Untitled Sermon (13)

Intro

Recap the dayre-emphasize the goal.wring out the weekendsee Jesus more clearly We are all relationally driven. For some of you, you may even have a sweet little girlfriend or maybe a boyfriend. You may go home with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. I don't know... Ball's in your court. But we are all built for relationships. It doesn't have to be a romantic relationship. We could be talking about friendships, family-based relationships. But we are all built for relationships. I remember my first friend in the world. His name was also Eric. Eric and Eric, I don't know it jsut seemed appropriate. Your name's Eric? So is mine... Wanna be friends..? Yup. Boom. That's how it's done. Or fast forward a year later. First day of kindergarten, I walk into the classroom with my backpack, thousand keychains jingling behind me. Y'all don't even know about that trend... sad. I walk over to the legos and find Josh Tidwell. I look him dead in the eye and simply ask, wanna be my friend? Almost seems too simple, yeah? I wish it were that easy these days. But the reality is that even if these relationships, these friendships are something that we soooo crave, it seems so easy to bungle things up. Right? You know that kind of person. They just can't seem to get out of their own way. There's something about their personality or their past that almost seems to doom a relationship even before it gets going, and behind them they leave a path of destruction of brokenness, heartache, and despair. Relationship after relationship, sometimes it seems like they are addicted to the pain. You know that kind of person. You might be that person. After too long we eventually come to the conclusion, "there's something horribly wrong with me." We shut down. We isolate. We and we just know in our heart of hearts that I am desperately in need of something. The Bible is full of people like that. People who's lives are extremely messy. They battle shame and heartache just like we do. The details may look different, but if we drill down deep into it we see that heartache reaches across all of time. That's where we open up in the gospel of John. Jesus is already on the move doing incredible things, teaching incredible stuff. But his attention is called to another town. But instead of making a direct path for his destination, he knows that he's got an appointment to keep. Someone specific in mind.

