Sermon Tone Analysis

I quit donating money to people running marathons… they just take the money and run.

A slice of coconut cream is 2.50 in the bahamas a slice of apple is 2.50 in Jamaica.

These are the pie rates of the carribean

Lets read this chunk of scripture then we can break it down slower, but there is a huge statement here that Jesus is making.

What I find interesting is how John put these stories together… Over the last few weeks we had been talking about Jesus meeting with Nicodemus… and today we see him meeting with this Samaritan woman… there could not be a bigger discrepancy between two people..

You have a ruler of the Jews… and today a simple Samaritan woman… A Jew… a Samaritan.

He was a Pharisee… she belongs to no religious Party…He was a politician…She had no status.

He was a Scholar… She was uneducated… Man cs woman.

She came at night… she had no reputation so she came at noon Nicodemus came at night

So, Jesus is saying He is the living water, and anyone who drinks of it will never thirst again.

What an amazing statement, but what does it mean?

How did this meeting come about?

Jesus is on mission, he knows that now his ministry has started to hurt what John is doing, more people are coming to Jesus than were going to John and it was starting to downplay the ministry of John, and Jesus knew it was time for him to move on from where he was.

and then we see verse 4 John 4:4

But he did’t.

In fact most Jews would have completely went around Samaria… they hated the Samaritans.

They would have never walked through there it was an abomination to them.

The Samaritan people were a dirty people.

Here is why.

In the eighth centry BC the Assyrian Empire conquered this northern kingdom of Israel and pushed out the Israelites that were there.

And what they did was bring gentiles in to take over the land.

And these gentiles wanted to worship the gods of their homelands and the local god of the Israelites, so they began to mix religions.

And slowly, these people started to make their religion sort of mimic Judaism.

Theye even built a temple to try to rival the temple in Jerusalem.and

the Jewish people didnt want to get themselves dirty around these people so they would go around to keep themselves clean.

This is the same hatred we see people had with Hermoine in Harry Potter… she had mug blood… She was dirty… and it mad them upset that they were part of something////

So this is NOT what he HAD to do.

but he did it.

I was trying to think of what this would look like in todays society and the question I would ask is How many times have you told someone don’t shop at the Ghetto Walmart.

My kids even tell me that now, this isnt the good walmart we arent supposed to be shopping here.. and thats a scary thing.

But what we see is that Jesus is on mission.

And we will see that in the next Few verses because what we see is that Jesus was crossing boundaries to get his message across… the first boundary we see Jesus crossing is that of Going into Samaria… which we already kind of talked about… and here we will see the next....

Jesus decides to speak to a woman in public.

Oh my goodness… and I know that isn’t a big deal to us, but in Jesus time if a Rabbi would have stopped to talk to a woman it would have signified the end of him.

He would have been beaten down and lost his reputation as a good Jewish leader… but Jesus doesn’t seem to care… he wants to make sure that he reaches her....

And the Third....

He asked for a drink from her… Jews would have never shared utensils with a samaritan… they wouldn’t even go into the same country let alone share utensils with the each other… this would have been a taboo above all taboos…and you can see how amazingly crazy it is by her response to Jesus… How is it that you, a Jew, ask me for a drink?

She cant believe it.. this Jewish Rabbi, this man, asking her for something, even she is surprised....

And I look at this part of the story and I think… man… are we willing to break those boundaries?

Are we willing to do tjhe same thing that Jesus did and go to the same type of places, to go out of our way, to make sure people have what he has to offer… and he is going to tell her what he has to offer… and you and I should aready know what it is that JEsus is offering us.

and we should be wanting to share it but are you willing to go?

Basically what Jesus did here, is he left the church, a place of comfort where people were coming to him and he decided he needed to go to a place that needed ministry… So he left church… and he didn’t go straight across town to the revival service where other people would have been waiting to hear the gospel, but he went into Ghetto walmart, and found the lowest member of that society that was there, the person with the biggest problems, and he stopped and shared the gospel with her.

Are you willing to do that?

Are you willing to get yourself dirty to share the gospel and risk your reputation to share it?

