The Gospel of John: The Seeker

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hey bethany kids i'm miss ernestine and i miss jane and just wait till i show you kid-sized viewers what i have today what is that it's a crystal ball and if i look into it i can see things about people yeah go ahead and look into it and you should see that you are crazy if you believe that oh you of little faith okay let me see here it says that you are miss ernestine so far very impressive and it tells me that you have one husband and two daughters again brilliant it shows me also that you have yes grandchildren and that makes you a grandma which makes you very very old put that thing away this is ridiculous all those things you told me about myself you already knew that's no magic crystal ball whatever so what's our story today today's story starts with jesus and his disciples finding themselves in the city of samaria the disciples had left jesus to get some food and jesus sat down in the hot sun by a well couldn't jesus have just whipped them up some food out of thin air of course he could have but he had other things to do as we will see so as he is sitting out there in the burning heat a woman slips up to draw some water from the well why didn't you wait till it cooled down a little to do that well as we will see this woman was looked down on for the life she led by the other people in the town so she didn't want them to run into any of them aha and instead she surprise surprise runs into jesus she must have freaked out because in those days there was some shall we say racial tension and her people and the jews like jesus was did not get along and also men and women never just sat down and chatted exactly so when jesus asked this woman for a drink she was shocked then after getting his drink of water he told things about herself that no crystal ball could tell her he knew everything about her yet in spite of the fact she was living a sinful life he still spent time with her that just shows that jesus never avoided anyone regardless of their race or if they were a sinner or a man or a woman or if people like them or not and we should do the same and because of the time jesus spent with this woman all the amazing things he told her she realized that he was the true messiah that everyone had been waiting for and if anyone ever tries to tell you that jesus never claimed to be the messiah or god on earth have them check out the verse in john 4 26 where he clearly says i am he so as you can see jesus didn't need a fake crystal ball because he is god and knows everything so true well whatever let me try again oh yes it says that you should be nicer to miss jane you should perhaps even take her out to lunch because she is such a good employee whatever stay away from the crystal balls kids and put your trust in jesus amen see you next time kids [Music] amen good advice well welcome to bethany church hello how's everyone doing today great to see you all great to see those of us joining online i just encourage you as always to fill out our connect card let us know you're with us and how we can be praying for you we love to hear from you guys we love to connect with you and i just encourage you today to open your heart to the lord what does god want to speak to you today how is does he want to move in your life and just let him through his spirit speak to you and just direct you to the direction that he wants you to go because it's just part of life that we always listen to and follow him in his spirit so if you would if you're in here would you stand up and join us let's sing together to our great god we're going to open up with a hymn this morning let's just sing of god's faithfulness [Music] jesus what a friend for sinners jesus lover of my soul friends may fail me pose a sail me he might say your makes me whole hallelujah hallelujah [Music] helping keeping loving he is [Music] jesus [Music] feeling [Music] what a friend [Music] he is [Music] he has [Music] he is [Music] please [Music] amen he is with us [Music] there is a truth older than the ages there is a promise of things yet to come there is one born for our salvation [Music] jesus [Music] there is a light that overwhelms the darkness there is a kingdom that forever ends there is freedom from the chains that bind us jesus jesus [Music] like [Music] jesus [Music] there is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] jesus [Music] messiah my savior there is power in your name you're my rocket my redeemer there is [Music] [Music] besides [Music] by [Music] beside me [Music] jesus there is no one like you jesus [Music] there is no one like you [Applause] i searched the world but it couldn't fill me man's empty praise and treasures of fate are never enough [Music] then you came along [Music] and put me back together [Music] oh is nothing better than you there's nothing better [Music] friends [Music] and there's is a place [Music] than you there's nothing better than you there's nothing nothing is better than you oh [Music] you turn morning to dancing you give beauty for ashes you turn shame into glory you're the [Music] you only beauty [Music] into highway [Music] better than you [Music] is [Music] amen let's just sing that one more time just sing it out nothing better than you there's nothing better than you lord there's nothing nothing is [Music] is so great to sing to our great god together before you take a seat turn and say hello to someone next to you and then go ahead and grab a seat all right well welcome bethany church so glad that we are all together today summer is winding down school is going to be starting up soon although i may i may have heard some people have already started school but we got some students in the house welcome to the students here yeah just want to say for the parents of the students there's actually going to be a parent youth group night coming up this week on wednesday all right so this is for the parents they get to experience youth group like the students always get to experience it or they will be getting to experience it throughout the year so i highly encourage you all to come on wednesday night seven o'clock up in the great room um the the youth team is excited to be there and to kind of just share the vision and let you guys know what this year is all going to be about and how they're just excited to minister to your to our children i have a student entering sixth grade myself this year for the first time so go student ministries um as i said in the very beginning i just want to encourage you guys to connect with us fill out our connect card or text us we love hearing from you guys and knowing what's going on in your lives how we can be praying for you um what god is doing any praise reports just just fill those out week to week let us know you're here because we just love as a staff as the elders to to hear from you guys and to know that you're with us and to know how we can be praying for you so just do that fill that out you can do it online you can do it with a card in the seat pocket you can text us just make sure you always do that all right and now i want to let you guys know of a couple things that are coming up um we heard last month that there was just some awesome fun at the women's night in the men's nights did you guys enjoy those all right okay so in case you missed it there's one more for each coming up we have a men's night august 17th all right all right men that's this week all right be there come uh you gotta rsvp so we know how much food to get but rsvp and be here and just celebrate fellowship hanging out and maybe a little bit of competition with some fellow bethany men all right that's this week and then the ladies night is august 24th coming up soon as well all right ladies so um there's gonna be dinner for the ladies this time and games so all right ladies don't miss that one there's also an rsvp both of those and more info on our church website and the last thing i want to let you know about is our time of prayer we have a monthly time of prayer and it's coming up next sunday and i encourage you to come and join us we gather every month just