Good morning everybody. It's good to be here with you
today to worship together and I'm looking forward to our
study. We have together in John chapter
4, if you'll get your Bibles, their turn with me to John
chapter 4, we have some really interesting things to consider.
I just hope I don't get in the way of what God has for us
because these are the words of life.
These are words from God himself that he penned for us and if we
ever lose sight of that, if I ever lose sight of that, then
I'm missing the whole point. So I hope I just don't get in
the way that this morning and we're going to study through a
little bit of John chapter 4 beginning in verse 5 will go
through almost to the end of the chapter and we'll cover a little
bit from Hebrews chapter. 12, will take a little bit of a
detour but those are going to be the two places we spend pretty
much all of our time this morning.
So John chapter 4 beginning in verse 5, we're going to start
reading there. It says, so he came to a city of
Samaria, which is called sychar near the plot of ground that
Jacob gave to his son. Joseph.
Now Jacob's, Well, was there, Jesus, therefore being wearied
from his journey set this by the will?
I like that little detail that Jesus was tired, he felt the,
the pains and the tires of his traveling of the things he deals
with on a daily basis. There are simple things like
that, that shows Humanity of Jesus just a little nugget.
He said, thus, by the will, it was about the sixth hour and now
with their time keeping this was about noon, it's about the six
six hours after day right after daylight.
So, about noon, a woman of Samaria came to draw water.
Jesus said to her, give me a drink for his disciples had gone
away into the city to buy food. Then the woman of Samaria said
to him, how is that you being a Jew?
Ask a drink for me, a Samaritan woman for Jews have no dealings
with Samaritans. So we're going to start to see
the who this woman is that. He's talking to.
I want you to picture and going outside the city letting his
disciples, his friends, go off into the city, to get some food.
He's got some business to take care of outside and he goes and
he sits and he waits. And this woman comes by Now this
is the Middle East. So if you want to picture them,
these are not white people. These are Middle Eastern and she
comes along in the middle of the day and a couple things we have
so far about her. And that this is noon, and that
she's a Samaritan. And she first of all, she brings
up this this controversy. She's like I'm a Samaritan.
You guys are Jews. You don't have anything to do
with us now for a little background that this goes back
to a lot of history between the two.
You had the northern and the southern kingdoms that kind of
divided under some some Shoes. The Samaritans broke off and
when they were taken into captivity by the Assyrians, this
warning people, the Samaritans kind of got Unfaithful.
The Jews kind of stuck with it. They dealt with all the
struggles of being an under captivity and they handled it
pretty well. But the Samaritans, they started
intermarrying, they didn't really hold on to their faith.
They didn't really stand strong. And so the juice all that they
have when you guys doing that's just compromise and so they look
down on them but when they finally got free when the
Israelites were all free. And out of this captivity.
They wanted to rebuild the Temple.
They were in to rebuild Jerusalem and and the
Samaritans, tried to hop on board with the juice plans and
the Jews were like, no, you guys left us, you were Unfaithful and
you didn't hold on to things like we did you, you were
compromising. So no, we don't want your help
and that, turnaround, that made the Samaritans mags, they just
wanted to help. And so they started sabotaging
their building process and so this cause just a lot of beef
between these two groups and so that's kind of the backdrop for
this, this woman comes and this this Jew Who wants to talk to
you and she's like, what are you doing?
Talking to me? Then there's, you're going to
kind of see there's an edge about her that she just she's
got a lot of things that make this kind of a conversation.
She doesn't really want to be happy.
And there's a. So she's an outcast based on
her, subgroup of God's people, you have the juice, you have
God's people, then you have the Samaritans within that they're
kind of an outcast group. But there's another detail.
She came at noon. Now, during this time and this
place in the world when they would go to draw water, they
don't you don't want to be spending that much time out in
the desert, in the middle of the day because it's hot.
