Cold Water on a Hot Day

Amen.

Today's uh sermon is called A Cup of Cold Water on a Hot Day.

Nobody in South Padre needs the definition of thirst in August, right?

It's like if you oh, when I went golfing with JR one time, he he poured in some secret stuff into his water and it made it really salty.

Have you guys had this?

It's like it makes it like electrolytes and salty water.

And it was the most refreshing thing I've ever had when I was hot.

I was so thirsty, and I stole all of his water.

He still hasn't forgiven me.

He's never taken me golfing since then.

Um, so you walk in from the parking lot, and and you don't want a cold, you don't want a lecture, you want a cup of cold water.

Like it's it can be that parching here, right?

Jesus sat down at this well that we're gonna see today at noon in the desert where he was walking.

And uh, you know, he's tired, he's sweaty, and he's thirsty, and a woman just walks up to him uh who was way thirstier than he was, but not just for water.

And that's this whole story we're gonna talk about today.

Two thirsty people at a well, but only one of them had something that truly satisfies.

So, first I want to show you guys a map.

So click on the map for me.

There we go.

All right, so this is a map, so you kind of need to understand a little bit about the situation before we we get into it.

So Jesus was has been in Jerusalem, down on the southern part, the bottom of the map there.

And then in Israel, there was that middle chunk called Samaria, and then there was Galilee, where Jesus was going and where Jesus was from, and kind of where he spent a lot of his time was up there in Galilee.

And so usually Jews would go all the way around Samaria, uh, over on the right side of that that that dotted line over there.

But Jesus chose to walk straight through Samaria.

Something Jews did not generally do because we're gonna, I'm gonna tell you about this conflict, but we'll get into that in just a minute.

But just kind of see to see the um the map there as we as we look at it.

So let's start in John chapter 4, verse 1.

John 4:1

It says, Therefore, when the Lord knew that the uh Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John, though GMs Jesus himself did not baptize but his disciples, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee.

But he needed to go through Samaria.

So what we've seen is Jesus has already confronted the religious leaders of the day.

He went into basically church and said, You guys are doing this all wrong.

You are not representing God and his love the way that you're supposed to, uh, which he could probably come into a lot of churches today and say the same thing, right?

Uh, but we've seen that he he's confronted this religious part of the world, and he's gonna do that more later, but now he's gonna go bring light to the religiously confused part of the world, and that's these outcasts that we're gonna call Samaritans, okay?

They were the half-breeds in the Jewish mind, they were weirdos, they were Samaritans, okay?

They were the ones they were, you know, we would joke about, the ones we forget, the ones we ignore, uh, you know, totally not give them a second thought.

If they were walking down the road, they would, the Jews would step down on the side of the road and let a Samaritan pass before they would walk on the same road as a Samaritan and just pass them.

Um, but Jesus has other plans for these people uh because he's gonna go to these confused people, he's gonna go to these broken people, these sad and desperate people, and he's gonna give them what they need.

Um they uh he's gonna give them himself.

That's what he's gonna offer them.

And again, in our world today, there's a lot of churches that have bad theology.

Did you know that?

You have to be careful what church you listen to, you have to be careful what pastors you listen to, you have to be careful if they're actually teaching the word of God.

Because if if you just listen to everything a pastor says, you could start thinking really weird things are true because they twist, they can twist the Bible.

And you're like, oh, this is this is why I don't even go to church, because there's so many bad, and you know what?

I agree.

It's a mess.

You have to.

That's why God gave all of us the word of God so that we can be responsible for what we believe and for what you're gonna be responsible when you get to heaven and and God's like, so what did you believe about my son Jesus?

And you're gonna be like, Well, I think he was where'd you hear that?

And you're not gonna be able to say, Well, Billy Bob told me, you know, small boasting told me this thing, and I believed it.

You you don't get to do, you don't get you don't get to blame somebody else for what you believed.

And that's what's so important about why we study the word of God verse by verse at church.

It's vital.

