Communion: worship is spirit and truth

The disciples had gone into the city to purchase food. While Jesus kept a divine appointment with a Samaritan woman.

The woman herself woke up in the morning and had no such scheduled appointment. But Jesus did. In fact, it was scheduled in eternity passed. Before the foundations of this world. the Lord had scheduled this appointment just as he had scheduled the day in the time when you would hear and respond to the Gospel call.

This woman was outside the commonwealth of Israel as she was a half breed part Jew and part gentile and thought to be unclean by the Jews. there was a mutual distain between the two.

John 4:7–10 (NASB95) — 7 There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.” 8 For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. 9 Therefore the Samaritan woman said to Him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10 Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Jesus provokes in the mind of the woman three questions

Who are you?

What is this gift of God?

And what is this living water?

John 4:11–14 (NASB95) — 11 She said to Him, “Sir, You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? 12 “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle?” 13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”

The woman knew the deal. For a Jew to even talk to or come in contact with a Samaritan would make that Jew unclean. The Jews were not even permitted to touch something that a Samaritan had touched.

You see, while the woman came to draw still water up from a dark well, water which she will consume and come back again like a life that is fleeting, Jesus offers her different water from a well of living water.

While the woman was drawing water from the well, Jesus was drawing the woman.

John 4:15–18 (NASB95) — 15 The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” 16 He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” 17 The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.”

Important that Jesus knows the woman intimately. She discloses something that this Jew would not be so concerned with and would not know, but none the less he did know. God knows everything about us. He knows every thought, decision and action. So important because when it comes to the cross every sin will be accounted for as they are poured out on God’s son and judged.

But she responds not with acceptance (I believe) but with sarcasm and changes the subject with religion and doctrinal debate

John 4:19–20 (NASB95) — 19 The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. 20 “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.”

This probably have happened to every faithful worker of the gospel. You are looking to steer the conversation in the direction of the most important news, the good news, that is the power of Salvation, and the one in front of you or another in the vicinity will look to steer you away.

Remember the unseen realm is seeking to throw a wrench in your work.

Yours is not win a debate over a peripheral issues. yours is to be used by God to win a soul.

John 4:21–24 (NASB95) — 21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. 24 “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

The woman was not looking for salvation.

The woman was not looking for the God.

The woman was just living out her life the best or the worst she could as the days and as life passed.

How was it when you came to the Lord?

Was it that you were looking for the Lord?

Or

Was it that the Lord was looking for you?

And if you say that you were seeking the Lord, how was it that you knew to look for Him?

John 6:44 (NASB95) — 44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.

It is the spirit of God that does the searching does the calling does the illumination of the heart of those who he brings into the family.

Apart from the spirits work there is no salvation. We may be frustrated when we give all the best arguments for Christ and our message falls on deaf ears.

And then there are those we have said all the wrong things and even want to kick ourselves with a could of would have said this and that but they gladly respond despite of our fumbled speech.

Why

It’s not your message

When one rejects the very reason is that they spirit is not working in this one’s heart

This one is not being drawn.

Not at the moment

Maybe not at all.

But it is the spirits work to cause light to shine out of the dark heart. we are simply the workers who are sent out to gather the harvest.

I believe there the danger of false conversions where we are deceived into making a decision in a moment we are led to walk a isle, even get baptism say a prayer or walk a romans road. All of it is useless unless the spirit is doing the leading.

And it is the spirit that leads the person into the new life it is the spirit that is also operation within the life he is the power that governs the life of the believer.

It is also the work of the word of God the renewing our minds to a transformation of the new life.

It is a life of living water where there is the Holy spirit governing the active human spirit to produce a life a new life that which did not exist prior.

What Jesus offered the woman was more than a get out of Hell free card. He offered a new life in him which will transcends into eternity.

An offer of leaving one’s own vomit and pressing on to a life in the Lord a spiritual life which is connected to God. A life that many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ day could never understand or accept

And as far as the religious leaders. They had the truth. Jesus even verified that fact.

Matthew 23:1–3 (NASB95) — 1 Then Jesus spoke to the crowds and to His disciples, 2 saying: “The scribes and the Pharisees have seated themselves in the chair of Moses; 3 therefore all that they tell you, do and observe, but do not do according to their deeds; for they say things and do not do them.

They had the word. Expert in the Law. but no spirit. They thought that they were saved being children of Abraham and sat on the highest level of Pharisaical order, but they were whitewashed tombstones.

John 4:25 (NASB95) — 25 The woman said to Him, “I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.”

Before it was the Magi, the outsiders who was looking for the king. And now here are the half breed Samaritans they also were looking for the Messiah.

And while Jesus own people never seem to get it, it was those outside the commonwealth of Israel who did.

Oh Jesus had a following and they were believing the miracles but there was but one problem.

