The Quiet Part Out Loud

I'm excited today. I'm excited today for a few different reasons. First off, for pastor appreciation, they got me this shirt. It says: is Clark, you know who? C?

Anyone know who? Ka Caitlyn Clark is? Hey, if you're watching, hey, you, you're good at what you do. She ain't watching, she don't know who we are. They got me a Caitlin Clark shirt just cuz I get impressed with people who are impressive.

Amen, somebody, she's pretty. I'm impressed with the Dodger, even though they spent a lot of money to get there. How many Dodgers fans we got in the room? How many Yankees fans we, as always. So, yeah, there, there you go, see Yankees fans and Astros fans can't, can't bring them anywhere.

It's a good World Series. It's pretty fun to watch. But yeah, they got me this Caitlin Clark Jersey. It's not a Jersey, it's a probably a cheap version of a t-shirt, but it's comfy, it's comfy. Thank you guys so much for giving me this t-shirt.

She just keeps popping up on my Tik Tok feed cuz she's good at basketball. I can't help it. Anyways, I digress. I just wanted to tell yall why I was wearing a Caitlyn Clark shirt, that way y'all didn't leave here thinking: why was he wearing a Caitlin Clark shirt we're going to drop right into the text so that the Lord redeems this moment. All right, if you have your Bibles.

We're going to jump into John chapter 4. We've been in the series. We I mean call it a series. We're just in John chapter 4. We've been in the Book of John for the past couple of weeks and, throughout John chapter 4 we did a series title.

John 4 · chapter mention John 4 · chapter mention John 4 · chapter mention

We called, called it some areas cuz they're in some areia. In case you didn't get the pun, pastors like puns. People get annoyed by puns, so be ready to get annoyed. I've got a lot of them coming down the pipe over the next couple of months and years and if you're here for the next decade, you're going to be- I don't know, it's going to be Pac. See, that wasn't even a pun, but y'all laugh.

See you laughed. John chapter 4: we're going to be beginning in verse five. Here's what it says. So he came to a sound. This is a town- this is Jesus- in Samaria, called sukar.

Near the plot of ground, Jacob had given his son Joseph Jacob's Well was there and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon, when a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her: will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into town to buy food, so he was alone. The Samaritan woman said to him: you are a Jew and I'm a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?

For Jews, do not associate with Samaritans. Jesus answered her. If you knew, come on, look at your neighbor. Say if you knew, just a look at your other neighbor and let's do it right this time. If you knew, I'm going to give you five more puns if you don't do it right.

If you knew. A lot of us we don't really know the power of God, and so we come in here week in, week out and we're struggling. We don't anticipate the work that God could do in our lives. We don't know. We don't know, if you knew the gift of God, who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you Living Water.

I'm not going to preach on this at all today, but I got to say it cuz the Lord's revealing it to me. Right? If you knew the power of God, you would have asked: look at your neighbor, we can try one more time. Look at your neighbor, same neighbor or whichever neighbor you prefer, the one that looks better to you or Worse to you. So I'm trying to make it even for you.

Look at them, just look at them. Stare them in the eyeballs. I know they're. They're being insecure right now. They don't want to look you directly in the face because they're scared you're going to say something.

Look at them, say: if you knew you would have asked- has nothing to do with the sermon. I want you to remember that when you leave here today, you should ask the, the Lord, and He will reveal to you his nature and you'll start to understand his capacity. If you knew, you would ask: I need to ask more. You would ask for a drink, and he would have given you living water. Verse 11.

Sir, the woman said: you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. That's why he asked her BR. Duh, of course. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?

Jesus answered: everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water I give him, will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a Wellspring or a spring of water welling up into eternal life. 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. He told her: go call your husband and come back. She said: I have no husband.

Jesus said to her: you're right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you've had five husbands and the man you now have is not your husband. He's cooking here. What you have just said is quite true, sir. The woman said: I can see that you're a prophet.

I don't know if you read this the way that I read it, but it's kind of an enticing, exciting text to me because there's a lot of different. There's humor in it, there's sarcasm in it, there's spiritual depth in it. There's just a normal narrative, but there's also a deeper narrative that, when you look into it, you realize something greater about who you are, who God created you to be, and how he can use you to do something, powerful. There's something super special about this text, and what I like about it, that I'm going to tackle today is what she says and what he says. The first word she said to him was: , how are you talking to me?