I in my mind, it's the only way to do it.

I mean, does that mean uh a topical sermon is bad?

No, they can be amazing, impactful, but over the long period of time, verse by verse teaching of the Bible is truly the only way that you can get a really strong foundation about all things and guard yourself from opinions of man.

Because that's what happens when we teach uh when a pastor teaches just what they want to talk about every week.

You know, it's it's his opinions that can creep in there, even if he's a good guy, even if it's unintentional.

And so that's why we let the Bible tell us what we're gonna talk about every week.

We're gonna get through what verse 26 today, and guess where we're gonna start next week?

27.

Unless I feel weird and I do something different.

But I won't because that's not what we do, right?

All right, Jesus has this plan, he's gonna give these.

So Jesus, though, he doesn't care that these people's theology, these Samaritans, have weird theology.

I'm telling you up front, they're weird, they believe strange things, but he doesn't care.

And and sometimes we can get really kind of like snooty about church saying, well, our church believes what's right, and maybe we do.

But it doesn't mean Jesus doesn't want to touch every person in every church and reach them, and Jesus is still gonna offer every person himself because he loves them personally and he can take care of bad theology himself, and we'll we'll trust him with that.

So, question how bad what's so bad about these Samaritans?

I'm glad you asked.

All right, little history lesson for you.

Okay, so in 722 BC, so 700 years before Jesus, the Jews were conquered by the Assyrians, and uh they exiled most of the Jewish population from the northern part of Israel at that point.

And all that were left behind were the poorest people, the uneducated people.

136 years later, the southern part of Israel, the Judea, was exiled to Babylon.

Who did they leave?

All the poor people and uneducated people, they didn't care about them.

So after all this terrible stuff in the nation of Israel, you have left uneducated and poor people.

Okay.

Then a bunch of non-Jewish people moved in, and the Jewish people that were there intermarried with all these other people.

And they weren't really strong in their theology at the at that point.

And so they started to integrate all the different religions into their Jewish faith.

They still were pretty like, yeah, we love Yahweh, we love God, the God of the Bible, that's still our thing.

But they were like, and we'll also sacrifice on this idol and we'll do this thing, and and they started to believe all kinds of weird stuff.

But they had this historical connection to the people of Israel.

So then when Israel comes back a couple hundred years later, they they're still, they've been in Babylon, they're like as Jewish as you can possibly be, and they're like, we got our word and we got our sacrifices, we got our new temple, and they have their temple and they're doing all their extremely strict Jewish stuff.

And then the Samaritans are like this loosey-goosey religion, they don't know what's going on.

So they started having a major conflict, and the Jewish people are like, We hate these guys.

They they they do all kinds of sinful things, they despise them, they despise them even more than the Gentiles because the Samaritans were like, We are your people, we are your family.

And the Jews are like, No, you're not.

You did what you were not supposed to do.

And the Samaritans took that personally, and then so the Samaritans are like, whatever, we're gonna build our own temple on Mount Gerizim in Samaria.

So they built their own church, they were doing their own church thing, and so the Jews are like, No, you're not.

So they come in and burn their church down, and so that didn't make things any better.

That's how we get to where we're at today.

Their relationship is completely broken, but they were still genetically Israelite Jewish.

So these people, though, there are confused, they're broken, they're sad, and they're desperate.

Well, what can what does Jesus do about that?

I think it just told us in our text, he needed to go through Samaria.

What does Jesus love more than anything?

He loves a good restoration project, he's a fix and flipper.

When he sees someone totally messed up, like if he were to just look around this room, he'd be like, I love this church.

I love this church.

He doesn't glorify the mess, he can see what he's gonna make us, and he loves coming to people who are broken, busted, and and man, he is attracted to our brokenness.

You know, he never runs out of grace to give us, he never um verse five.

So we came to the city of Samaria, which is called Sikar, near the plot of ground that Jacob gave to his son Joseph.

So many accused so pause, so many people accuse God of indifference when he is anything but indifferent.

