WWUTT 826 You Worship What You Do not Know?

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Whenever we talk about this story of the Samaritan woman at the well, oftentimes she's depicted as somebody who is broken -hearted, but she's actually hard -hearted and desperately in need of the gospel when we understand the text.

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Many of the Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text as an online ministry committed to teaching sound doctrine and exposing the faulty, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back again to our study of the gospel of John, chapter four,

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Jesus' conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. I'm going to begin reading in verse seven, and we'll read through verse 26.

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A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, give me a drink, for his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

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The Samaritan woman said to him, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?

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For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

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The woman said to him, sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep.

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Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob?

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He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.

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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.

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The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.

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The woman said to him, sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come up here to draw water.

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Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him,

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I have no husband. Jesus said to her, you are right in saying I have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.

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What you have said is true. The woman said to him, sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

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

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Jesus said to her, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father.

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You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the

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Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the father in spirit and truth, for the father is seeking such people to worship him.

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God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

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The woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ.

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When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you, am he.

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Now, often whenever we go through this story, whenever you listen to somebody else teach this story, whether it's a pastor or one of those women conference speakers, you know, something like that, they go through the story of Jesus and the woman at the well in John four.

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Often this woman is depicted as someone who is broken. She is a shell of a woman.

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She is depressed. She has no one who loves her. She's been used and abused by men.

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Even the other women won't pay any attention to her. So she goes up to this well alone, feeling sorry for herself.

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And unexpectedly, there's a man there. We know that that man is Jesus. And he speaks to her unlike anyone else has ever spoken to her.

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He is gentle and kind and loving and embracing. And she just hinges on his every word.

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Everything he says, she wants to hear from him. And it's like she's at the feet of the teacher.

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In fact, when you'll see the paintings of this, that's exactly the way it will look. Jesus is kind of sitting there on the edge of the well, right?

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And the woman is on the ground at his feet, and she's looking up with a longing gaze, wanting to hear the voice of Jesus.

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That's not at all how this exchange was going. This woman is not a broken hearted woman.

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She is a hard hearted woman. And every one of these responses that she makes is an argument against Jesus.

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We should feel sorry for her only in the sense that this is a woman who needs to repent. And she needs to hear the gospel.

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She is trading sex for rent. She's been married to five other guys.

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And the man she's with now is not her husband, but she's giving herself to him so that she's got a place to live.

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She is in sin. And if she were to die in this place that she is in, she would stand before God in judgment.

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So she needs the gospel of Jesus Christ that she might be washed clean of her uncleannesses and made righteous before a holy

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God. In modern evangelicalism, that word broken has really become very misused.

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Oftentimes it's used to describe a person who is broken hearted because circumstances haven't gone their way or people haven't treated them well.

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And indeed, we do find scriptures about Jesus healing those who have been broken. Psalm 34, 18, the

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Lord is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

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Psalm 147, three, he heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.

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But more often than not, when we find the term broken used in the scriptures, it's describing somebody who has been broken down in judgment.

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They've been torn down because of their wickedness. Psalm 37, 15, their sword shall enter their own heart and their bows shall be broken.

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Psalm 37, 17, for the arms of the wicked shall be broken. But the Lord upholds the righteous.

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Psalm 51, eight, let me hear joy and gladness. Let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

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And that's a psalm of repentance, by the way. Psalm 51, where later on in verse 17,

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David says the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.

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Oh God, you will not despise. That's the kind of brokenness that we need to have before God.

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It is humility. It is confession of our sin. It is realizing that we stand before a holy

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God guilty and we are undeserving to be in his presence. The only way that we can even call upon God and know that our prayers are being heard is because God has sent for us an advocate,

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Jesus Christ, the righteous one who intercedes for us before the father.

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So we now have our prayers heard by God because Christ is the one who is interceding for us.

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Otherwise we are people of unclean lips dwelling in a land of unclean people.

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We are not worthy to speak to God and have our prayers heard by him. But as we read in Hebrews four, 14, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens,

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Jesus, the son of God. So let us hold fast our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

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Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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Now, that's what this woman needs here. This this woman at the well, she needs a great high priest who will intercede for her before the father.

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And right now she doesn't know that high priest. And in fact, she doesn't even know the prophecies pertaining to that high priest based on what

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Jesus said in his responses to her. Rather, she is very combative against these things that Jesus says.

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She thinks that he's up to no good, first of all, because he's a Jew. The first resistance that she has to anything that Jesus has to say to her is an ethnic difference.

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I'm a Samaritan woman. You are a Jewish man. And Jesus said to 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.

