A Love That Knows No Bounds

Ever find yourself in a place where you should not be, or maybe where you do not fit in?

A number of years ago, Crystal and I were visiting her Grandparents in Florida. We decided to take the rental car and go to touristy island for the afternoon. We walked around, took in the sights, got some ice cream and enjoyed our time. It was a fairly quick trip to the island from where we were staying, it was all highway driving. I had seen some exits along the way and thought it would be great to get off the highway and see some of the rural areas.

This morning in John 4, we find Jesus making His way through the country of Samaria. Samaria was a place in between Jerusalem and Galilee that a Jew would never intentionally go. Ever since some of the Jewish exiles had come back from Babylon, to find that the central section of their ancient territory was occupied by a group who claimed to be the true descendants of Abraham, and who opposed their return, there had been constant trouble. Sometimes it had broken out into actual skirmishes, with bloodshed and murder. But mostly it was simply a matter of not mixing. The Jews wouldn’t have anything to do with the Samaritans. They would, especially, not share eating and drinking vessels with them.

Which if you take this into consideration, it is extremely scandalous to a Jew to then hear the story of the “Good Samaritan” (Luke 10) where the Samaritan is the hero of the story and the one that shows compassion.

There would be a high chance of being robbed on the road or violence happening if you were a Jew walking through Samaria. But our Bibles tell us that Jesus “had” to go through Samaria.

There is a lot to unpack as it relates to chapter 4 so we will be spending a little time here lingering wanting to take in as much as we can over the next couple weeks. There are a lot of illusions to Genesis 24, 29 in this chapter and it’s worth reading on your own thinking about the ways in which they parallel John 4… it’s a beautiful study.

If you have your Bibles or on your devices, please turn to John 4 and we’ll be reading verses 1-15 this morning.

If you are able would you stand with me as I read God’s word this morning. Let’s pray. Please be seated.

If you are taking notes this morning we are going to look at and highlight:

The humanity of Jesus (vss.1-6)

The breaking of barriers by Jesus (vss.7-10)

The life that Jesus gives (vss.11-15)

The humanity of Jesus

vss.1-6

Jesus is amassing a following. The Pharisees hear about it and so Jesus starts make His way back up to Galilee.

vs.4 tells us that Jesus “had to pass through Samaria”. This can be taken two ways… that he had to (no choice but forced) or that he had to (there was no way you are going to detour Him). Which one do you think it was?

There was no way that Jesus wasn’t going to go. You can imagine as His followers were good Jews, they were trying to persuade Him not to go… why would you go in there?

Jesus was governed by the will of the Father (divinely oriented)

What Jesus did, did not always make sense at first blush to those around Him. But Jesus was committed to do the will of the Father.

“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jn 5:19). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

“So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.”

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jn 8:28). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

It’s not a lot unlike giving the keys of your car to a 5 year old. Inevitably at some point in time if a 5yr old is behind the wheel of your vehicle they will crash into something… a building, another car, at some point the car will be rendered useless because the a motor vehicle was not designed with a 5yr in mind as an operator.

So too, God has created humanity and life in such a way that he tells us to avoid lying, murder, gossip; to give ourselves to service, love, and care for those around us… because He is the originator and creator of life, He knows how it ought to be. He calls us to follow Him, put Him first, and in that we will experience true life. In surrendering our will and life to Him, we experience true life and the fulness of life of what it is intended to be.

Jesus was also exhausted (humanity)

It’s helpful to know that Jesus weary (vs.6). It’s a minor point in the story but I think when we consider Jesus, His life, His example, how comforting to know that He has experienced those times that we do. He is weary.

Do you get weary? Do you find yourself with nothing left in the tank… you’re in good company. Did you know that God created us with limits. That’s what makes us human. That’s what God intended and in our limitations God’s strength and power is manifested.

English Standard Version (Philippians 2:4-16)

4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 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. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.Lights in the World12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.

At work, at play, with friends… live into who God has uniquely made you and live into the convictions that He has placed on your life. But be free to be the person He has created you to be. In that we are understanding and rejoicing in the good work He is doing (phil 2:13), we are that light in the world.

Sometimes we are also just weary, and we need to sit by the well that is Jesus and drink deeply… we’ll get there in a moment… but Jesus is weary and He is by a well

The breaking of barriers by Jesus

vss. 7-10

A woman comes out to the well at midday. John tells us it is about noon.

We see at various parts in scripture that going to the well to fetch water was usually the job of women to do and they would do it in a group because there was safety in numbers for them. But here we have a single woman coming out by herself in the midday when it’s hot (not in the morning when it was accustomed for the women to come out) and she meets Jesus.

Next week, Pastor Josh will get a bit more into this woman as we find out more about her. But if we read ahead, we can probably understand why she’s coming out alone, without the other women of the town, to fetch water by herself.

The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Volumes 1 & 2 1. Theological Themes in the Narrative

Jesus crosses at least three significant barriers in the story: the socioethnic barrier of centuries of Jewish-Samaritan prejudice; the gender barrier; and a moral barrier imposed by this woman’s assumed behavior

We still have these stigmas sometimes in the church. Here it’s a racial barrier (Jew/Samaritan), it’s a gender barrier (man/woman), and as we will see next week a moral barrier (divorced, many husbands, living with a man not her husband).