Jesus is attracted to everyone who's broken, all people who are sinful, if you have a mess going on, that doesn't mean Jesus doesn't like you, it means he does like you.

He has this insatiable thirst, a desire to redeem lost people.

It's his goal.

He loves every broken person.

Verse 6.

Now Jacob's well was there.

Jesus, therefore, being wearied from his journey, sat thus by the well, and it was about the sixth hour, which is uh in our time, noon, the hottest of the sun is straight above, you know.

So this is Jacob's well.

If you go all the way back to the book of Genesis, there's this amazing picture.

This is the setting for our story.

Uh, and Jesus picks a brilliant setting for what he's about to do, and he's gonna use this powerful image of a well and water because he's a master at using simple, plain things to help us understand spiritual truth.

And did you see that Jesus got tired?

That proves to us a couple things.

Number one, Jesus was human.

And you're like, well, we know that Jesus was God, right?

And and so he's God and he's human, he's two things, but he's one person, and he's the only being that's ever been that.

He was God, he became human.

He took he didn't stop being God.

So you're like, well, why didn't he just make some water out of, you know, he gave himself a thermos filled with nice cold water and give himself something to drink?

Because he never used his power for his own benefit.

When it says that Jesus became a man, he he laid aside all of his godness, even though he was still God and he could still do that if he wanted to, but because he's God, he also wanted to take our situation upon himself to show us I am not this God that just lords over you.

I have become one of you.

I have experienced every single pain and hunger and thirst that you have experienced more than you've experienced it, I've experienced it with you so that I understand you.

And he had to do that because he's a God of love.

He is not a God that just stands up there and says, Do what I say or go to hell.

No, he's a God who says, I have come to understand you, I love you, and I'm gonna prove it to you by becoming and experiencing everything that you have experienced so that you can just trust me.

And that's what God asks of us.

Trust me.

Trust in me.

Don't trust in your own deeds, your own religiosity, your own efforts.

Trust in the sacrifice of Jesus.

Well, how do I get to that point?

Learn about Jesus and see who he really is, and you'll see he is this type of guy.

He was an actual human.

Um, he feel he felt every bit of difficulty that that we have to endure.

He feels it.

Uh, and he understands us and loves us.

And believe it or not, for the first 300 years of the church, the argument wasn't was Jesus God.

Everyone in the world knew that Jesus was God.

They were like, boom, miracles done.

We saw it.

It was he was obviously God.

The biggest argument for the first 300 years was, was Jesus even a man?

Or was he just a floating spectral spirit?

That's what people thought.

And so there's all these clues in the Bible that he actually was a man.

He ate and drank and spit and you know, all the bodily functions of a person being hungry and thirsty right here.

And that proves that he was a man.

And you're like, okay, well, can a man save me?

Well, he had to be a man to save you, but he also had to be God to save you, and that's what makes it so unique that Jesus is the only one who's all these things at the same time.

Verse 7 says, A woman of Samaria came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, Give me a drink.

No, I don't think he said it like that.

I think he was kind and he said, Give me a drink also.

This is not normal though, no matter how he said it.

Because usually when uh the women would come in the cool of the day, why would you come at noon uh to do all the hard work?

They would come early in the morning before it got hot or late in the afternoon.

And so what we see is that this woman is probably an outcast.

She probably is not accepted with all the other women to come at the time when they would come.

Uh maybe she had a problem with their husbands.

I don't know, as we'll see here later.

Um, but they she was obviously rejected.

So strike one, she's a woman back in that day.

Jews didn't talk to Samaritans, period.

Jews didn't talk to women either.

So strike two, she's an outcast woman.

Spice strike three, she's a spicy outcast woman.

Watch out for those.

So Jesus initiates this conversation with a spicy outcast woman, and this shows us that grace moves toward people that other people avoid.

So if you think people don't like you, that's fine.

They probably don't.

Maybe you smell, I don't know.

