WEBVTT 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:00.800 Thank you. 00:00:00.959 --> 00:00:02.240 Good morning, everyone. 00:00:02.640 --> 00:00:02.959 Great. 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:07.519 It's a significant morning for me in many ways. 00:00:07.599 --> 00:00:12.400 And I don't want to I've not written anything down for to say this beginning part, so I just wanted to be from my heart, really. 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:15.919 So there's a few three things really that are significant to me this morning. 00:00:16.239 --> 00:00:20.480 Number one is it is my anniversary today to my wonderful wife of twelve years. 00:00:21.039 --> 00:00:23.039 So absolutely. 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:29.839 If you know Laura, if you know Laura, she's an incredible gift to us, and most obviously to me and my children. 00:00:30.160 --> 00:00:32.399 So she is a wonderful, beautiful, incredible woman. 00:00:32.479 --> 00:00:34.240 So I'm very grateful to be married to her for 12 years. 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:37.200 And I think it's yeah, a great gift to me and a great support and a great help. 00:00:37.280 --> 00:00:43.280 She is actually trying to get her youngest to sleep at the moment, so don't go surprise her, it would be my encouragement to you. 00:00:44.079 --> 00:00:45.920 Number two is I have my wonderful family here. 00:00:46.000 --> 00:00:49.039 They probably hate me saying this and making them known, but they have a wonderful family here. 00:00:49.119 --> 00:00:50.640 So we're just going to give them a round of applause. 00:00:50.719 --> 00:00:52.079 That'd be really great. 00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:56.640 I won't point them out where they are because that'll be mean. 00:00:57.039 --> 00:01:03.039 But um, yeah, that I'm so thankful to have them with it with me today and our family to celebrate and to be together. 00:01:03.119 --> 00:01:08.879 Um and then thirdly, obviously, this evening, obviously, I'm I'm gratefully obviously becoming an elder amongst you guys. 00:01:09.040 --> 00:01:10.079 Right, on to this morning. 00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:13.599 So on this morning, we are continuing our series called On an Ordinary Day. 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:19.920 Um, we are in through this series, we're exploring moments in scripture where God showed up to people who really weren't expecting him. 00:01:20.159 --> 00:01:24.640 So people that didn't feel qualified for God to meet them. 00:01:24.879 --> 00:01:31.359 And um, I wanted to start with this a story from my own life on this, a personal story from my own life. 00:01:31.519 --> 00:01:34.319 Um, and um, this is when I was 18 years old. 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:39.439 Um, I wasn't a Christian at this time, it was the moment I became a follower of Jesus. 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:50.799 Um, and uh the story goes as I was invited by my youth leaders at the time to the Christian youth festival, many of us know called New Day, which will be there in um less than a month. 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:55.920 Um, and um I was desperate at that time not to go. 00:01:56.400 --> 00:02:06.079 Um, and uh well I at that time I was fed up with Christians, God, and anything to do with Jesus at that time, and that will become clear in a little bit. 00:02:06.239 --> 00:02:16.400 So to get out of it and to not hurt my youth leaders' feelings, I told my youth leaders that I my parents couldn't afford for me to go, which was a complete lie. 00:02:16.800 --> 00:02:22.800 I know I felt bad about it, but I felt far happier that I wouldn't be going that summer. 00:02:22.960 --> 00:02:25.360 Um, just again, being all around the Jesus stuff. 00:02:25.439 --> 00:02:31.360 However, what was happening in that moment as I declared this to my youth leaders that, oh, what a shame I can't go. 00:02:31.680 --> 00:02:42.639 My friend was standing right there with me, my long-term friend, also not a Christian, um, filled with compassion, he said, Don't worry, John, I'll pay for you to go. 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:48.000 What a hero he must have thought himself to be. 00:02:48.560 --> 00:02:53.520 You know, he must have thought, I'm so generous, I'm such a great person. 00:02:53.680 --> 00:02:57.039 But for me, obviously, in my head, he was ruining my entire summer. 00:02:57.199 --> 00:03:01.840 Um, and it took everything in me not to find the nearest thing next to me and beat him with it. 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:06.080 So, but I couldn't say no without unraveling the lie I've just told. 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:10.400 So I smiled, said thank you very much, and three months later found myself at New Day. 00:03:10.639 --> 00:03:18.159 So while I was there, I spent the whole time trying to prove that my friend's investment was the worst incredible waste of money of his life. 00:03:18.319 --> 00:03:21.120 So I avoided every of the main sessions that were available. 00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:29.840 I had a very persistent headache and spent the most of the week lying in my tent enduring every hour, waiting to go back home to my Xbox. 00:03:30.560 --> 00:03:38.479 Um, but here's the thing though, the reason I had got to this place of just, again, not really wanting to be there is the previous year I'd actually been to New Day as well. 00:03:38.719 --> 00:03:41.759 And something about that time had really gotten under my skin. 00:03:41.919 --> 00:03:45.199 And I felt I just felt compelled to reach out to God when I got home. 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:46.400 I didn't want to do anything when I was there. 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:49.520 I felt compelled to God to reach out to him at home. 00:03:49.680 --> 00:03:52.240 And I did something that was massively vulnerable for me. 00:03:52.400 --> 00:04:02.400 I I sat in my room at the age of 17 and told God sincerely, if you're real, if you actually love me, show yourself to me. 00:04:04.080 --> 00:04:06.800 And I'm gonna be honest, I heard absolutely nothing. 00:04:07.039 --> 00:04:11.439 I felt nothing, just complete and utter silence. 