Jesus was not believing them

John 2:23–25 (NASB95) — 23 Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. 24 But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, 25 and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

It was Jesus who opened the woman’s eyes to who he was,

John 4:26 (NASB95) — 26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am He.”

John 8:24 (NASB95) — 24 “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.”

John 8:28–29 (NASB95) — 28 So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. 29 “And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”

John 8:58 (NASB95) — 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”

John 9:35–38 (NASB95) — 35 Jesus heard that they had put him out, and finding him, He said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” 36 He answered, “Who is He, Lord, that I may believe in Him?” 37 Jesus said to him, “You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.” 38 And he said, “Lord, I believe.” And he worshiped Him.

John 13:17–20 (NASB95) — 17 “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them. 18 “I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’ 19 “From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He. 20 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”

All the long it was the Lord who does the approaching. And today it is the same that it is the Spirit of the Lord that opens up the eyes of the heart that we might see and respond to the gospel message.

And though the work of opening the eyes is that of the Lord’s none the less we are His works that gathers the harvest. There is work for us to do. As it is that the woman immediately responded to.

John 4:27–30 (NASB95) — 27 At this point His disciples came, and they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do You seek?” or, “Why do You speak with her?” 28 So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” 30 They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.

The woman’s response was not one of uncertainty. Her own creditability would be in question but what she did was arouse curiosity on the part of her country man for them to check this one out.

Again, Jesus did not come to the religious

Jesus did not come to those who thought they had it all worked out with all of their doctrinal I’s dotted and their theological “t’s’ crossed.

He opened up the eyes of a woman who was not even looking for the Lord apart from the Messiah coming.

On her part she responded to the message of Christ.

And what was the response

One she told others

And she left her pot at the well. This message became more important to her than the details of this current life.

John 4:31–38 (NASB95) — 31 Meanwhile the disciples were urging Him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” 32 But He said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” 33 So the disciples were saying to one another, “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?” 34 Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. 35 “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. 36 “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. 37 “For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ 38 “I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.”

As imagers of Christ, the image is reflected in the Labor.

The woman left the details of life behind as she left the jar. The work of the Lord was to gather one up to enter that one into the family of God.

This is a lost and dying world. I often bring up Noah in the last days before the flood while people were eating drinking marrying and given to marriage. They were going about the details of life. Noah had work to do in building the ark. But he was also the preacher in righteousness.

There are details in life that we must attend to.

But how many of us are more concerned with the details of life, going to the well each day, and caring little or nothing at all about the living water which Jesus offers?

But is the life of the Christian all about the details. The work, the vacations, the leasure time, the get togethers the Tv the amuzements.

Ephesians 2:10–13 (NASB95) — 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. 11 Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called “Uncircumcision” by the so-called “Circumcision,” which is performed in the flesh by human hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

If Jesus’s bread was doing the work of the father should we as imagers of Christ eat the same bread?

John 7:37–39 (NASB95) — 37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. 38 “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’ ” 39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

If in deed we have the spirit and as Christians we do. Where is the living water? what is the living water?

Is it that we are suppressing and grieving the spirit?

Or

are we just content with the still waters brought up from the dark cold well?

We have been left with an idea that the Christian way of life is nothing more than waiting to be taken to heaven.

And in the meantime we have a liberty to do what we want with our lives. be what we want with our lives, without conviction with out drawing near to the savior and yet we left to brag to the world that we are in Christ while we are in and of the world.

Ours is not so much to get busy. But ours is to know the answers to the three questions

1. Who is this who says give me a drink?

It is Jesus who is the son of man who died for us on the cross at Calvary. He is our mediator our reconciler who bridges the gap between Righteous God and sinful man

2. What is the free gift

It is Salvation which is Christ which we cannot earn nor deserve. We cannot work for it nor can we pay for it. a gift is freely given from person to person, and it is freely accepted by the person

3. What is this living water

It is the outward expression of the life of the spirit that has been made alive empowered by the holy spirit with the result of the production of the works from the active spiritual life.

Drawing water from a dead well Satisfies only those for a short period time in life until they have to go back and labor for more

But the living water pours out of those in the spirit and refreshes at no cost to those who want to partake in it.

Our lives are not a life of laboring for the Lord it is communion with Him.

It was Enoch who walked with God not labored for God

Our lives and the living water comes from personal relationship with he Person of the Lord.

He is the bread of life. the bread which becomes paridoxial

We will never hunger again

And who is believing will never thirst again

35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.

And while we never go hungry and thirsty again we are becoming more hungry and thirsty for our Lord,

Christ is our sustenance. He is the bread of life that sustains our spiritual lives.

And it is his blood, his sacrificial life which is poured out for the forgiveness of sin.

1 Corinthians 11:26 (NASB95) — 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.