The Gospel of John: Meet in our Brokenness - Jan 26, 2025 (Mark Makary)

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

So great just to see everyone shaking each other's hands and greeting each other.

Those who are new here, if you don't know me, I am Mark.

I'm an elder here at church.

I am not the lead pastor.

I just want to be very clear about that.

The lead pastor, Pastor Miles, opened up our time in corporate worship.

He's taking a week of much needed time off, and so he's tapped me in.

We are studying the Gospel of John, and so I will be continuing there in John chapter four.

And so as we begin, I just wanted to ask and see how many people want to admit to watching the documentary series Don't Die on Netflix.

Any takers willing to admit to wasting two hours of their time on the most ridiculous documentary ever?

No?

It's all right.

Listen, you've missed absolutely nothing.

All right, and I'll be a friend that I'll kind of summarize it for you, all right?

Uh Don't Die is a documentary on an American entrepreneur, Brian Johnson, who's found immense, immense success in the financial and medical field.

He's spun up half a dozen companies, sold them, made millions upon millions upon millions of dollars.

By all definition, he's met financial success, and yet he found himself unsatisfied.

He found himself unfulfilled, and this is how he describes himself.

This is his words, not mine.

For his entire life, he was desperate to be free from himself.

He was desperate to be free from himself.

So you know what he does?

He sells his companies, he divorces his wife, he leaves his religion, and he finds liberation in this new pursuit.

And the documentary is about this new pursuit on anti-aging.

Hence, don't die.

And so every waking moment is calculated, it's measured, it's all progressing to this movement of anti-aging, from when he wakes up, for how much sleep he does, how much pills he takes, the type of injections he has, everything, everything is calculated.

And he's been doing this for years and years.

And about midway through the documentary, there's a bit of a plot twist.

His son travels across the country to live with him.

And that should give you a sense of how boring this documentary.

The plot twist is his son living with him.

But nonetheless, up until this point, he's been living in isolation with only really encountering his medical staff, his camera crew, and his doctors.

And so you can imagine like the social awkwardness between him and his son as this all pans out.

But as this goes on, you you begin to realize this documentary really isn't about anti-aging.

It's about an entrepreneur who's met financial success, made millions of dollars, didn't find satisfaction, didn't find the fulfillment that he thought it would provide him, leaves it, and then pursues anti-aging.

And even as that unravels, he begins to pivot and start focusing on relationships, his relationship with his son, his relationship with his community.

And if he spends the rest of his life pursuing now relationships, what do you think he'll find?

Like, do you do you think it will provide him the fulfillment, the satisfaction that he hoped for?

Or do you think it'll it'll provide him the same kind of emptiness that that financial pursuit once gave him?

And so I find that we we we could be guilty of that ourselves.

Like, aren't we all guilty of it in some sense?

Where we're constantly in pursuit of something?

Like seeking this type of quenching that we just can't seem to satisfy ourselves?

Like, aren't there areas in your own life where you're in constant pursuit of something that just doesn't seem to meet up our expectations?

Like things like career, where we're climbing the corporate ladder, chasing that dangled carrot, trying to pursue power and promotion and praise.

Only if attained, only if attained do you realize it's only a short period of time after where you're pursuing the next paycheck, the next promotion, the next title.

Or maybe it's maybe it's relationships, like we'll read in the life of the Samaritan woman, where she's pursuing relationship after relationship, trying to fulfill a void, trying to fulfill a desire, trying to quench a thirst that she just can't seem to satisfy.

See, in today's passage, we're going to be reading about Jesus who's offering living water, which is an endless source of satisfaction.

So before we turn to the text, let's just turn to the Lord in prayer.

Heavenly Father, we just turn to you and pray, Lord, as we corporately worship you.

You are you deserve all our praise, all our worship, Lord God.

I pray that all else fades in the back and that Christ is magnified.

We know your word, and if we turn to your word, it will not return void, Lord.

So speak to us, remove our distractions.