00:04:12.560 --> 00:04:15.680 And that kind of silence affects people differently. 00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:24.560 You know, it can it can motivate some people, it can drive them a bit deeper, a bit more harder in their pursuit of things, but that certainly wasn't true of me. 00:04:25.120 --> 00:04:32.800 It hardened me, it hurt that I was thinking if God were real, he certainly didn't love me. 00:04:33.439 --> 00:04:41.120 And so now I hear I was back at New Day a year on, kind of looking back where that where the journey of disappointment began. 00:04:41.199 --> 00:04:45.360 Again, just fast-forwarded by a year, not wanting to be involved in anything. 00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:48.319 So I sat there in this hot tent alone. 00:04:48.879 --> 00:04:58.879 Everyone else had gone off to the meetings, all my friends and everything, and um, on what felt like probably the most pointless afternoons of my life, that is the moment where everything changed. 00:04:59.199 --> 00:05:07.120 You know, I wasn't praying, I wasn't thinking about God particularly at the time, I was just sitting there, and then a moment happened to me. 00:05:07.519 --> 00:05:13.519 As I sat there, just again by myself, these words started to rise up within me. 00:05:13.759 --> 00:05:19.439 Not, and they weren't really thoughts exactly, they almost felt like they came from deep within me, as it's a pro it's a weird experience. 00:05:19.519 --> 00:05:30.319 Um, and it wasn't again the normal running commentary of your mind, it was something different in quality, something that felt like another voice, which I know again, for many of you who probably aren't aware of that, just it sounds very strange. 00:05:30.639 --> 00:05:35.600 It was not audible, it was not coming from the outside, but it was also unmistakably not mine. 00:05:35.759 --> 00:05:39.600 And it was five words repeated like a drum beat within me. 00:05:39.920 --> 00:05:41.519 You need to follow Jesus. 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:45.920 You need to follow Jesus, you need to follow Jesus, you need to follow Jesus. 00:05:46.160 --> 00:05:48.319 And I didn't I didn't know what that meant back there. 00:05:48.399 --> 00:05:56.959 I was young, again, not a Christian, and essentially I again I'd written God off at that point, but weirdly as well, it was like there was a quality within them as well. 00:05:57.199 --> 00:06:07.839 Like there was joy within these words, um, like within the self-like you know that we all we all understand that when there's a mo when there's significant words are spoken, there's something really powerful about them. 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:11.519 Like someone says at a wedding, they says, I do to their spouse. 00:06:11.680 --> 00:06:16.720 There's there's something in those words, it's pregnant with powerful joy and commitment. 00:06:16.800 --> 00:06:22.079 And it was like that from this this as well, there was joy within these words, it belonged to them. 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:26.560 And also with these kind of words beating within me, there came love. 00:06:28.160 --> 00:06:30.000 A love that completely covered me. 00:06:30.079 --> 00:06:48.240 It was like a blanket being thrown over me, and it was sudden and overwhelming, the deepest sense of being loved I'd ever felt in my life, and it was not kind of tolerated but seen, known, wanted, and cherished. 00:06:49.680 --> 00:06:53.920 And that kind of experience lasted probably about two or three minutes. 00:06:54.399 --> 00:06:58.399 It wasn't loud, it wasn't kind of violent, there was no shaking involved or anything. 00:06:58.560 --> 00:07:03.519 It was gentle but powerful, and then it stopped. 00:07:03.920 --> 00:07:07.199 And then I was kind of left there in my tent, like what on earth happened there? 00:07:07.279 --> 00:07:18.800 And I walked out to into an ordinary afternoon, nobody knew anything had happened, I didn't tell anyone, I didn't even know how to describe it as well, and I spent the next few days trying to work it over for myself, trying to work out what on earth had happened to me. 00:07:19.040 --> 00:07:40.160 And looking back, um, I'd thought for a while Christianity was plausible, but I and so I can understood how someone could believe it, but I while I believed it was plausible, I didn't see it as desirable, and so I and and you didn't so I didn't want Jesus to be who he said he was because I was hurt, I was disappointed from the starting point. 00:07:40.480 --> 00:07:45.920 And when you don't want something to be true, even if it is, you'll find a thousand reasons to doubt it. 00:07:46.639 --> 00:07:52.720 And but that afternoon in the tent that I had, I experienced what Jesus was offering, and I wanted in. 00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:58.560 And so when they gave the call later that week, if you wanted to follow Jesus and give your life to him, I didn't hesitate. 00:07:58.720 --> 00:08:06.560 I ran straight to the front, and what I discovered is over the course of my followership of Jesus, is this is what he does. 00:08:06.800 --> 00:08:12.959 This is who he is, and he has been doing it a long time since he found me in that tent in Norfolk at New Day. 00:08:13.120 --> 00:08:18.240 And um, there's a woman who had a similar kind of day to what I had, and it will be in John chapter 4. 00:08:18.319 --> 00:08:21.759 We have a lot of reading from John this morning, so we're gonna be in John chapter 4. 00:08:21.839 --> 00:08:26.240 If you have a Bible, feel free to turn there, but equally it will also appear on the screens as well. 00:08:26.319 --> 00:08:30.639 And while you go there, um I want I I want to just set the scene for you. 00:08:31.120 --> 00:08:34.879 So again, this is the middle of an ordinary day in the first century. 00:08:35.039 --> 00:08:37.919 It's noon in a place called Samaria. 00:08:38.559 --> 00:08:44.240 Um, the sun is kind of directly overhead, it's beating down on open country and nowhere to hide. 00:08:44.399 --> 00:08:53.200 The kind of experience many of us have had this week, you know, where it's one kind of normal walk where you'd go out for a walk, turns it into an absolute trek. 00:08:54.080 --> 00:09:00.799 And a woman walks, makes a walk alone to a well, carrying a heavy water jar. 00:09:01.200 --> 00:09:12.159 And like everyone in ancient rural culture, she does this every single day, and she does it now at the worst possible hour when everyone else has long since gone inside. 