A Life of Truth and Worship

[0:00] Father, we ask that you help us to be a people who lifts Jesus high, that, Father, that we're prepared to be people who go to bless and ascend.

[0:15] And not, Father, to be self-centered, but to be a people who lift Jesus high and go into our city, go to the ends of the earth, to tell people about Jesus, to make a difference for you.

[0:27] Father, now we gather around your word, and we ask that your Holy Spirit would move mightily in our hearts, Father, because there's much darkness in our minds and in our emotions and our will.

[0:40] There's much darkness, Father, and we get accustomed to the darkness. So, Father, shine the light of the glory of the gospel of Jesus deep into our hearts as we read your word, so that we will be disciples of Jesus who are living for your glory in our day-to-day lives.

[1:04] And this we ask in the name of Jesus. Amen. Please be seated. So, I'm a first-generation Canadian.

[1:17] So, I grew up in an immigrant family. My folks were immigrants from Northern Ireland, and they immigrated to Montreal. In fact, if it had been a simple twist of fate, I wouldn't be speaking to you this morning.

[1:32] When my parents got married, they were working-class kids. They wanted to leave Northern Ireland. They wanted to go to where there was more opportunity, especially for working-class kids.

[1:44] They both only had a grade-8 education. And when it came time to start to prepare to immigrate, they couldn't decide between Australia and Canada. But, like many immigrants, they knew one person in Canada and nobody in Australia.

[2:00] And that one person they knew was in Montreal, so they came to Canada because there was a man there named Joseph McCartney who ended up becoming my Uncle Joe because he ended up marrying my mother's sister.

[2:15] Anyway, so we come. There's a group of other Irish immigrants. My parents, eventually, my mom's siblings also moved. And one of the things we did, they didn't have much money, so when it was holiday time, we'd go camping together, three, four, five, six families.

[2:32] And, you know, the kids would play throughout the day, and then they'd all go into the different tents and sleep. And at night, the adults would all gather around the campfire, you know, whatever, 10, 12 people, the different couples.

[2:45] And as I got a little bit older, I discovered what it was that the adults all did around the campfire. They didn't hold hands and sing Kumbaya. They argued.

[2:58] Boy, did they argue. One of them, at least one of them, was a Roman Catholic. The rest were Protestants from Northern Ireland.

[3:09] They argued. They didn't just argue about Northern Ireland. They argued about labor unions. They argued about, you just name it, politics, culture, shopping, clothing, everything.

[3:24] They argued. And every once in a while, I discovered, the people, their voices would get pretty loud, and somebody would go, shh, the kids are sleeping. So then they would continue their argument like this.

[3:37] You're really bleep, bleep, bleep, stupid. And on it would go. And that's what they did. So I mention this because what we see today is we see a story about Jesus walking into an 800-year-old argument that had often been violent on both sides.

[3:57] That's sort of the backstop to this story. It's a very common human problem. Those of you who are more leftist inclined, you might remember the USSR. They hunted Trotsky down to kill him.

[4:09] I think it was in Mexico. Because certain types of communists would fight the Maoists, would fight the Trotskyites, Irish and Protestants. Sunnis and Shias have been killing each other for over 1,300 years.

[4:23] Trump and Clinton, red and blue states. In fact, Rachel Harder, who was here this morning in between, her simply getting put on a committee of the status of woman on earth, a lot of violent conversation.

[4:44] It's a common human problem throughout the ages. And Jesus walks right into the middle of it. For 800 years, the Samaritans and the Jews had been in argument sometime and taking up arms against each other as well.

[4:58] So if you take your Bible, it'd be great if you turn to John chapter 4 and let's see what happens when Jesus walks into an 800-year-old argument. And it says John chapter 4, and we'll begin reading at the first verse.

[5:13] Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, and just sort of, oh, sorry, although, that's John the Baptist, although Jesus himself did not baptize but only his disciples, Jesus left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

[5:33] And just sort of pause here. The Pharisees were the biggest sort of denomination of Jewish people at the time. We would call them religious fundamentalists. And they were the biggest sort of most powerful grouping, them and the sort of the Sadducees.

[5:51] They had a lot of the power. And Jesus was no fool. And as you know, if you go and read to the story to the end, Jesus had a well-founded suspicion that the religious and social and cultural and intellectual and political authorities were not looking favorably upon him.

