SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, welcome to Crossroads Church. If my name, um, if if my name not my name is Andrew. And I'm the lead pastor here. If this is your first time, we are so glad that you are here and a part of what God is doing this weekend. And whether you're here in person or you're joining us online, or maybe you're watching from one of our campuses, thank you for choosing to be a part of Crossroads this weekend. Let me invite you to grab your Bible and turn to the New Testament book of John. It's where we've been for the last few weeks and where we're gonna be throughout the summer. If you don't have a Bible, I want to invite you to raise your hand. We've got ushers that are gonna come from all over the worship center who would love to bring you a Bible as a gift. With your hand up, they'll find you, they'll get you the Bible. And the Bible that they give you is your Bible. We encourage you to take it with you when you leave today, and we want you to bring it back with you next week when you come, as well as something to write on and to write with. And while you're turning to John chapter four, I'm gonna take this opportunity to invite a friend of mine and one of our staff members to the stage. You guys met her last week. This is my friend Miss Leah Hart and everybody. Good morning, friends. We have got an exciting season of ministry coming up that I want Leah to share with you right now about. Leah, tell us what are you doing? What are you excited about? What's coming up?

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Okay, so we are getting ready to launch Crossroads First Women's Ministry. And the reason why I'm here this morning to talk about it is because very intentionally this ministry has been named The Well after the chapter that we're gonna be in today. And if you are not familiar with the chapter, John 4, oh, lock in today. Um, it is so, so beautiful. And we know that women do not need one more thing to do. I know that I do not need one more thing to do. My husband can vouch for me in that. But what I do need is I need an encounter with the living God, and I need water for my soul, and that's what the Samaritan woman in John 4 found. So as we're thinking of creating a space for women, we know that it needs to be a space where they can come to encounter Christ and then to be equipped as Christians in his word. Um, so we are going to do that beginning August 1st. We will begin meeting the first Saturday of every month at the Ontario campus from 10 a.m. to 11:30. And during that time, it's going to be an opportunity, much like this is to worship um at the foot at the feet of Jesus and to drink deeply from fountains of living water with this goal in mind flourishing in our faith so that we can then take a full cup back to our communities, back to our families, and pour it out into the glory of the of his great name.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Awesome. You know, Leah, I wish you were a little more excited about it, but assuming that you were excited, would you tell me, as much as I'd love to be a part of this because of how excited you are, for obvious reasons, I don't qualify. So who is the well for?

SPEAKER_00 2:57

The well is for every adult woman interested in encountering Jesus. So, man, it doesn't matter where you're at in your walk with faith. If you feel like you have encountered this Jesus, we need you there. We need you there to bring the spirit and to then equip other women. Man. There is nothing like encountering a woman who has already encountered Jesus. Um, and so that is what the Apostle Paul describes in the book of Titus when he says that older women are to train younger women in godliness. And so this needs to be multi-generational. I don't care how many years you've walked with Jesus, or I don't care if you've never even encountered him, please come here and we are going to grow together in this space.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

I heard you mention August 1st as the kickoff. How can we get involved or how can we find out more information before August 1st?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Yeah. I I would love for you to just come August 1st, see what it is. Um, but if you are very passionate about women's ministry, please contact me. Uh, we are gonna need a host team to make this a beautiful space as women enter and feel welcomed. Um, also, please do not come alone. I know what it's like. I mean, I work in ministry, but I know what it's like to show up at a space where you don't know anybody. So please, this is for the community. Bring your moms, bring your sisters, invite people to come. That's one of the best ways that you can get involved, is to do that. And then phase two is we're gonna be we're gonna be launching these accountability groups as a space for women to grow and respond to what they're learning at the well. If you are excited about this, please contact me. I need small group leaders who are ready to pour into other women.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, the best way to contact Leah is actually her name, Leah.hart at crossroadswired.com. Yeah, no e, just a leah or leah.heart at crossroadswired.com, or you can find her on our website. Guys, will you help me thank Leah? Appreciate it, Leah. Well, if you're new here, you are in for a treat. We're in the middle of a series that we're calling seven. Through the Gospel of John, and we're gonna spend the summer learning about seven miracles and seven messages from Jesus that not only point to the person of Jesus, but substantiate his ministry and his message. The idea behind this series is that who we are as individuals is informed by whose we are, Jesus. And whose we are influences and informs how we live our lives. Who we are is because of whose we are, and it informs and influences how we live our lives. Last week, Pastor Chris did an exceptional job of teaching us from John chapter 3 about a religious leader, a man named Nicodemus, who comes with the disguise of night and has an encounter with Jesus, where Jesus teaches this teacher of teachers what it means to be born again. This man who is brilliant by all academic standards is trying to rationalize in his mind what Jesus is talking about, this regeneration of being born again. Culturally, there were six different spaces or seasons where new life was a consideration for an individual. And Nicodemus was trying to fit his perception of what Jesus was saying into one of these finite boxes that fit his narrative when Jesus blew his mind. And he asks Nicodemus this question How can you, a man of such great wisdom and knowledge, a teacher of teachers, teach other people when you don't understand even the most basic things? And Nicodemus said, Tell me, what is the most basic thing? And Jesus says, God loves the world so much that he gives his one and only begotten Son. And anybody who believes in him won't perish but have everlasting life because God didn't send his son into this world to condemn it, but to save it. And in that moment, Nicodemus encounters Jesus. And while Pastor Chris left it open-ended, if you read the collection as a whole and you land at the very end of John, Nicodemus is there when they pull Jesus off the cross and bury him in the borrowed tomb. He has a transformation that occurs because of Jesus in his life. Last week, 27 people confirmed came forward and gave their life to Jesus. Praise God. That's why we exist as a church. Tell people to encounter Christ, to equip Christians, and to engage community. And today we're gonna pick up in our seventh series, in John chapter 4, with an unbelievable meeting that turns into both a miracle and a message. In John chapter 4, we're gonna read together verses 1 through 30, and then we're gonna jump down to 39 through 42. Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sikar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask me for a drink? A woman of Samaria. For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. And 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. And the woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again. But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water so that I will not be thirsty, you have to come here to draw water. Jesus said to her, Go call your husband. And the woman answered him, I have no husband. Jesus said to her, You're right in saying, I have no husband, for you've had five. And the one that you now have isn't even your husband. What you've said is true. The woman said to him, Sir, I perceive that you're a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and it's now here where true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming. He who is called Christ, when he comes, he'll tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He. Just then his disciples came back, they marveled that he was talking with a woman, but had no one said, What do you seek? Or why are you talking to her? So the woman left the water jar and went away into the town and said to the people, Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? They went out of the town and were coming to him. Jumping down to verse 39 to 42. Many Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman's testimony. He told me all that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, Jesus, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, It's no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Savior of the world. Father, I thank you for your word, active and alive, perfect and complete. Thank you that it does not return void. I pray it now for this part of our worship, the public reading of your scripture, and rightly dividing your word. Would you go before us, prepare our minds, and open our hearts? May we be ready to receive. And not only ready to receive, God, I pray that we would be transformed today. That not one of us would leave here today, the same as we came. Father, I pray that you would prepare in advance for us what you want from us this week. Lord, I pray that you would do immeasurably more than we could ever hope for or ask. God, I pray for every other church and pastor in our community who's going to preach a God-centered, gospel-focused message. Pour out your anointing fresh on them. May we see a revival in and around and throughout our community. Your kingdom come, your will be done right here on earth as it is in heaven. Now, Lord, I pray that the words of my mouth and meditation of our hearts would be received as a gift, holy and pleasing to you alone, our rock and our redeemer. And the whole church said, Come and see. That's what I heard Thursday night when I got home from work. It was coming from upstairs. The voice was obvious. It was my youngest, now 11-year-old daughter. She heard the garage door open, and as I walked in the house, I did what I do, which is whistle. I walked in from the garage and just kind of a little bit louder and a little bit longer to see where everybody's at. And here comes my gray big 108-pound lab around the corner. And then my wife's stupid little thing comes around the corner. An old English bulldog. And I hear my daughter again, Daddy, come and see. I don't know if you know what that means, but it could mean a number of things. And so as I traversed our kitchen, made my way to our entryway and up our stairwell, I got past a couple of rooms and toward my 17-year-old daughter Ryan's room, where the door was mostly closed. And as I opened the door, I saw a cat on the bed and kids on the floor. And it looked like a beauty salon had erupted from the carpet. I walked in and I said, What is going on? And my 11-year-old said, Dad, look. And she threw her nails in front of my face and she said, Aren't they great? And I thought to myself, if Edward scissor hands had chopped up Easter, you have amazing nails. What I said was, oh honey, I love them. And I looked around, and my 13-year-old daughter was doing her nails, and my 17-year-old daughter was doing her nails, and collectively they were all doing their nails. And friends, can I tell you, I knew that I wanted a large family. I thought I'd be done at four, five was a surprise, six was, are you kidding me? But I knew that I wanted at least a larger family, and I knew in my head how this scenario was going to play out. I was going to have all boys, they were going to play football in the fall, they were going to wrestle different weight classes in the winter, and they were going to do baseball and track and field in the spring, and we were going to do all kinds of like you know, grunty kind of things together. What I got was a living Barbie house. Five daughters and one son, and he plays soccer. The Lord has a sense of humor. The number of times, and there may be photo evidence of this, that I have had my toes painted is wild to me. As I'm looking at the excitement from my girls, come and see. I'm reminded of all the exciting moments in our lives right now. My 17-year-old daughter is going to be a senior and just had her senior pictures taken and it's come and see. Look at these photos. And my son and his wife just had our granddaughter five months ago. And in fact, I was just showing somebody recently. I opened up my phone, and two-thirds of the 17,000 photos on my phone right now are of Tegan. And every I am that guy. I want you to, grandparents, this is somewhat of a confession and an apology. I confess to you that I am now that grandfather that shows you the picture of my granddaughter that you're not interested in. The apology is in, I was never interested in your grandchild. When you would come to me with your phone and show me all the moments with your grandkid, I'm like, that's, yeah, I just, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's cool, great. I now I'm that guy. I'm like, oh, look at this. And then I'm even worse. If you're