You've tuned in to a mega church.
We are people hungry to encounter God through worship
and His Word, being witnesses to the world around us.
We pray this teaching. Blesses you and trust God will
reveal himself to you in a new way today and.
If you need prayer for healing or breakthrough, Want to find
out more about Omega? Get to our website or Facebook
page through the links below. Bible's full of symbolism and
hidden meaning that we could live forever and still not mind
the depths of the truths that are in that book.
And there are things in the book, but this is a we'll go
back to where we were. That's the one.
I want you to watch this and tell me what you think of it.
It's actually after the All Blacks played Ireland in
Chicago. He was the all black captain on
the day. He's just won the Test match.
He's given his all black shirt away.
Watch what he's put on. There are 62,000 people in
Chicago watching him walking around with Jesus Christ as his
official logo. Is that a witness?
He might not have said anything, but there's a slideshow clip at
the top. Tag at the top to get it full
screen. It's the one.
He may not have said anything, but I believe he's a huge
evangelist. He made a decision.
What was his identity? Was he the captain of the
winning all black team or was he a representative of Jesus
Christ? See the difference?
He knows where his identity really is.
So we can have the next. Actually, I can have the next
clip this morning. We're talking about healing the
land. And I hope that there's some
message in here that you may not have heard before.
I have a friend in Australia, her name is Anne Hamilton.
Now the interesting thing about Anne, she's an older lady.
I've only met her for 20 minutes in my life, but we'd
corresponded quite a bit and so she has a very deep theological
understanding. She's given me, has given me
some insights about the story, which you may know quite well,
but I believe there's some patterns that are waiting to be
understood. We talk about Jesus and for some
churches he's a very nice Jesus. He's a very polite Jesus.
He's a politically correct Jesus, and he doesn't offend
anybody. But in other churches, they have
this Jesus who is powerful, who's a miracle worker, who can
make changes and has an A heart to bring people back to the
Father. And so he can be the lion of the
tribe of Judah. And he can also be as gentle as
a lamb. But I also want to share with
you, He can also be living water.
Remember that living water? The Samaritan woman who came to
the well, I believe was in a mess.
She wasn't a happy person. She may have been the most
unhappy person in all of that town that was living at the
time. And Psalm 3 verse 3 says, but
you Lord, are the shield around me, my glory and the together
please, the lifter of my head. Because when people are in
shame, the word is they're bowed in shame.
They don't stand confidently. They are, if you like, weighed
down by what was covering them. She was covered in shame when
she encountered Jesus. I think she went to the well at
lunchtime or middle middle of the day when the sun was the
hottest, when no sensible person would go outside at that time of
the day. Why?
To avoid anyone meeting her. She was so full of shame.
It was probably the best thing or the best time she could go
and be. If you like inconspicuous.
She didn't want to be seen. So what does she think when she
goes to the well? She sees under the tree there's
a man there. Do you think she was pleased to
see him? Not at all.
Added to the fact that he was a Jew and she was a Samaritan.
That's another no, no. And then he starts to talk to
her. It's not her best day, is it?
It's like a nightmare come true. And this is what happened.
So Jesus offers her living water.
And this is the thing, when people encounter Jesus, they're
never the same. When they encounter Jesus, he
ministers to them and they are shifted from where they are.
So the shame and inferiority that she carried lifted.
It's really interesting because what happened, the minute she
left that meeting with Jesus, she was released into her an
evangelistic gifting. She was Jesus's first evangelist
to the Gentiles. Remember, this is the lady who's
full of shame and doesn't want to meet anybody.
Well, she can't stop talking about Jesus.
She talks to everyone about what he'd said and who he was.
She's a revelation of who he was.
And so she was freed to operate in her calling once she'd had
the conversation with Jesus. So I believe Jesus operated in
all the fivefold ministry giftings, and I also believed he
had all the spiritual gifts operating.
And one of the reasons why he was so successful in his
ministry is he used those spiritual gifts.
He wasn't just a nice person, He was a powerful person.
He reversed curses, healed the land, dethroned evil spiritual
powers, and he revealed himself as king.
And we'll come to that later. He was certainly good at
breaking and offending the religious traditions of the day.
People didn't find him comfortable to be around because
he challenged them. And this is the interesting
thing. He tended to choose people who
were the most unlikely people or most even unpopular people to be
his followers, to represent him. And he chooses us.
He chooses me. And so Jesus is no respecter of
persons. There are two names for the one
town, Shechem or Saisha. It's the same thing.
In the Old Testament, you'll see it called Shechem.
The second in a New Testament, it's called Saisha.