[6:10] And so he becomes aware of the fact that the governing groups were starting to become aware of him and his growing popularity. And so he becomes a semi-fugitive.

[6:22] He decides that he's going to lead. You know, it's really, really interesting. You know, if you think about this, just compare this to a lot of other religious founders and types of figures, is that Jesus becomes a semi-fugitive.

[6:36] All his life, Jesus is powerless. All his life, Jesus is powerless. And it's not because he doesn't have a type of power that he could use.

[6:48] You know, this isn't a miracle story this week, but he can do miracles. But he's powerless. So he's a semi-fugitive. He's going to leave. And that's what sort of launches this story.

[6:58] Verse 4. And he, that's Jesus, had to pass through Samaria. Now just sort of pause here. I didn't know this until I did the research.

[7:10] But the word had is a very interesting word in the original language. What it's really saying, it's a significant word because it's a word in the original language which is only used when God makes it a necessity for something to happen.

[7:26] So what we see here is that God has laid it upon Jesus' heart that he has to go right into Samaria. And like, isn't that very interesting?

[7:38] What's interesting is that the way that God is being introduced here by Jesus, because ultimately this is all, Jesus would have been the one who tells the disciples about this.

[7:48] They're the ones who come to understand it, is that God is sending Jesus into this 800-year-old argument. Not away from it, but into it. And this is also just really significant, I didn't organize this, but after the sermon, we're going to have Jess Cantillon make a bit of a presentation about how we believe that he has to go to Jerusalem to plant a church.

[8:15] We as a congregation, we're considering whether we should be starting another congregation in Kanata. We believe that it's God that we have to do it. We're discerning it, by the way. We're discerning this because we're not Jesus.

[8:30] So you take steps of faith to discern it. But God sometimes says, you've got to do this. You've got to do this. And that's what's going on. Jesus has to go into Samaria.

[8:42] And so let's continue reading. Verse 5 and 6. So Jesus comes to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

[8:56] Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about noon. Just pause here. One more little pause. One of the problems, there's a lot of nonsense that goes out in the world.

[9:12] I mean, there's all sorts of problems with the Christian faith. You know, we get that. In fact, you know, I was just thinking this week, Christians know the problems in the Christian faith better than non-Christians know the problem in the Christian faith.

[9:25] I mean, we live with it. If you read the Bible, you become aware of different problematic things in the Bible, often far more than non-Christians, you know, do.

[9:38] But in this particular thing here, which is very, very interesting, is the area that Jesus is going into, Jacob, he has another name in the Old Testament.

[9:53] The other name for Jacob is Israel. And his sons are the 12 tribes of Israel. So Jesus is going into an area that Israel established and the tribes of Israel established.

[10:11] It's now where Samaritans live. Samaritans are semi-pagan. They're half pagan and half Jewish. And so they also are claiming that they go right back to the founder of Israel, the founder of the Jewish people, that they can trace their lineage back.

[10:29] But they're half pagan and half Jewish. And that actually is the source of so much of the conflict. Going back to the same ancestors. I went and when I was 11 years old, I went to Northern Ireland with my family.

[10:45] And we were in a small town in Southern Ireland. And there's like a big wire mesh over the railing of the bridge, over this nice, you know, river.

[10:59] And my dad started chatting to the guy who was there. This is in Southern Ireland. And my dad said, are there any good fish in there? And this crusty old Irish guy says, I'm not going to try to imitate his accent.

[11:11] We haven't been able to fish in there since King Billy crossed the boing. And if you know anything about Ireland, that's sort of the start of the whole Northern Ireland. King Billy is William of Orange.

[11:24] Protestant from Holland. He comes. That's where all the Protestants come from. And my dad kept chatting. And my dad, as he was walking away, said, you know, that's the problem with this country.

[11:35] It's been their own bloody country for over 100 years. And they're still blaming the lack of fishing on a Protestant king. Memories can go deep when there's lots of conflict.

[11:47] And it's going to keep rearing its head in this particular story. So verse 7. Jesus is going to now meet a Samaritan. Verse 7.

[11:58] A woman from 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.

