Woman at the Well Pt 2

Sovereign Grace Family Church iconSovereign Grace Family Church

1 view

0 comments

Woman at the Well (Pt 3)

Woman at the Well (Pt 3)

00:02
If you have your Bibles, I want to invite you to open them with me to John chapter 4.
00:13
And we are going to be reading this morning from verse 7 down to verse 19.
00:26
We live in a time where I think it would be safe to say that there have never been more readily accessible distractions than there are at our current moment.
00:47
Never in the past have we been so devoid of boredom because we always have something to distract ourselves with.
01:02
And I think this has led to a lot of issues with human communication, with relationships, with even within the church being able to really relate to one another.
01:21
It's so hard to stay focused because the world is pulling us in every different direction.
01:30
And this would be bad enough if we were just in a situation where the world is pulling us in all kinds of directions and we were battling it.
01:40
But the problem is we don't often battle it. The problem is we often pursue the distraction.
01:46
We go after the distraction. We find ourselves up at night scrolling through our phone fighting sleep because we enjoy the distraction.
01:56
We want the distraction. And one of the most common times where we tend to look for the distraction is when we are having to deal with something that's uncomfortable, something that is outside of the realm of what we want to deal with in the moment.
02:20
We'll look for something else to distract us. And today in the narrative as we continue to study the story most commonly known as the woman at the well story, we're going to find that even in the first century, even 2 ,000 years ago, outside of the city of Sychar in Samaria, there was a woman who was more than willing to try to find a distraction so that she didn't have to deal with what was right in front of her.
02:55
And this is really what our message is going to lead up to today. While we focus on the living water that Jesus talks to this woman about, we're going to see at a certain point in the text that she tries to change the subject.
03:12
She tries to find a distraction, anything. Let's talk about anything else other than my sin, other than the one thing we need to deal with.
03:23
And I want to say to you today from the outset of the message, if there's something distracting you from hearing the
03:30
Word of God today, maybe it's something in your life, maybe it's something in your marriage, maybe it's something at your job, maybe it's something on your phone or your iPad.
03:41
I want to encourage you to put away your distractions and hear the Word of the living
03:47
God. Let's stand together. Beginning at verse seven, a woman from Samaria came to draw water.
04:10
Jesus said to her, give me a drink for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
04:17
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?
04:27
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.
04:40
The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and this well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
04:49
Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.
04:58
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.
05:10
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
05:20
The woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I may not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.
05:29
Jesus said to her, go, call your husband and come here.
05:35
The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying
05:42
I have no husband, for you have had five husbands and the one you now have is not your husband.
05:53
What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir,
06:00
I perceive that you are a prophet. Father in heaven, we come to you as both our father and our
06:11
God to ask you that in this moment that you would be with us as you have already been with us in the time of worship, of singing and hearing your word read to us and having the opportunity to give to you from the abundance that you have given to us.
06:30
Lord, now, as we turn our attention to your word and we seek to hear it preached,
06:36
I pray, Lord, first and foremost, as I preach every week, not simply for vain repetition, but because it is so needful,
06:44
Lord, I pray that you would keep me from error. And I pray, oh, God, that as your word is preached,
06:54
Lord, that the words would go into the ears, to the mind, to the heart, that we would not be distracted by the world, that we would not be distracted by all of the things that get in the way of us dealing with what's really important.
07:21
Father, I pray that we would hear of this living water and that it would so affect us, that it would so move us, that it would so fill us.
07:40
And Lord, God, change us as we all need, Lord, to be more closely conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
07:49
For the believers, Lord, that is my prayer for our sanctification and to conformity to Christ.
07:57
And for the unbeliever in the room, whoever they may be, whether they be many or few, that they would hear of this living water.
08:08
That they would turn from whatever pursuits they have and that they would turn and drink from the fountain of Christ.
08:18
And through him be saved to be justified of their sins, to be completely forgiven, to know that they have received absolute forgiveness from you.
08:29
We pray all this, Lord. In Jesus name and for his sake.
08:35
Amen. Well, we are picking up right where we left off in our last lesson from the discourse between Jesus and the woman at the well.
08:56
If you were not here last week, we began at verse one last week and we spent quite a bit of time understanding the geography of what we learned in this text.