00:09:13.039 --> 00:09:23.279 And so when she arrives, there's also a man sitting there on the stone rim, tired from the road, waiting for his friends to come back with food. 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:31.600 And she as she sees him, she approaches and she has no idea how significant this encounter is about to be. 00:09:31.919 --> 00:09:32.720 So let's read. 00:09:32.879 --> 00:09:36.080 So John, we're starting in verse 4, again, it also appears on the screen as well. 00:09:36.240 --> 00:09:41.200 It says this It says, Now he, and this is Jesus, had to go through Samaria. 00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:48.559 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sakar, near the plot of ground Jacob had been had given to his son Joseph. 00:09:48.799 --> 00:09:53.759 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:55.840 It was about noon. 00:09:56.240 --> 00:10:02.000 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:05.759 His disciples had gone into the town to buy food. 00:10:05.919 --> 00:10:10.000 The Samaritan woman said to him, You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. 00:10:10.159 --> 00:10:12.480 How can you ask me for a drink? 00:10:12.720 --> 00:10:15.360 For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. 00:10:15.600 --> 00:10:24.639 Jesus answered, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. 00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:29.120 Sir, the woman said, You have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. 00:10:29.360 --> 00:10:32.080 Where can you get this living water? 00:10:32.399 --> 00:10:39.519 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock? 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:44.799 Jesus answered, Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. 00:10:45.039 --> 00:10:49.200 But whoever drinks from the water I give them will never thirst. 00:10:49.360 --> 00:10:57.200 Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. 00:10:57.519 --> 00:11:05.360 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. 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:09.039 He told her, Go call your husband and come back. 00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:11.360 I have no husband, she replies. 00:11:11.519 --> 00:11:21.360 Jesus said to her, You all right, when you say you have no husband, the fact is you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. 00:11:21.600 --> 00:11:24.480 And what you have just said is quite true. 00:11:24.799 --> 00:11:26.559 And that's where we're going to stop. 00:11:27.039 --> 00:11:34.720 Now, um, this account written in John's Gospel is probably one of the most remarkable encounters, I think, that happens in the whole of his eyewitness account. 00:11:34.879 --> 00:11:38.879 And it but I find it's actually one of the most misread as well at the same time. 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:46.080 Um, so before we go any further, I want to take us back into the world of this story because I think the details really matter as we are understanding it. 00:11:46.320 --> 00:11:50.559 And so the story is as we find Jesus near the very beginning of his ministry. 00:11:50.799 --> 00:12:00.320 And so, and he's been in Judea, and now he's heading home to Galilee for ministry, and he takes the direct route, he takes the direct route straight through Samaria. 00:12:00.559 --> 00:12:02.559 So you should be able to see on the screen a map. 00:12:02.879 --> 00:12:11.120 Most Jewish people didn't take that route, they didn't go through Samaria because again, Jews and Samaritans had centuries of bad blood between them. 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:16.240 Jews saw Samaritans as these kind of compromised, religiously impure half-breeds. 00:12:16.799 --> 00:12:22.320 While Samaritans didn't like Jews because the Jews destroyed their temple a long while ago, so you know, not great. 00:12:22.399 --> 00:12:25.039 You're gonna destroy their temple, it's not gonna feel pretty happy about it. 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:28.480 So most people to avoid this conflict, they just took the long way around. 00:12:28.559 --> 00:12:31.279 They didn't cut through hostile territory if they could help it. 00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:32.559 So they went round. 00:12:32.799 --> 00:12:47.120 But Jesus takes a direct route, and Jesus doesn't say he chose to, actually, what the Greek in the New Testament and New Test the Greek is what the New Testament was originally written in, reads more like he said he he had to, he was compelled to. 00:12:47.279 --> 00:12:50.399 That this wasn't a shortcut because Jesus wanted to get there a bit quick. 00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:57.840 What Jesus what John the writer is almost hinting at is this is like a divine operation that God had sent him through that territory. 00:12:58.240 --> 00:13:04.399 So he arrives at this place called Sakar, roughly about halfway through what would have been an eight-day journey on foot. 00:13:04.799 --> 00:13:09.919 So he's been he's already walked at this point about 40 miles, he's not done that in one day. 00:13:10.159 --> 00:13:17.039 And John tells us, almost in passing, and it kind of we kind of miss it, says, he was tired. 00:13:18.240 --> 00:13:28.559 And I want us to kind of sit with that for a moment, because three chapters earlier, at the beginning of John's writing, he says Jesus is God incarnate, God with flesh on. 00:13:29.360 --> 00:13:34.399 That the word was with God and was God, and the word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst us. 00:13:34.639 --> 00:13:44.080 And here he is, sitting on a stone well in the middle of nowhere, his body depleted, sweat on his brow, his tongue dry. 00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:57.200 This is this is God, this John is saying this is God the Son, the second member of the Trinity, becoming truly like one of us, relating to us, connecting with us in our suffering, in our earthliness. 