Relentless!
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Intro:
Intro:
Relentless
Twins plotting different ways around me
Watching Luke try to learn something
What we find to be true in Scripture and our passage tonight is no exception, is that Jesus is relentless in His pursuit of those the Father has given to Him.
Body:
Body:
Read John 4:1-15
The journey from Judea to Galilee would have entailed a three-day walk for Jesus.
Illustration: My wife and I walked 7 miles when we were planning on 3 or 4.
Jesus initiates contact with a woman , and a Samaritan woman at that.
The Samaritans were outcasts from the Jewish community.
They were considered half-breeds by the Jews because their race emerged from the unlawful intermingling of the Israelites with the Canaanites
2 Kings 17:24-26 24 And the king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath, and Sepharvaim, and placed them in the cities of Samaria instead of the people of Israel. And they took possession of Samaria and lived in its cities. 25 And at the beginning of their dwelling there, they did not fear the Lord. Therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which killed some of them. 26 So the king of Assyria was told, “The nations that you have carried away and placed in the cities of Samaria do not know the law of the god of the land. Therefore he has sent lions among them, and behold, they are killing them, because they do not know the law of the god of the land.”
There is also evidence from Josephus (himself a Jew) that they supported the Greeks during the reign of Antiochus IV, one of the great persecutors of the Jewish people.
Josephus even claims that the Samaritans willingly allowed Antiochus to dedicate their house of worship to Zeus.
They had their own quasi-Jewish religiosity wherein they observed the Torah but nothing beyond that
The Samaritan worshipped at Gerizim and considered Jerusalem and the temple to be illegitimate.
So for this woman, and John’s audience, it would be shocking to find Jesus initiating contact with this woman of Samaria. Jesus initiates contact strategically setting up a conversation that would reveal her need and His provision.
7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”
Thirst is one of the more intense of our human feelings, and it is shared across all of humanity no matter one’s status, wealth, color, language, religion, size, or shape. Everyone thirsts.
Illustrate: Treadmill in the garage when it’s 95 outside creates quite a thirst.
In the Scriptures thirst is often used as a metaphor for spiritual longing.
Psalm 42:2 (ESV) — 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
Psalm 63:1 (ESV) — 1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.
Isaiah 55:1 (ESV) — 1 “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
Matthew 5:6 (ESV) — 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
Jesus seized upon the context of His encounter with this woman to try to lead her to understand her greatest need, a spiritual thirst that could only be satisfied in Him. And just like he did this for the woman at the well, God always takes the initiative in drawing his people to realize their need for him.
P1: Notice Jesus Initiates the Interaction (vv. 1-15)
Illustrate: Dude Perfect’s Cory Cotton initiated the conversation and offered to take a picture with our kids.
This is the God of the Universe in the flesh initiating this life-changing interaction with this woman.
10 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.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11 declares that God has put eternity in the heart of every man.
The problem is that man has forsaken the eternal God and instead looked for satisfaction in the temporal.
Jeremiah 2:13 (ESV) — 13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Illustrate: Focal Point Tournament was hot, and we were searching for the next cooler with water bottles. I remember playing in AZ and it being so hot even the nasty ponds on the golf course would look appealing. But no one would choose to drink scummy pond water over fresh clear water from a water bottle.
Jesus was offering this woman “living water”
Jeremiah 17:13 (ESV) — 13 O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you shall be put to shame; those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water.
Zechariah 14:8 (ESV) — 8 On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
John 7:38 (ESV) — 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
Isaiah 44:3 (ESV) — 3 For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.
Revelation 22:1–2 (ESV) — 1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Jesus initiated contact with this woman, and seized upon a physical need to draw her into the realization of her spiritual need.
13 Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 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 spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Everything a person turns to for satisfaction apart from Christ will leave him thirsty again
Ecclesiastes is all about this
It’s only in Christ that our thirst will be satisfied
Isaiah 12:2–3 (ESV) — 2 “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.” 3 With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
Jesus met this woman where she was, knew her greatest need, and initiated an interaction with her that would transform her life by offering her the satisfaction she really needed.
END P1
Illustrate: In Star Wars Episode 6 there’s a scene where Fin has survived a crash landing and stumbles into the town nearby desperately in search of water. He asks and is rebuffed by multiple people until he finally sees a water trough where some gigantic alien cow-like creature is drinking its fill. Fin, so desperate for something to quench his thirst falls on his knees and begins to drink the filthy, slobber-saturated, bug-covered water that this creature was drinking as well.
The point is, none of us would choose that if we had the option to choose crisp, cold, clear, flowing water from a mountain spring.
Much like Nicodemus and the new birth, this woman doesn’t track with Jesus from the physical world to the spiritual world, so Jesus changed his approach.
16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”
Earlier we saw Jesus’ humanity as he sat down being tired from his journey, but here we see His divinity as He uses His omniscience like the scalpel from Hebrews 4 to reveal this woman’s sin problem.
We all have these, and if Jesus had met us there in Samaria by the well he would have gone after whatever we sought after for satisfaction before Christ.
We already read Jeremiah 2:13 where the prophet called out Israel for looking for water in broken cisterns, in alien cow-troughs.
These broken-cisterns are the sins that promise to satisfy us, fulfill us, make us happy, keep us safe, etc.
The problem with a broken cistern is that it holds no water, or what little it does hold is a stagnant, silt-laden pool of sludge. Again, given the choice between the living waters and these broken cisterns, we would be fools to choose the cisterns. Jesus continued his pursuit of this woman by drawing out her broken cisterns, and so often he does that in our lives as well, not to make us painfully ashamed, but to lead us to forsake them for the living water found in Christ.