THe thing is in the church, we tend to act like pharisees when we see other people going to the dirtiest people in our society, we judge them and treat them the same way that Jesus did look at Matthew 9:11

THey thought he was dirty because of what he was doing.... we look at people who are going to strip clubs and bars to reach people and think the same thing… isnt that guy just going because he likes to drink or likes the show… and listen this isn’t to say that we can all do the same ministry… we can’t some of you definitely don’t need to be going to strip clubs to try to convert women to the gospel and bring them back into a lifegiving relationship with Jesus… its not a place you are strong enough to go… the same is true with the bars… some of you have old drinking problems and the bar probably isnt the best of places for you to go share the gospel, it would just get you into trouble… but you can share it elsewhere… leave the bars to the people that can withstand the temptation… but when was the last time that people accused you of being a sinnner just becasue of the ministry that you were doing and the poeple that you were hanging around with....

And I gotta stop right there again… when I was a youth pastor I used to have teenagers that would say they were dating someone as like a missionary attempt… but they really weren’t strong enough in their faith to do that… what they really needed was to hang around more with people that would build them up and strengthen their bond in Jesus before they put themselves out there.. and we could talk about unqually yolked but thats not the message for today...

but we all need to be putting ourselves in places that we can be around non christians and trying to share the gospel with them… and some of you dont have to look very far, the very place that you work is as miserable and dirty as some of these places… and you can share the gospel just with the people that you rub arms with every day, god has given you a mission field just at your job.... and when you get to a place that you dont know what to say… invite them here/.... but lets let this message teach us what is so important to share… the gospel and lets look at it deeper....

The gospel...

His living water is a gift, which is even more evident in Ephesians 2:8-9

It’s not the dead water like a pond or a pool.

no this water is alive and living like a river that is running through it.... it has life to it… and he will give it to us as a gift.

She’s dumbfounded… Jesus is sitting here, he’s just asked her for water, he’s obviously tired from his journey, and he doesnt even have anything to draw water with… and here we see where we have heard of Sychar before in our Journey through the bible… Jacob owned the land and had built the well here… I love that this Symaritan is refferring to him as her father… the jews would definitely not agree with this assessment.

They wouldn’t understand her calling him that… but she’s like bro, Jacob planted this well here years ago and its still here, and I still have to come out her to draw from it…Jacob couldn’t even make his own water he needed this well to sustain himself, and you’re telling me that you can offer me water that will cause me to never thirst… how is that possible… you’d have to be greater than him/.. is that what youre telling me?

And you know what I see here is that him exposing his need to this woman opened the door to a spiritual conversation.

It allowed her to see the realness in him...

And I think about this in the pulpit, so many men stand on a stage and build themselves up as the one to folllow, the perfect example of what a christian should be, and it gives them a long way to fall and I don’t think that works in todays society anymore.

People see through the fakeness… thats why we preach from the overflow of our heart and let people see who we really are/// we want them to.

We have to.

and WE open ourselves up this this spiritual conversation.

and we have to be able to open ourselves up to the help of those we are trying to minister to as well and not put ourselves so highly above them

And this isn’t too far fetched from where we just came from....John 3:31

But what exactly is he offering the woman?

Look lady, the water that I have to offer is living… sure this is good water here from this well, and we should be glad it was put in when it was, but here’s what you have to understand… when you drink this water, you will consistently have to come back… time and again.. you will drink and then get famished and need more… you are never going to get rid of your thirstyness… this water only offers a temporary aid to what you need… but… but… I offer so much more… the water that I offer isn’t temporary.... it willl last forever What an amazing thing, and what we can clearly realize is that mankind has two different type of thirsts… we have a physical and a spiritual thirst and Jesus is telling us that we have to fulfill our spiritual thirst with HIM… that when we drink of his water we will fuflill that

And listen there are few things we can learn about this living water...

IT comes only from Jesus

It keeps us from ever thirsting again… our inner thirst is gone forever… see what we do in this world… our soul is longing for something mroe… and we think its money… love… a job… children… and we put all our hope and aspirations and desires in it.. but what we find is Jesus is the ONLY thing that will fill that thirst

The living water is a spring of water that is placed in a man… John 7:38-39

4. The living water will spring up and continues to spring and buble and flow..

5.

The living water will spring us into eternal life… Revelation 7:17

Are you willing to go to the lands of the enemies and the people that you hate?/

Here is the beautiful thing, by going to Samaria Jesus shows us that his message of grace and forgiveness was not just for the Jews or the clean people, what we see is that what Jesus has to offer is for everyone, even the ones that society considers the dirtiest.

Are you willing to go to them?