[12:08] The Samaritan woman said, how is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? And then in brackets, for Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.

[12:24] In fact, for many Pharisees, for many Jewish people, they would have thought that the second Jesus took a drink out of her container, they had become ritually and ceremonially unclean.

[12:36] And this, by the way, is a common human problem. I think it's still the case in many parts of India that if a dalit, the lowest caste, if they were to get a drink from somebody, they would give them a drink in a, if they even were able to get a drink of water at all, they would get it in like a clay pot, almost like a flower pot.

[12:58] And they would get the drink in that so that the drink, the container could be smashed afterwards so that no non-dalit would be contaminated by drinking the water.

[13:08] It's a common human problem to view people as being ceremonially unclean. But what we see here, which is so interesting, is that Jesus walks towards the woman.

[13:20] He's the one who initiates the conversation. She probably would have ignored him. But Jesus, who has not only intentionally gone into Samaria, now in a sense he walks across the room and begins the conversation with the woman by asking her, in a sense his enemy, the one that many Jewish people would say is deeply unclean, and he asks her for a drink of water.

[13:46] Now, one of the things, whenever you read a narrative in the New Testament, you have to always sort of pause at every juncture. You don't have to, but a way to get more out of it is to pause at these little junctures.

[13:59] Sometimes stories can become so familiar to Christians that the answers and how the responses come, they're obvious, but it's not obvious how the story's going to go. So, like the woman could have said, like, how dare you do that?

[14:15] Or she gives this smart answer to Jesus about, you know, you normally people don't, you Jewish people don't ask, like, from an unclean Samaritan like me. And it's not in a sense obvious what Jesus' answer is.

[14:26] Jesus could say, oh, come on, woman. Like, I'm trying to be friends. Like, work with me. Like, why are you being so? And then, you know, maybe use the B word about her or something like that, you know?

[14:39] He could be arrogant. Like, there's all sorts of possible responses that he could have to the woman after she's been, she hasn't been angry at him, but she's been very cool. Sir is a bit of a formal title, and she's just bringing the problem up front.

[14:54] For 800 years, you folks, you, you, for 800 years, you have been looking down your noses at me. People like me, my people, in my country.

[15:09] So why are you asking me for a drink? Now, what's going to follow here? When I have a counseling degree, I know people always are surprised at that.

[15:20] They wonder why I'm not nicer. But I have a master's degree in counseling, believe it or not. And one of the things that we did for two of the, the two years in the master's program is every term I'd have a, something called a practicum.

[15:36] And one of the things that we had to do in the practicum, I had a cohort, a group of people who were traveling through it with me. And every three weeks, I had to present a verbatim. I don't know if they still do that.

[15:48] Now they probably just tape it. But a verbatim is that throughout the three weeks of practical stuff that we were doing, I had to think of a particular counseling encounter.

[15:59] And I was to try to, on just in two pages, write it down in terms of I said this, they said this. And then we would come and discuss it in terms of what was going on, different ways that we could have approached it.

[16:13] They encouraged us to bring times when we don't think we handled it very well, and also to bring times we think we hit a grand slam with it. And it's really, it really struck me this week as I was preparing this, is what we're about to see is a verbatim.

[16:27] That's what it is. Jesus must have used verbatims to teach his disciples. Like, they walked everywhere. It would take a long time. He would have been on these long walks. And I could just see now Jesus saying, because none of the disciples were there for this.

[16:41] So they'd only know about it if Jesus, in a sense, gave them a verbatim. He looked at him what happened, and then helped to unpack it and use it as a teaching thing. They're walking down the thing. I met this woman.

[16:52] I said this. She said this. I said this. She said this. I said this. She said this. I said this. She said this. And then I can easily see that he'd have a bit of a conversation with him, unpacking what's going on, why he said what he said.

[17:04] It was a very effective teaching practice and counseling. And this is what we're actually seeing. And one of the things that we did sometimes, especially when we were first in our practicum, is that there were either verbatims that the professor had from previous students, or occasionally there would even be books of verbatims, because it can be a very powerful way to learn, to enter into a conversation.

[17:30] So what we have here is a verbatim between Jesus and this woman. So how does Jesus respond? Verse 10, Jesus answered her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is that is saying to you, give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

[17:50] So Jesus, what does Jesus do? So Jesus has been led by God to walk into Samaria and through it.