around me long enough, I'll FaceTime whoever's got my grandkid. And you're gonna talk to her. And we're gonna celebrate these moments. We've got all kinds of moments we celebrate. Come and see. Graduations, weddings, memorials, celebration of life, funerals, all these momentous occasions that we we celebrate and we should celebrate. Yeah, I was coming into the office yesterday to do some work on today's message, and I was reminded of these kinds of moments when we had three events, two simultaneously and one back to back, right in our main lobby. Yesterday, we had a bridal shower, we had a graduation party, which, by the way, was depressing. Not the graduation party, that looked fun. The fact that as I was thinking about when I graduated, it was 30 years ago this year, was depressing. And then there was a birthday party for a little three-year-old. I'm like, Lord, this is amazing. Look at all these moments. And I looked at all the intentionality, the energy that went into setting up these spaces for the bridal shower and for the graduation and for the birthday party and all the invitations that went out and all the things that were set up and the food and all the things, and I wondered two things. One, uh, how how come I wasn't invited to any of it? And then two, is there gonna be any food left over? We want people to celebrate the most important moments of our lives, don't we? So here's the question that I want us to land in today. When was the last time, the most important moment of your life? The moment that you gave your life to Jesus was an invitation to someone else to come and see how he's transformed you. When was the last time you invited somebody into your story? When was the last time you invited somebody to church? When was the last time you invited somebody to your home for a meal? When was the last time you invited somebody into your space as a follower of Jesus? That's what we're gonna talk about as we traverse these verses together. Now we've got a lot of heavy lifting to do, so we're gonna jump into it. John chapter 4, beginning in verse 1. And as we read, I'll stop periodically to discuss some of what we're finding. I encourage you to grab a seven journal, follow along, write notes and track with us. Beginning in verse one. Now, when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. Two things here. One, Jesus is very early in his ministry. He starts his home base is up in Capernaum, which is as far north of Israel as you can imagine, and he ends up just about as far south in Israel, in Judea, specifically Jerusalem as you can imagine. This is where this kind of begins to unfold. He's very new in his ministry. Pastor Chris talked about that last week, that he's new on the scene and he's beginning to grow in popularity. People are coming to see and to hear Jesus for themselves. Jesus' teachings are poignant and powerful. They're unlike anything that has been heard or experienced before this. And so, as people are coming, here's something that's crazy to me. There's actually a debate, a bit of a competition and even an argument about who's baptizing more people. Is it John the Baptist or is it Jesus? So, right before John chapter 4, verse 1, and right after where Chris left us last week, Sandwiched Inn is this space where we learn about John the Baptizer and his disciples coming and talking about preemptively the one who would come, whose sandals he wasn't even fit to tie, John speaking of Jesus. Why do I spend time on this? Because I want us to understand the difference between primary and secondary issues. Primary issues are salvific issues, they are eternal issues. These are the kinds of issues we should spend and invest the most amount of time in. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. There is one Lord, one God, one baptism. Those are the kinds of issues we should spend the most time in. Yet somehow, even in the name of faith, even in the name of Christianity, we can get caught up in silly secondary, tertiary arguments. Even programmatically. And I want to show you how Jesus responds to things that are not eternal. The disciples of John and others come and they are arguing about who's baptizing more people. And do you know what Jesus does? He walks away. He could have defended his position, he could have used it as an opportunity to extrapolate on the theological doctrinal position of baptism and what it is, the remission of sins and the representation, and he could have set the record straight that it wasn't he, Jesus, who was baptizing, but his disciples who were baptizing. And then they could, he could have addressed the audience that was bickering and starting to infight about something. But Jesus walks away. In other words, he doesn't give any attention to things that don't matter. Christian, how often are you offended over things that don't matter? How often are your toes stepped on over secondary, tertiary issues? When people are dying and going to hell, and your story of transformation, how Jesus redeemed your life, could be the story that God uses to alter history for all eternity, is what matters more than anything else. The song that we sing, or the color of the carpet, or whether or not Pastor Andrew's wearing a sport coat, or if Chris preached a better message than Andrew last week, or which campus is that? I mean, I literally have even had people recently, we have four campuses currently, not including our online campus. I recently even had somebody ask, why do some people choose to go to Mansfield instead of Ontario? Or why do people go to Ontario instead of the classic campus? Why do people go to Classic instead of Waterford? They go to Ontario because Chris is better looking than me. I don't know. Do you want to know how much energy I'm gonna spend trying to figure out why some of you go to Ontario or whatever? And here's the thing: some of you, you're cheating on your own church. Sometimes you'll go to Ontario and then come to Mansfield. Oh, the gall. We are one church in multiple locations. Let me tell you how much time I'm gonna spend arguing over things that are secondary, tertiary, non-salvific. Let's go. So Jesus moves on to Galilee. Doesn't even waste his time. Verse 4. One of the most poignant parts of this passage. And he had to pass through Samaria. Hold on to that. We're gonna come back to it after verse 9. He had to pass through Samaria. So Jesus came to a town of Samaria called Sikar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there. So Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. A woman from Samaria came to draw water. And Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. A few things we need to unpack. First of all, the fact that Jesus had to pass through Samaria to get to where he was headed in Capernaum of Galilee. I want to show a map of Israel for you to add some context to it. I'm a lot of things in life. Mathematician isn't one of them. But I am smart enough to know