09:07
Jesus has left Judea, which is in the southern area of Israel, as his ministry had begun to draw the attention of the
09:17
Pharisees. He left not out of fear, but he left because his hour had not yet come.
09:25
And so he moved up north wanting to go and have his
09:31
Galilean ministry, which is described to us in all of the gospels. And this is the map. If you remember, I mentioned he's in Judea, which is in the southern area there, the orange part of the map.
09:42
And he's going up to the yellow part, which is the Galilee area. Remember, he's from Nazareth, so that would have been his hometown.
09:50
And the text says he must needs go through Samaria. That's the King James rendering of the text.
09:57
And we said last week that that could either mean that he had to go through because that's the way.
10:04
But it could also mean that he had to go through because he knew that he had this divine appointment to have with this woman.
10:11
And it has been understood in different ways by different Bible interpreters. But we know that he had to go through there.
10:19
He had to go through Samaria. So as Jesus is heading to Galilee through Samaria, he gets to a well in the city of Sychar, which was in the
10:33
Old Testament called Shechem. This was a piece of land that was purchased by Jacob in Genesis 33.
10:40
It was used for Joseph's burial in Joshua 24. And so this place has great historical significance.
10:49
It's also the first place that Abraham came to when he was called by God in Genesis chapter 12. So this place has great historical significance in the life of the
10:59
Jewish people. And Jesus is wearied from his travel, as the text tells us.
11:06
So he sits down at the well. He sits down at the sixth hour, which I believe refers to the high noon of the day, the middle part of the day.
11:18
His fatigue, his weariness highlights his humanity. We talked about that last week, that it showed that he was truly man as well as being truly
11:28
God. So while he is at the well, Jesus is interrupted, if we will, or visited, if we will, by a woman from the nearby town.
11:43
And in this interaction with this woman, there are two distinct conversations that are had.
11:50
Actually, we could we could argue and say three whenever she goes and gets the city and they come back. There's a there's a third interaction.
11:57
But the two conversations and one we're going to deal with today and one we're going to deal with next week is first the what
12:07
I have dubbed as the living water discourse. And then it moves into the living worship discourse.
12:17
So that will be our breakdown for this sermon and next week, because I fear if we try to get all of that in one sitting, we will miss some very important things.
12:29
So today we're going to focus mainly on seven to 19, which I have dubbed the living water discourse.
12:37
So it begins in verse seven. It says a woman from Samaria came to draw water and Jesus said to her, give me a drink for the disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.
12:48
I talked about this last week that the disciples would have been at the behest of their rabbi. This was not something that happened just with Jesus's disciples.
12:56
But at this time in history, a disciple of a rabbi would would be responsible for feeding him, for making sure his needs were met, for making sure everything was taken care of.
13:05
That was part of what it meant to be a disciple was to be not only a learner, but also one who served the teacher.
13:15
And so the disciples had gone away to buy food. Doesn't tell us where. Very possible they went to Sychar, even though that would have been culturally out of the norm, because as we will read in the text,
13:27
Jews have no interactions or relationships with Samaritans. But it could have been that Jesus was breaking social norms.
13:35
He did that quite a bit. So he may have sent them into Sychar to buy food, but it doesn't tell us where just says a nearby city or says into the city rather.
13:45
And we can assume the only city mentioned is Sychar. And in verse nine, it says the
13:51
Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you a Jew asked for a drink for me, a woman of Samaria?
14:01
Now, as I mentioned before, I I am going to make some.
14:10
I don't want to say assumptions, I want some some. Holy Spirit inspired speculations, maybe not, maybe
14:20
I shouldn't say inspired. Sanctified, that's what
14:25
Mike said, sanctified speculation. When I read this woman's words,
14:30
I read them in the in the in the attitude of somewhat sarcasm. Because I think to her, it is very odd, and she says it is odd that a
14:45
Jewish man would even speak to her, much less ask her for a favor.
14:51
The relationship between the Jews and the Samaritans was such that they didn't really do favors for one another.
14:59
They weren't friends. They were not the types who would interact.