to have a focused time of prayer as a church to spend some extra time in worship on sunday nights so be there and just make that a priority next week put it on your calendar remind yourself to be there because we just really value and prioritize and believe that that is how god is going to do a great work among us and in us as we seek him diligently in prayer so the last thing before i invite pastor jeff up is i just want to take a minute to acknowledge some people in this room we've been doing this throughout the summer just acknowledging the different teams that serve to help make church our gatherings our worship services a reality and all the ministries we do a reality and this week we're going to be celebrating the worship team all right so i have a couple pictures up here and you know our worship team has always consisted of our band our choir and our orchestra kind of three parts and we worked together with the tech team who we celebrated a couple weeks ago but our worship team you know obviously through these last two years has been going through a lot of change and doing different things you can see some of the virtual videos we did with our acquiring orchestra um the band has been leading you know at times it was just me on my guitar in the lobby with jeff back last year but the the team has just been so faithful to serve and and just adapt in any way needed just always be ready so i just want to ask anyone who is or has been on the worship team whether band choir or orchestra would you please stand and just let everyone in here say thank you for what you guys have been doing and how you have served our church and are serving our church so thank you guys so much i just appreciate you all it's a joy to work with you it's a just an honor to lead that team and to be a part of that um so i do want to say if you are a musician and you're interested in joining our worship team in any way just feel free to reach out to me at any time i would love to talk to you more about that but i'm going to pray a blessing of thanks on them and also for pastor jeff and for us as we open up god's word together god thank you so much for the joy of serving you and the joy of worshiping you god and just even coming together as a church this morning and singing that there is no one better than you god there's there's no one like you um and how you change our lives for the better god we have all experienced that and we all praise you for that um but it's just such a joy to be able to sing and to use our voice and our our instruments and our bodies to praise you god to just give you the glory that you deserve to let out the praise that is within us in our hearts so i thank you for the worship team and for those who have served some of them for many many many years um lord we just are so grateful for the team of people who share their gifts with our church to bless us to help lead us in worship and i thank you for this team and lord i pray now that you would open all of our hearts to your word god and as we study from the book of john from your your gospel truth god help our lives to be transformed by your holy spirit's power help us to listen with with open hearts and ears to your word god and as our pastor speaks just speak through him through your holy spirit let it be your words god and and thank you for his leadership to prepare the sermon for us god we give you this time now and praise you in jesus name amen [Music] [Music] well good morning everyone it's good to see you guys great to be here with you those of you who are online thanks for joining us we're glad that you're with us as well as we continue our series in the gospel of john this morning we're going to be looking at one of my favorite stories in scripture if you guys have heard any of my teaching over an extended period of time you know that i come back to this story because in it i think it captures beautifully jesus's heart towards us as those who walk in darkness as those who wrestle with sin that we just see this beautiful picture of grace and truth as jesus interacts with this woman at the well but last week pastor jacob took us through a passage that taught us the importance of humility in our relationship with god this sense of just abiding contentment with him that he would be sufficient for us that his provision for us would fill our hearts and we were provided a model in john the baptist of a life that was lived completely for the glory of god i was having a conversation with uh mark cable about just the the life of john the baptist and that from his birth he was born to point to someone else that his very existence was ordained by god in his foreknowledge to fully point to jesus as messiah but it wasn't about him he must increase but i must decrease then we wrestled a little bit about what makes humility so difficult for us we talked a little bit about american culture kind of that idea of independence and that in humility i'm acknowledging my need for help outside of myself ultimately recognizing my need for god we talked about just our own creaturelyness and the brokenness of our self-evaluation and our pride and that we see ourselves as greater than we ought to we see ourselves disconnected from our creator we think we've made ourselves rather than being dependent on one who gives us the very breath that we breathe we looked at competition right just our tendency to compare ourselves with other people and just that effort to elevate ourselves and if i'm not as bad as that guy then maybe i can put my head down on my pillow and sleep a little bit better tonight tough lessons it's a hard lesson the lesson of humility is one that personally i'm committed to learning right after our labor day barbecue here on september 5th where our men will compete against our ladies in an epic cornhole competition and our men will prove victorious and tossing a bag of corn more accurately more consistently more gloriously now i'll say this it's supposed to be sunny that day hot a little bit humid with some wind and a slight chance of snow all of that stuff affects the atmospheric pressure and could change the velocity and direction of the cornhole bag so ladies i'll give you an excuse in case it doesn't work out for you i think they say pride comes before a fall we're looking forward to that if you guys don't have plans on labor day weekend we'd love for you to join us barbecue after church and just time to fellowship have some fun i hope you guys will be there for that so as we transition into our passage today we're going to have to reach back and we're going to have to hold a couple concepts and themes from last week and from the week before that to really understand what's happening in this story of jesus's interaction with a woman at the well of sakaar now last week's passage we see even threads that are tying it to nicodemus and and there are three themes that you're going to see story in nicodemus john the baptist witness and then this woman at the well and the first is water right water becomes this very important theme you remember last week there was much water there now there was probably a lot of water there but in light of the fact that we've already been told that water and the movement of the spirit is significant the way that we think about how the spirit moves that way that there were many people being baptized you can say there was a movement of the spirit that was taking place in the much water that existed there you remember there's levels and layers to what john's writing but then going back to nicodemus and jesus saying to him unless one is born of water and of spirit just that the spirit like wind moves wherever god desires for him to go and we can't tell from where he's coming where he's going but he is at work so water becomes an important theme the spirit himself last week john the baptist sorry john the evangelist describing john's ministry and what to expect in relationship with god and says of him he gives the spirit without measure this generous god that wants to to draw people to himself but wants to empower them and birth in them a new life and jesus even saying to nicodemus