Because you're a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. She speaks something out loud that is kind of understood, but usually kept quiet. And then in return, Jesus responds to her and he says at some point, go call your husband. He knows what he's doing here. He's, he's bringing something out into the open.

That is usually kept quiet. My sermon title today is called The Quiet part out loud- the quiet part out loud. We're entering into a unique season in our country and a lot of things we brush under the rug cuz we're scared to talk about them. But there's a catharsis that often happens when you speak out loud, the thing that is being hidden or kept quiet. I'll give you an example.

I remember when I was in college. I'm going to tell you a story. I don't know if it'll be funny or not. You might judge me by the end of this story, but when I was in college I used to go hiking a lot. I lived in Arkansas and I went to college at a place called was Baptist University.

Yep, a majored in public accounting, and it was in a town called Arkadelphia, Arkansas, before you judge. Remember you live in a town called Buckeye, Arizona, that only recently has grown much larger. There were 12,000 people total, I think, when the colleges were in session in this town, and so there wasn't much to do. If you wanted to go to town, you had to drive an hour to get into town, and so we would often go hiking or camping. So I got into the habit of going hiking and camping, such that even when I went home on vacation where I was in a city, my brother and I would still go camping and we went up into the Ozarks.

Anyone ever heard of the Ozarks? Maybe you read Where the Red Fern Grows? When you were growing up, that took place in the Ozarks. Only six of you raised your hand about the Ozarks. This makes me feel very insecure.

Let's just say it's a wooded area called the Ozarks. It's out in the middle of the woods. This is where you hear the stories, from that movie Deliverance. Anyone heard of the movie Deliverance? You, if you don't know the movie Deliverance, you've heard the sound.

So every time we would go in the woods in Arkansas, there was always this kind of vibe that there were people out there that lived there, who have lived there way longer and maybe didn't get the natural, normal or necessary education, and so when we go out into the woods you never knew sometimes whether you on National Park land or on somebody's property. And we went out one weekend over Christmas break up into the Ozarks and we used the GPS to hike out into the middle of nowhere, where this is the first time I ever used a GPS. So we got out, we found a place to camp, we set up camp and then we put up our tent and after the fire and eating and all that other stuff, we laid down to go to sleep. This is me and my twin brother. We're full- grown adults but we're still in college, so we're like 75% to adulthood at that point and it's kind of a joke.

But, we're laying there and I start to hear these dogs barking. Now if you've never been camping out in the middle of nowhere, you don't know what this feels like. But just picture every scary movie you've ever seen where they're out in the woods and something's about to happen and I hear these dogs barking and these dogs are getting closer and closer and closer. Now. We went out on a GPS so we were supposed to be in state park, but we didn't know for sure where we were.

In fact, we stopped early to Camp because we couldn't find where we were trying to go and so we thought we might have been on somebody's property. And we heard these dogs barking and the image of in my mind of the movie Deliverance, and the image in my mind of, every horror story that happened in the middle of the woods was coming into my mind. But I kept it quiet. I was. You know, men, right, when there's an emergency scenario, you're like: I'm not saying nothing, I'm going keep it chill, don't matter how bad it gets.

I'm going to be a man, but I was 19 and so I was still figuring it out 75% of the way there, but I was keeping my mouth shut. And we laid there for an hour and a half and the dogs kept getting a little bit closer, a little bit closer, and then we started to hear some other things. It was probably weird. We probably thought there were ghosts sitting out there. Who knows, you know, you know, you don't know what your brain's going to do when you're out there in the middle of nowhere and I just had this image of someone taking a picture of me in my tent and then kidnapping me, and I would never see my parents or family again, I'd never get married and, then I would never be out here to plant a church, right?

So this was a severe situation that you guys would never benefit from the Gospel, some of you- if I had gotten captured here. So I'm thinking all these things in my head and then my brother. I'm keeping it quiet. But then my brother's like: did you hear that? He said it out loud and all of- and here's what?

My immediate response: all right, let's pack up, we're going to go home cuz I could keep. I was keeping it together. It probably wasn't a good scenario, but I was keeping it together. And as soon as he said the quiet part out loud, I was like: all right, I'm dealing with it now, we're packing up, we're going to leave no trace and we're going to walk back out. We got the GPS, walked to the car and we drove all the way back home that night.

