Truth of the Matter

Good morning church!

It’s so good to be here with you this morning, and I’m so glad to be able to bring the word of God to you, whether you’re here on site or online with us...

And I also want to the take the opportunity to thank you,

Living waters family, for the love and concern that you’ve shown to my family in the short period of time that we’ve been here, even though we are not able to see each other physically for the most of us…

the warmth we felt really put me at ease, because to tell you the truth, i came here in fear and trepidation, not knowing how I would be accepted here,

but your welcome was really evident even from the time the announcement of my appointment was made, back in November...

so, thank you for your love...

And besides the love from you all…

Do you know there’s something else amazing in this place?

It’s the water here…

Well, I’m not sure you know about this article… <slide>

But according to this article one of the blocks nearby is very famous…

Blk 27 Dover Crescent…

Why?

This block has produced, according to this article, 16 PSC Scholars…

And this was 20 years ago… there may be more scholars that came from that block….

But certainly more came from this school…

Well, the picture you see here are two brothers, Chee Peng and Chee Khern, both were 2-star generals,

And do you know they have another brother?

And if I show you his picture, I’m sure you will all go… “ooooh, he ah?”

So, who’s their brother? <slide>

It’s Ng Chee Meng…

The secretary-general of NTUC…

And there’s this on-going joke about them when I was in the military, which was how they are all so smart, because of the special drinking water they have…

They must be drinking some sort of special living waters…

That was when I was still in the military…

Now, I know what’s this special living waters…

It’s us here, in LWMC…

Now, that I know about this special living waters,

Of course I’m excited to drink more of the water here, to boost my IQ level…

<slide>

But seriously church,

I think it’s not the physical water that is special,

But it’s the spiritual atmosphere that makes this place special…

You, your prayers, your presence that makes this place special…

and I’m looking forward to knowing all of you better, but please give me sometime to get to know you ok...

i have to confess that I am not very good with names, so if i have to ask your name a few times, please don’t get upset with me k?

maybe you can think of me as having transitional dementia…

but with more of the living waters here,

I’m sure, the symptoms will reduce over time and eventually go away...

<Pause>

For our reflection this morning, Ps Aaron is kind enough to give me an open topic...

meaning i can share whatever i feel the lord is leading me to share with you this morning...

but can i share something with you?

i don’t like open topics...

why?

Because when you are given a topic, or sermon text,

Your job is to exegete the passage, develop the sermon and preach it…

but when you have an open topic, you have an additional burden of trying to decide what the topic is and have to select the passage...

and when you’re dealing with the word of God… there’s this extra stress...

and friends,

I don’t know whether you realised it or not, but your pastor here had a little heart attack last Sunday…

Metaphorically of course…

Why?

Because Ps Kay Huat chose the exact same passage as me?!

And at that point of time, I’ve already written out the sermon…

So I asked God… how, God?

Should I change my sermon?

But you know what?

I felt God tell me…

What is it to you that I chose to give you and Ps Kay Huat the same passage to preach from?

And I knew that I had to share from this passage…

And I learnt from several incidences that if God says something… better listen…

And the fact of the matter, is…

Do you know I got this sermon topic way before I was officially appointed here?

I got this bottle not too long ago, when my previous water bottle broke… and this bottle was just in front of me when i received a call from our current district superintendent, Ps Edwin Wong...

He called me to inform me of my probable appointment to Living Waters… and guess what... <slide>

let me turn this bottle around so you can see the front...

at that time, it was beyond any doubt that this appointment was made by God,

aiyah..

远在天边，近在眼前。。。

My eyes are upon the horizon when the answer is just before my eyes…

So when I was told that the first sermon was going to be open topic, I was immediately brought to this incident and this passage,

and i knew i had to preach it...

and like what Ps Kay Huat said last week,

it is one that I’m sure many of us are very familiar with…

especially since Ps Kay Huat just preached from it last week…

which is the encounter our Lord Jesus had with the Samaritan woman, and how Jesus was offering living waters to the Samaritan woman, recorded for us in the book of John 4:1-26

and in fact, the phrase living water is found here in verse 10 of our passage...