15:07
This is why, again, some people believe that some Jews wouldn't go through Samaria, they would cross the Jordan, go up around the valley and go back over the northern part just so they didn't have to touch the dirty
15:18
Samaritan dirt with their feet. And it says in the text very clearly, it says the
15:25
Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. And if you remember what we learned last week, the
15:31
Samaritan people were the result of after the Assyrian captivity of the Northern Kingdom, which after the death of Solomon, when there was the northern and southern division, the 10 tribes of the north and the two tribes of the south, the northern kingdom being called
15:46
Israel, the southern kingdom being called Judah, Israel was captured by the Assyrians. And after that, there was intermarrying and there was paganism that was brought in and there was a mixture both ethnically and religiously in the
16:03
Samaritan, among that area. And they became known as the Samaritan people. And essentially they were not welcomed by the
16:14
Jewish people. They were not considered to be part of Jewish society. So this woman says, how is it that you ask for me a drink, a woman from Samaria?
16:28
Don't you know anything? Don't you know the rules? Don't you understand etiquette and how this works out?
16:37
Don't you understand who I am, who you are? And as I said last week, we don't know quite why she knew he was a
16:44
Jew, perhaps something that he was wearing, perhaps the way he looked. Mike Smith messaged me this week and we were talking about, he said maybe it was his dialect, maybe it was the way he spoke.
17:00
Certainly all those are possible. But she knew he was not a Samaritan man. She knew he wasn't the type of person she should be having or culture would dictate having a conversation with.
17:13
So there is in this moment a division.
17:21
Ray Richard, who writes on this text, he said, as the woman looked at Jesus, four invisible walls stood between them.
17:33
He said there was a religious wall, a gender wall. He was a man, she was a woman.
17:39
There was a racial wall. He was a Jew. She was a Samaritan. And a moral wall.
17:46
He probably looked like a rabbi. And she, of course, knew who she was. So that four invisible walls there, which which often do separate people.
17:58
We don't even think about them until we're in that moment and we realize, hey, there's there's a division here.
18:04
But she's quick to say that this is not a normal conversation. Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.
18:14
And this brings us to verse 10, which is where we left off last week. In verse 10, 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.
18:34
If you knew the gift of God, this woman did not know who she was speaking with.
18:44
She did not know the monumentous occasion in her life.
18:49
This is a watershed moment in history, and she's a part of it. And she is absolutely oblivious to who she's talking to and the power of the moment that she's in.
19:02
She doesn't know that everything that's happening in these few minutes of interaction with Jesus is going to be codified in God's word forever.
19:12
And that 2000 years ago, people are still going to be talking about this moment. All she could see was a guy in front of her that she didn't know and was on the other side of the religious, social, ethnic, moral, all those things.
19:27
That's all she saw. You know, it's funny,
19:34
Christians are often accused of being judgmental. And we can be, we can be judgmental people.
19:44
But you know, pagans can be judgmental too. And she was.
19:52
Who do you think you are talking to me? Don't you know we don't talk to each other? And Jesus said, if you knew who
19:58
I was, if you knew the gift of God, if you knew what was happening in your life and that it was going to affect all of humanity and history from this moment forward, you would have a different attitude.
20:15
How often we miss what's right in front of us. As I said last week, we miss the gift of God that's right in front of us because we're just not looking with eyes to see.
20:28
So Jesus said, if you knew the gift of God and who it was who asked you to give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.
20:40
Now, this term living water is obviously a metaphor for the life giving spiritual nourishment that is provided through trusting in the
21:05
Lord Jesus Christ. And water is a perfect metaphor.
21:12
Water is essential. Without it, we die. In fact, if you ever notice, if you ever listen to people who come from groups like SETI, I don't know if you know what
21:25
SETI is. SETI is an organization called the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.
21:32
That's SETI, S -E -T -I. And that's an actual group that searches for life in the reaches of space.
21:40
You know what they're always looking for on planets? Water. They find ice and they find gas, but liquid water is essential for all biological life that we understand in our world and in our universe.
22:02
So I remember my son, JJ, loves space. I told you guys we got to take him to NASA.
22:09
It was fun. Got to look at the telescopes and stuff. But he'll tell me, hey, did you know,
22:17
Daddy, on one of the moons of Jupiter, they found what they think might be water?
22:24
Because you know what the expectation of that is? If they found water, they may have found life.
22:31
Right? Because water is essential to life. If we can find a place where there's liquid water, maybe there'll be a microbe.
22:39
By the way, totally irrelevant to the sermon. But why is it that if we find a microbe on Jupiter, that's life, but a baby in the womb is not life?