Scripture

John 4:4–18 (CSB)4 He had to travel through Samaria; 5 so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon. 7 A woman of Samaria came to draw water. “Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, 8 because his disciples had gone into town to buy food. 9 “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 10 Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.” 11 “Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? 12 You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.” 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.” 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.” You see in John 4 it says that Jesus was called to go from Judea in the south, to Galillee, northbound. But in order to do that Jesus, a faithful Jewish man, would have been expected to travel around these Samaritan lands in between. Why? Because Samaritans were seen as lesser than. Half-breeds. If you're a Harry Potter fan, a mudblood, if you will. A devout Jewish believer even at the thought of barely touching Samaritan land would cross a border and shake their sandals as if to say, I don't want any part of that place sticking with me. The town is dirty. The people are dirty. I want no part of it. Which makes it all the more interesting when Jesus doesn't just say, "well maybe we just go through this time..." but instead says that he has to go through Samaria. He comes to town and sets down at the local well... no one has indoor plumbing. No hot 30 minute showers. What you want for a day, you gotta go get. To avoid that blazing hot sun, you head before sunrise in the cool of the morning. But here it's the middle of the day. No one in their right mind goes to get their water in the middle of the day... unless you're avoiding someone. Which is the case for this woman. Have you ever done anything like that? You're just flat out not in the mood. You know that if you can just avoid this spot, this place, that it'll save you from having to encounter this person or that person. But here she is, lugging that big jar in the insufferable heat as a constant reminder, you did this to yourself, you deserve this. Everything you touch turns to garbage. You know that if she were there in the morning with all the other ladies in town, she would have been the butt of every joke. The topic of every gossip. Have you heard what she did? Got another divorce last month. You'd think she'd learn by now.Yeah well , she's shacked up with another guy now. She's really getting around. You know, your story might look a little different in the specifics. Your story might not be exactly like this lady's, but at some point another we all feel exposed. We all feel vulnerable. We all feel this deep sense of need. That's what sin does. Sin, anything that causes to fall short from the life that we have been called to. You and I, we have been hardwired for relationships. Namely for a relationship with an almighty God who put the breath in our lungs. But so often you and I find ourselves deciding day in and day out. No, I know better. I no whats best for me. I do what I want.And you find yourself leaving wreckage and relational carnage behind you. For this Samaritan woman it left her cold and calloused. Dead inside, not even able to bear the thought of facing anyone. Alone. Broken. Sin leaves us in desperate need. Yesterday I challenged you to put it all on the line in order to get a clear sight of Jesus. Maybe for the first time in a long time. Maybe for the first time ever. Zacchaeus had a genuine encounter with Jesus. The Samaritan woman, she's had an a genuine encounter with Jesus. And truly and genuinely encountering Jesus means confronting all the ways that we fall short. If we fast forward to the book of Romans, this guy Paul said that, all have fallen short of the glory of God, and a bit later that the wages of sin is death. If we ask ourselves who God is yo'll eventually land on words like. Holy, Perfect. And if we were to say that something is perfect we are saying that it is clean, without blemish, not fouled up. And the second that you take something clean and bring something dirty and sullied to the table, the perfect is not longer clean. If I were to bring you a glass of clean, crystal clear, filtered water. You can see right through it. Been a long day, would definitely taste good. You'd have no problem drinking it all in. But say that I bring a single little eyedropper and say tell you that I tapped into one of the plumbing pipes here at camp and dropped a bit of raw sewage into that glass. Would you say that it's still clean? Would you say that that water is still good to drink? If you and I are honest with ourselves guys, we're not dealing with a little bit of sin. We're not dealing with just a bit of being unclean. But if we look back on our lives and we see all these ways that we've caused such damage in our lives and in the lives of others, the floodgates of filth have opened up and has covered us, its covered those that we care about, the baggage we carry is a constant reminder of how we fall short. At some point or another when we ask ourselves what it means to truly encounter Jesus, it means that we have to confront this sickness known as sin. Because imperfect cannot dwell with the perfect. Dirty, cannot live with the clean. That is why the wages of sin... is death. Separation. Being cast out. Encountering Jesus means being confronted with our sin. Jesus tells this woman, everyone who comes back to this well will be thirsty again. You might be right there. You're dealign with something. You brought something down here with you and it has you feeling burdened. And just like this woman you find yourself doing the same old, dumb things over and over and over and it leaves you thirstier, and thirstier, and thirstier like you're gulping down saltwater. Romans 7:15, Paul cries out this problem that we have with sin, how it seems that we are hard-wired to screw up everything. He says, 15For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate. You know that there are spots in your life, maybe a lot of them where you want to cry out to God. TAKE IT AWAY. I don't want it anymore! I don't want to feel this brokenness anymore! My heart hurts too bad! The wages of sin is death... and it does so often feel. like. death. A life with Jesus is honestly terrifying. to step out like that and be confronted with all the ways that we don't measure up. It's not a pleasant realization. But that doesn't make it untrue. Sin puts us in desperate. desperate need. Guys, we're going to take this moment to break apart from one another. You'll carry on with your day. You'll enjoy all that camp has to offer. And you might be thinking to yourself. Hold on... how could he end right here. I don't feel good. This sucks. And you're not wrong. But guys, in order to realize the weight. The gravity of the gift that has been given. We have to realize the weight of the cost that has been wracked up. Sin is a real problem. Not just a nuisance. Not just an issue. But it is the greatest problem that we will ever know in this life. But if you are feeling the weight and the pressure of this problem here and now, please what I want you to hear now as clearly as ever, is that the story is not over. It's not over for this woman at the well and it's not over for you. What is amazing about weekends like these is that you came down here with people who care so deeply for you. Like I said you'll have all day to enjoy everything around you. But if in the midst of this time you feel like you need to speak with someone, pull a leader aside, ask them, "hey we can talk?" I promise you there is nothing more that they'd love to do than to have a real and meaningful conversation with you about Jesus. Dear Father...