Healing the land - John 4 4-9 Alex McLaughlin

You've tuned in to a mega church.

We are people hungry to encounter God through worship

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reveal himself to you in a new way today and.

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out more about Omega? Get to our website or Facebook

page through the links below. Bible's full of symbolism and

hidden meaning that we could live forever and still not mind

the depths of the truths that are in that book.

And there are things in the book, but this is a we'll go

back to where we were. That's the one.

I want you to watch this and tell me what you think of it.

It's actually after the All Blacks played Ireland in

Chicago. He was the all black captain on

the day. He's just won the Test match.

He's given his all black shirt away.

Watch what he's put on. There are 62,000 people in

Chicago watching him walking around with Jesus Christ as his

official logo. Is that a witness?

He might not have said anything, but there's a slideshow clip at

the top. Tag at the top to get it full

screen. It's the one.

He may not have said anything, but I believe he's a huge

evangelist. He made a decision.

What was his identity? Was he the captain of the

winning all black team or was he a representative of Jesus

Christ? See the difference?

He knows where his identity really is.

So we can have the next. Actually, I can have the next

clip this morning. We're talking about healing the

land. And I hope that there's some

message in here that you may not have heard before.

I have a friend in Australia, her name is Anne Hamilton.

Now the interesting thing about Anne, she's an older lady.

I've only met her for 20 minutes in my life, but we'd

corresponded quite a bit and so she has a very deep theological

understanding. She's given me, has given me

some insights about the story, which you may know quite well,

but I believe there's some patterns that are waiting to be

understood. We talk about Jesus and for some

churches he's a very nice Jesus. He's a very polite Jesus.

He's a politically correct Jesus, and he doesn't offend

anybody. But in other churches, they have

this Jesus who is powerful, who's a miracle worker, who can

make changes and has an A heart to bring people back to the

Father. And so he can be the lion of the

tribe of Judah. And he can also be as gentle as

a lamb. But I also want to share with

you, He can also be living water.

Remember that living water? The Samaritan woman who came to

the well, I believe was in a mess.

She wasn't a happy person. She may have been the most

unhappy person in all of that town that was living at the

time. And Psalm 3 verse 3 says, but

Psalms 3:3

you Lord, are the shield around me, my glory and the together

please, the lifter of my head. Because when people are in

shame, the word is they're bowed in shame.

They don't stand confidently. They are, if you like, weighed

down by what was covering them. She was covered in shame when

she encountered Jesus. I think she went to the well at

lunchtime or middle middle of the day when the sun was the

hottest, when no sensible person would go outside at that time of

the day. Why?

To avoid anyone meeting her. She was so full of shame.

It was probably the best thing or the best time she could go

and be. If you like inconspicuous.

She didn't want to be seen. So what does she think when she

goes to the well? She sees under the tree there's

a man there. Do you think she was pleased to

see him? Not at all.

Added to the fact that he was a Jew and she was a Samaritan.

That's another no, no. And then he starts to talk to

her. It's not her best day, is it?

It's like a nightmare come true. And this is what happened.

So Jesus offers her living water.

And this is the thing, when people encounter Jesus, they're

never the same. When they encounter Jesus, he

ministers to them and they are shifted from where they are.

So the shame and inferiority that she carried lifted.

It's really interesting because what happened, the minute she

left that meeting with Jesus, she was released into her an

evangelistic gifting. She was Jesus's first evangelist

to the Gentiles. Remember, this is the lady who's

full of shame and doesn't want to meet anybody.

Well, she can't stop talking about Jesus.

She talks to everyone about what he'd said and who he was.

She's a revelation of who he was.

And so she was freed to operate in her calling once she'd had

the conversation with Jesus. So I believe Jesus operated in

all the fivefold ministry giftings, and I also believed he

had all the spiritual gifts operating.

And one of the reasons why he was so successful in his

ministry is he used those spiritual gifts.

He wasn't just a nice person, He was a powerful person.

He reversed curses, healed the land, dethroned evil spiritual

powers, and he revealed himself as king.

And we'll come to that later. He was certainly good at

breaking and offending the religious traditions of the day.

People didn't find him comfortable to be around because

he challenged them. And this is the interesting

thing. He tended to choose people who

were the most unlikely people or most even unpopular people to be

his followers, to represent him. And he chooses us.

He chooses me. And so Jesus is no respecter of

persons. There are two names for the one

town, Shechem or Saisha. It's the same thing.

In the Old Testament, you'll see it called Shechem.

The second in a New Testament, it's called Saisha.