00:13:59.039 --> 00:14:12.480 As Paul wrote in Philippians, he said, though he was in the form of God, he did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage, so he humbled himself, being found like one of us. 00:14:13.279 --> 00:14:19.120 So this is God hungry, waiting, dependent. 00:14:20.080 --> 00:14:21.440 It blows our minds, right? 00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:22.639 Blows my mind. 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:31.919 And then Jesus again sitting on this well, sh the woman appears to him, walks to him, and again, a woman were walking alone to the well at noon. 00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:39.600 And this matters in ancient Near Eastern context, you know, women drew water often, most often, in the morning and the evenings. 00:14:39.759 --> 00:14:41.279 You know, those were the communal hours. 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:45.759 It was cooler, it was a social time, the times where you'd meet and talk with one another. 00:14:45.919 --> 00:14:48.639 And coming at noon, it was the worst possible time. 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:54.080 It was the heat again alone, tells us something about why she's coming, what she's coming there for. 00:14:54.720 --> 00:15:01.679 And so what she'd done is she's almost arranged her entire day around avoiding, it appears, avoiding the other women in the town. 00:15:01.919 --> 00:15:09.519 So something about her situation, her history, means she's coming when she could almost guarantee no one else will be there. 00:15:10.960 --> 00:15:18.000 And that's where I want to kind of stop for a moment because you know, this is where I often find this is often misread. 00:15:18.159 --> 00:15:22.159 I've heard a lot of sermons on this passage, you know, many, many, many men's. 00:15:22.399 --> 00:15:36.879 And um, I've heard roughly the same story as that Jesus is a Jewish rabbi, crosses remarkable cultural lines to speak with this Samaritan woman, but then the argument goes is that this woman has had five husbands, so clearly something is up with her. 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:38.720 She must be morally compromised. 00:15:38.799 --> 00:15:42.799 She's a serial divorcee, an adulterer, now living with a man who isn't a husband. 00:15:42.960 --> 00:15:46.960 And isn't it wonderful that Jesus doesn't even confront her on her sin, he just redeems her. 00:15:47.120 --> 00:15:49.120 God's grace is really amazing. 00:15:49.360 --> 00:16:07.919 Now, that I would say is a caricature of those sermons, but I think that what those sermons do is they miss critical information and make assumptions about this woman and put her in a really poor light, which I feel, in terms of my reading of it, responsible to set the record straight once you discover these things. 00:16:08.240 --> 00:16:20.080 Because her situation, while on the surface of it, does raise eyebrows for us, and also throughout history, it stands more complex when you read it in light of its ancient context. 00:16:20.320 --> 00:16:21.519 So I want to explain. 00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:30.000 So in the first century, a woman had no independent legal standing, her testimony wasn't valid in court. 00:16:30.240 --> 00:16:38.320 So whatever happened in those five marriages, whatever she had did or was done to her, whatever circumstances actually were, she had no way of making her case. 00:16:38.480 --> 00:16:40.080 Anywhere that counted. 00:16:40.639 --> 00:16:45.600 The account of a woman wasn't taken seriously in the first century in an ancient Eastern context. 00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:46.879 That was the norm. 00:16:47.120 --> 00:16:52.559 And in an ancient agrarian society, without a man, very often a woman had nothing. 00:16:52.799 --> 00:16:55.440 No income, no property, no roof, no future. 00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:58.399 Marriage was a contract between families. 00:16:58.639 --> 00:17:01.600 So she moved from her father's house to her husband's house. 00:17:01.679 --> 00:17:09.200 And then often she would then result in that she would then live in to a live in with her son after, if her husband died, she would live in with her oldest son. 00:17:10.240 --> 00:17:12.319 That was the entire world available to her. 00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:16.880 Her survival every single day depended entirely on a relationship to a man. 00:17:17.519 --> 00:17:26.720 And one of the biggest things as well is in ancient Israel, only the husband could initiate divorce, not the wife, and and almost for any reason as well. 00:17:26.880 --> 00:17:35.519 You know, some rabbis in the ancient world taught that a man could issue a divorce if he just found someone more attractive, or because he didn't like her cooking. 00:17:36.319 --> 00:17:40.640 And it sounds funny, but it's it's it's not it's it's really sad when you think about it. 00:17:41.039 --> 00:17:45.440 He issued a document, she was gone, no appeal, no recourse, no power to resist. 00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:51.519 She was just left to fend for herself in a very unforgiving society, it felt like. 00:17:59.119 --> 00:18:08.240 Wars kind of just a ruler's whim, men just sent off in a battle, no modern medicine, healthcare, no health and safety, wild dangerous animals roaming around in unpopulated areas. 00:18:08.559 --> 00:18:21.519 You know, so if five marriages ended, most likely it isn't a isn't a story that of a woman who kept failing, it's about five men who left or died or a mixture of those things. 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:24.960 So she couldn't leave, she could only be left. 00:18:25.839 --> 00:18:34.720 And on top of that, the man she is living with now who hasn't married her, it is it's highly unlikely she is the one refusing the security of marriage. 00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:37.599 Far more likely he is not choosing her. 00:18:38.160 --> 00:18:43.920 And I find what Christian history has done is it's filled the gap with the most damaging reading of her available. 00:18:44.160 --> 00:18:51.680 You know, you see the pan five husbands and a regular arrangement now, and a woman at the well at noon, and we can kind of conclude her fault. 