Yes, I know I'm a wimp. I don't care what you think. Maybe you think I'm a beta male, but I was scared, it was quiet, I was being a man, remember that this. But then my brother said it, so I had to. I had to deal with it.

And there are a lot of things, both positive and negative, that can happen when, while something might be under the surface, there's nothing you do about it, but as soon as someone brings it up, something has to be or it should happen. One example of how bringing the quiet, or saying the quiet thing out loud can be beneficial is with comedians. There's a catharsis, or a freedom of, or Deliverance that comes when you're sitting in a comedy show. Anyone sat in a comedy show before, for isn't it just shake your head or say Amen, like Isn't it nice to sit in a comedy show because they say things that you're too scared to say. And then you're like I, I totally agree with this guy would never say it out loud, but he said it out loud.

So I feel catharsis right now. It's it's subpart of salvation, but it feels pretty good, right, sitting in a comedy show. Some people sitting in a sermon, some pastors are a little bit more bold than me and they'll say the quiet thing out loud all the time. And you're like. I'm glad somebody said it needed to be said.

This community is going to hell in a h basket. But the Pastor said it. Some of you guys wish I would say the quiet part out loud more. Right there is a catharsis that comes with it. I'll give you a few little examples that I just wrote down because it'll be helpful.

These are things we keep quiet, that we need to maybe bring out in the open a little bit more. The word there might be cander. We just say it because when we say it out loud we kind of have to deal with it, just like when I was out there camping I felt the need to deal with it. One of the one of the examples I wrote down was: you know, when you're sitting at a meal with somebody else and you don't know who's going to pay for it, it's really nice when someone just says either I got this, or if you just say it out loud so that everyone feels more comfortable, and then you can actually have a solid conversation. When I'm sitting there waiting, especially with old people, old guys, old men, you know what I'm talking about.

Old men who grew up in that world say: you're not paying for your meal. I'm paying for your meal. I don't pay care. If there are 50 people at this table, I'm going pay for their meal. I'm going to bring the waitress over quietly to where no one notices and I'm going to pay that meal.

And they might go into debt to pay for that 50 people, but they're paying for that meal, right? So like like these are things when I'm sitting with people. I'm 36 years old and I'm paying for more people's meals. I'm finally 100% adult and so now I pay for people's meals once in a while. But sometimes it's still awkward, because sometimes I'm like, hey, inflation's crazy, I'm gonna pay for mine, you're going to pay for yours, and until someone- until someone says it out loud, is there's a little awkwardness to it?

Many of you are trying to be the dream couple. Yep, you're trying to be the dream couple, and so there are things that you've been brushing under the rug in your relationship. Neither one of you will say anything about it, because you think if you say something it's going to mess everything up. But maybe, just maybe, if you say something in the proper way. I want to be very clear: if you say something in the proper way, maybe they felt the same thing.

There is a value, a catharsis, to saying the quiet part out loud. You might be trying to look like a loving parent, I. I remember the other day my son- is he in here, Hannah? Are you in here, Hannah? Okay, he's not in here, okay, cool, I don't want to.

I want to give my kid a complex to where he never wants to come to church again. I want him to love church. I was coaching his baseball team and the other day he got five strikes. So they let you do that in coach pitch, and all of them were strikes and he watched two of them go by and I, just after five, I said: all right, you struck out. Bro starts arguing with me.

I'm right there at the catcher, I'm right there catching the ball. He starts arguing with me. It's a game, so, like all, both teams, parents are right behind me. He starts arguing with me and I'm like everyone was thinking the same thing. I know they were.

I know they grew up the same years that I grew up and they're thinking the same thing, but I, I was scared to discipline my kid. There there's, this was this Awkward Moment. Everybody thought the same thing. Sometimes I actually feel good when somebody actually disciplines their kid out in public. Not I mean not necessarily the wrong way, but there's a, there's a catharsis to saying the part out loud.

You, you people there, Democrats and Republicans in this room, I don't know who you are. I mean, I know who some of you are. Definitely I can tell by what you're wearing or whatever. And don't nobody want to say nothing, though, because we're scared of what bad could happen if we just say it. But, in Christ Jesus, we should be able to have this conversation, and sometimes there's nothing better than when I know someone is this, or I'm this, or they're this, and we just kind of know it.