It's the same place. I find Shechem easier to

understand. It's above Jerusalem.

Has everyone found it there? It was the capital of the

Northern Kingdom, and Jerusalem was the capital of the southern

Kingdom. And there it is today.

There's two pictures of Saisha, so on the top one you'll see you

can whoops, that's not what I want to find.

Here we go. That is the area where you could

probably still identify where Jacob's well existed.

It's still there and you can notice in the second picture

there are two mountains overlooking the town, 2 high

hills and we'll come to those shortly.

God can restore what is broken and change it into something

amazing. All you need is faith.

And Joel tells this us that in chapter 2.

Do you believe that God can change what is broken?

So when we're having a bad day, God is well able to come into

our lives and change it. There's a an artist's picture of

what it may have looked like. I think it's very sanitized, but

Jesus is having a one-on-one conversation for this woman.

And for a start, she wants to get away.

She avoids him, she doesn't really engage.

A lot happened in that area. There's some historical, if you

like, things we need to understand.

And so a remnant of Hebrews were left in the land when the

Assyrians came and conquered the May.

And what they did to make it as a punishment, they intermarried

with them and produced half breed children.

So they were no longer pure Jews or Hebrews.

They'd become half Assyrian or whoever else they produced

children with. And so because of that, there

was a sense of inferiority and they certainly were rejected by

the people of Israel. They were looked down upon as

second class. Have you noticed Jesus wants to

use people who other people call second class.

That's a pattern that Jesus uses.

So that was one of the things that happened.

Joshua and his day had a major ceremony, set up a covenant with

the Lord, and he sent six of the tribe representatives up 1

mountain and six up the other. One produced released curses.

One released blessings. I believe curses on their

enemies and blessings on their people.

Yeah, that would be the way to do it, wouldn't it?

Not the other way. Joshua declared it as a city of

refuge. It's the site of some pretty

important events that have happened.

Do you want to say it with me, please?

The site of Abraham's tree, Jacob's well, Joshua's stone,

Joseph's tomb. Pretty important place that

well, eh? Solomon's son Rehoboam

proclaimed himself king there of the 12 tribes at the time.

When the nation was split into two kingdoms, North and South,

Samaritans built a temple at Mount Gerizium, which is one of

the the hills. Jacob's son Joseph came here and

Jacob initiated a revenge killing on the men of Shechem.

So Shechem's had a lot of interesting events take place in

the area. So let's let's go through them a

bit more. The important covenants.

There are 5 covenants that I want to talk about this morning.

Abraham came into Canaan and built an altar there and planted

A terebinth tree. It's a bit like an oak tree.

So it's an old tree that lasts a long time.

Abraham's grandson Jacob dug a well there for his livestock and

the idols of the the nation were buried there.

Joseph came back to his covenanted inheritance and he is

buried there. Joshua assembled the tribes here

to covenant to the nation of God and he built the memorial stone

there to to remember that. So they set up four times that

the nation was covenanted or joined or promised to God.

And a King Abimelech. He set himself up as a king and

he was the man that killed 70 of his brothers.

That's a nasty covenant, isn't it?

So he set up himself to be a king of the area.

However, that's not a good covenant.

But symbolically, in response, Jesus chose a bruised and

scarred Samaritan woman who had also engaged in five covenants.

What had she done five times? She'd married five times.

That's covenants. So there's five covenants in

history. And he chose a woman who'd also

engaged in five covenants to be his vessel to heal the hurts of

the land, restore those people back to relationship with each

other, but also with the nation of Israel, and share and be free

to worship their God in spirit and truth.

One of the things Joshua said, and we'll say this together in a

moment when he put the memorial stone up, is that he gave them

the test. Are you committed?

Do you covenant to your God? And this was his challenge.

Shall we say it together? Please, Joshua 2415 choose for

yourselves today whom you will serve, whether the gods which

your father served, which were beyond the river, or the gods of

the Amorites in whose land you are living.

But As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and that

was proclaimed at Shechem. So what we've got here is a

choice that's been made in a memorial stone to commemorate.

That's what happened, I believe when the lady met with Jesus at

the well, it was a very awkward engagement.

For a start, she would be embarrassed.

It would be the stilted conversation.

Jesus was speaking in spiritual truths and she was responding in

earthly or physical knowledge. So they were missing each other

a little bit. And so it was like, maybe you

don't have this, but when you hop into an elevator in a

building and you don't know the people in the elevator, you're

squished up against them with your hands at the side and no

one's speaking. And you're looking at numbers

hoping the door will open so you can run out.