00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:55.519 But it's more complex than that. 00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:00.960 And Jesus is on a mission to meet her, and he knows it all. 00:19:01.119 --> 00:19:06.559 He knows the complexity, he knows what's going on, he knows the truth, and he meets her anyway. 00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:11.759 And as he always has been, he is the one who draws near to the broken, the outcast, the mistreated, and the sinner. 00:19:11.839 --> 00:19:14.480 And it's likely she is all of the above of those things. 00:19:14.799 --> 00:19:16.720 But Jesus comes to meet her. 00:19:17.119 --> 00:19:22.000 And again, this is a woman whose life has been on in public in the worst possible way. 00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:23.839 She lives in a small community. 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:29.519 Everybody knows everything about your life, everyone knows the headlines, five husbands, the arrangement she's in now. 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:33.440 You know, living with a man who doesn't presume again, we presume doesn't want to marry her. 00:19:33.680 --> 00:19:37.759 They but they don't know the full story, they might not know all the complexities of it all. 00:19:38.079 --> 00:19:39.680 And so she avoids them. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:49.200 She avoids the morning and evening where the women would gather at the well to again to socialise, to chat, to share their lives, and she either excludes herself or felt excluded by the nature of her story. 00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:58.160 And it's likely again she fears the judgment, the the knowing eyes, the atmosphere that shifts the moment she arrives, the looks she might get. 00:19:59.200 --> 00:20:01.279 She comes when no one else does. 00:20:01.440 --> 00:20:06.400 Again, so she doesn't have to feel to feel rejected. 00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:10.319 And I wonder if that's ever true for you. 00:20:10.880 --> 00:20:14.079 And friends, what we what we what she's carrying has a name. 00:20:14.480 --> 00:20:16.480 We call it shame. 00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:22.319 Now, shame is different than guilt, and I think the distinction matters. 00:20:22.880 --> 00:20:26.480 Guilt says I've done something wrong and I feel bad. 00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:30.640 Shame says something is wrong with me and I am bad. 00:20:31.680 --> 00:20:35.359 Guilt is about what you've done, shame is about who you are. 00:20:35.839 --> 00:20:42.160 And shame whispers if they really knew, if they really knew what was going on in my life, if they really knew the whole story, they'd leave. 00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:46.240 And shame is perhaps one of the oldest negative feelings we've ever had. 00:20:46.400 --> 00:20:49.200 The Bible says it started in the Garden of Eden itself. 00:20:49.359 --> 00:20:54.480 The moment Adam and Eve eat the fruit, the first thing they do is hide and cover themselves. 00:20:54.559 --> 00:21:01.680 That is the original root meaning of the word, and to in shame in the Bible actually means to cover, to hide one's self. 00:21:02.160 --> 00:21:13.359 And so when they appear, actually, as well, Adam and Eve, after they've done this hiding and God calls them out, they actually cover themselves as well with fig leaves, hiding the vulnerabilities, hoping their life goes unseen. 00:21:14.160 --> 00:21:18.559 And they hide not from what they did, but they hide again from being seen. 00:21:18.880 --> 00:21:20.160 That is shame. 00:21:20.640 --> 00:21:25.839 And I'd argue again it's one of the most powerful and destructive forces in the human experience today. 00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:31.839 The psychiatrist called Carl Young called it a soul-eating emotion. 00:21:32.079 --> 00:21:33.359 Because that's what it does. 00:21:33.519 --> 00:21:37.680 It doesn't just hurt, it's isolates you, it eats you from within. 00:21:37.839 --> 00:21:43.839 It convinces you that the only safe option is to be less visible, less present, less known. 00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:46.880 And this is why she comes at this time. 00:21:47.519 --> 00:21:53.839 And I wonder how many of us are have had the same experience or live in the same way in different contexts. 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:58.240 And I know I I know I have my story, I know it's true of me. 00:21:58.480 --> 00:21:59.759 I've sat with the voice that. 00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:02.079 More times than I can count. 00:22:02.400 --> 00:22:05.839 The one that says, but what if they misunderstand? 00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:08.720 What if they see me differently? 00:22:09.119 --> 00:22:11.279 What if it changes how they feel about me? 00:22:11.759 --> 00:22:14.559 What if they don't want me as a result? 00:22:15.839 --> 00:22:22.880 And here's what I've learned if you listen to those voices long enough and agree with it, you don't just become cautious. 00:22:23.119 --> 00:22:28.799 It creates distance between you and the people you need the most. 00:22:29.519 --> 00:22:32.880 And distance is the one thing shame needs to survive. 00:22:33.119 --> 00:22:34.720 It feeds on it. 00:22:35.920 --> 00:22:40.640 And again, I want to ask you something is what does your noon at the well look like? 00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:44.640 What and where are you hiding from others? 00:22:45.039 --> 00:22:53.200 You know, most of us have a part of our story that we want to carefully manage, something we create like a photo album or your Instagram profile. 00:22:53.279 --> 00:22:55.599 We keep the horrible portraits out of sight. 00:22:55.680 --> 00:22:57.599 We don't want those things to be seen. 00:22:57.839 --> 00:23:00.400 You know, the marriage that nobody knows is struggling. 00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:04.079 A habit you'd know you'd rather no one knew about. 00:23:04.319 --> 00:23:17.440 The things you've done or the things done to you, the fear, the doubt, the disappointment you carry, the gap between who you appear to be and who you know you actually are, or who you feel you are. 00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:23.519 We'd all have something we'd rather people didn't read too closely. 