[18:03] He's been led by God to walk into an 800-year-old argument. And what he's doing now is he's pressing into her heart.

[18:16] I mean, that's what Jesus does with all of us. And by the heart, I don't mean the emotions. Right? Those of you who have been here for other Sundays, what the Bible means by the heart is the command center of our lives.

[18:29] The command center of our lives from which our will operates, our mind operates, our emotions operate, our memory operates. That deep part of us where, in a sense, will and mind and emotions and memory and all of those things, they all meet.

[18:48] The understanding, the knowledge, they all meet that command center of our lives. And Jesus always walks towards our heart in the context of the living God. That's what he does.

[18:59] He does it with the Samaritan woman. He does it with us. He walks always towards our heart. And in here, he introduces three ideas.

[19:11] And because John is a book, I mean, this is the Bible, so it has 66 books, 39 that tell people how to be prepared for Jesus, in a sense, and 27 that sort of unpacks who Jesus is.

[19:24] But this particular part that we're looking at is part of a larger book. And Jesus is introducing three ideas that those of us who know the rest of the story have a bit of a sense of what they are.

[19:34] And it's going to continue to be teased out as the story proceeds. But right now, he introduces three ideas. And the three ideas are very, very interesting. The gift of God, who Jesus is, and what that who is, Jesus, what their heart is and their power is.

[19:52] Three different ideas. And, you know, this again reminded me, this is, I guess this is, at least for me, one of the big learnings that I have as I'm reading through John's Gospel and face-to-face with Jesus, is that I'm increasingly under conviction that I have to tell Canadians that I don't believe in God.

[20:17] At least I don't believe in God as Canadians understand God. That what I need to tell people is, in terms of the God of Canadians, I'm an atheist. I believe the God that's introduced by Jesus.

[20:30] And the God who's introduced by Jesus walks towards people. He walks towards people with a gift. He walks towards our heart.

[20:44] That's the God I believe and not the God of Canadians. Part of my counseling, I was in this one workshop that I had to do when I was doing counseling, and by coincidence, everybody in this particular workshop, they were all either nuns, like nuns with habits, you know, like the singing nun.

[21:08] That's an old joke. But like nuns, parts of religious order, were people who were training to become Roman Catholic priests. I was the only one in the group that wasn't one of these people.

[21:20] And we had to do a role play. And I wasn't part of it. Some people, three people did a role play, and the rest of us then were going to talk about it. And the role play involved how a mom and her kids were interacting.

[21:31] And they do the role play. And the first two or three comments about how insightful and moving it was, and then I said, time out. That's not how moms and kids work.

[21:43] That's not, given the context, that's not how a kid's going to talk to their mom. Like, that's just not the way it is. I have three kids. Trust me. That's not how it works in a family.

[21:55] So here we go. We have this story. Jesus has just introduced this very, very interesting idea about the gift and this power, etc. So how does a Samaritan woman act? Well, she acts like a Samaritan. That's how she acts.

[22:08] Because it's a real story. Look what happens in verse 11 and 12. How does she respond to what Jesus says? The woman says to him, verse 11, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep.

[22:22] We know that it's at least 100 feet deep. Where do you get that living water? And now, minefield. Minefield.

[22:35] Are you greater than our father, Israel? Or Jacob. Are you greater than our father, Jacob?

[22:48] He, Israel, gave us this well. And drank from it himself, as did his sons, the 12 tribes.

[23:00] Aaron. I'm not sorry, not Aaron. It's wrong. Wrong. But, you know, the 12 tribes. This is their well. She responds like a Samaritan.

[23:12] So how does Jesus respond? He says this. Verse 13. Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again.

[23:23] But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. Will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him or in her a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.

[23:39] And the woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. Now, just pause.

[23:50] If you're here today, you've come with a friend, or maybe you've just come in by yourself, and you're not a Christian, I want to tell you a secret about the majority of the people here in this room.

[24:00] And the secret is this. Verses like this terrify Christians. Why does this terrify Christians?

[24:12] Look at that again, what it says. Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. And Christians, I mean, it doesn't terrify them all the time, because most of the time we just say it, but when we actually look at it, if we thought we had to do a sermon on it, if I had to say, come up to the front and speak four minutes on how you've never been thirsty again, the fear comes to us.

