Drop Your Jar

Introduction

Whats up friends! Welcome back to NXT High School. My name is Matt Velasco, if we have not met I want you to know that I am so glad that you are here and would love to meet you before you leave tonight! You’ll hear and see that we say something around these parts, we say that Wednesday night, tonight, is the best night of the week. And we firmly believe it. Not just because you get to hangout with friends and have free dinner and a ton of fun, but also because God has a funny way of showing up in special ways on Wednesday nights here at NXT.

So, if you’re new, thanks for being here! We hope you love it and I want to personally invite you to come back next week.

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Before we get started with the teaching for the evening I want to share some exciting news with you that has already changed my life… I did my first mosh pit two nights ago. Like, legit mosh pit. In fact, I cared so much about all of you knowing about this that I took a video of it (not even my wife has seen this). Check it out...

Video from Underoath concert.

Thats my expectation for our worship from here on out, just want to set the record straight on that. And yes, I was running around and got my phone knocked out of my hand and a kind stranger held it in the air for me to find. Nice guy.

Anyways, the real thing I want to start with is a celebration of all that God did this past weekend at the Winter Retreat. We had about 150 of us up at Lake Geneva for 2 days and let me tell you, God moved powerfully!

In fact, I want to speak very specifically to those of you who are in a place of life where you are being faced with giving something up in order to follow Jesus.

My favorite book of all time is The Hobbit. My guilty pleasure in life is collecting various versions of The Hobbit. I have 14 copies. No joke. Ever since I was in high school I’ve had this obsession with the story of Bilbo Baggins and the thirteen dwarves who go on an adventure to liberate the lonely mountain from the dragon called Smaug! But there is a specific scene in the book when Bilbo decides that he’s going to leave everything he knows in order to pursue a new life that he has decided to live.

The opening words of the book are these; “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down or to eat; it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

The moment that we all remember from the book and the movies if you’ve read it or seen it are these iconic words, “I’m going on an adventure!” and that meant Bilbo had to leave the comfort of the Hobbit-hole that he called home.

Tonight we’re going to explore the story of the Samaritan woman at the well who decided she also was going to abandon all comfort in order to pursue the adventure that Jesus had for her.

Big Idea

Text Address

Would you open up your bibles with me and turn to John 4:1-29,

John 4:1–29 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.” Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

Content

Set Up

At this point in Jesus’ journey the ministry that He had been living was starting to get long, so long in fact that this is one of the times in the Gospels when we see a glimpse into Jesus’ humanity: He was tired, and wanted to sit down by a well and have a drink of water.

While at this well a samaritan women joined Jesus and He made a simple request to her, “could you get me some water?” to which she responded with a question, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?”

You see, Jewish people and Samaritan people hated each other. It was like Vikings and Packers fans, or Bears and packers fans, or really anyone and packers fans. It was like democrats and republicans. There was a stark controversy between the two groups of people… and Jesus was bold enough to ask for a Samaritan to share some water. But, not only that- He was bold enough to ask a Samaritan woman for water.

In the ancient near east, or what we call today the middle east, there were no dealings between men and women. The only women men were expected and encouraged to speak to were their wives. Otherwise it was considered unprofessional and unnecessary for men to interact with women; some would even say inappropriate. However, Jesus crossed two significant cultural boundaries at this well: He spoke not only to a Samaritan, but to a woman. She was shocked.

What proceeds is a theological discussion where Jesus slowly reveals to her that He is the Messiah- or the Christ. He says, “if only you understood who was asking you for water! If you understood then I would give you the living water!” Confused, she retorts, “how in the world would you give me so-called living water if you can’t even draw water up for yourself?”

She didn’t understand what Jesus was saying… but he was patient and persistent. He continued, “Everyone who drinks of this water (the water from the well) will just get thirsty again in an hour! But if you drink from the water I offer you will never be thirsty again. It will be like a fountain of life within you!”

She still is taking him literally and missing the spiritual importance of what he is saying. She responds, “never being thirsty again sounds great to me! Lemme get some of that water!”

Then Jesus does something strange. He switches gears,

John 4:16–18 ESV

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.”

Go into cultural hypothesis that she was known for bedding many men.

Odd time of day (noon)

Didn’t want to be around the other women, perhaps?

What she says next is one of my favorite verses in all of scripture:

John 4:19 ESV

The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Ya think?! But this is important… because she’s finally starting to understand that Jesus is more than just some dude who came to get a quick drink of water… he might actually be someone more important than that. So she has some questions and theological concerns:

John 4:20 ESV

Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

Now Jesus goes into a defense of who He is.