00:23:24.400 --> 00:23:27.359 And here's the thing about Jesus is he already knows. 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:34.880 He already knows your story, your life, but he also knows this woman's before she says a word. 00:23:36.000 --> 00:23:39.119 And so again, they converse, they start talking. 00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:46.000 And Jesus initiates a Jewish man speaking to a Samaritan woman, already breaking every social rule they had. 00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:47.680 And what does he say? 00:23:48.400 --> 00:23:50.000 Give me a drink. 00:23:50.480 --> 00:23:52.160 It sounds a bit blunt, right? 00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:58.160 You know, but it isn't rude, it's just direct, you know, and obviously we're talking, we're looking cross-culturally. 00:23:58.240 --> 00:24:04.240 But I think what's fascinating actually is what scholars say, and he's he's not he's actually performing as if he's actually knows her and he relates to her. 00:24:04.319 --> 00:24:08.400 He's not performing around social barriers that are that actually exist between them. 00:24:08.480 --> 00:24:10.640 He's just acting as if they simply aren't there. 00:24:11.039 --> 00:24:18.319 The way I kind of see it is he's like a kind of South London man kind of walking into a new pub, talking to the landlady who just goes up to him and says, Give us a drink, love. 00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:20.240 That's kind of how I imagine it. 00:24:20.400 --> 00:24:28.000 You know, it's not demanding, it's actually quite affectionate, and you know, and it's assuming a connection already exists, that mutual understanding is already there. 00:24:28.640 --> 00:24:32.000 And so she replies, she actually is the one that points out the barrier between them. 00:24:32.079 --> 00:24:36.480 She's like, How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink? 00:24:36.799 --> 00:24:39.599 She not to a drink like they're going on a date, just if why. 00:24:39.920 --> 00:24:41.920 So she points it out that there's a problem here. 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:43.920 The barrier is between them. 00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:56.000 The Jewish and Samaritan, a Jewish man and Samaritan woman, a respectable rabbi, at least from her appearance of what he looks like, and he would have no business speaking privately to any woman outside of their his immediate family. 00:24:56.160 --> 00:25:00.640 People looking on in an honest shame society as they were would have just thought the worst. 00:25:00.720 --> 00:25:02.960 We'd be like, whoa, what dealing has he got with that woman? 00:25:03.039 --> 00:25:04.400 Whoa, that's something going on there. 00:25:04.559 --> 00:25:09.519 It would have been a huge social cost to this rabbi who's speaking to this woman. 00:25:09.599 --> 00:25:11.279 And she makes this observation for him. 00:25:11.359 --> 00:25:15.440 She's like, you know, you should, I don't know if you know you should be talking to me, because this could really damage your reputation. 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:20.400 But Jesus doesn't really seem to mind when loving someone else is the greatest thing here. 00:25:20.960 --> 00:25:26.559 And he says to her, if you knew the gift of God and who it is, he kind of takes it somewhere deeper, doesn't he? 00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:35.119 He says, 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. 00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:45.359 And he goes on to say, Everyone who drinks of this water, looking, thinking of the well, will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water that I will give them will never be thirsty again. 00:25:45.599 --> 00:25:52.720 The water I give them will be a sp will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life. 00:25:53.200 --> 00:25:56.160 Now, what we kind of think there's two things going on. 00:25:56.240 --> 00:25:58.240 There's what she's hearing and what he's actually saying. 00:25:58.400 --> 00:26:07.440 Because what Jesus is claiming there, actually, in his mind, is not just better water, again, but it's what he's claiming is water that ends thirst permanently. 00:26:07.759 --> 00:26:12.640 A spring that rises within you rather than something you have to keep coming back to. 00:26:12.880 --> 00:26:18.799 Something that ushers her, and it's speaking widely to us because it's recorded for us, into eternal life. 00:26:19.119 --> 00:26:23.920 This is not just a practical offer, it's so much more than that. 00:26:24.079 --> 00:26:28.079 And again, she doesn't really fully understand it, but she knows she wants it. 00:26:28.319 --> 00:26:32.480 So she says, Sir, she's got, of course, says, Sir, give me this water. 00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:37.759 Now she says that, and she means obviously she's thinking about real water. 00:26:38.079 --> 00:26:42.720 And if the if she gets this water that satisfies first forever, it'd be great. 00:26:42.799 --> 00:26:50.000 You know, she's thinking, no more heavy jars to carry, no more heat in the noon sun, no more making this walk alone. 00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:56.960 But actually, underneath that, there's probably more going on to her, that kind of acceptance than we think there is. 00:26:57.279 --> 00:27:02.799 She's thinking this could mean more than just the water itself, but no more having to come here. 00:27:03.680 --> 00:27:06.880 No more the fear of awkwardness, no more fear of rejection. 00:27:07.359 --> 00:27:11.599 This will fix that, and I will be satisfied. 00:27:12.880 --> 00:27:23.200 And we understand exactly what she means, that kind of like acceptance of something like that, because we all have thirst, and not just for water, as many of us have experienced this week, but for something deeper. 00:27:23.359 --> 00:27:36.799 We have a thirst within us, a longing, a desires that are deeply embedded within us, desires for security, belonging to be known and loved, for a life that makes sense. 