Lord, I pray that your spirit moves as we unfold in John chapter 4 the words of truth that you have for us this morning.

John 4 · chapter mention

Amen.

So why don't we just stand as I read chapter four?

But before we do that, you can't read if you don't have a Bible, as I'm being pointed out to you.

So, ushers will be up and down the aisle.

If you do not have a Bible, just raise your hand and they will get a Bible into your hands.

If you don't have a copy of God's word, this is our gift to you, keep it.

You will bless us if you do not return this to us.

All right.

John chapter 4, buckle in.

John 4 · chapter mention

Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

And he had to pass through Samaria.

So he came to the town of Samaria called Sirkar, near the field of Jacob, and give that he had given to his sons Joseph.

Jacob's wall was there, and so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well, and it was about the sixth hour.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, Give me water, give me a drink, sorry.

For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.

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

For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.

And 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.

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

Where do you get the living water?

Are you greater than our father Jacob?

He has he gave us this well, and will give him sorry, he will give us his well.

He has gave his well.

I'm I've lost my spot.

Sorry.

And drank it for himself, thank you.

Sorry, but that as he did his sons and his livestock.

Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never be thirsty again.

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

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

Jesus said to her, Go call your husband and come here.

And the woman answered him, I have no husband.

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

What you have said is true.

The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet.

Our father worshiped on the mountain, but you say that Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.

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

You worship what you do not know, and I worship what we do know, because the salvation came from the Jews.

But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

For the Father is seeking such people to worship him.

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

The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming.

He is called Christ.

When he has come, he will tell us all things.

And Jesus said to her, I know I who speak to you am He.

And then just his disciples came back, they marveled that he was talking to the woman, but no one said, What do you seek, or why are you talking to her?

So the woman left her water jar and went away into the town and said to the people, Come see a man who told me all that I ever did.

Can this be the Christ?

They went out of town and were coming to him.

We drop to verse 39.

Many Samaritans from the town believed in him because of the woman's testimony.

He told me all that I ever did.

So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with him, and they he stayed there two days.

And many more believed because of his words, and they said to the woman, It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard ourselves, and we know that this indeed is the Saviour of the world.

After two days he departed for Galilee, for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his hometown.

So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they too had gone to the feast.

So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine, and the Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill.

When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judah to Galilee, he went to him and asked him to come down to heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

So Jesus said to him, Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

The official said to him, Sir, come down before my son, my child, dies.

And Jesus said to him, Go, your son will live.

The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and went on his way, and when he was going down, the servant met him and told him that his son was recovering.

So he asked them, What hour had he begun to get better?

And they said to him, Yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him.

And the father knew that the hour when Jesus had said to him, Your son will live, and he himself believed and all his household.

This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

All right, have a seat, please.

We read of a pretty special encounter where Jesus and his disciples were leaving Judea and heading to Galilee.

And in verse 4, we read that Jesus had to pass through Samaria.

Now, if you if you weren't a history buff, you would have just kind of skipped over this verse and thought really nothing more of it.

But technically speaking, Jesus didn't really have to pass through Judea.

Or Samaria, sorry.

In fact, there are two ways to get to Galilee from Judea.

The first and most direct way is really just traveling due north for three days.

You have Judea in the south, you have Galilee in the north, and if you just traveled due north, you'd pass right through Samaria.

Or you can take an alternative route and travel east and go up the river of Jordan and you go around Samaria, but it would take you about a week.

And so you have option one, go direct, stay on land, take three days, but you pass through Samaria.

Or option two, go around, cross a river, takes about a week, but you bypass Samaria altogether.

And you figure you and I would say, okay, well, this is kind of easy.

Well, why wouldn't you take the easier, more direct, shorter route?

And yet so many Jews opted to take the more dire a more longer route, all to bypass Samaria.

So it begs the question, well, why?

What is it about the Samaritans?

Why does the Jews despise Samaritans so much that they would opt to take the longer, more difficult path?