And so what they would do is they would go to draw water in
the mornings. They would go out before got
real hot but this woman came out at noon, that's the heat of the
day. That's the middle of the day and
so what we can learn from this kind of picture that's being
created is that as that this woman doesn't want to be out
there when everybody else is out there, She was an outcast even
within our own subgroup of the Samaritans.
She was out there trying to avoid all the the group that
goes out in the morning. She didn't want to go out with
everyone when they all went together and talk either had
their interaction. She was avoiding that she went
out by herself. And we're going to see why in a
little bit, has a lot to do with how she's handled her
relationships. So, you have this woman, who is
really an outcast of the outcast, and Jesus wants to talk
to her. Jesus answered and said, to her
verse 10, 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.
So he came up asking for her to get him some water and he starts
to turn into a spiritual conversation and she doesn't
quite get it yet, but he's telling her that he has the
Living Water she needs. We'll get to more of that in a
minute. The woman said to him, sir, you
have nothing to draw with and the well is deep.
You don't have a bucket, you don't got rope, what you gonna
do? You are you greater than our
father? Jacob, who gave us the well, and
drank from himself, as well as his sons and his livestock,
she's got this Edge about her. Like what are you gonna do?
What do you have your? You can't handle this.
You don't have anything to get the water with Jesus answered
and said to her, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again.
but whoever drinks of the water, I shall give him will never
thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in
him, a fountain of water springing up into everlasting
life, He gets real deep right here.
The woman says to him, sir, give me this water that I made that I
may not thirst nor come here to draw.
She's like, I don't want to have to keep making this trip.
We just flip on the tap and we got water right there.
But this lady's, like, I don't wanna have to keep walking out
here in the middle of the day and the heat, avoiding the
public, avoiding all these people.
I don't really want to talk to you because they're too good for
me. Can you just give me that water?
Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. the one
the woman answered and said, I have no husband Jesus said, to
her, you have well said, I have no husband for you have had five
husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband in
that you spoke true. So, Jesus is getting all in her
business, the woman said to him, sir I perceive you're a prophet
our fathers worshiped on this mountain and you Jews say that
in Jerusalem is the place where we're not to worship.
Before we go on to that, he calls her out, he brings up her
life and so she starts to see that he's different.
But why is she different? Why is she the outcasts she's
had five. Ins.
And she's now living with this guy who's not even her husband.
We're starting to see more of a picture of this woman and why
Jesus comes to her this woman came out to get water
physically. She was thirsty, physically, but
Jesus is coming to her for a more important reason because
she's thirsty spiritually. He comes out to this woman,
who's going through his been through the wringer, trying to
be satisfied by her relationships, trying to get the
intimacy, the love, the appreciation, and the affection
of these men, and she's running through them.
And she's on her sixth right now, and she's not even married
to him. It's like she's given up on
that. Maybe she's cynical, maybe she's
frustrated, she's been through it.
And she wants more than that. She's tired of where she's been.
She's tired of what, she's seen and Jesus came to provide what
she really needed. This whole dialogue is Jesus
trying to show her that he has Living Water.
She knees, he has the water that's going to satisfy her.
It's not these relationships, it's not these.
The love from these guys that's gonna do it.
It's the love from God that's going to replace and push out
that need for all the love from these guys from these people.
And I want you to start to consider for yourself, I want to
consider for myself. What are things in my life like
that? What are things that I look to
for my value things, I Look to to give me validation things
that I'm trying to take my self-worth in because Jesus
says, you're gonna drink of that water.
In a metaphorical sense, you're gonna keep drinking from this.
Well of these guys, you're just trying to leech off of, but it's
like wringing out a dry rag. You're not going to get anything
out of them. What are areas in my life like
that areas that I'm trying to take identity in areas.
I'm trying to take satisfaction in the aren't Christ.
He says, I am that well of Living Water, you come to me,
and I will provide what you need.
I will give you that water. That'll let you never thirst
again. Don't go to the dryer racks and
try to get water from those. He's right here, waiting for us.
And to this, she sees that he calls her out for her life, but
this is how she responds, sir. I perceive you're a prophet, our
fathers worshiped on this mountain.