00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:44.480 And we what we do with that thirst, what human beings have always done is it we point it towards something. 00:27:44.880 --> 00:27:50.720 We aim it at the something, and we aim at the next thing and think that's gonna fill this. 00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:54.720 That's gonna be the thing, the thing that finally satisfies us. 00:27:54.799 --> 00:28:06.000 And I think many of us in this in Western cultures, in kind of like you know, like middle class Britain, we just think about if I could just get that house, that extension, that kitchen, that makeover, then I'll feel satisfied. 00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:10.720 If I can just get that relationship, that job, the ache will finally stop. 00:28:11.039 --> 00:28:14.720 If I could just you fill in the blank. 00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:23.200 If I could just get to a place where I feel secure, feel accepted, feel like my life makes sense, then I'll be okay. 00:28:23.440 --> 00:28:25.680 Then I'll stop being thirsty. 00:28:26.160 --> 00:28:31.920 And then we get it, and we look back in the rearview mirror, and the thirst is still there. 00:28:33.599 --> 00:28:37.359 The holiday ends and something deflates in us on the way home. 00:28:37.599 --> 00:28:41.759 The car, the house, the extension, whatever it is, becomes familiar. 00:28:42.319 --> 00:28:48.960 The achievement comes, the celebration lasts for a week at best, and then you're already looking for the next thing. 00:28:49.680 --> 00:28:52.160 We have to keep coming back to a well. 00:28:53.039 --> 00:28:55.440 And that's exactly what Jesus said would happen. 00:28:55.599 --> 00:28:57.920 Everyone who drinks from this well will be thirsty again. 00:28:58.160 --> 00:29:04.559 The holiday, the relationship, the achievement, the next thing, and the next thing, they run dry and they always will run dry. 00:29:04.960 --> 00:29:09.440 But whoever drinks the water I give them, Jesus said, will never thirst. 00:29:09.680 --> 00:29:15.839 And again, he isn't just offering a better well, he's offering a spring within us that doesn't run out. 00:29:16.079 --> 00:29:19.039 True satisfaction and fulfillment. 00:29:20.319 --> 00:29:29.440 And you know, here's what I suggest to us all as well that that restlessness, that ache that nothing in this world has ever fully satisfied, isn't just a sign something's wrong with us. 00:29:29.680 --> 00:29:33.519 It's a sign that we were made for more than this. 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:36.799 That we were made for a life that's beyond this. 00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:37.599 C.S. 00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:46.640 Lewis, one of the sharpest minds of the 20th century, puts it this way: he says, Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exist. 00:29:47.359 --> 00:29:51.519 A baby feels hungry, well, there is such a thing as food. 00:29:51.759 --> 00:29:55.519 A duckling wants to swim, well, there is such a thing as water. 00:29:55.759 --> 00:30:04.240 If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. 00:30:05.279 --> 00:30:07.279 Made for another world. 00:30:08.079 --> 00:30:14.960 You know, that longing we carry, the homesickness that feels like it has no address, the reaching for meaning, purpose, and fulfillment. 00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:18.160 Lewis says that's not a malfunction of the human experience. 00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:24.079 He says it's a signpost, it's a our souls reaching for something again this world only can gesture towards. 00:30:24.319 --> 00:30:27.519 And Jesus says, I know what you're actually thirsty for. 00:30:28.079 --> 00:30:31.119 Jesus calls this eternal life. 00:30:32.559 --> 00:30:35.039 And uh here's one I just want to be honest with us. 00:30:35.119 --> 00:30:39.680 You know, this is something I think the church over, I mean I feel like in my recollection has got half right. 00:30:39.759 --> 00:30:42.160 And not this is not me being proud and going, I know the answers. 00:30:42.319 --> 00:30:49.680 But I feel like when I've heard eternal life being talked about, it's only a one side of the eternal life kind of angle. 00:30:50.240 --> 00:31:02.400 And so what you know, what I've seen, heard, and preached generations have kind of preached before beached in what I've heard is eternal life just as length, as duration, as the paradise that waits for you on the other side of death. 00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:05.440 And that's true, Jesus promises us that. 00:31:05.759 --> 00:31:09.359 But again, it's half the picture of I think what eternal life actually means. 00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:17.519 And half the picture is kind of left again in thinking that eternal life is just something that you have to wait for, something deferred, something that begins only when you die. 00:31:18.000 --> 00:31:19.119 But Jesus doesn't mean that. 00:31:19.200 --> 00:31:21.519 And I think the New Testament talks about it that way. 00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:26.880 Eternal life is not just about how long, but it's also about what kind. 00:31:27.279 --> 00:31:31.839 It's not just about quantity of life, it's also about quality as well. 00:31:32.160 --> 00:31:42.319 That there exists eternal life as length, life forever, but also again as quality, the beautiful, whole living of heaven, of eternity. 00:31:43.119 --> 00:31:54.079 Dallas Willard, one of the most respected Christian scholars of the last century, put it this way: he says, eternal life refers not only again to eternal quantity, but a divine quality of life. 00:31:54.640 --> 00:31:59.759 And so, what does that quality of life, divine quality of life that he talks about, actually look like? 00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:04.880 Because this is what, again, she's been thirsty for, and what all of us are thirsty for. 00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:28.880 And what it is when I read the scriptures, it says this it's it's the inner security that it's inner security that doesn't depend on your circumstances, the confident hope that goes beyond wishful thinking, the love that is overwhelming, that sees all the darkest parts of our lives and loves you still, and wants his love to go there, and he doesn't leave. 