It opens up a conversation. Hey, we love each other regardless. Let's just have a conversation. We don't have to have a shouting match. I don't have to say that you're on in Satan's party.

I don't have to say that you're not oriented towards social justice at all and you hate people. I don't have to say that stuff. There's something beneficial when I know where someone else is. They know where I am and we can just talk because the quiet part has been said out loud. Some of you dudes, you're acting normal and someone needs to call you out because you're stuck looking at the things you shouldn't be looking at on the web browser and you're just keeping it quiet.

Everybody's scared to say something, but there would be Redemption that could come if you just had somebody to say the quiet part out loud. Quit that crap. Pardon my French: , we're doing everything we can to avoid, the topics that regularly we C in this community. We're a diverse church. I think we're a diverse church.

That's an amazing thing. And I was having a conversation with somebody recently and they were beaten around the bush. They were like I feel this way in these certain times and what they were trying to say is because of, kind of my ethnic background or my race, I feel this way, but it's just like beating around the bush. And so in the conversation I said, hey, do you feel this way because of this? And I say exactly, and when I said it, there was a conversation that was able to happen afterwards because the quiet part was said out loud.

And when I'm preaching messages, sometimes I am scared to say the quiet part out loud, the part that we all know to be true, but I'm scared that if I say it someone's going to leave the church or get offended. But when I look at what Jesus does here, I see that he says the quiet part out loud, and so I'm feeling a little emboldened today. I hope that's okay. I'm feel EMB bold today, so let me walk you through this passage. I gotta I got to teach you the passage, not just give you my opinion.

Here's what happens first. We're going to start in verse 7 again. And I'm going to walk you through this passage. In verse 7 says this: when a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her: will you give me a drink? Now?

I showed you all a map last week. The map was the, the pathway between Judea and Samaria, I said. Or between Judea and Galilee, the Samaritan route. So when you go through Samaria you're in the Hills. So when Jesus gets to this well, it's about a third of the way through the, the route.

He's tired, he's been, he's been on Rolling Hills hiking up and down, so he's chilling here in the middle of the day and this woman comes up and he says: will you give me a drink? We find out later. He doesn't have utensils to draw all the way down at the bottom of the well she does, and so he asks her for a drink. Will you give me a drink? His disciples had gone into the town to buy food- verse 9: the Samaritan woman said to him: you're a Jew and I'm a Samaritan woman.

How can you ask me for a drink? For Jews, do not associate with Samaritan. She said the quiet part out loud here. She straight up said it. She said: you're Jewish and I'm a Samaritan.

We don't talk to each other, so why are you talking with me? I'll give you my first point, because I think this is a very superficial way that she's looking at Jesus. We find this out consistently throughout Scripture in the Book of John, and we find it out here. She's thinking about water, but he's going to take her to a deeper level. He says later: if you would have asked, I would have given you living water.

But since she's only seeing things at the surface level- and oh my gosh, is she only seeing things at the surface level? She, she is missing out on something deeper. So here's my first point. Maybe a lot of us are like the Samaritan woman. I say the quiet part out loud.

Maybe you're shallow. Look at your neighbor, don't hit him too hard with this. Say everybody, say maybe May you're shallow. I'm going to address this because a lot of the issue in the church, a lot of the issue out of the church, is that we look at things at a superficial level. How many of you would be honest in here and say that I'm superficial?

Not me, I like me. I'm talking about you, I'm talking about me. I'm superficial. I am none of y'all. None of y'all, seriously, none of y'all.

Ain't none of y'all got credit card debt? Ain't none of y'all buying Starbucks every single day? Ain't none of y'all looking at what other people have in terms of their car and thinking about maybe getting that car that you can't afford because you want to look a certain way? None of y'all, when y'all were looking for your boyfriend or your girlfriend, cared about what they look like. None of y'all.

Y'all are so cool. I'm glad God sent you guys to our church. You guys all see deeper. Or maybe say maybe I'm shallow. There are things that I'm missing about the character of God because I'm looking at things at the surface level.

This woman is looking at things at the surface level. Let me prove it to you even further, verse 9. She said to him: you're a Jew, I'm a Samaritan woman. She's looking at race. That's what she's looking at.

She's not wondering about the fact that he's out here by himself, without utensils. He's traveling back and forth. I don't know exactly what Jesus looked like, but I would imagine him being out there by himself was an unusual occasion, because people would usually not In the Heat of the day. They would grab it in the morning or in the evening. They would travel for Su car or whatever Village they're in, and they would go get their water in the morning or in the evening.