so is everyone who's born of the spirit and then the last is eternal life and this has just been an important theme throughout john's gospel john again the evangelist saying he who believes in the son has eternal life and again jesus speaking the son of man must be lifted up so that whoever believes will in him have eternal life so the expectation is that as you're reading this narrative those are going to be you know reverberations right you're going to recognize these themes as we read them through jesus's interaction with the woman at the well but they also provide for us a response they teach us what the right response is you remember john said the whole purpose of this gospel is so that you would believe that jesus is the son of god the christ and that by believing in him you would have life in his name so all of these themes are set up to go hey if you're interested in having a right relationship with god if you desire to have eternal life here's what you must do here's an example so that you can model your life after it now john chapter 1 versus sorry john chapter 4 verses 1 through 26 it says this there came a woman of samaria to draw water jesus said to her give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food 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 the jews have no dealings with the samaritans 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 of him and he would have given you living water she said to him sir you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep where then do you get the living water you're not greater than our father jacob are you who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle jesus answered and said to her everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again 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 said to him sir give me some of this water so i will not be thirsty nor come all the way down here he said to her go call your husband and come here the woman said to him i have no husband. jesus said to her you've correctly said i have no husband for you have had five five husbands and the one whom you now have is not your husband this you have said truly the woman said to him sir i perceive that you're a prophet our father is worshiped in this mountain and you people say that in jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship jesus said to her woman believe me an hour is coming when neither in 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 an hour is coming and now is when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and in truth for such people the father seeks to be his worshipers god is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth 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 jesus said to her i who speak to you am he this is the word of god now before we get into the text notice the contrast between nicodemus and the samaritan woman you have these stories posited next to each other because the author wants you to read them seeing the contrast between the two and their responses to jesus so notice nicodemus is a male this unnamed samaritan woman is a female nicodemus has a name this woman doesn't have a name nicodemus is a teacher she's a learner nicodemus is known she's got this place of privilege she's unknown nicodemus comes to him at night she's met during the day nicodemus seeks jesus out jesus seeks the woman out so i mean just this interesting comparison between the two both are going to encounter the living god but they're going to have different responses to him so the attentive reader is being encouraged to model their response to jesus after this unnamed woman who wrestles with what jesus has to say but embraces him as he seeks to embrace her so now i want to point out six things this passage teaches us about how god is at work in the world six things that help us understand why this interaction took place and how it is that we should respond to it and so the first is the mission of god the mission of god john 4 1-6 therefore when the lord knew that the pharisees had heard that jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than john although jesus himself was not baptizing but his disciples were he left judea and went away again into galilee and he had to pass through samaria so he came to a city of samaria called sikar near the parcel of ground that jacob gave to his son joseph and jacob's well was there so jesus being wearied from his journey was sitting thus by the well it was about the sixth hour these six verses are so important in understanding the backdrop of this entire interaction with a woman we're gonna see different contexts different layers right so you remember going back to the wedding at cana there was like the immediate context in the old testament context the cosmological perspective all of that is here in this text so the immediate context some of the pharisees hear of jesus's ministry and to jesus when he finds that out that's a signal it's time for me to move it's time for me to go and we've already seen opposition to jesus by the religious leaders you remember he goes in and he clears out the temple and they come to him and they say by what authority are you doing the things that you're doing you have the honor shame challenge of nicodemus right nicodemus wasn't this you know seeker as uh as innocent or as interested as we sometimes conceive him to be there was a challenge to jesus's teaching a challenge to his authority there was a growing curiosity among the religious leaders concerning who jesus was but not from a posture of interest but one of perceived threat as jesus was doing ministry as people people were following him as his name was becoming known there was a risk to their power structure to their influence to their resources listen to john 11 47-48 do you see this conflict motif carry out throughout john's gospel it says therefore the chief priests and the pharisees convened to counsel and we're saying what are we doing for this man is performing many signs if we let him go on like this all men will believe in him and the romans will come and take away both our place and our nation it was fear of losing control of losing influence of losing power now notice what the scripture reads that he leaves judea and heads to galilee by way of samaria i'm sorry let me back up here okay so his knowledge of their knowledge becomes to him a signal and that the mission of god now required his movement so we'll come back to the little aside of jesus's disciples baptizing and not him but he leaves judea he heads to galilee by way of samaria from jerusalem to galilee about a 75 mile journey so at that time they would walk right around 25 miles a day so about a three days journey and samaria was the fastest route in between jerusalem and galilee so there's a path that they could take but devout jews had such negative had such a negative disposition towards the samaritans that there were alternative routes that would take them you know much further in order to get around but they would choose that but notice what the scripture reads he had to pass through samaria he had to pass through samaria throughout john's gospel jesus is presented as fully obedient to the father he says what the father tells him to say he does what the father tells him to do john 8 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 and that's where we see in this story the providential context that god's mission included the redemption of this woman and those who would believe through her so he had to go the way of samaria because he had to redeem those along the way there's also a geographical context you remember jesus before he ascends to be with the father he commissions his disciples he says behold you're going to be my witnesses from judea to samaria to the ends of the earth well jesus models that in the gospel of john he's already been in judea and he's being rejected by the religious leaders now he's hitting samaria on his way to galilee and what is going to become the signal for him that his hour had come the very purpose for his existence the cross that would bring about atonement is when he's