But Jesus is attracted to that, and we see this over and over and over.

Jesus did not wait for people to become respectable, informed, or more religious.

He meets people in their actual condition.

So Jesus says, Give me a drink.

Jesus knows exactly who you are, he knows exactly what you've hidden.

Nothing is hidden.

It says all things are naked and open before him.

It says he knows all that you fear.

He knows how you've been wounded, he knows how misinformed you might be about religion or God, he knows how dumb you are.

And all of that is great news because he still chose you, even though he knows all these horrible things about you.

So if the person who knows the most about you says, I still choose you, that's that's real love right there.

Uh the most comforting sentence I've ever heard heard is that God took my stupidity into account when he chose me and initiated a relationship with me and called me into the ministry.

He took my stupidity into account.

I love that.

Very comforting.

So Jesus says, Give me some water.

Um, Jesus wants to use some curiosity.

His strategy to meet this woman is to make her curious.

So he says, Give me some water.

Verse 8.

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

Verse 9, then the woman of Samaria said to him, How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?

For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

So again, culturally, Jesus was not supposed to speak to any woman.

In fact, there was the rabbis who were, you know, the super strict Pharisees, there was a group of them that were called the um the bleeding Pharisees, because every time they saw a woman, they would close their eyes with their hands, they would cover their eyes with their hands, and they would run wherever they and they would fall into stuff and run into walls and stuff.

So literally they would see a woman be like, ah, and they would just run into stuff, and so they were constantly bleeding.

We've come a long way, baby.

So that's just they were extremely religious, right?

So her response, this woman at the well, is why are you so friendly?

She's really curious about this.

Uh, what do you really want?

This is so weird, she's thinking.

Right?

Verse 10.

So Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is who says to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.

Oh my gosh.

So Jesus right here flips the entire thing around.

Jesus draws her into a conversation, making her curious about several things.

He made her curious about things of God, because he says, if you knew the gift of God, if you knew what God had given you.

You know the most easy way to make someone curious, say, I got something for you.

I got something for you.

It's in my car.

Come here.

You'll follow to a van with no windows.

It's so easy.

He made her curious, number two, about who Jesus is.

It says, He said, Who is it?

Who who is he who says to you?

Right?

He said, Uh, if if you just man, I got something for you.

Are you curious?

And then do you even know who I am?

Do you know who it is who's talking to you?

And then the third thing he makes her curious about is uh what he could give.

Uh he could have given her living water.

Are you curious about what the living water is?

What is Jesus communicating to her right now?

The gift of God is mind-blowing when you think about what Jesus is actually communicating.

A gift is free for all, a gift is undeserved blessing.

You don't have to earn it because it's literally a gift.

It's revealed by Jesus, it's delivered by Jesus, and it's satisfying like living water.

All these things we can pull out of this one verse.

Living water is also a name we have for the Holy Spirit in the Bible.

Or that's the very spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit.

So wow, Jesus in one little sentence has given the entire gospel.

You need something?

I want to give it to you.

I'm gonna do it through the spiritual world, and it's all from me.

Ask me and I'll give it to you, Jesus is saying.

Ask me and I'll give it to you.

You're not gonna find this offer anywhere else.

One time only.

Call now before we run out.

So his request also created this bridge.

To this deeper subject.

So you give me water.

And so Jesus made a bridge now to say, I want to give you something.

He really wasn't trying to get anything from her.

So the woman said to him, verse 11, Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

Where then do you get that living water?

Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?

So she's basically asking him two questions.

Number one, how can you meet my needs?

You're here at the same well I am, you're thirsty, just like I'm thirsty.

We're here at the same time with the same nothing.

You can't even get out of the well.

You have nothing to draw from, she's saying.

So what are you?

How can you meet my needs?

This is a good question.

She's basically saying, How can you do anything for me?

I came from the Jewish people too, bro.

I have just as much hope in God that God would help me as anyone else.

I just haven't seen the benefit of church or anything.

I haven't been to church in five years.