This happens even today in agrarian societies. I was in Tanzania a few years ago and I was going for a run cuz I was training for a marathon that I never ran and I went out and I was running down this dirt road and not only did I see people going to school early morning, but I would see women traveling from their home with legit- I'm not just making this up- with the, the pot on their head, and they would go to wherever they could grab water- and we were next to Lake Victoria, so there were Wells attached to it. They would do it in the morning and I would see him do it in the evening. They didn't do it midday cuz it was hot. So it would have been unusual for Jesus to be there.

And the first thing she notices you must be coming from Judea. Or even worse, she could tell by the way he looked. She was looking at the surface level. But let's go further. He says: if you knew the gift of God and who asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

You have nothing to draw with and the Well's deep. Where can you get this living water? He's, he's offering her living water. He says Living Water, like, like Zoe, like Life, Soul, like Abundant Life, that type of water he, he genuinely says Living Water. There's no reason for her to be confused here.

But she says Living Water. You don't have anything to draw from this well with. How are you going to get Living Water? Maybe she's being a little too superficial and shallow right here. She's missing the point because she's only seeing what's right in front of her.

In fact, this woman, it said Jesus was there at around y'all remember what time it was: noon, the middle of the day. Like I already said, people didn't go to the well in the middle of the day, which means- and this is what Scholars would agree with- would have been very common. If she's going to the well in the middle of the day and the only people that are at the well are Jesus and this woman, that means to really everyone who understands What's Happening Here. She's going there because she has been outcast at some level. So we know this before we even know about her, her home life.

We know that she's going there at a certain time because there is a need that she's been trying to fill in the wrong way and she desperately needs something greater and more abundant in her life. We know this by the fact that she showed up at noon to draw from the well and she's having this shallow conversation. Or at least her side is shallow. She asks this question. She says: are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it herself, as also did his sons in livestock?

And Jesus answered: everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him: give me this water so I won't get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water. She's still missing the point, and if there's one thing that I found to be true, it's official at this point. I've been in Ministry about 15 years and I found this to be true in every church that I'm in, that God wants to teach you something deeper.

Yet there are barriers there, there are veils in between us and God, and one of those veils is superficiality, because maybe we are shallow gosh. I- I'm talking to my myself here. I'm shallow guys. I want to be deeper. I like to see things, at a deeper level.

I want to see what's inside, because that's what God cares about. I don't want to just look at the surface, but it's so easy to look at the surface. You don't have to ask any questions about what's on the surface. You don't have to go through a process of discovery with what's on the surface. All you got to do is look, see, generalize and go about your day, and this is in every area.

This is not just about people. This is about what the text might tell you. I had an English teacher one time in college and she was telling us all the time. You need to read your Bible every year all the way through. So get a daily reading plan where you get to read your Bible all the way through, and I would proceed to see her treat people in a way that I'd never seen someone treat people in my life, and I remember thinking like she's reading it, but she must not be at the deeper level when she's reading it.

Many of us find ourselves there and I want to help you get to this place where every aspect of your life revolves around Jesus, such that when God moves, you see it and you're like: oh, I got to be a part of it. Like when God, by his Holy Spirit, convicts you of something that you're doing that maybe you shouldn't be doing. You're like: I need to take this seriously. But if you, if you become content or complacent in what's shallow, you're going to miss out on something that will give you Abundant Life. Moving out here to Phoenix, I found the shallowness to be very prevalent because, because, because we're very ambitious, or we always want to be busy, or we're thinking about what we drive, what house we stay at, what neighborhood we live in, we're thinking about who our friend groups are.

We're thinking about all of these things and I want to invite you because all those things are important at a level. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you shouldn't have friend groups, but what I am saying is, if you can go to the deeper level and begin seeking Jesus, he's going to give you something that that actually sustains you, beyond those things that you've been pursuing, that are pretty shallow. You've heard this before from every teacher that you grew up with. You can pursue all your dreams and still be unhappy.