It's the same place. I find Shechem easier to
understand. It's above Jerusalem.
Has everyone found it there? It was the capital of the
Northern Kingdom, and Jerusalem was the capital of the southern
Kingdom. And there it is today.
There's two pictures of Saisha, so on the top one you'll see you
can whoops, that's not what I want to find.
Here we go. That is the area where you could
probably still identify where Jacob's well existed.
It's still there and you can notice in the second picture
there are two mountains overlooking the town, 2 high
hills and we'll come to those shortly.
God can restore what is broken and change it into something
amazing. All you need is faith.
And Joel tells this us that in chapter 2.
Do you believe that God can change what is broken?
So when we're having a bad day, God is well able to come into
our lives and change it. There's a an artist's picture of
what it may have looked like. I think it's very sanitized, but
Jesus is having a one-on-one conversation for this woman.
And for a start, she wants to get away.
She avoids him, she doesn't really engage.
A lot happened in that area. There's some historical, if you
like, things we need to understand.
And so a remnant of Hebrews were left in the land when the
Assyrians came and conquered the May.
And what they did to make it as a punishment, they intermarried
with them and produced half breed children.
So they were no longer pure Jews or Hebrews.
They'd become half Assyrian or whoever else they produced
children with. And so because of that, there
was a sense of inferiority and they certainly were rejected by
the people of Israel. They were looked down upon as
second class. Have you noticed Jesus wants to
use people who other people call second class.
That's a pattern that Jesus uses.
So that was one of the things that happened.
Joshua and his day had a major ceremony, set up a covenant with
the Lord, and he sent six of the tribe representatives up 1
mountain and six up the other. One produced released curses.
One released blessings. I believe curses on their
enemies and blessings on their people.
Yeah, that would be the way to do it, wouldn't it?
Not the other way. Joshua declared it as a city of
refuge. It's the site of some pretty
important events that have happened.
Do you want to say it with me, please?
The site of Abraham's tree, Jacob's well, Joshua's stone,
Joseph's tomb. Pretty important place that
well, eh? Solomon's son Rehoboam
proclaimed himself king there of the 12 tribes at the time.
When the nation was split into two kingdoms, North and South,
Samaritans built a temple at Mount Gerizium, which is one of
the the hills. Jacob's son Joseph came here and
Jacob initiated a revenge killing on the men of Shechem.
So Shechem's had a lot of interesting events take place in
the area. So let's let's go through them a
bit more. The important covenants.
There are 5 covenants that I want to talk about this morning.
Abraham came into Canaan and built an altar there and planted
A terebinth tree. It's a bit like an oak tree.
So it's an old tree that lasts a long time.
Abraham's grandson Jacob dug a well there for his livestock and
the idols of the the nation were buried there.
Joseph came back to his covenanted inheritance and he is
buried there. Joshua assembled the tribes here
to covenant to the nation of God and he built the memorial stone
there to to remember that. So they set up four times that
the nation was covenanted or joined or promised to God.
And a King Abimelech. He set himself up as a king and
he was the man that killed 70 of his brothers.
That's a nasty covenant, isn't it?
So he set up himself to be a king of the area.
However, that's not a good covenant.
But symbolically, in response, Jesus chose a bruised and
scarred Samaritan woman who had also engaged in five covenants.
What had she done five times? She'd married five times.
That's covenants. So there's five covenants in
history. And he chose a woman who'd also
engaged in five covenants to be his vessel to heal the hurts of
the land, restore those people back to relationship with each
other, but also with the nation of Israel, and share and be free
to worship their God in spirit and truth.
One of the things Joshua said, and we'll say this together in a
moment when he put the memorial stone up, is that he gave them
the test. Are you committed?
Do you covenant to your God? And this was his challenge.
Shall we say it together? Please, Joshua 2415 choose for
yourselves today whom you will serve, whether the gods which
your father served, which were beyond the river, or the gods of
the Amorites in whose land you are living.
But As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, and that
was proclaimed at Shechem. So what we've got here is a
choice that's been made in a memorial stone to commemorate.
That's what happened, I believe when the lady met with Jesus at
the well, it was a very awkward engagement.
For a start, she would be embarrassed.
It would be the stilted conversation.
Jesus was speaking in spiritual truths and she was responding in
earthly or physical knowledge. So they were missing each other
a little bit. And so it was like, maybe you
don't have this, but when you hop into an elevator in a
building and you don't know the people in the elevator, you're
squished up against them with your hands at the side and no
one's speaking. And you're looking at numbers
hoping the door will open so you can run out.
