Text:\u00a0 John 4: 5-26<\/p>\n
I remember a time when I was going door to door in an area of mobile homes.\u00a0 As I moved along I came to a place strewn with trash, a big mess.\u00a0 I thought to myself.\u00a0 Do I want to go there?\u00a0 They probably have a list of problems a mile long.\u00a0 So I hesitated.\u00a0 I was tempted to pass that house and move on to another.<\/p>\n
But then as our Baptist friends like to say, I was convicted.\u00a0 I realized I was not following my Savior\u2019s lead.\u00a0 How dare I avoid someone because they are not \u201cour kind of people.\u201d\u00a0 How dare I pass up an opportunity to put someone in contact with Jesus and his Word.<\/p>\n
For you see that\u2019s not the way Jesus operated and that\u2019s not the way he wants his servants to operate.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t avoid those caught in a web of sin.\u00a0 He did just the opposite.\u00a0 Our text is a good example as Jesus reaches out to this Samaritan woman.<\/p>\n
When we travel, most of us like to go as direct as we can.\u00a0 We don\u2019t like detours.\u00a0 They cost us precious time.\u00a0 Well the shortest distance between Judea and Galilee was through Samaria.\u00a0 But the strictest Jews would go another way. They took a big detour around Samaria.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Not because the roads were bad or filled with bandits.\u00a0 Rather because they wanted nothing to do with the Samaritan who they considered a half breed, second rate believer.<\/p>\n
But here we\u2019re told [Jesus] had to go through Samaria<\/span>.\u00a0 He had to go because the Son of God had an evangelism call to make at Jacob\u2019s well.\u00a0 Watch Jesus now as he gently leads this woman to know.\u00a0 In fact, he comes to us this morning in this Word to do the same.<\/p>\n JESUS LEADS US TO KNOW GOD\u2019S GIFT \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It was about 12 noon, the hottest part of the day.\u00a0 Jesus was tired and thirsty so he sat down by this well.\u00a0 His disciples had gone into town to buy some food.\u00a0 A woman came out to draw some water.<\/p>\n That was kind of unusual.\u00a0 Not that she came to draw water, but the time she chose to come.\u00a0 The hottest part of the day is not when most people want to be doing heavy work.\u00a0 That tells us something about this woman.\u00a0 She probably came at this time to avoid the other women from town.\u00a0 She wanted to avoid the ugly looks, the whispered comments her reputation would bring. But this day, someone was there.\u00a0 Someone was there who cared deeply about her soul.<\/p>\n Jesus made what might seem to us a natural request.\u00a0 He\u2019s tired, hot.\u00a0 Will you give me a drink?<\/span>\u00a0 But it wasn\u2019t so natural. Jesus sure had her attention.\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cYou are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?\u201d<\/span> He was a man and she a woman.\u00a0 He was a Jew and she a Samaritan.\u00a0 They were separated by a great divide.\u00a0 Jesus wanted to bridge that distance between them.<\/p>\n And it was so much more than just about a drink of water for a very thirsty traveler. Jesus had come to this time and place to offer her something, something lasting, something sure.\u00a0 Jesus said it this way, \u201cEveryone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,<\/span> In other words, the water from that well could take away her thirst for a time.\u00a0 But like so many other things in this world of ours, what it offered was quite temporary.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the same with so many wells from which we draw.\u00a0 Think about money.\u00a0 Money can buy some nice things for us and others.\u00a0 Or think about success in school or on the job or in sports.\u00a0 It feels good to succeed.\u00a0 It feels good to win.\u00a0 It feels good to be recognized.\u00a0 But those wells can only offer us so much.\u00a0 They can\u2019t offer us any real certainty.\u00a0 They cannot give us any real hope or lasting joy.\u00a0 So at times people thirst after something more, something better, something more lasting than the water from those earthly wells.<\/p>\n We see that here.\u00a0\u00a0 When Jesus said, whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst<\/span>, the woman responded.\u00a0 \u201cSir, give me this water so that I won\u2019t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.<\/span>\u201d Obviously she did not yet understand what Jesus was \u00a0offering her.\u00a0 She probably thought it strange.\u00a0 It seems that what Jesus said of living water and eternal life blew right past her.\u00a0 Yet she thirsted just the same.\u00a0 She thirsted for something of lasting value, for something she had not yet found.\u00a0 She thirsted as so many people do today.\u00a0 Yet they do not understand why.<\/p>\n And so Jesus took her a little further down the road to understanding.\u00a0 He said to her, Go, call your husband and come back.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kind of an odd request.\u00a0 She must have thought so. For she quickly replies.\u00a0 I have no husband<\/span>.\u00a0 And there the conversation could easily have ended.<\/p>\n But her answer was no surprise to Jesus.\u00a0 It was exactly where he wanted to go.\u00a0 He wanted her to see Her great need for God\u2019s gift.\u00a0 He wanted her to understand the cause of her thirst, not a thirst in the back of her throat but a thirst in her heart.\u00a0 Jesus said to her, \u201cYou are right when you say you have no husband. 18 <\/sup>The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.<\/span>\u201d<\/p>\n So often people turn to sin as a source of satisfaction.\u00a0 Like this woman we may even find it gives some short term pleasure.