22:51
Totally irrelevant, but you understand, just had to throw that in there, right? If we found one germ on Jupiter, that'd be life.
23:01
But we got a growing, living human being in the womb, and that's not life. It's absolute hypocrisy.
23:07
But be that as it may, throw that in there. The point is water is essential for life.
23:14
Water is also essential for cleansing. You don't clean stuff without water.
23:25
It's like Seinfeld says, he said, I don't believe in dry cleaners because you can't clean something dry. What do you do?
23:31
Tap it, shake it, blow on it. It's got to be some kind of liquid. Right? There's no such thing as dry cleaning.
23:39
Everything, when you clean it, you need water. So water is essential for life. Water is essential for cleaning.
23:48
Water is essential for revival. Last night, we've been sick for days.
23:54
You can probably still hear it in our voice. Our whole family just was totally out of it this week, just so bad. And that's why we have so many families out this week.
24:00
So many of us have been dealing with different sicknesses. We want to pray for all the families that are sick today. But last night
24:06
I had my Gatorade bottle. I just finished drinking my Gatorade and I was out and I didn't want to go open a new bottle.
24:13
So I just said, I'll fill this with water and keep it by the bed. So I go in and I flip on the tab and I'm watching the water fill up and I'm thinking about my sermon.
24:24
It's about two in the morning. I was up late. I'm watching the water fill up and I'm thinking, this is an amazing gift that we don't have to walk to the well two, three miles away or a dozen miles away.
24:41
We don't have to do that. We can just flip the tab and we have this refreshing, restorative water.
24:49
It's clean, filtered, delicious, and it's brought into our house every day. We live in an amazing time.
24:58
People often ask, if you could live at any time in history, when would you want to live? Right now. I don't people, don't you want to go back to the old west?
25:06
No. I don't want to go back to Jesus time either. They didn't have air conditioning and they didn't have running water.
25:12
I'm good right where I'm at. I'm built for such a time as this.
25:20
This is the right time to be in. But as I'm looking, I'm thinking this, this is so refreshing that I can just get a drink.
25:28
It's restorative. When I was sick, the last few days, Thursday was the worst of the day for Jennifer and I.
25:38
I had to keep putting water in my body because as my body was rejecting everything
25:44
I was putting in it, unfortunately, I know not fun to think about. But as I was dealing with that, I knew if I didn't keep putting water in,
25:50
I was going to get worse. If I didn't keep putting water in, eventually
25:55
I'd probably end up in the hospital with a needle in my arm. Because if you can't, it's going to get in you one way or another.
26:01
You're going to die. So water is essential. It cleanses, it restores.
26:07
It has all of these powerful things that it really does. And this is the perfect metaphor for what
26:14
Jesus is saying to this woman. He is saying to her, if you ask me, I would give you a drink of living water, not something physical, but in every way that the physical represents life and the essentials of life and the things that we need in restoration and cleansing.
26:32
All of that will come through this spiritual gift that I'm willing to give you, which is the living water of the word of God.
26:44
Now, it's important to say at this moment that the phrase living water actually does have a connotation during the time of Jesus that would have been somewhat confusing to this woman if she were familiar with it.
27:06
Because when we think of living water, our minds immediately think of the metaphoric water of life that flows within us when we believe.
27:14
Right. That's what we think of. We think living water. But the phrase living water during the time of Christ was actually used to describe any water that flowed.
27:24
That was living water. So a river was living water as opposed to a pond, which was not right.
27:33
A spring which flowed was living water because it was moving. It was flowing as opposed to a lake which was stagnant and not moving.
27:44
In fact, we know this because the didache, which was the one of the earliest and you've heard me talk about the didache.
27:52
I love the didache. It's one of the earliest extra biblical church writings that we possess. Didache means the teaching of the twelve.
27:59
And what it teaches about baptism is amazing because it tells how they baptized in the early church.
28:05
And you know what it says? It says when you baptize, you baptize in living water.
28:11
What it meant was you go out to the river, like like when John took the men to the people to the
28:16
Jordan River, he baptized them in the water that was running. Because you don't clean, you don't clean something in standing water.
28:26
I mean, you can, but when you get in a bathtub and you stand up, what does the bathtub look like? It's nasty because it's still there.