Has anyone been uncomfortable in an elevator?
One or two nodding yes. And it's that sort of moment for
her was, I want to get rid of this man.
I don't know what he's on about. So let's go to chapter 4 of
John's Gospel and start at verse 4.
So it says here now he, Jesus had to go through Samaria.
Is that actually true? Is that the only way to get to
where he was going north? And the answer is no.
In fact, no Jew would go through Samaria.
It would be like no go zone. It would be really stupid to go
there and I'll tell you why, but I'll hear a couple of things
first. It was like no Jew would be
welcome there. It's not an appropriate place to
go. Years ago I went on a train
which left him in the cargo and ended up in Kitaya.
It was the old steam trains. It's pretty quite an adventure.
Took took a week to get there and it was full of young farmers
members. And so we stopped at different
places and met these different people throughout New Zealand on
this train trip. We went to this place in the
central North Island and it was a hot day.
So we went in for a drink and we went up to the bar and the man
says, what do you want? And I said we need a drink.
He says my advice is have a small drink and leave
immediately. And I said why?
We said why? He said look around.
We looked around. We were the only white faces in
the building and we were not welcome.
If we'd stayed, we'd have been beaten up.
And we're talking in the the 1980s.
It was my first experience of racism in New Zealand and it was
a bit scary. We left there.
I think we might have not finished the drink.
We knew we were not welcome. This isn't the place we
belonged. We were invading their space.
It was really uncomfortable. Give you another story.
In Northern Ireland, during the Troubles with the IRA, who were
fighting the British Army for independence for Northern
Ireland, if a Catholic girl went on a date with a British soldier
or a Protestant boy, the Catholics in her community would
shave her head and tar and feather her harshness.
Hey, you don't belong. You keep to yourself.
You don't mix. Yeah, harsh stuff used to go on,
ugly stuff, but Jesus had to go through Samaria, not because it
was the best way, but he had a prophetic encounter that he
needed to have with that woman. He had to go because he had to
meet her, and he knew he was going to meet her.
But the second reason also, he had to go to that place that
well where the other kings historically had been installed
because he was to be to be installed as the final king of
the northern Kingdom. He became revealed as the the
king for everybody, not just, if you like, the Jews.
So there was some sort of divine appointment that was taking
place at that. Well, so would you give me a
drink? It was about noon.
And I said this before because she was probably avoiding
people. Did Jesus need a drink?
Maybe. But did he need to speak to her?
Yes. But the very thing that he said,
will you give me a drink? The lady saw that as an insult.
It wasn't being friendly. Remember I said about going into
this place where we were told to leave.
Same for Jesus, being hospitable with a drink means some sort of
friendliness or acceptance and that wasn't appropriate at that
time. Will you give me a drink?
Smacked that Jesus was saying to her, I want you a lesser person,
to be my cup bearer. We've been talking about
Nehemiah. What was Nehemiah's profession?
He was a cupbearer to the king. But in the land of Samaria they
had a different memory of Nehemiah and the priest Ezra.
The lasting memory they had, he was the one that broke up
families. He sent away the foreign wives
and the children and expelled them from that area.
So when you ask for a drink, it's like it's an insult remind
because they didn't like that happening.
So this is our attention that Jesus has added to the
conversation to be a cupbearer like Nehemiah wasn't a well
received question, but Jesus answers him in verse 10 answers
her in the verse 10. If you knew the gift of God and
who it is that ask you for a drink, you would have asked him
and he would have given it to you.
Now here he switched it for on the one hand, he's asked her to
be his cup bearer, but now he's offering himself to be her cup
bearer. Do you see the cleverness of
that? Now that sort of throws her
because she doesn't get. That there's a change of
identity. He wants to be her servant and
then he's promised her living water.
I met a man in South Otago. He was doing a study for a year
in farming and he'd come from Papua New Guinea and they lived
in the jungle and they had a river going through the jungle,
which was their supply of water. But upstream in the jungle, a
multinational mining company was digging for for minerals, and
they tipped all their sludge into the river.
So when the people downstream wanted to use the river, it was
polluted. It was contaminated.
This man might have been 40. His wife was permanently sick
from the water. She was back in New Guinea.
And they can't fix it because she's been poisoned by the
sludge. And you can't fight it because
they're a multinational and you are this poverty person in New
Guinea. And so water needs to be pure,
it needs to be life giving and nourishing, not stagnant and
stale and poisonous. So Jesus is offering living
water. I want to talk to you a bit more
about living water because it's one of the keys of the whole
thing. When they anointed, when they
proclaimed kings in Israel, there was a tradition and a
ceremony, and obviously one of the first things they would use
is anointing oil. They anoint the king with oil.