that the fastest way from one place into another is a straight line between two points. If you look in this map, at the very bottom of the map, just about a third of the way up in the, is that like a pinkish color? I don't know what hue that is. If you look at where it says Judea, right next to Judea is Jerusalem. Now I want you to go straight north into the darkest blue color, and that's the region of Galilee. To the right of both Judea and Galilee, you're gonna see three bodies of water. At the very top, the smaller is the Sea of Galilee. Then you're gonna see a jagged line, which is actually the Jordan River, that connects the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, which is the larger of the three bodies of water down at the bottom. For Jesus, his home base for ministry was Capernaum. He had been in Jerusalem and he was on his way back. The distance between Jerusalem and Capernaum was 90 miles straight through. For a God-fearing Jew, they would add days and dollars to their journeys just to avoid Samaria. I say days and dollars because a lot of times they would travel in a caravan, which would require more food, more resources, a lot of times with animals. They would have to add days because of the distance that they would travel to go out of the way. If you would do me a favor and just put that picture back up one more time, I'm going to show you two alternative routes that they would take. Looking at this image here, you see where Jerusalem is, right up to the very top. If you go to the very top of the Dead Sea and just hang a left, there's Jerusalem. For a God-fearing Jew to avoid Samaria, they would go one of three ways, primarily one of two. They would either go all the way to the left or to the west. They would travel all the way along the coastline. It's called the coastal highway. They would go up by Mount Carmel and they would jettison in. Or they would go the opposite direction from Jerusalem. They would travel either around or over the Dead Sea through Perea, all the way up around the Decapolis and maybe over the Sea of Galilee into Capernaum. This would add days to the journey and would cost substantially more than a straight line. So why would they do this? It goes back 700 plus years. In fact, from what we're reading, 722 BC, or before Christ, or before Common Era, the Assyrians invade this region. Prior to this, God has laid a foundation, a framework for the nation of Israel about how they are called to live their lives and cultivate their living. A part of what they are restricted from is marrying outside of their ethnic group. Now, before we jump to conclusions and assume the worst, as in race or divisions being a part of the equation, it has everything to do with monotheism and polytheism, polytheism. God tells the nation of Jerusalem to come out from and to be set apart from the rest of the world. They have one God that they are to worship with standards of what this worship should look like. The Assyrians invade, they conquer, and three things happen. One, the Assyrians take the best of the people, and they will export them from this region and over to Assyria. The second thing they do is they take the best of the Assyrians and they will import them into this region. The third thing that they will do is they will take for themselves this people group to be their wives. They intermarry interracially. Culturally, for us, it's not a big deal at all. It's actually a very beautiful mosaic of what we experience that we're all created in God's image. And just three weeks ago, I was preaching in Des Moines, Iowa for my friend Icky, and he has one of the most diverse churches in the state of Iowa. And as I was preaching, I it was it was unbelievable to get to see the different ethnicities and nationalities represented in this community. But it was a problem for the nation because when the Assyrians came in and invaded, exporting and importing individuals and intermarrying, they brought with them other gods, false gods, fake deities. And they convoluted and bastardized the truth. The way that devout Jews would see these Gentiles or these Samaritans, and I don't mean to be crass or inappropriate, this is truly the term that is used even in scripture, is that they are considered a half-breed. That they're not entirely pure. And for the devout God-fearing Jews, purity was everything. Purity and piety led to their person. It was so extreme that a God-fearing Jew, if they inadvertently, listen to me, if they inadvertently touched over into known Samaritan soil, they would jump back out, take off their sandals, slap their sandals together in a public display of suggesting or stating that they wanted no part with the Samaritan people. Okay? That's a lot of effort to avoid going to a city. Go back to verse 4. Jesus had to go through Samaria. As Jesus is there, it's the sixth hour, which in our vernacular is about 12 o'clock in the afternoon. For us, we know that the height of the sun and the heat of the day, when the sun is hottest, is between 12 p.m. and 3 p.m. For the women, the villagers in any village, but in particular, what we're talking about, Sikar and Jacob's well, the women would go to the wells twice a day. In the morning before the sun came up, and in the evening right after the sun set. Why? Because it was shall it was it was a shallow version of the heat. It was protected as the sun was setting, the temperatures dropped. They would go to the well together, a lot of times carrying at minimum one, but sometimes two jars that they would use to drive into this well and draw water from it. It's a deep well. The well runs about a hundred feet deep. And as they would do this, they would do it in the context of community. These women would go together, they would talk about their families, they would talk about their happenings, they would talk about what's going on in the city and all the things. They would get the water, and the water was useful for drinking because majority of the water in this region is stagnant water. It's standing water. It's going to be lukewarm and it's going to be filled with bacteria. There's no life that comes into it. So it's filled with bacteria and even insects that are carrying bacteria all over the place. You can't drink this water. This is a, if you, if you tried to drink this water, it would cause you to be very, very ill. And so they would go and make this trip to get this well water. They would use it for cooking, they would use it for drinking, and then they would use it for ceremonial purposes, cleansing specifically. Jesus goes and he's tired from his journey. He sits beside Jacob's well because he has to be there. And as he's there, there's this Samaritan woman that is coming, very obscure, in the hottest part of the day, by herself, and she is surprised, I promise you, to see Jesus there, not knowing it's Jesus, but recognizing by his garb, by his appearance, that he is a Jew. She'll walk near the