And the animosity between these two individuals or these two groups are centuries old.

We know that King David conquered Jerusalem, made Jerusalem its nation's capital.

We know that Solomon built a temple there where the people of God ended up worshiping.

But if you fast forward a few years, we also know that the kingdom was divided between Judah and Israel.

And Jerusalem remained Judah's capital, but Israel appointed Samaria its capital, and a new temple was erected.

And over time the Samaritans were a racially mixed group of Gentiles and Jews, and they were marrying foreign women and introducing foreign practices and ultimately distorting God's word.

And so this is why the Jews looked down at the Samaritans, thought to them as unclean and unworthy.

And so this is why so many Jews opted to bypass Samaria altogether.

And yet, yet in God's divine providence, we read in verse 4 that Jesus had to pass through Samaria.

Or said a different way, Jesus was intentionally traveling to Samaria in pursuit of something.

And what he wants to show us is that Jesus or God pursues us in our brokenness.

And that's our first point today, that God pursues us in our brokenness.

In verse 6 and 7, we read that Jesus was sitting beside a well, and it was about the sixth hour.

And the sixth hour would be noontime, our time, or the hottest point of the day.

And we see that a woman from Samira comes to draw water, and Jesus says, Give me a drink.

And now this would be abnormal.

In fact, there are several things in the text that suggest something really incredible is happening.

Normally, women would travel together to a communal well.

It was seen as necessary for drawing water, for drinking, for cleaning, for providing, you know, water for livestock, for cooking.

But it was also seen as a social thing, where women would gather together and travel together to the communal well and you know talk about whatever women talk about as they travel to the communal well together.

And they would do so in the early days of the morning, and they would also do so in the late evening, essentially trying to avoid that middle part of the day, the hottest part of the day.

And yet we see this woman not only come draw water alone, but she comes draws water at the sixth hour, the hottest hour.

All to say this woman was going to the well expecting there to be no one there.

And in verse 17, it says that this woman also had been with six different men.

All to say this was no ordinary woman.

This woman was rejected, she was ostracized, she was ashamed, she was rejected by her community.

And yet, and yet Jesus turns to her and initiates a conversation with her.

Now let me tell you, if there were Jewish bystanders witnessing this, they'd be floored.

There would be this loud gasp.

They would consider themselves under some sort of heat stroke.

Because at that culture, at that time, a Jewish man talking to a woman in public was unheard of.

Let alone a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman.

Let alone a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan woman who was deemed immoral.

Let alone a Jewish man talking to a Samaritan who was deemed immoral and also wanted to share a bucket of water with us.

I think you get my point here.

I think you get my point.

See, we just witnessed Jesus not only shatter the cultural bias, we see him shatter the gender bias, we see him shatter the racial bias, and we see him pursue this woman in her brokenness.

See, this right here separates Christianity from all other religions in the world.

All other religions in the world want you to attain something, be something, give something before you can receive something.

If you want to be blessed, you must earn it.

Yet we all know this, right?

Like we all know that Christianity doesn't require us, or require us to earn God's favor.

We all know that God pursues us in our brokenness, and yet there's voices in our head, there's whispers saying, you're not good enough, you're not worthy enough, you're not gonna be great enough.

And we tell ourselves, until I clean up my act, I can't go to church.

Until I repent of the sin, I can't open up God's word and read it.

Until I'm a better person, I can't turn to God in prayer.

Until, until, until we put up these artificial barriers in approaching God.

And what Jesus is telling us in this passage is that we will never be worthy enough.

We'll never be good enough.

We'll never be righteous enough.

Yet, and yet God seeks us out despite our unrighteousness, despite our shame, despite our condition, God pursues us in our brokenness.

In Luke 19, 10, it says, The Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost.

See, God doesn't need us to attain any sort of goodness or any sort of righteousness.

Just as in his ordinary act of drawing water, Jesus meets us in our midst today.

Church, do you believe that?