P2: Forsake Your Broken Cisterns of Sin (vv. 16-18)
Part of this woman’s broken cisterns involved this trail of broken and immoral relationships from which she had sought that satisfaction and happiness and security.
17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”
In turning to JESUS, the fountain of living waters, it is necessary that we repent from these broken cisterns and leave them behind.
Isaiah 55:6–7 (ESV) – 6 “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; 7 let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
Jesus had changed the topic of conversation, but He was still leading this woman to the same conclusion: He alone is the soul-satisfying source of life, the only worthy object of our faith our trust our hope for the eternal longings created within us to be satisfied.
Y’all, the Christian life is a life of constantly forsaking these broken cisterns.
Martin Luther on always repenting: “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said ‘Repent,’ he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.”
Even though we possess Christ, the fountain of living-water, we can be tempted by this world to draw from the broken cisterns that lie all around us.
The devil and his legions specialize in hiding these cesspools behind the mirages of sex, drugs, alcohol, materialism, finances, family, kids, grandkids, etc.
And here’s the thing: Sin will satisfy temporarily.
This woman had found some satisfaction in these relationships otherwise she would have ceased pursuing them long ago.
But sin will always leave one thirsty for more.
The water of the pleasures of sin will run out just as the stagnant waters of a broken cistern will leak and evaporate away until there is nothing less.
Jesus was going to bring this woman to the realization that he was what she truly needed. He was going to win her to himself, and that’s why his pursuit was so relentless. Jesus wants to win you to himself as well, and his desire is that you turn from your broken cisterns, that you repent from your sin, and place your faith in him as your source of joy, of purpose, of meaning, of life. Every day you step into this world where there are mirages promising what only Christ can truly provide. Be on guard, and forsake any inclination you have to draw water from these broken cisterns.
END P2
Read John 4:19-26
19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”
Recap: Background of the Jewish/Samaritan debate surrounding the physical place of worship
This woman was after two things:
She wanted to get the attention off her sin
She recognized this was a significant prophet and wanted his take on this issue
21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.
Jesus, in his patient grace, condescended to this woman and her line of questioning.
He didn’t chastise her for deflecting or even demand that she deal with the other issue first.
In his relentless pursuit of this woman, he continued to meet her where she was.
His answer: The Jews got it right.
23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
True worship of the Lord is not about a building, it’s not about a particular location, it’s not about a tradition, it’s not about a religious site.
True worship of the Lord is about the state of the worshiper.
Though the Jews had a more complete grasp of the truth, both Jews and Samaritans failed because of their obsession with the external.
Follow Jesus’ strategy here:
You have a deep spiritual need that needs to be met like water quenches thirst
You have a sin problem in looking for satisfaction from sources that cannot satisfy
You have a worship problem in that your worship has been misapplied
That’s the problem that lies at the root of every other problem we have. For this woman, it wouldn’t have mattered if she had been worshipping in Gerizim or Jerusalem. For her worship to be acceptable, she needed that total transformation that Jesus had talked with Nicodemus about in chapter 3. Jesus’ final step in pursuing this woman was to lead her to understand the true depth of her need.
P3: Worship God from a Transformed Heart (vv. 19-26)
Illustrate: An old acquaintance of mine, who was a long-distance runner, a marathoner, used to get mad at me when I’d call myself a runner. I was a jogger, not a runner. There’s a difference between the two apparently, that I think might best be encapsulated in Eric Liddell’s statement: “When I run I feel his pleasure.” There’s a switch that flips in someone’s mind that transforms running from a burden to a joyful expression of worship.
That’s a little glimpse of the difference between the rote, law-driven, going-through-the-motions worship this woman had known, and the worship Jesus was offering her in this interaction.
This is what our worship should be:
First, true worship must be rendered in spirit.
That is, true worship transcends the external, be it physical location or religious tradition.
It is first and foremost a matter of the internal state of a person.
Second, true worship must be in accordance with truth.
It must be in agreement with the Scriptures and centered on Jesus the True Light.
So now we get to worship Jesus wherever we are, whenever we are! Once we have been gripped by Jesus, worship goes from a have-to to a get-to! Once we have been captured by Christ worship becomes that place where we feel his pleasure.
Hebrews 4:14–16 (ESV) — 14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Hebrews 7:25 (ESV) — 25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
This standard of worshiping the Father in spirit and truth is impossible apart from Jesus. So relentless was his pursuit of us that he made a way for us to overcome our greatest problem.
5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
John was writing all of this trying to show us Jesus.
The Pharisees on the Temple Mount didn’t see him (John 2)
Nicodemus didn’t hear him (John 3)
But this woman, she would be different
25 The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”
John 1:9 (ESV) — 9 The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.
John 1:18 (ESV) — 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
This woman at the well is none of us and all of us at the same time. We all have our sins, we all have our broken cisterns, we all have our methods of evasion when the Lord presses in on us. But in the end, the Lord always gets his man. I pray that all of you have known this pursuit and have surrendered to your relentless Savior.
My twins show me a little of Christ’s relentless pursuit of me every time we go in the backyard to wrestle. They never give up, and they’re always changing their angle of attack thinking that maybe that will do the job.
Thankfully, Christ did the job in my life about 21 years ago. And I’m thankful that God continues to relentlessly pursue me with his love still today.