well, and surprised, Jesus asks her for a drink. She makes the obvious statement and the assertion why are you a Jew asking me, a Samaritan, for water? You know as much as I do that this is really socially taboo in multiple manners. One, it was not common practice, in fact, it didn't happen for a man to associate with a woman in public. Not even his own wife. There was a caste system, and the men would walk out in front with the wives behind them. Number two, it certainly was not acceptable for an unmarried man to be interacting with a woman like this. Number three, you would not find a Jew interacting with a Samaritan. Number four, you wouldn't find a Jew in Samaria. And number five, when you understand the ceremonial part of the jar and the purity and the cleansing of what happens with sacrifice, you wouldn't ask to use someone who is considered filthy and putrid to draw water for you. There's so many reasons that are obvious to this woman why what Jesus is asking is absurd. And yet Jesus had to come through. He had to come through. 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. The woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock. Jesus said to her, Listen, everybody who drinks this water here, they're gonna be thirsty again. That's why these women came to the well twice a day. They're gonna be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. 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. Listen, friends, this is what's known as a double entendre. It is a moment, a statement that Jesus is going to use to teach both physically or literally, and metaphorically or spiritually. Double entendre. Both are true. She is filtering everything through the lens of her need in front of her. He, Jesus, is filtering everything through the lens of her greatest need, which is eternity. The way that she processes has everything to do with her circumstances. The way that she sees that people don't talk to her. You're gonna find out in just a moment that she's actually considered to be reviled amongst her own people, which are a very reviled people group. She is in the middle of the hottest part of the day there to get water by herself. She has no one to be in community with. And as you think about all the plight, she may have had to walk miles to go and draw water, whether she had one or two jars, likely two jars, so that she wouldn't have to go back, the burden of the physical stress that that put on her. And to have to go by herself. And she's there and she's thinking about very pragmatically, very literally, the whole process of all that's going on and the pain emotionally, the pain relationally, the pain psychologically, the pain physically, all the things. So when Jesus introduces the idea of a living water, a fresh water, not stagnant water that is breeding for bacteria, but water that is useful, that is good for life, sustenance, the desperation breaks open inside of her and says, Tell me, where do I get that? Like I want that. How many of us, if we're honest, we filter the things that we deal with through our own lenses. It's more of a statement. Perception is reality, reality is the world that we live in. Perception is reality, and reality is the world that we live in. For far too many, we allow the circumstances that we're facing to be the filter that we view the whole of life with. And that becomes our reality. Rather than a living well of life filling us to the point of overflowing, spilling out over us into all of our circumstances, and informing how we see the world, we allow the world, the things that we're dealing with, how we perceive things to become our reality. And that's a very dark and sometimes very lonely and hurtful world we live in. I have over the last six weeks been dealing with, in small part, something that I had never dealt with prior to. I'm 47 years old. I have never known what it's like to live with a chronic illness or chronic pain. I don't need you to feel any kind of way about me. I just want you to understand that the Lord is doing something in me, but also through me. Six weeks ago, Thursday, I was stricken or struck, whichever you prefer, with shingles. Two doctors have said it's the worst case of shingles they have ever seen. It started at the lower part of my waistline, left side, traveled all the way down, the entire back of my leg, all the way down my foot, all the way underneath my foot, the entire pinky and ring toe. To try to explain to you the rash would be wild. Here's a funny thing, man. Y'all are the later service, you're gonna get more than the first service. I had to get a hold of our IT guy this week, the head of our IT department. I said, Hey man, I need you to come clear my computer. He said, What are you talking about? I was like, bro, I uh my work computer I have tied to my Apple account, which is on my photos, which isn't a problem. I don't care. Y'all can see anything you want to see, except as I was sitting in my office in a meeting, it gives you photo suggestions. Because of this the rash, you have to see how it progresses so the doctor can have it. My wife took pictures of me out of the shower of the rash, and it popped up on my screen. And I told him, I said, bro, listen, this is a problem. Like, this is gonna be a problem. What's gonna happen is I'm gonna inadvertently like do an airdrop and share it with somebody, and it's that's that's uh, that's not I said, listen, I have nothing to hide, literally have nothing to hide. We'll take my computer in front of the elders, open it up, you can see everything I'm talking about, but we've got to delete this account. So, anyway, fast forward. Um, the rash is about 98% resolved. You can see where it was. As I stand before you today, having just taken five ibuprofen about an hour ago, the pain is as bad as it was six weeks ago. It's unreal. It is unrelenting. I've tried to describe this for people who've never had it. The only way I can describe what I'm feeling in my foot right now is if you took the bottom of my foot, cut it open, took gravel, jagged gravel, like quarter inch minus, crammed it in my foot to where it was spilling over, sewed it up to where the stitches were breaking, it had me walk on glass. That's what I live with 24 hours a day right now. It is wild. And now I've got this deferred pain in my right hip because I'm constantly lipping. And on top of it, I'm wearing the ugliest pair of shoes because I was told to get these shoes because it will make me feel more comfortable. I've never owned a wide pair of shoes in my life. I'm not that old. I'm like, if you like these shoes, I hope I don't offend you. God willing, I'll be sooner than uh better than later. Uh better sooner than later. I'm a size 13. If you want them, they're yours. Why do I spend all the time telling you this stuff? Because I've allowed the chronic pain to influence how I treat people, how I see my circumstances, even if I'm being really honest, about of