\u00a0 It may feel good to gossip or complain about someone.\u00a0 It may at first feel good to put someone down or vent our anger against them.\u00a0 It may feel good to roll around in the gutter of sexual sin like this woman.\u00a0 It may feel good to live life with me as the selfish center of everything.\u00a0 Yet like this woman, sin leaves no one unscarred.\u00a0 Marriages are broken.\u00a0 Relationships destroyed.\u00a0 Hearts become laden with guilt or sometimes worse, callous and indifferent. And worst of all sin puts a deadly distance between us and God.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve all been there.\u00a0 Maybe we are there now.\u00a0 Sin can seem so inviting but ultimately it leaves our souls dry and parched. It leaves us with a thirst we cannot quench and often do not understand. \u00a0And so Jesus shows us our need<\/b>.<\/p>\n But Jesus doesn\u2019t just reveal our problem and go on his way.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t leave us wondering, what now?\u00a0 He is not like some eastern guru that sends us on a quest.\u00a0 He shows us where to find God\u2019s gift.<\/b><\/p>\n This woman was obviously amazed at Jesus\u2019 insight into her sordid life.\u00a0 She granted Jesus a new found respect.\u00a0 19 <\/sup>\u201cSir,\u201d the woman said, \u201cI can see that you are a prophet<\/span>.\u00a0 But then she expressed her frustration and confusion.\u00a0 Maybe even an excuse for going no further.\u00a0 20 <\/sup>Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem<\/span>.\u201d\u00a0 Do you see what she\u2019s asking?\u00a0 Where do I go, Jesus?\u00a0 To Mount Gerizim or to the temple in Jerusalem\u00a0 Where do I hear the truth?\u00a0 Where is the true church?<\/i> Good question.\u00a0 Important question.\u00a0 Not enough people ask it.<\/p>\n The true church had been the temple in Jerusalem.\u00a0 It was the place the Lord had commanded his people.\u00a0 But there was another very important reason Jesus gives here.\u00a0 He said to her, You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews<\/span>. \u00a0The Samaritans only believed the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses, to be God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 So they missed out on so much of what God said through his prophets and in the psalms about himself and the coming Messiah.\u00a0 They worshipped what they did not know and they did not know that their Savior would be born a Jew.\u00a0 But the temple, the church in Jerusalem had that Word.\u00a0 They may not have understood it.\u00a0 That sure was the case when it came to Jesus.\u00a0 But the truth was there for all who would listen.<\/p>\n But that was only for a time.\u00a0 He wanted her to know: A time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.<\/span> \u00a0What was Jesus telling her? The true church was no longer to be found in a certain place or building.<\/p>\n Rather this is where the true church can be found.\u00a0 The true church is found wherever people come together to worship God as Jesus says here:\u00a0 in spirit and in truth.<\/span>\u00a0 Think of those two words. They say a lot.\u00a0 In spirit- Not just going through the motions but worship heart to heart, spirit to spirit.\u00a0 For God is spirit<\/span>, Jesus reminds us.<\/p>\n But Jesus tells us something else is essential.\u00a0 How many people will tell us today, oh yes, I\u2019m spiritual.<\/i>\u00a0 They may even get together with others for some kind of worship.\u00a0 But then you ask them what they believe and you are likely to hear all kinds of things.\u00a0 All kinds of opinions, I think this or that.\u00a0 But too little truth.\u00a0 But that\u2019s where the true church is found.\u00a0 Where worshippers come together around the truth of God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 Not changed or explained away, not invented, but the truth of God\u2019s Word preached, taught and believed.\u00a0 That\u2019s where Jesus sends us. And that\u2019s where we will find God\u2019s gift.<\/p>\n Because there in such a church we will find the Savior or better yet, he will find us.\u00a0 For there Jesus comes to us and reveals himself in his Word.\u00a0 He reveals what he has done.\u00a0 How he, the Son of God, became our brother and lived a perfect life in our place.\u00a0 How he God\u2019s own dear Son offered himself to suffer and die for you and pay the price to set you free.\u00a0 In such a church, God\u2019s gift flows for you.\u00a0 The living water of the gospel.\u00a0 The living water that wells up in faith to eternal life.<\/p>\n And today that gift flows for us in a very wonderful way.\u00a0 Jesus comes to us in his Supper.\u00a0 Not to all of us at one time, but he comes to each of us one by one.\u00a0 He comes to us personally individually with his true body and blood.\u00a0 He comes to us and tells us in this very special way.\u00a0 I love you, I died for you.\u00a0 You are forgiven.<\/i><\/p>\n If you knew the gift of God<\/span>… Jesus said to the woman.\u00a0 Do you know the gift of God?\u00a0 In a real way, Jesus answers that question for us all in the last words of our text.\u00a0 I who speak to you am he<\/span>\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Text:\u00a0 John 4: 5-26 I remember a time when I was going door to door in an area of mobile homes.\u00a0 As I moved along I came to a place strewn with trash, a big mess.\u00a0 I thought to myself.\u00a0 Do I want to go there?\u00a0 They probably have a list of problems a mile long.\u00a0 So I hesitated.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":529,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.livingwordpetaluma.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/b>I.\u00a0 He shows us our great need.
\nII.\u00a0 He shows us where to find God\u2019s gift.<\/p>\n