I haven't been to church in ten years.

I have never been to church.

But I'm a real person and I have value.

That's kind of what she's saying.

Verse 13, Jesus answered and said to her, Whoever drinks of this water in this well, I could just see him whoever drinks of this water is going to thirst again.

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

But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, it will become in him a fountain of living water, springing up into everlasting life.

So the woman said to him, Sir, give me this water that I may not thirst, nor come here to draw.

So the woman thinks that Jesus is talking about real water.

Obviously, she's still kind of not getting it, but Jesus is speaking of spiritual life, the thing that she's really thirsty for.

And so we still have to get her past just thinking with her flesh and thinking in the spirit.

So the water here represents, in Jesus' words, it represents the life that he wants to give her.

He wants to give her life.

And that life we can call the Holy Spirit.

So no matter how many drugs you do, you're never going to find life.

No matter how many people you sleep with, you're never going to find life.

No matter how much money you have, you're never going to find life.

Just ask the people who have tried.

It never gives you life.

No matter how religious you get, you'll never find life.

No matter how hard you try, you'll never find life.

Jesus says there's one thing that can give you life in this entire universe, me.

I am the only one.

And it's a spiritual reality.

So I'm gonna we're gonna fast forward.

We're have this water situation going on.

But in chapter 7, Jesus says this on the last day, the great day of the feast, this is back in Jerusalem, Jesus stood and cried out.

So just picture him coming.

There's a whole bunch of people, they have thousands, millions of people gathered.

It's on the day of atonement, and they have all these people taking buckets up to the top of these stairs, and they dump out the buckets, and it's hot in Jerusalem.

It's hot, hot, hot, and they're dumping buckets of water out.

And you're not allowed to drink it, don't drink it.

And they're just dumping the water out, and it's flowing like a river down.

And Jesus picks that moment, the last day of the feast, which is when they would dump the buckets, and Jesus stands up and he shouts to all the people, and he says, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me.

As the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

Can you imagine seeing that happen?

Someone saying, I am the reason for all of this.

It would be such an amazing picture.

Him standing in the middle of all this water, saying, I'm the source of all of it in your soul.

It's a in verse 39, but he spoke concerning the Spirit, those who believing in him would receive for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Jesus is talking about a gift.

He says, It'll be given, it's free.

And how do we get a free gift?

Jesus saying, the only thing you must do is believe exclusively in me.

Believe.

Believe.

That's faith.

Jesus that day reached out to give people his life.

I want to give my life to you.

Now I want to fast forward even further.

We're going to go all the way to heaven now.

Okay?

So in the book of Revelation, Jesus is bringing heavenly life to all who will see it.

See how it's described in the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, in the New Living Translation, it says this.

So in heaven, Jesus sits on a throne with God, and he is God, but he's there, and there's a river flowing from him.

Isn't that amazing?

It flowed down the center of the main street.

On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit with a f with a fresh crop each month.

The leaves were used for the medicine to heal the nations.

No longer will there be a curse upon anything, for the throne of God and the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him, and they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads, and there will be no night there, no need for lamps or sun, for the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever.

Then the angel said to me, Everything you've heard and seen is trustworthy and true.

The Lord God, who inspires his prophets, has sent his angel to tell his servants that which will happen soon.

So here we have this heavenly scene, and water is available in heaven, and you don't have to pay the Laguna Madre people.

But it's only through Jesus.

And it has it's the source of the healing for people, and it shows that there's the curse, everything that happened in the curse is reversed.

So what are we gonna do with this water?

What do we do with this offer Jesus gives us of life?

Usually we do something terrible.

Jeremiah chapter 2.

Jeremiah 2 · chapter mention

So we're backing up 500 years before Jesus now.

We have Jeremiah the prophet, and he hears this from Jesus in Jeremiah chapter 2.

Jeremiah 2 · chapter mention

He says, again, chapter 2, verse 12, uh in the New Living Translation, the heavens are shocked, the heavens.