This is why in chapter one of this book, John the Baptist proclaims, Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

And the same author in the book of Revelation says he witnessed millions upon millions of angels singing, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain.

See, praise God that he doesn't pursue us in our so I praise God that he pursues us in our brokenness.

That it's not our own merit that get us earning God, but it's his son, the same son that we're reading today, the same son that pursued the Samaritan woman at the well, is the same son that lived a perfect life here on earth, was nailed to that cross, and bore the sins of many.

So Jesus doesn't God doesn't look at us as sinners no longer.

He looks at us as his children made righteous through his son, Jesus Christ.

And this is why in verse 10.

This is why in verse 10 he refers to it as a gift of God.

Look at verse 10 with me.

It says, and notice how the dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritans continued to evolve, and how Jesus really chipping away at her heart in heart.

After being floored, that a Jewish man is talking to her, look how what Jesus says in verse 10.

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.

Still not got uh getting it.

Jesus continues to pursue deeper.

Verse 13.

Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.

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

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

And just like notice how she responds to Jesus in verse 13.

She says, Sir, give me this water that I never may thirst again, nor come drink, uh, nor come draw from this water well.

Like you think it would be sufficient enough.

Jesus just said, Hey, I have living water, and if you take it, you'll never thirst again.

And you think the natural response would be, All right, give me this water that I may never thirst again.

But no, she says, Nor come here and draw water again.

She was particularly interested in a type of water that would prevent her from coming to this well ever again.

See, this woman was had a daily reminder of her shame, a daily reminder of how her community rejected her, ostracized her, rejected her, shamed her for her immoral lifestyle.

So she turns to Jesus and said, Give me this water so I never have to be reminded of the shame again.

And look how loving Jesus is.

She still not gets it.

She just still doesn't get it.

And so he guides the conversation away for her understanding of a physical need into a spiritual need, where he brings to light an area of her life that she's been in constant dissatisfaction.

We read that the woman has had five previous husbands revealing an unquenchable thirst in this woman's life of broken and sinful relationships.

And I'm just gonna assume, okay, I'm gonna assume this of the text, that every time she got into a relationship, she's thinking this is the one.

She's thinking this is one, this one, this man is different than all the rest.

I just feel it, I know he's right, he's gonna make me happy.

And yet no marriage lasted.

She finds herself in yet another relationship.

Each relationship was a pursuit, a finding happiness, fulfill fulfillment, joy, longing.

She was lonely and empty and willing to grab at anything to satisfy her thirst.

In Ecclesiastics 3.11, it says that God puts eternity in each one of our hearts, that we possess an innate knowledge that there's something more to life than how we experience it here and now, that we have this God-induced craving, this spiritual thirst that only He can satisfy.

So we see those Samaritan women trying to fulfill this satisfaction, to this need for satisfaction through broken relationships, only to leave her more unsatisfied, more unfulfilled, more in need.

So ask yourself are there areas in your life that you're in constant pursuit of satisfaction that leave you unsatisfied?

Like this Samaritan woman who's pursuing relationships and needing that craving, that desire to be filled.

Are there relationships in your life?

Are you unhappy in your marriage, just thinking if if my spouse could just change and be this way, everything would be so much better?

Are you disappointed in your friendships because they keep letting you down?

Are you discontent with the relationships in your life, whether co-worker, friends, family, you name it, because they just keep failing you.

Listen to this, listen to this.

Spouses will hurt you, friends will disappoint you, people will frustrate you.

That is a fact.

And don't don't get me wrong, there's such amazing things in every one of these relationships.

Such amazing things.

Yet if you expect any of them to be your savior, to meet your every need, to quench your every thirst, they will only fail you.

C.S.

Lewis said if we find ourselves if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.

So what's the solution?

Look at verse 14 with me.

In verse 14, Jesus presents the answer, but not only does he present the answer, he qualifies it with its a gift.

But whosoever, verse 14, whosoever drinks of this water that I give him will never be thirsty again.

