"Hidden Wounds

Intro:

Good morning. If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab those. John, chapter 4. We're going to look at the first 26 verses of this chapter in the gospel of John.

You ever notice how great Jesus looks in all the pictures that you see of him? Like, you never see the grimy, beat up by the world Jesus.

You get this sense that he's kind of otherworldly and too soft for the hardness of the world you and I live in.

That picture of Jesus removes him, in a very real way, from the grit and grime and blood and brokenness of your life and my life and of life in a fallen world.

The Gospel of John does a good job of painting a more real sense of who Jesus is. John is trying to teach us, Jesus is in the dirt and the mud and the blood.

He's on the ground, in the grime with us, which is one of the big points of the Bible: God with us, not in some ethereal, heavenly way but right in the middle of the grime with us.

I honestly believe one of the reasons we struggle so badly to comprehend grace is that we've never really gazed into Jesus in the grime.

So, what I want to try to do is blow the circuits of your imagination this morning with the grace of God in Christ dwelling in the brokenness and bloodiness of human experience.

First, before we dive in, it's the point of the coming of Jesus Christ that he would enter the brokenness of his creation and begin to make things new. But the religious fundamentalist didn’t like it.

The mission of Christ was offensive to the fundamentalists who got their sense of pride in their own will and ability to do better than what they perceived to be those around them.

Today, you and I have these front-row seats to that radical grace being poured out in an unexpected place in an unexpected time to an unexpected person.

With that said, let's look at John 4. Read John 4:1-26

John 4:1–26 ESV

1 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 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. 7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” 8 (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9 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 have no dealings with Samaritans.) 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.” 11 The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” 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.” 15 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.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 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.” 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.” 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. 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.” 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.”

I want to just highlight a few things about this story. Here's the first thing. There in verse 4 you have this phrase, and the phrase in the Greek is in the imperfect tense.

Here's the phrase as it reads in the ESV: "And he had to pass through Samaria." Because it's in the imperfect tense, it could literally be translated, "He was having to go."

Now, there are some problems with that little sentence. Here's what those problems are. He wasn't having to go through Samaria. There were a multitude of routes he could have gone.

In fact, he did not go on the route that most Jews of this age would have gone, which would have helped him avoid the Samaritans whom the Jews despised.

So he wasn't having to go because there was only one path, and he wasn't having to go because anyone made him go.

Jesus, the Spirit-filled man, being compelled by the Holy Spirit, maybe has a divine appointment. He was having to go not because it was the only route and because someone was forcing him.

He was having to go because, compelled by the Holy Spirit, he followed that compulsion. Then the next nine verses are significant.

If you've been here through our study of John, you know John has been deconstructing the Jewish worldview of how we're going to relate to God rightly.

Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, is greater than the lambs that would continually need to be sacrificed throughout one's life to make atonement for sin.

When Jesus is the lamb who takes away all sin, he's removing the sacrificial system off of the human beings on earth as their means in which to relate rightly to God.

Now we have living water, and he's at Jacob's well. It's in this general area that Abram made his first sacrifice to God. If you've been through a Genesis study, this is right around the area.

It's also in this area that God first gives the promise of land to his people. This area is pretty significant. Not only that but there are these other huge moments right around this well.

Like Abraham's servant met Rebekah, who would be Isaac's future wife. Then Jacob met his future wife Rachel, and Moses met Zipporah who was his future wife.

And all our singles right here are like, "Where's this well? Where's that well at? I'm just asking for a friend. How far are we from that well?"

There were a lot of pretty stunning directional outpourings of God's sovereign reign here at this well, and Jesus has just shown up and said, "Who cares about that water? I have living water."

He's doing what he has done all along. He's saying, "These other things would require you to do them over and over and over and over again, but what I want to do in you I want to do once and for all.

My sacrifice is complete. The purity I bring and impute to you is complete. No penance. I am your Savior. Living water is found in me. Fullness of life is found in me."

That's the argument being made here. Here's what's stunning as you read this. She wants it. This is an easy conversion. Look at verse 15.

"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.'" That was huge. "I have living water.

Who wants this water when I have living water?" She said, "Where do I get that living water?" Play the song. Let's do the altar call. Get her name down in the books, right?

Then Jesus goes to a place that it's shocking that he would go. If you didn't know the text and I said, "Guess what he says next," you're just not going to guess where he goes.

I think you could probably talk about these next five verses like this: there are the hidden wounds. Read John 4:16-18

John 4:16–18 ESV

16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” 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.”

That just got awkward, didn't it? "Give me this living water." "Okay. Do you want the living water?" "I do. I want the living water." "Okay. Go grab your husband." "Yeah, I don't have one."

