John 4:13-42 (2)

Once in a while we are brought to the realization that something we have just done all along we miss the meaning of

We do what we hear and go along with it..then we get woke up that we have missed it

There are entire websites devoted to this stuff

Have you heard or seen people say I was today years old when i found out….

We tell people to break a leg before a play ….did you know it’s because we hope they end up in the cast?

DId you know the cardboard fold on your kids juice box is supposed to be unfolded so your kid has handles ?

Every chic fil a box of nuggets has like 6 things we don’t know are for your straw and sauce to sit on your cup

When you tell someone to hold their horses its because you want them to be stable?

We do this with the Gospel all the time too

I want us to stop for a minute this morning and see how we do this with Jesus

Things about him we have heard and just gone along with and miss the epic message of

From the life and ministry of Jesus we see who He is and what He is about

By the end we may have one of those I was today years old moments….like the disciples did that epic day

He truly makes all things new.

We are going to be looking at 3 Things in this text:

An Old Problem: 13-15

A New Story: 16-23

A New Purpose: 28-42

In order to have something New we have to have something old that has to go away so we see here the first point

1. An Old Problem: (V 13-15)

13 Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. 14 But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”

15 “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

Here is the setting and what is shocking here

Jesus is about to display his glory to show who he really is and what the Gospel does to us

And he has left the big city to do it

He has raised eyebrows among the Jewish leaders so he has left town as they stir up what will eventually lead to his murder

Here is the shock and awe

He has taken us who follow him away from the big and flashy to the small and unnoticed

And he goes to the heart of us all to show us maybe we were today years old when we saw His real Glory

He has set the scene and place and person who he is going to show this scandal too

He meets a samartitan woman

A woman Jews hated

And goes right to her heart with what he says

This is a passage about physical and heart level longings that we all have.

We are people like this woman

We are searching for ways of this world to quench our hearts deepest thirsts

Sam Alberry says “thirst in this narrative is used as a matter of desires, appetites, needs, and of wanting to find satisfaction” (87).

Thirst shows the self defeating ways we try to be whole…we are left longing and wanting

Sin creates a loss of the source but not the ache for things to be right

One author says it better than I can he says “To be human is to have a heart. You can’t Not love. SO the question isn’t whether you will love something as Ultimate; the question is what you will love as ultimate. You are what you love”

We all bet our life on some savior.

We want something to bring our version of the good life to reality.

We thirst. We are restless.

Saint Augustine said in the 400’s,

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

That separated Ache is our greatest problem

The Gospel message is the diagnosis and the cure for our oldest problem

What The Gospel means for our greatest and oldest problem is that we cannot save ourselves.

Help had to come from outside of our world…

Just like it had to for this woman

Dorothy Sayers was a British Novel writer in the early 1900’s.

She wrote crime novels and the main character in her books was Lord Peter Whimsy.

Whimsy was a bachelor in her books and alone when not on the case solving crimes.

Eventually a young woman appeared in the books.

The character had the same biography as Sayers the author and what became clear was this.

Sayers saw her main character as broken unfulfilled and alone.

Unable to fix himself.

So she wrote herself into the story to save him from his heartache.

The Gospel means that God has written himself in to our story because we cannot fix our oldest problem

This really happened and He did it to give you a new story.

This is what we see next

The Gospel means we have a New Story

2. A New Story (16 - 23)

16 “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”

17 “I don’t have a husband,” she answered.

“You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said. 18 “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

19 “Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet. 20 Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”

21 Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. 22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews. 23 But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.[a] Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him.

If you were Jesus’ campaign manager.

Or the PR person for team Jesus you would have done this completely different.

It is easy to miss but Jesus has just spoke of his diety himself as THE source of life for all people for all time

IT is the water “that I give” he said.

This is scandal to the known religious world.

This is the first time in the book of John that Jesus makes this self revelation that religion can’t save you only he can

It is the diagnosis that our pursuit of wholeness in the pleasure of the world cannot make you whole

It is easy to pass over here but this is huge

A triumphant statement that He is God. And he has made it here?

Seneca not Washington D.C.?

Now in these verses He has just shattered the standing religious activity and practice to reach God.

AND

Jesus has just redefined the people of God!!!

These revelations should have come in front of the power players of Israel in Jerusalem

Or with an army to storm Rome and kick them out once and for all

Successful ministry has to mean big things fast with the powerful people right?

It definitely would and should Not come here in a forgotten place.

Not with her, a forgotten 5 times divorced woman.

Thats the point Big flashy things fast are not how the Kingdom comes

Jesus is in a forgotten place talking to what seems to be a forgotten woman.

The story of Israel had been brutal on Samaria.

And the story of her life had been brutal to her soul.

A Forgotten Place: Jews had no dealings with Samaritans and considered them unclean.

Being in the same vicinity as they made you ceremonially unclean

They were a passed around nowhere place, that the power players thought best forgotten.

A Forgotten Person: She is an outcast person in an outcast place.

We learn here simply by the time of day she is getting water that she is someone everyone avoids.

And we just learned why.

This woman had to travel at an anti-social hour at the most oppressive time of day alone.

In the ancient world it was men not women who could initiate a divorce.

That means that 5 times she was deemed leave able by a man she thought loved her.

5 times she was forgettable. She was leavable….ever felt that longing to be whole ache

Does any of that hit home knowing your self and your story

And here is the God of the universe saying I have come to write myself into your story to make you new

She thinks she is unclean and forgettable, but she doesn’t know this Jesus.