at a feast and the greeks start seeking him and want to know more about who he is and you've got the ends of the world being drawn to him if the son of man is lifted up he will draw all men to himself the mission of god as one commentator said has always been international in scope and cross-cultural in character abrahamic blessing the abrahamic covenant right all the nations of the earth will be blessed through your seed abraham so there's a geographical context there's also a historical context and this could be missed on us so the setting for this encounter as one commentator said is not merely first century samaritan soil but the ground upon which god has been twailing for centuries says that this well was near the parcel of ground that jacob gave to his son joseph and jacob's well was there as well so this locates the story within the larger biblical narrative of covenant and promise and it's inviting us to see this interaction through the great drama of redemption that begins in genesis that the story of jacob and joseph is incomplete without jesus that the promise of blessing through abraham's seed finds its fulfillment in him so jacob buys land and what would eventually become samaria and he would give a portion to his son joseph and we go back to the genesis series and you remember we said that we were going to take a certain approach to reading through genesis we said instead of just reading it historically that we're going to grab our jesus classes and we're going to put them on and we're going to bring jesus with us into the book of genesis and we saw every page from the first verses he's there that to understand the new covenant and the coming of messiah is to understand the book of genesis it's like every character in some way points to him and none more so than joseph now we don't have time to unpack this this morning if you want to do a fun google search you can do compare and contrast joseph and jesus and it will blow your mind how coherent and overlapped their stories are but for this morning's purposes i wanted to read you the blessing that that jacob gives to his sons you remember jacob's getting ready to die and before he dies he calls all his boys in he says i'm going to tell you what's going to happen in the days ahead of you genesis 49 1. jacob summoned his sons and said assemble yourselves that i may tell you what will befall you in the days to come and when he gets to joseph in verse 22 of chapter 49 he says joseph is a fruitful bow a fruitful bow by a spring now the word bow in hebrew is literally translated son joseph is a fruitful son a fruitful son by spring now they would call moving water living water and what fed the well at sicar where this woman was was a spring of living water and so the days to come have arrived and fulfilled as jesus sits by this well fed by a spring of living water this beautiful historical context is the tapestry of scripture just kind of interweaves and you just see god's foreknowledge just the wonder of his word and then lastly there's a personal context it says that jesus was wearied from his journey and here we see his humanity you go back to the prologue the word became flesh and he dwelt among us he pitched his tent with us he felt the same hot sun in the desert he hungered he thirsted he was wearied by this traveling and that his mission wasn't just what he would say right or what he did in terms of performing signs and miracles but his mission would be about what he did endure now you get this taste of what awaited jesus as he experiences this suffering and desires for his thirst to be quenched and you remember that it's in john's gospel that you get to the sayings of jesus on the cross you remember what he said i'm thirsty i'm thirsty get me something to drink give me a drink well the next thing we see is the transcendence of god john 4 7-9 there came a woman of samaria to draw water jesus said to her give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food 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 jesus have no dealings with samaritans so in these three verses we are reminded that god's redemptive work in the world transcends every human distinction that we make every human distinction that we make he breaks through cultural barriers through ethnic division through religious variations because ultimately her theology was off through male female power structures he totally sets aside the culture of his day and sits down with his creation and engages her not swayed by what the culture would say these verses are provocative and and to john's jewish audience they would have gotten to this section and it would have sounded completely absurd to them like just trying to make sense of what they're seeing this rabbi do i mean it would have blown their mind why on earth would a jewish rabbi engage in a conversation with a samaritan woman why would he request anything from her and and even as we read through the text she understood the dynamics at play like nick demas she couldn't understand what was happening you remember the first thing that nicodemus says in response to jesus's teaching how how is that even possible how can a man be born again and here's this woman how how is this even how can you a jew ask me for anything john even offers an aside explaining why this interaction would be so controversial for the jews have no dealings with the samaritans well why why don't they have dealings with them well it's a long history of conflict and i'm going to give you a few highlights right so you remember the nation of israel they come into the land and eventually they ask for a king and so god gives them saul saul is removed raises up david david raises the resources to build god a house temple god says to him you can't do that you're a man of bloodshed but here's what i'm going to do i'm going to use your son he's going to build me a house and so solomon is born gives you know solomon just incredible wisdom knowledge people are coming to him it's like the kingdom at its pinnacle and then solomon dies and his son takes power and all of a sudden the kingdom splits and you've got jeroboam in the north and rehoboam in the south well jeroboam establishes the city of samaria and after the in a syrian invasion so so again disobedient to god god says hey if you guys don't repent and turn to me if you don't start walking in the covenant i am going to raise up assyria and they are going to be a rod of my discipline they're going to come in they're going to take you out of the land right so 722 bc they didn't respond to god assyria sweeps through takes over the northern kingdom they call him the lost tribes of israel lost 10 tribes because they were assimilated into assyrian culture and and then what the assyrians would do is they take all the influential people all the educated people and they didn't assimilate them into their culture and learn from them and then they would repopulate these areas and so samaria was one of those places where they took all the influential all the educated left the poor behind to care for the crops to care for the land and eventually repopulated it and so the samaritans became this mixed race they became religiously pluralistic right there's there's this interesting passage in second kings as this is taking place it says that the nations got there and they started worshiping their gods but they didn't fear the lord so god sends lions into the land and they start attacking the people and all of a sudden they find a priest of the lord and they're like what are we supposed to do and they teach them how to worship the lord but then there's this like mixed confused like they're worshiping their idols but they are showing reverence to the lord and this is what it says in second kings 17 33 they feared the lord and served their own gods according to the custom of the nations from among whom they had been carried away into exile it's a really confusing time for them and as the samaritan's theology evolved they only accepted the first five books of the bible so torah right they did not regard anything after that as authoritative or as binding which is why you've