And while we’ve already heard the passage read last week, I think it’s good to continue to declare the word of the lord together still, and so, let us now listen to the word of the lord… <slide>

John 4:1–26 ESV

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 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. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 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.) 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.” 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? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 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.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “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.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 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. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” 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.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

› This is the word of God… <Pray>

You know friends, many of us when we read this passage would quickly go past the first few verses and go to the meat of the passage, which is the discourse between Jesus and the Samaritan woman...

we would want to read the exciting part, and learn truths that we can grasp hearing the speech between the two characters in this passage...

but let me pull you back a little and let’s ask ourselves, why was there these few verses in the beginning of the passage?

did John not have enough materials so he decided to fluff up this passage with this background information?

can’t be right? papyrus or parchment were very expensive then you know… it’s not like you could go to a bookstore and buy all those printing paper… those things cost a fortune...

this portion must have it’s purpose in this passage...

and what is this purpose?

a clue is probably in the first word you see in the passage... <slide>

you see, the Greek word here that is translated as “now” in verse 1 is οὖν (oun) is used as a marker that indicates a continuation of thought from the previous passage…

and if you see the previous chapter... <slide>

you realise this theme of transformation or even the realignment of truth is very evident...

the preceding chapter, chapter 3, in the discourse with Nicodemus, John realigns our truth by informing us that the radical and seemingly impossible nature of our transformation is possible through God’s love...

it is not through violence and vengeance and traditional ways of conquering land… but it’s through something almost intangible… love…

the only way to see the fulfilment of God’s kingdom, is through radical transformation so much so that it is described as a rebirth...

and it’s no coincidence that in verse 5, Jesus proclaimed that the only way to enter the Kingdom of God and obtaining salvation, was by “water and the Spirit”

and the later part of chapter 3 in the narrative about the argument over baptism, John sought to realign the truth of the readers that the cleansing of a person cannot be through physical means...

and it is also not a coincidence that present in this section of the passage again is water,

presented in this section was the truth that Jesus was not like John, and Jesus’ baptism was not like John’s baptism... <slide>

and the clue to this is in Jn 3:25 where the baptism of John was described as “ceremonial washing”, something that is already very common among the Jews...

it was something so common that some of the richer Jews have a ceremonial washing pool in their homes, call a mikvah, because they do it on a regular basis... <slide>

but the baptism of Jesus, was more than a ‘ceremonial washing’...

though the baptism of John does have this idea of repentance and a step towards salvation, yet it still lacks the portion that is related to faith in Jesus that is necessary for complete salvation...

that’s why, John the baptist himself proclaimed in Matt 3:11 saying

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."

and not only that, John’s baptism could only do physical cleansing to render one physically clean and fit to participate in religious activities, but Jesus was "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" Jn 1:29.

and bearing in mind all these background information and build up to today’s passage, we know that there’s more than meets the eye here in this discourse between Jesus and the Samaritan woman…

a discourse that was described by the Apostle John as so important that it was necessary for Jesus to take the less popular route among the Jews, through Samaria, to travel to Galilee...

it wasn’t just about quenching Jesus’ thirst… it is a continued discourse tied together by this common theme on water…

and it has some deeper spiritual truths that the Apostle John wants us to uncover... <slow><slide>

and this truth evolves around the fact that our worship of God has to be “in spirit and truth”…

or in Greek, the original language, ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ

that we see in verse 23 and repeated in verse 24 for emphasis...

and what does that even mean?

here, i need to bring you back to the original language...

once again, the phrase in Greek is ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ

is literary in Spirit and truth...

many of us remember this phrase as in spirit and in truth… which may not be an accurate translation of the phrase because the preposition “in” or εν is missing here...

and the conjunction και here is what’s called a copulative conjunction which means that these two words are to be so closely joined together, they should be seen as one entity, and this is a poetic literary technique called hendiadys

so in other words, what is translated in our Bibles as “in Spirit and truth” is probably better understood as “in truthful spirit” or “spirit of truth”...

this is affirmed by the biblical scholars such as Barclay Newman and Richard Francis... <slide>

therefore, true worship is one in which there is true connection between man and God...

and this is to be translated into a genuine desire to be with and to worship God....

in other words, our worship with God cannot be one that is ship-shop or one in which we are just going through the motion,

and worse, treating our Sunday worship as one in which we pay our dues and expect God to be obligated to bless us,

by the very virtue of our actions...

we can’t turn on the zoom and let the computer watch you while you continue your housework… or homework…

we need to treat our sacred space and worship with God as such…

a sacred space…

a space set aside to worship God!