28:37
But you get in a stream, what does it do? Living water washes it away. It washes the dirt away.
28:44
Right. That's that's living water. So when Jesus says, if you would have asked me and I would have given you living water, it's very possible that this woman has in her mind some kind of physical stream, spring or river that he's talking about.
29:02
She's not thinking metaphorically, she's thinking physically. And how do we know that? We know that from the very next verse.
29:08
The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where do you get this living water?
29:16
She's saying, you don't you, you ask. First of all, man, you asked me to give you a drink because you're hot and you're wearied and you're tired and you're sitting here.
29:26
I come up, you said, give me a drink. I said to you, Jews don't have any dealings with Samaritans. Why are you talking to me?
29:32
And then you said, well, if you would have asked me, I'd give you living water. Where are you going to get it? Where's this magical stream,
29:40
David Copperfield? I mean, this is I mean, again, she's from the street, right? She knows what's up. She's sarcastic. Where are you going to get this water from?
29:49
You ain't got a cup. You ain't got a bucket. You're talking about giving me water and you can't even do for yourself.
30:07
Again, I just imagine she's sassy. I don't know. And listen to this next.
30:17
Listen to verse 12, because verse 12, she really does dial up the sass.
30:24
Are you greater than our father, Jacob? Oh, yeah. You beat me because that's exactly the right answer.
30:32
But you understand the heart behind what she's saying. You're telling me. Now, I come here every day and people have been coming here for two thousand years.
30:43
Jacob dug this well. Two thousand years ago, people have been coming here for two thousand years.
30:48
And not only did Jacob come here, but all of his animals and his livestock and everybody else had to come here to get water.
30:54
And you're telling me you've got some water that either comes from somewhere else or that's better. You're telling me this.
31:06
Do you think you're greater than Jacob? The answer is yes.
31:13
Jesus is greater than Jacob. Jesus is greater than Abraham. Jesus is greater than Moses. Jesus is greater than David.
31:19
Jesus is greater than anyone. He who is from above is what? Above all.
31:25
He's absolutely greater than Jacob. But notice also, don't miss this.
31:31
Notice she says our father, Jacob. See, the Samaritans, even though they did not identify with the
31:42
Jewish people in their social and racial distinctions, they did identify the patriarchs as their fathers.
31:52
So she says, are you greater than our father, Jacob? See, the division came much later after the division of the kingdom.
32:03
But they would in fact, the Samaritans still held to the Pentateuch, which is the first five books, what we call the books of Moses or the
32:11
Torah. They held to that. And so she would have believed in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.
32:17
She says, are you greater than our father, Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.
32:28
And Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.
32:38
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
32:47
Now, this is pushing the metaphor, trying, I think, trying to help her understand because she's doing the same thing
32:55
Nicodemus did. By the way, born again, born from above is also a metaphor.
33:02
It's all metaphor language, right? And metaphors are good. Metaphors help us. The Gospels are filled with parables and similes.
33:11
A simile, you remember, is like or as, right? The kingdom of heaven is like the kingdom of heaven is like this, right?
33:17
Like that's that's a simile or a parable. And we see that in the synoptic
33:23
Gospels. But in John's Gospels, it's not as much. We don't see as many similes.
33:30
We see metaphors. And what's the difference between a metaphor and a simile? You guys remember this from middle school English, right?
33:36
A simile uses like or as, but a metaphor says it is that thing. I am the door.
33:41
I am the sheep gate. I am these. Right. Like that's that's the difference. It's metaphor. So when
33:47
Jesus says, unless a man is born again, meaning spiritually reborn, that's what that means to be born from above, to be born of the
33:54
Holy Spirit. He's using a metaphoric language for the change of heart that comes when
33:59
God's spirit changes us and gives us faith. And what is what is the immediate response of Nicodemus, the trained theologian?
34:07
Does that mean I have to go back into my mother's womb and be born again? No, I'm.
34:17
How are you not getting the metaphor? And the same thing's happening here with the woman. She has been told by Jesus, if you would have asked,
34:30
I'd have given you living water. Where's your where are you going to dip this living water? Where is it at? Where does it come from?
34:44
And we see this mainly look at verse 15. I know we jump ahead a little bit. Notice what she says in verse 15. The woman said, sir, give me this water so I will not be thirsty to have to come here to draw water.