Has anyone been uncomfortable in an elevator?

One or two nodding yes. And it's that sort of moment for

her was, I want to get rid of this man.

I don't know what he's on about. So let's go to chapter 4 of

John's Gospel and start at verse 4.

So it says here now he, Jesus had to go through Samaria.

Is that actually true? Is that the only way to get to

where he was going north? And the answer is no.

In fact, no Jew would go through Samaria.

It would be like no go zone. It would be really stupid to go

there and I'll tell you why, but I'll hear a couple of things

first. It was like no Jew would be

welcome there. It's not an appropriate place to

go. Years ago I went on a train

which left him in the cargo and ended up in Kitaya.

It was the old steam trains. It's pretty quite an adventure.

Took took a week to get there and it was full of young farmers

members. And so we stopped at different

places and met these different people throughout New Zealand on

this train trip. We went to this place in the

central North Island and it was a hot day.

So we went in for a drink and we went up to the bar and the man

says, what do you want? And I said we need a drink.

He says my advice is have a small drink and leave

immediately. And I said why?

We said why? He said look around.

We looked around. We were the only white faces in

the building and we were not welcome.

If we'd stayed, we'd have been beaten up.

And we're talking in the the 1980s.

It was my first experience of racism in New Zealand and it was

a bit scary. We left there.

I think we might have not finished the drink.

We knew we were not welcome. This isn't the place we

belonged. We were invading their space.

It was really uncomfortable. Give you another story.

In Northern Ireland, during the Troubles with the IRA, who were

fighting the British Army for independence for Northern

Ireland, if a Catholic girl went on a date with a British soldier

or a Protestant boy, the Catholics in her community would

shave her head and tar and feather her harshness.

Hey, you don't belong. You keep to yourself.

You don't mix. Yeah, harsh stuff used to go on,

ugly stuff, but Jesus had to go through Samaria, not because it

was the best way, but he had a prophetic encounter that he

needed to have with that woman. He had to go because he had to

meet her, and he knew he was going to meet her.

But the second reason also, he had to go to that place that

well where the other kings historically had been installed

because he was to be to be installed as the final king of

the northern Kingdom. He became revealed as the the

king for everybody, not just, if you like, the Jews.

So there was some sort of divine appointment that was taking

place at that. Well, so would you give me a

drink? It was about noon.

And I said this before because she was probably avoiding

people. Did Jesus need a drink?

Maybe. But did he need to speak to her?

Yes. But the very thing that he said,

will you give me a drink? The lady saw that as an insult.

It wasn't being friendly. Remember I said about going into

this place where we were told to leave.

Same for Jesus, being hospitable with a drink means some sort of

friendliness or acceptance and that wasn't appropriate at that

time. Will you give me a drink?

Smacked that Jesus was saying to her, I want you a lesser person,

to be my cup bearer. We've been talking about

Nehemiah. What was Nehemiah's profession?

He was a cupbearer to the king. But in the land of Samaria they

had a different memory of Nehemiah and the priest Ezra.

The lasting memory they had, he was the one that broke up

families. He sent away the foreign wives

and the children and expelled them from that area.

So when you ask for a drink, it's like it's an insult remind

because they didn't like that happening.

So this is our attention that Jesus has added to the

conversation to be a cupbearer like Nehemiah wasn't a well

received question, but Jesus answers him in verse 10 answers

her in the verse 10. If you knew the gift of God and

who it is that ask you for a drink, you would have asked him

and he would have given it to you.

Now here he switched it for on the one hand, he's asked her to

be his cup bearer, but now he's offering himself to be her cup

bearer. Do you see the cleverness of

that? Now that sort of throws her

because she doesn't get. That there's a change of

identity. He wants to be her servant and

then he's promised her living water.

I met a man in South Otago. He was doing a study for a year

in farming and he'd come from Papua New Guinea and they lived

in the jungle and they had a river going through the jungle,

which was their supply of water. But upstream in the jungle, a

multinational mining company was digging for for minerals, and

they tipped all their sludge into the river.

So when the people downstream wanted to use the river, it was

polluted. It was contaminated.

This man might have been 40. His wife was permanently sick

from the water. She was back in New Guinea.

And they can't fix it because she's been poisoned by the

sludge. And you can't fight it because

they're a multinational and you are this poverty person in New

Guinea. And so water needs to be pure,

it needs to be life giving and nourishing, not stagnant and

stale and poisonous. So Jesus is offering living

water. I want to talk to you a bit more

about living water because it's one of the keys of the whole

thing. When they anointed, when they

proclaimed kings in Israel, there was a tradition and a

ceremony, and obviously one of the first things they would use

is anointing oil. They anoint the king with oil.