So remember the scene in heaven we just talked about?

Now I want to look that he's saying, the heavens are shocked at such a thing, and shrink back in horror and dismay, says the Lord.

For my people have done two evil things.

First, they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water.

Two, they have dug themselves cracked cisterns or wells that can hold no water at all.

So God says here, God, I am the source of all living water, and Jesus is the source of all living water.

Do you get it?

God is the source, Jesus, they're the same guy, right?

Get it?

And then he says, There's two evil things my people have done.

Number one, they abandon Jesus.

Simple trust in Jesus, simple trust in his grace is abandoned in among his people, right?

And this was talking to the people of Israel.

We can apply it to our life today.

It's evil when we say, Ah, Jesus, I'm not going to trust in him for this thing.

God says that's evil.

When we abandon Jesus.

But then we have to replace Jesus with something.

So he says, what they do is they dig their own wells, they dig their own cisterns.

What is a cistern?

So back in that day, it didn't rain during the summer.

So you had to dig in a rock out of a solid rock, you had to dig big holes and let the rain fill those holes so that you would have water to drink during the dry season.

The problem is rocks are rocks, and if you dig too far down, if you get too close to the edge, it will crack.

And if you try to pour water in it, the water will just leak out the crack.

So you'll go there when you need it, when you're dry, when you're thirsty, and you're about to die.

And what happens?

You have nothing to drink.

So what is this?

Well, when we abandon Jesus, when we say, Jesus doesn't meet my needs, Jesus doesn't love me, and I'm not gonna do things the way he says, we have to turn to something else.

So what do we turn to?

Man-centered philosophies, man-centered wisdom, human psychology, man's thinking.

And man thinking, man's thinking is completely different than God's way of thinking.

In God's mind, man's psychology is evil.

Because it doesn't promote trust in his son, it promotes trust in man.

What can I figure out?

What can I change?

What can I do?

And God says that philosophy is the root of evil.

It's where all the mess comes from.

You got into this mess because you bought into this man-centered philosophy.

And what happens?

God says it's an it's a cistern that you dug, you got your degree in it, and then you tried to go to it when you were thirsty, and it was empty.

There was nothing there for you.

There was nothing that could truly give life to your soul.

There was no spiritual life.

And that's what happens when we turn from Jesus to the world.

The water runs out, it's ineffective.

So Jesus now has identified the thing that's keeping this woman and all of us from his living water.

And this is the thing that she needs to get saved from.

Jesus has confronted the thing, and the thing is sin.

The thing is evil, the thing is sin.

Sin her trust.

Sin is when you trust in your way of doing things.

This woman trusted, the only way I can pay my bills is to find a guy, sleep with him, become his wife, do things my way, and then that meets my needs.

Why can't you live a pure life?

Well, God won't take care of me.

I have to do this.

That's the lie that she bought into.

That's the philosophy.

I have to take care of myself.

If I don't do drugs, I'm gonna be sorry.

If I don't do this, I'm gonna do that.

It's always a choice to sin.

And the sin, the reason why we choose it is because we think it's gonna meet our need.

We think it's instead of God who loves us by trusting in him, he would meet our need.

And God says, Well, look at verse 16.

Jesus said to her, This is just awesome.

He says, Go call your husband and come here.

Simple question, right?

Verse 17.

The woman answered and said, I have no husband.

Why are you asking?

Right?

And Jesus said, Uh you have said, Well, you have no husband, for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.

In that you spoke truly.

You know, and all the angels are like, Oh but what really happened, Jesus exposes her life without condemning her.

He's actually not being mean.

We may think Jesus was being a little harsh, but he's actually uh commending her honesty, saying, Hey, you actually told the truth.

You don't have a husband right now.

And Jesus' knowledge of her life does not cause him to withdraw from her, he remains engaged with her and he continues offering himself.

I'm not walking away.

I know, I already knew about your mess.

And I still started this conversation with you.

Tell me what's wrong, woman.