got this um you know view of samaria being the right place to worship god so leaning into the first five books of the bible they landed on mount gerizim being the place where the you know lord had chosen to set his name where with the rest of scripture as it was revealed we see jerusalem being established as the place where his name was to be named they built their own temple on mount gerizim in 400 bc and because they assisted the syrians in their war with jerusalem the jews destroyed it in the second century so a history of conflict of bad blood of theological differences and yet jesus wasn't caught up in their conflict more important than picking sides was saving souls that this woman mattered more to him than any conflict or disruption that existed between the jews and any other nation which is why the absence of the disciples is so significant right they've gone into the city to buy food right before jesus has this interaction with a woman well why it's fascinating you see these baptized these these disciples baptizing people they're following their rabbi their bearing spiritual fruit and in the next scene they're gone and i think this is a really strategic move by a missional god look at john 4 27 just their reaction when they come back and they find jesus talking to the woman 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 because we can have effective ministries that bear fruit but we can also get in the way of what god wants to do and had these disciples been present that interaction wouldn't have gone the way that it did that jesus sends them off to go get food so that he can have this one-on-one conversation because he didn't want anything to get in the way of her encountering the living god but we do the same thing right we we can have effective ministries and we can also get in the way of what god is wanting to do we bring our prejudices right and it might not be as overt as you know jews and samaritans but it's there i think in this last season if i were to be completely honest one of the things that has left in me a sense of disenchantment i know this is going to sound harsh and bad disenchantment with the church big c church is how followers of jesus have been so judgmental have been so critical i mean critical of those outside of the church we have been critical within the church people that should be characterized by grace and defined by their love have said some of the most harsh things in person like not even through the the hiding through social media although i have some examples from social media i want you guys to turn the screen you imagine if i like blasted people i'd be terrible i would have nobody at this church jesus said this is how they'll know that you're my disciples by your love for one another and i think if there's confusion in our country about what a follower of jesus is supposed to be we've got to take some ownership and say we've created some of that confusion our prejudices get in the way of god's mission our preconceived ideas of what's supposed to be and what's not supposed to be right and and i've heard this in this season here's how ministry should look or here's who ministry should reach or here's why that's not ministry and so we come to you know the the outworking of god's mission with our own idea this is what it's supposed to look like and we create this box and we say okay god unless you're operating in this box you're not actually working when god is saying i took the box of the jews their relationship with the samaritans and i kicked it over because it has nothing to do with the mission that i've been sent for that we would have an openness to god moving in ways that are so extravagant in their grace that they seem absurd to us that he would reach a people that we would have written off that he would desire to reach a people that we have written off and we bring our priorities our prejudices our preconceived ideas our priorities and i've heard this in this season here's how ministry should work for me i had a conversation and and as they were describing their frustration with the way that we have navigated this and obeying the government's orders and the comment was i don't care about those people out there i want this to be meaningful to me now i know in their heart of hearts they did not mean what that that came across as but we allow our priorities our comfort what we want church to mean for us to become something that is a greater target than reaching the lost in our city and seeing them come to jesus and it ought not be that way here's how ministry should work for me and if it's not scratching that itch if it doesn't look the way that i want it to look if they don't do the things that i want them to do then maybe it's time for me to find another church just being honest right you guys heard the story about a guy that was stranded on a desert island a desert island right and he'd been there for years and boat comes up to save him and he gets up the guy gets up to the shore and he sees three bamboo leaf structures and the guy's like what are those and he said well that one's my house and he's kind of kind of proud about his house and he said uh what's that one and he said that's my church it's like oh that's cool what's what's the third one he gets this scowl on his face he says it's where i used to go to church um over and against our prejudice over and against our preconceptions over and against our priorities the mission of god transcends the barriers that we create and operate within how wondrous the incredible grace of god that in his perfect will he has chosen to use an imperfect people to accomplish and to carry out his vision how wonderful a thought that is that he would want you and me and all of our brokenness to be a part of an eternal work that he's accomplishing the mission of god the second thing we see is the gift of god sorry the third thing we see the gift of god john 4 10-14 jesus answered and said to her if you knew the gift of god and who it was who says to you give me a drink you would have asked of him and he would have given you living water she said to him sir you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep where then do you get that living water you're not greater than our father jacob are you who gave us the well and drank of it himself and his sons and his cattle jesus answered and said to her everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again but whoever drinks 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 so notice jesus doesn't answer question directly he offers this explanation but not in the way that she was expecting the reason is he's engaging her because he wants her to know who he is he wants her to believe in him and to receive the gift of the spirit now it's evident she has no idea who she's talking to and there is a bit of irony in that she's asking jesus you are not greater than jacob are you not realizing that he is the one who created jacob and she's going to interpret what he says from a purely physical level and he's going to secure her curiosity and just make his way to her heart so what does he mean when he offers her living water we've already seen the close connection between water and the holy spirit but god and water are a consistent theme throughout the old testament although for the samaritans they wouldn't have recognized it because they didn't read anything beyond the first five books of the bible now this idea of water and god while there in torah finds a greater more complete revelation in the remaining books of the scriptures so listen to these passages jeremiah 2 13 for my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters to hew for themselves cisterns broken cisterns that can hold no water zechariah 14 7-9 for it will be a unique day which is known to the lord neither day or night but it will come about that at evening time there will be light and in that day living waters will flow out of jerusalem half of them towards the eastern sea the other half towards the western sea it will be in summer as well as in winter and the lord will be king over all the earth in that day the lord will become