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That was verse 10. The woman said in verse 11, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with.

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And the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father,

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Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.

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This is a very boastful response that she is making with Jesus. She's saying this this well, this is

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Jacob's well. He drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. It's like, hey, we're

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Samaritans. We've got Jacob's well. Now, if you wanted to debate historical significance, the

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Jews have significantly more historical claim than the

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Samaritans had, first of all, because they actually are descendants of the line of Abraham. They've got the temple there on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem, the very place where Abraham was told to sacrifice his son

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Isaac. And right before he dropped the knife into him, an angel appeared and stopped the knife.

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And the angel of the Lord said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him.

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For I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

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And in Genesis 22, 13, Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by his horns.

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And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

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It was this very place where the temple would be built. And it was from that very place you could have looked and seen the spot where Jesus Christ, the son of God, the lamb who came to take away the sin of the world, would be crucified.

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So the Jews had way more claim on historical significance than the Samaritans did.

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They had the city of David. They had the throne of David. And so this woman, she's she's probably making a kind of response that most

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Samaritans might have made with Jews when it came to being theologically combative with one another.

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It was it was probably typical of a Samaritan to say, hey, we've got Jacob's well. And Jacob actually drank from this well, as did his sons and his livestock.

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So that's what this woman is doing. She is arguing with Jesus. She's so she's showing how she is a

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Samaritan is better than him who is a Jew. You're wanting to offer me living water.

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You think you've got better water to offer me? Well, look what I've got. I've got the well of Jacob, and this is the well that Jacob himself drank from, as did his sons and his livestock.

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And Jesus said to her, everyone who drinks of this well will be thirsty again.

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And Jesus' response to her is, well, is nothing. It doesn't matter that you've got

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Jacob's well. If you drink from this water, doesn't matter who drank from it or who dug this well.

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That doesn't matter. You know, I think of something that the apostle Paul said to Timothy. First Timothy, chapter one, starting in verse three, he said, charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies.

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And this would have been one of those things like like a woman, like the woman was responding to an endless genealogy.

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It's like, look, we going all the way back. We've got this well dug by Jacob with this water in it.

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And and he drank from this water himself. And Jesus said, so anyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.

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But the water that I will give him, whoever drinks of that water will never thirst again.

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And of course, Jesus is not being literal. He's being spiritual, but spiritual is more important than physical.

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He says the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water.

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Welling up to eternal life. And the woman said to him, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come up here to draw water.

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Now, she's not I don't think she's truly convinced somebody might have a different take on this. Maybe they hear a different tone than I do.

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But I don't think that she's truly convinced at what he's just said to her because of how argumentative she was about the well and Jacob's well, and that he doesn't even have a vessel to draw water with.

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Yet he's persistent in talking about this water that I will give.

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And so finally, her response is sarcastic. Well, then give me this water so that I won't have to keep coming up here to draw water.

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Remember, this well is practically a mile from town. It's not like it's right there in town.

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You just go up to the well and get water and go back to your place. You had to travel to go get water to draw it from the well and then take it back into the village.

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And and she doesn't want to do that anymore. She doesn't want to have to fight the heat of the day doing this lonely trek all by herself at the worst part of the day because she can't do it with all the other women.

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And so in this arguing back and forth with Jesus, she just finally says, well, then fine, give me this water so that I won't have to come back up here and draw water and challenging her response.

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Jesus says in verse 16, go call your husband and come here.

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And what Jesus means to show to her in this exchange is her sin.

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That's what he means to show to her with that particular response, that she cannot hide or conceal anything from him.

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He who searches mind and heart, as Jesus describes himself in Revelation chapter three.

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So he says to her, go call your husband to come here. And the woman answered him,

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I have no husband. And Jesus said to her, you are right in saying

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I have no husband, for you've had five husbands and the one that you are with now is not your husband, what you have said is true.

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Now, she's clearly exposed and vulnerable at this point and not not vulnerable in the in the in the pitiful puppy sort of a way.

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She is vulnerable in the sense that she realizes there's nothing that she can hide from this man, but she's still trying to one up him.

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And you see that with her next response when she says, sir, I perceive that you're a prophet.

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And this is not shock and awe here. She's not looking at him going, oh, my goodness, you're a prophet.

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No, she's trying to show that she has a prophetic prowess as well.

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I perceive that you're a prophet and she's not going to let this man get the best of her.

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So then she goes on continuing to argue as a Samaritan would argue with a Jew. She says in verse 20, our fathers worshipped on this mountain, just the same as she was going back to Jacob's well a moment ago.