And you Jews say that in Jerusalem is where one is, is
the place where one ought to worship.
So people have always read this and I've always heard this
taught like she's asking him. Oh wow.
I have this profit from to. Here's a chance for me to ask,
you know, you guys say to worship here, we say to worship
here. What's right what's truth?
But she never asks a question. There's no question mark there.
She just brings up to me a religious defense or a religious
issue to kind of deflect from the situation.
I've heard that plane whenever you try to start a Biblical
discussion with somebody, they can start to see and they're
like, okay I see a religious. Well here is this religious
difference. I have you know what you guys
say this you know the Buddhists say this the Muslims say this
what you can really know they. Go high-level Theology and they
just want to kind of glaze over and say, well what can we even
know you guys say this? We say this and I think that's
what this woman is doing. She's deflecting from the guilt
and the sin that she sees in her life, she's deflecting from the
mess that's in front of her because she doesn't want to deal
with this. That's how I see her responding.
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, what you do not know.
So, she wanted to bring up these differences and try to get into
this conversation. That kind of takes it away from
her and more to who can really know.
But Jesus says, the problem is, let's not even start there.
He's not even going to get into the question of the specifics
yet. He's going to start by saying
you don't even know who you're worshipping.
So how can you please God, how can you really do?
What God wants. If you don't even know who he
is, he says, you're worshiping me.
You don't even know. We're going to get into this
more in a minute, but that's where the root of all this
starts. And before we really need to, I
don't know. Get consumed with the rest of
things. We have to focus on that first.
Do we know who we came into worship this morning?
It's so easy to come in here and just sit down and start singing
the words and open your book and sit there.
And amen, the prayer or whatever, sit there through all
this. But do we really know?
Who we came into worship this morning.
Because otherwise, Jesus says, yeah, you do it, like all these
other things, maybe you have the cup, you got this stuff, right?
You're singing. You're doing things well, but do
you even know me? That's where we have to start.
We have to prepare a heart for this.
We'll get to more. We're going to get into that a
little bit more in a second. What he says in verse 23, the
hour is coming. And now is when the true
worshipers will worship the father in spirit and Truth for
the father is seeking such to worship Him.
So he takes this conversation and he's trying to show her that
God is looking for a deeper relationship with her.
He doesn't just want this this facade that she's created.
He doesn't just want this facade of a religious life where she's
in kind of the nation where people are religious.
But she's not really in it. He says you got to be spirit and
Truth. There's true that we have to
follow, of course, but he wants to get into her spirit.
He wants to dive deeper and he wants her to know, God and her
spirit, and he's trying to weed out the sin and the mess.
That is in her life, by showing her that God has loved ones in.
He wants the spear because if he's not in a spirit, he's not
even there. He's not even really there with
her because she doesn't really even understand who she's coming
to. My question for us is, do we
know God? Are we doing things?
Because we see like this rigid outline of what's supposed to
happen and we're kind of following the outline but
there's nothing really filling the center.
Is there anything coloring in the outline that is God's plan.
Is there a spirit in you? That is filled with God's
spirit? Is there life in you?
That's from God. Or is it a facade where you
live, like the Samaritans inside, but this woman was
really outside. Jesus wanted to come to her.
Jesus specifically went outside and waited to come under.
So if that is you, if that is me, Jesus sitting here waiting
for us, he's gonna meet us at a point of time and maybe this is
that point in time, maybe we all needed to be right here to hear
this right now. Like Jesus is waiting for us.
To show us right now. He wants us to refocus.
He wants us to redirect. The woman said to him, I know
that Messiah is coming verse 25, who is called Christ when he
comes, he will tell us all things.
So she just kind of still wants to put her arms length and she
says, well the Messiah is going to come and he'll handle it all
and he'll tell us I just just wait till that happens.
And I see more deflection. She just she wants him at arm's
length, L doing the Messiah comes.