But I want- I want to emphasize this for a moment, because we still live in such a way that, if can go on my shopaholic-, my, my shopaholic, trips- I don't even know how I was supposed to say that. I don't know if I'm going to be a Shopaholic- I'm gonna go over there to the marketplace on Pebble Creek, or I'm gonna go over to Scottdale and I'm gonna start buying stuff, because I think I don't say this. I know it won't fulfill me eternally, but I still go do it because there's a need within me that I keep trying to satiate. And I want you to know, none of those shallow things will satiate you. They won't satisfy, they won't get you to the place where you're actually happy when you wake up or peace filled when you go to bed.

That's only Jesus and I. I need to call this out because I see it here, I see it at every church I've been a part of. Maybe we can move from shallow to a level of depth and this conversation with Jesus and the Samaritan woman can actually help us get there. Because she's being shallow. I don't think she wants to be shallow.

I think she's lived life in a particular way and in living life that way, she has become conditioned to see things a particular way, and the process where in you grow and go deeper is this conversation with Jesus, where he asks you bold questions. It's a conversation with your spouse, where you are open with one another boldly. My wife and I have a conversation regularly. It's like: should we buy this? Well, why do we want to buy it?

Like, why do? Why do I want that like $4 to $5,000 concrete thing in my backyard? Well, because I want to host people. Well, because I've been over to other people's houses in verado and it's so nice and I want to look like them. I don't say that, but when we talk about it, that that comes out.

When I bring the, when I say the quiet part out loud, my real motivation becomes clear and we can. We can move beyond that. This woman has been struggling in her entire life not just with a disconnect from the one true God, Yahweh, who the Jews worship. There's been some weird theological disconnects for the Samaritans for a long time at that point. But she's been living life in a way that is shallow enough that she is going to the well and Jesus is presenting to her truth and she's missing it.

So here's your practical piece of advice, because if you're shallow, we need to move beyond that. When something hits you different, when it hits you weird, or when it maybe convicts you a little bit, and you think in your mind- because I believe the spirit of God will convict you of these things, maybe I'm doing this for the wrong reason, maybe I'm doing this in a shallow way. Maybe I need to dive in deeper as opposed to staying in the shallow end of the pool when it comes to my spiritual walk. When you feel that do what God tells you to do. When you feel that lean in.

The people who are finding success here at the church in their spiritual walk aren't the ones who tiptoe in and stay in the shallow into the pool. They're the ones who are like I don't know, it's cold, but I guess if I'm going to get in, I got to dive. I'm, for real, you know that feeling. When you're going into the pool you get to waste deep. I've been doing that a lot lately because it's getting colder out there and so I walk in.

I'm like I don't know if I want to dive in, don't feel good, it's cold, is it really worth it? But then I got to play with my kids and they really want me to play with them, so I got to get wet to do it before they start splashing me. It's going to work out poorly if I don't dive right now. So then I'm like I'm, I'm hyping myself up, up to just dive into the deep end of the pool so I get my full body submerged and then I feel: fine, that is your spiritual walk. And the vast majority of people get to waste deep and they're like: I think this is good enough, shallow, go deep, but I got to move on.

I, I w't keep you here forever, . My second point, and this is where Jesus gets really bold: I'm, I'm going read you the Scripture and then I'm going give you my point. Don't give it to him yet because, I'm going give it to him- right, verse 16: he told her: go call your husband and come back. I have no husband, she replied. Jesus said to her: you're right when you say you have no husband.

The fact is, you've had five and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have said is quite true. Now, this is a sarcastic conversation, at least in my opinion. Jesus is being Savage here. Not only is he saying the quiet part out loud, he's being pretty bold in the way that he does it.

He's like: go call your husband. He knows, he knows. That'll be like me saying to some of you who I knew, you where you were the night before, and it wasn't in a good place. It's like hey s, send me your location. I wouldn't do that, by the way, but it's hey, hey, go call your husband.

He don't know. I mean, if he's a normal dude he doesn't even know she's married. He's being super bold here. He said: go call your husband. She said: I don't have one.

She's trying to keep it. Keep it chill, just talk about the weather, just talk about simple stuff. She's being shallow here, but he's like: hold, hold. No, you're right, you've had five and the one you have now he's not your husband. And I remember preaching this passage one time and I remember thinking: I don't know that this is true, we can never know that this is true.

But I wonder: who is the man she's with now? Is he married? Is he single? She's with somebody else who's not her husband. Is she married now?