Do you know what the other thing they called or what they used to

install a king? Pure living water.

So when Jesus says living water, there's instantly a connotation

of kingship. The symbolism is huge here.

We would miss it in our English living water.

And Jesus is also talking about you have water for your body to

nourish it, but you have to come back tomorrow and get more

water. But the water that he's offering

is for your soul, the cleansing of your soul.

And once you've received it, you don't need to come back.

It's done, you're healed. So that living water is more

powerful than the physical water.

It lasts forever. And she doesn't get that at all.

It's kind of over her head. And she says, where can I get

this living water? And then she tests him because

he sees here's this living water thing.

And it's sort of makes her wonder, is this a king

conversation? And they really looked up to

their father Jacob. And she's, are you greater than

our father Jacob who gave us this will?

So she's testing who are you, Jesus?

Are you setting yourself up to be someone special?

Jesus says everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty

again. But whoever drinks the water I

give them will never thirst. Verse 15, The woman said to him,

Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to

keep coming here to draw water. Does she get it?

Has she got what he's saying? She's still thinking of physical

water for her physical body. He's talking about the spiritual

water for the healing of the soul.

She doesn't get it yet. So they're still at cross

purposes then? There are two main keys here

that Jesus uses in the terms of words of knowledge which kind of

activate his authority. And he asked you this question,

go call your husband and come back because he knows the

answer. She replies, I have no husband,

She replied. Jesus says to her, You are right

when you say you have no husband.

The fact is you've had five husbands and the man you are now

with is not your husband. What you've said is quite true,

Sir. The woman said, I can see now

see that you are a prophet. Here you are.

Jesus has used word of knowledge, spiritual gift and

bang. The conversation shifted

instantly, which tells me we can use our physical conversation to

engage people all the time. Unless we have the living water

in US, it's a waste of time because there needs to be a

power encounter spirit to spirit.

Scriptures tell me in John, I think it's John Chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

Out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water.

How can it flow if you don't have it out of your innermost

being? Your spirit will flow rivers of

living water, which will heal people's souls, their wounds,

and their bruises. Why?

Because it's the presence of Jesus that they're being engaged

with. When this lady met Jesus, the

presence of Jesus healed her. He didn't have to do a major

ministry session because he's Jesus.

He just brings the glory of God into a situation.

So here we have the lady's saying, I've had five, Sorry,

what you said is now true. I've had five husbands.

But she's saying, I recognize that you are a prophet.

And so here we have the connection between the five

husbands and the five covenants that we've talked about earlier.

She was the most appropriate person for him to use to

minister to the people of Samaria, in this case Shechem.

Why? Because she was the most

bruised, the most hurting, the most rejected.

So once people see the transformation in her from the

engaging of Jesus, then there is some, if you like, instant

credibility to who Jesus actually is.

So this is the moment when suddenly it all comes to to

appear to her that this is actually a prophet.

And she talks about worshipping on the mountain and arguing

about the Jews in the in the Samaritans.

Where's the right place to worship?

And let's look at that. The time is coming when you will

worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

Salvation is from the Jews. It says in verse 22.

What that means is salvation is from Jesus.

Jesus is the Jew, so he will bring their salvation.

The true worshippers will worship the Father in the spirit

and in truth, for those are the kind of worshippers the Father

seeks. God is spirit and his

worshippers must worship in spirit and truth.

What he's saying is it doesn't matter about the location.

It doesn't matter about the nationality, it doesn't matter

about the form or the tradition or doing it right.

What it matters is relationship, spirit to spirit with your Lord.

And so he's testing her, pushing her way outside your comfort

zone, and she's really listening now.

She was like fobbing him off before, but now he's got her

attention. And this is what she says in

verse 25. I know that Messiah called

Christ is coming. When he comes He will explain

everything to us. What does Jesus say then?

Jesus declared I the one speaking to you.

I am he. He's declared his kingship

instantly in the place when the previous kings had been

installed. He is, if you like, the final

king they will ever need in that area is our final king as well.

So what do we have here? We have Jesus being identified

as the Messiah, and she recognizes him and everything

changes. She's freed from her bondages

and then because of that, the land of Samaria will be freed

from their bondage as well. I haven't got the rest of it on

the screen here, but it continues down to verse 42 where

Jesus stays for at least two days and he talks, ministers,

heals the people of that town. And so they see the change in

the people. They meet Jesus and they are

totally, if you like, overwhelmed with his love.

