Video - 5 Mins. Church Countdown Timer
Prayers
INTRODUCTION
A leper
A Centurian
Our disposable world
2.6 trillion tons of garbage in a single year
7,000 Empire State Buildings
We are the "disposable generation"
Unfortunately, that includes people as well
Friendships, marriages, employees, children, parents
By contrast, Jesus never wasted anything- a word, a moment, an effort, an opportunity. Or a person.
In John 4, we find Jesus stepping over cultural norms, social mores, rules for polite company, expectations of a rabbi, well established taboos. She was too valuable to throw away.
Video - The Woman at the Well
1. AN INTENTIONAL ENCOUNTER
“So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.”
John 4:3-6 NIV
"So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee"
Good Jews went around Samaria.
Ethnically impure.
After the death of Solomon the Kingdom was split into the North and South
North is eventually carried off to Assyria with some left behind.
These intermarried with outsiders.
They accepted other religions.
They worshipped on a different mountain, Mt. Gerazim.
"Now he had to go through Samaria."
He did not have to. He chose to.
He goes to the well at noon, not in the morning or evening when many people would have been there, with no bucket, by himself, to meet a woman.
Why did she deserve an audience with the King?
2. AN OPEN DOOR
Faux pas "false steps"
Social miscues
"Stupido Americano"
Jesus traveled through Samaria
Jesus met a woman, a Samaritan, alone, without her husband, asked something of her
“Now he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. ) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.””
John 4:4-10 NIV
She wanted water; He offered life.
A. Strategic Timing
He was where only an outcast would be
B. Spiritual Springboard
"Give me a drink" leads to living water, what He can offer
3. A DEEP LONELINESS
Melancholy
Alfred Edward Housman "To an Athlete Dying Young"
Country music - Restless Heart
““Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.””
John 4:11-18 NIV
A. Moral Confusion
Jesus' comment about her husband turns the conversation to a personal one
4. A WELCOME INTO RELATIONSHIP
She tries to dodge the issue by bringing up politics or religion.
A guarantee to start an argument that will sidetrack this discussion
““Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.””
John 4:19-26 NIV
She would need to come to understand that Jesus was sufficient.
A. Sufficient for Clarity (v. 22)
"You Samaritans worship what you do not know"
Earlier generations that combined various religions with Judaism
B. Sufficient for Relationship (vv. 23, 24)
"God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
“The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
John 1:9-14 NIV
This is Jesus' mission statement
C. Sufficient for Understanding (vv. 25, 26)
“I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
She hoped to understand some day when the Messiah came.
5. LIVING WITH PURPOSE
What do you life for?
“Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?” Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.”
John 4:27-35 NIV
This is what Jesus lived and died for.
CONCLUSION
* She leaves her Water pot behind and goes back to Sychar. When she had come,the water pot was central to her mission and the reason she had come to the well. Now it is incidental. She is on a different mission
* She declares Christ to the men of the town (v. 29). Some argue that her past may have gotten their attention. IF Jesus had exposed "all things that she had some" what might that expose about them? Bert whatever was in their hearts they not only listen to the woman's claims but they also respond to them and . . .
* Many come to Christ, longing for Him to stay among them (vv. 39-42). Unlike many others in Israel who rejected Jesus, when He came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, they received Him, and upon hearing His words, they believe in Him. The Samaritans gladly embraced want the Jews have failed to understand--the Savior had come.
CHALLENGE
Jesus says He has accomplished His purpose for coming into the world
1. To do the Father's will (v. 34)
2. To reap a harvest of men and women (v. 35)
Of which, this messed up Samaritan woman is part of the harvest.
* Think how easily He could have ignored her-her pain was her problem.
* Think how easily He could have ignored her-she was racially inferior.
* Think how easily He could have ignored her-she was not one of the beautiful people. Her life was a spiritual and moral mess.
* Think how easily He could have ignored her-she responded to Him with bitterness and sarcasm, not faith and appreciation.
“On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.””
Matthew 9:12-13 NIV
To do the Father's will.
To reap a harvest of men and women.
Go find one soul sick person this week. Go. Find. Leaving. Looking.
Public and private decisions.
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