She's just not addressing it. I have no clue what's happening with this woman, but Jesus is calling her out and there is catharsis, there's Freedom that can come when you can, on that receiving side of Jesus's conversation with you, when he tells you something you're doing is wrong and you can- just you. You take it, receive it and move forward. A I don't know that we have a culture these days where we can accept hard information and be okay with it. So, Jesus, saying that to her would be the equivalent of half the things you don't want to talk about in public.

I always remember when I was younger and I saw someone that looked pregnant. When I was younger, I saw someone that looked pregnant. I was like, oh hey, what are you expecting? And I learned very quickly that's not something that you can call out and it don't even matter, does it? It's like they could be 9 months pregnant and they look like they're, they're about to have their baby, and you can't say, hey, what are you expecting?

They're like I'm not. How did you even tell? It's so one of those things you can't say the quiet part out loud there. This is kind of an equivalent, that is. That is one of those things you do not talk about socially.

That's why she's out there by herself, cuz she's not trying to talk about it. They gossip about her in the morning and in the evening, when all the ladies go out and get their water and bring it back to their families, she's going by herself, carrying her own water all the way to this. Well, that could have been about 1.5 miles, based on what Scholars might estimate. Each way. That's significant.

And Jesus responds to her in such a bold way where he's essentially saying the quiet part out loud. And here's the quiet part out loud for you. Maybe it's not just that you're shallow, maybe it's that you're sinning, maybe it's that your mindset and posture is not toward God at all. Maybe there are things happening in your life that when someone calls it out, you're getting offended. How dare they say that about me?

The Bible says: do not judge lest you be judged. I agree with you 100%. Only God can judge. But everybody else tends to make observations, and when they make an observation in your direction- that is true, but you don't want it to be said out loud- you get offended. Maybe you are sinning, maybe we have a mindset that is not of God.

Maybe we have not even looked at God's word to see how we should be living our lives. And if I were to do what Jesus did today, people would get so offended, wouldn't they say: Amen, somebody. I'll give you an example. Turn to Psalm 139. If you got one Psalm 139, I've got it here actually, so I don't have to waste your time.

Starting in verse 13, here's what it says, for you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful. I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my un formed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. That's what Psalm 139 says. Now, if I'm Jesus, I'm Not Jesus.

I'm just a guy here trying to give you a point that Jesus is saying. Who knows what I'm saying? I'm just giving you an example. If I were to tell everybody in this room right now- and I'm kind of doing it- that Psalm 139 is in direct contrast to that proposition 139 that you guys are about to vote on, in two seconds, someone's going to leave this room like, oh my political? No, I didn't.

I just read you the Scripture and, just for those of you who are unaware of it, The Proposition is one of those that pretty much says that you can extend the time frame, where you can terminate your pregnancy past 20 weeks, or when the doctor finds that the feasibility is or isn't proper to have an abortion, and all all I want to do to you is help you understand that. This is about as bold as Jesus is being here. He is taking something that is socially unacceptable: her having five husbands and living with a dude that's not her husband. That was unacceptable back then these days you got like 50 tender dates in a week, that's okay, you can handle that stuff. But these days that that back then that was bad.

But these days I think it might be more similar for Jesus to say: hey, maybe you've had one too many of these things, maybe you're missing the calling of God on your life because you have a mindset that is not only shallow but is full of sin. And if there's one thing I, as a pastor, Want To Boldly say here is that we're going to be a church that is proot. That's not political. I want to be clear: if you're sitting here, you're Democrat or you're a republican, that's okay, I don't care. But Psalm 139 says that he knew me before my first day, before I was ever formed in my mother's womb.

So if God knew me, just cuz you don't know me doesn't mean I am disposable, so I'm going to say it all right, I'm going to move on from that. Not because I'm scared to say it, no, I think I want to be bold about that. But this is what's happening in the passage: Jesus is Calling out a culture, a mindset that is both shallow and sinful. And if he never calls it out, then people don't see Deliverance at the level that they need to see this woman. She leaves.

She says I perceive you're a prophet, but we're going to find out next week that she leaves. She leaves her jar and she runs back to the town and she communicates one piece of information to the people in Samaria. She says: she didn't say hey, he saved me from my sin. She didn't say he delivered me. She doesn't say hey, this guy is a cool Prophet.

She didn't say: y'all come check out this guy. He performs magic tricks. She said: this is the one thing. She says: come see a man who told me everything that I ever did it. It wasn't the, it wasn't the miraculous thing that revealed who God was to her.