This interpretation makes sense because in the Greek concept, the spirit of a person describes the seat of emotion of a person in times of desire or trouble, which means it’s the innermost core of a person, and it is also the essence that animates a person and is a gift God...

and because it is a gift from God, it is also the closest thing that connects us with God… who is also spirit...

this is affirmed in v24 of our passage today which says “God is spirit...”

and what this is saying is that when we worship God, we need to worship God from our innermost being...

which means we need to worship God in our innermost core...

with everything we have…

it is not something we do… the expression of our worship is not enough...

it has to be something that we truly are committed to and it has to be something that we truly believe in...

you need to be fully here when you worship…

and the fact that our spirit is a gift of God in this phrase also tells us that the only way in which we can truly worship God,

is when we are enabled by the true spirit of God...

and also the spirit of the true God...

and that’s my first point for today <slide> which is

1. Our worship needs to be enabled by the Spirit of God

<pause>

and i don’t know about you, but this point is actually great news because firstly, the very fact that our relationship with God is not determined by our human frailties tells us that our ability to connect with God is not limited by our constraints,

but enabled by the great God of heaven and earth, who spoke the world into being by the very words,

that’s what we read in Gen 1, that’s what we read in Psalms 24

and even in our worse days, even when we am unable to prop my head up because of our circumstances, we are being supported by God...

our frailties don’t define us, and don’t limit us...

as long as we look toward God even in our weakest state, God will come, uphold us, and be pleased by our worship of him, enabled by him...

and i think this shift of attention from human to God is important because as we all look towards God together, and look at things from God’s perspectives, enabled by the true spirit,

the differences and divisions between man would slowly fade away and become less relevant in our psyche...

<slide>

and i suppose a good illustration is when we look at a painting that is created by dot-matrix up close, you see all the imperfections and asymmetric lines and dots, but when you look at the entire picture, all the seemingly imperfections fade away and come together to form a wonderful harmonious picture...

and this, Jesus tried to illustrate to us, by explaining to the Samaritan woman that one day, where you worship is not as important as how you worship...

and this was significant, because at that time, the Samaritans insisted that they were the true descendants of Moses and that the true place of worship was in Mount Gerizim, while the Jews insisted that the Samaritans were the profaned cousins of the Israelites because of the exile, and that the only true place to worship God was in Jerusalem...

and indeed, they hated each other so much that the Samaritans were known to have secretly put corpses in the Jewish temple, while the Samaritan temple was destroyed by the Jews in late second century BC...

(talk about sibling rivalry)

but Jesus is telling us, no…

they both got it wrong...

if we look at our human expressions and our feeble works, surely there’s much to criticise…

but when we look at the masterpiece of our God, we can’t response in any other way, but in awe...

don’t go for the traditions and the expressions, go for the source...

the truth of the matter, is that the places of worship and the expressions of worship are secondary to being connected with the true spirit of God himself...

don’t go for the buckets of water that you need to draw from the well every morning… Go for the spring of life itself...

and that’s why Jesus told the Samaritan woman in v13 of our passage today which says...

John 4:13–14 NIV

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 bucket of water you drink from the well, even though it is indeed drinkable water may quench your thirst for a while,

but if you’re drinking from the spring, you’ll never be short of water...

and i think of all the generations since the first century, our generation would probably appreciate this truth the most

because as you know, with the Covid-19 situation, our access to church and the other places of worship is so much constrained and limited and we are not able to enjoy the liberty of just going to church and being able to freely sing anymore…

not because of persecution, but because of this virus, and it helps to remember this truth that our sacred space of worship can take different forms for different people, during different situations…

in the circuit breaker period, we had not choice, but to worship at home, and guess what?

God was still there…

and now, whether you’re at home or here on-site, God is still here…

regardless, of the limitations or freedom, constraints or liberty,

the important thing is the posture of our hearts,

and that God is with us…

and we know that God is with us, because Jesus said in Matthew 18:20

Matthew 18:20 NIV

For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”

and friends, in case you’re struggling to see the connection between living waters described here and the spirit of God, let me bring your attention to John 7.37-39 which says “‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit...”

So I suppose my first point can also be said to be

1. Our worship needs to be enabled by living waters... <pause>

and as I tried to illustrate just now, the second point today is that

<slide>

2. As we are focused on the living waters, which is the spirit, divisions between man will fade away

how is this possible? how does this even make sense? where is this brought forth in today’s passage?

well church, you know how the Samaritan woman was surprised that Jesus would talk to her and asked her for a drink?

why is this surprising?

well you see, I kind of alluded to earlier that there were deep historical differences and animosity between the Jews and the Samaritans because after the exile, the Jews thought of the Samaritans to be remnants of the Northern Kingdom, traditionally thought to be descendents of Ephraim and Manasseh, were thought to have intermarried with the foreigners who were settled there by the King of Assyria, and were thought to have mixed their foreign gods with the true God of Israel… they were thought to have apostatized...