"Yeah, you're right when you said you don't have one. You've had five, and the one you have now is actually not your husband."

There isn't a lot of information on the backstory here other than you can tell it's irregular. Let me tell you what we don't know.

We don't know if she has been widowed five times, which would explain why the sixth guy is like, "Nah, the nature of our relationship is going to be a little bit different."

Seriously. I don't care how pretty she is. If there are five dead dudes in her past who said, "I do…" I'm going to tell you what. Pastor, I ain't saying, "Yes."

There's something back here. Or maybe she was an adulterer. There's something about her coming to the well at noon, which is not when you go to the well.

There's some kind of shame in her life that has her hiding, going to the well at noon, not wanting to talk about this with Jesus.

In fact, she's going to try some misdirection here in a second, but you can't really misdirect Jesus. You know what I'm saying? He stays in his lane, which is all the lanes.

He's not willing to accept from her some kind of easy believism that doesn't get into the root of her hurt.

In a broken and fallen world, all of us have, at one level or another, been wounded and learned to self-protect. Sometimes that wound came from some of our own stupid decisions.

Sometimes it came from somebody else's stupid decisions. Sometimes it happens just because the world is broken with sin and death. Illus:

When we operate out of a wound and when we learn to self-protect, it's hard for us to walk in this living water that bursts forth unto eternal life.

To be 99 percent known is to be unknown. Let me talk about how that plays itself out. If you have this little 1 percent secret over here… That's all it is. It's just 1 percent, right

You just have this 1 percent that nobody knows about. It's shame of some kind. It's something that happened in your past. It's a present struggle you have. You're just holding onto it.

You're 99 percent known, so you can be at church or SS or small group, and you're like, "Yeah, I'm not perfect. I have my struggles. I care too much is probably one of my deepest struggles.

Meanwhile, this thing over here…What happens when you're 99 percent known is you're unable to receive love.

You're unable to receive anyone's affections or any words for life. You've convinced yourself that if people were to know that 1 percent, that your life is over.

You think their view of you, their respect for you, their love for you, their capacity to be gracious to you would evaporate in a second.

So, now you must defend this 1 percent with all the willpower you can muster, because for people to find this out is death. It's death because you're protecting a wound.

Here's the difference between a wound and a scar. If someone touches a wound, you punch them in the face or you back away, but if someone touches a scar it doesn't work that way.

A wound still hurts, so you protect it and defend it. Jesus loves this woman too much to allow the wound to fester any longer.

This is not cruel; it's kind, and it's a picture of what Jesus is after even today, when he says, "Woman, you want streams of living water to burst forth from your soul?

You want joy? You want life? You want it to spill up into eternal life? Go grab your husband."

"Well, I don't have a husband."

"You're right. I know this hurts. You've had five, and the one you have now is not even your husband. I get it. I want you to know I'm here for that."

It is an epic tragedy that the place Jesus wants to do his most significant work is the place you and I spend so much time trying to hide.

It is crushing for people…Christian people, people in church, people out of church. There's this spot that Jesus wants to get in there and heal.

He wants to put lives back together, and he wants to make us right so we can experience streams of living water bursting forth unto eternal life.

But when Jesus says, "Go get your husband," we hide. We don't want to talk. He's exposing a wound, and we don't like to address the wound.

She is not only going to avoid this altogether, but she's going to try to self-defend with doctrine. She's going to try to defend her wound with theology. Look at what happens next.

"Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship."

Is it me or does it seem that Jesus will oftentimes go after the wound and people who like to self-protect with doctrine. What she is doing is misdirection, yet her question is legit for that day.

Her worry is, "Is this true or is that true? Which is true?" It's a legitimate worry, and Jesus certainly isn't going to just brush it off to the side, but he's after her heart, he's after her wound. Jesus kind of dives in.

So, "Which is true?" is her question, and Jesus is going to answer her like this. Look at verse 21. Read John 4:21-22

John 4:21–22 ESV

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.

Truth matters. Jesus doesn't shy away from the truth here. He just laid it out. "Hey, we worship what we know; you worship what you only have a vague notion of, because salvation is from the Jews."

Then look at verse 23, because the whole thing… Here he steps in and fulfills it. There's something better than that mountain or Jerusalem coming. No, it’s already here. Read John 4:23-25

John 4:23–25 ESV

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.” 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.”

This is a beautiful moment in our story. It's not the apex yet. The apex is coming, but there's this beautiful moment where she's trying to defend her wound. Jesus takes it on.

"Okay, I hear your theological maneuvering, trying to keep me away from your wound, but we don't need to worry about that, because I'm here.