34:56
See, she's still thinking of it in terms of the physical. If you give me this water you're talking about,
35:01
I'm never going to be thirsty again. Guess what? I don't have to get up every day and come here and draw water. Now, Jesus has told her in verse 14 that it's.
35:15
It's not physical, but spiritual. Notice what he says in 14, he says, whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.
35:23
The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. That should be a key indicator that he's talking about something other than just H2O.
35:33
This should be a key indicator that he's talking about something other than simple liquid water, because he says, when you take up the water that I give you, when the person takes the water that I give them, it's going to spring up with them within them.
35:47
And it is going to become a water welling up to eternal life.
35:53
The phrase eternal life should have been ding ding to her should have been. He's not talking about physical water anymore. He's talking about something else.
36:00
He's talking about a spiritual truth. He's talking about a inward reality.
36:07
But again, verse 15, she doesn't do that, she says. Give me this water so that I don't have to keep coming to draw the water.
36:17
Now, verse 15 is where many preachers today.
36:30
Would have stopped and led her in the sinner's prayer because she says, give me this water.
36:39
Get you. You've offered me living water. Give me the water. Many modern Baptists would have said, OK, repeat after me.
36:45
I believe or, you know, I know I'm a sinner, right? Because that's the way modern evangelism normally goes.
36:56
Hey, you want something good from God? Yes. OK, we'll pray this prayer. Now, you may think
37:03
I'm being somewhat facetious and maybe I am a little, but I've been a part of so many meetings and organizations and groups and seeing how evangelism goes.
37:20
And it's often just that. Get them to the point where they'll just respond positively.
37:26
Well, guess what? She's responded positively. Hey, give me some of this water so I don't have to keep coming here. Give me some of this water.
37:33
That's the positive response. And that's all we need to now. Prayer in heaven. But understand this and understand it well, if at this moment
37:43
Jesus would have prayed her into heaven, he would have been confirming a false conversion because she's not yet dealt with her sin.
37:51
It's key to this is at this moment, at this moment.
38:01
She's not yet understood why she even needs the living water. She's not yet understood why she needs what
38:10
Christ is offering her. She's not even understood the metaphor. People ask sometimes, what do you do when someone comes to you and says they want to believe the gospel?
38:25
The first thing we do is we make sure they understand it. I wanted to let that sit for a minute because I think sometimes we get so excited.
38:44
Oh, somebody wants to believe in Jesus. Do they even understand what they're believing in? Do they understand their sin and their need for a savior?
38:52
Do they understand what the savior calls us to do? Take up our cross and follow him.
38:57
Do they understand that? No, oftentimes they don't. And yet we're so quick to confirm someone just because we want to be able to say, yes, this person got saved under my ministry or I led this person to Jesus.
39:12
Rather than being more concerned, did they really understand the gospel when they believed? This is important for your kids because your kids, especially at a certain age, there's a certain age where your kids really want to please you.
39:33
And then there's a certain age where they really don't care if they believe. Everybody in here with teenagers better say amen.
39:39
You know what I'm talking about? There's a point where they really want to please you. And then there's a point where they want to please themselves, right, as they begin to get older.
39:48
I'm not saying they're necessarily, you know, off the wall crazy. I'm just saying the shift changes between the ages of five and 12.
39:55
Listen, I've had six and I've had several go through the teenage years already. Between five and 12, man, they're awesome.
40:03
That's a good time to encourage them and love them and everything. And at that point, it's easy to get them to affirm just about anything you say.
40:15
And that's a hard time to affirm them in faith. I'm not saying we can't affirm somebody in that age group in faith.
40:20
But the hard thing about affirming someone at that age in faith is sometimes children are merely trying to fit into a community or please their parents.
40:31
So we have to make sure if we're dealing with our children at that age, that they actually understand what they say they're believing and not just seeking to give a positive affirmation to something we believe.
40:47
I'm not discouraging you if you came. I mean, James White came to Jesus when he was seven years old. Tom Buck, a friend of mine, he's a pastor in Texas, came to Jesus when he was seven years old.
40:56
I am not saying in any way that it can't or doesn't happen or that I wouldn't affirm a child in their faith at that age.
41:02
But I am saying this before we affirm anyone in their faith, we ought to know if they understand it.