[24:42] I'm depressed. I struggle with anxiety. I'm struggling with loneliness. I'm tired. I feel like a failure.

[24:56] I feel like I'm defeated. I definitely feel thirsty. I really need God. I don't feel like I'm very strong or well-watered.

[25:10] And for many Christians, when they see a text like this, it terrifies them that a non-Christian would ask them, really? Like, you never thirst? Like this, like whatever that means, some type of spiritual type of sense that never goes on with you anymore?

[25:24] And so, we get terrified about texts like that. So, we need to sort out some confusion around this text and what's going on.

[25:39] Let's look at it again. Verse 13, So, the first thing in here is that Jesus isn't talking about an emotion.

[26:05] He's not talking about an emotion. There's no Christian emotion. I don't care what they say in all sorts of biblical, all sorts of websites.

[26:17] I don't care what they say on all sorts of TV stations. There is no Christian emotion. It isn't that joy is a Christian emotion and other emotions aren't.

[26:29] Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see the kingdom of God. Who said that? Oh yeah, it was Jesus. Maybe Jesus knows more than that television teacher who seems to talk as if joy is the only Christian emotion because he said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

[26:47] Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. There is no Christian emotion. In fact, one of the things that happens as you come to know Jesus is that Jesus will start to heal your emotional life.

[27:06] He's going to work on your emotional life. And one of the things that he does to heal it is that you feel the full range of human emotions. You'll feel all of them. Jesus wept at the grave of Lazarus.

[27:19] He was, at the grave of Lazarus. He wasn't being, he wasn't sinning when he weeped. He was being human. He was feeling a human emotion.

[27:30] And when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, it doesn't come like a type of drug. It doesn't, the Holy Spirit is an oxycodone that only makes you feel one thing.

[27:42] You'll, you'll, you start to get your emotions healed. And that's a whole other topic, but that's what happens. It's not one emotion. So what's going on here in this text? There's a bit of a mix up.

[27:54] We now have three dozen roses at the church today. I originally was just going to have one, but after the service, this just works out good for all of you folks. Everybody here, well, obviously there's too many for all of you to have a rose, but take, take everybody who wants a rose after the service, take a rose.

[28:13] We have some newspapers over there and you can wrap it up so it doesn't get destroyed in the cold. But here we have some roses and this, these roses will help us to understand what Jesus is saying here.

[28:25] The thing you can notice about all of these roses is that they're cut. And this rose illustrates what it means to be human.

[28:39] Every single one of us is a cut rose. We've been disconnected from the source of life. Some of you might say, George, I sure wish I'd been as pretty as one of those roses.

[28:56] I've always been more of a wilted rose. And some of us might be sitting here thinking, George, I look like these roses are going to look in about a week and a half. Pretty dried and withered.

[29:09] And maybe we can look around and see some other people and they really do look like a beautiful rose, but in God's sight in a sense, every one of us is like a beautiful rose, but every single human being is cut, separated from God.

[29:24] And in a sense, what Jesus is saying here, see, it all goes back to Genesis 3. God makes us to have a relationship with him and he makes us perfect and he makes us to have this relationship with him and we are now, in a sense, in Adam and what happens in Adam is that Adam decides to not believe God, not trust God, to want to be like God himself and so he and Eve turn from God to become like gods themselves and they disconnect themselves from the source of life, which is how first there becomes sin and then death comes in as a sign of sin.

[30:07] And so what Jesus is saying here is very, very, very powerful. Remember he said earlier, if you knew the gift of God and if you knew who was speaking to you, then you would ask him for living water.

[30:24] She pushes back. She acts like a person who's in an 800-year argument and she pushes back and Jesus is undaunted. Why? Because he's walking towards her heart and he gives her this image of, and it's this powerful image in a sense if you drink in Jesus, it's this sense that whatever this gift is, it's not just something which is out there.

[30:50] Jesus uses a variety of images, both in terms of images of believing, of eating bread, of drinking water, of drinking wine. He does these different images to illustrate this basic spiritual truth that Jesus is going to do something that only God can do that we cannot do ourselves that is going to have as its fundamental property.