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

I just love how one author puts it when he says this.

Power cannot attain it, money cannot buy it, merit cannot obtain it.

It is a gift.

The gift of God that Jesus speaks of here is the Holy Spirit.

And it's through the Holy Spirit's work in our life that provides us an endless need, an endless feed of satisfaction, of refreshment, of joy.

It's all sufficient, all satisfying, all sustaining.

Simply put, it is the mode of all things good.

This is why the Holy Spirit, throughout Scripture, is described as our comforter, our seal of salvation, our guide.

Listen, Jesus is not saying, Jesus is not saying that you'll never be in need again.

He's not saying that you'll never hurt again, he's not saying you'll never suffer again.

He's saying he is the source of all things sufficient, all things satisfying.

So stop looking at your career, suffering at your wealth, suffering at your accomplishments.

All you need to do is look to Jesus.

So whosoever believes in him will never thirst again.

We see this theme come up all throughout the Gospel of John.

You don't have to turn there with me, but I'll read two chap uh two verses.

John 6.35 says, Jesus, then I am the bread of life.

Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whosoever believes in me shall never thirst.

John 7.37.

On that last day of the feast, that great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures have said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

Now this he said about the whole the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive.

So ask yourself, are you seeking satisfaction from things in your life that can only provide you temporary relief?

That only can be satisfied of the one true source of living water.

You know what I love about this passage?

What I love so much about this passage is after we after it's revealed that this woman has been rejected by her community in isolation, ostracized, shamed, after we hear that she's had five different husbands, six different relationships, you know what happens?

Jesus still offers her living water.

Pastor Miles quoted this last week, and it's so fitting to continuously be reminded of this.

He was quoting Tim Keller when he said, You are more sinful than you could ever dare imagine, and you are more loved and accepted than you could ever dare hope for.

Praise God that he pursues us in our brokenness.

This brings us to a second point.

If we believe that God pursues us in our brokenness, then our response is to worship.

The dialogue continues with the Samaritan woman diverting the conversation away from her own sin in an attempt to focus on where the right area of worship is.

Is it the temple of Samaria or is it the temple of Jerusalem?

And yet Jesus here responds with what really matters.

See in verse 23, he says, true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

Jesus is demonstrating that it's not a matter of where to worship, but it's a matter of whom and how to worship.

He's pointing out that the place of worship doesn't really matter.

It is the heart of worship that matters.

See, Jesus is saying that true worshipers will worship the Father.

It is God-centered worship.

The object of our worship, the who of our worship is the Father.

Such a simple yet infinitely complex thing to wrap our mind around.

As we go about our days, we have priorities.

We have the to-do list that just seems to get longer.

It is a constant attack, a constant distraction of competing priorities, all trying to dethrone God from the throne of our hearts.

So, church, are you aware of that?

Are you aware of the constant battle for our worship?

John Calvin says the human heart is a perpetual idol-making factor.

So it's not a question of do you worship?

It is a question of what or who do you worship?

Do you believe that?

That we are constantly worshiping something?

I want to flush out that idea just a little bit with you by asking you three questions.

Rhetorical, I guess.

So stick with me here.

The first, would you agree that time reveals your priority?

That time reveals your priority.

There's only so much of it, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

What do you do with your time?

I suspect many of us, when we got up this morning, we ate breakfast.

Why?

Well, we're probably hungry, but it's good.

It's nutritious, it provides us energy throughout the day.

So what do we do?

We make time for it, we prioritize it.

Right?

And so we we you know we spend time at work and school with family and friends, all these things are really good things to make time for.

So what do we do?

We make it a priority in our life.

And so if you looked at my own life and saw all the various time that I spent on all these various things, and then I tried to convince you that skiing is a priority in my life, you'd think I'm lying.

You'd think, Mark, I know you.

You haven't skied for, I don't know, 15, 20 years, maybe.

The last time I did ski, actually, I was in jeans.

I'm still being criticized for that, by the way.

