The Point #162 - What If I Brought This On Myself?

This audio is a Bible study on the story of the woman at the well in John chapter 4. There is so much good in this story! I’m excited to talk it through together!

Transcript

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We're talking about lessons from the life of Christ in the four gospels. I don't think there's a more powerful or helpful story in the Bible than that in John chapter four of the woman at the well. I highly recommend that you take some time to look through these verses. It starts with verse 7. John chapter 4 and see all of the amazing solutions to life and to our problems and to how we feel about ourselves and to sin and to so many things. It answers them all with Jesus' perspective on these things. So going into John chapter 4, verse 7, we see that Jesus comes to a well in Samaria. He's gone out of his way to take his disciples through Samaria, a place they don't want to be. It's the wrong side of the tracks. The Jews and the Samaritans, they do not speak to each other. So there are so many levels of bias that Jesus breaks through in this story. Jews don't speak to Samaritans. You don't go to a well in the middle of the day. You draw water from a well in the morning. So it's the wrong time to be there before it gets hot or in the late in the day when it's not so hot. Nobody's gonna be there in the middle of the day. So he is not at the right place, he's not there at the right time, and men don't talk to women like equals in this culture. So he's breaking through this and he's speaking to a woman. And he's not just speaking to a woman, he's speaking to a woman that's living in sin. So even the other respectable Samaritans are probably not speaking to this woman. There is everything wrong with why Jesus would help this woman. There's no possible way any of this should happen. He's alone, he sent his disciples off to go find bread. First thing is, he was there first. She came up to the well and he was already sitting there. Jesus is already here for us. As we approach him with our problem and our sin and our reason why we don't feel like we're enough, or we can't be forgiven, or we're frustrated because we keep sinning the same sin we've had for 25 years, and it's still rearing its ugly head in our life. Jesus is already sitting at the well waiting for us to approach. That is so encouraging. He's always there. Whenever we want to talk to him, he's always there. What is the very first thing he says to this woman? Verse 7, give me to drink. So interesting. He does not come and start talking to her about her problem. Um, her problem that even if it was physical, that she needs to draw water from the well, or that she's living in sin, or ultimately that she needs to trust Christ as her savior. He doesn't start there, he asks her to do something for him. So he is taking her eyes off her own self and her issues and saying, think about me, and that is what works thinking about Jesus instead of internalizing and constantly going on a loop, neuropathways in our brain, of all that is wrong with us and how big our problem is. And let's talk to all the psychologists and let's like beat this thing into the ground and keep talking about our past and our childhood and all of it until we have rehearsed this aloud and confirmed it in our brains again for the millionth time. Uh, instead, Jesus sits there, he's there waiting for her, and he says, Give me to drink. So he is saying, Look at me and do something for me. Come and talk to me. Get out of your own mind, get out of your own issue and talk to God. So then the next thing that Jesus says to her is, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that saith to thee, give me to drink, thou wouldest asked of him, and he would have given you living water. He's still not talking about her problem. He's not talking about her sin, the fact that she is living with someone and has had four husbands. He's not going to ignore it, he is going to mention it, but he's not talking about it yet. He's got her looking at him, talking to him, talking to God, coming to God, talking to God are the first steps when we have a sin problem. And I don't just mean for salvation, I mean we always have a sin problem. So come to God, talk to him about it, and then he is going to bring her a permanent solution, a permanent solution for her thirst. And she's thinking, Wow, this is amazing. Next thing he says to her, anybody that drinks of this water will thirst again, the water in the well. But anybody whosoever that drinks of the water that I'll give him shall never thirst. So he's saying to her, don't just do the quick fixes. Don't just take the meds. Don't just scroll on your phone to get out of thinking about your problems and your sin. Don't just talk to your friends or post on social media. Don't just go to a counselor. I can give you a permanent solution for what you need. Jesus is saying to this woman, I can fix this. I can really fix this. I can give you victory. So she's ready. Now she's all in. She's like, let's do this. I want this permanent solution. That is when Jesus brings to light her sin. He was there. He turned her eyes from herself onto him. He told her what the solution was and how he could permanently change her life and give her victory over sin. And when she was ready to want it, then he brought up the sin problem. He did bring it up. He said, Oh, go call your husband. He didn't call out her sin, he let her name her own sin. He brought her to the point of acknowledging I'm sinful. And when she did, he said, Yes, and he acknowledged it. This is why I think about this a lot when I think about choosing a church to attend. In the modern culture, there are many churches that will make you feel good and make you feel like you've worshipped God, you've gotten together with community, you have had music involved, so you've got a dopamine hit, and everything is just about how much God loves you, and then buy and love other people. All of that is positive, but then buy, never getting to the point of, oh, we do need to acknowledge your sin. And he calls it out, Jesus calls it out, and then she does not go into feeling guilty and ashamed and less than. They don't come to us with conviction that leaves us feeling so low that we just want to end it all. They they leave us, the conviction of the Holy Spirit brings us to change, but gives us a ton of hope. And all of this is what Jesus is showing her right now. Then, as he gives her the solution, she gets so excited about it, she immediately goes to tell other people about God and to want to help others. It's the natural effect of God bringing victory in your life, of course, soul winning and testifying about God to the unsaved so that they can be saved and go to heaven and their lives can be transformed. And more than that, when God brings you victory out of a maybe a besetting sin or an addiction or a spiritual oppression from the devil or just a long-term bad habit, you might think. Nothing beats that. Nothing beats life with God. Nothing beats life with Jesus and the Holy Spirit and the life transformation. The worst, most powerful way that the devil can get into my mind for me is when he comes to me and reminds me, you brought this upon yourself. You know, sometimes we see a family go through a trial. Maybe their child gets cancer, or there was a death in the family, or their house burned down, or something that's a major thing, and it was not at all their fault. And we can just know that God is bringing them through this trial. It wasn't their fault, and and we're gonna be there for them. But in my own life, when I know I brought this upon myself, I am being a rebellious wife, I am being um an ungodly mom who isn't praying for her kids, or I'm not loving them as Christ would love them. If I have brought something upon myself with my own sinfulness, I tend to feel like I don't deserve to ask God to solve this for me because I'm still this way. I'm 50 years old and I'm still struggling. And that is a lie. That is a lie. This woman came to Jesus and she didn't even know she was coming to get her problem solved. She just was trying to make it through the day. She was just trying to carry her weight for that day. God was already there for her. Wanting to talk to her, wanting to take her burden permanently. She had to want it. She had to acknowledge who he was. And she had to admit her sin. And Jesus took it. You're never too old for God to give you victory in an area of your life. And do not let the devil make you live a B-life carrying around all this baggage forever because we just think, well, I brought this on myself. Maybe I had a child out of wedlock when I was a teenager, or maybe this happened and I got into drugs, or I made these bad decisions, or I chose to marry this person and we weren't equally yoked, or whatever it is. I brought it upon myself. Well, ladies, let me encourage you by saying you and I are not stronger than the power of God. And sin is sin. Whether we brought it upon ourselves, or whether we feel like we were thrust into it with our family heritage or people that have mistreated us along the way, we still need help. And Jesus is still there. And he did not have a long discussion with a woman at the well about why all this was happening to her. He did not major on all of the back the past and how she got to this day. He talked about where she was at now and where she could be in the future with his help. So just a reminder for yourself and for you to help other people by encouraging them to read this story in John chapter four. Because it really takes away all of our reasons and all of our excuses and all of the uh lies that we have believed from the devil about who we are and who we are in the side of God, and if we can be the answer is yes. It's always yes. Isn't God good? Let's walk in love this week. Loving God through loving others. Have a great week, friend.