So their town is evangelized through the excitement and the

joy and the testimony of the Samaritan woman.

The Samaritans then learn that they too are acceptable and are

loved by their Messiah. And then it comes down to verse

42, the end of the story. And this is what the people of

Samaria say. We know that this man really is

the saviour of the world. They recognize Jesus, He's gone

on to a place where he wasn't welcome, where they had a whole

lot of bad history and he's come in and he's healed it restored

them back into relationship. So I find that's kind of

interesting because that's the the work of Jesus.

He comes into people's lives sometimes who are in the worst

mess and he can release the healing anointing that he

carries. But also, I look at this message

and I'm thinking, what's happened to the woman?

She had been avoiding people and she's been transformed into the

full potential that she carried to be an evangelist.

So her ministry's been released. Not only was she healed, she's

released all in the one process, one encounter, so she can have

an encounter with Jesus. And I'm not sure how how many

minutes that conversation took. Wasn't that long, was it maybe a

20 minute conversation? And she's been transformed by

encountering Jesus. Not only that, she's healed and

released. And so the excitement, the

transformation in her personality is huge.

That's basically all I want to say about the message this

morning. Because there's a lot that

happened to that Lady in the 11 encounter.

But to summarize, there were five covenants in the nation's

history, and the lady had five covenants of marriage.

And so she was, if you like, perfectly matched to be the

representative of Jesus. Nehemiah was the cupbearer to

the Persian king. He wasn't popular in the area,

but Jesus offered to be the cupbearer for the Samaritans

switch for their restoration. Kings were crowned in that area.

Jesus, by declaring he was the Messiah, proclaimed himself king

there. Many important men had chosen

their wives by wells beside a well, and Jesus chose this woman

by well, the bridegroom. If you like choosing a bride.

The two hills above the town signified both blessings and

curses. Jesus himself became both a

blessing and a curse for us. Water has been used for

purification and religious rituals, and Jesus used his

living water to purify this woman.

OK, do you find that interesting?

There's a lot of depth in the story and Jesus was doing more

than being nice to the lady she was.

He was repairing history. He was taking away all the

injustice, all the hurt, offence and bitterness and creating, if

you like, the environment which brings peace and joy and

relationship to the Lord. I want you to to think about in

a moment. I'll ask John to come forward.

Let's have our moment with Jesus this morning and see what Jesus

is going to say to us because I believe that Jesus has a message

for everyone this morning. So he had a message for the lady

at the well, but I also believe he has a message for everyone

here today as as well. So before we start, I want to

ask you to just to settle yourselves down and and focus on

Jesus. What is what is Jesus?

Is he a lion? Is he a lamb?

Is he all of the above? What does he mean to you?

And so I want you to sit where you are and just close your eyes

and just meditate for a few moments on the nature of Jesus

to you. I pray Jesus, you would come by

your Holy Spirit and you would speak to all of us.

You would release your wisdom into our minds, into our

thoughts, and we would have an understanding of revelation of

what you want to impart this morning.

So you may want to hold your hands open in front of you so

symbolically, like you're going to receive and in your own

words, quietly for yourself, ask Jesus Christ the Messiah to

reveal the one thing in your life right now that's holding

you back from your ministry calling now.

It could be shame like the Samaritan woman, could be

generational sin from your ancestor.

It could be some curse over your location, could be a wrong

belief. Whatever it is, just in a quiet

moment, ask Jesus yourself to speak.

Often it's the first thought that we have that we sort of

overthink and reject. Go with the first thought.

Once you have that, that thing, that that idea, I need you to

ask Jesus to tell you what you have to do about it.

Is this something you have to repent of?

Something to release, something to if you like, bring new

understanding to ask him what you have to do

and now do it what He's told you.

Now I want you to ask Jesus to cleanse you with his pure,

living water so that you are freed from any burden that

you've had. Ask him now.

And like the Samaritan woman who was released in her evangelistic

calling, I want you to ask Jesus to release you into your

calling. What is your ministry gift that

you are now free to move out for Him?

Jesus, I thank you for the work you're doing with your people

this morning. I thank you for your kindness

and your patience. And I thank you that you'd

thrown in the powers of the enemy who would distract and

distort the truth. Will we declare we'll worship

you in spirit and truth? You are our Messiah, our

Saviour, and we give you our allegiance.

We choose to this day that we will follow you and be obedient

to what you've told us. Amen.

Thanks for joining us at Omega. If you need prayer for healing

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