the only one in his name the holy one so the gift of god is the outpouring of his spirit on those who believe resulting in salvation it's been proven throughout history if you guys don't believe me you can try it we'll set up your memorial service that man cannot live women cannot live without water i think three days is what they kind of put out there is like how long you can live without water maybe there's some examples of like five days or eight days but if you don't drink water you're going to die it's a continual need the water drawn from that well would need to be drawn again and again those of you guys who are saving the planet one expensive reusable bottle at a time how often do you fill it up every day right every day we fill it up we've got water fountains inside of our office spaces we take them home we start out our day we fill them up because we need water and every day we are reminded of this physical need but without the spirit we cannot live eternally without the spirit causing in us a rebirth a regeneration a washing we will perish so jesus is going to take something you know mundane and every day and he is going to import eternal meaning into it it's like he's saying to her you come here to meet a need and you're reminded every day you labor over this you work for it but i've come here to meet a different need a more pressing need that you're also reminded of daily our sin listen we can we can um we can dress it up we can put cologne on it we can put a nice button-up shirt over it beautiful dress that you lay your head down on your pillow at the end of the night and you know the racing thoughts and the things that you've done that you bring with you and so does he and his desire is to quench the greater thirst your need for forgiveness your need for salvation and instead of having to work for it every day drawing the water he's offering it to us as a gift if you knew the gift of god and who it is that says to you give me a drink you would ask of him and he would give it to you jesus is gently redirecting her thoughts from the physical to the spiritual is helping her identify her ultimate thirst that needs quenching which brings us to the next point the grace of god the grace of god the woman said to him sir give me this water so i will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw he said to her go call your husband and come here the woman answered and said i have no husband. jesus said to her you have correctly said i have no husband for you've had five husbands and the one whom you have now is not your husband this you have said truly the woman said to him sir i perceive that you are a prophet we should detect a little bit of playful sarcasm in this woman's response to him sir if you've got water that's going to cause me to not have to come to this well anymore let me get some of that kind of tongue in cheek right and once again she thinks jesus is talking about physical water and she misses the point that he's making and and notice that jesus doesn't chide her he doesn't rebuke her for her response it's like he presses in further he puts his thumb on her heart and he says go call your husband this is one of the most wonderfully gracious exchanges that you see in scripture she has no idea who he is and he knows everything about her he knows everything about her and he is still pursuing her now this woman often gets painted as this egregious sinner right and i i just don't think that that's how jesus understands her says that she's had five husbands culturally speaking and you look at kind of literature from that time highly unlikely that she was divorced five times right she certainly wasn't at the top of the power structure so she wasn't going to be initiating these divorces on her own but it's probable that divorce accounts for one or two maybe even three of them but it's likely that she had been widowed multiple times as life expectancy isn't what it is today older men would take younger wives we see this in kenya all the time village in nuysusu those widows that we support oftentimes old guy takes young wife dies now she's all on her own and and so it's it's likely that she was widowed multiple times now certainly the story doesn't make sense without some sin component in it and that's where we see her prison present situation of living with a man who's not her husband but her story is so much more complex than just her sin right we look at that story and it's almost as if we want her to be as bad as possible and and distance ours like it's almost like we can feel better about ourselves if she's as bad as she could possibly be but this story is way more complex than her personal sin it's a story of grief any of you who have lost a spouse the searing pain of that kind of loss to become one flesh and then one gets ripped away this woman was acquainted with pain anybody who's experienced divorce right for this woman to experience rejection back in that time and this came up in the religious leaders and disciples interactions with jesus as they were asking him about divorce because it was so easy if the the man found any indecency in his wife he'd write her a certificate of divorce her whole life disrupted the public shame that was associated with that and then even you know just anybody who's honest enough to acknowledge their own sin it's it's it's wonderful in that in this woman you have captured the whole of the human experience in the darkness of her world in one sense she typifies all people we all experience loss we all experience rejection we all experience shame and and what can happen is we can so closely identify ourselves with one or all of those things that we can begin to think that we're too unlovely for god to want to have anything to do with us yet what jesus shows us in this interaction with this woman is that that's the type of person that god is seeking to be someone who worships him in spirit and in truth you see this interaction jesus doesn't shame her right i think of his interaction with a woman that was caught in adultery and uh you guys remember that all the religious leaders bring this woman to jesus and the law says that she should be stoned to death and jesus kneels down and he starts writing on the ground and he says he who is without sin cast the first stone is there nobody left to condemn you then neither do i go and sin no more so so you know he doesn't shame her he doesn't call her an abomination right some of our evangelistic techniques are a little off right he does not condemn her for the son was not sent into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him certainly he exposes her life certainly he exposes her sin but that's exactly where the living water gets applied the place of greatest need where the ground's the driest zechariah 13 1 in that day a fountain will be opened for the house of david and for the inhabitants of jerusalem for sin and for impurity a fountain will be opened for sin and for impurity washing and regeneration that takes place so using john's prologue jesus's light is now shining in the darkness and john 3 sets up the question will she love the darkness more than the light or will she come to the light so that her deeds may be exposed as having been manifested as wrought in god i love your response sir i perceive that you're a prophet right and and it's like she's getting incrementally closer john 4 20 our our fathers worshiped in this place and you people say that in jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship notice her shift it's easier to talk about spiritual things than it is to talk about spiritual realities whereas one commentator said it's easier to talk theology than to deal with the truth that is personally distressing being in the light is uncomfortable we were in our connect class earlier just talking about the role of confession and why it's so hard to come and to be in the light that there's that fear that if people knew me as i really am if god knew me as i really am would i be rejected would there still be a place for me and so being in the light as uncomfortable it is as it is our natural tendency is to deflect we're