Not so I can make fun of you, because I already know the depths of the sin that you've been sucked into.

I already know the philosophy you've been in, you've been believing.

But I'm not gonna ignore it, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it because that's the philosophy that's keeping you from receiving the thing that I'm gonna offer you, which is me.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, I'm gonna deal with it.

This is called confession.

When we confess to the Lord our sin.

Run to Jesus when you sin.

Notice I didn't say you're not gonna sin, because I know y'all are gonna sin, like me.

We're gonna make mistakes.

But when we sin, run to Jesus, not away from him.

All spiritual warfare is bound up in this.

I'm gonna tell you right now.

When you sin, the devil once is just gonna say, God's ashamed of you, God doesn't love you anymore, you need to keep your distance, you're in time out.

Do you feel that way when you sin?

That's not you, and that's not true, and that's not what the spirit is saying to you.

The spirit says, Come to Jesus.

The devil says, No, Jesus doesn't want to talk to you right now.

He's embarrassed of you, he hates you, he doesn't like you anymore.

That's not the truth.

Notice what Jesus does not do.

He does not shame her, he does not demand she cleans up or make moral improvements before she really receives his life.

He reveals the truth because grace, his grace reaches people where they really are, not where they're supposed to be, but in the mud, he reaches his hands down to her.

So the woman said to him, Sir, I perceive you are a prophet.

She says, Oh boy, we got a spiritual guy here.

Uh well, I have some spiritual thoughts and questions that have been in my mind.

Actually, people are always telling me that we don't really know God, us Samaritans, right?

Because we don't go to the right church, we don't go to the right mountain, we don't do things the right way, we got weird pastors.

Is that really true?

So this is what she says, verse 20.

Our fathers worship on this mountain, and you Jews say in Jerusalem is a place where one ought to worship.

And Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me.

The hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father.

You worship that which you do not know.

Yeah, you guys are a little weird, but it's all right.

We worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews.

God's been working in this in this country.

But the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, and the Father is seeking such to worship him, for God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and truth.

And the woman said to him, Well, I know that Messiah is coming, who is called Christ, and when he comes, he'll tell us all things.

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

Bingo, you got it.

So what is Jesus saying?

He says, Worship is no longer about a sacred location.

I'm that's what I'm coming to change.

And so the woman, you know, she shifts this conversation between the mountains, Mount Gerizim, and Jerusalem.

And so this doesn't mean that Jesus is just gonna make worship like completely informal and just emotional.

He's making it spiritual.

He's saying that worship is not gonna be based on approaching God through a physical temple or an ethnic, you know, group of people, you don't have to become Jewish, or an old covenant system of rules and sacrifices.

All of those things are gonna go away.

But through Christ, he says we will be able to worship God with a new spiritual identity inspired by his character and love.

So we're gonna be actually know him, we're gonna know his love, and that's why we're gonna worship him, not because there's rules that we have to worship him.

So this is where we stop and we say, Why do you worship God?

Why do you come to church?

Because you know it's the right thing to do.

Oh, you know that when you come here, you hear about the God who's already loved you.

And you can sing to the God who's already loved you, and you can bring your burdens to him and lay them down before him.

There is nothing about must and have-to's here because this temple is nothing special.

We are the temple of God now, and he desires to be worshipped, yes, but through spirit and truth.

So it doesn't matter what rules you think there are, we come to him directly through Christ.

Believers worship with this new spiritual identity, and we worship because of his love.

And so everything we do is worship, not just in this bar.

Yes, we worship God here, but when you wherever you go from here today, and wherever you go, you know, driving people around in a limo or driving around in your golf cart or whatever you do this week, you have just as much access and you're just as pleasing to God when you say thank you, Lord, and you you remember the love of God.

It is that real, it's that true.

This woman says, the Messiah, oh yeah, I know Messiah's coming, he'll explain everything.

And Jesus says, Yeah, I who speak to you am the Messiah.