Jesus said to her, I who speak to you and he Can you imagine
how she felt? They've been looking forward to
him this whole time. Looking forward to this guy
who's gonna come and he's going to save them from their sins.
Is gonna come and save them. And being Everlasting savior, a
mighty God. He would be there with them and
he's standing right in front of her and she didn't even realize
it says, yeah, it's me. I can imagine the look on her
face. Now word, I am, he is the same
phrase used in the Old Testament.
When Moses said, you know, what am I going to do when they ask
me, you know why, how can we really believe that God sent
you? And he said, tell them I am sent
you. My translation says I am he, but
that's really italicized that he is not there.
He just says, I who speak to you a.m., he's using the phrase.
I am a phrase that only God can say I was I am and I will be his
the present at all times. and Jesus said that right in her
face, At this point his disciples came and they marveled
that he talked with a woman yet. No one said what do you seek or
why you talking her maybe it would have looked suspicious
looks suspicious, but nobody said anything verse 28, the
woman left, her water pot, went her way into the City and said
to the men come, see a man who told me all the things I ever
did? Could this be the Christ?
Then they went out of the city and came to him.
So while that's going on verse 31, in the meantime, his
disciples urged him saying Rabbi eat.
So they went and got him. Some Food.
They came out and they're like, you gotta eat something.
You're already tired from all this walking.
What are you doing? Get some food.
Jesus said to them, my food is to do.
The will of him who sent me. And to finish his work.
I want to zero in, on this, because this is something that
is, you know, very unique. And when Jesus says, that's
different from most of the others in this account, and if
we're going to call ourselves Christians, that's that's a real
thing. It means christ-like.
And so Jesus is mentality right here, we need to have.
He says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and to
finish his work. Do you not say?
There are still four months and then comes the Harvest.
Behold? I say to you, lift up your eyes,
and look at the fields for their already, white for Harvest.
Jesus is food. What gets him going?
What makes him satisfied? What takes care of him?
What gives his Spirit going and serving God.
Can we say we're christ-like in that?
Can I say I'm a Christian if I don't have that mentality.
Let's contrasted with the woman. What was she got?
Satisfaction was these guys. She was running through trying
to get her love and affection from them.
But Jesus said, the thing that gets me going to thing that
sustains me and what I need to survive.
Is to do God's Will and to serve God here to do the will of him
who sent me. He says, you know, you guys are
looking at this Harvest. Like, you understand, you know,
we in the valley, have a lot of AG, we understand, you know,
it's tomato Seasons about here for the harvesting and stuff you
guys say, well, we got about this long and the tomatoes are
going to come off. Will start the plant operations
will start getting the crap out of that.
He's like, you pay attention, open your eyes.
You're looking at all these physical things, you know, when
the Harvest is here, you know, the crops are coming, but you
don't even realize the Harvest is already here.
Behold, I say to you the open your eyes, look at the fields
for our that are already white for Harvest.
And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal
life that both he who sews and he who reaps may Rejoice
together. He's going next level right
here. He says, you can labor for
something that's gonna last forever.
And you're a lot of times, I think, the way I see, and I
think many of kind of people in my circle, see is like, what we
got. All this work to do to try to
convert people and trying to save people.
He's like, it's already white and I've seen that in some of
our Circle, some of the young guys who've been converted
recently, they they've kind of come to us and they kind of fall
in your lap and you feel like I got all this work to do all the
sudden they're they're, they're growing and they're with you.
So it's not like we have to all the time.
Just do all the work. Put in all this effort to get
everybody where they need to be. Maybe we just need to realize,
we need to be out there. Planting watering doing what we
can. And it's going to say that God's
already started. This work.
Other people have already labored for this.
There's already a lot going on. What's an interesting fact of
our existence is that we we share information.
So it's not like each person has no idea what's going on the
world. They understand that there's
this man named Jesus. They understand that they have
guilt. They feel guilt.
There's a lot of things that we all share that we can use to
balance off of. There's already a work going on
in people's lives. He says, it's already white for
Harvest like the I think that idea.
