Sermon Tone Analysis

Hook

Who here likes to eat out?

Raise your hand, what are some of your favorite restaurants to eat out at?

I love:

Chick-fil-A

Five Guys, Burgers & Fries

Marty’s Grill, Riverbound Cafe

I love food.

But you see, I have this knack where I go to a restaurant once, I scan the menu until I find the one thing that sounds good and then every single time I go back, what do I do?

I order that same thing.

It’s gotten to the point where I go to a new restaurant and already have an idea of what I want based on the style of the restaurant.

Steakhouse?

Steak and fries

Seafood?

Fries shrimp or oysters

Burger joint?

Bacon cheeseburger

Sandwich shop?

Philly

So I was took Rebecca on a date once to a new restaurant.

I ordered my usual for that style of restaurant.

Barely even scanned the menu.

So we’re sitting and talking and waiting for our food.

We’re enjoying our date.

Then this waitress walks towards us with some plates in her hands and the food on those plates...

I mean time slowed down.

I started drooling.

Those dishes looked so good.

This waitress walks closer and closer to us bringing these plates and then she casually walks by to the table behind me.

I look at Rebecca and I say “What the heck??

Why didn’t I order that??”

She looks at me likes she’s done with me and says “You didn’t order that because you didn’t look at the menu.”

So because I knew what style of restaurant we were walking into, I knew what kind of food I wanted to order.

I had a preconceived idea of what I was expecting to get from this restaurant.

So many of us, because of bad teaching, or society, or bad tik tok theology, or media, or the culture around us have a preconceived idea of who Jesus is and what church is and who Christians are and who followers of Jesus should be.

So I grew up in the late 90’s and there was this trend in the church and really in culture.

It was on shirts and bracelets and everything.

Four initials; Can you guess what it was?

“What Would Jesus Do?”

Tonight, we’re going to look at a passage and discover what the answer should be for that question based on our circumstances.

Book

Turn with me to John 4.

So before we dive into discovering what this passage means, there’s a few things you need to understand.

First thing you need to understand, The Samaritans and the Jews were completely racist towards each other.

The reasoning behind this is basically that the Assyrians captured Samaria in 722 BC.

They deported some Israelites from this land and intermarried with the rest.

After their exile, Jews returned home and the Samaritans who remained were viewed as political rebels and were viewed as inferior to the other Jews.

Whenever they would go to worship, they were met with hostility.

In 400 BC the Samaritans said “Fine.

We’ll build our own temple on Mount Gerizim.”

Second thing you need to understand, men didn’t just casually stroll up to women and strike up a conversation back in that day.

Jewish men definitely didn’t stroll up to Samaritan women and strike up a conversation.

Back in that culture, men only really talked to women if they either knew them, were related to them, or were married to them.

Women had a role in life that caused them to be treated less than men.

Third thing you need to understand, Women were more likely to come in groups to fetch water.

They would either earlier or later in the day when the heat of the sun was not so fierce.

But look back with me starting at verse 6.

When you read the Bible, there are different things that have a symbolism for something else.

We’ll get more into that in our series “Glimpses”.

The current example is water.

Water is symbolism for life or being cleansed.

When you get saved, you are baptized in _______ (water).

Baptism is symbolism of dying to your former self, having new life, and being cleansed of your sin.

So Jesus speaks to this Samaritan woman and asks her for a drink.

She responds, “You don’t even have a bucket.”

Jesus replies to her, look at verse 13.

She asks for this water and what does Jesus say next?

Now why did He say this?

Raise your hand if this seems out of left field.

(Random name) this always threw me off.

“I have water that can cause you to never thirst again.”

“Give me some so I will never have to thirst again.”

“…Go get your husband.”

Doesn’t this seem out of the blue?

Why is Jesus saying this?

Because she’s thinking of her physical thirst;

Jesus is talking about her need to be satisfied.

She was finding her satisfaction through men, and we can infer she still felt empty.

Jesus wanted to offer her something more fulfilling.

So this woman realizes that Jesus is a prophet.

So she asks Him about this major difference between Jews and Samaritans.

This is the equivalent of someone saying “Since you’re so smart, what’s the answer to...”

But Jesus responds...

He doesn’t debate with her, and He doesn’t say that they entirely do not know God, but that they do not possess God’s revelation—that is, the Old Testament.

But instead, He explains the time is coming soon that is going to change everything.

You see, to worship in the Old Testament—under the Mosaic Covenant—you had to worship in specific locations, make correct sacrifices, and everything was very particular.

Why?

Because we’re down here, and God is up here.

Then Jesus changed everything.

We couldn’t go to God.

There was nothing we could do that was good enough for us to reach Him.

So God came down to us.

The second member of the Triune God, born in the flesh—Christ incarnate.

Jesus lived the sinless life that we couldn’t;

died the death that we deserve, taking on our sin;

so that we could look like His righteousness.

The OT Law was an arrow pointing to Christ.

When Christ arrived, we don’t follow the arrow anymore, we follow Jesus.

Look

Ok.