00:32:29.200 --> 00:32:35.519 It's the joy that survives and not only not only that, but sustains you through the harshest pain. 00:32:35.839 --> 00:32:40.640 It's peace that holds even when the world outside is in chaos. 00:32:41.359 --> 00:32:47.039 And Jesus says, again, you don't have to wait for these things, you just you don't have to die to receive these things. 00:32:47.119 --> 00:32:52.319 Actually, he's what he's saying is we have access to these things, the life of eternity now. 00:32:52.799 --> 00:33:02.079 The spring is available now, the eternal kind of life is available to us, rising from a source within us that life's trials don't exhaust. 00:33:02.640 --> 00:33:09.839 Paul says it this way: he says that while the outer self is wasting away, the inner self is being renewed day by day. 00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:14.079 That's what Jesus is offering her at this world, and that's what Jesus offers us as well. 00:33:15.920 --> 00:33:24.000 But the thing that holds us back from receiving that, it's never God's ability to deliver, it's our ability to receive. 00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:33.599 As the writer Dane Ortland puts it, he says, out of his heart flows mercy, out of ours reluctance to receive it. 00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:42.240 And one of the biggest barriers for us receiving and living in the good of the eternal kind of life Jesus offers again is shame. 00:33:43.200 --> 00:33:48.160 And the way that kind of works is just want to offer us a couple of pictures of how that actually operates in our life. 00:33:48.319 --> 00:33:54.240 So, number one is imagine a little girl hiding from her father on her birthday. 00:33:55.119 --> 00:34:02.160 He's got gifts prepared, love he's desperate for her to feel, but she's she stays behind the door. 00:34:02.480 --> 00:34:07.359 Not because he doesn't, he doesn't want her, because she doesn't trust the love that is available to her. 00:34:07.519 --> 00:34:08.239 She doesn't believe it. 00:34:08.320 --> 00:34:11.519 So she hides herself from receiving the good of it. 00:34:11.679 --> 00:34:13.280 She doesn't enter into it. 00:34:13.599 --> 00:34:14.880 Or imagine another one. 00:34:15.039 --> 00:34:22.480 Imagine someone sitting in a doctor's surgery in agony, who describes every symptom except the one that's killing him. 00:34:23.280 --> 00:34:28.239 He leaves the pain still, he leaves, sorry, with the pain still inside of him. 00:34:28.400 --> 00:34:35.199 Not because the doctor couldn't help, because they couldn't bring themselves to show him where it hurt. 00:34:36.400 --> 00:34:37.679 That's shame. 00:34:38.159 --> 00:34:44.159 And again, Jesus sees that in this woman, which is why Jesus in this moment goes straight to the point. 00:34:45.199 --> 00:34:50.719 Not to expose her, not to humiliate her, but because again, living water he's offering needs to reach all of her. 00:34:50.960 --> 00:34:55.360 And he wants to go to the places that would call her out of that hiding place. 00:34:55.920 --> 00:34:58.079 So he says to her again, go call your husband. 00:34:58.159 --> 00:35:05.679 And he knows she can't, but he names it anyway, and he does it gently, privately, in the best way possible. 00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:13.199 Because I think the reason he does it is because shame loses its power when it's brought into the presence of love that doesn't leave. 00:35:14.559 --> 00:35:16.400 That's what defeats shame. 00:35:16.639 --> 00:35:23.679 Love that sees and stays, and what's available to her is what's available for us in Christ still today. 00:35:26.639 --> 00:35:30.880 And then following the conversation with Jesus, she does something remarkable. 00:35:31.039 --> 00:35:32.480 She runs off. 00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:48.639 Which I don't know what that would have been like in the moment, but reading a few verses on, it says this it says, So the woman left her water jar and went into town and said to the people, Come see a man who told me all I ever did. 00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:51.840 Can this be the Christ, the Messiah? 00:35:52.559 --> 00:35:57.519 And they, the townspeople, went out of town and were all coming to him. 00:35:58.239 --> 00:36:00.400 You know, this is extraordinary. 00:36:00.639 --> 00:36:06.719 But there is something I think we can often miss when we see this John's record stuff and he kind of just moves on from things quite quickly. 00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:09.840 What she does is she leaves her water jar. 00:36:10.719 --> 00:36:21.199 She came for water, and that's the entire reason she did this kind of walk in the noon heat absolutely alone, and at the worst possible hour, but she bolts it away as if she didn't even bring it. 00:36:21.440 --> 00:36:22.480 She forgets it. 00:36:22.639 --> 00:36:28.800 The woman who built her entire day around the well, who organized her life around avoiding people, leaves the vessel behind that she went with. 00:36:28.960 --> 00:36:35.840 And that's not because the thirst is gone, but because she's found something that reaches again to a much deeper place than the water ever could. 00:36:37.440 --> 00:36:45.679 And so she goes back, back to the town, not back into hiding, not again, but to the townspeople she'd been avoiding. 00:36:45.920 --> 00:36:48.320 The people she'd arranged her whole life not to see. 00:36:48.400 --> 00:36:54.239 She walks back into it, all of it, and she says, Again, come see a man who told me everything I ever did. 00:36:55.039 --> 00:36:56.559 Everything I ever did. 00:36:56.800 --> 00:37:02.880 Again, not my highlights, not the version I would choose, everything, even the shameful parts. 00:37:03.519 --> 00:37:08.239 And again, so the town came to meet Jesus, and many of them believed. 00:37:08.400 --> 00:37:09.679 This was says. 00:37:09.920 --> 00:37:19.039 So she almost becomes the most unlikely evangelist in Samaria, coming from the most unlikely of encounters on the most ordinary afternoons. 00:37:19.760 --> 00:37:26.480 And she came to the well, I think she came to the well to survive the day, but she left with a reason to live. 00:37:28.480 --> 00:37:30.480