Is kind of like cotton. Like it's already.
The cotton has already sent on top.
Just go get it. Are we doing that?
Always sitting in the on the tractor I do it.
Just waiting for everything to happen like we got a lot of work
to do today. Got a lot of sweat is about to
happen. I don't really want to do it.
I think I'll take another break. He said the fields are already
white for Harvest. Get out there and get going for
in the saying, is true one sows. And another reaps I sent you to
reap for that which you have not labored others have labored and
you have entered into their labors, that's the mentality.
We've got to have is that we're not the only ones working here,
we just need to put in our effort, do our part and good
things will happen. Jesus said, I am the True Vine.
If you abide in me you will bear fruit.
Jesus, guaranteed us that He guaranteed us, we will bear
fruit if we are in the vine if we are in him.
Now if we try to do work apart from the vine if we try to do it
work on our own and just say you know Jesus I got this.
He's like you're not gonna have any fruit obviously he's if a
branch is laying on the ground. It's not going to do anything.
It's not going to grow obviously.
Says, but if you are in Christ, if you put in the effort, you
put in your time and work and try to reap for him, try to.
So for him, it's gonna happen. Good.
Things are gonna come for me. We can be guaranteed to that.
And many of the Samaritans of that City believed in him
because of the word of the woman who testified, he told me all
that I ever did. So this woman went in and she
told people specifically what happened to her.
She went and got real with people and she didn't just say,
you know this guy Jesus she said here's what he told.
She got specific and showed exactly how he had affected her.
So when the Samaritans had come to him, they urged him to stay
with them. And he stayed there two days and
many more believed because of his own word.
So, this woman started a big change.
Many people started coming to them because she just walked in
and was like, guys, this is the savior and this is what he did
for me. That's pretty simple for us to
follow. If we show people our lives and
say, you know what, this is, how where my life was?
This is what I was doing, this is what I was feeling.
This is what happened in my heart and then Jesus came and
everything changed. They're going to respond because
they're going to want that. They're going to see that.
We have feelings that everybody shares.
We have guilt. We have feelings of depression,
we have feelings of struggles that everybody can relate to.
So if we share with them, how it works specifically with us, get
out there to share with people because things will happen.
And that's what happened with this woman.
She just got out and shared it and many more believed because
of his own word. Then they said to the woman.
Now we believe not because of what you said for, we ourselves
have heard him and we know that this indeed is the Christ, the
savior of the world. So it started with her bringing
them around showing in the Christ but they went and they
looked for themselves and they were like, wow, you're right we
ourselves have heard. If seen this we found this out
for ourselves and people were all going to have to.
We're all gonna have to do that. People are going to have to do
that when they come to Christ, they're gonna have to find him
for themself. There can't be some surface
level facade about this, We're all going to have to do that.
Have we all done that? Or is this something someone
else has told us? So we've kind of gone.
Okay, yeah, I'll go with that. They said we ourselves have
learned as we've seen I want to go back a little bit to what
Jesus said in verse 22. You worship what you do not
know. And as I think about, you know,
some of the things we can take from this one of the first
things is understanding who who God is and and trying to get a
better picture. So we can kind of make some
ground in this process of me being more.
Like he wants us to be and Hebrews.
Chapter 12, helps me get there with this if you want to turn
over there with me now, I want us to get a, just a picture of
who that God is this morning. So if we're not there yet, we
can get our hearts ready for the rest of the worship, get our
hearts ready to see God for the rest of the week in the way he
truly is. Hebrews 12 verse 18, the writer
there says, for you have not come to the mountain.
That may be touched and that burned with fire and to
Blackness and darkness in the Tempest and the sound of trumpet
and the voice of words so that those who heard it begged, that
the word should not be spoken to them anymore for they could not
endure. What was commanded?
And if so much as a beast touches that mountain it shall
be stoned or shot with an arrow. And so terrifying was the sight.