really good at rationalizing things we're really good at making our sin not as bad as it really is and yet jesus is going to share with her that god desires intimacy and for her to have access to him in a way that is beyond what she could even comprehend so she you know makes this statement um you know about where worship takes place and jesus is going to say there is now an end to localized worship and a new temple is being built a temple of spirit-filled people that have unhindered access to god the church church is being birthed and his concern is not where worship took place in the past but how worship would take place in the future so the next thing we see is the worship of god jesus said to her woman believe me an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in jerusalem we worship the father you worship what you do not know we worship what we know for salvation is from the jews 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 god is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth this whole description of worship and the nature of god is intended to be seen through the lens of the cross now we've already seen the hour is a technical term in john's gospel for jesus death on the cross woman believe me an hour is coming and neither in this mountain nor in jerusalem where you worship the father the hour of jesus's crucifixion the hour of his exaltation would change everything that the effect of his redemptive work is to locate worship within our hearts it's no longer confined to a physical temple it's not in mount gerizim it's not in jerusalem it's not in 2250 clark avenue that's been tested in this season too we've talked a little bit about that right that somehow unless it's in this building with these lights and this sound system and these songs songs it's not worship wherever you are that's worship and that doesn't mean to diminish the significance of our experience here and the gift that this property is and the use of these buildings but it is way bigger than this and it has always been bigger than this samaritan worship this i'm gonna stop and pray real fast i feel like i've been stepping on my words and just if there is um something that our adversary would love to do is to just distract our hearts because the last thing that he wants is for us to worship god in spirit and in truth so let me pray a quick break we'll come back to this god i pray against our adversary you tell us that he's a thief that he's a liar that he has come to steal and to kill and to destroy and so i pray father that you would bind him i pray that you would protect our time here god if there are people's hearts that i know you're ministering to people's hearts right now god i pray that you would not allow the seed of your word to be snatched up let our hearts be good soil it would bear much fruit for your glory in jesus name amen amen so it says that the samaritans worshipped what they did not know well that makes sense because they didn't accept god's fuller revelation through the prophets so they had part of good theology part of right theology but they didn't have the rest they didn't have the fuller knowledge that god gives to us through the remainder of the old testament the jews worshiped what they did know because they acknowledged the progressive revelation concerning messiah so even though their conception of what messiah was supposed to do is misguided they did have full revelation and they were responding to god in the right posture of worship so jesus says salvation is from the jews notice he doesn't say salvation is in the jews salvation is by the jews salvation is from the jews that in the story of the jewish nation is a story of a god who covenants with his people who makes promises that he keeps and that as he promised to abraham through your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed jesus is the fulfillment of that covenant and it is a promise that's consummated at the cross an hour is coming and now is true worship is cross-based worship true worship holds the love of god demonstrated in the sacrifice of his son at the center it is it is the motivation for our worship it is the ultimate basis and the cross every aspect of the nature of god has been displayed we like to emphasize the love of god right and that absolutely is present god demonstrated his love for us and that while we were yet sinners christ died for us but christ had to die for us and so we also see the justice of god and the holiness of god and his wrathfulness toward sin his son was ravaged scourged mocked spit on crown of thorns nails through his hands nails through his feet six hours that was the penalty of our sin that was the death that we should have died and so when we look to the cross that should inform it should fill our hearts with adoration and awe that he would love me that much that he would love you that much in and through the cross the lifted up one saves the world and apart from the cross we cannot worship in truth and apart from the spirit we cannot access the father god's essential nature is spirit he is free from the limitations of time and of space and our worship must be spiritual not ritual but trinitarian i'm going to explain that in a second we can think that our processes our procedures are what makes worship worship and so we'll do all of the things that we think that we're supposed to be doing to create this worship experience and ultimately it's just a reflection of our tendency to try and make and to try and earn where god is inviting us into a worship of him that is spirit empowered that allows access to the father through the son and that's where you see the trinity right present in this passage we worship the father that worship is mediated through the sun and it is characterized and empowered by the spirit i know we we we use worms uh worms don't use worms for this uh we use words like theological and it can feel like academic and other right but but worship is theology the way that we worship reveals what we believe about god and and and this is again i'm not throwing shade but i wonder if we were to do a self-evaluation and that doesn't mean that we're going to come in here and we're always going to be rah-rah-rah but if we're unmoved by the message of the gospel if that doesn't stir in us something a spark some level of passion zeal goodness i mean just this sense of like i'm in the presence of god i'm with his people that there should be some sense of like if if everything that i believe about who jesus is is true i should be moved i should be moved to know the father through the son by the spirit is to worship him it said orthodoxy breeds doxology right beliefs about who god is should lead to right worship so so in one sense worship is theology and theology is worship right the more that i learn about who god is the more i'm drawn to worship him and the more i worship him the more i reflect my you know understanding of who he is and who he's revealed himself to be it's not just singing familiar songs and this is where and i again i'm i'm not i don't want my intention is not to hurt us but to evaluate our traditions and our tendency to do things that i think can pull us away from him is that when it becomes more about me having what i want and what reminds me of my then worship has become about me and and now the focus is distorted right because the the worship should always be him jesus says to her you worship what you do not know i love how one commentator you know kind of twisted this he said you know what you do not worship and how many of us come in here and we've got years of sunday school i know we're not supposed to call it that connect classes years right years of information that should produce an increasing devotion and yieldedness to him but for many of us i'm guilty of this too you know what you do not worship see people who recognize this who recognize that worship is a response to the love of god that has been demonstrated in his sending his son to die for you people who recognize this worship in spirit and truth and that's that's so what's so wonderful about what jesus is doing is he's saying this