And because I'm here true worshipers are going to worship me not on your mountain, not in Jerusalem, but in spirit and in truth."

Then I think the most stunning part, the apex of this whole text, is verse 26. Now she's trapped. What do you do now? If Jesus is going after the wound and that gets uncomfortable, what then?

You're like, "I don't really want to deal with why I'm angry. I don't want to deal with why I'm consumed with lust. Oh man, I don't want to worry about why I have to be viewed a success.

I don't want to worry about those things, so let's just talk about this doctrine and let's talk about that doctrine." Then Jesus steps in and goes, "Doctrine is awesome. It's necessary, but it's ultimately about me."

Then she tries one last Hail Mary, “One day Christ will be here. When Christ is here we'll know all these things." Here's what is mind-blowing. Here's where the circuits should explode.

In a gospel full of "I am" statements… "I am the Bread of Life. I am the Light of the World." The "I am" statements of the gospel of John. The first "I am" statement is not given to Nicodemus.

It's not given as an initiating gift to his disciples. It's given to this seen as a loser woman, a Samaritan of disreputable history. Jesus answers her question. Read: John 4:26

John 4:26 ESV

26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

This statement should make it incontestable that Jesus' living water is indeed a free gift completely independent of gender, nationality, or merit.

And (listen to this) it is completely independent of one's past or one's present. Did you hear me? The free gift of God's grace is not tied to the person's past or their present.

This woman has repented of nothing, yet. But this moment, the free offer of living water went to, whom? This woman. Five husbands, and the one she has now, he ain't signing on.

What's the offer? Living water. It's stunning. This should dissolve all of the stupidity around who Jesus is and what Jesus is actually all about.

This woman, stuck in her sins, deep, rotting out from the inside with shame, is met with grace by a man from a people group that has oppressed hers, slandered hers, and attacked hers.

They have prayed that salvation wouldn't be given to her, yet here it is: the grace of God lavished upon a Samaritan woman with a disreputable past and present.

Oftentimes, you and I have this picture in our minds of what we think Christianity is, and there's never any dirt on it. It's just beautiful.

If you're hanging onto that 1 percent because you think if anyone were to ever know that 1 percent, everything about your life would change.

The way I want to try to encourage you is not that it won't change but that it might just change for the better. Jesus is in the change business gang and he is in it for every single on of you.

Let's do this, just as an illustration to close with. How many of you would say, "There was a season of my life where there was a percentage that I hid, and I wouldn't let anybody see or know.

Where you just felt if anybody were to find that out your life would be wrecked.

When by the grace of God he granted me the courage to open up and let people in, streams of living water burst forth in my life"?

How many would testify, "I had percentages hidden, I came into the light, and it has made all the difference"? Raise those hands. Be honest please.

Praise God. Keep your hands up. Look around. If you're hiding that 1 percent, take a glance. This is us testifying we had some stuff, man, and we came around and experienced grace!

Let's chat for a second. Just so I can be clear, I don't think if you have a 1 percent, a 10 percent, a 12 percent, a 40 percent.

One of the good graces that God, I pray, has given you is those you know who love the Lord and are for you, and they're for you in a way that's distinctively Christian.

I think those are the spaces in which we step into the light and we come clean and we lay before in glad repentance and confession, "Here's my 1 percent. It has been eating me up for a decade.

It has been eating me up for 40 years. It has been eating me up since [whenever]. I want to step into the light. I want to let Jesus work in this wound I've tried so hard to hide."

If you don't have that, I want to just invite you further in. God's plan for his bride, the church, is not that you would attend twice a month. That's not what God is up to.

God is knitting us together as brothers and sisters in a family of faith. It's an awkward family. There are a lot of strange uncles in this family, but family nonetheless.

He uses our imperfections and our brokenness and our gifts and our abilities to do something beautiful as we commit to one another and to his Word working itself out in the gathering and in our lives.

My invitation is the invitation of Jesus: go grab your husband, whatever that is, so that streams of living water might burst forth unto eternal life. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for these men and women. I know many of us are in different places in the process. I love that this story is a process. You could see the awkwardness of the beginning of the conversation.

I pray that you would awaken souls to your goodness, awaken men and women out of their slumber, out of their hiding, that you might grant them by your Spirit's power.

Give them the courage to say I want to be 100 percent known. I don't want any secrets in my life. I'm imperfect. I'm broken, just like Jesus loves me. I don't want to pretend anymore."

Do that work here. Many of us are not even out of that process yet. You just started it. We thank you that you began it and you can be trusted to bring it unto completion. In your name, Amen.