John 4:21–24 ESV

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 women thinks to herself… this sounds a whole like like what my mom and dad told me the Messiah aka the Christ was going to come and do and say.

John 4:25 ESV

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.”

By now the women stands dumbfounded. Theres no way her sorry life has led to this moment. She would never be the one whom the Messiah would speak to. She would never be the one whom the Messiah would reveal Himself to. Maybe you resonate with this… “This whole God thing sounds cool and all… but there’s no way He would ever accept me. No way He would ever want me, or talk to me. If only you knew what I’ve done....”

And then Jesus says these words,

John 4:26 ESV

Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

At that moment it seems that faith welled up from within her because right then and there they’re interrupted by Jesus’ friends, the Disciples. And instead of asking more questions or ignoring everything that just happened because it seems too good to be true OR too crazy to be true she leaves her water jar and goes back to town… “come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

Remember, who did she say they believed the Messiah would be?

John 4:25 ESV

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.”

and, “Come see the man who told me all that I ever did” .... He will tell us all things. All she knew was that the Messiah was supposedly going to know all things… and somehow He knew about my past. I don’t know all of the details, but I think this might be the Messiah?!”

So she drops her jar and runs back to her village and tells everyone she can find about this man who told her everything she ever did. In between the lines here there seems to be something we can read into… all we see is the one detail Jesus knew: That she has had multiple husbands. But that doesn’t constitute “all that she ever did” so we can assume that their conversation extended to more than just her love life. He must have spoken to her of her fears, her needs, her anxiety, the reason why she went to the well so late in the heat of the sun, the family member she lost when she was little, the person who bullied her down the village road, the trauma she may have experienced in her past, the shame she felt about that one thing that she had told no one about, somehow He was able to tell her all that she had ever done… and so she had to tell everyone about Him.

She dropped her jar.

And so should you.

Drop your jar

I have only one point for you tonight friends. Drop. Your. Jar.

For this women her jar was her distraction from her shame. She used it to escape the village every day around noon. She used it to run away. It was her escape.

And she left it at the feet of Jesus.

Many of us are returning from Winter Retreat and we still have our jars in our hands. We’re still holding on to whatever it is that we use to escape the pain, shame, stress, or concerns of life. And Jesus is saying to us tonight: Drop your jar.

Why did the women do it, drop her jar? Well its simple, really… so she could run.

She couldn’t run to tell people about Jesus while she had her distraction in her hands- and neither can you.

Hebrews 12:1 ESV

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

Running towards Jesus is right there in the Bible- but it sure is hard to run if our hands are full.

Friends, drop your jar. Run towards Jesus. Tell everyone you know about this man who you’ve met who has told you everything you’ve ever done.

Why? Because here’s the result of the woman’s running: John 4:39

John 4:39 ESV

Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.”

Her testimony wasn’t complicated. It was simple, “Jesus told me everything that I ever did. Come meet Him, so He can tell you everything you ever did.”

He knows our sin and still he sits down at the well with us and talks to us like His friends. He loves us despite us being the ones who crucified Him on the cross because of our sin. And he loves us despite us being the ones who hold a jar in our hands in order to distract us from our sin and shame.

But when you drop your jar and run… Jesus will do some pretty cool things in your life and through your testimony.

So how do you do it? How do you drop your jar?

Let go of whatever you use to distract you. Place it at Jesus’ feet. Physically leave it outside of your metaphorical village. Maybe pornography is your escape and distraction: Get rid of your iPhone. Don’t bring it into your room at night. Separate yourself from your distraction…put space between it and you.

Don’t hide it from Jesus. He already knows. He knew she has had 5 husbands, and was sleeping with a new guy. Let me put it bluntly: Jesus is in the room with you while you are sinning. You can’t hide anything from him, so don’t try. Don’t feel shame when you confess to Jesus, confess knowing He still offers you living water.

Tell your friends about your sin. “He told me all that I ever did!” Don’t hide it from your friends either. Bring it to them, don’t let it fester in the darkness.

Conclusion

How does this all relate to Bilbo and the adventure he went on in The Hobbit? Well… its not a perfect one to one correlation, but my heart is to say this: Life with Jesus is an adventure. But you might need to leave the comfort of your hobbit-hole life in order to live it.

Bilbo’s jar was the lifestyle he lived. If he wanted to go on this huge adventure he had to abandon his hobbit-hole and the luxury that came with it in order to be a part of a story that would become much bigger than Himself.

If you want to be a part of a story thats much bigger than yourself, then you need to drop your jar.

Let go of whatever you use to distract you.

Don’t hide it from Jesus.

Tell your friends about your sin.

Lets pray.