Do you know what the other thing they called or what they used to
install a king? Pure living water.
So when Jesus says living water, there's instantly a connotation
of kingship. The symbolism is huge here.
We would miss it in our English living water.
And Jesus is also talking about you have water for your body to
nourish it, but you have to come back tomorrow and get more
water. But the water that he's offering
is for your soul, the cleansing of your soul.
And once you've received it, you don't need to come back.
It's done, you're healed. So that living water is more
powerful than the physical water.
It lasts forever. And she doesn't get that at all.
It's kind of over her head. And she says, where can I get
this living water? And then she tests him because
he sees here's this living water thing.
And it's sort of makes her wonder, is this a king
conversation? And they really looked up to
their father Jacob. And she's, are you greater than
our father Jacob who gave us this will?
So she's testing who are you, Jesus?
Are you setting yourself up to be someone special?
Jesus says everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty
again. But whoever drinks the water I
give them will never thirst. Verse 15, The woman said to him,
Sir, give me this water so that I won't get thirsty and have to
keep coming here to draw water. Does she get it?
Has she got what he's saying? She's still thinking of physical
water for her physical body. He's talking about the spiritual
water for the healing of the soul.
She doesn't get it yet. So they're still at cross
purposes then? There are two main keys here
that Jesus uses in the terms of words of knowledge which kind of
activate his authority. And he asked you this question,
go call your husband and come back because he knows the
answer. She replies, I have no husband,
She replied. Jesus says to her, You are right
when you say you have no husband.
The fact is you've had five husbands and the man you are now
with is not your husband. What you've said is quite true,
Sir. The woman said, I can see now
see that you are a prophet. Here you are.
Jesus has used word of knowledge, spiritual gift and
bang. The conversation shifted
instantly, which tells me we can use our physical conversation to
engage people all the time. Unless we have the living water
in US, it's a waste of time because there needs to be a
power encounter spirit to spirit.
Scriptures tell me in John, I think it's John Chapter 7.
Out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water.
How can it flow if you don't have it out of your innermost
being? Your spirit will flow rivers of
living water, which will heal people's souls, their wounds,
and their bruises. Why?
Because it's the presence of Jesus that they're being engaged
with. When this lady met Jesus, the
presence of Jesus healed her. He didn't have to do a major
ministry session because he's Jesus.
He just brings the glory of God into a situation.
So here we have the lady's saying, I've had five, Sorry,
what you said is now true. I've had five husbands.
But she's saying, I recognize that you are a prophet.
And so here we have the connection between the five
husbands and the five covenants that we've talked about earlier.
She was the most appropriate person for him to use to
minister to the people of Samaria, in this case Shechem.
Why? Because she was the most
bruised, the most hurting, the most rejected.
So once people see the transformation in her from the
engaging of Jesus, then there is some, if you like, instant
credibility to who Jesus actually is.
So this is the moment when suddenly it all comes to to
appear to her that this is actually a prophet.
And she talks about worshipping on the mountain and arguing
about the Jews in the in the Samaritans.
Where's the right place to worship?
And let's look at that. The time is coming when you will
worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.
Salvation is from the Jews. It says in verse 22.
What that means is salvation is from Jesus.
Jesus is the Jew, so he will bring their salvation.
The true worshippers will worship the Father in the spirit
and in truth, for those are the kind of worshippers the Father
seeks. God is spirit and his
worshippers must worship in spirit and truth.
What he's saying is it doesn't matter about the location.
It doesn't matter about the nationality, it doesn't matter
about the form or the tradition or doing it right.
What it matters is relationship, spirit to spirit with your Lord.
And so he's testing her, pushing her way outside your comfort
zone, and she's really listening now.
She was like fobbing him off before, but now he's got her
attention. And this is what she says in
verse 25. I know that Messiah called
Christ is coming. When he comes He will explain
everything to us. What does Jesus say then?
Jesus declared I the one speaking to you.
I am he. He's declared his kingship
instantly in the place when the previous kings had been
installed. He is, if you like, the final
king they will ever need in that area is our final king as well.
So what do we have here? We have Jesus being identified
as the Messiah, and she recognizes him and everything
changes. She's freed from her bondages
and then because of that, the land of Samaria will be freed
from their bondage as well. I haven't got the rest of it on
the screen here, but it continues down to verse 42 where
Jesus stays for at least two days and he talks, ministers,
heals the people of that town. And so they see the change in
the people. They meet Jesus and they are
totally, if you like, overwhelmed with his love.