Jesus goes to those who need Him. He goes to the sick, needy, marginalized, weird, societal pariahs, those who have betrayed the nation (tax collectors), terrorists (Simon the zealot), the blue collar (Peter, James, John, Andrew), the high society (Joanna, wife of Chuza who was Herod’s household manager).

English Standard Version (Mark 2:14-17)

14 And as he passed by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him.15 And as he reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 17 And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Who has God put in your path… Politically driven people (Red Team people, Blue Team people), Ethnicity, Sexuality, Gender, Religious, Non-Religious, Weird or normal, God desires to use you to love them well and they, like this socially alienated woman share the love and desire of Jesus to welcome them, that they would know and understand that they are seen and loved. Sometimes we get love and condoning action twisted. If we love someone we must agree with everything about them or what they say. Not true. God loves me, but doesn’t condone everything I think or say… but because He loves me, He corrects me, and because I love Him, I listen and seek to obey… because He is life, He is love, He is everything.

Notice too Jesus in this conversation uses what is natural and what is common. Sometimes we think that the gospel conversation is one that has to be contrived or plotted out.. but here Jesus is weary, He is thirsty, and He asks this woman coming to the well for a drink.

**Freebie: It may not be on the surface, but here too we can see the kindness of Jesus. By reputation, Jesus (a Jew) was not even expected to acknowledge this woman (for she was a woman and a Samaritan… and He knew she had a fractured past which most repelled her because of it)… BUT HE WAS KIND.

I’m grieved by many religious celebrity pastors who are not kind. They are not generous or loving in their dealings with others. Because one thinks they are proclaiming truth or standing up for truth it gives them a license to be a jerk, a bully, or just plain rude. Even if we disagree with someone (on anything) we can be kind.

English Standard Version (Galatians 5:22)

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

As I shared a couple weeks ago… evangelism is knowing our own story. Who were we before Christ. What happened when we met Christ. Who are we now in Christ… it’s being able to share that story.

It is about… the life that Jesus gives.

The life that Jesus gives

vss. 11-15

The woman is confused.

First Jesus asks for a drink, but then He says she should ask Him for a drink and then He’ll give her water?

Here Jesus is offering her Himself. Drink deeply from Jesus.

If we drink of this world and natural things… we’ll always need more, it’s never completely satiating. We’ll need more (here Jesus speaks of water).

But the water that Jesus offers is one that is a well, a spring, that continually satisfies… and she wants it (though she is not completely getting the picture), we’ll complete it over the next couple weeks.

The multiple meanings are, as we shall see, typical of the kind of conversation John speaks of. Again and again in this gospel Jesus talks to people who misunderstand what he says. He is talking at the heavenly level, and they are listening at the earthly level. But because the one God created both heaven and earth, and because the point of Jesus’ work is precisely to bring the life of heaven to earth, the misunderstandings are, in that sense, ‘natural’. Jesus, asking for a drink, tells the woman that she should have asked him for one. She is, of course, bound to think he means it in the ordinary sense.

Wright, T. (2004). John for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-10 (pp. 41–42). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

There is a turning from one thing here (that does not satisfy and is often stagnant) to another thing that not only satisfies but also in which others can partake and be satisfied and transformed as well (living, moving, fresh). But this yielding is turning from one source to another. He is referring to the new life that he is offering to anyone: as this conversation shows, anyone at all, no matter what their gender, their geography, their racial or moral background.

What well are we continually drinking from… old reliable well. One that we inherited from our parents? What are we trusting in with the hopes it will sustain us? What are we holding onto that is preventing us from drinking deeply from the well that is Jesus?

The woman at the well doesn’t know exactly what Jesus is talking about, but she wants to know more. What other meanings she was thinking of, we cannot now fathom. But she’s in for a shock—as is everyone who starts to take Jesus seriously. He has living water to offer all right, but when you start to drink it it will change every area of your life.

Would you stand

Often times we measure progress in our lives/nation based on freedom. I get to do what I want, I get to be who I want to be, and I get do it how I want to do it. Often times we want to come to God based on our conditions and how we want to approach Him. But this often leads to frustration and disillusionment, and eventually burnout. It is in what Jesus describes in taking His yoke (like an ox) upon us… for His yoke is easy and His burden is light… He’s done it. He’s given up His freedom so that we might know and experience true life when we yield our freedom to Him.

Tim Keller (theologian and long time pastor of redeemer church in New York City)

Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical (“My Yoke Is Easy and My Burden Is Light”)

Jesus Christ lost his glory and became mortal and died for us. In Jesus God says, “I will adjust to you. I will sacrifice for you. First I will give up my glory and immortality in becoming human in the Incarnation. Then I will give up all light and joy and my very life in the Atonement.” He was nailed fast to the cross so he could not move. How is that for giving up your freedom? Christianity is the only religion that claims God gave up his freedom so we could experience the ultimate freedom—from evil and death itself. Therefore, you can trust him. He sacrificed his independence for you, so you can sacrifice yours for him. And when you do, you will find that it is the ultimate, infinitely liberating constraint. “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

If you have yet yielded your life to Christ, we want to give you that opportunity this morning. There will be those who are down here who want to pray with you and for you. If you sense and know God is calling you into the life of surrender to Him, to experience true life, then come and receive that life.

If you need to yield things to God because you have been living an unyielded life, then come, receive prayer and strength to do what you know you need to do.

If you would like prayer because of what is happening in your life now, and you need to drink deeply from Jesus this morning, then come, come and receive from Him through prayer this morning.

Would you pray with me this morning.