So they were thought to be unclean by the Jews and even the whole land was thought to be unclean...

What’s more, to the Jews, women were already inherently unclean...

so for Jesus to talk to a Samaritan woman was to engage in a double unclean act… and to want to drink from the vessel of a Samaritan woman would render him triple unclean...

by human reasoning...

but for Jesus, it was not so...

he was the true source of life and life-giving waters...

John 1 tells us that Jesus was with God in the beginning and Jesus was God and in Him was life and the life was the light of all mankind...

in our human natural context, when you mix clean water and unclean water, the clean water would become contaminated and unclean...

if you mix muddy water with clear water, you will render the clear water muddy… you may dilute the muddy water a little, but it is still undrinkable...

But Jesus is God, and is not bound by our human limitations… for him, he is the light that shines in darkness and drives the darkness away...

he is the living water that cleanses the unclean water and drives the uncleanliness away...

as we focus upon the living waters, upon God, all those darkness of divisions and things that threaten to divide the kingdom of God will fade away...

and as we focus upon our God, let us become more Christlike and let our community be defined more by our similarities, established by God rather than our differences...

let’s look beyond our difference and seek to find reconciliation and unity in God…

let’s break down some of the differences which are possibly even more stark now in this covid-19 situation whereby the differences in social classes, academic, family background, jobs, and stage of life, become more pronounced…

rather than playing to the cards of the world and facilitating an increased divide between mankind, let us as a church try to be more compassionate with each other

let us also be more compassionate towards people in our different spheres of influence, at work, at home, in school, at play….

Point them towards the living waters…

Draw each other towards a reconciliation in and through and into the living waters…

Let us be instruments used by God to break down divisions and not to erect them…

After all, you do know that the evil one had been described by Peter to be a prowling lion, and you also know that lions generally attack those who are left behind, away and isolated from the pack…

So let’s help one another and not let anyone be isolated and vulnerable to attacks of the evil one…

Let us help one another drink of the living waters…

and while we are talking about helping one another drink of the living waters,

i think some of us need to hear this part...

which is that God is offering living waters to everyone, even for those of us, who had been walking this journey for a while already…

all of us need to continue to drink of this living waters, no matter where in are in our life and salvation journey...

come and be refreshed…

don’t turn off the tap…

come to me all you who are heavily laden, and you will find rest…

and to understand this concept,

let us turn back to the passage, and let me explain the context in this passage...

you see, the Samaritan woman was really an underdog in this story...

not only was she a Samaritan and a woman as I pointed out earlier,

she was being shunned by the society...

the very fact that she was going to the well at 12 noon was already an indicator that she wanted to be out of sight from the rest of the society… most people who go to the well in the morning or evening, and it was a place of social gathering… think of your local cafe, Starbucks or community centre or a welcome corner...

and she went there alone...

which was highly unusual…

but she went when the gathering place had nobody… or so she thought...

she did it to avoid the crowd, avoid the shame, avoid the pain...

she was a out caste…

but you know the story, Jesus didn’t let her immorality and past disqualify her from being able to partake of the living waters...

the living waters is here and available for all people...

and you know something just because she had a past doesn’t mean she only gets a trickle of blessing, or a bucket or blessing...

she gets connected to literally “a well of water springing up or gashing up to eternal life”

the message is clear…

if someone who is seen to be enemies can come and drink of the living waters, nobody who wants to drink of the living waters is denied from the it…

friends, no matter where you are in your journey...

if you’re not yet a believer, this living water is available to you…

if you’re someone who had just known God, come and drink more…

if you’re someone who had turned away from him, drifted away from him, and haven’t drunk of this living waters for a long time, come back and drink…

and this even for you who are watching us online… even if you’re not yet take this step of faith, the invitation for you is to come and partake of this living water that brings you to eternal life...

and my third and final point for us all this morning is:

3. No matter where or who you are, God is inviting you to come and partake of this living water ..

And friends, as I look at the vision of our Church, I think the points from the Lord this morning is greatly aligned with our church vision to be an oasis for people who can come wherever we are to receive from God, his living waters, to worship him and receive spiritual renewal, that we can be a place of nurture, compassion and care, growing closer to God as a family, and a place where we can grow deeper in our understanding of God and express our work and love of God through our lives...

So friends, even as I bring this sermon to a close, remember that

1. Our worship is and needs to be enabled by the true spirit...

2. As we are focused on the living waters, which is the spirit, divisions between man will fade away, and

3. No matter where you are, God is inviting you to come and partake of this living water ..

amen…