depression. This is last week I was playing basketball with my two youngest daughters, and I had to stop because I was in so much pain, and I broke down crying because I was so frustrated and I felt so burdened and so heavy-hearted, and so and then the Lord reminded me that He is my sustainer, that He is my keeper. And you know, the Lord in His graciousness spoke to my spirit and said, Andrew, now you're gonna be able to relate to people with chronic pain and chronic illness that you never understood before now. I feel a little like the Apostle Paul who said, Lord, I've prayed that you take this thorn from my flesh three times, but you haven't done it yet. I'm waiting. Lord, would you take this thorn from me? But but here's here's why I bring that up. This woman is filtering everything through her circumstances. No friends, no family, everything is a mess. And she's desperate for a change. How many of us allow what we're dealing with to be the filter that we use for how we see the world? But what happened if we allow the word of God and the spirit of the Lord to well up inside of us, and we filtered everything through life in Christ. How much different we would see the world. This woman is desperate, and Jesus, double entendre, he says, Yep, living water. She wants the real thought. Give me the water, and he said, Yeah, I'm gonna take care of that, but also what I've got for you is eternal. Now listen, there's a change in a relationship, real time. This woman says, Uh, sir, so she goes from a Jew to now, sir. Sir is a sign of respect. We'll come back to this at the end, sir. Give me this water so that I don't have to be thirsty and come here to draw water. Jesus said to her, Go get your husband. Verse 17, the woman answered him, I don't have a husband. And Jesus said to her, You're right. You don't have a husband. For you've had five, and the one you now have is not even your husband. The guy you're shacking up with isn't. Even your man. What you said is true. Now, here again is the filter in which this woman perceives her reality. This is one of the most misappropriated understandings of scripture. This story here. People would look at this woman's life and think that she was a floozy, a hussy, whatever that she just left one guy and went and had all these adulterous affairs. That's not true at all. Culturally, contextually, if you know the history and you know the region, then you know that it was near impossible for a woman to divorce a man. So it couldn't be that she's had five husbands because she's divorced each one of them. That that wasn't a thing. So so one of three things has happened. One, either the guys she's married are dying. Two, she is barren and they are divorcing her because to have a family was not only a rite of passage, but it was a framework in which most people built their entire reality around. Or three, people abandoned her. They just left her. Whatever the case may be, any one of the three, or maybe multiple of the three, this woman had attempted to build a life with this man, and it didn't work out. And so she went and attempted to build a life with this man. And it didn't work out. And so she attempted to build a life with this man and with this man and with this man. And five husbands later, she isn't even married. And the man that she's living with right now isn't even her man. And what you should read in that isn't that she's off in an adulterous affair, but the reality is she's probably a concubine. She's probably getting paid for sexual services for this man, and it's a fight or flight way of life. She has no other way to survive. So she's giving away the only asset that she has, which is her sexual ability. Now, society doesn't really care about the story behind the story. They look at the they look at what they see on the outside. Perception, reality, reality, the world we live in. And so this woman has a reputation of being a prostitute. They literally ostracize her and excommunicate her and treat her like she was a prostitute. That's why she's going to the well at the hardest part of the day. That's why she's going by herself. She is in the mid in the in the midst of misfits, she is considered an even greater misfit. They don't want her. She's going to the well by herself. She's trying to survive. You know? And just she's trying to survive. And Jesus meets her in the middle of her brokenness and her shame. He doesn't do it to condemn her. He doesn't do it to judge her. What Jesus does by saying, Go get your husband. I'm not married, you're right, you've been married five times, and then I'm what he's doing is he's saying, I see you. I see you. I get you. I see you. You know another way that we know this woman was filled with shame? Because she tries to redirect the conversation. Watch this. Jesus says, Go call your husband. She said, I don't have one. Verse 19, the woman said, Sir, I perceive you must be a prophet. Here's a relational dynamic. Starts from Jew to Sir, sir, not a prophet. I perserve that you must be a prophet. Now watch this, verse 20. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is a place where people ought to worship. Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you don't know, we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming and it's here now, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. For the Father is seeking such people to worship him in spirit and in truth. Verse 24, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. The woman said to him, I know that the Messiah is coming, he who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. Jesus said to her, I who speak to you am He. Okay. Wow. Talk about justifying your junk and avoiding the obvious. Woman, go get your husband. I don't have a husband. You're right. The guy you're shacking up with now is in your husband. Okay, so what church do you go to? Like, I've heard about crossroads, and you guys say it's a great church, but I actually go to this other church, and you guys worship this way, and we worship that way, and you you guys have the the bald guy with glasses that preaches, and we have the guy who wears vespers and the robes and all that. And Jesus says, Are you serious? You're you're worried about rituals when a right relationship is right in front of you. He says, Believe me, woman. A time is coming. You're worried about geographical. And I'm gonna offer you relational. A time is going. In fact, you know what? No, no, no. The time is right now. I had Van Halen in my head right there. All my 70s friends, you're welcome. You hear the piano? Right now. God wants people who want to worship him. In spirit and truth. Not rhetoric and religion. In spirit and in truth. Not for their own personal gain, but spirit and truth. In fact, the Bible says that that's the kind of worshiper that God's actively seeking out. Spirit and truth. And it's right now. You came for religion and rituals. But I offer you a right relationship.