[31:13] It is going to reconnect us to God so that we are reconnected to the source of life. And the image that he uses is that when we drink him in to receive what only he can do and what he is going to do for us upon the cross, the very center of who I am, apart from Christ, it's as if in the center of who I am there is a cup with a limited amount of water and every day that water is being poured out and death is when the water is all gone.

[31:51] And Jesus is saying at the very center of who you are there is now a spring of living water, of fresh water that will flow in you and through you for all eternity.

[32:07] For all eternity. I will connect you back to God. I think I've gotten out of my order. Could you put my first point up there? Here we go.

[32:20] Points are just to be a help even if I get carried away. From birth, every human being is like a beautiful cut rose. From birth, every human being is like a beautiful cut rose.

[32:34] And the second point, if you could put it up, when you drink in Christ, he creates an eternal spring of living water at the center of who you are.

[32:47] When you drink in Christ, he creates an eternal spring of living water at the center of who you are. Now, some of you are probably a little bit surprised about what happens next.

[33:04] I have to do this all very briefly. But, Jesus does something which is very un-Canadian. You see, for Canadians, we would like it if the story stopped right here.

[33:17] In fact, as Canadians, we would go, aww, a spring of living water. Aww, that's so nice. Aww, that could be like a greeting card.

[33:30] And the people in our culture who don't like Christians would say, yeah, just give me a jack and a beer. Like, you know, that just stuff makes, that just, I get sick and tired of that stuff, right? But we'd like to stop right here.

[33:42] And in fact, Canadians get profoundly uncomfortable about what happens next. In fact, the typical Canadian question is, why is Jesus being so mean next?

[33:56] Well, what happens? Look what happens. It's verse 16, right? Verse 15 is, sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.

[34:07] End of the story if it was Canadians. But this is a Jesus story and he's going towards our heart. What does he say? Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered him, I have no husband.

[34:24] There's, in English, just four very, very, very powerful words. I have no husband. Hasn't gone into a lot of detail, but it's very clear and frank.

[34:39] Jesus said to her, you are right in saying, notice he says, you are right in saying, I have no husband. For you have had five husbands and the implication here is that it's not that they've died.

[34:52] She believes in a sense in serial monogamy. She's had many husbands. They've all ended in divorce and then he continues on and the one you now have is not your husband.

[35:03] What you have said is true. And for many of us, we say to ourselves as Canadians, Jesus has just promised living water and now he is, like, why is he turning away from living water?

[35:18] But the thing is, he's not turning away from living water. This is all part of him giving her living water. You see, the God who really exists isn't the God that most Canadians worship.

[35:33] Jesus is introducing God and so he points out her sin and he commends her for honest answer and then she responds in a very, very powerful and personal, you know, in a very, very powerful and personal way in verses 16, 17, and 18.

[35:54] Sorry, I should have kept reading. The woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus, okay, back up to, yeah. So, he is giving her living water. That's what he's doing. He's giving her living water.

[36:06] You see, the fact is that God is good and earlier on Jesus has said that God is light and in him there is no darkness whatsoever and the whole problem in Genesis 3 began because human beings didn't believe God they didn't trust God they didn't trust that he was good and when they had done something which was wrong if you go back and read Genesis 3 God comes and Adam and Eve are hiding and when God speaks to them Adam doesn't say you know God I did something which was wrong instead what he does is he blames his wife and won't acknowledge that he's done anything wrong you can already see how the problem of sin is breaking him down and pushing him even farther away from God and

[37:11] God calls us God is true God is good God is beautiful and there are things with and he's made us for himself he's made us for goodness he's made us for truth he's made us for beauty he's made us for wholeness and as the eternal water spring of water comes into our lives it's not going to be amoral it's not going to just be a spiritual comfort it's not just going to bless whatever we do it's going to work within us to prepare us to live with God everything that Jesus is doing is doing something so that at the end of the day we can once again walk with God in the cool of the day and feel his arm around us as we just spend time with God and so the things within us which are not good which are not true which are not beautiful which are dark and idolatrous and hiding the water is going to have to bring it out because God is true so she responds in verse 19 sir I perceive that you are a prophet our fathers worshipped on this mountain but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship what she does here is in the presence of Jesus she in her mind the only thing she can think of is I