woman this unnamed woman who's a samaritan who's been married five times and is living with a guy who's not her husband that's exactly the type of person that god seeks to be a true worshiper just the the wonder that in all her pain and all her sorrow and all her shame this is exactly the kind of person that god seeks after john 4 and 25-26 the woman said to him i know that messiah is coming he was called christ when that one comes he will declare all things to me to us jesus said to her i who speak to you and he last point is we see the revelation of god again this is this is just incredible the first person that jesus explicitly identifies himself as messiah to is not the disciples is not the jewish religious leaders it's not the crowds that are being baptized it's this woman at the well as he's revealing himself as messiah to her what does that reveal to us about the way that god works in this world my ways are not your ways your thoughts are not my thoughts you see this even in jesus's teaching it's an upside down kingdom you want to be great you better become a servant you want to be first you're going to be last it's it's and in one sense god is i hate to use the word predictable but i guess he shouldn't be surprising to us that he chooses ways that wouldn't come naturally in our mind to do things that way he takes this woman and he holds her up and he gives her honor and blesses her with a gift that she desperately needed i think of paul writing in romans oh the depth of the riches both the wisdom and the knowledge of god how unsearchable are his judgments and unfathomable his ways ways and i know that this is long i almost told you ahead of time to just get comfortable and then i realized there's not many people sitting that don't look comfortable so i figured i'd just go for it got new chairs right if we had the old wooden ones maybe i'd have given you like you might want to find one that doesn't have springs but it's neither here nor there our response are you thirsty are you thirsty is there a part of you that is longing not for a taste of water but for a taste of god we will thirst after the water that we drink again and again and again if we will come to him in truth you'll never thirst again that he will give you of his spirit listen to jesus revelation 21 6 it is done on the alpha and the omega the beginning and the end i will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of water of life without cost without cost all you have to do is come and if you are thirsty this morning i would love i would love to take you to the well right i i'd love to show you what it what it means to be in a relationship with jesus to just meet with you regularly put it on the card let me know i'd love to grab a meal with you coffee water i i like i just i would love to be with you on that journey indicate that second thing are you postured correctly what do i mean by that we will speak out against sinners but we won't spend time with them and it grieves my heart as we we will speak boldly against your sin and won't sit down and have a meal with them we'll worry more about perception than the people who need him right jesus didn't care about perception religious leaders would see him sitting down with tax collectors and sinners and they would take offense what's this rabbi doing with such you know broken people it's not the well who need a physician but the sick i'll tell you what the only perception that should matter to you is how you're being perceived by god if sinners were good enough for him to hang out with i honestly like my time at the rescue mission and i'm so thankful for that season because i really do feel like it is informed the way that i think about evangelism it is a long game especially in our time and culture that without the relational capital to make withdrawals from sin if what an ask it's like meeting somebody for the first time and getting down on one knee and saying will you marry me what you're moving too fast there's this need to just be with people to be known by people for them to know that they really matter to you but that requires us to have a certain posture no one is beyond the reach of our king no one's beyond the reach of our god see we'll avoid the more difficult path in our pursuit of comfort to avoid difficult people it's hard on your heart spending time with broken people i learned that at the rescue mission you grieve you see people do things that are so self-destructive and yet you also see incredible transformation it's kind of both of those things it's life it's good and hard it's good and hard but are you postured correctly can we allow god to lead us in breaking through barriers that hinder the advancement of his gospel the last thing are you worshiping honestly are you worshiping honestly what is it that you're after when you come in here in one sense i do i want you to experience god not just for you i want you to experience god in such a way that you fall deeply in love with him but take him right outside those doors as you're leaving because this city needs to know him too your neighbors need to know him your co-workers need to know him your children need to see him in you right i i think about that with scarlett she's watching me i gotta fix all the things i need to fix before she's old enough to know what's going on right she can start remembering things he wants you to worship him in spirit and in truth let me pray god maybe this week you prompt our hearts to just sit outside for a little bit with a glass of water and think about how we have to fill that glass every day but that you've given us your spirit we're never empty that you fill us until we're overflowing and i pray that that would be what people experience when they interact with us it's just an overflowing movement of your spirit that they would see the difference that you've made in our life jesus and i pray that even as we sing right now god i pray that we would hear the words of this blessing as a pronouncement from you over us and that we would declare your worthiness of praise everything comes from you jesus everything belongs to you we belong to you so help us we ask this in jesus name amen we're going to transition into a time of offering and i just want to share with you we're going to be going to stevens middle school on wednesday and over the last two years we have sent money to stevens middle school to assist them part of that was as they transitioned to online they were losing students really quick and so we were able to offer them resources to purchase incentives and it was beautiful these kids would stay checked in online they would do the things that they needed to do to earn tokens and they would tickets or whatever it was they'd come in and they'd get a prize and as i was talking with the principal she said the most beautiful thing was these kids would come in and they wouldn't look for a toy for themselves they would look for a toy for their siblings just to be able to give them something that is not possible without you guys and so i pray as the lord has blessed you be generous knowing that these resources are making an eternal impact through our church in our city in this world we thank you guys for your faithfulness what gift of a love could i offer to a king what way your worth could be held within my offering when he alone is [Music] a glorious song is inscribed upon my heart this treasure held in an alabaster jar i break to bring him all the glory praise god from whom [Music] praise him all creatures [Music] declare that there is [Music] praise god [Music] praise him all creatures [Music] praise god [Music] our father god [Music] is [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] praise god blessings [Music] grace [Music] go [Music] we praise you god praise you come to him the well of living water find life in him let him fill you go in peace going grace god bless you guys see you next sunday [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Bethany Church Long Beach

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Length: 108min 40sec (6520 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021