So their town is evangelized through the excitement and the
joy and the testimony of the Samaritan woman.
The Samaritans then learn that they too are acceptable and are
loved by their Messiah. And then it comes down to verse
42, the end of the story. And this is what the people of
Samaria say. We know that this man really is
the saviour of the world. They recognize Jesus, He's gone
on to a place where he wasn't welcome, where they had a whole
lot of bad history and he's come in and he's healed it restored
them back into relationship. So I find that's kind of
interesting because that's the the work of Jesus.
He comes into people's lives sometimes who are in the worst
mess and he can release the healing anointing that he
carries. But also, I look at this message
and I'm thinking, what's happened to the woman?
She had been avoiding people and she's been transformed into the
full potential that she carried to be an evangelist.
So her ministry's been released. Not only was she healed, she's
released all in the one process, one encounter, so she can have
an encounter with Jesus. And I'm not sure how how many
minutes that conversation took. Wasn't that long, was it maybe a
20 minute conversation? And she's been transformed by
encountering Jesus. Not only that, she's healed and
released. And so the excitement, the
transformation in her personality is huge.
That's basically all I want to say about the message this
morning. Because there's a lot that
happened to that Lady in the 11 encounter.
But to summarize, there were five covenants in the nation's
history, and the lady had five covenants of marriage.
And so she was, if you like, perfectly matched to be the
representative of Jesus. Nehemiah was the cupbearer to
the Persian king. He wasn't popular in the area,
but Jesus offered to be the cupbearer for the Samaritans
switch for their restoration. Kings were crowned in that area.
Jesus, by declaring he was the Messiah, proclaimed himself king
there. Many important men had chosen
their wives by wells beside a well, and Jesus chose this woman
by well, the bridegroom. If you like choosing a bride.
The two hills above the town signified both blessings and
curses. Jesus himself became both a
blessing and a curse for us. Water has been used for
purification and religious rituals, and Jesus used his
living water to purify this woman.
OK, do you find that interesting?
There's a lot of depth in the story and Jesus was doing more
than being nice to the lady she was.
He was repairing history. He was taking away all the
injustice, all the hurt, offence and bitterness and creating, if
you like, the environment which brings peace and joy and
relationship to the Lord. I want you to to think about in
a moment. I'll ask John to come forward.
Let's have our moment with Jesus this morning and see what Jesus
is going to say to us because I believe that Jesus has a message
for everyone this morning. So he had a message for the lady
at the well, but I also believe he has a message for everyone
here today as as well. So before we start, I want to
ask you to just to settle yourselves down and and focus on
Jesus. What is what is Jesus?
Is he a lion? Is he a lamb?
Is he all of the above? What does he mean to you?
And so I want you to sit where you are and just close your eyes
and just meditate for a few moments on the nature of Jesus
to you. I pray Jesus, you would come by
your Holy Spirit and you would speak to all of us.
You would release your wisdom into our minds, into our
thoughts, and we would have an understanding of revelation of
what you want to impart this morning.
So you may want to hold your hands open in front of you so
symbolically, like you're going to receive and in your own
words, quietly for yourself, ask Jesus Christ the Messiah to
reveal the one thing in your life right now that's holding
you back from your ministry calling now.
It could be shame like the Samaritan woman, could be
generational sin from your ancestor.
It could be some curse over your location, could be a wrong
belief. Whatever it is, just in a quiet
moment, ask Jesus yourself to speak.
Often it's the first thought that we have that we sort of
overthink and reject. Go with the first thought.
Once you have that, that thing, that that idea, I need you to
ask Jesus to tell you what you have to do about it.
Is this something you have to repent of?
Something to release, something to if you like, bring new
understanding to ask him what you have to do
and now do it what He's told you.
Now I want you to ask Jesus to cleanse you with his pure,
living water so that you are freed from any burden that
you've had. Ask him now.
And like the Samaritan woman who was released in her evangelistic
calling, I want you to ask Jesus to release you into your
calling. What is your ministry gift that
you are now free to move out for Him?
Jesus, I thank you for the work you're doing with your people
this morning. I thank you for your kindness
and your patience. And I thank you that you'd
thrown in the powers of the enemy who would distract and
distort the truth. Will we declare we'll worship
you in spirit and truth? You are our Messiah, our
Saviour, and we give you our allegiance.
We choose to this day that we will follow you and be obedient
to what you've told us. Amen.
Thanks for joining us at Omega. If you need prayer for healing
or breakthrough, or simply to find out more, please head to
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