[38:54] I need to somehow do something to atone I need to go and offer some type of a sacrifice my sin has been revealed I need to offer some type of sacrifice to try to take this away and she's a little bit worried that because Jesus is talking about all these things she's going to have to become Jewish and she doesn't realize that Jesus is in fact the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world that he is not going to only defeat death and create the conditions whereby when we put our faith and trust in him we can share in his defeat of death but he also deals with that which causes death which is our sin which is our love of idols our love of lies our love of things which are not good and our shame and Jesus on the cross deals not only with the defeat of death to reconnect us to life but he deals with guilt he deals with shame he takes on himself the guilt that I can't deal with by myself he you know the

[40:03] Bible as I've said before never tells us to forgive ourselves the Bible tells us to learn to accept the forgiveness which has been offered in Jesus because he has paid it all he has paid it all the story continues his response to her verse 21 woman believe me the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem we worship the father your father you worship what you do not know we worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews he doesn't go to comparative religion he goes to revelation but the hour is coming and is now here when the true worshipers will worship the father in spirit and truth for the father is seeking such people to worship him the god that I know that I'm introducing to you is not a god who's too busy for you who is always angry at you or is too distant he is the god who's seeking you your human problem and mine is that we hide from god we never truly seek god we hide from god but the god who does exist is a god who seeks and god is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth and here it's not talking about a particular emotion sorry I keep walking where I shouldn't because there's no light there what he's talking about is it's a very very simple thing you know if you have a down syndrome person low IQ if you ask them to know all sorts of complicated things they can't know all sorts of complicated things you ask a child if they can know sort of all complicated theology they can't know complicated theology but you know what in themselves they can give themselves to people little children give themselves to their mom or their dad down syndrome people can give themselves to somebody and little kids can know what's real and what's true you don't have to be a genius and what

[42:22] Jesus is saying here is I'm not calling for people if you have a high IQ praise God use your IQ for the glory of God if you have an unbelievable willpower praise God use it for the glory of God if you are unbelievably strong or beautiful praise God use it for the glory of God that's fine but what's happening here is that I know your heart Jesus knows that these things this woman has had all these issues but he came to die for her knowing who she was he came to die for her he knows you he came to die for you why he comes to you the father seeks you and what he's asking for you is for you to drink in his provision for you at the level of your spirit to say Jesus give me this living water be my savior and my lord it's something which even a child can do is to give at the level of their of who they are just give themselves and that's what the father is seeking for us to no longer run and no longer hide but to stop and turn and say father you have been seeking me all my life

[43:36] I am yours may Jesus come in and do the work he needs to do that I might be yours and that that spring of everlasting water might flow in my life into all eternity please stand if there's anyone here who hasn't given their life to Jesus there is no better time than right now in fact what I would just say if you you know I'm not you know the problem I grew up in churches where the pastor always had a formula that you had to pray and that was terrifying because as a little kid I thought I had to memorize the formula and figure out how to say it perfectly there is no formula all I would say is just take the words of the Bible and just just copy the words of that Samaritan woman sir give me that living water give me that Jesus tells you how to respond to him that he might be your savior and your

[44:41] Lord and for those of us who are Christians who have been Christians for a long time it's you know maybe the Lord is saying to us that yeah the spring of living water is going on there but what's going on in my life right now is I'm getting so caught up with idols and I'm getting so caught up with running from him that I need to this before God I stand and turn and face him again and say father forgive me from running for you thank you that you never stopped seeking me thank you that the spring of eternal water living water never stopped flowing even though I have been living in rebellion against you and I come and surrender before you once again because you are my father I give myself into your hands no better time than now to do such work with God let's bow our heads father pour out your holy spirit upon us father we thank you for Jesus we thank you that he died upon the cross for us we thank you father that he is your gift we thank you father that when we believe him and put our faith and trust in

[45:46] Jesus that we are no longer cut roses separated from life but that you create what only you can do you create a spring of eternal life of living water in the center of who we are that will take us through our death into an everlasting life with you father thank you for the great gift of Jesus and father make us sensitive to your leading and your guiding and help us to surrender more and more to who you are and we ask all this in the name of Jesus your son and our