Unrelated to my message, but I just wanted to throw that out there.

Um, but are we trying to convince ourselves that that something is a priority when we lack the discipline, lack the desire, lack the very time spent on that very thing?

And so if you could look at your own life, whether a week, a day, whatever period of time, and saw all the various time that you spent, what would that reveal about what you prioritize in life?

See, time is a revealer of priority.

Where there's no time given, no priority is set.

What about this one?

Would you agree with me that priority reveals value?

That priority reveals value.

I'm assuming I don't have to convince you of this one.

That's this is more or less kind of obvious.

No one prioritizes what they do not care for.

If I stop showing up to work and I try to convince you that I really value my employment, you would hopefully tell me, Mark, you will get fired.

Rightfully so.

If you stop showing up for work, how can you possibly value it?

No one neglects what they care for.

No one neglects what they value.

Last one.

Would you agree with me that what we value most reveals the object of our worship?

So we got time reveals your priority, pride reveals value, and what what what we value most reveals the object of our worship.

See, what is of greatest value to us, what gets the most priority to us, what consumes the most of our time, is it not that that has the throne of our hearts?

Like if I spent all my time, my attention, my desire, my money, my affection, have I not also given it my heart and my worship?

See, in sports, no one is talking about the second greatest of all time.

No one remembers the second place finishers.

No one's interested in reading articles about the second richest man in the world or the second fastest runner.

All the attention, all the praise, all the glory goes to number one.

So Jesus says, oh, sorry, Jesus says, the true worshippers will worship the Father, but not only worship the Father, but worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

This is wholehearted, passionate worship.

Church, we are worshiping right now.

That's what we've been doing all morning.

It's not limited by a certain act.

It could be a range of things like singing, prayer, communion, giving, serving.

Worship is not limited by an act or a thought, but the heart posture behind the act or the thought.

Yeah, we can fall into the trap of focusing on all the wrong things, focusing on the songs we sing or how loud we sing them or the instruments that we play.

We can get wrapped up in the motions of singing with the loudest voice, raising the highest hands, or saying the loudest amen.

But if our hearts are not in it, we've missed what it means to be true worshipers of spirit and in truth.

So it begs the question.

It begs the question, how do you know?

How do you know you have the right heart posture when it comes to worshiping God?

It's a heart check on your worship for God is your love for God.

And a heart check on your love for God is do you love God's people?

Do you pray with them?

Do you serve them?

Do you show hospitality to them?

Here's one end.

Like, I don't want to rank them, but maybe this above them all, which is kind of ranking.

Do you contribute to their spiritual life?

And do they contribute to yours?

That's the heart posture.

That's the heart check of your worship to God.

See, if we worship God in spirit and in truth, he must be all-satisfying, all-quenching, all-consuming to us.

And if so, then our response must be to worship.

Sorry, to share it with others.

The final point I want to draw to your attention is our worship leads to witness.

Our worship leads to witness.

When Jesus reveals at the Samaritan woman that he is the Messiah, notice her reaction in verse 28.

See, there is no command by Jesus telling her what to do next.

Jesus doesn't say, go do this or that.

You know what she does?

Her newfound love for Christ compels her to bolt out of there, leaving the very bucket of water that she had and came to the well for, and run into town.

And this is so counterculture.

She doesn't run into town with her own agenda.

She doesn't get to town and say, guys, hey, I just met the Messiah.

I'm good now, I'm clean.

Next time you guys are going to the well, I'll join you.

She doesn't say, hey, I'm no longer immoral.

She doesn't come with her agenda.

What she comes with is the witnessing for Christ.

See, there must have been something so miraculous that was so visible out of her that the same people that reject her, despise her, label her as immoral, the same people that ignored her are the people that just dropped what they were doing and followed after her to Jesus.

We read in verse 39 that many Samaritans from that town came to believe Jesus because of that woman's testimony.

That they too came to the knowledge that this is the Savior of the world.