That Moses said, I'm exceedingly afraid and trembling The writer
of Hebrews is like getting in our face and he's trying to show
us who were dealing with when we come to God, who were dealing
with. When we come to this almighty,
God, and he references back to the Old Testament when Moses was
going up to get the the word from God and God said, I'm going
to be up on this mountain. You come up to me and just you
and tell everybody. If anyone comes up to that
mountain touches it, they die. Okay, if it's an animal, I don't
care if it's a person, you shoot him with an arrow, don't even go
get him thorough Stoneham from there.
They need to die and they couldn't handle that.
That was too much for them. Like whoa, this is crazy.
And that's how God has shown here is.
He's this glad he's this Tempest, he's this storm, he's
this Darkness, this Blackness, this fire, You're typically we
deal with things that we can just go up and touch.
We can handle, we can manage the writer of Hebrews has shown us
that you can't just deal with God like that.
We can't just go up and touch him.
He says, he's like a storm. And the closest thing I can
remember to this is when I was at backpacking with my dad and
my brothers during deer season quite a while back.
I think I was like 12 years old. As my first trip.
We were up glassing this Ridge, sitting on top of this mountain,
looking for deer and off. In the distance, we were kind of
watching a storm that was way off out.
And but it was a clear day for all around.
Us, is blue skies and stuff. And while we were sitting there,
one of those storm cells came in behind us and we didn't see it
and it came on the top of the mountain where we were sitting
and it started. Dropping hail and got dark
quick. Lightening was dropping all
around this trees, were blowing up the tree, my brother was
sitting under blew up and the logs were flying past his head.
When he was running down the mountain, it got dark, it got
scary and hail was dropping, and I thought I was gonna die.
It was absolutely Madness. The lightning.
You could just feel it wasn't just like you saw lightning on
the distance and then you heard the strike.
It was around you, when it hit and everything, went white when
it hit. That's the closest I've ever
felt to this kind of power. And that's what Moses said.
Moses said, I'm literally shaking coming before this.
God, I'm trembling just being here.
And that kind of power in front of that presents.
He goes on to say but you have come to Mount Zion and to the
city of the Living. God, the heavenly Jerusalem to
innumerable company of angels to the general assembly and Church
of the firstborn who are registered or enrolled in
heaven, to God. The judge of all to the spirits
of just men made perfect to Jesus, the mediator of the New
Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks better
things than that of Abel. When we go through our days, the
world takes the edge off. Off of God, they want to soften
them out, making kind of this idea.
You can kind of capture and say, well, I believe, in this thing,
I like to believe in God or whatever, but God has an edge to
him that we can see from the descriptions of him as a fire.
And it's consuming thing But he goes on to say as we just read
he kind of has a change of tone. He says, but you come to this
innumerable company of angels and like a festival Gathering,
it's like a celebration, you're coming to your coming to this.
God, who wants to bring you in? Yes, he's dangerous.
He's terrifying but now we see him starting to gather us to
start of Welcome us in We learn from the New Testament that
Jesus brought us near by his blood.
He brought us close to this God, that's terrifying and scary and
real and big. To where we can come to this
mountain style and he welcomes us.
Can you believe that that's written for you?
He's welcoming you. Whatever situation you're in and
life. However, big your your struggles
or whatever you're going through seems right now that's the
reality for you. To Jesus, the mediator of the
New Covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaks
better things than that of Abel. See that you do not refuse him,
who speaks for they did not Escape, who refused him, who
spoke on Earth, much more, shall we not Escape if we turn away
from him? Who speaks from Heaven, whose
voice, then shook the Earth. So he's saying these people who
are down here when they heard the command, hey, don't come
near this mountain. Or you'll die.
Don't come touch this mountain or you'll die and when they
heard that they're like, this is too much, this is crazy.
That's nuts. Your your your irrational?
I'm not dealing with that and they want to just turn away from
that reality. They didn't want to deal with
it. He says don't turn away like
they did because God didn't just let them go for that.