unknown 50:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Verse 27 is amazing. I mean, just then his disciples came back. The boys are back in town. Then wow. If you are able to prescribe medication, I need to talk to you about some Adderall between services. Just then they marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, What do you seek? Or why are you talking with her? Yeah, I love that. Even Christians. Even Christians. You see this? What is Jesus doing? You see who Jesus is talking to? Why would Jesus let somebody like that? What? And Jesus turns around and they're like, oh, hey, yeah. What's up? Yeah. Looking good, Jesus. Hey, is that your friend? And even Christians are questioning the kind of people that Jesus doesn't just allow into their space, but the space that he invades in their lives. Oh, this morning the spirit wrecked me. Wrecked me. 7:30 this morning as I'm getting ready, doing some sound checks and things like that. I walk through the lobby and I noticed through our main entrance that there's an individual that was uh appeared to be attaching something to one of our parking poles outside. Uh for many of you, you know that I have a background in law enforcement, and so the police officer kicked in at me and I grabbed another staff member. I said, Hey, uh, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna go engage with this person and just I want to make sure I thought maybe they were putting bottle rockets on one of our parking, kind of kind of a cool idea, but I went out there and uh the guy had ridden off on his bike, and I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, what in the world is this? Like it's a it's a fishing rod. What's happening? The guy turned around, he came back, and the media I could see he had all kinds of street tattoos, prison tattoos, and he just didn't, you know, didn't look like he was put together for church. And he came back and uh we started to have this conversation. I was like, hey man, what's going on here? And he said, Oh, the the pole was broken, and so I went and got a fishing pole and uh wanted to attach it with some rubber band so that nobody would run over it. All right, man, thanks. And he rode his bike off and I kind of went inside, handed off the pole to one of my staff members, and I just was like, man. And I noticed that he was down at the very bottom of our parking lot, and I was going outside. I'm a little tension deficit disorder, and so one of the things I like to do before service is I actually go around the lobby and I straighten things up, and I go out in the parking lot and just pick up garbage, and I noticed him down there, and the Lord, the Lord racked my heart and said, How can you preach about me if you're not willing to go reach the least of these? And I walked all the way down to Taco Bell, just adjacent to Taco Bell. I say, Man, what's your name? We started this conversation. I said, Bro, are you hungry? And we continued the conversation. I get to learn a little bit about his story. I'm not gonna go into details, but I came back up and parked this bike. I brought him inside. I introduced him to a couple of our staff, and we were able to get him some food and some beverages, and he didn't even have a shirt on. Covered in street tattoos. And my fleshy response was to assume the worst in that person and to not go out of my way to meet the needs of the orphans, of the widows, and the least of these. I I I don't apologize for my experience in law enforcement. I learned a lot protecting and serving, and I was right to be vigilant. I want to be as wise as a you know, serpent and as gentle as a dove. But the Lord spoke this tomorrow in my heart. Andrew, crossroads doesn't exist to coddle the convinced. We exist to be a community where people encounter Christ, where we equip Christians and where we engage our community. And I had this overwhelming thought, would we be okay with this man coming in and sitting right there front and center? Didn't look like us, doesn't sound like us, didn't smell like us, doesn't talk like us, doesn't have our stories. Would we feel comfortable? Would we scoot in or would we scoot out? Or would we walk out? Jesus didn't just not avoid it. He had to go through it to get to this woman. And the disciples are questioning, what is he doing? Is he really talking to her? How many times do we avoid God-ordained moments because we're afraid of what other people might think about us? How many times do we miss a ministry moment because we're uncomfortable? Now that's not to say that we just go out flippantly. And being completely honest, there are there are spaces where I wouldn't let my girls go into and I wouldn't want my wife to go engage or you know, those kinds of things. And that's appropriate. Wise as a serpent, gentle as a dove. But I guarantee you every one of us can give the gospel in some way. And to someone. When was the last time you gave the gospel to someone? That's my question. We have our Christian life groups, we go to our Christian church, we listen to our Christian music, we wear our Christian apparel, and we surround ourselves in a Christian world. But Jesus says, be in the world, not of the world. Have we forsaken the call of Christ in favor of comfortable Christianity? Have we forsaken the call of Christ in favor of comfortable Christianity? That's my question. Now, Jesus, as he's talking, look at verse 28. So the woman left her jar at the well and went into town and said to the people, Come see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ? And so the people went out of town and were coming. Verse 39 to the end. Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony. Not because they heard him teach, not because they had seen him, not because they saw the miracles, but because of her life transformed. Like I need you to catch this. Come see the man that told me everything I did. So the Samaritans came to him and they asked him to stay for two days, and many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, it's no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves. And we know that this is indeed the savior of the world. Can I just explain to you the impact that this woman has in their lives and the significance of it? This woman doesn't just go back to her community, she leaves her life source. The water that she came to draw water with, the the the the jar, she leaves it there, which tells me two things urgency, and she wasn't finished. She was coming back. Urgency. She needed to go to the town and tell the townspeople about this man, the one that she thought was just a Jew, who then became a man of respect when she called him Sir, who then she identified as a prophet because he was a truth teller for her past, who then she identified as the Messiah because they had some understanding of the Old Testament. And then ultimately, when Jesus says, Ego and me, I am He, he declares I'm the savior of the world. She gets it and it transforms her, so much so that she leaves, she abandons what is meant to keep her alive in that moment and runs back to her community. And she doesn't just run back to her community, she goes to the place that