minute. That's what faith is. The rest of the stuff we
pull into it and try to call our faith, that's just something
in the way. I don't know what that is. It's just something
you need to forget about. It's just going to hold you back
from being able to enjoy the peace of believing. peace in
our faith being firm to the end for the moments, oh, for those
moments where I can actually leave my water pot. My children,
my health, my job, my hope, home, my experiences, my friends, my
worries, all these things that we drag around with us in that
water pot. But then there's moments where
we see his face. There's moments I actually see
his face in the word, where I see Christ in the word. There are
moments where I hear the word. It's not just words to me. It's
actually life, and that I can rejoice in it and know this is
the ground of my faith, and this is true, and nobody has to tell
me it's true. I know it's true. to feel and
to know that my heavenly father knows that I need all these things
that I'm worried about. Why am I fretting over them?
Why am I dragging those things around in my water pot? I'm coming
there to go to work to be able to fix something on my house,
or to pay a bill, or worrying about how am I gonna send my
kids to college, or what's my health gonna be like in 10 years?
I don't know. But our heavenly father, he knows
I have needed these things. He knows you have need of everything
that you need. He's saying, why are you gonna
worry about these things? The cattle on a thousand hills
are his, and you're worried about him providing your next meal?
You think he doesn't have enough? You think he doesn't have enough
money to sustain what your needs are? Lord knows what our needs
are. And we drag this water pot around
with us. He's created all things, and
by him all things consist, I'm not worried. I'm worried that
he can't work it out. The creator of all things and
the one who holds all this together. I work in a world of manufacturing
tools for science. When we look at the things that
are going in science and cells, it's smaller and more complex
and intricate and interconnected in ways we never understood.
To me, it's amazing. Because how much wisdom the Lord
had in putting this together, we never could have thought it.
Scientists aren't smart, by the way. All they do is observe.
They just cut something off and see what happens when it does.
We don't know how it works. We can just observe what happens
when we cut something off and see what happens. And then we
make some assumption about it, only to find out later we're
probably wrong. So these things that we see, the Lord is in control
of all these things. My sin which plagues me daily,
but yet we hear your sins and iniquities. Will I remember no
more? He's not gonna remember him for
Christ's sake. I'm loved and I'm welcomed into
the presence of God for his son's sake. I dropped my water pot
five minutes ago and I forgot all about it here in this. Aren't
you thankful for those moments that we're given that? Well,
in John 4, we see here at the end, after this experience, in
verse 39, many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him
for the saying of the woman which testified, he told me all that
I ever did. So when the Samaritans were come
to him, they besought him that he would tarry with them, and
he bode there two days. And many more believed because
of his own word. and said unto the woman, now
we believe, not because of your saying, for we've heard him ourselves,
and we know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the
world. These people, these Samaritans,
these people who were nobodies, the Lord stayed there two more
days. People the Jews wouldn't even look at on the side of the
road. I mean, they couldn't stand him. They came to see him. Even though
they knew the Jews wanted nothing to do with him, but they believed
the word of this, one of their own people, one of these castaways
that the Jews hated. You better come see him. I think
I found the Messiah. This, what this does, it gives
me confidence that the Lord chooses that which the world rejects.
Everything this world finds favor in, this world looks to, that's
not the way the Lord works. Because you look in the scriptures,
everybody that came to him who was a sinner, who needed help,
who needed mercy, he was there. All those who thought they had
something, all the religious, those are the ones he rebuked.
Those are the ones he gave his harshest warnings to. And so these people, the Samaritans,
he took time with them because they were his sheep. He chose
that which is rejected That which is helpless, there's nothing
they could do for him. They were just a mass coming
in from the city that really, by all accounts, the disciples,
you can imagine probably what they were thinking is, and now
he's talked to this woman and they got the whole town coming
out here. And so they probably thought, what have we got ourselves
into here? But yet the Lord took two days with them and taught
them and they believed. And not one, who came to him
was forgotten, or pushed away, or at a distance, or saying,
you can believe, but you know, don't touch me, don't come near
me. Lord, welcome these people in. Now, do we see why he must
needs pass through Samaria? There were some of his people
there. His work would be incomplete without accounting for all that
the Father gave him, even the castaways, the ones that people
don't notice. You know, the scriptures talk
about the least of these. We're some of the least of those.
I can look at many of you in here and know I'm far less of
a person than you, and I know you feel the same way when you
see someone else, but the Lord takes mercy in time with the
weak, the helpless, and the least, and it gives me confidence that
I can come to Him. That I can come to Him because
each person here, you know your own story. You know, you can
look at each of us on the outside, he's alright, he seems to have
it together, not too crazy. But like, deep down I know what's
in my heart. And I only know a portion of
the extent of what the Lord knows about me. And so, it gives me
confidence that even the least can come to him. His work would
be incomplete without accounting for all the Father gave him,
and if you were one the Father gave, his work would be incomplete
without saving you. More so than just talking about
this generality of it, if you were one of those people, It's
incomplete without saving you personally. And you think about
that. I mean, I think about me as a person. It's like, you know,
it's talking about somebody else, you know. But when you think
about that, and for you as a person, the Lord's work was for you. The Lord came here and lived
for you. The Lord died for you. And the Lord is bringing you
in before his Father in honor and the same glory that he has
for you. All because the Father gave them
to Him. That was His work. How do I know
if I'm one of those? Because again, it's easy to look
at the Lord's work and say, I can see why the Father would trust
Him. I can see why the Father would find glory in Him, but
why would He find any glory in me? I mean, I read about it,
but what makes me think that I'm able to partake of that?
The Lord says that all the Father giveth me shall come to me, and
him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. We are commanded,
each of us, in the word, you leave your water pot. Just like
this lady did, you leave your water pot, you come to him. That
is your evidence. that you are one of the ones
that He came into this world to finish the work that the Father
gave Him to do. So, you leave your water pot.