It was the fact that he said the quiet part out loud, yet still had Grace on her, that caused her to go back into the city. I want to be clear. Jesus didn't say that just because he was trying to have a good time and be bold in front of other people. Jesus said that because he knew that there is a catharsis that comes from confession- not just comedy, but confession. There is a catharsis that comes when something is said out loud.

This is why I believe the Bible says you should confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you can be saved. The Bible says in first John that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness, because he knows he has created us this way. There is a catharsis when we confess that, yes, we were shallow, yes, we were sinful, but in Christ Jesus we can become a new creation. And so while I said maybe you're shallow, maybe you're sinful, there is Grace on the other end of that candid, those candid statements. And here's my final point: maybe you need a savior.

This is where she was. She needed the Savior. She's not going to fix her past on her own. She's not going to fix her perspective on her own. It was Jesus, in that interaction, who was able to communicate to her in a way that she started to see release and freedom from some of the past and bad perspective that she had.

The only way you're going to move from surface level to a deeper level, the only way you're going to move from a sinful state to a new created state, is if you look to Jesus and allow him to speak into your life. I'll close with this and I know I'm going a little bit longer, so forgive me. I'll close with this story and you'll hear this many times over the next several years, because it was my salvation moment. I' had been going to church for about six months at that time and I was doing my thing. I enjoyed church.

It was fine, I learned some of the Bible stuff. I even started serving a little bit. But then the summer came and I was hanging out at a closer level with a lot of the students in the youth ministry. I was in eth grade at the time and I go up to this church camp and this girl who, had a crush on me. I guess it was kind of weird, but this girl had a crush on me and she had told me that and I had told her.

I was like I'm not really interested, which is a weird conversation I have. You know, it's kind of a weird thing. Girls have to do it way more than guys, but that was the one time in my whole life I ever did that, so I'm bragging about it. Anyways, we're. We're on the bus trip on the way up and I'm listening to Eminem and I'm cussing- cuz I think cussing is cool in a church because I'm different guys, what's up, I'm use, I'm cussing, dropping the f bomb because y'all think this is crazy and I thought it was cool.

And throughout the camp she said a couple of times: hey, this is not the direction you need to go. But I was like you just trying to get me to be a Christian so you can date me, or something like that. So I ignored it. But then she the last day goes and she starts crying to the youthman. She like he's going to go to hell.

And my first response was kind of a shallow response, even a sinful response. I was like how dare you judging me like I'm acting like I'm going to go to hell? You don't know me. And then we went into a worship set and I started the process. I think I think back to it and I think the Lord was talking to me, kind of like he's talking to this woman.

He said he saidwell, Matt, if you keep doing what you're doing, you will like this superficial life you're living, the sinful State you're stuck in. It will lead you to hell and you need a savior. So praise the Lord for this girl that you're not trying to date, but was bold enough to say that you're going to go to hell, because if she had not said it, there would have been no catharsis or process wherein I actually trusted Jesus and I'll just. I say that because a lot of times we try to beat around the bush or we try to say things in such a way, that we don't offend anybody, and- and sometimes those very offensive things are the very things that God wants us to like, come to pause with in conversation so that he can speak directly to us. So maybe you are in a superficial State, maybe you are in a sinful state, but all that means to me is that you are at the perfect spot to receive God's grace, and so I want to give you that opportunity right now to receive God's Grace by confessing with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised from the dead.

So if everybody would bow their heads and close their eyes, we're going to pray this prayer together out loud, for the benefit of those who are praying it for the first time. Say this: God, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I believe he died on the cross and Rose from the grave. Father, forgive me of my sin, forgive me of my shallowness, and I will follow you for the rest of my life. Make me a new creation.

Speak to me. For anyone in here who just prayed that prayer for the first time, believing that in their heart, I want you to know that this is the first step in a process where you start to have these same conversations that the Samaritan woman had with Jesus. I want to encourage you- it is worth it- to embrace those conversations rather than try to escape them, cuz all God wants, all we want, is for you to get to where God wants you to be, and the only way you get there sometimes is just like this woman in Jesus, Through Samaria, through this conversation, through addressing your shallow nature, through addressing your sinful state. So let's not be offended, let's move forward in Christ Jesus and, in fact, can we celebrate those who are making that decision to follow Jesus right now.