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Our fathers worshipped on this mountain. But you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

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And and the mountain in question where she's at is Mount Gerizim. That's the place where the Samaritans had their worship.

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And that's the place where they said was the true place of worship unto God. But the place where the

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Jews worship was Mount Moriah. That was where the temple was built. And how did Jesus respond to her?

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Not by saying, no, Mount Moriah is the place where you need to worship, because that's the place that that David purchased for the building of God's temple.

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That's not what Jesus responded with. He said, woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain.

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Nor in Jerusalem will you worship the father and Jesus referring to him as father, not just God.

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You know God as father when you know him through the son, Jesus Christ.

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Jesus is the first to refer to God as father. And we have this kind of relationship with God adopted as sons and daughters when we know

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God through the son, Jesus. And Jesus says, you worship what you do not know.

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Now, as I said last week, the Samaritans had kind of a syncretism, a hodgepodge of religions all meshed together.

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And part of their religion included the Pentateuch, the books of the law, the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

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But they did not receive the rest of the prophets as speaking from God.

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All these other things pertaining to the Messiah who was going to come, that he was going to come from the line of Judah, that he was going to be born in the city of David in Bethlehem, that this is the time in which that Messiah would arrive.

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All of these things that were prophesied by these prophets whom the

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Samaritans did not receive. So Jesus says, you worship what you do not know. You have a

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God that you've created through your syncretism. But it's not the

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God of the holy scriptures. We worship what we know for salvation is from the

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Jews. This savior is coming from the line of Judah. And he goes on to say, but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth.

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For the father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

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Now, when it comes to understanding that a little in a little bit more detail, I'll come back again to that tomorrow.

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But but still talking about this woman's argumentative nature with Jesus, we get to verse 25, where the woman said to him,

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I know that Messiah is coming. He who is called Christ, when he comes, he will tell us all things.

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This is like her final argument. This is it. I'm going to lay this in the ground, OK? You say what what

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Jews say. I'm saying what Samaritans say. You believe what you want to believe. I'm going to believe what

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I'm going to believe. And when this Messiah actually shows up, he'll tell us which one is right.

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That's her nail in the coffin argument. OK, it's like we can go back and forth like this.

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We're never going to know who's right. The Messiah will show up and then he'll tell us. And in a sense, she's owning that to say he's going to say that I'm right.

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But what was Jesus's response to her? Woman, I who speak to you, am he bam owned right there?

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But but the way that Jesus does this is still very merciful and gracious. He has not even revealed himself as the

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Messiah to the Jews, even though it is through the Jewish people that this Messiah is going to come.

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Instead, he has revealed himself to a Samaritan woman and an entire village is going to come to believe in Christ because of the grace and mercy that he showed to this woman.

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And she goes back into the village and brings all these people with her. And and we'll see that as we kind of go through, go on through the story here.

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What I want to do tomorrow is come back to this statement of Jesus saying that the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth.

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You've heard it said before. You've heard it quoted many times that we worship the father in spirit and truth, for these are the worshipers that God is seeking to worship him.

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And that's what we'll come back to tomorrow and kind of unpack that statement a little bit more.

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But this kind of response that this woman gives to Jesus is a very common kind of response that we might get from people when we're trying to share the gospel with them.

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They're going to be standoffish for any number of reasons because of who you are, what your background is, what religion that you're a part of.

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It might be because they think they've got better arguments. They've got better philosophy than you have.

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They're going to they're going to be very resistant to you when you point out that they are sinful and in need of a savior.

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And then ultimately, they're going to come down to like this sense of moral relativism. Well, who can really know anyway?

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You believe what you want to believe and I'll believe what I want to believe. These are common kinds of arguments that we might encounter, just like Jesus encountered with this woman at the well.

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But Jesus was patient with her and kind. And so we must be as well as imitators of our savior.

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When we hold out the good news message of his gospel, the power of which will save all those who believe it.

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We must deliver this with gentleness and respect, for it is God who grants repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, as it says in Second Timothy two twenty five.

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Let's conclude with a quick prayer. Our great God, our heavenly father, we thank you for the continued guidance that you give us through your word and very specifically through the word of Christ, that we may grow in faith and in knowledge of you.

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Teach us these things as we go throughout our day and guide us into places where we might share your gospel with someone else.

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We thank you for the gospel that was delivered to us so that we might turn from our sin and believe and be saved.

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And we ask all of this in Jesus name. Amen. Gabriel Hughes is the pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas.

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out more online at www .utt .com. Good.