has kicked her out, that has excommunicated her, that have ostracized her. She goes to the people that despise her to tell them about Jesus, this man who told me everything. And let me explain that to you a little further. Because she was considered unclean. Had she met these people in the context where they were then unclean, they could have stoned her to death. This woman doesn't just go back into her community, she puts her life on the line to share Jesus with the people who hate her most. We won't even reach out to the coworker or to the brother or to the friend or to the neighbor or to the person that's gonna serve us lunch today. This woman puts her comfort and her human condition aside, runs back to the people who hate her most, putting her life on the line to say, Come and see a man, come and see a man who's changed my life. Three things I want us to think about as we leave our time together today. Number one, Jesus pursues us. When we think about why we do this series, that who we are is informed by whose we are, and it informs everything that we do. Understand that Jesus pursues this woman. He had to go through Samaria, he had to have this encounter with this woman. And it wasn't just gonna change her life, it was gonna change the disciples, and it wasn't just gonna change the disciples, it was gonna change all the people of Sikar and the surrounding community, and it wasn't just gonna change the people of Sikar and the Shina community, it was gonna change all of Samaria, and it wasn't just gonna change all of Samaria because here we are 2,000 plus years later, still talking about it, because that transformation has had that much of an impact. Jesus pursued this woman, went after her. As this woman was going from one empty well after the next, trying to fill a void in her life with one man after the next man, and into one broken relationship after the next broken relationship, I am reminded of the empty wells in my life. And I, when I here's the thing, when I am filling my life or trying to draw life from the emptiness of this world, whether it's through sin or brokenness or relationships, I am reminded that Jesus doesn't avoid me, he pursues me. I don't know what you're dealing with, I don't know what's in the bottom of your well right now, but Jesus is not avoiding you, he's pursuing you. Lean into him. Understand that you matter that much to Jesus. He loves you, he sees you, he's pursuing you. The second thing that happens is Jesus transforms us. The relationship that evolves from being a Jew to being served to being the prophet to being Messiah to being savior changes everything. That term ego and me was reserved for like the highest royalty. And Jesus was saying and setting the standard that I am He, the Savior that you've learned about and heard about prophetically and here and now. And these people who came and believed, not just because of this woman's testimony, but of their own volition because they heard and saw and had been transformed as well, they are declaring that Jesus is the savior of the world because their lives have been transformed. How can you not proclaim the greatness of our God when you have encountered Jesus and your life has been changed forever? How can you not tell the world? Which leads me to the third part of this message that we, every one of us, has to get, and that's this found people, find people. Found people, find people. And the best way I know to do that is by simply saying, come and see. You don't have to be a theologian, you don't have to be a pastor, you don't have to be a professor, you don't have to have attended every Bible study on the planet earth. Your life, those of you who have encountered Jesus and your life has been transformed, your testimony, just like this woman, she wasn't a scholar, she had nothing to offer, literally had nothing to offer. She went into this community that hated her and she said, Come and see. Come and see this man who's transformed me. Oh my word, church, if you would come alive this week and you would go out these doors and you would just invite us, come and see. Here's who I was before Jesus, here's who I am in Christ, and here's the promise of who I will be through Christ. Oh, we probably have somewhere between, I don't know, 700 plus adults in this room right now. I don't know what's at our other campuses, but if every one of you, do you know I think Lifeway Research did the study that out of every 10 people interviewed, six of them said that if they were invited to church, they would go. One out of ten said they had been invited to church. Sixty percent of the people interviewed said they would go to church. Only 10% said they had ever been invited to church. What are we doing? Guys, I gotta be honest with you. 30 years, August, next month, month, next month and a half, month and a week, something like that. Crossroads is 30 years old this August. As long as the Lord gives me breath in my lungs and the ability to lead this church, I am not interested in creating programs that coddle Christians or make us feel comfortable. We are gonna go out to the lost, the broken, and the hurting and reach those far from Jesus. We're gonna keep preaching the truth, and everything we do, we're gonna do with excellence. But I don't care about a production. Frankly, I love how talented our worship team is. They could stop playing right now. We could just stand here together and sing a cappella, point out our hearts to Jesus. That I care more about us participating than any performance. So where we're going, where we're going as a church is to the least of these. Inside these walls, we're gonna preach the gospel, unadulterated, verse by verse, word for word, all of it. And we're gonna grow up as Christians. Not only are we gonna help people encounter Christ, we're gonna equip Christians. That's the thing. Ephesians tells us I'm not supposed to go out and do all the work. I am supposed to as part of the the shepherd that raises us up to go and do the work. But it requires you. This is participation. Too many of you are treating. If faith is like a football field, too many of you are treating it like a track event where one person does all the running. We need all of us. Let me share one in one thought in closing, and then we're gonna we're gonna wrap up. In the front row, I got permission by the way from both of them. Three weeks ago, I met my new friend. An individual who drives for a living, gave rides consecutively to the same young lady to work. They struck up a conversation. They look different, they sound different, different backgrounds, different ethnicities, different countries. Kept inviting to crossroads, kept inviting to crossroads. I'll come, I'll come. And then he finally said, you know what? No, I'll come to you. I'll pick you up on Sunday. Be ready at 10:30. She's been here every single week since. Why does that matter? Because found people find people, and here's a brother who is just like you and me. He just took advantage of the opportunity that Christ had in front of him. Church. Someone's eternity hangs in the balance of you and I living out our faith. Let's go live out our faith in Jesus' name.