Christians, this should be so practical to us.

See, witnessing for Christ.

Witnessing for Christ doesn't require us to be a theologian.

It doesn't require us to know every answer in Scripture.

It doesn't require us to know Scripture inside out.

All it requires us to do is share our own experience and how Christ changed our lives.

Pastor Miles prayed over it this morning in Isaiah 12.

I'll read it again.

Behold, God is my salvation.

I will trust and I will not be afraid.

For the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.

Give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people, proclaim that his name may be exalted.

See, when we encounter Christ, we are compelled to share his love with others.

Like the Samaritan woman, God can use our testimony as a witness to others.

We see a similar reaction by the official son at the end of John chapter 4, whose son was sick.

John 4 · chapter mention

And just by that title, by the way, official means he's very much likely to be wealthy or of rank.

And what that really should tell us or indicate to us is he would have had access to all sorts of doctors.

And yet none of those doctors can cure his son.

And so in his desperation, he turns to the Lord, but he doesn't come to Lord in true belief.

He comes to the Lord with his own agenda.

He comes to his Lord to fulfill his own desire.

And look what Jesus says to him in verse 48.

He says, unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

And the word you here is plural.

He's not addressing directly the official.

And in your in your Bible, the footnote would probably say plural, or it may be translated, you people.

But Jesus is saying to the crowds that unless he performs great miracles before their very eyes, they will not see him for who he really is.

And aren't we all guilty of that?

If we can just be honest with ourselves, can't we just admit?

Can't we just admit to that struggle that unless we see God working wonders in our life, we begin to doubt his goodness?

That is our belief in God conditioned on God's goodness?

Are we more interested in the gift than the gift giver?

See, when life is stress-free, when our prayers are being answered, when money isn't tight, you know, when we have our health, we're all praise for God.

But when the suffering comes, when the trial comes, when the difficulty comes, we begin to doubt his love, we begin to doubt his goodness.

We retract from the very life-giving source that will take us out of that mess.

See, we witness, we witness a change in the heart from the official.

The official, in the midst of his desperation, in the midst of his dying son, pleads with the Lord to come, to come with him back home to save his son.

And Jesus says, Your son will live.

Your son will live.

And he no longer, he no longer pleads with God, but believes his every word.

See, when we encounter, when we encounter Jesus, he met him in his in brokenness.

And the official believed the very words of God.

He didn't need signs and wonders.

So it's just a reminder of that quote we started in the very beginning.

That just like the official and the Samaritan, Jesus meets in us in our brokenness.

That he's still offering living water today.

Wisdom can't find it.

Power cannot attain it.

Money cannot buy it.

Merit cannot obtain it.

It is a gift of God.

He meets us in our brokenness and he still offers the gift here today.

And it is He, the source of living water, that will satisfy our every need and quench our every thirst.

The question is, will you drink from the well he is offering?

Let's pray.

Heaven Father, we just turn to you, Lord, and just stand in awe of who you are.

Lord, you reveal to us that even in the woman's brokenness, even in her sinful state, even in her immoral relationships, Lord God, you've pursued her.

You sought her out.

We read in Luke that you seek and save the lost.

Lord, we can't help but just see your goodness in that.

We're so thankful that is not us.

We don't have to attain you or earn you, achieve you, buy you.

But it is you, Lord, who seek and save the lost.

You seek us out in our brokenness, Lord.

There's so many times we come before you so broken.

This world pulls us apart.

This world shows us so many distractions.

We chase the wrong carrots.

Lord, we're so thankful for your love because as we turn to you in repentance, we know you'll welcome us with open hearts.

Lord, we know that you pursue us beyond our possible imagination.

Lord, if there is anyone here who's still seeking satisfaction, still seeking a type of quenching, a type of fulfillment from things of this world, whether career, whether relationships, whether accomplishments, whether money, you know our hearts.

Nothing will satisfy but you, the very source of living water.

We're so thankful that you seek us out.

Amen.