So Jesus, this is the first time he says that, and it's the most clear, and he doesn't do it to a powerful religious leader or a king or a celebrity.

He does, he says it to a Samaritan woman with a complicated life, but she was so thirsty to know the truth.

She had a heart that wanted to worship God, but because of her past and her community and her family and every and the Jews, it was all closed doors for her.

Her husbands weren't gonna take her to church because she was an embarrassment.

Her family couldn't go to Jerusalem to worship because she was a half-breed.

Everything was a closed door for her until Jesus, and Jesus says, You're I'm not a closed door for you.

It's that simple.

Grace is uh wonderfully unconcerned with closed doors.

The gift that Jesus, I want to go back just to that last that first phrase that Jesus said, if you knew the gift of God, and the last thing we'll say here today is the gift of God that Jesus is offering, we've hit on it several times today, it is Jesus Himself.

He offers you Himself.

That's why we pick up our word and we read, that's why we pray, that's why we spend time with Him, and that's why we love others.

We love God and love others, right?

It's because Jesus has offered us Himself, and that's what He does.

He offers Himself to live for you and through you.

That's the offer.

Give me your heart, open your heart to my love and my spirit, and I will live for you, I will live through you.

The words you say will be nothing but comforting to others, the things you do will be Building others up and lifting them up.

That is the life that we've been offered.

Okay.

I don't always do this, but sometimes I want to say, if you have been wandering from the Lord, if you have been this woman and you have been thirsty, and today you want to say, Jesus, meet my need.

Jesus, I want your living water.

We're going to close our eyes, we're going to bow our heads, and I want you to pray a prayer.

So would you all close your eyes with me?

Father, I know that there's so much real thirst in this room.

But there's so much more grace.

So, Father, we lay down everything that we've been feeling, sensing, that we've been missing, everything that we've been longing for, everything we've been hurt by.

And we say, Jesus, if you see it all, I can't even list everything that's wrong with me, everything I'm thirsty for.

But Jesus, I give it all to you and I turn to you right now.

And I say, Jesus, give me your living water.

Jesus, I believe you are God.

I believe you loved me.

I believe you gave yourself to pay for my sin.

And that you now live in heaven and you're offering me this living water.

And I want it, Jesus, give it to me.

I need it.

I don't even know how much I need it, but God, I need it.

And if you've prayed that prayer with me today, just know that the answer is yes and amen.

It's done, and Jesus has said yes.

Father, we pray for each person in here.

God, you shine light and grace on us, and we'd live forever satisfied by your living water alone.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Do you guys all stand with us as we sing the song?

Oh my song.

Oh my song.

The sun comes up, it's new day dawn.

It's time to sing your song again.

Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me, then maybe singing with me.

Oh my soul.

Worship is all sing like never before.

Oh my soul, worship your holding.

Your beach in love, I just don't your name is great and your heights kind for all your goodness I will keep on singing.

Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find the Lord of my store.

Oh my store, worship his holding.

See I never before my soul, worship your home and all that when my strength feels faint.

The adjust dear and my time has come.

Still my storm will see your grace unending ten thousand years in the forever.

Oh my store, worship is all still I never be born.

Oh my stone, worship your home.

Oh my soul.

Worship is all name.

Say like never before all my soul.

Worship your own name.

God bless you and keep you.

Um announcements again.

We have Bible study Wednesday.

If you want to get to talk about the prayer retreat coming up in October, give me uh ring and talk to me after service.

If you need anything at all, I wanted to let you know our our app has a prayer wall.

And it's really neat.

When you when you get our app, and if you need to, you can ask me how to do that.

Um there's a prayer wall, and I've seen that people have started to use that and starting to put prayers, and it's really neat because it gives you a little push notification every time someone puts a prayer and we can pray for each other.

So I just wanted to give a shout-out to that.

Again, you go to the app store or whatever, and go into the church app, and then you tell it where you live, which is your church will pop right up, and then it becomes our church.

Really helpful stuff.

So God bless you guys.