41:08
That's my point, because I really don't believe this woman understood what Jesus was saying. And that's why we get to the next part.
41:20
Because the next part is Jesus says, go get your husband. Where did that come from?
41:28
I tell you what, if a preacher was preaching and somebody said, I wanted to get saved and the man and the preacher said, go get your husband,
41:33
I think everybody would faint. But that's
41:38
Jesus's response. I mean, look at it. Verse 16, Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here.
41:47
Now, the Lord of Glory knows the answer to the question. But keep in mind, we have the benefit of knowing how this story ends.
41:58
She doesn't. It's like I always say, we always call the last supper the last supper.
42:05
The disciples didn't know it was the last supper to them. It was dinner. And tomorrow we're going to do it again.
42:11
And the next day we're going to do it again. They didn't call it the last supper. You got to understand this is what we talk about reading the
42:19
Bible existentially, not as an existentialist, but reading the
42:24
Bible existentially means when you read the scripture, you read it, understanding these are real people who existed at a real point in a real time.
42:32
They actually had real minds, real hearts, real souls. And they're experiencing these moments in real time.
42:39
So as she's sitting there and he's saying to her, go get your husband, she has no idea that he knows exactly who she is, the type of woman she is in the situation she's in.
42:48
She has no idea of that. So when she responds, I have no husband, she figures that's the end of the story.
43:00
And maybe she thought, why would he ask for my husband? Well, this is an awkward interaction, man and woman by ourselves out in the, you know, out by the well, maybe somebody maybe think maybe he wants before he goes any further with the conversation, he wants to bring my husband in.
43:13
Maybe he understands social propriety and the authority of the husband. Maybe that's why he wants to talk to my husband before he goes any further.
43:19
She has no idea why he asked this question. She has no idea. He's about to take out a scalpel and he's about to make an incision on her heart.
43:30
She has no idea that that's what's coming. That's what the word of God does.
43:39
The word of God lances open our heart and exposes us bare before the king of the universe.
43:49
Go call your husband and come here. I have no husband. You are right in saying
43:55
I have your, have no husband. Gulp. For you have had five husbands.
44:11
Now, right away, that's a lot. And I only say that because ever since sexual revolution in America and the concept of no fault divorce, multiple marriages have unfortunately become a very real situation in our world.
44:35
But even today, five would be a lot. Even with all that we, I mean, somebody five marriages be like, well,
44:43
I think we know what the problem is. I mean, say what you want.
44:50
I mean, that's right. It's like you've been married five times. How does that even, where do you find the priest to perform number five?
44:57
These Samaritan priests, I mean, where, who's she going to? Been married five times.
45:14
And the man now have is not your husband.
45:23
John MacArthur points out something awesome that I never thought about from this text in his, in his comment on it.
45:34
He said, it should be noted that when refusing to call the man she was currently living with her husband, Jesus rejected the notion that merely, merely living together constitutes marriage.
45:46
By noting that the man you're living with now is not your husband, he's telling us living together does not make you married.
46:00
Marriage is a vow before God, a covenant relationship that's entered into before witnesses and promises are made and received before Almighty God.
46:09
It is not merely shacking up. It's not marriage.
46:16
Jesus said the woman you're married to now, I'm sorry, the man you're with now, he's not your husband.
46:22
Even if you're living with him, he's not your husband. And he affirms what she said.
46:31
She said, I have no husband. He said, that's right. You've had five. You're now living with man.
46:37
He's not your husband. So what you said is true. And the woman said, sir,
46:48
I perceive that you are a prophet. Don't miss that.
46:56
That's an omission of guilt, because what she's saying is, you know, it.
47:05
You must be a prophet because you just nailed it. Now, at this moment, because of her, because of the sin that has now been placed in front of her face by a man that she recognizes is a prophet.
47:41
Oh, and by the way, remember this, the Samaritans didn't recognize the prophets of Israel. So to her, when she says,
47:47
I recognize you're a prophet. And we're going to see in a moment, she's going to mention Messiah coming.
47:53
She's she's recognizing that there was a prophet that was promised all the way back in the time of Moses.