They were held accountable for that mentality.
And for that reality, they wanted to push out.
So we have to see this reality of God and we can't just push it
away. We have to deal with it.
He says Don't just run away because they're just like it
happened on Earth. God didn't hold him Guiltless
for that. God speaking from heaven right
now and he says you're not going to be held guilty as if you walk
away from it. Now either we're in the same
boat as then we have to take this information, we got to take
this even though it's even though it's hard to process even
though it's hard to kind of understand and keep it the
Forefront and keep God in that place.
He says, we have to deal with it.
We can't walk away from the Earl's.
God's not going to hold us Guiltless.
But now he has promised saying, yet once more, I shake not only
the Earth, but also heaven. Now, this yet once more
indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as
of things that are made that the things which cannot be shaken.
May remain. What do you just say?
Is that everything else is going to be shaken up?
Everything's going to go away the ground.
You're standing on is going to go away.
Whether it's from Life, circumstances, it breaks, you
down it, messes up your life, whether it's from just the
reality that God is going to burn up this Earth.
This is To be left standing showing us the everything we
typically deal with is temporary.
He's saying so hold on to what can't be shaken.
All this is going to go away, but if we hold on to the thing
that's above us, that's not going to be shaken.
We need something that to hold onto that when the ground goes
out from underneath our feet. We can hold on to something
stronger and bigger and above us. hold on to God, he's saying,
Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be
shaken. Let us have Grace or let us be
thankful another translation. Says by which we may serve God
acceptably with reverence and godly fear.
For our God is a consuming fire. That helps my perspective a lot
because when I read that it makes me amazed that he would
even care about. He is that big, that terrifying
that awesome. And yet he would send his most
precious thing. He owned the most precious thing
he could offer his son. Who also came from free will.
Like that's who I'm dealing with and they did that for me.
Typically, we have relationship where someone's either big and
above you, and they could do something great for you, but
they won't because they don't care about you.
God combine the two and he says, yes, I'm big, I'm great and I'm
amazing, I'm terrifying all those things.
But he's also like, Come All You weaken, or have you laid?
And I'll take care of you. I'll give you rest.
Take your yoke upon me and learn from me for.
I am gentle and lowly in heart. God is the most beautiful.
Come on combination of those two things.
So, do we know that God this morning?
Jesus said you don't even know who you're worshipping.
Our perspective, I think really needs to start there to realize
the magnitude of God, because then we can start to see the
beauty of the rest of it. so, few lessons, we learned this
morning that I just want to highlight Is that we need to see
God for all that he is to really worship and like he wants us to,
we can all see him and all this power and all his might.
Because so we can know that when we do the things we do, when we
worship the way we do that that matters and it's not just
saying, yeah, you're doing things right?
But do you even know me? I think we've looked a little
bit into that this morning and a little process for us is we're
trying to put these things into a into our lives is Jesus said
told the woman to drink of that living water, and she would not
thirst again and that if she did, that, it will become in her
a Fountain of Living Water. He said that would happen, but I
wanted to add one more step. Because if you don't, if you're
not thirsty, you're not going to drink, right?
Like if you're full, and you're feeling kind of, you know,
Waterlogged or whatever it is. You don't if you're not thirsty,
you don't want to drink. So, what we got to do is we got
to get thirsty first and Matthew 5, Jesus says that whoever
hungers, and thirsts for righteousness, will be filled.
So if you're hungry, you're going to eat.
If you're thirsty, you're going to drink it simple.
Are you thirsty this morning for righteousness?
That's a question. I have to ask myself today, are
you, am I hungry my thirsty for it?
I, if physically, I don't have to ask myself if I'm hungry or
not. I didn't eat breakfast this
morning. So well, I'm hungry.
It's a simple. Yes, or no question.
But sometimes I can convolute that when I think about, you
know, my spiritually thirsty. Hmm, no.
