Sermon Tone Analysis

*Thirsty People and Ripe Fields*

*John 4:1-42*

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*I.

Introduction*

* *

*A.    **The Necessity of Water*

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1.     Review of Marathon of the Sands (Morocco).

Then drink water.

2.     Can you remember a time in your life when you would have given just about anything for a drink of water?

a.      Hiking trip down the Grand Canyon in July!

b.     Football two-a-days in August!

c.      Marching in a parade in 90 degree heat in your band uniform!

3.     For me it was being the college mascot - Wally the Wildcat - during a Saturday afternoon game in Abilene, TX!

a.      Uniform was just like KC Wolf at Chiefs games - huge and hot!

b.     Complete with big furry head covering!

c.

The only air that came in was through the two eye holes!

4.     I looked like a drowned rat when I took the uniform off!

And I think I lost 10 pounds…that I definitely didn't have to spare!!

5.     I never wanted a drink of cold water so bad in all my life!

 

*B.

**Water as a Metaphor for our Needs*

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1.     God made things in this universe such that water is the key ingredient to almost everything.

2.     Our bodies can't survive without it and are better off by drinking eight eight-ounce glasses of it a day.

a.

How many of you do that?

b.

How many of you take a sip out of drinking fountain once a week?

3.

After being delivered from Egypt and beginning their journey through the desert, the first thing the Israelites complained about was a lack of water!

a.      Ex.15:22-27

b.     Ex.17:1-7

c.

Eventually, it would be the people's hostility toward Moses again for having no water that would bring about his prohibition from entering the promised land.

Num.20:1-13

when Moses hit the rock with his staff instead of speaking to it as God commanded.

4.     It seems that one thing God was trying to convey to his children was that even the most essential element of life should be seen as a his gift to us.

5.     God knew they needed water, but He wanted their thirst to be as intense for him as it was for the water itself.

6.     Centuries later, in another remote village, Jesus encounters a woman whose thirst was as intense as the Jews in the desert.

7.

Only her thirst was for living water and that's what she got.

*II.

John 4 - Knowing Jesus (2 Peter 1:2)*

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*A.    **He was Totally Human while being Totally Divine*

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1.     Jesus could see that people, specifically the Pharisees, were trying to create problems between the followers of Jesus and the followers of John the Baptist.

2.     If they couldn't convince people not to follow either one, they would create antagonism between them.

So Jesus leaves the area to go back to Galilee.

3.     On the way, he "had to go through Samaria."

a.

Throughout the book of John an emphasis is placed on how obedient Jesus was to the Father and how he looked to God as his source of life and ministry.

b.

Later in this chapter, 4:34, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work."

c.      5:30, "By myself I can do nothing…for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me."

d.     6:38, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me."

e.      8:29, "The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him."

4.     So, when John writes that Jesus "had to go through Samaria" he doesn't mean there weren't other routes.

5.

There were other means, albeit longer, but many Jews chose the longer route traveling north to avoid Samaria~/Samaritans (we'll notice later).

6.

He means that Jesus, led by the sovereign hand of God, had a divine appointment awaiting him.

And I love how that appointment came about.

7.

He and his disciples get to village of Sychar in Samaria "vs.5-6" (read).

8.     We've mentioned before that the opening prologue of the gospel is a kind of summation of what John learned through the events of the rest of the book.

a.

One earth-shattering truth is 1:14.

That's no small thing!

b.

It was the core of the church's first major controversy and heresy since some couldn't accept that any flesh could also be divine!

c.      Later in his life, John would write, "That which…1 John 1:1-3"

9.     John could testify that Jesus got tired from walking!

He got pooped!

a.

By the way, this proves the disciples were in their early 20's because vs.8 tells us they went on into town to get food.

b.     Guys that age are always hungry and they had the energy to go to town!

10.

Don't rush off too fast from the picture.

Jesus was tired, but Jesus was ready for any opportunity.

Jesus needed rest, but he was energized by ministering to people.

He needed a break, but he didn't take a break from filling a need.

11.

And he really was thirsty.

Not just looking for a "hook" for conversation!

*B.

**He was Totally Accepting while being Totally Uncompromising*

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1.

You won't find a more striking contrast of people than the key figure in chapter 3, Nicodemus, and the key figure of chapter 4, an unnamed, Samaritan woman!

2.     Yet, Jesus was equally accepting of both.

Equally comfortable with both.

Equally loving of both!  Vs.7 (read)

3.

You have to picture Jesus sitting in his tent at night delighted in his time and conversation with Nicodemus; Pharisee, member of Sanhedrin, morally upright and religiously devout.

4.     Now here's Jesus sitting in the hot sun by a well in a portion of Palestine where a guy like Nicodemus wouldn't be caught dead, and he addresses a woman with the same love for humanity he had for Nicodemus; she's a she, she's a Samaritan (long standing feud going back to Assyrian captivity), and we'll soon see her morals aren't anywhere close to those of Nicodemus.

5.     We can't leave here without thinking through this and asking ourselves the question, "How comfortable or accepting am I of people different from myself?"

a.

And I don't just mean racially (although that may apply), but what about our neighbors and soccer parents and work associates who are different in their outlook and lifestyle from you?

b.     Are you more proud of how your "light" drives them away or that it attracts them to you?

c.

If we asked them, would they say they walk away from being around you feeling accepted or judged?

6.

I understand that we all have natural affinities for certain people and I don't think that's necessarily wrong.

a.      That's why the computer geeks hang around and make jokes nobody else can understand!

("He thought he had problems on the H drive of the …")

7.

But having an affinity for some can't become the exclusion of others!

8.     Philip Yancey, in book Church, Why Bother uses a few metaphors of his own to describe church.

One is "God's Driver's License Bureau"  p.

52-54

 

 

*III.

Knowing Jesus' Teaching*

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*A.    **There is a Thirst in Every Soul that only Jesus can Satisfy*

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1.     Immediately the woman is startled that a Jewish man would ask a Samaritan woman for a drink, or anything else for that matter.

Vs.9 (use dishes…)