47:59
Remember, Moses said there's going to be a prophet comes like me. We know that's talking about Jesus. This is she saying,
48:05
I recognize you're a prophet. She doesn't necessarily recognize he's Messiah, but she recognizes he's a prophet. And you would think in this moment of great conviction that what would happen in this woman's heart would be that she would say to the prophet of God, oh, man of God, what must
48:28
I do to be saved? Oh, man of God, what must I do to drink of this water of life that you've promised?
48:35
Oh, man of God, what must I do to atone for my sins? Oh, man of God, what must
48:41
I do in my guilty conscience? But no, she doesn't. Instead, she starts a theological debate.
48:59
We're not going to read it, but beginning in verse 20, which is where we're going to pick up next week, she says, our fathers worshiped on this mountain.
49:07
But you say that in Jerusalem is the place we ought to worship. What an irrelevant thing to say in light of sin that's right in front of her face.
49:22
What an absolutely unnecessary thing to even want to discuss. But what happens is when we are faced with the guilt of our sin, we will find anything else to talk about.
49:36
This is why when I come to people and I'm trying to talk to them about the gospel, they'll want to talk to me about the
49:42
Nephilim. They'll want to talk to me about the book of Enoch. They'll want to talk to me about why there's 66 books in the
49:49
Bible and not 73 or 84. They'll want to talk to me about this saint or that council.
49:55
They don't want to deal with their sin because we will deflect every which way we can when we are confronted with the thing that separates us from our
50:06
God. The word of God is like a mirror.
50:16
The book of James says when we look at it, we turn away and then we forgot what we saw.
50:26
Like a man who goes in the morning to the mirror and he sees that he needs to shave. Bless your mic. He goes in and he sees that he needs to comb his hair.
50:32
Bless your mic. Keep going. But he sees all the things he needs to deal with in the mirror and he walks away unshaven and his hair matted to his head because he saw what needed to be dealt with, but he didn't deal with it.
50:48
He got distracted and he chose the distraction rather than the reality.
50:58
So much more can be gleaned from this narrative, but a good question to ask ourselves is this. Are we distracting ourselves from the things that we should be facing and replacing them with needless theological disputes that amount to nothing?
51:13
Are we hiding behind our theological objections the same way Adam hid in the trees when
51:19
God came in the cool of the day? Now, I am not in any way discouraging theological discussion, but I am saying this.
51:35
While theology matters, sometimes I fear we're willing to have long and deep theological conversations regarding all kinds of issues as long as it keeps us from having to face the sin that's right in front of us.
51:53
Jesus is like a doctor who's given this woman a diagnosis and she has chosen rather than to deal with a diagnosis to bring up an irrelevant side topic.
52:12
Imagine going to a doctor and the doctor says you have a life threatening disease and you say, you know, doctor, what about the problems with our current health care system?
52:22
I just told you you have cancer. Yeah, but don't you think the European system is so much better than ours?
52:28
The doctor would think you were crazy. And you would be if you were faced with a diagnosis of death and you chose to deflect to something else.
52:42
Beloved, we do it all the time. We will never face our need for repentance, forgiveness and restoration so long as we keep changing the subject.
52:59
So my encouragement to you today. As we draw to a close is to ask yourself this question, what am
53:05
I deflecting from? What am I refusing to face? We're about to come before the table of the
53:13
Lord, and we're about to be reminded of the fact that he died, he was buried and he rose again on our behalf.
53:19
And he says, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you show forth my death until I return.
53:25
Every time we do this, this is a reminder of the gospel. And every time we do it, we're supposed to this come face to face with our sin.
53:33
And repent. Not deflect it, but face it.
53:43
Beloved, what's distracting you from the face of your God today? Let's pray.
53:52
Father, I thank you. I thank you for the blessing of your word and the wonderful truths that we can draw out from it.
54:03
And Lord, as we consider today the wonderful reality that our sins are forgiven by Christ on the cross.
54:10
We are also reminded, Lord, that we are not to hide our sins, but your word says we confess our sins.
54:17
And if we confess our sins, you're faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. Lord, cleanse us today.
54:23
Lord, be with us today. And as we participate in this time of communion, open our hearts to a better understanding of you today.
54:34
And Lord, for the unbeliever who's here, who maybe is allowing himself or herself to be distracted by the world or be distracted by theological dispute or be distracted by some other means,
54:44
Lord, may it be that they recognize the need to turn from their sin and turn to Christ.