Its you know what? You know what, you're not if
you're hungry and you're thirsty you're getting after it, you
know, I need this for my day, if you don't read one day you're
like man I don't feel right. If you're not reading the Bible
York, man, I miss the don't feel, right?
I have spent time to talk to God today, I don't feel right?
That's how you know, you're hungry for it, you're thirsty
for it. But what Satan can do is you can
draw us away to where we're not even hungry for it and we can
starve without even knowing it. So we got to get thirsty and
went for thirsty for we will drink of that living water.
And he says, we're going to be satisfied in him.
We're not going to need that. That self-esteem kick that that
self-image kick were, I have to create this image of myself
because that's what's really going to be great for me and
everyone will see me this way. Know we come to Christ for our
value, we come to him to satisfy our needs.
And like this woman and became a fountain inside of her, and she
just went and showed people. And it changes them, and many
came to know Jesus. Is this happening in us tonight?
If it's not happening, if it's not coming out of you, Then in
reality, we're probably not even drinking.
Because Jesus says, if you do drink, it will come out.
It's a fountain effect. You can't put water in a
fountain and not come out. It has to go somewhere.
So, if it's not coming out, are we really drinking?
Because Jesus says it will, and if we're not drinking, are we
really thirsty? Do we really want it?
Because Jesus said, that's the person who's going to be filled.
That's the person who's going to be satisfied in this life.
And from not you can start there.
That's a great place for me to start.
It's like the root of all of it and that's one of the prayers.
I'm going to add to my prayer list.
This week is like, help me one more, help me to be thirsty for
it to, I actually feel the need for and I will come get it.
And the Harvest is here, he told us that it's ready for us to
come get we got to go out and get people because they're
ready. Don't feel like all the burden
is on. You God is has already put in a
lot of things into place. All the people who are in our
circles can be reached in certain ways, just trust that
and back to this woman, God used this woman where she was at,
maybe you feel like your life's a mess, maybe you feel like
you've gone through the wringer. This woman came to a point where
she had five husbands. She was living with a man, she
wasn't married to And Jesus used this woman for all these things
and she is in the Bible as an example for us.
She didn't have to get things straightened up at home.
She'd have to go work out all of the mess.
That was created. Before, she could have this,
this relationship with Jesus. Before she could have this
living water, fill her She didn't have to go unweave that
web of family messes. She had created, none of that
happened before. She had all these good things
happen to her. She'd have to fix everyone's
opinion of her. All at once.
She have to get her life to a certain place before God could
work in her. That's what the things I think
we struggle with a lot is you know, when I get my life to this
place and this time and everything works out, then I'm
going to go and I'm going to talk to somebody about God.
No, she was in the middle of all this and she just went and told
people, it was right in the middle of a parched life, a
broken home and outcasts spirit that this woman found Christ and
let others to Christ. Don't hold yourself back from
coming to this and for making yourself useful to God, we can
be Our Own Worst Enemy. That's how God works throughout
the Bible. He uses that Harlot not
prostitute in the in the lineage of Jesus.
He uses the the people who are at the lowest of the low, the
outcasts of the outcast of whatever your situation is, from
top to bottom, Jesus will use you and he has time time again
and that's the message from this woman and great things can
happen your life from here forward, if you'll just let it
happen. If you're not a part of this,
this family, if you're not adds Jesus body to to learn him, you
can do that right now. We learn from these from the New
Testament. If we hear the word and we
believe it, we can be saved that we can repent of our past lives
change, and be added to the church.
After we confess that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
And before, baptized for the remission of our sins is our
brother parade and Acts 2:38. We see examples of this and you
can be added to Christ's body that way.
You can contact his blood and you and if you've already done
that but you're like, you know what, I need to refocus.
I need to get to where I am feeding off.
Living water again. You can pray to God from your
seat. You can take care of that by
yourself, but if you want to do that with us, you need anything.
You need to work out publicly. We can do that with you if you
like while we stand while we see.
We thank you for listening to our podcast, put on by the
Church of Christ at 22:15 plans. Road in Bakersfield, if you
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