D.A. Carson says, “Jesus Sanctifies all HE touches” (218)

That means he doesn’t just save you He rewrites the worst parts of your story to breathe life into the ache and the what if’s and the regret

The author of Life has come to us to rewrite the story of His bride.

The Forgotten People, in a place Forgotten by the worlds standards

How about in a forgotten building in powdersville?

How about a faith family of misfits saved later in life

People like us that don’t know the insider language and have stories with some baggage?

Those are the places Jesus came to show off in

He Gave her a new story not of rejection and shame

That is what Jesus does that is what he came to do

And it says this time with the Woman at the well took place at the sixth hour…the same time of day he will later take His people's sin on himself and be crucifed.

He was crucified at the 6th hour how cool is that

He became all she was to take her place and make her new

She was outcast, unwelcome in Jerusalem thirsty in heart and body

He became an outcast. Sent outside Jerusalem. And Cried out as he did here in thirst nailed the cross.

He became sin and shame for her in her place to have her and us forever.

Are you here today and feel like she did that day at the well?

Life has not gone how you dreamed it would?

He saves by writing himself into our story.

The Gospel changes everything about your everyday story.

3. A New Purpose: 28-42

28 Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” 30 They left the town and made their way to him.

31 In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

32 But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

33 The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”

34 “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work, “Jesus told them.

35 “Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open[a]your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready[b] for harvest.

39 Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 Many more believed because of what he said. 42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

Even if you are here today and not a christian you have heard the lords prayer

You know it doesn't go like this

“Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy Kingdom stay where it is and simply get us out of here so we can be far away one day”

This is one of those areas we need to be today years old to know

Christians in this world aren’t meant simply to survive or retreat but to proclaim the gospel

We get the bookends right Sin back there is covered...heaven thing is coming though it doesn’t make much sense….

In between we have to try and keep the slate clean ourselves...our job is to manage my little inward sin struggle and thats it

“Don’t smoke don’t drink don’t cuss don’t chew and never go with girls that do” as my grandma said

My salvation is for the mission of god…

The Gospel makes me new to live out that newness in every area of life ….

The gospel tells me I am not alone or unseen or unloved in a world we heard last week where over half of all americans feel if they disappeared no one would notice

When we look at when God first creates us in His image in the Garden of Eden we are made with a purpose.

That purpose was to spread Gods perfect rule and flourishing to the whole earth outside the Garden.

That is why you are here.

Everyone asks: What am I Supposed to Do WIth My LIfe WHY AM I HERE?

The Gospel Answers Those Questions THE GOSPEL RESTORES US TO OUR CREATED PURPOSE

The New Life of New Creation that can only come from Jesus restores us to what we were created for.

In verse 35 of this passage we see that the woman has got it.

The disciples with Jesus still don’t get it.

They still don’t see

We give the disciples a hard time but we aren’t too different.

What would you think marked the Kingdom of God and its Mission in power?

Isn’t Jerusalem where the power players are? And all the crowds?

Performance and shock and awe.

This is what they expected

How could this Kingdom of our Messiah measure up?

How will our church ministry measure up?

We are no different

We assess our place in Gods mission by the worlds metrics.

Pastor Zack Eswine says “God invites us to himself for the sake of local people in a local place. The great work to be done is right in front of you with the persons and places that his providence has granted you”

Things are not how they were meant to be. Right here in the lives around us

The New Purpose we gain is the mission of God

To be an active participant in Gods recovery and Redeeming what sin and death have stolen.

Right here where we are.

Jesus is pleading in this passage to look up look at what is in front of you!!

Listen to this passage again and picture what Jesus saw as He spoke these words in verse 35 “Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest.”

Ancient attire would be white cloth wrapped around the head and face to cool them in the heat of the climate.

Jesus is watching the white of the heads of the lost walking at a distance to Him

He says “Look Lift up your eyes!! The harvest is White and coming and ready”

He is telling us look up its right in front of you

People without hope and wholeness in a world that isn’t how its supposed to be

Real People are walking to them from the village.

Jesus is in a forgotten place and no named people are walking to them.

And this is the Harvest the King came for

Dead hearts are ready to come alive

The mission he gives is to live gospelized lives in a place and a people desperately empty and longing.

To look up see the people who will be drawn to the story of the Gospel.

To live in a specific time and place he has set creating a movement of death to life stories.

We don’t need it to be in the Jerusalem of our day. We just need to be faithful.

One pastor says “obscurity and greatness are not opposites”

Miracles are happening all around the world in obscure moments of faithfulness

The Gospel means that God has written himself into our story to redeem what sin stole

Look at what happens in verse 42.

42 And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

What that means is for us to live it out in our everyday in relationship where you live and do life

So others see the hope of your life

In a brokenhearted world, G. K. Chesterton reminded God’s people that “joy . . . is the gigantic secret of the Christian.”

So they hear for themselves that their ache can be satisfied

And they taste and see that the Lord is good

Maybe you were today years old when you learned Mission is right here where you eat after church

Maybe you were today years Old when you learned the Gospel means you are restored to what you were made for

Maybe you were today years Old when you looked up and saw the longing hearts around you

Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are read for harvest.

Look at this woman with a past

THey knew her failures and saw her new life

Tell your story and make friends to share it with

Get after it